🚀Weekly Recap: BTC At New All-Time Highs, ETH At $4K

Bulls continued to control the crypto markets this week, with BTC surging 22% to trade 6% shy of its record high, ETH gaining 17.5%, SOL spiking 30%, and DOGE rallying 68% in the past seven days. However, the flurry of activity disrupted the operations of popular centralized platforms, with Coinbase, CoinGecko, and Crypto.com suffering outages as digital assets peaked.

The market momentum was fueled by record action surrounding spot Bitcoin ETFs. Both daily trade volume and inflows to the fund posted new all-time highs this week, with more than $8 billion worth of shares traded and inflows exceeding $637 million on Feb. 28.

The combined market cap and total value locked in DeFi projects also pushed into multi-year highs, with the capitalization of DeFi tokens breaking above $100 billion and TVL surpassing $160 billion for the first time since May 2022. The TVL of Bitcoin-based DeFi projects rallied to a new high of almost $2.5B amid a surge of activity surrounding Merlin Chain, an upstart Layer 2 accounting for 72.5% of Bitcoin’s TVL.

The price action inspired Kyle Davies and Su Zhu, the disgraced founders of the insolvent VC firm, Three Arrows Capital, to resurface on Twitter to espouse their “Supercycle” theory once again.

Restaking remains the hottest narrative in DeFi, with EigenLayer’s TVL growing to $10B while liquid restaking tokens (LRTs) broke above $5B for the first time. MEV Capital, an asset manager serving institutional investors, discussed its LRT farming strategies in an exclusive interview with The Defiant.

EtherFi, the top LRT protocol accounting for 36% of the sector’s TVL, closed a $23M Series A funding round led by Bullish Capital and CoinFund.

Blast the controversial Ethereum L2, completed its long-awaited mainnet launch on Feb. 29. Despite amassing more than $2B in TVL since deploying a one-way deposit contract in November, three-quarters of assets have since exited the network.

Plus, Aave’s decentralized social protocol Lens is now permissionless, Uniswap is rolling out new features including a browser extension and limit orders, Robinhood Wallet users can now execute trades on Arbitrum-based decentralized exchanges, the market cap of DePIN projects is up 150% in six months, and Telegram announced a new revenue-sharing program that will distribute funds via the TON token

And don't miss our podcast with Avery Ching, the co-founder and CTO of Aptos, to learn more about the roadmap of the Layer 1 network developed by former Facebook engineers.

Enjoy!

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Karpatkey is the leader in active on-chain, non-custodial asset management, having developed a strong network of DAO treasuries worth $1.7b+ with dedicated finance working groups for GnosisDAO, Balancer, ENS, COW, Lido, and Aave. We’ve also contributed to Uniswap, Spark/MakerDAO, Safe, and Arbitrum by establishing delegate platforms and conducting research.

ALPHA INTEL

Aptos Liquid Staking Guide

Our resident DeFi degens guide you through liquid restaking on Aptos — which is offering higher returns following a recent surge in the price of APT, and could also ensure you qualify for airdrops from top Aptos ecosystem projects.

Plus, we recap all of the hottest yields from across DeFi and web3!

PODCAST & INTERVIEWS

How USDe Pays The Highest Stablecoin Yield | Ethena Founder & CEO, Guy Young

Cami Russo was joined by Guy Young, the founder and CEO of Ethena Labs, the team behind the controversial USDe stablecoin, which purports to offer yields exceeding 20% through short funding rates and Ether staking rewards.

The conversation thoroughly explore the mechanics and intricacies of Ethena and its “internet bond,” including use-cases and risks associated with USDe, and Ethena’s projections for revenue generation.

PODCAST & INTERVIEWS

Game Theory, Market Cycles, Investment Mentality, Mantle Network with Jordi Alexander

The Defiant spoke with Jordi Alexander, the founder of the digital asset-focused venture capital firm, Selini Capital, to get his take of game theory and risk management in the crypto markets. Alexander also shares his thesis for backing the Ethereum Layer 2, Mantle Network, and shares insights from his experience as a professional poker player.

VIDEO

How Solana Is Winning in the Crypto Bull Market

While Bitcoin and Ethereum have captured the imaginations of traders in recent months, Solana was the top performing top 10 cryptocurrency by market cap of 2023. In this video, we dive into the data showcasing what has driven Solana’s meteoric performance.

VIDEO

Quick Airdrop Tips on Blast L2 | Tutorial

We walk you through ecosystem of Blast, the freshly launched Layer 2 that already ranks as the third-largest L2 by TVL, so that you can qualify for any potential airdrop coming from the top projects building on Blast!

Friday

• Retail Investors Are Cautiously Returning To Crypto According to K33 Research, 90-day website traffic to crypto exchanges increased by 45% in the past quarter. The number of visitors to data aggregation sites such as Coingecko and CoinMarketCap is also up 66%.
• Injective Launches inEVM Compatible with Solana and Cosmos Injective Protocol has launched an EM-compatible rollup billed as driving cross-chain interoperability between Ethereum, Cosmos, and Solana.
• Bitcoin Smashes Through All-Time High, Tops $70,000 BTC has been skyrocketing off the back of spot Bitcoin ETF flows to break into new all-time highs for the second time in just a few days. ETH also broke above $4,000 for the first time since 2011 amid the bullish momentum.
• Crypto Markets Reverse Sharply After Bitcoin Tags $70,000 BTC broke its previous record high and traded above $70,000 early Friday. However, the new highs were short-lived, with Bitcoin slumping to $67,045 in a matter of minutes.
• Daily DApp Users Surges To New High In February As DEX Activity Soars Daily dApp users surged to a new all-time high for the second consecutive month with 6.7 million wallets active each day in February. DEXes enjoyed a jump in users amid the recent crypto market rally.
• Aptos Removes Bridge Limits In Cross-Chain Push Aptos removed the daily transaction limit on its Stargate bridge in a bid to bolster its cross-chain interoperability with other networks. Aptos’s TVL is up more than 800% in five months.
• Memecoins Outperform as Crypto Does its Best to Button Up After Bitcoin ETF The combined capitalization of memecoins rallied 77% in seven days, with five of the six largest meme tokens posting triple-digit gains.

Thursday

• SOL Surges As Pantera Looks To Buy Tokens From FTX Estate Pantera aims to raise $250M for a new fund that could purchase discounted SOL held by the defunct FTX exchange.
• Sushi Community Decries Core Team Deleting Governance Forum and Ignoring Snapshots The controversial core team behind Sushi is under fire for allegedly disregarding the will of DAO-based governance and refusing to disclose team salary and bonuses.
• Floor Prices Of Top NFT Collections Crash As Cryptocurrencies Rally Many leading NFT collections are getting left behind amid the recent digital asset rally, with five of the top six collections by volume crashing between 20% and 37% against ETH in seven days.
• Astar Launches zkEVM Mainnet Boasting Ethereum Interoperability Via Polygon AggLayer The Astar zkEVM is now live on mainnet, boasting interoperability with Ethereum and Polygon thanks to a Polygon AggLayer integration.
• SEC Commissioners Criticize Regulator Over ShapeShift Securities Case Two SEC commissioners have taken aim at the agency’s settlement with the ShapeShift exchange, criticizing its term for poor transparency and describing the deal as indicative of the SEC’s “poorly conceived” digital asset policy.

Wednesday

• Farcaster Loses 60% of Users In One Month As Interest In SocialFi Wanes The number of daily active users on Farcaster is down 60% to 16,000 from a peak of over 40,000 in early February. However, February’s high followed 1,600% growth in under one month.
• Wormhole Releases Airdrop Eligibility Tool Wormhole allocated more than 600 million W tokens to community members and 397,704 wallets that interacted with Wormhole-connected applications before Feb. 6.
• Ethereum Posts New 2024 High As Bitcoin Rebounds From Violent Pullback The price of Ether tagged $3,900 for the first time since January 2021 on March 6, with investors turning their attention to the No. 2 cryptocurrency by market cap after Bitcoin briefly tumbled from a new all-time high.
• Fantom Foundation To Pursue Multichain's Liquidation After Winning Default Judgment The Fantom Foundation plans to seek the liquidation of the Multichain Foundation after winning a default judgment against the organization in Singapore.
• Arbitrum Nova Dominates L2 Throughput Amid DePIN and GameFi Surge Nova has consistently processed more than 44 transactions per second for the last 10 days straight, accounting for between 30% and 50% of the combined throughput of Layer 2 networks.
• DeFi Traders Increase Leverage As Markets Rally Stablecoin borrowing rates have climbed to double digits on major lending protocols, with outstanding loans growing 20% to $8 billion in 2024.

Tuesday

• SEC Delays Spot Ether ETF Applications From BlackRock and Fidelity The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has delayed the deadline for its verdict on the pending spot Ether ETF applications from BlackRock and Fidelity, the firms behind the two largest spot Bitcoin ETFs.
• SafeDAO Prepares To Vote On New Token Utility and Move Towards SAFE Unlocks Safe, a leading smart account infrastructure provider, is moving to introduce new utility for its SAFE token and advance the project’s roadmap towards progressive decentralization.
• Bitcoin Hovers Below All-Time High Amid Spot ETF Frenzy Bitcoin pulled back after briefly climbing above its November 2021 all-time high. The milestone marks a gain of 156.5% for BTC in almost five months, with BTC rebounding from a low of $26,729 on Oct. 12

Monday

• Rare Alien CryptoPunk Sells for $16 Million The owner of one of nine alien-themed CryptoPunks accepted an offer of 4,500 ETH from an anonymous buyer in the second-most valuable CryptoPunk trade on record.
• Memecoins Go Parabolic As Bitcoin Crosses $66,000 Memecoins are popping off, with BONK gaining 60%, PEPE gaining 50%, and SHIB jumping 33% in 24 hours.
• Active Users On Ethereum Layer 2s Surges To New Highs Roughly 3.5 million users were active on Ethereum Layer 2s over the past seven days. The number of weekly active Layer 2 users has now grown by 788% since the start of 2023.
• Bitcoin Funds Climb Commodity ETF Rankings As BlackRock’s AUM Surpasses $10B Newly launched spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds now account for four of the 11 largest spot commodity ETFs less than two months after their launch.