The $16M Alien 👽🪙📈

Valko

The $16M Alien 👽🪙📈 Valko

Specs’ Insights

Alien CryptoPunk sells for $16M, 2nd highest Punk sale ever

⌐◪-◪ → Somebody just bought CryptoPunk #3100 for over $16 million, making it the 2nd largest on-chain CryptoPunk sale ever.

Check out the top 10 largest punk sales → here.

Now the real question is — who did it?

A lot of people think it might be Alexandre Arnault, son of Bernard Arnault, the richest man in the world and owner of LVMH. If you recall, Alexandre recently sold a CryptoPunk, which he got sufficiently roasted for, but followed up with a tweet saying he was shopping for a new one. Could this Alien be it?

While it’s not confirmed, the blue Alien skin is very on brand for LVMH’s flagship jewelry brand, Tiffany — who’s already done a CryptoPunks collaboration with their NFTiff pendants.

If you’re not convinced, check out this tweet from Yuga Labs, which references the Alien Punks’ primary colors and is awfully reminiscent of Louis Vuitton’s iconic Damier (checkered) pattern.

Again, this is just speculation, nothing is confirmed.

Let me know what you think in Specs Chat!

Bitcoin flips Silver’s market cap at $1.34T

⌐◪-◪ → BOOM — Bitcoin just flipped Silver’s market cap at $1.34T, leaving one more precious metal to go — Gold at $14.3T.

If you’ve been reading Specs, you know that I love contextualizing numbers, especially big ones like this. Here is my secret resource for this, which shows a variety of assets (crypto, metals, stocks, & ETFs) ranked by market cap. Very useful context for life.

Up next: Bitcoin will flip Google’s market cap, then slowly march towards the world’s largest companies: Nvidia, Apple, and Microsoft before finally taking on its greatest rival — Gold.

I have no doubt this will happen, I’m betting my entire net worth on it. The real question is — once we pass Gold, how much higher can we go?

Bonus: The 3rd largest precious metal by market cap is Platinum with a market cap of $222B, slightly larger than McDonalds & Disney.

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EigenLayer is now the 2nd largest DeFi project at $11.1B TVL

⌐◪-◪ → There’s so much action happening with mainstream crypto assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and CryptoPunks — and it seems like people have forgotten all about DeFi.

EigenLayer — which launched in June 2023 — just became the 2nd largest DeFi protocol with a total value locked (TVL) of $11.08B.

As you can see above, this puts them ahead of top lending protocols like AAVE and Maker, which underscores the new trend of restaking protocols.

Lido still dominates DeFi TVL at $36B, as staked ETH across the entire Ethereum network reaches $116B, one week before the Dencun upgrade.

Anyway, hats off to the EigenLayer team. If you haven’t dug into the protocol and restaking in general, check out this video explaining — Everything you need to know about EigenLayer.

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Everything Else

⛓️ Crypto & DeFi

ETH gas fees skyrocket, pushing NFT transactions near $400
Staked ETH grows to $116B 1-week before the Dencun upgrade
Coinbase hits Top 100 in Apple App Store for 1st time in 2 years
Solana DeFi trading volume hits weekly all-time high of $1B
Coinbase glitch shows $0 balances again
Tether’s USDT touches $100B market cap
Omni Network signs $600M restaking deal with Ether.Fi
DWF Labs to purchase $10M of TokenFi’s token over next 2 years

🏦 Wallstreet & VC

MicroStrategy seeks to raise $600M to buy even more Bitcoin
Bloomberg mentions $WIF and $PEPE on live TV
BlackRock files to purchase BTC for its Strategic Opportunities Fund
Baanx raises $20M from Ledger & Tezos for crypto payments firm
Stack raises $3M for on-chain points infrastructure

🏛️ Legal & Regulatory

Terraform Labs hits back at SEC over special counsel payment
Fantom pursues legal action to recover $200M Multichain exploit
SEC delays decision on BlackRock’s spot Ether ETF, seeks feedback
US Gov. continues BTC seizures, now controls 1% of circulating supply
Gary Gensler to continue bringing crypto cases after SEC’s recent win
Terra’s Do Kwon wins extradition appeal in Montenegro

🌎 Rest of the World

Binance to discontinue Nigerian Naira services after gov. scrutiny
Nigerian Parliament summons Binance CEO after detaining 2x execs
BRICS to create blockchain payment system to reduce USD reliance
Deutsche Börse rolls out crypto trading platform for institutional
Taiwan financial regulator explores special act to regulate crypto

🖼️ NFTs & Metaverse

Bold Leonidas teases ordinals project

📚 Recommended Reading

Check out some awesome projects and work from Valko’s friends!

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Specs Chat is more than just a group chat, it’s a community designed to help you become a better crypto investor and operator.

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