The prevailing bearish sentiment in the cryptocurrency market extended throughout June. Last week, Bitcoin (BTC) fell below the $59,000 threshold for the first time in eight weeks. 

Widespread losses ensued across the market.

Some assets bucked the trend, recording new all-time highs. Selective bullishness wasn’t enough to prevent the overall crypto market cap from decreasing by 4.6% to $2.24 trillion.

Based on their strong performances last week, here are our top cryptocurrencies to watch this week:

MOG hits new ATH

MOG Coin (MOG) witnessed a bullish week. Dubbed the first culture coin on the internet, the meme coin started the week with the same bearish trend as the broader market, collapsing by 11.07% on June 23.

MOG spiked 45.32% on June 24 and June 25 thanks to increased social volume. Whale Insider confirmed that the rally solidified the token’s spot as the largest cat-themed meme coin by market cap.

MOG hit a new all-time high of $0.00002123 on June 29 amid increased interest.

The asset closed the week at $0.0000018355, posting a 67% increase. Its Commodity Channel Index (CCI) currently sits at 130.83, suggesting that the asset is overbought, and a pullback might be imminent.

Kaspa slips into price discovery after new ATH

Kaspa (KAS) also witnessed an uptrend last week. With a 25% weekly rise, KAS recorded a less bullish performance than MOG.

However, the PoW community-based asset slipped into a price discovery phase after breaching its previous all-time high of $0.1939 on June 30. This rally was partly due to reports of Marathon Digital mining $16 million in KAS.

While MOG dropped following its new ATH, Kaspa continued to reach new record prices, entering the new week with this bullish push amid an 8.96% increase over the past 24 hours.

Consequently, KAS has flipped PEPE to become the 23rd largest cryptocurrency, with a market cap of $4.725 billion.

However, caution is advised as the new week begins. Notably, Kaspa’s daily relative strength index (RSI) has entered overbought territories, currently stationed at 71.76.

This suggests a looming retracement as the buying pressure reduces. The last time KAS became oversold, its price dropped 31% over two weeks.

FET drops 27% in three days

Fetch.ai (FET) is also among our top cryptocurrencies to watch this week. The Ethereum token looked to record a similar bullish momentum, but bearish pressure erased most of its gains toward the end of the week.

From June 23 to 26, FET spiked 26% from $1.472 to a near 3-week high of $1.860 as AI-focused tokens saw a massive uptrend.

However, this peak coincided with the upper Bollinger Band, a region that presented robust resistance from the bears.

Fetch.ai, a decentralized machine learning platform for applications such as asset trading and gig economy, saw its corresponding coin collapse from this high. Buying pressure was not sufficient to breach this resistance, resulting in massive declines over the following three days.

FET dropped by 27% from June 27 to June 29. It ultimately closed the week with an 8.56% loss. Despite a rebound effort, the asset remains below the 20-day SMA. While this might indicate a bearish trend, FET’s MACD line remains above the signal line, suggesting bullish momentum. The market remains indecisive at the moment.

Stock trading and investment are never meant for the faint of heart, but one can certainly ease into them without losing their head and hard-earned money.

Blue-chip fiat investing is established, is typically easy to understand, and has many avenues where traders can ask for help. It might be slightly boring and slow to grow if only investing in reliable, “sure thing” stocks, but they’re still relatively approachable.

Derivatives

Derivatives such as futures or options ramp up the intensity, as the investments become more speculative and complex—even more so than just looking at numbers on the screen.

The earning potential here is incredibly vast, but so is the potential for loss. This is why derivatives are usually left to institutional investors or experienced traders who have a better grasp of how to navigate these sectors and, to say it plainly, are better equipped to lose their investment.

Now, imagine throwing crypto into the mix here.

Crypto derivatives are not a new concept, and many leading exchanges and platforms have launched services for experienced traders to try their hand at it. However, entering a speculative market dealing with notoriously volatile assets is not so easy. And just because someone has found success in futures and options trading in fiat doesn’t mean the same fortune will befall them in crypto.

Simply put, crypto derivatives are frightening to the average trader. But is there any way to make it less intimidating?

Fiat investment services have only become more accessible with the rise of mobile-first products that use simple and understandable language to guide newcomers. Any sensible financial advisor at a retail bank will also likely advise clients to store funds in an investment account rather than a traditional savings account, solidifying legitimacy that gives people a sense of security.

Plenty of blockchain-based services attempt the same thing, but the success has been middling.

Any way you slice it, crypto will always have a more daunting learning curve than fiat currencies due to how the technology and market function. And in most cases, someone interested in crypto can’t simply walk into a bank and get sound advice on derivatives trading strategies.

Making crypto derivatives more approachable requires a clear push in both education and creating services that don’t require a doctorate to operate.

Projects such as Thalex, for instance, have made this their mandate. Thalex is an exchange specializing in crypto derivatives, namely in perpetuals, futures, and options, but its no-frills approach serves its mission to remove the friction from trade ideation to execution and to empower traders by offering tools that help even out the playing field.

Likewise, Thalex offers a “paper trading” platform. This enables those interested in its platform to test out its services and try out trades before going live—creating an environment where users can learn the ropes on crypto derivatives.

Futures and options aren’t an impossible concept to grasp, but the unpredictability and lack of education on how they work in crypto make investors less inclined to explore them. To overcome this fear of crypto derivatives from fiat and crypto traders alike, there has to be a way to soften the landing. Not only will this help make the pros and cons of derivatives trading clearer, but also help create a roadmap that traders can feasibly follow.

The blockchain space saw a big week of venture capital (VC) activity, with 23 startups securing over $154 million in funding. 

According to data from Crypto Fundraiser, the amount of money that flooded the crypto space exceeded last week’s total by almost $91 million.

VC firms also funded 10 more projects this week than last week. 

Here’s a breakdown of the top deals:

Conduit, $37 million

Conduit led the pack. The crypto infrastructure dominated with a $37 million series A round.