Crypto Assets Weekly: Bitcoin Posts Largest Monthly Rise in Three Years

This week, the Crypto Assets market has shown a positive trend, with Bitcoin performing particularly well. Let's review the important events and market dynamics of this week.

Layer 2 Overview

Last week, the Layer 2 ecosystem generally showed positive growth, with Starknet experiencing the largest increase of 15.67%. The total locked value of protocols such as JOJO, VaultCraft, Basemax, XY Finance, and Nostra grew significantly.

Overview of the LSD Field

The amount of Ethereum staked and exited has both risen, with the exit amount increasing significantly by 2.88%. In terms of market share, mainstream LSD tokens have seen considerable rises, among which wstETH has grown the most noticeably, reaching 16.28%.

Overview of the RWA Field

Last week, the total market capitalization of tokenized physical assets rose by 13.85%, and the 24-hour trading volume increased by 43.93%. RWA tokenized treasury rose by 1.6%, and the value of tokenized U.S. Treasury bonds increased by 0.08%. Tokens such as $DEXTF, $LMR, and $BST saw significant rises, while $BRTR, $LNDX, and $SOB experienced considerable declines.

Macroeconomic Overview

This week, the S&P 500 index and the Nasdaq index rose by 1.33% and 2.06%, respectively. In the coming week, attention should be paid to important events such as the global services PMI, ISM non-manufacturing PMI, spring forecast report, ADP employment data, and the Bank of Canada interest rate decision.

Major Events This Week: Bitcoin Achieves Largest Monthly Rise in Three Years

Bitcoin is on track for its strongest monthly close since December 2020. In February, the price of Bitcoin has risen by 44%, breaking through the $50,000 and $60,000 marks for the first time, reaching a high of $64,000 on Wednesday. Despite the price nearing historical highs, analysts believe this bull market is far from peaking.

Bitcoin is expected to set a historical highest closing price at the end of the month. To achieve this goal, it needs to break through $61,357 before the end of this month, which is the closing price from October 2021, close to the peak of the previous bull market cycle. As of the time of writing, the trading price of Bitcoin is around $61,200.

The cryptocurrency market performed strongly overall in February, with the CoinDesk 20 index rising over 40%. Among them, UNI from Uniswap, FIL from Filecoin, and DOGE from Dogecoin all saw a rise greater than Bitcoin.

Despite the fact that Bitcoin prices are nearing historical highs, some analysts remain optimistic about its further rise potential. Galaxy Research Director Alex Thorn believes that the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF is a "game changer" that provides stable and accelerated demand for Bitcoin. Meanwhile, about 75% of Bitcoin supply is held by long-term holders who have not yet sold at recent price levels.

IntoTheBlock analysts point out that the on-chain transaction volume on the Bitcoin network and retail interest in Crypto Assets remain well below previous peak levels. Swissblock analysts indicate that sustained buying pressure and strong bullish signals from technical indicators suggest that Bitcoin is likely to continue its upward momentum.

Weekly Protocol Recommendation: OpSec

OpSec is a decentralized physical infrastructure network utilizing AI technology ( DePIN ) cloud computing platform. It aims to address the issues arising from the centralization of traditional internet infrastructure, providing secure, efficient, and decentralized cloud computing solutions.

OpSec mainly provides the following services:

1. OpSec Cloudverse: includes Nodes, VPS, and GPU, used for deploying and managing nodes, performing computations, etc.

2. OpSec Network: A Layer 1 network that combines AI and modular architecture, employing POS and POC(proof of cloud) consensus mechanism.

3. CloudSec: A routing device that improves online privacy and security using a decentralized network architecture.

The native token of OpSec, $OPSEC, will be issued on Ethereum, with a total supply of 100 million coins, primarily used for network staking, paying transaction fees, node operation rewards, and governance voting.

As a representative project in the AI + DePIN track, OpSec has a broad development space in the field of decentralized cloud computing. It has currently established partnerships with multiple public chains and launched the V2 test version, continuously expanding its market influence.

Weekly VC Investment Focus

1. Octav: A free, anonymous, and editable DeFi data analysis platform that has raised $4 million in funding.

2. BounceBit: Native BTC staking chain, raised $6 million in funding.

3. READYgg: Builds social gaming infrastructure for Web3 creator economy, raises $4 million in funding.

Protocol Event

• Worldcoin token price fell by 5% due to Musk suing OpenAI.
• Delta upgrade reduces transaction fees on the Optimism ecosystem chain
• StarkWare releases a new open-source zero-knowledge prover Stwo
• SynFutures launched V3 version on the Blast mainnet and introduced a points program
• Robinhood Wallet integrates Arbitrum for token exchange

Industry Update

• Nigeria reportedly demands a compensation of $10 billion from a trading platform.
• A certain asset management company's Bitcoin ETF assets under management have surpassed 10 billion USD.
• The Bank for International Settlements released global stablecoin regulatory recommendations.
• The total locked value of decentralized lending has exceeded 30 billion US dollars for the first time since mid-2022.
• Eight state attorneys general in the United States jointly challenge the SEC's authority in a lawsuit involving a certain trading platform.

Important Events Next Week

• March 4: Global Services PMI Announcement
• March 5: ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI released
• March 6: Bank of Canada interest rate decision
• March 7: US Initial Jobless Claims figures released
• March 8: U.S. Non-Farm Payroll Report Released

This week, the overall crypto market shows a positive trend, with Bitcoin standing out particularly. With the continuous influence of various favorable factors, the market is expected to maintain its rising momentum. However, investors still need to remain vigilant and pay attention to various macroeconomic data and regulatory developments.