Q9 Weekly | The Great Reset

5 min readJan 12, 2023

12 January 2023

· Strong weekly gains across crypto markets, alt-coins lead

· Activity on Solana rebounds

· The best new year predictions for 2023

After a month of muted trading and crushed volatility, the crypto market roared back this week, as small-caps and alt-coins rallied, outperforming BTC (+6.4%) and ETH (+10.5%). GALA (+114%), AVAX (+32%), MANA (+26%), APE (+23%), SOL (+22%), ADA (+21%), and SAND (+21%) were notable weekly movers.

Various Tokens, %, 1 Month

Source: TradingView

Three-month BTC futures listed on the CME (widely considered a proxy for institutional activity) are currently drawing a premium over the BTC spot price for the first time since FTX went bust. The renewed premium indicates that institutional activity is no longer concentrated on the short side.

Financial conditions in the US have also eased for the first time since April, contradicting the Fed’s restrictive policy stance aimed at controlling inflation. The latest easing shows the markets are not buying the Fed’s narrative that interest rates will be raised above 5% and held there for a long time.

Source: Bloomberg

Sol Survivor

Daily activity on Solana has increased 3x pre-FTX levels, suggesting rumours of its death are greatly exaggerated.

Source: Messari

After being down almost 95% from its lofty all-time high of $259, Solana experienced a recent bounce of ~100% from the lows of ~$8.25 to hover above $16 at the time of writing.

Despite FTX/Alameda’s exit stage left, the Solana ecosystem still has a network of builders, an ecosystem of applications, and a war chest of capital, as strong as almost any other L1. Solana rallied strongly on the back of these drivers as investors rediscovered fundamentals over the Christmas holiday. It is certainly an open question as to how sticky this new level of volume is however, at the very least, a consistent level of volume with FTX exiting the ecosystem is a positive sign.

Barry vs the Winkelvi

The public spat between Barry Silbert (DCG) and the Winklevoss Twins (Gemini) continues full steam, with Gemini terminating its flagship Earn program requiring Genesis to return all locked-up assets. Cameron Winklevoss claims that DCG, Genesis and Barry Silbert owe the firm $900mn and have defrauded the exchange alongside more than 340,000 Gemini Earn users.

On Tuesday, Cameron Winklevoss demanded the removal of Barry Silbert as CEO of DCG in a new open letter. DCG called the letter a “desperate and unconstructive publicity stunt”. Barry responded and laid out a rebuke of the accusations made by Cameron in an open letter to shareholders. The letter surprisingly makes no mention of the fact that DCG/Genesis owes Gemini Earn users over $900mn and isn’t paying up.

Sector Scalebacks

Crypto companies are being forced to cut large parts of their workforces to weather the downturn in the market. In November, Kraken announced it was laying off 30% of staff, and this year Huobi and Coinbase said they would cut 20% of their workforces. Job losses have already been announced this year at Silvergate bank and Genesis, whilst ConsenSys will let go of around 100 employees.

However, Binance is planning a 15%-30% hiring spree in 2023 even as rivals slash jobs. Binance had already increased head count in 2022 from 3,000 people to “almost” 8,000.

New Year, New Me

As is tradition at the start of every year, firms have been laying out their predictions for the year to come. We’ve selected below some of the best 2023 reports and predictions covering CeFi, DeFi, policy, Bitcoin, Layer-1s, NFTs, DAOs, Web3, infrastructure, and more:

· Messari: report here

· Coinbase: report here

· Pantera Capital: report here

· New Order DAO: report here

· Huobi Research: report here

· Binance: report here

· Delphi Digital: report here

· Cointelegraph: report here

· CoinDesk: report here

· The Block: report here

· Bloomberg: report here

· Forbes: report here

· Saxo Bank: report here

· PwC: report here

· Accenture: report here

The dramatic events of 2022 will shape the crypto landscape for years to come. After the wild euphoria of 2021, the industry has come back down to earth. Markets have tanked, industry giants have fallen, and global regulatory headwinds are picking up.

Still, there is a lot to be excited about…

The Ethereum “Merge” was the tech equivalent of the Moon Landing, and it went off without a hitch. We’ve seen exciting leaps forward in scalability solutions, DeFi, NFTs, DAOs, and other sectors of the crypto economy… and macro forces might re-emerge as a tailwind for BTC in 2023.

Digital asset selection will likely transition towards higher quality names based on factors like sustainable tokenomics, the maturity of respective ecosystems, and market liquidity.

Institutional crypto adoption remains firmly entrenched. Many investors and financial service firms take a long-term perspective and recognize the cyclical nature of these markets. Rather than stepping back, they are using this environment to build infrastructure and prepare for the future. The next market cycle in digital assets will be shaped in significant part by the development of standards and frameworks for these regulated entities.

2023 presents an opportunity to reset and create a better, safer and more sustainable blockchain ecosystem. Achieving the right balance between consumer protection and innovation will inevitably mean working closely within the industry and with policymakers across jurisdictions.

In the News…

· FTX advisers have found $5bn cash and liquid crypto

· Most banks’ crypto efforts undeterred despite choppy waters

· Hong Kong set to shortlist crypto tokens for retail trading

· Dubai Free Zone now home to more than 500 crypto startups

· Five UK associations form crypto alliance to steer digital asset regulation

· AWS partners with Avalanche to scale blockchain solutions for enterprises, governments

· Indonesia plans to launch its own crypto exchange

· Israel’s financial regulator proposes crypto inclusion to securities law

· Mango Markets exploiter Eisenberg arrested in Puerto Rico

· Core Scientific increases BTC production

· Pharmacies in Ukraine are embracing digital payments