The major US indices are closing with mixed results today. The Dow industrial average and S&P index both closed lower. No record closes for those indices on the last trading day of the week. The NASDAQ index did close in positive territory and at a new record.
A summary of the closing levels shows:
Dow industrial average -305.49 points for -0.77% at 39475.91
S&P index-7.37.4 -0.14% at 5234.17
NASDAQ index rose 26.97 points or 0.16% at 16428.81.
The small-cap Russell 2012-26.56 points or -1.27% at 2071.99.
For the trading week, the major indices (and the Russell 2000) all closed higher:
Dow industrial average rose 1.602%
S&P index rose 2.29%, its best week since December.
NASDAQ index rose 2.85%, its best week since January 8 week
Russell 2000 rose 1.60%.
The NASDAQ and S&P indices has only had four down trading weeks in 2024. For the trading year:
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Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you the most significant developments from the past week.
The memecoin frenzy has helped Solana-based decentralized exchanges (DEX) top the charts in trading volume, overtaking their Ethereum counterparts. Some tokens eclipsed Ethereum-based memecoins in trading volume on DEXs just hours after launching.
In more memecoin news, the Milady nonfungible token (NFT) collection joined the memecoin rush by launching its own token, which reached $18.6 million within two hours of its presale announcement.
ParaSwap narrowly evaded a hack by pausing its Augustus v6 contract application programming interface, or API, after discovering a vulnerability. The protocol secured the potential victims’ funds through a white hat intervention.
In other news, the price of Ether ETHUSD has fallen 18% in the past week after touching a new all-time high above $4,000. If the price falls to $3,100, $212 million worth of positions are at risk of liquidation.
Solana activity flips Ethereum amid memecoin craze, even as txs fail
Solana network activity surpassed Ethereum over the weekend amid a scramble for Solana-based memecoins — causing the network to struggle to keep up.
On March 16, Solana’s total trading volume soared past Ethereum, reaching $3.52 billion, beating out the daily volume on the Ethereum network by more than $1.1 billion, according to DefiLlama.
Continue reading
Milady NFT memecoin reaches $18.6 million presale goal in less than two hours
NFT collection Milady’s novel Solana memecoin has attracted 91,486 SOL ($18.6 million) within two hours of its presale announcement.
On March 18, Milady revealed the Solana-based memecoin, Milady Wif Hat, which is named after the popular Solana memecoin Dogwifhat (WIF). It will have a minimum investment of 1 SOL SOLUSD, with an 88,888 SOL cap.
Hours later, the presale had been oversubscribed. “Milady Wif Hat presale has soared to its limit of 88,888 SOL and is now closed,” wrote the team, adding: “Any additional Solana raised will have 100% of their funds returned.”
Continue reading
ParaSwap evades hack targeting Augustus v6 contract vulnerability
DeFi aggregator ParaSwap discovered a vulnerability in its newly launched Augustus v6 contract and prevented a colossal loss of funds through timely white hat intervention.
On March 18, the ParaSwap Augustus v6 contract went live, which aimed to improve swapping efficiency and reduce gas fees. However, the contract contained a critical vulnerability, allowing hackers to drain funds when approved.
Continue reading
Ether at $3,100 could liquidate $212 million worth of leveraged long positions
The cryptocurrency market could see over $212 million of leveraged long positions liquidated if the Ether price falls below the $3,100 mark.
Ether dropped 9.3% to $3,254 in the 24 hours leading up to 10:40 am UTC on March 19. Ether is down over 18% on the weekly chart, and falling to $3,100 would wipe over $212 million worth of long leverage, according to Coinglass data.
Continue reading
DeFi market overview
Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that DeFi’s top 100 tokens by market capitalization had a bearish week, with most trading in the red on the weekly charts. The total value locked in DeFi protocols dipped below $100 billion.
Cointelegraph
Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights and education regarding this dynamically advancing space.
Robert Mitchnick, head of digital assets at BlackRock, has revealed that the clients of the financial behemoth are showing “little” interest in Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
At the same time, there is “very little interest everywhere else,” which implies that the investment company is not even considering smaller coins.
Mitchnick has acknowledged that the cryptocurrency community wants to see the financial giant exploring more options, but he says that BlackRock remains mainly focused on Bitcoin.
Bitcoin, according to the executive, is “overwhelmingly the number one priority.”
Recently, BlackRock joined the tokenization race by launching a new fund based on the Ethereum network. The fund, which was officially launched earlier this week, makes it possible to earn US dollar yields with the help of blockchain technology.
In November, BlackRock also filed to launch an Ethereum exchange-traded fund. However, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission further postponed its decision on this application earlier this March.
As reported by U.Today, the odds of an Ethereum ETF being approved collapsed due to regulatory pressure.
A week ago, Senators Jack Reed and Laphonza Butler specifically asked SEC Chair Gary Gensler not to approve ETFs for more cryptocurrency tokens.
At the same time, the SEC has reportedly launched an aggressive campaign to label Ether as a security, which further diminishes the likelihood of an Ether-based spot ETF being approved in the near future.
There was a shooting ongoing at the Crocus City Hall, a music venue in Moscow. At least three gunmen were killing people. There are videos of it circulating online.
The U.S. embassy in Russia warned that ‘extremists’ had imminent plans for an attack in Moscow, hours after Russian security services said they had foiled a planned shooting at a synagogue by a cell from the Afghan arm of Islamic State.”
This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.
A new report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) explores the impact of decentralized finance (DeFi) in the ASEAN region. On the one hand, there is little current evidence of a DeFi financial inclusion impact. That’s because DeFi is dominated by professional and institutional investors. It also found that retail investors bore the brunt of the crypto fallout. However, despite its concerns over the current unregulated nature of activities, it sees potential if regulated institutions adopt tokenization, DLT and other DeFi features.
Professionals dominate DeFi
A major takeaway from the report was the analysis of the types of active investors in the decentralized finance markets. It categorized activity based on trade size, with retail transactions counting as anything below $10,000. In terms of dollar volumes (rather than transaction numbers) institutional (transactions > $1 million) and professional investors ($10k-$1m) dominate across the globe.
This was reinforced by data on trade sizes split into centralized(CEX) versus decentralized exchanges (DEX). Centralized exchanges predominantly serve retail users and have significantly smaller transaction sizes, typically less than $1,000 but averaging $1,000 – $4,000. In contrast, the Curve DEX had average transactions of around $200,000 for an extended period in 2023, with Uniswap V3 averaging around $95,000.
“Using transaction sizes as a proxy, it can be inferred that more than 2/3 of global crypto-asset activity is performed by professional and/or institutional investors in every region analysed, and the share of professional activity as a part of total crypto-asset volume is the highest in East Asia,” the report finds.
Hence, the OECD is making the point that retail makes up a relatively small proportion of the total dollar trades. However, in an unregulated environment, following the collapse of centralized exchanges and lenders, consumers were the ones to lose the most. Plus, if a user wants to host their own coins and participate in DeFi, the current usability of DeFi is below par. It ponders whether self custody rules out DeFi for retail users, particularly the underbanked.
ASEAN crypto adoption
Part of the report explores the takeup of crypto in specific countries. Between 2020 and 2022, Thailand experienced the largest flows per capita, followed by Malaysia and Vietnam. In absolute terms, Vietnam had the most significant flows, with Thailand and Singapore next.
The OECD warns that unregulated crypto activity not only exposes consumers to losses but also presents financial stability risks for some economies.
At the same time, it points to the potential for tokenization to bring efficiency and productivity gains to capital markets. It highlighted two initiatives in the region where DeFi has been explored, including Project Mariana and Project Guardian.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore started Project Guardian in 2022 in collaboration with JP Morgan Onyx, DBS and SBI Digital Asset Holdings, which are trialing DeFi on public blockchain. It subsequently significantly expanded the initiative last year. In addition to numerous new use cases, regulators from England, Switzerland, and Japan have also joined.
Despite Friday’s dip, the week paints a brighter picture: the S&P 500 is poised for a 2.2% rise, the Nasdaq for a 2.5% increase, and the Dow tops the list with a 2.3% gain.
Federal Reserve’s Stance and Market Impact
The week’s optimism is partly attributed to the Federal Reserve’s decision to maintain current interest rates, with Chair Jerome Powell signaling potential rate cuts ahead. This stance helped alleviate investor concerns over recent high inflation figures, boosting market confidence.
Individual Stock Highlights
In individual stock movements, FedEx reported a more than 8% increase after surpassing earnings expectations. Contrastingly, Nike experienced an 8.2% fall following disappointing future guidance and slowed sales in China. Lululemon Athletica faced an 18.6% drop, its most significant decline since March 2020, due to unimpressive guidance and decelerating growth in North America.
Market Outlook
Concluding the week, the market indicates a bullish outlook in the short term, despite Friday’s pullback. The anticipation of easing Federal Reserve policies and robust earnings reports from companies like FedEx bolster market confidence.
This positive sentiment overshadows the sector-specific concerns such as those in consumer discretionary and technology. Investors should stay attentive to central bank updates, which will continue to play a crucial role in shaping market direction in the upcoming period.
With a general market rebound for the week and supportive economic signals, the short-term view leans towards continued market strength.
David Schwartz, chief technology officer at Ripple, has developed a new trading bot that uses an algorithm that is similar to the XRP Ledger’s AMM algorithm.
The bot, which is designed for trading on centralized exchanges, has already been tested by Schwartz for trading Solana.
For now, Schwartz says that the code is “really rough,” but he is thinking about potentially adding a GitLab link.
Is the bot profitable?
In a follow-up post, Schwartz explains that it is too early to actually tell with high confidence whether or not the bot is capable of generating profits. With that being said, The Ripple executive expects it to make roughly 11% per year.
At the same time, Schwartz has noted that the bot is incapable of taking advantage of minor price moves. Moreover, the bot is hampered by trading fees.
When it comes to taxes, the Ripple executive has stated that the text impact is the same as short-term capital gains.
Schwartz has also added that it is too early to tell whether the bot is comparable to the AMM algorithm since they determine trade sizes in different ways.
Earlier, Schwartz stated that he had never used decentralized AMMs.
Is AMM just for XRP?
Earlier this week, Schwartz also clarified that it is possible to create AMMS with any two assets that are supported by the XRP Ledger. He has also predicted that AMMs with XRP will be the most popular.
“We kind of did prioritize XRP because the algorithm is biased in favor of volatility harvesting which only makes sense if at least one of the assets is volatile. I think the vast majority of AMMs, weighted by size, will have XRP as one side,” he wrote earlier.
TerraClassic has witnessed a remarkable uptick in its market performance, marking a significant increase over the previous month. In the recent week, LUNC’s price movement has been somewhat unpredictable, alternating between upward and downward trends moving laterally in the market.
Despite this, the last four hours have seen a modest dip of 2.71% in Terra Classic price, following a period of positive momentum, bringing it to a current trading value of $0.0001369. This shift comes after a bullish phase, highlighting the fluctuating nature of LUNC’s market presence.
Terra Classic Price Trends and Market Analysis
Over the past 24 hours, a noticeable downturn of 6.78% in transaction volume was recorded, settling at $72.93 million. This downturn suggests a reduction in market activity following a recent correction, placing Terra Classic among the top 110 cryptocurrencies with a market cap of $794 million, according to Coinmarketcap data.
Terra Classic price chart
The trading day for LUNC began on a positive note, with its value peaking at $0.0001481. However, it encountered resistance at this level, indicating a potential shift in market dynamics.
The monthly analysis for LUNC points to an optimistic trend, marked by a 12% increase. The price fluctuation ranged between $0.0002355 and $0.0001119, showing a minor decline overall.
This week, a 13% decrease in Terra Classic’s value was observed, mirroring a wider market downturn affecting numerous cryptocurrencies. The crypto market as a whole is experiencing a slight pullback, with Bitcoin dropping below the $64,000 benchmark and Ethereum falling under $3300.
If the positive momentum for LUNC resumes, its price could potentially surpass the $0.00014 mark. This revival could pave the way for LUNC to challenge the $0.00015 resistance level and aim for the $0.00019 milestone.
Conversely, if the bearish trend intensifies, LUNC’s value might retreat to the $0.00013 support level. A continued decline could press LUNC to explore new lows around $0.0001, testing further support zones.
DeFi’s Rising Star: Terra Classic’s Notable TVL Growth
The decentralized finance (DeFi) sector is once again in the spotlight as Terra Classic’s Total Value Locked (TVL) has seen an impressive surge, according to recent data from Defi Llama.
As of March 22, 2024, Terra Classic has locked in a notable $3.59 million, marking a significant milestone for the blockchain platform. The graph on DeFiLlama’s platform indicates a sharp increase in TVL, suggesting growing investor confidence and an uptick in DeFi engagements on the network.
The daily technical indicators for Terra Classic (LUNC) suggest a market showing signs of fluctuation within a constrained range. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) stands at 40.72, which indicates that the asset is neither overbought nor oversold.
The Bollinger Bands (BB) show a slight contraction, with the upper band at 0.0002181 and the lower band at 0.0001222. This could suggest a decrease in market volatility or a potential consolidation phase as the bands tighten.
USDCAD traded toward the high of the trading range
The USDCAD is extended to a new session high, and in the process is back testing the swing area between 1.36049 and 1.36269 (the red number circles and yellow area on the chart above). The 61.8% retracement of the move down from the November 2023 hi is also within that area at 1.3623.
Overall, the USDCAD has been in a volatile up and down range with a modest upward bias (trendlines on the chart have the price within a upward sloping channel). Being about the cluster of moving averages is also a tilt to the upside for the pair. However, the price still needs to get above – and stay above – the high of the aforementioned swing area to increase the bullish bias.
