Morning Minute | California Brings Its DMV Onchain
TylerD's Market Summary
🚗 California Brings Car Titles Onchain, With Avalanche
We have been so heavily focused on speculation, ETFs, and crypto politics over the past few months.
Myself included.
That it's nice to get a breath of fresh air with a story about real world blockchain use cases that can push society forward.
What Happened?
Yesterday, the Avalanche chain announced that the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) was digitizing car titles onchain.
And the implementation has already begun, with 42M car titles already digitized on a DMV-run blockchain.
Massive news, from the biggest DMV in the United States.
More details:
- Digital titles will soon be claimable by car owners via the DMV's new mobile wallet app (requiring appropriate credentials)
- Avalanche smart contracts will serve an escrow-like function and allow owners to track/manage title process (cutting down significantly on trips to the DMV)
- An early warning system will be implemented for potential issues like lien fraud
What Are They Saying
John Wu, President of Ava Labs, commented on the announcement:
“Blockchains are the most advanced tool any organization can leverage to maximize efficiency, maintain compliance and protect consumer data – vital components for a government serving its constituents.
Today’s landmark announcement is a clear-cut example of how blockchain technology simultaneously benefits enterprises and consumers and Ava Labs is proud to partner with the California DMV as it transforms essential services to create a more transparent, accessible and secure user experience for citizens.”
Mark Cuban also weighed in overnight:
"The reason why this is HUGE for crypto is because the people holding the tokens will have an app with a Avalanche wallet.
Tens of millions of Californians having and using a crypto wallet over the next 5 years or however long it takes , normalizes the use of wallets and crypto for normies .
That is huge. Particularly if the wallets can be used for other applications!"
So they both agree - it's a big deal.
Why It Matters
John and Mark hit on some big reasons in their comments, but it's even simpler for me.
Here's a real use case for blockchain making an outdated real world process (i.e. car title management) easier and more efficient via blockchain.
And the more people using blockchain (and wallets!), the more people in the broader crypto pool who are candidates to move into the broader space.
If this is a successful pilot, perhaps housing titles will be next up on the list (the initial use case that jumped out to me for blockchain when I first entered the space in 2020).
The immediate question in response to this story - why blockchain / crypto? Why not just a database?
The answer is financialization.
The first step is getting these products onchain.
Next, users can have the option to take partial loans against titles onchain.
Crypto builders love building infrastructure and financial products, so no doubt, there will be plenty of options once this goes live.
Overall, we are just scratching the surface of how blockchain can disrupt legacy systems.
Kudos to Governor Newsom for taking this initative. Onwards.
🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?
Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:
- ETH led NFT trading volume with $4.7M on the day; Solana was next with $2.6M, and then BTC with $1.9M
- ETH NFT leaders were down 2-5%; Pudgy -4% at 9.6 ETH, Milady -2% to 5.21, Captainz -5% to 2.08 and BAYC +2% at 9.15; Doodles Dooplicator was a top mover, jumping 72% to 0.09 ETH
- BTC NFT leaders were red again; NodeMonkes -8% at 0.12 BTC, Puppets -6% at 0.085 BTC, Quantum Cats even at 0.278, OMB -1% at 0.175
- The Runes leaders were also red; DOG -13% at $337M mc, RSIC -7% at $55M mc, PUPS -3% at $35M
- Solana NFTs were mixed; Mad Lads -1% at 62 SOL, SMB Gen 2 even at 23, DeGods +6% at 13.2
- Doodles officially launched its Season Pass on Base priced at $7, offering access to the 3 premiere music videos, the Dullsville and the Doodlevere premiere, onchain artwork and more
- As part of its Stoodio Migration, Doodles Wearables are now available on Magic Eden (on Base)
- RTFKT began Project Animus, initiating Animus Egg openings, 21 months after the project debuted
💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker
Here's a rundown of major token or airdrop news from the day:
- Hamster Kombat updated its whitepaper with new tokenomics ahead of its pending airdrop which will go to 300M+ players (largest in history)
- Dumpy dot fun early users will receive an airdrop of $DUMP, "the memecoin designed with a singular, satirical mission: to dump to zero"
- Coinbase made it free to move funds from Coinbase onchain as long as users choose Base as the network
- DraftKings announced the surprise decision to end its Reignmakers product, citing legal challenges
- Mintify announced an additional $3.4M raise to expand its NFT orderbook for gaming, art and RWA markets
- Ethena introduced 20% APR paid daily to all Bybit users holding USDe
🌎 Around Crypto and Web3
A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
- Crypto majors are mixed this morning; BTC -1% at $66,000; ETH -1% at $3,310, SOL +1% at $182
- Memecoin majors are also red with DOGE -3%, PEPE -4%, WIF -3%, BONK -4%, MOG +3%
- Fidelity listed its Bitcoin ETP on the London Stock Exchange
- The COMP "attacker" has compromised with the team to call off the proposal giving them $25M and instead will create a Stake Product to generate yield for the first time
- Nate Silver released his first election model post-Biden/Kamala swap, which showed Trump leading 61-38 in the election (Kamala up 53-46 in popular vote)
- Animoca Brands announced a new strategic partnership with LayerZero, making LayerZero the interoperability solution of choice for the Animoca Brands ecosystem.
🚀 Memecoin Movers
- $NEIRO (+140%, $140M market cap, ETH)
- $BRAINLET (+41%, $30M market cap, SOL)
- $SELFIE (+35%, $34M market cap, SOL)
- $GINNAN (+30%, 389M market cap, SOL)
- $SIGMA (+22%, $17M market cap, SOL)
📈 NFT Floor Price Increase (ETH)
- Punk Armada (100%, 0.04 ETH Floor)
- Pudgy Puppets (92%, 0.03 ETH)
- Dooplicator (72%, 0.09 ETH)
- Sugartown Oras (14%, 0.2 ETH)
- Shrapnel (13%, 0.06 ETH)
🗓 Upcoming Mints and Events
Today is a busy day of mints and events to end the month, though without many highlights.
Juice is the meme card artist, and BlockMachine and CTRL both drop on Bitcoin.
See the full list and dive in for more details with Swizzy's daily mint monitor.
- CTRL - No Ordinary Kind (11:00 a.m. ET)
- Memes by 6529 (11:00 a.m. ET)
- Floor ICONS Series 4 Drop 2 (12:00 p.m. ET)
- BlockMachine - NeonStacks (12:00 p.m. ET)
- Amit Sharma - The Elephant (3:00 p.m. ET)
Enjoy this write-up and/or want to sponsor the Morning Minute? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email to tyler.warner@luckytrader.com.
