Triaconta Weekly #226

The following topics will be addressed in this weekly:

  • Bundle performance
  • Winners & Losers
  • Market overview

Bundle performance
The Ethereum merge passed without a hitch Thursday morning. The second largest blockchain project successfully moved from Proof of work to Proof of stake. After rising slightly, Ethereum fell especially after the merge and closes the week in negative territory. Most crypto fall this week on slightly disappointing inflation data and expectations of another interest rate hike on Sept. 21.

Big3:
1 Month: -16.95% | 7D: -6.92% | 24H: -3.71%

Top30:
1 Month: -17.73% | 7D: -6.84% | 24H: -1.52%

Penny:
1 Month: -23.26% | 7D: -9.60% | 24H: -1.58%

DeFi:
1 Month: -22.97% | 7D: -8.19% | 24H: -1.77%

Winners & Losers
Lots of relocation of hashrate because of the Merge. Miners invest in Quarckchain (+24%) which has a hybrid consensus mechanism. In order to mine QKC, you must first tie up a good number of tokens. Ravencoin (+7%) is also growing tremendously in hashrate. So is Ethereum Classic (-14%) which is almost tripling in hashrate but falling in price?! Compound (+9%) is rising on the expansion of their service of lending USD and USDC against crypto collateral. Regular guests at the top or bottom of this list are Terra Classic (-38%) and Terra 2.0 (-50%) with Classic currently having 2x the market value of the new Terra and an arrest warrant is out for founder Do Kwon. DeFi is getting the SEC’s attention according to statements by Chairman Gary Genschler and on it Yearn Finance (-19%), Flow (-18%) and Ethereum (-17%) fall.

Market overview
The Ethereum merge marks the end of mining new Ethereum. From now on, validators will receive new tokens based on the amount of tokens owned. The 99.9% energy savings is obviously heartening for the environment but it also means that Ethereum miners will no longer constantly sell their new tokens to pay for their energy consumption and purchases of new faster computers. Instead, the new transaction processors will start holding as much Ethereum as possible to earn more new coins. We are curious to see what that difference will do to the ratio of Bitcoin to Ethereum in the coming years.

Coffee shop Starbucks (29 billion sales in 2021) is choosing Polygon (MATIC) to expand its loyalty program with NFTs in a Web3 project called Odyssey. Later this year, first U.S. customers will be able to buy or earn NFT “badges” through games or other coffee-related activities. All actions including a marketplace for the “badges” will take place in the app and blockchain or cryptocurrency will not be visible to the user at all. Polygon is going to expand its workforce by 40% with the hiring of about 200 managers, engineers and Web3 developers. If this becomes a success, many companies will follow suit and may also choose Polygon.

Binance smart chain (BNB) has partnered with Google Cloud to develop Web3 products and services. Google Cloud’s secure, scalable and open source infrastructure gives more than 1,300 active Defi, Games , NFT and Metaverse Dapps on the BNB chain access to the tools and infrastructure of both platforms.