Decentral Block Post

A subtle change in Elon Musk’s Twitter bio after his platform’s rebrand to “X” has again fanned the flames of speculation — that Dogecoin (DOGE) may have a future on the platform.

On July 25, eagle-eyed Twitter (now X) users began pointing out that Elon Musk’s profile location now sports both an “X” and a “D” — with X referencing Twitter’s new branding, while D has been interpreted to mean Dogecoin — a memecoin he has been publicly supportive of in the past.

Other observers, such as Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal came to a similar conclusion, albeit with different reasoning.

In a July 25 tweet, Pal said Musk would most likely use Dogecoin to make global payments for creators on the platform, noting that the eccentric billionaire already “owns a big chunk anyway” and “he likes it.”

When asked why Musk wouldn’t create his own platform-specific token for these payments, Pal suggested that Dogecoin could help Musk get around securities laws, giving him “zero execution risk.”

Bitcoin-related investment products appear to have lost some of their sheen among crypto investors, recording its first week of outflows since Blackrock filed for spot Bitcoin ETF in June.

According to a July 24 report by CoinShares’ head of research, James Butterfill, Bitcoin (BTC) investment products saw outflows of $13 million for the week ending July 21, reversing five weeks of inflows.

Short Bitcoin products also saw outflows of $5.5 million in the week.

In contrast, Ethereum (ETH) and XRP (XRP) investment products recorded combined inflow of $9.2 million over the last week.

Butterfill noted that Ethereum investment products were the best performer last week with inflows of $6.6 million, while XRP funds recorded an inflow of $2.6 million. Other altcoins, such as Solana (SOL) and Polygon (MATIC) tracked inflows of $1.1 million and $0.7 million respectively.

Maker has gained 53.5% over the past month, and the cryptocurrency witnessed a remarkable 28.1% surge between July 15 and July 22, achieving its highest daily close in nearly a year. While the gains are impressive, the real question is: Can the cryptocurrency sustain its current trajectory, or were short-term factors behind the price pump?

MakerDAO, the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) responsible for the Dai (DAI) stablecoin and the governance token Maker (MKR), unveiled a five-phase roadmap in mid-May. Dubbed “Endgame," the upgrade plan includes a new blockchain, a rebrand and the introduction of two tokens featuring updated functionalities.

Rune Christensen, co-founder of MarkerDAO, revealed that the primary component of “Endgame” entails developing incentive programs for interactions and governance participation based on a new chain bridged to the Ethereum network. Essentially, users will have the capacity to initiate hard forks in response to power attacks or abuse.

Ascribing the recent rally solely to these proposed changes seems simplistic, given that Maker’s price remained stable for 30 days after the announcement. Consequently, investors seeking to understand MKR’s movement must delve deeper to identify the precise triggers behind the price surge.

Venture capital funds unload MKR

According to crypto markets and decentralized finance analyst Nay, Paradigm Capital likely divested a significant portion of its MKR investments in March. Furthermore, A16z, another major venture capital firm that previously invested in Maker, has been reducing its position over recent weeks.