First Mover Americas: AXS up 15% on Ronin Network News, BTC at $21K

Good morning, and welcome to First Mover. I’m Lyllah Ledesma, here to take you through the latest in crypto markets, news and insights.

Altcoins outperformed bitcoin (BTC) for a second day as Polygon’s MATIC and Axie Infinity’s AXS posted gains above 15%.

Bitcoin is up 1.6% on the day, trading at around $20,900. Traders are looking at this weekend as another testing period for the cryptocurrency.

Polygon’s MATIC is among the top performers on Friday, rallying 18% on the day. MATIC was trading at $0.58 at press time.

The uptick comes as the protocol launched a product for allowing more private voting in decentralized autonomous organizations and announced it has partnered with KlimaDAO (a decentralized collective of environmentalists, developers and entrepreneurs) as part of an environmental initiative. Read more on that here.

Although MATIC is outperforming the rest of the crypto market, it is worth noting that it’s 80% down from its all time high of $2.90 that was reached in December 2021.

Also surging on Friday is play-to-earn Axie Infinity’s AXS token. This comes after the Ronin development team, which is funded by Axie Infinity creators, Sky Mavis, tweeted Thursday it plans to reopen its bridge next week.

In March, Ronin, the Ethereum-linked sidechain suffered a $600 million hack. The network witnessed a loss of over $625 million in USDC and ether (ETH).

The team has promised to reimburse all users who were affected by the exploit after the reopening of the bridge.

It is not clear whether AXS’ price surge is related to the news, since the announcement happened Thursday and the price increase began early Friday morning.

The token peaked at $17.30 after trading at around $14 on Thursday.

By Aoyon Ashraf

Coinbase Launches First Crypto Derivatives Product Aimed at Retail Traders

Coinbase Derivatives Exchange, formerly known as FairX, is launching its first crypto derivatives product this month, hoping to attract more retail traders.

The CFTC regulated futures exchange will launch its derivatives product, Nano Bitcoin futures (BIT), on June 27, according to a statement sent to CoinDesk. “The crypto derivatives market represents $3T in volume worldwide and we believe that additional product development and accessibility will unlock significant growth,” the statement said.

Coinbase said it’s also awaiting regulatory approval on its own futures commission merchant (FCM) license to offer margined futures contracts for its clients.

The launch comes at a highly volatile period in the crypto market, set off by the dramatic collapses of Terra’s LUNA, crypto lender Celsius and crypto fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC). Bitcoin’s price has fallen about 56% this year, while Ethereum’s native token ether is down roughly 70%.

Coinbase bought FairX earlier this year, to launch crypto derivatives products. FairX launched its futures exchange platform in May 2021 after receiving regulatory approvals in late 2020.

Futures contracts are smaller in size, require less upfront capital than traditional bitcoin futures products and can be used as a hedge for trading strategies for both institutional and retail traders. “At 1/100th of the size of a Bitcoin, it requires less upfront capital than traditional futures products and creates a real opportunity for significant expansion of retail participation in US regulated crypto futures markets,” according to the statement.

However, not everyone sees derivatives as a product suitable for retail traders.

Read the full story here:Coinbase Launches First Crypto Derivatives Product Aimed at Retail Traders

Today’s newsletter was edited by Parikshit Mishra and produced by Stephen Alpher.