Crypto Research

CRYPTO CONTINUES TO SHOW RELATIVE STRENGTH It was an eventful week in global macro (this is now the default opening line of every note), as consequential headlines rolled across the tape at a rapid clip. Among them:Signs of slowing demand appeared in Apple’s revised agreement with suppliers, and early signs of potential deflation were on display in Nike’s surging inventories.Despite this, the Fed’s preferred inflation figure, PCE, came in extra...

Compared to last week, funding has decreased $159 million from $474 million to $315 million, representing a 33% weekly decrease. Infrastructure continues to be a highlight of fundraising, accounting for almost a third of the total amount raised this week. Web3 was also a strong category this week, raising $51 million across four deals. Space and Time is tied for the largest web3 deal this week, raising $20 million in...

FIGURE: PEPE FORMULATING DEFI METRICS Since DeFi’s summer ‘20 peak, the general crypto narrative has indisputably shifted away from DeFi, to Web 3.0 and gaming. Granted, the next billion users to crypto are more likely to onboard through gaming than the 69th fork of Uniswap. Yet, many still rely on core DeFi principles to innovate continuously. NFT projects are incorporating airdrops and collateralization of NFT assets, while Web 3.0 /...

FED RAISED RATES ABOVE FUTURES This week, the Fed went ahead and raised interest rates another 75 bps in its attempt to stimy demand and bring down the prices of consumer goods. While the rate hike was already priced in by the market, the Fed’s revised dot plot was not. The Federal Reserve’s forecast for rates (green line below) was well above the futures market expectations. Thus, asset prices continued...

Funding increased from a slow week last week from $260M to $422M. As we’ve seen all month, crypto infrastructure remains the leading interest for VCs. Infrastructure accounted for nearly half of all funding at $208M and comprised 11 of the 24 deals this week. The largest of these infrastructure deals was Sardine, a platform that provides real-time fraud prevention services for web3 and fintech companies. Sardine raised $51.5M in a Series...