The monthly fundamental and price developments of selected cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Stellar (XLM), Algorand (ALGO) and Stacks (STX) in collaboration with Swiss digital asset specialist 21Shares AG.
Each month, the research team highlights the cryptocurrencies of the month that have increased or decreased in value by more than 15%. Using a data-driven approach, the key developments and events that led to the price movements are highlighted.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) traded up 170.77% over the past month, outperforming the broader crypto market. EDX Markets – a novel exchange backed by a consortium of leading financial institutions, including Fidelity, Charles Schwab, and Citadel – launched on June 20, supporting only four cryptoassets: BTC, ETH, LTC, and BCH. Jamil Nazarali, CEO of the exchange, stated that these cryptoassets “are considered safe from the viewpoint of being compliant with the SEC.” Exchange data from CoinGecko also revealed that the BCH surge was partly driven by South Korean traders. On June 30, BCH’s trading volume on UpBit (the largest South Korean exchange) amounted to ~$558 million, more than five times BCH’s volume on Coinbase.
Stellar (XLM)
Stellar's native token XLM traded up 19.78% over the past month. On June 23, Coinbase integrated USDC on the Stellar network. Thanks to its partnership with MoneyGram and Coinme, Stellar offers fiat cash on and off-ramps in over 180 countries. This integration marks another milestone in Stellar's global mission of expanding access to USDC. On a related note, Circle was named among TIME 100 Most Influential Companies 2023 in the "Leaders" category in recognition of the work done with Stellar Aid Assist, an aid disbursement system leveraging the Stellar blockchain used by the UNHCR to deliver cash assistance to internally displaced persons in Ukraine.
Bitcoin (BTC)
Bitcoin traded up 11.88% over the past month as its institutional acceptance became more apparent than ever. Blackrock – the world’s largest asset manager – officially filed for a spot Bitcoin ETF in the U.S. on June 15, prompting many other financial institutions to follow suit. On another front, The Financial Times revealed that Hong Kong regulators were pressing HSBC and Standard Chartered to take on crypto clients, and on June 26, HSBC gave in, allowing customers to trade BTC and ETH futures-based ETFs listed on Hong Kong’s stock exchange. Finally, MicroStrategy announced that it purchased $347 million worth of BTC during the second quarter, which puts its total holdings at 152,333 BTC, worth ~$4.6 billion at $30,000 per BTC.
Ethereum (ETH)
Ethereum traded up 3.17% over the past month. On June 9, UBS announced that BOCI (an investment banking arm of the Bank of China) successfully issued 200 million Chinese yuan structured notes on the Ethereum network, making it the first Chinese financial institution to issue a tokenized security on a public blockchain. Regarding fundamentals, the Ethereum staking contract surpassed 4 million ETH in net new deposits since the Shanghai upgrade, which shows that enabling withdrawals was one of the most significant de-risking events in Ethereum's history.
Decentraland (MANA)
Decentraland (MANA) traded down 17.36% over the past month as activity in the decentralized virtual world continued to drop. About 2,210 unique wallet addresses interacted with Decentraland throughout June, down ~19% from May. In other news, Decentraland's "Game Jam" began on June 19 and will end on July 10. The competition requires teams to build a scene revolving around the theme "Lucid Dreams" that must be built using SDK 7 and at least one artificial intelligence (AI) tool. For context, Decentraland’s SDK 7 is a newly released software development kit aiming to make it easier for content creators to build visually powerful scenes while still optimizing for performance.
Algorand (ALGO)
Algorand's native token ALGO traded down 18.20% over the past month despite exciting ecosystem developments. Algorand upgraded its protocol on June 22, reducing settlement time to roughly 3.3 seconds – a more than 10% increase in speed. The upgrade also includes new developer tools, such as a simulator for smart contracts that allows developers to rigorously test, identify and rectify any issues before deploying new code. On another note, the Algorand Foundation announced a partnership with investment firm DWF Labs focused on supporting the growth of Algorand's ecosystem. The partnership involves a $50 million ALGO token purchase agreement to provide liquidity into the ecosystem and fund up-and-coming projects.
The Sandbox (SAND)
The Sandbox (SAND) traded down 21.64% despite signs of ecosystem traction. On June 8, The Sandbox announced a partnership with BBC Studios and Reality+ to build immersive virtual experiences. The collaboration will mark BBC Studios' first entry into the metaverse and allow users to interact with popular brands like Top Gear and Doctor Who. The Sandbox also partnered with Forkast Labs, an infrastructure and media company, to build a metaverse index measuring the performance of NFT assets in the decentralized virtual world. Introducing this index would enable brands on The Sandbox, like Warner Music Group and Gucci, to track market performance in real-time.
Binance Coin (BNB)
BNB traded down 21.66% over the past month amidst a series of events surrounding the Binance crypto exchange. On June 5, the SEC sued Binance, accusing it of running an unregistered broker, exchange, and clearing agency. The lawsuit also identified many tokens as securities, including BNB and BUSD, and accused Binance of a single count of fraud. As a result, the liquidity of Binance US was severely impacted, with spreads on the exchange becoming ~20 times wider than those on Coinbase and Kraken and market depth decreasing by 78% a week after the lawsuit. According to our Dune Analytics dashboards, Binance US and Binance International registered ~$97 million and ~$358 million net outflows in June, respectively.
Cardano (ADA)
Cardano's native token ADA traded down 23.53% over the past month, underperforming the broader crypto market, as many platforms delisted the token in light of the SEC lawsuits against Binance and Coinbase. On June 9, Robinhood announced it would end support for ADA, MATIC, and SOL, warning users that any asset still on Robinhood after June 27 would be automatically sold and credited to their accounts. U.S.-based platforms Bakkt and Revolut also announced the delisting of the same cryptoassets.
Polygon (MATIC)
Polygon's native token MATIC traded down 26.20% over the past month. On June 30, Judge Martin Glenn granted bankrupt crypto lender Celsius permission to liquidate non-BTC and non-ETH cryptoassets to prepare a distribution to creditors. A December 2022 filing showed that Celsius owned at least 90 million MATIC (~$60 million) or about 1% of the asset's circulating supply. Regarding fundamentals, Polygon Labs introduced the vision and architecture for Polygon 2.0, which will consist of four layers designed to operate together: staking (decentralization and security), interop (cross-chain messaging), execution (block sequencing and consensus), and proving (zero-knowledge proofs for all transactions).
