Crypto Index Tracker: Metaverse Suffers Most in Crypto Quake
- By Bilal Hafeez and Dalvir Mandara
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- 2 min read
Despite some stabilisation over the past twenty-four hours, crypto markets are down meaningfully over the past week. This has come in the context of weak tech stocks and nervousness over Fed hikes. But there has been some divergence across crypto markets. Bitcoin has been one of the more resilient coins and is down ‘only’ 14% at $36K (Charts 1 and 2).
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Despite some stabilisation over the past twenty-four hours, crypto markets are down meaningfully over the past week. This has come in the context of weak tech stocks and nervousness over Fed hikes. But there has been some divergence across crypto markets. Bitcoin has been one of the more resilient coins and is down ‘only’ 14% at $36K (Charts 1 and 2). Ethereum has underperformed bitcoin, but other crypto markets have performed even worse. Our DeFi and Smart Contract Indexes are down 28% each, while the Metaverse Index is down a whopping 33% on the week.
In terms of the breakdown within each index:
- Smart Contract Platform Index. All coins are down on the week. Cardano (ADA) has dropped the most at 35.1% followed by Solana (SOL) at 34.4%. Ethereum is down 24.5%.
- DeFi Index. All coins are also down on the week. Uniswap (UNI) fell the most at 36.1% followed by Aave (AAVE) at 33.4%.
- Metaverse Index. Large declines across the board. Gala (GALA) is currently down the most at a staggering 40% followed by The Sandbox (SAND) at 35.4%.
- Bitcoin. This is down the least at 14.1% on the week.
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. But we also include rivals: Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA) and Avalanche (AVAX). 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. One of the largest is this space is Axie Infinity (AXS), which is a play-to-earn gaming platform. Another is Decentraland (MANA), which is a virtual world that allows ownership of land amongst other things. The three other coins we include are Sandbox (SAND), Enjin Coin (CNJ) and Gala (GALA).
- Decentralised Finance (DeFi): financial services built on top of blockchain networks with no central intermediaries. This can be a very broad category, so we narrow this down to platforms that focus on lending and borrowing or to yield farming. The five coins we have selected are Aave (AAVE), Maker (MKR), Compound (COMP), Uniswap (UNI), and PancakeSwap (CAKE).
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.