The cryptocurrency space in June, saw it post a bullish performance, due to the institutional interest in the crypto space seen in June.
The bullish momentum in June began when BlackRock applied for a spot at BTC Trust in the United States on June 15. BlackRock, being the world’s preeminent asset manager with over $8.5 trillion, is believed to have a strong chance of getting its Spot ETF approved, a feat that has not been achieved, because the U.S. SEC has consistently rejected a spot Bitcoin ETF, even though there have been numerous applicants such as Cathie Wood’s ARK and 21Shares.
Although BlackRock is not the inaugural entity to propose a Bitcoin ETF to the SEC, it is the most sizable among all the present applicants.
Flagship cryptocurrency asset, Bitcoin, posted a bullish performance. It began trading from $27,245.00 at the beginning of the month and ultimately ended the month at $30,481.00, representing an 11.88% increase.
The cryptocurrency market capitalization in June gained 5.31% for the month, from $1.13 trillion at the start of the month to the end of the month at $1.19 trillion. The cryptocurrency market capitalization traded as high as $1.20 trillion during the month.
The Altcoin market, however, ended bearishness, losing 1.51% in June, from approximately $609.20 billion to currently standing at $600.00 billion at the end of the month. During the month, we saw the altcoin market capitalization trade as high as $620 billion.
With the current bullish trend seen in the market, here is a look at 5 cryptocurrencies investors should watch out for in July 2023:
Bitcoin’s BTC
For July, being traditional financial firms finally believe that digital assets are here to stay, one can easily conclude that the slew of announcements last week from some of the world’s premiere financial players, will mean not just July, but the second half of the year will be bullish.
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with $9 trillion in assets under management (AUM), filed for permission to build a “spot market” Bitcoin-based exchange-traded fund (ETF), something the United States Securities and Exchange Commission has resolutely resisted.
Others include Fidelity Investments, Charles Schwab, and Citadel launching EDX, a new cryptocurrency exchange. In Germany, Deutsche Bank, boasting $1.4 trillion in balance sheet assets, also applied for a license to custody crypto.
There were others too. Collectively, these developments boosted crypto trading markets. Bitcoin gained 20% in the week, surpassing the $30,000 mark for the first time since April. If allowed, a BlackRock Bitcoin ETF listing on the Nasdaq stock exchange would arguably make Bitcoin more accessible to a larger investing public.
Some analysts have even anticipated a stampede to Bitcoin due to the BlackRock filing, as others followed with their own, including Invesco, WisdomTree, and Fidelity Investments filing for their respective spot Bitcoin ETF.
“The Great Accumulation has begun,” declared Cameron Winklevoss on Twitter, while MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor added, “The window to front-run institutional demand for #Bitcoin is closing.”
Bitcoin ended the month’s trading at $30,481.00.
Polkadot’s DOT
Polkadot, a blockchain network often described as a “blockchain of blockchains,” has recently become the leading cryptocurrency network by development activity after surpassing the Cardano blockchain.
According to data shared by on-chain analytics firm Santiment, Polkadot’s development activity, along with that of its pre-production network Kusama, over the last 30 days was superior to that of the smart contract platform Cardano. Development activity, it’s worth noting, is a metric measuring the development activity in projects’ public GitHub repositories and does not include private repositories’ work.
Polkadot saw its active user numbers surge 300% amid last year’s cryptocurrency market rout. Polkadot’s main blockchain, called the relay chain, does not support smart contracts, but other blockchains connected to it can support them.
As a result, Polkadot is expected to become a growing ecosystem of cryptocurrencies that competes with other smart contract networks such as Ethereum, the BNB Chain, and more. It was launched in 2020 and brings several technical features that help it reach its goal.
DOT is the native cryptocurrency of the Polkadot network and serves as its governance token. DOT holders can stake their tokens to vote on network upgrades and help decide the future of Polkadot by actively participating in its governance, according to CryptoCompare.
Notably, over the past 30 days DOT has had a strong bullish performance, moving up by 41% within that period.
DOT ended the month trading at $4.99.
Ethereum’s Ether
The volume of Ether staked keeps reaching new heights since the Shapella upgrade in April, crossing 23 million Ether locked in June.
According to data from analytics firm Nansen, a total of 23.3 million Ether was staked as of June 27, amounting to $43.1 billion at the time of writing and representing nearly 20% of the current $220 billion supply of ETH. In comparison, Solana currently has a staking ratio of 70.58%.
In the Ethereum blockchain network, staking refers to the process of validating transactions. To earn validator status and secure the network, users lock in (stake) their native ETH token and earn rewards as a result.
The Ethereum blockchain completed its Shapella hard fork on April 12, allowing validators to withdraw their staked Ether from the Beacon Chain. In the first week of withdrawals, validators unstaked more than a million ETH. The upgrade has led to ETH stake growth since then.
Dave Weisberger, CEO of algorithmic trading platform CoinRoutes explained, “The Shanghai upgrade essentially eliminated this risk by allowing users to stake and unstack at will.
As a result of this de-risking, we’re seeing a surge in the staked ether — and, as expected, the network is quickly catching up to rival chains such as Solana in terms of the percentage of the native token being staked on the network. This is a very healthy sign for Ethereum.”
While this is positive for the leading smart contract blockchain, Ether’s staking is also catching the attention of regulators, with its future uncertain in the United States, where the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is tightening rules for crypto firms offering staking services.
In February, crypto exchange Kraken settled with the SEC for $30 million and closed its staking services for U.S. clients. According to the SEC, the service qualified as a securities offer and the exchange should have obtained an appropriate license to operate the service.
Most recently, the regulator took action against Coinbase’s staking program, claiming it was offering securities. This is a concern because the U.S. is home to the majority of node operators on the Ethereum blockchain, housing 48% of all validators.
Ether ended the month trading at $1,934.05.
XRP
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has warned that as Ripple’s legal battle against the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is coming “to a close,” it is only the beginning of a larger battle for the industry and the fight for regulatory clarity “has to continue.”
After the Hinman Documents were unsealed on June 13 as part of the ongoing lawsuit between Ripple and the SEC, Garlinghouse published a video on Twitter discussing the lawsuit’s timeline and expressing his frustration with the agency.
In the June 17 video, Garlinghouse said the Hinman documents suggest that the SEC “knowingly created confusion about the rules, and they used that confusion through enforcement.” In his remarks, Garlinghouse strongly criticized the SEC’s actions, describing them as a clear case of “bad faith, plain and simple.” He believes this attitude was present from the very beginning of the lawsuit against Ripple, which was initially filed in December 2020, saying it felt like a “very grinch-like touch” to file the case just “days before Christmas.” He further stated, “This is the definition of putting politics over people […] and the pursuit of power over sound policy.”
Garlinghouse explained that before the lawsuit was filed, he answered, “every question [the SEC] had” and it was never suggested to him that XRP was a security. He believes that the SEC is “looking to kill” innovation and the cryptocurrency industry in the U.S., arguing that the Hinman speech isn’t about “any one token or any one blockchain,” but more so the overall stance that the SEC has toward the crypto industry.
Ever since the documents were released, XRP’s token price increased as bulls believed the document is the “silver bullet,” to end the supposedly outrageous lawsuit against Ripple.
XRP ended the month’s trading at $0.473648.
Bitcoin Cash’s BCH
BCH has seen a spectacular surge recently, registering weekly gains of 114.3%. It has become this week’s highest gainer in the top 300 tokens by market capitalization following a 114.3% surge in price. The token continues its uptrend, spurred by its listing on EDX Markets.
The token reached a one-year high this week, just days after it listed on the EDX Markets exchange. EDX is backed by several Wall Street heavyweights such as Fidelity Digital Assets, Citadel Securities, Sequoia Capital, and Charles Schwab.
Unlike other crypto exchanges, EDX only allows investors to trade bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and BCH. Crypto research firm Sentiment found BCH has benefitted from EDX’s launch, rising trading volumes, and social media interest. Sentiment further found BCH’s sudden price move attracted retail trader attention, with the token’s trading volume this year hitting a record.
Industry analyst Colin Wu tweeted that BCH’s price increase may be due to trading activity on South Korean exchanges. He stated, “South Korea may be the reason for the BCH PUMP. In the past 24h, the largest exchange in South Korea, Upbit, has recorded a trading volume of over $350 million for the BCH/KRW, contributing to 23.58% of the total trading volume for BCH.”
BCH surged an incredible 31% over the past 24 hours, allowing it to top $300 for the first time since April 2022. The token, however, remains down 92% from its all-time high of $3,785 in December 2017.
BCH ended the month’s trading at $306.67.
