Bitcoin Halving, Memecoins on BTC, Yuga Labs joins WEF? | TS-013
Bitcoin Halving, Memecoins on BTC, Yuga Labs joins WEF? | TS-013
Plus: banks refusing cash withdrawals is why crypto is necessary, Yuga Labs exits HV-MTL and LOTM
another wild week in crypto - this is top six stories in crypto
TOP SIX STORIES IN CRYPTO
Bitcoin’s 4th Halving - the real bull market starts now
Memecoins on Bitcoin (Runes) are here
Magic Eden launches Runes marketplace
Yuga Labs sells HV-MTL and LOTM games to a gaming studio
Why Crypto is necessary: bank refusing to withdraw money
Yuga Labs joins the World Economic Forum ??
1. Bitcoin’s 4th Halving - the real bull market starts now
The Bitcoin Halving occurred Friday April 19 around 8pm ET - while there is nothing much that happens in the days around the halving, this one was different: the Runes protocol was launching (memecoins on Bitcoin, next story).
A reminder: the halving is when the block rewards are cut in half for miners. This has happened 3 times before and in the following 12-18 months, the price of bitcoin has surged dramatically every time.
The 4th time will likely not be very different. While BTC has already surpassed its all-time high price of $69,000 earlier in February, due to institutional demand in the form of an ETF, the real bull market always begins after the halving.
How high will Bitcoin go? It’s anyone’s guess. But if the image below is any tell, expect it to melt faces in the coming year.
2. Memecoins on Bitcoin (Runes) are here
On Friday, after the halving, the Runes protocol launched on Bitcoin. Runes are effectively memecoins on Bitcoin. Think, funny memeable tickers that people can ape into for the hope of a big pump. With the pump comes the chance of multiplying your Bitcoin bags. Call it a big casino, or a video game - it’s all finally happening on the mother chain.
The bull case for memecoins is simple: there is an absurd amount of liquidity on Bitcoin that is largely untapped + comparing the memecoin market cap: total market cap ratio on other chains like Solana to Bitcoin tells us there is a massive gap.
Some quick math on marketcaps, what would the Runes market cap be if the ratio were the same as Solana? Currently Sol memecoins make up 11% of the total marketcap of Solana. The same for Bitcoin at a marketcap of $1.3 Trillion would be ~$156B - meaning, runes upside is potentially 17x larger than Solana memecoins.
Now, of course, lots of caveats. The Solana trading experience is infinitely better. Trading runes (even with the Magic Eden Marketplace) is still cumbersome (it’s like trading NFTs vs having instant liquidity on a dex like Jupiter). The tooling and infrastructure has a long way to go, but the potential is there. Watch Runes over the next year.
3. Magic Eden launches Runes marketplace
Magic Eden has launched their Runes marketplace. The promise to offer a better experience than what is currently available. What is currently available?
This:
That’s Unisat.io. It’s a marketplace for Runes. The buying experience is like NFTs - where you pick a specific lot (one of the cards above). Each lot has a quantity and a price. To buy, you must buy the full lot. Selling is similar to that as well. You list your lot and specify your total price. Then, you wait for a buyer.
For the memecoin ecosystem, that is cumbersome, and again, much more like buying NFTs than memecoins.
Enter Magic Eden Runes - they promised the “easiest user experience for buying/selling runes” (paraphrasing a tweet). Now, that experience may arrive one day, but what they’ve launched with isn’t that, at least for now.
Buying and selling on Magic Eden
On ME, the set-up is similar. There are lots you can buy, or you can list your lot. Not any different than Unisat.
But, their big feature will be Swap, which is coming soon. There, the buying experience will be a bit better.
Essentially, you’ll be able to specify how many Runes you want and how much you’re willing to pay. The marketplace will find the lots for you that satisfy your criteria so you can buy. It’s no instant liquidity like a dex, but it’s a step in the right direction.
With Rune prices tanking less than a week after launch, the swap feature (among others) will go a long way to legitimize Runes as a mainstay this cycle.
4. Yuga Labs sells HV-MTL and LOTM games to a gaming studio
Yuga Labs ripped the bandaid off - they sold their HV-MTL and Legends of the Mara franchises to Faraway, a gaming studio.
Frankly, their games sucked. We know this, they know this, that’s why this move happened. The floor prices on HV’s and the LOTM NFTs had been mired for months, with delays, missteps and more.
But the blowback Yuga received lends some interesting questions. Many people bought HV-MTL and LOTM NFTs to get “Yuga exposure” - those people who wanted to buy into the success of the parent company that maybe didn’t have funds for a Bored Ape or a Mutant Ape.
With the unexpected selling, those same people no longer have exposure. They have “Faraway bags”, not “Yuga bags.” Who is Faraway? They’re a new player in this ecosystem and have launched some previous games like Serum City for Mutant Hounds, and will be launching the much anticipated Dookey Dash Unclogged later this year.
Still, that’s not enough for many, and there’s a deeper question of what “ownership” really is in web3 - the people that owned these NFTs had no say in whether the collection should be sold - so what is it that people really own? What are people owning? A huge can of worms has been opened.
5. Why Crypto is necessary: bank refusing to withdraw money
In a more macro story, this clip of a Canadian asking to withdraw $3000 went viral last week on Twitter - click the image to watch the 1-minute video. It’s fascinating. It’s also a big reason why the world needs crypto.
In the clip, a bank teller is refusing to withdraw $3,000 for a customer, without some sort of document that specifies what the cash is for. Huh? Since when do banks decide how we can spend our cash? Privacy is tantamount to a civilized society and cash is the only form of payment that still preserves it. Credit cards, debit cards (even cryptocurrency) all leave a digital trail. Without cash, we live in a panopticon where all our movements are watched. So to see this bank teller refusing to withdraw a customer’s money without some sort of “proof” of what they are going to spend it on is insane. With central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) on the horizon - not just in Canada, but most Western nations - the surveillance will only grow stronger in the coming decade.
Crypto is an answer to that. While it’s not privacy-preserving as initially thought (there’s an open immutable digital ledger), it does offer some basic protections like - you can spend your money on whatever you decide, without having to ask a third party.
Because if you can’t withdraw your money without a Bank’s approval, whose money is it, really?
6. Yuga Labs is part of the World Economic Forum ??
Surprise! Yuga Labs has joined the World Economic Forum! Your favourite global cabal conference and the subject of many conspiracy theorists.
It’s unclear who found it, but sometime this year, Yuga Labs was added as a partner to the WEF website, leading many to question the company itself.
Garga - Founder and recently appointed CEO has passed it off to their previous CEO, Daniel Alegre, which he explained in a series of tweets, and denies having any involvement.
If you can’t understand why this requires multiple responses from their CEO, it’s because what the WEF represents is antithetical to what crypto is about, and is the complete opposite of the Cypherpunk manifesto.
Mike Three puts it best (the upper tweet is crypto, bottom tweet is WEF):
For Yuga Labs, a company trying to be crypto-native again, losing the crypto crowd would be a death sentence. I think they’ve weathered the Twitter storm this created just fine, for now. Hope there isn’t more on the horizon.
As always, if you found value please share with a friend or tweet this out. Thank you for your attention.
- atareh
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