Daily Bullets 💊: History in the Making: Merge Part 1 - Bellatrix Upgrade Activated
💊 M6 Daily Bullets 💊 Tuesday, September 6th
It’s a big day. Part 1 of the Merge, the Bellatrix upgrade, has commenced. Next up will be the Paris upgrade around ~ September 15ish - will depend on TTD. Lil’ fun piece of history: included in the graffiti - text written by validators onto the blockchain - on multiple slots was the phrase, "Welcome to the New Beginning." Bitcoin stayed mostly flat today and under $20k but ETH saw a lil’ pumperino into the Bellatrix news to just shy of $1700 before cooling off.
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⛓ Crypto News:
- The Bellatrix upgrade was activated at epoch 144896 on the Beacon Chain at 11:34 AM UTC today. The activation of the Bellatrix upgrade on Ethereum triggers the final countdown of the Merge, which will likely be completed sometime around Sept. 13-16
- Binance plans to halt all deposits and withdrawals of ETH and wETH on selected networks starting Sept. 6 in anticipation of Ethereum’s Merge event
- Aave stops loaning ETH ahead of Merge - concerns that users may increasingly borrow ETH, exposing the protocol to liquidity issues and injecting volatility into Lido's staked ether market
- Binance to end support for USDC, USDP and TUSD in favor of its own BUSD. Users will still be able to deposit and withdraw USDC, USDP or TUSD at a ratio of 1:1. Signals a push by Binance to expand the market share for BUSD
- Crypto miner Poolin pauses BTC and ETH withdrawals, citing 'liquidity problems'
- Prices for GPUs for personal computers have been tumbling ahead of the Ethereum Merge, signaling reduced demand for chips from crypto miners
- New upcoming Curve stablecoin github repo released
- GMX surged to a record high this week amid rising interest from traders betting on the growth of Arbitrum
- Binance Futures will launch USDⓈ-M SPELL perpetual contracts with up to 25x leverage
- Framework proposal for deploying Lido as a custom implementation designed to serve the liquid staking needs of the entire IBC ecosystem
- Crypto researcher’s fake Ponzi raises $100K in hours. Crypto Twitter user FatManTerra explained the fake investment scheme was used to teach people a lesson about investing blindly in crypto schemes shilled by influencers
- Crypto wallets company, Trezor, has teamed up with privacy project Wasabi to bring CoinJoin mixing to Bitcoin transactions on its hardware wallets
- Crypto investment platform Bitpanda has launched trading of commodities such as oil, natural gas, aluminum and wheat
- Netflix bans crypto commercials on ad-based streaming service
- DeFi platform Kyber says it removed attack vector and compensated $265,000 stolen
- Reserve Bank of India preparing to trial a CBDC with public sector banks and fintechs
- BNB Beacon Chain Testnet Gibbs upgrade announcement
- BarnBridge V2 successfully deployed on Ethereum mainnet
- Stride mainnet is now live. For the first time in history, ATOM can be liquid staked in the Cosmos ecosystem
- Mycelium - $MYC Lending is officially live
- StarkNet Alpha 0.10.0 released to Goerli testnet
- Introducing Cloud-ZK: a toolkit for developing Zero Knowledge Proof acceleration in the cloud
- SPACEID .bnb domain public registration will be live on September 13
What’s your take on today’s news? Anything interesting that you have to say about these stories? Did we miss anything that should’ve been included?
📊 Data:
TL;DR: On the daily and weekly, money is mostly flowing into USDC, stETH, Aave USDC, WBTC and WETH. Very little outflow today. For NFTs, we’ve got high ENS volume followed by Mondo Megabits which minted yesterday
- Nansen Smart Money Holdings Token Inflow and Outflows: Tracking what the whales are up to...
- Inflow (1D): USDC ($61M), stETH ($35.9M), aUSDC_v2 ($24.4M), WBTC ($14.6M), WETH ($13.6M)
- Outflow (1D): cbETH ($546k), SAND ($164k), MKR ($137k), AAVE ($91k), SHIB ($88k)
Weekly:
- Inflow (7D): USDC ($101M), stETH ($36.2M), aUSDC_v2 ($34.9M), WBTC ($7M), WETH ($9.4M)
- Outflow (7D): RNDR ($4.7M), LDO ($1.9M), APE ($1.9M), DAO ($1.3M), CRV ($316k)
- Nansen NFT Hot Contracts:
- ENS: 1302 ETH
- Mondo Megabits: 633 ETH
- RTFKT Clone X Forging SZN 1: 469 ETH
- Otherdeed: 304 ETH
- Women Ape Yacht Club: 233 ETH
What is the Data telling you? See anything that sticks out to you?
🎓 Research:
- Paradigm - GOO (Gradual Ownership Optimization) - source
- Sports NFT Market Size, Statistics, Growth Trend Analysis and Forecast Report, 2022 - 2032 - source
Have you seen our institutional-quality research?
🖼 NFTs/Metaverse News:
- Sony Music, whose Columbia Records label represents several world famous artists files trademarks for NFT-backed media
- X Marketplace launched a platform for linking NFT holders with projects requiring NFT IP, making it easier for holders to make money off of their holdings
- Golden State Warriors’ co-owner to start fantasy sports-style NFT game
- A spike in volume catapults ENS domains to the top of the charts as the merge draws near
- Investment firm Franklin Templeton, which oversees $1.4T in assets, has launched a metaverse ETF in Europe
- Reddit NFT avatars selling for a premium on OpenSea
🌍 Crypto Twitterverse:
What’s your take on these Twitter takes?
📈 Fundraises:
- 21.co, the parent company of 21Shares, has raised $25M at $2B valuation
- DeFi investing platform Credix raises $11M in Series A round to expand in Latin America
- NFT software company Dust Labs announced $7M strategic raise during y00ts mint
- Metaverse Magna raises $3.2M for building Africa's largest gaming DAO
- DoxyChain raises €2.2M to expedite security in document management
- Reveel raises $1.3M for web3 protocol that reports on-chain income for creators
- PANONY, a Hong Kong-based investor and consulting agency valued at $100M, is prioritizing Web3 startups for its incubator program
Did we miss anything or is there anything you want to discuss? We’d Love to hear your feedback and engage with the community! Feel free to leave a comment and let us know your thoughts on the Crypto market!
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