Uniswap's UNI Token Surged From $6.00 to $6.65

This momentum coincides with Uniswap recording its highest monthly transaction volume since February, processing over $73 billion in trades and generating more than $380 million in revenue this year

Good Morning, Asia. Here's what's making news in the markets:

Uniswap's UNI token experienced a surge of over 5% in the past 24 hours as the token price rose from $6.00 to $6.65. The move upwards comes after a 1.8% decline in the broader market, as measured by the CoinDesk20 Index, over the same period.

This surge in UNI's price coincides with a record-breaking transaction volume for Uniswap in 2024. According to data from Uniswap, the protocol processed over $73 billion in trades this month, marking its highest monthly volume since February 2022.

The protocol has also generated more than $380 million in revenue so far this year, collecting a portion of the trading fees on-chain.

This activity comes amid growing interest in DeFi from institutions and as one large whale was spotted dumping nearly $4 million worth of UNI tokens.

SCB10X's New CEO Kaweewut Temphuwapat is seeing opportunities emerging at the intersection of AI, crypto, and Web3. "We definitely [are] going more on AI and also crypto and AI plus crypto," he said, adding that these hybrid investments are firmly "under our radar."

Temphuwapat predicts clearer crypto regulation in the U.S. will fuel increased deal flow into resilient Asian markets, noting SCB10X's early success investing in Ripple: "We are an early investor in Ripple of 10 years ago… we've used that technology for the last five to six years in our SCB App."

He praised Thailand’s proactive and innovative regulators, highlighting the country's robust payments infrastructure. He expects Thai banks, including SCB, could soon directly hold crypto tokens on their balance sheets, initially through regulatory sandboxes: "The intention is there... they allow us to do [it] in a small scale."

Pseudonymous trader "James Wynn," known for high-stakes crypto bets on decentralized platform Hyperliquid, has shifted focus from billion-dollar bitcoin positions to memecoins, recently placing a leveraged $1 million bet on Pepe (PEPE).

Previously, Wynn closed a massive $1.2 billion bitcoin long position at a $17.5 million loss, before pivoting to a $1 billion short position at 40x leverage, effectively wagering their entire $50 million wallet balance on bitcoin’s downside.

That short briefly netted Wynn about $3 million in profit before closing, marking one of the largest trades ever executed fully on-chain.

Wynn announced stepping back from perpetual trading after securing a cumulative profit of $25 million, earned from an initial investment of just over $3 million.

The trader’s latest high-leverage PEPE position has already gained $500,000 amid a nearly 6% rise in the memecoin's value.

Strategy (MSTR) purchased an additional 4,020 BTC between May 19 and May 25 for a total of about $427 million.

The company's total bitcoin holdings now exceed 580K BTC, according to a company filing.

These latest bitcoin purchases were executed at an average price of $106,237 per coin, pushing Strategy’s total investment in bitcoin to over $40.6 billion, at an average cost basis of $69,979 per coin.

The company's latest bitcoin acquisitions were funded through three separate at-the-market equity programs, including sales of common and preferred stock. In total, Strategy sold 1.8 million shares of preferred stock and 6.4 million shares of common stock, and granted options to purchase 600,000 shares of common stock.

The company's strategy of regularly expanding its bitcoin holdings through capital raises and share issuances is well-known. Earlier this year, Strategy sold 7.1 million new shares to raise $250 million in order to buy more bitcoin.

As of press time, bitcoin was trading at around $26,300, down 1.8% over the past 24 hours.

Market Movements:

Crypto majors mixed in Asia on Thursday.

CoinDesk 20 Index fell 1.8% in the past 24 hours by 7:45 AM ET (11:45 AM CET).

Uniswap's UNI token rose more than 5% in the past 24 hours.

SCB10X, the venture capital arm of Thailand's SCB bank, is actively seeking new opportunities in AI, crypto, and Web3, according to Kaweewut Temphuwapat, the newly appointed CEO of SCB10X.

"We definitely [are