Base and Optimism Share Revenue and Governance, Mastercard Terminates Binance Partnership
Market Update
- All eyes turned to Jackson Hole this morning as Jerome Powell says the Fed will ‘proceed carefully’ on any further rate rises this year. Futures pricing imply that investors see a near-50% chance of another hike by year end. Ahead of Powell's much-awaited speech, markets opened higher before retracing to flat relative to yesterday's close after the speech. SPX and QQQ -0.07% are both down by 0.1%, while yields on the US10Y surged to 4.29%. Digital asset markets are relatively flat over the past day. BTC is 0.6% lower in the past 24 hours after spiking above, then getting rejected from the $26k level earlier in the week, while ETH is trading 0.4% higher in the same period.
- Developers of the Base and Optimism networks have announced a significant revenue and governance-sharing agreement. Coinbase, Base's parent company, has delineated "principles of neutrality" to stave off centralization. Base's smart contracts will require mutual consent from Base and the Optimism Foundation for any upgrades. Governance will later transition to a 'security council' representing all participating chains in the Optimism ecosystem, dubbed the "Superchain." Base will pay 2.5% of its revenue or 15% of its profits to the Optimism Collective, whichever is larger. In return, it will receive up to 118 million OP Tokens, capped at 9% of the total votable supply, allowing Base a say in Optimism's protocol governance. The collaboration marks the first time a publicly-listed U.S. company has incubated and launched an OP Chain via Optimism.
- Mastercard to Terminate Crypto Card Partnership with Binance Amid Regulatory Concerns. Mastercard is set to end its co-branded cryptocurrency card programs with Binance in Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia starting September 22, 2023. The move comes approximately a year after the initial partnership began. While Mastercard has not explicitly cited the reasons behind the dissolution, speculations point towards mounting regulatory scrutiny surrounding Binance, including ongoing lawsuits filed by the SEC and CFTC and an investigation by the DoJ for sanctions violations. Visa has also reportedly ceased issuing new co-branded cards with Binance in Europe as of July. The termination could potentially limit Binance's growth ambitions in Latin America, a key market for crypto adoption.
Daily Technical Strategy
Mark L. Newton, CMT
Head of Technical Strategy
TRON's rally has helped to gain roughly 7% this week during a time of general consolidation within the Cryptocurrency space. TRX has been able to successfully gain ground given its trendline breakout from Sunday 8/20 which broke back out above $0.075 on heavier volume. As TRX charts show, its consolidation from late July managed to hold an exact area of trendline support from March of this year, which intersects just above $0.07. This proved to be important support last week and should continue to be thought of as a key area if/when revisited. This week's gains, however, suggest that additional upside could be a bit more likely, with upside resistance targets found at $0.082-$0.085 and movement above would lead back to $0.10. Any pullback next week likely would create a more attractive risk/reward scenario, but the area oat $0.07 remains important to hold.
Daily Important Metrics
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All metrics as of August 25, 2023 8:00 AM
All Funding rates are in bps
Crypto Prices
| Symbol | Market Cap | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
 BTC | $503B | $25,849 | ↓ -1.09% | ↑ 56% | |
 ETH | $198B | $1,643 | ↓ -0.28% | ↑ 37% | ↓ -19% |
 ADA | $9.1B | $0.2602 | ↓ -1.32% | ↑ 5.41% | ↓ -51% |
 DOGE | $8.7B | $0.0619 | ↓ -1.38% | ↓ -12% | ↓ -68% |
 SOL | $8.3B | $20.35 | ↓ -4.31% | ↑ 106% | ↑ 50% |
 DOT | $5.4B | $4.43 | ↑ 0.23% | ↑ 1.88% | ↓ -54% |
 MATIC | $5.0B | $0.5383 | ↓ -1.37% | ↓ -29% | ↓ -85% |
 LINK | $3.2B | $5.93 | ↓ -4.15% | ↑ 6.85% | ↓ -49% |
 NEAR | $1.1B | $1.17 | ↓ -1.07% | ↓ -8.24% | ↓ -64% |
Exchange Traded Products (ETPs)
| Symbol | Premium to Nav | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
| GBTC | ↓ -25% | $17.53 | ↓ -0.85% | ↑ 111% | ↑ 55% |
| BITW | ↓ -50% | $11.01 | ↓ -0.36% | ↑ 105% | ↑ 49% |
| ETHE | ↓ -35% | $10.44 | ↑ 0.87% | ↑ 119% | ↑ 63% |
| BTCC | ↑ 0.14% | $4.74 | ↓ -0.63% | ↑ 56% | ↑ 0.40% |
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