Crypto Research

Venture funding had its highest funded week of the month, with funding nearly doubling from $167M to $321M. Web 3 led the way, accounting for over half of all funding at $170M. There were seven Web 3 deals, the largest of which was an $80M investment in Orange DAO, a Decentralized Autonomous Organization that is made up of over 1,000 Y Combinator alums and operates like a decentralized venture fund. The DAO's mission...

This week was a slow one in venture capital funding. Funding fell to the lowest levels we've seen all year at $111M, with only 13 deals completed. This is a 64% decrease from $306M in funding last week, and a 60% decrease in deals from 32 last week. CeFi and NFTs saw slight increases in funding from last week while each other sector declined. The largest drops were in the...

RISK ASSETS RETREAT (FOR NOW) After several consecutive weeks of bullish price action across risk assets, we have seen markets pull back on both technical exhaustion and underwhelming global economic data. As we write this note, the global crypto markets have retraced 7.0% over the preceding 24 hours, with the most substantial drawdown occurring in the overnight hours upon the opening of equity markets in Europe. Ongoing concerns over the...

Walter Teng outlines the recent milestone on the Ethereum network, including implications of the transition to Proof of Stake. CRYPTO WEEKLY: FLIPPENING WATCH _*Recorded August 17, 2022_

INFLATION EASES, MARKETS RIP The collective world briefly exhaled this week as inflation showed its first signs of cooling in nearly a year. On Wednesday, CPI surprised to the downside, as energy prices showed a month-over-month (MoM) decline for the first time since April. Topline CPI was 8.5%, below the consensus forecast of 8.7%, and lower than the 9.1% figure in June. The CPI basket was unchanged MoM, as the...

Venture funding was flat this week, increasing slightly from $229MM to $276MM. The Metaverse/Gaming and Infrastructure segments which were down last week recovered and received the most funding out of any sector, at $87MM and $67MM, respectively. Interestingly, CeFi, one of the most highly funded sectors in the first half of 2022, has seen the lowest funding of any category this past month and received no funding this week. This...

Sean Farrell, Head of Digital Asset Strategy, outlines the Ethereum Merge, along with several emerging beta opportunities. Mark Newton, Head of Technical Strategy, provides technical analysis with near-term entry prices and possible pullbacks. Is now the time to buy ETH? Watch this first! CRYPTO WEEKLY: HIGH BETA MERGE IDEAS _*Recorded August 3, 2022_ #ethereum

NOT-SO-PRIVATE KEYS This week started with a pair of high-profile exploits – the first of which came in the form of a bridge hack, as interoperable bridging protocol Nomad was hacked for $200 million. Ironically, the vulnerability appeared to stem from a known bug highlighted in a previous audit. Despite this, the Nomad hack furthered widespread skepticism surrounding multichain bridge security. To seemingly one-up Monday’s hacker, an entity on Tuesday...

Venture funding fell to its lowest level all year at $212M, down over 50% from $503M last week. Total deals also nearly got cut in half, falling from 47 to 22. The largest drops in funding came in the infrastructure and Metaverse/Gaming segments, which were each particularly high last week. Surprisingly, NFT funding increased to its highest level in weeks at $81M. There were four NFT deals, the largest of...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARYCARDANO (ADA) is an open-source blockchain founded in 2015 that leverages a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism through a protocol known as Ouroboros. It supports the development of decentralized applications (dApps) through a multi-asset ledger and smart contract functionality. ADA is the native token on Cardano and is used to transact, pay network fees, and provide security via staking.PEER-REVIEWED RESEARCH – IO Global (IOG) is a technology consulting company and the...

DATA DUMP Last week, we discussed the market’s positive reaction to the deluge of negative economic data. Despite a continued murky economic outlook, risk assets performed well. This was an encouraging sign that gave us confidence that we have seen the market put in this year’s lows. We also mentioned that this past week would be another crucial week of data, with an expected negative real GDP report, a consequential...