Gm friends,
It feels like anything could happen in crypto right now, as we saw last week with the spot ETH ETFs gaining last minute approval, after which the shocks continued over the weekend, thanks largely to Donald Trump and the fact that he can’t stop talking Bitcoin.
Let’s begin the week then with the former-and-potentially-next president, and his latest crypto-related announcements.
Here’s what’s in today’s issue:
- Sam shares his thoughts on Trump’s promises to crypto, Coinbase vs the SEC update, Uniswap’s fee distribution vote, Normie going to zero & the Dogecoin dog passing away.
- Week 14 update on the 10x portfolio.
- This week on chain.
- This week’s trending coins by Rebecca.
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Trump Pledges to Free Ross Ulbricht
In a speech given at the Libertarian National Convention over the weekend, Donald Trump gave one of his boldest pro-crypto commitments yet, stating, to tremendous cheers in the room,
“If you vote for me, on day one I will commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht to a sentence of time served. He’s already served eleven years, we’re gonna get him home.”
Ross Ulbricht is the creator of darknet site Silk Road, which was in operation from 2011 to 2013 and facilitated trade in certain types of black market goods–mainly drugs–using BTC for payments
In 2015, Ulbricht was sentenced to two concurrent life sentences plus an additional forty years, without parole, having already been locked up since he was arrested in 2013.
The Free Ross cause has enormous traction among Bitcoiners in particular, but also more widely, there’s support for the argument that Ulbricht’s sentencing was unduly harsh and that he deserves clemency.
Additionally, Trump made some other strongly pro-crypto assurances during his speech, including pledges to:
- Keep Bitcoin and crypto industries in the US
- Ensure citizens’ rights to crypto self-custody
- Disallow the creation of an American CBDC
And he also promised (this one needs quotes), “to keep Elizabeth Warren and her goons away from your bitcoin”.
Earlier in the day, Trump had delivered a similarly pro-crypto message to his more core support base, posting on Truth Social–his own Twitter-style social media platform–that he is “very positive and open minded to cryptocurrency companies, and all things related to this new and burgeoning industry.”
And of course, we’re talking about Trump here, so to round that off there’s a jab at “crooked Joe Biden” who, when it comes to crypto, “wants it to die a slow and painful death.”
All in all, crypto has become very political lately, perhaps resulting in last week’s approval of the spot ETH ETFs.
One argument goes that Donald Trump’s prior statements in favor of crypto–made earlier this month–put him in direct opposition to the anti-crypto stance of Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren and Gary Gensler, and the Democrats suddenly realized that criminalizing an entire industry wasn’t the hill to die on going into an election, leading to pressure on the SEC to allow the ETFs.
Either way, and whatever your stance on Trump, Biden, or politics in general, there’s no denying that this is the most upfront and central that crypto has ever been in a US election campaign, with about five months still to go until voting day, and all while BlackRock vacuums up BTC, and those ETH ETFs move into view.
But how do you feel about Trump’s remarks, is the pro-crypto pivot working in his favor, and how do you expect the Democrats to respond? Reply to this email and tell us what you think.
Coinbase Issues New Response to SEC in Legal Wrangle
Whether or not ETH and other coins are securities is the kind of question you’d think wouldn’t be too difficult to clear up, and yet this point of contention has still not been resolved.
However, with the approval of spot ETH ETFs, there was a shift in the landscape in favor of crypto and, seemingly, confirmation that ETH is not an unregistered security, and might instead be designated as a commodity.
This led Coinbase, last Friday, to file a new response to the SEC related to their ongoing legal disagreement.
This is part of Coinbase’s request for an interlocutory appeal, which is aimed at confirming whether or not the SEC can regulate crypto assets as securities, to which the SEC previously responded that some transactions on Coinbase relate to investment contracts, and that an appeal is not justified.
However, with the ETH ETF all-clear, along–also last week–with pro-crypto act FIT21 being voted through the House of Representatives, Coinbase is pushing the point further in a new filing that asks again how crypto assets can be regulated as investment contracts when, basically, buyers don’t enter into a contract, and also emphasizing that this is a critical point relevant to the entire crypto industry.
While the legal back and forth might be a complicated process, the core point is straightforward (that crypto tokens aren’t securities), and if Coinbase is correct, then the entirety of the SEC’s authority over crypto is called into question.
Uniswap Fee Distribution Vote
Earlier this year, the Uniswap Foundation took a temperature check on whether to implement an upgrade to the platform’s fee mechanism, which would see protocol fees distributed among UNI token holders who stake and delegate their tokens.
Since then, Uniswap has been issued a Wells Notice by the SEC, responded robustly to that (Uniswap asserts that its product doesn’t fall within the SEC’s remit, and is willing to take on a legal confrontation), and is now moving ahead with a vote to implement the proposed fee mechanism upgrade, with an on-chain poll scheduled for May 31st.
The UNI token made gains of over 20% on this announcement, so keep an eye on the price action as developments further unfold.
Normie Goes to Near Zero
Yet another hack has hit the crypto space, and this time its Base meme coin Normie that was exploited, leading to an immediate 99% market cap drop, from over $40 million to below $200K.
That’s a huge hit for wiped-out holders, caused by the attacker exploiting a contract vulnerability and then being able to mint limitless tokens.
From there, the attacker sent an on-chain message offering to hand over 90% of the ETH he’d looted–keeping 10% for himself–with the stipulation that Normie use these funds, plus everything in the project wallet, to relaunch and reimburse holders, an offer which the Normie team went ahead and accepted.
However, after that, the Normie official account on X was suspended and, at the time of writing, is still in that state, while there are fake Normie accounts still actively trying to scam people.
Kabosu, the Dogecoin Dog, Passes Away
Finally, some sad news, as last Friday it was reported that an unusually famous dog named Kabosu had died that morning.
Kabosu is, of course, instantly recognizable as the Japanese Shiba Inu whose image went around the globe representing Dogecoin, which launched back in 2013 and went on to become the world’s top meme coin.
Kabosu was seventeen years old when she passed away, and according to a blog written by her owner, there was a memorial gathering to remember her in Narita City, Japan, on Sunday.
It’s amazing to think about how much crypto capital, over the years, has flowed through the markets on the strength of one special dog’s image, so thanks for everything, Kabo-chan.
Week 15 Crypto Portfolio Updates
No moves this week. Just holding and chilling. Portfolio still down despite the recent surge in Ethereum and a few other coins.
Got my NYAN airdrop, it was worth about $100. Selling for USDC.
Taiko airdrop window is here… but I don’t have access to that wallet right now, and I won’t before the claim window closes. Damn. Another airdrop missed by being sloppy.
It’s going to take a while before spot ETH ETFs actually launch for trading, but when that happens it will be fascinating to see if they can replicate the success of the spot BTC ETFs.
It’s great for crypto overall if that happens, but it’s a high bar to clear, and in fact, this month’s resurgent ETF bullishness continued last week, with the BTC ETFs cumulatively experiencing their highest inflows since way back in week 10 of trading (last week was week 20).
That meant over $1 billion of net positive flows, achieved partly thanks to there being almost no GBTC outflows, while ten weeks ago, there were more inflows, but offset by huge GBTC outflows.
Amazingly, the BTC ETFs now hold a total of over 850,000 BTC, which is over 4% of bitcoin’s future total supply of 21 million coins, although that’s not accounting for all the coins which are thought to have been permanently lost over the years (various estimates put this number at somewhere between two million and six million BTC), so–for better or worse, and with the possibility of a supply shock to come–a significant chunk of supply is now locked up in TradFi funds.
Another factor adding to the possibility of a future supply shock is the number of coins held by long-term HODLers who aren’t inclined to sell, and in that case, it’s a positive story, with the percentages of coins held over longer time frames steadily climbing to new highs this year.
It’s also of note that when crypto crashed after the 2017 bull market peak, HODLing declined substantially, but that wasn’t the case after 2021’s peak and subsequent crash, suggesting that there is now a more widespread belief in Bitcoin’s resilience.
As for those recently-approved but yet-to-launch spot ETH ETFs, and on the subject of potential supply shocks, the amount of ETH being held on exchanges has now dropped to an all-time low of around 13.7 million.
It remains to be seen how much demand there will be for the ETFs, but if there is significant buying, then simple supply and demand dynamics could result in some interesting price action.
However, that said, another factor to keep in mind is that ETH ETFs–as with the BTC ETFs–may have to contend with selling from Grayscale.
If you actually use Ethereum, you’ll be aware that activity has been shifting over to cheaper and more efficient Layer-2s (as was always the plan), and we can see that this year in particular has seen a huge surge in the number of addresses interacting with Layer-2 chains, consistently reaching new all-time highs each month and spiking upwards in May.
At the same time, an alternative Layer-1 that has been making moves this year is TON Network, and data shows a big increase in high value transactions on-chain. This means that volume is being taken up with transactions moving over $1 million in value, indicating that the network is attracting use by large holders.
Finally, when it comes to daily transactions, Aptos Network last week abruptly shot up into the number two spot, behind Solana and above Sui Network.
This surge in activity, which saw a total of 16.4 million transactions, was due to the recent launch of Tapos, which by itself accounted for around 10 million transactions.
Tapos, by the way, is a new app that allows users to generate a specialized wallet and earn HEART tokens by… tickling a cat, which is actually done by clicking repeatedly, and evidently generates a lot of on-chain activity.
Here are my key takeaways from the trends this week and there’s been new all-time highs, launches and developments.
- Sora is a non-debt-based monetary framework that’s launched its V3 which is designed to make its XOR token deflationary.
- Turbo is an AI-powered memecoin that’s due to launch its TURBO trading pairs on KoinBX, one of India’s largest exchanges.
- MAGA Hat is a Donald Trump-inspired memecoin that’s reached a new all-time high after Trump declared support for the US crypto industry. He also has promised to free Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht if elected.
- Axelar is a Web3 interoperability platform that’s been chosen by Singapore to help with its tokenization project.
- Ethena is a DeFi platform that’s grown $100M in 3 days on the Ethereum ETF hype. Ethena has also shared season 2 updates on X and has had its ENA token listed on Revolut.
- Pepe is a memecoin that’s entered the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap after surging to a new all-time high and is up 100% in a month. Pepe has overtaken dogwifhat to become the third-largest memecoin.
- MAGA is a Donald Trump-inspired memecoin that’s jumped 32% to a new all-time high after Trump declared support for the US crypto industry.
- TARS Protocol is an AI infrastructure protocol on Solana that’s announced it will use revenue from the Tars Cloud Program for its weekly TAI token burn.
- Ondo is a Real-World Assets (RWA) platform that’s launched rUSDY, a new form of its USDY stablecoin, on the Ethereum mainnet. The ONDO token has also hit a new all-time high on May 24.
- Brett is a memecoin on Base that’s now been listed on Biconomy and has reached 7,000 holders.
- Ethereum ETFs have been approved by the SEC and Michael Saylor has said they “may be better for Bitcoin.” Ethereum has also been dissed in Algorand’s latest commercial for having high fees.
- dogwifhat is a Solana-based memecoin that’s jumped above $3 after rising more than 11% in 24 hours.
- Solana is a Layer 1 blockchain that’s already a possible candidate for the next spot ETF to be approved by the US SEC, according to Standard Chartered. Solana has also been dissed in Algorand’s new commercial.
- Pendle is a DeFi yield trading platform that’s reached a new all-time high as its total value locked (TVL) topped $5.78 billion.
- Notcoin is a Telegram-based game that’s launched a new type of mission that lets players earn crypto token rewards.
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.
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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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Hi! My name is Lark Davis!
I’m a cryptocurrency investor with years of experience and I’ve been making consistent profits in the crypto space.
I’m passionate about helping others do the same, so I run multiple educational channels on crypto investing.
