Venezuela's political critics and activists say President Nicolás Maduro and his government are increasingly resorting to cryptocurrency transactions to evade international sanctions. This comes after the United States reimposed gold and oil sanctions after Maduro failed to honor an agreement to ensure fair elections scheduled in July. 🌐💰

Regimes subject to sanctions often explore various ways to evade such restrictions, notes Andrew Fierman, head of national security intelligence at Chainalysis Inc. Maduro and his representatives have not fully fulfilled the commitments made under the election road map agreement.

A report from the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Studies highlights gaps in recent sanctions in the context of the Maduro regime's goal of leveraging cryptocurrency projects to circumvent international barriers.

Further blockchain analysis by Chainalysis revealed that SUNACRIP, Venezuela's National Superintendency for Cryptoassets and Related Activities, transferred large amounts of tokens to various accounts on various cryptocurrency platforms.

In 2018, the Venezuelan government introduced a cryptocurrency called the Petro, backed by the country's oil and mineral reserves, to combat hyperinflation and avoid US sanctions. The token has seen limited practical adoption despite mandates for its use.

Samara Cohen, BlackRock's chief investment officer for index investments, noted that despite the recent success of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, financial investors still remain cautious to a degree. Launched in January 2024, spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted a large number of individual and institutional investors, recording inflows of over $15 billion. However, Cohen noted that this fast-moving investment vehicle is not yet enough to convince financial advisors. Due to the volatile nature of cryptocurrencies, Cohen believes financial advisors must carefully analyze data and control risks to determine appropriate investment exposure based on the investor's risk tolerance. Cohen notes that Bitcoin ETFs have the potential to bridge the significant gap between cryptocurrency and traditional finance, especially for investors fearful of exposure to risks. 📊💰

The harsher-than-expected FOMC meeting caused investors to reduce their exposure to fixed-supply assets. This led to digital asset investment products experiencing outflows of $600 million. This represents the largest outflows since March 22, 2024.

Outflows focused entirely on Bitcoin. The cryptocurrency suffered $621 million in withdrawals, according to CoinShares' Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly Report. Ethereum-based investment products recorded an inflow of $13.1 million last week.

Despite this, low weekly trading volume of $11 billion was observed, despite moderate positive sentiment around altcoin-based investment products. However, it is important to note that this figure is still higher than the $2 billion per week observed last year.

Regionally, the US took the biggest hit, with weekly outflows of $165 million. Germany, on the other hand, reversed the trend with inflows of 17.4 million dollars.

Polkadot's (DOT) native token was not as affected as other leading cryptocurrencies during the recent market correction. However, its price dropped 4% on the week and is currently hovering around $6.20. 📉 Analysts on the X platform, names such as Michael van de Poppe and Crypto Tony, believe that a significant revival may replace the negative trend in the coming months.

Van de Poppe claimed that DOT has "reached the support and accumulation zone" and predicted that, based on projects within the Polkadot ecosystem, the asset "will be a big mover in the coming years." 🚀

Crypto Tony thinks DOT bulls are “holding on well.” However, he notes that the bull trend may be interrupted if the asset falls below the $5.80 level.

Finally, Ash Crypto, which has over a million followers, announced that it still holds over 120,000 DOT tokens, which is currently worth around $750,000.

While the price front remains muted, Ethereum scaling solutions appear to be growing rapidly. According to the latest data, this increase is due not only to Layer 2 networks, but also to lesser-known Layer 3 units.📈

According to L2beat, these scaling networks built on top of Ethereum reached a total of 246 TPS on June 16, which is a new record. This translates to an estimated 21.2 million transactions throughout the day.

Xai is based on Arbitrum, a Layer 3 gaming network for Ethereum developed by Offchain Labs, and accounts for 41% of the total TPS across the Ethereum ecosystem.

On the other hand, Base and Arbitrum took second and third places respectively, with 33 and 21 TPS on the same day.

Another Layer 3 player, Proof of Play Apex, focused on gaming applications and took fourth place with 15.96 TPS the other day.🎮

XAI, which tops the TPS rankings, appears to be locked in a TVL of just $1.38 million. Similarly, Proof of Play Apex, which is among the top four chains with the highest TPS in the last 24 hours, appears to be at a TVL of around $695,000.

In comparison, Arbitrum One and Coinbase's Base stand out as the two largest scaling solutions on the Ethereum network in terms of TVL, with $17.78 billion and $7.54 billion locked in value respectively.

Shiba Inu's L2 scaling solution, Shibarium, stands out with an 860% increase in the number of new accounts. However, daily transactions on the network are down 65%, while the price of the Shiba Inu is down 20% in the last 14 days. 📉

Shibarium continues to attract attention due to the recent increase and progress in some of its metrics. Most recently, the number of new accounts on the network jumped from 16 to 154 in one day. This increase may indicate increased interest in the protocol and increased activity levels. However, not all Shibarium indicators have risen recently. The number of daily transactions fell 65% to 4,860. 📊

On the other hand, SHIB (the second largest meme coin in terms of market cap) recently experienced a significant price correction and fell along with the overall market decline. The asset is down 20% on a 14-day scale.

Shibarium has launched a user interface (UI) update that is faster, smoother, and more accessible than ever before. This was aimed at ensuring compatibility with popular self-custody wallets such as MetaMask, Coinbase Wallet and Trust Wallet. Shortly after, the developers introduced another advancement through a hard fort aimed at improving the user experience, strengthening the community, and speeding up block processing times.

Shibarium was designed to encourage the development of the Shiba Inu ecosystem, putting SHIB ahead of its competitors. This aims to increase scalability by reducing transaction costs and increasing speed. If you want to learn more about Shibarium, you can check out our video below.

Bitcoin has lost more than 4% in the last few days and was trading around $66,000 at the time of writing. 📉 However, wallets with 10 or more BTC reached the highest level in the last two years. This suggests that the lack of influence from FTX may have allowed the market to reflect demand more accurately. 🤔

According to Santiment's latest findings, the price of bitcoin increased by approximately 226% during this period. This group of wallets holds 16.16 million BTC, representing 82% of the total bitcoin supply.

Speculation has emerged that FTX's former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is suppressing crypto prices. Since the collapse of FTX in November 2022, a clear correlation has emerged between the increased ownership of this group of wallets and the overall market cap of BTC.

This may mean that as FTX operates, there may be forces that tend to separate or disrupt the typical correlation between large holder buying/selling behavior and market prices. However, in the post-FTX period, this correlation seems to have reasserted itself.

Santiment's data suggests that FTX's activities, following its failure, may have been an anomalous factor influencing crypto prices until whale wallet ownership became a stronger indicator of market trajectory.

Crypto markets remained sideways throughout the weekend, with total capital hovering around $2.54 trillion. As it is a holiday in the USA on Wednesday, stock markets will be closed and crypto markets are also expected to be calm. However, retail sales data and PMI reports may shed some light on the direction of the economic recovery. 📊📉

Retail sales reports for May will be released on Tuesday. This data helps gauge the health of the economy, consumer spending habits and demand-side inflation pressures. US industrial production reports will also be released on May 18, but these data will have little impact on overall market and trading activity.

Many analysts believe the Federal Reserve's policy outlook is leaning toward a more conservative stance. However, if economic reports confirm the disinflation outlook and price pressures returning to normal in the next few months, interest rate cut expectations may be brought forward. This would be good for high-risk assets like altcoins because greater liquidity and lower rates mean easier access to capital for investments.

However, the US central bank is now forecasting just one rate cut this year, down from the three cuts it predicted in March, so altcoin season could be a few months away.

This week's economic reports are unlikely to impact crypto asset markets, so another week of low volatility is expected. Bitcoin fell again, currently trading below $66,000. Ethereum reached $3,645 in Asian trading but lost those gains in the last few hours and fell below $3,500. There was more red in altcoins, with Shiba Inu (SHIB), Avalanche (AVAX), Uniswap (UNI) and Near Protocol (NEAR) experiencing bigger losses.

Bitcoin price has been in a downward trend recently, but indicators such as negative exchange net flow and falling MVRV ratio point to a potential bull reversal. 📉📈

The SEC reduced its penalty request from $2 billion to $102.6 million in its ongoing legal fight with Ripple. Ripple argues that a maximum penalty of $10 million would be more appropriate.

A significant recovery is predicted for Dogecoin, with potential price increases supported by bullish patterns and major resistance levels, pushing it to $0.22 and even above $12.

The legal battle between Ripple and the SEC has been going on for three years, and both sides have recently been at odds over the size of Ripple's potential fine.

Finally, we will talk about Dogecoin (the biggest meme coin in terms of market cap). Like most assets in the market, DOGE is in the red on a weekly scale. However, some analysts expect a recovery in the near future.

While Bitcoin is consolidating 10% away from its all-time high, altcoins are collapsing, erasing most of the gains made in the March crypto market rally. There are several factors contributing to the decline of altcoins. These include the decline of Ethereum and US economic data and high inflation. Ethereum usually leads altcoin markets and is down 10% since late May. There is uncertainty regarding Ethereum ETFs because they have been approved but not yet listed for trading. Bitcoin dominance is also a big factor. It is currently high at 55.4% and has been rising since December. However, given that the Ethereum ETF is set to list in the coming weeks, it seems unlikely that Bitcoin dominance will remain at this level. Crypto analyst 'cyclop' noted that altcoins peaked after exactly 546 days in the last two cycles. If the cycle repeats, it may be the last chance to buy the dip before altcoins go parabolic. Total market capitalization remained at $2.54 trillion over the weekend. While Bitcoin remains in its range, most altcoins continue to decline. 📉📊

Bitwise, a US company with Bitcoin ETF, has predicted that the combined power of the cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence (AI) sectors could add $20 trillion to global GDP by 2030🌐💰. This prediction was made at the annual Consensus conference in Austin, where industry leaders gathered to discuss the future of blockchain and AI.

The partnership between Bitcoin mining and AI was among the topics discussed at the conference. The AI ​​boom has propelled companies like Nvidia to the forefront of the technology industry. This has created demand for data centers and AI chips, with the world's largest cloud companies such as Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft expected to spend nearly $200 billion on data center expansions alone in 2025.

However, the rapid development of AI has led to a shortage of data centers that are critical for storing the large amounts of data that feeds AI. Bitcoin miners are in a unique position to alleviate this scarcity, with their advanced infrastructure designed for high-volume data processing and storage.

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) estimates that AI and crypto could add $15.7 trillion and $1.8 trillion respectively to the global economy by 2030. This works out to $17.5 trillion, but the synergistic effect of integrating these two sectors could increase this combined value to $20 trillion or more.

Beyond immediately applicable areas such as data storage and processing, the integration of AI and cryptocurrencies holds long-term potential in areas such as information verification. AI has revolutionized content creation, but it has also raised concerns about authenticity and bias. Public blockchains offer a solution by providing a verifiable ledger for digital content because they are accessible and transparent.

Additionally, the combination of AI assistants with smart contracts and digital currencies such as Bitcoin can increase the functionality of virtual assistants and enable them to perform complex transactions quickly and securely.

Coinbase, the largest US cryptocurrency exchange, expressed concerns in a report released this week that crypto talent in the US is declining despite overall institutional interest increasing. Coinbase noted a 14% decline in U.S.-based crypto developers over the past five years. This is seen by executives at Fortune 500 companies as a bigger hurdle than regulatory issues. On the other hand, small businesses are showing interest in seeking crypto-savvy candidates to fill future roles in IT, technology, finance and legal departments. Coinbase has emphasized the need for clarity of rules and regulations around cryptocurrencies to retain developers in the US. Additionally, the Coinbase report praised efforts by various payment companies, such as PayPal and Stripe, to make cryptocurrencies, and stablecoins in particular, more usable. However, all this can be achieved if the USA takes the lead in the crypto space. 📉🌐

Nigeria withdrew tax evasion charges against Binance executives. Tigran Gambaryan, Binance's head of financial crime compliance, and Nadeem Anjarwalla, director of African operations, faced tax evasion charges at the end of March. However, these two names have now been cleared in the tax evasion case. However, both executives are still accused in a money laundering case filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). 🏛️💼

The saga between Binance and Nigeria started with the naira losing huge value against the dollar. Nigeria accused Binance of contributing to the forex crisis. Binance CEO Richard Teng revealed that Nigerian government officials demanded $150 million in bribes to settle the accusations, but Nigeria called these allegations a diversionary tactic and an attempt at blackmail. 🌍💰

On June 14, Bitcoin fell to a monthly low of $65,000, representing a decline of approximately 5% compared to last week. However, looking at the bigger picture, the asset still appears to be consolidating where it has been since March. “Bitcoin is rarely this quiet,” said analyst James Check, predicting two possible outcomes: 1) Bitcoin remains a stable currency for a new paradigm. 2) Volatility is on the horizon. 🤔📉

Bitcoin sell risk ratio, a metric used to guide volatility, is currently low. This suggests that most profits and losses have already been realized and the market needs to move. Also acting as a fuel gauge for BTC, the 'Choppiness Index' shows that the market is ready to trend on the weekly timeframe but still needs a respite on a monthly basis.

The fact that Bitcoin is having a hard time breaking out is beneficial to the overall cycle," said analyst 'Rekt Capital', who also observed extended range trading. This constant consolidation allows the price to re-synchronize with historical halving cycles "so we can get a normal, customary bull run."

On the other hand, Bitcoiner Samson Mow predicted a big candle is coming, saying, "BTC coil is super compressed now." Reflexivity Research co-founder Will Clemente compared the consolidation period to a similar market phase last year.

On June 14, market analyst Jacob Canfield identified two possible scenarios. BTC could drop to a low near $66,000, where it is currently trading, and then experience a “strong reaction bounce” towards $70,000. Or there may be a "deep capitulation wick" to $60,000 to $62,000. Currently, BTC is trading at $66,200, down 1.2% on the day.

Bitcoin (BTC) has fallen 4.5% in the last seven days, falling to its monthly low of $65,000. The decline in the value of this digital asset can be attributed to increased sales from mining activities. 📉

In CryptoQuant's latest weekly report, it was stated that the amount of BTC sent from Bitcoin mining companies to exchanges reached a two-month high, along with a decrease in their revenues due to lower transaction fees. ⛏️

On June 9, hourly BTC transfers to cryptocurrency exchange Binance, specifically from the btc.com mining pool, reached a two-month high of more than 3,000 BTC. The next day, miners sold at least 1,200 BTC via over-the-counter desks, recording the highest daily volume since late March.

The increased selling from Bitcoin miners comes as revenues remain low post-halving. Daily miner revenues have fallen to around $35 million, down 55% from a peak of $78 million reached in March.

Currently, Bitcoin's hashrate stands at 599EH/s, slightly lower than the pre-halving rate of 622 EH/s. Miners are now competing for lower block rewards under higher pressure.

CryptoQuant analysts stated that the period of low miner revenues and high hashrate marked price bottoms. It is not yet clear how far BTC can fall and when the market will recover again.

Ripple plans to launch Ripple USD (RLUSD), a stable cryptocurrency on XRP Ledger and Ethereum, in 2024. However, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) described it as an "unregistered crypto asset". Meanwhile, the price of XRP has fallen, but some analysts see the current level as a buying opportunity. 📉🔍

The lawsuit between Ripple and the SEC centers on allegations that Ripple is offering an unregistered securities offering by offering the XRP token for sale. The SEC is seeking to impose a $2 billion fine on Ripple, but Ripple argues that the fine should not exceed $10 million.

Currently, XRP is in the red on the weekly scale and trading around $0.47. However, some analysts see the current level as a buying opportunity. The Relative Strength Index (RSI), which can predict the future movements of XRP, is at 42.

Bitcoin price movements, which are usually calm on weekends, remained stable at just above $ 66,000 this weekend. 📉 On a weekly scale, BNB and NEAR are experiencing double-digit declines, with UNI and TON among the exceptions.

Volatility was expected by investors ahead of US CPI data and the next FOMC meeting. Better-than-expected inflation data pushed BTC back to $70,000, but the Fed's refusal to lower interest rates caused another price drop.

Most large-cap altcoins also moved sluggishly over the weekend, so we will focus on their weekly performance. TONCOIN and Uniswap's native token have emerged as the biggest winners since last Sunday. TON added 10% of its value and is trading at $7.8, while UNI is trading above $11.5, up 15%.

In comparison, BNB fell 11% over the same period and is now at $606. Binance Coin had made a new all-time high above $715 last week, but has since lost more than $100. NEAR and SHIB are among the double-digit losers from larger capped altcoins.

Total crypto market capitalization has lost over $120 billion in the last seven days and now stands at $2.550 trillion. 📊

MicroStrategy, a NASDAQ-listed business intelligence software company, has increased its convertible note offering to purchase Bitcoin (BTC) from $500 million to $700 million.📈 This is part of the company's BTC accumulation strategy. While the terms remain the same, the percentage is still 2.25% and the maturity year is 2032. It was stated that the net proceeds will be used "to purchase additional Bitcoin and for general corporate purposes." It is known that the company currently holds 214,400 BTC (more than 1% of Bitcoin's total supply).🔐

MicroStrategy's stock prices are heavily influenced by Bitcoin's movements due to its large holding of BTC and being strongly correlated with the cryptocurrency. Shares, which are in a full bull run in 2024, fell from $700 to under $500 at the beginning of the year, but rose to over $1,900 in March as BTC skyrocketed.

The research unit of the KuCoin exchange published a report on cryptocurrency performance in May. The report noted $1 billion in new investment, down slightly from April. 📉

The report emphasized that institutional investors mostly preferred Ethereum and EVM-focused platforms during this period. More than 50% of these projects received funding between $1 million and $10 million. Ethereum, EVM chains, and L2 networks such as Arbitrum and Polygon were among the top picks by institutional investors.

Chinese institutions have remained active by investing in new technologies and public chain networks. For example, Animoca participated in approximately 15 deals, while OKX invested in 11 projects.

The report noted that investors are shifting their focus to memes, celebrity tokens, new narratives and undervalued assets. He also emphasized that recent regulatory developments in the US have significantly impacted the legal and operational landscape of the crypto market. 🚀🔍

Donald Trump has promised to support Bitcoin and crypto mining if he is re-elected as US President. This situation may cause a jump in Bitcoin prices. Broad economic conditions, such as inflation and Federal Reserve policies, can significantly affect the asset's future valuation, according to ChatGPT. 📈

A competitive fight is expected between current president Joe Biden and Republican candidate Donald Trump in the US presidential elections planned to be held in November this year. Trump has vowed to allow Bitcoin and the industry to thrive if he returns to the White House, stating that he is the right choice for crypto enthusiasts.

We asked ChatGPT if the price of the leading digital asset could reach the $100,000 milestone if Trump becomes America's 47th president. The AI-powered chatbot predicted that a possible victory could actually fuel a price rally for BTC: "The Trump presidency could impact regulatory policies towards cryptocurrencies. If the administration adopts a more crypto-friendly stance, this could positively impact the price of Bitcoin." 🚀

Latest polls show Donald Trump currently leading Biden by a narrow margin: 41% to 40% over his main rival. Robert Kennedy is in third place with 9.2% support.

ChatGPT noted that Trump's possible election as the next president of the United States is not the only factor that will ignite the BTC price rally. Factors such as broad economic conditions, inflation, geopolitical stability and monetary policy can also play a large role.

Inflation in the US is one of the main factors closely monitored by the Federal Reserve, with a target of 2% annually. Once this percentage is reached (or before), the central bank can reverse its aggressive anti-inflation regime and lower interest rates.