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Infinity Weekly: Laying the Groundwork

Issue 21 of InfinitySwap's Newsletter for INFINISWAPPERS

InfinitySwap

• 6 min read
Infinity Weekly: Laying the Groundwork
Issue 21

Happy Sunday & Welcome to Infinity Weekly. If this newsletter was forwarded to you, sign up here.

*Price as of September 17

IC Ecosystem News

♾ Base Camp: In early August, due to uncertainties about recently-sanctioned Tornado Cash, GitHub decided to remove the source code and shut down user accounts associated with the crypto mixer. GitHub, while loved by developers all over the world, is owned by Microsoft, and this Big Tech decision to suppress open source code was interpreted by many as an attack on free speech. Introducing Codebase, a decentralized GitHub alternative built on the Internet Computer.

You can join the waitlist here.

♾ Keep Vibing: The official DFINITY merch store is open; VIBES currently has a small collection of T-shirts available. Although some enterprising individuals and NFT projects have created ICP-related items for purchase, this is the only venue to get official DFINITY merch.

♾ Lab Partners: ICP.Lab is coming! It is an advanced program run by DFINITY to boost development on the Internet Computer, where selected teams and individuals will be given tailored coaching and direct access to DFINITY. More information, including how to apply, will be released in the near future.

♾ Talk To Me: OpenChat, a popular social media dApp on the Internet Computer that allows chat groups, private messaging, and even sending and receiving $ICP, is looking for projects looking to integrate a chat function as a part of their dApp. Any team interested in doing so can contact OpenChat via Twitter.

♾ Meet Space: The DFINITY Foundation is hosting a community meetup at its new office in Zürich on September 20th. The event will kick off with welcome drinks and two talks about the Internet Computer’s unique capabilities. Be sure to reserve your spot using this link!

This Week In Our Blog

We are excited to announce a strategic partnership with Dfinity Community and their NFT project, dSquad! Dfinity Community is the largest and oldest resource for news about the Internet Computer Protocol and boasts a strong community presence. dSquad is the first ‘engage-to-earn’ NFT game in the world and won first place in this year’s Supernova Hackathon’s ‘Metaverse’ category.

InfinitySwap Forms a Strategic Partnership with Dfinity Community and dSquad
InfinitySwap and Dfinity Community and its Metaverse NFT initiative, dSquad, have announced our intention to collaborate on a variety of different levels
InfinitySwapInfinitySwap Editor

The DFINITY Foundation recently phased out its “metal milestone” roadmap and is opting to keep the Internet Computer community in the loop with regular, monthly updates instead. Read our article to see how the new roadmap approach works and what the Foundation has been working on for the past few months!

Progress Over Milestones: DFINITY’s New Roadmap Approach
The entire Internet Computer community seems to be heading into a new era of cooperation. While DFINITY employees like Andrew Chepreghy have never been shy about interacting with the average $ICP holder on Twitter, official communication with the DFINITY Foundation has been largely one-sided. This…
InfinitySwapInfinitySwap

Around the Web

📉 The Merge Purge: The Ethereum switch to proof-of-stake (“The Merge”) happened without a single hiccup. The bad news for crypto degens is that $ETH price has been plummeting. Of course, plenty of traders dumped the coin just before The Merge, in classic “sell the news” fashion. However, U.S. SEC chairman Gary Gensler’s statement late this week about how $ETH could be classified and regulated as a security undoubtedly hit a sour note for many investors skittish about the regulatory future of cryptocurrency.

🏃 Catch Me If You Can: Disgraced Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon tweeted “I am not on the run” while evading an active arrest warrant issued by the South Korean government earlier this week. Kwon is charged with violating South Korean capital markets laws. He is arguably one of the most hated figures in crypto, having triggered the “contagion” that took down Celsius, Voyager, and 3AC.

💵 Not Exactly Trader Joe: On Friday the White House released a framework outlining crypto regulation in the United States. Unsurprisingly the document addressed stablecoins and consumer protection, emphasizing the necessity of regulation for safety’s sake. The document also implied that a digital dollar may be fast approaching, as the government affirmed they would continue to allocate resources for CBDC “research, experimentation, and evaluation”.

🎮 Epic Get: Epic Games, best known for games like Fortnight as well as industry favorite 3D graphic game engine Unreal, published the first Web3 title on their Epic Games Store. Blankos Block Party is an NFT-powered online creation game that already has established a reputation for strong collaborations with fashion brands like Burberry and influential producer and DJ Deadmau5. Epic’s approach is markedly different from Steam, a rival video game marketplace. Last fall, Valve (which owns Steam) said that their platform would not support any games using NFTs or cryptocurrencies in any way.

Meme of the Week

A Matter of Opinion: InfinitySwap Editor: Laying the Groundwork

Earlier this week on Twitter I saw a particularly pernicious comment on Twitter that was, fortunately, hastily deleted. While the vast majority of this community (99.99%) are supportive, there's always one that is critical, and that person almost always does nothing to further the cause of the ecosystem themselves.  The comment voiced impatience (despite our target of September AMM launch not passing yet) and insinuated that our partnerships are 'meaningless.'

It's easy to be critical when you are not in the position yourself- think of how we all feel (or is it just me) like we could deliver a knockout blow to the heavyweight champ from our armchair while shouting at the TV, beer in hand.

The fact is, our partnerships are far from meaningless. Each partnership announcement is the result of discussions, integration of our products and services, marketing and tech synergies, and more besides. We are setting up the alliances that will help to push the boundaries of the Internet Computer. We are laying the groundwork and foundations for future success, aware of the power of community and networking.

Anyone who saw the DFINITY foundation's tweets this week knows the level of respect our team is esteemed with, being the first to be invited to the ICPLab initiative before it is even open to other teams to apply.

Wallet integration and adoption are the first of several planned marketing and partnership phases, and this has already been exponential. Community guidance and overall endorsement have been staggering and have helped us enormously in our iteration of this wallet, which we believe will eventually be mass adopted by the wider crypto community outside of just the IC.

The message this week is therefore that ecosystems take time to mature, but that having inside knowledge of what is going on at InfinitySwap, I can confidently assert that what is being built is outstanding. Self-imposed deadline targets may or may not be exactly on time, but it is the quality and safety of what is delivered that will matter in the long run.  

The vast majority of the community understands that and wholeheartedly supports our efforts- one only has to view our social media to see an outpouring of solidarity and positivity. As a reader of our newsletter, you are one of these people, so a big thank you!

Have a relaxing Sunday, everyone, and keep the faith while we keep on grinding :)

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