Bitfinity Weekly: 'Satashi' Vision

Welcome to Issue #89 of Bitfinity Weekly for our #BITFINIANS community. If this newsletter was forwarded to you, sign up here.

What's in Today's Email?

• Global Crypto News
• This Week in our Blog
• NFT Market Bytes
• Tweet of the Week
• Meme Time
• A Matter of Opinion

Global Crypto News

🗣️ Satashi Speaks: Jamie Dimon, CEO of banking giant J.P. Morgan, criticized Bitcoin on a televized CNBC segment this week, suggesting that "Satashi" might rugpull all circulating Bitcoin in the future. The crypto community quickly responded to the mispronounciation of Satoshi, Bitcoin's pseudonymous creator's name, by launching "Satashi" memecoins. Coincidentally, an X account with the username @satoshi tweeted this Thursday, causing some confusion until X's community notes feature linked the account to Craig Wright.

📰 Selling the News: Despite the crypto community's speculation about positive Bitcoin price action following the ETF approval, Grayscale's Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) has moved $1.3 billion worth of $BTC to Coinbase, potentially for a sell off. Although reasons for this move is unclear, one theory is that Grayscale's ETF customers have already seen profits and are eager to move their investment allocations to cheaper ETF options, as Grayscale has higher management fees.

💥 A Big Bang: Cosmos-based trading platform dYdX surpassed Uniswap's daily trading volume, capturing 12% of marketshare to become the first DEX to flip Uniswap. A big accomplishment for the relatively new platform, as full trading on dYdX chain was only implemented in November 2023; dYdX hit the $1 billion mark in 24-hour trading volume last week, on January 12th.

☄️ Written in the Stars: Inscriptions have landed in the Cosmos ecosystem, with the launch of $ROIDS on Cosmos Hub, making it the first fungible token in the IBC network as well as the Cosmos eco's first fungible token. $ROIDS follows the CFT-20 standard (Cosmos Fungible Token), and was inspired by Casey Rodarmor's Ordinal theory, which made inscriptions on Bitcoin possible.

🗳️ Caucus-Blocked: Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy dropped out of the 2024 American Presidential race following the Iowa caucuses this Monday. Ramaswamy, who is liked in the web3 community for his pro-crypto stance, has since explicitly pushed for support of former President and current candidate Donald Trump, who declared in a campaign speech this week that if he is elected, he would never support CBDCs. Despite the seemingly counterintuitive message, privacy advocates on X have lauded Trump's position.

This Week in our Blog

The long-awaited Bitcoin spot ETF approval is here. Now what? In this article we explore the different possibilities that the SEC approval has opened the doors to:

Bitcoin Spot ETF Approval: A New Era for Crypto Investments

The article explores the ETF’s impact, examining perspectives on how it could financialize bitcoin and influence global asset management. It discusses the approval’s significance compared to past seminal crypto and traditional finance events.

Bitfinity BlogFred

NFT Market Bytes

🎮 Game, Stopped: GameStop is sunsetting their NFT marketplace just 18 months after its launch. The company cited regulatory uncertainty as the reason for shuttering their marketplace, which focused heavily on gaming assets. As of Feburary 2nd, customers will no longer be able to use the platform, though purchased NFTs will remain accessible on deployed and compatible chains.

🃏 Trump Cards: Former U.S. President and 2024 candidate Donald Trump is making the move to Ordinals. Trump already has two existing NFT collections, the most recent one being his "mugshot edition" trading card NFTs, issued just last month on Polygon. 100 owners of his trading card NFTs will be issued special Ordinals versions, but the bonus offer comes with a caveat: these Ordinals won't be available for trading until December 2024.

🪄 Curse or Blessing?: A mysterious message was inscribed on an Uncommon Sat last Sunday, hinting at an unreleased Ordinals collection yet to be launched on Bitcoin. The message suggested that there will be a 10k collection linked to ''cursed" inscriptions, which are inscriptions with misused upcodes that cannot be recognized by Ord software, the standard used by the Ordinals community.

Tweet of the Week

Meme Time

A Matter of Opinion

J.P. Morgan's CEO, Jamie Dimon, spoke disparagingly about Bitcoin in a round table interview on CNBC's Squawk Box this Wednesday, comparing $BTC to a pet rock and advising viewers to not get involved with it. He distinguished between "two types" of cryptocurrencies: one with "embedded smart contracts" and coins like Bitcoin that "does nothing".

Dimon has long been a vocal critic of Bitcoin, despite the fact that J.P. Morgan, along with BlackRock, teamed up as a lead authorized participant for the iShares Bitcoin Trust; the financial giant is also named as an authorized participant for the Invesco Galaxy Bitcoin ETF. Dimon's personal hatred of Bitcoin is so pronounced, in fact, as tradfi waited for SEC approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs, he went on various interviews lambasting $BTC:

"I've always said that Bitcoin doesn't have value [...] The actual use cases are sex trafficking, tax avoidance, money laundering, [and] terrorism financing." -via Fox Business

Although the media and the crypto community largely focused on Dimon's mispronounciation of Satoshi Nakamoto as 'Satashi' this week, Dimon's perception of Bitcoin (and cryptocurrency at large) is nonetheless one to consider if we want to understand the public perception of web3.

Jamie Dimon, despite being one of the leading figures in the financial world, sees no inherent value in Bitcoin other than for illegal and immoral reasons. For those of us deep in the trenches of DeFi, this mindset may seem ludicrous and ignorant, but the fact remains that the public majority does see crypto as a scary, uncertain place full of hackers, criminals, and pyramid schemes.

Why is this an important factor to consider? Crypto is still in its nascent stage when it comes to adoption. Whether you are a builder, an artist or a trader, crypto advocates exist in a relatively small, isolated bubble compared to other industries. All of the good reasons to proliferate web3 products and crypto ethos (of fairness, anonymity, and democratic opportunities) can and often do fall on deaf ears, while those same ears listen to 'trusted' financial figures like Mr. Dimon.

The best way to push our industry forward is to educate people. Instead of fear mongering, like Dimon, or emphasizing 'get rich quick' schemes like crypto influencers, rational education is the best way to advocate adoption for the masses.

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*Important Disclaimer: While every effort is made on this website to provide accurate information, any opinions expressed or information disseminated do not necessarily reflect the views of Bitfinity itself. The information provided here is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial advice.