🌶️ 5 Reasons to be Bullish on Crypto

GMGM and welcome to the 🎣w3.catch-of-the-week, the newsletter that offers you the full dose of Web3 use cases and not just a slice of the cake.

Similar to Coinbase, which also delivers the whole pizza:

There were many reasons to celebrate this week: the Bitcoin Halving was successfully completed, no one drowned during Token2049 and the world-famous Bored Apes celebrated their 3rd anniversary.

🌶️ But Berlin has a very special reason to celebrate...

Mark it in your calendar and cancel all your appointments, because there will be 11 days of non-stop action + an extension, more on that soon.

📈Top 5 Takeaways from Coinbase + Glassnode Report
😻 The latest from Adidas & Nike's Web3 department
💸 The Big Announcement by TON at Token2049

State of the Crypto Markets 2024 🔥

What can the crypto market expect in the coming months? The experts from Glassnode and Coinbase have joined forces to bring you the Guide to Crypto Markets.

I would like to present my top 5 takeaways from the report:

1. Asset Class Performance

   

This chart shows that Bitcoin has outperformed all other asset classes in 8 of the last 11 years, and in most cases quite significantly. It is also interesting to see that Bitcoin has been the worst performer in the other 3 years.

2. BTC ETF Balances

   

Bitcoin ETFs have generated a lot of buying demand since their launch, as this chart shows.

Led by the ETFs from Blackrock and Fidelity, all ETFs together already hold around 4.6% of the current Bitcoin supply ($60 Billion / $1.3 Trillion x 100).

3. BTC Available Supply

A key difference, compared to other cycles, is that the available supply of all bitcoins is on the decline for the first time before the halving.

The reason that only around 4.6 million bitcoins are still available is also due to the buying demand from bitcoin ETFs.

4. ETH Price Performance

This chart compares the market cycles that Ethereum has gone through. If one trusts that Ethereum will behave similarly this cycle, further growth is expected.

5. ETH Total Value Staked

A big difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum is the consensus mechanism in other words, Proof of Work (Bitcoin) and Proof of Stake (Ethereum).

Users can contribute to the security of the Ethereum network by "staking" (locking) their Eth token for a certain period of time, in return for which they receive yield in the form of additional tokens.

The chart above shows that the number of staked tokens has been increasing almost constantly since Ethereum switched to Proof of Stake (was previously Proof of Work).

What happened to Nike & Adidas? 😶‍🌫️

From the biggest players in Web3 to employee layoffs - What are the sports giants up to?

After a quiet period, both sports brands have made new announcements.

Adias 🤝 Stepn

In April, Adidas announced a partnership with the lifestyle app Stepn, known as a Move-to-Earn app.

👉 Simply put, Stepn rewards its users with tokens for walking and running.

In collaboration with Adidas, they have now launched 1,000 limited edition NFT sneakers on Solana at a price of about $2,500:

They were available through a raffle, where Stepn users and Alts by Adidas NFT holders were given priority.

After the launch, the floor price was about $5,300 (22.04.24).

Nike’s dotSWOOSH 👾

Nike also seems to be going more back to the roots, as recent announcements have centered around limited edition sneaker & apparel drops available for .SWOOSH members.

In their blog post from January 12, 2024, summarizing developments in 2023, they described learning: "It’s more about the joy of collecting — of being a true fan — not just a transaction."

However, they also mentioned that they will continue to focus on gaming wearables: “We’ll go way deeper into video gaming with the launch of a new line of virtual products — Nike In-Game Wearables.”

👉 These items will be available virtually to equip your virtual avatar in video games, but the virtual items can also be linked to physical pieces.

In other words, Nike is continuing to focus on phygital goods.

Air Force 1 low “404”

This week, Nike created hype among sneaker-heads with a new pair of Air Force 1s, with exclusive access for .SWOOSH members.

💅 Conclusion

For me, Adidas is trying to go for the Web3 playbook by collaborating with known Web3 native players like Stepn, while Nike continues to focus on storytelling and wearables.

On one hand, Adidas is more experimental and on the other, Nike is integrating the Web3 community more into the existing community, which is especially evident through activations on their Instagram channel.

The contrast is also made clear by the wording of the two: Adidas uses words like Web3, NFTs, Blockchain etc. and Nike talks about digital products and experiences.

👀 Talk of Town at Token2049

Telegrams blockchain TON made another big announcement at Token 2049.

The integration of Tether and its stablecoin $USDT will presumably bring them closer to their goal of getting 500 million people on-chain by 2028.

We already told you 3 weeks ago why Telegram is becoming a Web3 Super App. They are getting closer to it.

From now on it will be possible to send money in USDT directly peer to peer internationally via Telegram without fees and as easily as a text message.

💪 A big step for Telegram and its 900 million users.

Users will soon also be able to withdraw supported fiat currencies directly to bank accounts or cards from Telegram.

“The aim for USDT on TON is to become a faster, easier, and cheaper cross-border payment system than traditional financial services.”

😎 TONs of fun at w3.hub

MiniApps, Payments, Notcoin and The Open League - What is currently emerging in the TON ecosystem?

Personal experience makes it more tangible than any words, and that's why I'm delighted to announce that the Ton Foundation will be hosting an event during Berlin Blockchain Week 🚀.

🤝 Jupiter Acquires Ultimate

🦍 Get your BAYC as 3D File

🤯 „Buy Bitcoin“ Sign sold for $1 Mio.

🧐 US Budget on-chain?!

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🤓 What does VfL Wolfsburg have to do with Web3?

🌎 The current state of the travel industry

Vicky & Marvin are Web3-obsessed. That's why they host a weekly podcast featuring updates and cool stuff.

🎤 Check out the most recent episode

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