📈 Is today's NFT mint a buy?

GM everyone. This is 2036, the crypto newsletter that pays you.

Today is Favorite Friday, where we serve up the resources we most enjoyed this week 🍲.

So if you're looking for content to dig into this weekend, this is your list...

🥢 Our Favorite Resources

What we most enjoyed this week

1/ WTH is Blackrock, actually?

Bitcoin ETFs continue to dominate the news.

Since Blackrock filed for a bitcoin ETF two weeks ago, a half-dozen firms have followed suit. Yesterday it was Fidelity’s turn - a firm with $4.3 TRILLION in assets.

Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest re-filed their ETF and will likely get an answer before Blackrock - around August 13.

But Blackrock is the one everyone is watching.

That begs the question - who and what is Blackrock, really? And why is this Bitcoin ETF different than all others?

Get the full explanation here.

2/ The GBTC discount keeps narrowing further

We wrote about this on Monday: it’s possible to buy exposure to bitcoin (and ETH) at a 30-50% discount to its market price through the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust.

But it seems that the window of opportunity could be closing fast.

Yesterday, on news that Fidelity is filing for its own bitcoin ETF (rumors were circulating they would just buy GBTC), GBTC skyrocketed relative to bitcoin.

This month alone, bitcoin is up 12%. GBTC is up 40%.

Investors expect GBTC will get converted into a Bitcoin ETF (which would close the discount immediately). If it doesn’t, the discount could keep widening.

If it gets approved, however, an Ethereum ETF could be on the cards… and the Grayscale Ethereum Trust is currently trading at a 47% discount to ETH…👀

3/ Does all this sound stressful? Here’s Tim Ferriss on how to invest your first money

Tim Ferriss isn’t a financial expert. But I’d qualify him as a lifestyle expert.

And what is money but a tool to make our lifestyle better?

Because it trades 24/7 and can 📈/📉 50% in a day, crypto can be stressful if you’re not careful.

If that resonates, here’s Tim’s advice:

[That’s why we hold a long-term portfolio of 50% BTC and 50% ETH and occasionally swing for the fences (e.g. SOL, UNI, NFTs, etc.)]

Tim dives into more investment lessons he wish he’d known at 30. 100% worth reading (it’s short!).

4/ And now that we’re on the Timmy train…

In yesterday’s email, we mentioned that if your crypto portfolio is small, your best strategy is to:

• increase your income

• collect crypto airdrops

We covered airdrops, but if you’re looking to increase your income, this idea is one of the most important pieces of advice we got from The 4-Hour Workweek over a decade ago.

Read it here (again, super short).

And if you like Tim, you’re probably gonna enjoy his recent interview with Colin and Samir.

5/ Miscellaneous & updates

• Azuki - the main character of the NFT drama we wrote about this week - released a statement saying they might change the background color of the Elemental NFTs to distinguish them from the OG ones. The floor price on all 3 collections keeps dropping.

• One of the other most hyped NFT mints of the year - Ether - is taking place today. Is it a buy? Here’s a good write-up that tries to answer the question.

• I went to see Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse this week and was absolutely blown away. It’s a true masterpiece. If you haven’t watched it yet, you know what to do this weekend. Here’s the trailer.

🐦 A couple of Tweets we found interesting

The best of the bird

🏆 The winner of this week’s task

Earn $15 in ETH for a simple crypto task

Thank you to everyone who participated in this week’s task.

Here’s a list of all the participants as well as the winner.

Congratulations to the winner 👏 - your $15 in ETH are on their way.

Paid tasks will resume next week.

🖼️ Crypto meme of the day

From across the world wide information superhighway