I feel like it's 2021 again

You’ll learn a lot, trust me:

• Bitcoin ATH - The “digital gold” just smashed through $119k, and the market is giving me that early 2021 NFT-phase tingly feeling again

• Pump.fun Madness - $500M raised in 12 minutes for a memecoin launchpad. I break down what this means (and if it's sustainable)

• Snoop's Telegram NFT - The OG is back in the NFT game with a Telegram drop that's getting serious attention

• Stablecoin Revolution - How to actually make money in the stablecoin boom (hint: it's not by holding stables)

• Solana Superteam Germany - The time Quinn, June and I competed against each other (spoiler: I didn't win)

• AllUnity's EMI License - Germany just took a major step forward in European crypto regulation with the first BaFin-licensed Euro stablecoin

GM! I am back in Berlin, back at w3.hub and back on crypto charts.

This week gave me that tingling feeling again, just like my early 2021 NFT phase. That moment when there's so much money flowing into digital assets and crypto that you have to pinch yourself.

That's how it felt for me between a bitcoin all-time high, pump.fun raising millions in minutes, and Snoop Dogg's Telegram NFT - all while watching Joseph Lubin talking about Ethereum on CNBC and others celebrating stablecoin licenses in Germany.

Sounds pretty bullish, doesn't it?

I've been taking notes throughout the week, so don't worry as I got you cc'd.

• Bitcoin just casually hit a new all-time high of around $119k, and when these milestones happen, I get that same "I knew it all along" feeling that flows through your body. While alts aren't quite where they were in their glory days, it feels like we just celebrated Bitcoin cracking $100k last week (we didn't - that's how fast things move here).

• ETH is making moves too. Joseph Lubin was on CNBC talking about Ethereum's treasury strategy, positioning Ethereum as the backbone of financial system 2.0. As he explained on a recent Bankless panel, we're witnessing a "massive race to accumulate high-powered money" with Ether and Bitcoin being the highest-powered money because they're "permissionless and uncensorable." With stablecoins becoming increasingly essential, Ethereum stands to benefit massively as the primary settlement layer.

• Speaking of stablecoins, we're celebrating a major breakthrough right here in Germany. AllUnity (a joint venture between DWS Group, Flow Traders, and Galaxy) just secured an EMI license from BaFin to launch Germany's first fully regulated Euro stablecoin, EURAU. This is a massive regulatory milestone showing Germany's leadership in European crypto regulation. AllUnity hosted a stablecoin day during Berlin Blockchain Week at w3.hub, and we're planning similar themed events in the near feature - hit me up if you have ideas.

• Meanwhile, Snoop Dogg continues to be as essential to Web3 as our friends from Solana Superteam Germany are to the w3.hub. The man has been deep in the NFT game since my early days, and his latest Telegram NFT collection on the TON blockchain sold out almost instantly. The collection featured 1,000 NFTs at 500 Toncoin each (about $7,500), showing once again that Snoop knows how to make waves in the digital asset space.

And, guys, there is also a cringe song.

• Other bullish signals? Coinbase partnering with Perplexity, Revolut selecting French protocol Morpho to power a new DeFi yield product, and NEAR Intents seeing explosive growth with daily volume jumping from around $1.5 million pre-June to a peak of $24 million.

Everyone's talking about the pump.fun token, but curiously, no one I asked wanted to invest. Still, they managed to raise $500 million USD in just 12 minutes. I'm not even shocked anymore because I can't comprehend these numbers.

The crash course

For those who haven't been following: pump.fun is a platform on the Solana blockchain that makes it extremely easy for anyone - even those with no coding skills - to create, buy, and trade memecoins in just a few clicks. The platform uses a bonding curve pricing model where token prices automatically increase as more people buy and decrease when people sell.

What made it revolutionary is its accessibility: Anyone can launch a token by simply connecting a Solana wallet, paying a small fee (about 0.02 SOL), and filling out a basic form with their coin's name, symbol, and image. When tokens reach a certain market cap, they can "graduate" to major DEXs like Raydium with locked liquidity to prevent rug pulls.

Now they're launching their own token with wild numbers: 1 trillion tokens total, with 24% reserved for community initiatives, 20% for the team, and various allocations for investors and ecosystem development. Their ambition? "Kill Facebook, TikTok, and Twitch on Solana." Bold claim.

As Julius Nagel, our w3.wave fund manager and co-host from the "Alles Coin Nichts Muss" podcast discussed this week, there's a fascinating game theory aspect to this launch: everyone buying at the same $4 billion valuation, with tokens immediately tradable, while team and investor tokens are locked. When everyone has the same plan to "buy and flip for a quick double," you have to wonder how that plays out.

Is it sustainable? Is it just another bubble? Does anyone care as long as number go up? The Bankless guys had some interesting pre-launch takes, comparing it to previous ICO cycles, but I'm still processing what it all means for the market.

Before you ask - yes, I've seen all the memes. My favorites:

I was listening to "Ohne Aktien wird schwer" with Noah Leidinger this week, where he shared an interesting perspective on stablecoins. Did you know that Tether has almost 80 tons of gold sitting in a Swiss vault? That's about $8 billion worth of gold backing their stablecoin. Wild.

While you can't invest directly in Tether, and Circle's valuation is sky-high, Noah pointed out a clever indirect play: Ethereum. About 50% of all stablecoin volume runs on Ethereum (with 30% on Tron and the rest on smaller chains).

The thesis is two-fold:

1. Stablecoin transactions generate fees on the Ethereum network

2. Ethereum's proof-of-stake system means financial players building stablecoins on Ethereum have an incentive to buy and stake ETH to help secure the network

Why Ethereum?

The three critical requirements for new financial infrastructure serving stablecoin holders:

1. Global Accessibility - Works for anyone with internet access, regardless of location

2. Institutional Safety - Provides the security, reliability, regulatory clarity, and customizability needed for billion-dollar financial products

3. Resistance to Government Interference - Operates beyond any single government's control, protecting against restrictions on dollar access

This isn't just Noah's random thought - American fund manager Tom Lee is so convinced by this thesis that he's building a company similar to MicroStrategy, but focused on buying up ETH instead of BTC.

Speaking of staking, my business partners Tim and Tom at w3.labs have been ahead of this curve for years. When they started staking funds for their own portfolios and family offices, they discovered there were no quality staking solutions that allowed Germans to stake in a secure, user-friendly, and compliant way. That's why they created w3.labs within the w3.group ecosystem - to solve this exact problem.

Our solution combines self-custody with regulatory safety while maintaining an easy-to-use interface. We've built enterprise-grade security with German-based infrastructure, full regulatory compliance (audited for KWG, WpIG, and MiCA), and comprehensive tax optimization so staking activities remain neutral regarding commerciality.

The results speak for themselves - we're currently ranked in the top 5 of all Ethereum validators on rated.network. If you want to stake at least 32 ETH and capture this stablecoin-powered upside without the headaches, check us out here.

The beauty of this approach is that you're not just betting on stablecoin adoption - you're positioning yourself to benefit from the entire ecosystem that makes those stablecoins possible, all while earning that sweet APR.

The three w3.hub musketeers Quinn, June and yours truly participated in one of the recent Solana Superteam bounties (check it out here).

To warm your heart as much as it warmed mine, here are all the videos (Quinn won - to be fair, June's and my videos were simply too long. gg Quinn)

That’s it.

See you next week 💅🏽

And while we're at it:

I'm on LinkedIn.

I'm on X.

Always here at w3.hub.

Active in the w3.group. Follow on LinkedIn to keep up with our projects.