Health, Wealth, and Happiness

May 6, 2024

"Failure is a badge of honor. It means you risked failure. And if you don't risk failure, you're never going to do anything that's different from what you've already done or what somebody else has done."

- Charlie Kaufman

Howdy, investors!

Ethereum has long been the top smart contract blockchain despite multiple potential "Ethereum killer" chains emerging over the years. Today, we investigate whether Tron may be the Ethereum killer hiding in plain sight.

While Tether's record Q1 profits are amazing, they don't paint the full picture for the stablecoin, which faces increased competition and regulatory pressures.

Bitcoin's weekend recovery is attributed to the blockbuster earnings from Coinbase and Block, which were reported last Friday.

Despite the "crypto bro" trope of lavish lifestyles and Lambos, researchers have found more traditional uses for crypto wealth, such as home purchases and equity investments.

Read on to explore more!

Can Tron Overtake Ethereum?

by Preetam Kaushik

Before the advent of radar and satellite navigation, sailors often relied on the flight of birds to determine the presence of nearby land masses. Similarly, in crypto markets, the "flight patterns" of stablecoins can often tell you quite a lot about the fortunes of a blockchain project.

Tron is leading Ethereum in USDT supply, with $57 billion on Tron versus $50 billion on Ethereum. What might this mean for blockchain investors? Can Tron overtake its older, more popular rival as the premier L1 smart contract blockchain?

In other words, which token is the better buy in the long term – ETH or TRX?

In our latest report, we uncover the fundamentals, history, and regional dynamics of Tron and Ethereum to determine a winner.

Read on to get our analysis of Ethereum vs. Tron >>

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Tomorrow: Best Blockchain Buys!

We round up our best investing ideas from the previous month each month, exclusively for our Premium subscribers.

To save you time and effort, consider this your at-a-glance list of our best blockchain buys in one easy-to-read list.

Tomorrow, we release the May edition, where you'll get insights into how daily active users (DAU) highlight projects on a growth trajectory - and which projects are growing DAUs, fees, and overall market cap the fastest.

We also examine the DAU/MAU metric when evaluating projects, dive deep into restaking protocols, AI blockchains, and the DePIN movement, and, of course, recap our latest investor and risk scorecards around Render (RNDR), Bittensor (TAO), and the Graph (GRT).

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Must Read

Today's most important stories for crypto investors.

Implications Of Tether’s Record Profits (Forbes)

Tether achieved a record profit of $4.52 billion in Q1 2024 amid ongoing regulatory scrutiny. This article uncovers how Tether's performance has been driven by $3.52 billion in gains from bitcoin and gold holdings and is worth reading to learn how stablecoins make money.

Bitcoin Tops $63,000 After Coinbase and Block Drop Blockbuster Earnings(Quartz)

Coinbase and Block reported strong earnings last week, underlining the growing integration of crypto into mainstream financial platforms. Jack Dorsey of Block also highlighted the future potential of using crypto in Internet transactions and AI. For those who bought $COIN and $SQ stock after reading our coverage in Bitcoin Market Journal, congratulations!

Lambo Bros No More: Crypto Is Creating a New Wealth Effect (Bloomberg)

A group of researchers has explored how crypto wealth impacts consumer spending in the U.S., finding that the "wealth effect" from crypto gains is relatively modest but notable in the American economy. As the crypto market grows, the economic impact and consumer behavior of crypto gains could become increasingly important.

Long-Term Wealth

$1K invested at today's market prices

This asset	invested 5 years ago	is now worth
Bitcoin (BTC)	$1,000	$9,931
Ethereum (ETH)	$1,000	$7,095
Uniswap (UNI)*	$1,000	$1,318
BNB Chain (BNB)	$1,000	$42,715

Note: The future may look different from the past. Please invest carefully.

* As UNI is less than five years old, we calculate from the launch date (Sep 2020).

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Chart of the Day

Top Five Layer-1s by Daily Active Users

While bitcoin and Ethereum had an early lead in active users, thanks to the first mover effect, they have been overtaken in Daily Active Users (DAUs), our favorite metric. Since early 2022, the blockchain with the most DAUs has been Tron, which enjoys a significant following across Asia.

Another exciting development is the spike in Polygon usage, driven by several announced improvements to the blockchain and the conclusion of its vesting contract, which limits inflation and dampens selling pressure. Polygon DAUs are now on par with BNB Chain, but it remains to be seen if Polygon can overtake Tron.

Meanwhile, bitcoin is seeing a drop in DAUs, which makes sense as bitcoin is more of a store of value than a transactional chain. Ethereum is seeing a slight uptick in usage, but ETH DAU numbers remain significantly lower than the top three.

Any of these top five present investing opportunities, and considering they are all growing (except bitcoin, as noted), each could become a key holding in a well-balanced portfolio of crypto assets.

ICYMI