Gm. Wouldn’t be me… 😳
Also, thank you to 128 of you who signed up last week ❤️
Welcome to Issue 10 of The Quest Digest, where we break down Silicon Valley news for you every week, in 3 minutes.
Was this forwarded to you? Subscribe here. Also, sorry - we are a day late! The Quest team had an offsite in Vegas ☀️
Largest NFT mint in history costs $165 million in gas fees
Yuga Labs faced backlash after its highly anticipated Otherdeeds drop cost minters $165 million in Ethereum gas fees.
As a Recap:
Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) is an NFT collection and ecosystem developed by Yuga Labs on the Ethereum blockchain
ApeCoin ($APE) is a token in the APE ecosystem that allows holders to participate in the ApeCoin DAO
Otherside is Yuga Lab’s $APE-powered MMORPG game that launched in April
Otherdeed is the right to claim a unique plot of land in the Otherside game. It’s a dynamic NFT where holders can participate in prototyping builds, demos and tests that shape the final game design
The total supply of Otherdeed NFTs sat at 55,000 priced at 305 ApeCoin each (around $5,800 at time of purchase). Because of the overwhelming demand, buyers shelled out anywhere between 2.6 ETH ($6,500) to 5 ETH ($14,000) in gas fees alone.
Our Take
Yuga Labs followed with an apology after the mint ended for “turning off the lights on Ethereum for a while” and refunded gas fees to anyone who made a transaction that falled due to network conditions caused by the mint.
Because of the massive hike in gas fees Yuga Labs alluded to the ApeCoin DAO creating their own chain to optimise fees. We might see projects building their own L1s going into the future which will be interesting.
But Twitter users indicated modifying a few words could have saved $80M+, leaving the onus on Yuga.
Shopify acquires startup for $2.1B
Shopify announced it will be acquiring shipping logistics company, Deliverr for $2.1B. CEO Toby Lütke says it will enable the company to create an end-to-end logistics platform for millions of merchants.
Deliverr was founded in 2017 and rents out warehouse spaces based on predictive AI to decide when orders are picked and packed and determine the best mode of shipping to customers.
Shopify sees the acquisition as a way to boost the Shopify Fulfilment Network (SFN) that allows merchants to store inventory and fulfill orders as well as provide expanded options for storage, inventory preparation, and returns.
Our Take
Logistics has never been the most sexy industry to work in... But Statista predicts the supply chain management market could be worth almost $31B by 2026, and a poll found 41% of shoppers are willing to pay a premium for same-day shipping.
For Shopify, they see logistics as it’s next major profit machine but it will be interesting to see as the competition rises between Amazon and Shopify as Amazon introduces Buy with Prime and Shopify looks to expand their share of online retail.
The layon about layoffs
It’s been a bad week in tech with layoffs…
As a Recap:
On Deck laid off 25% of its staff, impacting about 72 people
Fintech startup, Mainstreet let go about 30% of it’s staff
Celebrity shoutout app Cameo, also laid off 87 employees or 25% of its staff
Robinhood announced it’s cutting 9% of its staff, roughly 300 people
Amazon aggregator Thrasio laid off 20% of its staff (and changed its CEO)
Our Take
In the past couple years many startups have been pumped despite having unproven business models – TLDR there’s going to be a lot of haircuts in this cycle of the economy.
So if you’re a founder be wary of the downturn and prepare accordingly. If you’re an employee that recently got laid off, Fractal is hiring 🔥
🔥 Press Worthy
Starbucks plans to launch NFTs this year
TikTok introduces revenue share product with creators
Paramount+ reaches nearly 40M subscribers
Reels now make up over 20% of the time users spend on Instagram
Andreessen Horowitz plan $500M in investment in Indian startups
Feedback ✍️
Did you like this issue? Follow us on LinkedIn for daily SV updates (we are the No.1 fastest growing page on Silicon Valley news) 🌟
The Quest Digest is written by Hannah Ahn and edited by Brent Liang, two dropouts who hate long tech newsletters. You can sign up to our next issue below.