What happened
A whipsaw of moves ended with crypto values jumping sharply on Friday morning. But we're already seeing signs of that move fading.
As of 12:30 p.m. ET, ApeCoin (APE +1.55%) had traded up 20.5% from low to high in the past 24 hours and is up 12.7% in that time. Synthetix Network (SNX +0.73%) gained as much as 17.9% and is currently up 5.6%, while NEAR Protocol (NEAR +6.26%) popped 12.3% and is now up 5.1%.
CRYPTO: APE
Key Data Points
So what
The most significant news was the Synthetix DAO, or decentralized autonomous organization, announcing a partnership with Jump Crypto that's intended to "complement Synthetix's mission to become the liquidity backbone for on-chain derivatives."
Excitement about blockchains has also been extremely high this week following a tentative Merge date being set and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin giving an outline of the future of its blockchain. He says future upgrades will allow Ethereum to perform 100,000 transactions per second, up from about 15 today, which would make it the fastest blockchain available. There was no timetable, but clearly the market was excited about the possibility.
Ironically, NEAR Protocol, which is a Layer 1 blockchain like Ethereum, jumped along with a more bullish sentiment by the market. But it's actually competing with Ethereum, so if Ethereum does increase throughput, it could negatively impact these blockchains.
CRYPTO: NEAR
Key Data Points
The ApeCoin can trade wildly, but as a token on Ethereum, it would benefit from faster speed and potentially lower transaction costs on the blockchain. After a recent demo of the Otherside game, there's also been excitement about the token itself.
Now what
This week has generally been positive for the crypto market, and Ethereum has been a big reason why. The Merge is likely in the next few months, and after that a series of additional upgrades is expected to allow for a more usable blockchain. Right now, Ethereum is the blockchain with the most developers, but it's limited by high-cost transactions and low speeds, but these upgrades could change that.
The Merge trade has spilled over to nearly every other cryptocurrency, whether it's related to Ethereum or not.
It appears there's also some clarity around financial insolvencies that were part of the cause for the crypto crash over the past few months. Three Arrows Capital's risks appear to be out in the open at this point, and we have a better understanding of who is at risk of further liquidations and who isn't. Decentralized finance protocols also appear to have handled the market implosion fairly well. And with some of that risk behind us, money is pouring back into the crypto industry.
