FTX Liquidates $1.9B in SOL at $64

Uniswap $2 Trillion Volume | Telegram TON Ads

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Marco Manoppo & Karon Pangestu
April 08, 2024

📢 Sponsor | 💡 Telegram | 📰 Past Editions

Chain Venturer was off for a break yesterday due to a personal reason. We’ll be back to regularly scheduled programming this Saturday.

Good Morning.

The markets are up after a slump over the past week. Inflows are going back up steadily as we approach the Bitcoin halving, which will happen in… checks notes… 12 days. Hoozah!

In Today's Email:

  • What Matters: FTX’s 50%+ SOL Discount 💰️ 

  • Product: TON-based ads 📲

  • Charts: Uniswap $2T volume, Kamino airdrop 📈

Narratives: Base and solana meme coins.

We just launched a crypto appstore ranking bot that tracks top apps across the US. This includes exchanges like Coinbase and Kraken; and wallets such as phantom and Metamask. Check it out here.

We are now publishing airdrop alphas on our telegram!

You read and share. We listen and improve. Send us feedback at [email protected].

WHAT MATTERS

FTX Estate Liquidates $1.9B in SOL at $64 Each

State of play: According to Bloomberg, the FTX estate liquidated ~$1.9B in SOL to reduce the defunct exchange's debt, selling about two-thirds of a $2.6B SOL lot.

  • The sale involved up to 30M SOL tokens priced at $64 each.

  • The SOLs were discounted by more than 50% because they are still locked up.

  • The FTX estate possesses 41M locked-up SOLs, valued at approximately $7.5B.

The FTX estate's SOL sale was delayed due to high buyer interest:

  • Galaxy Trading, a subsidiary of Galaxy Digital, set up a $620M fund to buy up FTX's SOL.

  • Neptune Digital acquired FTX’s 26,964 SOL for $1.73M at $64 each, with 20% unlocking in March 2025.

  • Pantera set up a $250M fund in March to buy FTX estate's discounted Solana.

What’s next: Solana hit a peak market cap of $81B in mid-March, boosted by meme coins, earning it CoinGecko Research's title of the year's most popular blockchain so far. The question is, how long the meme coin mania will last?

Our take: There’s an ongoing argument that FTX creditors were made whole primarily because of the rise in crypto asset prices; which has less to do with the work of the current management, but more to do with luck and timing.

For builders and investors: Creditors are furious that they won’t be able to get the amount of their original holdings (in tokens) which have appreciated a lot, but instead in the dollar value as of the time of the bankruptcy filing.

Take a peek at our referral reward at the bottom of this issue. Share this newsletter and receive our list of 500 crypto VC individuals 👇

PRODUCT OF THE WEEK

TON-based Ads

Telegram introduced TON-based ads to enable 50% ad revenue sharing with channel owners with 1000 subscribers.

  • TON-based ads are a new type of ads, which users can purchase with Toncoins, a cryptocurrency powered by the TON Blockchain.

  • Telegram users generate over 1T views in channels every month.

  • TON has low fees and high transaction speeds, TON Blockchain set a world record by achieving 104,715 transactions per second.

Other cool products:

CHARTS OF THE WEEK

Uniswap Surpassed $2T in Trading Volume

State of play: Last week, Uniswap announced surpassing $2T in total trading volume, since its 2018 inception, Uniswap is the top DeFi application on Ethereum.

  • In the last 7 days, Uniswap’s total trading volume is at $9B.

  • In the last 7 days, Uniswap generated almost $14M in fees.

  • In February, the Uniswap Foundation suggested a governance proposal to enhance fee structures, benefiting users who delegate and stake UNI tokens.

Our take: When there’s a gold rush, you want to sell picks and shovels. Uniswap is the picks and shovels of DeFi.

Kamino, the Largest Lending Protocol on Solana

Credits to OurNetwork for the original report

State of play: Kamino, a Solana DeFi platform offering lending, liquidity, and leverage, reached a TVL of $1B on March 14, 2024, and now stands at $1.2B, becoming Solana's largest lending protocol.

  • Kamino's lending TVL, mainly SOL and SOL liquid staking tokens, constitutes ~64% of its TVL.

  • USDC, JLP, and WIF are the other significant tokens in Kamino’s TVL.

  • Kamino recorded a total of 358.9K users interacting with the platform.

  • Kamino's daily active users averaged 8.6K over the past week, down from a peak of 19.4K.

Our take: Solana airdrop season isn’t over yet. There are still a good amount of protocols that plan to TGE in Q2 2024.

QUICK BITES

  • Do Kwon found liable for civil fraud.

  • HashKey launches global crypto exchange.

  • McKenna launches Arate Capital, targeting $20M.

  • JPM said the SEC to eventually approve Ethereum ETF.

  • Aave teases upcoming fee switch vote for Aave stakers.

  • Solana developers rally to combat network congestion.

  • dYdX community votes to stake $60M from the treasury.

  • Pantera Capital posted a 66% gain for crypto funds last quarter.

  • BlackRock names Citi, Citadel, and Goldman Sachs as BTC buyers.

NOTEWORTHY READS & MEME

  • Our Network’s read on lending protocols.

  • 0xYaro’s read on reflection for March and April 2024.

  • @sell9000’s read on chrome extension potential exploit.

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Disclaimer: All the information presented in this publication and its affiliates is strictly for educational purposes only. It should not be construed or taken as financial, legal, investment, or any other form of advice.