The Tower of Babel ------ Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Introduction

The market fluctuations over the past week have remained relatively stable. However, with the increase in BTC spot ETF fund inflows, traditional financial institutions joining the Blackrock ETF, a reduction in BTC leverage, and the upcoming BTC halving, the bullish sentiment in the market has been continuously increasing.

1. Investment and Financing Observation

**Last week, there were 42 investment and financing events in the crypto market, a year-on-year increase of 35.4%, with a total funding scale of $228 million, a year-on-year decrease of 22.1%: ** In the DeFi sector, 11 investment and financing events were announced, including a $20 million Series A funding for Phoenix, a Solana ecosystem DeFi protocol, led by Paradigm;
The gaming sector announced 7 investment and financing events, including a $10 million funding for Singapore's Web3 gaming startup Gomble Games, with participation from Binance Labs;
The infrastructure and tools sector announced 13 investment and financing events, including a $25 million Series A funding for blockchain XION, with participation from Animoca Brands, Multicoin, and others;
Other Web3/cryptocurrency sectors announced 11 financing events, including a $50 million funding for the IoT blockchain platform IoTeX, with participation from Amber Group; from the data, it can be seen that the number of investment and financing events in the cryptocurrency market significantly increased last week, but the total funding scale decreased, with funding concentrated in the infrastructure direction,
where OKX Ventures was particularly active, mainly focusing on the infrastructure field.

About XION
XION is a modular universal abstraction layer built for consumer adoption, developed by Burnt. XION aims to eliminate technical crypto barriers for consumers through a toolkit that includes seamless fiat on/off ramps, direct credit card purchases, familiar Web2 logins, mobile-supported secure account abstractions, and zero gas fees. The company stated that it is the first platform that enables developers to "build, launch, and scale consumer-facing Web3 products from scratch" and is also the first blockchain to use USDC (a fully backed digital dollar) as its primary trading currency.
About GOMBLE
GOMBLE is a 111% cryptocurrency department, a mature game studio specializing in casual game genres. GOMBLE's mission is to bring 2 billion casual gamers worldwide into the web3 market. Its goal is to provide an easily accessible GX with exciting reversal opportunities driven by a competitive token economy.
About Raiinmaker
Web3 AI company Raiinmaker completed a $7.5 million seed round of financing, led by Jump Capital and Cypher Capital. Raiinmaker is building decentralized AI tools and web3 infrastructure to support sports, gaming, and entertainment projects. Users can train AI through their iOS or Android phones and earn rewards proportional to their influence on the AI model. It is reported that Raiinmaker plans to launch its mainnet in April 2024, with its native token COIIN launching shortly thereafter.

2. Industry Data

Smart Money Flows into ENA and USDe

Last week, in addition to projects in the LRT sector continuing to receive Smart Money increases, the new projects with increased holdings were mainly ENA and USDe. Especially after ENA's launch, it saw a 7-day increase of 119.5%, with a market cap of $1.63 billion and an FDV of $17.512 billion.

It can be seen that ENA has a large number of VC and well-known KOL holdings, and even with a significant price increase, these VCs have not sold. The main driving force behind ENA's price increase is the narrative of decentralized stablecoins, the electronic dollar concept, and the "stablecoin disruptor" narrative supported by Arthur Hayes.

The USDe created by Ethena allows Ethereum to transform into a global internet bond through a delta-neutral position on stETH, becoming the first fully supported, on-chain, scalable, and censorship-resistant form of currency in the cryptocurrency space.
We can foresee the market imagination of Ethena combined with USDe, but this concept is relatively novel, and investors should remain cautious when entering.

CEX and DEX Trading Volumes Hit New Highs

The latest data from The Block: In March, the total spot trading volume of CEX reached $2.48 trillion, close to the November 2021 level ($2.56 trillion), with Binance's spot trading volume exceeding $1 trillion, reaching $1.13 trillion, with a market share of 45.56%, a month-on-month increase of 123%.
CCData shows: In March, the trading volume of CEX derivatives also grew by 86.5%, reaching $6.18 trillion, also setting a new historical high. However, with the hot spot market, the proportion of derivatives trading volume has decreased to 67.8%, the lowest level since December 2022.

Additionally, the latest data from DeFiLlama: In March, the total DEX trading volume reached $267.938 billion, setting a new historical high, a 126% increase from February ($118.063 billion).

Meme Coin Yield of 1313%, Market Trend May Continue

Data from CoinGecko: In the ranking of cryptocurrency yields, MemeCoin leads with a yield of 1313%, ranking first; RWA ranks second with 286%, and AI ranks third with 222%. DeFi, DePin, Layer1, gaming, and Layer2 rank fourth to eighth.

Data from The Block shows: The recent meme trend has pushed the market cap of MemeCoin to over $65.4 billion, more than doubling its total market cap in 2024. With the increasing attention on MemeCoin and more developers and users joining, the MemeCoin trend may continue for some time.

With the popularity of the meme trend, following Solana and Base, Binance and Fantom have also recently joined in:

• BNB Chain announced on April 2 the launch of the "Meme Innovation Battle" with a prize pool of up to $1 million;
• Andre Cronje, director of the Fantom Foundation, also stated on the X platform that he is creating a framework for launching, supporting, and nurturing community-safe meme coins on Fantom;

Liquidity Re-staking Sector TVL Breaks $9 Billion, Renzo 7-Day Increase of 20%

Data from DeFiLlama: The current TVL of ETH liquidity re-staking protocols is $9.127 billion, with the top three protocols by TVL being:

• ether.fi with a TVL of $3.542 billion, a 7-day increase of 3.87%;
• Renzo with a TVL of $2.694 billion, a 7-day increase of 20.22%;
• Puffer Finance with a TVL of $1.295 billion, a 7-day decrease of 4.1%.

We analyze that the rapid increase in Renzo's TVL recently is due to the unrestricted deposits provided by Renzo, which offer users a smooth participation pathway and allow them to earn multiple rewards from both EigenLayer and Renzo.

About Renzo
Renzo is a re-staking protocol based on EigenLayer that abstracts the complex process of re-staking for end users, allowing stakers not to worry about the active selection and management of operators and reward strategies. ezETH is Renzo's liquidity re-staking token, which automatically earns rewards and ensures liquidity, allowing users to participate in DeFi while retaining re-staking rewards. The current valuation of the Renzo project is estimated to be around $100-200 million.

3. VC Holdings

Note: The above data is sourced from https://platform.arkhamintelligence.com/, statistical time: April 8, 2024, 20:00 (UTC+8).

4. This Week's Focus

April 8

• U.S. March core inflation CPI data;
• EigenLayer will upgrade its mainnet smart contracts on April 8, during which the EigenLayer mainnet App may suspend services for up to 24 hours;
• The Bitcoin ecosystem DeFi project bitSmiley will launch a joint public test and multiple airdrop reward activities on April 8;
• The London Stock Exchange will start accepting applications for Bitcoin and Ethereum crypto ETN trading on April 8, 2024;
• Paris Blockchain Week will be held from April 8 to 12, 2024;

April 9

• Bitcoin-themed conference at the Hong Kong Web3 Carnival;
• Hack.Summit 2024 will be held on April 9-10 at Cyberport, Hong Kong;
• 9 Lives Interactive's first game "Nyan Heroes" will be available for early access from March 26 to April 9;

April 10

• BNB Chain launches the "Meme Innovation" competition, with the application period ending at 7:59 on April 10, 2024;

April 11

• The Federal Reserve will release the minutes of the March monetary policy meeting;
• The European Central Bank will announce its interest rate decision;
• The decentralized AI data network Masa Network will launch its mainnet and introduce the MASA token at 20:00;
• 1inch will unlock 214,100 tokens at 8:00 on April 11, valued at approximately $117,500, accounting for 0.02% of the circulating supply;
• Moonbeam will unlock 3.04 million tokens at 8:00 on April 11, valued at approximately $1.35 million, accounting for 0.36% of the circulating supply;

April 12

• U.S. February core PCE price index;
• Aptos (APT) will unlock 24.84 million tokens at 15:59 on April 12, valued at approximately $331 million, accounting for 6.24% of the circulating supply;

April 13

• TEAMZ WEB3/AI SUMMIT 2024 will be held in Tokyo from April 13 to 14;
• Young Protocol and GamerBoom will hold an offline event in Japan themed "The Future of GameFi & SocialFi";
• Sui will unlock 4 million tokens at 8:00 on March 31, valued at approximately $6.68 million, accounting for 0.32% of the circulating supply;
• The Bitcoin Layer2 project Ligo mainnet will launch on March 31;

5. Conclusion

Last week, the significant growth in investment and financing activities, along with traditional financial institutions joining Blackrock's ETF, CEX and DEX trading volumes hitting new highs, and the astonishing yield of MemeCoin, has made the entire crypto market increasingly diverse and vibrant.
This week, as the halving approaches, and with the influence of BNB Chain and Fantom joining in, the market led by BTC and MemeCoin is expected to continue, especially with the likelihood of MemeCoin's popularity continuing to rise; the profit-taking by BTC miners and long-term holders may be delayed, which will bring more uncertainty to the market.
On a macro level, the U.S. March non-farm data exceeded expectations, marking the largest increase since May last year, with the unemployment rate dropping to 3.8%, also stronger than expected. Additionally, the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield has reached 4.4% for the first time since late November last year, and the swap market has fully priced in the Fed's first rate cut in 2024 to be delayed until September. This, combined with the bullish sentiment in the crypto market, is expected to keep the trend stable and slowly growing over the next three months. However, investors still need to be cautious, especially regarding regulatory aspects and potential profit-taking, which could bring unexpected reverse effects to the market.
Note: All views above are for reference only and do not constitute investment advice. If there are any objections, please feel free to contact us for corrections.

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