Crypto Recap: ONE MONTH AFTER FTX MELTDOWN
Summary
Crypto market has been stabilising in a narrow range after FTX filed for bankruptcy one month ago. Crypto market cap dropped 3.7% to $877b. Bitcoin hovered around $16k and has recovered 8% from its low ($15,742) since FTX meltdown. Bitcoin is now trading at $16,928, 5.4% below its 50dma ($17,902) ($BTC 7d: -2.0%). Our calendar will be packed with significant US market data this week. The Nov CPI released on Tuesday (13 Dec) with an expectation of 7.3%, will give a hint for the Fed’s interest rate decision on Wednesday FOMC meeting (14 Dec). A further confirmation of slowing-down inflation may set a positive runway for the remaining days in 2022. SR will then look for a quick recovery in the risk assets. Vice versa, an upside surprise from the CPI will cause investors to reconsider their view on inflation peak.
Top 100 in the last 7 days:
- Outperformers: STX (+20.0%), FXS (+17.4%), OKT (+17.2%), AXS (+16.2%), NEO (+10.5%), TON (+10.3%), TWT (+9.4%), APE (+8.5%)
- Underperformers: CHZ (-15.2%), BTSE (-15.1%), FLOW (-14.3%), 1INCH (-14.0%), DOGE (-11.1%), ETHW (-10.9%), APT (-10.3%), LINK (-10.1%)
Crypto Headlines
Crypto.com published its Mazars Group-audited Proof of Reserves
Kris Marszalek, the CEO of Crypto.com, confirmed that their on-chain reserves exceed customers’ liabilities for every asset. Users are now able to verify and confirm whether their assets are fully backed on the Crypto.com mobile app or official website.
Binance temporarily locked withdrawals for some trading accounts for investigation
The largest crypto exchange saw suspicious trading activities for several altcoin pairs on its platforms, involving assets such as $SUN, $ARDR, $OSMO, $FUN and $GLM. Binance temporarily restricted withdrawals of the associated accounts. CZ, the CEO of Binance, has confirmed no abnormal act was found after thorough investigation and it was ‘just market behaviour’.
On derivatives front, crypto perpetual contracts’ funding rates (Chart 1) remained positive, the average Bitcoin and Ethereum funding rate for the last seven days was +1.75% and +3.55% respectively. For option market, historical volatility (HV) continued to shed lower. Bitcoin and Ethereum HV dropped to 28.4% (7d: -22.6%) and 46.2% (7d: -20.4%). The open interest for Bitcoin options expiring this Friday increased as of upcoming macro uncertainty, over $140m worth of bitcoin options opening for each side (call and put). On liquidation front, the total BTC liquidation dropped 58% last week with calm price actions, only $46m worth of BTC being wiped out, with a 1.38 Long-Short ratio. Volatility may arrive when inflation data releases and the Fed makes interest rate decision at the FOMC meeting this week.
NFT News
OpenSea has recorded $98m in NFT trading volume in December (Chart 2). At the current pace, it is expected to see a similar monthly number as November’s. The number of NFTs sold in December (Chart 3) also aligned with November’s pace, implying that the continuation of risk assets recovery. The floor prices of blue-chip NFTs (Chart 4) were steady over the weekend with less trades completed: BAYC 69.82eth, MAYC 14.75eth, Azuki 13.10eth and more…
ApeCoin ($APE), the native token for Yuga Labs ecosystem, staking pool is running hot. Over 14.6m $APE ($61m worth) were deposited in the pool which currently distributes 115,384 $APE as daily reward for the stakers, implying a 288% APR. $APE funding rates dropped accordingly to -187%, providing a market-neutral opportunity to stake $APE and fully hedge the price risk.
Defi Updates
In the DeFi space, total TVL dropped 1.8% in December, currently $63.9b* worth of tokens being locked. Major blockchains’ TVL went lower and Binance Smart Chain (BSC) dropped the most to $7.4b (-11.5%). The L2s were mixed: Optimism $664m (+2.1%), Polygon $1.3b (-1.3%) and Arbitrum $1.8b (+28.1%). Avalanche and Solana dropped 2.3% ($1.9b) and 6.8% ($459m) respectively.
Arbitrum outperformed the entire Defi market, including other Layer-2 networks in terms of TVL. The blockchain was recently boosted by the on-chain GameFi — “The Beacon” which was created by TreasureDAO. The game launched two weeks ago and has 24,000 unique players already. 42,422 founders’ packs (total $1.7m worth) and more than 34,000 in-game items have been sold. The native token for TreasureDAO, $MAGIC, which can also be used to exchange the in-game token ($BCN) for “The Beacon”, sky-rocketed +182% over the last two weeks.
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Author: Calvin Chu, Satori Research Team
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SatoriResearch
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Contact: ops@satoriresearch.io
