Category

Crypto

Mar 17
0

Daily Brief Crypto: USDC’s Depeg Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Trust the Bots and more

By | Crypto, Daily Briefs

In today’s briefing:

  • USDC’s Depeg Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Trust the Bots

USDC’s Depeg Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Trust the Bots

By Kaiko

  • While the market seems to have shrugged it off, crypto – and DeFi in particular – survived an existential risk over the weekend.
  • USDC was caught up in the turmoil that hit U.S. banks and depegged amidst fears it was no longer fully backed.
  • We covered the reaction in centralized markets in the week’s Debrief, but given that USDC’s primary use case is in DeFi, this week we’ll examine how the depegging played out on-chain, examining trading, liquidity, and lending and borrowing, with a particular focus on the role that bots played.  

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Mar 14
0

Daily Brief Crypto: The Aftermath: What Happened to USDC? and more

By | Crypto, Daily Briefs

In today’s briefing:

  • The Aftermath: What Happened to USDC?

The Aftermath: What Happened to USDC?

By Kaiko

  • In the hours following Sillicon Valley Bank’s collapse, news emerged that Circle, issuer of the USDC stablecoin, held $3.3bn of reserves in SVB, triggering panic that the stablecoin was no longer fully backed.
  • As of Sunday night, we know that Circle’s reserves are safe, but over the weekend both centralized and decentralized markets descended into chaos.
  • Today, we’ll walk you through what exactly happened.

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Mar 13
0

Daily Brief Crypto: The Unbundling of Blockchain Infrastructure and more

By | Crypto, Daily Briefs

In today’s briefing:

  • The Unbundling of Blockchain Infrastructure

The Unbundling of Blockchain Infrastructure

By Etherbridge

  • Opportunity in any market exists in anything that causes the perception of the investor to take on a new shape.
  • For many years, the Fat Protocol Thesis popularised by Placeholder VC has dominated the perception of the digital asset market.
  • But as the market and, more importantly, those who have come to use this new technology platform change, so too does the perception of where value will be captured.

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Mar 12
0

Daily Brief Crypto: Ocular: 2023 Thematic Outlook and more

By | Crypto, Daily Briefs

In today’s briefing:

  • Ocular: 2023 Thematic Outlook

Ocular: 2023 Thematic Outlook

By Ocular

  • 2022 was a challenging year for web3. We witnessed the collapse of TerraLUNA, the fall of FTX, and several notable insolvencies including Three Arrows Capital, Voyager, Celsius and BlockFi.
  • These events deeply impacted the sector, with the crypto market losing over $2 trillion in market cap in 2022 and public perception of web3 turning sour.
  • Many suspect we have yet to feel the full magnitude of the contagion effect of these events, as they are still ongoing (e.g. the FTX trial), and we could reach new lows.

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Mar 10
0

Daily Brief Crypto: The Scramble for Silvergate Alternatives and more

By | Crypto, Daily Briefs

In today’s briefing:

  • The Scramble for Silvergate Alternatives

The Scramble for Silvergate Alternatives

By Kaiko

  • Crypto optimists have said for the last few months that the worst is behind us.
  • Just in the last year we’ve seen the collapse of crypto hedge funds, lenders and exchanges.
  • They say the bad actors have been removed from the space and there’s only good news from here

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Mar 07
0

Daily Brief Crypto: Sporting Crypto – 6th March 2023: Is AR the New Meta? and more

By | Crypto, Daily Briefs

In today’s briefing:

  • Sporting Crypto – 6th March 2023: Is AR the New Meta?
  • The Future of Fiat On-Ramps

Sporting Crypto – 6th March 2023: Is AR the New Meta?

By Sporting Crypto

  • Through my work and writing, I’ve been thinking more and more about an area that I’m not an expert in: gaming.
  • And when we combine the word ‘Gaming’ with ‘Web3’ — there is a buzz and sense of excitement from most.
  • Specifically, it’s all the rage when people talk about NFTs and the future of gaming.

The Future of Fiat On-Ramps

By Kaiko

  • Silvergate is in deep trouble. On March 1, the “crypto bank” revealed in a regulatory filing that it could soon be “less than well capitalized.”
  • The news prompted Coinbase, Paxos, Galaxy Digital and a host of other large crypto enterprises to drop Silvergate as a banking partner. Why does this matter? 
  • The “fiat problem” has long plagued crypto markets: to buy bitcoin, you at some point need to interact with the traditional banking system.

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Mar 04
0

Daily Brief Crypto: When Bond Yields Exceed 4% and more

By | Crypto, Daily Briefs

In today’s briefing:

  • When Bond Yields Exceed 4%, UK Governments Fall

When Bond Yields Exceed 4%, UK Governments Fall

By Kaiko

  • In 2020 and 2021, investors opted for TIPS over conventional bonds, yet over the past year, they have moved the other way.
  • The TIPS ETF has fallen from $40bn of assets to $20bn, while the long bond ETF has doubled from $15bn to $30bn.
  • The loud and clear message from this shift is that investors are woefully unprepared for an inflation shock.

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Mar 03
0

Daily Brief Crypto: Whales Vs. Retail: Who’s Using Curve? and more

By | Crypto, Daily Briefs

In today’s briefing:

  • Whales Vs. Retail: Who’s Using Curve?

Whales Vs. Retail: Who’s Using Curve?

By Kaiko

  • It’s impossible to paint a full picture of Ethereum DeFi without an understanding of Curve.
  • Its unique AMM mechanism enables large stablecoin swaps with extremely low price slippage and its governance and incentives make it a kingmaker for stablecoins; Terra founder Do Kwon touted the infamous 4pool – containing UST – as the thing that would catapult his stablecoin ahead of DAI.
  • In the past, we have written on how Curve pools can be a useful barometer for stablecoin demand particularly during volatile market events. 

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Mar 01
0

Daily Brief Crypto: Sporting Crypto – 27th Feb 2023: Are NBA Top Shots Securities? and more

By | Crypto, Daily Briefs

In today’s briefing:

  • Sporting Crypto – 27th Feb 2023: Are NBA Top Shots Securities?

Sporting Crypto – 27th Feb 2023: Are NBA Top Shots Securities?

By Sporting Crypto

  • Last week there were headlines from media publishers that read something along the lines of; NBA-Branded ‘Top Shot Moments’ NFTs May Be Securities, Judge Rules in Dapper Labs Case
  • This brewed discourse around 1) Top Shots themselves being securities and 2) NFTs as a thing being securities.
  • Both 1) and 2) are wrong in my opinion, for a variety of reasons.

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Feb 24
0

Daily Brief Crypto: A Crypto Friendly Asia: What It Will Mean For Markets and more

By | Crypto, Daily Briefs

In today’s briefing:

  • A Crypto Friendly Asia: What It Will Mean For Markets

A Crypto Friendly Asia: What It Will Mean For Markets

By Kaiko

  • On Monday, Hong Kong made its intentions clear to open the door to crypto trading for retail. 
  • Reports claim that China is quietly encouraging the move, using Hong Kong as a testing ground for what safe crypto trading might look like.
  • The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) outlined various caveats for retail investing in crypto, namely hinting at only having a small subset of the largest tokens available to trade.

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