Weekly Market Recap - 01 November 2024

Bitcoin came close to a new all-time high on Tuesday, briefly surpassing US$73,000 but falling US$175 short of the record. Florida State CFO, Jimmy Patronis, revealed that the state holds approximately US$800M in crypto-related investments.

Macro/TradFi

Bitcoin briefly surpassed US$73,000 on Tuesday, coming within US$175 of a new all-time high.

Florida State CFO Jimmy Patronis revealed that the state holds approximately US$800 million in crypto-related investments and suggested allocating part of the state retirement funds into cryptocurrency.

Securitize has surpassed US$1 billion in tokenized on-chain assets, driven largely by the success of BlackRock's BUIDL fund. The firm announced this milestone on Thursday, coinciding with the launch of a new service to streamline tokenized fund administration.

Lazard is the latest institution to join the asset tokenization trend, announcing plans to create tokenized funds in partnership with Bitfinex Securities and SkyBridge Invest.

BlackRock’s IBIT spot BTC ETF saw over US$872 million in net inflows on Wednesday, its largest since launching in January and surpassing the previous high set on March 12.

Emory University has become the first endowment to invest in spot Bitcoin ETFs, committing US$15.8 million. With this move, spot BTC ETFs now have representation from every major institutional sector within a year.

Canary Capital has filed for a spot Solana ETF with the SEC, following a similar move by fund manager VanEck, who filed in June.

MicroStrategy plans to raise US$42 billion over the next three years to buy more Bitcoin through its '21/21 Plan,' aiming to raise US$21 billion from equity and another US$21 billion through debt to expand its Bitcoin holdings.

Crypto

L1/L2:

Morph, a Layer 2 solution positioning itself as a 'consumer layer,' has launched its mainnet on Ethereum. Morph’s consumer layer aims to tackle the root causes of limited blockchain adoption, enabling ecosystem participants to exchange real assets and engage in transactions.

Swell, a liquid restaking protocol, announced it will join Optimism’s Superchain ecosystem with an optimistic rollup on the OP Stack, shifting from its earlier plan to build a Layer 2 chain using Polygon's chain development kit.

DeFi:

dYdX has laid off 35% of its staff, with CEO Antonio Juliano emphasizing the need for a new direction amid tough competition and challenging market conditions.

Solayer and OpenEden are launching a yield-bearing sUSD token on Solana, backed by U.S. Treasury bills. This stablecoin is the first of several tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) that Solayer plans to introduce on Solana.

Stablecoin:

Stablecoin issuer Tether reported US$2.5 billion in Q3 profits, bringing its 2024 earnings to US$7.7 billion. The company now holds US$14.2 billion in equity and total assets of US$134.4 billion.

Others:

Consensys is reducing its workforce by 20% as part of a restructuring plan to streamline operations, citing reasons such as rising interest rates, inflation, and regulatory uncertainty.

The number of addresses claiming the GRASS token airdrop has surged to nearly 1.5 million, making it the largest airdrop on Solana by the number of token-holding addresses.

Kalshi, an U.S.-regulated prediction market platform, is deepening its crypto ties by providing price feeds to Stork Labs' oracle network and accepting USDC deposits.

Gelato raised US$11 million in a Series A+ round led by Hack VC, with support from Animoca Brands and others. Aiming to become the go-to platform for enterprise-grade rollups, Gelato will use the capital to expand its team and services.