GM Everybody,

As our Grey Market launch gets closer by the day, we would like to share our approach for the release. All successful tech products take various iterations before finding product market fit.

As a project and community, what we need from the Grey Market launch is a good Minimum Viable Product (MVP) wherein we can

1.       See that it works well

2.       Understand how people use it

3.       Find the best way for our partners to benefit from it

4.       Gather feedback to improve and develop it into a Minimum Marketable Product (MMP)

So, what is an MVP?

In tech, having an MVP is an essential first step toward success. The term was first introduced by Eric Ries, NY Times Bestselling Author, resident at Harvard Business School, and co-Founder & former CTO of IMVU, in his book: The Lean Startup.

MVP is the theoretical leanest (most basic) usable model of a product. It can demonstrate the features and is used to test the potential efficacy in the market without over-investing in development.

Sometimes, this means a version of the product with most of the utility but without the design aesthetics or a simple product with just one focus feature, which leads to the development of more features upon its success.

There are many ways to execute an MVP, and some examples of successful startups that initiated using it are AirBnB, DropBox, Wealthfront, Foursquare, and DoorDash.

DoorDash, for example, started with 4 Stanford students who could not get the food they wanted to be delivered to them. This led them to create a service to deliver food in the area from participating restaurants. Interested customers can use a single, simple webpage to order their food.

They found out that there was an overwhelming demand for what they were offering, so they had to start hiring people to keep up with the service. As of June 2022, DoorDash has done 5.6 billion dollars in annual revenue over the past 12 months, with over 8,000 employees to its name.

An MVP's goal is to test the product as soon as possible before committing more resources. The feedback gathered will influence the decision to push on and polish the product or pivot while it’s still viable and economical to do so.

A product could launch in a final, well-polished state but risk the chance of it not being well received by the market or lacking features people want. The development cost will be wasted in this case. A product is best to be soft launched with minimum viability to get the feedback it needs to become a great product that the market wants.

The Grey Market’s first step to success begins with the release of our MVP and the support from our community to use it and provide feedback. With strong community support, we can create an iteration of the Grey Market that will benefit both buyers and merchants.

Market Matters

!BOO. Welcome back, my ghost friends. I hope you had a spooky and fun Halloween. Do you know what hasn't been fun lately? The markets with their tricks and lack of treats. Degens like us need something sweet to satiate our hunger for gains.

Up, down, up and down we go, like we’re marching up an infinite Penrose staircase. It feels like we’re getting somewhere, but then we find ourselves stuck in an endless loop back to where we started. Many experienced traders find this sort of choppy price action difficult to trade, so don’t beat yourselves up if you've had a rough time maneuvering through the waves. It is said that sometimes in the waves of change, we find our true direction, so let's hope this holds true for the markets so they can settle on a new direction.

In last week's edition, we discussed the equity markets and its many earnings reports, while this week's focus was primarily on the FOMC federal funds rate hike, their statement, and a press conference. Let’s dive right into all the happenings for the end of October leading into this first week of November.

Touching briefly on what we couldn't cover in last week’s release, the end of October brought us both GDP and Core PCE data. The GDP, gauging the economy's health through measuring inflation-adjusted values of goods and services, was reported at 2.6%, which was .3% higher than projected. This report coming in higher than expected, removed the technical definition of a recession which is defined by two negative GDP quarters in a row, although that doesn't remove the possibility of one still happening in the future. The initial report was received well by the crypto markets, but as Thursday pressed on, prices continued to dip. 

Leading into Friday, the Core PCE report, which is the FED’s preferred data in comparison to CPI data because it excludes food and energy, rose by 0.5% from the previous month but was 0.1% lower than projected by economists on a year-over-year basis. This good news was also received well by the markets, sparking a strong up trend into the weekend because it shows potential signs of inflation slowing down and invigorating the speculative nature of investors that a FED pivot could be closer than anticipated.

Well, let's not get too ahead of ourselves here, right? There's still the lingering arrival of the data-packed first week of November to look forward to. As the month began, we were met with PMI data, the Job Openings report, ADP’s Non-Farm Employment Change data, and the all-important FOMC Federal Funds Rate, where the public receives the next interest rate hike.

Let’s quickly recap the PMI data and Jobs market before we get into the more notable headline of interest rates. The PMI, measuring manufacturing business’s economic conditions, was reported near flat but also indicated a slight industry expansion, coming in slightly higher than projected. This increase, as it happens, is in fact unfavorable for the markets as a consequence of increased demand and the potentiality of future inflation.

Both the Job openings and Employment data changes came in higher than projected, signaling the strength of the job market. Continued growth in employment and new job positions could ultimately cause extended rate hikes as more jobs mean more money earned and spent by consumers feeding into inflation and putting more pressure on the FED to continue their aggressive and hawkish approach to their monetary policy.

Although these reports were not in favor of the markets, investors seemed to shrug at and set aside the PMI and Jobs data in suspense of the FOMC report. On Wednesday afternoon, the FED decided to raise interest rates by 75 bps, aka 0.75%, which sparked a sizable volatile swing in crypto prices. The overall response from investors was positive as that rate hike was exactly what was projected, pushing prices higher.

Shortly after their decision was announced, the FOMC Press Conference took place, where Powel read a prepared statement followed by questions from the press. This was where things got a bit shaky for the markets, ultimately leading to a steep price drop attributed to new uncertainty from investors. Many investors were speculating the possibility of a FED pivot coming in December, but Powel squashed that entirely. Powel made it clear that the FED will do whatever is necessary to bring inflation down to their implicit 2% target moving forward over the long run. 

He alluded to the idea that terminal rates, which are the levels that the FED are expected to pause interest rates from rising, could exceed the current expectations of 5% in order to rein in the fast-rising prices of goods and services within the economy. Their current stance now is if they overtighten with too high of rate hikes, then they will use the tools they have to support the economy, suggesting they would rather maintain their restrictive policy stance to restore price stability even if it means potentially causing more damage in the future.

As Powel stated in his press conference, it is premature for them to even think about pausing interest rate hikes at this time, completely reversing the strong afternoon market rally. Clearly, the FED wants to see data more favorable than the current incoming data suggests, notably needing to see jobs data having consistent declines and showing signs of slowing down and for supply chain issues of goods like food and energy to be sorted out.

Moving forward with the remainder of this week, the PMI and more Jobs data will have been released by the time you're reading this, which the markets will be monitoring as they continue to speculate on the next future rate hike. In other news related to the markets, there have been unconfirmed reports circling on China exiting their “zero tolerance” stance on Covid-19, which would likely have a positive impact, Elon Musk finalized his purchase of Twitter which began wide speculation of Dogecoin being integrated, causing it to over double its value, and lastly, many investors took to crypto Twitter to celebrate the 14th anniversary of the birth of the Bitcoin White Paper.

Wild Web3

Instagram, the new hotbed for NFTs?

Better known as being a social media platform for visual aesthetics, Instagram seemed to be the unlikely candidate for an NFT marketplace. Or is it? Meta (Formerly Facebook) announced that Instagram will support features such as minting and selling digital collectibles (NFTs) on the Polygon blockchain. Currently, this is only offered to a small group of creators in the US.

Instagram has had the ability to display NFTs by connecting a crypto wallet such as Metamask for a while now, but with this recent announcement, creators on Instagram will eventually be able to run NFT-enabled accounts where they can sell digital collectibles of their photos or art.

Considered to be a way for Meta to increase money-making features for creators in the app, it is a win-win situation for the platform and creators. Meta shared that they won’t be taking a cut of NFT sales until 2024, though 30 percent will be deducted for fees to apple’s app store. It also shared that creators can set an NFT resale commission rate of 5-25%.

Instagram will also be adding support for the Solana blockchain and the Phantom wallet as well as enabling video NFTs. With close to 1.4 billion users on Instagram, integrating web3 features into the platform will help onboard more users into the space in time to come.

Warner Bros Is Hopping on The Digital Collectibles Bandwagon

The buzzword in the web3 space for the past week was Digital Collectibles. The term is made popular by Reddit for onboarding over 3 million accounts to create crypto wallets to trade their digital avatars.

In recent news, Warner Brothers has teamed up with Nifty’s, an NFT marketplace to produce a collection based on the popular TV series, Game Of Thrones (GOT). Nifty’s was also the marketplace used to release the Matrix (Movie) NFT collection. It was also unveiled that Daz 3D will oversee the collaboration’s end-to-end design and production. Daz 3D has worked with other big corporations such as Coca-Cola and RTFKT’s Clone X to produce their NFTs.

This could be the start for more IP franchises to take the leap into web3.

The Lowdown On Elon’s Twitter Acquisition

You’ve probably heard of the $44 billion Twitter acquisition by Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. Upon acquiring Twitter, he started making bold moves to restructure the social media giant by changing up leadership roles, letting go of 50% (3,700) of the company’s worldwide staff, and placing a mandate to reduce yearly infrastructure costs by one billion dollars.  

Elon will also start charging a monthly premium of $8 for verified accounts with the ‘blue tick’, and is considering reviving Vine and something of major interest to web3 supporters, enabling the ‘freedom of speech' on the platform. There was also news of Twitter potentially creating its own crypto wallet to facilitate the transferring and receiving of money. The plan for the crypto wallet is currently on hold according to news sources.

Based on a recent tweet by the official Twitter Dev account over at @TwitterDev, “Some links to NFTs on @rarible, @MagicEden, @dapperlabs and @Jumptradenft will now show you a larger picture of the NFT alongside details like the title and creator…” This signals Twitter’s push to integrate NFT support on the platform.

Another exciting possibility is the minting and selling of NFTs directly on Twitter, as we have seen with Meta’s recent announcement to enable NFT minting on Instagram via the Polygon blockchain. We are bullish to see how Twitter would progress with the web3 space with new leadership.

3 Ways to DYOR With Etherscan

You should have seen the phrase Do Your Own Research (DYOR) before if you’ve been active on Crypto Twitter (CT). In our previous two articles, we covered the basics of Etherscan and how to view smart contracts on it. In this article, we’ll share three tips on using Etherscan to DYOR.

Tip #1 – Checking out transactions on “Smart Wallets”

“Smart Wallets” belong to traders who have a track record of constantly being able to buy and sell NFTs for profit, usually from larger accounts known as ‘whales.’ This does not mean that they do not make losses; it just means they have a better track record of flipping for profit. You can find some whale wallets to track over at nftgo.io (https://nftgo.io/whale-tracking/activity)

To track a wallet’s NFT transactions, enter the wallet address into Etherscan’s search bar and click on the ‘Erc721 Token Txns’ tab. You can also copy the wallet address into Opensea to see what NFTs the wallet holds if it’s not in the hidden tab.

By tracking the purchases, sales, and transactions on these wallets, you can get a better sense of what these traders are buying, holding, or selling so you can possibly copy their trades and get in on the action. Do note that these traders have their reasons for buying and selling something, so use it as a reference point and not blindly copy a trade without further research.

Tip #2 – Finding out an NFT Project’s Details

Etherscan has a wealth of information on NFT projects. To find out more information about a project:

1)      Go to Opensea and search for the project you want to research on

2)     Click on the ‘Contract Address’ for the project in the ‘Details’ section on any of the NFTs

3)     Under the ‘My Info’ section on Etherscan, click on the link for ‘Token Tracker’

On Etherscan's Token page, there is various information such as the max total supply of the NFTs, number of holders, latest transactions, and many more. Under the ‘Holders’ tab, you can find the wallets that own the NFTs and how many they own, and under the ‘NFT Trades’ tab, you can track the latest purchases for the NFTs and who the buyers and sellers are.

With the above information, you can tell how active the project is, how likely a dump by a major holder can affect the floor price if the top wallets hold a lot of the project's NFTs, and explore the various top holders’ wallets to see what other NFTs they own that you can consider getting as well. Use the information as research, and do not blindly FOMO into a project just because there might be a lot of traction.

Tip #3 – Using Etherscan’s Gas Tracker

Gas is part of the equation when buying and selling an NFT or token on Ethereum. Etherscan has its own Gas Tracker, which you can access here. (https://etherscan.io/gastracker). We want to perform transactions when gas is low to get the best savings, and by using this tool, we can find the best time to proceed with the transaction if we're not in a hurry.

The site also shows the top 50 gas guzzlers that might be causing congestion in the network leading to high gas, such as a hyped project minting. With this information, you can avoid doing your transaction during that time or even get in on the action and explore what is getting people excited.

We hope the tips will help you in your research and that you'll spend some time upgrading your skills to become a more informed buyer and trader. Next week, we will be back with another educational article for you to level up your knowledge.

As always, DYOR and this is not financial advice (NFA).

Phantom Files: 10

Phantom 10's base was littered with boxes of kiwis. Or so it seemed at first, until you got closer and realized that the boxes were mostly empty, except for a few scattered kiwis and discarded cigarette butts. Phantom 10 sat in front of her computer monitor, which was on top of some cardboard boxes strewn across the floor and signaled for us to come in.

1. Why did you name yourself Kiwi? 

I once ate 2 kgs of kiwis and felt it represented me well!

2. What is your favorite weird food combination? 

Cheetos and ketchup.

3. What’s your favorite game to play? 

Valorant.

4. Where do you want to go on vacation? 

India because I've never been there.

5. What is your favorite Off-Brand anime? 

What the f*** does off-brand anime mean... like... Inazuma Eleven???

6. What is a skill you want to get better at? 

Painting.

7. What is a hot take that you have? 

Vanilla < chocolate

8. Who do you look up to in this space?

Everyone but fudders.

9. What is a favorite PxN moment of yours? 

Waifu spam in sewers

10. Give us some hints for your Phantom!

UWU Girl!