March 2024 Market Recap

Welcome to our March 2024 monthly crypto market recap!

The crypto market experienced significant volatility in the past month, with BTC surging to a record-breaking high of nearly $74K, followed by a rapid downturn to a low of $60K within days. Despite this turbulence, BTC exhibited resilience, gradually recovering its value, and showcasing the inherent volatility within the digital asset space.

On the macroeconomic front, inflationary pressures persist, leading the Federal Reserve to maintain its interest rates, contrary to expectations of a rate cut in March. In contrast, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) has opted to lower its rates, bringing it down to 1.5%. This move positions SNB ahead of the US and EU in terms of monetary policy adjustments following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, institutional interest remains strong within the crypto space, despite a noticeable decrease in ETF net inflows. This downtrend aligns with a correction in BTC prices towards the month’s end. Conversely, memecoins are witnessing a significant uptick in activity across various blockchains especially on Solana and Base, where numerous emerging new players boasting market caps that exceed $100M are leading the market. This attracts substantial retail investment into these networks, indicating a keen interest in alternative digital assets beyond traditional cryptocurrencies like BTC and ETH. Come along as we explore the intricate market dynamics and uncover the underlying themes that shaped the top-performing memecoin tokens in March. Additionally, keep up-to-date with our comprehensive monthly market recaps at Treehouse Insights and our daily market analysis with Treehouse Daily. Stay informed to navigate the twists and turns of the crypto landscape!

The Memecoin Frenzy: FLOKI (FLOKI) ?298.71%; dogwifhat (WIF) ?250.76%; Pepe (PEPE) ?179.85%; Shiba Inu (SHIB) ?156.26%; Jupiter (JUP) ?155.41%

Unlike traditional cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, which are often valued for their real-world utility and technological innovations, memecoins emerged as a unique and influential sector within the broader crypto market. They usually take a different approach, often originating from memes or jokes within online communities and prioritizing entertainment over practicality.?

Throughout the month, memecoins served as the main driving catalyst for the growth within the crypto market. In the top 100 tokens by market capitalization, all memecoins have seen remarkable returns, with projects like FLOKI and WIF leading the charge, growing by 298.71% and 250.76% respectively. Even DOGE, with its significant $25 billion market cap, has experienced substantial gains of 69.79% during this period, capturing investors driven by community enthusiasm and speculative fervor.

Solana has emerged as a key player in the memecoin ecosystem, serving as the preferred platform for launching such tokens. Its scalability, low transaction fees, and vibrant ecosystem have attracted a large amount of users and trading volume. Notably, Solana's total trading volume surpassed that of Ethereum on March 16th, indicating the platform's growing dominance in the memecoin space.

Jupiter, a leading aggregator on Solana and a go-to platform for memecoin trading, has seen a significant surge in trading volume during the month as illustrated in Figure 2 below. This surge is accompanied by a notable rise in the value of Jupiter’s token, JUP, by 155.41%, reinforcing its market dominance and pivotal role in facilitating memecoin transactions, especially on the Solana blockchain.

Fetch.ai (FET) ?111.57%

Fetch.ai is a blockchain-based platform focused on developing a decentralized digital economy through artificial intelligence and machine learning. It introduces autonomous agent technology to enable smart infrastructure across various industries such as finance, logistics, and energy. Its native token, FET, facilitates transactions, network participation, and the development of smart contracts and dApps.

A major catalyst for this rally was the release of the v0.17 protocol update early in February, which introduced significant enhancements to FET’s functionality and usability, attracting heightened interest and demand. Additionally, Fetch.ai announced a strategic $100 million investment into Fetch Compute, aimed at expanding computational resources through the integration of advanced GPUs. This investment is expected to supercharge the capabilities available to developers and users on the network, offering GPU credits to users as part of the initiative.

In addition, Fetch.ai partnered with electronics giant, Bosch, to establish the Fetch.ai Foundation. This foundation focuses on developing Web3 and AI technologies for practical real-world applications. This partnership aims to leverage Bosch’s industrial expertise alongside Fetch.ai’s AI capabilities to present a promising avenue for practical use cases in mobility, industry, and consumer sectors.

Lastly, Fetch.AI is reportedly exploring a major collaboration with SingularityNet, and Ocean Protocol, two key players in artificial intelligence. This collaboration would involve merging their native tokens into a new singular token called ASI, with a projected fully diluted valuation of $7.5 billion. This strategic move aims to unite these platforms under a collective dubbed the Superintelligence Collective, while still allowing them to function as independent entities. Spearheaded by Ben Goertzel of SingularityNet, with Fetch.AI's CEO, Humayun Sheikh, poised as the chairman, this initiative reflects a concerted effort to leverage their combined strengths and foster innovation within the AI and blockchain industries. The potential merger, pending community approval, signifies a forward-thinking approach to enhancing the capabilities and reach of these technologies, potentially setting a precedent for future collaborations in the sector.

Ribbon Finance (RBN) ?125.25%

Ribbon Finance protocol specializes in structured crypto products. It enables users to access various investment strategies through "vaults," which simplify complex investment strategies, allowing for automation and real-time portfolio adjustments based on market conditions. Unlike typical yield-farming options that rely on speculative token incentives, Ribbon focuses on sustainable yield generation through derivatives options within these automated vaults, thus aiming to offer risk-adjusted returns. Ribbon Finance's governance token, RBN, facilitates protocol decisions and has evolved with the introduction of veRBN, aiming to align incentives between RBN holders and vault depositors further.

This month, Ribbon Finance's ecosystem has been invigorated by the highly anticipated AEVO airdrop, which has acted as a significant catalyst for holders of RBN tokens as they will be able to convert their tokens to Aevo at a 1:1 ratio in the future. As such, Aevo's airdrop not only incentivizes users to trade and stake their tokens but also promises to expand the functionalities and opportunities within the Ribbon Finance ecosystem. This news led to a remarkable surge in the RBN token's price, with reports indicating a 60% increase following the announcement.

Ondo Finance (ONDO) ?188.84%

Ondo Finance specializes in the tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs), aiming to bridge the gap between traditional and decentralized finance and providing institutional-grade financial products and services to a wider audience. Ondo’s approach is unique because it involves developing both the tokens and the underlying protocols or infrastructure, ensuring seamless integration within the DeFi ecosystem. In 2023, Ondo introduced USDY, a stablecoin offering an attractive yield option derived from short-dated US Treasuries for risk-averse investors. Notably, USDY allows for daily redemptions and secondary market transfers, making it a benchmark for earning US-dollar yield on existing stablecoin holdings.

This month, the introduction of Ondo Global Markets emerged as a pivotal catalyst. It promises to enhance Ondo's offerings by providing on-chain investors and protocol developers with access to traditional securities and exchange liquidity. Additionally, Ondo’s speculative involvement with BlackRock's tokenized fund further propelled it into a more dominant position in the DeFi RWA space. Another crucial development is Ondo Finance's registration of the USDY LLC with FinCEN, which represents a significant step toward regulatory compliance and operational transparency. This fosters investor confidence and paves the way for broader adoption of Ondo Finance's offerings.

Looking forward, two key developments to watch for Ondo Finance are the ongoing evolution of its various products and the potential collaboration with BlackRock. These initiatives could significantly influence Ondo's market positioning by driving wider adoption and integration of tokenized financial products across both traditional and decentralized finance. Investors and stakeholders should closely monitor these developments, alongside regulatory trends and market responses, to assess the broader impact on the DeFi ecosystem and the financial industry at large.

Fantom (FTM) ?98.95%

Fantom, a smart contract platform based on a directed acyclic graph (DAG), utilizes a proprietary consensus algorithm to offer DeFi services to developers. Fantom addresses challenges commonly encountered with other smart contract platforms, particularly transaction speed, which Fantom’s developers claim to have reduced to under two seconds.?

Building on the groundwork of the Opera network, Fantom's introduction of Sonic Mainnet heralds a significant leap in blockchain scalability. Spearheaded by the esteemed Andre Cronje, Sonic emerges from a dedicated two-year development phase aimed at surmounting Opera's limitations exposed during peak demand periods. With the capability to process up to 2,000 transactions per second and achieve sub-second finality, Sonic enhances Fantom's transaction throughput and introduces a common sequencer capable of managing over 180 million transactions daily. Sonic shows Fantom's pursuit of innovation, setting a new industry standard for blockchain efficiency and performance, poised to propel Fantom into a new era of blockchain utility and adoption. The Fantom Virtual Machine (FVM), a component of Sonic, is a substantial improvement over the previous Ethereum Virtual Machine implementation and it allows Fantom validators to execute smart contracts more efficiently.

Fantom's announcement of Sonic also hints at multiple token airdrops, which has significantly influenced the FTM token's value, leading to an impressive 130% rally following the fact. Sonic aims to enhance Fantom's blockchain capabilities. Fantom’s founder, Kon, also mentioned that there will be multiple token airdrops. “The more that you interact with the network, the more value you accrue to the network, that’s going to lead to a higher airdrop,” he said, adding that he didn’t want to give away too many details for fear of the airdrop getting “gamed” by airdrop farmers.

Toncoin (TON) ?88.89%

The Open Network (TON), originally developed by Telegram and currently under the development of the TON Foundation, is a blockchain designed for scalable cross-chain interoperability. Toncoin is the native token of TON and is being used for governance, network operations, and other transactions for applications built on TON.?

On 12th March, in an interview with Financial Times, Telegram’s founder, Pavel Durov, mentioned that he sees value in an IPO as a means to democratize access to Telegram’s value. Thus, the connection between Telegram and TON helped fuel the surge of the token by nearly 38%. Furthermore, TON Foundation unveiled partnerships with industry giants Fireblocks and DWF Labs, aimed at enhancing security and accessibility within the Web3 ecosystem, which further fuelled the bullish sentiment surrounding the project.

The growth of Toncoin and its ecosystem is further bolstered by internal initiatives within the Toncoin Blockchain ecosystem, particularly The Open League. A noteworthy example is TON Raffles, which has experienced significant expansion, evidenced by a substantial rise in user participation and total value locked (TVL). In recognition of this success, the TON Foundation implemented a generous Airdrop program, distributing one TON token to each TON Raffles token holder to further stimulate value accrual for Toncoin and amplify activity within the ecosystem.

Lastly, the TON Foundation has announced the allocation of 30 million Toncoin (TON) tokens, valued at $115 million, for community rewards on 20th March which will be distributed across five areas, including token mining, user incentives, airdrops, developer ecosystem support, and liquidity pool boosts. The distribution, commencing on 1st April in monthly seasons, aims to facilitate community engagement and participation.?

Looking ahead, TON aims to implement cross-chain transfer of BTC, ETH, and BNB to the TON network, optimize slashing, expand support to include more currencies, and integrate with ETH or BNB networks.

Closing Remarks?

As March draws to a close, the cryptocurrency market reflects a whirlwind of volatility and euphoria, fueled by the soaring popularity of memecoins and the continued strength of ETF inflows. This month has been characterized by a dynamic interplay of market dynamics, regulatory developments, and anticipation surrounding significant on-chain events.

Amidst this backdrop, all eyes are on the impending BTC halving, slated to occur in less than a month on 20th April 2024. This event, being historically significant in the crypto space, is poised to reshape the supply and demand dynamics of BTC, potentially triggering rapid price appreciation in its aftermath. Consequently, investors are closely monitoring this event and the potential market dynamic changes it might bring.

As we anticipate the month ahead, our steadfast commitment to delving into the dynamic realm of cryptocurrency remains unwavering. We are dedicated to providing comprehensive analysis and expert guidance through the fluid landscapes of this evolving sector. Stay tuned for our ongoing in-depth explorations of the crypto sphere through the Treehouse Daily Newsletter and Treehouse Insights Research, where we will deliver the latest and most enlightening updates. This dedication underscores our position as a vital resource for deciphering the intricacies and potential within the continually shifting crypto market.

Disclaimer

This publication is provided for informational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing contained in this publication constitutes financial advice, trading advice, or any other advice, nor does it constitute an offer to buy or sell securities or any other assets or participate in any particular trading strategy. This publication does not take into account your personal investment objectives, financial situation, or needs. Treehouse does not warrant that the information provided in this publication is up-to-date or accurate.

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