The total market capitalization of cryptocurrency surpassed $1 trillion this week. The 2017-18 bull market was led by an irrational ICO craze that saw low quality assets with no use cases like XRP soar, but this bull market feels different. Quality is leading ( BTC + ETH market cap is over 80% of the total market cap) and there's a number of use cases with real traction, from decentralized exchanges to yield-bearing stablecoins to crypto collectibles.
The booms and busts in crypto are unlike anything ever seen before in financial markets because of the global nature of crypto and the hyperconnectivity of our world. But it's never been a better time to dive in and learn how cryptocurrency can be useful for you. Our goal for 2021 is to continue surfacing interesting perspectives and great projects to you.
Required reading this week
Under-the-radar product trends: 2020 recap and 2021 predictions — thecontrol.co
A recap of Richard's 2020 predictions and a few 2021 trends and predictions.
Linda Xie gives a high-level overview of what NFTs are, why they are interesting, and showcase some of their potential use cases.
Securities Law: Social & Community Tokens — medium.com
2020 has seen the rise of personal, social and community tokens. Reuben Bramanathan explains how these new types of tokens fit within existing legal frameworks.
The Proof of NFTs — $3.5M Beeple Drop. — loopifyyy.medium.com
Loopify talks about how the success of the recent $3.5M Beeple drop signifies the inevitable evolution of crypto art from a niche market to the mainstream.
Ethology: A Safari Tour in Ethereum’s Dark Forest — zengo.com
Alex Manuskin explores how many frontrunning bots he can spot, what it takes for them to frontrun you, and how profitable it is to run such a bot.
Stability, Elasticity, and Reflexivity: A Deep Dive into Algorithmic Stablecoins — insights.deribit.com
Ben Simon analyzes algorithmic stablecoins by going into the history, all the different designs attempted today, as well as their tradeoffs.
Endnotes on 2020: Crypto and Beyond — vitalik.ca
Vitalik Buterin reflects on 2020 and ponders on how we should re-evaluate our mental models of the world.
1confirmation portfolio reading this week
Introducing the Collection Manager — opensea.io
OpenSea now lets you create unlimited NFTs without paying gas, removing one of the worst barriers to entry for digital creators to the NFT world.
Polymarket Digest 2 - The Never-ending Election — polymarket.com
The Polymarket prediction market platform has broken out this year. Here's a recap of some recent markets.
MakerDAO’s Year in Review: 2020 — blog.makerdao.com
MakerDAO reviews some of the biggest developments for Dai and the Maker Protocol over the past 12 months.
Rococo V1 — A Holiday Gift to the Polkadot Community — medium.com
The Rococo V1 Parachain Testnet is live! Rococo is a public testnet for both the parachains consensus process and parachains built by the community and their interactions with each other.
On-chain metric to watch
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