Where are we in this cycle?

🎣 w3.catch-of-the-week cw32

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Vicktoria Klich & Quinn Wilhelm
August 09, 2024

GMGM and welcome to the 🎣w3.catch-of-the-week, the newsletter that never lets you down but always let’s you smile.

Because no matter how bad things seem, there is always a light of Hopium at the end of the tunnel.

Nevertheless, I don't want to withhold from you what has shaken the market. There were several reasons. If you want more information, just click on the link. Otherwise, in a nutshell:

  1. The Japanese Yen

    The Bank of Japan increased interest rates for the first time in 30 years, causing the Yen's value to soar against the USD and disrupting the popular reverse carry trade strategy.

  2. Jump Crypto

    Ethereum dropped 20% on Monday as Jump Crypto liquidated their $ETH holdings over 10 days and moved hundreds of millions of $ETH and $USDT into centralized exchanges.

  3. Geopolitical tensions/risks

    Rising tensions between Israel and Iran, along with shifting U.S. political dynamics, have created fears of global conflict and market instability.

  4. Recession fears

    Below-expectation job numbers, rising unemployment, and the triggering of the Sahm Rule have led to speculation about an emergency rate cut by the FED.

The USA has already initiated a $50 billion Treasury buyback program, which will extend over 3 months.

🚘 DePIN Highlights feat. Drive to Earn
🤩 We got something to announce
🤓 Where are we in this Cycle?
👀 DeFi on Bitcoin?!

VCs Are Interested In DePIN

VC investments in the DePIN sector increased by more than 250% year on year. Leading the way are IoTex with $50 million and Peaq Network with $30 million in funding.

IoTeX started as Layer 1 and forms the infrastructure to connect more physical devices to the blockchain. The focus is on data exchange between the devices.

The platform is designed to support decentralized applications (dApps) and services that can use IoT data.

💡 The key idea is to tokenize the data generated by these devices. Users then earn rewards for sharing their data.

Recently there was a major update (IoTeX 2.0), which provides a modular infrastructure for all DePIN devices:

IoTeX 2.0 introduces a complete tech stack with composable modules and a unified trust layer. This modular design allows for efficient building and deployment of DePIN applications.

Dive deeper here.

The market cap of all DePIN projects is $20 billion, but which blockchain are they built on?

Peaq is also a separate Layer 1 that specializes in infrastructure for DePIN. MapMetrics recently migrated from Solana to Peaq.

This decentralized app promises that you will be rewarded for sharing data from driving. In other words ✨Drive to Earn✨:

To earn tokens you need a hardware device and have to turn it on while driving. As a result, your data is transmitted and you earn money every time you drive.

The hardware device (Special Position Tracker) is priced at $189 and is available not only for cars, but also for motorcycles and bicycles.

We Celebrated Our Community Space Opening

Introducing the new living room of the Web3 Community in Berlin - the 4th floor of w3.hub!

After weeks of hard work and a few events in between, we hosted our first Community Brunch on the 4th floor on Wednesday.

There are now many more comfortable seating areas, which were well-occupied during our recent Checkout Drinks event.

An insight into our Gaming Corner featuring Arcade Machine, Playstation 5 & more 😎.

Our friends from Jägermeister collaborated with us to create the ambiance. They have been involved as house partners with w3.hub since the very early days and we are happy to bring this space to the Web3 community together.

So far, the drinks have always been a joyful highlight at our events.

The Cardano Community especially liked it and even gifted the Jägermeister Hape a T-shirt.

To everyone who hasn’t experienced it yet: the Community Space is open to our members and those who want to become one.

Wait, there is more!

After a short summer break, we are back with a three-day Open House series from August 19-21st, during Web3 Summit Berlin.

Where Are We In This Cycle?

It is impossible to give a clear answer, as the crypto market is dependent on many factors.

TL;DR

What we can take into account, however, is historical data. This can be used to derive forecasts and consequently to formulate hypotheses.

The crypto market has so far operated in a 4-year cycle. This does not mean that it has to stay that way.

The technical view shows similarities to previous cycles.

Philipp Beer from our liquid token fund w3.wave shared: “From a technical perspective, we are approximately halfway through the current cycle and maintain a positive outlook for the upcoming 18 months.”

And through conversations with investors, Julius Nagel from w3.wave mentioned, that there is an increased interest in learning more about and investing in the broader crypto landscape.

Looking back, Bitcoin has been the best-performing asset class throughout the past decade, despite its notorious volatility.

🪄 Show some love and leave your thoughts on Philipps LinkedIn Post & Julius LinkedIn Post.

Both of them will share more charts, opinions and deep dives on crypto as an investable asset class and liquid crypto markets in the future.

Make sure to follow them and stay tuned 👀.

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Bitcoin Gets Smart-Contracts

DeFi on Bitcoin - It seemed impossible until now.

OP_NET is a new testnet that brings decentralized finance (DeFi) and smart contracts to Bitcoin. This is made possible by using the Taproot upgrade.

🤓 More precisely, the introduction of the Tapscript, which also made Ordinals and Runes possible.

What are Smart Contracts?

Smart contracts are self-executing contracts with the terms directly written into code. They automatically enforce and execute agreements when conditions are met.

Why could this be big?

The goal of OP_NET is to enable anyone to deploy decentralized applications and smart contracts on the Bitcoin network without needing permission. Only native $BTC is required for transaction fees.

OP_NET launched its Testnet on Wednesday. The Mainnet is expected to go live in late September. It uses WebAssembly (WASM) for smart contracts, allowing coding in multiple languages.

Bitcoin Beginner Workshops - Entdecke Bitcoin

🗓️ August 12, 2024 7:00 PM

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

Don't miss out on any news, updates, & vibes anymore. Discord is so yesterday. Let's meet on Telegram.