Short-sellers collectively lost $50m as leading memecoins surged in price. PEPE, WIF, and BONK all hit all-time highs over the weekend - even Doge saw price gains. Memecoins, only recently stepping into the spotlight as legitimate speculative bets, have rapidly been gaining traction as an asset class not to be overlooked by investors and speculators.
Monday, March 4, 2024BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust and Fidelity Investments' Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund have emerged as the leaders of the spot Bitcoin ETF race so far. These two funds have captured 79% of total inflows while the rest have struggled to keep up, responding by reducing fees. Experts expect further concentration among the top ETFs and continuing fee wars as time goes on.
The Nigerian Government is fining Binance $10 billion for profits gained from what it deems as illegal transactions. The decision follows the recent detention of Binance executives as part of a larger crackdown on unpaid taxes and unregistered exchanges. This is in response to concerns that Binance's actions are destabilizing the Nigerian economy at a time when it is trying to stabilize its currency.
This thread explores financial nihilism, focusing on how it fosters increased financial risk-taking, particularly among younger generations. Apparently a response to rising costs of living, income inequality, and unaffordable housing, financial nihilism leads to strategic gambling for potential large payoffs, demonstrated in trends like the rise of 0DTE options and sports betting. Financial Nihilism is linked to cryptocurrency - it will likely play a large part in younger generations adopting the technology.
Bitcoin broke its all-time high yesterday, eclipsing $69,000 before swiftly dropping to $59,700 after a sharp sell-off. This sharp drop led to over $1 billion in liquidations, one of the largest liquidation events since the last cycle. In the hours after this liquidation cascade, Bitcoin recovered to $62-$63k with overall leverage at a much lower level.
Grayscale has launched its first actively managed fund, the Grayscale Dynamic Income Fund (GDIF). The GDIF will initially own assets from nine blockchains, staking them to generate income. These cryptocurrencies include Aptos, Celestia, Coinbase Staked Ethereum, Cosmos, Near, Osmosis, Polkadot, SEI, and Solana. The earnings from staking will be distributed quarterly in U.S. dollars. The move is expected to introduce investors to the concept of multi-asset staking through a single convenient investment vehicle.
Stable Jack, a new protocol on Avalanche, was rolled out to build a yield-bearing stablecoin called aUSD. The aim of the initiative is to produce a capital-efficient, risk-free, decentralized yield-bearing stablecoin, creating an alternative stablecoin option for Avalanche users that is more efficient and easier than other options.
The guide offers tips for identifying small-cap cryptocurrency gems. It recommends using Dexscreener for filtering based on liquidity, pair age, and transaction volume. Etherscan can help in tracking notable wallets in new launches. Automated notifications about potential small caps and the use of tools that track high-profit trades on Ethereum are also encouraged. The guide also suggests monitoring new wallet activity as an indicator of project interest. These methods carry inherent trading risks.
The world of cryptocurrency is shifting towards the “Attention Theory of Value,” where the price of an asset depends largely on the amount of attention and investment it attracts. "Publisher-Exchanges," apps that combine attention and value, are predicted to rise, essentially becoming marketplaces of attention. These platforms could expand chances for asset creation, allowing inventive interaction and coordination. With embedded asset issuance and trading, "Publisher-Exchanges" have the potential to revolutionize how consumers interact with crypto.
The memecoin frenzy that has been brewing on Solana has boosted on-chain volumes to new records, exceeding $3.79 billion in volume per day. The success of coins like dogwifhat and the Book of Meme presale helped drive these volumes to new heights. This trend has helped Solana pass Ethereum in on-chain DEX volumes and has pushed the price of Solana to over $200.
A new Ordinals collection called Runestones was airdropped to early ecosystem participants last week. Runestones will transform into Runes tokens with the launch of the new UTXO-based Runes protocol, pioneered by Ordinals' creator Casey Rodarmor, offering a more efficient alternative to the BRC-20 token.
The Avalanche Foundation disclosed the first five memecoins owned under its Culture Catalyst program.
Memecoins, from Dogecoin to lesser-known tokens, play a vital role in pushing the boundaries of financial freedom and societal commitment to digital property rights. Memecoins are both a cultural and a financial phenomenon that represent a form of collective expression gained through emerging technologies.
Fidelity has amended its spot Ether ETF proposal to include staking to give customers an option to earn income on their holdings. If accepted, the firm will stake an undisclosed portion of its assets using one or multiple reliable staking providers. The news temporarily boosted Lido, a leading Ethereum staking protocol. While this is a seemingly positive development, analysts and betting markets are putting the likelihood of an Ether ETF approval by May at 35% or less.
Slerf, a sloth-themed memecoin on Solana, recently attracted $10 million in funding from a presale. The developer subsequently accidentally burned the liquidity pool and the presale proceeds. The coin unexpectedly surged in value due in part to the attention the mishap drew to the project. Despite the colossal mistake, Slerf recorded $1.7 billion in trading volume and was listed on several exchanges.
Popular memecoin WIF saw a sharp price increase after influential trader GCR acquired the original Dogwifhat meme image for 1,210 ETH.
Data indicates that BlackRock's IBIT, the largest spot bitcoin ETF, with an average trade size of $13,000, has so far primarily attracted retail investors.
The European Parliament's major committees have approved a ban on anonymous cryptocurrency transactions through hosted wallets. This aligns with the new Anti-Money Laundering legislation, which puts restrictions on cash transactions and anonymous digital payments. The ban specifically targets custodial crypto wallets offered by third-party providers. The decision sparked controversy in the space with some arguing that this is privacy infringement and others arguing that it isn’t a big deal.
A five-day streak of withdrawals from spot Bitcoin ETFs resulted in a record $888 million outflow last week, causing sentiment to shift in the space. Notably, Grayscale's GBTC had large outflows that may have been a result of the liquidation of Genesis. Despite lower inflows than recent weeks, trading volume for these products remained high, with volumes increasing around $22 billion to reach $164 billion.
In a clever business maneuver, Friendtech has decided to make its points system 100% community-driven, going so far as to re-allocate the VC’s points (and presumably tokens) to the community. After a fast start and disappointing follow on as its points campaign dragged on with no token release, Friendtech has sparked excitement once again with its most recent decisions about points, with points values rising on Whales market to over $4/point.
This thread provides a step-by-step guide for finding potential winning memecoins early using Photon on Solana. While this low-liquidity method may result in losses, it is possible to generate significant returns with memecoins. Key strategies include screening for risk profile, ignoring copycats, assessing community activity, and never fully exiting a successful coin. Success with this method depends significantly on broader market conditions.
Three major players in the crypto AI space, SingularityNET, Fetch.ai, and Ocean Protocol, have announced a merger to create the ‘Artificial Superintelligence Alliance’, a decentralized AI network. The alliance merges $FET, $OCEAN, and $AGIX tokens into one - $ASI. This groundbreaking move aims to accelerate the path towards Artificial General Intelligence, provide an alternative to Big Tech's AI advancements, and facilitate more ethical AI development and utilization.
A US District Judge has ruled that the SEC’s securities lawsuit against Coinbase can proceed, despite the firm’s attempt at getting a dismissal. This decision implies that cryptocurrency transactions could fall under the SEC's jurisdiction, despite Coinbase's objections. The judge dismissed claims against Coinbase's Wallet product, stating the SEC has failed to prove that it acts as a 'broker'.
DAI-issuer MakerDAO is considering adding $600 million DAI into Ethena’s yield-bearing USDe and sUSDe stablecoins via the Morpho lending protocol. It added an initial $100 million on March 29th, enhancing DAI yields with USDe’s funding rate arbitrage strategy. Some DAO members are hesitant to ramp up Maker’s exposure to the relatively new protocol so quickly, though the proposers maintain that the risk parameters are acceptably low.
This post breaks down the most profitable industry sectors this year. Memecoins are the clear leader, with a 1,313% market capitalization increase, followed by RWA and AI at around 250%.
Ethena earns yield, paid out via its USDe token, by delta hedging perpetuals on centralized exchanges.
All successful crypto products are inherently consumer-oriented. Tokens are the true crypto products - this can be seen by examining universal attributes of thriving consumer brands like desire-based pricing, power law consumption, and addictive properties. This challenges the notion of “consumer crypto” as distinct from infrastructure by suggesting that the most successful crypto applications already possess the key traits of consumer adoption.
Five categories of memecoins based on how they start: meme-first, community-first, token-first, product-first, and event-based memecoins.
The cryptocurrency market sharply declined over the weekend, with the broader market falling around 10% on Saturday. Though there is no concrete reason for this drop, some popular reasons include dropping liquidity because of tax payments due on April 15th and the Iranian drone strikes against Israel. The market recovered slightly after Iran's Permanent Mission to the United Nations said its strikes were concluded.
$256 million worth of long positions were liquidated in Bitcoin's recent price drop. Analysts expect this to be a short-term downturn before the market improves. Despite the dip, demand from Bitcoin whales is growing, with demand from holders outstripping the market supply of new Bitcoin for the first time.