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CMC Market Pulse: Indices Hit All-Time Highs While Crypto Lags
Market Overview 📉
Bitcoin (BTC) ended the week 1.93% up, while Ethereum (ETH) fared much worse alongside other altcoins, closing the week down 4.89% instead. Interestingly, total crypto market cap rose slightly by 0.32% from $3.372T to finish the week at $3.383T.
This week’s liquidations surged over the weekend with long liquidations rising from turmoil in the Middle East, while Monday took out shorts over the temporary resolution of the conflict. Funding rates in general have fallen, with majors entering negative territory, highlighting a risk-off stance from the majority of investors.
📌 Texas Governor, Greg Abbott, has signed into law the establishment of a Bitcoin reserve for Texas, with all present voters voting in favor. - Link
📌 SharpLink Gaming increases their ETH holdings by 12,207 ETH to a total of 188,478 ETH. - Link
📌 MetaPlanet acquires 1,234 BTC, bringing their total holdings to 12,345 BTC, surpassing Tesla’s BTC holdings. - Link
Why does it matter?
The markets express a divergence between traditional equities and the crypto markets this week, with traditional markets breaking all-time highs while crypto lingers behind. Some speculate if it is a result of crypto having already frontrun the move up, resulting in a consolidation at the moment. The S&P 500 is up 2.3% this week, while the Nasdaq is up 2.65%.
Notable altcoin outperformers this week included Sei (SEI), Maple Finance (SYRUP), Euler (EUL), Aptos (APT) and Movement (MOVE).
Narrative of the Week 📰
With the meteoric rise of Circle’s stock, CRCL, a large focus in the DeFi space has shifted to tokenized equities and related ventures.
📌 Republic introduces Mirror Tokens, a new type of token on Solana to enable investors to speculate on tokens tied to private companies including SpaceX, Anthropic, Figma, and more. - Link
📌 Tokenized equities trading platform, Dinari, receives the first broker-dealer license from FINRA and the SEC for the trading of tokenized equities and ETFs. - Link
📌 CT trader, Jez, highlights that the ability to have perpetuals for tokenized equity will be the edge that on-chain equity trading has over their traditional finance counterparts. - Link
Why does it matter?
On-chain equity has always been a market of interest, but has never really taken off due to regulatory concerns and lack of interest. However, with the new administration and increased interest in tokenized equities, the sector looks primed for a revival.
Major Project Updates 🗓️
📌 Bybit-backed Solana DEX, Byreal, introduces Reset Launch, their native launchpad which is built to enable price discovery and align incentives between users and the project. - Link
📌 Trump Media and Technology Group has filed for an ETF investing in both Bitcoin and Ethereum. - Link
📌 Bandwidth monetization protocol, Grass, introduces their first hardware product built just for the Grass Network. The waitlist is now open. - Link
📌 Interoperabilit protocol, LayerZero, introduces Fast Ahead-of-Formation Optimization, a scheduler that enables high throughput for chains via reordering transactions before blocks are formed. - Link
Why does it matter?
Byreal’s launchpad implementation continues to highlight the struggle in finding a right balance for a project’s token launch between price discovery and optimizing for the project.
DeFi Brief 🏦
📌 Chainlink partners with MasterCard to facilitate the settlement of on-chain payments for real-world purchases. - Link
📌 Grove Finance launches on mainnet, with $1B from Sky (formerly MakerDAO), to unlock the full potential of USDS through institutional-grade credit. - Link
📌 Lending protocol, Euler Finance, launches on Arbtirum, bringing to the chain $100,000 in incentives for users. - Link
Why does it matter?
Chainlink’s partnership with MasterCard bridges the gap between traditional finance and DeFi, making it easier than ever to cross the gap to enable real-world Web3 adoption.
Fundraises 💰
📌 MegaETH-based perpetual DEX, GTE, raises $15M in a Series A funding round exclusively led by Paradigm. - Link
📌 Predictions market, Kalshi, raises $185M in a Series C funding round led by Paradigm, with participation from Sequoia, Multicoin, Bond Capital and more. - Link
📌 Confidential blockchain protocol, Zama, raises $57M in a Series B funding round led by Pantera Capital and BlockChange VC. - Link
📌 DeFi infrastructure protocol, Veda Labs, raises $18M in a funding round led by CoinFund, with support from Coinbase Ventures, Maelstrom, GSR, Animoca Ventures and more. - Link
Airdrops Abound 🎁
📌 Solana liquid staking protocol, Fragmetric, opens their FRAG token airdrop for claims, distributing 10% of the total token supply to eligible users. - Link
Tweet of the Week 📝
Source: @tittyrespecter
Crypto is an anti-establishment movement…right?
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