Bitfinity Weekly: Super Sunday

Welcome to Issue #92 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

🪫 Power Move: Solana underwent a five-hour network outage on Tuesday, during which all block transactions were halted, much to the chagrin of the memecoin community prominent on the blockchain. This latest outage opened the door to criticisms about Solana's stability, as the L1 blockchain has a history of network outages; the last reported outage occurred on February of last year, when the network was down for almost 19 hours.

🪙 A Standard Affair: An experimental token standard, originally created by pseudonymous dev @SerecThunderson, has taken the Ethereum community by storm. Dubbed ERC404, this unofficially named token standard combines traits of both NFTs and fungible tokens, improving the liquidity of NFTs. The top three ERC404 projects combined reached 12% of Uniswap's Ethereum trading volume on Thursday, and has spawned countless derivative projects.

🌀 Warp Speed: Farcaster, a social media dApp built on Optimism, surged in activity this week, growing from a modest 5,000 active users on Jan. 28th to over 29,000 users on Feb. 5th. The growth is attributed to Frames, a new innovation on Warpcast (a client for Farcaster) which allows external links and apps to be opened directly in the dApp, as well as Ethereum founder Vitalin Buterin's public support and continued usage of the dApp.

💩 Earthbound: Terraform Labs' former CFO Han Chang-joon has been extradited to South Korea this week. Han was arrested in Montenegro last year, alongside Terraform Labs' founder Do Kwon, for traveling with falsified documents. Terraform Labs is best known for the dramatic rise then implosion of their algorithmic stablecoin Terra ($UST) and native token ($LUNA) in 2022.

This Week in our Blog

While bridges serve a critical role to make blockchain interoperability viable, they are also known attack vectors for malicious players. We delve into the history of major bridge exploits, and how Bitfinity could solve this problem:

Crossing Over Carefully: Blockchain Bridge Exploits and Bitfinity’s Solution

While blockchain bridges are necessary to connect isolated networks, their consolidation of large token reserves also makes them targets for major hacks. This article looks at the wall of shame and Bitfinity that could offer a solution…

Bitfinity BlogHans

Bitcoin is much, much more than it seems. Even seasoned crypto veterans may be oblivious to the advanced security of the oldest blockchain. In this article we take a deep dive into the very essence of Bitcoin:

From Niches to Norm: The Real Value Proposition of Bitcoin

This comprehensive guide explores the evolution of Bitcoin from its beginnings as a digital currency to its growing utility as a platform and store of value. Learn how technological advancements are expanding Bitcoin’s use cases and prominence globally.

Bitfinity BlogFred

NFT Market Bytes

The Cat's Meow: Taproot Wizards' first collection, 'Quantum Cats', successfully minted out after a week of technical delays. The majority of the 'Quantum Cats' Ordinals collection were sold to whitelisted community members who had to, among other things, create videos and post homemade flyers in public to secure their spot; the remaining 313 cats available to mint sold out within 2 seconds.

🏈 Team Players: Dapper Lab's "NFL All Day" NFT collection has seen high-profile endorsements from legendary American football players like Joe Montana, and equally impressive sales ahead of the Super Bowl this Sunday. Notably, an NFT of Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers have sold for $40k and $34k respectively.

✈️ First Class: Japan Airlines are collaborating with marketing firm Hakuhodo to launch Kokyo NFT, a RWA (Real World Asset) project that will tokenize local experiences and help its holders develop in-depth connections with local Japanese communities beyond a typical travel experience. While the project is not yet live, Kokyo NFT promises immersive experiences such as living in a samurai mansion and becoming a part of a samurai family.

🦍 Apes Together Mad: Yuga Labs found themselves under fire from the Bored Ape community this week, as they rolled out a claimable 'Loot' NFT on Ethereum for their metaverse (Otherside) players. When the company was met with backlash over high Ethereum gas fees for what was supposed to be a free mint, Yuga Labs then offered a free on-chain perk called 'Catalyst', for which they faced even more backlash. Eventually, Yuga co-founder Greg Solano offered to reimburse all gas fees paid by Otherside players who minted Loot.

Tweet of the Week

Meme Time

A Matter of Opinion

Bitcoin has seen a dramatic increase in price and trading volume this week, with many speculators seeing entry opportunities ahead of this Sunday's Super Bowl; some seem to be predicting that $BTC ETF ads will lead to an influx of new retail investors, though the existence of these ads have yet to be confirmed. Bitcoin ecosystem offerings, such as Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens, have also seen significant positive movement, no doubt fueled by Bitcoin's recent actions.

Currently, Ordinals sales rank second in volume after Ethereum's NFT market, seeing a total of $64 million in sales over the previous week. With Ordinals creator Casey Rodarmor giving us more hints via a video this Thursday about his upcoming Runes protocol, it feels like all eyes are on Bitcoin/crypto once more. That is, to those of us who are neck deep in crypto.

To put things into perspective, the majority of crypto-centric companies did not participate in Super Bowl ads last year. Even Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange available in the U.S., declined to advertise during the 2023 game. As many of you already know, 2023 was not a great year for crypto, with more volatility and bad press than usual.

Around the time of last year's Super Bowl, $BTC was hovering at roughly $23k while $ETH languished around $1.6k. As of time of writing, $BTC is holding steady above $47k and $ETH at $2.4k, which means both tokens are above the price they were at during the 2022 Super Bowl--which were rife with crypto ads (including an infamous FTX ad featuring comedian Larry David).

All things considered, crypto (and Bitcoin in particular) seem poised for another explosion of renewed mainstream attention, though what the ever-volatile crypto market will do is anyone's guess. However, this editor will be eagerly monitoring this year's Super Bowl ads for hints of what public sentiment could shape up to be in the months to come.

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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.