You Got a $FRIEND in Me

📢 Sponsor | 💡 Telegram | 📰 Past Editions

Good Morning.

BTC is back above $65,000 — are we out of the woods? MonkaHmm…

In other news, FriendTech did its airdrop and LayerZero plans to do so fairly soon. Will the influx of new coin launches in Q2 be able to save the market from a sustained downturn? Only time can tell.

In Today's Email:

• What Matters: FRIEND airdrop 🪂

• Product: Coin launcher on Base 🪙 

• Charts: HK Crypto ETFs, GBTC first inflow 📈 

You read and share. We listen and improve. Send us feedback at [email protected].

TOGETHER WITH

Raremints

Bear markets are the best time to find your next 10x crypto opportunity.

Subscribe to RAREMINTS to get daily Web3 insights straight to your inbox and stay ahead of the curve, for free.

Join 30,000+ investors and builders from Binance, KuCoin, Animoca Brands, and more 👇

WHAT MATTERS

$FRIEND Price Dropped to $2.5 on Debut

State of play: FriendTech airdropped its native token, $FRIEND, on Friday while launching V2 of its platform.

• FRIEND's price soared to $169 on Base but quickly fell to $2.5.

• @0xSleuth and @Cbbfoe pointed out that FT only added $0.01 in liquidity to FRIEND at launch and blamed it as the cause of the plummeting price.

• Malviya described the airdrop as "concentrated," mainly benefiting top creators and leaving most retail users with under $200 in tokens—far below expectations.

• Several users were having issues claiming the airdrop, as stated on X by Dubai-based crypto analyst and trader Reetika Malik and @GinoTheGhost.

• FT V2 features "Money Club," an exclusive space for financial discussions and networking, plus a new point system.

What’s next: Since the snapshot date of April 27, FT’s TVL has dropped by more than 50%, from $35M to $16M at the time of writing. It looks like the drop in FT’s TVL will continue.

Our take: As one of the biggest and most promising social dApps, FT performs poorly in terms of user activity, a metric that is more important than TVL for a social app.

• From February to March this year, FT’s daily active users (DAU) only crossed the 5,000 mark on two days and recorded many days where the DAU didn’t even reach 500.

• One FT user complained that even after upgrading to V2, the app still looks bad, runs slowly, and shows no overall improvement.

For builders and investors: Despite FT’s history of weird operational choices, it’s one of the few projects that gave the entire airdrop for its community; or at least a portion that’s significantly larger than any other recent high-profile projects.

Take a peek at our referral reward at the bottom of this issue. Share this newsletter and receive our list of 500 crypto VC individuals 👇

PRODUCT OF THE WEEK

Basecamp: A Coin Launcher on Base

Basecamp is a newly launched tool that allows users to launch Base coins directly on Uniswap without the need for initial liquidity, only requiring Base gas fees.

• Upon launch, liquidity on Uniswap is locked to ensure security.

• The platform offers an attractive incentive for creators, allowing them to earn 2/3 of the LP fees and retain 5% of the total supply.

• Basecamp was initiated by @boredGenius.

Other cool products:

• Thane, a DeFi gateway and automation hub.

• Public Fund, a decentralized fundraising platform.

• Spheron Network, a compute infrastructure solution.

• GhostGraph, a new indexing solution for smart contract creators.

• zkPaper, an untraceable document editor with Proof of Authorship.

CHARTS OF THE WEEK

HK Crypto ETFs: $270M AUM & $1B Expectation

State of play: Hong Kong Bitcoin ETFs have acquired ~4,200 BTC (~$270M) since launch. ChinaAMC has the highest Bitcoin holdings with ~2,000 BTC.

• Harvest and Bosera Hashkey tail ChinaAMC with approximately 1,000 Bitcoin holdings each.

• On their first trading day, Hong Kong's six new spot Bitcoin and ether ETFs saw over $11.2M in trading volume.

• The number is significantly less than the $4.6B first-day volume of 11 US spot Bitcoin ETFs in January.

London-based CF Benchmarks CEO Sui Chung, predicts HK’s new crypto ETFs’ AUM will reach $1B by year's end.

• CF Benchmarks is also now working with the new ETFs in Hong Kong.

Our take: The ETF is more of a promotion for Hong Kong as a jurisdiction rather than for BTC as an asset.

Grayscale's Bitcoin ETF Records First Inflow

State of play: Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), the largest bitcoin ETF by assets, recorded its first daily net inflow since its January debut.

• On Friday, GBTC saw a net inflow of $63M.

• GBTC, known for its high fees, saw investors withdraw billions, reducing its Bitcoin holdings from over 600,000 to around 290,000.

• GBTC currently holds $18.1B in assets, compared to IBIT's $16.9B.

Our take: This might be a sign that GBTC outflow is nearing its end.

QUICK BITES

• Coinbase faces a copycat class action suit.

• Bitfinex CTO denies rumors of data breach.

• Grayscale ETF sees first inflow since January.

• Bitcoin surpasses one billion transactions processed.

• ZKasino team member arrested by Dutch authorities.

• LayerZero offers sybil farmers a chance to self-report.

• Bernstein analysts double down on $150,000 BTC prediction.

• Exploiter stole $68M worth of crypto through address poisoning.

• Tether enters transaction surveillance partnership with Chainalysis.

NOTEWORTHY READS & MEME

• Decentralised’s read on infinite worlds.

• Vitalik Buterin’s read on exploring FHE.

• CMS Holdings’ read on liquid crypto opportunities.

If you enjoy reading this issue, please consider subscribing. It takes 1 minute of your time but it would mean the world to us 🙇

Disclaimer: All the information presented in this publication and its affiliates is strictly for educational purposes only. It should not be construed or taken as financial, legal, investment, or any other form of advice.