Binance Research’s latest report reviewed the 8.6% growth in the total market value of the cryptocurrency market in May, primarily driven by improvements in US cryptocurrency policies. Additionally, the DeFi market saw a 21.7% increase in TVL, but NFT market sales dropped by 41%, with the Ordinals series experiencing a significant 71% decline in sales. The report also previewed important cryptocurrency events happening in June.
The market achieved an 8.6% increase in total market value after the fluctuations of the previous month. Binance Research attributed this growth to improvements in the US regulatory environment and political stance, including the pre-approval by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an Ethereum spot ETF, the passage of the Financial Innovation and Technology Act (FIT21) by the US House of Representatives, and the focus on cryptocurrency discussions in US political activities. The continuous positive impact of net inflows into Bitcoin spot ETF for over 14 consecutive days also affected the market. Prices of all major coins increased, with Solana showing the best performance with a 33.9% price increase, and Ethereum also rising by 26.8% due to SEC approval.
TON became the third-best performing coin of the month, with a price increase of 24.2%. Its DeFi TVL continued to reach new highs, growing by 227.8% to $326 million during the month.
In May, the total locked value (TVL) of the DeFi market also increased by 21.7%, particularly with significant growth in TVL for Merlin, TON, and Solana by 183%, 135%, and 36% respectively. Binance Research pointed out several protocols with record high TVL, including Pendle Finance for interest rate derivatives, Ethena for interest-bearing stablecoins, Morpho for modular lending markets, and Polymarket for prediction markets.
However, NFT market sales saw a significant decline in May, with total sales amounting to $630 million, a 41% decrease. Although Ordinals remained the highest-selling series, sales dropped by 71% in the month, leading to a significant drop in NFT sales on the Bitcoin network from $602 million in May to $194 million, a 68% decrease.
Despite this, the launch of new projects like the social card game Fantasy Top resisted the overall market’s negative trend.
In May, the value of tokenized US government bonds on-chain reached a new high of $1.5 billion. The market has grown by nearly 80% since the beginning of the year, demonstrating the demand for tokenized government bonds. The recent market growth has been mainly driven by BUIDL, launched by BlackRock, which includes US government bonds, repurchase agreements, and cash support. BlackRock’s first tokenized product has become the largest market player in this area, holding approximately 30% market share.
Binance Research also previewed major events to watch and token unlocks in June, including ETH Belgrade, GM Vietnam 2024, BTC Prague, Nordic Blockchain Conference, and Blast Airdrop.
In terms of token unlocks, the top three token unlock amounts in June are as follows:
$ARB: Expected to unlock on June 16th with an unlocking amount of $110 million, accounting for 3.49% of the total supply.
$APT: Expected to unlock on June 12th with an unlocking amount of $101 million, accounting for 2.61% of the total supply.
$STRK: Expected to unlock on June 15th with an unlocking amount of $78.72 million, accounting for 5.61% of the total supply.