Tether’s Amazing Week

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Good Morning,

Worldcoin is having trouble as it’s competing directly with government initiatives, Coinbase is set to launch Base to the public this week, and MakerDAO has officially started offering 8% yield on DAI.

Let’s start this week with a bang.

In Today's Email:

• What Matters: Tether’s amazing week 💵

• Products: Synergy, decluttering crypto 🧹

• Charts: MEV blocker RPC, Base chain growth 📈

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WHAT MATTERS

Tether’s Amazing Week

State of play: Chief Judge Laura Taylor of the US SDNY has dismissed a class action lawsuit against Tether and Bitfinex, citing insufficient evidence of injury.

• The lawsuit was filed by Matthew Anderson and Shawn Dolifka in 2021, alleging Tether's USDT backing by the US dollar was false.

• The plaintiffs highlighted that Tether’s reserve did not contain USD but were a mix of other assets (e.g., over-collateralized loan & other undisclosed commercial paper).

• The Court found the complaint lacked credible evidence of injury, as it did not demonstrate any decrease in the actual value of USDT.

Last week Tether reported a $850M Q2 profit, bringing its total excess reserves to $3.3B.

• Tether's USDT is still the world's largest stablecoin with a ~$84B market cap.

• Tether holds ~$1.6B worth of Bitcoin, making it the 11th largest Bitcoin holder in the world.

• In Q1, Tether unveiled their plan to move away from US bond and invest up to 15% of its profits in Bitcoin on a regular basis.

What’s next: The dismissal may have closed concerns of Tether’s reserve, but it remains to be seen where Tether’s reserves are located.

• Some firms have been reported to hold Tether’s reserves, but granular details are still lacking.

Our take: Tether will always be a “controversial” actor as its incentive doesn’t align with US regulators.

• As one of the largest offshore/eurodollar providers, secrecy is part of its secret sauce.

• Having said that, it’s encouraging that the firm has added more transparency reports throughout the year.

For builders and investors: Stablecoin supply is a critical metric to watch to assess the amount of new capital flowing (and out) of the crypto ecosystem.

• This metrics provides signal into how the market will react in the next few months, and how builders/investors can best position themselves accordingly.

Take a peek at our referral reward at the bottom of this issue. Share this newsletter and receive our list of 100 smart crypto investors' wallet addresses 👇

PRODUCTS OF THE WEEK

Synergy, a Platform to Manage

A platform to curate, streamline, and elevate blockchain ecosystem. Synergy is a platform by The Dapp List to decluttered your involvements with various blockchain ecosystem, having them all together in one place.

• Simply put, Synergy is a tool for crypto projects to let its community members actively curates and shapes the ecosystem.

• Community Curation provides a mechanism to onboard innovative and valuable projects, reducing noise and support quality projects build on a network.

• Synergy has built a decentralized governance model to ensure the curation process is fair and transparent.

Other cool products:

• Holoframe, simple web3 app to frame NFT in AR.

• Quido, an easy to use crypto investment platform.

• CryptoDo, an AI-powered, multichain builder of web3 solutions.

• HYVE, a web3 platform for freelancing and job placements.

• Qubit, a wallet for Web3 gamers.

• Badges, a platform for artists, creators & businesses to access Web3.

CHARTS OF THE WEEK

MEV Blocker Surpass 4M Transaction

State of play: Curve exploit led to around $70M losses, yielding massive MEV rewards in Ethereum's history. MEV Blocker is a personal RPC endpoint protecting users from harmful MEV.

• MEV Blocker has 209K users, processed 4.7M Transactions, protected $13.4B , and returned 311 ETH to its users.

• In Q2 2023, 10% of every Ethereum smart contract interactions were conducted privately via specific RPC endpoints. MEV Blocker itself has handled ~45% of private transactions between May and June.

Our take: Minimizing MEV in Ethereum is a net good thing for the broader ecosystem in the long-run. This is an encouraging trend.

$BALD Triggered Fast Migration to Base Chain

State of Play: The launch of BALD on Base has triggered a surge of active address (~84K) and TVL (~$40M) on Base Chain. BALD is memecoin that refers to the bald head of Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase.

• On July 13, Coinbase opened Base, its Ethereum L2 network.

• In 48 hours, 40K+ ETH were transferred to Base, which helped BALD speculation and propelled its market cap to ~$80M.

• Soon after, the Bald deployer removed liquidity from the DEX pool, leading to a 95% price crash.

Our take: Speculation still drives the primary demand for a new chain. Whether its memecoins or a new dApp that provides rewards, L2 networks need to think about how it can

QUICK BITES

• Coinbase seeks to dismiss SEC suit.

• SDNY dismissed Tether and Bitfinex class-action lawsuit.

• DCG faces NYAG probe over Genesis ties.

• Curve offers $1.85M bountry for exploiter’s identity.

• OPNX bids for ailing crypto lender Hodlnaut.

• NY Times, Harvard professor want Bankman-Fried gag order lifted.

• 100 crypto funds have closed this year.

• MakerDAO’s Spark offers 8% yield on DAI.

• Coinbase L2 reaches $100M in bridged assets.

MEME & NOTEWORTHY READS

• Our Network’s read on MEV.

• Jon Charbonneau’s read on endgame: proof of governance.

• Russel Brandom’s read on worldcoin’s problem, competing with governments.

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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 advic