🪱 Wormhole Wednesday

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Today’s edition is brought to you by MEXC. Trade Crypto with the lowest fees on the market.

Good Morning!

Bitcoin cooled off over the past few days, with traders worried that the FED might hold off on cutting rates, also Wormhole finally airdrops today, read below to see if you’re eligible. 👇️ 

Markets 

Bitcoin Back Down to $66K (3 minute read)
Bitcoin is feeling the heat, sitting around $66K during early hours on Tuesday. Why? Traders are sweating over the possibility that the Fed might hold off on cutting rates until later this year. Meanwhile, the 10-year Treasury yield is flexing its muscles, hitting a two-week peak at 4.40%. So why is this the case? Stubborn inflation and a surprisingly peppy manufacturing scene.

Usually, when the 'safe' Treasury yields beef up, cash starts ditching riskier plays like Bitcoin and gold. But this time, gold's holding its ground, despite Bitcoin and the Nasdaq, looking a bit under the weather.

Semir Gabeljic from Pythagoras Investments weighs in, noting Bitcoin's slip to $65K is mostly thanks to this whole interest rate drama and the uptick in Treasury yields. Basically, when interest rates go up, the thrill of risky investments tends to cool off.

DOJ moves 30K BTC connected to Silk Road seizure (3 minute read)
Over 30,100 bitcoins from the infamous Silk Road heist are stirring up some action. The US government, which has these bitcoins in its grip, seems to be making a move. A wallet under the US Department of Justice's wing sent a small amount of Bitcoin, precisely 0.001 BTC (about 65 bucks), towards a Coinbase wallet on Tuesday.

This could be a sneak peek of a much bigger sale coming up. When you're dealing with hefty bitcoin stacks, especially ones tied to big-deal cases like Silk Road, every move is risky. A tiny transfer like this? It's usually the opening gambit. Remember, the US government isn't new to this game. They've cashed out Silk Road bitcoins before, like in June 2023, when they unloaded about 10,000 coins, raking in $215 million.

Wormhole to begin airdrop claims of over 670 million tokens today (2 minute read)
Wormhole, one of the big interoperability projects, is dropping a token today, and it's happening today at 7:30 a.m. ET. Nearly 400,000 wallets are in line to grab a slice of the whopping 678.8 million Wormhole tokens. That's 6.78% of their massive 10 billion total stash. This whole airdrop is based on a snapshot taken back on February 6, covering users who were dabbling in Wormhole's Portal bridge and various apps across a cool 30 connected blockchains.

117 million of these tokens are heading straight to the hands of Wormhole Discord members, some folks from the Monad crowd, Pyth stakers, and fans holding certain NFTs like Bad Kids, DeGods, Mad Lads, and y00ts - but only if they're also on Wormhole's Discord list.

These tokens are versatile, existing as both ERC20 and Solana SPL. Expect about 1.8 billion of them floating around initially. Post-airdrop, these tokens are hitting the market. Binance is gearing up to list them at 8 p.m. ET, with pairings against Bitcoin and some stablecoins. Solana's decentralized exchanges are also jumping in, ready for token swaps the moment the airdrop bell rings.

Best of Crypto Twitter

Ansem, a popular Crypto Twitter Figure who has risen to increased fame alongside popular meme coins like WIF and the resurgence of Solana has been in the limelight.

It all started when he posted a picture of his cat and Twitter users were guessing the name, prompting a number of meme coins to be created and users speculating which name was correct.

Users who speculated on the wrong names weren’t so lucky.

And what’s also crazy, any word that Ansem tweets which somewhat resembles a coin name, instantly pumps. We haven’t witnessed a CT influencer with such power in a while.

Misc

What is DEGEN chain? The L3 built for the memecoin community DEGEN (3 minute read)
DEGEN chain just burst onto the scene last week, whipping up a storm in the memecoin community. This layer-3 network is the brainchild of Jacek Trociński, a former data engineer from Hedgehog Technologies. After ditching his day job last November, Trociński dove headfirst into building his own chain. And it all stems from Farcaster, a decentralized social hotbed that was picking up steam.

In the early days, the degen space on Farcaster was kind of a ghost town, with a bunch of builder types hanging around. But things got spicy in December when someone tossed in a points token, and suddenly, everyone wanted in. Trociński's brainwave? A token mixing the best bits of Blur's BLUR and Uniswap's UNI.

Launched on Jan. 8, DEGEN lets users earn points for being social butterflies in the channel - getting likes, comments, or just by flaunting certain NFTs. Every point earned is a DEGEN token in your pocket, dished out via airdrop. As the buzz grows, more and more devs are jumping on board.

Bitcoin Ordinals, Token Incentives, and the Future of OpenSea: CEO Devin Finzer Dishes (5 minute read)
OpenSea, was the top dog of NFT marketplaces during the 2021-2022 craze. They're gearing up for a big shift to "OpenSea 2.0," but with a slimmer crew after last fall's layoffs. Now, we're getting a sneak peek into what this new era might look like, as they navigate through a changing landscape.

This Tuesday, OpenSea dropped a bomb: they're backing the ERC721-C Ethereum NFT token standard. This cool tech, whipped up by video game startup Limit Break, lets creators enforce royalty fees on resales. It's a bold move, especially when other marketplaces have been giving the cold shoulder to these creator fees.

Last year, OpenSea was all about protecting those royalties, especially after creators raised a ruckus. They even launched a protocol to guard new collections' royalties. But, plot twist: they ditched that protocol and called it quits on it in February. Enter ERC721-C, OpenSea's fresh attempt to tackle the royalty riddle.

Locked and Lost: Over $21 Million in Solana Stuck in Lido’s DeFi Protocol (2 minute read)
Over $21 million of Solana is still trapped in Lido and has left the community reeling. It's a real eye-opener to the risks lurking in decentralized finance. Lido, a heavyweight in DeFi, offers a deal where users stake their digital assets and get placeholder tokens in return.

These tokens are then free to roam across various DeFi platforms. Despite Lido's massive $31 billion total value locked (TVL) across its ecosystem, its Solana service couldn't quite keep up with rivals like Marinade and Jito. Then came the bombshell in October: Lido was axing its Solana service.

Fast forward to now, and their stSOL-SOL exchange is history. Lido officially turned off the lights on February 4. 112,923.29 SOL, belonging to 31,585 users, is still stuck, as per Solscan. As if that's not enough, a glitch in Lido's smart contracts has reared its ugly head, blocking withdrawals. This double whammy means users now have to duke it out with the code directly – a tall order for the less tech-savvy.

Our Recommendations:

💻️ MEXC - Where we find and trade new coins with low fees
📈 TradingView - Software we use to chart Crypto.
🔐 Trezor - Our favorite hardware wallet to keep our Crypto secure.
🦑 Kraken - Where we buy crypto with cash / withdraw profit to our bank.

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