Token Chronicle - Week 3 July 2024

Top cryptos:

Meme of the week:

Quick bites:

• Stripe will allow its European customers to buy Bitcoin and crypto with credit or debit cards.

• SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce stated that staking ETH ETFs are "open for review."

• Grayscale launches a new crypto fund dedicated to decentralized AI, including Bittensor, Filecoin, Livepeer, Near, and Render.

• ETH ETFs launch in the USA tonight, potentially leading to massive inflows into Ethereum.

• Gate.io closes its services in Japan.

• Discussions about the US government creating BTC reserve currencies, as mentioned by D. Trump.

• Donald Trump also mentioned potentially appointing Larry Fink (CEO of Blackrock) as Treasury Secretary if elected.

• No second term for Joe Biden.

Market update: The market saw a strong rise this week, with BTC reaching $68K, unaffected by Friday's Crowdstrike shutdown. BTC briefly dipped following Biden's withdrawal announcement but quickly recovered. US Ethereum ETFs will begin listing at the US market open tonight, likely leading to significant institutional inflows into Ethereum, boosting its price and related projects (layer 2, side chains, etc.). US June inflation figures will be announced this Friday. Donald Trump's anticipated speech at the US BTC conference may reveal plans for BTC reserves and appointing BlackRock's CEO to the US Treasury. Despite MtGox repayments, a bullish week is expected.

Main topics:

• The launch of ETH ETFs is tonight; we'll see how the market evolves in the coming days.

• South Korea may delay crypto taxation to 2028, reflecting the government's changing stance on cryptocurrencies.

• Donald Trump has chosen Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as a potential VP. Known for his pro-crypto positions, Vance could positively influence the sector if Trump is re-elected. In 2021, Vance was critical of a crypto-related bill proposed by Joe Biden's administration.

• After months of negotiations, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has reached an agreement with the FTX platform. A total of $12.7 billion is to be returned to affected customers.

• Payment giant Stripe now offers cryptocurrency purchases via credit card in Europe. Stripe will enable European users to buy Bitcoin, Ether, and SOL directly with credit cards. With the integration of a purchase widget on merchant websites, users can now buy cryptocurrencies easily without creating an account on a crypto exchange.

• MtGox has begun mass repayments to its clients, with 36% returned by July 18.

• Grayscale launches a new investment fund for decentralized AI: The asset manager Grayscale launches a new investment fund focused on decentralized artificial intelligence (AI) in the cryptocurrency sector. This fund, named "Grayscale Decentralized AI Fund LLC," will finance three key areas: AI services, resolving issues related to the centralized use of AI, and developing AI-related infrastructure.

• Massive hack on Indian exchange WazirX, estimated at $235 million; the Lazarus Group (North Korean hackers) is reportedly responsible.

• Major outage of Microsoft's cybersecurity software Crowdstrike for professionals on Friday: multiple airports, hospitals, banks, stock exchanges, and other businesses worldwide were completely blocked for hours. Temporary stock market declines; no impact on the cryptocurrency market or blockchain operations.

Discover a tool: 

DeBank (https://debank.com/), known as The Web3 Messenger & Best Web3 Portfolio Tracker, allows users to view detailed portfolio information, such as token specifics and a list of holders, along with their purchase history. Users can compile a list of wallets with good timing and profitable trades. When combined with Zerion (https://app.zerion.io/), DeBank enables efficient wallet tracking for copy trading and helps identify individuals who invest early in promising projects. This integration provides a comprehensive toolset for managing and optimizing Web3 investments.

Learning through questioning: What are the different “web” and the purpose of each of them ?

Web3 gathers all the technologies and concepts that evolve around decentralization. But to have a Web3 we need to have a Web1 and a Web2 so let’s talk about that first:

1. Web1 (or Web): refers to the beginning of the Internet (over the period from 1989 to 2004) where most sites consisted of static pages and users were only consumers (not producers of content). The first web browser was created in 1990. The idea was back then to target the access of information to everyone.

2. Web2 is based around the idea of the “web as platform” and pushed its users to be actors (content creators) on its platforms. It starts around 2004 with the creation of blogs and social networks (Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and many others). It enabled many people to create their own jobs as content creators (Youtubers, influencers, streamers, and many others). The target here is to be actor of information.

3. Last but not least, what is Web3 ? Web 1 & 2 granted us access and actions on the information, but we had to give up something in return: our data. We shared so much of our data through social networks, websites and even the contents we create is most of the time owned by the platform we use (we saw many people in Youtube lost their accounts and then the property of their contents for instance). We lost property/ownership of the information we give/our digital identity. The target of Web3 is to get back ownership (on money, data and basically everything shared digitally).

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Disclaimer: The information disclosed here does not constitute an investment advice ; it is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. You should do your own research while investing in crypto and only invest money you are ready to lose.