Every month, our research team will present the cryptoassets of the month that increased or dropped in value by more than 15%. With a data-driven approach, we highlight the most important developments and events causing price movements.

Figure 1 – 30-Day Performance: Cryptoassets of the Month vs. Traditional Asset Classes

Data Source: 21Shares, CoinGecko, and Yahoo Finance, from 30-Apr-2023 to 31-May-2023 (Close Price)

Ethereum (ETH)

Ethereum traded down 0.57% over the past month. On May 15, Lido V2 went live, enabling users to withdraw their stETH (staked Ether). As of May 31, Lido has processed over 460k stETH withdrawals without voluntarily exiting a single validator. The protocol achieved this by implementing a buffer that accumulates ETH via daily deposits, partial withdrawals, and rewards. On the scaling front, Aztec revealed its “hybrid zk-rollup,” which will enable private smart contract execution, allowing users to protect their data and on-chain activity with programmable anonymity. Finally, Ethereum’s beacon chain suffered a technical issue that caused the network to stop finalizing blocks briefly.

Bitcoin (BTC)

Bitcoin traded down 7.21% over the past month. On May 17, Tether announced it would use 15% of its monthly net operating profits (i.e., the realized gains from T-bills and similar investments) to buy Bitcoin. The move aims to diversify Tether’s reserve surplus. In addition, it could have a considerable effect on BTC’s structural supply and demand dynamics, as it can offset a significant portion of the selling pressure we can expect from the 41k BTC that the U.S. government intends to sell this year. On another front, transaction fees on the Bitcoin network rose five-fold from $23.5 million in April to $124 million in May, primarily driven by Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens.

Decentraland (MANA)

Decentraland (MANA) traded down 15.08% over the past month as activity in the decentralized virtual world waned significantly. About 2,740 unique wallet addresses interacted with Decentraland throughout May, down ~26% from April. In other news, on May 18, Decentraland DAO introduced “Decentraland Studios,” a platform to connect creators who want to build experiences on the platform but lack the technical skills to do it. This move is part of a broader trend in crypto attempting to lower the barrier of entry for new developers and creators.

Stacks (STX)

Stack’s native token STX traded down 16.47% over the past month. On May 23, ALEX – the most prominent decentralized exchange (DEX) on the Stacks network – introduced permissionless listings for BRC-20 tokens. Despite the combined market cap of BRC-20 tokens reaching close to $500 million, they mainly consist of “meme coins” because Bitcoin does not natively support smart contracts, nor is it designed for fast performance. Thus, Bitcoin needs Layer 2s like Stacks to be usable at scale and open the segway for new use cases. Regarding ecosystem traction, the Stacks networks reached 65,000 deployed smart contracts on May 25.

Avalanche (AVAX)

Avalanche’s native token AVAX traded down 17.85% over the past month despite exciting ecosystem developments. On May 24, Ava Labs announced AvaCloud, a launchpad that allows businesses to deploy custom, fully managed blockchains using an intuitive no-code portal. In addition, the AvaCloud product suite includes managed validators with automated installation for enhanced security, comprehensive data tools, and chain interoperability between all blockchains on the Avalanche network. If successful, the release could mark a paradigm shift in enterprise adoption by removing the complexity of building a public or private blockchain.

Algorand (ALGO)

Algorand’s native token ALGO traded down 18.34% over the past month, underperforming the broader market. The Algorand Foundation recently released AlgoKit, an application that handles the developer environment setup, project generation, and deployment. AlgoKit aims to lower the barrier of entry for developers entering the ecosystem. In this regard, attracting new talent is an area Algorand has struggled with – the blockchain had only 38 full-time developers as of April 2023, according to Electric Capital. The network’s inability to attract new talent may be worrisome as developer engagement is an early and leading indicator of value creation.

Fantom (FTM)

Fantom’s native token FTM traded down 26.28% over the past month. On May 8, the Fantom Hackathon Q2 2023 opened for submissions with a prize pool of over $300k for innovative dApps built on the blockchain. On May 17, the Fantom Foundation released Fantom Academy, a series of lessons for developers, including Solidity basics, token standards, and more. Finally, regarding ecosystem traction, Fantom became available on The Graph, allowing developers to leverage subgraphs to load data on the Fantom blockchain securely and reliably into their dApps.

Strategies of the Month: March 2023

Every month, our research team will also present the best-performing strategies of the month in our product suite. With a data-driven approach, we highlight the most important developments and events causing price movements.

Figure 2: 30-Day Performance: Strategies of the Month vs. Traditional Asset Classes Data

Source: 21Shares Index Management Console and Yahoo Finance, from 28-Apr-2023 to 31-May-2023 (Close Price)

SBTC

The 21Shares Short Bitcoin ETP (SBTC) rose 5.72% over the past month. SBTC seeks to provide a -1x return to the performance of Bitcoin for a single day. Despite its strong fundamentals, BTC’s implied annual volatility has consistently been above 70% and has experienced drawdowns from its all-time high of more than 80%. By comparison, the annual volatility of the S&P 500 sits around 20%. As a result, sophisticated investors with stringent risk-management practices may benefit from tactical short-term inverse exposure to BTC.

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.

VettaFis energiforskningschef Stacey Morris talar med Thomas Warner från Proactive om den senaste utvecklingen inom midstream-sektorn och i Alerian Midstream Energy Dividend UCITS ETF (JMLP). Han säger att det varit ett fantastiskt kvartal för midstream sektorn.

Morris lyfter fram en stark resultatsäsong, med energiinfrastrukturföretag som överträffar förväntningarna och höjer vägledningen. Midstream-bolags stabila kassaflöden och solida utförande bidrog till deras motståndskraft och positiva utdelningstrender, vilket väckte intresse från allmänna investerare.

Hon pratar också om det senaste meddelandet om oljeproduktionsnedskärningar från Opec+, som hon tror kanske inte har en omedelbar inverkan på midstream, men som i slutändan kan visa sig gynnsam för sektorn.

Handla JMLP ETF

HANetf Alerian Midstream Energy Dividend UCITS ETF (JMLP ETF) är en europeisk börshandlad fond som handlas på bland annat London Stock Exchange och tyska Xetra.

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

Genomgången av en kärnenergiproposition orsakade en uppgång i aktiekurserna för företag inom uranindustrin. Cameco Corporation, det största företaget inom uranindustrin, ökade med 14 procent under de senaste tre handelssessionerna.

Som svar på antagandet av kärnkraftslagstiftningen har aktiekurserna för uranprospekterings-, utvinnings- och bearbetningsföretag stigit kraftigt.

Global X Uranium ETF (URA), en amerikansk ETF, har även skjutit i höjden med 10 procent under de senaste tre handelssessionerna, eftersom den amerikanska regeringen har för avsikt att öka investeringarna i branschen under de kommande åren.

Vad hände: Den 1 juni antog Senatens kommitté för miljö och offentliga arbeten (EPW) den bipartisan ADVANCE Act, en kärnenergiproposition avsedd att positionera USA som en global ledare inom kärnteknik och energi.

Lagstiftningen, som infördes av Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), ordförande Tom Carper (D-DE), Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), syftar till att uppmuntra utveckling och användning av ny kärnteknik.

Varför det är viktigt: ADVANCE Act har potential att främja marknadstillväxt och prestanda inom kärnenergisektorn, eftersom den ger Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) de verktyg och resurser som krävs för att underlätta en säker och konkurrenskraftig utveckling av kärnteknik i Förenta staterna.

Det kommer att minska regleringskostnaderna, stimulera nästa generations reaktorer och effektivisera tillståndsförfarandet för kärnkraftsanläggningar på brunfältsanläggningar.

Capito konstaterade, ”Från både nationell säkerhet och energioberoende synvinkel har USA allt att vinna genom att bli världsledande inom kärnenergi, och idag tog vi ett viktigt steg mot att uppnå det målet.”

Handla NUKL ETF

VanEck Uranium and Nuclear Technologies UCITS ETF A (NUKL ETF) är en europeisk börshandlad fond. Denna fond handlas på flera olika börser, till exempel Deutsche Boerse Xetra och London Stock Exchange. 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 DEGIRO, Nordnet och Avanza.

Handla U3O8 ETF

HANetf Sprott Uranium Miners UCITS ETF Acc (U3O8 ETF) är en europeisk börshandlad fond. Denna fond handlas på flera olika börser, till exempel Borsa Italiana, Deutsche Boerse Xetra och London Stock Exchange. 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 DEGIRO, Nordnet och Avanza.

Handla URNU ETF

Global X Uranium UCITS ETF USD Accumulating (URNU ETF) är en europeisk börshandlad fond. Denna fond handlas på flera olika börser, till exempel Borsa Italiana och Deutsche Boerse Xetra. 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 DEGIRO, Nordnet och Avanza.