We break down the state of the Meme economy and make comparisons to what we saw in the 2021 bull cycle. Memes on Solana have strong parallels to the NFT market on Ethereum from last cycle, especially when you compare revenue figures of the top marketplaces like pump.fun to Opensea. We give our thoughts on where we are on the timeline of meme mania and speak about the impacts memes are having on the broader crypto market. This includes methods of launching new projects by leveraging memes as a more user friendly go to market vehicle to onboard community and then adding complexity layers down the road to not off-put sentiment.
Also, when it comes to marketing narratives memes seem to be dominating the mind share so we discuss how we are approaching $NAT from a marketing perspective. Now that $NAT is weeks away from officially becoming Bitcoin’s second subsidy reward coin, how we classify this new coin is important for public perception. Some do not see $NAT as a candidate to fit within the existing market demographic of memes and rather see a new narrative formed around the coin that distinguishes it from the meme asset class due to its technical provenance to DMT and the broader mission of supplying Bitcoin miners with additional subsidy to sustain network security. We discuss our thoughts on this and also the liquidity dilemma when it comes to supporting Bitcoin assets. All sectors of the Bitcoin ecosystem are facing this problem and are actively working toward building solutions that can either bring more liquidity to Bitcoin from other chains or port Bitcoin native assets to other chains like Solana to benefit from those capital markets.
We blast off 2021 with our 100th episode! If you've been listening up to this point, you're the reason we keep the podcast going, Thank you! On this special podcast we look to the future of Bitcoin as well as smart contract development platforms such as Polkadot. While Bitcoin reaches $33,000 and above there are other opportunities to keep an eye on. We also break down what substrate and parachains are. We also get a look at what could be the ICO 2.0 developing through a Polkadot project called Polkastarter.
On podcast episode 99 we discuss the inevitable rise of Bitcoin to the projected price of $100,000. There are two models in particular that Bitcoin seems to follow and that's the non-linear regression curve as well as stock-to-flow ratio. After 10 months of operation we're happy to announce 3 million in mana processed through MetaZone! Over 2 million has been sent to creators as we collectively build the metaverse together. Fewocious drops NFTs on Niftygateway. Finally Cover Protocol gets exploited by Grap Finance and returns the funds!
Recently we experienced a little dip in the altcoin market in the range of 10-20% as we prepare for the upcoming bull cycle. Fluctuations of this magnitude will happen more often as prices rise. Ripple is leading this epic fall as the SEC gears up for a lawsuit for $1.3 billion securities fraud. On the opposite side of the coin we have The Graph just launching and showing strong momentum. We break down The Graph, what it is, and why they could be in the top 10 one day. Finally we take a look at Inverse Finance, potentially to be added to the Yearn Finance pool of protocols. What's the origin story of Inverse Finance and we determine whether you should keep an eye on it.
When we first started The Block Runner podcast, it was at the very bottom of the most recent bear cycle for Bitcoin. If you listen to the earliest episodes we identify how the $3k price would be the low for this cycle. On today's podcast, we usher in the next stage of Bitcoin breaking the previous all time high and reaching as high as $23,500! We know that 2019 was the year for institutional accumulation and now they're beginning to discuss their investment into the first cryptocurrency. The non-linear regression curve has been a pretty accurate representation as to the trajectory of Bitcoin. Coinbase has filed for an IPO likely tapping into a larger source of funding, coming in at a perfect time at the beginning of this hype cycle. Finally, Microstrategy drops their cash reserves into Bitcoin because the US dollar is a liability.
Episode 96 covers a number of developments this week. In the metaverse, Corona Zombies shows a way to earn NFTs by participating in contracts. Beeple unleashes an all new record for the NFT space by launching physical representation of his Everyday art. Over 3 days, Beeple sold NFTs and their physical representation for $3.5 million over 3 days. Even Iman took part and purchased a an infected Pikachu art from Beeple! Finally the CEO of Nexus Mutual, which provides insurance for your staked crypto, got hacked and lost $8 million.