Crypto M&A reached ATH of $6.1B in 2021 / FTX signed another sports marketing deal / Grim Finance was hacked for $30M+

Plus: 🎁 The 2021 Inside Crypto Holiday Sweater List 🎁

Inside.com Part of   Network December 20, 2021

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Happy Holidays Insiders - In case you missed it, our CEO, Jason Calacanis, recently gave his annual Inside.com State of the Union presentation. He discussed our company’s growth and previewed our new community product, which we plan to release in early 2022.   Watch the replay here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uws7kMQWAA4 To skip straight to the new product preview, click here: https://youtu.be/Uws7kMQWAA4?t=1071 Griffin

The global crypto market cap is $2.17T 1.63%▼ with a 24-hour market volume of $93.13B 27.51%▲. Bitcoin's dominance is currently 40.51% 0.14%▲. CURRENT PRICES BY MARKET CAP # Name Price 24h % 1 Bitcoin BTC $46,506.99 1.08% ▼ 2 Ethereum ETH $3,867.86 1.50% ▼ 3 Binance Coin BNB $517.69 2.64% ▼ 4 Solana SOL $175.79 3.35% ▼ 5 Cardano ADA $1.23 1.75% ▼ Source: CoinMarketCap, 2:30 EST

Crypto M&A deals reached a record 197 transactions at $6.1B in 2021. The total number of acquisitions is up 130% from 2020. More: Crypto companies acquired competitors in the crypto space to expand their offerings. Coinbase: acquired crypto staking provider Bison Trails for an undisclosed amount. Galaxy: acquired crypto service provider BitGo for $1.2B, expected to close by Q1 2022. Traditional finance companies acquired crypto companies to expand into the emerging area. Mastercard: acquired crypto transaction surveillance and analytics provider CipherTrace. Robinhood: made its first crypto acquisition with cross-exchange trading platform Cove Markets in December. Although not included in the reported figures, SPAC mergers were a consistent trend in 2021 that led to M&A deals that brought crypto companies public. TradeStation Group Inc: Japanese financial firm Monex's TradeStation is expected to be listed on the NYSE in 2022 following a $1.43B SPAC merger with a subsidiary of Galaxy Digital. Bitdeer: mining platform Bitdeer merged with Blue Safari Group Acquisition Corp in a deal valued at $4B. Bullish: Block. one's crypto service provider Bullish announced that it would go public in a $9B SPAC merger with Far Peak Acquisition For more information on Crypto M&A and other digital asset trends, check out The Block's 2022 Digital Asset Outlook. Note: Inside.com's founder and CEO, Jason Calacanis, is an investor in Robinhood.

TOP NFT COLLECTIONS (24hr Volume) # Name 24h Volume 24h % 1 Axie Infinity ETH, RONIN $9.43M 5.63% ▼ 2 CloneX ETH $4.08M 17.41% ▼ 3 Adidas Originals ETH $3.53M 40.99% ▼ 4 The Sandbox ETH $2.73M 27.48% ▲ 5 Bored Ape YC ETH $2.37M 6.42% ▼ Source: DappRadar, 2:30 pm EST TOP ETH NFT COLLECTIONS (Floor Cap) # Name Floor Price (ETH) 24h % 1 CryptoPunks  Ξ 59.95 1.69% ▼ 2 Bored Ape YC Ξ 50.95 0.51% ▲ 3 Mutant Ape YC Ξ 6.90 1.92% ▲ 4 VeeFriends Ξ 9.15 3.68% ▼ 5 Autoglyphs Ξ 150 0% Source: NFT Price Floor, 2:30 pm EST

FTX signed a sports marketing deal with Monumental Sports and Entertainment for an undisclosed amount. The deal makes FTX US the exclusive exchange and NFT partner of the Washington Wizards (NBA), Washington Capitals (NHL), Washington Mystics (WNBA), and the Capital One Arena. 2021 FTX Sports Marketing Deals: Golden State Warriors: Just last week, FTX signed a $10M sports partnership deal with the NBA's Golden State Warriors. Miami Heat: FTX partnered with the NBA's Miami Heat, paying $135M to receive the naming rights of the team's home arena for the next 20 years. MLB: FTX came to a first-of-its-kind agreement with the MLB to feature the FTX logo on MLB umpire jerseys. University of Kentucky Wildcats: FTX partnered with the Wildcats to allow players to monetize their name, image, and likeness, providing the basketball team and other student-athletes with FTX debit cards and NFT services. University of California: FTX reached a 10-year, $17.5M naming rights deal with the University of California to rename the Golden Bears' football field to the FTX Field at California Memorial Stadium. Team SoloMid (TSM): FTX partnered with the largest e-sports group in the US in a $210M sponsorship deal that will rename TSM to TSM FTX for the next 10 years.

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🍋 Fresh Funding 🍋  Figment, Staking: $110M  ⮕ The Series C funding round was led by Thoma Bravo and participated in by Counterpoint Global (Morgan Stanley), ParaFi Capital, Avon Ventures, Binance, and others. More: Figment is a provider of staking services and application layer solutions for token holders and Web3 devs. The startup has seen $10M in revenue per month, with projected total revenue of $100M this year. Figment reached a valuation of $1.4B after raising $50M in a Series B in August co-led by Senator Investment Group and Liberty City Ventures. Gear Technologies, Web3/Smart Contract: $12M ⮕ The funding round was led by Blockcharge and participated in by Three Arrows Capital, Distributed Global, Lemniscap, Gavin Wood, and others. More: Gear is a smart contract platform for dApp development on the Polkadot (DOT) blockchain. The announcement comes just after the first parachains (Acala, Moonbeam, Parallel Finance, Astar, Clover) on the Polkadot network went live over the weekend. Gear is expected to launch its testnet in early 2022 and mainnet later that year following third-party security and financial audits.

▲ TOP GAINERS # Name Price 24h % 1 Yearn.finance YFI $38,806.55 23.46% ▲ 2 IoTeX IOTX $0.1234 9.77% ▲ 3 Terra LUNA $81.20 10.08% ▲ 4 Revain REV $0.009679 7.32% ▲ 5 Harmony ONE $0.2368 5.35% ▲ ▼  TOP LOSERS # Name Price 24h % 1 Decred DCR $71.22 21.92%▼ 2 NEAR Protocol NEAR $8.39 11.36%▼ 3 Kadena KDA $10.13 9.13%▼ 4 Waves WAVES $15.33 7.68%▼ 5 WAX WAXP $0.4415 6.79%▼ Source: CoinMarketCap, 2:30 EST *Limited to cryptocurrencies in the Top 100

Grim Finance’s vault contract was hacked for at least $30M. The vaults and deposits are still at risk, and users have been urged to withdraw funds immediately. More: Grim Finance is a smart yield optimizer platform that allows users to stake LP-tokens in vaults that automatically re-stake rewarded LP-tokens. The attack was described as an advanced, 5x reentry attack that injected fake deposits through a malicious token contract. Circle (USDC), DAI, and AnySwap have been notified to freeze any future transfers.

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🎁 The 2021 Inside Crypto Holiday Sweater List 🎁  Happy holidays, Insiders! Although there may be some holiday FUD surrounding going to holiday parties, that doesn't mean you still can't rock a holiday sweater for your upcoming zoom office party or family gathering. So why not spread some holiday cheer while showing off your love for crypto with some of these crypto-themed holiday sweaters! Merry Cryptmas Cryptocurrency Knitted Christmas Jumper (NOTJUST, $55) Not only can you purchase this sweater with cryptocurrency, but 50% of the proceeds are donated to charities supporting mental health causes. Also, NOTJUST sweaters are made up of 90% recycled plastic bottles and 10% recycled acrylic yarn, so you don't have to worry about the impact of proof-of-work that went into mining the bitcoin on this sweater. HODL Ethereum Ugly Christmas Sweater (Finance Meme$, $42.58) Best part about securing your bag with magical reindeer? No gas necessary. Get in the holiday spirit with an Ethereum sweater and be sure to let everyone know that you've been HODLing since gas fees were under $1. Honorable mentions to the Theranos Early Investor Mug and Lehman Brothers Hat also listed on their website, in case you were looking for some last-minute Christmas presents. Monero Sweater (Hodlmoon, $59.99) Want to publicly show off your admiration for privacy-focused cryptocurrency transactions? Leave the Guy Fawkes mask at home this holiday season and pick yourself up one of these Monero sweaters. If XMR isn't in your bag, Hodlmoon also has holiday sweaters for KNC, LTC, ETH, and BAT. CryptoPunks Ugly Christmas Sweater Sweatshirt (Etsy, $52.50) It's a sweater sweatshirt, but we're still counting it over here at Inside. This CryptoPunk sweater will let you show off your love for NFTs IRL instead of needing to spend millions of dollars on a PFP. This offer probably won't last long, however, since Larva Labs licensing disputes may soon be on the rise…

QUICK HITS Trust is the community-powered corporate card. Learn from each other’s spending patterns, get trusted advice, and increase your buyer. 100% free.* Bitfury CEO Brian Brooks was added to the board of directors for publicly traded crypto exchange Voyager Digital. Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri stated that the social media platform is actively exploring NFT integration. Ethereum (ETH) fell 3% overnight, triggering $11.89M in liquidations, with over 50% of liquidations occurring on OKEx. Former Intel chief compliance officer Sidney Majalya will join BinanceUS as the exchange’s chief risk officer. The Adidas Originals: Into the Metaverse NFT collection sold out in minutes on Friday, netting the company $23M in sales. Solana (SOL) based agriculture-simulation game DeFi Land announced the launch of its six-week public testing on December 22. Spend less time fundraising and more time building your business. Apply now to get started.* * Sponsored Content

UPCOMING EVENTS: December 21 - Growth in Crypto Security with AJ Yawn (ByteChek) (Register Here) December 29 - Need to Know NoCoder - David Siegel (CEO - Glide) (Register Here) January 04 - Venturing in VC with Landon Campbell (Episode #1) (Register Here) January 05 - DAOs and the intersection of tech & media with Kinjal Shah (Blockchain Capital) (Register Here) January 06 - Augmented and Virtual Reality with Timoni West (VP of AR/VR at Unity) (Register Here) January 11 - The Business of Interactive Gambling with Jon Kaplowitz (Penn) (Register Here) January 13 - Education within the Metaverse with Steve Grubbs (VictoryXR) (Register Here) January 25 - Need To Know NoCoder - Leon Young (Cogniss) (Register Here) January 27 - Understanding the Metaverse (Register Here) February 03 - Blockchain Gaming & Play-to-Earn Economies (Register Here) February 10 - The Business of Wellness (Register Here) February 17 - Customer Acquisition in a post iOS 14 world (Register Here) February 24 - Alternative Investments (Register Here) March 03 - The $12B Appetite for Amazon Aggregators (Register Here)

Griffin McShane is a New York transplant currently living in Brooklyn, NY. He is a graduate of Providence College, where he studied both computer science and business, and the University of Maine School of Law, where he earned his JD. Beyond his work at Inside, Griffin has written articles for CoinDesk and is a member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP). Editor Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 Ford.

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