Market Roundup
This has been one of the most difficult months that I can remember since the March 2020 Covid Crash, and the December 2018 Hash War that sent Bitcoin to 3K. Make no mistake, what we just witnessed with FTX is rare, painful, and will leave a lasting scar on the industry as a whole.
That being said throughout all of this crisis Bitcoin kept making blocks, Ethereum smart contracts kept working just fine, and defi hummed right along. Crypto is not broken. Crypto works great… most of the time. Sadly the centralized fraudsters at companies like FTX have hurt so many people.
This month also saw a record decline of Bitcoin on exchanges with over 172,000 BTC taken off of exchanges and moved to wallets. This is a good trend for people taking charge of their money. The way crypto is supposed to be.
We also had the 4th biggest day for realized losses. The June collapse was bigger, as was the April LUNA meltdown, and the 2021 collapse.
BUT, I think the reason for this is that so many have already capitulated and left. And, no BS, this shit is hard. Investing will smack you down again and again. But, it is also true that bear markets are the time to be investing. The risk-reward factor now versus November 2021 is dramatically different. Caution is required, but long-term thinking now has a good potential of paying off.
Also, Bitcoin has crossed under the 0.6 mark on the realized value chart for the third time in its history. The last two times? December 2018, and January 2015. AKA the market bottoms.
Interesting food for thought. But, keep in mind that so many models have been broken, we must maintain a little bit of scepticism. That being said so often people are overly bearish near bottoms in just the same way they are overly bullish near tops.
Top Airdrops of the Month
I feel like a lot of people ignore the regular guides that we give on how to get free money. And I know that it can take some work and that there are no guarantees, but I just want to remind you that this year the Aptos airdrop was worth a few thousand at peak, and that the AVAX airdrop for testnet users was worth almost $100,000 at the market peak. And, yes, that is not the norm. Most airdrops are worth very little, maybe only a couple hundred bucks. Which, let’s be fair, is not terrible for clicking a few buttons.
Here are some that we are tracking.
Metamask, as we detailed in Issue #168, it is seemingly increasingly likely that there will be a Metamask coin at some point in the future.
Sui is the next in line to be the “Solana Killer”, we did a detailed guide on how to get positioned for a potential airdrop in Issue #164.
Top Altcoins to Watch
Let’s not mince words here. Altcoins continue to present big risks. If you had bought most coins in any given month this year then you would likely be down a lot. Some very few coins have managed to buck that trend. But even they have been having a hard time. Some of the biggest break-out stars of the year though have been real yield coins. While the following chart is far from a complete list of all protocols generating fees in crypto, it does highlight a few very important facts.
GMX is a top 3 protocol by fees, the decentralized perpetual swaps narrative has become massive. Also, we see major defi platforms like Curve and…
