Market updates

Bitget Hot Takes (March 27 - April 02)

Beginner

2023-04-03 | 5m

Bitget Hot Takes is the exclusive weekly newsletter series by Bitget Academy, the 360-degree onboarding guide for all crypto enthusiasts.

Bitget Hot Takes last week can be found here.

Central Themes

• BGB is the only exchange token with a positive weekly return.

• Binance and CZ hit with CFTC’s charges and a US$1 billion class action lawsuit.

• Gucci partners with Yuga Labs for a new Metaverse.

• Hell's Kitchen of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay coming to The Sandbox.

• MBappe's Sorare NFT unique card sold for over US$195,000.

• Square Enix launched Final Fantasy NFT trading cards.

BGB Holding Tight Amid Crackdown

As Binance got sued by the U.S. Commodity and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), most exchange tokens were affected and saw red across markets: BNB by -2.9%, OKB -0.2% and KCS -5.2%. However, BGB is doing a good job keeping up with BTC (+3%) and ETH (+3.9%) despite the current circumstances.

Bitget Hot Takes (March 27 - April 02) image 0

And we are not even mentioning the reason behind Ethereum's small rally - the upcoming Shanghai Upgrade. And overall growth of 0.5% is encouraging enough, given that the 7-day range is tighter than last week from a low of US$0.380042 (up by 4.46% from last week's) to a high of US$0.409509 (down by 0.04%).

The latest analyses provide a detailed summary of BGB’s incredible achievements month by month:

BGB Sail: February Edition

BGB Sail: December Edition

BGB Sail: November Edition

BGB Sail: October Edition

BGB Sail: September Edition

BGB Sail: August Edition

BGB Sail: July Edition

BGB Sail: June Edition

BGB Sail: May Edition

… while this article dives in deep on why BGB has become the new staple: Why BGB Is Your Bluechip Exchange Token

Bitget Hot Takes (March 27 - April 02) image 1

Binance Under Scrutiny Again

The aforementioned decline of most exchange tokens can be directly linked to a charge by CFTC against Binance and its CEO, Changpeng Zhao ‘CZ'. In their official announcement, CFTC says that Binance ‘knew they were violating CFTC rules, and avoiding compliance for years’, which translates to a ‘willful avoidance of the U.S. law'. Official documents see Binance, CZ and related parties charged with executing unregistered futures transactions, providing illegal commodities options, failing to register as a Futures Commission Merchant, Designated Contract Market or Swap Execution Facility, failing to supervise diligently or implementing AML/KYC measures and law evasion. CZ responded to the case with a blog post saying the complaint is ‘unexpected and disappointing' and claiming that ‘we [ Binance ] do not shy away from challenges', but that didn't prevent capital from flowing out of the exchange. According to Nansen, ca. US$852 million in tokens on Ethereum, Polygon, BNB Chain, Avalanche, Fantom were withdrawn from Binance within 24 hours.

Before the week's end, Binance had to face a class action lawsuit, together with CZ, NBA star Jimmy Butler, BitBoy Crypto and Graham Stephan, by the same law firm behind the class action against Voyager. The suit entails CFTC charges, thereby seeking damages for all U.S. customers suffering from losses incurred by the sale and promotion of BNB - ‘an unregistered security' - exceeding US$1 billion. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) all have long-running open cases against Binance as well.

Good bits of news for the week? New, spectacular collaborations in the NFT space:

• Gucci x Yuga Labs: Gucci announced their partnership with the NFT expert Yuga Labs to ‘continue to explore the Metaverse'. Details on the House’s next moves in the Web3 space are not yet available.

• Hell's Kitchen x The Sandbox: Hell's Kitchen game in The Sandbox has dropped and available for all players, free of charge, with the opportunity to share 50,000 SAND and 20 Hell's Kitchen avatars! However, the game is playable until April 11 only.

• MBappe's Sorare NFT unique card auction: On March 30, 2023, Sorare highest-priced NFT card was discovered - the 2022-23 unique card of French football star Kylian MBappe - at the price of US$195,563.87. Watch the auction here.

• Final Fantasy NFT trading cards: Though not yet tradeable and transferrable, NFT trading cards depicting the iconic game Final Fantasy’s characters and scenery are released on Square Enix’s online store at ¥440 (US$3.30) a pack.

• Trump NFT pumping: Former U.S. President Trump's NFT floor price saw an increase from 0.46 ETH to 0.60 ETH on the day of his indictment (March 30, 2023), but has receded to 0.479 ETH.

The Latest Bitget News

As one major leader in the digital space, Bitget understands that decentralised protocols are the future of cryptocurrencies. We have been supporting the growth of DeFi via (1) our extension of products (Bitget Launchpool, Bitget MegaSwap, Bitget Earn) so that beginners can get acquainted with DeFi activities in a safe environment, (2) our Bitget Launchpad and Bitget Innovation Zone, where startups and new projects can expose themselves to our strong base of crypto-natives and (3) investing in fundamental crypto services. Last week, Bitget made an additional investment of US$30 million into the multi-chain Web3 wallet BitKeep, showing our commitment to grow beyond the custodial territory as well as improving the platform’s security in terms of asset storage.

The latest roadmap update by BitKeep involves a rebrand to Bitget Wallet, aiming to expand the decentralised universe of Bitget as well as extending the rights and interests of original BitKeep users, including but not limited to the $300 million Bitget Protection Fund. All victims of the exploit in late 2022 have all been compensated, once again asserting Bitget and BitKeep's number one priority: users.

We are also delighted to announce that our Fixed Savings is live! Bitget Fixed Savings is a low-risk, high return product with a fixed subscription term. By locking your asset of choice for a certain period (30, 60, 90 or 120 days), you are entitled to earning lucrative interests for a wide range of coins from USDT, USDC, ETH, APE to AXS. A full guide on how to join Bitget Fixed Savings is provided here: Introduction To Bitget Fixed Savings