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Welcome back to 0xResearch. Here's what we’ve got for you today:
Mt. Gox FUD — for real this time?
S is not FTM
MEV on Polygon PoS
CT: Second-guessing the narrative
If you’re in the camp that thinks this is a normal bull market cycle until proven otherwise, this is the dip you’ve been waiting for.
BTC is only down -15% from peak to today’s low, but sentiment is negative, and so are funding rates. Meanwhile, long term moving averages have had a chance to catch up to price. It all looks pretty normal.
As illustrated with charts in today’s Empire newsletter, the current bull market is tracking prior cycles — if past is prologue, we’re about at the halfway mark — and bull markets typically tend to really take off post-halving.
The drawdown in BTC is still mild enough to keep the uptrend on longer timeframes intact, although you would want to see a bounce soon to avoid printing a weekly lower low. Some sideways action back above $62k-$63k would look great.
Today we’re watching fresh news of a potential bitcoin distribution from Mt. Gox, which in the past has been a great buy signal — it’s almost always less dire than it seems at first blush.
On the other hand, the tech-heavy Nasdaq is finally looking toppy, and even though the crypto correlation waxes and wanes, that could certainly be a headwind.
Another headwind, the dollar, has been in an uptrend the past couple of weeks, though it’s now encountering an area of resistance.
Shaking off Fantom blues
Sonic, the new high-throughput blockchain developed by Bernhard Scholz and led by Andre Cronje, has garnered fresh attention in the past month since announcing a $10 million funding round. This round was led by Hashed, with additional investments from UOB Ventures, Signum Capital and the Aave Foundation, among others. The funding will support strategic growth and ecosystem development for Sonic, which is expected to launch in late summer or early fall 2024.
Not to be confused with the Solana-based gaming-focused layer-2 of the same name, developed by Mirror World Labs, Sonic will replace Fantom's $FTM token with the new $S token on a 1:1 basis, for six months post-launch.
Sonic's new tokenomics involve minting a small percentage of new $S tokens to fund ongoing marketing, ecosystem growth and partnerships.
The Sonic Labs Innovator Fund, announced last week and coming in at 200M FTM (about $120 million), aims to support these initiatives.
An annual burn mechanism ensures unused minted tokens are burned, while the gradual minting process aims to minimize market impact and support long-term growth.
Fantom has faced several challenges over the past two years, including the Multichain fiasco, which significantly impacted investor confidence and slowed growth, leading many to write-off the project as a ghost chain.
Can the Sonic rebrand run it back turbo?
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From modularity to restaking, to the intersection of AI and crypto, to the long-awaited consumer-facing apps to the most recent Bitcoin-related innovations.
We’ll be breaking down all of these and more with the help of a few of the thought leaders in crypto at Permissionless.
MEV fees on Polygon PoS:
Blockworks Research’s latest dashboard tracks MEV tips through FastLane’s auction mechanism on the Polygon PoS chain.
Data shows these tips account for about 5% of network revenue.
A significant portion of the call was dedicated to discussing the proposed ZK-PoS Phase 1, which aims to connect Polygon PoS to the AggLayer using a ZK proof of consensus, in addition to a pessimistic proof. This upgrade is intended to generalize how chains settle while protecting chain health and asset integrity. The implementation will involve deploying new contracts for the LxLy unified bridge for token mapping and migrating existing tokens from the PoS portal to the new deployment.
Maple Finance has unveiled Syrup, a new composable lending product where users can deposit USDC to lend to whitelisted crypto entities and receive competitive yields. Syrup will open deposits on June 25, and run a “drip” incentive program that will be convertible to a token in Q4 2024.
Bitcoin has been in a bull market for 19 months. If March wasn’t the top, that is.
Colorado-based miner is still “completely committed to pursuing a transaction” with its Canadian competitor after deal rejection.
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The insights, views and outlooks presented in the report are not to be taken as financial advice. Blockworks Research analysts are not registered broker/dealers or financial advisors. Blockworks Research analysts may hold assets mentioned in this report, further outlined in the Firm’s Financial Disclosures.
