Happy leap day from ETHDenver, friends: this is Colton from Hedgehog, the app that helps you buy baskets of cryptocurrency and automate your digital asset exposure wherever you custody funds. Don’t forget we also now support TBILL token for those of you who want highly liquid, Aaa-rated US government debt, and you can reply here for more details!
I’m starting to feel like a broken record here parroting new price milestones, but Bitcoin hit a new support level this week breaking $60k to reach ever closer to its previous all-time high.
One small step for tradfi
The ETF volumes are hitting all-time highs at $7.6 billion over the last week, with the majority of that amount being comprised of “natural,” or non-algorithmic, demand. This could be because places like Blackrock have analysts recommending 28% allocations into Bitcoin as “not unreasonable” for even conservative investors. Or maybe that’s nothing.
Baseless accusations
It was a cursed moment for Coinbase though, as they experienced a glitch that made them display customer balances as $0. This is a big fumble for such a well-trusted exchange, and there’s speculation that it led to panic selling of the token back below $60k very briefly. My guess is just that algorithmic traders on other exchanges suddenly saw a giant hole in their Coinbase holdings and so the algos simply shifted their holdings across all their various trading venues and attempted to exit their failing positions on Coinbase using alternative order books. But that’s just speculation on my part.
Anyway other exchanges and players are starting to get back in the game, as Gemini announced that Genesis will be refunding every frozen dollar in the Gemini Earn program. Anchorage is also throwing their hat in the ring with on-chain activity using hosted wallets for institutions. Watch the space for custodians as the action is heating up. We’re even releasing our own on-chain wallets!
Weekly feature
This week we’re featuring the Cosmos ecosystem with the initial launch token ATOM. There’s a lot of hype being passed around at ETHDenver (ain’t that ironic?) because many new projects are choosing to take advantage of the inter-blockchain communication protocol, or IBC, to spin up their latest ideas.
The whole idea of IBC is to use a new spin on an old algorithm, called Tendermint, to provide a modular blockchain where anyone can spin up their own compatible chains and all the native currencies are immediately compatible with each network. This has given rise to new chains like Osmosis, Sei, Celestia, Injective, Agoric, and others, and even attracted old chains like Terra for the ease of integration.
SEI, INJ, and TIA have been darlings of the last 6 months, all with 500+% growth over that time period, but they are highly correlated in their performance, so be careful if you choose to trade these assets as a Cosmos thesis. It may be better to look further afield for less well-known ecosystem assets.
How much money would you bet that your friends won’t screw someone over? I’ve been reading about medieval Icelandic bearer sureties, and I’ve been thinking about how much I’d be willing to stake on people’s behalf.
Keep hedging,
— Colton