🔥 The Great War Against DeFi Has Begun

🗞 Market commentary.

GM lads and lasses.

Today, Bitcoin finds itself on the smoother side of a crab chop range, and as long as we keep closing above $69.6K, we're in a good spot. This means our beloved Ethereum and altcoins can hopefully get a breather as well, as long as this condition is met. If not, the chop continues, but it’s not a reason to panic, even if Bitcoin dips into the $65K range. 

The key is to remain cool, patient and not get chopped up in a tiny but dangerous range.

Remember the last time we experienced a regional banking crisis in the USA? Yep, almost exactly a year ago. Yesterday, we heard the news about FDIC preparing for yet another round. 

All the while, New York Community Bank started taking a -10 % hit, accumulating a 70 % loss since the beginning of the year. If any of you hold these pieces of the old dying world, make sure to follow the trades of U.S. representatives like Katherine Clark, who masterfully avoided this selloff by dumping her share on April 5th. I swear these government figures are the best traders! Oh, wait.

In other news, the SEC is back with its attacks against DeFi, as just yesterday, Uniswap received a nice good old Wells Notice. It’s so interesting that such a non-corrupted righteous agency as the SEC chooses to pick fights with the good actors of any industry so ridden with blatant scams (/s). 

But fear not. This is, as always, a temporary theatre. Regulations are like annoying bugs, which are eventually inevitably stomped out as the technology engrains itself into global society. Chances are, it won’t be any different with crypto.

📊 Luke’s Chart of the Day

PUPS/SOL 4H Log Chart

$PUPS is Bitcoin’s first memecoin, currently a BRC20 token paired with an Ordinals Rune Puppets NFT collection. You can now buy the BRC20 equivalent chart on Solana as well. 

When Runes are live after the halving, they will migrate the BRC20 to the new Runes standard with a mint/burn of 77% $PUPS / 23% Rune Puppets Ordinals NFTs. Ansem has given the chart a big boost - check out the giant fat finger on the 5th - but I think we’re going to continue up into the halving, at the very least until the Runes tokens are live.

Come by the Lucky Luke Discord channel for comments, to roast my picks or to pump your own bags. All banter is welcome any time!

🔥 Degen corner.

Runes Euphoria is Here, NOW

The excitement around Runes is palpable, and those who followed our coverage of Bitcoin's Runes a few weeks ago are now well-positioned to capitalize on the hype (full explanation here).The show is on. Magic Eden recently added a section specifically for “pre-runes” NFTs. All these will yield a Runes airdrop after the halving and the Runes release. As expected, all of these things, especially big players like PUPS and Rune Nodes, are going through rapid appreciation.

If you want to dig around the BRC-20 pre-runes, you can find those on the Unisat marketplace, for which you need a Unisat wallet. You will quickly notice the same thing happening here, and by now, it’s pretty obvious there is a new ORDI on the horizon (most likely one of the aforementioned big players, NFA).

After the Runes release itself, a lot of new projects will pop up to build infrastructure and capitalize on the new movement. Let’s check on a few of those, and remember, this is just for you to explore and make your own decisions. Here’s a list:

• Runesterminal

• BTC MACHINE

• AI Rune

• Rune X

• Nothing Protocol

• Rune Realms

• LFG

• Runestone Wizards

• Bitcoin Knight – Rune Kingdom

• Rune Mania Miner

• Pngs.xyz

Enjoy! 

👀 DeFi insights.

The important bits.

• Immutable (Gaming, L2) - Metalcore game launches - read

• Aevo (Derivatives L2) - Lists SWELL - read

• Unicorn (L1) - Airdrop claim for MOG holders live - read

• API3 (Oracles) - PENDLE / USD price feed is now available - read

• Smilee (DeFi) - Earn Campaign (Yield + ARB + Points) is live - read

• Picasso (LRT for Cosmos) - Partners with Redacted Cartel - read

• EtherFi (LRT) - Integrates SSV - read

• Protectorate (NFTFi) - Announces rebranding to Zaar - read

• NFTPerp (NFTFi) - Now open to everybody - read

📰 DeFi news.

Even more important bits.

• Google Cloud, Coinbase join EigenLayer as operators - read

• Stepn airdropping points worth $30M of GMT tokens - read

• Coinbase presents its new Coinbase Wallet - read

• Eigen Layer announces mainnet launch - read

• Franklin Templeton releases Eigen Layer research paper - read

• GBTC daily outflow hits record low of $17M - read

🫠 ICYMI.

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

Is Base The New Place To Play Shitcoins?

Research

Here's our report on what's been going down on Base and why it's taking off. We're also looking at some of the big winners so far and a couple of extra that have caught our eye.

Read More →

🐥 Tweet of the day.

To save you doom scrolling.

NFT Now goes degen. What do you think, are they correct in this case?

🦍 And finally…

Everything is ultra bullish. Su Zhu is back talking about the supercycle. ENA is the new never-ending safe yield protocol. Projects like Monad are starting to raise $225m rounds (even though overall VC funding is still low,  check here).

This must be just the beginning, right? Everything will be better in 2025, right? Well, we simply must count on every scenario, and especially if this aggressive kind of appreciation in Bitcoin continues without at least a multi-month slowdown, things can overheat. I highly recommend listening to the second half of this video and crafting a mental map for yourself. 

The bull run always ends when almost no one expects it.