Penguin Power 🐧❗️🪙

Valko

1/15/24: Penguin Power 🐧❗️🪙Valko

Top News

🐧 Pudgy Penguins floor hits all-time high of 12 ETH

❗️ Gensler says there’s irony in the BTC ETF approval, and he’s right

🪙 Tether’s USDT now represents 70% of stablecoin market share

💬 Specs Chat

Specs’ Insights

⌐◪-◪ → Pudgy Penguins just made history with a new all-time high floor price of 12.8 ETH or $32,500.

As somebody who’s been collecting NFTs since 2017 but doesn't have a Pudgy, I've gotta say - I'm super impressed with the team.

Pudgy Penguins are genuinely defying the odds, as many of the other legacy “bluechip” projects trend downwards. I suppose new narratives beat old narratives.

For reference, Pudgy’s new floor price is 50% of BAYC and 20% of CryptoPunks' respective floor prices.

It will be interesting to see how Pudgies perform as the broader NFT market comes back, and if any holders take profits and rotate into harder assets like Punks, Ethereum, or Bitcoin.

Gensler sees bitcoin ETF irony in light of Satoshi's mission, says he respects Sen. Warren and the law

The launch of spot bitcoin ETFs is ironic given that it goes against Satoshi Nakamoto's decentralization mission, Gensler said on CNBC.

⌐◪-◪ → As much as I dislike Gary Gensler, I do think he’s right about the “irony” in the recent Bitcoin ETF approval.

Satoshi’s opening line in the Bitcoin whitepaper is, “A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution.

”Key words → without, financial, institution.

Obviously, the new spot Bitcoin ETFs go directly against this mission, putting our precious assets back into the hands of incumbent financial institutions.

But, I still think the ETFs are a net good for the space, so long as we acknowledge the dark side - and slow creep of institutional dominance.

Ultimately - it’s a dilemma of mainstream adoption vs true decentralization.

Tether's market share grew by 21 points in 2023, now captures two-thirds of stablecoin supply

Crypto's biggest company now has over 95 billion tokens in circulation, as other stablecoin issuers battle for its scraps.

⌐◪-◪ → USDT stablecoin dominance just surpassed 70.9%, growing from 48.1% earlier last year, adding $29B in new supply.

The competition with other stablecoins isn't even close, with the USDC in second place at 18.3% dominance, and DAI in third place at 3.83%.

Meanwhile, the United Nations warned against USDT in a new report, stating that it’s the preferred token for money laundering and scams in Southeast Asia.

This feels like a moot point, and is no different than saying - most DUI’s happen in [insert most popular vehicle].

Hopefully, this is just an observation and statement of fact, without a hidden political agenda, but I highly doubt it.

I suppose if they snub Tether via sanctions, subpoenas, etc. - we can all just go long on Circle’s upcoming IPO.

💬 Specs Chat