Bitcoin Network Transactions Reach All-time Highs, SUI Rises Ahead of Mainnet
Market Update
- BTC has rebounded 1.2% while stocks fell due to weakness in the banking sector. The S&P is down 1.68%, and the Nasdaq fell 1.45%. While JP Morgan’s takeover rescued First Republic, fear has spread to other regional banks. Shares of PacWest, Western Alliance, and Metropolitan Bank all had trading paused after falling over 20% this morning. Gold moved 1.4% higher while the VIX jumped to over 19, 20% higher than its intraday low of under 16 yesterday. The market is full of uncertainty, with trouble in the banking sector, the debt ceiling looming, and tomorrow’s Fed rate decision. Traders are pricing in an 82% chance the Fed hikes 25 bps, but investors will focus on whether the Fed will indicate any dovishness and finally pivot from tightening monetary policy. ETH is outperforming among the top 10 by market cap, rising 0.8% over the last day. Amid all the uncertainty, the number of transactions on the Bitcoin network has quietly reached all-time highs, likely due to surging interest in ordinal-based tokens built on the network using a new token standard (more below).
- Interest in tokens built using the "Bitcoin Request for Comment" (BRC-20) standard has surged, lifting their market value by several hundred percent. As of writing, the combined market cap of more than 8,800 BRC-20 tokens was $137 million – a staggering 682% rise from $17.5 million seen a week ago. The BRC-20 standard was created by a pseudonymous on-chain analyst named Domo to facilitate the issue and transfer of fungible tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain. The BRC-20 standard is similar to the popular ERC-20 standard but cannot interact with smart contracts. Most active BRC-20 tokens fall into meme coins, and the top three coins minted using the BRC-20 standard were ORDI, OG, and PEPE. According to Boolean Fund's Mark Jeffrey, the launch of BRC-20 tokens has eliminated the need for crypto exchanges and evolved Bitcoin from merely a currency/store of value to an instrument used for gas, similar to ETH on Ethereum.
- The price of SUI's IOU has continued to rise ahead of its mainnet launch tomorrow, with the token increasing by over 20% in the past 24 hours to trade at $2.39. Sui is a layer-1 platform that enables developers to build advanced decentralized applications. Mysten Labs, the development team behind the platform, raised $336m across two rounds, with participation from a16z, Electric Capital, Coinbase, Apollo, and Binance Labs, among others. SUI has been distributing tokens through initial exchange offerings (IEO) ahead of mainet, with launchpad sales on KuCoin, OKX, Bybit, and Bitforex. The IEO price has ranged from $0.03 - $0.10, with $49.4m raised through a sale of 5.95% of supply to the public, giving the new platform a fully diluted valuation of $1 bn, although at current prices, implied FDV is much higher. Most of the supply sold through the IEO is not subject to unlocks, meaning these investors are already heavily in the money and could potentially take profit as spot trading for SUI launches with mainnet. Sui faces stiff competition in the industry, particularly from Ethereum, which dominates other layer-1 networks such as Avalanche and Solana, and layer-2 networks such as Optimism, Polygon, and Arbitrum, which aim to improve Ethereum's speed and reduce transaction costs.
- Coinbase is officially launching an offshore derivatives exchange for institutional investors outside the U.S.Coinbase International Exchange will offer perpetual futures, which accounted for almost 75% of global trading volume in 2022. The new platform will initially launch with Bitcoin and Ether futures offering up to 5x leverage denominated in USDC. The move will see the leading U.S. exchange compete in a market dominated by offshore competitors, including Binance and FTX, before its collapse. In a blog post announcing the move, Coinbase stated, “as more and more markets are moving forward with regulatory frameworks to become crypto hubs, we believe the moment is right to launch this international exchange.” The exchange is embroiled in a legal battle with the SEC over products offered in the U.S., where 84% of its revenue came from last year. They stated that while they remain committed to the U.S., they’ve been disappointed by the current “regulation by enforcement” environment.
Daily Technical Strategy
Mark L. Newton, CMT
Head of Technical Strategy
Monero's recent sideways consolidation following the decline into March is now nearing the apex of the large triangle pattern that started back in late January 2023. Daily XMR charts show this recent churning has dampened the volatility over the last month. However, that looks close to ending and an upcoming breakout of this pattern looks near. Daily closes back over $162.50 on the upside, or under $150 on the downside would result in some meaningful follow-through in either direction which would turn the trend quickly back to bullish, or bearish. The peak to trough decline from late January will provide resistance as well as support to any move that begins in the weeks to come. Upside resistance targets lie at $187.25, while downside support is found near $132. Until this breakout happens in the days ahead, XMR's near-term pattern remains technically neutral in the short run.
Daily Important Metrics
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All metrics as of May 2, 2023 1:28 PM
All Funding rates are in bps
Crypto Prices
| Symbol | Market Cap | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
 BTC | $552B | $28,489 | ↑ 1.10% | ↑ 72% | |
 ETH | $223B | $1,856 | ↑ 1.26% | ↑ 55% | ↓ -17% |
 ADA | $14B | $0.3890 | ↑ 0.99% | ↑ 58% | ↓ -14% |
 DOGE | $11B | $0.0786 | ↑ 0.21% | ↑ 12% | ↓ -60% |
 MATIC | $8.9B | $0.9641 | ↓ -0.05% | ↑ 26% | ↓ -45% |
 SOL | $8.7B | $22.18 | ↑ 1.44% | ↑ 124% | ↑ 52% |
 DOT | $6.7B | $5.70 | ↓ -0.18% | ↑ 31% | ↓ -41% |
 LINK | $3.6B | $6.90 | ↓ -0.11% | ↑ 24% | ↓ -48% |
 NEAR | $1.6B | $1.83 | ↓ -0.08% | ↑ 44% | ↓ -28% |
Exchange Traded Products (ETPs)
| Symbol | Premium to Nav | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
| GBTC | ↓ -40% | $15.95 | ↑ 4.59% | ↑ 92% | ↑ 20% |
| BITW | ↓ -58% | $10.55 | ↑ 2.53% | ↑ 96% | ↑ 24% |
| ETHE | ↓ -53% | $8.70 | ↑ 4.32% | ↑ 83% | ↑ 11% |
| BTCC | ↓ -0.11% | $5.25 | ↑ 2.54% | ↑ 73% | ↑ 1.29% |
News
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MARKET DATA
BtcEthereum SUI IOU price spikes ahead of Airdrop, mainnet launch Sui IOU price continued rising ahead of the project’s mainnet launch. According to CoinMarketCap, the token has jumped by more than 20% in the past 24 hours to... |
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REGULATION
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