Welcome to another edition of The Scoop, the newsletter that is always there for you. Even when the world is going CRAZY the scoop has you covered!

The Big Scoop

This week’s theme for The Scoop is simple. #BUIDL, #BUIDL, #BUIDL. The building continues.  Along those lines, here’s an interesting opinion piece stating why Web3 should be built on the Bitcoin blockchain.

On another note, if you look at the fundraising section of The Scoop today, you’ll notice the money being thrown around is A LOT higher than we’ve been featuring in recent weeks. Perhaps crypto sentiment and VC investing is flipping back to bullishness? You decide.

Now some news…

Did you know that two projects called ZeroSync and Blockstream want to broadcast Zero-Knowledge Proofs from space?

Why would they do this? They basically want to be able to sync transaction information on Bitcoin nodes from anywhere on Earth, even without the Internet.

If they pull it off successfully it means that nodes wouldn’t have to download all of the 500 GB of data that make up the Bitcoin blockchain meaning that they could have access to the data in seconds rather than taking hours or days to download it all.

 If they can do it, that means more mass adoption of crypto and Web3, because the Internet won’t be necessary for this.

More on that and lots of other stuff in this week’s Scoop…

The Bitcoin Bet: Day 19 

If you are new  to the scoop or just paying attention to this...we have been following a serious bet that has been hitting the web like fire, let us give you the scoop!

Balaji Srinivasan, a former CTO of Coinbase, has placed a $2 million bet that Bitcoin would hit the $1 million price mark in 90 days. This bet was in response to financial expert James Medlock who proposed a $1 million bet that the US would not enter hyperinflation despite the recent collapse of banks in the country. 

Will Hit $1 Million In 90 Days? Will Balaji win the bet? The Scoop will be tracking this!

The News

Are We About to Figure Out How to Broadcast Crypto Transactions from Space?

Exciting news from the Swiss non-profit ZeroSync Association and Bitcoin infrastructure company Blockstream. They're teaming up to bring Bitcoin zero-knowledge proofs (zk-proofs) to the world through Blockstream's satellite. This cutting-edge cryptographic method has been turning heads in the blockchain tech scene in 2023.

By using zk-proofs to confirm the Bitcoin blockchain, nodes won't need to download the hefty 500GB of data currently required, which means syncing will take only a split second instead of hours or even days. How cool is that?

Blockstream's satellite network offers free global access to Bitcoin, broadcasting the blockchain to every corner of the world, including places where the internet might be a bit spotty. ZeroSync hopes to kick off their first experimental broadcast before the year's end.

The brand new ZeroSync Association, which launched just this Tuesday, aims to help Bitcoin grow by utilizing zk-proofs. These nifty cryptographic techniques allow them to prove the validity of information without actually revealing the info itself.

Robin Linus, ZeroSync co-founder, shared his enthusiasm with CoinDesk: "The security of Bitcoin requires every participant to verify every transaction. That didn't scale well until now. Proof systems like STARKs have been invented. Applying them to generate a proof of Bitcoin's chain state, and broadcasting it via satellite, can bring Bitcoin to almost everyone in the world. Don't trust, verify."

$ARB Token Falls 9% as the Foundation Sold the Tokens Before a Ratification Vote

Some interesting developments are happening over at the Arbitrum Foundation. It seems they began selling ARB tokens for stablecoins before their governance community of tokenholders had the chance to approve their nearly $1 billion budget. This revelation came from a blog post shared by one of their employees early Sunday.

Following CoinDesk's report, the price of ARB took a hit, dropping 9% in the last 24 hours to $1.17. Patrick McCorry, from the Arbitrum Foundation, explained that they viewed the Arbitrum Improvement Proposal (AIP-1) as a "ratification" of decisions already made, such as receiving 7.5% of all ARB tokens. The Foundation has started using these tokens for the benefit of the DAO, converting some funds into stablecoins for operational purposes.

This news adds a twist to Arbitrum's first foray into community governance. Just a week ago, they airdropped ARB governance tokens to hundreds of thousands of wallets to involve owners in important decision-making. The first decision appeared to be AIP-1, a package covering everything from governance and emergency powers to funding and grants.

McCorry emphasized that AIP-1 was meant to inform the community about decisions made in advance, rather than giving token holders a say in the matter. This statement marks Arbitrum's first official response to a controversy that sparked on Friday when some questioned the Arbitrum Foundation's "special grants" program. The proposal suggests that the Foundation is set to receive 750 million ARB tokens (around $1 billion) without token holders approval.

Last week, Arbitrum airdropped over 1 billion ARB tokens to nearly 300,000 wallets as part of its effort to share control over the network with its users, which is quite common in the crypto world. ARB token holders are considered part of ArbitrumDAO, the so-called "decentralized autonomous organization" that votes on proposals like AIP-1.

However, according to McCorry, AIP-1 wasn't much of a vote at all, at least not when it came to budget requests. The Arbitrum Foundation has already started spending the tokens it was supposed to receive.

This revelation adds another layer to what has become an early crisis for Arbitrum governance. Votes in favour of "ratification" were winning until recently, but the tide has now shifted strongly toward rejection, raising questions about the outcome if AIP-1 is defeated.

McCorry acknowledged the "chicken and egg problem" in setting up decentralized governance structures. In Arbitrum's case, certain parameters need to be decided in advance, including the structure of a "security council," voting mechanics, and funding. He also mentioned recent efforts by other blockchain companies, like Polygon, to secure deals with major brands like Starbucks, which happened behind closed doors.

For example, in January 2021, Bitcoin's price dropped from over $41,000 to less than $32,000—about a 22% drop! 

News Flash 

Chart.

 Did you know that Polygon’s proof-of-stake platform is averaging a whopping 2 million transactions per day? You do now….👇👀

Thanks to the Milk Road for the graphic.

🚨BONUS CHART ALERT🚨

The next Bitcoin halving event (the point at which block rewards cut in half and supply gets scarcer) is about a year away. This chart shows buying the year before is a great opportunity. Courtesy of @TheMoonCarl

The Chart section of The Scoop is for everyone who prefers to listen to audiobooks or fill-in colouring books over text-based reading. Feast your eyes🍗👀

Fundraising In Web3.

 Here’s a summary of the Web3 projects that got some multimillion-dollar injections this week, and no we’re not talking about bailouts…🧀💲🤑💸💰

• AI focused crypto Fetch.ai raises $40 million.

• Investing-focused Hydra DAO raises $10 million to fund other DAOs.

• Staking Platform EigenLayer raises $50 million.

Radix Token raises $10 million to introduce smart contract functionality.

Market Analysis.

Brought to you by:

BTC:

Bitcoin has remained fairly stable since last week, with one attempt to break through $29,000 that was rejected, followed by some fear around negative crypto exchange news and potential sell-offs. Despite the FUD circulating this week, BTC has held up well. Although it's taking longer than anticipated, I believe BTC will still reach the green support lines between $25,000-26,000 before breaking above $30,000, but there might first be more attempts at breaking out above resistance. Check out the IncomeSharks tweet for more insights on BTC's next move.

$BTC.D

Bitcoin Dominance is currently hovering near a potential sell signal, with BTC.D dropping down from 47% to 45% or lower. This presents an opportunity for altcoins to grow, and we could witness the start of a mini altseason. Elon Musk's recent tweet changing his Twitter logo to a Dogecoin resulted in an immediate 20%+ increase in its price. If this trend continues, we could see altcoins and the industry as a whole move up together.

Thanks to the Birb Nest’s trading indicator, the Birbicator, for indicating Bull and Bear signals on the chart. Learn more about how you can read charts better with the Birbicator here.

Make sure to also join the Crypto Coin Show! 

Education.

Sidechains are chains that allow for transactions to be completed off-chain to save computing resources and make transacting on main chains more scalable and cost effective. This is really important for growing the popularity and use of everything Web3.

That’s why in this edition of the Study Space, you’ll learn about the leading sidechain implementation that allows transactions to be validated without exchanging too much information or slowing down main chains.

• What are ZKEVMs and why are they so popular?

Scoop Meme

The Final Scoop

The stock market is up. Crypto is up, and Web3 is seeing some enthusiasm reignited thanks to continued innovation, some major project releases, and more hope for the future.

 What’s happening with Bitcoin (and crypto in space) is actually blurring the lines between the idea that Web3 and Bitcoin are separate things. Maybe they’re both just feeding off of each other.

Either way, what’s been developing over the past week is good news for owning both your money and your data, and you know that’s what the Cirus Foundation is all about.

Share The Scoop

As always, we appreciate all the love you’ve helped to spread since we started The Scoop last year. If you could be so kind as to share The Scoop with all your favorite, nutty Web3er friends and family, and even those that need to be converted, we would really appreciate it.

Please do share The Scoop.

Happy Spring!