It was a tough quarter for crypto, Binance confirmed in its Q3 “Market Pulse” report. The market declined in many sectors, the report found, although the entry of institutional players such as Deutsche Bank, Sony and PayPal helped offset some of the pain.
The global crypto market capitalization was down 8.6% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ), “with the ‘higher for longer’ rhetoric to continue.” Fundraising was the lowest since Q4 2020 and was down 21.4% QoQ, with infrastructure doing significantly better than other sectors.
Performance was slightly down on blockchains, with Near being the big exception. It saw an increase of about 120% QoQ. Near also saw a spike in active addresses that began in August. BNB Chain fell sharply, while Ethereum rose slightly and Solana fell slightly.
Related: Q3 2023 crowned most ‘damaging’ quarter for crypto amid $700M losses: Report
Total value locked (TVL) fell 13.1% across decentralized finance despite an influx of real assets, while liquid staking saw a 10.5% increase. Ethereum was the leading blockchain with 55.1% of TVL, despite an 18.6% decline. Tron’s TVL increased by 17.9% QoQ. Tether (USDT) accounted for 67.2% of the stablecoin market share.
Our latest State of Crypto Report summarizes all the key insights, events and learnings from Q3.
Find everything you need to know about developments in the space, including analysis of:
Layer 1s & 2s
DeFi
NFTs
PlayingStart reading here ⤵️https://t.co/ES5z6g8FMU
– Binance Research (@BinanceResearch) October 19, 2023
Non-fungible tokens (NFT) sales continued their slide. September was the worst month for NFT sales since January 2021 at around $300 million. The average selling price in that month was $38.17, down from $791.84 in August 2021. However, transactions with NFTs increased overall despite a sharp decline in September.
Gaming tokens led the way in NFT sales, although they were also the loss leaders in price with a decrease of 44.9% QoQ. Less than 28% of Web3 games were launched. Binance said that Google’s decision to allow NFTs in the games on its Play Store may give the market a new impetus. Sweat Economy and SuperWalk took the second and third places, respectively, with unique active wallets, showing increased interest in move-winning games.
Six of the top 10 coins have seen increases this year. Solana’s SOL (SOL) had the best showing, up 113.73%, and TON debuted on the list, down 3.11%. Bitcoin (BTC) is up 63.05% year to date, and Ether (ETH) is up 39.9%. BNB (BNB) lost 12.77% by the end of Q3 2023.
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