Cucurella's potential move highlights the growing trend of Premier League talent attracting significant interest and investment from La Liga.

The post Real Madrid agrees to sign Marc Cucurella from Chelsea for €60M appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Apple's AI recovery could enhance its competitive edge, potentially restoring investor confidence and reshaping the tech landscape.

The post Apple’s artificial intelligence crisis shows signs of easing, says Gurman appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Trump's call for de-escalation highlights the fragile balance in Middle East diplomacy, with global economic and market stability at stake.

The post Trump urges Israel and Hezbollah to stand down as Iran deal hangs in the balance appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Scotland's World Cup win boosts national morale and fan token value, highlighting the interplay between sports success and crypto markets.

The post Scotland secures first World Cup win since 1990, beats Haiti 1-0 appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Diallo's World Cup debut with Ivory Coast highlights the nation's rising football prowess and potential impact on the global stage.

The post Amad Diallo begins World Cup journey with Ivory Coast appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

Standard Chartered Calls Crypto Bottom as Bitcoin Price Recovers From $59,000 Low

Standard Chartered’s head of digital asset research, Geoff Kendrick, declared Friday that the crypto market has seen its cycle low, with Bitcoin’s recent dip to approximately $59,000 marking the bottom of the latest downturn — a 53% drawdown from its October all-time high of $126,000.

 “Winter is over. Welcome back to crypto spring,” Kendrick wrote in a Friday note, adding, “I think we have now seen the low in crypto asset prices for the cycle.”

Bitcoin had recovered to around $64,000 at the time of Kendrick’s note, representing a roughly 5% gain over the prior week. The bank maintains a $100,000 price target for Bitcoin by year-end — projections it first issued in February.

SpaceX IPO drains crypto liquidity — then frees it

One of the two primary catalysts Kendrick cited is the historic Nasdaq debut of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which priced its $75 billion IPO at $135 per share under the ticker SPCX on June 12. 

Shares opened sharply above their IPO price, gaining roughly 20% on debut day. Kendrick argued that a significant portion of recent Bitcoin ETF outflows — totaling more than $5.72 billion since the second week of May, among the sharpest “since inception” — was driven by investors liquidating crypto positions to secure SpaceX allocations. With the IPO now live, that specific selling pressure may lift, he said.

The overlap between crypto and SpaceX demand was already playing out in real time. On Hyperliquid, perpetual contracts for SpaceX (SPCX) had accumulated over $240 million in open interest and $220 million in 24-hour volume ahead of the debut — ranking it as the eighth-largest asset on the platform.

Iran is a wildcard

The second catalyst involves geopolitics. A potential peace deal between the U.S. and Iran, timed ahead of next week’s G7 summit, could reduce pressure on global oil supplies that have remained tight since Middle East hostilities began. 

Lower oil prices would subsequently cool elevated U.S. Treasury yields — which have weighed on risk assets like crypto by making risk-free government debt more attractive.

West Texas Intermediate crude fell roughly 1.5% on Friday to around $85–$86 per barrel. However, the peace deal narrative remained fragile. 

President Trump stated Thursday that a breakthrough could come this weekend, only to later post on Truth Social that the deal made public was not what had been agreed, warning Iranian officials to “get their act together” — adding uncertainty to the macro outlook.

Three bitcoin price signals to watch

Kendrick outlined three confirmation signals that would validate his call. First, he is watching for Strategy to announce an additional Bitcoin purchase on Monday, as CEO Michael Saylor’s buying history has served as a reliable demand signal for institutional appetite. 

Second, he is expecting U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs to return to net-positive daily inflows on Friday. 

Third, he wants to see continued declines in global oil prices as the Iran diplomatic situation evolves.

If all three materialize, Kendrick’s crypto spring thesis gains its clearest validation yet — suggesting institutional and macro forces are finally aligning to push Bitcoin back toward the bank’s $100,000 year-end target.

This post Standard Chartered Calls Crypto Bottom as Bitcoin Price Recovers From $59,000 Low first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Blockworks Acquires Messari in Deal Highlighting Crypto’s Data Consolidation Race

Blockworks, the New York-based crypto data and investor relations platform, has acquired rival Messari in a deal that underscores the growing consolidation pressure reshaping the digital asset industry — and the steep valuation resets facing once high-flying crypto startups.

The acquisition brings together two of the industry’s largest crypto information businesses. Messari, founded in 2018, built a comprehensive data platform covering more than 40,000 digital assets, along with APIs, market intelligence, research tools, and AI-powered workflows used by funds, exchanges, regulators, and developers. 

Blockworks, also founded in 2018, has focused on the issuer side of crypto capital markets, offering standardized disclosures through its Token Transparency Framework and a full-stack investor relations platform for onchain assets.

Blockworks paid more than $10 million for Messari — a steep discount from Messari’s approximately $300 million valuation when it raised a $35 million Series B led by Brevan Howard’s crypto arm in 2022, with Point72 Ventures also among its backers, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

The markdown reflects both Messari’s recent difficulties — including the 2024 departure of co-founder and longtime CEO Ryan Selkis and subsequent staff reductions — and broader headwinds gripping the crypto sector.

“This acquisition connects the two sides of the market,” said Jason Yanowitz, co-founder of Blockworks. “Issuers maintain a trusted record of their business, and investors, exchanges, and regulators consume that record through research, APIs, and automated workflows.”

Blockworks raise to consolidate fragmented crypto data market

The deal was funded in part through Blockworks’ recently closed Series A extension, which valued the company at $192 million. That round was co-led by ParaFi and Reciprocal Ventures and included participation from Coinbase Ventures, among others. 

Blockworks said it raised capital specifically to consolidate crypto’s fragmented data and information market, drawing comparisons to how Wall Street’s information layer eventually coalesced around dominant platforms like Bloomberg, FactSet, and S&P Global.

Messari CEO Diran Li, who took over following Selkis’s departure and had been repositioning the firm as an “AI-first company,” will join Blockworks as a senior leader under co-founders Yanowitz and Michael Ippolito.

The deal arrives as crypto M&A activity remains elevated despite challenging market conditions. Crypto companies have completed 144 deals totaling $11.8 billion in transaction value so far in 2026 — up roughly 3.5% from the same period last year — according to data from advisory firm Architect Partners. 

Still, Eric Risley, founder of Architect Partners, warned that sustained pressure on trading volumes and token prices could force more distressed sales. “We are in the midst of the creation of the haves and the have-nots,” Risley said, per WSJ. 

Both Blockworks and Messari executives said the combined platform would prioritize deeper data coverage, stronger APIs, enhanced compliance workflows, and AI-native research tools as digital assets increasingly migrate onchain.

This post Blockworks Acquires Messari in Deal Highlighting Crypto’s Data Consolidation Race first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

SpaceX Officially Joins Public Bitcoin Leaderboard as 8th Largest Holder With 18,712 BTC

Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched trading on the Nasdaq today under the ticker SPCX — and it didn’t arrive empty-handed. 

The company officially entered the public Bitcoin treasury leaderboard as the 8th largest holder with 18,712 BTC, a position that had been building for years before its historic IPO debut confirmed the full size of the stash.

SpaceX’s S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission first disclosed the 18,712 BTC position back in May, valued at approximately $1.29 billion at the time of filing. 

The total cost basis was reported at $661 million — an average acquisition price of roughly $35,324 per coin — suggesting the company began accumulating Bitcoin in late 2023 or earlier. At today’s prices near $63,000, the position is worth approximately $1.19 billion.

The disclosure somewhat surprised the market. Blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence had previously tracked SpaceX’s holdings as low as 6,095 BTC, and the BitcoinTreasuries.net May 2026 Corporate Adoption Report noted that its pre-IPO private estimate stood at just 8,285 BTC. 

The actual confirmed figure — more than double those estimates — made SpaceX’s reveal the second-largest Bitcoin treasury disclosure of May, trailing only Strategy’s 25,404 BTC in monthly purchases and accounting for more than one-third of all public treasury growth before sales.

“We expect SpaceX to rank among the top ten publicly traded Bitcoin treasuries after its anticipated June 12 IPO,” BitcoinTreasuries.net wrote in its May report — a forecast that has now materialized. 

The live leaderboard, updated as of June 11, confirms SpaceX at rank #8, slotting in just behind Strive (19,032 BTC at #7) and just ahead of Coinbase Global (16,492 BTC at #9).

SpaceX shares debut higher than initial pricing

The IPO itself is historic, even without the Bitcoin angle. 

SpaceX priced its shares at $135 on June 11, raising roughly $75 billion and valuing the company at about $1.75 trillion. 

Reports now indicate the stock could debut at $171 per share with other reports saying $155 a share. At that price, SpaceX’s valuation would climb to approximately $2.2 trillion, potentially making Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire.

The listing, led by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, ranks as one of the largest stock market debuts in U.S. history, surpassing Saudi Aramco’s $29 billion IPO in 2019.

The timing of SpaceX’s entry into the public crypto arena is notable given broader market headwinds. Bitcoin has shed more than 50% from its all-time high above $126,000, hovering around $64,000 in recent sessions, with spot Bitcoin ETFs bleeding $2.26 billion in outflows over two weeks. 

Still, SpaceX’s Bitcoin position appears to be a long-term balance-sheet allocation rather than a trading posture. The S-1 stated: “The Company has ownership of and control over its digital assets, which consist of Bitcoin, and utilizes, and expects to continue to utilize third-party custodians to hold its Bitcoin.” 

Analysts at Grayscale noted that SpaceX is poised to become the most valuable public company holding Bitcoin by market capitalization — even as Strategy remains the largest by coin count with over 843,000 BTC.

This post SpaceX Officially Joins Public Bitcoin Leaderboard as 8th Largest Holder With 18,712 BTC first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Sam Bankman-Fried Loses Appeal to Overturn FTX Fraud Conviction

One of Sam Bankman-Fried’s last credible paths to freedom closed Friday as a federal appeals court upheld his fraud conviction and 25-year prison sentence, ruling that the case against him was, in the court’s own words, “conservatively stated, robust.”

A three-judge panel of the Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals handed down the 42-page opinion on June 12, rejecting every argument Sam Bankman-Fried’s legal team advanced to undo the November 2023 conviction that cemented one of the largest financial collapses in crypto history, according to Reuters.  

At the heart of the appeal was a claim that the U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan had stripped Sam Bankman-Fried of a fair defense by barring evidence that FTX held enough assets to cover customer withdrawals. 

Defense attorney Alexandra Shapiro told the appellate panel in November 2025 that “Mr. Bankman-Fried’s trial was fundamentally unfair because the jury only got to hear one side of the story.”

Prosecutors countered that Kaplan’s ruling was correct: fraud charges hinge on misappropriation, not on the possibility that assets could have covered liabilities under different circumstances. The appellate panel agreed, finding the trial court’s evidence rulings sound and the government’s case against Sam Bankman-Fried overwhelming.

How FTX Fell

The exchange, once valued at $32 billion, collapsed in November 2022 once it was exposed that the balance sheet of Alameda Research — Bankman-Fried’s affiliated hedge fund — was built on FTX’s own exchange token rather than independent assets. The disclosure triggered a customer run that ripped open an $8 billion hole in FTX’s accounts.

Three of Bankman-Fried’s former deputies — Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison, FTX co-founder Gary Wang, and engineering head Nishad Singh — each pleaded guilty and testified against him. Ellison, the trial’s star witness, told jurors Bankman-Fried gave her the instruction to divert customer deposits to Alameda to repay loans from crypto lenders. “Sam directed me to commit these crimes,” she said from the stand.

The court ordered an $11 billion forfeiture and three years of supervised release following Bankman-Fried’s March 2024 sentencing. Ellison received two years and was released in January 2026 after serving 14 months.

The appeals court ruling lands just weeks after Bankman-Fried also filed a formal clemency petition with the DOJ’s Office of the Pardon Attorney, requesting a presidential pardon from Donald Trump. The application is listed as a “pardon after completion of sentence” — not a commutation — and Trump has said publicly he will not grant it.

Judge Kaplan denied a separate Rule 33 new trial motion in April 2026, calling Bankman-Fried’s claim that witnesses had been threatened by the government “wildly conspiratorial and entirely contradicted by the record.” Bankman-Fried withdrew an earlier version of that motion on April 22 without prejudice.

With the 2nd Circuit now closed, his legal options narrow to a habeas petition — a route with a lower success rate than direct appeals — or a Supreme Court petition.

What’s next for Sam Bankman-Fried

Sam Bankman-Fried remains at a low-security federal prison near Santa Barbara, California, and is not eligible for release until 2044. 

In a prison interview with Fox Business this month, he maintained his position: “I didn’t steal user funds.” He pointed to the FTX bankruptcy estate’s recovery of crypto assets, which have allowed the estate to pay creditors more than 100 cents on the dollar — a figure he frames as proof of FTX’s underlying solvency, though courts at every level have rejected that framing.

The Friday ruling closes the chapter on what federal prosecutors called a “fraud of epic proportions” — a case that shook institutional confidence in crypto markets, triggered congressional hearings, and forced exchanges across the industry to overhaul proof-of-reserves practices.

Back in January, President Donald Trump said he would not pardon former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, rejecting clemency for the convicted crypto executive.

This post Sam Bankman-Fried Loses Appeal to Overturn FTX Fraud Conviction first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Strategy Stock MSTR Offers Bitcoin Exposure At 18% Discount

I’ve been vocal about accumulating Bitcoin aggressively at current levels. Now I’m starting to look seriously at Strategy too. The same kind of confluence that flagged Bitcoin as a sizeable accumulation opportunity is appearing on MSTR, and in some cases, the readings are even more extreme.

This week at a glance:

• The RSI has only been lower on a handful of occasions since Strategy adopted a Bitcoin standard.
• The Mayer Multiple for MSTR has just reached the lower percentiles.
• The BTC vs MSTR ratio is close to entering a zone that has historically preceded sustained MSTR outperformance.
• At the previous Bitcoin all-time high with a 1x net asset value premium, the fair value of MSTR shares would be over $300.

Discount

Strategy currently holds approximately 845,000 BTC with an Average Cost Basis in the mid-$70,000s. That means, at current Bitcoin prices, they’re sitting at a pretty massive loss on their holdings. 

Figure 1: Strategy’s Average BTC Cost Basis and other key metrics.

View Live Charts

This has coincided with the NAV dropping even deeper beneath 1.00x; with MSTR’s market cap currently sitting approximately 18% below the USD value of its Bitcoin holdings. In other words, buying MSTR at current prices is the equivalent of buying $1 of Bitcoin for $0.82.

Support

The 200-week moving average is usually pretty notable support for assets, especially those that typically trend to the upside. Strategy’s share price is currently sitting right on this level, the same level that has previously marked significant accumulation zones.

Figure 2: Strategy’s share price tests the 200-week moving average.

A sustained hold and reclaim of this level, combined with Bitcoin showing any upward momentum, historically sets up the conditions for meaningful MSTR recovery. The level is being tested. Whether it holds will be one of the key signals to watch over the coming weeks.

RSI

Since Strategy adopted a Bitcoin standard, the RSI for MSTR has only been lower on a handful of prior occasions, both during previous Bitcoin bear market cycle lows, when the share price was in the low teens. The current reading isn’t quite at those depths, but it’s approaching them, and the direction of travel is continuing downward.

Figure 3: MSTR’s RSI drops beneath 25. Historically, such levels have preceded price appreciation.

The Mayer Multiple, simply the ratio between MSTR’s closing price and its 200-day moving average, recently registered a reading where 99.2% of all prior data points were higher. That’s a historically extreme level of underperformance relative to its own moving average, and it’s occurred at broadly the same time as the RSI signal. Giving two independent momentum indicators, both flashing readings only seen at the most significant cycle lows in MSTR’s history.

MSTR Or BTC?

The ratio between Bitcoin’s price and MSTR’s share price is one of the cleaner ways to gauge whether exposure should be in Bitcoin directly or rotated toward the higher-beta proxy. When the ratio is in the green upper zone, MSTR has historically been positioned to outperform. When it’s in the red lower zone, Bitcoin tends to lead.

Figure 4: The BTCUSD/MSTR ratio is close to the green zone, a level that has previously preceded sustained MSTR outperformance.

The ratio is currently close to entering that green zone again. Previous instances of this were followed by extended periods of significant MSTR outperformance relative to Bitcoin. The ratio is also making lower highs on the long-term trend, indicating the general trajectory is shifting toward MSTR becoming increasingly favorable relative to direct Bitcoin exposure.

Fair Value

At the previous all-time high of around $126,000 and with no additional accumulation priced in, a 1x net asset value premium on MSTR would imply a share price of over $300. That’s roughly a 2.5x from current levels just to reach fair value at Bitcoin’s last peak.

Figure 5: MSTR price targets modeled across varying BTC holdings and NAV premium scenarios.

If MSTR continues accumulating toward the 900,000 BTC range and the NAV premium moves modestly higher toward 1.25x or 1.5x, well below the 3x+ levels seen in the previous cycle, the numbers become pretty enticing! Crucially, the MSTR dilution that drove bitcoin accumulation is increasingly being funded through STRC rather than common share issuance, reducing that particular headwind.

Where Are We?

I’ve been accumulating bitcoin aggressively. I’m now also looking to add more MSTR. The combination of extreme momentum readings, the 200-week moving average support, an implied discount to the underlying Bitcoin holdings, and the BTC vs MSTR ratio close to entering historically favorable territory makes this feel like a no-brainer for a short-term play to increase my own BTC stack.

That said, MSTR is a high-beta Bitcoin play. If Bitcoin continues to struggle, MSTR will struggle more. I’m not treating this as a replacement for Bitcoin exposure, but as an additional asymmetric position at a point where the data suggests the risk-reward is historically favorable.

For more data, charts, and insights into bitcoin price trends, visit BitcoinMagazinePro.com. 

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

This post Strategy Stock MSTR Offers Bitcoin Exposure At 18% Discount first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Matt Crosby.

On July 1, 2026, the temporary permission that lets crypto companies keep operating in Europe while they wait for a proper MiCA license runs out, and it creates a huge problem that lands straight on ordinary users.

Europe's crypto law, known as MiCA, requires any exchange, broker, or wallet service that wants EU customers to hold an official license. Hogan Lovells counted only 194 licensed crypto firms across the EU as of May 2026, including banks, in a market that had more than 3,000 registered crypto companies back in 2024.

Around 75% of those older firms are expected to lose their right to operate once the grace period ends. Lawmakers insist that the law was written to protect consumers. But in the short term, it only protects them by cutting off access to any platform that didn't get a license in time.

There's less than three weeks until the permission runs out, which can make the deadline feel much less pressing than it really is. Getting a license takes months of review by a national regulator, so any company that doesn't already have one has effectively run out of time to get approved before the cutoff.

For those companies, the next few weeks are about closing down in an orderly way, handing their customers over to a licensed competitor, or pulling out of Europe altogether, and ESMA, the EU's markets watchdog, has said those shutdown plans were supposed to be ready to go well before July 1.

What the cutoff means for people holding crypto in Europe

What happens to users depends on which platform they use. If an exchange already holds a MiCA license or operates through a licensed European arm, its accounts should continue to work much as they do now.

If a platform is moving its customers to a licensed sister company, users might receive emails asking them to agree to new terms and re-verify their identities, since the EU expects licensed firms to bring existing customers across with full identity and AML checks before the deadline.

Platforms that haven't been licensed will start blocking new deposits if they haven't already and will push users to withdraw their funds to wallets or other licensed exchanges.

Both exchanges and users will feel the most pressure in France, where regulators are taking the cutoff data pretty seriously. The country's financial regulator, the AMF, told unlicensed firms they must stop operating from July 1 and warned that ignoring the rule is a criminal offense under French law, carrying up to two years in prison and a €30,000 fine.

The AMF can and probably will put unlicensed providers on a public blacklist, warn the public about them, and ask the courts to block their websites. At a press event in Paris on May 28, AMF president Marie-Anne Barbat-Layani told reporters that it had become urgent for companies to submit their applications, and Reuters reported her warning that companies still serving EU customers without a license could be taken to court.

Unlike exchanges, most users won't face any issues. They can check whether the platform they use holds its own MiCA license or operates through a licensed European company by checking in their national regulator's register or in the EU's central list of licensed companies.

A working app and a polished website only tell you a company is still up and running, while the official register tells you whether it's actually allowed to serve you after the deadline.

MiCA will reshape Europe's crypto market

Meeting MiCA's rules is expensive, and the cost burden falls on banks, large exchanges, and well-funded platforms that can afford the lawyers, capital, and compliance staff the law demands. This essentially monopolizes the market, reducing it to a handful of licensed players.

Poland alone had more than 1,400 of those older registered firms, and the small, lightly regulated operators spread across Europe are the ones most likely to vanish first as their old registrations lapse.

The European crypto market that comes out the other side of July 1 will be smaller and built almost exclusively of and around licensed institutions. While that's exactly what raising the bar was meant to achieve, it's also the reason a good chunk of consumer choice disappears along with it.

That was the source of most of the political tension we've seen around MiCA in the past year or so. It was selling a single, cohesive European market, where one license earns a company the right to operate in all 27 EU countries, a pretty common regulatory setup called passporting.

However, those licenses are actually issued by 27 separate national regulators, and they haven't been working at the same speed or the same standard.

Malta, in particular, drew scrutiny from ESMA after questions about how such a small regulator could approve so many licenses so quickly, and Barbat-Layani said that France would be willing to reject licenses granted by countries it doesn't trust, calling it a “serious collective failure” it would rather avoid.

So the July 1 deadline will double as a test of whether MiCA really created one unified market, or a race in which companies just shop for the most lenient country and use its license to reach everyone else.

Stablecoins have already shown us how this plays out once the rules bite. Despite being the largest stablecoin in the world, Tether's USDT never met MiCA's requirements, which led Coinbase, Kraken, Crypto.com, and Binance to pull it from their European platforms, while compliant tokens like Circle's USDC and its euro version, EURC, kept their place in the market.

Tether's answer was to invest in compliant European issuers while leaving USDT as is, and the list of approved companies that built up through 2025 left some of the biggest names in crypto on the outside. The pressure that reshaped Europe's euro stablecoin market is now reaching the exchanges and brokers themselves.

The weeks around July 1 are worth watching for the signs of all this in practice: big exchanges announcing moves to new European arms, regulators publishing warnings or blacklists, platforms cutting off services in France, Spain, Italy, or Germany, any last-minute approvals, and the wave of emails to users about withdrawals and account transfers, each one a clue about where the market is settling.

The deadline meant to protect Europe's crypto users will spend its first days showing many of them whether their exchange is even allowed to serve them, and that's the contradiction MiCA now has to answer for.

The post Millions of EU crypto users face exchange cutoff as MiCA deadline hits in days appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Elon Musk has become the first person in modern history to amass a personal net worth exceeding $1 trillion, crossing the historic threshold on Friday following the record-breaking public market debut of SpaceX.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the technology executive’s total fortune now stands at $1.11 trillion.

To put the unprecedented scale of this capital into perspective, Musk’s net worth is now above that of the total market capitalization of the global cryptocurrency sector when excluding Bitcoin. When including the world’s largest digital asset, his wealth accounts for exactly half the value of the entire crypto industry.

The financial milestone immediately reignited global discourse regarding wealth concentration, as Musk’s financial footprint now eclipses the gross domestic product of several developed nations.

SpaceX's IPO shatters records

The immediate catalyst for the surge in Musk’s wealth was SpaceX’s highly anticipated listing on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

The rocket, telecommunications, and artificial intelligence company achieved a staggering $2.2 trillion valuation upon entering the public market.

Underwriters initially priced the offering at $135 per share, successfully raising $75 billion before the open.

However, immense investor appetite for the commercial space sector and Musk-affiliated ventures drove the opening trade to $150. Shares surged to an intraday peak of $176.50 before settling at a Friday close of $161.

Market observers pointed out that the stock debut generated unprecedented liquidity.

Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas noted that the stock logged $85 billion in trading volume on its first day. The figure sets an IPO record and ranks among the top 10 highest single-day trading volumes for any individual stock in market history, exceeding Apple's peak single-day volume over the last 40 years.

Meanwhile, Musk retains a 42% ownership stake in the Hawthorne, California-based company. This equity position grants him essentially unilateral voting control over the firm's operational and strategic decisions.

Musk's crypto ties

The comparison between Musk’s fortune and the digital asset market highlights a significant shift in capital allocation over the past year.

Musk’s $1.11 trillion paper fortune comfortably exceeds the estimated $880 billion market capitalization of all alternative cryptocurrencies tracked by TradingView’s TOTAL2 index.

Even under broader metrics from data provider CoinGecko, which values the total crypto market near $2.27 trillion and Bitcoin at $1.28 trillion, the remaining altcoin sector sits below the SpaceX CEO's personal net worth.

This divergence underscores how far the broader altcoin market has fallen from its prior cyclical valuations. TradingView data shows that the market capitalization of crypto assets excluding Bitcoin peaked above $1.7 trillion in October 2025.

It has since declined by roughly half, reflecting diminished liquidity in digital assets and a broader institutional rotation toward large-cap technology and artificial intelligence equities.

Despite his individual wealth dwarfing the altcoin economy, Musk remains structurally tied to digital asset networks through both personal portfolios and corporate balance sheets.

Musk has publicly confirmed personal holdings in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin. While his private balances remain undisclosed, outside of a legacy 2018 statement regarding a gift of 0.25 Bitcoin, his corporate entities carry an institutional footprint.

Post-IPO regulatory filings revealed that SpaceX maintains a corporate treasury reserve of 18,712 Bitcoin, an allocation valued at more than $1.3 billion. This strategy aligns with his electric vehicle manufacturer, Tesla, which continues to hold 11,509 Bitcoin as part of its liquid treasury reserves.

If the two firms were to merge, they would rank as the 5th largest public corporate holder of the top cryptocurrency.

Additionally, Musk has leveraged his $44 billion acquisition of the social media platform X to embed financial data tools directly into public discourse. The platform's “cashtags” feature provides real-time market pricing for traditional equities and digital assets.

While X corporate statements clarify that the platform acts strictly as a data utility rather than a direct brokerage or digital currency exchange, the integration serves to further link Musk's media and corporate ecosystem to the daily mechanics of the financial markets.

Ultimately, the scale of Musk’s fortune highlights the profound concentration of private wealth around founder-controlled technology monopolies, emphasizing that this historic net worth remains closely bound to equity market prices rather than liquid cash.

The post Elon Musk’s trillionaire status puts his net worth above crypto’s entire market cap outside Bitcoin appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The banks are finally buying the vaults. In May, BNY, the world's largest custodian with $59.4 trillion in assets under custody and administration, announced it would offer Bitcoin and Ethereum custody in Abu Dhabi. Weeks later, Standard Chartered confirmed it will fully acquire Zodia Custody, the digital asset custodian it incubated in 2020, with the deal expected to close by the end of August.

Once a back-office concern for crypto-native firms, custody has now become a strategic priority for the world's biggest banks.

However, the institutions best known for managing risk are buying into Bitcoin infrastructure just as the industry admits it has an unsolved cryptographic problem.

A new report from Taurus, the Swiss digital asset technology firm that counts Deutsche Bank among its backers, argues that every custodian on the market today remains exposed to a future quantum transition, and that one of the industry's most popular custody architectures may face structural limits when blockchains eventually migrate to quantum-resistant signatures.

To see why, it helps to understand what a crypto custodian actually does. Owning Bitcoin means controlling a private key, a long secret number that authorizes movement of the coins. Whoever knows that number can spend the assets, and anyone who loses it permanently loses the assets.

A custodian's entire job is to guard those keys and use them to produce digital signatures, the mathematical proofs that tell the network a transaction is genuine. Every spot Bitcoin ETF, every tokenized fund, and every corporate treasury position ultimately rests on how some custodian generates, stores, and uses these keys.

Two types of architecture dominate that business.

Multi-party computation, or MPC, splits a key into fragments held on separate machines, so the full number never exists in one place, and a thief would need to breach several systems at once.

Hardware security modules, or HSMs, take the opposite approach and lock the key inside a single piece of specialized, tamper-resistant hardware that destroys itself if anyone interferes.

The Taurus report contends that these two designs face very different futures once quantum computers enter the picture, and that the difference should concern any institution choosing its custody stack now.

The vault can be ready before the blockchain is

The signatures securing Bitcoin and Ethereum rely on elliptic curve cryptography, a branch of mathematics built on problems so hard that every computer on Earth working together couldn't reverse them.

A sufficiently large quantum computer running Shor's algorithm could solve those problems pretty quickly, meaning it could read a public key on the blockchain, derive the corresponding private key, and forge transactions.

But that machine is still hypothetical. Current quantum computers are research prototypes at roughly 100 qubits, far short of the hundreds of thousands needed, and Taurus's own view is that a cryptographically relevant machine before 2040 is pretty unlikely based on current evidence. CryptoSlate has repeatedly noted how headlines exaggerate the near-term danger.

The case for acting now rests on timelines rather than panic. The US standards agency NIST published its first post-quantum cryptographic standards in August 2024, providing the world with vetted replacement algorithms.

NIST IR 8547 deprecates today's signature schemes after 2030 and disallows them after 2035. Migrations of this scale take years, which is why Wall Street has already begun debating how Bitcoin should adapt.

The most valuable insight in the report concerns a constraint unique to blockchains. A bank can upgrade its own internal security this quarter, and many already serve quantum-safe web connections.

But Bitcoin sits outside any single institution's control. When a custodian signs a transaction and broadcasts it, thousands of independent computers around the world check that signature against the network's shared rules, and those rules currently recognize only the classical schemes.

A custodian that deployed post-quantum signing today would produce transactions that Bitcoin and Ethereum simply reject as invalid.

Changing the rules requires protocol upgrades, wallet updates, agreement among node operators, and the migration of millions of users, a process already underway in proposals like Bitcoin's BIP-360 and Ethereum's post-quantum research agenda.

This is why every provider, Taurus included, remains dependent on the chains themselves. The realistic objective, the report argues, is to make every layer a custodian controls quantum-ready, then migrate on-chain when the ecosystem gets there, which Taurus estimates could happen by 2029 or earlier.

The report also offers a counterintuitive observation it calls the quantum gravity principle: a computer capable of breaking Bitcoin would almost certainly be pointed at richer targets, such as state secrets and banking infrastructure, and the mere knowledge of its existence would crash crypto prices before any theft could pay off.

The nearer-term danger is the harvest-now-decrypt-later attack, in which adversaries record encrypted traffic today, store it cheaply, and decrypt everything once a capable machine arrives.

Why MPC has become the flashpoint for quantum security

The sharpest claim in the report concerns MPC, the architecture favored by many crypto-native custodians and fintechs. Taurus acknowledges that splitting keys across machines makes theft harder, since an attacker must compromise multiple systems rather than a single one.

The catch is that all those machines cooperate to produce an ordinary elliptic curve signature, the only kind the blockchain accepts, so the mathematics a quantum computer would attack stays identical, no matter how many parties share the work.

MPC systems also rely on their own cryptographic machinery to authenticate participants and secure the channels between them, and much of that machinery rests on the same vulnerable mathematical assumptions.

Then comes the structural argument. Top-tier HSMs from vendors like Thales already run post-quantum signature algorithms inside their hardware, subject to firmware versions, so supporting a new scheme mostly means installing it.

MPC faces a harder road, because each new signature family requires researchers to invent a fresh protocol for computing that signature across multiple machines without ever assembling the key. For lattice-based schemes such as ML-DSA, these protocols emerged only in 2025 and 2026 and remain unvalidated for production use.

For hash-based schemes such as SLH-DSA, the report claims a fundamental mathematical barrier: hash functions deliberately scramble any structure in their inputs, and it's the structure that multi-party protocols exploit to divide the signing work.

That finding stings because hash-based signatures are what most networks are choosing. Circle's post-quantum roadmap for Arc selects SLH-DSA-SHA2-128s for smart-account verification, Aptos has proposed the same scheme, and Ethereum researchers are weighing hash-based options too.

The claim deserves scrutiny rather than acceptance. Taurus builds custody technology with HSM roots and has a commercial interest in this comparison; the report discloses that it was prepared solely by Taurus, without independent verification.

SLH-DSA also carries practical baggage of its own, since its signatures run 7,856 bytes, compared to 64 for today's standard, an awkward fit for high-volume transaction signing under any architecture.

MPC vendors could plausibly adapt to lattice-based schemes if those win out instead, and whether hash-based signatures actually become the dominant blockchain choice remains open. Cryptographers outside Taurus should weigh in on whether the incompatibility holds as broadly as claimed.

Still, the tension underneath this data certainly survives the caveats. Banks, ETF custodians, and exchanges are concentrating billions of dollars of client assets within custody architecture chosen years before anyone knows which post-quantum schemes blockchains will adopt.

A migration, when it comes, could mean rotating wallets, generating new addresses, obtaining client approvals, and absorbing operational pauses across the entire institutional stack, with auditors, insurers, and regulators watching every step.

The bigger question raised by the BNY and Standard Chartered goes beyond whether banks should hold Bitcoin keys. It asks whether the vaults they're buying today can be rebuilt while the assets are still inside.

The post Banks are buying Bitcoin vaults, but a quantum problem may be waiting inside appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin reclaimed $64,000 on June 12 and touched an intraday high of $64,301 in the same session that spot ETF flows finally flipped positive after four straight sessions of institutional selling, and oil prices fell as peace deal momentum built between Washington and Tehran.

On June 13, Bitcoin fights to stay close to the $64,000 level, with a setup that looks better than it did 24 hours ago, and every piece is fragile enough to unwind before Monday's open.

The cushion above $64,000 is thin enough that a hold into Monday separates a genuine repair phase from a relief bounce that exhausts itself at resistance.

A rejection opens the question of whether the sub-$60,000 panic low from earlier in the week becomes the reference point again.

ETF outflows and macro conditions ease

Farside Investors data shows spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $85.9 million in net inflows on June 12, ending a streak of four consecutive negative sessions that resulted in over $405.2 million in net withdrawals.

The June 12 print is the last institutional flow signal before Monday, so whatever the macro weekend delivers, bulls will be absorbing it without a fresh demand signal from the ETF channel.

BTC's move back to $64,000 coincided with falling oil prices and accumulating optimism around a US-Iran peace framework.

Brent dropped toward $88 per barrel on June 12, its lowest in nearly two months, as both Washington and Tehran described an agreement as close.

Pakistan's prime minister said a signing was expected within 24 hours, and a Western source reported that Vice President JD Vance and Iran's parliament speaker could sign an initial deal as early as June 14 in Geneva.

US forces shot down multiple Iranian one-way attack drones heading toward the Strait of Hormuz.
CENTCOM confirmed that all drones were intercepted and that commercial traffic through the strait continued to flow, though the episode put the peace trade's durability on display: a deal that both sides describe as imminent can still produce military exchanges hours after optimism peaks.

A clean peace signing on June 14, with oil prices dropping further and risk sentiment improving, puts BTC in a position to test $65,500-$66,000 Monday morning, the zone where the bounce starts to look more structural.

A military flare-up, a breakdown in the deal text, or a statement by President Donald Trump walking back the timeline would reverse the oil trade and hit risk assets before ETFs open.

Brent's open interest has fallen nearly 17% this year, according to LSEG data, as investors exit a market they now consider too volatile and unpredictable to hold.

Thin positioning means oil-driven macro moves arrive faster and with less cushion, and BTC, trading as a risk asset in this environment, absorbs those moves in real time on a 24/7 market while equities and commodity futures sit closed.

The Fed wall is waiting on Monday's other side

The Fed has kept rates at 3.50%-3.75% since March and is widely expected to hold again at the June 16-17 meeting, where the real move is the expected removal of its easing bias, stressing that the next rate adjustment would be a cut.

Headline CPI came in at 4.2% year-over-year in May, with one-year inflation expectations sitting at 4.6%. Consumer sentiment improved in June as gasoline prices eased, but the inflation read keeps the Fed from softening its tone.

Bitcoin's bounce from sub-$60,000 lows has been partly a risk-sentiment trade, the same macro relief that came from peace optimism and falling energy prices.

If the Fed meeting reinforces a higher-for-longer message and strips out the easing signal, BTC will need sustained ETF creations to hold $64,000 and clear the resistance zone above it.

Bull and bear cases going into Monday

If a US-Iran deal gets signed this weekend, oil falls further, risk appetite opens Monday morning on a genuine macro positive, and ETF desks that held back on June 12 put capital to work.

Bitcoin clears $65,500, and the ETF reversal starts to look like the opening of a sustained institutional re-entry. The $64,000 zone converts from contested resistance to established support.

The bear case opens the moment a headline breaks the peace trade: a breakdown in deal talks, a fresh Hormuz exchange, or Trump walking back the signing timeline sends oil back above $90, compresses risk appetite, and returns BTC to the $63,000 area before Monday's ETF session begins.

At $63,000, bulls are defending a level that already failed once this week. A daily close below it would make the $64,000 reclaim look like a liquidity trap, and the next reference point becomes $59,000-$60,000, where the panic low sits.

Holding $64,000 until Monday's ETF market opens is the weekend's only requirement, as ETF inflows on June 12 showed a blip in desks' conviction.

Whether the macro backdrop gives them cover to sustain the Bitcoin price determines whether the bounce has a floor or just a ledge.

The post Bitcoin price challenges $64,000 weekend wall – needing a breakout or risk a deeper correction appeared first on CryptoSlate.

SpaceX priced its IPO at $135 per share on June 11, raised $75 billion in the largest public offering in history, and opened on Nasdaq at $150 Friday morning.

By the time the stock reached $164, retail investors had gained “SpaceX exposure” through actual Nasdaq shares, Backpack Securities' redeemable token on Solana, xStocks tracker certificates on Kraken and Bybit, Binance Wallet's subscription campaign, and Hyperliquid's perpetual futures.

The convergence on a single name reflects a structural ambiguity in how crypto exchanges and tokenization platforms label equity-linked instruments, and the most anticipated IPO in years put that ambiguity under the brightest possible light.

Four products and four different claims

An actual Nasdaq share of SPCX conveys shareholder ownership routed through a traditional broker. Binance Stocks offers whole-share limit orders for SPCX executed through an introducing broker and cleared through Alpaca Securities, meaning real shares and real settlement, subject to Nasdaq's standard trading rules and halts.

Backpack Securities' SPCX token on Solana is backed 1:1 by a real SpaceX share purchased and held in custody by Backpack, a regulated US broker-dealer. Eligible holders can redeem those tokens for the underlying equity and transfer shares to any traditional brokerage via ACATS/DTCC rails.

Backpack CEO Armani Ferrante described the goal as making underlying securities “portable across financial systems.”

The Solana launch was timed to coincide with the Nasdaq debut, making it the first time a newly listed equity had a simultaneous on-chain market from day one. This model sits closest to direct share ownership because the redemption pathway runs through regulated brokerage infrastructure.

xStocks tokens are a distinct legal instrument, acting as tracker certificates where bearer debt instruments provide economic exposure to SpaceX's price without conferring shareholder rights, voting rights, or any legal claim to the underlying shares.

Kraken's own FAQ states xStocks “do not carry shareholder rights, voting rights, or any legal claim to the underlying company shares.”

Bybit's product terms state that the collateral backing xStocks “may not always consist of the underlying shares,” with cash or other assets potentially substituted, and Bybit acknowledges it does not independently verify the collateral. Both platforms exclude users from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.

Hyperliquid's SPCX contracts are cash-settled derivatives that transition into equity-linked perpetual futures using the live Nasdaq price as an oracle once the stock lists, a position with no claim on the underlying company.

Hyperliquid's SPCX contracts do not represent SpaceX stock and do not become stock once it lists, transitioning into equity-linked perpetual futures using the live Nasdaq price as an oracle.

The allocation issue

The friction event that drew the most attention originated in the xStocks infrastructure, not in Backpack's custody model or Hyperliquid's derivatives engine.

Binance Wallet's SPCXx subscription campaign raised $557 million from 27,689 wallet addresses, making it one of the largest tokenized IPO campaigns ever. Bybit launched a parallel subscription through its new IPO Express platform.

Both ran on xStocks, priced tokens at 135 USDC, and carried explicit fine print stating that allocations were not guaranteed. Applicants could receive full, partial, or no tokens, with unallocated USDC automatically refunded.

According to Kraken's growth team, the xStocks provider received a smaller pre-IPO allocation of SpaceX shares than expected. Demand from users across Kraken, Bybit, Binance, and Bitget far exceeded the available supply.

Each allocated user received 4.2786 SPCX shares, a uniform figure that points to a pro rata cut across a fixed pool.

Binance's FAQ states the campaign “could be delayed, suspended, or canceled due to market, regulatory, or underwriting factors.” Bybit's announcement stated that listings “may also be adjusted, delayed, or canceled.”

Users who read “tokenized SpaceX IPO access” as a guarantee of ownership with a partial-fill outcome encountered exactly the ceiling described in the documentation.

The supply of the trackers is bound by what the issuer can source at the offering price. When demand outstrips available shares, allocation gets cut, and users get refunds.

Backpack's model avoids that ceiling because it purchases shares through its own brokerage infrastructure and issues tokens against custodied equity, so the token count corresponds directly to shares actually held.

What Hyperliquid was actually doing

Hyperliquid's SPCX contract, launched by Trade.xyz on May 18, generated $33 million in volume in its first 24 hours and peaked above $220 before settling near $203, implying a SpaceX valuation above $2.5 trillion before the company had priced a single share.

By IPO day, the perp had pulled back to around $176, still 30% above the $135 offering price, with over $322 million in 24-hour volume and $293 million in open interest.

The perp ran $12 to $26 above Nasdaq's actual first-day range of $150 to $168, a spread that illustrates what happens when a cash-settled derivative lacks a redemption mechanism to anchor it to spot.

Hyperliquid's order book set the price entirely by supply and demand until Nasdaq established a live feed. A three-week run from $220 down to $176, then back toward $183 on the morning of listing, shows how far that process can drift before equity markets open for real settlement.

Traders using the contract as a leveraged directional bet on IPO pricing got the product they subscribed to.

Traders who read the SPCX ticker and assumed it implied proximity to the underlying stock held a perpetual futures contract whose price converged with Nasdaq only through market mechanics with no custody mechanism enforcing alignment.

What gets tested next

SpaceX disclosed 18,712 BTC on its balance sheet, acquired in 2021 at a cost basis of approximately $661 million, and an actual SPCX share gives indirect exposure to that treasury. An xStocks certificate or a Hyperliquid perp tracks SpaceX's price action, not its balance sheet composition.

SpaceX pre-IPO perp volume reached $3.2 billion and $390 million in open interest across eight exchanges between May 17 and June 11. RWA.xyz shows tokenized stocks at $1.68 billion in distributed value, up 39% over 30 days, with $3.63 billion in monthly transfer volume.

Citi projects that tokenized real-world assets will climb from $17 billion today to $5.5 trillion by 2030. As that volume scales, more capital is at risk within structures whose rights differ sharply from their names.

SpaceX was the first mainstream test of multiple tokenized equity structures operating simultaneously on the same underlying asset.

Tracker certificates proved contingent on IPO allocation pipelines that retail demand can overwhelm. Perpetuals proved capable of sustained premiums because no arbitrage mechanism forces convergence with equity markets that close at 4 PM.

Redeemable tokens backed by brokerage custody proved the model that most closely replicates share ownership, though redemption eligibility, jurisdictional restrictions, and stress-scenario mechanics are unresolved for any issuer.

OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Stripe, and Databricks are all candidates for the next wave of blockbuster IPOs, and each will arrive with the same menu of exposure products under similar tickers.

Before subscribing to any of them, traders must determine the risk profile by assessing the type of tokenized stock they are acquiring and the bucket it belongs to.

The post SpaceX’s IPO exposes the first crack in tokenized stocks – fragmented ownership and allocation appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Tokenized Pokémon card sales have skyrocketed over the past year, fueled by a wave of speculation and so-called gacha machines.

Anthropic pushed back against what it described as an overreach, saying the vulnerability cited is already widespread across the industry.

Google alleges a Chinese network weaponized its Gemini AI to create phishing sites that stole millions of credit card numbers and targeted crypto investors.

A hobbyist network handed an autonomous agent a masterclass in why you don't give AI a credit card and a deadline.

President Trump’s upcoming UFC fight will provide several crypto firms with an unprecedented opportunity for corporate branding.

The rise doesn't come as a surprise, as this follows a trend observed since late May.

Why a 94% drop from its peak and a historically strong July force smart money to back the Shiba Inu coin now.

Michael Saylor drops new debt formula for $54 billion Bitcoin holdings ahead of the June 15 market open.

Low-cost Ethereum quantum security proposal draws interest across crypto community.

The state of Shiba Inu is complicated as despite substantial outflows, the market is yet to enter a recovery period.

Key Takeaways

• SpaceX launched on public markets Friday with shares at $150, finishing the day with a historic $2.1 trillion valuation
• Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh conducts his inaugural FOMC meeting Wednesday with rates anticipated to remain steady
• Price pressures reached a three-year peak recently, as both consumer and wholesale inflation exceeded forecasts
• Diplomatic progress between Washington and Tehran could unlock the Strait of Hormuz, driving energy prices down
• Notable quarterly reports due from Accenture, CarMax, Kroger, and Jabil

Space Exploration Technologies made financial history this past Friday with its Nasdaq listing, debuting at $150 per share—representing an 11% jump above the $135 initial offering price. The stock surged approximately 20% during trading, catapulting the company’s valuation to roughly $2.1 trillion.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp., SPCX

This valuation positioned SpaceX as the sixth-most valuable corporation in American markets. The milestone also elevated Elon Musk to become the modern world’s first trillionaire.

The public offering generated unprecedented capital, eclipsing every previous IPO in financial history. Equity markets responded positively, with the S&P 500 advancing 0.5% on Friday and gaining 0.6% for the week.

Federal Reserve Leadership Transition

Market attention pivots to Wednesday when the Federal Open Market Committee concludes its two-day policy session. Consensus expectations point toward unchanged interest rates.

Investors are particularly focused on newly appointed Fed Chair Kevin Warsh. Wednesday marks his inaugural FOMC meeting following his May 22 swearing-in ceremony. His post-announcement press briefing will offer the first substantive insight into his inflation management strategy.

May’s consumer price index accelerated at the quickest rate since 2023. Wholesale prices climbed at their fastest velocity since November 2022. Employment additions have consistently surpassed projections for multiple consecutive months.

Warsh has historically advocated that the Federal Reserve should avoid overly prescriptive forward guidance, a stance that could heighten market volatility as traders interpret each economic release to anticipate policy shifts.

President Trump has advocated for rate reductions, though BNP Paribas analysts note current economic conditions differ substantially from the environment during the Fed’s autumn rate cuts.

Macquarie strategists have highlighted that artificial intelligence infrastructure spending may be generating near-term inflationary pressures, potentially contradicting Warsh’s perspective that AI technology delivers long-term disinflationary effects.

Middle East Diplomacy and Energy Markets

Geopolitical developments brought encouraging signals Friday. American and Iranian negotiators appear close to finalizing an agreement that would restore access through the Strait of Hormuz, shuttered throughout the current conflict.

Iranian government media indicated the framework may include American military withdrawal, unfreezing $24 billion in Iranian funds, and $300 billion allocated for reconstruction initiatives. American officials outlined provisions encompassing elimination of Iran’s enriched uranium reserves and conditional asset releases contingent on verification.

Oil prices retreated following the announcement but continue trading significantly above pre-conflict levels. Rystad Energy calculates the hostilities have already produced aggregate supply disruptions totaling one billion barrels, with projections suggesting this figure could approach two billion barrels by year’s end.

Even with a signed agreement, energy markets face an extended recovery timeline.

Corporate Earnings Calendar

CarMax unveils first-quarter financial performance Wednesday morning, with analysts monitoring used automobile market dynamics under recently appointed CEO Keith Barr. Accenture presents results Thursday, facing scrutiny regarding federal budget reductions and emerging artificial intelligence competition. Kroger and Jabil also announce earnings during the week.

May retail sales figures release Wednesday, providing fresh perspective on consumer behavior amid elevated price environments.

The post Market Preview: SpaceX (SPCX) IPO Record, Federal Reserve Meeting, and Iran Nuclear Agreement appeared first on Blockonomi.

Quick Overview

• Next week marks Kevin Warsh’s inaugural Federal Reserve meeting as chair; while rates likely remain steady, his commentary on inflation and future policy direction will be critical
• AI infrastructure leaders Nvidia and Broadcom deserve attention as data center investment continues at elevated levels
• Commercial space companies Rocket Lab and AST SpaceMobile gain spotlight after SpaceX’s IPO sparks renewed sector interest
• Kroger’s upcoming earnings release provides crucial insight into consumer spending patterns amid persistent inflation and high borrowing costs
• Fresh retail sales figures will supplement the economic picture for investors

Next week brings Kevin Warsh’s debut as Federal Reserve chair. While no rate changes are anticipated, market participants will scrutinize his remarks regarding inflation trends, economic momentum, and the trajectory of monetary policy.

Beyond the Fed proceedings, fresh retail spending data and multiple corporate earnings announcements will provide additional market catalysts.

Below are five equities commanding investor attention.

Nvidia: AI Infrastructure Momentum Continues

Nvidia occupies a dominant position in the artificial intelligence revolution. Appetite for AI accelerators and datacenter components shows no signs of weakening, making any indications about ongoing enterprise AI investment particularly significant for the stock.

NVIDIA Corporation, NVDA

Major cloud computing platforms maintain substantial AI infrastructure budgets, with Nvidia capturing the lion’s share. Should the technology sector maintain stability next week, Nvidia will likely influence broader market direction.

Broadcom: Alternative AI Hardware Powerhouse

Broadcom specializes in customized AI semiconductors and networking hardware deployed across massive data facilities. Investors seeking diversification beyond Nvidia have gravitated toward Broadcom as a compelling long-term AI infrastructure investment.

As organizations scale their AI capabilities, Broadcom’s solutions have become integral to infrastructure expansion. The company ranks among Wall Street’s top AI-adjacent investment choices.

Rocket Lab: Commercial Space Sector Resurges

Rocket Lab has captured renewed investor focus following SpaceX’s widely publicized public offering. As a leading publicly accessible space company, it represents the closest available proxy to SpaceX for public market investors.

The enterprise operates an expanding launch services division while diversifying into satellite manufacturing and defense sector agreements. Heightened enthusiasm for commercial spaceflight has surged recently, positioning Rocket Lab to capitalize on continued momentum.

AST SpaceMobile: Direct Satellite Connectivity Innovation

AST SpaceMobile pursues an ambitious goal: enabling standard mobile devices to communicate directly with satellites without specialized equipment. Market sentiment toward this technology’s viability has strengthened throughout 2026.

The equity has demonstrated significant price swings this year, attracting growth-oriented traders. News regarding satellite launches or strategic partnerships could trigger substantial price movements.

Kroger: Consumer Health Indicator

Kroger delivers quarterly results next week during a period when household budgets face strain from elevated prices and borrowing costs. These figures will illuminate how typical American consumers navigate current financial conditions.

Robust performance might alleviate economic concerns. Disappointing results could amplify anxieties about weakening consumer activity.

Given inflation’s persistent presence in market discussions, Kroger’s announcement may carry outsized significance compared to typical grocery retailer reports.

Federal Reserve Takes Center Stage

Kevin Warsh’s maiden Federal Reserve meeting as chair represents the week’s paramount event. Investors care less about the immediate rate verdict and more about his guidance regarding inflation outlook and monetary policy evolution.

Retail spending statistics will complement this narrative. Combined, the Fed meeting and economic releases will establish the framework for how traders approach these five stocks and broader markets heading into subsequent sessions.

The post 5 Must-Watch Stocks as Fed Chair Warsh Debuts: Nvidia (NVDA), Broadcom (AVGO), and Space Plays appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Highlights

• Space Exploration Technologies’ shares jumped 19% during inaugural trading session, finishing at $160.95
• Individual traders purchased roughly $118 million worth of SpaceX shares on Friday, including $18 million within the opening 20 minutes
• Demand for the offering significantly exceeded supply across every distribution channel, resulting in partial allocations for most investors
• According to Vanda Research, retail traders liquidated positions in AI-focused stocks including Micron, Sandisk, and Marvell to finance SpaceX acquisitions
• Ben Snider, strategist at Goldman Sachs, stated that unprecedented US equity issuance levels “will not derail the bull market in 2026”

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SPCX) entered public markets on Friday, delivering results that captured widespread attention.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp., SPCX

Shares climbed 19% during the inaugural session, establishing the company as one of America’s largest publicly traded entities with an approximate market capitalization of $2.1 trillion.

The closing price reached $160.95, followed by an additional 3.66% gain in extended trading to $166.83.

Individual investors played a significant role in the launch. Data from Vanda Research indicates that retail traders acquired approximately $118 million in SpaceX stock throughout Friday’s session. The initial 20 minutes alone accounted for roughly $18 million in retail purchases.

“The big X factor is Elon’s army of retailer support,” stated Justus Parmar, CEO of Fortuna Investments, commenting before trading commenced.

Parmar verified that demand was “very, very oversubscribed through all channels,” noting his firm obtained merely a small percentage of its requested allocation.

The market entry occurred following a turbulent week for equities. The Nasdaq experienced significant declines earlier in the month after robust economic indicators intensified concerns about the Federal Reserve maintaining elevated interest rates. Geopolitical tensions in the Middle East drove oil prices higher. Market sentiment remained cautious.

Individual Investors Shift From AI Stocks

Vanda Research observed that retail participants appeared to exit positions in former AI sector favorites — Micron (MU), Sandisk (SNDK), and Marvell (MRVL) — to generate capital for SpaceX investments.

“If SpaceX is seen as the ‘real deal’ by retail, further selling in prior darlings would not be surprising,” Vanda reported.

The research firm highlighted that individual investors throughout 2026 have demonstrated “very selective and tactical” behavior, contrasting with the more indiscriminate meme-stock purchasing patterns observed in previous years.

Tom Sosnoff, founder and CEO of Lossdog, characterized market appetite in direct terms: “On a scale from 1 to 10, I would say it’s a 10.”

Expert Perspectives and Caution

Not all market observers are rushing to participate. Multiple analysts cautioned against immediate entry on the debut date. Historical precedents including Meta, Robinhood (HOOD), and Coinbase (COIN) all provided more attractive purchasing opportunities following the expiration of lock-up restrictions.

“It’s like an iceberg. There’s a lot of sellers underneath,” observed Roger Ibbotson, professor emeritus at Yale.

The company divested approximately 5% of its equity through the public offering — indicating a substantial number of early-stage investors and company insiders remain positioned to potentially sell shares later.

Ben Snider, strategist at Goldman Sachs, recognized record-breaking US equity issuance volumes but maintained it “will not derail the bull market in 2026.” He did observe that “as lockups expire, the balance of equity supply and demand will become more challenging in 2027.”

Goldman maintains its projection for the S&P 500 to reach 8,000 before year-end.

Nancy Tengler from Laffer Tengler Investments drew parallels to Amazon (AMZN), which debuted publicly in 1997 at $18 per share and has subsequently appreciated over 200,000%.

The SpaceX public offering coincides with Alphabet (GOOGL) securing additional capital, while OpenAI and Anthropic are anticipated to pursue their own public listings during the latter portion of the year.

The post SpaceX (SPCX) Stock Rockets 19% Higher as Individual Investors Pour in $118M appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• Andy Jassy, Amazon’s CEO, alerted Trump administration officials after internal research revealed Anthropic’s Fable 5 model possessed capabilities that could facilitate cyber intrusions
• White House officials demanded Anthropic either remediate the security flaws or withdraw the model from service; President Trump ultimately authorized comprehensive export restrictions
• To ensure full compliance with the new controls, Anthropic terminated access to both Fable 5 and Mythos across its entire user base
• The AI company characterized the security issues as “relatively basic” and noted comparable features are available in competing public AI systems
• The export ban threatens to undermine Anthropic’s planned public offering while strengthening the competitive position of companies like OpenAI

Andy Jassy, the chief executive of Amazon, engaged in direct communications with government officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, regarding vulnerabilities discovered in Anthropic’s Fable 5 AI system. Internal Amazon security teams had successfully used targeted prompts to extract information from the model that could potentially assist in executing digital attacks.

The model’s protective mechanisms were designed to prevent exactly this type of information disclosure. After Amazon shared these discoveries with both White House personnel and national security officials, a series of high-level meetings were convened to determine the appropriate response.

Government representatives presented Anthropic with an ultimatum: address the security deficiencies or discontinue the model’s availability. During conversations with administration officials on Friday, Anthropic’s chief executive Dario Amodei reportedly conveyed reluctance to collaborate with federal security specialists on developing solutions.

Amazon.com, Inc., AMZN

Administration officials determined that implementing foreign access restrictions represented the most effective approach to mitigating potential risks. President Trump greenlit the directive, though he privately expressed concern that such measures might hinder artificial intelligence development.

Company Disables Flagship AI Systems

In response to the federal directive, Anthropic deactivated both Fable 5 and its Mythos system entirely — extending the shutdown beyond foreign users to include all accounts — guaranteeing adherence to the newly imposed export regulations.

The organization maintained that the security weaknesses were relatively elementary in nature. Company representatives emphasized that comparable information retrieval capabilities exist in numerous other commercially available AI platforms.

Andrew Morris, a cybersecurity expert and founder of GreyNoise Intelligence, examined Amazon’s research findings. His assessment confirmed that while Fable 5 demonstrated the ability to detect security flaws in at least four different software applications, researchers found no indication the system could actually weaponize those vulnerabilities by generating functional exploit code.

Anthropic has consistently positioned safety protocols as central to its corporate mission. The organization had previously restricted broader distribution of Mythos following White House guidance and maintains partnerships with federal AI evaluation teams prior to launching new systems.

Implications for Anthropic’s Future

The development arrives at an especially challenging moment for Anthropic. The company has been laying groundwork for a possible initial public offering potentially scheduled for this autumn.

With its flagship models unavailable, existing clients may migrate to alternative providers. OpenAI has developed its own cybersecurity-focused AI system and has maintained ongoing dialogue with Trump administration officials.

Friction between Anthropic and federal authorities predates this incident. The Department of Defense had previously classified Anthropic as presenting security concerns, a determination the company is currently challenging through two distinct legal proceedings.

Both National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick participated in deliberations that culminated in the access prohibition. The Commerce Department maintains regulatory authority over export restrictions affecting sensitive technologies.

The Commerce Department’s current restrictions bar foreign governments, corporations, and private individuals from utilizing Fable and Mythos. A significant portion of Anthropic’s research personnel are international nationals, which according to the company essentially prevents them from contributing to these model development efforts.

David Sacks, the White House artificial intelligence policy adviser, characterized the restriction as having been implemented “reluctantly” and voiced optimism that Anthropic would resolve the underlying issues, allowing the models to be restored for public use.

The post Trump Administration Blocks Global Access to Anthropic AI Models Following Amazon Security Alert appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• The stablecoin market cap holds near $273B even as Bitcoin and broader crypto markets face correction.
• Monthly USDT and USDC exchange inflows dropped from $5.7B at peak to just $2.9B today, a sharp fall.
• Stablecoin yield strategies now offer returns exceeding 15–20% through looping and lending mechanisms.
• Tokenized assets, prediction markets, and RWA sectors are absorbing stablecoin liquidity internally

Stablecoin liquidity is holding firm near $273 billion even as Bitcoin and the broader crypto market face a prolonged correction.

Under normal conditions, a sustained downturn tends to push capital out of the ecosystem entirely. That is not happening this time.

Instead, the data shows liquidity is staying within crypto, raising a key question about where exactly that capital is being deployed.

Stablecoin Liquidity Is Not Flowing Onto Exchanges

Stablecoin liquidity remaining elevated does not mean investors are buying crypto assets aggressively. CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost noted that exchange stablecoin inflows have been trending consistently lower.

The annual average of USDT and USDC inflows to exchanges dropped from $4.47 billion to $3.87 billion. Monthly inflows fell even harder, from $5.7 billion at the October peak to just $2.9 billion today.

That gap between the annual and monthly averages tells a clear story. Inflows were exceptionally high during the market’s strongest phases, widening the statistical deviation between the two averages.

That deviation pushed the ratio between them down to 0.77, a historically low reading. It confirms that the elevated buying pressure seen earlier in the cycle has largely faded.

There were also distinct outflow periods during this stretch. Early February saw the combined USDT and USDC market cap decline by roughly $8 billion on a monthly basis.

That figure has since moderated to around $4 billion today. These alternating inflow and outflow phases suggest the total stablecoin market cap is broadly stabilizing rather than trending sharply in either direction.

Taken together, the picture is straightforward. Stablecoin liquidity is not exiting the crypto ecosystem, but it is also not rushing onto exchanges to buy digital assets. Capital appears to be finding other destinations within the broader ecosystem itself.

Where Stablecoin Liquidity Is Actually Going

The crypto ecosystem now offers far more ways to deploy stablecoin liquidity than it did in previous cycles. Darkfost pointed out that stablecoins can generate returns exceeding 15% to 20% through looping and lending strategies.

Those yields compete directly with traditional finance products, keeping capital engaged without requiring any asset purchases. That alone accounts for a meaningful share of where liquidity is sitting today.

Beyond yield strategies, tokenized real-world assets have gained considerable traction. Investors can now access exposure to publicly traded equities and credit products without leaving the crypto ecosystem at all.

Prediction markets have also grown sharply, drawing speculative capital across a wide range of event-based bets. Decentralized futures markets and the Real World Asset sector have expanded alongside these developments.

Each of these verticals provides an additional destination for stablecoin liquidity to circulate internally. Capital that might have previously left crypto during a downturn now has enough ecosystem infrastructure to stay active.

The range of options available today reflects how much the industry has matured structurally. Liquidity is no longer binary between buying crypto or exiting entirely.

This internal circulation is now shaping market behavior in a measurable way. The $273 billion in stablecoin liquidity is not idle, nor is it positioned to aggressively push asset prices higher in the near term.

It is spread across yield products, tokenized assets, and derivatives markets, reflecting a more distributed and sophisticated capital base than in earlier cycles.

The post Where Is $273B in Stablecoin Liquidity Actually Going During This Crypto Slump? appeared first on Blockonomi.

US President Donald Trump expressed serious criticism over Israel’s latest actions, which came on the day he had promised a permanent deal would be announced with Iran.

The Benjamin Netanyahu-led country carried out a new set of attacks on Beirut’s southern suburbs earlier today, which could jeopardize the deal that was already far from secure.

“This morning’s attack on Beirut should not have happened, particularly on a special day when we are so close to a Peace Deal with Iran. Israel has the right to defend itself against threats, but the attack it was responding to was very small and meaningless, nobody was hurt, injured, or killed, and should not disrupt this important process,” reads Trump’s message on Truth Social.

It’s worth noting that Lebanon’s civil defense capital claimed that there were at least three victims of the attacks and seven wounded, as reported by Al Jazeera.

Trump also doubled down on his promise from yesterday that the US and Iran were supposed to announce a deal later today, which has been questioned by some authorities of the Middle Eastern country.

In his latest post, he also urged that all sides stand down, including Israel and Hezbollah, which could lead to the “beginning of a long and beautiful peace.”

Some of the largest cryptocurrencies charted minor gains over the past day or so, perhaps driven by the hope and promise of a permanent peace deal as the Strait of Hormuz was also supposed to be opened. However, the new attacks by Israel and Trump’s subsequent message halted their progress.

BTC dipped below $64,000 minutes ago after peaking at $64,800 earlier today. ETH is down by over 1%, while XRP has dropped by 2% to $1.13 after another rejection at $1.15.

The day is far from over, and more volatility could be expected later today or, more likely, tomorrow morning, when futures and traditional markets open. Trump is also headed to France for a G7 meeting.

The post BTC, ETH, XRP Progress at Risk as Trump Condemns Israel’s Latest Attacks appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Ethereum’s latest rebound remains corrective so far, with the price still trading below key supply zones after stabilizing near the lower support area. Further consolidation is expected for the coming week.

Ethereum Price Analysis: The Daily Chart

On the daily timeframe, ETH is consolidating around $1.67K after reacting from the $1.5K support zone. The broader structure remains bearish, as the asset is still below the descending trendline and both major moving averages.

The nearest resistance sits around $1.85K to $1.9K, followed by the larger supply zone between $2K and $2.15K. A recovery into this area could face strong selling pressure, especially as it overlaps with the descending trendline. As long as ETH remains below this region, the market structure favors consolidation or another rejection.

On the downside, the $1.5K zone remains the key support. Losing it could expose ETH to deeper downside continuation.

ETH/USDT 4-Hour Chart

The 4-hour chart shows ETH attempting to build a short-term base after the recent move into the $1.5K region. The asset is currently consolidating near $1.67K, while the marked Fibonacci retracement levels highlight potential recovery targets.

The first major upside area is around $1.83K, followed by $1.9K and $1.96K. A stronger rebound could push ETH toward the $2K to $2.15K resistance zone, where the prior breakdown area and descending trendline may act as a major barrier.

However, unless price reclaims these levels with strength, the current move appears more like a corrective consolidation than a confirmed bullish reversal.

Sentiment Analysis

The Binance ETH liquidation heatmap reveals a noticeable concentration of short liquidations above the current market price. The largest liquidity cluster is positioned around $1.75K to $1.8K, with additional pockets extending toward the $1.9K region and above $2K.

Since price is currently trading near $1.67K, these overhead liquidity pools could act as magnetic targets in the short term. A move into the $1.75K to $1.8K zone may trigger a wave of short liquidations, potentially accelerating momentum toward the $1.83K Fibonacci level.

At the same time, a significant liquidity pocket is also visible around the $1.55K to $1.6K region. If ETH loses its current consolidation range, the market could revisit these lower levels before attempting another recovery.

Overall, the heatmap suggests that liquidity is currently skewed slightly to the upside, favoring a potential short squeeze toward $1.75K to $1.8K before the market decides whether a larger recovery toward the $1.9K to $2K resistance region is possible.

The post Ethereum Price Analysis: ETH Must Reclaim These Key Levels Before a Run to $2K appeared first on CryptoPotato.

XRP continues to trade near a major support area while showing early signs of stabilization. Although the broader trend remains under pressure, recent price action and momentum indicators suggest that sellers may be losing control, raising the possibility of a stronger recovery in the coming sessions.

Ripple Price Analysis: The Daily Chart

On the daily timeframe, XRP is consolidating above the key support zone between $1.05 and $1.15 after finding demand near the lower boundary of its descending channel.

However, the most notable recent development is the bullish divergence between the price and the RSI. While XRP revisited the $1.05 support area, the RSI formed a higher low, indicating that downside momentum has weakened despite the price remaining near its lows. This type of divergence often appears near important turning points and suggests that selling pressure may be fading.

For bulls, the first major challenge remains the descending channel resistance, which currently coincides with the moving average cluster around $1.35 to $1.55. A recovery into this region would significantly improve market sentiment and could signal a larger trend reversal. Until then, XRP remains in a corrective phase within its broader downtrend.

XRP/USDT 4-Hour Chart

The 4-hour chart shows XRP gradually building a recovery structure from the $1.05 support zone. The asset has been charting higher lows while respecting an ascending trendline, indicating improving short-term momentum.

The immediate resistance sits around the $1.18 to $1.21 region, which aligns with the 0.5 Fibonacci retracement level near $1.21. A successful breakout above this barrier could allow XRP to advance toward the 0.618 retracement level at $1.25.

Above that, the primary resistance zone remains between $1.27 and $1.30, where the 0.702 and 0.786 Fibonacci levels are located. This area previously acted as an important support region and could now serve as a significant obstacle for the ongoing recovery.

As long as XRP remains above the rising trendline and the $1.05 support zone, the short-term outlook favors continued upside attempts. However, a decisive reclaim of the $1.21 to $1.30 region is needed before a broader bullish reversal can be confirmed. The daily RSI divergence supports this recovery scenario, suggesting that momentum is gradually shifting in favor of buyers.

The post Ripple Price Analysis: Seller Exhaustion Signs Emerge as XRP Prepares for Recovery appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The largest initial public offering in history is already in the books, as Elon Musk’s 24-year-old spaceflight behemoth debuted on Wall Street with a whopping $1.77 trillion valuation after it raised $75 billion.

It also became a retail investor’s dream, with more than $100 billion worth of orders from such investors. As such, we decided to ask whether one of the most popular altcoins, which is also among retail’s favorites, could feel the impact of this massive financial event.

XRP’s Less Bullish Narrative

Unlike with bitcoin, where the link between the two assets was quite direct and obvious, ChatGPT said that the answer for XRP is “more complicated,” and perhaps “less bullish than some investors would like.” SpaceX has publicly disclosed it has a substantial exposure to BTC, but there is no major indication that it holds XRP, uses the XRP Ledger, or “plans to integrate Ripple’s payment technology.”

As such, XRP’s price reaction will be more dependent on the broader market flows rather than on SpaceX’s IPO or stock moves. The AI warned that the short-term perspective for Ripple’s token leans more bearish, as a “listing of this size can suck liquidity out of speculative markets, especially when retail investors are heavily involved.”

“XRP is still a high-beta crypto asset, and when traders need cash to chase a massive IPO, altcoins are often among the first positions to be reduced.”

Gemini also noted that the immediate threat to the cross-border token is the “liquidity vacuum.” It added that even XRP’s loyal and active retail community is being tested when such a “generational tech narrative like SpaceX emerges.”

Or Maybe Not So Fast

Similar to its bitcoin narrative, Gemini said the “wealth effect” could be highly beneficial to XRP in the long run. This is because when the dust of the IPO and the $75 billion raise settles, an “enormous amount of new wealth will have been unlocked for early private investors.” Such capital tends to be redistributed “down the risk curve,” and high-cap altcoins could be among the largest beneficiaries, as they sometimes offer “asymmetric returns.”

ChatGPT also noted that there’s a positive side to this IPO, as it’s not “purely negative” for XRP. If SpaceX trades strongly and the broader market enters a new risk-on phase, the cross-border token could “benefit alongside other large-cap cryptocurrencies.”

XRP also has its own separate bullish case as the company behind it continues to push into payments, stablecoins, tokenization, and institutional infrastructure.

“If the market begins rewarding real-world utility again, XRP could still outperform many speculative tokens, even if it is not directly linked to SpaceX.”

The post SpaceX and Ripple: How Will the IPO Impact XRP’s Price? (2 AIs Make Informed Predictions) appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Two of the most important metrics for the overall state of the Bitcoin network have declined recently, including the mining difficulty, which experienced a substantial reduction during the weekend.

This comes amid reports that miners, the backbone of the world’s largest blockchain, continue to be under severe pressure due to the broader market state.

Mining Difficulty Down 10%

Upon creating Bitcoin’s blockchain, the anonymous dev behind it, Satoshi Nakamoto, incorporated a key measure that adjusts every roughly two weeks (2,016 blocks) to make it harder or easier for miners to do their job of maintaining a consistent block creation of approximately 10 minutes. In simpler terms, if there are too many miners, the mechanism increases the difficulty to prevent too-fast block creation, and vice versa.

The latest adjustment took place earlier today. Data from on-chain monitoring sources shows that the difficulty dropped by just over 10%, meaning that there are fewer miners operating on the Bitcoin blockchain. This was the second-largest negative adjustment for the year after the 11.16% drop in early February.

The mining difficulty declined from almost 138T to under 125T. Current data, though still far from the actual adjustment, suggest the next one will be even worse, with projections indicating a 16% drop.

Meanwhile, the Bitcoin hash rate has continued to decline, according to data from Coinwarz. The total combined computational power used by the blockchain to process transactions and mine new blocks, which is measured in hashes per second, is down to under 790 EH/s. Recall that the record was at over 1.2 ZH/s from a year ago.

Miners Under Pressure

The declining mining difficulty and hash rate mean that a certain portion of BTC miners have shut off their machines. A recent report indicated that they have felt the pressure from the overall market weakness and reduced revenue.

Analyst Axel Adler Jr. described their current state as a “stress zone,” as evidenced by the Puell Multiple 30-day moving average, which fell 11% in less than two weeks. The raw Puell Multiple is even lower, while the Miner Capitulation metric, tracking the percentage change in BTC’s price since the most recent difficulty bottom, has declined by 21% lately.

The post Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Drops 10% as Pressure on Miners Grows appeared first on CryptoPotato.