I like to keep an eye on different metrics every week and I still haven't seen promising upticks. On one hand we see prices moving up but I don't see interesting metrics moving up with it.
- nothing that really stands out on-chain in terms of active addresses, transaction count, on-chain volume to indicate a return of capital/users
- no new money flowing into stablecoins
- steady decline in stablecoins on exchanges
- exchange volume weak/was decreasing as price grinded up
- dex volume is subdued despite recent “alt/meme szn”
- no noticeable bridging activity
- no influx into defi tvl
- no increase in social traffic for crypto related stuff
Bull case: If nothing is able to meaningfully drag the market down, we hold these general prices and then we start seeing changes in the above metrics, that would be good. Retail returns and it’s up only.
Bear case: If we go down then we can at least say we saw the signs.
- This grimoire is an open journal of notes, thoughts, data, and a collection of events from throughout the week in the world of crypto. It is designed to be a comprehensive overview of all the goings ons one might need to know to stay up to date with the chaotic, cruel and convoluted game that is crypto. Herein this tome you’ll find no happy wgmi vibes. Just a critical, practical and ground level perspective of the volatile warfield that we know as crypto. There’s lots of opportunities out there. Just gotta pay attention -
Data:
Bitcoin:
Put in a low of $26.9K on Monday and then pushed up to tag $30k before dumping weirdly. Mt. Gox/U.S gov dumping Silk Road BTC rumors attributed to it but the dump preceded the announcement. No clear lead on what happened yet. Recovered from dump quickly and looking to tag $30k again. Still some bearish divergence on the daily. BTC dominance near multi-year highs. On the futures side, we’re seeing open interest spiking coming back to April 2022 levels.
OI for Bitcoin options are at their highest levels ever. However April is almost over and volume didn’t come anywhere close to March’s volume
Ethereum:
ETH/BTC weekly looks like it wants to plunge down to to tag those red 200 week averages. ETH/USD doesn’t have the same oomph as Bitcoin. Makes sense with BTC dominance so high. ETH just sorta taking the backseat here until liquidity rotates back into it. Futures OI and volume for ETH is subdued. Volume and OI for ETH options at highest level ever
Crypto Market Cap:
Re-attempting to reclaim $1.2T. The level we’ve been unable to stay above since we lost it in June 2022. We’ve been flirting with it for weeks now during this crabbish rally we’ve been in. Yet to conquer it or retreat. Eventually we’ll move on.
Coins:
Weekly Gainers:
I like keeping a watchlist of the best performing coins. Both big and small. Inj and Rndr showed pretty decent strength and recovery this week again. No idea how much more it has left.
Weekly Losers:
Seeing AI lagging and Optimism also had a rough week. Another recent strong performer that’s a little lower on this list is JOE. Things move up and down in cycles.
Stablecoin Total Market Cap:
In May of 2022, we had a market cap of $190.7B. Almost one year later and we’ve steadily grinded down to $130B. We’ve had implosions, fallout and all sorts of crazy shit happen. Understable that money exited the ecosystem. But the crypto market bottomed in November and has grinded up since with no new money re-entering. Just a steady grind down.
Stablecoin Exchange Reserves:
The plunge continues. About $13B in stables has come off exchanges since January. We averaged around $35B for most of 2022 and now here we are down to $17.3B. Less liquidity to buy with. Want to see this start increasing to support prices.
DeFi TVL:
Hovering just shy of $50B. Have not been able to move past this zone since February. DeFi feels pretty dead and has been underperforming all year. This entire rally. Underperformed. When we zoom out, it looks like DeFi has flatlined.
Exchange Volume:
Decreasing the past week. Volume has been falling since March 20th. Fascinating that we have lower volume now than we did during most of 2022.
Dex Volume:
Low and unimpressive volume recently. We had that lil’ mini memecoin and alt szn but dex volume doesn’t really reflect it. Volume has higher in Feb and March. On-chain volume for both BTC and ETH looks flatlined.
Bridge Activity:
Low bridge volume. Last mini little spike was on March 11th. Top 2 bridges by volume over the past 7 days are Stargate and Arbitrum. Polygon bridge for zkEVM announced. Should be interesting as part of the zk race.
Ethereum NFT Volume:
Steadily decreasing since February’s Blur hype. Decreasing sales and wallets. ETH sales down 18% in the last month, transactions down 49% and buyers down 38%
Money Flow:
Let’s look at who’s been cash flow positive over the past 30 days. Tron, GMX, Lido, OpenSea and Arbitrum. Notable mentions from the worst performing: Solana, Filecoin, Optimism and Avalanche.
Token Holders:
Arbitrum holders increased by 20% over the past week. Interdasting. $1.79 is the current high ARB has been able to get to.
Daily Active Users:
Interesting ones that stand out. Radiant Capital, Hashflow, Cosmos. Stargate up 3400% in the past 90 days
Thoughts/Observations:
Monday:
Rough weekend for crypto. Bitcoin is on the move down from its high of $31k and has now tagged $26.9k. ETH down from $2140 to $1800. Previously strong performing alts down. Sentiment seems unsure on the timeline. Bitcoin dominance sideways. ETH/BTC looks weak. Dollar dropping. Gold down from ATH attempt. S&P, Dow Jones look decent but Nasdaq looks uncertain. Creeping down from $1.2T total crypto market cap. Bybit officially going KYC route - expect this to happen with more exchanges/protocols. The founders and teams running them won’t want the heat for non-compliance.
Tuesday:
Market blah in the morning with Bitcoin trading in the low $27ks and ETH in the low $1800s. Lots of alts are bleeding. There are rumblings about potential old wallets being compromised due to several dormant wallets coming back to life after years in such a short time period. Arbitrum distributed tokens to several DAOs - what will those projects do with their free money? Bitcoin sudden bullish stab up to $28k.
Wednesday:
Bullishness on the back of more banking worries spikes Bitcoin up to $30k and ETH up to high $1900s. Strong alts up. Looking good. We previously saw another crypto rally on the back of banking worries. Curious correlation.
Sudden dump on the rumors of the U.S government and Mt. Gox dumping Bitcoin which turns out to be false. Market bounces back but not all the way. Leaves extremely funky daily candle.
Thursday:
Recovery from yesterday’s weird price action. It wasn’t Arkham’s fault and no clear explanation for what actually happened. Bitcoin looks like it wants to try another stab at $30k. ETH trying to hold $1900. Strong performers like INJ and RNDR recovered from the dump. Blur gets a boost on news of Binance futures listing. Dollar dropping. Stonks are up. Polygon Labs announce bridge for zkEVM
Friday:
Bitcoin is at one of those make it or break it areas. Will it stay above $30k or get shot down? Similarly seeing if ETH will hold $1900 and then reclaim $2k. Definitely interesting to see how little interest there seems to be in crypto right now. Subjective but it feels quiet. There’s no definitive trend or narrative in the market right now. Everything is in a sort of what will happen next environment. Like previously Arbitrum consumed the mindshare of the market and now we’re just taking it day by day.
*I took away the highlights section and just am doing news and coins with the more important-er stuff towards the top
Crypto News:
Monday:
3AC founders new project OPNX reveals backers. DRW, Nascent, MIAX and Susquehanna deny investment in OPNX
Celsius auction set for Tuesday with Coinbase and Gemini making bids
Andre Cronje working on crypto on-ramp
Gemini officially announce Gemini Foundation, a non-US crypto derivatives platform
Telegram users can now buy, withdraw and exchange BTC
Google merges AI teams and launches Google DeepMind
First Bitcoin enabled real estate marketplace launches via Coinbase integration in US
Athur Hayes says ease of use is more important than decentralization to average user
Bitcoin whale awakes after decade of inactivity
Starbucks NFT collection fails to sell out
Marvel Studios founder launches Ekos Genesis digital art collection
SEC warns advisers to approach crypto with heightened scrutiny
Binance backed Trust wallet was compromised leading to loss of user funds
Crypto VC funding down 82% compared to 2022
Chinese city of Changsu to pay government employees in CBDCs from May
Abu Dhabi Global Market seeks to build decentralized economic system with proposed paper
Bank of Russia digital ruble will operate with various state-issued digital currencies
EU Parliament approves crypto licensing concerning Transfer of Funds regulation
CZ and other industry leaders applaud EU MiCA bill
South Korean court decides Luna not a security
KuCoin Twitter account was compromised
Ukrainian government to adopt EU’s crypto market rules
US and Eurozone business activity accelerates to 11-month highs in April
Yellen wants to tighten Trump-era rules after SVB bankruptcy
Tiger Global Management who invested heavily in crypto reports 20% loss
US credit agency giant Transunion will deliver credit scores for crypto lending
FTX Exec claims SBF was spreading false rumors about CZ
Luxury brand LVMH says NFTs need to be connected to real world product
Zimbabwe to create new gold backed digital currency
Tuesday:
BTC whale awakens after 12 years along with other OG wallets, causing concern
ETH ICO addresses awaken after 7.5 years
Bybit to impose mandatory KYC rules for all services
Binance integrates ChatGPT into its Web3 academy
Yuga Labs wins case against Ryder Rips
South Korean court rule Terra Classic not a security and Do Kwon seeks to dismiss SEC charges
South Korean court indict Terra co-founder Daniel Shin
Visa hiring crypto engineer with focus on AI-written smart contracts plus ambitious plans
Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev to be released from jail
Phone restrictions approved for SBF’s parents while case is on-going
Spanish police dismantle crypto scam organization that profited over $110M
First NFT insider trading case launches with prosecutors charging Nathaniel Chastain
Binance reinstates support for card transactions from Russian Banks
China to use digital Yuan for trade with Europe and internationally with Belt and Road initiative
Tricking bots to spend $250k on fake NFTs
Romanian government backed ICI Bucharest NFT marketplace going live on the April 26th
US Treasury sanctions 3 individuals for providing support to North Korea
Google Authenticator release upgrades
Republicans move to take regulatory power away from Gensler concerning stablecoins
Ark invest $8.6M in Coinbase stock following them suing SEC
China and Singapore partner to set up task force to scale green and transition finance
Korea Blockchain Week to return in 2023 after success in 2022
KuCoin to reimburse effected users in Twitter hack
Gibraltar court orders CEXs to freeze funds linked to owners of Globix
Analysis shows most DeFi protocols collapse after being hacked
World Economic Forum highlights flare emissions involved in BTC mining
Standard Charter believe BTC to hit $100k next year
Wednesday:
Rumors of major collapse coming for First Republic Bank after stock price drops nearly 50%
BinanceUS pulls out of Voyager deal, Voyager now to distribute cash to customers
Bitget launched multiple deposit address function to help ‘airdrop hunters’
Google adds Web3 features to cloud offerings
Amazon partners with Cronos to support growth of Web3
CFTC official hints at possible settlement with Binance
CFTC official says anonymity in crypto is a national security risk
DCG says subset of Genesis creditors walking away from prior agreement
USDC issuer Circle CEO hints at possible US exit
NBA Top Shot creators Dapper Labs see new endeavor NFL All Day completely tank
Apple removes Bitcoin whitepaper from latest macOS Ventura beta
ARK and 21Shares file for a spot Bitcoin ETF again
Deloitte lists hundreds of jobs related to crypto
FTX debtors agree to sell LedgerX to affiliate Miami International Holdings
XRP holders and Ripple to face each other in court
Paradigm files amicus brief in SEC’s lawsuit against Do Kwon
Reported billions of Do Kwon’s money moved into Swiss Signum Bank
Tiger Global cut OpenSea valuation by 76%
BinanceUS has considerable amount of developers and other staff based out of China
Indian authorities freeze over $11M in crypto laundering case
Crypto entrepreneurs leaving Singapore for Bangkok and Hong Kong due to high prices
OPNX CEO calls for change in crypto industry amidst online abuse
South Korean courts freeze $184M and indict 10 individuals
CoinLoan halts all withdrawals amid impending bankruptcy
Thursday:
Alerts sent false signals of Mt Gox and US govt wallets making transactions. Causes panic
First Republic Bank plunges further and trading halted due to volatility
Meta loses profits due to metaverse initiatives. Focusing now on AI
Coinbase insider seeks 10-month prison term
Bittrex Global CEO says firm will fight SEC charges
One person behind 114 scam meme coins
US Government refuses to intervene in First Republic Bank crisis
CZ ranked as one of the richest men in finance
Gemini CEO accuses US regulators of double standards amid FCR crisis
South Korea’s new crypto bill passes first regulatory review
Snapchat integrate AI chatbot that users need to pay to turn off
Cambridge will start tracking Ethereum energy data along with Bitcoin
EU data watchdog foresees trouble with AI companies that violate GDPR
Bahamas seeks to tighten crypto laws following FTX collapse with DARE Bill
Galaxy Digital develop European-listed ETPs with DWS
BitgetX launches in Hong Kong
Consensus 2023 has begun and ends April 28th
TS Imagine to enhance crypto trading offering through Deutsche Boerse Unit
Brazil president supports creation of ‘trading currency’ for BRICS
Bitcoin Legal Defense Fund backs developers in lawsuit against Craig Wright
Elizabeth Warren authors bill that require crypto wallets to comply with bank AML rules
The first NFT transaction involving an EU governmental institution has occurred
Bitpanda and Raiffeisen Unit agree to offer crypto for banking customers
Coinbase Prime and Talos partner to offer spot liquidity and custody services to Talos customers
Algorand Foundation oppose restructuring of lender Holdnaut - preferring liquidation of firm
Friday:
Arkham breakdown glitch that gave false reading
Robinhood gives users new way to fund their Web3 wallets
FBI search home of former FTX exec
DCG release statement on Genesis filing motion for mediation
Belgian crypto platform Bit4You suspends operations after CoinLoan halts activity
US House Financial Services Committee investigating potential operation to de-bank crypto
Central Bank of Korea closer to being given powers to investigate digital assets platforms
FTX confirms plans to restart its Japanese exchange
CFTC fines South African CEO $3.4B over BTC MLM scheme
OKX ex-CEO joins Sensorium advisory board
Senator Kempis and Samson Mow partner to push BTC as legal tender in Mexico
Russian BTC wallets allegedly exposed. Chainanalysis identify 986 Russian BTC wallets
NY Investment Bank H.C. Wainwright claims crypto bull market has begun
Honk Kong regulators to unveil crypto exchange license guidelines in May
NFT collectors begin to capitulate as NFT market continues to tank
Financial experts endorse BTC for long-term retirement savings
FTX takes control of NFTs worth over $4M
UK tax authority proposes changes to treatment of DeFi, lending and staking
CZ denies Bloomberg claims he is worth $28.2B
Coin/Project Updates:
Monday:
Bluesky and Nostr twitter alternatives are growing
Base plan for 2023 launch
Solana now measures network carbon emissions
OP Labs provide announcement of Op-Erigon in light of A16z Magi announcement
Bitcoin Ordinals pick up again after slump
Zig Zag launches new order book on Arbitrum
Ethereum developers discuss next major Ethereum update after Shapella, Cancun-Deneb
Blur experiences bug and refunds affected users
Polygon research lead leaves and joins Avail
Solana NFT market surges
Sui partners with Immunefi for bug bounty program
KuCoin lists IronFish
Bitcoin Ordinals wallet extension UniSat hit by large number of double-spend attacks
Post mortem on Hundred Finance hack
Starkware insights into storage proofs and how they improve oracles on Starknet
Cashmere Labs public testnet
Bitcoin Lightning fees are 1000x less than Visa and Mastercard
EigenLayer first security audit report
FiLDA gets hacked and is monitoring hackers movements
Ether.fi mainnet launch and provide product walkthrough
Phezzan founders leave and new team takes over
Aurora release Engine 2.9.0
0x build one-stop shop for developer needs
Polyhedra Network announce Greenfield zkMessenger
Tales of Elleria exploited through LP draining
Spice Flagship Vault aggregated solution for NFT lending
Alpha Homora releases 8th open letter to depositors in light of Iron Bank’s response
Caldera Stateful Precompiles making developers lives much easier when customizing rollups
Tuesday:
Arbitrum has started distributing token allocations to eligible DAOs in its ecosystem
Base to hardfork testnet April 27th
Aptos introduce delegated staking
Cosmose valued at $500M ditch Stripe to adopt Near’s crypto solution
Binance launch liquid staking token
Binance adds BTC Shiba, Doge and stables to Liquid Swap
Binance introduced Wrapped Beacon ETH
OP Labs introduces Superchain Token List
DefiLlama adds total borrowed funds as new metric
ETH developers making progress on Cancun-Deneb upgrade
Floki Inu rallies 50% after testnet staking launch and Binance US listing
BONE and AIDOGE pump 10% on OKX listing
Gearbox provides 2023 overview
Ordinals Finance carries out $1M exit scam
Wrapped BTC goes live on Cardano testnet
Over 13k people mint Coinbase ‘stand with crypto’ NFTs
New messages surface in Hydrogen scandal prove CEO was pumping and dumping
Zeta announce Athens-3 incentivized testnet
Proposal to burn millions of LUNC passes
PeckShield update on Filda hack
Swell is live on mainnet in public beta
Bitget native token BGB to be listed on Bitfinex
Bitcoin Inscriptions surge yet demand remains minimal
Wednesday:
Avalanche Cortina is live on the mainnet
GMX vote to integrate new Chainlink Oracles
OP Mainnet upgrade to Bedrock is coming soon
Solana allocating grants to teams building AI tools which use Solana
Uniswap surpasses $1.5T trading volume
EVM compatibility comes to Ziliqa mainnet
TridentDAO dumps all Arb tokens after Arbitrum DAO airdrop
SushiSwap explore their Furo feature a decentralized payment streaming platform
Toonstar release NFT-backed TV series ‘Space Junk’
Curve deploy Tricrypto NG
Sui announce round 2 of developer grants recipients
Ordinals Finance delete socials, removes funds and use Tornado Cash
CCDS token exploited for $9.8M
Possible Cream Finance exploit
Aztec introduce Aztec Grants for developers in Noir ecosystem
Celo joins Chainlink program giving developers access to data feeds
KuCoin complete 38th KCS burn
Gitcoin grants beta round is live
nChain announce partnership with Librano
Bitwave acquires Web3 Multisig Media and CPE
SoQuest launches app
Rodeo Finance dive into their sustainable real yield model and announce launch soon
Router protocol introduce Tisperse allowing distribution of testnet tokens much easier
Vertex launch public mainnet on Arbtirum this week
Collab airdrop for Shell and Toucan users coming soon
Venom Foundation testnet is live
Qi Dai expanding to L2s
Recursive wants to connect rollups with Eigen Layer-based Omni Network
DeepDAO present Hunting Vote Miners
Vulnerability picked up in Alpaca Finance pyth-based oracle
BeethovenX launch boosted pools V2
Thursday:
Circle introduce Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol enabling USDC to flow natively across chains
Polygon Labs announce bridge for zkEVM
LayerZero is live on Polygon zkEVM mainnet
Phantom wallet goes multichain by expanding to Ethereum and Polygon
Crypto NFL Rivals available on Apple and Android as Mythical Games switches from Ethereum to Polkadot
Binance.US to offer branded web3 domain names on Polygon
ETH open interest and volume on CME soars
Stark announcement coming April 28th
Sui to issue token following exchange sale
Tensor rises to be one of Solana’s most active NFT platforms
Wintermute hacker turns $160M heist into top liquidity position on Curve
Wintermute will serve as liquidity provider for ETC’s new crypto ETP called DA20
Dune major revamp
Delphi introduce macroeconomic dashboard
MetaMask welcome Open Ocean aggregator to MetaMask Swaps
Lens roll out Bonsai blockchain scaling solution for social media
XEN token accounts for 11% of Ethereum gas consumption
Trust Wallet partners with Web3Auth
Franklin Templeton expands its OnChain US government money fund to Polygon
Jared Grey provides updates on Sushi, plans to adopt Uniswap V3
Sandbox partners with Ledger Enterprise
Back-end team of Certik audited Merlin rug protocol for $1.8M
Ether.fi announce operation solo staker
Swell is live on mainnet in public beta
IPOR Labs update emission reduction and boosting curve
Vertex launches on Arbitrum
Xirtam initial airdrop offering on Arbitrum DEX AlienFi canceled minutes before launch
csrCanto give overview of vision and endgame
Chinamonsters pause development
Friday:
Polygon Labs partnered with Google Cloud
Binance Futures to launch BLUR perpetual contract
Blur to filter cheating wallets in Season 2 airdrop
Filecoin building open-source alternative to AWS, GCP, and Azure
LayerZero introduce Essence where anyone can set up a validator
Near announce Near Horizon
LayerZero use surges after Arbitrum airdrop
Paima Studios launches Web3 engine, bridging legacy gaming on Cardano
Rocket Pool adoption surges after Atlas upgrade
Ronin provide update on RON tokenomics
Trader Joe announce V2.1 liquidity migration
Upgrade for Fantom validators needed in order to carry on validating
Cake token plummets after Syrup pool unlocks
Numeon vault - earn Uniswap trading fees with almost no risk of impermanent loss
Etherisc launch depeg insurance for USDC holders
Dymension and Evmos are testing an EVM rollup for the Cosmos ecosystem
Optimism liquidity mining update
CertiK investigating Merlin exploit
Equilibria announce Pendle boost campaign
LendX whitepaper paper has been released
Yearn pass YIP-72
Elixir V2 public testnet is live
Tortle Ninja V2 is live
Safe decide against implementing Diamond Proxies
Venom testnet is live
Omni Network introduce the interoperable layer for Ethereum secured by Ethereum
Catalyst provide an overview of their cross-chain liquidity for the modular future
Fundraises:
Monday:
XRSPACE raised $25M to develop 3D live experiences in Metaverse
Flow raised $3M
Sphere 3D private placement with LDA capital - up to $3M
Vega raised $2M
SuperDuperSecretCo. raised $1M to recreate classic chess game
Tuesday:
Thetanuts Finance raised $17M to expand and foster new partnerships
Teahouse Finance raised $5M
Rise raised $3.8M
MetaCRM raised $2.5M
Collecti raised $470k
Wednesday:
Omni Network raised $18M
Animoca Brands subsidiary TinyTap raised $8.5M
Credora raised $6M
DFlow raised $5.5M
Amboss raised $4M
Rise raised $3.8M
Flappy Moonbird raised $2M
ARPA secures investment from DWF
Thursday:
StanChart’s London based crypto custody arm raised $36M and plans US expansion
Coinbase backs $6M fundraise for crypto firm Credora
Catalyst raised $4.2M
Izumi Finance raised $2M
Friday:
a16z $100M investment in Pinecone (Series B) - AI technology
Crypto wallet Giddy raised $6.9M
MetaCRM raised $2.5M
NFT Futures DEX Tribe3 raised $2.1M
Fantasy Fantom raised $300k in pre-seed funding
Getaverse and LD Capital complete financing round
Research/Reads:
7 Sanity Checks Before Designing a Token - source
Tokenology: Moving beyond ‘tokenomics’ - source
The Current SEC Disclosure Framework is Unfit for Crypto - source
The State of Zero-Knowledge Applications in Ethereum Part 2: Privacy and Identity - source
How hackers turn stolen crypto into cash - source
Improving token discoverability and trust through the Superchain Token List - source
Fishing Traps in the Crypto Airdrop - source
Ethereum’s Shanghai Upgrade is Not the Finish Line - source
Accelerate Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) - source
The Post-Royalty War Battle for the Leading Position - source
Derivatives Trading for Dummies - source
Bye-Bye Bitcoin Bear - source
Time, slots, and the ordering of events in Ethereum Proof-of-Stake - source
Moneyness In the Digital Age - source
Twitter:
Overview of Berachain and its opportunities - source
How DEXs go about price discovery - source
Key differences between Cosmos Stack and OP Stack - source
Comparing the top 5 chains by their economic activity - source
Overview of the burgeoning Perp DEX market - source
Deep dive into the many T-bill protocols and how are they being used - source
Scroll’s zkEVM architecture - source
Overview of important metrics following Shanghai upgrade - source
Current market dynamics - source
Copyleft licences (Viral Licenses) - source
Long tail MEV strategy - source
Maverick thread - source
A Glimpse into the future of MEV - source
TangibleDAO and its real estate backed stable coin - source
What is a hybrid exchange and what is the current DEX landscape like? - source
How to benefit from Cancun upgrade - source
The present and future of Ethereum staking - source
Potential use cases of DVT within Cosmos - source
Deepdive into how treasury of Parrot has been taken over - source
Proto-Danksharding - source
Overview of Aave’s GHO stablecoin - source
Winter Soldier gives an overview of Circle’s cross-chain transfer protocol - source
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