Security Token Exchange

The crypto market is having a red start to this new week, with the total cryptocurrency market capitalization declining by 1.7% to $1.17 trillion. 

Bitcoin has shed 2% over the last 24 hours and 4.4% over the last week to now trade at $26,686.81. 

Well-known for their volatility, cryptocurrency markets have been experiencing tight price action for some time now. Since the beginning of the year, Bitcoin’s price has soared by over 60%, only to be stuck in a narrow range for the past two months, fluctuating between $26k and $29k. While the largest cryptocurrency has attempted to break out above $30k, it has failed to do so.

Bitcoin’s volatility has declined to 48.2% this year, down from 62.8% last year and from 79% in 2021, according to research provider CCData. The average daily change of the crypto asset has been stated so far this year, with gains of 1.68% and losses of 1.93%.

The second most popular token, Ether, has dropped 2.2% from yesterday and is trading at $1,863.32, down 2% from the previous week. Post-merge Ethereum has been seeing increased staking demand as well as deflationary promise, with over 250k ETH burned.

These losses come despite the US jobs report coming in with relatively strong numbers and the debt ceiling deadlock reaching a resolution.

A deal was approved last week to raise the debt ceiling, with the US President Joe Biden signing the bill on Saturday to avoid a government default. This would suspend the US debt limit through January 1, 2025. After rising ahead of the weekend, U.S. Stock futures are trading flat on Monday morning.

Investors have now shifted focus on what will be the next move on interest rates by the Federal Reserve when it meets on June 14. The market is expecting the theme for this week to be correction and consolidation ahead of the FOMC meeting minutes release.

While crypto assets have been stuck in a range, they are still managing to hold their ground despite the hostile regulatory environment in the US. 

On the regulatory front, the largest crypto exchange Binance continues to lose its market share. From controlling 57.5% of the average monthly volume at its peak in February, Binance now accounts for 43%, as per CCData. The sharp decline comes after New York regulators shut down the issuance of BUSD stablecoin in Feb., and then weeks later, the US derivatives regulator, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), filed a lawsuit against the exchange.

Most recently, Binance announced its plans for job cuts, calling it a “historic operational challenge” following the company’s “exponential growth these past five years.”

Meanwhile, Coinbase Derivatives Exchange has introduced futures contracts for Bitcoin and Ether for institutional investors. Elsewhere, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank-Backed Taurus has been deployed on Ethereum sidechain Polygon, allowing financial institutions and corporates to issue tokenized assets.

In the non-fungible tokens realm, NFT sales on Ethereum surged 83.97% to $23.65 million and 30% on the Bitcoin network, reaching $3.82 million in the past week. BAYC and Azuki remained the two most-sold Ethereum collections, while Uncategorized Ordinals have been gaining traction on Bitcoin lately.

The number of NFT transactions also climbed by 8.9 million in May, not seen since February 2022, according to CryptoSlam data.

Biggest Gainer

Amidst all that is going on in the market, many coins are still trending upwards. 

XRP jumped 12% over the past week after a draft bill Digital Asset Market Structure Proposal, was released Friday by Republicans that seeks clarity in regulating crypto as securities or commodities. 

This weekend, the Terra Luna Classic (LUNC) spiked 30% in value to trade at $0.00010. The green came after a major network upgrade proposal was released. The V2.1.0 Parity Upgrade Proposal is expected to bring the Terra Classic chain to parity with other blockchains as well as introduce a minimum 5% fee for all validators and Cosmwasm v1.1.x. 

Other big gainers from this weekend include Maker (6.8%), Solana (4.7%), Axie Infinity (4.4%), Woo Network (4.3%), and Near Protocol (3.7%).

Tron (TRX)

One of the best performers among the top 100 cryptocurrencies this weekend was the TRX token, with a 12% upside. The $7.34 billion market cap crypto is trading at $0.0814 as of writing while managing $396 million in 24-hour volume. 

If TRX bulls make another attempt, they’ll find resistance at $0.095, $0.100, and $0.105. Meanwhile, on the downside, support is present at $0.075, $0.070, and $0.065.

Up 48.77% in 2023 so far, TRX is currently down 64.8% from its all-time high (ATH) just above $0.23 hit in Jan. 2018.

TRX is the native token of the blockchain platform Tron which serves as a global online content-sharing platform and allows developers to create their own decentralized applications (dApps).

Founded by Justin Sun, Tron raised $60 million in an ICO in 2017. The project’s development is guided by the non-profit Tron Foundation. For those who haven’t heard about Sun, he is known for making extravagant marketing moves to aid Tron’s development. 

In 2018, Tron acquired BitTorrent, a popular file-sharing service, for $120 million. And in 2019, Tron launched an ICO for BitTorrent, and the same year, Sun donated $4.57 million to a charity to win a lunch with Warren Buffett.

Much like Ethereum, Tron uses a virtual machine known as the “Tron Virtual Machine,” or TVM, to execute Tron-based smart contracts. Last week, Tron announced it is live on the Ethereum blockchain via BitTorrent Bridge. This will allow a seamless transfer of TRX tokens between Tron and Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)–compatible blockchains.

Tron’s migration into Ethereum signifies a milestone that is expected to help with TRX’s liquidity and stimulate Tron’s overall growth within the DeFi ecosystem. Ethereum has the largest DeFi ecosystem with $27 billion in total value locked (TVL), according to DeFi Llama. Meanwhile, Tron has the 2nd-largest TVL at $5.69 billion.

In addition to this, the Tron blockchain also hit a new record high at 11 million in the number of daily transactions. According to Sun, this indicates the network’s growing popularity and widespread usage, and this growth is expected to bolster protocol revenue.

Click here to learn all about investing in Tron (TRX).

Biggest Loser

With the broader crypto market in red, many coins are experiencing losses. In the past 24 hours, Gate dropped the most by 6.9%, while a prominent meme coin and Woo Network saw a 6.8.% decline in their values. 

The last week meanwhile, has been brutal for Conflux (20.7%), KAVA (13.9%), Gate (13.4%), Casper Network (11.8%), Sui (11.2%), Optimism (11%), and Huobi (10.5%). 

Filecoin (FIL)

This past weekend, the FIL token recorded a 7% decline in its value and is now trading at $4.61. The $1.96 billion market cap token is managing $164.4 million in 24-hour trading volume. The crypto asset has resistance at $4.72, while the 20-day EMA is currently at $4.62, the 50-day EMA at $4.92, and 100-day EMA at $5.16.

Up 49% year-to-date (YTD), FIL is down a whopping 98% from its $236 peak hit in April 2021. 

FIL token powers the Filecoin network, which is a decentralized peer-to-peer file storage network that aims to let anyone store, retrieve, and host digital information. The token is used as payment for these services. It is also offered as an economic incentive to ensure the reliability of file storage.

Filecoin is built on top of the decentralized file-sharing network InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), and both protocols were developed by Juan Benet and his team at Protocol Labs. In 2017, Protocol Labs raised over $250 million, and in Oct. 2020, the Filecoin mainnet went live.

The losses came despite the project launching the unique Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) on the mainnet. The network upgrade v18, also known as “Hygee,” is a significant update in the network and an important FVM milestone because the network can be programmed for the first time.

FVM is a user-programmable runtime environment for Filecoin network smart contracts that aims to support various programming languages and virtual machines.

Less than a month ago, Grayscale announced that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) believes FIL token qualifies as a security. In 2021, the digital asset manager launched its Grayscale Filecoin Trust and, as part of the firm’s outlined product lifecycle, voluntarily filed Form 10 with the SEC to obtain SEC reporting status. But the agency told the investment firm that FIL “meets the definition of a security under the federal securities laws” and must withdraw its application.

Grayscale, however, doesn’t believe that a FIL token is a security under federal securities laws. It further stated, at the time, that it would respond to the SEC with an explanation of the legal basis for its position. Before that, in May, Bakkt mass-delisted several cryptocurrencies, including Filecoin.

Click here to learn all about investing in Filecoin (FIL).