Market Summary

Bitcoin Price: US$ 38,112.65(-5.72%)
Ethereum Price: US$ 2,809.67 (-6.55%)

Optimism Rises, Tribe Accelerator, & NFT Credit Markets

• AIRDROP ALERT! Optimism has just announced the release of $OP and will be airdropping tokens to Optimism users. See here to see if you’re eligible for the drop.
• An ongoing rumor has been circulating regarding the release $OP fueled by this recent thread alongside a Coinbase listing tease of $OP. It is likely we will see $OP be listed on various tier 1 exchanges once the token becomes available.
• Launching a token before its closest competitor—Arbitrum—Optimism’s $OP could provide a first-mover advantage. Optimism can utilize its tokens to incentivize protocol yields to attract TVL across all chains. It looks like Arbitrum will be facing fierce competition for its TVL soon.
• Furthermore, Synthetix, an OG DeFi protocol on Optimism has been earning good yields for its stakers as protocol transaction fees are increasing. This has helped push $SNX prices upwards as more users mint synthetic assets with their $SNX stake.
• Metis seems to have lost steam after its run-up from the launch of Hermes, a Solidly fork on Metis. Additionally, Agora DeFi, Metis’ native money market platform, underwent an attack. The attacker drained tokens from Starstream Finance and used those tokens as collateral to take out loans from Agora.
• Tribe DAO Onboarding Accelerator
• Synopsis: Tribe DAO created La Tribu sub-DAO in early March. La Tribu is a project within Tribe DAO dedicated to onboarding solidity beginners to contribute to the DAO. This thread is a longer explanation of how La Tribu will operate. In particular, the lead will present quarterly updates to the DAO. If the DAO feels that La Tribu is underperforming, funds will enter a timelock. If the issue is not resolved after a month, the funds can be clawed back by the DAO. The lead has apparently found individuals interested in the project who may begin working with La Tribu. The recruits will initially build out a list of training resources on Github, which different teams can also use. The training so far looks to consist of short online courses (like CryptoZombies) and projects assigned by the Tribu lead. Notably, the devs onboarded through this process will be asked to exclusively work with Tribe DAO.
• Our Position: We think this is a project to watch. Solidity devs, and crypto devs in general, are currently worth their weight in Bitcoin. Every team and DAO is looking for more technical expertise and struggling to fill roles. This is why we think people should watch how this project performs. Using DAO funds to train and onboard contributors is a novel approach to solving a challenging human resources issue. Other firms could leverage this approach to build a pool of contributors to work on their platforms.
• Metastreet Delphi Podcast

Airdrops, Concentrated Liquidity on Solana, Leveraged ETH Staking & Stablecoin Pools

• Gem will continue operating independently despite being acquired by OpenSea. Gem’s founder has not ruled out the possibility of a token/airdrop.
• Genie has confirmed a token and hinted there will be an airdrop for community members.
• Metahood, Blur and WeMeta are other NFT aggregators that may airdrop tokens to the community.
• Evmos has announced its relaunch on the 27th of April. 3-4 days after mainnet, the Evmos Rektdrop will be claimable for Cosmos Hub, Osmosis and Ethereum users.
• Sudoswap‘s founder 0xmons has hinted at the launch of Sudoswap’s NFT AMM. XMON holders may be eligible to claim/swap tokens for SUDO.
• Bastion token BSTN is now live. Users who pre-mined on Bastion before the token launch will be able to claim their airdrop. Pre-mining rewards are proportional to the amount of capital deposited and the duration of time held. Pre-mine Epoch 1 were able to pre-mine at a 10x rate of Epoch 2.
• Connext has announced its token NEXT, with snapshots already being completed for token distribution. Community members can potentially earn tokens through the Contributor Program.
• Gno Land will airdrop its token GNOT to ATOM stakers or holders, with the snapshot being taken on July 4th. Gno Land is a new smart contract platform by Cosmos founder Jae Kwon.
• Orca’s Whirpools are its next-generation AMM. Using the power of concentrated liquidity, Whirlpools provides higher yields for liquidity providers and better rates for all. Whirlpool solves issues of high slippage and unused capital limit yields for liquidity providers by allowing liquidity providers to concentrate their liquidity in specific price ranges. Liquidity providers who provide deeper liquidity for the range in which trades actually occur will earn a higher share of fees and rewards, encouraging more efficient use of capital. 
• Rose is a liquidity protocol on Aurora composed of a stablecoin & wrapped assets exchange, and a Collateralized Debt Position (CDP) based stablecoin utilizing interesting bearing tokens as collateral. The first product is a stableswap, the first Automated Market Maker (AMM) to trade assets against each other with low slippage and minimum trading fees. The second product is a lending market where you can mint RUSD, an overcollateralized stablecoin. 
• Babylon is a community-led asset management protocol that enables users to invest in DeFi together. It’s built on the Ethereum network and it’s non-custodial, transparent, permission-less, and governed by the community. Community members can create investment communities (called “Gardens”) and invite people to deposit capital. Members participate in the garden by joining the telegram chat, suggesting and voting on strategies. 

Ethereum scaling solution Optimism upgrades governance structure

• The Optimism Foundation has unveiled a new governance structure and token as part of its ongoing efforts to bring scalability and cost efficiency to Ethereum (ETH), the world’s largest smart contract platform. 
• The “Optimism Collective” was introduced Tuesday afternoon in a lengthy post that outlined its mission and governance mandate. Described as a “large-scale experiment in digital democratic governance,” the Optimism Collective essentially comprises a band of communities and stakeholders committed to improving Ethereum’s technical capabilities.
• According to the details, the Optimism Collective will be governed by two components: the Citizens’ House and the Token House. The Citizens’ House will “facilitate and govern a process to distribute retroactive public goods funding” via revenues collected by the network. The Token House, which will be established through forthcoming airdrops, is tasked with voting on protocol upgrades and project incentives.

Fireblocks expands institutional access to Terra’s DeFi ecosystem

• Fireblocks, a digital asset custody platform, announced that it has enabled institutional decentralized finance (DeFi) access to Terra (LUNA), the second-largest DeFi protocol by total value locked (TVL). As per the announcement, Fireblocks users can now securely access all the decentralized applications (DApps) built on the Terra blockchain.
• The launch is in response to Fireblocks’ early access program users, who invested over $250 million into the Terra DeFi ecosystem within the first 72 hours of its integration going live. According to Michael Shaulov, CEO of Fireblocks, institutional demand for DeFi is only continuing to grow, adding that:
• “As their appetite expands, so will their desire to be able to access all of the latest and greatest innovations across different blockchain ecosystems.”

Crypto tax calculator Koinly integrates Terra into its platform

• Crypto tax calculation platform Koinly added Terra (LUNA) wallet support to make tax calculation easier for LUNA holders as the Canadian tax report deadline draws near. 
• Tony Dhanjal, head of tax at Koinly, said that LUNA support has been requested by many Koinly users, and with the integration, LUNA users will have a “way to accurately track and record their transactions to meet their tax obligations.”
• Calculating crypto tax is easy if a user’s crypto affairs are simple. However, Dhanjal told Cointelegraph that “the average crypto investor is connected to three to five exchanges, wallets or blockchains.” Because of this, working out the taxes using these sources is very difficult and the risks of errors are high. This is why Dhanjal recommends the use of a simple crypto tax calculation tool.

Fidelity to reportedly allow 401(k) retirement savings accounts to invest in Bitcoin

• The United States-based retirement plan provider Fidelity Investments will reportedly allow 401(k) retirement saving account holders to directly invest in Bitcoin (BTC).
• The new Bitcoin retirement investment plan would go live later this year. It will allow over 23,000 companies associated with Fidelity to administrate their retirement accounts to offer Bitcoin investment options to the customers, reported The Wall Street Journal.
• If the proposal to allocate BTC to their savings account gets approval from employers, it will allow retirement savers to allocate up to 20% of their portfolio in Bitcoin. Fidelity is currently in discussions with several of the employers that use its services, and MicroStrategy has reportedly already agreed to the BTC investment plans.

Institutional investment flows out of ETH and into competing L1 altcoins

• Institutional investors have shifted their attention from Ethereum to competing layer-1 blockchains of late, with capital inflows for altcoin investment products increasing last week while Ether (ETH) products posted outflows for the third week in a row.
• Data from CoinShares’ latest Digital Asset Fund Flows report shows that investors last week (ending on Friday) loaded up on $3.5 million worth of Avalanche (AVAX), Solana (SOL), Terra (LUNA) and Algorand (ALGO) funds while capital outflows from Ether products totaled $16.9 million.
• It marks the third straight week that Ethereum products have seen outflows, bringing the total over that time to $59.3 million, equal to around 35% of the year-to-date outflows of $169 million from the second-largest blockchain.
• Notably, investors also favored digital gold last week despite some recent hesitancy, with Bitcoin (BTC) products fetching $2.6 million worth of inflows.

Sustainable energy usage for BTC mining grows nearly 60% in a year

• Bitcoin (BTC) mining companies are further adopting green energy as the global Bitcoin mining industry increased its sustainable energy mix by approximately 59% year over year.
• The Bitcoin Mining Council (BMC) is a group of 44 Bitcoin mining companies claiming to represent 50% of the global Bitcoin network, or 100.9 exahash (EH). It released a new report on Monday with the findings. The group is also fronted by Bitcoin proponent and MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor.
• The latest survey of BMC member companies questioned how much electricity their companies consumed, what percentage of that electricity is generated by hydro, wind, solar, nuclear or geothermal sources and what the hash rate of their operations was.
• The BMC estimates the global mining industry’s sustainable electricity mix for the top crypto is now 58.4%, a fall of 0.1% from last quarter. Perhaps more importantly, it’s significant growth from the 36.8% renewables estimated in Q1 2021.
• The report breaks down the total estimated energy usage by industry, alleging that global Bitcoin mining operations use 247 terawatt-hours (TWh), less than half of what gold mining operations consume, and 0.16% when compared to the world’s total energy usage.

Crypto lender Maple Finance expands support to Solana

• Crypto capital markets platform Maple Finance has expanded support to the Solana blockchain and has deployed a $45 million fund to spur ecosystem growth.
• Maple provides undercollateralized loans for institutional borrowers on Ethereum and now Solana from several pool delegates. The project stated in a Monday blog post that it has already “originated over $1.2 billion in loans and currently count over $900 million in TVL to the platform.”
• The ecosystem fund was launched in partnership with decentralized finance (DeFi) lending platform X-Margin, with capital being provided by USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle, digital asset manager CoinShares and several unnamed projects native to Solana.