Good morning. Did you see Chris Pratt’s new movie The Tomorrow War? He’s really stepping into that action hero role—maybe he’s trying to impress his father-in-law, Arnold Schwarzenegger (you knew that, right?) with a little bit of those Terminator vibes.

Price Check 🏷 1 week change

📉 Bitcoin: $33,629 (-2.8%)

🚀 Ethereum: $2,219 (+12.4%)

📉 Dogecoin: $0.23 (-11.2%)

🚀 Compound: $421.61 (+64.1%)

🚀 Aave: $266.60 (+32.1%)

📈 Sushiswap: $7.37 (+3.5%)

Prices as of 6 AM PST 7/5, data from Coingecko

• Markets: Closed today in observance of the 4th of July holiday, but all eyes will be on interest rates and economic data, especially the Federal Open Market Committees (FOMC) June meeting.

• Covid: President Biden narrowly missed his goal of a 70% vaccination rate by Independence Day, with 67% of the U.S. having received at least one vaccine dose.

TradFi

$HOOD Talk 📊

Robinhood turned in its IPO papers last week, but we read them so you don't have to. Here's a breakdown of everything interesting… 👇

Some highlights

• The word “growth” is mentioned 217 times in the filing

• Trading of Dogecoin accounted for 34% of the company’s entire cryptocurrency transaction revenue in the first quarter of 2021

• The average Robinhood user was born in the ’90s

• The filing has 6 pages of pending lawsuits

• Robinhood makes 81% of its revenue from payment-for-order flow

The company is setting aside 20-35% of its shares for retail investors to buy, but users aren’t confident they’ll be able to sell if things get hairy again. 

Reddit’s revenge

WallStreetBets users discussed their negative outlook about the IPO, with many still angry about Robinhood’s handling of the GameStop short squeeze. With all the negative sentiment, it’s easy to think that the subreddit intends to short the stock, but many users think that’s a bad idea for retail traders, simply because Robinhood’s Payment For Order Flow revenue model is supported by hedge funds with deep pockets like Citadel.

FED COIN

J Pow’s Date with Coinbase 🧐

The U.S. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Chris Giancarlo of the Digital Dollar Project met in May.

The meeting lasted half an hour, but the details are being kept under wraps, as neither the fed or Coinbase has responded to comment from any publication. Whatever was said in that meeting, Jerome wanted to keep it on the low.

The fed chairman has been historically anti-crypto, but we wouldn’t quite call him a no-coiner either. In the past, Powell bashed Bitcoin saying it couldn’t compete against the dollar. But despite his anti-Bitcoin stance, Powell realizes the potential a digital dollar could have for the U.S. economy. And he’s smart enough to realize he could lose ground in the geopolitical power rankings to China if the U.S. were to sit out of the digital dollar race.

Coinbase in Washington

This isn’t the first time Coinbase has been in the political theater. The company’s former Chief Legal Officer, Brian Brooks, was appointed by former U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration as Comptroller of the currency. After Mr. Biden was elected, Brooks left his position and became CEO of Binance US.

It looks like the U.S. isn’t interested in competing with El Salvador to become a pro-bitcoin country, instead the burgers in charge seem to be more focused on becoming the first global power with a CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency).

NFTs

Jigga Punk 🗽

Last week, Jay-Z has changed his Twitter profile picture to that of a CryptoPunk, one of the first, most famous, and most expensive collection of NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain, leading NFT enthusiasts to speculate that the musician bought Crypto Punk #6095 for 55 ETH back in April.

A New Era of Art

Jay-Z isn’t just on Opensea buying crypto punks, he also decided to to capitalize on his first album’s 25th birthday with none other than an NFT of his own.

The Brooklyn rapper auctioned an NFT based on his debut album Reasonable Doubt at Sotheby’s. Jay-Z has commissioned digital artist Derrick Adams to create a one-of-one animated digital collectible that is meant to “recontextualize” the album cover, originally released 25 years ago. It’s called “Heir to the Throne: An NFT in Celebration of Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt 25th Anniversary by Derrick Adams.” The winning bid for the piece was $139,000.

Sotheby's @Sothebys

#AuctionUpdate 'Heir to the Throne', an NFT of original digital art by @derrickadamsny just sold for $139k. Commissioned by @sc in celebration of the 25th anniversary of his debut album, ‘Reasonable Doubt’, a portion of the proceeds from the sale will benefit @ShawnCarterSF #RD25

July 2nd 2021

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ADOPTION

Another Country Goes Long on Crypto 🇻🇳

Vietnam is the latest nation to follow in El Salvador’s footsteps, announcing the the government’s future plans with crypto.

According to a July 4 report by The Phnom Penh Post, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh asked the country’s central bank to pilot a blockchain-based cryptocurrency over the next two years.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said he believes that digital money is “an inevitable trend,” a big change in stance from the previously crypto-unfriendly country. Vietnam is yet to allow any crypto exchange to operate within its jurisdiction and has asked credit institutions not to use cryptocurrencies as a form of payment.

Welcome aboard! Or maybe we should say chào mừng!

SMALL BITEZ 🗞

• Coinbase has opened an office in India in Hyderabad

• $70 million in Bitcoin ransom demanded by ransom gang REvil

• Yearn Finance founder, Andre Cronje has built a new DeFi protocol based on the forex markets.

• The United States government deficit hits $3 trillion

• The Japanese government has said his country will have a better idea of what to expect from a digital yen by the end of 2022.