Aloha tasty little lemon drops!
Welcome to Crypto Moonpie, your favorite bridge to crypto.
🟢At Crypto Moonpie we do:
• brief (yet comprehensive) analyses of the most appealing altcoins
• news and thoughts on the current bull run in crypto
• thoughts on current trends, market cycles, investing psychology
• and many more!
🔴At Crypto Moonpie we don’t:
• provide any investment advice – always do your own research!
• highlight any projects that are not traded on reputable crypto exchanges (we know that some early-stage projects may be rewarding, but it’s just not our cup of tea)
• we don’t ever DM our subscribers – so beware of fake accounts and scammers!
• we don’t charge you for any content and don’t ask for your money – Crypto Moonpie is 100% free!
We have no investors, no affiliates and no sponsors – that makes us independent in our editorial policy.
Have fun!

Disclaimer
Crypto markets are highly volatile and investments in crypto currencies and other crypto assets are very risky. Never invest in crypto more than you can afford to lose. Nothing at Crypto Moonpie shall be considered as investment advice. Always DYOR (do your own research) and make decisions at your own risk. Crypto Moonpie does not assume any responsibility for your decisions.

Current bull run in Crypto
Aloha lovely fluffy crypto kittens!
Do you know what time is it in crypto markets now? It’s the very beginning of Bull Run o’Clock!
You probably know that like every other market (equity, money, debt, real estate) crypto market also has it’s bearish and bullish phases. Up until now the market cycles in crypto lasted for approximately 4 years: massive bull run, decline, long accumulation phase, and Bitcoin halving, followed by a new bull run.
So, after two years of bearish trend we see the rise of the bullish mood. And by the way, Bitcoin’s halving just happened in April 2024.

Why this bull run will differ from the previous ones?
Because we anticipate massive influx of new cash into the crypto sector:
• recent SEC’s approval of the first ever spot Bitcoin ETFs issued by TradFi behemoths like Black Rock and Grayscale
• more ETF’s to come: Etherium ETF (most probably this August), and then we may expect ETFs on other major altcoins
• the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) allowed banks to keep up to 2% of their reserves in crypto currencies as of 1 January 2025

These macro factors may result in mass adoption of crypto, because usually after institutional investors (banks, investment funds, pension funds and even state funds) the markets start attracting numerous retail investors. We’ve seen this previously with stock markets, we may expect the same to happen in crypto. You certainly have your stocks in your broker’s app on your smartphone. Your friends do. Your mom does (and probably your grandma, too). Imagine the world where everyone will have a crypto wallet app!

So, hello Bull Run, here I come!

Starknet (STRK)
We start our [almost] daily TL;DR-style altcoins review. Today’s star is Starknet.
Ticker: STRK
Sector: Layer-2, ZK-rollup helping to scale dApps on Ethereum blockchain
Market Cap: $850 million
Usability: popular solution, used by more than 5 million smart contracts; more than 100 million transactions done
Investors: top-tier investors include Multicoin Capital, Sequoia Capital, Paradigm, Polychain and Vitalik Buterin
Amount invested: 7 financing rounds totaling more than $280 million
Circulation supply: only 8% of tokens are currently in free float, and only 1.67% of investor tokens are unlocked, while the rest are vested and will gradually unlock up until May 2025
Inflation: token supply is limited and the gradual unlocks will likely keep inflation low
Conclusion: popular product backed by top investors (some of whom are known to be seasoned market-makers). Low cap compared to competitors. Strong tokenomics. Most probably the token will be in accumulation phase for the most part of the current bull run and may demonstrate exponential growth by the fall of 2025. Great potential.

Trust Wallet Token (TWT)
A blue chip in our portfolio
Ticker: TWT
Sector: crypto-currency wallet
Market Cap: $460 million
Usability: one of the most popular non-custodial crypto wallets; utility/governance token; token holders get discounts in the Trust Wallet ecosystem
Investors: Binance
Amount invested: n/a
Circulation supply: 41% of the maximum supply is in circulation; 12% of tokens are reserved for existing community rewards, and 8% are reserved for new customer acquisition
Inflation: limited supply and staking are good deflationary factors
Conclusion: Trust Wallet is backed by Binance, it is very popular. TWT is not subject to inflation. Customer retention and customer acquisition incentives will have a good impact on growing popularity. Even if the TWT token will not grow exponentially during this bullish cycle, it nevertheless has a good return potential from current buy price.

Arbitrum (ARB)
Another solid investment opportunity
Ticker: ARB
Sector: Layer-2 - scaling solutions for Ethereum
Market Cap: $3.2 billion
Usability: through the use of roll-ups Arbitrum provides high-throughput, low-cost smart contracts; Arbitrum employs fraud-proof mechanism, where validators can challenge assertions and receive rewards for proving fraud
Investors: Polychain Capital, Mark Cuban, Pantera Capital, LightSpeed Venture Partners
Amount invested: $123.7m
Circulation supply: only 27% of the investors’ tokens and 26% of the team tokens are unlocked; the remaining tokens will be gradually unlocking until 2027
Inflation: limited supply and vesting are good deflationary factors
Conclusion: Arbitrum is a popular Layer-2 solution, it has reputable investors and strong tokenomics. We believe that current ARB price is more lucrative as compared to competitors.

Cardano (ADA)
A missed opportunity
Ticker: ADA
Sector: Blockchain, one of the first to use a proof-of-stake algorythm
Market Cap: $16.1 billion
Usability: used for deployment of dApps; every protocol is peer-reviewed mathematically before it is deployed
Investors: a few un-rated angel investors long-long time ago, in a distant galaxy (even the last public round was raised in 2018)
Amount invested: unknown
Circulation supply: 79% in circulation; looks like all of the investors’ tokens are unlocked
Inflation: limited
Conclusion: It looks like the project lacks financing, while all of the early investors left the project with bags of Xs in ROI. It may still reward speculative players, but Crypto Moonpie will definitely not include it in its HODL portfolio

Know Your Investor
You must have noticed that Crypto Moonpie experts pay particular attention to the investors and the amount they’ve invested in each particular project. Why is that important?
Growth fuel: every crypto project is a start-up in terms of venture financing. Every start-up largely depends on the money, because it has to pay salaries to their developers, IT teams, PR and marketing initiatives. The more money invested, the better, but we recommend applying a $50 million benchmark – if we see this or higher amount invested, the project is definitely worth considering.
Expertise inflow: reputable angel investors and VCs add value to their portfolio companies by providing free advice, participating in the board of directors, and giving access to their networks of portfolio companies and other contacts. This may boost project’s growth.
Market-making: a first-tier institutional investor adds a considerable amount of reputation and credibility to the project. Private investors think “wow, if [insert venture fund name] invested, they certainly know something!” Furthermore, top venture funds add liquidity to the market (so that our tiny hamster orders get executed swiftly) and often have huge leverage to intelligently skyrocket the price of the tokens.

Hope that from now on you guys will be paying a lot more attention on who’s behind your prized crypto possessions;)

P.S. Whom do we consider to be top-tier crypto investors? Stay tuned and find out in our further issues!

Aptos (APT)
The next “Solana”
Ticker: APT
Sector: Ecosystem blockchain
Market Cap: $4 billion
Usability: a blockchain for dApps; APT is bringing mass adoption of web3; facilitates transition of fiat to APT blockchain through collaboration with Petra wallet
Investors: Variant Fund, A16z, Multicoin Capital, Jump Crypto, Coinbase Ventures, Binance Labs and more
Amount invested: over $350 million
Circulation supply: 38% of tokens unlocked; funds’ tokens will be gradually unlocked by October 2024 – looks like VCs are currently accumulating tokens
Inflation: the supply is unlimited, but there are deflationary mechanisms, such as token burn and staking (more than 80% of tokens are staked)
Conclusion: a popular blockchain that has great potential; top-tier investors; current price is quite lucrative and we may see ATH in early 2025

Is Crypto Moonpie a Fortune Teller?

No, absolutely not.

We don’t have insider trading hints (and please don’t believe those who pretend they have). We don’t have a crystal ball and can’t do magic tricks (*sigh…).

At Crypto Moonpie we research crypto markets and review cryptocurrencies based on the publicly available data. And yes, our professional judgments are based on certain assumptions like in every other industry. These assumptions may prove wrong. The projects may perform poorly due to lack of marketing efforts or team’s managerial skills.

So, some of our crypto ideas may become gems, some may not. Crypto markets are highly volatile and unpredictable. Therefore, we only look for crypto projects that have good fundamentals. These fundamentals include: usability and quality of the product, investors and amount invested, tokenomics and vesting. These metrics help us distinguish decent projects from the bad ones.

There are tens of thousands crypto currencies in the market currently, but not more than a couple hundred are worth our investment. So, we are constantly digging to find tokens that have strong fundamentals. And we’ll see the results rather sooner than later 😉

So, tasty little lemon drops, take care, always do your own research and never invest more than you can afford to lose!

Mantle Token (MNT)
Bybit’s favorite pet
Ticker: MNT
Sector: Layer-2, CEX
Market Cap: $2.9 billion (*compare with BNB cap of $89.7 billion!)
Usability: roll-up scaling solution for Ethereum blockchain, platform for ETH staking, a part of the Bybit Exchange ecosystem
Investors: Bybit
Amount invested: unknown, but who cares if it’s totally owned by one of the most reputable centralized exchanges – Bybit?
Circulation supply: about half of the maximum supply is in circulation; we do not know the vesting schedule, but in this case, we can say – it’s not a bug baby, it’s a feature
Inflation: the supply is limited, staking is available -> inflation should be moderate
Conclusion: a practical solution which is strongly associated with Bybit; token price currently looks more lucrative then competitors – a keep my cellar!

1inch
A blue chip that’s gonna rock
Ticker: 1INCH
Sector: DEX aggregator
Market Cap: $490 million
Usability: 1inch combines several decentralized protocols to provide users with the best possible trading rates and lowest slippage; it finds best rates across DEXes and provides access almost to all liquidity in the market
Investors: Fabric Ventures, Blockchain Capital, Binance Labs, Greenfield One, Pantera Capital, Dragonfly Capital – to name a few, he-he
Amount invested: $190 million
Tokenomics: 83% of the maximum supply are in circulation; the price is in the accumulation phase – just look at the chart and you’ll see a long sideways trend which lasts for 2 years in a row; the next considerable token unlock is scheduled in November 2024
Inflation: the supply is limited, staking is available -> inflation should be moderate
Conclusion: a very solid business model, very good current price, Crypto Moonpie are expecting x10 growth in 2025

Why Crypto Moonpie does not give you entry price levels?

Well guys, this is not trading, this is long-term investing.
We don’t give trade signals.
We don’t give price alerts (we may shoutout to you if we see anomalies in prices, but there’s no pledge on our side to do so – remember, we don’t give investment advice, the risk is yours).
We don’t scalp markets on 1-minute time frames.
We don’t speculate.
We don’t play on your nerves.

We only scrutinize the fundamentals of solid tokens that have good potential, proven usability, clear tokenomics and reputable investors. Because [in the bull run like the one we are facing right now] only solid long-term investments may give you that life-change money you always wanted. In a bullish phase, no day-trading setup is capable of giving you the same profits as the good old HODL strategy.

Trading is hazardous to your wealth. Long-term investing in fundamentally strong assets may surprise you, in a good way.

But the good news is “long-term” in crypto is not the same as “long-term” in stock markets. Crypto still has its short 4-year cycles, where bull phase lasts from 12 to 18 months. We are now at the very beginning of this 12-18-month stage – so don’t miss out!

Psychology of Investing
Well, well, well, the markets shrink, the charts are bloody-red and we know what you’re thinking these days;)

Crypto is rekt! We’ve been fooled! The bears are coming! The whales will be eating hamsters for breakfast and dinner! Sell everything at loss!

Does that ring a bell to you? If yes, you’d better chillax.

The proverbial Wisdom of the Crowd is not something you should be up to when it comes to market cycles. Even in crypto. Especially in crypto!

The truth is – crowds go mad quite often, and you should stay clean and sober when it happens. Most people do something because others are doing it – they invest in assets because they see others making money, rather than independently doing their own research and assessing fundamental aspects. It is so easy to join a strong majority, isn’t it? Feels so safe, right?

But don’t lose your mind, cause if you do, it’s you and your bags that’s gonna be wrecked, not the markets. Your behavior should be based only on your research and your very own understanding of the fundamentals.

We at Crypto Moonpie did our homework diligently and our final summation is that the current dip is the kinda dip we should chip in. Today we are buying low, so that we don’t regret missing this opportunity later.

Kusama (KSM)*
A firm “No” from Crypto Moonpie
Ticker: KSM
Sector: Blockchain / Web3
Market Cap: $347m
Current price: $22.96
Usability: a network that serves as a testbed for its counterpart, Polkadot. [Quote]: “Kusama is known for its risk-taking nature and encourages developers to iterate quickly and launch their custom blockchains” [unquote] (for whatever that means…)
Investors: Fabric Ventures and a handful of second-tier VCs, quite a while ago
Amount invested: nearly $190 million
Circulation supply: 100% in circulation; there are no locked tokens
Inflation: the maximum supply is unlimited and even high-yield staking cannot help
Conclusion: There were times when Kusama’s market cap amounted to billions and those times are long gone (and we believe, that VC investors left the building with their bags exactly then). The coin may be interesting for day-trading speculations, but we at Crypto Moonpie do not care for such things.

* Sometimes we publish reviews on the coins that we do not recommend investing in. Today is the day. Some popular author on TradingView wrote “Kusama could be something”, so we decided to check it out. Turns out – no, it won’t fly in our view.

Today is Saturday.

We know that crypto markets are open 24/7, but we urge you to give yourself some rest today and abstain from analysing charts and metrics. Indeed, this is crucial to your mental health and investing psychology.

So, no coin review from Crypto Moonpie today.

Instead, we suggest that you take a look at an artwork titled Innocent by Nature. This is created by ParalimniArt, a contemporary artist living in Cyprus. Some of their works are available for sale as NFTs and merch - probably worth checking out.

Music for the bull run

At Crypto Moonpie we believe that Sundays were invented specifically for the music.

So, today we promote (as if they need our promotion) a very talented rock band from Nottingham/London – Little Barrie. These guys combine fuzzy garage rock with some psychedelia, multiplied by unparalleled taste for ideal harmonic series.

Each playlist is quite a personal and intimate thing. We don’t share our fave music with anyone, but the most valued people – which means you, dear subscribers.

Enjoy!