GM Anon! Welcome to the M6 Labs report, your weekly data-driven recap of major market events. Packed with actionable insights, our aim is to help you maximize your profits. Whether you're a Bitcoin maximalist, NFT enthusiast, or user of esoteric DeFi protocols, there's valuable information here for you to capitalize on. With the market heating up, let's dive right in without further ado!

*This is just a preview of our Crypto Market Pulse report, be sure to check out the full version of this report here. 

Alpha Take

State Of The Market

Industry

• The UK economy had officially fallen into recession, while the United States grapples with higher-than-expected inflation rates. 
• The unseasonally adjusted CPI annual rate for January was reported at 3.1%, exceeding expectations and leading analysts to reconsider the timing of potential interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. 
• Fed Chair Powell emphasized the importance of a Stablecoin Bill during discussions with House Democrats, indicating a regulatory focus on stablecoins.
• Meanwhile, Japan has taken steps to curb unlawful money transfers by urging banks to screen crypto transfers. 
• In response to illicit activities, the US Treasury has introduced new tools to counter such behavior, signaling increased regulatory scrutiny in the crypto space.
• On the investment front, Founders Fund, led by Peter Thiel, reportedly invested $200M in Bitcoin and Ethereum last year, highlighting growing institutional interest in crypto. 
• Ripple's plans to acquire digital asset platform Standard Custody and Ledger's integration with Coinbase Pay to provide direct access for users to buy and sell crypto further demonstrate the expanding ecosystem.
• Glenlivet Distillery has innovated by introducing Ethereum NFTs and AI into its whiskey collection, blending traditional luxury with blockchain technology.
• Looking ahead, the spot ETH ETFs have key decision dates in May, with applications from Van Eck, Ark 21Shares, and Hashdex, indicating growing interest in crypto investment products. 
• Manifold Finance's proposed settlement of $300K regarding the eth.link domain dispute with the ENS DAO reflects ongoing legal developments in the space.
• Lastly, Citigroup's successful proof-of-concept for tokenizing private equity funds, in partnership with Ava Labs and other financial institutions, highlights the potential for blockchain-based solutions to transform traditional finance. 

Projects

• Magic Eden is preparing to launch a new Ethereum Marketplace on February 27th, collaborating with Yuga Labs, aiming to enhance accessibility and trading options within the Ethereum ecosystem. Now would be a good time start looking into earning Diamonds! Follow this in-depth guide.
• Aptos has introduced passwordless passkey authentication for transactions, improving security and user experience. 
• Prisma Finance has introduced $ULTRA, a sound money asset backed by Liquid Restaking Tokens (LRTs), gaining popularity in the EigenLayer ecosystem. Be sure to stake on EigenLayer for their anticipated airdrop, follow this guide.

• Conduit has made mainnet rollup deployments accessible to anyone with its permissionless deployment feature. 
• CoW DAO is addressing issues of loss versus rebalancing in DeFi with an AMM designed to capture MEV. 
• Additionally, developments include the introduction of DN-404, a rival token standard to ERC-20.
• Blast's Big Bang competition attracted 3000 teams. 
• On the gaming front, PlayDapp faced a significant breach, losing $290M worth of tokens, while Analog raised funds at a $120M valuation. 
• Copper integrated custody support for Hashnote’s USYDC stablecoin.
• Aave v3 has launched on Scroll. Speaking of Scroll, have you transferred funds to qualify for their airdrop? Their TVL is still small, indicating ample opportunity!

• Polygon introduced the Type 1 Prover, while StarkWare and Herodotus unveiled the Cairo Verifier for Layer 3 appchains. 
• Solana and Ethereum proposed improvements to transaction fee mechanisms, and LayerZero Labs explained DVNs in LayerZero V2. 
• Nibiru Chain announced a collaboration with Humanode to enhance voting and governance within the Nibiru ecosystem.
• Be sure to checkout Koii is offering an Incentivized Testnet on CoinList, aiming to accelerate the growth of their network. They are offering 200,000,000 tokens to qualifying users for their contributions.

The Stark airdrop encountered significant challenges, leading to its failure despite initial anticipation. 

• Over the course of many months, participants faced numerous issues that overshadowed the potential rewards. 
• The engagement campaign, designed to incentivize user activity, proved ineffective due to high transaction costs and lengthy processing times. 
• Additionally, liquidity provisioning, a critical component for core dapps, did not yield the expected results. Many participants found themselves disqualified for seemingly arbitrary reasons, adding to the frustration.
• Furthermore, anomalies in token distribution raised eyebrows, with some wallets receiving substantial amounts despite minimal activity. 

• Projects like Ekubo exacerbated tensions by nullifying points earned over several months, citing issues with specific strategies. Confusion also surrounded the criteria for early ETH users, leading to further disillusionment.
• Moreover, concerns about the project's focus on developer contributions surfaced as early as December, signaling underlying issues. Despite initial optimism, the stark reality of the situation prompted users to withdraw their funds and seek alternative opportunities within the crypto space.
• In response to the challenges faced, Braavos is taking steps to mitigate the disappointment with a strategic move. They are organizing a free-to-play lottery as a form of damage control, aiming to distribute 1M Stark tokens to participants. 
• This initiative provides an opportunity for community engagement while offering a chance to win tokens. To learn more and participate, check out the details here.

Bitcoin 

BTC has surged passing $52K. With the halving around the corner, billions being acquired by ETF issuers, and 70% of the supply not moving for over a year, a supply shock is imminent for BTC. This momentum is expected to propel it to new highs. Strap in, Anon, rocket is about to take off.

On February 14th, the highest amount of ETF inflows was recorded, surpassing $600 million.

Ecosystem Opportunities

• Thunderpick is hosting a Counter-Strike 2 competition with a prize pool of $1M in Bitcoin, nearly doubling last year's pot.
• Holding top Ordinals collection on Bitcoin offers rewards, with Rune Guardians being the latest collection to be airdropped to holders. Previous airdrops included RSIC, which had significant value at its peak. Individuals holding collections like NodeMonkes, Bitcoin Puppets, Bitmaps, and Bitcoin Frogs have the potential to receive such rewards.

• Tap Protocol has surpassed BRC20 in 24-hour Bitcoin Ordinals transaction activity, handling 645 transactions compared to BRC-20's 297 transactions. This surge in activity reflects a potential disruption in DeFi on the Bitcoin network. Additionally, Tap Protocol's native token, TRAC, is gaining momentum and is now closely trailing other Ordinals-related tokens in terms of market cap.

L1s, L2s & DeFi

Blue Chip and Majors Overview

Bitcoin 

Bitcoin’s price recently broke through the $50K mark as the larger crypto market holds its breath for future price movements of the world’s largest crypto. Sentiment seems positive, with Bitcoin currently trading around $52K, hitting yet another yearly peak, with its market capitalization hitting the $1T mark again, prompting many to talk about its performance in 2021. Notably, finance expert and investor Peter Schiff has stated that Bitcoin can potentially hit $100K. The crypto has registered an impressive increase of 17% over the past week, with historical accumulation trends showing that breaking past $54K could send BTC rallying to the $60K mark.

Ethereum  

Ethereum is barrelling towards the $3K mark, with the token currently trading around $2800. The crypto has seen an impressive increase of over 15% over the past week. The surge in price comes as staking deposits on the Beacon Chain hit $85B, with 25% of ETH’s circulating supply locked up in smart contracts on the Beacon Chain. Can Ethereum reclaim the coveted $3K level once again after three days?

• Solana (SOL) - Solana has continued its remarkable run of 2024, with momentum soaring so far. Regardless of the recent network shutdown, confidence in SOL has surged through the roof, with SOL registering a yearly high of $118 on the 15th of February. The past two weeks have seen SOL register an increase of 22%, with market watchers suggesting that SOL is undergoing a parabolic recovery and could test the resistance at $130 in the next few days.
• BNB (BNB) - Driven by the broader market recovery and significant bullish patterns, BNB is eying a rally above the $350 mark. BNB has registered an increase of 15.7% over the past two weeks and is currently trading at $347. If BNB sustains its current momentum, we could see the price push towards the $400 mark.
• Avalanche (AVAX) - Avalanche has made a fairly strong recovery after its recent blip in January when it dropped to $28. The fourth quarter of 2023 saw Avalanche post a significant price increase before its late January drop. The token has since registered a considerable increase and is currently trading at $43. With news of the Durango upgrade on the Fuji testnet, we could see AVAX reclaim the $50 price level.
• Bittensor (TAO) - Bittensor has been on a high since finding mention in Vitalik Buterin’s comments. However, Bittensor’s rally is also because of the impressive recovery in the altcoin markets, with Bitcoin’s recovery catalyzing gains among AI tokens and impressive developments in its ecosystem. TAO has registered a highly impressive increase of 41% over the past couple of weeks. Several other developments in the Bittensor ecosystem are also driving TAO’s rally, including significant projects such as AIT, Kizuna, Roko, and TPad.
• Kaspa (KAS) - Kaspa has made a strong recovery following a significant drop after it reached its all-time high in November 2023. By the beginning of February, the token had dropped to $0.098. However, the token has since made considerable gains and is trading at $0.139, registering a 41% increase over the past two weeks and a staggering 2010% increase over the past year. According to an analysis by Changelly, Kaspa is in for a bullish February, which could see the token capitalize on its upside momentum.
• Stacks (STX) - Stacks has emerged as one of the biggest gainers among the top cryptos, registering an impressive 27% increase over the past 24 hours, briefly hitting a 26-month high of $2.8. Several factors have contributed to this surge, such as its ability to bring smart contract functionality to Bitcoin. Another bullish indicator can be found in the Stacks DeFi ecosystem, where TVL in DeFi protocols on Stacks has surged by over 50% over the past couple of weeks.
• Sei (SEI) - After facing numerous rejections, Sei finally shattered the $0.88 resistance, setting a new all-time high of $0.997. Sei has registered a staggering increase of 53% over the past week and is looking to break past $1. 

Smart Money Movements

We've seen a strong shift towards AI tokens in smart money activity. Liquidity has been flowing into them with a strong flow.

• Smart Money has interacted heavily with $AIUS recently, which is a decentralised network of machine learning. Miners can set GPUs for it as well. The AI-powered projects that utilize GPU mining and incentivize users this way have been performing well recently.
   
• $NMT has also been among the smart money accumulations, another AI project powered by cloud computing. Users can rent their GPUs for AI use cases like image generation, machine learning, etc.
   
• Smart Money still heavily interacts with $PANDORA, still the leading token in the ERC404 narrative.
• $AIT has caught the attention of smart money as well. It's an AI data infrastructure, which is deploying a subnet on TAO.
   
• Smart Money is also detected in $PIER, a new OTC marketplace on ETH mainnet, which supports deals in an omnichain space. The $WHALES hype and success enticed smart money to get exposure to $PIER because of being in the same category and being new.

Yield Farms

• The Pendle/WETH pool on Camelot has become popular among smart farmers recently.
   
• Smart farmers have heavily staked stETH on MorpheusAI for farming their fair launch, which is liquidity mining in fact.
• Restaking ETH on Kelp Dao is still popular among smart farmers.

NFTs

Quick Tasks

• Mint a free Bera Red Envelope NFT here
• Start trading NFTs from your Phone with Zaa 
• Mint a Penny Base free NFT
• Biconomy (BICO) launches Blast Inscription Campaign until February 19th. Participants mint free inscriptions on Blast and complete quests on Galxe to earn points.
• bitsCrunch (BCUT) is offering a free NFT mint on February 16th. Users can join the whitelist by completing Gleam tasks. Previously, BCUT raised $3.3M in a CoinList token sale at a $55M valuation. The token will be listed on February 20th. 
• Follow this thread for the confirmed $CAT airdrop!

Aether Games is launching its Initial Distribution Offering for the $AEG token on Polkastarter, heralding a gaming revolution that merges traditional gaming with blockchain technology. 

• The project, positioned in the Web3 Gaming & Transmedia Entertainment sector, boasts unique selling points including decades of Hollywood connections and a flagship product, the Aether Trading Card Game (Cards of Eternity). 
• The $AEG token, along with its presale version $wAEG, will power the entire Aether Trading Ecosystem, facilitating tokenization of in-game assets, multi-stage card awakening, crafting, disenchantment, esports rewards, and more. 
• Read about the IDO here.
• Keep an eye out on the Polkastarter page here. 

Arcade is conducting an airdrop named "Clash of Claims," a PVP event where holders of specific collections can win 3% of the total supply (3 million) of Arcade's token ARCD. 

• The airdrop will distribute 750 ARCD to the first 4,000 wallets holding eligible collections, until the total allocation of 3M ARCD is exhausted. 
• To qualify, users must connect their ETH, SOL, or BTC wallets holding selected collections on the Arcade.xyz platform.

While gaming on Solana is still emerging, it doesn't mean there aren't opportunities to get involved right away.

For a limited time, gamers can now access Aurory's Seekers of Tokane on the Epic Games Store. 

• This Solana-based game, which was previously only available to NFT holders and code recipients, is a role-playing and monster-battling adventure game.
• From February 12 to February 26, gamers have the opportunity to take part in an in-game event named Dracurve's Awakening and earn crypto rewards, which include AURY tokens and unique in-game NFTs. 
• Aurory aims to give away $50K worth of AURY tokens, with a part reserved for Aurorian NFT holders and the rest for non-holders. 
• Additionally, limited edition NFT collectibles and "Draconic Eggs" will also be up for grabs.
• Check out Seekers of Tokane on the Epic Game Store here.

Still time to farm Pixels anon! 

Binance Launchpool is set to introduce the PIXEL token, accompanying the launch of the popular crypto game 'Pixels' on the Ronin network. 

• Users will have the opportunity to earn PIXEL rewards by staking BNB or FDUSD stablecoin in liquidity pools during a 10-day Launchpool promotion which started on Feb 9. 
• Binance will offer 350M PIXEL tokens, amounting to 7% of the total supply, with trading expected to commence on February 19. 
• While it's uncertain if PIXEL tokens will be airdropped to players from previous campaigns, about 28,000 wallets are eligible. 
• Pixels, previously on Polygon, migrated to Ronin last fall, driving a surge in daily active users on Ronin to 665,000. 
• Additionally, in preparation for the PIXEL launch, Pixels will retire its existing BERRY token, offering a swap for PIXEL at a rate of 1,000 BERRY for 7.6175 PIXEL.
• Check out this guide for further information, the clock is ticking!

Pixels is poised to become a blockbuster in the blockchain gaming arena, with its player base steadily increasing. Source: DappRadar.

Netmarble's Marblex, a blockchain division, has partnered with Saga, a gaming protocol, to develop and promote crypto games. 

• Saga's layer-1 blockchain network will support Marblex's chain, with both companies collaborating on user acquisition and promotion. 
• Saga's chainlet-based design enables cross-chain building and has existing agreements with other blockchain teams. Marblex, known for games like The King of Fighters Arena and Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds, plans to leverage Saga's network for its upcoming crypto games. 
• Additionally, Saga is currently running a "play-to-airdrop" campaign across numerous games to attract users to its ecosystem and incentivize participation with potential token rewards. 
• To profit, engage with Saga's X page by participating in their regular quests and also follow and engage with the actions published by Marblex. 
• Additionally, consider exploring the ongoing Pegasus incentivized testnet launched by Saga three months ago, which presents another opportunity for potential earnings.

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