🎄 Merry Xmas From The FED
PLUS every AVAX airdrop
🗞 Market commentary.
GM chain hoppers. Pretty fun week, that, wasn’t it?
The fact that the current state of the crypto market is significantly bullish can be seen solely from the fact that not even the news of a Ledger hack, nor another anti-crypto bill by Elizabeth Warren, who understands crypto about as well as my grandma understands smart contracts, can deter the degens from constantly flipping new on-chain coins.
A cozy dovish Christmas vibe is simply in the air and was nicely reflected by the FED chief himself, whom we had the opportunity to listen to during the regular FOMC show of Jerome Powell.
In contrast to the hawkish approach typical for 2022, which resulted in the birth of tens of thousands of new macro specialists, we have received confirmation that interest rates have peaked. If the rates have peaked, so has the dollar. And if the dollar peaked, then risk assets have found their bottom.
This year, we’ve experienced first-hand that the markets are forward-looking. The bullish vibes kicked into a whole new gear by year’s end, though. The news around the crypto industry is literally an inversion of 2022: JP Morgan's internal crypto teams tripling its numbers (while JP diligently FUDs for entries in the media), SEC meetings with BlackRock preparing spot ETF products, central banks getting permission to hold up to 2% of financial reserves in cryptocurrencies, all the while exploring how to implement AMM systems directly into banking as part of the Mariana project.
We were right all along friends, this truly is the future of France. Buckle up.
🤓 In today’s email.
Degen corner. An Avalanche of Airdrops
DeFi insights. 19 unmissable insights
ICYMI. Explaining Celestia, podcast with Gunzilla Games and more
Tweet of the day. Did Grant just find the greatest redact on X?
And finally. Next L1 rotation might be upon us…
🔥 Degen corner.
An Avalanche of Airdrops
Everyone likes free money. But everyone especially likes free money on a blockchain. The Jito airdrop triggered a wave of interest in catching the rest of the airdrops in the Solana ecosystem. No wonder, since even the smallest airdrop farmers received tokens worth around $15K.
However, a little bird told us it’s time to focus on Avalanche, an ecosystem where, for now, there are even fewer airdrop hunters than in Solana. Today we present you a highly exclusive airdrop list (all rumors of course… or? We have NO idea). Heat up your ledgers, it's time to click some buttons.
1. Hubble Exchange (+ Airdrop Guide)
Hubble Exchange launched just yesterday, with AVAX perpetuals included, of course. A few winning trades plus maybe an airdrop? Sounds good.
2. CavalRe
CavalRe is a protocol introducing novel DeFi primitives and standards for AMMs, like single-sided staking, multi-token swaps, and more. The novel AMM is now available for beta testing.
Struct Finance focuses on bringing you cozy, structured fixed yields. A nice little dashboard currently offers nine pools for GMX, JOE, AVAX, and BTC.B holders.
The mission of Canza Finance is “enabling access to Financial Tools for Sub-Saharan African SMALL & Medium-Sized Enterprises.” The key dApp of Canza is currently Baki Exchange.
5. Delta Prime
Delta Prime can be best described as: "...so you can deposit 100K, borrow 400K and there are no credit checks. You can use the full 500K and we won't have a clue who you are." Access to liquidity with the ability to operate even with provided collateral? Definitely an interesting proposition, more information can be found here.
6. VCRED
DeFi combined with AI? That doesn't sound bad at all, and that's exactly what VCRED is focusing on. Currently, we see Perp and Spread Agents on offer, AI bots offering automated trading strategies.
7. LEVR.bet
GambleFi is now definitely a part of every L1 ecosystem. LEVER.bet is currently in beta. Tomorrow is UFC, betting on Tony Ferguson might not be a bad idea, hmmmm…
Gunzilla Games is an AAA gaming studio, currently working on the battle-royale game Off The Grid, planned for PS5, Xbox, and PC. Games from Gunzilla Games will run on their own gaming subnet Gunz. Here you can play with their own wallet or buy equipment for the game at the local NFT marketplace.
9. Bloodloop
Fans of fast-paced tactical team deathmatch games might enjoy the world of Bloodloop. A presale is currently underway, exclusive to NFT holders.
10. Spellborne
If something can truly withstand the test of time, then it's the old good bird's-eye pixel RPGs. Keep an eye on the launch – it will happen during Q1 2024.
11. Portal Fantasy
Speaking of pixel RPG style, Portal Fantasy is worth mentioning. In this case, you can already play the game in demo form, live on Steam.
12. Buttonwood
Buttonwood is building DeFi’s first ‘tranche stablecoin’. Currently, you can participate in bond buying and selling, create ERC-20 auctions, wrap your tokens in Button Wrappers to create a collateralized rebasing asset, and more.
13. Poolside
Poolside is part of Buttonwood. In this case, it is a liquidity hub optimized for LSTs and other yield-bearing assets with the advantage of removing permanent loss for LPs. AMM and pools for AMPL, ETH, SPOT, and stETH are live.
14. Xave Finance
All FX markets should eventually end up on a blockchain, and that’s exactly what Xave Finance is counting on. With this one, there's a chance to participate early through the LBP sale on Fjord Foundry, on December 20th.
15. Rumble Arcade
Rumble Arcade is the last one to put on your list. This PvP squad-battler is available to play in its early form, but definitely put a notification on Tribo Games account for more updates."
👀 DeFi insights.
The important bits.
Redacted Cartel (DeFi) – Dinero mainnet rollout officially started – read
Vertex (DEX) – All taker fees reduced to 0.02% – read
Florence Finance (RWA) – Free Duke Dash mint & point campaign - read
Term Labs (RWA) – Launching first-ever fixed-rate loans backed by RWAs – read
Injective (L1) – First ecosystem token TALIS goes live – read
Blast (L2) – Adds “Withdraw and lose points” function – read
Good Entry (DEX) – Launches “Degen mode” – read
Swarm (RWA) – Launches permissionless RWA trading platform – read
Ramen Finance (Berachain) – Teasing Berachain launchpad – read
Entangle (Data Infrastructure) – Announces Google Cloud partnership – read
Eclipse (SVM) – Eclipse testnet is now live – read
Thena (DeFi) – Expansion to opBNB and airdrop marathon – read
Thales (Derivatives) – THALES token explained – read
Mirai Labs (Gaming) – Now building on Avalanche – read
PintSwap (DEX) – Expanding to Avalanche - read
Injective (L1) – Upcoming airdrop for Hydro Protocol stakers - read
Berachain (L1) – Upcoming Baka Bear mint on Dec. 28th - read
Lyra (Option) – Announcing Lyra Chain - read
Trader Joe (DEX) – Announcing Merchant Moe for Mantle - read
📰 DeFi news.
Even more important bits.
Ledger outlines full hack timeline and updates customers – read
Central banks can now hold 2% of their reserves in crypto - read
FOMC speech summary: rates kept at 5.5%, Powell believes rates peaked - read
BlackRock says Jerome Powell’s speech is a ‘green light for investors’ - read
JP Morgan says Ether will probably outperform Bitcoin next year - read
Elizabeth Warren introduces Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act - read
Ordinals protocol was submitted to the National Vulnerability Database - read
Ark Invest continues to sell COIN shares, exceeding $100M sales last week - read
El Salvador’s $1bn volcano-powered Bitcoin bonds greenlit for 2024 launch - read
🫠 ICYMI.
Life gets busy so here’s what you’ve missed
What Is Celestia? Explaining The First Modular Blockchain
Podcast
The token TIA was recently airdropped and has started to run, so let's look at the Bull case for it and think about the tokenomics.
Tune in on YouTube →
Gunzilla Presents: Off The Grid - The AAA Web3 Game Coming Soon on Avalanche
Podcast
Grant was joined by Theodore Agranat from Gunzilla Games who are the creative studio behind the highly anticipated Off The Grid.
Tune in on Spotify | YouTube →
Unstoppable: The Blueprint for Next-Gen DeFi Apps
Research
Unstoppable developments on the mobile app, integrated wallet, and margin DEX demand your attention and we've covered them in full.
🐥 Tweet of the day.
Grant might just found the greatest redact on X
🦍 And finally…
We dare to say we‘ve brought enough on the silver platter for today, but if there’s something to point out as a farewell, it’s mentioning the next possible chain rotation.
Not only Fantom, which is starting to warm up for its AVAX-like moment but especially Mantle. You can get ready for the season with this guide. In the end, we have to add that we’re curious about the Mantle iteration of the popular Trader Joe DEX, which will operate here as Merchant Moe.
See you in the books, this time perhaps also along with a bunch of Chinese grandmas.
much love,
blocmates team 🫡
Funny as ever, as always! Very insightful, I'm so grateful for the Blocmates' team.
Respect!