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Crypto’s Infrastructure Gets a Facelift as TradFi’s Interest in Tokenization Grows

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Crypto's Infrastructure Markets continued to tumble amid uncertain regulatory and macroeconomic conditions. While a new Bitcoin Spot ETF application entered the race, Bitcoin was the only positive outlier of last week’s rally, jumping slightly by 0.32%, while Ethereum fell by around 2.33%. Optimism suffered the least within the scalability solutions, dipping by only 0.74% over the past week. On the other hand, Maker suffered the least in returns among its decentralized finance peers, dipping by -1.01% over the past week.

Markets continued to tumble amid uncertain regulatory and macroeconomic conditions. While a new Bitcoin Spot ETF application entered the race, Bitcoin was the only positive outlier of last week’s rally, jumping slightly by 0.32%, while Ethereum fell by around 2.33%. Optimism suffered the least within the scalability solutions, dipping by only 0.74% over the past week. On the other hand, Maker suffered the least in returns among its decentralized finance peers, dipping by -1.01% over the past week.

Figure 1: Weekly Price and TVL Developments of Cryptoassets in Major Sectors

Source: 21Shares, CoinGecko, DeFi Llama. Close data as of September 12, 2023.

5 Things to Remember in Markets this Week

• Controversy Around Staking in Switzerland

The crypto industry in Switzerland warned against the reported plans of the Financial Markets Supervisory Authority (FINMA) to restrict staking services to those with banking licenses. FINMA based its rationale on temporarily locking assets by staking protocols and the risk that assets could be seized from participants in cases of improper validation or other rule violations, known as Slashing, when a validator exhibits harmful behavior. That said, FINMA categorized staking as public deposits rather than custody assets since they’re not immediately available, and therefore, staking providers based in Switzerland would require banking licenses. The key concern from the Swiss Blockchain Federation was that FINMA’s flawed interpretation of staking could take a toll on the competitive environment, arguing that comparing the cores of staking protocols and banks would be unfair. Especially with the unanimous passing of the DLT Act, the federation also pointed out that such a change of practice would undermine the legal clarity achieved by the legislation exactly three years ago.

• Uniswap’s Dismissed Case Shows Court Understands DeFi Better

District Judge Katherine Polk Failla dismissed a lawsuit filed originally by a group of investors in April 2022 who accused Uniswap Labs and its founder Hayden Adams of allegedly operating an unregistered exchange or broker-dealer, offering and soliciting securities on an unregistered exchange. The plaintiffs allegedly lost money to scam tokens, namely EthereumMax (EMAX), Bezoge (BEZOGE), and Alphawolf Finance (AWF) traded on Uniswap. While dismissing the lawsuit in full, Judge Failla called Ethereum a commodity and told the plaintiffs that the defendants in this case should be the issuers of the aforementioned tokens and that Congress was more authorized to address their other concerns.

The main takeaway is that regulators are getting more acquainted with the nitty gritty of decentralized finance; more crypto education and regulators keen on understanding novel innovations should pave the way for mass adoption in the long run. This showed especially when the plaintiffs argued that Uniswap was like a self-driving vehicle manufacturer (a metaphor for the scam tokens). The judge responded in the Memorandum and Opinion, saying that the car manufacturer is not analogous with Uniswap’s relationship with the listed tokens, but instead, the case is more like a lawsuit against an application like Venmo or Zelle for a drug deal that used the platform to facilitate the illicit activity.

• Traditional Finance Players Capitalize on Asset Tokenization

The London Stock Exchange (LSE), the eighth largest in the world, has been studying blockchain as a technology for a year now, and they have reportedly just decided to use it to power a new trading venue. While they won’t facilitate crypto asset trades on this venue, the news is still a win for the industry. This would make it the first large global stock exchange to use blockchain technology to power an end-to-end trading venue for its investors, handling issuance, trading, reconciliation, and settlement, all on-chain.

So far, there is about $800M in bonds tokenized on blockchains, according to the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). Polygon, Ethereum, and Avalanche have partnered with giants such as JP Morgan, UBS, and KKR. On August 31, SWIFT published results from its experimentation with Ethereum’s blockchain. Leveraging Chainlink’s cross-chain interoperability protocol as an enterprise abstraction layer, SWIFT was able to provide a single point of access to multiple networks using existing, secure infrastructure, and in turn, significantly reducing operational challenges and investment required for institutions to support the development of tokenized assets.

Figure 2: Tokenized Bonds on the Rise

Source: ESMA and Refinitiv

• Polygon Labs introduced a Chain Development Kit (CDK) that utilizes Zero Knowledge Proofs technology to create customized blockchains interoperable with the core Polygon chain and its ecosystem’s networks. This integration offers streamlined access to unified liquidity through a shared ZK-based bridge, although it’s still an untested technology. The CDKs also empower developers to personalize network elements like gas tokens, execution environment, and data availability to suit their requirements. Wirex, a crypto payments platform, has already announced plans to use CDKs to build its own network, attracted by Polygon’s design flexibility and the benefits of consolidated liquidity and native interoperability. Finally, CDKs should strengthen Polygon’s competitive position against Arbitrum’s Orbit and Optimism Op-Stack, especially due to its support for native shared liquidity.

• Offchain Labs, the team behind Arbitrum, unveiled Stylus.
The latest network enhancement introduces a new programming environment allowing developers to deploy code in Rust, C, and C++ and expanding the options beyond Ethereum’s traditional EVM-compatible Solidity language. Thus, not only does the broader compatibility open the door to a wider developer base, but it simultaneously reduces transaction costs by an estimated ~10-100x. Further, Stylus is integrated into Nitro, the foundational infrastructure powering the entire Arbitrum stack, including Orbit, the framework for creating custom networks. This means the expanded support for programming languages isn’t limited to just Arbitrum applications; it also simplifies the development of custom networks. Finally, the upgrade could help democratize blockchain development by catering to non-crypto developers who are more accustomed to using the mentioned languages common in Web2 landscapes, thereby expanding the outreach of developing blockchain-based applications.
What You Should Pay Attention To

• Cosmos Liquidity to Get a Boost

On September 13, Cosmos is set to activate its next major upgrade, V12 Gala. The upgrade marks a pivotal moment for Cosmos as it transitions away from the current staking architecture in favor of Liquid Staking Derivatives (LSDs). Although LSDs have been available via 3rd parties, the upgrade introduces network innovation, which is expected to significantly enhance the overall security and validation structure. In addition, the innovation addresses the 21-day period by offering a practical solution.

Further, the upgrade allows immediate conversion of 25% of staked ATOM into a liquid asset usable across DeFi. Finally, LSDs will be integrated via a self-regulatory mechanism known as Liquid Staking Module (LSM), which compels validators to put up a bond and align their incentives with the protocol’s interests. While LSDs hold promise over boosting the liquidity of Cosmos, the innovation comes with drawbacks like smart-contract vulnerabilities, depegging risks, and the possibility of validator power concentration. Stride, a leading Cosmos-based staking provider, has introduced an interim solution that distributes delegated ATOM across an active set to deter malicious behavior.

Finally, the upgrade comes at a crucial time for Cosmos as many infrastructure projects are starting to incorporate different forms of interoperability, whether via interchain connectivity like Polygon’s CDKs and Optimism’s OpStack or through cross-chain standardized messaging systems like Layer Zero and Chainlink’s Cross Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), which are jeopardizing Cosmos’s market share. Thus, this upgrade has the potential to enhance user engagement by improving liquidity conditions for both developers and users, allowing Cosmos to remain competitive.

• Can Real-World Integrations Revive Solana?

Visa announced it’ll expand its stablecoin settlement capabilities to the Solana blockchain. In Collaboration with merchant service providers Worldpay and Nuvei, the payments giant will now allow merchants to send and receive USDC. This move is not only expected to improve fund transfers between banks and merchants but also has the potential to greatly reduce cross-border settlements through Solana’s economic network. Visa typically incurs processing costs ranging from 1.15% + $0.05 to 2.40% + $0.10, whereas Solana averages ~$0.000125, highlighting the potential for significant cost reduction.

Visa’s decision comes after Shopify partnered with Solana Pay, enabling USDC settlements on Solana. Such Integrations could revive the network’s on-chain activity, capitalizing on stablecoins’ dominant role within the crypto market, which is relevant in light of Solana’s declining daily active users. It’s also worth noting that Ethereum nearly matched Visa’s settlement volume in Q1 of 23 by processing $3.01T Vs $3.04T, emphasizing stablecoins’ significant impact on blockchain activity and their potential in helping Solana’s recovery while showcasing the role crypto’s railways in enhancing global payments.

Figure 3: Number of Active Addresses on Solana

Source: The Block Data

That said, the performance of the SOL token has not mirrored the network’s improved fundamentals. One factor casting doubt is that FTX holds a significant amount of SOL tokens, amounting to ~$1.16B, according to the latest court filings. This could constitute significant selling pressure on the market. In collaboration with Galaxy Digital, the FTX estate is proposing to cap the selling at 100M per week to avoid impacting the market. Thus, we believe Solana is a network to be monitored, as its increasing role in payments may contribute to its resurgence.

Figure 4: FTX Holdings

Source: Court Filing Submitted 9/11/2023

• Are Privacy Pools the Answer?

Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s founder, joined forces with Ameen Soleimani and Jacob Illum to collaborate with a team of security researchers from Chainalysis and various universities. Together, they unveiled a privacy-preserving protocol known as ”Privacy Pools, pooling transactions to obscure the identities of both senders and receivers. What sets Privacy Pools apart is that users can utilize cryptographic proofs based on Zero-Knowledge (ZK) technology to demonstrate that their funds are connected to a trustworthy group of deposits as a way of filtering out criminal activity.

This capability enables users to validate the legitimacy of their funds, thus generating an additional layer of trust that can be aligned with regulatory standards such as Anti-Money Laundering (AML) practices. Privacy Pools hold significant potential in addressing the inherent problem of excessive transparency in public blockchains. This innovative solution offers a promising approach, building upon the foundational principles of projects like Tornado Cash, to fulfill the growing demand for financial privacy within public ledgers. At the same time, it ensures ongoing compliance efforts to combat illicit funding and uphold regulatory standards – a crucial progression necessary for institutions to confidently start experimenting with Blockchain Technology in a compliant manner.

Bookmarks

• Our latest Monthly Review was featured in ETFmarknaden.

• Research Analyst Carlos Gonzales wrote an op-ed for Henley & Partners on crypto valuation as part of their Crypto Wealth Report series.

• We updated our stablecoin dashboard.

• We’ve also updated our Friend.tech dashboard, tracking its adoption and revenue metrics.

• Find out more about price movements in August in our latest Crypto of the Month. Read here.

Next Week’s Calendar

These are the top events we’re monitoring for next week.

Inflation data in the U.S. (CPI) is due on September 13.

• FTX court hearing on permission to begin selling assets is scheduled for September 13. Impact won’t be immediate if approved, court filings show.

• Polygon’s Dragon Fruit Upgrade, set to launch on September 16, would primarily update the scalability solution with the latest version of Ethereum’s programming language, Solidity.

Source: Forex Factory

Research Newsletter

Each week the 21Shares Research team will publish our data-driven insights into the crypto asset world through this newsletter. Please direct any comments, questions, and words of feedback to research@21shares.com

Disclaimer

The information provided does not constitute a prospectus or other offering material and does not contain or constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of any offer to buy securities in any jurisdiction. Some of the information published herein may contain forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties and that actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. The information contained herein may not be considered as economic, legal, tax or other advice and users are cautioned to base investment decisions or other decisions solely on the content hereof.

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Den nordiska ETF-marknaden november 2023

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Handeln på den nordiska ETF-marknaden november 2023 uppgick till cirka 9,1 mdkr (11,8 mdkr i oktober) varav cirka 8,6 mdkr omsattes i den svenska marknaden. Av den totala nordiska ETF-omsättningen var XACTs marknadsandel cirka 97%.

Handeln på den nordiska ETF-marknaden november 2023 uppgick till cirka 9,1 mdkr (11,8 mdkr i oktober) varav cirka 8,6 mdkr omsattes i den svenska marknaden. Av den totala nordiska ETF-omsättningen var XACTs marknadsandel cirka 97%.

Av den totala börsomsättningen i Sverige i november svarade ETF-handeln för cirka 2,2.%.

Den nordiska ETF-marknaden november 2023

Som vanligt var det XACT som hade störst marknadsandel på den nordiska ETF-marknaden i november 2023, med en marknadsdel på 96,78 procent. Finska Seligson & Co hade en marknadsandel om drygt 2,6 procent, vilket faktiskt gör att detta företag hade 100 procent av den finska ETF-marknaden. Resterande andel, 0,57 procent, svarade norska DNB OBX för. DNB är, sedan XACT lagt ned sina norska ETFer, den enda aktören som är verksam i Norge.

Statistik för den nordiska ETF-marknaden för perioden: 2023-11-01 – 2023-11-30

Antal handelsdagar: 22

Under november 2023 var den mest omsatta börshandlade fonden den traditionella XACT OMXS30 ESG (UCITS ETF).

Den näst mest omsatta börshandlade fonden hävstångsfonden Xact Bear x 2. Xact Bear x 2 tillsammans med Xact Bull x 2 handlas frekvent, och på kort sikt, vanligt förekommande i till exempel daytrading.

På fjärde plats hittar vi XACT Svenska Småbolag, en fond som sällan hamnar så pass högt på denna lista,

På femte plats finns Xact Norden Högutdelande, en ETF som oftast ingår i varenda utdelningsjägares portfölj, just för att denna börshandlade fond delar ut varje kvartal. Denna ETF lämnade årets fjärde utdelning under november vilket kan ha bidragit till det stora intresset.

Av de mest omsatta ETFerna på den nordiska ETF-marknaden oktober 2023 var elva av de tretton mest handlade börshandlade fonder emitterade av XACT. Utöver ovanstående ETFer finns även två börshandlade fonder från Lyxor, numera Amundi samt en från isländska Landsbréf, som handlas på den nordiska marknaden.

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WDGE ETF investerar i amerikanska utdelningsaktier och valutasäkras i euro

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WisdomTree US Quality Dividend Growth UCITS ETF - EUR Hedged Acc (WDGE ETF) försöker spåra WisdomTree US Quality Dividend Growth (EUR Hedged)-index. WisdomTree US Quality Dividend Growth (EUR Hedged)-index spårar utdelningsbetalande amerikanska aktier med tillväxtegenskaper. Aktierna som ingår filtreras enligt ESG-kriterier (miljö, social och bolagsstyrning). Indexet är ett fundamentalt viktat index. Valuta säkrad till euro (EUR).

WisdomTree US Quality Dividend Growth UCITS ETF – EUR Hedged Acc (WDGE ETF) försöker spåra WisdomTree US Quality Dividend Growth (EUR Hedged)-index. WisdomTree US Quality Dividend Growth (EUR Hedged)-index spårar utdelningsbetalande amerikanska aktier med tillväxtegenskaper. Aktierna som ingår filtreras enligt ESG-kriterier (miljö, social och bolagsstyrning). Indexet är ett fundamentalt viktat index. Valutasäkrad till euro (EUR).

Denna börshandlade fond har en TER (total cost ratio) som uppgår till 0,35 % p.a. WisdomTree US Quality Dividend Growth UCITS ETF – EUR Hedged Acc är den enda ETF som följer WisdomTree US Quality Dividend Growth (EUR Hedged) index. ETFen replikerar det underliggande indexets prestanda genom samplingsteknik (köper ett urval av de mest relevanta indexbeståndsdelarna). Utdelningarna i ETFen ackumuleras och återinvesteras i den börshandlade fonden.

WisdomTree US Quality Dividend Growth UCITS ETF – EUR Hedged Acc är en mycket liten ETF med tillgångar på 0 miljoner GBP under förvaltning. ETF lanserades den 31 juli 2023 och har sin hemvist i Irland.

WisdomTree US Quality Dividend Growth UCITS ETF – EUR Hedged Acc

Fonden strävar efter att spåra pris- och avkastningsutvecklingen, före avgifter och utgifter, för WisdomTree U.S. Quality Dividend Growth UCITS Index. Andelsklassen strävar efter att leverera exponering mot indexet samtidigt som den neutraliserar exponeringen mot fluktuationer i euron genom att implementera en valutasäkringsmetod.

Varför investera?

• Få tillgång till högkvalitativa, utdelningsväxande företag från globala utvecklade marknader som uppfyller WisdomTrees ESG-kriterier (miljö, social och styrning)

• Dra nytta av riskscreening för att utesluta företag baserat på egenutvecklade kvalitet och momentum

Direktavkastning och inkomstpotential kan vara högre än ett börsvärdesindex

• Används som ett komplement till globala högavkastande utdelningsstrategier eller som en ersättning för aktiva tillväxt- eller kvalitetsstrategier med stora bolag

• Valutavolatiliteten minimeras genom användning av valutaterminskontrakt

• ETFen är fysiskt uppbackad och UCITS-kompatibel

Potentiella risker?

• Utdelningsviktade index kan prestera annorlunda än ett börsvärdevägt index

• En investering i aktier kan uppleva hög volatilitet och bör betraktas som en långsiktig investering

Direktavkastning och inkomstpotential kan vara högre än ett börsvärdesindex

• Investeringsrisken kan vara koncentrerad till specifika sektorer, länder, företag eller valutor

• Avkastningen av valutaterminskontrakten, som rullas på månadsbasis, är utformade för att minimera valutafluktuationer men kanske inte perfekt kompenserar de faktiska fluktuationerna.

Denna lista täcker inte alla risker – ytterligare risker beskrivs i KIID och prospekt

Handla WDGE ETF

WisdomTree US Quality Dividend Growth UCITS ETF – EUR Hedged Acc (WDGE ETF) är en europeisk börshandlad fond. Denna fond handlas på flera olika börser, till exempel Deutsche Boerse Xetra och Borsa Italiana. Av den anledningen förekommer olika kortnamn på samma börshandlade fond.

Det betyder att det går att handla andelar i denna ETF genom de flesta svenska banker och Internetmäklare, till exempel DEGIRONordnet, Aktieinvest och Avanza.

Börsnoteringar

BörsValutaKortnamn
Borsa ItalianaEURDGRE
XETRAEURWDGE

Största innehav

NamnKortnamnLandVikt %
1. Microsoft CorpMSFT USUS8.49%
2. Apple IncAAPL UQUS6.12%
3. Johnson & JohnsonJNJ UNUS3.98%
4. Broadcom IncAVGO USUS3.57%
5. Procter & Gamble Co/ThePG USUS3.16%
6. Home Depot IncHD UNUS2.78%
7. Coca-Cola Co/TheKO UNUS2.54%
8. Merck & Co Inc/NJMRK UNUS2.50%
9. Cisco Systems IncCSCO UQUS2.34%
10. Walmart IncWMT USUS2.24%

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Bitcoin Expands Utility and All Eyes on Polygon: What Happened in Crypto in November?

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Bitcoin Expands Utility Markets flourished in November. The total crypto market cap increased by ~13%, month-over-month, with increased institutional interest in this burgeoning asset class.

Markets flourished in November. The total crypto market cap increased by ~13%, month-over-month, with increased institutional interest in this burgeoning asset class. Stocks also had a comeback last month, with S&P 500 and Nasdaq recording their best performance since July 2022. In line with the market sentiment, Europe’s inflation dropped more than expected to 2.4% in November, down from 2.9% in October, the lowest over two years. The cost of living has eased with plummeting energy prices, but higher interest rates limit the economy’s ability to grow. However, with a cooling inflation towards the ECB’s 2% target, markets are hopeful that interest rates will stop by April 2024. In the U.S., inflation data is coming out on December 12, with indicators like the personal consumption expenditures price index (+0.2% month-over-month) already pointing towards cooling inflation and potential interest rate cuts in 2024.

Ahead of the historically calm holiday season, Bitcoin and Ethereum increased by 9.31% and 13.38% in November, respectively, as shown in Figure 1. The biggest winners of last month were Solana (+69.28%), Avalanche (+86.72%), and Uniswap (+42.34%). Additionally, in this report, we’ll explore what Argentina’s new president could mean for South America’s troubled, second-largest economy. We’ll also discuss Bitcoin’s expanding utility and how it reflects on its fundamental metrics; exchanges looking at Polygon for deploying their own custom blockchain; Avalanche aiming to position itself as the platform for financial institutions; and Lido decentralizing its node-infrastructure operations.

Figure 1: Price and TVL Development of Major Crypto Sectors in November 2023

Source: 21shares, CoinGecko, DeFi Llama. Data as of November 30, 2023.

5 Trends to Remember from November

Argentina’s New President

Bitcoin rallied back to pass the $37K mark as Argentina elected a pro-Bitcoin, right-wing president, Javier Milei. Although the president-elect made no promise to make Bitcoin a legal tender, the volumes indicate some hope that Milei’s appointment could mean economic revitalization for South America’s second-largest economy with the help of Bitcoin, a la El Salvador. El Salvador’s GDP is expected to reach $33.4B by the end of 2023, a ~20% increase from when it declared Bitcoin as a legal tender in 2021. With an inflation rate exceeding 140% in 2023, Argentina’s GDP growth has been sluggish, averaging 0.51% from 1993 until 2023, as shown in Figure 2.

“The central bank is a scam. What Bitcoin represents is the return of money to its original creator, the private sector,” Argentina’s president-elect said as part of his presidential campaign, vowing to shut down the central bank, replacing the Argentine peso with the US dollar, and embracing decentralized finance. Samson Mow, CEO of JAN3 (a startup scaling Bitcoin) and an advisor to El Salvador during its adoption of Bitcoin, has said he’s planning to meet with Argentina’s new president. Indicators of whether Milei’s plan will work in Argentina’s favor are yet to be discovered.

Figure 2: Argentina’s GDP Growth Rate

Source: Trading Economics

Bitcoin Fees Skyrocket While the Network Expands its Utility

Bitcoin’s fees have increased by 593.94% over the past month, mostly driven by Ordinals, a protocol that allows users to inscribe digital assets akin to nonfungible tokens. Ordinals have had the most inscriptions since May 2023, as shown in Figure 3. With the backdrop of Ordinals’ success rate, Bitcoin developer Robin Linus introduced BitStream, a decentralized file hosting on Bitcoin, where users can upload unique files, enabling anyone to monetize their excess bandwidth and data storage capacities without relying on trust or heavy-weight cryptography. BitStream’s pay-to-download approach allows the server to charge for each download, ensuring that the revenue scales with the popularity and demand for the media, creating a balanced and profitable ecosystem. This development is another expansion of Bitcoin’s burgeoning use cases and would onboard a diversified audience. With BitStream’s promise, Bitcoin can capture the total addressable market of data storage, which stands at at least $230B. Although BitStream’s pricing scheme is not clear yet, decentralized data storage solutions, like Filecoin and Arweave, have been proven to be a lot cheaper than Google Cloud, Amazon S3, and its other centralized peers, varying by usage, as showcased extensively in the tenth issue of our State of Crypto, which you can find here.

Figure 3: Fees from Ordinals and non-Ordinals (%)

Source: 21.co on Dune Analytics

Exchanges Looking at Polygon for Deploying their Own Custom Blockchain

Kraken and OKX are strategically eyeing the Polygon network, aiming to capitalize on its CDK framework for constructing their individual blockchains. This strategic move aligns with Coinbase Base’s remarkable success, amassing approximately $5.4M in profit since inception, translating to an annualized profit of around $20 million. Boasting 9M and 50M monthly users, respectively, Kraken and OKX processed a daily average of ~$1B in 2023 and would potentially foster substantial growth within the on-chain ecosystem. Both moves would contribute to Ethereum’s revenue via anchored networks paying security costs to settle their transactions. Additionally, leveraging CDK modules proves advantageous for Polygon, empowering network stakers to bond POL and enhance earnings amid escalating network usage — a positive demand loop for the POL token within the new Polygon 2.0 staking layer design. Notably, Polygon’s efforts to onboard diverse companies are gaining traction, surpassing BNB and Ethereum in supporting new applications (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Total number of new applications on the five leading Smart-Contract Platforms

Source: Artemis

Avalanche Aiming to Position themselves as the Platform for Financial Institutions

For instance, Citibank and Fidelity unveiled a foreign FX exchange solution operating on a private permissioned Avalanche Subnet to enable instantaneous settlement and cost-effectiveness. Further, JP Morgan and Apollo Global collaborated on an asset-agnostic portfolio management solution. The latter empowers fund managers to tokenize portfolios using JP Morgan’s ONYX and the Oasis Pro asset-issuing platform while leveraging multiple crypto interoperability protocols to seamlessly exchange and rebalance portfolios across various blockchains, bridging EVM and non-EVM, private and public chains.

The experiment demonstrated the power of smart contracts in automating over +3000 operational steps and reduced costs by almost 20% via programmatic settlement despite involving multiple parties in the asset management process. The experiment also demonstrated the benefits of interoperability, providing a holistic solution for managing traditional and alternative assets in a single discretionary portfolio spanning multiple asset classes.

Both initiatives underscore Avalanche’s unique value proposition, positioning it as a standout choice among smart contract platforms. The Evergreen subnets, designed for compliance with KYC and AML checks, offer native privacy and customizability, providing enterprise-level blockchain support without the constraints of a siloed private blockchain system. The model also facilitates a pioneering connection between traditional finance’s proprietary software and native crypto railways, potentially fostering synergies and accelerating ecosystem integration. Ultimately, despite the initial surge in Avalanche’s transaction volume following these integrations, reaching its peak since inception, as illustrated in Figure 5, the network activity sharply declined after that. This underscores the imperative for the network to intensify its initiatives in onboarding high-demand projects as subnets.

Figure 5: Total number of transactions on the Avalanche Network

Source: Subnets.avax.network

Lido is Decentralizing its Node-Infrastructure Operations

Lido DAO, the largest non-custodial staking provider, approved two proposals to adopt Distributed Validation Technology. DVT refers to a mechanism spreading out key management and signing responsibilities across multiple parties to reduce single points of failure and increase validator resiliency. That said, Lido will integrate DVT modules with Obol and SSV protocols, which is set to introduce a more diverse profile of node operators beyond its current list of 38 validators and help address a key concern around centralization. This is a key development as Lido stirred a debate since it’s close to accounting for a third of staked ETH (see Figure 6); it could have undesired influence over the network’s validation process and block production. This implementation is crucial to ensure the diversification of the protocol’s node operators and increase their reliability in case of validator failures or censorship attempts. Conversely, SSV and Obol networks represent new primitives, so they must remain vigilant regarding any unforeseen vulnerabilities they could introduce.

Figure 6: Dominance of Entities Staking on the Ethereum Network

Source: 21co at Dune

What to Expect

Binance, CZ, and the softening headwinds leaning into 2024

On November 21, Binance pleaded guilty and agreed to pay over $4 billion to resolve the Justice Department’s investigation into violations related to the Bank Secrecy Act, failure to register as a money-transmitting business, and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Binance’s founder and CEO, Changpeng Zhao (commonly known as CZ), also pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program and has resigned as CEO of Binance. The world’s biggest crypto exchange by assets under management has experienced $47.3B in outflows and $44.6B in inflows in November, as seen in our Dune Analytics dashboard tracking Binance’s proof of reserves.

What should we expect in 2024? CZ could face up to 18 months in prison after his sentencing in February 2024. Binance’s new CEO Richard Teng, has outlined his vision to continue building on Web 3, with a special focus on decentralized applications that empower data ownership. With Binance’s Greenfield venturing into decentralized file storage, we can expect more investment in this space to diversify revenue streams and return Binance’s brand image to industry leadership. One catalyst for that is the fact that Teng is a member of the World Economic Forum, which can yield further institutional interest in the broader industry of decentralized finance. One challenge remains untackled: Binance’s dwindling market share, especially in derivatives. In the first weeks of November, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) toppled Binance in Bitcoin futures following speculation around a spot Bitcoin ETF in the U.S.

Figure 7: Binance Asset Flow

Source: 21.co on Dune Analytics

Interoperability Protocols are Rethinking Strategies to Remain Relevant

Polkadot, for instance, is replacing its long-standing parachain auction system with Bulk Coretime and Instantaneous Coretime. For context, the existing auction system is a model for applications to enter into a competitive bidding war to lease a slot on the Polkadot network as an interconnected network known as a parachain. That said, the new two models would introduce either a pay-as-you-go model where developers rent blockspace as needed for their projects or alternatively use the conventional lease model with shorter rent periods that make it more cost-effective for projects.

Polkadot’s imminent 2.0 system redesign, slated for the second half of 2024, incorporates the aforementioned modules and introduces a trustless bridge to link with the Ethereum ecosystem. These enhancements, addressing the network’s waning interoperability against competitors like Chainlink, are pivotal for Polkadot to sustain its relevance and fortify its accessibility towards more vibrant ecosystems such as Ethereum.

On the Cosmos side, the community approved a proposal to decrease the network’s inflation from 14% to 10%, reducing the staking APR from 19% to 13.4%. While the proposal addresses the challenge of ATOM’s high inflation, which dilutes the token’s value, it highlights a utility conundrum. ATOM lacks a clear role in facilitating access to the Interchain security economy powered by its InterBlockchain Communication protocol (IBC). This absence of a distinct value proposition beyond its attractive yield may prompt smaller validators to unstake, potentially leading to increased centralization and compromising IBC security.

That said, the discord led the founder to propose a hard fork of the network into ATOM1, as he argues the inflation rate cut compromises the security of the Cosmos hub due to the network’s interoperability design, which is more crucial than elevating ATOM as a sound medium of exchange currency akin to ETH. Further, Cosmos’s interoperability technology has also been exported to the Avalanche network on testnet, a significant milestone marking the first integration outside the Cosmos ecosystem and bringing crypto closer to a trustless multichain future. Finally, Cosmos is experiencing heightened chain activity, likely driven by the launch of dYdX and USDC on Cosmos and evidenced by increased fees and active users, reaching a YTD peak, as illustrated in Figure 8, which we’ll be closely monitoring over the next few weeks.

Figure 8: Growth of Active Users and Fees on the Cosmos network

Source: Token Terminal

Bookmarks

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Next Month’s Calendar

These are the top events we’re closely monitoring in December.

Source: 21shares, Forex Factory, CoinMarketCal

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Each week the 21Shares Research team will publish our data-driven insights into the crypto asset world through this newsletter. Please direct any comments, questions, and words of feedback to research@21shares.com

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The information provided does not constitute a prospectus or other offering material and does not contain or constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of any offer to buy securities in any jurisdiction. Some of the information published herein may contain forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties and that actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors. The information contained herein may not be considered as economic, legal, tax or other advice and users are cautioned to base investment decisions or other decisions solely on the content hereof.

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