Research Roundup Newsletter [July 2022]

Welcome to the Crypto.com Monthly Research Roundup Newsletter for the month of July.

Welcome to the Crypto.com Monthly Research Roundup Newsletter!

1. Collaboration

For this month’s collaboration, Crypto.com partnered with Newzoo and surveyed thousands of gamers across various countries to gain better insights into the blockchain gaming landscape. We looked into the potential of blockchain gaming and which barriers it needs to overcome for wider adoption and discovered several interesting findings. These include: 

• 40% of gamers across the U.S., U.K., and Indonesia are interested in blockchain games and are likely to try them out this year.
• 53% of players would play blockchain games to have fun versus 36% who intend to play to make a profit.
• AAA games are the preferred class of blockchain games to play and invest in by players. Most players want developers to focus on creating games with appealing gameplay and graphics.

Read the full report: Consumer Insights into the Blockchain Gaming Landscape

2. Alpha Navigator

An institutional-focused report diving into macro trends, market-neutral pair trades, style-factor screens, thematic baskets, and event driven ideas. Read the full Alpha Navigator report here.

• Market-Neutral Pair Trader hunts for strongly correlated tokens whose price ratios currently deviate from historical averages. These can be considered as candidates for a market-neutral pair trade. We highlight BTC vs. ETH in our report, as the BTC/ETH price ratio (BTC price divided by ETH price, in US$) is at its peak (2-standard deviation ceiling band). The ETH Merge catalyst is in play for 2H2022, and any return to risk-on sentiment would likely favour ETH over BTC. Since our report was published, ETH has outperformed BTC.

3. Chartbook

• Bancor paused Impermanent Loss Protection (ILP) this month, citing potentially anomalous user behaviour. The pausing of ILP seems to have coincided with an increase in withdrawals from the platform.

• The number of transactions taking place on OpenSea fell sharply towards the latter half of this month, suggesting that NFT interest may be waning somewhat in the face of adverse market conditions.

• USDD, a stablecoin native to the TRON blockchain, is showing signs of recovery, having been de-pegged for over six weeks at the time of writing.

Check the full report: Winter Comes Early for Crypto (June 2022 Chartbook]

4. Monthly Feature Articles

Article 1 | Crypto Bear Markets: A Detailed Analysis

• Although unpleasant, bear markets are a natural part of the market cycle and are not crypto-specific phenomena. Market cycles lack a standard definition, but typically last approximately four years, with bull runs being two to three times longer than bear runs. This report explores the bear markets’ specifics, and analyses their characteristics, trends, and opportunities for investors. 
• The total crypto market cap and transaction volume grew significantly in the past decade, despite price fluctuations. This exhibits that bear markets do not stifle adoption’s long-term trend.

Read the full feature article here.

VIP Article | Synthetic Assets in Crypto: Unwrapping the Wrappers
Wrapped tokens bring about increased versatility across ecosystems. This interoperability provided the impetus for Total Value Locked (TVL) across various Ethereum bridges. In this Private-exclusive report, we dive into the world of wrapped tokens and cross-chain interoperability, as well as look into three important case studies: WETH, WBTC, and stETH. We also cover the different types of bridges that may exist across various blockchains, and the advantages and disadvantages of bridging tokens into other ecosystems.

Read more about wrapped tokens and cross-chain interoperability in our monthly exclusive report for private members.

Not a member yet? Find out how to join here.

5. Scholar Report

In this month’s Scholar Report, we study the Global Financial Stability Report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). We focus on Chapter 3, which covers DeFi.

• IMF’s analysis shows that DeFi has the lowest marginal cost compared with financial institutions in both advanced economies (AEs) and emerging markets (EMs). This indicates that DeFi has the highest cost-efficiency. The marginal cost in this context refers to the incremental cost of additional loan production.

• The growth of DeFi has accelerated in recent years, bringing about a rise in the total value of stablecoins and crypto assets deposited in DeFi protocols. The total value locked (TVL) of all DeFi projects on the Ethereum blockchain exceeded US$100B in November 2021.

Read the full report: Efficiency and Risks of Decentralised Finance [July 2022 Scholar]

6. Economic & Crypto Conference Calendar from Market Pulse

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