Market at the Start: BTC Correction, Bullish Forecast for UNI, and the Decentralized AI Boom — Digest for June 16
The morning of June 16 sees the market in a slight correction, but powerful drivers are already emerging on the horizon. Standard Chartered has released its first analytical report on Uniswap, forecasting a 40x growth for UNI, restrictions on access to Anthropic's models have boosted demand for decentralized AI, and the NFT project Pudgy Penguins is shutting down its mobile game to focus on a browser-based product. Let's break down the key events.
Market Dynamics: Bitcoin and Altcoins Under Pressure
As of 07:38 Moscow time, Bitcoin (BTC) is trading around $65,828, having updated its daily low at $65,468 and high at $67,248. The correction has also affected Ethereum: the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap has dropped to $1,763. Against the backdrop of the overall decline, Hyperliquid stands out, showing a gain of 6.20% over 24 hours and 13.59% over the week. Among the laggards are Dogecoin (-1.96% daily) and Tron (-2.35% over seven days).
In the top 100 coins, the best daily performer is Jito (+27.32%), and the best weekly performer is SKYAI (+62.53%). The largest losses were recorded by Audiera (-27.88%) and DeXe (-12.40% over the week).
Standard Chartered: Uniswap Could Grow 40x by 2030
Bank Standard Chartered has published its first analytical report on the Uniswap protocol, forecasting the UNI token to rise from the current $2.70 to $100 by the end of 2030. The key driver will be the influx of tokenized assets into DeFi: their volume, according to the bank's estimates, will grow 37 times, providing Uniswap with a significant inflow of liquidity.
Head of Research Jeffrey Kendrick compared Uniswap to YouTube and Coinbase to Netflix, emphasizing that the protocol's open infrastructure lowers the barrier to entry for creating liquidity pools. The effect of the UNIfication upgrade is already visible: the UNI supply has decreased from 1 billion to 895 million tokens. The main risks are competition from niche exchanges and the need for closer integration with traditional finance.
My comment: Standard Chartered's forecast is one of the boldest on the market, but it is based on real tokenization trends. If the growth rate of RWA continues, Uniswap could indeed become a key beneficiary. However, 40x growth by 2030 requires not only market expansion but also successful scaling of the protocol itself.
Anthropic Restrictions Spark Interest in Decentralized AI
Grayscale analysts noted that the US government's decision to require Anthropic to restrict access to the Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models for foreigners has become a powerful argument in favor of decentralized AI. Following the news, the TAO token of the Bittensor project surged 30% in 12 hours, reaching a three-week high of $283. Grayscale's Head of Research Zach Pandl called Bittensor "Bitcoin for AI," emphasizing that centralized control over advanced technologies poses systemic risks.
Pudgy Penguins Shuts Down Mobile Game
The NFT project Pudgy Penguins has announced the closure of its mobile game Pudgy Party, launched in August 2025 and amassing over 1 million downloads. The team is reallocating resources to the browser-based project Pudgy World, which they call the flagship gaming product of the ecosystem. The decision reflects the general challenges of Web3 games: the Fishing Frenzy project also announced its shutdown, having failed to find a sustainable crypto-gaming model.
The NFT market, although it has recovered to $1.5 billion, is still far from its 2022 peak of $17 billion. Consolidating efforts around a single product is a reasonable step in an environment of high competition and uncertainty.