CMC Market Pulse delivers actionable market insights, giving you all the key narratives and developments you need in under 5 minutes.
Market Overview 📉
Bitcoin (BTC) closed the week 4.0% down, while Ethereum (ETH) ended their streak of outperformance, closing the week down 8.4%. Total crypto market cap fell 3.48% from $3.523T to close the week at $3.409T.
Unlike the slow bleed from prior weeks, the strong downward move on Thursday spiked liquidations, with $827M in longs liquidated. Funding rates continued last week’s trend downwards, with several majors such as SOL reaching the negative range, reflecting a weaker risk appetite.
📌 Metaplanet acquires 1,088 BTC while Michael Saylor’s Strategy acquires another 705 BTC over the past week. - Link
📌 Strategy announces an offering of their Stride preferred stock (STRD), which offers a 10% dividend to its holders, similar to their Strife offering. - Link
📌 JPMorgan Chase will now accept Bitcoin and crypto ETF products as collateral for loans. - Link
Why does it matter?
This week saw a generally uneventful week for crypto, with most of the week being a slow bleed for cryptocurrency majors. Traditional equities on the other hand fared slightly better. Despite reversing at the end of the week, the S&P 500 is still up 0.67% this week, while the Nasdaq outperformed, up 1.0% over the same period.
Notable altcoin outperformers this week included Keeta (KTA), Mask Network (MASK), Hyperliquid (HYPE) and Sky (SKY).
Narrative of the Week 📰
Stablecoins, one of this cycle’s core narrative, continues to take headlines, especially with Circle’s highly-anticipated IPO finally completed.
📌 USDC stablecoin issuer, Circle, goes public on the NYSE, trading under the ticker CRCL. The IPO was 25x oversubscribed and closed at a valuation of $6.9B. - Link
📌 Stablecoin-focused L1, Stable, emerges from stealth. Stable supports USDT as its native gas token, with free peer-to-peer USDT transfers. - Link
📌 Stablecoin payments L1, Plasma, raises caps on their upcoming public sale deposit to $250M, with individual caps at $50M. - Link
Why does it matter?
Stablecoins have always been an exciting narrative especially for investors coming from a traditional finance background. Circle’s IPO provides a direct way to bet on the narrative via equities.
Major Project Updates 🗓️
📌 Robinhood acquires centralized exchange, Bitstamp, for $200M. - Link
📌 Ethereum Foundation restructures and introduces “Protocol” - a refocus on three core goals: scaling the L1, scaling L2s and improving UX on Ethereum. - Link
📌 Berachain rollouts the Bectra Upgrade, bringing to Berachain the new features released in Ethereum’s latest Pectra Upgrade. - Link
Why does it matter?
Acquisitions continue to be the core strategy for traditional finance institutions to expand rapidly into the crypto space, with Robinhood being one of the leading companies bridging the gap between the two.
DeFi Brief 🏦
📌 USDT0, the network supporting the omnichain version of Tether’s stablecoin USDT has launched XAUt0, the omnichain version of Tether’s on-chain Gold product, XAUt. - Link
📌 Paradigm researcher, Dave White, introduces Orbital, an AMM designed specifically for stablecoin pools with any number of stablecoins. - Link
📌 Perpetual DEX, GMX, introduces GMX Express, bringing more reliable execution, custom gas tokens and one-click trading to the DEX. - Link
Why does it matter?
With the increased volatility in the markets this year, on-chain Gold has become a highly sought-after product, with many teams including Tether pushing to bring on-chain Gold to the masses.
Meme Coins 🚀
📌 Memecoin launchpad, Pump.fun is rumored to be planning for a $1B token sale at a valuation of $4B in the coming weeks. - Link
Fundraises 💰
📌 Perpetual DEX, Variational, raises $1.5M in a strategic round with investors including Mirana, Caladan and Zoku Ventures, among others. - Link
📌 Credit-based money market protocol, 3Jane, raises $5.2M in a seed round led by Paradigm, with support from Wintermute Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Robot Ventures and more. - Link
📌 Synthetic derivatives platform, Avantis, raises $8M in a Series A funding round led by Pantera Capital and Founders Fund, with other investors including Flowdesk, Symbolic Capital and more. - Link
📌 Delta-neutral investment platform, Neutral Trade, raises $2M in a funding round with investors including Ergonia, Skyland Ventures, BlackPine, alongside angel investors. - Link
Airdrops Abound 🎁
📌 Sonic releases details on the S token airdrop, which will be distributed in two phases: 25% of the airdrop will be liquid on launch, with the remaining vested over 270 days. - Link
Tweet of the Week 📝
Source: @Cheshire_Cap
James Wynn on a speedrun of all his emotions at once.
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