Hello friends 👋🏻 another week has flown by, and here's the roundup of the great stuff from this past week:
Crypto Stuff 🚀
📈 The Markets
$BTC - $42,817.59 is down 2.4% in the last 7 days
$ETH - $2,276.18 is up 0.7% in the last 7 days
There's been a minor downward correction in the markets, as expected, following Bitcoin's jump from the mid-$30k range to $44k last week. The major news this week seems to be the Federal Reserve's announcement that they’re likely to cut rates in 2024 and beyond, provided the economic conditions are favorable.
This announcement has generated a bullish sentiment, as the market tends to be forward-thinking and may assume that the worst has passed. To fully grasp this, it's important to understand that monetary policy has a delayed impact. It usually takes approximately 18 months to observe the real impact on the economy. Therefore, it's likely that the Fed is anticipating an economic slowdown and a potential recession, prompting them to consider pausing and eventually cutting rates!
🗞️ The News
🔥 Papa Powell said FED expects to cut interest rates next year (!). This move could act as a catalyst for the prices of risk assets, although it also suggests that the economy is most likely (finally?) entering a recession
🔥 Elon Musk posted a video of Tesla Optimus on X. It's a personal robot that could potentially hit the market soon! 🤯
The Donald is back again with yet another NFT collectibles drop 😖
🔮 Crypto Predictions of 2024
It's that time of year again when we "experts" engage in a bit of "futurology," attempting to predict what the next year will bring. It might seem like a silly game to some, but it's a tradition we enjoy 🤪. VanEck and a16z have both published their forecasts, and Bitwise Invest has followed suit. Remember, you've been forewarned about next year, so don't say I didn't tell you! 😅
🤓 What am I learning?
You know what Account Abstraction is right? If not, check this out. It’s basically a way to implement Smart Contract wallets. Now, let's take this concept a step further: imagine making the Smart Contract also function as an NFT. This leads us to the proposal for ERC-6551 Token Bound Accounts! 🤯
ERC-6551 enables Token Bound Accounts (TBAs). These are smart contracts that have their own address and are associated/managed with a specific NFT. Think of it as a mini-wallet that is directly tied to the NFT. TBAs can be used to receive money or other NFTs, reduce operational expenses of investment portfolios, and enable provenance for commodities like coffee.
🚨 Security Stuff
Be careful in crypto, there’s plenty of phish 🎣 out there.
🆒 Cool Stuff from the Week
🎧 Podcast episode I’m listening to:
I've been revisiting my old favourite, the Bankless Podcast show. It remains one of my main sources for crypto news. This week's episode covered the VanEck 2024 crypto predictions! 📽 Video here.
📱 Cool app I’m using
This week, iOS 17.2 was released, and it came with the highly anticipated new Apple app called Journal. I've been doing daily journaling with Day One, but I was really excited to try out Apple's new Journal app. So far, it has been a "good" experience. I think I still prefer the Day One app, but I'll give the Journal app more time to decide which one I'll continue using for my daily journaling. ✍🏻
🤔 Quote I’m pondering:
In sync with what I’ve been reading 👀 this week, but also one of my favourite stoic quotes:
📚 What am I reading:
This week, I've been randomly selecting books, opening them to a random page, and reading whatever I've highlighted or noted. One quote that stood out to me from The Obstacle is the Way has been the highlight of my reading:
Not strictly related to reading, but I came across this post in which Steve Jobs discusses how customers form opinions about the quality of products, and it contains some timeless wisdom. 🧠
I found this site with 100 historical pictures that you must see. They really are fascinating moments of history ✨
🫵🏻 One question for you:
Thanks for reading 🙏🏻. Don’t forget to leave any feedback if you have on the comment section!
See you next week!