The Big Moment arrives...

🎣 w3.catch-of-the-week cw29

GMGM and welcome to 🎣 w3.catch-of-the-week, the newsletter that makes you smile more than when your favorite Altcoin does a 10x 😎.

For weeks we have been waiting for the day: WEN Ethereum ETF?

🚨We have a date: according to Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas, the Ethereum spot ETFs will start trading on the 23rd, i.e. next Tuesday.

Last Wednesday, all asset managers had to submit their S-1 fillings.

An interesting thing to look at: How high are the fees?

The fees are important because they tell us how expensive it is for investors to invest in $Eth. As we have already seen with the Bitcoin ETF, there is a lot of competition among the providers.

  1. 21Shares (CETH): 0%

  2. VanEck (ETHV): 0%

  3. FranklinTempleton (EZET): 0.19%

  4. Blackrock (ETHA): 0.12%

  5. Fidelity (FETH): 0%

  6. Bitwise (ETHW): 0%

  7. Invesco (QETH): 0.25%

  8. Grayscale (ETHE): 2.5%

📝Important Note: This is only the “Starting Fee.” After the first 12 months, the 0% fee will no longer apply. Except for Grayscale, the fee will be around 0.2% for all asset managers.

Does this mean that we will see massive inflows from Tuesday, as with the Bitcoin ETFs? No one can answer that for you.

One factor that could deter investors is that it will not be possible to earn yield. The roughly 4% in staking rewards will not apply to Ethereum spot buyers.

No matter how high the inflows will be - it will be a huge day for the entire crypto community 🚀.

🐝Consumer Crypto is buzzing
💰 New Decentralized AI Fund
📊A global decentralized betting protocol

Consumer Crypto Report - Evolution of Crypto Users

✨Consumer Crypto✨ is a term I've been hearing more and more often in recent weeks - is it just a new buzzword or is it something bigger? The Block has published a new report on the subject commissioned by Solana.

To save you having to read through 36 pages, I present the most important takeaways in a nutshell:

  1. The supply of Stablecoins is growing

USDT and USDC dominate the Stablecoin market, with a combined market share of ~89%.

Following the collapse of Terra's UST, USDT has further expanded its dominance and now accounts for ~69% of the market.

  1. DEX to CEX trading volume ratio

The ratio of the trading volume of decentralized exchanges (DEX) to centralized exchanges (CEX) has risen steadily.

In recent years, the ratio has stabilized at an average of ~9.8%, which underlines the growing interest in decentralized solutions.

  1. DeFi total value locked (TVL)

TVL in DeFi peaked at ~$180 billion in 2021 and stands at ~$107 billion in mid-2024.

The distribution of TVL shows a concentration on a few large protocols that dominate the market.

  1. DEX Usage

Solana is clearly ahead in terms of the number of swaps, which indicates a high transaction frequency and low fees.

Ethereum has the highest average volume per swap, indicating larger transactions.

  1. Decentralized Social Media

Decentralized social media platforms offer a new way of interacting in the digital space. They give users more control over their data and content. Without having to rely on centralized platforms.

In this context, platforms such as Friend.tech and Farcaster are exemplary of the different approaches and challenges.

The combination of social networks and financial incentives led to regulatory challenges for Friend.tech. The platform often attracted “mercenary capital” - users who are only engaged in the short term to benefit from incentives and rewards, with no long-term interest in the platform.

Farcaster has built up a loyal and dedicated community that remains active on the platform in the long term. Above all through data ownership and interoperability.

A decline in interactions can be seen following the announcement of a $150 million financing round in May. However, the user base has continued to grow since then.

💅 Farcaster's interaction-centered approach leads to sustained user activity. While Friendtech's speculation-based approach leads to strong fluctuations in activity.

Decentralized Artificial Intelligence Fund

Grayscale has launched an decentralized AI fund. It is designed for accredited investors and aims to capitalize on the growing intersection of blockchain and AI technologies.

The Narrative Index, which indicates how popular a particular category is, shows that interest in Ai-related tokens is growing.

Grayscale’s fund targets three main areas: AI services (like chatbots and generative images), solutions for centralized AI problems, and AI-related infrastructure.

It includes tokens from AI-focused blockchain projects like Bittensor (TAO), Filecoin (FIL), Livepeer (LPT), Near (NEAR), and Render (RNDR).

Grayscale believes these blockchain-based AI protocols can help address risks associated with the rapid growth of AI technology.

The designated tokens have already delivered impressive performances in 2024. $RNDR has seen an increase in value of over 240% year to date. The Render Network offers decentralized GPU cloud rendering.

The Prediction Layer

Betting is a phenomenon that has occupied mankind for over 2000 years. The first records date back to the ancient Olympic Games.

However, the betting industry faces the following problems:

  • Lack of transparency and trust: Players and bookmakers as adversaries, comparable to the “Lemons Market” problem.

  • Standards in the industry: successful players are restricted, payouts are refused, incorrect odds.

  • Bookmaker problems: liquidity, high payment fees (up to 10%), KYC problems.

The solution? Who would have thought...blockchain 💡

We are talking about the Azuro protocol, which focuses on prediction markets.

What is Azuro?

Azuro is a set of tools and services that developers can use to build prediction and betting applications on blockchain networks, especially those that use the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). It's like a toolkit for making betting apps that work with cryptocurrencies.

How does it work?

Azuro processes the bets via smart contracts and thus enables automated peer-to-peer transactions without a middleman.

The odds are based on reliable real-world data, which is provided with the help of Chainlink (through so-called oracles).

Thanks to the transparency attribute of the blockchain, everything is visible and unchangeable.

They launched in mid-2021 and since then have not only raised $11 million in funding, but have also grown their Liquidity pools $7 million.

Interestingly, football related bets account for 72% of the total volume in sports betting. However, if we look at the overall volume of prediction markets, we see that Polymarket is currently far ahead.

The prediction markets are developing rapidly and are also gaining more and more users outside the Web3 bubble. The ability to capture the sentiment of real events, such as elections, makes them an extremely exciting tool.

🤓Vitalik is also bullish on prediction markets.

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