Web3 Digest: This Week's Hottest News and Biggest Bombs

01 Who Is Satoshi Nakamoto?

This week, HBO released "Money Electric: The Bitcoin Mystery," reigniting the debate over "Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?" Here are some recommended reads:

"Who Is Most Likely to Be Satoshi Nakamoto?"
The biggest mystery in crypto history — the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto — may soon be revealed publicly. In a highly speculative market, crypto traders are betting on every possibility. As a major venue for crypto event betting, Polymarket probabilities rise and fall with market swings. Looking at the probability fluctuations, Nick Szabo (the pioneer of the "smart contract" concept), previously overlooked, has begun climbing from the bottom, while Len Sassaman, previously the market favorite, has fallen from its peak. This article explores the "Satoshi Nakamoto" mystery through the lens of these individuals.

Fortune Magazine also covered the story, arguing that Peter Todd — Bitcoin's most outspoken core developer — is unlikely to be Satoshi Nakamoto, though the documentary is still worth watching. Recommended read:

"Fortune Magazine: Is Peter Todd Satoshi Nakamoto? Why the HBO Documentary Gets It Wrong"
Hoback is confident (the "Money Electric" trailer claims "the internet's greatest mystery" will be revealed), and overall, his documentary is quite good. It sidesteps the pitfalls of most crypto films. "Money Electric" is not a fan film made by enthusiasts to promote crypto. Nor does it condescend and mock the industry without trying to understand it (a common trap for critics). Instead, Hoback portrays a group of long-time Bitcoin advocates on their own terms: they are guardians of Satoshi Nakamoto's gift — Bitcoin — a gift that gave the world a form of currency free from the wasteful control of governments. In this framing, the villains are Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, a Bitcoin-hating banker who appears at the beginning and end of "Money Electric," and Senator Elizabeth Warren, who aligned with Wall Street to oppose crypto. Meanwhile, the protagonists of "Money Electric" are figures connected to Blockstream, a company committed to driving Bitcoin adoption by individuals, businesses, and even nation-states. The film opens with Samson Mow, who calls himself a Bitcoin ambassador, helping persuade the Prince of Serbia and the President of El Salvador to adopt this new form of digital currency. There is also Adam Back, founder of Blockstream, known for creating Hashcash, a precursor to Bitcoin. We meet figures like Peter Todd, a Back disciple and Bitcoin core developer. Also present is "Bitcoin Jesus" Roger Ver, another influential early crypto figure, who is currently facing tax evasion charges. Notable business personalities also appear in cameo roles, including Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, who renamed his other company from Square to Block as a show of support for crypto. The documentary interviews a large number of Bitcoin veterans, which lends it credibility. Its concise handling of key events in crypto's development adds to that credibility as well. These events include the block size debate driven by Bitcoin's architecture, the rise of Ethereum and altcoins (critics call them "shitcoins"), and recent U.S. government actions aimed at hampering the crypto industry.

02 The Sui Ecosystem

Following Solana, Sui has surged more than 3x over the past two months, approaching all-time highs. Meanwhile, the Sui meme ecosystem is also showing signs of blooming. Recommended read:

"A List of 12 Popular Memes in the Sui Ecosystem"
This article lists 12 Sui ecosystem memes, some of which have been noticed and tweeted about by Adeniyi Abiodun, co-founder of Mysten Labs. Make sure you do your research before entering the market — DYOR.

FUD: An OG Shiba Inu-style meme project on Sui.
aaa cat (AAA): A black cat coin on Sui, praised by the community as the "POPCAT" of Sui.
BLUB: The top meme project in the Sui ecosystem, set at the bottom of the SUI ocean, featuring a unique "dirty fish" image with Pepe facial design elements. ...
The "memecoin supercycle" narrative is gaining traction, and Sui — an emerging L1 blockchain on the cusp of that trend — has also produced some golden dogs. Where are the best prices for meme coins on Sui? How can you interact on-chain throughout this cycle? What are some potential airdrop opportunities? Recommended read:

"Where to Buy Coins on Sui? Which DEX Aggregator Should You Choose?"
Hop claims to be the fastest DEX aggregator on Sui, and its overall user experience is genuinely quite strong. Its router can split a single trade into smaller trades (hops) to get the best price across various DEXes. If you don't want to shop around for prices, you can default to trading on Hop — the baseline pricing is already among the best. The Fun module in the top-right navigation bar represents the hop.fun meme token launchpad that Hop plans to release in the future. The current development progress is unclear, but the completion rate should be relatively high — after all, the project team has been announcing "Soon" since the end of May this year.

Sui has become the first L1 project to run SCION (currently on testnet). What is SCION? What is Sui building? Recommended read:

"Betting on SCION: How Can Sui Push Performance Even Further?"
SCION is a groundbreaking initiative, and Sui validators, RPC nodes, and surrounding infrastructure will all benefit. For example:

Validators — Latency optimization for validators and RPC-to-validator connections.
Pre-planned backup paths to avoid DDoS attacks or congestion.
The ability to prioritize certain types of traffic.
03 Industry Insights

User experience is the most critical infrastructure for the wave of mass adoption. This article breaks down UX architecture layer by layer, weaving it together with crypto history to glimpse how future crypto user experiences are taking shape. Recommended read:

"From Crypto Enthusiasts to Mass Adoption: A Deep Dive into Crypto UX"
The unique and powerful composability of the crypto space also gives rise to many unique layers of interaction — intertwined with one another while also defining the user's journey from zero to one. Yu Jun, former Chief Product Officer of Baidu, once said: "At its core, every interaction between a user and a product is a transaction. Users may not pay in money, but they pay in time, cognitive load, mental effort, and so on. Every interaction detail and experience design is fundamentally about reducing users' transaction costs while increasing the benefits they receive in the process." Meanwhile, Jon Crabb, founder of Web3UX, breaks down the Web3 user experience into four layers: the visual layer architecture, the functional layer, the access layer, and the technical layer.

This article explores the business models behind cross-chain bridges and the volume of value flowing through them. Recommended read:

"Analyzing the Economic Value of Cross-Chain Bridges: The Cisco of the Blockchain Era?"
Today, the average user on cross-chain bridges generates more value than the average user on L2s. The average Connext user creates 90x the value of the average Arbitrum user.

Money routers like cross-chain bridges may be one of the few product categories in crypto capable of generating meaningful economic value.
As long as transaction fees remain too high, we won't see users migrate to L1s like Ethereum or Bitcoin. Users may join L2s (like Base) directly, or alternatively, there could be a scenario where users simply switch between low-cost networks. Another way to measure the economic value of cross-chain protocols is to compare them to decentralized exchanges. Think about it — both primitives serve a similar function. They allow tokens to be converted from one form to another. A DEX allows tokens to be swapped between assets, while a cross-chain bridge allows tokens to be moved between blockchains.
The crypto economy is undergoing a major shift — from speculative experiments toward revenue-generating businesses and on-chain economies. Recommended read:

"The Application Layer Captures Value, the Base Chain Stores Value?"
The inflection point for future trends may come when applications capture a larger share of blockchain fee pools and generate more revenue than most infrastructure assets. Data from Ethereum and Solana — the two mainstream application ecosystems — has already shown that applications are claiming a share of the revenue pool from the platforms they're built on. This trend could accelerate as applications capture larger economic market share and vertically integrate to gain greater control over the user experience. Even Solana applications, which pride themselves on synchronous composability, are keeping some activity off-chain, driving off-chain operations, and using L2s and sidechains to scale.

With the election approaching, which memecoins are worth watching? Recommended read:

"After the Satoshi Nakamoto Mystery, Election Memecoins Take Over the New Narrative"
After all the cats and dogs, the real and fake Satoshi hype, a political narrative seems to be quietly approaching as the November election draws near. Musk changes his bio, PACs spike overnight — this article will walk you through the memecoins tied to the political narrative, letting you get ahead of hot targets before the deadline.

PAC: In the U.S., it stands for Political Action Committee — an organization that collects campaign contributions from members and donates funds to campaigns supporting or opposing candidates, ballot initiatives, or legislation.
MAGA (Trump): A token named after former U.S. President Trump and his campaign slogan "Make America Great Again" (MAGA). The project creator gifted 580,000 tokens to Trump.
MAGA Hat: Trump's red hat, as a memecoin also influenced by the "Make America Great Again" slogan — its meme attributes are relatively stronger and more meme-like. ...
Within just a few days, Trump's odds of winning on Polymarket climbed to 52.6%, while Harris fell to 46.7%. However, mainstream polls show Harris with a slight lead, creating a 6% divergence. Is this a reflection of real shifts in sentiment, or is the market being manipulated? Recommended read:

"What Is the Real Cost of Manipulating Election Prediction Markets?"
Polymarket's election market is by far its largest prediction market to date, and has recently seen a significant surge in trading volume. Over the past five days, its daily trading volume has spiked to $54.5 million — more than four times the daily average of $12.5 million over the previous three months. This surge coincides with a growing divergence between Polymarket and traditional polls. Before October 2nd, both showed Harris with a slight lead, while Polymarket now shows Trump leading Harris 52.8% to 46.6%. While this could highlight the market's responsiveness to new information, the large divergence from polling data also raises concerns about potential manipulation. The timing and magnitude of the volume increase suggest that financial influence may be at play, shifting market sentiment in ways that don't align with broader public opinion.

The structure of prediction markets may play a role. However, they rely on many different components, so they aren't always able to provide accurate probabilities. It's unrealistic to rely on complete market efficiency. Recommended read:

"Delphi Researchers: Are Prediction Markets Efficient?"
Market efficiency is essential to the accuracy of prediction markets, because without it, probability bias will exist. An example of the purest form of market efficiency:

Set up a coin-flip market where market makers sell the heads outcome at odds of 55 cents. The market makers have a true 10% edge on every flip because they're selling a 0.5 probability for 0.55. In this example, buyers are expected to lose 5 cents per flip.
Another market maker sees the market and wants to participate. He offers lower odds than the other seller, pricing at 52.5 cents. His edge is 5% per flip, while buyers are expected to lose 2.5 cents per flip.
A third market maker enters and trades at a lower price, offering 51 cents. His edge is 2% per flip, while buyers are expected to lose 1 cent per flip. The key takeaway is that in an efficient market, profit opportunities are compressed until they reach the risk premium. For a coin flip, the risk premium is very low because the outcome is highly predictable, so the market will be very efficient (+/- ~1 basis point). However, for things like insurance — where outcomes are more uncertain (e.g., a wildfire destroying a community) — the risk premium is larger. This requires a bigger gap between expected costs and the insurance price to ensure profitability for the insurer.
This week, Kevin Liu, co-founder of Metis, published an open letter to the community introducing Metis's latest developments across multiple areas. Recommended read:

"Metis Co-Founder's Letter to the Community"
Metis was one of the first platforms to launch an L2 mainnet, on par with Arbitrum and Optimism. We were among the first to use the Metis token for gas payments, deploy off-chain DA (now represented by two projects, EigenDA and Celestia), and establish D-Seq. We have also been pioneers in pushing the boundaries of decentralization. Our sustainable development approach is unique. Through incubating and investing across different verticals, we can A/B test various business ideas and validate their feasibility. Here are some examples:

Shared Governance: A governance framework that will benefit all companies in the Fund's portfolio.
D-Seq Enhancement: The improvement of D-Seq by Metis L2 and GOAT Network has created a positive feedback loop, accelerating progress on the underlying technology stack.
Security and Rewards: The Metis Fund operates sequencer nodes for Metis L2 and GOAT Network, ensuring security while also earning mining rewards that are returned to the community.
zkVM: With ZKM, Metis becomes the first OP L2 to integrate ZKP, which also extends the Fund's reach from Ethereum to Bitcoin. In the future, zkVM may also collaborate with MoveVM, Solana VM, and others, expanding into more verticals. As the companies we invest in expand into different sectors, we are reinforcing the sustainability of the Fund's vision of building a decentralized economy.
04 Project Observations

This week, Uniswap Labs launched Unichain, its own Layer 2 network built on Optimism technology. What are Unichain's features and highlights? Recommended read:

"What Are the Highlights of Uniswap's Newly Released Unichain?"
Unichain is an Ethereum Optimistic Rollup built on the OP Stack, launched by Uniswap, Flashbots, OP Labs, and Paradigm to address these issues. Unichain offers several key advantages through 1) verifiable block building and 2) the Unichain validator network:

Fast state updates
Applications can extract and internalize MEV
Fast settlement through rapid finality In addition to being an OP Stack-based Rollup, Unichain also plans to join the Superchain ecosystem. Beyond its native fast settlement capability, this integration is expected to give users a seamless liquidity experience through cross-chain solutions within the Superchain ecosystem.
These days, "Pump.fun" clones are proliferating across various chains — and as crypto's true gold, what sparks will fly when the Bitcoin ecosystem and "Pump.fun" combine? Recommended read:

"A List of 'Pump.fun' Clones in the Bitcoin Ecosystem"
What's been the highest-returning investment of 2024? Without a doubt: memecoins. From Base's Degen to Solana's Bome, 10,000x legends have been born one after another in the memecoin space. The uppercase vs. lowercase Neiro battle, the animal zoo craze triggered by the hippo, memecoins never run out of hype angles — constantly delivering new wealth effects and drawing more chains into the game. Sunpump pushed TRX to previous highs, Vista triggered ETH gas recovery, and among the 42 unique projects that outperformed BTC this year, memecoins account for 15. This article will take you on a tour of "Pump.fun" clones in the Bitcoin ecosystem.

In this AMA, Base founder Jesse answered nearly 100 questions covering topics such as: "Products likely to appear on Base in the future: uncollateralized credit, regional stablecoins, social tools, and Web3 content creator tools"; "Base's next steps with Coinbase Wallet"; "Infrastructure and applications in the Base ecosystem, such as Warpcast, Moxie, etc."; "Thoughts on memes, such as degen and basegod"; "Personal interests and personal life"; and more. Foresight News selected 60 of these questions and organized them by category for readers. Recommended read:

"Base Founder Jesse Answers 100 Questions from the Community"
Community: What are the top three products you want people to build on Base? Jesse: Right now, I can think of: 1. On-chain uncollateralized credit (lending that can be based on credit scores, prior transaction history, or other on-chain data) — this is a very important use case, and it's now becoming feasible with the help of identity tools like usernames, builder scores, and so on. 2. Local stablecoins for each country — every country should have its own on-chain currency, and this will become a major focus for developers. 3. On-chain social and content creator tools — current creator tools are not user-friendly. On-chain will be the most powerful creator platform in history, offering an economic model that's 10x better and delivering a better experience for both consumers and creators through open data.