Coin360 Daily Dispatch | Crypto Market Updates & Highlights | June 25, 2023

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Jun 25 2023

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Markets360

Crypto Market Update

Written by Van

UN Advocates for Global Digital ID System

The United Nations proposes a digital ID system that aims to streamline the process of verifying people's identities globally, noting that this would help reduce errors and costs in developing social protection programs. The move follows a World Economic Forum exploration of biometric systems for tracking and verifying human identities and is part of the UN's strategy to reverse ever-growing wealth distribution gaps resulting from digital technologies.

Media Outlets Appeal for FTX Users' Identities

Major media outlets, including The New York Times and have filed an appeal to have the names of FTX users made public. The names were redacted for customer safety and to avoid scams and identity theft, which Bankruptcy Court Judge John Dorsey prioritized. FTX is also seeking to recover $700 million in funds transferred by its founder to investment firms. FTX is also facing expensive legal and advisory costs.

UK Hacker PlugwalkJoe Sentenced for Crypto Theft

British hacker Joseph O'Connor, also known as PlugwalkJoe, has been sentenced to five years in a US prison for stealing $794,000 worth of cryptocurrency through a SIM swap attack in 2019.

O'Connor was extradited from Spain and pleaded guilty to charges including computer intrusions, wire fraud, and money laundering. The sentence also covers his involvement in the 2020 Twitter hack, which earned him $120,000 in cryptocurrency. SIM swap attacks remain a significant problem in the crypto sector, with recent cases involving well-known figures and resulting in substantial financial losses.

Bitcoin's Open Interest Surpasses $14 Billion

The Open Interest (OI) on Bitcoin, which represents open positions in derivative contracts, has surpassed $14 billion. Binance has the largest OI share at 32%, followed by CME at 18%. OI on Bitcoin has risen significantly, reaching its highest level in 2023. Altcoins have much lower OI, with Ethereum being the closest contender. Daily trading volumes of derivatives are three times higher than OI, indicating a preference for futures and options over spot trading. The market sentiment is currently slightly optimistic, with a skewed long/short ratio.

Ethereum's Exchange Balances Reach All-Time Low

Ethereum's exchange balances have reached their lowest level, and staking deposits have surged. ETH's supply locked in smart contracts now represents 30% of its total supply. A pullback is likely, but on-chain movements and market indicators suggest a higher chance of upside over a short-to-medium-term bearish trend. BTC's price action will be crucial in maintaining Ether's bullish momentum.

Cardano Eases Regulatory Concerns with 10% Rise

Cardano's ADA rose by 10% last week, easing concerns of regulatory hostility. However, investors' sentiment is negative, potentially due to the US SEC labelling ADA a security. Developers have been working to improve the network with the latest edition of its weekly development report highlighting the launch of version 1.2 of Lace Wallet and progress on the Voltaire era but were hit by a sharp decline in development activity since 8 June, coinciding with concerns around ADA.

WAVES Records 91.23% Price Surge in 24 Hours

WAVES price hits daily high of $2.82 with a 91.23% price surge in 24 hours. DWF Labs committed 500,000 WAVES to Waves staking and voting for WavesDAO project, empowering developers to build on the Waves Blockchain. WavesDAO is a For-Profit DAO on Power Protocol platform aimed at supporting Waves Blockchain projects with stakers managing the platform.

Terra Allies Six Samurai Presents Q3 Spend Proposal

The Terra Allies Six Samurai senior engineering team has presented a Q3 spend proposal, pledging to dedicate efforts and expertise in achieving "a true revival of the ecosystem." The proposal includes milestones like upgrading to the latest Cosmos SDK, listing Terra Classic on Keplr's Web Interface, and pursuing Mintscan for Cosmos block explorer. The LUNC community is showing a favorable response.

Optimism Rebrands, Aims to Create a 'Superchain'

Optimism has rebranded to "OP Mainnet" in a bid to create a "Superchain" that enables connection with other chains. The layer two scaling solution has been outpaced by rival Arbitrum, which uses multi-round fraud proofs, while Optimism uses single-round fraud proofs, making it more expensive despite being faster. However, Optimism had more public GitHub repositories than Arbitrum.

Axie Infinity Token Price Soars by 21%

Axie Infinity's token price is up by 21% in the last seven days, currently $6.04. This is fuelled by investor sentiment following the approval of a leveraged Bitcoin ETF in the US, as well as the launch of AxieTH, a major gaming competition. The play-to-earn gaming protocol is rebuilding its brand.

Tracking Bitcoin Whales on Low-Liquidity Exchanges: CryptoQuant CEO

CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju suggests tracking Bitcoin (BTC) whales on low-liquidity exchanges instead of high-volume exchanges like Binance to understand their behavior. He provides examples of trades on platforms such as Huobi, BitMEX, ByBit, Deribit, and OKX. Identifying whale behavior through indicators like Taker Buy/Sell Ratio is reliable for detecting long positions but not for short positions. On June 21, 2023, Bitcoin bears suffered significant losses in short positions.

Arbitrum Gains 5% amid Regulatory Relief

Arbitrum (ARB) gained over 5% since the recent crypto market rally, bringing relief from regulatory concerns. While transaction fees for the governance token have plateaued, the upcoming Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP)-4488 may slash upload costs of arbitration data on the Ethereum base layer, lowering end user fees by 80%. The layer 2 rollup token remains popular, with steady daily active wallet and new wallet creation growth, and its total value locked (TVL) jumped over 8% last week, making it the largest L2 solution in terms of TVL.

Top Altcoin Gainers and Losers

Gainers:

Aave AAVE (+25.30%)

Synthetix SNX (+19.45%)

Uniswap UNI (+12.48%)

Losers:

Bitcoin SV BSV (-5.06%)

Pepe PEPE (-4.07%)

Rocket Pool RPL (-3.15%)

NFT Market Map

Hermès has been granted a permanent injunction on all NFT sales of artist Mason Rothschild's "MetaBirkin" collection. Manhattan Judge Jed Rakoff criticised Rothschild's defence against Hermès' lawsuit, calling the artist's marketing "entirely fraudulent". Rothschild had argued that his project was an artistic expression protected by the First Amendment. The collection of 100 NFT artworks depicting furry Birkin-style handbags generated over $1 million in sales, with Rothschild ordered to pay $133,000 in damages after being accused of improperly using Hermès' Birkin trademark.