TLDR Crypto 2022-01-17

Walmart plans to create its own cryptocurrency and NFTs as it enters the metaverse. The retailer filed seven new trademarks indicating its intent to make and sell virtual goods late last month. Walmart declined to comment on the filings, saying that the company continuously explores new technologies and that not all ideas become products or services. Many companies have been rushing to claim property in the metaverse to make sure that their intellectual property is protected in the space.

Fees.wtf, a site that tells crypto users how much they have spent on Ethereum transaction fees, recently ran an airdrop, handing out tokens to those who had paid over 0.05 ETH on gas fees before January 1, 2022. The team failed to provide enough liquidity on launch, resulting in a competition between trading bots that led to a price crash. Despite the failure at launch, the fees.wtf team made over $1.48 million in cryptocurrency from wallet unlocking fees and a tax set on any trades of WTF tokens made by users. The raised funds will be used to help provide staking rewards. Some of the funds will be spread out between WTF token holders, with a small amount going to the project's treasury.

Polymarket has launched Airdrop Futures, a new market where speculators can bet on whether projects will airdrop tokens. Airdropped tokens are primarily used to reward early users and to set up infrastructure for future governance decisions, but many in the cryptocurrency community describe them as 'free money'. Users can use Airdrop Futures to hedge against the risk of not receiving airdrops to create win-win outcomes. Airdrop Futures is unavailable in the US due to an order from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Most coins that Coinbase lists underperform when compared to Bitcoin or Ethereum, with returns getting worse over time. Venture Capital-backed coins do worst of all. This suggests that VCs are waiting for a big exchange to list their coin so that they can sell, profiting at the expense of retail. The coins that Coinbase was publicly considering but never listed did better than the coins that were listed. This article explores this phenomenon and makes some suggestions on how to better protect investors and correct bad incentives in the crypto space.

VestedERC20 is a wrapper ERC20 token that linearly vests an underlying ERC20 token to its holders. ERC20 is a standard for Ethereum tokens. Vesting is the process of locking and releasing tokens after a given time. VestedERC20 can be used to add vesting to existing primitives, such as Astrodrop, a tool for airdropping tokens. Combining VestedERC20 with Astrodrop allows developers to airdrop vested tokens for a constant cost.

This Reddit thread contains many useful crypto lifehacks. The tips cover a range of topics, from how to save on transaction fees, to security and scam awareness. The top posts discuss how to keep seeds (security phrases) secure, how to track assets across multiple platforms and chains, and how to make sure transactions are sent to the right address.

IreneDAO is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization launched by Irene Zhao, an Instagram model and cryptocurrency enthusiast who recently left her job as a commodity broker to pursue a career in the crypto industry. Zhao is currently building a decentralized social media platform called SO-COL, short for 'Social Collectables', that will empower creators by connecting them with their communities via NFTs. IreneDAO started as a social experiment to test SO-COL's core concepts. Users on SO-COL will be able to work together with creators to define the utility of their community's NFTs.

Northwest Arkansas is offering $10,000 worth of bitcoin to attract new citizens. The offer, funded by the Walton Family Foundation, is aimed at tech workers and entrepreneurs, but it is open to anyone who wants to make the move. Northwest Arkansas has been incentivizing talent to move to the region since November 2020 with an offer of $10,000 cash and a bike. Over 35,000 people from 115 countries have applied, with 50 people moving to the region so far.

Bitcoin usage at merchants that use BitPay dropped from 92% in 2020 to 65% last year. More businesses have started to use stablecoins for cross-border payments as the value stays steady even while crypto prices drop. Investors may have decided to hold onto their bitcoin last year due to the 60% price increase. BitPay's overall 2021 payment volumes rose 57% year over year. The company now has $1 billion in annual transaction volume.