ARB you having the time of your life?!

Ok ok, warning now… there are likely to be some ARB jokes in today’s newsletter because the excitement is still real as we look at how it went.

Bitcoin is still sitting comfy at $28,000, Ethereum is trying to decide if it wants to break towards $2,000 before the Shanghai upgrade and the SEC is still set out on spreading FUD across the entire crypto space.

Shout out to this blocmates community legend 👇

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Here's what's inside today.

The big topics. 

🔥 $ARB Airdrop = Free Money
🔥 SEC vs Coinbase round 2
🔥 Do Kwon BUSTED!

DeFi insights & project updates.

🖼 CathartesNFT official minting April 3rd & 4th
📅 Vertex Protocol’s private beta
🦧 Chart of the day, $ARB… back to $4.7?

Hot off the press.

🐮 Radix secures $10m fresh funding in a bear market
🐻 Justin Sun vs SEC, alleged market manipulation
👨🏻‍💼 What the FED?! Mark these dates

Plus Twitter Reads from @DCBExperience, @DigitsCapital and @0xkhan_!

🔥 The big topics.

🔥 Arbitrum Airdrop

TLDR: Really? You need a TLDR?! Ok, ok…

What happened? The most historical day in all of crypto happened, that's what… ARBy Day, baby! We saw 1,162,166,000 tokens gifted to ecosystem users, farmers and sybilers totalling close to $1.7bn (at the current price $1.5).

• $ARB token launched which;

• Crashed the network only to;

• Force people into diamond handing whilst;

• The lucky few dumped from the highs of $4.7 and now;

• We wait to see the next move of the DAOs.

As the price tanked to the lows of $1, whales scooped up huge bags to create liquidity pools earning themselves over $500k in trading fees.

99 early winners

Oh and this guy who may have just managed to sell the peako top

Why it matters: Because we can now be at peace. That “wen airdrop?!” has finally been completed! phew 

Are you prepared for a new era of Arbitrum, anon?

• Arbitrum Orbit gives devs the opportunity to build a layer 3 network on top of Arbitrum.

• DAO Governance makes Arbitrum the first EVM chain to reach stage 2 of becoming fully decentralized as the power for change is in OUR hands.

• Turbo Boosting Growth by injecting a serious amount of free liquidity into the ecosystem along with top-tier projects flooding over to capture a percentage of it. Oh, and the micrcap space… that's probably going to help.

Is Arbitrum a future top-10 coin?!

PS. Do these last 25% of people not know what day it was?!

🏦 The SEC vs Coinbase

TLDR: SEC Chair Gary Gensler wants to be in charge and he isn’t happy.

He also clearly didn’t get the memo about the Aribtrum airdrop!

What happened? The SEC served Coinbase with a ‘Wells notice’ due to the identification of potential violations of the U.S. securities law. AKA we don’t like your staking services!

This is a strange move by the SEC as Coinbase is the poster boy for compliance and wants to achieve smart regulation and a rule book everyone can work towards. I mean check it, the SEC even reviewed Coinbase before it went public after mentioning staking 57 times!

You’ll remember that the SEC previously came after Coinbase for “security violations” about its Ethereum staking back in February.

According to Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal, who mentioned that the SEC and Coinbase had been in talks to “build a path of registration,” this wells notice seemingly came out of nowhere blindsiding them.

It makes you think, how can crypto exchanges and projects comply with a rule book that officials are reluctant to write despite touting “regulations are needed!”

It’s now Coinbases turn to have the spotlight as they fight this head-on while Gary Gensler fails to be the big daddy dawwwwg.

Why it matters: This is net positive for crypto and Coinbase as it is their time to shine and become the hero in this SEC vs crypto saga. A win for Coinbase will mean a win for crypto and this should begin to lay down the foundations for an actual rule book.

Plus, it’s major publicity brownie points for Coinbase as they look to move operations to the land of carnivals in Brazil.

😱 Do Kwon Caught

TLDR: Luna Founder and market destroyer, Do Kwon was caught in Montenegro after trying to claim the Arbitrum airdrop on public WiFi, according to sources close to the matter.

What happened? According to a Tweet from Montenegro Interior Minster Filip Adzic, Do Kwon has been “arrested at Podgorica airport with forged documents.” Officials are currently confirming his identification.

Why this matters: Because we just MIGHT be about to see justice served to one of the most infamous crypto villains of all time.

👀 DeFi insights & project updates.

The World of DeFi.

• Arbitrum launched a token (the biggest day in crypto history, duh!) check out what we at blocmates had to say. (YouTube)

• Vertex Protocol’s private beta is soon to be announced in discord (airdrop for those who use the protocol). (Twitter) (blocmates review)

• Timeswap Labs have just launched the first lending & borrowing market for the $ARB token on Arbitrum. (Twitter)

• Perpy Finance gets listed on BitGet with Nitro Pool PRY/USDC going live on Camelot. (Twitter)

• Plutus DAO & Camelot DEX both add $1m incentivised $ARB pools. (Twitter) (Twitter)

The Land of NFTs.

• CathartesNFT official minting April 3rd & 4th (Twitter)

• MindGames NFTs are now tradeable in their Tavern and will be launching an $ARB trading pair (Twitter)

• Reddit Collectible Avatars Gen 3 is coming soon. No official announcement yet BUT hints are being dropped in the Reddit forums (Reddit)

Governance Updates.

• Beranouns, the official name service of Bera Chain has submitted a proposal to the Bera holders to vote for the style, format and name of the service. (Twitter)

• Vesta Finance has submitted a proposal to add a percentage of its ARB tokens as collateral for liquidity incentives and delegate governance rights. (Governance)

• AAVE’s “Harmony Recovery Plan” voting ends on March 26th. (Snapshot)

Chart of the day. $ARB to $2?

Crypto Twitter is screaming for it and Fibonacci lines are confirming a $2 is possible in the short term.

• Bull case. Hype maintains, liquidity providers still earn big $$$ pushing the price towards $2 or even back to the dex listing price of $4.7.

• Bear case. The rotation out of the ecosystem happens and we fall back to a $1.

🗞 Hot off the press.

🐮 Bullish News.

• Mysten Labs to buy back equity as FTX debtors agree to sell back the $95m token holding FTX holds after the $300m funding round. This could be bullish for Aptos and the future of Sui. (Cointelegraph)

• Bitcoin to the moon! Literally, as SpaceX send a wallet key attached to a Lunar Rover. Get there first and win yourself 62 Bitcoin which will be funded by a 24,000 NFT collection. (The Block)

• Radix secures $10m in their latest round of funding led by DWF Labs ahead of the launch of Babylon mainnet launch allowing smart contract capability on the Radix network. (CoinDesk)

🐻 Bearish News.

• US Banking Turmoil can’t be contained as creditor rating services Moody’s warns of the growing danger banks and the US economy faces. (Watcher Guru)

• Yellen Treasury is ready to react and take “additional action” to stabilise banks by deploying more funds to ensure depositors’ funds are safe. (CNBC)

• Justin Sun vs SEC. The Tron Founder is being accused of market manipulation by wash trading. Whilst his celebrity shill team including, Jake Paul, Ne-Yo and Souljah Boy are being charged for “illegal touting” the TRX and BTT tokens. (Reuters)

👨🏻‍💼 What the FED?!

In the news next week, US Consumer Confidence, US Unemployment Claims, US Core PCE with both Yellen & Lagarde speaking.

🐥 Twitter reads.

@DCBExperience hosted Grant and Jedi of blocmates on her recent podcast… yeah it’s not often you hear these two talk about themselves… tune in here!

@DigitsCapital, you either love 'em or hate ’em but this thread brings up good points on timing, trade size and managing your positions.

@0xkhan_ takes a look at a number of Polygon’s native projects ahead of the official release of the Polygon zkEVM.

And on that note, thanks for reading, catcha apes in the next edition!

blocmates team 🫡

👇 PS. share with a fren for some loot 👇

🤝 A final word.

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