Welcome to our September 2023 monthly crypto market recap!

September’s crypto market has largely moved sideways. On a macro level, BTC’s dominance rallied to 49.85%, and BTC witnessed 1.65% growth in the month, with MicroStrategy purchasing another 5,445 Bitcoin, indicating a shift in investor preference towards BTC over altcoins. ETH’s activity has been subdued, with transaction fees hitting their lowest since January.

In other regulatory developments, Grayscale Investments has petitioned the SEC for an ETH futures ETF, aligning with the Securities Act 1933. However, it is still unclear when or if the SEC will approve any of these products, as it has repeatedly expressed concerns about the lack of oversight and transparency in the crypto market. The Mt. Gox saga also continues, with trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi postponing the repayment deadline to October 31, 2024. This delay has sparked concerns regarding the market repercussions once creditors retrieve their Bitcoin amidst the prevailing bear market, which is a bullish catalyst until the repayment date.

On a broader economic scale, the Federal Reserve’s decision to maintain elevated interest rates has propelled bond market yields to their highest in over a decade, adversely impacting stock prices and other investments. The “higher-for-longer” narrative has significant implications for the liquidity in the crypto markets in the near future. However, the Wall Street Journal reported that eight of 12 central banks this week left rates on hold, suggesting we are near the top of the cycle.

Join us for our comprehensive monthly market recap, exploring the highs, lows, and key narratives that shaped the crypto market in September! Stay informed with our comprehensive monthly market recaps at Treehouse Insights and our daily market analysis with Treehouse Daily, providing valuable insights and analysis to navigate the dynamic world of cryptocurrencies!

Wemix (WEMIX) ⏶58.62%

WEMIX is the native coin of the WEMIX mega-ecosystem, a gaming platform used as a medium of exchange and payment method for gas fees. One WEMIX coin is minted per each subsequent block created, and PMR (Permanent Minting Reward) is distributed respectively to Node Council Partner (50%, previously 40%), Ecosystem Fund (25%), and Maintenance (25%). This effectively increases the reward rate for each node and community members participating in the delegation.

Wemade, the holding company of the Wemix ecosystem, has entered a strategic alliance with SK Planet. This was done with Wemade’s subsidiary ChuanQi IP investing in 7.08% and 5.31% of SK Planet’s shares for a combined 35 billion KRW, while SK Planet acquired 1.27% of Wemade’s shares through a 20 billion KRW convertible bond purchase and a 15 billion KRW stock acquisition from Wemade’s chairman, Gwanho Park. Park plans to reinvest his proceeds into WEMIX coins to bolster the WEMIX ecosystem. This collaboration will leverage SK Planet’s OK Cashbag platform and Wemade’s blockchain expertise, potentially revolutionizing the platform ecosystem and introducing OK Cashbag NFT memberships. The partnership is a broader trend of traditional platform businesses seeking blockchain integration for enhanced customer experiences and suggests a bullish outlook for both companies in the Korean market.

In addition to this, the recent launch of “Drops” on WEMIX PLAY on September 22, 2023, has significantly contributed to the hype surrounding the WEMIX token. Drops, an NFT service akin to initial sales like NILE, offers exclusive NFTs for auction, including sought-after collections like Melting Earth, Ballies, and YieldKingz. These NFTs not only have unique functionalities that enhance gaming experiences but also grant you access to special events hosted by Wemade. For instance, WEMIX is hosting an AirDrop event where NFT holders can win up to 200 WEMIX tokens, further incentivizing participation. Such initiatives, combined with the promise of more diverse NFTs, have likely played a pivotal role in driving the WEMIX token’s price surge over the past month.

Lastly, Henry Chang, CEO of Wemade, has purchased WEMIX tokens with his salary and dividends. As of September 25, 2023, Chang made his 20th purchase, acquiring an additional 29,569.76 WEMIX, bringing his total holdings to 898,535.58 WEMIX, valued at 1,258,915,598 KRW. Notably, Chang recently transferred 130,501.83 WEMIX from his Coinone Exchange wallet to participate in the WEMIX3.0 ecosystem and has staked significant amounts in both WONDER and DIOS Staking platforms.

Kaspa (KAS) ⏶39.46%

Kaspa is a decentralized cryptocurrency operating on a proof-of-work (PoW) framework, leveraging the GHOSTDAG protocol. As an entirely open-source, community-driven initiative, Kaspa distinguishes itself with its capacity to sustain high block rates without compromising the security inherent to PoW systems. The current main net of Kaspa functions at a rate of 1 block per second. Future endeavors by the core development and research team aim to exponentially enhance this capability, targeting rates of 10 or potentially even 100 blocks per second.

In September, Kaspa expanded its utility and accessibility with integrations into payment and exchange platforms. Users can now execute withdrawals and payments in $KAS through @NOWPayments_io. Additionally, @ChangeNOW_io will facilitate seamless swaps involving $KAS, a development that is particularly beneficial for Kaspa-affiliated merchants.

In a strategic move, $KAS was also integrated into CoinRabbit, a prominent cryptocurrency lending platform. This integration empowers investors to harness their $KAS assets for liquidity, potentially offering tax optimization opportunities. By leveraging CoinRabbit’s expedited lending solutions, this partnership augments the utility and accessibility of $KAS for its community.

Chainlink (LINK) ⏶32.71%

Chainlink (LINK) is a leading decentralized oracle network, ensuring secure data transfers between blockchains and external systems. It uses independent oracles to validate data for DeFi apps, reducing centralized risks. LINK tokens pay for data requests and stake as node validators.

One of the leading catalysts for $LINK is stake.link, a delegated liquid staking protocol that expands the existing Chainlink staking program, introducing features like the “Priority Pool,” which automates staking for users as Chainlink increases its capacity from 25 to 45 million tokens. Coinciding with Chainlink Staking v0.2’s Q4 launch, these changes enhance Chainlink’s economic security. Additionally, stake.link will transition its stSDL tokens to reSDL NFTs, promoting long-term engagement. Their new AI chatbot, “SergAI,” specializes in Chainlink and stake.link inquiries, highlighting stake.link’s dedication to improving Chainlink staking and its pivotal role in the ecosystem’s growth.

In other partnership developments, Pop Social, a Web3 social media application, announced a partnership with Chainlink’s BUILD program to boost blockchain adoption by monetizing user time on the Pop dApp, enhancing ecosystem security. This alliance taps into Pop Social’s unique demographic to advance Chainlink’s goals and speed up Web3 access. Given Chainlink’s extensive user base and adaptability, Pop Social expects swift community expansion and enriched user interactions, including content creator engagement and Pop Genesis NFT events.

Maker (MKR) ⏶31.03%

MakerDAO is an open-source project on the Ethereum blockchain, and a Decentralized Autonomous Organization created in 2014. The project is managed by holders of its governance token, $MKR. Through a system of scientific governance involving Executive Voting and Governance Polling, MKR holders manage the Maker Protocol and the financial risks of $DAI to ensure its stability, transparency, and efficiency.

Immediately in September, Maker further cemented their position in DeFi as it geared up to launch four specialized SubDAOs: SakuraDAO, SparkDAO, Quant, and Qual. SakuraDAO fosters a social approach tied to the Japanese crypto community; SparkDAO emphasizes DeFi innovations; Quant integrates tech with tokenized assets; and Qual focuses on advanced RWA and finance, targeting regions like China and Southeast Asia. As one of the biggest DAO/DeFi protocols, MakerDAO’s introduction of these SubDAOs is intended to revolutionize and usher in a new era of growth in the industry.

After landing in Seoul on September 1st, the impending announcement of SakuraDAO at 0xCentrum coincided with $MKR surging from roughly $1,034 to $1,170, a 13.15% increase. Following on, Maker continued their raid on crypto conferences at TOKEN2049 in Singapore. Several presentations and announcements pertaining to SubDAOs later, led to $MKR surging into $1,500 and above. These price movements reflect extremely positive sentiment towards recent developments within the Maker ecosystem that potentially bring a new era of decentralized governance structure in the industry.

TON (TON) ⏶24.00%

The Telegram Open Network (TON) is a decentralized and open internet L1 network, originally developed by the Telegram team to be highly scalable to serve a variety of secure products and services on the Telegram app. With Telegram itself being the original inspiration for TON and development serving to elevate the foundations of the app with Blockchain technology, the project has extremely robust fundamentals that serve the ecosystem well in the long term.

In September, TON stormed TOKEN2049, the biggest Web3 conference in Asia. On September 13th, TON announced the release of @wallet_tg, a ground-breaking Telegram-integrated wallet that will enable seamless onboarding for the 800 million users of Telegram. These announcements were supplemented by major marketing initiatives, consisting of presentations by Steve Yun (President, TON) and John Hyman (CIO, Telegram) on September 15th. This sequence of events led to TON catapulting from roughly $1.90 to a monthly high of $2.58, a 35.79% surge, underscoring how a continuation from August of Telegram-based innovations has contributed to $TON price appreciation.

Following the announcement of the Telegram Apps (tApps) Center in August, TON has also doubled down by enabling game and AI payment with crypto directly through Telegram. It was also announced on September 23rd that MEXC would become the latest strategic investor in TON. Even though price action has been muted since these more recent announcements, this convergence of innovations nonetheless builds the fundamental value of the ecosystem, which in the long term is likely to assist in generating interest and adoption of TON.

THORChain (RUNE) ⏶20.67%

$RUNE is the native token of the THORChain decentralized liquidity protocol, which enables the exchange of crypto assets across multiple networks without relying on any bridging solutions. As a critical component of the THORChain ecosystem, $RUNE serves as both a staking and security asset. Users can stake $RUNE to gain rewards by joining network security, where RUNE acts as collateral to deter malicious actions.

THORChain’s ultimate ambitions are to develop seamless inter-blockchain swaps, positioning the platform as a potential leader in decentralized cross-chain solutions. With the significant gains this month, it marks the second consecutive month RUNE made it into the top 10 gainers list.

With the introduction of Metamask Snaps, a new feature that enables the direct installation of third-party add-ons within the browser extension, ShapeShift was among the initial 34 snaps approved by Consensys, which partnered with THORChain to provide native BTC support to Metamask wallets. Following this announcement, the price of $RUNE surged by 30% in the subsequent three days as both ShapeShift and THORChain engaged in extensive marketing efforts.

Recently, THORChain’s support on BNB Beacon Chain and BEP-2 assets, such as BUSD, has been extended to BNB Chain and BEP-20 assets. A notable development is the introduction of “Savers” on the BNB Chain, a mechanism allowing users to offer single-asset liquidity on THORChain without the risk of impermanent loss. Additionally, THORChain’s DEX aggregator now integrates with BNB Chain, facilitating seamless swaps between THORChain and other DEXs like PancakeSwap. This enhancement broadens the range of BEP-20 assets accessible to users without necessitating direct pool creation on THORChain. However, lending for assets beyond BTC and ETH, including BNB on BNB Chain, remains in the pipeline.

Radix (XRD) ⏶20.16%

Radix is a decentralized ledger designed as a “Full Stack” to support decentralized application creation, focusing on DeFi use cases. The network uses a consensus algorithm called Cerberus to ensure security while offering linear scalability and a programming language for dApp development called Scrypto. The platform aims to serve as an alternative base layer to Ethereum for DeFi applications and also has a native token (XRD) that enables holders to participate in the Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism and earn rewards.

September marks Radix’s most recent DeFi initiative, the Babylon mainnet upgrade to the already versatile Radix platform. The emphasis of this upgrade is on massive improvements in development, deployment, and UX, all with XRD at its core. These improvements include the Blueprint Catalog for revisioning, improved wallet interaction and UX, better transaction emissions, and future-proofing for new tools. Stemming from September 1st, when RCnet v3 was released, the last major test network, this has meant that the lead-up to the eventual release of Babylon has been particularly volatile. These innovations ultimately point to Radix’s dedication to furthering the realm of possibility within DeFi and subsequent positive market sentiment.

Curve (CRV) ⏶14.60%

Curve is a decentralized exchange for stablecoins that uses an automated market maker (AMM) to manage liquidity. Launched in January 2020, Curve is synonymous with the DeFi phenomenon and has seen significant growth in the second half of 2020.

Unlike the other tokens on this list, $CRV’s gains this month have resulted from an on-chain whale movement. Data from Lookonchain highlights significant activity surrounding the $CRV token on 23/09, as a newly-created wallet withdrew 3.18 million CRV tokens (approx. $1.44 million) from Binance and swiftly staked them on Convex. Following the news, $CRV’s price surged by 10% within a day. Cumulatively, this wallet has withdrawn 9.27 million $CRV tokens (around $4.5 million) from Binance in just 30 hours, all of which were staked on Convex. This concentrated movement suggests strategic accumulation and robust commitment to the CRV ecosystem.

Additionally, Michael Egorov, the founder of Curve, has fully settled his debt on the decentralized lending platform Aave. Egorov recently deposited 68 million CRV (valued at $35.3 million) into Silo Finance, borrowed 10.8 million of Curve’s crvUSD, and converted crvUSD to USDT to clear his Aave debt. Despite this, Egorov still holds a debt of $42.7 million across four other DeFi platforms, with a collateral of 253.7 million CRV ($132 million) in place. This move follows his August sale of 106 million CRV for $46 million to manage potential liquidation risks from his outstanding debts across various DeFi platforms, a bullish catalyst for CRV.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) ⏶13.72%

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is a peer-to-peer electronic cash system that aims to become sound global money with fast payments, micro fees, privacy, and larger block size.

Bitcoin Cash was created as an alternative to the first and most valuable cryptocurrency — Bitcoin (BTC). In 2017, BCH developers modified the BTC code, releasing their software version and a full-fledged competitive product, which split Bitcoin into two blockchains: Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash.

On 13 September, Franklin Templeton submitted an application for a spot Bitcoin ETF, increasing market optimism. $BCH has been a prime beneficiary of the positive sentiment as an analysis by Santiment has shown that Bitcoin and its prominent fork, Bitcoin Cash, have soon become the leading trending assets on social media.

Tron (TRX) ⏶10.52%

TRON (TRX) is a decentralized blockchain-based operating system developed by the Tron Foundation and launched in 2017. Since its creation, the project has focused on revolutionizing the entertainment industry and decentralizing the web, mostly by bringing solutions that would allow users to connect directly with their favorite content creators and pay them for the content they provide through tipping and micro-transactions.

On September 13, commemorating its tenth anniversary, the cryptocurrency exchange Huobi announced its rebranding to HTX, denoting the ‘Huobi Tron Exchange.’ HTX’s revamped mission emphasizes building a metaverse, aiming for financial freedom for the global population. Notably, HTX’s spot market share recently soared to its zenith since October 2021, with trading volumes spiking 46.5% to $28.9 billion. The re-branding was seen as a bullish signal for the TRX token as its price immediately rose by 7% within the day following the announcement.

Closing Remarks

Despite the negative macro outlook for risk-on assets, forecast increases in GDP and decreases in unemployment have led to a market conclusion that the path to inflation normalization may occur with a ‘soft landing.’ This would be the ideal scenario for risk assets.

Looking ahead, Bitcoin’s position is currently marked by contrasting dynamics. While a Shanghai Court’s judicial report strengthens Bitcoin’s recognition in China by classifying digital currencies as unique and non-replicable, its spot exchange trading volumes have hit a five-year low, as highlighted by CryptoQuant. This decline, attributed to macroeconomic concerns, coupled with an increase in long-term holders, raises the potential for heightened volatility and market disruptions due to fewer active participants. Traditional financial institutions, including JPMorgan Chase, are exhibiting caution towards crypto-transactions, citing fraud prevention. Additionally, the Dollar Strength Index reached a 10-month high, suggesting a potential shift towards risk-averse behaviors. In essence, despite positive legal recognition, Bitcoin faces potential volatility and reduced institutional engagement.

In summary, September presented significant challenges for the cryptocurrency markets. However, based on anticipated regulatory developments and improving macroeconomic indicators, we maintain a constructive outlook on the sector’s potential recovery in the ensuing months. Our dedication to delivering comprehensive analysis and navigating these evolving terrains remains steadfast. Stay tuned for our continued exploration of the ever-evolving cryptocurrency realm with the Treehouse Daily Newsletter and Treehouse Insights Research!

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.

Hyperion by Treehouse reimagines workflows for digital asset traders and investors looking for actionable market and portfolio data. Contact us if you are interested! Otherwise, check out Treehouse Academy, Insights, and Treehouse Daily for in-depth research.

September 2023 Market Recap

Authors: Eddy Song, Jun Yong Heng and Jerry X'Lingson

Enjoyed Our Research Insights?