Overview
Which projects continue to grow in the bear market?
Bitcoin RSI signals a possible downturn.
Elon Musk posts dog wearing Twitter logo top.
Coinbase files to join the Ripple case.
Stephen Curry files trademarks for the Curryverse.
Happy Birthday, Bitcoin whitepaper.
Good morning Fam,
Bear markets are tough on the mind and the charts. When the liquidity leaves the markets, so does the vast number of fair-weather investors and hype.
On the other hand, bear markets open the door to opportunity. The harshness of winter weeds out bad projects and provides insight into the sustainable projects of the future.
So, today we'll explore a few projects that not only survived the winter but continued building and showed signs of flourishment during the recent upturns in the market.
Frax Finance (FRAX, FXS)
What started as a decentralized stablecoin project has branched into other parts of DeFi. For example, Frax Finance recently launched a lending service (FraxLend) and introduced a liquid ETH staking service last week.
The protocol holds $1.1 billion in TVL, while the market cap for FXS remains at a modest $460 million. The team has effectively placed the FRAX stablecoin as the sound leader in the fight for liquidity in DeFi through its successful campaign in the Curve Wars. Additionally, Frax Finance plans to cut the issuance of FXS in half on December 20th.
The FXS token has outperformed BTC by 52% since its lows in late September.
Optimism (OP)
Layer-twos (L2s) are one of the hottest narratives in crypto after the successful merge of Ethereum. Atop that list sit Arbitrum and Optimism (OP). The former has yet to introduce a token, but if its tokenomics are as robust, there's plenty of reason to remain bullish on both Ethereum scaling solutions.
Optimism's Total Value Locked (TVL) surpassed the likes of competitors Solana, Fantom and Near mere months after the introduction of its OP token. Additionally, the ecosystem continues to grow in terms of value and usage.
Source: Dune Analytics
Optimism's tokenomics are impressive too. A majority of tokens were distributed to the community, and the issuance rate for OP is a minuscule 2% a year. The vested tokens will be released in the next four years at a rate of ~16% a year in the form of project funding, retroactive public funding, and future airdrops for active community members.
Oh, and don't worry about Venture Capitalists selling the top, because Optimism took a public goods approach with zero early-round token offerings.
Source: CoinGecko
The OP token has outperformed BTC by 41% since its lows early this month.
Market update 🌍
BTC/USDT 4H
Bitcoin followed the direction of US equities by retracing from local highs during the start of FOMC week. Investors are likely awaiting the interest rate hike on Wednesday morning to decide a direction. While the daily BTC chart continues to look bullish, the 4-hour chart has signaled the possibility of further downside with the emergence of a bearish divergence (green) in the Relative Strength Index (RSI). BTC completed the daily candle down -0.66% to $20,490.
ETH/USD 4H
Ether (ETH) showcased a similar bearish divergence pattern (green) on the 4-hour chart during the recent uptrend. ETH completed the daily candle down -1.13% to $1,573.
Newswatch 📰
Elon, Twitter and Doge. Dogecoin is pumping after Elon Musk posted a picture of a dog wearing a Twitter T-Shirt sitting next to a pumpkin with the Twitter logo carved into it.
Coinbase files to enter the Ripple case. Lawyers at crypto-exchange Coinbase have filed an amicus brief with a federal court for permission to partake in Ripple's case versus the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC). Coinbase is attempting to join the legislation because of the SEC's inconsistent enforcement of the crypto sector.
Vitalik’s opinions on regulation. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin tweeted some opinions regarding crypto regulation and institutional integration:
News tidbits:
Elon Musk removes board to become sole director of Twitter.
Coinbase-backed anti-money laundering group expands into Europe.
Report: 97.7% of tokens launched on Uniswap were rug-pulls.
Ethereum’s Q4 roadmap.
NFT & metaverse update 🐵
Basketball superstar Stephen Curry files trademarks for the Curryverse.
GameStop’s NFT marketplace on ImmutableX goes live.
My Five Cents…
Happy Birthday, Bitcoin whitepaper!
Fourteen years ago, a mysterious online figure/s named Satoshi Nakamoto released a document of monumental significance, the Bitcoin whitepaper. That document led to the creation of the world's first trustless, peer-to-peer, and cryptographically secure payment system that we call Bitcoin.
The ideas in the document introduced the foundation for a new transformative era in transferring value across digital means. By solving the double-spend problem through a distributed ledger, the Bitcoin whitepaper opened the gates to a seemingly endless realm of possibilities for finance, online gaming, digital ownership, and distributed computation.
“I’ve been working on a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party.”
Satoshi Nakamoto’s first message to the world via email.
Gabriel
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