Skip to content
playhaus
Sign-Up

42 – Hodl On Tight

42 – Hodl On Tight

Heart&SOL

Heart&SOL

More in this series
Want to Grow Faster?

Want to Grow Faster?

We save businesses 30% or more on average. Learn more.

Try Now

On this page

MONEY MONEY MONEY

Summer Trenches Beat Winter Ones

 

GM HEARTLAND

“GM” is out, “GN” is in — and not just because of the ungodly hour we’re sending it out. We’ll be in dark mode for the foreseeable future, until we make it through the dark night of the $SOL.

 

—El Prof, Muhammed & Chad

 

MONEY MONEY MONEY

TOKEN

PRICE CHANGE

PRICE

Solana ($SOL)

-12.48%

$125.40

Helium ($HNT)

-8.65%

$2.72

Pyth ($PYTH)

-21.04%

$0.14

Raydium ($RAY)

-29.22%

$1.52

(Price changes reflect past 7 days as of 3.11.25)

Summer Trenches Beat Winter Ones

The crypto influencer event at the White House was a nothing burger, the strategic digital asset reserve is over-hyped, and markets are lingering at relative lows. In other words, it may be warming up outside, but it’s starting to feel a lot like crypto winter in here.

Sometime this year, the U.S. Treasury will likely refinance the country’s debt. With trade wars raging and the equities market looking too hot to touch (not to mention overweighted by a handful of companies whose entire value is based off of things junior product managers can vibe-code into existence over a weekend and give away for free) the markets are wrecked.

According to some

on X, that could be a good thing for taxpayers in the form of the interest that’s paid on the government’s debt. Illuminati master plan aside, it does stand to reason that a weakened equities market means a stronger bonds market, and also usually means that the Treasury can refinance at better rates. So there’s no reason for Trump to change up his strategy for the moment, especially while it’s playing lip service to the crypto supporters and fed haters.

What does it mean for the rest of us? 

Well, I’m no financial expert, but I’d buckle up for a fair amount of volatility until the end of September and beginning of October. There’s may still be money in day-trading or swing-trading, but I’m a degen, not a gambler. Personally, I’ll just keep on diamond-handing, and scooping up Solana SOL.X ( ▼ 1.4% ) at discount bargains. 

In my eyes, the ecosystem is still taking meaningful steps forward at a sustainable pace. Jump Crypto just released a new validator client for Solana, Firedancer. And although adoption currently sits at less than 2%, the demonstrated increased throughput means a higher yield TPS on the network. In short, Solana is only getting faster. And this could reasonably increase to 10% by this summer; many validator clients are run by large projects that will likely make their own competitive upgrades.

Elsewhere, communities are applying tried and tested use cases to Bitcoin and other tokens as an alternative payment processing and collection system for their businesses. Some friends of ours stayed at a BitcoinBNB over their trip to SXSW this year. Mass adoption in action.

What I’m trying to say is, the house only wins if you sell. Don’t play with leverage, accumulate daily or weekly, and expect to keep going sideways for at least the next 6 months. Hodl on.

—El Prof

Looking for unbiased, fact-based news? Join 1440 today.

Join over 4 million Americans who start their day with 1440 – your daily digest for unbiased, fact-centric news. From politics to sports, we cover it all by analyzing over 100 sources. Our concise, 5-minute read lands in your inbox each morning at no cost. Experience news without the noise; let 1440 help you make up your own mind. Sign up now and invite your friends and family to be part of the informed.

There’s a lot of pressure in today’s market. Oh, yeah. Lotta pressure. But you gotta rise above it. And what better way to relieve the pressure than by hitting a ball with a big stick?

In one of the most practical endorsements of the diamond hand strategy I’ve seen in my years covering crypto, LinksDAO — which we first covered more than two years ago in the spiritual predecessor to this newsletter — has emerged from the sand trap to provide holders some long-awaited utility.

The decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) first came together in 2021 to “democratize the country club membership experience”. In the years since, it has purchased just two clubs — one in Scotland, and now, one in our backyard.

LinksDAO just bought up the shuttered Hillcrest Country Club, situated in our heartland home base, Kansas City, MO. It won’t open for another year at least, but it admittedly marks a big step toward the DAO’s theoretical leisure ecosystem, a network of courses and clubs run on its token LINKS.NFT ( 0.0% ).

Now, as with most decentralized exchange, its vision isn’t exactly the most straightforward or accessible crypto use case. The organization blew up at the same time as other blue-chip relics of the NFT era. (Evinced by its partnerships with the likes of Bored Ape Yacht Club, Doodles, and Pudgy Penguins.) And while it still sells NFTs, they don’t quite function as the all-access pass once-promised. Its ETH.X ( ▼ 0.88% ) based passes run somewhere from $200 to $700 and merely provide a discount to a full membership, which can still run upwards of $10,000.

So long-term hodlers may not have lucked into becoming full-blown trust fund bunnies, but hey. It’s cool to see a major DeFi player try to follow through on a promise. With golf’s growing popularity, particularly among younger, more tech-savvy generations, the time is ripe for a change in how the sport is experienced and enjoyed. Through the power of blockchain, LinksDAO offers its members more than just a place to play — it allows them to help shape and expand the future of the sport, and maybe, just maybe, make it a modicum more accessible.

Anyway, if you’re wondering if we bought a LinksDAO NFT, yes, of course we did. Who wouldn’t want to own a piece of the future, even if it’s a deeply silly one.

—Muhammed

Subscribe to Heart&SOL

Weekly newsletter at the intersection of AI, cryptography, and online culture.

SubscribeBack to series