#24 The Merge is Done

GM Architects,

Crypto had a mixed performance this week. The Arch Ethereum Web3 token traded 0.66% lower, while the Arch Blockchains token jumped 2.02%. Ethereum traded 3.37% lower (and continues to fall at the time of writing), while Bitcoin was up by 3.98% over the previous seven days.

In this newsletter edition, we explore more about The Merge, one of the most talked about updates in crypto, share insights about the TradFi market compared with the crypto ecosystem, and deep dive into Frax Share, one of the season's top performing tokens.

🗞️ TradFi still struggling

U.S. stocks fell on Thursday as investors pondered over several economic reports that showed a problematic picture of the U.S. economy.

On Thursday, the unemployment report came in better than expected, but import prices saw a smaller drop than estimates suggested. Retail sales beat expectations but were negative when excluding cars. Manufacturing data also showed a slowing economy. While those reports indicate that the U.S. consumer sector is holding its ground, for now, they do little to alleviate investors' concerns about inflation.

💙 Ethereum's Merge is Complete

The Ethereum Merge marked the network's shift to a more energy-efficient proof-of-stake protocol and happened at 6:43 UTC. Ether had a short-lived spike, and remained relatively flat ahead of the merge, but today is seeing significant sell pressure, losing 3.37%+ vs. last week.

This update makes Ethereum more eco-friendly but will not change the gas fees or scalability. And while The Merge event didn't have a positive impact on the price of Ether, on-chain data shows an inflow of $1.2 billion onto exchanges.

📉 WEB3 is trading 0.66% lower than last week

At the time of writing, The Arch Ethereum Web3 token (WEB3) outperformed Ethereum, trading 0.66% lower than the last week compared to the 3.37% lower than Ethereum traded at markets.

• ApeCoin (APE) continues with a bullish trend, trading over 15.42% higher than last week. Remember that last week it also traded 8.60% higher. While some of these gains may be attributed to the recent crypto price action, it's considered one of the projects leading in the NFT space. The price movement might also have to do with the Ape Foundation's outlined recommendations for a new election process transforming the current one into a rolling election where a council member's seat is up for an election every quarter.
• The Graph (GRT) rose by 6.77% after announcing the next incentive program for Indexers: Migration Infrastructure Providers (MIPS). The MIPS program bootstraps Indexers to add support for new chains on the decentralized network, enabling the migration of multi-chain subgraphs.
• Chainlink (LINK) continues with an upward trend, trading over 2.71% higher than the last week. This comes after launching its new price feed that protects Web3 projects against data manipulation attacks and outlier events like flash crashes. With the help of this technology, creators in the Web3 space can integrate the ZIL/USD Price Feed on the Optimism network to build secure DeFi markets around Zilliqa's token

⛓ CHAIN is 2.02% higher than last week

The Arch Blockchains token (CHAIN) had a positive week, trading 2.02% higher than the last seven days, with all the constituent tokens in green except for Ethereum.

Bitcoin (BTC) was the top performer, trading over 3.93% higher, keeping above the psychological $20.000 resistance level.

Solana (SOL) continues with a positive trend, trading over 2.73% since the announcement of its impending merger with Helium. The developers of Helium came up with HIP 70, which aimed to relocate the entire Helium supply chain to Solana.

¤ What's Frax Share and what you need to know about it

Frax is the first fractional stablecoin. It's an algorithmic stablecoin partially backed by collateral and with a price that is algorithmically stabilized.

Frax has two tokens, the Frax stablecoin (FRAX), which maintains a stable price, and the Frax Share (FXS) governance token, which varies according to the use and adoption of the platform.

--> 📚🤓 Take a deep dive into the what Frax Share is and how it works

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations. The views reflected in the commentary are subject to change without notice.