This past week, a highly anticipated upgrade to the Ethereum Network – The “London Hardfork” - was implemented at block 12965000 . . .

There is a major revolution underway in the online gaming industry. This is a dream many blockchain and crypto enthusiasts have been chasing for years, and it’s incredibly exciting to watch it gain traction in real-time, especially over the last few months.

Overall it has been a relatively quiet month so far for Bitcoin and Ethereum. Both of the leading cryptoassets have experienced a month - so far - of declining volatility. Trading volume (the amount bought and sold on exchanges day-to-day) has also dried up. Ethereum has experienced a similar reduction in volatility and volume as well.

This past week the US department of Labor reported the largest increase in core inflation in my lifetime (since 1991!). The CPI – the basket of consumer goods used to measure inflation of everyday items such as clothes, groceries, restaurant meals, vehicles, and recreation – had it’s highest increase in 13 years, led by sharp increases in food and energy prices. CPI inflation was 5.4% year over year in June, while core inflation came in at 4.5%.

Stablecoins are a unique type of cryptoasset. They are crypto coins designed to mirror the value of a real-world asset, like the dollar. 1 US dollar Stablecoin = 1 US dollar. Being able to use these “dollars” on crypto networks like Ethereum means they can be transacted like any other crypto – with speed as well as full transparency and verifiability. This brings tremendous value and utility to the users of these coins as well as the crypto ecosystem as a whole.

The impact of China’s crypto crackdown is reverberating across the Bitcoin mining industry. Before China’s drastic proclamation – making owning or transacting with public cryptocurrencies illegal in the country – as much as 65% of Bitcoin mining power was located in China.

If you’ve never used a wallet to send or receive crypto before, you will probably need to learn soon.

That’s right, your favorite dollar, yen, or shekel is coming to a crypto wallet near you. Central banks around the world are moving forward with plans to digitize their currencies. And yes, the Bank of Israel is testing its own digital Shekel project on Ethereum!

Recent strength in the dollar (DXY index) this past week has put pressure on asset prices including stocks, commodities, precious metals (Gold/Silver), as well as cryptoassets. A large part of the narrative for Bitcoin in particular is as a hedge to weakness in the dollar and other fiat currencies. Last week, the US Dollar index rose by over 3%, a sharp increase for an index that usually has <1% weekly moves.

This past week was a historic one for Bitcoin. On Wednesday, the Congress of El Salvador approved president Nayib Bukele’s first-of-its-kind proposal to embrace the world’s first and best-known digital currency.

This weekend I joined 15,000 other Bitcoiners from around the world at the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami. It may not have been the most well-run conference - the line for registration on the first day was over 8 blocks long and took 2 hours – but it still was an excellent experience with an opportunity to meet stakeholders from across the Bitcoin ecosystem.

There is no denying that lots of people, investors as well as speculators, get drawn to crypto initially because of the “hype” surrounding it.

What a week. I had warned that the seeming “easiness” of the market was not normal; that sooner or later, things would get hairy. 

In today’s newsletter I want to present to you some facts and insights around the recent drop. The best remedy for fear and panic is being confident and informed. 

The event on everyone’s mind is Tesla/SpacEx founder and multi-billionaire Dogecoin-booster Elon Musk’s tweet titled “Tesla and Bitcoin”. In it, Elon outlined his decision to stop accepting Bitcoin as a payment option for Tesla due to “rapidly increasing energy consumption”. He reiterated, though, that Tesla continues to hold around $1.3 billion in Bitcoin, and has no plans to sell any.

"If we have all this crypto stuff in the future, what happens to the US dollar?”  

A simple question, yet a very complex and difficult one! My immediate response to him was to tell the truth: “Nobody knows!”

Ethereum has been on an absolute tear, rising over 28% since the last time you heard from me. It has risen close to 100% since I pointed out the promising chart structure in early March.

What is driving this incredible run, and is it sustainable?

It’s been a while since the last time I talked about price action in the markets. This is by design: as a long-term investor I try not to pay too close attention to the market fluctuations of the day. That said, it is helpful – both strategically as well as mentally – to have an idea of what to expect.

I’ve had many people ask me about Dogecoin this past week, and it’s no surprise. The joke/meme coin went up >400% in the past 7 days, almost reaching as high as $0.50 at one point on Friday and briefly knocking out trading on Robinhood.

There has been a lot of buzz in the markets over the past few weeks related to Coinbase’s upcoming direct stock listing with NASDAQ (scheduled for April 14th). After Coinbase’s recently released financial filing, it seems the buzz is more than justified.

This week we saw Ethereum conclude its period of consolidation by breaking out to make a new all-time-high. I continue to believe Ethereum may be massively undervalued.

Why? Because I do not think the average crypto investor understands what is coming to Ethereum, and the impact these changes may have.

We continue to see very encouraging developments in bringing crypto closer to the mainstream. This past week alone, we had a catchy explainer for NFTs featured on Saturday Night Live(!), an interview with former OCC chair Brian Brooks calling crypto adoption “inevitable” on CNBC, and the CEO of prominent Defi project Compound present the vision of Decentralized Finance to staff members of the Federal Reserve! Let’s unpack each of these events in more detail and why they are important.