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

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😅 Oh boy, what a week! 

On Monday, memes felt dim-witted, our wallets weighed the lightest in months, we psychologically felt poorer than people on the streets, had ice soup for lunch, wondered how it’d feel like having at least fries and burgers as a guarantee, wrestled with thoughts about abandoning the industry for the sake of our sanity, cursed bears, questioned every decision, and doubted every strategy to only find out that the flash crash was kinda prrrr..prrrr…prrrrr-edictable, had we paid enough attention to the moon and the Chinese calendar. 

But well, we didn’t. It’s always a day late and a dollar short, ain’t it?

📉 The freefall 

To contextualize the crash, the negative ROI that BTC registered during the first 6 days of this month was worse than 90% of the drops — the Covid crash, the FTX collapse, the ‘18 bear trap — that BTC has experienced in the same time frame over the last 10 years.

In fact, at its lowest point, it was even worse than 95% of the 6-day corrections we’ve seen in the last decade.

💹 The immediate about-turn

Everything did seem helter-skelter at first, but lo and behold, the sun is out — bright and shining — already. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were great from the recovery POV and Friday so far doesn’t seem disappointing either. 

Memes like MOG and WIF that dropped to lows of $0.0000007368 and $1.07 at the start of this week have already bounced to create weekly highs around $0.000001677 and $1.957 respectively. This means, our bags are up 126% and 82.9% already. So memes did dump hard but have also managed to pump back harder. 

Barring memes, the SOL/ETH chart was the most seductive, with the pair going on to script a new ATH of 0.06438. Valhalla! 

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🔻 Jump’s dumpin’

The rumors about Jump shutting shop spread even further this week. However, at every given chance, Mert has pounced in with a “Jump has not exited/did not leave crypto” tweet. 

Jump has liquidated almost its entire bag of ETH holdings, meanwhile, its stablecoin holdings are currently around its all-time high. 

A lot can be speculated: 

• They might have reached a settlement with the CFTC and chose to part ways with ETH to pay up because it is evidently been underperforming vs. its peers; But again, there is no reason why this should be off-the-record 

• The selling could also be a part of the liquidation process at the instructions of the CTFC to wind down its crypto operations

• Jump indulged in major transfers during the weekend, i.e. right before the crash. Maybe they expect another brief hiccup moment. So, instead of storing funds in risk assets like Ether, they are keeping dry powder in the form of stables ready on the sidelines to buy lower

• Or maybe their smart-money instinct told them that the pre-crash sell-off was indeed a profitable exit for them

• The team could be using funds to borrow the yen to fund its HFT operations

• Jump’s feet are deeply immersed in the stock market waters, their crypto biz is fairly insignificant; Who knows if they’ve been slapped with margin calls for their loans and are merely tryna raise capital at this stage by liquidating the slowest crypto horse?

• Maybe they had put contracts nearing expiration and were just attempting to manipulate the price of the asset by selling their own bags 

Also, if you remember, Alameda Research’s CEO John Samuel Trabucco, aka Sam Trabucco, opted for a curiously timed early retirement in mid-2022, right before the collapse of FTX. Jump Crypto’s President Kanav Kariya also stepped down towards the end of June and if dots were to be connected… 

By no means am I tryna instill FUD. There are ifs and buts and question marks still lingering in the air, but it's always better to stay informed about all the possible scenarios than stay in the dark and hope that all is well. 

I did reach out to Jump Crypto earlier this week asking them about the current state of affairs, the overall health of the company, the validity of the rumor mill claims, etc., but they unfortunately continue to remain tight-lipped. 

👋 Wassup with Walz, Shapz? 

Even before Tem Walz — the Guvernor of Minisoda — was officially picked by Horris as her right arm, Walz-related Politi-Fi meme coins started soaring.

Solana-based $walz was one such coin. Around mid-week, its market cap was worth around $1 million. In fact, the asset pulled off an effortless 2113.8% rally within the blink of an eye. However, it succumbed to a steep correction right after. At the moment, its market cap is down to $290k.

Likewise, another Walz variant launched on Ethereum.

This low cap $WALZ coin pumped much much harder — by more than 36,500%. However, the hype immediately faded after the official announcement, and the coin succumbed to a steep retracement. Its market cap is currently hovering around just $136k when compared to its $700k+ figure registered earlier this week.

Coins-related to Pencilveinya Guvernor Josh Shapero, the other VP contender, also had a good few days at the office before the official name was unveiled. One coin, going by the ticker $Shapero rose by close to 4400% but is currently chillin’ in Tank City. 

Amongst the Presidential candidate-related coins, two Trump-related coins — DJT and RTR — got rug pulled.

💸 It's raining money  

Overall, July was a great month from the funding perspective. Money continues to flow into the ecosystem. As highlighted by Colin Wu, the figure registered a 37.8% MoM spike, surpassing the $1 billion mark.

🌅 DAWN - The solar panels of the Internet  

Protocol innovation-wise, the Solana-based DePIN project DAWN [decentralized autonomous wireless network] was under the spotlight this week. Wireless internet provider Andrena amassed $18 million in funding to develop DAWN to help provide decentralized internet services. The round was led by Dragonfly, with participation from CMT Digital, Castle Island Ventures, and Wintermute.

At the moment, DAWN is operational on the testnet. Breaking down how it will all function, Andrena co-founder Neil Chatterjee said that DAWN intends to “do to the internet what solar panels did to electricity.

The same way consumers own and generate their own utility and sell their excess back to the grid, there is now an opportunity to do the same with wireless home and business Internet.”

DAWN is underpinned by "proof of backhaul.” This mechanism ensures that nodes have a working connection to the wider internet. Decentralization FTW.

Also, even as other chains are trying to step up their game, Solana continues to be the most attractive home base for DePIN projects.  

🐒 And finally…  

Started off this newsletter on such a pessimistic note, yet there’s so much hope. Devs continue devving, and smart continue backing, making sure we have a strong fundamental base to fall back on. 

Nevertheless, this week was one hell of a roller coaster ride. We screamed, we yelled, yet we survived. I can go on and on, but it is sunset time already, and I oughta take my eyes off the screen. So, off I go. 

Make sure you touch some grass this weekend too, you deserve it all. 

Until next time,  

Chin tapak dam dam