Morning Update: Tuesday 3rd Jan
New Year and NFTs look good!
The information in this message does not represent any financial or investment advice. They're just random thoughts in my head.
gm - OSF appears to have been taken by The Keeper so you have me for now…
MACRO - Equities were closed in most places yesterday although European stocks were higher (1-2%) on the back of some stronger Euro-zone factory data. Looks like futures are pointing to a positive start to the year (+1% for S&P/NASDAQ futures) and treasury yields are dipping (-0.08bps to 3.75% 10y) although I wouldn’t read too much into single day moves. Medium-term outlook rests on the fact markets continue to call Powell’s bluff and are expecting a shift in policy earlier during 2023 - the next big data-points there are Fed minutes (Weds) then US non-farm payrolls on Friday where the expectations are at 200k. We don’t get official US inflation data until Thursday 12th. Interestingly one of the most popular inflation trades - gold - just hit a 6 month high at around 1850 (+15% in the last 2 months) which perhaps points to the fact markets believe inflation will stay persistent.
CRYPTO - BTC and ETH volatility has been very low for the last two weeks with both trading in a tight range around 16,500 and 1200. This morning we have opened up on the higher-end of that range with ETH at 1220 and BTC at 16,800. If you like to hear all the bold predictions for BTC this year then this is a good article: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/02/the-boldest-bitcoin-price-predictions-for-2023.html Interestingly $APE has come roaring back to 4.00 after it hit 3.20 in the immediate aftermath of staking - this should mean that everyone who was staking Yuga Labs assets since day 1 should be decently in-the-money. SOL hit single digits just before New Year but seems to have recovered to 11.9, the first Solana dog-coin called $BONK seems to have done an 8x in the last week after an airdrop to a bunch of NFT communities which seems to be making everyone a little more happy.
NFTs - the strong tone that we saw during December seems to have continued into January. December volumes (including Blur) seems to have come in around $850m which is a massive increase although its been increasingly difficult to filter out wash trading. The focus of the market appears to be on the 9gag Memeland ecosystem at the moment where the Captainz mint is coming on Wednesday. Captainz are meant to be the mid-tier asset in the Memeland ecosystem, above Potatoz (3.3E floor) but below the MVP card (43E floor). To guarantee a mint you need to buy 3 Potatoz NFTs + pay the 1.069E mint price which is a total cost of around 11E. If the floor price comes in anywhere close to that then this would be one of the most successful mints since Moonbirds. Elsewhere, Yuga Labs assets seem to be rallying with the rise in $APE with most close to the local highs - we should hear more about their upcoming mint on the 11th January with most expecting mint date towards the end of the month. We saw a Zombie Punk trade for 1155E but Punks remain stable at 65, there were also two Azuki spirit sales 130E+ with the floor at 13.5. Popular new mints include generative art project Toys by 0xTechno (1E floor), Kubz by popular Bored Ape Keungz who was also part of the Memeland team (1E floor), This is Nouns from the Nouns DAO (0.2E floor) and TABZ by our very own Alien Queen (0.2E floor). Killabears, Paint by Fewo, Fluf world, Creepz, Sappy Seals, Pudgy Penguins and rektguy all seem to be trending higher.
GL today!
degenz.finance
