The Edge Weekly #61
This week, crypto had no shortage of events.
The 2026 World Cup kicked off. Within hours, Polymarket recorded $1.8 billion in volume flowing into World Cup Winner prediction markets. For the first time in history, the world’s largest sporting event had a fully on-chain parallel financial market.
The same week, May’s CPI data dropped. Inflation remained sticky. The Fed couldn’t cut. BTC drifted sideways at $63K.
SpaceX’s IPO landed. SPCX opened at $150, touched $176 intraday, closed at $160.95 (+19%), with a market cap surpassing $2.1 trillion - the largest IPO in human history.
And on Hyperliquid, the SPCX perp had been trading for 25 days prior and settled just 7% off Nasdaq’s closing price - while IPO-day volume on Hyperliquid hit $8.5 billion, an all-time high.
This is The Edge Weekly #61. Let’s get into it.
What I’m Covering This Week
Macro & Markets: DeFi TVL at a 20-month low of $78B. CPI this week, FOMC June 16–17 approaching.
SpaceX IPO - History Made
Hyperliquid - The Numbers Keep Printing
Base - AI Economy Gets Real
Pumpfun GO - Attention Economy Onchain
Crypto Card Payments Hit Record $833M
Quick Hits + Good Reads
Macro & Markets
Bitcoin continued trading in the $61K–$64K range with no clear catalyst. On June 12, BTC gained 1.88% to $63,255. Broader markets were more optimistic on the back of US-Iran peace signals and the positive SpaceX IPO: S&P 500 +0.50%, Nasdaq +0.31%, Dow +0.70%.
Fear & Greed Index: still at 12 (Extreme Fear) - unchanged all week, from yesterday, and from the week before. An unusual streak, the last time it persisted this long was after the FTX collapse in 2022.
DeFi TVL at a 20-month low: ~$78 billion. From its ~$95B peak in May, total DeFi TVL has shed nearly 18% in four weeks. I think the reasons are:
1/ The Zcash bug shock eroded confidence in DeFi infrastructure
2/ BTC selling forced collateral withdrawals from lending protocols
3/ General risk-off sentiment as capital rotated into SpaceX and AI IPOs
Bitcoin hashrate anomaly: On-chain data shows the first signs of a potential bear movement in PoW fundamentals. Analysts watching closely.
Coming up: FOMC June 16–17 - Kevin Warsh’s first meeting as Fed Chair.
Two scenarios:
– Hawkish: Hold rates with tough language → worst case for BTC
– Pragmatic: Hold rates but signal future easing → a potential reversal catalyst
Timing depends on the June 16–17 FOMC and whether capital returns post-SpaceX IPO. If SpaceX signals plans to buy more BTC, that catalyst could arrive within days.
SpaceX IPO - The largest IPO in history - Hyperliquid Price Discovery
Nasdaq had a day everyone will remember.
Day-one numbers (June 12):
– IPO price: $135/share
– Intraday high: $176.52 (+30.8%)
– Market cap at close: $2.11 trillion
– Total capital raised: ~$75 billion
– IPO oversubscription: >4x (retail orders exceeded $70B)
The SPCX-USDC perp on Hyperliquid was trading around $172 after market close, down slightly from $176 earlier in the session, still roughly 27% above the $135 IPO price. 24h volume: $322.5 million. Open interest: over $293 million.
For context: the SPCX perp launched on May 18 at $216 and converged toward ~$165 before IPO day. When Nasdaq opened at $150 and closed at $160.95, the perp sat at $172, roughly 7% off Nasdaq’s close. That’s an acceptable level of accuracy, especially compared to Hiive, the off-chain alternative that missed Cerebras by 35%.
Hyperliquid’s IPO-day volume: $8.5 billion, an ATH. The platform became one of the biggest financial beneficiaries of the IPO.
The SPCX IPO confirms HIP-3’s core thesis: on-chain pre-IPO perps can price more accurately than off-chain alternatives. Being 7% off after a volatile debut day isn’t bad. More importantly, $8.5B in volume on a single day signals that Hyperliquid has positioned itself as the trading venue for the world’s largest financial events.
Next in the pipeline: Anthropic ($60B raise) and OpenAI ($60B raise) - SpaceX was just the first proof of concept.
Hyperliquid: The Numbers Keep Printing
In an environment where BTC is in extreme fear and DeFi TVL is falling, Hyperliquid keeps printing new records:
– Weekly active users just surpassed 200K(ATH)
– Aggregated perps volume hit a new ATH(+8%)
– RWA OI keeps breaking ATH ($3B atm)
– HIP-4 has already crossed $200M in volume and keeps growing
– Highest OI on any platform for pre-IPO pair trading
– Coinbase has activated AQA V2 on USDC Hyperliquid, yield is now flowing into the HL treasury
– SPCX trading volume on HL reached $8.5B on IPO day alone (ATH) → HL proves to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the SPCX IPO
HL is becoming the “onchain CEX layer” for everything, from memes to macro, RWA, and prediction markets.
The long-term thesis remains intact: the flywheel of volume → fees → HYPE utility/buybacks → liquidity → usage will continue to self-reinforce.
Base Season Is Coming
Base just changed their X bio to: “Base is beginning to explore a network token”. The next wave of Base is ready I think.
If you want to see the agentic economy in action, look at Base this week, it keeps printing records:
– New daily transaction ATH: ~20.7 million (June 5)
– Consistently over $1B in daily DEX volume
– AI agents are actually spending: $50M+ via x402 payments, 85%+ occurring on Base, across 35.7K+ ERC-8004 agents
– USDC on Base: ~$4.8 billion
What $50M+ in agent spending means:
ERC-8004 is a standard that allows AI agents to make autonomous payments. 35,700+ agents have spent $50M+ via Base’s x402 payment standard. This is exactly the PMF of the agentic economy.
Why Base leads so clearly:
– Low fees + high throughput: suited for agent behavior (many small, frequent transactions)
– Coinbase distribution and backing: 100M+ potential users
– Early agent infrastructure: x402 payment standard, ERC-8004, Base MCP
– Genuine developer adoption: not incentive-driven
– Azul upgrade (live since May 28): multiproof system, path to Stage 2 decentralization
The AI × Crypto thesis will win long-term, and Base is best positioned to capture value from the agent economy.
Pump.fun GO: Attention Economy Onchain
Pump.fun - the launchpad platform that now claims 99% of all launchpad volume. It just launched Pump.fun GO this week: a marketplace where token treasuries pay community members to produce content, attention, and on-chain labor.
With just $5 minimum bounty, anyone can instantly become a buyer of labor
Within hours of launch:
– 320+ active bounties
– 1,000+ submissions
– ~$205K in rewards posted
Current numbers:
– $58K already paid out
– $265K in unclaimed rewards across 750 bounties
– 3,100+ submissions
The headline moment: One person completed a bounty to get a forehead tattoo for 40 SOL. He went viral and $BOUTYWORK ran far harder than the bounty itself was worth.
Why this is a real step forward:
Trenders used to raid for $WIF and $CHILLGUY for free. GO pays the community while letting them keep market risk.
Every token treasury now has a transparent, on-chain marketing budget.
This is a shift from pure speculation to paid coordination and an attention labor market.
The upside: Attention is a scarce, fast-decaying resource in memecoin culture. By professionalizing content production and creating public data on the “price of attention,” GO has real potential to open a new meta.
The risks: Abuse and quality control (self-harm listings, spam, low-quality stunts). Regulatory risk (paid shilling). Burn out if everything becomes too transactional.
If Pump.fun handles moderation well and GO matures without excessive abuse, it could transform Pump.fun from a launchpad into infrastructure for the onchain attention economy.
Metrics to watch: task completion rate, submission quality, and impact on $PUMP volume and fees.
Crypto Card Payments Hit Record $833M
Crypto card payment volume reached a record $833M in May 2026, up +180% YoY with cumulative volume now exceeding $9 billion.
Why this matters:
– This is real-world spend
– On-chain payment rails are connecting crypto liquidity with the real economy
– As narratives rotate and yields compress, payment primitives will become part of the utility story
– $833M/month = a $10B annualized run rate
The Mastercard × Chainlink × Uniswap integration activated last month (May 27), giving 3.5 billion Mastercard cardholders a path to purchase crypto through DeFi liquidity pools. As that infrastructure scales, $833M will look like the early innings.
I prefer protocols that generate real cash flow and share value with holders over TVL vanity metrics. Crypto card payments are that datapoint. $833M/month in an environment where Fear & Greed sits at 12 means adoption is happening quietly, independent of market sentiment.
Other interesting metrics
1/ NEAR Intents hits $223.9M in a single day:
NEAR Intents reached an ATH daily swap volume of $223.9M, a sharp increase from the $19B+ cumulative total.
This signals that cross-chain intents infra is beginning to attract real volume. The dynamic resharding upgrade v2.13 remains on schedule for June.
2/ Kalshi crosses $1 billion in volume in one week:
Kalshi, a CFTC-regulated prediction market exchange, exceeded $1B in volume within just one week of launching perps.
I think the main reason for this strong volume is just about the airdrop speculation.
3/ MegaETH loses nearly 50% of daily users within two weeks of closing Terminal program:
MegaETH positioned itself as a “real-time blockchain” with 10K TPS and the backing of Vitalik Buterin. But once the Terminal incentive program ended, daily users fell nearly 50%.
TVL and user counts driven by incentives don’t reflect genuine product-market fit.
Quick Hits
MegaETH - lost almost 50% daily users two weeks after closing the Terminal program
Kalshi Trading in ‘Perps’ Crosses $1 Billion in Volume Within a Week of Launch
NEAR Intents - just crossed $223.9M in daily swap volume
Polymarket - announces $1 million in liquidity rewards for the World Cup
Nado - opens its second trading competition with a chance to win $100,000
Ethereum mainnet active addresses up 23% over the past year while almost every L2 has collapsed - a return to mainnet may be underway
Solana - records over 1.2 million weekly DEX users
Maple Finance - HYPE is now accepted as collateral on the platform
CPI printed 4.2%, highest since 2023 - validating Michael Howell’s weeks-long warnings
Trump is bathing in $2.3B profits from his crypto ventures while everyone else feels the heat
Humanity Protocol - exploited and rugged, with the H token collapsing entirely
Circle Sends Record $4.4B USDC to Coinbase Hyperliquid Deployer
Good Reads
1/ Ansem: Crypto is Just Going Through a Maturation Phase, Not Dying:
2/ Arthur Hayes : Reality Test
3/ Hermes: The Moat Above the Model
4/ TrueNorth - breaks down SPCS and whether SpaceX is cheap or pricy right now
5/ The Full-Stack Privacy Ecosystem
6/ The Internet Has a New Economic Actor
7// Crypto 2029
If this breakdown helped you stay ahead on the real narratives, share it with one friend who’s still farming the right meta.
Thanks for reading. See you next week.
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