This Week in Crypto 6/26
The bankers are buying our coins?
Hello everyone, thanks for reading!
This substack aims to share everything I’m paying attention to, including new launches, potential narratives, tokens, and much more. If any of that sounds interesting to you, please subscribe!
This has been a pretty crazy week.
Sentiment has completely flipped with Bitcoin rallying over 20%, catching many people off guard (myself included). This comes off the back of more institutions filing for BTC ETFs, with even Jerome Powell saying “crypto has staying power as an asset class”. I’m still cautious about this sudden flip in rhetoric, but the trend seems to be up.
The ETH/BTC ratio has also had a large drawdown, signifying the lack of interest for alts at the moment. I think it’s important to keep in mind the possibility of a sustained run in Bitcoin dominance, especially with the recent BTC ETFs and Russia news.
In any case, I think it’s +EV to position for a resurgence in the altcoin market. Money has historically flown down to alts after major runs by BTC, it’s just a matter of time. We’re already starting to see this play out with many of the OG DeFi coins starting to outperform.
We’ll talk more about how I’m positioning for this possible resurgence in the sections below.
Project Updates
PSY Testnet:
Protectorate Mainnet 6/26:
Velodrome V2:
Timeless x Gravita:
Parallax Incentivized Beta:
New LSD by GND:
Y2K Wildfire:
Grass Beta:
Elixir x Injective:
Radiate Presale Sold Out:
Radiant Deploying on Ethereum:
Mantle x Lido:
f(x) Protocol Update:
Reserve invests $20M in Curve Eco:
What I'm Looking at This Week
Alongside markets pumping, we have a lot of stuff going on over here in degen land. With the newfound bid for crypto, I think it makes sense to prepare for an alt season at some point (assuming BTC doesn’t nuke)
I recommend looking at past editions if you’re interested in what I’m watching, but here are some more projects with potential catalysts that I’ll be paying attention to.
Hermes
Hermes is a ve(3,3) DEX on Metis with a massive upcoming V2 upgrade. No one is paying attention to Hermes since it is on Metis, but V2 will bring an expansion to Arbitrum and other EVM-compatible chains.
Their final audit will be finished on July 5th with V2 coming soon after. You should always be mindful of emissions, but I think it is very undervalued for what their building.
Pendle:
This is probably one of the most heavily shilled coins on CT, but the stats speak for themselves.
TVL has been up only while multiple Pendle liquid lockers such as Penpie, Equilibria, and StakeDAO launch and pick up chunks of the PENDLE supply. My issue with Pendle comes from a lack of value accrual. Pendle lockers are getting anywhere between 0.4% - 9% APY depending on their lock duration, which is easily outpaced by inflation.
Even so, there is an obvious demand for Pendle products and no one seems to care about the lack of incentives for token holders. In my opinion, the best bet for Pendle exposure in Penpie.
Protectorate:
Protectorate is an upcoming NFT-Fi yield aggregator built by some big names from projects like Redacted. Similar to Redacted, Protectorate will be building numerous NFT-Fi products under the umbrella of the initial yield aggregator.
They've recently announced their dutch auction-style public sale, but I'm hesitant for a couple of reasons.
Demand for NFT-Fi products has been very low.
The sale looks pretty expensive with it starting a starting valuation of $100M and a lower bound of $20M
This project could be interesting, just a little expensive and unproven for my taste.
Other Plays:
Root mainnet on 7/04, could be worth watching if you're bullish on Root.
Manifold is about to enter the validator queue for crETH2.
JPEG pumping with Tetranode’s return and new flywheel mechanics.
Upcoming Projects:
Here are some interesting projects that I’ll be watching + my personal thoughts and any actionable alpha. As always, I am not endorsing any of these projects.
Lighter: Lighter is a new order book perp exchange on Arbitrum and is backed by major investors such as a16z. They’re currently running a trading competition with over $100,000 in prizes and have gotten over $1.5B in cumulative volume.
Flash Trade: Flash trade is another perpetual exchange with built-in account abstraction, high leverage, and everything else a trader could need. They also are working on a DeFi x NFT collection that gives holders real yield, and exclusive access to perks. Plus, they even evolve.
Ethena Labs: Ethena is working on various products to bring out the power of staked ETH. From an ETH-powered delta-neutral stablecoin, ETH expiring futures and perpetual swap hedging solutions, and even a capital-efficient money market for enhanced yield and composable leverage.
Radpie: The newest project from the Magpie/Penpie team. From what I can tell, it’s almost exactly the same as Penpie but uses Radiant instead of Pendle.
Cordyceps: The newest incubation by the Root team. Seems to me that Cordyceps is basically an omni-chain version of Y2K Finance with some unique additions such as permissionless insurance products with P2P features.
Good Reads:
Panoptic:
Y2K Wildfire:
Good Entry:
Conclusion
If you enjoyed and want to help me continue to make this a completely free substack, please consider subscribing and/or sending any donations to this address:
0xe688cc470b4b00c7ae483bfcd719476a5851f687
Thanks!
Well done mate! Really like your newsletter!
Concise, informative and helpful!
Cheers
Crypto Andrew:)