The Blockchain Bulletin

Edition#2

Here it is, degens! Edition#2 of the Blockchain Bulletin looks at what happened in the web3 space in the past two weeks, alongside a look at expected cooks and potential things to keep on your watchlist. Of course, all of the information below is NFA and we encourage you to DYOR as well.

We take a deep dive into the halving and all things BTC in this one — read on for more!

Fireworks with the BTC Halving

The anticipation surrounding block 840000 finally ended with its passing on 4/20 (in some time zones at least) and high gas and large transaction fees became the new normal for a week after. On the positive side, it is good to see gas drop from the high on halving day at 2892 sats v/b. After the initial mania and traders getting burnt by high fees combined with BTC falling to 63k; trading slowed down and sats fell to around 10 sat v/b.

Runes are here

The reason for the high gas on BTC since the halving block is obvious. Some people are calling runes the new meta while others claim there is a lot more to them, but what is clear is that right now, all eyes are on the new shitcoin on BTC. Casey’s new protocol ends the practice of having those ugly text inscriptions in your wallet and removes the need to create transfer inscriptions. The race for the first 10 tickers was hot and heavy. But when the dust settled Rune#899 (Wanko•Manko•Runes) and and Rune#6 (Satoshi•Nakamoto) were clear standouts at the very beginning. Meanwhile, Rune#1 (Z•Z•Z•Z•Z•FEHU•Z•Z•Z•Z•Z) remains shrouded in mystery and the FUD and conspiracy theories are giving it more attention as well. The coming weeks will be interesting. Read our OG ordi alpha caller, ShoaibHere’s thread on this for more.

The Ordinal Alpha

Interest in ordinals this past week was initially muted due to attention being in the runes space. There has been movement however, quite a lot of it. The Blobs are blobbing and remain a good buy for both holders and flippers alike (There are several speculative rumors about the Blob team purchasing the epic sat). The drop in the floor price of runestones since the snapshot for $DOG is also interesting. There is a pattern here to watch: each time gas goes up, as it has when the network is congested (especially with the release of some hyped runes tickers), ordinals have dropped in price. Whenever gas is down, ordinals have seen an upward trend. This could be a good time to accumulate any collections you have your eyes on in the ordinals space. The Ink.BTC team announced that they’ve raised 10 million dollars from investors - comeback szn?

Sleepy’s Crypto Watch 

Financial markets are experiencing a correction as investors react to the prospect of further delays in interest rate cuts, with money flowing from risk assets into the dollar. This comes alongside news that the US is looking for a 3-year incarceration term for the former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, CZ. The price of Bitcoin appears to be attempting to return to its previous lows of around $60,000-$61,000. A bounce from that region can be expected and that's where I'd be looking to buy. In other crypto news, Bitcoin mining profits have been squeezed after the recent halving, with the hash price dropping from 12 cents in early April to 7 cents post-halving. Mt. Gox Trustee announced a payout plan to distribute 142,000 BTC and 143,000 BCH to creditors over the next few weeks. My alt picks for this week: SUI and VELO.

The ETF Lowdown

The highly anticipated ETH ETF has seen some movement, although for those waiting on this, these updates might not be as optimistic as was hoped. On the issuer side, Grayscale has filed their S-3 prospectus for converting $ETHE and BlackRock has filed an amendment to their 19b-4 ETH application, which indicates that the issuers are still fighting to get the ETF approved by the end of May. However, the SEC’s delayed decision on Grayscale and Franklin’s application implies that it will not hold to the May 23 date to approve the ETF. The SEC’s lack of engagement with issuing companies is in contrast to the more forthcoming attitude we saw during the BTC ETF saga.
In other news, while BTC and alts dumped, ETH is up 2% today and ETH/BTC is up by 4%.

Olympus Watchlist

If you have been watching projects on Base, chances are that you have come across Bros and his famed alpha lists on twitter/X. Here are some projects that he is looking at in the coming weeks. Side note: With Magic Eden now entering the Base chain, a lot of these will be launching on ME.

That’s all for now! Keep checking our socials for edition#3. See you in twoish weeks!