Market Summary

Bitcoin Price: U$43,071.66 (-0.03%)
Ethereum Price: U$3,346.88 (+0.63%)

Fantom Thrives, Paraswap Slows, & Long-Term Holders Stack BTC

• While the TVLs across crypto have stagnated due to market uncertainties, Fantom’s ecosystem has been vibrant. Fantom has gained $1.2B (+20%) in TVL over the past week.
• This comes as Andre Cronje and Danielle Sesta, two prominent builders in the crypto space, have shown interest in developing the Fantom ecosystem.
• Andre has been releasing articles about ve(3,3), a new protocol that will launch on Fantom. According to the writeup, Fantom’s top 20 TVL projects will be distributed locked ve(3,3) tokens. This caused Fantom ecosystem tokens to get bid up by investors in hopes of getting a larger share of the ve(3,3) pie.
• Since Paraswap’s airdrop on November 15th, activity on the DEX aggregator has stagnated. Before the airdrop, many people speculated and used Paraswap in hopes of receiving a piece of the airdrop. However, with Paraswap’s ‘anti-sybil’ airdrop, only 1.5%  of total wallets that interacted with the protocol received the tokens.
• This led to many addresses being left out and not rewarded for using the platform, even if their intentions were not malicious. Some users also stopped using Paraswap after the airdrop, leading to a downward trend in both volume and active addresses.
• Paraswap’s downfall can be a lesson to other protocols to better design airdrops that are inclusive while less easily abused.
• On-chain data shows that throughout January’s price slump, long-term holders have accumulated bitcoin after months of offloading bitcoin at the end of last year.
• Coupled with the correlation data shown yesterday, it illustrates a transference from shorter-term “weak hands” to long-term “strong hands.”
• A rise in long-term holder accumulation could be a positive indicator for bitcoin price.
• After being spooked by hawkish Fed minutes, investors were expecting a high inflation print yesterday. However, the CPI print came within market expectations at 7% YoY and 0.5% MoM.
• Bitcoin price rallied on the news, and the dollar index slumped to a 2 month low. After testing September lows earlier this week, Bitcoin and the broader market experienced a modest relief rally.

AI-generative art predicted to be next trend for NFT sector

• Known as “AI-generative NFTs,” these nonfungible tokens are becoming increasingly popular within the art community, along with those interested in emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, blockchain and the Metaverse. In order to create AI-generative NFTs, one would typically use generative adversarial networks, or GANs. These are algorithms that leverage computers to use data to train models to produce machine-made images resembling art.
• Claire Silver, an AI-collaborative artist, told Cointelegraph that AI-generative NFT art is a relatively new genre, noting that the basic principle is that art is created in tandem with some semblance of artificial intelligence.

Uruguay reportedly installs its first Bitcoin ATM

• Uruguay has reportedly installed its first Bitcoin (BTC) ATM, making it the 11th South American country to publicly encourage crypto adoption. Prior to Uruguay’s involvement, South America hosted 79 ATMs, which represented 0.2% of global BTC ATM installations.
• According to Ámbito, Uruguay’s first crypto ATM was installed in the coastal city of Punta del Este, a major tourist attraction in the region. Uruguay’s first Bitcoin ATM was developed and installed in partnership with two local crypto companies — URUBit and inBierto.
• The crypto ATM in Uruguay currently supports withdrawal and deposits of five cryptocurrencies, namely — BTC, Binance Coin (BNB), Binance USD (BUSD), Ferret Token (FRT) and Urubit (URUB). FRT and URUB are in-house cryptocurrencies managed and distributed by URUBit and inBierto respectively.

Dogecoin leaps 25% after Musk announces DOGE payments for Tesla merch

• After the announcement, DOGE price jumped nearly 13%, hitting a 30-day high of $0.2150. Its upside move came as a part of a larger intraday rally that already was taking place before Musk’s Dogecoin tweet went viral.
• Tesla’s integration of a DOGE payment option on its online shopping portal came almost a month after Musk shared his willingness to accept the cryptocurrency as payment on a test basis.
• At the center stage of Musk’s love for DOGE was its “better-than-Bitcoin” features, primarily as a payment option due to its lower electricity consumption. In excerpts from Musk’s statements to Time Magazine, he explained that:
• “Fundamentally, Bitcoin is not a good substitute for transactional currency. Even though it was created as a silly joke, Dogecoin is better suited for transactions.”

Going meta: Disney, Second Life and K-pop

• The entertainment company behind some of the most popular theme parks in the world recently had a patent approved for a “virtual-world simulator in a real-world venue.” Though the Los Angeles Times reported that Disney had “no current plans” to use the simulator in the near future, the application does suggest Disneyland and Disney World guests may eventually see Metaverse attractions at one or more of the parks in the United States, Hong Kong, China, France and Japan.
• On Monday, Metaverse concert organizer Animal Concerts announced it had inked a deal with South Korean unicorn Kakao’s Klaytn network as part of a plan to increase its exposure to the country’s entertainment industry. Animal Concerts CEO Colin Fitzpatrick said that “Klaytn’s major goals are NFTs and Metaverse.”
• Linden Lab, the company behind the virtual online world Second Life, announced on Thursday founder Philip Rosedale would be rejoining the project as a strategic adviser along with Metaverse team members of San Francisco-based VR company High Fidelity. According to the firm, the addition of the new and old talent would facilitate Second Life’s entry into the Metaverse.
• “Virtual worlds don’t need to be dystopias,” said Rosedale. “Big Tech giving away VR headsets and building a metaverse on their ad-driven, behavior-modification platforms isn’t going to create a magical, single digital utopia for everyone.”

NFT sales and blockchain games continue to grow despite the recent market slump: Report

• Nonfungible token (NFT) trading and blockchain games, on the other hand, seem to have resisted the dip. According to reports from DappRadar, NFT transactions continued to increase amid declining crypto prices. The report stated that “the number of UAW connected to Ethereum NFT DApps grew by 43% since Q3 2021.” Numbers from the report also show that the money generated by NFT trading went from $10.7 billion in Q3 2021 to $11.9 billion in the first ten days of 2022. Recent developments in the NFT space, such as the launch of the LooksRare marketplace, may have also contributed to this growth.
• The report also stated that “blockchain games continue to be widely used,” and noted that they “represent 52% of the industry’s usage.” Expanding metaverse developments alongside the growing success of the play-to-earn model have also strengthened the case for blockchain games to continue growing throughout 2022.

USDC’s supply on Ethereum surpasses that of rival USDT’s for the first time

• The total supply of the USDC stablecoin on the Ethereum blockchain has surpassed that of rival Tether’s (USDT) for the first time.
• The current total supply of USDC on Ethereum stands at 39.92 billion, whereas USDT’s total supply on the blockchain stands at 39.82 billion, according to Etherscan.
• USDC’s supply beating USDT’s on Ethereum is significant since the blockchain remains a major contributor of growth for both stablecoins. USDC and USDT are available on several blockchains, including Solana and Algorand.

ICON commits $200M to interoperability incentive fund

• The ICON Foundation announced plans to launch an interoperability incentive program for 200 million ICX, or approximately $200 million at the time of publication. The foundation supports the development of the ICON network, South Korea’s largest public aggregator chain. The foundation said that it hopes this program will incentivize the ICON community and its partner networks to adopt ICON’s Blockchain Transmission Protocol, or BTP.
• The incentive program aims to distribute up to 200 million ICX tokens over a period of five years, primarily funded by the ICX reserve allocation raised during the 2017 token sale. ICON intends to attract development teams in other ecosystems to explore BTP’s cross-chain communication opportunities.

Indian INX exchange reportedly plans to list Bitcoin futures ETF

• Despite the ongoing uncertainty about cryptocurrency regulation in India, local financial firms are backing new ventures aiming to launch Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETF).
• Torus Kling Blockchain, a joint venture between Cosmea Financial Holding, a financial firm backed by former Reliance Capital CEO Sam Ghosh, and Kling Trading India, is preparing to launch Bitcoin and Ether (ETH) futures ETFs in India, The Economic Times reported Thursday.
• The company has signed a memorandum of understanding with India’s major stock exchange, the India International Exchange (INX), to launch crypto ETFs alongside investment products tracking major metaverse-related companies listed in the United States.

FTX launches $2 billion venture fund, hires Lightspeed exec to lead

• Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX has launched a new venture capital unit, adding billions of dollars in fresh capital to the already bloated private market for crypto investing. 
• FTX — which has long made investments alongside its sister company Alameda — said in a press release that FTX Ventures aims to “advance global blockchain and web3 adoption, with a broad investment mandate across social, gaming, fintech, software, and healthcare.”
• FTX has set aside $2 billion for the venture fund. It has also hired Amy Wu, a former partner at $10 billion venture capital firm Lightspeed, to lead the new business unit and fund.

Rio de Janeiro mayor plans to invest 1% of the city’s treasury in crypto

• Eduardo Paes, mayor of Rio de Janeiro, intends to invest 1% of the city’s treasury reserves in cryptocurrency.
• Brazil’s top newspaper O Globo reported the news on Thursday, citing Paes’s comments made at the Rio Innovation Week event. Paes was speaking on a panel alongside Miami mayor Francis Suarez and said: “We are going to launch Crypto Rio and invest 1% of the treasury in cryptocurrency.”
• Paes is also set to establish a working group in that regard, per the report. Rio de Janeiro may also offer a discount on property taxes if paid with bitcoin.
• Pedro Paulo, secretary of finance and planning of the city, at the event said: “We are studying the possibility of paying taxes with an additional discount if you pay with bitcoins. You take the discount of the single quota of 7% (of the IPTU) , it becomes 10% if you pay in bitcoin,” said Paulo. “Let’s study the legal framework to do this.”