Grayscale's warning highlights potential market volatility and investor caution as Strategy's leveraged Bitcoin model faces financial strain.

The post Strategy faces stress test as Grayscale warns leveraged Bitcoin model may force further sales appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Cardano's challenges, including infrastructure setbacks and leadership changes, could undermine investor confidence and hinder ecosystem growth.

The post Cardano’s ADA falls below $0.16 as Hoskinson announces break from social media appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The project could significantly boost Lesotho's energy independence and position the US as a key player in Africa's energy infrastructure market.

The post Convalt Energy commits $6.2B to build hydropower plant and AI data center in Lesotho appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Russia's crypto access limits may slow broader adoption, impacting market dynamics and innovation while prioritizing financial stability.

The post Russia’s central bank to limit retail crypto access to Bitcoin, Ether and USDT at launch appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Zelenskiy's outreach highlights the persistent diplomatic stalemate, underscoring the ongoing reliance on military solutions over dialogue.

The post Zelenskiy invites Putin to direct talks in open letter, gets rejected within 24 hours appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

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.

A group of Republican senators is warning US bank regulators that a little-known capital rule could effectively keep banks out of Bitcoin, even as Congress moves to give traditional financial firms a larger role in digital asset markets.

In a May 27 letter to Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman, FDIC Chair Travis Hill, and Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould, six senators urged the agencies to build a new capital framework for on-balance-sheet digital asset activities.

Their target is Basel's 1,250% risk weight for assets such as Bitcoin, which they argue functions as a de facto ban on banks holding crypto.

A 1,250% risk weight multiplied by the 8% minimum capital requirement equals a 100% capital allocation, meaning a bank holding $100 million in Bitcoin needs at least $100 million in capital against it.

For banks that manage to meet internal CET1 targets above the regulatory floor, the burden climbs further. A bank with a 12% internal capital target would need $150 million in capital for that same $100 million exposure, requiring roughly $18 million in annual net profit to clear a 12% ROE hurdle.

Normal custody, trading, or client-service economics rarely generate returns at that threshold, leaving a bank legally authorized to hold Bitcoin but financially unable to justify doing so.

Why this lands now

The Senate Banking Committee advanced the CLARITY Act on May 14 by a 15-9 vote, sending it to the Senate floor.

If passed, the bill would give banks a clearer statutory role in digital asset markets, but the senators argue that legislative permission without capital efficiency leaves banks holding a permission slip they cannot afford to use. A bank can be legally authorized to hold Bitcoin and still be structurally prevented from doing so by a capital charge that makes the position uneconomic before the first trade.

The three regulators the letter addresses have each moved toward crypto permissiveness since early 2025.

The OCC reaffirmed in March 2025 that national banks may engage in crypto custody, stablecoin-related activities, and distributed-ledger payment functions, while removing the prior supervisory non-objection requirement.

The FDIC followed that same month, rescinding its notification requirement and allowing FDIC-supervised institutions to pursue permissible crypto activities without prior approval.

The Fed withdrew its guidance on crypto assets and dollar tokens in April 2025, framing the move as support for innovation.

All three agencies opened the door to crypto activity and left the Bitcoin capital question untouched.
The senators found their sharpest argumentative foothold in a March 2026 interagency FAQ on tokenized securities.

The joint guidance from the Fed, FDIC, and OCC held that eligible tokenized securities should generally receive the same capital treatment as their non-tokenized equivalents, and that the technology used to record or transfer ownership should not determine capital allocation.

If a tokenized Treasury is treated like a Treasury because the underlying risk profile governs its treatment, the logic should extend to Bitcoin, and the asset's volatility and operational risks are measurable and can support a calibrated framework.

The March 2026 guidance covers eligible tokenized securities, and the senators are pressing regulators to carry the same technology-neutral logic forward to native digital assets.

The prudential case for the rule

The Fed, FDIC, and OCC's 2023 joint statement noted price volatility, legal uncertainty regarding custody and ownership rights, contagion from exchange and counterparty failures, governance weaknesses in crypto networks, and operational risks associated with open or decentralized infrastructure.

The Basel standard was built around those risks after the 2022 crypto collapse exposed how quickly losses could spread to interconnected institutions.

A dollar-for-dollar capital charge reflects a genuine judgment that Bitcoin's risk profile does not resemble the assets that populate traditional bank balance sheets.

The senators argue that the risks of volatility, custody complexity, and operational exposure are quantifiable, and a calibrated capital framework can address them without requiring capital equal to or greater than the exposure itself.

The Basel Committee agreed in November 2025 to expedite a targeted review of elements of its cryptoasset standard, and reported progress on that review in February 2026.

Basel Chair Erik Thedéen has said the global crypto rules for banks need to be reworked after the US and UK both declined to implement the current framework.

A coalition of major financial industry groups wrote to Basel in August 2025, arguing that the standard would make meaningful bank participation uneconomical and requesting a pause and revisions.

The senators are pressing US regulators to act at a moment when the international architecture underpinning the 1,250% treatment is under open review.

Two paths from here

If regulators respond by proposing a calibrated framework for liquid digital assets instead of the blanket Basel weight, the capital required on $100 million of Bitcoin exposure could fall from the current $100 million-$150 million range to something closer to $8 million-$36 million under a 100%-300% risk-weight band and standard capital targets.

At that level, bank market-making, custody, prime brokerage, and structured crypto products become viable lines of business. Institutional liquidity improves, spreads compress, and banks move from service providers to balance-sheet participants.

If regulators keep 1,250% treatment as the practical standard for native crypto on-balance-sheet exposure while continuing to open other pathways, banks would continue offering custody and settlement, while direct Bitcoin exposure stays with nonbanks and ETF wrappers.

US-traded spot Bitcoin ETFs already saw roughly $4.4 billion in outflows through May 15 to June 3, showing that institutional access to Bitcoin has routed around bank balance sheets.

That channel will deepen if the capital rule stays intact.

The letter does raise the political cost of inaction while Congress is actively writing the market structure rules that will govern bank participation in digital assets for the next decade, and legal authorization to hold Bitcoin means little if the capital charge required to do so makes the position uneconomic from the first day it hits the balance sheet.

The post A little-known 1,250% rule could lock US banks out of Bitcoin appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Charles Hoskinson raised the possibility of splitting Cardano after the collapse of one of its best-known ecosystem tools exposed a deeper fight over money, governance, and who has the power to keep builders alive on the network.

This week, the Cardano founder floated what he called a “nuclear option,” saying a new Cardano could be launched through proof of burn if the existing ecosystem cannot change how it funds and commercializes projects.

The statement came after TapTools, one of Cardano’s most widely used analytics and infrastructure platforms, said it would begin winding down operations over the next two weeks following leadership departures, mounting costs, and the loss of key technical capacity.

Hoskinson responded with a long, emotional address that turned a project closure into a broader indictment of Cardano’s governance and commercial strategy.

Hours later, he posted on X:

Related Reading

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson takes “a break” – exposing who really controls ADA's next move

Hoskinson's public pause points to a governance tradeoff for ADA holders, DReps, and builders rather than an exit from Cardano.

Jun 4, 2026 · Liam 'Akiba' Wright

More Cardano DeFi apps will die, Hoskinson warns

Hoskinson said TapTools’ closure was unlikely to be an isolated failure, saying:

The warning landed as Cardano’s DeFi economy remained small by broader crypto standards and under renewed strain.

DeFiLlama data showed about $115 million in total value locked on Cardano, with the network’s DeFi TVL down more than 5% over 24 hours. Cardano’s 24-hour DEX volume stood near $6.3 million, while its stablecoin market was roughly $55 million.

Those figures point to the commercial problem behind Hoskinson’s remarks. Cardano still has a large brand and a committed community, but the financial activity available to sustain infrastructure providers, exchanges, lending apps, and analytics platforms remains limited.

For teams that rely on subscriptions, API revenue, token activity, treasury funding, or outside investment, a thin market can quickly become an operating crisis.

Indeed, TapTools had framed its closure as the result of that pressure rather than a loss of belief in Cardano.

The platform said it had served more than 1 million users, supported hundreds of projects through its API, published hundreds of articles, and generated hundreds of millions of social impressions for Cardano builders.

However, the team said the departure of co-founders, including its chief technology officer and chief operating officer, had created a gap it could not quickly repair. A backend developer had stepped into the CTO role, but that replacement also decided to leave.

The company said it had tried to lower infrastructure costs, improve efficiency, and develop new products. Still, it concluded that it could not responsibly commit to the future without a credible acquisition path or fresh resources.

For Hoskinson, the announcement confirmed a problem he said had been visible for months. He said TapTools had been part of his daily routine and called its closure a loss for the broader ecosystem.

He also pointed to JPEG Store as another sign that older Cardano projects were struggling to survive the current cycle. He added:

The founder says he does not hold the levers

Hoskinson’s central argument was that Cardano’s public market still treats him as the person responsible for the network’s direction, even though the formal powers needed to change that direction now sit elsewhere.

He said he does not control Cardano’s treasury, does not hold governance keys, cannot initiate a hard fork, cannot change protocol parameters, and does not own the Cardano trademark.

He said the resources created to grow and govern the ecosystem were assigned to separate entities rather than to him personally.

The comments cut into one of Cardano’s most sensitive political tensions. The network has spent years moving toward community governance, with delegated representatives, treasury rules, and other bodies taking on greater responsibility for funding and protocol decisions.

That structure limits founder control by design. It also means there is no single executive authority able to rescue struggling businesses, redirect treasury funds, or impose a commercial strategy when market conditions worsen.

Hoskinson said he had proposed multiple ways to prepare for that pressure, including a sovereign wealth fund, stablecoin reserves, an ecosystem index, and acquisitions of struggling infrastructure projects.

He argued those efforts were either rejected, delayed, or criticized by voters and community members who opposed spending treasury funds or feared centralization.

He noted:

His frustration was aimed at that contradiction. When he tries to acquire or commercialize projects, he said critics accuse him of consolidating power. When he does not intervene, those same critics blame him for allowing builders to fail.

He stated:

Cardano's treasury politics move into the market

The speech landed at a difficult moment for Cardano as the blockchain network's ADA token fell below $0.20 for the first time in more than five years.

This extends a yearlong decline that has erased much of the token’s value and deepened pressure on builders whose businesses depend on user activity, treasury funding, or investor confidence.

Meanwhile, the decline has also sharpened the debate over whether Cardano’s governance system can fund growth quickly enough to keep pace with rival blockchain ecosystems.

According to Hoskinson:

For context, Cardano’s flagship 2026 Summit in Singapore was canceled after a treasury funding proposal failed to meet the two-thirds approval threshold required under the network’s governance rules.

Hoskinson argued that Cardano’s technology has continued to advance, citing expected work such as Leios. But he said technology alone would not be enough if the ecosystem could not fund businesses, support builders, and create incentives for commercial use.

His remarks were unusually blunt. He accused parts of the community of creating a hostile environment for builders and said some critics appeared more interested in proving Cardano had failed than helping the network recover.

According to him:

He said teams seeking treasury money or commercial support are often attacked before and after funding votes, making the system unattractive for serious operators.

A break raises the stakes

Hoskinson did not announce a formal exit from Cardano. His later post saying he was taking a break appeared to reflect exhaustion with the public fight rather than a resignation from the ecosystem.

Still, the timing amplified the message. A founder who remains Cardano’s most recognizable public advocate had just told the community that more projects may collapse, that he lacks the authority to stop it, and that the network must choose leadership, strategy, and funding mechanisms or risk managing decline.

Meanwhile, he pointed out that his “nuclear option” could be a way to separate builders from hostile critics and reset tokenomics and institutional funding.

He stated:

That suggestion reflected how far the conflict has moved from routine governance debate. Hoskinson’s complaint is no longer simply that voters rejected a proposal or that ADA’s price has fallen.

He argues that Cardano lacks an executive function capable of turning treasury resources, technical progress, and community support into a coordinated growth plan.

The consequences are now visible through business closures. TapTools said it remained open to acquisition or sustainable funding, but its shutdown notice gave Cardano a concrete example of what can happen when useful infrastructure cannot cover costs or retain key staff.

Considering this, Hoskinson told delegators to examine whether their DReps are helping the ecosystem grow or blocking the decisions needed to support builders.

He urged the community to take a week, study the failures, and decide whether it wants constitutional changes, treasury changes, executive changes, or even a more radical protocol path.

The post Cardano founder floats splitting his own blockchain after warning more apps will die appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin traders have identified Michael Saylor as a new suspect in the latest sell-off, while the numbers tell a different story.

Strategy disclosed in a June 1 Form 8-K that it sold just 32 BTC between May 26 and May 31 for $2.5 million, at an average net price of $77,135, with proceeds earmarked to fund preferred-stock distributions.

The company still held 843,706 BTC as of May 31, with that sale representing 0.0038% of Strategy's total holdings and roughly 0.014% of Bitcoin's reported daily volume of $17.45 billion on that day.

A sale of that size carries no supply-side weight against a $17 billion daily market, and it lands as a narrative event that cracks a story traders had built their confidence on.

Bitcoin fell below $71,500 after the disclosure, a drop also attributed to Iran-related geopolitical tensions and over $90 million in BTC-tracked futures liquidations, making Strategy's sale one of several.

The bigger sellers hiding in May

Four other companies accounted for the bulk of public treasury Bitcoin reductions in May, and their combined total dwarfed Strategy's sale.

According to BitcoinTreasuries, public-company Bitcoin reductions totaled roughly 7,500 BTC during the month, with Strategy's 32 BTC counted in the following month's tally because of its June 1 filing date.

Excluding Strategy, MARA cut 3,386 BTC, Core Scientific reduced by 1,990 BTC, Sequans shed 1,481 BTC, and Prenetics exited 502 BTC, a combined 7,359 BTC.

At Bitcoin's May 31 price of $73,579, that reduction carried a face value of roughly $541 million, about 230 times the size of Strategy's sale.

BitcoinTreasuries noted that its May recap used a methodology that incorporated backdated entries and specifically flagged Core Scientific's 1,990 BTC reduction as one that would not have appeared under its previous method.

MARA's larger reduction also traced back to a March disclosure, when the company sold 15,133 BTC between Mar. 4 and Mar. 25 to fund $1 billion in convertible-note repurchases, not a fresh May decision.

Sequans was unwinding a failed Bitcoin treasury strategy to redeem debt, and Prenetics had already authorized a full exit from Bitcoin to redirect capital toward its IM8 health business.

Each reduction had its own logic and timeline, and none reflected a shared judgment that May was a good time to sell.

The net picture from BitcoinTreasuries makes the dump thesis harder to sustain, as public Bitcoin treasury companies added or disclosed 51,000 BTC before the May reductions and 43,500 BTC net after the reductions.

Why Saylor's sale landed differently

The market's disproportionate reaction to 32 BTC reflects Strategy's position as the symbol of corporate permanence in Bitcoin.

Since 2020, Michael Saylor has built that reputation into the company's identity as an accumulator that never distributes and treats every dip as a buying opportunity. That positioning attracted a class of investors who used Strategy as a proxy for conviction that corporations would become structural Bitcoin buyers.

A single sale to meet a preferred-stock distribution obligation left the accumulation thesis intact mechanically, but it introduced a variable that Strategy has ongoing financial obligations, and Bitcoin is the only asset available to meet them.

The follow-on anxiety is rational, even if the immediate reaction was overblown, since Strategy carries debt and preferred stock obligations with fixed distributions.

If Bitcoin prices fall further, the spread between those obligations and the company's ability to fund them through equity issuance or operating cash narrows.

The 32 BTC sale confirmed that the option to sell exists and that management will exercise it under sufficient financial stress.

Traders who built positions on the premise of a permanent buyer now have to price in an occasional seller, and that repricing does not require a large sale to begin.

The correction's actual anatomy

Attributing Bitcoin's more than 12% weekly decline solely to treasury selling misreads the flow data.
US-traded spot Bitcoin ETFs saw roughly $4.4 billion in outflows over the last 13 recorded trading days through June 3.

Those outflows dwarf Strategy's $2.5 million sale and the combined $541 million in May treasury reductions by an order of magnitude.

Geopolitical tensions tied to Iran added a separate risk-off layer, and futures liquidations exceeding $90 million amplified whatever directional move was already underway.

Strategy's disclosure entered that environment as a narrative accelerant, traders looking for a reason to reduce exposure found one, and the symbolic weight of Saylor selling gave the move a headline that stuck.

Standard Chartered's Geoffrey Kendrick maintained a $100,000 year-end 2026 Bitcoin target after the decline, treating the drawdown as a positioning reset.

That framing holds as long as the ETF outflow cycle reverses and treasury-sector net accumulation continues, and gives way if Strategy or other debt-carrying treasury holders face sustained stress requiring liquidation at scale.

What the treasury model now has to prove

If the market absorbs that small tactical sales can fund obligations without ending the accumulation thesis, Strategy's June 1 disclosure becomes a governance footnote.

Net treasury accumulation of 43,500 BTC in May, continued ETF inflows once the current outflow cycle exhausts itself, and Standard Chartered's unchanged price target all support that reading.

Bitcoin stabilizes, Strategy's premium to net asset value recovers, and the 32 BTC sale gets filed under balance-sheet housekeeping.

If investors reprice the treasury model instead, deciding that firms carrying debt and preferred obligations are conditional buyers, May becomes a template for repeated headline risk.

Every quarterly filing season, every preferred distribution date, every convertible-note maturity creates a window for another small sale that lands with outsized narrative force.

The price correction from that repricing would come from the erosion of the premium investors assigned to Strategy's perpetual-accumulation posture.

Corporate Bitcoin treasuries built their market value partly on the promise of one-way buying, and the 32 BTC sale raised the question of how many times a permanent buyer can sell before the market stops treating it as permanent.

The post Bitcoin traders blamed Saylor’s 32 BTC sale but larger selling pressure built elsewhere appeared first on CryptoSlate.

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.

The Open Network (TON) ecosystem is facing severe operational turbulence as the native token, Toncoin ($TON), plummeted by over 18% in a sudden market rout, bottoming out at $1.53. The price collapse coincides with a cascade of critical infrastructure failures, leading to the shutdown of major decentralized applications, mini-programs, and ecosystem landing pages.

Multi-Chain Scaling Complexities Trigger Network Bottlenecks

The structural issues began mounting following recent protocol changes. While the network implemented sharding (fragmenting the blockchain into smaller subnets to split the transaction load), keeping those shards completely synchronized has proven difficult.

The dynamic nature of TON’s multi-chain system has created massive data bottlenecks. Blockchain monitoring tools reported heavy congestion, preventing decentralized wallets and validation layers from communicating seamlessly. Without stable cross-shard communication, the transaction finality slowed to a crawl, sparking panic among retail traders and automated liquidity providers.

Key Applications Go Dark: Fuse Mini-App and TON ID Offline

The most visible consequence of this infrastructure strain is the sudden dark state of key consumer applications. The Fuse Mini-App, a widely used application within the Telegram ecosystem for Web3 interaction, has completely stopped responding to user requests. Users trying to execute smart contract operations or interact with automated liquidity protocols have faced persistent timeout errors.

Simultaneously, the TON ID website, the foundational gateway for decentralized identity and user verification across the ecosystem, has gone completely down. Visitors are met with server connection failures, locking users out of decentralized applications (dApps) that rely on TON ID for authentication.

TON Ecosystem Status Monitor 

• TON ID Website: OFFLINE (Server Timeout) 
• Fuse Mini-App: UNRESPONSIVE (RPC Gateway Error) 
• TON Connect Layer: INTERMITTENT DEGRADATION

Furthermore, users attempting to authorize actions through $TON Connect have reported severe lag, failing to link their non-custodial wallets like Tonkeeper to third-party Telegram bots.

Whales Liquidate Positions Amid Centralization Concerns

The sudden technical breakdown has amplified existing market anxieties regarding the distribution and governance of the network. Telegram recently stepped in to take a prominent role as the network's dominant validator, sparking a fierce debate among DeFi purists regarding the actual decentralization of the blockchain.

On-chain data indicates that large token holders, or whales, began aggressively offloading supply into the liquid pools as the technical issues surfaced. The massive sell-side pressure easily broke past the immediate local support levels of $1.45 to $1.38, forcing a rapid correction down to the $1.53 region.

Ecosystem developers are currently scrambling to deploy hotfixes to the remote procedure call (RPC) nodes and node infrastructure to bring the front-end websites and mini-apps back online. However, until the synchronization issues between the network shards are fully resolved, trading volume remains highly volatile, and the risk of further liquidations hangs over the market.

Bitcoin Volatility Triggers Massive Leverage Unwinding

The cryptocurrency market faced intense selling pressure over the last 24 hours, driving massive liquidations across both major assets and altcoins. Bitcoin ($BTC) momentarily breached its critical psychological support level, dipping briefly below the $60,000 mark. This sharp downward move triggered a cascading wave of long liquidations throughout the derivatives market.

Following the brief plunge, aggressive buying volume at lower levels helped stabilize the premier cryptocurrency. Bitcoin managed an intraday recovery, readjusting back to its current trading price of $61,500. However, the brief breach of key support weakened market sentiment and left the altcoin sector highly vulnerable to deep, double-digit corrections.

Top 6 Altcoin Losers

While $Bitcoin managed to reclaim some ground, the broader altcoin market suffered severe capital outflows. Data from exchanges highlights the top six digital assets that lost the most value over the past 24 hours.

1. Zcash (ZEC)

$Zcash emerged as the hardest-hit asset in the market, experiencing a massive sell-off.

• Current Price: $379.66
• 24-Hour Performance: -23.65%
• 7-Day Performance: -28.83%
• Market Capitalization: $6,343,409,995

Market Insight: Despite a minor 5.61% hourly rebound, ZEC remains deeply negative for the week, experiencing a rapid liquidation cascade from its recent local highs.

2. Stable (STABLE)

The $STABLE token saw its recent positive momentum completely reverse over the last day.

• Current Price: $0.03223
• 24-Hour Performance: -18.10%
• 7-Day Performance: -16.57%
• Market Capitalization: $751,997,254

Market Insight: Even with a strong Year-to-Date (YTD) performance sitting at +130.55%, the token could not escape the broader market correction, losing nearly a fifth of its value in 24 hours.

3. Midnight (NIGHT)

$Midnight continued its multi-day downward trajectory, recording heavy losses as trading volume dried up.

• Current Price: $0.03146
• 24-Hour Performance: -16.84%
• 7-Day Performance: -9.64%
• Market Capitalization: $522,589,999

Market Insight: NIGHT showed minor hourly volatility (-0.48%) but continues to struggle structurally, with its YTD performance down 64.82%.

4. Filecoin (FIL)

$Filecoin faced heavy distribution, breaking below key support levels as sellers dominated the order books.

• Current Price: $0.7450
• 24-Hour Performance: -14.70%
• 7-Day Performance: -22.07%
• Market Capitalization: $586,971,496

Market Insight: FIL managed a minor 0.84% green hourly candle, but its macro trend remains firmly bearish, dragging its YTD performance down to -42.49%.

5. Polygon (POL)

$Polygon recently migrated native token faced aggressive capital flight during the market-wide de-risking phase.

• Current Price: $0.07599
• 24-Hour Performance: -14.51%
• 7-Day Performance: -14.76%
• Market Capitalization: $809,782,175

Market Insight: POL showed signs of an intraday bounce, rising 2.63% in the last hour, though it remains restricted under heavy overhead resistance.

6. Monero (XMR)

The prominent privacy coin $Monero rounds out the top six losers, falling alongside its sector peer, Zcash.

• Current Price: $320.93
• 24-Hour Performance: -14.46%
• 7-Day Performance: -13.99%
• Market Capitalization: $5,920,152,029

Market Insight: XMR experienced a 3.40% hourly bounce as traders stepped in near local support, but the asset faces a 24.16% deficit on the year.

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.

More from CryptoTicker

Crypto markets are under heavy pressure, but volatility often creates the most important opportunities for active traders and long-term investors. Discover the best crypto exchanges and take advantage of current market movements.

$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

Fallout from a bug that enabled undetectable Zcash counterfeiting shows that privacy can sometimes present tradeoffs, experts say.

Strategy shares tumbled alongside Bitcoin on Friday as the firm's flagship preferred stock also came under pressure.

The company behind Claude embedded engineers at the NSA for offensive cyber ops, then published a report warning AI could soon build itself without humans in the loop.

The price of Zcash cratered following the disclosure of a serious vulnerability for the privacy coin. Can ZEC make a comeback anytime soon?

The crypto tax bills—the first of their kind to be deliberated by congressional leadership—will be discussed at a House hearing on Tuesday.

After Claude AI exposed a flaw causing a 46% Zcash crash, investors fear an XRP dump.

Shiba Inu faces renewed selling pressure as traders rapidly unwind leveraged positions and risk appetite continues to fade.

The market is not ready to accept enough of support from bullish investors, despite the relatively calmer performance.

Ripple’s David Schwartz laid out an ambitious roadmap for the XRP Ledger.

Bitcoin has plunged below the $60,000 mark for the first time since 2024, crashing through its 200-week moving average.

TLDR:

• The U.S. added 172,000 jobs in May, nearly doubling forecasts and pushing rate hike odds to 57% in one day.
• Broadcom’s refusal to raise AI targets triggered a 12.6% stock drop, sparking fears of overvalued AI positions.
• SemiAnalysis reported Nvidia’s new chips need half the expected memory, sending SK Hynix and Samsung shares sharply lower.
• SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI listings worth $4–$5 trillion are forcing fund managers to sell holdings to raise cash.

Global financial markets suffered a broad and sharp decline on Friday, erasing approximately $2.5 trillion in a single trading session.

The S&P 500 dropped 1.65%, while the Nasdaq fell 2.60%. Gold, silver, and Bitcoin also recorded steep losses. A combination of stronger-than-expected jobs data, cracks in the artificial intelligence trade, and looming liquidity concerns drove the widespread sell-off across asset classes.

Hot Jobs Report Rattles Rate Cut Expectations

The U.S. economy added 172,000 jobs in May, nearly double Wall Street’s forecast of 88,000. That surprise reading sent shockwaves through markets almost immediately after the open.

With inflation running at 3.8% and oil prices at $90 per barrel, the strong labor data changed the rate outlook sharply.

The probability of a Federal Reserve rate hike this year jumped from 40% to 57% in one session. Higher rates reduce the present value of future earnings, making growth and tech stocks less attractive. Investors responded by rotating out of those positions quickly.

As noted by market analyst account Bull Theory on X, “A labor market this strong tells the Fed it cannot cut interest rates and may actually need to raise them.” That shift in sentiment accelerated selling pressure across equity markets.

Adding to the uncertainty, new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh holds his first policy meeting in 11 days. Appointed under expectations of rate cuts, he now faces hot inflation, elevated oil, and a tight labor market. That uncertainty alone pushed many fund managers toward reducing risk.

AI Trade Cracks Under Pressure From Multiple Fronts

Broadcom reported record quarterly earnings, with revenue up 48% and AI chip sales climbing 143%. Yet the stock fell 12.6% after the company declined to raise its AI revenue targets. That single decision prompted investors to question whether AI valuations had grown too stretched.

Research firm SemiAnalysis then reported that Nvidia’s next-generation AI chips would require roughly half the memory previously priced into analyst models. SK Hynix fell nearly 10% on the news, while Samsung dropped over 6%. South Korea’s broader market declined 5.5% in a single session.

Anthropic also released a report warning that AI systems are approaching the ability to improve themselves without human input. The firm called for a global pause in AI development.

Coming alongside the chip memory news and Broadcom’s miss, it deepened fears about whether business models can sustain the current pace of AI growth.

Meanwhile, a liquidity drain looms over markets. SpaceX is set to go public next week at a $1.75 trillion valuation. Anthropic and OpenAI are also preparing listings.

Together, these three companies represent $4 to $5 trillion in potential capital demand. Fund managers are selling existing holdings to raise cash, adding further pressure to an already stressed market.

The post Market Sell-Off Wipes $2.5 Trillion as Jobs Data, AI Concerns Shake Investors appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• The SEC is developing a framework to list and trade tokenized securities under the “innovation without arbitrage” principle.
• SEC and CFTC are jointly identifying rulebook gaps covering swap reporting, portfolio margining, and product definitions.
• The CFTC approved Kalshi’s proposal to trade Bitcoin perpetual futures, leaving other assets open for case-by-case review.
• The SEC is targeting a 23-by-5 equity market trading transition and reviewing legacy rules like Regulation NMS by year-end.

The SEC is actively developing a framework for the listing and trading of tokenized securities, guided by the principle of “innovation without arbitrage.”

SEC Trading and Markets Director Jamie Selway outlined this direction at the Piper Sandler Global Exchange & Fintech Conference on June 4, 2026, in New York.

The framework aims to modernize U.S. capital markets while protecting existing market structure. Regulators are working to ensure new entrants and legacy providers are treated equally under the new rules.

SEC Pushes Forward on Tokenized Securities Framework

Chairman Atkins has directed the Division of Trading and Markets to develop a framework for tokenized securities listing and trading.

The guiding principle, “innovation without arbitrage,” is designed to prevent unfair advantages for either new or established market participants.

Selway described the principle plainly, saying the Division aims “to advantage neither new entrants nor legacy providers over the other.”

The SEC’s goal is to foster a healthy ecosystem for tokenized securities without disrupting existing, well-functioning markets.

The Division has been engaging with both traditional finance incumbents and decentralized finance new entrants. These conversations span the full range of tokenized securities operations, covering primary issuance, secondary trading, and custody.

Staff statements on custody and trading have already been issued as part of this groundwork. The Division is now working toward an “innovation exemption” recommendation to allow certain trading venues to trade tokenized securities.

Major market infrastructure players are already responding to this regulatory direction. The DTCC announced plans to facilitate limited production trades of tokenized securities through DTC’s service starting July 2026. A broader rollout is planned for October 2026.

Nasdaq and the NYSE have also separately announced plans to develop platforms for trading and on-chain settlement of tokenized securities.

Selway also confirmed the SEC is working to facilitate a transition to 23-by-5 equity market operation by the end of 2026. The Division is additionally reviewing legacy rules such as Regulation NMS and the Consolidated Audit Trail for modernization.

These efforts are part of a broader push to drive efficiency and competition across U.S. capital markets. Together, these steps position the SEC as an active architect of next-generation market infrastructure.

SEC-CFTC Coordination Shapes the Path for Tokenized Markets

The tokenized securities framework does not exist in isolation. The SEC and CFTC are coordinating in parallel on rules that touch both agencies’ jurisdictions.

Chairman Atkins stated directly that “firms should not be shuffled back and forth between regulators when a product touches elements of both regulatory frameworks.” He added that “where jurisdiction overlaps, the most effective response is a coordinated one.”

Both agencies are jointly identifying areas where their rulebooks lack clarity or compatibility. Swap and security-based swap data reporting, portfolio margining, and product definitions have been identified as initial focus areas.

The SEC also approved Nasdaq PHLX’s proposal to list cash-settled Bitcoin index options on May 22. These actions reflect a deliberate, step-by-step approach to building a coherent cross-agency framework.

Selway stressed two core responsibilities that must anchor the tokenized securities framework. Regulators must clearly distinguish investing from gambling, even as technology blurs traditional boundaries.

They must also prevent excessive leverage from reaching unsophisticated retail investors through new tokenized products.

Selway put it directly, warning against “extending unhealthy levels of leverage to the unsophisticated and unsuspecting” as markets evolve.

Industry participants were also urged to engage constructively rather than exploit jurisdictional gaps. Selway warned that venue shopping and unreasonable expectations will undermine harmonization efforts. He called on firms to bring forward their best ideas for reducing regulatory friction through public input.

He framed the stakes clearly, saying that by “delivering true innovations” and avoiding key pitfalls, industry organizations “can deliver value to your clients, your investors, your world-leading industry, and our great Nation.”

The post SEC Builds Tokenized Securities Framework Guided by “Innovation Without Arbitrage” Principle appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• BlackRock recorded $47.66 million in Bitcoin ETF inflows on June 5.
• The inflow ended a 13-day streak of consecutive outflows for the fund.
• Bitcoin traded near $61,000 during the same session.
• The asset declined more than 15% over the past week.
• The broader Bitcoin ETF market continued to face pressure.

BlackRock ended a 13-day outflow streak with fresh capital entering its Bitcoin ETF on June 5. The fund attracted $47.66 million in new inflows during its latest session. The reversal occurred as Bitcoin retested $61,000 and extended weekly losses beyond 15%.

BlackRock ETF Posts $47.66M Daily Inflow

Data from SosoValue showed BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF added $47.66 million on Friday. The inflow marked the product’s first positive session in nearly two weeks. The fund had recorded consecutive red days as institutions reduced exposure.

The broader Bitcoin ETF market experienced steady withdrawals for almost three weeks. However, BlackRock reversed that pattern with a single day of fresh allocations. Market data confirmed that other issuers still faced pressure during the same session.

Bitcoin price traded near $61,000 when the inflow occurred. The price level matched levels last seen in February 2024. Over the past week, Bitcoin declined more than 15% as volatility persisted.

Bitcoin Price Weakness Continues Across Market

Bitcoin extended its decline as traders reassessed risk exposure. The asset moved lower during the week and tested support near $61,000. Market charts reflected sustained selling pressure across major exchanges.

The broader crypto market also remained under strain. Major tokens retested 2024 price levels during recent sessions. Total market capitalization contracted as liquidity tightened.

Despite falling prices, BlackRock attracted fresh ETF capital. The timing contrasted with earlier sessions when funds saw redemptions. Market participants linked prior outflows to ongoing volatility and reduced institutional appetite.

BlackRock’s reversal sparked discussion across trading desks. Some analysts cited positioning ahead of potential price stabilization. However, no official statement explained the sudden inflow.

SosoValue data confirmed that BlackRock led daily inflows within the ETF segment. Other products posted either neutral or negative flows during the session. The update highlighted a divergence within the ETF landscape.

Bitcoin remained below its October 2025 peak of $126,000. The asset traded more than 50% lower than that record. Weekly declines compounded the broader market drawdown.

Institutional ETF flows often track broader sentiment shifts. This session broke a 13 day sequence of capital withdrawals. BlackRock’s daily report reflected renewed allocation activity.

The crypto market continued trading in the red zone. Prices across leading assets remained under pressure. Exchange volumes reflected cautious positioning.

BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF recovery arrived during heightened volatility. The inflow stood at $47.66 million for the trading day. SosoValue published the data on Friday, June 5.

Bitcoin held near $61,000 at the close of the session. The weekly decline exceeded 15% at that point. ETF flow data remained the latest confirmed update from market trackers.

The post BlackRock Records First Bitcoin ETF Inflow in 13 Days appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Michael Saylor says Bitcoin should balance purity and adoption.
• Bitcoin traded below $61,000 and fell over 25% in a month.
• Saylor outlined four ideologies shaping Bitcoin’s future.
• Strategy sold 32 BTC worth about $2.5 million this week.
• The firm still holds more than 844,700 BTC on its balance sheet.

Bitcoin hovered near two-year lows as Michael Saylor published a new essay on the network’s direction. He argued that Bitcoin should balance competing visions instead of choosing one path. The comments came as BTC traded below $61,000 and extended monthly losses beyond 25%.

Bitcoin Ideologies Clash as Prices Slide

Saylor outlined four Bitcoin ideologies in a Friday post on X. He named maximalists, capitalists, technologists, and fundamentalists as core camps shaping the network.

He wrote, “The mission is not to choose between purity and adoption, or between innovation and stability.” He added, “The mission is to ensure that Bitcoin remains Bitcoin while the world builds on it.”

He described the base layer as “sacred infrastructure” that must remain stable. However, he said Bitcoin, the asset, should integrate with companies, banks, and nation-state reserves.

The essay addressed tensions tied to Bitcoin’s deeper ties with traditional finance. Corporate treasuries, exchange-traded funds, and capital markets now influence demand patterns. BTC traded at $60,717 on Friday and showed a 5.35% daily decline.

The asset has dropped more than 50% from its October 2025 high of $126,000. It has also recorded one of its steepest pullbacks since the 2022 bear market. The downturn has intensified debate over Bitcoin’s direction and market structure.

Strategy’s Bitcoin Moves Draw Scrutiny

Strategy has expanded preferred stock offerings to finance additional Bitcoin purchases. The firm holds more than 844,700 BTC on its balance sheet. However, it disclosed the sale of 32 BTC for about $2.5 million earlier this week.

The sale represents a small fraction of total holdings. Still, critics questioned whether larger sales could follow. CNBC host Jim Cramer responded to a video by Strive CEO Matt Cole and said, “Saylor murdered Bitcoin.”

Strategy has not announced further disposals since the disclosure. The company continues to position Bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset. Meanwhile, BTC price weakness has shaped investor and analyst commentary.

Analysts Debate Path to a Sustainable Bottom

Grayscale Head of Research Zach Pandl said Strategy faces limits at current share prices. He stated that further accumulation may require new sources of demand. He said the market needs broader participation to find a “sustainable bottom.”

Standard Chartered Head of Digital Assets Research Geoffrey Kendrick offered a different view. He said Bitcoin’s low is “almost in” based on steady spot ETF holdings. He also suggested Strategy could repurchase more BTC than it recently sold.

Kendrick said renewed buying would signal that the worst of the selloff has passed. For now, Bitcoin remains under pressure as analysts assess demand conditions. BTC last traded below $61,000, down more than 25% over the past month.

The post Saylor Says Bitcoin Must Balance Purity and Growth appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Bitcoin has fallen below the median holder’s breakeven level for the first time since 2022.
• Glassnode data identifies the $46K-$54K range as the highest-probability Bitcoin bottom zone.
• The CVDD model near $46K has historically served as a reliable anchor during cycle lows.
• Bitcoin’s drawdowns are becoming shallower, supporting a higher floor than prior bear markets.

Where is the Bitcoin bottom? That question has gained urgency after Bitcoin fell to nearly $62,000, placing the asset about 50% below its all-time high.

The decline has pushed Bitcoin into a valuation range that has historically coincided with major cycle lows. According to market analyst Rafael, several long-term on-chain indicators now cluster around levels that previously acted as bear market floors.

While no model can identify an exact bottom in advance, current data offers a framework for assessing where support may emerge.

Bitcoin Approaches Historical Bottoming Levels

In a recent X thread, Rafael examined several valuation metrics used to identify potential cycle bottoms. He noted that Bitcoin has dropped below the median holder’s breakeven level for the first time since December 2022.

The analyst pointed to the Median Realized Price near $64,100 and the 200-week moving average around $61,700. Together, these metrics form an important support cluster that has attracted market attention.

According to the thread, Bitcoin has spent only about 7% of its history trading below the Median MVRV level. That makes the current price zone relatively uncommon compared with the broader trading history of the asset.

Rafael also outlined deeper support levels beneath the 200-week moving average. These include the Realized Price at roughly $54,000, CVDD near $46,000, Balanced Price around $40,000, and Delta Price close to $35,000. Previous bear market lows have typically entered this range before recovering.

Where Data Suggests the Bitcoin Bottom Could Form

The analysis places particular emphasis on the CVDD model. Rafael noted that across prior market cycles, Bitcoin’s ultimate lows frequently formed within a narrow range above the CVDD level.

According to the data, previous cycle bottoms generally occurred between 1.05 and 1.18 times the CVDD value. While other valuation metrics were occasionally breached, CVDD consistently served as a reliable anchor during major downturns.

With CVDD currently sitting near $46,200, the analyst identified a higher-probability bottom zone between $46,000 and $54,000. This range spans from the CVDD level to the Realized Price and represents the area where historical cycle floors have often developed.

Below that sits a deeper capitulation range between $35,000 and $40,000, defined by the Balanced Price and Delta Price models. Rafael noted that Bitcoin has traded in this lower zone during less than 3% of all trading days.

The analyst also observed that Bitcoin drawdowns have become progressively shallower over time. Earlier cycles recorded declines of approximately 85%, 84%, and 77%.

The current cycle has fallen around 50% from its peak. Although a deeper correction cannot be ruled out, the trend suggests the more likely Bitcoin bottom may reside within the $46,000 to $54,000 range rather than the lower capitulation zone.

Rafael stressed that no valuation model can predict an exact bottom. Instead, investors should view these levels as probability zones that help track changing market conditions.

For recovery, he identified the $75,000 to $79,000 region as the first major area Bitcoin would need to reclaim to signal improving market structure.

The post Where Is the Bitcoin Bottom? Glassnode Data Identifies the Most Likely BTC Floor Zones appeared first on Blockonomi.

In such times of distress where all crypto assets head south, including the largest altcoin, the retail public generally turns to more experienced and prominent names to look for support.

In an interesting development, though, one of the key crypto figures with a long connection to Ethereum, ConsenSys co-founder Joseph Lubin, has made a large ETH transfer after years of inactivity, which stirred the pot rather than calming the public.

Is Lubin Dumping ETH?

Lookonchain shared data showing that the transfer occurred just hours ago, in which Lubin sent out 80,001 ETH (valued at over $121 million). This wallet linked to him has been inactive for over three years, and the timing now is what raised so many questions.

Some asked why he didn’t sell at the very top last year when the asset neared $5,000 for the first time ever. Others believed retail investors might follow the example in what appears to be a capitulation event.

However, there were those who noted that Lubin simply needs to cover his leveraged trades on other platforms, such as MakerDAO. When an asset dumps as hard as ETH did in the past few days, the risk for forced closures (liquidations) skyrockets unless the trader provides more liquidity or collateral.

Is #Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin(@ethereumJoseph) preparing to dump $ETH?

A wallet linked to Joseph Lubin, which holds 243,300 $ETH($370M), transferred out 80,001 $ETH($121.6M) after more than 3 years of inactivity.https://t.co/s6lzxlNpRy pic.twitter.com/f0hyWvQBAm

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) June 6, 2026

Lubin’s intentions remain unclear at the moment, but the general consensus (no pun intended) in the comments below Lookonchain’s post is that the transfer increased the overall FUD. However, there’s no confirmation that he indeed sold or plans to do so.

Will ETH Dump Toward $1K?

Speaking on the asset’s disastrous price action over the past week or so, Ali Martinez noted that ETH has hit its first bearish target at $1,560. It went even below that, and the popular analyst outlined his second, significantly more painful one, situated at just over $1,000, which would be another 50% drop from the current levels.

Rekt Capital, another popular analyst with over 550,000 followers on X, supported Martinez’s target. They noted that ETH has broken below the multi-year uptrend line and there’s a solid chance it slumps toward $1,000 in the not-so-distant future. It’s worth noting that the world’s largest altcoin hasn’t traded at such low levels since the 2022 bear market.

$ETH

Ethereum has finally broken down from the multi-year uptrend line

The multi-year technical uptrend is over

Price has revisited the orange area for the first time since early 2025

If price Monthly Closes beneath orange and turns it into new resistance, there’s a good… https://t.co/0OCG5J6xGd pic.twitter.com/ek8SrG7qzk

— Rekt Capital (@rektcapital) June 5, 2026

The post Is Joseph Lubin Abandoning Ethereum as Analysts Warn of a $1K Crash? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin’s recent crash began with a violent rejection at $82,000 that drove it south to $59,000 on Friday, which became its lowest price tag since before the US presidential elections in November 2024.

Following such a painful decline, the asset has dropped into a critical zone where long-term indicators and historical patterns begin to converge. Perhaps that’s why many analysts have started to debate whether the bottom is just around the corner or another leg down could be in the making.

The Rainbow Chart

Popular analyst Crypto Rover noted recently that BTC had declined below the ‘rainbow chart’ (seen in the embedded video below), which was just the second such occurrence in its recent history. The reason for this long-term valuation model’s rarity is that it comes during extreme market conditions.

The last time it happened, BTC dumped toward $15,000 during the 2022 bear market. For many long-term bitcoin holders, it signals that the cryptocurrency is entering deeply undervalued territory; hence, it could be close to the bottom. For now, though, the asset remains firmly below it even after managing to rebound from the $59,000 low.

$BTC just fell below the rainbow chart.

Historically, this has happened 2 times.

• 2022: $15,500
• 2026: $63,000

Most Bitcoin OG’s remember this. pic.twitter.com/SkOQrIDXBT

— Crypto Rover (@cryptorover) June 5, 2026

Another key level now in focus is the 200-week exponential moving average (EMA), which was brought up by fellow analyst CRYPTOWZRD. They noted that it has historically served as a reliable support during bear markets, and in most previous cycles BTC has bottomed either at or very close to it.

Bitcoin is currently testing it, and if it manages to hold above it and reclaim momentum, it could strengthen the case for a bottom forming in the low-$60,000 range. A clean breakdown, though, would likely open the door for deeper losses and extend the correction phase.

Maybe Not Complete?

Rekt Capital compared the current bear phase to the 2022 landscape and concluded that there’s a major discrepancy in the divergences from the previous all-time highs. In 2022, BTC deviated 22% below its 2017 all-time high, while it has not gone just 12% under the 2021 all-time high.

“Bitcoin is getting close to a bottom but it’s not there quite yet and there’s still time left,” the analyst concluded.

For now, the main signals remain mixed as long-term valuation models and key technical levels suggest BTC is getting close to a bottom, but it’s not necessarily there yet. As volatility remains elevated, the market seems to be entering a ‘make-or-break’ phase that could define the next major trend.

The post Bitcoin Nearing a Bottom? Key Indicators Flash Mixed Signals After $59K Drop appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The biggest banks on Wall Street are reportedly going to launch a tokenized deposit network in the first half of 2027.

The effort is being led by the Clearing House, a real-time payments company co-owned by major financial institutions including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo.

Project to Bridge Traditional Payments with Blockchain

The Wall Street Journal reports that the project, called “the bridge,” aims to connect traditional banking payment systems to blockchain infrastructure so that tokenized deposits can move instantly with 24/7 settlement. It also states that the underlying blockchain will be built through a partnership with a yet-to-be-selected third-party vendor.

“This is a big move for the banks,” said Clearing House Chief Executive David Watson, who said the industry is facing a “radically different” future when it comes to on-chain payments and finance.

Citi sees the initiative as an extension of the role banks already play in the financial system. The move was “another step that effectively cements” banks’ role in financing, money management, and capital markets, said Shahmir Khaliq, the firm’s head of services.

At the same time, banks have been wary about stablecoins, concerned that their use could divert deposits away from the firms. Financial institutions and crypto institutions have been at loggerheads for months over recently advanced legislation that would allow the latter’s customers to earn interest from their stablecoin holdings.

Demand For Adoption Remains Gradual

The report states that all US banks will have access to the tokenized deposit network, with possible use cases including real-time liquidity management, programmable treasury operations, and cross-border payments. The Clearing House also expects big multinationals to be among its first users.

On the other hand, Mark Monaco, head of global payment solutions at Bank of America, said clients are not “beating down the door” for tokenized deposits yet. However, he also revealed that there is growing interest in the product, further admitting that adoption would take time.

JPMorgan has already dipped its toes with JPM Coin, an in-house tokenized deposit system for settling payments on its private blockchain. More recently, the firm also launched a token on Base for its institutional clients.

The latest development follows last year’s discussions among major financial institutions about creating a joint stablecoin through The Clearing House and Early Warning Services. As much as this is still being explored, WSJ said that some banking executives are still unsure about the benefits that these digital assets offer outside of cross-border payments.

The post Top US Banks to Launch Tokenized Deposit Network: Report appeared first on CryptoPotato.

[PRESS RELEASE – New York, USA, June 5th, 2026]

FairGambling, a new transparency and rewards platform for crypto casino players and Bitcoin gamblers, today announced its public launch. The platform combines on-chain analytics, provably fair verification tools, independent crypto casino reviews, live bonus code feeds, and an extra rewards program offering up to 30% rakeback across 40+ major crypto casino operators including Stake, Roobet, Shuffle, BC.Game, Gamdom, Bitcasino, 1win, Winna, Thrill and Duel, with much more to come.

FairGambling launches into a market that processed over $80 billion in crypto casino deposit volume last year. The platform’s analytics layer already tracks $45 billion+ of that flow in real time across the operators it covers. Despite the market’s scale, players still have limited tools to verify fairness, compare operators, or independently assess where their money is going.

Built as a Utility Layer, Not Another Affiliate Site

“Most casino review sites today are just rankings and sign-up bonuses,” said Seb, Co-Founder of FairGambling. “We wanted to build something different. A place where players can actually see what’s happening on-chain, verify their own bets, compare casinos based on data instead of marketing, and earn real rewards on top. All for free, with no obligations. That’s the gap we’re filling, and what’s live today is just the start of what we’re building.”

The platform brings together several player-first tools in one place:

• On-chain crypto casino analytics, tracking real-time deposit volume, market share, unique depositors, and hot wallet activity across 50+ operators
• Provably fair verifier for independently checking game outcomes from Stake, Roobet, Shuffle and other major operators
• Independent crypto casino reviews and ratings scored across 10 weighted categories including fairness, financial transparency, KYC and licensing, compliance, and customer support
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• Bonus calculator and Stake stats calculator for analyzing personal betting history and rakeback value
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Data-Driven Casino Comparison

Unlike traditional affiliate sites that rank casinos based on commercial agreements, FairGambling’s ratings are built from a weighted rubric covering analytics, fairness, financial transparency, bonus structure, compliance, and security. Each operator profile includes deposit volumes, hot wallet visibility, license details, no-KYC policies, bonus testing results showing how much players actually receive back in rewards when wagering a given amount, and side-by-side comparisons against other operators on the same metrics.

The analytics section is open to all visitors and shows live on-chain flows, allowing players to see which operators are processing real volume versus those with thin activity. This is a data point traditionally only available to industry insiders.

Community Reviews and Earning Crypto

FairGambling places verified player reviews at the center of its review system. Verified users can earn crypto rewards for eligible contributions, and the platform requires casino activity verification (such as VIP tier or wager history) before reviews are approved, which is intended to filter out the fake reviews common to other online gambling review sites.

“Trust in this space is broken,” Seb added. “We’re not going to fix that overnight, but giving players the data, the tools, and the rewards to actually engage critically with the operators they use, that’s the foundation. Everything else builds on that.”

The platform helps players find the best crypto casinos based on data, verify game fairness, and earn extra rakeback on top of what casinos already offer. FairGambling is now live and available worldwide, subject to local laws and eligibility requirements.

About FairGambling

FairGambling is a crypto casino transparency and rewards platform that helps players make more informed decisions across major Bitcoin and crypto gambling operators. The platform combines on-chain casino analytics, independent crypto casino reviews and ratings, provably fair verification tools, live bonus code feeds, player stats tools, a blackjack trainer, and an extra rewards program offering up to 30% extra rakeback. FairGambling currently covers 50+ crypto casino operators and has tracked $45 billion+ in historical deposit volume, with more added regularly.

For more information, users can visit FairGambling.com.

Responsible gambling notice: FairGambling is not a casino and does not accept bets or process gambling transactions. The platform provides analytics, reviews, verification tools, and rewards related to third-party crypto casino operators. FairGambling is intended for users aged 18+ or the legal gambling age in their jurisdiction. Gambling involves risk and can be addictive. Please play responsibly and follow all applicable local laws.

The post FairGambling Launches Crypto Casino Review and Analytics Platform With Provably Fair Tools and Extra Rewards appeared first on CryptoPotato.

It was difficult to imagine in mid-May how much the cryptocurrency landscape could change for the worse in such a painful manner in the following three weeks. Aside from BTC, which dumped beneath $60,000 for the first time since November 2024, and ETH plummeting to a 14-month low, XRP also slipped below crucial support levels and marked a 19-month low of under $1.10 on Friday.

The question now is whether this last defense above the crucial psychological level at $1.00 will hold, or if the cross-border token is headed toward an inevitable crash into the cents territory.

What Happens When Bears Take Complete Control?

The popular AI solution’s new version noted that the most realistic first bearish target sits at $0.90 if XRP dumps below $1.00 soon, which appears more and more likely given the current market conditions. Just for reference, BTC broke down below $60,000 earlier today, reaching its lowest price tag since before the US elections in late 2024.

XRP also dumped to its lowest level since those eventful days in November 2024, as it currently sits below $1.10. After breaking below its last major support level, $1.00 is now in focus; another leg down could test it soon.

If the token indeed dips to $0.90, this would represent another 18%-20% decline and likely coincide with continued weakness across the market, ChatGPT added.

However, it outlined even lower targets if the bulls fall out completely, with the even more bearish option seeing the asset dumping to $0.75-$0.80.

The capitulation scenario envisions another drop to $0.60, but this remains a “low-probability outcome.”

“For XRP to collapse that far, investors would likely need to face a combination of macroeconomic turmoil, a broader crypto bear market, and the disappearance of key bullish narratives such as ETF optimism and institutional adoption,” the AI platform noted.

A Violent Rebound?

ChatGPT also offered a different viewpoint, which shows that XRP could be “approaching the point where conditions become favorable for a relief rally.” Basing its projection on some historical developments, especially for previous Junes during US midterm election years, it explained that “pessimism often preceded major recoveries.”

Consequently, it outlined a possible and quick rebound to $1.25 and even $1.40 if buyers successfully defend the $1.05-$1.10 support region, which is to be seen in the next days or even hours.

The post XRP Holders Won’t Like What ChatGPT’s New Version Predicts Next appeared first on CryptoPotato.