Welcome to another edition of The Scoop. The Scoop is that feeling you get when you feel reconnected to the good old days.

The Big Scoop

This week’s Big Scoop revolves around nostalgia.

How so, you ask?

The Pepe the Frog meme craze first hit the crypto world in 2015 when the NFT project launched. Years later, those NFTs were selling for $500,000 each. Now, there is a Pepe The Frog Meme coin and it’s up big time.

Along similar lines, the old peer-to-peer filesharing application known as LimeWire is launching a public token sale on May 2nd, and the crypto world is going to be watching closely.

The real question is… why is this all happening now?

One theory we have is that the most dedicated Web3 aficionados ( a.k.a. most people that read this newsletter) are probably sticking around because they believe in the fundamental use cases behind Web3 applications such as NFTs. In short, the pretenders have left the space because of the oncoming recession, and the real OGs are sticking around.

This is the time for legacy brands to further ingrain themselves in the minds and hearts of the most loyal crypto users.

What better way to do that than to connect their new favourite thing (crypto and Web3) with some of their old favourite things (Pepe The Frog, and downloading music)?

Let’s cover more of that in the news…

The Bitcoin Bet: Day 40

Ok Scoopers lets do this again...

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

Limewire and Pepe the Frog Have This ONE Thing in Common…

The latest meme coin craze is hitting crypto. This time it has more to do with the frog than it does with a dog, but that doesn’t mean the same principles aren’t at play. We are talking about the Pepe the Frog meme coin that’s up over 1 million % in five days.

What does this have to do with Web3? Well, the Pepe the Frog meme first hit the blockchain back in 2015 with the NFT project. Outside of the Ethereum game Crypto Kitties, the Pepe NFTs were one of the earliest to gain popularity among the masses. So much so that when a certain writer of The Scoop went to his first NFT conference in New York a few years ago, one Pepe NFT sold for $500,000 worth of Ethereum tokens at a live auction.

The Pepe meme coin may not reach the same height as those featuring dogs, but it does pay homage to Web3 in its own unique way.

It looks like filesharing application LimeWire is trying to do the same thing. It was Napster on steroids. The application first came out in the year 2000, around the time that Napster died down and people really appreciated the value of cable Internet, which enabled us to download movies in less than 15 minutes with a good connection.

LimeWire would release its final version 10 years later and now we all use torrent sites to download things unless we actually want to pay for the stuff we’re downloading.

LimeWire’s history aside, the application is now trying to move into the present moment with the launch of its own token, LMWR. The public sale happens on May 2, and they made it super easy to try to WIN tokens or gain more just by sharing the sale with your friends through your email address.

You might want to try to do that since you still have about a week to go. There’s no doubt that many of the hard-core users in Web3 remember using LimeWire, and as such, this sale is going to be one to watch. Even if you don’t participate in it, you can sit back and watch how popular culture and connections to the past push people into a heightened state of FOMO on this one.

Solana’s Web3 Smartphone is Taking New Orders Starting May 8th

About 10 months ago, Solana's CEO, Anatoly Yakovenko, unveiled the upcoming launch of Saga, a Web3-focused Android smartphone. The goal behind Saga is to make crypto products and services more user-friendly by offering them through a phone instead of the traditional way of accessing crypto platforms and apps via computers.

The $1,000 device comes in a black box with the phone, a USB-C charging cable, and a paper card to write down the recovery phrase (a sequence of random words needed to access a crypto wallet). The phone runs on Android 13 and has 512 GB of storage and a 6.67-inch OLED display.

Setting up the phone is pretty standard, and it's important to set up the fingerprint unlock feature as it's also used to verify crypto transactions. The battery life of the Saga is reportedly decent, lasting around 1.5 days.

The phone has a built-in mobile wallet adapter as part of Solana Mobile Stack (SMS), which invisibly connects dApps to wallets. The device also features Seed Vault, a Web3-focused feature embedded in the phone. Users can import a seed phrase from another wallet or create a new one.

The core purpose of the phone is dApps. The Saga comes with a "Solana dApp Store" where users can find apps for Web3 platforms. The store has a few apps available in different categories, and more apps are expected to be added after the public release.

Saga owners are given $20 worth of USDC and 0.01 SOL (about 0.0026 of a dollar) as a welcome pack. The dApp Store currently offers various apps, and users can try out these dApps by having some SOL in their wallets.

Though the process of using dApps on Saga is designed to be fun and easy, there have been reports of the phone's overall performance not being very smooth. Users might experience delays and have to close and reopen dApps and other apps multiple times.

Despite the phone being in its early stages, software upgrades are expected over time. Deliveries of the phone were initially planned for Q1 2023 but have since been pushed to Q2.

The Saga is an attempt for Web3 to compete with big tech providers like Apple, Microsoft, and Android. The phone targets hardcore crypto fans but also aims to attract the "crypto curious" crowd.

The exact number of preorders hasn't been disclosed, but it's said to be in the high single-digit thousands. The phone is certified for sale in 33 countries, with plans to expand further.

News Flash

Chart.

Here is what the chart of a meme coin that goes up 1 million% in five days actually looks like for all you visual learners out there:

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🍗👀

Cirus Spotlight.

Now that we’re in Q2, we wanted to give you guys an update on what’s happening at Cirus and what you can expect for the rest of the year.

Here is a breakdown of the next 3 quarters:

For more information check out The Scoops full article breakdown! We are always here to give you the latest news, information and product drops on Cirus.

Fundraising In Web3.

Here’s how much money is moving into Web3 projects that continue to BUIDL🧀💲🤑💸💰

Education.

Ready for a quick study break?!📙

Remember that time about a week ago when the Study Space topic was all about how the Web3 community used NFTs to reclaim Pepe The Frog? Now we’re here talking about the meme coin. How crazy is that? That’s why you should always pay attention to the Study Space.

This week, let’s be even more forward-thinking. We’ve been hearing about a recession coming for years now. Most experts today are predicting that it’s only months away at this point. So, the question remains….

• Could a recession be good for Web3?

Scoop Meme

The Final Scoop

Pepe The Frog and LimeWire are trying to tap into your desire to be associated with things from the past. Solana is trying to merge its brand name into something you use every day, which is your phone.

No matter the approach, all three brands are trying to do the same thing. They want crypto and Web3 to become a ubiquitous part of your life, and if you’re staying subscribed to The Scoop after all this time, you probably have the same mission in mind.

There are a million ways to make $1 million. There are virtually an infinite number of approaches to do many things. As long as you stick to the same philosophy of owning your money and owning your data, you’ll find the paths that work for you.

That’s true whether the market is in an uptrend or downtrend, and whether or not you got in on the latest meme craze.

Either way, let’s keep the Web3 movement pushing forward, while continuing to acknowledge our past…

Share The Scoop

Maybe some of your friends heard about Pepe the Frog when you told them about it years ago, and there is a 95% chance they at least know what LimeWire is. That’s why we ask you to share The Scoop with them.

We want to keep you informed of the future so that one day you can look back and be glad that you subscribed. If we’ve already given you that feeling, why not pass it on to other people?

We would be so grateful if you did.

Thank you for being part of our past and present, and we hope you continue to join us in the future.

See you again next week!