Jan 27

8 min read

Weekly Crypto Market_ Jan 27, 2023

1. Week in Review

Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) is working on lifting the ban on the domestic distribution of stablecoins. Japan’s new regulations, allowing investors to trade using stablecoins like Tether (USDT), are expected to be adopted no later than June 2023. The FSA will only allow foreign stablecoins that successfully pass individual checks ensuring they are safe from the viewpoint of user protection.
Crypto Infrastructure Firm Blockstream Raises $125M for Bitcoin Mining. The company will use the funds to expand its bitcoin mining facilities amid strong demand for hosting.
Coinbase Trading Volume Increases in January While Other Exchanges See Declines. Coinbase’s reputation as one of the more trustworthy exchanges in the U.S. has helped it following the collapse of rival FTX.
Coinbase’s reputation as one of the more trustworthy exchanges in the U.S. has helped it following the collapse of rival FTX. The court action seeks damages from Bitcoin Cash backer Roger Ver related to the alleged failure to settle cryptocurrency options transactions that expired on Dec. 30, 2022.
Bitcoin Moves Sideways at $23K. The total volume of bitcoin options on Deribit rose to $4.25 billion last week, the highest point since Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange went bust in the second week of November.
Metaverse Entertainment Will Reshape Social Lifestyle, Says 69% of Users. A recent CoinWire research of crypto investors found 69% of participants believed the metaverse would alter social norms. People were concerned about how it will affect their finances, businesses, and education at rates of 61.2%, 49.6%, and 45%, respectively.
Indonesia Regulatory Switch Could See Crypto Classed As Securities, Not Commodities. Indonesia transfers crypto regulatory powers to the Financial Services Authority (OJK). Crypto assets may be treated similarly to securities and bring about the application of the whole array of securities-related requirements and restrictions in their offering, sales, market, and mutual funds.
The Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) unveiled its plan to experiment with central bank digital currency (CBDC) alongside local banks and fintech firms in a phase-by-phase project. According to the agency, its current phase is where it centers on leveraging CBDC as a useful tool for a type of domestic wholesale financial instrument in collaboration with other financial institutions.
Layer 1 Blockchain Token Aptos Reaches Record High. The token, APT, hit new record highs and is up 427% since Jan. 1, according to CoinDesk data. However, most major cryptos were in the red, but Axie Infinity’s AXS token continued to rally. Equity indexes were flat.
Metaverse-Focused Blockchain Lamina1 Promotes Rebecca Barkin to CEO. The former Magic Leap executive will now oversee all business operations for Lamina1 and ensure the execution of the company’s product roadmap.
UK Minister Commits to Greater Crypto Industry Engagement as New Regulation Looms. Lawmaker Andrew Griffith berated regulators for being too slow, but there’s still no trace of his own long-awaited crypto consultation.

2. Cryptocurrency Price Trend

1) Cryptocurrency Market State Visualization (1W)

Cryptanalysts give opposite assessments of what is happening, and there is no consensus today. Be that as it may, investors cheered up and began to bring capital into the crypto market, increasing its capitalization by 1.1% in a week.

Let’s take a look, how prices have changed over the week.

January 19

BTC — $20830

ETH — $1530

BNB — $290

XRP — $0.38

ADA — $0.33

DOGE — $0.08

January 26

BTC — $23170

ETH — $1615

BNB — $307

XRP — $0.41

ADA — $0.38

DOGE — $0.09

Recently, Bitcoin prices have recovered to their “before FTX bankruptcy” levels in three months. There are some observations that this rise is a temporary rebound from the Consumer Price Index Announcement In the market, it is important to note that the positive trend can continue after the FOMC, as the forecast of a 0.25% increase in the benchmark interest rate dominates, or the possibility that the Fed will weigh on tightening as the labor market overheats.

Bitcoin rose 11.6% from last week, and Dominance also continued to rise, rising to its highest level in about six months. Other major altcoins are ETH +6.6%, BNB +7.4% and XRP +10.1%. SOL +18.4% and APT +140.9%, continuing the upward trend from last week. In particular, the rise of APTOS, a layer 1 project released by developers from the Meta division, was noticeable.

The Virtual Asset Fear & Greed Index has moved out of the ‘fear’ zone and reached the ‘neutral’ stage.

According to Cryptorank’s 1 Week Performance Heat Map, Market showed mostly “Green’’ performance this week. Big assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum were especially on the rise. It is interpreted that this is due to expectations of the US Federal Reserve (Fed) easing austerity.

On the 26th (8:50 am), Bitcoin is trading at $23,181, up 2.60% from 24 hours ago, according on CoinMarketCap.

Ethereum is trading at $1,611, up 3.77% from the previous trading day. While the FOMC meeting of the US Federal Reserve is scheduled to be held next month, it is predicted that the rate hike will be lowered to 0.25 %

Meanwhile, the fun fact is that despite the crisis in 2022, according to a new analytical report published by Crypto.com, for 2022, the total number of cryptocurrency owners in the world, despite the bear market, increased by 39% — from 306 million to 425 million.

2) Total Cryptocurrency Market Cap (W)

The global cryptocurrency market cap today is $1.07 Trillion, a -1.18% change in the last 24 hours and -38.58% change one year ago. As of today, the market cap of Bitcoin (BTC) is at $440 Billion, representing a Bitcoin dominance of 41.04%. Stablecoins’ market cap is at $138 Billion and has a 12.68% share of the total crypto market cap.

Source:CoinMarketCap

3)Weekly Crypto Asset Flows (US$ M)

Digital asset investment products saw US$37m inflows last week. Trading activity for the week was high at US$1.6bn, above the 90-day average. of US$990M, with 80% of the trading focussed on Bitcoin. Total assets under management after recent price appreciation is now at US$29 billion, the highest since September 2022.

Source:Coinshares

4) TVL Trends

The weekly TVL growth rate by chain was ETH +7.72%%, BSC +5.78%, Tron +9.8%, Solana +14.78%, which slowed compared to last week, but is still continuing the upward trend in major chains except Solana. On the other hand, Optimism’s TVL shows a high TVL increase +16.47% thanks to decentralized exchanges such as Velodrome and Uniswap V3.

Total TVL Leaders (1W)

3. VC Investment Trends

1)Crypto Funds AUM

2)Flows by Asset

Inflows were seen in Europe, most notably Germany and Switzerland with US$14m and US$10m respectively.

Outflows were seen in European short investment products too, suggesting sentiment is positive. In contrast, Hong Kong saw outflows from long investment products (US$11m), while 95% of the inflows into the US were into short-Bitcoin products.

Bitcoin showed inflows totalling US$5.7m last week, while short-bitcoin investment products saw inflows totalling US$25.5m, the largest weekly inflow since July 2022 (US$51m). In contrast to Bitcoin, a large number of altcoins saw inflows, most notable of which were Ethereum, Polkadot, Cardano, XRP and Avalanche with US$4.2m, US$1.0m, US$0.6m, US$0.6m and US$0.5m respectively. Blockchain equities also saw inflows totalling US$7.1m last week.

Source:Coinshares

3)Major VC Fund Raisings — Main Gainers (1W)

$150M — Pantera, by Jump Crypto Back $150M — Support financial apps blockchains based on the Cosmos system.
$125M — Blockstream , by Kingsway Capital Bitcoin mining hosting services
$100M — Maple Finance, by Intero Capital Solutions — Liquidity Pool for Tax Receivables With 10% Yield
$60M — QuickNode, by Tiger Global — Global expansion, hiring and building out the tech.
$22M — Nil (The =nil) Foundation, by Polychain Capital — Building zero-knowledge projects more decentralized, and easier to build.

4. Weekly Macro Economy Review

Three significant changes to the macroeconomic policy regime in advanced economies, compared to the post-global financial crisis period, have unfolded in the last two years.
- First, fears of a chronic insufficiency of aggregate demand as a growth deterrent prevailing after the 2008 global financial crisis have been superseded by supply-side shocks and inflation.
The European Central Bank’s chief economist : “We haven’t seen ‘normal’ in Europe for a long time.”
-“We need to bring rates into restrictive territory. Interest rates are now ‘ballpark’ neutral,” said European Central Bank (ECB) Chief Economist Phillip Lane.
The Bank of Japan defends yield curve control measures, and intends to stick to ultra-easy monetary policy.
- Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda on Friday defended the central bank’s decision to widen the trading band in its yield curve control program. Speaking during a panel session at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Kuroda said it was “not wrong” for the BOJ’s board to widen its tolerance range for the yield on its 10-year government bond from 25 basis points to 50 basis points last month.
Argentina and Brazil are discussing plans for a common currency.
-Argentina and Brazil are in early talks to create a common currency, as part of a coordinated bid to reduce reliance on the U.S. dollar.
Global economic outlook may be less bad — but we’re still not in a good place, IMF chief says.
-The IMF chief said headline inflation was heading down and China’s reopening was expected to boost global growth. They forecast China’s economy will outpace global growth of 2.7% this year, at 4.4%, after slipping below it for the first time in four decades last year. Also highlighted ongoing risks, including China’s growth resulting in higher oil and gas prices and the “horrible” war in Ukraine harming global confidence, particularly in Europe.
Google to lay off 12,000 people — CEO sent to staff a memo.
-Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, said in an email sent to the company’s staff that the firm will lay off 12,000 employees. It comes after Amazon and Microsoft laid off a combined 28,000 people.

Sources: CNBC, Bloomberg News, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters