Bitcoin, AI and Oracles: A Week in Review of the Blockchain Industry
Sideways market through Bitcoin Pizza Day, AI Innovations, and the Importance of Oracles in DeFi moving forward.
Another two weeks have passed in the blockchain industry, and while Bitcoin price is up a lot since the $16,000 Bitcoin bottom, but I would say we are still far from a bull market. Besides a small move up in the downward channel that Bitcoin has been in for 1.5 months and PEPE continuing to die, nothing crazy has happened. I continue to follow projects with good narratives and proper product/market fit in the AI, ZK, and DeFi space, which I will talk about below.
Last week marked the 11th anniversary of Bitcoin Pizza Day (on May 22nd). It is commemorated as one of the first transactions using Bitcoin for real-world goods and services. A programmer named Laszlo Hanyecz purchased two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins from another user on the forum still known as Bitcointalk. 10,000 BITCOIN!! While it was worth only a few dollars at the time, those pizzas would now be worth $263 million.
Just another good reason to hold onto your Bitcoin, or stack sats if you're spending Bitcoin, to reaccumulate it. Imagine how many pizzas Laszlo could have bought if he had held onto them.
Following the AI updates in Web3, I had the pleasure of speaking with Benjelloun Oussama, Founder & CEO of OrboFi AI, this week. We discussed the use of generative AI to create digital assets and NFTs, as well as monetizing content with AI.
AI, and more specifically, Generative AI, is proving to be extremely beneficial for creators and artists. It enables them to generate content almost instantly. Interest in platforms such as MidJourney and DALL-E, and the new 'Generative Fill' AI function in Adobe Photoshop, is growing rapidly.
The success of OrboFi AI doesn't surprise me; it's noteworthy that they've managed to reach 100,000 users in a very short period.
The company's public launch and token sale recently took place on three different launchpads, all of which sold out.
It's refreshing to see an AI project launch in the Web3 space that not only has a working product and a hundred thousand users but is also specifically focused on fundamentals and product-market fit, rather than just marketing hype.
We also discussed the upcoming launch of the OrboFi token, the potential entry of major gaming companies into the Web3 space, and how simple it is to use generative AI to produce NFTs and monetize creations.
Why Oracles are so important for DeFi and all dApps
As DeFi (and all dApps) continue to grow, they will require Oracles to receive the correct price feeds.
Most of us know Chainlink as one of the Oracles that feeds data into the blockchain, but I am more interested in an underdog which I expect will become even bigger than this.
I recently interviewed the CEO of SupraOracles, Joshua D. Tobkin, for the 2nd time in 2 years, as his team prepares for the next phase of launch of SupraOracles. Joshua explains Oracle Networks very well, why oracles are necessary for DeFi to work, how external price feeds work, and how oracles generate revenues.
Even cooler, SupraOracles has just launched a community initiatives to educate new users and get them involved for the launch, and they can start earning $SUPRA tokens prior to them being available on the market.
I highly recommend joining the community event and getting even a few tokens prior to the launch. It could pay off big time. Here's an invite link to the platform: https://bit.ly/45H9tm6
And below is my discussion with Joshua to learn more about Oracles and the community blastoff itself. Happy Learning!
Crypto Market Analysis
BTC Bitcoin:
Bitcoin has been relatively sideways and weak in the past weeks. Bitcoin has been in a downward channel since April 15th, now 1.5 months. This week Bitcoin printed a “Bull” signal on the 12H and 1D chart, rising up to near the resistance level (top green downward trendline). Bitcoin won’t break 30k until it first breaks this line.
The Bull signal first printed during the weekend, which are normally lower volume trading times and not exactly promising. However, Crypto_Birb, creator of the Birb Nest and this chart indicator, think objectively and just follow the signals. Birb has bought back over $500,000 worth of Bitcoin following since this signal printed.
While Birb objectively follows the signals and BUYS when it says Buy (with a 2% risk stop-loss) I am personally short term bearish on Bitcoin breaking through resistance. The pump was a low volume weekend and we still have not retraced very much from the 30k top. Many of the other professional traders in my network are still anticipating a steep drop with targets anywhere from $25,000 to as low as $21,000 in a more dire situation. That will be the time to buy for the next leg up.
I expect the peak of the dip will result in -5 or -10% on the day for Bitcoin. BTC always tends to rise slowly, and fall quickly, so be patient.
However, with Hong Kong recently opening the doors for trading Bitcoin, there could be positive price action on Bitcoin as Asia floods into the market. So we will see…
If Bitcoin is not moving upwards, the general trend of altcoins will not move up. There are outliers and anomalies that will grow based on their project milestones and big community events, but anyone buying a majority of altcoins right now will not be selling them next week, more likely at the end of 2023.
Total Market Cap:
An update to my prediction on the total market cap of cryptocurrencies from two weeks ago. I said the PEPE meme pump had marked the local top of the crypto market caps. Since then the market cap has dropped slightly, following my prediction pretty closely.
There' haven’t been too many projects or narrative pushing the space up this past month, and the “Sell of May and Walk away” appears to be true for this month at least. With more meme coins popping up trying to replicate the short term success if PEPE, I still believe it’s time for a retracement to wipe out the retail traders who thought they could make a quick buck. If you bought the top of PEPE, you’re only -73% (so far).
Other Crypto News:
Tether to allocate up to 15% of its profits towards purchasing Bitcoin
Strike launches Bitcoin lightning payments across +65 countries.
A major bug in the decentralized finance lending protocol Aave V2 on the Polygon network has caused an estimated $110 million worth of user assets to become inaccessible.
Nvidia $NVDA surpasses a $1 trillion market capitalization.
Germany officially enters recession.
Ron DeSantis vows to protect Bitcoin rights as president.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. becomes first presidential candidate to accept Bitcoin
campaign donations.
China launches government-backed metaverse platform. (I thought Metaverse was dead?)
Hong Kong to allow retail investors to access licensed crypto exchanges.
That’s all for this week!
Ashton Addison, CEO of Crypto Coin Show