Research

Weekly Recap May 13

May 13, 2022 ⋅  6 min read

Notable Messari Intel Updates

  1. With endorsement from Terraform Labs, a majority of Terra validators have halted the Terra blockchain at height 7,603,700. Validators plan to restart the chain with a patch to temporarily disable staking to "prevent governance attacks following severe LUNA inflation and a significantly reduced cost of attack."
  2. Zcash v5.0.0 has been released. This release supports the NU5 activation on mainnet, which will occur at a block height of 1687104 (May 31, 2022), following the targeted EOS halt of 4.6.0-2 and 4.7.0 releases on May 16, 2022.
  3. The Flow team announced a $725 million Ecosystem Fund, which will focus on providing support for gaming, infrastructure, decentralized finance, and content across the Flow ecosystem. Participants include a16z, AppWorks, Cadenza Ventures, Coatue, Coinfund, Digital Currency Group (DCG), Dispersion Capital, Fabric Ventures, Greenfield One, HashKey, L1 Digital, Mirana Ventures, OP Crypto, SkyVision Capital, Spartan Group, Union Square Ventures, and Dapper Ventures.
  4. The NEAR team has announced that validators will be asked to migrate their stake from a non-upgradeable staking pool (poolv1.near) contract to an upgradeable one (pool.near). The new staking pool contract will also support stake farming, which will allow developers to distribute additional tokens to NEAR stakers.
  5. Juno v5.0.0 was released on May 5, 2022. This release fixes the gov IBC RouterKey, updates code formatting and introduces changes for the Veritas upgrade, which will reallocate funds confiscated from the CCN validator to a community-controlled smart contract.



Notable Messari Governor Updates

  1. The Stake DAO has submitted a proposal that aims to implement contingency measures in partnership with Curve Finance to maximize the governance security of the Stake DAO Liquid Lockers. Voting is currently active.
  2. The Gitcoin DAO has submitted a proposal that aims to approve the establishment and funding of KERNEL as a Gitcoin workstream for Season 14 (1 May 2022 through 31 July 2022). The total amount requested is 49,000 GTC. After two years within Gitcoin Holdings, KERNEL will spin out with ~100,000 USDC in treasury to transition into KERNEL Foundation (a Cayman Foundation Company). Voting is currently active.
  3. The Compound DAO has submitted a proposal that aims to earmark a $100,000 grant budget to subsidize Compound deposits and loans following the rollout of an Aztec Connect integration for Compound. Aztec Connect is a zk-rollup and bridge that can enable 95%+ gas savings for Compound users. Voting is currently active.
  4. The Goldfinch DAO has submitted a proposal that aims to remove the 12-month GFI unlock schedule for Senior Pool Liquidity Mining to incentivize more capital investment into the Senior Pool. An estimated 500,000 GFI (6.5% of circulating supply) could re-enter the market due to the unlock. Preliminary discussions are ongoing.
  5. The TrueFi DAO has submitted a proposal that aims to approve TRU incentives for TrueTrading Asset Management portfolios in accordance with the parameters outlined in the Framework for TRU Incentives on New Portfolios.

Sector Returns

Friday the 13th could not be a more appropriate date as terror has settled on the markets this week. To supplement with a bit of context, the Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index is currently at one of its lowest points (10/100), indicating extreme fear. Close to $380 billion has left the market, leaving the total cryptocurrencies market cap at $1.2 trillion. Every cryptocurrency sector covered has seen double-digit losses, with Web3 taking the biggest loss.

Top Assets

All top assets by market capitalization traded in unison as they made new lows this week with the exception of one outlier: TRON. The Ethereum forked project’s asset has stood its ground with respect to the rest of the pack as the broader market continues to sell off. TRX was the asset with the least decline among the category and ended the week with a -7.6% return. AVAX, the native token for the Avalanche blockchain, had the biggest loss with a 47.5% decline on the week.

DeFi Assets

The DeFi sector was among the worst performing of the week, with some assets around the 50% drawdown territory. However, it had the only asset among all sectors covered that ended the week with a positive return — Maker (MKR). Interestingly, MKR saw a 100%+ spike around the same time that the Terra/UST events were unfolding, suggesting that investors might have flocked to a more reliable stablecoin protocol with an established track record. MKR ended the week with a 7.5% return while the rest of the top DeFi assets posted losses ranging from -25.1% down to -54.1%. THORChain took the last spot.

Smart Contract Platforms

The smart contract platforms sector traded similarly to the top assets by market capitalization category in that all shared a similar downwards trend with the exception of one outlier that did not have a significant of a drawback as compared to the rest. TRON (TRX) was the smart contract platform asset with the least decline for the week (-7.6%) while the rest of the sector had losses ranging from -26.7% to -47.5%. Avalanche (AVAX) was the biggest loser.

Currencies

The currencies sector had the least decline among the rest of the sectors covered; however, all of the assets that make the top ten secured double-digit losses for the week. Bitcoin (BTC) took the top spot as the currency with least drawdown (-19.0%) while Dash (DASH) lagged behind the group, finishing the week with a 36.7% loss.

Web3

The Web3 sector had the worst performance among the sectors covered in the report with all of its top assets by market capitalization posting double-digit losses this week. Livepeer (LPT), the least to decline within the sector, had a 31.4% drawdown. The Graph secured the endmost position of the group with a 53.3% decline for the week.

Gaming

Gaming, the second worst performing of the sectors covered, had a similar outcome to the rest, with all of its top assets by market capitalization posted double-digit declines for the week. Aavegotchi, one of the lesser volatile assets within the sector, ended the week with the smallest decline at -12.5% while Alice (ALICE) held the rear as one of the worst-performing top sector assets with a 53.2% decline.













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