Period: 12th September 2022 – 19th September 2022
· Just when investors are feeling relieved because of a strong rebound the week before, they got slapped in the face by the harsh reality. Last week was an absolute bloodbath in the global financial markets.
· Strangely enough, the NFT market is quite alive compared with the crypto markets. Despite Ethereum’s price having been free falling after the Merge, some of the blue-chip NFTs are seeing strong buying power. And last week’s protagonist is none other than the RENGA series.
In the last weekly column, I explained what is the Fed’s Beige Book and how it sent the market on a rally. The rally continued last Monday, sending both stock and crypto markets even higher. However, everything changed when the Americans woke up the next morning. The U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI), aka the inflation data, was released on Tuesday morning. The eye-popping data crashed the market almost instantly, with major stock indexes notching the worst one-day performance in two years and a 9.9% plunge for bitcoin.
For more details on CPI: https://www.coinlive.com/news/detail/?id=13056
Like what always happens, even when Bitcoin, the crypto of all falls, there will often be 1 or 2 altcoins that managed to escape punishment. Chiliz (CHZ) was the altcoin that shined last week. It was a crypto token launched back in June 2019 that can be used to acquire fan tokens. CHZ is working together with a decentralized sports app called “Socios.com”, an all-in-one fan influence & rewards app for sports fans. While many of us might not be familiar with Socios.com, it’s one of the most popular sports apps in the Eurozone. CHZ has been growing significantly due to numerous partnerships in the sports industry, lately being the official partner of the 2022 Ballon D’or awards, and also their migration from Ethereum to its native chain, CHZ 2.0, has helped rally the coin and defied the bear market.
Socios.com partners with world-famous sports organizations, and of course, Messi the “GOAT”
As a passionate NFT collector, I noticed that the NFT market is actually turning good compared to the past few weeks. However, it did come with a small price. According to the NFT analytics platform NFTGo, the blue-chip index was turning upwards from its slump last week, yet the monetary value of these NFTs was going in the opposite direction, due to Ethereum’s price fall. There is a saying in the crypto scene, “1 BTC = 1 BTC”, and so does ETH, in the view of NFT enthusiasts at least.
The NFT trading activities continue to go on despite a bear crypto market. Blue-chips NFT like Azuki and Doodle, their floor price was up 48% and 23% respectively in a week. At the same time, DigiDaigaku being the newcomer on the blue-chip list, has gained a whopping 82% increase in floor price. Together with its airdrop NFT collection, the Digi series is worth a combined total of 20 ETH!
Last but not least, the RENGA series by RENGA inc. This design studio from Toronto sparked a phenomenon in the NFT scene talking about a few months back. Its first NFT collection “The Art of Seasons”, comes with a unique and refreshing one-of-a-kind art style, which subsequently caused the market to go “FOMO“ in a sudden. The floor price was up more than 10 times its minting price of 0.15 ETH in less than a month. As the market cooldown and no follow-up hype, the price of it was back to square one. The latest release from RENGA inc is called “RENGA”. Again, I got to say the artwork is out of the world, yet, it gave me the vibe of history repeating itself. To safeguard our precious crypto asset, one must learn not to be FOMO.
