Crypto is back in the game, with Bitcoin erasing all of its losses from earlier last week. As investor sentiment returns to extreme greed, interest in various narratives, such as AI and memecoin reignites. On the deeper end of DeFi, we saw a lot of conflicting airdrop news from protocols that recently dropped or are about to drop their native coins.
Top Story
Friend.tech & LayerZero Continue The 2024 Airdrop Disappointments
Last week ended with two key airdrop announcements:
- LayerZero dropped the bomb on Friday, stating that sybil farmers have two weeks to self-report their addresses and receive 15% of the tokens promised during the $ZRO airdrop, or risk receiving no tokens at all. This sparked a negative reaction in the community, resulting in decreased usage across all LayerZero ecosystem protocols, criticism from well-known DeFi leaders, and instances of users self-reporting for mistaking the page for an eligibility checker.
- The introduction of Friend.tech v2 resulted in a 98% collapse in the FRIEND token price, as the largest whale sold all of its tokens shortly following the launch. Users reported an API failure, which prevented them from obtaining their tokens. The platform was hoping to provide new capabilities to the crypto community, but it received criticism after a leaked smart contract showed the airdrop was non-transferable.
The recent race for the "worst airdrop campaign of 2024" began with both Renzo and EigenLayer having a rough start following their respective announcements for the $REZ and $EIGEN tokens. Both projects were 'bullied' into changing their airdrop campaigns, with Renzo slightly increasing their allocation and EigenLayer promising 100 bonus $EIGEN to over 280k wallets.
More airdrop news:
- Mande Network Took Airdrop Snapshot On April 30
- Mode Network Starts Season 2 With 5% $MODE Allocation
Market Updates
Grayscale Resumes Buying Bitcoin With Their GBTC ETF
After 78-days of continuous outflows, Grayscale's Bitcoin ETF received its first day of net positive inflows. According to StacksOnChain data, Grayscale's Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) saw net inflows of $63 million on May 3. The positive momentum follows an estimated $17.5 billion in outflows since the launch of 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs on January 11.
With its recent purchase, GBTC now has $18.08 billion in assets under management (AUM), approximately $840 million more than BlackRock's IBIT fund. The $9.1 trillion asset manager was on a tear to take the top spot, but it recently paused its inflows after a 71-day run and even experienced its first outflow day last Wednesday. The game for collecting the most BTC is on!
More ETF news:
- Second Largest European Bank BNP Paribas is Buying Bitcoin ETF
- Hong Kong ETFs to Reach $1B by 2024, Says Kraken Indices Provider
Memecoins And AI Tokens Lead The Post-Dump Rally
Similar to recent market recoveries, memecoins appear to be taking the spotlight, closely followed by their AI token companions. While dog-themed coins such as $DOGE and $WIF continue to dominate the sector, cat coins compete to see which will reach $1 billion in market capitalization first. Here is the most recent news that drove some of the gains:
- Tesla Updates Payment Methods To Include DOGE
- Cat Coins Are Going Crazy on Solana Meme Coin Markets
- AI Protocol Render (RNDR) Soars 15% Amid AI Hype
More narrative news:
- Layer 1, Sui Daily Transactions Reach 41 Million, Overtaking Solana
- Coinbase's Layer 2 Base could make it the NVIDIA of DeFi
Trader Falls Victim to $68M Address Poisoning Scam
An unknown trader lost $68 million in Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) in a single transaction due to an address-poisoning scam. Cyvers, an on-chain security firm, revealed the $68 million theft in a May 3 X post. "Are we mistaken, or has someone truly lost $68 million in WBTC?"
Many X (Twitter) users took advantage of the opportunity to make jokes about either owning the victim's wallet or receiving $68 million from an unknown sender. Some speculated that the transaction was the result of 'wash trading' and that no one sending such large sums of money would fall victim to a simple phishing-type wallet address scam.
MORE BITE-SIZED STACKS
Bitcoin
- MicroStrategy Unveils Plan for BTC-Based ID Service Using Ordinals
- Snowden Issues ‘Final Warning’ to Bitcoin Developers on Privacy
- Bitcoin Hashrate Drops as Miners Prepare for Probable Difficulty Drop
Crypto
- Aave Proposes V4 Iteration With Cross-Chain-Liquidity Layer
- Jupiter DEX Launches New Landing Page To Onboard Users To Solana
- Over $175 Million In Total Liquidations In The Last 24 Hours
Fundings
- a16z Buys $90 Million Of Optimism's OP Token In Private Deal
- OpenSats Receives Additional $21M Funding From Jack Dorsey
- Pantera Capital Invested An Undisclosed Amount In Layer 1 TON
Institutions
- Bitfinex Suffers Data Breach, Tether CEO Says “Seems Fake”
- Coinbase Revenue Surges to $1.64B, Yet Volume Just 50% of 2021
- MoonPay Expands Crypto Options With PayPal Integration
Courtroom
- ZKasino Scam Suspect Arrested, $12.2m Seized by Dutch Authorities
- New Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Coinbase By Investors
- BTC-e Operator Pleads Guilty To Money Laundering Conspiracy
Macro
- Bank of Japan Has Used $59 Billion to Save the Japanese Yen
- Apple's $110 Billion Stock Buyback Plan Is Largest in US History
- Warren Buffett's Berkshire Now Has $189B of Cash on Hand
Tweets For Thought
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