Weekly Beluga Insights

It was another action-packed week for the crypto industry with the headlines being dominated by news of Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao, known more popularly as CZ, would be stepping down from his role as CEO in order to settle a criminal case against Binance. While initially there were mixed reactions, the majors remained stable indicating the market believes the news may not be as dire as it looks at first glance.

Doing their part to bring on the holiday cheer for crypto users, Ethereum’s largest NFT marketplace and NFT lending service Blur released their second airdrop on Monday. Despite the new supply hitting the market, BLUR is currently up over 300% since the beginning of October. The key reason for this lies in their announcement of a partnership with new Layer 2 network Blast, which is backed by Paradigm and Standard Crypto and co-founded by the anonymous founder of Blur, known as Pacman. One of the most exciting features of the upcoming network is that Blast will automatically stake all Ethereum tokens sent to the network, meaning holding ETH in your wallet on Blast will automatically accrue ETH staking rewards in what they call “native yield”.

So why do people care so much about this partnership, and why has it caused the price of BLUR to triple in a matter of weeks? While you’re able to begin earning points for Blast’s airdrop by bridging Ethereum tokens to their chain, you can also earn points by simply staking Blur tokens without having to move them to another chain. With demand for Blast already through the roof (over $230M in ETH bridged in the first 48 hours), the allure of points seems to be a sufficient reason for most Blur holders to keep their tokens and even buy more. As the numbers currently stand, we’re looking at buying and staking Blur tokens as a better option for Blast point farming due mainly to two factors: 1) Sitting at just over $500M market cap Blur still has some room for price appreciation, and 2) The Blast bridge contract is being rapidly diluted by large holders and it may be hard to compete.

Quick Quips: Catch Up on What You Missed

• Richard Teng Appointed new CEO of Binance

• Anonymous Wallet Pays $3.1M in transaction fees to send Bitcoin

• DEX Aggregator KyberSwap exploited for $45M

• Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson gives his thoughts on CZ

• Disgraced FTX Founder SBF keeps up his trading skills in prison

Chart of the Week

Blur going parabolic off the back of their latest airdrop and news.

Did you know?

The now-defunct Mt. Gox crypto exchange was hacked multiple times between 2011-2014, losing over 750,000 Bitcoins which would be worth more than $25B by today’s prices.