5 Minute Crypto - a16z report shallow dive; Defi data dump; straight outta RWA; India peeps pass China

Two Degens (resources, interviews, on all things crypto and some AI)

Hello everyone - you are the best — this is the 5 minute crypto daily update for Wednesday April 19. My cohost and I also released an interview we did with Ethan from Citadao, so check it out at twodegens.com
Today we’ve got a special episode - I’m gonna deep dive on a16z’s 2023 state of crypto report which has a lot of valuable insights and trends. And I’ll end with a few quick news hits
Let’s do this like Buddhists!
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As of this recording
Bitcoin has risen back above $30K, currently sitting at $30300
ETH is maintaining its hug of $2100
Last 24 hour winners include Radix, Synthetix, and Rocket Pool
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a16z shallow dive notes
Web1 was decentralized (email protocol, web protocol) but limited functionality, and no value accrual
Web2 was centralized into Google, Facebook, etc, advanced functionality, but value accrued to big tech
Web3 is decentralized again, community governed, and value accrues to participants
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Web2 take rates are something like 30-100%
30% for services like Spotify and Apple App Store
100% for FB, Twitter
Web3 take rates are much lower - or even pay participants (like ETH’s PoS)
OpenSea is 2.5%, Uniswap is 0.30%
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With each cycle, the market gets larger
-higher price
-more usage
-more developers
-more projects
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ETH is scaling through rollups
In 2022, L2s paid less than 2% of all ETH fees
Now it’s closer to 7%
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The big brands are all here - from mass consumer brands like Starbucks and Adidas and Budweiser to luxury brands like Tiffany and LV and Porsche
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DAO governance is growing
From barely 50K monthly proposals in 2021 to more than 200K today
2M unique DAO voters
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More than 50K monthly crypto developers on Github
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Active addresses steadily growing
From less than 5M in 2018, to more than 15M today, across all blockchains
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What A16z expects in the coming years
-Zero knowledge tech will accelerate
-On chain games will grow in popularity
-Light clients will accelerate web3 and mobile
-in the US, bipartisan crypto regulation will pass
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Crypto twitter…
Great thread on Defi data
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1646119095883141122.html
The top 5 dApps by cumulative users are:
• Uniswap ~5M
• 1Inch ~800K
• 0x API ~750K
• Sushiswap ~599k
• Compound~386K
According to Token Terminal, DeFi has 260k daily active users.
Or 388k, adjusted for a 30-day average.
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https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1645803735938117636.html
Good thread on why Real world assets will come onchain, and present opportunities for both crypto natives and tradfi
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India’s population likely just overtook that of China
By end of year, India’s population expected to reach 1.429 billion, and China’s will fall to 1.426 billion
Some fun facts from Pew:
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2023/02/09/key-facts-as-india-surpasses-china-as-the-worlds-most-populous-country/
-People under the age of 25 account for more than 40% of India’s population
-both China and the US have rapidly AGING populations
-India’s fertility rate is highest, but rates are declining in all 3
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That’s it for today! That was 6.5 minutes. Links in the show notes. You can follow @twodegenspod on Twitter and pretty please subscribe for more!
Outro clip
We got a fun take from Haseeb Qureshi and Laura Shin, on Chopping Block
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCX6o3o_m1M