Sup, nerds!

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

• 💅 This is cool: The future of shopping (in web3)

• 🔎 This seems important: 9 straight days of wins for crypto!

• 🤝Partner: This is what we need to take crypto mainstream​

• 🔪 Let's dissect this: Could Telegram become the next super app?

Terms used in this edition (click for an explanation, or ask Web(GPT)3!):
Market cap.

💅 This is cool:

The Future of Shopping (In Web3)

In one sentence: Phygital (digital/physical) tech has the potential to solve some painful real-world problems in online retail: user-generated content marketing and returns.

Remember all the hype around ‘phygital’ (digital/physical) products?

(It’d make sense if you’d forgotten — it’s been a hot minute since anyone talked about it).

But it’s something we’ve been quietly following for a while now.

Cause we ran a clothing brand for the better part of six years, and believe us when we tell you, we spent most of our time doing these two things:

1. Trying to get folks to post photos of themselves wearing our stuff.

2. Dealing with returns.

What does this have to do with ‘phygital’ technology?

First: incentivizing customers and influencers to post our clothes was a long, time-delayed process, which went often went something like this…

• Reach out to them with an incentive (discounts for customers, free clothes/payments for influencers)…wait…

• Send the items and follow up once the tracking said they’d arrived

• Follow up again

• Get the photos

• Post ’em

With phygital tech, a new, fully automated method is becoming plausible:

Collect emails → Put them into an automated drip sequence with an incentive → With a click of a button, the customer/influencer can take a photo, have AI overlay the clothing on them digitally, and collect their payment in crypto.

Then * ping * you get a notification on your phone saying you have new user-generated content to schedule.

And as for the returns issue, that’s way more simple:

If customers can reliably try on your items, checking for size, and pairing with their existing closet — you’re going to have customers that are much more certain of their purchase.

And if you’re wondering where our renewed excitement on the phygital space has come from — blame the team over at Myosin.

They just compiled a free research report that lays out the future being promised by phygital tech (covering things far, far beyond our selfish desires).

Want to read it? Say no more.

🥇 Want the news before anyone else?

🔎 This seems important:

$2 Billion Has Entered the Market in the Past 9 Trading Days!

In one sentence: From Jul 5th-17th (not including weekends), roughly $2B flowed into the Bitcoin ETFs, moving the price per BTC up a cool $11k in the process.

If you were wondering where the new uptick in crypto prices has come from, this is a major reason:

From July 5th - July 17th (not including weekends), roughly $2B flowed into the Bitcoin ETFs.

(And when Bitcoin moves, so does the rest of the crypto market).

This current streak is the longest we’ve seen in more than a month, back when inflows were positive for 19 days, between May 13 and Jun 7.

In that time, Bitcoin moved from ~$63k to ~$71k, which read like much more impressive numbers — but don’t let them fool you!

Last month’s run saw about an $8k move in price per BTC from top to bottom.

In this latest run up, we’ve moved from ~$54k to ~$65k — clocking a (rough) $11k move up in price per BTC in half the time, and adding $230B to Bitcoin’s market cap in the process.

Cool, so what’s the takeaway?

Sure, we moved from ~$71k to ~$54k over a two month period, but the latest recovery has been much faster, and covered more ground.

This increased momentum from buyers indicates greater trust in the near-term future of the market, which should mean more price resilience in the coming months.

All of which should translate to less stressing over our portfolios, and better nights sleeps.

(Thank god).

🤝 Partner:

This Is What We Need To Take Crypto Mainstream

DeFi has a problem:

Risk assessment.

DeFi’s open nature is its greatest strength, but also its greatest vulnerability. 

Anyone can release code on blockchains, and many projects grow before they are fully vetted. 

(E.g. Terra’s UST stablecoin grew tremendously before people looked into its wonky architecture).

This exposes investors to countless risks: 

• Rug pulls (a smart contract is changed after you’ve already invested) 

• Bugs in smart contracts (code isn’t written correctly) 

• Scams (contracts with backdoors to steal your money) 

• Hacks (hackers break into systems and steal funds)

Identifying and keeping track of all these risks is near impossible, even for savvy DeFi investors.

Exponential.fi has tackled DeFi risk head-on by building products that make it easy for investors to assess risk, including:

👉 Rate My Wallet – which instantly analyzes the risk of DeFi portfolios.

and 

👉 Exponential Risk Ratings – which distill thousands of risk vectors into a simple letter grade. 

And it works! 

To date, Exponential.fi has assessed over 1,000 investable DeFi opportunities and identified over $8 billion of funds still invested in high-risk projects.

If you’re ready to start exploring DeFi opportunities via a simplified, all-in-one platform, join Exponential.fi free, by clicking the big red button below 👇

🔪Let's dissect this:

Could Telegram Become The Next Super App?

In one sentence: Yesterday a core developer from The Open Network (TON) said that Telegram mini-apps are about to become far more complex mainly due to the new integration with USDT.

China’s WeChat app is insane.

It started as a mere messaging app using wifi (a la Whatsapp) and then grew to include video conferencing, games, payments, location sharing, and a ton of other features.

(Amassing a staggering 1B monthly active users in the process)!

At this point you’re probably thinking: “Is WeChat about to add crypto payments?” which is a good guess…we do tend to write about crypto in pretty much every single article we write.

But no - our point is not so much about WeChat as it is about 'Super Apps.’

Here’s what we’re on about:

You know how that Telegram (TG) game, Hamster Kombat, now has over 250M active users?

Well, turns out TG is taking an eerily similar path to that of WeChat’s (although WeChat was founded back in 2010).

Hamster Kombat is technically a ‘mini-app’ within TG. And just yesterday a core developer from The Open Network (TON) said that TG mini-apps are about to become far more complex.

This is due to two major factors:

Firstly, it’s becoming easier to develop TG mini-apps; and developers have been able to see the success of games like Hamster Kombat which leveraged the existing ecosystem of over 900M TG users.

Secondly (and this is the big one in our eyes), TON just integrated with the stablecoin, USDT - which means companies can now offer digital goods and services using crypto which is pegged to the USD.

Plus, unlike Apple which charges a 30% fee for in-app purchases, TG doesn’t charge a thing.

Cool, so, who’s ready to make a mini-app?

Build a Notcoin Telegram Mini App in 30 Minutes