3 May 2024

 Macro/TradFi

The U.S. Federal Reserve (“Fed”) kept interest rates unchanged, as widely expected by the market. Rate cuts are set to “take longer than previously expected”, with traders pricing in just one cut for 2024. 

Hong Kong’s six new spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs started trading this week, recording US$292M of inflows on day one of trading. Ether saw 15% of inflows, to Bitcoin’s 85%. 

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs continued to record outflows, with US$811M of outflows in the first four days of the week. 

Jack Dorsey’s Block is set to invest 10% of its Bitcoin-product profits into buying Bitcoin each month via a dollar-cost averaging strategy. 

Crypto

L1/L2:

Pantera Capital has announced an investment in the TON blockchain

Solana Labs has partnered with Google Cloud, and their web3 gaming API (GameShift) is now available to Google Cloud customers. 

Ethereum L2, Mode Network, announced its $MODE token, set to be launched on 7 May. 

DeFi:

EigenLayer announced the $EIGEN token and released its detailed, technical whitepaper. The token is expected to be released alongside mainnet in September. 

AltLayer has entered Phase II of its staking program and announced their Restaked ALT ($reALT) token. $reALT is an auto-compounding ERC-20 token issued to users staking $ALT. 

Jito now has over 10.2M $SOL staked, making it the largest Solana liquid staking protocol. 

Liquid restaking provider, Renzo, launched their $REZ token, currently trading at a US$1.6B FDV. 

Kamino Finance, a top Solana DeFi protocol, released their $KMNO token via airdrop. The token is trading at a FDV of US$923M. 

Other:

SocialFi platform, Friend.tech, has launched their $FRIEND token. 

Gaming developer, Patriots Division, has raised US$5M for its web3 sci-fi Shadow Wars game. 

Web3 publishing platform, Paragraph, has raised US$5M and announced that they are taking over Mirror. 

Modular liquidity protocol, Mitosis, has raised a US$7M seed round. 

Latest Binance Research Publications 

Check out our latest publications:

Monthly Market Insights - May 2024

Q1 State of Crypto: Market Pulse

The Future of Bitcoin #1: The Halving & What's Next

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According to PANews, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has released its 2023 Annual Report on its official website. The report includes the financial statements of the foreign exchange fund and the 2023 Sustainable Development Report. The report's 2024 work focus and forward-looking section include crypto assets, particularly stablecoins. The HKMA noted that public consultation on the regulation of stablecoin issuers took place from December 2023 to February 2024.

The HKMA will cooperate with the government to advance relevant legislative work and will continue to communicate with different stakeholders in the formulation and implementation of the regulatory system. It will also pay attention to market developments and related international discussions. At the same time, the HKMA will implement a stablecoin 'sandbox' arrangement to promote exchanges of views on proposed regulatory systems and requirements, enhancing the robustness of non-bank financial intermediaries, crypto assets, and financial innovation.

The HKMA will focus on products related to virtual assets and will refer to the latest market developments and revisions of international standards in the process. To promote the sustainable and responsible development of the virtual asset industry, the HKMA will continue to cooperate with the government and other regulatory agencies to ensure a robust, comprehensive, and appropriately balanced regulatory framework for the virtual asset industry.