Tottenham's future hinges on strategic attacking investments to avoid further decline and capitalize on De Zerbi's managerial potential.

The post Bale urges Tottenham to invest in attacking reinforcements for De Zerbi’s success appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Vozinha's viral fame highlights the unpredictable power of social media and crypto, raising ethical concerns over unauthorized digital assets.

The post Vozinha becomes social media star after World Cup performance against Spain, memecoins follow appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Neymar's return could boost Brazil's World Cup prospects and influence betting markets, reflecting confidence in his recovery and impact.

The post Neymar confirmed in Brazil squad for World Cup match against Scotland appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The shift from crypto to traditional sponsors in esports highlights a stabilization in funding sources, reducing reliance on volatile markets.

The post Crypto’s esports divorce is complete: IEM Cologne Major 2026 runs without a single blockchain sponsor appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Netanyahu's firm stance may hinder peace prospects, potentially escalating regional tensions and impacting his political standing and market perceptions.

The post Netanyahu vows to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons amid US talks appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

JPMorgan: Bitcoin Mining Costs Have ‘Worsened’ as BTC Trades Below Production Cost

Bitcoin has traded below the estimated cost to mine it for five straight months, according to JPMorgan analysts, leaving roughly one in five miners unprofitable and pushing publicly listed operators to sell a record volume of coins.

In a client note circulated this week, analysts led by managing director Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou said bitcoin mining economics have “worsened” in 2026. JPMorgan places the current all-in production cost of bitcoin at about $78,000, a figure derived from electricity, hardware depreciation, and overhead expenses across public miners. 

With bitcoin trading near $63,000, the gap between spot price and breakeven has created a sustained squeeze across the sector.

One of the most notable shifts JPMorgan flags is a structural change in how the Bitcoin network itself responds to price movements. The beta of mining difficulty to BTC prices — a measure of how much difficulty moves for a given move in price — has risen to 0.62 over the past six months. That figure reflects a network in which a higher share of miners sit at or near their cost floor, switching machines on or off as prices shift rather than maintaining consistent operations.

The pattern became visible in early June, when mining difficulty fell 10.09%, its second-largest single decline of the year. Bitcoin’s hashrate dropped 12% in June, according to Galaxy Research. A comparable 10% difficulty drawdown occurred in January, marking two episodes of this scale within one calendar year.

The financial strain has pushed publicly traded miners into a corner. Operators including MARA, CleanSpark, Riot Platforms, Cango, Core Scientific, and Bitdeer sold a combined 32,000 bitcoin in Q1 2026 alone to fund operating expenses, according to data from TheEnergyMag cited in the JPMorgan report. That figure surpasses those companies’ total bitcoin sales for all of 2025, and it sets a new quarterly record — eclipsing the previous high of 20,000 bitcoin set in Q2 2022, during the bear market that followed the Terra-Luna collapse.

Hashprice, a metric that captures mining revenue per unit of computing power, sits at roughly $33 per petahash per second per day, according to Hashrate Index. That level places approximately 20% of the global mining industry in unprofitable territory, per CoinShares’ Q1 2026 Bitcoin Mining Report, which JPMorgan cited in its analysis.

A contrarian signal for bitcoin 

Despite the grim conditions, JPMorgan’s analysts stopped short of a bearish conclusion. The team noted that weak market sentiment of this kind has, in past cycles, served as a contrarian indicator for future price appreciation. 

They expect elevated hashrate sensitivity and larger difficulty adjustments to persist as long as BTC remains well below its production cost.

Further capitulation among higher-cost operators is possible in the first half of 2026 without a material price recovery. Miners collectively held approximately 1.8 million bitcoin at the time of publication, down from 1.86 million at the end of 2023, a sign that treasury drawdowns are an ongoing feature of the current environment.

This post JPMorgan: Bitcoin Mining Costs Have ‘Worsened’ as BTC Trades Below Production Cost first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Prediction Market Kalshi Eyes IPO as Revenue Hits $2 Billion 

Kalshi, the prediction markets platform that has become the dominant force in U.S. event contracts, is in informal talks with investment banks about a potential initial public offering, The Information reported Thursday, citing sources familiar with the company’s financials.

The disclosure caps a period of rapid transformation for the four-year-old company. Kalshi’s annualized revenue has crossed $2 billion — triple its November 2025 figure — after spikes in trading tied to the NBA playoffs and the FIFA World Cup drove volume to record levels. 

In May, the platform recorded $16.81 billion in monthly trading volume, up from $14.81 billion in April.

The IPO conversations remain at an early stage, and no listing is expected before late 2027 or 2028. As part of the discussions, Kalshi is asking prospective bank advisers to integrate with its platform, a move designed to give institutional clients of those banks direct trading access.

The news lands weeks after Kalshi closed a $1 billion Series F round led by Coatue at a $22 billion valuation — double the company’s valuation from January. The round drew participation from Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Paradigm, IVP, Morgan Stanley, and ARK Invest.

Kalshi’s monster numbers

Kalshi commands more than 90% of U.S. prediction market activity. Its annualized trading volume climbed from $52 billion to $178 billion over the past year, and institutional trading on the platform jumped 800% in the six months ended in early May. 

Those numbers have drawn attention from Wall Street firms looking for new venues to deploy capital.

The company was founded in 2020 by Tarek Mansour and Luana Lage, graduates of the MIT and Y Combinator programs, to build a regulated exchange where users can trade on the outcomes of real-world events — from Federal Reserve decisions and economic indicators to sports results and political races. 

For years, Kalshi waged a legal battle against the CFTC for the right to list political event contracts. It prevailed in late 2024 when a federal court ruled in the company’s favor, unlocking a market that now generates billions in annual trading volume.

Kalshi plans to deploy its latest capital toward institutional expansion, including block trading capabilities, new risk products for hedge funds, asset managers, and insurers, and upgrades to its core trading infrastructure.

IPO timing will depend in part on broader market conditions and the durability of Kalshi’s growth. The prediction market space has attracted a wave of competitors, including Polymarket, but Kalshi’s status as a CFTC-regulated exchange gives it advantages in institutional adoption that decentralized rivals cannot replicate.

Should Kalshi go public in 2027 or 2028 at a valuation near its last private round, it would rank among the largest U.S. fintech IPOs in recent years. 

This post Prediction Market Kalshi Eyes IPO as Revenue Hits $2 Billion  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Kevin Warsh Still Needs to Manage the Dollar, While Bitcoin Runs Automatically

Kevin Warsh chaired his first Federal Open Market Committee meeting this week and immediately showed his hawkish colors. Rates stayed steady, but the new Fed Chair made it clear he intends to prioritize price stability and reduce loose forward guidance. While Warsh is focused on managing the dollar’s ongoing challenges, his debut actually highlights something much deeper: the dollar still requires constant human intervention to avoid dilution and debasement.

Bitcoin, by contrast, has a hard-capped supply and predictable issuance that no chairman can change. Warsh’s first meeting as Fed Chair makes the advantage of Bitcoin’s fixed supply more obvious than ever.

The System Warsh Is Trying to Manage

Warsh inherited a central bank that must constantly adjust the money supply to balance inflation and employment.

This is not a temporary problem. Its built into how fiat currencies operate. The Federal Reserve can expand or contract the money supply at will, and history shows it tends to expand over time.

Since the U.S. left the gold standard in 1971, the dollar has lost roughly 88% of its purchasing power. A dollar from that era now buys what about twelve cents buys today.

U.S. M2 money supply has grown from hundreds of billions of dollars to more than $22 trillion. Every major expansion represents dilution for existing holders.

The Structural Problem Fiat Cannot Escape

Even a disciplined and hawkish chairman like Warsh must work inside a system where the money supply is discretionary. Policy decisions, political pressures, and economic shocks all influence how much new money enters circulation. This creates recurring cycles of inflation and erosion of purchasing power. Bitcoin removes this discretion entirely.

Bitcoin’s Fixed Supply Changes the Equation

Bitcoin has a hard cap of 21 million coins. New supply is issued on a transparent schedule that halves every 210,000 blocks, roughly every four years, until issuance approaches zero around 2140. No individual, committee, or government can increase that total.

This creates a level of monetary predictability that fiat systems cannot match. The rules are enforced by code and network consensus rather than policy statements. Once a block is sufficiently confirmed, the transaction history becomes practically immutable.

Why Warsh’s Approach Makes the Contrast Clearer

Warsh’s emphasis on price stability and reduced forward guidance is an attempt to bring more discipline to the current system. That effort itself reveals the core difference: the dollar needs active management to prevent excessive debasement. Bitcoin’s supply rules do not require ongoing intervention or trust in any central authority.

A hawkish Fed Chair trying to restrain inflation is not a threat to Bitcoin’s long-term case. It is evidence that the fiat system continues to need restraint. Bitcoin was designed so that restraint is built into the protocol from the start.

The Practical Difference

Warsh’s first FOMC meeting shows a serious attempt to manage the dollar responsibly. At the same time, it underscores why a money with truly fixed and unchangeable supply rules offers a fundamentally different foundation.

Bitcoin does not promise stable prices in the short term. It promises something narrower but more powerful: a monetary base that cannot be diluted by policy decisions. In a world where even committed central bankers must constantly fight against expansion, that fixed supply stands out as the clearest structural advantage.

For public companies and operators sitting on large cash reserves, this reality carries direct consequences. Cash sitting in bank accounts or short-term instruments continues to face gradual erosion through inflation, even under a more disciplined Fed Chair. Warsh’s emphasis on price stability is welcome, but it does not change the fundamental design of fiat — where the supply can still expand when policymakers decide it must.

Many CFOs are now quietly reevaluating what it means to hold hundreds of millions, or even billions, in a currency whose value is subject to ongoing management. Bitcoin’s fixed supply offers a fundamentally different option: an asset that cannot be diluted by policy decisions and whose scarcity is guaranteed by protocol rather than promise.

For operators thinking beyond the next few quarters, treating a portion of treasury reserves as a long-term store of value rather than pure liquidity is becoming a more serious strategic consideration.

Disclaimer: This content was prepared on behalf of Bitcoin For Corporations for informational purposes only. It reflects the author’s own analysis and opinion and should not be relied upon as investment advice. Nothing in this article constitutes an offer, invitation, or solicitation to purchase, sell, or subscribe for any security or financial product.

This post Kevin Warsh Still Needs to Manage the Dollar, While Bitcoin Runs Automatically first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Nick Ward.

Bitcoin Magazine

Franklin Templeton Files for Two ETFs That Reinvest Stock Dividends Into Bitcoin

Franklin Templeton has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch two exchange-traded funds that channel corporate dividend payments directly into bitcoin, the latest sign of Wall Street’s push to embed cryptocurrency into traditional investment structures.

The Thursday filing registers the Franklin US Equity Bitcoin DRIP Index ETF and the Franklin US Innovation Bitcoin DRIP Index ETF, with an effective date as early as Sept. 1, 2026. 

The “DRIP” name borrows from dividend reinvestment plans — a mechanism long used by investors to compound stock positions over time — and repurposes it to accumulate bitcoin rather than additional shares.

Both funds launch with a 95% allocation to U.S. large-cap equities and a 5% allocation to bitcoin. The first tracks the VettaFi US Large-Cap 500 Bitcoin DRIP Index, offering broad market exposure across approximately 498 securities with market caps ranging from $7.5 billion to $4.9 trillion, while the second tracks a VettaFi innovation-focused variant concentrated on growth companies.

Under the index methodology, dividends generated by the underlying stock portfolios flow into bitcoin-linked instruments — including spot bitcoin exchange-traded products, futures contracts, options, and in some cases a wholly-owned subsidiary in the Cayman Islands — rather than being redistributed to investors or reinvested in equities. 

The structure creates what one analysis described as “an automatic, low-maintenance 5% bitcoin feed funded entirely by equity dividends.”

Quarterly rebalancing rules would trim bitcoin allocations above 5% back to 4.5%, while a hard cap limits bitcoin exposure to 20% of the portfolio between rebalancing periods. No fees have been disclosed in the preliminary filing.

Bitcoin ETFs are getting popular

The proposal arrives amid a wave of crypto ETF innovation following the SEC’s publication of generic listing standards for crypto-linked funds in late 2025. 

Bitwise predicted more than 100 such ETFs could launch in 2026, and Bloomberg Intelligence counted well over 100 filings in the pipeline at the end of last year. Franklin Templeton’s dividend-into-bitcoin design is the latest variation on a theme that has produced covered-call income products and other structured wrappers competing for assets beyond plain spot exposure, where BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust dominates with tens of billions in net assets.

The filings extend a broader digital asset buildout at Franklin Templeton. 

In May, Franklin Templeton entered a partnership with Payward — the parent of crypto exchange Kraken — to tokenize traditional investment products and offer its BENJI tokenized money market fund on Kraken’s platform as a collateral management tool for institutional clients. Earlier this month, Franklin Templeton integrated BENJI into MoonPay Trade, enabling institutional users to swap between stablecoins like USDC and USDT and the tokenized fund through MoonPay’s on-chain infrastructure.

This year, Franklin Templeton also launched a dedicated Franklin Crypto division through its acquisition of CoinFund spinoff 250 Digital, and struck a separate agreement with Ondo Finance to offer tokenized versions of its ETFs for 24/7 trading from crypto wallets, targeting investors outside the United States. Taken together, the moves position the $1.5 trillion asset manager as one of the most active traditional finance firms in the digital asset space.

The new Franklin Templeton DRIP ETFs join a broader institutional push into bitcoin at a moment when the asset is under price pressure. BTC trades below $62,700 as of Friday morning, off more than 50% from its October 2025 peak near $126,000. 

Just this week, BlackRock launched the iShares Bitcoin Premium Income ETF (BITA), a new fund that holds exposure to Bitcoin through IBIT while selling covered-call options on 25–35% of its holdings to generate monthly income, targeting annual yields of 15%–25%. BlackRock ETF executive Jay Jacobs said the product is designed to attract traditional investors by turning Bitcoin’s volatility into a source of income, while offering a lower-volatility alternative to holding Bitcoin directly.

This post Franklin Templeton Files for Two ETFs That Reinvest Stock Dividends Into Bitcoin first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

BlackRock Executive Calls Bitcoin “Too Big to Ignore”, Discusses New Bitcoin Premium Income ETF

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with more than $10 trillion under management, has launched a new Bitcoin exchange-traded product designed to generate monthly income for investors — a move the firm’s top ETF executive says is aimed at pulling in a wave of traditional investors who have kept their distance from the asset due to its volatility.

Jay Jacobs, BlackRock’s US Head of Equity ETFs, spoke to CoinTelegraph to discuss the launch of the iShares Bitcoin Premium Income ETF, ticker BITA, which began trading this week. The product represents a departure from conventional Bitcoin exposure by layering a covered-call strategy on top of the firm’s existing iShares Bitcoin Trust, known as IBIT.

“You can think about this as a hybrid strategy for investors,” Jacobs said. “You both have upside opportunity in Bitcoin, as well as the ability to generate income off of Bitcoin.”

BITA holds exposure to Bitcoin through IBIT and sells call options at the money on approximately 25 to 35% of the portfolio. The premium collected from the sale of those options is distributed to holders as income. 

Jacobs said the strategy targets an annual yield of between 15 and 25%, though the actual figure will depend on Bitcoin’s volatility at any given time — a direct application of the Black-Scholes options pricing model, where higher volatility produces higher premiums.

The trade-off is a cap on upside participation. 

If Bitcoin rises 10%in a year and the fund is selling roughly 30%of that upside through options, the fund’s price return would be approximately 7 percent. Add the 15% income component, and total return reaches around 22% — a figure that Jacobs noted would outperform spot Bitcoin in that specific scenario.

In a major Bitcoin rally, the math tilts the other way. If Bitcoin gains 100% in a year, BITA holders would see roughly 70%in price appreciation plus 15% in income, totaling approximately 85%. That underperforms a straight long position, but Jacobs framed that outcome as an accepted trade-off, not a flaw.

Turning bitcoin volatility into a feature

One of the central themes of Jacobs’ conversation was the idea that Bitcoin’s long-criticized volatility is precisely what makes a product like BITA viable. Options prices are a function of volatility, and Bitcoin’s high historical volatility means the premiums available from selling covered calls are substantial.

“You’re monetizing volatility by selling options that are primarily driven by that volatility,” Jacobs said. For investors who have seen Bitcoin’s price swings as a barrier to entry, the product offers a different frame: volatility as a source of income rather than a source of risk.

Jacobs outlined several distinct investor profiles for BITA. Income-oriented investors seeking yield across asset classes represent one group. Long-term Bitcoin holders in a bear or sideways market represent another — people who remain bullish on the asset but want cash flow in the interim. 

A third group, which Jacobs described as more institutional in character, is made up of portfolio managers who have historically required cash-flow-generating assets to justify an allocation.

“Assets that don’t have any cash flows associated with it had always been somewhat difficult, if not impossible, to put in those portfolios — Bitcoin, gold, silver — the cash flow is zero,” Jacobs said. BITA is designed to change that calculus for those investors.

IBIT is the foundation

Jacobs also addressed the broader trajectory of IBIT since its launch roughly two and a half years ago. He said approximately three quarters of IBIT buyers were purchasing an iShares product for the first time, indicating that Bitcoin ETFs have functioned as an on-ramp into the broader ETF ecosystem rather than just a new wrapper for existing investors.

Financial advisors on major bank platforms, who were restricted from accessing digital assets until those platforms opened up access to IBIT, represent a segment Jacobs called out as a source of growing momentum — one that is intersecting with generational wealth transfer as millennials enter higher earning years and accumulate investable assets.

This post BlackRock Executive Calls Bitcoin “Too Big to Ignore”, Discusses New Bitcoin Premium Income ETF first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin dropped below $60,000 by mid-June after a punishing start to the month, but the figure drawing the most attention across trading desks is the June 26 Bitcoin options expiry, with over $10 billion of contracts set to expire and roughly 80% currently sitting out of the money.

In equity markets, zero-days-to-expiry options now make up well over half of daily S&P 500 index options volume, up from around 5% in 2020.

Those two numbers come from very different corners of finance, but they describe the same underlying development: an options trading boom that has pushed contracts on what assets might do next into the most active part of modern markets, while ownership of those assets has slipped into a supporting role.

Finance as we know it is drifting from an economy built on ownership toward one built on optionality, where investors place a growing premium on flexibility, asymmetric payoffs, and exposure to probability itself.

Options, perpetual futures, prediction contracts, and tokenized derivatives are now the instruments through which markets discover prices and route capital.

Crypto reached this point first, which is why the strongest evidence for the supremacy of options first appears in Bitcoin and Ethereum before it surfaces in traditional assets.

Is crypto the first truly options-led market?

The reason crypto was first to the options race comes down to how these assets are valued.

Bitcoin generates no earnings, and Ethereum pays nothing resembling a conventional dividend, so their valuations lean almost exclusively on expectations about the future. In that environment, the derivatives market took on the work of price discovery.

By 2025, open interest in Bitcoin options had grown to rival, and at times surpass, open interest in Bitcoin futures, a milestone that would've seemed strange only a couple of years earlier.

The bulk of that exposure now sits with BlackRock's IBIT options and with Deribit, the venue that built the professional crypto options market. The year-end 2025 expiry was the largest on record, representing more than half of Deribit's entire book.

The market is wary of the size of this market because of the way options feed back into spot prices. When traders buy and sell these contracts, the dealers on the other side hedge their exposure by trading the underlying asset, which generates real buying and selling pressure.

Through late 2025, Bitcoin spent weeks pinned within narrow ranges as dealer positioning bought dips near one strike and sold rallies near another. We see the same process as we head into the June 26 quarterly expiry, with the max-pain level near $74,000 sitting well above the roughly $65,000 spot price.

Gamma effects amplify moves, large expiries reshape behavior around specific dates, and the derivatives market now sets the spot price rather than tracking it. IBIT's $40 billion options book shows how large this market can get on regulated American exchanges.

Traditional markets are developing these same characteristics. US-listed options volume reached 15.2 billion contracts in 2025, up 26% from a year earlier, with an average daily notional value of around $4 trillion. Retail participation, modest only a few years ago, now accounts for more than 30% of contract volume and clusters heavily in short-dated bets that offer cheap access to large potential upside.

Institutions lean on options to hedge everything from rate risk to equity exposure. Algorithmic strategies, which are usually shaped by machine-generated forecasts, need instruments that express probability distributions, and options are exactly that. Each of these forces reinforces the others, and together they keep pulling activity toward optionality.

An economy that prices possible futures

We've seen the same pattern spread well beyond conventional derivatives. Prediction markets, which let participants buy contracts that pay out based on real-world outcomes, saw a record $31.2 billion in trading volume in May, with industry open interest at around $1.3 billion.

In April, a federal appeals court ruled that the sports-event contracts traded on Kalshi's exchange qualify as swaps under the Commodity Exchange Act, affirming the CFTC's jurisdiction over them and placing prediction markets squarely within the federal derivatives framework.

That classification collapses much of the distance between betting on an event and trading an option on it. Kalshi recently closed a $1 billion round led by Coatue at a $22 billion valuation, with annualized trading volume reported above $170 billion, a sign that investors now treat probability itself as an asset class worth owning.

The nascent tokenization market is also looking for options. Tokenized real-world assets excluding stablecoins passed $32 billion in May, roughly tripling in a year, and the broader market clears $300 billion once stablecoins are counted.

The first wave of this technology tokenized money, and the second wave tokenized assets like Treasuries, which now hold more than $13 billion on-chain.

The third wave is beginning to tokenize optionality directly, in the form of programmable derivatives that can trade around the clock on tokenized equities, commodities, and credit. Over time, the derivatives layer built on top of these assets could grow larger than the assets underneath it.

All of this affects how everyone experiences markets. Institutions now allocate through optionality because it improves capital efficiency, limits downside risk, and makes hedging much easier, so ownership becomes just one form of exposure among several.

Retail investors, even the ones who never trade a single contract, find themselves in markets where price swings around major expirations and dealer positioning can outweigh fundamental news.

Some caution is warranted here, since gross options volume is not the same as net dealer exposure, and much of the total RWA still reflects issuance rather than active secondary trading. The direction of travel, though, is consistent across every one of these markets.

The defining financial innovation of the past generation was the democratization of ownership through ETFs, online brokerages, and digital assets that let almost anyone hold a piece of almost anything.

The defining innovation of the next generation looks like the democratization of exposure to probability, the ability to take a position on what might happen without committing to what already exists.

Ownership built modern finance, and the appetite for options is shaping the chapter that follows, as the fastest-growing thing investors buy becomes the right to be right about the future.

The post Why the options boom is changing what investors actually buy appeared first on CryptoSlate.

A quiet legal maneuver to seize title to more than $200 billion in dormant Bitcoin, including Satoshi Nakamoto's, has encountered a fundamental flaw.

A lost Bitcoin wallet lawsuit in New York now faces direct on-chain evidence that supposedly abandoned addresses are actively transferring billions of dollars in BTC, fracturing the plaintiffs’ core legal premise.

The dispute turns on whether dormant Bitcoin addresses can be treated as abandoned property when the coins remain under private-key control.

Since a pair of anonymous Wyoming limited liability companies filed a lawsuit seeking to claim 39,069 inactive Bitcoin addresses as lost property, 52 of those specific addresses have transferred roughly 34,335 Bitcoin. At current market valuations, the assets that moved are worth approximately $2.48 billion.

Operating under the pseudonym “Noah Doe,” the Wyoming entities framed the case as a lost-property lawsuit over Bitcoin under New York state law. The apparent strategy is to secure a default judgment granting them legal title to 3.799 million Bitcoin.

To fit the stringent jurisdictional and statutory requirements of the property law, the plaintiffs reportedly valued the claim at an astonishingly low $10.

In reality, the targeted addresses hold hundreds of billions of dollars, including coins mined during the network’s earliest days, widely attributed to the pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto.

Judge freezes path to an unopposed judgment

The legal strategy faced a severe roadblock in late May when pro-Bitcoin attorney Ian Cohen filed an amicus brief contesting the lawsuit's viability.

Cohen argued that New York’s lost-property laws do not apply to self-custodied Bitcoin or other digital assets, and that the state lacks jurisdiction over cryptographic keys.

In the realm of blockchain infrastructure, possession of a private key inherently constitutes legal ownership. A dormant address, the brief argued, is not abandoned property but rather a digital savings vehicle that simply has not been moved.

The intervention yielded immediate results. On June 4, New York Supreme Court Justice Kathy King granted Cohen a hearing and issued a stay on the proceedings, freezing any inquests or potential default judgments.

The stay prevents the plaintiffs from quietly securing a default victory, which was a highly probable outcome given that the 39,069 anonymous, pseudonymous defendants were unlikely to ever appear in a traditional courtroom to defend their assets.

On June 18, David Lin, the attorney representing the Noah Doe plaintiffs, filed a motion to vacate or narrow the stay. Lin argued that a non-party amicus should not have the authority to halt a case and that the statutory timeline for the defendants to answer should be permitted to expire.

Cohen issued a sharp rebuttal the following day, noting that the stay was a judicial directive initiated by the court itself.

The rebuttal highlighted a paradox in the plaintiffs' argument: Lin cited the lack of appearing defendants as a primary reason to lift the stay, despite the stay being implemented precisely to address that vacuum of opposition.

If no defendants answer, Cohen's brief remains the sole adversarial check before the court considers the largest attempted property seizure in US history.

$2.48 billion wallet transfers challenge the abandonment claim

The most critical evidence against the lawsuit stems from the public ledger itself. Cohen emphasized that the plaintiffs owe a duty of candor to the court, arguing that if any “abandoned” address moves coins, the entire legal premise is falsified.

Galaxy Digital's review of blockchain activity shows that 29 of the targeted addresses moved 12,302 Bitcoin just since they were officially “served” in the lawsuit.

The real-time spending of these assets proves the plaintiffs' targeting algorithm failed to differentiate between abandoned wallets and long-term cold storage.

Market analysts and researchers are beginning to recognize the gravity of the case. Alex Thorn, Galaxy Digital‘s head of research, emphasized the need for major industry stakeholders to intervene in the proceedings before a precedent is set.

He noted:

“A default judgment against ‘defendants' could grant legal title to 3.799 million BTC, including coins suspected of belonging to Satoshi.”

According to him, securing title to these assets would likely provide the foundation for years of aggressive litigation and ownership disputes.

He added that such an outcome threatens to drain millions in legal fees from the industry and introduce severe overhang risks into the broader cryptocurrency market, mirroring previous protracted legal battles over early Bitcoin holdings.

The post $2.48B BTC transfers challenge ‘lost’ Bitcoin wallets in Satoshi lawsuit appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The FCC’s proposed robocall rule, published May 26 under CG Docket Nos. 17-59 and 02-278, asks whether originating voice service providers should collect and retain customer names, physical addresses, government-issued identification numbers, alternate telephone numbers, and supporting verification records before granting service.

The agency proposes a four-year retention window once the customer relationship ends, a $2,500 per-call base forfeiture for KYC violations, and comments close on June 25.

The FCC frames the proposal around the problem that illegal robocalls cost Americans billions of dollars in fraud and wasted time, and the agency argues that originating providers are best positioned to stop illegal calls before they enter the network.

For crypto holders, the proposal raises a second-order security consequence the agency's robocall framework leaves unaddressed.

Phone numbers already sit at the center of exchange onboarding, email and crypto account recovery, SMS two-factor authentication, fintech apps, and customer-support verification.

The more identity data telecom carriers bundle with phone accounts, the more valuable those accounts become to attackers, and the more damaging a carrier breach or successful impersonation attempt becomes for anyone holding assets that move instantly and irreversibly.

The phone number as a security liability

The DOJ's September 2025 civil forfeiture action against over $5 million in Bitcoin illustrates how the phone layer already converts into crypto loss.

Prosecutors described SIM-swap attacks as an account takeover method in which attackers gain control of a victim’s phone number, intercept authentication codes, and use them to authenticate as the victim across email, exchange, and fintech accounts.

Five US victims lost Bitcoin through that sequence. The FBI's IC3 recorded 1,611 SIM-swap complaints in 2021 alone, with adjusted losses exceeding $68 million, up from 320 complaints and roughly $12 million in losses across the preceding three years combined.

The FCC proposal would raise the value of the phone account at its center.

The SEC's own X account demonstrated that phone-number compromise can reach beyond individual wallets.

In January 2024, an unauthorized party gained control of the phone number associated with the SEC's X account in an apparent SIM swap, reset the account password, and posted a false announcement claiming approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF before the SEC corrected it.

Expanded carrier-side KYC records create richer impersonation material for anyone attempting the same attack against higher-value targets.

What the FCC is building

Carriers would collect names, physical addresses, government-issued ID numbers, alternate phone numbers, and potentially copies of government-issued identification.

For high-volume customers, the FCC also asks about the intended use of service and IP addresses. That data bundle would remain in the carrier's systems for 4 years after a customer's cancellation date.

The FCC itself asks in the proposal what privacy risks may arise from expanded personally identifiable information collection and whether existing industry protections would suffice, or whether the agency would need to mandate heightened security measures, an acknowledgment that the collected data creates its own exposure.

A carrier record that links a phone number to a physical address, a government ID number, an alternate contact, and a service history becomes a target for attackers who want to social-engineer a carrier's support desk, file a fraudulent port request, or cross-reference telecom data against exchange KYC records.

Bitcoin security researcher Jameson Lopp has argued that a KYC-free phone service can serve as a personal security measure for people suspected of holding large Bitcoin positions, because linking phone accounts to identity trails raises exposure to extortion, swatting, and wrench attacks.

Lopp's public repository of physical attacks against crypto holders describes itself as a known but incomplete list of real-world “meatspace” attacks, supporting the point that physical targeting is a documented risk category.

Two outcomes for crypto holders

The FCC proposal leaves open whether KYC requirements apply only to high-volume commercial originators or extend to new and renewing retail customers and prepaid SIM cards sold through third-party vendors.

The proposal explicitly asks about prepaid and postpaid treatment and whether requirements should differ across customer types.

The bear case for crypto holders is that identity collection across new and renewing customers, prepaid SIM cards, and re-verification requirements would effectively end pseudonymous phone access in the US.

Carrier databases would bundle phone numbers with physical addresses, government ID numbers, and four years of service history.

For anyone operating under a threat model that includes SIM swapping, targeted extortion, or physical attack, the phone layer would become both more tightly identity-linked and more dangerous to lose control of.

A carrier breach or vendor compromise at that scale would produce addressable target lists, such as phone numbers cross-referenced against identities, addresses, and service histories, a data asset with no prior equivalent at carrier scale.

If the FCC limits expanded KYC to high-volume commercial originators and leaves retail and prepaid customers outside the scope, the FCC addresses the robocall problem at the network layer where it originates, and the retail phone account stays outside the expanded data collection.

That outcome reduces the carrier-side honeypot risk for individual crypto holders while still giving the FCC the enforcement reach it is seeking against the fraud originators driving the robocall problem.

Whether those tools also expand the attack surface for crypto holders turns on the final rule's scope: a rule covering ordinary phone customers produces a different threat model than one confined to commercial originators.

The post FCC robocall rule could make phone accounts a richer target for crypto attackers appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Three federal agencies have proposed rules that would make stablecoin issuers operate like banks. The Treasury wants them to run anti-money-laundering and sanctions programs.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) wants a weekly confidential report and a quarterly financial report from each one, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) wants Bank Secrecy Act obligations applied to the issuers it supervises.

If adopted, these proposals will turn the issuance of a dollar-pegged token into a job that requires customer screening, transaction monitoring, suspicious activity reporting, reserve disclosures, and a steady stream of data to a primary regulator.

The next phase of stablecoin regulation is therefore less about permission to issue a token and more about whether an issuer can carry the cost of being supervised like a financial institution.

Much of this formalizes what large issuers already do. But for smaller ones, the compliance burden will become the biggest barrier to entering a market now worth roughly $320 billion. The legal clarity the industry spent years fighting for came with an operating cost that decides who can realistically compete.

The GENIUS Act, signed into law in July 2025, is the federal framework for payment stablecoins, the dollar-pegged tokens designed to maintain a steady value and facilitate payments and settlement. It lets a company issue these tokens only as a “permitted payment stablecoin issuer,” or PPSI, meaning payment stablecoin issuers must be cleared by regulators under the federal regime.

Treasury opened the rulemaking that fills in the details in late 2025, and the proposals landing through 2026 are where that permission will become a working compliance regime.

Stablecoin issuers are turning into compliance companies

A stablecoin issuer's product looks simple, since one token is meant to equal one dollar, but the regulated version carries a long operational tail.

Stablecoin compliance now means teams and systems to identify customers, monitor transactions, screen wallets and counterparties against sanctions lists, flag suspicious behavior, and document all of it for an examiner. The work moves from the edge of a crypto company to the center of the business.

That change in demands took shape in April 2026, when the Treasury's FinCEN and OFAC issued a joint proposed rule that would treat permitted issuers as financial institutions under the Bank Secrecy Act and, for the first time, require a category of US persons to maintain an effective sanctions-compliance program.

The FDIC followed on May 22 with a parallel rule for the issuers it supervises, the ones that operate as subsidiaries of state nonmember banks and state savings associations.

All of this changes the cost structure of the business. The competitive edge moves toward compliance capacity, so issuers that can afford lawyers, transaction-monitoring vendors, reporting systems, and durable banking relationships hold an advantage over newcomers building the same machinery from scratch.

The supervision side became concrete in June 2026, when the OCC published draft reporting forms for issuers under its jurisdiction. Each issuer would file a weekly confidential report on every stablecoin it issues, covering issuance, redemptions, trading volume, and reserve assets, plus a quarterly report on financial conditions that looks much like the call reports that national banks file.

Issuers with more than $50 billion outstanding would also produce audited annual financial reports, and the OCC would examine each one at least once every 12 months. Weekly data gives regulators early insight into reserve problems or redemption stress, and it turns a token project into a continuously monitored financial company.

The market is getting smaller and more institutional

The same framework limits how regulated issuers can compete for users. The GENIUS Act bars permitted issuers from paying holders any interest or yield on the token, and the OCC proposal carries that ban into its rules, reserving scrutiny for affiliate arrangements designed to circumvent it.

Yield has been one of crypto's strongest tools for winning users, so issuers that can't pay it directly will instead compete on liquidity, integrations, payment utility, and institutional access.

Put those costs together, and the result is likely to be consolidation. Large issuers can absorb compliance costs, build reporting systems, hire former regulators, and retain their banking partners, while smaller ones may struggle to justify the expense unless they serve a defined niche or partner with a larger regulated platform.

A state-chartered nonbank issuer that crosses $10 billion in circulation would generally have to move to a federal license, so scale itself would pull issuers toward federal supervision. The FDIC estimates that five to 30 of the institutions it supervises could win approval to issue through subsidiaries in the framework's first few years.

That smaller field comes with a tradeoff between credibility and flexibility. A regulated stablecoin will be more attractive to banks, brokers, payment companies, and corporate treasuries because it will have clear rules and a familiar regulator. The same oversight makes the token resemble a tokenized layer of the existing banking system more than the open financial infrastructure early advocates described.

The companies that will benefit from this are those that already understand how supervised institutions work, which is part of why Tether has moved toward a compliant US product called USAT, while Circle has leaned further into its regulated posture.

The GENIUS Act stablecoin rules were framed as a breakthrough for the sector, and they remain one.. Its implementation phase shows that legal clarity comes with a supervisory regime attached, and the next stage of growth will depend less on issuing a token and more on proving an issuer can survive inside the financial system.

The companies that manage it may become core dollar infrastructure for banks and businesses, while the ones that can't carry the load may be regulated out of the race before the framework takes full effect in 2027.

The post Stablecoin regulation converts issuers into psuedo-banks while adding a barrier to entry for smaller players appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The Jaredfromsubway MEV bot, linked to roughly 70% of Ethereum sandwich attacks, lost more than $7.5 million in an allowance drain after its automated system authorized attacker-controlled contracts to spend its tokens.

The bot, known as Jaredfromsubway.eth, approved a series of transactions that appeared to be part of profitable trading routes. Those permissions remained active, allowing the attacker to remove wrapped ether and two major stablecoins from contracts associated with the operation.

The incident effectively caused one of Ethereum’s largest extractive trading systems to approve its own theft. It also highlights a vulnerability facing automated traders that must evaluate markets, authorize contracts, and execute transactions within seconds.

Onchain security company Blockaid said the attacker did not compromise the bot’s private keys or exploit a flaw in a widely used decentralized finance protocol. Instead, the operation targeted the rules the bot used to identify and pursue potential profits.

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How Jaredfromsubway.eth was drained

According to Blockaid, the attacker had spent several weeks deploying imitation tokens, liquidity pools, and supporting contracts that resembled markets the bot might normally trade against.

The fake assets included versions of wrapped Ethereum, USDC, and USDT, paired via trading routes designed to generate profitable-looking signals. Jaredfromsubway.eth detected those routes and followed its usual process of permitting helper contracts to move tokens as part of the expected trades.

Some early transactions used the permissions as anticipated, helping establish a pattern that the bot’s system continued to accept. Later transactions left the approvals unused.

That distinction gave the attacker an opening through ERC-20 approvals, which allow another address or smart contract to spend a specified amount of tokens belonging to the approving account.

The permission can remain available after the original transaction unless it is exhausted, reduced, or revoked.

Once the attacker had accumulated enough unspent allowances, the contracts used the ERC-20 transferFrom function to move real WETH, USDC, and USDT from the bot’s accounts.

On-chain records show repeated transfers totaling about 92 WETH, $143,000 USDC, and $149,000 USDT from a contract linked to the bot. The funds were directed to an address controlled by the attacker.

Yearn Finance developer Banteg described the final operation as an allowance drain rather than a conventional token swap. A coordinating contract called a withdrawal function across dozens of subsidiary contracts, which checked the bot’s balances and their remaining permissions before transferring the available tokens.

Some of the proceeds were subsequently sent through Tornado Cash, a crypto-mixing service that can make funds more difficult to trace.

A dominant sandwich operator becomes the target

Jaredfromsubway.eth has operated since 2023 and became one of the most prominent participants in Ethereum’s market for maximal extractable value (MEV).

MEV refers to revenue generated by changing the order in which blockchain transactions are processed. In a sandwich attack, a bot identifies a pending trade and buys the asset first, pushing up its price. The user’s transaction then executes at the less favorable price before the bot sells, capturing the difference.

That made Jaredfromsubway.eth one of Ethereum’s most visible sandwich attack bots before the same automation became the route into its own funds.

The loss to any individual trader may be small. Across tens of thousands of transactions, however, the strategy can generate substantial revenue while increasing trading costs and network fees.

According to reports, these attacks imposed an estimated $60 million in annual costs on traders, while about 70% were associated with a single operator identified as Jaredfromsubway.eth.

The post Ethereum’s Jaredfromsubway MEV bot drained after approving its own $7.5M theft appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The crypto price today shows a market that is trying to stabilize, but next week could become decisive. Bitcoin is trading around $64,143, Ethereum is holding near $1,730, and Solana is one of the strongest major assets with a 3.41% gain over 24 hours and 8.06% over the past 7 days, based on the latest market snapshot.

However, the bigger story is not only the current crypto prices. It is the return of geopolitical risk after Iran announced another closure of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the most important global energy chokepoints. Reuters reported that Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters announced the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to vessel traffic, while other reports noted uncertainty over how fully the move is being enforced on the ground.

This matters because the Strait of Hormuz is not just a regional shipping route. The U.S. Energy Information Administration describes it as the world’s most important oil transit chokepoint, with oil flows through the strait historically representing a major share of global petroleum liquids movement.

Crypto Price Today: Major Coins Hold Mixed but Stable Levels

The current crypto market is not showing panic yet. Instead, prices suggest cautious positioning before a potentially volatile week.

• $Bitcoin is trading at $64,143, up 0.73% in 24 hours, but still slightly down 0.63% over 7 days. This shows that BTC is holding a key level but has not yet confirmed a strong bullish breakout.
• $Ethereum is trading around $1,730, gaining 0.27% in 24 hours and 3.26% over 7 days. ETH looks slightly stronger than Bitcoin on the weekly chart, but it remains far from a clear momentum phase.
• $BNB is at $589, up 0.35% in 24 hours, but down 3.65% over 7 days, showing weaker weekly performance compared to ETH and SOL.
• $XRP is trading around $1.14, down 0.28% in 24 hours, while remaining almost flat over the week. This suggests hesitation, with traders waiting for a clearer market direction.
• $Solana is the standout among the top coins. SOL is trading at $73.93, up 3.41% in 24 hours and 8.06% over 7 days, making it one of the strongest large-cap performers in the current market.
• $Hyperliquid remains volatile. HYPE is trading around $68.23, down 3.58% in 24 hours, but still up 12.44% over 7 days. This shows that profit-taking is happening after a strong weekly rally.
• $Dogecoin is trading at $0.08325, down 1.03% in 24 hours and 4.70% over 7 days, making it one of the weaker major coins in the snapshot.

Why Next Week Could Decide the Crypto Market Direction

Next week could be decisive because the market is now facing two opposite forces.

On one side, crypto prices are holding relatively well. Bitcoin has not broken down sharply, Ethereum is still positive on the weekly chart, and Solana continues to outperform. This shows that buyers are still present.

On the other side, the Strait of Hormuz situation could quickly bring back volatility. If the closure disrupts oil flows or raises energy prices, traditional markets may shift into risk-off mode. In that case, crypto could face pressure as investors reduce exposure to volatile assets.

Even if Iran later decides to reopen the strait, the uncertainty itself can still move markets. Traders do not only react to actual closures; they also react to headlines, shipping risk, oil price expectations, and fear of escalation. That means Bitcoin, Ethereum, and major altcoins could see sharp moves in both directions.

Could Higher Oil Prices Hurt or Help Crypto?

A Strait of Hormuz crisis usually affects oil first. If oil prices rise, inflation fears can return, and that can make investors nervous about risk assets. For crypto, this creates a difficult setup.

Bitcoin is sometimes described as a hedge against uncertainty, but in moments of sudden geopolitical stress, it often trades like a risk asset. That means BTC could drop if traders rush into cash, the U.S. dollar, or safer assets.

However, if the market believes the shock will push central banks toward easier policy later, crypto could recover quickly. This is why the next few days matter. The first reaction may be volatility, but the second reaction will depend on oil prices, global market sentiment, and whether the Strait of Hormuz crisis escalates or cools down.

Bitcoin Price Today: $64K Becomes the Key Level

Bitcoin holding above $64,000 is important for market confidence. As long as $BTC remains near this level, the broader crypto market may avoid a deeper correction.

But if geopolitical tension increases and Bitcoin loses this zone, traders may start watching lower support levels. A break below current levels could pressure altcoins, especially weaker performers like DOGE, BNB, and XRP.

On the bullish side, if the Strait of Hormuz situation calms down and Bitcoin stays above $64K, the market could attempt a rebound. In that case, Solana and Hyperliquid may continue to attract attention because they are already showing stronger weekly momentum.

Best and Worst Performers Today

Among the major cryptocurrencies, Solana is currently the strongest performer, gaining more than 3% in 24 hours and over 8% weekly. TRON is also positive, trading at $0.3266, up 1.09% in 24 hours and 2.92% over 7 days.

Hyperliquid remains the strongest weekly performer in the screenshot, with a 12.44% gain over 7 days, even though it is down on the day.

The weaker side includes Dogecoin, which is down both daily and weekly, and BNB, which remains under weekly pressure despite a small daily recovery.

Crypto Market Outlook: Volatility Before Direction

The crypto market is not crashing today, but it is also not fully bullish. The current prices show stability, while the geopolitical background suggests that volatility could return quickly.

If the Strait of Hormuz closure becomes more serious, oil prices and global risk sentiment may dominate crypto price action. If the closure is reversed or softened, crypto could benefit from relief buying.

For now, the crypto price today shows a market waiting for confirmation. Bitcoin is holding near $64K, Ethereum is stable, Solana is leading, and Hyperliquid remains one of the strongest weekly performers. But next week may decide whether this is the start of a broader recovery or only a pause before another volatile move.

Japan’s National Business Corporate Pension Fund is preparing to take a rare step for the country’s retirement sector: allocating part of its assets to cryptocurrencies. According to recent reports, the Okayama-based corporate pension fund plans to invest around 1% of its assets into crypto assets during fiscal 2026.

At first glance, the headline looks bullish. A Japanese pension fund entering the crypto market gives digital assets another layer of institutional credibility, especially in a country where pension capital is often seen as conservative and long-term. But the real question is whether this move is big enough to move Bitcoin, Ethereum, or the wider crypto market.

How Big Is the Japan Crypto Fund Allocation?

The National Business Corporate Pension Fund reportedly manages around ¥21.3 billion in total assets. A 1% allocation would therefore represent roughly ¥213 million.

In US dollar terms, that equals approximately $1.3 million, depending on the exchange rate. This means the direct capital entering the crypto market from this allocation is relatively small.

To put it into perspective, the global crypto market is currently worth more than $2 trillion, while daily trading volume across the market often reaches tens of billions of dollars. Against that backdrop, a $1.3 million allocation is not large enough on its own to create a major price move in Bitcoin, Ethereum, or the broader crypto market.

Will This Move the Crypto Market?

The short answer is no, not directly.

A ¥213 million allocation is too small to shift the global crypto market in a meaningful way. Even if the entire amount were invested in Bitcoin alone, it would represent only a tiny fraction of Bitcoin’s daily trading activity. If the investment is spread across several cryptocurrencies through passive funds, the impact on any single coin would become even smaller.

That means traders should not expect this allocation to trigger a sudden Bitcoin rally, an Ethereum breakout, or a broad altcoin pump by itself.

However, the symbolic impact could be more important than the actual money involved.

Why This Still Matters for Crypto

The bigger story is not the size of the investment. It is the type of investor making the move.

Pension funds are usually conservative institutions. Their job is not to chase short-term gains, but to preserve and grow retirement assets over long periods. When a pension fund decides to add even a small crypto allocation, it suggests that digital assets are slowly becoming part of the institutional diversification conversation.

Reports also indicate that the fund’s goal is not aggressive speculation, but currency-risk diversification. This is important because it frames crypto less as a high-risk trading bet and more as a portfolio tool. That shift in language matters for institutional adoption.

Japan has also been moving toward a clearer digital asset framework, while major financial groups such as Nomura and Laser Digital have already been building institutional crypto products. This creates a more favorable environment for traditional investors to explore crypto exposure in a regulated and risk-managed way.

Could More Pension Funds Follow?

This is where the story becomes more interesting.

One small pension fund allocating 1% to crypto will not move the market. But if this becomes a model for other pension funds, asset managers, or corporate retirement schemes in Japan, the cumulative effect could become much larger.

For example, if larger Japanese pension investors were to consider even small allocations to digital assets, the numbers could change quickly. A 1% allocation from a small fund equals around $1.3 million. A 1% allocation from a much larger institutional investor could mean hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars.

This is why the market may treat the news as a signal rather than a liquidity event. The fund itself is not big enough to move prices, but it may show that institutional crypto adoption in Japan is entering a new phase.

What This Means for Bitcoin and Altcoins

For $Bitcoin, the news supports the long-term institutional adoption narrative. BTC remains the most likely first choice for conservative crypto exposure because of its liquidity, market size, and role as the leading digital asset.

For $Ethereum and major altcoins, the impact depends on how the passive funds are structured. If the investment goes into a multi-coin crypto fund, Ethereum and other large-cap cryptocurrencies could also receive small allocations. Still, the amounts would likely be too limited to have a visible short-term price effect.

The more important takeaway is that crypto is becoming easier for traditional institutions to access through professional investment vehicles, rather than direct token buying. That could support long-term adoption, especially if more pension funds prefer passive and regulated products.

Is This Bullish or Overhyped?

This news is bullish, but it should not be overhyped.

It is bullish because a Japanese pension fund entering crypto adds credibility to the asset class and shows that institutions are still exploring digital assets despite volatility. It also reinforces the idea that crypto is increasingly being considered as part of diversified portfolios.

But it is not bullish in the sense of immediate price pressure. The allocation is too small to move the market today. The real impact will depend on whether this becomes an isolated case or the beginning of a broader institutional trend in Japan.

Small Allocation, Big Signal

Japan’s National Business Corporate Pension Fund allocating 1% of its assets to crypto is not large enough to move the crypto market directly. With total assets of around ¥21.3 billion, the planned crypto allocation is roughly ¥213 million, or about $1.3 million.

Compared with a global crypto market worth more than $2 trillion, this is a very small amount.

Still, the news matters because of what it represents. A pension fund entering crypto, even cautiously, signals that digital assets are becoming more acceptable within traditional investment portfolios. The short-term market impact may be limited, but the long-term signal could be significant if more institutions follow.

The Geopolitical Yo-Yo Rattling Crypto Prices

Crypto prices are caught in a familiar trap: every time the Middle East situation looks like it's calming down, a fresh headline flips the script. The latest twist landed today. Iran says it closed the Strait of Hormuz again over Israel's strikes in Lebanon, while US Vice President Vance says there is "no evidence" the strait is closed.

That direct contradiction — one side declaring a shutdown, the other flatly denying it — captures exactly why crypto prices have been whipsawing. Markets hate uncertainty, and right now there's an abundance of it. This is the same waterway that has been at the center of a months-long crisis, and traders have learned that each "closure" or "reopening" headline can swing risk assets in minutes.

Did Iran Close the Strait AGAIN?

The backdrop matters. Just days ago, the situation looked like it was de-escalating. Trump announced on Sunday that the US and Iran had reached a deal, the memorandum of understanding was read to reporters on Wednesday, and both presidents signed it that day. Optimism was building that the worst was over.

Then the ceasefire wobbled. Israel and Hezbollah exchanged fire despite the ceasefire, possibly prompting the Hormuz Strait closure. Iran's response was to once again declare the strait shut — but as has happened repeatedly through this crisis, Washington disputes that any real closure is in effect.

There's a near-term catalyst to watch closely: technical-level talks to implement the US–Iran deal are scheduled for June 21 in Bürgenstock, Switzerland, with Pakistani and Qatari mediators participating. That's tomorrow — meaning the situation could shift again within hours.

Latest Crypto Prices Right Now

Despite the noise, crypto prices have so far held up better than you might expect. Here's where the major coins stand as of June 20, 2026:

• Bitcoin ($BTC): ~$63,600, pushing toward the $64,500 area as it attempts to reclaim recently lost support.
• Ethereum ($ETH): ~$1,725, up modestly on the day.
• $XRP: ~$1.15, testing this zone after losing it earlier in the week.
• Solana ($SOL): ~$72, one of the stronger weekly performers among the majors.

The total crypto market cap sits around $2.18 trillion, well off its highs but stabilizing. Notably, prices are green on the day even amid the closure claim — a sign markets may be treating today's Iran headline with skepticism, much like the US response suggests they should.

Why Does the Strait of Hormuz Move Crypto Prices?

For readers wondering how a Middle East shipping lane affects Bitcoin, the link runs through oil and risk sentiment. The Strait of Hormuz normally carries around one-fifth of the world's oil and LNG. A genuine closure spikes energy prices, which feeds inflation, which in turn pushes back expectations for interest-rate cuts — a chain reaction that tends to hurt risk assets like crypto.

The transmission works like this:

• Real closure → oil spikes → inflation fears rise → rate-cut hopes fade → crypto prices fall.
• De-escalation → oil falls → inflation pressure eases → risk appetite returns → crypto prices rise.

This is why crypto has been so reactive to every Hormuz headline. Bitcoin in this cycle has behaved less like a geopolitical safe haven and more like a high-beta risk asset — selling off on fear and rallying on relief, much like tech stocks.

How Could Crypto Prices React From Here?

Given the conflicting reports, two clear scenarios are on the table:

If the closure proves real (or the ceasefire breaks down):

• Expect oil to spike and risk-off pressure to hit crypto prices.
• High-beta altcoins like Solana and XRP typically fall harder than Bitcoin in these moves, since they amplify BTC's direction.
• A renewed leverage washout is a risk — the market has already seen large liquidation cascades during this crisis.

If it's another false alarm (as the US suggests):

• The relief could extend the recent stabilization, with crypto prices continuing to grind higher.
• Tomorrow's Switzerland talks becoming productive would reinforce the de-escalation narrative and support risk appetite.

The fact that prices are holding green today hints the market is leaning toward the second scenario — but that can change the instant a headline confirms or denies the closure.

What Should Crypto Traders Watch?

In a yo-yo environment like this, the headlines are the market. Key signals to monitor:

• Confirmation either way on the closure — official shipping data and traffic reports will cut through the he-said-she-said.
• The June 21 Switzerland talks — a breakthrough or breakdown is a direct catalyst.
• Oil prices — the cleanest real-time gauge of whether markets believe the strait is actually shut.
• Bitcoin's key levels — whether BTC holds above support near $62K–63K or reclaims $64,500 will signal which way momentum is leaning.

What's Happening With Bitcoin Right Now?

Bitcoin is having a rough stretch. The asset is trading around $63,600, a far cry from its October 2025 all-time high near $126,000 — a drawdown of roughly 50% from the peak. But the price alone doesn't tell the full story. The more significant development is where the selling is coming from: the spot Bitcoin ETFs that were supposed to be crypto's steady institutional anchor.

Those ETFs have been bleeding capital at a historic pace. The recent weeks have seen one of the most sustained institutional withdrawals since these products launched in 2024 — a clear signal that big-money sentiment has turned defensive.

How Bad Are the Bitcoin ETF Outflows?

The numbers are striking. Spot Bitcoin ETFs recently posted their longest losing streak on record. From May 15 to June 3, spot bitcoin ETFs faced their longest outflow streak since their 2024 launch — 13 consecutive trading days, losing $4.33 billion, roughly 59,400 BTC.

The pressure didn't stop there. For the week ending June 6, US spot bitcoin ETFs posted $1.72 billion in net outflows — the largest weekly outflow since February 2025 — marking a fourth consecutive week of outflows totaling $5.4 billion. Even the biggest fund wasn't spared: BlackRock's IBIT led the outflows, losing $1.34 billion for that week.

The cumulative effect on assets under management has been severe. Total assets in bitcoin ETFs fell to $80.40 billion from $104.29 billion at the start of the streak, with fund holdings dropping to 1.277 million BTC, about 7.2% below the October 2025 peak.

Why Are Institutions Selling?

The exodus isn't really about $Bitcoin itself — it's largely a macro story. The main driver is a shift in interest-rate expectations:

• Fading rate-cut hopes. Analysts link the outflows to macroeconomic factors, with strong US jobs data significantly reducing expectations for an imminent Fed rate cut. 
• Bonds look more attractive. When rate cuts get pushed back, yield-bearing assets win. This made yield-bearing bonds more attractive compared to "non-yielding" bitcoin.
• Risk-off positioning. A weaker macro backdrop pushes leveraged and momentum traders to unwind, accelerating the selling.

In other words, this looks like a capital rotation driven by the rate environment rather than a collapse in Bitcoin's fundamentals.

What Does the Sentiment Data Show?

Market psychology has turned deeply negative — arguably to an extreme. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index sat at just 8 points, deep in the "Extreme Fear" zone, as of June 8, 2026.

Historically, readings this low are notable for a counterintuitive reason: extreme fear has often coincided with local bottoms rather than the start of deeper crashes. It's not a guarantee — fear can always get worse — but it tells you sentiment is washed out, and a lot of weak hands may have already sold.

Is There a Bullish Side to This?

Balance matters here, and there are genuine counterpoints to the gloom. Several analysts frame the current drawdown as a normal, even healthy, part of the cycle rather than a structural breakdown:

• Supply is changing hands, not leaving. One reading of the data is that short-term leveraged strategies are unwinding and supply is redistributing from momentum players to long-term holders such as advisors, banks, and sovereign funds.
• Not all institutions are fleeing. The selling isn't uniform. On June 17, Fidelity's FBTC captured $14 million in inflows while rival ETFs bled, showing selective institutional buying.
• Relief rallies are appearing. Bitcoin showed a recovery after the sharp drop, with analysts calling it a classic oversold relief rally.

The bullish interpretation is that this is a redistribution phase — speculative money exiting while patient, long-term capital quietly accumulates.

What Should Crypto Traders Watch Next?

With ETF flows now a primary market driver, the signals to monitor are clearer than ever:

• ETF flow data. A sustained reversal from outflows back to inflows would be one of the strongest signals that institutional sentiment is turning.
• Fed expectations. Since rate-cut timing is the core driver, upcoming inflation and jobs data will heavily influence Bitcoin's direction.
• The Fear & Greed Index. Watch whether extreme fear deepens or begins to recover — sentiment shifts often precede price.
• Key price levels. With BTC around $63K and roughly 50% off its high, traders are watching whether prior support zones hold or give way.

Bitcoin Future: What's the Bottom Line?

Bitcoin's record ETF outflow streak is a real and significant development — billions in institutional capital have exited, AUM has fallen sharply, and sentiment is at extreme-fear levels. The honest read is that the near-term picture is genuinely weak, driven mostly by a macro environment where delayed rate cuts make Bitcoin less attractive than yielding alternatives.

But the same data carries a more constructive subplot: this may be a rotation rather than an exit, with speculative holders giving way to long-term accumulators, and pockets of selective institutional buying already appearing. For traders, the key isn't to pick a side on conviction alone — it's to watch ETF flows and Fed expectations closely, since those are the forces that will likely decide whether this drawdown becomes a bottom or a longer downtrend.

Solana ($SOL) is changing hands around $71.50, up about 2.6% on the day, as it tries to build on a recovery off its early-June lows. The daily chart tells a clear story: SOL peaked near $98 in mid-May, then sold off sharply through late May and early June, bottoming around the $62–63 zone before buyers stepped in and pushed the price back toward the low-$70s.

That makes the current setup a classic post-crash recovery attempt — price has bounced off a major support, but still sits well below the levels that defined its previous range. The question now is whether this bounce has the strength to reclaim lost ground, or whether it's a relief rally inside a broader downtrend.

Solana Analysis: What Do Key Support and Resistance Levels Show?

The chart maps out a clean structure of levels that traders are watching closely. These are the lines that will likely define SOL's next move:

• $60.00 — major support (green). This is the floor that held during the early-June capitulation. As long as SOL stays above it, the recovery thesis remains intact.
• $76.00 — immediate resistance (green). Once a support level, this has flipped to overhead resistance. It's the first real test for buyers and the gateway to higher targets.
• $90.21 — key resistance (orange). The upper boundary of SOL's prior trading range. Reclaiming this would signal a genuine shift back to strength.
• $100.00 — psychological resistance (orange). The round number that capped the May rally. A move here would mark a full recovery of the recent decline.

Right now, SOL sits in the no-man's-land between $60 support and $76 resistance — a zone where the next decisive break tends to set the tone.

What Is the RSI Telling Us About Momentum?

Momentum is where the picture gets interesting. The RSI (14) reads 46.45, with its moving average down at 38.38. Two takeaways stand out:

• The RSI is recovering from oversold. During the early-June plunge, RSI dipped sharply (the shaded zone on the chart), reflecting heavy selling. It has since climbed back toward the midline — a sign the worst of the selling pressure has eased.
• It hasn't reclaimed 50 yet. Staying below the neutral 50 line means momentum is improving but not yet bullish. The RSI crossing back above its moving average is an early positive signal, but bulls need a clean break above 50 to confirm a shift.

In short: the momentum reading supports a recovery attempt, but doesn't yet confirm a trend reversal.

What Are the Bullish Targets if SOL Breaks Out?

If buyers maintain control and SOL pushes higher, the path is mapped by the resistance levels above. A realistic bullish sequence looks like this:

1. Reclaim $76.00. The first hurdle. A daily close above this flipped level would confirm the bounce has legs and open the door higher.
2. Target $90.21. With $76 cleared, the next logical objective is the prior range high near $90 — a roughly 26% move from current levels.
3. Challenge $100.00. A break and hold above $90 would put the psychological $100 mark back in play, completing a full recovery of the May–June decline.

For this scenario to unfold, SOL likely needs supportive conditions from the broader crypto market — particularly $Bitcoin — alongside the RSI reclaiming the 50 level to confirm momentum.

What Happens if Solana Support Fails?

Balance requires looking at the downside too. The recovery is real but fragile, and a failure to hold current levels would shift the bias back to the bears:

• Losing the low-$70s would suggest the bounce is fading and bring the recent lows back into focus.
• A break below $60.00 would be the more serious signal. It would invalidate the recovery structure and expose SOL to deeper downside, with the $50–55 region emerging as the next major demand zone.

This is why $60 is the line that matters most on the downside — it's the difference between "healthy pullback within a recovery" and "resumption of the downtrend."

Solana Future: What Is the Overall Solana Price Outlook?

Pulling it together, SOL sits at a genuine decision point. The bullish case is that price has defended a major support at $60, momentum is recovering off oversold, and a reclaim of $76 would open a path toward $90 and potentially $100. The bearish case is that SOL remains below its key moving averages, RSI is still under 50, and a loss of $60 would reopen significant downside.

For traders, the roadmap is clean:

• Bullish trigger: a daily close above $76, targeting $90 then $100.
• Bearish trigger: a daily close below $60, targeting $50–55.
• Neutral zone: between $60 and $76, expect choppy, range-bound action until one side breaks.

As always with Solana, the broader market backdrop — Bitcoin's direction, risk appetite, and ETF flows — will likely be the deciding factor in which way this resolves.

Both models trade word-by-word generation for parallel denoising. Only one of them does it without losing intelligence in the trade.

New research outlines how chatbot behaviors, including personalization, mirroring, and excessive agreement, reinforce delusions.

OpenRouter's compound-model API stacks budget AI models—and beat GPT-5.5 and Claude Opus 4.8 outright in benchmark testing.

Activity on the Bitcoin network is surging, CryptoQuant said, but it's not correlating with price movement for its native asset.

Global financial institution Charles Schwab is the latest firm hoping to steal a piece of the growing prediction market pie.

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson hints at a potentially big future ahead, and AI seems to be part of it.

On Sunday, the executive chairman hinted at another major Bitcoin acquisition by posting a tracker chart of the company's holdings.

Zcash co-inventor shares direct take on second largest cryptocurrency Ethereum (ETH) amid recent Ethereum Foundation concerns.

Shiba Inu community awaits next move amid general market quiet.

Consensys CEO Joseph Lubin has stepped forward to fiercely defend Vitalik Buterin’s unexpected pivot to writing a science-fiction novel.

Quick Summary

• May’s PCE inflation reading arrives Thursday and may exceed April’s 3.8% annual increase
• Micron Technology delivers quarterly results Wednesday, with its valuation reaching $1 trillion and stock surging 800%-plus year-to-date
• Weekly gains: S&P 500 up 1.08%, Nasdaq jumped 2.48%, Dow edged higher by 0.14%
• SpaceX completed the biggest IPO ever recorded, securing $85.7 billion at a valuation exceeding $2 trillion
• Bitcoin advanced 0.46% to $64,139, underperforming the technology-driven equity surge

Equity markets pushed higher through the previous week, propelled by significant technology sector developments, a landmark public offering, and renewed optimism regarding international trade relations. Here’s a breakdown of recent action and critical events approaching in the days ahead.

Major Indexes Close With Solid Gains

All three primary U.S. benchmarks finished in positive territory. The S&P 500 advanced 1.08% to settle at 7,500.58. The Nasdaq posted a 2.48% gain, reaching 30,406.19, buoyed by robust appetite for technology and growth-oriented equities. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.14%, finishing at 51,564.70.

A preliminary U.S.-Iran peace agreement boosted investor confidence. The potential for resumed commerce through the Strait of Hormuz contributed to declining crude prices and encouraged risk-on positioning.

The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield finished the week at 4.455%. This level remains significant for growth-focused companies, which typically face pressure when financing costs climb.

The Federal Reserve, now led by recently appointed Chair Kevin Warsh, maintained its current interest rate stance. However, policymakers indicated additional tightening remains possible should inflationary pressures persist. The central bank has kept rates unchanged since December.

Bitcoin edged up 0.46% to finish at $64,139.86. Gold dropped 1.72% to $4,172.90. Digital assets lagged the wider market advance, which was predominantly powered by technology and mega-cap growth stocks.

SpaceX Delivers Unprecedented Public Market Debut

The week’s headline event was SpaceX’s public market entrance. Elon Musk’s aerospace and satellite enterprise secured $85.7 billion through its IPO, establishing a new record. The offering valued SpaceX at more than $2 trillion.

The landmark listing redirected investor focus toward major technology and innovation-focused enterprises.

SpaceX also purportedly reached an agreement to purchase AI company Cursor for $60 billion, a strategic step toward bolstering its artificial intelligence operations.

Nvidia revealed intentions to issue at minimum $20 billion in investment-grade debt for general corporate applications. This represents one of the chipmaker’s most substantial financing initiatives since the artificial intelligence expansion commenced.

Fox Corporation disclosed a $22 billion transaction to purchase Roku, the connected TV platform. This acquisition extends Fox’s digital footprint as legacy media organizations pursue stronger streaming and advertising infrastructure.

Yum! Brands divested Pizza Hut to LongRange Capital and Yum China Holdings for $2.7 billion. Management stated the transaction enables concentration on its other primary brands.

Critical Events on the Horizon

Micron Technology unveils fiscal third-quarter financial performance on Wednesday. The memory chipmaker’s valuation has reached $1 trillion while shares have skyrocketed more than 800% year-to-date. The firm posted gross margins exceeding 68% in its latest disclosure, prompting speculation about whether the memory semiconductor cycle approaches a top.

The PCE price index for May releases Thursday. April’s figure registered 3.8% on an annual basis, marking the highest level in three years. May’s reading could climb even further based on additional recent inflation indicators. The Federal Reserve monitors the PCE as its primary inflation gauge.

Additional corporate reports this week feature Carnival Corp., FedEx, BlackBerry, and Darden Restaurants. BlackBerry shares have more than doubled during 2026 driven by its expanding Nvidia collaboration and increasing demand for its QNX operating system deployed in advanced driver assistance technologies.

The post Micron (MU) Earnings and PCE Data: Critical Tests for Tech Stocks This Week appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• Micron’s transformation from cyclical memory producer to critical AI infrastructure provider is fueled by surging high-bandwidth memory (HBM) requirements
• The semiconductor giant secured a position as an HBM4 supplier for Nvidia’s upcoming AI platforms
• Analyst sentiment remains overwhelmingly positive: 35 Buy/Strong Buy recommendations, 4 Hold ratings, and no Sell recommendations
• Conservative projections estimate MU shares could reach approximately $840 by 2031, while optimistic scenarios suggest $1,750
• Industry experts predict this memory demand cycle may prove more durable than historical patterns due to AI’s infrastructure requirements

For years, Micron existed in the shadows as just another cyclical semiconductor stock. Today, that narrative is undergoing a dramatic transformation.

Micron Technology, Inc., MU

The catalyst is straightforward: artificial intelligence workloads demand enormous amounts of specialized memory. Advanced AI servers rely heavily on high-bandwidth memory solutions, and Micron stands among the select few manufacturers capable of delivering at enterprise scale.

This dynamic has fundamentally altered Micron’s investment thesis.

Shares have experienced substantial appreciation throughout the ongoing AI infrastructure buildout as HBM and datacenter memory demand continues outpacing available supply. Financial analysts have progressively increased their valuation targets as the AI memory narrative demonstrates remarkable staying power.

The company’s recent inclusion in Nvidia’s HBM4 supply chain represents a strategic win, positioning Micron at the center of next-generation AI computing infrastructure.

Industry observers highlight that Micron’s manufacturing capacity is essentially operating at full allocation. Hyperscale cloud operators and AI infrastructure builders are absorbing production output immediately upon availability.

In response to relentless demand, Micron has expanded its capital expenditure commitments. Executive leadership clearly anticipates sustained market strength.

Projected Valuation Scenarios Through 2031

Analyst modeling presents three distinct trajectories for MU shares over the coming six-year period.

Under a pessimistic scenario, AI infrastructure investment moderates and memory pricing returns to traditional cyclical behavior. Annual revenue approaches $60 billion by 2031, with earnings per share near $10, resulting in a stock price around $200.

The moderate case assumes continued AI demand momentum. HBM contributes an expanding portion of total revenue, profit margins expand, and annual sales reach approximately $110 billion. This pathway suggests earnings per share near $28 and a share price around $840.

An aggressive scenario envisions Micron achieving HBM market leadership with enhanced pricing leverage and revenue climbing toward $180 billion. Under these conditions, shares could potentially reach $1,750.

Weighting these scenarios by probability generates a blended 2031 price target of approximately $947.

Analyst Community Shows Strong Conviction

Wall Street’s endorsement of Micron reaches levels rarely observed across the semiconductor sector.

MarketBeat data reveals the stock currently carries 5 Strong Buy ratings, 30 Buy ratings, and 4 Hold ratings. Notably, zero analysts recommend selling.

Multiple research firms have argued the present memory expansion cycle may exhibit greater longevity than previous upturns, attributing this to AI creating fundamental structural demand rather than temporary purchasing spikes.

Micron’s latest quarterly results and forward guidance support this thesis. Both revenue performance and margin profiles have shown positive trends as HBM represents a growing percentage of the company’s sales composition.

The post Micron (MU) Stock Price Prediction: What to Expect Through 2031 appeared first on Blockonomi.

Quick Overview

• Micron’s Wednesday earnings release will test the strength of AI memory chip demand
• Nvidia sentiment hinges on Micron’s performance despite not reporting earnings
• Carnival’s quarterly report reveals the state of consumer travel and leisure spending
• FedEx quarterly results provide crucial insights into trade volumes and e-commerce trends
• Darden’s earnings offer visibility into discretionary dining expenditures

Investors face a critical week ahead, with earnings releases from five major corporations and an inflation reading that could trigger significant market movement.

The Personal Consumption Expenditures index for May — which serves as the Federal Reserve’s primary inflation gauge — arrives simultaneously with quarterly reports from Micron, Carnival, FedEx, and Darden Restaurants. Though Nvidia isn’t scheduled to report, the chipmaker remains under close scrutiny.

Micron Technology

Wednesday marks Micron Technology’s fiscal Q3 earnings announcement, positioning it as the week’s most anticipated corporate disclosure.

The semiconductor manufacturer specializing in memory chips has emerged as a primary winner from the AI infrastructure boom. High-bandwidth memory requirements have skyrocketed as technology giants expand their artificial intelligence computing capabilities.

Tightening supply conditions have pushed memory chip prices upward, providing a tailwind for Micron’s profit margins. Market participants will scrutinize profitability metrics, pricing dynamics, and forward-looking statements.

Given the stock’s impressive appreciation, investor expectations have elevated substantially. Guidance that falls short or margin compression could trigger sharp price swings.

Nvidia

While Nvidia won’t be releasing quarterly results next week, it deserves investor attention nonetheless.

NVIDIA Corporation, NVDA

Micron’s financial performance serves as a proxy for the entire AI semiconductor ecosystem. Robust memory chip demand would confirm sustained spending on AI infrastructure — a positive indicator for Nvidia’s business.

Nvidia maintains its dominant position in AI accelerator chips, propelled by purchases from cloud computing platforms and corporate clients. However, the stock’s elevated valuation multiple leaves it vulnerable to shifts in interest rate expectations.

Should the PCE inflation data exceed forecasts, growth-oriented equities like Nvidia might experience selling pressure.

Carnival Corporation

Carnival’s Q2 financial results arrive next week, providing transparency into consumer appetite for travel experiences.

The cruise line operator has enjoyed robust reservation volumes, premium pricing power, and a sustained preference for experiential consumption following the pandemic. Key metrics include reservation patterns, fuel expense management, profit margins, and annual projections.

Declining oil prices may improve the company’s expense profile. Conversely, global political instability has introduced challenges throughout the travel industry.

Carnival’s performance will indicate whether households continue prioritizing vacation spending amid elevated interest rates.

FedEx

FedEx delivers its fiscal Q4 earnings next week, serving as one of Wall Street’s most reliable economic indicators.

The logistics giant’s operations touch retail commerce, online shopping, industrial production, and international shipping. Its financial results provide comprehensive perspective on business activity levels and consumer purchasing power.

FedEx exceeded analyst projections in the previous quarter while upgrading its outlook. Market watchers will assess whether this positive trajectory continued through the final quarter.

The company’s recent divestiture of its freight business, which reports separately later in the week, adds another dimension as investors evaluate FedEx’s strategic transformation and growth prospects.

Darden Restaurants

Darden Restaurants concludes the important earnings stretch with updates from its Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse chains.

The restaurant operator provides direct insight into dining expenditures among middle-class and affluent American consumers. Analysts will examine menu price changes, comparable store sales performance, and customer traffic patterns.

Restaurant industry spending has demonstrated relative resilience compared to other consumer sectors, though inflation pressures and borrowing costs have influenced household spending decisions.

Strong Darden results would indicate continued discretionary spending capacity. Disappointing numbers might suggest consumers are becoming more cautious.

PCE Inflation Data Takes Center Stage

Beyond corporate earnings, the May PCE inflation release represents the week’s potentially most consequential market event.

Persistent inflation would likely keep the Federal Reserve in a holding pattern longer than markets currently anticipate. Such an outcome would weigh on interest-rate-sensitive securities and richly valued growth stocks.

Conversely, cooling inflation could provide momentum for growth equities as investors position for the latter half of 2026.

Market participants will analyze all five companies alongside the inflation figures for clarity on current market conditions and future direction.

The post Five Key Stocks and Inflation Data Set to Drive Markets Next Week appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• In 2025, SpaceX recorded $18.7 billion in total revenue, with its Starlink division contributing $11.4 billion
• The Starlink segment delivered $4.4 billion in operating profit during 2025, demonstrating strong margin potential
• Wall Street analysts project an average 12-month SPCX price of $221.20, ranging from $115 on the low end to $401 at the high end
• When weighted by probability, the 2031 target reaches approximately $604, though significant execution challenges remain
• Scenario-based 2031 forecasts span from $64 in bearish conditions to beyond $1,400 in optimistic projections

Valuing SpaceX stock presents unique challenges. The company operates far beyond traditional aerospace boundaries, managing satellite internet services, commercial and government launch operations, defense initiatives, and emerging artificial intelligence ventures.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp., SPCX

This multifaceted business model explains the substantial variance in analyst opinions.

Current analyst consensus from MarketBeat places the average 12-month target at $221.20 per share. The most optimistic projection reaches $401, while the conservative estimate stands at $115. This considerable spread illustrates fundamental disagreement about the company’s core identity and trajectory.

Last year, SpaceX generated approximately $18.7 billion in revenue, representing growth from the prior year’s $14 billion. The Starlink satellite internet service accounted for $11.4 billion of total revenues and produced approximately $4.4 billion in operating profit, validating the division’s ability to achieve healthy profit margins.

Neverthstanding these revenue achievements, SpaceX reported a substantial GAAP net loss for 2025. Aggressive capital deployment toward Starship development, AI infrastructure buildout, and launch capability expansion continued to suppress bottom-line profitability.

Primary Growth Catalysts

Three key factors underpin the optimistic long-term investment thesis.

The first driver is Starlink expansion. Continued global subscriber growth positions the service as potentially one of the planet’s dominant connectivity networks.

The second factor involves launch market leadership. SpaceX maintains a commanding position in reusable rocket technology, providing cost efficiencies that traditional aerospace competitors have found difficult to replicate.

The third element centers on AI and data platform development. Market participants increasingly view SpaceX through a technology company lens rather than purely as an aerospace entity. This perception shift has meaningful valuation implications.

Elon Musk has indicated SpaceX might achieve $1 trillion in annual revenue by 2030. Goldman Sachs analysts have reportedly modeled approximately $470 billion for that timeframe, while Morgan Stanley’s projections cluster around $330 billion. Each scenario demands exceptional operational execution.

Five-Year Price Projections

The pessimistic scenario positions SPCX near $64 by 2031. This outcome assumes Starlink and launch services continue expanding, but premium valuation multiples prove unsustainable. AI expenditures remain elevated while margin improvement stalls.

The moderate projection estimates approximately $458 per share. Under this framework, Starlink achieves scale, launch dominance persists, Starshield expands steadily, and AI contributes meaningfully without becoming transformational. Total revenue in this case could approach $250 billion.

The optimistic forecast extends beyond $1,400 per share. This scenario requires SpaceX to successfully construct an integrated global platform spanning satellite communications, launch services, defense systems, and AI infrastructure, generating revenues near $500 billion with substantially improved profit margins.

When applying probability weights across these three scenarios, the composite 2031 target reaches approximately $604.

This figure suggests considerable appreciation potential from current trading levels — though the uncertainty between possible outcomes remains exceptionally wide.

According to MarketBeat’s current analyst tracking, SPCX carries a consensus price target of $221.20, with the most bullish Wall Street analysts setting their sights on $401 per share.

The post SpaceX (SPCX) Stock: 5-Year Price Forecast and Valuation Analysis appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• OpenAI has submitted a confidential filing for its U.S. public offering, seeking a potential valuation reaching $1 trillion
• The company posted $5.7 billion in first-quarter 2026 revenue while spending $3.7 billion during that timeframe
• Anthropic submitted its IPO paperwork on June 1 following a $65 billion funding round at a $965 billion valuation
• Anthropic reported annualized revenues exceeding $30 billion, outpacing OpenAI’s previously announced $24 billion annual run rate
• Market experts indicate Anthropic could present a more attractive entry valuation given its enterprise focus and revenue pricing

The artificial intelligence sector is preparing for two landmark public offerings as both OpenAI and Anthropic have submitted confidential IPO filings with U.S. regulators. These parallel listings represent potentially the most significant tech market debut in years, though each company presents distinct investment propositions.

OpenAI carries stronger brand recognition globally. As the creator of ChatGPT, it has established unparalleled consumer awareness in the AI space. According to Reuters, the company is pursuing a valuation that could reach $1 trillion, with a possible market debut scheduled for September 2026.

Revenue figures demonstrate substantial commercial traction. OpenAI recorded $5.7 billion in revenue during the first quarter of 2026. However, operating expenses hit $3.7 billion in the identical period, revealing significant cash burn as the company scales.

This profitability gap represents a critical consideration for potential shareholders. While the brand commands impressive market position, the financial structure remains capital-intensive.

Why OpenAI’s Consumer Dominance Matters

ChatGPT stands as the most widely adopted artificial intelligence application globally. This market penetration provides OpenAI with consumer recognition that Anthropic cannot currently match.

OpenAI is expanding well beyond its flagship chatbot. The company is advancing into enterprise solutions, developer infrastructure, and platform-as-a-service offerings. This positions it as a diversified play on AI penetration across multiple industries.

The valuation presents the primary challenge. A $1 trillion market capitalization means investors would pay a substantial premium for anticipated expansion. This bet pays off if OpenAI maintains market leadership. The equation becomes problematic if rivals narrow the competitive gap.

Why Anthropic Emphasizes Enterprise Clients

Anthropic has pursued a more concentrated strategy. Its Claude language models have captured significant market share in corporate software, developer environments, and business process automation.

According to Reuters, Anthropic’s annualized revenue exceeded $30 billion, surpassing OpenAI’s previously reported $24 billion annual figure. While both companies measure revenue through different methodologies, the directional trend appears clear.

Anthropic completed a $65 billion funding round at approximately $965 billion pre-IPO valuation. This positions the company nearly on par with OpenAI in private market assessment.

Breakingviews analysis suggests Anthropic’s valuation translates to roughly 30x revenue. Depending on how OpenAI’s revenue run-rate is interpreted, this could position Anthropic as the less aggressively priced option at public debut.

Enterprise software companies typically command more predictable valuations than consumer-driven growth narratives. This dynamic favors Anthropic if its revenue composition remains stable.

Investors prioritizing entry valuation may view Anthropic as the more transparent opportunity. Its enterprise traction is demonstrable and its pricing may offer marginally better value relative to OpenAI’s anticipated debut price.

OpenAI represents the broader platform narrative with superior consumer penetration. Anthropic appears as the more conservative choice for investors emphasizing valuation discipline.

Both public offerings are anticipated to generate substantial investor demand upon market entry.

The post OpenAI vs Anthropic IPO Showdown: Which AI Giant Makes the Smarter Investment? appeared first on Blockonomi.

Bitcoin’s price has been quietly regaining some momentum, slowly increasing to just over $64,000 over the weekend, but that stable progress could be halted in the following hours.

The promised peace deal between the US and Iran is in question once again, as Trump just threatened the Middle Eastern country with new strikes on his Truth Social platform.

“Iran must immediately stop their highly paid PROXIES in Lebanon from causing trouble. If they don’t, we’ll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder!!! President DONALD J. TRUMP”

Recall that the POTUS announced that both parties had agreed to a deal last Sunday, which was supposed to be signed by June 19. However, that deadline has passed with no official signatures, and Iran even closed (again) the Strait of Hormuz after citing a breach of its agreement with the US to end the war as a reason.

The only positive development on the matter came as Israel and Lebanon announced a ceasefire, which is also in doubt now.

Live updates from the ongoing meeting between the US and Iran in Switzerland informed minutes ago that JD Vance and other negotiators from the Trump administration are in the same room as Iranian officials in a rare face-to-face meeting.

According to CBS News, officials have added an emergency session on the fighting in Lebanon to the Swiss talks, as more than a dozen people were killed in Lebanon by new Israeli strikes on Saturday, hours after the ceasefire agreement had become official.

Consequently, the promise for a more permanent peace deal is far from being certain now. In fact, the situation appeared a lot more promising last Sunday when Trump announced the upcoming deal.

Bitcoin’s price reacted with a notable pump from $64,000 to over $67,000 at the time, but it was stopped and driven south to under $62,500 as the uncertainty grew and the Fed maintained the rates unchanged.

Although it went past $64,000 earlier today, its progress could be halted over the past few hours and days if there’s no positive resolution on the war front.

The post Is Bitcoin (And Peace) In Trouble as Trump Warns Iran of Fresh Strikes? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Although the landscape is quietly and slowly improving, the spot exchange-traded funds tracking bitcoin’s performance ended the week once again in the red.

Ethereum’s negative trend was also extended, as the funds behind the two largest cryptocurrencies haven’t seen a single week in the green in a month and a half.

Bitcoin ETFs in Red (Again)

Even Monday recorded substantial net outflows, with $64.09 million leaving the BTC ETFs. This was somewhat surprising since the cryptocurrency’s price actually rose past $67,000 on that date, fueled by optimism from the deal announced by US President Trump between his country and Iran.

The only day in the green was actually Tuesday, with investors inserting $10.06 million into the financial vehicles. However, the trend reversed once again on Wednesday and Thursday, with withdrawals of $82.16 million and $90.66 million, respectively.

With Friday being a non-trading day, the week ended with a total net outflow of $226.84 million, marking the sixth consecutive week in the red since the one that ended on May 15. The total cumulative net inflows have declined during this time by a whopping $5 billion.

Perhaps the only positive conclusion from this is that the total outflows have declined from $1.72 billion during the first week of June to $316 million and the aforementioned $226.84 million in the last two.

The other notable development in the past week on the ETF front, aside from BlackRock’s new product, came from Franklin Templeton. The financial behemoth filed for two ETFs that will invest in US stocks and buy BTC with the dividends from those stocks.

Equity Bitcoin DRIP: proposed ETFs will invest in US stocks but then broad index of stocks pay out dvds the ETF will buy btc with that money. Trying it w innovation stocks too. Interesting.. https://t.co/bDpWOqijKK

— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) June 19, 2026

ETH ETFs in Red, Too

The spot Ethereum ETFs also ended the week in red, thus seeing a similar 6-week outflow-dominated streak. They had two days in the green, with Monday being the first as $22.50 million entered the products amid the growing peace optimism at the time.

Another $9.59 million went into the funds on Tuesday, but the tides turned once again on Wednesday and Thursday. The total net outflows for those days were $29.37 million and $12.77 million, as the week closed with a negative $10.05 million.

The cumulative total net inflows for the ETH ETFs are down from $12.09 billion on May 8 to $11.18 billion on June 18.

The post Bitcoin ETFs in Red for 6 Weeks in a Row Amid Major Filings From Franklin Templeton appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Ethereum has remained a mystery in terms of price movements on a macro scale, as it trades at essentially the same level as it did in March 2021.

Nevertheless, two of the most popular crypto analysts on X outlined a major breakout path forward that could take it toward its all-time high level. However, there’s still one major hurdle in its way.

Path to $4.6K

Ali Martinez outlined in a recent post that ETH stood at around $1,700 back in March 2021, as it does now. That means that a “$10,000 investment made five years ago would still be worth approximately $10,000 today.” The altcoin managed to chart a couple of all-time highs in the following years, but has returned to the same level, as it’s down by a whopping 65% since its last record seen in 2025.

“Despite five years of severe volatility, explosive bull runs, and deep bear-market liquidations, ETH has posted zero net gains from that baseline,” added Martinez.

Furthermore, he doubled down on previous predictions that ETH might not have bottomed during this cycle. Although he previously outlined $700 as a potential bottom for the asset, he now said that the $1,060 level stands out as a value zone to watch for such a level. If Ethereum manages to successfully defend that macro support, though, it opens the door for a short-to-mid-term rally to $2,850 or even $4,630, he added.

Time to Buy

Fellow analyst Michaël van de Poppe was even more bullish on the asset. Although he didn’t provide precise price targets, he noted that this might be “one of the best times to be buying ETH.” Moreover, he believes investors would wish they had bought more ETH in 5-10 years.

His comments were in response to another analyst, James Easton, who said that people tend to give up “right before the fun part,” and tagged Ethereum’s token.

I honestly stand by the fact that this is one of the best times to be buying $ETH.

In 5-10 years from now, you’ll be laughing back and say: Gosh, I should have bought more.

That’s always the asymmetry with those investments. At the moment: you don’t understand and feel whether… https://t.co/AvgWxg7DCO

— Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) June 20, 2026

The post Is Now the Ideal Time to Buy ETH? Analysts See a Path to $5K But There’s a Catch appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin can survive another price crash as it has done so many times in the past, reassured the CEO of CryptoQuant, Ki Young Ju.

However, he envisions another major threat for the asset – boredom, and he linked it to Strategy’s STRC shares, which have raised some eyebrows in the past few weeks.

Boredom, Not a Crash

If you have followed the cryptocurrency industry for a few (or more) years, you are probably aware of its intense volatility at times. Bitcoin has been the object of some mind-blowing fluctuations, up or down. Of course, the skyrocketing liquidations on the way down are usually the ones people read about, and don’t get me wrong, there have been plenty of instances in which the asset has tumbled by double digits daily. However, it has also risen in the opposite direction violently before.

Naturally, the current market state and the past several months, starting with the early October massacre, the February calamity, and the June crash, are examples of bear-dominated trends. Nevertheless, BTC has managed to withstand all of those and has (for now) returned stronger than before.

Consequently, CryptoQuant’s chief exec didn’t seem too bothered about the potential of another crash. However, he believes boredom could pose a more profound threat, especially if Strategy’s controversial Stretch (STRC) fails to operate as intended.

“Strategy’s STRC structure becomes truly dangerous not when Bitcoin simply crashes, but when Bitcoin spends years moving sideways, and the bear market drags on.”

He added that “long stagnation kills the story,” as BTC can survive another crash if the market still believes in the next leg up. However, weak demand due to stagnation leads to compressed MSTR premium and makes “Saylor’s capital-raising machine much harder to sustain.”

A Reason to Believe

Young Ju further explained that the real challenge for Saylor and his company is not just to keep buying bitcoin, but to give the market “a new reason to believe.”

“After nearly a decade in this industry, I’ve realized Bitcoin’s core has not really changed. What changes every cycle is the story around why BTC price should keep going up. But, most of those stories now feel exhausted.”

He warned that BTC failed to serve as digital gold when it was needed, as it traded like a tech stock. It was supposed to be freedom money built by cypherpunks, but many OGs are now shilling other coins. It also faces the rising threat of advanced quantum computing.

Although he remains a firm believer that “the pool of capital that could flow into Bitcoin is massive,” he noted that the “sense of an inevitable catalyst feels much weaker” now compared to 10 years ago.

“It makes me a little sad to see the ideas that originally pulled me in gradually get consumed and diluted: freedom money, energy money, and institutional adoption.”

The post Bitcoin’s Biggest Risk Is Boredom, Not Another Price Crash: CryptoQuant CEO appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin’s gradual price recovery since the Friday dip below $62,400 continues as the asset added two grand from that local low to $64,400 over the past several hours before it lost some traction.

Most altcoins have been quite sluggish over the past 24 hours. XMR and NEAR are among the few exceptions in the green, while ONDO has dropped by over 3.5%.

BTC Reclaims $64K

June began on a highly negative foot, with bitcoin slumping from $73,000 to $59,100 in just five days. The bulls finally stepped up after this calamity and didn’t allow another breakdown. The subsequent bounce-off drove BTC to $64,000 by the start of the next business week, but the actual breakout attempt arrived last Sunday and Monday.

At the time, US President Donald Trump announced a deal with Iran, which was supposed to be signed by June 19. BTC reacted with an immediate uptick to $67,200 on Monday, which became its highest price tag in two weeks. However, it faced another rejection, which was exacerbated after the FOMC meeting on Wednesday, and it dipped below $62,400 by Friday.

The promised deal is yet to be signed, which could be among the reasons behind the market-wide weakness. Nevertheless, bitcoin still managed to regain some traction and tapped $64,400 earlier today. Although it was stopped there, it still trades above $64,000 at press time.

Its market cap remains above $1.285 trillion on CG, while its dominance over the alts is still north of 56%.

LAB Nears Top 20

As mentioned above, there’s little volatility from the larger-cap alts today. Ethereum stands still at $1,730, BNB is at $590, and XPR is just inches below $0.15. Solana, despite some major token deposits to exchanges, is up by over 2% to $73. TRX, CC, and XMR are also in the green, while HYPE and XLM have lost some traction.

NEAR has risen by 3.5% to $2.24, while ONDO is below $0.34 after a 3.2% decline. LAB is today’s top performer once again, surging by over 25%. It now trades well above $15 after a 230% monthly rise, and it’s close to the top 20 alts by market cap. AERO follows suit in terms of daily gains, as an 11% pump has helped it enter the top 100 alts.

The total crypto market cap has tapped $2.290 trillion on CG after another minor increase on a daily scale.

The post LAB Nears Top 20 Alts After 25% Surge, BTC Price Taps $64K: Weekend Watch appeared first on CryptoPotato.