L1 Tokens Surge; Stargate Finance Accrues Huge TVL

Chart of the Day





On Thursday, the broader crypto market continued its rally on the back of speculations that BTC would be accepted as a hard currency alternative to oil and other natural resources. Accordingly, the largest cryptocurrency by market cap managed to climb above the $44k handle to reach a three-week high (as of the time of writing) after rising by 2.6% from 24 hours ago. Many large institutions' BTC accumulation plans, including that of the Luna Foundation Guard's (LFG) intention to acquire a total of $10 billion worth of BTC in the long-term, are definitely piling onto the immense buying pressure that the market is currently experiencing, with said buying pressure likely to buoy BTC up further in the near-term. This surge in spot demand is echoed within the futures market too, as there has been a substantial jump in open interest for BTC contracts in recent times.  In a similar vein, ETH is currently (as of the time of writing) looking for support above the $3,100 level after posting a 2.9% gain in the last 24 hours. Several Layer 1 altcoins seem to be faring even better than these top-ranked cryptocurrencies. For instance, SOL and ALGO both saw their values rise by more than 8% within a similar timeline. Finally, some on-chain data points are suggesting that many derivatives-driven exchanges are absorbing BTC's circulating supply, while a high futures-to-spot volume ratio also hints at a shift in the extant market structure to one that is primarily driven by speculative trades. 



Talk of the Town





Stargate Finance, a multi-chain bridge on the LayerZero protocol that is touted as the first to solve "the bridging trilemma" and that was only launched less than a week ago, has already accrued more than $2 billion in total value locked (TVL). Stargate's rapidly growing TVL can be attributed to its unparalleled incentives programs for stablecoin deposits, with some of said programs offering up to 26% APY. The $2 billion worth of liquidity is currently spread across a few major networks including Ethereum, Avalanche, Polygon, and Fantom.