Your Monday morning catch-up is here!☕️📰

Crypto & Blockchain Update: June 3-9

📈Market Highlights
- DeFi’s total value of crypto locked reaches $192B for the first time in 15 months
- Amount of BTC and ETH on exchanges reaches record multi-year lows
- BTC hits $71K and nears ATH, transaction fees soar to $52 temporarily, then selloff pulls BTC under $69K on Saturday
- Solana-based GameStop GME token decreases 40% as Keith Gill aka Roaring Kitty returns to YouTube to share his long-term bull case
- NEAR protocol daily transactions increase to 6M
- Celebrity tokens fall more than 60% except for MOTHER token
- Arthur Hayes unstaked $10M worth of PENDLE token
- Bitcoin volatility within record low levels of “bottom 6% of occurrences”
- BASE TVL reaches $8B topping Ethereum layer-2 leaderboards by transaction count, overtaking Optimism OP Mainnet

🎮Crypto Gaming
- Arbitrum Foundation has committed to distribute $215M worth of ARB tokens over 3 years to encourage game development on its blockchain
- McDonald’s metaverse “My Happy Place” debuts in Singapore in partnership with Bandwagon Labs
- CARV, a gaming and AI-focused blockchain protocol, launches verifier nodes to improve data security and decentralization
- Blockchain gaming still a relatively untapped field as per a recent poll done by OnePoll out of 2,000 adults 52% were not familiar with it

💼Regulatory Updates
- US Treasury warns that NFTs are vulnerable to money laundering and fraud
- Tether CEO says MiCA regulations are concerning
- UAE Central Bank approves licensing system for stablecoins
- Wall Street asks Biden to not veto congress rejection of SEC’s crypto policy
- 21Shares submits filing to SEC to remove ARK Invest from their Spot Ether ETF application

🤝Investments & Partnerships
- Polygon Labs acquires Toposware, its 3rd ZK startup investment in 3 years, now totalling more than $1B in total investment in zero-knowledge technology
- $1.6M Franklin Templeton is aiming to start a fund for institutional investors aimed at altcoins
- Robinhood acquires Bitstamp for $200M
- Kraken looks to raise final pre-IPO financing round over $100M
- The Sandbox raises $20M, losing $3B in valuation
- Fhenix raises $15M of confidentiality-enabling L2
- Blockchaincom and Unstoppable Domains partner for web3 domain naming system
- Avail secures $43M in Series A round for addressing challenges in web3, such as blockchain fragmentation, insufficient data availability and limited scalability

🔐Cybersecurity
- Cybersecurity firm GoPlus raises $10M to build permissionless security layer
- $5.7M has been recovered from $600M Ronin hack
- 3 individuals charged in $3M Evolved Apes NFT scam
- NY Attorney General sues 2 companies over $1B crypto fraud targeting immigrants
- iExec launches enhanced DataProtector for web3 monetization and ownership
- Orbit Chain hacker moves $47.7M in ETH to Tornado Cash after silence since January

ℹ️Miscellaneous
- Gary Gensler says ETF launch dates are up to issuers, not SEC
- VanEck sets minimum 2030 ETH price at $22,000
- Web3 salaries surpass traditional finance by 128%
- Binance hits 200 million registered users worldwide
- Standard Chartered Bank believes BTC could reach $150k if Donald Trump wins U.S. elections
- Vitalik Buterin-backed privacy protocol Nocturne Labs shuts down operations
- Solana-based decentralized infrastructure provider ionet, replaces its CEO 2 days before project’s token $IO launch

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Opinion

"More and more people are using cryptocurrencies not only as an investment, but also as a means of payment for products and services. People are starting to realize that crypto is more than just a quick way to make money on the stock market; it is a sustainable ecosystem. In recent months, there has been a significant increase in merchants' interest in crypto payment solutions that allow them to settle transactions in crypto while receiving Euros in their bank accounts. Swapin offers several products for this purpose – integration solutions for online transactions, as well as payment solutions for traditional offline businesses, where customers can pay any invoice in crypto through a personalized payment link provided by the merchant. This is a payment solution that benefits all parties involved. Merchants can expand their customer base to include those who prefer to pay in cryptocurrencies, and customers can enjoy the convenience of paying directly in crypto without spending time and money on transactions on crypto exchanges and banks."
– Edward Rebane, CPO at @swapincom

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Swapin on TV 📺

Swapin was featured on Estonian channel @tv3eesti during Friday evening news on June 7th, discussing the rising trend of using crypto as a means of payment, and the possibility of allowing your customers to buy a car or real estate with cryptocurrencies through partnering with crypto payment processing providers like Swapin. In the segment Edward, our CPO, shares how Swapin's solutions work and the cryptocurrencies we support. You can watch it here👇
https://t.co/eEVGVsGGDs

Have a great new week ahead🤝
- Swapin Team