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Good Morning.

Apparently Nvidia stock is now more volatile than BTC and ETH. I’m of the camp that argues the reason why altcoins have been struggling so much is that your degen r/WSB normies choose to trade equity AI options instead of altcoins — they no longer bought the VC narrative that sells technology, they just want a new instrument to speculate.

In Today's Email:

• What Matters: Circle’s $5B valuation 💵

• Case Study: Compound vs Humpy ⚔️

• Governance & Features: Movement public testnet 🏃

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WHAT MATTERS

Circle Trading at $5B Valuation Ahead of IPO

State of play: Circle Internet Financial's stock is trading at a valuation of $5B to $5.25B in the secondary market, ahead of its planned IPO.

• Circle reached a $9B valuation in 2022 during a failed SPAC deal to go public.

• According to the report, Circle allows limited trading of its shares in the secondary market ahead of the IPO, but only on a case-by-case basis and in specific situations.

• Early-stage investors and Circle employees are said to be the sellers.

• Investors sell for liquidity reasons, while employees often monetize stock options before the IPO.

• Circle is not allowing trades below a $5B valuation.

What’s next: The number of shares and price range for the planned offering have not been determined, and the exact timing of the IPO is also unknown.

• Circle also plans to make the US its legal home before the planned IPO.

• According to @apgdoesweb3, with T-bills yielding ~5.35%, Circle's $30B in US treasury notes should yield ~$1.77B in annual USDC revenues. Including other business lines, AR should be close to $2B.

Why it matters: Circle IPO will mark another successful IPO of a crypto-native company. The more crypto companies go public, the more legitimacy that we’ll have from the streets.

Our take: Although Circle's business model is great, it’s facing harsh competition from emerging players such as Agora and Mountain; whereas it has pretty much lost its offshore competition against Tether.

For builders and investors: Stablecoin remains one of crypto’s best PMFs. I don’t believe we’re done with stablecoin innovation.

CASE STUDY

Compound Governance Attack Saga

Compound brokered a truce with pseudonymous crypto whale Humpy and The Golden Boys following a controversial vote of Proposal 289 to move $24M of treasury funds to a yield-bearing protocol led by The Golden Boys.

• On-chain data shows the automatic deployment of $24M from Compound’s treasury was canceled.

• In a new forum post by Bryan Colligan at Compound, Proposal 289 will be withdrawn to mitigate governance risks.

• A new staking product has been offered that aligns with all parties' interests, particularly addressing the needs of Humpy as a recent delegate and COMP holder.

• The new staking product requires a governance vote for on-chain deployment. But it has already been endorsed by Humpy, other Compound delegates, OpenZeppelin and Gauntlet.

• Humpy has previously taken similar contentious actions with DeFi protocols like Balancer and Sushi.

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INSIGHTS

Hamster Kombat Airdrop

The newly revised Hamster Kombat’s whitepaper claims it is planning the "largest airdrop in crypto history" and that the game now has 300M users. It states that 60% of the upcoming token airdrop will be "dedicated" to players.

• The remaining allocation is reserved for providing market liquidity, ecosystem partnerships and grants, rewarding squads, and other items.

• The game originally planned its first airdrop for this month but announced Tuesday that executing the drop is challenging and has not decided on a specific date.

• The team stated in its whitepaper that Hamster Kombat is already a "profitable business", and there is "no need to sell team token allocations to pay the bills."

FEATURES & GOVERNANCE UPDATE

Movement Public Testnet Goes Live

Movement Labs announced the launch of its mainnet (Parthenon) public testnet and invited users and developers to participate in the testnet.

• Users can get involved with the testnet by “Building the Parthenon”, Movement’s incentivized testnet program where anyone can join a Parthenon guild and start completing quests.

• Developers can build on the testnet through a campaign called “Battle of Olympus.” This hackathon will last until mid-September. More than 750 teams have already registered to join the “Battle of Olympus.”

• Movement also introduces “Movedrop” to incentivize the users and devs that participate in the testnet.

Other notable feature updates:

• Yearn launches Gimme.

• Zero Beta is live on mainnet.

• Vest Exchange launches to the public.

• TreasureDAO launches Magicswap V2.

• Alkimiya launches on Ethereum Mainnet.

• Avail launches DA mainnet and the AVAIL token.

QUICK BITES

• SEC sues BitClout founder Nader Al-Naji.

• Terra exploited via IBC hooks vulnerability.

• Mt. Gox moves $2B+ of BTC to a fresh address.

• SEC delays ruling on token securities classification.

• Artists sue the SEC over whether NFTs are securities.

• Bitcoin dominance hits its highest level since April 2021.

• BlackRock says no other crypto ETFs in the foreseeable future.

• Russia passed a bill to legalize international crypto settlements.

• Goldman Sachs CEO says bitcoin could be 'a store of value case.'

• Crypto losses due to hacks and scams surpass $1B year-to-date.

• Avalanche partners with California DMV to put titles on the network.

• Trump's campaign raised $21M during the Bitcoin 2024 conference.

NOTEWORTHY READS & MEME

• Placeholder’s read on Eclipse.

• Flip Research’s read on Solana bear thesis.

• Catalysis’ read on shared security abstraction.

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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.