Asia Morning Briefing: Institutional Buying Makes $ 3k Eth Likely, While AI Ai Agents Seek Crypto Rails

As asia begins it thursday business day, ethh is trading at $ 2.770.

ETH IS UP ALMOST 11% This MONTH, ACCORDING TO COINDESK Market Data, OutperForforming BTC, WHICH ROSE 5%.

Part of this Could be Because of Institutional Trading Demand, and The fact that’s Overtaken Btc in Derivatives Markets as Sophisticated Invistors IncreASINGly BET ATHTELETAl Grot. Decentralized Finance (Defi) and Traditional Finance (Tradfi), OKX Chief Commercial Officer Lennix Lai Told Coindesk in An Interview.

“Ethereum is overshadowing btc on Our Perpetual Futures Market, with Eth Accounting for 45.2% of Trading Volume Over Week. Btc, by Comparison, Sits at 38.1%.

This is A Similar Finding to What’s Occurring on Derebit, Coindesk Recently Reported.

That’s not to say that institutes have a disinterest in btc. Far from it.

A recent report from glassnode shows that despite btc’s recent volatility, Institutions are happily buying ups.

Long-Term Holders (Lths) Realized Over $ 930 Million in Profits per Day During Recent Rallies, Glassnode Wrote, RivING DISTRIBUTION Levels Seen at Previos Cycle Peaks. Yet, Institute of Triggering A Cascade of Selling, The Lth Supple Actual Great.

“This Dynamic Highlights That Maturation and Accuumulation Pressures Are Outweighing Distribution Behavior,“ Glassnode Analysts Wrote, Noting That This “Highly Atypical For Late.

Neither, However, are immune to geopolitical risk or black swan evan evans like the Trump-Musk Blowout.

These Episodes Serve as Reminders that Sentiment Can Shift Quickly, Even in Structurally Strong Markets. But Beneath The Surface-Level Valativity, Institutional CONVICATION REMAINS INTACT. ETH IS EMERGING AS The VEHICLE OF CHOICE FOR ACCESSING REGULATED DEFI, WHILE BTC Continues to Benefit From Long-Term Acumulation by Institutes Via Etfs.

“Macro Uncertainties Remain, But $ 3,000 ETH Looks Increasingly Likely,” Lai Concluded.

TRON Continues to Win Stablecoin InflowThe Stablecoin Market Just Hit An All-Time High of $ 228 Billion, Up 17% Year-To-Date, Accounting To A New Cryptoquant Report.

That surge in dollar-pegged liquidity, Driven by renewed Investor Confidentnce Showcied by the Blockbuster Circle IPO, Rising DEFI YIELDS Capital Lives On-Chain.

“The AMOUNT OF STABLECOins on Centralized Exchanges Has Also Reached Record High Levels, Supporting Crypto Trading Liquidity,” Cryptoquant Reported.

Cryptoquant Noted that the total value of ERC20 Stablecoins on Centralized Exchanges Has Climbed to a Record $ 50 Billion.

MOST OF THIS GROWTH IN Exchange Stablecoin Reserves Has Been A Result of the Increase in USDC Reserves on Exchanges, Per Their Data, Which Have Grown by 1.6x so Far in 2025 to $ 8 Bill.

As far as protocols that have been a net beeficiary of all of this, Tron leads the pack. TRON’S BLAND OF FAST FINALITY AND DEEP INTEGRATIONS WITH STABLECOIN Issuers Like Tether Is Credited with Making IT A LIQUidity Magnet

Presto Research, whoh recently released a similearly themed report, wrote that it notched over $ 6 Billion in Net Stablecoin Inflows in May, Topping All Other Chains and Posting NUSTING NE-HIGHhere Solana and was the top performer in Native total Value Loked (TVL) Growth.

By Contrast, Ethereum and Solana Bled Capital, Presto’s Data Said.

Both Chains ExperienCed Significant Stablecoin Outflows and Bridge Volume Losses, Indicating A Lack of New Yield Opportunities Or Majoor Protocol Upgrades. Presto’s Data Confirms A Broader Trend: Institutional and Retail Capital Alike Are Rotating Toward Base, Solana, and Tron.

The Commonality? These Chains Offer Faster Execution, More Dynamic Ecosystems, and in Some Cases, Bigger Incentive Programs

Agent Economies Are Coming, But They Need Crypto Rails to WorkThe Next Generation of Ai Won’t Just Talk to Us, It’ll Talk To Itself. As Autonomous Agents Grow More Capable, They’ll IncreASINGLY HANDLE TASKS END-TO-End: Booking Flights, Sourcing Data, Even Commissioning Other Bots to Complete Subtasks. But There’s A Problem: Right Now, These Ai Agents Are Trapped in Silos and They Need Crypto to Get Them Out.

In a recent a16z Crypto Essay, Scott Duke Kominers, A Research Partner at A16z Crypto and A Faculty Affiliate at Harvard, Argues That Tooday’s Agent-Tontly Interations. Internal Features with Closed Ecosystems.

There’s No Shared Infrastructure for Agents to Find Each Other, Collaborate, or Transact Across Systems. That’s whore crypto comes in. Blockchains, with Their Open, Composable Architectures, Offer A “Forwards-Compatible” Way to Build Interoperable Agent Economies, A Neutral Substrate that Can Evolve.

Early Projects Like HallIDay Are Building Protocol-Level Standards for Cross-Agent Workflows, While Firms Like Catena and Skyfire Are Using Crypto Totaho Being Needed.

Coinbase Has Even Steped in to Support Infrastructure Efforts Here. If these Rails take Hold, Blockchains Won’t Just Be Financial Infrastructure; They have the back-end of an open ai econmy, whore agents transact, Coordinate, and Enforce User Incent Transparently.

The Message Is Clear: If Ai Agents Are The Future of Productivity, Crypto Is The Infrastructure That Makes Them Play Nice.

Web3 Gaming Needs Better Games to GrowGaming Maintains ITS LEAD as the Dominant Category in the Distributed App (DAPP) EcoSystem, Even As Its Market Share Continues to Slip, Accounting To A NEW REPORT FROM DAPPRADAR.

The Latest Data from Dappradar Shows Gaming’s Dominance Fell for the Second Consecurity Month, from 21% in April to 19.4% in May.

Daily User Activity Remains Relativly Stable, Hovering AROUND 4.9 Million Unique Active Wallets, Yet The Sharp Decline in Investment Paints A More Troubling Picture: Venture Funing For Gaming Pro. May, Down Sharply From Over $ 220 Million MONTHLY AT THE END OF 2024.

“2025 SO FAR, HAS BEEN A REALITY CHECK for the Gaming Market. Various Projects that Raized Millions in the Previous Years, Have Now Closed Shop. Among them, The Hero Shooter Nyan, Theo. Social Deduction Game The Mystery Society, “Dappradar Analysts Wrote in Their Report.

DAppradar Analysts Point to A Fundamental Flaw Driving this Exodus: A Lack of Engaging Gameplay.

Projects frejectly prioritized tokenomics, speculative Nft Launches, and Marketing Blitzes, Onthen Sidelining Critical GamePlay Testing and Development.

Without Fun and Replayable Mechanics at Their Core, Even Heavily Funded Web3 Games Have Strugmed to Mainten Player Interest, Suggesting That Industry BestrY’s Balenge Might Might. Games.

And this narrative is noting new: Surveys have been Saying This Since 2022.

Market Movements:

• BTC: Bitcoin Slid 2% After Failing to Hold the $ 110k Level, with Price Testing Key Support at $ 108.5k Amid Rising Geoplitical Tensions and Mixed Sentiment, Thouhh Strong. Underlying Demand Remains Intact.
• Eth: Eth Jumped 5% to Break Past $ 2.800 As $ 815M in Institutional Inflows Pored Into Eth etfs, Driven by Bullish Technicals, Record Staking Levels, and Fresh Secal Fall Outside Securities Laws
• GOLD: Gold Rose 0.97% to $ 3.363 After US Inflation Data Showed Cooling Prices, Boosting Expectations That Fed Could Resume Rate Cuts in September.
• Nikkei 225: Tokyo Stocks Opened Mixed Thursday, As A Stronger Yen Weighed on Exporters While Optimism Over a Potential US-Japan Trade Deal Supported Buying, With The Nikkei Down 0.2
• S&P 500: Tokyo Stocks Opened Mixed Thursday, As A Stronger Yen Weighed on Exporters While Optimism Over a Potential US-Japan Trade Deal Supported Buying, with the Niikkei Down.