Things are a little quiet in the Crypto Twitter space. This week, two big conferences are happening: Permissionless in USA and Token 2049 in Singapore.
I was supposed to make it to Token 2049 this week, but I got sick at the last second. I’ve never actually been to a conference before – maybe next year.
Here’s what we got today:
- Banana Gun Misfired. How the token launch of the hyped-up TG bot failed.
- MetaMask Snaps. The next evolution of Crypto wallets is here.
- Around the Web. Checking if the FTX Fud is real, BSC launched the opBNB mainnet, Upcoming APE unlock, and more.
Here’s your Edge 🗡️!
Banana Gun’s Misfire: Token Launch Gone Wrong
Telegram bots are all the rage. Maestro led the charge months ago, and Unibot’s the market leader. So now everyone’s looking for the next play.
Above is the price chart of a hyped Telegram bot: Banana Gun.
The price took a nosedive after only launching for a few hours. Let’s see what happened.
What is Banana Gun? It is a Telegram bot that allows users to set limit orders and auto-sell. The stats speak for themselves:
- 874 daily active users (pretty good for a crab market)
- Around 16k lifetime users
- 4,882 average daily trades
- 206.6M trading volume
But if the bot was so successful, then – what happened?
They decided to launch a token and raised a ton of money: around 800 ETH. They whitelisted a few influencers and loyal bot users who bought tokens at $0.65 per $BANANA.
Soon after it started trading, the price went as high as $8.70. It was red panty night for the early buyers!
Yet, in the blink of an eye (technically three hours), the price crashed to just $0.02.
Everyone reacted like, “Is this a rug pull? Another pump and dump?”
The problem: a bug in the contract. So, the team removed liquidity, which sent the price nosediving.
The team claimed they had had two audits conducted. So, they can’t be blamed, right? Well… no.
- ChatGPT was able to detect the bug within seconds.
- Scanner (our mini-auditor) also detected the bug within seconds.
- I couldn’t find who actually audited their contracts. This is something to consider when doing your due diligence – auditors aren’t all created equal.
Many influencers promoted this project. The numbers were good. And it looked fine from the outside.
The biggest lesson:
1) Take profits fast on your riskier investments. Around ~500 (out of 800) presalers turned 1 ETH into $17,000.
2) Take audits with a grain of salt. Check to see who audited them.
Some good audit firms: Peckshield, Paladin, Trailofbits, and Halborn.
What’s next? The team is trying to relaunch the token. All LPs, holders, and presalers will get an airdrop. Here are the details of the relaunch.
We’ll see if it can make a comeback. I wouldn’t bet on it. It’s hard to come back from this sort of reputational damage, and there are some strong contenders in the bot space.
Snaps: A Gamechanger in the Wallet World
MetaMask just changed the crypto-wallet market game. I haven’t been the biggest fan of MetaMask lately (because their UX is ass), but they’re innovating.
What happened? On Sept 12th, they introduced a new feature called MetaMask Snaps. Snaps are applications that users can install directly to a MM wallet.
Here’s the plot twist: These apps won’t be created by the MM team. Anyone will be able to create these apps. And once MetaMask has audited the code, everyone can install the features.
Think of it like Metamask = iOS, and now you can install 3rd party apps.
Eventually, MM’s auditing of Snaps will be removed as well. Once that happens, true permissionless innovation of wallets will take effect.
Here are some of the features that you can now add to your MM wallet:
- Access 11 more L1s using ShapeShift Snap
- Swap native ETH to native BTC in two clicks
- Run transaction stimulations using Wallet Guard Snap
- Receive notifications directly in MetaMask using Push Snap
- And many more
We’ve always complained about wallets. “Can’t do this. Can’t do that.” With Snaps, anyone can add the features they want and need. And this will be available to all MM users. MM is about to drop features faster than anyone else in the game.
Will it be Safe?
“Snaps run in a sandboxed environment and use a permissions model to protect your data and respect your consent. Snaps don’t have access to your MetaMask account data. When installing a Snap, you can always verify the permissions you are granting.
Our team and third parties have audited snaps currently featured in the MetaMask Snaps Directory. Over time, we plan to open up the auditing process to create a fully permissionless platform.“
The wallet endgame is to become the crypto super-app: an app that can do everything in crypto. And MetaMask just took a big step toward that. (Don’t let your imaginations run wild though. MM does limit what devs can do.)
Let’s hope more wallets integrate this feature.
The FTX FUD: Is It Real?
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The above image did rounds on X (Twitter).
It shows the crypto holdings of FTX, which amount to ~$3.4B. Yesterday, the court allowed FTX to sell these tokens. And it can fuel the latest FUD on crypto Twitter.
The FTX FUD: FTX is going to dump billions of crypto. And markets are going to be nuked.
To be fair, FTX does hold a ton of crypto. As of January 2023, below are their holdings:
- Solana (SOL): $685M
- Bitcoin (BTC): $268M
- Ethereum (ETH): $90M
- FTX’s token (FTT): $529M million (WTH? It should be valued at 0.)
- And others (see the above image)
The FUD has already affected the market. BTC broke the $26k resistance. ETH went below $1600. And SOL fell 6%.
However, the FUD is just that: imaginary ghosts.
- Some of the tokens are locked up for the next few years. (The majority of $SOL will only be unlocked in 2025-27.)
- They won’t sell these tokens directly on the open market. It’ll be sold OTC. So, there won’t be as much of an impact on price.
- FTX will only sell a maximum of $100M worth of crypto each week. (This could be increased to $200 million/week).
And the market seems to realize this because prices are back to previous levels. (SOL is still red for this week, though.)
🚀 DeFi Catalysts
Binance launched the opBNB mainnet. It is their Layer 2 solution built using OP Stack. Now, Binance Smart Chain will also have super cheap transactions.
Level Finance v2 will introduce an on-chain order book system that will support multiple types of assets. Not just Crypto, but Forex & Stocks on a synthetic basis.
Synapse Interchain Network & Synapse Chain testnets are live. They aim to provide trustless communication between different Ethereum rollups.
USDC is live on Noble mainnet. Noble is an asset-issuance Cosmos chain for the IBC network. Noble USDC will be the canonical USDC in the Cosmos ecosystem.
APE is unlocking 11% of its token supply (worth $46.69 million) on September 17th. Other token unlocks include FLOW, WLD, UNI, & FIL.
Vesta Finance founders, Atum and Midnight, want to quit the protocol. They are asking for a buyout of their shares at the proportionate treasury value.
Thena onchain perpetuals, ALPHA’s public beta is live. They are offering zero funding rates for a limited time.
Friend.tech is slowly making a comeback again. The TVL has already crossed $31.6 million.
Cosmos completed their v12 upgrade on September 13th. The Liquid Staking Module is live on the Cosmos Hub.
PlutusDAO proposed that Arbitrum introduce $ARB staking, and rewarding staking by infaling ARB supply. The reactions are mainly negative.
Binance is ending support for the Polygon Network for the exchange’s NFT platform.
MakerDAO is discussing allocating up to 100M to develop and experiment with tokenized T-Bill products.
Lido Finance acknowledged a security flaw affecting $LDO’s token contract. They’ve assured us that all funds are safe.
ArchimedesFi launched their new version of protected single pools. A way to earn yield with ETH and USDC with mechanism protection to avoid capital loss.
Prisma introduces points system. A way to reward early contributors to the platform. Maybe an airdrop coming?
Cega Finance introduces ETH stakers vault. A way to be exposed to multiple LST assets with higher APYs (going up to~22%).
📰 Industry News
PayPal rolls out Crypto-to-USD swaps. Users can now convert their crypto into digital dollars within the platform.
Vitalik’s Twitter (aka X) account was hacked via a Swim swap attack. It led to the theft of $700k in crypto and NFTs.
Infura plans to release a decentralized version of its service by the end of 2023. For web3 apps, they provide fast access to multiple blockchains.
TFM introduces IBC Earn. It allows users to view and access yields across Cosmos from a single dApp.
LayerZero announced the integration of the Google Cloud Oracle. It is a verifier that is now available to all LayerZero applications.
Franklin Templeton filed for a Spot Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) on last Tuesday. The ETF race is becoming really crowded.
FTX estate is suing LayerZero Labs to undo a $45M deal made in the midst of its collapse. They claim the deal is fraud under the bankruptcy code.
🧠 Twitter Alpha
- Bullish Thesis on Frax Finance.
- Five foundational trends to study in DeFi.
- How to find the next gem with AlphaScan
- Six indicators to check if the crypto market is turning bullish.
- Four narratives to monitor: Restaking, De-AI, Shared Sequencer, & GambleFi.
- The current state of GameFi.
- 25 free DeFi research reports.
😂 Meme
