The information in this message does not represent any financial or investment advice. They're just random thoughts in my head.
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MACRO - Equities had a strong finish on Friday paring losses to end the day unchanged, and we're having a decent start to the week up 0.45% and 0.63% respectively on the SPX and NDQ. Interest rates have edged a little higher this morning with 2Y at 4.95% but 10Y seems to be the point of concern currently sitting at 4.29% which is basically at 20-year highs, ie levels not seen since before the financial crisis. Stuff in China is definitely still of concern but as it stands, in its current form, it is not having a big impact on the US market. IMO you can probably expect different forms of stimulus there too to pump the markets. I think this is set to be the last "quiet week" and indeed it is the last week of summer, before things start to pick up again. Next Friday on 1st September we get payrolls, 13th Sep we get CPI and then 20th Sep we get the FOMC, so it's going to be a busy month and definitely one to watch out for.
CRYPTO - After the Thursday night panic it looks like we settled around 26K on BTC and 1675 on ETH. So apparently the SpaceX rumours were false and they just wrote their investment down to zero rather than actually having sold BTC. Consequently, I still don't really know what caused that bid dump; certainly feels manipulated but that is of course part of the game. Something rather interesting to note is that BTC doominance has dropped all the way down to 49% from last week's 50.6%. It's quite a large move but tbh if you look at the way ETH and other altcoins have moved, they've pretty much moved in line with BTC rather than underperforming as you'd expect. It shows that the selling is clearly concentrated in BTC. The concern here now is that if BTC does drop further, I'd start to feel cautious on alts at these levels. I honestly have no idea whether the next immediate move from here is going to be higher or lower and I've started to lose touch of what is affecting crypto prices atm because it certainly ain't macro. Times like these I think you gotta tread cautiously, and make sure you're DCAing not only on the way down but on the way up if you're a short term trader.
NFTs - The descent continues and it's not pretty with BAYC down to 23.3 ETH, MAYC down to 4.5, DeGods down to 3.94, and Azuki down to 3.52. This now ranks Milady as the 3rd highest pfp project by floor price which is rather astonishing. The weakness was not constrained to the pfp market, as we saw a 45ETH Fidenza sale which is the lowest in a while and marks quite a steep differential to its 74ETH floor price. This truly has been the most painful, slowest bleed ever in NFTs and it would seem that our hopes of the most recent decline being the bottom were in vain, at least for now. Another thing worth mentioning, although not specifically in NFTs is FriendTech. It's a platform on Base that allows you to buy "shares" of individuals, kind of like BitClout but it's denominated in ETH. It's a Paradigm-backed venture for which people are expecting an airdrop at some stage hence its recent surge in activity and why you're seeing it all over the TL! Maybe something to watch out for there.
REPORTS - This week we will be releasing 8 new reports. Below are the project names with a quick summary of what they are all about:
0xdgb: Minimalist NFT artist who burst onto the scene and hasn’t looked back since. Recently released their successful ‘Cameras’ project.
Futureverse: A leader in revolutionary AI and metaverse technologies that enable open, scalable and interoperable apps, games and experiences.
Fxhash: An open & accessible generative art platform empowering anyone to create, collect, and enjoy code-based artwork.
Nifty Island: An open, social game world powered by web3. Currently in a closed alpha, but exciting developments are on the horizon .
Shinsei Galverse: A nostalgic x future anime studio with millions of views. They’ve just updated all their NFTs to ERC-6551s, so get ready for some inventory.
Prohibition Art: Generative art for everyone on Arbitrum and ArtBlocksEngine via the amazing minds at VenturePunk.
Denziens: The upcoming PFP for Zen Academy, can they make it through the current brutal market conditions?
Zynga: The the leading developer of the world’s most popular social games comes out with their first NFTs.
GL today!