Bitcoin peaks at $52,816 and faces volatility, as WLD soars

February 19, 2024

I. Mainstream exchange news

• Upbit will give STRK airdrops to members who had ETH staked before the Ethereum merger.
• Coinbase CEO  Brian Armstrong said in a tweet that they have already custodied approximately 90% of the $37 billion in Bitcoin ETF assets.
• Coinbase Q4 revenue and net profit exceed expectations, at $953.8 million and $273 million respectively.
• Coinbase launched RENDER on Feb 16th.
• Crypto.com has applied for a virtual asset trading platform license from the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission.
• OKX will open STRK deposits at 2 pm (UTC+8) on Feb 19th.
• Bithumb has launched a Mantle (MNT) won trading pair.
• CZ, the founder of Binance, has had his trial postponed until April 30th.

II. Mainstream projects and trending events

• Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said in a tweet that cryptocurrency payments will mainly occur on L2 blockchains, and Coinbase is integrating the Lightning Network.
• Pudgy Penguin’s floor price exceeds BAYC, currently at 22.54 ETH.
• Filecoin announces integration with Solana.
• PIXEL token distribution has started, and 250 million tokens have been cross-chained to the Ronin network.
• Magic Eden will launch a 'Mint to Earn' program by the end of February to support Ethereum Launchpad projects.
• Yuga Labs announces the acquisition of Moonbirds development team, Proof.
• Livepeer announced plans to introduce OpenAI's Sora functionality into its network, after which it experienced a surge in its LPT.
• Cobo launches BTC L2 bridge standard custodial solution, providing technical and financial support for the BTC ecosystem.
• Justin Sun announced the launch of TRON's Bitcoin Layer 2 solution and roadmap.
• Starknet will launch a 700 million STRK token airdrop on Feb 20, and approximately 1,297,000 wallet addresses are eligible to claim.
• Sei launched the V2 public development network and plans to launch a mainnet in the first half of 2024.
• Farcaster Protocol has connected to over 140,000 addresses, with the total number of users surpassing 170,000.
• The total amount of open futures contracts for Bitcoin on CME has reached $6.75 billion, setting a new historical record.
• The number of daily active users on the World APP has broken through the 1 million mark.

III. Funding news

• Web3 digital identity startup Metropolis completes $1.2 million funding.
• DePIN infrastructure DePHY completes seed round funding at a $40 million valuation.
• Ethereum stablecoin developer Ethena Labs completes a $14 million strategic round of funding with a post-investment valuation of $300 million.
• Web3 data analytics and infrastructure service company Helika completes an $8 million Series A funding.
• Blueprint Finance completes a $7.5 million funding round led by Hashed and Tribe Capital.
• Modular blockchain solution Lava Network completes a $15 million seed funding round.
• NFT collateral lending platform MetaStreet completes a $25 million funding round.
• Derivative trading protocol IntentX completes a $1.8 million strategic funding round, led by Selini Capital.
• Cross-chain interoperability protocol Analog completes a $16 million funding round, led by Tribe Capital.
• Oracle service Truflation completes a $6 million funding round, led by Laser Digital and Red Beard Ventures.

IV. Regulatory news

• An official from the Reserve Bank of India stated that cryptocurrencies should not be referred to as "currencies," and urged the government to address the issues surrounding cryptocurrencies.
• Japan's Financial Services Agency calls for strengthened monitoring of illegal cryptocurrency transfers.
• The US Treasury's deputy secretary hopes to work with Congress to eradicate illegal financial activities in the virtual asset market.
• Bitso report indicates that the amount of digital dollars purchased in Argentina is five times that of other cryptocurrencies.
• The South Korean Financial Intelligence Unit plans to prevent unfit virtual asset exchanges from entering the won market.
• Adrian Orr, the Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, issued a warning about stablecoins and other cryptocurrencies, stating that they cannot replace legal tender.
• The regulatory authorities of Honduras have forbidden the country's financial system from dealing with cryptocurrency transactions.
  

IV. Popular projects

Market overview:

Bitcoin hit a peak of $52,816 but couldn't surpass $53,000. It's now in a volatile phase, with the critical support level at $50,500. If it drops below this, a significant correction might be expected. Meanwhile, the Ethereum to BTC ratio remains stable. If it can maintain a ratio of 0.054 and beyond, a stronger performance from ETH is likely.

Projects with upcoming token launch:

Starknet: zk-rollup Layer2 project Starknet said it will distribute the STRK tokens on February 20th. Around 700 million STRK tokens will be airdropped, mainly to personal addresses, with approximately 1.297 million eligible wallets. The airdrop targets not just Starknet ecosystem users, but also Ethereum mainnet ETH stakers, liquidity token holders, and non-Web3 developers.

Blast: The mainnet launch date will officially be announced between February 19th and February 25th. The airdrop release time is expected in May. Currently, Blast has $1.79 billion worth of tokens locked, with participation from 141,000 addresses. 

Ether.fi: Token economics details will be announced by February 25th. ether.fi currently has 450,000 staked ETHs, worth $1.26 billion. It has the largest TVL in the LRT track.

Merlin: Its first event on the IDO platform The People's Launchpad ended on February 10th with over 1 million participants. The tokens will officially be launched in March. It's currently conducting staking to earn points, making it a key focus within the BTC Layer2 track due to high participation.

Pixel: It will go live on Binance Launchpool at 10 am (UTC) on February 19th. Its tokens have been deployed to the ETH network, with 5% crossing over to the Ronin network for gamers to claim PIXEL, 34% transferred to a multi-sig address for ecosystem construction, 1.7% for the treasury, and 1% to new address 0x8FB...d3Dfd, possibly for market-making. 

Wormhole: On November 29, 2023, Wormhole completed a $225 million funding round at a valuation of $2.5 billion. Investors included Brevan Howard, Coinbase Ventures, and Multicoin Capital. On February 7th, Wormhole officially unveiled the tokenomics of the Wormhole token (W). 17% of the tokens will be distributed to the community, with 11% directly unlocked at the Token Generation Event (TGE). The tokens are expected to be listed soon. As the core competitor of Layerzero, it is attracting a high degree of market attention.

Berachain: On January 11th, the Layer1 public blockchain Berachain launched a public testnet called Artio and introduced the concept of Proof of Liquidity consensus. Berachain is a modular EVM-compatible L1 blockchain built on the Cosmos SDK and supported by proof of liquidity. It raised $42 million in funding at a $421 million valuation. The mainnet will go live in Q2, and currently, a large number of users are participating in the testnet games to receive airdrops. This project is one of the key focuses for Q2.

Backpack: Created by Solana framework developer Coral in 2022, Backpack Exchange, a cryptocurrency exchange, was announced by the team in November 2023. It obtained a regulatory license from VARA in Dubai and can provide crypto trading services to qualified investors in Dubai. After the previous airdrop event in collaboration with Solana's oracle project Pyth Network, community users are expecting Wormhole to be the next airdrop, leading to a surge in Backpack registrations to be eligible for the airdrop.

Emerging AI-related projects influenced by the release of text-to-video Sora's release:

TAO: A project featuring POW+AI+sub-DAO concepts, with its token continuously reaching new heights. The project holds a ranking of 26th in market capitalization with an estimated valuation of $13.5 billion. A key sub-DAO project under it, AIT, has seen a 40-fold increase from its opening price, with a market cap of $68.78 million and a 24-hour trading volume of $2.23 million.

OLAS: The first framework to bridge the gap between artificial intelligence and blockchain through a DAO, with an estimated valuation of $3.21 billion. It has yet to be listed on a major exchange. 

WLD: The World App has reached over 1 million daily active users. Influenced by OpenAI's launch of Sora, the WLD token has broken through 6u, currently at 6.15u, with a 24-hour increase of 15%.

RNDR & AGIX & FET: Old leading AI projects AGIX and FET are following the uptrend of the AI sector, showing a strong trend. RNDR, the leading project of GPU computing power, exhibited a long-term bull trend. Despite a relatively low daily increase, the price of RNDR has broken through to a new high, attracting a lot of market attention. 

NFPrompt: AI-related projects launched on Binance, featuring the concept of Web3+AI companions, mainly promoting HIM and HER, two companion category games. NFP is an AI-driven platform for user-generated content focusing on Web3 creators. It is one of the projects incubated in the sixth season of Binance Labs and has received investment from Binance Labs.

Livepeer: Following the release of Sora on February 16th, the project said in a tweet that intends to incorporate text-to-video features into the Livepeer network. This is part of Livepeer's AI video plan to create affordable and open access points for developers, creators, and users who want to create inspiring videos. Stimulated by this announcement, LPT rose by 160% in three days, with trading volume quickly amplifying.

SORA: Boosted by the unveiling of OpenAI's text-to-video model Sora on February 16, a namesake token catapulted from $300,000 to a peak of $20 million in market value. Sora, capable of producing detailed 60-second videos with intricate multi-angle shots, inspired this token's lightning-fast deployment on the Ethereum network. In the past 24 hours alone, trade volume reached $11 million.

Sora-related memecoin with extremely high risks:

Dragon: A meme generated by Sora, was reposted by Sam Altman. Someone quickly created a contract for it, and its current market value is $11,000 with a 24-hour trading volume of $424,000.

Solly: Claimed to be the first Tobot AI meme created using Sora, its current market value stands at $571,000, with a 24-hour trading volume of $2.36 million, and 549 token holders.

FROGE: The mascot of the OpenAI team, appeared on the laptops of OpenAI employees as stickers. It had previously increased 100-fold from its initial value. Stimulated by Sora, it has risen by 133% in the last 24 hours, with a trading volume of $3.46 million.

Merlin, a leading BTC Layer2 project, surpasses $1.5 Billion TVL

Merlin, recently the most talked about BTC Layer2 project, unveiled their Merlin Seal on February 8th, granting users rewards via asset pledges. Using an equitable distribution model, the platform has allocated 20% of the Merlin (MERL) tokens towards pledge rewards. Supported assets currently include BTC, Bitmap, BRC20, BRC420, ETH, USDT, and USDC. The total value locked (TVL) has rocketed to $1.52 billion, demonstrating an exceptionally brisk growth rate.