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 4.99% down, while Ethereum (ETH) held strong, ending the week up down only 0.56% from the week prior. Total crypto market cap fell 3.21% from $3.645T to close the week at $3.532T.
Despite a weaker market, liquidations remain relatively muted, with long liquidations peaking at $293M on Thursday. Funding rates trend reversed from the week before, falling back into the single digit ranges on cryptocurrency majors..
📌 Michael Saylor’s Strategy has acquired 4,020 BTC for $427M at an average price of $106,237 per Bitcoin. - Link
📌 Strive Asset Management announces a $750M private placement in the company, with another $750M with the exercise of warrants, making them one of the largest Bitcoin treasury companies. - Link
📌 Gamestop announces its acquisition of 4,710 BTC. - Link
Why does it matter?
This week once again saw a divergence in crypto and traditional markets, but this time with crypto pulling back while traditional equities climbed higher. The S&P 500 is up 1.27% over the week, while the Nasdaq climbed 1.22%. Perhaps the week’s move is a reversion to mean from the deviation from the week prior where crypto pushed higher against a more bearish traditional market..
Notable altcoin outperformers this week included WalletConnect (WCT), Saros (SAROS), Safe (SAFE) and SPX6900 (SPX).
Narrative of the Week 📰
This week’s focus centered around SharpLink, the newly formed “MicroStrategy of Ethereum”, led by Joseph Lubin of ConsenSys and leading industry participants.
📌 SharpLink Gaming announces a $425M private placement to initiate an Ethereum Treasury Strategy. The investment is led by ConsenSys, with other investors including Pantera, GSR and more. - Link
📌 SharpLink could create a speculative vehicle for traditional finance to bet on ETH while also taking off a significant supply of ETH off the market. - Link
📌 Critics question the nature of the demand for ETH, citing that SharpLink is still crypto native, whereas institutional demand still remains weak, as seen in ETF flows. - Link
Why does it matter?
SharpLink marks the first significant Ethereum treasury company, which could drum up new interest in Ethereum after its past two years of underperformance.
Major Project Updates 🗓️
📌 ZKsync introduces Prividium, their latest stack to deliver enterprise-grade privacy and built-in compliance to builders. - Link
📌 Coinbase releases CDP Wallets V2, giving developers “full control” over wallet behavior while leaving security of private keys to Coinbase’s Trusted Execution Environment. - Link
📌 Polygon cofounder, Mihailo Bjelic, steps down from Polygon Labs and the board of the Polygon Foundation. - Link
Why does it matter?
Enterprise-grade solutions continue to be the focus for many crypto projects with the focus of this cycle being heavily on institutional onboarding and adoption.
DeFi Brief 🏦
📌 Lending protocol, Euler Finance, introduces EulerSwap, a DEX with lending-boosted yields, deeper just-in-time liquidity and native support for using liquidity pool positions as collateral. - Link
📌 Gamma Strategies introduces their on-chain limit order book DEX built exclusively on Uniswap V4. - Link
📌 Leverage farming protocol, Alpaca Finance, announces plans to wind down. - Link
Why does it matter?
DEXes continue to innovate, specifically with the use of lending to generate yields for LP depositors and the use of LPs as collaterals for lending, which was first done by Fluid (by Instadapp).
Meme Coins 🚀
📌 Circle freezes $57M worth in USDC linked to the team behind the LIBRA memecoin launch as part of legal proceedings. - Link
Fundraises 💰
📌 Crypto payments infrastructure, Conduit, raises $36M in a Series A funding round led by Dragonfly and Altos Ventures, with other investors including Sound Ventures, Circle Ventures and more. - Link
📌 Web3 browser, Donut, raises $7M in a pre-seed round led by HongShan (formerly Sequioa CN), BITKRAFT and HackVC, with support from angel investors. - Link
📌 Blockchain-based payment infrastructure project, Beam, raises $7M in a funding round, with participation from Castle Island Ventures, Archetype Ventures, Bankless Ventures and more. - Link
📌 Stablecoin-focused chain, Plasma, announces their XPL token sale, which will sell 10% of the token supply at $500M FDV. Allocations will be determined by user deposits, which will open on 9th June. - Link
Airdrops Abound 🎁
📌 On-chain analytics platform, Nansen, announces Nansen Points Season 1: Activation, with June 17th as its start date. - Link
📌 Consumer crypto chain, Sophon, opens claims for the SOPH token airdrop, distributing 9% of the token supply to eligible users. Claims remain open for 60 days. - Link
Tweet of the Week 📝
Source: @izebel_eth
The generational fumble of James Wynn will be studied for years to come.
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