Solana’s turning red

Good morning! Welcome to The Daily Moon. Crypto love’s gone extreme. An IT worker called F418 has implanted a Lightning Network chip into his right hand. That’ll help him make instant BTC payments. Goes without saying, but don’t try it at home.

The markets recovered. Bitcoin was near $18,000 and Ethereum rose to ~$1,340. Nasdaq gained in early trade. Back home, Sensex and Nifty ended in the green.

Solana’s Red Ridden

Everyone’s mostly out of the FTX-led mess. Except Solana. The token’s down another ~8%.

Losing supportThere’s been aggressive SOL selling since FTX went belly up. It crossed what is commonly called the support level. Think of the support level as a psychological barrier for traders. When a crypto token slips below this barrier, there is pressure to sell. That’s exactly what has happened with Solana.

But what about the web3 boost?Solana’s made some progress, but not enough. Discord, for example, has added Solana integration for users. It’ll be a confluence of web3 and web2 identities.

The hope is that if linked accounts get more privileges, there’ll be a subliminal nudge to buy SOLs.

NFTs shine a bitSolana-based NFT marketplace Magic Eden has added new partners such as Stripe to make trading easier. But there’s a ~40% drop in NFT users over the past month.

No time to ROFLMeanwhile, there was a joke floating around that Solana should become a Cardano sidechain. Things got a little more serious when Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson joined a community vote to side with the idea. But just FYI, it’s not possible for Solana and Cardano to unite; their algos differ.

Ripple’s Having A Moment

Ripple’s pally with the bulls. Whales want to HODL for longer. The crypto token is bullish, up more than 2% over the past 24 hours. So, is the SEC really ready to settle?

FYI Ripple and the SEC are entangled in a two-year legal battle over the sale of XRP tokens. The regulator claims XRP is illegal.

What’s the buzz?There are rumours that Ripple’s ongoing case with the SEC may close on Thursday. Whales have also taken notice and moved XRP tokens worth $33 million from a crypto exchange to their wallets. But we don’t know for sure if the judgement’s coming. For all you know, it may be a case of buy the rumour, sell the news.

How’s the network doing?The network’s use cases have grown. Ripple-backed crypto platform Bitso has partnered with the payment firm Felix Pago to enable cross-border crypto transactions. Its EU expansion plan is also on track but, Ripple’s future depends on which side wins the XRP case.

Bitcoin Until I Die

Pro-crypto US Senator Cynthia Lummis is “very comfortable” with Bitcoin in retirement funds because it is “different from other cryptocurrencies”.

Slight change in plansLummis has always been pro-crypto, but the current crypto environment has caused some amount of caution to creep in. In 2021, Lummis had said she would like to see Bitcoin and other cryptos become part of retirement funds. Now, she says the “jury's still out on other cryptocurrencies”.

Why does this matter?It is significant because other senators have upped their calls to ask for the winding down of Bitcoin-linked retirement products. Recent market events, most notably the FTX debacle, have been fuel in the fire for the opponents of crypto.

Meanwhile, Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas on Monday. The US securities regulator charged him with fraud on Tuesday.

Zooming Into The Metaverse

Who is driving into the metaverse now? Auto companies, says Nvidia. The applications would spread across retail and design.

Really? What would they do though?There is the more obvious 3D design and simulation for vehicles, and building “digital twins” of their production facilities.

Some areas where things could become interesting are:

1. Full-fidelity, real-time car configurators.

2. 3D simulations of vehicles.

3. Demonstrations in augmented reality.

4. Virtual test drives.

Companies have been experimenting too, already. Stellantis group-owned Fiat launched its first metaverse store recently. It lets potential customers take a virtual tour of one of its cars. Ford has also filed 19 different trademarks for a possible metaverse push.

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