Binance Futures is in the news today after it announced the launch of a DOTECO (Polkadot Ecosystem) Composite Index perpetual contract. The DOTECO Composite Index perpetual contract is a USDT-margined Futures contract that uses USDT as collateral.

According to the said announcement by one of the market’s biggest crypto-exchanges, the DOTECO Composite Index is denominated in USDT and users can trade with up to 20x leverage.

#Binance Futures Launches DOTECO (@Polkadot Ecosystem) Composite Index Perpetual Contract with Up to 20x Leverage

🔸 $DOCK @docknetwork
🔸 $REEF @ReefDeFi
🔸 $AKRO @akropolisio
🔸 $KSM @kusamanetwork

➡️ https://t.co/YNzbI8rlJx pic.twitter.com/TYgYiLAqji

— Binance (@binance) January 20, 2021

The underlying assets of the DOTECO Composite Index perpetual contract include a basket of Polkadot Ecosystem (DOTECO) protocol tokens listed on Binance, including Dock (DOCK), Reef Finance (REEF), Akropolis (AKRO), and Kusama (KSM).

Polkadot projects have been getting a lot of attention lately, especially following DOT’s rally to an all-time high of $17.5 over the weekend. In fact, the cryptocurrency is currently ranked 4th by market cap on CMC, with the crypto trading at $15.9 at the time of writing.

Binance’s decision to support the development of the Polkadot ecosystem dates back to last month when it announced a series of upcoming initiatives for the cause.

Binance’s efforts included a $10 million Polkadot Ecological Fund to support top projects in the ecosystem and a Community Coin vote that would enable users to vote for listing Polkadot-based projects on the popular exchange.

However, it would seem that over a month later, the listing of coins hasn’t been a reflection of a community vote since it is still yet to take place. In fact, based on the summary of responses, a majority of the market’s traders also believe that important Polkadot tokens have not been included in the said index, with one trader commenting,

“I wouldn’t consider $DOCK and $AKRO to be $DOT ecosystem coins let alone put them as part of a trading index.”

Source: https://ambcrypto.com/binance-futures-launches-doteco-polkadot-ecosystem-composite-index

Leading decentralized exchange, or DEX, platform Uniswap continues to lead the sector as it nears an average of $1 billion a day trading volume for the month of January.

Only two-thirds of the way into the month and the platform has already surpassed the previous monthly trade volume record of $15.3 billion set in September during the DeFi boom. The DEX passed $17 billion as of this morning and is on track to surpass $25 billion by the end of January with a daily average of $855 million.

Uniswap traders are spoilt for choice with 1,558 coins traded in more than 2,400 pairs, however the majority tend to favor less risky trades. Trading between stablecoins, such as USDC, Tether and DAI, against ETH, made up 45% of the $1.1 billion traded in the last 24 hours.

On December 15, Uniswap founder Hayden Adams tweeted that the platform had passed $50 billion in all-time trade volume and asked the community when it would hit $1 trillion. Approximately 50% of respondents tipped this would occur in 2021.

Currently sitting around $70 billion in all time trade volume, the DEX would need to average approximately $2.7 billion each day in order to hit $1 trillion by the end of the year.

Uniswap strategy Lead Matteo Leibowitz is already claiming $1 billion trading volume is here to stay:

“$1bn volume/day is the new normal.”

Adams compared this to the New York Stock Exchange, saying “2% of [NYSE] is the new normal for Uniswap. When 100%?”

Uniswap is a legitimate business with $1 billion in daily volume, generating $30 million in daily revenue.

All with next to $0 in operating costs, created with nothing but lines of code.

Employees of uniswap are its liquidity providers

This is unprecedented in society https://t.co/zklYhny8wj

— adambrush.eth (@brush_10) January 19, 2021

DEX’s in general have been on a strong growth trajectory over the last 30 days, increasing by 112%. The total volume traded in the last 30 days is $43.3 billion with approximately $1.5B added each day.

SushiSwap is the next strongest DEX with $8.2 billion traded in January to date, already double its previous monthly high of $3 billion, set in December last year.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/is-a-billion-a-day-in-volume-the-new-normal-for-uniswap

On 18 January, CEO and Co-Founder of Real Vision Group, Raoul Pal reportedly increased his ETH holdings. The decision could be based on Pal’s own assumption that Ether would reach $20,000, similar to how Bitcoin performed in its last cycle. The macroeconomist also believed that by market cap ETH will become bigger than that of BTC. 

Nevertheless, the crypto influencer’s most recent tweet indicated that his portfolio was split between BTC and ETH:

Source: Twitter

When a Twitter user asked whether Pal bought more ETH or sold BTC, he explained that he added more Ether to his portfolio instead of selling the latter. 

With regard to Bitcoin, Raoul Pal continues to remain bullish about the asset and criticized those who were spreading FUD in BTC markets.

Even as institutions invest in Bitcoin, the crypto may never break free from FUD. Countless opinions often do the rounds claiming that Bitcoin is for criminals, or a bubble or is likely to face government bans, among others. 

However, the macro investor does not see any threat or any “risk remotely near” to the Bitcoin bull market at this point. In a 19 January tweet, the former Goldman Sachs executive said: 

Everyone needs to understand all risks to assess their own probabilities and risk tolerance. Even S2F is cyclical. Everything else is FUD. Now, positive reflexivity is king.

The macroeconomist believed that every asset including Bitcoin will always have a bear case. However, Pal emphasized the importance of “when” the bearish trend would change market dynamics. In a subsequent tweet Pal stated: 

That is the entire investment game. Making bear cases is only a small part of the game. Same is true of bull cases.

Pal also claimed that Bitcoin would be regulated in the future, but that regulation would only “drive institutional adoption.”

Last year on 30 November, Pal intended to sell all his gold holdings and use that money to purchase Bitcoin and Ether.

As for the price of ETH, the asset is trading at $1,375.96 at press time and has been up by 11.6% in the last 24 hours. ETH has been down by 1.6% in the last hour but this did not stop analysts from expecting a new ATH later today:

#Ethereum will soon pass to the next level.

These are the levels to watch beyond all time highs: 1500, 1600, 1920, 2000, 2240, 2500, 2750. pic.twitter.com/suCZtt7Iv8

— Alex Krüger (@krugermacro) January 19, 2021

#ethereum CME futures coming in a few weeks, going to see a lot more institutional guys with ETH on their radar

— Lark Davis (@TheCryptoLark) January 19, 2021

Source: https://eng.ambcrypto.com/heres-why-this-macroeconomist-has-bitcoin-ethereum-in-his-crypto-portfolio