💥 TradFi Collapse = Time to Buy?

🗞 Market commentary.

Greetings to all newly minted Jupiter crypto whales.

Well, at least you would be if you’d been religiously reading blocmates content during the bear market (no worries, I missed it too).

While the timeline oscillates between ultra bullish and bloody bearish, one cannot help but notice the same thing in the chart, as BTC printed a huge monthly candle showing nothing but indecision.

On Wednesday, we had a chance to enjoy a good old FOMC show and hear the printer chief Jerome Powell mention the growing likelihood of rate cuts, which, for now, remain unchanged. The fact that we’re once again witnessing cracks in the banking system, with New York Community Bank’s stock plunging 45% in just 2 days, makes one ponder that the cuts might be announced sooner rather than later.

The printer era is just over the hill’s horizon, but this hill is littered with traps and FUD news, friends. Don’t lose your positions (like the Ripple cofounder Chris Larsen, who just got hacked for $113M).

If you still feel that overpowering need to keep pushing buttons, though, maybe go hunt some rare sats, or better yet, delve into the plenty of on-chain quests described in today’s Degen Corner. Whatever you do, just don’t let them get your coins before the big show truly begins.

🤓 In today’s email.

• Degen corner. From Zero to Crypto Hero

• DeFi insights. 33 unmissable insights

• ICYMI. Solana DePIN projects with Grant and 563, long convo with Jordi Alexander, and more

• Tweet of the day. Andrew Tate sparks a new meme

• And finally. Don’t fade those silly puppets

👌 A quick word from today’s sponsors.

But before we get to today’s Degen corner a quick word from today’s sponsors Voodoo Trade.

Voodoo is the first intent-based perpetuals DEX that integrates Eigenlayer Restaking and Composable LP Vaults into a multi-chain value capture ecosystem.

Their public sale LBP on Fjord Foundry will take place on Monday 5th February, 12:00PM UTC - you can participate here. 

🔥 Degen corner.

From Zero to Crypto Hero

You might have heard that a certain rumored 17-year-old made 7 figures from the Jupiter airdrop. Whether true or not, this airdrop has done well for many, and I cannot think of any other industry where money literally falls from the sky straight into your lap as you sit and push buttons in the blockchainverse.

There are (too) many other upcoming opportunities, though, but we must carefully select which we devote our precious time and resources to. Let’s check a few of exactly these:

Hyperliquid (now the most used perp. DEX) airdrop is most probably coming around May, so there’s still plenty of time to trade and accumulate points (they stack up nicely, from my experience). Speculators suggest that one point could translate to anywhere from 4 to 16 dollars.

• Stack points on Hyperliquid

MODE is a layer 2 working closely with Redacted Cartel, offering users native staking yield through pxETH. All the details you need can be found through the link below.

•  Join the airdrop (4 days for boosted rewards remain)

Pryzm is an emerging layer 1 focusing on yield tokenization and optimization. From what we have seen so far, this one is not to be missed. Airdrop entry is mostly free, for now, as you will be interacting on a testnet.

• Testnet details and instructions

Parcl is a degen platform to trade real estate on 10x leverage. Worst thing about real estate? It’s illiquid. Well, not for long.

• Join Season 2 (just started)

Tensor is poised to become a beast on Solana, their NFT market as a product is superbly well done. Simply list, bid and trade NFTs (or buy a Tensorian). Personally, I’m stacking these guys.

• Tensor market

Find these and all the others from Solana ecosystem in our previous newsletter.

This one is dubbed as the easiest and most bullish infrastructure play of this bull run. Celestia stakers will most probably enjoy the most airdrops of all communities, so it only makes sense to take some TIA and stay for the long haul.

• Guide to TIA staking

We talked about Renzo last time, so dig in here. Simply put, this one is huge for the restaking narrative.

•  Restake with Renzo

Lastly, don’t forget to create your Gitcoin Passport. This thing might become essential to score the most important airdrops.

Follow us on Instagram, we’ll be dropping much more content on there soon.

👀 DeFi insights.

The important bits.

• Algebra DEX Engine (DeFi) - LP & AMM research paper - read

• Layer Zero (Interoperability) - V2 announced - read

• Unstoppable:DeFi (DeFi) - Obtained EU VASP license - read

• Restake Finance (LRT) - Opens deposits and offers 437% APY - read

• Vector Reserve (LPD) - All LRT points go to vETH holders - read

• Pudgy Penguins (NFT) - Announced “Overpass” IP licensing - read

• StarkNet (L2) - Partnered with Celestia - read

• Pendle (DeFi) - Partnered with ONDO - read

• Picaso (LRT) - Restaking on Solana went live - read

• Fraxchain (DeFi) - Fraxtal airdrop confirmed - read

• Renzo (LRT) - Announced support for Lido’s stETH - read

• Perennial (Perps.) - Lists $JUP perpetuals - read

• Immutable (Gaming) - Announced zkEVM mainnet beta - read

• Gunzilla Games (Gaming) - Announced rewards for Neo Tokyo - read

• Camelot (DEX) - Lists first security-backed tokens - read

• Clone Protocol (Cloned assets for SOL) - Private mainnet revealed - read

• Conic Finance (DeFi) - Successful relaunch sees  $20M TVL - read

📰 DeFi news.

Even more important bits.

• Kraken lists WIF (Dog Wif Hat memecoin) - read

• Wormhole announced Dymension integration - read

• Polygon Labs cuts 60 staff - read

• FTX exchange won’t be restarted, says bankruptcy lawyer - read

• Blast forked Optimism’s code and rewrote MIT license - read

• Runestones on Ordinals to be “biggest airdrop in history” - read

• VISA extends crypto withdrawals to 145 countries - read

• NEAR announced stage 2 of Sharding (stateless validation) - read

• FTX announces plans to repay customers in full - read

• Magic Eden announced multichain wallet and airdrop - read

• OKX announced Ordinals support - read

• PayPal starts to use its stablecoin for investments - read

• Ava Labs reveals new scaling solution ‘Vryx’ - read

• IBIT flipped GBTC for the first time - read

• Chinese authorities are cracking down on crypto - 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.

@AraDG11 has a short, but delightful conversation with Andrew Tate, just after Tate’s crypto project announcement, and a new meme is born.

🦍 And finally…

I can’t help but (as a biased holder) highlight Bitcoin Puppets, an NFT collection that is quickly becoming the face of Ordinals. Given today's focus on airdrops, these might be akin to the “TIA” of Bitcoin NFTs. The first airdrop, received in the form of RSIC METAPROTOCOL NFTs, is now worth 3-7,000 USD and just yesterday, Puppets received a new free mint. This trend will most likely continue as this collection is the loudest and also definitely most cult-like of all.

Yes, a lot of rewards without much work. But please, feel free to jump into the latest point grind program if that’s what floats your boat.