Welcome to another edition of The Scoop. The Scoop is that feeling you get when you realize all the salivating you’ve been doing over the last couple of years in dreaming about cashing in on your staked ETH is about to result in a big-time payout!

The Big Scoop

You know what The Big Scoop has to be this week. Ethereum just completed its long-awaited Shapella upgrade. The token itself is now trading above $2000 for the first time in about nine months.

Needless to say, many investors staking their tokens will cash out. The good news is however that early statistics are showing much of the cashing out is just the rewards are earned, not the principle.

That shows people are willing to continue staking. There is also a downside. That’s the fact that 70% of people who have staked their tokens for this longer actually down on their investment because Ethereum’s price was much higher when the staking function first emerged.

More on that in a bit…

In other fun news, you can now use the $ symbol and the short code for your favourite crypto token on Twitter and you’ll get directed to a social trading platform called eToro, where you can check real-time prices.

The partnership is a smart move for DogeFather Elon. He now has crypto Twitter wondering if you really is going to integrate crypto payments directly into the platform like he’s hinted many times before. This is another step in that direction.

Let’s dive deeper into the details of both the above stories and more in this edition of The Scoop.

The Bitcoin Bet: Day 33

Balaji Srinivasan believes that an impending crisis will lead to the deflation of the U.S. dollar, causing hyperinflation, and as a result, Bitcoin's price will rise to $1 million.

In March 2023, a Twitter user named James Medlock offered a bold wager of $1 million, betting that the United States would not enter a state of hyperinflation. Balaji Srinivasan, the former Chief Technology Officer of Coinbase, responded by accepting the bet, proposing a deal with roughly 40:1 odds. Balaji offered to send $1 million USD to James Medlock if he buys 1 Bitcoin (BTC), which was valued at around $26,000 at the time. The bet had a 90-day term, and Balaji suggested the use of a smart contract or a mutually agreed-upon custodian to settle the bet in the event of digital dollar devaluation.

BTC is back down today from last week :( We still have ways to go...

The News

Ethereum’s Shapella Upgrade Goes Live on Mainnet. Investors and Degens Rejoice!

Ethereum’s Shapella upgrade went live last week and it's brought some cool new features like unstaking Ether (ETH). The community's buzzing with excitement, and the ETH price is sitting at $2,117.

You might be wondering what "Shapella" means—it's a blend of "Shanghai" and "Capella," the upgrades that happened together. This hard fork is a big deal for Ethereum's journey, and lots of folks are thrilled about what's next.

People have been sending their congrats to the network's developers, and Ethereum Foundation researcher Danny Ryan mentioned that, although proof-of-stake (PoS) took a while, the loop is now complete.

At the Shapella watch party, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin shared his optimism, saying the network is in a "really good place." While there's still work to be done, he believes the toughest parts are over, and things can move at a more relaxed pace. To celebrate, crypto singer Jonathan Mann even performed a song at the party!

But it's not just about celebrating—the community's also looking forward. Ethereum enthusiast Anthony Sassano pointed out that the next big feature will be EIP-4844, which aims to boost the scalability of rollups on Ethereum.

Blockchain analytics firm Glassnode predicts that even though Shapella will unlock staked ETH, less than 1% of holders plan to sell. They say only 253 validators have signed up to exit. Plus, there are measures to prevent a huge influx of ETH supply hitting the market all at once.

With the Shapella update, we might see more institutional investors getting on board with Ethereum. Freddy Zwanzger from Blockdaemon thinks there could be more interest in ETH staking opportunities, especially now that there's a clear withdrawal option. Exciting times ahead, folks!

Elon + eToro = Twitter as a Seamless Crypto Payment Platform?

Here’s a very interesting tidbit!

Twitter has teamed up with eToro, an investment platform, to display real-time stock and crypto prices for users. This enhances Twitter's Cashtag feature, which previously offered limited info on stocks and crypto coins using TradingView data.

Twitter first launched Cashtags in December, making it easy for users to search for ticker or coin symbols like $TSLA, $APPL, or $ETH and see prices right in their search results.

eToro shared the exciting news on Twitter, saying that users can now access real-time prices for a broader range of stocks, crypto, and other assets.

But that's not all! This partnership goes beyond just displaying info. Users who search for a stock on Twitter will see a "View on eToro" button, which takes them to the eToro site to trade.

Interestingly, when Cashtags first appeared in December, Twitter showed a "View on Robinhood" button.

It's not clear if eToro is paying any fees to Twitter for users who trade on their platform via Cashtags. We've reached out for comment, but eToro couldn't discuss the commercial agreement with Twitter.

eToro's CEO, Yoni Assia, told CNBC that lots of their users chat about financial markets on Twitter. He believes this partnership will help both brands connect with new audiences and offer valuable, real-time content on financial analysis.

After Elon Musk took over Twitter, he shared plans to make the social network a significant financial player. In November, he even hinted at building a feature for users to send money to each other and offering a high-yield money market account in the long term.

At a Morgan Stanley conference in March, Musk suggested that Twitter has the potential to become a financial giant by providing convenient payment options and continuously improving the app's usefulness.

Isn't that exciting? Stay tuned for more updates on this fascinating partnership!

News Flash

Chart.

Here’s a chart showing that over $27 billion in staked ETH has investors still in the red. The upgrade itself is big news, but macroeconomics might yet take a bigger bite out of crypto before we see ETH or any other coin reach new heights.

You can find more charts like this one by following @hildobby on Twitter.

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 Satoshi-style skrilla funnelling into Web3 in the last lil’ while: 🧀💲🤑💸💰

• RSS3 raises $10 million to build decentralized feed network.

• AI blockchain CryptoGPT raises $10 million at $250 million valuation.

• Web3 co-ownership platform Lore raises $4 million.

Market Analysis.

Brought to you by:

$BTC:

After breaking through $30,000 last week and nearly broke up above $31,000. Now Bitcoin is chopping between $31,000-$29,000. It seems to be holding quite strong and the “pullback'“ that was expected at 28k never came. This could be the case again with Bitcoin potential chopping within this range for a week or two. As long as Bitcoin doesn’t break below 29k or 28k, there will be room for altcoins to start rising and grow the overall crypto market cap, setting up the next leg up for BTC.

But if Bitcoin does start to crash back down, there is no way for altcoins to have room to grow. In the famous words of Crypto Birb, Altcoins really follow Bitcoin, and they have a hard time rising if Bitcoin is not.

Bitcoin’s rise will carry strength in altcoins

Take a look at the $BTC.D Bitcoin Dominance chart. It’s topped out on the 12H and 1D charts. with a bear/sell signal printed. If BTC continues to range in this choppy price action and money flows into altcoins, we will see the BTC.D drop drastically and altseason will start.

That’s all I have for this week. Stay tuned for more in next week's episode!

Education.

Ready for a quick study break?!📙

A certain writer here @ The Scoop was in New York this past week for NFT NYC, an NFT conference. He met one of the original artists from the Pepe NFT project and figured you should learn about it. Two years ago those frogs sold at a live auction at the same conference for half $1 million and the money was donated to charity. Today the frogs still maintain quite a legacy is one of the first-ever NFT art projects in crypto. It’s time to get your study on.

• How Rare Pepe NFTs Reclaimed Pepe The Frog

Scoop Meme

The Final Scoop

There is clearly a lot going on with Ethereum right now and we’ve enjoyed quite the Bull Run to start 2023. While you should definitely be weary of macroeconomics over the next 6 to 12 months and how that might affect crypto prices, you should know that New York was totally lit and people are still working on new and exciting things that many of us are going to benefit from in the near and distant future.

You should also know something. The news about Twitter and eToro shows us one about Elon Musk that he clearly stated in an interview about going to Mars in a Netflix documentary that a certain writer of the Scoop once watched. It went something like this, and we’re paraphrasing:“We can’t just set goals to make the world better just because it’s the right thing to do. Human beings need goals that are exciting. I want us to get to Mars because it’s exciting, not just because we need a new place to live.”Implementing a crypto payment system and pumping meme coins isn’t just about sending our finances and Web3 on a rocketship towards mass adoption. It’s also just a fun thing to do. Just like going to Mars.

To the moon and beyond!

Share The Scoop

Forget the beat we’ll go A-Shapella (get it?)

Give all your friends and family the proverbial mic drop and let them know that ETH is on the up and up and the bitcoin halving event is less than 12 months away.

Do those two things and tell them to follow the news in the Scoop every week and in a year they will thank you.

Fortunately, we don’t need to wait a year to thank you. We are already so grateful to have you on board and we would love to keep sharing our mission of enriching the lives of Web3ers by helping you increase your wealth and monetize your data.

See you next time!