Month in Review: May 2022

Hey Explorers,

As the market turned and volatility reared its head, May was also a frenetic month Nansen that saw the company debut a wide range of exciting new features, as well as industry-defining research. Not only that, but we also retooled some of our most popular dashboards, and had one of our busiest months ever from a press standpoint. 

Let’s dive in and take a look at what the team’s been working on! 

Announcements

Building The Super-App of Web3 With Ape Board

In a keynote presentation at the Permissionless conference in Palm Beach, Nansen CEO Alex Svanevik has announced Nansen’s acquisition of the Ape Board portfolio tracker and DeFi/NFT dashboard service.

Combining Nansen’s analytics and Ape Board’s portfolio tracking will enable us to take the first step towards establishing a true all-in-one information service – just the start of a series of expansions and feature releases designed to position Nansen as the definitive Information Super-App of Web3.

APY.vision Seed Investment and Data Integration

APY.vision, a leading DeFi data platform, is Nansen’s first-ever third-party data integrations and the latest in our growing list of ecosystem investments.

With this integration we will be able to offer users a range of exciting new features devoted to providing both a more holistic view of their holdings as well as emerging opportunities.

Product Updates

‍ATTRIBUTION

Smart Money Stablecoin Chart updates

We’re happy to have launched a new dashboard that aims to provide a clearer picture of how “stabled up” smart money is over a one-year period. 

This dashboard tracks the percentage of stablecoins in Smart Money accounts relative to their other token holdings, giving users a macro picture of how defensive the top performing wallets are positioned. 

Label #1 - Tornado Cash Withdrawer / Depositor / Relayer

One of our latest labels will help users identify addresses that have interacted with Tornado cash in a few different ways. 

The Tornado Cash Withdrawer / Depositor labels are placed on wallets that have sent funds through Tornado Cash (both ERC and ETH), helping users identify wallets that anonymized funds, or ones that were funded with tumbled tokens. 

Meanwhile, the Tornado Cash Relayer label show addresses that have acted as relayer for a Tornado Cash withdrawal at least once.

‍Label #2 - Uniswap V2 Factory Fork & Uniswap V2 Liquidity

Our second set of new labels will help users spot new Uniswap forks on our supported chains.

They include Uniswap V2 Factory Fork, which applies to all forks of the original factory contract of the Uniswap v2 protocol, and Uniswap V2 Liquidity Fork – all forks of the original liquidity pool contract of the Uniswap v2 protocol.

‍Label #3 - NFT Blue Chip Holder

Nansen’s next new label will help users spot savvy NFT collectors: NFT Blue Chip Holder.

As the name implies, NFT Blue Chip Holders are wallets that are currently holding at least one Blue Chip NFT in their portfolio. 

The Blue Chip projects are the same ones as defined in the Nansen Blue Chip NFT Index.

Label #4 - ERC20, ERC721, and ERC1155 labels

We’ve added details about fungible, semi-fungible, and non-fungible token standards to token contracts across Ethereum, Polygon, and Fantom. 

This allow users to quickly see which token type they're interacting with, without having to check the contract details.

To learn about all the Nansen labels, please see Nansen Wallet Labels & Emojis: What do they mean?

NFT

NFT Index Rebalancing

Last month we rebalanced our NFT 500 Index to include the latest top projects, which yielded an overall shift in the makeup of the index. 

With the broad market (NFT-500) and Blue Chip-10 NFTs correcting, Gaming NFTs show early signs of a possible trend reversal. We also see that NFT Smart Money are still active across the index despite the market downturn.

NFT God mode Overview tab to Lite users

One of our most popular NFT dashboards is now available to Lite users! 

NFT God Mode overview gives users a snapshot of key collection statistics, including price, volume, and transactions, including recent Smart Money transactions. Enjoy, explorers!

NFT Trends & Indexes separated from NFT Paradise

We recently decided to give two of our more popular dashboards the space they deserve with a dedicated section. 

NFT Trends and Indexes is now a separate tab under the NFT homepage dropdown menu. Here you can gauge the health of the overall market and its subsectors, and NFT Paradise is now more focused on individual projects. Check out the new tab today!  

DeFi

Entity Billboard update + on Fantom / Polygon

Our new Entity Billboard now covers not only Ethereum but also Fantom and Polygon, so you know which are the top 100 crypto entities by users or number of transactions on these blockchains.

You can also select different time frames 1D/7D/30D, and sort or filter by sectors.

Research

Demystifying UST de-peg with On-chain Data

Our on-chain investigation revealed that a small number of players identified vulnerabilities early into the UST de-peg, specifically in the relatively shallow liquidity of the Curve pools securing TerraUSD (UST)’s peg to other stablecoins, and moved to exploit these by:

1. Withdrawing UST funds from the Anchor protocol on Terra

2. Bridging these funds from Terra to Ethereum via the Wormhole infrastructure

3. Swapping significant amounts of UST to other stablecoins in Curve’s liquidity pools

4. During the de-pegging process, likely arbitraging inefficiencies between various pricing sources (Curve, decentralized exchanges, and centralized exchanges) by buying and selling positions between CEX and DEX markets.

As such, we refute the popular narrative of one “attacker” or “hacker” working to destabilize UST. The de-peg of UST could instead have resulted from the investment decisions of several well-funded entities, e.g. to abide by risk management constraints or alternatively to reduce UST allocations deposited into Anchor in the context of turbulent macroeconomic and market conditions.

Read the full research paper here.

Marketing Updates

• Office Hours #71 with Andrew Thurman - Crypto Front-Runners and Smart NFT Sweepers
• Office Hours #72 with Kain Warwick - How Synthetix Utilizes Nansen
• Office Hours #73 with Nelson Lim and Nansen Intern - Adapting to the Market
• Office Hours #74 with El Barto - Smart Money and Stablecoins

In the Media

BeInCrypto

NFT Sales Still Looking Robust Despite Reports to the Contrary

Bloomberg

NFT Hype Is on the Rise as Market Steadies After Slump

Crypto Analytic Firm Nansen Buys NFT Portfolio Tracker Ape Board

CoinDesk

‘Smart Money’ Is Staking ETH on Rocket Pool and Selling ENS, Nansen Data Suggests

CNBC

Bitcoin investors are panicking as a controversial crypto experiment unravels

Coin Market Cap

‍Who’s Behind the UST De-Peg? Nansen Data Provides Answers

Invezz

Nansen announces seed round for APY.VISION

Market Watch

What is an algorithmic stablecoin? Why is Terra in the news? Here’s what investors need to know.

Nasdaq

Nansen Research Debunks Single 'Attacker' Myth in Terra's Collapse

Techcrunch

M&A is coming for DeFi protocols as market conditions change

Wall Street Journal

TerraUSD Crash Led to Vanished Savings, Shattered Dreams

Yahoo Finance

Coinbase opens its NFT marketplace to everyone

About Nansen

Nansen is a blockchain analytics platform that enriches on-chain data with millions of wallet labels. Crypto investors use Nansen to discover opportunities, perform due diligence, and defend their portfolios with real-time alerts.

New to Nansen? Sign up for our 7-day trial today!