In the Top 500, DeFi is keeping the industry's sanity levels high as a real narrative that's going strong. Nonetheless, it is still meme season evidently.

SRC-20 vs Runes: who's the real innovator?

SRC-20 is a lesser-known standard that also aimed to expand Bitcoin’s utility, like BRC-20, Runes, etc. Both Runes and SRC-20 leverage Bitcoin’s UTXO model, but differ in approach. Who was first? What happened?

Full article: https://thoughts.simplicitygroup.xyz/p/src-20-v-runes

Project launches are still in the low ROIs, but is it because of the market preference towards high floats? We'll explore next week.

VCs have been busy.

Does crypto value fundamentals?

Everyone knows that crypto is speculative, but just how speculative is it? We explored the hottest narratives to understand whether the industry values real usage or speculative trends. The disparity is incredible.

Full article: https://thoughts.simplicitygroup.xyz/p/speculation

How memecoins work 😂😂😂

🤝 We're proud to be working with
DLC.Link 🤝

Bitcoin has been gaining traction outside of just a store of value. With many searching to add utility to $BTC, the simplest way of doing so is by allowing the use of $BTC on other chains. Wrapping BTC currently allows for this but is it a suitable solution?

❌ Problem
The main provider, WrappedBTC, is a centralised entity that comes with huge counterparty risks - blackbox, censorship, regulatory, capital - and takes ~24hrs to complete requests.

✅ Solution
DLC.Link introduces a self-custodial model utilising Discreet Log Contracts (DLCs).

What are DLCs
DLCs function as escrow contracts between two parties, a special multisig if you will. This DLC is between the entity that wants to lock up their $BTC and our smart contract code.

🚀 Why we're bullish
DLC.Link brings liquidity to holders in a safe and fast manner. Having already garnered great institutional traction with investment from the likes of OKX Ventures, Animoca Brands, ABCDE, Foresight Ventures, Comma3 Ventures, and many more 👀

We look forward to seeing what's next for 👏

Whilst over the last couple of months other narratives were in the fight, this week the memes have completely dominated.

If we exclude memes, we have the following 5 projects. GameFi coming strong, as we keep saying, followed by Infrastructure, with DeFi making the list as usual.

We are excited to announce our partnership with AI TECH Labs, an innovative company dedicated to creating an easier and safer future through Artificial Intelligence as a Service (AIaaS) and Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) protocols!

This partnership will help provide our clients with access to a leading launchpad, and our investment syndicate with opportunities to participate in high-demand deals.

Looking forward to what's to come 🥂🍾

Over the last 6 months, Solana has been dominating Ethereum despite its market cap being significantly smaller - $ETH's $462Bn to $SOL's $79Bn.

(In the 2 days since the graphic was made, SOL's MC grew from $74Bn to $79Bn)

Did PoS kill Ethereum?

The concentration of staking power on a central provider like Lido poses a serious threat to Ethereum’s security and decentralization.

Buterin’s opinion on liquid staking is very clear: while liquid staking has democratized access to staking, the associated centralization risks must be addressed to preserve Ethereum’s decentralization and security above all.

Vitalik also shares the concerns. He recognized that while innovations in the network provide significant benefits, many times they can also pose risks that need to be mitigated.

He proposes a balanced approach, such as enhancing the governance rights of smaller stakers and exploring protocol changes that distribute power more evenly across the network.

Full article: https://thoughts.simplicitygroup.xyz/p/eth

Highlighting a solid project, SuperSight, building crypto-specific Large Language Models (LLMs) to streamline the crypto data discovery process.

Are we back?

Last week the top 5 ROI was 2.3-2.9x, now it's 1.6-3.8x.

So, whilst this week the max is higher, the min is lower, which implies this week was much more skewed towards the top few projects.

The Sandbox raising $20M at a $1Bn val whilst having 124 UAW is incredible.

Some upcoming IDOs. Keep your eyes peeled ✅

According to The Block, Solana's average daily transactions is around 30M nowadays, and Ethereum's is about 1M.

The chart looks quite amusing.

More data

The market is diverse, relatively, but still pretty shabby overall, with the 5th best performing coin only growing by 25%.

The average ticket sizes for some of the most popular launchpads are key to know for any startups looking to raise.

Stop looking at the FDMC

FDMC is a derivative of price in a vacuum, whereas MC is a derivative of buy pressure.

Whilst the FDMC is useful for many things, inferring the current value behind a project is not one of them.

Full article: https://thoughts.simplicitygroup.xyz/p/mc-vs-fdmc