Table of Contents
In this report:
- Week in Review - Feds Inject 2T liquidity into the US banking system (Shadow QE)
- Top 100 Gainers (7-days): Conflux (CFX) +156% (7d)
- Small Cap Gainers (30-days): FUBT Token (FUC) +2,458% (30d)
- Monthly Altcoin Pick - March Altcoin Pick will be released at the end of the Month
What Happened This Week?
The top crypto stories this week:
- Feds to Inject 2T Liquidity into Economy: The Federal Reserve’s emergency loan support, Bank Term Funding Program, will put in as much as $2 trillion of liquidity into the US banking system.
- ISO 20022 - Going live on March 20th: SWIFT, the system which handles the bulk of the world's interbank and international transactions announced it will go live with the ISO20022 standard on March 20th.
- Operation Choke-Point 2.0: The Biden Administration is quietly trying to ban crypto after the crackdown on crypto-friendly banks, such as Silvergate Bank, Signature Bank, and Metropolitan Commercial Bank.
The Outlook for March
March has become a complete rollercoaster for both the crypto and stock markets as we now see the markets pumping again after announcing up to 2T in liquidity to be injected into the economy.
This bullish trend could be short-lived depending on the Fed's announcement of its interest rate increase on March 22nd. According to a strong majority of economists polled by Reuters, The U.S. Federal Reserve will raise interest rates by 25 basis points - Anything higher could negatively impact the current bullish trend.
During this high market volatility, we are also seeing Asian cryptos continue to perform well. Conflux (CFX) +156% (7d) is the best-performing (top 100) crypto and the Asian exchange and FUC +2,458% (30d) is the best-performing small-cap over the last month.
Coincidently, ten years ago to the week, the Mediterranean island of Cyprus negotiated with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout. This bailout came with certain conditions, including taking a percentage from every Cyprian account holder as a measure to help fund the bailout. This resulted in a loss of confidence in the (Cyprus) banking system and within a month, Bitcoin's price jumped from $45 to $260.
While history doesn't repeat, it certainly does rhyme. We may see the price of Bitcoin continue to increase as confidence in the banking system decreases. Let us not forget, Bitcoin (and cryptocurrencies as a whole) were created as an alternative to the existing banking system.
Crypto Market at a Glance:
Bitcoin & Ethereum Price Movement
Bitcoin has increased 33.6% in the last week, currently trading at $28,287 (90-day high of $28,434). In the last 90 days, Bitcoin has increased by 70.6%.
Ethereum has increased 18.8% in the last week, currently trading at $1,830 (90-day high of $1,840). In the last 90 days, Ethereum has increased by 56.2%.
Global cryptocurrency market capitalization is above the trillion dollar mark, sitting at $1.193T.
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Top 100 Gainers - Last 7 Days
Over the last 7 days, the biggest gainers (within the top 100):
Conflux (CFX) 156.1% - Ranked #54
Conflux is a Chinese high-throughput first-layer consensus blockchain that utilizes a unique Tree-Graph consensus algorithm, enabling the parallel processing of blocks and transactions for increased throughput and scalability and enabling creators, communities, and markets to connect across borders and protocols.
As the only regulatory-compliant, public, and permissionless blockchain in China, Conflux provides a unique advantage for projects building and expanding into Asia, connecting decentralized economies to strengthen the global DeFi ecosystem.
Mask Network (MASK) +111.1% - Ranked #88
Mask Network is a protocol that allows its users to send encrypted messages over Twitter and Facebook, acting as a bridge between the internet and a decentralized network running on top.
Mask Network was initially launched in July 2019, with its first use case of allowing Facebook and Twitter users to encrypt posts on social media platforms.
Mask is a decentralized portal that also allows users to use DApps like crypto payments, decentralized finance, decentralized storage, e-commerce (digital goods/NFTs), and decentralized organizations (DAO) over the top of existing social networks without migrating, creating what is referred as a decentralized Applet (DApplet) ecosystem.
Stacks (STX) +89.3% - Ranked #37
Stacks is a Bitcoin Layer for smart contracts; it enables smart contracts and decentralized applications to use Bitcoin as an asset and settle transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain.
Bitcoin is the largest, most valuable, and most durable decentralized asset. The Stacks layer unlocks $500B in BTC capital using the Bitcoin L1 as settlement for decentralized applications.
Immutable (IMX) +81.7% - Ranked #44
Immutable positions itself as the first layer-two scaling solution for NFTs on Ethereum. According to Immutable, its blockchain does away with Ethereum’s limitations like low scalability, poor user experience, illiquidity, and a slow developer experience.
Instead, users benefit from instant trading and massive scalability while enjoying zero gas fees for minting and trading NFTs without compromising user or asset security. To achieve that, Immutable is built with STARK zk-rollups, a technology that Vitalik Buterin considers Ethereum to be “all-in on.”
Do You Own a Hardware Wallet?
If you own crypto, you need a hardware wallet. Period. Hardware wallets (also known as cold storage devices) are the best devices to keep your crypto investments safe and under your personal custody.
Ledger supports more cryptocurrencies than any other wallet on the market. This means if you have a portfolio with a bunch of exotic altcoins (especially small-caps), then Ledger is the best wallet to keep your portfolio secure.
Store +1,000 Cryptos in a Single Wallet.
Biggest Small Cap Gainers in the last 30 days
Every week we review and analyze low-market-cap cryptos looking for the next low-cap gem and every month we research the cryptocurrency marketplace for the next successful cryptocurrency project and announce it to our subscribers as our Monthly Altcoin Pick.
The best-performing cryptocurrency projects fall within the nano & micro-cap projects.
Best Performing Small Cap projects (30 days):
- FUC +2,458% - Asian Crypto Exchange (Micro-Cap)
- ALEX +720% - App Layer for Bitcoin (Micro-Cap)
- DEXTF +416% - Tokenized Portfolio for Investors (Nano-Cap)
- SMT +230% - Real-world assets (RWAs) on chain (Nano-Cap)
The best-performing small, nano, and micro-cap projects (aggregated) offer a strong indication of the next big growth sectors within the crypto space.
Monthly Altcoin Pick:
Our Altcoin Pick for February was released at the end of March. If you would like access to this and prior Altcoin Picks, please consider becoming a member.
Our Altcoin Picks for the prior months can be found here.
If you would like to support this publication and have access to member benefits, such as our monthly Altcoin Pick, signup here.
Thanks and appreciation to all our members!
Until the next report,
Richard
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