What BlackRock Plans To Do!

One of the obvious benefits to controlling trillions of dollars worth of assets is that when you talk, people listen. As such, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink can be pretty sure of an attentive audience whenever he has something on his mind.

Funnily enough, Larry isn’t usually short of things to say and his latest annual letter to investors is full of clues as to what BlackRock has up its sleeve. Like it or not, BlackRock’s plans likely affect us all in some way or another, even if we haven’t decided to park our hard-earned money with them.

It turns out that a lot of Larry’s thinking has been taken up with the issue of retirement planning (for us plebs, not the great man himself) and how it needs a major rethink if we’re to avoid disaster. Fortunately - or perhaps unfortunately - Larry reckons he has the answer to this admittedly pressing concern. His letter also outlines what he and BlackRock have been doing to this end and thus indirectly gives us a taste of what’s coming.

In today’s video, we go through Larry’s latest letter, break down everything that he talks about and examine what it means for all of us. The chances are that many of you reading this will be voting in an election this year to choose who makes decisions on your behalf. This video will reveal what the people no one voted for will be doing, whether we like it or not.

You can watch that video here.

📈 Crypto Market Forecast 📈

It looks like it’s going to be another choppy week. The only big macro factor on the horizon seems to be the upcoming PCE print this Friday, which could influence rate cut expectations. Although the Fed was hawkish at its recent meeting, chairman Jerome Powell was clear that the Fed will be data dependent and the PCE is the Fed's favourite inflation measure.

Another possible macro factor that could influence the crypto market is the stock market. As you may have heard, NVIDIA has flipped Microsoft to become the largest company in the world by market cap. This has many investors believing that a local top could be in for the stock market, given NVIDIA’s overrepresentation. Share buyback blackout periods could be the real cause.

(Share buyback blackouts seem to have contributed to the last market correction in April, FYI).

On that note, another factor that contributed to the last stock market correction was geopolitical uncertainty in the Middle East. As it happens, the region finds itself in a similar position, with Israel and Hezbollah threatening to escalate the ongoing conflict in southern Lebanon. While there’s no guarantee of escalation, rising oil prices in recent days suggest it’s a risk to watch.

When it comes to crypto factors meanwhile, Ethereum is the big one. As all of you will know, the SEC has seemingly dropped its lawsuit threat against Consensys. The catch is that this lawsuit threat was specifically about Ethereum 2.0, i.e. Ethereum post-merge, implying there could be other ongoing investigations into Consensys related to pre-merge Ethereum.

This would not be surprising considering that ETH seems to have rallied more on the news related to the upcoming spot Ethereum ETFs. To bring you up to speed, Bloomberg’s ETF analysts expect the spot Ethereum ETFs to start trading by Tuesday, July 2nd. Logically, this implies an approval prior to that date, which could mean an approval as soon as this week.

While the approval of the spot Ethereum ETFs is likely to be incredibly bullish for ETH and altcoins, their listing may not be. This ultimately depends on the market conditions when the ETFs list. If stocks and cryptos are crashing and the spot Bitcoin ETFs are still seeing net outflows, then it’s unlikely that the spot Ethereum ETFs would see very many inflows to begin with

However, this does not change the fact that the final approval and listing of spot Ethereum ETFs will be a watershed moment for the crypto industry, and particularly for altcoins. That’s because it will provide a path for other altcoins to get spot ETFs of their own. This possibility will probably be enough to cause a decline in BTC dominance and the long overdue altcoin rotation.

To be clear, this doesn’t mean that altcoins will rally when the spot Ethereum ETFs are finalised or listed. All it means is that it could mark the bottom for altcoin strength relative to BTC for this crypto market cycle. This would be a welcome development for altcoin bag holders, and an opportunity for those who have been waiting on the sidelines due to altcoin underperformance.

Last but not least, presidential candidates Donald Trump and Joe Biden will be debating this Thursday. Given how politicised crypto has become, there’s a good chance that it will be brought up during the debate. If it is, it could be a bullish or bearish catalyst depending on what Trump and Biden say. Realistically though, the debate will probably focus on more pressing issues.

Consider that 46% of Americans are struggling financially. And people wonder why retail investors aren’t here yet…

💵 Proof of Donation 💵

Cross-chain interoperability platform LayerZero has been under the spotlight this month. This was to be expected, especially since many airdrop farmers ranked LayerZero at the top of the list of projects they expected to make the most money off.

After a two-year wait, the project finally announced that its token generation event was going live on June 20th. While a few complained about its anti-sybil strategy, for the most part, everyone was excited and public sentiment around the project couldn’t have been better.

However, over the past couple of days, things have unexpectedly gone south. The primary reason for this was an announcement made by the team shortly before the ‘claim’ window for its ZRO token went live. What did they do so wrong, you may ask…

Well, the LayerZero team told users that they now needed to “donate” 10 cents in USDC, USDT or native ETH for every ZRO token they wished to claim from their allocation.

The donations were reportedly being sent directly to Protocol Guild, a non-profit funding collective for Ethereum core researchers and developers. The LayerZero Foundation also declared that it will be matching all donations up to $10 million to support its goals of equitable distribution, community building, and protocol health.

Calling it ‘proof of donation,’ LayerZero Labs CEO Bryan Pellegrino compared this strategy as being in line with the original philosophy of the proof of work mechanism enshrined on the Bitcoin network. Specifically, the notion of users needing to do something to get something back from the network.

On the surface, this idea sounds virtuous.

However, comments under the announcement post show that the community was largely unwelcoming of LayerZero’s decision to make it compulsory for users to pay for an ‘airdrop’ — typically intended as a reward for user contributions.

The reactions ranged from users feeling like they were being pranked to feeling like they were being robbed. That said, the overarching theme seemed to be disappointment.

For instance, Yearn Finance core contributor Banteg accused LayerZero’s proof of donation of sounding more like a “glorified ICO." Others questioned LayerZero Labs’ decision to call this claim a ‘donation’ instead of a ‘tax.’ Some even hinted at the possibility that the move was an attempt by the team to pocket unclaimed user allocations for themselves.

However, the one criticism voiced by the majority seems to concern the way the team executed and handled the strategy. Notably, the announcement was made a mere 10 minutes before the claim window went live. This left most users with little to no time to prepare for the claim.

Even worse is the team’s reaction to criticism following the announcement. Notably, Pellegrino told users that the ZRO token was “not something you own” but “something being offered.” He told users they were under no obligation to claim.

This seemed to indicate that he expected users to be grateful for the opportunity to claim the tokens. It’s plain to see why this would trigger users. In fact, we’d rank this comment second only to StarkNet core dev Abdel’s "e-beggar" comment for airdrop hunters.

While it’s true that these tokens are supposedly being given for free, the ones eligible to claim these tokens have all contributed greatly to the protocol’s user and activity metrics over the past few years. If the goal is to retain loyal users as they claim, it seems counter-intuitive for the team to make comments that make the community feel like they are the only ones being given a ‘favour’ here.

After all, when projects go to VCs for private fundraising, the number-one metric used to ascertain the potential demand for the project is user engagement and protocol activity. LayerZero managed to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for this very same reason.

That said, airdrop claimants aren’t the only ones fuming over LayerZero’s proof of donation announcement. Over the past couple of days, bettors on the prediction market Polymarket have been causing absolute chaos in its Discord chatroom. The primary debate seems to be about whether LayerZero’s ZRO token drop can be even called an airdrop anymore. Notably, this definition has a direct impact on the results of a prediction market on the platform. Specifically, whether a LayerZero “airdrop” happens by June 30th.

Given ZRO’s price performance ($3.26) at the time of writing, it doesn’t look like the VCs in LayerZero’s Series B round are too happy either. The only ones happy about the move at the moment seem to be Arbitrum and Protocol Labs.

The mandatory donations for the LayerZero airdrop have resulted in congestion on the Arbitrum network and have pushed up its gas fee. Notably, Arbitrum rollup revenue on June 20th reached $3.43 million and net profit was $3.29 million, setting a record high for a single day. Protocol Guild has also been seeing sizable inflows in donations. Researcher hildobby expects LayerZero’s proof of donation to get them over the $100 million mark in total donations received.

In summary, it seems like everyone, except Arbitrum and Protocol Guild, absolutely detests LayerZero’s execution of its airdrop strategy. The question now is if this will result in LayerZero becoming StarkNet 2.0.

What do you think?

🔥 Hot Deal of The Week 🔥

It has been a pretty brutal week in crypto markets and sentiment has plunged off a cliff. However, to take a page out of Warren Buffet’s book: Now may be a time to be greedy when others are fearful.

So, it may be time to consider buying the dip.

But to do it, you will need a great on-ramp and a favourite of ours has got to be the Swissborg app. It offers access to most major cryptocurrencies and deposits and withdrawals are lightning fast.

Also, if you deposit €50+ when giving Swissborg a try you’ll get up to €100 FREE!

👉Sign up to the Swissborg app & see if it’s right for you!

🔮 Video Pipeline 🔮

* Central Banks & Crypto: Are they planning to buy or already accumulating?
* 3 Underrated Cryptos: Three value plays we love!
* Global Crypto Adoption Report: What you need to know!
* WEF Economy: What they are planning for us!
 
🏆 What's New at CoinBureau.com This Week? 🏆

* ZKsync Review: Innovative Ethereum Layer 2 Solution
* LBank Exchange Review: An In-Depth Analysis
* Margex Review: A Comprehensive Look at Features And Security

📖 Quote of the Week 📖

As the bull market approaches, it’s not only important to know what to buy and when, but also when to sell.  

“Buying’s easier, selling’s hard – It’s hard to know when to get out.” - Seth Klarman

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.