Market Summary

Bitcoin Price: US$ 44,372.71 (+0.75%)
Ethereum Price: US$ 3,243.89 (+4.08%)

Market Fears Subside, AssangeDAO, & Uncollateralized Lenders

• With the markets bouncing off their lows over the past few days, investor sentiment has moved away from ‘Extreme Fear’ to ‘Neutral,’ pushing the Crypto Fear & Greed Index to its highest level since mid-November.
• Historically, markets tend to perform well after large upward spikes in the Crypto Fear & Greed Index. Still, it’s unclear whether the market can sustain its recent gains and continue moving higher.
• TrueFi and Maple Finance are money markets that allow for uncollateralized loans to their approved borrowers, mostly institutional funds.
• Maple Finance recently overtook TrueFi to have the most outstanding uncollateralized loans. Maple Finance has $450M in outstanding loans, while TrueFi has $330M. Interestingly, Maple Finance always had much higher utilization rates (70-90% v.s the 75% peak utilization of TrueFi).
• The difference in utilization may be a result of loan pool size. Maple Finance uses isolated borrower lending pools, with a deposit limit for its lenders. Once the limit is reached, funds can no longer be deposited into the pool. TrueFi, on the other hand, uses uncapped lending pools that will take any amount lenders are willing to deposit.
• AssangeDAO was created to establish an organization and fight for the freedom of Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.
• The funds raised will be used to purchase Censored, an NFT collection in collaboration with Assange and renowned digital artist Pak. Proceeds from the NFT sale will be used for Assange’s legal fees and campaigning to raise awareness about the free speech implications of his case.
• Contributors to AssangeDAO will also receive 1,000,000 $JUSTICE for every ETH contributed.
• AssangeDAO raised 5.8k ETH more than ConstitutionDAO, a record-setting DAO crowdfunding case.
• SegWit is a transactional format on Bitcoin developed to segment transaction data and reduce the space occupied by each transaction, allowing for more transactions to be fit into each block.
• Over the past year, we have seen that SegWit’s utilization increased as its dominance hit 70% of transactions on the Bitcoin network. With exchanges holding up to 40% of all blockspace, their adoption of SegWit has been the reason for their growth.

The team behind the world’s first hardware wallet says it’s still thriving after 8 years

• Like all things, Trezor, a household name in the crypto community with over 1 million units sold, came from humble beginnings. The idea all started out in 2011 after a Bitcoin (BTC) conference in Prague, Czechia — which, by the way, was just voted the most beautiful city in the world in a Time Out magazine survey. Two crypto enthusiasts, Pavol “Stick” Rusnák and Marek “Slush” Palatinus, envisioned a small, single-purpose computer that would securely store users’ Bitcoin private keys.
• They noted that, “When it comes to security, the key feature is it’s a standalone physical device. It’s not possible to hack it remotely.”
• This year Trezor is also focusing on integrating CoinJoin into its hardware wallet. Made possible by Bitcoin’s Taproot upgrade last November, CoinJoin collates multiple Bitcoin transactions into a single arrangement to obfuscate who owns which coin afterward, thereby significiantly improving user privacy. Another major update on the table is being able to run one’s own node directly from the Trezor Suite.

Aave launches Web3 social media platform, Lens Protocol

• Aave (AAVE), the decentralized finance lending platform, launched the Lens Protocol ecosystem on the Polygon (MATIC) blockchain as their way to challenge centralized social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook. What started with an open letter to garner support around the idea that content creators should own and control their digital identities, led to developing a Web3-native social network powered by nonfungible tokens (NFTs).  
• In a Twitter Spaces conversation the company hosted this week, Stani Kulechov, CEO and founder of Aave, described the mission behind Lens Protocol.
• “We wanted to build a social media protocol, or essentially a social graph, and make those profiles on-chain, following the relationships on-chain and creating a permissionless way to distribute content between a creator and the audience.”

Washington Nationals Join Forces with Terra Community DAO in a First-of-its-Kind Partnership

• After passing the fastest governance proposal in Terra’s history, it’s time to fuse the real-world with the Terraverse.
• The Terra Community Trust (TCT) has entered a 5-year, $38.15M partnership with the Washington Nationals MLB franchise to promote Terra across various parts of its home venue and TV network and make efforts to implement UST as an accepted currency in venue transactions

Bitcoin Lightning Network growth capacity plateaus at 3,400 BTC

• Following an exponential climb in capacity over 2022, the Bitcoin Lightning Network made a lackluster start to the new year. According to a report by Arcane Research, growth in the Lightning Network capacity, or the number of Bitcoin (BTC) locked up in channels, has stuttered. 
• The Lightning Network surged from 1,000 to 3,000 BTC in just eight months in 2021, striking the 3,000-BTC mark in mid-October.
• While the network continues to strike all-time highs, growth grinds down. The total BTC locked in the network is peaking just shy of the 3,500-BTC mark, sparking debate and discussion on social media.

JPMorgan estimates ‘fair value’ of Bitcoin at $38K

• Amid Bitcoin (BTC) posting a significant price recovery since early February, JPMorgan analysts suggested that the “fair value” of BTC is actually lower than its market price on Tuesday.
• The current fair-value level for BTC is around $38,000, JPMorgan strategists said in the bank’s latest investor note published on Tuesday. Led by JPMorgan crypto market analyst Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, the strategists estimated the “fair value” based on Bitcoin being nearly four times as volatile as gold.
• The “fair value” of Bitcoin would rise to $50,000 in a scenario where the volatility level narrows to three times, the strategists suggested, adding:
• “The biggest challenge for Bitcoin going forward is its volatility and the boom and bust cycles that hinder further institutional adoption.”

Upcoming Apple iPhone feature to give merchants a way to accept crypto payments

• Apple announced plans to launch Tap to Pay for its iPhone, a new feature that effectively turns the smartphone into a point-of-sale device for businesses and merchants. So, what’s in it for crypto?
• The announcement explains that with Tap to Pay, iPhone-owning merchants receive contactless payments by using their mobile devices as a point-of-sale machine thanks to the near-field communication technology, or NFC.
• According to Apple, the soon-to-be-launched Tap to Pay feature will extend support to “Apple Pay, contactless credit and debit cards and other digital wallets.” It basically means that unless Apple places a direct barrier for it, customers who are using Coinbase Card, Crypto.com Visa Card or a similar payments card would be able to use their cryptocurrency holdings to make payments via Tap to Pay.

Russian government and central bank agree to treat Bitcoin as currency

• The government and central bank in Russia have reached an agreement on how to regulate cryptocurrencies, according to a Tuesday announcement.
• Russia’s government and central bank are now working on a draft law that will define crypto as an “analogue of currencies” rather than digital financial assets set to be launched on Feb. 18. Cryptocurrencies would function in the legal industry only if they have complete identification through the banking system or licensed intermediaries.
• Kommersant noted that Bitcoin (BTC) transactions and possession of cryptocurrency in the Russian Federation are not prohibited; however, they must be done through a “digital currency exchange organizer” (a bank) or a peer-to-peer exchange licensed in the country.
• The report also highlights that cryptocurrency transactions of more than 600,000 rubles (roughly $8,000) would have to be declared; otherwise, it could be considered a criminal act. Those who illegally accept cryptocurrencies as payment will incur fines.