Market Summary

Metaverse Movers, Axie Econ, & Post-Euphoria Market Structure

• BTC’s latest rallies in late Q3 and early Q4 have not been met with much action in implied volatility, according to the DVOL index, which measures the approximate implied volatility for a market over the next 30 days. When implied volatility is high, one can say the market is pricing in a lot more price uncertainty, whereas when implied volatility is low, it indicates less uncertainty; implied volatility tends to spike during market sell-offs and trend lower when BTC steadily trends higher.
• We haven’t seen an extreme swing upwards on implied volatility, which tells us that the general market is comfortable with what BTC is doing. However, if BTC rallies back above $67k and implied volatility starts to surge, it could be an indication that another short-term pullback is imminent.
• Metaverse tokens got a boost from Facebook’s announcement that it’s rebranding to “Meta.” MANA, Decentraland’s token, has been one of the biggest beneficiaries, evident in its 200% price surge since the announcement. The Sandbox — a virtual world where players can build, own, and monetize their gaming experiences in the Ethereum blockchain — was the second biggest winner, with its token price more than doubling over the same short time period.

Yield Strats #34 – New Farms on Terra, Harmony and Airdrop Alpha

• Nexus Protocol removes the complexity of advanced yield farming strategies to deliver optimized, sustainable yield for users. Maximize your yields with Terra’s first yield optimizer and liquidation protector vaults. Nexus’s first product will focus on borrow strategies that are available within the Terra ecosystem. 
• Tranquil Finance is an algorithmic money market protocol on the Harmony ONE blockchain. Borrowing and lending interest rates are set based on market demand, and loans are over-collateralized to ensure solvency.
• Tulip Protocol is Solana’s yield aggregation homestead, which currently offers three types of yield products – Vaults, Lending & Leveraged Farming. Tulip vaults are designed for users to set and forget with the auto-compounding strategy running every 30mins to 1-hour. This post will focus on the yields in the Vaults.
• Paraswap has teased a possible airdrop for its users. As mentioned in Yield Strats #27, if the airdrop comes to fruition users who have swapped on Paraswap will be eligible for an airdrop.

Avalanche creates $200 million fund to lure top crypto devs

• The Avalanche Foundation has unveiled “Blizzard” — a fund offering more than $200 million in incentives to developers who build on the Avalanche (AVAX) network.
• The fund will provide liquidity to those early-stage projects that innovate decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, nonfungible tokens (NFTs), and other products on Avalanche.

NFT gaming firm The Sandbox raises $93 million in round led by SoftBank

• Hong Kong-based gaming platform The Sandbox has raised $93 million in a round led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, according to a Reuters report.
• The Sandbox, released on iOS, Android and Windows, allows users to create their own universe inside the game using different elements. In 2018, Hong Kong-based NFT digital property firm Animoca Brands acquired Pixowl, the original developer and publisher behind The Sandbox.
• That allows The Sandbox to add in non-fungible tokens in its gaming experience for users to monetize their in-game creations on the Ethereum network. 

Ethereum sees first consecutive week of deflationary issuance

• The Ethereum network has seen its first consecutive week of negative supply issuance as bubbling markets drive persistently high transaction fees.
• According to the Ultrasound.Money fee burning tracker, around 15,000 ETH ($65 million at current prices) is being burnt daily. When factoring in the rate of new ETH being created, WatchtheBurn reports a weekly net issuance of minus 8,034 ETH (roughly $34 million) at the time of writing.

Upcoming parachain auctions send Polkadot to new ATH, while CHR and THETA follow

• The rising strength of DOT is largely due to the upcoming launch of parachain auctions on the Polkadot protocol. 
• Polkadot’s parachain auctions have been in development throughout 2021, and the excitement surrounding their Nov. 4 launch appears to be the driving force behind DOT rallying to a new all-time high at $51.57 on Nov. 1
• Chromia is a layer-one blockchain network that is Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible and capable of enhancing layer-two performance on Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain.
• Theta is a blockchain-based video streaming protocol designed to operate as a decentralized network where users are rewarded for sharing bandwidth and computing resources with others on the network. The token also got a boost after it was revealed that THETA stakers will be airdropped its TDROP governance token in February 2022, with the allocation each holder receives determined by the average number of THETA staked during the evaluation period.

Amazon job posting hints company’s Web Services are preparing to adopt crypto

• Major online retailer Amazon’s IT service management company may be considering driving adoption in the digital asset space among its customers.
• According to a Saturday job posting, Amazon Web Services’ New York office is hiring a Financial Services Specialist who “understands the overall cryptocurrency and digital asset ecosystem,” with experience in blockchain and distributed ledger technology. The company said the position would work with regulators, financial institutions and capital market operators to explore how they might benefit from digital asset adoption.