Hot News: Bitcoin fell by 4.34% last week, mainly due to the escalating geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. With the United States becoming involved in the conflict, market concerns have risen about the possibility of the war expanding into a regional conflict. Coupled with soaring oil prices, these factors have heightened economists' concerns about the macroeconomy. This week, this market uncertainty is expected to continue or even intensify, influenced by factors including the progress of major budget bills, the restoration of reciprocal tariffs, and potential retaliatory actions by Iran.
Macro Outlook: The Federal Reserve maintained interest rates at its latest FOMC meeting, noting that the labor market remains strong and anticipating significant inflation in the coming months amid policy uncertainty and geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. The latest dot plot shows that more committee members support keeping interest rates unchanged in 2025, but Powell stated that no one has high confidence in these interest rate paths. The latest economic forecasts show a decrease in real GDP, an increase in unemployment, and an increase in inflation for 2025, with the median interest rate remaining at 3.9%.
The escalation of the Middle East situation continues to intensify. Israel launched airstrikes targeting key nuclear infrastructure near Natanz and Tehran. Iran retaliated with missile attacks on Israel. The United States then conducted raids on three Iranian nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, using seven B2 bombers. The Iranian parliament immediately approved the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a key transit route for approximately 20% to 30% of global oil and one-third of the world's liquefied natural gas (LNG). The proposal requires approval from Iran's Supreme National Security Council to take effect.
The "Overly Broad and Bloated Budget Act" (OBBBA) is also expected to spark heated debate in the Senate this week, as the U.S. Senate plans to hold a "state work period" recess from June 30 to July 4, and the White House is pressuring Congress to pass the bill before the U.S. Independence Day on July 4.
It is reported that top U.S. bank regulators plan to reduce the enhanced supplementary leverage ratio (eSLR) by up to 1.5%, which could help banks trade more government bonds.
U.S. reciprocal tariffs are expected to be reinstated on July 9. President Trump previously announced that he would send letters to various trading partners setting unilateral tariff rates.
U.S. retail sales in May fell by 0.9%, lower than the market's expected decrease of 0.7%.
Upcoming economic calendar includes:
* June 24 and 25 (Tuesday and Wednesday) at 10:00 PM: Federal Reserve Chairman Powell's Congressional Hearing
* June 26 (Thursday) at 8:30 PM: U.S. May Durable Goods Orders and Final Q1 GDP
* June 27 (Friday) at 8:30 PM: U.S. May PCE Price Index, Personal Income, and Personal Spending Data
Cryptocurrency Market Overview: The Texas Governor has signed SB21 into law, making Texas the third U.S. state to establish a Bitcoin reserve. The Senate has passed the stablecoin bill, the GENIUS Act. The bill has now been submitted to the House of Representatives for consideration. President Trump has publicly supported the bill and urged the House to pass it as soon as possible.
JPMorgan Chase has applied for the "JPMD" trademark for its digital asset services business. The company plans to launch the JPMD stablecoin for institutional clients on the Base chain.
Coinbase has stated that it is seeking SEC approval to offer tokenized stocks on its platform. The company has also launched Coinbase Payment, an end-to-end stablecoin payment solution for e-commerce platforms. Shopify has integrated the system, providing stablecoin payment services to millions of merchants.
JD.com plans to apply for stablecoin licenses globally to reduce cross-border payment costs and settlement times.
Vietnam has passed the "Digital Technology Industry Law," recognizing the status of crypto assets and implementing tax exemptions and a regulatory framework for the industry. The law is expected to take effect in 2026.
Baillie Gifford has launched the first tokenized fund approved by the UK FCA, the "Strategic Bond Feeder Fund," built on the Ethereum blockchain.
Bloomberg analysts have raised the probability of launching multiple spot crypto ETFs by the end of 2025 to 90%, mainly due to increased interaction between the SEC and spot crypto issuers.
Layer 1 and Layer 2 public chain Tron announced that the project will be listed on Nasdaq through SPAC company SRM Entertainment. The deal involves a $210.0 million TRX injection and $100.0 million raised by SRM Entertainment to acquire TRX for staking.
Kraken's Layer-2 project Ink announced the launch of its native token INK. The token does not have Ink network governance functions but is used as a liquidity incentive for projects building protocols on the network.
Mantle has launched UR, a new emerging bank operating entirely on-chain, providing Swiss IBAN accounts and Mastercard debit card services.
EigenLayer has launched EigenCloud, helping developers create verifiable off-chain execution applications, services, and AI, while ensuring security through a restaking mechanism.
Dapps Ethena has partnered with Securitize to support 24-hour BUIDL-to-USDtb swaps, enabling institutions to efficiently access DeFi. Securitize has also partnered with Crypto.com and Deribit, allowing both exchanges to accept BUIDL as collateral.
Ondo Finance has announced the formation of the Global Markets Alliance (members include Solana, Jupiter, Trust Wallet, 1Inch, etc.), aimed at establishing standards for the tokenization of securities on-chain.
Fetch.ai has launched its agent-based large language model ASI:One mobile application, now available on iOS and Android.
INFINIT has launched the "One-Click Agent DeFi" function, allowing users to create custom prompt strategies and execute them with one click.
Spark Finance has launched the SPK token, with a current FDV of approximately $417.00 million and a circulating supply of 9%. The protocol's TVL is approximately $5.70 billion, specializing in assisting Sky Protocol in allocating stablecoin reserves in the DeFi ecosystem. SPK is a pure governance token, and the team has partnered with Symbiotic to conduct the second phase of the airdrop.
Falcon Finance has launched USDf, sUSDf, and PT-sUSDf on Euler Frontier, providing leveraged positions for liquidity mining users.
The Swell team has launched a new protocol, Hyperwave, providing liquid staking tokens for HLP, enabling deeper DeFi integration through the hwHLP token.
Fluid has launched the PAXG/XAUt smart collateral vault, enabling gold holders to earn income from trading liquidity and lending simultaneously.
1Inch has further expanded to the Sonic network after supporting Solana.
OrbSwap v0-alpha version has been launched on Arbitrum, specializing in ultra-liquidity pools with low slippage for thousands of stablecoins.
Governance/Project Updates: Injective will host the Injective Summit in New York City on June 26.
LayerZero is voting on its second "fee switch referendum" to decide whether to activate the message fee mechanism before June 27. Due to difficulties in reaching a quorum similar to the first vote, this vote is likely to fail again.
The new Agglayer blockchain Katana, supported by Polygon and GSR, is scheduled to launch its mainnet on June 30. Katana adopts a "Chain Owned Liquidity" (COL) mechanism, where protocol-owned liquidity and sequencer-earned fees will be reinvested into liquidity pools. It has partnered with well-known protocols such as Sushi Swap and Morpho.
Uniswap held its first Foundation Feedback Group (FFG) discussion. The Decentralized Unregistered Non-Profit Association (DUNA) legal structure is expected to be completed by mid-summer 2025, after which the fee switch will soon be activated on Ethereum for selected v3 liquidity providers. v4 hooks are expected to be launched in June, and the Unichain Validator Network (UVN) is planned to be completed within 2025.
Optimism has announced the enhancement of decentralized governance through a bicameral governance model, consisting of token holders, end-users, applications, and chains, and has launched the "Optimistic Approval" mechanism aimed at simplifying the governance process, expected to be launched on August 1.
Synthetix plans to launch a new version of the Synthetix exchange on Ethereum soon.
Token Unlocks:
* INIT tokens will be unlocked on June 24, with the unlock amount accounting for 1.67% of the total supply.
* SOPH tokens will be unlocked on June 28, with the unlock amount accounting for 1.25% of the total supply.
* GRASS tokens will be unlocked on June 30, with the unlock amount accounting for 1.28% of the total supply.
* OP tokens will be unlocked on June 30, with the unlock amount accounting for 1.86% of the total supply.
* KMNO tokens will be unlocked on June 30, with the unlock amount accounting for 21.8% of the total supply.
* SUI tokens will be unlocked on July 1, with the unlock amount accounting for 1.72% of the total supply.
* ENA tokens will be unlocked on July 2, with the unlock amount accounting for 1.55% of the total supply.
* JTO tokens will be unlocked on July 7, with the unlock amount accounting for 3.33% of the total supply.
* IMX tokens will be unlocked on July 11, with the unlock amount accounting for 1.31% of the total supply.
* IO tokens will be unlocked on July 11, with the unlock amount accounting for 8.05% of the total supply.
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