Some highlights from last week:

The total cryptocurrency market cap increased by a healthy 8.6%, growing from $1.42T to $1.54T. The major assets experienced a median 7 day return of 3.2%, led by ETH (15.1%) and BTC (10.4%). Long term sentiment scores remain positive for the majors despite questionable price action over the past few weeks. Trading volume increased by 10.2%, with DOGE volumes surging by 43.1%. Tweet volume also increased this past week (3.5%).

All 6 sectors that we analyze each week experienced a positive 7 day return, with NFTs leading the way by a long shot at 25.2%. The remaining sectors all performed within a 7.4% to 8.7% range.

The price of BTC traded in a 21% range this past week, from the low of $29,301 set early in the week, to the high of $35,451 set on Sunday. The B Word Conference had an overall positive impact on the price of BTC, as Elon Musk and those alike spent the day talking about the cryptocurrency. Musk confirmed that SpaceX holds BTC and ETH and doesn't plan to sell it.

Another notable significant development occurred this week. Crypto derivatives exchange FTX closed a record $900M fundraise at an $18 billion valuation. This is the largest private equity round in the industry’s history, doubling the previous record.

Axie Infinity has continued to climb to new all time high prices again this week. Multiple factors have played into AXS’s recent rise, but one event seemed to really excite the community. A Origin Mystic Axie sold for 54 ETH, or $109,353! The price of AXS immediately jumped 51% after this news broke the media.

Justin Barlow of the Tie Research did a deep dive into the Axie Infinity ecosystem including updates from the Axie Infinity team on things such as the impact of EIP 1559, future integrations with other gaming titles, and an official Axie Lending program coming soon. Read the full research report here.

The concept of a Metaverse has become increasingly popular in recent months with successful projects like Axie Infinity, Decentraland, and The Sandbox growing in users. Aggregated Tweet volume for the top 3 Metaverse tokens have hit record highs this week, reaching a total of 4,569 over the weekend.

Two significant developments occurred for Uniswap this past week. Grayscale has launched a new DeFi fund that is dominated by Uniswap at 49.95%. This is Grayscale’s 15th investment product, which will have 10 digital assets including the likes of Uniswap, Aave, Compound, and more.

Additionally, Uniswap Labs — a software development studio that contributes to the Uniswap Protocol — has limited token access on its front end app.uniswap.org. These tokens include tokenized stocks and derivatives, due to regulatory crackdowns. Shortly after this announcement, the number of Twitter users talking about Uniswap increased by 136%, climbing from 1,450 to 3,422.

Cross-chain swap platform THORChain has been hit with its 2nd attack in weeks, losing $8M to a hacker who wanted to “teach a lesson”. This brings THORChain’s total losses to around $13M from exploits. Shortly after this attack hit and the news started spreading, the price of RUNE dropped by -22% within hours. Investor sentiment on RUNE also decreased massively, dropping -76.7% from 45.4 to 10.6.

This report is for informational purposes only and is not investment or trading advice. The views and opinions expressed in this report are exclusively those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of The TIE Inc. The Author may be holding the cryptocurrencies or using the strategies mentioned in this report. You are fully responsible for any decisions you make; the TIE Inc. is not liable for any loss or damage caused by reliance on information provided. For investment advice, please consult a registered investment advisor.