Celebrities, we have to talk

The chop seems to be endless. Crypto can be so frenetic and volatile that once you get a few weeks of prices chilling just below recent all-time highs the sentiment feels like a Bear Market is in place — but arguably, this feels more like the calm before the storm. There’s an endless list of catalysts, first of all, the Ether spot ETFs about to begin trading and U.S. politicians including crypto within their debates more and more. As long as macro doesn’t rug, we’re good for another leg up — but whether that’s in July or October is hard to tell as of now.

While BTC dominance, Total Market Cap, and Stablecoins hardly moved since the past week we saw a strong uptick in DeFi’s activity with Linea, Aptos, Ton, Hyperliquid L1, and Mantle being the biggest weekly gainers in TVL.

Meanwhile, BTC U.S. ETFs raked in a couple of hundred million in net inflows, now at $57.7B.

The Ethereum ETFs got approved. Now what?

19b-4s forms, the first step towards the beginning of trading, have been approved for the following issuers: iShares (Blackrock), Bitwise, Grayscale, VanEck, Invesco Galaxy, Ark 21Shares, Franklin Templeton, and Fidelity.

For effective trading to begin, we’ll have to wait for S-1 forms to be approved by the SEC as we’ll probably see a back-and-forth of updates between issuers and regulators. Analysts say we start trading on July 4th.

Whilst this is a considerable win for the space as a whole, it doesn’t mean the SEC’s giving up on Ethereum being a security. While ETH backing ETFs could be considered a commodity, staked ETH could still be subject to securities law and classified as an investment contract.

Besides the beginning of trading, everyone’s trying to price in the flows of said ETFs with conservative estimates sizing them to be 20-25% of Bitcoin’s ETFs based on their limitations (no staking), and ETH’s market cap compared to BTC. Degens, though, say we go to Valhalla.

As to the next candidates, it seems that the CME is not interested in listing Solana Futures as of now — which is an inherently important step to get a spot ETF approved.

Now, that’s speed: Aptos sets a new L1 industry record with 115.4 million daily transactions on May 25, surpassing the previous record by over 50%, largely due to the tap-to-earn game Taposcat — cryptonews.org

Celebrities, we have to talk

Retail never learns. The past cycle saw an immense amount of grift between NFT projects, pre-sales, and all of the like sponsored by celebrities looking to make a quick buck thanks to “crypto”.

What’s different now is that Solana, the best on-chain casino, allows the behavior to 100x thanks to its speed, affordability, and ease of use compared to competitors like Ethereum.

Iggy Azalea, Caitlyn Jenner, Rich The Kid, Davido, and Trippie Redd are just a few of the many meme coins that have been sponsored by non-crypto celebrities in the last few days. The results never change though, with retails paying the price as always.

While the heat got Phantom Wallet ranking #1 on both the App Store and the Play Store in the U.S., it’s debatable whether this attention is good for the space or is just going to bring further anger from regulators. The good and the bad of a permissionless system.

DOGE mascotte Kabosu is no more

The popular dog, named Kabosu, inspired the creation of DOGE after going viral in 2013 — and many other coins later on, such as SHIBA and FLOKI. Her owner announced his departure at 17 years old last Friday on her blog. Rest in peace!

Take this, Craig: Bitcoin Whitepaper returns to bitcoin.org after Craig Wright fails to prove in court he’s Nakamoto — cryptonews.org

Trump’s sizing up his pro-crypto stance

Elections are now just a few months away, and candidates are heating up. Interestingly, crypto’s been taking up a considerable space in the debate — with Trump trying to polarize attention showing a dovish hand towards it to gain votes, even though he was quite anti-crypto last cycle.

Particularly, he mentioned to be:

• Eager to help crypto businesses work in America
• Determined to protect the right to self-custody crypto assets
• Determined to commute Ross Ulbricht (Silk Road creator) sentence

..As long as he’s elected. Now, whether those are empty words to gain votes is hard to say — what’s certain is that crypto can’t be ignored anymore whether it’s politics or macroeconomy. Notably, Biden’s administration began noticing and is trying to catch up.

On a side note, speculation-fueled meme coins are always there, with $TRUMP on Ethereum rallying 240% in the last three weeks up to a $615M market cap. Other notable election-related coins are $MAGA (Ethereum), $TREMP (Solana), and $BODEN (Solana).

Friend Tech and Base, a love not meant to be?

Whether Social-Fi is here to say is still up for debate. As of now, the leading application for the sector is Friend.tech, which isn’t doing that well. Their token, FRIEND, fell ~ 70% since launch and is now sitting at a sub-$100M market cap.

To add fuel to the fire, its founder Racer has been hinting at leaving the Base blockchain by offering bounties to those that gave them suitable design solutions to make the transition as smooth as possible — the team is allegedly feeling “isolated” in the Coinbase ecosystem, and has expressed doubts in regards to the integrity of other Base projects.

Happens on-chain

• Uniswap Fee Switch is going through — 𝕏/UniswapFND
• The Ethereum Foundation is working to address potential conflict of interest — The Block
• Ether.fi introduces Cash, to pay for everyday expenses borrowing against your weETH — medium.com
• Infinex integrated USDe starting May, 28 — 𝕏/infinex_app
• Zeta X will be the first DeFi L2 on Solana — 𝕏/ZetaMarkets
• The mETH governance token is going to be called $COOK — 𝕏/puffguardians
• Hyperliquid lengthens points program for four additional months — 𝕏/HyperliquidX
• Ethena adds USDe backing details in effort to improve transparency — mirror.xyz
• Paypal deploys PYUSD on Solana — mirror.xyz
• LayerZero launches mainnet beta on Solana — 𝕏/LayerZero_labs
• Fantom’s Opera upgrade has been completed — 𝕏/FantomFDN
• Alleged scam ZKasino gives users 72-hour window to reclaim their ETH — The Block
• Polyhedra changes ticker to ‘ZJK’ after clash with ZkSync — The Block

Traditional rails

• BTC Miner Marathon Digital to invest $80M in developing Kenyan energy infrastructure — CoinDesk
• Former FTX executive Ryan Salame sentenced to 7.5 years — The Block
• Semler Scientific announced a BTC treasury strategy similar to MicroStrategy — 𝕏/fundstrat
• Mastercard launches “Crypto Credentials” allowing you to transfer crypto using a username instead of a wallet — 𝕏/WatcherGuru
• Matter Labs (ZkSync) files for ‘ZK’ trademark amidst industry backlash — Cointelegraph
• The NYSE announces collaboration with CoinDesk indices — businesswire.com
• Europe is trying to frame MEV as “market abuse” under new MiCa draft — cryptoslate.com
• Mt. Gox coins are on the move, again — The Block
• Gemini Earn to hand back in-kind assets to users — 𝕏/kwaker_oats_

Tech go up

• MilkyWay to become the Modular Restaking Hub — 𝕏/milky_way_zone
• The Aggr browser extension is allegedly stealing users’ funds on CEXes — 𝕏/tree_of_alpha
• Ethereum Name Service (ENS) plans to move to L2 in order to scale and save up on fees — discuss.ens.domains

VCs go brrr

• Bitcoin staking project Babylon raised $70M in a Round led by Paradigm — CoinDesk
• Pantera, Figure Markets buy last batch of locked SOL at $102 per token - Bloomberg

Airdrops

• Phase 2 of the SEI airdrop is here — 𝕏/Sei_FDN
• Swell TGE is expected in the next few weeks
• LayerZero’s Sybil Bounty submissions program has ended
• Avail mainnet is expected in June, with AVAIL trading at $0.5 in pre-market

Upcoming events

• June, 1st: DYDX to unlock 11.91% of its circulating supply
• June, 10th: target week to launch Friend Tech’s competitor Stars Arena token on Avalanche — Decrypt
• June, 13th: target date to launch $AO
• June, 13th: target date to finalize $ASI merger
• June, 15th: STRK to unlock 5.60% of its circulating supply
• Q1 2025: Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade

• Stargate released its V2, and APYs are JUICY! USDC single-sided on Aurora (Near’s EVM compatible blockchain) is paying 50.20% APY, while WETH single-sided on Metis is paying a 40.33% APY.
• Aptos aficionado? Say no more. By looping your USDC on Aries, you can achieve up to a 60% APY, paid in USDC and APT.

Want to be part of the Stay on-chain community? Join the crew on Telegram, and follow our latest announcements here.

If you found this edition valuable, why not share it with a friend?
Forward this email—it's the best gift you can give us!

Thank you for reading and see you next week!

Disclosure: Authors may own crypto assets named in this newsletter. Stay on-chain is meant for informational and educational purposes only. It is not meant to serve as investment advice. Please consult your investment, tax, or legal advisor before making investment decisions.