What was Bitcoin’s birthday gift?

Good morning! Welcome to The Daily Moon. Popular YouTuber Logan Paul released an NFT game and turns out it could be a scam. The game encourages people to buy eggs, and these eggs hatch into animals which can then be traded. But it seems the animals are actually stock images, there are bots everywhere, and minting NFTs is getting harder. Oops!

The markets recovered. Bitcoin was at $16,740 levels and Ethereum headed to $1,220. Nasdaq rose in early trade. Back home, Sensex and Nifty ended higher on positive global cues.   

BTC’s Birthday Gift Awaited 

King crypto Bitcoin turned 14 on Monday. The moody teenager, however, didn’t celebrate. Trading was minimal in Bitcoin as well as Ethereum, which is usually the case around the New Year.

Is it green?BTC started off slightly higher on Sunday but since then it has dipped. It fell ~1% in the past week. Ethereum moved similarly. There’s hope that 2023 will bring better fortunes, with bearish traders largely out of Bitcoin.

ETH beat BTCNot in terms of pricing but on the transaction count, ETH surpassed BTC. Ethereum had 408.5 million transactions in 2022 while Bitcoin had 93.1 million. But unlike ETH, Bitcoin’s transactions were steady and didn’t see too many spikes. BTC also remained the most-searched crypto on Google. 

Meanwhile…The crypto pundits are back with their price forecasts. Erik Voorhees expects a $40,000 level for BTC in 2023. Billionaire investor Tim Draper, on the other hand, is firm on his $250,000 bet. 

However, Standard Chartered has moved to the other extreme, with a new-low $5,000 prediction for Bitcoin in 2023. 

Lido’s On A Tricky Slope

Lido Finance has good news and bad news. It topped the Total Value Locked (TVL) chart among DeFi protocols. But, competition has gotten tougher. 

FYI TVL is the total value of all assets deposited in a DeFi protocol.

What’s working?Lido’s ETH staking solutions are in high demand. That’s how Lido beat MakerDAO. The DeFi protocol has ~$5.8 billion staked in Ether, $45.6 million in Polygon, and $27.6 million in Solana. After Ethereum’s shift to proof-of-stake where at least 32 ETH is locked up for stakers, Lido’s flexible staking options found favour. 

What’s flopping?There’s an overall drop in staking rewards at Lido. The annual percentage return or APR was 4.3%, which is almost 58% lower than three months ago. Stakers have also shifted from DeFi platforms to crypto exchanges, another factor that will impact Lido’s price. Plus, many more staking platforms have launched since the Merge. 

Solana Gets A New Year Nod

Finally, an uplifting development for Solana. The token saw a double digit growth at the turn of the calendar. What is driving this spurt?

It’s always TwitterIt started with a tweet. 

The tweet, however, comes on the heels of projects, such as DeGods and y00ts, abandoning Solana and moving to Ethereum and Polygon respectively. Though the two moves were not met with universal approval, there was some cheer primarily because of Solana’s proximity to FTX. 

FYI: Solana was hailed as the Ethereum killer. This tweet is… interesting. 

New year, old problemsFTX’s hedge fund Alameda Research had invested in over 15 projects all being built on Solana. This investment was worth ~$3.26 billion, now with the fall of FTX these projects are in jeopardy leaving Solana vulnerable. In related news, SBF said he will plead not guilty for fraud. 

The Gaming Shift Is Incoming

Blockchain gaming is going to be hot in 2023. Or so believes Square Enix. For those who don’t know Super Enix is the company that publishes the immensely popular Final Fantasy games. 

What’s the plan?The company detailed that it will be building new IPs (instead of creating spin offs from existing characters) so its gamers can discover new worlds to dive into. This is a doubling down of sorts from Square Enix, which in November launched an Ethereum NFT-based game.

Not aloneSquare Enix is not alone in diving headlong into web3 gaming. Take-Two (publishers of GTA) and Ubisoft (publishers of Assassin's Creed) will also be redoubling their efforts in NFTs and web3 gaming. 

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