NFT Mania

GB Market Commentary 31/08/2021

by Will Morris

Bitcoin registered a series of lower price highs over the weekend, with the cryptocurrency remaining stuck in a tight range between a $46k support and $50k resistance. Bitcoin is just up over the past 24 hours currently trading at around $47,800. Some analysts feel the longer this persists the more likely we are to see a downtrend in Bitcoin, however, most of the sentiment remains positive in the medium- long term, with most remaining very bullish. Historically, September has not been a good month for Bitcoin. According to data from Bybt, since 2013, Bitcoin has averaged a loss of almost 6% across every month, with the largest increase recorded being just over 6%. Ethereum has rallied strongly and is up 7.6%, with altcoins continuing to surge. The top three performers over the past 24 hours are Arweave (61%), Celo (40%) and Harmony (30%).

Mike Belshe CEO of BitGo, said in a CNBC interview, that there has been a dramatic shift in cryptocurrencies integrating with traditional financial markets, such as asset managers, hedge funds and fund managers. As well as institutions increasingly looking to use blockchain technology to enhance their current product offerings. Data from Chainanlysis supports Belshe’s statement, in Q3 of 2020 around 50% of total volume was associated with professional traders with less than 10% coming from large institutions. The graph demonstrates how institutions have dominated the market in Q2 this year, with large institutions and institutions making up well over 60% of total trading volume.

The market for NFTs continues to explode, consistently hitting new milestones. Opensea hit a record of $1.4bn in weekly sales last week, according to data from DappRadar. The platform has generated almost $3bn in revenue across the whole of August – all with a team of 37 people. The platform is desperately looking to hire engineers and designers.

Numerous NFTs drops over the weekend led to exorbitant Ethereum fees. Mutant Ape NFTs registered $96m in sales across 10,000 Apes, in under one hour. Some fees on decentralized exchanges were over $1000 dollars, with some even reporting $8000 dollars for a single transaction. Since the implementation of The London Hard Fork fee averages have shot up, leading many to question the scalability of Ethereum if these issues persist. Perhaps unsurprisingly Ethereum alternatives offering smart contracts platforms such as Cardano, Avalanche and Solana, to name a few, continue to rocket. The move to ETH 2.0 has been in the pipeline for years and is set to launch in 2022, the upgrade is, in part, designed to solve the network’s fee problem. In the meantime, there could be huge opportunity for alternative projects to gain ground on the DeFi behemoth.

Axie Infinity has recorded $800 million in revenue in just 30 days. The online game allows players to generate profits through buying, breeding, and selling digital pets known as Axies, each time an Axie is purchased the revenue is placed in a community treasury vault that is governed by AXS holders.

Deutsche Telekom AG, the owner of mobile communications brand T-Mobile, has announced the firm is participating in the decentralized crypto economy. It has purchased a significant portion of Celo’s native asset. Utilizing Coinbase custody to stake the firm’s Celo holdings and allowing its users to operate infrastructure across the Celo ecosystem. Celo is up 109% over 7 days. Celo’s aim is to increase blockchain adoption among smartphone users to increase global financial inclusion. Fewer than 10% of those using DeFi applications live outside of developed countries, Celo’s mobile-first platform with over 1 million wallet addresses, across 113 countries presents a unique opportunity to bring the benefits of DeFi to anyone with a mobile phone.