Weekly Recommendations | The History and Outlook of Ethereum Merge; Conversation with Galxe Founder Harry Zhang

Organizer: Hu Tao; Chain Catcher

1. “Six Reasons to Bet on Ethereum”

The assets contained in the cryptocurrency ecosystem have been the best-performing assets in the world over the past decade, with the best risk/return ratios (e.g., BTC and DOGE). For many of us, this is the main reason we became interested in cryptocurrencies. However, investor Alphadegen.eth believes that ETH now has the best risk/return ratio among assets. This article elaborates on the six reasons to bet on Ethereum.

2. “The End of Ethereum's 8-Year Mining Era: Vitalik, Chinese Mining, and Nvidia”
The most traditional mining in the crypto world relies on machine computing power to perform extremely complex calculations, with Bitcoin being the pioneer and Ethereum being a grandparent-level player. With Ethereum completing its merger upgrade today, it means it has abandoned proof-of-work mining. The end of Ethereum's 8-year mining era also marks the end of mining geographically in China. The author of this article aims to document a piece of history that all Web3 participants should know.

3. “Interview with Galxe Founder Harry Zhang: Why We Rebranded and How We Achieved From 0 to 1?”

From the initial "Web3 Resume" to a data credential network, and then to a larger DID market. Galxe drives market growth through data credentials, issuing soulbound tokens to increase community engagement and thereby enhance brand awareness. This article features an interview with Galxe founder Harry Zhang, where he discusses why Galxe has rapidly developed over the past year, the reasons for the rebranding, future plans, and the current state of the DID track.

4. “The Future of Crypto-Native Consumer Products: How Does Web3 Digital Identity Play a Practical Role?”

Digital identity platforms are one of the most exciting areas of consumer products in cryptocurrency. Whoever can create a valuable reason to aggregate and update user profiles—either by providing a useful tool or creating entertainment value—will dominate the blockchain identity space. In this article, Lightspeed partners list 13 cases in this direction.

5. “Building the Soul of a Web3 Brand: 3 Questions - Why? What? How?”

Recently, Starbucks announced its entry into Web3, and top blue-chip NFT project Doodles announced a $54 million funding round. On one side, top Web2 brands are transitioning to Web3, while on the other, Web3 native brands are accelerating their growth. We have arrived at the eve of an explosion in Web3 brands. The author of this article, in discussions with friends from Web2, found that the biggest confusion lies in the philosophical aspect: why do this? What does a Web3 brand really mean, and how is it different from a Web2 brand? Through this article, the author attempts to answer the three questions of building the soul of a Web3 brand—Why, What, How, from philosophy to practice.

6. “The Dilemma and Choices of MakerDAO: Losses, Regulation, MetaDAO”

Most people's impression of MakerDAO may be that it has long held the top position in TVL, DAI is an important DeFi infrastructure, and MakerDAO can rely on stable fee income to buy back and burn MKR. But who would have thought that the most representative DeFi protocol, MakerDAO, has also fallen into a quagmire? According to revenue data, MakerDAO incurs an annual loss of about $9.4 million.

What kind of dilemma is MakerDAO facing? What are the short-term and long-term coping strategies? This article provides a detailed analysis.

7. “Founder's Reflections on the Three 'Lessons Learned' from the Closure of the NFT Rental Protocol Rentable”

On September 13, the NFT rental protocol Rentable announced its closure, with all services set to stop on October 14. Co-founder Emiliano Bonassi stated, "We did not find a product suitable for the market, and our runway has ended. After careful consideration and discussions, we prefer to move towards closure rather than seek further funding."

Once upon a time, NFTFI was a hot track, especially after the NFT rental protocol standard ERC-4907 was passed in June, many were optimistic about this track. However, in just a few months, the situation changed dramatically. Regarding the reasons for the "failure," the founder reflected in a post.

8. “Token Economic Design: Protocols, Nations, and Traditional Companies”
This article starts from the differences between protocols, nations, and traditional companies, comparing different ways of internal structure and personnel coordination. It illustrates the superiority of Web3 through examples of some mature protocols/DAOs, introduces token design theory, and explains how to establish an economic system within a protocol/DAO to maximize user benefits.

9. “As Application Chains Become Popular, Why Does Helium Plan to Abandon Its Independent Chain and Migrate to Solana?”

As many applications leave to build their own blockchains, the decentralized wireless communication network Helium is going against the trend. On August 30, Helium's core developers initiated the HIP70 proposal, planning to migrate the network from its custom blockchain to Solana.

Chain Catcher interviewed Yuan, the head of Helium's Asia-Pacific region, who shared with us the strategic considerations behind Helium's migration to Solana.