GM Digest #206 — Bitcoin's Merlin | Blast Season | Genesis Mainnet
Gm with Valuable Alphas / Insights — Make Sure to DYOR. All of This is Not Financial Advice. Ape at Your Own Peril
Bitcoin Ecosystem Growth
• Bitcoin Ecosystem has gained over 176% increase in TVL over the past 7d, currently sitting at ~$840m TVL
• The huge increase comes from the launch of @MerlinLayer2 whose TVL has quickly risen to $500m, attaining the #1 ecosystem with the highest TVL in Bitcoin Ecosystem
• The rise in TVL & hype is contributable to the recently announced Merlin Seal staking — point-farming campaign that allows users to accumulate allocations for $MERL, users will have to stake their assets and accumulate M-points (Stake $BTC, $Bitmap, $ETH, $USDT, $USDC, and some BRC20 and BRC420 assets)
• 20% of $MERL will be distributed as staking rewards on the $MERL chain. Additionally, there will be extra benefits for providing liquidity onto Merlin Swap, the native DEX
• Claim for $MERL token will go live in March where M-points will be used to calculate the airdrop
Gearing Up for Blast
• @Blast_L2 season is trending closer as Blast gears up to launch its mainnet within February
• Blast has run its Big Bang Competition program since January where projects can apply to win a chance to get in front of the 130k users & $1.6bn TVL. The winners will be picked live on February 21st, earning the largest individual allocation of Blast airdrop
• Top Projects to watch out for: Top DEX @ThrusterFi, Top Money Market @OrbitLending, Top NFTFi @metastreetxyz, Top Leverage @Juice_Finance, Top Perp @Aark_Digital, Top Leverage Trading @particle_trade
Genesis Mainnet Incoming
• @Genesis_LRT will be launching its mainnet today (Feb 12)
• Genesis has been operating under point-gated mainnet for a while. It currently only has ~$500k TVL (due to the point-gated / conservative approach) and it has the Ankr team backing them
• Ankr team is one of the best team at running node validator (ensuring that your ETH don’t get slashed & APY remains high). You can check this by looking at all time APY stats HERE
• This is even more crucial for restaking as the risks of slashing is higher than liquid staking and Genesis has both the Ankr team & also the insurance pool against slashing
Ithaca Pre-Seed Round
• @IthacaProtocol raised $2.5 million in pre-seed funding led by Cumberland and Wintermute Ventures
• Ithaca is a protocol aiming to create a non-custodial, cross-chain infrastructure for options and structured products. Launching on Arbitrum
• The Ithaca Ecosystem includes an Option Trading Protocol, Algorithmic Market Maker, Collateral Optimization Engine, and cross-chain interoperability powered by Axelar
• The Option Trading Protocol features a matching engine that breaks down option payoffs, enabling atomic matching and conditional orders
• The team behind the protocol brings together experience from both traditional finance and crypto sectors, including firms like Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and various crypto startups
• Currently they are running on testnet, and already have a points system in place that started several days ago
Confused Bulls
• @ConfusedBulls NFT collection comprises 250 unique NFTs that dynamically respond to market sentiments
• The collection aims to capture the essence of market dynamics in a visually engaging and interactive manner, utilizing the ERC-404 standard
• This mechanism adds an element of gamification and interactivity to NFT ownership
• Furthermore, holders of Confused Bulls NFTs have the opportunity to join Bulls DAO. As members, they can take part in presales of upcoming projects and exercise voting rights in decision-making processes
Introducing MonoSwap
• @monoswapio is an AMM DEX with it's own stablecoin, currently live on testnet Blast
• MonoSwap's $MUSD is a new type of elastic stablecoin that aims to overcome the volatility of traditional elastic tokens
• $MUSD is over-collateralized and backed by Blast's auto-rebasing $USDB. $MUSD's value is carefully controlled and can't drop below $USDB
• Collateral comes from user deposits, transaction fees on MonoSwap, and Blast's native yield
• Participating in the MonoSwap testnet earns you XP which translates to an airdrop. 100% of the Blast developer airdrop will be distributed to the community though various initiatives
*Reminder to Size Your Entry for Degen Plays and Take Your Principal Out (Take Profits) Whenever You Hit Your Target*