Nuconomist | Weekly Wrap: 29th May

This weeks newsletter comes a day later due to the holiday, however, that one day has given us a lot more direction. Price is sharply down this morning after the SEC began the process of suing Binance. The initial reaction was quick and to the downside. However, within their case, the SEC asserts that several of the cryptocurrencies on offer are securities including; Algorand, Axie Infinity, Binance BNB, COTI, Cosmos, Decentraland MANA, Filecoin, Sand, Solana, Polygon, and Cardano.

Even ignoring the Binance component, the wider effects could certainly have an impact for a while to come. Already, the targeting of two of the most well-known metaverse projects (Decentralnad and The Sandbox) has likely removed any hope of a short-term boost for this segment of assets that may have come about due to Apple's newly announced XR headset.

Volatility has arrived.

- @nuconomist

📈 Weekly Crypto Stats

Crypto Market Cap: 1.13 Trillion Dollars 🔻-6.61% (Was 1.21 T)

Bitcoin Dominance: 44.0% 🔻-1.78% (Was 44.8%)

Ethereum Dominance: 19.2% 🔺+1.59% (Was 18.9%)

Other Crypto (excl. BTC & ETH): 36.8% 🔺+1.38% (Was 36.3%)

Nuconomist Notes:

These stats have received a sharp adjustment this morning after the SEC sued Binance causing a quick crash of about 5% across the board of the top Cryptos. So far Bitcoin has held support above the all-important $25k level, however if this breaks, some analysts are saying it could go as low as 20-22k before the end of this month.

🖼️ NFT Corner

Market Stats

NFT Market Cap (ETH): Ξ 7.9 Million 🔻-1.25% (Was Ξ 8.0 Million)

NFT Market Cap (USD): $14.35 Billion 🔻 -6.76% (Was $15.39 Billion)

30 Day NFT Volume (ETH): 392k 🔺+0.77% (Was 389k)

Nuconomist Notes:

NFT Volume is up in what feels like the first time in months, while the price of NFTs in USD and ETH has taken a slight dip. This begs the question of whether we have finally reached a bottom in NFTs, if not in price, at least in sentiment. Price action will likely be impact in the ripples from the broader crypto markets, but if volume continues to climb it could suggest a positive shift in market sentiment for NFTs.

Outside of the ETH sphere, Ordinals inscriptions reached the 10 Million mark. This is pretty significant considering the protocol was only released this year and shows the continued interest in NFTs on Bitcoin. It is worth noting that the recent growth in inscription numbers is strongly influenced by BRC-20s which are are actually fungible tokens, similar to ERC20s on Ethereum. They are classed as NFTs on Bitcoin due to the way they are coded. As this market evolves, I would expect the tooling to break out the statistics for Ordinals separately from BRC20 tokens.

Top Collections by ETH Volume (7 Days)

Nuconomist Notes:

As expected Miladys continued their declne after the Elon pump and are nowhere to be seen on this weeks leaderboard. Instead, the top spot is reclaimed by BAYC, the undisputed leaders of the '21 Cohort and MAYC, their sister collection is also sitting comfortably in third place.

Azuki are making an attempt at the throne in second place, with their BEANZ collection coming up in fifth place too. This is likley due to speculation over an event they are hosting in Las Vegas this month. While both of the Azuki collections are up already in anticipation, it is certainly possible they could climb further as the event draws closer.

And last but not least, Opepen Edition sits in fourth place after their recent art reveal. Not much to say here, other than I expect volume to drop as this event becomes more distant, but you could see future boosts as new sets are revealed.

Most Profitable Collections by ETH (7 Days)

Azuki: 1317 ETH PnL
Opepen Edition: 1210 ETH PnL
The Captainz: 438 ETH PnL
The Grapes: 274 ETH PnL
Sproto Gremlins: 268 ETH PnL

Nuconomist Notes:

Azuki was the most profitable collection for traders over the week, even with some short-lived dips, followed by Opepen Edition who were also near the top of the volume charts.

Captainz continues its momentum as the release date from its $MEME token and art reveal grows nearer.

Notably this week, two of the top five most profitable collections are brand new and have around 3333 in their collection. With less people participating in the NFT markets than in the peak bull run, this appears ot be becoming the collection size of choice.

The Grapes is a collection that is currently in it's pre-reveal stage and is linked to some heavyweight names and companies in the NFT and gaming space. The preview art is similar to that of GMX Blueberries, and their website features screenshots of how they might feature in upcoming mobile games. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, they have in place to counter the reveal dum but either way, this could be one to watch after reveal.

And in fifth place is Sproto Gremlins which appear to have emerged from the @HarryPotterObamaSonic10Inu memecoin community. With a few potential trade mark issues, it is hard to see this as anything more than a short-term crypto pump riding on the profits of memecoin season.

Least Profitable Collections by ETH (7 Days)

Mutant Ape Yacht Club: -641 ETH PnL
Moonbirds: -603 ETH PnL
Bored Ape Yacht Club: -454 PnL
veMULTI NFT: -420 ETH PnL
Clone X: -318 ETH PnL

Nuconomist Notes:

It looks like Mutant Apes might have been saved by the volume boost in NFTs. While last week, it looked like they had accepted a floor price below 10 ETH, it looks like they have bounced back above with 10 attempting to reclaim itself as support even while holders sell at a loss making them the least profitable collection this week. Interestingly, while the Bored Ape Yacht Collection topped the volume charts this week, it was for bad reasons (owners locking in losses) which has also put them onto the leaderboard for least profitable collection of the week.

Moonbirds and Clone X continue their losing streak. Not much to say on that front.

And veMULTI NFT is this weeks new feature, which is due to a single sale of a single whale. This is different from the other collections as it appears to be a locked wrapper for DeFi governance tokens.