《Summer》 — — Charles Courtney Curran

Introduction:

The implied volatility of short-term out-of-the-money BTC put options remains higher than that of call options, indicating persistent concerns over a near-term price pullback. However, the steady implied volatility of long-term options suggests institutional optimism about BTC’s long-term prospects.

1、Investment and Financing Overview

Last week, there were 26 investment and financing events in the crypto market, a 36.58% decrease from the previous week, with a total funding amount exceeding $170 million, showing no change in volume:

DeFi sector: 9 investment and financing events, including Arbelos Markets, a cryptocurrency trading platform, which completed a $28 million funding round led by Dragonfly Capital.

GameFi sector: 7 events, with Web3 game developer Seeds Labs securing $12 million in seed funding, with participation from Blizzard Fund.

AI sector: 1 event, where Web3-supported AI platform ChainML raised $6.2 million in seed extension funding led by Hack VC.

Infrastructure and Tools: 4 events, with Humanity Protocol announcing a new funding round of $30 million at a $1 billion valuation, led by Kingsway Capital.

Centralized Finance: 1 event, where Raven, a crypto trading company founded by a former Wintermute employee, raised $2.7 million in seed funding led by Hack VC.

Other Web3/Crypto Applications: 4 events, with Polymarket, a crypto prediction market, raising a total of $70 million over two rounds, the latest led by Founders Fund.

Despite a sharp decline in the number of deals, the total funding amount remained stable, indicating that while institutions are cautiously positioning themselves, they are making larger bets on their investments. The hottest sectors are DeFi, infrastructure, and GameFi. Active VCs include Animoca Brands, Founders Fund, Framework Ventures, Endeavor Ventures, and Electric Capital.

About Polymarket:

Polymarket is a decentralized information market platform that allows users to trade on the most controversial topics (such as COVID-19, politics, current events). Currently, bets on the 2024 U.S. presidential election are the most popular contracts.

About Humanity

Humanity Protocol is a blockchain network that uses DID to resist Sybil attacks, utilizing palm print recognition technology and zero-knowledge proofs to ensure user privacy and security. It aims to provide an accessible and non-intrusive method for human verification in Web3 applications.

About peaq

peaq is a DePIN network that supports IoT on Polkadot. It enables entrepreneurs and developers to build decentralized applications for vehicles, robots, and devices, allowing users to manage and earn income from connected machines providing goods and services.

2、Industry Data

BTC New Wallet Addresses Drop to Six-Year Low

According to The Block, the average daily number of new BTC wallet addresses was 275,000 over the past week, the lowest since 2018. Other related metrics also declined, with miner revenue measured by hash rate hitting historical lows, and network transaction fees and on-chain transaction volume on a downward trend. Despite these declines, new protocols on the BTC network are attracting record interest from venture capital firms, laying the groundwork for a market recovery.

Six months ago, the average daily number of new BTC wallet addresses was over 625,000, more than double the current figure, driven by the launch of BTC spot ETFs, ecosystem development, and halving events.

BTC Runes Down 99% from April Peak

The daily number of new BTC runes etched on-chain fell below 250 last week, down 99% from the peak in late April. However, rune transactions remain the most active segment in May, primarily occurring on platforms like Magic Eden, OKX, Ordinals Wallet, and UniSat.

The decline in rune etching is consistent with the overall market activity, influenced by market conditions and the inability of runes to generate independent market enthusiasm like inscriptions previously did.

According to data from RUNES on Dune: from April 26–30, an average of 14,700 new runes were etched daily, with a record 23,061 runes etched on April 26.

Since the launch of Runes on April 20, BTC miners have received a total of $4.5 million in transaction fees, averaging about $189 per day, with over 91,200 runes etched on the BTC chain to date.

Solana Becomes the Highest TPS Blockchain

According to CoinGecko, Solana’s on-chain TPS (transactions per second) reached 1,504, making it the fastest major blockchain, over five times faster than Polygon and 46 times faster than ETH. Despite this, Solana achieved only 1.6% of its claimed theoretical TPS (65,000 TPS). The second fastest blockchain is Sui, which reached a peak TPS of 854 in July 2023.

Non-EVM blockchains average 284 TPS, while EVM and EVM-compatible blockchains average 74 TPS, indicating that non-EVM blockchains are nearly four times faster. However, in terms of stability and security, ETH-based blockchains still lead, and their TPS has not significantly hindered their rapid development.

BSC and Polygon are the fastest EVM blockchains, with BNB Smart Chain (BSC) reaching 378 TPS and Polygon reaching 190 TPS, making them the fastest Ethereum scaling solutions currently available.

3、VC Holdings

Note: The above data is from https://platform.arkhamintelligence.com/, and the statistical time is 19:00 on May 20, 2024 (UTC + 8).

4、This Week’s Focus

May 20:

• FOMC member and Atlanta Fed President Bostic interviewed on Bloomberg TV
• Fed Governor Barr speaks on bank regulation
• Fed Vice Chair Jefferson speaks on economic outlook and real estate market
• PayPal’s new policy eliminating NFT buyer and seller protection takes effect
• BounceBit announces asset withdrawal schedule
• PYTH token unlocks 2.13 billion tokens, worth approximately $812 million
• Crypto Expo Dubai 2024

May 21:

• FOMC member and Cleveland Fed President Mester interviewed on Bloomberg TV
• U.S. Treasury Secretary Yellen, ECB President Lagarde, and German Finance Minister Lindner give speeches
• Fed Governor Waller speaks on the U.S. economy
• Chiliz Chain plans Dragon8 hard fork
• IoTeX and DMC host an online event on DePIN development trends

May 22:

• FOMC members Bostic and Mester participate in a panel discussion on post-pandemic financial systems
• Jupiter’s LFG third round of voting begins
• SEC court debate on compensation plans for Terraform Labs and Do Kwon fraud case
• Bitcoin Pizza Day
• AVAX token unlock of 9.54 million tokens, worth approximately $340 million
• ID token unlock of 18.49 million tokens, worth approximately $14.26 million
• Microsoft Build developer conference

May 23:

• U.S. weekly initial jobless claims
• Fed releases minutes of the monetary policy meeting
• SEC decision on VanEck’s spot ETH ETF application
• Aethir launches edge computing devices
• Crypto V Summit

May 24:

• U.S. May consumer confidence index
• FOMC member Bostic participates in a student Q&A event
• Fed Governor Waller speaks
• Voting on the “Lido Alliance: Ethereum Alliance Ecosystem” proposal ends
• SEC decision on ArkInvest/21Shares spot ETH ETF application
• ASI launches, with three communities merging following proposal votes
• Euler token unlock of approximately 4.66 million tokens, worth about $370,000
• ETH Berlin from May 24–26

May 25:

• Animoca Brands Japan launches “Fairy Tail” digital collectible cards on Quidd
• Notcoin token distribution deadline
• Acala token unlock of 4.66 million tokens, worth about $500,000
• Bitcoin 2024

5、Conclusion

Last week, U.S. CPI inflation data slightly below expectations restored confidence in BTC’s long-term bullish outlook. However, short-term volatility remains high, with macroeconomic factors being key drivers of crypto market performance. Despite a decline in the number of investment and financing deals, the total funding amount remained stable, indicating institutions are cautiously positioning themselves while making larger bets on their investments, particularly in DeFi, infrastructure, and GameFi sectors.

This week, several important events and conferences, such as Crypto Expo Dubai 2024, Microsoft Build developer conference, and ETH Berlin, will bring new technological innovations and collaboration opportunities to the industry. Additionally, token unlocks worth approximately $1.3 billion, including $340 million AVAX and $812 million PYTH, are expected to exert significant selling pressure on the market. If macroeconomic conditions are favorable, market confidence will further strengthen, making the long-term outlook more optimistic.

Moreover, the ongoing vote on the U.S. FIT21 bill could become a pivotal event in U.S. crypto regulation history, significantly impacting the entire industry and providing strong macroeconomic support. Investors are advised to closely monitor this development.

Note: All of the above opinions are not investment advice. If there are any inappropriate points, please feel free to leave a message to correct them.

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