Crypto Research

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Click Here for the full report.Since late 2021, crypto markets have struggled in the face of a challenging macroeconomic background highlighted by rampant inflation and geopolitical conflict. Asset price drawdowns were exacerbated by a violent unwind of unhealthy leverage in the space, which revealed outright fraudulent behavior among some of the industry's most prominent figures. Despite these headwinds, crypto VC funding remained strong in 2022 and set a...

FIGURE: A TEAM OF PEPES CONCOCTING THE PERFECT TOKENOMICS Tokenomics (a portmanteau for token and economics) represents the monetary policy of tokens that directly contributes to their price fluctuations. In bull markets, tokenomics were given utmost priority, sometimes constituting full theses for investment decisions. When the euphoria wears off in the bear, however, founders and market participants are left realizing that tokenomics can delay a weak project’s demise, but cannot...

Stocks are gaining following the highly anticipated December consumer prices report. The CPI report was in line with economists' expectations that inflation would decline, falling 0.1% from November but still 6.5% higher than last year. The S&P 500 gained 0.51%, while the Nasdaq was up 0.50%. Equities have been pushing up this week as the market anticipates the Fed may begin to slow its pace of rate hikes in response...

CARNAGE GIVES WAY TO INDIFFERENCE There are few cohorts of people more excited to turn the page to a new year than crypto investors. After nearly 12 months of unwinding leverage, we have finally reached a point in the cycle where indifference has crept into the market, as demonstrated by the continued decline in volumes and realized volatilities. Aggregated ETH volume is the best proxy for trading activity in crypto....

Crypto funding is off to a slow start in 2023, with only five deals this week and a total of ~$7M in funding (two deals did not report the funding amount, so the actual number is a bit higher). It’s worth noting that this is in large part due to a lack of deal activity around the holidays – last week’s funding was also low at just $1M of funding....

Stocks are moving higher following a promising December jobs report. The S&P 500 gained 1.56%, while the Nasdaq was up 1.49%. The jobs report showed the U.S. economy added 223k jobs last month, higher than the 200k expected, but wage growth was lower than the expected 0.4%, growing only 0.3%. Despite a historically low unemployment rate of 3.5%, investors hope the Fed can thread the needle on a soft landing...