It’s Wednesday, my dudes. Or as many spiritually destroyed office workers call it, “hump day.”

We worry people focus too much on the camel as a mascot for Hump Day, so this Hump Day we’re going to focus on the true king of the hump, the Humpback Whale.

Did you know the Humpback Whale migrates farther than any mammal? Up to 5,000 miles! Now that we all know that we can have a whale of a time in today’s newsletter.

Espresso Shots

☕️ Binance.US Gets the OK to Acquire Voyager 🚀 💰

Binance.US has made significant progress in its efforts to acquire bankrupt crypto firm, Voyager.

Judge Michael Wiles, a bankruptcy judge in the Southern District of New York, has dismissed all of the previous objections to the acquisition.

But Binance.US hasn’t cinched the deal yet, they’ll still have to comply with some regulatory guidelines before the deal can be finalized.

Though the proceedings already seem to be working out pretty well for Binance.US, as Voyager’s VGX token rose 8% as soon as the results of this hearing went public.

Judge Michael Wiles can see why the acquisition should go through, but can he see why kids love the taste of Cinnamon Toast Crunch?

☕️ Hacker Tenders Funds for Bounty 🤑 💻

A hacker found a glitch in Tender.fi, a lending platform, and was able to borrow about $1.59 million worth in assets.

Before they fully figured out what happened, Tender.fi took to Twitter to alert everyone of their still-developing whoopsie-daisie.

The apparently kind-hearted hacker alerted Tender.fi of the glitch and returned the assets in exchange for a $97,000 reward.

They say bounty hunting isn’t really about whether you win or lose, it’s about simultaneously doing the crime and collecting the reward money.

☕️ Ava Labs Unimpressed with AI 🤖 😐

Despite AI’s explosion into the crypto space and the prominence of ChatGPT, Ava Labs’ CEO, Emin Gün Sirer is still underwhelmed.

Emin Gün Sirer is the creator of Avalanche, and it's corresponding cryptocurrency, AVAX, which is the 18th largest in the world with a valuation of over $5 billion.

Sirer, a brilliant computer scientist, still has his doubts on AI. “We can’t go all into AI,” said Sirer. Personally, he's holding out for AI bots that can actively trade cryptocurrency.

“The AI valuations are sky high. There’ll be some stuff there, maybe, but $30 billion valuations for things that barely hold a conversation and can’t do arithmetic?”

Despite Sirer’s criticism, AI tokens still account for roughly $5 billion of crypto’s $1 trillion global market cap. Which is even more noteworthy considering that the tokens have doubled in value since January of 2023.

Regardless of AI’s recent successes, Sirer still insists that all robots are dorks and he could singlehandedly destroy both R2-D2 and C-3PO in a fight.

Spilling the Beans

Amazon NFTs on the Horizon 📈

Remember when Amazon just used to sell books?

We were there when Amazon became the bane of brick-and-mortar bookstores everywhere.

And some day, we’ll be able to say, “Remember when Amazon announced they were going into NFTs?”

After much speculation, it would appear that Amazon and crypto are finally going official.

An anonymous source with ties to Amazon said that we should expect the unveiling of the partnership between Amazon and Web3 as early as April 24th, when Amazon’s NFT Marketplace will go live.

“We knew it was possible,” said the source, “But now it seems like it’s really happening. That’s going going to affect the existing players in the space — if they execute and do this right and are smart about it.”

It’s still unclear who and which department is going to lead the charge at Amazon, but we’ve already unearthed some details about the release.

Amazon’s NFT marketplace will be called the, “Amazon Digital Marketplace” and will be a new tab on the Amazon website we all know so excruciatingly well.

But what does this new venture mean for crypto? We think this may be a very, very good thing.

First off, it means a lot of customers and a lot of money flowing into crypto.

Amazon brought in over $1.6 trillion in revenue last year. And they’ve currently got around 157 million members worldwide.

And remember, that’s only people with subscriptions to Amazon Prime, there are plenty of other customers who are ordering products off Amazon all the time without paying a subscription.

So, when you expect this monolithic warship of a company to crash into crypto, it should make some pretty big waves.

But more than an economic boost, Amazon has a cultural stamp that crypto’s been long awaiting and never quite getting.

See, Amazon’s presence could legitimize crypto. Before Amazon made ordering online the norm, it was a fringe concept.

The products people were ordering online were used pants that needed to be heavily laundered and sketchily acquired locks of celebrities’ hair.

But when the Amazon store moved beyond books and into, well… everything. They brought a legitimacy and an ease to online shopping that it so desperately needed.

It’s a mixed bag. On one hand, crypto’s decentralized nature arose to combat exactly these kind of institutions.

On the other hand, Amazon’s helping hand is not only going to bring a lot of people to the space, it’s going to make them feel a lot safer about purchasing crypto, NFTs, or Web3-related content.

Oh! And did we mention that Amazon’s rolling out its own brand of NFTs? And they’ve listened enough to understand that their NFTs have some sort of utility.

According to that same anonymous source, Amazon will offer product-related NFTs, like fashion-inspired NFTs that correlate to a very real and deliverable pair of jeans.

In this way, Amazon NFTs will function very much like receipts and may redefine the American conceptions of ownership.

Ultimately, we hope Amazon’s arrival on the scene will benefit crypto. We also know it could very likely be a dude. They've failed before.

Even Starbucks's recent loyalty program built on Polygon never quite got off the ground.

But whether you like it or not, you better accept it, because it’s only a matter of time before Amazon is streaming ads directly into the chip in your frontal lobe.

We, for one, welcome our Amazon overlords and are most excited about their latest endeavor. Join us.

Meme of the Day

C'mon Jeff, let's ride these things to the moon.

Crypto 101

DEX: Shorthand for a “decentralized exchange.”

This is a platform where users can engage in “peer-to-peer trading.” That’s simply user exchanges that take place without an intermediary like a bank or other financial institution.

Decentralized exchanges are usually slightly more complicated to use than centralized exchanges. They also require self-custody, which means you hold your own assets as opposed to leaving them in the custody of a centralized exchange.

The Last Sip

The release of Amazon’s Digital Marketplace stands to legitimize crypto. Here are some other things that we’d like to see Amazon legitimize.

• Riding Bird Scooters on the sidewalk.

• Wearing white after Labor Day.

• William the Conqueror’s (1066-1087) claim to the throne of England.

Stay Caffeinated,

Coffee & Crypto Team

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DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.