Whether or not you’re a longtime reader of this newsletter, it may help to picture this intro as an opening scrawl with a background of stars.

In a galaxy pretty close, not that long ago… The NFT Wars continued! 

We’ve got an action-packed, decentralized adventure in store for you today. So, let’s lift our eyes to the stars as we delve into The NFT Wars!

Espresso Shots

☕️ Top Bitcoin Holder Piles On 🚀 📈

Microstrategy, one of the largest holders of Bitcoin has bought… even more Bitcoin.

Microstrategy, a business intelligence company, announced on Wednesday that they have purchased an additional 1,045 BTC or $23.9 million worth.

That brings Microstrategy’s total holdings to date to around $4.1 billion in Bitcoin, making them the third largest whale in the crypto ocean.

At this point their holdings are only smaller than DCG's Grayscale and Satoshi Nakomoto, Bitcoin's pseudonymous founder. 

Much of this is the result of an ethos created by Microstrategy’s founder, Michael Saylor.

Saylor is one of the hardest, OG Bitcoin Maximalists (more on that later) and has had his company to buy up massive quantities of Bitcoin since 2020 as an investment hedge against global recessions.

“Our strategy is to buy and hold Bitcoin,” said Saylor. “And the key for us is to be consistent, transparent and responsible in the pursuit of that strategy.”

The success of Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin strategy has more than made up for his failed slogan, “Microstrategy: Intelligent Solutions for the Tiniest Businesses.”

☕️ Canadian Critiques of Excess Energy 💡 🇨🇦

Despite the growing opinion that Bitcoin mining primarily uses “excess energy,” Hydro-Québec, one of Canada’s largest utility companies, remains unconvinced.

The Bitcoin mining industry has long made a habit of surviving on energy that wouldn’t be used elsewhere, like excess hydropower from drainage or run-off gasses from oil drilling.

But as Bitcoin mining becomes more popular in Quebec, the practice is receiving some pushback from the region’s dominant power company.

“There is no such thing as excess energy for Hydro-Québec,” said a representative from the company. We manage our network in order to produce electricity in real time to answer the demand.”

But if there’s no such thing as excess energy, then why did my parents put me on Ritalin in fifth grade? Checkmate, Hydro-Québec.

☕️ Biden Warns Against AI 🇺🇸 🤖

In a meeting of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, Biden railed against the dangers of AI and urged AI companies to use restraint.

“Tech companies have a responsibility, in my view,” said Biden, “to make sure their products are safe before making them public.”

Biden’s sentiments on AI are far from unique. The Center for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Policy went so far as to request the FTC bar OpenAI from releasing the latest version of ChatGPT. 

Despite their request, the Federal Trade Commission has done nothing, and ChatGPT-4 has already been released to the world with astonishing success. 

Biden clearly has some presidential privilege. Usually when an eighty-year old man rants about robots they wheel him into another room so he doesn’t disrupt visiting hours. 

Spilling the Beans

The NFT Wars Continue 💥 🤺

OpenSea has struck its most recent blow in the ongoing NFT Wars with the release of “OpenSea Pro.”

OpenSea was once the top NFT marketplace in the world until they were dethroned by newcomer, Blur.

And the resulting struggle as these two marketplaces scrap over the world’s NFT users is a struggle that we affectionately refer to as, “The NFT Wars.”

And OpenSea’s been losing. Badly. 

Blur came to the game, took all the whales, and at Blur, the whales have stayed.

On the surface level, Blur has a way cooler aesthetic. The Blur website has a retrowave vibe reminiscent of a 1980’s pong court. It's a stark contrast from OpenSea’s clean look.

Blur is also… slightly harder to use. And that's not a negative, per se. NFT experts enjoy a certain amount of obfuscation and gatekeeping when it comes to their operations.

Blur has made clear who its target audience is: The NFT pros. The ones with fat wallets and huge collections. And that strategy has worked exactly the way they planned.

Opensea technically has more users, averaging 280k to Blur's 87k over the last month. But Blur's transaction volume dwarfs Opensea. 

Over the last 30 days, Blur has done $1.1 billion in volume. Opensea has only done $360 million. The money is all on Blur. And that's a problem for Opensea.

So how did this happen? Opensea was dominant for so long. But Blur did a few things differently to garner its current, top-dog position in the NFT Wars.

The most important aspect of Blur’s strategy was its rewards model. Blur incentivized participation on its platform with the Blur Token. 

Essentially trading on the platform is rewarded by airdrops of Blur token to their users.

So, rather than copy what worked about Blur’s campaign, the new OpenSea Pro subscription plan copies everything but.

OpenSea Pro entails an NFT drop for early users. And yes, it also requires a subscription fee, but becoming a paid subscriber of OpenSea Pro skirts fees that normal users have to pay on OpenSea.

Opensea Pro has also gone a step further. They're promising the best and fastest tech, and the ability to access 170 different NFT marketplaces, all in one place.

Effectively, OpenSea is trying to go after the "Super Traders" that Blur has taken from them.

And despite being the dominant NFT marketplace for years, OpenSea’s rollout here suggests that they may have missed what people love about Blur... the token. 

If we’re going to play armchair general here, the best tactical decision that OpenSea could have made was to gamify trading a bit more. Add more rewards, make it fun. 

But there seems to be no current indication that they’re going to do that.

We don’t want to call the results of wars before they’re over, but it seems that OpenSea is headed in the direction of the world’s actual oceans.

In that OpenSea will soon become a barren wasteland, its once majestic waves only remembered in the stories that we tell our grandchildren.

Meme of the Day

Oh yeahhh, I remember Opensea!

Crypto 101

Bitcoin Maxi: Short for a “Bitcoin Maximalist.” This is someone who believes that Bitcoin is destined to be the dominant cryptocurrency and that other crypto, in fact other currencies are a dying breed. 

This goes beyond viewing Bitcoin as an investment hedge and into the territory of believing that Bitcoin will be the dominant currency of the future. Symptoms include: Bitcoin stacking. See Microstrategy’s $4.1 billion in Bitcoin for reference.

The Last Sip

The Last Sip: Our top three fun facts about Michael Saylor, the founder of Microstrategy and quintessential Bitcoin Maximalist.

1. Saylor refused to close the Microstrategy offices during COVID until he was legally required to do so. Calling social distancing, “soul-stealing and debilitating."

2. In 1999, Saylor founded the Saylor Foundation. The Saylor Foundation later became the Saylor Academy. Saylor is the sole trustee.

3. Saylor is worth an estimated $1.1 billion and he is an Aquarius, which explains his playful nature.

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.