Stacked

2021-09-28 00:45:59 Stacked Insights Newsletter, 09.27.21

Chinese crypto ban expands
Bitfinex accidentally paid $23.7M in gas
dYdX leads DeFi token rally

Chinese crypto ban expands

SparkPool is the second-largest Ethereum mining pool in the world. What’s more — they’re based in China, instantly putting them afoul of that nation’s harsh anti-crypto regulations.

In response to the Chinese gov’s crypto clampdown, SparkPool has suspended its ETH staking services for Chinese AND international customers. The Ethereum hashrate (power needed to mine ETH) has plummeted 8% in SparkPool’s absence.

Elsewhere, marketplace giant Alibaba is banning the sale of crypto mining equipment, citing the PBOC’s recent proclamations regarding digital assets. The ban comes into place October 1st — and interestingly calls out Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Quarkcoin.

Bitfinex accidentally paid $23.7M in gas fees

In an apparent fumble of grand proportions, Bitfinex appears to have fat-fingered a $100,000 Ethereum transaction to the tune of $23.7 million in gas fees.

Ordinarily, Ethereum transaction fees are low for large and small transactions alike. However, in this case, Bitfinex significantly overspent on gas fees when sending funds to DeversiFI, a decentralized exchange.

As of now, the transaction marks the single largest amount spent on Ethereum gas fees to date. The second most expensive gas fee paid to Ethereum comes in a distant second place at $5 million.

dYdX leads DeFi token as CEX tokens dump

dydX, the decentralized perpetuals exchange, is leading the current DeFi token surge as it collects both hype and trading volume.

The significant traction gained by dYdX in recent days is astounding by any measure.

dYdX trading volume surpassed Coinbase
It also topped all other DEXes combined

China’s ban on crypto trading is also giving decentralized exchanges like dYdX a significant tailwind. In the wake of both Binance and Huobi barring mainland Chinese users, DEX tokens like UNI, SUSHI, and CRV rallied.

Meanwhile, in Huobi Token (HT) and Binance Coin (BNB) have plummeted out of favor, losing 46% and 19% respectively. Open / Comment

2021-09-25 21:09:10 Stacked Insights Newsletter, 09.25.21

Load the China FUD
Senators push the SEC for crypto clarity
Andre Cronje launches free NFT platform

China echoes 2017 with new crypto ban

In early September 2017, crypto markets were staging a comeback after plunging over the summer. However, midway through the month, the Chinese government announced a sweeping Bitcoin ban that sent markets tumbling back down.

Now, under almost the exact same conditions, China has put forward yet another crypto ban. The difference, insiders say, is this one is the most severe. Dealing with cryptocurrencies in any way, including mining or transacting, is now punishable by law.

Whether that’s true or even unique to this particular ban is up for debate, but one thing is for sure, we remember what happened a few short months later — Bitcoin hit all-time highs.

It’s fair to wonder if this time it’s different, but given how closely 2021 has followed the 2017 blueprint, the ball is in crypto’s court.

Senators push SEC for great clarity on crypto

Senators Pat Toomey and Cynthia Lummis are crypto bulls with mighty amounts of clout within the hallowed halls of Capitol Hill. Moreover, they’re fresh off a battle over better crypto provisions within last month’s $1T spending bill.

Now, they’re calling for greater clarity from the SEC surrounding crypto regulations. Toomey has accused the SEC of bullying the crypto sector with “regulation by enforcement” versus providing the industry a clear roadmap.

The losers in this tug of war between the SEC and crypto? The American public. According to Toomey and Lummis, without clear regulations, investors won’t get a fair and competitive marketplace.

And with the latest Chinese crypto ban, both senators believe this is a crucial opportunity for the US to make itself the home of blockchain innovation. Sen. Toomey’s original tweet on the matter has garnered just shy of 30K Twitter likes, showing broad public support for bringing Bitcoin home.

Andre Cronje launches free & fast NFT platform

Does Andre Cronje sleep? It’s pretty obvious he most definitely doesn’t.

His prodigious output has led to yet another masterstroke with Artion, a decentralized alternative to OpenSea. Artion doesn’t charge minting or platform fees and transactions are super cheap + very fast thanks to the platform living on Fantom.

The push to create a decentralized version of OpenSea got a massive tailwind when OpenSea exec Nate Chastain was found insider trading. Chastain was quickly fired but doubts about the world’s largest NFT platform persist.

Artion isn’t the only decentralized NFT platform competing with OpenSea. DeFi protocol Sushi has entered the fray with Shoyu, a place for creating and trading a broad range of NFTs. Open / Comment

2021-09-24 02:04:12 Stacked Insights Newsletter, 09.23.21

Gary Gensler is uniting crypto like never before
Markets bounce as S&P recovers
Turns out Snoop Dogg is an NFT whale

Gary Gensler is uniting crypto like never before

We might look back on this week as a watershed moment in the history of cryptocurrencies. Why? Because SEC chief Gary Gensler has finally given crypto a common villain.

In wildly daft, confused remarks about crypto, Gensler went on the record equating stablecoins to poker chips and stating cryptocurrencies “won’t last long.” And to think such views are coming from someone who taught an MIT course on cryptocurrencies is, well, mind-blowing

The upshot to Gensler’s apparent heavy hand is there is absolutely no way his agency can regulate as fast as crypto can innovate. This is an industry testing in production 24/7 with no geopolitical center or off switch. As such, any hopes Gensler has of becoming the sheriff of Cryptoville are simply wishful thinking.

Besides, if you take stock of the Gensler memeing happening, there’s something beautiful going on. Maximalists of all different stripes & communities — Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Polkadot, Avalanche, and more — have all united against the threat posed by over-zealous and ill-informed boomers.

Hands-off regulation is one thing (and protects new investors) but what Gensler pitches is stifling, smothering, and will potentially push crypto innovators out of the US for good.

Evergrande who? Markets rally during a substantial bounce

The sensationalized Evergrande FUD appears to be subsiding, causing markets to finally get a grip and do the thing we love — bounce.

BTC barely hung on to the $40K mark as the S&P slid on Evergrande worries but has hit back out hard — it’s now battling back to $45K. Altcoins as led by Ethereum have seen a similar recovery with a select few simply outperforming.

AVAX
Avalanche is showing supreme strength in the face of adverse conditions. After announcing a $180M ecosystem fund and a $230M investment from leading VCs, AVAX has plied its way up the market cap leaderboard and now looks set to enter the top 10.

DOT
Parachain launch looks primed to begin any day now. Kusama, Polkadot’s wild cousin, has already launched wildly successful parachains like Moonriver (MOVR) and Shiden (SDN). Seeing their price action & the sheer excitement shown for Kusama parachains bodes extremely well for DOT.

OHM
Olympus has a community that’s truly second to none. The Ohmies have turned Synthetix founder Kain Warwick into a fan as projects like KlimaDAO adopt Olympus’ (3,3) tokenomics model. OHM excitement brought the asset into the top 100 but it appears to just be getting started.

Turns out Snoop Dogg is an NFT whale

Some stories, like this one, feel too crazy to be true. But as it turns out, Snoop Dogg is behind the über-famous NFT Twitter account Cozomo de’ Medici.

Even crazier — he owns close to $20M worth of NFTs, including CryptoPunks, Chromie Squiggles, and Meebits. How did this come to be?

A few days ago, Medici, who has ~50K Twitter followers, announced their intentions to doxx themselves. The reasoning was Medici’s IRL fame might help bring people into the NFT world.

Soon after, Snoop revealed himself as Medici from his Twitter account :mind blown: All of this explains how Medici brought Jason Derulo into the NFT realm by advising him on his CryptoPunk purchase. Open / Comment

2021-09-15 01:58:38 Stacked Insights Newsletter, 09.14.21

Solana has been down all day
DeFi tokens come roaring back
SEC Gensler says Coinbase is listing securities

Solana protocol goes down amidst network issues

Just as it seemed Solana could do no wrong, the network went down early this morning and has yet to switch back on. However, it’s not exactly bad news — let us explain.

Solana went down due to what the core team calls “resource exhaustion.” In a nutshell, network validators were overwhelmed with transactions coming from decentralized exchange Raydium.

The fact is Solana failed its first true stress test owing to low decentralization but now its engineers have an invaluable case study to learn and build from. Besides, nothing says adoption like a high throughput of transactions on the network’s apps.

These are early days for Solana & the crypto ecosystem as a whole. BlockTower Capital’s Ari Paul correctly pointed out that anyone who waited for Bitcoin to achieve network stability before buying missed the first 1,000X.

So, while a network outage isn’t the best look, we must remember Solana is in BETA mainnet — a stage akin to taking the training wheels off. Remember your first bike ride without training wheels? Yeah, it wasn’t perfect.

As Solana CEO Anatoly Yakovenko clarified, better now than when it has a billion users.

DeFi tokens come roaring back to life

DeFi tokens are surging forward with double digit gains while NFTs cool off amidst price floor drops. Unlike the previous DeFi run, a new crop of tokens are in the spotlight.

CRV

Decentralized exchange Curve (CRV) gained TVL (Total Value Locked) ahead of Uniswap steadily at first, then parabolically as it accrued nearly 2x Uniswap’s liquidity. Despite being the DEX market leader by a vast margin, CRV remained well outside of the top 100 projects by market cap until today’s +27% move.

SUSHI

It’s been one year since the infamous Sushi debacle involving Chef Nomi. Within that time, Sushi evolved from mere Uniswap "copy pasta” to multi-chain DeFi powerhouse. Soon, Sushi’s Shoyu NFT platform goes live, adding a new source of value accruing to xSUSHI holders. Correspondingly, SUSHI is seeing a positive 17% rerating.

MLN

Enzyme Finance is a rather old DeFi project that’s experiencing something of a renaissance of late. It’s quietly been in a strong uptrend all year long while remaining firmly off the radar. However, after being added to Coinbase in June, MLN has begun picking up attention. Today’s 24% move up is confirmation.

SEC Chief Gensler thinks Coinbase may be listing securities

Before Gary Gensler took on the role of SEC chief, there were high hopes. He’d taught courses on blockchain/crypto at MIT and grasped Bitcoin well.

However, the Gensler honeymoon has quickly ended. In its most aggressive move, the SEC threatened to sue Coinbase if it offers users 4% yields on stablecoin deposits. They also demanded Coinbase hand over the names + data on everyone who signed up for the yield product waitlist.

The threat prompted Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong to publish a statement accusing the SEC of stifling innovation without clear crypto regulatory guidelines.

Now, Gensler is doubling down on claims that Coinbase is selling “dozens” of unregistered securities. He also believes stablecoins somehow fit into this scope despite their 1:1 asset-backed value.

During the hearing in which Gensler made the above comments, Sen. Mark Warner also chimed in about crypto, saying "Some of the things I see from intel side scare the dickens out of me." Open / Comment

2021-09-10 17:01:46 Stacked Insights Newsletter, 09.10.21

Solana is the real deal
Bored Ape NFT collection nabs $24M
Mastercard takes big step toward crypto

Solana gains clout and value — how high can it go?

The Solana hype has hit new levels in terms of price AND mindshare. Let’s address both.

Last night, SOL crossed the $200 barrier with absolute ease. It’s clear buyers are targeting much higher, and they’re not wrong. Looking just ahead of SOL on the charts, BNB and ADA are still billions ahead, giving Solana bulls clear targets.

If you’re looking for a parallel, look to the BNB run earlier this year. From January to May, BNB melted upwards, going from $40 to $661. Where will SOL stop? For clues, let’s turn to the mindshare aspect.

The early narrative around Solana was its connection to/support from the Sam Bankman-Fried FTX + Alameda empire. If you’re growing a new crypto ecosystem, it obviously doesn’t hurt to have staunch support from someone in possession of a money cheat code.

After all, who can forget this EPIC tweet that captures SBF’s conviction

Since then, Solana matured, held hackathons, raised $300M, and started hosting DeFi apps/protocols like Mango Markets, Raydium, and Solanart. Suddenly, investors realized there’s finally a live alternative to Ethereum.

What’s more, Solana development is mostly done in Rust, a widely-used programming language. Compared to Ethereum’s esoteric Solidity lang, Rust is already part of many a dev’s skillset — especially those building on Polkadot.

The excitement surrounding Solana has led to a breakdown in blockchain maximalism as the true beginnings of a multichain future appear. If SOL bulls take aim at the #3 spot inhabited by ADA, prices will reach well north of $300.

Sotheby’s Bored Ape YC sales smashes estimates

Sotheby’s highly anticipated auction of 101 Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs sold for $24M, decimating the firm’s $16M estimate. At about $250K per Bored Ape, someone out there paid a steep premium well above the going secondary market rate.

Recently, BAYC NFTs have averaged ~$160K per, but it’s doubtful the Sotheby’s buyer is overly concerned with the price discrepancy. If they part the collection out, rare apes included in the package will more than make up for the ground lost on more common ones.

But given the rapid appreciation of NFTs overall, coupled with the view that Bored Ape YC is the Ethereum to CryptoPunk’s Bitcoin, it’s likely the BAYC floor will quickly eclipse $250K anyhow.

Additionally, the auction included six vials of mutant serum and doesn’t account for the value accruing to existing apes via future NFT drops & other BAYC membership benefits. So ultimately, the purchase didn’t require too much analysis for anyone deeply embedded in the NFT game these days.

Mastercard acquires CipherTrace in bold step toward crypto

Earlier today, Mastercard announced it had acquired CipherTrace, a blockchain analysis and risk intelligence firm. The move enables Mastercard to scan and track cryptocurrencies across blockchains to ensure compliance.

Mastercard’s buy-in might come as a surprise if you haven’t followed the company’s recent statements. Earlier this year, Mastercard declared it was testing USDC stablecoin payments with an eye toward settling them for USD on its network.

Eventually, Mastercard will offer native support for stablecoins and CBDCs but doesn’t expect to do the same for cryptocurrencies like BTC & ETH. Despite those doubts, the CipherTrace acquisition points toward a broader strategy aimed at a range of cryptocurrencies. Open / Comment

2021-09-08 01:25:06 Stacked Insights Newsletter, 09.07.21

BTC gets a $10K haircut
Cardano smart contract testnet fail
Steph Curry is the new face of FTX

BTC loses $10K in a single candle

Every now and again, BTC is subject to what's called a flash crash.

For the uninitiated, a flash crash is an absurdly aggressive price drop usually triggered by an overleveraged market. They’re always harrowing to witness, and definitely a rush.

The lead-up to today’s flash crash saw market-wide bullishness with peak vibes going off everywhere you looked.

Reese Witherspoon tweeted about buying ETH
NFTs punched way above their weight on OpenSea
El Salvador sat on the brink of BTC adoption
Apes longing longs driving an overheated market

All of that, paired with BTC unable to convincingly pierce resistance, led us to speculate in our previous update that the market would imminently correct. Now that we’ve seen some of the froth come off, where to from here?

Analyst dave the wave impressively called this BTC top — along with the two previous ones. His view is BTC is following a fractal from earlier this year and was due for a drop. His view corresponds with that of S2F boss Plan B who earlier this summer called for $43K BTC in September.

As a reminder, Plan B’s S2F model is predicting $100K BTC at a MINIMUM before 2022. We tend to believe it

Cardano’s smart contracts fail in testnet

Cardano’s Alonzo testnet was supposed to be the showcase moment for the platform’s smart contract capabilities. Despite being several years late to the smart contract game, Cardano CEO Charles Hoskinson has defended the platform, saying several years were needed to make them bulletproof.

However, with the launch of Minswap, the first dApp on the Alonzo testnet, the frailty of Cardano’s smart contracts was immediately apparent. Minswap was quickly forced to shut down its testnet after a matter of hours when several users interacted with its smart contracts at once.

The Minswap teamed pointed to a “concurrency” issue that restricts the number of transactions per block to one, hence why several interactions were enough to render Minswap unusable. For reference, allowing concurrent interactions with the same smart contract (i.e., >1 txs) is a feature by design of other blockchains, like Ethereum, hosting high-volume DeFi applications.

Cardano uses a modified version of Bitcoin’s UTXO to track user funds that Satoshi likely never envisioned being used as the basis of high throughput concurrent transaction processing. In contrast, both Ethereum, Solana, and nearly all other layer one blockchain platforms use an account-based model enabling multiple users to interact with fully on-chain decentralized apps simultaneously.

At the moment, the Cardano community is calling the concurrency issue FUD. But with smart contracts going live to Cardano mainnet on Sept. 12, the world will know soon enough whether Cardano has a real issue on its hands — or not.

Steph Curry is OFFICIALLY an FTX ambassador

First, Steph Curry bought a Bored Apes Yacht Club NFT. Minds were blown

Then, Curry followed up with dropping into the BAYC Discord, asking Crypto Twitter for financial advice — and finally, becoming an FTX ambassador and equity holder.

Those are serious moves into the crypto space from an NBA legend prone to making the right calls. It also comes on the heels of FTX’s previous ambassador + equity deal with Tom Brady.

Clearly, FTX recognizes crypto has long had a marketing problem. Despite the abundant wealth within our ecosystem, getting crypto out front and center amongst the masses has been trying.

FTX’s strategy of partnering with some of the most visible athletes in the world is not only bold but seems to be working, too. Just months ago, FTX was at best a top 15 spot exchange. Now it’s entrenched in the top 5 along with Binance, Coinbase, Huobi, and Kraken Open / Comment

2021-09-04 02:54:45 Stacked Insights Newsletter, 09.03.21

Send all markets: BTC prints $51K
Uniswap under SEC investigation
This is why Loot NFTs are mooning

BTC tags $51K as crypto markets get SENT

It’s a rare day when everything across the board well and truly goes for it.

Well, today was one of those days.

Bitcoin printed $51K and Ethereum hit $4K in the midst of an NFT rush. At the same time, layer one blockchain tokens like SOL, DOT, KSM, AR, FTM, and ATOM continued seeing a positive re-rating by investors + traders alike.

In some respects, DeFi tokens are all that’s missing from the run. They’re in the green, to be sure, but their gains pale in comparison to L1 chains. However, Solana DeFi projects are getting time in the sun, with MNGO, REN, and RAY running the charts.

On the NFT side, NFT platforms are performing strongly as expected. While bigger projects like THETA, ENJ, AXS, and CHZ have cooled slightly, smaller-cap projects are flourishing. SAND, UOS, ILV, NFTX, and DG are all posting a minimum +20% increase.

Going back to market leaders BTC and ETH, both met heavy resistance at $51K and $4K respectively. With Labor Day weekend in the US beginning, a lull in trading action might be on the cards.

Should BTC retrace as far back as $46K this weekend, and considering BTC typically underperforms in September, expect a deeper pullback to set up a very bullish autumn.

The SEC is investigating Uniswap

Earlier this summer, SEC chief Gary Gensler made it abundantly clear he has no idea what DeFi is about. To prove the point, the SEC is now investigating Uniswap DEX.

More accurately, the SEC is investigating Uniswap Labs — in other words, the team behind Uniswap. That’s worrying on several levels, but above all, the SEC wants data on how people use Uniswap to trade/invest and how Uniswap markets its exchange.

It’s likely the UNI governance token is also making the SEC uncomfortable. The token enables holders to govern a vast multi-billion dollar cross-border exchange & might someday entitle them to revenue share.

The funny thing is, if Gensler knew the first thing about DeFi, none of this would come as a surprise, nor would it be cause for stifling American technological innovation.

However, in all likelihood, the unfriendly and unnerving environment around blockchain startups being cultivated by the US government will likely push teams abroad. The result? A net negative for American tech entrepreneurship, intellectual labor, and a lost foothold in the future of the web.

What are Loot NFTs? They’re weird — but definitely cool

Loot NFTs have stormed to the top of NFT sales charts but hardly anyone understands what they are. Neither did we at first — until we looked deeper.

Created by Dom Hofmann, Loot NFTs are nothing more than random text lists of future/fantasy adventure gear. Once more to be completely clear...if you buy a Loot NFT, all you’re getting is a randomly generated list describing imaginary, well, loot.

So why are they selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars each? Because Loot collectors are betting the lists will come together to describe an NFT/blockchain/metaverse game of the future built in real-time by communities.

Some have called Loot NFT Improv — a description both apt and exciting.

What will Loot become? No one really knows, but the point is collectors get to decide. Until now, NFTs/collectibles/games were premade, meaning the universe had been decided by creators ahead of time.

Loot = collectors ARE creators. Is this a paradigm in the NFT world? Probably, yes. At least Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin thinks so, saying the Loot project “has it right.” Open / Comment

2021-09-01 06:26:41 Stacked Insights Newsletter, 08.31.21

L1 chains keep mooning, DOT & KSM next?
NFT price floors correct slightly
Why hype for 1/1 NFTs is building

L1 chains keep mooning — are DOT & KSM next in line?

Layer 1 blockchains Solana, Terra, Cardano, and Avalanche have pumped for weeks, only hitting the brakes temporarily before launching again.

What’s driving the bullishness behind the ongoing L1 chain renaissance?

During the earlier phase of this year’s bull market, layer two scaling solutions like Polygon, Optimistic, and Arbitrum were the main focus of a community seeking cheaper fees and faster transactions.

But now, L1 chains themselves are back in the spotlight as traders bet on every chain not called Ethereum in hopes that they can produce the developer/end-user experiences we’ve all been waiting for.

Solana’s ecosystem is growing, Avalanche launched a $180M incentives program, and Cardano promises to finally switch on smart contracts.

Polkadot (DOT) and Kusama (KSM) were notably silent through the rush on L1 tokens until today. Both are seeing double-digit % gains as Kusama’s next round of parachain auctions goes live, giving speculators the impression that Polkadot’s parachain launch is imminent.

Should expectations about Polkadot parachains continue building, a large wave of profits from SOL, LUNA, ADA, and AVAX trades might flow toward DOT & KSM.

NFT market corrects amidst signs of froth

So far in August, NFT collections and projects have gone up in a more or less vertical line. Anyone who bought even a semi-respectable drop over the last few months is likely in heavy profit.

It comes as no surprise, then, that an NFT price floor correction is not a matter of if, but when. After all, CryptoPunks floor went from ~30 ETH to ~137 ETH in a matter of 10 days.

Today, trading volumes for Art Blocks, Bored Apes, Mutant Apes, CryptoPunks, Meebits, and newcomer Creature World are all down significantly, with Meebits taking the cake at -77%.

If you subscribe to the view that CryptoPunks = BTC for the NFT market, the current floor at 115 ETH is hovering near the psychological 100 ETH hurdle. However, given that many NFT collections are in the hands of diamond-handed DAOs, NFTs might face limited downside compared to utility tokens.

Why hype for 1/1 NFTs is building

Even if 10,000 series NFT projects are seeing a slowdown in trading volume, that doesn’t tell the whole story for the blazing NFT market.

1 of 1 NFTs found primarily on Foundation, SuperRare, and Zora are seeing increased interest as NFT collectors look to original works limited to single editions.

Foundation, in particular, crossed the $100M sales mark while SuperRare monthly sales went from $4M in July to $22M in August. Their sales volume still pales in comparison to OpenSea, which recently crossed $1 billion — but still, it’s a start.

Collecting NFTs has much to do with acquiring rarity, just as collecting anything always has. A 10,000 CryptoPunk collection is scarce compared with the demand for them, but nothing says rare quite like 1 of 1 does.

The switch toward 1 of 1 collecting might have started with a generative artist from Panama.

Itzel Yard, who goes by @ix_shells on foundation, became the highest-selling female NFT artist when her piece Dreaming At Dusk sold for a cool $2 million.

Now, demand for her art is visibly growing, evidenced by the steady increase in asking prices for her secondary market-listed work. Open / Comment

2021-08-26 22:21:39 Stacked Insights Newsletter, 08.26.21

After DeFi & NFTs, what’s next?
DAG into top 100 on USAF partnership
BTC locked in $43K to $50K range

Are DAOs the Next Big Thing in crypto?

Former BitMex CEO and all-around chad Arthur Hayes once said the exceptional investor invest in heretical themes, and sells once those themes become orthodox.

In the last two years, DeFi stole the limelight from ICO-era utility tokens. Then, NFTs stole the show from DeFi.

When they first appeared, both DeFi and NFTs were heretical themes. Who would deposit liquidity in a decentralized protocol? Who would spend valuable ETH on a JPEG?

But now, DeFi is so orthodox that TradFi institutions embrace it. Ditto NFTs, with Sotheby’s, Visa, Budweiser, and even Arizona Ice Tea jumping onboard.

It’s at this moment the exceptional investor asks themselves: what’s the next heretical theme? The answer is DAOs.

Short for Decentralized Autonomous Organizations, DAOs are poised to take the hype mantle over from NFTs. As NFT floors continue rising to levels that price out everyone but whales, fractionalized ownership via DAO-organized collective purchasing power becomes an obvious high IQ move.

However, DAOs aren’t just about fractionalizing shares of CryptoPunks. They’re humanity’s most powerful-ever tool for aligning economically empowered communities around shared interests.

It’s easy to imagine a near-future in which DAOs bootstrap liquidity for funding long-term strategies, such as pro-crypto legislation, climate defense, or anything else the community finds valuable.

As a DAOs treasury grows, the members governing it become increasingly powerful, which in turn propels the value of DAO-issued assets, like NFTs with governance rights attached.

Are you more of a visual learner? Check out Nouns DAO for a great example of how DAOs are shaping the future.


$DAG flying under the radar despite military contract

Constellation (DAG) is a horizontally scaled blockchain platform geared toward enterprises interested in building blockchains and/or crypto assets. It uses a technology called Hypergraph to make transactions infinitely scalable yet nearly free.

After a rough couple of years, DAG has started printing in earnest and has just reached the top 100 tokens by market cap. While the rest of the market is busy playing hot potato between SOL, LUNA, and AVAX, DAG has flown completely under the radar.

Clearly, layer one blockchains and NFTs are notable trends throughout this market cycle. But it looks like DAG’s status as an L1 chain is going unrecognized, though not for much longer.

Earlier today, the Constellation team let slip that they’ve earned a contract with the US Air Force to provide blockchain security for sensitive military data. Essentially, Constellation will secure data between the Department of Defense and aircraft during live missions.

If the US military believes Constellation & blockchains at large are secure enough to handle such sensitive data, then it’s a reaffirmation at the highest levels that blockchain is the future infrastructure for all the world’s data.

BTC stuck ranging between $43K & $50K

BTC put bears on notice after running to $51K last weekend. But a change of fortune has BTC on the backfoot & struggling to reclaim the all-important $48K level.

As such, BTC has re-entered the chop zone — a price range with extreme magnetism between several potential supports and resistances. Without a significant break to the upside soon, the likelihood that BTC crabs sideways within the range before plummeting grows.

An important level to watch is $43K should BTC get that low. Earlier this year, BTC tapped $57K before falling to $43K. Then, it bounced hard before going on to a high of $63K. Open / Comment

2021-08-25 23:13:51 Stacked Insights Newsletter, 08.25.21

After pullback, BTC bounce in progress
Incentive programs launches $AVAX +500%
Fidenza NFT buyers turn 0.5Ξ into 1,000Ξ

BTC is bouncing after harsh pullback

BTC had an exhilarating run as of late, pushing from $28K lows to just over $50K in a matter of weeks. So, when prices whipped back under $48K last night, the correction felt acceptable.

Consider that just before BTC went under $48K support, the Fear & Greed index registered an extreme greed score of 79. At this same point only one month ago, the index was showing a fear score of 26.

Clearly, BTC is pinging around between extreme poles, a signal that we’re likely to land somewhere in between. As we outlined in previous updates, BTC usually needs to decisively punch through resistance, otherwise, excessively leveraged traders get twitchy.

With the amount of greed still hanging in the market, you can count on copious amounts of irresponsibly long degens ready to bail at the first sign of trouble. In other words, this isn’t the moment to try and be a hero — let’s ride out the current indecision and see where the monthly close takes us.

First Solana, now Avalanche is up 500%

It’s officially layer one blockchain season in the crypto world. After Solana (SOL) & Terra (LUNA) went on face-melting runs, Avalanche (AVAX) is joining their ranks in what can only be termed SoLunAvax szn.

Congrats if you were amongst the lucky ones to roll your SoLuna profits into AVAX — that was a bold move requiring a deft understanding of how assets are related. Having a feeling for which coins pump together is a subtle craft few possess.

However, had you been paying attention to Avalanche, the move up comes as no surprise. The pecking order of layer one blockchains goes:

Ethereum —> Polkadot —> Solana/Cosmos —> Avalanche/Algorand —> Harmony/Holochain/Near

That order isn’t set in stone but is how things stand now. Solana is set in fierce competition with Ethereum and, to that extent, has had hackathons, very public marketing strategies, and DeFi platforms go live.

The amount of liquidity being sucked into Solana DeFi like Mango Markets, Raydium, Serum, and FTX makes it essential for Avalanche to move now or be left behind.

In response, Avalanche announced Avalanche Rush, a $180 million liquidity mining program. So far, Sushi, Curve, and Aave have stepped up by launching markets on the platform, drawing in deep liquidity that’s also helping to revive Pangolin DEX (Avalanche’s Uniswap fork).


But do you own a Fidenza?

The NFT market is on FIRE.

Flipping JPEGS is, in several respects, more fun than trading altcoins. Technical analysis, Crypto Twitter charts, and faceless coins all go out the window when you’re absorbed with discovering the incredible visuals and price floors of NFTs.

Not to mention the gains have been far juicier for anyone paying strict attention to the latest drops — especially those on Art Blocks.

Just a few months ago, NFT platform Art Blocks released a series by generative artist tylerxhobbs titled Fidenza. At the time, several of the pieces in the Fidenza run sold for as low as 0.58Ξ.

However, fast forward a mere two months, and Fidenza #313 has just sold for a staggering 1,000Ξ (~$3.2M). The original buyer profited nearly 2,000x on their original investment...so, the next time you’re complaining about NFT minting fees, it’s probably better to just ape Open / Comment