Magic Eden to Support Bitcoin NFTs, Sushi CEO Served SEC Subpoena
Market Update
- Equities and Crypto are mixed today, with the S&P rising 0.16% while $BTC gained 1.77% over the last day. All eyes are on the Fed, set to deliver their next interest rate decision at 2 pm this afternoon. This will be the first decision following instability among regional banks and several high-profile bank failures. The Fed is in a tough spot as it weighs risking further financial sector instability against tightening liquidity conditions to continue fighting 6% YoY CPI inflation. As of this morning, there is an 86% probability that the Fed will hike 25 bps and a 14% chance that the Fed does not hike at all. Expectations have repriced dramatically in the last few weeks, and many market analysts have stated that a pause could make sense given the tightening of liquidity conditions that will result from regional banks. The Fed also plans to release its updated dot plot, although rumors are swirling that this may be withheld given the uncertainty of the rate path going forward. Its last projections released after the December meeting showed a midpoint on the bank’s target range at about 5.25% by the end of this year, while investors expect an end-of-year midpoint of 4.625%.
- Top Solana NFT marketplace Magic Eden has added support for Bitcoin Ordinals. While there have been around 572k total Bitcoin native inscriptions to date, trading infrastructure has been lacking as bids, and asks have been shared in Discord groups and Google Sheets. Some attempts at creating a marketplace experience similar to Ethereum marketplaces have been made, including ORDX, Generative XYX, and Gamma.io. Magic Eden will be the first major NFT marketplace to deliver users a similar user experience. The market only supports secondary sales of Bitcoin Ordinals, but the team is considering adding creator tools for minting and offering their launchpad product to native Bitcoin collections. Instead of smart contracts used on other chains, Magic Eden will rely on partially signed Bitcoin transactions, which allow multiple people to sign the same transaction. The team has stated that the marketplace will be royalty-free, although they will look into developing on-chain and permissionless royalty standards.
- $SUSHI CEO and “Head Chef” Jared Grey has indicated he and the project have been served a subpoena by the SEC. The revelation came in a proposal for the Sushi DAO to establish a legal defense fund, to use $3m in DAO funds to cover legal costs. The proposal cites a similar legal defense fund established by Maker DAO, although it was done proactively rather than after SEC action. The Sushi proposal gives few details on the nature of the subpoena other than stating there will be no public comments and that they plan to cooperate with the SEC investigation. The action by the SEC is worth watching, considering how many other “decentralized” protocols operate with clear leadership and organizational structures domiciled in the U.S. One early question in the Sushi proposal forum asked, “how does ‘Sushi’ even get subpoenaed,” given there is supposedly no centralized entity to serve. This may indicate how the SEC will begin approaching DeFi entities they perceive as facilitating unregistered activities.
Daily Technical Strategy
Mark L. Newton, CMT
Head of Technical Strategy
Ethereum's Dominance chart has shown some evidence of stabilization in the near-term which likely bodes well for $ETH starting to show some better relative strength in the weeks to come. Daily charts of $ETH.D which graphically portray Ethereum's market capitalization as a percentage of the capitalization of the entire Crypto market and the last few trading sessions have demonstrated the ability of ETH.D to have held former lows made in February. While the broader pattern has been range-bound since last Fall, this formation is quite constructive as a larger triangle pattern that should eventually be resolved by an upside breakout. Daily charts of ETH's Dominance chart have resistance levels directly above March peaks, shown as a red resistance trendline. Exceeding this would argue for a rapid period of acceleration where $ETH could likely rally to $2400 and above to $2870. ETH's close back over $2800 yesterday is seen as a constructive first step in this process in absolute terms.
Daily Important Metrics
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All metrics as of March 22, 2023 12:37 PM
All Funding rates are on bps
Crypto Prices
| Symbol | Market Cap | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
 BTC | $554B | $28,662 | ↑ 1.50% | ↑ 73% | |
 ETH | $221B | $1,807 | ↓ -0.66% | ↑ 51% | ↓ -22% |
 ADA | $13B | $0.3769 | ↑ 6.68% | ↑ 53% | ↓ -20% |
 DOGE | $10B | $0.0769 | ↑ 3.33% | ↑ 9.67% | ↓ -63% |
 MATIC | $10.0B | $1.14 | ↓ -1.30% | ↑ 50% | ↓ -23% |
 SOL | $8.7B | $22.72 | ↓ -1.18% | ↑ 130% | ↑ 57% |
 DOT | $7.3B | $6.28 | ↑ 0.10% | ↑ 44% | ↓ -29% |
 LINK | $3.9B | $7.56 | ↑ 3.52% | ↑ 36% | ↓ -37% |
 NEAR | $1.8B | $2.03 | ↓ -0.75% | ↑ 60% | ↓ -13% |
Exchange Traded Products (ETPs)
| Symbol | Premium to Nav | Last Price | Daily Change | Year to Date | Relative to BTC YTD |
| GBTC | ↓ -37% | $16.54 | ↑ 3.38% | ↑ 100% | ↑ 27% |
| BITW | ↓ -57% | $10.73 | ↑ 0.09% | ↑ 100% | ↑ 27% |
| ETHE | ↓ -51% | $8.54 | ↓ -0.47% | ↑ 79% | ↑ 6.40% |
| BTCC | ↓ -0.02% | $5.29 | ↑ 1.73% | ↑ 75% | ↑ 1.57% |
News
QUICK BITS
Coin Telegraph Bitcoin's banking crisis surge will 'attract more institutions': ARK's Cathie Wood Cathie Wood was impressed that Bitcoin “moved in a very different way” compared to the equity market in response to th... |
CoinDesk XRP Tokens Surge on Positive Outlook in Ongoing Ripple vs SEC Case XRP tokens have jumped 20% in the past 24 hours as Ripple defendants heralded a positive view in its ongoing case with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissi... |
Coin Telegraph Speculators flock to Arbitrum IOU tokens ahead of this week’s ARB airdrop Crypto exchanges looking to capitalize off the Arbitrum airdrop fever have launched IOU and derivatives for ARB, an ea... |
REGULATION
Coin Telegraph ‘Crypto FUD’ — Industry outraged as White House report slams crypto The report included 35 pages seemingly aimed at debunking the merits of crypto assets. Crypto exe... |
Coin Telegraph US Senator Ted Cruz tries again with new bill to block CBDC Ted Cruz said it is “more important than ever” to ensure the financial privacy of American citizens is preserved. ... |
Coin Telegraph IRS calls for public feedback on taxing NFTs as collectibles Those wishing to offer feedback to the IRS on having NFTs treated as collectibles such as coins or works of art have u... |
The Block Sushi hit with SEC subpoena, seeking $3 million USDT legal defense fund The proposed legal defense fund would cover fees for Sushi's core contributors. The post Sushi hit with SEC subpoena, seeking $3 mi... |
FUNDRAISING AND M&A
Coin Telegraph CCP Games secures $40M funding for upcoming Web3 game The financing was led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Makers Fund, Bitkraft, King... |
CoinDesk Binance Launchpad for Space ID Tokens Receives Over $2.8B in BNB Commitments Over 8.4 million bnb tokens have been committed to the Space ID token sale, which was raising $2.5 million from exchange users. |
The Block Bitget acquires controlling stake in BitKeep with additional investment at $300 million valuation Crypto exchange Bitget has invested a further $30 million in the DeFi crypto wallet. The post Bitget acquires controlling stake in ... |
The Block Two Sigma, Flow Traders and Laser Digital back crypto trading venue CrossX Two Sigma, Laser Digital and Flow Traders back new crypto trading venue CrossX, which offers dark and lit liquidity pools, fast execution and 0.01% fees. ... |
NFTS
CoinDesk Magic Eden Embraces Ordinals, Releases Bitcoin NFT Marketplace The popular NFT marketplace is integrating support for Bitcoin wallets Hiro and Xverse to help traders list, purchase and sell Ordinal NFTs. |
HACKS, EXPLOITS, AND SCAMS
Coin Telegraph Circle CSO Twitter account breached by scammers "Any links to offers are scams. We are investigating the situation and taking action accordingly," wrote USDC issuer C... |
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