Macro environment

Eurozone February Sentix Investor Confidence Index

Announced by: Sentix, an economic research institute

Publication frequency: once a month

Interpretation: It is a leading indicator of economic health. It is compiled into an index through surveys of well-informed investors and analysts on future economic expectations to measure future economic trends.

The steady increase in the published data indicates that more and more investors are optimistic about the economic development prospects of the eurozone, which is good for the euro; if the data declines, it means that investors are pessimistic about the economic development prospects of the eurozone, which is negative for the euro.

Previous value: -17.5; forecast: -12.8; current value: -8

The monthly rate of retail sales in the euro area in December (%)

Publication agency: Eurostat Publication frequency: once a month

Interpretation: Retail Sales (Retail Sales) include food, textile, and household sub-indices. Since 2001, the index has been released every month, and the price in 1995 has been used as the base period to deflate. It is the primary tool for measuring consumer spending, which in turn accounts for most of the overall economic activity.

Previous value: 0.8; forecast: -2.5; current value: -2.7

The annual rate of retail sales in December in the eurozone (%)

Previous value: -2.8; forecast: -2.7; current value: -2.8

Canada January IVEY not seasonally adjusted PMI

Announced by: Richard Ivey School of Business, Canada

Publication frequency: once a month

Interpretation: The Ivey Purchasing Managers Index (Purchase Management Index) measures the status of the manufacturing industry in eight areas including production, new orders, commodity prices, inventories, employees, order deliveries, new export orders, and imports. A leading indicator of the health of the economy, with businesses responding quickly to market conditions, purchasing managers’ views of their company’s economics are perhaps the most timely and relevant.

Previous value: 40.6; forecast: — -; current value: 54.7

Canada January IVEY seasonally adjusted PMI

Previous value: 33.4; forecast: — -; current value: 60.1

U.S. January Global Supply Chain Stress Index

Interpretation: The global supply chain pressure index of the United States is released by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. If the value of this indicator is 0, it means that the pressure on the supply chain is at the equilibrium pressure level; if the value is positive, it means how much higher than the equilibrium pressure level; on the contrary, if the published value is negative, it means how much lower than the equilibrium pressure level.

Previous value: 1.18; forecast: — -; current value: 0.95

Australia's December goods and services trade account (100 million Australian dollars)

Announced by: Australian Bureau of Statistics

Publication frequency: once a month

Interpretation: The Australian Bureau of Statistics announced that the trading account (External Trade Balance) refers to the difference between customs exports and imports inside and outside the region. If exports are greater than imports, the data is positive and it is a trade surplus, usually called a trade surplus (surplus); if exports are less than imports, the trade deficit. A trade surplus indicates a net inflow of funds, and the Australian dollar will appreciate; a trade deficit indicates a net outflow of funds, and the Australian dollar will depreciate.

Previous value: 132.01; forecast: 125; current value: 122.37

Australia February Cash Rate (%)

Announced by: Reserve Bank of Australia

Publication frequency: once a month

Interpretation: The Australian cash rate, that is, the inter-bank overnight lending rate (also known as the “overnight lending rate”), is Australia’s benchmark interest rate. The Reserve Bank of Australia sets the overnight lending rate every month to achieve the goals of a stable exchange rate, full employment, and prosperity in the country.

Previous value: 3.1; forecast: 3.35; current value: 3.35

Switzerland January Seasonally Adjusted Unemployment Rate (%)

Announcement agency: Swiss Federal Secretariat for Economic Affairs

Publication frequency: once a month

Interpretation: The unemployment Rate refers to the ratio of the unemployed population to the working population (the number of laborers who have working hospitals but are still unemployed among the total employed population in a certain period of time), and aims to measure the idle labor capacity. While often viewed as a lagging indicator, the data is also an important sign of overall economic health because consumer spending is highly correlated with labor market conditions. And consumer spending is the main content of the overall economic activity. A rising unemployment rate indicates weakening consumption, which is not good for economic development; a falling unemployment rate indicates that the economy is improving.

Previous value: 1.9; forecast: 1.9; current value: 1.9

The monthly rate of industrial output after seasonal adjustment in December in Germany (%)

Announcer: German Ministry of Economic Affairs

Publication frequency: once a month

Interpretation: Refers to various products produced through industrial processes, including two parts: one part is to meet people’s daily needs, such as food, clothing, TV sets, refrigerators, etc., and the other part is used to meet production needs. Such as steel, machinery, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, etc. Industrial output is often considered the leading indicator of manufacturing activity. Better data will boost the trend of the euro, and the steady rise in the industrial output index indicates that the economy is on the rise, and the demand for means of production will increase accordingly.

Previous value: 0.2; forecast: -0.7; current value: -3.1

France’s trade balance in December (100 million euros)

Announced by: French Customs

Publication frequency: once a month

Interpretation: External Trade Balance refers to the difference between customs exports and imports inside and outside the region. If exports are greater than imports, it is a trade surplus; if exports are less than imports, it is a trade deficit.

Previous value: -137.66; forecast: — -; current value: -149.34

China’s foreign exchange reserves in January (100 million US dollars)

Announcing agency: People’s Bank of China

Publication frequency: once a month

Interpretation: Foreign exchange reserves refer to the foreign exchange part of the international reserve assets held by a country’s government, that is, the claims expressed in foreign currencies held by a country’s government, which are assets held by a country’s monetary authority and can be exchanged for foreign currencies at any time. Because the amount of money supply is closely related to expenditure, an increase in supply indicates that future expenditure will increase, which will help China’s economic growth accelerate.

Previous value: 31276.9; forecast: 31520; current value: 31844.6

U.S. trade account in December (100 million U.S. dollars)

Announced by: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis

Publication frequency: once a month

Previous value: -615.1; forecast: -685; current value: -674

Canada’s trade balance in December (100 million Canadian dollars)

Announced by: Statistics Canada

Publication frequency: once a month

Previous value: -0.4; forecast: -5; current value: -1.6

U.S. API gasoline inventory changes for the week ended February 3 (10,000 barrels)

Announced by: American Petroleum Institute (API)

Announcement frequency: Announced every Wednesday (the release may be delayed due to holidays)

Definition: Measures the weekly change in barrels of commercial crude oil inventories of U.S. companies. The number of inventories affects the price of refined products which can have an impact on inflation and other economic influences. The price of crude oil and refined oil will have an important impact on the economy of the United States, a major consumer of the product, and will also have an important impact on the Canadian dollar, the currency of Canada, the original major exporter.

Previous value: 273.3; forecast: 135; current value: 526.1

U.S. December Wholesale Inventory Monthly Rate Final Value (%)

Announced by: U.S. Bureau of Business Statistics

Publication Frequency: Twice a month

Interpretation: It reflects the change in the total value of items in the wholesaler’s inventory, which is a resource temporarily limited to meet future needs; the wholesaler acts as a middleman between the manufacturer/importer and the retailer, and its inventory can be used as a leading indicator of the economy One, the rapid growth of wholesale inventories shows that wholesalers are optimistic about the economic outlook. Wholesale inventories reflect retailers’ demand for manufactured goods, providing an early indication of the strength of underlying consumer spending.

Previous value: 0.1; forecast: 0.1; current value:

The European Union reached an agreement on the price ceiling of Russian oil products. Experts from the Italian Center for European Studies said that despite the recent warm winter and the impact of various energy-saving measures, Europe has become optimistic about energy issues, but in fact the energy crisis in Europe is far from over .

U.S. job growth accelerated sharply in January, with non-farm payrolls surging by 517,000, well above expectations of 185,000. The unemployment rate hit a more than 53–1/2-year low of 3.4%. Investors have been weighing hopes that the economy may avoid a feared recession against concerns that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates high to keep inflation in check.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said on Tuesday: “The message we sent (at the last meeting) was that this process is likely to take quite a long time, it’s not going to be smooth sailing, it’s going to be bumpy, and we think we need to raise rates further. , as we said, we think we need to keep policy at a restrictive level for some time.”

Crypto Market Overview

Crypto News

1/ Visa is planning to create stablecoin settlements for its 2.5 billion customer base in the near future, whereby users can easily convert crypto assets and fiat currencies directly on its platform.

2/ Brian Armstrong, co-founder of Coinbase, said that there are rumors that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) may prohibit retail investors from participating in cryptocurrency pledges. Brian Armstrong believes that staking is a very important innovation in the encryption field, and the US government should formulate clear industry regulatory rules instead of blocking them. On February 9, the SEC announced a settlement with Kraken, an encryption trading platform. Kraken agreed to “immediately” stop providing on-chain staking services to U.S. customers and pay a $30 million fine to settle the SEC’s charges of providing unregistered securities.

3/ Bloomberg’s report highlights Ethereum’s strength and states that the asset should outperform Bitcoin when it comes to public exposure:

a. The upward trajectory of the ETH/Bitcoin cross started in 2019 and shows little sign of abating.

b. Although the Ethereum Shanghai upgrade (EIP-4895) allows pledgers to withdraw to obtain liquidity, the introduction of LSD and the 5% pledge economic return of Ethereum have increased the demand for ETH pledge participation. c. Polygon is the 10th largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of $10.4 billion, and MATIC is used by big names such as Reddit, Adidas, and Facebook, mainly to promote NFT, which will continue to help Ethereum achieve project and user retention.

4/ On February 7th, more than 16 million Terra Classic (LUNC) were burned in 24 hours.

5/ a16z voted against the proposal to deploy Uniswap V3 on the BNB Chain, opposed the use of Wormhole bridges for deployment, and will support LayerZero. At that time, a16z will control 41.5 million UNIs through 11 addresses, accounting for more than 4% of the UNI supply. On February 11, Uniswap DAO voted to approve the proposal to deploy Uniswap V3 on BNB.

6/ Binance launched a tax declaration tool “Binance Tax” to help users pay taxes Binance announced the launch of a tax filing tool “Binance Tax” to help users track their crypto transactions for tax reporting purposes. The tool allows its users to download a tax summary report that includes any gains or losses incurred on their Binance accounts throughout the year. This includes spot transactions, crypto donations, and blockchain-based fork rewards.

7/ Damus intends to launch a new feature in the new version that can be used to reward posts with Bitcoin

8/ Report: There are 11 countries or regions in the world that support the legalization of cryptocurrency PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) released a report on global cryptocurrency regulation, indicating that there are 11 countries in the world that support the legalization of cryptocurrency, namely the United States, the European Union, Canada, Australia, France, Denmark, Germany, Japan, and Switzerland. , Spain, UK.

9/ OpenSea launches the OpenSea Private Beta Program, allowing participants to experience new features in advance OpenSea announced the official launch of the OpenSea Private Beta program this month. This is an exclusive, opt-in program that allows users to gain early access to new features before they are officially released, actively participate in stress testing, and shape the user experience of new features. OpenSea’s product engineering team will work hard to fix bugs and make optimizations to ensure a more seamless experience and further reach different users. Users can apply to participate in the internal test from now on, and the application deadline is February 10.

10/ Microsoft releases new versions of Bing and Edge browsers, and officially introduces ChatGPT technology According to CNET reports, Microsoft officially released a new version of the Bing (Bing) search engine, which integrates the technology behind the ChatGPT system. This marks the first time in years that Microsoft has a chance to overtake “search king” Google. Bing provides search results that include information from large-scale language models from Microsoft partner OpenAI, Microsoft said. Bing also has a new chat window that Microsoft says will help with shopping lists and recommendations, travel advice, and quizzes. The technology, which is also built into Microsoft’s Edge browser, is capable of tasks like summarizing PDF files and generating LinkedIn posts.

11/ OpenSea launches project aggregation service based on Seaport protocol NFT marketplace OpenSea announced the launch of a project aggregation service based on the open source NFT protocol Seaport. OpenSea launches an experimental program to aggregate NFT marketplaces and projects based on the Seaport protocol. The first batch of participating projects includes the Ethereum domain name service batch processing tool Ens.vision, the generative art NFT market Sansa, and the music NFT project Sound.xyz.

12/ NFT project Pudgy Penguins partners with Sotheby’s to launch soul-bound tokens

Financing Information

According to BlockBeats statistics, last week there were a total of 19 financings, covering GameFi, NFT, social and other fields, with a total amount of more than 129 million US dollars and an average financing amount of 15.5 million US dollars.

Infrastructure

There are 6 financings in the field of infrastructure, with a total amount of 75.22 million US dollars, accounting for 58.05% of the total financing last week.

EigenLayer

Basic Information:

“Restaking” principle (From IOSG):

Originally, verifiers pledged on the Ethereum network to obtain income, and once they did evil, it would result in a Slash of their pledged assets. In the same way, after Resttaking, you can get the pledge income on the middleware network, but if you do evil, you will be Slash’s original ETH pledge.

The specific implementation method of Restake is: the pledger can set the withdrawal address in the Ethereum network as the EigenLayer smart contract, which is to give it the power of Slashing.

On February 4th, EigenLayer, the Ethereum re-pledging protocol, is in the process of raising A round of financing and intends to raise 50 million US dollars. The round could value EigenLayer at a post-transaction equity valuation of $250 million and a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of $500 million, according to sources. EigenLayer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

BlockJoy

Basic Information:

BlockJoy is a Web3 infrastructure operation service company that helps node operators deploy and manage blockchain nodes. BlockJoy is specifically designed to support blockchain nodes, thus being able to reduce operating costs by up to 80% compared to traditional cloud providers. BlockJoy allows customers to run their nodes on bare metal servers while providing them with cloud-like conveniences without cloud-like costs.

On February 3, BlockJoy, a blockchain node-as-a-service startup, announced the completion of a total of US$12 million in seed and A rounds of financing, with Gradient Ventures, Draper Dragon, Active Capital, Borderless Capital, Tribe Capital, Bessemer, Renegade Ventures and others participating. The new funds will be used to launch patented blockchain node management software.

Fungify

Basic Information:

Fungify has launched the first decentralized NFT Index Token, backed and redeemable by NFTs in the Fungify MarketVault, tracking prices using Chainlink NFT Floor Price Feeds. This gives anyone, regardless of investment level, access to a wide range of NFTs in the community without having to worry about the liquidity of a single collection of NFTs.

On February 2, Fungify, a non-custodial NFT index, and algorithmic lending agreement, completed $6 million in the financing, led by CitizenX, Distributed Global, Infinity Ventures Crypto, Taureon Capital, Anagram, Flow Ventures, Joe Eagan, former president of Polychain Capital, and founder of Merit Circle Mark Borsten and others participated in the vote.

GTX

Basic Information:

Su Zhu once said that judging from the ruins left by the FTX thunderstorm, this is a new continent that currently has 1 million creditors and a market size of 20 billion US dollars. However, since creditors of FTX cannot withdraw assets from the platform, and the current debt market has cumbersome procedures and high handling fees, the experience for small creditors is very unfriendly. Therefore, GTX will build an order book like BTC, which is a fixed-time deep creditor’s rights trading market, and creditor’s rights can be used as transaction collateral to add more financial liquidity.

In addition, debt trading on the bankruptcy platform is a very unequal market between buyers and sellers. There are much fewer buyers than sellers. In terms of matching transactions, the platform often charges higher transaction fees than general spot trading platforms. Therefore, the track project benefits will be substantial. The debt trading market for encrypted assets has gradually grown and will reach a scale of hundreds of billions of dollars. At present, this track is still a blue ocean market, and the launch of GTX has attracted widespread attention.

BlockBeats news, on February 4, Arthur Hayes, the founder of BitMEX, posted on social media that it was reported that the CEX project “GTX” established by the original Three Arrows Capital founders Su Zhu and Kyle Davies and two CoinFLEX joint innovations has been launched. Complete financing. According to the GTX financing information circulated in the market before, GTX’s target fundraising amount is 25 million US dollars, and the debt transaction will be used as the market entry point.

Archimedes

Basic Information:

Based on AMMs such as Curve, Archimedes provides opportunities to multiply users’ original income. Users who use the platform’s leverage will receive an NFT representing a stablecoin position that generates income. The leverage of the position is as high as the principal 10 times the collateral amount.

Liquidity providers provide assets to Archimedes’ 3CRV/lvUSD pool on Curve and obtain CRV and ARCH returns. Borrowers borrow from these pools and pay all loan interest upfront for up to 10x yield stablecoin leverage. The Archimedes protocol will package leveraged positions as NFTs, allowing users to trade positions without closing them.

ARCH is the native token of the Archimedes protocol. In addition to governance functions, it also adopts the veToken model. OUSD is the protocol’s stablecoin, backed by lvUSD in the Curve pool to help borrowers gain leverage. Archimedes lending and lending are always fully collateralized, all within the protocol, so collateral never leaves the Archimedes treasury.

BlockBeats news, on February 2, DeFi lending platform Archimedes announced the completion of a $4.9 million seed round of financing, led by Hack VC, with participation from Unassociated Venture, Psalion, Truffle Ventures, Cogitent Ventures, Haven VC, and Palsar. Archimedes is an experimental lending platform with a product launch this month.

Squid

Basic Information:

Squid is an Axelar-based DeFi liquidity protocol that leverages existing DEXs to trade and sends any native token between chains. Transactions can be combined with Axelar’s universal messaging, so Squid can enable one-click transactions between any application and any user, using any asset. Buy NFTs from any marketplace, use multi-chain DeFi, and play games on another chain, all without signing multiple transactions or downloading multiple wallets.

The message sent by Squid across the chain mainly includes three parts: axlUSDC bridging request, exchange instruction to be executed on the target chain, and further logic to be executed after exchange. Developers are able to wrap Squid with their own smart contracts and execute arbitrary logic using assets received on the other end.

Squid routes all its transactions through the axlUSDC/USDC stablecoin pool and the USDC/native token pool on the standard AMM in an effort to minimize the number of liquidity pools that need to be capitalized for efficient liquidity per token. Currently, Squid supports EVM chains and Cosmos ecosystems including Ethereum, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Moonbeam, Binance Chain, Fantom, etc.

On February 1, the DeFi liquidity protocol Squid announced the completion of a $3.5 million financing. This round of financing was led by North Island Ventures, with participation from Distributed Global, Fabric Ventures, Galileo, Chapter One, and Node Capital.

Trident

Basic Information:

Trident, a free-to-play web3 MMO and procedurally generated infinite universe, proposes a new sustainable GameFi model “Risk To Earn”. Risk To Earn doesn’t just reward players for participating, it rewards players based on their in-game performance and gives all players the opportunity to win games based on skill, not how many tokens they hold, or which characters they can afford.

Moreover, the premise of Risk to Earn is that this is a zero-sum game, similar to what is commonly referred to as “trading” in financial markets. When one person loses a game and the other person wins a game, they get a “risky” bounty from the loser, which is why it’s called “risk earning”. So this is a sustainable model, both players must wager, and the bounty will constantly flow back and forth between players.

In addition, Trident is subdivided into three types; Trident MMO, Trident Sprite Duels (elf duel), and Legacy Trident. As of now, the 24-hour increase of Trident’s native token has exceeded 36%. Since Trident announced its public financing through Token, according to Dextools data, the project has risen to become the most popular project in the Arbitrum ecosystem, and its Token (PSI) has increased by more than 120% in 24 hours.

On February 5th, Trident, an Arbitrum ecological chain game, announced the completion of a $3 million financing through the public offering of Tokens. According to the official explanation, due to the team’s mistakes, the public offering has over raised by about 4.91%. The over-raised part will be supplemented by the Tokens held by the team, and the total amount of Tokens will not change.

DYOR

1/ Historically, the appreciation/depreciation of the U.S. dollar is most opposite of the rise/fall of oil prices. That is to say, when the U.S. dollar appreciates, the oil price tends to fall, and when the U.S. dollar depreciates, the oil price tends to rise.

This is because, for many crude oil importing countries, although the oil price may not change in terms of dollar value, due to the appreciation of the dollar, the domestic currency required to purchase the same amount of crude oil will increase, and the oil price for these countries will be stable. It will become more expensive, which often makes them buy less crude oil, thereby reducing the overall demand in the crude oil market, and ultimately leading to lower oil prices. Conversely, when the U.S. dollar depreciates, oil prices become cheaper for these crude oil importing countries, which increases overall crude oil demand and leads to higher oil prices.

2/ There is a negative correlation between the U.S. dollar and the price of gold. The direct explanation is that the price of gold is denominated in U.S. dollars. When the U.S. dollar exchange rate rises, the amount of U.S. dollars that can be converted into a certain amount of other currencies decreases, so the amount of gold that can be bought with the same amount of the currency decreases. That is to say, the price of gold in the currency rises, so the amount of gold purchased by people holding other currencies decreases, which affects the rise in the price of gold in US dollars.

3/ The essence of the veToken model is native token locking and voting rights empowerment, and then derives some operating models designed to bring and increase specific benefits for holders. For example, Curve’s native token CRV has voting, pledge, and increased income All three functions require holders to lock CRV in the form of veCRV, and this mechanism becomes the basis of the entire system.

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 in 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.

CryptoBricks Analyst: Orson, Skyi

Contact us: https://forms.gle/qtb4zRsXanxGUJ62A

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*