Morgan Stanley's move could accelerate crypto's integration into traditional finance, enhancing portfolio diversification for wealthy clients.

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SpaceX's IPO could reshape global markets, influencing tech investments and potentially elevating Musk's ventures to unprecedented heights.

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SpaceX's IPO success could boost investor confidence in the aerospace sector, potentially influencing future market dynamics and valuations.

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Ethereum's potential liquidations could intensify DeFi market volatility, impacting investor confidence and prompting regulatory scrutiny.

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Iran's stance heightens regional tensions, complicating peace prospects and impacting global trade routes, with uncertain ceasefire outcomes.

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Bitcoin Magazine

The Hyperinflation of 1971 at the Kindergarten

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

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

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

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

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

What does this have to do with Bitcoin?

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

The rules of Bitcoin simply cannot be changed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Order your copy here!

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

Bitcoin Magazine

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

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

Let’s cut to the chase:

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

The Crosby Ratio

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

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

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

The RSI

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

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

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

The 200-Week Moving Average

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

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

View Live Chart

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

SOPR & The Mayer Multiple

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

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

View Live Chart

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

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

To Sum It Up

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

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

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

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

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

Bitcoin Magazine

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pompliano: Rotation from bitcoin is natural, not structural

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bitcoin as a ‘Savings Technology’

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

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

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

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

Bitcoin Magazine

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bitcoin price and market in ‘Extreme Fear’

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

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

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

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

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

Bitcoin Magazine

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bitcoin is backed by energy 

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

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

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

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

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

Bitcoin fell after the May US labor report gave markets a reason to delay the next Federal Reserve easing trade, turning a stronger jobs number into a tighter-liquidity problem for crypto.

The May Employment Situation report said nonfarm payroll employment rose by 172,000 in May, while the unemployment rate held at 4.3%.

TradingEconomics release-screen data put the gain well above an 85,000 consensus estimate. That gap was large enough to push the first market interpretation toward higher Treasury yields, a stronger dollar, and pressure on assets that benefit from cheaper money.

That is why Bitcoin reacted less like an inflation hedge and more like a high-duration risk asset. CryptoSlate showed BTC trading near $60,000 on June 5, down 5% over 24 hours and 17% over seven days.

The labor print added another macro shock to a market that was already fragile after its slide from the low-$60,000 range.

The key issue for Bitcoin is that the labor market looked firm enough to reduce the urgency for rate cuts, while the internal details were soft enough to keep traders debating whether the first hawkish move should last.

Related Reading

Bitcoin faces first jobs-week test as US job openings data arrives before Friday payrolls

Bitcoin is facing another macro test as the jobs market threatens to scramble rate expectations again.

Jun 2, 2026 · Andjela Radmilac

The jobs beat carried a catch

The headline number did the initial damage. A 172,000 payroll gain against an 85,000 consensus is the kind of surprise that usually lifts front-end yields because it weakens the argument that the Fed needs to move quickly to protect employment.

The unemployment rate staying at 4.3% added to that first reaction by removing the risk of an obvious labor-market downside shock.

For Bitcoin, the path from jobs data to price pressure is direct. Stronger labor data can keep policy rates higher for longer, which supports the dollar and raises the hurdle for speculative assets that do not produce yield.

When that happens, traders often reduce exposure first in assets most sensitive to liquidity, including long-duration technology shares and crypto.

But the composition made the report more complicated than the headline. According to the TradingEconomics calendar data, government payrolls rose by 52,000, while private payrolls were 120,000.

Private hiring remained positive and beat consensus, but it slowed sharply from the prior pace shown on the release screen.

The split changes the market interpretation because government hiring is less informative about cyclical corporate demand than private-sector payroll growth. A government-heavy payroll beat can still move yields, especially in the first minutes after release.

Discretionary traders may give it less weight than a broad private-sector acceleration.

Wage data also kept the print from looking like a clean overheating shock. Average hourly earnings rose 0.3% month over month, matching expectations, while yearly wage growth slowed to 3.4% from the prior month in the TradingEconomics screen.

That leaves the Fed without an easy case for cuts, while falling short of a wage surprise that would force a more aggressive bond selloff by itself.

Participation was steady, average weekly hours were unchanged, and the broader U-6 unemployment rate improved. Taken together, the data pointed to a labor market that is still resilient, while stopping short of a broad acceleration signal.

That is the tension markets had to price. The headline says the economy can handle tighter policy for longer. The details say private-sector momentum is cooling, yearly wage growth eased, and the payroll beat leaned heavily on public-sector hiring.

Related Reading

US Treasury yields spike to highest levels in a year adding new problem for Bitcoin liquidity

Bitcoin’s next move now runs through Treasury yields, oil pressure, and Fed liquidity as markets test whether risk demand can hold near resistance.

Apr 30, 2026 · Liam 'Akiba' Wright

Why Bitcoin felt it first

Bitcoin has spent much of 2026 trading as a macro-sensitive liquidity asset. CryptoSlate noted earlier in the week that jobs data had become a direct test for BTC.

Cooling employment can soften the dollar and pull capital back toward risk, while strong labor data keeps the case for elevated rates intact.

Friday's report pushed the market toward the second outcome. Chart context showed US yields and the dollar rising after the release, while Bitcoin, gold, and equities came under pressure.

That combination points to a higher-for-longer reaction instead of a recession scare.

That distinction is central to the Bitcoin reaction. A recessionary jobs report would usually push yields lower, weigh on the dollar, and potentially give gold and duration-sensitive assets a bid as traders price faster easing.

Friday's setup was the opposite. The jobs market looked strong enough to delay the relief trade, so the dollar tightened financial conditions and Bitcoin took the hit.

The move also landed on a market already testing support. CryptoSlate's prior coverage of Bitcoin's $63,000 slide framed BTC as caught between ETF demand, AI equity appetite, and the need to reclaim the $66,900 to $70,000 area.

A hawkish payroll surprise makes that repair harder because it increases competition for capital and reduces the near-term case for easier financial conditions.

Related Reading

Bitcoin’s $63k slide shows ETF demand fighting AI equities for dollar liquidity

Bitcoin’s break from the S&P 500 now hinges on ETF flows, AI equity demand, and whether the $66,900-$70,000 shelf can be reclaimed.

Jun 4, 2026 · Liam 'Akiba' Wright

The report created two paths, with the first reaction following the most obvious transmission channel. Higher yields make cash and bonds more attractive at the margin. A stronger dollar tightens global liquidity.

Together, they make it harder for Bitcoin to trade as a scarce-asset story in the short run, even if that long-term narrative remains intact.

Brent's relative resilience in the chart context also helps explain the macro message. Oil holding up while Bitcoin and gold sold off suggests traders were treating the report as growth that is firm enough to keep the Fed patient.

The second-round test

The next test is whether markets keep trading the 172,000 headline payroll beat or shift toward the softer private-sector and wage details.

If the two-year Treasury yield and DXY hold their post-release gains, Bitcoin remains under pressure from the same channel that hit it immediately after the report: fewer near-term rate-cut expectations, tighter dollar liquidity, and weaker appetite for high-beta risk.

In that scenario, the market is accepting the hawkish interpretation and BTC's ability to reclaim its first breakdown area becomes the key signal.

If yields fade and the dollar gives back the spike, the market is likely moving to the second interpretation. That would mean traders are discounting the government-heavy portion of the payroll gain, giving more weight to the slowdown in private hiring, and treating cooling yearly wage growth as a limit on the hawkish repricing.

Both outcomes keep the signal mixed rather than cleanly bullish or bearish. The employment data reduced the urgency for Fed cuts, which is negative for Bitcoin's liquidity setup.

The internal details also stopped short of a broad overheating message, which is why the follow-through depends on whether rates and the dollar keep confirming the first move.

For now, the labor report gave Bitcoin holders an uncomfortable answer: the economy may still be strong enough to keep the Fed patient, yet soft enough under the surface to keep doubts about private-sector momentum alive.

That leaves BTC trading the same question as the rest of risk: whether markets care more about the headline beat or the softer parts underneath it.

The post Bitcoin price craters to $60,000 as BTC bulls get jobs report they were hoping to avoid appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The exploit that nearly broke Zcash originated inside the zero-knowledge proof circuit that powers Orchard, Zcash's newest shielded pool, and the cryptographic core of its private transaction system.

Taylor Hornby, a security researcher at Shielded Labs, found it on May 29 during a targeted protocol security review.

Within hours, ZODL engineers confirmed the flaw, and Zcash executed an emergency soft fork, then a full consensus hard fork, to close it.

According to Shielded Labs, Hornby used Anthropic's Opus 4.8, released the day before on May 28, alongside a custom AI harness and prompts, to produce a complete local exploit in a regtest environment.

If applied to mainnet, the exploit could have generated unlimited counterfeit ZEC within Orchard without detection.

Zcash's official position is that there is no evidence of mainnet exploitation, no unauthorized value creation has been detected, and the 21 million ZEC supply cap stays intact, protected by the turnstile mechanism that tracks value moving between pools.

Shielded Labs holds a harder line, warning that Orchard's privacy properties make it cryptographically difficult to prove the supply was never tampered with, and proposing a further upgrade to route coins through turnstile accounting so anyone can verify integrity directly.

ZEC traded as high as $611 intraday before the disclosure and fell sharply, settling around $421 as the market priced the difference between “patched” and “proven clean.”

The broader frame is that AI-assisted exploits are moving from targeting DeFi protocols to directly affecting the money layer.

The bug that required a consensus upgrade

Orchard's proof circuit contained a soundness bug: a proof system accepted something it should have rejected, and fixing it required updating the pinned verifying key embedded in the circuit.

The update process constitutes a consensus-level change and demands coordinated network agreement between miners, exchanges, wallet providers, and infrastructure operators, all moving together on a compressed timeline.

The emergency soft fork was activated at 02:00 UTC on June 2 at block 3,363,426, temporarily disabling Orchard actions.

The NU6.2 hard fork followed on June 3 at 00:05 EDT at block 3,364,600, replacing the circuit and restoring full Orchard functionality. Zcash coordinated the response in secret and under market stress while the chain kept running, and the remediation timeline from discovery to hard-fork activation was less than 5 days.

AI at the money layer

Opus 4.8 launched with improved coding and reasoning benchmarks, and Shielded Labs says Hornby used it alongside a custom AI harness to conduct a targeted review of the Orchard circuit, producing a working local exploit that would have functioned on mainnet.

Zcash has not independently verified the specific role of AI in the research process, but the claim fits a pattern that extends well beyond Zcash.

In February 2026, Octane disclosed that its AI found a high-severity bug in Nethermind, an Ethereum execution client, that could have caused local block production to stop for roughly 38% of Ethereum validators. The vulnerability was patched before it was exploited and was rooted in client infrastructure.

A January 2026 arXiv paper on AI-agent exploit generation found a 63% success rate on a smart contract benchmark, app-layer research demonstrating the same compression of the vulnerability discovery loop that Orchard and Nethermind now show one level deeper.

TRM Labs' 2026 Crypto Crime Report counted $2.87 billion stolen across nearly 150 hacks in 2025, with adversaries concentrating attacks on keys, wallets, and control planes. These are the operational and cryptographic infrastructure beneath the contract code, where the Zcash and Nethermind disclosures sit.

The prove-the-negative problem

Public blockchains make money auditable by design, with every transaction visible, every balance derivable from the chain state.

Privacy coins invert that guarantee, and Zcash's entire value proposition is that Orchard balances and transaction amounts stay hidden from outside observers.

That inversion creates a tension when a soundness bug appears in the proof circuit, since the same privacy that protects users also makes it impossible to scan Orchard's history for evidence of counterfeit value.

Zcash Foundation's answer is the turnstile mechanism, which tracks aggregate value flows entering and leaving each shielded pool without revealing individual transactions.

Turnstile analysis found no evidence of unauthorized value creation in the window before remediation. Shielded Labs' proposed next upgrade would route existing Orchard coins back through turnstile accounting, creating an on-chain record that anyone could verify, converting a probabilistic assurance into a cryptographic one.

Until that upgrade completes, the window between “no detected exploitation” and “provably clean supply” persists.

If AI-assisted security reviews become standard practice for base-layer infrastructure, including proof circuits, consensus clients, validator logic, and supply-accounting mechanisms, the Zcash incident serves as a proof-of-process.

AI found a deep flaw, coordinated disclosure contained it, and a proposed follow-on upgrade closes the epistemic gap.

Octane's Nethermind disclosure follows the same template, and the chains that build coordinated response capacity around AI-assisted audits absorb these findings before adversaries can reach them.

Hacken's report for the first quarter logged $482.6 million in stolen funds across 44 incidents, with wallet compromises overtaking code bugs in value in major DeFi incidents.

AI-assisted adversaries operate without disclosure obligations, and that same infrastructure layer is where attacks are already concentrating. A researcher with Hornby's toolkit and malicious intent who finds a comparable flaw before the defenders do faces a target whose privacy properties prevent post hoc detection.

ZEC's sharp intraday move after disclosure reflects that the market has already priced in a patched bug in a privacy coin's proof circuit, leaving a residual confidence discount that no press release can fully close, because the assurance the system needs to provide is the hardest for a privacy system to give.

Consensus clients, proof circuits, and supply rules are the layer AI-assisted research reached in 2026, and every major chain's security posture now needs to account for a threat model that did not exist when those systems were designed.

The post AI-assisted Zcash flaw exposes the supply integrity gap an emergency fork could not fully close appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Apyx's apxUSD fell below its dollar reference on June 4 as Bitcoin traded near $63,000, putting DeFi dollar peg risk back in focus.

A Bitget report said the token briefly touched $0.93 during the selloff. The report framed Apyx's response as a design point: apxUSD's reserve risk is largely borne by Strategy's STRC preferred stock, with cash serving as part of a broader buffer.

Data at the time showed an even wider 24-hour range, from $0.9094 to $0.9984, with apxUSD trading around $0.9176 and volume rising to roughly $74.6 million.

The mechanics put apxUSD in a different category than a normal stablecoin peg scare. Bitcoin was down 5.77% over 24 hours, and the pressure showing up in apxUSD also reflected a public-market preferred share becoming part of DeFi's dollar collateral stack.

A dollar token built on preferred equity

Apyx describes apxUSD as a synthetic dollar backed by a basket of preferred shares issued by Digital Asset Treasury companies.

The same documentation says apxUSD is intended for use as collateral and as a quote asset across DeFi and CeFi, while the yield generated by the collateral stack is routed to apyUSD, the protocol's savings asset.

The key collateral link is STRC, Strategy's Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock. Apyx's peg stability model says apxUSD currently primarily uses STRC as its core collateral asset.

STRC is structured around a $100 stated amount, but the price-stability tool is economic. It is built around Strategy's ability to adjust dividends and encourage trading near the reference value.

A dollar token built on preferred-share collateral can look strange through a USDC lens and more coherent through a credit lens.

Apyx says apxUSD adds overcollateralization, a cash and Treasury buffer, cross-market arbitrage, and possible hedging strategies. The protocol also says in its own risk section that apxUSD may trade above or below a $1 reference value.

That disclosure turns the June 4 move into a cleaner market-structure event. The sharper question is whether DeFi users are pricing a dollar-like asset correctly when its collateral can behave like public preferred equity under stress.

Circle's reserve model for USDC is built around a different promise. Circle says USDC is redeemable 1:1 for dollars and backed by highly liquid cash and cash-equivalent assets.

Most USDC reserves are held in the Circle Reserve Fund, which can contain cash, short-dated US Treasuries, and overnight Treasury repurchase agreements.

apxUSD's design points somewhere else. Apyx's collateral allocation page states that backing can be dynamically allocated across DAT preferred shares, with cash and short-term Treasuries serving as a liquidity buffer.

Kraken's listing note for apxUSD also describes the asset as backed by variable-rate DAT preferred shares. It says minting and redemption are restricted to authorized institutional participants, with redemptions settled in USDC while the underlying preferred equity remains outside the redemption flow.

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That access model becomes important during volatility. An authorized participant may have a primary pathway through the protocol. A normal holder generally faces the market in front of them, whether that means a DEX pool, a centralized exchange order book, or another DeFi route.

Apyx's FAQ also flags liquidity risk directly, noting that users who acquire apxUSD via DEX swaps may experience slippage when liquidity is low. It also says apyUSD exits follow an asynchronous model with an approximately 30-day cooldown.

The result is a stablecoin-like instrument whose dollar behavior depends on more than the issuer's stated reference price. It depends on STRC's market price, apxUSD/USDC liquidity depth, whitelisted arbitrage, the reserve buffer, and whether DeFi users are trying to exit the same route at the same time.

Strategy's preferred stack is now DeFi collateral risk

STRC is more than a ticker in the background. Strategy's own STRC page describes it as perpetual preferred stock paying an annual dividend rate of 11.50% in cash, with the rate adjusted monthly to encourage trading around the $100 par value.

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The same page also warns that returns, liquidity, future performance, and cash dividends are not guaranteed. It says the preferred securities lack collateral claims on Strategy's Bitcoin holdings.

Strategy's latest filing added another layer to the market's read on that structure. In a June 1 Form 8-K, the company disclosed that it sold 32 BTC between May 26 and May 31 for about $2.5 million, with proceeds expected to fund distributions on preferred stock.

The filing also said Strategy held 843,706 BTC as of May 31 and maintained the STRC dividend rate at 11.50% for monthly periods beginning June 1.

That filing is channel context for a market now connecting Strategy's preferred dividends, Bitcoin treasury liquidity, STRC's par-seeking design, and DeFi collateral products.

CryptoSlate has already covered how Strategy's preferred stack has become part of its broader funding machine, including the risk around selling BTC to fund preferred payouts and why STRC has become a key funding gauge.

apxUSD extends that issue into DeFi. The preferred share has moved beyond a capital-markets instrument held in brokerage accounts. It is also part of an onchain dollar product that traders may use as liquidity, collateral, and yield infrastructure.

The June 4 move exposed that bridge. DAT preferred shares are being marketed as lower-volatility, income-paying instruments tied to companies that hold crypto, and Apyx is turning that public-market yield into programmable stablecoin infrastructure.

DeFi can capture headline yield, but it can also capture credit, liquidity, confidence, and exit-route risk.

The DeFi footprint is already large enough to matter

The apxUSD selloff reached a token with meaningful market plumbing. DefiLlama's RWA dashboard showed active apxUSD DeFi exposure concentrated in Pendle and Curve, with Pendle at $118.22 million and 64.62% of listed active TVL, and Curve at $44.63 million and 24.39% of listed active TVL.

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Morpho Blue was much smaller at about $751,647, yet its presence is relevant because lending markets can turn price moves into collateral questions.

CoinGecko also showed the Curve apxUSD/USDC pair as the most active market, with about $48.5 million of 24-hour volume. That is the venue-level reality behind the phrase “stable collateral.”

If a token is used as a quote asset, a liquidity-pool asset, or a yield-trading input, a move toward 93 cents reaches beyond the chart. It changes slippage, pool balances, fixed-yield assumptions, and the risk calculation for anyone treating the token like cash.

The point travels beyond apxUSD. DAT preferred shares are being marketed as lower-volatility, income-paying instruments tied to companies that hold crypto. Apyx is turning that public-market yield into programmable stablecoin infrastructure.

The June 4 move showed that the bridge cuts both ways: DeFi can import the yield, but it can also import the credit, liquidity, and confidence risk.

The next test is straightforward. If STRC returns toward par, apxUSD liquidity holds, and the token moves back toward its reference value, the episode will look like a live stress test of a design that Apyx already said allows price variability.

If STRC stays discounted, the reserve dashboard shows less cushion than users assumed, or DeFi venues report liquidations or emergency parameter changes, the market may start treating apxUSD less like a standard stablecoin and more like a credit-linked collateral token.

The key signals are now visible: STRC's price versus par, Apyx's current reserve mix, apxUSD/USDC liquidity depth, Pendle and Curve exposure, Morpho collateral behavior, and Strategy's next dividend-rate decision.

Putting Wall Street preferred equity into DeFi leaves it with a market price. That market price is now part of the collateral risk.

The post A stablecoin tied to Strategy stock depegs putting a new DeFi dollar risk in focus as Bitcoin sells off appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Zcash lost more than $5 billion in market value after its developers, using Anthropic's Claude AI, discovered a long-running flaw in one of its privacy systems that could have enabled counterfeit tokens to be created without easy detection.

In response to this disclosure, data from CryptoSlate showed that ZEC fell more than 50% to as low as $255 before recovering to about $321 as of press time. This represents a sharp reversal for an asset that had climbed more than 1,000% over the past year as traders revived a broader bet on financial privacy.

The price decline caused the privacy-focused token’s market capitalization to fall from about $ 10 billion to roughly $ 4.5 billion during the reporting period. It has climbed to $5.3 billion as of press time.

Still, Zcash developers maintain that the vulnerability was found before attackers could use it, patched within days, and resolved through an emergency network upgrade.

However, the disclosure struck at a more difficult question for Zcash investors: how much assurance markets require when the affected system is built to conceal transaction amounts and wallet histories by design.

A private-money rally breaks on a public disclosure

Zcash was launched in 2016 as one of the earliest attempts to build private digital money. Unlike Bitcoin, whose ledger allows anyone to trace balances and transactions,

Zcash lets users move funds through shielded addresses that obscure amounts, senders, and recipients. This design has given the token renewed relevance as governments, exchanges, and analytics firms have expanded their ability to monitor public blockchains.

Data from Zechub shows that roughly 30% of circulating ZEC, equivalent to more than 5 million coins, now sits in shielded addresses.

The recent rally reflected that shift. Traders had treated ZEC as one of the clearest vehicles for a privacy trade, helped by rising anxiety over surveillance, artificial intelligence, and state access to financial data.

However, that momentum abruptly reversed after Shielded Labs published a detailed disclosure about a vulnerability in Orchard, Zcash’s most advanced shielded pool.

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Shielded Labs said the flaw was discovered May 29 by Taylor Hornby, a security engineer it engaged in April to search for protocol vulnerabilities before malicious actors could find them.

Hornby used Anthropic’s Opus 4.8 artificial intelligence model while conducting a targeted review of Orchard’s cryptographic circuit.

The review found a bug that could have allowed an attacker to create counterfeit ZEC inside Orchard without detection. Shielded Labs said Hornby wrote a complete exploit and tested it in a local environment, where it generated unlimited counterfeit ZEC that appeared valid.

Hornby immediately disclosed the issue to Zcash Open Development Lab, which coordinated an emergency response.

Then, the network developers introduced a temporary network change to disable affected Orchard actions before rolling out a hard-fork upgrade that corrected the vulnerability and restored full functionality.

The bug sat inside Zcash’s shielded pool for years

The vulnerability was especially sensitive because Orchard has been active since May 2022. That means the flaw existed for about four years despite repeated reviews by cryptographers, engineers, and auditors.

For a layperson, the issue can be understood as a flaw in the rulebook that governs private Zcash transactions.

A shielded transaction includes a mathematical proof showing that it followed the protocol’s rules without revealing the amount or history of the coins. In Orchard’s case, one of those rules was written loosely enough that false information could still pass as valid.

Essentially, that flaw was in the implementation of the Orchard circuit, the set of instructions that determines whether a private transaction should be accepted.

In a transparent blockchain, a supply problem is easier to inspect because balances and transfers are visible. In a shielded pool, the system deliberately hides that information, and users rely on the correctness of the circuit to ensure that every private transaction follows the rules.

Mert Mumtaz, the co-founder and CEO of Helius, pointed out that most privacy protocols have this vulnerability, arguing that:

“In theory, with a zk privacy protocol (not just zcash), you could have a bug in a circuit that inflates supply provided someone extremely sophisticated finds it and somehow exploits it undetected (the difference between a regular defi exploit is that it's harder to detect).”

This is one of the reasons why the market reaction to Zcash's case was so severe.

While Zcash developers said there was no evidence that the bug had been exploited, and several Zcash backers argued that the quick disclosure and patch showed the network’s security process working.

For context, Gemini co-founder Cameron Winklevoss said:

“Zcash has unparalleled cryptographers, security engineers, and security researchers. And the community is heavily focused on continuous improvement and hardening the network. That's why it engages world class security researchers to look for bugs. And that's why the recent potential exploit was found. It wasn't by accident and it's a vote of confidence, not a cause for alarm.”

However, privacy coins face a narrower margin for doubt. Their value depends not only on secrecy but on confidence that secrecy has not weakened the monetary guarantees underneath it.

Due to this, BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes said he sold his entire ZEC position after reassessing the privacy thesis. Hayes said it was unlikely counterfeit ZEC had been created, but the inability to formally prove that point changed the way he viewed the trade.

He stated:

“The privacy from AI, govt, big tech narrative demands perfection not improbability.”

Shielded Labs acknowledged that uncertainty directly and conceded that there was no definitive way to determine through cryptography alone whether an exploitation occurred before the fix.

The proposed fix shifts the burden back to verification

Due to the current uncertainty in the market, Shielded Labs proposed a network upgrade that would create a new shielded pool and use turnstile accounting on coins migrating out of Orchard.

Market observers noted that this proposal is an attempt to answer the market’s central concern. If Zcash cannot prove from Orchard’s internal records alone that counterfeit coins were never created, it can try to force a migration path that reconciles value as coins move into a new system.

That process would be technically complex and socially sensitive. If no counterfeit ZEC exists, migration could help restore confidence. If a mismatch emerged, the community would face harder questions over which balances should be honored and how to protect users who held funds in the affected pool.

Meanwhile, Josh Swihart, founder of the Zcash-focused firm ZODL, said the more important long-term issue is how to prevent similar vulnerabilities from recurring. He pointed to formal verification, a process that uses mathematical proofs to confirm that a circuit’s implementation matches its intended rules.

Formal verification would reduce reliance on human review of a large and complex rulebook. Instead of asking auditors to catch every edge case by inspection, developers can create a concise specification and use computer-checked proofs to verify that the implementation follows it.

That approach is becoming more important as privacy systems become more sophisticated. Orchard was built for performance and contains special cases that make it harder to review manually. A simpler and formally verified circuit could reduce the surface area for this type of mistake.

Zcash developers and affiliated teams are now pursuing multiple security efforts, including continued work with Hornby, formal verification of Orchard’s circuit, and additional security hiring.

Shielded Labs also said a detailed proposal for supply-verification upgrades could follow shortly.

AI turns old bugs into immediate market risks

The Zcash disclosure highlights a fundamental shift in the economics of software security. While artificial intelligence did not create the Orchard vulnerability, it severely compressed the timeline between a hidden risk and its public discovery.

This acceleration poses a systemic challenge to the broader digital asset sector.

Cryptocurrency protocols rely on open-source code and complex financial logic to govern massive pools of capital, making them highly attractive targets. Decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, cross-chain bridges, and layer-1 blockchains have all suffered from foundational bugs missed during initial audits.

That threat is moving fast enough to alarm industry veterans. Last month, OpenZeppelin co-founder Manuel Aráoz urged investors to exit DeFi altogether, warning that AI agents are now capable of identifying vulnerabilities far faster than human reviewers.

The caution arrives as the DeFi sector faces mounting pressure, having lost over $1.1 billion to exploits in the past year.

Compounding these structural fears is Anthropic’s quiet unveiling of Claude Mythos. The vulnerability-seeking AI model was deemed too dangerous for public release by the San Francisco-based company, underscoring the potential for sudden, irreversible losses if such tools fall into the wrong hands.

In an interview with CryptoSlate, Deddy Lavid, chief executive of blockchain security firm Cyvers, emphasized the scale of the problem, estimating that the sector's financial exposure to AI-driven exploits easily ranges from hundreds of millions to billions of dollars.

Ultimately, AI presents a double-edged sword for blockchain infrastructure. As these models become more sophisticated, they drastically lower the cost and effort required for attackers to find weaknesses, while simultaneously giving defensive researchers the tools to patch them faster.

This dual-use reality shaped the response from prominent crypto executives. Grayscale Chairman Barry Silbert framed the Zcash episode as clear evidence that digital assets have fully entered an “AI-enabled” threat environment.

Yet, industry advocates maintain that the fundamentals of protocol defense remain the same.

Gemini co-founder Tyler Winklevoss noted that software security has always been a continuous race between developers and malicious actors.

According to him, artificial intelligence has simply accelerated the pace for both sides. He stated:

“AI doesn't change this game of cat and mouse, it just accelerates it. Every piece of software has to run this race. There's no escaping it.”

The post Zcash loses over $5 billion after AI finds 4-year bug that could have created fake hidden coins appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin just tested an intraday low of $61,349, triggered roughly $1.76 billion in liquidations with long positions absorbing more than $1.5 billion of that total, and then bounced toward the mid-$63,000s.

Funding rates flipped deeply negative, open interest reset sharply, and the Crypto Fear & Greed Index fell to 12, a level in extreme fear territory.

That is a meaningful amount of technical work compressed into a short window, and the buyers who need to absorb the remaining supply have yet to confirm their return.

What the crash reset

Lacie Zhang, research analyst at Bitget Wallet, argues the technical work from this flush was real. In a note, she said that the $1.76 billion liquidation wave, concentrated in long positions, cleared the most crowded bullish leverage from the order book.

Funding rates moving deeply negative indicate that the leverage bias has shifted from overheated longs to defensives, and the sharp open interest reset means speculative positioning is considerably cleaner than it was last week.

Zhang also frames the equity comparison, noting that the Dow fell 1.2%, the S&P 500 dropped 0.7%, and the Nasdaq declined 0.9% over the same period, with no comparable deleveraging event.

Bitcoin's 24/7 structure, higher leverage, and more reactive participant base mean it tends to price macro stress faster than equity markets, compressing what equities may absorb over weeks into a few sessions.

On that read, crypto may already be closer to clearing this macro episode than traditional markets are, with a retest of $55,000-$57,000 still plausible if ETF outflows persist, but the probability window for that range is narrowing as technical conditions reset.

Glassnode's June 3 report notes that Bitcoin had fallen 13% over seven days, the short-term holder cost basis had declined to roughly $76,400, and the 7-day Spot Volume Delta had turned decisively negative, reaching its weakest level since February.

Spot sellers were dominating order books even as prices bounced, and Glassnode concluded the market still lacked evidence of a durable demand response.

Standard Chartered's Geoffrey Kendrick maintained a $100,000 year-end 2026 Bitcoin target and said much of the selling may already be over, but also flagged that a move below $60,000 would risk triggering a fresh wave of selling with no natural floor visible below that level.

Why the bounce is still under suspicion

Nicolai Sondergaard, research analyst at Nansen, reads the exchange flow data as a direct challenge to the recovery narrative.

BTC and ETH both recorded net exchange inflows over the 24 hours following the bounce from $61,000, the first such reversal since the June 1 lows. Traders moving coins onto exchanges are positioning to sell or reduce exposure, and the timing after a bounce points to participants using the recovery as exit liquidity.

The ETF data reinforces Sondergaard's caution, as US-traded spot Bitcoin ETFs extended their outflow streak to 13 consecutive sessions, accumulating roughly $4.4 billion in withdrawals.

Sondergaard frames this outflow run as mostly confirmatory of deteriorating sentiment and draws a harder line, saying that pension allocators and RIAs operating under compliance mandates do not quickly rebuild exposure after reducing it.

The institutional bid that helped carry Bitcoin from $50,000 to $126,000 across 2024 and 2025, in the form of a structural demand layer from allocators who could only access BTC through the ETF wrapper, has been withdrawing since May, and its return will move at the pace of compliance review cycles.

Sondergaard also notes that leveraged long positioning has not fully normalized, meaning the market may still carry more cleanup ahead even after the liquidation wave.

The checklist for a confirmed bottom

The low-$60,000s represent the immediate survival zone where the market absorbed the latest flush, with the $60,000 handle itself acting as the psychological threshold Kendrick identified as the dividing line between containment and acceleration.

A retest of $55,000-$57,000 represents the bear case if exchange inflows and ETF outflows persist through the week.

Recovery into the mid-to-high $60,000s would represent early traction for the bounce, while the short-term holder cost basis near $76,400 is the stronger confirmation zone, a level where buyers who entered during the last rally return to breakeven.

ETF outflows need to slow or reverse, which would point out that the institutional buyer class has stopped withdrawing liquidity, while BTC and ETH exchange inflows need to fade, reducing the near-term sell overhang.

Whale accumulation needs to strengthen to show that large entities are actively absorbing supply. Funding rates need to normalize without open interest immediately re-leveraging, because a clean reset that gets crowded again within days produces the same fragility the market just unwound.

And spot buying needs to drive the recovery by actively filling the order book, with liquidated longs gone and new bids taking their place.

Until those conditions show up in the data, Bitcoin has completed the forced-selling phase of this correction, while the voluntary sellers, such as the ETF redemptions, the exchange depositors, and the compliance-driven de-riskers, are still active, and the bounce off $61,500 stays a positioning event until buyers confirm it as a floor.

The post Bitcoin crashed and flushed leverage out, but is the bottom here yet? appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Hoskinson Announces Break as ADA Dips Below $0.20

Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano and CEO of Input Output Global (IOG), has announced a temporary departure from public channels. This sudden decision follows a series of sharp warnings he issued to the community regarding structural and financial pain within the layer-1 network’s decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem.

On June 3, 2026, Hoskinson posted a brief message on X stating, "I'm taking a break. TTYL," sending shockwaves through native token holders. The announcement triggered an immediate double-digit sell-off, pushing the price of ADA down past the critical $0.20 threshold for the first time in five years. However, he later posted that "he's not leaving", making the community feel lost.

TapTools Collapse Signals Broader Governance and Funding Crises

The developer break comes immediately after Hoskinson warned investors to brace for a "wave of failures" among Cardano-based decentralized applications (dApps). The market anxiety is driven by concrete closures within the ecosystem, notably the abrupt shutdown of popular data analytics platform TapTools.

In a recent video address to the community, Hoskinson emphasized that broader macroeconomic pressures and gridlocked on-chain governance are suffocating smaller projects:

"I said at the beginning of the year we were going to see a lot of people collapse because the markets are really bad. This is where we're at as an ecosystem."

Compounding these ecosystem pressures, the $Cardano community recently exercised its decentralized governance powers to reject a key treasury funding initiative, leading to the cancellation of the highly anticipated 2026 Singapore Summit. Concurrently, IOG is navigating tense negotiations as decentralized governance members delay approval for the "Cardano Vision 2026" development roadmap, which requests a budget of 32.92 million ADA.

Cardano Price Analysis: ADA Coin Crashing HARD 

The cascading negative sentiment has heavily impacted ADA's market valuation. According to data tracked on major trading venues, $ADA reached an intra-day low of $0.198. This marks a staggering 93% decline from its all-time high of $3.09 achieved in late 2021.

While liquidations spike across alternative layer-1 protocols, the Cardano community faces a critical choice regarding how to deploy treasury resources without over-centralizing network decisions. Analysts are closely watching the conclusion of the ongoing roadmap vote on June 8 to determine if a relief rally or further consolidation will follow.

Zcash has become the biggest crypto crasher today, with $ZEC dropping more than 40% as the broader market selloff accelerates. While Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP, Cardano, and Dogecoin are all under pressure, the ZEC crash stands out because it appears to be driven by a more specific and damaging narrative.

The sharp move comes after reports of a critical Zcash vulnerability, claims that Claude AI helped identify the bug, growing concerns over whether counterfeit ZEC could have been created, and renewed attention around large whale short positions. Together with heavy crypto liquidations, this has pushed $ZEC into one of its most aggressive selloffs of the year.

Zcash Price Analysis: ZEC Coin Dumps Over 40%

Zcash is currently trading around $306, down more than 42% in 24 hours, making it the worst-performing major crypto asset among the top coins today. Its market cap has fallen to nearly $5.1 billion, while 24-hour volume surged to around $2.78 billion, showing that the move is not only sharp but also heavily traded.

This type of volume spike during a crash usually signals panic selling, forced liquidations, and aggressive short-side positioning. The ZEC technical rating also remains in strong sell territory, which confirms that momentum is still heavily bearish.

The move is especially important because Zcash was previously one of the stronger-performing privacy coins. Now, the same momentum that helped push ZEC higher appears to be reversing quickly.

Why the Zcash Crash Is Different From the Rest of the Market

The broader crypto market is already weak, but the ZEC crash has extra pressure because it is not only linked to market sentiment. Several Zcash-specific factors are now weighing on the token.

1. AI-Linked Vulnerability Fear Hits ZEC Confidence

The biggest trigger behind the crash appears to be the recent Zcash bug scare. Market posts claimed that a critical vulnerability could have allowed attackers to create unlimited counterfeit ZEC before the issue was patched.

What makes this story more sensitive is the AI angle. Several tweets suggested that Claude AI helped discover or expose the vulnerability. This created a new fear in the market: if AI tools can identify deep protocol weaknesses, older or privacy-focused crypto projects may face stronger security scrutiny.

Even if the bug has been fixed, traders are still reacting to uncertainty. In crypto, confidence often breaks faster than it recovers, especially when the concern touches supply integrity.

2. Whale Short Trades Add More Pressure

Another major reason behind the ZEC crash is the narrative around whale short positions. Some market posts claimed that a trader who previously made major profits shorting before a major crypto crash also opened a short position against ZEC before the dump.

This kind of story can quickly damage sentiment. When retail traders see large wallets profiting from a collapse, it creates the impression that smart money was positioned early. Whether the whale caused the crash or simply benefited from it, the result is the same: more fear, more selling, and weaker confidence in the short term.

3. Liquidations Turn the Drop Into a Cascade

The Zcash crash is also happening during a wider crypto liquidation wave. Recent market posts showed billions of dollars in leveraged crypto positions being wiped out over the past few days.

When leverage is high, a sharp drop can quickly become a liquidation cascade. Long positions are forced to close, stop-losses are triggered, and the selling pressure accelerates. For ZEC, this likely made the move much more violent than a normal correction.

Tip: Use Volatility With a Long-Term Strategy

Market crashes can feel extreme, but they also remind investors why risk management matters. Instead of reacting emotionally to every red candle, many long-term investors use a crypto savings plan to build exposure gradually through dollar-cost averaging.

This means investing a fixed amount over time instead of trying to guess the exact bottom. In volatile assets like ZEC, BTC, or ETH, this approach can reduce the pressure of timing every move perfectly.

Start your crypto savings plan and build your position steadily through every market cycle.

4. Privacy Coins Face Extra Market Pressure

Zcash is not a normal altcoin. It belongs to the privacy coin category, which often faces more scrutiny than other crypto assets. Privacy coins are built around confidential transactions, but that also makes investors more sensitive to security issues, exchange support risks, and regulatory pressure.

This is why the bug scare hit ZEC harder than it may have hit another token. Any question about supply, security, or network integrity becomes more serious when the asset already operates in a controversial category.

Zcash Price Prediction: Next Critical Support Targets for ZEC

With ZEC now trading near the $300 zone, traders are watching whether the price can stabilize or continue lower. After such a steep crash, short-term rebounds are possible, but the overall structure remains weak until ZEC reclaims key resistance levels.

Immediate Support: $300

The first major support area is the psychological $300 level. If ZEC holds above this zone, the token could attempt a short-term relief bounce after the extreme selloff.

However, if $300 breaks clearly, more traders may exit positions, and another wave of liquidation pressure could follow.

Next Downside Target: $280

If selling continues, the next important area to watch is around $280. This would represent another major step lower and could confirm that the crash is not yet fully exhausted.

A move toward this zone would likely keep sentiment extremely weak, especially if the broader crypto market remains red.

Deeper Capitulation Zone: $250

If the AI bug narrative continues spreading and traders remain uncertain about the vulnerability, ZEC could test a deeper capitulation zone near $250. This would signal a stronger breakdown and could erase even more of Zcash’s recent gains.

Key Resistance: $350 and $400

For ZEC to recover, bulls need to push the price back above $350 first. A stronger recovery would require a move toward $400, where sellers may start defending the previous breakdown zone.

Without a reclaim of these levels, any bounce could remain temporary.

Current Crypto Prices at a Glance

The broader market is also under heavy pressure, but ZEC remains the biggest outlier today:

• Bitcoin ($BTC): around $61,978
• Ethereum ($ETH): around $1,655
• XRP ($XRP): around $1.11
• Solana ($SOL): around $65.66
• Cardano ($ADA): around $0.16
• Zcash ($ZEC): around $306, down over 40%
• Dogecoin ($DOGE): around $0.083

Is the Zcash Crash Over?

The ZEC crash may slow down if the market receives clear confirmation that the vulnerability was fully patched and that no counterfeit ZEC was created. A strong public explanation from the Zcash ecosystem could help reduce panic.

However, the short-term risk remains high. The combination of an AI-linked bug scare, whale short activity, privacy coin uncertainty, and broad market liquidations makes this crash more serious than a normal pullback.

For now, $ZEC remains one of the most watched coins in the market, not because of a bullish breakout, but because it is leading the crypto crash.

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$ZEC, $BTC, $ETH, $SOL, $XRP, $ADA, $DOGE

The digital asset market is facing a severe wave of deleveraging, forcing Bitcoin ($BTC) to give up the critical $63,000 support level. Broad macroeconomic tightening, driven by persistent inflationary pressures and delayed interest rate cut expectations from the Federal Reserve, has severely weakened risk appetite. Furthermore, a rotation of capital into high-growth technology equities alongside persistent spot ETF outflows—which recently marked a record $4.4 billion multi-day exodus—has accelerated the downward momentum.

Bitcoin's structure is heavily skewed to the downside, with sellers maintaining firm control over the short-term trend. While the breach below $63,000 has already shaken retail confidence, technical data indicates that the next structural move could be far more worrisome for market bulls.

Bitcoin Price Analysis: BTC Coin Slides Under $63,000

The continuous decline of $Bitcoin has systematically dismantled major psychological thresholds over the last month. After failing to sustain its positioning within the $70,000 and $66,000 handling zones, heavy distribution took over. This triggered severe cascading liquidations across crypto derivative platforms, amounting to over $3 billion in wiped-out market leverage within a two-day window.

As depicted by live market action, BTC pushed down to an intraday low of $62,232 before experiencing minor structural consolidation toward $62,735.

• The RSI Factor: The 14-period Relative Strength Index (RSI) on the 4-hour chart is firmly embedded inside the oversold territory, printing a low reading of 27.68.
• Market Sentiment: Typically, an RSI falling below the 30 boundary suggests an asset is locally overextended to the downside. However, the accompanying volume spikes indicate aggressive spot distribution rather than a clean exhaustion of sellers, meaning a sudden trend reversal is not yet confirmed.

Why the Next Price Move is Worrisome

The breakdown below $63,000 is not just a localized correction; it signals a fundamental breakdown of the multi-month accumulation range. Market analysts point to several compounding technical factors that make the immediate outlook highly precarious.

1. Moving Average Convergence Flips to Resistance

Bitcoin remains pinned below its 20, 50, and 100-day moving averages. The velocity of the latest drop has widened the gap between the spot price and these core indicators, meaning any short-term relief rally will face immense overhead selling pressure at every minor step upward.

2. Institutional capitulation and ETF Outflows

The primary engine of the 2024–2025 bull cycle was consistent institutional demand via spot ETFs. The reversal of this trend into a historic 13-day outflow streak demonstrates that institutional risk metrics are forcing a reduction in crypto exposure. Without institutional buyers absorbing spot supply, order books remain thin and highly vulnerable to flash crashes.

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3. Macro Headwinds: Inflation and the Fed

Macro factors continue to act as a significant drag. Rising global crude oil prices, fueled by ongoing geopolitical tensions, have driven up corporate production and transportation costs. This sticky inflation has effectively erased the Federal Reserve's near-term rate-cut plans, with some officials even floating the possibility of interest rate hikes. Higher-for-longer interest rates structurally drain liquidity away from speculative risk assets like cryptocurrencies and redirect it toward traditional yield-bearing instruments.

Bitcoin Price Prediction: Next Critical Support Targets for BTC

With the $63,000 baseline now flipping into immediate overhead resistance, market observers are watching key horizontal support bands to evaluate where a macro price floor will settle.

Immediate Support: $60,000

The primary line in the sand for bulls sits directly at the $60,000 psychological milestone. According to multi-month trading data, this area represents a historic liquidity pocket where buyers have previously formed a defensive line. If $60,000 is invalidated on a weekly closing basis, it will likely spark an additional wave of automated stop-loss liquidations.

Macro Capitulation Floor: $58,000

Should macroeconomic or geopolitical conditions deteriorate further, the ultimate major defense line rests at $58,000. A descent into this territory would signify a deeper market capitulation, resetting open interest metrics completely before an organic base can be constructed.

Key Overhead Resistance: $65,581 and $70,000

For Bitcoin to neutralize its current bearish structure, the bulls must forcefully reclaim the $65,581 resistance line. Breaking above this level would provide the technical validation needed to shift short-term momentum and open the door for a retest of the major $70,000 supply zone.

Current Crypto Prices at a Glance

The systemic selloff has triggered broad-based declines across all high-market-cap digital assets. Based on aggregate market data, here is how the top cryptocurrencies are performing:

• Bitcoin ($BTC$): $62,735.00
• Ethereum ($ETH$): $1,664.72
• Binance Coin ($BNB$): $588.39
• XRP ($XRP$): $1.12
• Solana ($SOL$): $65.57

The cryptocurrency market is under significant downward pressure, causing the Ethereum price to fall below the psychologically important mark of $1,700. Ongoing macroeconomic stress factors, outflows from spot ETFs, and systematic liquidations of long positions have plunged the second-largest cryptocurrency into a deep correction phase.

Based on current market data from the 4-hour charts, Ethereum is currently in a heavily oversold area. For traders and investors, the urgent question now is where the price floor can be established.

Ethereum Price Analysis: ETH Coin Breaks Below $1,700

The market structure of Ethereum has continuously deteriorated over the past few weeks. After the bulls failed to sustain the price above the psychological level of $2,000, selling pressure accelerated significantly when the horizontal support zone at $1,800 was breached.

The recent drop pushed ETH down to a daily low of $1,661.90 before a slight consolidation began around the mark of $1,663.72.

• The RSI Factor: The Relative Strength Index (RSI) on the 4-hour chart has slipped deep into the oversold territory, currently sitting at a value of 19.00.
• Market Sentiment: An RSI value below 30 typically signals that an asset has fallen too much in the short term. However, the dominant bearish momentum indicates that a definitive trend reversal has yet to be initiated. Many traders are waiting for a stabilization of the overall market, which often heavily depends on the movements of the market leader $Bitcoin.

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The Next Critical Supports for ETH

As the $1,700 mark now serves as immediate resistance, market participants are monitoring the historical volume profile and key horizontal chart levels to identify potential turning points.

1. The Immediate Floor: $1,600

The $1,600 mark represents the primary defense line for the bulls. This area serves as a significant psychological barrier and has historically been a zone where more buyers have entered the market (accumulation zone). If the bulls do not act aggressively here, further liquidations are at risk.

2. Macro Support: $1,200

If macroeconomic pressure on risk assets persists or intensifies, the next major long-term price floor lies in the $1,200 range. A drop into this zone would signify a severe capitulation event for the current market cycle.

3. Resistances to be Reclaimed: $1,800 and $2,000

For the short-term bearish market structure to neutralize, $Ethereum must first establish a stable base above $1,600 and then reclaim the $1,800 mark. Only a sustainable breakout above this resistance would pave the way for a retest of the $2,000 level.

Current Crypto Prices at a Glance

The correction is currently affecting the entire digital currency space. Based on the latest aggregate data from major exchanges, the key cryptocurrencies are priced as follows:

• Bitcoin ($BTC): $62,641.90
• Ethereum ($ETH): $1,664.72
• Binance Coin ($BNB): $588.39
• XRP ($XRP): $1.12
• Solana ($SOL): $65.57

Zcash is one of the biggest losers in the crypto market today, with $ZEC price dropping by more than 10% in 24 hours while the broader market also trades under pressure. The sharp Zcash crash comes after a strong rally that pushed the privacy coin back into the spotlight, making it more exposed to profit-taking once sentiment turned bearish.

According to Binance market data, Zcash was trading around the $540 range, down more than 11% in 24 hours, with a market cap near $9 billion and 24-hour trading volume above $1.3 billion. The token also moved between a 24-hour high above $631 and a low near $538, showing how aggressive the sell-off became during the day.

Why Is Zcash Crashing Today?

The main reason behind the Zcash crash is not one single event. Instead, ZEC is being hit by a combination of profit-taking, market-wide weakness, technical uncertainty, and fear around recent network-related headlines.

ZEC had already rallied strongly before the current correction. The privacy coin became one of the strongest performers in the market as traders rotated into privacy-focused crypto assets. Business Insider recently reported that Zcash had surged sharply over the past month while Bitcoin gained much less, driven by renewed interest in financial privacy and institutional attention around ZEC.

This matters because assets that rise the fastest often fall the hardest when the market turns red. Traders who entered ZEC earlier may now be locking in profits, especially after the coin moved into overextended territory.

ZEC Rally Made the Correction More Violent

Zcash did not enter this crash from a weak position. It entered it after a major rally.

That is why the correction looks sharper than in many other altcoins. When a token gains strong momentum in a short period, late buyers often enter near the top. Once the price starts falling, these buyers may exit quickly, adding more selling pressure.

This creates a chain reaction:

ZEC pumps strongly, traders chase the move, the broader market turns bearish, profit-taking starts, leveraged positions get squeezed, and the price drops faster than the rest of the market.

In simple terms, ZEC is crashing the most because it had more gains to give back.

Zcash Network Headlines Added More Fear

Another key reason behind the Zcash crash is the confusion around the network.

Reports on June 3 suggested that the Zcash blockchain appeared to stop producing blocks for several hours. However, later explanations said the issue may have been related to block explorers rather than the blockchain itself. CoinDesk reported that the apparent disruption was mainly linked to block explorers tracking activity incorrectly, not necessarily a full chain failure.

Zcash network was fully functional and that the apparent problem came from some block explorer applications being connected to a faulty node.

Even if the network was not actually down, the timing was bad. In a nervous market, headlines about a possible blockchain issue can quickly trigger fear, uncertainty, and doubt. For traders, that can be enough reason to sell first and ask questions later.

Emergency Orchard Bug Fix Increased Short-Term Risk Sentiment

The Zcash crash also comes shortly after an emergency upgrade related to the Orchard shielded pool.

Zcash Foundation released Zebra updates after engineers found and fixed a critical soundness bug in the Orchard Action circuit. Reports stated that the emergency response included Zebra 4.5.3 and Zebra 5.0.0, with no known exploit reported.

CoinMarketCap also reported that Zcash completed an emergency upgrade to fix the critical Orchard privacy pool bug, adding that no funds were lost and user privacy was not affected.

Still, the market does not always wait for full technical explanations. Words like “critical bug,” “emergency upgrade,” and “privacy pool” can create short-term panic, especially around a privacy-focused coin where trust in the protocol is essential.

Privacy Coin Narrative Is Still Strong, But Volatile

Zcash has benefited from a stronger privacy coin narrative in 2026. As blockchain transparency, AI surveillance, and financial data tracking become bigger topics, some traders see ZEC as a hedge against total on-chain visibility.

This narrative helped ZEC outperform many major cryptocurrencies recently. However, strong narratives can also become crowded trades. When too many traders are positioned in the same direction, any negative headline or market pullback can cause a sharp reversal.

That is exactly what appears to be happening now. ZEC is not necessarily crashing because the privacy narrative is dead. It is crashing because the rally became too crowded, too fast.

Zcash Price Analysis: Key Levels to Watch

From a technical perspective, ZEC’s drop below the $600 area is important. The token recently traded above $631 before falling toward the $540 range, according to Binance data.

The next important levels to watch are:

• $540–$520: This is the immediate support zone. If ZEC holds this area, the crash may slow down.
• $500: This is the psychological level. A break below $500 could trigger more panic selling.
• $600: This is now the key recovery level. If ZEC reclaims $600, traders may regain confidence.
• $630–$650: This is the recent resistance zone. A move back above this area would suggest that buyers are returning strongly.

For now, the chart suggests that ZEC is in a correction phase after a strong rally. The next move depends on whether buyers defend the $520–$540 zone or whether the sell-off continues toward $500.

Is the Zcash Crash a Buying Opportunity or a Warning Sign?

The Zcash crash could be seen in two ways.

For bullish traders, this may be a normal correction after a major rally. ZEC still has a strong privacy narrative, renewed market attention, and growing discussion around financial confidentiality in crypto.

For cautious traders, the crash is a warning that ZEC became overheated. The combination of a strong rally, emergency bug-fix headlines, and confusion around network activity shows that ZEC remains a high-volatility asset.

The most important point is that Zcash is not falling in isolation. The broader crypto market is also under pressure. But ZEC is falling harder because it had already become one of the most aggressive recent movers.

Final Thoughts: Why ZEC Is Crashing the Most

Zcash is crashing harder than the rest of the crypto market because it entered the sell-off from an overextended position. The recent ZEC rally attracted strong attention, but it also created room for heavy profit-taking.

At the same time, network-related confusion and the emergency Orchard bug fix added short-term fear. Even though reports suggest that no funds were lost and the blockchain was not necessarily offline, the headlines were enough to pressure traders during an already weak market.

For now, the Zcash crash looks like a mix of profit-taking, technical correction, market-wide weakness, and fear-driven selling. If ZEC holds above the $520–$540 support zone, the correction may stabilize. But if the price breaks below $500, the sell-off could deepen further.

$ZEC

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An Orchard vulnerability that allowed undetectable counterfeiting of ZEC in its shielded pool has reignited debate over privacy coins.

Anthropic says AI now writes most of its code and runs increasingly complex research tasks, leaving people to decide which problems are worth solving.

Peter Schiff dismisses claims that Bitcoin’s ongoing price dip was influenced by Strategy’s recent 32 BTC sale, noting that there’s more to it.

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With Strategy's portfolio down $10 billion, Michael Saylor reveals the 4 rival factions that will ultimately decide whether Bitcoin survives the AI rotation.

Ripple software engineer drops exciting clue as key XRP Ledger release nears.

XRP's market activity is being pushed through, despite the relatively calmer market environment.

TLDR

• Major indices tumbled Friday with Nasdaq sinking 2.1%, S&P 500 declining 1.1%, and Dow losing 140 points
• Employment data revealed 172,000 new positions in May, significantly exceeding the 88,000 anticipated
• Robust labor market pushed Federal Reserve rate hike probability to 68.3%, eliminating prospects for immediate cuts
• Semiconductor stocks declined following Broadcom’s disappointing earnings performance
• The S&P 500 faces potential end to its 9-week rally, which would be the longest advance since 1985

Equity markets experienced significant declines Friday following employment data that exceeded analyst projections, simultaneously driving up interest rate hike expectations while technology stocks faced renewed pressure over artificial intelligence investment concerns.

The Nasdaq Composite plummeted 2.1%. The S&P 500 declined 1.1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average retreated approximately 140 points, representing a 0.3% decline.

The market downturn resulted from two distinct pressures converging simultaneously.

Employment Data Surprises Markets

The May nonfarm payrolls release revealed American businesses added 172,000 positions during the month. Analysts had projected approximately 88,000 additions. The jobless rate remained unchanged at 4.3%.

The unexpectedly strong employment figures altered market expectations regarding Federal Reserve monetary policy. Market participants rapidly adjusted positioning to account for at least one interest rate increase before year-end.

Probability of a rate hike surged to 68.3%, climbing from 50.4% just one day earlier. This development essentially eliminates any possibility of rate reductions in the near term.

Eric Winograd, chief US economist at AllianceBernstein, said the data shows the economy is still holding up. “That’s enough to keep the Fed on hold,” he wrote.

This development occurs while President Trump maintains public pressure for rate reductions. Kevin Warsh, Trump’s appointee, has recently assumed the role of Fed chair.

Semiconductor and AI Stocks Extend Declines

Broadcom shares had already experienced substantial losses Thursday after releasing quarterly results. Friday brought additional selling pressure.

The wider semiconductor industry mirrored these losses. Market participants have adopted a more cautious stance regarding artificial intelligence capital expenditures, with Broadcom’s financial results amplifying these apprehensions.

Technology equities had experienced robust gains throughout recent weeks, providing substantial support to benchmark indices. This positive momentum has now dissipated.

The Nasdaq had emerged as a primary beneficiary of AI-related enthusiasm. It now faces the steepest losses as market sentiment reverses.

Historic Rally Faces Termination

The S&P 500 began Friday positioned to achieve a tenth consecutive week of advances. Such an achievement would have represented the longest winning sequence since 1985.

That remarkable streak now confronts potential termination.

The benchmark index has retreated as multiple adverse factors materialized simultaneously — escalating rate anxieties, technology sector vulnerability, and geopolitical instability.

News regarding stalled US-Iran ceasefire discussions contributed to the cautious atmosphere permeating Wall Street. President Trump characterized negotiations as entering their “final” phase, though considerable uncertainty persists.

Equity futures had already signaled weakness before the employment report’s release, with Nasdaq 100 futures spearheading morning session declines.

The convergence of an overheated labor market, hawkish monetary policy expectations, and a stumbling artificial intelligence rally left limited havens within equity markets Friday.

The post Wall Street Tumbles as Robust Employment Data Sparks Fed Rate Hike Speculation appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• FuelCell Energy releases fiscal Q2 2026 earnings before markets open Monday, June 8
• Wall Street forecasts a loss of $0.43 per share with revenue reaching $40.51 million
• Shares have surged more than 190% in 2025, propelled by AI infrastructure power needs and renewable energy momentum
• First quarter fiscal 2026 delivered 61% revenue increase to $30.5M year-over-year, though gross margin losses expanded
• Analyst community remains divided — ratings range from Hold to Sell, with recent insider selling activity and zero insider purchases over three months

FuelCell Energy (FCEL) will unveil its fiscal second quarter 2026 financial performance before trading begins on Monday, June 8.

FuelCell Energy, Inc., FCEL

Analyst consensus points to an anticipated per-share loss of $0.43 against projected revenue of $40.51 million.

The stock has emerged as one of 2025’s standout performers, climbing north of 190% since January. This remarkable ascent has been primarily powered by market excitement surrounding artificial intelligence data center energy requirements and accelerating clean energy adoption.

However, a closer examination of the company’s financial health reveals a more nuanced picture.

Top-Line Expansion Masks Profitability Struggles

During the first quarter of fiscal 2026, FCEL achieved impressive 61% year-over-year top-line expansion, generating $30.5 million in revenue. At first glance, this appears encouraging.

The challenge lies in the company’s worsening gross margin performance. Market observers have highlighted that the first quarter’s revenue spike stemmed from one-time project work rather than new agreements tied to AI infrastructure or data center contracts.

This differentiation is critical. Project-based revenue streams don’t establish the sustainable, repeating business framework that long-term investors seek.

The company currently holds a GF Score of 61 out of 100, with profitability metrics scoring only 2 out of 10. Its financial strength registers at 5 out of 10. These figures paint a concerning portrait for risk-averse investors.

Wall Street’s Cautious Stance

Seeking Alpha’s quantitative rating system assigns FCEL a Hold designation. Seeking Alpha’s analyst consensus tilts toward Sell. The broader Wall Street community maintains a Hold rating.

One market analyst stated bluntly: “There is no denying that this is a risky investment. Most conservative investors would exclude FuelCell from the investment universe after glancing at the financial statements for 30 seconds.”

The analyst further emphasized that for the stock’s current valuation to be justified, management must demonstrate at least two back-to-back quarters of positive EBITDA alongside a concrete strategy for scaling its Torrington manufacturing capacity to 350 MW.

That represents a substantial hurdle for an organization still generating quarterly losses.

Throughout the previous three months, earnings per share projections have received two upward adjustments with zero downward changes. Revenue forecasts, conversely, paint the opposite picture — one revision higher, four revisions lower.

Regarding insider transactions, the past three months witnessed one insider sale involving 2,500 shares. No insider purchase activity has been documented during this period.

FCEL has historically surpassed EPS expectations 88% of the time across the past two years, a noteworthy track record heading into Monday’s announcement. The company has exceeded revenue projections 50% of the time.

The stock currently trades at a price-to-sales multiple of 3.7. With a market capitalization hovering around $1.13 billion, the market is clearly betting on substantial future expansion — yet the underlying financial performance remains unproven.

The post FuelCell Energy (FCEL) Q2 Earnings Preview: Can the Rally Continue Past June 8? appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Highlights

• CRM secured Official Tournament Supporter status for both FIFA World Cup 2026 and FIFA Women’s World Cup 2027
• The company’s Agentforce 360 AI technology and Slack collaboration tool will support tournament operations
• Salesforce shares gained ground Friday morning following the partnership announcement
• Analysts maintain a Moderate Buy consensus rating with $249.29 average target, suggesting approximately 33% potential upside
• Shares remain pressured following disappointing fiscal 2027 revenue projections

Salesforce (CRM) revealed Friday that it has been selected as an Official Tournament Supporter for both the FIFA World Cup 2026 and FIFA Women’s World Cup 2027. Shares climbed modestly in early trading after the partnership was disclosed.

At the time of publication, CRM shares were trading near $186.80, declining roughly 1% intraday despite initial gains from the FIFA announcement.

Salesforce, Inc., CRM

The enterprise software giant plans to implement its Agentforce 360 AI solution and Slack communication platform throughout both global sporting events. The partnership encompasses workforce management, fan interaction, and communications coordination with host cities, vendors and other stakeholders.

The FIFA World Cup 2026 tournament will span three countries—Mexico, Canada and the United States—featuring 48 national teams. Slack will facilitate operational management across the 16 designated host cities. Organizers anticipate a worldwide viewership exceeding 5 billion people.

For the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2027 taking place in Brazil, Salesforce’s Agentforce 360 solution will manage supporter inquiries through FIFA’s digital ecosystem, utilizing autonomous AI agents to engage fans across various channels.

“These autonomous agents will analyze tournament information to deliver human-quality assistance, enabling fans to experience customized multi-channel engagement,” the company stated in its official announcement.

Romy Gai, Salesforce’s Chief Business Officer at FIFA, emphasized that the technology will facilitate connections among teams, host municipalities, volunteers, commercial partners and supporters throughout both competitions.

Analyst Community Divided on AI Execution

This FIFA partnership comes as Salesforce navigates a challenging period. The stock has experienced downward momentum since the company provided fiscal 2027 revenue guidance that fell short of Wall Street expectations, while mounting concerns suggest emerging AI competitors could threaten its established enterprise market position.

BofA’s Tal Liani highlighted escalating competitive threats, identifying OpenAI and Anthropic as potential disruptors that could expand into enterprise AI markets—the same arena where Salesforce is heavily investing with Agentforce.

Conversely, Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives maintains an optimistic outlook. He recently noted that Salesforce’s initiative to deploy autonomous AI agents across major enterprises “continues to represent a favorable growth driver for the company.”

Overall analyst sentiment registers as Moderate Buy, derived from 28 Buy recommendations, 8 Hold ratings and 2 Sell ratings issued within the last three months.

Price Target Outlook and Recent Analyst Activity

The consensus price objective for CRM stands at $249.29, representing potential gains of approximately 33% from present trading levels.

Truist Securities maintains a Buy recommendation with a $280 price target, highlighting the company’s artificial intelligence initiatives. TD Cowen similarly rates the stock as Buy with a $240 target, emphasizing Salesforce’s Headless 360 architectural framework.

Both firms reaffirmed their positions following a recent company-hosted webinar outlining Salesforce’s strategic priorities.

In separate corporate news, Salesforce announced a quarterly dividend of $0.44 per share, scheduled for distribution on July 2, 2026, to shareholders of record as of June 11, 2026.

During its annual shareholder meeting, all twelve director candidates received approval, and stockholders endorsed proposed modifications to the company’s employee equity compensation program.

InvestingPro data indicates that 24 analysts have increased their earnings forecasts for Salesforce covering the next reporting period.

The post Salesforce (CRM) Secures FIFA World Cup 2026 Partnership as Official Supporter appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Cardano fell below $0.16 for the first time since December 2020.
• Social dominance climbed to 0.52%, the highest level in 2026.
• Daily active addresses rose to 28,459, a four-month high.
• Charles Hoskinson said he is taking a break after warning of project failures.
• Santiment described the coming weeks as a make-or-break period for ADA.

Cardano moved back into focus after its price slipped below $0.16 for the first time since December 2020. Santiment reported that the drop triggered a sharp rise in social discussions and on-chain usage. The data shows rising engagement while bearish sentiment dominates conversations around ADA.

Cardano Social Dominance and Network Use Climb

Santiment stated that Cardano’s social dominance rose to about 0.52%, the highest level recorded in 2026. This means one out of roughly every 190 crypto discussions referenced ADA during the spike. As a result, online conversations expanded quickly while traders reacted to price volatility.

At the same time, daily active addresses reached 28,459, the strongest reading in four months. Santiment said users interacted more with the blockchain as price swings widened market divisions. The firm added that bearish sentiment currently drives much of the ongoing discussion.

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson fueled attention after announcing he was “taking a break.” Earlier, he warned that the ecosystem could face a “wave of failures” due to shutdowns and funding strain. Consequently, his remarks intensified debate across social platforms and crypto forums.

Despite the downturn, Santiment described Cardano’s community as loyal and vocal across market cycles. The firm said ADA holders often supported the network when institutional participation remained limited. It added that the coming weeks could represent a defining period for the project.

“The next few weeks and months will likely be a make-or-break stretch for the #15 market cap,” Santiment wrote. The firm stated that supporters hope institutions consider positions while prices sit at 5.5-year lows. It also said investors seek ecosystem growth and clearer guidance from Hoskinson.

Cardano Foundation Partners With Brazilian Olympic Committee

In parallel, the Cardano Foundation confirmed a partnership with the Brazilian Olympic Committee, known as COB. The three-year agreement focuses on blockchain, artificial intelligence, and Internet of Things solutions. Both organizations plan to introduce new digital systems into Brazil’s sports sector.

The partnership targets identity and certification systems across sports institutions and events. It will also support fan engagement tools and equipment tracking processes. Organizers said the initiative aims to improve governance standards and operational transparency.

According to the announcement, pilot projects will launch in the coming months. The groups will test blockchain-based identity tools and data verification systems. They will also examine how AI and IoT can streamline sports management.

The Cardano Foundation stated that the collaboration reflects its focus on real-world applications. COB officials said they expect digital tools to modernize administrative workflows. The organizations confirmed that further technical details will follow before pilot deployment begins.

The post Cardano Enters Make-or-Break Phase as ADA Activity Surges appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• UK FCA issued a May 21 warning naming Hyperliquid and Hyper Foundation.
• The regulator said the platform may promote services in the UK without authorization.
• Hyperliquid generated $255 million in year-to-date revenue by May 20.
• The HYPE token surged 101% during the same period.
• CME CEO Terry Duffy warned crypto perps could become a “disaster waiting to happen.”

Hyperliquid has come under regulatory focus after the UK FCA issued a public warning about the platform’s status. The regulator said Hyperliquid and related entities may offer services in the United Kingdom without permission. At the same time, U.S. officials and exchange executives raised concerns about crypto perpetual futures products.

UK FCA Flags Hyperliquid and Related Entities

The UK Financial Conduct Authority published a notice dated May 21 naming Hyperliquid and Hyper Foundation. The UK FCA said the protocol’s app and social media channels may promote financial services without authorization. The regulator warned users to “avoid dealing” with the platform.

The notice stated that Hyperliquid “may be providing or promoting financial services or products” in the UK. However, the alert drew limited attention until it appeared more prominently in online search results this week. The update renewed focus on how offshore crypto derivatives venues operate in the UK market.

Hyperliquid operates as a decentralized venue for perpetual futures, also known as perps. Perps allow traders to use leverage and hold positions without an expiry date. Unlike traditional futures, these contracts rely on funding payments to align prices with spot markets.

By May 20, Hyperliquid reportedly generated $255 million in revenue this year. During the same period, its HYPE token rose 101%. The platform ranks among the largest decentralized perps venues by trading activity.

Matthew Pinnock, COO of Altura DeFi, said crypto perps now dominate directional trading in digital assets. He stated that volumes on venues such as Hyperliquid make them “impossible” to treat as peripheral. He added that regulators now track the role perps play in price discovery.

U.S. Exchanges Debate Crypto Perpetual Futures

In the United States, exchange leaders raised concerns about expanding access to crypto perps. CME Group CEO Terry Duffy described crypto perps as “a disaster waiting to happen.” He criticized regulators for approving what he called a “novel and complex” product.

Duffy said speculation has replaced core market functions in some areas. He also questioned the CFTC’s approval process for new crypto derivatives. Reuters reported his remarks during a recent industry conference.

Intercontinental Exchange CEO Jeffrey Sprecher said the NYSE parent studies Hyperliquid’s model. He said the exchange has asked regulators why traditional venues cannot list similar products. His comments followed broader discussions about regulated crypto derivatives.

Two days after Sprecher’s remarks, the CFTC approved Kalshi to offer Bitcoin perpetual futures. The approval marked a step toward regulated perps products in the U.S. market. Meanwhile, the UK FCA’s May 21 notice on Hyperliquid remains active on its website.

The post Hyperliquid Faces UK FCA Warning Over Perps Activity appeared first on Blockonomi.

XRP opens June with its most significant decline of the past 3 months. The $1.20 support band, which served as the absolute floor for months, is being breached, with the price now trading at $1.11. The RSI is also printing its lowest reading since February’s capitulation, and the next meaningful support is nearly $0.30 lower. This is not a pullback from resistance; it is likely a breakdown of the last line of defense.

Ripple Price Analysis: The USDT Pair

On the USDT chart, the $1.20 support band, which held strong during the February crash and has remained untouched since, is on the verge of breaking down. The RSI has also collapsed to approximately 20–25, nearing the oversold extreme seen at the February capitulation low. That reading alone warrants attention, as historically, RSI at these levels has preceded, at minimum, a sharp relief bounce even within a broader downtrend.

However, an oversold RSI does not mean a floor has been found on its own. The $1.20 level is now likely to flip into resistance, and any bounce needs to reclaim it on a sustained closing basis to suggest the breakdown is being reversed rather than simply paused.

Below the current price, the next structural reference is the $0.80 demand zone, which also converges with the descending channel’s lower boundary. This is a meaningful confluence of support, but still at a significantly lower level. The 100-day moving average at $1.35 and the 200-day moving average at $1.60 are now both heavily overhead, leaving XRP with a stack of resistance above and thin structural support below on the USDT-paired chart.

The BTC Pair

The BTC pair is telling a more resilient story. XRP/BTC is trading at 1,800 sats, holding above the recent lows at 1,740 sats. The RSI, which surged to 70 at the end of May in what looked like a meaningful momentum shift, has already faded back to 50, indicating that the brief strength has not followed through into sustained buying.

The price is sitting below the 1,850 sat short-term resistance after getting rejected by the level again, with the declining 100-day moving average at approximately 1,900 sats acting as the immediate dynamic overhead resistance. The fact that the ratio has held while the USDT pair broke down suggests the XRP weakness is partly a function of broader altcoin selling in dollar terms rather than XRP-specific deterioration against Bitcoin.

A confirmed close below 1740 sats on the BTC pair, particularly if it coincides with continued USDT pair weakness, would mark a definitive breakdown on both pairs simultaneously, which exposes the 1,500 sats area as the next reference below.

The post Ripple Price Prediction: How Low Can XRP Go If $1 Support Cracks? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Flare Network’s XRP-based decentralized finance ecosystem reached a new milestone with an automated liquidity rollover. The process moved over $4 million in capital between fixed-term yield markets without disrupting trading activity.

The rollover took place on June 4, 2026, when the largest stXRP fixed-term pool on Spectra Finance reached maturity. Managed through GamiLabs’ FXRP MetaVault, the process automatically transferred liquidity into successor pools expiring on August 27 and November 26, 2026.

How MetaVaults Managed the stXRP Liquidity Transition

MetaVaults were introduced in February 2026 to address operational challenges associated with fixed-term yield tokenization. The system uses a single smart contract to monitor expiries, select new markets, and route liquidity according to predefined on-chain rules.

Under the model, liquidity providers deposit assets once and receive a vault token representing their position. The vault then manages future rollovers automatically, removing the need for users to manually withdraw and redeploy funds whenever a market expires.

The transition addresses a long-standing issue in fixed-term DeFi markets known as the expiry cliff. In many cases, maturing pools lead to fragmented liquidity and reduced market activity as participants move capital into new pools.

During the June rollover, liquidity was already available in the replacement markets before the original pool matured. This helped maintain continuous market depth and avoided the disruption often associated with fixed-term expiries.

The significance of the rollover was amplified by the scale of the maturing market. The stXRP pool recorded more than $25 million in lifetime trading volume during its four-month duration. By May, it was delivering double-digit fixed rates, reflecting sustained activity ahead of expiry.

Spectra Finance Yield Infrastructure

Spectra Finance remains one of the most active yield trading platforms on Flare, supporting structured yield products through FXRP. FXRP serves as a trustless and overcollateralized representation of XRP within Flare’s FAssets framework.

GamiLabs oversees the FXRP MetaVault, while Firelight issues stXRP used within the ecosystem. Together with Spectra’s protocol infrastructure, these components support a growing market for XRP-denominated yield strategies.

The operational impact of this structure is highlighted by comments from Spectra Finance co-founder Gaspard Peduzzi. According to him, the MetaVault framework turns expiry events into continuous market transitions. He added that this approach could support deeper and more efficient XRP yield markets by reducing operational friction linked to fixed-term maturities.

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It was quite the week for the cryptocurrency markets, dominated to a very large extent by the bears. Here’s the breakdown.

The previous weekend was quite sluggish, although BTC had already declined to $74,000 from the May top of almost $83,000. However, the worst was yet to take place. As the new business week and month began on Monday, bitcoin experienced a quick and painful decline. It first dumped toward $70,000, and even though that psychological level held the first breakdown attempt, it eventually gave in, and the landscape quickly worsened.

The cryptocurrency kept losing key support levels one after the other, and each bounce-off attempt was halted in its tracks. The bears appear to be in full control, even today on Friday. Earlier today, BTC dipped below $62,000 again and slipped to $61,000. It rebounded to $63,000 within minutes, which only increased the liquidations across the board, only to be rejected again.

The latest leg down transpired minutes ago when the asset slumped below $61,000 to chart a fresh four-month low. Thus, the cryptocurrency has lost well over $20,000 since its mid-May top as it now struggles to remain above the coveted $60,000 support.

The weekly decline is quite obvious and striking. BTC has plummeted by 15% since this time last Friday, and by a whopping 26% monthly. Its market cap has shed over $400 billion in weeks and is down to $1.2 trillion on CG. Even its dominance over the alts took a hit, even though many have charted similar or even worse declines.

Some of the notable examples include ADA, which is down by over 30% following Charles Hoskinson’s decision to take a break, and Zcash’s 41% drop after some technical vulnerabilities were uncovered earlier.

Market Data

Market Cap: $2.18T | 24H Vol: $138B | BTC Dominance: 55.7%

BTC: $60,650 (-15.5%) | ETH: $1,600 (-17%) | XRP: $1.11 (-14%)

This Week’s Crypto Headlines You Can’t Miss

Strategy Sold Bitcoin, But It’s Not What You May Think. Bitcoin’s big troubles began shortly after Strategy announced its first sale in years. Although it disposed of a very tiny portion of its BTC holdings, it still triggered a community reaction and perhaps led to a significant worsening in the overall market sentiment.

Peter Schiff Warns Bitcoin Could Plunge Below $20K as Complacency Sets In. In an entirely expected comment on X, Peter Schiff took advantage of BTC’s price crash and predicted an even bigger calamity to $20,000 if the $50,000 support is lost.

Strive Doubles Down on Bitcoin With $185M Buy, Holdings Near 19,000 BTC. Unlike Strategy, Strive made its first purchase in a long time, expanding its holdings to almost 19,000 BTC after a substantial $185 million accumulation of the asset.

Arthur Hayes Dumps Entire Zcash (ZEC) Position After Major Flaw Emerges. Shortly after the news of Zcash’s issues went viral on X, Arthur Hayes, who had been supporting the project for a while, said he had disposed of his entire ZEC position, citing a lot of uncertainty.

Cardano (ADA) Faces Make-or-Break Moment as Social Buzz and Network Activity Explode. Hoskinson’s break, combined with ADA’s massive price calamity, led to a significant increase for Cardano, with the social media activity going wild.

Ethereum Crashing to 14-Month Low Is a ‘Screaming Buy-The-Dip Opportunity’ – Analyst. ETH was not spared by the overall market crash, dumping to consecutive 14-month lows at under $1,800 and then to $1,600. Some analysts, though, believe this could be a proper buy-the-dip opportunity.

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 Crumbles Toward $60K, Strategy Sold BTC, Zcash Faces Critical Vulnerability: Weekly Crypto Recap appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin remains under heavy selling pressure after crashing below multiple key support levels in quick succession. The recent rejection from the descending 200-day moving average triggered a sharp sell-off that invalidated the previous rising channel structure and pushed BTC back toward a major demand zone around $60K. Meanwhile, on-chain data suggests market participants are increasingly realizing losses, reflecting deteriorating investor sentiment.

Bitcoin Price Analysis: The Daily Chart

On the daily timeframe, Bitcoin has confirmed a significant bearish breakdown after falling below both the ascending channel and the 100-day moving average near $74K. The channel had supported the recovery from February’s lows, but the recent violation indicates that buyers have lost control of the intermediate trend.

The rejection occurred near the confluence of the channel’s upper boundary and the descending 200-day moving average, located around the $82K region. Since then, BTC has experienced an aggressive decline, slicing through the $74K support area and the prominent low of $65K from late May with little resistance.

The price is now testing a major support block at $60K, which previously acted as a strong rebound area following the February capitulation. This zone represents the last major defense for bulls before the market opens the door toward significantly lower levels.

BTC/USDT 4-Hour Chart

The 4-hour chart highlights the severity of the recent breakdown. Following an extended consolidation near the $74K region, BTC failed to reclaim the level and subsequently broke below the daily ascending channel’s lower boundary that had supported price action for months.

As the breakdown accelerated, the $65K support area also gave way, which drove price directly into the $60K-$62K demand region. This area is currently preventing further downside and has already attracted some buying interest.

An important observation comes from the RSI, which has formed a mild bullish divergence in extremely oversold conditions while price has established fresh local lows. Although the signal remains early, it suggests bearish momentum may be weakening in the short term and could support a temporary rebound toward the $65K resistance zone.

However, from a structural perspective, the market continues to print lower highs and lower lows. As long as BTC remains below the broken support levels at $65K and $74K, any recovery is likely to be viewed as a corrective move rather than the beginning of a new uptrend.

On-Chain Analysis

The Adjusted Spent Output Profit Ratio (aSOPR), a metric that measures whether coins moved on-chain are being sold at a profit or loss, is providing an important signal regarding investor behavior.

The chart shows that the 30-day EMA of aSOPR has fallen below the critical 1.0 threshold. Historically, readings above 1 indicate that market participants are realizing profits on average, while values below 1 suggest coins are being spent at a loss.

The recent drop below 1 coincides with Bitcoin’s decline toward the $60K area and reflects growing capitulation among holders. This shift suggests that a larger portion of investors is now exiting positions at a loss, a behavior commonly associated with bearish market phases and periods of weak confidence.

While persistent readings below 1 often accompany downtrends, they can also signal the later stages of a corrective phase as weaker hands leave the market. Therefore, traders should closely monitor whether aSOPR can reclaim the 1.0 level. A recovery above that threshold would indicate renewed profitability across the network and could support broader market stabilization.

For now, both price action and on-chain data continue to favor the sellers, while the $60K support region remains the key battleground that will likely determine Bitcoin’s next major directional move.

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Cardano has become one of the most talked-about cryptocurrencies after its price briefly dropped below $0.16 for the first time since December 2020, according to on-chain analytics platform Santiment.

The surge in attention appears to be linked to growing concerns surrounding Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, who recently said he was “taking a break” after warning that the ecosystem could face a “wave of failures” due to project shutdowns and funding difficulties.

Social Frenzy

According to Santiment’s data, the developments triggered a sharp increase in both social activity and on-chain engagement. Cardano’s social dominance climbed to around 0.52%, its highest level in 2026. This means that more than one in every 190 cryptocurrency-related discussions on social media focused on ADA.

At the same time, daily active addresses reached 28,459, representing the highest reading in four months. According to Santiment, the spike in network activity indicates that users were actively interacting with the blockchain as the sharp price volatility created strong divisions among traders. Bearish sentiment appears to be dominating much of the discussion.

Despite the negative market reaction, Santiment explained that Cardano continues to have one of the most loyal and vocal communities in the crypto sector. The analytics firm said ADA holders have, for years, remained committed through multiple market cycles, and have often supported the network during periods when institutional participation was limited.

“The next few weeks and months will likely be a make-or-break stretch for the #15 market cap, as the community hopes institutionals consider entering into positions while prices are now at 5.5 year lows. Many investors are now looking for ecosystem growth, successful project launches, and of course some more positive future words from Hoskinson to validate the long-term vision that Cardano supporters have championed for years.”

Cardano – Brazilian Olympic Committee

In a separate development, the Cardano Foundation announced a partnership with the Brazilian Olympic Committee (COB) to bring blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies into the country’s sports sector.

According to the organizations, the three-year collaboration will focus on identity and certification systems, fan engagement, equipment tracking, and improving governance and transparency. The first pilot projects are expected to launch in the coming months.

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