🇹🇷 Could Turkey Go Bitcoin?

November 27, 2021

|In Weekend Recap

|By Osprey Team

The Turkish Lira has dropped more than 40% vs the US Dollar so far this year. It’s the weakest global currency YTD.

The collapse comes on the heels of Turkish President Erdogan’s attempts to boost the economy by cutting interest rates.

Here’s TRYUSD going back to 2015. It ain’t pretty:

So we ask, Could Turkey go Bitcoin?

Turkey is the 20th largest economy in the world with a $720B GDP.

This is still small relative to the US $21T GDP, but 30x larger than El Salvador.

There’s been no official rumblings. We’re just thinking out loud.

Here’s Reuters with a recap.

NFT — Word of the Year

It’s official — Collins Dictionary declared “NFT” as its 2021 Word of the Year.

This is the first crypto related word of the year ever. Congratulations.

And for all of you top calling contrarians out there, take note — during the 1990s, there were 5 internet related words of the year including information superhighway and cyber.

Here’s some additional NFT News —

Paris Hilton Joins $20M Investment in NFT Platform Origyn

a16z, The Chainsmokers back 3LAU’s NFT platform Royal in $55 million Series A

‘Queen of Thanksgiving’ Martha Stewart Cooks Up New Batch of Ethereum NFTs

Swapping NFTs — AVC

Bored Ape #544 sold for 675 ETH // $2.8M

Metaverse Real Estate Takes Off

We’re seeing record sales for real estate in the Metaverse.

A plot of land in the Decentraland Fashion District sold for $2.43M, while a plot in Axie Infinity sold for $2.4M. Both sales set new records.

It’s probably nothing.

Algorand Decipher in Miami

The inaugural Algorand Decipher Event in Miami is sold out BUT there are a limited number of free virtual General Admission tickets left. Deadline to register is November 28 so Check It Now.

Solana’s Energy Report

On Wednesday, Solana shared its November Energy Usage Report. It found that a single Solana transaction is equal to running an LED light bulb for ~3 minutes.

Plus, 1 Solana transaction uses 98.5% less energy than 1 ETH2 transaction.

See the full report here.

And Check out our Solana Lightpaper here.

ConstitutionDAO Dissolved

Following last week’s failed bid to buy the Constitution, ConstitutionDAO officially dissolved.

The fun and entertaining experiment fell short, but it highlighted the potential of the decentralized organizational structure as well as some early mistakes.

Graham Novak, ConstitutionDAO core team member, shared,

The community has taken all actions that it was organized to accomplish: we raised capital, we bid at Sotheby’s, and upon losing, we made full refunds available to the community as promised.

This project was a landmark event that showed the entire world that a group of internet friends can use the power of web3 to face a seemingly insurmountable goal and achieve incredible results on an impossible timeline.

Here’s the Block with more.

Bitcoin City, El Salvador

Last weekend, El Salvador unveiled another ambitious plan as it intends to build Bitcoin City at the base of the Conchagua Volcano.

President Bukele said the city will “include everything” and have no taxes except for a value-added tax.

The Central American nation issued $1B in Bitcoin-backed bonds to pay for the build. Construction will begin in 2022.

Here’s Reuters with the full scoop.

The world is watching.

On Crypto Design and Adoption

Paul Stamatiou shared an excellent post this week spotlighting 3 important Crypto Design Challenges.

Exchange Experience & Onboarding
Wallet Experience
Web3 Guidance & Curation

Stamatiou writes,

This is the state of crypto today. That can work for now—early adopters are motivated enough to jump through hoops to try something new—but this won’t scale as billions of users join the crypto ecosystem in the coming years.

Stamatiou also compares internet vs crypto adoption over a 10-year period and drops this money chart: