🎧 Bubblemaps: Navigating Crypto's On-Chain Terrain
Round Table Recap: February 14th, 2023
Russian DeFi
April 07, 2023
Bubblemaps makes on-chain data more accessible and appealing to a wider audience through interactive, colorful, and gamified maps and charts.
The co-founder and CEO of Bubblemaps, Mick, talks about how their programs have been able to identify patterns and clusters of on-chain behavior, including identifying wash trading activities and clusters of wallets controlling a significant portion of a token's supply.
Mick also discusses the importance of privacy by design and how Bubblemaps can be used to identify alpha and avoid scams. He believes that on-chain data has a long way to go in terms of evolution and that each new blockchain release brings a new block of on-chain data to the space.
You can listen to the full audio here
Keep reading 🍿 👇️
Panel
• Guest - Mick (Twitter: @bubblemaps)
• Host - Garlam Won (Twitter: @GarlamWON)
Introducing Bubblemaps
• Mick is the co-founder and CEO at Bubblemaps.
• At Bubblemaps, they have a new vision for on-chain data.
• They wish to fix the complex analytical tools currently out there for on-chain data only appealing to a technical user base.
• They want to introduce interactive, playful, and even gamified on-chain data.
• They want to bring in a new audience to the on-chain data world by making maps and charts colorful and easy on the eye.
• They also have significant partnerships and recognition from Avalanche and Arbitrum.
• The idea is you take any token or NFT collection and see these as bubbles and how they are connected in a certain way.
Views on BUSD FUD
• When it comes to industry giants, on-chain data becomes hard to maneuver as stablecoins are the foundation of DeFi, so when such an announcement as BUSD comes out, it takes time to navigate.
• As a whole, Mick says BUSD was one of the most trusted and audited, which could be detrimental to the space.
• He also believes many more stablecoins will be under the same scrutiny.
🎧️ BUSD flood - impact on the crypto industry👇️
Give examples of patterns for on-chain behavior you see…
• On a16z and the whole Uniswap debacle, Mick reiterates how Bubblemaps identified the problem using their programs.
• He says it was one of the best findings they found with the on-chain pattern and that this is a nice pattern for how Bubblemaps can be used.
• They found a pattern (called a cluster) where multiple wallets were connected through Uni transfers. He covers how Uniswap and a16z were intrinsically connected to cover the 4% DAO voting rights.
• Mick talks about how they were able to find wash trading activities which is the idea that one person or a group buys NFTs amongst themselves to increase the volume of a project.
Wash trading be like…
• So, from an outsider's perspective, you’d believe an NFT has hype when in reality, a group are luring investors in.
• Bubblemaps identified ‘squiggles NFTs’ where a cluster of NFTs sent ETH back and forth between a group of addresses that were buying and selling NFTs.
• As a result, ‘squiggles NFT’ got removed from OpenSea thanks to the Bubblemaps exposing.
• Another example of Bubblemaps being effective was Shiba Inu's case, which identified an interesting cluster that signified 10% of the supply.
• All those wallets were related to 1 person meaning 10% of the Shiba price could easily be swung by these collective wallets and their activity.
What’s your take on privacy on-chain?
• As an analytical tool, Bubblemaps want to have a line in the sand that they don’t cross.
• Mick talks about how they don’t wish to rely on users for privacy and protecting themselves. He uses the example of the internet and not knowing what our data is exposed to.
• Mick emphasizes how privacy by design is better than no privacy by design.
🎧️ Exploring privacy in crypto👇️
How can people use Bubblemaps to identify alpha?
• Mick says that relying on multiple, diversified tools can cover different areas and aid your trading journey.
• He says that trying to find where the smart money is going can help you.
• Bubblemaps has a good convenient way to avoid scams. He says that identifying the rug, under-the-radar projects can be avoided using Bubblemaps.
• Mick relates this to how some traders identify projects using CoinGecko, stating that once a project is decided upon, you can use Bubblemaps to find it.
- For example, clusters have 40%+ of the supply meaning the team controls a large portion of the circulating supply.
• Mick says that sometimes a discrepancy between what’s disclosed in the whitepaper and what’s evident in Bubblemaps is where your due diligence can come in handy.
• As well as checking the team, marketing efforts, contracts, and social presence, checking the Bubblemaps to see whether there are clusters of wallets working together, for example, can quickly make you suspicious.
• Mick says that Bubblemaps is dynamic between specific tokens and explains that the Bubblemap will change over time.
• He says that Bubblemaps v1 has been released, meaning you can, in a sense, backtest a token activity which will provide comprehensive historical data to see the entire activity of a token.
• Mick emphasizes a great point: it always starts with a huge bubble and then slowly and gradually expands to different DEXs, VC airdrops, and which exchanges are obtaining liquidity in what order.
• He says that they may or may not be trying to find a way to create a Bubblemap of one wallet as opposed to one token.
• He says that if you find an NFT project where more than 25 wallets are connected together, it is likely that wash trading is taking place.
🎧️ How to track smart money and avoid scams with Bubblemaps 👇️
🎧️ Alpha strategies with Bubblemaps👇️
What’s your idea behind the evolution of On-Chain Data?
• Mick says that he believes on-chain data has a long way to go.
• He notes that the current stages of adoption are still very early and that with each new blockchain set for release, they’re bringing a whole new block of on-chain data to the space.
• Mick emphasizes that pre-2018 launches were happening on CEXs. As DeFi exploded and there were more incentives for DeFi, more liquidity flowed into DEXs, and on-chain data became more prominent and necessary.
• He also says after the FTX collapse, people realized that using CeFi and putting trust in other people is not the way to go. Hence the big expansion of DeFi and more and more on-chain data being accessible to people.