Weekly Market Highlights - Binance launches inscriptions marketplace

2 February 2024 Macro/TradFi The Federal Reserve has maintained steady interest rates for the fourth consecutive meeting, while signaling openness to potential rate cuts in the future. The International Monetary Fund (“IMF”) has raised its global growth forecast for 2024 to 3.1%, up by 0.2 percentage points, attributing the increase to resilience in the U.S., Chinese fiscal stimulus, and robust performance by large emerging market economies. Web3 payments firm Transak has partnered with Visa to streamline the conversion of cryptocurrency to fiat. This partnership enables users in over 145 countries to conveniently convert crypto into local currencies through Transak's payments infrastructure. The Hong Kong branch of Harvest Fund Management, a leading Chinese asset manager, has reportedly applied for a spot bitcoin ETF. This move comes as Hong Kong prepares to introduce its first batch of spot cryptocurrency ETFs. Crypto L1/L2: Ethereum's 'Dencun' upgrade has gone live on its second testnet, leaving just one more before the full implementation, bringing the much-anticipated EIP-4844 and proto-danksharding a step closer to reality. The Immutable zkEVM mainnet has launched in early access, with selected games scheduled to debut on the Ethereum L2 in the coming months. LayerZero Labs has announced the launch of LayerZero V2, aiming to improve the security, throughput, and versatility of the LayerZero protocol. dApps: Binance Launches In-App Bitcoin Inscriptions Marketplace for BRC-20 Tokens. The Binance Inscriptions Marketplace provides a one-stop solution within the Binance Web3 Wallet, allowing users to buy, sell and mint inscription tokens. dYdX has introduced liquid staking for its native token, with the dYdX Chain upgrade to v3.0, enabling the integration of liquid staking protocols into the Cosmos-based network. Meanwhile, the dYdX Foundation has requested US$30M in funding from its governing DAO for use over three years, aiming to maintain an 18-month financial runway until mid-2026. Farcaster has witnessed a surge in activity following the introduction of its Frames feature, enabling users to embed interactive posts, pushing the dApp's daily active user count past the 10K mark. Stablecoin: Circle is set to issue its stablecoin, USDC, on the Celo network. This move comes as Celo is transitioning into an Ethereum layer-2 network, aiming to establish itself as a blockchain suited for real-world assets. Abracadabra Finance was hit by a $6.5 million exploit, resulting in its MIM stablecoin plummeting to $0.76, though it has since recovered from this incident.  NFT: Magic Eden has launched a multi-chain, self-custodial wallet, designed to provide a seamless way for users to manage and collect NFTs across major chains like Solana, Bitcoin, Polygon, and Ethereum. Other: Vitalik Buterin has released a new blog post outlining four key areas where AI can enhance blockchain applications. These include using AI as a player in games, as an interface to games, as the rule-setter of games, and as the ultimate objective within games. Portal, developing a Bitcoin-based cross-chain decentralized exchange and wallet, has secured US$34M in a seed funding round. 🔎 Latest Binance Research Publications  Check out our latest publications: DePIN: An Emerging Narrative Q4 State of Crypto: Market Pulse Full-Year 2023 & Themes for 2024 Explore our Binance Research website for more project and macro research reports and the Binance Legal website for latest updates and consultation responses. For more frequent market updates and insights, follow us on Twitter @BinanceResearch. Have a minute? Please share with us any feedback you may have via this form. That’s a wrap! Binance Research Read more https://research.binance.com/en/analysis  About Binance Research: Binance Research is the research arm of Binance, the world's leading cryptocurrency exchange. The team is committed to delivering objective, independent, and comprehensive analysis and aims to be the thought leader in the crypto space. Our analysts publish insightful thought pieces regularly on topics related but not limited to, the crypto ecosystem, blockchain technologies, and the latest market themes. General Disclosure: This material is prepared by Binance Research and is not intended to be relied upon as a forecast or investment advice, and is not a recommendation, offer or solicitation to buy or sell any securities, cryptocurrencies or to adopt any investment strategy. The use of terminology and the views expressed are intended to promote understanding and the responsible development of the sector and should not be interpreted as definitive legal views or those of Binance. The opinions expressed are as of the date shown above and are the opinions of the writer, they may change as subsequent conditions vary. The information and opinions contained in this material are derived from proprietary and non-proprietary sources deemed by Binance Research to be reliable, are not necessarily all-inclusive and are not guaranteed as to accuracy. As such, no warranty of accuracy or reliability is given and no responsibility arising in any other way for errors and omissions (including responsibility to any person by reason of negligence) is accepted by Binance. This material may contain ’forward looking’ information that is not purely historical in nature. Such information may include, among other things, projections and forecasts. There is no guarantee that any forecasts made will come to pass. Reliance upon information in this material is at the sole discretion of the reader. This material is intended for information purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or an offer or solicitation to purchase or sell in any securities, cryptocurrencies or any investment strategy nor shall any securities or cryptocurrency be offered or sold to any person in any jurisdiction in which an offer, solicitation, purchase or sale would be unlawful under the laws of such jurisdiction. Investment involves risks.