Morning Minute | BTC Passes $73k, ETH Gets an Upgrade

TylerD's Market Summary

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📈 Bitcoin Smashes Through $73k on Record Inflows

The Bitcoin train ain't stopping.

And the ETFs are the driver.

What Happened?

Yesterday the Bitcoin ETFs totalled $1.04B in net inflows.

That brings their combined total inflow tally to $11.15B, and a whopping $1.5B of that total has come this week (in two days).

Perhaps even crazier - the total ETF trading volume on the day hit $8.5B, and only FIVE publicly traded stocks saw more volume.

The Bitcoin ETFs are officially in the big leagues.

And with players like Van Eck removing trading fees until March 2025, expect volume to go in one direction - up.

NFT Market Impact

So are BTC NFTs screwed with this rally?

Not necessarily.

After a large pull back last week and into Monday, it seems the bleeding has stopped in the BTC NFT market.

At least temporarily.

NodeMonkes led the recovery, rallying 60% off its local bottom of 0.4 BTC and hitting 0.64 at peak last night (0.61 BTC now).

Other notable prices (and daily change):

• Bitcoin Puppets +10% to 0.183 BTC
• Quantum Cats +15% to 0.32 BTC
• RSIC +7% to 0.08 BTC

And OMB is holding steady up top at 1.3 BTC ahead of the Orange Eyes expansion mint coming tomorrow.

Pending the success of that Orange Eyes mint and early secondary action, it might be the catalyst for the next leg up across the board.

We'll be watching.

💡 Ethereum's Dencun Upgrade

Bitcoin is leading the headlines right now.

But Vitalik and the Ethereum devs are making moves.

And today marks a huge day in the Ethereum roadmap.

What's Happening?

Today is the Dencun upgrade (EIP-4844), the first step in the larger "The Surge" section of the Ethereum roadmap.

It introduces the concept of blobs (proto-danksharding) to change how data is stores and exchanged, with the goal of increasing TPS and reducing fees.

Impacts:

• L2 transactions to be much cheaper due to proto-danksharding (projected 90% reduction in fees)
• L1 transactions to be cheaper through changes in data stores and exchanges (projected ~30% reduction in fees)

With this change, L2 gas fees are expected to drop to the $0.01-$0.10 range, and ETH to $65.

Read more about it here.

Why It Matters

For Ethereum itself, this seems like a "nice" upgrade but not a game changer, at least yet.

For the L2s though, it's a big deal.

The reason Solana has caught fire as of late is its ease of onboarding, lightning fast speed and low-cost transactions.

If L2s like Base, OP and Arbitrum can get their transaction fees to Solana levels, they'll be able to compete more closely.

There are also huge impacts to sectors like web3 gaming, requiring thousands or millions of onchain transactions per day (now expected to be 90% cheaper).

So this is a big upgrade, and perhaps one that kickstarts the next onchain gaming run.

We will find out soon enough.

🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the weekend in NFTs:

• ETH led NFT trading volume with $22.8M on the day; Bitcoin was next with $16.2M and then Solana with $11.5M
• BAYC led volume on ETH and rebounded to a 14.6 ETH floor after falling into the low 13s; MAYC rebounded 9% to 2.34 ETH
• Other ETH leaders were red down 7-10% on the day; Pudgy at 12.75 ETH, Captainz at 3.82, Azuki at 3.85
• Pacman Blur shared an update on Blast's progress against its known issue, with most still in the works
• DeGods and y00ts will have the opportunity to bridge back to Solana in the near future (DeGods +14% to 1.58)
• The BTC NFT board saw some welcome green led by NodeMonkes (+30% to 0.61 BTC); Bitcoin Puppets +10% to 0.183, Quantum Cats +15% to 0.32, RSIC +7% to 0.08
• TwelveFold owners will be able to get signed prints for their NFTs soon
• BTC Lending protocol Liquidium teased BRC-20 lending for its next version
• Tensorians soared 21% to 63 SOL leading Solana NFTs; Bodoggos +10% to 10, Mad Lads -3% to 193 and Frogana -35% to 3.74
• NBA Top Shot's Rookie Revelation packs sold out for $1,500 and are already up 70% to $2,600 on secondary, with Victor Wembanyama's Legendary moment from the pack at a $13,800 floor with a top sale at $12,999
• Arcade facilitated a 26 ETH loan on a Botto 1/1, the first ever loan against a Botto piece
• Cirrus injected $1.2M into the BAYC lending market via Arcade, helping support the rally
• MetaStreet has already facilitated over $200M in total lending volume since launch
• The Degenz team (OSF and Mando) have partnered with Decrypt to integrate their analytics

💰 Token, Airdrop & Points Tracker

Here's a rundown of major token or airdrop news from the weekend:

• Tensor formally announced its $TNSR token is coming soon, adopted by the Tensor Foundation for governance
• The $PAC airdrop is happening today with Blast depositors and early referrers able to claim tokens at12 pm ET
• CyberKongz announced a $BANANA airdrop to those who staked via its Ronin Validator ($BANANA up 227% on the month to $4.20)
• Ether.Fi announced that its ETHFI token will go live on Binance Launchpool next week

🌎 Around Crypto and Web3

A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors are green this morning; BTC +1.7% at $73,350; ETH +1% at $4,053; SOL +1.5% at $153.6
• AVAX outperformed majors, jumping 12% to $53.80; NEAR +11% to $7.90, INJ +9% to $48.58
• Coinbase announced a $1B bond sale to raise capital (following the Saylor playbook) to fund its crypto business without an equity sale
• Elixir closed its Series B at an $800M valuation, with participation from notable names like Arthur Hayes and Manifold

🚀 NFT Total Volume

• BAYC ($6M, 14.5 ETH floor)
• MAYC ($3.2M, 2.35 ETH floor)
• NodeMonkes ($3.05M, 0.61 BTC floor)
• Pudgy Penguins ($3M, 12.75 ETH floor)
• Captainz ($2.7M, 3.82 ETH floor)

📈 NFT Floor Price Increase (ETH)

• Anata (118%, 0.96 ETH Floor)
• Skyborne - Nexian Gems (41%, 1.24 ETH)
• Asterix (25%, 1.05 ETH)
• Peplicator (18%, 0.19 ETH)
• Rumble Kong League (16%, 0.24 ETH)

🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals

Today is likely the biggest day of the week.

The ETH Dencun Upgrade happens this morning.

Magic Eden is opening its OG ETH trader diamond claim (ahead of its future airdrop).

The first major memecoin is airdropping on Blast today with $PAC.

And there's a marquee generative art drop on Bitcoin with Mitosis (priced at 0.01 BTC).

See the full list and dive in for more details with Swizzy's daily mint monitor. 

• Mikan (9:00 a.m. ET)
• ETH - Dencun Upgrade (9:55 a.m. ET)
• Moodsoup x Vivid "Mitosis" (10:00 a.m. ET)
• Glitch Codes - Obyor (11:00 a.m. ET)
• Memes by 6529 (11:00 a.m. ET)
• Pacmoon $PAC airdrop claim (12:00 p.m. ET)
• Magic Eden - ETH OG Diamond claim (12:00 p.m. ET)

Enjoy this write-up and/or want to sponsor the Morning Minute? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email tyler.warner@luckytrader.com.