📌 MUST READS

Major Companies Add Crypto Accelerating Mainstream Adoption

The last few weeks have been tough for us crypto enthusiasts. Between the bank collapses, Operation Choke Point 2.0, and the never-ending attacks from regulators, it hasn’t exactly been all rainbows lately.

But despite these setbacks, over the last month, crypto still made progress on its long march toward global adoption.

Here are just a few of the more notable developments.

Amazon NFTs
There's only one asset that has been performing worse than the regular token market recently: NFTs. But a resurgence might be on the horizon, especially if Jeff Bezos’s empire gets in the game.

That’s right; Amazon is developing an NFT marketplace. And it won’t just be any old marketplace, but a marketplace where the NFTs are tied to real-world assets. So, for example, if you purchase an NFT linked to a pair of jeans, you get the NFT and the jeans.

Pretty cool.

Fidelity Crypto
Fidelity has been a leader in mainstream crypto adoption for years now. The brokerage giant with 37.1 million retail accounts began mining bitcoin all the way back in 2014, launched institutional bitcoin trading in 2018, released their bitcoin ETF in 2020, and was the first retirement plan provider to add bitcoin as a 401(k) plan investment option in 2022.

Now, their much-anticipated Fidelity Crypto app is open to the public, enabling millions of retail traders to trade bitcoin and ether commission-free.

But that’s not all Fidelity is doing. They are also building out their crypto and token research team, ostensibly with the goal of diving even deeper into the crypto rabbit hole.

With Fidelity leading the charge, the future looks bright for the adoption of crypto by mainstream brokerages.

Telegram Payments
With over 700 million monthly active users, Telegram is one of the largest messaging apps and one of the most popular apps in the world, period.

Thankfully for us, they are also an enthusiastic adopter of crypto. They’ve previously added bitcoin and toncoin (TON) into the app’s marketplace, with the latter also available to send within chats. And now, they’ve made it so users can send USDT within chats.

So, 700 million people can now send USDT as easily as they can send a chat, enhancing stablecoin adoption.

Ticketmaster NFTs
It is often said that NFTs will disrupt the ticketing space. Well, it turns out that ticketing giant Ticketmaster got the memo, as they are now incorporating NFTs into their service.

Specifically, they are launching a feature allowing artists to provide NFT holders with special access to concert tickets and other rewards.

It’s a small move, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s another positive step toward NFT mainstream adoption.

Epic Crypto Games
Crypto gaming, despite the massive amount of hype, hasn’t really taken off. That’s because no actual fun crypto game exists yet. Even the most ‘successful’ crypto game of all time, Axie Infinity, was successful for its money-making potential, not its gaming merits.

And that’s more or less been the story of crypto gaming so far: good for making money, bad for actual gamers.

But that might be changing soon.

Epic Games, the developer of Fortnite, which 250 million people play each month, is working on about 20 crypto games right now. If any of them are half as fun as Fortnite, crypto gaming might actually have a chance.

On A Long Enough Timeline, Crypto Wins
During the bear market, it’s easy to get lost in the bad news. Whether it’s the regulators, a hack, a fraud, or just prices going down, the hits seem never-ending.

But it’s important to zoom out and see the progress crypto is making. We listed just five examples of mainstream adoption today. There were many more, including Microsoft’s crypto wallet, S&P Global hiring a DeFi director, Ralph Lauren's in-store crypto payments, the partnership between Yuga Labs and Gucci, and the Lightning Network implementation being developed by the Jack Dorsey-backed Spiral, which has big plans to improve the way payments can be made on Bitcoin.

To top it all off, the growing number of daily transactions on the Bitcoin network still looks to be unfazed by all the economic and regulatory turbulence of this past decade. This is tied to a growing number of both new and active BTC addresses, indicating that more individuals and businesses are starting to recognize the benefits of using Bitcoin as a form of payment, investment, or safe-haven asset.

At the end of the day, when you feel like you’re about to be overwhelmed by the bad news, remember: mainstream adoption is coming, and long-term investors are in a position to reap its rewards.

SPONSORED

Gold and Crypto: The Perfect Combination

Investors have been using gold to protect their wealth for thousands of years now. But there have always been some drawbacks — including storage hassles, relatively high transaction fees, and an inability to generate any extra income from the metal itself.
That’s why our colleague Nilus Mattive is so excited about a unique cryptocurrency that is backed by gold bars on a 1-to-1 basis. He gives all the details on it — along with his big-picture view of the rest of the crypto market — in this presentation.
Inside, you’ll also get the names of seven cryptos to avoid and a whole lot more …including strategies to earn Bitcoin without even risking any investment money.

Learn more here.

🔍 DEEP DIVES

Canadian Exchange Merger Looks A Bit Sketchy

Something strange is afoot in Canada.

Something even stranger than maple taffy.

We’re talking about the newly announced merger of the Canadian exchanges WonderFi, Coinsquare, and CoinSmart.

At first glance, this looks like a simple merger among three smaller exchanges to form one dominant Canadian entity. But, dig deeper, and something just doesn’t feel quite right.

Let’s break it down.

The Players
If you don’t live in Canada, you’ve probably never heard of WonderFi, Coinsquare, or CoinSmart. So, before we dive into the story itself, let’s quickly cover our 3 main players:

The Merger
The merger between the three Canadian giants was announced on Monday, and in the announcement, several benefits were touted:

Sounds pretty good, right? We agree, at face value, it does.

But, digging deeper, we’re not sure the merger is as good as it looks.

Funny Business
To explain why our spidey senses are tingling here, let’s first set the timeline:

To us, there are multiple reasons for consumers to be wary here:

To add, after a quick archive browse, look who showed up as a WonderFi strategic investor! (who obviously isn’t listed anymore)

Ultimately, this to us looks more like a deal of convenience to raise share prices than a deal meant to help consumers. We’re not saying it’s fraudulent, just that it looks weird.

Are we right? Who knows. But, as the classic saying goes, “if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck”.

Look, we aren’t saying this is just one big stock promotion, but we aren’t not saying it isn’t a big stock promotion.

We are more than happy to be proven wrong, and all might be okay, but with other Canadian exchanges taking a dirtnap, plus the ability to buy crypto on other exchanges, we can’t, in good faith, suggest to our readers either (1) buy crypto on the new conglomerate, or (2), invest in the stock.

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Wall Street Legend Who Called AMZN Crash Issues New Sell Alert

He named Amazon before it crashed 35%, DoorDash before it crashed 60%, and Wayfair before it crashed 70%.

Now, after years of big gains, he says one popular company’s day in the sun is finally coming to an end. You must get off this sinking ship… now.

1 million people follow him for his surprisingly accurate predictions. His new sell alert could save your wealth in 2023. Click here for details.

📝 TWEET OF THE WEEK

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