Weekly Beluga Insights

This week finishes green across the majors as we head into Chinese New Year, with BTC leading the charge over $46,000 and the rest of the market following behind. We’ve had an interesting week with some attention shifting back to Ethereum due to ETF chatter and shitcoin volume, and the market as a whole feels very positive for the time being. Well, except Solana… which had its first outage in almost a year. Seems the market doesn’t care much though as at time of writing it has surged up over where it was before the outage.

As it stands, we’re about 69 days away from the Bitcoin halving which previously has been a massively bullish event for BTC. With a number of other significant catalysts on the horizon for crypto, things are looking good for the next few months.

Major Movers of the Week

• Dymension (DYM) +93.78%

• Kaspa (KAS) +25.81%

• Stacks (STX) +21.58%

• Monero (XMR) -25.39%

• Ronin (RON) -14.25%

• Manta Network (MANTA) -10.04%

What We’re Watching

As we mentioned in the intro, Ethereum has been the subject of more attention this week. Headlines around Cathie Woods changing some terms around their Ethereum ETF proposal prompted some positive movement early on in the week. As we draw closer to ETF approval deadlines, it’s likely that this ETF narrative will keep growing and supporting the price of ETH. BTC ETFs still retain some of the highest trade volume of any ETF on the market, so should an approval go through for Ethereum it will be a significant catalyst.

On a less serious note, Ethereum has been the home of most shitcoin trading volume for the last few years. As Solana has returned, however, it’s lost many traders to other chains that have had some more action. This week the trading scene has been dominated by a new standard of tokens called ERC-404, which was pioneered by a project called Pandora. To give a simple explanation of how ERC-404 works, Pandora NFTs can be converted into Pandora coins and vice versa. There is some more blockchain magic happening in the background, but in our opinion this is just another trading fad that will be forgotten about a few weeks from now.

Regardless of how innovative (or not) the tech is, it’s brought huge volume back to Ethereum as traders fomo into the project and countless copy cats. We may not be interested in these coins, however it’s encouraging to see some of Ethereum’s on-chain trading culture start to return. This coupled with the ETF catalyst we mentioned above and the broader market looking positive makes Ethereum look even more attractive to buy. It has underperformed its contemporaries this cycle, but it seems like it might be time for ETH to take its top spot back.

Quick Quips: Catch Up on What You Missed

• Sotheby’s Announces Auction for Cartoon Rock

• Aptos Labs Doubles Down on Gaming

• Craig Wright Commits Fraud in Court Again

• Binance Delists Monero, XMR Slides

Tweet of the Week

Unfortunately for me, he’s right.

Chart of the Week

Pandora, the new ERC-404 token on Ethereum, has been the talk of the town this week and it shows in the chart…

Recent Beluga Content

Did you Know?

The founder of Bitcoin, known pseudonymously as Satoshi Nakamoto, remains anonymous today despite many people like the notorious Craig Wright trying to claim credit.

Disclaimer
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.