BTC is currently trading around $16,750 and ETH around $1,250. Notable gainers in the last 24 hours are NEXO, BIT, and XDC. The global crypto market cap is $847b, down 0.5% over the last day. DeFi Total Value Locked is ~$39b and BTC dominance is around 42%.
Euro zone inflation fell for the second consecutive month in December, rising +9.2% year-over-year compared to +10.1% in November and +10.6% in October. However, the improvement was largely driven by energy prices, and core inflation, which excludes food and energy, rose to a new high of +5.2%. Such persistent core inflation is leading many to suggest that the ECB will continue raising rates by 50 bps at both its February and March meetings. Meanwhile in the US, payrolls rose by 223,000 and the unemployment rate fell 0.2 percentage points to 3.5%, both bettering expectations. US markets are higher as the report also showed lower than expected wage growth, a sign that the job market may be cooling.
The challenging environment in crypto continues, with a number of notable headlines: Digital Currency Group announced that it will shut down HQ, its wealth management division; beleaguered crypto prime broker Genesis let go 30% of its staff; crypto exchange Huobi confirmed that it will let go 20% of its staff; troubled crypto lender Vauld rejected rival Nexo’s “final” acquisition proposal partly due to concerns about Nexo’s financial health; and, CME crypto trading volume fell to a two-year low in December.
Elsewhere, the Mt. Gox repayment registration deadline was moved back two months to March 10, 2023; the New York Attorney General filed a lawsuit against Celsius founder Alex Mashinsky for allegedly making false and misleading statements; the Three Arrows co-founders were served subpoenas by the company liquidator over Twitter; the SEC is reportedly probing FTX investors on their due diligence procedures; SBF filed a court action seeking to block debtors from taking control of his ~$450m stake in Robinhood; Shopify expanded its NFT integration to allow merchants to design, mint, and sell NFTs on Avalanche; layer one blockchain Fantom received governance approval to allocate up to 15% of transaction fees to developers building on the network; and, developers of Solana-based memecoin Bonk burned 5% of the supply to stem a recent fall in price.
Authors:
Matt Kunke, Junior Strategist | Twitter, Telegram, LinkedIn
Brian Rudick, Senior Strategist | Twitter, Telegram, LinkedIn
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