⬇️Weekly Recap: Markets Pull Back From Giddy Highs

The markets suffered a heavy sell-off this past week, with Bitcoin tagging a low of $60,950, marking a 17% retracement from its all-time high posted during the previous week. Ethereum also slumped from its year-to-date high above $4,070 to test $3,070.

Despite a short-lived bounce from the low, the markets have since resumed their downward momentum, with BTC last changing hands for $64,300 and ETH trading at $3,340. According to CoinGecko, just 11 top 100 cryptocurrencies are closing the week with gains of more than 1%.

Toncoin (TON) was the week’s strongest-performing asset with a seven-day gain of 33%. TON’s bullish momentum was propelled by The Open Network announcing it will launch a more than $120 million incentives campaign rewarding developers and users interacting with the network from April 1.

The Open Network was among a handful of Layer 1 networks bucking the crypto meta-trend, with Fantom, Aptos, Sui, Internet Computer, and Sui also closing the week at a gain.

Despite the bearish momentum, it was a strong week for Ethereum and its broader ecosystem. Layer 2 adoption continued to rise following the activation of Ethereum’s long-awaited Dencun upgrade last week — which reduced Layer 2 transaction fees by more than 95% on several networks.

Base posted the strongest growth among major L2s, with network TVL testing $2 billion while its native DeFi TVL trends above $800 million. The impressive performance coincides with Base setting a new all-time high for on-chain trading volume at $394 million while Base hosted more than one million transactions daily over the past week.

Several L2s are also gearing up to ship major upgrades, with Starknet releasing its 2024 roadmap, Optimism launching faults proofs on testnet, and Polygon preparing for its Feijoa fork next month. Polygon also completed its Napoli fork this week, in addition to launching a $100 million GameFi fund with Immutable and River King Capital.

It was also a big week for Ethereum, with BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager boasting more than $9 trillion in assets under management, launching a tokenized fund on the network. Fidelity also updated its Ether ETF filing in a bid to stake ETH as part of the prospective fund.

However, it wasn’t exclusively bullish news for Ethereum, with a Github commit revealing that the Ethereum Foundation received a “voluntary enquiry” an unnamed state authority in recent weeks. However, analysts are torn as to whether the news is cause for concern.

Solana continues to make headlines as well, with transaction fees on the network jumping more than 1,000% since January amid unprecedented memecoin trading activity.

It was an eventful week for Solana memecoins, with the developers behind SELRF fessing up to accidentally burning $10 million worth of tokens for pre-sale contributors alongside LP funds. The image that became the logo for DogWifHat was also auctioned off as an NFT for a whopping $4 million.

And crypto lobbyists are gearing up to do battle with anti-crypto incumbents amid the 2024 U.S. election. “The 2024 election is the industry's coming out party,” said Cody Carbone, Chief Policy Officer for Digital Chamber, a crypto political advocacy group.

Plus, don’t miss our podcast with Kevin Owocki and Meg Lister from Gitcoin to learn about Gitcoin’s new roadmap.

Enjoy!

Help us make The Defiant even better! ✨ Share your feedback with our team 💚✊🏼

THANKING OUR NEWSLETTER SPONSORS
| NEWSLETTER CONTINUES BELOW |

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

Hyperlane Airdrop Guide

Our resident DeFi degens guide you through using Hyperlane, an emerging cross-chain interoperability layer expected to soon airdrop a native token to early adopters.

Plus, we provide technical analysis examining the recent performance of leading crypto assets!

PODCAST & INTERVIEWS

Funding the Future On-Chain: Empowering Open Source & Public Goods with Gitcoin

In this week’s podcast, Cami Russo sat down with Kevin Owocki, co-founder of Gitcoin, and Meg Lister, GM at Gitcoin Grants Labs, to discuss Gitcoin’s new roadmap. Gitcoin is a platform that connects developers with open-source projects for funding, collaboration, and building digital public goods.

The discussion touches on the origin story of Gitcoin, explores the project’s main funding mechanisms including quadratic and retroactive funding, and covers the benefits of on-chain funding over traditional financing mechanisms. Plus, we delve into Allo Protocol, an open-source protocol that enables groups to efficiently and transparently allocate pooled capital.

VIDEO

Solana Starter Guide in 2024

Solana is on fire, with memecoins posting meteoric gains and adoption sky-high across the board.

With Solana capturing the imaginations of investors and degens across web3, we dive into the hype, technicals, and fundamentals driving the bubbling momentum surrounding Solana and its broader ecosystem.

Friday

• DEX Screener To Review Moderation Policy Amid Flurry of Racist Memecoins “We'll be reviewing our token profile moderation policy in the coming days,” DEX Screener said, adding that it, “won't be the gatekeepers of what happens on-chain, but we're definitely not here to spread hate.”
• Polymarket Traders Expect Major Airdrops to Launch Before June 30 Polymarket, traders are betting that that Parcl, Swell Network, Tensor, and Ethena with airdrop tokens to early adopters by July at an implied probability of more than 90%.
• Worldcoin Addresses Privacy Concerns With New Personal Custody Feature Worldcoin announced that users can now store personal information on their mobile device, including images, metadata, and derived data.
• Base Activity Soars As TVL Crosses $900 Million Base’s on-chain trading volume also tagged an all-time high of $394 million on March 19 as memecoin traders descended on the network. The network posted more than 1 million transactions daily over the past week.
• Vitalik Says Ethereum Must Achieve Mainstream Adoption Within Five Years Buterin said Ethereum needs to prove it can deliver “real-world” decentralized use cases within five years, pointing to stablecoins and non-financial applications like social and identity as key opportunities for the network to reach new users.
• Top Ethereum L2s Ready To Ship Major Upgrades Starknet published its 2024 roadmap, Optimism deployed fault proofs on testnet, and Polygon is preparing to support EIP-4844.

Thursday

• AI Gaming Blockchain Nim Network Launches Airdrop Nim Network, an upcoming blockchain focused on AI gaming, has kicked off its Genesis Rolldrop, with 9% of the token’s supply going to eligible GameFi, NFT, and other web3 users.
• Crypto Advocates Prepare to Battle Washington's Anti-Crypto Army “The 2024 election is the industry's coming out party,” said Cody Carbone, Chief Policy Officer for Digital Chamber, a crypto political advocacy group.
• Daily Transaction Fees On Solana Spike 1,000% Since January Memecoin traders are flocking to Solana, high on the supply of DogWifHat, BOME, and Slerf, driving high fees alongside substantial network revenue.
• The Open Network Unveils $124M Incentives Program Amid Soaring Growth The TON Foundation is launching a program distributing nine figures worth of incentives to developers and users. The news comes after TON’s TVL doubled in four weeks and the price of Toncoin rallied 53% in a fortnight.
• Polygon Ships Napoli Upgrade Including First Rollup Improvement Proposal Polygon PoS chain is the first network to support RIP-7212, an upgrade incubated by RollCall that aims to improve interoperability with mainstream tech.
• Crypto Markets Rally Back Despite Sustained Spot Bitcoin ETF Outflows Digital assets bounced back with strength following a week of downward momentum, with more than half of the top 100 cryptocurrencies posting double-digit gains. However, spot Bitcoin ETFs shed $742 million in three days.

Wednesday

• Ethereum Foundation Receives Enquiry From Unidentified Government Entity A state authority has issued a “voluntary enquiry” to the Switzerland-based organization that oversees Ethereum's development. Analysts are divided on the implications of the news.
• Institutions Accumulate Bitcoin Despite Recent Market Volatility Whales continue to stockpile BTC despite Bitcoin pulling back from all-time highs, including Microstrategy and U.S.-based Registered Investment Advisers.
• Ethereum Layer 2 Adoption Trends High After Dencun Upgrade Ethereum’s highly-anticipated Dencun fork has bolstered Layer 2 adoption, with active addresses and transaction volume both trending near all-time highs following the upgrade.

Tuesday

• Immutable and Polygon Labs Unveil $100M Blockchain Gaming Fund Immutable, Polygon Labs, and King River Capital have teamed up to launch a $100 million “ecosystem-agnostic” web3 gaming fund.
• BlackRock Tokenizes Fund for Accredited Investors BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, is embracing the Ethereum blockchain to launch a fund on-chain.
• Layer 1s Outperform as Bitcoin Takes a Breather Solana, Aptos and Fantom are up more than 20% in the past week despite a broader market pullback.
• Renowned Crypto Trader GCR Acquires DogWifHat NFT for $4 Million The original picture that inspired the WIF memecoin was auctioned off as a non-fungible token (NFT). The token was purchased by GiganticRebirth, a well-known trader who predicted the collapse of Terra and its UST stablecoin.
• Nomura Subsidiary Laser Digital Tests USDC Transfer With Keyring Network Institutional crypto firm Keyring Network has facilitated the transfer of a wrapped version of the USDC stablecoin for Laser Digital, a subsidiary of Japanese banking giant Nomura.

Monday

• Thorchain Loans Spike With Weekly Flows Of $100M Lending on the decentralized liquidity protocol has skyrocketed more than threefold in the past week. The trend follows a surge in Thorchain’s trade volume and TVL.
• Fidelity Adds Staking To Spot Ethereum ETF Application Fidelity, the financial services giant managing $4.5 trillion in assets under management, has amended its spot Ethereum ETF application to include plans to participate in staking.
• Solana Memecoin SLERF Accidentally Burns $10 Million The SLERF team accidentally burned presale tokens that were to be airdropped to early backers alongside LP assets.
• FTM Rockets As Fantom’s Sonic Upgrade Looms FTM’s price and Fantom’s TVL have doubled since the start of February as the network gears up for the forthcoming launch of its Sonic upgrade.
• EtherFi Airdrop Announced For March 18 EtherFi, the leading liquid restaking protocol, announced that its highly-anticipated airdrop will take place on March 18.