Binance Can Invest User Funds in T-Bill

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Good Morning.

Biden dropped out. I still have doubts about predictions markets replacing news like all of the crypto pundits are making it to be, but it has certainly found PMF in the past few months. Polymarket should launch its token before the end of the election cycle and not repeat the mistake that OpenSea made.

In Today's Email:

• What Matters: Binance can invest in T-Bills 💵 

• Product: Aevo’s basis trade 📊

• Charts: Tonstaker’s $250M TVL, Infra vs Apps 📈 

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WHAT MATTERS

Binance Can Invest User Funds in T-Bills

State of play: The US District Court for the District of Columbia and Federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson gave permission to Binance US to invest customer funds in US T-Bills via a third-party manager.

• Binance US must work with third-party advisers to invest BAM Trading Services Inc. and BAM Management US Holdings Inc.'s (Binance US operator) assets.

• The exchange must transfer its custodied assets to a non-affiliated third-party custodian in the US.

• The court also ordered Binance US to maintain enough USD on its platform to meet all potential customer fiat withdrawal requests.

• Binance US must submit detailed monthly reports of costs related to maintaining Treasury investments.

• The order also mandated that Binance US ensure its asset managers are not affiliated with Binance through due diligence.

What’s next: The court's approval for Binance US to invest in US T-Bills highlights crypto's potential to bolster the USD amid de-dollarization by BRICS nations.

• Collateralized stablecoins could help counter inflation and sustain the USD's dominance by purchasing US debt.

For builders and investors: Centralized exchanges will replace some of the roles that banks play for consumers in the near future — the signs can already be seen from both onshore (Coinbase) and offshore exchanges.

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

Aevo’s Basis Trading Vault

Aevo’s Basis Trading Vault went live last week. Basis trading is a popular delta-neutral strategy and a key yield source for protocols like Ethena.

• According to Aevo, The basis trade vault generates yield by buying the spot asset and selling a perpetual futures contract for the same asset.

• The vault remains delta-neutral by balancing long spot positions with short futures positions and is expected to perform well as long as the funding rate is positive.

• Over the last year (June 23 to June 24), the ETH basis trade returned 23.4%.

• Aevo also offering an extra 5% APY (distributed weekly in $AEVO) to reward early supporters of Aevo Strategies.

• Aevo said that they will launch other strategies soon.

Here’s how Aevo’s Basis Trading Vault works:

Users deposit USDC → Swap USDC for ETH → Use spot ETH as collateral → Short the same ETH in perps → Earn yield in USDC and receive extra rewards in $AEVO.

Other cool products:

• Getgems, an NFT marketplace on TON.

• Sol Dust Vacuum, an alternative to sol incinerator.

• Sidekick, a platform for gaming & social networking.

• Eragon, Aptos’s distribution platform for web3 mobile games.

• GombleGames, a protocol that transforms web2 games into web3.

CHARTS OF THE WEEK

Tonstaker’s $250M TVL & 70K DAU

Credits to OurNetwork and Maksim Ratnikov for the original report

State of play: Tonstaker, a liquid staking protocol (LST) on TON, recorded over $250M (35M tsTON+) TVL and over 70,000 daily active users.

• USD-denominated deposit value in Tonstaker has increased 12,400% YoY.

• Tonstakers grew its DAU by 700% YTD, from ~20,000 to ~75,000.

• Tonstakers achieved a score of 94 out of 100 (ААА) in a security audit by Certik

Our take: TON ecosystem has been a big winner in the past few quarters — what remains to be seen is if they can foster the ecosystem into more than just another tap-farming bots.

Infra vs Apps Investment

Credits to Dylan Bane for the original tweet

State of play: Should investors continue to pour capital into infra, or should they start to focus on end-user applications?

Dylan Bane is tweeting a summary of his report published on Messari on the debate; here are the key takeaways:

• Historically, investment in infra has generated the highest returns for investors.

• Ethereum shows the highest long-term ROI over five years, with a growth of +1,634.19% in mcap.

• Chainlink provides +806.99% returns over five years in mcap.

• Solana recorded a +930.12% increase over three years in mcap.

• Optimism recorded a +1,075.16% increase over two years in mcap.

• Due to these returns, investors continue to invest in infra. Recent investments in infra include $225M into the Monad EVM and $100M into Berachain.

Dylan highlights the importance of applications; he says, “Without applications, value will not ultimately accrue to the infrastructure layers.”

• Since Ethereum's launch in 2015, the industry hasn't seen the anticipated surge of transformative use cases.

• Crypto has mainly proven its worth as a store of value, international payment rails, and a venue for speculation—use cases that existed before the crypto venture capital boom.

• The pro-infra side points out that there is insufficient solid infra as a foundation to compete with web2 platforms.

• The pro-app side argues that VC must incentivize devs to build apps rather than to splurge into excessive infrastructure with no demand.

Our take: Infra tokens will continue to see downward sell pressure.

QUICK BITES

• Keplr to add EVM support.

• Ryan Selkis quits as Messari CEO.

• Fractal ID data breach traced to 2022 hack.

• Five spot Ethereum ETFs will launch on July 23.

• Biden announces decision to not seek reelection.

• BitForex opens withdrawals following Chinese Police investigation.

• JPMorgan says crypto rebounds ahead are unlikely to be sustained.

NOTEWORTHY READS & MEME

• Paul Veradittakit’s read on proof of touch.

• Rain&Coffee’s read on where are the apps?

• Matti’s read on the rorschach of crypto twitter.

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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.