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- 🌐 Crypto’s biggest usability upgrade (ever)
🌐 Crypto’s biggest usability upgrade (ever)
PLUS: Jim Cramer vs. Gary Gensler - Could We See a BONK ETF?
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Sup, nerds!
Here’s what you’re getting in today’s edition:
Terms used in this edition (click for an explanation, or ask Web(GPT)3!):
Meme coins, stablecoins.
💅 This is cool:
In one sentence: Coinbase’s new smart wallet lets you sign up/in with FaceID or email, pay zero gas fees on transactions, and automatically bridges between chains for you.
“All wise men fear the anger of a gentle man.”
We think of that quote every time we try to get our dads to set up their own self custody crypto wallets.
The friction and complexity of having to write down a 12 word seed phrase, and re-input it with every new device you want the wallet to live on had Chevy’s dad digging out his Nokia 3310 from the ‘stuff’ drawer in his office, before using it to text him:
“You’re un-invited from Christmas lunch this year.”
Well. Those days are over.
Yesterday, Coinbase announced the soft launch of their ‘smart wallet.’
It changes just about everything we’re used to doing when it comes to exploring crypto…
To demonstrate it, here’s a side by side comparison of the two experiences:
Dumb wallets
Download the wallet app, click sign up.
Record the 12 word seed phrase on an offline device.
Use that seed phrase as a password to port your wallet across devices.
Set up a separate exchange account, buy ETH from that exchange, send it to your wallet (for a fee of ~$20+).
Explore a range of applications, platforms and services by manually ‘bridging’ (aka: transferring) your ETH tokens from the layer 1 to a range of layer 2’s — with initial transfer fees of ~$20+.
(A Google search will be necessary to do this safely the first time around).
Smart wallets
Download the wallet app, click sign up, FaceID or ‘Sign in with Google’ activates, you now have a self custody wallet that can be accessed across devices using the same log in process.
Buy ETH from within your smart wallet.
Explore a range of applications, platforms and services (the wallet will automatically make any required transfers) — paying no transaction fees in the process.
At launch, the Coinbase smart wallet will support:
Ethereum, Base, Optimism, Arbitrum, Polygon, Avalanche, BNB, and Zora — bringing a consumer-friendly user-experience to crypto, once and for all.
No more hand holding.
No more “ah, see what you gotta do’s.”
No more getting un-invited from Christmas lunch.
🥇 Want the news before anyone else?
🔎 This seems important:
In one sentence: It feels like there’s a race brewing to see who can create and sustain the most amount of ‘digital-money-ness’ — ETH has the usability, while BTC has the users.
Ok, hear us out.
Given that we just wrote about how the ease of use/low cost of smart wallets will elevate the Ethereum ecosystem, this feels relevant…
The gold market is worth 16 trillion while the foreign exchange market is worth 2.4 quadrillion (2,400 trillion).
What does that have to do with crypto?
Well, Bitcoin’s current narrative is that it’s poised to replace gold, while Ethereum is trying to become that, plus a global ‘money.’
Which has seemed misplaced…until today?
Call us crazy, but now — thanks to the advent of smart wallets — Ethereum has become the new contender for decentralized money.
Not because Bitcoin is any less valuable, but because it’s too valuable.
Why sell your Bitcoin when it keeps going up?
…but to be fair, Ethereum kinda has the same problem.
Difference is: ETH has stablecoins, while Bitcoin doesn’t.
US stablecoins can now be traded via the ETH network for next to no fees for the consumer, via a smart wallet on Ethereum.
Yet, despite the absence of face ripping fees being added to basic transfers, ETH’s value still seems set to scale smoothly, thanks to smart wallets.
The same can’t be said for Bitcoin. Not as a fee generating asset at least — because Bitcoin accrues value mostly because of its scarcity.
…ok, now here’s the twist:
If BTC adopts even a fraction of ETH’s feature set, it’ll likely out-compete Ethereum simply based on the facts that it has more users.
Long story longer:
Right now, it feels like there’s a race brewing to see who can create and sustain the most amount of ‘digital-money-ness’ (it’s a real word, leave us alone).
Ethereum has the usability, while Bitcoin has the users.
Who’s going to win? No idea 🤷
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🔪 Let's dissect this:
In one sentence: Jim Cramer just interviewed Gary Gensler, asking questions about a BONK ETF and Gamestop.
We just watched this interview between Gary Gensler and Jim Cramer that happened yesterday morning and boy did Jim ask Gaz some of the questions we wish we could’ve asked.
Namely: If an ETH ETF has been approved, what about a BONK ETF?
(The subtext being, now one altcoin has been approved for a spot ETF in the US, what about every other altcoin)?
And: What about Roaring Kitty? Is he manipulating markets?
(Which relates to crypto because historically when meme stocks fly, meme coins do too).
It’s well worth a watch (less than 14 mins) but if you just want to know the answers to the above, here goes.
While he skirted around the topic and didn’t answer directly, he did use much softer language than in the past when he’s called the crypto market a “scam-riddled sector, rife with hucksters and fraudsters.”
However, he couldn’t help but take a jab at the industry as a whole stating that “Crypto exchanges are doing things we would never allow this New York Stock Exchange to do,” and “[many tokens] have not given the disclosures that you not only need to make your investment decisions but also that are required by the law.”
Wrt Keith Gill (aka Roaring Kitty), Gaz skirted around this topic too.
All he had to say on the topic was that “Generally speaking, you have to make sure you don’t mislead the public, and that you don’t, in any way, do things in the markets that may be manipulative.”
He declined to say whether the SEC is currently scrutinizing Gill’s trading or online behavior.
So there you have it - Gary Gensler now officially seems not-not-pro-crypto.
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SEC Chair Gary Gensler on crypto regulation and market manipulation
👇 Other stuff you may have missed
Alright, that’s it for today!
Love to the family,
P.S. Want to learn how to research and value cryptocurrencies? We have a framework that does just that .
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