Crypto Daily Sentiment, Vibe, Topic of the Day -
Monday, March 21st:
Bitcoin & Eth unable to break resistances. ~ 42k and 3000 respectively
Jerome Powell hawkish speech - potential 50 bps rate hikes incoming
Microsoft might buy Adworld - interesting - rumor
Miladies still the talk of the town - mental illness in vogue
Avax conference - people meeting irl - chart performing stronk
Big day for FTX - FTX Australia, $100M Dave partnership, Naomi Osaka ambassador
DeFiance Capital founder Arthur Cheong gets NFTs hacked - source
Tuesday, March 22nd:
Bitcoin breaks 42k, Eth 3000. Hopeful and bullish energy on the TL
Arthur NFT hack sparks security talks
Lots of CT people meeting irl at Avalanche Summit
Yuga Labs raised a staggering $450 million in a funding round lead by a16z - nutters
ETC on the rise - raises question of what eth miners plan to do next after merge
Will jpeg nfts all start issuing coins similar to Ape?
Wednesday, March 23rd:
Bitcoin & Eth momentum stalls at resistance. Alts chilling. Just waiting for now - general expectation is we’ll move up - how high is tbd.
Gamestop partnership with LRC seems to scorn IMX - source
Luna Foundation confirms 6,000 bitcoin purchase worth $250 million to back its UST stablecoin wallet movement - source - etherscan
Acala $250 incentive fund
Stargate settles ~ $2 for now
Honduras debunks legal tender rumor + delayed El Salvador bitcoin bonds. CZ to get involved with El Salvador?
Reminiscences of an Anon: Midweek Thoughts
Midweek Interlude. So far this week we’ve seen: Jerome Powell give a hawkish speech - potential 50 bps rate hikes incoming. We still await to see if the crypto markets will finally give a relief bounce. DeFiance Capital founder Arthur Cheong gets NFTs hacked. Luna Foundation Guard to increase its bitcoin reserve to $3+ billion and makes big btc buys. Yuga Labs raised a staggering $450 million in a funding round led by a16z. Polkadot’s Acala announces $250M aUSD ecosystem fund. Paradigm invests $8.8M in Ribbon Finance. Avax conference - key announcements, people meeting irl & shenanigans. Gamestop's partnership with LRC seems to scorn IMX. Big week for FTX - FTX Australia, $100M Dave partnership, Naomi Osaka sports ambassador and more. ETC on the rise - mining vs pos implications. Hacker steals customer data from Circle, BlockFi, others. El Salvador seems to delay its 'volcano bonds' launch. There’s all sorts of metaverse developments with big names, brands, partnerships, regulatory and political tidbits and the usual shit ton of money being raised that won’t fit here. Check the substack for all the deets. There’s a whole level of activity going on out there besides price and charts, all of which helps tell a story over time that can help you better navigate these markets by employing the correct mindset. Observe the pieces moving and let it tell you a story. Pls help this find its way to those who may need it and see you for the weekend epilogue.
I’m looking for active crypto people to put our minds together. Apes strong together. You can reach me on twitter: https://twitter.com/TheoDelarosa_
- Time moves differently in crypto. Crypto is an intricate game filled with various players operating across multiple time frames and with varying agendas. Day in, day out, the pieces are moving all across the board. Sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. Here’s a glimpse of what has happened so far this week in our little crypto bubble -
Chain News:
Luna Foundation Guard (LFG) may increase its bitcoin reserve to $3 billion in the near term, with a longer-term goal of $10 billion according to Terraform Labs CEO Do - source
Acala announces $250M aUSD Ecosystem Fund. Acala along with an initial nine Polkadot parachain teams and several venture funds, has launched a fund to support early-stage startups building applications with strong stablecoin use cases on any Polkadot or Kusama parachain - source
Paradigm Invests $8.8M in DeFi’s Ribbon Finance. The protocol automates crypto derivatives strategies for the lay DeFi trader - source
Li Finance (LiFi) protocol users suffered losses amounting to around $600,000, some of them have been reimbursed after a hacker exploited a bug in the project’s smart contract - source
SushiSwap community proposes Swiss legal structure to limit DAO liability. According to the proposer Tangle, the intended foundation will play a key role in limiting the liability for contributors and driving Sushi’s future growth - source
Coinbase Cloud launches Avalanche developer tools suite. The Avalanche ecosystem stands to gain from three tremendous developments announced this week with Coinbase Cloud’s integration, BTC support, and UST trading - source
Lemonade Is Working With Avalanche, Chainlink on Weather Insurance for Farmers. A newly formed DAO backed by the Lemonade Foundation will roll out permissionless weather insurance to African farmers later this year - source
Avalanche Announces New ‘Core’ Wallet, Bitcoin Bridge at AVAX Summit. The pair of product upgrades are meant to boost Avalanche’s DeFi ecosystem - source
Layer Zero & Avax subnets - source
Loopring announced that the GameStop NFT marketplace (beta) is now live, built on Loopring L2. LRC rose nearly 40%. However, GameStop previously announced that it had launched NFT market with Immutable X and sold a lot of IMX - source
Stablecoin Cashio on Solana exploited for $28 million in ‘infinite mint glitch’ - source
Cardano has introduced its updated roadmap. According to the roadmap, the team continued working on finalizing a new transaction workflow to add token minting and burning capabilities - source
OneRing, a Fantom revenue aggregation platform, said that it suffered a flash loan attack by hackers at 02:44:10 UTC+8, and 1454672.244369 USDC were stolen. After the funds were stolen, they were cross-chained from Fantom to Ethereum and then to Tornado Cash - source
MEXC is now a strategic Elrond partner and will dedicate resources to identify exceptional projects building with internet-scale technology, and accelerate their path towards adoption via guidance, funding, and access to new markets - source
OCEAN gains 86.4% in March ahead of Q2 launch of Ocean v4 with a highly anticipated protocol upgrade, combined with a growing partner base and an active grants program - source
Biconomy launches Hyphen 2.0 — the most capital efficient bridge available to users - source
Frontier has announced the integration of the Tezos blockchain in the Frontier mobile app. Users can now create a non-custodial Tezos wallet and send, store, receive $XTZ and FA1.2 & 2.0 tokens on Frontier - source
Clearpool Mainnet to Launch on 23rd March with Wintermute, Amber Group and Folkvang borrower pools who collectively trade billions of dollars across the major crypto exchanges every day - source
Mysten Labs Launches Blockchain Platform Sui. Company founded by ex-Facebook employees designs layer-1 to solve space’s “pain points” - source
Crypto.com Adds FIFA World Cup Sponsorship to Sports Marketing Strategy. The company’s latest deal is part of an effort to develop its brand internationally - source
TRAC price surged 162% as the rollout of OriginTrail v6 and the launch of AidTrust suggest the protocol is prepared for the Web3 migration - source
COTI Launches a $10 Million Fund for Ecosystem Development. The blockchain payment project has introduced COTI Ventures to invest and capitalize on business opportunities in its ecosystem - source
Three Arrows Capital’s address (0x3BA21b6477F48273f41d241AA3722FFb9E07E247) deposited 43,393 ETH into Curve’s ETH/stETH pool - source
Mango DAO Embraces SOL, Rejects BTC With $1M Treasury Investment. The governing body behind Solana’s Mango Markets overwhelmingly rejected calls to invest even a sliver of its nearly $700 million treasury in bitcoin - source
Mercurial will launch DeFi's first dynamic yield infra. The system will consist of 4 main components: Vaults, Yield Optimizer, AMM Module, and Reward Handler. Mercurial is also targeting to launch Mainnet Beta of the system and a litepaper by early Q2 2022 - source
NFT platform VeVe said it was exploited, resulting in a large number of gems being obtained illegally. VeVe has closed the market, and some users' accounts have been restricted. Previously, Marvel and the VeVe platform reached an official cooperation to make NFTs - source
Deribit said it will launch Solana inverse products (options, futures and perpetual); Multicast - low latency market data feed for colo and cross connected clients and Combo books (call spreads, put spreads, futures spreads etc tradable in a single trade) - source
Bitcoin.com announced the issuance of ERC-20-based Token VERSE, with a supply of 210 billion, which will be allocated within 7 years. Bitcoin.com has created 29 million wallets and has more than 5 million monthly active users. The founder is Roger Ver - source
Chainlink launches startup program to provide blockchain resources to early-stage projects - source
Frog Nation's former CFO Sifu successively transferred about 1,000 Ethereum into Tornado Cash. The Wonderland DAO voted to remove Sifu before - source
Metaverse:
Yuga Labs has secured a virtually unprecedented $450 million in seed funding, bringing the startup to a post-money valuation of $4 billion. The seed round is one of the largest funding deals in the nonfungible token market - source
Time Magazine announced that it will accept payment of APECOIN for digital subscriptions in the coming weeks. Time Magazine just launched its digital NFT magazine with Vitalik as the cover - source
Bored Ape NFT DJ Duo Goes Hollywood With WME Talent Agency. The Bored Ape NFT duo has plans for multiple songs with Dillon Francis and made a music video with rapper Rich the Kid - source
Will Smith, The Weeknd Back NFT Metaverse Land Investor Everyrealm. Celebrities are flocking to the metaverse-centric startup, which also has Paris HIlton, Nas, and Gene Simmons on its cap sheet - source
The Solana NFT protocol NeoNexus said that the project was stopped, the team was disbanded, and it wanted to hand over the project to the community. Previously, NeoNexus raised a total of 25,000 SOL in the NFT MINT stage - source - zachxbt
PUBG Publisher Krafton Partners With Solana Labs. The agreement could bring blockchain integrations and NFTs to the popular battle-royale style game - source
Block Tackle Raises $5M to Develop Solana NFT Skateboarding Game. Coinbase Ventures, Solana Ventures, and Animoca back a new studio of game industry veterans building NFT games on Solana - source
Meta, formerly Facebook, has filed eight trademark applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office relating to blockchain technology and its proposed metaverse - source
Samsung's Cheil Worldwide claims to be the first advertising company in Korea to enter the NFT market. It will issue NFTs and launch markets. Samsung also launched a program for watching and trading NFT on TVs before - source
South Korean department store Hyundai Duty Free plans to release 255 NFTs on OpenSea and distribute them free of charge to customers as part of a lottery until April 21 - source
FTX Acquires Good Luck Games, Maker of Storybook Brawl. Storybook Brawl’s developers come from previous roles on Magic: The Gathering, Elder Scrolls: Legends, and Hearthstone - source
G2 Esports Files Lawsuit Against Bondly Over Scrapped NFTs on Polygon. Before its recent Solana NFT push, G2 signed with Bondly in 2021 for Polygon NFTs that never materialized - source
NFT-funded racing aims to disrupt sports sponsorships. GT driver Laura-Marie Geissler's career will depend on a decentralized sponsorship model in hopes of leveling the playing field for motorsport athletes - source
According to WWD, Estée Lauder, world's largest cosmetic company, as the exclusive beauty brand partner of Decentraland’s Metaverse Fashion Week, is debuting its first NFT - source
Singer and pop-electronic artist Kiesza performed on the Ellen Degeneres Show with the MilkyWay Pirates band, which also happens to be an NFT collection - source
Paris Saint-Germain F.C. ventures into NFTs and the metaverse with trademark filing - source
SoftBank messaging giant and social media giant LINE will launch the NFT market "LINE NFT" in Japan on April 13. In addition, it will release the global NFT platform "DOSI" on April 19. Users can pay with credit cards or crypto like Bitcoin - source
SportsIcon to Open Metaverse Where Athletes Can Interact With Fans. A public land sale for Sports Metaverse will take place in June, when it officially goes live - source
News:
Hacker steals $1.7 million in NFTs from DeFiance Capital founder Arthur Cheong. An unknown hacker compromised his device using a technique known as spear phishing - source
FTX announced the establishment of FTX Australia, which holds an Australian Financial Services License and acts as the issuer of the OTC derivatives including options contract, futures contract, contract for difference (CFDs) and leveraged tokens - source
Hacker Steals Customer Data From Circle, BlockFi, Other Big Crypto Firms. Hubspot said data was taken from "fewer than 30 Hubspot portals," but didn't provide a list of which accounts were compromised - source
El Salvador postpones Bitcoin bonds to September. Apart from delaying the issuance of Bitcoin bonds, the Salvadoran government has apparently slowed down the pace of buying new BTC as well - source
Australian Senator proposes landmark Digital Services Act. The new legislative package will address issues in crypto custody, taxation, and DAO operations in order to protect consumers against bad actors in the space - source
FTX Invests $100M in Banking App Dave, Forms Partnership for Crypto Payments. FTX US will serve as the exclusive partner for any crypto offerings offered by Dave - source
FTX announced a long-term partnership with four-time Grand Slam singles champion, Naomi Osaka. In addition to becoming an FTX global ambassador, Osaka will receive an equity stake in FTX Trading Limited and will be receiving compensation in crypto - source
NFL Reverses Course on Blockchain Sponsorships, Keeps Ban on Crypto and Token Deals. The league cited the growing popularity of cryptocurrency and NFTs as part of its reasoning - source
Grayscale’s Latest Fund Focuses on Smart Contract Platforms. The world’s largest digital currency asset manager introduced its 18th investment product - a market capitalization-weighted portfolio that tracks the CoinDesk Smart Contract Platform Select Ex ETH Index - source
Andreessen Horowitz Vet Katie Haun Raises $1.5 Billion for Web3 Fund. Haun left a16z in 2021 to start Haun Ventures - source
According th bitcoin com, the leader of the United People’s Party and member of St. Maarten’s Parliament, Rolando Brison, has started to explore legislation to make bitcoin cash (BCH) legal tender in the country with the guidance from Roger Ver - source
Malaysian comms official calls the state to legalize crypto and NFTs. Malaysia’s finance minister previously warned that crypto payments were illegal as they did not meet the universal characteristics of money - source
GitCoin has voted on a proposal to create a Cayman Islands Foundation, which will become the legal entity of the Gitcoin DAO. It will have DAO voting rights, appointment and removal rights, financial management rights, and public product financing IP - source
Gemini wins Irish electronic money license: report. The crypto exchange is the first fintech firm to secure a license sine 2020, according to The Irish Times - source
The platform, AEX, plans to offer crypto financial derivatives in Vietnam, open an office and support the country’s blockchain ecosystem with the $100 million fund. A recent survey by consumer insights provider Toluna found that the most receptive countries to cryptocurrency were Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand and India - source
Goldman Sachs completes first OTC crypto options trade with Galaxy. Galaxy Digital previously facilitated the launch of Goldman Sachs’ Bitcoin futures trading product for CME Group in June 2021 - source
Euroclear invests in Fnality to advance digital ledger technology strategy. The firm claims to have settled nearly 1,000 trillion euros worth of securities transactions last year - source
UK Advertising Regulator Issues 'Red Alert' Guidance on Crypto Ads. Companies advertising crypto services have until May 2 to ensure their ads meet the new guidance - source
Expenses fintech Jeeves eyes crypto transfers as it raises $180 million led by Chinese investor Tencent as it looks to implement stablecoin transfers - source
MyEtherWallet partnered with MoonPay to offer additional Ethereum opportunities to its customers - source
Draper University Partners With VeChain to Train Web 3 Founders - source
Thailand Bans Crypto as Means of Payment. The Thai SEC stressed that it is only banning the use of crypto for payments and is not banning crypto trading and digital assets - source
Florida governor says the state will accept bitcoin for tax payments - source
CoinShares has announced a partnership with FTX to launch the Solana ETP, the fourth ETP CoinShares has launched this year, leveraging CoinShare’s Galata platform and FTX’s institutional offerings to provide institutional investors exposure to Solana - source
Investment Bank Cowen Launches Digital Unit, Aims to Compete With Bulge-Bracket Firms. It’s the latest in a trend of traditional finance players spying opportunity in the cryptocurrency sector - source
Figure Technologies Announces Two Crypto-Backed Mortgage Products. Potential customers can now join the waiting list ahead of the launch next month - source
Honduras’ Central Bank Debunks Bitcoin as Legal Tender Rumors however studying the feasibility of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) - source
Raises:
Yuga Labs has secured a virtually unprecedented $450 million in seed funding, bringing the startup to a post-money valuation of $4 billion. The raise was led by venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz (a16z). Other participants included blockchain-based game studio Animoca Brands, The Sandbox, LionTree, Sound Ventures, FTX and MoonPay - source
Digital asset analytics provider The TIE has closed a strategic investment round backed by some of blockchain’s most prominent investors, underscoring heightened demand for crypto data and software services. The TIE raised $9 million in Series A funding at a valuation of $100 million, making it one of the largest crypto analytics services in the market - source
Animoca, Coinbase Ventures Back $5M Seed Round for Metaverse Gaming Studio Block Tackle. The studio’s first release will be SkateX, where players can buy their own skateboard NFTs and vote on decisions about the game - source
Crypto Exchange MEXC Global Leads $150M Fetch.ai Development Fund With Huobi, Bybit. The money will be used to encourage more developers and projects to work on the Fetch.ai ecosystem - source
Polychain Capital Leads $22M Investment in NFT Appraisal Protocol Upshot. The project wants to bridge the worlds of DeFi and NFT - source
Worldcoin to Raise $100M at $3B Token Valuation. The list of investors includes a16z and Khosla Ventures - source
Nexo To Launch $150M Web3 Investment Fund to deploy capital into corners of crypto including NFTs, GameFi and the metaverse - source
Chip supplier Qualcomm creates $100 million metaverse investment fund. Qualcomm hopes to broaden the market for its chips through this new metaverse fund - source
Ex-Polychain Partner Tekin Salimi Launches $125M Crypto Venture Fund. The new fund plans to convert into a decentralized autonomous organization, and involves Terra’s Do Kwon and Avalanche’s Emin Gün Sirer - source
Binance Labs led an $8 million seed funding round of Tea, a new company building an open-source software platform on the blockchain. Additional funding participants include XBTO Humla Ventures, Lattice Capital, DARMA Capital, Coral DeFi, Woodstock, Rocktree, SVK Crypto, and MAKE Group - source
Decentralized Creator Platform Joystream Raises $5.8M. The platform allows creators to sell their videos as NFTs and turn their channels into tokens - source
Calendar:
Macroeconomic Dates:
Some upcoming token unlocks - vestlab.io - source
BTC CME Expiration Date - March 25th
CPI - April 12th
US Tax return ~ April 18th
FOMC - May 4th
Token sale & NFT Minting - source
1. BigTime - Exalted Space Land Sale (3/24)
2. NBA Topshot - A collection of the best dunks NFT (3/24)
3. ITEUM ($ITEUM) - MaiarLaunchpad (3/25~28)
4. Tomorrow Land | FTX, NFT Sale - Public Sale (3/26)
5. Gala($GALA) - The WalkingDead VOX NFT Drop (3/28)
6. PREMINT - Collector Pass Mint - Registration Closes (3/29) - Mint Date (4/1)
7. Gharliera - Gene_sis Collectable (TBA)
8. Attack on Titan - CardPack Sale (in Mar)
9. UNXD - Dolce & Gabbana NFT Mint (TBA) - Astronomia Metaverso NFT Mint (in Spring)
10. Warner Bros - DC Comices Trading Card NFT (in Mar)
11. Yuga Labs - Land Sale (in Mar)
12. Sushiswap($SUSHI) - Sushimi NFT Mint (Soon)
Data:
Since the EIP-1559 in August 2021, Ethereum has burned more than 2 million coins now, which is about 5.7 billion US dollars, and the most burned DAPP is OpenSea's 230,044 ETH. The current annual burning volume is about 3.2 million ETH - source
Derivatives markets are currently pricing in historically low implied volatility, and futures premiums. Such market structure has historically preceded periods of very high volatility, and most often to the upside - source
Current buy side demand appears to be dominated by US and EU markets, with the majority of sell-side sources during Asian trading hours - source
Bitcoin prices have now consolidated between $38k and $45k for over 2-months, and a large volume of $BTC has changed hands - source
New Listings:
Binance will list Biswap (BSW) in the Innovation Zone and will open trading for BSW/BNB, BSW/BUSD and BSW/USDT trading pairs at 2022-03-21 13:30 UTC - source
Binance Futures will launch coin-margined RUNE perpetual contracts with up to 20x leverage at 2022-03-23 03:30 UTC = source
Huobi Global will list Onston (ONSTON) on March 23, 2022 - source
Huobi Global will list League of Kingdoms Arena (LOKA) on March 25, 2022 - source
Coinbase & Coinbase Pro will list Mina (MINA) & Crypterium (CRPT) on March 24th - source
Disclaimer: none of this is finanshy advice. These are just my thoughts, observations and things that have crossed my eyes during the past few days. Use this as an overview of the market sentiment, always do your own research, practice risk management, remember to stay hydrated and touch grass. How you should read the information contained herein, or anything in crypto for that matter. Doubt everything in crypto. Crypto is a cruel, harsh, zero sum game. A majority of people will lose money. There’s cool tech, cool people and cool visions but there’s criminals, scammers and grifters as well. There’s shilling, hyped narratives, lofty promises and wild overspeculation. Participating in financial markets is brutal. The pieces are pretty much always stacked against you. There are players playing this game with vastly more resources and experience. A vast majority of things around here are going to part people with their money. Accept the game for what it is. Study it, learn from it and make moves accordingly. Protect yourself. Be vigilant. Be wary.