Collective Shift – Details, episodes & analysis

Join Matt and Nick as they discuss Bitcoin's historic rise above $100,000 and the potential for a strategic Bitcoin reserve in the U.S. They also touch on the resurgence of older cryptocurrencies, President-elect Donald Trump’s latest pro-crypto appointments, and more.

Key Takeaways 

1. Bitcoin (BTC) surpassed $100,000 for the first time, a significant milestone for the leading cryptocurrency.
2. Older cryptocurrencies, or 'dino coins', are seeing renewed interest.
3. Whether the U.S. government establishes a strategic BTC reserve remains the most important variable affecting the rest of this bull market.
4. President-elect Donald Trump continued to make pro-crypto appointments last week by way of Paul Atkins and David Sachs. Atkins will be chair of the SEC and Sachs will be the White House A.I. & Crypto Czar.

Join Matt and Nick as they discuss the recent fluctuations in the crypto market, focusing on Bitcoin's near approach to $100,000 and the significant rally in altcoins, particularly XRP. They also explore Ethereum's ETF developments, MicroStrategy's continued Bitcoin accumulation, and more.

Key Takeaways 

1. Bitcoin (BTC) failed to surpass $100,000 despite MicroStrategy and Marathon buying more than $2B worth of BTC in recent days.
2. When measured against BTC, altcoins had one of their strongest weeks of the year. The standout performer was XRP, which nearly doubled in value over the past week.
3. The market is every chance to consolidate for at least a few weeks after such an aggressive rally. However, we still believe the market is poised for higher highs in 2025.
4. Hyperliquid (HYPE) executed the largest airdrop to date. At one stage, the median average of the HYPE airdrop was worth $30,000 USD.

Join Matt and Nick as they discuss how Bitcoin put in its strongest September in over a decade. They also cover U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’ first comments about blockchain; crypto announcements from Visa and PayPal; altcoins; and more.

Key Takeaways 

• Bitcoin (BTC) put in its strongest September in over a decade. We now enter Q4, which is BTC’s best quarter based on past performance.
• BNY Mellon, the world’s largest custody bank, received approval from the U.S. SEC to custody the spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs. It was also granted an exemption from SAB 121, essentially making it commercially viable for BNY Mellon to start offering crypto custody services.
• U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said she wants the country to “remain dominant” in blockchain and other emerging technologies. While it is somewhat encouraging to see Harris finally mentioning crypto, we still lack any clear details about her crypto policies would be if she wins November’s election.
• PayPal and Visa each announced their latest crypto offering, a promising sign for adoption.
• While FTX distributions are likely to start in Q4, the process will likely extend into 2025. This story is not as bullish as many are making it out to be.
• Among the altcoin updates covered: Celestia’s $100M funding round, EigenLayer’s EIGEN token becomes transferable, and Ethena’s new stablecoin tied to BlackRock’s BUIDL fund.

The team discuss the Ethereum withdrawals and it's impact on the Market, Further, they dissect the new a16z crypto report, of which gaming is a major takeaway. 

1. U.S. inflation at 5% and continues to decline. Still very high.
2. Ethereum withdrawals are live. We predicted a positive/non-event, it was positive.
3. a16z released a crypto report. Gaming has x23 times more transactions than DeFi. 
4. U.S. legislators drafting new stablecoin bill. An attempt to ban non-fiat backed stablecoins.
5. Apple approves Uniswap's wallet app and Solana's Saga phone to start selling on May 8. 

Timestamps: 

00:00 Welcome

00:27 Markets

04:42 Ethereum

11:11 a16z Crypto Report

14:57 Uniswap Wallet

16:52 Solana's Saga Phone

19:33 Regulation

23:16 Stablecoins

27:40 Scaling

Join us as we reveal the top 5 key indicators for predicting the next big move in crypto! From gaming to developer activity, scaling blockchains to brand adoption of NFTs, we'll uncover where we are in the crypto cycle.

The Ethereum staking landscape has changed. Liquid staking derivatives (LSD) are the hot new thing. LSDs allow you to cover your ETH into a derivative of ETH, while still allowing you to earn rewards. Of course there are risks and there are rewards! 

In this episode, I cover what LSDs are, why you want to do it, the top 3 protocols (Lido, Coinbase and Rocket Pool) and, of course, the risks.

Bitcoin has had a monster 3 months, rallying 90% in 3 months. Whilst most people were bearish last year, we've seen the fundamentals had been really strong although the mainstream were saying otherwise. There are a lot of bullish factors playing into the market now with some tailwinds that should see us push to good prices coming into the halving. I take you through the ins and outs of what's going on and what to prepare for in April.

Our Head of Research, Matt, share the trends he expects to dominate the crypto market in the second quarter of 2023.

Major themes to watch include Ethereum staking, liquid staking (e.g. Lido, Rocket Pool), other smart-contract blockchains (e.g. Solana, Avalanche), layer-2 solutions (e.g. Arbitrum, Optimism, zkSync) and regulations.

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

00:40 ETH Withdrawals

02:25 Liquid Staking

03:10 Lido V2

03:37 Rocket Pool Atlas Release

04:42 StakeWise V3

06:10 Solana & Avalanche

09:40 Layer 2

15:00 Binance Allegations

17:11 Outro

BTC pushes past $30k for the first time in 10 months. Bullish, but it won't last.

US treasury released a report on DeFi protocols- "The Dollar is used more for crime."

Binance continues to face regulatory heat with products removed from Australia. Not your keys..

There is a growing momentum of Cryptocurrency outside of the United States. Singapore, Japan, HK

Etheruem withdrawals should have happened by now. A likely non-event.

The team provided 1 underappreciated news event this week. 

Our Senior Research Analyst, Nick, explains why he covered Polygon (MATIC) in Collective Shift's new Monthly Altcoin Report.

He describes the importance of recent developments for Polygon such as the beta version of the Polygon zkEVM, Polygon partnering with Immutable to build Immutable zkEVM, new gaming partnerships, and more.

Monthly Altcoin Report (Pro Members): https://collectiveshift.io/investing/monthly-pro-altcoin-update-mar-2023/

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

00:37 State of Polygon

00:51 Polygon zkEVM

04:05 Immutable zkEVM

07:30 Gaming Partnerships

08:25 Salesforce

10:10 Outlook

11:50 Outro