Overview
Arbitrum Odyssey Success.
Quiet weekend markets reaching resistance.
Major Bank to buy Celsius?
Ethereum next testnet merge update.
Arbitrum Odyssey Success
Arbitrum transactions have skyrocketed since the protocol began the Arbitrum Odyssey program we covered in Friday's newsletter. The Ethereum Layer-2 (L2) blockchain has witnessed more than 120k daily transactions worth over 30k ETH since the program started last week. The program shows promising signs of the rising interest in Arbitrum, which contains familiar Dapps such as Uniswap (UNI) and Aave (AAVE) to Ethereum users and liquidity.
Source: Nasen
Celsius CEO was attempting to flee the country (unconfirmed).
To add some spice to the Celsius debacle: According to Mike Alfred, Alex Mashinsky attempted to leave the country before being stopped by authorities at the airport. The story remains unconfirmed.
Market update 🌍
BTC/USD
Over the weekend, things were quiet in the crypto markets, and crypto assets continued their slow recovery. The daily chart shows that Bitcoin (BTC) will likely reach a strong resistance of $22.2k early this week. Unfortunately, the volume continues to drop, showcasing the lack of strength behind the current rally. Unless volume increases, the chances of price breaking through resistance remain lower. BTC completed Sunday's US session at $21,208, down -2.13%.
High-resolution chart
ETH/BTC
Ethereum (ETH) price showed relative strength vs. Bitcoin for the first time since early May by breaking out of the downtrend (red) during the weekend. However, it remains to be seen if the uptrend can hold during the coming weeks (green). The ETH/BTC compares ETH price vs. BTC price and helps visualize traders' willingness to take a higher risk in altcoins.
High-resolution chart
Major Economic Events tomorrow:
(EUR) German G7 Summit - all day
(US) Durable Goods orders - 08:30 am EST
Newswatch 📰
Goldman Sachs looks to (potentially) purchase Celsius. Banking giant Goldman Sach looks to raise $2 billion from investors to purchase crypto lender Celsius. According to reports, the firm appears to be soliciting funds from several web3 crypto funds and Traditional Finance (Tradfi) institutions. That's one discounted approach to getting involved with crypto lending, although the Celsius team is calling it fake news.
New tidbits:
Crypto exchange Bybit and CriptoNoticias look to expand into Argentina.
The Bitcoin Network power demand falls to 2022 lows.
At the protocol level ⛓
Ethereum ongoing merge. Ethereum developers tentatively schedule The merge of the 2nd major Ethereum testnet Sepolia for the week after July 4th. After the Sepolia merges comes the merge of one other testnet before the team pushes focus towards the Mainnet merge.
Harmony One offers a bounty. The Harmony One team offers a $ 1 million bounty reward for any information that leads to the return of $100m of altcoins hacked from its Ethereum cross-chain Horizon Bridge last week. Additionally, the team has been working with the FBI and cybersecurity firms to retrieve the stolen funds.
Protocol tidbits:
Circle to release USDC weekly reserves and liquidity reports
BlockFi to increase rates for BTC, ETH, USDC, GUSD, and USDT due to demand.
NFT & metaverse update 🐵
NFT tidbits:
Yuga Labs sues Artist Ryder Ripps over defamation.
My five cents…
Markets are forward-thinking. So even though the macro conditions show little room for improvement, markets tend to react before significant shifts occur. With this in mind, it's a great time to prep for an eventual bottom. It could come next week, in a few months, or it might have already occurred. Nobody truly knows. I'm creating a list of projects that are highly undervalued with plans to dollar cost average (DCA) during what may be a prolonged crypto winter. Moreover, this week I plan to cover what I seek in a crypto project before investing, so stay on the lookout!
Thanks for reading!
Gabri