Good morning, Asia. This is what makes news in the market:
Welcome to Asian morning briefings, daily summary of top stories throughout the US time, and an overview of market movements and analysis. For a detailed overview of the US market, see Coindesk's Crypto Daybook Americas.
As Asia opens its business day on Thursday, ETH is trading at $2,770.
According to data from Coindesk Market, ETH has risen almost 11% this month, surpassing BTC, up 5%.
The fact that this is partly due to institutional trading demand, and that sophisticated investors are increasingly betting on ETH's structural growth and its role as gateways with diversified finances (DEFI) and traditional finance (TRADFI), told Coindisk in an interview with OKX's chief commercial officer Renniksly.
“Ethereum has shattered BTC in the permanent futures market, with ETH accounting for 45.2% of trading volume over the past week. By comparison, BTC is sitting at 38.1%,” Lai said.
This is a similar finding that is happening with Derebit, Coindesk recently reported.
That's not to say that the agency is indifferent to the BTC. And it's far from there.
A recent report from GlassNode shows that despite BTC's recent volatility, the agency is willing to acquire DIP.
GlassNode writes that Long-Term Holders (LTHS) have achieved profits of over $930 million per day during recent rally, comparable to the distribution levels seen at previous cycle peaks. But instead of triggering a cascade of sales, LTH supply actually grew.
“This dynamic highlights that the pressure of maturation and accumulation outweighs the behavior of distribution,” a GlassNode analyst wrote, describing this as “very atypical in the late-stage bull market.”
But neither of them has any immunity to geopolitical risks or Black Swan events like the Trump Mask blowout.
These episodes serve as reminders that emotions can change quickly, even in a structurally powerful market. However, under surface-level volatility, institutional beliefs remain unchanged. While ETH has emerged as a choice to access regulated Defi, BTC continues to benefit from long-term accumulation by institutions via ETFs.
“While macro uncertainty remains, it appears that a $3,000 ETH is increasingly likely,” concluded Lai.
Tron continues to win an influx of Stablecoin
The Stablecoin market was a record high of $228 billion, up 17% since the start of the year, according to a new crypto report.
The surge in dollar peg liquidity, driven by updated investor trust introduced by the blockbuster circle IPO, is quietly redrawing maps of places where capital lives in chains, improving Defi's yields and clarity in US regulations..
“The volume of stubcoins in centralized exchanges has also reached record high levels, supporting the liquidity of crypto trading,” reported Cryptoquant.
Cryptoquant noted that the total amount of ERC20 stablecoins in centralized exchange has risen to a record $50 billion.
Most of this growth in the exchange of Stablecoin reserves is a result of an increase in the USDC reserves on the exchange with each data that has increased 1.6 times so far in 2025.
Tron is leading the pack when it comes to protocols that are all this net beneficiaries. Tron's blend of fast finality like Tether and deep integration with stubcoin issuers is believed to have made it a liquidity magnet
Presto Research, which recently released a similar theme report, wrote that it won over $6 billion in net stove coin inflows in May, breaking through all other chains, posting the second highest number of active users after Solana, and is the top performer of native total value lock (TVL) growth.
In contrast, Ethereum and Solana bleed the capital, Presto data said.
Both chains have experienced significant stubcoin spills and bridge volume losses, indicating a lack of new yield opportunities and major protocol upgrades. Presto's data confirms a broader trend. Institutional and retail capital are spinning towards the base, Solana, and Tron.
Commonality? These chains offer faster execution, a more dynamic ecosystem, and in some cases greater incentive programs
The agent economy is coming, but you need a crypto rail to work
The next generation of AI will not only talk to us, but to itself. As autonomous agents become more capable, they handle end-to-end tasks more and more: book flights, procure data, and even ask other bots to complete subtasks. But there's a problem. Currently, these AI agents are trapped in silos and require a cipher to get them out.
In a recent A16Z Crypto essay, Scott Duke Kominers, research partner of A16Z Crypto and a Harvard faculty member, argues that today's agent-agent interactions are mostly hard-coded API calls or internal functions within a closed ecosystem.
There is no shared infrastructure for agents to find, cooperate with each other, or trade across the system. That's where the code comes in. With an open and configurable architecture, blockchains provide a “forward-compatible” way to build an interoperable agent economy, a neutral substrate that can evolve alongside AI itself.
Early projects like Halliday have built protocol-level standards for agent crossworkflows, but companies like Catena and Skyfire use Crypto to allow autonomous agents to pay each other without the need for humans.
Coinbase has stepped in here to support infrastructure efforts. If these rails are entrenched, blockchain is more than just a financial infrastructure. They become the backend of an open AI economy where agents transparently trade, coordinate and enforce user intent.
The message is clear. If AI agents are the future of productivity, Crypto is the infrastructure and play them well.
Web3 games need better games to grow
According to a new report from Dappradar, the game remains the lead as the dominant category of the distributed app (DAPP) ecosystem despite its market share continuing to slip.
The latest data from Dappradar shows that the gaming advantage has declined for the second straight month, down from 21% in April to 19.4% in May.
Daily user activity is relatively stable, hovering around 4.9 million unique active wallets, but a sharp decline in investment makes for a more troublesome picture. Game project venture funds fell sharply from over $220 million in the month of the end of 2024.
“So far, 2025 has been a reality check in the gaming market. Various projects that have attracted millions of people in the past have been closed.
Dappradar analysts point to the fundamental flaws driving this departure: a lack of attractive gameplay.
Projects frequently prioritize toconemics, speculative NFT launches, marketing blitz, and often bystanders on the testing and development of critical gameplay.
Without the core fun and replayable mechanics, even heavily funded Web3 games have a hard time maintaining player interest, suggesting that the biggest challenge in the industry is simply learning how to build a great game.
And this story is nothing new. The survey has said this since 2022.
Market movements:
- BTC: Bitcoin slides 2% after not holding the $110,000 level, and amid an increase in geopolitical tension and mixed emotions, the price test received key support at 108.5K, but a strong institutional influx via spot ETF suggests that underlying demand remains intact.
- ETH: ETH has risen 5% above $2,800, up 5% above $2,800 as bullish technical, record staking levels, and facilities inflows put into ETH ETFs at $815 million to make it clear and clear that staking and wallet software falls outside the securities law.
- gold: Gold rose 0.97% to $3,363 after US inflation data showed cooling prices, raising expectations that the Fed could resume interest rate cuts in September.
- Nikkei 225: Tokyo Stocks mixed on Thursday. Nikkei fell 0.22% in early trading, optimistic that the US trade agreement supported potential US trade agreements, while exporters were strong.
- S&P 500: Tokyo Stocks mixed on Thursday. With exporters increasing weight, Nikkei is optimistic that the US trade agreement supported potential US trade agreements, with Nikkei down 0.22% in early trading.
