September flew by like a breeze, but was more of a rollercoaster than a walk in the park (Crypto always is). While we saw positive news of the rate cuts during the last FOMC meeting, almost every crypto asset has now retraced the entire pump.

Some call it a shakeout, others manipulation; it doesn't really matter, because there's always a bull-market somewhere. This has been more than obvious with the perp dex gold rush we are currently seeing, with Aster catapulting into mainstream crypto.

Airdrops also don't care if markets push up or down, and "Double Zero", might be the one you need. This Solana layer has raised millions in funding, and farming it is extremely easy.

Finally, we'll talk about how one man overtook everyone on Forbe's billionaire list, just by launching a coin. Hooked yet?

It feels like every once in a a while, the crypto meta shifts towards something so ridiculous, yet so accessible, that the entire market flocks towards it like a moth to a flame.

And this great story which drove billions in marketcaps and brought many crypto degenerates more money than they know what to do with started like many other crypto masterpieces: with a Tweet.

And people, went, crazy. Within days, $ASTER surged from $0.08 to over $2.40, a 2,800% increase, giving it a valuation close to $20B. Despite the “community” branding, six wallets currently hold about 96% of the supply, raising questions around concentration and decentralization.

The trading metrics have been just as extreme. On September 26, daily perpetual DEX volume across BNB Chain hit $67 billion, and Aster accounted for more than half of that at $45 billion. Its open interest climbed to over $1.1 billion from under $150 million just a week earlier, and fees generated in a single day exceeded $16 million.

So, why is everyone trading on Aster now? Is it really better than Hyperliquid!? Of course not.

People are now washing volume on Aster for a very simple reason: The upcoming airdrop.

See, the next wave of $ASTER token is releasing in just over a week by now, and the airdrop criteria are basically just volume. 80M tokens will be given out, people are shouting it from the roofs, everyone is farming Aster because we're all going to be rich from the airdrop!

Oh sweet summer child.

Let's discuss strategy. When information is public, you have no edge. When barrier to entry is low, you have no edge. When you have no edge, you have nothing.

The fact that everyone knows about $ASTER's upcoming airdrop makes it so that the "Free money" people think they are making with their points will get exhausted pretty fast. When there's opportunities like that, markets will price it in pretty quickly.

Long story short, at this pace, the final point to aster ratio will look something like 5000 / 1, and with how high the fees have been (And $ASTER sitting at $1.7 at the moment) are you making profits, anon?

Bottom line, I believe farming $ASTER is a sucker's game. People will lose tons of money, and the airdrop won't live up to the hype. But there is a nice opportunity here.

I think we're seeing a see a similar play as $PUMP during launchpad war. People drift from the main runner to other platforms, they milk them and realise they suck, rotate back to main runner which has since retraced heavily. The main runner here is of course $HYPE.

Don't cave in to the fomo anon, for the reality is often disappointing, and remember, if it sounds too good to be true......

Solana has long dominated the high throughput blockchain sector. High tps, low latency, lightning finality... But what if it was faster? There hasn't been many L2s built on top of $SOL, because it's not really needed, but what if Double Zero built something worth while?

DoubleZero bills itself not as another L1 or L2, but as an “N1” layer; a permissionless fiber & routing network built for blockchains, designed to relieve validators from spam, deduplication, jitter, and public internet bottlenecks.

DoubleZero’s architecture is built around a two-ring model. The outer ring ingests traffic from the public internet, using hardware to filter spam, verify signatures, and deduplicate transactions before pushing “clean” traffic inward.

The inner ring is a private, high-bandwidth, low-latency mesh network of validated links, each contributed under service level agreements. Validators can route data through this network, bypassing many of the inefficiencies of the public internet.

Basically, it aims at creating a more efficient data flow for Solana validators, making them faster and more reliable, and by the looks of the adoption, it works great.

One of the most concrete on-chain moves so far is the 3 million SOL “DZSOL” stake pool launched by DoubleZero, valued at ~$537 million at current SOL rates. The intent is to allow more validators to participate in its fiber network infrastructure and decentralize access to the low-latency network.

The tech is great, but as an investment, DoubleZero is no slouch either.

DoubleZero raised $28 million in its token funding round, co-led by Multicoin Capital and Dragonfly Capital. The valuation at the time was pegged at around $400 million.

So how can we get involved? Well, remember that 3 million $DZSOL stake pool? It's open for all.

This is likely to unfold the same way Sonic did, $SOL stakers that delegate their share to help solidify the network will be rewarded with an allocation; it's free to farm, and earns you staking rewards.

This has been quite under the radar despite launching almost 2 months ago. Other protocols on Solana like Hylo have taken the spotlight, and with token teased to launch soon, this is quite under-farmed in my opinion.

So what's the move? Just stake and chill. The airdrop likely won't retire us, but it's so easy to do that it's worth the time.

You can swap to $DZSOL on any dex, or even sanctum if anyone still uses that. I'v also deposited some of mine on Exponent's liquidity market, who knows, we might get a bonus for that.

Ahhhh stablecoins. Such a simple concept, yet crucial pillar to the crypto world. While nowadays everyone seems to be launching their own stablecoin, when Tether launched $USDT over 10 years ago; it was a big deal.

Fast forward to today, Tether is in talks to raise $15–20 billion in a private equity round, which would price the firm at around $500 billion if a ~3% stake is sold. At present, USDT has a circulating market cap of about $170-$175 billion, making it the dominant stablecoin in crypto liquidity rails.

If that valuation sticks, the upside for owners and insiders is staggering. Giancarlo Devasini, Tether’s co-founder and longtime CFO, reportedly holds ≈ 47% of the company. At $500B, his share would be worth ~$224 billion, putting him ahead of many of the world’s richest individuals.

Backing this ambition aren’t just Wall Street names whispers indicate SoftBank and ARK Investment are among the interested parties in this round.

Beyond the headline numbers, one of the more interesting undercurrents is what Tether is doing with its reserve portfolio and yield engine. According to an academic paper, by Q1 2025 Tether held ~$98.5 billion in U.S. Treasury bills, representing ~1.6% of all outstanding Treasuries.

To put into perspective how ridiculous that is, experts argue that Tether’s large share in the U.S. Treasury market helps push down short-term yields by virtue of its demand curve. In other words, Tether isn’t just a passive holder, but an active price actor in sovereign debt markets.

Now it's true, that Tether has historically faced scrutiny over its transparency and reserves, and many in crypto demand a full audit. If regulatory regimes tighten, especially in the U.S., Tether may face pressure around reserve disclosure, capital structure, payout transparency, and custody.

But when keeping in mind that their behemoth war chest generates on average $6B in passive income per year, I'm sure many investors won't mind the regulatory oversights... Would you?

[All topics are meant to be educational only. None of it is financial advice, please do your own research.]