It’s Friday, June 7th. As the ongoing week cones to a close, we can reflect on the industry highlights over the past few days.
Kraken now suffers largest BTC and ETH outflows
According to data published by Cryptoquant, one of the leading crypto exchanges in the market, Kraken, currently sees the largest outflow of Bitcoin and Ethereum since 2017.
Its users withdrew 49,100 BTC (~$3.33b), while ETH outflows totaled about 572,100 (~$2.15b).
Such a massive outflow has caused bitcoin holdings on Kraken to plummet to levels last seen in 2018. They are amounting to nearly 122,300 BTC, as of this writing. Ethereum reserves have slipped below 1 million coins for the first time since early 2016.
This enormous withdrawal marked one of the largest movements of crypto assets in dollar terms.
NFT sales volume nosedives by 54%
Through May 2024, NFT total trading volume in the bitcoin ecosystem totaled $185 million, a 71% decrease from April 2024. As of Ethereum network, trading volumes also dipped, tumbling 55%, while Solana one slided 47%.
The number four spot in terms of trading volume went to L2 solution Blast, where NFT sales hit a $55 million mark. Given that NFT trading in this very ecosystem was launched not so long ago, a surge by 2,582% was recorded in May. The network called Immutable also exhibited uptrend, seeing a more than 23% increase in trading volume of collectible tokens, reaching the $31 million level.
Based on data from CryptoSlam, the number of both buyers and sellers of NFTs declined slightly over the month, with the former dropping by 6% and the latter shrinking by 7%.
Crypto hacks keep sliding — Immunefi
The Immunefi analysts note in their latest report that the downtrend in volume of losses from crypto fraud is still underway. In the Q1 2024, the figure dwindled by 23%, compared to that same period in the year earlier.
Two hacks accounted for the bulk of these losses: the Gala Games gaming protocol was attacked resulting in roughly $21 million in damage, while a vulnerability in the DeFi smart contracts of Sonne Finance’s DeFi project led to a $20 million loss. These two incidents together made up 78% of the total lost funds last month.
All malicious attempts were directed at decentralized protocols, no exploits were recorded against centralized ones. Ethereum and BNB Smart Chain remain the most targeted by hackers, with 62% of incidents occurring on these two networks. Meanwhile, fraud comprised an insignificant part of the total losses – $1.7 million.
Stablecoin market cap surges past 2-year all-time highs
Since the start of May, the figure has climbed 0.63% to $161 billion. However, CCData estimates that the dominance of stablecoins has slumped slightly this month from 7% in March to 6.07% as of the end of May.
Among the ten largest stablecoins, Ethena’s USDe (USDE) has posted five consecutive months of consistent growth. Over this period, the market cap of the asset increased by 11.6% to $2.61 billion. CCData experts explained this figure by the widespread use of USDe for perpetual trading on ByBit, another renowned crypto exchange.
In fact, USDT holds the lead among other stablecoins. It has a 69.3% share of the stable coin market, while also boasting a market cap of $111 billion.