No Gain Without Pain

GM Anon!

There's a saying, "May you live in interesting times," which can be both a blessing and a curse, depending on how you look at current events. We'll leave that up to you to decide, but one thing is for sure—these are definitely interesting times!

There's a ton to unpack in this issue! Let's dive in! 

For all the BTC HODLers out there, recent predictions by Van Eck suggest you could be rewarded extremely handsomely in three decades, with BTC potentially hitting a staggering $52.38M! Depending on your perspective, this could also signal potential risks, as it raises questions about whether money printing will continue unchecked. Probably.

Moving on

All eyes are on the political front, but remember, no matter who wins, the money printing will continue, which means over time, your bags will go up! In the meantime, the titans of the crypto industry are strategically moving their pieces on the board in preparation. 

It's crazy to think that just a few years ago, Bitcoin was used to buy contraband on the Silk Road, and now it's a major part of political discussions.

Tyler Winklevoss didn't take too well to Kamala Harris not intending to speak at Nashville.

ETH ETF

The launch of the ETH ETF was relatively subdued, especially when compared to the BTC ETF, which generated intense enthusiasm and almost religious fervor. Meanwhile, market attention still appears to be focused on the Solana Casino.

Adding to the situation, tech stocks experienced a significant decline, with Tesla and Alphabet leading the losses. This resulted in approximately $1T being wiped off U.S. equities, hinting at a potential broader market correction. In response to these events on Wednesday, ETH declined by roughly 9%, and didn’t do the ETH ETF any favors.

Traders anticipated strong inflows into the ETH ETFs but overlooked the potential for significant outflows from Grayscale and the typical "sell the news" effect. 

• The market reaction was further impacted by the initial Bitcoin distributions from Mt. Gox, increasing the selling pressure. 

• Grayscale’s Ethereum Trust saw substantial outflows, losing $481M on the first day and $326M on the second. 

• Conversely, Bitwise experienced considerable inflows from Pantera Capital, though Pantera's swift sell-off signaled a lack of confidence in long-term growth.

• Before the ETF launch, ETH was overbought with stagnant fundamentals such as user growth and revenue. 

• There are indications that investors are shifting from Ethereum to Solana for applications like memecoin issuance, suggesting evolving preferences. 

The latest report by 10x Research report cautions that ETH's price might face further declines due to ongoing Mt. Gox distributions, the upcoming U.S. earnings season, and historically weak performance in August and September.

For the ETH lovers out there, here's some hopium: 

• S&P Global recently highlighted ETH's potential as a critical settlement layer for financial markets due to its interoperability advantages over permissioned blockchains, suggesting a significant role for Ethereum in the future of traditional finance. 

• Major ETF issuers also see immense value in unlocking Ethereum's potential through yield by staking their ETH, and let's not forget the growth of RWAs. In short, ETH isn’t going anywhere. 

These huge catalysts could take ETH to Valhalla—you just have to wait out this sticky period, anon.

Majors and Alts

Coins that saw significant price to the upside this week include:

• SOL (10%)

• SLND (115%)

• TAO (8.2)

• HNT (26%)

• PYTH (12%)

• XRP (9.5%)

• ALPH (77%)

• ORCA (72%)

Impressive performance from some coins on this list such as Solend and Orca, but is it any wonder when Solana has captured the hearts and minds of most active traders? Could we see $1K this cycle? This seemed impossible last year and would have made you the laughing stock with the ETH maxis, but now not so much.

On a side note, Depin and AI seems to be catching a bid with strength in TAO and HNT, but overall the market still seems to be in limbo with memes being the only consistent clear narrative.

Memes

At this point maybe the point of crypto since its inception was to build out the world largest casino open to the entire world! It sure feels like that when looking at the data lately, gone are the days of discussing fundamentals and how crypto could change the world. 

It's all about memes now anon.

Let’s take a look at the top performers over the last week.

• POPCAT (14%)

• DOGE (9%)

• WIF (7.3%)

• MAGAA (511%)

• GIGA (65%)

• MUMU (149%)

• CWIF (124%)

• MOTHER (123%)

• MEW (89%)

• AURA (83.5%)

• HARAMBE (60.5%)

• MINI (45.7%)

• KAMA (251%)

MEW is one of the interesting newcomers, it’s launch and rise has been marred by allegations of unethical practices. Cex Offender has accused insiders of engaging in undisclosed paid promotions, raising serious ethical concerns amid MEW's explosive growth.

DMAGA is another noticeable mention from this past week, the coin saw nearly 4000% appreciation following Musk changing his profile picture on twitter, but then swiftly retraced after changing it back.  Clever traders who locked in their profits made millions on this play.

Lastly, the introduction of The Arena by Marginfi on Solana, allowing users to long or short any token on the Solana network with leverage, could have significant ramifications for memecoins.

• Leveraged trading can amplify price movements, leading to greater volatility in memecoin prices. This means that memecoins, which are already known for their price swings, could experience even more dramatic fluctuations.

• The increased complexity and risk associated with leveraged trading could draw more regulatory scrutiny. Regulators may be concerned about the potential for market manipulation and the impact on retail investors.

• Expect a surge in market activity and liquidity as traders flock to take advantage of new leveraged trading opportunities.

Smart Money Moves

According to ChainEDGE, smart money holdings indicate a sell-off of certain coins. On Ethereum, Miggles and Banana saw decreases of 17.87% and 16.34%, respectively, while Swag experienced a significant sell-off of nearly 50%. The memecoin favorite on Ethereum, Bitcoin, also saw a notable decrease after its recent run-up.

On the accumulation side, smart money has been increasing their holdings in WOLF (141.5%) and Andy (140%), which are worth taking note of.

Major smart money movements on Solana were mostly negative, likely due to profit-taking after recent activity in the Sol ecosystem. Memecoin sell-offs were consistent among most top coins, ranging from 5% to 10%. Notably, Aura experienced a significant sell-off, with 35.47% being sold off.

Data Points

Why do these data points matter? They help us uncover overall trader sentiment and predict the likely direction of future growth. By analyzing these data points, we can allocate our capital more efficiently and strategically as the market begins to recover.

No surprise that the SOL/ETH ratio just keeps climbing.

Active addresses on Solana hit a new ATH, no surprise here anon with the amount of memecoin action.

Solana has surpassed Ethereum in trailing 30-day DEX volume for the first time, becoming the most utilized blockchain by this measure and highlighting its growing dominance and efficiency in the crypto space.

Check out some other metrics that Ryan highlighted, a truly momentous occasion for the Solana ecosystem.

One of the biggest use cases of crypto discussed recently was its ability to allow the creation of efficient and open betting markets. It seems that Polymarket is turning into the betting hub, with bets being created for anything and everything, though its been used by traders and speculators for betting on the political landscape of the US. GambleFi might be one of the strongest narratives this cycle.

That wraps up today's insights! We hope you enjoyed today’s issue! Till next time anon.