Bullish Insights – Weekly Market Recap

The Bullish Insights Weekly Market Recap includes curated industry news and analysis from the Bullish team for the week of January 2, 2023.

Bullish Exchange

This week’s peak trade volume (24h): January 5, 2023, $404,604,324 (24,052 BTC)

Crypto market highlights

• Uniswap has maintained dominance in trading volume MoM among top exchanges in the past 365 days with 43% in market share, followed by dYdX with 35% as of January 2023. Over the year, GMX has increased its % share while PancakeSwap and Trader Joe have seen a reduction in trade volume market dominance.
• As of January 3, 2023 there are 15.9mn ETH tokens staked which is equivalent to ~$19.3bn. Protocol Lido Finance leads with 4,642,432 ETH staked, followed by Kraken with 893,056 ETH staked. Ethereum’s Shanghai upgrade is due to take place in March 2023, which should see the proposal EIP-4895 unlocking staked ETH from the beacon chain. The total TVL of 15.9 million ETH, might flood the market should stakers decide to sell.
• While Ethereum remains the dominant chain in NFT trading volume, Polygon has seen a big jump in market share from a mere 0.5% two weeks ago, to currently 9.6%. A catalyst to this has been the launch of Donald Trump's NFT collection on the chain with the L1 seeing a spike of over 330,000 users a short time frame of a week earlier in December.
• In terms of investments in blockchain by country, the US still leads according to The Block Research in the amount of funds raised and deal count. The US invested in as many as 2,526 projects with a $38.6bn value. Singapore ranks second in deal count with 566 projects, followed by the UK with 466. In dollar terms, the UK came in second investing $5.0bn with Singapore in third place with $3.9bn.

Macro market highlights

• The global equity market closed on the worst year in over a decade with US stocks ending the year on a lower note. The S&P 500 fell by 0.3%, the Dow dipped by 0.2%, and the Nasdaq Composite retreated by 0.1%
• US equity markets closed lower in the New Year's first trading session. The S&P 500 fell by 0.4%, the Dow saw little change, and the Nasdaq Composite retreated by 0.8%.
• US equity markets rebounded in Wednesday's trading session after economic data indicated manufacturing activity has dipped to levels last seen in May 2020. The S&P 500 rose by 0.8%, the Dow climbed by 0.4%, and the Nasdaq Composite advanced by 0.7%.
• US equity markets closed lower in Thursday's trading session as labor market data came in stronger than expected. The S&P 500 fell by 1.2%, the Dow dipped by 1.0% and the Nasdaq Composite retreated by 1.5%.

Other updates

• Cameron Winklevoss issued an open letter to DCG Barry Silbert on behalf of “340,000 earn users” claiming that it's been 47 days since Genesis halted withdrawals and that Gemini has engaged with DCG for the past six weeks regarding the alleged $900mn owed. Winklevoss pointed at DCG owing Genesis $1.675bn in the open letter and asked for a public commitment by Silbert to resolve the issue by January 8th, 2023. Silbert responded in a tweet that 1) “DCG did not borrow $1.675 billion from Genesis” 2) they have not missed interest payments to Genesis with the next maturity due May 2023 and 3) a proposal by DCG was sent to Genesis and Gemini advisors on December 29, without a response.
• SBF pleads not guilty to criminal charges with the former CEO of FTX to face trial in October later this year. (Source: Bloomberg)
• As concern around Greyscale’s parent company DCG mounts, the Greyscale ETH trust is now trading at record discounts of 60% (Source: COINTELEGRAPH)
• Security firm Dedaub identified a vulnerability on Uniswap where third party code can re-enter the Universal Router and take user funds that were temporarily in the contract.
• The DOJ is freezing $450mn worth of Robinhood shares after BlockFi and a FTX creditor allegedly attempted to seize control of the assets. (Source: The Block)
• The SEC has filed an objection to Binance US and its proposal to buy out bankrupt firm Voyager after the regulators questioned whether or not the exchange would be able to “consummate a transaction of this magnitude.” (Source: CoinDesk)
• Coinbase will pay a settlement fine of $100mn after being charged by regulators for its lack of KYC. (Source: NYT)
• DCG has announced that they will be closing HQ, the firm’s wealth-management division. The closure is expected to take place towards the end of January with an alleged $3.5bn in AUM. (Source: CoinDesk)
• 3AC’s Su Zhu and Kyle Davies have been served a subpoena by a Singapore court order via Twitter.

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