Coin360 Daily Dispatch | Crypto Market Updates & Highlights | June 22, 2023

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Jun 22 2023

last year3 minutes read

Markets360

Crypto Market Update

Written by Van

Short Traders Lose Over $121 Million in Crypto Market Shake-Up

Short traders faced significant losses as over $121 million in bets against crypto tokens were liquidated in the past 24 hours, with total liquidations exceeding $210 million. Bitcoin and Ethereum futures saw the largest losses, while Binance and OKX recorded the most losses among exchanges at over $64 million each.

Bitcoin's price increase, fueled by ETF filings and growing institutional demand, has led to bullish sentiment among options traders. Bitcoin briefly exceeded the $30,000 mark but subsequently retraced to $29,850, while Ethereum briefly surpassed $1,900 before retracing to $1,880. However, the upward move is expected to continue if ETF applications from major financial institutions are approved.

MicroStrategy's Bitcoin Investment Turns Profitable Amid Price Surge

MicroStrategy's $4 billion Bitcoin investment turned profitable as the cryptocurrency's value reached $30,200 today, surpassed the firm's average purchase price of $29,803 for the first time in almost two months. The American company's BTC holdings are now worth over $4.2 billion, with over $30 million in unrealized profits. After the surge, BTC has come back to $29,850 at the time of writing.

Litecoin On-Chain Metrics Rise Ahead of Halving Event

Litecoin's on-chain metrics have seen significant increases, with a 28% rise in daily active addresses and a 54.6% jump in new addresses. This surge coincides with the upcoming halving event, which is expected to occur on August 2nd. Despite a recent price decline, Litecoin is up by over 14% since the beginning of 2023. In comparison to other top cryptocurrencies, the Nasdaq 100 index has outperformed most of them this year, with only Bitcoin (BTC) and Solana (SOL) showing significant outperformance.

Algorand Upgrades Protocol to Boost Speed and Cost Efficiency

Algorand has upgraded its protocol to reduce block time, enhance application development speed and cost efficiency. The upgrade, featuring the largest reduction of block time on a percentage basis, aims to make the blockchain more attractive to developers amid increasing competition. Other improvements include a testing simulator and a customizable data plugin framework. ALGO, the native cryptocurrency, has seen a 2% increase in the past 24 hours.

Fed Chair Powell Advocates for Robust Federal Crypto Regulation

The crypto markets rose after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell expressed support for cryptocurrencies, saying they have "staying power." Powell stated that payment stablecoins are considered a form of money and advocated for a robust federal role in their regulation. This contradicts the view of SEC Chair Gary Gensler, who believes stablecoins should be registered and regulated as securities. Former CFTC Chair Chris Giancarlo raised concerns about potential government coercion and urged against picking and choosing lawful activities in stablecoin licensing.

Ripple Secures 'In-Principle' Approval for Services in Singapore

Blockchain-based payments firm Ripple has received "in-principle" regulatory approval from Singapore's financial regulator, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), to offer digital asset payments and token products. The approval will allow Ripple's subsidiary, Ripple Markets Asia Pacific, to scale its On-Demand Liquidity service, which facilitates the movement of XRP without the need for traditional banking intermediaries. Ripple praised MAS for its pragmatic approach and stated that Singapore will serve as a gateway for its operations in the Asia Pacific region.

Binance Alleges SEC Misled Public in Ongoing Lawsuit

Binance, Binance Holdings and CZ allege that the US SEC misled the public in recent statements regarding their lawsuit against the exchanges, according to a filing with the US District Court for the District of Columbia. The motion alleged the SEC made “misleading” remarks and called for the regulator to comply with “applicable rules of conduct.” The filing came as the SEC seeks disgorgement and other penalties in its ongoing lawsuit against the exchanges, which it accused of unregistered securities offerings and Binance’s failure to register as an exchange or broker-dealer clearing agency.

Valkyrie Seeks SEC Approval for Bitcoin Spot ETF

Cryptocurrency fund manager Valkyrie has submitted an application to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a Bitcoin spot exchange-traded fund (ETF), following similar filings by other financial firms. Valkyrie aims to list the fund on the Nasdaq with the ticker symbol BRRR. The move was likely influenced by competing firms such as BlackRock, WisdomTree, and Invesco, which also filed applications for BTC spot ETFs. There are rumors that Fidelity may join in as well.

BitGo's Attempt to Acquire Prime Trust Fails

BitGo's acquisition of Prime Trust has failed, adding to a string of unsuccessful crypto buyouts. Prime Trust faced regulatory actions and had to halt withdrawals and deposits, leading clients like Binance US and Swan to seek alternatives. Prime Trust's subsidiary Banq filed for bankruptcy protection.

Circle Restarts U.S. Treasury Bill Purchases Amidst Debt Ceiling Crisis

Stablecoin issuer Circle Internet Financial has resumed buying U.S. Treasury bills for its $28 billion USD Coin (USDC) after selling off all holdings during the U.S. debt ceiling crisis. The Circle Reserve Fund, managed by BlackRock, will also maintain repurchase agreements (repos) as part of its reserves. Circle had previously rearranged the backing of USDC to safeguard against potential fallout from the U.S. government's failure to raise the debt ceiling. The company currently holds $2.2 billion in T-bills and $3.5 billion in bank deposits, with the majority stored at the Bank of New York Mellon.

Ethereum Scaling Solution Starknet Nears Full EVM Compatibility

Starknet, a scaling solution for Ethereum, is moving closer to being fully Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible with the upcoming launch of Kakarot, a new zkEVM. The backing from Vitalik Buterin, Nicholas Bacca, and Starkware will support this effort. Starknet, although a leading Zero Knowledge roll-up, currently uses its own native language, Cairo, which is not EVM compatible. Kakarot aims to make Starknet EVM compatible, enabling developers to use Solidity and eliminating the need for separate code bases. The testnet version of Kakarot is set to launch in August.

Offchain Labs Launches Orbit, a Tool for Custom Layer 3 Chains

Offchain Labs has introduced a tool called Orbit that allows developers to create their own Layer 3 blockchains on top of Arbitrum's Layer 2 chains. With Orbit, developers can customize their chains' governance protocols, privacy, permissions, and fee tokenomics. Offchain Labs has also launched Orbit Devnet, a sandbox environment for testing and debugging smart contracts and applications before deploying them as Orbit chains. Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova are Offchain Labs' existing Layer 2 blockchains built on Ethereum.

Gods Unchained Joins Epic Games Store to Widen Audience

Gods Unchained, a popular web3 game on the Immutable X blockchain, has joined the Epic Games Store. This move aims to expand the game's reach beyond the web3 gaming community and attract a wider audience. The game's parent company, Immutable, raised $200 million in funding last year. Gods Unchained is also planning governance and economic changes for the future.

Shiba Inu Ecosystem Developers to Launch Shibacals

Shiba Inu ecosystem developers are creating Shibacals, authenticated collectibles that link real-world assets to NFTs. These collectibles use NFC chips to digitally authenticate physical items and will be implemented in the upcoming Shibarium blockchain. Shibacals can verify products on any blockchain and have boosted the value of Shiba Inu ecosystem tokens, with SHIB, BONE, and LEASH experiencing significant gains.

Nansen and Kaiko Form Partnership for Holistic Crypto Data View

Crypto data providers Nansen and Kaiko have formed a partnership to offer institutions a comprehensive view of transactions across both centralized and decentralized exchanges. While the majority of market activity occurs on centralized exchanges, access to decentralized data is important for a complete understanding of market information.

Nansen's data helps identify token concentration and suspicious activity, while Kaiko provides insights into price volatility, liquidity risks, and market movements. The partnership allows Nansen Query users to access both on-chain and market data, streamlining the integration process.

Atomic Wallet Provides Update on $100 Million Crypto Theft

The Atomic Wallet team has provided an update on a recent cryptocurrency theft that resulted in the loss of $100 million, stating that less than 0.1% of its 5 million users were affected. The attack, likely executed by North Korean hackers, affected a small number of users. The team is working with blockchain analytics companies and law enforcement to recover the stolen funds. The community is demanding compensation and criticizing the company's handling of the incident.

Top Altcoin Gainers and Losers

Gainers:

Pepe PEPE (+24.46%)

Conflux CFX (+14.78%)

Radix XRD (+12.34%)

Losers:

Render Token RNDR (-3.33%)

Trust Wallet Token TWT (-3.01%)

Bitcoin SV BSV (-2.44%)

NFT Market Map

NFT platform Foundation claims to have fixed a self-destruct function that could have wiped out all NFTs minted on its platform. The issue was discovered by 0xngmi, co-founder of DeFiLlama, who had been negotiating with the company for six months. The platform has now resolved the issue. The self-destruct function posed a risk to NFT collections because it allowed for the destruction of NFTs if activated. The concern was that hackers could gain control of the necessary keys and hold the NFTs for ransom or destroy them. Foundation makes up a small share of the NFT marketplace industry.

Web3 streetwear brand Gutter Cat Gang is collaborating with Puma and NBA player LaMelo Ball to release a digital sneaker collection as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on OpenSea. The collection, called "GutterMelo MB.03," offers both digital and physical versions of the sneakers. The collaboration aims to promote web3 technology and digital collectibles while revolutionizing hoops apparel and fashion. Buyers can register on Premint to purchase the NFT sneakers, with prices ranging from $175 to $215. This partnership follows the trend of streetwear and sneakers embracing digital fashion and NFTs, with Nike and Adidas also exploring similar avenues.

This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Coin360 Daily Dispatch | Crypto Market Updates & Highlights | June 22, 2023

Crypto Market Update

Table of Contents:

Market Movements

Regulatory Updates

Crypto Exchanges and ETFs

Blockchain and Scalability Solutions

Crypto Gaming and NFTs

Data Analysis and Security