🧨 Euphoria Unleashed: Six Figures, DeSci Buzz, and the Gen-Z Drama

This was probably one of the most eventful weeks I’ve seen so far this year. The past few days have been characterized by euphoria and heightened speculative activity. Dormant CT participants have been woken up. Everyone has been constantly refreshing charts and checking their wallet balances and P&L status. 

From all the three angles — the fundamental, technical, and entertainment — it was a roller coaster this week and I’m here to break it all down for you. So, let’s get started, shall we?! 

BTC started its upstreak when everyone — including the blocmates ape tribe — was chilling in Bangkok. Since then, there has been no looking back. Just four hours ago, the market’s largest asset scripted a new ATH. 

Ninety-nine thousand Americano dollars for 1 BTC — these were the words that we desperately manifested to hear during the market’s worst days. The tables have turned and here we are, standing at the brink of attaining a six figure valuation for the first time ever. In all likelihood, we’re gonna register a monthly close above $100k. 

You may ask, “What triggered the pump?” Well, spot Bitcoin ETF options trading went live on Wall Street — that gave the price a push. Alongside, Saylor has been buying the top and retail seems to be all locked in. 

We have had a lot of developments shape up from Trump’s camp this week. First and foremost, his media company is in advanced talks to buy crypto trading venture Baktt. If you aren’t aware, Baktt is backed by Intercontinental Exchange — the owner of the New York Stock Exchange. 

Once the news broke, Trump Media’s shares jumped 16%, while Baktt registered one gigantic green candle accounting for its massive 162% hike. Trade was halted several times, owing to the brewing volatility. Sigh, this is where DeFi earns a point. 

Moving on, Trump is also contemplating creating a crypto role in the White House. Such a role has never existed in the past, and it would mark the beginning of a new era altogether. 

DeFi has been faring well. From the bull market lens, it has been gaining traction too. You don’t buy my word, then consider this — In the US, Solana wallet Phantom has overtaken WhatsApp and Instagram on ios App Store rankings. 

Project fundamentals are getting stronger too. The active loan figure on Aave, for instance, was hovering around $3.4 billion at the start of 2024. Now it has already crossed the $10 billion mark, reminiscent of last bull run’s figure.  

Mindshare wise, however, DeSci gave tough competition to DeFi this week. This phrase was buzzing on everyone’s timelines all of a sudden. Buterin and CZ attending the DeSci Day in Bangkok ignited the fire even more.

Despite the hype, folks like Smokey the Bera are skeptical and have warned users against taking the bait. In his words,

“As someone who has helped bring multiple drugs into the clinic, the vast vast majority of DeSci is misinformed at best, or a scam at worst. With the exception of crowdfunding, there are few to no differentiated uses.” 

Pump.Sci is an interesting project within the DeSci realm that managed to garner attention too this week. Boiling it down: It’s nothing but a game where you’ve to conduct scientific experiments.

What’s the aim? Pretty simple — to maximize the lifespan of the organism [worms, flies, mice] on which experiments are conducted upon. Every test is livestreamed and you can see how each compound works and how organisms are reacting to it. Associated tokens can be traded on Pump.fun. Pretty cool project, but we’ll have to wait and see if it manages to pass the test of time or not. 

Since we’re anyways talking about Pump.fun, you must have probably heard about that Gen-Z kid that launched a token called QUANT. He rugged it at $30k and walked away with the profits. The market cap kept increasing and within a couple of hours, it ended up surpassing the $4 million threshold. 

The kid then created a couple of other tokens right after: LUCY and SORRY. He sold ‘em for additional profits roughly worth $25,000. People are calling him a ‘wannabe Sahil.’ I’d say he’s way too shrewd for his age. 

Several tokens related to his family revolving around the name ‘The Cabal’ have been put to float on Pump.fun. One of them amassed 800k in capitalization. Other kid-related tokens like ‘Quantbulla,’ ‘Dark Quant,’ etc. have also been launched — basically everyone’s havin’ fun. 

Pump.fun has been one of the most successful launches this cycle. The platform minting $100 million in revenue in just 217 days made it the fastest-growing application in the history of crypto, and eye-grabbing stats like this end up attracting competitors.

Justin Sun launched SunPump right off the bat, while ‘cryptofishx’ — the co-founder of Trader Joe — launched Token Mill this week. It’s live on Solana and is based on the Bonding Curve Automated Market Maker [BCAMM] mechanism.  

Creating tokens is pretty simple on this platform — pick a template, customize the bonding curve [BC], transfer ownership, send tokens to the BC, instigate creator locks, and start trading. You can also tamper with the vesting periods, unlock cliffs, and staking. 

There are a truckload of coins that are launched on Pump.fun on a daily basis. But here, on Token Mill, the trash/scammy coins can be filtered out implying minimized rug pulls, honeypots.  

With a market cap of over $100 billion, MicroStrategy has officially made it to the top 100 US publicly traded companies. Barry Silbert’s Digital Currency Group is launching a new AI-focused subsidiary called Yuma to foster the development of the Bittensor network. Meanwhile, asset manager Goldman Sachs is looking to create a separate industry-owned digital asset company. The spin-out is expected to be executed within the next 12-18 months. 

Well, these were pretty much the key updates of this week. Trade safe. Don't get carried away by the rising tides. Stay in your zone. Continue HODLing your long-term conviction bags. See you from the other side of the $100k fence next time, adios!

Signing off, 

Lavina