First Mover Americas: Meme Coin Indexes Are Here

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Crypto exchange WOO X has introduced a set of index perpetual contracts linked to meme coins, the top 30 cryptocurrencies and layer-2 (L2) tokens in partnership with market maker Wintermute and index provider GMCI. WOO X closed a $9 million funding round in January with participation from Wintermute and Amber. The firm is offering traders GMCI’s MEME index, which includes top meme coins like SHIB, PEPE and DOGE, and an L2 index that monitors scaling tokens like MATIC, IMX and OP, the companies said. Indexes are widespread in traditional finance, allowing traders to monitor and – through linked products – gain exposure to a broad range of securities. The new products will soon be complimented by a copy-trading option, as well as on-chain U.S. Treasury bills, WOO X Chief Operating Officer Willy Chuang said.

Michael Sonnenshein, CEO of digital asset investment manager Grayscale, sees outflows from the company's bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) reaching an equilibrium, Reuters reported. Sonnenshein said the selling connected to settlements of bankrupt crypto companies like FTX is "largely behind us," according to the report, citing an appearance on a Reuters podcast. When the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved spot bitcoin ETFs in January, Grayscale's product (GBTC), which had already existed for several years as a trust, experienced significant outflows as existing investors likely sold their shares to buy into one of the new funds. Another reason for the outflows was GBTC's comfortably higher fees compared to its competitors. Sonnenshein said last month that he expects the fund's fees to decrease over time.

Blockchain venture studio Thesis unveiled Mezo, a Bitcoin layer-2 network, from stealth with a $21 million fundraising round led by Pantera Capital. Mezo is a "permissionless Bitcoin economic layer that leverages a neutral smart contract infrastructure" to offer a wide range of applications for users, Thesis said. It is designed to amplify the Bitcoin blockchain’s infrastructure and provide cheap and fast transactions by allowing users "to access applications that use Bitcoin for everything, enabling a thriving circular economy," the venture firm said. Mezo will go live with support from Thesis’ bitcoin-backed Ethereum token tBTC, which allows users to get bitcoin into Ethereum’s decentralized-finance (DeFi) ecosystem. “Our goal with Mezo is to extend the Bitcoin network to bring 25% of the world’s economy on-chain – roughly in line with the size of the U.S. economy today,” Matt Luongo, CEO of Thesis and founder of Mezo, said in a release.