As July nears, the crypto market anticipates a significant wave of token unlocks, with projects set to release around $3 billion worth of assets.

Token unlocks involve gradually releasing coins to prevent early investors or team members from selling large amounts quickly. Market experts noted that this process can increase selling pressure on digital assets, which can affect the broader market.

Top Unlocks for July

CryptoRank, a prominent crypto research and analytics platform, has highlighted July’s top 10 token unlock events. These events will unlock over $3 billion in digital assets, including over $100 million in the first week of the month.

AltLayer, an Ethereum roll-up project deployer, will release around 684 million tokens worth $119 million on July 25. Token Unlocks data shows that these tokens represent 22% of the market cap. The assets would be distributed to its team, investors, advisers, protocol development, treasury ecosystem, and community.

Meanwhile, Layer-1 blockchain platform Aptos and Ethereum Layer-2 network Arbitrum will continue their monthly token releases. The two projects will cumulatively release $150 million worth of tokens for their team, advisors, and investors.

Read more: 11 Cryptos to Add to Your Portfolio Before Altcoin Season

Worldcoin, the proof-of-personhood project, will start a major token unlock on July 24. This event will release 6.62 million WLD tokens, valued at approximately $18 million, daily over 730 days. The tokens are allocated to the community, the initial development team, and investors.

Read more: 7 Must-Have Cryptocurrencies for Your Portfolio Before the Next Bull Run

Other notable July unlocks include Uniswap (UNI), Ronin (RON), SUI, ImmutableX (IMX), SEI, Starknet (STRK), and Ethereum Name Service (ENS). Uniswap plans to release 8.33 million UNI tokens worth $77.88 million on July 16. Ronin will release 35.71 million RON tokens valued at $76.32 million starting July 27.

Bitget Research’s recent report highlighted a dramatic rise in scams featuring deepfake technology. According to their data, malicious technology use jumped 245% in 2024 alone.

These scams, usually leveraging fake celebrity endorsements, have become increasingly sophisticated, targeting unsuspecting investors and causing significant financial damage.

Deepfake Scams Caused $79.1 Billion Loss

Deepfake technology, which manipulates photos and videos to create hyper-realistic fake content, has been weaponized to promote fraudulent schemes. According to the report, users have lost $79.1 billion to cyberattacks involving deepfakes since the beginning of 2022.

The losses are increasing each year, with a significant surge in 2024, where the amount more than doubled, rising by 245%. Bitget estimates that potential damage from deepfake scams could reach $10 billion per quarter by 2025. 

“Deepfakes are moving into the crypto sector in force and there is little we can do to stop them without proper education and awareness. The vigilance of the users and their ability to discern scams and fraud from real offerings is still the most effective line of defence against such crimes, until a comprehensive legal and cybersecurity framework is in place on a global scale,” said Gracy Chen, the CEO at Bitget, commenting on the figures outlined in the report.

Read more: Crypto Social Media Scams: How to Stay Safe

Experts have identified several key methods of using deepfakes in the crypto industry. These include:

• Social Engineering. Fraudsters impersonate famous people or employees of large companies to trick users into transferring cryptocurrency to them.
• Bots. Deepfakes create fake accounts on social media and other platforms, which then spread misinformation and advertise fraudulent crypto projects.
• Market Manipulation. Scammers use deepfakes to spread false news and rumors that can influence market prices.
• Investment Fraud. Attackers create videos and presentations with deepfakes to attract funds to fraudulent projects.

Among these methods, social engineering and bot fraud accounted for 14.21% of all deepfake crimes in the first quarter of 2024. Analysts estimate the losses from these methods at $2.03 billion. If authorities do not take effective measures, the number of incidents involving malicious technology in the crypto industry could increase by 70% by early 2026.

An Ongoing Trend

The rise in deepfake technology has coincided with the growing popularity of celebrity tokens. Over the past couple of months, dozens of new meme coins have been launched, featuring both real celebrities and impersonators behind them.

Tokens such as JENNER, ZUMI, RICH, DOLL, and others have sparked intense debate within the crypto community, raising concerns about market manipulation, fraud, and the ethical implications of leveraging celebrity influence in cryptocurrency promotions.

Well-known entrepreneurs are frequent targets of scammers. On June 23, a five-hour YouTube Live broadcast featuring a deepfake of Elon Musk promoted a cryptocurrency scam, continuing the trend of similar fraudulent streams.

The now-removed video claimed to show a live Tesla event, using an AI-generated version of Musk’s voice to lure viewers to a website. The fake Musk urged viewers to deposit Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), or Dogecoin (DOGE) for a supposed giveaway, promising to “automatically send back double the amount.”

The stream attracted over 30,000 viewers at its peak, though bot inflation cannot be ruled out. It topped YouTube’s Live Now recommendations. The channel, @elon.teslastream, had the Official Artist Channel verification badge, suggesting a possible account compromise.

Read more:  Crypto Scam Projects: How To Spot Fake Tokens

Cryptocurrency users should be extremely vigilant and not trust everything they see online, especially on social media platforms like X, Instagram, and others, which are the primary channels for spreading deepfakes. Experts urge everyone to verify information and use only reliable sources carefully. Additionally, using two-factor authentication (2FA) is crucial, especially for accounts related to crypto.

Meme coins have done well in the past few months, with most of them outperforming the likes of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana. Tokens like Floki Inu, Dogwifhat, and Pepe have all jumped by more than 300% this year while most big coins have jumped by less than 100%. 

Dogecoin and Shiba Inu lose momentum

There are signs that most traders are focusing on newer meme coins as the biggest ones lose momentum. 

A good example is looking at the performance of pioneer tokens like Dogecoin and Shiba Inu. The two tokens have jumped by over 20% and 30%, respectively while most newer tokens like Dogwifhat and Pepe have more than doubled.

The other way to look at this is their daily trading volume. Data by CoinMarketCap shows that the volume of Dogecoin in the past 24 hours stood at over $288 million while Shiba Inu stood at more than $115 million. These are small numbers considering that these tokens have a market cap of over $17 billion and $9.9 billion.

In contrast, Pepe’s volume in the past 24 hours stood at over $356 million while Dogwifhat had $326 million. The two’s market cap stands at over $4.5 billion and $1.9 billion, respectively. 

Other smaller tokens like Floki, Bonk, and Mog Coin are also seeing higher volume than Dogecoin and Shiba Inu. 

Solciety is doing well

This performance is happening at a time when Solciety’s token sale is doing well. Recent data shows that the Solciety network has raised over $556k in less than a month, meaning that investors are bullish about the network.

Solciety is an upcoming token that hopes to become a leading player in the meme coin industry. Specifically, the developers hope that it will become the leading political meme coin because of its neutrality. 

That is unlike other politically biased tokens like TRUMP and JEO Boden that are biased. Instead, its standout feature, the meme coin generator allows users to create their own memes, share them on social, and then be rewarded. 

The developers are hoping that funds raised in the presale will help them build the biggest meme coin platform in the industry. As part of its tokenomics, Solciety will have 10 billion tokens, 30% of which will be through its token sale and 20% will be used in marketing. The rest of the funds will go to Treasury, Liquidity, and Development.

Solciety joins other networks that have raised millions of dollars in token sales this year. Bitcoin Dogs raised over $13 million in a token sale while BitBot raised over $6 million. You can buy the Solciety token here.