#14: Quarter 1 - '23 Wrap Up 📰
Newsletter Content:
📰 Main Topic: Q1 Look Back
📈 Quote + Price Recap: Q1 Token Performance
🚨 Top Stories: Top Stories From the Quarter
📖 Thread / Read of the Week: Monetary Debasement in the Roman Empire
📊 Visual of the Week: Bitcoin Halving Chart
🔭 Looking Ahead + Closing Thoughts: See Below
🤣 Meme of the Week: Stablecoins Dip
It is hard to believe that a full quarter has passed since the creation of this newsletter and the beginning of the new year.
If this start to 2023 in any indicator of what’s to come, it is shaping up to be another wild and unpredictable year…
I want to utilize quarterly editions to reflect on everything that has occurred the last few months, as well as look ahead to the rest of the year.
Lastly, I appreciate your continued support and following - hope you have had some takeaways and learnings from my work!
💬 Quote of the Week:
“Over 5 years ago, the CEO of Credit Suisse called Bitcoin a bubble. Since then, BTC is up 318% and Credit Suisse just sold for 1/5 the size of Dogecoin” - Joe Burnett
📈 Q1 Price Performance:
📰 Q1 Top Stories:
Headlines:
Ethereum Hits 500,000 Validator Milestone (Blockworks)
Digital Currency Group’s Genesis Global Files For Bankruptcy Protection (The Block)
Founders Of Bankrupt Hedge Fund 3AC Seek Funding For New Venture (Bloomberg)
Russia’s Largest Bank, Sberbank, Aims to Launch a New DeFi platform by May (Coin Telegraph)
Crypto Exchange Kraken to Shut Staking Service, Pay 30M Fine in SEC Settlement (CoinDesk)
Goldman Sachs Ranks Bitcoin as Top Performing Asset for 2023 (Forbes)
Hong Kong Plans to Let Retail Sector Trade Larger Crypto Tokens Like Bitcoin (Bloomberg)
Coinbase Launches “Base” to Help Developers Build Dapps On-Chain (Tech Crunch)
Ethereum’s ERC-4337 Upgrade Paves The Way For User Wallet Recovery (The Defiant)
Signature Bank NY Shut Down By Regulators (Bloomberg)
Silicon Valley Bank is shut down by regulators in biggest bank failure since global financial crisis (CNBC)
Fidelity Crypto Quietly Went Live, Giving Millions of Retail Customers Access to Bitcoin, Ether (The Block)
Adoption:
Mastercard Partners with Polygon to Launch Web3 Musician Accelerator Program (CoinTelegraph)
BMW to Implement Blockchain for its Loyalty Program (Blockchain Council)
Amazon Web Services Partners with Avalanche to Scale Blockchain Solutions for Enterprises and Governments (Tech Crunch)
Lowe’s Utilizes Blockchain To Combat Retail Theft (Business Insider)
Visa Testing Settlement of USDC Transactions on the ETH blockchain (Blockworks)
Samsung is Teaming Up With Google & Qualcomm to Build New Metaverse Hardware Devices (Tech Crunch)
Shopify Releases New Blockchain-based tools: (Coin Telegraph)
Spotify Introduces Token-Gated Playlists (Blockzeit)
Ankr and Microsoft Partner To Offer Enterprise Node Services (ANKR Blog)
Gaming engine Unity adds MetaMask functionality among new Web3 tools (Coin Telegraph)
Microsoft Reportedly Testing Edge Browser Web3 Wallet Integration (Coin Telegraph)
Salesforce Rolls Out Platform for Big Brands to Create NFT Loyalty Programs (Decrypt)
📚 Thread / Read of the Week:
Monetary debasement dates back to the Roman Empire - Here is a very interesting read on the progression of currency and its role in the collapse of the empire:
📊 Visual of the Week:
One year away - the anticipation is starting to build for the next BTC halving.
“One of the most pivotal events on Bitcoin's blockchain is a halving, when the supply of new bitcoins—and the reward for mining them—is cut in half. Each halving reduces the rate of inflation and, as a result, pushes the Bitcoin price upward.” - Investopedia
🗓 Important Events Ahead:
Ethereum’s Shanghai upgrade allowing staking withdrawals is set for April 12th.
SBF’s trial is set for October 2nd.
Decision on the XRP vs. SEC lawsuit expected soon
Q1 earnings and macro data arriving soon
Several Zero-Knowledge blockchains launching soon
Next Bitcoin Halving on March 31, 2024
🔭 Looking Ahead - Thoughts:
2023 has been a whirlwind of headlines that makes you feel bullish one minute, and bearish the next.
First let’s start with consolidating the bad news: Regulators are attempting to make up for lost time.
Many of the bearish stories from Q1 2023 were as follows:
Crypto companies that made a ton of money during the bull run didn’t follow the rules and regulations of their non-web3 counterparts.
Regulators saw staking as a primary mechanism to attack as it falls within the definition of a security, therefore the platforms that offered staking started getting targeted.
Simultaneously, holders seeing the crash of FTX resulted in many withdrawing their funds leaving a lot of short term liquidity demands for exchanges.
This resulted in regulators having layup case after layup case in front of a US court system that is attempting to protect investors while also collecting a piece of the pie.
Overall, the Q1 bad news is going to result in a lot of crypto initiatives to leave the US in fear of overregulation and flock to more friendly places like… China?! Yep, China took the opposite approach of the US. They put their foot down when the crypto boom began and waited for things to run their course before they stepped in with open arms to accept the companies that were shunned by the US.
This is interesting because China is coming in with a perspective on what can go right and wrong during the mass adoption of cryptocurrency. A good question for all of this is:
Will that sideline view help prevent what caused the bear market in the first place, or will the same problems occur with regulators being paid off this time?
Only time will tell, but it's likely that we will see some improvements in holder protection since so many people are scared off from what happened in 2022… but that’s easy to say when the money isn’t flowing like the Mississippi Yangtze.
Alright, now for the good news.
The good news is: Builders keep building, and practical use cases keep emerging.
Many of the bullish stories from Q1 2023 were as follows -
Major companies went silent for most of 2022, but went full throttle internally to capitalize on blockchain initiatives to become first to market.
Much of these initiatives focused on scaling blockchains and creating a friendlier user experience.
When going to market, they used language agnostic of blockchain, NFTs, etc to help level set their consumer base as to what is being built rather than what is being used to build.
More intimately engaging with your audience is the ultimate goal.
The good news in Q1 was that the sleeping giants woke up, and they did so in a way that will allow them to be awake for the foreseeable future. With prices skyrocketing and VCs throwing money at anything with “blockchain” in its business plan, the bull run of 2021 lead to the bear market and exodus of many in 2022. Companies used the lull in hype to pragmatically position themselves for the inevitable future that is facilitating more intimate B2C relationships using Web3.
Whether companies focused on scaling (Amazon and Avalanche) their tools and services for more seamless developer adoption, or on consumer rewards (the countless rewards programs being built), they all are working to facilitate a more idle use of the technology.
This is a huge win for those captivated by the practical use cases of blockchain, and a huge loss for those hell-bent on indescribable assets skyrocketing in price.
This allows for the average person to come to their own conclusions about the practicality of wide-scale adoption, rather than having a never ending argument over a $1million sale of a monkey image.
Expect to see more companies coming out and unveiling new initiatives, and expect cross-chain compatibility to be vital to the growth of tools. One dimensional tools like wallets, marketplaces, and other platforms will be exposed as the competition with more opportunities to interact with potential users will flourish.
Reduce barriers to entry and users will flock. The more hoops to jump through, the less intuitive it is for users to come to their own conclusions about this new way of interacting.