MARKET WRAP

1. Cryptos Slide Heavily After Successful Ethereum Merge. Was It All for Naught?

CoinDesk – September 18, 2022 at 8:40pm EST

Crypto

After a successful Ethereum Merge, Ether ($ETH) sinks suddenly to its lowest price of around $1346, matching bearish price levels from this past July. Other major cryptos, bitcoin and altcoins included, also tumble in the midst of macroeconomic forces.

Insights

Market conditions at the macroeconomic level appear to have had a far more pernicious effect on investor behavior and price action than the Merge’s expected auspice. After the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index (CPI) reading came out higher than expected, risk-on assets already began to sink earlier in the week. In the midst of this, investors who loaded up on $ETH leading up to the merge cashed out on short-term gains en masse, resulting in a price drop exceeding 10% for the week. 

Equities

Stocks were not any prettier, with the Nasdaq, S&P 500, and DJIA all falling more than 4%. On top of that, multiple headlines such as those by FedEx, Goldman Sachs, and GE all point toward a reduction in their labor forces as well as supply chain issues.

Takeaways

In the aftermath of a theoretically “perfect” Ethereum Merge, the market looks dismal at best, and some wonder if this was an appropriate time to enact the PoS transition in the first place. The high-interest rate market environment seems like it will only get worse this week with the coming FOMC meeting in the mid-week, where a full 1%, or 100 basis point, rate hike is expected. 

2. The South Korean Court Issues Arrest Warrant for Terra Co-Founder Do Kwon

CoinDesk – September 14, 2022 at 11:36am EST

According to the financial crimes unit of the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office in South Korea, a South Korean court has issued an arrest warrant for Do Kwon and his four previous partners of Terraform Labs. The warrant comes four months after the “Black Swan” event in which Terra’s ecosystem imploded, resulting in the loss of $40 billion dollars.

Most recently, after months of silence, Do Kwon tweeted, “I am not on the run or anything similar,” but since the warrant’s issuance, Singapore, where Kwon was last known to have been residing, indicated that he was not present in the city-state. According to the Singaporean government, the Singapore Police Force (SPF) has promised to collaborate with the Korean National Police Agency (KNPA) to obtain Kwon.

3. Binance Partners with Ukrainian Supermarket VARUS to Accept Binance Pay Wallet Transactions

CoinTelegraph – September 16, 2022

Binance has announced the start of its collaboration with Ukrainian supermarket chain VARUS, which has locations in nine major cities, including Kyiv, Dnipro, Kamianske, Kryvyi Rih, Zaporizhzhia, Brovary, Nikopol, Vyshhorod, and Pavlograd. In total, the supermarket chain is among the largest in the country, with over 111 stores across 28 distinct cities within the nation.

The new partnership will enable all frequenters to use cryptocurrency to purchase groceries using the Binance Pay Wallet. The initiative follows in the footsteps of other crypto payment services, but the introduction of Binance in the country remains a pivotal event that shows Ukraine’s quickly growing status as a Web3 hub, even in the midst of conflict. 

4. Sandbox Expands its Metaverse to Include “Dubaiverse”

Forkast News – September 16, 2022 at 5:56am EST

Animoca Brand’s Sandbox has announced a new initiative to take its Hong Kong metaverse strategy to the Dubai market by launching, “Dubaiverse”. The new Dubai-themed metaverse mimics the blueprint of “Mega City,” a gaming metaverse modeled after Hong Kong.

The Dubaiverse is the next city-inspired metaverse that Sandbox has planned, and its infrastructure will be bolstered primarily by local partnerships with various businesses native to Dubai. Among these are the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), Dubai’s crypto regulatory body, GCEX, a digital brokerage firm, as well as Khaleej Times, a local news organization.

Animoca Brands intends to collaborate with many firms moving forward, tapping into film, music, acting, finance, real estate, and gaming industries. The corporation also intends to build other location-based metaverses, including Singapore, Korea, and Turkey. 

5. Scammer Swaps Mutant Ape with a Fake

Twitter – September 18, 2022 at 10:29am EST

A Mutant Ape NFT holder going by the Twitter username “LakeShowTJ” was recently scammed of the asset by another user via Sudoswap, a decentralized NFT trading platform. The hacker who previously went by the Twitter username “Leoxxx_eth” reached out to LakeshowTJ to offer an NFT swap in addition to a payment of 0.5 $ETH.

According to LakeShowTJ, the scammer set up a trade on SudoSwap, and offered a bogus Mutant Ape #55 in exchange for LakeShowTJ’s verified Mutant Ape #21080. Per his announcement on Twitter, all the information of the listing looked legitimate, including the $WETH he received, but he neglected to check that the bogus NFT was minted only the day before.

Not long after, his authentic NFT was flipped on the market for approximately $18,100 (13.5 $ETH), pocketing the hacker a tidy $17,500 profit.

6. BlockSec Unveils Hack On Ethereum PoW Chain

Twitter – September 18, 2022 at 5:40am EST

An exploiter has made his way to the legacy Ethereum PoW blockchain and replicated a “calldata” function from the Ethereum PoS chain. Initially, the hacker transferred 200 $WETH via the omnichain of the Gnosis Bridge, and then replayed the message on the PoW chain, resulting in an additional 200 $WETH.

This hack is highly repeatable, thus posing a significant risk to the smart contract deployed on the PoW chain by draining its supply, and decreasing the price of the token.