GM, we meet again. 

Bitcoin closed the weekly under our endlessly mentioned line in the sand of $60,000, and it’s important to come up with the terms of this bearish scenario. The most important thing to remember here is that even though we likely have more downside ahead this week, we’re thinking about this as an opportunity, not the end of the bull market.

Look at the sentiment—it’s a carbon copy of June 2023. And we all know what happened once we got through the last dry summer. Except this time, we’re heading into an election-year Q4, and according to the new Citi Forecast predictions, there might be as many as 8 rate cuts ahead. After all, it would make perfect sense for the FED to engineer a bullish market rally to bolster the current administration.

Lastly, we’ll get a taste of what’s coming during this week. FED’s chief Jerome will speak tomorrow. CPI and PPI data drop on Thursday and Friday, and there are a total of nine FED speaking events this week. It’s about to get spicy.

📊 Luke’s Chart of the Day

BTC/USDT 1D Coinalyze Aggregated Long / Short Ratio

This data shows us $BTC futures positioning. Net long accounts divided by net short accounts. It is a good overall sentiment indicator, and the sentiment is still very much net long. If you look back to when we pumped from 25k in mid to late October 2023, sentiment had reset to 1:1 long versus short. Again, when we consolidated in the low 40k’s, sentiment reset just after we pumped. This says to me sentiment had been crushed. Longs closed early, and the ratio went back to 1. Nobody believed much higher prices were coming. 

This is the absence of hopium we need to send us much higher. If you check out the Coinalyze funding rate chart, it tells a similar story, this time tied to actual positioning, not account ratio. Flip to the 1D timeframe and backtest to when we pumped last year.

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.

Stake Your Bitcoins

Sure, HODLing BTC is nice, but earning yield on it without giving up custody? Even better. Even though DeFi on Bitcoin was something previously unthinkable, Core DAO is making it become a reality as we speak.

Currently, about 4,500 BTC have been delegated, securing the Core Chain. If you’re interested, you can learn how to stake and earn with your BTC right here.

The fun doesn’t stop here with Core. The Ignition Program will run for more than two more months, so there’s an opportunity to use the dry summer price action to play around with incentive opportunities. 

• Register here to join the Ignition Program

• Bridge assets to Core Chain here

• Explore all reward opportunities here

Enjoy!

👀 DeFi insights.

The important bits.

• Napier Finance (DeFi) - Reached 5,000,000$ TVL on day 1 - read

• Infinex (DeFi) - Deposit MOG to get rewarded with crates - read

• Celestia (TIA) - 89% of the circulating supply will unlock October 31st - read

• Odos (DEX) - Adds limit orders - read

• API3 (Oracles) - Teases news “Get ready” - read

• Solv Protocol (DeFi) - Introduces “Liquid Bitcoin Staking” - read

📰 DeFi news.

Even more important bits.

• GTA 6 rumored to have cryptocurrency in-game payments - read

• Germany surprises with $111 BTC buyback - read

• Ethereum ETFs pushed back to July 15th - read

• Spot BTC ETFs see record inflows during the dip - read

• During Q4, FTX will distribute $16B in cash to traders - read

• Entire ETH ETF open interest got unwound - read

🫠 ICYMI.

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

Cardano, The Chang Fork and More: A Journey Through Crypto's Most Fascinating Blockchain

Research

We've covered the Chang fork/Voltaire upgrade, why it's happening, and what's changing.

Brownbaconx has looked under the hood and put his pen to paper on whether it's worth your attention, so dig into below...

Read More →

Ethereum Layer 3 Blockchains Explained | Sanko, Degen, XAI, Cheese

Podcast

In this episode, you will learn all about Layer 3 blockchains. As Ethereum continues to scale on its rollup-centric roadmap, layer 2 blockchains are now beginning to host their own rollups, which are layer 3s.

Tune in on YouTube →

🐥 Tweet of the day.

To save you doom scrolling.

This is a great reminder from Bunny to always secure your profits. It’s highly likely that most of our new revolutionary assets will end up the same during the next bear market.

🦍 And finally…

We’re seeing a nice market bounce right now, but I’d hold off on any celebrations just yet. Let’s see how this week turns out. If you got caught in this price action, it’s now more important than ever to be careful not to get chopped out. A lot of people will lose lots of positions this summer.

If you haven’t already… hit the subscribe button and get the coolest welcome email in crypto!

Alas, as the crypto market keeps doing crypto things (i.e. making us poorer), the blocmates crew must keep pushing. 

This week was pretty eventful, to say the least. Surprisingly, a lot of action was on the Bitcoin front with governments and Mt.Gox stuff, some news with the SEC trying to secure any win they can in crypto, and lastly, some neutral updates from the Ethereum front. 

Let’s dive in!

Oh, and before I forget, Cheers 🍻

📉 Germany and Mt.Gox liquidate the gang

Over $650M liquidated in the past 24 hours. Just another day in the office, I guess. 

But in all seriousness, this liquidation was pretty close to the FTX liquidation, which is a big deal. 

The headlines are littered with two culprits. Mt.Gox and the German government. 

Mt.Gox for those who don’t know was a crypto exchange that went bankrupt in 2015 and users ended up losing all their BTC. After almost 9 years, the creditors are getting their money back. This is close to $3B in BTC hitting the market. 

The Mt.Gox wallet has been moving Bitcoin constantly, and recently, a portion of it, around 1.5K BTC, was transferred to BitBank. 

The assumption here is that sellers are frontrunning the imminent dump of BTC from the Mt.Gox creditors once they get back their BTC. 

Then comes the German government. Their wallet currently has $2.3B BTC which they seized many years back. This $2.3B is after sending close to $200M in BTC to exchanges and selling. 

Now, this may sound like a lot, but $200M is not a lot for the BTC market in the grand scheme of things. Even $3B is something that can be absorbed by the market or OTC with relative ease. 

Shout to our GOAT Justin.

The reality of the situation is that these are just convenient headlines that fit the price action and, hence, work as a narrative. In reality, spot buying demand dwindled. 

The BTC ETF basis trade was the largest driver of spot demand from institutions, and now that the basis trade is closed (i.e. no longer profitable), demand has stagnated. 

To accompany this horrible price action is miner capitulation. The Bitcoin difficulty increased this past week, making it more expensive to mine BTC. With prices going down, miners' profitability decreases, which means they eventually have to capitulate and sell their reserves or stop operations. 

The good thing is that this is typically a bottom signal, so let’s hope it's true again.

🤡 Gensler is back

As if the markets weren’t bad enough, this guy has decided to make a comeback. 

After having his ass handed to him by literally every crypto company he tried to sue, he has now decided to go after other targets. 

The story starts with Coinbase. 

Out of all the crypto companies, Coinbase was the only one willing to play ball with the government and do everything by the book since its inception. What’d they get in return? A nice slap in the face. Just persistent scrutiny from the SEC for no valid reason. 

Recently, after all the L’s the SEC took, Coinbase flipped the switch and decided to sue them.

Pretty soon after, the SEC retaliated in the most SEC way possible and went after crypto protocols this time. 

To begin with, they sued Consensys, the creators of Metamask, over their Metamask staking operation. They claimed that the Metamask swap and Metamask staking operation violated federal laws. Of course, they will eventually lose this as well. 

Then, they went on to sue liquid staking protocols Lido and RocketPool. 

The premise is the same. They believe stETH and rETH are securities, just like they believe everything is a security. I’m sure if you get a ladyboy in Bangkok, Gensler will sue you and tell you that you are illegally interacting with a security.

🔷 What’s happening in ETH land

Let’s start with the bad news first. 

It was reported that an Ethereum ICO whale moved $24M worth of ETH to Kraken. While $24M is not the end of the world, it’s the sentiment of an OG wallet that held for so long, selling now, that causes concern. 

On the other hand, we have a new protocol that Vitalik likes. MegaETH. 

MegaETH is a new EVM-compatible chain that claims it can do 100k TPS, dubbing itself as the real-time blockchain. That means the second a transaction is placed it is executed instantly. MegaETH has received $20M in funding from the likes of Vitalik, Joseph Lubin, and Dragonfly Capital. 

That’s a pretty impressive list of backers. Worth keeping an eye on for sure. 

🫠 ICYMI.

Find everything at blocmates.com!

🤙 What to look forward to

While it’s easy to throw in the towel and say the market is cooked and don’t do anything, I think the opposite. 

Here’s what I’m keeping an eye on. 

With ETH, I believe the longer it is under $3K, the bigger the blessing it is. I will be adding at $2.8K and $2.6K as key areas of support. But if it goes lower, I will keep bidding at the next support levels. 

To go with this is ENS. I know ENS as a token is useless per se, but something is cooking on that chart and I don’t know how else to explain it. I’d say nibble at key support levels on spot. Stay away from leverage until the market is more obvious. 

The last thing to keep an eye on is FTM. The sonic upgrade is coming soon and Andre has an uncanny ability to cook up a storm when people least expect it. I’d bid some FTM and be ready. 

Subscribe now

GM, let’s embrace the pain together. 

The grand, merciless beast we call The Market is making one thing abundantly clear: the passage into the glory land of the True Bull won’t be granted easily. And that’s precisely what we’re finding out now after we’ve been ‘effin’ with the $60,000 price level for quite some time. The message is simple here: either we quickly get back close to this level or, at best, above it and start closing there, or it’s time to prepare for a season of hopium withdrawal (and come back in September). 

As if the streets weren’t bloody enough, the German government is adding fuel to the fire, dumping its remaining $175 million in BTC. 

And there’s more: The good old Mt.Gox FUD is reaching its peak. Mt. Gox is currently prepping a $9 billion BTC distribution, sending portions to selected exchanges. From here, the exchanges will distribute the bitcoins to users' accounts. Now, even though past Mt.Gox users are getting only a portion of their BTC back, it’s still a hefty sum for many. After a 10 year long forced HODL, it’s understandable at least half of them, if not more, will want to get liquid.

📊 Luke’s Chart of the Day

BTC/USDT Binance 1D Log Chart

To follow up on yesterday’s chart, we hit the 200-day MA level at the bottom of the cloud, and so far, there has not been much of a reaction from buyers. The Germans are selling 40k of corn, and MT Gox is distributing, which has added up to max fear and not a lot on the bid side. 

We need to reclaim the 200-day MA and get back into the mid $60k’s for a reason to be bullish. If we can’t do that, the next reasonable support is at $52k. Not a bullish update, but we have to be realistic. The $71k to $61k weekly consolidation range looks to be kaput at this point. It’s still possible for the price to climb back above $61.5k before Monday, but perhaps not likely.

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.

Back to Fundamentals

Sooner or later, the narrative will shift—maybe due to regulatory changes for altcoins, the prospect of sharing protocol revenue with holders, the impact of Ethereum ETFs, or something else. But the time will come when protocols like AAVE start shining again. 

After Convex Finance (mentioned last time here), AAVE is another legitimate, battle-tested on-chain business with a proven track record. It generates about $480M in annualized fees. 

If you want to fill out your time while waiting for the green to come back, use services like Token Terminal displayed above and make a list of the most undervalued protocols based on metrics like fees, total valuation, revenue, and P/S and P/F ratios.

👀 DeFi insights.

The important bits.

• Core DAO (DeFi on Bitcoin) - Launched Core token ETP on Spotlight Stock Market - read

• Unstoppable (DeFi) - Adds PENDLE leverage trading & lending markets - read

• Avantis (DeFi) - Added OKX wallet support - read

• Infinex (DeFi) - Craterun campaign starting today - read

• Friend Tech (SocialFi) - Is Friend Tech leaving Base? - read

📰 DeFi news.

Even more important bits.

• Telegram-based Notcoin rises to popularity in Africa, Europe, Asia - read

• Opera Mini’s Crypto Wallet adds USDT USDC support - read

• CoinDCX acquires BitOasis in a bid to expand globally - read

🫠 ICYMI.

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

Revealed: Karak’s Three-Part Strategy for Staking Success

Podcast

In this episode of Still Early, Grant chats with Dewpey from Karak about the innovative restaking protocol they're developing.

Tune in on YouTube →

🐥 Tweet of the day.

To save you doom scrolling.

When the times are darkest, we meme. Recommended video.

🦍 And finally…

And yes, finally, some of that hopium. In case The Market doesn’t allow us into the True Bull right away, we’re most likely about to see a prolonged reset, which will eventually be reflected in a much longer and probably healthier bull market cycle. 

If you haven’t already… hit the subscribe button and get the coolest welcome email in crypto!

Subscribe now

GM future krillionaiers.

Unless you keep insta-buying freshly minted celebrity tokens, like the poor souls who got rugged on the latest Sydney Sweeney coin launch. Are most of these celebrities and rappers broke? Credit (and not paying taxes) is one hell of a drug...

Back to business: Bitcoin is teetering on the critical production cost line of $60,000. If the bears have any backbone, they need to start closing below. But, all we see for now is a prolonging of the chop, which eventually leads to a typical all-summer consolidation and, eventually, typical bull run length.

On the macro front, US market disinflation is making a comeback, which will eventually push the FED to cut rates. However, once again, patience is required, and Powell himself confirmed that the 2% target is probably not coming this year or even next year. 

Will this be a bearish or bullish event if we see rate cuts at the end of next year or early 2026? Let us know what you think!

📊 Luke’s Chart of the Day

BTC/USDT Binance 1D Log Chart

Ichimoku is a great trend-based system, but the price inside the cloud is typically trendless - the chop zone. However, ‘edge to edge’ trades often play out. When you close in the cloud from above or below, there is a better than average probability that price will travel to the opposite edge. June 20 we got the first daily close inside. Since then I’ve been expecting to touch the opposite end. We’ve come close on June 24, but no cigar yet. 

Also down, there is a significant moving average, the 200-day MA. This is typically viewed as a bull/bear pivot. A successful test is bullish for continuation. Close below—no bueno. We must reclaim. The last time we tested it was mid-August, when we nuked straight through, and it took a month of consolidation to reclaim. When we did, it was the start of $BTC’s massive run from 28 to 74k.

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.

Feeling weary? Time for some Tapioca

As the legendary Messi might say, quality passive income from DeFi (incooom) is a goal we investors and the DeFi community strive to achieve. Especially during bearish days like this one, it’s crucial to have a steady stream of dry powder ready to deploy.

Seeing how bullishly ZRO has behaved since Saturday, it’s reasonable to suspect a Layer Zero season might be just around the corner.

Right, if we combine a need for passive incoom and the best Layer Zero beta, where does it lead us? Yes, exactly: Tapioca DAO. I personally look forward to adding to this premium Layer Zero project and perhaps the best up-and-coming Curve competitor. 

If you still haven’t caught up, here’s all you need to know.

👀 DeFi insights.

The important bits.

• eBTC (DeFi) - Protocol metrics and analysis released by Blockanalitica - read

• Mantle (L2) - Earn points using Vertex during Metamorphosis Season 1 - read

• io.net (DePIN) - Partners with GamerHash - read

• Unstoppable (DeFi) - Adds PENDLE leverage trading & lending markets - read

• Avantis (DeFi) - Added OKX wallet support - read

📰 DeFi news.

Even more important bits.

• Sydney Sweeney's hacked X account promotes crypto token - read

• CoinDCX acquires BitOasis in a bid to expand globally - read

• Crypto bank Signum, asset manager Fidelity tie up with Chainlink - read

• Aave’s GHO stablecoin goes live on Arbitrum - read

• South Korea ramps up crypto regulations - read

🫠 ICYMI.

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

Bitcoin Evolution: Glyph Exchainge, BRC20, and L2s

Podcast

In this episode, Jedi and Zack from Botanix Labs dive into Bitcoin from a fresh perspective.

Zack shares insights about the challenges of making Bitcoin more interesting and useful beyond just a savings account, drawing comparisons to the versatile Ethereum ecosystem.

Tune in on Spotify | YouTube →

Memecoins Are on Their Way Out, What’s Next?

In this episode of Still Early, Dom shares updates on his recent developments in the NFT space.

Dom offers insights into the shifting focus from NFTs to more liquid and accessible meme coins, using major events like Pepe's rise as examples.

Tune in on Spotify | YouTube →

🐥 Tweet of the day.

To save you doom scrolling.

Yea, Y2kappa, the German government should find some bulls, quick…

🦍 And finally…

This price action and overall sentiment toward DeFi make me excited about the future of projects with real product market fit, use cases, and revenue metrics. After CVX, we’ll check on another one tomorrow.

If you haven’t already… hit the subscribe button and get the coolest welcome email in crypto!

Subscribe now

It’s been ages since I heard someone utter the word Polkadot. People used to talk about its parachains, the underlying auctions within the ecosystem, its sister network Kusama etc., etc., etc., a couple of cycles back. However, in no time after it attained its $55 peak in H2 2021, it faded away.   

CT folks woke up on Tuesday to its spending numbers doing the rounds on social media. The team recently released its H1 report where it revealed that its treasury has spent $87 million [11 million DOT] in the first half of 2024. The catch? $37 million was shelled out on marketing and advertising that the team branded as “outreach.” The irony - it was ineffective… until now.

Social volume and mindshare figures have all flipped in Polkadot’s favor and DOT managed to bless everyone’s timeline today. 

The funds dedicated towards other heads - including development, operations, and research - have seen substantial rises from last quarter, but remain deflated when compared to outreach’s number.

The team might soon start to regret its choices because community members ain’t pleased at all. Bearish.

At the current rate of spending, the treasury could last for another couple of years. The pink-circles-themed project’s team and DAO members are kinda freaking out, and discussions w.r.t. stricter budgeting and a change in inflation parameters have already begun.

On the price front, we managed to survive yet another day above $60k. BODEN was one happy man on the top gainer list, thanks to its 25% daily surge. Other large-cap assets more or less continue to remain range-bound and trade flat.

📊 Luke’s Chart of the Day

TON/USDT Binance 1D Log Chart

$TON TVL (see Defillama) continues to ramp steadily. Since 19 June, TVL growth has diverged from the previous price correlation, where the price is usually above TVL. These correlations are often sticky. Price slows due to a market correction or other bottleneck that eventually clears, and the price snaps back up again. 

The bullish chart above lends weight to this thesis. We’ve had three small consolidations (white trendlines) before the current large one. It looks like we’re headed up to knock on the door again. Maybe we get one more pullback before the breakout that sends us much higher. I’d look for $13 near term, with a longer-term bull target of around $30 (4.618 extension). 1D RSI is at 65, which is the same level we broke out from on the previous run-up.

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.

Get Based

Base is becoming an unstoppable force. Despite the chop-solidation phase we’re in right now, it has been delivering and swiftly onboarding masses on-chain. The result? Its earnings keep increasing. In Q2, it generated ~$19.48 million, higher than all previous quarters.

Another interesting thing to note is that the number of USDC active users on Base has registered a steep incline over the past few months. There are close to 600k monthly senders at the moment. Evidently, Base has been able to leave behind other chains like OP Mainnet, Polygon, Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Avalanche.

Based.

📰 DeFi news.

• Mantle’s incentives campaign Metamorphosis Season 1 goes live - read

• Hashkey is looking to distribute its native token via a Telegram game - read

• New Maker proposal to increase weETH capacity is up for voting - check

• Marginfi is looking to launch “mrgnswap,” to allow traders to instantly long/short newly created meme coins with leverage - check

• Vitalik Buterin wants to see “many more things” like prediction markets being built going forward - read 

• An app flips a chain on the revenue front: Pump.fun flips Ethereum [$1.99 million vs. 1.91  million] - check

• Proposal introduced to deploy Aave V3 on Aptos Mainnet - check

• Bahamas wants to force banks to support its ‘Sand Dollar’ CBDC - read

Don’t forget to hop onto our blocmates News feed to get even more daily news.

🫠 ICYMI.

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

An Investigation Into the Layer 3 (L3) Landscape

Research

Reet, we're talking L3s!

How did we get here? What's the benefit? Much to care about, or pass? Ollie has penned a piece on the above, and some names on our radar...

Read More →

🐥 Tweet of the day.

To save you doom scrolling.

It’s a bad summer for Bitcoin on-chain activity. There are a few hiccups. Metrics are flashing signs they shouldn’t. Risk management remains to be the key at this juncture.

Check it out here

🦍 And finally…

This very second, Solana has re-claimed $150. I remember stepping into the market when it was hovering around $38 back in 2021. Been one hell of a ride since then. Given the ecosystem's of late advancements, you'd need to be utterly oblivious not to have conviction. Let your bags breathe because SOL is only destined to go higher! You can’t fade it.

If you haven’t already… hit the subscribe button and get the coolest welcome email in crypto!

Subscribe now

Today not only marks a new day, but it’s also the beginning of a new week, a new month, and a new quarter. So, does this fresh start call for fresh optimism? Well, let’s decode layer by layer. 

The third quarter has not always been the best quarter for Bitcoin and Co. However, drawdowns during this phase have always been less severe. 

August and September have been the main months associated with mass selling, while buyers have - more often than not - called the shots in July. In fact, the average returns for this month stand at 7.32%, when compared to August and September’s 2.69% and  -4.78%, respectively. 

If history rhymes in 2024, then we could see yet another green July. The good news is that BTC continues to hover above the ‘do or die’ $60k mark. In fact, it also registered a decent 3% pump on Sunday.

Moving on, miners have also been taking it easy of late. The number of miner withdrawal transactions has nearly bottomed out and this should soon start reflecting on the price front as well with another leg up. 

Before getting way too excited, it shouldn’t be forgotten that the German government continues to send funds to exchanges. Over the past few hours, they have sent out over $94 million worth of BTC, and it looks like these jeeters are in a mood to liquidate their entire $2.8 billion bag eventually. Our ‘buy the dip’ institutional bulls need to buckle up and do some heavy lifting. 

Bitcoin aside, RETARDIO’s chart seems horny af today. Thanks to its 54.6% rally over the past 24 hours, it is today’s top gainer. After sliding up 16.2%, even MOG is currently a part of the top-10 gainers list.

📊 Luke’s Chart of the Day

RETARDIO/SOL Raydium 1D Log Chart

Interestingly, even Luke has sent in Retardio to bat today. 

Left curve chart for a left curve coin. Retardio consolidated since the beginning of March in a clean pennant with the Point of Control [PoC] dead center. Some volume has come in and smashed the price through the top. 

I suspect we consolidate above the broken trendline before the high road is taken towards the $100 million market cap. It’s a full cycle culture coin - part and parcel of the Mog, Milady, Remilio, Based meta. It’s high time it goes higher. Retardio.

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.

Tokens worth more than $750 million are set to be unlocked this month. Right from AltLayer, Xai, and Aptos to Optimism, Arbitrum, io.net, and Pendle - almost all top tokens are queued up one behind the other.

ALT is gonna be the biggest unlock of the month. Around 42% will be added to the circulating supply.

ALT's unlock is scheduled for the 25th, and we’ll give you another reminder as the date approaches. For now, all eyes IO and PENDLE. 

📰 DeFi news.

Even more important bits.

• Class action lawsuit filed against Keith Gill - read

• Sony to Revamp and Launch Crypto Exchange WhaleFi in Japan - read

• Ethereum network fee is hovering around 2016 lows - check 

• Runes transactions on Bitcoin down 90% in June - read

• Keith Gill discloses 6.6% ownership of Chewy $CHWY - read

• Pudgy Penguins parent firm acquires Frame - read

• Farcaster is getting in-app USDC payments - read

• Animoca looking to go public in 2025 - read

• Kraken founder donates $1 million to Trump - read

🫠 ICYMI.

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

Top TON Projects to Watch: Ecosystem Tutorial & Wallet Set Up

Research

In this video, you'll discover the top TON projects you need to be on the lookout for!

Tune in YouTube →

🐥 Tweet of the day.

To save you doom scrolling.

Time to make new markings on your calendar:

🦍 And finally…

The lending market directly benefits from the rising price of ETH. Dinero’s yield has been higher than the rest of the pack for quite some time. 

Hix0n has already convinced me to ape in some BTRFLY. You better be convinced, too. Signing off today’s edition in his very own cautious yet optimistic words:

“The success for this cycle is more a question of whether will there be a strong ETH and DeFi season, and that seems more and more likely now.”

Redacted. 

If you haven’t already… hit the subscribe button and get the coolest welcome email in crypto!

Subscribe now

Subscribe now

⛓️ ZK Compression

First and foremost, Light Protocol and Helius Labs unveiled ‘ZK compression’ to scale Solana apps. This basically allows devs to store certain types of data using Solana's cheap ledger space instead of its expensive account space. 

The launchers claimed that ZK compression directly scales the L1. L2s aren’t even a part of the equation.

Devs can build and scale everything on Solana without stepping out of its ecosystem. Consider this: The cost to airdrop 1 million tokens to users comes up to $260k today. With ZK compression, devs will get to save a huge chunk of pocket money. Precisely, only $50 will have to be incurred, making the deed 5200x cheaper.

This obviously didn’t bode well with the Ethereum community. It’s mind bogglingly annoying as well as predictable how every single Ethereum maxi can’t digest Solana developments. It’s almost like the last semblance of prestige in them does not want to give away that air of superiority. Whiny crybabies. 

An Ethereum community member took a dig at the Solana guys for lying and sensationalizing the reveal. Anatoly Yakovenko grilled him.

The ZKsync founder went on to mockingly argue that “The whole monolithic Solana thesis is gone at once. Impressive.” In the very same tweet, he put Ethereum on a pedestal and claimed that ZKsync has been “quietly building asynchronously composable ZK future for Ethereum.”

💰 The $60 milly fundraise

Moving on, it rained money within the Solana ecosystem this week. Colosseum - the recently launched startup accelerator that orchestrates hackathons - raised $60 million for a fund to invest in early-stage projects. 

The fund was, obviously, oversubscribed. Regardless, it’s gonna focus on pre-seed investments in startups from the winners of Solana hackathons.

🪐 Jupiter’s upgrade

Jupiter announced a new upgrade for swaps. In the words of the pseudonymous founder  Meow, this release will fire all cylinders along the lines of “instant routing, the very tricky slippage/MEV problem, managing the insane explosion of new tokens and the strict list as a major bottleneck for verification.”

• Learn more:

🟣 Solana ETF

The ETF hype is far from fizzling out. After Bitcoin and Ether, Solana is undeniably the next eligible bachelor waiting in queue to get its own products listed on bourses. VanEck filed for the first-ever Solana ETF in the US this week. Interestingly, Canada’s 3iQ filed for a similar product a few days back.

Well well well, the ETH comparison was again slid in. VanEck's head of digital assets research, Matthew Sigel, said that the firm filed for a Solana ETF because the blockchain acts as a “competitor” to Ethereum with a “unique combination of scalability, speed, and low costs."

The classification debate was also addressed and Sigel underlined that SOL is a commodity, not a security. Looks like he took “Be the elephant you wish to see in the room” too seriously. Speculating a potential launch timeline, Bloomberg’s Seyffart noted,

“This only has a shot to launch sometime in 2025 if we have a new admin in the White House and SEC. Even then not guaranteed.”

According to market maker GCR’s estimates, “Solana may increase 1.4x under the bear flows scenario, 3.4x under the baseline scenario, and 8.9x under the blue sky scenario.”

While pretty much everyone from the crypto community rejoiced about the filing, critics like CoinClapper didn’t shy away from asserting, 

“This is pretty much the worst-case scenario for the SEC - this is exactly why the ETH etf should have been denied and ETH classified as a security. Now, thousands of crypto companies will go for an ETF down the road. Truly a nightmare for the SEC.”

👀 Blinks & Actions

Revolutionary would be the right word to sum up these two newly launched features. This is literally the way to onboard masses into our crazy lil sleepless, addictive world. Solana legit found the right product-market fit, merged Web2 with Web3, and fostered chain abstraction with their banger blinks and actions release. Truly a superpower.

• Learn more about Blinks & Actions here

🧑‍🦳 BODEN sinks

The first official debate of the season between Tremp and Boden took place last night. The current president stumbled, fumbled, gasped for breath, failed to prove his energy and stamina, and gave irrelevant answers.

Midway through the debate, the Boden campaign told reporters that the president was suffering from a cold in an attempt to explain his ‘raspy’ voice. I didn’t catch the debate live, but BBC outrightly claimed that “some of his answers were nonsensical.”

Similar to his “she no loss, she no sell Solana, she denied. Her freedom can always be secured” assertion, he blabbered even during last night’s debate. Like Trump exclaimed, “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence, and I don’t think he did, either.”

Biden’s ex-comms director outrightly claimed that "There's no two ways about it, that was not a good debate for Joe Biden."

Solana mem ecoin Jeo Boden [BODEN] is down 34% on the daily as I write this. 

Tremp-related coins didn’t pump-pump to make up for daily losses, but a few did reflect green values on the hourly. Even though Tremp did perform better than Boden, he went on to make several claims that were not supported by facts.

Mogged, indeed 🫵😹

📈 The number talk

Also, the hat stays on. WIF claimed back $2 and made its way back to the top 50 list yet again. The cat didn’t stay behind. It also ended up pouncing by over 103.7% over the past week to become one of the top meme coin gainers.

The fundamental side of the sword has also been getting sharper. The aggregate market cap of top Solana DePIN projects climbed above the $4 billion mark. Solana also surpassed $400 billion in lifetime DEX volume. Its ecosystem boasts 20 million traders, and it has fostered around 1.59 billion swaps to date.

🌅 And finally…

That’s pretty much it for this week. Off I got to relish another sunset, this time from Indonesia. I shall see y’all again within a fortnight, hopefully with another ICC trophy in my kitty.

GM bulls. 

What’s Bitcoin doing on this fine Thursday? Well, nothing much, really. The chop continues, and I doubt even Trump morphing into a full-blown crypto shill during tonight's debate can shake things up. But things like BODEN and MAGA coins? Different story…

In other news, the USA joined Germany in the Bitcoin FUD campaign yesterday, sending around $240 million worth of BTC to Coinbase Prime. Let’s look at Bitcoin’s daily volume, shall we? Oh, it’s almost $17 billion, with Coinbase eating about $718 million of that pie. Let them sell and buy back higher later, I say.

Aside from these pathetic FUD attempts, we’re seeing some solid pro-crypto moves in the good ol' US of A: George Lamiter defeated anti-crypto congressman Jamaal Bowman in the New York primary with huge support by Crypto PACs, Florida’s representative Matt Gaetz proposed a bill to allow federal tax payments in BTC while touting inspiration from El Salvador, all the while we can look forward to seeing Trump speaking at Bitcoin 2024 conference, which will take place in Nashville, July 24th and finally, Coinbase announces seuing SEC just now.

Crypto is front and center in the US political debate, and it’s not going anywhere at least until the election cycle wraps up.

📊 Luke’s Chart of the Day

MKR/USDT Binance 1W Log Chart

This is a really good-looking weekly setup on MakerDAO. The 1D chart looks great, too, with a juicy RSI bull diversion. We have had a healthy pullback on a big run from the $500 bottom a year ago up to the $4k top in late March. This is probably the bluest of OG Defi blue chips.

There’s a beautiful retest of the cloud and kijun support level at $2,250. There’s lots of volume coming in now and a big weekly reversal candle in the making. Good support on Twitter as well.

I picked this up in the latest Cold Blooded Shiller stream. He is long spot, which makes sense as this could be a slow-burner run to the upside. Local highs are at $4k, and ATH is at $6k. 

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.

Actions & Blinks: The Future of Onboarding?

How do we achieve mass user onboarding? It’s not going smoothly when users must jump through endless hoops just to reach our magic internet money ecosystem.

Here come the Solana Actions & Blinks, also known simply as blockchain links. The team of developers from Dialect managed to break the barrier, and now, developers and users will be able to share blockchain links anywhere users already are: on websites and social media. 

Using Blinks, we can now abstract onchain transactions and process them into a simple link. The user clicks the link, and it automatically sets up the desired onchain action, such as a donation transaction or a prediction market bet. 

Worried about dangers like phishing? Curious about how it all works? Dive into this fresh research from Captain Grant.

Subscribe now

👀 DeFi insights.

The important bits.

• Fantom (L1) - Reveals the S token airdrop details - read

• Optimism (L2) - Announces DeFi Super Fest - read

• Avantis (DeFi) - 34% stablecoin yield now available (+ XP rewards) - read

• Wasabi Protocol (Blast DeFi) - Earn 5x points by depositing Blast airdrop - read

• DeFi Saver (DeFi automation) - Morpho Labs automation now available - read

• Mantle (L2) - Featured in Delphi Digital research - read

• Mask Network (L1) - Joins the GIV-Earth round - read

• Kodiak (Berachain DEX) - Partners with Beraborrow - read

📰 DeFi news.

Even more important bits.

• Coinbase sues SEC, FDIC for stonewalling information - read

• Crypto miner Marathon ventures into Kaspa Mining - read

• South Korean crypto VC Hashed expands to Abu Dhabi - read

• Crypto losses due to hacks and scams rise to $573 million in Q2 - read

• JPMorgan says Mt. Gox creditors likely to sell part of bitcoin receivables next month - read

🫠 ICYMI.

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

The AI Agent Ecosystem

Research

A special feast for all Meal Deal subscribers incoming from the legend himself, 563DeFi. Dig in.

Read More →

🐥 Tweet of the day.

To save you doom scrolling.

CryptoCondom’s outlook on the ETH ETF is worth reading. Ethereum could absolutely take over the crypto mindshare (and price action) if the thesis holds.

🐸 Meme of the day.

Yep, Wes got the point here; mog literally broke the algorithm the past few days. Sound on…

🦍 And finally…

Blast airdrop was a bit of a disappointment, wasn’t it? Let us know how it went for you in the comments, but right now, as the third quarter nears, I’m personally looking forward the most to the release of Berachain. This one is a biggie, and as far as Berachain NFT holders go (possibly even the testnet users), this L1 airdrop most likely shouldn’t disappoint. 

Today, I’m listening to a new Flywheel DeFi podcast that is breaking down the innovative Proof of Liquidity consensus. I can’t wait for this one.

If you haven’t already… hit the subscribe button and get the coolest welcome email in crypto!

GM lads, steady now. 

We’re holding above 60K, which means all is good in the hood. As we mentioned yesterday, it’s prayer time—emphasis on the capital T. The longer we hold above this level without breaking or closing below, the better our chances of this becoming a genuine bottom. It remains to be seen, so keep your wits about you.

It’s not all waiting and boredom in the crypto markets at the moment, though, as we see meme coins like MOG absolutely printing green candles. Why? What we might be seeing is the market sniffing out the best ETH beta just as we inch closer to a possible ETH ETF approval. On that note, things are looking bright—even the staunch crypto rejector, Garry Gensler, admitted the 'Ethereum spot ETF approval process is continuing smoothly.'

And, for what it's worth, Germany has no ETH to dump on us, so there’s that.

📊 Luke’s Chart of the Day

BASED/WETH Uniswap 1D Log Chart

Elite Remilio cult coin Basedmilio Babies looks primed to follow its big cousin $MOG here.

We have a little shelf of resistance at 0.005, and then it’s clear skies to take out the all-time high. Quite a decent June pullback has thoroughly tested the point of control (red line). If you can’t go down, you have to go up, right? Relatively small market cap, but $BASED has held up well through the recent majors chop and dump PA. $100m+ is the long-term goal here.

PS: LP is locked, see here. Dexscreener update is coming soon.

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.

ETH Beta (DeFi) 

We’ve mentioned a few DeFi plays in past few weeks, and right now, it’s becoming clear that the upcoming ETH season directly benefits DeFi. 

We’re seeing great strength in LDO, the largest ETH LST provider. Dinosaurs like Maker are showing increasing signs of an upcoming run. 

Lastly, in the realm of Ethereum and LSTs, there’s a dark horse that could surprise many in the second half of 2024: Redacted Cartel.

I recommend getting yourself up to date with all upcoming changes before the storm happens, as there are quite a lot. Here’s a perfect summary for you.

👀 DeFi insights.

The important bits.

• Hamster Combat (Gaming) - Reached 200 million users  - read

• Kodiak (Berachain DEX) - Partners with Beraborrow - read

• Mask Network (L1) - Joins the GIV-Earth round - read

• Mantle (L2) - Featured in Delphi Digital research - read

• DeFi Saver (DeFi automation) - Morpho Labs automation now available - read

• Wasabi Protocol (DeFi) - Earn 5x points by depositing Blast airdrop - read

• Io.net (AI, GPU) - Announces start of block rewards - read

• Infinex (DeFi) - Rewards season to earn crates started - read

• Clone (Cloned assets) - Features “Cloned PEPE” - read

• Vertex (DEX) - Mantle rewards are now live on Vertex - read

📰 DeFi news.

Even more important bits.

• Rep. Matt Gaetz introduces bill to allow the use of BTC for tax payments - read

• Democratic George Lamiter defeats anti-crypto congressmen - read

• VanEck and their ETF will waive fees until $1.5bn AUM - read

• Matter Labs released new ZkSync roadmap, plans ’Elastic Chain’ - read

• 17 Billion BLAST to be distributed to early users via initial airdrop - read

• White House welcomes back Biden's crypto policy architect - read

• Bitcoin Lightning app Strike launches in UK - read

🫠 ICYMI.

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

Avantis: Bringing the CEX Experience to Base

Research

Avantis is a biggie: there's no token to tell you about yet, but a ton of stuff to get involved with as a trader, such as the summer trading comp that runs til September, and gathering experience points, which has also been gamified.

Far too much to unpack here for one mere ape in a tweet, so you best read the report below.

Read More →

Must-See Crypto AI Projects 2024

Podcast

In this episode of Still Early, Grant and 563 analyze AI and Crypto projects to bring you projects that are worth their salt.

They stress the importance of distinguishing between real innovations and mere hype, especially regarding AI projects that use blockchain.

Tune in on Spotify | YouTube →

🦍 And finally…

Repeat after me: “I will not get chopped out; the bull run is not over. I will not get chopped out; the bull is not over. I will not get cho…”

Of course, also remember that this is me speaking, a long-time crypto degen. If you feel like you really need to protect some profits and be safe, do it!

If you haven’t already… hit the subscribe button and get the coolest welcome email in crypto!

Subscribe now

GM, now we bow our heads and pray.

After yesterday's massacre, in which the highest number of longs were liquidated since April, BTC is back hovering above the magic production cost line of $60,000. We’re now on bounce watch, hoping to see Bitcoin swiftly reclaim at least $64K while flushing out the late shorters. And that’s where we all pray this isn’t just a bounce and the low sixty thousand area continues to hold. Let’s reassess as we go. 

As I write this, we’re being hit by another FUD from Germany, once again moving almost $55M worth of BTC to Coinbase. All in all, it wouldn’t be surprising to see BTC visit the lows again, bounce again, and… continue like that for the rest of the summer, resulting in quite a typical seasonal price action.

The only potential savior? Donald Trump, who’s announced he’ll speak at a Bitcoin conference in Nashville this July. I’d wager we’ll see a sea of Pit Viper glasses at that event...

📊 Luke’s Chart of the Day

BANANA/WETH Uniswap 1D

Super strong daily chart for this trading bot active on Eth, Sol, Base and Blast. If you are too lazy to bridge and deal with the UX friction on Tonchain, this is a good option for an Ethereum-based token benefitting from the growth of that ecosystem. 

Price is tapping away at the $54 high and seems likely to break out on the next one or two attempts. Just be prepared to buy another pullback as with almost any breakout trade this cycle. Check out today’s Round Trippers for a brief overview of how the TON eco is starting to kick off. Banana gets a mention around 57 minutes in.

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.

The Rise of Schizoposting

There's still hope for those who missed what might have been the last perfect Milady entry. In the upcoming months, we’re possibly entering a Remilia season, led by the release of the official CULT token, which recently scored a $20M community raise in just a few hours (and will most likely quickly appreciate once listed, be on your guard).

CULT is launching in July. While it will mainly boost the price action of official collections like Milady, Remilio, or YAYO, we might want to take a look at the best beta here: Schizoposters. 

The improvement in AI since last year’s Schizoposters launch is astonishing. Given that Schizos are an AI-made collection, we can expect the upcoming V2 to look stunning and potentially take the NFT market by storm, just like V1. 

I’m personally scooping these Schizoposters while they’re available and will wait to receive the V2 airdrop. 

👀 DeFi insights.

The important bits.

• Blast (L2) - Announces foundation for protocol governance ahead of airdrop - read

• Swarm Market (RWA) - Introduces tokenized NFT gold - read

• Mozaic (AI, DeFi) - Teases big announcement coming up on Friday - read

• Mantle (L2) - Methamorphosis countdown before cmETH launch begins - read

• Core DAO (BTC DeFi) - iZumi Swap is now live on Core chain - read

• API3 (Oracles) - API3 stack is nove live on Rari Chain - read

• AIOZ (AI) - AIOZ AI research paper was published & accepted at CAI - read

• Clone (Cloned assets) - Features “Cloned PEPE” - read

• Vertex (DEX) - Mantle rewards are now live on Vertex - read

📰 DeFi news.

Even more important bits.

• Trump might flock to Nashville to talk at Bitcoin 2024 - read

• White House welcomes back Biden's crypto policy architect - read

• Amid CFTC investigations, Jump executive Kariya resigns - read

• Ethereum Foundation's mailing list gets leaked - read

• Crypto investment products register $584 million outflows - read

• Germany continues to transfer Bitcoin to Coinbase - read

🫠 ICYMI.

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

Round Trippers 25th June: Unlocked.

Podcast

Round Trippers is a weekly episode held in Discord for LARP NFT holders and Meal Deal subscribers.

Every Tuesday we cover the latest market happenings, on-chain analysis, our current portfolio holdings and our potential next moves.

Tune in on YouTube →

🐥 Tweet of the day.

To save you doom scrolling.

Smolting joins the fight against scammy celebrities, love to see it. Offboarding simply must continue.

🦍 And finally…

Let’s imagine the worst-case scenario: Bitcoin falling under $60K and closing under there. Yes, it would probably look apocalyptic. Yes, your unrealized gains will shrink. Yes, the gains will eventually roll back up later in the year. No, you probably won’t outsmart the market by overtrading the summer chop. Yes, the Crab’s chop will most likely cause real, realized losses. 

I’m not trying to be smart here, I’m trying to be as patient as possible.

If you haven’t already… hit the subscribe button and get the coolest welcome email in crypto!

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GM, are you scared?

I won’t pretend I’m not. As of right now, Bitcoin is hovering around a very special place. If we start closing under $60,000, which is a price area we’ve been talking about for what seems like ages now, as long as this area holds (it’s also an important production-cost area for Bitcoin), we should see a return to a range high around $70K. 

It’s important to note here that this time, we’ve got looming warning signs on the TradFi side. For one, the S&P 500 index might print a weekly bearish divergence between the March 25th high and the current high. Key word: might. It isn’t there yet, but watch out for it. Second, Second, Nvidia is in a bubble-like parabolic rise and has already printed a weekly bearish divergence. 

As of this writing, we’ve got fresh Mt. Gox news—Bitcoin repayments are starting in July. So far, Mt. Gox FUD has always been just that—FUD and a sign of a market bottom. Will history repeat?

📊 Luke’s Chart of the Day

BTC/USD Index 1D + Hash Ribbons

Hash Ribbons is a miner capitulation indicator that gives a good medium to long-term $BTC buy signals. Each halving puts stress on miners, and there is almost always a capitulation event that follows. Miners started selling aggressively in line with when the MT Gox coins moved at the end of May. We don’t have a buy signal just yet, but the German government selling and Gox coins have triggered a capitulation event that has gathered steam today. Stay safe out there, be careful with leverage. This is a good environment for DCA and spot accumulation. 

It seems likely we’ll get a test of the 200-day moving average (purple line) at some point in the near future. This is down at the $57k area as of today. Also, notice the yellow support shelf in that area. This all lines up with the bottom of the 1D Ichimoku Cloud (discussed in Discord).

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.

Ethereum, Save us, Ethereum…

Ethereum could be our only salvation in the coming weeks. Mt. Gox won’t be dumping ETH, and the ETH/BTC bottom is holding strong during this brutal selloff.

Moreover, if markets hold these levels and bounce, the possibly upcoming Ethereum spot ETF approval could boost market sentiment. Let’s see what happens during the next eight days.

Lastly, observe the NVDA/ETH chart. As mentioned above, NVDA is already confirming a weekly bear divergence, which adds an element of fear to the current sentiment. However, the last two downtrends for NVDA happened during 2017 and the second half of 2021. Yes, that’s right. Both times NVDA was dumping, there was a roaring altseason in the crypto markets. 

👀 DeFi insights.

The important bits.

• Mozaic (DeFi) - Expands to Base - read

• Arbitrum (L2) - Launched Layer Lear, layer 1 to layer 3 bridge

• EigenLayer (LRT) - Phase 2 claims are now live - read

• Jupiter (DEX) - Announces proposal to reduce supply - read

• Avantis (DeFi) - Hits capacity on its USDC vaults - read

• Core DAO (BTC DeFi) - Unveils the overhauled developer documentation - read

📰 DeFi news.

Even more important bits.

• Mt. Gox Trustee to initiate Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash repayments in July - read

• Japan: Metaplanet to buy Bitcoin worth 1 billion Yen - read

• Sentiment-O-Meter says it's DeFi o'clock - read

• Coinbase to be custodian for North America's first Solana ETP - read

• Analysis: Is the sell pressure mounting in the Bitcoin market? - read

• India’s FIU imposes $2.2 million penalty on Binance - read

• Australia: first spot Bitcoin ETF goes live on ASX - read

🫠 ICYMI.

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

Meal Deal Subscriptions are Live!

Navigating crypto solo is tough and relentless. We’ve been a trusted voice here since 2017 and have learned the hard way, so you don’t have to.
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The Meal Deal is our premium research product, designed to provide you with the information you need to navigate the markets, learn from our mistakes, and skip the hard part.

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🐥 Tweet of the day.

To save you doom scrolling.

Nothing like a great GCR quote at what seems like the end of days. Thanks, Rugshark.

🦍 And finally…

There's not much to add today except a reminder to keep your cool. Even if you didn’t trade this last market episode perfectly, right now, we are reaching a point of maximum fear and, hence, maximum opportunity. If I know one thing, it’s that panic selling never pays, and death by thousand cuts while trading the chop is a very real phenomenon. Patience over panic.

If you haven’t already… hit the subscribe button and get the coolest welcome email in crypto!

Subscribe now

Ahhhh, nothing like that first sip of a cold beer on a Friday evening. 

Alright, now I’m ready to start writing.

Welcome to the second edition of this newsletter, where you’re stuck with me rambling on from the pub for five whole minutes about what happened in crypto this week, what’s to come, and my general thoughts on the market. 

Honestly, with the lunacy in crypto these past few weeks, I don’t think the beers are going to cut it anymore. We might need to pivot to straight shots of whiskey neat. 

We had more celeb drama, more airdrop drama, we had hacks, we had liquidations, and we also had regulatory clear-ups. All of this, combined with god-awful market conditions which seems to have taken most of CT to their mental breaking point. 

So, without further ado, let’s get into it.

🫵 Will the real DJT dev please stand up

Ever since the celebrity coin meta graced us with its unfortunate presence, memecoins have been suffering. It appears not enough people are DM’ing Ansem before deploying. 

Anyway, this week, out of absolutely nowhere, we saw the DJT token (abbreviated from Donald J Trump, also known as politics GCR) skyrocket to a market cap of $500M. But why? Why’d this random trump coin catch such a heavy bid in such a dry market? 

Well, it all started with a new channel reporting that Trump will apparently launch his own official token on Solana called DJT. This effort would be spearheaded by his 18-yr old son Barron Trump. 

This news sent the coin on a moon mission. 

But of course, it all seemed too good to be true. With no confirmation from Trump's side, some red flags quickly started to show. 

A tweet from Bubblemaps suggested that 67% of the supply was in one cluster. Coinbase’s director said that the wallets were funded through KuCoin, which is illegal in the US. Trump’s affiliated projects are always funded by Coinbase, so it’s another red flag. 

The final nail in the coffin came from our detective GCR, ZachXBT. 

Arkham Intelligence put out a bounty tweet offering $150K to whoever can find the real identity of the DJT dev. 

ZachXBT then drops the bombshell thread and says that it was none other than the serial scammer and pathological liar Martin Shkreli who was behind the token. Surprise Surprise. Scammers continue scamming. 

He then went on a fruitless public tirade, making a $100M bet with GCR to say that he was working closely with Barron Trump. He also held Twitter spaces to say the same, but nobody believed him. There is ample evidence of him asking influencers and KOLs to hop on board with him, and there is no evidence of Barron Trump being even remotely affiliated. 

Then, Zach gave us evidence of Martin’s wallet dumping $850K, and it was settled. The token dropped 80%+ since then, and I hope it goes below zero. 

I expected this cycle to be rife with unholy amounts of grifting, but the blatant, low-effort, unsanctimonious levels of grifting I have seen thus far have honestly made me feel increasingly dissociated from this space. Nobody even tries to innovate or reward innovation. Just follow retarded public figures into even more retarded things. 

Hopefully, things end here, but I doubt they will. 

🪂 Got anymore free coins?

🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳 TODAY IS WORSE THAN SEPTEMBER 11 FOR INDIA ✈️✈️✈️

😡😡😡 WE DO NOT FORGIVE, WE DO NOT FORGET 🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳 

🚫🚫🚫 ZKSYNC WILL REGRET MESSING WITH INDIA 🚫🚫 🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳

We had the two biggest airdrops in ZK and ZRO this week. That’s ZKsync and LayerZero for those of you who aren’t wasting your life in crypto land. 

All in all, I’d say these two highly anticipated airdrops were alright. They did their best to reduce allocation to sybil farmers, which is why, as you can see from the copypasta above, the Indian sybil farmers were not happy. 

LayerZero put the controversial mandatory donation button which rubbed people the wrong way, and a lot of people were also not too happy with their general rewards. Some people who farmed this airdrop for 12 months ended up getting rewarded between $1k-$2k in total. You could’ve made the same amount by working a month at McDonalds. 

This is all to say that I think airdrops, in general, have reached a saturation point, similar to how liquidity mining started tapering off towards the end of DeFi summer. 

Now we wait to see what the next incentivization meta will be. 

😧 What the hell is Certik doing? 

Getting audited by Certik is like walking into a warzone covered in bubble wrap, thinking you're bulletproofed. You are almost certainly going to die.

It’s a running theme that protocols adited by CertiK get hacked frequently. Recent events have given rise to conspiracies that these hacks and exploits may be inside jobs. 

If you want the detailed rundown, check out this thread by Tayvano. The gist of it is that there was a vulnerability in Kraken’s code that security researchers from CertiK exploited to take $3M+. They claim this was a whitehat attack but have not returned the funds. Not only that, the funds were sent through the privacy mixer Tornado Cash, which means it almost certainly wasn’t a whitehat attack. 

Kraken is claiming extortion, and it will likely be a major mess for CertiK to clean up. Their reputation was already pretty bad, but at this point it’s gone completely down the drain. We wait to see what follows.

💡 Light at the end of the tunnel

Amidst all the grifting, exploiting, and general pain, we got a glimmer of positive news. 

The SEC formally announced that they have permanently ended their investigation into the Ethereum Foundation and ETH 2.0. The reasons for this sudden halt are not clear, although if I had to bet money, I’d say it’s because Mr.Gensler saw Vitaliks massive schlong and wanted no part of it. 

Anyway, this is really good news and even more positive headwinds for ETH. Hopefully, it's ETH’s time to shine. 

🧐 What to look forward to?

If I’m being honest, I’m not looking to allocate too much at the moment, playing my cards close to my chest. 

BTC has a very good chance of retesting range lows, in which scenario things could get even uglier for alts. Other than TAP, I haven’t really bought anything new and am not looking to heavily allocate at the moment. 

However, when I do feel like bidding things, my focus will be on ETH and ETH-adjacent things. It seems like the most obvious play at the minute. Things like BTRFLY, LDO, and PEPE. If we do get a proper ETH season then I’m sure there’ll be a bunch of new tokens that we can ape. 

Anyway, that’s it from me. My homies just reached the pub, and these pints aren’t going to drink themselves. I’ll go about my Friday and see you guys two weeks from now.

GM, the vibes are improving.

As we march toward Friday’s quad witching, it feels like the bears are running out of time. Their attempt to break $64,000 per BTC turned out to be weak, and from where we’re looking, we are poised for a stronger bounce. With quad-witching dates often marking the bottom, it’s worth considering that BTC may have already hit it.

The most crucial observation is that, along with an increasingly likely turnaround in Bitcoin dominance, we’re seeing a resurgence in DeFi interest. The recent Curve Finance liquidation drama underscores a classic market truth: markets bottom out on capitulation and high volume. Social trends are backing our bias, with interest shifting sharply toward DeFi.

Protocols like Pendle are paving the way for more product-market-fit projects to follow suit. Meanwhile, in the background, there are tons of projects waiting to start announcing what they were working in preparation for the big TradFi money entry. Just remember things like project Mariana, The Bank For International Settlements testing Curve’s AMM technology, and possibilities of tokenization. 

As we mentioned at the start of the week, DeFi is likely the main rotation of this bull run, and right now, it’s barely leaving the bear market.

📊 Luke’s Chart of the Day

ENS/USDT 1W

There have been 2.5 years of consolidation for $ENS, and it looks ready to push higher here. A re-architected ENSv2 is in the works, which means a new L2 with lower fees. This is likely a good spot-hold if Ethereum is due to cross over into mainstream trading. Normies don’t like lengthy 0x addresses. 

Price-wise, we have already had three or four taps at the $27.50 level. There’s a chance we go for one more pullback, so in addition to a small bag, I have limit bids set from $23 down to $20 (purple box). There’s not much resistance until the mid-40s, and with this long of consolidation, I am expecting a decent breakout that could go much higher, provided, of course, that ETH continues to show strength.

NFA as per usual, please always do your own research.

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.

Searching for the DeFi Pump

The rotation is becoming clear: DeFi is back. After Convex, the so-far clear leader of the DeFi Pump, we might want to examine Convex-like protocols, overall Curve ecosystem protocols, and future money markets.

• Convergence Finance

Convergence functions as a meta governance blackhole, and just last month, it integrated its Void product with Convex. Their main yielding asset, ysCVG, provides passive exposure to the finest cash-flowing DeFi assets. Thanks to all the drama caused by volume around Curve and Convex, ysCVG is currently yielding 110% APR. 

CVX is still a micro-cap, and if nothing bad, like exploits, happens, there’s massive room for growth here.

• Stake DAO

StakeDAO is a massive CRV holder that provides automated strategies and liquid lockers. Thanks to these, you can boost your yield and voting power while keeping liquidity on your governance tokens by converting them to sdTokens. 

The current market cap is only around $15M. 

• Tapioca 

I mentioned Tapioca very briefly this week, but the more I see, the more I believe this beauty has a chance to provide us with a Pendle-like run.

This is undoubtedly the best project on Layer Zero so far.

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👀 DeFi insights.

The important bits.

• AAVE (DeFi) - Flipped Maker in revenue - read

• Eigen Layer (LRT) - Phase 2 claims are live - read

• Blast (L2) - Airdrop goes live next week - read

• Milady (NFT) - Teases “MILADYBOORU” - read

• eBTC (DeFi) - eBTC pool now 3rd highest yielding (34%) pool on Curve - read

• Gnosis (DeFi) - Passed a vote for $30M buyback - read

• Sophon (L1) - Sophon Farming launched - read

• Marinade (Solana LST) - Unveils “auction marketplace” - read

• Layer Zero (Omnichain) - Airdrop claim is live - read

📰 DeFi news.

Even more important bits.

• Binance to pay $2.5M  penalty to India's financial intelligence unit - read

• Australia's largest stock exchange lists its first spot bitcoin etf - read

• Zachxbt wins Arkham's $150k bounty - read

• MicroStrategy buys another 11,931 Bitcoin ($786 million) - read

• Over 1 million new tokens have been created since April - read

• Jeremy Allaire (Circle) presents his bullish outlook on crypto - read

• Kraken discloses it was exploited for nearly $3 million - read

🫠 ICYMI.

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

Revealed: Karak’s Three-Part Strategy for Staking Success

Podcast

In this episode of Still Early, Grant chats with Dewpey from Karak about the innovative restaking protocol they're developing.

Tune in on YouTube →

The Unstoppable DEX is Set For a Huge Q3 and Here's Why

Research

DeFi world domination is back on, and Unstoppable has not stopped blowing up our DMs about all the new UnstoppableFi features

The timing of this one makes sense. We've let CryptoTube loose on the Unstoppable dApp to test everything new and preview what's coming in Q3.

Tune in on YouTube →

🦍 And finally…

If DeFi is back, we’re laying the groundwork for what could be the greatest Layer 1 launch of this bull run: Berachain, where memes collide with decentralized finance and the science of ponzinomics.

Stay tuned for more on this soon.

If you haven’t already… hit the subscribe button and get the coolest welcome email in crypto!

GM and welcome to another episode of Crypto Reality TV. 

In today’s episode, we’re trying to figure out whether Martin Shkreli, a previously convicted criminal, is heading back to jail. In his relentless pursuit of controversy, Martin decided to spurr up a rumor about the allegedly real Donald J. Trump coin, throwing down bets as high as a hundred million dollars with crypto legends like GCR.

Nevertheless, the super detective ZachXBT is on the case. So far, we know that Martin isn’t the creator of the DJT token. So, who is? Will Garry Gensler finally snag a victory and jail someone for security law violations? Tune in for the next episode.

Back to Bitcoin—after hitting $64,000 amidst some of the bleakest and angriest sentiment in recent memory, BTC is attempting for a bottom. With the “bullish new moon” and Quad Witching event coming up Friday, there is quite a high probability of this indeed being the bottom.

Lastly, Ethereum is presenting itself very strongly. ETH/BTC continues to confirm a steady floor, and Ethereum appreciates faster than BTC, possibly strengthened by news of SEC dropping all Ethereum investigations and ETH’s ETF likely approval coming up during July. 

📊 Luke’s Chart of the Day

LDO/WETH 3D Uniswap

In keeping with the memes to value rotation and $ETH DeFi signs of life (see $BTRFLY in Monday’s newsletter), it’s time to put Lido in to bat. One of the more painful holds out there; it’s probably safe to say most weak hands have been purged over 3 years of horrible chop. Supply is nearly all liquid with only a tiny FDV overhang. Is it Ethereum aligned to stake this much $ETH with one service? Probably not. Will institutions see ETF approval and look to use the most obvious liquid staking schelling point? Probably yes. 

I’ve posted a load of related $LDO charts in Discord, so head over to my channel for the full thesis. 

NFA as per usual, please always do your own research.

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.

Dinero is Coming

With CVX rebounding rapidly post-capitulation, it’s time to focus on Redacted Cartel and BTRFLY, one of the largest CVX holders. Convex’s strength is directly boosting BTRFLY, and Redacted has a slew of exciting developments on the horizon, especially with the ETH ETF season approaching.

Redacted's key innovation this year is a two-token LST (pxETH & apxETH), which currently boasts the highest yields on the market. Note that this, compared to an average, twice as high-yielding LST, is able to sustain this performance without any leverage or rehypothecation, meaning it's as secure as, for example, LDO’s liquid-staked ETH. 

Soon, we will have exciting news about pxETH powering and adding native yield to as many as 10 layer two chains, starting with MODE. This will directly trigger a rapid rise in TVL, paving the way for the launch of Dinero.

The metamorphosis into Dinero begins soon. This marks a fresh start for Redacted: a new token, a new chart, simplified staking mechanisms, and Dinero’s listing on CEXs (same supply and price, no token printing). 

All of this is just the beginning for Dinero. Right now, dozens of high-level, well-funded projects are already building on top of the Dinero protocol.

The scale and composability of this project will surprise many as announcements roll out. But you’re here to hear it first.

• Read the Metamorphosis proposal 

👀 DeFi insights.

The important bits.

• Layer Zero (Omnichain) - Airdrop checker is live - read

• Base (L2) - Unveils Time.Fun platform - read

• Puff (Mantle meme) - Mystic Gold Potion staking is live - read

• Morpho (Lending) - Morpho and Summer.Fi are now live on Base - read

• Kodiak (Berachain) - Now live on bArtio testnet - read

• Elixir (DeFi) - Now powering 47% of Orderly’s orderbook liquidity - read

• Ethena (DeFi) - New tokenomics & generalized restaking is out - read

📰 DeFi news.

Even more important bits.

• SEC closes all investigations of Ethereum - read

• Circle is expanding workforce - read

• ZkSync paid 0.5% of the total ZK supply to integrate Lens - read

• Stablecoins on polygon surpass $1.723B valuation - read

• 5 Coinbase-Base ecosystem updates you shouldn't miss - read

• Did Trump indeed launch a new crypto? - read

🫠 ICYMI.

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

BadgerDAO: BTC-Fi Done Correctly

Research

When it comes to spectacular products, though, what BadgerDAO has built with eBTC looks to be at the frontier of that.

This article by Defi_gaz explains how eBTC works and how it aims to solve many current problems in the synthetic Bitcoin space.

Read More →

The blocmates June TGE Watchlist - Our Top Launch Picks

Research

Here are our top picks and watchlist of what's coming and what's already launched for your radar

Read More →

🐥 Tweet of the day.

To save you doom scrolling.

The state of CT at the moment…

🦍 And finally…

I don’t know about you, but I smell the DeFi comeback, and the odor gets increasingly pungent with each passing day. If everything goes according to plan, ETH ETFs included, we’ve got one nasty utility / DeFi season coming our way, nasty in a very, very bullish sense. 

Personally, I’m adding to my Tapioca bags, which seem ridiculously undervalued right now, even after a nice green candle.

If you haven’t already… hit the subscribe button and get the coolest welcome email in crypto!

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GM, brave dip buyers. 

The market bloodbath appears directly tied to the escalating chaos on crypto Twitter. If there’s one takeaway, it’s that when accounts are out for blood and reputations are under fire, the market is likely nearing a bottom.

Bitcoin is following our charted course, with a shot at bottoming out here or around the $60,000 mark. The most important event and date to note here is the upcoming quad witching date (simultaneous expiration four times a year of stock options, index futures, and index futures options derivatives contracts) coming up this Friday. 

Even though we can definitely expect volatility to the downside, historically, these events tend to mark a bottom.

📊 Luke’s Chart of the Day

OTHERS 1D Log Chart

OTHERS is the market index for coins outside the top 10. This one looks worse than all the TOTAL 1,2,3 indices. No majors like $BTC or $ETH are in here to prop it up. RSI is already very oversold. 

If you look at last year, we bottomed June 9 at 25% below the 200-day MA. RSI was in a similar place. The 200-day MA is typically the pivot people use to determine if a trend is bull or bear. By comparison, the $BTC 200-day MA is at $57k. Maybe it gets tested if we go for my purple box above. 

In short, I don’t think this is a good place to capitulate on your spot altcoin bags. Of course, results will vary according to what you own, but personally, I am betting that we are close to the bottom on this index.

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.

Convex is Back 

Following the colossal CRV liquidation, which likely marked a DeFi market bottom, CVX—the token of Convex Finance, Curve’s yield booster—experienced an epic rebound. 

Convex is not only a long-time battle-tested protocol, it might be one of the most attractive tokens in a time when almost everyone is fed up with low float, high fully diluted valuation tokens. CVX tokens are nearly fully circulated, with the protocol raking in around $80 million annually. 

As the market inevitably circles back to utility coins and DeFi in the bull run’s second half, we need to seek out coins that are:

1. Secure

2. Battle-tested

3. Highly profitable business model

4. Share revenue with holders

5. Immutable

Got any other points, folks? Personally, I want to own secure protocols with PMFs that have proven their worth. 

This brings us to tomorrow's topic: Dinero. Dinero is around the corner, and it’s worth exploring. Stay tuned.

👀 DeFi insights.

The important bits.

• Unstoppable (DeFi) - Early access ending, audited contracts going live - read

• Avantis (DeFi) - Earn up to 40% + Avantis XP + Superform XP - read

• Base (L2) - Partners with Adidas - read

• Curve (DeFi) - Token inflation will drop dramatically after August 2024 - read

• Ethena (DeFi) - Tokenomics & staking update - read

• Rocket Pool (LST) - Houston upgrade is live - read

📰 DeFi news.

Even more important bits.

• SEC’s head of crypto assets quits after 9 Years - read

• Rapper ‘Waka Flocka Flame’ boards celeb crypto train - read

• Solana MEV bot pockets $30 million in 2 months - read

🫠 ICYMI.

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

Bitcoin Evolution: Glyph Exchainge, BRC20, and L2s

Podcast

A blocmates Orange - Episode 2 with Glyph Exchange is live now!

Jedi chats with the team about Glyph's efforts to build a Bitcoin-powered DEX on the Core DAO network, emphasizing mature DeFi models and new Bitcoin assets like BRC20.

Tune in on Spotify | YouTube →

🐥 Tweet of the day.

To save you doom scrolling.

Sorry Britney, this really do be facts tho…

🦍 And finally…

I firmly believe the second half of the bull run, especially after Ethereum ETF, is going to return us to our roots and re-focus on utility coins, DeFi included. This might be the main rotation of this run; DeFi is still sitting at bear market lows, while memes made hundreds of multiples. The liquidity will find its way.

If you haven’t already… hit the subscribe button and get the coolest welcome email in crypto!

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GM, the blood is on the streets.

The Crab is back in full force, liquidating one leveraged participant after another. Knowledge of Crab is crucial here: Bitcoin remains stuck in the same range it entered during March. Nothing has changed since then. Remember the $60,000 new production cost area? This still stands, and now seems like the best area to create a bottom again. 

Panicking at every dump and max longing every bounce is how the Crab snatches your coins right from under you. As long as Bitcoin isn't closing weekly candles below 60K, the bull market is waving no red flags.

Meanwhile, we’re seeing a great post-capitulation resurgence of Convex. We’ve explained this particular DeFi project's opportunity in this newsletter. 

If ETH/BTC maintains its current level and tries to go higher while we simultaneously see a breakdown of the Bitcoin dominance uptrend, hold onto your wif hats. With the ETH ETF projected to launch on July 2nd, these factors might just deliver what we've been waiting for: Ethereum, DeFi, and a full-blown altcoin season for the second half of 2024.

Lastly, watch out for Tether news today, which is about to announce its new digital asset class of products today.

📊 Luke’s Chart of the Day

BTRFLY/WETH Weekly Chart

When ETH supply starts getting sucked into the ETFs - the number likely goes up, but your investment has no staking yield or related participation in the ecosystem. This will light a fire for smarter market participants to use their money legos for the intended purpose - yield generation via Defi.

The BTRFLY chart looks bottomy here, and there’s a long list of fundamental reasons why that might be the case. A man like @PhilMrlo is the expert on that tip. (BTW: watch out for tomorrow’s Degen Corner)

From my side, the chart looks like it is building yet another W bottom for a Q3 and Q4 trip back up to the cylinder top at around $600. If the $ETH price starts to run and Redacted x Berachain ecosystems take off, we can go much higher than that.

NFA as per usual, please always do your own research.

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.

Gambling with a 100% chance to win? Fareplay

It sounds like a joke, but in this case, it’s straight-up reality. Fareplay is launching a GambleFi casino platform with a metaverse aspect, set in the most degen-friendly haven: Berachain.

As sauces tell us, Berachain is launching during Q3, just around the corner. While in testnet, there’s an opportunity to farm the upcoming BERA airdrop. I dare to say playing in a casino while farming BERA and also farming the FARE token sounds like a great summer past-time activity to me. 

• Here's the FARE token lowdown:

Players buy FARE tokens to join games; wins mean minted tokens, losses mean burned tokens. Given that over 95% of players lose money over time, FARE tokens become deflationary. Here’s the kicker: instead of Fareplay simply profiting, every FARE token holder gains value, essentially becoming part of 'the house.'

Fareplay and Berachain go hand in hand and I’m looking forward to see you across the table.

Connect to Fareplay app and let’s gamble!

👀 DeFi insights.

The important bits.

• Uniswap (DEX) - Implements ZkSync into its interface - read

• Sweeper (NFTFi) - Announces airdrop for Milady and… - read

• ZkSync (L2) - Launches ZKS token - read

• Zapper (Wallet interface) - Announces Zapper protocol - read

• Redacted (DeFi) - Partners with Blackwing - read

• Manifold (DeFi) - Manages to split the first block? - read

• Mantle (L2) - New LRT token mcETH is live - read

• Frax (DeFi) - Teses “relending” to revolutionize DeFi lending - read

• Karak Network (LRT) -  Introduces KUDA - read

• Layer Zero (Omnichain) - Airdrop confirmed for 20th June - read

📰 DeFi news.

Even more important bits.

• Donald Trump proposed zero income tax - read

• Paxos reduces headcount by 20% - read

• DeFi protocol UwU Lend hacked, again - read

• Gensler sees ETH ETF approval during summer - read

• US May producer index show continuing disinflation - read

• Ether sees significant long-term accumulation during the dip - )

🫠 ICYMI.

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

Why Every Blockchain Developer Needs to Know About Sunrise’s Proof of Liquidity

Podcast

In this episode of Still Early, Grant sits down with Yu Kimura from Sunrise, a company specializing in proof of liquidity data layers.

They dive deep into the role of data availability in secure transactions and its importance for rollups.

Tune in on Spotify | YouTube →

🐥 Tweet of the day.

To save you doom scrolling.

The new Binance intern surely knows how to spark controversy.

🦍 And finally…

The Tapioca Genesis LBP was executed brilliantly, and I wouldn’t expect less of this team. While we see a nice CVX resurgence, the DeFi comeback narrative will spill over into other assets. Which asset could benefit more from these market factors than another, but this time omnichain, money market? 

Yep, TAP deserves a long-term spot in my portfolio, especially since the price is still below the final auction price. Want to know more? Brush up on your Tapioca knowledge here.

If you haven’t already… hit the subscribe button and get the coolest welcome email in crypto!

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So, what are you waiting for? Dive right in

🎡 Ansem Third Wheels Mommy and Daddy

Unlike us, Mr Andrew Tate’s derangedness is directly proportional to the rational bankruptcy he can achieve.

For seventeen minutes straight this week, the self-proclaimed “rogue genie” ended up calling degens “losers,” “spineless,” “soulless,” “cowards,” and “dorks'' who do not understand how karma works. 

Ansem respectfully cooked Tate with mini-paragraph rebuttals, while all Tate could come up with was four to seven-worded replies along the lines of this is his world and how he’s built differently. No points for guessing, but CT users declared their darling sweetheart millionaire influenzah Ansem as the winner. 

Their verbal wrath on Twitter has also led to a boxing match being set up in Dubai in December during the Crypto Fight Week. The loser will donate $10 million to a coin of the winner’s choice. 

From the coin perspective, Tate started supporting DADDY in an attempt to flip Iggy Azalea’s MOTHER for the patriarchy. He claimed that he’d never sell his stash but instead burn it for the chaos. DADDY has already flipped MOTHER, but welp, insiders have been doing all the heavy lifting to manipulate the price.

At this stage, I could really use a time machine to go back and give due acknowledgment to the cats, dogs, and frogs for filtering out the unnecessary drama and keeping us entertained all day. 

Numerous other coins related to the Ansem-Tate spat have now started floating in the market. Most like Broke Mulatto Fuck and Chimpanzee Looking Dickhead are down on their knees in terms of valuation.

🙀 Is Kitty Drowning?

Hell no! GME trading was halted for the millionth time this week. Instead of merely soaring, it also nuked and lost more than 14% value in a single day. Gill then wittily posted a picture claiming how he was a billionaire before the dump. Amends were made gradually, double-digit gains were registered, and Kitty is now waiting for his folio to start roaring again. 

🏦 TrempBoden-Verse Updates

In the Politi-Fi universe, Mister Doland Tremp claimed this week that he wants “all” the remaining Bitcoin to be mined in America, but hello, he can’t just wipe out other hotspots from the map, right? If he’s back to the throne, I guess we can expect electricity subsidies for miners and other incentives to be rolled out, and ultimately, America’s shade on the map below could get darker. 

However, I do not see the entire map being white, with only Trump’s kingdom in color. As Laura Shin pointed out, that would end up creating jurisdictional risk and make BTC less decentralized and vulnerable to attacks. In the words of Venice.ai founder Erik Voorhees,

Like Tremp, Jeo Boden is now apparently looking to accept crypto donations. People in the president's ‘outer inner circle’ are telling him that if he continues to be quiet about crypto and doesn’t get up to speed, he could lose the election. The talks, however, have been labeled as “exploratory.” 

A recent report pointed out that his re-election team is discussing accepting crypto donations via Coinbase Commerce with our industry players. Even if he does, we might see a few headlines doing the rounds, but I don’t think it would make a difference to the retail crypto community. They’ve bore the brunt of his Operation Chokepoint and have had enough of regulatory suffocation in his reign. Don’t think they’re in the mood to give him a second chance. 

Price-wise, MAGA [TRUMP] is up 5.4% on the weekly, while TREMP AND BODEN and down 18% and 38% respectively in the same timeframe. Hang on to your hats, for the Politi-Fi tale is only going to get spicier from here on. The first debate between the two presidential contenders is scheduled for June 27, and the price of these Politi-Fi coins can be expected to dance to the tune of their unhinged word battle.

👀 DeFi insights of the week.

From the fundamental perspective, a ton of DeFi projects have delivered this week. That being said, there were also misses. Here’s it all - the good, the bad, and the ugly:

• Optimism has stepped into its ‘stage 1’ decentralization era and received a warm welcome from Lord Vitalik

• MetaMask rolled out its pooling staked services to compete with the likes of Lido and Rocket Pool, but US and UK folks do not have access for now

• ZKsync announced its airdrop deets and received a lot of backlash for ignoring small fishes and identifying real users as sybils. Several stalwarts have started supporting the user-protest  

• It was a merry week in the Tapioca and io.net camp. The former’s LBP concluded with $8.4 million raised in total, while the latter had a successful TGE, with the price of IO hovering above $5 at the moment

• Berachain had its V2 upgrade go live, ushering in a series of technical architectural changes

• Pendle is now a top-5 project in terms of TVL

📰 DeFi news of the week.

• Several protocols were hacked this week - The Loopring one resulted in a $5 million drain, while UwU Lend was targeted twice by the same hacker. First, $20 million was siphoned, and then $3.7 million 

• The luxury mansion owner’s loans got liquidated, pushing CRV to an all-time low valuation

• Ripple completed the acquisition of yet another crypto custody firm, Standard Custody; EigenLayer acquired the Rio Network

• Paxos laid off 20% of its staff

• Terraform Labs is gonna get away with whatever it did in 2022 by paying $4.47 billion to the SEC

A host of company executives walked into their office with hefty checks. Nexus Labs raked in $25 million in its Series A round, Layer3 accrued 21 million, Squad Labs amassed $10 million, Paradigm raised a whopping $850 million

📉 Fate of the Market

From the price perspective, it seems like we could continue experiencing a few more hiccups. Miners are under stress owing to the revenue drop and have started capitulating. In a single day this week, they dumped 3000 coins on Binance. Likewise, selling via OTC desks has also spiked up to a two-month high. 

Alongside, whales have been canceling out each other. The largest whale category - possessing at least 100k BTC - seems to be dormant at the moment. On the other hand, the 10k-100k group has been selling, while the 1k-10k BTC group has been buying - resulting in a net-neutral effect, and that’s why we’re stagnated in the $66k-$67k bracket. 

Coinglass’ data shows that liquidity has been amassing in the $63-$65k bracket, and to be frank, I’m waiting for a chop to transpire. This correction phase seems healthy. Good entry opportunities are set to open up soon, and I’m looking to buy the dip.

We already have institutional backing. Just need to wait for miners to settle down, paper hands to be filtered out, and whale buy trades to start picking up pace. It’s just a matter of when. 

At the moment, I am least worried about the market's fate, for it’s just a regular mid-cycle correction that we’re witnessing. But, Lady Whistledown’s fate is hanging by a thread, and my wiggly brain cells need to know what happens next before the suspense eats me alive. So, off I go to binge-watch the newly released episodes of Bridgerton. 

Emiri will take y’all through the happenings next week, and I shall see you here again the following week. 

Until next time,

Cheers!

el

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GM, the size of this week is indeed colossal.

Yesterday, we spoke skeptically about the possible repetition of the FOMC bottoming effect. When everyone expects the market to repeat the same thing repeatedly, the operator turns things around.

As post-FOMC longers are getting liquidated left and right, Michael Egorov, founder of Curve Finance, is watching his own liquidation. The little difference is that he’s spectating his $140 million worth of CRV being liquidated from a nice, tidy mansion. Surely tidier than the Curve interface, as Luke says. 

Price-wise, people are getting jittery all around. Our outlook remains the same: anything under 67,000 dollars per Bitcoin is an area of opportunity. In the longer term, this might even be truer for altcoins, which are getting ravaged by rising Bitcoin dominance at the moment. One thing is pretty much sure: once this long-term BTC dominance uptrend breaks, these prices will seem like a gift from the heavens. At least, that’s my opinion.

So, what’s the plan? Don’t get chopped up, enjoy touching grass and let the markets reconsolidate. The bull run is intact.

🔥 Degen corner.

Welcome to Avantis. Time to Level Up.

Base, or as the trenches call it, “Fed chain,” is the perfect place for real-world asset (RWA) projects and perpetual DEXs. Since the chain comes from Coinbase, large money bags have no fear of parking here, as we can clearly deduct from the massive rise in TVL.

This spells opportunity for us—in the form of Avantis.

RWA season, driven by BlackRock’s tokenization narrative, is on the horizon. Avantis aims to deliver 'the most advanced onchain DEX for trading and market-making cryptocurrencies, forex, and commodities.'

I’m diving in and securing my spot in Avantis XP Season 1. Here’s how:

Liquidity XP

Have spare dry powder? Deposit USDC and earn points based on the duration of deposits and lock duration (up to 4x multiplier) here.

Trading XP

Self-explanatory: trade and earn volume XP here. All volume generates XP (at most 1 XP per dollar traded. 

Referral XP

Create your referral here and earn 10% of the referred XP. This combines into your final Trading XP. 

With a wild year ahead for the markets, it’s invaluable to have a platform to trade crypto and RWAs like crude oil, exotic commodities, or indices, all while earning rewards for every dollar traded.

The Avantix XP Season lasts until December 2024. 

📊 Luke’s Chart of the Day

TON/USDT 1D Chart

I think we last featured $TON in early April at around $5 (1st purple box). That box turned out to be a good entry in the end—perhaps just not quite long enough. The trend has continued to be up while almost everything else has tanked or consolidated (majors).

Kijun pullbacks (The Ichimoku red MA) have been good buys thus far. We’re looking good for a fresh breakout here, but the whole market (this coin excepted) is weak. We may get another Kijun pullback or at least one to the Point of Control (red line) before we continue up. I’d recommend patience and purple box spot accumulation over-leveraged plays at this point. It’s still unclear how much more choppy majors price action we must endure in the short to medium term.

NFA as per usual, please always do your own research.

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!

👀 DeFi insights.

The important bits.

• Remilia (Milady NFTs) - Launches the CULT token - read

• Berachain (L1) - Puts out an article about proof of liquidity - read

• Sushiswap (DEX) - Introduces Sushi Labs and multi-token ecosystem - read

• Bracket (LST DeFi) - Introduces a point program - read

• Thales (DeFi, GambleFi) - The Sports Markets V2 architecture is live - read

• IntentX (DEX) - Listed IO with 20x leverage available - read

• API3 (DeFi, Oracles) - Integrates with Core DAO - read

📰 DeFi news.

Even more important bits.

• DeFi protocol UwU Lend hacked again - read

• Federal Reserve pauses interest rate hikes, remains at 5.25% - 5.50% - read

• Taiwan asks Crypto Industry Association to draft regulations - read

• Paxos reduces headcount by 20% - read

• Zimbabwe looking to regulate crypto operations - read

• MetaMask rolls out pooled staking service - read

• MicroStrategy to raise $500 Million for BTC purchase - read

🫠 ICYMI.

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

The Tapioca DAO TGE and How To Play It Successfully

Research

It's a massive day for Tapioca—one of our favorite protocols in DeFi has its TGE go live!

Read More →

🐥 Tweet of the day.

To save you doom scrolling.

Pulling this edit up for every FOMC from now on, thx Delta.

🦍 And finally…

The stars seem aligned for this one. Tapioca, the next-gen omnichain DeFi ecosystem, is running a sale just as Curve hits new all-time lows.

I believe in all things connected, and right now, my divine intuition says I need to bite the bullet and make TAP one of my core holdings. This is not financial advice, but I don’t see opportunities like this happen often.

If you haven’t already… hit the subscribe button and get the coolest welcome email in crypto!

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GM gamblers—are you throwing your chips on Ansem or Tate?

Despite a mere moderate pullback in the crypto markets, we’re already witnessing heavyweight accounts calling each other “mullato fucks” and n-words. This is interesting, as these levels of timeline fighting usually take place deeper in the retracement.

As entertaining as it is, we must remain focused. Today is FOMC day, and everyone and their gramma awaits Fed Chief Powell’s latest prophecies. Will today’s presser mark the bottom as it has since December 2023,  or will the script flip because everyone expects it? Too bad crystal balls aren’t real, the only thing we can count on is the 67,000 dollars Bitcoin level: if we start closing below that, it’s highly possible BTC visits the low 60s area and attempts to bottom around 64. Steady lads…

Remember, a dull, choppy summer could be a blessing in disguise from a long-term perspective. Lastly, a prolonged bull run stretching into 2025 would align perfectly with Bitcoin’s four-year cycle and the global liquidity cycle.

In times like these, it’s extremely important to keep the bigger picture in mind. Don’t lose your step.

📊 Luke’s Chart of the Day

BTC/USDT 1D Log Chart

On April 24th, I made the first blue squiggle, and everything was going so well until June 6th, when our main character started posting bear porn to half a million followers, and things have somewhat fallen apart since then. Price double topped just below $72k and refused to go to the top of the range. RSI looks a little weak, too - ideally, it should have run higher before the price rolled over. We are now sitting on midrange and 100 DMA support.

Realistically, this all suggests flagging momentum and more consolidation is possible or likely over the summer. This is borne out on the macro/liquidity side, where the MOVE index has bounced to the upside (I don’t think it will hold above 95, and lower is better), and DXY has done the same, back above the uptrend (not ideal).

So now we have the brand new bear squiggle (2.0) - if we’re not going to the range top, we’ll likely go to the range bottom. I’ve left squiggle 1.0 in for now - if we don’t turn it around by Friday, out it comes.

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.

Global Liquidity = Crypto Cycle

As we slowly enter the second phase of the bull run, it’s worth starting to track the global liquidity chart, combining the data from the US Federal Reserve, People’s Bank of China, ECB, Bank of Japan, and Bank of England. 

The bottom and start of the current cycle were marked around October 2022. Given that the average liquidity cycle spans 5-6 years, we’re likely at the midpoint now. Let’s keep this in mind, I will be monitoring the liquidity situation more closely from now onwards and will inform you in upcoming newsletters.

👀 DeFi insights.

The important bits.

• Mantle (L2) - Integrates Vertex into Mantle ecosystem - read

• Unstoppable (DeFi) - Use automatic DCA to profit from the market dumps - read

• Smilee (DeFi) - Earn 18% boosted APY paid in ARB - read

• Skillful AI (NFT) - Partners with HyperGPT - read

• Remilia (NFT) - Fang unveils plans for next steps of Remilia Corporation - read

• Monad (L1) - Will be live on Phantom on day one - read

📰 DeFi news.

Even more important bits.

• Layer Zero unveils another massive sybil cluster - read

• Andrew Tate puts out a message to the crypto community - read

• EU's innovation hub says layer twos, mixers, privacy coins are dangerous - read

• US CPI inflation data come in softer - read

🫠 ICYMI.

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

Unlocking Bitcoin's Hidden Potential: The Future of BTC Fi and DeFi

Podcast

And it's live! The introductory episode of A blocmates Orange is now available!

Talking DeFi on Bitcoin, the possibilities of BTC-Fi, its opportunity, and much, much more.

Tune in on Spotify | YouTube →

🐥 Tweet of the day.

To save you doom scrolling.

People with wild imaginations and ideas are out there in the CT land…

🦍 And finally…

As I write this, Tate has just invited Ansem for a podcast. I must admit, this is one hell of an entertaining timeline.

If you haven’t already… hit the subscribe button and get the coolest welcome email in crypto!

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GM, the streets are awash in blood. 

On top of that, we’ve got legions of enraged farmers, either ranking low or outright ignored for the upcoming ZkSync airdrop. It looks like the Layer Zero tactic of flushing out as many sybils as possible might be worth the time, after all. As for ZKS, we can see sybils bagging about 2,000,000 ZKS tokens. Anyways, you can check your allocation here.

But fear not, we have something to sweeten the bitter pill: the long-awaited IO token airdrop. By the time you read this, the airdrop should already be in the distribution process. Remember, IO is hitting Binance immediately. Check your allocation and claim your bounty here.

On the price action side, even though bounces here and especially during tomorrow's FOMC are likely, pressure remains to the downside. At the same time, nothing particularly serious is happening to our magic internet beans market, and it’s worth keeping our cool and seeing how everything plays out without panicking.

📊 Luke’s Chart of the Day

ETH/USDT 6H Log Chart

6 Hour - weird timeframe, right? The reason is that the RSI oversold signal backtests nicely (lower orange circles). Fit the chart to your bias, am I right? As an aside, the 1D $ETH Ichimoku setup looks interesting here.  The $3,500 circled wick no doubt has some juicy liquidity resting below it. Market makers are trying to grab that right now. We are already very oversold here on lower timeframes, so those 3 purple boxes become less likely the lower you go. 

With $ETH ETF approval imminent, $BTC inflows net positive lately, elections six months out, and tradfi mostly unallocated to the world computer, I think PA firms up again soon. At a minimum, we’ll get an oversold bounce that will be telling. FOMC usually precipitates a dump, so let’s see how we look once that shakes out.

NFA as per usual, please always do your own research.

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.

Meal Deal is Here!

Personally, if I compare my first bull run to this one, the most significant difference is being able to trade it with my crew. One can go crazy fast if he or she (they, xei, etc.) stays alone in the madhouse of crypto for far too long. 

That’s why we’re unveiling the Meal Deal, a lifeline for the professional degen and a gateway to an active crew grinding on a daily basis.

Meal Deal subscription includes:

• Roundtrippers

Live, weekly stream where members of the blocmates team and contributors discuss their individual portfolio setups and more. 

• Sleuthmates

Sleuthmates is your one-on-one access to our Chief Ramen Officer, Dan. 

Dan hosts sessions on how to find smart money, wallet tracking, tactics to use, software that helps scope out whales, best practices for copy trading, and more.

• Trading channels

The trading channels discuss all of the above and more, including daily trades, ideas, portfolio management, and finding new coins. 

This is where the crew aspect comes in.

Sounds good? Check the subscription right here.

👀 DeFi insights.

The important bits.

• TON (L1) - Flipped Ethereum in terms of active addresses - read

• Optimism (L2) - Permissionless fault proofs are live on OP Mainnet - read

• Uniswap (DEX) - Acquired “Crypto: The Game” - read

• ZkSync (L2) - Airdrop 3.675B ZKS tokens to 695k happens next week - read

• Remilia (NFT) - Teases news on its birthday tomorrow - read

📰 DeFi news.

Even more important bits.

• British cryptocurrency exchange Lykke has shut down due to hacks - read

• Coinbase legal executive leaves to join Uniswap - read

• Fireblocks joins Coinbase to offer perpetual trading - read

• ZkSync airdrop shows a controversial number of eligible sybil addresses - read

• Solana validator sandwich attacks: Here's everything that's happened - read

• Loopring hack: 2FA breach instigates $5 million drain - read

• Io.net founder Ahmad Shadid resigns - read

🫠 ICYMI.

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

Research

It's a massive day for Tapioca—one of our favorite protocols in DeFi has its TGE go live!

Read More →

🐥 Tweet of the day.

To save you doom scrolling.

If you didn’t receive your ZKS airdrop, don’t worry; you’re definitely not the only one…

🦍 And finally…

Even though this pullback might rattle some overleveraged participants, it's tough to rationally argue that we’ve hit the bull market’s peak.

The backdrop for crypto is excellent at the moment, and even if we chop all summer, the only possible outcome is a prolonged bull run.

If you haven’t already… hit the subscribe button and get the coolest welcome email in crypto!

Subscribe now