Sam Martin

<div id="highlights-block_6070167e3d7d3ae75bf84ac6fdf0d8b9" class="highlights">
        <ul>
                <li>AVAX explodes higher despite bearish price action in the broader crypto market</li>
                <li>BTC trades near an all-time high when measured against the Turkish Lira</li>
            </ul>
    
</div>



<p>AVAX, the native token to the layer-1 blockchain Avalanche, has rallied 27.5% over the past week and is currently trading near $110, according to data from <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Coingecko</a>.</p>



<p>Avalanche is leading the market in TVL growth, decentralized finance (DeFi) users and <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/defi">DeFi</a> revenue as developer activity on the blockchain continues to grow.</p>



<p>Bitcoin (<a href="https://blockworks.co/price/btc">BTC</a>) is also nearing all-time highs when measured against the Turkish Lira (TRY).</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Latest in Macro:</strong></h3>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>S&amp;P 500: 4,620, -1.03%</li>



<li>NASDAQ: 15,169, -0.07%</li>



<li>Gold: $1,797, -0.05%</li>



<li>WTI Crude Oil: $70.45, -2.67%</li>



<li>10-Year Treasury: 1.412%, -0.01%</li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Latest in Crypto:</strong></h3>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/price/btc">BTC</a>: $46,221, -0.80%</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/price/eth">ETH</a>: $3,859, -0.70%</li>



<li>ETH/BTC: 0.0833, +0.29%</li>



<li>BTC.D: 40.82%, -0.42%</li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">AVAX rallies</h3>



<p>According to its&nbsp;<a href="https://whitepaper.io/document/603/avalanche-whitepaper" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">whitepaper</a>, Avalanche is a high-performance, scalable, customizable and secure blockchain platform. It targets three broad use cases:</p>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Building application-speciﬁc blockchains, spanning permissioned (private) and permissionless (public) deployments.</li>



<li>Building and launching highly scalable and decentralized applications (dapps).</li>



<li>Building arbitrarily complex digital assets with custom rules, covenants and riders (smart assets).</li>
</ul>



<p><a href="https://blockworks.co/price/avax">AVAX</a> now boasts $11.6 billion in total value locked (TVL). Aave and Trader Joe are the two largest dapps when measured by TVL, according to data from <a href="https://defillama.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">DeFi Llama</a>.</p>


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1018" height="327" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-3.21.28-PM.png" alt="" class="wp-image-12849" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-3.21.28-PM.png?w=1018 1018w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-3.21.28-PM.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-3.21.28-PM.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-3.21.28-PM.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-3.21.28-PM.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-3.21.28-PM.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-3.21.28-PM.png?w=80 80w" sizes="(max-width: 1018px) 100vw, 1018px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: DeFi Llama</figcaption></figure></div>


<p>TVL is a useful metric to track but can be misleading when viewing it independently. It can be helpful to look at user growth, revenue growth and debt volume growth in tandem with TVL to ensure it&#8217;s not just incentive programs and yield farmers inorganically driving the number higher.</p>



<p>Recently released analysis by <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/messari">Messari</a>, which measures the fastest growing DeFi ecosystems from Oct. 15 to Nov. 15, indicates that AVAX leads in a number of categories. </p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="576" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/usage-avax-1024x576.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-12852" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/usage-avax-1024x576.jpg?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/usage-avax-1024x576.jpg?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/usage-avax-1024x576.jpg?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/usage-avax-1024x576.jpg?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/usage-avax-1024x576.jpg?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/usage-avax-1024x576.jpg?w=464 464w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/usage-avax-1024x576.jpg?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/usage-avax-1024x576.jpg?w=80 80w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/usage-avax-1024x576.jpg?w=1600 1600w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: Messari</figcaption></figure>



<p>Total transactions on Avalanche continues to grow at a rapid pace, according to data from <a href="https://pro.nansen.ai/multichain/avalanche" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Nansen</a>, as there were more than 700,000 on Friday.</p>


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="406" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-3.22.16-PM-1024x406.png" alt="" class="wp-image-12850" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-3.22.16-PM-1024x406.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-3.22.16-PM-1024x406.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-3.22.16-PM-1024x406.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-3.22.16-PM-1024x406.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-3.22.16-PM-1024x406.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-3.22.16-PM-1024x406.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-3.22.16-PM-1024x406.png?w=80 80w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-3.22.16-PM-1024x406.png?w=1075 1075w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: Nansen</figcaption></figure></div>


<p>Developer activity is also growing on Avalanche. A Delphi Digital report <a href="https://members.delphidigital.io/reports/prices-rebound-avalanche-dev-activity-dex-volumes/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">notes</a> that the number of unique Contract Chain&nbsp;(C-Chain) developers have doubled from 200 to 400 over the past month. </p>



<p>&#8220;With the recent&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/_patrickogrady/status/1471223325045100545?s=20">launch of AvaLabs’ Subnet-EVM</a>, it seems reasonable to expect the number of developers to continue multiplying,&#8221; Delphi Digital wrote in the post. &#8220;The Subnet-EVM eases the deployment of EVM-compatible blockchains using a single JSON file, reportedly taking just 90 seconds.&#8221;</p>


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="656" height="340" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-3.28.14-PM.png" alt="" class="wp-image-12851" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-3.28.14-PM.png?w=656 656w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-3.28.14-PM.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-3.28.14-PM.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-3.28.14-PM.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-3.28.14-PM.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-3.28.14-PM.png?w=80 80w" sizes="(max-width: 656px) 100vw, 656px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: Delphi Digital</figcaption></figure></div>


<h3 class="wp-block-heading">BTC nears ATH when denominated in the Turkish Lira</h3>



<p>Turkey is among the top 30 adopters of bitcoin when measured by the percentage of the population who own digital assets, according to <a href="https://triple-a.io/crypto-ownership/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Triple A research</a>. The research states that about 2.7 million Turkish citizens own crypto, representing almost 3% of the country&#8217;s population. </p>



<p>&#8220;As Turkey cut their interest rate in 2021, their inflation kept accelerating, and their currency accelerated its devaluation against the dollar.&#8221; <a href="https://twitter.com/LynAldenContact/status/1471581982744363019?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">wrote</a> Lyn Alden, founder of Lyn Alden investment Strategy. &#8220;The [Modern Monetary Theory] argument is that if they go to zero, inflation will reverse, even though it worsened as they reduced rates from 19% to 14%. Turkey&#8217;s issue is they have too much USD debt relative to their FX reserves, and nobody wants to hold the lira with negative real rates.&#8221;</p>


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="718" height="900" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Lira-v-interest-rates.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-12853" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Lira-v-interest-rates.jpg?w=718 718w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Lira-v-interest-rates.jpg?w=239 239w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Lira-v-interest-rates.jpg?w=205 205w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Lira-v-interest-rates.jpg?w=208 208w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Lira-v-interest-rates.jpg?w=175 175w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Lira-v-interest-rates.jpg?w=64 64w" sizes="(max-width: 718px) 100vw, 718px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: @Financial Times</figcaption></figure></div>


<p>Turkish citizens seeking alternative places to park their cash comes amid the country&#8217;s current <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/rates-bonds/turkish-lira-trades-near-record-low-after-rate-cut-fuels-slide-2021-12-17/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">currency crisis</a>.</p>



<p>While BTC has struggled over the past three months when denominated in the USD, BTC/TRY investors have seen their purchasing power increase over that same time frame. BTC/TRY has returned 103% over the past 3 months and is trading near an all-time high, according to data from <a href="https://www.tradingview.com/chart/5GPs0hRQ/?symbol=BINANCE%3ABTCTRY" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Trading View</a>.</p>


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="684" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/BTCTRY_2021-12-17_15-55-11-1024x684.png" alt="" class="wp-image-12878" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/BTCTRY_2021-12-17_15-55-11-1024x684.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/BTCTRY_2021-12-17_15-55-11-1024x684.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/BTCTRY_2021-12-17_15-55-11-1024x684.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/BTCTRY_2021-12-17_15-55-11-1024x684.png?w=385 385w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/BTCTRY_2021-12-17_15-55-11-1024x684.png?w=391 391w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/BTCTRY_2021-12-17_15-55-11-1024x684.png?w=328 328w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/BTCTRY_2021-12-17_15-55-11-1024x684.png?w=80 80w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/BTCTRY_2021-12-17_15-55-11-1024x684.png?w=1161 1161w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Source: Trading View</figcaption></figure></div>


<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)</h3>



<p>Trading data from <a href="https://opensea.io/rankings" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">OpenSea</a> and <a href="https://solanalysis.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Solanalysis</a> of some of the top Solana and Ethereum projects can be found below:</p>


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="330" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-4.05.19-PM-1024x330.png" alt="" class="wp-image-12879" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-4.05.19-PM-1024x330.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-4.05.19-PM-1024x330.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-4.05.19-PM-1024x330.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-4.05.19-PM-1024x330.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-4.05.19-PM-1024x330.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-4.05.19-PM-1024x330.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-4.05.19-PM-1024x330.png?w=80 80w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-4.05.19-PM-1024x330.png?w=1233 1233w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Top Ethereum Projects</figcaption></figure></div>

<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="288" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-4.05.27-PM-1024x288.png" alt="" class="wp-image-12880" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-4.05.27-PM-1024x288.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-4.05.27-PM-1024x288.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-4.05.27-PM-1024x288.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-4.05.27-PM-1024x288.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-4.05.27-PM-1024x288.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-4.05.27-PM-1024x288.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-4.05.27-PM-1024x288.png?w=80 80w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-17-at-4.05.27-PM-1024x288.png?w=1199 1199w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Top Solana Projects </figcaption></figure></div>


<p>If you made it this far, thanks for reading! I am looking forward to catching up on Monday.</p>



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