Hi all, happy Wednesday!

Onchain gacha just posted its biggest month yet, $324.6M in June, with Collector Crypt alone accounting for nearly two-thirds of it on the back of a $2,500 Pokémon pack that's only three weeks old. AJC digs into why the whales keep pulling, and why a constrained grading pipeline and record secondary volume suggest the tokenized collectibles trade still has room to run.

Perps was the standout sector on the day, up +8.5%, ahead of DeFi (+7.6%) and Privacy (+5.8%).

The move was broad-based as every component in the index recorded positive returns in the last 24 hours. MYX was the standout performer, tracking flat to up 2% through the London and NY morning sessions before breaking out and running to intraday highs near +15% into the close. HYPE took off in the latter half of the day, ending up +9%. dYdX told a different story. It built an early lead (+20%) by mid-morning, well ahead of the pack, but that lead eroded as it pulled back shortly after. This move was based on the official dYdX X account, which posted a countdown teaser yesterday, stating that it has entered the final day, and relevant news is expected to be announced today. LIT was the session's most volatile line by a wide margin: a round trip from +2% intraday to -3.4% by mid-afternoon, then a sharp reversal that carried it to a +7.5% close. An 11-point swing with no clean directional trend beforehand.

Funding rate data tells a different story between the two leaders. HYPE funding climbed into the breakout to a fresh five-day high near 0.008%, consistent with fresh leveraged longs building alongside the ETF and buyback demand.

MYX ran the opposite pattern; funding peaked earlier in the week (0.024% on June 28, 0.021% on June 29) and had decayed to ~0.005% while the price kept extending, and its cross-exchange funding spread sits more than 4x wider than HYPE's (0.0805% vs. 0.0194%).

Price up, funding fading, fragmented venue pricing, no protocol catalyst since the June 12 V2 launch. This leads me to believe a thin book dragged the MYX price higher, not fresh demand.

— Marc

Gacha Catch 'Em All

Onchain gacha spending reached another all-time high in June, climbing to $324.6 million. The category has now strung together several consecutive months of accelerating growth, making it one of the fastest-growing consumer verticals in crypto.

June's growth was driven primarily by Collector Crypt, which has held the top spot among onchain gacha platforms for the third consecutive month. Spending on Collector Crypt surpassed $209.5 million in June, up 107% month over month, and accounted for nearly 65% of all onchain gacha spending during the month. Much of this growth stemmed from the introduction of its new $2,500 Pokémon pack in June.

Launched on June 10, the $2,500 packs immediately became Collector Crypt's most popular offering, generating $82.9 million in sales through the end of June. Consequently, these packs accounted for 40% of the platform's June sales. As previously discussed in our Collector Crypt: The Liquid Bet on the TCG Trade report, platform spending is concentrated among a few hundred high-spending users. Therefore, launching products tailored to these "whales" is one of the most effective ways to grow platform volume.

The $2,500 packs also feature some of the rarest cards on the platform. While Collector Crypt's lower-priced packs mainly feature cards that are relatively easy to acquire on secondary markets, the $2,500 packs are stocked with some of the most sought-after cards in Pokémon. In some cases, opening these packs may be the only practical way to acquire these "chase" cards. As a result, the appeal of the $2,500 packs extends beyond simply increasing the stakes. By bundling together scarce inventory that is difficult to source individually, the product also provides collectors with access to cards that may be unavailable otherwise.

Collector Crypt's breakout quarter was reflected not only in platform activity but also in the performance of its utility token, CARDS, which rallied alongside the platform's parabolic growth in gacha spending. CARDS ended Q1 at $0.086 before climbing to a yearly high of $0.317 on June 17. While the token has since retraced to $0.218, it still finished the quarter up 153% QoQ.

Moving beyond Collector Crypt, Monster posted the fastest MoM growth among major gacha platforms. The MegaETH-native application increased gacha spend 289% MoM, from $3.2 million to $12.5 million, accounting for 4% of onchain gacha spending in June.

Another notable gainer in absolute terms was Beezie, which also set a new monthly high in gacha spend at $17.8 million, up 25% from May. According to Moonrock Capital's Simon Dedic, Beezie closed a fundraising round on Echo in June that was "by far the most successful Echo raise we've ever done." While details of the round have not been disclosed publicly, Beezie's successful raise and CARDS' strong price appreciation are clear signs that investors across both private and public markets are taking notice of tokenized collectibles.

Zooming out a bit, there are ample reasons to believe the tokenized collectibles trend is still accelerating. Importantly, the underlying collectibles market remains exceptionally healthy. PSA, the largest grading company, announced in late May that it was temporarily pausing certain submission tiers to free up capacity as it works through a backlog of more than 10 million cards. As a result, the supply of newly graded cards should remain constrained in the near term. Meanwhile, market demand has remained equally strong. According to Card Ladder, secondary cards volume reached a new ATH of $693.1 million in June, surpassing May's record of $679.9 million. As long as the broader TCG and sports card markets remain strong, there's little reason to believe the growth in tokenized collectibles will slow.

— AJC

What Are Agents Paying For?

The agentic economy is rapidly shifting from theoretical to actionable, powered by machine-native micro-payments via protocols like x402 on Base. Instead of purchasing consumer goods, AI agents utilize stablecoins (like USDC) to buy "ingredients" such as specialized web searches, scraping tools, and data APIs, to seamlessly execute complex tasks. This economy is progressing from agents purchasing raw API endpoints from traditional companies to autonomously chaining these tools together, and ultimately to packaging optimized workflows to sell to other specialist agents. This agent-to-agent coordination layer eliminates manual configurations and trial-and-error for the end user, transforming raw, paid digital resources into efficient, end-to-end micro-businesses.

How Local Stablecoins Trade

The landscape of non-USD, local stablecoins is experiencing significant growth, with supply surging to $2.2 billion in 2026 as these assets progress through a four-stage lifecycle funnel: the centralized exchange ramp (fiat-to-stablecoin conversion), the cross-peg (trading between stablecoins on the same book), the bridge (withdrawals into self-custodial wallets), and finally, onchain FX (native decentralized exchange trading). While the centralized ramp is broad and highly active across 19 local currencies, the market heavily thins at every subsequent step due to deep liquidity constraints. Currently, the Euro is the only non-USD asset that successfully commands meaningful volume across all four stages, heavily driven by MiCA regulatory clarity and concentrated on Base ecosystem rails like Aerodrome. Ultimately, while wholesale self-custody withdrawals are hitting record highs for emerging and developed markets alike, a local stablecoin's long-term maturity depends entirely on clear regional frameworks and strong domestic incentives to hold the asset rather than route back into dollars.