The Dynamo DeFi newsletter covers trends, on-chain analysis and tools in crypto each week.
📈Trends and Narratives
Arbitrum Season Redux?
Arbitrum’s rollout of their short-term incentives program has sparked renewed interest in that ecosystem. 50M ARB are being distributed to various protocols. Each protocol will use the ARB differently to incentivize users or developers.
These ecosystem incentives, combined with a market that is heating up, could push renewed interest into the Arbitrum ecosystem.
CJ laid out a spreadsheet with how different projects are allocating their tokens:
In this thread, 0xJeff goes into detail on 10 Arbitrum plays. Really solid thread to understand what some of the top projects on Arbitrum do, the bullish case for each, and upcoming catalysts.
Celestia’s Master Plan
TIA, the token for Celestia, was one of the best performing tokens in the top 100 this week. Celestia is a new blockchain that’s focused specifically on data availability and that promises to scale rollups.
In the past, I’ve been skeptical about investing in highly technical products like this, not because they aren’t innovative, but because retail traders have difficulty understanding them. In this case, given TIA’s large mind share and strong performance, I believe marketing from a price increase could overcome that technical understanding gap.
This thread by cygaar lays out what Celestia does well:
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🔢On-Chain Analysis
Solana Ecosystem Explodes on Many Metrics
This week was a massive one for the Solana ecosystem:
TVL surged to its highest point since the FTX collapse (driven only in part by SOL’s price increase)
DEX volume had one of its best weeks ever, passing both Arbitrum and BSC on one day
Active users increased 50% from their level several weeks ago
Keep an eye out on whether new users to Solana stick around to continue using the ecosystem or if the usage dies off as quickly as it grew.
Top DEX List Sees Shakeups
The list of top DEXes saw some major shakeups this week:
ThorChain jumped to the number 3 spot, surpassing Curve
Trader Joe reached rank 5 for the week, with strong volume on both Arbitrum and Avalanche
Orca, the largest DEX on Solana by volume, broke into the top 7.
Another takeaway here is that Uniswap’s dominance of DEX volume has been dropping significantly. This could be from users experimenting outside of Ethereum. However, some have wondered whether it could be due to Uniswap’s new front-end fee pushing users to use aggregators, which may route transactions through other DEXes.
🛠️Tool Spotlight
Chart Solana Tickers with Birdeye
With DEX trading on Solana taking off, many on-chain explorers are being forced to learn a new set of tools. One necessary tool if you’re trading on Solana is Birdeye, which you can use to find and chart on-chain tickers.
📅Key Events This Week
That’s all for this week. For more frequent content, follow me on Twitter and YouTube.
Until next time,
Patrick Scott
Dynamo DeFi