TL；DR

Crypto Market: Bitcoin and Ethereum are bullish, with Ethereum nearing its $4,800 all-time high and expected to break through this year, while retail FOMO in Q4 may trigger an altcoin season, with Story Protocol’s $80 trillion IP strategy drawing significant attention.

Merlin Chain: The Wizard beta integrates search, on-chain, and social media data for crypto analysis, supports trading Solana tokens with Bitcoin, and drives user engagement and Merlin token liquidity through trading competitions in Korea and on BNB Chain.

Meme Coin Launch: Following suggestions for an Onchain revolution meme coin, the meme coin will transparently allocate 20-50% of its supply, enable cross-chain bridging to Bitcoin Layer 1 to encourage long-term holding and connect Solana and Bitcoin communities, while offering a 10% staking option on Solana to attract users who prefer not to bridge.

Summary

Bitcoin and Ethereum are currently bullish, with Ethereum nearing its all-time high, and I’m optimistic about it breaking through this year.

Jeff: I think Bitcoin is looking very bullish right now. As for Ethereum, I’m not sure if it’ll hit its all-time high of $4,800 in August, but it will definitely get there sometime this year. A lot of focus is returning to Ethereum, especially with real-world assets (RWA) and artificial intelligence (AI). Developers are more inclined to build on Ethereum’s ecosystem than on other chains. Solana is performing well with its meme coin Launchpad, trading, and DeFi, but I believe Ethereum will carve out its niche and bring new innovations. Frankly, after 10 years, there are still few infrastructures that can support as much functionality as Ethereum does. Many have tried to challenge it, but Ethereum will hold its ground. I think this year will be great for both Ethereum and Bitcoin.

I anticipate an altcoin season is coming, with many projects already seeing significant gains, and Story Protocol’s IP strategy stands out as particularly compelling.

Jeff: I’ve noticed a lot of projects are experiencing crazy upward movements today, especially altcoins. Have you seen the news about Story Protocol? They raised $200 to $300 million and are bringing their token to Nasdaq with what they call an IP strategy. Their narrative is pretty convincing—they claim it’s an $80 trillion market, which is wild. You can see many projects are making moves, and when they do, it’s not just a one-day spike like meme coins that surge and crash within 24 hours. These projects are gearing up for an altcoin season. I’m personally excited and looking forward to seeing new innovations on Ethereum.

Ethereum’s application layer has driven Web3’s growth, which is why I joined Web3, and I’m optimistic about its ongoing innovation.

Jeff: Ethereum is the reason I got into Web3. A lot of people dislike Ethereum and only back Bitcoin, but honestly, Ethereum is what drew me to Web3. Before Ethereum, it was just mining coins like Doge, Litecoin, BTC, BSV, and XRP. But Ethereum introduced applications that helped users understand crypto, like NFTs, gaming, and DeFi.

Bitcoin ecosystem asset prices could surge any day, but true innovation requires time and brilliant ideas.

Jeff: If we’re talking about prices, I think Bitcoin ecosystem assets like Ordinals could skyrocket any day if people start buying in size. It only takes one pump—imagine Ordi hitting $30 today, and people would say the Bitcoin ecosystem is back, even without new protocols, developers, or products. If Ordi reaches $30 or Dog hits a $1 billion or $2 billion market cap, that could happen anytime. But if we’re talking about the actual ecosystem—innovation and products—that takes time. It requires genius ideas, like BRC-20 or Uniswap back in the day. Some folks are pushing BRC-20, others are talking about Alkanes. There’s a lot of narrative-building going on, but it doesn’t just happen because the market’s hot. Remember, Ordinals emerged when the market was really bad, so I can’t predict when it’ll happen.

Runes is an improvement in trading experience rather than a major innovation, and the success of a killer app depends on the perspective of asset holders.

Jeff: I think Runes is a solid innovation that brought more people into the ecosystem and has been successful to some degree. When Runes came out, did it feel like a major innovation that helped the whole ecosystem? I think so. But there are differing opinions. Runes definitely attracted new users, but BRC-20 holders say Runes ruined everything, claiming BRC-20 and Ordinals went to zero because Casey launched Runes. People have different views. If Merlin or another project launches a killer app, some will be thrilled, but if it happens on another protocol, like ALS, some folks might get upset.

Merlin Chain’s Wizard beta integrates multiple data sources to provide crypto analysis, ideal for both newbies and traders.

Jeff: We’ve launched a beta version of Wizard, accessible at beta.wizard.dote, where you can ask pretty much anything. For example, if you ask what happened with Story Protocol today, Wizard will work its magic and generate an answer. It pulls data from search engines for a comprehensive overview, then grabs on-chain and off-chain trading data to provide price charts and movements, and finally collects social media posts, like today’s tweets about Story, to gauge bullish or bearish sentiment or whether the price can still climb or if it’s a scam. It integrates all these sources, taking about one to two minutes, sometimes five, similar to a deep research tool like Grok or ChatGPT. Since Story isn’t an on-chain project, we don’t dive deep into on-chain data for it, but for on-chain assets, we integrate chain data to help you understand. For instance, if someone’s launching a meme coin, you can input the contract address to see who’s buying, which wallets are active, and which tokens are rising. All that deep research comes from on-chain data, but since Story is a BC project, it offers a more technical breakdown.

Wizard is user-friendly for newcomers, offering free crypto data analysis and trading features while supporting stable Bitcoin holding.

Jeff: Wizard is free, so you don’t need to use Gemini, Grok, or other AI tools—it’s designed specifically for crypto. We’ll keep adding more data sources. I think it makes understanding crypto easier for users. All the social media posts it pulls are from today, August 11, showing what people are talking about. I believe it’s a very user-friendly product. We also have a feature that many Merlin community members tested over the weekend: you can buy meme coins. Just input a contract address, token name, or a Solana or BNB Chain token, say “buy $10 of this,” connect your wallet, and purchase it with Bitcoin. We encourage using Bitcoin because it’s the most stable asset. You can buy meme coins with Bitcoin, make a profit, and swap back to Bitcoin. The on-chain part isn’t fully integrated yet, but you can trade through Particle Network.

Wizard enables buying Solana tokens with Bitcoin, encouraging Bitcoin holding while allowing meme coin speculation to grow Bitcoin stacks.

Jeff: We’ve talked about holding, investing, and trading. I think holding Bitcoin makes a lot of sense. Last time I said this, some community members argued, saying I’m just a Bitcoin maxi holding for the long term. But I’m just saying, for the average user, holding Bitcoin is smart. You can hold Bitcoin and still speculate—buy meme coins, make some money, and swap back to Bitcoin. It’s a clever move to grow the Bitcoin in your wallet. One day, Bitcoin might hit $10 million, and you’ll be a billionaire. That’s the whole point of what we’re doing. Right now, Wizard is in beta, and we want users to try it out. You can use Merlin’s Wizard to buy Solana tokens with Bitcoin. For example, you can spend 82 sats to buy 4.68 Believe tokens and just hit confirm.

Merlin Chain is driving user engagement and liquidity through trading competitions, with market recovery boosting Merlin token value.

Jeff: The market’s getting better, but I’m not giving financial advice. We’re going all-in on trading right now, both on-chain and off-chain. We’re holding a big trading competition on Korean exchanges—if you’re not Korean, you can skip this, but it’s a great competition there. Trading competitions always bring in new users and boost volume. Sometimes they create better liquidity and improve prices. We just held a meme coin trading competition with UXUY on BNB Chain—our official tweet has the details—and it hit over $1 million in trading volume in just one hour. With the market heating up, our team is pushing harder on trading to ensure Merlin tokens are held by more users across different countries, increasing volume and hopefully value.

For meme coin launches, I suggest a 20-50% initial allocation, kept transparent to avoid snipers and ensure broad distribution.

Jeff: Meme coin allocation depends on how you plan to use the tokens. I know some developers buy 85% of the supply on day one for the team, as projects like Uniswap encourage this for real products, not meme coins. If you hold 85%, you can use those tokens for future campaigns or competitions. Since everyone knows you have 85%, they’ll monitor your address, but it doesn’t mean you’re messing things up since it’s all in the contract. For meme coins, taking too much on day one isn’t great—you want the tokens held by many people. Taking 30%, 20%, or even 50% is fine as long as the address is transparent and the tokens are locked or used for clear purposes, like future airdrops, trading competitions, or donations. As long as it’s transparent, I think it’s okay. In Solana’s ecosystem, there are lots of snipers, so grabbing tokens before they do is better—you don’t want someone snagging 20% and slowly dumping. It depends on what the founder or meme coin launcher wants, but I think 20%, 30%, or 50% are all reasonable.

Bridging a meme coin to Bitcoin for staking is a smart strategy to promote holding and connect cross-chain communities.

Jeff: Using Rune Mine to bridge a meme coin to Bitcoin and staking 30% of the supply is a very smart move. It encourages people to hold and also to use the bridge to bring tokens to Bitcoin. This definitely connects the Solana and Bitcoin communities. Solana users might not understand Runes or other Bitcoin stuff, so I think it’s a great idea. It’s like what Magic Eden did before. You can distribute rewards via airdrops or transfers. The only issue is that new users on platforms like GMGN or Axion might see a bridge address holding a lot of tokens and flag it as suspicious. That’s a marketing challenge, but it’s manageable. Just clarify that the address is for bridging and staking, not dumping. Transparency is key—explain that the tokens are locked for rewards or future use. You’ll have an address with 30%, but that’s the token creation address, not the bridge. When the token’s value dips, you can say the next narrative is staking for rewards. You need to clarify because some people will misunderstand and say you’re holding all those tokens to dump. It’s like a dev address—just explain it’s for bridging and staking, and clear it up with the community. I think it’s great. You could also allocate 10% for staking on Solana for users who don’t want to bridge, offering, say, 25% APY on Solana and 45% on Bitcoin, letting them choose whether to take the extra step. Solana has plenty of staking and reward infrastructure—just ask Wizard to find one.

Merlin Chain has more unannounced projects in the pipeline, and the community can look forward to exciting developments.

Jeff: The market’s heating up, and we’re pushing hard on trading and competitions to attract more users and liquidity. Everyone should hold tight—Merlin has a lot of fun, exciting stuff coming up.