Sea of Green
The crypto markets have come alive once more, as Bitcoin, along with other major cryptos and altcoins, are back on the rise.
The price of Bitcoin has surged by 3.4% today, climbing from $111.8K to $115.5K in the past 24 hours.
ETH and SOL are also up by 6.0% and 3.9% respectively, with the latter once again breaking past the $200-level to a peak of $205 earlier today.
The global crypto market cap is now closer to $4 trillion, while daily trading volume has surged by 56.7% from $77M to $121M.
Among altcoins, the AI sector has recovered notably in the past week, thanks to a resurging narrative of AI-based payment agents, benefitting tokens such as VIRTUAL and GAME.
On the other hand, one of the newer categories that has entered the spotlight is the x402 ecosystem, which includes projects that utilize and build upon Coinbase’s x402 payment protocol.
These projects include EigenLayer, Bankr, and PayAI Network, where its native PAYAI token has risen over 10.6x in the past week.
On-chain Yen Is Here!
Tokyo-based firm JPYC has launched the nation’s first yen-backed stablecoin, as announced by the firm’s president Noriyoshi Okabe.
The JPYC stablecoin has been deployed on Ethereum, Polygon and Avalanche and is fully-backed by bank deposits and Japanese government bonds.
Okabe also stated that 7 firms have expressed interest in integrating the stablecoin on their respective platforms.
Additionally, JPYC also launched its minting and redemption platform known as JPYC EX, where users can deposit real-world yen to receive the stablecoin, or withdraw JYPC to a Japanese bank account.
In Other News
Jupiter vs. Titan. Solana DEX aggregator Jupiter lodges a public complaint against competitor Titan for allegedly misrepresenting Jupiter in performance comparisons. While these allegations are still inconclusive, the intense competition in this space would likely lead to users getting better trade execution prices overall.
Kung Fu Penguin. Popular Ethereum NFT collection Pudgy Penguins has secured yet another IP collaboration deal. This time, Pudgy Penguin’s Pengu mascot will be featured in Dreamwork’s animation, Kung Fu Panda.
Mt. Gox Delays Repayment by Another Year. Defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox has postponed its repayment dateline till October 2026. While Mt. Gox has since repaid around 19.5K creditors, they still hold around 34.7K BTC worth ~$4B left to be redistributed.
Kyrgyzstan Stablecoin Launching on BNB. The former Soviet republic nation is set to launch its national stablecoin on Binance’s BNB chain in partnership with Binance’s founder, CZ. In addition to a fiat backed stablecoin, the nation is also planning to launch a crypto reserve which will include BNB.
Pump.fun Acquires Padre. Solana launchpad Pump.fun has acquired the trading token terminal PadreApp. A snapshot for PADRE holders has taken place with holders receiving an equivalent value of PUMP tokens in due time.
The team will beheading off to our company offsite, so this will be this week’s last GeckoPulse, we’ll be back next week!