Weekly Summary
- Long-awaited ETH Merge successfully goes live after 7 years of preparation
- CPI data came in hot at 8.3% causing market-wide sell-offs across the board
- Dogecoin becomes the second-largest Proof-of-Work cryptocurrency after ETH Merge
- Starbucks partnered with Polygon to offer NFT-based loyalty program
- MicroStrategy reinvesting net proceeds ($500m) into bitcoin
Industry Stories
ETH Merge News: Ethereum’s planned upgrade to PoS successfully went live on the 15th of September with no major hiccups (except 1 missed block on the first 100 blocks). The shift from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake consensus will reduce worldwide electricity consumption by 0.2% making it a green and sustainable investment for ESG investors. Post-merge, the new supply of ETH issuance will decrease by 90%, potentially making it deflationary if more ETH is burned than issued to block producers. The price of $ETH dropped by more than 10% from $1,650 to $1,450 in the following hours after the merge event.
CPI stories: August’s CPI report sent all asset classes tumbling, with the actual figure coming in at 8.3% — higher than the market’s expectations of 8.1%. After the disappointing inflation data, a 75 bps hike is now 100% priced in and the probability of a 100 bps rate hike in September has now increased to 35% (from 0% just a few days ago). Investor sentiment also weakened over fears of a rising dollar and the crypto market cap dropping below $1 trillion. Bitcoin fell by 12% from previous highs of $22.5k to $19.8k, the lowest point on an intraday level.
DOGE secures position of second-largest POW crypto: The meme-inspired Dogecoin is now the second largest cryptocurrency powered by mining, as Ethereum has successfully transitioned to Proof-of-Stake by The Merge. Though it’s still far behind BTC’s US$378 billion market cap, DOGE now enjoys a market capitalization of US$7.95 billion, staying comfortably ahead of the third-place crypto asset ETC at US$4.68 billion, according to Coinmarketcap.
Tip: Swap, Leveraged Trading and Auto-Invest (DCA) for DOGE are now supported on Matrixport App, along with yield-generating options such as Fixed Income and Flexi Saving.
Starbucks plunged into the NFT web3 scene: Starbucks has launched a new NFT program with Polygon that allows customers to purchase and earn digital stamps in the form of NFTs with “exclusive benefits” and “immersive experiences”. It will combine existing rewards loyalty program customers with a new web3 app. Starbucks has close to 27m active members, with around 53% of all spending in stores coming from Starbucks rewards.
MicroStrategy buying the bitcoin dip: In a SEC filing, MicroStrategy entered into an agreement with Cowen and Company and BTIG, to sell its class A common stock worth half a billion dollars. The net proceeds from the sale of common stocks will be used for general corporate purposes, including the acquisition of bitcoin. Based on Bitcoin Treasuries data, MicroStrategy now holds 0.618% of bitcoin’s total supply and the company has suffered more than $1 billion in losses.
Matrixport Stories
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Matrixport News
Token2049 has announced Matrixport as a title sponsor for the upcoming event in Singapore on 28-29 September, introducing Cynthia Wu, Matrixport’s founding partner and COO.
Matrixport recently listed support for #DeFiChain (#DFI) and #Optimism (#OP) on the platform. Users can now deposit, withdraw, and send both tokens using Matrixport App.
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