The closure of this loophole underscores the intensifying US-China tech rivalry, potentially accelerating China's push for self-reliance in chip technology.

The post US Commerce Department closes loophole on Nvidia chip exports to China appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The deepened conflict may hinder peace efforts and withdrawal plans, while international condemnation could shape future diplomatic dynamics.

The post Israel deepens Lebanon incursion, captures Beaufort Castle appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The Fed's stress test overhaul aims to enhance transparency and resilience, potentially stabilizing investor confidence amid legal scrutiny.

The post Jay Powell warns the Federal Reserve is undergoing a stress test appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Macron's call for Middle East support in US-Iran peace efforts could influence regional stability and global energy markets significantly.

The post Macron urges Middle East leaders to back US-Iran peace efforts appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Vast's rapid rise highlights China's competitive AI landscape, emphasizing the growing importance of AI innovation in global tech markets.

The post Vast raises nearly $200M to become China’s latest AI unicorn appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

Coinkite Launches Coldcard MK5: Major UX Upgrades to Flagship Bitcoin Hardware Wallet

Coinkite the Bitcoin-only hardware wallet manufacturer, recently released the MK5, a significant quality of life and user experience upgrade to the MK4 Coldcard, building on the strong security foundations set by its predecessor. The MK5 comes in many colors and styles. Today, I will review the Orange and Glow in the dark versions, as well as their form factor and user experience upgrades, to answer the question: are the upgrades to the device worth the money? 

Building on the well-known and trend-setting MK4 security platform, which brought two secure element chips from different manufacturers and an MCU to the same device. The MK5 focuses instead on quality of life, improving the NFC connectivity, reworking the buttons and plastic chassis of the hardware wallet, as well as adding a much larger screen, among other new features. This is the first hardware upgrade to the Coinkite MK line since the launch of the MK4 in 2022, integrating into it some of the technologies debuted by the Coldcard Q in 2023.

What is new with the MK5 Coldcard?

The big upgrades to the UX are immediately visible; the screen, for one, is much larger, perhaps 30% bigger. Their announcement blog describes it as a “1.54-inch display protected by Gorilla Glass,” which does look and feel much sturdier than older models.

The next obvious upgrade is the buttons. Unlike the MK4 buttons, which are indented, requiring your fingers to go into the socket to get a click, the MK5 buttons are almost at par with the chassis of the device, making them much easier to press. The press feels good, it clicks, giving the user a solid tactile feedback. Much more comfortable than the warm, slightly uncomfortable, unresponsive feel of a touch screen, as seen in other hardware wallets. 

You also quickly notice the chassis has been redesigned. The screen section no longer pops out above the keyboard; instead, it’s all one rectangle with comfortable curved edges. It looks more modern, more elegant, while keeping that cypherpunk transparency that shows off the underlying hardware, a signature design principle of Coinkite products. 

The MK5 also comes with a button and screen protector half case that slides and clicks in and out. It can be entirely removed and fits perfectly from the back of the device, exposing the USB power input at the bottom of the device without issue. 

NFC Push Transactions

Last but not least, Coinkite doubles down on NFC support with the MK5. An acronym for near field communication, the NFC antenna is an increasingly popular tech stack in the Bitcoin industry. From NFC tap to pay lightning Bolt cards with cool designs and laser eyes, or Coinkite’s own Tapsigners, to Cashu’s tap to send features developed by Calle. 

NFC is a powerful alternative to other wireless connection technologies like Bluetooth or Wifi, which some hardware wallet providers have adopted, but come with some arguable downsides, mainly their range. Unlike the alternatives, NFC is short-range by design; we are talking centimeters in range, whereas Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are talked about in tens of meters. So the paranoid level threat that someone with a long-range antenna pointed at your house might catch a transaction in transit or be able to connect to your device remotely, vanishes. 

There’s also no multi-step device connection protocol with NFC; phones either have the feature on and off, the app starts scanning, and transmission can occur. No pin codes, no sifting through lists of Bluetooth-powered devices. Much simpler UX in theory. It is also far superior in terms of user experience to the SD card transmission of pre-signed transactions back and forth from laptops or phones. While NFC may technically cross the ‘airgapped’ line in the MK4 and MK5, NFC still has the best qualities of all wireless connectivity options, and is set to off in the default settings. Similar to the option to connect the MK5 to a computer via USB for data transmission, the NFC antenna can also be severed at a hardware level by scratching off a specific wire within the hardware. 

Coinkite’s NFC push Tx software is open source and much smaller in terms of lines of code than Bluetooth or Wifi. The full NFC push Tx code is open source. The client web app side of the protocol has no license defined and is presumably meant to be integrated by any web application. While the hardware side of the code is public, but is limited by the non-commercial use license.

The Colors of the MK5

Playing into the Bitcoiner’s hunger for collectibles, the MK5 comes in a wide range of cases, such as gold flaked transparent gray, gorgeous orange and even glow in the dark! I got to play with the Orange and blue glow-in-the-dark version, though I kind of wish I’d gotten my hands on the gold flaked one.

Nevertheless, the designs are beautiful, transparent enough to see the hardware, but colorful enough to be stylish. Here’s what they look like in practice. 

Supply Chain Security

The packaging was also very interesting; the box containing the hardware came with a purchase order of the items, which were inside tamper-proof security bags. These bags had pretty strong plastic, not something you can easily rip, requiring a knife to slice through them. The bags were also marked with a unique number, seen in the pictures below. Inside the bag, another plastic strip contained the same number. And when the devices were first powered on, they displayed the same number on the screen. This is a flash memory code that gets set up per device at the factory. Making interception and manipulation of the firmware of hardware that much more difficult. The next level would be to notify the user of the bag number via email or behind a login on the site, so they can have a side channel to verify the number as well.

If you see anything off with the packaging, you are encouraged to take pictures and reach out to Coinkite support. 

The battery and exposed hardware device in the picture below is the COLDPOWER Adapter by Coinkite, which I happened to have laying around and figured I’d test out as well. It is meant to give the device power entirely airgapped, no cables connected to any computer whatsoever, as even a malicious Wifi repeated plugged into a power outlet could transmit signals across the power wires (lol). 

Things to improve?

Integration of NFC Push Tx with mobile wallets was a bit inconsistent. I tried Cove, Bull Bitcoin and Nunchuck. Of the three, Nunchuck had the best integration, with Cove not far behind. Bull Bitcoin seems to have disabled the feature or hidden it quite well. Cove is a young project likely to improve leaps and bounds in the coming months, while Nunchuck a very advanced and powerful wallet, took me a few minutes to figure out but ultiumetly turned out to be the best interface of the three.

Even with a stronger NFC antenna, I had to remove my phone’s ridiculously thick case in order to get a reliable data transmission, but that’s not the end of the world. 

Conclusion: Is the MK5 worth the money to upgrade? 

As a proud owner of what I now realize is an ancient MK3, the move to an MK5 is a significant upgrade, and the low cost of $167 plus shipping, I’d say it is a no-brainer. That’s a whole generation of security and UX upgrades that I did not realize I needed.

For active users of the MK4, the bigger screen and better buttons are definitely an improvement in quality of life, and the better NFC antenna will likely yield dividends as well by making transaction flows smoother. Again, compared to other hardware wallets in the market, the price is very reasonable.

For passive MK4 owners who make a couple of transactions a year, however, the juice might not be worth the squeeze. They are still getting firmware updates and get all the security benefits, and likely won’t miss the improved UX that much. 

Disclaimer: Coinkite provided Bitcoin Magazine with a couple of free MK5 Coldcards to use for the purpose of testing their product for review.

This post Coinkite Launches Coldcard MK5: Major UX Upgrades to Flagship Bitcoin Hardware Wallet first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.

Bitcoin Magazine

U.S. Treasury: The United States Has Seized Nearly $1 Billion of Iran’s Crypto

Speaking at the Reagan National Economic Forum, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent revealed that the U.S. has seized roughly $1 billion in Iran-linked cryptocurrency as part of a broader campaign to choke off Tehran’s financial networks.

The disclosures come amid one of the most intense military confrontations the Middle East has seen in decades.

On February 27, 2026, the U.S. and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury — a coordinated airstrike campaign targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities, military infrastructure, and Revolutionary Guard command centers. 

Iran retaliated with ballistic missile strikes across the region, hitting Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, and Iraq. A fragile ceasefire was brokered in early April and is still in the works, but the economic war never stopped.

Enter Operation Economic Fury. Ordered by President Trump and executed by the Treasury Department, the campaign is designed to systematically dismantle every financial lifeline Tehran has left. 

Since its launch, OFAC has sanctioned over 1,000 Iran-linked entities, frozen bank accounts held by Revolutionary Guard-affiliated businesses, and — according to Bessent — reached directly into crypto wallets. 

The largest single action came in late April, when Tether confirmed it froze $344 million in USDT across two Tron blockchain addresses linked to the IRGC, after blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis identified on-chain patterns consistent with known Iranian military wallets. One wallet held roughly $213 million; the other, $131 million.

The total seizure figure has since climbed past $500 million — and Bessent’s most recent comments suggest the running total is approaching $1 billion.

“We will track the funds that Tehran is urgently attempting to transfer abroad and target all financial avenues linked to the regime,” Bessent said.

Bitcoin as a means of payment in Iran

Back in April, Iran reportedly planned to require ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz to pay transit tolls in Bitcoin during a temporary ceasefire with the U.S.

The policy aimed to bypass sanctions and traditional banking rails, giving Iran a way to collect revenue while maintaining control over a critical global oil chokepoint.

The move pushed bitcoin into a geopolitical spotlight, raising operational and legal risks for shipping firms while highlighting how digital assets could be used in sovereign-controlled trade routes.

This post U.S. Treasury: The United States Has Seized Nearly $1 Billion of Iran’s Crypto first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon Declares War on Clarity Act, Calls Coinbase’s Armstrong ‘Full of Sh*t’

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has drawn a battle line in Washington: the Clarity Act, as written, is dead on arrival — and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is the enemy driving it.

In a Fox Business interview on Friday, Dimon unloaded on the pending crypto market structure legislation, calling it a threat to the financial system and a gift to an industry that wants the privileges of banking without the responsibilities.

“It allows cryptocurrency firms to effectively pay interest on deposits — stablecoins or something like that — without the protection that they should have,” Dimon said. “It has almost no legal protections.”

His core argument: if a crypto platform walks like a bank and talks like a bank, it needs to be regulated like one. That means Anti-Money Laundering compliance, Bank Secrecy Act obligations, FDIC insurance, capital requirements, liquidity rules, and the full weight of financial oversight that traditional banks carry. The Clarity Act, in his view, lets crypto firms skip all of it.

The fight over stablecoin rewards sits at the center of the dispute. Banks say allowing crypto exchanges to pay customers for holding stablecoins would accelerate deposit flight from traditional institutions — a ticking clock on the business model that has defined American banking for a century. 

Crypto advocates counter that such incentives are a natural evolution of payments infrastructure. The bill’s markup is approaching, and neither side is backing down.

Dimon also flagged the AML problem with cross-border stablecoin payments.

“The first one may be legitimate,” he said, “the second one may be a sex trafficker.” Once money lands in a digital wallet overseas, it can move to a third wallet, a fourth — with no visibility and no accountability. That, he said, is the unresolved risk hiding beneath the optimism around stablecoin utility.

Dimon: Coinbase CEO Armstrong is full of sh*t

But Dimon reserved his sharpest words for Armstrong. The Coinbase CEO, he claimed, is spending hundreds of millions of dollars in Washington to push the legislation through. “No one is going to bow down to this guy,” Dimon said, calling Armstrong “full of sh*t.” 

It was not the first time — Dimon made similar remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year.

JPMorgan is not alone. The American Bankers Association, community banks, and credit unions are aligned in opposition to the bill’s current form.

Dimon made clear this is a fight — not a negotiation. “We’ll fight it,” he said. “If we lose, we lose. But it will be fought.”

This post JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon Declares War on Clarity Act, Calls Coinbase’s Armstrong ‘Full of Sh*t’ first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Retired Couple Loses $76,000 Life Savings to Bitcoin ATM Scam, Sues Bitcoin Depot in Federal Court

A class action filed in Idaho accuses the now-bankrupt crypto ATM operator of profiting from fraud while leaving vulnerable consumers unprotected.

A retired Idaho couple has filed a federal class action lawsuit against Bitcoin Depot Inc., alleging the company’s ATM network served as a pipeline for scammers who drained their entire retirement savings — $76,000 — over five consecutive days in August 2025.

Karen and Robert Lacey, named plaintiffs in Lacey et al. v. Bitcoin Depot Inc., et al. (Case No. 1:26-cv-00288-DKG), say fraudsters posing as Norton customer service representatives and FBI agents convinced them their accounts were tied to child pornography and illegal gambling investigations. 

The scammers directed the couple to deposit cash at Bitcoin Depot ATMs between August 9 and August 13, 2025. To reinforce the deception, the fraudsters caused wireless networks labeled “FBI” to appear on the Laceys’ phones — signals that remained visible for months after the deposits.

The 43-page complaint, filed May 11, 2026, in U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho, charges that Bitcoin Depot processed each transaction “without meaningful intervention” despite what it calls clear warning signs: first-time users making large cash deposits while on phone calls with unknown parties. 

The lawsuit further alleges the company charges fees of up to 50% per transaction and relies on on-screen warning stickers — a safeguard the plaintiffs call “demonstrably ineffective”.

After Karen and Robert’s son filed a federal crime complaint, Bitcoin Depot issued two $1,000 refund checks — an amount the lawsuit states did not cover even the fees the company collected. Karen Lacey, who was retired when the fraud occurred, has since returned to the workforce, now working rotating hospital shifts.

The complaint cites Bitcoin Depot’s own SEC filings, which state its services “may be exploited to facilitate illegal activity such as fraud” and that its risk management “may not be sufficient”. 

Federal Trade Commission data show Bitcoin ATM fraud losses increased nearly tenfold between 2020 and 2023, with a median victim loss of $10,000. By 2025, the FBI reported Americans lost $333 million to Bitcoin ATM fraud — more than 10,000 victims in a single year.

Bitcoin Depot filing for bankruptcy 

The lawsuit arrives as Bitcoin Depot’s corporate position collapses. The company filed for voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy on May 18, 2026, and shut down its entire network of more than 9,000 ATMs across North America. The company had earlier disclosed a $3.6 million Bitcoin theft from its own wallets in March 2026 and reported a 49.2% revenue decline in Q1 2026.

Plaintiffs seek a jury trial, injunctive relief, compensatory and punitive damages, restitution of fees paid, and attorney’s fees. 

This post Retired Couple Loses $76,000 Life Savings to Bitcoin ATM Scam, Sues Bitcoin Depot in Federal Court first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

CFTC Cracks Open U.S. Market for Bitcoin and Crypto Perpetual Futures

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has cleared the way for American traders to access one of crypto’s most important derivatives markets, approving the first true bitcoin perpetual futures contract on a U.S. exchange and issuing parallel relief that lets Coinbase route U.S. clients into global perp and options liquidity.

On Friday, the agency approved KalshiEX, LLC’s BTCPERP contract, a perpetual futures product that references the spot price of bitcoin and trades on Kalshi’s CFTC‑regulated designated contract market. 

At the same time, staff granted no‑action relief to Coinbase Financial Markets, allowing it to offer digital commodity derivatives — including access to offshore venues — to U.S. customers through a CFTC‑registered futures commission merchant structure.

Perpetual futures, or “perps,” are a type of futures contract with no expiration date that lets traders bet on the price movement of assets without owning them directly. 

They have become the dominant product in crypto derivatives trading, with most activity historically concentrated on offshore platforms.

CFTC Chair Michael Selig framed the move as a watershed moment for U.S. market structure.

“This morning, the CFTC took historic action to permit the listing of a true bitcoin perpetual contract by a CFTC‑registered exchange, charting a path for one of the most liquid segments of the crypto asset markets to exist within the US regulatory framework,” Selig said in a post on X.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong quickly seized on the news, highlighting just how much market access the agency has effectively unblocked. “Big day for our US‑based traders, and for Coinbase,” he wrote on X, noting that U.S. users had previously been shut out of “~80% of global crypto markets (perpetual futures and options). But not anymore!” 

Through Coinbase Financial Markets, institutional clients will be able to access global perps and options — including Deribit, which boasts tens of billions of dollars in bitcoin options open interest — via a single U.S.‑regulated FCM.

CFTC 24/7 Advisory

Friday’s announcements did not come in isolation. Alongside the product actions, the CFTC’s Division of Clearing and Risk, Division of Market Oversight and Market Participants Division issued a staff advisory on 24/7 trading, clearing and settlement of derivatives. 

The advisory is not a formal rulemaking, but it offers a window into how the agency is thinking about round‑the‑clock markets increasingly enabled by blockchain and decentralized infrastructure.

Commission staff said they have observed growing interest in effectively 24/7 trading, driven in part by digital asset markets. 

“Therefore, Commission staff believes that an advisory, outlining the potential risks associated with 24/7 trading, clearing, and settlement, and the ways in which these risks are addressed by current Commission regulations, may help promote continued market robustness, along with responsible innovation and fair competition among market participants,” the staff wrote.

In practice, the combination of the Kalshi approval, the Coinbase no‑action position and the 24/7 advisory amounts to a blueprint for how U.S.‑regulated entities can plug into, and help domesticate, the global perpetuals market. 

Kalshi can list a fully regulated bitcoin perp on its own exchange, while Coinbase, through its FCM, can connect U.S. clients to deep offshore liquidity pools without forcing them into bespoke offshore corporate structures.

Under Chair Selig and President Donald Trump, the CFTC has steadily pivoted from a posture of enforcement‑driven deterrence toward one of structured onshoring of key crypto market segments. 

Earlier this year, the CFTC and SEC jointly outlined a new taxonomy for crypto assets, and the SEC is preparing a broad tokenization rule set, while Paxos just secured approval to clear U.S. equities on blockchain rails.

This post CFTC Cracks Open U.S. Market for Bitcoin and Crypto Perpetual Futures first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Western governments spent three years building what they believed was an airtight financial blockade around Russia, severing its banks from SWIFT, freezing sovereign reserves, and barring major institutions from clearing dollar transactions.

And according to British authorities, Russia may have spent much of that same period engineering an alternative financial system designed to circumvent it entirely.

On May 26, the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office sanctioned 18 entities and individuals, including Huobi (HTX), a Justin Sun-advised exchange that processed $3.3 trillion in trading volume in 2025, and a Kyrgyzstan-linked stablecoin issuer, for allegedly helping Russia evade Western restrictions.

What distinguishes this package of sanctions from previous attempts is the legal instrument Britain reached for. For the first time, the UK applied Regulation 17A of its Russia sanctions regime to crypto exchanges.

It's a tool that was previously reserved only for sanctioned banks, requiring all financial firms in the UK to freeze funds and sever correspondent relationships with the designated entities. Extending that rule from banks to crypto exchanges shows that regulators now see parts of the crypto industry as infrastructure equivalent to formal financial institutions.

While it's safe to say that this doesn't fare well for the affected exchanges, it's a pretty significant change in how economic warfare is being waged in the UK.

The primary target of the new set of sanctions is the A7 network, a Kremlin-backed system the government says was built to bypass Western sanctions, finance military procurement, and process revenue from Russian oil exports.

A Kremlin-backed network, and the $90 billion it allegedly processed

A7 was founded in October 2024, and the UK has connected its ownership structure to the Russian government.

The majority stake belongs to Ilan Shor, an Israeli-Moldovan oligarch convicted in 2017 for his role in the theft of $1 billion from three Moldovan banks, who later received Russian citizenship.

The minority stake belongs to Promsvyazbank, a Russian state-owned bank sanctioned in 2022 for financing Russia's military-industrial complex.

The Kremlin's blessing was explicit: when A7 opened a physical branch in Vladivostok in September 2025, Vladimir Putin attended the virtual ribbon-cutting ceremony. A7 has also expanded into Lagos and Harare, opening offices in Nigeria and Zimbabwe as part of a push into jurisdictions less exposed to Western regulatory pressure.

While it's not the first or last state-owned or sponsored bank to be accused of evading sanctions, it's the scale of the operation that got the UK worried. The UK government says the A7 network claimed to have moved more than $90 billion in 2025 alone, a figure it describes as roughly equivalent to half of Russia's annual military spending.

Chainalysis came out with a similar figure for A7A5, the ruble-backed stablecoin that serves as A7's primary settlement rail: $93.3 billion in transactions processed in under a year, functioning as a dedicated payment system for sanctioned Russian businesses conducting cross-border trade.

The two figures refer to slightly different things (the network versus the token), but they're describing the same underlying infrastructure and show this is considerably larger than a peripheral evasion operation.

According to the UK government's official statement, the broader sanctions effort since 2022 has stripped more than $450 billion from Russia's economy, the equivalent of two years of war funding, even as Russia's Economy Ministry this month cut its 2026 growth forecast from 1.3% to just 0.4%.

TRM Labs traced $4.9 billion in direct transfers from HTX to UK-designated entities since 2021, including $1.95 billion to the already-sanctioned Garantex in 2022 and $838 million to A7 in 2025 alone. These figures sit alongside the UK's own assessment that one exchange in the network channeled at least $1.5 billion back toward the Kremlin.

HTX has since disputed the accusation, arguing in a public statement that it applies only to Huobi Global S.A. as a separate legal entity and that its exchange operations and user funds remain unaffected, adding that it would engage directly with UK authorities on the matter.

How stablecoins became Russia's preferred evasion rail

After it was faced with sanctions in 2022, Russian businesses turned heavily to Tether's USDT for international transactions, since the dollar-pegged stablecoin could move across borders quickly and without requiring correspondent banking relationships that Western sanctions had effectively closed off.

USDT offered Russian firms the stability of the dollar and the frictionless transferability of crypto, a combination that served them well until US authorities seized Garantex's USDT holdings in March 2025 and Tether froze wallets linked to the sanctioned exchange, exposing the fundamental liability of any token subject to centralized freeze controls.

A7A5 is essentially the answer to that vulnerability. Issued by a Kyrgyz entity called Old Vector LLC and backed by ruble deposits held at Promsvyazbank, it's designed to work like USDT while resisting the specific pressure point that disabled Garantex.

After Garantex was shut down, its customers' funds migrated to a successor exchange called Grinex, with A7A5 serving as the bridge that allowed them to move their balances without touching the global banking system.

The numbers running through it reflect a scale that the UK now sees as a systemic concern. According to Chainalysis's 2026 Crypto Crime Report, sanctions evasion via crypto surged 694% in 2025, with sanctioned entities receiving roughly $104 billion through digital asset channels.

Stablecoins drove most of that volume, accounting for 84% of all illicit crypto transaction value.

Russia has also been leveraging its subsidized energy sector to capture roughly 16% of global Bitcoin mining capacity, effectively producing new coins with no on-chain link to any sanctioned wallet or entity, which serves as a separate but complementary layer of financial insulation.

The EU recognized that in its twentieth Russia sanctions package in April 2026, targeting A7A5 and the service layer around it. The UK's action this week extends that coordinated response and brings banking-grade legal tools to bear on the exchanges facilitating those flows.

Whether that enforcement can keep pace with a financial system being actively engineered to anticipate and survive each new round of restrictions is the real question the $90 billion figure raises.

Western sanctions have certainly damaged Russia's economy, but they've also, somewhat paradoxically, accelerated the construction of the alternative infrastructure that'll outlast the war regardless of how it ends.

The post UK treats crypto network like a sanctioned bank after claims it processed $90B for Russia appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Less than four years after the collapse of FTX triggered calls for a sweeping crackdown, the crypto industry has emerged as one of the fastest-growing forces in American politics. It is spending millions across both parties, reshaping key elections, and transforming itself from a regulatory target into a powerful new political machine.

In 2022, Washington's dominant question about the crypto industry had little to do with the fine print of securities law. After FTX triggered a wave of congressional fury and handed Gary Gensler's SEC a permission slip to pursue enforcement actions at scale, lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle were openly debating whether the sector deserved regulated status at all.

Cautious congressional allies began distancing themselves, and the media cycle was doing the industry no favors. For a little while, it looked like the whole market was headed for supervised wind-down.

But by the end of the 2024 election cycle, Bitcoin's political environment had been almost entirely remade. Crypto companies collectively spent around $139 million shaping that year's elections through a network of super PACs, and they've since assembled a war chest exceeding $220 million for the 2026 midterms.

The sector's transformation from a regulatory punching bag to a lobbying operation capable of rivaling oil companies and banks in raw political spend shows what an industry does when it concludes (correctly) that its long-term survival depends on controlling the conditions under which it gets regulated.

How the crypto industry decided to fight back

Between FTX's collapse and the 2024 elections, the defining pressure on the industry came from the SEC's aggressive position on digital assets. The agency issued 46 crypto-related enforcement actions in 2023 alone, pursued landmark cases against Coinbase, Binance, and Ripple, and treated most digital assets as unregistered securities subject to the same oversight as stocks and bonds.

For companies like Coinbase, which found itself simultaneously suing the SEC and being sued in return, the agency's intent was clear: it planned to define the industry's regulatory future on its own terms, leaving little room for any input from the industry.

The more enforcement pressure accumulated, the more clearly the industry saw that regulatory outcomes are fundamentally political, and that winning them requires political tools.

Andreessen Horowitz's early decision to build an aggressive lobbying operation designed specifically to exclude crypto from SEC jurisdiction served as a template for how the industry could fight back at the structural level.

The realization spread through 2023: the companies that'd survive the next decade would be the ones that saw Washington as a competitive arena, and that winning there required the same disciplined capital deployment as winning in markets.

Fairshake, the super PAC backed by Coinbase, Andreessen Horowitz, Ripple, and a consortium of other crypto companies, came up with concrete solutions. Fairshake itself operated across party lines, while two affiliates (Defend American Jobs for Republicans, Protect Progress for Democrats) routed money to each party's candidates in parallel.

It was a strategic calculation built on the understanding that an industry capable of influencing either party's electoral outcomes would reach a far more durable position than one committed to a single political faction.

Results from 2024 showed that kind of approach was successful. Fairshake and its affiliates spent roughly $139 million across 58 House and Senate races. About 85% of the candidates the network supported won their elections, including all six in New York, where the PAC spent $5.3 million exclusively backing Democrats.

One in ten members of the incoming Congress had received meaningful support from crypto industry ad spending, and the majority of those ads never mentioned crypto at all, targeting incumbents on unrelated character grounds instead. What political power actually buys

It took almost no time to see meaningful policy changes. The SEC reversed course on a sweeping scale: it dismissed its civil action against Coinbase in early 2025, dropped its lawsuit against Binance shortly after, and closed its investigation into Robinhood's crypto business with no charges filed.

Ripple, having spent years and tens of millions in legal fees fighting XRP's securities classification, settled for $50 million and had its remaining $75 million in escrow returned.

New agency leadership under Paul Atkins formally disowned the previous enforcement-first position, and the GENIUS Act was signed into law in July 2025, delivering the first federal stablecoin framework the industry had been lobbying for across multiple congressional sessions. By November, the SEC had removed any mention of crypto from its 2026 examination priorities entirely.

In May, Fairshake's affiliate Protect Progress spent $5 million supporting Democratic challenger Christian Menefee in Texas' 18th Congressional District runoff, and another $2.8 million opposing incumbent Representative Al Green, who voted against both the GENIUS Act and the Clarity Act.

Green cast the wrong votes, the PAC identified the seat as removable, and moved nearly $8 million into the district to make the point. Across all Texas races today, crypto-backed PACs deployed money into multiple congressional and Senate contests, backing both Republican and Democratic candidates.

Separately, the Tether-backed Fellowship PAC, led by former White House crypto adviser Bo Hines, reported spending $1.75 million backing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in his Senate runoff against incumbent John Cornyn.

Paxton won in what the Texas Tribune called a watershed moment that ended over three decades of Cornyn's electoral dominance. The industry backed the winning side, across party lines, in one of the most-watched primary elections in the country.

However, there has been quite a bit of controversy surrounding the newfound success of crypto lobbying groups. Lawmakers, including Representatives Maxine Waters and Brad Sherman, documented at least 12 cryptocurrency cases the SEC dismissed or closed since early 2024, pointing to what they described as a “troubling correlation” between those closures and the industry's political spending patterns.

Former SEC enforcement attorneys noted publicly that the scale of case dismissals was unusual given the reportedly strong evidence the agency had assembled in several of those actions.

The industry's counter-argument (that the crackdown was overreaching and politically motivated from the start) carries genuine weight, but the question of who's now writing the rules and for whose benefit is a legitimate one that the sector's advocates haven't fully put to rest.

The most morally and politically honest answer is that crypto's regulatory environment shifted because crypto's political leverage shifted first, and Texas elections showed how that leverage is now being applied.

Crypto PAC spending in Texas has already exceeded $2.5 million on congressional candidates alone this year, up from $1 million across the entire 2024 cycle, and that's before the general election spending begins later this year.

That puts the industry on a path that resembles the early chapters of Big Tech's lobbying ascent or Wall Street's post-crisis political infrastructure build, with a slight distinction: it's moving faster than either of those precedents did.

The industry that once sold itself as an alternative to legacy financial power is now running the same playbook that legacy power has always relied on: grading legislators on specific votes, deploying capital to punish defection, and building the kind of durable congressional relationships that outlast any single administration.

The post Revealing the moment crypto started reshaping American elections appeared first on CryptoSlate.

On the American Gaming Association's website, a counter has been climbing for months, tallying what the casino-and-sportsbook lobby says states and tribes have lost to prediction markets.

On Thursday, it rolled past $1 billion, and the AGA moved fast to make a headline out of it, with President Bill Miller going on CNBC to warn that states and tribes were losing money that would otherwise fund community programs.

Platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket let people trade contracts on real-world outcomes, and a fast-growing share of that activity amounts to sports betting by another route, with users buying yes-or-no positions priced like odds on questions such as who wins Sunday's game.

Because the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) regulates them at the federal level, these platforms have been able to operate in all 50 states, including those where traditional sportsbooks are heavily restricted or outright banned.

State officials have spent more than a year insisting that the contracts are gambling and that they should be subject to the same licenses, rules, and taxes that every legal sportsbook already pays.

The assertion that these platforms led to a billion dollars of lost tax revenue boils a dense jurisdictional fight down to something the average voter can easily grasp.

However, it also comes at a pretty inconvenient time for the US gambling industry, as it just closed out its best year ever, generating $78.72 billion in revenue and a record $18.09 billion in gaming taxes for 2025.

One of the most profitable industries in America is currently the one telling Congress that it's being robbed. The AGA exists to represent the casinos, sportsbooks, and tribal operators who already pay into the state system that prediction markets are accused of skipping, which is part of why its estimate carries political weight.

The platforms, for their part, dismissed the figure as fabricated, with Kalshi calling it “fake math from casinos” that are anxious about losing their monopoly, while the Coalition for Prediction Markets brushed off the estimate by saying the AGA's underlying sources couldn't be located.

The argument against prediction markets

The states have been having a hard time getting people to buy into their philosophical case against prediction markets. Court rulings in almost every prediction market case have been split, and the CFTC keeps siding with the platforms in every new case that's brought before regulators.

CryptoSlate has previously covered the jurisdiction fight between US states and the CFTC, and there seems to be no end in sight for the ongoing war.

A dollar figure gets around all of that, especially when it's over a billion dollars, because governors, attorneys general, and all kinds of regulators and lawmakers can point straight at education funds, pension contributions, and responsible-gaming programs and tell voters that's where the billion is siphoned from.

The scale of the gambling market is best seen in New York, which taxes online sports betting at 51%, the highest rate in the country. Despite the insanely high tax rate, the state pulled in roughly $1.3 billion from it in 2025.

The Federal government already collects a 0.25% excise tax on legal sports-betting handle, which the AGA argues is intended to target illegal bookmaking. Given the insane revenues gambling companies report, even this teeny tiny tax represents a significant revenue stream for the government.

This means we're unlikely to see meaningful support for prediction markets from Washington, so the industry will have to take its chances at the state level.

Lawmakers seemed to be expecting that: in March, Senators John Curtis and Adam Schiff introduced the Prediction Markets Are Gambling Act, a bipartisan bill that would bar any CFTC-registered venue from listing a contract resembling a sports bet or a casino game.

The pressure has been building on the agency from the states as well, with 41 attorneys general from across the political spectrum urging the CFTC to retreat from what they describe as regulatory overreach.

The lost tax revenue is a slam-dunk to put in front of voters, but it's just part of a much longer list of concerns that includes consumer safety, game integrity, and who gets to control gambling in the first place.

When someone places a bet through a licensed sportsbook, a whole apparatus of state oversight comes attached: a complaint process if a payout goes sideways, responsible-gaming safeguards, and monitoring designed to flag match-fixing or insider activity. Those protections reach the federally regulated platforms only at the edges, if they reach them at all.

There's also the problem of tribal sovereignty, because many states have granted tribes exclusive gaming rights through negotiated compacts that prediction markets completely circumvent.

By now, it's grown heated enough that the gambling industry has begun splitting against itself, and it's pulled the White House directly into the middle of things.

The fracture inside the gambling business

This is such a complex problem that the industry can't seem to hold one position.

DraftKings and FanDuel both resigned from the AGA in November, with Fanatics walking out in December after launching its own event-contract platform, all of them drawn by the way federally regulated contracts let them reach customers in states their conventional sportsbooks can't.

The incumbents defending the state-regulated model and the operators chasing the federal route are now pulling toward opposite outcomes. This leaves the AGA representing a thinning coalition of land-based casinos and tribal operators against a new wave of companies that used to sit at its own table.

The political discourse escalated this week as well, when President Trump posted on Truth Social that it was “critically important” for the CFTC to keep exclusive authority over prediction markets, a position complicated by his son Donald Trump Jr.'s paid advisory role at Kalshi and his investment in Polymarket.

The administration has been litigating hard to back that view, with the CFTC suing Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, New York, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Minnesota recently became the first state to pass an outright ban on prediction markets under a bill signed by Governor Tim Walz, prompting a federal lawsuit aimed at blocking it before it takes effect on August 1. Minnesota's law is part of a much broader push, with at least 15 states having introduced legislation this year to rein in the platforms.

But underneath all of that political action and legal noise lies the reason why prediction markets matter at all: sheer volume. Monthly prediction-market trading climbed from around $1.2 billion in early 2025 to more than $20 billion by early 2026. It's an unparalleled growth rate, even in the crypto industry, and it led to a $2 billion investment from Intercontinental Exchange into Polymarket, valuing the company at $8 billion.

The American gaming industry posted record revenue, asking Congress and the courts to treat a billion-dollar estimate, one that the platforms dismiss as invented, as a public emergency. Prediction markets set out to win treatment as financial exchanges, while the AGA is working hard to recast them as untaxed sportsbooks, a fight many expect will reach the Supreme Court.

Whichever way that goes, the next phase will play out in the places the association keeps pointing toward, the statehouses, attorney-general offices, tribal governments, and congressional committees now watching a fast-growing market expand well beyond their reach.

The post How a disputed $1 billion claim became a powerful weapon against prediction markets appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Headline PCE inflation has been confirmed to have risen 3.8% in April year-on-year, its hottest pace in two years and nearly double the Federal Reserve's 2% goal, while core PCE held at 3.3%, its highest reading since October 2023.

The monthly numbers ran cooler, with core easing to 0.2% against the 0.3% economists had expected.

Bitcoin saw that combination of numbers as a problem, sliding toward $73,300 in the hours after Thursday's release and hovering near $73,000 through the weekend, down roughly 30% across the past year.

The PCE inflation report brought enough monthly relief to keep the rate-cut rate going, and enough annual heat to keep liquidity scarce. What makes this report land harder than most is the timing, since it's the first major inflation spike of Kevin Warsh's tenure as Fed chair, a job he stepped into on May 22 after succeeding Jerome Powell.

Warsh built his reputation on inflation discipline and a long preference for a leaner central-bank balance sheet, both of which tend to keep liquidity tight, so traders spent the spring selling Bitcoin every time his odds of landing the post firmed up.

A 3.8% headline number is about the last thing a chair with that temperament needs to justify sitting still.

Why does an inflation gauge that most people confuse with CPI move the price of Bitcoin?

Most people know inflation through the Consumer Price Index, which tracks out-of-pocket price changes for urban households. PCE casts a far wider net: it measures spending by households and on their behalf, folding in costs such as employer-funded healthcare, and it relies on a formula that adjusts as people swap pricier goods for cheaper substitutes.

When car prices climb, and shoppers drift toward used vehicles or skip the purchase altogether, PCE registers that behavioral shift faster than CPI does, which is why the central bank anchors its 2% objective to this gauge and why a single monthly figure can ripple through every asset that lives downstream of interest rates.

Bitcoin sits about as far downstream as an asset can get, miles from the consumption basket itself, but it's still extremely sensitive to the liquidity conditions PCE shapes. The chain runs in a straight line: a hotter inflation number reduces the odds of rate cuts, which keeps real yields elevated and the dollar strong, which in turn leaves investors less willing to reach for assets that throw off no income.

Cooler inflation runs the sequence in reverse, easing yields and softening the dollar in ways that support Bitcoin and other growth assets. PCE moves Bitcoin because it essentially changes the price of liquidity, and liquidity is the fuel the entire crypto market burns through.

The April numbers delivered both signals at the same time: the softer monthly core figure briefly took momentum out of the dollar, while the annual numbers removed any hope that the easing cycle would resume. CME FedWatch data now puts the odds of the Fed holding its 3.50% to 3.75% range at Warsh's first meeting on June 17 at 98.9%, with just 1% of traders pricing in any cut at all.

Positioning has tilted so far that CryptoSlate recently documented market-implied odds drifting toward a rate hike, a reversal that would have looked far-fetched only weeks earlier and one the bond market has already started to price. Every hot inflation surprise this year has landed as a liquidity problem first, and traders have answered by selling Bitcoin as the easing narrative thinned out.

What the PCE trap means for Bitcoin

The consequences begin in the order book and fan out from there, and over the next few weeks, three readings will tell traders which half of the report the market intends to honor.

The dollar comes first, since continued weakness there would ease the pressure on Bitcoin, while any rebound would drain the relief trade. Treasury yields come second, because falling yields would signal that investors believe the cooler monthly core print carries the day, while sticky yields would confirm that the 3.8% number is much more significant. The third gauge, and arguably the most revealing for crypto specifically, is the behavior of spot Bitcoin ETFs.

They've spent weeks bleeding capital, and the last week or so only deepened the warning. Bitcoin ETFs logged their ninth consecutive day of outflows on May 28, shedding another $229 million as BlackRock's IBIT gave up close to $178 million on its own.

CryptoSlate has tracked nearly $2.7 billion leaving Bitcoin and Ethereum products over two weeks. Outflows as large as that test the entire wave of institutional money that built the ETF channel, including newer entrants like Morgan Stanley, which launched its own MSBT fund back in April.

When that regulated demand channel keeps draining while macro conditions stay tight, the PCE report becomes one more reason for big money to sell rallies, which we saw when ETF outflows collided with a Treasury-yield shock as professional investors cut bond exposure to multi-year lows.

Crude oil is where most of the future risk sits, since April's data describes where inflation has been while energy prices hint at where it could go, and renewed tension around the Strait of Hormuz has kept costs elevated enough to unsettle anyone hoping for a clean disinflation path.

The next Personal Income and Outlays release, covering May, will be published on June 25, which gives markets nearly a month to trade the gap between a softening monthly trend and stubborn annual inflation.

Three questions hang over that window: whether core PCE keeps cooling, whether oil keeps pressure on future prices, and whether falling real incomes finally start to weigh on spending.

Households flashed an early warning in April, when real disposable income fell 0.5% for a second straight month, and the saving rate thinned to 2.6%. Morgan Stanley's Ellen Zentner said that rising prices are now taking a real bite out of consumption and that the shrinking savings cushion shows households dipping into reserves to keep spending.

All of this leaves Bitcoin trading inside an unforgiving box, where the monthly figure says that inflation might finally be cooling, the annual figure shows that liquidity could stay scarce well into summer, and a new chair who walked in preaching tight money has enough cover from both to do nothing at all.

For an asset that runs on the price of money, a Fed frozen between relief and restraint is its own kind of verdict.

The post New US inflation report leaves Bitcoin with a problem the Fed cannot solve yet appeared first on CryptoSlate.

reasury Secretary Scott Bessent said at the Reagan National Economic Forum that the US had seized roughly $1 billion in Iranian crypto assets, turning the Iran crypto seizure into an early test of Trump’s reserve framework

Bessent added the authorities “just outright grabbed the wallets,” with CBS reporting he also described the assets as money stolen from the Iranian people.

Yet Bessent disclosed neither the asset types nor the wallets involved, and that lack of information is exactly what determines whether any of this money ever reaches President Donald Trump's Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.

Trump's 2025 executive order created two separate buckets for government-held digital assets. The Strategic Bitcoin Reserve holds BTC that has been finally forfeited through criminal or civil proceedings, or collected through civil penalties, and the order states that government BTC deposited into it shall not be sold.

That split makes the Iran crypto seizure a classification test: Bitcoin can move toward the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve only after final forfeiture, while non-BTC tokens belong in the US Digital Asset Stockpile.

The US Digital Asset Stockpile is a separate container for non-BTC digital assets owned by the Treasury after final forfeiture.

If any Iranian-linked Bitcoin assets reach final forfeiture, they could enter the Reserve, but if they are stablecoins or other tokens, the Stockpile is the more likely destination. There is still a possibility that the assets are frozen, in which case the US may not own them yet.

What “grabbed” actually means

In April, reports pointed out that the Treasury sanctioned multiple Iran-linked wallets, and Tether confirmed it had frozen $344 million in USDT across two addresses after coordination with US authorities.

TRM Labs identified the same wallets as tied to the Central Bank of Iran and linked to the IRGC-Qods Force and Hezbollah. The remaining roughly $656 million lacks public wallet-by-wallet or token-by-token accounting.

The gap between “grabbed” and legal ownership runs through several distinct states. Under OFAC rules, blocked property is frozen, but the US does not necessarily own it.

For stablecoins such as USDT, an issuer can freeze tokens at specific addresses after government coordination, which is a sanctions hold rather than a seizure in the criminal-law sense.

A law-enforcement seizure means the government has asserted custody, but title still depends on the outcome of forfeiture proceedings.

Final forfeiture is the threshold the reserve order requires, since only once that process completes, and only if the assets are not owed to victims, used in law-enforcement operations, shared with state and local agencies, or released under other statutory obligations, do the assets become eligible for the Reserve or Stockpile. Bessent's language leaves every one of those states open.

At the current BTC price of roughly $73,000, a fully Bitcoin-denominated $1 billion seizure would equal about 13,632 BTC.

In 2025, the US government was expected to retain an estimated 200,000 BTC already seized through criminal and civil proceedings under the reserve framework, a hypothetical 13,632 BTC addition would represent about 6.8% of that base.

The public record shows a documented stablecoin freeze and a gap of roughly $656 million with no wallet-by-wallet or token-by-token accounting, and neither component has a confirmed final forfeiture on record.

The USDT freeze remains the only publicly itemized component of the $1 billion claim.

The scale behind the claim

Iran's crypto footprint makes a $1 billion seizure plausible in terms of scale, even if the composition stays opaque.

Chainalysis estimated that Iran's crypto ecosystem reached $7.78 billion in activity in 2025 and said IRGC-linked flows accounted for roughly 50% of Iran's total crypto ecosystem in the fourth quarter of 2025.

TRM Labs estimated roughly $10 billion in total Iranian crypto activity in 2025, and an investigation into Nobitex, Iran's largest crypto exchange, found it had processed transactions totaling tens of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars linked to sanctioned groups, including Iran's central bank and the IRGC.

Nobitex claims to have 11 million users and to handle an estimated 70% of Iran's domestic crypto transactions. Against that backdrop, a $1 billion figure across multiple enforcement actions and issuer-level freezes is consistent with the known scale of Iran's crypto activity, even if the exact asset mix and legal status remain unverified.

The asset mix behind the Iran crypto seizure

If a meaningful portion of the $1 billion is in Bitcoin, the Treasury holds those assets, and they clear final forfeiture without triggering victim restitution or law-enforcement carve-outs, they would join a Reserve that the executive order prohibits from selling.

Foreign-adversary enforcement becomes sovereign accumulation, and crypto that Iran allegedly used to bypass US financial pressure converts into a permanent line on America's digital asset balance sheet.

The clearest documented component of $344 million is USDT, a stablecoin that Tether froze at the address level after government coordination. If the remaining $656 million follows a similar pattern, the $1 billion is predominantly a stablecoin enforcement story.

Frozen USDT stays frozen USDT, and finally forfeited non-BTC assets flow into the Digital Asset Stockpile, where the Treasury Secretary determines stewardship strategy.

A full accounting of the wallets could change the headline from sovereign accumulation to stablecoin compliance infrastructure, two very different policy outcomes that Bessent's language does not yet resolve.

The executive order also allows the government to return assets to identifiable victims, deploy them in law-enforcement operations, share proceeds with state and local agencies, or release them under statutory requirements.

Each is a gate between “seized” and “reserve asset,” and any of them can be applied before or after final forfeiture.

The architecture Trump's reserve order created turns every future seizure of a foreign adversary into a sovereign asset-management decision.

Every enforcement action against Iran, North Korea, or any sanctioned entity now arrives with secondary classification questions of what asset, what legal state, and which bucket.

The Iran crypto seizure becomes a Bitcoin Reserve candidate only if the assets are BTC, the government obtains title through final forfeiture, and no restitution, court, or statutory claim takes priority.

Crypto that adversaries used to circumvent US financial power now risks becoming part of it, provided it clears the forfeiture process, survives legal exceptions, and is denominated in Bitcoin.

The post The US says it grabbed Iran’s crypto in a $1B seizure – will it end up in Trump’s Bitcoin Reserve? appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitpanda announced a new promotional campaign aimed at encouraging automated, long-term wealth building among its retail user base. Running from May 27, 2026, until June 8, 2026, the initiative combines structured dollar-cost averaging features with active cash incentives, allowing participating retail investors to compete for a recurring monthly financial payout for the remainder of the year.

How the Bitpanda Savings Plan Campaign Works

The structural framework of the campaign targets the growth of automated investing through the platform's native savings tools. To qualify for the promotional raffle, users must fulfill a specific two-step mechanism within the designated timeline:

• Campaign Opt-In: Investors must explicitly opt into the action via the dedicated campaign landing page.
• Savings Plan Activation: Users are required to set up and activate a new, automated savings plan with a minimum allocation of €25. This recurring investment must be directed into any eligible fraction or full asset within Bitpanda's selection of stocks, Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs), or Exchange-Traded Commodities (ETCs).

The operational window for creating and activating the qualified portfolio began on May 27, 2026, at 00:00 CEST and will officially close on June 8, 2026, at 23:59 CEST.

Following the completion of the promotional window, Bitpanda will randomly select three winners from the pool of eligible participants. Each winner will receive a monthly credit of €100 deposited directly into their account for the remaining months of the 2026 calendar year.

Who's Eligible for the Bitpanda Saving Plan Campaign?

While the financial service provider is deploying this campaign to incentivize passive wealth accumulation globally, regional compliance and local regulatory frameworks have altered the availability of the promotion in specific European jurisdictions.

• General Eligibility: The promotion is accessible across all international jurisdictions where Bitpanda currently offers licensed brokerage services for traditional securities and fractional equities.
• The United Kingdom Exclusion: Due to strict local regulatory marketing and financial promotion guidelines overseen by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), users based in the United Kingdom are completely excluded from participating.
• The Switzerland Mandate: Swiss regulatory criteria restrict the scope of the campaign. In Switzerland, the promotion applies strictly to newly established stock-based savings plans; automated allocations toward ETFs or ETCs within Swiss borders do not qualify for the raffle drawing.

Strategic Shift Toward Integrated Asset Management

This promotional campaign follows Bitpanda's aggressive expansion into traditional equities and exchange-traded products earlier in the year. By offering over 10,000 traditional instruments alongside its core cryptocurrency brokerage, the platform continues to position itself as a unified financial application, reducing the operational fragmentation typically experienced by retail traders using separate venues for digital assets and legacy securities.

Implementing automated savings plans leverages the principle of dollar-cost averaging (DCA). This strategy mitigates the risks associated with short-term market volatility by distributing asset purchases at fixed intervals, lowering the average cost basis per share over extended periods.

Further details regarding local terms, asset availability, and account verification standards can be found on the official Bitpanda portal or through consumer financial updates hosted by regulatory bodies such as the German BaFin.

Hyperliquid’s native token, $HYPE, reached a new all-time high of $70. This move added over $11 billion to its market capitalization in 2026, pushing its total valuation past $14 billion.

With this massive surge, Hyperliquid briefly overtook major assets like $Dogecoin to become the #9 biggest cryptocurrency by market cap. Four key factors are driving this growth: regulatory shifts, protocol revenue, aggressive tokenomics, and institutional inflows.

1. CFTC Validates Perpetual Futures Model

The primary reason is a regulatory shift in the United States. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) approved the first regulated "US perpetual futures" contract.

Historically, US regulators viewed perpetual swaps with skepticism, forcing these markets offshore. The CFTC's approval of the perp model validates the exact financial framework Hyperliquid uses. This decision lowers regulatory risk and opens a path for institutional access to decentralized derivatives.

2. $1 Billion in Fees with 11 Employees

Hyperliquid generates high revenue with minimal overhead. The platform is on track to bring in $900 million to $1 billion in annual trading fees.

The entire protocol is operated by a core team of just 11 employees. This operational efficiency outpaces traditional financial institutions. The platform's scale has even drawn notice from traditional finance leaders, including Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) CEO Jeffrey Sprecher, who noted the disruption of Hyperliquid's model.

3. $2 Billion in Token Buybacks

Hyperliquid uses an aggressive buyback mechanism to support token value.

• Fee Allocation: 98% of all platform trading fees are used to buy $HYPE tokens on the open market.
• Supply Reduction: These bought tokens are removed from the circulating supply.
• Total Value: Total buybacks have surpassed $2 billion, creating consistent upward pressure on the price.

4. Institutional Inflows and ETF Integration

Institutional capital is flowing directly into the ecosystem. The platform has recorded over $100 million in inflows since related exchange-traded products launched.

Major asset managers are also supporting the ecosystem. Some of these funds use accumulated fees to systematically buy and hold $HYPE. This institutional accumulation removes liquid supply from the market, accelerating the price increase.

On June 2–3, 2026, the Proof of Talk summit returns to the Louvre Palace in Paris. The event limits attendance to 2,500 core decision-makers, with over 90% of the speakers holding C-level or founder roles.

Unlike conventional crypto conferences, the event enforces a strict ban on paid speaking slots. Backed by an editorial Content Council of financial journalists, the agenda focuses strictly on regulatory policy, institutional infrastructure, and asset tokenization.

$18 Trillion in AUM Represented on Stage

The 2026 summit features speakers representing institutions with a combined $18 trillion in assets under management (AUM). Confirmed speakers include Jenny Johnson (CEO of Franklin Templeton), Tom Zschach (CIO of SWIFT), and Ken Moore (CIO of Mastercard), alongside executives from JP Morgan and Invesco.

Discussions will target the implementation of real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, secondary market liquidity frameworks, and compliant cross-border financial rails.

Dedicated Technical Tracks

The program features three targeted streams addressing specific sector developments:

• StableDay (June 3): Focused entirely on stablecoins, digital payments, and programmable money infrastructure for banks and regulators.
• The Bittensor Track: Dedicated to decentralized artificial intelligence (DeAI) and blockchain infrastructure.
• The Canton Track: Exploring privacy networks and financial market utility applications.

Venture Capital Sourcing

Through a partnership with Spectrum, the event hosts "Proof of Pitch," a startup competition where early-stage Web3 founders pitch directly to venture capital firms. Attending funds include Dragonfly, Haun Ventures, and CoinFund. All keynotes, networking sessions, and masterclasses take place within a single venue at the Louvre to facilitate direct capital allocation.

The cryptocurrency market is showing mixed signals today, consolidating within a tight range following a volatile month of institutional de-risking and geopolitical shifting. Here is a breakdown of major crypto prices today and an expert analysis of how the upcoming week might unfold for digital assets and equities.

Crypto Prices Today: Major Digital Assets Steady

The total crypto market capitalization is holding firm as the major layer-1 tokens establish localized support zones.

• Bitcoin ($BTC): The premier digital asset is currently trading at $73,548, marking neutral 24-hour momentum. Bitcoin has faced persistent resistance near the $77,000–$79,500 psychological zone following an aggregate of $1.26 billion in net outflows from spot Bitcoin ETFs over consecutive trading sessions, notably led by BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust ($IBIT).
• Ethereum ($ETH): Ethereum continues to trade in tandem with broader market liquidity, consolidating just below its local key resistance levels. Asset managers are carefully monitoring on-chain gas dynamics and institutional product inflows for signs of an upcoming breakout.
• BNB ($BNB): BNB remains highly resilient, supported by steady utility volume within its ecosystem and persistent launchpad distributions, insulating it from sharper pullbacks seen across speculative pairs.
• Solana ($SOL): Solana exhibits high intraday volatility but maintains its structural position, heavily supported by sustained decentralized exchange (DEX) volume and liquid staking integrations.
• XRP ($XRP): XRP is trading at $1.34, securing a mild +1.52% gain today. The token continues to navigate regulatory developments and localized liquidity pushes.

Macro Context: Interest Rates and the Stock Market

The immediate trajectory for cryptocurrencies remains inherently tied to the broader equity markets and macroeconomic indicators.

Currently, the 30-year U.S. Treasury yield is hovering near 5.19%, a level not sustained since 2007. Concurrently, the 10-year yield sits stubbornly near 4.6%. These elevated fixed-income yields increase the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding risk assets like Bitcoin and tech equities, driving institutional capital to de-risk.

While equity markets have shown structural resilience due to robust corporate earnings and AI infrastructure spending, high energy costs and a hawkish tone from Federal Reserve officials have kept a lid on immediate expansions. According to macro reports from major allocators like Fidelity Investments, energy pricing and inflation data will determine whether the Federal Reserve can comfortably execute projected rate cuts later this year.

Next Week Forecast: Bullish Accumulation or Bearish Reset?

Heading into next week, market analysts are divided into two distinct scenarios based on upcoming macro data releases, including Core CPI and PCE data.

The Bearish Case (Continued Consolidation)

If inflation data arrives hotter than anticipated, the Federal Reserve will likely maintain a restrictive stance. Combined with steady spot ETF outflows, this scenario could push Bitcoin to retest its foundational support level near $65,000. Under this structure, equities would likely experience a broad rotation out of high-beta tech sectors, dragging down top altcoins like Solana and Ethereum.

The Bullish Case (Continuation Breakout)

From a purely technical perspective, digital asset structures look corrective rather than distributive. Analysts note that if Bitcoin can confidently reclaim the $79,500 resistance on strong volume, it invalidates the short-term bearish narrative. An easing of geopolitical friction and a softening of the U.S. Dollar Index (DXY) would provide the necessary risk-on environment to propel Bitcoin toward the $85,000 target, lifting the broader altcoin market simultaneously.

Verdict: The baseline expectation for next week points to a cautious, data-dependent holding pattern. Expect rangebound volatility until clear macroeconomic signals dictate the next major directional liquidity cycle.

The cryptocurrency market in June 2026 is experiencing a structural shift. Speculative hype is clearing out, making way for institutional capital, real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, and decentralized artificial intelligence infrastructure.

With major regulatory frameworks like the CLARITY Act shaping asset definitions and central banks adjusting interest rates, smart capital is moving into protocols that generate protocol revenue and real-world utility. For investors looking to build a balanced portfolio this month, identifying leading assets within specific sectors is crucial.

Below is an analysis of the top 5 altcoins to buy in June 2026, categorized by market sector, focusing on project fundamentals and technical growth targets.

1. Solana (SOL) – The High-Performance Layer-1 Leader

Project Ecosystem Overview

Solana continues to solidify its position as the premier Layer-1 blockchain for retail liquidity, decentralized finance (DeFi), and high-throughput consumer applications. Moving past the initial memecoin cycles, Solana's monolithic infrastructure has proven highly efficient for executing rapid transactions without relying on fragmented Layer-2 networks.

The network's execution speeds and low transaction fees have attracted major traditional fintech integrations. Platforms like PayPal and Visa utilize Solana's infrastructure for stablecoin settlements, securing its status as a major alternative to Ethereum’s settlement dominance.

Growth Catalysts and Target for 2026

• Institutional Traction: Continuous spot ETF developments and corporate stablecoin deployments.
• Firedancer Mainnet Optimization: The full implementation of the Firedancer validator client provides unprecedented network reliability and throughput capabilities.
• Growth Target: Market analysts project SOL to break past long-term resistance walls, targeting a mid-to-long-term valuation of $180 to $220 as institutional capital flows accelerate.

2. Bittensor (TAO) – The Decentralized AI Compute Infrastructure

Project Ecosystem Overview

The convergence of artificial intelligence and blockchain technology is a defining market narrative in 2026. Bittensor sits at the absolute forefront of this sector. TAO operates as a decentralized, open-source network that incentivizes machine learning models to collaborate and train across a global distributed node architecture.

Following its successful network upgrades, including the expansion of subnet capacities from 128 to 256, Bittensor has proven that distributed networks can train large-scale language models effectively. This makes it an essential infrastructure asset for developers seeking permissionless access to raw computing power and AI intelligence.

Growth Catalysts and Target for 2026

• Supply Scarcity: The long-term macroeconomic effects of its late 2025 halving event are constricting daily token issuance.
• Corporate Staking: Major institutional custody platforms like BitGo have established enterprise-grade staking infrastructure for TAO.
• Growth Target: As tech platforms transition away from centralized cloud monopolies, TAO aims to reclaim psychological resistance zones, targeting $450 to $500 by late 2026.

3. Ondo Finance (ONDO) – The Institutional RWA Pioneer

Project Ecosystem Overview

Real-world asset (RWA) tokenization has grown from a proof-of-concept into a multi-billion dollar sector. Ondo Finance is a market leader in this category, bridging the gap between traditional finance (TradFi) and on-chain liquidity. Ondo specializes in bringing institutional-grade financial products, such as US Treasuries and corporate bonds, onto public blockchains like Ethereum and Solana.

By embedding strict automated compliance directly into its smart contracts, Ondo allows global institutional investors to access yield-bearing tokenized products safely. Its structural integration with clearing giants and Tier-1 liquidity providers places it far ahead of competing asset tokenization protocols.

Growth Catalysts and Target for 2026

• Macroeconomic Shift: Declining interest rates push on-chain investors toward stable, institutional yield products.
• Banking Rails Integration: Broadening cross-chain deployments across major public and institutional private ledgers.
• Growth Target: Backed by structural inflows into tokenized securities, ONDO targets a price target expansion toward $2.50 to $3.10 as total value locked (TVL) hits new milestones.

4. Near Protocol (NEAR) – The Foundational Layer for AI Agents

Project Ecosystem Overview

Near Protocol has evolved significantly from a standard smart contract platform into a core foundational layer for cross-chain "user intents" and autonomous AI agents. In 2026, decentralized applications rely heavily on AI agents executing transactions autonomously on behalf of users. Near provides the cryptographic framework necessary for these agents to interact across multiple chains securely.

Through its advanced chain abstraction technology, Near eliminates the friction of managing multiple wallets, gas fees, and network bridges. This enables seamless interactions where software can transact instantly behind a unified interface.

Growth Catalysts and Target for 2026

• AI Agent Web Integration: Infrastructure partnerships with web infrastructure providers to automate micro-payments for data and API processing.
• Mass Consumer Adoption: Positioned as the primary abstract layer for Web3 consumer applications.
• Growth Target: Driven by the narrative of autonomous on-chain commerce, NEAR's valuation targets a structural move toward $8.50 to $11.00.

5. Base (Ecosystem Tracking Token / Base Infrastructure)

Project Ecosystem Overview

While Base does not feature a native network token, it dominates the Ethereum Layer-2 ecosystem, capturing over 60% of total L2 network revenues according to on-chain analytics. Developed by Coinbase, Base serves as the primary gateway for retail capital entering Web3.

The ecosystem's primary value capture mechanisms flow directly back to the wider Ethereum L2 infrastructure layer and decentralized protocols built natively on the network (such as high-performance automated market makers and decentralized derivatives exchanges like Hyperliquid). It serves as an essential index for measuring the health of retail on-chain activity.

Growth Catalysts and Target for 2026

• Smart Wallet Proliferation: Coinbase’s native smart wallets allow millions of mainstream users to interact with applications smoothly using passkeys.
• DeFi Capital Concentration: Base remains the most profitable execution environment for decentralized applications on Ethereum.
• Growth Target: For investors tracking this ecosystem, native building blocks within the L2 layer present clear asymmetric upside, with core ecosystem application tokens targeting a 3x to 5x growth multiple over the summer trading cycle.

Altcoin Market Allocation Comparison

To help visualize how to diversify into these sectors, investors can analyze how these top projects balance different market opportunities:

Summary: Building a Strategic Crypto Portfolio for June 2026

Success in the current crypto market requires a clear shift away from speculative assets toward platforms that generate verifiable economic value. Allocating capital across dominant Layer-1 chains like Solana, decentralized AI frameworks like Bittensor, and institutional infrastructure like Ondo Finance provides balanced exposure to the most resilient narratives of this market cycle.

When the Trump family faced pressure from banks, it embraced crypto. Now, immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally face a similar choice.

A Republican candidate jockeying to represent Florida’s 22nd Congressional District liquidated Bitcoin to help fuel his political bid.

Hackers can hijack ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini with nothing but a sentence. OpenAI says the problem may never be fully solved. Here is what it is, how it works, and how to stay safe.

Dimon vowed to fight the passage of the crypto market structure bill until the bitter end.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the U.S. has "outright grabbed" roughly $1 billion worth of cryptocurrencies from Iran via seizures.

The market is yet to be tested as multiple assets are getting closer to substantial support levels.

The Cardano Foundation has canceled its flagship 2026 summit in Singapore after a revised 7.8 million ADA treasury funding proposal failed to clear the network's decentralized governance hurdle.

Zcash co-inventor Eli Ben-Sasson defends Ethereum amid a $712 million ETF outflow and market crisis.

Bitcoin's 114-day consolidation has crushed volatility to historical lows, says CryptoQuant's Maartunn, setting the stage for an imminent 10% to 20% breakout.

Shiba Inu daily burn rate remains in the red with fewer tokens sent to dead wallets in the past day.

TLDR:

• Ethereum (ETH) holds support despite growing short interest clustered above current price levels
• Whale activity remains dominant as retail traders stay cautious amid mixed market sentiment
• Large liquidity pools above the spot price increase the possibility of a short squeeze event
• Whale vs Retail Delta turns higher again, signaling renewed accumulation by larger holders

Ethereum (ETH) price remains range bound as growing short exposure and increasing activity from large holders create tough market conditions for traders.

Ethereum (ETH) Faces Rising Short Squeeze Potential

Ethereum (ETH) has spent recent months trading near the lower end of its broader range, struggling to establish sustained upside momentum.

On the surface, the price structure appears weak, reinforcing a cautious outlook among traders expecting further downside pressure. However, liquidation data is revealing a different narrative beneath current market conditions.

Recent positioning metrics show a substantial concentration of short-side liquidity sitting above the current Ethereum (ETH) price. As those positions accumulate, they effectively build future buying pressure if prices begin moving higher.

A widely circulated market update on X pointed to this imbalance between price action and positioning. According to the analysis, Ethereum (ETH) continues absorbing selling pressure despite persistent bearish bets. 

Market participants often view liquidity as a magnet. In Ethereum’s case, one of the largest liquidity pools remains above the spot price.

The longer the asset maintains support without breaking lower, the greater the pressure becomes on traders positioned for a decline. 

Sentiment remains noticeably more bearish than price performance. Many traders continue positioning for a breakdown, yet Ethereum (ETH) has avoided a decisive collapse. This divergence has become a key talking point among analysts evaluating near-term market structure.

Whale Activity Diverges From Retail Market Behavior

While liquidation data points toward potential volatility, whale activity is presenting another important development for Ethereum (ETH).

Recent Whale vs Retail Delta metrics show large holders maintaining stronger participation levels than smaller traders across much of the market cycle.

Notably, whale dominance remained positive even during periods when Ethereum (ETH) experienced sharp declines from previous highs.

Instead of reducing exposure, larger market participants appeared to increase activity during weakness. This trend contrasts with retail behavior, which often becomes more defensive during uncertain market conditions.

Several of the strongest positive delta readings occurred during periods of market stress rather than during rallies.

Such activity suggests that large investors continued engaging while broader sentiment weakened. More recently, after a brief period of increased retail influence, the metric shifted sharply back in favor of whales.

The analysis noted that larger holders appear increasingly active despite Ethereum (ETH) remaining well below prior cycle peaks. Although price has yet to produce a decisive breakout, positioning data indicate building exposure.

The post Ethereum (ETH) Builds Short Squeeze Potential Near $2,500 as Whales Accumulate appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• XRP inflows to Binance dropped to just 215 million XRP in May, the lowest recorded since early 2026.
• The steady decline in inflows since Q2 began reflects reduced short-term selling intent among XRP holders.
• Historically low exchange inflows may point to tightening short-term supply, supporting steadier price action.
• Analyst Ali Charts watches $1.34 channel support, with upside targets set at $1.37 and $1.40 for XRP.

XRP inflows to Binance dropped sharply in May, reaching their lowest level since the start of 2026. Data shows only 215 million XRP moved to the exchange during the month.

That figure carries an estimated value of roughly $292 million. The decline came alongside continued uncertainty across the broader cryptocurrency market. Analysts are now watching what this shift could mean for near-term price behavior.

Declining Exchange Inflows Point to Reduced Selling Activity

Exchange inflows are a widely used metric for gauging investor behavior. Higher inflows generally suggest that holders intend to sell or trade their assets. A drop in inflows, on the other hand, often points to reduced selling intent.

Source: Cryptoquant

In May, XRP inflows to Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, fell considerably. This marked a continuation of a gradual downtrend that started at the beginning of the second quarter. The decline coincided with relative price stability and lower volatility compared to earlier months.

The pattern suggests that fewer holders moved their XRP to centralized platforms last month. That behavior typically reflects a preference for holding assets off-exchange for longer periods. It also points to less rapid, short-term speculation in the market.

While falling inflows are not a guaranteed bullish indicator, they can reflect tightening short-term supply. When fewer coins reach exchanges, immediate sell-side pressure tends to ease. That condition may support steadier price action over time.

Technical Levels Draw Attention as Channel Support Holds

Beyond on-chain data, technical analysts are also monitoring XRP’s price structure. Crypto analyst Ali Charts noted on X that XRP remains inside a well-defined rising channel on the one-hour chart. The analyst identified the lower boundary near $1.34 as a key area to watch.

According to Ali Charts, that level aligns with current price action and could serve as a buying zone if buyers respond.

The repeated defense of channel support suggests bulls are maintaining higher lows. That pattern is commonly seen as a sign of trend continuation.

If XRP holds the $1.34 level, the next resistance sits near $1.37. A break above that level could then open a path toward $1.40, which matches the upper end of the ascending channel. A close below $1.34, however, would weaken the current setup and raise the risk of a deeper pullback.

Together, the on-chain and technical data present a cautious but watchful picture for XRP in June. Inflows remain historically low, and the price channel is still intact.

Market participants are now monitoring whether these conditions will hold or shift in the weeks ahead.

The post XRP Inflows to Binance Fall to Lowest Level Since Early 2026 as Holding Sentiment Grows appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Solana captured 97% of cumulative tokenized equities spot trading volume, setting a new market record this week.
• SoFi launched the first stablecoin from a U.S. nationally chartered bank, SoFiUSD, natively on Solana.
• Cash App rolled out USDC support on Solana, opening stablecoin access to millions of everyday retail users.
• Mayan bridged over one million external wallets and moved $2.5 billion in stablecoins across Solana this week.

Solana recorded a busy week of launches, integrations, and milestones across payments, tokenized assets, and developer infrastructure.

Major financial institutions and consumer apps moved onto the network. Stablecoin support expanded through platforms familiar to everyday users.

Tokenized equities trading on Solana also reached a new record. The week’s activity covered traditional finance, decentralized lending, privacy tools, and educational initiatives, reflecting broad momentum across the ecosystem.

Institutional Finance Finds a Home on Solana

SoFi launched SoFiUSD, marking a notable moment for the network. It became the first stablecoin issued by a U.S. nationally chartered bank on Solana. This move signals growing confidence from regulated financial institutions in the chain’s infrastructure.

Cash App also rolled out stablecoin support during the week, including USDC on Solana. The integration brings Solana-based payments to a widely used consumer application. Millions of everyday users now have a path to interact with Solana-based assets.

Solana also captured 97% of cumulative tokenized equities spot trading volume. Onchain tokenized stock holders surpassed 200,000, setting a new record high. These numbers reflect strong institutional and retail demand for regulated assets on the network.

New Protocols and Platforms Expand Solana’s Utility

Jupiter Exchange opened the public beta of its Offerbook during the week. The platform is a fixed-rate credit tool that supports borrowing against tokens, NFTs, and trading cards. It adds a structured lending layer to Solana’s growing DeFi ecosystem.

Streamex and Orca also launched 24/7 onchain secondary liquidity for tokenized securities. This addresses a long-standing gap in regulated asset trading on public blockchains. WalletConnect further added Solana compatibility to its Pay feature for merchant stablecoin spending.

Exponent Finance activated Exponent v2, which introduced strategy vaults and risk-tranching swaps. ONRefinance expanded fixed-rate infrastructure through integrations with Exponent and Loopscale. These releases together push Solana’s fixed-rate and structured finance capabilities further forward.

Ecosystem Growth Reaches Across Education, Privacy, and Infrastructure

Solana Foundation joined the Open Transaction Layer as a founding partner. The initiative focuses on developing cross-chain standards across the broader blockchain industry. AlmaU also signed an MOU to bring Solana blockchain development into its academic curriculum.

SheFinance partnered with Solana to launch its largest educational cohort to date. This effort aims to onboard more participants into Web3 through structured learning. Alongside this, Umbra Privacy launched its wallet app on the iOS App Store.

Mayan crossed one million external wallets bridged to Solana during the week. The protocol also moved over $2.5 billion in stablecoins across more than 600,000 transactions. Solstice Finance surpassed $500 million in total value locked, adding another milestone to the week’s record.

The post Solana Records 97% Tokenized Equities Volume as SoFi, Cash App Join the Network appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Binance holds 85.1M LINK worth $766M, representing 66.4% of all exchange-held supply across platforms.
• LINK exchange reserves have declined from a 2022 peak of 145M tokens to roughly 85M, following a descending channel.
• Spot LINK ETFs recorded $8.29M in May net inflows, their weakest monthly figure since launching in late 2024.
• Spot LINK ETF products have never recorded a single day of net outflows and hold 1.69% of total supply.
  

Chainlink’s exchange supply is growing more concentrated, with Binance now holding the majority of LINK available across all trading venues.

On-chain data shows 85.1 million LINK tokens sitting on Binance alone, valued at roughly $766 million. That figure represents 66.4% of the 128.26 million LINK held across all exchanges combined.

Meanwhile, spot LINK ETFs continue attracting capital, though May marked their weakest month since launch.

Binance Controls the Venue-Level Supply Tone for LINK

Binance’s dominance over LINK exchange reserves means its netflow activity shapes broader market perception. When extreme deposit or withdrawal days occur, they reflect Binance-specific behavior rather than a market-wide shift. This distinction matters for anyone reading on-chain signals as indicators of sentiment.

Reserve data since 2022 tells a consistent story. LINK holdings on exchanges peaked near 145 million tokens and have since followed a descending channel.

Source: Cryptoquant

Today, reserves sit near the lower band of that range at around 85 million tokens. That structural decline reflects a multi-year trend of coins moving off exchanges.

Short-term spikes in reserves appear periodically but do not alter the overall direction. These bursts are temporary in nature and tend to reverse quickly. The broader pattern remains one of steady outflows over time, not accumulation building on platforms.

Netflow data adds further context to those spikes. Positive inflow events often align with periods of elevated price volatility.

Rather than signaling fresh buying, these deposits have more frequently preceded weaker closes over the following one to three days.

Spot LINK ETF Inflows Slow but Remain Positive in May

Turning to ETF markets, spot LINK products recorded $8.29 million in net inflows during May. According to a post from BSCNews on X, this marks the weakest monthly performance since the products launched late last year. However, the products have yet to record a single day of net outflows since inception.

Spot LINK ETFs currently hold 1.69% of the asset’s total circulating supply. That level of institutional custody, while modest, represents steady structural demand building outside of exchange order books. It also removes supply from immediate sell-side availability.

The slowdown in May inflows reflects caution rather than outright rejection. Inflow figures are still positive on a monthly basis, which keeps the streak of net-positive months intact. The trend, though, is worth monitoring as market appetite for altcoin ETF products continues to be tested.

Taken together, both the on-chain reserve data and ETF flow figures point to a market where LINK supply is gradually moving toward longer-term custody.

Whether that continues depends on broader market conditions and sustained demand from institutional channels.

The post Binance Holds 66% of All Exchange LINK as Reserves Hit Multi-Year Lows appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Stablecoins on CoinGecko grew from under 50 in 2018 to nearly 400 in 2025, with issuance still rising fast.
  
• SoFiUSD became the first bank-issued stablecoin available inside a U.S. consumer banking app on May 27.
  
• SoFi’s Galileo platform serves 160 million accounts, giving SoFiUSD institutional distribution beyond its own users.
  
• SoFiUSD is fully backed by Federal Reserve cash, setting it apart from mixed-reserve crypto-native stablecoin issuers.

Stablecoins listed on CoinGecko have grown from under 50 in 2018 to nearly 400 in 2025, with issuance still accelerating.

That volume of capital requires disciplined credit infrastructure to match it. SoFi Technologies made a direct move in that direction on May 27, launching SoFiUSD to all 14.7 million banking app members.

The token redeems 1:1 for U.S. dollars and runs on Ethereum and Solana.

Source: Coingecko

Stablecoin Growth Demands Regulated Infrastructure

The pace of stablecoin issuance over seven years tells a clear story. Under 50 tokens existed on CoinGecko in 2018.

That number climbed to nearly 400 by 2025, with no sign of slowing. Each new token represents capital that needs somewhere disciplined to go.

Most of that capital has flowed through crypto-native issuers like USDT and Tether. Those issuers hold mixed reserve baskets, operate outside traditional banking oversight, and face ongoing regulatory uncertainty. The infrastructure supporting them was built for speed, not institutional discipline.

SoFi’s entry addresses that gap directly. SoFiUSD is backed entirely by cash held at the Federal Reserve. Regular CPA attestations verify reserves on an ongoing basis. That structure brings stablecoin issuance into a framework that regulated capital allocators can actually use.

The CLARITY Act is still pending in Congress. SoFi’s OCC charter and FDIC-insured status already give it standing that crypto-native issuers cannot replicate. That head start matters as the regulatory environment catches up to the market’s growth.

SoFi Builds the Rails for Institutional-Grade Stablecoin Deployment

A growing stablecoin supply is only useful if the infrastructure to deploy it is equally mature. SoFi is building that infrastructure across two tracks.

The consumer track puts SoFiUSD inside the banking app used by 14.7 million members for savings, lending, and investing.

The institutional track runs through Galileo, SoFi’s B2B platform serving over 160 million accounts. Other issuing banks on Galileo may settle card transactions using SoFiUSD. That would extend the token’s reach far beyond SoFi’s own customer base.

In March 2026, SoFi extended its Mastercard partnership to allow SoFiUSD to function as a settlement currency. SoFi Bank will settle its own credit and debit card transactions in SoFiUSD under that agreement. Cross-network settlement in a bank-issued stablecoin is a direct response to what accelerating issuance actually requires.

The near-term roadmap adds tokenized deposits convertible to FDIC-insured accounts, 24/7 cross-border transfers, and a Bullish listing for institutional trading.

USDT and USDC still lead in market cap and DeFi liquidity by a wide margin. However, as stablecoin issuance continues to grow, the market’s need for regulated, reserve-backed infrastructure grows with it.

The post Stablecoin Count Nears 400 as SoFi Deploys Bank-Grade Infrastructure to Match Surging Issuance appeared first on Blockonomi.

SoftBank Group is making a huge move in AI infrastructure in Europe, with plans to develop and operate a whopping 5 gigawatts of AI data center capacity in France.

The investment, which could reach up to 75 billion euros, is intended to meet surging demand for high-performance computing and position the country as a major European hub for artificial intelligence infrastructure.

According to an official release, the first phase of the project will include an initial €45 billion investment. It should deliver 3.1 GW of AI data center capacity in the Hauts-de-France region by the year 2031.

The facilities are planned for Bosquel, Bouchain, and Dunkirk, with SoftBank also eyeing additional sites across the country.

The announcement was made at the Choose France summit, hosted by President Emmanuel Macron. The firm said the investment will expand access to computing power for AI companies, enterprises, cloud providers, public institutions, as well as for research organizations.

Speaking on the Matter, Masayoshi Son, Chairman and CEO of SoftBank, said:

AI is entering a new era, and the countries that build the infrastructure for this transformation will shape the future of technology, industry and society,” said Masayoshi Son. “SoftBank is proud to make this major commitment to France. With its industrial capabilities, talent base and national ambition, France is uniquely positioned to become a leading AI infrastructure hub in Europe.

The move highlights the growing demand for computing power, while SoftBank also vows to create thousands of high-skilled jobs across engineering, data center development, robotics, operations, maintenance, advanced manufacturing, and more.

The post SoftBank Bets Up to €75 Billion on France in Massive AI Data Center Push appeared first on CryptoPotato.

XRP had a rather difficult start to 2026 from a price standpoint, but the underlying XRP Ledger showed notable signs of growth, according to the latest State of XRP report by Messari.

The analytics firm outlines a sharp contrast between the weaker market performance and strong network fundamentals, with stablecoin adoption, real-world asset tokenization, and transaction activity all increasing during the quarter.

XRP Price Falls as Trading Activity Cools

During the first quarter of the year, XRP was, for the most part, the fourth-largest non-stablecoin cryptocurrency by means of total market capitalization, trailing only Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Binance Coin.

However, the token wasn’t immune to the broader market downturn. Its market cap declined by 26% quarter-over-quarter to about $82 billion, while its price dropped by 27% to $1.34 at the time of this writing.

Per Messari’s report, trading activity also slowed down during the cited period. Average daily spot volume declined by 32%, while perpetual futures volume declined by 28.6%. That said, institutional exposure continued to build, as CryptoPotato covered recently. The quarter ended with ETFs holding about 775.4 million XRP, which is roughly 1.26% of the asset’s currently circulating supply.

XRPL Sees Growth in RWAs, Transactions, and Stablecoins

While XRP’s price struggled, XRPL activity moved in the opposite direction, supporting the case for strong fundamental support. Messari indicated that average daily transactions increased by 35% quarter-over-quarter, increasing from 1.83 million to 2.48 million.

The network also saw growing adoption across stablecoins and tokenized assets.

Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin expanded to a market cap of $340.3 million on the XRPL by the end of the quarter, up 45% from the previous quarter. Meanwhile, XRPL’s real-world market cap soared by 124% QoQ to an all-time high of $2.25 billion.

Messari also reported that new infrastructure is being built in institutional-oriented decentralized finance. During the quarter, permissioned domains, permissioned DEX, and token escrow went live. Meanwhile, native lending protocols and asset vaults are still in voting.

All in all, these developments can be taken to suggest that XRPL’s institutional finance narratives continued to strengthen, despite the weakening price performance of XRP.

The post XRP Ledger Activity Soars in Q1 Despite XRP Price Slump: Messari appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The cryptocurrency market continues into the weekend on a calmer note following what was surely a rather volatile week of trading.

Bitcoin’s price is attempting to stabilize near an important short-term resistance area, while some altcoins are outperforming sharply, led by Worldcoin’s double-digit daily surge.

BTC Pushes Toward $74,000

Bitcoin has remained relatively calm during the weekend trading session after a volatile few days. The cryptocurrency is still fighting to press above an important short-term resistance level.

BTC’s price trades slightly below $74K at the time of this writing, gaining roughly 0.5% over the past 24 hours. It’s evident that buyers are trying to recover some ground following the market-wide pullback that took place last week.

The most recent price action comes as the broader cryptocurrency market stabilizes, with total capitalization hovering around $2.58 trillion, according to CoinGecko. Bitcoin’s dominance remains above 57%. However, the momentum remains fragile, as traders continue to watch macro headlines, with Trump saying they are under no deadline to strike a deal with Iran, meaning uncertainty is likely to continue for the time being.

Worldcoin (WLD) Leads Altcoin Gainers

The altcoin market saw mixed results over the past 24 hours, although several large-cap names posted strong daily moves.

Worldcoin (WLD), the Sam Altman-linked project, stole the show after increasing by about 11% to jump around $0.33. Other top gainers from the top 100 cryptocurrencies by total market cap include Venice Token (VVV), Humanity (H), and Midnight, all of which post notable advances.

BNB and TOn also sttod out among the larger-cap assets with gains of more than 7%.

On the flipside, Monero’s XMR was the weakest top-100 performer, dropping by roughly 8%, while most other major altcoins saw more modest moves.

The post Sam Altman-Backed Crypto Explodes 10% Today as Bitcoin Eyes $74K: Weekend Watch appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Ethereum remains under pressure across higher and lower timeframes after failing to reclaim key resistance levels.

The asset has broken below a multi-month bullish structure on the daily chart while continuing to trade inside a descending channel on the 4-hour timeframe.

Meanwhile, sentiment data suggests that aggressive buyers remain largely absent.

Ethereum Price Analysis: The Daily Chart

On the daily timeframe, ETH has decisively broken below the large ascending triangle structure that had developed between February and May. The move occurred after multiple rejections from the $2.4K resistance zone, which coincides with a major horizontal supply area and the former breakout region.

The bearish move has also pushed the price below the 100-day moving average, which is currently around $2.2K. More importantly, ETH remains significantly below the declining 200-day moving average near $2.5K. This indicates that the broader trend continues to favor sellers.

The recent rejection from the $2.4K zone confirms it as the primary resistance area. As long as ETH remains below this region, any recovery attempt may be viewed as a corrective bounce rather than a trend reversal.

On the downside, the next major support lies around the $1.8K zone, highlighted by the blue demand area and the February swing low. A daily close below the current $2K psychological support could increase the probability of a move toward that region.

Momentum indicators also remain weak. The RSI is hovering near oversold territory, which reflects persistent bearish momentum despite the recent stabilization around $2K.

ETH/USDT 4-Hour Chart

The 4-hour chart presents a clear descending channel that has guided price action lower throughout May. ETH has been moving toward the lower boundary of the channel again after failing to sustain any meaningful recovery from the mid-range resistance area.

The price is currently trading around $2K, which is a significant demand zone for the market. This area has produced a modest reaction so far, but buyers have yet to generate a convincing reversal signal.

The first resistance level is the descending channel’s upper boundary and the horizontal supply zone, which sits around $2.15K. Above that, the major resistance remains at $2.25K, followed by the upper supply zone near $2.4K.

A breakout above the descending channel could trigger a short-term relief rally toward the $2.15K and $2.25K regions. However, as long as the channel structure remains intact, the path of least resistance appears tilted to the downside.

Conversely, losing the $2K support zone would expose the channel’s lower extension and increase the likelihood of a deeper correction toward the $1.8K area identified on the daily chart.

Sentiment Analysis

The Ethereum Taker Buy Sell Ratio offers additional insight into current market sentiment. This metric measures the balance between aggressive buyers and aggressive sellers across exchanges. Readings above 1 indicate buyer dominance, while values below 1 suggest that market sell orders are outweighing buy orders.

The chart shows a persistent decline in the ratio over recent months, with the metric currently near 0.98 and below the neutral 1.0 threshold. This indicates that sellers continue to dominate order flow despite ETH’s prolonged correction.

For a sustainable recovery to develop, traders would likely need to see the Taker Buy Sell Ratio reclaim and hold above 1. Until that occurs, order flow suggests that bullish momentum remains limited and that rallies may continue to face significant selling pressure.

The post Ethereum Price Analysis: ETH Risks Deeper Drop as $2K Support Comes Under Pressure appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Fifteen years ago, one of Bitcoin’s earliest pioneers offered a warning that continues echoing through crypto markets.

Hal Finney argued that a monetary network cannot be rebooted without damaging the credibility of everything that follows.

The Debate Over a New Bitcoin

On May 30, 2011, Hal Finney and Jon Tobey entered a debate called “Early speculators’ reward.”

Basically, it was a discussion on Bitcointalk, where the OP raised a question that has followed Bitcoin since its very first days – was it fair that early adopters mined or acquired coins before most people knew the network existed?

Some participants argued that this early distribution amounted to a significant advantage – so large that the protocol itself should be relaunched. Finney rejected the premise with a response that was not just technical, but also rooted in economic logic.

“Any successful replacement of the Bitcoin block chain will forever undermine the credibility of any successor. […] How is an investor to know that it won’t happen again?”

The Problem of Credibility

Finney’s point seems simple now: if Bitcoin could be discarded because early users benefited, then any future replacement would inherit the same vulnerability, because there would be a new group of early adopters, a later group of users who resent them, and so forth – a vicious circle.

His argument also anticipated what later became a core principle of Bitcoin: monetary networks depend not only on code but also on confidence, continuity, and credible resistance to arbitrary change.

In simple words, Bitcoin’s staying power relies on itself – the Bitcoin staying power. The protocol has become so resistant to unnecessary change that it has brought forward a level of predictability that alternative economic systems cannot yet fathom.

The post 15 Years Ago, Hal Finney Explained Why Bitcoin Could Not Simply Be Replaced appeared first on CryptoPotato.