August 2022 in numbers: Bitcoin correction, miner revenue growth and liquidity outflow from Defi

In August, Coinbase stood out in the market of public industry companies in August. Despite the publication of bad financial results, the platform announced a partnership with the largest control assets of BlackRock, whose clients will gain access to digital assets through Coinbase Prime. Last month, the shares of the Voyager bankruptcy procedure have demonstrated significant growth. However, their cost has collapsed since the beginning of the year by more than 99%.

Macroeconomic background

• At the Symposium in Jackson House, the head of the Fed Jar Powell warned of his intention to not rush to lower the rate in order to maintain control over inflationary expectations. This contrasted with the ideas of investors who suggested a U -turn in politics in the spring of 2023.
• Powell explained that the rate of increase in the rate in September will depend on the outgoing macroeconomic data, and the reduction in inflation in July is not enough. At this point, investors will have time to analyze a fresh report on the dynamics of consumer prices (September 13) and the labor market report (September 2).
• The market fluctuates between increasing options in September by 50 b. P. and 75 b. P. Against the backdrop of the rigid rhetoric of the Fed, the Federal Customs Service prevails the second scenario (in a month the probability has increased from 28% to 72%). Moreover, in November and December, steps are expected to. P.

• After Jackson Houl, the U-turn in the Fed’s policy stopped tracing the market until mid-2023. Such a disposition will increase the degree of susceptibility of risky assets like bitcoin (high correlation with index S&P 500 persists) to negative macroeconomic data.
• Against the background of the energy crisis in Europe and the slowdown of the Chinese economy, economists began to increase the likelihood of recessing recession in the United States – per month from 40% to 45% (subject to the rate in September only 50 b. P.).

Market moods, correlations and volatility

• Compared to July in August, the average value of the “index of fear and greed” increased by almost a third (32.6 versus 24.2). However, at the end of the month, the indicator again sank into the zone of “extreme fear”.
• Investors’ mood was influenced by the performance of the head of the Fed Jerome Powell and other macroeconomic factors. Negative background also created rumors about compensation to creditors MT.GOX and information about the movement associated with the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange.

• Bitcoin correlation with the American stock market is slightly weakened. The smoothed 90-day average indicator was 0.61 for index S&P 500 and 0.55 for Dow Jones (in July – 0.64 and 0.58, respectively).
• The statistical relationship of the first cryptocurrency with gold, on the contrary, was strengthened (0.24 versus 0.15 last month), but it remains weak enough to consider bitcoin as a backup asset.
• In August, the averaged value of the index of historical intraudic volatility of bitcoin (BVOL24H) amounted to 2.6%, which is below the July indicator (3.5%). The bursts fell on local corrections of the asset price – August 19 and 26. The rest of the time the quotes moved in a relatively narrow range.

Onchain-data

• On August 29, the Whale Shadows-indicator indicated the “awakening” of a large cluster of bitcoins, who had been hibernated for a long time. On the graph above, it is noticeable that historically, after such bursts, significant corrections of the price of the first cryptocurrency were observed.
• Researchers have found that the 10,000 BTCs have been in motion for the first time since 2013 are associated with the bankrupt MT exchange.Gox.
• The seven -day sliding average number of active addresses (with the exception of interconnected) tests the lower boundary of the bear canal. Glassnode analysts suggested that the further drop in the indicator will mean “a sad worsening of the user base, which has not been observed for many years”.

• In August, the ASOPR onchain tool (7 MA) has never overcome the line of 1, even when the Bitcoin price tested $ 24,000. This suggests that many short -term investors close positions without a loss or with relatively small losses. The return of the metric above 1 will confirm the restoration of demand and indicate improvement of market moods. indicated the completion of the period of surrender of miners (the blue line crossed violet from the bottom up, the values ​​returned to the “white zone”). According to Capriole Investments, Charles Edwards, this is a “excellent purchase signal”.

• Another long -term indicator – RHODL RATIO – indicates a deep reserves of bitcoin. Its values ​​are in the Green Zone for the first time since the beginning of 2019.
• A similar signal demonstrates MVRV Z-Score metric. Its values ​​in the second half of August again indicated that the price of digital gold is below the “fair” level.

Ethereum

• Since the activation of the EIP-1559, the Ethereum network has withdrawn over 2.5 million ETH from circulation. Compared to July in August 2022, the rate of combustion of coins reduced almost doubles – 38,400 versus 60,000.
• A similar dynamics is observed for the second month to a row, which is explained by a reduction in activity on decentralized exchanges and NFT markets.
• According to the results of August, the balance of centralized exchanges and the share of the supply of Ethereum, blocked in smart contracts of Defi-applications, decreased. The situation is related to the upcoming update The Merge – some of the investors display assets to non -codium wallets in the calculation to place them in stakeing.

• According to the results of August, the amount of ETH at the Ethereum 2 deposit contract.0 exceeded 13.41 million coins. During the month, the indicator increased by 1.7%. In July, growth amounted to 1.5%, in June – 1.9%.
• The number of users interacting with the second Ethereum iteration increased by 1.7% over the reporting period (1.6% in July). Such dynamics is also associated with the upcoming transition of the blockchain to Proof-OF-STAKE (POS)-some network participants prefer to wait for the “mergers”.
• The number of Ethereum addresses with a balance of ≥ 32 ETH steadily continues to grow. According to the results of August, the indicator increased by 2.3%, to 120 012. All these wallets can potentially become validators after the activation of The Merge.

Lightning Network

• In July, the capacity of the Lightning Network (LN) bitcoin network exceeded 4419 BTC – compared to the last month, 10% added value.
• The growth of capacity was accompanied by a slight increase in the number of channels – by 2.5% for the reporting period. The number of NODs LN remained almost unchanged.

Mining, hashrate, commissions

• Heshrait bitcoin (7 ma) per month increased by 7.1%. The continuation of the growth of the indicator contrary to unconvincing price dynamics indicates the confidence of the network participants in the long -term prospects of digital gold, and also confirms the completion of the period of surrender of miners.
• Following the hashReit as a result of the latter recalculation, the difficulty of mining of the first cryptocurrency increased by 9.26%, to 30.97 T.
• The release of bitcoin from resellibility should cause further growth of hashrate and, therefore, mining difficulties.

• The Foundry USA Silbert Foundry USA is included in the Digital Currency Group, the leading pools in the fraction of the Bitcoin hash -shaft – 24.2%. The gap from the main competitors – Antpool and F2Pool is increasing.
• The average commission for Ethereum transaction in August increased by 12.8%-from $ 2.89 to $ 3.26. Against the background of growth towards the level of $ 2000, the indicator reached a local maximum at $ 5.05.
• The average commission on the Bitcoin network, on the contrary, decreased by 18% per month – from $ 1.33 to $ 1.09. Probable reason: a gradual decline in onchain-dynamics, which is expressed in a decrease in the number of transactions and active addresses.

• According to the results of August, the total income of Bitcoin Mainers amounted to $ 684.3 million-12% more than the July indicator. At the same time, the share of income commissions decreased from 2.02% to 1.41%. Such multidirectional dynamics can be associated with a relatively low complexity indicator with a decreasing onchain activity.
• The total income of Ethereum Mainers for the same period increased by 22%-to $ 829 million. because of

• In August, the volume of trading on the FORKLOG tracks of leading crypto -rhms decreased by only 3%, despite the resale in the market and the surge of volatility. However, interesting changes have occurred in the section of platforms.
• The first line of the rating, as before, is the Binance exchange ($ 426 billion). Against the backdrop of cooperation with BlackRock, Coinbase ($ 57 billion) returned to the second place, and the OKX exchange ($ 52 billion) took the third. Both platforms bypassed FTX from $ 48 billion.
• OKX probably benefited from the departure of users from the Huobi exchange – in August, the platform indicator amounted to $ 22 billion, compared with $ 31 billion in July, which is the worst result since the summer of 2020. According to Bloomberg, CEO Huobi Leon Lee is negotiating with investors on the sale of a stake control package (60%) when evaluating an exchange of $ 3 billion.

Futures and options

• In August, users showed considerable interest in futures based on Ethereum due to the upcoming transition to the Proof-Of-Stake algorithm and the volatility of the asset.
• The total volume on the platforms for the first time since May last year exceeded $ 1 trillion – this is the second largest result in the history of derivatives based on Ethereum.
• Bitcoin texts were much less in demand ($ 940 billion). The share of unlimited Ethereum contracts in the total trading volume for the first time was higher than the indicator of derivatives based on the first cryptocurrency. Such dynamics was observed almost all of August and especially intensified after the resumption of correction.

• A small surge in trade activity was also observed according to options based on Ethereum ($ 12.4 billion). A total open interest updated peak values ​​on December 2021
• The volume of bitcoin departments has decreased to $ 10.2 billion. The last time such values ​​were observed in October 2020.

• In August, the volume of blocked funds (TVLs) in smart contracts of decentralized applications decreased by 8%to $ 85.62 billion. The dynamics is also associated with the upcoming Ethereum transition to POS and the careful actions of investors against the background of an unstable macroeconomic situation.
• TVL of the permanent leader – Ethereum – increased to $ 51.84 billion ($ 51.28 billion in July). The value expressed in cryptocurrency was 33.96 million ETH (33.45 million ETH at the end of last month).

• According to the results of the month, almost all the tokens of the Defi segment from the TOP-20 in capitalization were in the red zone. Exception – Balancer (Bal) and Pancakeswap (Cake). The price of the first over the past 30 days has increased by 4%, the second – almost 22.76%.
• BAL growth is also associated with the spread of the Balancer Liquidity Bootstraping tool and the implementation of the ERC-4626 standard tokens project. The price of Cake was influenced by a number of initiatives accepted by the Commission of Asset.
• Among the projects on Ethereum, TVL leaders hold the MakerDao platform ($ 7.91 billion). AAVE ($ 7.12 billion) reached the second place. At the end of July, the project community approved the launch of GHO decentralized stabelcoin decentralized stableco.

• Decentralized exchanges continue to dominate in the total TVL Defi sector – projects of this category account for almost 30% of the indicator or $ 25.29 billion.
• Landing services ($ 16.30 billion) are in second place, in the third-the cross-bridges ($ 11.74 billion).
• According to the results of August, the total capitalization of Bitcoins on the air decreased to $ 4.92 billion. WBTC dominance index remained unchanged – 84%.

• In August, the average daily number of transactions in all networks in question decreased compared to the last month. Avalanche still shows the worst dynamics-this is due to the traffic in the subnet. Taking into account the volume of the reports transmitted to them, the blockchain processed over 45 million operations for the reporting period – historically the highest indicator.
• The leader of onchain-active is the leader of the Tron blockchain-he holds this position since May 2022. On average, in August, the network processed about 5.3 million https://gagarin.news/ transactions per day. For comparison: for Binance Smart Chain, the value was 3.2 million operations.

DEX and L2

• In August, the volume of trades of decentralized Ethereum turbu and AMM protocols amounted to $ 55 billion, descending to minimum marks from January 2021.
• In the section of the platforms, Uniswap ($ 38 billion) invariably leads – the share of DEX in the total indicator reached 70%. According to the results of the month, Curve Finance’s turnover grew to $ 5.8 billion, and the Dodo protocol from $ 3.3 billion escaped to the third line.
• L2-protocols for scaling Ethereum were much in greater demand. In August, users again brought the total TVL to the peak values ​​of June-July-3.5 million ETH worth more than $ 5 billion.
• In the context of the protocols, the leadership holds Arbitrum (share of 50%), which deployed a large -scale Nitro update on August 31. It is designed to reduce transaction commissions and increase network throughput.

Stebblecoins

• In August, the total market capitalization of stablecoins remained at ~ $ 151 billion.
• Many issuers of stable coins resumed emission. For example, Tether USDT capitalization has increased by $ 1.3 billion, Busd from Binance – $ 1.4 billion. The Gemini exchange increased the GUSD offer by 80%at once, up to 313 million coins. At the same time, Circle reduced the USDC volume by 2 billion.
• In August, several stablecoins were not again without losing the bindings to the dollar. First, this happened with the recently launched Acala USD (AUSD) stabelcoin from Acala Network based on Polkadot. Hackers used a vulnerability to release more than 1.2 billion AUSD. As a result, the coin rate in the moment dropped to $ 0.05. Then the “SPEG” overtook Huobi USD (HUSD). Project representatives said that the loss of binding was caused by the closure of several accounts to comply with the legislation in unnamed jurisdictions. At the end of the month below $ 1, the Stablecoino USD (USDN) Waves ecosystem fell again.
• Separately, it is worth highlighting the decentralized stabiblcoin DAI from Maker, the capitalization of which decreased in August by $ 500 million. The main reason was the concern of the community of the probability of blocking USDC and USDT assets in provision against the background of sanctions against Tornado Cash. While Tether said that he would not go to such a step, some projects, including decentralized, began to block “dirty” means. In particular, the Assets of the mixer in the USDC blocked the issuer of the stable coin of Circle in the United States. Due to fears in Maker, they even discuss the possibility of converting $ 3.5 billion of treasury funds into volatile cryptocurrencies and the DAI unholation script from $ 1 in an effort to ensure a decentralized approach to the project.

NFT and GameFi

• In August, the volume of trading NFT continued the global decline. The dynamics is confirmed by the host of the NFT marketplace Opensea (the share in the market is 70%), the indicator of which dropped to $ 500 million or less than 300,000 ETH.
• However, not everyone went badly and some projects improved positions. Fashionable brands Dolce & Gabbana, Tiffany, Gucci, Adidas and Nike received $ 260 million income from sales of non -replaced tokens. The leader was Nike with $ 185.3 million.
• In the context of blockchains, positivex and Polygon were observed in the Immutable and Polygon, which several restored positions against the background of bad indicators in the segment. The average price of NFT on Immutable X increased from $ 10 to $ 50, and the volume of trading from $ 5 million to $ 28 million.
• Activity on the Polygon network caused the launch of the Uniswap V3 NFTV1 from Themis Protocol. NFT are the position of liquidity providers (LP) in the Uniswap V3 pools. The token burns as soon as LP removes liquidity from the position, and the assets and generated commissions are credited to the purse of the holder. According to the results of August, the volume of trading instrument exceeded $ 90 million.
• In August, DEX Uniswap announced the intention to launch an aggregator for NFT crediting. The direction attracted the attention of users after the BendDao protocol encountered a liquidity crisis and blocked the LP assets that provided Ethereum for lending to NFT. The project management was forced to quickly change the structure of his work.
• Over $ 34 million, the bidding recorded the SudosWAP AMM platform launched in July. She offers NFT exchange for ETH and ERC-20 tokens with low commissions, as well as liquidity pools with collectible tokens. At the end of the month, the project announced the Airrrop of the SUDO control token.

The activity of large players

• Bitcoin bans of public companies have not changed in a month, according to the Bitcoin Treasuries service. Only sagged the cost of stored cryptocurrency in dollar terms due to mainly descending pricing dynamics.
• Despite the deterioration of the company’s balance sheet, the ex-head of Microstrategy Michael Seilor called the aggressive purchases of the first cryptocurrency with the sight to the long-term perspective.

• Open interest (OI) for bitcoin textures on the adjustable CME exchange for a month has not changed.
• The number of Longs and shorts in the Non-Commercial categories (relatively large market participants) and nonreportable (small players), according to the results of the month, survived at approximately the same level.
• Institutional (Commercial) significantly increased short positions – up to 1402 contracts (+147%).
• Bitcoin microfites are almost identical: the institutionals increase shorts against the background of almost unchanged open interest and balance of the positions of smaller market participants. On the other hand, the share of Commercial in OI is in both cases relative is small.

• In microfites on Ethereum, a slightly different situation: players of categories Non-Commercial and Nonreportable are still dominated by longs over shorts. This is a sign of investors optimism regarding the prospects of the second in capitalization of cryptocurrency.
• In the category of Commercial, short positions are still predominant, but a fracture of the ascending trend line is also noticeable. This is also a positive signal for Ethereum enthusiasts.

Large venture rounds

$ 200 million

Limit Break mobile games developer in the framework. The studio plans to introduce NFT into its multi -user games.

$ 56 million

Startup Wolf3D as part of the round of financing series b. The team stands behind the platform for creating Web3 Avatars Ready Player Me Me.

$ 45 million

Japanese unit of the operator blockchain-game Animoca Brands. The preliminary assessment of Unit amounted to $ 500 million.

$ 40 million

Developer Web3 Gagra Xterio. Studio rating reached $ 300 million.

Regulation

• CFTC and SEC approved a new requirement for reporting for crypto funds.
• Forbes: Each crypto -rope in the USA fell under the SEC sight.
• The US congressman called unprecedented sanctions against Tornado Cash, another demanded from the Minister of Finance Janet Yellen explanations regarding the mixer.
• US Senator suspected FDIC in pressure on banks due to cryptocurrencies.

• The authorities accused 16 cryptocurrency exchanges of violating laws.
• The financial supervision service took up the Kimchi-Premium Arbitration Operations for $ 6.5 billion. Later, the authorities detained 16 people involved in such operations.
• Seven large South Korean brokerage companies have applied for corporate structures for launching cryptocurrency exchanges.
• The government intends to introduce taxes on tokens obtained as a result of hardforms, airdrops and stakeing.

Authorities Singapore initiated a check of crypto companies after bankruptcy Terra, 3ac and Vauld, and also decided to limit speculations with cryptocurrencies.