What's Driving Token Prices? September 27, 2023

RON (-6.9%) - Layer-2 gaming focused blockchain, Ronin, announced yesterday the launch of RNS or Ronin Name Service, intends to become a copy of ENS (Ethereum Name Service). RNS and ENS both sell human readable addresses tied to specific public wallet addresses on their respective chains. The goal is to offer a shortened or easy-to-remember version of a public wallet address, similar to how email addresses work. This innovation makes sense for the gaming focused blockchain as it focuses on a simplified user experience. Ronin will be holding a sale for .ron names on October 26 with users being able to reserve RNS names today, however, not all names are available and some are being held back from the public in order to deter bad actors.
ARB (-2.7%)- Early this week, Layer-2 protocol, Arbitrum, swept all unclaimed ARB from an airdrop (over 69m tokens or ~$50M) to the Arbitrum DAO treasury. Currently, there isn't a specific proposal on what to do with these tokens but the tokens account for a small portion of the overall treasury, which sits at $3B. Arbitrum is also in the process of deciding which projects receive the next round of “Short-term Incentives Proposal” (STIP) grants after receiving 36 grant applications. Finally, the Arbitrum Odyssey relaunched this week with badge NFTs that are available for those who complete a set of outlined tasks. After the initial Arbitrum Odyssey launch, speculation ran rampant that completing tasks would lead to an airdrop creating a lot of onchain activity. While there isn't a specified airdrop allocation of ARB tokens this time around, the DAO has more than enough tokens to allocate rewards.
HT (-1.6%) - HTX (fka Huobi), one of the largest exchanges in Asia, suffered a hack over the weekend on a hot wallet worth $7.9M (5K ETH). While the exchange initially kept quiet about the hack, on-chain detectives uncovered messages sent from the exchange to the hacker’s wallet offering a 5% bounty in exchange for the stolen funds. Following this, Justin Sun, a member of HTX’s advisory board, announced on Twitter/X that HTX was fully backed and would cover the losses via the exchange’s insurance fund since the loss only amounted to two weeks worth of HTX’s revenues. Additional on-chain sleuths pointed out that $8M TUSD was immediately minted and sent to Huobi wallets furthering the rumors that HTX is insolvent and its reserves are not fully backed.
MKR (+10.3%) - Decentralized algorithmic stablecoin protocol, MakerDao, is currently in the process of voting through a proposal to increase its allocation of cash reserves towards purchasing more treasury bills. While the vote ends tomorrow morning, the proposal currently has 100% of voting power in favor of passing. Specifically, the proposal seeks to raise the amount allocated to Monetalis Clydesdale and BlockTower Andromeda from $1.25B and $1.28B respectively to $3B each, essentially doubling the allocation. The change would increase Maker’s run rate revenue, which is already at $126M for 2023.

DISCLAIMER: This commentary is not intended to be investment advice, investment research, or a recommendation. Please consult your investment professional for your own circumstances."

Disclaimer: This commentary is provided as general information only and is in no way intended as investment advice, investment research, legal advice, tax advice, a research report, or a recommendation. Any decision to invest or take any other action with respect to any investments discussed in this commentary may involve risks not discussed, and therefore, such decisions should not be based solely on the information contained in this document. Please consult your own financial/legal/tax professional.

Statements in this communication may include forward-looking information and/or may be based on various assumptions. The forward-looking statements and other views or opinions expressed are those of the author, and are made as of the date of this publication. Actual future results or occurrences may differ significantly from those anticipated and there is no guarantee that any particular outcome will come to pass. The statements made herein are subject to change at any time. Arca disclaims any obligation to update or revise any statements or views expressed herein. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results and there can be no assurance that any future results will be realized. Some or all of the information provided herein may be or be based on statements of opinion. In addition, certain information provided herein may be based on third-party sources, which is believed to be accurate, but has not been independently verified. Arca and/or certain of its affiliates and/or clients may now, or in the future, hold a financial interest in investments that are the same as or substantially similar to the investments discussed in this commentary. No claims are made as to the profitability of such financial interests, now, in the past or in the future and Arca and/or its clients may sell such financial interests at any time. The information provided herein is not intended to be, nor should it be construed as an offer to sell or a solicitation of any offer to buy any securities, or a solicitation to provide investment advisory services.