Morning Minute | Crypto Rallies As BTC ETF's Appear Imminent

TylerD's Market Summary

The BTC ETF is coming, memecoins are as hot as ever, and FriendTech made a surprise announcement. Catch up on all the details below.

💰 BlackRock Makes Key Change to ETF Filing

The Bitcoin ETFs appear closer than ever to being approved.

Bloomberg Senior ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas shared a bullish report, following BlackRock's filing an S-1 amendment to their spot BTC ETF application:

"BlackRock has gone cash only. That’s basically a wrap. Debate over. In-kind will have to wait. It’s all about getting ducks in row bf holidays. Good sign."

Eric liked the news, as did the markets, which saw BTC erase its Sunday dip and rally 5% back over $43,000.

What Does It Mean?

First, let's break down the terms.

"Cash only" refers to how ETF participants will be able to buy shares in the ETF.

In this model, authorized participants will only be able to bring cash to buy shares.

This is in contrast to allowing the participants to exchange the underlying asset (BTC in this case) for shares directly.

For example, if the fund is selling shares at $10/share and requires 10k share blocks, then a participant will have to bring $100k cash to the table.

The SEC has seemingly requested this change as it will make it easier to track where the ETF gets its BTC from (it removes an exchange vector).

But minor details aside, BlackRock and the SEC haggling over changes like this makes it seem like the approval is a matter of When and not If.

The narrative of the next bull market cycle of the ETFs driving price action is very much alive.

And with the equity markets pushing higher as 2024 rate cuts are anticipated, price targets for Bitcoin are only moving one way.

Higher.

🤯 Memecoin Mania Continues Across Chain

It's not just the crypto majors catching bids these days.

Memecoins are firing, across several L1 and L2s.

BONK walked so these other memecoins can run.

What's Happening?

BONK caught the first series of headlines, becoming just the 3rd memecoin to be listed on Coinbase. 

It promptly rallied to a $2B marketcap following the listing before retracing to $1.2B.

And it set off a memecoin firestorm across chains.

• On BONK's native Solana, dogwifhat ($WIF) has rallied to a $190M marketcap in just a few weeks.
• On Avax, $COQ has reached $200M while several others have hit the $20-$30M range.
• On Injective, $NINJA has soared to a $30M marketcap (all while the $INJ token has jumped 47% on the week to $39.
• On Arbitrum, $NOLA reached $14M in just a few days.
• On Base, $TOSHI is holding at $69M after hitting close to $100M a last week.

It's memecoin mania, across chains.

And while memecoins are silly and have no intrinsic value, they are creating value.

The L1s and L2s hosting these memecoins are seeing increased traffic and volume, and their native token prices are going up as traders swap into their currencies to transact.

Traders are forced to learn the underlying protocols on each chain to conduct transactions.

Discovery is happening in real time. 

All because of some memecoins tied to the names of blockchain founders and key backers.

That's crypto for you...

🫂 FriendTech Announces v2

In a surprise Monday announcement, FriendTech dropped a K-pop themed bombshell.

The app's v2 is coming in Spring 2024.

And they gave clues as to what it may include.

What Happened?

Last night, the team tweeted out a 60-second trailer talking briefly about the app's history before announcing v2 coming in the spring.

It ended with a logo with 4 icons, including a single key, multiple keys, the word NFT, and a starred "P".

So what does it mean? NFT integration? More points?

We will have to wait to find out.

By The Numbers

But how has the app been doing?

Well transaction volume is as all-time lows. Yesterday, just 28 ETH registered in volume, down from a peak of over 7k ETH per day.

Transaction fees are still 10% per (on the way in and the way out) which has effectively caused gridlock and discouraged trading.

Daily users are under 1,000, down from closer to 10k-20k per day at peak.

Cumulative trading volume is at $523M, with over $30M in fees generated for the team.

But TVL is actually holding decently strong at $38.1M, down just ~25% from ATH.

The app has basically become a quiet farm where folks are parking ETH ahead of a potential airdrop in 2024. 

Maybe v2 will change that. Friend maxis can dream...

🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?

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

• ETH trading volume ticked up to $19.5M on Monday, $11M less than last Sunday; NFT leaders saw a mix of red and green
• Porsche and World of Women led top movers on ETH, up about 24% each with a lack of larger movers
• New free mint from Ubisoft called Warlords of Champions Tactics jumped to a 0.23 ETH floor overnight
• Several NFTs from the Flooring Protocol exploit have been returned, including Gold Pengus and all of the Azukis lost
• Solana NFTs saw a small rally with Tensorians +7% to 117 SOL and Mad Lads +7% to 222
• Bodoggos saw a new ATH sale after an X-ray fur with balloons doggo moved for 559 SOL ($39,900), though the floor pulled back 17% to 13.2 
• On Ordinals, Bitcoin Frogs jumped 10% to a 0.39 BTC floor, leading top movers
• Nifty Island announced a new "play-to-airdrop" campaign coming when the new game launches on Jan 17
  
• Staked Sugartown Oras holders now have access to Sugartown's second game "All Time Heights"
• Overworld announced a partnership with Horizen Labs (the company behind ApeCoin and others) ahead of its token launch in 2024
• Parallel dropped a new trailer for its upcoming "Parallel Colony" game, a full 10 minutes in length

🌎 Around Crypto and Web3

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

• Crypto majors rallied on the day; BTC +4.8% at $42,870; ETH +4.7% at $2,230; SOL +8.8% at $74.50
• Other L1s rallied more, with AVAX +8.5% to $41, INJ +27% to $39 and TIA +12% to $12.44
• WIF reached a $200M market cap overnight and saw more trading volume than BONK
• Reach officially launched its $REACH token with a points system tied to engagement farming, opening up around a $10M marketcap
• Bitwise launched a new Bitcoin-themed commercial calling Bitcoin the "most interesting thing in the world"
• The VanECK Bitcoin ETF filed an amendment to change its upcoming ticker symbol to "HODL"
• Animoca Brands invested in an MMA blockchain game called Metafight, hoping to push the digital trading card game to the next level
• Improbable sold "The Multiplayer Group," a game services company, for $97M as it doubles-down on the metaverse.

🚀 NFT Total Volume (ETH)

• Warlords of Champions (1,371 ETH, 0.23 ETH Floor)
• Azuki (1,366 ETH, 5.59 ETH)
• MAYC (1,037 ETH, 5.07 ETH)
• Pudgy Penguins (806 ETH, 9.8 ETH)
• BAYC (631 ETH, 26.25 ETH)

📈 NFT Floor Price Increase (ETH)

• Porsche 911 (24%, 0.67 ETH Floor)
• World of Women (24%, 1.44 ETH)
• Genuine Undead (22%, 0.11 ETH)
• Kanpai Pandas (21%, 1.71 ETH)
• y00ts (20%, 0.51 ETH)

🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals

Today has several drops spanning PFPs, sports, and art. 

The highlight in art is Richard Nadler's "Izanami Islands", selling in a ranked auction over on Verse.

FIFA is dropping new NFTs today, and Solana is getting its first levered NFTs with Flash Trade.

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

• Farcana (9:00 a.m. ET)
• Richard Nadler - Izanami Islands (11:00 a.m. ET)
• FIFA+ (11:00 a.m. ET)
• Flash Trade (2:00 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.