LayerZero Raises $120 Million in Series B Funding to Expand Gaming and NFTs Initiatives; Job Market Loosens as Openings Hit 2-Year Low

GM Treehouser 🌳

Welcome to our Treehouse Daily newsletter, where Treehouse brings you financial news and insights free daily! We believe you’ll find this helpful.

In case you have missed it, check out our latest research piece 👇

Our Daily View

What We Are Covering Today

• Trump pleads not guilty to his felony charges; Labor markets show initial signs of a slowdown (more in Macro & TradFi)
• LayerZero closes new $120M funding round with backing from prominent investors, both within and outside of crypto vertical (more in DeFi & CeFi)
• BTC RHODL ratio continual decline could point towards trend reversal (more in On-Chain)
• ETH perps open-interest hits 5-month high (more in Crypto Derivatives)
• Both BTC and ETH break its previous resistance level (more in Crypto Technical Analysis)

Macro & TradFi

Former US President Donald Trump has been charged with 34 felony counts, which together carry a maximum sentence of up to 136 years in prison, for falsifying business records related to hush-money payments made during his 2016 presidential campaign to cover up damaging stories. Trump has pleaded not guilty, and his attorneys say the case is political. The payments were made through the National Enquirer and Trump’s then-personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, and were recorded as legal fees. Prosecutors say they were part of a scheme to identify and bury negative information about Trump and boost his electoral prospects.

Meanwhile, the labor market is also showing signs of a slowdown. Last night's labor data showed a larger-than-expected decline in job openings to 9.9 million in February, the lowest since 2021. The US stock indices were down on the labor data release, with the S&P 500, Dow Jones, and NASDAQ all down by around 0.5%. The yields on 2-year and 10-year Treasuries also declined slightly, with the former currently sitting at 0.845% and the latter at 1.345%.

DeFi & CeFi

• LayerZero Labs raises $120M in Series B funding round at $3B valuation
• Polyhedron Network closes $15M pre-Series A round led by Polychain Capital
• Derivatives exchange Bitget secures $10M in funding from Dragonfly
• Delphi Labs raises $13.5M in a round led by P2P to build Web3 accelerator
• Franklin closes $2.9M seed round to provide tax-compliant crypto payroll services
• OPNX, a new exchange founded by 3AC co-founders, is now live
• PancakeSwap launches its V3 on Ethereum and BNB Chain, boasting lowest fees for on-chain trades
• Decentralized exchange Collection.XYZ launches on Ethereum
• Emerging blockchains Base, Era and Sei to prioritize building limit order book DEXs
• Aave looks to deploy V3 on Polygon zkEVM and BNB Chain after temperature check votes
• Coinbase is partnering with US infrastructure provider TNS to enable faster and more efficient transactions for its derivatives exchange
• LATAM biggest investment bank launches own dollar-backed stablecoin on Polygon

The emergence of blockchains such as Base, ZkSync Era, and Sei, which offer higher throughput, aims to provide a more advanced exchange while eliminating counterparty risk through self-custody. The dominant model in the current DEX sector is the automated market maker (AMM) model, which offers limited trading techniques, poor capital efficiency, and imprecise estimates for settlement prices. However, limit order book (LOB) DEXs can offer more advanced trading methods, unique order types, and transparency. Several teams, including Dexchange, PerpDEX, Izumi, Mes Protocol, and Clober, are already building LOB-based DEXs on Era.

Meanwhile, multiple deal flows were announced in the past 24 hours, with the largest being LayerZero Labs. It has raised $120 million in a Series B funding round with backing from Circle Ventures, Samsung’s next-gen investment arm, auction house Christie’s, OpenSea, a16z’s crypto branch, among 33 different groups of investors. LayerZero's cross-chain messaging protocol enables decentralized applications (dapps) deployed across multiple blockchains and allows projects to interact without the need for an intermediary. Applications like Stargate Finance and Aptos Bridge are both powered by LayerZero, while Arbitrum and zkSync also rely on the messaging protocol to move assets around. The fresh set of capital will be used to expand initiatives in the Asia-Pacific region, notably in the gaming and non-fungible token (NFT) spaces in the crypto messaging protocol. The company is now valued at $3 billion on its latest funding round.

On-Chain

The RHODL ratio compares the wealth held by long-term holders (holding for 6 months to 2 years) to the wealth held by short-term holders (holding for 1 day to 3 months). A falling RHODL ratio suggests that long-term holders are selling their coins while short-term holders are buying them. This shift in ownership from long-term to short-term holders can indicate a change in sentiment or a potential trend reversal, often triggering a rally in BTC when the ratio reaches its peak and begins to decline. Currently, the RHODL ratio is declining after hitting an all-time high (@glassnode).

Crypto Derivatives

• BTC funding rate flips positive while ETH remains positive
• 30-day ATM IVs increased to 57.58% and 62.39% for BTC and ETH respectively
• 30-day 25 delta call skew for BTC decreased to 3.41% while ETH skew flips to call premium at 2.79%

Top 3 CEX USDT perp funding rate arbitrage based on last 24-hour lookback:

The futures market saw a total of $77.24M in liquidations in the past 24 hours, with shorts accounting for the majority at $50.14M.

As the Shapella update draws nearer, ETH global open interest in perpetual swaps has hit a 5-month high of $5.3B. Looking into Binance's ETH/USDT perpetual swaps, the current long-short ratio sits at 1.15, suggesting bullish trader sentiment.

In the options market, the BTC term structure remains in contango. IV rose across the curve for ETH, particularly on the front-end, causing the term structure to enter backwardation. The ETH skew flipped to a call premium for all maturities as demand for call options spiked during European trading hours. The variance risk premium for ETH also spiked to 19.69% as IV rose from 61.2% to 66.18%.

On the flow side, the bulk of BTC volume comes from the 14 Apr puts option contract, as sentiment for the 12 Apr CPI data appears bearish.Noteworthy trades include the buying of 200 contracts of the 26 May 30K/45K 1:3 call ratio and the selling of 352 contracts of the 14 Apr 27.5K put (@tradeparadigm).

Finally, the VIX rose for the first time in 10 days and currently sits at 19.

Crypto Technical Analysis

On the TA front, BTC has broken through the key resistance zone at $28.4K and is reaching for the next resistance at $28.8K. This now acts as the new key resistance as there is no other resistance observed until the 31.1K level which indicates a 9% potential upside. However, price may also pull back to the $28.4K which acts as the new key support level to determine the whether price will follow a continuation or reversal pattern.

Turning to ETH, the price movement was largely similar to that of BTC. However, it is significantly more bullish on the technical side. As it has clearly broken through the $1.83K resistance, there are no more clear resistance zones until the $1.98-2K level, indicating a 4% potential upside. Similar to the BTC analysis, a price retracement is to be expected before, and if, the price continues to be bullish and approaches the aforementioned resistance zone, especially when BTC, as the market leader, is reaching its resistance. Lastly, RSI has increased further and is approaching the overbought zone as 4H and 1D are observed at 74.9 and 65.9 respectively.

Access institutional-grade commentary on TradFi × Crypto markets

By Treehouse Research

Read Past Issues

Daily Readings

TradFi

• Exclusive: Germany's Stada asks Berlin to help secure its future in Ukraine

• Betting against First Republic, short sellers made $848 mln in March - Ortex

• Exclusive: Canada regulator steps up antitrust review of Smith Financial bid for Home Capital

• UBS gets temporary EU green light for Credit Suisse deal, pending review

• J&J unit files for second bankruptcy to pursue $8.9 billion talc settlement

• 3M's bid to shield itself from earplug lawsuits faces skeptical judges

• Branson's Virgin Orbit files for bankruptcy after launch failure squeezed finances

• Oil steady as markets weigh OPEC+ surprise cuts amid demand woes

• Yellen urges IMF to press creditors to finalize debt restructurings

• Natura focused on 'disciplined allocation' after Aesop sale; shares rise

• Wall Street ends down as weak economic data fuels recession fears

• Biden eyes AI dangers, says tech companies must make sure products are safe

• Arbutus files patent lawsuit against Pfizer/BioNTech over COVID vaccines

Crypto

• Tokenized Gold Surpasses $1B in Market Cap as Physical Asset Nears All-Time Price High.

• Crypto Funds’ Bitcoin Holdings Rise as Investor Demand Rebounds.

• Trump NFT Sales Spike Following Ex-President's Arraignment in New York.

• Tether Gained Access to U.S. Financial System Using Signature Bank: Bloomberg.

• Google Cloud to Offer Workshops, Cloud Computing Services for Builders on Celo.

• Texas Bill Limiting Benefits for Crypto Miners Unanimously Passes Committee Vote.

• OpenSea Launches OpenSea Pro, Courting Professional NFT Traders.

• Peer-to-Peer Bitcoin Exchange Paxful to Suspend Operations.

• OPNX Exchange, Which Offers FTX Claims Trading, Led by Three Arrows Founders, Is Now Live.

• Coinbase to Offer Faster Transactions on Derivatives Exchange Through Partnership With Infrastructure Provider TNS.

• Fantom Network Adds De.Fi's Security Tools to Bolster Dapp Protection.

• Masa announces soulbound ID tokens for Coinbase's Base Network.

• Massive supply chain attack targeting small number of crypto companies: Kaspersky.

• Liquidity protocol Sentiment exploited for over $500K.

• 73.3% of Q1 rug pulls happened on BNB Chain: Immunefi.

• Brazil bank BTG Pactual to issue USD-pegged stablecoin.

• Elon Musk's Dogecoin hype draws attention to mysterious wallet that once held $24 billion

• OpenEden Launched Tokenized Treasury Bills, Plan Tokenized Bonds, Stocks, REITs

Deal Flow

• Blockchain data indexing platform Satsuma raised $5 million in seed round

• Dragonfly invests $10 million in derivatives exchange Bitget

• Modular Blockchain Astria Raises $5.5M for Shared Sequencer Network.

• DeFi Hub Nibiru Chain Valued at $100M After $8.5M Seed Funding Round.

• Carbon-Backed NFT Collection Ecosapiens Raises $3.5M.

• Delphi Labs Raises $13.5M for Web3 Accelerator.

• Polychain Leads $15M Funding Round for Crypto Startup Polyhedra Network.

• Crypto exchange backed by 3AC founders launches with claims trading plans.

• LayerZero Closes $120 Million Series B at $3 Billion Valuation, $STG Up 7.12% in the Last Hour

• Web3 Football Metaverse TOPGOAL Secures Millions in Investment from DWF Labs

Yours sincerely,
Treehouse Research 🌳