First Mover Asia: Lido DAO Governance Token Down, Staked Ether Stable as Withdrawal Proposal Comes Into Focus; Bitcoin Rises as Fed Rate Decision Nears

Good morning. Here’s what’s happening:

Prices: Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies closed a successful January. Will the remainder of the Year of the Rabbit in the lunar zodiac see the momentum continue?

Insights: A Lido DAO proposal faces criticism, even before it's formally presented. Lido's governance token is down. What's next?

Prices

CoinDesk Market Index (CMI) 1,086.99 +17.1 ▲ 1.6% Bitcoin (BTC) $23,086 +286.3 ▲ 1.3% Ethereum (ETH) $1,585 +16.8 ▲ 1.1% S&P 500 daily close 4,076.60 +58.8 ▲ 1.5% Gold $1,943 +19.8 ▲ 1.0% Treasury Yield 10 Years 3.53% ▼ 0.0 BTC/ETH prices per CoinDesk Indices; gold is COMEX spot price. Prices as of about 4 p.m. ET

Bitcoin Finishes January up 40% as Crypto Hops Into the Year of the Rabbit

By Sam Reynolds

Happy February.

Bitcoin is at $23,129, up 1.3% in the last 24 hours, while ether is up 1.2% to $1,586.23.

The two largest digital assets by market value wrapped up a monumental January, beating expectations by posting double-digit gains – bitcoin by 40% and ether by 32%.

January also proved to be the season of the altcoins with Cardano's ADA up 56%, dogecoin (DOGE) up 37%, solana (SOL) up 140% and avalanche (AVAX) up 82%.

While most crypto investors are looking to the stock market and U.S. Federal Reserve meeting minutes for guidance, just for a minute we’d like to – for a sense of levity – look to the heavens to see what the stars might tell us.

Most of East Asia has returned to work from celebrating the Lunar New Year. In the Lunar zodiac, 2023 is the year of the rabbit, and legend says this year should be as calm, peaceful and tender as the animal itself.

CLSA, a major brokerage based in Hong Kong, wrote in a note published in January that all macro economic indicators point to this year as being one where the market "hops" around.

“Gentle, quick and responsible, the Rabbit is the fourth animal in the 12-year cycle of the Chinese horoscope. Together with yin water, this combination bodes well for a calmer 2023 compared to last year’s tumultuous experience,” the brokerage wrote, while also reminding investors to seek professional advice before making a decision. “This year’s bazi, or destiny chart, advises us to step out of our comfort zone but remain mindful of perils afoot. After all, a rabbit’s foot is lucky for everyone but the fluffy woodland creature.”

Tiger years, of which 2022 was one, are marked by being competitive and unpredictable – and we all know how this went.

Biggest Gainers

Asset Ticker Returns DACS Sector Loopring LRC +11.4% Smart Contract Platform Terra LUNA +6.3% Smart Contract Platform Dogecoin DOGE +4.3% Currency

Biggest Losers

Asset Ticker Returns DACS Sector Solana SOL −0.3% Smart Contract Platform

Insights

A Lido DAO Proposal Faces Criticism, Even Before It's Formally Presented. What's Next?

By Sam Reynolds

As Ethereum’s Shanghai fork, which will allow for the withdrawal of staked ether, draws closer, Lido DAO, the entity behind the liquid staking token stETH, is preparing a proposal to allow for withdrawals from stETH. While the proposal hasn’t been formerly put before the decentralized autonomous organization for voting, it has found a critic in Galaxy Digital – and its governance token has dropped 15% in the last week despite strong performance from ether.

On the surface, Lido DAO’s proposal for allowing withdrawals from stETH seems routine and follows what’s expected in the Shanghai hard fork. Users will send a withdrawal request to a smart contract called “WithdrawalQueue,” which will reserve the amount of ether required for redemption as well as calculate the redemption rate, then withdrawals will be processed in the order that they are received.

But Galaxy has recently highlighted some issues with the proposal as it stands, that could lead to a few worst-case scenarios.

Within the Ethereum staking economy, slashing is sort of like a sanction against a validator that is accused of breaking the rules. The validator is penalized and either kicked off the Ethereum network or briefly censured. You can think of it as OFAC-by-democracy.

Usually slashing only happens when validators engage in bad technical behavior such as proposing multiple blocks, submitting contradictory votes to proposals, or going offline for an extended period of time. But as CoinDesk columnist Nic Carter highlighted in a recent piece, there was a serious grassroots effort to slash validators such as Coinbase that complied with sanctions to deny Tornado Cash transactions. This isn’t good for institutional adoption.

Galaxy notes that Lido could be the target of a mass-slash event, knocking its validators off the network. If this happens, Lido would enter “bunker mode,” where things are delayed up to 36 days for Lido to recalculate the stETH redemption rate and assess damage to the network. Worse, Galaxy writes, there’s the option for a total halt of withdrawals under what Lido calls the “gate seal smart contract."

“There are edge case scenarios that change withdrawal dynamics on Lido and highlight unique risks associated with staking through an intermediary,” Galaxy writes, arguing that there are inherent risks with using an intermediary staking service above and beyond the risks that come from Ethereum.

The success of the entire protocol, says Galaxy, relies entirely on the price performance of stETH and the continued availability of liquidity in the stETH:ETH trading pair.

“In the event that Lido validators are penalized or slashed, reducing the amount of total staked ETH in the protocol, users may receive less ETH for their stETH than what they had originally submitted,” Galaxy writes.

Then there’s also the risk of delays.

“The Lido Withdrawal Queue is an additional queue that operates separately from the withdrawals queue and exit queue enforced by the Etheruem protocol,” Galaxy writes. “Therefore, there may be additional delays that users are subject to when withdrawing their staked ETH due to the procedures set by the staking intermediary.”

To be sure, Galaxy isn’t trying to discourage anyone from using an intermediary like Lido. On-chain data shows that using an intermediary is how the vast majority of staking is done: Lido, Coinbase, Kraken and Binance control nearly 50% of this market.

It’s just that there is a new layer of risk introduced, and in this market, it's something of which investors need to be more cognizant.

Important events

9:00 a.m. HKT/SGT(1:00 UTC) Eurozone Core Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (YoY/Jan)

12:15 p.m. HKT/SGT(4:15 UTC) United States ADP Employment Change (Jan)

6:00 p.m. HKT/SGT(10:00 UTC) United States Fed Interest Rate Decision

CoinDesk TV

In case you missed it, here is the most recent episode of "First Mover" on CoinDesk TV:

CFTC Commissioner on Crypto Regulation; Analysts Expect Fed Decision to Trigger 'Healthy Pullback' in Bitcoin

"First Mover" covered the latest in crypto markets and regulation as the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting kicked off Tuesday ahead of a decision on interest rates Wednesday and the fight over crypto regulation escalated. CFTC Commissioner Kristin N. Johnson, Chamber of Digital Commerce founder and CEO Perianne Boring, and 21.co co-founder and CEO Hany Rashwan joined the conversation.

Headlines

Strike Expands Lightning Network-Powered Remittances to Philippines: The Philippines is one of the world’s largest remittance markets, at $35 billion, and Strike says it will use its service, powered by the Bitcoin blockchain's Lightning Network, to make the international payments faster and cheaper than available in the traditional financial system.

Hong Kong to Require Stablecoin Licensing as Early as This Year: Algorithmic stablecoins like terraUSD will not be accepted under the planned regulatory regime, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority said.

Celsius Used New Customer Funds to Pay for Withdrawals: Independent Examiner: Shoba Pillay was appointed by a New York bankruptcy court to look at whether the crypto lender operated as a Ponzi scheme

NFT Marketplace Sudoswap Airdrops Tokens to Liquidity Providers and 0xmon Holders: SUDO holders can vote on on-chain governance proposals, and the tokens are initially non-transferrable.

Fed Preview: Powell to Trigger 'Healthy Pullback' in Bitcoin, Experts Say: Financial conditions have loosened to a point where the Fed chairman may detail the extent of easing is unwarranted, one observer said, warning of a pullback in risk assets.