[Daily] Punks win this round

Good morning! Welcome to The Daily Moon. Not all financial institutions are wary of crypto. Now Mastercard’s network will support stablecoin transactions in, wait for it, Australia. For the moment, it is only going to work in the Asia-Pacific region. We’ll wait.

As of Tuesday, 7PM IST

The crypto markets were largely flat ahead of the US Fed's policy meeting. Bitcoin was cautious on fears of an interest rate hike. Ethereum was bullish with just a few weeks remaining for the Shanghai mainnet launch. S&P 500 and Nasdaq saw active buying in early trade. Back home, Sensex and Nifty ended higher on buying in Reliance Industries and banking stocks. 

BTC The True Gold

Whenever the economy is in trouble, investors look at options that are resistant to the madness. People stock up on cash (instead of stock), gold and, more recently, Bitcoin. 

What triggered it?The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank started it and Credit Suisse’s sale compounded it. Thanks to these triggers, a lot of Americans have started to view Bitcoin as a “safe haven”. That’s the reason behind BTC’s current rally. The token’s up ~14% over the past week and daily transactions have hit a two-year high of 309,500. 

What’s the gold connection?In the 1970s when inflation went out of control almost everywhere, people started to buy gold to protect themselves. Soon after, the commodity’s prices zoomed almost 700%. Now, it is BTC’s turn. 

Since the start of the year, Bitcoin has rallied ~67%. Investors are on a buy and HODL mode. 

Why Bitcoin and not gold?Screenshot this to send it to your non-believer friends. There are two reasons why people pick Bitcoin over stocks:

1. Bitcoin doesn’t face balance sheet issues like TradFi. So your funds won’t be impacted by someone’s bad investment decisions.

2. The crypto token is decentralised which means your deposits cannot be controlled or locked by regulators. 

There’s also FOMO at play here. Never ignore FOMO. 

CryptoPunks vs Bored Apes

It’s the nerd battle of the ages. There is no diss track, there are no TikTok videos but there are camps beginning to form. In corner one, the ugliest Apes of them all– Bored Apes Yacht Club. In the other, the ever boring CryptoPunks. This battle has been on for over a year and now it seems CryptoPunks are winning. 

What is it winning?A share of your wallet, of course. The cheapest CryptoPunks NFT is now selling for more than the cheapest Bored Ape. This is a reversal from what it was in 2021.  

What does it mean?CryptoPunks is gaining in popularity despite not having any of the big stars attached to it. It may speak to the organic growth of the project. 

FYI: The Bored Apes fan club includes the likes of Eminem and Snoop Dogg.

Who’s going to win?That’s the big question isn’t it. Bored Apes, as much as we deride them, are building use cases, especially around games and the metaverse. CryptoPunks is still WIP. 

ICYMI: CryptoPunks’ creator Larva Labs had sold its NFT IP to Bored Apes before starting up again. 

What Does UBS Have In Store For Crypto?

Now that UBS is buying Credit Suisse, will it be crypto friendly? Not that Credit Suisse was particularly known for its crypto offerings but it had a very interesting offer before the UBS deal went through. 

The Sun riseRemember Justin Sun? The controversial billionaire made an appearance just before the UBS-Credit Suisse deal was announced. He posted a tweet thread Sunday, explaining his plans to integrate Credit Suisse into the Web 3.0 world. 

Of course, nothing came out of it, but it got people thinking. 

Where’s the bank for crypto?A few things have happened. Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank collapsed and crypto has risen. But now, with the UBS-Credit Suisse deal going through, it doesn’t look likely we’ll see a crypto-focused bank anytime soon. If Florida Governor and Presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis has his way, no digital currencies will make their way into the financial system.  

Euler Has A Date

It’s a date. With hackers. Remember what happened with Euler Finance last week? Here’s a quick recap: the noncustodial lending protocol lost about $200 million in a hack. It tried to be nice, then asked the hackers to keep $20 million and return the rest. 

New twistThe hacker has now reached out to Euler. “No intention of keeping what is not ours”. Euler has, no points for guessing, agreed. It has invited the hackers to have a private discussion, over a channel mutually chosen by both. 

Far reaching impactThe hack has resulted in lost or frozen funds for 11 DeFi protocols. This means if the negotiations work out, Euler will have more than one blessing from the larger community. 

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Who are we? This newsletter’s ambition is to educate (and to entertain). The world of money is changing everyday and we want to help you decode what’s happening in the world of crypto, public markets in the US and India.