On Thursday (August 4), crypto analyst Ben Armstrong, the host of the very popular YouTube channel \u201cBitBoy Crypto\u201c, named three digital assets that he believes should be in every crypto investor\u2019s porfolio.<\/p>\n
So, the question is why would he be so bullish on these cryptoassets. Well, the reason might be that there are bullish narratives around all three of these:<\/p>\n
Etheruem ($ETH)<\/strong><\/p>\n Here is how Ethereum Foundation\u00a0explains\u00a0The Merge:<\/p>\n \u201cThe Merge represents the joining of the existing execution layer of Ethereum (the Mainnet we use today) with its new proof-of-stake consensus layer, the Beacon Chain. It eliminates the need for energy-intensive mining and instead secures the network using staked ETH. A truly exciting step in realizing the Ethereum vision \u2013 more scalability, security, and sustainability.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s important to remember that initially, the\u00a0Beacon Chain\u00a0shipped separately from\u00a0Mainnet. Ethereum Mainnet \u2013 with all it\u2019s accounts, balances, smart contracts, and blockchain state \u2013 continues to be secured by\u00a0proof-of-work, even while the Beacon Chain runs in parallel using\u00a0proof-of-stake. The approaching Merge is when these two systems finally come together, and proof-of-work is replaced permanently by proof-of-stake.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s consider an analogy. Imagine Ethereum is a spaceship that isn\u2019t quite ready for an interstellar voyage. With the Beacon Chain, the community has built a new engine and a hardened hull. After significant testing, it\u2019s almost time to hot-swap the new engine for the old mid-flight. This will merge the new, more efficient engine into the existing ship, ready to put in some serious lightyears and take on the universe.<\/em>\u201c<\/p>\n \u201cThe Merge\u201d hard fork is expected to go live on the Ethereum mainnet next month:<\/p>\n XRP<\/strong><\/p>\n As you probably already know, on 22 December 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)\u00a0announced\u00a0that it had \u201cfiled an action against Ripple Labs\u00a0Inc. and two of its executives, who are also significant security holders, alleging that they raised over $1.3 billion through an unregistered, ongoing digital asset securities offering.\u201d\u00a0Essentially, the SEC is arguing that XRP is a security under U.S. federal securities laws.<\/p>\n American lawyer\u00a0John Deaton\u00a0(@JohnEDeaton1\u00a0on Twitter), the owner of the Deaton Law Firm (which is based in East Providence, Rhode Island), who has been closely following and commentating on the SEC\u2019s lawsuit against Ripple. Deaton is also the founder of the website\u00a0CryptoLaw, which \u201cwas launched in 2021 to be a clearinghouse of information, news and analysis on key U.S. legal and regulatory developments for digital asset holders\u201d, as well as the host of the\u00a0YouTube channel \u201cCryptoLaw\u201d.<\/p>\n On July 19, the New York Regional Office of the SEC filed a\u00a0letter\u00a0(dated June 7) addressed to\u00a0U.S. District Judge Hon. Analisa Torres, in which the SEC said it \u201copposes six XRP investors\u2019\u2026 motion to file an amicus brief regarding the opinions of one of the SEC\u2019s experts.\u201d The SEC went on to say that the\u00a0U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York\u00a0should deny this motion and \u201cprohibit Deaton from any further participation in these proceedings.\u201d<\/p>\n Well, July 26, XRP holders got a win when Judge Torres issued an order that denied the SEC\u2019s request (which means Deaton is allowed to keep amici status).<\/p>\n Cardano ($ADA)<\/strong><\/p>\n On Monday (August 1), Charles Hoskinson, Co-Founder and CEO of Input Output Global (\u201cIOG\u201d), the company responsible for Cardano\u2019s research and development, shared some important news about the upcoming Vasil hard fork, which recently got delayed by \u201ca few more weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n On August 1, the IOG CEO released a short video, in which he explained why the Vasil hard fork had been delayed for a second time and provided an status update regarding the testing of the Vasil protocol update.<\/p>\n Hoskinson said:<\/p>\n \u201cOriginally, we planned to have the hard fork with 1.35, and that\u2019s what we shipped to the testnet. The testnet was hard forked under it. And then a lot of testing, both internal and community, were underway. A collection of bugs were found: three separate bugs that resulted in three new versions of the software. And now, we have 1.35.3, which looks like it is going to be the version that will survive the hard fork and upgrade to Vasil.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a big retrospective that will be done. The long short is that the ECDSA primitives and amongst a few other things are not quite where they need to be. And so, that feature has to be put aside, but all of the remaining features, CIP 31, 32, 33, 40 and other such things are pretty good.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cSo those are in advanced stages of testing, and then a lot of downstream components have to be tested, like DB Sync and the serialisation library, and these other things. And that\u2019s currently underway. And a lot of testing is underway. As I mentioned before, this is the most complicated upgrade to Cardano in its history because it includes both changes to the programming language Plutus plus changes to the consensus protocol and a litany of other things, and was a very loaded release. It had a lot in it, and as a result, it\u2019s one that everybody had a vested interest in thoroughly testing.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThe problem is that every time something is discovered, you have to fix that, but then you have to verify the fix and go back through the entire testing pipeline. So you get to a situation where you\u2019re feature-complete, but then you have to test and when you test, you may discover something, and then you have to repair that. And then you have to go back through the entire testing pipeline. So this is what causes release delays\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI was really hoping to get it out in July, but you can\u2019t do it when you have a bug, especially one that is involved with consensus or serialisation or related to a particular issue with transactions. Just have to clear it, and that\u2019s just the way it goes. All things considered though, things are moving in the right direction, steadily and systematically\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThe set of things that could go wrong have gotten so small, and now we\u2019re kind of in the final stages of of testing in that respect. So unless anything new is discovered, I don\u2019t anticipate that we\u2019ll have any further delays, and it\u2019s just getting people upgraded\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n