🌅 Welcome!

SBF may be subpoenaed by the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services and separately faces a market manipulation inquiry. Across the pond, the EU is targeting firms all around the world with a crypto taxation proposal.

Today, we take a look into Axie Core while our Research team provides insights into the future of NFTs in 2023.

This is the Delphi Daily. Let’s dive in.

🚨 In Case You Missed It

Maxine Waters, Chairwoman of the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services, says a subpoena to SBF is “definitely on the table.”
A new taxation proposal from the EU targets firms all around the world, requiring them to report transactions of EU-based clients.
U.S. prosecutors have launched a probe into SBF for market manipulation.
Bankruptcy judge orders Celsius to return $44 million in crypto to users.
Judge dismisses crypto lawsuit against Kim Kardashian and Floyd Mayweather.

🎮 Axie Core Leads to Spike in Transaction Volume

Axie transaction volume spiked 1,061% to hit $10.5M on Dec. 5, 2022 as the gaming project revealed “Axie Core.” This includes the value of all dapp transactions for Axie Infinity.
Axie Core introduces accessories that will allow players to customize the appearance of their Axies. Players will also be able to trade these accessories as NFTs, introducing a new lever to catalyze in-game economy and reduce reliance on power boosts.
Axie Core also introduces part upgrades which will enable experiences that allow players to upgrade the collectability and personality of their Axies. For example, mystic parts will have unique art for their upgraded paths to further distinguish them.
Axie Core will begin rolling out various upgrades by the end of the year. Following the announcement, the price of AXS tokens is up 20% since the beginning of the month.

⚡ The Year Ahead for NFTs

NFT marketplaces are the crown jewels of the industry. They are highly scalable cash flow businesses that are not dependent on the success of any individual NFT project.
They operate in a growth market that could expand to trillions of dollars one day. Despite the bear market, OpenSea (OS) still generated >$500M in revenue this year (and over $1.8B in total fees), so it’s no wonder that many challengers have arisen.
Heading into 2021, OpenSea was one of the only NFT marketplaces available, benefiting from relatively little competition. As NFTs gained popularity, other marketplaces started to emerge.

But OpenSea already had a big head start in terms of supply (NFTs listed) and demand. OpenSea was the default marketplace if you wanted to buy and sell NFTs.

Strong tailwinds will accelerate the mainstream usage and adoption of NFTs in 2023. One of these tailwinds is big tech embracing NFTs.
Instagram enables creators to mint, buy, and sell NFTs on Polygon while also supporting NFTs on Solana, Ethereum, and Flow. Reddit launched its collectible avatars with over 3M crypto wallets created. YouTube includes NFTs in new creator tools.
Apple allows in-app minting, buying, and selling of NFTs — although there is controversy over its intentions with its blocking of Coinbase Wallet’s NFT transfer feature unless 30% of gas fees were paid to it.
Web2 companies own the distribution channels that give them access to billions of users today. The top social media platforms have hundreds of millions to billions of monthly active users (MAUs).
By leveraging their expertise in building great UX products and integrating with familiar payment systems like Apple Pay, these platforms can abstract away a lot of the friction in onboarding new people onto NFTs.
Many are already developing their own NFT initiatives, some of which are likely to launch in 2023.
For more on prominent themes in NFTs, Delphi members can read our Delphi Pro report here.

🐣 Notable Tweets

Kevin O’Leary and FTX

Good Morning Everyone!

Kevin O’Leary got paid $15MM to be FTX spokesperson…

– Genevieve Roch-Decter, CFA (@GRDecter) Dec 8, 2022

Update from OpenSea

Before Jan 2nd, OpenSea will transfer ownership of the Operator Filter Registry to a multi-sig controlled by a collective incl. @ourzora @manifoldxyz @foundation @superrare @niftygateway & @opensea.

Meet the Creator Ownership Research Institute (CORI) corinstitute.co 🧵

– OpenSea (@OpenSea) Dec 8, 2022