"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.
Last week was the Labor Day holiday, so this issue will summarize the content of the past two weeks. Let's read with us below:
Investment and Entrepreneurship
Macroeconomic factors affecting the crypto market in 2024
There have been too many non-US geopolitical emergencies recently. Uncertainty factors have led to a rapid rise in global risk aversion. Both gold and the US dollar have shown their risk aversion properties.
In the medium and long term, the US debt crisis has not been resolved. In the two months before the election, due to the uncertainty of votes and specific policies, risk assets have historically tended to fluctuate and fall. The US economy has shown strong domestic demand, repeated inflation, and expectations of economic recession have dropped significantly compared to last year.
The impact of Hong Kong crypto spot ETFs from a supply and demand perspective
Demand side: Mainland RMB investors are not allowed to purchase, so incremental funds may be limited, resulting in low transaction volume.
Supply side: In-kind subscription and redemption methods increase the supply of ETF shares and improve the initial scale.
Considering supply and demand, pay attention to the premium and discount rate to seize investment opportunities - ETF discount → stronger selling → possible redemption → negative impact on the crypto market; conversely, assuming ETF premium → stronger buying → possible subscription → positive impact on the crypto market.
Hong Kong crypto ETFs also have an important value for investors: they add a conversion and circulation path for crypto assets and tradable financial assets.
A quick look at 10 promising tokens held by a16z, BlackRock and Coinbase
Compound (COMP), Ispolink (ISP), 0x (ZRX), LCX (LCX), Orchid (OXT), UMA protocol (UMA), Synthetix (SNX), Realio (RIO), MOG COIN (MOG), Blur (BLUR ).
Hack VC: Top 10 Tips for Project TGE
Users and TVL tend to follow the 80/20 rule (i.e. the top 20% of users can account for more than 80% of TVL), so acquiring large deposits should be the focus when growing TVL.
It is important to follow best security practices.
Before the mainnet is launched, the product-market fit should be measured. It is recommended to launch a "private mainnet" (different from the testnet) to let real users with real capital use the product service together to confirm the product-market fit. These users are invitation-only (such as investors, friends, and teams) so that the marketing campaign will not be ruined by a small group of private users.
Startups are advised to hold off on launching their tokens until substantial real value has been created with the protocol. This is similar to how pre-IPO Web2 startups tend not to rush into an IPO until they have established a solid business.
One potential solution to avoid selling tokens to retail investors (for legal/regulatory reasons) is an IEO. Creating a more attractive entry price for investors through an IEO would also reduce risk.
Keep cliff unlocks in mind when designing token vesting schedules.
Set aside a budget for listing on an exchange.
Raise funds before launching your token. Get legal advice, but don’t let it guide all business decisions.
Choose the right time to monetize via the fee switch.
I also recommend "Capital, Regulation and Airdrops, the New "Impossible Triangle" in the Crypto Industry".
Airdrop Opportunities and Interaction Guide
The world has suffered from the point system for a long time. This article reviews the rise and fall of the point system
Before the popularization of the points system, the amount of funds was not the main factor in the interaction and airdrop of the project. The points system has become a game for big players, and it has also attracted toxic TVL. The specific exchange rules for points and airdrop tokens are still determined by the project party, and points do not mean a promise of returns. The world has suffered from the points system for a long time. Perhaps the next large-scale anti-take of points projects will be the beginning of the end of the points system era.
Bankless: The Dilemma of Points Program and High FDV Airdrop Model
Currently, there is an oversupply of venture capital in the crypto industry. Projects are facing billions to unlock without new participants. Compliance regulation has tilted the fulcrum of the public-private market heavily in favor of the private market. Points are unfair and the market is disorderly. The "points" meta has become too obvious to be sustainable. The SEC and scammers are working on this, and both sides are trying to use it to their advantage.
Bitcoin Ecosystem
Unveiling the Bitcoin Ecosystem: Bitcoin Ecosystem Knowledge Pyramid
Bitcoin Basics Dictionary.
CoinShares: BTC Miner Economics Post-Halving
Trading demand has surged recently due to the resurgence of projects built on the Bitcoin network for non-monetary use cases, such as on-chain marketplaces, collectibles, and multi-layer platforms. These projects have also paved the way for other new revenue strategies, such as miner extractable value (MEV) and transaction accelerators, which take advantage of major changes in the Bitcoin trading market.
It is very likely that transaction fees will become the majority of miner revenue during the next halving period. It is also very likely and plausible that the upcoming increase in transaction demand could make up nearly half (~43%) of the halving’s impact on fee revenue.
Bitcoin Renaissance: Skeuomorphism and Retroism in the Digital World
After fifteen years of development, the blockchain industry is returning from the POS+Account route led by Ethereum to the POW+UTXO route led by Bitcoin.
Cash, the reference of Bitcoin in the real world, is a kind of pseudo-object. POW unifies the security of the digital world and the security foundation of the real world, both of which are built on energy; while UTXO provides an independent and non-interfering digital body.
Reality implies a certain solidity, which is the foundation for the birth of ethics and morality (privacy, human rights, freedom, responsibility, and nobility). This may be the reason why the digital world is returning to reality.
Ethereum is function-oriented. Good developers should not think about how to quickly move the existing world on Ethereum, but how to build new rules and a new world on this solid land. This may be the biggest innovation in this round of bull market.
Cregis Research: Bitcoin Layer 2 Track Analysis
The article introduces Lightning Network, Stacks, Rootstock, Liquid Network, BEVM, B²Network, Dovi, Map Protocol, Merlin Chain, Bison, BitVM, and RGB.
It is recommended to read it together with "When will asset withdrawal be opened and the mainnet be launched? A quick overview of the latest trends of popular BTC L2".
Recommended article: "Is there still an opportunity to enter? A review of Rune Projects 1 to 9 one week after launch."
Ethereum and Scaling
Consensys: 4 reasons why Ethereum is not a security
The first is the SEC’s historical stance on Ethereum. The second is the CFTC’s (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) classification of commodities. The third is decentralization and open protocols. The fourth is the irrelevance of consensus mechanism transformation.
Understand Vitalik’s new proposal EIP-7702 in one article: The ultimate prescription for account abstraction?
Account abstraction allows users to use smart contracts as accounts to add more functionality and security.
EIP-7702 modifies EIP-3074 to make it leaner and more compatible with EIP-4337 so that we don’t end up with two separate account abstraction ecosystems, and also sees EIP-5003 as the next step in permanent migration. It is highly compatible with all the account abstraction work built for EIP-4337 to date, and "the contract code that users need to sign can actually be existing EIP-4337 wallet code."
Once this change takes effect, users' existing EOAs will be able to execute any smart contract code. Through additional EIPs, EOAs can also be permanently upgraded to run specific code.
Over time, this could revolutionize how we all interact with Web3 applications.
Dissecting Eigenlayer Token Economics: A New Social Consensus Mechanism to Solve What ETH Can’t
The EIGEN token is not intended to replace ETH, but to provide a supplement based on the existence of ETH.
ETH is mainly used for staking and network security as a general purpose work token. ETH staking supports the reduction of objective faults (for example, the verification node will be punished if it verifies incorrectly).
EIGEN's inter-subject pledge and dispute resolution mechanism supplements the subjective disputes and failures that ETH as an on-chain pledge mechanism cannot handle, unlocking a large number of previously impossible AVS on Ethereum with strong crypto-economic security.
This potentially opens the door to innovation in: oracles, data availability layers, databases, AI systems, gaming virtual machines, intent and order matching and MEV engines, prediction markets, and more.
Systematic understanding of EigenLayer: What are the principles of LST, LRT and Restaking?
Restaking is a secondary derivative of the PoS mechanism. Technically, Eigenlayer uses the value of restaking to maintain the economic security of AVS, and uses the mechanism of pledge and confiscation to achieve "borrowing and repaying, and borrowing again is not difficult".
This kind of multi-layered leverage, called restaking, may cause this round of bull market to rise faster and reach a higher peak, but it may also cause this round of bear market to fall more sharply, with a wider chain reaction and greater impact.
Parallel EVM+ driver: exploring the unlimited scalability and scale application realization of blockchain
EVM+ is an advanced model specifically designed to drive further development of the Ethereum Virtual Machine to better adapt to the rapidly changing crypto space. In this model, as the innovation and productivity of Web2 are gradually integrated into Web3, practical technologies such as artificial intelligence, DePIN and DeFi security are also being rapidly integrated into crypto applications.
Artela adds native extensions on the base layer, built on the basis of Cosmos SDK and made many improvements at the engine level. Secondly, Artela is compatible with EVM, and the innovation is the introduction of Aspect Programming to achieve on-chain expansion. In addition to EVM, Artela also added a second WASM-based virtual machine to support multiple programming languages (assembly scripts, rust, C, C++) and access more on-chain resources, so EVM is suitable for general smart contracts, while Aspect VM is suitable for specific application extensions.
Multi-ecology
A Deep Dive into Solana’s Fee Market and the Future of MEV
Solana’s fee market is optimized for high performance and is designed to avoid the issues seen in Ethereum’s approach. However, while Solana’s market may ultimately be more efficient than Ethereum’s, it will still need to go through a similar MEV revolution as its peers (validators begin to exploit their privileged position). Solana does not have to go the Proposal Builder Separation (PBS) route chosen by Ethereum, but it will need to determine a comprehensive approach to stabilize its fee market in the long term.
The professionalization of the fee market allows the bargaining and auctioning of block space to occur at a higher level away from consensus and execution. As a result, validators can perform their duties without worrying about how to optimize the best outcome for cumulative block space value. Most of the value will be captured by a large number of validators.
Overview of the development of liquidity staking on Solana
Despite a staking rate of over 60%, only 6% ($3.4 billion) of staked SOL comes from liquidity staking.
Solana LST (Liquidity Staking Token) has a more balanced market share than Ethereum.
LST market share ranking: jitoSOL (46%), mSOL (23.5%), bSOL (11.2%), INF (8.2%), jupSOL (3.6%). The most important factors for the success of liquidity staking tokens are liquidity, DeFi integration/partnership, and expansion support for multiple chains.
Liquidity staking is an untapped potential for Solana DeFi that could increase its TVL to $1.5B-1.7B.
Inventory of Solana on-chain tools: SOL Meme players must-have artifact
The online asset management website and on-chain asset dashboard GMGN.ai, the asset management dashboard and visual on-chain browser AlphaVybe, the on-chain data dashboard and token analysis tool Step Finance; the TG bot channel for some on-chain address tracking notifications and popular trending coins notifications.
2024 Q1 Public Chain Financial Report: How are the revenue-generating performances of public chains?
Ethereum is still the most profitable general-purpose public chain in the current crypto world, but the public chain as a whole is burning money like crazy.
Factors such as high initial operating costs and excessive uncertainty in revenue make it particularly difficult to start a public chain business. This is why the list of the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market value has been iterating so frequently and dramatically over the past 10 years.
However, with the emergence of the modularization trend led by Celestia and the development of RaaS infrastructure such as Altlayer, the industry has gradually explored an entrepreneurial opportunity with more certainty than the public chain - L2.
DeFi
The new wave of interest-paying stablecoins: mechanisms, features, and applications
The new interest-paying stablecoin generates yield from three different sources: real-world assets, Layer 1 token staking, and perpetual contract funding rates.
Ethena offers the highest yield but also the greatest volatility, while Ondo and Mountain protocols restrict access to U.S. users to reduce regulatory risk in order to distribute interest income.
Lybra's model, which redistributes ETH staking revenue to stablecoin holders, is the most decentralized model, but faces incentive issues.
Based on the number of holders and DeFi use cases, Ethena's USDe and Mountain's USDM are leading in stablecoin adoption.
Grayscale Report: "Public Chain and Tokenization Revolution", Who is the biggest beneficiary of RWA?
Many digital commerce use cases are moving away from closed platforms hosted by centralized middlemen to open and decentralized platforms based on public blockchain infrastructure, and tokenization is just one of many blockchain adoption trends.
But given the size and scope of global capital markets, it could be an important trend, and if public chains can bring together borrowers and lenders (or asset issuers and investors) and disintermediate existing fintech, then increased network activity should bring value to public chain tokens.
SocialFi
A comprehensive analysis of friend.tech V2: core functions, platform economy and token potential
Paid group Club is the biggest highlight of friend.tech V2. friend.tech said it will also launch new features such as Keydrops, Memeclubs and Pinned Rooms.
Against the backdrop of widespread controversy surrounding the recent token airdrop, friend.tech distributed 100% of its tokens to the community, and the token launch was relatively successful, giving FRIEND practicality for payment in Club.
friend.tech has not yet enabled token transferability, which means that CEX cannot list FRIEND tokens. The only way to obtain FRIEND is to claim airdrops or buy FRIEND with ETH on the friend.tech platform. At the same time, users can also combine FRIEND and ETH into LP to provide liquidity and earn rewards.
Web3
LD Capital: Exploring dappOS and the booming development of the central infrastructure
The key points of realizing intent are to focus on results rather than processes, execute delegation, and verify results. The application scenarios of dappOS include unified accounts, intent assets (similar to Yu'ebao's intentUSD), and real-time dApp contract interactions.
Hotcoin Research: The road to digital transformation of infrastructure, a panoramic analysis of the DePIN track
Meme
Meme coin value measurement: financial and social dual indicators
A successful meme coin usually goes through the following stages: most meme coins should be stuck in the "Bot Arena", there are some attractive meme coins in the "Volatile Growth" segment, and there may be one or two meme coins that reach "Well Established". In the process, some may lose social power and become "Sleeping Giants", while others may lose financial support (liquidity) and become "Extreme Risk".
The social score includes throwers, receivers, number of throws, channels, and activity levels; the financial score includes FDV, price, daily growth, weekly growth, monthly growth price changes, liquidity, transactions, transfers, and total transaction volume.
Also recommended: "a16z crypto: Criticizing Meme Coin", "Behind the Debate on Meme Value: A Reverse Education of VC by the Community", and "A Brief History of Meme Coin: An In-depth Analysis of Historical Evolution and Future Trends".
Hot Topics of the Week
In the past week, CZ was sentenced to four months in prison; CZ: Thank you for everyone's support. After the sentence is over, I will focus on the new chapter of my life; Foreign media: CZ has communicated with OpenAI CEO many times and expressed interest in participating in AI and biotechnology investment; WSJ: The head of Binance's monitoring team was fired after pointing out that DWF Labs was suspected of manipulating the market; DWF Labs: The media reports and accusations are false and are committed to supporting more than 700 partners; He Yi: Binance does not target any fund, but has been doing MM market monitoring;
The Hong Kong Stock Exchange officially launched the Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETF trading of China Asset Management, Bosera and Harvest Asset Management; The Hong Kong Securities Regulatory Commission: Approving the listing of virtual asset spot ETFs does not mean supporting or encouraging public investment; The Hong Kong Monetary Authority: Crypto assets (especially stablecoins) are one of the work priorities in 2024; The Hong Kong Monetary Authority established the Ensemble project architecture working group to support the development of Hong Kong's tokenization market; Wintermute cooperated with OSL and HashKey to provide liquidity for Hong Kong Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs;
FTX submitted a revised restructuring plan, saying that almost all customers will receive a full refund. Insiders: FTX estate auctioned the third batch of locked SOL;
In addition, in terms of policies and macro markets, DTCC: Starting April 30, the company will not be able to use cryptocurrency investment tools as collateral; the U.S. SEC issued a Wells notice to Robinhood’s U.S. crypto business, and Robinhood CEO: 16 talks with the U.S. SEC were held before receiving the Wells notice; the U.S. SEC postponed its decision on the Invesco Galaxy Ethereum spot ETF application; Coinbase faces new lawsuits for allegedly deceiving investors; Block is under compliance investigation because its business is suspected of processing transactions for sanctioned countries and terrorist organizations; the U.S. Department of Justice rejected Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm’s motion to withdraw criminal charges against him; the Netherlands arrested a suspect in the ZKasino fraud case and seized more than 11.4 million euros in assets;
In terms of opinions and opinions, Trump announced that he would accept donations to his presidential campaign in the form of cryptocurrency; Fidelity executives: Pension plans are beginning to explore investment opportunities in the crypto field; Grayscale CEO: Grayscale will focus on Ethereum spot ETF products; Uniswap founder: Founders and VCs need to stop valuing early pre-coin projects at more than $1 billion; Binance CEO published an article to explain the ins and outs of the "executive detention" incident; Vitalik published an article proposing the implementation of a multi-dimensional Gas pricing concept in Ethereum to improve the efficiency of network resource utilization; Arthur Hayes: Changes in U.S. monetary policy will bring a large amount of U.S. dollar liquidity, alleviating downward pressure on the crypto market, and Bitcoin will fluctuate between $60,000 and $70,000 until August; Standard Chartered Bank: The price of Bitcoin may fall to around $50,000; Jack Dorsey : The price of Bitcoin may reach at least $1 million in 2030; Justin Sun: Restaking and staking businesses will be separated into independent brands and operating entities in the future, and will be financed externally; SBF accepted the first media interview since August last year: He insisted that he was innocent and traded bags of rice in prison;
In terms of institutions, large companies and leading projects, Lisi Capital, owned by former Sequoia China partner Cao Xi, has invested 24 million US dollars in BlackRock Bitcoin ETF; Ethereum Gas hit a three-year low; Uniswap mobile application has been connected to Robinhood Connect; BNB Chain launched the airdrop alliance plan Chapter 2; Ethena released the 2024 roadmap: it will promote the integration of DeFi, CeFi and TradFi with USDe; meson.network will test airdrops to mining system users; NFTfi is open for airdrop applications; Renzo opens the first season airdrop applications, and ezPoints Season 1 is open for airdrop applications. 2; friend.tech opens FRIEND airdrop application and releases version v2; Kamino launches KMNO token and announces the details of KMNO staking incentive mechanism; NFTFI opens airdrop application; LayerZero completes snapshot #1, requires self-reporting of witch addresses, and strictly prohibits employees from participating in their airdrop application; ZeroLend opens ZERO airdrop application and launches staking service; MODE opens airdrop application; Morpheus opens token MOR application and trading; Puffer Finance mainnet launches; Bitcoin L2 network BOB launches the first phase of mainnet launch; EOS new token economic model is planned to be deployed to the mainnet by the end of May, and EOS staking rewards will be launched by the end of June;
In the field of NFT and GameFi, Animoca Brands co-founded ApeCoin Ventures, proposing to jointly create a $10 million fund with ApeCoin; Blur launched Blast, intending to issue 2 million gold points as rewards to traders;
In terms of security, Shenyu: The cloud input method of up to one billion users may have leaked input content. Please take immediate measures to reduce the risk; Yuxian: Using the system's built-in input method is a good habit to reduce the attack surface. Mnemonics/private keys should not touch the Internet; SlowMist CISO: Beware of the risk of accounts being taken over by malicious phishing links in Telegram... Well, another two weeks of ups and downs.
Attached is a portal to the “Weekly Editor’s Picks” series.
Reunion in the second half~