TronWeekly

Crypto World News

You are here: Home / Archives for Messari

Messari

Ripple Gains A New Ally: Messari CEO Ryan Selkis Voices Support For XRP Ledger

by

Blockchain payments firm Ripple Labs has gained a new ally in the form of Messari co-founder and CEO Ryan Selkis, who recently took to Twitter to express his support for the company. 

Despite having been critical of Ripple in the past, Selkis now believes that the XRP-SEC case should be won by Ripple and that the XRP Ledger should be given the opportunity to compete fairly on a global scale.

Ripple’s Potential: XRP Ledger’s PoA Algorithm and IOUs

In a tweet thread by Messari, it was shared that the demand for digital payment infrastructure is increasing, despite the external pressures being applied by U.S. regulatory authorities. 

According to the tweet, the XRP Ledger (XRPL), which Ripple supports, can provide this infrastructure for individuals and existing financial entities such as central banks.

One of the unique features of the XRPL that the Messari tweet highlighted is its use of a Proof-of-Association (PoA) consensus algorithm, which requires each node to set a list of trusted nodes (UNL) that it will rely on for consensus. 

All nodes on the XRPL run the same free, open-source software called “rippled.” Validators are nodes involved in reaching consensus and voting on improvement proposals, while stock nodes receive, relay, and process transactions. Nodes rely on their UNL to finalize the state.

The thread further elaborated that the XRPL’s Issued Currencies (IOUs) allow for the creation of multiple assets. While its Authorized Trust Lines enable issuers to choose which wallets can interact with their tokens. Additionally, the XRPL has a central limit order book, supporting low-liquidity IOUs.

Despite facing regulatory challenges, Ripple and the XRP Ledger are making progress. Additionally, with support from industry leaders like Selkis and others, the company is poised to continue making strides toward its goal of revolutionizing the world of finance.

Community Response To Selkis’s Support Of Ripple Labs

Ryan Selkis’ tweet in support of Ripple Labs and the XRP Ledger has garnered a lot of attention from community members. Many responded positively to Selkis’ observations, with one person saying that the XRPL is impressive for so many reasons and that digital assets should have a level playing field to compete with each other. They believe that true competition will drive innovation and help grow the space.

image 72

Others expressed their appreciation for Selkis’ support, with one person saying they were glad to have him on their side. Another community member pointed out that there should be no sides and that it’s all of us versus the existing system.

image 71

Many also acknowledged the potential of the XRPL, with one person applauding the thread and stating that it’s clear that the technology is good and deserves to compete. They expressed regret that Ripple was ridiculed in the beginning instead of being supported but were glad that things were changing.

image 70

Related Reading | Cardano NFT Project Releases New Collection Featuring Snoop Dogg

Bitcoin Could Reach $100,000 In 12 Months: Messari CEO’s Bold Prediction

by

Messari CEO, Ryan Selkis, has made a bold prediction for the future price of Bitcoin (BTC) amidst concerns over the broader banking industry. 

In a tweet, Selkis suggested that BTC could rise to $100,000 in the next twelve months due to more bank failures, the reintroduction of Federal Reserve cuts and quantitative easing, and sustained moderate inflation. 

He also noted that institutions might begin buying BTC faster than the Federal Reserve can shut them down. The community response to Selkis’ tweet has been mixed. Some believe that the Fed will not pause or cut interest rates next week, while others point out that people have been predicting a $100k BTC for years. 

However, one commenter sees promise in the fact that BTC started at $3.5k and reached $65k, and now has a chance to reach $100k from its current level of around $20k. Another commenter argues that the Fed injecting more cash into the system during a high inflationary period could be problematic.

Some have added their own predictions to the mix. One commenter believes that the Feds or bank surrogates will counterattack with massive shorts on BTC derivatives, causing the price to plummet. 

However, enough HODLers (people who hold on to BTC) will pull their coins from exchanges, causing the naked shorts to blow up. Another commenter sees potential in Fidelity offering Bitcoin access to 100% of its retail customer base.

Nevertheless, the community response to Selkis’ prediction is mixed. Some are optimistic, while others are cautious. Regardless, it is clear that BTC has a significant following and that many believe it has the potential to soar in value.

Bitcoin Surges Past $26,000 & Eyes Next Major Resistance

Bitcoin (BTC) has made a sharp upward move, clearing a major resistance level earlier today, and surpassed the $26,000 mark, resulting in a shift in focus towards the next major resistance. 

This latest surge in Bitcoin’s price has taken many analysts by surprise, with some predicting a bearish market in the coming months. However, the current trend suggests that Bitcoin is set to continue its upward trajectory, with investors keeping a close eye on the next technical level of $28,000.

According to the prediction from Markus Thielen, the head of research and strategy at Matrixport, Bitcoin now has the chance to climb to the next technical level.

Thielen said: 

Within larger price swings, bitcoin has rallied, reacted, and retested from $4,000 point increments – $16k, $20k, and $24k – from which the current breakout is now targeting $28K.

Related Reading | Not XRP, But Regulators Are Now After ETH- Ripple Lawyer

Solana NFT Ecosystem Shines But DeFi Remains Muted: Report

by

Solana’s NFT ecosystem continued to show resilience amidst a bear market. Data from Messari noted that the total number of daily new NFTs users grew by more than 8 million, over a 19% increase on a QoQ basis.

“For perspective, this growth in the third quarter followed after increasing by 46.4% in Q2 and is ~8.5x the level minted a year ago”, the tweet read.

The report attributed Solana’s NFT rise to fundamentals like a foundational user base, network stability, and improved transaction activity that drove the network value during Q3.

Sol’s position in the NFT sector remained the second largest by secondary sales volume, behind Ethereum, and narrowed the gap. Strategies to boost GameFi are underway, and unique use cases like Helium are coming to the Solana network. Efforts to improve decentralization through greater geographic, hosting, and ownership distribution continue.

image 22
Solana NFT Ecosystem Shines But DeFi Remains Muted: Report 5

The report also highlighted the continued optimization of Metaplex’s Digital Asset Standard which it claimed played a key role in bolstering the network’s NFT ecosystem.

As reported by TronWeekly, the NFT marketplace recently announced cutting back its workforce due to the ripple effects of the FTX shockwaves.

In Q2, SOL suffered numerous network downtimes and gas fee woes during periods of congestion. To overcome these issues, core developers have rolled out QUIC and a novel fee prioritization model. 

“The solutions were clearly working by the end of Q2 as degraded network performance stabilized,” the report claimed. These along with Solana Pay and Solana mobile has expanded the ecosystem, it added.

That said, the report took note of the network’s subdued performance in the DeFi sector.

Solana’s Q3 Total Value Locked [TVL] decreased by about 16% both in USD and SOL QoQ terms. But according to the data platform, a healthy distribution of TVL across applications still exists.

“Currently, 50% of TVL is locked across most of the long-tail DeFi protocols on the network. The continued level of diversified TVL helps mitigate overall ecosystem risk.” 

Solana Roadmap: New Updates On the Horizon

As per GitHub, the latest mainnet version of the SOL network is v1. 10.29, which sought to fix various bugs along with Neon and Nitro.

While Neon Labs’s goal is to bring both scalability and low transaction costs, Nitro, on the other hand, is a Solana Virtual Machine [SVM]-compatible blockchain that will serve as a bridge between Solana and Cosmos. 



Uniswap Records Highest Trading Fees But Faces Competition From OpenSea

by

One of the most popular decentralized exchanges, Uniswap (UNI), records the highest number of trading fees in the last three months but was not able to turn them into revenue due to increased competition from OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace, within the market. 

Messari, an analytics platform or a leading provider of market intelligence products that help professionals navigate cryptocurrency with ease, tweeted on October 16 that although UNI has collected an impressive amount of fees over the last three months, OpenSea has managed to generate more revenue than Uniswap.

According to the graph in the tweet, OpenSea was able to produce roughly over $600 million in revenue, while, Uniswap’s total revenue was close to $400 million.

As Messari said in the tweet:

“While both  @Uniswap and @opensea set the standard for fees generated, only one of the two, in OpenSea, sees positive revenue capture due to its take rate.”

In addition, when analyzing crypto protocols, the analytics platform stresses the importance of understanding the difference between protocol fees and protocol revenue. Messari said, “it’s crucial to understand” it. 

Drop-In Uniswap Trading Volume In Q3

Messari recently revealed in its quarterly report, aptly titled “State of Uniswap Q3 2022,” that key performance metrics for Uniswap had declined between the months of July and September.

In terms of its key performance metrics, it was discovered that the platform’s trading volume fell by 30% on a quarter-over-quarter basis (QOQ) between Q3 and Q2, from $172.80 million to $120.92 million. Its trading volume has also been continuously falling since Q4 2021. 

Moreover, the decrease in crypto market prices between July and September led to a corresponding drop in Uniswap’s liquidity provider payouts, 21.8% from Q1 to Q2 this year. They were even lower during July and September ( over 38.8%), and yearly fees have fallen by 52.9%.

Uniswap Revenues Across Times

When Uniswap initially started facilitating trades in May 2020, its trading volume was $57.8 billion. By 2021, it had grown to $681.1 billion. The protocol’s revenues were taking off in 2021. The protocol was widely adopted, and by March 2021, monthly revenues had surpassed $100 million. 

In May, they reached an all-time high of $238.4 billion, more than 61% higher than the previous quarter, according to Messari’s Q4 2021 report. However, the introduction of V3 on Arbitrum and Polygon helped it jump-start new liquidity pairings. 

Within the first month of becoming live, the amount of V3 transactions increased significantly and surpassed that of V2. V3 produced deals of $58.9 billion in Q2, the period in which it was introduced. Comparatively, the value of transactions in Q4 was $180 billion, a 205% rise.

Related Reading |  Gemini managed Holon’s crypto funds suspended by Australian regulators

Is Cardano Being “Aggressively Priced” An Understatement?

by

Among the growing ecosystems, Cardano has priced more aggressively, on-chain analytics dashboard Messari tweeted. The upcoming Vasil hard fork is slated to bring significant improvements to Cardano, specifically higher throughput and smart contract enhancements.

Under the report titled “Non-EVM chains in the bear market”, Messari wrote Cardano was priced aggressively compared to its adoption metrics.” For the blockchain, development activity remains key.

In the chart highlighted in red, Messari observed that the PoS blockchain was way ahead of its competitors like Solana [SOL], Tezos [XTZ], Algorand [ALGO], and Neo [NEO]. ADA’s transaction and Total Value locked [TVL] multiple stood at 240 and 127.

For those new to the market, Transaction multiples are a type of valuation metric that plays a key role, as they make the investor aware of the value of a particular kind of asset or firm based on recent trends.

Cardano scoring high in the category could imply being”overvalued” here.

cardano
Is Cardano Being "Aggressively Priced” An Understatement? 7

Peter Mauric who is a top exec at Parity Tech, a blockchain infrastructure builder reacted to the report by saying “Aggressively priced” is an understatement. “It should have about the same or lower market cap as MoonbeamNetwork. And it won’t keep up with moonbeam’s tech roadmap long-term [or short-term or medium to term]”.

In response to that, the community-focused Twitter account, ADA Whale commented, “For all of what’s coming, Cardano is an absolute bargain. No idea what Moon Beamer is.”

“Cardano is Fairly Priced”

He also believed the metrics used by Messari were outdated in reference to the chart provided in the report, “Convinced that applying these sorts of traditional multiples — especially when based on inaccurate or flawed metrics — will mean that you continue to not get what drives value in crypto.”

Refuting claims of Cardano being either overvalued or undervalued, ADA whale stressed that the blockchain, in fact, has a fair value,” ADA has fallen back to a perfectly neutral valuation.”

The popular influencer then went on to add that TVL figures are fake and are pumped by VCs. “Look at a crypto valuation in two stages. In the early years [now-2025?] it’ll mostly be about network growth. Beyond that, valuation likely matures to other frameworks. IMO blindly focusing on TVL etc metrics missed the point.”

Cardano’s Buying Activity Shoot Up Due To These Possible Reasons

by

Cardano’s purchase activity has registered an uptick for a brief period of time, as noted by a Twitter user called “Pete”. Illustrating his point through a coinmarketcap chart, the user tweeted, “Someone is buying up. Just watch out for those corrections.”

He then wondered if those buyers are up for the long term or simply there for profit making- dumping them right after the Vasil upgrade.

On the other hand, the PoS blockchain’s Total Active Users count says otherwise as Cardano holders hit their 12-month low this week.

Data from the Messari chart revealed that the total active users on a daily basis slid from 234k in January to a mere 65k at press time.

Screenshot 2022 08 09 153251
Cardano's Buying Activity Shoot Up Due To These Possible Reasons 9

Despite that, ADA continues to be in favor among the top 4,000 BSC whales, per data tracker WhaleStats. Here too the motives remain unknown.

Cardano also tapped a 268% year-to-date [YTD] surge in on-chain volume and a 16% increase on a month-on-month [MoM] basis data from Kraken Intelligence showed.

Kraken experts cited the launch of the network’s first decentralized exchange [DEX] SundaeSwap and metaverse gaming app Pavia as the reason behind the growth spurt.

Besides that, its developers have increased the programmable blockchain’s block size by 10% as projects on the ecosystem exceeded 1,000.

Kraken Intelligence also highlighted the euphoria surrounding the upcoming Vasil hard fork in ADA’s on-chain transfer volume growth.

The much-awaited hard fork remains one of the most talked about updates to date as it is touted to bring significant improvements to Cardano and its Plutus smart contracts.

Cardano Community Reacts To Mark Cuban’s Claims

In another news, Billionaire Mark Cuban made a stunning claim that Dogecoin has greater utility than Cardano in an interview, “I still think Doge has more applications available to it than ADA.”

Cardano’s founder Charles Hoskinson reacted by posting a “wave aside” GIF image in response to the remarks. Community-focused Twitter account, ADA Whale, too chimed in by saying it “was a factually wrong statement”

Earlier, Hoskinson emphasized the timing factor after a user criticized ADA’s price. Could these mysterious buying spikes anywhere be related to what Hoskinson envisaged? Only Time has the answer.

SEC on a warpath with crypto; NY crypto event attendee allegedly subpoenaed

by

The United States SEC has been at odds with the crypto community for years. While any regulatory clarity involving the industry is yet to see the light of the day, it has now resorted to summoning speakers at crypto events. Even before taking the podium of the Mainnet 2021 crypto conference in New York, an attendee claimed to have witnessed a speaker subpoenaed by the SEC.

The development sparked off massive uproar amid growing tension in the crypto community. Many speculated the reason behind the move. One such was a prominent lawyer and General Counsel of Compound Finance, Jake Chervinsky who pointed out that summoning someone at a conference could either be due to the fact that the “target” lives outside the US or the SEC wanted to see the entire fiasco unfold live to send a message or intimidate dissents.

SEC vs Crypto: the final straw

Messari was the organizer of the blockchain conference that kicked off amidst regulators at the state and federal levels intensifying scrutiny in the crypto space. Naturally, the founder of the crypto research firm Ryan Selkis wasn’t pleased. In a series of tweets, the exec stated revealed offering compensation event passes for regulatory, which they refused. He concluded that the regulators had no intention of learning about the space and that they wanted to shut the entire industry down. However, Selkis made no mention about the regulator being SEC but confirmed the subpoena reports.

SEC had previously hammered cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and blockchain firm, Ripple. While the latter is still fighting the regulators, Coinbase, on the other hand, has made a compromise by dropping its plans to launch the LEND product. Nevertheless, serving at an event where there were invited to appeared to be an aggressive move. Selkis, who happens to be one of the most vocal crypto proponents, announced plans to run for the U.S. Senate in 2024 after the event.

His tweet regarding the same read,

“If you’re wondering when I actually decided to run for Senate, it was when these fuckers came to my event, didn’t buy a ticket, and served one of the speakers a subpoena. Enough talk. More war on our out-of-control regulatory state. Selkis 2024. Time to activate the crypto political machine.”