22nd Edition

This week in The Flippening, TL;DR

This top crypto outshone both BTC and ETH this year; still looking good. Steady rise in Bitcoin wallets signals interesting times for the top crypto. DeFi tokens’ merry ride continues despite the rusty performance of the top cryptocurrencies. Coin of the week, market performance, decoding gaming guilds and the premise of massive wealth around gaming, top Coin Sets, and more.

Top Highlights of the Week (ending 31st Dec)

The native exchange token that outperformed BTC and ETH in 2021

The performance of the top cryptocurrencies by market cap is usually benchmarked against Bitcoin and Ether. Binance Coin, the native token of Binance, went up around 1300% in 2021, rising to the third largest crypto by market cap. In comparison, Bitcoin rose 65%, and Ether rose more than 400%.

It was on the back of the massive developments surrounding the Binance Smart Chain (BSC). The BSC supports smart contracts for use in decentralized finance and other applications.

Nearly 1 million Bitcoin wallet addresses created in November

While the largest cryptocurrency was in the news for most of 2021, many investors ditched the top dog and went towards the rising altcoins that ruled the market this year. But what comes as a good news for Bitcoin, nearly 1 million new entrants joined the Bitcoin network in November, as reported by on-chain analyst On-Chain College.

This can be a sign of retail investors returning to the network and preparing for a significant move towards the token. But many analysts have also pointed out that retail interest in Bitcoin has depleted for some months now, and this may not be a sign of retail investors returning.

DeFi tokens riding the holiday mania despite the slump across the other top cryptos

With institutional activity dropping massively during this holiday week, the top cryptocurrencies saw largely range-bound movement. However, the DeFi tokens were on steroids.

SUSHI is the native token of the decentralized exchange, SushiSwap, which initiated the rally across the sector. The other tokens that gained big were FTM, AAVE, OSMO (token of the COSMOS based DEX Osmosis), and UNI.

With the adoption in DeFi steadily growing, and the NFT market booming, it should not come as a surprise if the DeFi continue their merry ride into the new year.

Other Highlights:

• MicroStrategy purchases another 1,914 Bitcoin, taking its total holding to nearly $6B: Read it here
• Polygon patches a vulnerability that had put $24 billion in MATIC at risk: Read it here
• BlockbusterDAO wants to raise $5 million in NFT sales to buy Blockbuster: Read it here
• Collector loses Bored Apes NFT worth $1.9 million, OpenSea steps in to help: Read it here

Market Performance

Note: Market updates till Dec 31, 09:00 hrs UTC.

The Christmas rush has dropped down, and after a week of impressive rallies, top cryptocurrencies ended the week and year with minimal corrections. Bitcoin suffered a drop of over 5%, and Ethereum (7%), Binance Coin (4%), Solana (7%), and Cardano (5%) also witnessed notable drops.

Note: Sector wise updates till Dec 31, 09:00 hrs UTC.

After witnessing significant profits last week, it was the turn of going red this week. While Decentralized Exchanges witnessed a minute growth of less than 1% and DeFi nearly cloned its last week status, Smart Contracts (5%), Web3 (3%) and Currencies (6%) all went down significantly. This correction was expected, and may even continue in the first week of the new year.

While 2021 was phenomenal for cryptocurrencies and all major sectors, 2022 is going to be even bigger. Why not start the new year with investment in ideas you believe in. Rather than investing in a single crypto token, choose expert-curated crypto baskets based on the top ideas and themes. Mudrex Coin Sets  let you invest in your favourite sector in a few clicks!

Coin of the week

COSMOS: $ATOM

COSMOS' native token, ATOM, is on a steady rise backed by multiple developments in the DeFi sector. Moreover, Umee is a Cosmos-inspired DeFi platform. For its Coinlist public sale, it received nearly one million unique applicants and 63,000 total contributors. It managed to raise $32 million with its token sale.

COSMOS strives to make the blockchain technology simpler for developers building the decentralized framework. The noble goal by the network to be an inter blockchain Communication protocol makes it easier for blockchain networks to communicate with each other — preventing fragmentation in the industry.

TIL: Crypto gaming guilds and how the landowners of the metaverse can be more profitable than the games themselves?

Play to earn cryptocurrency games have seen an explosive growth this year. The same could be seen in the rise of prices across the tokens such as AXS of Axie Infinity and MANA of Decentraland. The popularity of these games and the demand for them pushed the token prices high.

Although these tokens are still looking strong, we have historically observed that most games have an initial explosive period, and then the interest wanes out.

With cryptocurrency gaming guilds, the situation is totally different. A crypto gaming guild is meant to serve as a platform to support new and existing gamers. One of the biggest advantages to crypto gaming guilds is that crypto gaming guilds do not rise and fall with the game. Perhaps that is why major VC funds such as Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), DeFiance Capital and Pantera Capital are looking beyond crypto games themselves to the co-ops of the metaverse.

Game guilds provide gamers with the necessary funds and tools to experience a growing roster of “play-to-earn” titles – all in exchange for a cut of players’ earnings. Here’s an example: Because buying an Axie on the popular crypto game Axie Infinity can be quite expensive, some guild users are willing to put some of their earnings toward renting in-game assets from the guild.

Think of the play to earn cryptocurrency games and their native tokens as a speculative asset with huge chances of either rising in value or tanking. Gaming guilds can be thought of as the blue chips of the gaming crypto universe. These would serve as the fundamental pillars of the industry. Yield Guild Games recently received a funding of $22.4 million and GuildFi raised a $6 million seed round.

Some of the most successful crypto gaming guilds have their own tokens. YGG or Yield Guild Games is the most successful crypto guild now. GuildFi and Merit Circle are some of the other popular ones. With a market capitalization of just above $450 million for YGG, the potential for growth of these tokens remains massive.

Featured - Top Coin Sets For The New Year

As 2021 comes to an end, it is safe to say that the year was filled with remarkable performances, both from individual tokens and major sectors. While 2022 is just round the corner, here are our picks for the top Coin Sets you should definitely watch out for in 2022.

NFT: NFTs were a hit in 2021, and you can expect NFT platforms to be at the forefront of growth in 2022. The NFT Coin Set contains the most promising NFT tokens.

Metaverse: The Metaverse might become mammoth in 2022, and this crypto basket will ensure that you are ready for it. The Coin Set contains the top projects working to build the Metaverse.‍

New Crypto Stars: It was the year of new crypto stars, where tokens such as DOGE & SHIB took the world by storm. This Coin Set contains promising new tokens that might be big guns in future.

Invest in Coin Sets‍

Here we are, at the end of our 22nd edition, coinciding with the upcoming new year ‘22.

We hope you liked reading it. Please write back with your feedback, comments, and stuff that you’d like us to include in the newsletter. As the year comes to an end, we want to thank everyone for giving a stellar response to both Mudrex and the Flippening. We hope it continues and grows in 2022 as well.