Gm. Hope you all had a very happy National Thank God I'm Not SBF Day.

FRESH POWDER

Looking at three funds that recently topped up their coffers.

CRYPTO

SBF Takes a Massive L

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of crypto exchange FTX, was forced to sell the company to crypto exchange Binance due to liquidity concerns.

Just a few weeks ago, SBF was seen as the golden child of crypto destined to become the next Warren Buffet. Everyone knew he planned to give away his wealth carefully over time. Well, he just gave 94% of his $14.6 billion away in 1 day. Yolo, I guess.

What the heck happened?

SBF's other company Alameda Research had their balance sheet leaked two days ago.

With the leak, it became clear to the world they had very heavy exposure to FTX's native currency FTT. This made people realize how fragile their relationship was. If FTT tokens fell, then Alameda would be screwed. If Alameda sold their tokens, FTX was screwed.

CZ, the founder of Binance and the original investor in FTX, announced his company would be selling their $2.1 billion worth of FTT they received from their exit from FTX equity last year. From there, shit hit the fan.

Aftermath

This caused everyone to freak out and try to take their crypto out of FTX — a good old classic bank run except the bank is a shiny FTX website.

When FTX couldn't give back people's money, they halted withdrawals and called up Binance to bail them out. Binance ended up buying FTX for pennies on the dollar.

While CZ said that this was not a move against their competitor, but rather a safeguard to protect themselves following the Luna crisis earlier this year.

Considering CZ went on to tweet 2 lessons he learned while demolishing SBF, I'm really not believing that whole "this is not a move against our competitor" thing.

Sounds a lot more like an evil genius playing Twitter Battleship to me.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Mastodon Takes Off

Anytime something monumental happens, there are always people that threaten drastic action.

“If Trump wins, I’m moving to Canada!”, “If we trade Harden, I’m done with the Nets”, and now, “If Elon buys Twitter, I’m leaving for good”.

Most of the time, they don’t actually follow through. But with Twitter, people seem to be leaving the platform en masse. Mastodon has been all over the timeline the last week.

What Is Mastodon?

No, it's not a dinosaur. Mastodon is a “free, open-source decentralized social media platform” first launched in 2016 by software developer Eugen Rochko.

Although it markets itself as a Twitter alternative, the look and feel of Mastodon are more akin to Discord. Instead of one continuous timeline, Mastodon has servers that all connect to the Mastodon “fediverse” but each with its own unique content and rules.

Other key differences include posts ordered chronologically not algorithmically, no ads, and no rules beyond what the servers dictate.

An Alternative Boom

Even though Mastodon is the most popular among the Twitter alternatives, with more than 1 million active monthly users and 500,000 new signups since Elon’s takeover, it is far from the only option for those seeking something new:

• Web3 options such as Farcaster and Lens Protocol

• Established platforms making a comeback such as Tumblr

• Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s new project BlueSky

• Parler, which was recently acquired by Kanye.

Although many exciting social media projects are being built, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here; it is going to be very difficult to dethrone Twitter.

The funny thing is while there has been a surge in discussion around Mastodon, Elon tweeted that this was the highest week of Twitter usage EVER.

Never forget the birds survived while the dinosaurs all died.

QUICK HITS

Seed Round

Stat: The Feds have recovered and seized $3.36 billion in Bitcoin stolen a decade ago. I just wish they could recover the AirPods I got stolen last week.

Story we’re watching: Microsoft’s $68.7 billion gaming merger with Activision Blizzard is under investigation by the EU. Obviously, this is not what Microsoft wants to hear, but it may be beneficial for gamers.

Rabbit hole: Generative AIs Narrow The Taste Gap (Every)

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON

• A covid outbreak and semiconductor shortage in China has Apple worried they won’t be able to make enough iPhones for the holiday season.

• Wordle now has an editor in charge of picking the answer. Thank God.

• Elon is now looking to rehire some of the axed Twitter staff. Oh how the turns tables.

• There’s a possible Ebola outbreak in Uganda.

THREE LIES AND A HEADLINE

News is so weird these days. Three of these headline are fake stories from The Onion while one is actually true. Can you spot the truth amongst the fakes?

A. Most Brilliant Ways Elon Musk Plans To Make Twitter Profitable

B. A Messy Marital Split Tarnishes a Roman Soccer Legend

C. What To Say To Someone Struggling With Inflation

D. Are American Ants Too Small?

LAYOFFS TRACKER

Notable layoffs this week:

Global-E: 40 people (5%)

Mythical Games: 32 people (10%)

Smarkets: 30 people (25%)

FOUNDERS CORNER

The best resources we came across that will help you become a better founder, builder, or investor.

🗄 One of our readers writes Workspaces, a newsletter to 9,000+ readers that explores the workspaces of creatives and builders.

🍎 Balaji explains why Apple can pull off amazing hardware, but most companies can't.

🗺 The Playbook to a Product Hunt Launch by Demand Curve

THREE HEADLINES ANSWER

B