The Week Ahead

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With traders back at their desks after a summer lull, projects seem to be taking advantage of renewed attention, with several high-impact announcements scheduled for the week ahead. Here’s our pick of things to watch in the week commencing 11th September:

TLDR;

• Stellar to release news on September 12th

• ASTR to announce the next stage of supernova at Token 2029 on September 13th

• FTX seeking approval to begin liquidating around $650m SOL tokens

• Alien Worlds pre-announced news dropping on the 12th of September

• ENJ chain launches on September 13th, including a token swap

XLM Announcement - September 12th

Since Judge Torres’s XRP vs SEC ruling, Stellar (XLM) has seen significant relative strength against the wider market as the team used renewed attention to release several updates, such as a partnership with MoneyGram and a new product called Stellar Quest. This has raised XLM's profile and made it an attractive market for traders.

Further adding to the strength, the Stellar team pre-announced news to be released on September 12th. Given how recent ‘announcements-of-announcements’ have traded, for example, Shibarium’s launch, this event will likely lead to significant volatility and trading in the lead-up to, and after the announcement.

ASTR Annoucement - September 13th

We published our $ASTR thesis last month, outlining the token as a good proxy for traders to gain exposure to the Japan theme ahead of Binance’s re-entry into the market. To recap, Astar is a scalable platform used by dApp developers to lower costs and improve interoperability, including via the use of Layer 2 features such as Plasma and zero-knowledge rollups.

One of the key things setting it apart from other ‘Japanese tokens’, is the partnerships they have secured. Notably, ASTR partnered with the fourth-largest company in Japan - NTT Docomo, which happens to be the country's most important telecommunications company. Over the years, TT Docomo is set to invest $4 billion in Web3 and sees Astar Network as a key player in the development of the Japanese Web3 ecosystem.

Furthermore, ASTR’s founder - Sota Watanabe helped the Japanese government design their blockchain strategy and co-authored a national Web3 white paper.

This solidified their position within the Japanese crypto ecosystem, which has resulted in significant relative strength since the announcement.

Importantly, the Astar team has set high expectations for an upcoming announcement at Token 2049. Scheduled for September 13th, the market is likely to see increased volume and volatility as traders position for the event.

Alien Worlds Announcement - September 12th

Alien Worlds is a blockchain-based, play-to-earn game that allows players to mine Trilium (TLM), the game's native cryptocurrency, by staking NFTs (non-fungible tokens) on planets. Players can also participate in quests, explore the game's universe, and trade NFTs.

Alien Worlds was launched in December 2020 on the WAX blockchain, and it has since been ported to the Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain blockchains. The game has over 3 million registered users and has generated over $300 million in revenue.

Last week, the team put out a teaser and pre-announced news on September 12th. Given the project’s weak price action and lack of interest in the token, this could either prove to be a turning point or another sell-the-news event. Whichever outcome prevails, we anticipate increased volatility this week and will be watching the market closely.

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FTX Approval to sell assets - September 13th

On September 10, 2023, rumors began circulating on social media that the cryptocurrency exchange FTX would be granted approval to liquidate its crypto holdings on September 13. These rumors were based on a Reuters report and court filing suggesting FTX had picked Galaxy to help hedge and sell its crypto holdings late last month. The guidelines for sales include a weekly limit of $100m, with a caveat that the court may increase the limit to $200m, depending on the circumstances.

The latest estimations of FTX’s liquid crypto holdings, unveiled on January 17th 2023, suggest the holdings are heavily skewed towards Solana, with a $685m known balance.

Given this potential overhang of SOL hitting the market, the token has already front-run any sales, and since the agreement was reached with Galaxy on August 24th, has sold off close to 13% against Bitcoin. Should the estate win permission to begin a controlled liquidation, we estimate it would take between 7-18 weeks of selling to clear this overhang, and therefore believe it could underperform into November 2023.

ENJ chain launch - September 13th

Enjin, a leading blockchain platform for gaming and NFTs, is launching its own blockchain on September 13, 2023. The Enjin Chain is a custom-built blockchain designed to be scalable, secure, and efficient for NFTs. It is based on the Substrate framework, which is also used by Polkadot and Kusama.

The Enjin Chain will support a variety of features that are designed to make it ideal for NFTs, such as:

• High throughput: The Enjin Chain can process up to 9,000 transactions per second, making it one of the most scalable blockchains for NFTs.

• Low fees: The Enjin Chain has very low fees, making it affordable for users to mint and trade NFTs.

• Security: The Enjin Chain is built on Substrate, which is a secure and battle-tested framework.

• Interoperability: The Enjin Chain is interoperable with other blockchains, allowing NFTs to be transferred between different networks.

The launch of the Enjin Chain is a major milestone for the Enjin ecosystem. It will make it easier for developers to create and manage NFTs, and it will help to bring NFTs to a wider audience.

The Enjin Chain is expected to have a positive impact on the NFT market. It will make it easier for users to create, trade, and manage NFTs, and it will help to attract new users to the NFT market.

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