Bitcoin Price: US$ 36,896.36 (-4.65%)
Ethereum Price: US$ 2,679.97 (-3.85%)
NFTs on SOL and AVAX, Axie DAUs, & Daniele’s Fall
- The NFT craze is going most strong on Ethereum, but the traction is spilling over into Solana. Solana has recently hit its all-time high of 10k unique daily NFT buyers, surpassing its peak in September. Volume, however, lags behind at ~$9M.
- Avalanche has also recently hit its peak NFT volume at 5M, though its unique buyers were surprisingly low at sub-500. The bulk of volume came from Crabada, a P2E game on AVAX. Crabada currently gives a pretty decent ROI as a P2E game, helping it gain traction recently
- Axie Infinity has been affected by the hyperinflation of SLP, a result of a high SLP minting rate but a low SLP burning rate. The rapid growth of players from 38k DAUs in April 2021 to the peak of 2.7M DAUS in November 2021 has caused SLP minting to increase massively, as a greater number of players translates to more SLP minting.
- The hyperinflation has resulted in immense sell pressure on SLP that breeding couldn’t keep up with. As a result, we have seen SLP prices drop to under $0.01 today, from its previous highs of $0.35.
- The team is aware of the problems and is trying to tackle them carefully. Currently, there are a few SLP sinks like SLP/ETH farming on Katana that reward you with RON tokens and its Lunar New Year event that allows you to burn your Axie for limited edition items. Katana’s rewards will be adjusted to their new rates tomorrow.
- Daniele-related tokens have been marred by allegations of treasury mismanagement on Wonderland by 0xSifu, its ex-CFO. Zachxbt, an anon on Twitter, doxxed Sifu to be Michael Patryn, co-founder of QuadrigaCX, a notorious Canadian crypto exchange accused of defrauding investors. Sifu was then removed as the treasury manager voted by Wonderland DAO. (RektHQ covered the incidents of the event in an article here.)
- Since the incident, Daniele-related tokens have suffered alongside TIME.
BTC price dives with stocks as fresh sell-off sees PayPal shed nearly 25%
- Bitcoin reaffirms its current correlation with equities as tech stocks in particular suffer as trading gets underway.
- Data from Bloomberg showed the extent to which early pandemic gains have been wiped out this year and last, in the case of PayPal 52% and others, such as Zoom and Peloton, by 70% or more.
- With its latest dip taking bulls even further away from crucial resistance, analysts were thus uninspired by Bitcoin in the short term.
Major crypto exchanges eye Asian market amid growing regulatory clarity
- Major crypto exchanges originating from Asia as well as from the West have shown an increasing interest in the Asia-Pacific region.
- Coinbase launched in Japan last year, joining the selected group of exchanges to offer crypto trading services to native customers. Binance, the world’s leading crypto exchange by trading volume, has forged a series of new partnerships in Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand.
- The growing interest in global crypto exchanges in Asia could be attributed to the crypto craze in the region, despite regulatory uncertainty in several countries. The Asia-Pacific region is currently the hub for the majority of crypto growth. Countries such as Singapore and Thailand have seen a great boom in crypto adoption both as a retail payment as well as a form of investment.
Alphabet exploring blockchain technology for flagship services
- Google has started researching blockchain and how it may benefit Web3 technology.
- According to a Tuesday statement from Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet — Google’s parent company — the company is exploring integrating blockchain technologies into its flagship products and services.
- When asked how the firm views Web3, Pichai said there are several “areas of interest” for Alphabet, hinting at augmented reality and exploring how blockchain technology may be utilized to power computing and service layers like YouTube and Google Maps. He said:
- “Any time there is innovation, I find it exciting, and I think it is something we want to support the best we can […] The Web has always evolved, and it’s going to continue to evolve, and as Google, we have benefited tremendously from open-source technologies, so we do plan to contribute there.”
- Pichai also noted that Google’s cloud team, a new company area that competes with the likes of Amazon Web Services and Microsoft, is exploring how to fulfill customer demands through blockchain-based platforms.
Diem stablecoin co-founder praises Bitcoin for censorship resistance
- Shortly after Meta, formerly Facebook, officially gave up on its stablecoin Diem, some of the key people in the project have become increasingly vocal about the uncensorable nature of Bitcoin (BTC).
- David Marcus, a co-founder of Diem — originally known as Libra — took to Twitter on Tuesday to predict that Bitcoin will be the No. 1 asset in the next two decades.
- “It’s become clear to me that Bitcoin will be the one asset and L1 still around in 20+ years with increased compounding relevance over time,” Marcus wrote, adding that BTC is “truly leaderless” and “censorship resistant.”
- “In essence, it’s unique and cannot ever be replicated,” he added.
- Marcus also went on to say that the second-biggest cryptocurrency is yet “to be determined” and will be related to a different use case. He suggested that Ether (ETH) is “in the lead for now,” but other cryptocurrencies like Solana (SOL) are “nipping at their heels.”
Tezos transactions and smart contract activity surge on NFT demand
- The Tezos network has seen impressive growth over the past 12 months in smart contract addresses and general adoption, primarily driven by nonfungible tokens (NFT).
- Activity within the proof-of-stake ecosystem has had a spurt of growth recently as it aims to compete with Ethereum for NFT minting and markets.
- According to Coin Metrics’ “State of the Network” report on Tuesday, the number of transactions involving smart contracts has surged over the past 12 months to more than 50,000 per day from less than 10,000 per day in January 2021.
- The report observed that the growth has been driven by NFT platforms such as the generative art platform FX Hash seeing increased interest. Additionally, gaming giant Ubisoft also announced Tezos support for gaming NFTs in December.
- High Ethereum network fees are driving NFT creators and buyers to alternative networks such as Tezos. The network has a portal for all Tezos-based NFT marketplaces, which it claims are “carbon-neutral” with network fees that are “less than a penny.” NFTs have caused controversy due to the environmental issues around minting and trading them on proof-of-work networks. Tezos has been widely touted as an alternative to alleviate these concerns.
