TODAY IN WEB3: KEY HIGHLIGHTS

Today marks the 10-year anniversary of Ethereum's ICO.

Bullish News:

• Bitcoin's price hits $68,000 after China unexpectedly cuts interest rates. Traders anticipate an all-time high in two months and potential benefits from 'the Trump trade' ahead of the November US elections.

• Bernstein asserts the market hasn't factored in a possible Trump victory and a positive shift in crypto regulations. Bitcoin traders are also overlooking this potential outcome.

• Japanese firm Metaplanet gains 19% as it adds more Bitcoin to its treasury, completing its Bitcoin buying goal with an additional $1.2M purchase.

• HNT token surges 40%, outperforming Bitcoin, as Helium Mobile's subscriber count exceeds 100K.

• Coinbase alumni raise $21 million for web3 gaming infrastructure startup NPC Labs, which previously raised $18M to scale gaming on Base Network.

• Solana ETF hopes and rising fundamentals drive SOL prices higher, according to traders.

Bearish News:

• Mt. Gox prepares for repayments on Bitstamp, executing test transactions and transferring a small amount of bitcoin to Bitstamp, according to Arkham.

• Ethereum ETFs are set to start trading in the US, with analysts predicting potential sell pressure following the ETF debut amid a surge in implied volatility.

Just in: Avail mainnet is live!

Unification drop should be distributed shortly, looking forward to staking 😉

TODAY IN WEB3: KEY HIGHLIGHTS

Today marks the 10-year anniversary of Ethereum's ICO.

Bullish News:

• Bitcoin investors remain steadfast as BlackRock's IBIT accrues $526 million. Bitcoin Layer 2 Bitlayer reaches a $300 million valuation with new funding from Franklin Templeton, which also leads an $11 million raise.

• Spot Ethereum ETFs begin trading today. Grayscale transferred $1 billion ETH to Coinbase ahead of the Ether ETF launch, while Bitwise pledges 10% of spot Ether ETF profits to Ethereum developers.

• Bears can now short Bitcoin in Hong Kong with new ‘inverse’ ETFs. BTC options implied volatility surges ahead of Trump’s upcoming appearance at Bitcoin 2024.

• Avail launched its mainnet today; $AVAIL is now trading at $0.15.

Bearish News:

• Mt. Gox moves $2.8 billion worth of Bitcoin to a new address, with $3.2 billion BTC in outflows within just two hours.

• The U.S. Government moves $4 million Bitcoin to Coinbase, according to Arkham data. Meanwhile, an English football club owned by a Bitcoiner adds $4.5 million Bitcoin to its treasury.

In case you’re investing in LBPs, here’s my overview of the upcoming sale of Magnify Cash.

Good % of supply distributed to users, have a look!

Aethir has recently shared a report on its revenue, $36M pulled in 2023.

I decided to explore Aethir’s target market and the way it plans to gain a higher share in the cloud computing segment.

Enjoy reading!

Great source for searching new products here.

This is Electric Capital’s map of Web3.

View full-size here: https://www.cryptomarketmap.org

Happy weekend, my frens!

I’ve decided to calculate the potatnial value of Mantle’s upcoming $COOK airdrop and translate it into APR.

Quite interesting numbers here, have a look if you have some idle ETH.

There're two reasons I don't trade memecoins:

• Business model
• Culture

Let me explain ↓


I know this is a highly controversial topic, and many of my followers are huge fans of memecoins.

They appreciate the 99% community ownership, fair launches, protests against inflated valuations, and the pure speculative nature that makes memes so lucrative.

But let me offer a different perspective.


When you trade memecoins, you're always trading against other people and the team.

Every memecoin with some coverage on Telegram or X has invested in liquidity and marketing.

Do they want to recoup their investment and earn extra?

Of course they do.

You might argue that with classic protocols, you have to trade against VCs, so what's the difference in trading against a team?

With classic protocols, you know who and when you're trading against. They are designed to be long-lasting. Protocols' tokens are 10% tech and 90% speculation, but that 10% is crucial.

That 10% drives teams to establish companies.

To deliver a product and capture a larger market share, they must follow the traditional launch framework.

To avoid regulatory risks, insiders (VCs, team, advisors) should have a cliff of at least one year post-TGE.

With memecoins, there're no rules.


Thousands of memecoins are launched daily.

The ones you trade are likely those with significant marketing investments; otherwise, they'd get lost in the long list of new launches.

How significant?

As a marketing agency owner familiar with blogger promotion rates, I estimate the average spend for a mediocre token to be around $150K.

Including liquidity expenses, the total costs are somewhat close to $200K+.

To cover all expenses and generate a profit, such teams would need to earn at least $300K through the secondary market.

Some spend $500K+. Do the rest of the math yourselves.


The wild part is that you never know exactly when or how the team will decide to take profits.

But they always will.

So, you have to compete against snipers, the team, and other traders—all at once, all eager to take profit.


I know the counter argument: you can have ten -100% trades but just one 20x memecoin will cover all your losses.

The main issue that you never know if you ever have this 20x memecoin.


Now, let's move on to the second issue: Culture.

Memecoins are often touted as easy money with a low barrier to entry. Hundreds of bloggers post threads promising 100x gains to anyone who masters sniping and uncover the "hidden secrets" of memecoin trading.

This is bullshit.

If these secrets really existed and worked, bloggers wouldn't share them for free or just for the sake of 100K views.

People trust these threads, often trading memecoins and becoming exit liquidity for more seasoned players, teams, and insiders.

Additionally, memecoins divert attention from other protocols that aim to enhance the space and contribute to new Web3 use cases, supporting its long-term success.

While such teams are rare, they do exist, even though most are primarily focused on making money.

Memecoins NEVER offer anything new.


I agree if you love gambling and trading memecoins for the endorphin rush when you succeed, that's fine.

I just don't understand why this remains a predominant narrative in crypto for months, positioned as the best source of yield, with no efforts needed, while more important issues are sidelined.


Don't you think that's because launching memecoins has become one of the best yield-generating strategies for Web3 teams?

Minimal development efforts + short memecoin life cycle + fast revenue source → Memecoin teams easily afford to dominate your timeline with extensive marketing, unlike other projects.

Just think about it.

On my end, memes are just not something I want Web3 to be.

I was researching the AI Agent field and came across a very interesting Agent Collective protocol, Theoriq.

They’ve already established some very solid partnerships, so definitely worth checking.

Here’s my Eli5 of their product offering.

All you need to know about Point Programs.

The state of Blast:
Bridge deposits: ATH $2.8B → now $1.7B
Weekly active users ATH 580K → now 135K

The reality of "The only EVM chain with native yield for ETH and stablecoins".

Farm & Forget.

New compilation of interesting facts about Web3

– On-chain data highlights
– BTC holdings
– Solana composition
– Treasuries

And much more.
Pure data you’d never google.

Have a look!

Guess who finally started posting on Substack?
Yeah, that’s me.

Twitter algo has been very bad recently, so I no longer want to limit myself to the format of threads.

The first publication is already waiting for you, with a curated collection of early-stage protocols from Moni Discover.

Enjoy reading and make sure to subscribe to my newsletter ❤️

Disillusionment Zone: Ethereum ETFs vs. Bitcoin ETFs vs. Classic ETFs

Grayscale Ethereum Trust: $194M trading volume
iShares Bitcoin Trust: $1.29B trading volume
SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust: $44B trading volume

Our share is small.
For now.

Last week’s volatility stands in stark contast to what we’ve witnessed earlier this year.

This time, the catalyst is more fundamental: Fears of recession.

This is a complex topic that needs lots of additional context, so I crafted a long-read for you on my Substack, explaining everything you need to know to understand the current market sentiment.

Enjoy your Sunday read and trade wisely.

Did you know that Linea is already the second largest ZK rollup?

Here’s a quick overview of the ecosystem’s latest developments.

If you're overly exposed, open a put option to hedge against a further drop.

I doubt tomorrow's stock market opening will bring green candles.

In case you're wondering, I do nothing.
I've seen too many bad days since 2016 to overly care.
I don't care about temporary volatility any more.

Market Bloodbath: Full timeline of events and side effects for well-informed decisions.

• Jump Trading drama
• Global volatility
• US elections

All reasons and effects ↓
https://stacymuur.substack.com/p/august-bloodbath-full-timeline-for

PS: The article will be updated as I get more context, make sure to subscribe to receive timely updates.

As the market crashes, the number of whale addresses holding 1,000+ BTC is rising.

A dose of hopium.

Essential tips: Mastering a realistic market outlook

Hope and excitement brought you here, but now you're watching your portfolio dwindle. Don't fall into the same trap of overexcitement again.

5 important tips from a person who has survived 3 bear markets ↓

Background

I have survived 3 bear markets.

2018: My first bear market. I panicked. I remember thinking $20K for Bitcoin was just the beginning. But as time passed, I watched my portfolio plummet, and in November 2018, when BTC dumped by almost 50% in days, I panic-exited.

2020: The second bear market hit. Another nearly 50% drop in a matter of days. The charts were bloody red, and FUD was everywhere. But this time, I knew it was temporary. I stayed patient, did nothing, and was rewarded with a new Bitcoin ATH just a year later.

2022: The third bear market. Shortly after the dip, I started building my 𝕏 brand. I knew this too would pass, and I decided to build while others were moaning.

5 tips from my long journey ↓

Underearning is Better than Overlosing

I recently chatted with a follower who asked what percentage of my portfolio is in stables. It was just days before the August market crash.

“Roughly 60%,” I replied.

“Wow, don’t you feel underexposed? That’s a lot!” he argued.

For me, it’s better to underearn than overlose.

Honestly, I saw no explicit catalyst for a sudden full-sized bull market or an altcoin season. I averaged my entries into high-conviction positions as DeFi tokens bled, but kept a high percentage of my portfolio in stables – for immediate liquidity if needed.

I analyzed market sentiment, retail influx chances, developments, and ETF inflow dynamics and realized that the main catalysts were coming from politics and traditional finance – things that are very hard to predict.

Follow Your Strategy

Be an independent thinker.

Build your dashboards with key metrics to watch, start reading research and taking notes, and verify facts. Quick media consumption won't lead to well-thought-out decisions. It will bring you either FUD or FOMO – nothing in between.

Side Note: In a few days, I will share a list of very cool market trend metrics to track – not just simple MACDs and RSIs, but more fundamental metrics tailored for the on-chain market. So make sure to subscribe to my newsletter ↓
https://stacymuur.substack.com

You Can Never Be Confident

I know, I might sound like a pessimistic loser, constantly underearning and never taking risks. But it's more about never being 100% confident.

Being unconfident urges you to hedge your positions, reevaluate your strategy, and rebalance your portfolio.

Being unconfident keeps you from trading fresh-new memecoins, opening high-leverage positions, and overtrading.

As someone who can't spend 24/7 staring at charts, I prefer this playbook.

Don’t Marry Your Bags

Investments and emotions should be separate. I know many protocols I love, whose teams I know, and who, in my opinion, contribute greatly to the space.

But remember: They are building products in a highly competitive environment and do not prioritize the price of their token. They focus on their products – the best way to establish a strong product-market fit.

This road is bumpy, with no guarantees they won't be outperformed by others in the short or even long term.

So don’t marry your bags.

Study and Master Trading Options

In TradFi, with a more mature market and a higher percentage of experienced participants, options are extremely popular for one main reason: hedging.

Yes, you have to pay a premium to hedge your position. But that premium is your maximum loss if the market goes against your expectations. And if you're right, paying a premium for peace of mind is worth it, right?

If you’re fully on-chain, check out Aevo.
If you are CEX-friendly, check out Deribit.

Final Thoughts

Mastering a realistic market outlook isn't about being pessimistic; it's about being prepared and making informed decisions.

Stay grounded, stay informed, and most importantly, stay patient.

This too shall pass.

Much love,
Stacy Muur