Black Rock is Here, Avalanche Hits New Highs, Shina Inu & Investing in the Metaverse
In This Issue
- I share my thoughts on the state of the market, Black Rock is here, Hodlnaut goes under, Circle and Tornado Cash, Avalanche hits new highs, Shina Inu’s BONE & Injective gets a cash injection.
- Sam has a report for you on how to invest in the metaverse.
Premium members also get the following:
- My latest portfolio updates
- Rekt Capital has the latest technical analysis for you on the market.
- Rebecca has all of the latest news for you.
- Upcoming NFT drops
- Defi Dad has a tutorial for you on Defi Dad has a tutorial for you on how to earn trading fees, bribes, and VELO rewards in Velodrome stable pools.
- Jesse has a ton of hot new airdrops for you.
- Hot new token sales.
- Rebecca breaks down this week’s trending coins.
- Jesse has a deep dive for you on Synthetix Network.
And much more!
What’s On My Mind by Lark
The State of the Market
The crypto markets bounced on the back of the US Inflation data release. The numbers for June had put inflation at 9.1%, but the markets flipped bullish after this because falling commodity prices meant that 9.1% was likely the peak. July’s numbers proved that it was, coming in at 8.5%.
This is lower than was predicted with the market expecting 8.7%. A fall of 0.6% for inflation is positive news for risk markets. It adds more fuel to the fire for a bear market rally.
Looking forward to the next inflation data release we want to see another substantial drop. Let’s hope that inflation does not stay stubbornly high for a long period.
Next on our calendar’s if the FED meeting at the end of the month. A dovish stance by them in the face of the falling inflation could indicate a further rally for risk assets.
Black Rock Is Here
Global asset giant Black Rock has arrived on the scene in a big way. This week they announced their partnership with Coinbase to allow for Black Rock customers to be able to easily buy Bitcoin.
Slowly but surely Wall Street is showing up to the party. 6 of the top 20 asset managers now allow for their customers to buy Bitcoin. In a few years it will be all 20.
Sometimes people feel like they are late to the game. You are not, sure, you are not super early, but you are not late.
Hodlnaut Goes Under
Another week, another centralized lender halts withdrawals. I hope that none of you were still keeping funds there.
I remain shocked by the massive collapse of centralized lenders and the absurd risks they were taking with customer funds. Actually this has been a pretty insane year from Celsius and Voyager, to the meltdown of UST and LUNA, to the huge number of defi hacks particulary of bridges like Nomad and Wormhole.
Crypto has been and remains a very risky asset class for a variety of reasons. Sometimes you might feel like it is just you, but rest assured everyone is being put over the barrel this year. It has been a very difficult time for investors.
Circle and Tornado Cash
An Ethereum privacy mixer called Tornado Cash has been sanctioned by the USA which alleges the service was used to launder billions for North Korean hackers.
Sad day for privacy advocates. BUT, an even more interesting takeaway from this story is that Circle, the owners of USDC have once again flexed their muscle and blacklisted and froze certain USDC addresses which were sanctioned after using Tornado Cash.
Just a reminder that while USDC is one of the safest stablecoins, it is also a company that plays by all of the rules when it comes to stuff like this and that they have the power to freeze your coins.
Avalanche Hits New Transaction High Record
In the middle of a bear market AVAX has just hit a new record high for on chain transactions with a total of 1.5 million earlier this week. That puts it on par with Ethereum’s, Arbitrum’s and Optimism’s daily transactions combined!
Also worth noting was that another 17 million AVAX was staked this week. Seems the market is waking up to AVAX more and more. I am looking to buy some more.
Shina Inu – Good Boys Get BONE
You know I have not been the world’s biggest fan of meme coins, but Shiba Inu has been pretty damn solid in delivering products.
It has become the meme coin that does stuff. Well, Shibarium, Shiba Inu’s layer two network, is launching its testnet sometime in the next few weeks. Which means a mainnet could be a lot closer than most realize.
Now, in order to use the Shibarium layer two you will need to own BONE. BONE will be the gas used on the network. So anytime anyone wants to send SHIB or do anything else on the network they will need BONE.
Currently it is under 100 million dollar market cap, compared to SHIB’s 7.4 billion market cap. There are of course no guarantees that this will see the price pump of the asset, but I do feel like there is a disparity here.
Something to look into for canine enthusiasts.
Injective Gets A Cash Injection
Injective labs, a Cosmos and Ethereum compatible defi hub has just received a big cash injection from Jump capital and Brevan Howard of 40 million dollars. Which is equivalent to about ⅓ of their current market cap.
There is a reason I continue to hold this defi protocol and think that its best days could still be to come!
Internet Computer Review by Jesse
Internet Computer boasts the ability to be a self-governing, self-containing ecosystem that can scale with the capacity of a growing user base.
Through the use of specialized data centers, Internet Computer helps to create extra layers between the users and their Internet Providers. This new way of thinking about how we use the Internet effectively combines the way it already works into an even more centralized point of control.
While the Internet Computer has spent much of its time detailing the finer points of how certain parameters are considered “decentralized” in the nature of their operation, it becomes clear that the way in which the Internet Computer works, creates more problems than it solves.
This idea that every stream of data on the Internet should be controlled by one protocol is not only ridiculous, it’s about as Orwellian as you can possibly get. So if you’d like to learn about why the Internet Computer does not work, then keep reading.
So, why is Internet Computer failing?…
How to Invest in the Metaverse by Sam by Sam
Late last year there was a huge burst of interest in the metaverse, prices for anything metaverse-related pumped for a while, and everyone was trying to figure out how to invest in the metaverse.
Since then, interest has cooled off with the bear market, but that doesn’t mean developers stopped building. The meta-narrative didn’t have time to run its course, and if the metaverse is to become a real (virtual) thing then there should be plenty more future hype.
What is the Metaverse?
In short, metaverse projects are building immersive virtual worlds where you can socialize, play games and transact. These worlds might eventually interconnect, decentralization is key, and a joined-up metaverse could potentially take in everything we do online today.
Crypto and NFTs are central to metaverse development, allowing users to own and trade digital property.
What are the Big Projects?
Image credits: Decentraland
It’s open to debate, but at the moment, three major projects garner the most attention:
- The Sandbox
- Decentraland
- Otherside by Yuga Labs.
The Sandbox is a successful gaming product that has been around since 2012, and switched over to blockchain development in 2018.
Decentraland raised money through an ICO in 2017, pulling in about $26 million in ETH, and it has been busy in development since then.
Otherside is building out from the success of Bored Ape Yacht Club, which launched in 2021. Yuga Labs (creators of BAYC) has grown into a major player in the crypto world, going from JPEG creators to metaverse builders in the space of a year.
In all of these projects, you can invest and participate by purchasing virtual land and other items in the form of NFTs, along with each ecosystem’s native tokens.
How to Buy Metaverse Land
Image credits: The Sandbox
Visit The Sandbox dedicated marketplace to purchase land and other NFT assets, or buy on OpenSea. The same applies to Decentraland NFT assets, which have their own marketplace, and are also traded on OpenSea.
In The Sandbox and Decentraland, parcels that are near famous brands, developments and holders will be priced more highly, and as attention is everything online, they could potentially represent good future value (although this is speculative and risky).
In the case of Otherside, you can buy Otherdeed for Otherside on OpenSea. These NFTs represent land, and watch out for those that contain Kodas, a strange creature created by Yuga. Although it’s not known exactly what Kodas will do in Otherside, only one in ten land NFTs has a Koda included, so they’re more highly priced.
How to Buy Metaverse Tokens
Image credits: Ape Foundation
The Sandbox token is called SAND, the Decentraland token is called MANA, and the token relating to Otherside is APE (although APE was created by an entity separate to Yuga Labs called the Ape Foundation, which administers ApeCoin DAO). All of these tokens can be purchased on major exchanges including Coinbase, Binance, KuCoin and Kraken.
In an unexpected move, Gucci just announced that it would accept payments in APE at some of its boutiques in the US, so it looks as though the metaverse is crossing over into real life.
Other Metaverse Projects
<h3 id="om“>OM
This virtual world is being created by Punk6529, an art collector who is influential on NFT Twitter (and in the worlds of crypto and web3), and a deep-thinking advocate for an open metaverse (as in, a community-driven metaverse not controlled by centralized corporations.)
6529’s project is called OM (for Open Metaverse), and is tilted towards art, education and onboarding. OM is experimental and linked to 6529 Capital, whose NFT investment fund is open to accredited investors and qualified purchasers.
More generally though, if you’re interested in the future of the metaverse, it’s a good idea to keep up to date with the OM project, as Punk6529 is a well known figure when it comes to NFTs and the metaverse.
<h3 id="nft-worlds“>NFT Worlds
Image credits: NFT Worlds
This project had been building within the Minecraft ecosystem, until Minecraft owner Mojang Studios (itself owned by Microsoft) last month prohibited the use of NFTs and blockchain technology. This left NFT Worlds stranded, but they are now pivoting to creating their own game and open development platform based on Minecraft’s core mechanics.
The price of NFT Worlds assets fell heavily, no-one knows if they can pivot successfully, and it‘s a huge risk to buy in now. However, the Minecraft news drew a lot of attention to NFT Worlds, they have come out swinging with talk of a “web2 vs web3 battle”, and the possibility of a comeback is there.
<h3 id="lamina1“>Lamina1
Image credits: Lamina1
This is not a metaverse, it’s a new blockchain, and it’s being partly led by Neal Stephenson, the man who first coined the term metaverse. Stephenson is (among other things) a renowned science fiction writer, and that word metaverse comes from his widely-cited novel Snow Crash.
Lamina1 is a layer 1 blockchain that is being created specifically with metaverse building in mind. It’s a work in progress, but the involvement of Stephenson, along with Peter Vessenes (who co-founded the Bitcoin Foundation in 2012), makes it a development to take note of.
Metaverse Index Funds
The Ball Multicoin Bitwise Metaverse Index is created by Multicoin Capital, Bitwise Asset Management, and Matthew Ball, who wrote the influential book, “The Metaverse and How it Will Revolutionize Everything”.
It’s only open to qualified purchasers putting in a 100K minimum investment, so it’s not something the general investor can be part of, but I’m mentioning it because it’s useful to check its holdings and see what the VC-ish faction is interested in. The index’s current top five holdings are Solana, Chainlink, Ether, Filecoin and Polygon.
Ball also created the Roundhill Ball Metaverse ETF, an index fund of metaverse-related stocks that trades on the NYSE, while the Ball Multicoin Bitwise Metaverse Index is crypto only, with no equities.
If you’re interested in those metaverse-related equities, take a look at the list of Roundhill Ball Metaverse ETF holdings, which has Roblox, NVIDIA, Unity, Apple and Microsoft in its top five.
For a metaverse crypto index you can go ahead and buy into, there’s the Index Coop Metaverse Index, with its MVI token. From a price of around 367 USD at the peak of last year’s metaverse hype, it’s down to about 45 USD now, so it could be due some gains in future when the crypto and web3 bulls wake up.
👉 GO PREMIUM TO SEE THIS WEEK’S TOP 3 NFT MINTS 👈
Final Notes
Thank you so much for your support, and I truly hope that today’s issue will give you insights needed to help you master your wealth.
If you are reading this it means you are on the free version of the Wealth Mastery Investor Report, which is great for news and tips on the crypto markets.
If you really want to take advantage of fastest growing asset class EVER, I highly recommend you join us in the Premium Investor Report.
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See you next time!
Lark and the Wealth Mastery Team
Legal Disclaimer
TCL Publishing ltd (director Lark Davis, owner of Wealth Mastery) is not providing you individually tailored investment advice. Nor is TCL Publishing registered to provide investment advice, is not a financial adviser, and is not a broker-dealer. The material provided is for educational purposes only. TCL Publishing is not responsible for any gains or losses that result from your cryptocurrency investments. Investing in cryptocurrency involves a high degree of risk and should be considered only by persons who can afford to sustain a loss of their entire investment. Investors should consult their financial adviser before investing in cryptocurrency.
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