Binance Research (JieXuan Chua, CFA, Moulik Nagesh, Shivam Sharma, Colin Chan)
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Against broader macroeconomic uncertainties from US debt ceiling discussions, crypto markets declined in price and activity as the total market capitalization fell by 5.5% month-on-month. However, the majors – BTC and ETH – remained relatively resilient through this period with new developments (e.g., Ordinals and BRC-20 flourishing on the Bitcoin Network).
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Meme coins had a strong run in early May, with weekly trading volume hitting a record high of US$2.7B. However, trading volume has since declined, exhibiting signs of trend normalization. From a price performance perspective, several meme coins ended the month in the red.
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Bitcoin’s BRC-20 tokens were extremely popular in May and helped daily Inscriptions reach new highs. Text-based Inscriptions dominated, making up over 90% of the market, while image-based “Bitcoin NFT” Inscriptions slowed down.
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Rising transaction costs on Ethereum paved the way for a record high of 9.49K ETH in Layer-2 data publishing fees in May. While Arbitrum continues to be the leading contributor, zkEVMs are certainly picking up pace with zkSync Era overtaking Optimism in fee collections for the first time.
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Tether’s USDT showed no signs of slowing down and continued to gain market share in May. USDT maintained a comfortable lead over USDC as the top stablecoin with a market capitalization of US$83.1B.
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LSDfi protocols have gained significant traction in recent weeks. Total value locked (“TVL”) in LSDfi protocols experienced a 2.5x surge compared to the previous month as the narrative gained steam.
About Binance Research: Binance Research is the research arm of Binance, the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange. The team is committed to delivering objective, independent, and comprehensive analysis and aims to be the thought leader in the crypto space. Our analysts publish insightful thought pieces regularly on topics related but not limited to, the crypto ecosystem, blockchain technologies, and the latest market themes.
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