Jack Niewold 🫡 Profile picture
Founder of @CryptoPrag (acquired). Now writing and angel investing.
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Jan 15 12 tweets 2 min read
10 CRYPTO PREDICTIONS: 1. SUCCESSFUL TOKENS WILL 'EAT THE STACK'

Modularity, L0, data availability, interoperability: from a narrative perspective, it means the same thing.

If the last cycle was about Alt-L1s, the new narrative will be around projects that could conceivably serve the entire stack.
Jan 4 16 tweets 5 min read
Are you caught up on Ordinals, BRC-20 Tokens, BTC L2s, and BTC DeFi?

No? Then you're missing out on the biggest crypto ecosystem in the world.

That's why I've distilled everything you need to know into a short thread.

Read on for THE BITCOIN REVIVAL, EXPLAINED: Not yet convinced?

Here are the gains of some of the most popular BTC-eco tokens over the last 90 days:

• $SATS 79x
• $MUBI: 8.5x
• $TRAC: 14x
• $STX: 3.5x

We've shouted ALL of them out in our email newsletter; subscribe here:



Anyways...cryptopragmatist.com/subscribe?utm_…
Sep 1, 2023 20 tweets 4 min read
This week, Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong posted 9 ideas he wishes he could build in crypto.

They are:

• Flatcoins
• Onchain Reputation
• Onchain Ads
• Onchain Capital Formation
• Job/Task Marketplace for Crypto
• Privacy for Layer 2

Along with: Image • Fully Onchain P2P Exchange
• Onchain Games
• Tokenizing real world assets

But what do these ideas look like in the real world?

And could you (yes, you) get involved in building some of these things?

I'll explain each of these potential projects/narratives below:
May 24, 2023 16 tweets 5 min read
The Saga of BEN.ETH.

This is the story of how a pseudonymous crypto influencer:

• created a multi-billion memecoin empire
• Was sent $7m in free money
• Gained the attention of Andrew Tate
• Was sued for 8 figures

Do I have your attention?

Read on: I guess this all starts with $PEPE, a memecoin that launched in late April only to go ballistic.

Some early holders rode the coin 100x, in some cases turning a few hundred bucks into over a million.

The trend captivated crypto twitter and beyond.

Mar 29, 2023 13 tweets 4 min read
No, Andre Cronje's Solidly wasn't doomed on arrival.

Solidly forks are like fine wine: they just get better with age.

Solidly→ Velodrome
Velodrome→ Thena
Thena→ SolidLizard

And now, as Polygon experiences max hype, let's take a look at SATIN, the latest version of Solidly: Why should you be paying attention?

Solidly forks have been some of the biggest winners since the June bottom, with 22 forks in just ~1 year. All together, they hold about $664 million in TVL.

With over $30m on average/fork, it's the project with the most average TVL/fork.
Mar 24, 2023 10 tweets 4 min read
$ARB: The First 24 Hours

🧵 Firstly, the airdrop:

About 80% of eligible $ARB has been claimed, giving most ample time to dump their tokens.

Unsurprisingly, most of the wallets that haven't claimed have lower allocations. Image
Mar 17, 2023 15 tweets 4 min read
The launch of omnichain lending will wreak havoc on the biggest crypto borrowing protocols.

And I'm not even sure if Aave, Compound, and Venus are paying attention.

Here's a thread on Radiant V2, and why I think omnichain money markets will outcompete everything else out there: So what is Radiant in the first place?

@RDNTCapital, on a product level, is similar to other overcollateralized lending protocols.

Deposit collateral, borrow something else.

The difference?

It's omnichain: so you'll be able to borrow on any LayerZero-supported blockchain.
Mar 14, 2023 16 tweets 5 min read
DeFi is broken.

Thankfully, Real Yield, pioneered by projects like GMX, promises to fix it.

Here are the sustainable 'Real Yield'-based DeFi projects I'm keeping an eye on.

A thread featuring: $ARC, $PENDLE, $LQTY, $FCTR, and $RDNT Real Yield: a well-designed token economy that rewards all stakeholders leads to sustainability.

Fake Yield: token inflation means that token-holders end up being the exit liquidity.
Mar 6, 2023 16 tweets 6 min read
What will DeFi 3.0 look like?

And which crypto projects will lead the way?

🧵 Image DeFi 1.0 produced the backbone of DeFi: AAVE, COMP, UNI

DeFi 2.0 was plagued by rugs, scams, and yield ponzis.

I've got some theories for what DeFi 3.0 will involve, and why:

The features:

• Multi-chain
• Capital efficient
• Incentive Redesign
• Product-liquidity-flywheel Image
Feb 16, 2023 16 tweets 6 min read
CRYPTO IS BACK, A THREAD

If you haven't been following the latest crypto pump, here's your chance to get caught up.

Below:

• A review of the narratives you've missed
• A recap of the ones you haven't

Keep reading: A few narratives have lead the pack over everything else during the latest pump.

Below, we'll check out:

1. Arbitrum Eco
2. zk Rollups
3. Staking Derivatives
4. GameFi/Gambling
5. BTC comeback

And after researching all of these narratives for this thread, I realized something:
Jan 30, 2023 9 tweets 3 min read
Next month's Shanghai Fork will enable Staked ETH withdrawals from the Beacon Chain.

Do you understand how it works?

With $20b in ETH that could get unstaked, it's worth it to stay up to speed.

Here's a little cheat sheet thread with everything you need to know: 1. ALL STAKED ETH CANNOT BE UNSTAKED IMMEDIATELY POST-SHANGHAI:

After the Shanghai Hard Fork, ETH withdrawals are enabled, but anyone who wants to get their ETH out has to sit through a two-step process.
Jan 26, 2023 14 tweets 7 min read
Ethereum’s Shanghai Fork is coming.

If you hold ETH, here's what you need to know, explained simply.

🧵 To understand the Shanghai fork, we need to understand a bit about Ethereum.

Ethereum used to run on Proof-of-work. Ethereum 'miners' were paid to run the network, and the token supply was inflated to keep the network secure.
Jan 4, 2023 15 tweets 7 min read
Today, I'm ranking the best (and worst) predictions of 2022.

In the last month, there have been TONS of new 2023 crypto prediction threads, but few have reflected on the accuracy of their 2022 guesses.

So we did it for them.

51 predictions.

25 wrong.

And one winner: First: our methodology is pretty unscientific, as everyone made different predictions in different mediums, some more verifiable than others...

We did the best we could, but keep in mind that it's easier to make broad predictions than specific ones.

Nonetheless:
Dec 18, 2022 8 tweets 2 min read
A moment of poetry in the World Cup.

Have you heard of the curse of Tilcara?

Let me explain: Image In 1986, the Argentine National selection visited Tilcara, a small town in Argentina for the training camp.

There, they prayed to the famed Virgin of Tilcara, promising to return to thank her if they won.

And they won.

Dec 16, 2022 9 tweets 2 min read
Five facts worth noting about the $BNB token: 1. Half of the token supply was sold in a public sale for $15m, $0.15 per token.

If investors bought the ICO, they're up over 1600x

Diagram: @MessariCrypto
Nov 29, 2022 5 tweets 1 min read
In the same way that Uber’s cheap rides generated adoption, money losers in crypto tend to attract new users.

Examples:

• inflationary yield farms
• AVAX gas fee refunds
• Airdrops
• GMX zero-slippage swaps

But these are advertising expenses, not product features

1/x
Remember the justification for Luna? For Celsius yields?

‘It won’t go on forever—it’s for driving adoption’

But these advertising gimmicks were too good (and had a cost), and hid a sub-par product.

Remember when Anchor cut rates? But just 1%, they couldn’t risk capital flight
Nov 25, 2022 14 tweets 4 min read
It's Black Friday: so what cryptos are 'on sale'?

I analyzed the top 100 crypto tokens from exactly one year ago and tracked their performance over the last 365 days.

Only one project has gone up in price.

Here's a breakdown of how the projects have performed: Some disclaimers:

1. This doesn't count any staking rewards, interest, or rebasing.

2. I've removed wrapped tokens, liquid staking derivatives, and stablecoins because it's more fun this way.

Without further ado:
Nov 23, 2022 5 tweets 1 min read
1/x

Dani Sesta got one thing right: DeFi needs memes in order for it to be successful--at least until more sophisticated capital comes into the space.

Products like Degenbox (the UST looping strategy) were exciting and accessible to retail.

Add a memecoin and it took off. 'Serious' protocols that need governance token issuance and sophisticated capital to come in when there's no appetite for risk are simply ngmi.

Why would a hedgefund LP your synthetic forex pair when they can just sit in treasuries?

Retail stays, sophisticated capital flees.
Nov 18, 2022 26 tweets 7 min read
There is only ONE best way to keep your crypto safe:

SELF-CUSTODY.

Not crypto exchanges, not yield platforms, not FTX, not Celsius.

Today, I'll teach you what self-custody means, how to do it, and why it's so important:

A CRYPTO SECURITY AND SELF-CUSTODY MEGATHREAD: LESSON ONE:

How do crypto wallets work in the first place?

Crypto wallets from a user perspective are actually quite simple.

They have just two parts:

• A public key (used to generate your wallet address)
• A private key (the 'password' for your crypto wallet)
Nov 15, 2022 18 tweets 5 min read
BOTTOM SIGNAL ROLL CALL:

Pre 3AC-blowup, I asked a bunch of cryptocurrency OGs about how to detect market bottoms.

They came up with 14 bottom signals—and at that point, we had only seen 4.

Where are we today? Tl;Dr:

10/14 bottom signals hit
Nov 7, 2022 23 tweets 7 min read
FTX, the #2 crypto exchange, is experiencing a bank run.

Pushed to the brink by a debt crisis & an announcement from its #1 competitor, ~$1b has bled out from the platform in the last few days.

What happened? Will FTX survive the crunch? Will the rest of crypto dump?

Read on: THE CAST:

• Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF): the CEO of FTX, an 'effective altruist' who has spent much of the last few years getting cozy with lobbyists and politicians in the US

• Chanpeng Zhao (CZ), speculated to be the richest man in crypto, the founder and CEO of Binance Image