Memecoin supercycle?!
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So far, so good. Markets have been in ‘easy mode’ for the last week — less formally, it’s “long your longs” season. We got a leverage flush here and there, but nothing big.
This time isn’t different, though. Markets don’t go up in a straight line, and drawdowns will come. To be fair, all the top signals that worked in the past have already occurred, in the span of a week from the elections:
Your non-crypto friends message you asking what memecoins they should buy
Funding rates on CEXes increase, signaling longs dominance on perpetuals
On-chain rates to borrow stables (i.e. to leverage) increase to 10-15%
The Finance category in the App Store features only crypto apps in the top-5
There are plenty of top indicators, here’s an aggregator for them. But hey, they seem to not be working this time.
This time, it might be a PEPE or DOGE spot ETF, the US going through with its Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, or a G8 country adopting BTC as legal tender. Maybe we’re indeed in a supercycle, and BTC won’t ever see 80% drawdowns again. Nobody knows.
What’s observable is that to date utility altcoins got the short of the stick — they’re lagging behind. BTC leads majors, and memecoins mint millionaires every day. They’re easier to pump given the lower market cap, and in a way, they’re fairer as everyone can access them since the beginning instead of utility coins — where it’s the norm for most value to be extracted through private markets by VCs pre-launch.
Needless to say, trading them is more akin to gambling unless done with a clear strategy. However, they’re the best at capturing attention and narratives.
They’re the people’s coins. Are we going to see a return to rationality? Hard to say.
Meanwhile, Ethereum seems to be coming back from the dead. Even though ETHBTC still struggles, ETF inflows for the second best are picking up.
In the last three days, we’ve had combined inflows of $578M, signaling a return of interest from TradFi. Perhaps, the upcoming staking feature for ETFs and its being the only alternative to BTC spot ETFs will increase investors’ appetite.
Happens on-chain
The Ethereum Foundation released its yearly report, attesting $788M in crypto assets, 99.45% of which are Ethereum tokens — ethereum.foundation
Solana-linked company Jito Labs records $78.9M in monthly fees for October — The Block
OpenSea redesign teases ‘XP’ points, possibly anticipating an airdrop — The Block
Mt.Gox further moves $2.5B in Bitcoin, possibly anticipating another round of repayments — The Block
Truth of Terminal’s coin is the first pump.fun coin to reach a $1B market cap — 𝕏/pumpdotfun
Blackrock’s tokenized fund is expanding to Aptos, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Optimism, and Polygon — The Block
Franklin Templeton expands tokenized money market fund to Ethereum - The Block
TraderJoe launches TokenMill on Solana, tweaked version of pump.fun to empower creators — 𝕏/LFG_gg
Traditional rails
The Pennsylvania House of Representatives introduced legislation to let the state hold Bitcoin on its balance sheet — 𝕏/EleanorTerrett
China unveils $1.4T debt swap, but retain fiscal room for when Trump takes office in January — Bloomberg
Gary Gensler plans to resign by end of December, says anonymous source — 𝕏/mrnguyen007
The FBI seized Polymarket CEO’s phone and electronics as part of an investigation that alleges platform’s role in manipulating elections’ results — The Block
Rumor has it that Trump is considering a 0% tax on crypto capital gains — 𝕏/dotkrueger
Coinbase launches COIN50 index, tradable as a perpetual future with up to 20x leverage — 𝕏/Coinbase
FTX files $1.7B lawsuit against Binance and CZ — The Block
Doodles NFT collection partners with McDonald’s creating limited-edition McCafé Holiday Cups — 𝕏/doodles
Former Alameda Co-CEO Caroline Ellison begins 2 years sentence in Connecticut for the FTX meltdown — The Block
Former Alameda Co-CEO Sam Trabucco to forfeit $70M, Apartments, and a Yacht in proposed settlement with FTX bankruptcy estate — The Block
BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF becomes bigger than its Gold one (the #2 largest) — DLnews
Detroit to start accepting crypto for tax payments — 𝕏/BitcoinMagazine
Italy considers lowering tax rate hike from 42% to 28% — The Block
Sam Altman’s World launches in Brazil — The Block
Cryptodotcom acquires Aussie-based firm to start offering its services in Australia — crypto.com
Revolut expands crypto exchange to European Markets — DLnews
Bitcoin Fog founder Roman Sterlingov sentenced to 12 and a half years for providing BTC mixing service, facilitating money laundering — Bloomberg
Devs doing developers stuff
Ethereum researcher Justin Drake proposes ‘Beam Chain’, an Ethereum consensus layer redesign, also named ‘Ethereum 3.0’ — The Block
Pendle introduces Boros, yield trading with margin — Medium
AltLayer unveils ‘Autonome’, a platform to create and deploy autonomous AI agents — The Block
Ethereum’s first SVM L2 Eclipse is live with its public mainnet — 𝕏/EclipseFDN
Stacks hinting it could release in December its sBTC upgrade, enabling a decentralized wrapped version of BTC — The Block
Infinex partners with Near Foundation to integrate chain signatures — The Block
Ethereum Name Service set to launch its own L2 ‘Namechain’ — CoinDesk
Ethereum L2 Starknet to roll out staking feature this month — CoinDesk
Celo L2 transition Testnet is set for December, with mainnet launching in mid-January — celo.org
Where’s the money flowing?
MicroStrategy acquires another 27200 BTC (~ $2B) — The Block
Ai Modular chain developer 0G Labs raised $40M Seed Round — crypto-fundraising.info
ETH Yield Optimizer StakeStone raised $22M Round led by Polychain Capital — crypto-fundraising.info
Institutional trading platform Wyden raised $16.9M Series B Round led by Truffle Capital — crypto-fundraising.info
Compliance platform Notabene raised $14.5M Series B Round led by DRW — crypto-fundraising.info
Gamified metaverse Mocaverse raised $10M Round at $1B valuation, led by OKX Ventures and HongShan — crypto-fundraising.info
Airdrops
Expecting a laxer regulatory environment with Trump, Consensys seems ready to release the Linea token in Q1 — CoinDesk
Mantra includes over 350,000 users in its $75M GenDrop — mantrachain.io
Upcoming events
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Disclosure: Authors may own crypto assets named in this newsletter. Stay on-chain is meant for informational and educational purposes only. It is not meant to serve as investment advice. Please consult your investment, tax, or legal advisor before making investment decisions.