Crypto Investment Research Monthly Report (2024.02): ETF drives BTC to rise, Meme track mania

Introduction:

ETF drove and dominated the market in February. The market performance revolved around BTC and ETH, and the occasional sector rotation further promoted the overall rise of tokens. With the UNI proposal, the long-standing DEFI sector has also seen comprehensive growth; the MEME currency sector has begun to show a new round of wealth creation effects; and the BTC Staking ecosystem has also quietly emerged amid the token rise and market carnival.

1. Macro perspective

1.1 The U.S. is expected to cut interest rates in June, and the market attitude is optimistic

The U.S. Department of Labor announced 1 The number of non-farm payrolls increased significantly in March, reaching 353,000. This was the largest monthly increase since January 2023, significantly exceeding the estimate of 185,000 and the previous value of 216,000. This strong job market performance raised concerns that inflation may rise, which was later confirmed by the year-on-year growth data of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) released on February 13. The CPI increased by 3.1% year-on-year in January. , exceeding market expectations of 2.9%.

FedWatch

Although there were certain expectations for interest rate cuts in the market before, the latest data and analysis show that most investors generally expect The Fed may wait until June to begin cutting interest rates. According to FedWatch data, the market remains cautious about the future direction of monetary policy, and the U.S. central bank is expected to delay interest rate cuts.

Goldman Sachs has also made adjustments and no longer expects an interest rate cut in May, but instead predicts four interest rate cuts this year, compared with the previous expectation of five. This adjustment reflects the market's reassessment of continued U.S. economic growth and inflationary pressures.

Although the U.S. economy is currently facing a certain degree of inflationary pressure, the stock and crypto asset markets still maintain upward momentum. The market is generally optimistic about future economic development and monetary policy adjustments, and it is expected that the Federal Reserve will be able to effectively find a balance between controlling inflation and promoting economic growth. Part of this optimism stems from the market's confidence in the strong recovery of the U.S. economy and trust in policymakers' ability to deal with inflationary challenges. Although inflation needs close attention, the market generally expects that the U.S. economy will be able to grow steadily and that the Federal Reserve will take appropriate measures to support this development. Investors are still looking to take advantage of stocks and crypto assets

1.2 The rise in BTC is mainly led by ETFs and MicroStrategy

The price of BTC has been soaring, rising continuously from the price of 0.43,000 US dollars on February 8, to the highest When it reached around $64,000, the increase was as high as 32%.

coinglass Bitcoin ETF Overview

From the perspective of ETF fund inflows, it can be observed that the rise in Bitcoin prices is consistent Consistent time period. ETFs have an obvious role in promoting the price of Bitcoin. As of the 29th, the management scale of 11 ETFs has reached 42.238 billion US dollars, and the market value of Bitcoin held accounts for 3.81% of the total market value. This ratio exceeds the number of Bitcoins held in wallet addresses on the Binance exchange. The increase in ETF inflows has formed a consistent trend with the rise in Bitcoin prices, showing that ETFs play an important role in the Bitcoin market.

<em><span style="font-size: 14px;">dropstab的MicroStrategy比特币持有市值部位</span></em>

In addition, MicroStrategy is also a major source of capital inflows in the BTC market. On the 26th, MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor said on his social platform that MicroStrategy bought 3,000 Bitcoins from February 15 to 25, with an average purchase price of US$51,813. So far, MicroStrategy holds a total of 193,000 Bitcoins, and its asset size has reached a high of 11.9 billion.

1.3 ETH spot ETF has become the next market focus

##glassnode global digital asset market since the beginning of the year (Year-To-Date, YTD )’s market value performance

The adoption of the BTC spot ETF has injected great confidence into the market. Therefore, when the ETH spot ETF will be launched has become one of the current focuses of the market, and at the same time, the increase of ETH has also begun. Leading the way beyond BTC, the market began to shift its focus to ETH. The most important date at the moment is May 23 (the date when the SEC makes its final decision on VanEck’s ETH spot ETF). If the subsequent ETH spot ETF can also be passed, it will represent another great victory for the crypto market and more tradition. Investors can participate in the ETH market through traditional investment tools such as ETFs and introduce new funds into the crypto market.

At the macro level, despite facing the challenge of rising inflation, the market situation in February was not affected at all, and it still reached a new high with the strong promotion of ETF funds. At present, the market is more concerned about the postponement of interest rate cuts, rather than the possibility of continuing to raise interest rates. As the selling pressure of gray-scale investments gradually subsides, we will continue to pay attention to the market capital inflows and observe whether BTC can continue to create new history. .

2. Industry data

2.1 Market value & ranking data

##BTC and ETH’s 30-Days increase this month is close to 50%, which is mainly due to the actual fund inflow of ETF and the expected push of ETH ETF. However, for ETH, the hype of its Dencun upgrade on March 13 has not yet seen obvious market reaction. , regarding the time for the ETH spot ETF to be approved, the market currently predicts that it will be before May 23.

Among the top 100 tokens by market value, the tokens with the highest gains in February were WIF (462.5%), PEPE (413.6%), and FLOKI (313.8%). The gains were mainly concentrated in the last week of February. There are obvious signs of plate rotation. The current rally is concentrated in the MEME coin sector, which is very different from the performance of past cycles, especially the bull market cycle.

Note: It is recommended that investors remain cautious after the sector rotates to MEME coin. In past cycles, MeMe coin was usually the last sector to be rotated, which means that the rise in this round is nearing the end of the period.

Among the top 100 tokens by market capitalization, only Monero fell 14.2% in February (StarkNet was online for less than 30 days). The main reason Binance announced on February 6 that it would drop XMR, Aragon, Multichain, Vai and other tokens on February 20. Binance stated that “these tokens did not meet expected standards.”

About WIF (dogwifhat)

dogwifhat is a MEME coin on the Solana chain, which was launched in April 2023 The project started planning, and the currency price was sideways at around 0.15 for about 3 months. As of March 2, 2024, the market value has reached 1.2 billion US dollars. It is a dark horse that suddenly appeared in this round of MEME market, and its entire website design is also very interesting. (This token is not yet listed on Binance)

About PEPE

PEPE will be launched in April 2023 MEME coin, the MEME coin with the largest increase in that round, reached its peak of $0.00000372 on May 6, 2023. BTC also reached its recent phased peak after that, and then the overall correction occurred, falling all the way to October 20, 2023. day. It was recently restarted on February 5, 2024, reaching a historical high of $0.00000444, with a market value of $1.863 billion.

About FLOKI

FLOKI first hit the market in the summer of 2021, following news that Tesla’s founder bought a Shiba Inu and Name it Floki. FLOKI, which is Musk's pet concept, has soared into the sky. Musk often posts pictures of his pets on X, and its price has increased more than three times in the past month.

2.2 Stable currency inflow and outflow

Stable in February The number of coins continues to grow, and its slope indicates that this growth may be accelerating, and the total number of stablecoins has reached $141.2 billion. The fastest growing stablecoin this month is FDUSD, which is the same as January (up 32.65% this month and 20.41% in January). According to this trend, FDUSD is expected to surpass DAI within a quarter and become the third largest stable currency.

FDUSD is issued by FD121 Limited (brand name: First Digital Labs), a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based custody company First Digital Limited. It is a stable currency linked to the U.S. dollar at a ratio of 1:1. The rapid growth of FDUSD is believed to be caused by Binance listing its related trading pairs to replace BUSD.

Statistics from the public chain dimension: The stablecoins on Ethereum are approximately US$73.7 billion, accounting for 52.2% of all public chain stablecoin reserves. Except for the two major stablecoin public chains Ethereum and Tron, the growth of other public chains is relatively small.

2.3 On-chain TVL ranking

U本位

DefiLlamaData:on-chain The TVL has accelerated with the increase in the price of ETH.

Due to the sharp rise in ETH and Uniswap’s Fee Switch proposal, the overall performance of the DeFi track is outstanding. Among them, the most watched EigenLayer project, TVL exceeded 10 billion US dollars, with a monthly increase of more than 360%, surpassing the previous No. 1 project. Two AAVE.

Defillama data: Among the 131 projects with TVL above US$100 million (only 96 in January), the largest increase was Bedrock. With the LRT market and Restaking narrative The market is gradually heating up, and the rigid demand for Pendle is gradually emerging. Especially for future institutions, Pendle may be a good tool for hedging risks.

By DeFi category, TVL’s highest ranking is still the LSD track, with approximately US$53.3 billion; Restaking projects based on LSD projects, totaling Approximately US$10 billion; LRT projects based on Restaking total approximately US$5 billion.

<strong>https://defillama.com/chains</strong>

By chain category, Bitcoin’s TVL rose by 694% to $2.43 billion, and Ethereum’s TVL rose by 52.3%.

Bitcoin ecology’s TVL has risen sharply, benefiting from its Layer 2 narrative. A large number of projects have begun to support staking BTC and have received financing from many top VCs. This trend is expected to continue. Continue and perform in the cyclical market.

2.4 BTC/ETH mining pool data

BTC computing power continues to rise steadily

<strong>https://explorer.btc.com/zh-CN/btc/insights-pools</strong>

Bitcoin’s mining pool data growth is shown in the figure above. Currently, the computing power of the entire network has reached 575.08EH/s. Foundry USA, AntPool, and F2Pool are the top three in the computing power list. The computing power of the mining pool continues to be maintained this month. A steady upward trend, an increase of 7.2% compared to the previous month. There are currently 7,044 blocks left to enter the halving. The estimated halving time is April 19, 2024, which is 2 days earlier than the April 21 evaluated last month.

The amount of ETH pledged continues to rise

<strong>https://beaconcha.in/charts/staked_ether</strong>

The number of ETH pledged continues to rise. Currently, the pledged amount accounts for 26% of the total amount. The pledged amount this month is 182 Ten thousand coins, the current Restaking market is still continuing.

In addition, the ETH main network Gas has increased significantly along with the market. In February, the ETH main network had a net burn of 46,839 coins. It is expected that the high Gas situation will be due to the Dencun upgrade and the ETH ETF It will continue until June, when the total number of Ethereum coins will be less than 120 million.

3. Market trend

3.1 The DeFi sector has made up for the increase

https://www.coingecko.com/en/categories/decentralized-finance-defi

In February, DeFi projects The currency prices have increased significantly. Coingecko data shows that the market value of DeFi tokens has increased by 31% in the past 30 days. Among them, Uniswap rose by 100%. Mainly due to the Uniswap Foundation's fee switch proposal, the market has re-focused on the DEFI track, which in turn has driven the overall DEFI currency price to rise significantly.

3.2 MEME sector rose in rotation

The recent market rise has experienced the rotation of mainstream currencies, AI, DePIN, GameFi, DeFi, and MeMe. In February, MeMe coins such as Dogecoin, Shib, and PEPE all rose by more than 300%, and the effect of creating wealth was obvious. However, the price of MeMe coins fluctuated greatly. Recently, SHIB market makers have mainly sold, so investors still need to be cautious.

3.3 The BTC Staking ecology is beginning to show

https://x.com/MerlinLayer2/status/1763783422529695862?s=20

Use BTC pledge to act as the underlying asset, and use the BTC market value consensus to introduce the BTC ecological narrative With the expectation of airdrops, the rapid absorption of BTC to increase TVL has become a very anticipated business model. Currently, Merlin Chain’s TVL has reached US$3 billion, of which BTC accounts for 53% and ORDI accounts for 33%. Subsequently, many BCT Layer2s have been paid attention to. For example, Babylon, which received investment from Binance, has introduced BTC re-staking to ensure the security of the Cosmos ecosystem. The broad prospects of the BTC staking track have been recognized by more people. It is recommended that stay tuned.

4. Investment and Financing Trends

##The total amount completed in the crypto market in February 2024 was US$700 million, which was slightly lower than the US$695 million in the previous period. There was an increase, an increase of 0.67%. The public data is as follows:

• 134 financing events, a year-on-year increase of 55.81% (a total of 118 projects in January 2024);
• 6 acquisition events, a year-on-year increase of 20%, indicating that acquisition activities are increasing;
• The average financing amount was US$7.2193 million, a year-on-year decrease of 10.74%;
• The median financing amount was US$4 million, a year-on-year increase of 19.4%.

Although the average financing amount has declined, financing events, acquisition events and median financing have all increased, indicating that while market activity has increased, investment and financing have also become more rational.

The five largest rounds of financing in February are:

-EigenLayer completed US$100 million in financing, estimated Value not disclosed;

- Flare Network completed US$35 million in financing, valuation not disclosed;

- Ether.Fi completed US$27 million Financing, valuation not disclosed;

- Avail completed $27 million in seed round financing, valuation not disclosed;

- MetaStreet completed $2500 US$10,000 in financing, valuation undisclosed;

In addition, investment and financing events were found: 38 cases of seed rounds (40% year-on-year), 15 cases of strategic financing (-21% year-on-year), 13 cases of Pre-seed rounds (30% year-on-year), and 8 cases of other types ( No change), with the most seed round financing events, followed by strategic financing and Pre-seed round financing, and other types of financing events are less.

From a VC perspective, Animoca Brands has made most of its investments in the fields of infrastructure, NFT and GameFi, while Binance Labs and Multicoin Capital have invested in the DeFi field. The largest number, while other VC firms’ investments are focused on infrastructure.

Investment activities in the crypto field increased in February, both in terms of the number of projects and the amount of investment, and have reached a high point in the past year. Investments are still concentrated in infrastructure and DeFi. . This trend may have a positive impact on market sentiment in March, attracting more investors to the market.

After entering March, the development trend of cryptocurrency and blockchain investment activities will likely be affected by various factors such as global economic conditions, technological innovation, and policy environment. If there are no major adverse events or policies, market sentiment remains positive, and technological innovation continues to advance, investment activity in March is expected to continue to maintain a growth trend. However, market fluctuations and policy changes are still key risk factors, and investors must remain vigilant and continue to pay attention in order to make timely and accurate investment decisions.

5. Summary

The market conditions and dynamics in February 2024 have allowed us to see multiple important trends:

• The market reacted significantly to macroeconomic data and policy expectations, especially after the release of data on employment growth and inflation;
• The production increase market showed strong momentum, especially BTC and The price of ETH has risen sharply this month driven by ETFs;
• The continued issuance of stablecoins, the continued growth of on-chain TVL, and the steady increase in mining pool data all show investors’ optimistic expectations for the future;
• The increase in the total amount of financing shows the improvement of market activity and investor confidence;

Although the market faces macroeconomic uncertainty and regulatory policy challenges, technological innovation Investment in and infrastructure construction continues to grow, which indicates the long-term potential and development space of the encryption market. Investors and market participants should continue to pay attention to macroeconomic indicators, technological innovation, and changes in the policy environment in order to make informed decisions in the ever-changing market. We look forward to the crypto market in April continuing to demonstrate its unique innovation capabilities to people. , as well as penetration and impact on the global financial ecosystem.

The above is the detailed content of Crypto Investment Research Monthly Report (2024.02): ETF drives BTC to rise, Meme track mania. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!