Hamster Kombat, the popular Telegram-based clicker game associated with an upcoming crypto token launch, has faced scrutiny due to its excessive use of social pressure tactics.

While the game’s viral success has propelled it to unimaginable heights, the mechanics that drive user engagement seem to have reached a saturation point, at least for me, Andrew Hayward, the Culture Editor and Hub Operations Lead at Decrypt, wrote in a recent post.

He claimed that this may also become an issue for the hundreds of millions of players who participate daily, unless they have a constant stream of friends to recruit.

Following in the footsteps of the original viral Telegram crypto game, Notcoin, Hamster Kombat requires players to tap the screen to accumulate in-game coins.

It introduces a unique twist by allowing players to invest these coins into a fictional hamster-operated crypto exchange, while also encouraging them to invite their friends to join the game.
This is where things take a peculiar turn, resembling something akin to multi-level marketing.

Hamster Kombat frequently introduces new exchange upgrade cards that promise higher earnings.

These cards are often tied to the game’s “daily combo,” which rewards players with a substantial 5 million in-game coins for using specific cards.

However, many of these cards can only be unlocked if players manage to persuade another friend to start playing through their referral link.

While it is a simple “number-go-up” game, players who are unable to increase their numbers due to the requirement of recruiting more people may find themselves at a disadvantage unless they can find additional participants.

Hayward said the shift highlights the limitations of an engagement-driven machine like Hamster Kombat.

It demonstrates the challenges of sustaining continuous growth without offering compelling new incentives and benefits.

As reported, Hamster Kombat has taken Iran by storm, drawing the attention of local users who eagerly anticipate its upcoming token launch.

The game’s developers announced last week that it has amassed a staggering 200 million players, a substantial portion of the reported 900 million Telegram users.

The figure represents an increase from the claimed total of 150 million players reported on June 14.

Hamster Kombat’s developers have announced their plans to launch a token on The Open Network (TON) in July.

The game follows in the footsteps of Notcoin, a similar “clicker” game that debuted earlier this year and attracted 35 million players before releasing its NOT token on TON in May.
Notcoin experienced a peak market capitalization surpassing $2 billion in the weeks following its launch.

It is worth noting that Telegram’s “The Open Network” (TON) blockchain has been consistently outperforming Ethereum in terms of daily active addresses throughout this month amid the Hamster Kombat craze.

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The prevailing bearish sentiment in the cryptocurrency market extended throughout June. Last week, Bitcoin (BTC) fell below the $59,000 threshold for the first time in eight weeks. 

Widespread losses ensued across the market.

Some assets bucked the trend, recording new all-time highs.

Selective bullishness wasn’t enough to prevent the overall crypto market cap from decreasing by 4.6% to $2.24 trillion.

Based on their strong performances last week, here are our top cryptocurrencies to watch this week:

MOG Coin (MOG) witnessed a bullish week. Dubbed the first culture coin on the internet, the meme coin started the week with the same bearish trend as the broader market, collapsing by 11.07% on June 23.

MOG spiked 45.32% on June 24 and June 25 thanks to increased social volume. Whale Insider confirmed that the rally solidified the token’s spot as the largest cat-themed meme coin by market cap.

JUST IN: Ethereum memecoin $MOG (@MogCoinEth) reclaims its spot as the #1 'cat meme' in the world by market cap, as price rallies 30% in the past 24 hours.

MOG hit a new all-time high of $0.00002123 on June 29 amid increased interest.

The asset closed the week at $0.0000018355, posting a 67% increase. Its Commodity Channel Index (CCI) currently sits at 130.83, suggesting that the asset is overbought, and a pullback might be imminent.

Kaspa (KAS) also witnessed an uptrend last week. With a 25% weekly rise, KAS recorded a less bullish performance than MOG.

However, the PoW community-based asset slipped into a price discovery phase after breaching its previous all-time high of $0.1939 on June 30. This rally was partly due to reports of Marathon Digital mining $16 million in KAS.

While MOG dropped following its new ATH, Kaspa continued to reach new record prices, entering the new week with this bullish push amid an 8.96% increase over the past 24 hours.

Consequently, KAS has flipped PEPE to become the 23rd largest cryptocurrency, with a market cap of $4.725 billion.
However, caution is advised as the new week begins. Notably, Kaspa’s daily relative strength index (RSI) has entered overbought territories, currently stationed at 71.76.

This suggests a looming retracement as the buying pressure reduces. The last time KAS became oversold, its price dropped 31% over two weeks.

Fetch.ai (FET) is also among our top cryptocurrencies to watch this week. The Ethereum token looked to record a similar bullish momentum, but bearish pressure erased most of its gains toward the end of the week.

From June 23 to 26, FET spiked 26% from $1.472 to a near 3-week high of $1.860 as AI-focused tokens saw a massive uptrend.

However, this peak coincided with the upper Bollinger Band, a region that presented robust resistance from the bears.

Fetch.ai, a decentralized machine learning platform for applications such as asset trading and gig economy, saw its corresponding coin collapse from this high. Buying pressure was not sufficient to breach this resistance, resulting in massive declines over the following three days.

FET dropped by 27% from June 27 to June 29. It ultimately closed the week with an 8.56% loss. Despite a rebound effort, the asset remains below the 20-day SMA. While this might indicate a bearish trend, FET’s MACD line remains above the signal line, suggesting bullish momentum. The market remains indecisive at the moment.
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Bitcoin (BTC) encounters resistance near the $62,000 mark, while Ripple (XRP) mirrors BTC's challenge around the $0.500 level. Meanwhile, Ethereum (ETH) finds solid support around the critical price point of $3,288.

Bitcoin's price broke below the descending wedge on Monday, declining approximately 7.5% to retest its crucial weekly support near $58,375 and rebounded by 5.8% on Tuesday.

Since Tuesday, BTC has faced resistance at the lower boundary of the broken descending wedge. At the time of writing, it trades around $61,704 on Friday.

If the lower boundary of the descending wedge around $62,000 holds as resistance, BTC could decline roughly 5% to reach its weekly support near $58,375.
 
On the daily chart, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) and the Awesome Oscillator (AO) are below their respective neutral levels of 50 and zero. This indicates that, according to these momentum indicators, the bearish sentiment prevails, suggesting the potential for further decline in BTC’s price.

However, if BTC closes above the $63,956 level and forms a higher high in the daily time frame, it could indicate that bullish sentiment persists. Such a development may trigger a 5% rise in Bitcoin's price, revisiting its next weekly resistance at $67,147.

Ethereum price retested its support level of $3,288, the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level drawn from a swing low of $2,862 on May 14 to a swing high point of $3,977 on May 27. ETH rebounded by 5% from the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level and trades at around $3,457, edging up approximately 0.3% on Friday.

If this support at $3,288 holds, ETH price could rally 8% from its current trading level of $3,457 to tag its previous high of $3,717 on June 9.

The Relative Strength Index (RSI) and the Awesome Oscillator in the daily chart are both below their neutral level of 50 and zero. If bulls are indeed making a comeback, then both momentum indicators must maintain their positions above their respective neutral levels. 

If ETH closes above $3,717, the high of June 9, it could extend an additional rally of 7% to reach its previous resistance level of $3,977.

On the other hand, if Ethereum's daily candlestick price closes below the $3,288 level, it would produce a lower low and signal a break in the market structure. This move would invalidate the aforementioned bullish thesis, potentially triggering an extra 13% crash to the previous support level of $2,862.

Ripple's price currently trades at $0.476, below the daily resistance level of $0.499. Despite Monday's fall in Bitcoin’s price, XRP has shown resilience in its price action.

If Ripple's price surpasses the barrier at $0.499, it could rise 7% from $0.499 to $0.532, its previous high from June 5.
 

In the daily chart, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) is currently below the 50 mark, indicating neutral to bearish sentiment, while the Awesome Oscillator (AO) remains below zero, suggesting bearish momentum. Both indicators must rise above their critical thresholds of 50 for RSI and zero for AO for a sustained bullish trend. Such a development would bolster the ongoing recovery rally in the market.

If the XRP daily candlestick closes above $0.532, it could extend an additional 9% rally to $0.581, a 50% price retracement level of $0.419 and $0.744 from March 11 to April 13.

However, if the Ripple price daily candlestick closes below $0.450, marking the June 7 low, it would invalidate the bullish outlook by establishing a lower daily low. This scenario might lead to a 7% decline in XRP's price towards the April 13 low of $0.419.

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It is not particularly fashionable to point out when Donald Trump gets something right (whether accidentally or not). But for the record, back in 2021 he was right about crypto. Having two years earlier pointed out that crypto is “not money” and that its value is “based on thin air”, the former president said bitcoin “just seems like a scam”, suggested crypto was “a disaster waiting to happen”, and said “the bitcoins of the world” should be regulated “very, very high”.

That was less than a year before the world of crypto imploded spectacularly. From May 2022 onwards, a series of exchanges, tokens and other crypto projects collapsed in quick succession, wiping out tens of billions of dollars in supposed “value” overnight. Crypto prices and the market for “NFTs” — a type of digital token that is just as worthless as any other but pretends to be otherwise — tanked. Regulators had not only been failing to regulate crypto “very very high”; they had been asleep at the wheel. In December of that year, crypto’s most notorious criminal, the man known as SBF, was arrested on charges of fraud and conspiracy that he would later be given a 25-year prison sentence for.

But Trump, alas, is no longer right about crypto. As the market recovered, he suddenly went from “not a fan” to seeming positively enamoured.

He vowed last month to stop Joe Biden’s crusade to crush crypto and said that he would support the right to self-custody — technical language that sounds very unlike something Trump would have come up with himself. “To the nation’s 50mn crypto holders I say this,” he told a crowd at a libertarian convention. “I will keep [Democratic senator] Elizabeth Warren away from your bitcoin.”

It sounded suspiciously like Trump had been having some deep and meaningfuls with the crypto industry. Indeed, a couple of weeks ago he hosted a group of bitcoin miners and industry executives at his private members club/permanent residence Mar-a-Lago. One of those present, the CEO of BTC Inc, told CNBC that “as an industry we are committed to raising over $100mn and turning out more than 5,000,000 voters for the Trump re-election effort”. You can see why Trump might have found their arguments so persuasive.

There is not even any kind of an attempt to hide the influence-buying; quite the opposite in fact. On Tuesday, the incumbent congressman for New York Jamaal Bowman was defeated in the most expensive primary election in the Democratic party’s history. A vocal critic of Israel, who lost to a pro-Israel rival, he had also voted against pro-crypto bills. Afterwards, Tyler Winklevoss — who along with his twin brother Cameron runs the Gemini crypto exchange — gloated on X: “Politicians everywhere need to understand that this is what happens when you pick a fight with the crypto army.”

Last week, the Winklevoss twins each gave $1mn to the Trump campaign (a portion of which has since been refunded for exceeding maximum individual contribution rules), calling him the “pro-crypto” choice. They have also donated $4.9mn to a pro-crypto super Pac — an independent fundraising committee that can receive unlimited funds from individuals, companies and other groups — named “Fairshake”. This has already raised more than $177mn, second only to the “Make America Great Again” super Pac, with just over $178mn.

Fairshake was one of the big contributors to Tuesday’s New York primary, spending over $2mn on ads targeting Bowman. Along with the Winklevii, a number of other crypto billionaires and their firms have contributed huge sums to Fairshake, including crypto firm Ripple, which has donated a tidy $45mn; crypto exchange Coinbase, with just over $45mn; and “techno-optimist” Marc Andreessen and business partner Ben Horowitz, who between them and their business have donated almost $70mn.

According to data compiled by AdImpact, Fairshake and its affiliate pro-crypto super Pacs, “Defend American Jobs” and “Protect Progress”, have already spent more than $37mn on ads in the primaries. Many of the crypto-friendly candidates they back have won their respective House and Senate races.

We should be very concerned indeed about the influence and scale of this rapidly growing crypto lobby. Apart from anything else, the lobbyists do not represent the interests of America’s crypto holders. Regulators are not going after retail investors, but the crypto firms whose founders have made billions by creaming off profits from those retail investors. 

Their allegiance to politicians looks similarly uneven. And the idea that a group of bitcoin executives can provide Trump with 5mn voters is a farce that even he must be able to see through.

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The United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) revealed its final draft of the new crypto broker reporting requirements on June 28 and clarified the scope of industry participants affected by the new rule changes.

According to the IRS’ new reporting guidelines, decentralized exchanges and self-custody wallets will not be subject to the new reporting rules.

In the recent update, the IRS explained that it reviewed the widespread comments and complaints from industry respondents, ultimately deciding it needed “more time to consider the nuances” of completely decentralized networks.

Moreover, stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets were not exempt from the government agency’s new reporting requirements and will be treated the same as other digital assets.

In the wake of the new rule changes, IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel remarked on the need to close the tax gap posed by digital assets and potential noncompliance from high-net-
worth individuals:

“We need to make sure digital assets are not used to hide taxable income, and these final regulations will improve detection of noncompliance in the high-risk space of digital assets. Our research and experience demonstrate that third-party reporting improves compliance.”

This motivation was previously shared by Werfel’s IRS colleague, criminal investigation chief Guy Ficco, who predicted that there would be an uptick in crypto tax evasion during the 2024 tax season.

Industry advocacy groups, such as The Blockchain Association and The Chamber of Digital Commerce, have pushed back significantly against the IRS’ proposed broker rules over the past year.

In 2023, The Blockchain Association sounded the alarm and objected to the IRS’ proposed broker reporting requirements, citing the fundamental incompatibility between the proposed rules and decentralized finance networks.

More recently, The Blockchain Association reiterated its concerns with the agency’s proposed broker provisions and the undue regulatory burdens and compliance costs the rules would create for market participants, industry firms, and the IRS itself. The advocacy group argued that the rules violated the Paperwork Reduction Act and would result in $256 billion in annual compliance costs.

Shortly after The Blockchain Association posed its concerns regarding the regulatory burdens imposed by filing billions of 1099-DA tax forms, The Chamber of Commerce echoed the complaints, claiming the tax compliance forms could potentially create privacy issues.

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The turnaround started on June 25, following a tough week of consistent net outflows across nearly all funds. 

On that day, per data from Farside Investors, spot Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. recorded $31 million in net inflows, with Fidelity’s FBTC leading the charge with $48.8 million in inflows, followed by the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB) with $15.2 million. The VanEck Bitcoin Trust (HODL) also reported $3.5 million in net inflows.

The rest of the funds largely stayed neutral, except for Grayscale’s GBTC, which faced significant net outflows of $30.3 million. However, on June 26, GBTC saw its first positive inflow since June 5, as the ETFs collectively registered a net inflow of $21.4 million. 

Once again, Fidelity and VanEck saw gains, respectively, bringing in $18.6 million and $3.4 million worth of BTC. ARK Invest and 21Shares’ ARKB was the worst-performing fund on June 26, recording nearly $5 million in net outflows.

On June 27, the net inflows were much lower than the previous two days, with the spot Bitcoin ETFs raking in about $11.8. The activity was spread across five funds, with Bitwise responsible for the highest inflow at $8 million. Fidelity also had another positive day, recording $6.7 million in net inflows. 

Invesco Galaxy’s BTCO fund also had a positive inflow of $3.1 million after two consecutive days of zero net flows. The same was replicated on the Franklin Bitcoin ETF (EZBC), which saw $3.6 million coming in following two days of no net flows.

GBTC, however, fell back into net outflows, losing about $11.4 million worth of Bitcoins.

On June 28, Bitcoin spot ETFs saw a total inflow of $73 million. Grayscale’s GBTC experienced more outflows of about $27.2 million, while BlackRock’s IBIT saw a one-day inflow of $82.4 million. ARKB also had a good day, recording inflows of $42.8 million.

The rest of the funds saw no net flows despite a substantial daily trading volume of $1.31 billion, according to SoSoValue.

To date, the 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs have attracted a total net inflow of over $14.5 billion since their launch in January 2024. This surge in ETF investments has been a major driver of Bitcoin’s record-breaking growth this year.

However, in the week that the positive flows happened, the cryptocurrency’s price dipped by more than 5%, possibly influenced by the upcoming repayments to Mt. Gox creditors, which could add selling pressure to the market.

At the time of writing, BTC was priced at $60,862.07 and had a market capitalization of $1,200,201,471,649, according to CoinGecko.

The price represented a 1.2% drop over the last 24 hours, meaning it was underperforming the global crypto market which was also down 3.6%.

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Coinbase is here to shake things up! In a strategic move to expand its product offerings, Coinbase has filed for regulatory approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to offer futures on several altcoins, including SHIB and AVA. This initiative aims to enhance trading options and attract more institutional investors, with the new futures potentially launching as early as July 15.

Coinbase’s filing for CFTC approval for SHIB and AVA futures marks a significant expansion in its product lineup. These new futures products are designed to provide investors and traders with innovative mechanisms to manage risk, navigate price fluctuations, and engage more comprehensively in the cryptocurrency market.

This step is in line with Coinbase’s strategy to diversify its portfolio and improve the trading experience for its users by requiring less capital upfront.

In addition to expanding its product offerings, Coinbase has partnered with Stripe to enhance its service and on-chain adoption. This partnership focuses on integrating USDC on Stripe’s Base platform to accelerate transactions and reduce service costs. The collaboration aims to expedite transactions in over 150 countries and simplify the fiat-to-crypto conversion process for U.S. customers.

Beyond regulatory compliance, Coinbase’s strategy is designed to attract more institutional investors by providing regulated trading options. With the SEC’s stance on risk assets still unclear, the CFTC’s approval could open the futures market to a broader audience, increasing participation and liquidity.

As of the time of reporting, AVA had the largest market capitalization among the proposed altcoins, standing at $11.1 billion, with its trading price showing a slight increase. Despite its lower price point, SHIB remains a popular choice among investors, with a market cap of $10.1 billion, reflecting diverse interest in the crypto market. SHIB fell by 3.7% to $0.00002 per token in the last 24 hours.

Other altcoins also experienced declines, with LINK down 4.3% to $13.7 and DOT falling 1.9% to $6.19.
By expanding its product offerings and enhancing compliance, Coinbase aims to solidify its position in the cryptocurrency market, making it more accessible and appealing to a wider range of investors.
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