What's Driving Token Prices? June 5, 2024

GNO (-2.2%) - Gnosis, the prediction market product responsible for the SAFE wallet and CoW protocol, has a vote this week to execute a buyback of its GNO token at book value. Despite having many various business lines including its own chain (Gnosischain), its governance token GNO is trading 48% below the value of its treasury (with some assumptions around their venture positions and LP positions in 1kx). The proposal recommends that $30M of treasury assets (about 5% of the total treasury value) be used to buy back the token and bring it back to book value. The proposal is up for an initial snapshot vote which ends next Monday.
MPL (+14%) - Last week, Maple Finance, a lending protocol, launched a new institutional DeFi product called Syrup. The protocol enables users to deposit USDC, which is then lent out as part of a secured loan to “institutional investors in crypto.” Maple will further integrate Syrup into DeFi applications by promoting the integration of its syrupUSDC LP token (the IOU token users receive for depositing USDC). Finally, Maple plans to replace its MPL token with SYRUP later this year and will run a “Drip” campaign for users to earn SYRUP tokens by participating in the new protocol.
AR (+15%) - Last week, Arweave, a decentralized data permanence project, announced the launch of a token for its newest AO protocol. The AO token will replicate Bitcoin’s supply schedule and fair launch. Users can earn new AO tokens by holding $AR in their wallet, bridging tokens to AO, or building on AO. AO is designed as a scalable smart contract execution layer for Arweave’s layer-1 solution. While technically very different from other smart contract platforms, the design can be used in many application use cases, such as AI.
STG (+32%) - Stargate, the bridge built by Layer Zero, launched its v2 last week. The v2 introduces “Hydra Chains,” which essentially allow additional integrations of Stargate with other chains. This should result in lower bridging costs as transactions can be combined into one transaction. Layer Zero serves as the messaging rails for inter-blockchain communication and has hinted that its token will be released soon.

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