Market Recap — Jan 12, 2022
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Inflation numbers today told a similar story: inflation is still here. Most risk assets were bid today on the news, including BTC, so I’m still looking for BTC to reach the range EQ. I’d expect some chop around the low of the previous range at $45,750. Given we still have an inefficiency to fill just above the range high between $52,000 and $53,000, I want to say we test that area before looking for shorts, but I also expect a second test of the range lows. Plan for now is to take some profits at EQ and move stops up to the previous range low just in case.
QCP Note
QCP was out with their note today and again argued that the decrease in ETH implied vol is structural, but more importantly, that the options market has now reached sufficient size that it is now impacting spot markets.
Cronje
Andre Cronje is launching a new project that reimagines the AMM and puts the protocols first, instead of liquidity providers. It’s fascinating the watch the progression of AMMs as they have matured and specialized in different segments and features. As Andre describes it:
Current AMMs are primarily for LPs, this is natural because when most AMMs launched, token incentives did not exist. Today, AMMs are primarily for projects, either through token incentives, bootstrapping liquidity, or even protocol owned liquidity. Other protocols are the new AMM users.
Taking the best parts of other protocols to create something new one of the qualities that makes this space special. The lack of walled gardens, trade secrets, IP, etc allows developers to continually build and improve, leveraging the work of others along the way. This is exactly what Andre has done with Curves, which combines the AMM model with the Curve “voting escrowed” token and the game theory of rebase tokens to come up with something entirely new. Since Curves is built to better serve the protocols that rely on AMMs for liquidity, its tokens will only be available to those protocols. However, if you’re looking for a way to play it, it is likely as simple as holding FTM, which will benefit from the enormous attention Andre is creating on Fantom, or pick up K3PR, which some speculate will benefit as well.
Edit 1/17/22 — In the original version I wrote the name of the Cronje project was “Curves.” However, this is not confirmed and this post was corrected to reflect this.
