SummaryIn the aftermath of sanctions on Tornado Cash smart contracts, privacy-related coins outperformed in August while projects with stricter censoring lost market share.Among smart contract leader index constituents, there were four coins with positive returns in August: ATOM, EOS, FLOW and NEAR.DeFi total value locked fell 9% in August as leverage has been slow to return in the space.In the aftermath of sanctions on Tornado Cash smart contracts, privacy-related coins outperformed in August while projects with stricter censoring lost market share.Digital asset prices fell in August, as tech stocks performed the worst among all S&P 500 sectors. Amidst continued high inflation and more restrictive central bank policy, the Bitcoin/Nasdaq 30-day correlation remained elevated at 47% vs. the 5-year average of 9% and the 1-year average of 36%.Despite the macro environment, institutions continue to allocate to the space - specifically worth noting is BlackRock's partnership with Coinbase to provide crypto access on its flagship Aladdin platform. BlackRock also launched a private trust to enable direct spot Bitcoin access. Overall, listed crypto ETNs saw inflows in August, driven by Ethereum (ETH-USD, ETH, mkt cap $197B) momentum into the merge. Globally, more than 150 crypto funds, including hedge fund and venture strategies, have raised $36B in the first half of 2022, compared with $18B raised in all of last year. We count an ...
