🟣 Less Than Ideal

BTC is down nearly 20% over the past month, the EIGEN airdrop was less than ideal, the KMNO airdrop was similarly less than ideal, and the market seems to have become relatively boring again.

Author

Boccaccio
May 01, 2024

Welcome back to 0xResearch – quick hitting alpha for the crypto degens. Here's what we got for you today:

  • Another another BTC dip

  • a16z rumoured to be OTCing OP

  • EIGEN and KMNO hurt my feelings

  • Time to pay attention (?)

The past few weeks have been brutal, no matter how you look at it. BTC is down nearly 20% over the past month, the EIGEN airdrop was less than ideal, the KMNO airdrop was similarly less than ideal, and the market seems to have become relatively boring again. Surprisingly, ATOM has been performing relatively well, and is up 9% over the past day. Another surprising piece of news is that OP is up 10% over the past day, following on the rumors that a16z purchased $90M USD of OP OTC. I think this might refer to the OP that was bought OTC a couple months ago.

Going back to EIGEN and KMNO, airdrops have become increasingly disappointing over the past few weeks. KMNO price decreased 80% in just a few hours following launch, and EIGEN has a variety of issues (issues in my opinion, as a crypto patriot, while others have deemed it “fine”). EIGEN will be non-transferable for at least a few months, and the token distribution reminds me more of that of a third rate perps DEX, and not a protocol that people were discussing enshrining into Ethereum for a few months. However, those who expected to receive JTO levels of airdrops from EigenLayer, need to remember that this was a protocol with $15B and upwards of TVL, who outlined that they would be doing a linear airdrop.

Although markets seem red and hopeless now, it might be a good time to look at ecosystems and narratives that flourished and peaked over the past few weeks and months, and see if there’s anything new, exciting, innovative, game changing or interesting being built over there. Ordinals took 3 waves, from trading on google sheets, to Magic Eden, Blast had 3 to four deposit waves, Farcaster was dead for quite some time, with intra-peaks every time somebody famous in our niche little circle joined. It’s always a good time to pay attention, but it might be a better time to pay attention now (compared to when everyone is paying attention).

– boccaccio

Stacks is the leading Bitcoin L2 that enables smart contracts and decentralized applications to use Bitcoin as a secure base layer.

The Nakamoto release, happening in May 2024, will bring faster block times, as well as transactions that are as irreversible as Bitcoin’s once confirmed, setting the stage for a programmable Bitcoin asset called sBTC later in the year. ‍Stacks is poised to help unlock Bitcoin and its $1T in passive capital as a fully programmable, productive asset. The Stacks (STX) token, used as gas on the L2, was the first to undergo an SEC-qualified sale in the United States.

EIGEN vs. CZ:

Disappointment ripples through the community as airdrop receivers grapple with the news that the EIGEN token won't be transferable in the foreseeable future, leaving them without a clear timeline for when this restriction might be lifted. Amidst this uncertainty, the recent sentencing of Binance’s ex-CEO CZ to four months in prison adds another layer of intrigue. Now, individuals are turning to prediction markets to speculate on whether EIGEN will become transferable before CZ serves out his sentence. The prevailing sentiment might not be overly optimistic, yet the fact that you can now speculate on this question itself is quite fascinating.

Perpetual futures stand out as one of the most dynamic segments within DeFi, characterized by constant innovation, whether that be through pre-market futures or access to community trading vaults. Despite this, perp DEXs currently constitute less than 2% of the total crypto perp volume.

Data publishing costs have historically been a bottleneck for rollups, and as more rollups launch, interoperability will continue to be a major challenge. Avail presents a potential solution to rollup fragmentation through its three products: Avail DA, Nexus, and Fusion, which together aim to unify the web3 experience.

The profits were driven by interest earned on US Treasury holdings, as well as market gains on bitcoin and gold

The world’s largest asset manager led a $47 million funding round by a blockchain-focused firm it has worked with before

The insights, views and outlooks presented in the report are not to be taken as financial advice. Blockworks Research analysts are not registered broker/dealers or financial advisors. Blockworks Research analysts may hold assets mentioned in this report, further outlined in the Firm’s Financial Disclosures.