Crypto Week Ahead: Bitcoin & Bored Ape Yacht Club Acquires CryptoPunks

Cryptocurrency markets are showing little activity this week with investors continuing to sit back and wait for developments in Russia-Ukraine conflict. Nevertheless, a major acquisition has occurred in NFTs, which will cause major waves for collectors. We've got you covered across the board with the news that will matter this week.

Bitcoin Still the Crypto of Choice

Over the past month, Bitcoin has outperformed Ethereum and several other alternative cryptocurrencies. While almost every major cryptocurrency is down over this period, Ethereum has fallen 17% compared to Bitcoin 10%. Alternative coins like Solana and Cardano are down 24% and 33% respectively.

The underperformance of Ethereum and other altcoins indicates that crypto investors are maintaining their low-risk appetite during this period. This provides a fairly robust barometer for today crypto market. Expect that altcoins and Ethereum will continue to underperform Bitcoin until economic conditions stabilise.

Russian Bitcoin on the moveIn last week article, we predicted that global sanctions against Russia would drive high-net-worth individuals to use cryptocurrencies to move their assets. The country of choice for these movements appears to be the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is reported to be the subject of requests to liquidate upwards of $2 billion in Bitcoin.

The UAE has appeared lukewarm on enforcing Western sanctions that freeze the assets of Russian individuals. This leaves many crypto exchanges like Coinbase and Binance stepping in to ensure their platforms aren't being used to evade sanctions.

Based on current reports, it appears the crypto exchanges are winning the race to freeze assets in place. Given the size of some of these holdings, we should expect that these actions will have downward pressure on both supply and demand. A combination that will slow market activity around Bitcoin.

Yuga Labs Buys CryptoPunks and Meebits

While crypto currency markets are displaying inactivity, the same can't be said for NFTs. Yuga Labs, the company that owns the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection, has acquired the CryptoPunks and Meebits NFT collections.

Bored Ape Yacht Club is the most valuable NFT collection with a market capitalisation of $2.4 billion. The acquisition of CryptoPunks and Meebits is a savvy consolidation of the most popular NFTs in existence.

Meebits is the top NFT collection by lifetime sales, sitting at $7.5 billion in sales. CryptoPunks is third, with $4.2 billion lifetime sales. However, each of the collections play in different markets. The average price of a Meebit is $16,000, while the average CryptoPunks is $177,420. The price of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs, meanwhile, start around $300,000.

The acquisition doesn't change the ownership of any current holders of CryptoPunks or Meebit NFTs. Instead, Yuga Labs will grant additional commercial rights to those collections to each NFT respective owners. This move is a step further than the rights previously granted to owners of CryptoPunks and Meebit NFTs as it will allow owners to monetise their specific NFT. For example, collectors can create their own NFT collection based on their NFT or licence the use of their NFT to record labels and other corporates.

The acquisition is big news for an NFT market that has seen reduced trading volumes in recent months. Yuga Lab decision to change the ownership rights to CryptoPunks and Meebit NFTs should increase their value to owners, as they now have more opportunities to monetise them. Yuga Labs also has a range of partnerships through streetwear, events, and gaming collaborations that can now be applied to these newly acquired collections and boost their popularity.

Upcoming Initial Coin Offerings

An initial coin offering (ICO) is the cryptocurrency equivalent to an initial public offering (IPO). During an ICO, cryptocurrency projects will raise interest in their project and sell an initial allocation of coins to investors to raise funds.

Here a list of the latest ICOs that are about to drop:

CoinICO End DateTime Raiders18 Mar 2022GameYoo19 Mar 2022Wizardia19 Mar 2022Basketballverse25 Mar 2022

[Source: Coin Market Cap]