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⌐◪-◪ → Bitcoin just surged past $60k for the first time since November 2021, and things have never felt more bullish.

Furthermore, there’s a strong chance that Bitcoin hits a new all-time high (breaks $68.9k) before the halving in ~51 days.

This would be a first as Bitcoin establishes an all-time high pre-halving, making this cycle a clear divergence from previous ones.

For context, in the last 2 cycles, Bitcoin broke its all-time high 7-8 months after the halving.

While several factors are at play, I believe the biggest contributor is the newly approved spot Bitcoin ETFs which not only legitimized Bitcoin in the eyes of the public but also provided easy access to anybody with a basic brokerage account.

This cycle is going to hit different.

⌐◪-◪ → Looks like Telegram is taking a page from Twitter’s playbook, announcing their plans to share ad revenue with channel owners starting in March.

The company’s founder Pavel Durov said they will use the TON Blockchain to manage all ad revenue payments and withdrawals, which subsequently caused a 40% surge in the TON’s price.

This is a big deal considering Telegram has over 800M active monthly users, which means millions in new money is about to enter the crypto economy.

We’ll probably see other social media platforms follow suit — either by implementing their own ad revenue sharing programs or putting existing programs on web3 rails. Bullish for web3.

⌐◪-◪ → FINALLY! Lens Protocol has gone “permissionless”, meaning anybody can create an account without an invite! Wahoo!

The platform was previously closed off to the public, operating on an invite-only basis, with a focus on creators, influencers, and artists. I believe this was part of a broader strategy to ensure a strong initial user base with quality content and high engagement, but some think they waited too long.

This puts Lens in direct competition with Farcaster, which rolled out permissionless access last October and has since seen explosive growth after the launch of Farcaster Frames.

So the real question is: Can Lens catch up to Farcaster?

Only time will tell, but if you want to dig into the key differences between Lens and Farcaster, check out this killer article from Bankless.

If you want to secure your Lens username, get started here.

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