Cheatsheet: Crypto has issued more than $14B fresh supply already this year

Bitcoin has given crypto free rein to run wild, even if its own rally has stalled

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This is Cheatsheet, a primer on what’s happening in crypto today.

Bitcoin is still consolidating after immediately rejecting its new all-time high yesterday.

Not so for the rest of the market. Uniswap (UNI) and Ribbon Finance (RBN) are the best performing at the top end, surging 71% and 19% over the past day. 

UNI’s move coincides with its highest day of volume in nearly a year: $5.6 billion yesterday and double Monday’s volume. Ether (ETH) is otherwise up slightly, trading for just under $3,900 but still 21% below its own all-time high.

Ribbon meanwhile seems to have been boosted by Binance Launchpad adding support for AEVO, a token for a derivatives DEX built by the Ribbon Finance team (the RBN token will be redeemable for AEVO later this quarter).

Memecoin dogwifhat (WIF) follows with 15% as of 8 am ET. WIF, now a $2 billion token, set a new price record about five hours ago and has rallied 500% in the past two weeks. 

Shiba inu (SHIB), bonk (BONK) and dogecoin (DOGE) are among the worst performers over the past day, each shedding 10%. Dog coins are still this week’s best performers by far, with the former more than tripling in price.

On-chain mail

Prices are high, and it’s smoothing over any concerns around token release schedules for major projects and protocols.

  • Top cryptocurrencies on average have boosted their circulating supplies by 4.25% already this year.
  • Those freshly-released tokens are altogether worth $14 billion at current prices.
  • ApeCoin (APE), dYdX (DYDX) and Worldcoin (WLD) have inflated the most, between 64% and 38% year to date.

Bitcoin leads by far for dollar value. The 59,656 BTC ($3.84 billion) seeped into the bitcoin supply this year represents 0.305% inflation since Jan. 1. 

Solana (SOL) is second with a supply increase of 3.06%, representing 13.1 million new coins worth $1.66 billion. Utility of token issuance varies greatly depending on the project, but unlocks are generally utilized to fund development and reward stakeholders.

Only seven of the top 100 are deflationary this year. Binance coin (BNB) has shrunk by 1.42%, worth $852.6 million. Ether is deflationary by about 0.05% after burning $200 million ETH at current prices.

  • Ethereum’s TVL value is up by two-thirds over the past month but the number of ETH in DeFi has barely budged — still about 15 million ETH ($58.17 billion).
  • Polygon PoS daily active users hit an all-time high of 1.2 million earlier this week, now back to 1 million.
  • Bitcoin is the number one blockchain for NFT volume over the past week with $184 million, up 57%. Ethereum NFT volume was $176.7 million, up 25%.

Read more: Someone bought a CryptoPunk for $16M

90 of the top 100 cryptocurrencies are up this year, even with so much inflation

Crypto business

Bitcoin’s new all-time high — and its 10% correction — sent crypto stocks whipsawing.

  • MicroStrategy lost 21.2% during the day session before reclaiming 12% after hours as of 7:15 am ET.
  • Marathon, the largest publicly-traded bitcoin miner, lost 13.4% only to regain it all following the bell.
  • Rival miners Griid and Argo took the brunt of the retracement, slipping 17.3% and 16.2%, respectively.

About half of all crypto stocks have beaten the S&P 500 over the past month — which itself has been on a tear and still sits around all-time high.

But the halving could still have investors spooked. Only five crypto stocks have outperformed the benchmark over the year to date, more than three-quarters have lost value, and over half have slipped by more than 25%.

The S&P and the more tech-focused Nasdaq 100 have gained more than 6% across the same period.

  • March was MicroStrategy’s highest volume month on record (stretching back before the dot-com boom), with nearly 34.5 million shares traded, per TradingView.
  • The firm has now more than doubled its money on bitcoin to date, paying $6.1 billion for BTC worth $12.9 billion.
  • Tesla is nearly there, up 93% on bitcoin bought in Feb. 2021.

Read more: MicroStrategy will use proceeds from convertible note sale to add to bitcoin stash

On the ground

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With the recent election, it’s clear that there will be a meaningful shift in crypto regulations and legislation. Trump is likely as pro-crypto as a president can be. He launched (multiple) of his own NFT collections and is launching an Aave wrapper called World Liberty Fi. He has also spoken out and mentioned that he wants to make the United States "the crypto capital of the planet" and transform it into the "Bitcoin superpower of the world". He proposed creating a strategic national Bitcoin stockpile alongside support from Senator Cynthia Lummis, promising to retain 100% of all Bitcoin held by the U.S. government. More importantly, we’re likely to see deregulation across the board in a lot of industries, with crypto being one of them - as Trump has committed to keeping the crypto market largely unregulated. Crypto, DeFi in particular, has historically been knee-capped by overreaching and hostile governmental agencies and regulation by enforcement, as evidenced by the plethora of Wells notices and lawsuits over the past few years. With Donald Trump winning the presidency, Republicans taking control of the Senate, and being on the verge of securing the House, we think it’s likely that crypto realizes positive regulatory clarity. Below, you can find our analysts’ takes:

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