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What happened today?

Not only did today see a new all-time-high for Bitcoin of $108,000 (insane), Ethereum actually reached $4,000, the highest price it has been since Christmas of 2021. Interestingly despite the strength of the two largest coins in crypto, most of the market looks pretty weak today with the vast majority of alt coins, including Solana, in the red. One major outlier in the alt coin sector is Sui which reached a new all-time-high price of $5 today, up over 800% since the beginning of August. With the rise in TVL and onchain activity on Sui, it’s becoming one of the main competitors in the “alt-L1” race. Last cycle this was one of the main narratives for coins, so it’s interesting to see the same thing being repeated again.

In a big win for crypto late on Friday, it was announced that Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy would be added to the Nasdaq 100 before the open on December 23rd. Given MSTR’s massive Bitcoin holdings (over 2% of the supply totaling more than $44B), the market has viewed its stock as a proxy for the performance of Bitcoin which has resulted in some incredible price action over the last few months. Getting what is essentially a Bitcoin “Trojan Horse” into the Nasdaq 100 is a massive win for the industry, and further legitimizes the MicroStrategy playbook for other institutions.

Biggest Headlines

The Beluga intern has been hard at work gathering all the most important crypto news stories so you have them in one place!

The Majors

• Bitcoin jumps to record price as Ethereum hits 3-Year high

• MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor says bitcoin is ‘cyber Manhattan’ — a ‘good investment’ even at the top

Alt Coins and Stocks

• Anticipated Avalanche9000 upgrade goes live, reducing costs and making it easier to launch Avalanche subnets

Regulatory

• FTX customers to get distributions through Kraken and BitGo with bankruptcy plan set to be effective on Jan. 3

• NFT collection CyberKongz says it has received a Wells Notice from SEC

New Launches

• Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin launching Tuesday following massive XRP surge

Trading Talk

Lot of big things happening onchain this week, perhaps nothing bigger than launch of $PENGU which is coming tomorrow. For anyone that hasn’t been following, Pudgy Penguins is now the second largest NFT project by floor price at 35 ETH (about $140,000) behind CryptoPunks. Their recent price action is largely due to hype around the $PENGU airdrop coming tomorrow — usually when we see big price increases on NFTs ahead of airdrops, the NFT will tend to drop significantly after the airdrop goes out. The reason for this is if you bought the NFT for the token airdrop, and you already have the airdrop, there’s no reason to keep holding both.

However, Pudgies have implemented a similar mechanic to how Bored Ape Yacht Club did their $APE airdrop years ago, where token allocations stay with the NFT they are for until officially claimed. This means you can decide not to claim your airdrop, then sell the NFT for a much higher price than the floor as it includes the token as well. In my opinion this should stabilize the floor a bit more than the usual setup, and may even end up leading to a further increase in the future.

It also seems like the Sonic chain will finally go live this week for the public, which I’ve been looking forward to for many months at this point - I have huge respect for what Andre Cronje has built and dabbled in a few of his projects last cycle, so I’m keeping an eye out for what he gets up to for my personal trading as well as the Beluga Wallet. If you’re interested in learning more about Sonic, check out the Beluga Ecosystem Page here!

Tweet of the Day

Surely MSTR won’t end badly… right?

The content on this site is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice. While Beluga strives to ensure the accuracy and timeliness of information, there may be discrepancies when comparing our data to that of financial institutions, service providers, or specific product websites. Always consult with a professional before making any financial decisions.

Will McKinnon is the Head of Content for Beluga and has spent every day for many years trading coins. For that reason there are too many to name, however his largest holdings by a significant margin are Ethereum and Bitcoin. NFA DYOR