Uniswap, Starknet, BNB Lead Altcoin Gains as Bitcoin Hits $71K

Several altcoins led the price action Tuesday as the broader crypto market climbed higher with bitcoin (BTC) hitting a two-week high.

Decentralized exchange Uniswap’s governance token (UNI) surged over 20% during the day following a cryptic social media post by protocol development organization Uniswaps Labs teasing an announcement.

Ethereum layer-2 network Starknet’s token (STRK) also rallied over 10% after StarkWare, the development firm behind the chain, laid out its vision to use Starknet to scale the Bitcoin network. The token price could come under pressure as some $85 million worth of STRK will be released from vesting next week, increasing its supply.

The native token of the BNB Smart Chain (BNB), originally started by crypto exchange Binance, advanced 7% approaching its all-time record price and surpassing $100 billion in market capitalization. The token is benefiting from increased Binance launchpool and launchpad activities, where users can lock up BNB to participate in airdrops and new token launches.

These tokens outperformed the broad-market crypto benchmark CoinDesk 20 Index, which was up 1.8% over the past 24 hours. Seventeen of the twenty constituents were in the green during this period, highlighting the positive trend in crypto prices.

Looking at the largest digital asset, bitcoin topped $71,000 for the first time since May 20 before paring gains and reversing to the low $70,000s. A fresh set of U.S. manufacturing data Monday hinted at a cooling economy, potentially putting interest rate cuts back on the Federal Reserve’s view later this year to loosen financial conditions.

“We expect a further boost to this bullish momentum with NFP [non-farm payroll] this Friday,” crypto hedge fund QCP said in a Tuesday update. “The markets are pricing in 0% chance for a rate cut in June and July. A weaker NFP number might change that.”

The second-largest crypto asset, ether (ETH) changed hands at around $3,800, up 0.3% and underperforming BTC’s 1.5% advance. Crypto analytics firm K33 Research forecasted that upcoming U.S. spot ETH ETFs could see $4 billion inflows in five months, leading to price appreciation and ETH gaining relative to BTC.

Several U.S.-listed bitcoin miners booked substantial gains, led by Core Scientific (CORZ) 40% surge following a deal with cloud computing firm CoreWeave to host artificial intelligence (AI) services. CoreWeave also reportedly offered to buy the company in an all-cash offer for $5.75 price per share.

Bitcoin miner stocks have been battered down after the quadrennial bitcoin halving in April cut mining rewards by half reducing the main revenue source for miners. The deal is an indication that smaller mining companies could be targets for acquisitions as mergers heat up in the sector or diversify to ride the red-hot AI trend.

Large-cap Marathon Digital (MARA) advanced 5%, while smaller-cap TeraWulf (WULF), Bitdeer (BTDR) and Hive Digital Technologies (HIVE) gained 22%, 12% and 8%, respectively.