Sunday Review: November 17, 2024

We are doing well, aren’t we?

In the second week following Trump’s victory at the polls, the markets have more than established themselves as the biggest winners of the United States elections.

In crypto, the green is contagious. Now that Bitcoin has surpassed the $90,000 mark and Solana is trading above $200, the price of other tokens, especially meme coins, is rising spectacularly.

DOGE coin has been the star of the market in the last few days. With the news that the U.S. government is expected to open a Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) run by none other than $DOGE's most notorious supported, Elon Musk, the token has started the most singular journey to the moon in the history of crypto.

After all, this is still crypto, and there is no going up without coming down. What makes a market bull is not exactly that the prices are high but how magnanimous the journey of the prices is —in both directions.

The token of Peanut the (euthanized by New York state authorities) Squirrel, $PNUT, is trading 1,248% higher than when it was launched two weeks ago. However, as a meme coin, its spectacular performance is, in all probability, leading to a spectacular decline.

Memecoins are the cultural phenomenon of this cycle, but with the market so euphoric, older trends are making a comeback. Who remembers NFTs?

Some say non-fungible tokens were never dead, while others believe they can’t go back to old highs. As investors argue over how good an investment in non-fungible tokens could be during this cycle, Open Sea is preparing to launch a new platform, and McDonald's is dispatching a special Holiday cup collection with Doodles.

🎧 It Is The U.S Gov Remix 🇺🇸

Donald Trump's campaign secured over $20 million in crypto donations, and if there is one thing that those donors are expecting, it is for Gary Gensler to be replaced as Chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The pro-crypto government makeover has already started, with eighteen states having sued the SEC over its anti-crypto enforcement actions this week. Gensler seems to be ready to throw the towel. On Thursday, the current Chair delivered a speech that was largely interpreted as a farewell to his current position.

Gensler and other crypto sceptics of the United States government are not out yet, and in the two months until the Inauguration Day, a lot can happen.

On Wednesday, the FBI raided the House of Polymarket’s CEO Shayne Coplan and seized his electronic devices. There are a couple of legal reasons why that could have happened, yet Coplan hinted that the motivations for the raid were political—a show of power by the departing administration.

🔥 Highlights Of The Week

Tether launches Hadron, a platform for tokenizing real-world assets;
Avara launches Family Wallet with in-app messaging;
Revolut has expanded its crypto exchange app to 30 EU countries.

📈 Crypto Markets

😈 Crypto Naught And Sloppy And Bitter

Bitterness or rightfulness? The United States courts are about to have a lot of work to determine between the two as the estate of collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX has filed almost 25 lawsuits against former stakeholders and associates, including Binance, CZ and even Anthony Scaramucci.

🍭 Ethereum Highs And Fun Times

The Ethereum ecosystem had a week of many surprises. At Ethereum’s Devcon in Bangkok, dozens of new projects were presented. Amongst them was Ethereum Name Service's (ENS) announcement of its own Layer 2 network called Namechain, which aims to improve blockchain identity services in the most decentralized way possible.

Deep Dive: Beam Chain

Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake has presented his plans to revamp the Ethereum consensus algorithm on Tuesday at Ethereum’s Devcon in Bangkok. Drake says that some upgrades are needed, and if you want to understand what he means, read this:

Project Of The Week: Aerodrome

Aerodrome has surpassed Uniswap as the leading fee-generating decentralized exchange of the Base ecosystem.

The protocol has exceeded $1.3 billion in TVL and is earning over $500,000 in fees daily by offering automated market-making, liquidity, and a CEX-like experience.

Aerodrome's growth is in part due to the success of Base, which has become the largest Ethereum layer two. By supporting the Base-related liquid staked tokens cbETH and cbBTC, Aerodrome has become the go-to DEX for profiting from these digital assets.

Save The Date: Sora Economic Forum

The third annual Sora Economic Forum will happen next Wednesday, November 20. The event will bring together governance experts from around the world to discuss how blockchain can be deployed to develop more equitable and fairer national systems