Written by: The DeFi Investor

Compiled by: Deep Wave TechFlow

In this article, we will introduce

  • 5 Major Cryptocurrency Catalysts for March

  • This Week’s On-Chain Alpha

  • Latest DeFi News

5 Major Cryptocurrency Catalysts for March

What an exciting week it has been for cryptocurrencies.

Less than two years after the FTX crash, one of the biggest financial meltdowns in recent history, BTC hit $69,000 for the first time in three years. The best part of the bull run will begin later in 2024, when altcoins also start surging. This year will be full of opportunities for narrative traders.

This article will cover several major cryptocurrency events expected to occur this month:

1. Ethereum Cancun Upgrade – March 13

As you may already know, Cancun will significantly reduce Ethereum L2 transaction fees by reducing the “rent” L2 pays to inherit Ethereum’s security. This would be a huge win for the Ethereum ecosystem and is expected to lead to significant reductions in L2 transaction fees.

If the upgrade lives up to expectations, we may see the rise of a new narrative for both Ethereum and veteran Ethereum L2 seasons.

2. NVIDIA Artificial Intelligence Conference – March 18

There is no doubt that AI has been the best-performing narrative over the past few months. Historically, crypto AI tokens have performed extremely well before (and sometimes even during) major AI conferences, so this is worth noting.

We are in a huge AI bubble and there is a lot of hype around AI and cryptocurrency AI projects right now. I don’t expect this excitement to fade away anytime soon. Interestingly, the NEAR Protocol and Render Network teams will be attending the NVIDIA conference.

3. Fantom’s Sonic upgrade – March or April

Sonic has been in development for a long time.

In short, this is a major network upgrade that will significantly increase network transaction throughput and reduce Fantom storage requirements by up to 90%. Sonic promises over 2,000 transactions per second (TPS) and transaction finality times of approximately 1 second, while still maintaining EVM compatibility. With the launch of Sonic, Fantom hopes to make a comeback.

The Fantom team also confirmed that a stablecoin and an airdrop will also be launched alongside Sonic.

4.FOMC interest rate decision - March 19-20

Interest rate decisions can have a huge impact on markets. On March 19, the United States will decide whether to raise interest rates, keep interest rates unchanged, or lower interest rates. The most likely scenario is "unchanged". But it's still worth paying attention to. Later this year, interest rates are expected to start falling.

5. ARB’s $2.2 billion in tokens unlocked – March 16

Approximately $2.2 billion worth of ARB tokens (76% of ARB’s current circulating supply) will be unlocked within days. This is one of the biggest cryptocurrency unlocks of 2024. All tokens will be distributed to the team and investors. Unlocks of this magnitude typically hurt token prices. But it also depends on whether the Arbitrum team decides to make a big announcement before the unlock date. Arbitrum has several major upgrades coming soon, such as Stylus.

On-chain Alpha

Eigenlayer surpasses $11 billion in TVL, becoming third largest DeFi protocol

How crazy can a rehypothecated narrative get?

Since the beginning of 2024, Eigenlayer's TVL has increased from $1.0 billion to $11.2 billion.

This could make Eigenlayer the fastest growing protocol in DeFi history.

Latest developments in DeFi

  • Injective releases inEVM, the first EVM enabling true composability on Cosmos & Solana. It will use Celestia to provide data availability.

  • Ondo Finance has launched the Ondo Global Market, a platform that provides on-chain users with native access to traditional securities.

  • Avalanche has released Teleporter, a new protocol that facilitates seamless connectivity between any EVM chain in the Avalanche network. Teleporter aims to fundamentally improve the cross-chain user experience.

  • Telegram announced that it will share advertising revenue with users and payments will be settled on the TON blockchain. Advertising revenue will begin in March.

  • Metis L2 announced it will move to EigenDA for low-cost data availability.

  • Aurelius Finance is an innovative lending protocol on Mantle that launches a points program.

  • Astar zkEVM has gone live, becoming the first L2 to integrate Polygon AggLayer. The integration will allow cross-chain transactions between Astar and Polygon zkEVM.

  • Lyra Finance’s roadmap has been revealed, with the team announcing that it is increasing its efforts to drive the options narrative.

  • Popular web3 chat solution Beoble has launched its token BBL.

  • Hashflow Aggregator+ is released on Arbitrum.

  • Frax Finance’s Fraxtal L2 bridge is now live.

  • Parallel Network, the first full-chain layer L2 with unified liquidity and native yields, has released an early access test network. The protocol also announced an airdrop.

  • Taiko L2 announced that it has completed $15 million in Series A financing before the mainnet launch. Taiko is an Ethereum L2 project with a strong focus on decentralization.