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Good Morning.

That was a crazy 48 hours. If you’re not looking at the 1s chart idk what you’re doing. Jokes aside, extreme volatility will continue to happen in the foreseeable future. Don’t try to right curve the markets. Let it ride~

In Today's Email:

• What Matters: BTC new ATH 📈 

• Case Study: EigenLayer farming 🪂 

• Governance & Features: Grayscale staking fund 🚀

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

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WHAT MATTERS

Bitcoin Surpassed Previous All-Time High

State of play: On Tuesday, Bitcoin reached a new record high of $69,202, surpassing its previous peak from November 2021 before experiencing a sharp sell-off that drove its value down to as low as $59,700.

• Binance's order book revealed large sell orders at high prices. Over 300 BTC ($20M) at $69,000 and over 500 BTC at $70,000, according to Coindesk.

• On the same day, Michael Saylor's MicroStrategy announced its plan to raise $600M through selling convertible debt in a private offering that will be used to acquire more Bitcoin.

• After market close, we got the data that IBIT BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF had a record inflow of $788M.

Seems like the suits are buying the dip (or maybe its your grandpa…)

Why it matters: This price action marks a milestone for BTC as an asset. All this with the halving set to happen next month, and while spot Bitcoin ETFs inflows aren’t slowing down.

For builders and investors: Let it ride. Like the top G once said.

CASE STUDY

EigenLayer Farming Opportunity

Credit to Charles & HFA Research Newsletter for the original piece.

State of play: Yesterday, the HFA Research Newsletter shared the optimal strategies for gaining exposure to $EIGEN today through diverse airdrop farming techniques.

The simplest and safest method to farm $EIGEN is to deposit a chosen Liquid Staking Token (LST) into app.eigenlayer.xyz for "restaked points”. However, EigenLayer has paused liquid restaking deposits due to cap limits.

There are alternative ways/platforms to farm EigenLayer restaked points:

• Ether.fi ranks as the top liquid restaking protocol in terms of quality and safety. Despite potential dilution from its significant capital, its airdrop may still be the most valuable.

• Renzo received an investment from Binance Labs, making it Binance's sole direct investment in the liquid restaking protocol landscape, unlike Puffer Finance, which pivoted to EigenLayer post-investment.

• Swell expanded to include liquid restaking after Eigenlayer enabled deposits. As a seasoned protocol, Swell offers another avenue to farm Eigenlayer restaked points and potentially receive a $SWELL airdrop.

• Kelp stands out as the most "grassroots" liquid restaking protocol, having not raised funds from VCs. It recently introduced "Kelp Earned Points," a tokenized version of Eigenlayer restaked points.

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 👇

INSIGHTS

The State of Crypto VCs

Regan Bozman shared his thesis on why the market today is perfect for VCs to dump their “Iceberg Tokens”.

Bozman defines "Iceberg tokens" as tokens that seem appealing initially but carry hidden risks such as 10-figure FDV, big unlocks coming, and less than 20% of the token fully circulating.

Here’s why he thinks that this is the perfect market for VCs to dump their “Iceberg Tokens”:

VCs' Need for DPI

• Since 2020, most crypto VCs need to show real cash returns (DPI) from their investments rather than just paper gains (TVPI).

• This pressure comes because their investors (LPs) are unhappy with missed opportunities to secure profits at the market's peak.

• As a result, VCs are motivated to sell assets, particularly those that have significantly increased in value and are easy to sell (liquid).

Urgent Need for DPI During Fundraising:

• VCs feel even more pressure to generate cash returns when they are trying to raise more funds. They face demands from both existing and potential new investors for tangible cash distributions before committing more money.

• This need is becoming more acute as the investor market, quiet for over a year, is starting to revive, and many funds are over 50% invested and looking to invest even more.

Game Theory and Sell Pressure:

• From a strategic standpoint, even if a VC believes an investment will continue to grow, they might still choose to sell if they anticipate other investors will do the same.

• The fear of a mass sell-off, especially in tokens that have increased in value by 10-20 times from private rounds.

• This urgency is heightened by the market's limited liquidity, where a sell order of $1.5M could significantly impact the token's market price.

FEATURES & GOVERNANCE UPDATE

Grayscale Staking Product

Grayscale has launched the Grayscale Dynamic Income Fund (GDIF), which stakes cryptocurrencies on nine blockchains to generate income, the firm announced Tuesday.

The nine blockchains and assets are: Aptos (APT), Celestia (TIA), Coinbase Staked Ethereum (CBETH), Cosmos (ATOM), Near (NEAR), Osmosis (OSMO), Polkadot (DOT), SEI Network (SEI), and Solana (SOL).

GDIF will distribute the rewards in US dollars quarterly.

Other notable feature updates:

• Blast mainnet goes live.

• Ajna launches the Juiced App.

• Babylon Chain launches testnet.

• Sudoswap goes live on Arbitrum.

• Mint Blockchain launches testnet.

• Curve deployes contracts for Llama Lend.

• Arweave launches the testnet for Arweave AO.

• Wormhole introduces Native Token Transfers (NTT).

• Synapse launches testnets for SIN and Synapse Chain.

QUICK BITES

• ShapeShift settles with the SEC.

• IBIT records daily inflow of $788M.

• USDT briefly tops $100B in circulation.

• DeFi TVL breaks $100B since May 2022.

• Coinbase surges into Apple App Store top 100.

• Taiwan explores a special act to regulate crypto.

• Fantom seeks to liquidate Multichain Foundation.

• China urges speeding up blockchain development.

• Do Kwon wins appeal to avoid extradition to the US.

• Bitstamp receives Singapore’s in-principle approval.

• Revolut launches direct crypto purchase into MetaMask.

• BRICS will create a payment system based on blockchain network.

• SEC leverages insider trading ruling to strengthen Coinbase lawsuit.

NOTEWORTHY READS & MEME

• Tom Shaughnessy’s read on TAO.

• Paradigm’s read on raising the gas limit: part 1.

• Multicoin’s read on building the internet of GPUs.

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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.