• Ronin Network was hit with an exploit costing around $600 Million USD

  • The ronin network is an Ethereum sidechain designed to run the play to earn game “Axie Infinity”

  • The Ronin side chain has 9 validator nodes. For a withdrawal or deposit to be recognized on the sidechain, 5 out of 9 nodes are needed. The attacker gained control of 4 of Ronin’s nodes and then also one node ran by the Axie DAO, meaning they had the 5 required. This enabled the attacker to withdraw funds.

  • The parent company of Axie Infinity, “Sky Mavis”, is fully committed to refunding those who were a victim of the $600m exploit.

• NFT Trading Site OpenSea announced their support for Solana

  • Since its inception, OpenSea has only supported the use of the Ethereum blockchain.

  • At times, this has been problematic due to congestion, and high fees that users of the ETH chain often experience.

  • Solana is one of the largest chains when it comes to NFT development, users and creators can benefit from speedy transactions and much lower fees compared to Ethereum.

• BitMEX laid off 75 staff

  • BitMEX was the number 1 cryptocurrency derivatives exchange back in 2019 and are well known for creating the XBTUSD perpetual swap.

  • Since around March 2020, after an infamous bout of downtime, the exchange has gradually lost market share and now sits 9th in the volume rankings for derivatives exchanges.

  • It hasn’t been an easy few years for BitMEX, all three co-founders were charged with violating the US Bank Secrecy Act, just a year after the exchange was charged $100 Million by the CFTC.

  • The exchange has now announced that they have laid off around 1/3 of their workforce with the aim of focusing on the next phase of their businesses. Last year, they announced a “Beyond Derivatives” expansion plan to diversify away from derivatives and bring new products like a spot exchange.

A Look at the Numbers

Its been a weird week price wise, Bitcoin has mostly gone sideways and looks like it is teetering on the edge of a large move. Many are watching Luna and their BTC purchases.

ALTs have been having a great time, there has been lots of noise surrounding Waves which is up 25.3%. Some have accused Waves of borrowing USDC to purchase the token on Binance, causing the crazy bullish price action in the last few months. In March alone, the price of Waves has gone from $12 up to a high of $55.

Bitcoin
Weekly change: + 2.3%
Dominance: 40.9%

Ethereum
Weekly change: + 3.6%
Dominance: 19.5%

What are we reading?

• How Crypto earns 10% yields

  • This is a question I find people outside of crypto have a lot, how are companies and protocols offering crazy high yields when your bank will offer you pennies. Often, even those within crypto have a hard time explaining the reason for high yields.

  • While this podcast mainly talks about Genesis and its business model, the first half of the podcast is great for understanding the lending and borrowing side of crypto and why people are willing to offer you 10% (and often higher) to lend out your hard-earned crypto.

• Intro to Whale Watching

  • With thousands of projects and Twitter coming up with something new every week, it can be hard to make decisions on what to buy. This guide on whale watching is a great start if you want to “copy” the best and learn how they’re using their money in crypto. Its also a good primer on how you can use Nansen and explorers like Etherscan to find an edge.

• Own your attention back

  • This article personally resonates with me. When the markets are frothy, everyone looks like a genius, the shills are out in full force on Twitter and everyone is bullish. This has led to me flipflopping positions and not knowing wtf to do with my money. This article lays out a clear plan on how you can focus your attention in crypto.