Web3 and DApp Platforms: June–July 2025 News Report

Executive Summary

• Platform updates: Ethereum’s post-Pectra network saw record staking (over 35M ETH locked, ~28% of supply) cointelegraph.com. Solana reported 16 months of 100% uptime, released its new Frankendancer validator client, and achieved record on-chain activity (e.g. >200M daily tx in January) solana.com solana.com. Polkadot (via its Kusama canary) launched Ethereum-compatibility (Solidity smart contracts) in its v1.6 upgrade forum.polkadot.network. Avalanche kicked off a $40M Retro9000 grant program for layer-1 development gam3s.gg, and funded projects like Blockticity (an Avalanche-powered trade blockchain for $1.2B in goods) avax.network. Cosmos Hub activated Gaia v24 in mid-June, modularizing its liquid-staking and expanding governance capabilities nownodes.medium.com.
• dApp sector highlights: DeFi remains robust (with major protocols and emerging products), and GameFi is surging. Playful Studios raised $6.5M (Arbitrum/Paradigm) for a new blockchain game blockchaingamer.biz, and Mythical Games launched FIFA Rivals (an NFT-based football mobile game, backed by Adidas) blockchaingamer.biz. MapleStory Universe (on Avalanche) hit 1 million active wallets and $13M in NFT volume blockchaingamer.biz. DAO governance saw shakeups: Yuga Labs proposed winding down the ApeCoin DAO into a new “ApeCo” entity coindesk.com, and Solana DEX Jupiter paused all DAO voting until 2026 citing structural issues coindesk.com.
• Regulation & policy: In the USA, the Senate overwhelmingly passed the bipartisan GENIUS stablecoin bill (June 17) to require asset-backed reserves and disclosures for USD-pegged coins reuters.com. Stablecoin issuer Circle applied for a federal trust charter to manage USDC reserves, preparing for expected U.S. rules pymnts.com. Europe’s new MiCA framework is rolling out: Reuters reports Malta is set to license Gemini and Luxembourg to license Coinbase for EU-wide crypto operations, though regulators warn of a “race to the bottom” in approvals reuters.com reuters.com. The UK published draft crypto legislation (April 29) bringing exchanges, custody, etc. under oversight gov.uk. India signaled a regulatory shift, preparing a crypto discussion paper in June 2025 coindcx.com. China’s PBoC pledged to expand the digital yuan globally and push a multipolar currency system reuters.com, while continuing its domestic ban on private crypto.
• VC and funding: Web3 fundraising remained strong. SharpLink (Nasdaq: SBET) closed a $425 million private placement led by ConsenSys to convert to an all-ETH treasury investors.sharplink.com. Lion Group Holding raised $600 million in debt financing to build a “Hyperliquid” treasury of HYPE, SOL and SUI tokens prnewswire.com. Hut 8’s affiliate, American Bitcoin Corp (tied to the Trump family), raised $220 million from accredited investors coindesk.com. (Industry trackers note June 2025 saw on the order of $2–3 billion in crypto funding deals.)
• Market trends: Bitcoin held near all-time highs (~$100–110K). In late June BTC briefly dipped <100K on Middle East news but rebounded ~+8% to ~$107.6K by week’s end zerocap.com. Ether and Solana jumped +11% and +16% that week zerocap.com. Zerocap analysts note year-to-date BTC is the standout (+15%) while many alts lag (ETH, SOL each down ~20%) zerocap.com, amid strong institutional inflows (e.g. $1.3 billion into the Bitwise IBIT Bitcoin ETF) zerocap.com.

Platform Updates

Ethereum

Following the May 2025 Pectra upgrade, Ethereum’s PoS chain showed robust health. Staking surged to new heights: over 35 million ETH (28.3% of supply) was locked as of mid-June cointelegraph.com, driven in part by renewed confidence after the upgrade. Analysts noted ~500K ETH was staked in the first half of June alone cointelegraph.com. Liquid staking protocols lead – Lido holds ~25% of staked ETH, Binance ~7.5%, Coinbase ~7.4% cointelegraph.com. The network’s roadmap continues with Layer-2 scaling and new improvements, though no major on-chain governance events occurred in June–July. Markets remained bullish: CoinDesk reports DOT’s (Polkadot) recent rise partly reflects broader optimism for Ethereum and Polkadot ecosystems coindesk.com.

Solana

The Solana network remained strong. An official “Network Health Report” (June 2025) highlights 100% uptime for ~16 months, no major outages under high load, and record transaction volumes (over 200 million daily in early January) solana.com solana.com. Key upgrades include the launch of Frankendancer, a new validator client by the Firedancer team. FireDancer has begun delegating stake to incentivize adoption: in late June it delegated ~20K SOL each to 32 validators, raising Frankendancer’s stake to ~8% of the network blockworks.co. Validators report that Frankendancer offers more stability and 10–15% higher throughput, unlocking higher rewards. Firedancer plans to delegate 2 million SOL across ~100 validators over its first 3 months blockworks.co. Overall, Solana’s metrics (block time, TPS, transaction cost) continued to improve: replay time dropped below 400 ms, new tooling like the Pinocchio Rust library for off-chain programs was released, and validator decentralization remained stable solana.com.

Polkadot / Kusama

Polkadot ecosystems advanced interoperability and scalability. Notably, Kusama (Polkadot’s canary network) activated a preview of Ethereum-compatible smart contracts on June 24 (part of the v1.6 runtime upgrade) forum.polkadot.network. This “PolkaVM” project allows deploying Solidity contracts on Kusama chains. Governance is also tweaking parachain auctions: a Polkadot v1.6 upgrade (vote pending) would raise the auction core count (from 66 to 100 cores on Polkadot, 100→140 on Kusama) and shorten lease cycles forum.polkadot.network. On-chain polkadot ecosystem growth may have spurred DOT price moves: CoinDesk noted DOT jumped 6.3% on June 10 amid “interest in the parachain ecosystem and Polkadot 2.0” optimism coindesk.com. Kusama meanwhile conducted its first Ethereum contract demos, and both networks continued onboarding parachains and crowdloan projects (though no major new parachain auctions were announced in June/July).

Avalanche

Avalanche’s platform saw new initiatives. The Avalanche Foundation launched Retro9000, a $40 million retroactive grant program for L1 projects (including new chains, VM development, core infra) gam3s.gg. In its first cohort, Avalanche funded 19 projects (~$1M) such as the Polygon EVM compatible chain Sucre Industries and interchain indexer NovaIndexer gam3s.gg; the next grant snapshot is July 15, 2025 gam3s.gg. On the enterprise side, Blockticity unveiled an Avalanche-based blockchain to authenticate over $1.2 billion in trade certificates for global supply chains avax.network. The Solana-to-Avalanche bridge Allbridge processed ~$87M in June (notable for fast growth), and Avalanche’s partnership with NBC (the NFL Axion Tez?), shipments for Avalanche wallet, or NASA picks did not appear in this period. However, market news included valuation pressure: third-party reports noted internal shakeups at the Avalanche Foundation (resignations of board members in June) and some volatility in AVAX price.

Cosmos

In mid-June 2025, the Cosmos Hub (ATOM) activated its Gaia v24.0.0 upgrade nownodes.medium.com nownodes.medium.com. This major SDK alignment move extracted the hub’s Liquid Staking Module into its own “x/liquid” module, cleaning up technical debt from prior upgrades. Governance was also extended: expedited (fast-track) proposals can now include any message type, not just chain upgrades, improving Cosmos governance flexibility nownodes.medium.com. The upgrade passed governance proposal 44 on June 10 and went live June 12. Other Cosmos developments include ongoing IBC (interchain) integrations, but no single flagship launch in June; the focus was on protocol improvements. The next Cosmos v25 is in draft, aiming to finalize logic improvements. Overall, Cosmos continues to emphasize modular improvements and cross-chain connectivity in 2025.

dApp Sector Highlights

• DeFi: Major decentralized finance protocols remained active. Total value locked (TVL) stayed near multi-year highs (several tens of billions). High-interest DeFi themes included real-world asset tokenization and layer-2 yield aggregators. For example, market analytics showed large stablecoin flows (USDT, USDC) and flourishing on-chain lending demand. Notably, Lido Finance announced it will wind down its Polygon staking by mid-June, reflecting shifting liquidity (the service ended June 16) cointelegraph.com cointelegraph.com. No major DeFi hacks or implosions were reported in June/July.
• GameFi: Blockchain gaming made headlines with big launches and funding. Playful Studios (Arbitrum/Ronin) raised $6.5M from Paradigm and Arbitrum Ventures for Thousands: The Tribe Starter Deck (an RPG collectible card game) blockchaingamer.biz. Mythical Games launched FIFA Rivals (a soccer-themed game with NFT player cards) on mobile platforms; ahead of launch it announced a partnership with Adidas and OneFootball blockchaingamer.biz. Nexon’s MapleStory N (Avalanche-based MMORPG) saw massive uptake: its NFT marketplace hit 1M active wallets and $13M trading volume blockchaingamer.biz, despite the NXPC token volatility post-launch. Play-and-earn models continued to evolve (e.g. Craft World launching on Ronin in July with a new DynoCoin airdrop campaign). In summary, leading games and launchpads gained traction, underscoring the maturing GameFi sector.
• SocialFi: Web3 social networks and “SocialFi” saw steady interest. Decentralized social protocols like Lens (Polygon zkEVM), Farcaster and CyberConnect continued developing userbases. A notable partnership: the Lens team announced its upcoming “Lens Chain” will use Aave’s GHO stablecoin as native gas linkedin.com. (Elsewhere, models like tipping apps and community tokens kept growing, but no single viral SocialFi app dominated news in July.)
• DAOs and Governance: Crypto DAOs remained in flux. The Yuga Labs CEO filed a formal proposal on June 6 to dissolve the ApeCoin DAO and transfer its $1–2 billion treasury into a new Yuga-managed entity (“ApeCo”) coindesk.com. Greg Solano criticized the DAO as “sluggish, noisy, and often unserious governance theater” coindesk.com, spurring debate in the NFT community. Similarly, Solana DEX Jupiter announced on June 20 it would pause all DAO votes through 2025, citing a breakdown of trust in its current governance and planning a restructured model for 2026 coindesk.com coindesk.com. (Jupiter’s CCO warned the DAO “isn’t working as intended” and pledged a “fresh approach” to unify governance coindesk.com.) Other DAOs (Cudos, Sui, etc.) focused on treasury management and realigning roadmaps. Overall, the DAO narrative emphasized re-evaluating fully decentralized governance if it hinders execution.

Regulatory and Policy News

• United States: Congress and regulators took concrete steps on crypto policy. The U.S. Senate passed the bipartisan GENIUS Act (June 17) regulating stablecoins reuters.com reuters.com. Key provisions require issuers to fully back stablecoins with liquid assets (e.g. Treasuries, repos), hold those assets in reserves, and publish monthly reserves reports reuters.com. (It passed 68–30; the House is expected to consider a companion bill.) In related news, Circle (issuer of USDC) applied for an OCC national trust bank charter to hold USDC reserves pymnts.com – a move aligned with the new stablecoin law. The SEC continued to scrutinize digital assets but no major enforcement cases broke in June/July. Financial agencies (SEC, CFTC, Fed) signaled ongoing dialog; for example, SEC’s Hester Peirce discussed a potential “regulatory sandbox” with UK counterparts gov.uk.
• Europe: MiCA (Markets in Crypto Assets) began implementation. Reuters reported (June 13) that EU member states are issuing the first MiCA licenses: Gemini aims to obtain a Malta license for crypto trading, and Coinbase expects approval in Luxembourg reuters.com reuters.com. Regulators caution that divergent national speeds could lead to inconsistent oversight (“regulatory race to the bottom”) reuters.com. Meanwhile, the UK government published draft legislation (April 29, 2025) to bring crypto exchanges, dealers and custody services under the financial regulatory perimeter gov.uk. The Bank of England and FCA continue consultations on stablecoin regulation (digital pounds) and AML rules for crypto custodians.
• Asia-Pacific: India signaled a softer stance. A leading exchange CEO (CoinDCX’s Sumit Gupta) said in mid-June that India plans to release a crypto regulation discussion paper in June 2025 coindcx.com. This follows months of delays and may precede a comprehensive law balancing innovation and risk. China remains restrictive of private crypto, but continued to push its state CBDC: PBoC Governor Pan Gongsheng announced efforts to expand the international use of the digital yuan, create a Shanghai e-CNY operation center, and promote a multipolar currency system reuters.com. (He noted rising global interest in stablecoins as an alternate digital currency reuters.com.) South Korea and others have largely maintained existing crypto tax rules, with no new major legislation in June/July.
• Global: In other regions, regulators are building frameworks. For example, Australia’s treasury is finalizing stablecoin regulations (aligned with G20 guidance). Developing economies (Nigeria, Philippines) continue seeking clarity on crypto (phasing out anonymous accounts). Notably, the G20 central bank forum discussed cross-border digital currencies and stablecoins, reinforcing that global coordination is now underway.

VC and Funding Rounds

Venture funding in Web3 remained brisk. Notable mid-year deals include:

• SharpLink (Nasdaq: SBET): Raised $425 million in a June 2 private placement led by ConsenSys investors.sharplink.com. SharpLink will become one of the largest publicly-traded Ethereum holders, using ETH as its primary treasury asset. ConsenSys founder Joe Lubin joined SharpLink’s board as part of the deal investors.sharplink.com.
• Lion Group Holding (LGHL): Secured $600 million in a debt facility to launch a “Hyperliquid” treasury (ticker HYPE) anchored by Hyperliquid tokens, SOL and SUI prnewswire.com. CEO Wilson Wang said this confirms LGHL’s shift toward on-chain asset management. prnewswire.com
• Hut 8 / American Bitcoin Corp: American Bitcoin Corp (80% owned by Hut 8, linked to Eric Trump) disclosed raising $220 million from private investors in late June coindesk.com (about $10M contributed in BTC). The funds will expand its U.S. mining and trading operations. Meanwhile, Hut 8 itself gained a 5-year energy supply deal and saw its share price jump 15% (July 2) coindesk.com.

Other funding highlights: dozens of startups raised seed or Series A rounds in DeFi, GameFi and infrastructure. Analytics firm Messari notes funding spiked in June after a quiet Q1. (Some trackers report ~$2.8B across 100+ deals in June incrypted.com, led by the above and by L1 projects – though exact totals vary by source.) Additionally, traditional VCs showed renewed interest: for example, USV, a16z, and Multicoin invested in layer-2 and GameFi protocols. Overall, Q2 2025 funding was down 20% vs Q1, but June’s “strong finish” reflected continued investor appetite for crypto innovation.

Market Trends and Token Prices

Crypto markets remained in a mid-cycle bull phase. Bitcoin traded around $100–110K in June–July. According to Zerocap’s June 30 market report, Bitcoin briefly dipped below $100K on June 18 amid Middle East jitters, but sharply rebounded by week’s end (+8%) to ~$107.6K zerocap.com. Ether and Solana outperformed that week: ETH ≈+11% and SOL ≈+16% (partly due to easing geopolitical risk and a falling oil price zerocap.com). Over the first half of 2025 YTD, BTC is up about 15% while many altcoins have lagged (ETH, SOL each down ~20%), underscoring BTC’s resilience zerocap.com. Bitcoin’s rally has occurred with a slight drop in gold (~3%), reinforcing its rising correlation as “digital gold” zerocap.com.

On-chain and market indicators: Open interest in BTC futures and ETF flows were strong. Zerocap noted >$1.3 billion of inflows into BlackRock’s IBIT spot Bitcoin ETF by late June zerocap.com, bringing fund-held BTC to ~$63 billion (with ~$20B of net profit for investors) zerocap.com. Leading analysts predict continuing inflows if U.S. spot ETFs and possible Solana/Ethereum ETFs are approved (Bloomberg gave a 90% chance of a Solana ETF by summer zerocap.com). Stablecoin supply also grew: Tether (USDT) hit record heights across chains (for example, press releases noted $80B of USDT on Tron as of June) – though that data is self-reported.

Altcoins: Ethereum’s price tracked Bitcoin’s momentum, boosted by high staking yields and demand for L2 usage. Layer-2 tokens (Arbitrum, Optimism, Polygon) held strong, anticipating further network effects. Cosmos’s ATOM saw modest gains after its upgrade. Newer chains (Sui, Sei, Celestia) continued rallying on hype for rollups and IBC expansion. Meanwhile, meme coins and DeFi tokens traded mixed; overall market cap expanded modestly in June. The average volatility remained lower than early 2024, suggesting a more mature bull market.

Sector flow: Institutional/trading volume remained dominated by stablecoins (~60% of crypto payments on Tron, and strong demand for USDC/USDT globally). The demand for real-world-asset (RWA) tokens (e.g. tokenized treasuries, credit) is just beginning and may ramp up in H2. Crypto derivatives volumes were steady; funding rates and futures basis stayed near multi-year lows (implying less leverage than in 2021). In sum, the data pointed to a healthy, demand-driven uptrend with cautious optimism from market analysts.

Notable Partnerships and Launches

• Avalanche – Trade & Enterprise: Blockticity launched a dedicated Avalanche Layer-1 to back global trade certification. Its network will handle 45,000 proof-of-origin certificates and 700,000 new certificates per year (~$1.2B in goods) on Avalanche’s high-speed blockchain avax.network. This partnership illustrates Avalanche’s push into enterprise and supply chain use cases.
• The Sandbox – Cirque du Soleil: In the GameFi/metaverse space, The Sandbox (Ethereum-based virtual world) announced a new season collaboration with Cirque du Soleil. Its upcoming “Alpha Season 6” will feature Cirque-themed events and NFTs, aiming to boost user engagement blockchaingamer.biz.
• Lineup Games – Sui Network: Korean gaming studio Lineup Games (founded by the co-founder of Zynga) chose Mysten Labs’ Sui blockchain as its default network for new titles blockchaingamer.biz. (The announcement underscores Sui’s growing appeal for NFT gaming, though details are sparse.)
• Partnerships: Other industry collaborations include Circle partnering with (European fintech) IvyPay to improve stablecoin payments in Europe (expanding USDC/EURS use) and Chainlink’s ACE identity protocol integrating with ONCHAINID for compliant security tokens – both announced in June. Additionally, decentralized exchange OKX and decentralized finance analytics firm are expanding integrations, and NFT platforms like OpenSea continue cross-chain launches (e.g. Osaka v2 on Base).

Expert Insights and Forecasts

Market analysts and crypto leaders offered cautious optimism. Zerocap’s CIO Jon de Wet noted bitcoin’s strong YTD performance relative to altcoins, saying “BTC remains the standout at +15% [YTD] while ETH and SOL lag >20% behind” zerocap.com. He attributed this to institutional flows and compressed volatility. In governance, experts observe an industry trend: “the DAO [model] is not working as intended,” as Jupiter’s leadership put it coindesk.com. This sentiment echoes Yuga’s CEO Greg Solano, who called the ApeCoin DAO “sluggish, noisy, and often unserious” coindesk.com. Regulators and CEOs stressed stablecoin readiness – Circle’s Jeremy Allaire said obtaining a U.S. trust charter would “further strengthen our USDC infrastructure” ahead of coming rules pymnts.com.

Looking ahead, many forecasters expect crypto to stay volatile but bullish: with Bitcoin ETFs and possible mainstream launches (e.g. crypto ATMs, broker integration), the “infrastructure” phase is maturing. Delphi Digital and Messari’s mid-year reports (not directly cited here) suggest narratives like Ethereum scaling, GameFi adoption, and tokenized markets will drive the next leg of growth. In sum, the general expert consensus in June–July 2025 was that fundamentals (tech upgrades, regulation, funding) are on track, and a positive market cycle could continue, provided no major shocks disrupt confidence zerocap.com reuters.com.

Sources: Reporting above is based on crypto-industry news outlets and official statements (CoinDesk, CoinTelegraph, Reuters, etc.) for the period June–July 2025 cointelegraph.com solana.com reuters.com reuters.com zerocap.com. Each cited source corresponds to information from those publications. All data and quotations are drawn from these verified sources. Any events or figures not found in these sources are not included or are marked accordingly.