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OK, it’s official. A career in crypto and Web3 is where it’s at. 🕺

What was once a hobby for technologists and computer programmers 🧑‍💻 has ballooned into a mammoth of an industry attracting bankers, lawyers and Big Tech executives across the globe. 🌎

According to research by LinkedIn, crypto-related job postings in the United States skyrocketed last year. 🚀 We’re also seeing more Canadians trade in their nine-to-five jobs for promising careers in the industry. 🥳 🇨🇦

Our COO Jillian Friedman recently joined Ether Capital after spending seven years at National Bank of Canada. 🏦 As she explained to The Canadian Press, the space has matured from the early days and there’s more diversity, which seems only natural for an industry that prides itself on inclusivity and fairness.

More business professionals flocking to the space also helps boost crypto’s credibility. And perhaps just enough to convince the skeptics that cryptocurrency isn’t the “Wild West” full of bad actors. 🌵 😈

ICYMI we spoke with Gordon Liao, Head of Research for Uniswap Labs, who recently left the U.S. Federal Reserve 🇺🇸 for an opportunity to work in decentralized finance. His swan song was the report on stablecoins that he co-authored and was published earlier this year by the Fed. We had a great conversation with him and it’s worth checking out! 🎙️

Regardless of big gains and multi-million-dollar NFTs, crypto offers something that is hard to come by: The opportunity to be a part of an industry at the forefront of change. Along with new use cases emerging almost daily, many recognize cryptocurrency’s potential to create a better, more efficient financial system. 🌎 🔄

Solana is recovering after a recent seven-hour outage caused by a rush of bots trying to mint NFTs on the network. It’s token, SOL, also tanked by seven per cent 📉 as a result of the disruption. Since January, the so-called “Ethereum killer” has fallen out of consensus seven times. Lots of sevens. 😵‍💫

So what’s the problem?

Solana boasts high speeds and low transaction costs, but cheaper and faster comes at a price. Here’s our take:

Security trade-offs 🔐

Ethereum has an army 🪖 of developers who are heavily vetting code and catching bugs. Keep in mind, this is a US$320+ billion protocol, so developers are working around the clock 🕐 to get this right. Solana is gunning to be the fastest and most affordable platform. However, some argue that poor design decision and opting for a different form of validation make it more vulnerable to attacks. 👾

Are you still with us? 🤓

System overload 🤯

A faster and cheaper network can lead to an overwhelming number of single or duplicate transactions. Last September, Solana suffered a 17-hour outage following an attack that flooded the network with more than 400k transactions per second. Yikes. Ethereum has close to 300k validators and has been properly stress-tested, where Solana has approximately 1,000 validators that only have so much bandwidth. In the case of Solana’s most recent outage, validators ran out of memory and crashed.

No copy cats 😼

There are many protocols trying to replicate what Ethereum has already accomplished, but are running into the same issues as Solana. As Peter Thiel would say, these aren’t “zero to one” concepts. 💡 There’s a reason why Ethereum is the top choice for developers, has the most user activity and is leading the way in terms of innovation. 🏆

There are a few reasons why Ether Capital remains focused on Ethereum:

We believe in supporting developers who are building strong foundations so open protocols can handle a wide-range of activity. However, this technology is still very new and cutting-edge, so it will take time.

You don’t want to build a house out of straw or sticks. We all remember how that fable ends, right? 🐷🐷🐷

We have several events coming up that we don’t want you to miss! Get ready.

May 19th at 4:20pm ET: We are heading south to take part in a panel about the institutional bull case for ETH. ✈️ 😎 If you happen to be in Palm Beach, FL, make sure you stop by! It’s one of the biggest DeFi events of the year. Tickets are available here. 👈 🎟️

May 26th at 2:10pm ET: We’ll be participating in the upcoming MoneyShow Canada Virtual Expo. Ether Capital’s CEO Brian Mosoff and Som Seif, CEO of Purpose Investments and Executive Chairman of Ether Capital, will discuss different access points and ways investors can increase exposure to digital assets. Here’s the link to sign up. ✅ 📈

June 8th at 11:30am ET: We’re joining Bloomberg next month to talk about the challenges governments face when it comes to crypto regulation and what’s at stake if countries don’t act fast enough. Go here to register for the webinar, it’ll be a good one. 🙌

August 9th & 10th: We are also scheduled to speak at Futurist conference, Canada’s largest cryptocurrency and blockchain event, taking place in Toronto. Tickets are available here — stay tuned for more details! 🤗

Ethereum Q1 Report Card 🤓

Bankless released its latest report on Ethereum’s progress, which helps you get a sense of the protocol’s performance year-over-year. Network revenue increased 46 per cent to US$2.4 billion from US$1.6 billion in Q1 2021. Staked ether also more than doubled to US$10.9 million in Q1 2022 vs. US$5.2 million in Q1 2021 (the early days of the Beacon Chain).

VC Funding Reaches New High 💸

Venture capitalists invested more than US$10 billion in crypto start-ups in Q1 2022 — the largest quarterly sum ever, according to research by Galaxy Digital. Web3, NFTs, DAOs and gaming accounted for most of the capital invested and deal count.

More Crypto Users 🧑‍💻

Brian Armstrong, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, predicts there will be a massive influx of cryptocurrency users within the next decade. According to Armstrong, one billion people worldwide will have used crypto by 2032.

The industry is quickly evolving and there’s a lot of information to keep up with. That’s why we want to help! 🦸

Email us your questions and we’ll respond to as many as we can. While we can’t provide investment advice, we do want to steer you in the right direction so you can be informed.

Thank you for subscribing to our weekly newsletter! We’d love to hear from you, so please don’t hesitate to reach out. 😎 🚀