Ryan Selkis, founder and CEO of Messari, a cryptocurrency market intelligence firm, has called out “Pharma Bro” Martin Shkreli for supposedly acting with federal agencies to hurt Donald Trump’s campaign. Shkreli, allegedly the creator of DJT, disregarded this notion, calling out Selkis for “watching too many movies.” Messari’s Ryan Selkis Accuses Martin Shkreli of Organizing […]
Bitcoin News
Token Terminal and Messari Release Research Reports on TRON Network For Q1 of 2024
PRESS RELEASE. Geneva, Switzerland, May 17, 2024 – Recent detailed analyses by Token Terminal and Messari have provided an in-depth review of the TRON network’s activity during the first quarter of 2024, emphasizing its competitive positioning and expansive growth within the blockchain sector. Token Terminal Analysis Token Terminal’s comprehensive report offers crucial insights into key […]
Bitcoin News
Messari CEO Criticizes US President’s Crypto Stance, Foresees ‘Mass Wealth Confiscation’ if Biden Gets Reelected
Recently, Messari’s founder and CEO, Ryan Selkis, has expressed strong opinions about the potential impact of a Joe Biden reelection on the cryptocurrency industry in the United States. On Thursday, Selkis voiced his concerns on the social media platform X, stating that a “second Biden term will lead to mass wealth confiscation and crypto seizures.” […]
Bitcoin News
Real-World Assets Hits New Peak With $8 Billion Locked, Reports Messari
The total value locked (TVL) in real-world asset (RWA) tokenization protocols has seen a remarkable surge of almost 60% since February, reaching a new high of almost billion as of April 26, according to a report by blockchain analytics and research firm Messari. This growth is attributed to a market preference for debt-based, high-yield […]
Bitcoin News
Here’s When Messari CEO Ryan Selkis Expects Bitcoin To Reach $100,000
Bitcoin and the broader crypto market have maintained more bearish trends than bullish ones since 2022. Although there were some bullish moves to recall in 2023, the market still struggles to gain strong momentum. The effect of the 2022 crypto price crash, US inflation growth, and interest rate hikes haven’t diminished from the market yet.
Notably, several crypto experts predicted a bullish turn for the market in 2023. Also, the CEO of Messari, Ryan Selkis, recently predicted a bullish price target of 0,000 for Bitcoin within the following 12 months. However, these predictions may change due to investors’ sentiments and other factors.
Ryan Selkis Predicts 0K For Bitcoin
Ryan Selkis said on Twitter that the leading cryptocurrency’s adoption rate among traditional financial institutions and corporations would accelerate at an unprecedented pace, hitting a six-figure valuation.
The digital asset research firm CEO stated that while the United States dollar is devaluating, investors and other individuals will come to see Bitcoin as the most preferred finance option. He added that for it to happen, corporate companies such as MicroStrategy must start accumulating the token. If this action can begin quickly, it’ll be impossible for federal regulators to terminate the asset.
Selkis also noted that the ongoing macroeconomic uncertainties and inflation risks posed by excessive central bank money-printing would likely drive further interest in Bitcoin. The crypto executive is optimistic about the growth of Bitcoin if institutions can buy more of the token.
Despite his optimistic outlook, it’s possible that Bitcoin’s growth trajectory may not be straightforward. So, investors should be prepared for significant price swings in the short term. Based on his viewpoint, investors’ best approach will be to take a long-term view of Bitcoin’s potential and focus on its fundamentals rather than day-to-day price movements.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin is still a volatile and risky investment, and it’s not for everyone but for those willing to take the risk and hold on for the long term.
Recent BTC Price Trend
Bitcoin has shown several price swings over the last couple of months after it ended 2022 at ,547.50. The token later entered 2023 trading at ,547.91. It maintained price ranges around the ,000 level until January 8, when it surged to ,091.14.
Bitcoin sustained a steady price growth afterward, reaching the month’s high of ,919.89 on January 29. It later dropped slightly to ,137.84 as it launched into February.
Bitcoin also saw notable growth in the same month, surging to a peak price of ,134.12 on February 16. However, the token failed to reclaim this price mark, as it kept trading below ,130 until March 14, when it surged to ,514.72.
In the meantime, Bitcoin trades at ,759, with a 24-hour trading volume above .2 billion. Its price change over the last 24 hours stands at 8.44% at the time of writing.
Featured image from Pexels and chart from Tradingview.com
“Buy Bitcoin,” Says Messari CEO Amid Market Downtrend
With the Bitcoin market never having a standard state given its volatility, several sentiments can be seen being expressed even at odd times such as the ongoing massive sell-off. Just as some are panic-selling, some are keen on standing their ground and buying more while also urging others to do the same.
Messari’s Chief Executive Officer and Founder Ryan Selkis seem to fall into the position of the latter. In one of his tweets posted on Thursday, the CEO advocated for the buying of Bitcoin despite the market downtrend.
The CEO of one of the leading crypto analytics service providers in the industry tweeted, “Buy Bitcoin,” in what is interpreted as a buy signal to those who haven’t bought Bitcoin and existing Bitcoin holders to buy more as this could be one of the lowest price points we will ever see the top coin trade for in other years to come.
Bitcoin Continous Downtrend
Regardless of the supposed buy signal, Bitcoin (BTC) hasn’t made any green move. Instead, it has continued to swim in red. Over the past 24 hours, the top crypto has fallen below the ,000 mark and is currently trading at the ,000 region with a trading price of ,659, at the time of writing.
The crypto asset is down 9.2% in the last 24 hours and 16.2% in the past 7 days. This comes after a significant fall from the ,000 region in the early dates of this month. So far, Bitcoin has a 24-hour range between a low of ,662 and a high of ,824.
Alongside its price, the BTC market cap has also plummeted. Its trading volume signals a huge sell-off indicating a possible continuous downward trend. Compared to early January when BTC recorded an increase in momentum indicating accumulation, March hasn’t been a pleasant month so far for the top asset.
From January till now, BTC’s market cap has lost over 0 billion. Its market cap has fallen from a January high of 6 billion to 0 billion as of March 10. Interestingly, BTC’s daily trading volume has recorded the opposite of its market cap and price.
Related Reading: Bitcoin Retests ,000 In Violent Selloff: Will The Key Support Hold?
According to data from Coinmarketcap, at its peak so far this year of trading just above ,000 in February, BTC had a daily volume of billion. However, over the past 24 hours, BTC has recorded a higher trading volume of above billion.
Notably, this could be a result of the violent sell-off ongoing in the Bitcoin market following several negative news including the Silvergate fallout, as well as Kucoin getting sued by New York over the failure to register for approval to let investors in the state buy and sell crypto on its platform.
Global Crypto Market Condition
Negative news has only continued to intensify in the market as the global crypto market continues to demonstrate unpleasant reactions. Silvergate which offered the industry a payments network that allowed customers to exchange U.S. dollars between crypto exchange accounts 24/7 to match the liquidity needs of the crypto market suspended operations last week.
One of the leading crypto exchanges KuCoin has also had a rough Thursday after New York filed a lawsuit. Though the lawsuit is said to be more dangerous to Ethereum (ETH) as New York State Attorney General Letitia James mentioned ETH specifically among the securities laws KuCoin violated, it has also impacted the general crypto market significantly.
Between Thursday and Friday, the global crypto market capitalization has fallen below the trillion mark, down by 8.7%. ETH has fallen below ,400 support, down by 9.5% over the same period with a current trading price of ,386.
Other larger altcoins in the market such as Binance Coin (BNB), Ripple (XRP), Cardano (ADA), Dogecoin (DOGE), and Polygon (MATIC) have also fallen 7.5%, 7.4%, 4.5%, 10.4%, and 7.2% respectively in the last 24 hours.
On-chain Activity On BNB Chain Grew In Q4 Amid Market Downtrend: Messari
The latest report from Messari researcher, James Trautman, revealed that BNB Chain recorded an increase in on-chain activity contrary to bear market trends. According to the report, it saw steady growth in the fourth quarter of 2022, regardless of the crypto winter.
In detail, the report stated that the network stepped up its developmental approaches across the ecosystem. Despite the depressing market and economic conditions, developers deployed financial and human capital at their disposal.
Unique Addresses Reaches An All-Time High Amid Protocol Adoption
Messari’s report disclosed that BNB Chain’s average daily active addresses and transactions rose by 30% and 0.2%, defying the bear market downtrend.
Furthermore, according to James Trautman, while other firms nearly went cripple in 2022, the network defended its full name, Build N’ Build, with network upgrades and expansion. Through this result, BNB Chain demonstrated its tenacity in the cryptocurrency industry.
Reports by BscScan show daily transactions on the network remained constant at about 3 million since Mid-August 2022.
But the daily BEP-20 token transfers increased by 66% to over 5 million on February 5. Also, unique addresses on the BNB Smart Chain have reached an all-time high of 250 million, a 41.3% year-on-year increase.
How Did BNB Chain grow Amid Depressing Crypto Atmosphere?
According to Messari, the network owes its growth to several crypto protocol adoptions. Some of these include the rise in DeFi activity on Venus protocol, increased NFT transactions on the OpenSea marketplace, and onboarding of the Web3 protocol, Hooked.
In addition, Data from DeFiLlama shows that the total value locked on BNB Chain DeFi increased by 25% since 2023 began, reaching .62 billion.
Moreover, BNB Chain implemented some strategies that led to an increase in network adoption. It upgraded its core functionality, collaborated with several strategic partners, and expanded its offerings to NFTs, DeFi, GameFi, and more.
However, these impressive on-chain activity performances weren’t enough to improve the revenue as BNB Chain’s performance went down during the fourth quarter of 2022. The average transaction fees on the Binance Smart Chain dropped, leading to low revenue generation, Messari’s report noted.
But although the BNB network recorded a 10% revenue decline in Q4, Messari thinks the fundamentals remained positive.
The report highlighted the result showed that increased user adoption on the network was catalyzed by its foundational use cases and favorable valuation, even after the FTX implosion. In addition, users seemed to have gained more confidence in the BNB Network after the FTX crisis.
In his report, Trautman expects BNB Chain to maintain its growth, adding more scaling solutions and increasing throughput.
Meanwhile, BNB, is down by 3% over the past 24 hours, with a 24-hour trading price of 5.46. But it has witnessed a 25.2% price surge in the last 30 days and a 14-day increase of 7.3%.
Featured Image From Pixabay, Chart From Tradingview
Messari Report: USDC Is The Most Dominant Ethereum-Backed Stablecoin
The growth of USDC in 2021 is more tremendous than that of Tether. The Ethereum-based USDC stablecoin is gaining immense traction as the experts deem it as the most dominant asset.
In coming weeks it is very likely USDT’s share of the stablecoin supply on Ethereum will fall below 50% for the first time.
USDC is quickly emerging as the dominant stablecoin on Ethereum in large part due to its growing role in DeFi.
— Ryan Watkins (@RyanWatkins_) June 29, 2021
According to the analytics research, there is now an increase in the demand for USDC due to abrupt popularity in the DeFi ecosystem. Such demand has positioned USD Coin to bag more market shares in the crypto space.
From what Ryan Watkins, a credible researcher, predicted, the stablecoin share for Tether on Ethereum could dip below 50%. In addition, Watkins revealed that more than half of USDC’s total supply is now in smart contracts.
The equivalent value for this USD Coin supply is about .5 billion. According to Messari, CoinMetrics data estimates show that USDC’s stablecoin supply is over 40% on Ethereum.
In his tweet, Watkins said that the next few weeks might not favor USDT’s stablecoin supply on Ethereum. He envisages a dip below 50% for the first time for USDT’s stablecoin supply share.
On the other hand, he sees USD Coin becoming the prepotent Ethereum stablecoin because of its high reputation in the DeFi ecosystem.
Related Reading | VeChain Announces The World’s First National eNFT Adoption, Why It Could Be Huge for VET
More so, Watkins further acknowledges:
“Although this percentage is not as high as DAI, USDC leads by a wide margin in dollar terms and has become the preferred stablecoin in DeFi for now.”
This makes it the most preferred digital asset for staking in DeFi protocols’ smart contracts.
He said that even though USDC’s percentage is still low compared to DAI, it’s ahead with a wide margin in terms of the dollar. This pushes USDC to emerge in the DeFi sector as the preferred stablecoin.
From its 1.3 billion circulating supply, USD Coin made an upward growth of over 1,820% since the beginning of 2021. According to Circle, the coin’s stablecoin supply is currently at 25 billion.
Moreover, a recent report suggests USD Coin will get more exposure once it’s issued on other networks in the near term. A few hours ago, one of the biggest media outlets in the cryptocurrency industry reported that the USD Coin will gain huge attention once it goes live on other networks. The report reads:
“We anticipate that in the coming months USDC will become available on Avalanche, Celo, Flow, Hedera, Kava, Nervos, Polkadot, Stacks, Tezos, and Tron.”
What’s Ahead For Tether (USDT) As USDC Gains Significant Traction
Tether’s transparency report reveals that there are 62.7 billion circulating USDT. This portrays an increase of about 200% since the beginning of 2021.
Currently, only 30.9 billion from the total supply are on the Ethereum network. This value has been experiencing consecutive dipping through the year caused by high network transaction fees.
Related Reading | TA: Ethereum Remains Strong, Why ETH Could Rally Above .3K
According to a researcher, the largest USDC consumers are DeFi lending protocols such as MakerDAO, Aave, and Compound. Their holding is about 23% of the total USD Coin supply.
The researcher explained that while the launching of Compound Treasury still pends, there’s likely to be a continuation in the trend.
Treasury is a new product that will offer institutions 4% interest on USD Coin. This new product will also give initiatives that will revolve around the DeFi API of Circle.
The Circle protocol is a new platform that promotes decentralized finance operations for businesses.
Recall that Clinbase, a U.S. crypto exchange, promised 4% interest on USDC holdings earlier this week. Their action was a spark to the stablecoin.
As the USDC stablecoin's significance grows, the bulls are keeping its price intact | Source: USDCUSD on TradingView.com
While the bears keep the entire DeFi market in the red zone, the USD Coin is thriving and it has claimed the most dominant stablecoin spot.
Featured image from Pixabay, Charts from TradingView.com
Tether (USDT) To Face Do or Die Situation in 2021: Messari Report
Tether is the cryptocurrency industry’s biggest threat in 2021, says a report penned by Messari’s Founder Ryan Selkins.
The 134-page thesis ventured into the stablecoin’s emergence as a proxy for the US dollar that helps crypto traders getting in and out of their positions quickly on exchanges. It also focused on the controversy that tails Tether following the New York State Attorney’s class-action lawsuit against its founders and a sister cryptocurrency exchange BitFinex.
Boom Against Gloom
Lawyers Vel Freedman and Kyle Roche alleged in their October 2019 filing that Tether defrauded its investors, manipulated the cryptocurrency markets, and concealed illicit proceeds. They added that Tether printed billions of dollars’ worth of USDT stablecoin to artificially inflate the price of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies.
But the market largely ignored the warnings. Tether’s market capitalization soared from billion in October 2019 to .9 billion in December 2020. Mr. Selkins noted that the exchanges largely boosted Tether’s popularity in the absence of any other voluminous alternative. However, the situation could change in 2020.
![Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, BTCUSD, BTCUSDT, Tether, USDT](https://www.newsbtc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/qDc9Fy61-860x509.png)
Tether market cap. Source: USDT on TradingView.com
The research analyst discussed the worst-case scenario for Tether and BitFinex, citing the “dual lawsuits” against BitMEX filed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Departmnent of Justince. He stated that an active investigation against the crypto derivative exchange caused its users to migrate towards alternative platforms.
Fearing the same could happen to Tether, Mr. Selkins presented a polar opposite Tether outlook for 2021 — a do or die situation as its market cap continues to grow amid an ongoing cryptocurrency market rally led by Bitcoin.
“Tether will either have an existential crisis or double its supply again in 2021,” he wrote. “There doesn’t seem to be a middle ground.”
SEC Investigation Rumor
Following the Securities and Exchange’s lawsuit against Ripple and its grossly negative impact on the firm’s native token, XRP, many agree that the Tether’s USDT could suffer a similar fate. But for that, the US Treasury needs to categorize stablecoins as securities.
And that is looking to come true. A Twitter user @RealWillyBot shared details about a DoJ order that ruled stablecoins as securities. He shared a screenshot that read:
“Depending on its design and other factors, the stablecoin may constitute a security, commodity, or a derivative subject to the US federal securities, commodity, or/and derivatives laws.”
If the proposal becomes a law, then USDT will become a security token. That could shock the cryptocurrency markets on the whole due to its overly addiction to the stablecoin that coughs out an average of billion worth of transactional volume every day.
Next DeFi Boom to Come Out of “Useless” Cryptocurrencies: Messari
- As the decentralized finance sector explodes in value, a recent Messari report indicates that the so-called DeFi boom is likely to continue.
- Researcher Ryan Watkins wrote that a capital shift from “useless” cryptocurrency projects might help the DeFi tokens boom.
- Most of these dead projects are listed among the top-30 cryptocurrencies, stated Mr. Watkins.
Some of the DeFi tokens that rallied by thousands of percent in 2020 may just extend their bull run further, according to Messari’s latest report on the decentralized finance sector.
Researcher Ryan Watkins noted that the DeFi tokens, on the whole, make up just 1.5 percent of the entire cryptocurrency market. That is despite the existence of credible startups that promise excellent returns to their investors in the long-run.
DeFi market size compared to other crypto projects. Source: Messari
Mr. Watkins also noted that the projects that hold a more significant portion of the crypto market–especially those listed in the top-30– are “useless first-generation cryptocurrencies.”
They include the so-called “Ethereum Killers” that have done very little in displacing the second-largest blockchain platform. They also include vaporwave that raised a large sum of money during the 2017 ICO boom but never delivered a working product to this date.
“Even Dogecoin, a literal meme coin, is worth more than nearly every asset in DeFi,” wrote Mr. Watkins.
Capital Reallocation
Mr. Watkins noted that the crypto investors would eventually want to reallocate their capital from “worthless” crypto projects into yield-driven DeFi products. The researcher further stated the DeFi itself does not need new money flowing to continue its rise, which also increases the sector’s ability to rise without a doubt.
“It may seem like DeFi has already arrived with its recent run, but at just 1.5% of the entire crypto market, it could just be getting started,” he wrote.
DeFi token LEND rallied by more than 1,650% in 2020. Source: TradingView.com
Mr. Watkins also noted why investors would want to move outside the top-30 crypto tokens, other than Bitcoin and Ethereum. He said that most of the mentioned cryptocurrencies operate as “non-sovereign stores of value.”
“In theory most layer 1s are priced according to their probability of winning this market,” the analyst explained.
Not an ICO Bubble
Mr. Watkins also went against comparing the 2020’s DeFi boom with the 2017’s ICO craze.
He noted that the ICO market attracted billions of dollars worth of investments without even delivering a working product. On the other hand, a majority of DeFi projects already have live products. Moreover, they are already cash flows for their investors.
“However, despite all the attention and activity, DeFi still remains an incredibly small part of the total crypto market,” he added. “In fact, the entirety of what we call DeFi is worth less than both XRP and Bitcoin Cash alone.”