"Weekly Editor's Picks" is a "functional" column of Odaily Planet Daily. In addition to covering a large amount of real-time information every week, Planet Daily also publishes a lot of high-quality in-depth analysis content, but they may be hidden in the information flow and hot news, and pass you by.
Therefore, every Saturday, our editorial department will select some high-quality articles that are worth spending time reading and collecting from the content published in the past 7 days, and bring new inspiration to you in the crypto world from the perspectives of data analysis, industry judgment, and opinion output.
Now, come and read with us:
Investment and Entrepreneurship
A look at crypto VC investing: Who’s performing best?
a16z: How many of the 220 million active addresses are real crypto users?
According to an analysis conducted by a16z using multiple methods, there are currently an estimated 30 million to 60 million real monthly active crypto users.
Separate the true from the false, and stop using the "daily active addresses" indicator to mislead your investment research judgment
Rather than focusing on active addresses to study blockchain activity, it is better to look at the network fee metric. Fees reflect the total gas consumption of using the protocol, without taking into account the issue of "quality" users.
Given that users on PoS chains can also easily receive token issuance rewards, an alternative metric, Real Economic Value (REV), can also be used. REV combines network fees and MEV tips to validators, but does not consider token issuance as a cost. REV is arguably a better metric for assessing real demand for the network and a more comparable revenue metric to traditional finance (TradFi).
Bitcoin ETF options approved, will Bitcoin experience explosive growth?
Although there are many crypto options products on the market, most of them lack supervision, which makes institutional investors reluctant to participate due to compliance requirements. In addition, there are no options products that are both compliant and liquid in the market.
The most liquid options product is offered by Deribit, the world’s largest Bitcoin options exchange. Deribit supports 24/7/365 trading of Bitcoin and Ethereum options. Options are European-style and settled in the physical underlying cryptocurrency. However, due to its cryptocurrency-only nature, Deribit users cannot cross margin with assets in traditional portfolios such as ETFs and stocks. It is also not legal in many countries, including the United States.
Without the endorsement of a clearing house, it is impossible to solve the counterparty risk. The market demand for Bitcoin hedging transactions exists. What Bitcoin ETF options can provide the market is an option product that is both compliant and has trading depth.
Options expiration does affect market volatility.
Scam Sniffer's charging policy has caused controversy. How should we choose the revenue from security tools?
The 0.25% fee charged by the Scam Sniffer plugin for specific DEX transactions is the same as the fee charged by the Uniswap front-end and does not tamper with user transactions.
However, the community still has obvious differences on Scam Sniffer's sudden payment plan. Some users think that it would be better to change the charging model to a recharge method, and to deduct subscription fees based on the number of detections or dates, saying that Scam Sniffer "is a security plug-in itself but makes users worry about security." Another user pointed out the monopoly problem behind the charging, believing that "such an exaggerated rate can only be charged because of the monopoly position."
However, some users are not sensitive to the fees themselves, but are more concerned about the product improvements and long-term benefits that payment can bring. When "issuing coins" is no longer the only business model, the project's ability to generate revenue becomes particularly important. Many products that already have PMFs have also begun to think about their own monetization paths, and the field of crypto security is one of them.
At present, the security services on the C-end are still fragmented, and users need to integrate different security tools. This fragmentation leads to inconsistent user experience between different services and high integration costs. In the future, security services will be horizontally expanded and unified into an integrated solution. Enterprises only need to refer to this layer of security services to handle all security issues, so as to focus on their core business without having to solve the security needs of users separately.
20 Lessons for Crypto Founders: Do Things That Don’t Scale
Instead of aiming for a massive market from the start, focus on solving a small, specific problem. Starting small allows you to gain a deep understanding of user needs and optimize your product without the noise and complexity of a large market. Before investing a lot of resources (like money and time), validate your core assumptions with a minimum viable product. Rapid deployment in 30 days will force you to prioritize core features and avoid the trap of over-planning. Polish your business model after optimization and growth, keep interacting, and keep your team lean.
Meme
Meme Training Manual: Rebirth: I Want to Be a Diamond Hand (Part 2) | Produced by Nanzhi
Ten times in ten days, all thanks to critical hits. Semicolon follow-up and limit the upper limit of account positions are very necessary. Don't take the initiative to stop profit, stick to diamond hands.
Also recommended: (Interpreting the smart money buying addresses on GOAT, MEME trading strategy is more important than luck) (a16z talks about GOAT: How did the AI we funded become a multi-millionaire with $50,000?).
As various chains compete to “pump.fun”, is Memecoin about to reach its peak?
The rush of various chains to get on "pump.fun" is just a "top signal" of the hot-plate gameplay of "pump.fun", not even a top signal of the hot plate or even the meme coin itself. Just like after the end of the inscription bull market, the top inscription assets such as ORDI still have a reasonable market value and liquidity, but the assets with "inscription" as the only consensus point, after the hot spot of its gameplay itself loses attention, there is no consensus to support its long-term value, so it is foreseeable that it will die.
Meme coins are actually the market's best response to "VC value technology coins" and "correction of chaos" - perhaps Crypto is not strong enough to become the second US stock. It has convinced people of our generation, but it still needs to attract and convince more young people. Use light-hearted and interesting content to update the public's serious impression of Crypto.
Ethereum
Big company disease, empty narrative, is the market beginning to predict Ethereum's decline again?
Ethereum is an experiment in Crypto's decentralized governance architecture. It is not controlled by any centralized company or organization. Project developers, researchers, node operators, ETH Holders, etc. from all over the world participate and contribute to it.
In terms of public chain technology, the security, stability, and engineering quality delivery results of Ethereum throughout the upgrade process are all within expectations. However, even if the Cancun upgrade is successful, it did not bring the expected prosperity of Layer 2. Ideally, all Layer 2 chains will be launched simultaneously, and the user ecosystem will achieve exponential breakthroughs. Ethereum can also achieve deflation by "taxation" and "Gas Burn". But the fact is that the threshold for launching chains has been lowered, the RaaS narrative has also fermented, and the ideal Mass Adoption is still a long way off. To be honest, this has exceeded the constraints of Ethereum's pure technical framework.
"Narrative" is an evolved development context and a derivative product of business thinking superimposed on technology.
Recommended: (Vitalik talks in Chinese: L2 on Mars, living to 200 years old by exercising and quitting sugar, what to do when your mentality collapses?)
Multi-ecology
The leading trading platform launched the SOL liquidity pledge solution, and the market's "smart money" has made its choice
In October 2024, leading trading platforms such as Binance, Bybit and Bitget announced the launch of their own SOL liquidity staking tokens, entering the Solana re-staking track.
Bitget is the investment category with the highest interest rate on the market. In terms of application scenarios, there is no big difference in the liquidity pledge tokens of major trading platforms.
DeFi
ArkStream Capital Research Report: How PayFi Unlocks a New Chapter in Crypto Payments
The stablecoin market continues to grow, and crypto payments will not completely replace the traditional fiat currency system;
The real significance of PayFi is to promote the application and innovation of crypto assets in real-world scenarios;
Solana is not necessarily the only option for PayFi or crypto payment. Ton Network and Sui are likely to catch up with their respective advantages.
The PayFi track has huge room for future development. As a composite innovative application in multiple tracks, its potential market value may exceed 10 billion US dollars.
The four-layer architecture of cryptocurrency payments
Native Crypto Projects
PayFi is not an independent concept, but an innovative application that integrates Web3 payment, DeFi, and RWA. RWA tokenizes assets and puts them on the chain to achieve a 1:1 seamless transfer of value on the blockchain, and uses smart contracts to build transaction and settlement processes. DeFi focuses on the on-chain economy and innovating traditional financial products around decentralization. Whether it is automated market makers, flash loans, liquidity mining, etc., its mainstream purpose is trading. Web3 Payment focuses on using cryptocurrencies as payment transaction media, such as cross-border remittances, encrypted payment cards, etc. to improve the efficiency of traditional finance.
PayFi focuses on two core concepts: tokenization of real-world assets and releasing the time value of funds.
The projects in PayFi are divided into two application scenarios: cross-border trade and credit finance.
Stablecoin startups part ways: TradFi or DeFi?
Stripe’s $1.1 billion acquisition of Bridge is the largest in cryptocurrency history. The stablecoin ecosystem is much bigger than the usual suspects like Circle (USDC) and Bitfinex (USDT).
Stripe just makes online payments possible. Bridge enables them to get rid of too many moving parts and integrate their payment process.
The author speculates that Stripe's acquisition of Bridge has accelerated the stablecoin strategies of the crypto teams at these large traditional finance/fintech companies.
Web3 & AI
Web3-AI track panoramic report: in-depth analysis of technical logic, scenario applications and top projects
The article focuses on Sahara AI, an AI blockchain platform dedicated to the collaborative economy; Bittensor, which provides a highly competitive incentive structure for AI commodity producers; Talus, an on-chain AI agent ecosystem based on Move; ORA, an on-chain verifiable AI; Grass, the data layer for AI models; IO.NET, a decentralized computing resource platform; and MyShell, an AI agent platform that connects consumers and creators.
The challenges that need to be urgently addressed in the Web3×AI track include the balance of supply and demand of AI resources, data quality, security, and user experience.
Hot Topics of the Week
In the past week, in terms of policy and macro markets, Elon Musk announced that he would randomly give out $1 million to American voters every day until Election Day;
In terms of opinions and opinions, Fed Governor Waller: DeFi may have a profound impact on financial market transactions; Fed Schmid: Cryptocurrency is a risky asset, not a currency; Consensys wrote to the future US president, calling for clear supervision and cooperation; Vitalik published an article on the future development of the Ethereum protocol, The Scourge, with the goal of minimizing the centralization risk of the Ethereum staking layer; Vitalik published The Verge on the future development of the Ethereum protocol, with the goal of achieving a stateless client; Truth Terminal founder: The 1.25 million GOATs held by individuals will not be sold for the time being, and will be kept in the AI wallet for the time being; Coinbase CEO interacted with Truth Terminal on the topic of encrypted wallets; BlackRock: Trying to trade the US election is "stupid";
In terms of institutions, large companies and leading projects, Kraken plans to launch its own blockchain next year; pump.fun launched the advanced trading terminal pump advanced and revealed plans to issue coins in the future; ApeChain: launched the official cross-chain bridge and Top Trader to provide ApeCoin holders with an automatic income model; Scroll opened airdrop applications;
In terms of data, on October 19, Bitcoin's dominance exceeded 65%, the highest level in three years; Polymarket's trading volume in October so far exceeded US$1.1 billion, setting a new record; on October 24, GOAT rose above 0.8 USDT, and its market value exceeded US$800 million;
In terms of security, Arkham: The US government address was suspected to be stolen, with a loss of 20 million US dollars; Trust Security: LayerZero has a vulnerability similar to Across Protocol... Well, it's another week of ups and downs.
Attached is a portal to the (Weekly Editor's Selection) series.
Reunion in the second half~
