Macro environment

Net purchase of long-term securities by foreign capital in the United States in December (100 million U.S. dollars)

Announced by: U.S. Department of the Treasury

Publication frequency: monthly

Previous value: 1654; forecast: — -; current value: 1421

The number of people applying for unemployment benefits in the week of February 11 in the United States (10,000)

Announced by: U.S. Department of Labor

Publication frequency: weekly

Previous value: 19.5; forecast: 20; current value: 19.4

The number of people in the United States continuing to apply for unemployment benefits in the week ended February 4 (10,000)

Announced by: U.S. Department of Labor

Publication frequency: weekly

Previous value: 168; forecast: 169.5; current value: 169.6

Japan’s unadjusted trade account in January (100 million yen)

Previous value: 14518; forecast: -38715; current value: -34966

Japan’s seasonally adjusted merchandise trade account in January (100 million yen)

Previous value: 17241.73; forecast: -25336; current value: -18212.98

US January PPI annual rate (%)

Previous value: 6.5; forecast: 5.4; current value: 6

US January PPI monthly rate (%)

Previous value: 0.2; forecast: 0.4; current value: 0.7

U.S. core PPI monthly rate in January (%)

Previous value: 0.3; forecast: 0.3; current value: 0.5

U.S. core PPI annual rate in January (%)

Previous value: 5.8; forecast: 4.9; current value: 5.4

The monthly rate of U.S. import price index in January (%)

Announced by: U.S. Department of Labor

Release frequency: monthly

Interpretation: The import price index refers to an index of the average price change of imported goods in a country within a certain period of time. The import price index may have an impact on future inflation. If production enterprises cannot absorb the rising prices of imported goods, they will eventually push up the ex-factory prices of products and spread them to the final consumer sector, pushing up inflation. However, it has a relatively small impact on the market because it takes a long time for the import price to be transmitted to the final consumer price.

Previous value: 0.4; forecast: -0.2; current value: -0.2

Annual rate of U.S. import price index in January (%)

Previous value: 3.5; forecast: 1.4; current value: 0.8

China’s one-year loan market quotation rate in February (%)

Previous value: 3.65; forecast: 3.65; current value: 3.65

China’s five-year loan market quotation rate in February (%)

Previous value: 4.3; forecast: 4.3; current value: 4.3

Eurozone February consumer confidence index final value

Announcer: Eurostat

Publication frequency: monthly

Previous value: 20.9; forecast: -19; current value:

Eurozone February ZEW Economic Sentiment Index

Announced by: European Economic Research Institute (ZEW)

Release frequency: monthly

Interpretation: The ZEW Economic Sentiment Index is a survey conducted by the Center for European Economic Research among 350 analysts and institutional investors on their expectations for the medium-term (6 months) economic activities and capital market prospects in the Eurozone. The data reflects the expectations of analysts and institutional investors on the Eurozone economy in the next six months and is a leading indicator of the economy. Good data is good for the euro. But the survey is less important than the German ZEW economic sentiment index.

Previous value: 16.7; forecast: — -; current value: 29.7

The initial value of Markit manufacturing PMI in the United States in February

Announced by: Markit, a market research company

Release frequency: monthly

Interpretation: Market research company Markit conducted a survey of about 600 managers, including the respondents’ assessment of employment, output, new orders, prices, inventory, etc. It is a leading indicator of economic conditions, as companies can respond quickly to market conditions. Foreign exchange investors make judgments on the prospects of the US economy by observing changes in such data, which in turn affects the trend of the foreign exchange market.

Previous value: 46.9; forecast: 47.3; current value: 47.8

The annualized total of existing home sales in the United States in January (10,000 households)

Previous value: 402; forecast: 410; current value: 400

On February 16, the United States announced that the producer price index (PPI) in January rose by 0.7% from the previous month, reversing the decline of 0.2% in December, and the number of initial jobless claims fell to 194,000 last week. Next, the survey estimated 200,000 people.

John Velis, foreign exchange and macro strategist at BNY Mellon Markets, said, “Strong PPI data and Cleveland Fed President Mester’s hawkish speech further raised interest rates and this is the key to the dollar’s upside today.”

Stronger labor market data and sticky inflation certainly bolstered the case for “higher rates for longer,” Velis said.

On February 17, international oil prices fell to a new low in more than a week, as strong U.S. economic data heightened concerns that the Federal Reserve will further tighten monetary policy to tackle inflation, a move that could hit fuel demand.

Tina Teng, a market analyst at CMC Markets, said: “Judging from the recent data performance, the U.S. economy is still healthy and does not seem to be entering a recession anytime soon, and the market is pricing in the prospect of higher interest rates for a longer period of time.”

Bart Melek, global head of commodity strategy at TD Securities, said: “U.S. inflation will be more sticky than many people expect. The Fed’s next move may be to raise interest rates by 50 basis points. will last longer.”

For the first time in nearly two decades, some of the world’s safest bonds can return investors more than 5 percent, rivaling riskier assets such as the S&P 500. But there’s a problem: U.S. Treasuries are less safe because repayments could be delayed if Congress doesn’t act. Still, that appears to be risk investors are willing to take, with weekly Treasury auctions continuing to attract strong demand.

Economist Orlik said that all signs since 2023 show that the outlook for the global economy this year is just in line with expectations. It now appears that Europe is expected to emerge from recession, the United States will experience a recession in the second half of each year, and China’s economy is showing a strong recovery. He is now very concerned about a possible catastrophic US debt default. “Our estimates suggest that a loss of market confidence in the U.S. Treasury would have an extremely significant negative impact on U.S. economic growth and could even trigger a financial crisis.”

Inflation determines how high the endpoint of the federal funds rate is, and wages determine how long the high-interest rate will be maintained, that is, the timing and room for interest rate cuts. In 2023, when CPI inflation, driven by goods and housing, falls to the 3%-4% range, wages will be the decisive factor in whether it can return to 2% in 2021. We should neither underestimate the determination of the Fed to fight inflation nor should we underestimate the pressure on the fundamentals of the US economy.

Varga, the senior market analyst at crude oil brokerage PVM Oil Associates, predicts that Russia may turn its attention to smaller markets in Africa and Latin America, but this will hardly make up for the losses in Europe. If so, Russia will reduce refining capacity, thereby affecting crude oil production. Russia has previously predicted that sanctions on refined oil products will cause output to fall by 5% to 7% this year.

On Feb. 21, the dollar index held modest gains, helped by strong U.S. economic data, but the greenback fell against the pound. U.S. business activity rebounded in February, hitting its highest level in eight months, the survey showed.

Crypto News

1/ A Quick Look at the EigenLayer White Paper: Expansion of the Consensus Layer

Eigenlayer finally disclosed its V1 white paper. Bixin Ventures interpreted the white paper, focusing on Eigenlayer’s basic principles, operating mechanism, security assurance, governance framework, application scenarios, commercialization prospects, and other core content.

2/ Hong Kong will allocate 50 million Hong Kong dollars to promote the development of the Web3 ecosystem

The Hong Kong SAR government will allocate HK$50 million from the 2023–2024 budget to accelerate the development of the Web3 ecosystem. The Hong Kong government will also set up a virtual asset development task force to submit recommendations to the government on the sustainable development of the industry.

Hong Kong’s push for the cryptocurrency industry gets support from Chinese government

Hong Kong’s push to become a cryptocurrency hub has gained a boost from Beijing, according to Bloomberg. Officials from the China Liaison Office, who have been attending cryptocurrency industry events in Hong Kong for the past few months, are said to be keen to use Hong Kong as a testing ground for digital assets while maintaining strict controls on such activities on the mainland.

3/ The zkSync Fair Onboarding Alpha main net is launched, and zkSync 2.0 is renamed to zkSync Era∎

Ethereum’s second-tier network zkSync announced the launch of the Fair Onboarding Alpha mainnet, kSync 2.0 was renamed zkSync Era∎, and zkSync 1.0 was renamed zkSync Lite. According to zkSync, the zkSync Era∎ code base is completely open source under the MIT/Apache 2.0 license, and developers are free to view, edit and fork the code, including smart contracts, sorters, validators, and GPU accelerators. During the Fair Onboarding Alpha, the mainnet will remain closed to end users, and developers can deploy and test applications in the zkSync Era∎. Additionally, zkSync will update the protocol roadmap and publish an overview of the next milestones.

4/ Lido Finance launched a 1 million $OP token incentive plan to encourage the use of Ethereum Layer 2

Lido Finance and Optimism have launched a new incentive program to encourage liquidity stakers to migrate to Ethereum Layer 2. The LidoOnLayer2 initiative aims to increase the liquidity of Lido’s Ethereum ( stETH ) product on all second-layer solutions. Optimism has awarded Lido $1 million in OP tokens for the program, which will reward users who stake ETH on Lido, transfer their staked ETH to Optimism, and provide liquidity for selected token pairs. The incentive program will last for six months.

5/ Blur launched a new royalty policy to challenge OpenSea, suggesting that creators blacklist OpenSea

Blur is making new moves to challenge OpenSea’s dominance in the NFT market space. In an article explaining its new royalty policy, Blur recommends that creators blacklist OpenSea.

OpenSea announced the launch of time-limited zero-fee transactions and enabled optional royalty services

OpenSea, the NFT market, announced that it will make the following adjustments: 1. Launch a time-limited 0-fee trading activity; 2. Enable an optional copyright service with a minimum standard of 0.5%, applicable to all NFT series that do not enforce royalties on the chain; 3. Update operators' Filter to allow NFT marketplaces (including Blur ) with the same policy to collectively increase market liquidity.

6/ The US SEC accused Terraform Labs and Do Kwon of planning billions of dollars in crypto asset securities fraud

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York alleging that Singapore-based Terraform Labs PTE Ltd and Do Hyeong Kwon orchestrated crypto-asset securities involving algorithmic stablecoins and other crypto-asset securities totaling billions of dollars fraud, alleging that defendants violated the registration and anti-fraud provisions of the Securities Act and the Exchange Act.

7/ Camelot sells $GRAIL via bonds at a 10% discount and xGRAIL at a 30% discount

Camelot, the hottest DEX on Arbitrum, is now selling token bonds. This is achieved through a partnership with Bond Protocol, which will allow for two bond products for $GRAIL and xGRAIL tokens. These offerings will offer users the opportunity to purchase tokens at a discounted price, with bond prices dynamically calculated using Bond Protocol’s technology.

8/ Coinbase announced the integration of Arbitrum

Coinbase announced that it has integrated Arbitrum, and eligible users can now send and receive $ETH, $DAI, and $WBTC to and from the Arbitrum network.

9/ Polygon Labs announced a 20% layoff

Polygon Labs announced that it has laid off 20% of its workforce, or about 100 people, in the process of integrating its business units. “This was a painful and difficult decision, but an essential step in our journey,” Polygon Labs said.

10/ The $SUDO transfer function will be enabled and can be traded on Uniswap

Tally shows that the NFT trading agreement SudoSwap community’s proposal to “allow $SUDO transfer function and implement Uniswap liquidity mining reward plan” has been approved. A total of 4.19 million $SUDO was voted for, with a support rate of 99.96%.

Financing Information

There were 23 financings in total last week, with a total amount of about US$236 million and an average financing amount of US$10.73 million. Among them, the digital asset management/payment field still occupies the main body, the infrastructure and Metaverse/GameFi fields have relatively more financing, the social sector financing scale and quantity have continued to increase significantly, the NFT field has less financing, and the DeFi field has no financing.

Metaverse/GameFi

There are a total of 5 financings in the metaverse/GameFi field, with a total amount of more than 28.3 million US dollars, accounting for 11.99% of the total financing last week.

Million on Mars

basic information:

CEO Erik Bethke is a Mars geek who earned a Ph.D. in space science in the 1990s.

Million on Mars employs 25 people worldwide, with developers who have worked on games such as Starfleet: Command, GoPets, Mafia Wars, and FarmVille. Currently, the game has more than 14,000 daily active users.

It is reported that the chain game Million on Mars can run on the Solana and Wax blockchains. In addition, the game has been online for more than six months, and some games have been online as early as the end of 2021.

Financing Information:

On February 17, the chain game Million on Mars announced the completion of a $3.5 million seed round of financing, led by Great South Gate and Widus Partners, and participated by Solana Labs. Add more systems and virtual environments.

Unagi

Basic Information:

Unagi co-founders Remi Pellerin and Charlie Guillemot are both from the well-known game maker Ubisoft. It is worth noting that Charlie Guillemot is the son of Ubisoft co-founder and CEO Yves Guillemot.

Founded in 2021, Unagi came into the public eye with Ultimate Champions, a free-to-play fantasy football game launched on BNB Chain, and received a $4 million investment from Binance Labs in November last year. At present, Ultimate Champions has established cooperative relations with 45 partners including Premier League Arsenal.

Financing Information:

On February 17, blockchain game developer Unagi announced the completion of a US$5 million seed round of financing. This round of financing was led by Sisu Game Ventures, with participation from Sfermion, Signum Capital, and 2B Ventures. With the new funding, Unagi hopes to grow its team from 25 to 40 people.

NFT/Digital Fashion

There are 2 financings in the NFT/digital fashion field, with a total amount of 7 million US dollars, accounting for 2.97% of the total financing last week.

Aura Network

Basic Information:

Aura Network focuses on building an NFT network that is strongly associated with reality, providing a one-stop complete service for NFT from Mint to sales. The company was established in the fourth quarter of 2021, and the team size has grown from less than 20 people at the beginning to more than 200 people today. At present, Aura Network has successfully iterated three test networks of Halo, Serenity, and Euphoria, and launched two dApps, AuraScan, a native blockchain browser, and Pyxis Safe, a multi-signature management tool. The mainnet Xstaxy will be launched at the end of the first quarter of this year.

Financing Information:

On February 15, Aura Network, the Cosmos ecological NFT blockchain, completed a Pre-A round of financing of US$4 million. This round of financing was led by Hashed and Coin98, and GuildFi, Istari Ventures, and K300 Ventures participated in the investment. This round of financing will be used to continue to promote the ecological development of Aura Network.

NFEX

Basic Information:

NFEX provides users with NFT perpetual contracts, and users can use leverage and long/short functions on NFT. At present, NFEX has started internal testing on Polygon’s Mumbai test network, and the internal testing is only open to Waitlist users in the form of invitations and applications.

In terms of institutions, the NFEx team has many years of experience as a market maker and has the foundation to solve liquidity for institutional users in the industry. NFEx will start with mainstream NFT assets and provide clearing and hedging services for NFT lending platforms and NFT marketplaces. The liquidation of all NFTFi projects in the future can be completed on NFEx.

For individual investors, NFEx will be the most complete and liquid NFT contract platform, allowing users to participate in the NFT trading market with lower thresholds, cheaper transaction rates, and stronger capital utilization. The industry provides more financial instruments and trading varieties.

Financing information:

On February 15, NFT derivatives DEX NFEX completed a US$3 million seed round of financing. This financing round was led by ABCDE Capital, with participation from Amber Group and Firestone Ventures.

Social/Creator Economy

There are 5 financings in the social field, with a total amount of 22.5 million US dollars, accounting for 9.53% of the total financing last week.

Phi

Basic Information:

Phi allows users to generate their own personalized space using their ENS domain and claim in-game items based on their wallet activity. Users can use the tools provided by Phi to build their own Web3 world, which can display their interactions, on-chain progress, personal taste, and social graph.

Phi stated that this round of financing will be used to accelerate the design and development of improved UI/UX and new social/game features, and create a community to expand cooperation with more protocols while creating Phi derivatives.

Financing Information:

On February 18, ENS-based social platform Phi announced the completion of a $2 million seed round of financing, led by Chapter One and Delphi Digital, Polygon Ventures, Bankless co-founder Ryan Sean Adams, David Hoffman, ETH Global co-founder Kartik Talwar, and Gitcoin co-founders. Genesis Scott Moore and others participated in the investment.

infrastructure

A total of 6 financings in the field of infrastructure, with a total amount of more than 47.2 million US dollars, accounted for 20% of the total financing last week.

Cysic

Basic Information:

Cysic is an industry-leading ZK hardware acceleration project, founded by Leo Fan and Bowen Huang at the end of August 2022, dedicated to designing advanced ASIC chips to help reduce ZK-proof generation time. Cysic has formed a first-class hardware design and development team and has completed the FPGA-based POC design work. According to the POC results, it can be proved that Cysic’s ZK hardware acceleration capability is already in the leading position in the industry.

Financing Information:

On February 17, Cysic, a ZK chip start-up company, completed a $6 million seed round of financing, led by Polychain Capital, with participation from A&T Capital, Hashkey, SNZ Holding, Web3 .com Foundation, and ABCDE Capital.

Digital asset management/payment

There are 3 financings in the field of digital asset management/payment, with a total amount of more than 820 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 34.75% of the total financing last week.

Stelo Labs

Basic Information:

The team launched the Stelo browser extension in September to protect users from scams and phishing. At the heart of all Stelo Labs products is the Stelo transaction engine. The main job of the engine is to simulate transactions, aggregate data, and conduct risk analysis. Simulated transactions can let users know which assets are interacting with their wallets. Data aggregation uses rich data inside and outside the chain, such as DID, identifiable NFT, and its Price, etc., risk analysis is to analyze transactions and display risk factors to prevent users from being phished or scammed. Stelo currently supports the Ethereum network and hopes to expand to other EVM-compatible chains in the future.

Financing Information:

On February 17, Web3 security company Stelo Labs completed a $6 million seed round of financing led by a16z. This round of financing will be used to expand the team and its products, and meet user needs.

Alongside

Basic Information:

In January, the startup launched its first product, the Alongside Crypto Market Index (AMKT), which provides broad access to the entire crypto asset market through a single token. AMKT represents a basket of digital assets designed to track the market capitalization of the crypto asset market.

AMKT is the first index token deployed by the Alongside team on the chain. In the future, each index token will be supported by the proportional assets held in Coinbase Prime. Along’s Index Token is built by a network of participants who mint or burn tokens by depositing collateral into a vault. This provides Aside indexes with features such as entire mortgage, convertibility, and programmability, making it fully interoperable with the DeFi ecosystem.

Financing Information:

On February 15, the encryption index platform Alongside completed $11 million in financing. This round of financing was led by a16z, Coinbase Ventures, Franklin Templeton Investments, Village Global, Not Boring Capital and several angel investors participated in the investment.

DYOR*

1/ TIPS, also known as the abbreviation of Treasury Inflation-Protected Security (English Treasury Inflation-Protected Security), is an inflation-protected bond issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The bond interest rate of TIPS is fixed (determined at the time of the auction), but its principal (based on the principle of treasury bonds issued by the U.S. Treasury Department) will be adjusted accordingly according to the rise and fall of the CPI index. be reduced when. Holders can buy or sell before maturity, or hold until maturity. At maturity, investors will receive the greater of the bond’s par value or its adjusted principal value.

2/ URI (Identifier) only allows you to “distinguish” resources; URL (Locator) also allows you to “find” resources (so URL is “stronger” than general URI, and is a subset of URI)

statement:

1/ Statistical time and sources of information will be indicated in the report as much as possible.

2/ The above data refers to exchanges and public platforms, and the unit of the price involved is US dollars.

3/ The data is for reference only and comes from the public Internet platform, and the accuracy of the data is not guaranteed.

4/ If there are any exceptions, they will be marked in the report as much as possible.

5/ The DYOR part is a summary of some of the contents of the author’s self-study this week.

Information Sources:

1/ Messari: https://messari.io/

2/ CoinMarketCap: https://coinmarketcap.com/

3/ BlockBeats: https://www.theblockbeats.info/

4/ ChainFeeds: https://www.chainfeeds.xyz/feed/flash

5/ TokenInsight: https://tokeninsight.com/zh/news

6/ PANews: https://www.panewslab.com/zh/news/index.html

7/ Huitong Finance: Huitong Finance — financial derivatives information provider (fx678.com)