Disclaimer: This post contains thoughts on crypto, a volatile and risky asset class. It is not investment advice, and you should do your own research. All information is for educational purposes only. Please don’t take risks with money you’re not willing to lose.

BTC reached a new all time high, Solana DeFi continues to perform, and memecoins are garnering mainstream attention.

Although the market is now experiencing a minor pullback in lieu of negative ETF flows and stagnant interest rates, March has been incredibly kind to crypto participants and investors alike.

Exchange-Traded Digital Gold

The approval of all proposed Bitcoin ETFs is the most bullish catalyst crypto has ever seen. People hate friction - especially the world’s largest asset managers. Up until now, traditional funds have had virtually no access to crypto, effectively sidelining billions of dollars in capital. While Bitcoin had previously been a career risk to own, it now feels like a chip-in to every fund’s portfolio.

While high-risk venture funds and retail traders have long propagated the demand for crypto assets, these large money managers bring institutional capital into a market that accounts for a measly fraction of all equities/bonds. Demand is growing exponentially, while the supply will only ever be 21M.

In the first two weeks of this month, Grayscale outflows subsided while Fidelity and Blackrock had increased demand. As flows went positive, the price soared and BTC reached a new all time high just above $73k (03/13/24). Around this same time, the global market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies was nearing $2.9T - just shy of last cycle’s record.

Since then, BTC has retested as low as $62k with underwhelming updates from the federal reserve and heavy selloffs of GBTC. However, what now feels like healthy retracement and consolidation makes me believe that we’ll see further price discovery pre-halving in mid April. If macro cooperates and Grayscale outflows dwindle, there is plenty of demand and attention to continue on a bullish trajectory.

Since the launch of all Bitcoin ETFs on January 11, net inflows now total ~$11.9B. I like to track these numbers with @FarsideUK and degenz.finance.

Why Solana?

While Bitcoin is an obvious choice for every portfolio, choosing alts, retail chains, and other protocols to invest in is complicated and overwhelming. I like to keep it simple and focus on established majors like Ethereum, Solana, and other consumer-based tokens in the top 50 by market capitalization.

Bitcoin will always be the best digital store of value, but it lacks the flourishing DeFi ecosystems that these newer chains offer. This isn’t a flaw of Bitcoin, but merely a design choice that reflects the different ideals and intended applications.

Ethereum and Solana serve as additional layers that deepen the digital economy of crypto. They are developer friendly - enabling builders to ideate and realize new applications that utilize the underlying infrastructure.

Ethereum is a unanimously positive bet on crypto as a whole, but my focus is on the Solana ecosystem this cycle.

Solana’s selling points are threefold: transactions are quick and cheap, dApps are intuitive, and the brand itself is consumer-focused.

1. Solana is hassle-free due to its high throughput and incredibly low transaction fees. I believe this efficiency is more important to mainstream consumers than being sufficiently decentralized.

2. This matter is subjective, but the general UI / UX of Solana feels more native to the minimalism that I’ve grown accustomed to (Apple). The less we can complicate DeFi, the better.

3. Solana Labs is active in building beyond their protocol. They recently launched a crypto-native mobile device, eyeing a vertical that is widely untouched by the rest of the market.

These attributes among many others collectively position Solana as an ideal retail and consumer chain. While current crypto participants range from gamers to artists to devs, the next step is onboarding larger demographics through globally meaningful applications that go beyond standard payments. Interactions (network transactions) should feel simple and free - as is the standard set by the Web2 framework that most are accustomed to. Solana successfully creates an experience that mimics these fundamentals while maintaining the core architecture of a blockchain.

The Mass Appeal of Memes

While the long-term potential of blockchains revolves around meaningful protocols and utility-based services, there is no denying that memecoins play an integral role in the culture of crypto.

Although most are defined by their heart-wrenching volatility and immature tickers, memes serve as a healthy indicator of increasing retail interest. As an example, when BTC was running to new highs in the 2021 cycle, all of my peers were using Robinhood to buy DOGE. The reality is that most mainstream consumers still view crypto as a highly speculative asset class where buzzwords such as restaking and modularity only complicate the already high barrier to entry. Unlike builder-focused protocols, memecoins embrace this speculative nature by eliminating all other catalysts and solely relying on underlying social narratives for momentum. This effectively (and ironically) makes memes straightforward and gimmick-free - qualities that are attractive to an investor looking for easy crypto beta.

In many ways, trading memecoins closely resembles a night in the casino, although the R/R is far greater than blindly throwing on red - this is especially the case if you already have a keen understanding of the broader crypto market. As majors run, alts and low-caps generally take the backseat until higher consolidation. As these breakouts ebb, liquidity flows back into volatile coins that promise greater short-term gains. Memes consistently outperform during these market rotations, signaling easy leverage opportunities. Although I prefer sitting in spot positions, understanding how money flows throughout different sectors is key to identifying relative strength. It gives you an edge at a table that would otherwise be uneven.

Memecoins have and will continue to be relevant throughout this cycle as the leaders continually show resistance to market dumps. When retail inevitably trickles in, I can easily see there being 10-20 tokens with a market cap of >$1B. Regardless of your risk tolerance, it’s better to have some exposure than none.

Portfolio Updates

• WIF is still 60% of all holdings

• currently sizing into DOGE (re-allocating some ETH)

• added TAO

That’s all I have for now. Sitting comfy in spot and staying away from buttons.