[Daily] Ether sprints back to the bulls

Good morning! Welcome to The Daily Moon. Argentina urgently needs $45 billion to avoid a financial collapse. The IMF can help but it has a condition: Say no to crypto. The country will have to adopt an anti-crypto stance and limit the use of these digital assets. This is when crypto has become a popular alt to the Peso. 😟

As of Wednesday, 7PM IST

The markets rallied on a surge in whale activity. Bitcoin saw active buying and a rise in volumes. Ethereum won over investors as staking resumed in full swing. S&P 500 and Nasdaq gained in early trade on buying in technology stocks. Back home, Sensex and Nifty ended higher on gains in FMCG and auto stocks.

ETH Has Run Into The Arms Of The Bulls

Ethereum was stuck with boredom after the Shanghai upgrade. Investors started to sell to book profits. And the token turned bearish. Now, there is a reversal as staked Ether is on the rise.

Too much going on As expected, a small chunk of staked Ether was withdrawn after Shanghai. But a few investors were spooked by the liquidation and decided to sell ETH. The sentiment has evolved after a few weeks.

Glassnode data shows that the number of addresses holding 0.01 ETH or more has increased. In fact, the figure is at an all-time high of 23.7 million addresses. Because a lot more ETH is staked, the active supply of the token has decreased. Low supply indicates scarcity, which means Ethereum’s price should start trending upwards.

But what about withdrawals?That will continue to happen. But it turns out that two large crypto entities who are unstaking in bulk were forced to withdraw primarily because of an SEC crackdown.

Meanwhile…While we are on Ethereum, its Layer 2 solution Arbitrum has started token distribution to DAOs. About 10 million DAOs will be allocated 113 million ARB. Let’s hope the community is on board this time.

Visa Vs Mastercard: Who’ll Lead Crypto?

Visa and Mastercard entered crypto pretty much around the same time. But they have taken parallel paths. Visa’s keen on developing in-house capabilities while Mastercard’s taking the partnership route.

The faceoffBoth Visa and Mastercard want to win over crypto customers. It’s a question of when and how. Visa has started work on a product that will drive blockchain and stablecoin adoption. It’ll hire experts to build the web3 solution.

Its competitor, Mastercard, wants to be the payments bridge between crypto companies and its customers. The card company has helped banks access crypto customers on one hand, and TradFi to access web3 payments on the other.

Sitting above these are crypto-linked cards that open up another revenue stream for these companies. The pair has inked fresh deals to launch crypto debit cards.

ICYMI You can read more about Visa’s crypto strategy here.

So, who’s winning?The payments duo are in the discovery stage of finding partners and boosting non-traditional income routes. The anticipated “crypto pause” seems to be a rumour. We just hope that the US Fed and SEC don’t dampen the spirits.

Epic Win For NFTs vs Apple

Cast your minds back to the gory days of the pandemic. Crypto was on a roll and we all gathered around brightly illuminated Zoom screens to play dumb games with each other. At its peak, a very peeved off Epic sued Apple for not letting its gamers buy skins and the like within its game. Apple demanded that all transactions pass through its App Store and it wet its beak in the process. Epic sued and won in a lower court. Apple appealed and lost.

Why should I care?For one, it’s a thumb in the eye of Apple. But it also opens up the possibility of selling NFTs and crypto assets to everyone who is on iOS without paying a fee to the company. This is a huge win for a lot of smaller startups who can now come up with innovative business models without Apple’s interference.

The Reverse Midas Effect

Everything SBF touches is turning to dust. For those who remember, the FTX founder was in love with a game — Brawl. The now-on-house-arrest tech entrepreneur was so enamoured, FTX bought the game.

But?Well, it died. Like all things FTX. The competitive card game announced that it would no longer be able to sustain itself without capital and has not been able to snag money.

What now?Nothing. In a litany of disasters that have followed FTX and its collapse, another one joins the growing pile of promising endeavours that have met its end a little too early. RIP.

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Who are we? This newsletter’s ambition is to educate (and to entertain). The world of money is changing everyday and we want to help you decode what’s happening in the world of crypto, public markets in the US and India.