🌅 What Happened This Week in Crypto? Lavina Checkin’ in From the Beach

If you successfully shielded yourself from car break-ins, hotel robberies, on-street strong-arm mugging, and physical assaults in Brussels this week and are here reading this newsletter, then kudos! 

🐻 Proof of Adoption

Leaving aside the downbeat incidents, a lot of cool stuff happened at the conference. People stepped into the Base Cafe and bought coffee for 2 USDC via their Coinbase wallet. It not only tasted better but also felt free because the magic internet beans paid for it, instead of fiat earned by shedding blood and sweat.

A bunch of announcements and revelations  - including details about Starknet staking - were made. Teams disapproved the idea of vanilla chains and instead discussed other novel architectural ideas. Cross-collaboration between ecosystems was evidenced. Meditation events were hosted. To top it all off, a Bera-themed wedding was also hosted with a cake that read, “Dump on retail but never dump each other.” 

🍆 The Lord speaks about hardening

Side events below up, and were a greater success than the main on-stage events. Buterin, however, stole the show with his drenched arrival. Without caring about being wet, he gave a compelling speech about hardening the Ethereum blockchain as a base layer, answered questions, gave people his mail address to discuss projects, and left the venue on foot, sans a bodyguard. If this ain’t humility at its peak, then I really don’t know what is.

He batted for protocol simplification and chalked out a list of technical improvements that could fix weaknesses that exist on Ethereum. He asserted,

“So if you want a robust ecosystem, it needs to be simple. It should not have these, like, 73 random hooks and some kind of backwards compatibility because of some random dumb thing that this random guy called Vitalik came up with in 2014.” 

📉 Bummer ETF launch

On one hand, the clock to the official Ether ETF launch is ticking. On the other, there are firms betting against crypto firms by launching boomer ETFs. YieldMax’s FIAT ETF launched on NYSE Arca this week. The fund provides investors short exposure to COIN, and IMHO, it might not pass the test of time.

✍️ Story Protocol

One really interesting unveil that managed to grab my eyeballs this week was Story Protocol. Backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Paris Hilton's 11:11 Media, and Samsung Ventures, Story is all set to launch its Layer 1 network focussed on IP management later this year.

The project already has over 50 clients - including NFT projects - who are looking to build tools revolving around IP into their business.

IP is literally all around us. Pepe is IP. AI models are IP. Beyonce's voice is IP. A blueprint for a new invention is IP. Mickey Mouse is IP. A Fortnite skin is IP. Slogans, logos, designs, everything is IP. It is a massive industry that encompasses the creation, protection, management, and commercialization of rights.

Artists will be able to register their IP on Story and allow models to be trained on top. If the models generate revenue, the artists will be rewarded. Furthermore, IP assets on the protocol can also be used as DeFi collateral. 

Basically, creators will be in the driver’s seat and can set the T&C of how others can use their work, and how much they will have to pay upfront. Right from royalties to restrictions, they will be given the freedom to chalk out details. 

In the words of the protocol’s Co-founder, Seung Yoon “SY” Lee,

“This is not another crypto infra masturbation with some slight esoteric technical tweaks.”

However, all my respect started crumbling when I came across Lee’s tiff with Bera’s Smokey. He branded Berachain as another “defi circle jerk” and started over-asserting that he and his team are tackling “actual problems” that matter in the age of AI (IP provenance, attribution, and compensation) and are working towards the “bigger adoption” of Web3 and crypto. Pompous AF. He needs to take modesty lessons from Buterin, SMH.

🤓 ICYMI

Don’t forget to catch on this week’s content at blocmates.com!

⚽️ All eyes on the ball

It’d be a crime if I didn’t talk about football in this edition. On the news of Argentina making it to the Copa América finals, the ARG token pumped hard and climbed up to $2.4. It did register a drawdown to $1.9 right after. Nevertheless, it’s up around 91% on the weekly timeframe.

The bean-eaters have also advanced to the finals, but most Harry Kane and England-related token variants on Solana seem to be rugged or either have withered volume and bare minimum liquidity. 

🐳 Hail the whales

On one hand, equities seem to be floating in la la land around their record highs, while Bitcoin has evidently been underperforming.

The German government continues to dump coins, but the silver lining is that BTC has been holding well. We haven’t nuked, yet. 

The ongoing whale accumulation spree needs to be given some credit. According to data from CryptoQuant, BTC whales have been rapidly adding to their holdings. 

Their monthly growth rate currently stands around 6.3%, the fastest pace since April 2023. The rising curve on the chart is a testament to the rising demand and could provide Bitcoin with a support cushion as it steepens. For now, we continue to hover around the $57k threshold.

💰 Welcome the big dogs 

Despite the blah state of the market, institutions seem to be FOMO-ing. Goldman, for instance, wants to expand its foray into the crypto arena by focusing on tokenization. As reported by blocmates recently, the investment banking giant is looking to launch three new tokenization products revolving around debt issuance and the fund complex later this year in the United States and Europe.

Parallelly, Standard Chartered’s crypto arm Zodia Custody is also in talks to acquire a crypto OTC firm belonging to billionaire hedge fund manager Alan Howard. 

The institutions are coming, and with their support, we’ll hopefully wake up to a new dawn with the adoption sun shining its brightest.

🦍 And finally…

That’s it from me for now. Taking my eyes off the screen to enjoy the sunset. I shall see y’all within a fortnight. Until then, more power to thou to survive this chop-solidation!