December 1, 2021
Introduction
While Ethereum is on the cusp of breaking to new highs and MATIC starts benefitting from the hot L2 narrative, Bitcoin is still in “meat grinder mode.” Will Ethereum keep its momentum going and pull the altcoin market with it? Or will Bitcoin return to the spotlight again, now that everyone has shifted their attention to Ethereum?
Market Outlook
When it comes to “legacy markets,” we got the green light today, meaning that stock markets are bouncing after the severe sell-offs of the last few days.
In the bigger scheme of things, however, the insane volatility we are witnessing across markets at the moment is a clear signal of increased frothiness and “bubble behavior.” Does that mean that everything will come crashing down soon? Not necessarily, since there are simply no better alternatives than investing right now to protect oneself from inflation, and central banks try all they can to prevent assets from imploding. However, be prepared for even wilder volatility in the coming months and that at some point, the music could stop – at least temporarily.
Bitcoin Maximalists Showing Their Ugly Side
Most of you have probably heard of Ross Ulbricht, the infamous founder of darknet marketplace Silk Road, which got taken down by American authorities in 2013. For his crimes, Ulbricht now serves a double life sentence plus forty years without the possibility of parole – really an astonishing punishment for a young tech nerd who made some missteps...
Today, Ross Ulbricht announced auctioning off an NFT to help children who are unable to visit their parents in prison. The shocking part of the story is how several proponents of the Bitcoin movement have reacted – truly shameful for a community that is supposed to promote freedom and inclusion.
At this point, it really feels like Bitcoin has become more an implacable religion than anything else. Fortunately, there are also numerous voices that stand up against toxic maximalism.
Meanwhile, the world doesn’t care about Bitcoin maximalists’ opinions and continues to focus its attention on NFTs and the metaverse…
Set Protocol – A DApp Worth Trying Out
A big trend this year has been DeFi protocols rewarding early adopters with retrospective airdrops. Starting with the infamous Uniswap airdrop more than a year ago, we have seen dozens of airdrops in the last months.
A project worth checking out – since it doesn’t have a token (yet) – is Set Protocol. The protocol has created tools for everyone to create baskets of tokens (aka, indices), a use case that will only grow in importance. With Set Protocol expanding to L2s, its tools will get accessible to many new users and lay the foundation for continued protocol adoption.
It might well be well worth playing around with some Tokens Sets now – who knows if a token will be airdropped sometime in the not so distant future…
Projects like Set Protocol play a central role in bringing DeFi and Web 3 to millions of new users by creating products and tools with real utility.
