1️⃣ Bitcoin Worth $1T
Bitcoin rose nearly 10% to $53k this week, driven by ETF inflows, subsiding Grayscale sales, and, of course, the Lunar New Year. As a result, Bitcoin's market cap reclaimed $1T — the first time since December 2021. BTC's total value now exceeds Walmart, Tesla, and Berkshire Hathaway, ranking it among the world's top ten assets by market cap.
MicroStrategy (MSTR), Bitcoin’s largest corporate holder, now boasts over $4b in profit, with its holdings over $10b. The fact that this rally happened even while inflation data was coming in higher than expected is another testament to Bitcoin’s strength and momentum. Who knows, all-time highs may come sooner than we expect. 👀
2️⃣ Starknet token debuts
It’s finally here — the long-awaited Starknet airdrop. On February 20, around 1.3 million wallets will be able to claim their own slice of STRK. STRK's eligibility criteria extend beyond just the L2’s users, with Ethereum developers, guild members, EIP authors, and ETH stakers also available to qualify to claim airdrops provisions. Eligible users will be able to claim their tokens until June 20.
Yet, the airdrop faced controversies! Critiques arose from excluding many due to a seemingly arbitrary 0.005 ETH balance requirement at the time of the snapshot. This inadvertently left out a segment of the community even if they had heavily used Starknet otherwise. More fervent criticism also came from the impending release of 13.1% additional STRK tokens allocated to investors and contributors — nearly doubling the supply within two months. This early vesting for insiders, a rarity among leading projects, caused outrage over potential selloffs.
3️⃣ Yuga acquires Moonbirds
On Friday, Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs acquired Proof Collective. Proof's team and its assets, including Moonbirds and Oddities, will join Yuga's ecosystem, meaning they will feature in Yuga’s upcoming Otherside metaverse. The acquisition further positions Yuga Labs as a leader in NFTS — owning Cryptopunks, BAYC, Meebits, and now Moonbirds. Yuga plans to maintain the Proof Collective, tying it into their efforts around CryptoPunks and the TwelveFold collection, its ordinal generative collection.
With the recent dominance of Pudgy Penguins, it will be interesting to see what this acquisition does for Yuga Labs’s projects and how they will utilize the Moonbirds brand.
4️⃣ Franklin Templeton files ETH ETF
Franklin Templeton filed for an ETH ETF this week, moving on from its laser-eye phase. Like Ark and 21Shares, Franklin's filing mentioned they may stake Ether for income. In addition to Ark Invest and 21 Shares, Franklin also joins BlackRock, Fidelity, and Grayscale in submitting spot ETH ETF proposals.
This filing comes despite its BTC ETF attracting only $70m in inflows, compared to Blackrock’s $3.5B and Fidelity’s $3B. With potential SEC delays until May, Franklin has time to make its case on why we should choose its ETF over others.
5️⃣ Aptos debuts a phone
The Web3 mobile market is heating up. This week, Aptos Foundation announced they had partnered with Jambo Technology to launch the JamboPhone.
At $99, this blockchain smartphone aims to expand access to the digital economy for those in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America — a smart strategy since these regions lead the charge for crypto adoption. With pre-installed Aptos apps like the Petra wallet, the JamboPhone intends to educate its users on the opportunities available in Web 3 markets, such as DeFi and gaming. Given how competitive the price point is versus Solana’s phones, it will be interesting to see what adoption the JamboPhone achieves. Optimistically, between its price point and regional go-to-market strategy, the JamboPhone might make a serious step forward in banking the unbanked and supporting countries ripe for digital transformation.
