Leech's guilty plea highlights the critical need for rigorous oversight in asset management, potentially spurring further regulatory actions.

The post Former Western Asset manager Kenneth Leech pleads guilty to obstructing SEC probe appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Haaland's leadership and scoring prowess could redefine Norway's football legacy, potentially inspiring a new era of international success.

The post Norway’s Haaland prepares for World Cup opener with golf and games appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Modric's transition to crypto highlights athletes' growing influence in digital finance, potentially reshaping fan engagement and investment trends.

The post Luka Modric nears retirement as crypto endorsement deal marks new chapter appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Neymar's injury highlights the disconnect between celebrity influence and crypto market dynamics, underscoring the latter's resilience to such news.

The post Neymar’s injury sidelines him from Scotland match, but crypto markets couldn’t care less appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Blockworks has acquired Messari as it expands into crypto data infrastructure, issuer tools, and market intelligence for onchain assets.

The post Blockworks buys Messari in push to build onchain market data layer appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

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.

Bitcoin Magazine

Metaplanet Acquires Siiibo Securities in Push to Build Bitcoin Financial Ecosystem

Metaplanet Inc., Japan’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder, has entered into an agreement to acquire 100% of Siiibo Securities Co., Ltd. in a deal valued at approximately 2.1 billion yen, or roughly $13.1 million, the Tokyo-listed company announced on Friday, June 12.

The acquisition, expected to close on July 13, 2026, marks the first major transaction under “Project Nova” — Metaplanet’s medium- to long-term strategy to build a Bitcoin-centric financial platform in Japan. Following the close, Siiibo Securities will be renamed Metaplanet Securities Inc.

The deal gives Metaplanet something it has not held before: a Type I Financial Instruments Business Operator registration, the license required under Japanese law to structure and distribute financial products to retail investors. 

That regulatory standing, combined with Siiibo’s existing customer base and online platform, positions the group to begin offering Bitcoin-linked investment products to individual Japanese investors.

Siiibo Securities was founded in January 2019 and operates an online platform for private placement corporate bonds — a market segment once reserved for institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals. 

The company has backed more than 40 issuers and facilitated over 100 bond offerings, building one of the largest track records in Japan’s retail corporate bond space.

The strategic rationale for Metaplanet

Metaplanet held 40,177 BTC as of May 31, 2026, with a net asset value of 457.6 billion yen, making it the third-largest corporate Bitcoin holder in the world and the largest in Asia. 

The company has spent the past two years accumulating Bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset, a strategy that has drawn comparisons to Strategy in the United States. Project Nova represents the next phase: converting that treasury into the backbone of a financial services business.

Simon Gerovich, Metaplanet’s President and CEO, framed the acquisition as a structural shift. 

“We view Bitcoin not as a treasury reserve asset, but as the foundation of the next generation of financial ecosystems,” Gerovich said in the press release. “Siiibo Securities’ Type I Financial Instruments Business registration, corporate bond platform, and established customer base give us the tools to make that vision real.”

Metaplanet outlined four core synergies it expects from the deal. The company plans to distribute Siiibo’s existing bond products to its shareholder base of approximately 250,000 investors. It also intends to develop BTC-linked financial products — including BTC-linked bonds — for distribution through the Siiibo platform. 

Joint underwriting of bond and digital securities issuances is planned in collaboration with Metaplanet Ventures Inc., with a focus on venture companies in cryptocurrency and decentralized finance. 

A pilot program for security tokens and other digitized financial instruments is on the roadmap as well.

Kazuki Komura, CEO of Siiibo Securities, said the combination would enable capital formation structures not possible before.

“By combining the strengths of both companies in finance, technology, and community building, we believe we can create new forms of capital formation and investment experiences,” Komura said.

Metaplanet said it will fund the acquisition from cash on hand and borrowings, with the option to draw on Bitcoin-backed credit facilities that carry an aggregate borrowing capacity of up to $500 million.

This post Metaplanet Acquires Siiibo Securities in Push to Build Bitcoin Financial Ecosystem first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bukele’s Reform Makes El Salvador a Top Tax Haven: 0% on Foreign Income and Bitcoin Gains with Minimal Presence

El Salvador — often called Bitcoin country —continues to refine its immigration framework to draw high-value foreign talent and capital, including families. Decreto 531, effective March 31, 2026, reduced the physical presence requirement for temporary residents from nine months to 90 calendar days per year, consecutive or accumulated. This adjustment targets entrepreneurs, investors, and remote professionals whose work involves frequent travel.

On paper, this new minimum requirement for residency status places El Salvador in a very competitive place compared to other tax haven-style nations. But what are the benefits of becoming a Salvadorian Tax resident, and is it really as easy as it sounds?

The Upside of El Salvador 

El Salvador offers one of the most attractive tax regimes in Latin America for individuals with foreign-sourced income. The country operates a territorial tax system, meaning only income generated within El Salvador is subject to taxation. A major 2024 income tax reform explicitly exempts foreign-source income for both residents and non-residents. This means that independent remote workers, such as content creators, developers and entrepreneurs with foreign source income, can enjoy 0% Salvadoran income tax on those earnings, regardless of the amount. 

There is also no capital gains tax on Bitcoin under the Bitcoin Law, no wealth tax, no inheritance or gift tax, making it particularly advantageous for those holding or transacting in BTC.

For entrepreneurs incorporating locally, Bitcoin and digital asset-related activities enjoy broad exemptions. Standard corporate income tax is 30% (or 25% under certain revenue thresholds), which is considered competitive across the board, but this is specifically on local profits. Qualifying businesses in free zones, involved in technology hardware or software exports and international services laws, can access 15 years of corporate tax exemptions, such as no income tax and no withholding, no VAT, no import tariff duties on equipment, tools and machinery, and no capital gains tax. 

These tax incentive laws are clearly designed to draw talent and capital to the country and develop a manufacturing, software and hardware industry that exports services to the rest of the world and improves the local economy. 

Quality of Life

The security enjoyed in the country after Bukele is undeniable. Katie Ananina, who helps families and individuals throughout the world acquire second passports via CitizenX, wrote favorably about El Salvador for families looking for a plan B. 

The highlights of her six-week on-the-ground experience in the country with young children and while pregnant highlighted the country’s dramatic safety transformation. She noted that her family could walk day and night freely in both beach towns and San Salvador without fear. Practical daily life elements stood out positively: access to quality grass-fed beef and organic food options, reliable local driver networks via WhatsApp, and solid private and international school choices in San Salvador. 

According to her research, healthcare includes a mix of public and private services, with homebirth legally supported through licensed midwives and the DoctorSV app aiding appointments and telehealth. 

The Downsides and Tradeoffs of El Salvador

While full tax residency (triggered by more than 200 days of presence) provides the cleanest official status, many with primarily foreign income benefit substantially from the territorial framework even under the lighter 90-day immigration residency requirements. The wording and laws on this front are somewhat confusing, but Ananina clarified to Bitcoin Magazine that, as far as El Salvador is concerned, residents can start benefiting from the Salvadorian territorial tax regime on day one. The problem is whether the country of origin the person comes from agrees; most countries don’t usually give up their tax-generating citizens without a fight.

As a general rule, countries consider someone a tax resident if they spend more than 6 months within the country, but also have property, family, official residential address and phone number there, among other tests. Ananina, who clarified that she is not a tax lawyer or specialist, said that in her experience, in the case of a contest between the country of origin and El Salvador about a person’s tax residency, El Salvador is likely to yield.

As such, individuals and families looking to benefit from the residency tax benefits of El Salvador need to also understand the nuances of their country of origin’s tax residency laws as well. 

The Local Economy

The local economy of El Salvador is also still in its early stages of development. The minimum monthly wage is between $270 and $409 per month, depending on the industry. This means that foreigners looking for local work in the country might find it hard to adjust if they are coming from wealthier nations. However, foreigners looking to hire local talent can get significant upside from the low wages. 

The Bitcoin economy specifically is as seasonal as the quality of the beach in El Zonte, which disappears in the summer due to rising tides, scaring away the tourists and dampening the surf scene. In contrast, between October and March, many foreigners return to the country for a series of Bitcoin conferences and to enjoy the waves as the sand returns to the popular beach towns. 

There’s a variety of Bitcoin-related companies that operate in the country throughout the year, and are headquartered or licensed in the country, like Tether, Boltz, Ocean Mining, and a long tail of startups and financial services companies. But as far as events and the social scene, the seasonal nature of the country remains a known trend. 

On the AI front, El Salvador made international news earlier this year with a conference that attracted top talent from all over the world. The SovAI Summit was hosted on April 20–21, 2026, at the National Palace in San Salvador. The event, backed by the Bukele government, positioned the country as an emerging hub for sovereign AI, infrastructure, and innovation, blending discussions on AI sovereignty, compute resources, decentralized technology, and regenerative agriculture. Top guests and speakers included Carl Meacham, Head of Sovereign AI & Business Development at HydraHost, along with participation from major tech representatives from Google, Dell, and NVIDIA, among others.

This post Bukele’s Reform Makes El Salvador a Top Tax Haven: 0% on Foreign Income and Bitcoin Gains with Minimal Presence first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.

XRP is trading at $1.11, down roughly 17% from its June opening, having set a new 2026 low on June 5 and shed $8 billion in market cap over three sessions.

The correction happens as the asset posted its strongest ETF inflow month of the year, with $131.94 million captured in May, ahead of both Bitcoin and Ethereum products.

Glassnode's June 9 data points to loss realization as the primary pressure on XRP's price, with the token's 90-day realized profit-to-loss ratio falling to 0.38, meaning holders are booking roughly 38 cents in profit for every dollar of realized loss.

At the speculative peak in 2025, that ratio reached 50, with gains outpacing losses by 50 to 1.
Glassnode described the current reading as intense capitulation, with XRP's aggregate realized price sitting near $1.48, placing the average holder underwater at current prices.

On the XRP Ledger, the 90-day average of total fees paid fell from 5,900 XRP in February 2025 to 500 XRP by June 9, a 91.5% decline that Glassnode attributed to a near-total contraction in organic transaction demand since the prior speculative phase ended.

What whales are actually doing

CryptoQuant’s exchange-flow analysis shows XRP whale outflow dominance reached 91.4% on Binance and 90.5% across centralized exchanges.

Whales dominate XRP's exchange flows, and the data describes that structural control without resolving whether it reflects selling pressure or accumulation.

A separate CryptoQuant post frames declining XRP inflows to Binance as a possible sign of growing whale confidence, arguing that subdued exchange inflows could keep available selling supply limited.

Large-holder accumulation has historically preceded recoveries, and Glassnode's loss-realization and fee data show that the current supply of loss-realizing sellers and the collapse in organic network demand are absorbing that accumulation before it reaches price.

Santiment's May data note that wallets holding at least 10 million XRP controlled 45.83 billion XRP, the most since May 2018. The number of wallets holding at least 10,000 XRP reached an all-time high of 332,230.

Large-holder accumulation has historically preceded recoveries, and Glassnode's loss-realization and fee data show that the current supply of loss-realizing sellers and the collapse in organic network demand are sufficient to absorb that accumulation without forming a price floor.

The ETF layer

Seven US spot XRP ETFs are now live, holding approximately 923.7 million XRP in custody as of June 10, with combined AUM near $1 billion.

Cumulative net inflows since the November 2025 launch have approached $1.45 billion, and May's $131.94 million monthly inflow was the strongest since December and ran for 20 consecutive days before a $5.34 million outflow on June 3 broke the streak.

CoinGlass ETF data show that regulated demand for XRP exists and has been persistent, while price action indicates that demand has been absorbed by spot market selling or loss realization, without producing a sustained rebound.

Standard Chartered has projected $4 billion to $8 billion in XRP ETF inflows for 2026 if the CLARITY Act passes, a figure far above cumulative inflows to date.

That upside depends on a Senate floor vote, which Polymarket currently prices at a 47% likelihood of passing in 2026.

Goldman Sachs liquidated its entire $154 million XRP ETF position in the first quarter, a reminder that institutional positioning on XRP runs in both directions simultaneously.

Two ways this resolves

In the bull case, ETF inflows continue to expand as the CLARITY Act advances toward a floor vote, the 332,230 large-wallet holders who accumulated amid price weakness provide a bid at current levels, and Glassnode's loss-realization ratio begins to recover as capitulating sellers exhaust their supply.

XRP stabilizes above $1.00, network fees find a floor, and the ETF bid becomes visible in price.
Under that sequence, $0.90 stays a reference point on the chart where a multi-year rising trendline sits, with the ETF bid absorbing sell pressure before that level is reached.

In the bear case, the Glassnode capitulation metrics persist long enough for the ETF bid to prove insufficient to defend the $1.00 psychological level. Loss-realization selling continues at a higher rate than profit-taking, network fees stay depressed, and the gap between institutional demand and organic on-chain demand widens further.

If $1.00 fails, $0.90 becomes the next zone where accumulation would be tested, roughly 19% below current prices and near the cost basis of long-term holders who built positions through the 2024-2025 cycle.

Polymarket's June crowd prices the bear case as the most probable outcome, assigning a 47% probability to XRP losing $1.00 before month-end.

ETF inflows show that regulated buyers exist and have been accumulating at steadily lower prices. Glassnode's data shows that spot holders are capitulating, and organic network demand has contracted sharply.

Both conditions can coexist until one overwhelms the other, and at a 90-day realized profit-to-loss ratio of 0.38, the capitulation arithmetic still has further to run.

The post XRP aims for $0.90 as ETF demand battles selling pressure from whales appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Google blocked or removed 8.3 billion ads in 2025 and suspended 24.9 million advertiser accounts, with 602 million of those ads tied directly to scams.

Those numbers show that the volume of fraudulent material attempting to reach users has grown large enough to require an AI system operating at an industrial scale to contain it.

Gemini now analyzes hundreds of billions of signals in real time, such as account age, behavioral cues, and campaign patterns, catching over 99% of policy-violating ads before they run.

The fraction that cleared that filter still reached users across one of the world's largest ad networks.
Generative AI has made fake ads, fake users, fake clicks, and fake devices cheaper to produce and harder to distinguish from legitimate activity.

Traditional solutions have proved inadequate as AI-driven fraud evolves faster than detection methods. Google's answer of using more AI deployed faster commits both sides to continuous escalation.

A separate group of companies is building verification systems that record who saw an ad and make that record permanent.

The verified attention model

Hakuhodo, the Japanese advertising giant, partnered with Tools for Humanity and LG Electronics to test a “Human-Verified Ad Network” that served ads exclusively to human-verified users, with every impression logged to LG's blockchain infrastructure.

The pilot ran in Japan from July through August 2025, involving more than 3,500 participants and ten advertisers across electronics, travel, food, cosmetics, and education.

Hakuhodo integrated its “boba” mini-app with World ID verification and LG's blockchain ledger, creating a closed loop where only human-verified users received ads and every impression was recorded on-chain.

World ID lets users prove they are unique humans without revealing personal information. Under that architecture, advertisers pay for impressions that carry a verification receipt tied to a confirmed human identity.

According to figures reported by the companies involved, the pilot produced a 50% increase in click-through rates and a 15-point improvement in bounce rates.

A mainstream electronics company and Japan's second-largest advertising agency ran a blockchain verification test on a live campaign and published the results, separating this move from white paper proposals.

The verified conversion model

In January 2025, Coinbase acquired Spindl, an on-chain ads and attribution platform rebuilding the ad-tech stack on-chain, to address what Coinbase called the “on-chain discovery problem” for blockchain app builders.

Spindl was founded by Antonio García Martínez, an early member of the Facebook ads team who shipped Facebook's first version of keyword targeting, audience targeting, and Facebook's programmatic ad exchange FBX.

Spindl focuses on proving that an ad drove real action, such as a wallet interaction, an app install, a token purchase, or a staking event.

Traditional attribution systems infer causality from cookies, click paths, and probabilistic matching. Spindl traces a user journey from a web click to an on-chain action, providing advertisers with a ledger entry and a verifiable chain of custody.

Spindl operates on Base, Coinbase's Ethereum layer-2 network, and maintains open standards for publishers and advertisers.

The two models address different parts of the same problem: Hakuhodo and LG verify that a human saw the ad, and Spindl verifies that the ad resulted in a real action.

Why this matters beyond crypto

Dentsu's May 2026 global ad forecast puts worldwide ad spend at $1.06 trillion, with digital accounting for 69% of that total. IAB and PwC reported that US digital ad revenue reached $294.6 billion in 2025, with programmatic advertising up 20.5% to $162.4 billion.

The same automated systems that make programmatic buying efficient also expand the surface area where fake inventory, fake users, and fake outcomes get monetized.

Juniper Research estimated that global ad spend lost to fraud would rise from $84.2 billion in 2023 to $172.3 billion by 2028, as AI enables fraudsters to mimic human behavior and evade detection systems.

DoubleVerify found that bot fraud accounted for 65% of all fraud in CTV environments in 2024, with compromised devices simulating real user behavior to deceive measurement systems.

When a fake device can convincingly impersonate a living room viewer watching premium inventory, the platform's reported delivery numbers are unverified claims.

Blockchain's pitch to advertisers in that environment is a receipt: an immutable record of what the system observed, attached to a verified identity and fixed at the moment of delivery.

What blockchain cannot do on its own

A blockchain faithfully and permanently records inputs, but its trustworthiness depends on the verification layer that precedes it.

If the identity verification layer is gamed, the fraudulent identity receives the same permanent record as a legitimate one.

The hard problem is the oracle layer: confirming that the viewer was human before the record is written, that the device was legitimate, that the impression was viewable, and that the downstream action was genuine.

World ID's design separates proof of personhood from personal identity, allowing users to prove uniqueness without revealing their identity.

Advertising is a trust-sensitive use case, and combining human verification, ad targeting, and wallet behavior into a single system will face regulatory and consumer scrutiny in markets where biometric data collection is actively contested.

The adoption constraint is the third. Google, Meta, Amazon, and the major CTV platforms control their own measurement systems and have little incentive to adopt a neutral blockchain-based receipt layer that would weaken their hold on attribution.

Blockchain's most practical near-term path runs through markets where platform owners have an incentive to increase advertiser trust: crypto apps, independent CTV inventory, rewards campaigns, wallet-based commerce, and gaming.

Two ways this develops

In the bull case, advertisers running high-value performance campaigns demand verifiable logs as proof that probabilistic measurement can no longer supply.

Blockchain verification integrates with existing ad stacks as a parallel audit trail for campaigns where fraud risk justifies the additional infrastructure.

Juniper projects $172.3 billion in ad fraud losses by 2028, and redirecting even 1% to 3% of that figure through verified proof systems points to a protected value pool of roughly $1.7 billion to $5.2 billion.

The Hakuhodo model scales through mainstream platforms, Spindl extends attribution beyond crypto-native apps, and the user never knows that the infrastructure beneath it is a blockchain.

In the bear case, Google, Meta, and CTV platforms improve AI-based fraud detection fast enough that the marginal value of a blockchain receipt layer stays narrow.

Regulatory pushback against biometric proof-of-human systems slows adoption of the verified attention model in key markets.

Blockchain ad tech stays useful inside crypto apps and niche high-fraud channels but fails to cross into the programmatic mainstream.

The $162.4 billion US programmatic market continues flowing through the existing measurement stack, with its fraud losses treated as an accepted line item.

AI has made fake behavior cheap enough that detection systems may permanently lag behind fraud generation. If advertisers conclude that probabilistic measurement can no longer be trusted, blockchain proof systems are positioned to absorb that budget.

The post Firms are turning to blockchain to fight an ad fraud problem AI is making worse appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Binance, Kraken, Bybit, and Gemini are moving to add US stocks and ETFs to their crypto trading apps, making a direct play for the retail brokerage relationship that Wall Street has owned for a century.

Binance launched direct access to more than 7,000 US stocks and ETFs alongside bStocks, a tokenized product offering 1:1 economic exposure to selected US equities that settle in stablecoins, can be withdrawn to self-custody wallets, and trade 24/7 on Binance Spot.

Kraken's xStocks reached 100 fully backed tokenized US stocks and ETFs, surpassed $25 billion in transaction volume since June 2025, and is targeting 500+ listings by the end of 2026.

On June 7, Bybit announced it would give retail investors access to tokenized IPOs, starting with SpaceX, with spot trading opening on June 12.

Gemini allows customers in eligible European countries to trade Dinari dShares, tokenized stocks backed 1:1 by corresponding US equities, with zero trading fees and 24/7 availability.

Each exchange is making the same offer to trade Nvidia, Tesla, or Apple using the same wallet, stablecoin balance, and always-on interface already used for Bitcoin and Solana.

That offer forces two simultaneous confrontations: rival crypto exchanges competing for the same users, and Wall Street brokers defending the equity trading relationship they have owned for a century.

Related Reading

Kraken expands xStocks to BNB Chain enabling global access to tokenized equities

The expansion opens doors for global investors to trade tokenized US equities.

Jul 9, 2025 · Oluwapelumi Adejumo

Exchanges racing each other

Binance's first-week data for its direct stock product shows that users in emerging markets accounted for over 80% of trading volume. Around 39% of trades were under $100, and roughly 25% of stock users were under 25.

These are mobile-first traders who already live inside crypto apps and now have a direct route to US equities without ever opening a conventional brokerage account.

With Binance opening that route, every competing exchange faces the competitive logic: a user who can buy Apple, hold stablecoins, and trade Bitcoin in one app stays there. Kraken, Bybit, and Gemini are all responding by making equities native to crypto accounts.

The battle lines run across inventory depth, liquidity, stablecoin funding, trading hours, fees, wallet withdrawal, and IPO access.

Bybit's SpaceX angle shows where that last category is heading, with access to pre-IPO or newly public companies, historically gatekept by institutional brokers and wealth managers, repackaged as a retail distribution product available globally.

Kraken also opened access to the SpaceX IPO for clients in more than 110 countries via xStocks.
Binance Research projects that crypto exchanges could channel nearly 300 million new users and approximately $2 trillion in incremental capital into global equities by 2031.

The prize is the default financial app for a generation of traders who grew up trading crypto on their phones.

Crypto apps vs. market structure

NYSE announced a tokenized securities platform in January, designed for 24/7 trading, fractional shares, immediate settlement, and stablecoin funding.

In March, the SEC approved Nasdaq's proposal to allow certain Russell 1000 stocks and major index ETFs to trade and settle in tokenized form through the DTC.

Traditional market infrastructure is converging on the same product logic as crypto exchanges. The contest between them is over who controls the rails, the rights framework, the custody layer, and the retail distribution relationship.

The World Federation of Exchanges has warned regulators that third-party tokenized equities can fragment liquidity, weaken price discovery, and expose investors to custody and enforceability risks absent from conventional share ownership.

The SEC's January 2026 staff statement distinguished issuer-sponsored tokenized securities and third-party products, noting that the latter may be custodial entitlements or synthetic instruments that provide exposure without equity, voting, information, or other rights from the referenced issuer.

Binance says bStocks are not stocks or shares and do not allow holders to own the listed company's underlying shares directly.

Kraken says xStocks do not confer ownership, though account balances may adjust to reflect dividends.

Robinhood's EU product page describes its stock tokens as derivative contracts priced by reference to the underlying security, granting no rights to the underlying security.

Each product delivers economic exposure inside a crypto account, with the holder's legal position determined by the issuer's structure, jurisdiction, and redemption mechanics.

What traders are actually buying

At one end of the tokenized stock products spectrum, Binance's direct stock product routes orders through an external brokerage and clearing partner, giving users exposure more closely resembling conventional share ownership.

At the other end, products structured as synthetic or derivative instruments provide users with price exposure through a contractual claim on an issuer, wrapper, or counterparty.

Most products now on the market sit between those poles, with custodial entitlements backed 1:1 by real shares held by a third-party special-purpose vehicle, in which the user's rights depend on that vehicle's structure and jurisdiction.

A trader buying “Nvidia” on a crypto exchange gets price exposure to Nvidia's stock, with a claim that runs to a custodian or derivative counterparty, governed by terms that differ materially from those covering a share purchased through a registered broker-dealer.

What the numbers price in

Citi's June 2026 tokenization forecast puts the range of outcomes in concrete terms. In the base case, tokenized assets reach $5.5 trillion by 2030, led by public-market securities, including roughly $2.6 trillion in US equities.

In the bull case, total tokenized assets reach $8.2 trillion, with US equities approaching $3.9 trillion, a number that would represent a structural reorientation of how global retail capital accesses American markets.

Crypto exchanges become the dominant retail brokerage for traders outside the US, and stablecoins eventually replace cash accounts as the funding layer for equities, ETFs, and private-market exposure.

IPO access becomes a distribution product that crypto apps sell to their global user bases. The closing bell loses cultural authority when traders across emerging markets have spent years buying Apple on their phones, unaware of 4 p.m. Eastern Time as a constraint.

In the bear case, regulators force third-party tokenized equity products into broker-dealer, derivatives, or exchange registration frameworks, imposing rights disclosures and custody standards that slow rollout by jurisdiction.

Tokenized assets land near Citi's $2.7 trillion floor, with public equities remaining a compliance-heavy side product. NYSE and Nasdaq, operating under DTC and SEC approval, capture the regulated tokenization layer, while crypto apps serve traders in markets where conventional brokerage access remains thin.

The real contest

The global equity market cap reached $126.7 trillion in 2024, with US markets accounting for nearly half, according to SIFMA's 2025 fact book.

Goldman Sachs projects US IPO proceeds could reach a record $160 billion in 2026, with SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic among the names driving that cycle.

The S&P 500's tech sector accounted for more than 39% of the index's market cap in early June, the highest concentration on record. These are the assets global retail traders want, and crypto exchanges are the first mobile-native, stablecoin-funded, always-on platforms positioned to sell access to them outside the US brokerage system.

NYSE and Nasdaq are building tokenized rails and regulators are drafting frameworks, but the user relationship already belongs to the crypto app.

The brokerage war ahead will be fought over whether the world's retail traders buy stocks through Wall Street's infrastructure, or through the apps already sitting on their phones.

The post Crypto exchanges are opening a two-front war for the stock market appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Stablecoin liquidity on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) has nearly doubled over the past month, putting the network within reach of a $1 billion supply milestone as Ripple tries to position its blockchain for automated payments.

The surge gives Ripple a stronger base for one of its most ambitious pitches yet: that artificial intelligence agents will need dollar-denominated payment rails that can settle transactions in seconds, enforce spending rules, and operate without manual approval at every step.

Data from DeFiLlama shows stablecoin supply on the XRPL at about $770 million, up roughly 97% over the past 30 days.

RWA.xyz, which tracks a broader set of tokenized real-world assets and stablecoins, places XRPL’s stablecoin market capitalization at about $901.7 million, with 30-day transfer volume rising 122% to $4.95 billion.

The gap between the two data providers reflects differences in methodology, but both show the same trend. Dollar-pegged assets on the XRP Ledger are growing quickly, and RLUSD, Ripple’s own stablecoin, is driving most of that increase.

DeFiLlama data show RLUSD accounting for nearly 99% of stablecoin supply on the XRP Ledger, with about $761.7 million issued on the network. RWA.xyz lists RLUSD’s total market capitalization across supported blockchains at roughly $1.65 billion.

That concentration gives Ripple unusual influence over the XRPL's dollar layer and strengthens its argument that RLUSD can become a settlement tool for institutions, developers, and software agents that need predictable access to dollars on-chain.

The harder question is whether the current growth reflects durable payment demand or early positioning ahead of a market that is still taking shape.

Related Reading

AI agents could decide XRPL’s next payment boom — and RLUSD is the bottleneck

Ripple integrates AI-driven risk controls to expand XRPL’s role in machine-native financial ecosystems, spotlighting stablecoins and compliance.

Feb 26, 2026 · Oluwapelumi Adejumo

The rise of agentic commerce

Artificial intelligence agents are moving beyond passive chat interfaces into software systems that can take actions on behalf of users and businesses.

In payments, that shift creates a practical problem. An agent that needs to access an API, pay for cloud computing, purchase data, settle an invoice or complete a multi-step workflow cannot always wait for a person to approve each transaction. It also cannot easily function on payment rails designed around card forms, billing accounts, batch settlement, and delayed reconciliation.

That is the opening Ripple is trying to exploit.

The company this week released the XRPL AI Starter Kit, a developer package designed to make it easier to build AI-agent payment flows on XRPL. The first phase includes an MCP server that lets compatible AI coding tools query XRPL documentation, Claude skills for wallet creation and payments, and new tutorials for building agentic transactions.

Ripple is also tying the toolkit to x402, an open payment standard built around the web’s HTTP 402 “Payment Required” status code. Through a contribution from t54, XRPL now supports x402 payments using XRP or RLUSD, allowing agents to pay for API calls, model inference, and other digital services.

The pitch is straightforward. Instead of creating accounts, storing API keys, buying prepaid credits, or waiting for billing relationships to clear, an agent can receive a payment request, send a small amount of value, and continue the workflow.

Ripple argues that the XRPL has several properties suited to that design. Transactions settle in seconds, fees are predictable, and payments are handled at the protocol layer rather than through arbitrary smart contract code.

The ledger also supports controls such as escrow, multi-signing, deposit authorization, and trust lines, giving institutions ways to limit who an agent can pay and under what conditions.

Those features are central to the RLUSD strategy. XRP can move value on the network, but many commercial workflows still need a dollar unit. Invoices, software subscriptions, payroll, treasury transfers, and API pricing are usually denominated in fiat terms.

RLUSD gives Ripple a stablecoin it can tie directly to those use cases while keeping the payment activity within the XRPL ecosystem.

Mastercard gives the thesis a mainstream venue

Ripple’s AI-agent push also gained a broader payments backdrop this week after Mastercard launched Agent Pay for Machines, a service aimed at machine-speed payments across software agents, connected devices, and automated business workflows.

Mastercard described the system as a way for businesses to let agents transact continuously while still operating within permissioning, governance, and settlement controls. Ripple was named among the participating companies, alongside a wider group that includes Coinbase, Stripe, Solana Foundation, Polygon, OKX, Cloudflare, and others.

For Ripple, the Mastercard initiative helps move RLUSD's adoption beyond a crypto-native audience. The company can now place XRPL and RLUSD inside a larger institutional discussion about how autonomous software should be allowed to spend money.

Markus Infanger, senior vice president at RippleX, said enterprises will only allow autonomous agents to move at machine speed if the necessary controls move with them. He argues that XRPL and RLUSD can provide settlement, predictable costs, compliance parameters, and audit trails inside the transaction flow itself.

Other Ripple executives have framed the launch in similarly long-term terms.

Jazzi Cooper, head of product at RippleX, said payments over the next decade may no longer be run mainly by humans. In her view, that means autonomous agents have to be treated as a primary user group for financial infrastructure rather than an edge case.

The comments show how Ripple wants the market to interpret the recent stablecoin growth. RLUSD’s rise gives the company liquidity for a payment strategy built around institutions, developers, and automated software systems.

That framing is useful for Ripple because the stablecoin market is already dominated by much larger rivals. Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC remain the industry’s deepest sources of dollar liquidity.

RLUSD does not need to overtake them broadly for Ripple’s strategy to work, but it does need to become the preferred dollar asset in the payment environments Ripple is targeting.

Chasing a $182 Billion Machine Economy

The broader agentic payments market remains split between speculative blockchain activity and early signs of commercial use.

Much of the current activity has been concentrated on Base, the Coinbase-incubated layer-2 network that has become the most active venue for x402 deployments. Chainalysis said agentic payments on Base crossed 100 million transactions in roughly three quarters after rising from near-zero levels in late 2025.

The firm cautioned, however, that much of the early growth came from meme coin farming, as users tested and gamed x402-based payment flows in speculative environments.

The data also point to a gradual shift in the quality of activity. Chainalysis said transactions worth at least $1 now account for 95% of total value transferred through agentic payment protocols, up from 49% in early 2025.

That suggests the market is beginning to move beyond low-value experimentation, even if enterprise adoption remains early.

While Base, Solana, and Polygon currently lead the market in hosting active developer deployments, Ripple is entering that competitive field with a different emphasis.

Rather than leaning on retail activity, the company is trying to court corporate treasury, enterprise billing, and institutional payment use cases through RLUSD and the XRPL's built-in controls.

That strategy reflects the type of customer Ripple is trying to win. Companies allowing AI agents to spend money are likely to demand spending limits, audit trails, compliance controls, and stable dollar settlement before they allow automated systems to move meaningful capital.

The size of the potential market explains the urgency. Industry forecasts project that agentic payments could grow from roughly $7 billion to $182.97 billion by 2033, implying annual growth of nearly 50%.

J. Ayo Akinyele, head of engineering at RippleX, has framed the opportunity in similar terms. He said the agent economy is developing faster than many observers expect, with billions of dollars in value potentially moving through agent-to-agent workflows as AI systems pay for services, access data, and settle transactions autonomously.

That is the market Ripple is trying to prepare for with RLUSD and the XRPL AI Starter Kit. The company wants developers to build payment flows in which agents can create wallets, send funds, track transactions, and pay for services using XRP or RLUSD through x402.

The immediate marker is liquidity. If stablecoin supply on the XRP Ledger crosses $1 billion before the end of the month, Ripple will have a stronger base for pitching XRPL as an enterprise payment rail for autonomous software.

However, the larger test will come in the quarters that follow. The market still has to show that AI agents can generate consistent, non-speculative payment demand, and that companies are willing to settle that activity through RLUSD.

The post Ripple chases AI’s machine economy as XRPL stablecoins near $1 billion appeared first on CryptoSlate.

On June 10, administration officials hosted law enforcement groups at the White House to resolve the provision most likely to block the CLARITY Act from reaching the Senate floor for a vote.

As Eleanor Terrett reported, the meeting drew around 20 attendees over nearly 90 minutes, with developer protections drawn from the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA) dominating the agenda.

Section 604 of the Senate draft defines a “non-controlling developer or provider” as one lacking the legal right or unilateral ability to control, initiate, or effectuate user transactions without another party's approval.

Under that definition, the provision limits money-transmitter treatment to parties who actually control or move assets, leaving developers who write distributed-ledger software, provide self-custody tools, or support blockchain infrastructure outside that classification.

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Mar 27, 2026 · Gino Matos

Where law enforcement draws the line

Cortez Masto, in her statement following the Senate Banking vote, said the current version of the CLARITY Act “undermines law enforcement's ability to trace illicit finance and recover victims' money, while at the same time creating a more challenging environment to prosecute criminals for knowingly transmitting illicit funds.”

Her amendments targeting decentralized platform enforcement were ruled out of order during the markup before Chairman Tim Scott later reinstated several others.

In an April 21 letter to Senate Banking leadership, the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) said Section 604 would limit prosecutors' ability to pursue financial crime cases involving cryptocurrency, arguing that the safe harbor could strip law enforcement of statutes used to prosecute criminals operating on digital asset infrastructure.

The fear is prosecutorial: that broad safe-harbor language gives criminals a structural shield by protecting the layers of infrastructure prosecutors currently use as pressure points.

TRM Labs estimated illicit crypto volume reached $158 billion in 2025, up nearly 145% from 2024, while the FBI's 2025 Internet Crime Report found cryptocurrency investment fraud alone generated $7.2 billion in reported losses.

The industry's counterargument

White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt called the CLARITY Act a “pro-regulatory, pro-enforcement bill” during a Blockchain Association town hall, pushing back against law enforcement groups who argue the bill falls short on financial crime.

A coalition supported by the Blockchain Association submitted a letter signed by 160 former law enforcement, intelligence, and national security officials, arguing that the legislation would improve oversight through expanded sanctions tools, greater coordination with Treasury, and updated asset-seizure powers.

TRM Labs documented the bill's architecture, divided into:

TRM also argues that criminal liability for knowing facilitation of criminal proceeds survives BRCA under 18 USC § 1960(b)(1)(C). The safe harbor covers non-controlling developers, and knowing participants in illicit finance retain full criminal exposure under existing statute.

The industry's core pitch is that regulated, US-based markets give investigators better visibility than developers pushed offshore by legal uncertainty.

The vote math

Warner and Cortez Masto have tied their floor votes to law enforcement's satisfaction with the final text.

The bill needs 60 Senate votes, requiring at least seven Democrats beyond the two who voted yes in committee. Gallego and Alsobrooks, who supplied the decisive committee votes, have conditioned floor support on further movement on ethics and enforcement.

Senate lawmakers working to reach an ethics agreement came away empty-handed this week.
The Senate has just 31 session days remaining before the August recess, which lawmakers and lobbyists view as the unofficial deadline before Congress turns its focus to midterm elections.

Stifel's chief Washington policy strategist, Brian Gardner, noted that if the Senate fails to act before August, the bill's prospects will deteriorate materially.

DeFi Education Fund confirmed BRCA is among the most important provisions for developers and infrastructure providers, and the bill's developer constituency depends on it surviving intact.

The more plausible path runs through a clearer intent or knowledge standard restricting the safe harbor to developers with no knowing involvement in laundering, tighter language around “non-controlling” status for front-end operators, relayers, or parties holding admin keys, and a savings clause stating explicitly that BRCA preserves criminal prosecution authority for knowing facilitation of illicit finance.

Each of those additions gives Senate Democrats a floor-defense line while keeping the provision's core protection for non-controlling developers intact.

Two ways this ends

In the bull case, law enforcement groups move from active opposition to neutrality, a lower bar than endorsement but sufficient political cover for Warner, Cortez Masto, and the remaining Democrats needed to reach 60.

A narrowed BRCA survives alongside strengthened reporting, analytics, and intent requirements, the bill reaches the floor before August, and developers keep the core protections, prosecutors keep the criminal carve-out, and the US gets its first comprehensive digital asset market structure law.

In the bear case, the gap between law enforcement's demand for prosecutorial flexibility and the industry's demand for developer protection proves unbridgeable before the calendar closes.

An accord among Senate lawmakers to resolve the ethics debate collapsed this week, and the bill misses the August recess deadline.

Regulatory uncertainty extends into 2027 and beyond, with enforcement-by-interpretation holding as the framework and offshore venues retaining structural advantages over US-based operators.

The odds on Polymarket of a CLARITY Act approval this year have moved from 74% to 48% over the past month, reflecting both risks being priced in simultaneously.

The political test for moderate Democrats is whether developer protections and prosecutorial tools can coexist in the same bill, and whether they can defend that answer on a Senate floor in a midterm year.

Warner and Cortez Masto have made their votes contingent on law enforcement's satisfaction, setting the threshold at neutrality.

A statement from the FOP that revised language adequately preserves prosecutorial tools may well clear that bar. Whether the June 10 meeting moved the conversation that far will be revealed by next week's Senate negotiations.

The post CLARITY Act moves to a fight between cops and coders appeared first on CryptoSlate.

When Is the SpaceX IPO and What's the Valuation?

After more than two decades as the world's most closely watched private company, SpaceX is going public. The stock begins trading on the Nasdaq on June 12, 2026, under the ticker SPCX, with 555.56 million Class A shares offered at a targeted IPO price of $135. SpaceX set that fixed price of $135 per share, putting the valuation at roughly $1.77 trillion — which would make Elon Musk's firm the seventh-biggest company in the U.S., ahead of Tesla.

The scale is unprecedented. The offering aims to raise about $75 billion, with underwriters holding a 30-day option to buy up to an additional 83.3 million shares at the IPO price. By deal size, that makes it the largest IPO in market history — comfortably topping Saudi Aramco's 2019 record.

One detail makes this IPO unusually accessible. SpaceX set aside about 30% of its public shares for everyday retail investors instead of the usual 5% to 10% — which is why brokerage apps suddenly have a "request shares" button for a company that stayed private for 24 years.

SpaceX IPO Valuation: What Drives the $1.75 Trillion Valuation?

The number rests heavily on one division: Starlink. SpaceX operates across launches, Starlink connectivity, and AI, with Starlink generating roughly 61% of total 2025 revenue. The company generated $15 billion to $16 billion of revenue in 2025, which implies a valuation of roughly 109x to 116x trailing revenue.

That multiple is the heart of the debate. At $1.75 trillion, SpaceX would trade at around 100 times its 2025 revenue — a multiple that assumes sustained exceptional growth across both its launch business and Starlink for years to come. Investors are effectively pricing in years of near-flawless execution, with the main risks being governance concentration, Starship execution, and reliance on government contracts.

What to Expect During the First Hours of Trading

Here's where a common assumption needs correcting. Many people expect a stock to crash right after its IPO as early investors cash out — but that's not the typical pattern. The classic IPO dynamic is often the opposite: a first-day "pop," where the stock opens well above its offer price because demand far exceeds the shares available. Sharp drops do happen, but for a heavily oversubscribed deal like this one, an opening price above $135 is the more likely outcome. In fact, some analysts think it may end up topping $2 trillion or more on its first day.

A few things worth knowing for the big day:

• There's no fixed opening time. There is no set time for trading to begin — companies often wait a while after the market opens before the first trade prints, and the share price is likely to fluctuate heavily once it does.
• Expect serious volatility. June 12 is the first day of trading, and high volatility is expected. Some experienced traders deliberately wait it out — a common approach is to let the first 30 to 90 minutes of trading define a clear structure rather than buying at any price into the hype.
• A structural buying wave is coming weeks later. This is the most underappreciated factor. Nasdaq shortened the waiting period for Nasdaq-100 membership to just 15 trading days for the largest megacap IPOs, so based on a June 12 listing, SpaceX would be eligible to join the index around July 7 — forcing every Nasdaq-100 tracker fund and ETF to buy SPCX and creating a wave of mandatory institutional buying that could substantially offset early selling pressure.
• Selling pressure is real, but scheduled. A friends-and-family carve-out means up to $3.75 billion of unlocked stock could be sold on day one, while the main insider lockups release in stages from late July onward. So the "early investors cashing out" effect you'd expect is genuine — it's just spread across months of unlock windows rather than concentrated on day one.

The honest summary: nobody can predict the first print. Expect a volatile open, a real possibility of a price well above $135, and a known calendar of buying and selling pressures over the following weeks.

The 3 Best Platforms and How to Buy SpaceX (SPCX)

Not every platform offers the same thing. Two of the three below give you the actual Nasdaq-listed share; one gives you crypto-native price exposure. Here's how they break down.

1. XTB — Buy the Actual SPCX Share

XTB is a regulated broker offering access to real SPCX stock on the open market once trading begins. From the first day of trading, SPCX becomes available at brokers giving access to US stocks, including XTB. 

What you need to get started: open an account and complete identity verification (KYC). How to fund it: download the XTB app, open an account, then choose your preferred funding method and deposit funds — XTB typically supports bank transfer and card. What to do during the IPO: once SPCX lists, search the ticker and place your order. One reality check: you won't get the $135 IPO price — that's only for investors in the formal bookbuilding process; buying on the open market from June 12 means paying whatever price the market sets, which could open substantially higher.

👉 Open an XTB account

*Investments carry risks. Trade responsibly.

2. Bitpanda — Trade SpaceX from the First Trading Day

Bitpanda is a European, Austria-based platform that lets you invest in stocks (including fractional shares), $crypto, ETFs, and more from one app — well suited to beginners who want a straightforward way in without large minimums. Bitpanda is offering SPCX from the very first NASDAQ trading day, at just €1 per trade.

What you need to get started: register and complete verification (KYC). How to fund it: Bitpanda supports bank transfer, card, and several instant-payment methods in EUR. What to do during the IPO: once SPCX goes live on the first trading day, search the ticker and place your order — at €1 per trade, and with fractional investing, you can put in a fixed euro amount rather than buying a whole share if the price opens high.

👉 Open a Bitpanda account

3. OKX — Crypto-Native SpaceX Exposure

OKX approaches SpaceX from the crypto side rather than via traditional equity. OKX is launching perpetual futures contracts that track the valuations of high-profile private companies including SpaceX, alongside tokenized stock trading via a link-up with Ondo Finance. This is exposure to SpaceX's price, not ownership of the underlying share — and these products carry leverage, funding costs, and liquidation risk. 

What you need to get started: a verified OKX account with KYC completed. How to fund it: deposit crypto from an external wallet, or buy crypto directly on OKX via card or bank transfer to fund your trading balance. What to do during the IPO: if you want pre-listing or synthetic exposure, you can trade the SpaceX perpetual or tokenized product directly — just understand you're trading a derivative, not a Nasdaq share, and these can diverge sharply from the real price in thin, volatile windows.

👉 Open an OKX account

What's Going to Happen during SpaceX IPO?

The SpaceX IPO is a genuine market milestone — the largest in history, with unusually generous retail access. But the $135 figure is an offer price most readers won't get, the opening days will be volatile, and the three platforms above give you different products: a real share via XTB and Bitpanda, and crypto-native exposure via OKX. Whichever route you choose, only invest what you can afford to lose — buying into day-one hype is one of the higher-risk ways to enter any stock.

What Is the World Venture Forum 2026?

The World Venture Forum (WVF) 2026 is an exclusive, investor-led gathering set high in the Austrian Alps under the theme "Vectors of Change." Built around the idea of understanding and shaping the forces transforming industries and societies, the forum brings together global thought leaders, capital allocators, and innovators for a week of meaningful dialogue and collaboration. This is a community designed by investors, for investors — meaning the conversations and opportunities genuinely resonate with the people in the room.

Rather than a typical conference, WVF positions itself as a place to navigate the dynamic currents of change, build lasting connections, and stay ahead in an ever-evolving world. If you're looking for board-level conversations rather than buzz, this is the room to be in.

When and Where: Kitzbühel, Austria, 6–11 July 2026

The forum takes place from 6 July to 11 July 2026 in Kitzbühel, Austria, one of the Alps' most iconic destinations. Discussions happen at 1,000+ metres above sea level, across four luxurious mountaintop chalets, each dedicated to a distinct focus area. The alpine setting is part of the point: it combines elevated discourse with informal networking in a genuinely memorable environment.

The Four Focus Topics

WVF 2026 organizes its program around four broad themes, each hosted in its own dedicated chalet for tightly curated conversations:

• Web3 — Explore the future of digital assets.
• Family Offices — Connect with global investment leaders.
• Corporate Innovation — Dive into cutting-edge business strategies.
• Impact — Discuss sustainable solutions in Green & Life Sciences.

What to Expect: The WVF Experience

The week balances substance with lifestyle. Beyond panel discussions with global thought leaders on innovation, impact, and investment, there's daily networking, an elegant Gala Dinner, and movement activities to recharge — including a golf tournament, guided city tours, and yoga sessions.

The agenda flows naturally across the week. Monday and Tuesday open with registration, networking, and the Web3 and Family Office chalets, alongside a Crypto Cocktail and a Family Fizzes reception. Wednesday brings a golf tournament or trekking, Scale Up networking, and the headline WVF Gala Dinner. Thursday and Friday cover the Corporate Innovation and Impact chalets, a Sponsors' & Speakers' Soirée, and a guided city tour or yoga session, before a Champagne Brunch sends everyone off on Saturday. (Note: some formats require an add-on ticket.)

Who You'll Meet: A Room Full of Decision-Makers

This is where WVF stands apart. The attendee profile skews heavily toward people with real capital and real authority:

• 92% are senior decision-makers — CEOs, owners, investors, management, and C-level.
• 70% control capital ownership.
• Roughly 2 in 3 attendees are capital allocators, including corporate investors, venture capital, private equity, family offices, and angels.

For founders, investors, and innovators alike, that density of decision-makers is the real draw — every conversation has a genuine chance of leading somewhere.

Get 15% Off Your WVF Ticket

Our CryptoTicker readers can claim an exclusive 15% discount on registration. Use the promo code WVF26_CRYPTOTICKER at checkout.

If you want to spend a week among investors and innovators shaping the next wave of Web3, family office strategy, corporate innovation, and impact — in one of the most beautiful settings in Europe — World Venture Forum 2026 is built for exactly that.

To most people active in the financial markets, the idea of $Bitcoin dropping to absolute zero sounds like a bad movie plot. The digital asset has grown from an obscure cryptographic experiment into a major asset class with a market cap that has crossed into the trillions. Institutional heavyweights back it, and millions of retail investors hold it globally.

Yet, some of the most successful traditional investors in history remain completely convinced that its terminal value is zero. When we look past the daily price charts and emotional social media debates, a fundamental question emerges: What would actually have to happen to make Bitcoin completely worthless?

An asset drops to zero when nobody is willing to buy it at any price, or when the system itself breaks down completely. By tracking how economic models work and examining the specific warnings of legendary market skeptics, we can map out the actual triggers that could theoretically cause a permanent, total collapse.

*CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 74% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

1. The Proponents of Zero: What Traditional Finance Predicts

The argument that Bitcoin is structurally destined to crash to zero isn't driven by anonymous online bears—it is led by some of the most influential figures on Wall Street.

Warren Buffett’s Intrinsic Value Argument

Warren Buffett, the Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, has famously criticized the asset for years. In interviews with CNBC, Buffett has repeatedly stated that he doesn't own any cryptocurrency and never will, flatly declaring its value to be "zero."

"Cryptocurrencies basically have no value and they don't produce anything. You can't do anything with it except sell it to someone else. But then that person's got the problem." — Warren Buffett

Buffett’s investment philosophy centers entirely on productive assets. If you buy a farm, it grows food; if you buy a business, it manufactures products and generates cash flow. Because Bitcoin does not produce dividends, revenue, or physical utility, Buffett views it purely as a speculative "gambling token." In his view, once the pool of buyers willing to pay a higher price runs out, the asset inevitably collapses under its own lack of utility.

The Institutional Skeptics

Buffett isn't alone in this camp. His late business partner, Charlie Munger, famously labeled it "rat poison squared." Similarly, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has long dismissed Bitcoin as a "hyped-up fraud" and a "pet rock."

Furthermore, Nobel laureate Eugene Fama—often called the "Father of Modern Finance"—has noted that Bitcoin's massive price swings make it completely unsuitable to function as a stable currency, predicting that it could face a path to irrelevance as more efficient financial technologies develop.

2. The Incentive Trap: What Happens When Mining Rewards Disappear?

From a purely technical perspective, Bitcoin’s internal design contains a long-term economic challenge often referred to as the security budget dilemma.

The network relies on a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism. Miners around the world run high-powered computers to validate transactions and secure the ledger against fraud. In return, the software automatically pays them in newly minted $BTC (the block reward). However, to enforce artificial scarcity, the protocol cuts these rewards in half every four years.

By the time the final coin is minted, the block reward will hit zero, and miners will have to survive entirely on the transaction fees paid by users. This sets up a critical vulnerability:

• Stagnant Transaction Fees: If the volume of transactions doesn't grow large enough to pay miners for their electricity, running the hardware will become completely unprofitable.
• Hardware Atrophy: Mining farms will unplug their machines, causing the network's overall computing power (hash rate) to plummet.
• The 51% Attack Vector: A low hash rate means it becomes financially feasible for a hostile group or a sovereign government to buy enough computing power to take over the network.

If an attacker gains control of more than half the network power, they can alter the ledger, reverse past transactions, and double-spend coins. The exact moment transactional finality can no longer be trusted, the foundational asset loses its credibility, triggering a massive sell-off toward zero.

3. Coordinated Global Banning and On-Ramp Destruction

Another concrete path to zero involves a coordinated geopolitical crackdown. While the decentralized software cannot be turned off by a single government, the access points that link it to everyday society are highly vulnerable.

Bitcoin derives its practical liquidity from "fiat gateways"—the exchanges and banking networks that allow users to swap traditional cash like U.S. Dollars or Euros for digital assets. If major global economies execute a synchronized regulatory ban, they can effectively cut off the flow of capital entirely.

If a user cannot use their holdings to pay taxes, buy real estate, or settle everyday transactions legally, the asset's utility drops immediately. If it is reduced to a black-market token that is impossible to clear through the global banking system, institutional capital will fully divest, causing a terminal collapse in liquidity.

*Investments carry risks. Trade responsibly.

4. The Cryptographic Break: The Long-Term Quantum Threat

The structural integrity of the entire ledger depends on advanced mathematics. Specifically, it uses the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) to ensure that only the person who owns a private key can spend the funds in a specific wallet address.

The development of high-fidelity quantum computing poses a distinct long-term threat to this safety model. Unlike standard computers, quantum computers utilizing Shor's algorithm can solve the complex discrete logarithm problems used in modern encryption within minutes.

If a government agency or private tech firm secretly builds a functional quantum computer, they could theoretically backward-engineer private keys directly from exposed public addresses on the public ledger. This includes the famous dormant wallets held by the network’s anonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, which hold over 1 million coins.

If those coins are suddenly stolen or moved via a cryptographic exploit, public trust in the software's mathematical infallibility would shatter overnight. Once the guarantee of digital ownership is broken, the asset’s underlying value proposition vanishes entirely.

What It Takes for Bitcoin Price to Reach Zero

For Bitcoin to truly reach $0, it cannot simply undergo a standard market correction or enter a multi-year bear market. A zero-dollar valuation requires a permanent, unfixable structural break.

As Warren Buffett points out, the asset relies heavily on public belief in its collective utility. If global regulators completely sever its access to the traditional financial system, if its internal reward mechanism fails to fund its own security, or if a cryptographic vulnerability compromises wallet security, that collective belief will vanish. If nobody is willing to act as the final buyer, the asset's price will ultimately adjust to match its structural utility: absolute zero.

The financial world is flashing a giant red warning sign. In a rare and violent synchronization, almost every major asset class is bleeding. Equities are tumbling, the digital asset ecosystem is experiencing mass liquidations, and even traditional safe havens like gold and silver are succumbing to intense selling pressure.

For retail investors, the synchronized drop is baffling. Aren't cryptocurrencies and precious metals supposed to hedge against stock market weakness? In a standard economic correction, yes. But we are not in a standard correction. We are witnessing a massive liquidity squeeze. Investors are aggressively unwinding positions across the board, fleeing from risk, and cycling their capital into one ultimate destination: the United States dollar.

Global Market Crash: Equities, Precious Metals, and Crypto

The selloff has spared no one. On Wall Street, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite recently plunged over 4%, recording its sharpest single-day decline in over a year. A toxic cocktail of disappointing guidance from semiconductor giants like Broadcom and an unexpectedly hot US non-farm payrolls report has forced investors to face reality. The narrative of imminent Federal Reserve interest rate cuts has evaporated. Instead, the market is pricing in a "higher-for-longer" rate environment, with CME FedWatch tool data showing a sudden uptick in expectations for an outright rate hike later this year.

This macroeconomic shift has sent shockwaves through the cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin recently shattered its psychologically critical support level, crashing well below $60,000 to reach its lowest point since late 2024. Widespread deleveraging has wiped out billions in leveraged long positions, amplified by massive outflows from spot Bitcoin ETFs.

Even commodities have failed to act as a refuge. Spot gold prices, which analysts at major institutions like J.P. Morgan expected to climb steadily, have retreated dramatically from their highs. Silver has suffered an even steeper percentage decline, proving that when a liquidity panic hits, even the oldest hard assets on Earth get sold to cover margin calls and preserve capital.

*Investments carry risks. Trade responsibly.

The Mighty Dollar Reclaims the Throne

So, where is the money actually going? The answer is clearly visible in the performance of the US Dollar Index (DXY). The DXY recently surged past the crucial 100 handle, hitting its highest level in months.

When institutional investors panic, they do not look for upside—they look for liquidity. In times of severe systemic stress, cash becomes the king of all assets. The aggressive spike in the dollar index indicates a sweeping global reallocation toward cash and short-term US Treasury bills, which have seen their yields surge to multi-month highs.

Why Are Markets Crashing?

This aggressive turn toward the greenback is driven by two main catalysts:

• Interest Rate Reality Check: The booming US labor market makes it nearly impossible for the Fed to lower borrowing costs without risking a secondary inflation wave. Higher rates make holding cash yield-bearing and highly attractive compared to risky assets.
• Geopolitical Escalation: Escalating global tensions—particularly ongoing friction points and fears surrounding Middle Eastern stability—have intensified market anxiety.

When macro risk factors align this tightly, institutional risk models trigger automatic liquidations. Funds must reduce their "Value at Risk" (VaR), which translates into selling equities, dumping volatile crypto tokens, and liquidating precious metals to hoard USD. The current market structure is not showing a healthy rotation from tech to value or from paper assets to hard assets. It is a textbook flight to cash. Until geopolitical tensions ease or the Federal Reserve signals a clear pause in its hawkish tone, the global markets are likely to remain highly volatile, with the dollar retaining its iron grip on global capital.

U.S. President Donald Trump issued a stern warning on June 10, 2026, stating that Iran has taken too long to negotiate a peace deal and "will have to pay the price." The statement followed a rapid escalation in the Middle East, during which the United States launched targeted airstrikes against Iranian infrastructure.

The military action was ordered by the Trump administration in response to the downing of a U.S. Army Apache attack helicopter near the critical Strait of Hormuz shipping lane. While the two U.S. service members were rescued uninjured, the incident shattered a fragile two-month ceasefire, triggering immediate retaliation from Tehran against regional U.S. assets and sparking a volatile reaction across traditional and digital asset markets.

Geopolitical Escalation Shatters Ceasefire

According to official updates from The Guardian's Live Coverage, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) executed targeted strikes against Iranian air defense systems, ground control stations, and radar sites along the southern coast. Trump asserted on social media that the U.S. response was an absolute necessity.

Following the American bombardment, Iran launched retaliatory drone and missile attacks targeting U.S. military positions in Jordan, Kuwait, and Bahrain. This direct confrontation has effectively unraveled weeks of diplomatic progress, forcing international mediators from Qatar to scramble back to the negotiation table in a bid to avert an all-out regional war.

Traditional Markets React: Oil Climbs, Equities Slip

The abrupt end to the ceasefire sent immediate shockwaves through macro asset classes. Given that the Strait of Hormuz serves as a vital chokepoint for global energy supply, crude oil prices reacted sharply to the heightened threat of prolonged blockades.

• Crude Oil: Brent crude rose over 25% relative to baseline conflict levels, trading firmly above $92 per barrel.
• Equities: Major stock indices faced selling pressure, with the S&P 500 slipping roughly 0.90% as investors reduced exposure to risk-on assets.
• Safe Havens: Gold experienced intraday fluctuations as broader macro liquidity conditions tightened under the sudden threat of regional escalation.

Crypto Assets Flash Warning Signs Amid Volatility

The crypto market has reflected the broader tension, experiencing notable capital preservation flows. While previous political developments in 2026 had pushed Bitcoin below $70,000 during periods of diplomatic optimism, this fresh military friction has forced a reassessment of market structure.

Market analysts note that Bitcoin and major altcoins are facing severe macro pressure. The sudden geopolitical risk has triggered liquidations in over-leveraged long positions, exposing vulnerabilities in current crypto market structures. Furthermore, the conflict intersects directly with the digital asset sector following recent U.S. Treasury sanctions targeting major Iranian cryptocurrency exchanges accused of facilitating sanctions evasion and state-sponsored financial routing. Traders are advised to monitor the $60,000 support level closely as the situation develops.

The study estimated Americans could end up wagering up to $133 billion annually on offshore prediction markets by 2030.

Standard Chartered analyst Geoff Kendrick suggests the crypto market has hit its lowest point following Bitcoin's recent drop below $60,000.

Disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has applied for a pardon from President Trump, which is now his one remaining path out of prison.

The retailer rolled its Coinbase options deal forward in late May, keeping nearly all its Bitcoin tied up for upfront cash.

The Siiibo Securities deal positions Metaplanet to tap $7.4 trillion in household savings as the country shifts from deflation to inflation.

Japanese energy consulting firm Remixpoint is doubling down on its aggressive corporate treasury strategy.

Bitcoin has a high chance of dropping to $50,000 before seeing a major breakout to $100,000 according to predictions from Kalshi traders.

As the SpaceX IPO halts large-cap crypto, Shiba Inu (SHIB) futures volume defies the freeze with a 60% surge to $140 million.

Michael Saylor confirms it has not sold even a sat, reaffirming Strategy’s long-term goal to continue stacking up Bitcoin regardless of the market condition.

Shiba Inu traders spot golden cross, but the market seems to have other plans.

Key Highlights

• More than a dozen preliminary data center lease agreements secured by Anthropic, exceeding 1 gigawatt total capacity
• Google reportedly negotiating to serve as financial guarantor for lease obligations
• Private credit arrangement includes Apollo Global Management and Blackstone participation
• Confidential IPO filing submitted earlier this month in the United States
• Latest funding round established $965 billion valuation, surpassing OpenAI’s market position

Anthropic is taking significant steps toward establishing its own data center infrastructure across the United States. The artificial intelligence company has executed preliminary lease agreements for more than twelve facilities, representing a total power capacity exceeding 1 gigawatt.

According to The Information, which broke the story based on insider sources familiar with the negotiations, the scale of this infrastructure expansion marks a major shift in Anthropic’s operational strategy.

To secure financing for these substantial lease commitments, Anthropic has entered discussions with Google regarding a financial guarantee arrangement. The broader credit structure reportedly involves participation from Apollo Global Management and Blackstone as well.

When contacted for comment, neither Google nor Anthropic provided specific details. Google stated to Reuters that it maintains a policy against commenting on speculative reports.

Tech Giant Supports Its Own Rival

This potential guarantee agreement underscores the complex dynamic between Google and Anthropic. Google has pledged investment commitments reaching $40 billion to Anthropic and collaborates on custom chip development for deployment in these planned facilities.

Yet Google’s Gemini AI platform directly challenges Anthropic’s Claude models in virtual assistants, developer tools, and business applications.

A financial guarantee would deepen this paradoxical partnership considerably. Under such an arrangement, Google would assume responsibility for lease payments should Anthropic face payment difficulties.

Previously, Anthropic has depended on third-party cloud infrastructure providers, including Google Cloud, for computational resources. Transitioning to proprietary data centers would grant the company greater financial oversight and diminish reliance on external vendors.

Public Offering Preparations Advance

Earlier this month, Anthropic submitted a confidential filing for a U.S. initial public offering. The company has not revealed the anticipated size or specific terms of the proposed offering.

The most recent financing round, which concluded in late May, generated $65 billion in capital. This fundraising established a post-money valuation of $965 billion, positioning Anthropic’s implied market value above OpenAI’s.

Robust market demand for Anthropic’s Claude AI model suite is fueling the infrastructure expansion initiative.

Interestingly, Anthropic allocates $1.25 billion monthly for AI computational services from SpaceX‘s xAI division — another competitive entity — illustrating the interconnected nature of today’s AI ecosystem.

The simultaneous scaling of computational infrastructure while navigating IPO preparations demands rapid access to substantial capital resources.

Google’s participation in the data center financing arrangement reveals the search giant’s significant stake in Anthropic’s market success. A thriving Anthropic serves as a counterweight to OpenAI’s influence in enterprise AI markets.

Despite competing for identical customer segments, both organizations maintain mutual financial incentives for each other’s continued growth.

The post Anthropic Secures Massive Data Center Deals With Google’s Financial Support appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• SpaceX set its IPO offering at $135 per share, securing capital at a $1.77 trillion market cap — establishing the largest public offering in global history.
• Shares are tracking to debut at $175 on Friday, approximately 30% higher than the offering price.
• Oppenheimer launched coverage with an “outperform” designation and $190 price objective; New Street Research established a $165 target.
• The company recorded a $4.94 billion net deficit in 2025 following its xAI combination, contrasting with a $791 million gain in 2024.
• Morningstar assigns a fair value of merely $63 per share, labeling it excessively priced, while prominent short seller Jim Chanos has challenged the $1.77 trillion assessment.

SpaceX (SPCX) is poised to create a watershed moment on Friday, with indications showing shares opening at $175 — representing approximately 30% appreciation over the $135 offering price. This trajectory would elevate the aerospace manufacturer’s market capitalization to nearly $2.29 trillion before executing its initial public trade.

The public offering secured capital at a $1.77 trillion assessment after the company distributed 555.56 million shares priced at $135 apiece on Thursday. This positioning already places it beyond JPMorgan Chase, Berkshire Hathaway, Eli Lilly, Meta Platforms, and even Elon Musk’s electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla in market value.

This represents the most substantial initial public offering on record. Saudi Aramco’s 2019 market debut generated $25.6 billion at a $1.71 trillion assessment. SpaceX has now eclipsed that benchmark.

Interest from individual investors exceeded $100 billion, based on Bloomberg reporting. BlackRock independently submitted a $5 billion institutional commitment, according to the Wall Street Journal. SpaceX additionally reserved 30% of shares for individual investors — a substantially greater portion than typical mega-cap offerings.

Starlink, the company’s orbital internet platform, contributed approximately 60% of SpaceX’s $18.67 billion in 2025 revenue. The service currently supports around 10.3 million subscribers through 9,600 satellites, delivering connectivity across 164 nations and territories.

Oppenheimer emerged as the first leading investment firm to publish analysis, assigning an “outperform” rating alongside a $190 valuation target. Analyst Timothy Horan characterized SpaceX as “the only vertically integrated AI company with the required capital, data, LLMs, hardware, manufacturing and engineering talent.” New Street Research projected a 12-month objective of $165.

The Bear Case

Not all market observers share the bullish sentiment. Morningstar calculates SPCX’s intrinsic value at $63 per share — representing a 53% markdown from the offering price. Its highest-probability scenario, weighted at just 7% likelihood, reaches only $154. Valuation authority Aswath Damodaran estimates the enterprise value at $1.22 trillion.

Renowned short seller Jim Chanos stated directly: “The company is not worth, in my opinion, $1.75 trillion based on any reasonable assumptions over the next five years.” He emphasized SpaceX commands approximately 90x sales, versus Tesla’s 14x ratio.

The financial statements support certain concerns. SpaceX generated a $4.94 billion net deficit in 2025 after finalizing its xAI combination, reversing a $791 million surplus in 2024. Revenue expanded 33% annually, yet profitability deteriorated significantly.

Governance and Index Inclusion

Elon Musk maintains an estimated 80–85% of voting authority. This configuration leaves public shareholders with minimal influence over corporate decisions — a framework attracting examination alongside the valuation controversy.

Regarding index membership, Nasdaq recently modified listing standards that might facilitate SPCX’s entrance into the Nasdaq 100. Nevertheless, S&P Global rejected making accommodations for expedited S&P 500 admission. This indicates automatic purchasing from passive index portfolios may materialize slower than certain market participants anticipate.

Space-sector equities including AST SpaceMobile, Viasat, and Rocket Lab all declined in preliminary trading on Friday preceding SpaceX’s market entrance.

The post SpaceX (SPCX) Stock Surges 30% Pre-Market Ahead of Historic IPO Debut appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Highlights

• Exodus Movement introduces tokenized asset trading through Ondo Finance collaboration

• Over 200 tokenized securities now accessible within Exodus wallet interface

• Ondo Finance provides underlying infrastructure for tokenized stock platform

• Exodus transitions from pure self-custody solution to comprehensive financial ecosystem

• Tokenized securities sector experiences significant growth as new players join

Exodus Movement has unveiled Exodus Markets through a strategic collaboration with Ondo Finance, providing qualified customers with the ability to trade tokenized securities on Solana. This new offering enables access to over 200 tokenized equities, exchange-traded funds, and real-world assets directly within the Exodus application. This strategic expansion positions Exodus beyond traditional wallet functionality and deepens its involvement in the tokenized financial sector.

Tokenized Securities Trading Integrated Into Exodus Wallet

Through Exodus Markets, customers can purchase and sell tokenized equity products without leaving their non-custodial wallet interface. The system leverages Solana’s blockchain infrastructure for transaction settlement and interfaces with Ondo Finance‘s tokenized asset ecosystem. Consequently, Exodus now consolidates trading capabilities, payment processing, transfer functionality, rewards programs, and financial management within a unified application.

The initial release encompasses over 200 tokenized instruments, spanning equities, ETFs, and real-world asset categories. The platform also features tokenized EXOD shares for customers in approved jurisdictions, contingent upon local regulatory frameworks. Access to these products remains subject to jurisdictional compliance requirements and individual user qualification criteria.

According to Exodus, integrating tokenized stock capabilities provides customers with enhanced market participation without exiting their familiar wallet interface. The organization seeks to simplify access to conventional financial instruments through blockchain-based infrastructure. This product offering reinforces the company’s evolution from a wallet service provider toward a comprehensive financial services platform.

Ondo Finance Collaboration Enables Tokenized Asset Access on Solana

Ondo Finance supplies the foundational tokenized asset architecture powering the Exodus Markets platform. This collaboration delivers tokenized equity products to Exodus customers through infrastructure specifically designed for real-world asset tokenization. Furthermore, this integration embeds Ondo’s product suite within an established self-custodial wallet serving a substantial user base.

Established in 2015, Exodus developed its reputation centered on self-custody principles and straightforward cryptocurrency access. The organization subsequently pursued a public listing on NYSE American under the ticker symbol EXOD. Notably, Exodus distinguished itself as among the earliest publicly traded entities to tokenize its own equity securities in 2021.

This pioneering background establishes Exodus’s authentic connection to the tokenized securities ecosystem it now facilitates for users. Having already implemented tokenization for its corporate equity distribution, the company applies this experience to its latest blockchain-based securities product offering.

Tokenized Securities Sector Experiences Accelerated Growth

This product debut arrives amid expanding interest in tokenized securities across both cryptocurrency and conventional finance sectors. Tokenized equities enable participants to obtain economic exposure to publicly traded shares through blockchain-native instruments. Nevertheless, these tokenized products do not confer direct ownership of the underlying securities themselves.

Additionally, tokenized instruments do not grant traditional shareholder privileges, such as voting rights in corporate governance. Exodus emphasized that customers should recognize fundamental differences between tokenized equity products and conventional stock ownership. This clarification becomes increasingly relevant as additional platforms incorporate tokenized securities and ETF products into their offerings.

The overall tokenized equity sector has witnessed substantial expansion throughout the current year. According to data from The Block, the market achieved $5.5 billion in total capitalization by June 8. This valuation represented approximately 147% growth from the $2.23 billion recorded at the beginning of the year.

The post Exodus Movement Partners with Ondo Finance to Enable Trading of 200+ Tokenized Stocks on Solana appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Highlights

• SpaceX (SPCX) launched its public trading debut Friday in a record-shattering IPO that generated $75 billion at a share price of $135
• Elon Musk’s aerospace venture achieved a $1.77 trillion market valuation, potentially elevating him to trillionaire status
• Wall Street indices showed divergent movements at opening: Dow climbed 0.2%, S&P 500 hovered near unchanged, Nasdaq slipped 0.3%
• Emerging news of a provisional US-Iran diplomatic agreement sent crude oil tumbling, with Brent dropping up to 5%
• University of Michigan consumer confidence plummeted to a historic nadir of 44.8 in May, with updated figures anticipated Friday

Wall Street experienced range-bound trading Friday morning as market participants monitored a pair of significant developments: SpaceX’s highly anticipated public market entrance and emerging details of a possible diplomatic breakthrough between Washington and Tehran.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced approximately 138 points, representing a 0.2% gain, during early market activity. The S&P 500 climbed 0.2% while the Nasdaq Composite settled flat following an initial 0.3% decline at the opening bell. Thursday’s session had delivered robust gains following President Trump’s announcement that US-Iran peace negotiations were approaching conclusion.

Trading under the symbol SPCX, SpaceX established its initial share price at $135 prior to Friday’s market launch. The aerospace manufacturer secured approximately $75 billion in capital, establishing a new benchmark as the largest initial public offering in financial history. The company’s projected market capitalization reaches $1.77 trillion.

With this valuation, Chief Executive Elon Musk stands positioned to achieve trillionaire status—a first in human history.

SpaceX has outlined ambitious plans to deploy artificial intelligence computing facilities in orbital space. Market analysts have set elevated expectations for the stock’s performance, noting that any underwhelming debut-day performance will likely trigger substantial questioning.

Industry observers view this offering as a crucial barometer for overall market health, particularly as equities have weathered significant volatility centered around artificial intelligence investments throughout recent sessions.

Crude Markets Retreat on Diplomatic Optimism

Oil prices experienced substantial declines Friday as market participants incorporated the likelihood of a Washington-Tehran accord. Brent crude contracts plummeted as much as 5% during early transactions, touching their weakest levels since March, before staging a partial recovery. West Texas Intermediate crude declined 2.8% to approximately $85.26 per barrel.

Emerging intelligence indicates the two nations are advancing toward an understanding that would reestablish passage through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical maritime corridor for global petroleum shipments. G7 leadership is scheduled to convene the following week, where the accord may receive formal endorsement.

Barclays analyst Emmanuel Cau noted that a verified US-Iran agreement would “eliminate a significant macroeconomic tail risk and facilitate additional market broadening and sector rotation.”

Consumer Confidence and Digital Assets Under Watch

Market observers awaited Friday’s release of the University of Michigan’s consumer confidence assessment. The May headline figure collapsed to an unprecedented low of 44.8, underscoring persistent economic anxieties among American households.

Bitcoin continued trading within established boundaries following modest gains earlier in the week.

Gold advanced more than 2.5% amid optimism surrounding the potential US-Iran diplomatic resolution, though the precious metal tracked toward a weekly decline.

Additional aerospace-focused equities captured investor attention. Rocket Lab alongside four companion firms were slated for Nasdaq 100 inclusion, providing additional momentum to the sector coinciding with SpaceX’s market entrance.

The convergence of the SpaceX public offering, retreating energy prices, and geopolitical developments provided markets with numerous significant catalysts to process entering the weekend period.

The post SpaceX (SPCX) IPO Debuts as Oil Tumbles on US-Iran Peace Talks Progress appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• A trio of high-profile tech companies—SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic—may raise approximately $200 billion through public offerings, positioning 2026 as a banner year for IPOs
• SpaceX alone could command an $80 billion capital raise at an estimated $1.75 trillion market cap
• Debut trading will feature minimal shares available (~4–5% free float), tempering immediate market disruption
• Capital Economics projects that if tradable shares expand to 25%, roughly $750 billion in new equity could enter circulation
• Past market cycles show that spikes in share issuance typically emerge during the final chapters of bull runs

A trio of the planet’s most highly valued private enterprises is gearing up for public debuts. SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic are positioned to collectively draw approximately $200 billion from investors through initial public offerings, potentially establishing 2026 as a historic milestone for U.S. capital markets.

SpaceX stands at the forefront with an anticipated capital raise of roughly $80 billion, supported by a valuation hovering near $1.75 trillion. Such figures would immediately position Elon Musk’s aerospace venture among the globe’s most valuable publicly traded enterprises.

Anthropic and OpenAI are slated to make their market debuts in subsequent months. Both artificial intelligence pioneers sit at the epicenter of unprecedented investor enthusiasm surrounding generative AI technology.

Market Implications of the Public Offerings

The near-term effects on broader equity markets appear contained. Initial public floats will represent merely 4–5% of total outstanding shares, constraining their influence on benchmark indices such as the MSCI World.

Yet this dynamic may shift dramatically. As lock-up agreements expire and early stakeholders gain selling rights, the landscape changes. Capital Economics calculates that expanding free floats to 25% would introduce approximately $750 billion in additional tradable equity.

This represents substantial volume. Passive investment vehicles tracking global benchmarks would face mandatory reallocation, redirecting capital toward these newcomers while potentially reducing positions in established mega-cap companies.

Alphabet has separately disclosed intentions to secure $80 billion through equity offerings. Market speculation suggests Meta may pursue similar financing. Both technology behemoths are exploring share sales as alternatives to debt financing for massive AI infrastructure investments.

Does History Suggest Caution?

Capital Economics highlighted a concerning pattern: dramatic increases in equity issuance have consistently appeared during the twilight phases of prolonged bull markets. Their research indicates that gross issuance volumes crested near market peaks across the previous three major rallies.

Net equity issuance from U.S. non-financial corporations registered positive territory in Q1 2026 for the first time since mid-2021. According to Capital Economics, historical precedent indicates that accelerating share issuance typically precedes the conclusion of equity booms within months rather than years.

Nevertheless, not every market observer interprets these IPOs as ominous signals. Some analysts emphasize that contemporary AI enterprises are generating substantial revenue streams, contrasting sharply with numerous unprofitable firms that debuted during the late-1990s internet bubble.

Today’s primary concern centers less on absent business models and more on whether growth projections have become disconnected from reality.

SpaceX’s lofty valuation provides minimal margin for disappointment. Any shortfall against financial forecasts could provoke significant price volatility.

Capital Economics refrained from declaring these public offerings an unequivocal market zenith. However, the firm views them as a critical examination of the equity market’s capacity to absorb unprecedented supply.

The post Massive IPO Wave: SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic Could Signal Stock Market Peak appeared first on Blockonomi.

The team behind Pi Network continues to improve its ecosystem, with the transition to protocol v24 being one of the latest milestones, while the upgrade to v25 is expected later in June.

While the advancements have failed to spark a price revival for PI, key factors suggest that such a move could be approaching.

Are Bears Losing Control?

PI began trading in February last year, and its launch was met with huge investor enthusiasm. At one point, its valuation skyrocketed to roughly $3, but that peak was short-lived. Over the past several months, the price has been in free fall, currently trading around $0.12, close to the all-time low and representing a staggering 96% decline from the high.

The bearish market conditions persist, but three important elements suggest PI could be on the verge of a rebound. The first one is the asset’s Relative Strength Index (RSI), which has fallen to extreme oversold territory of around 2.6 out of 100 (on a monthly scale).

This means the valuation has dropped too aggressively over a short period, which has historically been a precursor to a revival. Conversely, ratios above 70 signal a warning about an upcoming correction.

We move on to the shrinking amount of tokens stored on exchanges. The total figure recently spiked to an all-time high of over 550 million, yet in the previous days it plunged to the current 545 million. This is seen as a bullish sign, as it reduces immediate selling pressure.

Last but not least, we should monitor the upcoming token unlocks. Today (June 12) marks the peak unlock day, with nearly 15 million coins set to be released. Over the following four weeks, however, the pace will cool significantly. The average daily unlock has fallen to 4.8 million, which could help create a more stable environment for potential price recovery.

Same Rumor, Different Day

The PI community has long been convinced that a listing on the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange would act as a powerful catalyst for a major price increase. Last year, Binance seemed close to doing so after asking its users whether they wanted to see the coin available on the platform. Despite the vast majority voting in favor of the initiative, the company has yet to honor their wish.

Now, some X users speculate that such a backing could be announced on June 28 – a symbolic day for the Pioneers, known as Pi2Day. Other developments that may take place on that date include ecosystem growth initiatives and the introduction of new products. It is important to note that the team may not announce anything, so it is wise to manage expectations.

The post 3 Bullish Signals Suggest Pi Network’s (PI) Worst Days May Be Over appeared first on CryptoPotato.

SpaceX’s IPO on Thursday broke Saudi Aramco’s record by becoming the largest in history as the company raised $75 billion. Shares were expected to start trading today at $135, but they actually opened at $150 under the SPCX ticker.

More volatility ensued in the initial trading minutes, with the newly listed asset going toward $170, where it was stopped, and now sits below $160.

Nevertheless, SpaceX quickly entered the top 10 global assets by market capitalization of over $2 trillion. It sits at the 9th spot as of press time, above Broadcom’s $1.8 trillion and below TSMC’s $2.2 trillion.

The company’s public listing and official valuation into the trillions of dollars has skyrocketed Elon Musk’s paper fortune, as the Tesla CEO has also become the world’s first trillionaire.

BREAKING: Elon Musk officially becomes the world’s first trillionaire as SpaceX, $SPCX, stock begins trading. pic.twitter.com/oSmBxDYuIz

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) June 12, 2026

The spaceflight, telecommunications, and AI company, founded in 2002, sold 556 million shares yesterday at an initial price of $135 per share. Individual investors were able to request shares from five brokerages: Charles Schwab, Fidelity, SoFi, Morgan Stanley’s E*Trade, and Robinhood.

“All eligible clients who completed the affirmation process received at least a portion of their requested order,” a Charles Schwab spokesperson said to CNN.

The post Elon Musk Hits Trillionaire Status as SpaceX (SPCX) Debuts on Wall Street appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The previous business week ended with one of the worst price crashes in bitcoin’s recent history as the asset plummeted to under $60,000 for the first time since late 2024.

This was the culmination of a week-long intensifying selling pressure, which began with BTC trading at over $73,000 but saw the asset lose numerous key support levels in the process. Nevertheless, the bulls finally intervened after this substantial crash and helped bitcoin reclaim the $60,000 level.

The cryptocurrency jumped to $62,000 and even $63,000 on Sunday, before it spiked to $64,000 amid renewed hopes for a permanent peace deal between the US and Iran. However, instead of a deal, the tension skyrocketed when Israel attacked Lebanon, and Iran retaliated. Moreover, US President Donald Trump said Iran had taken down a US helicopter.

Although the situation remained on edge, the POTUS canceled the scheduled retaliation attacks by the US yesterday, which had an immediate effect on crypto markets, with BTC jumping by about $1,500 in minutes. Moreover, he suggested that a peace deal could be announced very soon.

However, the landscape changed again earlier today when Trump said the terms of the war-ending deal circulating in Iranian state media have “NOTHING to do with the terms that were agreed to, in writing.” He also alleged that Iranian officials are “very dishonorable people to deal with.”

The other notable development in the past week was SpaceX’s IPO, which was severely oversubscribed yesterday and broke the record as the largest ever. As of press time, SPCX shares have yet to start trading on Wall Street, but the expected price at opening is $135.

All of the above has impacted BTC to some extent, with the asset now trading at $64,000, or $5,000 higher than its multi-year low from last Friday. Meanwhile, many alts have produced more profound moves, including a 30% surge from ZEC and a 19% pump from XMR.

Market Data

Market Cap: $2.28T | 24H Vol: $80B | BTC Dominance: 56.4%

BTC: $63,900 (+5.8%) | ETH: $1,686 (+6.4%) | XRP: $1.15 (+4.6%)

This Week’s Crypto Headlines You Can’t Miss

‘I Never Said the Company Wouldn’t Sell’: Michael Saylor Fires Back After Bitcoin Drop. After the recent backlash against Strategy for selling a tiny portion of its BTC fortune, the company’s founder, Michael Saylor, clarified that he never said the firm won’t sell if it’s necessary. Moreover, Strategy resumed its bitcoin accumulation, buying 1,550 BTC for $100 million.

Is Bitcoin (BTC) Cheap Now? Grayscale Flags Major Buying Opportunity. Analysts at Grayscale noted earlier this week that bitcoin has become undervalued based on multiple on-chain metrics. Although the current conditions are not as extreme as those at previous bear market bottoms, buying opportunities now seem to dominate.

3 Key Metrics Show Bitcoin Miners Are Under Mounting Pressure. The asset’s price decline continues to harm the backbone of the network. The pressure on bitcoin miners has skyrocketed lately, but it has still not reached the collapse-level extremes seen during the bear markets in 2018 and 2022.

Hungary Plans to Decriminalize Cryptocurrency Trading After Orban’s Departure (Report). In another move to distance itself from the Orban administration, Hungary’s new government said it plans to decriminalize numerous cryptocurrency trading options. Recall that the former government imposed very strict rules last year, some of which carried prison sentences.

Japan to Regulate Crypto Like Stocks, Could Pave Way for ETFs. Japan’s parliament is expected to pass legislation to bring cryptocurrency under the same regulatory framework as stocks. Although assets like BTC and ETH will face stricter trading rules, the new law could potentially lower the tax burden for investors.

Tim Draper Explains Why Bitcoin Is Safer Than Banks in the Quantum Era. Quantum computing has caused tons of discussions over the past several months about its potential threats against BTC and other digital assets. However, Tim Draper believes that banks are actually more vulnerable and BTC could prevail.

Charts

This week, we have a chart analysis of Ethereum, Ripple, Cardano, Binance Coin, and Hyperliquid – click here for the complete price analysis.

The post Bitcoin Recovery Begins, SpaceX IPO Breaks Records, US-Iran Peace Deal Fragile: Weekly Recap appeared first on CryptoPotato.

There has been growing pessimism among those who trade in XRP, as the token has hit its lowest sentiment since October 2025, as reported on June 12 by Santiment.

The decline in sentiment has occurred amid difficult conditions for the asset despite years of expectation around Ripple-related developments. But Santiment says that this kind of pessimism has historically lined up with some of XRP’s strongest rebounds.

XRP Sentiment Sinks as Social Interest Fades

The blockchain analytics firm’s weighted sentiment metric, which blends social volume with the ratio of positive to negative commentary, has XRP sitting at levels not seen in 8 months.

While part of the decline is just price weakness dragging down the crowd’s feeling with it, Santiment also pointed to something else: that traders had gotten tired of waiting for a catalyst to significantly push up XRP’s price, despite Ripple’s legal situation clearing up.

In addition, there’s a feeling that all the talk about institutional adoption hasn’t quite translated into gains for holders of the world’s sixth-largest cryptocurrency, and that is wearing people down.

But there’s a silver lining to the situation:

“Some of XRP’s strongest rebounds have occurred when the crowd became the most disinterested,” Santiment wrote.

According to them, the drop in discussion volume combined with the huge amount of negative commentary around the Ripple token is a sign that many holders might have either moved on or lowered their expectations for the asset.

And that fading enthusiasm on social media is coming at a time when there’s lots of development activity around the XRP ecosystem, with use of the XRP Ledger growing, tokenization initiatives coming up, and more institutional products being launched.

Meanwhile, based on CoinGecko figures at the time of writing, XRP had risen by about 2% to $1.15 within a period of 24 hours.

Nevertheless, the cryptocurrency remained 22% lower than where it was in the previous month and almost 69% away from its all-time high of $3.65 recorded in July 2025.

But some analysts think the worst could be over, with Ali Martinez recently flagging a Tom DeMark Sequential buy signal, even though he’s previously said a drop to $0.90 would be an even better entry.

The Bigger Picture for XRP

There’s also some on-chain activity worth noting. For example, earlier today, CryptoQuant said that between June 3 and June 11, around 465 million XRP were withdrawn from Binance, all in transactions larger than 1 million tokens.

Such movements could decrease the total supply of XRP available on the exchange, which might reduce selling pressure if the trend keeps up.

At the same time, data shared by Arab Chain shows that XRP whale inflows on the same exchange increased to about 1.33 billion over the last 30 days, the highest level in two months.

That kind of number does not automatically signal that the megaholders are looking to sell, but it indicates that the segment is becoming increasingly active as they respond to prevailing market conditions.

On the macro side, Trump’s recent announcement that he’d called off planned strikes on Iran sent a wave of optimism through stocks, gold, and silver, but according to Santiment, crypto’s reaction, including that of XRP, has so far been muted.

The post Nobody Likes XRP Right Now, and That May Be Bullish: Santiment appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Ethereum remains under significant pressure across higher and lower timeframes after losing several major technical levels in quick succession. While the recent rebound from the local bottom around $1.5K has provided some short-term relief, the broader structure still favors sellers unless ETH can reclaim a series of key resistance zones overhead.

Moreover, the rising put/call ratio suggests increasing caution and demand for downside hedging among options participants, rather than growing bullish exposure.

Ethereum Price Analysis: The Daily Chart

The daily chart shows a decisive breakdown from a multi-month bearish flag that had been developing since February. After repeatedly finding support along the rising lower trendline, ETH eventually lost the structure and accelerated lower in a clean, measured move.

The sell-off began when the price was rejected from the long-term descending trendline near the $2.4k level, which also pushed the asset below the 100-day moving average. The 100-day moving average, currently around $2.1K, has now flipped into resistance. Meanwhile, the 200-day moving average remains significantly higher near $2.4K. This indicates the overall strength of the broader downtrend.

Following the breakdown, ETH sliced through the major support zone at roughly $1.8K. This area previously acted as a strong demand region and is now likely to serve as resistance against any recovery attempt. A bearish Fair Value Gap (FVG) was also formed at approximately the $1.9k area, which creates another supply zone where sellers may re-enter the market in case of a retest.

The recent decline eventually found demand around the $1.5K support region, which triggered a relief bounce. However, despite recovering from the lows, ETH remains trapped beneath the former support area and has yet to invalidate the bearish breakdown.

As long as the price remains below the $1.8K-$1.9K resistance cluster, the broader outlook remains cautious. While the RSI has also rebounded from oversold conditions, it still remains below bullish territory. It indicates that momentum has improved but has not yet shifted decisively in favor of buyers.

ETH/USDT 4-Hour Chart

On the 4-hour timeframe, ETH experienced a sharp impulsive decline from the $2K region before finding support at the $1.5K demand zone. The bounce that followed appears corrective rather than impulsive, indicating that buyers have not yet regained control of the trend.

The market is currently trading around $1.68K while remaining below the 0.5 Fibonacci retracement level at approximately $1.76K. Above that, a dense resistance cluster exists between the 0.618 and 0.786 retracement levels, stretching from roughly $1.8K to $1.9K.

This Fibonacci zone aligns closely with a key bearish order block formed during the recent sell-off, making it a critical battleground. Any recovery into this range could attract renewed selling pressure from market participants looking to exit losing positions.

On the downside, the $1.5K support area remains the most important level. Losing this area would likely increase the probability of another leg lower and confirm that the recent rebound was merely a temporary pause within the broader downtrend.

Sentiment Analysis

The derivatives chart highlights recent week’s ETH options activity on Deribit through the Put/Call volume ratio. Earlier in the week, the ratio declined below 1, which indicated that call volume was beginning to outpace put volume. This is a classic sign of improving trader sentiment.

More recently, however, the ratio has surged sharply toward 1.7 while overall daily volume remains relatively subdued. This suggests a significant increase in put activity relative to calls. Therefore, there is growing demand for downside protection despite ETH’s short-term rebound.

The divergence between recovering price action and rising put demand shows that options traders remain cautious about the sustainability of the current bounce. In other words, while spot buyers have stepped in around $1.5K, derivatives participants are still hedging against the possibility of another downside move.

For sentiment to improve meaningfully, ETH would likely need to reclaim the $1.8K-$2K resistance region while the put/call ratio begins trending lower again. Until then, the options market suggests that traders remain defensive despite the recent recovery attempt.

The post Ethereum Price Analysis: ETH’s Next Rally Attempt Hinges on This Key Level appeared first on CryptoPotato.