Who Holds the Power?
August crypto market review.
For the third month in a row, SEC continues its losing streak, as this time, Grayscale defeats Gary’s attempt to deny their ETF spot application. This is another bullish news against the SEC’s attempt to stifle crypto companies, as the law upholds its commitment to equity, transparency and fairness, just like blockchain technology.
And despite a month of undulating price action, cryptocurrencies have all managed to maintain their bearish resistance, building up the faith amongst traders waiting for the almighty halving event.
This is my crypto market review for the month of August, highlighting major events, price actions, and fundamental news that have led the market to where it is at the time of publication.
Coin Track.
Bitcoin.
Heavy red candles hit the market midway through the month, causing panic sales in some quarters, and discussions on the possibility of further dip in others. However, bitcoin was able to hold its $25k bearish resistance, maintaining its ground against further sell pressure as it did in the month of June. Although down about 17% from the previous month, news of Grayscale’s win was able to reduce the deficit by 7%, guiding it right above $27k.
And as is already known, when Bitcoin moves, others follow.
Ethereum enjoyed around 16% price increase during the hours following the announcement.
BNB, Binance native token also recorded a 17% pump following the news, taking its price from $202 to $237.
Although the market has began to slide down again, this is absolutely normal as traders would take advantage of such pumps to secure their profits off the news.
DeFi this month.
Things weren’t so great in the DeFi sector this month. The industry suffered a total loss of about 13%, translating into over $6bn loss from its $44bn TVL from last month. This was mostly due to the continued trend in hacks, exploits and rugpulls, with Curve Finance being the most affected. The trend of hacks and rug pulls have become worrisome, as questions of customer funds safety has prevailed, making the DeFi sector less enticing for onboarding newbies onto DeFi platforms.
Regardless, the tokenization of RWAs have continued to trend, with the TVL in this sector soaring above $1billion. Ondo finance has had a great month, hitting an all time high $160M TVL in the RWA category. Other top protocols from this category include; RWADAO’s stUST with $758M+ TVL, and Maple Finance.
Liquid staking still leads in terms of categories TVL, with projects like Eigen Layer and Binance Staked as the top performers this month.
In summary, great things are still going on in the DeFi sector, but the continued trend of scams, hacks and rug pulls happen to be the bears against DeFi’s bulls.
News and Events.
- Hacks and Exploits.
Curve finance was the biggest exploit victim of the month. About $70M was recorded across four CRV pools due to the Vyper bug manipulation. To mitigate the effect of this loss, Michael Egorov was forced to sell reserve tokens OTC to a list of top industry players.
However, it is important to also note that up to 70% of the hacked funds were recovered with the help of ethical hackers and front running MEV bots.
Other hacks recorded this month includes; Index Finance, Steadfi, Cypher Protocol, Exactly Protocol, etc. In all, well over $100M was stolen through hacks and exploits during the month of August.
- Ecosystem development/Partnership announcements.
Binance has been very busy of late. In its decision to support DeFi, CZ has led Binance Labs into investing in a series of protocols across several categories. Some of the beneficiaries of this decision includes; PendleFi (LSD), Delphinus Labs (zkWASM), and Helios Protocol.
However, the company has also announced its decision to gradually halt the minting of their local stable coin BUSD. In a publication via Twitter, Binance announced this decision, highlighting their interest in supporting other stable coins as the reason for its suspension.
- Other news.
This review cannot be complete without mentioning Grayscale. The SEC had initially turned down Grayscale’s BTC spot ETF, despite their support for futures-based ETFs. This led the investment company to drag SEC to court, requesting a fair hearing from the law as to why the SEC had turned down their application. Then on the 28th of this month, Grayscale emerged victorious, with the federal court citing the SEC’s argument as “arbitrary and capricious”. This was the highlight of the month, as it single handedly helped the entire crypto market gain over 3% in 2 days.
Conclusion.
The crypto market is still alive. And if Gary can keep losing these cases, then the power indeed lies with the people. As is obvious now, WE make the market, and decide where prices go (depending on actions we take from the news we hear). Moving on, we expect more players to come together and new usecases to drive adoption.
But for now, stay Cryptosavvy, and ride it to the future 🚀🚀🚀.
