TON Open Interest has surged to $300M following Durov's arrest.

Even though Durov is not directly associated with TON management, the event has raised significant concerns about the future of Toncoin and the broader TON ecosystem.

The $TON price is down 17%.

Could be much worse, imo.

Conducted in-depth research on why I'm bullish about Mantle's ongoing incentive programs (COOK and FBTC).

In a stagnant market like the current one, these airdrops are a breath of fresh air.

Enjoy reading!

Always look beyond the narratives.

The map above shows DePIN projects and their respective chains.

While Solana has gained traction, prominent DePIN projects are increasingly adopting versatile base layer chains like Arbitrum and Polygon.

Looking ahead, specialized DePIN-focused chains such as IoTeX and Peaq, as well as other Layer 1 and Layer 2 networks incorporating artificial intelligence concepts (e.g., Near and Aptos), may also see growth opportunities as the DePIN sector expands.

Solana fees have dropped to a multi-month low.

The reason? The memecoin frenzy has finally cooled.

Hopefully, the next main narrative will be more ecological.

The total value of tokenized treasury assets has surpassed $2 billion, coinciding with the one-year anniversary of USDY on Ondo Finance.

RWA go brrrr.

TON continues to thrive with a TPS below 260, significantly lower than Solana's 1200 TPS.

Despite this, the TON Foundation has conducted tests claiming to achieve an impressive 104,000 TPS, a figure verified by the crypto auditing firm Certik.

Do you think TON will achieve this number?

Data source

In 2020, Ethereum shifted to an L2-centric roadmap.

Now, after Dencun, rollups account for 87% of all daily transactions.

However, this scaling solution has faced criticism because Ethereum's gas fees are at their lowest in years, making the ETH economy inflationary.

Furthermore, Ethereum’s recent underperformance against BTC and SOL has validated the critics' views.

Is Ethereum still a competitive and viable chain? Let’s find out.

Check my new Substack article and don’t forget to subscribe!

MakerDAO has rebranded to Sky.

Wtf? No, really.
Why is everyone rebranding now?
New September => New life?

Last week, ETFs saw their highest weekly inflows in the past five weeks.

Interest rate cuts are expected in September – the main catalyst of the market next week.

Just dropped a thread explaining the impact of Universal Liquidity on your Web3 grind experience.

A big thing it is, ngl.

You can read the thread here.

Interesting fact: PolitFi tokens (MAGA, TRUMP, etc.) outperformed average memecoin performance this year.

No idea if it’s helpful, but interesting (I don’t like & don’t trade memes).

Who said more research is needed?

General
➖ CoinGecko: 4 in 5 Spend Most Time on X, Telegram & YouTube for Crypto
➖ Galaxy: 150 Days After Dencun
➖ Galaxy: Ethereum All Core Developers Consensus Call #140 Writeup
➖ Galaxy: Weekly Top Stories - 8/23

Market
➖ Coinbase: Weekly: Deep Waters
➖ Glassnode: A Return to Equilibrium
➖ Galaxy: Unraveling Economic Indicators and Crypto Market Trends

Blockchains & networks
➖ 4pillars: What is the value of humans in the AI era? Humanity Protocol

Tokens & currencies
➖ CoinGecko: PolitiFi Coins Pumped 782.4% In 2024, Outperforming Meme Coins
➖ Binance: DOGS (DOGS)
➖ Binance: Eurite (EURI)

GameFi & NFTs
➖ Footprint: Introducing GalaChain: the Chain for Web3 Gaming and Entertainment

Nasdaq has filed with the SEC to list and trade Bitcoin index options.

If approved, these would be the first cryptocurrency derivatives cleared by the U.S. Options Clearing Corporation.

Here's a cheat sheet to understand the difference between futures and options, in case you still mix them up.

Due to recent outages in TON, the staking APR has dropped by over 100%.

These outages were caused by the $DOGS airdrop minting, which congested the network.

Oops, Opensea has received a Wells notice from the SEC.

Now they think that NFTs are securities. Source.

Sounds of facepalming.

Out of 4,335 protocols listed on DefiLlama:

✦ 161 generate $100K+ in monthly fees (3.71%)
✦ 64 generate $1M+ in fees (1.45%)
✦ 17 generate $10M+ in fees (0.39%)

96.29% of protocols make less than $100K in monthly fees.

An average team of 10 employees, plus operational expenses, costs around $50K per month, not to mention additional marketing budgets.

The conclusion? 9 out of 10 teams rely on subsidies (VCs, token sales) and fail to balance expenses with revenue.

With the decrease in VC capital deployment, if sentiment doesn't shift to alts, many protocols will significantly scale back their efforts in the coming months.

A sobering reality.

Dropped some analysis on the upcoming LBA of Merkle Trade (backed by Arrington Capital, Hashed, Amber Group, and more).

You can find it here.

Top publications on my Substack this month:

• The best fundraising rounds of the summer
• Economy & finance: Your a16z reading list
• Discussion on whether Ethereum is still a good chain
• 5 essential market metrics for long-term trading

Coming soon:
• Research on post-CEX listing token performance
• New early-stage protocols to watch
• Top ongoing airdrop & incentive programs

Subscribe now ↓
https://stacymuur.substack.com

After Bitcoin's all-time high in March, its price entered a prolonged sideways phase.

A significant portion of Bitcoin's supply, now 3 to 6 months old, is being tightly held—a pattern that typically peaks after market tops.

This age band currently accounts for over 12.5% of the circulating supply, mirroring the structure seen during both the mid-2021 sell-off and the 2018 bear market.

During these times, some investors hold through volatility while others exit at a loss.

On my end, I am the one who holds through volatility. What's your side?