ethereum: Crypto week at a glance: Ethereum continues to struggle as rate hike haunts

After the Fed‘s 75bps print, volatility increased and caused liquidation on both sides of the book before selling off to a weekly low of $1220. Subsequently, the price found some relief along with a rise in long open interest. Within a week, the closing price had reversed again, indicating underlying weakness in the market. ETH closed the week at $1,295 and returned -3.01% WoW.

Ahead of Wednesday’s FOMC, ETH/BTC showed strength, jumping over 4% by Tuesday afternoon.

After the Ethereum merger, there was a significant increase in user contract calls. Historically, such behavior has indicated a growth in activity on the Ethereum network that goes beyond simple token transfers. Concerns about network instability may have motivated participants to sideline holdings before the event was successful.

After the successful merge was confirmed, along with the cancellation of any technical issues, activity skyrocketed in the following days. Interestingly, increased volumes persisted throughout the week, particularly in the DeFi and NFT sectors.

DEFI: US lawmakers have proposed a bill to ban algorithmic stablecoins, according to an article published by Bloomberg. Specifically, the bill would make it illegal to create “endogenously secured stablecoins” – those that are secured by a token created by the same issuer; for example, Terra’s UST support with LUNA. Although we have no information on how this proposed ban would be enforced, we believe that it is likely that American regulated exchanges will not list or use these tokens.
Innovation: Zilliqa, a layer 1 blockchain, has announced a prototype of its web3 gaming console that will allow individuals to directly play NFT-based games without relying on centralized authorities. This console will be the first Web3-based console and will face competition from existing industry giants such as Sony and Microsoft. It seeks to allow individuals to mine native Zilliqa tokens while playing on console. In addition, the web3 gaming console will feature a built-in wallet and first-party games developed by Zilliqa.

Altcoins: As part of its aggressive blockchain expansion, Tether launched USDT on Polkadot. The announcement comes weeks after USDT was launched on the NEAR protocol – further proof of blockchain’s stake. Unlike bridged versions of the stablecoin, each native USDT token on Polkadot issued by Tether will be redeemable for $1. As a result, developers will have access to a stable cryptocurrency that is protected by centralized authorities. In particular, USDT will be accessible on all Polkadot’s chains. Accordingly, we believe that the stablecoin is likely to be highly used in the layer 0 network due to the need for a secure token after Acala’s aUSD depegging.

Terra Class (LUNC): 51% up

Quant (QNT): 24% up

Reserve Rights (RSR): 23% up

TerraClassicUSD (USTC): 13% up

Helium (HNT): 12% up

Top 5 losers of the week (as of 11.00 hours IST on October 2, 2022)

Celsius (CEL): 12% down

Chiliz (CHZ): 11% down

Lido DAO (LDO): 10% down

Cosmos (ATOM): 8% down

Hedera (HBAR): 7% down

Note: The study includes only top-100 cryptocurrencies in terms of market capitalization listed on the source of data, that is, Coinmarketcap.

(The author, Sathvik Vishwanath, is Co-Founder and CEO, Unocoin)