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In today’s newsletter:
🔎A new era for crypto
📊On-chain alpha
😂Crypto meme of the week
🗞️The latest DeFi news
🔎A new era for crypto
The past week will go down in the history books.
As most of you already know, just a few days before the presidential inauguration, Trump released a memecoin that reached a whopping $72 billion valuation at its peak in only 24 hours.
To understand how big this is, Forbes estimated Trump’s wealth to be $6.8 billion. Trump's memecoin increased his net worth by several times overnight.
But apparently, that wasn’t enough. One day after $TRUMP went live, Trump's wife launched another memecoin called $MELANIA.
This 2nd launch caused $TRUMP to crash as it became clear that this was a low-effort attempt to extract as much money as possible.
Looking back though, I believe these launches are a double-edged sword.
The negative consequences:
The first crypto investment of many retail investors will be $TRUMP. These people might lose the money they invested in $TRUMP at some point and most of them will start to believe that the crypto industry is just a giant scam
Trump’s memecoin launches caused crypto to be viewed by some people just like a giant casino with no real use cases and no serious projects
Fortunately, there are also some positive aspects:
The interest in crypto has skyrocketed - Following the $TRUMP launch, searches for crypto-related phrases such as “how to buy crypto” surged to all-time highs
Regulatory scrutiny will likely decrease - I expect US-based good actors like Coinbase and Uniswap to no longer be harassed by the SEC
There’s one more thing. Given the huge success of $TRUMP, Trump is now more financially incentivized than ever before to help crypto succeed.
Most of the TRUMP token supply that is allocated to the Trump family and to other insiders will be gradually unlocked over the next 3 years.
So he can’t just sell now and move on to the next thing.
This brings me to the following conclusion:
The next 4 years will be radically different for crypto in the US.
Just a few hours ago, US Senator Cynthia Lummis was named chair of Senate Banking Subcommittee on Digital Assets.
She is by far the most pro-crypto Senator that the US has.
In a public statement, she made it clear that she intends to do everything she can to see the US establishing a strategic BTC reserve.
Besides this, if even the president of the United States launched a memecoin, US regulators are likely to ease up on crypto.
This will foster innovation instead of suppressing it for the first time.
At the same time though, it will probably also lead to a surge in scams as a lot of other influential figures will start to release their own memecoins.
While this is not ideal, in my opinion, this is a price worth paying.
It’s time for the US to become a global hub for crypto.
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The Leader in Real-World Asset Tokenization
Real-world Assets is expected to become a multi-trillion-dollar sector by 2030.
This is not just another short-term narrative. For DeFi to be able to reach its full potential, real-world assets (RWAs) must be brought on-chain.
Enter Ondo Finance - the protocol that is redefining decentralized finance by bridging the gap between TradFi and DeFi
I believe this is one of the most promising RWA projects due to its major partnerships with some of the biggest names in traditional finance.
Ondo has established itself as a leader in bringing real-world assets to the blockchain.
Here’s why you should pay attention to Ondo:
Massive Reach: Ondo is live across 8+ chains, with 90% of all on-chain tokenized treasury holders already using it
Supported by the best: Ondo is trusted by BlackRock, Wellington, and PayPal
The protocol thrives in any market with its innovative, diversified RWA offerings
Ondo Global Markets, a platform that is currently under development, will bring all publicly traded securities on-chain for the first time ever
The total value of the tokenized RWAs is only ~$16.6b according to rwa.zyz.
But I expect tokenization to explode in popularity in the next few years. The CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, believes this sector has huge potential.
With the US now having the first pro-crypto administration, the world is finally getting ready to embrace tokenization.
The bull case for tokenization has never been clearer.
Ondo is perfectly poised to capitalize on the growth of the RWA narrative.
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On-chain Alpha🔎
Trump’s World Liberty DeFi project bought $47M BTC and $47M ETH on inauguration day
Crypto Meme😂
The latest developments in DeFi
The SEC launched a task force to establish clear crypto regulations
Uniswap V4 was confirmed to go live next week
Solana’s inflation reduction proposal for SOL went live
Avalon released Pre-Deposit BeraVaults for sUSDa and USDa - the first BTC-backed CDP stablecoin with a fixed-borrow rate. Over $270M of USDa has been lent out in the past 2 months
Chintai announced plans to enter the U.S. market with its tokenization platform and roll out over $1 billion in U.S.-focused deal flow. Chintai is a compliance-focused L1 Blockchain for Real World Assets
Mantle introduced 3 new products: Mantle Banking, a Revolut-like onchain app, MantleX, an AI-augmented company, and an Enhanced Index Fund. Mantle also announced the launch of its Yapper Leaderboard on Kaito
Kaito introduced Kaito Connect - a launchpad where Yap holders can vote on which Yapper Leaderboards should launch next
Base announced the development of an on-chain account that will simplify the onboarding process and make dApps work without popups
pSTAKE Finance’s YBTC liquid staking token became an omnichain asset. YBTC can now be bridged across multiple chains using LayerZero’s OFT standard
Ethereum developers announced plans to release the Pectra upgrade, which will introduce account abstraction, in March
INFINIT's Terminal went live with 3 DeFi AI Agents. The terminal enables to swap, lend, and engage in yield trading with DeFi agents
Liquity V2, a next-gen CDP stablecoin protocol, is launching today. Liquity V2 will introduce Multi-collateral support and User-set interest rates
Phantom Wallet raised $150M in Series C funding. This might be a sign that the project plans to launch a token in the future
Tether launched USDT0, a seamless cross-chain solution for USDT
InfinityPools, the first DEX with unlimited leverage, has launched
LayerZero V2 went live on Aptos L1
That’s all for this week!
Until next time,
The DeFi Investor
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