'21 Weekly Newsletter: Oct 8th
Bitcoin, Ethereum and Polkadot updates, Monero News, Upcoming Events and a Request for Help
Howdy crypto-heads! Exciting times in the cryptosphere as BTC heads up and pulls a lot of altcoins with it. If you’re new to the letter here’s the intro:
This newsletter is focused on current events in the crypto space, sharing projects and people I find interesting, and serving as a resource for upcoming crypto events; locally in Colorado and larger events across the U.S.
No worries if this isn’t something you’re interested in - just scroll to the bottom of this email and hit “unsubscribe”.
This week I’ll be covering the following…
Updates on Bitcoin price, Ethereum bridges and Polkadot parachain auctions
Monero News w/ the Open Economy Initiative
Upcoming Trading Class and free In-person event
Help w/ finding a used car and a nanny
1. Bitcoin, Ethereum and Polkadot
BTC bulls grabbing the reigns
With Bitcoin moving to test $57,000 it’s exciting to see some positive price action backed by decent volume. While there is still some good resistance above the current price, the uptrend is looking strong in my opinion.
Primarily I am seeing a supply squeeze where the actual Bitcoin in a liquid (tradeable) state has been reduced to never before seen ratios. On the following chart the green line shows the ratio of wallet addresses that have held BTC for longer than 155 days. This means that a large portion of the Bitcoin supply is being held by folks with a tendency to accumulate and “lock up” BTC for the long term, aka Long Term Holders (LTH).
When more BTC is stuffed away from trading we almost always see increased volatility as it takes less money to move the price in one direction or the other. Currently we are in an uptrend so it feels that a bullish continuation on lower liquidity is a likely outcome, at least to break above the $57k-$58k resistance zone.
Ethereum bridges
As a supporter of the Ethereum ecosystem I keep an eye out for data that gives me a good “zoomed out” perspective on actual development and utility. In the latest newsletter from Etherscan.io they published a chart showing the percentage of the nearly $18B of value that has moved through a “bridge” from Ethereum and into either Layer 2 protocols or other stand-alone blockchain networks.
While it may seem counter-intuitive to be excited about value moving off of Ethereum and into a different protocol or blockchain I’m actually very pleased about this!
With the vast majority of stablecoins using Ethereum, I see the movement of value to/from other projects as proof that Ethereum is the #1 “DeFi” cryptocurrency.
As more and more projects prioritize interoperability with Ethereum this action brings more users (and utility) to the Ethereum ecosystem. Additionally, there are likely some great investment opportunities in the protocols that are being used to augment Ethereum, and for full disclosure I should state that I’ve picked up some Polygon (MATIC), Ronin (AXS), and dYdX based on this chart.
Polkadot and Kusama Parachain Auctions
Recently I had a client ask me about Parachain auctions on the Polkadot ecosystem (of which Kusama is a “little brother”) and if it made sense to participate in the crowdloans that are occurring. After doing some digging I realized there is an awesome opportunity with these crowdloans and wanted to make sure my DCG members were up to speed.
So what is a Parachain Auction and how do you participate? Basically the Polkadot blockchain provides a “secure backbone” for other projects by acting as the final settlement layer for the entire ecosystem. A new protocol or project is able to create a customized blockchain (known as a “Parachain”) and then relay the creation of their new blocks to the main Polkadot chain for increased security and reliability.
Unfortunately there are limits to the amount of new blockchain projects that Polkadot is able to support. Generally only a few new Parachain slots are available and to preserve fairness an auction is held to determine which projects receive a coveted Parachain lease.
Polkadot has built a system where supporters of a project are able to loan that project funds in the form of Kusama (KSM) or Polkadot (DOT) to increase the amount that project can bid for a Parachain slot currently up for auction.
To incentivize their supporters many of the projects participating in the auctions are rewarding those who loan them funds with that projects native token, and some of them are doing it regardless of whether or not they actually win the auction!
This means that if you’re willing to lock your KSM or DOT up for a few weeks (the project doesn’t win the auction) or up to 2 years (the project does win the auction) you will be airdropped a significant amount of that projects native token for free.
The downside to this is that some of the projects are asking you to send them the funds directly which introduces the ability for them to run off with the funds or get hacked in the event they don’t properly code the smart contract receiving your KSM or DOT. (Not all projects do this, some use Polkadot’s internal crowdloan system which is much safer and less risky due to multiple code audits).
Because of the long time frame (few weeks to couple years) for fund lockup this probably only makes sense for long term holders of DOT and KSM (I count myself in this group as I own both DOT and KSM). If you’re interested in learning more about crowdloans on Polkadot feel free to email me and/or give these two videos a watch:
2. New Monero Roundup episode
As we haven’t made a video in awhile I wanted to invite everyone in the DCG family to check out the Open Economy Initiative (of which I’m one of the founders) and tune in to our youtube channel.
We primarily post about Monero and privacy related content, so if that’s your cup of tea show us some love!
Latest episode with myself and good friend Csill is out now.
3. Upcoming Events: Trading Class and In-Person
Trading Class 1
For all of you out there interested in trading cryptocurrency I’ll be teaching the first class in the 2 part series next Tuesday, October 12th at 6:30pm via Zoom.
Class 1 Description: If you are new to trading crypto or want a refresher on Technical Analysis indicators and basic Quantitative Analysis this is the place you should start! We will cover:
Setting up TradingView
Support/Resistance, Volume, Candlesticks, EMA’s, Fibonacci Retrace/Extend, MACD, RSI and basic market structures like pennants and flags.
My 8 favorite charts on Glassnode.com that are useful for quantitative analysis plus how to make your own.
The cost is $115 and class runs for 2 hours.
To reserve your spot you MUST fill out this form and pay the class fee - https://forms.gle/xZc3z1nQShdESyjCA
Ask the Crypto Expert: Free In-Person Event
On November 4th from 6:30pm to 8pm I’ll be hosting an in-person event at the Smoky Hills library in Aurora. Their address is 5430 S. Biscay Cir., Centennial, CO 80015 and we’ll be in meeting room A.
The theme for the evening will be “Ask the Crypto Expert” and I’ll be answering everyone’s questions about pretty much anything related to crypto. It is likely that we’ll cover the following as I get asked about these topics quite often:
Crypto mining profitability and sourcing hardware
Self-custody of crypto and how best to secure it
What to look for when evaluating a crypto project
Whatever else you’re curious about!
If you’re comfortable bringing your laptop or other device I’m happy to help with technical questions related to transacting with crypto and using exchanges too. Hope to see you there!
4. Request for Help
While I have a big ask of the amazing Denver Crypto Group community I would first like to state that I want the DCG to be more supportive of its members!
To this end I’m starting a new feature for the Newsletter: Request for Help
If you have a request or need in your life that you’d like to share with the rest of us (well over a thousand folks, mostly in Colorado and near Denver) please reach out to me via email matt@denvercryptogroup.com. I will place your request for help in the next newsletter and invite anyone in our awesome community to contact you if they’re willing to help with your request. Your RfH does not need to be crypto related.
The first RfH is going to be mine, so here goes…
This February my wife and I were lucky enough to bring our first child into the world.
We are both incredibly grateful that our little girl has been perfectly healthy and it is insane how quickly she is growing up! 7 months old and already two teeth, she grabs anything within her reach and is flipping over in preparation for crawling (which we’re not even close to being ready for).
My wife and I both work and the last few weeks have been very challenging for us as our 2nd vehicle died (it was an old 2000 VW Golf) and the childcare provider we’d been using became suddenly unavailable.
This request for help is twofold: If you know anyone who is able to provide child care in NE Aurora for 2 days per week (Thurs/Fri most likely) or if you know of a reputable place or person to purchase a reasonably priced ($6,000-$10,000) used car please reach out to me! You can call or text me at 303.558.6436 and it will be greatly appreciated (maybe even some free crypto consulting time :)
That’s it for this week, stay happy and healthy and I’ll catch you soon!
Much Love,
~Matt