Remember Aptos VC Bukkake? Traders Seemingly Don’t
Optimism Daily Transaction Chart Poops & Porsche From Rug to Bluechip
Daily Bullets - Thursday, January 26th
Gm. Crypto is proving resilient today with Bitcoin and ETH pushing back into the green and alts such as Aptos continue to soar. US GDP came in beating expectations at 2.9% instead of the estimated 2.6%. We’ve got another day filled with project developments and cautious to neutral market sentiment. Today we’re taking a look at:
Aptos skyrocketing into price discovery
Optimism daily transactions dropping due to an ended airdrop campaign
The idiosyncratic price pump of the Porsche NFT collection after its canceled mint
Footprint Analytics and The Crypto Illuminati are hosting a workshop teaching how to analyze on-chain activity: Blockchain Forensics for Dummies. Check it out and participate for a chance at a USDT prize pool. Details here
Aptos In Price Discovery - Remember VC Bukkake?
The gist: Aptos is moving like crazy! Currently up 543.43% from its December lows of $3.09 and currently about to break the $20 mark at a $3.1B market cap and a $20.1B fully diluted market cap.
Let’s recap: The usual deets: Aptos was founded by two Ex-Meta employees - and at the end of the day, it’s just another L1. Tokenomics aren’t great and they got a lot of backlash for its distribution
Backers: a16z, Multicoin Capital, Jump Crypto, Tiger Global Management, Blocktower Capital, Coinbase Ventures.
Raised: $200M strategic round and a $150M Series A round
Analysis: In the months leading up to the launch of Aptos, many speculated if we would see similar performance to Solana, which was also heavily invested in by major VCs. Recall the phrase “VC Bukkake?” - signifying how VCs would be eager to dump their massively pumped bags all over helpless retail. Well, when the price goes up, suddenly no one cares about any of that. Markets work in curious ways - where rhyme, logic and reason can occasionally be bereft. Can Aptos continue running and put in some Solana style performance? Or has it already run its course?
From a perps market perspective, the funding rates are negative - meaning short traders are willing to pay long traders to hold their position. Could this result in a short squeeze? It’s also important to note that the majority 34% of all trading volume is coming from Korean exchange on the APT/KRW trading pair.
Optimism Daily Transaction Chart Poops - Chart Like a Shitcoin
The Gist: Transactions on Layer 2 optimistic rollup, Optimism, have plummeted recently, resulting in the chart looking just like a shitcoin chart. Previously, Optimism had surged past Arbitrum until peaking recently on January 18 at just under 700k daily transactions. Currently at ~ 330k transactions. Optimism has been another strong recent price performer, currently in all time high territory.
So what happened? The drop coincides with the end of Optimism Quest, an incentive program aimed to increase user engagement and educate users about the Optimism Layer 2 network.
Analysis: The surge in on-chain activity during Quest was most likely due to speculation on a second OP airdrop. We see this type of behavior time and time again - same with the Arbitrum Odyssey campaign. People will farm and sybill these types of activities and push up on-chin metrics - only to later dump their airdrops. It’s also worth keeping in mind that teams are actively working to limit this type of mercenary airdrop farming behavior. For now, with the price running up, it looks like those farmers may get a nice payday when the airdrop does drop. That is if price can continue to sustain.
Porsche NFT - From Rug to Bluechip
The gist: Porsche’s initial plan was to sell 7,500 NFTs at a mint price of 0.911 ETH (~$1,420). Unfortunately, due to abysmal performance and community backlash, Porsche decided to cancel its unfinished mint. However, things quickly turned from what could essentially be labeled a rug into what may now become a “bluechip?”
Why does this matter? With only 2,363 NFTs minted, this resulted in a supply shock that sent the price soaring. It also highlights a trend that we see in crypto of things seeming to be bad but actually turning out to be good. This is similar to the infamous Kevin NFT, from Pixelmon - The art was so bad that it became good. In this recent case, a failed mint turned around surged once the project had a little bit of infamy fueling it. Another overarching trend in crypto that we see here, especially in the world of NFTs, is that hype, attention and speculation are paramount. No project gets anywhere if people aren’t talking about it.
Daily Bullets:
Sushiswap is launching a perpetual futures exchange on the Sei Network to expand into non-Ethereum-based ecosystems
DeFi lending platform Aave is set to launch the third version of its protocol on Ethereum after a successful DAO vote
Decentralized crypto exchange Mango Markets sued its exploiter Avraham Eisenberg for $47M in damages
Electric car maker Tesla did not buy or sell any bitcoin in the fourth quarter for the second straight quarter
Conflux token will integrate with Little Red Book, the Chinese version of Instagram, to let users display their NFTs on the platform
Arkham Intelligence adding support for Polygon in Q1 - airdropping future token to people who participate in its private beta
Kevin Rose, founder of the NFT collection Moonbirds, had his wallet hacked losing an estimated $1M in NFTs
.SWOOSH, Nike’s new NFT platform, is inviting users to design their own digital wearables - offering a $5,000 cash prize and a chance to collaborate with Nike designers on a one-of-one virtual sneaker
Sui Testnet Wave 2 is live
Treasure announces MagicSwap v2, the first AMM in crypto to support pools for ERC-20s and NFTs through a single router
Pudgy Penguins Lil Pudgys will be allowed to cross-chain using LayerZero from Ethereum to Arbitrum, Polygon and BNB Chain. Soulbound Tokens are issued to Lil Pudgys users through soulTransport, one for each chain
Market Update & Data:
Gainers ranked by volume: We can see Aptos, Polygon, STEPN, and Fantom
Aptos has already been discussed and there are rumors that Fantom will soon be coming out with some announcements
Losers with volume: Optimism, Filecoin, Lido, Livepeer, ImmutableX
Optimism and Lido, both which have been running well lately are currently taking a breather. Lido still has an upcoming catalyst in the form of the upcoming ETH Shanghai upgrade
Research/Reads:
The cryptoeconomics of slashing: a16z - mechanism used in Proof of Stake protocols to economically penalize a node that is not following protocol by taking away their stake - source
Does your product need a token? - different web3 products which do and do not need a token - source
FTT Returns From the Dead: FTX's FTT token has risen 120% since the start of 2023, despite its role in the exchange's collapse - - source
Research: Suggestions for Taxing Bitcoin Miners and Cryptocurrencies - such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Australia - source
Arbitrum is Mooning - Bankless - another deep dive into the state of Arbitrum - source
Next Steps:
If you aren’t already familiar with NFT-Fi, make sure to brush up on this emerging sector. The intersection of DeFi and NFTs that help to unlock liquidity and allow our favorite speculative casino to evolve:
We hope you find this issue engaging and enlightening. As always, we welcome your feedback and suggestions for future issues.