Dear all,

Bitcoin’s ascent pauses slightly amidst the meme-coin craze. Let us bring you the customary NFT and digital market overviews for the past two weeks.

🌐 Two Weeks Market Brief

Bitcoin for the past 2 weeks ending 18th December rose 1.59%, Ethereum fell -1.07% and the rest of the market rose 7.63%. Meme-coins steal the limelight while Bitcoin takes a breather.

The past two weeks have been dominated by the narratives in the meme-coin space. Solana’s $BONK has risen over 5x in the past month (Figure 1) and $ORDI well over 10x from the bottom as BRC-20 tokens become the prevailing narrative. Typically such signals tend to foreshadow ‘the beginning of the end’ especially with Bitcoin struggling to make new highs. Ethereum and its related coins have severely underperformed the broader market, potentially creating opportunities within that sector.

Figure1: $BONK steals the scene / Source: Tradingview

As anticipated, the recent US FOMC meeting maintained a dovish stance, with a majority of market participants now anticipating the Federal Reserve to implement interest rate cuts in the coming year, possibly as early as March. The continued draining of the reverse repo facility is further contributing to the maintenance of ample liquidity in the market. Only a severe recession could dampen the current optimism in risk assets.

NFT Market Overview

Looking at the Ethereum NFT market volume, we are down from the recent rally where the daily volume is at $19.7 million, down from $38.2 million two weeks ago. The drop in volume was significantly impacted by the recent NFT Trader exploit, where hackers stole assets - millions of dollars in bluechip NFTs like Bored Ape Yacht Club and Pudgy Penguins - from wallets that were not revoked from but tide to NFT Trader platform.

On the other hand, we continue to see Solana NFTs rally. It surpassed Ethereum in trading volume, and Tensor, Blur for Solana, rose to the top among Solana NFT Marketplaces flipping Magic Eden. It is also evident from unique buying wallets that there are more demand in Solana NFTs than Ethereum NFTs.

Unlike two weeks ago, bluechip index has changed its path and is on the down trend.

Here are top 5 collections based on trading volume over the past week including the floor price and the floor change(%) of each collection.

Here are top five sales in the Ethereum NFT market in the past 7 days:

1. Fidenza #985: 125 ETH

2. CryptoPunks #5240: 84 ETH

3. CryptoPunks #553: 79.25 ETH

4. CryptoPunks #4285: 79.19 ETH

5. CryptoPunks #1333: 63 ETH

In the art side of NFTs, many artists, collectors and developers alike gathered in Miami for the Art Week that took place in time with Art Basel Miami, holding exhibitions, talks and parties.

Some notable events include:

• The Gateway Miami by nftnow at Faena Forum, featuring exhibitions and talks by notable artists

• An artist duo, Operator’s “Human Unreadable” exhibition held in collaboration with Proof

• On a slightly different note, a clumpy display of artworks woven with wires put up by the Tezos community sparked criticism and led to explosion of memes - #Tezpole