$BNB

14 June 2024

Macro/TradFi

The U.S. Federal Reserve opted to keep interest rates unchanged, signalling just one rate cut before the end of 2024. This decision follows U.S. consumer price index (“CPI”) data for May, which was slightly lower than expectations at 3.3%.

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) Chair Gary Gensler commented on the timeline for spot Ether ETFs, estimating that S-1 approvals could occur by the end of this summer.

Fidelity International has tokenized shares of a money market fund using JPMorgan’s Ethereum-based private blockchain, Onyx Digital Assets. This move aims to improve efficiency in delivering margin requirements while reducing transaction costs and operational risk.

Crypto

L1/L2:

BNB Chain and Binance Labs have announced the launch of “BNB Incubation Alliance” to support early-stage blockchain projects.

Optimism has reached 'Stage 1' decentralization after implementing fault proofs on its mainnet. Users can now initiate withdrawals independently, without reliance on any trusted third parties.

The Arbitrum Foundation has committed 225M $ARB tokens to develop the gaming industry within its ecosystem. These tokens will be distributed over three years through the newly established Gaming Catalyst Program (“GCP”).

ZKsync is set to airdrop 3.675B $ZK tokens to early users and adopters next week, representing 17.5% of the total supply of 21B tokens.

The Polygon community treasury has unveiled a long-term plan to incentivize developers to build on the blockchain by distributing tokens over the next decade. Starting with 'season 1’, the treasury plans to distribute 35M $MATIC.

DeFi:

Symbiotic, a new restaking protocol, has officially launched after securing a US$5.8M seed funding round led by Paradigm and cyber.Fund, positioning itself as a competitor to Ethereum’s EigenLayer. Alongside this development, Mellow, a liquid restaking project built on Symbiotic, was also introduced.

MetaMask has introduced a pooled staking service, allowing Ethereum holders to stake any amount with validators operated by its developer, Consensys. This new feature is designed to make staking more accessible, bypassing the previous requirement of over US$100K to participate. 

Stablecoins:

Tether Holdings expects to invest over US$1B in the next 12 months, according to CEO Paolo Ardoino. The focus will be on alternative financial infrastructure for emerging markets, artificial intelligence, and biotech, sectors where it has already invested about US$2B in the past two years.

NFTs:

Daily Ethereum NFT traders have fallen below 4K for the first time since June 2021. This represents a sharp decline from the peak of over 80K in February 2022.

Others:

Crypto airdrops have distributed approximately US$4B in value to users this year, with several more expected to come. The three largest airdrops were Jupiter, Starknet, and Notcoin, each giving out around US$1B.

Leading Web3 venture capital firm Paradigm has raised US$850M for its third crypto-focused fund.

Zero-knowledge cryptography firm Nexus Labs has raised US$25M in its Series A funding round, co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Pantera Capital.

Latest Binance Research Publications 

Check out our latest publications:

Monthly Market Insights - June 2024

The Future of Bitcoin #3: Scaling Bitcoin

Breakthrough DeFi Markets

Explore our Binance Research website for more project and macro research.
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That’s a wrap!

Binance Research

About Binance Research: Binance Research is the research arm of Binance, the world's leading cryptocurrency exchange. The team is committed to delivering objective, independent, and comprehensive analysis and aims to be the thought leader in the crypto space. Our analysts publish insightful thought pieces regularly on topics related but not limited to, the crypto ecosystem, blockchain technologies, and the latest market themes.

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