Period: 19th September 2022 – 26th September 2022
· The highly anticipated Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting was concluded last week. Stocks and bitcoin are down, but altcoins are performing strong. One of them is Ripple (XRP), an altcoin that was on the edge of dying, coming back to life in view of the possible lawsuit settlement.
· OpenSea, the top NFT marketplace in trading volume, sees a decline in daily volume as Ethereum price tanked even further ten days after the Merge. None of the new projects were on the top 5 list, but the original creator of “Pepe the Frog” won an honourable mention.
Last week was such a volatile week for global investors. At the conclusion of the FOMC meeting, the Fed decided to raise interest rates by 0.75% for the third consecutive time as the US central bank tries to tame multi-decade highs in inflation. The rate hike brings the benchmark interest rate to a new range of 3.0% to 3.25% — its highest level since the unforgettable financial crisis happened in 2008 — from a current range between 2.25% and 2.5%. The reactions of different investment assets vary, with stocks tanking the most while bitcoin manages to rebound on the second day. Nevertheless, both of them are testing this year’s lowest point which happened in mid-June.
Despite the worsening macroeconomics, crypto money is following projects with great news, whichever coin that delivers good news, smart money follows. Among them, Ripple (XRP) is the biggest winner, in terms of market capitalization. The market cap of XRP was only $17.9 billion last Monday, it then grew to $24.5 billion a week later, surpassing BUSD, and is now the sixth largest crypto. The pump of XRP is due to the possible ending of the lawsuit between the company behind XRP, Ripple Labs, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that began in December 2020. Both parties have filed motions asking the New York Court to make a summary judgment - a type of judgment delivered on the basis of statements and evidence without a full trial - on the case. This move is seen as crucial to bringing the longstanding lawsuit to a speedy resolution. The price of XRP is rallying, yet John Deaton, the founder of CryptoLaw who is also an attorney, warned XRP investors not to be overconfident as the court may not completely adopt Ripple’s arguments against SEC.
Not just OpenSea, trading in the overall NFT market has declined as the Ethereum price continues free-falling. This weekly column began in July 2022 and by then, every week I am seeing new projects popping up in the top 5 list, but last week is an exception. New ETH-based NFT projects are not generating enough sales, big collectors are returning to Yuga Labs’ BAYC and MAYC while other blue-chip NFTs continue to decline in floor price. As for Solana, the buying interest in some of the biggest projects such as DeGods and y00ts is slowly fading too.
OpenSea daily trading volume. Source: Dune Analytics @sealaunch
Even though new projects are not getting enough traction, there is one project worth discussing. The creator of the internet sensation “Pepe the Frog” just launched “Hedz by Matt Furie”, an NFT collection of 1,000 1/1 hand-drawn creatures. The minting price is 0.666 ETH each and the resale price already shot up to 1.5 ETH on the very first day. The current highest sale of Hedz is a Pepe-lookalike green frog named “Bootleg Samuraifrog”, which was bought by the co-founder of Pudgy Penguins ColeThereum for 6 ETH. Bear in mind that Hedz is a pure art NFT project without any roadmap and utility, and collectors are buying them for thousands of dollars. That’s the power of art I would say.
Samurai Pepe on the left, collection of Hedz on the right. Check https://www.hedz.fun/grid if interested