GM Ambirers and new frens, hopefully, you're not losing your head in this market! Crypto is always unpredictable, but that's part of the thrill.

Before we dig into this week’s news, let’s look at how our W3OF Degen Portfolio is doing 📈

The portfolio has experienced a sideways movement similar to the overall industry sentiment over the past week, so no big changes. There’s always a but, though, and we have 2 this week:

• ⚖️ The portfolio is now re-balanced as per voting results from the previous week (see below). We dumped $OP for $STG and replaced $BONK with $OVN - let’s see where this will take us!

• ⛓ And, the Ambire Wallet browser extension now fully supports all EVM networks, so we can degen on so many chains 💪 

We’re grinding and discussing potential gems for future trades in #web3-on-fire Ambire Discord, see ya there!

Now, let’s get down to what happened in the space:

• 🪖 SEC declares war on DeFi

• 💅 Marginfi drama leads to multi million dump

• 💳️ Crypto card maxxing is back from the dead!

• 🐸 Andre Cronje’s bet on memecoins

SEC declares war on DeFi

Uniswap, safe to say the jewel in DeFi's crown, now finds itself at the center of a regulatory storm after receiving a legal notice from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ✉️ 

This development has raised crucial questions about the future of decentralized finance and highlighted compliance issues that these platforms are facing.

Uniswap woke up to a Wells notice from the SEC, signaling an in-depth investigation into its operations 👇️ 

• This has caused quite a stir within the crypto community and had an immediate impact on the price of its native coin, UNI, which dumped.

While the details of the notice remain undisclosed, it is evident that this could have significant consequences not just for Uniswap but for DeFi as a whole.

In response to the SEC's notice, Uniswap’s CEO Hayden Adams has vowed to fight against it vigorously and calls upon the community to unite in this battle.

 💪 He believes that DeFi is worth fighting for and that freedom should not be compromised.

As the legal battle ensues, it is clear that the future of DeFi and the broader financial technology industry probably hangs in the balance 😰 

Will this be a turning point for decentralized finance, or will it succumb to regulatory pressure?

Marginfi drama leads to multi-million dump

A founder of one of the most popular decentralized trading protocols on Solana, Marginfi, has recently announced his resignation due to internal disputes.

• Edgar Pavlovsky stated that he is stepping down from his role as the creator of Marginfi, citing disagreements with how things have been handled internally and externally 🤔 

Marginfi was founded in 2021 and quickly gained popularity within the Solana ecosystem, reaching a liquidity of over $580 million 💎 

However, the recent drama surrounding its founder's resignation has caused a significant drop in the value of its associated token.

According to DefiLlama analytics, Marginfi saw a net outflow of almost $200 million from the platform following Pavlovsky's announcement 👇️ 

Pavlovsky clarified that his departure is not driven by financial motives, stating that he doesn't care about money.

He also took responsibility for the current situation, admitting it was ultimately his failure as the founder of MRGN Inc., the company behind Marginfi.

But that's not all

SolBlaze, a competing liquid staking protocol on Solana, accused Marginfi of acting in bad faith and withholding their tokens.

This further fueled the drama surrounding Marginfi and added to its already significant loss in value.

Despite the controversy, Marginfi has assured its users that their operations and products will not be affected by Pavlovsky's departure 🤷 

They also stated that they respect his privacy and that his exit was due to operational disagreements and personal reasons.

Crypto cards are back from the dead!

Crypto credit cards were the talk of the town back in ‘21, with the likes of Crypto.com and Binance offering cards that allowed users to spend their crypto like fiat at merchants around the world and to withdraw cash at ATMs.

Users really, REALLY liked these

Sadly, though, most of these cards were shut down due to regulatory issues, lack of demand, or just because the market dumped so hard that the company couldn’t afford to keep it running.

We're back?

• 1Inch has recently joined the game by launching their very own crypto debit card in partnership with Mastercard and Baanx 💳️ 

• The 1inch Card will allow users to make online and in-person purchases using their crypto, as well as withdraw cash from supported ATMs through seamless conversion of crypto to fiat 🏧 

There is also the "crypto life" card powered by popular crypto storage firm, Ledger.

1inch co-founder Sergej Kunz expressed their goal of expanding their user base beyond just traders and developers and reaching everyday people interested in using crypto for payments.

Are we going to see more of these cards pop up before this bull run is over?

Andre Cronje’s bet on memecoins

• Fantom (FTM) founder Andre Cronje is making moves to integrate more memecoins into the blockchain network.

• This reflects a growing trend among crypto chains to embrace these assets, which have seen explosive growth since the beginning of the year and generated a market capitalization of over $60 billion.

Andre Cronje recently announced his plans to develop a framework for launching, nurturing, and safeguarding community-centric memecoins on Fantom.

This endeavor has been met with some criticism from DeFi maximalists, given the inherent volatility and limited utility of memecoins, but it signals Fantom's plans to enter into the expanding landscape of smart contract networks that facilitate the creation and exchange of these assets 🪙 

Andre likely hopes that, akin to life emerging from primordial soup, memecoins will evolve into something more sophisticated, eventually unveiling new use cases and methods for these tokens to create value 🫣 

Increased interest in memecoins among crypto investors has prompted various blockchains, such as BNB Chain and Avalanche, to offer incentives to entice memecoin developers into their networks.

👉️ The collective value of the meme coin sector has nearly tripled since the beginning of the year, reaching a market capitalization of around $60 billion.

This pump has been fueled by the rise of several Solana-based meme coins, such as Dogwifihat (WIF) 🐶 and Book of Meme (BOME) 🐸 

Established meme coins like Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and Pepe, last year's top player, have also seen significant growth this year.

Other worthy reads

Chinese institutions are launching BTC ETFs in Hong Kong:

Weekly DeFi update by TheDeFiInvestor:

Pumpfun getting ALOT more attention now 🤔 

MEMES

That's all for now, frens.

We'll meet in a week! And remember, the market conditions are temporary, but our commitment to building a better Web3 is here to stay. Thanks for joining us, and we look forward to seeing you back next week. Cheers!

Yours, The 🔥 Team

Brought to you by Ambire: The Only Web3 Wallet That You’ll Need!