📈 Bitcoin dominance reached the highest level since April 2021; BRICS nations unveiled BRICS Pay

Bitcoin dominance reached the highest level since April 2021; BRICS nations unveiled its new payment system, BRICS Pay; Stripe acquired stablecoin platform Bridge in a US$1.1 billion deal.

Quick Take

• Bitcoin dominance reached the highest level since April 2021; BRICS nations unveiled its new payment system, BRICS Pay; Stripe acquired stablecoin platform Bridge in a US$1.1 billion deal.
• US spot Bitcoin ETFs had a weekly net inflow of $998 million last week. Spot Ether ETFs saw a $25 million net outflow. 
• On the macro side, the Bank of Canada reduced interest rates by 0.5% to 3.75%, the first 50-basis-point cut since the COVID-19 pandemic. The inflation rate in Canada dropped to 1.6% in September, within the bank’s target of 2%. The S&P Global Flash US Composite PMI, which tracks service and manufacturing sectors in the US, rose to 54.3 in October from 54.0 in September, indicating continued growth in business activities. The latest CME FedWatch Tool showed a 95% probability of a November rate cut in the US (vs 94% last week). 
• Notable updates: Gala (GALA) released the GalaChain Decentralization Whitepaper, ApeCoin (APE) launched ApeChain; the Crypto.com App listed Scroll (SCROLL) and Lumia (LUMIA). 
• Notable events in the coming week: Bank of Japan interest rate decision, US GDP, US Core Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index, and EU GDP

Weekly Market Index

All three indices were down last week. Price, volume, and volatility indices decreased by -2.26%, -3.18%, and -33.56%, respectively. Volatility drop was led by DOGE (-59.90%) and ETH (-44.92%).

Chart of the Week

Bitcoin dominance reached 58.1% on 27 October, the highest level since April 2021, according to data from Coinglass. Higher Bitcoin dominance often indicates that investors are favouring Bitcoin over altcoins. This coincided with ETH’s lacklustre performance against tokens like BTC and SOL. The ETH/BTC price ratio reached 0.038 on 18 September, the lowest since April 2021, while SOL/ETH hit a record high of around 0.0692 on 23 October.

Weekly Performance

BTC and ETH decreased by -1.5% and -9.4%, respectively, in the past seven days. Prices for all other selected top market capitalisation tokens decreased except SOL (+3.9%). The SOL/ETH price ratio hit a record high of 0.0692 on 23 October, which coincided with rising decentralise exchange (DEX) usage on Solana and meme coin activities. SUI (-20.9%) and LDO (-15.2%) led the decrease.

Key categories all decreased in market capitalisation change in the past seven days. The NFT category led the drop. 

Notable Updates

Newly Listed Tokens in the Crypto.com App

News Highlights

Investment Vehicles

• VanEck’s Europe exchange-traded note (ETN) for Solana, VanEck Solana ETN (VSOL) added staking rewards for investors in the European Union. The rewards will be accrued and reinvested daily, and reflected in the increased amount of SOL each share accounts for. 
• Aurum Equity Partners announced the launch of a $1 billion tokenised fund. It will rely on Zoniqx’s asset tokenisation solutions and leverage XRP Ledger (XRPL) to explore real-world asset (RWA) tokenisation. The fund will focus on establishing data centres in the US, UAE, Saudi Arabia, India, and Europe. 
• UK pension fund Legal & General (L&G), with $1.5 trillion in assets under management, is exploring ways to tokenise its investment management liquidity funds. The fund aims to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and broaden its investment solutions for its investors. 

Adoption

• The BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), unveiled a new payment system, BRICS Pay. It utilises blockchain technology and enables BRICS nations to conduct cross-border transactions without multiple intermediaries. BRICS Pay supports digital currencies or stablecoins pegged to national currencies of the member countries, and can help to reduce reliance on USD. 
• Buenos Aires introduced QuarkID, a digital identity service that uses zero-knowledge (zk) proofs and Ethereum Layer-2 ZKSync Era. The system aims to give citizens privacy and security over their documents, allowing them to upload birth certificates, vaccinations, and more. 

Others

• Payment processing platform Stripe acquired stablecoin platform Bridge in a $1.1 billion deal, marking one of the largest acquisitions in crypto history. The news came shortly after Stripe integrated USDC as a payment option on its main user interface. 

Recent Research Reports

• Intent-Based Protocols: Intent-based protocols simplify the user experience and lowers the entry barrier. Learn about them in our report.We present to you our latest issue of Research Roundup, featuring our deep dives into AI Agent in Crypto and Pair Trading.Delve into Pair Trading, a market-neutral strategy that taps into price movements between two correlated assets, and learn how traders identify opportunities.
• Research Roundup Newsletter [September 2024]: We present to you our latest issue of Research Roundup, featuring our deep dives into AI Agent in Crypto and Pair Trading.
• Pair Trading: Delve into Pair Trading, a market-neutral strategy that taps into price movements between two correlated assets, and learn how traders identify opportunities.

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Recent University Articles

• Solana DeFi: Top DeFi Projects on the Solana Blockchain: Explore top DeFi projects on Solana, and learn how the ecosystem has become a hotbed of financial innovation. 
• Top NFT Platforms on Solana: Popular Marketplaces in 2024: Solana offers a growing selection of NFT marketplaces. Here’s our selection of some of the most popular ones.
• Non-Custodial Wallets: Your Keys, Your Crypto: Non-custodial wallets offer users several advantages, but also come with responsibilities. Read on for what they are.

Catalyst Calendar

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