Mars Crypto Daily January 8, 2024
1. Today's news
According to Token Unlocks data, this week, APT, CYBER, GLMR and other tokens will usher in a one-time large unlock, with a total release value of about $217 million. Thereinto:
At 9 a.m. on January 11, Moonbeam will unlock 3.04 million GLMR (approximately $1.2 million), representing 0.38% of the circulating supply.
At 9:59 a.m. on January 12, Aptos will unlock 24.84 million APTs (about $207 million), accounting for 8.05% of the circulating supply;
At 10:24 on January 14, CyberConnect will unlock 1.26 million CYBER (about $9.03 million), accounting for 8.51% of the circulating supply;
The BitVol (Bitcoin Volatility) Index, launched by financial index company T3 Index and bitcoin options trading platform LedgerX, rose to 75.84 yesterday, up 2.21% on a daily basis, close to its highest level in 1 year (it reached 76.99 on March 19).
Note: The BitVol Index measures the 30-day expected implied volatility derived from tradable Bitcoin option prices. Implied volatility refers to the volatility implied by the actual option price. It is the inverse volatility that uses the B-S option pricing formula to substitute the actual price of the option and other parameters other than the volatility σ into the formula.
The actual price of an option is formed by the competition of many options traders, so implied volatility represents market participants' perceptions and expectations about the future of the market, and is therefore considered to be the closest to the true volatility at that time.
According to the market, STX broke through 1.8 USDT, hitting a new high since April 2022, and was tentatively trading at 1.803 USDT, up 15% in 24 hours.
The ETF Store总裁Nate Geraci在X平台发文表示,对于现货比特币ETF,其本周关注的5件事分别是:
1. Disclosure of the remaining expenses, especially from BlackRock and Grayscale. Fidelity currently leads the way with a rate of 0.39% and Invesco at 0.59% (waived for the first 6 months);
2. SEC's approval vote (most likely on Wednesday). The SEC's Trading and Markets Division must approve Document 19b-4 (Change in Exchange Rules) and the company's finance department must sign the S-1 (Registration Statement). The key is the 19b-4 approval order;
3. The ETF may be launched this Thursday. If that happens, it's curious to know what types of investors are already in the pipeline. BlackRock is rumored to attract 2 billion USDT in its first week. How much money will Fidelity, Invesco, etc. bring? ARK can buy more than 200 million USDT to replace GBTC in ARKW;
4. Does GBTC convert/list on the same day other ETFs are listed? There are indications that this may happen (based on X posts, filings, and general actions/messages from executives). This is a huge advantage as GBTC currently has 27 billion USDT in assets and will automatically enter one of the top 60 ETFs in AUM at launch.
5. Marketing momentum. We've seen preview buzz for Bitwise, Hashdex, and VanEck, what are BlackRock, Fidelity, Invesco, ARK, Grayscale, and more in store?
According to the SEC's official website, Valkyrie filed an update to the Bitcoin spot ETF S-1, in which the fee standard remained unchanged at 0.8%. It is reported that the SEC requires ETF issuers to file an S-1 amendment by 8 a.m. local time today.
CoinShares released a weekly report, which showed a net inflow of $151 million in digital asset investment products in the first week of '24. Bitcoin had the largest share of inflows at $113 million, while shorting bitcoin had a total outflow of $1 million in the first week of the year.
According to the SEC's official website, Fidelity has just filed an updated version of its spot Bitcoin ETF S-1 application, which has an ETF fee standard of 0.39%.
According to the analysis, there are two technical requirements that must be met before a spot bitcoin ETF can start trading. First, the SEC must approve the 19b-4 filing by the exchange on which the ETF is listed, and second, the SEC must approve the relevant Form S-1.
The SEC plans to vote on the exchange's 19b-4 filing in the coming days. It remains to be seen whether the SEC will take action on the issuer's application (S-1) at the same time. If the SEC approves a spot Bitcoin ETF, the ETF could begin trading as early as the next business day.
A representative at the SEC declined to comment on the status of the current application.
Próspera, a special economic zone in Roatan, Honduras, officially recognized Bitcoin as a unit of account, meaning that Bitcoin can now be used to measure the market value of goods and services, according to Cointelegraph.
The progress was led on January 5 by the Tax Commissioner of the Próspera Employment and Economic Development Zone (ZEDE), Jorge Colindraes. Colindres said that due to the technical limitations of its e-governance system, coupled with some external regulatory issues, it is not currently possible to implement a "final Bitcoin tax process".
Those intending to use Bitcoin as a unit of account must submit a notice to Próspera's Tax Commission within 30 days of the expiration of the relevant tax period.
2. Selected articles
The crypto market ushered in a bull coin pullback, the price of bitcoin flashed below $42,000, the decline of mainstream altcoins at a glance, funds have withdrawn from altcoins and flowed into bitcoin, bitcoin ETF expectations are too high, and crypto users want to control the risk.
Solana and Celestia are the current leaders in cryptocurrency, and their value sets are intertwined but still quite unique. Chris Burniske believes that Solana's virtual machine has advantages over Ethereum's EVM, making it easier for users to participate in on-chain applications, and the launch of the Bitcoin ETF will further integrate Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies into the real world, sparking curiosity about Bitcoin. The development of DeFi will lay the foundation for the emergence of non-fungible stacks, and the development of modular stacks will also drive the development of non-fungible ones.
In 2023, modular account abstraction is starting to gain traction, with Safe, Kernel, B1C0nomy, and others launching new wallets, smart contract account features, and the idea of modular ERC-4337 accounts being improved, CyberConnect and FanTV with 550,000 and 470,000 unique accounts, and DeFi becoming the platform of choice for intent-based trading infrastructure and product builders. The key words for 2024 are adoption and interoperability, and modules can provide security and privacy.
3. Project interpretation
Levana Protocol is a DeFi-focused L1 blockchain based on the Cosmos SDK and Tendermint Core, offering opportunities such as dual liquidity mining, lending and staking, Launchpad, cross-chain lending protocols, and perpetual contracts. It launched the Well-Funded Perps Model, which can solve the challenges of bridging or stablecoin risk and bankruptcy risk, with a total trading volume of more than $1.6 billion, a total of more than 15,000 users, and a total transaction fee of $1.8 million, with a current LVN token price of $0.2189, an ATH of $0.8946, and a current market cap of $18 million.
Perp DEX is a valuable and innovative track, and projects such as Aark Digital, Drift, Zeta, MYX, Hyperliquid, and Jupiter have all taken cold start measures, providing a variety of collateral, spot trading, leveraged trading, perpetual contracts and other services. However, it should be noted that the track also has frequent safety accidents, and the sooner you participate, the more advantageous it may be.
Celestia's data availability layer is being selected and applied by more and more public chains, which can bring huge economic benefits to L2 gas fees. Celestia is supported by multiple RaaS platforms, providing airdrops, liquidity incentive activities, etc., and optimizing high throughput through VMs, supporting local fee markets and formal verification, and will face competition from Ethereum, EigenDA, AVAIL, and more after the upgrade in Cancun.
4. Investment and financing
Metallpha Technology, a NASDAQ-listed Hong Kong crypto asset management company, announced on its official website that it has invested in NextGen Digital Venture Limited. NextGen Digital is a platform that provides traditional financial and cryptocurrency investment services, aiming to provide institutional investors with compliant access to digital assets, but the exact investment amount has not been disclosed at this time. In April last year, Metallpha and NextGen jointly launched Next Generation Fund I, a crypto fund focused on investing in Grayscale's structured products, and Metallpha will provide additional management support to NextGen after the completion of this investment transaction.
去中心化 AI 合成社交网络 CharacterX 以 3000 万美元估值完成 280 万美元融资，本轮融资由 Lightspeed Venture Partners、INCE Capital 和 Spark Digital Capital 共同领投，CGV、ZC Capital、GRI、Fermion Capital、84000LP、Fan Zhang 等参投。
On January 5, 2024, Langang Interactive Group Co., Ltd. (HK.8267) announced in its latest announcement that it has successfully signed a share subscription agreement to subscribe for a 30.3% stake in EcoPowX, a Bitcoin network and AI computing power innovation service company, with an investment of US$1.26 million. The company is primarily focused on providing computing solutions for artificial intelligence and the Bitcoin network through environmentally friendly gas-fired power generation technologies.
By cooperating with large oil field and natural gas processing equipment suppliers in West Africa to promote the environmentally friendly treatment of flare gas in oil fields, EcoPowX will not only help promote the sustainable development of the crypto asset market and the blockchain technology infrastructure network, but also provide a new solution for the energy needs in the field of artificial intelligence.
Blueport Interactive said that the investment in EcoPowX aims to diversify its portfolio of crypto assets in response to changing market conditions. The company remains optimistic about the future market prospects, and is committed to continuing to invest resources in the field of Web3 and technological innovation to continuously promote the long-term development of related businesses.
This investment not only reflects the forward-looking layout of Blueport Interactive in the field of blockchain technology and digital currency, but also demonstrates the company's strategic expansion in the field of Web3. In addition, it also demonstrates the efforts made by Langang Interactive to achieve corporate social responsibility, especially in environmental protection and sustainable development.
The blockchain social platform "Freechat" has recently closed an $80 million funding round with a post-investment valuation of $800 million, and the investor was not disclosed. After the completion of this round of financing, Freechat will become the core concept of the platform with privacy and security, user data in the hands of users, etc., to further strengthen its Web3 characteristics, and build a decentralized, open and transparent social network platform for the global market. Freechat was founded in 2022 and raised a $2 million seed round in August 2022, and in early 2023, Freechat officially launched on its global servers, with the modules and features planned for the rest of the content ecosystem going live in the past few months.