The Daily Breakdown looks at the best-performing cryptocurrencies from the first quarter. We also dive into ENS and STRK.
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Crypto Corner
We’re continuing our talk about the ins and outs of the crypto market, helping investors become more familiar with the 110+ cryptoassets offered by eToro.Today we’ll discuss Ethereum Name Service and Starknet.
Ethereum Name Service (ENS): Trading near $5.75 with a market cap of ~$220 million
ENS turns long Ethereum wallet strings into readable .eth names, making crypto transactions and apps much easier to navigate. Launched in 2017, the protocol lets users buy, sell, and manage ENS names as Ethereum-based NFTs. The ENS token, introduced in 2021, is used for DAO governance — giving holders a vote on upgrades, treasury use, and community decisions — rather than any claim on profits, dividends, or ownership.
Starknet (STRK): Trading near $0.035 with a market cap of ~$202 million
Starknet is Ethereum’s Zero-Knowledge rollup fast lane — a Layer-2 scaling solution — built to ease congestion by moving computation off-chain while settling securely on Ethereum. Using STARK proofs and the Cairo programming language, it helps developers build cheaper, faster decentralized apps without sacrificing core security. STRK is used for fees, staking, and governance, with the network gradually shifting from StarkWare-led development toward broader validator participation and community control.
Check out these three crypto offerings — and many more — on eToro’s Discover page and consider adding them to your watchlist.
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The Setup — Q1 Crypto Leaders
It was a tough quarter for the crypto space as Bitcoin fell 22%, while Ethereum dropped 29%. Overall, the total crypto market cap dropped about 20% in the first quarter, ending around $2.32 trillion — a sizable figure, but well off the high of more than $4.25 trillion in the fourth quarter.
Not all crypto assets were down, though. Here’s a look at a few names with sizable gains:
Of those shown above, it includes holdings such as LayerZero (+53.5% in Q1), Akash Networks (+42.5%), Morpho (+40.8%), Axie Infinity (+40.4%), Bittensor (+39.8%), and Render (+35.3%). Quant finished Q1 slightly in positive territory, up about 1%.
What Wall Street’s Watching
NKE
Shares of Nike are set for new 52-week lows this morning, as the stock is down more than 10% in pre-market trading. The company beat on earnings and revenue expectations, but management gave a weaker-than-expected sales outlook for its current quarter amid ongoing turnaround efforts. Dig into the fundamentals for NKE.
QQQ
The QQQ ETF roared higher by 3.4% on Tuesday and is higher by more than 1% in pre-market trading. Tech led yesterday’s rebound, with the sector climbing more than 4% on the day. Industrials and Consumer Discretionary followed closely behind. Bullish investors are hoping for more upside after a tough run as of late: The QQQ fell 6% last quarter and has declined for five straight weeks. Check out the chart for the QQQ.
Disclaimer:
Please note that due to market volatility, some of the prices may have already been reached and scenarios played out.