Morning Minute | The Institutions Are Coming For Crypto

GM!

Take a minute to catch up on the latest in the Web3 space with today's NFT market analysis, top movers, and upcoming mints.

TylerD's Market Summary

Bitcoin and broader crypto soared yesterday on the back of some major news - but is it good news?

💰 The Institutions Are Coming

Perhaps Punk6529 was right to be warning us.

The institutions really are coming.

Yesterday, several major headlines came through:

• Fidelity, Schwab and Citadel's crypto exchange EDX Markets went live
• Germany's Deutsche Bank ($1.5T under management) applied to operate a crypto custody service
• Invesco reactivated its Bitcoin ETF filing and WisdomTree filed for its own Bitcoin ETF

This is now on top of the news from last week that BlackRock has applied for a BTC ETF.

For some size perspective, BlackRock has $9T in assets under management, Shwab has $7.6T, Fidelity has $4.24T, Invesco has $1.5T and Deutsche Bank has $1.5T (Citadel and WisdomTree are both sub-$100B). 

That's $23.8T assets under management combined.

True giants have entered the crypto space or are coming soon.

Individually these are all big stories for the crytpo space, but together, they are massive. It feels like a zeitgeist moment for this next cycle.

And while each of the headlines are important, the EDX news seems to have the most interesting details.

EDX Markets from Fidelity, Schwab and Citadel Goes Live

EDX Markets officially launched its digital asset market on Tuesday after 9 months of building.

A few interesting pieces of this story:

• The news about this exchange's creation came in September (we just forgot about it)
• It's different from other exchanges in that it doesn't provide custody services
• EDX launched with only 4 crypto tokens: BTC, ETH, litecoin and Bitcoin Cash (citing the need for more regulatory clarity as rationale for not including more)

The middle bullet is the key one in this regulatory landscape.

Coinbase is under scrutiny for mixing its exchange function with its broker-dealer function.

EDX is removing that broker-dealer component entirely, forcing its users to have to use other intermediaries to buy and sell their crypto.

They are also avoiding the securities allegations outstanding by launching with just those 4 tokens (perhaps worrisome for those not included).

Clearly these institutions have sought legal guidance and understand how they can operate without drawing the ire of the SEC. 

It's almost like they have the inside track. Speaking of...

Market Reaction

Let's start with price action.

Bitcoin absolutely ripped on the news, surging nearly 8% to $28,840.

ETH and other alts followed suit, with ETH +5% to $1,814, SOL +5% to $16.68, MATIC +6% to $0.64 and ARB +10% to $1.09.

Yet the Crypto Twitter (CT) timeline had mixed sentiment.

On one hand, we saw the bullish euphoria, a total 180 from just 10 days ago post-SEC bombshells when it was all doom and gloom.

"The institutions are coming to buy our bags!!!"

It's hard to see a scenario here where the biggest investment players in the world all enter crypto and it "fails" or gets regulated out of meaningfulness in the U.S. It feels safer than ever (at least Bitcoin).

So number is more likely to go up, and potentially higher, than it was a few weeks ago (or at least that's the sentiment).

Then there's the flip side - that this movement goes against crypto ethos.

"The institutions are coming to buy our bags."

Crypto has a strong anti-authority component, with its "freedom to transact" at least somewhat dependent on the lack of government control.

The biggest players coming in, while smaller crypto companies are being debanked and effectively pushed out, feels like a move in the wrong direction.

AML KYC controls on every crypto onramp and offramp (a more likely result with the institutions in control) take away the anonymity component, and it's not hard to imagine the path to crypto being strict as that to fiat.

While mainstream may not care about that, the crypto OGs and maxis certainly do.

It's certainly too early to draw too many conclusions here (these ETFs aren't even approved), but the writing is on the wall of what the next few years of crypto make look like.

And like it or not, the actions of the big players will likely be the most important to watch in the coming days.

🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?

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

• Trading volume came jumped back to 11k ETH on Tuesday; NFTs see a mixed bag as Azuki, HV-MTL and Pengus all see green while most of the rest of the board saw red
• Nike .SWOOSH unveiled "Airphoria" as a unique Fortnite experience themed around their Air Max sneakers, with participants unlocking exclusive accdess to the coming Air Max virtual collection
• Yuga dropped a new trailer for HV-MTL Forge, with the game launching June 29th; players will build homes for their HVs, flex them to jump up the leaderboard, and eventually prepare to fight some intense-looking monsters (HV-MTL +10% to 0.91 ETH)
   
• Starbucks will issue its first open edition stamp on Thursday, June 22 as part of its Starbucks Odyssey program
• Pudgy Penguins announced a new unboxing prize, where any toy owner who submits a video of them unboxing their toy will be rewarded with a soulbound token
• Fxhash introduced "Redeemables," a new framework connecting generative artworks with both on-chain and off-chain actions allowing collectors to redeem tokens for items like physical prints

🌎 Around Crypto and Web3

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

• The crypto market soared on Tuesday with BTC leading again; BTC +8% to $28,840; ETH +5% to $1,814
• Bitcoin briefly spiked to $138,000 on Binance US with the exact cause still TBD but perhaps related to its liquidity depth dropping 80% in the past month
• The Sandbox is partnering with independent record label Nuclear Blast, introducing a heavy metal-themed virtual experience named Blast Valley to its metaverse

🚀 NFT Total Volume

• BAYC (3,893 ETH, 40.12 ETH Floor)
• MAYC (2,014 ETH, 7.8 ETH)
• Azuki (1,947 ETH, 17.15 ETH)
• Wrapped Cryptopunks (983 ETH, 49.5 ETH)
• Beanz (294 ETH, 1.43 ETH)

📈 NFT Floor Price Increase

• Mutant Garden Seeder (39%, 4.52 ETH Floor)
• Pixelady Maker (31%, 0.19 ETH)
• DigiDaigaku (21%, 2.79 ETH)
• Killabits (19%, 0.33 ETH)
• Killabears (17%, 1.3 ETH)

🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals

Today is likely the biggest day of the week for new drops.

gmoney and 9dcc kick off the day with their limited edition luxury Caps drop happening this morning as a part of Paris Fashion Week.

Then Art Blocks Curated is back with prolific artist Steve Pikelny for "Dopamine Machines." This will be Pikelny's 6th Art Blocks drop but first Curated. The AB market is still pretty soft, and the 777 supply on this one is on the high side, so expect this one to come closer to min resting price.

If you want more, see the full list of today's drops from Swizzy's daily mint monitor. 

• 9dcc x Stapleverse (7:00 a.m. ET)
• Gucci x Otherside KodaPendants - snapshot (10:00 a.m. ET)
• Memes by 6529 (11:00 a.m. ET)
• Art Blocks Curated: Dopamine Machines by Steve Pikelny (1:00 p.m. ET); Dutch auction

Enjoy this write-up? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email tyler.warner@luckytrader.com.

For all volume and floor price data, see Lucky Trader's Project Rankings page.

For all upcoming mints, see Lucky Trader's NFT Calendar page.