Sup, nerds!

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

• 💅 This is cool: GoFundMe (but for BTC businesses)

• 🔎 This seems important: Major recession fears just hit

• 🤝 Partner: For those who seek unbiased news​

• 🔪 Let's dissect this: Ethereum vs. Solana (Round 5,697) 🥊

Terms used in this edition (click for an explanation, or ask Web(GPT)3!):
Blockchain, DEX, gas fees, meme coins, NFT.

💅 This is cool:

Retail Investors Can Now Gain Direct Exposure to the Modern Day Gold Rush

In one sentence: Thunder Funder allows retail investors to buy-in to early stage Bitcoin-related companies, while those same companies can crowd raise up to $5M in funds (all while staying compliant with regulations).

You know the term ‘picks and shovel businesses’?

It exists because in the Californian Gold Rush of the mid-1800’s, it wasn’t the gold miners that made the greatest fortunes, but the folks providing products/services to the miners.

(E.g. Wells Fargo, which provided shipping and banking services).

Yeah, well — pick and shovel businesses are still generating massive wealth for their owners in the modern day.

See: Jeffrey Preston Bezos’ Amazon, which makes more from its internet services business than it does from its retail business (wild!).

…and we’re seeing the same thing start to take shape in the crypto space, where the sum of the services supporting crypto are producing higher returns than most cryptocurrencies themselves.

Which is why this Thunder Funder crowdfunding portal caught our eye.

Take GoFundMe, tweak it so only Bitcoin-related companies can pitch their products, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what Thunder Funder is.

The platform allows retail investors to buy-in to early stage Bitcoin-related companies, while those same companies can crowd raise up to $5M in funds.

(All while staying compliant with regulations).

The takeaway:

Anyone/everyone can now get direct exposure to the modern day gold rush.

(Not just insiders).

🥇 Want the news before anyone else?

🔎 This seems important:

Major Recession Fears Just Hit (Here’s What’s Driving Them)

In one sentence: New data that showed payrolls were lowering while unemployment was increasing at a much faster rate than expected triggered recession fears, wiping billions from the crypto market in a week.

Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana all shed insane amounts of value last week.

Why? Bear with us as we cook for a second…

Imagine if an aircraft had a five minute delay on any steering adjustments made by the pilot…

(It’d make flying Spirit, or any Boeing airplane, that much scarier).

Weirdly enough — that’s kind of how the Federal Reserve pilots the US economy with interest rate adjustments.

Every time they tweak interest rates, it takes — wait for it…

Eighteen whole months for the effects to show in the economy.

Which means when economic data starts flashing warning signals, it’s often too late, and the Fed can’t adjust quickly enough to stem any bleeds.

Over the past year or so, the Fed has been trying to thread a needle that looks like this:

Weaken the economy enough so that we don’t enter hyperinflation…while also avoiding a recession (aka: pull off a ‘soft landing’).

Which is kinda like trying to fillet a fish with a hammer.

About a month back, we started to see signs that the economy was weakening, though only mildly — which is good if we want a soft landing.

…but over the past week, we saw signs that this economic weakening is accelerating, with data that showed payrolls were lowering while unemployment was increasing at a much faster rate than expected.

With that fear came a grueling market sell off.

BTC dumped from ~$70k to ~$57.1k, ETH took a dive from ~$3.4k to ~$2.6k, and Solana shed value from ~$193 down to ~$130.

Alright, now you know.

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🔪Let's dissect this:

Ethereum vs. Solana (Round 5,697) 🥊

In one sentence: For the first time ever, Solana beat out Ethereum in terms of overall trading volume for the month of July; which is interesting in itself - but what’s more interesting is why that happened.

July is officially over (can you believe it??) which means we can now take a backwards look at what happened in the crypto markets last month.

Today we’re going to focus on a battle that’s as old as t…

Well it’s actually only a bit over four years old - but in crypto years, that’s a long time.

We’re talking about Ethereum vs. Solana!

(Specifically, the amount of usage of DEX’s built on Ethereum compared to those built in Solana).

For the first time ever, Solana beat out Ethereum in terms of overall trading volume for the month (see header image 👆).

Which is interesting in itself - but what’s more interesting is why this might be the case.

Ultimately it comes down to three main things:

1. Branding! Seriously, if Twitter is anything to go by, the number of times we’ve heard people talking about Solana as a ‘fun’ blockchain to build on is straight up weird.
   

2. Meme coins. The undisputed champion of the current cycle’s narrative so far are meme coins.
   
   Those developed on the cheaper blockchain options (Solana and Base) have blown up, while classic NFT projects like Bored Apes built on Ethereum have tumbled in value and trade volume.
   

3. Finally: cost, community and creativity. The more the web3 industry matures, the less people seem to be willing to spend money on gas fees.
   
   Solana is not only 100-1000 times cheaper for gas (transaction) fees over Ethereum (depending on network congestion), these days Solana really doesn’t have any less functionality than Ethereum either.
   
   Plus, the way Solana has bridged the gap between the developer community and the users is something to admire.

While this seems like an ad for the Solana blockchain - it’s not!

Both Ethereum and Solana have their unique place in the web3 ecosystem.

But data don’t lie!

And based on the current trajectory, when we extrapolate this data out a few weeks, months or years, it looks like Ethereum could be in for a rough ride.

Let’s see how things pan out!

Ethereum VS. Solana