Morning Minute | Bitcoin Plunges After Hong Kong ETFs Disappoint

TylerD's Market Summary

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📉 Hong Kong ETFs Disappoint In Debut

Expectations were high for the Hong Kong Bitcoin and ETH ETFs.

Those expectations grew yesterday after preliminary reports circulated saying that the HK big was going to be big.

Well, it was not.

And now Bitcoin has tumbled below $62,000 again in the wake.

What Happened?

The Hong Kong BTC ETFs closed their debut day with just $11M in volume.

This was a massive miss from expectations of $125M (besting the opening day for the US Bitcoin ETFs).

And one press conference summary showed expectations of $200M-$300M.

Even Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas reported that HK was confident it could "outdo the US in Bitcoin ETF flows and volume on Day One)."

Well everyone was wrong. Now we pay the price.

Market Impact

Crypto majors were hit hard, and other beta assets, even harder.

• Bitcoin fell 1% on the day but ~5% from last night's high in the mid-$64,000s
• ETH and SOL fell 4%
• Most leading Solana memes fell 6-10% or more
• Bitcoin Runes fell harder, dropping 20-30%
• Ordinals leaders fell on the day as well, with NodeMonkes hitting 0.32 BTC

Not great.

Why It Matters

The week had a potential set up to be bullish.

Mutliple major airdrops were lined up, then delayed (FriendTech) or disappointed (Eigenlayer).

Hopes were high that HK would "save" the local Bitcoin support levels, but now that looks to be out the window as well.

More chop and decline seems to be in our future, barring some major surprise out of the FOMC meeting tomorrow.

Maybe it will be a "no screen" summer after all (here's to hoping it's not though)...

🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the weekend in NFTs:

• ETH led NFT trading volume with $8.7M on the day (+37%); BTC was next with $7.3M (-20%) and then Solana with $3.1M (-16%)
• ETH NFT leaders were mixed with BAYC -10% at 13.75 ETH and MAYC -5% at 2.53, while Pudgy +4% to 11.8 and Azuki +5% to 4.85
• Moonbirds and Beanz were notable winners, jumping 20% each
• A Hoodie CryptoPunk sold for just 105 ETH ($333k), the lowest Hoodie sale since 2021 in ETH terms; the Punk floor is down to 36 ETH
• Moonbirds announced its Moonbirds Universe along with the puzzling decision to move to commercial rights and abandon CC0 (via a new art change)
• Pudgy Penguins announced the first 3rd party licensing deal for Orange Cap Games, bringing 200 Pudgy's into their upcoming trading card game
• Azuki will release "Enter the Garden: The Waiting Man" tomorrow live on YouTube at 1 p.m. ET
• Prometheans led the BTC NFT board with just 10 BTC volume but falling to 0.016
• BTC PFP leaders were mixed as the Merlin Unlock begins; NodeMonkes at 0.32, OMB at 0.42 BTC, Quantum Cats at 0.385, Bitcoin Puppets at 0.28
• Solana NFTs mostly chopped on the day; Mad Lads even at 90 SOL, Tensorians -4% at 14, Mall Street +35%, Wassieverse +45%
• Blast NFTs continued grinding up ahead of an expected Blur launch on Blast happening today (not confirmed); Blastopians at 0.185, Skellie at 0.075

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here's a rundown of major token or airdrop news from the weekend:

🌎 Around Crypto and Web3

A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors are red this morning; BTC -1.4% at $61,5000; ETH -4.5% at $3,030; SOL -4.2% at $129
• Memecoin majors were also mostly red; DOGE -3%, WIF -8%, PEPE even, BONK -3%; ELON and BOOMER outperform
• The Hong Kong ETFs went live this morning in China, bringing in a disappointing $11M in volume compared to $100M+ expectations
• Coinbase Wallet announced its new Solana trading would be powered by Jupiter, bringing trading access for 80k+ Solana tokens to its users
• Morgan Stanley filed with the SEC to allow its customer to invest in the BTC ETFs, potentially unlocking their 15k+ brokers

🚀 Memecoin Movers 

• $ELON (+230%, $12M market cap, ETH)
• $BOOMER (+74%, $24M market cap, Base)
• $JOE (+29%, $7M market cap, ETH)
• $ANDY (+21%, $21M market cap, Base)
• $SEXY (+21%, $4M market cap, Base)

📈 NFT Floor Price Increase (ETH)

• Mavia Land (22%, 0.32 ETH Floor)
• Moonbirds (21%, 0.7 ETH)
• Beanz (20%, 0.27 ETH)
• Pixelmon Trainers (15%, 0.37 ETH)
• San FranTokyo (10%, 0.37 ETH)

🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals

Today is a big day of token claims and events.

Both Kamino and NFTfi launch their claims today, with $KMNO going live for trading immediately and NFTfi including a 41-day lock up timer.

Azuki debuts the first episode of its highly anticipated anime series.

And there are several mints across Base and Bitcoin.

See the full list and dive in for more details with Swizzy's daily mint monitor. 

• $KMNO claim (8:00 a.m. ET)
• $NFTFI claim (8:30 a.m. ET)
• Azuki Enter The Garden (1:00 p.m. ET)
• Maxi Runes (3:00 p.m. ET)
• Based Angels (4:00 p.m. ET)

Enjoy this write-up and/or want to sponsor the Morning Minute? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email to tyler.warner@luckytrader.com.