June Recap

an overview of tokens, NFTs, news, product developments, and funding in June

Jul 01, 2022

as always, thanks for reading and follow me and terv to reach out!

3AC, GBTC & LUNA:

Leverage, risk management, and the above three entities combined to result in BTC registering one of its worst months ever. BTC closed the month down ~39.5% while ETH fell another 46% in June. Retracing our steps leads us back to LUNA’s collapse, the cascading pressure that applied to 3AC and finally the lenders that enabled them.

3AC was invested deep throughout the LUNA ecosystem through executing the once popular “UST carry trade” and previously deploying $200M+ to LUNA tokens in the LFG’s most recent funding round back in February. Obviously, the tokens became essentially worthless and the heavily performed carry trade resulting in “free” double-digit yields evaporated. 3AC was battered, but alive. Large, levered and relatively illiquid positions are the last place to be in a liquidity crunch, and 3AC’s positions in GBTC, stETH, and various other vesting/venture bets lead to their demise as the LUNA fallout sent any potential collateral they could post spiraling.

Voyager Digital, Celsius, Blockfi and Babel emerged this month as troubled lenders caught up in the story 3AC sold. While many of the involved parties have remained silent, details have trickled out as billions vanished. Voyager was one of the worst hit as they somehow lent an unsecured 15,250 BTC and $350M worth of USDC to 3AC that remains unaccounted for. Voyager has since issued a notice of default and regulators in the British Virgin Islands have appointed advisory firm Teneo to handle 3AC’s liquidation process.

BlockFi and Celsius continue to freeze customer withdraws and have looked to FTX for rescue. Celsius unfortunately has had their potential lifeline from FTX withdrawn as FTX’s look into their financials revealed a glaring $2B hole in its balance sheet. BlockFi on the other hand, was rumored to be purchased by FTX for $275M until BlockFi’s CEO declared the information false on Twitter.

BlockFi’s previous and current valuation from an amazing FT chart

While potentially critically wounded lenders (and our tokens) lick their wounds, FTX continues to pick up the broken pieces and adding to their empire. Fortunately, the execution of DeFi protocols such as MKR, UNI, AAVE, and COMP once again operated as they were designed and coded in the face of extreme market conditions while always displaying out standing debt and allowing users to withdraw as they wished.

Funding & News:

while this is not a comprehensive list of every announcement, the capital deployed to the below sectors are common themes across ecosystem in June and totals ~$3.44B

General Funding:

Exchange Huobi Global launches Ivy Blocks fund with $1B+ to deploy
Binance VC arm raises $500M for incubation, early-stage, and late-stage
Foresight Ventures launches $200M fund for private-round liquidity
Ledger Cathay Capital launched, a $110M crypto fund for early-stage
Felix Capital raises $600M web3 fund
OP Crypto targeting $100M fund for backing early-stage fund managers

NFTs & GameFi:

Magic Eden, NFT marketplace on SOL, raises $130M @ $1.6B valuation
1Confirmation launches $100M, 10-year life NFT fund
NFTPort, NFT infrastructure developer, raises $26M
Wildcard Alliance raises $46M for Polygon based gaming venture
Akatsuki, Japanese gaming firm, raises $20M for NFT & GameFi investments
Calaxy, social token and media platform, raises $26M
PartyDAO, collaborative NFT bidding platform, raises $16.4M
Shopify releases Tokengated Experiences enabling merchants and users to connect noncustodial wallets for exclusive drops, merch, experiences, etc.
eBay acquires NFT marketplace KnownOrigin
MoonPay, crypto payments firm, launches HyperMint allowing brands and creators to safely mint NFTs — launch partners include Fox Corporation, Universal Pictures, FaZe Clan, Death Row Records and others
Salesforce piloting NFT Cloud, platform for minting, selling, & managing NFTs

Infrastructure

Prime Trust, crypto infrastructure firm, raises $107M to expand products
Kaiko, blockchain analytics firm, raises $53M
PolySign, crypto infrastructure & custody firm, raises $53M
Coinhouse, crypto service provider, raises $42.5M to expand offerings
SoftBank leads $66M series B in blockchain infrastructure provider InfStones
Entropy, decentralized crypto custodian, raises $25M seed round
Indonesian crypto exchange Pintu raises $113M
Kyve Network, decentralized data storage, raises $9M valuation @ $100M
Citadel Securities & Virtu Financial partner to build crypto trading platform
Wintermute, crypto market making giant, to launch Bebop DEX aggregator

Tokens

$IMX launches $500M developer and venture fund for NFT and gamefi builders
Solana Ventures launches $100M fund for South Korean web3 startups
Orderly Network, DEX built on NEAR, raises $20M in strategic funding
Euler, DeFi lending and borrowing on ETH, raises $32M
Arrington capital and Moonbeam Foundation launch $100M growth fund for the EVM compatible Polkadot parachain Moonbeam

General News:

Solana announces mobile platform and reveals Android smartphone
$IMX enters strategic partnership with Turner Sports (TNT, TBS, Bleacher Report) to build gamefi for “premier sports” powered by StarkWare (L2 ZKR)
Circle (USDC creators) launches Euro backed stablecoin EUROC
Japan passes stablecoin bill ensuring redemption/backing at face value
Crusoe Energy, flared gas BTC mining, previously raised $350M in April and this week announced expansion to Middle East countries Abu Dhabi & Oman
Checkout.com, $40B payments giant, to partner with Fireblocks to allow 24/7 merchant settlements through stablecoin USDC
Mastercard widening access to NFT commerce through partnerships with $IMX, Candy Digital, Sandbox (SAND), Mintable, Nifty Gateway, and Moonpay
American Express announces launch of their first crypto rewards credit card
ConsenSys & StarkWare partner to bring ZK rollups to MetaMask & Infura
FTX passes Coinbase in CEX spot marketshare

Token Developments:

ETH Gray Glacier hard fork delaying difficulty bomb to September is finished, roughly aligning with common consensus for merge in mid September
dYdX announces V4 moves the protocol from ETH to standalone Cosmos chain
Cosmos (ATOM) enabling Interchain Security between August & September allowing app specific chains to secure themselves through ATOM validators
Compound (COMP) releases code for COMP III, a multi-chain lending protocol
Polygon (MATIC) announces Avail, a custom scaling solution for EVM chains
Ava Labs (AVAX) launches Core, a noncustodial wallet for AVAX ecosystem that includes a direct BTC bridge
Uniswap (UNI) acquires NFT aggregator genie and will rollout direct NFT buying and selling on Uniswap “this fall” — Uniswap also providing USDC airdrop to users who held a Genie Genesis NFT or used genie multiple times before April 15th
THORChain (RUNE) rallies with mainnet launching on seven different networks
Helium (HNT), HIP51, and the launch of “Network of Networks”
- Helium is expanding their services introducing two new tokens MOBILE (this month) and IOT (~August) with corresponding sub-DAOs to advance their coverage and 5G network capabilities
Aura Finance is live with auraBAL deposits, Aura locking, and airdrop claims
Aurory (AURY), gamefi on SOL, releases updated developments and patches
OP (Optimism) token launches — currently ~$0.53 with $2.3B FDV
BTRFLY releases Pirex, a futures marketplaces for yield generating tokens
Chainlink (LINK) announces their plans and roadmap to implement staking
Frax (FXS) proposal to buyback $20M worth of $FXS using Fraxswap passes
Merit Circle (MC) announces Sphere, a gaming & NFT asset marketplace
Axie (AXS) reopens Ronin ETH bridge after $600M hack on March 29th
LOOKS — launched conditional listing & Coinbase Wallet integration

NFT Review:

This is by no means a comprehensive list of the ongoings in NFT land. These projects are covered in more depth throughout past Page One posts, so find more info on all of these there.

Familiar Faces: