2024 June - Things to Look Out For 👀

The month of June heralds the midpoint of the year and also takes us to the end of Q2 2024. As ever, the space continues to move forward at a relentless pace and we’ve selected some of the key developments, events, and announcements to keep an eye on over the coming four weeks.

Key Events

This month’s key events occur within the first two weeks with Ethereum and Web3 developers, builders, and enthusiasts focused on the ETH Belgrade Conference starting on June 3, and taking place over a three day period in Serbia. Mina Protocol and The Graph are set to complete significant network and protocol upgrades while the AI trio of Fetch.ai, Ocean Protocol, and SingularityNET will finalize the merging of their respective tokens (FET, OCEAN, AGIX) into the ASI token. The final process begins on June 11 and completes on June 13 to herald the emergence of the ASI Alliance which will move forward as one single entity.

▫️ June 3 to 5 - ETH Belgrade Conference takes place
▫️ June 4 - Mina Protocol’s Berkeley upgrade scheduled for completion
▫️ June 5 - TAIKO TGE & Airdrop/allocation period & token listing on Bybit
▫️ June 12 - The Graph Sunbeam Upgrade completion
▫️ June 13 - zkSync token airdrop expected to take place
▫️ June 13 - ASI token merger fully completed

Token Unlocks

June sees a number of projects proceed with significant token unlocks and Arbitrum leads the pack in terms of token value with approximately $103M worth of ARB tokens to be unlocked on June 16. Aptos comes close with a June 12 unlock of approximately $100M worth of APT, while Space ID leads the way in terms of the percentage of circulating supply to be unlocked with 18.23% of circulating ID to be released on June 22.

▫️ June 12 - Aptos, $100M (2.59% of circ. supply)
▫️ June 14 - ImmutableX, $55M (1.72% of circ. supply)
▫️ June 15 - StarkNet, $75M (4.92% of circ. supply)
▫️ June 16 - Arbitrum, $103M (3.2% of circ. supply)
▫️ June 22 - Space ID, $56M (18.23% of circ. supply)
▫️ June 30 - Optimism, $77M (2.88% of circ. supply)

📣 June 2024 Weekly Update #1

June 3rd - 9th Recap:
▫️ Australia's first spot Bitcoin ETF with direct BTC holdings went live on Tuesday
▫️ FTX settled a $24B tax claim with the IRS for $200M in bankruptcy court
▫️ Thailand’s SEC approved the nation’s first spot Bitcoin ETF
▫️ Robinhood announced plans to buy established crypto exchange Bitstamp in $200M deal
▫️ US spot BTC ETFs post a record 19 consecutive days of positive inflows worth approximately $4Bn
▫️ European Central Bank (ECB) and Bank of Canada cut interest rates to 3.75% and 4.75% respectively

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $71,713
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $67,635

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $3,874
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $3,670

June 10th to 16th Upcoming Events:
▪️ June 12 - The Graph Sunbeam Upgrade to be completed
▪️ June 12 - Aptos, $100M token unlock
▪️ June 12 - US CPI Inflation data announcement for the month of May*
▪️ June 13 - zkSync token airdrop expected to take place
▪️ June 13 - ASI token merger to finalize
▪️ June 13 - Arweave to launch AO token
▪️ June 14 - ImmutableX, $55M token unlock
▪️ June15 - StarkNet, $75M token unlock
▪️ June 16 - Arbitrum, $103M token unlock

*Nota Bene:
Tuesday, June 12. The US CPI Inflation data announcement for the month of May may lead to overall market volatility as it is seen as a key signal regarding the ongoing inflation rate. The official rate came in at 3.4% annualized for the month of April, and anything lower than 3.4% annualized will be taken positively by the markets and viewed as a possible move towards inflation normalizing closer to the Fed's long-term target of 2%.

📣 June 2024 Weekly Update #2

June 10th - 16th Recap:
▫️ US spot Bitcoin ETFs saw $65M in net outflows on Monday, ending 19 days of continuous inflows
▫️ Lykke (UK CEX) suffered a $22M hack, halted trading and remains "inactive until further notice"
▫️ Terraform Labs agreed to pay $4.5B SEC charge to resolve civil fraud case & announced dissolution plan
▫️ Arweave released tokenomics of $AO token
▫️ VC firm Paradigm raised $850M for a third fund focused on investing in early-stage crypto projects
▫️ MicroStrategy announced a further proposed private offering of $500M of convertible senior notes to purchase Bitcoin
▫️ Latin America's biggest bank, Itaú Unibanco, opened BTC & ETH trading via its Ion app for customers in Brazil
▫️ Swiss regulator FINMA both shuts down & puts crypto friendly Flowbank in bankruptcy proceedings

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $70,146
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $65,111

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $3,701
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $3,375

June 17th to 23rd Upcoming Events:
▪️ June 17 - APE, $16M token unlock
▪️ June 17 - Tether to announce a new class of digital assets product
▪️ June 17 - zkSync token airdrop to take place
▪️ June 19 - Flow to implement a testnet network upgrade
▪️ June 20 - First Bitcoin ETF to list on Australia’s Bourse*
▪️ June 20 - Beta finance to launch decentralized lending platform Omni on Arbitrum
▪️ June 22 - ID, $44.5M token unlock

*Nota Bene:
Thursday, June 20. The listing of the First Bitcoin ETF on Australia’s main stock market will be worth keeping an eye on. While Australia isn’t known as one of Bitcoin’s primary trading market locations, the traction the VanEck BTC ETF gains may be a sign of things to come across the global market. Monday saw the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs experience a daily net outflow of around $65M, and the $227M worth of outflow from the Bitcoin ETFs on Friday was the biggest single day outflow since May 1st. However, this was preceded by a 19 day inflow streak, amidst a greater 5 week run which saw digital asset investment products amass inflows of $4.3B. A significant uptake of the VanEck BTC ETF in Australia may help stimulate another round of inflows and help BTC solidify and build from its 4 week low of around $65,000.

📣 June 2024 Weekly Update #3

June 17th to 23rd Recap:
▫️ Tether launched new digital asset product Alloy on Monday
▫️ Consensys revealed US SEC has closed investigation into Ethereum 2.0 & its ongoing plan to sue the SEC
▫️ VanEck Bitcoin spot ETF debuted on Australia’s main stock market the ASX on Thursday
▫️ MicroStrategy announced the acquisition of an additional 11,931 BTC for $786M at $65,883 per BTC
▫️ Standard Chartered announced plans to launch spot crypto trading desk in London for BTC & ETH
▫️ Eigen Foundation announced the opening of Phase 2 of the EIGEN stakedrop
▫️ LayerZero Foundation announced the opening of claims for the ZRO token airdrop on Thursday
▫️ Nillion announced details of Community Round valued at $400M
▫️ Bitcoin miners revealed to have sold 30k BTC worth around $2B in June*

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $66,968
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $63,442

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $3,642
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $3,380

June 24th to 30th Upcoming Events:
▪️ June 25 - ALT, $19M token unlock
▪️ June 25, Stader Labs to burn 30M $SD tokens
▪️ June 26 - Nillion Community Round Launch on Coinlist ends at 17:00 UTC
▪️ June 30 - OP, $56M token unlock
▪️ June 30 - BNB Beacon Chain reaches Sunset closure deadline

*Nota Bene:
The revelation that Bitcoin miners sold around 30k BTC worth approximately $2B in June partly explains the sluggish price performance over the month. Miners have intensified their selling in order to try and recoup lost revenues as the mining block reward was slashed to 3.125 BTC in April. This led to over a 50% drop in daily miner revenues and has seen Bitcoin miner reserves fall to a yearly low of around 1.9M BTC. Alongside this, Bitcoin investment products recorded outflows worth US$630M last week, with the US accounting for $475M in outflows.These developments are worth keeping an eye on as analysts become increasingly bearish around Bitcoin’s ability to stay above $60k over the next few weeks.

📣 June 2024 Weekly Update #4

June 24th to 30th Recap:

▫️ Mt. Gox Rehabilitation trustee announced on Monday that BTC & BCH repayments will begin in early July 2024*
▫️ The US Government transferred 3,940 seized BTC worth $240M to Coinbase Prime*
▫️ Coinbase announced lawsuits against the SEC & FDIC over FOIA document requests
▫️ The German Government was revealed to have transferred 400 BTC worth $24.33M to Kraken & Coinbase*
▫️ SEC sued MetaMask owner Consensys, Lido & RocketPool over staking & violating securities laws
▫️ VanEck & 21Shares filed S-1 forms for Solana ETF applications
▫️ ETH gas fees dropped below 3 gwei for the first time since 2020
▫️ Bitcoin miner CleanSpark agreed to acquire GRIID in $155M deal
▫️ Optimism announced the SuperFest DeFi Festival feat BASE, LIDO, FRAX, UNI

🔼 Bitcoin Weekly High: $63,556
🔽 Bitcoin Weekly Low: $59,118

🔼 Ethereum Weekly High: $3,480
🔽 Ethereum Weekly Low: $3,259

July 1st to 7th Upcoming Events:
▪️ July 1 - ASI Alliance begins ASI token merger Phase 1
▪️ July 1 - Arbitrum DAO seeks snapshot approval for up to 35M ARB investment into RWA products including BlackRock/Securitize BUIDL, Ondo USDY & Superstate USTB
▪️ July 1 - SUI, $58M token unlock
▪️ July 1 - IO, $25M token unlock
▪️ July 1 - DYDX, $11M token unlock
▪️ July 6 - EthCC 2024 side events kick off in Brussels

*Nota Bene:
The revelation that the German government transferred 900 BTC with 400 BTC going to Kraken and Coinbase has sparked concerns about the negative potential market impact. With the total BTC holdings standing at approximately 46,359 BTC, the initial transfers represent less than 5% of the total amount held, leading to an overall fear of further sales. The increasingly bearish sentiment is compounded by an anticipated sell-off by the Mt. Gox Rehabilitation trustee as the estate begins distributing 140,000 BTC from the start of July.

Alongside this, the US government recently transferred 3,940 BTC to Coinbase Prime, and is known to have seized approximately 50,000 BTC associated with the Silk Road and other dark web marketplaces. With around 40,000 BTC still in the hands of the US government further sales look ominous, and this trio of large scale committed sellers look set to dampen any bullish sentiment with additional offloads. All eyes will be focused on wallet addresses associated with the three entities, however, while more sales may lead to negative short-term price action, it can be argued that these mandated sales are not only necessary but may result in a relatively swift positive turnaround as the market absorbs the sell offs and removes long term uncertainty from the space.