Sup, nerds!

Here’s what you’re getting in today’s edition:

• 💅 This is cool: Half of the Fortune 500 is building in web3

• 🔎 This seems important: Spend your BTC, without ever selling it...

• 🤝 Partner: You’ve heard it before… “Don’t beat around the bush”​

• 🔪 Let's dissect this: Base is quickly gaining steam

• 💡 Bellwethers in Web3: Karel Kubat, Union Labs

Terms used in this edition (click for an explanation, or ask Web(GPT)3!):
Web2/3, stablecoin, NFT.

💅 This is cool:

56% of America’s Largest Companies Are Now Building in Web3

In one sentence: Web3 initiatives in Fortune 500 companies are up 39-56% YoY, likely in an attempt to access wealthy crypto customers (in the near term) and save on transaction fees (in the long term).

We read Coinbase’s "State of Crypto: The Fortune 500 Moving Onchain” report, so you don’t have to!

The headline stats:

• Reported web3 initiatives by Fortune 100 companies has increased 39% year-over-year (hitting a record high in Q1 2024)

• 56% of Fortune 500 say their companies are working on onchain projects (inc. consumer-facing payments applications)

• Onchain stablecoin settlement volumes reached all-time-highs in Q1 ‘24 (w annual settlement volumes hitting $10T in 2023)

“Ok, but why is this happening?”

In the near term:

There’s a lot of new wealth tied up in crypto, with very few ways for holders to efficiently spend it.

By adding easy-to-use crypto payment rails to their tech stack, companies can convert more people into paying customers.

We’ve seen this work wonders in web2:

1. Amazon’s one-click checkout

2. Afterpay’s buy-now-pay-later

3. And Visa/Mastercard’s tap-to-pay

All of these technologies made massive improvements to customer conversion rates, simply by making the checkout process smoother.

In the long term:

Crypto payments are CHEAP!

Brick-and-mortar retailers tend to have average profit margins between 0.5 and 4.5% - that's razor thin.

Visa, Mastercard and American Express charge merchants anywhere between 1.29% - 3.29% (+.05c - .10c) in transaction fees.

A $100 purchase using the cheapest possible credit card option, would cost merchants $1.34 in transaction fees.

Cheap crypto networks like Solana charge a flat ~$0.00025 per transaction - making crypto payments 5360x cheaper, on a $100 purchase.

The result: a potential savings of billions per year on transaction fees.

Alright, now you know!

🥇 Want the news before anyone else?

🔎 This seems important:

How To Spend Your Bitcoin, Without Ever Selling It

In one sentence: El Salvador’s proposed ‘Bitcoin Bank’ will allow customers to take out traditional cash loans against their BTC holdings (so customers can keep their BTC, while leveraging their wealth).

This is confusing at first glance.

But dig a little deeper and it starts to make sense…

El Salvador wants to create a Bitcoin Bank, called “the Bank for Private Investment” (or BPI, if you’re nasty).

Which seems counter-intuitive — the whole point of crypto is to move away from centralized banking solutions.

But the problem that Bitcoin (and every other cryptocurrency out there) has is that it exists outside of the current system.

Which means if you want to leverage the wealth built up in your crypto bags, you have to sell your BTC for cash, pay capital gains tax, take whats left to a bank, then take out a loan.

And if you’ve ever met a Bitcoiner, you’ll know they hate parting with their Bitcoin.

The solution posed by BPI is this:

Bank with them and you can take out traditionally recognized cash loans against your Bitcoin holdings.

Allowing wealthy customers to buy other traditional assets (think: homes and businesses), without parting with their Bitcoin, and without getting hit with capital gains tax.

And all while attracting new wealth to the country of El Salvador in the process.

Pretty smart!

🤝 Partner:

You’ve Heard it Before… “Don’t Beat Around the Bush”

If you want to become a better options trader, the Vantage Point team can’t wait to show you how to approach your trades directly and without hesitation.

Imagine your portfolio performance if you started buying weekly expirations dependent on future trends.

Now you can.

🔪 Let's dissect this:

Base is Quickly Gaining Steam with Big Players in Web3

In one sentence: Doodles is migrating its “Stoodio” avatar customization platform from the Flow blockchain, to Base, which turns out to be a perfect example of network effects.

It was just announced that Doodles is migrating its “Stoodio” avatar customization platform from the Flow blockchain, to Base.

(But for now they plan to keep their famous Doodles profile pic NFT series on Ethereum).

Here’s why:

First off, Base has cheaper and faster transaction speeds - but that’s an obvious one…

Where things get more interesting is the idea that they’re moving over to Base because so many of their existing users, and users they want to target, are already on Base.

This is a great example of network effects in action. More people have wallets that support Base > more companies build on Base > and the flywheel continues.

Also, according to Doodles CEO, Julian Holguin, this had less to do with issues about the Flow blockchain and more about Doodles’ vision for the future.

(Cryptic - but intriguing…).

The transition is set to happen in mid-July and we look forward to seeing what other developments Doodles have in store.

As more and more NFT projects and NFT-related companies moves towards Solana and Base, where does that leave other blockchains like Ethereum and Flow?

Too early to tell, but it feels like this might be a ‘winner takes most’ game (just like web2’s social media landscape).

💡 Bellwethers in Web3

"Bellwether's in Web3," is a daily profile series recorded live with Nolcha Shows and Movement Labs in collaboration with Bellwether Culture. Check out the latest video below.

Interview: Karel Kubat, CEO of Union Labs

Karel Kubat is the Founder of Union, the first fully trustless bridge powered by zero-knowledge technology. Before Union, Karel was CTO at Composable Finance, successfully steering the company to achieve a valuation of $450 million.

Karel has been coding smart contracts since 2016, beginning with Solidity and then expanding to Rust and Go in 2018. Drawing from his deep technological expertise and his background in Systems Engineering, Karel developed the IBC Protocol on Substrate (Polkadot) and is now committed to bringing interoperability, security, and trustlessness to web3 - and the world - through his work at Union.

Follow: @0xkaiserkarel (Twitter), @union_build (Twitter), Union.Build (website)