BTC hits a wall

On a weekend when grown men dressed in Santa Claus suits were once again allowed to run wild in the streets of New York City, Bitcoin sat quietly, the proverbial elf on the shelf.

As of Monday morning, between 7:15 a.m. and 8:15 a.m. (EST), BTC was seen behaving deliriously, beating its forehead against the concrete ledge under that bolted-shut window otherwise known as $50,000. Nevertheless, BTC did shade slightly green over that one hour (+0.7%).

And while the price of the largest digital asset has been unable to reclaim the psychologically important $50K level, activity among options traders suggests the most recent correction is over (Cointelegraph).

Conceived as an experiment in spontaneous decentralized community building (and as a way to cash in on meme coin fascination), Shiba Inu rode a wave of publicity to record heights in late October. Because of its intentionally gigantic supply, SHIB's price gets expressed in fractions of pennies. But suffice to say, its market cap reaching near $20 billion remains an incredible feat, something that would have seemed impossible one year ago.

"The success of Shiba Inu is almost completely because of its association with Dogecoin," David Hsiao, the CEO of Block Journal, has said. "And neither crypto offers any innovation in blockchain technology or finance."

Instead, he insists, SHIB is driven by hype, which can only last so long.

Since reaching $0.00008616 on Oct. 28, SHIB has lost nearly two-thirds of its value, with a 30% decline in the past 30 days.

"It's time for a reality check," said Motley Fool. "SHIB is probably going to face-plant in 2022."

Maybe not.

According to whale-surveillance website WhaleStats, SHIB is among the top ten purchased tokens among the largest 1,000 ETH wallets, which appear to be taking advantage of consolidation while awaiting the next bull run (U.Today).

Could SHIB's unlikely journey from joke to juggernaut somehow signify a larger, more durable trend?

“Memes have value and have been an investible thesis in 2021,” FTX's Jonathan Cheesman told Bloomberg. “Don’t short things that millennials think are funny.”

Cargo bottlenecks and related calamities – toy shelves bare at Christmas, bagel shops dangerously low on cream cheese – have captured the world's attention. A project bringing decentralized protocols to bear in solving supply chain inefficiencies would seem spot-on in these economically fragile times.

But in examining the recent trajectory of VeChain (VET), bullish assumptions are not borne out.

While the fundamental underpinnings of this blockchain project "appear enormously relevant," InvestorPlace said, VET’s performance over the past month tells another story. In April, VET delivered its all-time high, near thirty cents. Since the spring, VET has lost more than two-thirds of its value. Over the past 30 days, VET is 50% off.

The mother of all shipping container backlogs might have presented an upside catalyst for VeChain, but it was the global supply chain's over-fixation on efficiencies – running lean, paring inventory – that has led to a kind of dockside chaos not seen since the closing scenes of "On the Waterfront."

Meanwhile, another smaller-cap supply chain asset has been captivating some crypto community members: OriginTrail (TRAC).

Dubbed by its founders as “Google for supply chains," TRAC popped in late October with consumer goods shortages in the news.

A Coinbase listing in early November helped push TRAC to $350, an all-time high. Since then, TRAC, like VET, has shed more than two-thirds of its value. Its market cap is $400 million, less than one-tenth the size of VET's. VET runs on its own chain. OriginTrail, on the other hand, is unique in that it is a multi-chain protocol, Martin Gaspar, research analyst with CrossTower, told The Sun.

Three years ago, OriginTrail was integrated into the Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service, a move aimed at tackling the problem of supply chain data silos, instead promoting interoperability among legacy IT systems while taking a sledgehammer to “walled gardens.”