ETH investigation threatens spot ETF approval
ETH investigation threatens spot ETF approval
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Welcome to Stay on-chain! This week was a rollercoaster, BTC dumped over 15% and it seemed all over — yet, we’re back again. Solana pre-sales raised over $122M for dubious projects and the Ethereum foundation is under investigation, while Blackrock doubles down on crypto creating a $100M on-chain. Sit back, relax, and let us sift through the noise.
By the way, make sure to join us on Telegram group 👾
Here we go, the first market pullback. This week, the market has been mostly red, with a few exceptions. Bitcoin dropped by almost 10% but quickly recovered most of its losses. ETH has also been declining, particularly with the SEC's efforts to classify it as a security. In contrast, Solana has been one of the standout performers, rising 11% this week despite Bitcoin's fall. In terms of market cap, Solana has overtaken BNB to become the third-largest digital asset, excluding stablecoins. The week's top performer is ONDO, an RWA tokenization protocol, likely benefiting from the tokenization trend as BlackRock entered the scene. On the other hand, the worst performer is BONK, the Solana-based meme coin.
Lately, our wallet has been underperforming, especially compared to BTC; it hasn't held up well against the downturns. We're still up 28% since the start of the year, but that's modest compared to Bitcoin. We're aware that market corrections happen, and we're actually considering taking this opportunity to invest our remaining stablecoins. For more details, check out our Google sheet, and stay tuned for the next edition, where we'll definitely share our moves.
Check out Rabby Wallet — the best EVM wallet we use for everything on-chain. Use our referral code to give Stay on-chain a boost. Thanks for the support!
Ethereum Foundation is under investigation
There's some buzz about Ethereum facing challenges right before there might be approval for an Ethereum spot ETF. The SEC is initiating a legal action to consider Ethereum as a security. In a previous interview, Gary Gensler mentioned that cryptocurrencies operating on a proof-of-stake model could be seen as investment contracts and thus, might be classified as securities. Although he didn't specifically name Ethereum, this raises concerns.
Moreover, there are rumors that the Ethereum Foundation in Switzerland, which is responsible for Ethereum's development and governance, is under investigation by the authorities. This investigation reportedly started soon after Ethereum transitioned to a proof-of-stake system in September 2022. It's unclear if this will be a significant issue or not. Some speculate that this is just a routine check by the SEC to ensure everything is in order before potentially approving the Ethereum ETF in May. Time will tell.
This place is a dumpster: man bins £1.5B and sues city dumpster to dig it out — DailyMail
Solana pre-sales marking the local top
The past days saw the Solana meme coins market go exponential — there’s a rough estimate that up to $122.5M in SOL tokens have been allocated to pre-sales of coins to be launched on Solana, mainly memes. Notably, a token called $SLERF raised $10M SOL just to ‘mistakenly’ burn the LP containing the raised SOL and SLERF tokens shortly thereafter — most probably, a sophisticated marketing stunt.
But many others followed, including a $30M SOL raise by Dexter, the mind behind Lootbox and Whales Market, reportedly for an AI-focused project on Solana. All in all, Solana proved to be the place for launching and trading low-cap coins, surpassing Ethereum’s volume three days in a row according to Defillama, even though its TVL is a mere 8% of that on Ethereum.
Not everyone makes money: this guy lost $147K buying high and selling low — 𝕏/lookonchain
Blackrock is launching a $100M Digital Asset Fund
Blackrock, the world's largest asset manager, is getting into asset tokenization by starting a tokenized digital asset fund. They launched the fund by adding $100 million in USDC on the Ethereum mainnet. The fund will be represented with the token BUIDL. Additionally, SEC filings reveal that Blackrock has invested in Securitize, a company specializing in asset tokenization. For this new fund, Securitize will handle the transfer and tokenization of assets, while BNY Mellon will custody the fund's assets. These are significant advancements in the field of asset tokenization and it's impressive to see such major players making these moves.
Always put limit buys: BTC spiked down to $8,900 on BitMEX
The halving is one month away
Just 4,300 blocks away, the Bitcoin halving is expected to happen on April, 20. Past this date (which can fluctuate, stay up to date here), Bitcoin miners’ rewards will be halved, going from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC per block, propelling a strong disinflationary narrative for Bitcoin. Halvings have proved to be bullish for BTC’s price action, but past performance doesn’t dictate the future — check out this Coinbase report to know more.
Based blockchains: Base sees doubled volume in just two days, reaching $350M daily volume.
Canto sees light at the end of the tunnel
Canto was a strong bet on the RWA sector for many at the beginning of the bull run in late ‘23 and early ‘24 — yet, the price action has been nothing short of depressing lately. But things might be bound to change. In a recent mirror article, the Canto team introduced the Cyclone stack, composed of three main upgrades: Callisto, Elara, and Kallichore. These are set to introduce Optimistic execution, Parallel EVM execution, and reduce storage access bottlenecks.
After bottoming at $0.14 in late February, the token has since risen to $0.29, a 207% increase, with the market comparing it to other Parallelized EVMs like SEI and the upcoming Monad token.
🏦 TRADFI
Microstrategy acquires another 9,245 BTC, now holding 214,246 BTC — microstrategy.com
OKX Exchange to remove USDT pairs in Europe following MiCa regulations — The Block
U.S. prosecutors have asked a court to imprison former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried for 40 to 50 years, plus a $11B+ fine — Reuters
Coinbase to launch futures trading for DOGE, LTC, and BCH on April 1st — The Block
Sygnum tokenized $50m in Matter Labs’ reserves on zkSync — The Block
⛓️ DEFI
The Avalanche Foundation bought COQ, Gecko, Kimbo, NoChill, and Tech meme coins with its community fund — avax.network
The Polyhedra airdrop went live and can be claimed at Polyhedra.foundation
TON Foundation launches $100M incentives initiative — The Block
Temperature check to add sUSDe as collateral on Aave has passed — 𝕏/MacroMate8
Aevo launched Ethena’s $ENA pre-market — 𝕏/aevoxyz
Kamino introduces OG allocation for KMNO — 𝕏/KaminoFinance
There’s a proposal on Llamalend to allow 20x-leverage-stake for Ethena’s USDe — 𝕏/CurveFinance
Montenegro’s court of appeal confirms Do Kwon’s extradition to South Korea, with no further appeals — sudovi.me
Soon you’ll be able to stake MNT on Mantle to earn Ethena shards — 𝕏/0xMantle
🛰️ TECH
Paraswap’s Augustus V6 contract has been hacked — 𝕏/paraswap
ArbOs Atlast upgrade further reduces fees on Arbitrum — 𝕏/arbitrum
Fantom achieves 10,000 TPS on Testnet gearing up for Mainnet launch — 𝕏/AndreCronjeTech
Defillama extension adds new features including a phishing detector — 𝕏/0xngmi
Starknet’s 2024 roadmap includes parallel transaction execution coming in Q2 — The Block
OpenSea introduces Seaport 1.6, featuring Hooks — 𝕏/opensea
📱 WEB3
Arbitrum drafts DAO proposal to invest 200M ARB (~ $350M) in crypto gaming fund — The Block
Aavegotchi game to launch Gotchichain L3 as Base rollup — 𝕏/aavegotchi
Immutable and Polygon Labs to establish a $100M Games fund — CoinDesk
Want to dive into Aptos and capture high yields? Cellana might be the one for you. You can get 66.05% APR for USDC/USDT LPs.
Sui blockchain is no less, though. Scallop offers you a 35.17% APY on USDT, or 23.41% APY on SUI. Be aware that if you’re borrowing against your assets you’ll forfeit incentives.
More of an options guy? Check out Cega, a token-less options protocol built on Arbitrum & Solana, offering up to 70% APY on your stablecoins.
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Disclosure: Authors may own crypto assets named in this newsletter. Stay on-chain is meant for informational and educational purposes only. It is not meant to serve as investment advice. Please consult your investment, tax, or legal advisor before making investment decisions.