Market Insights: 2022/06/30

[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overflow=”visible” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none” gradient_type=”default” shape_type=””][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” column_position=”default” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text]Hello everyone, welcome to this first edition of our market insights.

MuKn-related news:

• We launched a proposal to port our Glow language on the PAB (Plutus Application Backend). This proposal could be funded by voters (Cardano-wallet holders) at the 9th edition of the Catalyst fund. Support us here!
• We are soon launching a podcast about the blockchain sector, first episode on July 12.
• We will be at the ETHCC Paris (July 18, 19 and 21), not as speakers, but as attendees: if you want to have friendly chat, feel free to reach out to us 🙂

News, events and reflections about the blockchain sector.

• On 2022 June 22, Voyager Digital announced a financial deal with Alameda Research, in order to save Voyager. A 200 million dollars loan (in USDC and BTC) will be used to save the company in this difficult period. Another difficulty that Voyager Digital has to face is that its exposure to Three Arrows Capital is of 661 million dollars (also in USDC and BTC), and this liquidity can’t be accessed at the moment due to the current crypto-bearish run. The big question is: will Voyager be able to stay afloat with just 200 million dollars (see the conditions of use of these funds in the announcement).
• Since 2022 June 13, Celsius has been on the verge of bankruptcy. Two days ago, Coindesk announced a potential buyout of Celsius assets by Goldman Sachs, for 2 billion dollars. If Celsius becomes bankrupt, and if Goldman Sachs succeeds in its fundraising (which doesn’t seem to be too complicated for such a huge entity) this buyout would allow share- and token-holders to lose a little less, and would propel Goldman Sachs deeper in the blockchain industry.
• The US Central Bank seems to be going further down the road of an e-dollar. Aside from a ban on e-CNY transactions, a strategy to maintain some kind of supremacy of the US dollar worldwide will probably require a Central bank-issued crypto-currency. The criticism towards such a currency being, of course, that it doesn’t have most of the characteristics that made the blockchain sector appealing in the first place, such as decentralization and immutability. More info about the current reflections from the FED on coindesk.
• The Terra Luna keeps giving surprising headlines. Do Kwon is now forbidden to leave Korean soil, along with board members and… developers of Terraform Labs. According the KBS (the Korean radio that broadcasted the news), since Do Kwon already lived in Singapore during more than two years, he is eligible for a Singapoeran passport. Currently, staff members are suspected of having willingly used a vulnerability in the Terra/Luna ecosystem that led to the dramatic crash that contaminated the whole crypto market afterwards. The investigation is still in progress.
• The Harmony ecosystem has suffered from a $100M theft.
• Early after its launch, the Arbismart token is up 350%
• In case you had missed it, this month, a new crypto bill dubbed the Responsible Financial Innovation Act was proposed, and the heated debate is still going on. US Senators Cynthia Lummis and Kirsten Gillibrand co-sponsored this bill that would have a controverted impact on DAOs: these decentralized autonomous organizations would be taxed as businesses.
• Just like Gemini, earlier this year, Crypto.com is cutting its workforce by 5% as a consequence of the current crypto winter. Coinbase also laid off a significant portion of its staff recently, and is also facing a class-action lawsuit related to the unregulated sale of securities.
• EVM+ has launched on Karura (the DeFi hub of Kusama, related to the Polkadot ecosystem). The first contracts for the Wormhole bridge integration have been deployed on the mainnet. Karura will have a closed set of dApps and will be permissioned at first, to become permissionless later so that developers can ultimately deploy Solidity-based smart contracts on Karura. This move pushes Polkadot further in its Ethereum-siphoning strategy.
• Saddle Finance, an AMM (Automated Market Maker) DEX for pegged assets (wrapped BTC in particular) suffered a hack on April 30, 2022 that divided its Total Locked Value by 3 (from $300 M to $100M). Saddle is still trying to recover its health, as its current TVL is roughly of $50 million. The future will tell us if some of the ecosystems updates can help it reach a bigger size (new pool, NFT and metaverse applications…)

Projects worth taking a look:

• Synthetix: the SNX token is staked by liquidity providers on the Synthetix network in exchange for trading fees and rewards. These tokens serve as the backing collateral for synthetic assets: a liquidity solution for almost any asset even when the supply is temporarily short. The staked SNX is a collective collateral pool, and the synthetic tokens issued against the pool build-up a collective debt pool. When synthetic tokens are exchanged on the Synthetix network, one synthetic debt token is burned, and another one is minted (and fees are collected, of course). This process allows little to no spread and price impact, and a price aligned with the oracle price. Currently, Synthetix is averaging $10 million in daily volumes on the Ethereum Mainnet (less than half of its performance in 2021 at the same time of the year). Synthetix also secured a partnership with Saddle Finance, mentioned earlier in this newsletter. More info here.
• Mirror: a platform dedicated to writing NFTs (and perhaps, later, NFT media in general). Writing NFTs is currently a small niche (essays instead of JPEGs, so to speak), and Mirror can be used as a publishing platform. Mirror also supports crowdfunding functionalities, and their platform already allowed fundraisings totalling over 10,000 ETH across more than 15,000 buyers. More info about Mirror here.
• Mina: founded by Evan Shapiro and Izaak Meckler through their company O(1) Labs, Mina was funded by 4 funding rounds including a $44.7 million ICO and investments from Coinbase Ventures, Paradigm Three Arrows Capital, and a few others. Mina’s main feature is to drastically reduce the size of a standard blockchain: 22kB is the size of their entire ledger (vs a few hundreds of Gigabytes for heavies like BTC or ETH). Mina’s dApps are call Snapps. Users can store a full node easily, giving Mina a strong feel of early-days Bitcoin. As every node can verify the state of the chain, Mina is very decentralized. Also, Mina stakers can be rewarded. One oddity of Mina is that its inflation is set at 12% (from an initial supply of 1 billion tokens), however this inflation’s rate can be mitigated by community governance. Mina’s ecosystem is still young, but promising. More info here.
• Shapeshift: the network launched as a centralized but non-custodial DEX announced its full switch to a Decentralized Autonomous Organization in July 2021. Shapeshift includes a DEX aggregator, and their code is Open Source. This whole set of features makes Shapeshift able to escape KYC requirements. The FOX token holders can participate in a DAO, and the community’s Discord channel has almost reached 10,000 members. More info here.
• Beefy Finance: a good competitor for Ethereum-based Yearn Finance, Beefy is a multichain yield optimizer (15 blockchains already, including Polygon, Binance, and Avalanche). Total Value Locked is 250 million dollars accross all the involved chains (although most of the value is locked on the biggest chains). Beefy Finance’s biggest argument is the reduction of gas fees, and its incentive strategy seems effective, as their data suggests most of their users are long-term holders. Another inventive feature of Beefy is the quantity and diversity of proposed vaults. More info here.
• Qtum: Bitcoin’s UTXO-style and safety with smart contract features and DApps that could be found on Ethereum (hey! this is what we at MuKn tried to do with AVOUM), Qtum isn’t really new, but their ecosystem keeps developping, and we’ll soon make a comparison between the features of Qtum and what we accomplish with our own tech. More info here.
• Nexo: funded by Antoni Trenchev, Nexo is an exchange and lending platform allowing users to borrow loans in fiat or stablecoin, Nexo rewards its users lending their crypto. Crowdlending is already a trend outside the crypto world, and might be very profitable in the upcoming years, especially in some places deprived of a healthy lending economy. Nexo’s future releases include a crypto-funded debit card. One of the main questions at the moment is how much the regulations will impact this promising project. Nexo has only conducted two funding rounds so far and raised $52.5 million (mostly coming from Arrington XRP Capital)

That’s it for today, folks! If you wish to subscribe to this newsletter, just use the form right below 🙂[/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” text_align=”left” row_position=”default” row_position_tablet=”inherit” row_position_phone=”inherit” overflow=”visible” pointer_events=”all”][vc_column_inner column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” overflow=”visible” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” column_padding_type=”default” gradient_type=”default”][wpforms id=”322″ title=”true” description=”false”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row]