Market Update (Week 43, 25/10/2021 – 31/10/2021)

Price, volume and volatility indices up. Facebook rebrands itself as Meta, introducing a metaverse and NFTs.

Key Takeaways

• Facebook has rebranded itself as Meta, to develop a metaverse community that supports the exchange of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Whether or not, or to what degree, this metaverse will be decentralised remains to be announced.  
• Mastercard is also preparing to launch its own platform for central bank digital currency (CBDC) transactions, as well as integrating crypto transactions in its network, partnering with Bakkt to provide custodial wallets for customers. This follows the attempt by Visa in late September to enter the CBDC sector.
• Despite the successful launch of Proshares’s Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) last week, the SEC appears to have rejected Valkyrie’s proposal for a spot Bitcoin ETF.
• The general price index, volatility index, and volume index all increased, by +1.64%, +3.51%, and +25.55%, respectively.
• Crypto.com kicks off Fortune Favours the Brave campaign featuring Matt Damon in 4K commercial directed by David Fincher.

Highlights

• Facebook changes its name to Meta in major rebrand
• Mastercard is preparing its network for CBDC
• SEC reportedly knocks back Valkyrie’s leveraged Bitcoin ETF
• CoolBitX and Crypto.com team up for special edition CoolWallet Pro hardware wallet, CRO support and payment integration
• Matt Damon partners with Crypto.com around clean water project
• Blockchain platform Alchemy raises $250M in series C led by Andreessen Horowitz
• Polkadot to introduce $770 million fund as parachain auction approaches
• Ethereum competitor Near launches $800M developer fund as DeFi competition heats up
• Visa makes investment in credit card tech startup Deserve
• Biden’s pick for CFTC chair wants the agency to be a ’beat cop’ with the authority to oversee 60% of digital asset market
• $136M lost as Cream Finance suffers another flash loan attack
• A crypto project that raised $60M overnight using a dog meme saw all of that money go missing in what may have been a phishing attack
• SQUID investors cannot sell their tokens after a 110,000% spike, raising too many red flags to ignore
• Adobe will offer NFT verification in Photoshop
• Sotheby’s first metaverse auction sees 1,500 bids, sets NFT records
• CryptoPunks NFT ‘sells’ for over $500M; later discovered that the holder sold it to himself

Check the latest prices on crypto.com/price.

Notable events

Osmosis, a Cosmos (ATOM) automated market maker, has generated $21million worth of private token sales. (ref)

The Beacon Chain’s Altair upgrade is on, a step further to the full operation of Ethereum (ETH) 2.0. (ref)

While Ethereum (ETH) is trading above $4,000, it is reported that whales have shifted $1.42 billion worth of ETH. (ref)

Rhodium enterprises, a Bitcoin (BTC) mining company, is planning to raise $100 million in its initial public offering. (ref)

Cardano (ADA) tokens staked on its own network have reached an all-time high. (ref)

Notable events

A leak from the Loopring (LRC) protocol GitHub suggests a possible partnership deal with GameStop for an NFT marketplace. (ref)

It is reported that over 89% of the Curve Finance (CRV) supply is locked up in various DeFi platforms. (ref)

Justin Sun, the founder of Tron Foundation, has reportedly withdrawn billions of dollars from the Aave’s (AAVE) lending pool. (ref) 

Immunefi, a bug bounty and security services platform serving clients such as Chainlink (LINK), Nexus Mutual (NXM), and Synthetix (SNX), has raised $5.5 million in funding. (ref)

Notable events

Facebook rebranding gives fuel to the token market of games with metaverse elements. These tokens include Decentraland (MANA) and The Sandbox (SAND). (ref)

Enjin.io (ENJ) will host the second annual NFT award ceremony in Decentraland (MANA). (ref)

Over 500 million of the HOGE Finance (HOGE), which is around 0.12% of its supply, has been burned in under five days. (ref)