Move Over USA, The UAE Wants All the Crypto.

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In This Issue

  • David shares his thoughts on Coinbase checking out the UAE, the UAE setting up Bitcoin mining facilities, Binance using Lightning network & Cardano’s Hydra
  • Rekt Capital has the latest technical analysis for you on the market. 
  • Erik has an article about BRC-20 tokens on Bitcoin.
  • This week’s trending coins by Rebecca.
Move Over USA, The UAE Wants All the Crypto. - - 2024

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The News Now

Coinbase is Checking Out the UAE

Coinbase is considering the United Arab Emirates as its new international hub for operations.

Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, and other key members of his executive team are currently pounding the pavement in Dubai and Abu Dabai, meeting with top government officials and business leaders. Armstrong is also scheduled to give the keynote address at the inaugural Dubai FinTech Summit. 

Coinbase’s VP of International & Business Development, Nana Murugesan, has been dropping updates over the past few days. On May 8th, he tweeted: 

Move Over USA, The UAE Wants All the Crypto. - - 2024

And in a May 7th blog post, Murugesan wrote, “[the UAE] serves as a particularly strategic bridge between Asia and Europe – two of our existing focus international regions to date [ . . . ] the vacuum created by other notable jurisdictions means that international counterparts, such as the UAE, are racing to fill the regulatory gap.” 

Move Over USA, The UAE Wants All the Crypto. - - 2024

The potential move to the UAE happens amidst a larger international pivot by the company. Coinbase’s International Exchange, a new derivative marketplace, was just launched in Bermuda. The company is expanding operations in Singapore, Canada, and Brazil. And Coinbase is talking with UK regulators about a potential move across the pond as well. 

Here’s my take, two points.

  1. I’m sure Coinbase is seriously considering a move, but I think they’re also leveraging these talks to get what they really want in the USA. It’s a multi-pronged attack. Sue the SEC in court and apply pressure on the Biden White House with legitimate threats to bounce. Stifling innovation, killing jobs, and disincentivizing companies to stay isn’t a good look politically.   
  2. This entire saga is just another data point for why governments can’t kill crypto, not even the Land of Freedom. Worst case scenario is the USA shoots itself in the foot while crypto flourishes in the many other jurisdictions hungry for innovation and capital investment. 

UAE’s Sovereign Wealth Fund Incoming!

Here’s another UAE development that’s pretty damn big news. 

Marathon Digital, the U.S. based bitcoin mining giant, has entered into a joint venture with Zero Two, an Abu Dhabi digital asset infrastructure company, to develop the Middle East’s first large-scale liquid cooled bitcoin mining operation. 

And here’s the kicker. The entire project is backed by Abu Dhabi’s $850M sovereign wealth fund. Effectively, the UAE will be mining bitcoin via corporations. This is huge. 

The initial plan is for two mining facilities to collectively produce 250 megawatts of mining generation. Construction has already begun. 

But the project is more than just mining bitcoin, as it appears that the UAE is taking a page from Texas’ energy playbook. The new facility will be powered by UAE’s excess produced energy, so the facilities will also be used to increase the overall base load of the country’s electrical grid. Because miners can power down at a moment’s notice, this actually makes the grid more stable. 

Move Over USA, The UAE Wants All the Crypto. - - 2024

In Texas, utility regulators enter into special agreements with industrial bitcoin miners. When the grid is experiencing particularly high demand (e.g. heat waves), bitcoin miners will shut-down when requested by the regulator so that their energy requirements can be diverted to service the rest of the grid. Basically, bitcoin miners serve as electrical batteries for when the grid needs it most. 

All signs indicate that the UAE will be doing the same thing with these new facilities. 

Binance 🤝 Lightning Network 

Binance has announced that it will be integrating the Bitcoin Lightning Network onto its platform. The Lightning Network is a bitcoin layer-two (L2) scaling solution that allows for trustless, instant transactions. 

Move Over USA, The UAE Wants All the Crypto. - - 2024

Binance’s announcement is on the heels of two bitcoin withdrawal pauses that occurred on the exchange over the weekend. Binance tweeted that they had to temporarily pause withdrawals because Bitcoin’s network fees surpassed the established fees on the platform. At present, Bitcoin is experiencing a historic fee surge ($31 at time of this writing) due to network congestion from the trading of BRC-20 coins and Ordinals NFTs, with a bunch of transactions pending in Bitcoin’s Mempool. 

Move Over USA, The UAE Wants All the Crypto. - - 2024

Binance will be the largest entity to adopt the Lightning Network, and the company follows the footsteps of other big players, including Kraken, okcoin, strike, and Bitfinex. And there’s more on the way. Brian Armstrong tweeted on April 9th that “Lightning is great and something we’ll integrate.” 

Some people are freaking out about bitcoin’s current situation, but I think all this helps bitcoin long-term. Why? 

Because the free market is about to bring a ton of innovation to bitcoin L2s. I expect that we’ll see a lot of major Lightning developments and new bitcoin L2s coming online over the next few years. This in turn will help spur the development of bitcoin L2 smart contracts and DeFi. 

And ultimately, all of this helps bitcoin scale to become a larger, more dynamic global settlement and payments network. 

Cardano’s Hydra Rears its Head(s) 

Speaking of L2s. Cardano’s Hydra went live May 5th. 

True to its name, Hydra isn’t just one Cardano L2 scaling-solution, but multiple L2 scaling solutions. Although, it appears only the first “head” is now officially online. In the future, each Hydra L2 will be able to process transactions separately, allowing Cardano to achieve parallel processing, and thus dramatically improve the protocol’s scalability. Cardano whales have been scooping up tons of ADA over the past few weeks in the run-up to Hydra. 

And apparently Cardano needs it. Because according to DC Spark co-founder Sebastien Guillemot, the Cardano network hit 94% capacity on May 9th due to a surge of network activity. 

Move Over USA, The UAE Wants All the Crypto. - - 2024

Checking again now, Cardano’s capacity is currently at 52%. 


Market Analysis by Rekt Capital

In today’s edition of the Rekt Capital Newsletter, the following cryptocurrencies will be analysed and discussed:

  • TomoChain (TOMO)
  • Bitcoin (BTC)
  • Chainlink (LINK)
  • Litecoin (LTC)
  • SushiSwap (SUSHI)
  • Neo (NEO)
  • Ocean Protocol (OCEAN)

Let’s dive in.

TomoChain — TOMO/USDT

As a preface to today’s analysis, here is my chart on TOMO from February 2023:

Move Over USA, The UAE Wants All the Crypto. - - 2024

And here is today’s update:

Move Over USA, The UAE Wants All the Crypto. - - 2024

TOMO has since rallied almost +100%, following the blue pathway perfectly thus far.

There is still potentially a bit more upside to be enjoyed by TOMO however there is a scope for a rejection once TOMO revisits the black resistance above.

A strong rejection could take place there which could bring price down to the orange area below, especially if TOMO Monthly closes below the black resistance (though perhaps some upside wicking beyond the black resistance could occur in the meantime).

Bitcoin — BTC/USD

Move Over USA, The UAE Wants All the Crypto. - - 2024

Is BTC forming a Head & Shoulders on the Daily timeframe?

If BTC relief rallies soon into $28200 (blue) and rejects there to drop to the black horizontal support at $27000, then we’ll see completion of the Right Shoulder.

And a breakdown from $27000 would confirm the Head & Shoulders formation as the predominant market structure at this time.

A breakout in red volume beyond the black diagonal would likely confirm downside continuation as well.

In sum, $27000 is the crucial level for price to continue holding and having a chance at upside.

It would be positive for BTC to follow the green path of course, but to do so it would need to flip $28200 back into support.


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BRC-20 Tokens on Bitcoin by Erik

On May 7, 2023, something unprecedented happened: the first Bitcoin block ever was mined in which transaction fees in BTC exceeded the block reward (6.75 BTC versus 6.25 BTC)! Just five months ago, this would have been almost unthinkable. The reason? The frenzy of the past weeks to mint AND trade fungible tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain, using the Ordinals protocol. 

To create, mint or trade this new type of BRC-20 token, users must inscribe satoshi’s. And that amounts to doing on-chain transactions. This explains why currently, there are over 400,000 transactions in the Bitcoin mempool.

Over 1,000 BTC has been paid in recent months purely for Ordinals fees. 750 BTC of which has come since May 1, after the BRC-20 token craze kicked off in earnest.  

Move Over USA, The UAE Wants All the Crypto. - - 2024

Ordinal Fees since December 2022, by Dune

As all crypto aficionados know, there is no frenzy like meme coin frenzy. And meme coins are what these new BRC-20 tokens are. Why meme coins? Because, unlike ERC-20 tokens on Ethereum, they have no smart contract functionality. In the words of their inventor Domo: “These will be worthless. Use at your own risk.”. 

Famous last words when he introduced the BRC-20 experiment, as these BRC-20 tokens have done pretty well for worthless tokens: the total market value of all new tokens has reached a billion dollars in recent days (leading up to May 8, 2023).

BRC-20 Tokens Are Not NFTs but Fungible Tokens

BRC-20 tokens are not to be confused with Ordinal NFTs on Bitcoin (also read this article on Ordinal NFT collections).

The foundation of both is the Ordinals protocol, launched in January 2023. This makes it possible to track each satoshi and inscribe ‘meta data’ to it. The first application was NFTs. In April 2023, mentioned developer Domo invented a way to create fungible tokens using the Ordinals protocol.

The consequence? It has become pretty easy to create your own token: give it a name using four characters and a total supply, and then start minting. That’s pretty much all, lol! It’s just a token, it doesn’t do anything. 

What IS pretty cool is that these tokens are minted and stored on the Bitcoin blockchain. Also, trades of tokens happen on-chain. Setting aside for a moment the early-stage, experimental nature of the project, this is a way of trading without the usual counterparty risk of a decentralized or centralized exchange.

What is the Difference Between ERC-20 Tokens and BRC-20 Tokens?

ERC-20 tokens live on Ethereum, BRC-20’s obviously on Bitcoin. First, let’s start with a similarity. To trade ERC-20 tokens on a dex, you pay in ETH and you need to fund your wallet with a bit of ETH for that. The same for BRC-20 tokens, in which case you will need some BTC.

But most similarities end there. A difference between BRC-20 and ERC-20 is that the BRC-20 token can’t interact with smart contracts, which makes it less powerful. It gives it less functionality and it means BRC-20 tokens can’t be used in for example decentralized exchanges, and borrowing and lending protocols.

On the positive side, a BRC-20 token is protected by Bitcoin’s proof-of-work security mechanism rather than Ethereum’s proof-of-stake security. Pick your flavor of security and trade accordingly.

A final important difference is that BRC-20 is a very novel protocol. Recently, a hacker found a way to exploit the Unisat wallet and do double spends. This bug has been fixed, but you get the point. This is all experimental stuff.

How to Create a BRC-20 Token

Creating a BRC-20 token is a piece of cake – for pastry chefs. In other words, you need knowledge about Bitcoin transactions in general and the programming language JSON in particular.

  1. First, you deploy a Token Contract. This BRC-20 token contract is a JSON file that defines the four-letter name of your new token, its maximum supply, and mint limit. You need a wallet that supports ordinals and inscriptions to inscribe this file onto a satoshi. This creates the first set of coins, assigned to your wallet.
  2. Next, you can mint more coins by inscribing a similar but shorter JSON file onto another satoshi. 
  3. Transferring coins is also a matter of inscribing a file onto – yet another – satoshi (fortunately, there are plenty). The file contains the from and to wallet addresses and the number of coins of the token.

On the Unisat Wallet, they built an interface for this that makes it quite user-friendly, see image below.

Move Over USA, The UAE Wants All the Crypto. - - 2024

Deploying and minting your BRC-20 Token on Unisat Wallet

Unisat helps you by generating the deploy code, for example, if you want to create a token ERIK:

{“p”:”brc-20″,”op”:”deploy”,”tick”:”ERIK”,”max”:”21000000″,”lim”:”1000″}

It then lets you receive this inscription on your wallet address.

How to Buy and Trade BRC-20 Tokens

Not all wallets support BRC-20. Unisat Wallet is a wallet that does. It’s a browser extension for Chrome that support Ordinal NFTs. Ordinals Wallet is another. Of course, both also support Ordinals NFTs. 

So here are the steps:

  1. Install a wallet that supports BRC20, like Unisat Wallet or Ordinals Wallet. Go through the usual steps of creating a password and generating a seed phrase.
  2. Move some BTC to your wallet.
  3. In the list of available BRC-20 coins, pick your choice. They are sold in blocks of for example 50 or 100.

Which Are the Largest Meme Coins on BRC-20?

At the time of writing the total market cap of all ten thousand plus coins built on the BRC-20 protocol is already around 1 billion dollars. Ordi was the first token created on BRC-20 and it’s still the most valuable.

There is a clear top 4:

  1. $ORDI: 500 M dollars
  2. $MEME: 100 M dollars
  3. $VPMX: 50 M dollars
  4. $PEPE: 45 M dollars

Of course, keep in mind that these market caps are not ‘real’, as with other illiquid crypto coins. If people would start selling these coins en masse, the price will drop rapidly. In other words, if everyone wants to get out of their ORDI position, the total amount of dollars obtained won’t be 500 million. 

Vulnerabilities in the BRC-20 Ecosystem

Keep in mind that developers and hackers are still in a contest to make this ecosystem robust.

  • In April, UniSat Wallet reported a huge number of double-spend attacks as a consequence of a vulnerability in its coding. That is, the coding of the wallet.
  • In early May, developer Supertestnet found a way to inscribe a satoshi it didn’t own.

Keep in mind that BRC-20 is a proposal, not a standard. It is used by some wallets but not widely used. As mentioned before, it’s experimental stuff. We wouldn’t recommend spending too much funds.

The Debate About BRC-20 Tokens and the Fee Market

As mentioned, the flood of inscriptions has pushed up the number of Bitcoin transactions and fees. Let’s stage a dialogue between an anti-Ordinals advocate and a pro-Ordinals person.

  • Anti: ‘NFTs and fungible tokens are not what Bitcoin is meant for. It’s supposed to be purely for online peer-to-peer cash transactions.’
  • Pro: ‘Ordinals and BRC-20 create a healthy fee market, which will be much needed after a few more halvings in the future.’
  • Anti: ‘A healthy fee market could also develop on a purely monetary Bitcoin.’ 
  • Pro: ‘That hasn’t been the case. We are desperately in need of a new narrative on boring Bitcoin.’ 
  • Anti: ‘Let the shitcoins deal with the NFTs and memes, not Bitcoin. Bitcoin is serious business.’
  • Pro: ‘I’m sure the first goldsmith also met scorn, making frivolous jewelry out of this god-given metal. Similarly, anyone can do with Bitcoin what they want. It’s a free market for block space.’
  • Anti: ‘I can’t even onboard friends to Bitcoin, because of the high fees’.
  • Pro: ‘Let your friends use Lightning, which was built for low-fee transactions’.

Conclusion

In a sense, the BRC-20 experiment is nothing new. Bitcoin’s base layer has been used before as a platform for issuing fungible tokens. In 2012, the Colored Coins protocol was introduced but failed to gain traction because… wait for it… high transaction fees on Bitcoin and limits on programmability drove users to explore Ethereum. Sounds familiar, right?

It’s why Ethereum was invented because Bitcoin lacks the expressiveness to create tokens that have functionality. Still, compared to previous attempts, the Ordinals protocol has made it a much lower threshold to inscribe content on the Bitcoin blockchain. And ever since Ordinals, we keep getting surprised by new functionality, BRC-20 is the most recent example of which. 

Sure, a lot of these NFTs and meme coins will die. But some will stay. And inscribing content on the safest, most immutable blockchain of them all will probably have a lasting allure.


This Week’s Trending Coins by Rebecca

Here are my key takeaways from the trends this week and memecoin mania has gone mad!

  1. ChainGPT is an AI model launched by Seedify that’s running an airdrop campaign, teasing a partnership with an education platform, and has announced a strategic partnership and integration with Alvey Chain.
  2. Bitcoin transactions were halted twice on Binance due to a congestion issue. As a result, Binance has announced it’s working to enable Bitcoin Lightning payments. A bug has also been found in the Bitcoin Ordinals system which affects NFT numbering.
  3.  Pepe is a memecoin on Ethereum that’s hit a market cap of $1 billion after being listed on Binance, CryptoCom and KuCoin. PEPE liquidity pools have also become the most active on Uniswap.
  4. FLOKI is a memecoin on Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain that’s been listed on Binance and Rollbit for trading. 
  5.  Ignore Fud is a memecoin that’s promised to burn 200M tokens if it gets 2M trending tweets. 
  6. SnailBrook is a memecoin that’s burned 17.6 billion SNAIL tokens. SnailBrook is also hosting a giveaway on Twitter to the community.
  7.  ZoidPay is a liquidity solutions provider that’s launched a trading competition on KuCoin.
  8. tomiNet is a Web3 infrastructure company on Ethereum that’s been listed on CryptoCom exchange. The tomi team has also donated 10 billion PEPE tokens to its DAO treasury. 
  9. Popcorn is a non-custodial yield optimizer that’s pumped on Gateio after launching a new USDC Sweet Vault on Arbitrum.
  10.  DinoLFG is a memecoin that’s been listed on Bitget on Gateio. Bitboy Crypto, Ben Armstrong, has tweeted that he’s rolled his memecoin profits into DINO.
  11.  Arbitrum is an Ethereum Layer-2 scaling solution that’s seen Chronos exchange reach $217M in total-value-locked (TVL) a week after launching, and has become the eighth-largest DEX, according to data from DeFiLlama.
  12. Sui is a Layer-1 blockchain that’s successfully launched its mainnet with immediate listings on Binance, Huobi, KuCoin, ByBit, OKX, and Poloniex.
  13. Wojak is a memecoin on Ethereum that’s been featured in a thread gone viral by crypto trader, DimitriDotEth
  14. ArbDoge AI is a memecoin created by AI on Arbitrum that’s burned 7.5% of its supply in total.
  15. XEN Crypto is an ERC-20 token that’s reached the 5 trillion total burn mark which equates to 30% of its supply.

Follow Rebecca on Twitter and Instagram.


Final Notes

Watvch my video below for more info about the USA’s big Bitcoin fail, as the crypto market slows👇.

Lark YouTube Video

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 to check out my new Altcoin course: Mastering Altcoin Investing

In this course we’ll teach you all about how to spot, choose and acquire the winning altcoins of the next bull market. 

Learn how to build your portfolio so that growth is ensured and risk is mitigated. Let me help you build a strategy that’ll change your life forever in the upcoming bull run.

Are you ready to make it?

See you next time!

Lark and the Wealth Mastery Team


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Wealth Mastery (Lark Davis, and the Wealth Mastery writing team) are not providing you individually tailored investment advice. Nor is Wealth Mastery registered to provide investment advice, is not a financial adviser, and is not a broker-dealer. The material provided is for educational purposes only. Wealth Mastery 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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Join the Wealth Mastery Investor Report

By Lark Davis

Combining cutting edge insider insights and done-for-you market analysis to deliver crypto investors the best opportunities to grow their wealth, stay ahead of the curve, and avoid costly mistakes! We cover DeFi, NFTs, Altcoins, Technical Analysis and more! 

Join the Wealth Mastery Investor Report

By Lark Davis

Combining cutting edge insider insights and done-for-you market analysis to deliver crypto investors the best opportunities to grow their wealth, stay ahead of the curve, and avoid costly mistakes! We cover DeFi, NFTs, Altcoins, Technical Analysis and more! 

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