Crypto continues crossing the adoption chasm.
The ongoing Wall Street-Crypto convergence received a big boost with news in March that investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley would be ramping up crypto product offerings, and Fidelity and other established firms filing bitcoin ETF applications.
We also saw the crypto and art world collide with a record setting $69 million non-fungible token digital art sale. The mainstream validation of use cases for crypto beyond its role as “digital gold” are incredibly valuable for educating the broader world on the wide range of ways that crypto is impacting the world.
Here are our latest thoughts on what’s driving crypto markets and analysis of bitcoin on-chain activity this month.
Be sure to also watch and listen to this month’s webinar featuring Witek Radomski and Caleb Applegate, CTO and COO of Enjin, and our discussion of Enjin and NFTs.
Market Movements Bitcoin (BTC) set another new all-time high at ~$61k on March 13th; crypto markets subsequently sold off and have settled into a sideways pattern but bitcoin and Ethereum (ETH) both managed to finish up over 30% for the month Broader financial markets were mixed: stocks were up ~5% with long-dated US treasuries plunging again (-5%), gold continuing drifting downward (-2%), and the US dollar showing strength (+2%) We continue to see strengthening crypto adoption fundamentals, including major Wall Street firms adding crypto product offerings and the validation of crypto’s value proposition for the art world 2. On-chain insights: Highlights from the Blockchain.com data science team
Activity on the bitcoin network continues to decline due to high network fees and a congested mempool The average fee per transaction is now $18 per transaction; high fees continue to push out the crypto “retail” market The average transaction size increased 9%, confirming that larger transactions are increasingly making up more of the BTC network 3. Non-Fungible Tokens: Why Digital Collectibles Have Real Value — Guest Post by Enjin
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) feature all of the technological benefits brought by blockchain: provide scarcity, unique identities, security when trading, and more Humans are hardwired to collect; thanks to blockchain technology, digital collectibles can now be truly owned and verified There are additional benefits that blockchain provides digital collectibles as compared to tradition physical collecting 4. What we’re reading, hearing and watching.