Market Overview
GM and welcome to another week of CoinStats Scoop! 💫 Ethereum was once again leading the charge this week, rallying as high as 1770 before settling down in the 1600-1700 range. BTC climbed another modest 2%+ as the market leaders continued inching their way higher for the fourth straight week!
As is usually the case, when BTC/ETH rally, altcoins typically gain more as they’re further down the risk curve. Several of the market leading tokens this week were in sectors and themes we previously outlined in past editions of The Scoop, another welcoming development (and reason you should keep reading)!!
Optimism (OP) gained an astonishing 98(!!!)% this week and falls directly into the “Rollups Scaling Crypto” development that we wrote last week
The DeFi resurgence continues as Lido (LDO) ****rallied 40%+ Uniswap (UNI) gained 25%+ and AAVE rounded out the sector with a modest gain of 5%
In our inaugural issue, one of the core developments highlighted was dYdX moving from ETH to their own stand alone chain in the Cosmos ecosystem. Regarding the announcement, we hypothesized that the, “appchain narrative has garnered attention…and being informed about the developing dynamic between scaling L2s and standalone appchains will be beneficial over the coming months and years.”
The above conclusion was vindicated this week as one of the market leading tokens, Synapse (SYN), gained 35%+ on the heels of their announcement of Synapse Chain. The Synapse announcement ties together core sectors we’ve previously highlighted as they operate in the overlapping sectors of scaling, DeFi, cross-chain developments, and now their own optimistic rollup chain.
Overall, we’ve enjoyed another week of our tokens climbing back higher and market participants appetite for risk is increasing. Macro economic news is still largely driving markets, but every day we’re advancing closer to the long awaited ETH merge which strengthens ETH, and in turn the market’s tolerance to expand further into the ecosystem as evidenced by the tokens above.
News & Developments
Below are some of the most impactful announcements over the week that indicate crypto’s rising demand across a broad swath of institutions, protocols, corporations, and legacy companies. Announcements, interest, and product developments continue, planting seeds for the next bull run and wider crypto adoption.
The University of Pennsylvania’s renowned Wharton Business School is implementing a “Business in the Metaverse Economy” course
MetaMask launches an improved security feature in their latest update showing which assets users are potentially giving hackers and scammers access to before submitting a transaction
Variant announces their third fund with $450M to deploy across the crypto ecosystem
Former Facebook Diem developers raise $150M for their new blockchain L1 called Aptos
ETH’s final testnet merge is scheduled to take place between August 6th - 12th
Oasis Labs partners with Meta for assessing and tracking “fairness for its AI models”
Synapse (SYN) announces the launch of Synapse Chain, full release here
Upcoming Things to Monitor
As markets continue recovering and we turn the calendar to August, there are numerous developments market participants should be keeping tabs on. In last week’s Read of the Week we outlined several key advancements that would take place throughout the end of the year and accelerate into next year. In previous issues, we’ve also written that the worst of the market selloff was likely behind us which can be confirmed by what we wrote in the Market Overview above regarding the indicators suggesting that a risk-on attitude has reentered the market.
The combination of numerous protocol updates and product developments over the coming weeks/months and the market’s increasing tolerance for risk and returns requires us to reiterate and add developments to be ware of, explore, and profit from moving forward.
Below we’ll combine Ansem’s tweet, replies suggesting other developments, and previous things we’ve outlined to create a framework of protocols, chains, and updates to monitor moving forward!
ETH 2.0 — the merge and transition to PoS
SOL 2.0 — Solana introducing functioning fee market and sustained scaling solutions
ATOM 2.0 — Cosmos releasing Interchain Security and potentially revamped tokenomics
Rollups Scaling — Scaling solutions and their token performances such as Optimism and MATIC along with the tokens coming soon from Arbitrum, StarkNet, and zkSync
Former Meta developers launching their new L1 blockchains Aptos & Sui
THORChain’s (RUNE) development as a stand alone blockchain and the ongoing integration of ATOM & AVAX ecosystems
Near blockchain’s upcoming integrations along with the long awaited Celestial blockchain release
NFT’s ability to increase liquidity and financialization aspects as they grow bigger
The developing Appchain Thesis as evidenced by dYdX previously and Synapse this week
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CoinStats This Week
ETH has turned 7 years old, and CoinStats has announced a giveaway of up to 7 ETHs to celebrate! All you need to do is buy $100 worth of crypto on CoinStats to get the chance to become one of the 50 lucky winners.
Ethereum wouldn't be as cool without its ironic and iconic creator Vitalik Buterin. Here are the 10 amazing moments that make Vitalik the legend that he is! We love #4 btw.
Read of the Week
“Introducing Variant Fund III” — Variant Founders
As we said in the news above, Variant announced a new fund this week that will consist of deploying $450M to sectors across crypto. Observing and internalizing the theses that funds follow at the earliest stages of investment can provide valuable insights into the protocols, trends, and verticals of the future. Variant’s simplistic model and view of crypto is,
“The networks that define the next generation of internet will turn users into owners. This ownership aligns incentives so that networks can grow bigger, faster; it can also serve to drive more equitable outcomes. Tokens distributed via blockchains make this world possible”
Below are the four thematic focuses of their new fund and we’ll briefly highlight the underlying thesis across each theme with a takeaway quote to internalize and apply moving forward.
Financial Empowerment Through DeFi
“The DeFi revolution has empowered a new generation of owners to take control of their assets and access capital and liquidity, just as simplified end-user experiences are lowering the barrier of entry for using new and complex financial products.”
The Expanding Layer Cake of Blockchain Computing
“From low-level computing primitives to developer tools, web3 infrastructure is maturing and on the verge of supporting the new product experiences demanded by mainstream consumers.”
The New Frontier of Web3 Consumer
“Web3 has the potential to satisfy user needs in completely novel ways, from using on-chain activity as the basis of new social graphs to pooling and managing capital among online communities.”
User Experiences Defined by New Forms of Ownership
“Tokens and NFTs enable net-new user experiences that satisfy diverse motivations and jobs-to-be done, from control to belonging, to financial alignment with the products you use everyday.”
The sectors and quotes above should resonate with regular readers as we’ve distilled similar ideas and highlighted numerous protocols in past issues across the core crypto verticals of DeFi, NFTs, scaling through L1s/L2s, and consumer applications. Combining these ideas with the ongoing trends and developments we’ve outlined to watch should prepare you to benefit!
Tweets & Memes
The empowering feeling of ETH and tokens that you own rallying!
Take the time to scroll the tweet replied to this. It’s worth it, trust us.
A great bell curve meme explaining why Synapse’s v2 Synapse Chain announcement is good
A deep rabbithole worth exploring outlining current and future NFT use cases
Explore the best research tools crypto companies have to offer
Wrapping Up
Another week, another high note to end as we conclude the fourth edition of CoinStats Scoop! Our beloved tokens once again showed strength this week and we’ve once again highlighted developments to watch over the coming weeks and months. Risk is, at least temporarily, back in the air and there’s tokens, protocols, NFTs, and yield to be had! Once again, thanks for reading and we’ll see you next week.
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