NFTs on SOL and AVAX, Axie DAUs, & Daniele's Fall

SOL and AVAX See Uptick In NFT Volume

• The NFT craze is going most strong on Ethereum, but the traction is spilling over into Solana. Solana has recently hit its all-time high of 10k unique daily NFT buyers, surpassing its peak in September. Volume, however, lags behind at ~$9M.
• Avalanche has also recently hit its peak NFT volume at 5M, though its unique buyers were surprisingly low at sub-500. The bulk of volume came from Crabada, a P2E game on AVAX. Crabada currently gives a pretty decent ROI as a P2E game, helping it gain traction recently.

SLP’s Hyperinflation

• Axie Infinity has been affected by the hyperinflation of SLP, a result of a high SLP minting rate but a low SLP burning rate. The rapid growth of players from 38k DAUs in April 2021 to the peak of 2.7M DAUS in November 2021 has caused SLP minting to increase massively, as a greater number of players translates to more SLP minting.
• The hyperinflation has resulted in immense sell pressure on SLP that breeding couldn’t keep up with. As a result, we have seen SLP prices drop to under $0.01 today, from its previous highs of $0.35.
• The team is aware of the problems and is trying to tackle them carefully. Currently, there are a few SLP sinks like SLP/ETH farming on Katana that reward you with RON tokens and its Lunar New Year event that allows you to burn your Axie for limited edition items. Katana’s rewards will be adjusted to their new rates tomorrow.

Axie Infinity DAU Declines on Cheap SLP

• As previously mentioned, the SLP hyperinflation was mainly due to the explosive growth of Axie Infinity. DAUs grew from 38k in April 21 to 2.7M in November 21.
• However, as SLP prices dip, players suffer as they cannot earn as much when compared to a few months back. As a comparison, at its peak, a player could have earned $35 per day on July 21 vs $1 today at current prices (assuming 100 SLP/day). This has led many players to stop playing as the income has been reduced massively.
• However, not all hope is lost as the Axie team looks to introduce Battles V2, body part upgrades, and land gameplay, all of which provide more utility to Axies and increase demand for SLP. To take a sneak peek at their developments, check out their recent Dev Chat.

Sifu’s History Affects Danielle-related Tokens

• Daniele-related tokens have been marred by allegations of treasury mismanagement on Wonderland by 0xSifu, its ex-CFO. Zachxbt, an anon on Twitter, doxxed Sifu to be Michael Patryn, co-founder of QuadrigaCX, a notorious Canadian crypto exchange accused of defrauding investors. Sifu was then removed as the treasury manager voted by Wonderland DAO. (RektHQ covered the incidents of the event in an article here.)
• Since the incident, Daniele-related tokens have suffered alongside TIME.

Notable Tweets

Dune Analytics Raised $69.420M

gm We’ve raised $69,420,000 in Series B Funding, led by Coatue We’ll use the funds to double down on our mission of making crypto data accessible! & to educate, reward and empower a new generation of on-chain analysts aka Dune Wizards
— Dune Analytics (@DuneAnalytics) Feburary 2, 2022

Friktion’s Research on Optimizing Options Auction Execution

Check out our latest research on optimizing auction execution!

https://t.co/d3jtNfcsAj

— Friktion² (@friktion_labs) Feburary 2, 2022

Chainalysis Analyzes Wash Trading and Money Laundering in NFTs

Chainalysis detects significant wash trading in NFT market. Money laundering activity small but visible in NFTs. https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/2022-crypto-crime-report-preview-nft-wash-trading-money-laundering/

— unfolded. (@cryptounfolded) Feburary 2, 2022