⚡Ethereum Foundation sells?
Plus Arbitrum grants, Filecoin to benefit from AI boom, and more
The Dynamo DeFi newsletter covers the most interesting stats, trends, and tools in crypto each week.
📈Trends and Narratives
Arbitrum Grants Breathe New Life into Ecosystem
After taking center stage for the latter part of 2022 and first part of 2023, Arbitrum had lost attention recently. That’s poised to shift with the rollout of Arbitrum grants, which will see 50M ARB tokens injected into the ecosystem.
0xFinish lays out some protocols that could benefit:
DeFi Made Here goes through the ARB grant proposals that are already active:
Filecoin to Benefit from AI Boom?
Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX, wrote an in-depth piece with his macro and tech predictions for the next few years and why they’ve led him to invest in Filecoin. His predictions can be summed up as follows:
The next 2-3 years will see the largest money printing in history.
Software moats in AI are extremely difficult to defend, so most value will accrue to hardware providers.
AI will prefer decentralized infrastructure systems as they can’t be shut off by a human operator.
As a decentralized data storage with several years of history, Filecoin has some Lindy-ness
Meanwhile, Filecoin’s DeFi ecosystem has started to take shape. Filecoin’s TVL has been up only since April and currently sits at $84M. Nearly all of this is in liquid staking; however, this is the first step towards unlocking more value from staked FIL.
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🔢On-Chain Analysis
SocialFi Apps Punch Above Weight in Fees
The top 10 ranking of DeFi fees this week included both friend.tech and the new app Stars Arena. This is another iteration in the quest to find viable on-chain businesses. Much of the fees as of now come from airdrop farmers hunting a future airdrops and speculators flipping keys (similar to the days of NFT-flipping on OpenSea). If these dapps can find lasting product-market-fit with users paying for access to key owners.
(Note that Stars Arena has since been exploited and, while they allegedly have a plan to recover user funds, as of now deposits are gone).
Ethereum Foundation Sells 1,700 ETH
Today, the Ethereum Foundation sold 1,700 ETH. While, this sale isn’t that much in the scheme of things and could have been made for several reasons, it’s worth taking note of for several reasons:
Given ongoing geopolitical events, there’s the narrative for a significant pullback
The Ethereum foundation has a good history of selling near local tops.
🛠️Tool Spotlight
Avoid Scams with RugDoc
Scams, rugs,and hacks are rampant in DeFi. RugDoc is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal in avoiding these scams. They keep a database of small projects with easy-to-read risk-ratings and red flags.
They also have other useful tools, such as their Emergency Withdraw tool and Revoke Permissions tool.
📅Key Events This Week
Prepare for the Next Bull Market with Double Your DeFi This Fall
My friend The DeFi Edge and I are teaching another cohort of our Double Your DeFi course this November. This is an intensive course to transform your DeFi skills in 5 weeks.
I secured a $300 discount for the first 5 people that sign up from my email list.
Use the coupon code: DynamoDeFi
That’s all for this week. For more frequent content, follow me on Twitter and YouTube.
Until next time,
Patrick Scott
Dynamo DeFi