The failure of out-of-court restructurings may lead to stricter creditor demands, complicating future debt management and increasing bankruptcies.

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The missile launch underscores escalating regional tensions, potentially altering Israeli security protocols and impacting airspace operations.

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The escalating US-Iran tensions and crypto sanctions could destabilize global oil markets and reshape geopolitical financial strategies.

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Trump's AI equity plan could democratize tech wealth but risks regulatory conflicts and requires new legal frameworks for execution.

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Musk's involvement in ASML's conference highlights the growing intersection of tech and politics, potentially reshaping semiconductor industry dynamics.

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Bitcoin Magazine

The Hyperinflation of 1971 at the Kindergarten

I’m pretty sure it was 1971, but it could have been 1972. In any case, it was in kindergarten, and I was five years old. Our teachers had set up a system to motivate us kids to behave well. They had hung a big board on the wall, with all of our names listed. If you were particularly well-behaved, kind, helpful, or polite, they drew a black dot next to your name. Misbehave, and they gave you a red one. It was all about following the kindergarten rules, and the absolute transparency of it motivated most of us to try our best.

At some point, an extra prize was introduced for exceptionally good behavior: a small piece of fabric. From the group’s standpoint, that was worth much more than the top ranking in a row of black dots. And it was tangible. You could prove your elite status, even out in the sandbox.

Eventually, a trading system developed between us kids. For a scrap of fabric, you could get a bucket of sifted sand. For two, you could get a piece of candy. Suddenly, we could trade labor (sifting sand) for status symbols or sweets.

Then one day, a new teacher arrived. For whatever reason, she much more generously handed out those scraps of fabric. She simply changed the rules governing their distribution. All of a sudden, everyone had them, and you had to spend four for a piece of candy instead of two. Some of the kids started to complain. Their hard-earned scraps of fabric were now worth less, and they demanded more of them.

As you’d expect, the fabric scraps were given out more and more freely. Before long, anyone could take as many as they wanted. Eventually, they were lying around all over the place. They were worthless. No one wanted them anymore. You couldn’t trade them for anything. And so, at just five years old, I experienced genuine hyperinflation.

What does this have to do with Bitcoin?

In kindergarten, the rules were simply changed. The new teacher wanted to be nice, we kids whined, and suddenly more and more fabric scraps were handed out.

The rules of Bitcoin simply cannot be changed.

It’s a completely different story with our fiat currencies. They too have rules. The problem is that no one can ensure those rules are actually followed. Here is an example: the European Central Bank is not allowed to permanently finance governments through bond purchases, yet it does so anyway, brazenly and with no one doing—or even being able to do—anything about it. And who would intervene anyway?

Here’s another example. The Maastricht Treaty’s Stability and Growth Pact stipulated that the budget deficits of EU member states could not exceed 3% of their GDP, although permissible exceptions were built in. However, between 2000 and 2010, the Stability Criteria were repeatedly violated without sanctions—not only by Greece (11 times) but also by larger countries such as Italy (seven times), France (six times), and Germany (five times). According to the Maastricht Treaty, there are clear sanctions for countries that unlawfully fail to adhere to the deficit limit. But not once has such a sanction been imposed. No attempt was ever even made.

This may have been politically expedient and justified for whatever reason, but it shows how difficult it is for us to adhere to the rules. It’s like the New Year’s resolutions that we make with the greatest of convictions, but then usually don’t stick to for very long. The result is what matters. Currencies inflate and, sooner or later, become worthless. The U.S. dollar has lost 97% of its value over the last hundred years. The British pound, which originally represented a pound of silver, has suffered the same fate. All because more and more new dollars, euros, or pounds have been created, or to put it differently, printed.

The outcome is the same: when the fabric scraps become worthless, everyone who holds them loses their wealth.

This cannot happen with Bitcoin. Its rules are fixed, and no one controls the system nor can they simply change those rules.

Discover more in Bitcoin: The Honest Money!
This excerpt is just the beginning. Dive deeper into how inflation devalues your money, your savings, and your time in Bitcoin: The Honest Money by Alex von Frankenberg, Ph.D. The paperback is available now.

Order your copy here!

This post The Hyperinflation of 1971 at the Kindergarten first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Alex v. Frankenberg.

Bitcoin Magazine

5th Worst Bitcoin Price Action Ever — I’m Buying At 99.8% Probability

The bitcoin price looks bad, but I’m buying. Price might go lower, it always can, but there is value at these levels, and I’m accumulating. I think it’s important to be honest about how I’m actually acting on the analysis I publish, rather than just presenting data from a distance. And right now, the data is saying something that has only been said a handful of times in Bitcoin’s entire history.

Let’s cut to the chase:

• The Crosby Ratio Z-score has one of the lowest readings in history.
• The RSI is at a level we’ve only encountered a handful of times in extreme market lows.
• Bitcoin has bounced off the 200-week moving average.
• The SOPR is in the bottom fifth percentile of all historical readings.
• The Mayer Multiple is also in its bottom fifth percentile.

The Crosby Ratio

The Crosby Ratio Z-score measures bitcoin’s price momentum and standardizes it for Bitcoin’s evolving volatility. It’s not a fixed threshold as it adjusts as the market matures and volatility compresses, making it applicable across every stage of Bitcoin’s history. The current reading is around -1.7. This means 99.8% of all days in Bitcoin’s history have registered a less extreme reading on this indicator.

Figure 1: The Crosby Ratio Z-Score has just dipped to one of its lowest ever values.

The list of instances where this reading has been as low: the recent drop to $60,000, the first break below $20,000 in 2022, the COVID crash in March 2020, and the 2018 bear market low. That’s it. Four occasions in over a decade of price history. Every single one of them turned out to be a significant accumulation opportunity.

The RSI

The Relative Strength Index is one of the most widely used momentum indicators across all markets. Bitcoin’s weekly RSI is currently at one of the lowest levels ever. The previous instances of readings this low were the 2015 bear market low, the 2018 bear market low, the COVID crash, and the recent drop to $60,000.

Figure 2: The Relative Strength Index is comparable to historical lows.

Two independent momentum indicators, measured completely differently, but producing the same short list of historical comparisons. That kind of confluence across methodologies isn’t something to dismiss.

The 200-Week Moving Average

The 200-Week Moving Average has served as bear market support throughout Bitcoin’s history. The only meaningful exception was the FTX collapse in late 2022, which caused a brief but sharp undershoot before a rapid recovery. Outside of that event, this level has held as a floor every single cycle.

Figure 3: Bitcoin currently sits just above its 200WMA.

View Live Chart

Bitcoin has just bounced off that level again. Directly beneath current prices sits the recent cycle low, creating the structure for a potential double bottom, one of the more reliable technical formations across any market. The 200-week moving average and the Bitcoin Realized Price converge in approximately the same zone, adding further weight to this level as meaningful structural support.

SOPR & The Mayer Multiple

The Spent Output Profit Ratio is currently in the bottom fifth percentile of all historical readings. This means the rate of realized losses across the Bitcoin network, the pace at which holders are selling at a loss, is in the deepest 5% of anything we’ve ever recorded. The selling that has driven this move has been predominantly short-term in nature; value days destroyed data confirms that long-term holders have largely not participated in this liquidation. These are short-term traders and leveraged positions being cleared out, and not the conviction holders capitulating.

Figure 4: The Spent Output Profit Ratio illustrates the severity of recent losses.

View Live Chart

The Mayer Multiple, which measures bitcoin’s price relative to its 200-day moving average, is simultaneously in its own bottom fifth percentile. When these two indicators have historically been in their lower extremes at the same time, the resulting accumulation opportunities have been exceptional. It has happened only a handful of times, and each instance has been followed by significant price appreciation.

Figure 5: The Mayer Multiple has reached levels corresponding to previous bear cycle lows.

To Sum It Up

I’ll be honest, the strength of the decline surprised me. I anticipated a pullback from the $80,000 resistance zone, but the move through $70,000 was sharper than expected. What hasn’t surprised me is the data that’s emerged as a result, because this kind of confluence across technical, on-chain, and momentum indicators has appeared before, and the market has consistently rewarded accumulation at these readings.

Could we go lower? Yes. The realized price sits not far beneath current levels and represents the next meaningful support zone if the low is revisited. I’m prepared for that scenario. But removing all emotion and looking purely at what the data is saying, five independent signals simultaneously in generational territory, this is not the moment to wait on the sidelines for a marginally better price.

Subscribe to Bitcoin Magazine Pro on YouTube for more expert market insights and analysis!

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. Always do your own research before making any investment decisions.

This post 5th Worst Bitcoin Price Action Ever — I’m Buying At 99.8% Probability first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Matt Crosby.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin’s Pullback Tests Institutional Adoption Narrative as Pompliano Stays Bullish

Bitcoin’s recent price decline is testing one of the asset’s most prominent bullish narratives: that institutional adoption will stabilize volatility and support long-term growth.

Despite the downturn, ProCap Financial CEO Anthony Pompliano thinks that the broader trajectory remains intact, framing the current weakness as a natural phase in Bitcoin’s maturation into a mainstream financial asset.

Speaking on CNBC’s “Power Lunch,” Pompliano said Bitcoin’s integration into traditional finance is accelerating, pointing to growing interest from major institutions such as BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. 

According to Pompliano, this shift represents the realization of a long-anticipated transition from a niche, ideologically driven asset to a widely held portfolio allocation.

“Bitcoin is maturing into a traditional finance asset,” Pompliano said, adding that institutional demand signals “what mass adoption looks like.”

Bitcoin has come under pressure in recent weeks, with prices retreating amid broader risk-off sentiment and capital rotation into equities, particularly in high-growth sectors like artificial intelligence and newly listed public companies. 

The downturn has revived concerns that Bitcoin’s adoption cycle may be nearing saturation, limiting its ability to deliver the outsized returns seen in prior cycles.

Some argue that Bitcoin’s earlier growth was driven largely by rapid user adoption and speculative inflows — dynamics that may be harder to replicate now that the asset has reached a more mature phase. 

As the CNBC host noted, the “adoption story” may have already peaked.

At the same time, some market participants, including Strategy’s Michael Saylor, have suggested capital could be rotating out of crypto into other high-momentum opportunities, including upcoming IPOs and AI-linked investments.

Pompliano: Rotation from bitcoin is natural, not structural

Speaking with CNBC, Pompliano pushed back on the idea that capital outflows signal structural weakness. Instead, he characterized the movement as typical portfolio rebalancing behavior.

“Capital chases momentum and returns,” he said, noting that Bitcoin’s liquidity makes it a convenient source of funds when investors pursue new opportunities.

The current market environment highlights a tension in Bitcoin’s evolution. While institutional adoption has broadened its investor base, it has also tied Bitcoin more closely to macroeconomic trends and cross-asset flows.

As a result, Bitcoin increasingly behaves like a risk asset during periods of market stress, declining alongside equities rather than acting as an uncorrelated hedge. This dynamic has complicated the narrative of Bitcoin as “digital gold,” particularly in the short term.

Still, Pompliano maintains that Bitcoin’s core fundamentals remain unchanged. He pointed to the network’s continued operation, decentralization, and predictable issuance schedule as evidence that the asset’s long-term value proposition is intact.

“Show me what has changed,” he said. “The network continues to do everything it is designed to do.”

Bitcoin as a ‘Savings Technology’

Pompliano reiterated his long-held view of Bitcoin as a hedge against fiat currency debasement, arguing that persistent government spending and monetary expansion underpin its long-term case.

He described Bitcoin as a “savings technology,” highlighting its historical compound annual growth rates — approximately 60% over the past decade and over 30% in the last three years — as evidence of its ability to preserve and grow capital over time.

In his view, Bitcoin’s role is less about short-term speculation and more about long-term wealth protection, akin to gold or real estate for previous generations.

This post Bitcoin’s Pullback Tests Institutional Adoption Narrative as Pompliano Stays Bullish first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Price Plunges Below ‘Fire Sale’ Territory as Fear Index Reads 12 — Echoing the FTX Crash

Bitcoin price dropped to levels on Thursday that placed it below the “Fire Sale!” band on the Bitcoin Rainbow Chart — a depth not reached since the catastrophic FTX exchange collapse in November 2022 — as the Fear and Greed Index registered a reading of 12 out of 100, deep in “Extreme Fear” territory.

Bitcoin price opened today near $63,500 after sliding below $62,000 last night. That puts BTC below even the most discounted valuation band on the Bitcoin Rainbow Chart — a level the model historically flags as a rare and extreme buying signal.

The Bitcoin Rainbow Chart is somewhat of a logarithmic growth curve overlaid with color-coded sentiment bands. The deepest band — labeled “Basically a Fire Sale!” — represents the lowest tier of the model’s projected fair value range. When Bitcoin trades beneath it, the asset sits outside the historical channel that has contained BTC’s long-term price behavior.

The last confirmed breach of the “Fire Sale!” floor occurred during the FTX exchange collapse in November 2022, when Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire imploded and BTC cratered under forced selling pressure across the market. That event remains one of the most severe liquidity crises in crypto history.

Per Bitcoin Magazine Pro data from March 2026, Bitcoin price had already begun testing below the “Fire Sale!” zone — described at the time as “its first drop into this area since the FTX-induced crash”. 

The renewed descent on June 4 deepens that breach, with the coin shedding ground for the second consecutive week.

Bitcoin price and market in ‘Extreme Fear’

The Fear and Greed Index, which runs on a scale of 0 to 100, registered 12 on Thursday — placing the market squarely in “Extreme Fear”. The index aggregates volatility, market momentum, social sentiment, and derivatives data into a single score. 

A reading below 25 signals extreme fear, a condition that, by the index’s own framework, has historically preceded price recovery periods.

February 2026 saw the index touch an all-time low of 5, driven by a 52% drawdown from Bitcoin price’s peak of $126,000. Thursday’s reading of 12 sits just above that nadir, as Bitcoin price continues its slide from cycle highs.

On X today, Strategy’s Michael Saylor argued the sell-off reflects institutional capital rotating into AI infrastructure rather than a deterioration in Bitcoin’s fundamentals. The decline may have been compounded by concerns over Strategy selling 32 BTC to fund preferred-share dividends — its first bitcoin sale since 2022 — despite the company recently reducing debt by repurchasing $1.5 billion of convertible notes at a discount.

This post Bitcoin Price Plunges Below ‘Fire Sale’ Territory as Fear Index Reads 12 — Echoing the FTX Crash first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Schwab Strategist: Bitcoin’s $60,000 Mining Cost Could Mark the Cycle Bottom

Bitcoin is in a bear market. That much is not in dispute. 

What Jim Ferraioli, Director of Digital Currencies Research and Strategy at Charles Schwab, argued Wednesday on Bloomberg is more precise and more structural: this selloff has a measurable cost floor, and that floor is built not from sentiment or chart patterns, but from the physics of energy consumption.

The numbers frame the drawdown in context. Bitcoin peaked at $126,000 in the fall before collapsing to roughly $60,000 in February — a 50% correction that, while brutal for recent buyers, falls far short of the 75%-plus implosions that defined prior Bitcoin bear markets.

Ferraioli’s core analytical framework centers on one question: what does it cost to manufacture Bitcoin? The answer creates a natural gravitational floor that has held across multiple cycles. 

For the most efficient miners — those operating at scale with next-generation ASIC hardware and access to the cheapest wholesale energy — the cost to produce one Bitcoin sits at approximately $60,000, Ferraioli said.

That figure is not arbitrary. It represents the all-in expense of powering a facility at roughly $0.07 per kilowatt-hour with the most advanced semiconductor fleets available.

The less efficient miners — those with older ASIC hardware, higher energy costs, and thinner operational margins — carry a production cost of approximately $95,000 per BTC, according to Glassnode data cited in Schwab’s May 2026 research report. That gap between $60,000 and $95,000 defines Bitcoin’s current valuation range. 

Bitcoin’s energy floor: Why $60,000 may mark the bottom

Ferraioli argues that in deep bear markets, the cost of production for the best miners has historically served as the bottom. February’s low near $60,000 aligns almost precisely with that level, as well as BTC’s 200-week moving average.

The BTC selling pressure is not random. It is demographically specific. The investors driving forced liquidations are those who acquired Bitcoin during the past 18 months — buyers who rode the asset from sub-$80,000 up to $126,000 and then watched gains evaporate in full. 

Schwab tracks two cost-basis metrics to quantify this pressure: the average acquisition cost for U.S. spot ETF and ETP holders, which stands near $83,000, and the active investor cost basis — excluding coins rewarded to miners — which sits near $78,000. 

Both figures sit well above current spot prices, putting the majority of recent entrants into unrealized loss positions and reinforcing $83,000 as a ceiling of overhead supply rather than a floor of support.

Glassnode’s on-chain data corroborates this dynamic. Bitcoin’s latest attempted rally stalled at the aggregate ETF cost basis near $83,000, with total realized losses spiking to $1.35 billion per day and long-term holders capitulating from cycle-top positions. Hedge funds represent roughly 30% of spot ETP ownership but are operating market-neutral, executing basis trades rather than taking directional views — meaning they provide no natural bid when prices fall.

Here is where Ferraioli’s analysis turns constructive. Every major publicly traded Bitcoin miner has announced a pivot toward high-performance computing (HPC) for AI inference workloads. The economics on their face appear to favor abandoning mining: inference generates higher net revenue per megawatt-hour than Bitcoin mining during peak demand windows. 

But demand for AI inference is not uniform across 24 hours. Models run hard during business hours and sit idle overnight and on weekends.

That creates a structural opportunity that does not displace BTC mining — it layers on top of it. Schwab’s analysis models Bitcoin as the optimal baseload monetization of power during off-peak hours, with inference overlaid during peak business-hour demand. 

A data center operating this hybrid model maximizes utilization across the full 24-hour cycle rather than leaving capacity dark when inference demand falls away. For miners, this translates to more stable revenue, reduced forced BTC sales to cover operating costs, and lower structural risk across bear market cycles.

Bitcoin is backed by energy 

The underlying thesis is one of energy economics. Bitcoin has no earnings, no free cash flow, and no CEO issuing guidance. Its value, in Ferraioli’s framework, derives from the energy cost required to produce it — a cost that is transparent, verifiable, and historically durable. 

In commodity markets, price cannot sustainably trade below cost of production. Producers shut down, supply contracts, and equilibrium resets higher. 

Bitcoin follows this same logic: when spot prices fall toward $60,000, the least efficient miners shut down operations, the network’s hash rate adjusts through Bitcoin’s difficulty mechanism, and the cost to produce each new coin falls.

As of May 2026, the average mining cost across all Bitcoin miners sits near $85,604, with the Bitcoin price trading in the mid-$60,000s — meaning the network as a whole is operating at a loss, a configuration that has historically preceded recoveries, not further collapse.

This post Schwab Strategist: Bitcoin’s $60,000 Mining Cost Could Mark the Cycle Bottom first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Ethereum’s slide to its lowest level in more than a year is testing the Wall Street trade that brought the token deeper into institutional portfolios.

Data from CryptoSlate shows that the second-largest cryptocurrency fell to as low as $1,506 during the last 24 hours, its weakest level since April 2025, extending a broad crypto selloff that has already drained leverage from derivatives markets and pushed traders toward defensive positioning.

Crucially, the downswing is not confined to ETH's spot market as the digital asset is also experiencing a broader deterioration across regulated ETF flows, centralized exchange deposits, and derivatives positioning.

This situation comes at a time when the broader crypto market sentiment has significantly weakened, with Bitcoin falling toward a four-month low near $60,000, while Ethereum has erased much of its market support.

ETF outflows weaken Ethereum’s institutional bid

The pressure has been most visible in the ETF market, where the products that gave institutions a regulated way to buy Ethereum have turned into a source of persistent outflows.

Data from SoSoValue shows that spot ETH ETFs have recorded four straight weeks of withdrawals totaling more than $870 million.

During that period, the funds posted a 17-day outflow streak interrupted by only one day of inflows, when investors added $19.3 million.

As a result, sosoValue data show total spot Ethereum ETF assets have declined more than 70% from their $30 billion peak to $8.71 billion, which is equal to about 4.01% of Ethereum’s circulating market capitalization.

The reversal has weakened one of the main arguments behind Ethereum’s institutional expansion. The ETFs were expected to broaden access to the asset, deepen liquidity, and give traditional investors a cleaner way to gain exposure without handling tokens directly.

However, that demand has softened as ETH’s price moved lower and investors have reduced risk across digital assets.

Exchange inflows add another supply risk

As institutional demand-side forces abated, the physical supply available on liquid trading platforms experienced a sudden and substantial expansion.

CryptoQuant data show Ethereum inflows to trading platforms climbed to about 2.24 million ETH in a single day, the highest level in four months. Binance accounted for more than 1.16 million ETH of those inflows, representing more than half of the total.

This surge in active supply can be seen in high-profile on-chain movements that served as glaring evidence of the liquidity migration.

Notably, a wallet linked to Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin awoke after more than three years of dormancy, mobilizing 80,001 ETH, valued at roughly $122 million.

The massive transfer epitomized the broader trend where long-inactive capital breaks from cold storage to seek out active trading venues and liquid architectures amid the mounting market stress.

Large inflows to trading platforms do not automatically mean investors are selling. They can reflect market-making activity, collateral movement, internal transfers, or portfolio restructuring during periods of stress.

However, traders watch the metric closely because coins held on exchanges are easier to sell or use in derivatives activity than coins sitting in private wallets.

The timing has made the increase harder to dismiss. Ethereum was already trading near $1,580 when the inflows accelerated, while Bitcoin had fallen toward $59,000. That combination suggested investors were moving assets during a marketwide reset rather than during a routine period of repositioning.

If exchange deposits remain elevated, the market could face additional short-term volatility.

Derivatives deleveraging deprives market of rebound capital

The velocity of the current crypto market decline has been accelerated by an extensive deleveraging cycle across leveraged futures platforms.

As spot valuations rapidly deteriorated, automated liquidation engines on major exchanges systematically closed out underwater long positions to protect clearinghouse integrity, amplifying organic selling pressure.

Data analyzed by Santiment illustrates that this liquidation wave effectively flushed out a massive block of speculative capital over a narrow four-day window:

• Bitcoin Total Open Interest: Contracted by approximately 25%, dropping to $23.2 billion, which is its lowest operational aggregate since early April.
• Ethereum Total Open Interest: Decreased by 13%, settling at $9.8 billion, a structural low point not seen since March.

While this aggressive deleveraging leaves the underlying market structurally healthier by purging speculative excess and over-extended margin, it introduces an immediate liquidity vacuum.

The severe drop in open interest demonstrates that the speculative floor has thinned, leaving the market highly vulnerable to further spot pressure due to the lack of immediate leveraged capital available to front-run a classic V-shaped recovery.

Consequently, retail crowd sentiment has cratered to its most pessimistic footing since mid-February.

The firm noted that social metrics reveal an exponential increase in the phraseology of capitulation, with organic social discussions increasingly pairing terms like “Bitcoin” and “altcoins” alongside terminal descriptors such as “dead,” “finished,” “over,” and “ending.”

Traders hedge for a break below $1,500

The buildup of stress across ETFs, exchange flows, whale cost bases, and leveraged markets has shifted attention to ETH's options market, where traders are paying more to protect against another leg lower.

Deribit data show demand for downside protection has increased sharply. The ETH options put-to-call premium rose to 3.7 times on Friday and has shown consistent excess demand for put options since Monday. Put contracts give holders the right to sell at a set price, making them a common hedge when traders expect further losses or want protection against a disorderly move.

ETH's open interest has clustered around several downside strikes. Traders have built roughly $108 million in open interest around the $1,500 strike, while the $1,400 strike has attracted about $75 million. The $1,000 strike has drawn about $78 million in positioning.

Those levels do not mean the market expects ETH to fall to $1,000 immediately. Instead, they show that traders are paying for protection after several support signals weakened at the same time.

BlockScholes data show the shift has also appeared in volatility pricing. ETH short-dated implied volatility has jumped from a year-to-date low of 36% to 67%, signaling that traders now expect larger near-term price swings.

The move has been accompanied by a sharper skew toward out-of-the-money puts. The seven-day ETH options skew has moved to about -14%, compared with roughly -3% to -4% in late May. Additionally, the demand for puts has also spread across 7-day, 14-day, 30-day, and 90-day maturities.

That broadening shows traders are not just hedging a single event or one short-term move. They are preparing for the possibility that Ethereum's weakness could extend if ETF outflows continue, exchange inflows stay elevated, and large holders remain below key cost levels.

The next test is whether $1,500 becomes a floor or a trigger. A stabilization in ETF flows and a decline in exchange deposits could help ease pressure.

Without that, the options market’s focus on downside strikes may become the clearest signal of where traders expect the next phase of the selloff to concentrate.

The post Ethereum’s $1,500 test shows how quickly Wall Street’s crypto trade has turned appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Decentralized finance has gotten a lot safer over the past six years, and a new review of protocol losses from 2020 through 2025 puts a pretty large number behind that claim.

Industry-wide DeFi losses peaked at $2.62 billion in 2022 and fell roughly 80% to $534 million by 2024. Bridge hacks that once produced billion-dollar headlines now account for a tiny slice of annual totals, and the typical exploit today does about a quarter as much damage as it did at the peak.

While this is certainly great news for the crypto industry, there's still quite a bit of risk left; it just shows up in a different place. Major protocols now often deploy the same code across Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, Polygon, OP Mainnet, and Sonic, so a single flaw can now drain funds on every network running it at the same time, and that's the form crypto's next systemic problem is likely to take.

We've seen this in November last year, when Balancer's V2 Composable Stable Pools were drained of roughly $128 million in under half an hour across six blockchains simultaneously.

According to Check Point Research, the attacker exploited an arithmetic precision flaw in the pools' invariant math, nudging token balances onto a rounding boundary and then chaining batched swaps until those tiny errors compounded into a full drain.

The contracts with the same vulnerability had been deployed on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, Polygon, Sonic, and OP Mainnet, so the exploit reached all of them at once because the flaw was embedded in the code itself, and that code had been copied everywhere.

As CryptoSlate reported at the time, eleven separate audits had failed to catch it, which tells you just how subtle this class of bug has become and why it's so much harder to anticipate than the attacks that came before.

The hacks got smaller as the chains multiplied

The encouraging part of the data is that the cheap, repeatable attacks that defined crypto's early years have mostly been engineered out of existence, and total losses dropped 80% in two years, even as DeFi's TVL kept climbing. A huge drop was also seen in the median loss per incident, which fell from $6 million in 2022 to $1.5 million in 2025, a 75% decline.

The count of unique incidents actually rose to 83 in 2025, so more hacks are happening while each one does far less damage, which is roughly what a maturing security field is supposed to look like.

Bridges were the defining vulnerability in 2021 and 2022, and in that second year alone, nine bridge exploits resulted in $1.9 billion in losses. These hacks were truly some of crypto's worst moments, with the Ronin Bridge accounting for a $624 million loss on its own.

CryptoSlate tracked it on-chain as the funds moved through Tornado Cash, followed by Binance Bridge at $570 million, Wormhole at $326 million, Nomad at $190 million, Harmony at $100 million, and Qubit at $80 million.

It accounted for 73% of all DeFi losses that year, and by 2025, the bridge's share had collapsed to 3%, thanks to improved verification mechanisms, decentralized validator sets, and a broader shift toward native cross-chain messaging.

Flash-loan attacks followed the same path down. They represented 54% of all losses in 2020 when they were the signature DeFi technique, and by 2025, they accounted for under 1%, because protocols adopted defenses tailored specifically to that attack: time-weighted average prices, Chainlink oracle integrations, reentrancy guards, and designs that assume an attacker can manipulate prices within a single atomic transaction.

Private-key compromises saw a similar decline, falling from 28.7% of losses in 2022 to 8.1% in 2025. Each of these categories shrank for the same underlying reason, which is that the industry recognized a repeatable pattern and built a standardized answer to it, and as CryptoSlate's year-end review of 2025 found, those answers have largely held.

What's left is harder to defend against

Closing off the generic attacks left behind a far more difficult category: in 2025, 89.1% of DeFi losses came from protocol logic exploits, meaning code-level flaws specific to how one application was designed. A bridge hack involves recognizable trust assumptions, and a flash-loan attack is part of a known family of techniques, so both can be defended with reusable patterns.

However, a protocol logic bug is bespoke by nature. It emerges from the particular math, access controls, or composability choices of a single codebase, making it hard to defend against systematically, because each instance is its own puzzle and shares little with the last.

Multi-chain deployment is what turns one of these bespoke bugs into a full-blown crisis. ImmuneFi's report draws a direct line from the defining multi-chain incident of 2021, the roughly $611 million Poly Network exploit, to Balancer in 2025.

Poly Network was a failure at the connection point between systems, the kind of choke point that bridges create, whereas Balancer was the same logic failing identically across networks that share code, signer paths, and verification assumptions. Once a chain becomes part of the default deployment map for major protocols, it absorbs the risk surface of everything it hosts, however sound its own infrastructure happens to be.

That changes how you measure an ecosystem's safety, and the report's method shows this by attributing the full loss from a multi-chain exploit to each affected chain, on the logic that participants across all six networks were exposed to the full impact.

The trade-off is that the 2025 hack figures for Polygon, OP Mainnet, Base, and Sonic are heavily influenced by the Balancer cascade. The report also strips out centralized exchange failures entirely, which is why the year's largest single theft, the $1.5 billion Bybit hack that the FBI attributed to North Korea, is considered a custody failure rather than a protocol one.

On a loss-to-TVL basis, the safest tier among major ecosystems was Ethereum at around 0.42%, Solana at 0.42%, and BNB Chain at 0.33%, the three largest DeFi ecosystems by value locked, which suggests scale and security have been improving together rather than at each other's expense.

While these changes fare much better for the average protocol, they're not so good for the average user. A loss can now occur in an app that carries a flaw imported from elsewhere, and the convenience that makes multi-chain apps appealing is what makes this mistake escalate from a local to a shared one.

Crypto spun up all these separate chains partly to avoid depending on any single system, and the irony is that running the same handful of popular protocols across all of them has rebuilt the concentration those chains were meant to escape.

The next big incident may look small on the day it lands (a single logic bug in a widely deployed protocol), but reveal its true size only once people realize the same vulnerable code was sitting on half a dozen networks the entire time.

The post DeFi’s old hack vectors are fading – But the new risk can hit six chains at once appeared first on CryptoSlate.

South Korean police opened the country's first illegal gambling probe into domestic Polymarket users on Jun. 5, targeting residents who placed bets on the Jun. 3 local election outcomes.

The Gangwon Provincial Police Agency is leading the investigation at the request of the National Police Agency, tracing cryptocurrency transaction records to identify users nationwide.

Those identified face potential fines of up to 10 million won ($6,500) under Article 246 of the Criminal Act. Polymarket's resolved 2026 Seoul mayoral election market alone showed a total volume of $52.2 million, putting activity well into the tens of billions of won across Korean election markets.

South Korea ranks 15th in Chainalysis' 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index, the latest addition to a list that already includes India (#1), Brazil (#5), Indonesia (#7), and Thailand (#17).

Six of the top 20 crypto adoption markets have now moved against prediction platforms through gambling law, derivatives restrictions, ISP blocks, user enforcement, or some combination of all four.

Crypto adoption and legal permission for crypto-native financial products diverged, and prediction markets are caught in that gap.

The volume that drew attention

Combined monthly trading volume on Kalshi and Polymarket climbed from under $5 billion in September 2025 to over $10 billion in May 2026.

For context, legal US sportsbooks averaged about $14 billion in monthly wagers throughout 2025. Sports, politics, and crypto drove 91% of Kalshi's global volume and 90% of Polymarket's since July 2024.

Sports alone accounted for 80% of Kalshi volume, while politics accounted for 32% of Polymarket's, and those product concentrations are precisely where regulators draw the hardest lines.

Since the start of 2026, Kalshi flagged over 400 suspicious trades, more than double its total for all of 2025. Platforms built market integrity mechanisms faster than legal frameworks emerged to govern them.

How the classification breaks down

On Apr. 24, Brazil's Finance Minister Dario Durigan announced that the National Monetary Council's Resolution No. 5,298 blocked 27 platforms, including Polymarket, Kalshi, PredictIt, and Robinhood's forecasting feature. It also prohibited derivatives tied to sports, online gaming, political, electoral, cultural, and social outcomes.

Only contracts tied to economic benchmarks, such as exchange rates or interest rates, survived the cut. Durigan said the government wanted to prevent an unregulated betting market from embedding itself in household finances at a moment when Brazil was already working to reduce consumer debt.

Kalshi's timing was particularly poor: the platform had announced a Brazilian distribution partnership with brokerage XP International in March 2026, one month before the block took effect.

India treated the same product through a different legal pipe and arrived at the same outcome. Both houses of Parliament passed the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act 2025 in August 2025, received presidential assent the same month, and came into force on May 1, 2026.

Under the law, prediction markets fall into prohibited online money gaming, with the classification covering event contracts regardless of how operators frame them as derivatives or forecasting tools.

MeitY issued a blocking order against Polymarket and is preparing a similar order for Kalshi. On Apr. 25, the ministry sent a letter specifically to VPN providers, warning them against enabling access to blocked platforms.

Targeting VPN providers alongside platforms extends enforcement one layer deeper into the access stack.

Indonesia blocked Polymarket after markets on the potential early end of President Prabowo Subianto's term circulated on the platform. Thai cybercrime authorities moved earlier to classify Polymarket as illegal online gambling.

Spain ordered ISPs to block Polymarket and Kalshi on May 26, pending disciplinary proceedings by the gambling watchdog, DGOJ, expected to last 3 to 4 months.

Spain sits outside Chainalysis' top 20, but its enforcement rests on consumer-protection machinery, giving regulators a framework that applies regardless of whether the product is classified as a derivative.

The US version

The United States presents a jurisdiction fight, as federal CFTC regulation coexists with state-level gambling claims over the same contracts, and that tension remains unresolved.

Kalshi holds a designated contract market license, and Polymarket relaunched a US exchange in late 2025 after acquiring a regulated derivatives firm.

Several states argue that sports and election contracts cross into gambling territory regardless of CFTC oversight, resulting in litigation that carves up the domestic market into patches.

In April 2026, Polymarket International recorded $9 billion in trading volume, compared with $1.3 billion on Polymarket US.

The US House Oversight Committee opened a probe into Kalshi and Polymarket in May 2026 over whether government employees were trading on classified information, with Chair James Comer signaling potential legislation to bar members of Congress and administration officials from participating.

That market-integrity argument adds legislative pressure independent of the CFTC-versus-state question.

How far the collateral wedge travels

In the bull case, regulators in key financial centers accept event contracts as legitimate derivatives when used for economic, financial, or hedging purposes, and require platforms to strip out sports, politics, and elections to operate legally.

Kalshi's CFTC-regulated model serves as the template, with platforms bifurcating into a compliant financial-contract layer and a separate offshore, crypto-native layer.

The offshore layer continues to attract retail demand until payment friction, app-store enforcement, or VPN crackdowns gradually narrow access.

In the bear case, Brazil's category-wide derivatives ban and India's online money-gaming classification spread to additional top crypto-adoption markets.

Sports, politics, and elections are the products users actually want, and those are precisely the contracts regulators target. Platforms that depend on those categories for 90% of volume cannot strip them out without becoming structurally different businesses.

A market-integrity incident, such as a documented case of insider trading on a geopolitical event or election, accelerates the cascade. Kalshi flagged 400-plus suspicious trades in the first five months of 2026 alone. The raw material for a triggering event already exists.

Regulated financial contracts will serve jurisdictions willing to treat narrow categories of events as CFTC-style derivatives. Licensed gambling products will be offered on platforms that classify outcome contracts as bets and comply with local consumer protection regimes.

Geofenced crypto-native markets will continue to reach users through stablecoins, wallets, and VPNs until access, payment processing, or enforcement pressure catches up.

South Korea's probe shows the enforcement logic is moving from platform blocking to user liability, with authorities tracing crypto transaction records to identify individuals and summon them for questioning.

The post Crypto rails made prediction markets global, gambling laws may make them local again appeared first on CryptoSlate.

AI has hit an electricity problem. Running it takes staggering amounts of power; demand in the US is climbing faster than the grid can keep up, and that's handing enormous leverage to the companies that generate and deliver it.

On June 2, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas voted to overhaul how it admits large power users to the grid, wading through a backlog of data centers, crypto mines, and industrial sites all reaching for the same megawatts.

That same week, lawmakers in Albany, New York, were racing to pass a one-year moratorium on new large-scale data centers, which could make the state the first in the country to pause the buildout outright.

The companies training frontier models keep running into a wall built from copper, concrete, and regulatory patience. The beneficiary of all that demand is the unglamorous entity at the other end of the wire: the utility, the grid operator, the power producer that decides who gets electricity, when, and at what price.

Electricity became the scarcest asset for AI

For most of the past decade, every conversation about AI revolved around software, and the most important constraint people were worried about was the supply of advanced GPUs.

Now, the conversation has shifted to industrial economics, and the limiting inputs are land, generation capacity, water, high-voltage transformers, and local boards.

Goldman Sachs expects US data center power demand to climb from 31 gigawatts in 2025 to 41 in 2026 and 66 in 2027, lifting data centers' share of US peak summer demand from 4.1% to 8.5% over the same stretch.

However, the bank noted that only about 50% to 60% of the capacity scheduled over the next year or two is likely to arrive on time, due to delays and cancellations. Even when discounted, the grid is being asked to absorb in two years what it usually takes a decade to add.

The International Energy Agency projects that data center electricity use will roughly double by 2030, while demand from AI-focused facilities will triple. Its report leans hard on the bottlenecks, from tightening supply chains for gas turbines and transformers to grid connections that take years and a rush toward on-site generation that mostly remains on paper.

Power companies now have an unbelievable amount of leverage. A utility collects regardless of which company wins the race; all it needs is for the race to keep demanding more power. Regulated utilities earn returns on approved capital spending, so a wave of grid upgrades becomes a wave of rate-based revenue.

Independent power producers sell into a tighter market but at higher prices. Grid operators, holding a finite stock of connection capacity, become the gatekeepers who decide which projects are viable.

Texas shows how gatekeeping turns into rules. Under Senate Bill 6, ERCOT is now using a “pay your own way” model that loads interconnection costs onto large customers and forces them to stand down during emergencies, with a non-refundable $ 50,000-per-megawatt fee and steep deposits to weed out speculative claims.

The strain is hard to overstate, since nearly 200 large users lined up in the first months of 2026 alone, together seeking a combined 438 gigawatts, more than five times what the entire state currently draws.

New York's proposed pause approaches the same problem from the political flank, weighing AI data center growth against household bills, water use, and grid reliability. Electricity has become a rationed input, and the parties doing the rationing now have the strongest hand at the table.

Bitcoin miners saw this fight first, and now everyone pays

The Bitcoin market is familiar with this bottleneck because it was the miners who first lived it. Mining built a business on cheap, interruptible power, using flexible load that switches off when the grid strains and soaks up surplus when prices crater.

That's why Texas wrote its new demand-response programs around it, and why miners spent years chasing wasted watts into windy plateaus and hydro spillways where energy often sat stranded and was cheap. Some analysts go further and argue the grid should welcome that flexibility as a service, given how fast miners can curtail.

That's almost the exact opposite of what AI wants and needs. Hyperscalers want steady, always-on power and long-term certainty, backed by jobs and national-competitiveness arguments that carry real political weight. When BlackRock warned this January that AI data centers could consume as much as 24% of US electricity by 2030, it effectively declared the cheap-power truce over.

A CryptoSlate analysis comparing energy footprints across streaming, AI, and crypto reached a similar verdict, with miners now facing a tight squeeze as AI firms bid up the price of firm supply.

The power company is now arbitrating that fight, and profiting from it whichever way it breaks.

Should utilities build out generation and transmission to serve AI hyperscaler demand, ratepayers can end up absorbing part of the cost unless regulators ring-fence those expenses or compel large loads to cover their own share.

The federal forecast already leans that way, with the EIA expecting US power use to set fresh records in 2026 and 2027. Residential prices have already increased 5% in 2026, with the sharpest increases landing along the East Coast.

AI promised abstraction, intelligence rendered as weightless, infinitely copyable software. Its expansion has made electricity the scarce commodity that determines who gets to scale, who gets priced out, and who collects a check, no matter which company captures most of the market. The companies will keep chasing the headlines, while the power company keeps a steady hand on the meter.

The post AI’s power race is shifting leverage from chipmakers like NVIDIA to the grid appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The CLARITY Act, the crypto industry’s biggest bill in Congress, is losing momentum just weeks after clearing a key Senate committee, raising the risk that Washington’s first major digital asset rulebook slips deeper into an election year.

Galaxy Digital lowered its estimate that the CLARITY Act will become law in 2026 to 60% from 75%, citing a shrinking Senate calendar and little visible progress on unresolved fights over ethics and illicit finance.

Notably, JPMorgan analysts issued a similar warning this week, saying the legislative window has narrowed as lawmakers move closer to the midterm elections.

The downgrade marks a reversal for a bill that recently appeared to have its clearest path yet. The CLARITY Act cleared the Senate Banking Committee on May 14 in a 15-9 vote.

The CLARITY Act is the crypto industry’s central legislative priority because it would create the first comprehensive federal framework for digital assets in the US.

Supporters say it would clarify when cryptocurrencies fall under the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), replacing years of enforcement-driven policy with clearer rules for issuers, exchanges, and investors.

But the legislation still needs to pass the full Senate, be reconciled with House legislation, and receive the president’s signature.

That sequence is becoming harder to fit into a crowded summer schedule.

Senate calendar turns against the bill

In a recent note to clients, Galaxy explained that its revised estimate is based mainly on timing rather than a collapse in support for the bill.

Alex Thorn, the firm’s head of research, pointed out that the Senate is running out of usable days before the August recess, which is scheduled to begin at the end of July.

According to him, the bill faces several procedural steps before it can become law. This includes the fact that it must secure 60 votes in the Senate, go through floor debate and amendments, be aligned with a separate Senate Agriculture Committee text, and then move through the House.

This means the Senate Majority Leader John Thune would likely need to schedule floor time in July for that process to fit before lawmakers leave Washington.

However, the available window has narrowed over the past two weeks as the Senate lost time to a fight over the administration’s anti-weaponization fund, which consumed floor space during work on an ICE and Border Patrol funding package.

The chamber also failed to advance reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in a 47-52 procedural vote, setting up another scramble before the surveillance authority lapses June 12.

That creates a practical problem for a bill that still needs bipartisan support. Senate leaders have little reason to spend a week of scarce floor time on legislation unless they believe the votes are ready.

The open issues remain substantial. Democrats led by Sen. Ruben Gallego have pushed for ethics provisions tied to conflicts of interest. Illicit finance hawks want stronger safeguards around money laundering and sanctions risks. The Senate Banking and Agriculture committees also still need to merge their approaches.

JPMorgan analysts led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou said the midterm calendar could delay progress on crypto market structure reform this year.

Meanwhile, the timing could also affect the final deal, because a compromise reached before the elections may look different from one negotiated afterward, when political incentives and control of Congress could shift.

Banks keep pressure on stablecoin yield

The calendar problem is colliding with the banks' sustained fight over stablecoins, the digital tokens designed to track the dollar and move across blockchain networks.

For banks, the most sensitive question is whether crypto firms can offer yield on stablecoin balances.

Banking groups have warned that interest-like payments on digital dollars could pull money away from checking and savings accounts while avoiding the rules that apply to regulated banks.

CryptoSlate previously reported that the bill was intended to prohibit passive yield, meaning payments made simply for holding stablecoins. However, the legislation would still allow rewards tied to activity, such as payments, transactions, loyalty programs, and trading incentives.

The distinction could determine whether stablecoins remain payment and settlement tools or become substitutes for bank deposits.

Crypto firms have pushed for flexibility, arguing that activity-based rewards are part of payments innovation and consumer adoption.

The industry says overly strict limits would protect banks from competition and reduce the appeal of digital dollar products that can settle faster than traditional payment systems.

Banks counter that stablecoin issuers and crypto platforms should not be allowed to offer bank-like products without bank-like obligations.

In fact, an American Bankers Association (ABA)-sponsored survey recently stated that “consumers strongly support protecting local lending and the financial system from the risks associated with allowing interest-like rewards on stablecoins.”

That argument has gained political force as stablecoins grow into a larger part of digital finance and as major exchanges seek new ways to turn customer balances into payment activity, trading incentives, and yield-linked products.

Essentially, this dispute remains one of the major obstacles to advancing the legislation as bankers and crypto executives lobby for their own advantage.

What's next for CLARITY Act?

Galaxy Digital stated that the bill’s path could improve if Senate leadership commits to floor time in early to mid-July, if lawmakers bridge the ethics and illicit finance disputes, and if the Banking and Agriculture committees produce a combined package ready for debate.

Those signals would show that the bill has both the votes and the calendar space needed to move.

Without them, the path likely shifts to September, when campaign politics and a crowded fall agenda could reshape the bill or push it into another Congress.

For now, the CLARITY Act remains alive but weakened. Its chances have fallen because the Senate has less time, the banks are still fighting over digital dollars, and the crypto industry has only a few weeks to prove the bill can clear Washington before election politics take over.

The post CLARITY Act chances of passage this year falls to 60%, Galaxy Digital says appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The global financial markets just witnessed one of the most brutal, synchronized sell-offs in recent history. In a single trading session, an astonishing $2.5 trillion in market value was completely erased across equities, precious metals, and digital assets.

This was not a series of isolated corrections; it was a systemic liquidity event where everything broke simultaneously. While traditional markets bled heavily, Bitcoin ($BTC) found itself directly in the crosshairs, plunging over 6% to retest critical support lines before staging a fragile relief bounce to roughly $62,100.

Here is an analytical breakdown of exactly how a macro perfect storm, an artificial intelligence panic, and a hidden liquidity crunch broke the markets all at once.

The Macro Trigger: A Blistering May Jobs Report

The initial domino fell with the release of the U.S. employment data. The U.S. economy added 172,000 jobs in May, obliterating Wall Street's consensus expectation of 88,000.

Under normal economic conditions, a robust labor market is celebrated. However, in the current macroeconomic climate, it serves as an inflation accelerant. With headline inflation already sticky at 3.8% and crude oil hovering stubbornly at $90 per barrel, a hot labor market signals to the Federal Reserve that the economy is running too hot to justify loosening monetary policy.

Consequently, the market’s implied probability of an additional Fed interest rate hike this year surged from 40% to 57% in a single day. Higher interest rates reduce the present value of future corporate cash flows, making high-growth tech stocks and speculative risk assets less attractive. Investors reacted instantly by pricing in a hawkish regime, sparking an aggressive flight to cash.

The mathematical damage across major asset classes tells the story:

• Nasdaq: Down -2.60% (-$1.11 trillion)
• S&P 500: Down -1.65% (-$1.14 trillion)
• Gold: Down -3.38% (-$1 trillion)
• Silver: Down -6.90% (-$280 billion)
• Bitcoin ($BTC): Down -15.31% (-$80 billion)

The AI Trade Cracks: Broadcom, Nvidia, and Semiconductor Panic

For over a year, the artificial intelligence boom has single-handedly carried major stock indices. Today, that narrative cracked.

The trouble began when Broadcom ($AVGO) reported its earnings. Despite posting stellar numbers—including a 48% jump in overall revenue and a 143% increase in AI chip sales—the stock plummeted 12.6%. The catalyst? Broadcom failed to raise its forward-looking AI revenue guidance for the rest of the year. For an overextended market pricing in flawless exponential growth, a lack of an upward revision was treated as an outright failure.

The anxiety escalated rapidly following a research report published by boutique firm SemiAnalysis. The report revealed that Nvidia’s ($NVDA) next-generation AI architecture will require significantly less high-bandwidth memory (HBM) than previously anticipated—roughly half of what the market had priced in.

The structural implications for supply chain monopolies were immediate:

• SK Hynix fell nearly 10% in Asian trading.
• Samsung dropped over 6%.
• South Korea's KOSPI index collapsed 5.5% in a single session.

To add fuel to the fire, AI startup Anthropic published a sobering safety paper warning that artificial intelligence systems are rapidly approaching a threshold where they can recursively optimize and improve their own code without human intervention. The firm called for a coordinated global pause on advanced AI development, amplifying fears that the technological expansion is moving far faster than viable commercial business models can sustain.

The Hidden Liquidity Crunch: The Race for Fresh Cash

Beneath the surface of the macroeconomic headlines lies an institutional liquidity squeeze that few are openly discussing.

A wave of mega-cap private tech companies are preparing to drain market liquidity via initial public offerings (IPOs). SpaceX is slated to go public next week at a staggering $1.75 trillion valuation, while both Anthropic and OpenAI are actively structuring their own public market debuts. Combined, these three market entrants represent between $4 trillion and $5 trillion in prospective market capitalization.

Institutional fund managers who intend to secure allocations in these generational listings require vast amounts of liquid capital. However, aggregate institutional cash reserves are currently sitting at their lowest levels since early 2024. Because fund managers cannot buy new shares with illiquid assets, they are forced to sell what they already own. This structural rotation explains why even historical safe havens like gold and silver were heavily sold off alongside equities and crypto.

Bitcoin's Critical Technical Battle at $60,000

As a hyper-sensitive barometer for global liquidity, Bitcoin felt the full brunt of the liquidation wave. Derivative markets experienced a massive squeeze, with over $1.5 billion in leveraged crypto long positions wiped out within 24 hours, according to data from Coinmarketcap.

The relentless selling pressure forced $BTC down to briefly breach the psychological $60,000 support level, hitting intraday lows that triggered deep demand blocks.

From a technical perspective, the $60,000 region represents a vital structural floor. Buyers stepped in aggressively at this level, allowing Bitcoin to print a slight relief bounce to $62,100. Maintaining this level is paramount for bulls; a decisive daily close below $60,000 opens the technical trapdoor for a deeper correction toward the $53,000 macro liquidity pocket.

The Warsh Factor: Unpredictability Ahead

Adding to the pervasive market anxiety is the impending Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting in 11 days, which will be chaired for the first time by the newly appointed Fed Chair, Kevin Warsh.

While Warsh was originally appointed under political expectations of a dovish, rate-cutting agenda, he now walks into a monetary minefield defined by sticky inflation, $90 oil, and an unyielding labor market.

Faced with an entirely unpredictable central bank leadership shift in less than two weeks, institutional investors are adopting a defensive posture. In a market governed by uncertainty, the safest and most logical operational play is to de-risk immediately—and that is exactly what the world did today.

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.

Regulatory scrutiny over centralized financial platforms has reached an all-time high. Major exchanges continue to tighten identity verification rules, increase account freezes, and suffer massive personal data leaks. As a result, maintaining on-chain privacy is a primary objective for many digital asset holders.

Fortunately, decentralized architecture enables users to acquire and trade digital assets without handing over sensitive personal documents. If you want to bypass Know Your Customer (KYC) onboarding completely, the market offers three distinct, practical operational paths.

Here is exactly how to buy Bitcoin without KYC, execute advanced derivatives trading via non-custodial platforms, and securely store your funds in private storage.

1. Decentralized Perpetual Exchanges (Perp DEXs)

For active traders seeking leverage, advanced order types, and deep liquidity without an identity check, decentralized perpetual platforms are the optimal solution. Unlike traditional centralized entities, these protocols operate entirely via smart contracts. You do not register with an email or upload an ID; you simply connect a non-custodial Web3 wallet.

Top No-KYC Perpetual Platforms

• Hyperliquid: Operating on its own specialized Layer 1 network, Hyperliquid delivers a highly performant user interface, minimal trading fees, and deep liquidity for perpetual contracts without checking user identities.
• Lighter: Focusing on efficient order execution, Lighter provides low-latency trading infrastructure that completely bypasses user-identity documentation checks.

Trading Mechanics

Because native $Bitcoin lives on its own proof-of-work blockchain, perp DEXs typically settle transactions using collateralized stablecoins like USDC or USDT, or synthetic variants like Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC). To use these platforms, you deposit stablecoins from your Web3 wallet, trade the underlying price action of Bitcoin with up to 20x or 50x leverage, and settle your profits directly back into your non-custodial wallet.

2. Decentralized Instant Swap Services

If your goal is spot acquisition rather than derivatives trading, non-custodial instant swap protocols allow you to execute cross-chain transactions without setting up an account.

Platforms like GhostSwap and SwapRocket aggregate deep order book liquidity from dozens of decentralized and institutional partners. They enable users to drop one digital asset into a smart contract and receive another asset directly in an external wallet.

• User Wallet (Sends USDT/ETH)
• Instant Swap Smart Contract
• Private Bitcoin Wallet (Receives Native BTC)

This model is ideal if you already own a liquid digital asset (such as $Ethereum or a stablecoin) and want to swap it for native Bitcoin without an intermediary holding custody of your funds during the execution window.

3. Pure Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Escrow Platforms

To move fiat currency (cash, bank transfers, or localized payment networks) directly into Bitcoin without a central exchange tracking your personal information, Peer-to-Peer networks are the foundational standard.

Platforms like Hodl Hodl and Bisq provide decentralized, non-custodial frameworks where buyers and sellers match directly.

The Security Model: Multi-Signature Escrow

To guarantee security without relying on a centralized intermediary, these platforms utilize automated multi-signature (multi-sig) smart contracts.

1.Lock the Asset: Initiation

The Bitcoin seller deposits the agreed BTC amount into a secure, programmatically locked 2-of-3 multi-signature escrow account on the blockchain.

2.Execute Fiat Payment: Peer-to-Peer.

The buyer sends the fiat funds directly to the seller using the mutually agreed payment protocol (e.g., SEPA transfer, cash in person, or revolut).

3.Release the Escrow: Settlement.

Once the seller verifies receipt of the fiat funds in their private account, they sign the transaction to release the locked Bitcoin from the multi-sig contract directly to the buyer's destination address.

If a dispute arises, an independent arbitrator reviews proof of payment and signs the third key to release the funds to the rightful owner.

Step-by-Step: How to Send Cryptos to a Private Wallet

Buying Bitcoin anonymously is only half the battle. If you leave your digital assets on a centralized platform or do not practice strict operational security with your private keys, your privacy footprint remains vulnerable.

To maximize your structural anonymity, follow this exact process to route your newly acquired Bitcoin to cold storage:

Step 1: Generate Clean Address ──> Step 2: Set Optimal Network Fees ──> Step 3: Verify & Cast Transaction

1. Generate a Fresh Private Address

Open an open-source, non-custodial private wallet application (such as Electrum or a hardware wallet interface like Trezor or Ledger). Generate a brand-new Bitcoin receiving address. Avoid reusing older public keys, as blockchain analytics firms can easily cluster transactions together to map out your entire financial net worth.

2. Initiate the Withdrawal or Swap

Input your fresh public address into your selected Perp DEX, instant swap layout, or P2P platform. Carefully double-check every alphanumeric character. Because blockchain transactions are entirely immutable, sending funds to an incorrect address results in permanent capital loss.

3. Broadcast the Transaction

Confirm the transaction and pay the necessary network mining fee. Once the transaction is broadcast to the global network, monitor its progress using a decentralized, privacy-focused block explorer (such as Mempool.space via a Tor browser connection) until it reaches a minimum of three to six block confirmations.

Critical Privacy Note: Always route your online traffic through a virtual private network (VPN) or the Tor network when executing transactions. Even if a platform does not require identity documents, it can still log your public IP address and geolocate your physical position.

Bitcoin has done it again: From an all-time high of around $120,000, it has dropped to about $60,000 within a few months – a decrease of around 50%. Those who invested at the peak are now staring at a halved portfolio. However, those who invested with a clear plan and the right investment strategy are already familiar with this scenario from previous cycles and know: Right now is when the foundation for future returns is being laid.

Key Insights

• Bitcoin fell from about $120,000 to around $60,000 in 2025/2026 – a decline of about 50%, which is historically not unusual in the crypto space (comparable to 2017/18 and 2021/22).
• Dollar cost averaging (DCA) is a proven strategy where you regularly invest a fixed amount – regardless of the current price. This smooths out your entry price and helps you avoid the trap of market timing.
• Large investment funds and pension funds operate on the same principle: they invest regularly over decades instead of reacting to short-term market fluctuations.
• During crash phases, you as an investor have three options: continue DCA consistently, partially shift into stablecoins, or pause your savings plan and wait for recovery signals.
• The perfect entry point is less important than having a clear plan with defined risk, time horizon, and discipline – our savings plan and crypto savings plan comparison can help you find the right provider.

From Bitcoin's All-Time High to Crash – What DCA Has to Do with It

In early 2025, Bitcoin reached a new all-time high of around $126,000 – approximately $120,000. What followed is familiar to experienced customers of the crypto market: profit-taking, panic selling, and a price drop of around 50%. The price fell to values between $60,000 and $70,000.

Such crashes are not anomalies. In previous cycles – such as 2017/18 or 2021/22 – losses ranged from 40% to over 80%. Nevertheless, Bitcoin recovered each time and reached new highs.

The problem: Many beginners enter at the top, driven by FOMO and media hype, and sell in panic at the first major decline. DCA – dollar cost averaging – is the method that cushions this behavior. Instead of waiting for the supposedly perfect moment, you invest a fixed amount regularly in cryptos like $Bitcoin or $Ethereum.

In this article, we will show you how DCA works in crypto, how to strategically use crash phases, and how to invest step by step with a crypto savings plan – for example, through Bitpanda.

What is Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA) in the Crypto Space?

Dollar-Cost-Averaging (DCA) means that you regularly buy a fixed amount of an asset – for example, €100 in Bitcoin every month. DCA allows for regular investments in cryptocurrencies without having to worry about the current price.

The cost averaging effect works like this:

• When prices are low, you automatically buy more units (e.g., more Satoshis). Investors buy more units at low prices and fewer at high prices.
• When prices are high, you buy fewer units – this creates an averaged entry price over time.
• DCA can lower the average cost per unit because you don’t buy everything at a single (possibly unfavorable) moment.
• DCA eliminates the stress of timing the purchase – you don’t need to understand technical chart analysis or market forecasts.

This method comes from traditional investing: ETF savings plans, mutual funds, and retirement plans operate on the same principle. DCA is simple for beginners and does not require extensive knowledge of cryptocurrency markets. It does not guarantee profits, but it limits psychological errors such as panic selling and impulsive trading.

Why DCA Makes Sense in Volatile Cryptocurrency Markets

The crypto market is notorious for its volatility. Daily movements of ±10% are not uncommon, and cycles where prices like Bitcoin drop from $120,000 to $60,000 are part of everyday life. DCA is particularly advantageous in volatile markets like cryptocurrencies because it allows you to take advantage of these fluctuations.

Market timing is extremely difficult in these markets. Even professional traders and analysts regularly miss the mark when it comes to identifying tops or bottoms. DCA reduces the risk of investing just before a market downturn because you spread your capital over many points in time.

DCA aims to reduce the effects of market volatility. Instead of letting market fluctuations control you, you automatically buy in bull and bear markets. This way, you benefit on average from the long-term trend of the asset.

Pension funds and retirement savings plans set the example: They regularly invest large sums in broadly diversified assets over decades without trying to perfectly time short-term fluctuations. DCA works particularly well for long-term crypto investors with a time horizon of 5 to 10+ years who believe in the fundamental value of Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Strategies for Crash Phases: DCA, Stablecoins & Waiting

Bitcoin halves from $120,000 to $60,000. Many altcoins fall 70–90%. The monetary value in the portfolio shrinks. Emotions run high. Right now, the plan separates from the panic. Here are three options you have as an investor in such phases:

Option 1 – Continue Investing via DCA: Many long-term investors simply let their existing crypto savings plan continue. DCA allows for the purchase of more units at low prices – and that is the core of the strategy. Those who consistently invest during the crash significantly lower their average entry price. An example of DCA is a monthly investment of €100 – regardless of whether Bitcoin is at $120,000 or $60,000.

Option 2 – Partially Shift to Stablecoins: Some investors park a portion of their position in stablecoins (e.g., USDT, USDC, EURS). This secures liquidity and allows for larger special purchases when signs of recovery or further downward exaggerations appear.

Option 3 – Pause the Savings Plan and Monitor the Market: Some investors temporarily stop their DCA and analyze the situation: macro data like interest policy, on-chain data like hash rate or wallet activity, regulatory developments. Only when there are signals like rising trading volumes or breaking through important resistance levels do they become active again.

None of these options are “always right.” The right choice depends on your risk tolerance, liquidity, and time horizon. What matters is a pre-defined plan rather than spontaneous panic decisions.

Applying DCA Specifically: Examples and Avoiding Typical Mistakes

Imagine you invest €200 a month in Bitcoin over 24 months. Month 1 starts at the all-time high of $120,000. In the following months, the price falls to $60,000, partially recovers, and continues to fluctuate. DCA can lower the average purchase price of an asset – your averaged entry price will end up significantly below the top, perhaps at $80,000–90,000.

Here’s how to implement DCA correctly:

• Choose a fixed interval: monthly is standard, weekly smooths out more but incurs more fees.
• Determine an amount you can afford – e.g., €50, €100, or €500 per month. Never use money that you need in the short term for rent or emergencies.
• Focus on established coins with high market capitalization: Bitcoin and Ethereum have the longest history and the broadest acceptance.

Typical mistakes to avoid:

• Starting DCA and stopping after the first significant loss
• Constantly adjusting amounts up and down based on news
• Going completely “all-in” shortly after a hype or due to a QR code in an advertisement
• Buying too many speculative altcoins instead of focusing on quality assets

DCA is particularly suitable for established crypto assets. High-risk altcoins are often more cyclical and less predictable – DCA does not protect against permanent losses in those cases.

How to Start with DCA through Bitpanda (Step-by-Step Guide)

Bitpanda is a user-friendly platform that is particularly suitable for starting with DCA. DCA is suitable for beginners and long-term investors – and Bitpanda makes the process as easy as possible. Bitpanda is the only regulated crypto exchange under BaFin, which offers a high level of security.

Step 1 – Registration via Our Link: Click here, open a free account, and confirm your email address. The registration takes only a few minutes.

Step 2 – Identity Verification (KYC): Crypto exchanges must verify users with an ID. As a regulated provider, Bitpanda requires verification via ID or passport, possibly also via video identification – comparable to opening an account at a bank.

Step 3 – Deposit Euro Balance: Transfer euros to your Bitpanda account via SEPA or other payment methods. A SEPA deposit typically takes 1–2 banking days. Other deposits like credit cards are also possible depending on the region.

Step 4 – Set Up Crypto Savings Plan (Auto-Invest): In the app or on the website, you can create a savings plan for Bitcoin or other crypto assets. Choose your amount (e.g., €50 monthly), the interval, and the payment source. Many crypto exchanges offer automated savings plans for DCA – Bitpanda's Auto-Invest function is among the most convenient.

Step 5 – Regularly Check Your Portfolio, But Don’t Trade Daily: Review your plan at intervals of 3–6 months. Adjust the strategy as needed, but avoid frantic reactions to every price fluctuation. DCA requires long-term discipline and consistent purchases.

Our savings plan comparison provides additional information on how Bitpanda compares to other providers.

How to Find the Right Savings Plan Provider (Including Our Savings Plan Comparison)

A comparison of crypto savings plans is crucial because the differences in fees, coin selection, minimum amounts, and regulatory status are significant. Transaction costs can diminish returns with frequent purchases – that’s why it’s worth taking a close look at the fee structure.

Here’s an overview of the fees of important providers:

SMS-TAN procedures are considered less secure than app-based 2FA – ensure that your provider offers modern authentication. Bitvavo uses 2-Factor Authentication for added security. Kraken was founded in 2011 and has high security standards. Bison has a multi-layer security concept and is ISO certified.

A good DCA provider should meet the following criteria:

• Transparent fee structure without hidden costs
• Real cryptocurrencies (not just certificates or stock-like products)
• Regulated custody and licensing
• Easy setup for recurring purchases

Our crypto savings plan and exchange comparison presents these points clearly. Bitpanda offers a particularly straightforward way to get started: a wide selection of crypto assets, a convenient savings plan function, staking options, and the Bitpanda Card. Getting started through our referral link takes just a few minutes.

Still, keep in mind: The choice should always fit your own needs – risk profile, desired coins, additional features like rewards or payouts. The Trade Republic card or other financial products can also be sensibly used depending on your goals. Investors in the Netherlands may have different provider options than users in Germany.

Psychology & Long-Term Thinking: What We Can Learn from Investment and Pension Funds

Successful investing has less to do with “secret knowledge” than with discipline, patience, and a clear system. Large companies, pension funds, and retirement funds regularly invest large sums into broadly diversified portfolios over the years – monthly or quarterly. They do not try to time short-term fluctuations.

Individual investors can approach a Bitcoin or crypto savings plan similarly on a smaller scale: regular amounts, long investment horizon, clear strategy, no frantic trading or selling.

DCA promotes disciplined investing without emotional decisions. Emotional control is achieved through the automation of DCA – you don’t have to check the price every day and ponder over buying or selling. DCA minimizes emotional decisions while investing and reduces the impact of market volatility on your well-being.

In crash phases – such as the drop from $120,000 to $60,000 – the DCA investor knows: They are buying at a lower price now. The focus is on the long-term trend, not the daily price. This psychological influence is enormous and makes the difference between panic selling and calmly moving forward.

Long-term thinking also means viewing crypto only as part of the overall portfolio. Timeframes of 5 to 10+ years are realistic – just like with traditional investments in funds or stocks.

Risks & Limits of Dollar Cost Averaging in Crypto

DCA is a helpful toolset, but it is not a miracle solution. Crypto remains a risky asset class with the potential for total losses in individual projects. A realistic understanding of the limits is essential.

1. Risk of Persistently Low Prices: Some coins may never reach their previous all-time highs again. DCA does not protect against structurally poor investments—especially in speculative altcoins with low volume. The use of DCA should focus on assets with strong fundamentals.
2. Short-Term Losses Possible: DCA smooths out volatility but does not prevent price losses. Particularly with short time horizons of less than 3–5 years, the results can vary significantly. DCA can lead to lower returns in bull markets because you did not invest the entire amount at the low point.
3. Fee Accumulation: Many small trades create numerous individual transactions. The costs can add up, especially with providers that have high spreads or trading fees.
4. Evaluate Individual Factors: Financial situation, emergency funds, debts, investment goals, and risk tolerance should be thoroughly assessed before entering crypto. Crypto investments are not a substitute for a solid financial foundation. Be aware of tax implications (many individual purchases = many cost bases) and seek professional advice for larger amounts. Events such as regulatory changes or geopolitical developments can have additional impacts on the market.

DCA reduces the effects of market volatility—but it does not eliminate risk. Only invest money that you can afford to set aside for the long term.

FAQ

Is Dollar Cost Averaging in Crypto still worthwhile in 2026, after Bitcoin has fallen so much?

The principle of DCA is timeless because it does not depend on whether Bitcoin is currently at $20,000, $60,000, or $120,000. It’s about investing in installments over a longer period. Especially after significant pullbacks—like the drop from $120,000 to $60,000—DCA can be attractive for newcomers because the entry prices are significantly lower compared to the all-time high. DCA reduces the risk of investing just before a market downturn and provides a solid experience even for investors without deep market knowledge.

Should I stop my crypto savings plan during a crash?

That depends on your situation. Many long-term investors consciously keep their savings plan running to benefit from lower prices. Others pause for risk reasons—such as job insecurity or liquidity needs. The necessity of a predefined strategy is crucial here: Set conditions before the crash under which you will continue or pause (e.g., “I will maintain the savings plan until a price drop of X%”). This way, you avoid spontaneous panic decisions.

Which cryptocurrencies are best suited for DCA?

DCA is typically used for established, liquid cryptocurrencies—primarily Bitcoin and Ethereum, as they have the longest history and the highest market capitalization. Highly speculative altcoins with low volume can still pose a high risk for permanent losses or project failures, even with DCA. The advantages of DCA are most pronounced with assets in which you believe in the fundamental value over the long term.

Does it make sense to combine DCA with a portion in stablecoins?

Some investors park a portion of their regular deposits in stablecoins to make larger special purchases during significant downturns—such as an additional 20–30% price drop. This hybrid strategy is a sensible addition but makes implementation more complex. You should clearly define when and how the stablecoins will be converted back into crypto to avoid decision paralysis. A clear set of rules will help you with this.

How much should my monthly amount be for DCA in crypto?

The amount must always fit your individual situation. Crypto investments should not be funded with money that is needed in the short term for rent, emergencies, or debt repayment. Start with small amounts—e.g., $25–100 per month—and only increase after gaining experience and comfort over several months. Through Bitpanda, you can already set up a savings plan with low amounts and gradually build your portfolio.

The cryptocurrency market has suffered one of its most brutal corrections of the year, shedding more than 20% of its total valuation over the past seven days. Bitcoin ($BTC) plummeted below the critical $70,000 threshold to hit a low of $60,800, dragging the entire digital asset landscape down with it.

Ethereum ($ETH) collapsed to $1,560, while major altcoins faced aggressive selling pressure; Solana ($SOL) dropped to $62 and Ripple ($XRP) hovered at $1.08. This massive deleveraging event was not isolated to digital assets. Instead, it was triggered by a systemic macro-economic shock where everything that could go wrong for global financial markets went wrong simultaneously, wiping out a staggering $2.5 trillion in a single trading session.

Why are Markets Down?

The primary trigger for the market-wide liquidation began with the release of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics May employment report. The US economy added 172,000 nonfarm payroll jobs, obliterating Wall Street expectations of roughly 88,000.

While a robust labor market is typically a sign of economic health, it presents a major problem under current conditions. With inflation stubbornly stuck at 3.8% and crude oil trading at $90 per barrel, an overheating job market signals to the Federal Reserve that the economy is not cooling down. Consequently, the probability of an interest rate hike this year surged from 40% to 57% in a single day. Higher interest rates reduce the present value of risk assets, sending shockwaves through both tech equities and cryptocurrencies.

The AI Trade Cracks and Drags Down Tech

For months, the crypto market has enjoyed a strong correlation with high-growth artificial intelligence and semiconductor stocks. That correlation turned toxic when the AI tech narrative experienced its first major structural crack:

• Broadcom's Miss: Despite reporting a 48% increase in revenue and a 143% surge in AI chip sales, Broadcom stock crashed 12.6% because management failed to raise its forward-looking AI revenue targets.
• The Semiconductor Rout: A research report from SemiAnalysis revealed that Nvidia’s next-generation architecture will require roughly half the memory capacity previously priced in by the market. This sparked a global semiconductor sell-off, causing South Korea’s SK Hynix to drop 10%, Samsung to fall 6%, and South Korea's entire stock market to plunge 5.5%.
• Anthropic's Warning: Adding to the panic, AI safety firm Anthropic published a report warning that AI systems are nearing self-improvement capabilities without human intervention, calling for a global development pause.

This combination of decelerating corporate guidance and structural uncertainty forced institutional investors to question bloated tech valuations, causing a domino effect of liquidations that spilled directly into highly liquid crypto markets.

The Hidden Trillion-Dollar Liquidity Drain

Underneath the surface, a major liquidity crunch is actively starving the markets. Giant technology companies are preparing for massive public listings. SpaceX is targeting a $1.75 trillion public valuation next week, while both Anthropic and OpenAI have initialized filing processes.

Together, these upcoming listings represent between $4 trillion and $5 trillion in expected market value. Because cash reserves among institutional fund managers are at their lowest levels since early 2024, institutional players are forced to aggressively sell down their existing holdings—including highly liquid mega-cap cryptocurrencies—simply to raise the capital required to participate in these new listings.

Fed Leadership Uncertainty Sparks De-Risking

Compounding the panic is the upcoming Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting in 11 days. This marks the very first policy meeting for the newly appointed Federal Reserve Chair, Kevin Warsh, who took office under the Trump administration with market expectations of an aggressive rate-cutting agenda.

However, Chair Warsh is now walking straight into a macroeconomic trap of high inflation, surging energy prices, and a red-hot labor market. Because market participants have no historical precedent for how this new leadership will react to these conflicting metrics, institutional investors chose the safest option: aggressively de-risking portfolios and stepping to the sidelines.

Crypto Trading Strategy: How to Navigate a Market Crash

When systemic liquidations hit the digital asset space, emotional trading usually leads to severe capital destruction. Professional traders rely on strict risk-mitigation systems to preserve capital during a macro-driven market drawdown.

1. Capital Preservation via Stablecoins

During high-velocity crashes, velocity outweighs valuation. Converting portions of a portfolio into asset-backed stablecoins (such as USDC or USDT) removes directional market risk. This strategy halts portfolio drawdowns and builds dry powder, ensuring liquid capital is available to deploy once the market finds a structural bottom.

2. Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA) Into Blue Chips

Attempting to catch the exact bottom of a crash is statistically unprofitable. A disciplined Dollar-Cost Averaging strategy breaks down your target investment allocation into fixed smaller amounts deployed at regular intervals (e.g., weekly or monthly). Focusing DCA allocations strictly on highly liquid blue-chip assets like $Bitcoin and $Ethereum minimizes the risk of holding illiquid altcoins that may fail to recover.

--> Check out our savings plan comparison tool to help you choose the best provider

3. Monitoring Derivative Liquidations and Funding Rates

Before entering new spot positions, traders should observe the derivatives market via platforms like Coinglass. A true market bottom is often preceded by a cascade of long liquidations and a shift in funding rates from positive to negative. When funding rates turn deeply negative, it indicates an oversold market where short sellers are paying a premium to hold their positions, often laying the groundwork for a short squeeze.

The Zcash vulnerability uncovered with help from Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.8 signals a shift in who may discover critical flaws first.

Arthur Hayes warned that Hyperliquid's core value driver—using trading fees to burn tokens—exposes the protocol to market share losses.

Anthropic's new flagship aced our math problem and shipped a spotless game—then drained our entire token quota in a single prompt. We ran it through six tests, and here's how it did.

Frontier AI models have evolved into bug-finding tools, uncovering vulnerabilities across the tech world—and now in crypto too.

Researchers say prompt injection attacks could manipulate AI coding agents to access sensitive credentials stored in software development pipelines.

The market is unwell, but the fact that most of it is extremely oversold creates a lot of opportunities for investors.

Vocal gold advocate and financial commentator Peter Schiff has branded the Bitcoin community a "cult."

This follows as the focus shifts to real-world utility for Dogecoin.

With XRP pushing into extreme oversold zones, trader Bob Loukas reveals why a 50% crash is still on the table after a local bounce.

The last time Cardano had a death cross on its weekly chart was in December 2022.

TLDR:

• Morpho Midnight lets lenders and borrowers lock in fixed rates and maturity dates, replacing floating-rate pool models 
• All markets sharing the same end date pool liquidity together, preventing fragmentation across separate isolated loan contracts 
• Lender capital stays productive on Morpho Blue while simultaneously backing fixed-rate offers on Midnight in one transaction 
• Settlement fees are permanently capped at 50 bps per year, with lender fees hardcoded at a maximum of 1% annually

Morpho Midnight is a new fixed-rate lending protocol built by the team behind Morpho Blue. The whitepaper proposes a fundamentally different approach to onchain credit.

Instead of floating rates tied to pool utilization, borrowers and lenders agree on fixed rates and set end dates upfront.

With over $25 billion in onchain loans today, the protocol targets institutions seeking predictable borrowing costs.

Morpho Midnight Introduces Fixed-Rate Lending to DeFi

Morpho Midnight operates through tradeable units that function as fixed-income instruments with a maturity date. Each unit represents a claim on a future payout, settled at a predetermined rate.

A lender paying $0.95 today, for instance, receives $1.00 at maturity six months later. The difference between entry price and redemption value defines the fixed interest rate.

All markets sharing the same end date are combined into a single liquidity pool. This design prevents liquidity from fragmenting across separate, isolated loan contracts.

As analyst Stacy Muur noted, “liquidity builds up instead of splitting across a thousand separate loans.” The pooling mechanism directly addresses a structural weakness in prior fixed-rate DeFi experiments.

Borrowers and lenders do not interact through a traditional orderbook. Lenders post cryptographically signed offers without locking capital onchain.

Borrowers locate these offers off-protocol, through Telegram, frontends, or routing systems, then submit them for settlement. The protocol itself handles only the final settlement step, keeping execution lean.

This design keeps lender capital productive at all times. A lender can keep funds deployed in Morpho Blue while simultaneously quoting fixed-rate offers on Midnight.

When a borrower accepts, capital moves and the trade settles in a single transaction. The idle capital problem that undermined earlier fixed-rate protocols is structurally removed.

Capital Efficiency and Liquidation Mechanics Set Morpho Midnight Apart

One pool of capital can back offers across multiple markets simultaneously. A market maker with $10 million, for example, can quote across dozens of markets without allocating separate funds to each.

Total exposure stays capped at the actual balance held. This mirrors how traditional fixed-income market makers operate across bond maturities.

Liquidation rules in Morpho Midnight are also more precise than standard DeFi norms. A minor collateral breach triggers a partial repayment rather than a full position liquidation.

Bad debt, if it occurs, is recognized immediately rather than socialized across the pool over time. Borrowers who miss repayment deadlines receive a 15-minute grace ramp before penalties apply.

Fee structures are permanently capped within the protocol. The settlement fee cannot exceed 50 basis points per year, and the lender fee is capped at 1% annually.

These limits are hardcoded and cannot be raised by governance or any other mechanism. Institutional participants gain a reliable, unchanging cost structure.

Morpho’s broader thesis is that onchain credit markets should eventually resemble traditional fixed-income markets.

Floating-rate pools suited early DeFi, but growing market size now demands more structured instruments. Morpho Midnight is designed to meet that demand directly.

The post Morpho Midnight Whitepaper Proposes Fixed-Rate Lending Protocol for Institutional DeFi appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• A NY judge stayed the Noah Doe lawsuit on June 5, halting any default judgment on 39,069 dormant wallets. 
• An amicus brief argues NY’s lost-and-found statute cannot legally apply to dormant bitcoin wallet addresses.
• The targeted wallets hold an estimated 3.8 million BTC worth around $234 billion, per Galaxy Research analysts.
• Several dormant defendant wallets moved BTC after the lawsuit was filed, including a $3M transfer flagged in June. 

A New York Supreme Court judge has stayed a lawsuit targeting nearly 40,000 dormant bitcoin wallets, blocking any default judgment.

Justice Kathy J. King signed the order on June 4, filed publicly on June 5. The case involves plaintiffs seeking ownership of 39,069 wallets under New York’s lost-and-found statute.

A July 14 oral argument will determine whether a critical amicus brief is admitted. The brief argues the statute was never designed to apply to blockchain assets.

The Lawsuit and Its Legal Theory

The case, captioned ABC Company, XYZ Company, and Noah Doe v. John Does 1–39,069, draws on New York Personal Property Law Article 7-B.

The anonymous plaintiffs argue that dormant wallets qualify as “lost” property under state law. Under this theory, ownership can transfer to a finder if the original owner fails to claim assets within a statutory period.

Galaxy Research estimated the 39,069 addresses hold roughly 3.8 million BTC. At current prices, that figure is worth approximately $234 billion.

However, the complaint itself values each wallet at under $10, citing the difficulty of recovering assets without private keys.

The listed addresses include the “1Feex” wallet, long tied to the 2011 Mt. Gox hack. Several addresses also match what Galaxy Research describes as Satoshi-era “Patoshi” patterns, connecting them to Bitcoin’s creator. No defendant wallets have appeared in court, which had been clearing a path to default judgment.

The Amicus Brief Challenging Ownership Claims

M&A attorney Ian R. Cohen filed a May 29 motion to appear as amicus curiae. His 26-page brief argues the lost-and-found statute requires physical custody of a tangible object.

A blockchain address cannot be placed in an evidence locker, so the statute does not apply. Cohen holds no financial interest in the outcome and represents no named party.

Cohen’s brief also turns the complaint’s own language against the plaintiffs. Paragraph 27 of the amended complaint states that wallet owners lost access to funds due to a security issue.

Cohen argues this makes the dormancy involuntary, not abandonment. His brief puts it plainly: “A wallet that has been dormant for ten years, whose private key is stored on a steel plate in a bank vault, is not abandoned property. It is securely held property.”

Cohen also argues Noah Doe’s method does not constitute finding under the law. His brief states that Doe’s algorithm amounts to “data mining,” not discovery, and that claiming 39,069 wallets in a single sweep is “industrial-scale asset identification” that no provision of the statute contemplates.

He further warns that any ownership declaration would be functionally useless, writing that “the decentralized architecture of the Bitcoin network renders it structurally indifferent to judicial decrees.”

Cohen also noted that the Legislature amended New York’s Abandoned Property Law in 2022 to specifically address virtual currency, routing dormant crypto assets to the State Comptroller — not to private claimants.

Wallet Movements and the ‘Great Bitcoin Dusting’

Noah Doe used a proprietary algorithm to flag the wallets, then delivered USB drives to the NYPD’s 17th Precinct between December 2024 and April 2025.

A blockchain expert then sent OP_RETURN messages to each address, pointing to an abandonment notice page. Wallets that did not respond within 90 days were treated as abandoned.

Galaxy Research documented this campaign in October as the “Great Bitcoin Dusting.” It involved roughly 41,000 OP_RETURN messages sent to wallets collectively holding about 2.3 million BTC.

Analysts Zack Pokorny and Will Owens wrote that “whoever carried out the operation clearly understands the Bitcoin network on [a] deep technical level and took elegant measures to cover his tracks.”

Since the lawsuit was filed, several named wallets have moved funds. Galaxy Research head Alex Thorn flagged a June 6 transfer of 47.26 BTC, worth nearly $3 million, from defendant wallet number 37923.

A separate wallet dormant since March 2011 moved 35.55 BTC worth approximately $2.2 million on June 2. Those movements have drawn attention across the Bitcoin community and suggest some wallet holders are aware of the proceedings.

The post New York Court Halts Bitcoin Wallet Lawsuit, Schedules July 14 Hearing on Amicus Brief appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Nearly $26 billion in short liquidation leverage sits above Bitcoin’s current $62,000 price level.
• Shorts lost $218 million in 24 hours, more than double long liquidations across the crypto market.
• A single $82 million short position on OKX was wiped out amid Bitcoin’s 24-hour liquidation wave.
• Cycle Bands flashed an oversold signal for the first time since 2023, hinting at a possible base.

Bitcoin traders are staring down a potential short squeeze as lopsided leverage positions build across major exchanges.

Coinglass data shows nearly $26 billion in short liquidation leverage sitting above Bitcoin’s $62,000 price level. Meanwhile, long liquidation exposure below that level remains well under $2 billion.

This stark imbalance is drawing attention from analysts and active traders watching the market closely.

Lopsided Leverage Builds Across Major Exchanges

The concentration of short positions is spread primarily across three platforms. Binance, OKX, and Bybit hold the bulk of this leveraged exposure on the short side.

Over the past 24 hours, total crypto liquidations reached $332 million across the broader market. Shorts accounted for $218 million of that figure, more than double the losses on the long side.

Bitcoin alone drove $124 million in liquidations during that same window. A single short position on OKX was wiped out for $82 million, standing out as the largest closure.

Open interest across the market climbed 3% to $103 billion despite trading volume pulling back. That combination of rising open interest and falling volume points to a buildup of speculative positioning rather than active price discovery.

Traders are now divided on what comes next for Bitcoin. One camp sees the lopsided short exposure as fuel for a sharp upside move.

The other argues that a break below $60,000 support could trigger a bearish reversal instead. Both scenarios carry real risk given the current leverage environment.

The $60,000 level has become the key line in the sand for market participants. A sustained move below it could unwind the short squeeze thesis quickly and accelerate selling pressure.

Market Data Points Toward Possible Base Formation

Technical analysts are watching Bitcoin’s behavior around the $60,200 yearly low. Crypto analyst account Alpha Extract noted on X that Bitcoin failed to close below that level on the four-hour timeframe. The account described this as a constructive development, even while maintaining a cautious near-term outlook.

Alpha Extract added that lower prices may still come before any meaningful recovery takes hold. However, the analyst noted that each move lower builds a better risk-reward setup for an asymmetric upside trade.

That framing reflects a measured view common among experienced traders navigating prolonged downtrends.

Adding to the discussion, Alpha Extract pointed out that Cycle Bands flashed an oversold signal for the first time since 2023.

That type of reading has historically appeared near market turning points, though it does not guarantee an immediate reversal. Traders are treating it as one more data point in an evolving picture.

The broader market is watching whether Bitcoin can hold current levels and build a credible base. Until that case strengthens, short squeeze risk and downside pressure will continue to define the trading environment.

The post Bitcoin Traders Face Massive Short Squeeze Risk Amid Lopsided Leverage Positions appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Stellar (XLM) is attracting institutional interest through fast, low-cost cross-border payment infrastructure.
• Growing stablecoin activity and real-world asset tokenization are strengthening Stellar’s on-chain economic case.
• Potential CBDC integrations and institutional partnerships could serve as major long-term catalysts for XLM.
• Continuous network upgrades and scalability improvements position Stellar for sustained growth beyond short-term volatility.

Stellar (XLM) is showing signs that a long-term breakout may be forming as blockchain adoption moves toward real-world utility. The network has built a foundation around fast, low-cost cross-border payments and institutional integration.

With growing activity across stablecoins and tokenized assets, Stellar’s infrastructure is drawing closer attention from market observers and financial institutions alike.

Institutional Adoption Could Be the Catalyst Behind XLM’s Breakout

Stellar’s growing institutional presence is one of the strongest arguments for a potential long-term breakout. Financial institutions are increasingly evaluating networks that offer practical payment solutions at low cost. Stellar fits that profile more directly than most competing blockchain networks currently available.

Payment providers are also beginning to build on Stellar’s infrastructure at a measurable pace. As more real transactions flow through the network, its on-chain economic activity grows steadily.

That kind of organic growth tends to support sustained price movement over time rather than short-term speculation.

Crypto commentator SylvianGuibal on X captured this sentiment, noting that Stellar “continues to attract growing institutional interest while expanding its footprint across payments, stablecoins, and tokenized assets.”

If that trajectory holds, institutional adoption alone could serve as a meaningful breakout trigger for XLM going forward.

Real-World Asset Tokenization and Stablecoins Could Push XLM Higher

Tokenization of real-world assets is emerging as a strong driver for Stellar’s long-term growth outlook. Institutions exploring regulated digital finance are looking for networks that can handle asset issuance reliably. Stellar’s architecture is built to support exactly that kind of activity at scale.

Stablecoin usage on the network is also growing at a notable rate. Stablecoins need fast, affordable infrastructure to move value efficiently across borders. Stellar meets those technical requirements, positioning it well within a rapidly expanding stablecoin market.

Beyond that, potential central bank digital currency integrations could further strengthen XLM’s long-term case. Several central banks are actively researching CBDC frameworks, and Stellar has been part of those early discussions. A confirmed CBDC partnership would represent a considerable step toward a sustained breakout scenario.

Continuous Network Upgrades Keep XLM Positioned for Long-Term Growth

Stellar’s development team has maintained a steady schedule of technical upgrades aimed at improving scalability and interoperability.

These improvements ensure the network remains competitive as global financial infrastructure evolves. Consistent development is one of the clearer signs that the project is building for the long term.

The network’s ability to handle high transaction volumes without sacrificing speed or cost remains a core strength.

As adoption grows, this technical capacity reduces the risk of bottlenecks that have slowed other blockchain networks.

That reliability makes Stellar a more credible choice for institutions considering long-term infrastructure commitments.

As @SylvianGuibal stated, “the real question is whether Stellar can continue capturing meaningful economic activity on-chain.”

If adoption across payments, tokenized assets, and stablecoins keeps accelerating, XLM may already be laying the groundwork for the breakout that many in the market are watching for.

The post Could Stellar (XLM) Be Preparing for a Long-Term Breakout as Institutional Adoption Grows? appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• The LTH-SOPR to STH-SOPR ratio has dropped sharply, showing long-term holders are no longer booking large profits.
• Bitcoin’s Supply in Profit has fallen to 47%, matching levels historically seen at the floor of past bear markets.
• Bitcoin is approaching the 200-week moving average and Realized Price, two key support zones from prior cycles.
• Capital rotation toward AI stocks and tech IPOs is driving Bitcoin’s demand shortage, not a structural failure.

Is the market structure starting to change for Bitcoin? That question is gaining traction among analysts and long-term investors.

Bitcoin has slid toward the $60,000 range despite ETF approvals, growing corporate adoption, and clearer regulatory frameworks.

Three on-chain indicators are now offering a data-driven answer to that question — and what they show points toward a bottoming phase rather than a structural breakdown.

What the Data Says About Bitcoin’s Current Market Position

The first indicator drawing attention is the LTH-SOPR to STH-SOPR ratio. This metric compares how long-term holders and short-term holders are realizing gains or losses.

The ratio has fallen sharply in recent weeks. Long-term holders are no longer booking the large profits seen during the previous bull run.

That change in behavior carries weight. When long-term holders stop selling into strength, one major source of sell-side pressure begins to ease.

Historically, this pattern has appeared during the later stages of market corrections. It does not confirm a bottom, but it does reflect a meaningful shift in holder sentiment.

Supply in Profit has also dropped to roughly 47%. That means more than half of all circulating Bitcoin is now held at a loss or near break-even.

In bull markets, this figure typically exceeds 90%. The current reading aligns closely with levels seen at the floor of previous bear cycles in 2018 and 2022.

Taken together, these two indicators suggest that speculative excess has largely been removed from the system. Investors who entered during peak euphoria have either sold or are sitting on unrealized losses. That kind of market cleanup has historically preceded recovery phases.

Why Bitcoin’s Price Decline May Not Signal a Structural Failure

Bitcoin is competing for capital against some of the most powerful investment narratives in global markets right now.

Artificial intelligence stocks and anticipated major technology IPOs are drawing liquidity away from crypto. That rotation is creating a demand shortage, not a collapse in Bitcoin’s fundamentals.

This distinction matters when reading the on-chain data. Bitcoin is approaching two historically important valuation benchmarks — the 200-week moving average and the Realized Price.

Both have acted as strong support zones during past downturns. Buyers who monitor these levels tend to treat them as favorable long-term entry points.

The convergence of these three signals — softening long-term holder profit-taking, a majority of supply in loss, and proximity to key valuation support — paints a consistent picture.

The market structure appears to be transitioning away from distribution and toward accumulation. Sentiment has moved from euphoria to measured caution.

Still, the bottoming phase is not yet confirmed. The next sustained move upward will depend on whether fresh capital returns to Bitcoin.

Until that rotation happens, the market remains in a critical testing zone — and on-chain data remains the clearest tool available for reading its direction.

The post Is the Bitcoin Bottom Near? Three On-Chain Indicators Suggest the Market Structure Is Shifting appeared first on Blockonomi.

In the latest edition of the weekly CryptoQuant report, analysts have revealed a surge in traditional finance (TradFi) perpetual futures activity even as demand for bitcoin (BTC) remains contracted. Even with the declining demand, BTC trade sizes have signaled significant institutional activity.

According to the report, the rising TradFi perpetual futures activity can be seen in crypto exchanges, with Gate and Binance leading the trend. In fact, most exchanges are now diversifying beyond cryptocurrencies and tapping into precious metal-related trading activity.

TradFi Perpetual Futures See Increased Activity

CryptoQuant noted that the uptick in TradFi perpetual futures activity is driven by rising demand for gold, silver, and oil amid geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and Iran. This trend underscores the growing convergence of traditional and crypto markets; market participants are now using crypto exchanges to access macro assets.

Gate is leading the crypto-TradFi convergence market with $368 billion in TradFi perpetual futures volume. Together with Binance, which accounts for $298 billion, the two exchanges have processed roughly two-thirds of all TradFi futures trading volume recorded so far this year. Although other exchanges like MEXC, Bitget, and Bybit also partake in the market share, Gate remains the leader with investments in tokenized stocks, metals, 24/7 derivatives markets, and indices.

“As gold and silver prices reached record highs amid persistent inflation concerns, global equities rallied to new highs driven by AI-related optimism, and oil prices surged following heightened geopolitical tensions between the United States and Iran, traders increasingly turned to crypto exchanges to gain exposure through 24/7 markets,” analysts stated.

Spot and Perpetual Trading Volumes Decline

As TradFi futures activity spikes, spot trading volume declines on centralized exchanges. This metric fell to $679 billion in April 2026, slumping to the lowest level since October 2023. This reflects a decline in activity, thanks to the bear market. Perpetual futures volumes declined alongside, with leverage appetite contracting. Notably, Binance, Bybit, Gate, and Crypto.com rank as the top platforms by cumulative spot volume so far in 2026.

Interestingly, Bitcoin liquidity has remained concentrated on a small group of exchanges, with Binance and Gate dominating spot market depth, while Gate, Hyperliquid, Binance, OKX, and Bitget lead perpetual futures liquidity.

Additionally, Gate leads institutional BTC activity, as seen in Bitcoin trade sizes on spot and futures markets. The exchange accounts for the highest average Bitcoin spot trade size ($4,000) after reaching a high of $6,200 per trade last year. For the perpetual futures market, Gate also leads with an average of $8,900, sustaining growth that started last year.

The post TradFi Futures Surge on Crypto Exchanges as Spot Trading Slows: CryptoQuant appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The tension in the Middle East escalated once again on Sunday evening as Israel attacked sites in Lebanon that contained Hezbollah structures and personnel, and Iran responded with warning strikes of its own.

US President Donald Trump said he was briefed on the matter and urged Iran to return to the negotiating table after it fired its shots.

The attacks began earlier today when Israel hit south Beirut, killing two people and injuring at least 20, all of whom its officials claimed to be related to Iran-backed Hezbollah. According to Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, these attacks were a response to previous strikes from the group against his country.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) retaliated against Israel, saying that its strikes “served as warnings.” It urged Israel to stop the attacks, or a new, broader wave will follow.

After noting that he was briefed on the attacks, the POTUS said he was “not happy” with Israel. Moreover, he added that the attacks carried out by the Netanyahu-led country were not coordinated with the US. He also urged Iran to return to the negotiating table after its retaliation.

BREAKING: President Trump says he is “not happy” about Israel’s earlier strikes on Beirut, Lebanon, and that the attacks were not coordinated with the US, per Fox News.

Trump tells Iran: “You’ve shot your missiles, that’s enough. Get back to the table and make a deal.”

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) June 7, 2026

Trump previously said that a permanent peace deal was almost complete and he expected it to be announced at the start of the new business week.

In the latest development on the matter as of press time, the POTUS said he will call Israel’s PM to urge him not to strike back.

Bitcoin’s price reacted immediately to the attacks but in a rather dull manner. It dropped from over $62,000 to $61,200 before it rebounded and now sits close to its starting point.

On a broader scale, though, the asset has plunged by $20,000 since its mid-May peak at $82,000, and analysts believe the next leg up could come after the war in the Middle East ends.

The post Bitcoin Price Reacts as Iran Strikes Israel and Trump Weighs In on a Peace Deal appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Coinbase announced earlier this week that it has launched pre-IPO perpetual futures contracts, with SpaceX as the first available asset, opening the product to eligible users outside the United States.

The move gives retail traders outside the US price exposure to one of the world’s most closely watched private companies without requiring equity ownership or traditional brokerage access.

What the Product Actually Is

The SpaceX contract is a perpetual futures position, meaning traders can go long or short on SpaceX’s implied valuation around the clock with no expiry date and no need to roll positions, with all profit and loss settled in USDC.

When and if SpaceX completes an IPO, Coinbase says open positions will automatically convert to a standard SpaceX perpetual contract, and there will be no further action required from the holder.

The product is being offered through Coinbase Bermuda Ltd., which holds a Class F license from the Bermuda Monetary Authority, and it’s not available to US citizens.

Coinbase was explicit in its legal disclosures that the contracts carry elevated risk compared to standard perpetuals, specifically citing a valuation-based index pricing mechanism, IPO conversion risk, lower liquidity, and higher volatility.

“Only trade what you understand,” the company wrote.

It described SpaceX as “just the first,” saying it is building a pipeline of pre-IPO perpetual futures across technology, AI, energy, and space.

This Market Already Exists, With a Track Record

Pre-IPO perpetual markets for SpaceX are not new to crypto, as Hyperliquid-linked platforms such as Trade.xyz have been offering them for some time.

When Trade.xyz introduced SPCX, it helped push the HYPE token to within 19% of its all-time high, and it has since improved on that, recording a new ATH barely two days ago and forcing its way into the top 10 by market cap.

Another provider, Ventuals, also drew attention recently when its SPACEX-USDH market flash-crashed 45%, dropping from around $2,200 to roughly $1,200 in a short period and liquidating more than $1.5 million in leveraged positions, showing how fragile these markets can be.

The platform attributed the incident to incorrect data from an off-chain price oracle and confirmed that it would compensate affected users.

The post Coinbase Launches Pre-IPO Perpetual Futures with SpaceX as First Asset appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Ethereum treasury company Bitmine has filed to launch a public offering of 3 million shares of its 9.50% Series A Perpetual Preferred Stock.

The proceeds are expected to support a range of corporate and Ethereum-focused initiatives.

Bitmine’s New Offering

According to the company’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the net funds raised may be used for general corporate purposes, including the acquisition of additional ETH and other digital assets, the expansion of its staking and validator infrastructure through its MAVAN platform, working capital requirements, strategic investments tied to the Ethereum ecosystem and broader digital asset adoption, and potential repurchases of its common stock under an existing buyback program.

The preferred shares will carry cumulative dividends at a fixed annual rate of 9.50% based on a stated value of $100 per share. The dividends are payable in cash when declared by the company’s board. If any declared dividend is not paid on schedule, additional compounded dividends will accrue weekly, and the applicable rate will gradually increase up to a maximum of 15% per year until the outstanding amount is fully settled.

Bitmine has applied to list the new preferred shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “BMNP,” and trading is expected to begin within 30 days of the initial issuance if the listing receives approval.

Interestingly, Bitmine’s application is based on a model similar to Saylor-led Strategy’s STRC perpetual preferred stock, which pays an 11.5% dividend. STRC has attracted investors looking for monthly income while gaining indirect exposure to Bitcoin. After raising around $2.52 billion through its initial public offering in July 2025, the program expanded through follow-on issuances. The total notional amount of STRC is approximately $10.5 billion.

Aggressive ETH Accumulation

With its Ethereum holdings rising to 5.42 million ETH, Bitmine said it has reached roughly 90% of its target to own 5% of all ETH. The company also said 4.72 million ETH are staked, with a portion of those assets secured through its MAVAN staking platform.

As one of the sector’s most active buyers, Bitmine has built the largest ETH treasury and the second-largest overall crypto treasury after Strategy. The sharp drop in Ethereum, which is down more than 45% year to date, has created significant challenges for Ethereum treasury companies. Recent data estimates indicate that Bitmine is carrying unrealized losses of more than $10 billion.

Even so, Chairman and Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee remains optimistic on Ethereum, as he predicted the end of the bull market and the beginning of crypto spring.

The post Bitmine Plans 9.5% Preferred Stock Plan to Fuel Its Ethereum Buying Spree appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Ethereum’s controversial history during the time of extreme distress continues, as the asset was among the poorest performers on Friday (and overall since the correction began), dumping to a 14-month low at $1,500.

After the recent FUD spread on X that ConsenSys’ Joseph Lubin might be selling, here’s a portion of good news for Ethereum, including technical tools and who’s buying.

The Technical Setup

The largest altcoin by market cap traded at over $2,400 by mid-May when the entire market seemed in a lot more favorable state, with assets charting multi-month highs. However, the subsequent rejection drove it south hard, which culminated, as mentioned, on Friday.

After this $900 decline, representing a near-40% drop, some technical indicators suggest a bigger rebound is in the making. The first is the TD Sequential, a metric used to determine the underlying asset’s exhaustion in either direction, which has finally flashed a buy signal on a daily chart, according to Ali Martinez.

The second is actually against BTC. ETH has been dipping hard against the market leader, and it dropped to 0.026 during the market-wide crash on Friday. Michaël van de Poppe believes accumulation here could be a “wise strategy,” especially since “yields are likely peaking in the short-term and CLARITY Act vote is around the corner.”

There we go, 0.026 has been reached.

This is the area where I think accumulating $ETH is a wise strategy, especially since:

– Yields are likely peaking in the short-term.
– Clarity Act vote is around the corner.

The latter one is a ‘Sell the rumor, buy the news’ type of event,… https://t.co/wuOprXjwK1

— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) June 7, 2026

Who Is Buying?

In addition to the technical tools, on-chain data has revealed that different sorts of investors have started to reaccumulate. The first is an Ethereum OG whale who sold at prices above $2,000 but has returned to the buying scene by purchasing $56 million worth of the asset at under $1,570 per token. The second came from a wallet linked to Chun Wang, which accumulated over $28.5 million worth of ETH, according to data from Lookonchain.

The last one outlined by the analytics company is rather intriguing, as it’s not a typical investor per se. Instead, it’s the anonymous hacker behind the Pando Rings attack, who spent 10 million DAI to purchase 6,234 ETH at $1,602 earlier.

Even the hacker is buying the $ETH dip.

The Pando Rings hacker spent 10M $DAI to buy 6,243 $ETH at $1,602 just 6 hours ago.https://t.co/jFwsxtU0s6 pic.twitter.com/Cqph1Z7aLc

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) June 6, 2026

The post The Good News for Ethereum (ETH) After Collapse to $1.5K: Details appeared first on CryptoPotato.