Has hype faded for ChatGPT? Is Blur killing the NFT market? What's happening with leadership at Binance and Polygon? Trending topics in web3 and AI, plus my thoughts on Thread’s rapid growth are just below.

Positive Affirmation for This Week

When’s the last time you reminded someone of how special they are?

This Week in Web3...

📉 Binance leadership shakeup. Top executives from Binance leave the company, allegedly over CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao’s approach to the Department of Justice investigation. Their General Counsel, Chief Strategy Officer, and Compliance SVP (among others) all depart while Binance continues to fight battles with multiple regulators across the world.

🟪 Shuffle up at Polygon. Leadership adjustments were the theme of the week as Marc Boiron, formerly Chief Legal Officer, moves into a new role as CEO of Polygon Labs. Rebecca Rettig, Chief Policy Officer, adds Chief Legal Officer to her title. Twitter favorite Ryan Wyatt, the company's president, leaves his position but remains an advisor and Sandeep Nailwal, one of the co-founders of Polygon, transitions to the role of executive chairman.

💣 Is Blur to blame for the recent NFT market crash? Many seem to think Blur’s aggressive strategy of rewarding listing NFTs for sale and their lending protocol Blend caused the sharp decline in NFT prices. Plus major airdrop farmers, hoping that activity on the platform would yield a significant payout, have pulled their liquidity while Blur opts not to give a timeline on their second airdrop of $BLUR token. Others point to a declining market, overinflated prices from 2021, and a lack of innovation in the space.

💰 Bitcoin as digital gold. During an interview this week, Blackrock CEO Larry Fink describes Bitcoin as an international asset, similar to “digitized gold”. Blackrock is optimistic about their Bitcoin ETF, an easy way to invest in bitcoin without owning crypto, which they refiled this week.

🎾 Tennis meets data science meets art. Renowned artist Refik Anadol is collaborating with tennis star Andy Murray on an interactive, digital sculpture that evolves with live data collection during this year’s Wimbledon Championships. The piece will unlock future opportunities within the story, with further artwork collaborations being explored between Murray, Wimbledon and Refik for the coming months. The piece is an open edition, available for the next seven days (until July 16).

Quick Headlines

• The floor price of Bored Ape Yacht Club hit a two year low of 27 ETH this week. Yuga’s collections have all suffered significant declines in the month of June and since the start of 2023.

• Less than 10% of bitcoin trading happens in the US.

• Sega cancels their blockchain gaming plans.

• Turns out, Taylor Swift did sign the FTX sponsorship deal, but CEO Sam Bankman-Fried pulled the deal.

Can Threads Dethrone Twitter?

The battle between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk heats up with Meta's "Twitter killer". Threads had more than 30 million sign-ups and 95 million posts in its first 24 hours!

It took Twitter over two years to reach 10 million accounts after debuting in 2006, where it took Threads just seven hours. Now the apps does leverage the 2 billion monthly users already on Instagram for a huge headstart.

3 things I love about Threads so far:

✏ You aren’t starting from nothing - Threads lets you automatically follow whoever you are already following on IG when downloading the app.

✏ It’s new and fresh, so there’s lots of authentic interaction happening including with influencers / thought leaders who are typically hard to connect with.

✏You can share your posts or others on IG stories- more cross platform discovery that I love!

I spoke to INC magazine on the Threads hype and the benefits of being an early adopter.

AI Corner

Has hype worn out on ChatGPT? Traffic for ChatGPT dropped 10% between May and June after months of record-breaking growth. ChatGPT still sees more traffic than Microsoft’s search engine Bing, however.

Expect AI-enabled toys on the Christmas wishlist. While companies build AI-powered bears would use chatbot-style technology to create customized tales, parents are concerned about the privacy implications.

This Week We're Bullish On...

Rebecca Lettig (@rebeccarettig1)

Rebecca Rettig is the Chief Policy Officer (and now Chief Legal Officer) at Polygon Labs. She was previously the General Counsel at Aave Companies, the decentralized borrowing and lending platform. Rebecca has spent the past four and a half years advising blockchain and cryptocurrency clients on legal and regulatory matters, with a particular focus on DeFi, after many years of experience focused on transformation of the financial services industry.

Congratulations Rebecca on your recent promotion!

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Shira