The springtime vibes have reached their climax. New life can be seen popping up all across nature as summer starts to creep in. Luckily, the world of crypto seems to be no different.
Hardly surprising that such a naturally occurring, organic asset class would follow the cycles of nature… right?
With all these new projects launching tokens this month, it seems highly appropriate to dive in and look at what they are, what they do, and why you should be watching them.
Will we get a summer full of bullish crypto action?
June Token Generation Events
There are some seriously hot launches going down this month! Below we will go over some of the significant ones in rapid-fire form so as not to fry your degenerate brains with the sheer amount of alpha on hand.
Lezz go!
LayerZero
LayerZero provides an omnichain interoperability protocol that allows for data transfer across chains.
If you’re looking for permissionless development and censorship-resistant messaging through the use of immutable smart contracts, then this is the place to find it. Basically, you can build anything you want across 70+ different chains.
$ZRO is the LayerZero token, and their claim checker is now live. You can check how many $ZRO tokens you’ve gotten by clicking here.
These guys raised an impressive $120 million at a $3 billion valuation in their Series B funding round back in April last year. Backed by some real big guns like Samsung, OpenSea, Circle Ventures, a16z and Sequoia Capital.
LayerZero was a focus point in Grant's 2024 Thesis article and a full write up on the project can be found here.
IO.net
By now, you’ve probably heard that in a future run by AI, compute will be the new oil. IO.net is at the forefront of the crypto GPU revolution on Solana, and 95 million of the 800 million total $IO tokens have recently gone live.
IO.net pulled in $30 million of investment at a $1 billion valuation and is backed by some pretty big players, including Anatoly Yakovenko of Solana Labs himself.
Other notable investors include Solana Ventures, Multicoin Capital, OKX, Delphi Digital, Sandbox, and Aptos.
With over 25,000 GPUs online, $IO will be one to watch over the long term.
For more blocmates IO.net alpha, check out our coverage of the project in this article.
Aethir
Sticking with the GPU theme, Aethir is a real crypto compute giant. Their $ATH token not only has a great ticker but is now live for staking with stATH and veATH ready to go after the first round of the Aethir Cloud Drop, which took place recently.
The guys at Aethir have an impressive GPU network of over 43,000 GPUs that provide around $400 million in compute capacity, currently the largest decentralized GPU cloud infrastructure in existence.
Established in Singapore in 2021, Aethir has some big backers. The likes of Sanctor Capital, Hashkey, Merit Circle, CitizenX, and Maelstrom, to name a few.
With AI being a hot focus going forward, a project like Aethir that provides vital infrastructure to an artificially intelligent future will surely be one to add to the watchlist.
ZKsync
ZKsync’s launch has been a long-awaited one. This Ethereum Layer-2 network uses zero-knowledge roll-ups to help scale the Ethereum network, a technology that has been heavily shilled by Vitalik himself.
$ZK is the project's token and has a total supply of 21 billion. 3.675 billion of these tokens have been airdropped to just under 700,000 wallets in the last few days.
These guys did some serious raising of their own with $258 million in total venture funding and an additional $200 million ecosystem fund. Backed by crypto big brains like a16z, Dragonfly Capital, Crypto.com, and Placeholder Capital.
To dump tokens or not to dump tokens is now the question on everyone’s mind.
EtherMail
EtherMail is a one-stop shop, decentralized crypto email service that not only allows for secure email and email-as-a-wallet service but also supports email token transfer via its PayMail tech.
EtherMail currently boasts around 1,000,000 verified accounts, and its $EMT token represents the world’s first email token of its kind.
$EMT gives users access to premium features and is touted as a way to incentivize and increase the user base over the coming months through various reward mechanisms.
This is another project with solid backing. Investors like Draper Associates, Fabric Ventures, and Greenfield all have a stake in this pie.
Email has been a seriously centralized game until now, so it’s nice to see the team at EtherMail trying to swing the pendulum in favor of the people.
Blast
Backed by Paradigm has become a real meme, but Blast hopes to be more than that. The Blast protocol aims to be the only Ethereum Layer-2 with native yield for both ETH and stablecoins and is another big project dropping this month.
The $BLAST token airdrop is said to be taking place on June 26th, hopefully redeeming itself for the delay after the talks of it occurring in May fell through.
Blast currently has over $2 billion in TVL, and Blast bulls will hope this doesn’t drop off once the $BLAST token goes live.
Tapioca
If you’ve been following us at blocmates for a while now, then you would’ve realized that we are big fans of TapiocaDAO and believe that these guys might have what it takes to put DeFi back in the driver's seat.
Tapioca launched its token on June 11th through a self-hosted liquidity bootstrapping pool on Balancer. This was done to ensure fairness in the launch, where participants were given LTAP tokens that could be redeemed 1:1 for $TAP once the launch concluded.
Now that the launch has concluded, 7,630,000 of the 100,000,000 total tokens are live, and the fun has begun.
For a giga deep dive into Tapioca check out this Definitive Guide from Blocmates chad Emiri and for those further left on the bell curve we have the Idiots Guide by yours truly.
Aark Digital
Aark Digital is yet another project that has launched its token this month.
The $AARK token follows a successful April seed funding round that raised $6 million from investors such as Delphi Digital, OKX Ventures, Big Brain Holdings, Hashkey, Black Dragon, and many more.
Aark is a 1000x perps dex that leverages LST/LRT assets in order to provide maximum liquidity for its users and a gasless trading experience.
The goal is to be the premier LRTFi DEX, and they are already making waves on the Arbitrum network with over 20,000 users and just north of $30 billion in cumulative derivatives volume.
Swell
With EigenLayer being a hot topic of late, the liquid staking/liquid restaking narrative has been one to keep a close eye on. Swell is all about exactly that.
After the success of the Voyage campaigns, Swell’s staked ETH numbers have continued to be nothing but impressive, with over $1 billion in swETH and rswETH TVL combined.
With the $SWELL TGE happening this month, the team has increased the airdrop allocation from 7% to 8% and added a loyalty bonus feature, meaning more tokens for long-term participants.
Swell looks to gain an edge in a sector full of big players and has formed some serious partnerships to do just that. These partnerships will definitely supercharge the usage of swETH, making Swell a space to be watched.
Nostra Finance
Nostra Finance is a crypto super app powered by Starknet, and the $NSTR token is another June launch to be aware of.
Along with the $UNO stablecoin, the first native Starknet USD stablecoin, Nostra Finance allows users to stake, swap, bridge, and provide liquidity. Hence, the claimed super-app status.
With support from big names like Wintermute, Jump, and Launchub Ventures, the $NSTR token went live for trading on June 17th.
The first airdrop contained 11% of the 100,000,000 total $NSTR tokens, with an extra 1% being allocated to loyal Discord members.
NFTfi Foundation
NFTfi is all in the name of an NFT marketplace that allows users to borrow and lend against their NFTs. With $550 million in total loan volume, NFTfi has established itself as a top player in the sector.
The $NFTFI token airdrop claim portal went live on April 30th, and the claim period is ongoing. On June 10th, $NFTFI was officially listed on Uniswap and gate.io.
There will be a total of 2 billion $NFTFI tokens that will be released over a 4-year schedule ending April 2028.
Tabi
Tabi is a modular Cosmos gaming chain with total VM compatibility, a first of its kind.
The $TABI token Dutch auction public sale ended on June 14th and took place on the Beanco Launchpad. It seemed a solid success, with just over $16 million raised, $5 million of which in the very first hour.
Backed by Binance Labs and Animoca Brands, Tabi has the potential to make some real ripples in the world of crypto gaming.
AO
AO is a hyperparallel computer protocol that utilizes Arweaves data storage capabilities and is inspired by the actor-oriented paradigm.
Basically, this means a system capable of supporting computational operations without protocol-enforced limitations on size and form while keeping all the good stuff that goes along with decentralized systems.
Arweave co-founder Sam Williams has described it as “Bitcoin, but a supercomputer on Arweave.”
The $AO token was fair launched on June 14th. It will have the same 21 million total supply and a 4-year halving cycle as the orange coin itself.
Mystiko Network
Mystiko Network is a Zero-Knowledge layer compatible with Ethereum, Base, Polygon, BSC, Linea, and Avalanche.
Its $XZK token snapshot occurred on June 14th, and the estimated airdrop date for eligible participants should be around the 18th.
To be an eligible candidate, you must have been an active user on the V1 Mystiko mainnet, part of the Galxe loyalty program, hold a Discord airdrop role, or be a major community contributor and OG NFT holder.
If that's you and you want more info on where to claim your $XZK tokens when the time comes, then check out the latest Medium article here.
Lista DAO
Lista DAO is a BNB chain native, open-source liquidity protocol for earning yields on collateralized crypto assets like BNB, ETH, stablecoins etc. These guys also have a decentralized stablecoin called $lisUSD.
The $LISTA token generation and airdrop will commence on June 20th and give users a 30-day window to claim the goods.
For all the info on allocations, eligibility, and the rest, you will need to have a read of the latest Medium article from Lista DAO, which can be found right here.
Natix Network
Natix Network is a decentralized global mapping network that drivers can contribute to directly from their mobile phones. With mapping data collected from 171 countries, 45 million kms mapped, and around 120,000 registered drivers, one could say it has seen decent adoption.
Natix recently raised $4.6 million in a strategic funding round ahead of their token launch and airdrop on Solana.
Investors like Borderless Capital, Tioga Capital, Big Brain Holdings, Moonrock Capital, and WAGMI Ventures all jumped in, bringing the total funding for the project to $9.6 million so far.
With the $NATIX TGE coming sometime in June, you could still earn a share of the action. All the details can be found here.
Bondex
Bondex is all about crypto jobs and has already amassed a network of around 4 million users. Think of it as a kind of crypto LinkedIn, where users create a profile and get matched to suitable jobs.
The Bondex community sale in May raised $6.5 million and attracted over 20,000 participants, setting a two-year Coinlist record for participation numbers.
The $BDXN token will soon launch on exchanges with the team putting out a statement of launch within 70 days as of the beginning of April.
25% of the $BDXN tokens will go live upon this exchange listing, with the remaining 75% vesting over the next 12 months.
zkLink
zkLink is a multichain protocol secured by zk-SNARK technology and can be thought of as a kind of multi-purpose ZK middleware that offers a seamless multichain trading experience for builders and users.
These guys are backed by some big names with fingers in many of the previous pies, such as Coinbase Ventures, Big Brain Holdings, Ascensive Assets, and SIG DTI.
The $ZKL token will see round 1 of the NovaDrop airdrop this month, which will give users four months to claim their $ZKL tokens.
For more information, check out this Medium article.
Avail
Avail is a crypto unification layer that allows modular execution layers to scale and interoperate trustlessly. This unification layer consists of three main parts: Avail DA, Avail Nexus, and Avail Fusion. It allows rapid deployment of roll-ups.
Having recently secured $75 million in funding from Founders Fund, Dragonfly, and Cyberfund, they look set for serious growth.
Word on the street is that 600 million of Avail's native $AVAIL token will be airdropped sometime this month. In true unification fashion, the drop will cover multiple chains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cosmos, Avalanche, Solana, and Near, to name a few.
With such a decent-sized raise and a strong narrative behind it, this one will be worth keeping an eye on.
Zeta Markets
Zeta is a leading derivatives DEX on Solana that has been pumping out some solid numbers over the past few months.
Giving users the ability to trade with up to 20x leverage, near zero gas fees, and less than 1-second trade settlement have all been serious selling features for the platform. Rumors of a mobile app coming soon could also pique even more interest.
These guys are backed by big players like Solana Ventures, Jump, Wintermute, and Electric Capital.
The original $Z token that was picked to be launched sometime in June has now been changed to $ZEX to better represent their protocol and provide some extra meme-ability. June is still the supposed launch month, so be ready any day now.
Closing thoughts
Holy shit. What a launch list for a crazy month of June.
With so many new projects dropping tokens, we can only hope that the market will regain some life after months of painful crab action and down-only alt charts. It certainly hasn’t been easy.
One thing is for sure: the sheer number of new launches this month is putting all the cycle top theories to the test, and I, for one, am excited to see the results.
Surely, those busy building solid projects have a better intuition for where we are in the cycle than the bearish doomers lurking in the shadows of mum and dad's basement.
I can feel the soft rays of the crypto summer sun already.
