Sup, nerds!

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

• 💅 This is cool: Turns out crypto tribalism is useless…

• 🔎 This seems important: Was that a market dip, or blip?

• 🤝 Partner: Hands down some of the best credit cards for balance transfers​

• 🔪 Let's dissect this: Three Major AI tokens are joining forces

• 💡 Bellwethers in Web3: Nuro, creator of top Bitcoin Ordinals projects

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

💅 This is cool:

Turns Out Crypto Tribalism Is Useless…

In one sentence: Crypto is still in the earlier phases of its overall adoption cycle, which — if it’s anything like other technologies with network effects — will eventually end in a winner-take-most situation (not winner-take-all).

Feeling worn out by the tribalism within crypto?

Is your natural instinct to outright reject that kind of thing?

Good!

This isn’t a winner-take-all competition, but instead: winner-take-most. Which means, if you’re tired of the debate of “Bitcoin vs. Ethereum vs. Solana vs. promising up-and-comers like Aptos” — you’re on the right track.

Here’s why:

Blockchain projects have network effects.

I.e. the more people use a blockchain, the more valuable it becomes → whichever chains can attract the most users, will gain defendable shares of the total market.

Crypto is still in the earlier phases of its overall adoption cycle, but — if it’s anything like other technologies with network effects — it will eventually end in a winner-take-most situation.

Many of the 10,000+ cryptocurrencies will still die a slow death, yes.

…but again, there won’t be “one cryptocurrency to rule them all” — no single blockchain would be able to handle all the world’s transactions.

Instead, a core few will survive and thrive as users/businesses eventually center around them, encouraging further development and extending their collective leads.

It’s similar to the social media space:

Facebook/Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X/Twitter, and Snapchat collectively own most of the market — and fend off competitors by either buying them or straight up copying them.

You can love it or hate it, but in the end — this process makes each respective platform better.

Here’re some crypto-specific examples of feature adoption:

• Bitcoin didn’t allow users to create NFTs or memecoins on its network like Ethereum did. Now it does.

• Ethereum’s user experience was terrible compared to Solana’s. So a bunch of big-brained devs created smart wallets to compete.

• Solana is fast and cheap, but doesn’t play nice with Ethereum. So the folks that created Movement (the hot new coding language behind Aptos, Sui, and Sei) built Ethereum compatibility into it.

Long story longer:

Crypto tribalism won’t make you that much richer in the long run.

It’ll just get you into a bunch of useless online fist fights.

🥇 Want the news before anyone else?

🔎 This seems important:

Is This a Market Dip in a Greater Down Trend, or a Blip in a Broader Bull Run?

In one sentence: Yesterday’s market sell-off was triggered by nervousness around today’s (yet to be announced) inflation data — good news is, the worst could be behind us.

Yesterday was scary.

It’s worth acknowledging!

But while the glass feels half empty in the short term, it’s still half full in the long term.

Another way of saying that is: when in doubt, zoom out.

Cause when you do, you’ll notice we’re still in a long term uptrend…

Ok, now — time for a post mortem: how did this happen?

Well, on Monday, the US Bitcoin ETFs saw net outflows of $65M, bringing an end to a 19-day streak of inflows. This pushed the Bitcoin price down — cause when there’re more sellers than buyers, the price dips to meet that lowered demand.

What started it?

The fire sale was triggered by the market’s nervousness around today’s (yet to be announced) inflation data.

Cause if the data indicates inflation isn’t going down at the expected rate, the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates higher for longer.

(Making our loan/credit repayments higher → causing us to spend less → which hurts the economy → which hurts stock/crypto prices).

Good news is:

A higher than expected inflation report is now partly priced in to the market. So if inflation does come in hot, the worst of the sell-off could be behind us.

Better yet, if inflation is shown to have slowed — the market could rally!

🤝 Partner:

Hands Down Some of the Best Credit Cards for Balance Transfers

Did you know some credit cards can actually help you get out of debt faster?

Yes, it sounds crazy. But it’s true. 

The secret: Find a card with a “0% intro APR" period for balance transfers.

Then, transfer your debt balance and pay it down as much as possible during the intro period. No interest means you could pay off the debt faster.

Check out the full list of cards you can use to do this here.

🔪 Let's dissect this:

Three AI Tokens Are Joining Forces in a Month

In one sentence: Fetch.AI (FET), SingularityNET (AGIX), and Ocean Protocol (OCEAN) are merging into a single digital asset titled the ‘Artificial Superintelligence Alliance’ (ASI) - which could be a big-brained move.

Back in April, community members of three different AI-focused crypto projects - Fetch.AI (FET), SingularityNET (AGIX), and Ocean Protocol (OCEAN) - voted to merge them into a single digital asset titled the ‘Artificial Superintelligence Alliance’ (ASI).

The merger, which was set to happen on June 13, has now been pushed back to July 15.

While it’s planned for a little later than expected, it’s still going to be here before we know it.

So, why is this merger even happening?  

To put it simply, the major advantage of combining the three tokens into one is to have a more streamlined governance process across all three projects - which, in theory, will help accelerate innovation and progress for all.

The three projects will continue to work on their own initiatives, but, whenever there are disputes or decisions to be made, only those who have staked ASI will be able to vote.

(Kind of like if you had a single board of directors for three separate companies; but in this case the ‘board’ are ASI token stakers).

Plus, it sounds like it will bring each project closer together, possibly allowing each other to share innovative technologies and developments across teams.

This may be the start of something much bigger, with the Chairman of the Alliance, Humayun Sheikh, explaining that members of the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance board would decide on new entries to the Alliance.

We’ll file this one under: ‘pretty crazy concept, epic if it works, only in web3.’

Love to see it!

💡 Bellwethers in Web3

The Web3 Daily team just got back from Austin, where Pavan Bahl & Will Gaines interviewed 30 incredible web3 & crypto builders during Consensus 2024.

"Bellwether's in Web3," is a daily profile series recorded live with Nolcha Shows and Movement Labs in collaboration with Bellwether Culture. Tonight (Wednesday), at The Arlo Williamsburg, Nolcha is hosting a gathering to toast the new series.

If you’re in NYC, register here (access code: summerbtc) and you just might catch Chevy there too!

Interview: Nuro, Creator of Top Bitcoin Ordinals Projects

Nuro is an experimental artist pioneering work at the intersection of Neurotechnology, art and the Cypherpunks movement.

He is founder of the Nuro Realm and Blob, top projects on Bitcoin Ordinals where he created the first neurogenerative inscriptions on bitcoin. His artwork “Spike #1” was a groundbreaking 3D audiovisual scene and the first inscription on an Epic sat.

An ordinals OG, Nuro has played a major role in building the community on bitcoin. He established the first ordinals gallery and media lab in SF with Cypherpunk Lab, a mission driven organization focused on education and supporting contributions to the ordinals protocol. Some of the most notable innovations in ordinals have been made through the Lab, including markdown for on-chain publishing, recursive endpoints, 3D audiovisual scenes and manipulating brain data on chain.

Follow:
https://x.com/nurorealm 
https://x.com/bookofblob
https://x.com/8108army