🚀Alkimiya Mainnet launches today - The market for Bitcoin blockspace is finally open!
You can now buy and sell the transaction fees of Bitcoin - the mother chain that started all of crypto.
Read on for an in-depth thread on:
• What is Alkimiya?
• Why blockspace?
• Why
BTC transaction fees are playing a significantly larger role in user experience. The volatility hinders the adoption of the next billions.
@alkimiya_io
is designed specifically to hedge against transaction fee exposure.
Come talk to us
@coinbase
@okx
@binance
.
Welcome to the
If Coinbase/OKX/Binance don't have optimal UTXO consolidation setups in place (in the year of our Lord 2024) imagine what the Bitcoin DCA army looks like.
Nobody is ready for high fees.
Of UTXOs and how you could have doubled your BTC last week
What happened last week
@okx
started consolidating their UTXOs last week from roughly Block 846867 to 846981. They consolidated 1498.5 BTC, but spent 241 BTC in fees to do this due to (mistakenly) setting the fee rate
On-chain market boring? More noise than signal in the market? Trading BTC transaction fees on
@alkimiya_io
has been anything but boring…
Want to see how you could have made >50% gain in just TWO WEEKS?? (1/8)
Alkimiya Protocol is live on testnet!
Alkimiya enables the creation, trading, and settlement of synthetic blockspace resources, such as BTC transaction fees and ETH gas.
Every on-chain action has a rippling effect on transaction fees. Previously, users and service providers had
gm anon
Alkimiya is building permissionless capital markets for blockspace, and we are launching on
@avalancheavax
Mainnet today 🎉🎉
Here's what you need to know 👇
(1/16)
We've been working quietly at
@alkimiya_io
on building what will become one of the most foundational primitives to the DeFi ecosystem, and we're excited to finally unveil our grand vision.
Introducing Consensus Capital Markets.
The Bitcoin Renaissance: are we all invited or is it just a party for the whales?
With over 63 million inscriptions ($240 million fees spent), NFTs on BTC have become a force to be reckoned with. At the height of the Ordinals frenzy, the average network transmission fee had
Memes are from the future. MEV are the echoes of the past.
Bitcoin is the original and the largest memecoin (saying this w/ the greatest respect), and its cultural foundation has been inscribed since the genesis block. Through framing the Chancellor's bailout as an apocalyptic
Core Sci, a mining behemoth that once helmed by the COO of Microsoft/CEO of Citadel Securities, now only has ~20 BTC of reserve. $CORZ is not the only one.
Cycles change. Big players come & go, but the fundamental forces that drive mining economics always remained the same👇
Let’s look at the period from May 1-15, for example, which has arguably been a largely boring period for BTC transaction fees. Fees were essentially flat
If you entered a long position at the first day's spot (May 22), you could have earned a return of 7.6% (in BTC) in just 2
This week was a phenomenal week for trading BTC transaction fees.
Some large exchanges were consolidating their BTC UTXOs and ended up pushing BTC fees sky-high for a few hours.
The fee impact from these actions blew right through the cap 🚀on
@alkimiya_io
, even with several
BTC uses a UTXO-based model, which works a little like physical cash. If you have $5 in BTC this can be made up of a number of different combinations of transactions. UTXOs when added together will give your account balance.
If Alice wants to send $1 to Bob but only has a UTXO
The amount of UTXOs involved in a transaction affects how much a user has to pay for a transaction. As such, large players such as exchanges periodically consolidate their UTXOs to reduce the number of inputs they have to use for a transaction.
See past example of consolidation
New Year new narrative for 2023!
First, a recap of 2022. Last March we launched the public beta on
@Avalanche
. Since then
@alkimiya_io
has completed a total of 20.5 Eh/s of BTC Mining Swaps (Total contract period: 863 Days)
1/9
However, possibly due to a fat finger,
@okx
set the feerate too high and it ended up backfiring on them, causing BTC fees to skyrocket in the midst of their consolidation operation.
(4/6)
So if I’m not a miner, how do I profit off these unicorn spikes in fees?
Go long transaction fees on
@alkimiya_io
!!
Here’s a screenshot of Alkimiya BTC tx fees market last week.
If you had entered a long position early in the week from 3 June onwards before the spike
This protocol is going to change how people use Bitcoin.
It shares Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work with any Proof-of-Stake chains ETH, Solana etc.
They are launching Phase 1 this week and the community is roaring to go 🔥
What's the hype all about and how can you trade Bitcoin
A single Runes mint has accounted for 63% of all Bitcoin transactions in the past 24 hours yet people are still out here saying Runes are dead lol
If you want to mint be careful because mempool fees are going up so set higher fees to be safe!
Mint →
The hashpower market dynamics is driven by a convoluted interplay of exogenous and endogenous factors, but this characteristic alone creates four archetypes in mining cycle.
We discussed this extensively here:
What's happening in the mining industry is not unique. It happened to all major commodities before and will happen again in the future.
What's unique about Bitcoin is that it sits at the intersection of energy, semiconductor, and next-gen financial rail.
Abstracting away gas fee from end users is a significant ux improvement, but the cost never disappears. It just becomes implicit.
Users who want to pay attention should still be able to easily find out. You don't think about how much electricity you're paying every time you
Blockspace is most precious commodity in crypto and all users compete for this finite resource.
Want to start trading? Check out and check out our newsletter on all things BTC blockspace here
(6/6)
Alpha leak 🤑
Here's an interesting trend on BTC transaction fees that you can try to trade on
@alkimiya_io
There's a 70%+ of chance in my favor in long/short when the golden/death cross happens.
It's possible to profit with a 15%+ premium or 4%+ discount as of 7D Moving
Want to play around with some numbers to see how you can make money trading BTC transaction fees?
Tutorial is available here - with a PnL model.
And when you are ready, head over to to place your trades! (8/8 End)
....Goblintown but we are still hiring!
Roles:
-Smart contract developer (full time)
-UIUX Designer (full time)
Salary: $120k – $200k
Equity: 0.2% – 1%
Learn more and apply here 👇👇
🚩🚩🚩
As of today Alkimiya does not have any plans for token launch. If you see anything claiming to be an Alkimiya token, it's a scam. Please be careful.
However transaction fees surged massively towards the end of the week to over 0.0004 BTC/kB which is over 2x the initial levels. The weekly average settled at ~0.00021 BTC/kB, netting handsome gains for those that went long transaction fees. (7/8)
Now let's see some ranges. If you had entered at a level close to the lowest moving average during this range (21), the winning side gets an impressive 7.6% similar to the first scenario. On the other hand, if you entered at a level close to the highest MA during this range (34),
"Blockspace over blockchains" remains one of the best articles ever written on this topic. At some point the world will see how right-curve
@rphmeier
's vision is.
A standard for delivering physical blockspace means much better ux for wallets, apps, and end users.
So many teams trying to build products towards fixing operational costs... They will all eventually converge towards the realization we need blockspace markets, and this would include a standard for trading and delivering the actual blockspace/execution
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗨𝘀𝗲 𝗖𝗮𝘀𝗲
Sellers on the Alkimiya platform can lock-in volatile future revenue to fixed upfront payments. This allows them to better manage risks in their staking/mining operations.
(4/16)
Imagine if the airlines never hedged jet fuel prices and the volatility is entirely passed onto the tickets. The same ticket could jump from $500 to $2k in 5 mins.
This is the state of end-user gas experience in crypto today. This is THE problem to solve before mass adoption.
We are thrilled to officially announce
@luxor
as our partner!
Luxor is one of the most innovative companies in the Bitcoin mining space. As the building blocks of Bitcoin, miners constantly face volatility which leaves them vulnerable. To offload these risks, they turn to
Hello fam!
In light of the imminent Merge, we have ceased to support ETH Mining Silica and the version of Gas Swap based on ETH mining. Over the next couple months, we will roll out the Silica v2 upgrade, as well as the ETH Staking Silica and a new Gas Swap. Stay tuned!
Let’s look at another recent week.
The week of May 28 - Jun 4 started out uneventful with transaction fees hovering around 0.0001 - 0.00015 BTC/kB. (6/8)
TL;DR
- Pricing is extremely important in the feerate market, and in just 2 weeks, you can achieve impressive returns even in flat markets
- Feerate market looks boring but is actually really volatile, which is a huge opportunity to earn big (5/8)
Alkimiya consists of two components:
𝗦𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗮, the float-to-fixed swap issued by blockspace producers, and 𝗛𝗮𝘀𝗵𝗩𝗮𝘂𝗹𝘁, the vault that packages Silica contracts and restructures the underlying cash flow into a variety of financial products.
(3/16)
we've increased the
@base
gas target to 6.25 Mgas/s
↑ overall capacity +25%
↓ fees down significantly
we did this after significant load testing and optimization by the team — will be doing another increase to 7.5 Mgas/s later this week
working our way to 1 Ggas/s!
Buyers gain access to a sustainable source of yield directly from blockspace production - yields that were previously accessible only to miners/validators. This opens up a whole new world of strategies 👇
(5/16)
Runes are taking BTC by storm. Post-halving, Runes txs accounted for 70% of tx fees in terms of size. When Runes activities increase, high percentile fee tiers spike up, indicating a high sensitivity for inclusion time.
Are Runes starting to become leading indicator for BTC tx
For DeFi to capture even a fraction of the global capital markets today, there needs to be a healthier source of yield akin to U.S. Treasuries for the fixed-income market.
How to build the equivalent of Treasuries for the decentralized economy?
(7/16)
gm anon
Alkimiya is building permissionless capital markets for blockspace, and we are launching on
@avalancheavax
Mainnet today 🎉🎉
Here's what you need to know 👇
(1/16)
This is why miners need
@alkimiya_io
If miners finance via loans then they are leveraging up and are exposed to more mining risk.
But if miners finance through
@alkimiya_io
's swaps then they are offloading their risks
Big brain piece 🧠 on Bitcoin transaction fee dynamics just dropped!
In this piece we try to understand Bitcoin transaction fee dynamics through quantitative analysis, with a focus on two primary aspects: establishing bounds for Bitcoin feerate, and investigating the volatility
Runes UX will get better 💪...and in the meantime, you can also go long/short BTC fees on
@alkimiya_io
as levered beta on BTC blockspace! The UX is simple!
In addition to blockspace swaps, buyers can also purchase contracts (gas swaps) that only stream the fee component. Think of them as hedges against future gas spikes; the price you pay for the contracts "locks in" gas prices over its duration.
(10/16)
Across the DeFi landscape today, most yield products’ cash flow comes from the following categories:
-Lending
-Token inflation
-Liquidity provisioning
(6/16)
Blockspace is probably the second biggest market in crypto by revenue (behind CEX) but might be one of the least understood
$20B+ - CEX
$10B+ - Blockspace
$3B+ - DEX
$2B+ - NFT Marketplaces
One potential strategy these players could consider is to hedge their blockspace usage on
@alkimiya_io
before starting their consolidation. Even with a large trading budget, hedging could help offset a significant amount of cost!
Also, on-chain sleuths noticing that someone
According to Nansen, the withdrawal and transaction of ApeCoin Token caused the gas fee of Ethereum to skyrocket, with the median soaring to 340gwei at one point.
There have been some interesting discussions on this topic in our fee alpha Telegram group.
On the day of the halving, we observed the largest fee impact from Runes, with a market capitalization (MC) of 0.03%. If the MC reaches 1% driven by the secondary market, and assuming the
Total MC of Runes is at 2 Billion. A measly .14% of the Total Chain Value of Bitcoin sitting at around 1.3 Trillion. Not 1%, a tenth of 1% so far...
You think this move on Runes was a pump? lmaoo
my brother in blockchain.. you are not ready for the wave of liquidity that will
🎰 Get ready to ignite your trading game! 🎰
The highly anticipated 777 Trading Competition is here, and it's your chance to compete for a share of 1 MILLION vB of positions in total prizes! 🏆
🥇 300K vB position (US$ 1,800)
🥈 200K vB position (US$ 1,200)
🥉 150K vB position
What we are watching as potential fee rate events in the short/medium-term 👀
-
@babylonlabs_io
raising staking cap. The first phase was a lot of fun and many traders raked in handsome profits on
@alkimiya_io
🤑. We can't wait to do this again!
-launch of
@opnetbtc
a BTC Layer 1
And of course periods of heightened transaction fees are no stranger for ETH users.
On 21 Sep 2023
@binance
started what they termed a routine consolidation of ETH to its Binance 14 wallet, spending over $800K!! in gas fees over a 24h period and pushing gas to >200 gwei as a
We are thrilled to offer users a permissionless platform for hedging and investing in blockspace. As we continue to build, you can expect a number of features built on top of Alkimiya soon.
(15/16)
Today, most on-chain services either absorb the volatility of transaction fees themselves, or dump the costs entirely onto users, which can provoke severe backlash. To onboard the next billions, blockspace resources must be priced and managed.
The mission of Alkimiya is to
We are hiring a senior front-end engineer at
@alkimiya_io
to help us build out capital markets for blockspace.
Fully remote, with attractive comp and equity. Find out more here 👇
Commercial activities on-chain are growing at exponential rates.
Exchanges, NFTs, and on-chain service providers either subsidize transfer fees or pass it on to their customers.
Using gas swaps, dapps can provide a smooth fee experience for users.
(11/16)
A big congratulations to
@babylonlabs_io
on the launch of their staking program. Let’s have a look at how crazy BTC tx fees went during the launch 👀
Babylon block numbers are 87910 onwards
We hit a peak of ~1,557 sat/vB(!!!) in block 857911 🤯
🧵
Prediction
-Remaining funds pivot to more liquid strategies as venture cools off
-ETH-staking (and stacking) strategies become the bread and butter for funds
gm Asia! new week more bull please. We are looking for a Singapore-based Business Analyst to join our team. If you know anyone that might be a fit, please send them our way
1/ 🧵
Last week we saw some BTC transaction fees going bananas into the halving and the wave of Runes.
Transaction fees mooned to ~1000+ Sat/vB before cooling down:
This is not the first time and certainly not the last time that this happens. Every
“I think blockspace is the best product to be selling in the 2020s.”
When I heard
@cdixon
say that on the
@BanklessHQ
podcast I wasn't sure I grasped the magnitude of what he meant.
In this week's piece, I asked him. 👇
Hashpower does not react quickly. ASIC is a financial derivative of a digital asset in physical form. Wafer shortage, COVID disruption to supply chain, construction delay of new sites all leads to prolonged reaction time. This means hashrate is cross-correlated to BTC w a lag.
2/8: What is Alkimiya?
Alkimiya is a platform where you can buy & sell transaction fees, starting with Bitcoin today.
Expecting a surge in BTC activity & fees? Buy!
Bearish on BTC activity? Sell!
Mining is a classic commodity production business, same as oil, coffee beans, metals. In this case the commodity is blockspace. Miners pay for machines, labor, energy, and interest on loan to produce blockspace, and get paid by the protocol (subsidy) & users of blockspace (fees).
What can we learn from the history?
Building a robust capital market for commodity producers to hedge and manage risk is critical & inevitable.
Financialization of blockspace ultimately leads to a comprehensive capital market. It's the first step.
After hundreds of tweets and many interviews we still have no idea how $10b evaporated 🤡
In DeFi we would be able to see as the money is moved around real-time