Bitcoin Closes June Below $20K, BlockFi Acquisition Rumors Spiral, MSTR Buys the Dip: This Week’s Crypto Recap

It’s been another seven days of declines and choppy price action for the cryptocurrency market, which ended up losing around $50 billion of its total capitalization. Bitcoin closed its worst quarter in a decade, whereas altcoins bleed out. Let’s unpack.

To say that the past week has been underwhelming in terms of price action would be an understatement. BTC was sitting around $21K this time last year and spent most of the time until Tuesday – June 28th, there. It was on that day when things started escalating to the downside and by Friday, the cryptocurrency had found itself below $19,000.

It’s also worth noting that this month’s candle close was important because it’s also the end of the quarter. As many expected, this propelled serious volatility and BTC’s price shot up towards $21K but failed to sustain and is once again found below the critical level of $20,000 – the previous all-time high from the bull cycle of 2017-2018. Ultimately, Bitcoin closed the quarter below $20K and charted its worst quarterly performance in a decade.

Altcoins also didn’t see any relief. In fact, Bitcoin’s dominance – the metric that gauges its share relative to that of the entire market – remained roughly the same. This means that altcoins failed to capitalize and also charted similar declines compared to BTC. ETH, for instance, is down 8.5% over the past seven days – the same as BTC. Similar declines are evident in BNB, XRP, ADA, LTC, FTT, and others.

All of the above happens on the back of the market’s deleveraging as major lenders experience turmoil. In this regard, multiple reports suggested that FTX is closing in on a deal to buy off BlockFi for $25 million. It’s worth noting that BlockFi was previously raising capital at a whopping $5 billion valuation, implying major discounts for FTX, if the deal is legitimate. Zac Prince – founder and CEO at BlockFi – declined the possibility of them selling for $25M, but speculations continue to run rampant and another bidder – Ledn – has also joined the acquisition race.

Amid all this, the buyer with seemingly the highest conviction – Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy – acquired BTC worth $10 million at an average price of $20.8K. Nayib Bukele – the President of El Salvador – also revealed they bought some 80BTC at $19K.

In any case, if one thing is certain it’s that we are in for quite the ride and it’s exciting to see what next week has in store.

Market Data

Market Cap: $902B | 24H Vol: $99B | BTC Dominance: 40.9%

BTC: $19,417 (-8.5%) | ETH: $1,055 (-0.2%) | ADA: $0.44 (-7.3%)

OneCoin Founder Ruja Ignatova is Now One of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. Ruja Ignatova, the founder of the infamous OneCoin Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors of some $4 billion, is now one of the FBI’s top ten most wanted fugitives. The Bureau is offering $100K for information that leads to her arrest.

Bitcoin Short ETF is Now Second Largest Bitcoin ETF in US. The ProShares short Bitcoin ETF (BITI) is currently the second-largest derivatives BTC ETF in the US. It’s an inverse instrument, the price of which increases as the Bitcoin goes down in value.

The Launch Date for Europe’s First Bitcoin ETF Revealed. Jacobi Asset Management – an investment company – will launch Europe’s first Bitcoin ETF on the Euronext Amsterdam Exchange in July. This happens as the US continues to lag behind in terms of an approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF.

Crypto Market Deleveraging Might Soon End, JPMorgan Argues. One of the world’s largest international investment banks, JP Morgan Chase & Co, believes that the deleveraging of the cryptocurrency industry might soon come to a halt. According to Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou – MD of JPM’s Global Market Strategy – the deleveraging is already at an advanced stage.

Polkadot Unveils Proposal for Next Generation of Governance. The creator of Polkadot – Gavin Wood – unveiled the next generation of governance for the ecosystem called Gov2. After the v2 is tested on Polkadot’s Canary Network – Kusama, will the proposal be made active to vote on.

SEC Rejects Grayscale Spot Bitcoin ETF Sparking Lawsuit. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has reaffirmed its anti-crypto stance and has once again rejected a highly-anticipated exchange-traded fund. The proposal came from Grayscale – the world’s largest digital asset manager.

Charts

This week we have a chart analysis of Ethereum, Cardano, Solana, Polkadot, and Polygon – click here for the full price analysis.