Jupiter did what?

Week in Review:

• Jupiter, the largest DEX on SOL, airdropped its $JUP token to community members. Solana, which has been criticized for network performance, maintained a 100% uptime. Price is currently ~$0.60 or $830M+ marketcap.

• GBTC outflows continue to slow down, alleviating market concerns and hinting at a possible market reversal. Both the Fidelity and Blackrock BTC ETF inflows surpassed the GBTC outflows. Renowned analyst McKenna breaks notes the IBIT vs. GBTC flippening.

• FTX has decided to halt plans to revive the crypto exchange and instead liquidate assets to repay customers, aiming for full repayment. This comes after months of failed negotiations. SBF currently awaits sentencing.

This week was not kind to most onchain alts. The Jupiter airdrop sucked the liquidity out of the SOL ecosystem. ETH alts sub $30M have struggled to gain momentum outside select individual names. The market is searching for a new narrative after what proved to be a bearish January.

The good news?

The worst of the GBTC dump is over. As noted by renowned analyst Mckenna, February has historically been a bullish month for crypto.

And we are starting to see products without token incentives gain product market fit. I wanted to highlight two in particular: Farcaster and Polymarket.

Farcaster

Farcaster is a decentralized social media network that has found traction with crypto natives, particularly the ETH community. Vitalik posts more on Farcaster than he does on Twitter. I have been using Farcaster intermittently for a couple of months and find it to be a more positive and higher signal than Twitter.

Farcaster just released their Frames feature. These are small, interactive applications embedded within casts (Farcaster’s version of tweets). Frames host a variety of content, such as games, polls, NFT mints, and much more. Because of its permissionless nature, many experiments are being run with Frames.

Here’s an example of an artist using Frames to mint generative NFTs:

Usage is skyrocketing:

While still small compared to Web2 incumbents, the energy around Farcaster is exciting and feels similar to many grassroots crypto efforts that have become viral.

Polymarket

Polymarket is a prediction market that is breaking into the mainstream thanks to the presidential election. Prediction markets are platforms where participants can trade shares in the outcomes of events. These shares pay out if a particular event happens, effectively allowing people to "bet" on the future occurrence of specific events.

Polymarket has been going viral:

• They recently hit $50M in volume:

• Trump regularly posts his Polymarket odds

• There is even a $3.3M bet on Michelle Obama to be elected president in 2024, replacing Joe Biden as the democratic candidate. This is something the mainstream media hasn’t reported about. Does Polymarket know something the MSM is hiding? We will see.

Researchers have been excited about prediction markets and their ability to give us “wisdom of the crowd” that is not clouded by the bias we see in today’s media. But it has always been potential until now. Polymarket is bringing prediction markets to the mainstream.

🤑 Notable Raises

• Portal - $34M Seed. Sector: BTC DeFi. Lead investors were Coinbase Ventures, Arrington Capital, & OKX.

• Navi - $2M Undisclosed. Sector: Sui DeFi. Lead investors were OKX, dao5, & Hashed.

• Gevulot - $6M Seed. Sector: Infrastructure. Lead investor was Variant. Notable investors include Volt Capital.

• GG - Undisclosed. Sector: AR. Notable investors include Delphi, Gmoney, & Cozomo de’Medici.

• BitSmiley - Undisclosed. Sector: BTC DeFi. Lead investors were OKX & ABCDE. Notable investors include Delphi & CMS.

• Mode: Mode mainnet is live and they are running an airdrop campaign.

• AltLayer: Releases airdrop for those who staked 35 TIA.

• Polymarket: Gamblers bet $26.4M Michelle Obama will win presidential election.

• Mode: Mode mainnet is live and they are running an airdrop campaign.

• Dymension: Finalized airdrop allocations and hinted mainnet is coming.

• The Game: Interesting crypto survival game launched. 500 participants. Winner receives 50+ ETH.

• Opensea: At one point valued at $13.3B, Opensea founder hints at being open minded to acquisition.

• Ripple: Hacked for $112.5M. Co-founder Chris Larsen claims they were his funds, although doubts have been raised by on-chain sleuth ZachXBT.

• Tether: Reports $2.85B in profit. For reference Goldman Sachs had $2B in profit over the same time period.

• Vitalik: New Vitalik essays dropped. One on the intersection of AI & crypto and the other reflects on life lessons after turning 30.

🫡 Chart of the Week

Eager buyers on Coinbase know something we don’t?

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.