Compiled by: Mars Finance
1. Important events in the industry in the past week
1. Industry
Ordinals founder releases Genesis Rune, which will continue to be minted for about four years after halving
Casey, founder of Ordinals, released the Genesis Rune UNCOMMON•GOODS, which will be open for casting after the halving until the next halving block (ending on the next halving block), that is, a rune with a limited block and unlimited quantity. One rune can be obtained each time it is cast, and its divisibility is 0.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore has issued new regulations for digital payment token service providers, incorporating user protection and financial stability requirements
According to official news, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) today amended the Payment Services Act (PS Act) and its subsidiary legislation, expanding the scope of payment services regulated by MAS and imposing user protection and financial stability-related requirements on digital payment token (DPT) service providers. These amendments will take effect in stages from April 4, 2024. The amendments bring the following activities under the regulatory scope of the PS Act:
-Regulate DPT custody services;
- Facilitate the transfer of DPT between accounts, facilitating the exchange of DPT even if the service provider does not receive funds or DPT;
- Facilitate cross-border remittances between different countries, even if Singapore does not accept or receive remittances.
The amendments will empower MAS to impose requirements on DPT service providers related to anti-money laundering, countering the financing of terrorism, user protection and financial stability.
Crypto.com enters Korean market, plans to launch Crypto.com App service at the end of the month
Crypto.com announced its entry into the Korean market. Eric Anziani, president of Crypto.com, said that the Crypto.com App service will be launched on the 29th of this month, allowing users to trade coins and will also support NFT. Anziani also said that the company will review all aspects of the requirements of the Financial Services Commission, the Financial Supervisory Service, etc., with the goal of supporting Korean won transactions as soon as possible in accordance with the Virtual Asset User Protection Act to be implemented in July.
The negative correlation between Bitcoin price and 10-year US Treasury yields exceeded 90% in half a year. Yesterday's sharp rise in US Treasury yields may lead to a sharp drop
SoSo Value data shows that the U.S. 10-year Treasury bond yield and Bitcoin price have shown a significant negative correlation in the past 6-month time frame, reaching -90.61%. Yesterday, the U.S. 10-year Treasury bond yield rose sharply to 4.3. The overall U.S. stock market adjusted, and the price of Bitcoin fell by more than 5% in 24 hours.
In addition, U.S. stock meme stocks continued to pull back sharply, while the cryptocurrency meme sector fell sharply by more than 12% in 24 hours, leading the decline of all crypto sectors, while the SocialFi sector fell only 4.58% in 24 hours.
Ethena has opened airdrop token claims
According to official news, Ethena has opened airdrop token claims.
Memeland announces the launch of Memenet, using MEME as the network gas token
Memeland announced the launch of Memenet, a network that will provide a secure, low-cost, degen-friendly way to build on-chain, with MEME as the network Gas token. In addition, the team plans to gradually decentralize the chain over time. According to the official website, the Memenet testnet is expected to be launched in June and the mainnet is expected to be launched in September. Note: This domain name is newly set up, so there may be an "unsafe" warning. Please ignore it for now.
OpenAI allows users to use ChatGPT without registration
According to the official blog announcement, OpenAI announced that from today, users can use ChatGPT without registration, which is intended to provide users with the potential of AI more easily. OpenAI said that the benefits of creating an account include the ability to save and view chat history, share chats, and unlock additional features such as voice conversations and custom commands, but users who are unwilling to perform the steps to set up an account can start using ChatGPT immediately.
a16z's gaming fund will invest $30 million in multiple gaming startups, including Web3 startups
a16z announced on Monday that it plans to invest $30 million in several gaming startups.
a16z general partner Andrew Chen said that it will invest $30 million through the a16z Speedrun program in the next 45 days, and each startup will receive $750,000. The application deadline is May 19.
Chen oversees the firm’s $600 million Game Fund One, which was established nearly two years ago. Games Fund One invests in a variety of gaming-related technologies, including artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality, and Web3 startups.
In parallel with Games Fund One, a16z has made several investments in blockchain gaming companies through its crypto division, including Mythical Games and Voldex.
Wormhole releases roadmap: W will become a native multi-chain token and introduce a multi-chain governance system
According to official news, Wormhole released a roadmap, which pointed out that W will become a native multi-chain token, taking advantage of the unique advantages of Solana and EVM chains, while introducing a multi-chain governance system. Plans for W include:
- Will initially launch as the native SPL token on Solana;
- Scaling on the EVM chain using Wormhole Native Token Transfer (NTT);
-W holders will be able to lock and delegate their tokens on both the Solana and EVM chains.
The Wormhole DAO is comprised of W token holders and will operate through a multi-chain governance system. The system will be available on Solana, Ethereum mainnet, and EVM L2 at launch. Multi-chain governance will allow token holders to create, vote, and execute governance proposals across different chains.
Binance Labs has unlocked and vested 37.08 million GMT, of which 28.08 million have been transferred to Binance
According to on-chain analyst Yu Jin, Binance Labs has currently unlocked and owned 37.08 million GMT, of which 28.08 million GMT have been transferred to Binance. It is reported that Binance Labs is an investor in STEPN (GMT). Binance Labs will receive unlocked GMT from the 0xf3c address once a month starting from July 10, 2023.
KuCoin has seen over $1.2 billion in outflows since U.S. lawsuit
According to Kaiko data, after the U.S. Department of Justice and CFTC filed charges last week, the market share (based on daily trading volume) of cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin fell by more than 50%. Since March 26, KuCoin's fund outflow has exceeded $1.2 billion. (The Block)
According to previous news, the U.S. Department of Justice website disclosed that KuCoin and its two founders, Chun Gan (aka "Michael") and Ke Tang (aka "Eric"), were accused of violating the Bank Secrecy Act and transmitting funds without permission. It is reported that the U.S. Southern District Federal Prosecutor and the Department of Homeland Security Investigations announced the unsealing of the indictment, accusing KuCoin of violating the Bank Secrecy Act and intentionally violating the Anti-Money Laundering Act. The persons involved are still at large. KuCoin posted on the X platform that KuCoin is currently operating well, users' assets are safe, and it has been informed of the relevant reports and is currently investigating the details through lawyers. KuCoin respects the laws and regulations of various countries and strictly abides by compliance standards.
BCH block reward halving completed
Data shows that BCH has completed the block reward halving at block height 630,000. After the halving, the block reward is 3.125 BCH.
Ripple plans to issue a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar
Ripple will issue a dollar-backed stablecoin. The company said the token, which is scheduled to be issued "later this year," will be "100% backed by U.S. dollar deposits, short-term U.S. government Treasury securities and other cash equivalents." The stablecoin will first be deployed on Ripple's institution-focused XRP Ledger as well as the Ethereum blockchain and will be based on Ethereum's ERC-20 token standard.
FTX bankruptcy estate plans to begin repaying creditors by the end of 2024
The FTX bankruptcy estate has set a goal to begin repaying customers by the end of 2024, according to minutes from a meeting of the joint official liquidators of FTX Digital in the Bahamas.
Vitalik releases next steps for Ethereum protocol simplification and node resource load reduction (Purge)
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published a post titled "Purge" for the next steps to simplify the Ethereum protocol and reduce node resource load. Vitalik said that EIP-6780 in the Dencun hard fork removed most of the functionality of the SELFDESTRUCT opcode, simplifying the protocol by eliminating complexity and adding new security guarantees. Therefore, Vitalik marked it as an important part of the "Purge". Regarding other "Purges" that are taking place,
Vitalik gave three examples: 1. Geth recently removed thousands of lines of code by dropping support for the pre-merger (PoW) network. ;2.EIP-161 formalizes the fact that we no longer need to have code to worry about "empty accounts", the proposal introduced this concept as part of the fix for the Shanghai DoS attack;3.Blobs in Dencun The 18-day storage window means that Ethereum nodes only need about 500GB to store blob data, and this amount will not increase over time. The first two points significantly improve the work experience for client developers, while the last point significantly improves the work experience for node operators.
In addition, regarding what other aspects may need to be "purified", Vitalik listed precompilation, history (EIP-4444), LOG reform, and migration to SSZ. Regarding precompilation, Vitalik pointed out: "The demand for some precompilations is much lower than expected. These precompilation functions are a huge source of consensus errors and a huge pain point for new EVM implementations. There are two ways to delete these precompilations: 1. Simply delete the precompilation, such as EIP-7266 will delete BLAKE2; 2. Replace the precompilation with a piece of EVM code that performs the same operation (although it inevitably requires a higher gas cost)."
Regarding history, Vitalik noted: "A key question that needs to be addressed is: if old history is not stored by every node, then who will store it? In practice, large entities, such as block explorers, will do so. However, it is also possible and not difficult to make peer-to-peer network protocols to store and pass this information around that are better suited for the task. The Ethereum blockchain is permanent, but requiring every node to store all data permanently is a very 'overkill' way to implement permanence. A simple peer-to-peer old history torrent network is one approach. A protocol that is more explicitly optimized for use in Ethereum is another. EIP-4444 could greatly increase the decentralization of Ethereum nodes. If each node only stores a small fraction of history by default, then in theory each particular piece of history could have roughly the same number of stored copies on the network as it does today."
Regarding the LOG reform, Vitalik pointed out: “We can remove bloom and simplify the LOG opcode to just create a value and hash it into the state. Then, we can build separate protocols that use ZK-SNARKs and incremental verifiable computation (IVC) to generate provably correct ‘log trees’ that represent easily searchable log tables for a given topic. Applications that need logs and want to be decentralized can use these separate protocols.”
Regarding the move to SSZ, Vitalik said: "The Ethereum consensus layer has moved to the cleaner and more efficient SimpleSerialize (SSZ), but the transition still needs to be completed and the execution layer needs to be moved to the same structure. Today, there are three cryptographic data structures in Ethereum: SHA256 binary trees, SHA3 RLP hash lists, and hexa-base Patricia trees. Once we complete the transition to SSZ, there will only be two left: SHA256 binary trees and Verkle trees. In the longer term future, once we are good enough at hashing with SNARKs, we may replace SHA256 binary trees and Verkle trees with binary Merkle trees, which use a hashing algorithm suitable for SNARKs."
dYdX Foundation: dYdX Operating Trust Fund Transformed into a Cayman Islands Foundation Company
The dYdX Foundation stated on the X platform that the dYdX community voted in favor of the dYdX Operating Trust Fund being transformed into a Cayman Islands Foundation Company, with a voting approval rate of 93.1%. The next steps are:
1. Establish the dYdX Operations Foundation (DOF) as a foundation company in the Cayman Islands and appoint key personnel;
2. Draft the Memorandum and Articles of Association of the DOF and grant effective control to the dYdX community through dYdX consensus;
3. End the trust period, thereby terminating the DOT;
4. The trustee needs to perform relevant transfer operations, namely multi-party signatures, domain names, accounts, contracts, etc.
NFT game series illuviumio is about to enter the public beta stage, players can earn airdrops by accumulating points
Illuvium Arena is currently accepting registrations for its public beta and is available on PC and Mac. The Illuvium team has also released its own Ethereum ERC-20 token ILV and its own marketplace Illuvidex. The Illuvium DAO has also established a community-based voting system. The Illuvium token, or ERC-20 ILV token, is Illuvium's cryptocurrency and governance token. ILV is used to reward players in Illuvium's various games and is also the token used by the Illuvium DAO as voting chips. ILV can also be staked to receive rewards.
Wormhole has opened airdrop claims
According to the official page, Wormhole has opened W token airdrop applications.
2. Sound
Ordinals founder: Runes protocol is built for Degen and Meme tokens
Casey Rodarmor, founder of the Ordinals protocol, said in a post on X that Runes was built for Degen and Memecoin, but the protocol is simple, efficient and secure, and it will become a competitor to Taproot Assets and RGB. The Runes protocol exists independently and does not rely on Ordinals or inscriptions.
Bitfinex: Bitcoin volatility expected to increase after entering range trading period
Bitfinex's latest report shows that Bitcoin has reached a new all-time high (ATH) after a sharp price increase in March, and the price is expected to enter a range trading period with increased volatility in the later period. According to statistics, the profits captured through on-chain transactions exceeded US$2.6 billion, of which 40% belonged to long-term holders. Further analysis shows that new investors entered the market and increased their positions in the belief that the market can rise further. Spot Bitcoin ETFs have also become an important support for the market. Last week, net inflows into ETFs resumed again, and passive demand continued. At the current inflow rate, the demand for Bitcoin is about twice the value of Bitcoin produced by mining.
Coinbase: Bitcoin’s recent record high may mean that the impact of halving on prices is weakening
Coinbase analysts David Duong and David Han pointed out in their analysis that Bitcoin broke through its all-time high before the upcoming Bitcoin halving in 2024, which had not happened before, and may mean that the impact of Bitcoin halving on the price is weakening. YouHolder risk manager Sergei Gorev said that Bitcoin's recent price drop may indicate that traders are taking profits because they expect the upcoming halving event to lead to increased volatility.
Su Zhu: When Ethena is large enough, capital flows may cause a run on the exchange
Su Zhu posted on the X platform that Ethena's biggest strengths and weaknesses are just game theory. Initially, exchanges benefited from Ethena TVL and became investors. Later, when Ethena became large enough, capital flowed from one exchange to another, which could lead to a run. If jealousy of Ethena's power begins to worsen, there is a possibility that exchanges will join forces to round up Ethena. He also said that Ethena can compete directly with exchanges by offering perpetual products (Perps) on its platform, which is theoretically the main way to develop a team.
Inverse Finance founder: Maker's DAI allocation proposal is too risky and should not blindly pursue revenue maximization
In response to the news that "MakerDAO is considering allocating $600 million worth of DAI to USDe and sUSDe", Nour Haridy, founder of Inverse Finance, commented on the X platform: "In addition to the obvious systemic risks, the medium-term impact of Maker's excessive risk-taking is likely to be an increase in capital costs, which means that DAI holders will require Maker to provide higher returns to offset risk exposure. In my opinion, Maker should not blindly pursue revenue maximization, but rather pursue net profit maximization, which also includes optimizing costs." Earlier news, MakerDAO was considering allocating 600 million DAI to USDe and staking USDe (sUSDe) through the DeFi lending agreement Morpho Labs.
Andre Cronje comments on the new trading mechanism: The theory of closing positions when the market reverses is actually difficult to implement
In response to a new trading mechanism in the crypto industry, Andre Cronje posted on the X platform that there is a new infrastructure that is currently gaining a lot of attention and is being integrated into a protocol that he believes is very low risk, but according to his (possibly incorrect) understanding, this new protocol is very high risk. He discussed the components of the mechanism in detail, including the characteristics of perpetual contracts, such as trading without holding the trading assets, buyers and sellers need to pay a "funding rate", etc., and the mechanism of using stETH as margin/collateral, trying to achieve "neutrality" by opening relative positions, while obtaining the benefits of stETH income and funding rates.
Cronje said he is not a trader and admitted that this is not his area of expertise, but he tried to compare these financial instruments to the most basic financial concepts he knows - collateral and debt, and pointed out that eventually positions need to be closed or face the risk of liquidation. He raised a question that the theory that "positions are closed when the market reverses" is a bit like the so-called "buy BTC when it goes up and sell it when it goes down", which sounds reasonable but is almost impossible to achieve in practice. So while everything is going well now (because the market is positive and the short funding rate is positive (because everyone is happy to go long), eventually the situation will change, the funding (rate) will become negative, the margin/collateral will be liquidated, and you will have an unbacked asset.
Polygon Labs CEO: L3 exists only to take value away from Ethereum
Marc Boiron, CEO of Polygon Labs, criticized Layer3, saying: "L3 exists only to take value away from Ethereum and transfer value to L2, which builds L3. You don't need L3 for expansion, which is why Polygon Labs is not suitable for L3."
Arthur Hayes: If the meme can attract more attention and developers, it will be valuable to the chain itself
In an interview with Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal, Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, said: “You can think that meme tokens are stupid and worthless, but if it can bring more attention and more developers to this space, then it has positive value for the chain itself… The chain that can support this culture will become the valuable chain, and Solana and Ethereum are the networks that can best capture meme attention.”
3. Data
DEX transaction volume reached $267.938 billion in March, a record high
DeFiLlama data shows that the total DEX transaction volume in March reached US$267.938 billion, a record high, an increase of more than 126% compared to February (US$118.063 billion).
Ethereum Layer 2 user numbers reach all-time high
Sassal.eth, founder of The Daily Gwei, posted on the X platform that the number of Ethereum Layer2 users has reached an all-time high, with the number of independent addresses exceeding 5 million.
Bitcoin spot ETF trading volume reached $111 billion in March, of which BlackRock IBIT accounted for nearly 50%
Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg, said in an article on the X platform that the trading volume of US Bitcoin spot ETFs reached $111 billion in March, almost three times the trading volume in January and February. Data shows that BlackRock IBIT transactions dominated, accounting for nearly 50% of the total Bitcoin spot ETF transactions in March. Grayscale GBTC followed closely behind, accounting for 20%; followed by Fidelity FBTC, accounting for 17%.
Statistics: Ethereum Q1 fees and revenue increased nearly 1.8 times month-on-month, and profits doubled month-on-month
According to Coin98 Analytics, most of the income statement indicators in Ethereum’s Q1 financial report showed positive signs of growth:
-Expenses and revenues increased nearly 1.8 times quarter-on-quarter;
- Earnings tripled quarter-on-quarter;
Ethereum Q1 Network Metrics:
- Conducted over 107 million transactions;
- Nearly 9.7 million new addresses were created;
Ethereum Q1 Ecosystem Indicators:
-TVL increased by more than 1.8 times month-on-month;
- More than 4.8 million NFTs created;
- USDT remains the stablecoin with the highest market capitalization.
Solana’s on-chain NFT sales exceeded $243 million in March, setting a record for the highest monthly sales in Q1
According to market data, the NFT sales on the Solana chain in March were US$243,581,525.4, setting a record for the highest single month in the first quarter. The total transaction volume on the chain exceeded 2.36 million, of which there were approximately 376,000 independent buyers and more than 202,000 independent sellers.
The top 10 addresses of ENA airdrop claimed a total of 18.08 million ENA, and 9 addresses have sold tokens
According to on-chain analyst @ai_9684xtpa, one hour has passed since ENA went online, and the sales of the top 10 airdrop addresses are as follows: The top 10 airdrop addresses have claimed a total of 18.08 million ENA, with a total value of 10.63 million US dollars; as of now, 9 of the ten addresses have sold all or part of them, leaving only the top 4 addresses firmly holding on.
4. Security
Paidun: Hacker attacks in the crypto space in March caused losses of more than $187 million, a 48% decrease from February
According to Paidun's monitoring, in March 2024, more than 30 hacker attacks occurred in the encryption field, causing losses of approximately US$187.29 million, a decrease of 48% compared with February 2024; of which approximately US$98.8 million in losses were recovered.
Scam Sniffer: Cryptocurrency sector lost $71 million to phishing scams in March, and a total of $173 million in Q1
Scam Sniffer released a phishing report for March, in which crypto-phishing scams caused $71 million in losses, a 50% increase from February. In the first quarter of 2024, phishing scams caused a total loss of $173 million.
Among them, phishing activities on BNB and Base chains have increased, and the stolen funds on the Base chain have surged by 500% compared to February. 90% of the stolen assets are ERC20 tokens, and most thefts are due to phishing signatures such as Permit, increaseallowance, and Uniswap Permit2, resulting in asset losses.
OpenLeverage: Insurance, OLE buyback funds and protocol reserves will cover all losses
DeFi lending protocol OpenLeverage posted on the X platform that the recent attack caused a loss of about 220,000 on the BNB Chain and about 40,000 on the Arbitrum chain. Fortunately, OpenLeverage's in-protocol insurance, OLE buyback funds, and protocol reserves will cover all protocol losses, so user funds will not be lost. Based on this, OpenLeverage has decided to stop OpenLeverage trading and lending protocols. OpenLeverage is initiating a process for users to close trading/borrowing and safely withdraw funds. All protocol operations will remain suspended until the withdrawal process begins early next week. The hacker will receive a bounty for returning the funds, and tracking and legal proceedings will be initiated immediately.
Earlier news, according to Paidun monitoring, the DeFi lending protocol OpenLeverage was attacked and lost about $236,000. Afterwards, OpenLeverage posted on the X platform that the OpenLeverage protocol was suspended and the investigation was ongoing. The accumulated insurance and repurchase funds should be able to make up for the losses. D1 is not affected.
2. In-depth articles worth reading again and again
Multiple established NFTs issued MEME coins: collectively performing a roller coaster market, with limited boost to NFT prices
Recently, MEME has become the hottest NFT topic, and projects such as mfers, Doodles, and Goblin Town have attracted attention. However, as prices fell, smart money began to sell, and the tokens held by robots were also questioned. These MEMEs also affected the prices and trading volumes of related NFT projects, but as the price of MEME fell, the trading volume also decreased.
Delphi Digital: Join the Bitcoin Ecosystem Craze with This Guide
Delphi Digital released a research report on the Bitcoin ecosystem, pointing out that the Bitcoin ecosystem is booming and Ordinals have driven development activities. Bitcoin attracts speculation and its trading volume ranks second in the NFT ecosystem. The inscription craze has spread to other chains, and Ordinals are important to Bitcoin but often underestimated. Runes are new protocols that can create alternative tokens on the Bitcoin network. Multiple meta-protocols have been launched, and Trac and Tap have successfully raised funds. The Bitcoin ecosystem is full of vitality, including meme coins, digital art, profile pictures, layer 2 solutions, and DeFi products. The continued development of Bitcoin will continue to be the focus of news, and 2024 will be an important year.
The meme fever of Base ecosystem has spread to Zora and Degen Chain
Last weekend, the popularity of the Base ecosystem drove the popularity of "meme hot money" in the Coinbase ecosystem. Degen launched a low-cost Layer 3 blockchain, and its token DEGEN rose by 37%. The tokens of the Zora ecosystem also rose generally, including projects such as Imagine, ENJOY and HIGHER. The HIGHER token rose by 10 times, and the Zora ecosystem attracted projects such as Uniswap to join. The number of Zora mainnet bridge addresses reached 470,594, and the number of bridged ETH reached 6,824. With the addition of Uniswap, the financial attributes of the Zora ecosystem have been enhanced, and the number of transactions has continued to rise. It is expected that with the influx of more funds, the hype of the Base ecosystem will continue, and the Degen and Zora ecosystems may benefit.
Foresight Ventures: Base and Solana are booming, L3 concept is hot
This week, the Federal Reserve unexpectedly maintained its expectations for rate cuts, causing the U.S. stock market to fluctuate at a high level and the crypto market to stagnate. BTC continued to pull back, and the market value of stablecoins increased. The floor prices of blue-chip projects in the NFT market rose and fell, and the market continued to fall after a slight increase. The overall transaction volume of NFTs rebounded, but the number of first-time purchases and repeat purchases continued to decline. The locked-in volume of platforms such as ETH, BSC, and Polygon has changed. The latest financing situation shows that the NFT market is still in the spotlight, but there is still no sign of recovery.
Vitalik: Degen Communism - The Only Correct Political Ideology
In 2024, the Western world believes that traditional political ideas are outdated and neo-authoritarians lack appeal. The Internet makes people pursue chaos, but Degen communism proposes a political ideology that openly accepts chaos. The cryptocurrency field is affected by "degen", and the government can mitigate the impact of chaos on vulnerable groups by formulating rules.
"Rune" is coming, and a war between Ordinals is about to begin?
Ordinals protocol v.017.0 is released, and "Runes" will be activated in 19 days. The first "Rune" is "UNCOMMON•GOODS" by founder Casey. "Runes" can be played fairly like BRC-20, but also support centralized distribution. BRC-20 has recently been updated to support "self-issuance" and burning mechanisms, but Runes, as the "son", is not affected by protocol changes and is independent of the Ordinals protocol.
Vitalik's latest article: What needs to be cleared during the Ethereum Purge phase
Ethereum founder Vitalik introduced EIP-6780 in the recent Dencun hard fork, which simplifies the Ethereum protocol, streamlining Ethereum and clearing technical debt by removing complexity and adding new security guarantees. In addition, there are other things that may need to be cleared, such as precompilation. To solve this problem, precompilation can be removed or replaced with EVM code blocks that perform the same operation.
The chip structure has changed dramatically. What happened to the Atomicals protocol that has been in a slump for several months?
The prices of Bitcoin, BRC20 and SRC hit new highs, but the price of ATOM continued to fall. The Atomicals community turned to AVM technology, aiming to create more elegant and concise solutions and expand the ecological space. Atomicals founder Arthur is trusted for his technical ability and values, but also criticized. The number of ATOM holders has decreased, the market influence has changed, and the main battlefield has begun to shift. There is room only when there are differences in the market, and the decline of ATOM is not high compared to ORDI. The protocol author is studying AVM, and it is unrealistic to want to come out and raise the price immediately.
Data interpretation Farcaster: Active users post across 8 channels on average, and non-crypto channels are becoming increasingly active
Channels on Farcaster have become the center of grassroots communities, with over 43% of users posting for the first time and 70% of posting occurring in channels. The average user posts in 8 channels, 7 of which are crypto-native and 8 are non-crypto channels. Farcaster is similar to Reddit sub-forums, with over 100,000 sub-forums and close to 5,000 channels. As Farcaster grows, new channels are emerging, with both crypto-native and general topics. The Farcaster client is versatile and hopes to become dominant, building a professional cryptocurrency sub-community network or a general network similar to Reddit. The management of channels and communities will determine the future direction and identity of the network, with users switching between channels and collectively defining the experience and type of conversation on Farcaster.
Is the hope of expansion still a false concept? Why is Layer3 so controversial?
In the past two days, there has been a heated discussion about Layer3. The token has risen dramatically, but there are also loud voices of doubt in the community. Vitalik expressed his opposition, and the focus of his doubts was on its expansion significance. Data compression limits the development of Layer3 and cannot provide a general expansion effect, but it still has the potential to serve as a dedicated network or solve data availability issues. Therefore, Layer3 needs to have a different design and goals from Layer2.
DePIN: The Rising Crypto Narrative
DePINs is a decentralized infrastructure network based on blockchain and token economic incentives, which aims to utilize unused resources to develop and maintain real-world infrastructure. It is closely related to the development of artificial intelligence and can provide large-scale processing power. DePINs aims to break the monopoly of existing infrastructure through competitive market forces. Node operators are incentivized to provide services through local tokens to make the network self-sustaining. Render is a decentralized GPU processing model that uses idle GPU computing power to increase artists' rendering speed. Decentralized infrastructure networks have potential benefits that can improve efficiency, sustainability, and social equity.
Bitcoin halving is less than 20 days away. Will it still work to use data to find a sword on a boat?
The fourth Bitcoin halving will take place in 18 days, and the BTC produced per block will be reduced by half, which means that the daily output of Bitcoin will drop to about 450 BTC. In the past 10 years, Bitcoin has always reached a new high price after halving, but this year broke this rule. Bitcoin holders and traders are the largest group in the ecosystem, holding more than 51 million addresses. As Bitcoin halves, the proportion of fee income is also increasing. The rise of the Inscription Protocol has brought more income to miners and enriched the types of Bitcoin transactions. As the market expands, data tools can be used to explore the progress and history of Bitcoin.
ENA's market value exceeds $1 billion, but some people worry that it is creating the next black swan
Yesterday, Ethena airdropped ENA tokens, causing a surge in market value, and announced a second season event where users can deposit USDe to earn Sats. However, different voices emerged in the community, criticizing Ethena for insufficient risk management and MakerDAO for taking advantage of user greed, which may cause USDe to decouple. If USDe decouples, Maker will be the first to sell USDe to keep profits, which may lead to panic and liquidation. Therefore, observers are worried that algorithmic stablecoins may decouple, and community members are worried that the next DeFi black swan event may occur on the original stablecoin protocol with improper risk management.
Analyzing Polyhedra: Why is it said that only the tip of the iceberg has been discovered for the value of ZK technology?
Paradigm led the investment in Succinct with $43 million, and the total financing of @PolyhedraZK, which just completed TGE, reached $75 million, showing the huge potential of ZKP underlying technology. In addition to Polyhedra, there are other projects based on ZKP technology, such as @SuccinctLabs, @RiscZero, and @ProjectZKM, which are exploring the application of ZK technology. Among them, Polyhedra's cross-chain solution zkBridge can directly use POS public chain nodes to achieve cross-chain communication and asset transfer, avoiding additional development and adaptation. With the development of more ZK technology infrastructure, ZK cross-chain solutions will have a wider range of applications.
From being ignored to being the “male protagonist of a cool novel”, how did Solana break through in the reconstruction of the public chain?
The Solana public chain ecosystem has performed well, with prices, market capitalization, ecological narratives, Meme, DeFi, NFT and other tracks all booming, surpassing other new public chains. Solana is driven by the Meme craze, and the ecosystem has generally risen. Technological updates have improved system availability and scalability, and launched new SPL Token standards. Wall Street support and the resources of Lily Liu, chairman of the Solana Foundation, provide important support for development. The Solana network set a record high TPS in the fourth quarter of 2023, with stable performance. The addition of Lily Liu has brought about a spillover effect of funds and resources, and the Solana Foundation's emphasis on hackathons and developer ecology is also a guarantee of its on-chain vitality. Starting in October 2023, Solana will usher in a stronger pace of development.
What are the highlights of Binance’s latest Launchpool project Saga?
Saga is a blockchain-based E2E infrastructure designed to support developers in building next-generation applications. It allows developers to launch dedicated blockspaces on demand and quickly bridge with other ecosystems. By working with multiple well-known institutions, Saga aims to promote the mass adoption of blockchain and provide developers with efficient and flexible infrastructure. Its features include unlimited scalability, low-cost transactions, and automation, while providing a full range of services and collaboration methods. Chainlet is a parallelized application chain instance that allows applications to elastically scale to peak performance and speed. Saga also has a community platform that provides technical documentation and token mechanisms and incentive papers.
Algorithmic stablecoins are hot again. Will Ethena be the next Luna?
Ethena is an algorithmic stablecoin based on Ethereum, which aims to realize a decentralized financial system and provide a globally accessible savings tool denominated in US dollars. Its idea comes from the idea of Arthur Hayes, the founder of BitMEX, to create a stablecoin by pledging spot ETH and futures ETH. Ethena's core mechanism Delta neutrality ensures that 1USDe is always equivalent to 1 US dollar. At present, Ethena's annualized rate is as high as 35.4%, which has attracted many people to exchange stablecoins for USDe. But it also faces risks such as mortgage decoupling, funding rates, and counterparties. It may thrive in a bull market, but it is difficult to maintain high yields in a bear market, and it may eventually fall into a downward cycle.
Behind the "win-win" of Maker/USDe, is it a bull market game that harvests greed?
MakerDAO plans to mint $1 billion of DAI to gain returns, but this is a risky move. If USDe decouples, MakerDAO will prioritize liquidating user funds and retain profits. Ethena is a complex crypto protocol that exploits greed to reap profits in the crypto market. Its growth may pose a risk to the system, especially in a bear market. It is recommended that projects participating in Ethena exercise restraint and leave when the bull market is nearing its end. At the same time, pay attention to the lock-up period and exit in time to avoid getting into trouble.
