Ethereum Staking Through the Lens of Lido
In this issue of Coin Metrics’ State of the Network, we dive into Lido—the largest player within the staking economy—and understand the state of its liquid staking token (stETH), governance token (LDO) and underlying node-operator composition. With this analysis, we seek [...]
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Analyzing the Fallout from the BitMEX Lawsuits
On October 1st, the CFTC and Department of Justice jointly announced charges filed against BitMEX’s owners and operators. The CFTC is alleging they were illegally operating a derivatives trading platform and the Department of Justice that they violated various parts of the [...]
Introducing the CMBI Multi Asset Series
In this week’s State of the Network we are excited to announce the release of the CMBI Multi Asset Series, the first industry indexes that weigh cryptoassets by their Free Float Market Capitalization. We are particularly excited to bring these indexes to [...]
How DeFi Is Fueling Ethereum’s Growth
Decentralized finance reached new heights over the last few months as dozens of projects launched and large amounts of capital flowed in. A majority of decentralized finance (DeFi) apps have been built on Ethereum, and DeFi’s explosion has rippled across [...]
Bitcoin: A Novel Economic Institution
Below is an excerpt of a research report authored by ARK Invest and Coin Metrics. In Part 1 of this research, we described how we believe Bitcoin satisfies the four assurances that maximize the probability of a robust and predictable financial system. In Part 2, [...]
Measuring Bitcoin’s Decentralization
Over the last eleven years, Bitcoin has managed to function relatively seamlessly in the face of a large number of threats, largely due to its lack of a single controlling entity. This trait, known as decentralization, encompasses a large number [...]
An Overview of the Basis Trade
One of the most popular trades for any commodity futures is the basis trade. This is when traders build a strategy around the difference between the spot price and futures contract price of a commodity. This exists in corn, soybean, [...]
The Privacy Issue
The early 1990’s saw the dissemination of two great forces that would come to shape the next decades: the Internet, and strong cryptography. In a seminal manifesto written in 1993, Eric Hughes condensed the ethos of a young movement born at the [...]
The Business Trends of Crypto Exchanges
State of the Network has predominantly focused on the network and market data happenings of the crypto industry. In this issue, we zoom out a bit to discuss the business trends and strategies of the exchanges building atop these decentralized [...]
How YAM’s Collapse Drove Ethereum Fees to New Heights
On August 12th Ethereum’s total daily transactions fees topped $6.87M, shattering the previous all-time high of $4.55M set in January 2018. The following day, Ethereum had $8.61M worth of fees, once again breaking the daily record. Blockchain transaction fees are [...]