ETF sell the news?

Week in Review:

• The BlackRock ($IBIT) and Fidelity ($FBTC) ETFs have led the pack. They’ve generated ~$5 billion in trading volume, each with ~$1B in AUM. GBTC has done ~7.6B in volume with -$2.2B in outflows.

• After the ETF approval and three months of up-only, the market has been selling off. BTC is down -10%+ on the week, and ETH is behind at -8.6%. Many altcoins are giving up the gains they accrued over the past three months. One bright spot is SOL shitcoins which have continued to defy expectations, led by Dog Wif Hat. The coin hit an ATH of $0.36 after being listed on Binance.

• Unibot, a coin forgotten after the Telegram narrative fizzled and hack, has experienced a revival. Since migrating to SOL (highlighted in orange), volume is up ~5X from the lows. Solana having $.01 transaction fees, has made it a home for shitcoin traders.

MakerDao

The meta in crypto right now is airdrops. There's an OG project making $200M/yr leaning into this.

What is the Maker Endgame, and how can you take advantage?

The MakerDao Endgame is a five-stage process to create a decentralized and autonomous protocol.

Goals: Establish growth through SubDao's and grow DAI to $100B in circulation (currently at $5.2B)

Stats: $5.2B in assets (majority in loans $2.4B & RWA $2.4B). Annualized revenue is ~$200M/yr.

These numbers are unheard of for crypto dapps. But while impressive, are a burden. Much like BTC, it has reached a scale where experimenting becomes risky and political. The Maker Endgame will fix this.

Here are the five pillars:

1. Rebrand: Maker is transitioning MKR and DAI stablecoin under a new name and set of tokens. The new governance token will have a 1:24000 token split. Retail largely ignores MKR because of its high unit bias (currently $2K+ per coin). While some scoff at this idea, owning 1M shares instead of 1 is a legitimate marketing tool.

2. SubDao's: Maker is the oldest DAO, but it's too big to take the chances it once could. SubDao's are the solution. A SubDao's job is an independent organization focusing on a specific task. Each Subdao will have its own token (cough airdrops cough):

Four examples:

• Sakura: Beginner-friendly place to earn sustainable yield & explore the social aspects of DAOs

• Spark: Focused on cutting-edge DeFi innovation. Currently, the DeFi lending protocol has 2B in TVL (11th highest in DeFi)

• Quant: RWA SubDao focused on the intersection of tech and finance. Blank slate that inherits the Clydesdale RWA structure ($1B deployed in T-bills with robust legal structure).

• Qual: RWA SubDao that focuses on highly specialized finance such as tokenizing private credit in China, India, & SE Asia.

3. AI Tooling: The current version of Maker faces social scalability issues. The message board is overwhelming. AI will be used to streamline this and highlight the most critical issues.

4. Governance incentives: Airdrops. Each SubDao will have its own token, and incentives will be given out to encourage voting. SubDao's will have different airdrop criteria, but simply holding the new DAI will make you eligible for airdrops. Become eligible for the Spark airdrop today by depositing collateral on their platform.

5. Maker Chain: Free from the political pressures of individual SubDao's Maker chain, it will act as a central governance hub on its own chain. Individual SubDaos will execute their vision on whatever chain they choose.

While Maker could have ridden off into the sunset, they decided to take a chance. SubDao allows startup-like innovation without the political issues larger cryptocurrencies face. We're currently seeing with Celestia what a flywheel of airdrops can do to a holder base. SubDaos could be the next airdrop meta.

🤑 Notable Raises

• Canza Finance - $2.3M Strategic. Sector: DeFi. Lead investor was Polychain. Notable investors include Ava Labs.

• Thruster - Undisclosed. Sector: Blast Notable investors include DCF God & Loomdart.

• Particle - Undisclosed. Sector: DeFi. Lead investor was Polychain. Notable investors include Arthur Hayes & Nascent.

• Convergence - $1.8M Pre-seed. Sector: DeFi. Lead investors were Prismatic Capital & DeWhales Capital.

• Agrotoken - $12.5M Series A. Sector: RWA. Lead investors were Bunge, Visa, & Borderless.

• Unibot: Reaches ATH in trading volume after its migration to SOL

• DyDx: Surpassed uniswap for highest daily volume

• Manta: Token drops -87% after a perceived disappointment from retail.

• Rabby: Popular crypto wallet hints at an airdrop.

• Metamask: Introduces a validator staking service for its wallet.

• Blast: Testnet is live.

• PayPal: Paypal stablecoin PYUSD integrates with Curve.

• Banana Gun: Follows Unibot to Solana

• Lido: expands to zkSync.

• Larry Fink: Goes on epic rant about “tokenization”

• ETH Wif Hat: Arthur’s latest essay describes TradFi dynamics for the BTC ETF.

🫡 Meme of the week

See you next week,

Mid-Curve Team

The Mid-Curve newsletter is intended purely for educational and informational purposes and should not be construed as financial advice. We encourage all our readers to conduct their own research or seek advice from a certified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. Please note that members of the Mid-Curve team may hold positions in some of the investments discussed in our newsletter.