Crypto saw lots of chaos, charges and price changes in November

Welcome again to Chain Response.

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Final week we didn’t publish a Chain Response e-newsletter, because of Thanksgiving. However we’re again at it this week and saying goodbye to November after a protracted, eventful month stuffed with lawsuits, value adjustments and the standard crypto chaos.

Let’s get into it.

What’s taking place in web3

1. Crypto enforcers wielded a heavy hand this year, but don’t expect it to get softer in 2024 (TC+)
2. Optimism execs are optimistic for Ethereum’s future amid its ongoing scaling battle (TC+)
3. Just how big of a recovery will it take to bring investors back to web3? (TC+)
4. Binance and CEO ‘CZ’ plead guilty to federal charges, agreed to pay $4.3B in fines
5. China’s tech giants dip their toes into web3, but prospects are limited so far

The newest pod

For this week’s episode, Jacquelyn interviewed Optimism’s CEO and co-founder Jing Wang and chief development officer Ryan Wyatt.

Optimism is an Ethereum-focused layer-2 blockchain that focuses on scaling and pace, whereas additionally reducing prices for customers. It helps customers work together with Ethereum for about 10x cheaper via its blockchain and supplies builders the flexibility to construct decentralized purposes (dApps) in a quicker, scalable manner.

Earlier than taking over this new position at Optimism, Ryan had a bit of little bit of a break, however was the president of Polygon Labs (he came on the podcast firstly of the yr to speak about it) and earlier than that, he was YouTube’s head of Gaming.

Jing co-founded Optimism in 2018. Earlier than that she based Plasma Group, a analysis agency centered on addressing challenges associated to scaling Ethereum. She additionally beforehand managed blockchain initiatives at firms like Zcash and Nasdaq.

We mentioned how layer-2 blockchains like Optimism try to unravel scalability points on Ethereum and the place Jing and Ryan see development alternatives proper now.

We additionally talked about:

• Base constructing with Optimism’s tech
• Competitors between Ethereum and different blockchains
• Lengthy-term adoption
• Web3 gaming

Subscribe to Chain Response on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite pod platform to maintain up with the most recent episodes, and please go away us a evaluate if you happen to like what you hear!

Observe the cash

1. Acctual raised $3.85 million to assist crypto firms higher handle their payments
2. Web3 schooling platform Open Campus bought a $3.15 million funding from Binance Labs
3. Wind.app raised over $3 million to make DeFi accessible to common shoppers
4. Decentralized perpetual trade MYX raised $5 million in a seed spherical at $50 million valuation
5. Blockchain-built health and wellness app Coral bought a $3 million funding from TealLink

This record was compiled with info from Messari in addition to TechCrunch’s personal reporting.

What else we’re writing

Wish to department out from the world of web3? Listed here are some articles on TechCrunch that caught our consideration this week.

1. The 2024 IPO cohort is coming into focus as Shein, Reddit prep to go public (TC+)
2. Here’s everything Amazon Web Services announced at AWS re:Invent
3. If I’m being honest, I didn’t have what it takes to be a founder (TC+)
4. Apple partner Foxconn to invest $1.5 billion in India
5. European startup funding halved to $45B in 2023, says Atomico

Observe me on Twitter @Jacqmelinek for breaking crypto information, memes and extra.