24-Hour Hot Cryptocurrencies and News | Federal Reserve Keeps Interest Rates Unchanged as Expected; Bipartisan Proposal in the US to Ban Amnesty for SBF (June 18)

1. Popular cryptocurrencies on CEXs

Top 10 CEX trading volumes and their 24-hour price changes:

• BTC: -1.92%
• ETH: -2.25%
• SOL: -2.03%
• XRP: -2.53%
• BNB: -0.76%
• WLD: -6.12%
• ZEC: -3.75%
• UNI: -7.25%
• XAUT: -0.55%
• DOGE: -1.57%

24-hour gainers list (data source: OKX):

• XPL: +17.45%
• BIO: +13.14%
• ENA: +9.89%
• ETHFI: +8.35%
• ZAMA: +7.49%
• XLM: +7%
• ROBO: +7.01%
• ASTER: +6.92%
• ENJ +5.74%
• MEGA: +5.14%

24-hour cryptocurrency stock gainers list (data source: msx.com ):

• EBON.M: +23.59%
• PDYN.M: +20.69%
• QNT.M: +15.44%
• EOSE.M: +15.12%
• MNTS.M: +12.67%
• WOLF.M: +12.44%
• mRNA.M: +11.93%
• SIMO.M: +11.61%
• BTGO.M: +11.21%
• MUU.M: +11.06%

2. Top 5 most popular on-chain memes (data source: GMGN ):

• SPACEMOON
• lobster
• Crab effect
• pattern
• Mars

Headlines

The Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged as expected , but maintained an overall hawkish stance, with a major revision to its policy statement.

The Federal Reserve kept the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 3.50%-3.75% for the fourth consecutive meeting, in line with market expectations.

Nick Timiraos, often referred to as the "Federal Reserve mouthpiece," commented on the Fed's interest rate decision: The Fed's dot plot this year showed a clear hawkish bias. Of the 18 officials, 9 expect at least one rate hike this year, with 6 even predicting multiple hikes. In contrast, only one official expects a rate cut this year; furthermore, one participant (presumably Fed Chair Warsh) did not submit a Summary of Economic Projections (SEP).

At the same time, the Federal Reserve's policy statement underwent a complete revision from beginning to end, with a significantly shorter text. Overall, the communication framework of this meeting has changed significantly, which may lead to a readjustment of market expectations regarding the interest rate path.

US lawmakers from both parties have jointly proposed a bill to pressure SBF into receiving a presidential pardon or commutation of his sentence.

U.S. Senators Rubén Gallego (Democrat, Arizona) and Cynthia Lummis (Republican, Wyoming) jointly introduced a bipartisan resolution calling on Congress to formally oppose any presidential pardon, commutation, or other form of federal clemency for FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried under any circumstances. The two senators stated that SBF has completed his trial in court and should not seek further clemency. Gallego called him "unrepentant," while Lummis stated that he should bear his established responsibilities, not "chase an unobtained pardon."

Polymarket celebrates its 6th anniversary, with a cumulative trading volume exceeding $88 billion.

The founder of Polymarket posted on the X platform to celebrate June 17th as their 6th anniversary, saying, "I am truly grateful to be doing something so meaningful to me. It's amazing to see the world gradually catch up with this crazy idea called 'information marketplace.' But we still have a long way to go."

According to Dune data, Polymarket has been online for 6 years, and the platform's cumulative transaction volume has exceeded $88 billion.

Industry News

Federal Reserve Chairman Warsh: Inflation is well above the 2% target

Federal Reserve Chairman Warsh: Inflation is well above the 2% target, and persistently high prices are a burden. Recent history should not be seen as a prelude to inflation problems.

Project News

Lighter updated its buyback data: Over 15 million LIT have been repurchased, representing 6% of the circulating supply.

Lighter officially updated its protocol buyback data in an article on X, stating that it has bought back more than 15 million LIT tokens since TGE, which is about 6% of the circulating supply.

Base will activate the Beryl hard fork upgrade, introducing the B20 native token standard.

According to official sources, Base is about to launch the Beryl hard fork upgrade, introducing the B20 native token standard, shortening the final confirmation period for single-proof withdrawals from 7 days to 5 days, and upgrading Reth V2, reducing disk usage by 50% and increasing throughput by 33%.

Beryl will be activated on the Sepolia testnet at 2:00 AM UTC+8 on June 19th, and on the mainnet at 2:00 AM UTC+8 on June 26th.

B20 is Base's native token standard, an ERC-20 compliant token pre-compiled in Rust, designed for stablecoin, RWA, and long-tail token issuers. It includes a built-in compliance toolkit, including transfer strategies, freezes and seizures, role-based access control, memos, and supply caps.

Investment and Financing

Karta has raised $140 million in Series A funding, co-led by Galaxy Ventures and CIM.

Karta announced the completion of a $140 million Series A funding round, co-led by Galaxy Ventures and CIM. Karta is a U.S. credit card product for global travelers that can be applied for without a U.S. Social Security number.

Stablecoin payment infrastructure Trace Finance has raised $32 million in Series A funding, led by CoinFund.

Stablecoin payment infrastructure company Trace Finance announced the completion of a $32 million Series A funding round, led by CoinFund with participation from Coinbase Ventures and others. Trace Finance plans to use the funds to expand its operations in Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region, and to pursue further licensing applications. The company stated that it has processed over $10 billion in institutional cross-border transactions to date.

Sharon AI announced a $700 million convertible senior note issuance.

Sharon AI announced a $700 million convertible senior note offering to fund its computing agreement with Nvidia.

Flagright, an AI-powered financial compliance infrastructure platform, has raised $12.5 million in Series A funding, with participation from Y Combinator and others.

Flagright, an AI-powered financial compliance infrastructure provider, announced the completion of a $12.5 million Series A funding round led by Infinity Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator, Sella Direct Ventures, and existing investor Frontline. This funding will be used to expand its capabilities in "explainable AI compliance" scenarios, accelerate its expansion in the US market, and strengthen its position as an enterprise-level standard in financial crime compliance. Flagright stated that financial crime compliance is entering a platform-based transformation phase, with banks, payment institutions, lending companies, and securities firms facing higher transaction volumes, stricter regulations, and more complex financial crime methods, making traditional compliance systems inadequate for current needs.

Characters * Voices

Kalshi CEO: When it comes to competitors, the first thing that comes to mind isn't Polymarket, but platforms like CME and Robinhood.

In an interview with FOX, Kalshi co-founder and CEO Tarek Mansour said, "To be honest, when I think about competitors, I think of other platforms more than Polymarket. We are surrounded by a group of competitors."

In subsequent interviews, Tarek primarily mentioned CME and Robinhood. CME assisted gambling giant FanDuel in launching its own prediction market product, while Robinhood has launched its own prediction market, Rothera. Tarek also mentioned DraftKings, Novig, and Coinbase.

a16z crypto: The crypto industry has entered the Show Me era, shifting from narrative-driven to data-verified approaches.

A16z crypto points out that the crypto industry is entering the so-called "Show Me Era," where the market and media no longer accept projects that rely solely on visions and white papers, but instead demand real data and verifiable product implementation. Over the past decade, crypto projects often relied on the logic of "vision is product," gaining market attention through white papers, token narratives, and proof-of-concept. However, with stricter regulations, increased negative industry events, and institutional entry, this model is becoming ineffective. Simultaneously, the accelerated entry of traditional financial institutions into the crypto space has significantly raised the industry's barriers to entry. Examples include BlackRock's tokenized money market fund, Fidelity's ETF strategy, and JPMorgan Chase's progress in on-chain settlement and building its own blockchain network, making "real products and actual use" the new competitive standard.

Burry, a major short seller: short SpaceX but the option costs were too high, so he did not establish a long or short position.

Michael Burry, known for his successful short of the US subprime mortgage market, stated that he currently holds neither a long nor a short position in SpaceX. His primary reason is not based on an assessment of the company's fundamentals, but rather on the prohibitively high cost of short. Burry wrote that SpaceX is essentially "a small space company, a niche market telecom operator, a troubled social media company, and a CoreWeave-light computing service provider," with annual revenue of less than $20 billion, yet a market valuation of approximately $3 trillion. These comments came as SpaceX's stock price continued to rise after its IPO. The company rose 20% on its first day of trading, and accumulated a gain of over 25% in the following week, surpassing Berkshire Hathaway in market capitalization and ranking among the top five globally, behind only Nvidia, Google, Apple, and Microsoft.