Market Summary

Bitcoin Price: US$ 36,787.43 (-0.40%)
Ethereum Price: US$ 2,461.61 (+0.17%)

Stablecoin Boosts, LTHs in Pain, ETH Burns in Jan, Genie vs Gem

• Despite the current volatile environment, the stablecoin supply has grown by $5.3B over the past month. The ebbs and flows in stablecoin supply are primarily caused by USDC’s massive mints and burns.
• USDC’s growth has recently become more pronounced, surging by $5.2B in supply in the last month. Meanwhile, USDT only grew by $700M. BUSD has contracted by -$600m over the past month. This can be a sign of money entering the markets as more USD gets used to mint stablecoins.
• Long-Term Holders started going into loss as BTC tested the lows of $35k. LTHs in loss surged to 17% of all holders, which was last seen in May 2020 (circled in yellow). Alongside this, STHs are mostly in losses, which was last seen at the BTC bottom of July 2021.
• Historically, it’s been a sign that the bottom may be in when both STHs and LTHs peak in losses.
• Ethereum burns from EIP-1559 flared up in the month so far, resulting in the largest daily deflation of -6823 ETH on January 10th. Comparing January’s ETH emissions to previous months, it’s clear that this month’s emissions are trending heavily towards a net burn.
• OpenSea and NFTs played a large role in propping up transaction numbers and the volatility across crypto. In turn, this led to more token movements and swaps, further increasing this month’s burn. January 2022 is on its way to be the lowest ETH-emitting month since EIP-1559.
• The NFT Aggregator competition has been heating up. Genie and Gem are two NFT aggregator platforms making it easy to shop and purchase across a number of NFT marketplaces. They also provide the ability to bulk purchase NFTs in a single transaction, making it easy to sweep the floors of your favorite NFT project.
• Being the first mover, Genie has already gotten a userbase and a rather consistent volume. However, since Gem’s launch, we can see that Gem is catching up to Genie in daily volume. Gem’s daily transaction is also slowly catching up to Genie’s, at around 50% of Genie’s daily transactions.
• Gem also optimizes gas for you, even for single orders of just 1 NFT.

NFT Insights #4 – Azuki Leads, P2E Games Grow, Gem.xyz Aggregator Launches

• It’s official – January 2022 has been the best month so far in the history of NFTs, with transaction volumes and unique wallets (especially buyers) hitting all-time highs. Weekly transaction volumes on OpenSea (OS) remain healthy above $1.1B, although down slightly from $1.3B two weeks ago.
• The number of unique wallets buying NFTs this month has doubled from just 5 months ago (380K now vs 190K in August 2021), showing that interest in the space is booming with a sizeable number of new entrants monthly. We can reasonably expect a proportion of new users to be speculators/traders who are seeking short-term opportunities in volatile NFT markets; the number of actual long-term collectors is probably much lower. This will be more apparent by observing how many buyers remain if/when the NFT markets start to turn downwards.
• Trading on LooksRare rises to a staggering $4.3B, of which >97% is wash trading in zero-royalty collections as traders farm volume mining rewards on the platform. Actual trading volumes are relatively anaemic (<$10M/day and <5% of OpenSeas’ volume) but show signs of slow growth. Interestingly, wash trading volumes are still high despite a 45% drop in $LOOKS price (from $7 to $3.80) in the past 5 days.
• Despite the recent market volatility, we’ve been pleased to see certain collections hold their value, supporting the notion that NFTs can serve as a store of value during periods of extreme uncertainty (more on notable collections in the next section). For example, CloneX has continued to appreciate when priced in ETH, but when converted to USD terms, its essentially flat since the start of the year (while the price of ETH has fallen ~30% over the same period).

SEC pushes decision on ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF to April 3

• The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has extended its window to approve the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) originally proposed in July 2021.
• According to a Tuesday filing from the SEC, the regulatory body will push the deadline for approving or disapproving the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF from Feb. 2 for an additional 60 days, to April 3. SEC Assistant Secretary J. Matthew DeLesDernier noted in the filing that it was “appropriate to designate a longer period” for the regulatory body to consider the proposed rule change, allowing the ETF to be listed on the Cboe BZX Exchange.
• The exchange originally filed the paperwork to apply for the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF in July 2021, with the SEC able to delay its decision and open the offering to public comment for up to 180 days, with the option for a final 60-day extension starting on Feb. 2. After April 3, the SEC should not be able to extend the deliberation window further and will approve or disapprove of the crypto ETF.
• In a separate filing, the SEC also extended its window on a proposed rule change, allowing shares of an ETF tracking Bitcoin futures from agricultural fund provider Teucrium to be listed on NYSE Arca. The firm applied for the investment offering in May 2021 and will likely receive a final decision from the SEC by April 8.

AMD, GOATi and Cudos partner to create the ultimate gaming experience

• Cudos and GOATi collaborate on the ultimate alliance for gaming fans globally. The coalition will provide gamers with more games, rewards, experiences than ever before. The alliance is supported by none other than AMD.
• The alpha pilot program allows the Cudos monetisation application to synchronise seamlessly with entertainment company GOATi’s gaming ecosystem. This will allow users to earn rewards through the Cudos monetisation application. Rewards will then be redeemable in GOATi’s in-game store in a first of its kind set-up for blockchain gaming.

Valkyrie aims for ETF linked to Bitcoin mining firms on Nasdaq

• Crypto asset manager Valkyrie has filed an application with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission to trade an exchange-traded fund (ETF) with exposure to Bitcoin mining firms on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
• In a Wednesday SEC filing, Valkyrie said its Bitcoin Miners ETF will not invest directly in Bitcoin (BTC) but at least 80% of its net assets would offer exposure to the crypto asset through the securities of companies that “derive at least 50% of their revenue or profits” from BTC mining or providing hardware or software related to mining. The filing added Valkyrie would invest up to 20% of the ETF’s net assets in companies holding “a significant portion of their net assets” in Bitcoin.

Ripple announces $200M share buyback and expresses optimism for 2022

• Blockchain payments firm Ripple has announced a $200-million Series C share buyback, a decision that will take the San Francisco-based tech firm to a record-high valuation of $15 billion.

Crypto exchange FTX US closes $400M funding round to reach $8B valuation

• Chicago-based crypto exchange FTX US has reached an $8 billion valuation following new funding.
• According to Reuters on Wednesday, the American affiliate of FTX closed a $400 million funding round led by SoftBank Group Corp, Temasek Holdings, Paradigm and Multicoin Capital.
• FTX US president Brett Harrison said that this development puts their firm as one of the largest crypto exchanges in the United States, and sends a message to the world that they are growing very rapidly.

Etherscan adds new messaging feature for anons: ‘Blockscan Chat’

• The team behind the popular blockchain explorer and analytics platform Etherscan has launched an Ethereum-based wallet-to-wallet instant messaging service dubbed “Blockscan Chat.”
• Blockscan is currently in beta testing mode, and it enables users to engage in an instant wallet-to-wallet chat, access chats from multiple devices, block spammy or unwanted addresses, and get notified on the block explorer when a message has been received.
• While the new feature is a great way to talk to other anons — say to negotiate an anonymous purchase — it might come in particularly handy for dealing with whitehat hackers, who have often left messages embedded in Ethereum transactions to communicate with individuals and exploited crypto platforms.