The Fed initiated its first hiking cycle since 2015 last week. The added clarity around the future hikes looks to have been a positive stimulus with risk markets including crypto rallying on the news. The moves are also likely influenced by more institutional adoption with Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates (the world’s largest hedge fund) reportedly preparing to invest in crypto.
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The Fed initiated its first hiking cycle since 2015 last week. The added clarity around the future hikes looks to have been a positive stimulus with risk markets including crypto rallying on the news. The moves are also likely influenced by more institutional adoption with Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates (the world’s largest hedge fund) reportedly preparing to invest in crypto.
As for specific performance, all major coins are in the green. Our DeFi Index and our Smart Contract Index are up the most at 14% and 12% each, respectively (Charts 1 and 2). Next, our Metaverse Index and Privacy Index are both up around 10% each. Bitcoin is up 4% and ethereum is outperforming at the time of writing.
- Smart Contract Platform Index: Avalanche (AVAX) is up the most at 26% and Terra (LUNA) is up the least at 2%. Ethereum (ETH) is up 12%.
- DeFi Index: Aave (AAVE) is up the most at 31% and Terra (LUNA) is up the least at 2%.
- Metaverse Index: Terra Virtua Kolect (TVK) is up the most at 20% and Aavegotchi (GHST) is up the least at 2%.
- Privacy Index: Dash (DASH) is up the most at 25% and Secret (SEC) is up the least at 2%.
- Bitcoin: This is up 4%.
What Are in the Four Indices?
Here are the indices in more detail:
- Bitcoin: the OG of crypto markets deserves its own category and is in many ways the true benchmark for any other crypto market.
- Smart contract platforms: after bitcoin, the big innovation was to have blockchains that were more programmable. These could host smart contracts or decentralised applications and have allowed the emergence of the metaverse and defi. Ethereum (ETH) is the most popular version of a smart contract platform. As well as ethereum, we also include some key competitors. The constituents of this index are: Ethereum (ETH), Cardano (ADA), Avalanche (AVAX), Solana (SOL), Fantom (FTM), VeChain (VET), Terra (LUNA), EOS (EOS), and Chainlink (LINK). We also include Polkadot (DOT) which allows interoperability between blockchains and the use of smart contracts via parachains.
- Metaverse: coins associated with the creation of a virtual space/digital world on the internet using a combination of augmented reality, virtual reality, and social networks. The constituents of this index are Axie Infinity (AXS), The Sandbox (SAND), Decentraland (MANA), Enjin Coin (ENJ), Aavegotchi (GHST), Terra Virtua Kolect (TVK), Ultra (UOS), Phantasma (SOUL), RedFOX Labs (RFOX), and Gala (GALA).
- Decentralised Finance (DeFi): financial services built on top of blockchain networks with no central intermediaries. This can be a broad category, so we narrow this down to platforms that focus on lending/borrowing, yield farming, automated market making and decentralised exchange tokens. The constituents of this index are: Aave (AAVE), Compound (COMP), Uniswap (UNI), Yearn.finance (YFI), Loopring (LRC), PancakeSwap (CAKE), Maker (MKR), 1inch (1INCH), Thorchain (RUNE), and Terra (LUNA).
- Privacy Coins: coins that obscure transactions on the blockchain to maintain the anonymity of its users and their activity. The constituents of this index are Monero (XMR), Zcash (ZEC), Dash (DASH), Verge (XVG), Horizen (ZEN), Beam (BEAM), Secret (SCRT), Decred (DCR), Keep Network (KEEP), and Dusk Network (DUSK).
Dalvir Mandara is a Quantitative Researcher at Macro Hive. Dalvir has a BSc Mathematics and Computer Science and an MSc Mathematical Finance both from the University of Birmingham. His areas of interest are in the applications of machine learning, deep learning and alternative data for predictive modelling of financial markets.
Bilal Hafeez is the CEO and Editor of Macro Hive. He spent over twenty years doing research at big banks – JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, and Nomura, where he had various “Global Head” roles and did FX, rates and cross-markets research.
I think the bridgewater move is huge!
Insane climb by AAVE! Had also bought some Dash on the back of you guys adding in privacy coins to your index, so thanks for that 🙂
look for a short