First Mover Americas: Meta’s Instagram Move Boosts Web3 Tokens

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Meta, parent of Facebook and Instagram, said it would use decentralized storage solution Arweave to archive creators' digital collectibles. That prompted a 60% price surge in AR, the Web3 platform’s native token, boosting AR's market cap to $838 million and making it the third-largest Web3 token worldwide. The effect rippled through the metaverse: Web3 platforms Filecoin and Storj gained 10% and 25%, respectively.
Crypto exchange Huobi Global, one of the largest crypto platforms in Asia, appeared to confirm it plans to move to the Caribbean by retweeting a post by Justin Sun, founder of the Tron blockchain network and an adviser to the company. The exchange, founded in China in 2013, is currently based in the Seychelles.
On paper, billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency empire is split into two parts: FTX, his exchange, and Alameda Research, his trading firm – both giants in their respective industries. However, a private financial document shows Alameda’s balance sheet includes billions of dollars in FTT, the native token of FTX, blurring the line between the two companies.
Chart of the Day: The Layer 2 Surge

- Adoption of layer 2 blockchains, led by Ethereum, has recently soared, with the number of transactions processed by these platforms reaching a record high of 5.78 million.
- The data from Orbiter.Finance, shown above, measures the number of transactions processed by layer 2 solutions over the past 12 months.
- Networks like Arbitrum and Optimism promise fast, scalable and secure networks, as well as a cheaper option when compared to the Ethereum mainnet.
– Omkar Godbole
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CoinDesk Market Index
Biggest Gainers
Asset | Ticker | Returns | DACS Sector |
---|---|---|---|
Render Token | RNDR | +5.96% | Computing |
Ribbon Finance | RBN | +5.64% | DeFi |
Balancer | BAL | +4.29% | DeFi |
Biggest Losers
Asset | Ticker | Returns | DACS Sector |
---|---|---|---|
Band Protocol | BAND | -35.03% | Computing |
Arweave | AR | -33.78% | Computing |
Gitcoin | GTC | -30.7% | Currency |
Sector classifications are provided via the Digital Asset Classification Standard (DACS), developed by CoinDesk Indices to provide a reliable, comprehensive and standardized classification system for digital assets. The CoinDesk Market Index (CMI) is a broad-based index designed to measure the market capitalization weighted performance of the digital asset market subject to minimum trading and exchange eligibility requirements.