Fidelity Digital Assets gave a bullish forecast for ETH in the next 12 months, while a separate survey from CryptoVantage found 47% of investors expect Ether to “surpass” Bitcoin.
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The advent of Bitcoin Ordinals NFT inscriptions led to more $210 million in trading volume through the first half of 2023.
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The US Justice Department’s top crypto cop said that it was a “pretty significant issue” given the rise of North Korean “state-sponsored hackers.”
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Asia is home to 1.7 billion gamers and contributes over $72 billion in annual gaming revenue making it a critical market according to DappRadar.
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MetaMask posted a warning on its Twitter after coming across rumors of an upcoming MetaMask snapshot or airdrop on social media.
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October may have seen a decline in nonfungible token (NFT) trading volume and sales, but analytics firm DappRadar says an 18% growth in monthly unique NFT traders shows the market is still in “great demand.”According to a Nov. 3 report from DappRadar, the number of monthly unique NFT traders in October reached 1.11 million, increasing 18% from September, of approximately 950,000. This is despite trading volumes falling 30% to $662 million in October, the lowest registered in 2022, while the sales count decreased by 30% to 6.13 million, the firm said, adding: “The rise in the unique traders’ count indicates that new people are entering the NFT market, and it is still in great demand.”Number of monthly unique NFT traders (millions). Source: DappRadarThe month was a busy one for the NFT community. At least two more NFT marketplaces shift to an optional royalty model, including Solana-based Magic Eden and Ethereum-based LooksRare.The report also highlighted that Yuga Labs has continued to dominate the NFT market, with seven of the top ten sales for the month coming from CryptoPunk and Bored Ape Yacht Club.Of these sales, CryptoPunk#924 was the most valuable, selling for a whopping 475 ETH on Oct. 27, which is valued at $731,435 at the time of writing.Meanwhile, Ethereum’s NFT trading volume continued to decline for the second straight quarter, falling 21% over the last month to $324 million, which represents the lowest volume registered by DappRadar since June 2021. In brighter news, Polygon’s NFT trading volume has spiked 770% over the last month, driven by the success of the Reddit NFT collections as the main driver behind the surge, according to Dappradar. Since their launch in July, more than 2.9 million Reddit avatars have been minted which have found their way into more than 2.8 million wallets, with Dune analytics data suggesting October finished with the collection having a sales volume of $10.1 million.The trading volume seems likely to continue increasing for the layer-2 solution over the next month, with Meta announcing on Nov. 2 that Polygon would be its initial partner for its upcoming NFT tools.Related: NFTs bridge music communities across genres and blockchain ecosystemsThe report also mentioned that Dogecoin had been the best-performing token of the month, closing the month 50% higher than when it began and citing Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover and the announcement of Dogechain’s future roadmap as the drivers.It also highlighted an increase in the average number of unique active wallets, up 6.84% from the previous month. DappRadar pointed to staking provider Lido being incorporated within Arbitrum and Optimism as well as a partnership between the NEAR Foundation and Google Cloud as the drivers for this increase.
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Third-quarter trading volume for the top 10 Metaverse projects may have fallen 80% compared to the second quarter, but analytics firm Dappradar suggests that interest in virtual worlds still remains.The Metaverse sector has been hit with a fair amount of negative press as of late, particularly around suggested low user activity across certain platforms, such as Decentraland and Meta — reports which they have refuted. DappRadar noted in an Oct. 20 report that while trading volumes have taken a sharp hit during Q3, the average number of NFT sales for these 10 projects only decreased by 11.55% compared to Q2. DappRadar explains that lower trading volumes could merely reflect decreasing asset prices and not necessarily lack of interest, noting that: “We consider this a bullish sign because it shows that the hype for these types of projects hasn’t decreased. Instead, the fall of cryptocurrency prices has affected the projects’ overall trading volume instead of a lack of interest.”A caveat to these sentiments however, is that eight of the top 10 Metaverse projects saw significant decreases in their NFT sales counts during Q3, with Yuga Labs’ Otherside seeing a 74% decrease for the quarter. The positive action was primarily driven by The Sandbox and former Minecraft-based platform NFT Worlds V2, which saw NFT sale count increases of 190% and 79% apiece. DappRadar attributed this to the hype surrounding The Sandbox’s Alpha Season 3 which offers a host of new gaming experiences and collectibles. While NFT Worlds V2 being booted off of Minecraft may have been seen as a “buying opportunity” as the value of its NFTs dropped by 90% in Q3. Virtual lands floor prices plummet Meanwhile, DappRadar’s report indicated that the floor prices for NFT land plots had decreased by 75% on average, which may have been one of the reasons why trading volumes had decreased by so much.Tanking floor prices: DappRadarWhile the value of any piece of real estate, virtual or otherwise, is subject to swings, “Metaverse real estate is currently very depreciated,” DappRadar stated, adding that the declining prices are in accordance with the broader bear market of the crypto sector. Related: Q&A: NFTs and metaverses will play a key role in gaming — as long as one key thing happensDappRadar was forced to defend its metaverse data last week, which had been interpreted to mean that platforms such as Decentraland had less than 40 daily active users.The firm alsnoted that its user data tool only tracks users’ interaction with a blockchain, usually in the case of transactions, and did not count “non-blockchain-based activities” such as non-spending users. The Sandbox tweeted on Oct. 10 that it had hit 39,000 daily active users, and 201,000 monthly active users over the previous 30 days. Decentraland also reported having 8,000 daily active users and 56,697 monthly active users as of Oct. 8.
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A third quarter industry report from DappRadar citing on-chain metrics suggests cryptocurrency markets are showing signs of recovery from ongoing bearing market conditions.A number of factors played their part in a busy third quarter of 2022, with Ethereum’s Merge marking a successful shift to proof-of-stake having a notable influence on layer 2 activity before the event. The report also highlights a slight recovery in the overall cryptocurrency market capitalization, which still sits below the $1 trillion mark.Third-quarter data reflected an 8.5% increase in the total crypto market cap from July to the end of September 2022. The decentralized finance space also showed signs of consolidation, with the total value locked (TVL) in the space increasing by 2.9% in the third quarter to $69 billion. Ethereum continues to account for the bulk of TVL, with $48 billion locked in smart contracts.DappRadar also highlights a 12% increase in unique active wallets across the cryptocurrency ecosystem quarter-on-quarter, adding up to 1.8 million. The blockchain gaming sector contributed significantly, with unique wallet addresses increasing by 8% from August to September.ImmutableX saw its unique active wallets grow by 30% during the same time period and recorded an 87% growth in nonfungible tokenNFT trading volume from the previous quarter while Polygon followed a similar trajectory, seeing its unique active wallets increase by 17% to 148,000.The number of nonfungible token (NFT) trades increased by 11% from the second quarter of 2022 while Ethereum’s NFT trading volume was down by a large margin of 76%. The NFT trading volume totaled $2.71 billion during the third quarter, which still marks a significant 67% drop from Q2 2022.Related: Blockchain gamers surge as users attempt ‘stacking crypto’ — DappRadarYuga Labs-owned NFT projects dominated the market in September, with Otherside, Bored Ape Yacht Club, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, and CryptoPunks accounting for 46.21% of the entire NFT market cap.The theft of cryptocurrency assets was also highlighted once again, with blockchain bridges still being targeted. DappRadar listed the $190 million Nomad exploit in August as a significant contributor to the $461 million worth of crypto assets stolen in Q3. Algorithmic market maker Wintermute also succumbed to a $160 million exploit during the same period.The DappRadar report also highlights the effect of wider macroeconomic factors on the global economy. As central banks look to manage inflation to stave off recessionary effects by raising interest rates:“Current macroeconomic conditions significantly influence the crypto market, making it impossible to foresee a worldwide expansion of cryptocurrencies without a general recovery in conventional financial markets.”This slightly gloomy outlook was countered by a number of positive events during the third quarter of 2022. The European Union’s approval of the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulatory plan indicates that governments are looking to manage the industry carefully.Similarly, the White House published the “First-Ever Comprehensive Framework for Responsible Development of Digital Assets” in Septe 2022 in a bid to protect investors that indicates that cryptocurrencies have become a fully-established industry.
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User activity on blockchain gaming decentralized applications (DApps) surged in September, with a host of games posting significant increases in the number of active users. According to data from DappRadar, seven out of the top 10 games in terms of the number of “unique wallet addresses interacting with dapp’s smart contracts” increased over the past 30 days, with all of the top five games being in the green during that time frame. At the time of writing, the DApps registering growth in the period include Web3 gaming platform Gameta, and blockchain-based games Alien Worlds, Solitaire Blitz, Benji Bananas, and Splinterlands, Farmers World, and Arc8 by GAMEE. In a Sept. 27 blog post, DappRadar noted that eight of the current top 10 blockchain games are mobile-first, which could eventually “bring millions of users to the blockchain,” noting: “Dapp games like Gameta, Benji Bananas, Upland, and Trickshot Blitz let anyone with a mobile device earn crypto with little prior knowledge, investment, or risk.”“Using daily activities like hyper-casual mobile games as a hook ensures users find fun once they interact, while solid tokenomics can encourage everyday use and retention,” it added. DappRadar said one of the possible reasons for a rise in popularity of blockchain games despite the bear market, is the idea of “bleed in the bear and run in the bull.”“The idea that stacking crypto and investments in a bear market pays off in the bull is almost proven at this point.”The biggest uptick in users came from Animoca Brands’ Benji Bananas (Polygon) which saw a 2016.54% increase over the past 30 days. Notably, this game was a Web2 mobile app until March this year. Animoca then introduced play-to-earn (P2E) elements via the Bored Ape Yacht Club affiliated Ape Coin (APE). While it is unclear what specifically saw the number of Benji Bananas users increase by so much, it did host a P2E gaming event this month that offered a series of valuable in-game NFTs to the winners. Blockchain gaming DApps activity: DappRadarOut of the top 10 games, only Axie Infinity, Trickshot Blitz, and Upland saw decreases over the past 30-days.The increase of blockchain gamers this month comes as publications such as Bloomberg note in a Sept. 28 article that the highly correlated NFT market trading “frenzy is almost dead.” It points to overall NFT trading volumes dropping 97% since January as evidence of such. As Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu pointed out via Twitter on Sept. 30, purely looking at the metric of NFT sales volume doesn’t necessarily paint the whole picture in NFTs or gaming. Siu highlighted that NFT prices have generally declined in accordance with the price of their paired assets such as Ether (ETH,) while many games — that don’t often grab the headlines — require NFTs that are relatively cheap. He instead emphasized that user activity and the number of people entering Web3 is where the focus should be. 6/ Judging an entire market simply by one metric is imperfect you need to take a multifaceted lens eg. @TheSandboxGame has seen record growth in users in its last season despite the market and blockchain wallets continues to rise https://t.co/brvDgCAhqh— Yat Siu (@ysiu) September 29, 2022Gods Unchained breaks 10 top NFT salesMeanwhile, NFT-based card battle game Gods Unchained has seen its NFT sales volume creep into the top 10 in NFT sales volume over the past 30 days, according to Cryptoslam. Gods Unchained has seen a 373.25% increase over the past 30 days to sit at $10.8 million at the time of writing. This marks the first time the game has seen NFT sales top $10 million since January, and after a very slow February to August period.Related: Yat Siu: Asia GameFi opportunity huge as gamers don’t hate NFTsReasons behind this could be due to discussions of a “Season 2” upgrade to improve the game and lore in the works and GameStop offering free NFT packs to Pro members this month. While an esports tournament with a $70,000 prize pool was also announced at the start of this week. Gods Unchained has also seen a significant increase in active users over the past 30 days, gaining 28.50% to sit at around 14,180 according to DappRadar. The game still has a long way to catch up to the top 10 however, as its user count places it at twenty-eighth.
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Blockchain gaming and the Metaverse have managed to “sidestep” the “Lehman brothers-like” collapse of Terra in May — though decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) haven’t been so lucky, a report says. In a July 29 report from decentralized application data aggregator DappRadar, the collapse of Terra in May was similar in scale to the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis — causing decentralized finance (DeFi), nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and firms such as Three Arrows Capital (3AC), Celsius and Voyager to cop the brunt of Terra’s destruction.“It is becoming clear that the Terra debacle has become a Lehman brothers-like event that has sent shockwaves across the entire breadth of the crypto industry and aftershocks that will affect us for many months.” However, Dappradar noted that blockchain gaming and Metaverse projects showed either minimal drawbacks or even positive signs of growth in the same period. Weathering the storm The report compares different metrics to show how the Terra collapse (during mid-Q2) impacted the performance of various sectors in crypto between the first two quarters of this year. One key metric the report looks at is transaction count (the total number of completed transactions), which essentially shows user engagement. DeFi and NFTs saw the biggest drops with 14.8% and 12.2% apiece, while blockchain games and NFT-related Metaverse projects “managed to sidestep the ensuing bear market” by posting increases of 9.51% and 27% each. The report also added that while the average amount of activity from unique active wallets (UAWs) in NFTs dropped by a hefty 24% in Q2, blockchain gaming saw a drop of just 7%, suggesting that users continue to interact with gaming dApps “at a more or less the same rate as before the Terra incident.” The trading volume for Metaverse-related NFT projects was also described as a “beacon of hope,” as volumes increased by a whopping 97% since in Q2, despite the overall NFT sector posting a 32.66% drop in Q2. In a separate DappRadar report from July, the firm suggested that the blockchain gaming may have been able to hold up better than other crypto sectors last quarter due to the non-speculative aspects of the games themselves. “This bullish activity indicates that engagement with the virtual worlds is not predicated on their profitability to the end-user. It shows virtual worlds are intrinsically fun to the end-user as the communities remain active despite the devaluation of native tokens,” the report read. DappRadar also said there was sustained institutional investment in both blockchain gaming and the Metaverse, highlighting that many top companies see the potential for strong economic growth in both sectors moving forward. Related: Metaverse visionary Neal Stephenson is building a blockchain to uplift creatorsThe report went on to emphasize that amount of investment into blockchain gaming and Metaverse projects remained consistent during Q2 despite the Terra carnage: “Despite a financial blow and undermined trust in the industry, investors remain bullish as the number of investments into blockchain games and metaverse projects has remained constant quarter-over-quarter, with $2.5 billion invested in both Q1 and Q2.”
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Avalanche (AVAX) price is down more than 30% in April, but despite the negative price move, the smart contract platform remains a top contender for decentralized applications due to its scalability, low-cost transactions and its large footprint in the decentralized finance (DeFi) landscape.AVAX token/USD at FTX. Source: TradingViewThe network is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and unique in that it does not face the same operational bottlenecks of high transaction fees and network congestion.Avalanche was able to amass over $9 billion in total value locked (TVL) by offering a proof-of-stake (PoS) layer-1 scaling solution. This indicator is extremely relevant because it measures the deposits on the network’s smart contracts. For instance, the BNB Chain, running since Sept. 2020, holds $10.4 billion in TVL.Positive news could create a price supportEven though the AVAX token price has suffered and even the TVL stands behind some of its competitors, investors remain bullish based on fundamentally positive developments that occurred in the month of April.According to an April 14 report by Bloomberg, Ava Labs, the lead developer of the Avalanche blockchain, raised $350 million from investors. This deal valued the company at $5.25 billion and according to data from DappRadar, Avalanche holds nearly 100 active applications ranging from decentralized finance to nonfungible token (NFT) marketplaces, and gaming.Earlier in April, the organizations behind the Terra USD algorithmic stablecoin purchased a combined $200 million in AVAX for their strategic Terra USD reserves. Terra co-founder Do Kwon cited Avalanche’s solid ecosystem growth and large user base.Even with the positive news, AVAX’s price remains 53% below its $147 all-time high, resulting in an $18.4 billion market capitalization. In comparison, the market cap of Terra (LUNA) stands at $31.0 billion, and Solana (SOL) has a $33.3 billion total value.Total value locked drops 10.5%, but follows the market-wide downtrendAvalanche’s primary DApp metric strengthened in the last 30 days as the network‘s TVL rebounded to 121 million AVAX.Avalanche Total Value Locked, AVAX. Source: DefiLlamaThe chart above shows how Avalanche’s DApp deposits peaked at 132.9 million AVAX on March 14, but drastically declined earlier in April to the lowest level since Jan. 3. As a result, the current $8.5 billion TVL is down 10.5% over the last 30 days.As a comparison, Solana’s (SOL) TVL decreased by 9.5% in the same period, reaching $4.8 billion. Similarly, Ethereum smart contract deposits decreased from $88.3 billion to $80.1 billion in the same period, which is a 9% decline.To confirm whether the TVL drop in Avalanche is troublesome, one should analyze DApp usage metrics. Some DApps such as games and collectibles do not require large deposits, so the TVL metric is irrelevant in those cases.Avalanche DApps 30-day data. Source: DappRadarAs shown by DappRadar, on April 28, the number of Avalanche network addresses interacting with decentralized applications declined by 14% versus the previous month. In comparison, the Solana network faced a 60% user increase, while Ethereum remained flat.Avalanche’s strong DeFi use-case is still a bullish factor Even though Avalanche’s TVL has been hit the hardest compared to similar smart contract platforms, there is solid network use in the DeFi segment. For instance, Trader Joe’s 180,830 active addresses are higher than Ethereum’s leading DeFi application, MetaMask Swap, which holds 116,210 active users.The above data suggest that Avalanche is holding ground versus competing chains. Given that AVAX price plunged 29.5% in 28 days, investors should not panic because the decentralized application network posted solid TVL and DApp usage data.The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.
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A quantitative analytics report published by DappRadar has unveiled a number of revelatory behavioral market indicators for the global adoption of digital assets.The blockchain data portrays a positive sentiment for the Web3 and metaverse sectors, especially in the United States, a reactionary rise in crypto interest throughout Ukraine and Russia following the outbreak of the conflict, addition to how the well-documented surge of gas prices throughout Europe is impacting inflationary metrics.Bar chart statistics reported a high correlation between unfavorable economic dynamics witnessed in times of currency deflation and the interest in engaging with cryptocurrencies – the data suggesting that the latter could serve as an investment hedge.The tumultuous 217.65% deflation of the Brazilian Real (BRL) against the U.S. dollar over the past decade was reported to be an influencing factor for the 45% of participants who attest to considering purchasing a digital asset within the upcoming year. Similarly, India witnessed a 40% uptick in crypto interest following a 58.58% deflation in their native currency, the rupee (INR).In the category titled ‘Countries with highest social media indicators for Web3 Metaverse,’ the U.S. ranked highest with a 2.2 score, followed by Indonesia and India with 1.4 and 0.6, respectively. The United Kingdom came in seventh with 0.3.Many of the leading metaverse platforms like Decentraland, The Sandbox, Somnium Space and Roblox have attracted a large portion of their user base from the U.S.”Fashion giants like Gucci, Dolce and Burberry have launched NFT collectibles, while Nike and Adidas have partnered with Web3 leading brands. HSBC and JP Morgan will open virtual booths in The Sandbox and Decentraland.”Despite the growth of the total value locked (TVL) in the decentralized finance (DeFi) market to just shy of $200 billion at the time of writing, transaction volume has been steadily declining since registering a peak level in mid-January.Similarly, the report noted that “the industry’s TVL is recovering behind the surge of holistic and fast ecosystems in Terra, Solana and Avalanche.”Related: DappRadar pivots business model to DApp store with native tokenA prime indicator of this growth is the number of developers transitioning over to the network. As the below graphic reveals, Terra experienced a 313% year-to-year growth, while Solana and NEAR received a 307% and 291% influx, respectively.
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