(21/52) Weekly Market Insight | June Week 1 | Lowest Monthly Volumes in Near 2 Years

Headline News: Lowest Monthly Volumes in Near 2 Years

• Bitcoin extended its downward trajectory last week, posting a 4.4% loss alongside a broader contraction in market activity. Aggregate crypto trading volumes continued to deteriorate, dropping approximately 9% month-over-month to hit their lowest levels since September 2024. Institutional sentiment mirrored this weakness, with spot Bitcoin ETFs registering $1.42 billion in net outflows, the third-largest weekly drawdown to date, behind only February 2025 and January 2026. Additionally, corporate accumulation paused: Strategy opted to repurchase $1.5 billion in convertible bonds rather than deploying those funds to add to its Bitcoin reserves.

Macro-Outlook: Optimism on Peace Talk

• Following an IRGC retaliatory strike on a US airbase in Kuwait, the US and Iranian negotiators reportedly reached a tentative framework for a 60-day ceasefire extension to initiate nuclear talks; however, the agreement — and any potential lifting of the US naval blockade — remains pending President Trump’s final approval.
• Iran’s President Pezeshkian submitted his resignation, citing the government has been excluded from major decision-making processes and IRGC has taken control of affairs.
• The US core PCE Prices index rose to 3.8% in April, matched with the market expectations. This expected print signals a controlled underlying inflationary pressure, lowering the probability of rate hikes in 2026 from 67% to 46%.
• US GDP recorded at 1.6% in Q1, missing consensus market expectations of 2.0%. However, US durable goods orders surged to 7.9% in April, marking a substantial acceleration and massively exceeding market expectations of 3.5%. This massive beat in durable goods indicates underlying resilience in capital-intensive sectors.
• US personal income flatlined in April, falling notably short of market expectations for a 0.4% increase. Meanwhile, personal spending came in at 0.5% in April, matching consensus market expectations but decelerating from the prior month’s 1.0%.

The Upcoming Economic Calendar includes,

• Monday, June 1, 10:00pm: US ISM Manufacturing PMI in May
• Tuesday, June 2, 10:00pm: US JOLTs Job Openings in April
• Wednesday, June 3, 10:00pm: US ISM Services PMI in May
• Friday, June 5, 10:00pm: US Non-Farm Payroll and Unemployment Rate in May

Weekly-Cryptos-Overview: Rise of Privacy Conscious

• BIS began real-value testing for Project Agorá blockchain cross-border payments with participation from major central banks including NY Fed, ECB, BoJ, BoE, and institutions including JPMorgan, UBS, Visa, and Mastercard using a shared unified ledger for atomic settlement.
• Block’s Cash App began a phased rollout of USDC payments to 25% of its nearly 60 million users supporting Solana, Ethereum, Polygon, and Arbitrum.

Layer 1 and Layer 2s

• NEAR launched Universal Send for confidential cross-chain payments, enabling users to pay anyone for any asset on any chain without exposing wallet activity.
• Base launched Azul on mainnet, introducing multi-proofs (TEE + ZK), Ethereum EIP upgrades, and new performance-focused clients scaled up to 5,000 TPS. Base also introduced Base MCP, the agent’s new gateway to connect to Base accounts for swapping, trading, portfolio management, and using plugins from leading apps including Morpho, Moonwell, Uniswap, and Aerodrome.
• Sui experienced six-hour outage caused by a crash bug in the new gas charging logic and several downgraded performances related to the incidents. The network has resumed operation now.
• X Layer introduced Exchange OS, a major protocol upgrade that enables developers and institutions to deploy spot, perpetuals, and outcome markets using the same institutional-grade infrastructure that powers OKX.

Dapps

• Hyperliquid launched canonical prediction markets based on offchain events, with validators publishing and voting on markets via automated newsfeed software.
• Darkbloom, Eigen Layer’s decentralized AI inference platform that harnesses idle verified Apple Silicon Macs into a privacy-first compute network, completed a major network upgrade and moved from Research Preview to Public Alpha with 30–200% performance gains across key metrics after serving over 600 million tokens.
• Ondo’s founder, Nathan Allman, unexpectedly passed away.
• Falcon Finance introduced fUSD, a GENIUS-ready stablecoin issued by Anchorage Digital with a rewards structure targeting 3% APY for qualifying institutional holders and eligible to serve as off-exchange collaterals.
• LI.FI introduced LI.FI Intents infrastructure for apps, wallets, and neobanks to enable stablecoin payments, access real-world assets, and tap into compliant onchain liquidity.

Governance and Upcoming Alpha

• Aave published an ARFC proposing a new standardized Technical Asset Listing Framework for Aave V3, V4, and Aave Horizon to establish consistent requirements for asset listings, parameter expansions, and ongoing monitoring.
• Morpho published the Midnight Whitepaper outlining a noncustodial protocol for fixed rate, fixed term credit markets.
• Resolv outlined its detailed recovery framework post-March 2026 exploit (pre-incident USR at 1:1 USDC, RLP at 0.71 USDC + RESOLV allocation) and launched Vault Street, a new tokenized RWA distribution business line with primeUSD, a leveraged RWA product, in private beta ahead of full public launch in June 2026.

Token Unlock

• EDGE token unlocks on June 2, representing 4.25% of the token supply.
• ZAMA token unlocks on June 2, representing 5.21% of the token supply.
• FHE token unlocks on June 10, representing 7.09% of the token supply.
• HOME token unlocks on June 10, representing 23% of the token supply.
• BB token unlocks on June 13, representing 10.9% of the token supply.
• ZKC token unlocks on June 15, representing 5.16% of the token supply.
• VANA token unlocks on June 16, representing 19.9% of the token supply.
• KAT token unlocks on June 18, representing 11.8% of the token supply.
• ZRO token unlocks on June 20, representing 10.2% of the token supply.
• KAITO token unlocks on June 20, representing 7.29% of the token supply.
• LISTA token unlocks on June 20, representing 8.71% of the token supply.