This Week in Signal Teams - Solana, Avalanche, IOTA
Every week we comb through hundreds of FTX Signals to bring you the most significant team updates with brief analyses to help you understand the latest developments in blockchain.
Macro Crypto News This Week
Ethereum’s Final Proof-of-Stake ‘test merge’ is Live on Goerli
Blackrock Launches Private Spot Bitcoin Trust for Institutional Clients
30M Users Can Now Buy Bitcoin via Brazilian Payments App PicPay
Mercado Libre to Enable 38 Million New Users to Buy Bitcoin
Major US Broker IB Now Allows Customers to Trade Bitcoin 24/7
Top FTX Signals This Week
Solana Releases Validator Health Report with Over 3,400 Validators
Avalanche Core Browser Extension Adds Support for Ethereum
IOTA Announces the Shimmer Beta Network is Live
Solana Releases Validator Health Report with Over 3,400 Validators
“This week the Solana Foundation released its first report on the health of the permissionless Solana Validator Network.”
— Austin Federa, Head of Communications, Solana Labs
Summary
Some of the metrics the Solana Foundation looks at to assess the health of the network include: Total Validator Count, Nakamoto Coefficient, Distribution.
The network is now a network of over 3,400 validators across six continents, including over 1,900 consensus nodes — with an average of 95 new consensus nodes and 99 RPC nodes joining the network every month since June 2021.
The Nakamoto Coefficient is 31. This means the lowest number of validators that would have to collude to censor the network is 31. This number has grown steadily since launch in March 2020 and continues to rise. Its growth is a key indicator of the health of the network and it is the highest of any of the major PoS networks.
In terms of distribution, Germany has the highest percentage of validators at 21% and the United States has 20%. This compares to 45% of Ethereum miners operating in the United States.
Significance
These improving statistics help to address concerns about Solana being overly centralized and could lead to more traction with users and investors.
Price at the time of FTX Signal: $42.95. View SOL on FTX.
Avalanche Core Browser Extension Adds Support for Ethereum
“After adding support for all EVM chains, Core has become the first and most feature-filled Web3 Command Center.”
— Kyle Dineen, Social Media Director
Summary
Core, the free non-custodial Web3 browser extension recently launched by Ava Labs, now supports all blockchains that run the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) as well as custom Avalanche Subnets.
Core puts users in control of all cross-chain assets and collectibles, and makes their favorite Web3 dApps, projects and communities across networks easily accessible in a single venue that’s intuitive and easy to use.
Specific new features that help set a new standard in Web3 user experience include: Compatibility with Ethereum, Support for Customized Subnets, and Fast Switching.
This week Avalanche also announced that with CurateDAO’s launch on Avalanche, users can now discover and create Pinterest-like boards.
Significance
This launch makes Web3 more accessible for those new to crypto and delivers on the UX standards Web2.
Price at the time of FTX Signal: $27.66. View AVAX on FTX.
IOTA Announces the Shimmer Beta Network is Live
“The Stardust protocol upgrade recently hit the Shimmer Beta Network. It is the start of our multi-asset ledger. Join us in the adventure!”
— Thabata Dias, Social Media Manager
Summary
The Stardust protocol upgrade debuts on the first open, public testnet: the Shimmer Beta Network. Try out the new client and wallet libraries, mint your own tokens and NFTs with the command line wallet or browse the network via the new explorer.
Once sufficiently tested, the Shimmer network, including the $SMR token, will be launched.
Shimmer is a Layer (L1) network that together with IOTA is building a new ledger architecture, which will become the foundational layer for new scalable and composable decentralized economies.
Building on IOTA’s parallelized DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) ledger known as the “Tangle”, the protocol will be upgraded through a series of releases that will add new features such as native tokenization, output types, Layer 2 smart contract networks, and (eventually) full decentralization through a leaderless consensus algorithm.
Significance
This marks a significant step towards the launch of the Shimmer network. The Stardust upgrade, which enables tokenization and smart contract chain deployment (including EVM compatibility and WASM) on the base protocol, opens up previously unforeseen levels of utility on the Tangle.
Price at the time of FTX Signal: $0.35. View IOTA on FTX.
Quotes of the Week:
“We are still seeing “substantial interest” from institutional clients for Bitcoin.”
— $10 Trillion BlackRock
“Bitcoin will likely transition to a risk-off asset by end of 2022.”
— Bloomberg Intelligence
Chart of the Week:
Hash ribbons can be used as a metric to quantify miner capitulation. We have passed day 66 of the miner capitulation, which have historically marked bottoms for the Bitcoin price. The 30 day moving average of hash rate crossing below the 60 day moving average indicates that miners with old-generation/less efficient machines and/or high power costs are turning their machines off.
The chart below shows that we are not out of the woods yet, but with the 30-day moving average bouncing slightly this week, it is possible that the capitulation could be over very soon.
Thanks for joining us and we look forward to bringing you our top FTX Signals again next week.
Jason Hamlin
Ecosystem Insights @ FTX
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