What's Driving Token Prices? (Feb 9, 2022)

IMX (-4%) - IMX is the token for Immutable-X, which focuses on NFT and gaming use cases for Ethereum. GameStop selected Immutable to build its NFT marketplace, with Immutable also providing a $100M grant of IMX tokens and contingent grants of another $150M, subject to hitting certain milestones. However, GameStop immediately sold $42 million of tokens, reversing the price spike from the announcement and sending it down as much as 30% on the day. Immutable's integration with OpenSea remains on track to be announced in Q1 2022. NFT trading volumes on Immutable are down -58% month over month.
SOL (+3.5%) - Wormhole, the cross-chain bridge on Solana, was hacked for over $320M (or ~120K ETH) last week. Wormhole works by bridging assets between Ethereum and Solana and uses a wrapped or pegged version of Ethereum. The hacker effectively removed the ETH from Wormhole, which was backing pegged ETH on Solana. This hack would have had far-reaching implications for several DeFi projects utilizing this pegged ETH in any way. Jump Trading, which purchased the blockchain firm that created Wormhole last year, stepped in the next day, stating they would replace the 120K ETH to “make community members whole.” The move reaffirmed confidence in the Solana ecosystem, although it has led many to question how decentralized the ecosystem truly is. Since Jump Trading replaced the ETH in a timely manner, Solana suffered only minimally, ending the week up 3.5%.
MATIC (+27%) -MATIC is the token of Layer 2 scaling solution Polygon, which is used across a number of different DeFi projects and is the largest L2 solution by TVL (it currently has about $5.4B in TVL). On Monday, Polygon announced it had raised $450M from Sequoia, Tiger Global, and Softbank, cementing it as one of the most well-capitalized digital assets projects.
LEO (+64%) - LEO is the token issued by crypto exchange Bitfinex in 2019 to help plug a balance sheet hole created by a bad counterparty that lost the firm ~$800M. Bitfinex stated that if funds recovered from its 2016 hack (in which 119,754 BTC among other assets were stolen) were ever recovered, it would use 80% of the proceeds to buy back and burn the LEO token from the market until all outstanding tokens were gone (the tokens are also burned based on revenue made in the exchange’s day-to-day business). Yesterday, news broke that the U.S. arrested a couple attempting to launder $4.5B in crypto tied to the hack; many believe Bitfinex will recover the assets. This interesting story has drawn out for years in the digital asset market; it is incredible that the funds will finally be recovered after so much time. The token reacted favorably to the news, trading up over 31%.

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