Bitcoin Cash, FTX’s FTT Token and COMP Led Crypto Market Gains in June

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) was the top performing digital asset this month, with most of the gains coming in the last week and a half following its listing on EDX Markets, the crypto exchange backed by Fidelity, Charles Schwab and Citadel, that debuted June 20.

The token gained 171% over the month, outperforming bitcoin (BTC), the world’s largest cryptocurrency, which added 14%, CoinDesk data show. At one point on Friday BCH had surged 30% over 24 hours, touching 14-month high of $320.

The surge was backed by a notable increase in trading activity on South Korea’s most prominent digital assets exchange, Upbit. Data tracked by Coingecko show the bitcoin cash-Korean won (BCH/KRW) pair listed on Upbit has registered a trading volume of $558 million in the past 24 hours. That’s nearly 3.5 times bigger than the volume of $160 million in Upbit’s BTC/KRW pair and 5.5 times the BCH/USD volume of $87 million on the Nasdaq-listed Coinbase exchange.

Bitcoin cash’s outperformance in June may be attributed to a perception that forks of the Bitcoin blockchain may pose a lower regulatory risk, said Matt Kunke, a research analyst at GSR.

“Liquidations were also a key component of BCH strength, particularly during the last day, as ~$15m of shorts were liquidated, the most out of any coin excluding BTC/ETH,” he said.

June has not only seen the two largest crypto exchanges, Binance and Coinbase, under fire from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which caused altcoins to dip, but has also witnessed a number of large institutions pushing further into crypto toward the end of the month, igniting positive sentiment. Bitcoin rose as a result, touching a one-year-high above $31,000 a few days after BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, applied for a spot ETF on June 15.

“In crypto, we’ve been saying ‘the institutions are coming’ every year, and that rallying cry often drives the market narrative,” said Michael Safai, managing partner at Dexterity, an algorithmic high-frequency trading firm.

“While we’ve seen varying degrees of institutional participation over the years, no one has had the trillion-dollar gravitas of BlackRock, who clearly seem to be the driver of BTC gains this past month.”

Also gaining on the month was FTT, the token of bankrupt crypto exchange, FTX. FTT climbed 124% in June. The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that the bankrupt exchange is in talks with investors about moving ahead with plans to reboot.

The CoinDesk Market Index (CMI), a broad-based index designed to measure the market capitalization weighted performance of the market, gained 2.7% on the month.