Finding 100x Altcoins on BASE

Crypto prices may have suddenly headed south, but that means there’s all the more reason to shut out the noise and focus on what’s being built out there in the cryptoverse. One could argue that moments like this - when the tourists are most definitely out of town - are the ideal time to begin hunting for the next 100x.

One of the most intriguing projects to emerge recently is Coinbase’s shiny new layer 2 for Ethereum: Base. There’s a good chance that some future massive gains will be found in Base’s ecosystem and there’s already been no shortage of shenanigans going on there.

Base may only have officially launched earlier this month, but already we’ve seen dodgy meme coins and rug pulls aplenty, as well as concerns over future KYC requirements. In short, Base is crypto’s current Wild West, which means it’s a place of both risk and potential reward.

So, what could be more timely than a handy guide to this emerging frontier, courtesy of the team here at the Bureau? In today’s video, we talk you through what Base is and how it works, and give you a step-by-step guide on how to begin navigating this new land. We’ll show you how to get started, what to look out for and why Base could be a serious contender for the layer 2 crown.

You can watch that video here.

📈 Crypto Market Forecast 📈

It’s too soon to say for sure, but we may be on the brink of another leg lower. The next week or two could decide this. If crypto sees another 1-2 weeks of large declines, then the long-term uptrend we’ve seen since the start of the year will be thoroughly broken. Of course, this is something that everyone would see, increasing the chances of a massive recovery rally.

Forecasting the next week of price action ultimately depends on understanding why the crypto market suddenly nosedived. We’ll be analysing that in tomorrow’s weekly crypto review, but I want to give you, our loyal newsletter subscribers, an alternative view that appears to have been somewhat overlooked. It all has to do with the US Treasury Yield Curve.

Basically, it looks like the stock market really doesn’t like it when long-term interest rates are above 4% (on 10, 20, and 30-year US bonds specifically). There are many reasons why this could be, ranging from companies being unable to afford these higher rates, to banks experiencing unrealised losses that result in restrictions on new lending.

However, the bigger questions are why these longer-term interest rates are rising and how exactly this is spilling into the crypto market (if at all). Regarding why longer-term rates are rising, the reason doesn’t seem to be higher inflation expectations, or higher-than-expected interest rates in response to inflation. That’s because inflation continues to decline.

This leaves one other elephant in the room, and that’s China. As some of you may have seen, the Chinese yuan has been collapsing against the US dollar. Given that the new governor of the Bank of China was introduced to support the yuan, it’s more than likely that the Chinese government has been selling US government debt for USD to buy RMB.

As some of you will know, selling US government debt causes interest rates on those durations of debt to increase. It’s not just China that’s selling either. The US government has also started issuing (selling new debt) to refill its bank account at the Fed. A recent auction of longer-term US debt reportedly didn’t go very well, forcing Uncle Sam to offer higher yields.

Regarding how this could be spilling over into the crypto market, it’s really quite simple. Large investors who hold both stocks and crypto are likely liquidating their best-performing assets (crypto) to pay down whatever debts they have in stocks (like leverage) and the economy (like loans). SpaceX’s BTC sales could be evidence of this phenomenon.

Similarly, it’s possible that the ongoing regulatory uncertainty around crypto has institutional investors taking profits. The Fed’s recent warning to banks working with stablecoins; the Defense Bill which includes KYC provisions; and major market makers scaling back their activity in the industry are just a few of many developments that have investors on edge.

Assuming this hypothesis is correct, then crypto could keep crashing until the stock market stabilises, or rather, until longer-term interest rates come back below 4%. This could require a catalyst, like a war, that causes investors to flee to safe assets (US bonds).

Unfortunately, any catalyst that would cause a flight to safety would also likely result in a sell-off of risk assets like crypto. The only other reason why long-term interest rates would come down is if the Fed starts quantitative easing (buying US bonds). In the absence of this, crypto (and stocks) could continue to crash. The silver lining is that the US government can't afford these interest rates for long. Something, somewhere, will have to give.

💲 Friend Tech 💲

Crypto Twitter was abuzz with discussion this week about friend.tech - the latest entrant into the world of decentralised social media. 

Almost every CT “influencoor” on the timeline seems to have shilled it at least once and data from Dune Analytics reveals that the application has facilitated over 380,000 transactions, and done 9,200 ETH in trading volume since its launch.

So, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to do the research and tell you whether or not it’s worth your time.

If this is your first time hearing about it, friend.tech is a messaging platform that allows users to text their favourite CT creators/influencers. The catch is that it paywalls this interaction by making users purchase ‘shares’ of the person they wish to text. 

If you purchase a share, you get access to a group chat hosted by the user whose share you purchased. If you don’t want to be part of the group chat, you can instantly exit by selling the share back to the platform. 

TLDR: Onlyfans/Patreon but with instant exit liquidity.

Influencers are incentivised to be on the platform, as it offers them 5% of the funds received by friend.tech every time a user buys a share. The more people willing to buy your shares, the more you earn.

But why would anyone buy a share just to text their favourite CT influencer, when they can just DM the individual on existing social media platforms already?

The answer to this lies in the pricing model used by the platform for its buying and selling of shares. To be precise, the friend.tech uses a bonding curve pricing model, that increases the price of a share the more people buy it, and decreases it the more people sell it. The platform also announced a points-based, six-month-long airdrop program for its users.

This creates a sort of pseudo-gambling den, where users are incentivised to bet frequently on the popularity of certain CT influencers.

If you remember BitClout, you’re already familiar with this concept. BitClout saw brief popularity during the last bull run, raising over $200 million from major VCs such as a16z and Winklevoss Capital, before fading into oblivion.

The difference between BitClout and friend.tech is that BitClout already featured tokenized shares of every influencer profile on the planet, whereas friend.tech takes an opt-in approach to featuring influencers on its platform. We’ve already seen big CT influencers such as Cobie, Hsaka, gainzy and Kaleo announce their presence there.

Speaking of ‘shares’, if the SEC is reading this, please be informed that the ‘shares’ on the friend.tech platform are more akin to payment-gated communities found on platforms like Onlyfans and Patreon, rather than the ‘shares’ issued by companies. Spare us another securities lawsuit, Gary.

That said, how safe is all this? Well… not very. There are a bunch of red flags with the project, the biggest of which are the platform’s shady origins and lack of a privacy policy. 

The app was created by the same team who made StealCam and TweetDAO. TweetDAO has already had its Twitter account banned and its OpenSea page removed. StealCam also has had its Twitter account closed and it rebranded to friend.tech after its short lifespan came to an end.

What’s even more alarming is that the friend.tech website has very little information on the project, no roadmap, founder info, or any sort of whitepaper. As for privacy, friend.tech collects user information relating to their funding wallet addresses, Twitter profiles and email addresses, but it has no working privacy policy that details how it uses this data or safeguards it! 

So be wary of scammers - Coin Bureau has never and will never create a profile on the platform.

Having said that, the most beautiful thing about crypto is that there is always something new and promising coming along the pipe. The tragedy is that almost all of these new things tend to die - some because they’re scams, some because they’re too early, some because they’re too late, and some just… because.

But, for those of us who’ve been in this space long enough, our hopes still lie with the belief that some of these ‘metas’ in crypto are but a part of the learning journey helping build a better future for the industry. A future where decentralisation, security and social utility all co-exist in perfect harmony.

🇸🇬 See You in Singapore 🇸🇬

We’re excited to announce Coin Bureau’s upcoming media partnership with the TOKEN2049 conference in Singapore.

Guy and a few other members of Team Coin Bureau will be flying to Singapore to attend the conference, conduct interviews with some of the leading speakers there, and meet some of you.

TOKEN2049 is scheduled for 13th - 14th September 2023, at Marina Bay Sands.

If you're interested in attending TOKEN2049, we have an exclusive discount available. We've secured a 10% discount on conference tickets for the Coin Bureau community. You can sign up here 👉 TOKEN2049 Discount

In the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing more information about our schedule during the conference, so be sure to keep an eye out for updates.

We're looking forward to meeting as many of you there as possible!

📊 Personal Portfolio 📊

BTC 36.04% | ETH 30.43% | USDC 18.59% | USDT 7.43% | USD 3.76% | ATOM 2.61% | DOT 1.15%

🔥 Deal of The Week 🔥

Trading these markets is not for the faint of heart. But, extreme volatility can provide traders with unique opportunities.  

If you are looking to take advantage of these conditions, then you are going to need a top tier exchange to place those trades. One of the best that we can recommend is Bitget. 

The Coin Bureau is currently running a $15k trading competition exclusive for the viewers of our channel.

On top of that, we have also managed to secure our users a 20% fee discount as well as almost $40,000 in Bonus airdrops!

👉 Give Bitget a try and secure all those goodies!

🔮 Video Pipeline 🔮

• Crypto Wallet Security Report: Startling revelations?
• X Crypto Payments: What Elon is Planning! 
• PayPal’s New Stablecoin: Worth It?
• FATF Travel Rule Update: What you need to know!
• Messari crypto report: What to look out for?
• The Bitcoin War: Has the takeover begun?

🏆 What's New At CoinBureau.com This Week? 🏆

✅ An End to the Bear Market: When Could Crypto Recover?
✅ Crypto Tax Haven: How to Set Up a Company in Dubai
✅ How Polygon's Partnerships are Shaping the Future of Matic
✅ Bitget Exchange Fees: A Detailed Overview
✅ Arbitrum vs Optimism, ZkSync & Base: What is the Best Ethereum Layer 2?
✅ How to Buy Bitcoin on OKX
✅ TOKEN2049: Set to Be Largest Web3 Event in the World!

📖 Quote of the Week 📖

The greatest enemy to your success in the crypto market often isn’t the whales, the SEC or the Fed - it’s you yourself. Our impulses lead us into making suboptimal investing decisions based purely on emotion. If you can resist these short-term impulses in favour of the long-term hodl, time will reward you.  

“Time is your friend; impulse is your enemy” - John C. Bogle

Team Coin Bureau

Disclosure: Authors may own cryptoassets named in this newsletter. These are unqualified opinions, and a Coin Bureau newsletter, is meant for informational purposes only. It is not meant to serve as investment advice. Please consult with your investment, tax, or legal advisor.