🎇Everything Changes January 10th

🗞 Market commentary.

HO HO HO! Looks like this year, Santa is delivering his gifts in the form of brand-new on-chain memecoins.  

Imagine telling crypto investors at the start of the year that by Christmas, we'd be seeing Bitcoin ETF ads, and the Solana and Avalanche ecosystems would be bustling with retail – they'd have thought you were a joke! A whole brigade of macro doomers would have scoffed at the idea.

But here we are, with the New Year's outlook being a total reversal from the year's gloomy start. Mike Novogratz is keeping the excitement going, confidently stating that a Bitcoin spot ETF is set for a sure-shot approval on January 10th.

Meanwhile, BlackRock and the SEC have become the new dynamic duo, constantly and happily tweaking their ETF applications. And let's not forget Coinbase, currently in a state of euphoria, as it's prominently named as the ‘Prime Execution Agent’ in these ETF applications.

The culmination of events into a midterm market top, what do you think?

🤓 In today’s email.

• Degen corner. 2023 Roundup

• DeFi insights. 13 unmissable insights

• ICYMI. Still Early episode with Emin Gün Sirer, Xmass Shitcoin Church, and more

• Tweet of the day. Intern with an epic 2023 crypto review clip

• And finally. 2024 is our year

🔥 Degen corner.

2023 Roundup

What a year, seriously…

It’s like it was just yesterday when January 1st hit, the after-holiday haze, we’re right back at the desk. Subconsciously, most of us were preparing for another year of accumulation, those with a deeper macro mindset ready for a tough recession. By now, we all know very well what a basis point means, hawkish Powell, Stanley Druckenmiller, 10-year long bear market, another Big Short… prepared to capitalize.

“A decade-long Supercycle bubble of speculative crypto coins as a siren for the market top of the multi-decade Everything Bubble.” Cobie

11th January, cold day, sudden bounce across the crypto markets. Just another bear market rally. Short traders on deck, bear confidence still at levels of euphoria. Check the bookmarks - FED’s calendar - FOMC is on the 31st, after all. Capo tweets engagements at ATH.

These days marked the moment, the test. We are now at the bottom of the invisible Rollercoaster’s curve. For many still unnoticed, the direction of this ride is about to flip.

The Arbitrum and Optimism season was in full swing, DeFi at the forefront along with anticipation of the Arbitrum airdrop. Layer 1 blockchains are a prehistoric technology, Ethereum is Ultrasound Money. February is here in a mere blink. Why are Bitcoin maxis so angry? Ordinals? The first Rodarmor podcast. NFTs on Bitcoin? Definitely bullish, we'll bet on Ether Rocks of the next bull run.

“Still short and strong.” Capo

March. Is this a dream, or are we actually having fun on-chain again? Shapella upgrade is right around the corner. Ethereum might really flip Bitcoin this time. “It’s so deflationary and provides good yield.”

US banks are collapsing. Surely this is the start of the next black-swan event. Firing up the new Druckenmiller interview, time to learn more about macroeconomics. Oh, they are “only printing emergency liquidity to save the banks”. Last moments of the Bera’s glory. Arbitrum airdrop. Shapella upgrade went smooth, marked the 2023 DeFi top.

“Man, I wonder if SBF is going to be jailed for life, crypto is done after a fraud like this.”

As everyone watches the latest SBF Ritalin gossip, suddenly, the spring rolls in. “How is it almost spring already?”. Shorts underwater. “LOL, another PEPE coin.” Days go by, life-changing opportunity missed. Here we are, catching the PEPE memecoin echo bubble. Elon Musk tweets about Milady. “5 ETH?! I could have had dozens of these.”

AI revolution, Sam Altman did it. Chat GPT about to replace Google, degens on chain launch memecoins disguised as AI protocols. Schizo meta comes in strong, the ticker is $BITCOIN - everyone knows that. The summer fever rolls over just as swiftly as the year started. The only responsible behavior is trying to get LRTs airdrop, as the Eigen Layer and restaking innovation echoes. Another crack smoking memecoin, what is happening? 2021 Web3 Wagmi enthusiasts in disbelief.

Focus is there again, the after-summer haze suspends. Autumn smell, gaming talks are back with Merit Circle and Immutable at the forefront. L1s back in full force, Avalanche and Solana absolutely dominating the space. L2s a fading memory, anything interesting revolves either around BRC-20 bridges and infrastructure, or better yet, anything with a hat. January 2024 is around the block and something that was literally unspeakable at the start of this year happens: Bitcoin ETF commercials hit the screens and BlackRock’s Larry Fink replaces Saylor as the number one Bitcoin shiller.

Time to reflect.

How the hell did we get here? Friends, we are asking the very same things as you are. One thing’s for sure, though. As many were looking at those blasted FED calendars, blocmates were in the books, right next to you. Even as the leadership of Binance changes guard, we’re still here. We cannot promise you we’re going to always be right, but we can surely say we will stay at the very forefront edge of crypto happenings. And you can be damn sure that edge is moving very, very fast.

👀 DeFi insights.

The important bits.

• Milkway (TIA LST) – Releases LST protocol for Celestia - read

• Renzo (LRT) - Native ETH Restaking Going Live - read

• Persistence (Cosmos LSTfi) – Outline of 2023 achievements - read

• IPOR (DeFi) – Rate Swaps for stETH released - read

• Florence Finance (RWA) – Now offering 9.6% APY - read

• RabbitX (DEX) – RabbitX mobile app sees early success - read

• Gelato (Automation) – Gelato rollup platform to support Optimism - read

• Berachein (Metaverse) – Baka Bears mint announced for Dec. 28th - read

• Off the Grid (Gaming) – Announces early access for Discord members - read

• Redacted Cartel (DeFi) – pxETH expanding to Balancer, Curve and more - read

• Immutable (Gaming) – Announcing Web 3 Passport launch - read

• Phantom (Wallet) – Integrates Bitcoin support – read

• Pancake Swap (DEX) – Proposes to reduce token supply - read

📰 DeFi news.

Even more important bits.

• Circle adds Solana to chains used by EURC stablecoin - read

• NFT Trader hack results in massive NFT theft - read

• Bank of England allowed to test tokenization - read

• Dog Wif Hat makes it into mainstream news - read

• Ledger plans to compensate connect kit exploit victims - read

• Ark Invest continues to sell Coinbase shares - read

• Prometheum exchange (close to Garry Gensler) plans to launch in Q1 - read

🫠 ICYMI.

Life gets busy so here’s what you’ve missed.

Find all of it on blocmates.com and media network →

🐥 Tweet of the day.

To save you doom scrolling.

Intern’s Crypto Year in Review clip rocks.

🦍 And finally…

Friends, whether you caught your dream memecoin pump or not, crypto remains a realm of literally endless opportunities. This year, we've experienced firsthand how swiftly market sentiment can change. The macro doomers were quickly replaced by DeFi threadors, airdrop hunters, and memecoin peddlers, all in the blink of an eye. Predictions of recession were turned on their head by ETF news.

We went from despair and boredom to vibes of the immaculate type.

However, remember that the sentiment can swing back just as quickly. But even that isn't the end – it's just another opportunity. And 2024 is going to be brimming with these.

Thank you for sticking with us through this mad year that 2023 was. Keep those wallets safe and ready, eye on the chart and finger on the trigger, locked n‘ loaded. We're going to step into 2024 with a clean plan, solid execution, and undeniable style.

See you on the other side.