Marvell's S&P 500 inclusion could drive further stock gains, influencing semiconductor market dynamics and investor strategies significantly.

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The UK-France mine-clearing mission in the Strait of Hormuz could stabilize global oil markets and enhance multinational maritime security cooperation.

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Securitize's AI-driven data architecture enhances compliance and governance, crucial for scaling operations and attracting public market scrutiny.

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Travala's AI travel protocol could revolutionize booking efficiency, but raises concerns about AI autonomy and user control in financial transactions.

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The ceasefire's fragility underscores persistent regional instability, influencing global markets and accelerating crypto adoption in crisis zones.

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Bitcoin Magazine

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pompliano: Rotation from bitcoin is natural, not structural

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bitcoin as a ‘Savings Technology’

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

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

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

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

Bitcoin Magazine

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bitcoin price and market in ‘Extreme Fear’

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

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

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

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

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

Bitcoin Magazine

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bitcoin is backed by energy 

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

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

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

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

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

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Privacy in 2026: A Practical Guide

Bitcoin privacy has come a long way since the early days of Bitcoin. Once marketed as anonymous, Bitcoin can be best described as a pseudonymous currency and monetary system. It does not need user personal information whatsoever to function, but companies built around it often associate user public keys — Bitcoin accounts — with user information. They do this to comply with legacy financial regimes, and in some cases, for ease of use. 

As a result, users might share or expose personal information to such companies as their home IP address, which can be used to identify the users’ internet service provider, and from there, the users’ physical address. As well as their personal name, phone number, shipping address, etc. All of this information in the wrong hands can put people at risk of physical and economic harm. 

It is important to note that Bitcoin does not fundamentally have a privacy problem, as many critics suggest. The modern world has a privacy problem, which it has so far failed to address, leading to regular hacks of user data across every aspect of society, from the banking sector to social networks, from government agencies to the military. The digital society we increasingly inhabit is more often than not incapable of securing user data. 

Bitcoin, unlike all other comparable institutions, does not need user data to function. It is actually one of the few financial tools available for the privacy-conscious individual. Cash is the other alternative, which limits the distance at which transactions can be made and brings with it a full bag of other downsides. 

But, as a digital system, can Bitcoin actually be used privately, given how prominent KYCed exchanges are, and how data-hungry modern software companies have become? The answer to this question might surprise you. 

Privacy from whom? 

Depending on the jurisdiction you live in and the local laws or state of your country, some risks or threats are more pressing than others. Some countries throughout the world have at times imposed heavy capital controls on their citizens, often simply enforcing the cash grabs at the banking level. Bitcoin, if held in self-custody and with the right amount of privacy, can protect users from this threat.

In other cases, the nation state is stable enough, but organized crime has run amok, leading to targeted phishing schemes and even kidnappings, like in the case of France, where honest and hard-working individuals pay their crypto taxes, and as a result of local laws, enter the public record as having crypto. Leading to an alarming rise in related home invasions. 

Last but not least, there are activists who might be operating under oppressive regimes, debanked and isolated from civil institutions, Bitcoin used in subtle ways can be their only monetary respite. Depending on the situation, some tools and tactics will be better for the job than others. 

Privacy also does not mean that you can not be a law-abiding citizen. Strong privacy laws exist in many countries, meant to protect civilians from a variety of threats, while also enabling compliance with tax laws, for example. Privacy does not mean you have something to hide, as Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s infamous chief of propaganda, once suggested. Instead, it is the ability to choose who you disclose your business to. It is a fundamental pillar of democracy. 

Network Privacy

First things first, we have to protect your IP address, the ID your internet service provider gives your computer devices, including your mobile phone. The most popular way to deal with this is to get a VPN. 

Not all VPNs are created equal; however, many are rumored to keep logs and sell your data. On this front, it’s important to do deeper research than the marketing and ask around from people who are paranoid enough to know better. 

In the Bitcoin space, Mullvad VPN has a good reputation. They have been accepting Bitcoin for their services for a very long time, and are super easy to use. They are used alongside Tor and have an option to block all traffic that does not go through the VPN. One account can support multiple devices, including mobile. 

Tor Browser, the infamous gateway into the dark web, is also an important tool to have handy. Many privacy tools we will discuss below support Tor connectivity, often having the required libraries built in, so you just have to push a button on the app to use the Tor network. The apps will be a little bit slower, as Tor does its anonymization magic, just FYI. Brave Browser also deserves a mention here, as it blocks most advertisement tracking and has built-in Tor support.

Getting Bitcoin Privately

The biggest challenge to Bitcoin privacy is actually how users accumulate it. Exchanges, broker-like private companies that facilitate the trade of bitcoin for fiat currency, have emerged as the most efficient and effective way to buy bitcoin. They have managed to survive hostile legal regimes, hacker groups and overzealous law-enforcement agencies by often over-complying with financial regulations that require them to collect massive amounts of personal user data.

Privacy-preserving alternatives to buy and sell bitcoin for fiat have, in turn, been harassed by government agencies regularly, often failing to survive or keep their market foothold against centralized alternatives. An excellent example of this dynamic was the first major peer to peer bitcoin to fiat exchange called LocalBitcoins, which shut down after 10 years of operation since at least 2013. The company faced increasing pressure from regulators in Finland, forced to implement KYC in 2019, and eventually shut down during the 2023 bear market and Operation Chokepoint 2.0. 

LocalBitcoins connected buyers and sellers, serving as an escrow for Bitcoin, while the fiat went from the buyer to the seller’s bank account. LocalBitcoins, which pioneered the model, never touched the fiat and did not know the banking information of the seller. Such information would only move up the chain to the operators in the case of disputes. If both buyer and seller were happy with the fiat transfer, the BTC was released from escrow to the buyer. 

This semi-decentralized exchange model, pioneered by LocalBitcoins, is generally called a P2P Bitcoin exchange, though many variations of it exist, with a wide range of privacy trade-offs, over the years. 

Today, Bisq.network is perhaps one of the most renowned predecessors of LocalBitcoins. Taking a page from the centralized downfall of LocalBitcoins, Bisq attempted to create a Tor-anonymized, decentralized trading platform to allow buyers and sellers of bitcoin to connect all over the world. Bisq still operates today and has a variety of software tools available. Users can run Bisq on their local machines and control their account with their phones with Bisq Connect, or they can simply be notified of trade alerts via Bisq Notifications. There’s also a dedicated mobile app called Bisq Easy.

Volume for Bisq is estimated at almost 5 million dollars a month, which is low by centralized exchange standards, but good enough for civilian-grade dollar cost average purchases over time. It’s important to understand a couple of things when using Bisq. First, you should always pick a counterparty with a very high reputation. You should also pay attention to the commission they charge. It is normal for sellers to charge 5% above spot price or more, so look for the cheapest, highest-reputation option. The Bisq Easy app has a great user interface and teaches users new to P2P the basics quite well. 

There’s a variety of other P2P exchanges and platforms in active use throughout the world. As a general rule, when doing P2P, it is best to keep purchases or trades small enough that you don’t take unnecessary risks. They should be significant enough to be worth your time, but any amounts above $10,000 is probably way too much. The Dollar cost average strategy, as a result, works very well with P2P stacking.

Another way to get Bitcoin with good privacy is to find your local Bitcoin community. Many major cities throughout the world have active Bitcoin communities. If there are none where you live, you might be surprised how many people show up if you start a Bitcoin meetup. From there, slow trust building with local bitcoiners might open up the opportunity to buy some BTC from them for cash. Many bitcoiners get paid in bitcoin for their work and often need to sell some to cover fiat expenses, creating an opportunity for P2P trades in real life.

Last but not least, offer your skills in exchange for Bitcoin, start a project or a Bitcoin dedicated brand. This will give you a great deal of control over how you handle information about your Bitcoin revenue. 

Onchain Privacy

However, once you have some Bitcoin, there are a variety of things you can do to keep that information secure from prying eyes. Bitcoin, unlike any other money before it, functions as a public network, with its full transaction history auditable by anyone, though not tied to the holders’ personal information, but instead their public address or pseudonymous Bitcoin account number.

These public addresses live on the blockchain, and data firms can try to connect the dots about who is moving money where, especially when they collaborate with exchanges on data sharing or when other relevant information enters the public domain. Users can protect themselves from onchain analytics by using a variety of tools and tactics. 

Run your own node

In order to minimize who you share information with about your addresses and balances, it becomes important for privacy reasons to run your own Bitcoin node, otherwise you are always fundamentally asking someone else running a node, what your balance is. All wallets that don’t explicitly run a Bitcoin full node on your machine have to run one on their servers, or redirect your requests to a public node someone might be hosting for charitable or not-so-charitable reasons. 

While having network privacy, such as through the use of a VPN, can protect you from the risks of not running your own node, the next step in that self-sovereign, privacy setup is certainly taking control of the node you query, and thus becoming an active participant in the Bitcoin network. 

Sparrow Wallet, an increasingly popular desktop wallet which has excellent support for privacy features, hardware wallets and advanced Bitcoin features like multi-signature accounts and Silent Payments, has great documentation on how to run and use your own node. Their conclusion is that Fulcrum, a wrapper on top of Bitcoin core that makes the blockchain data available to external wallets, is the way to go. 

As a desktop wallet, Sparrow would work within your home network, letting you access the Bitcoin blockchain with strong privacy. If you wanted to connect to it from your phone or laptop from outside of your local network, you would need to run a Tor hidden service at home, a Tor tunnel of sorts, to access your node remotely in a secure and private way. 

Boltz Exchange

Boltz is a Bitcoin-to-crypto, non-custodial exchange. It never touches fiat, and never holds custody of user funds. Users trade against Boltz using a technology under the hood called atomic swaps which means neither party has to trust the other during the trade, the crypto is moved essentially at the same time from the seller to the buyer and viceversa.

Boltz can be used without sharing any personal information and can be accessed through Tor, allowing Bitcoin users to leverage the benefits of other blockchains and payment networks if they so wish, with strong privacy. 

One such network accessible via Boltz is the Liquid blockchain, a Bitcoin-denominated and collateralized federated ‘side chain’ with strong privacy features. Another example is the Lightning network, which has powerful potential privacy benefits as it is fundamentally off-chain, leaving a simple public record. Boltz can be used to convert Bitcoin to stablecoins as well on most major blockchains, letting bitcoiners access the broader crypto industry and its market integrations through a high privacy bridge. 

Boltz can be used on their website or by downloading a standalone open source web app. A CLI is also available for advanced users, and since the whole stack is open source, users can even self-host the Boltz suite themselves for their business. Boltz, as a result, removes the need for centralized exchanges to move across blockchain rails, eliminating the corresponding privacy risk.  

The Liquid Network

The Liquid Network, a federated blockchain created by Blockstream, is slowly becoming an important infrastructure to the Bitcoin industry. Launched in 2018, the chain is a modified fork of Bitcoin with its native asset LBTC, pegged to Bitcoin directly. To mint LBTC, you have to deposit BTC into the federation’s multisig, and to get your BTC out, you can depeg or sell your LBTC for BTC on a variety of atomic swap exchanges. While its consensus structure is different than Bitcoin’s and fundamentally permissioned, it rests on the shoulders of a double-digit group of industry-leading companies throughout the world, and has remained quite stable since it went live.

One of the interesting things about it is its privacy features; transactions on Liquid have their amounts and asset type encrypted by default. Addresses can be seen to move assets from A to B on-chain, but which asset and how much of it is encrypted, only for the involved parties to see. It uses a cryptographic technique called Confidential Transactions, pioneered by Bitcoin wizards like Adam Back, Andrew Poelstra, Mark Friedenbach, Gregory Maxwell, and Pieter Wuille. Liquid is also quite cheap to use, and has faster block times than Bitcoin, making it an interesting tool in the Bitcoin privacy tool belt, specifically with privacy bridges like Boltz exchange. 

Blockstream has a mobile wallet that is quite powerful and easy to use, which supports the liquid network.

Silent Payments

Silent Payments are a novel kind of Bitcoin address that reframes the way auditing of balances happens on Bitcoin. The whole point of being able to see addresses and how much BTC is in them on the blockchain is so that users can easily verify the total supply and thus the economic integrity of the Bitcoin monetary network.

Silent payments (SP) let users receive Bitcoin in such a way that the link between the SP address and the corresponding Bitcoin public address is publicly severed. The technology is quite powerful and has a long history of development in the Bitcoin industry, gaining growing adoption in recent years.

Of the few wallets that can receive Silent Payments so far, Sparrow wallet is likely the best across the board, supporting a full range of privacy features, including connection to the user’s own node. Silent Payment addresses can be reused, so users can generate one and take it on the go, then check their balances on their desktop or laptop using Sparrow. For extra privacy, users can run a Frigate server alongside Sparrow, which deals with the Silent Payments magic in a self-hosted way. 

Payjoin

Another notable technology that works quite well with the rest is Payjoin. With a dedicated foundation and wallet support growing every day, this simple transaction-building technique breaks the heuristics used by blockchain analytics to identify individual users and their flows across the chain. Sparrow wallet, alongside many others, supports Payjoin, as it continues to grow into what may become the HTTPS of Bitcoin payments. 

Coinjoin

Once the bread and butter of Bitcoin privacy, Coinjoins wallets like Wasabi let you mix your Bitcoin with other people’s in a non-custodial way. The technique has significant upsides when done well, and is still used by many to this day, though it also comes with some tricky downsides. Gustavo, an entrepreneur and writer for Bitcoin Optech, says that “Wasabi works better than ever IMO, and is by far the most liquid and effective bitcoin privacy solution.” Liquidity equates to more privacy when it comes to Coinjoins. “Kruw.io is the dominating coordinator: it has over 97% of the market’s liquidity.” with “30,000 btc volume per month, about 4000 btc of fresh btc inputs.”

Coinjoins became so effective and popular that they led to the landmark Samourai Wallet case, which had its own implementation of the technology, an ongoing cultural fight for the right to privacy.

Gustavo also listed some of the downsides involved with Coinjoins that users should consider, such as the risk that a centralized exchange might be able to tell your bitcoins were moved through a coinjoin, which looks like a big cloud of transactions on-chain. And that there is some known risk of data leaks on the side of the coordinator, a server someone has to run to help users atomically mix coins with each other. However, he believes the technology only continues to improve and patch those holes, saying that “the attack surface has decreased since the last discussion in 2024.” 

The Lightning and eCash Networks

Last but not least are the eCash and the Lightning Network. Fundamentally off-chain bitcoin native transaction protocols, they have a key benefit over all the onchain privacy solutions, that they do not leave a footprint on the public blockchain. As a result, privacy is theoretically far easier to achieve. In practice, however, there’s still a lot of work to do, since the most private ways to use the Lightning network are the most difficult from a user experience perspective, requiring the user to run their own Lightning node and manage their own liquidity. 

While there are many easy-to-use lightning wallets in the market, most, if not all, require a certain level of data sharing trust with the servers of the wallet company. Something that network privacy can help alleviate. 

Ecash is also emerging as a strong privacy technology, though it still falls short on adoption in the West. Wallets like Fedi and Cashu are on the cutting edge, letting users transact with unprecedented privacy in Bitcoin terms, though at the cost of trusting custodial mints, which collateralize the ecash tokens with Bitcoin. 

Conclusion 

Overall, the tools of Bitcoin privacy continue to improve as the industry’s passion for the topic has not waned. Some are easier to leverage than others. But, as Satoshi Nakamoto has demonstrated, those who take their privacy seriously are the only ones who are able to keep it. 

This post Bitcoin Privacy in 2026: A Practical Guide first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.

Bitcoin Magazine

Michael Saylor Calls Bitcoin’s Drop a ‘Capital Rotation’ to AI as BTC Slides Below $62,000

Bitcoin fell to as low as $61,400 overnight before trimming losses to $62,400 in premarket hours Thursday, down 7% over the past 24 hours and more than 14% over the past week. Strategy and Michael Saylor’s MSTR is down nearly 15% in 5 trading days.

The drop has pushed bitcoin into a technical bear market, with bitcoin now off 22.7% from its four-week high, wiping out more than $600 billion in total crypto market value.

At the center of the debate is Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor, who took to X on Thursday morning to offer his read on the selloff. 

“Capital markets are funding the AI buildout at historic scale: ~$400B over 6 months,” Saylor wrote. “Bitcoin ETFs have seen ~$4B of outflows since May 14, pressuring BTC. This is a capital rotation, not a Bitcoin impairment. Volatility creates opportunity.”

Saylor’s thesis holds that institutions are pulling money from bitcoin and redirecting it into artificial intelligence infrastructure — a trade, not a verdict on the asset. The AI spending figures give his argument weight. Wall Street consensus puts combined hyperscaler capital expenditures above $600 billion for 2026 alone, with CreditSights estimating roughly $450 billion of that flowing into AI hardware, servers, and networking gear.

Saylor sells some bitcoin 

But Saylor’s words arrived with a footnote that bears found hard to ignore. Strategy, the largest corporate bitcoin holder in the world with 843,706 BTC, disclosed in a June 1 Form 8-K that it sold 32 bitcoin between May 26 and May 31 at an average price of $77,135 per coin, raising $2.5 million net of expenses. The stated purpose: to fund dividend payments on the company’s STRC preferred shares.

In dollar terms, the sale is a rounding error against a position worth roughly $61 billion. In psychological terms, the market treated it as a break in character. 

Strategy had not sold a single bitcoin since late 2022, and Saylor’s identity as an unwavering bitcoin accumulator had become a market signal in its own right. Analysts said the move deepened bearish sentiment and accelerated the price decline.

Two weeks ago and one week before the sale, Strategy shifted its focus from buying bitcoin to strengthening its balance sheet, repurchasing $1.5 billion of its 0% convertible notes due 2029 for approximately $1.38 billion in cash—an 8% discount that reduced its debt obligations by roughly $120 million. 

The move lowered the company’s outstanding convertible debt from $8.2 billion to $6.7 billion while leaving it with an $871 million cash reserve. At the time, Strategy held 843,738 BTC at the time and said it planned to rebuild its liquidity buffer through future capital raises.

This post Michael Saylor Calls Bitcoin’s Drop a ‘Capital Rotation’ to AI as BTC Slides Below $62,000 first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

A Casascius coin tied to 25 BTC moved this week, converting a 2011 physical Bitcoin artifact into spendable BTC during a broader market selloff.

Galaxy Research identified the item as an S1-COIN-25 Casascius physical Bitcoin, a large-denomination piece from the era when Bitcoin could still be handed across a table as a loaded coin. The reported alert valued the 25 BTC at about $1.78 million at the time.

The on-chain sequence is more precise than a simple cash-out. The watched address received a 25 BTC output in block 156,413 on Dec. 7, 2011. It later accumulated small dust outputs before spending its funded outputs this week.

The first 2026 spend landed on June 3 at block 952,159. That transaction spent 25.00002187 BTC from the address and returned 24.98998 BTC to the same address after fees and dust handling.

A second transaction on June 4 at block 952,267 moved 24.98996629 BTC to a SegWit address, leaving the watched address with no balance.

The event proves a status change rather than a confirmed sale. Bitcoin, once attached to a physical collectible, became spendable via a normal wallet path. The chain shows movement away from the old address without any evidence of an exchange deposit, custodian route, or sale.

What the Bitcoin blockchain shows

The June 3 transaction matters because it exposed activity from an address that had carried its original 25 BTC output since 2011. The spend returned most of the value to the same address, so a one-line address history can overstate what changed.

The June 4 transaction completed the visible move. The final spend sent 24.98996629 BTC from the watched address to bc1qn5snfwq447vge9ynnz66xqm9kpam9eu34z52dk. The fee was 1,371 sats.

After that, Blockstream's address view showed no remaining balance. The holder's reason remains unknown, and the available record ends with a transfer to another Bitcoin address.

That boundary matters for market interpretation. Old coins moving can look like holder behavior during a selloff, while the available data only establishes transfer to a recipient address.

CryptoSlate applied a similar standard to Mt. Gox-linked wallet movements, treating the first transfer as a warning light until later routing showed more. The same discipline applies here, where the next useful signal is onward routing.

Related Reading

Mt. Gox-linked wallets moved 10,422 BTC, worth roughly $739 million as BTC price slides

The transfer revived the bankruptcy overhang while BTC was already under pressure, but the watched threshold is onward routing to exchanges, custodians, liquidity providers, or repayment partners.

Jun 3, 2026 · Liam 'Akiba' Wright

For now, the address history supports the following conclusion: a long-dormant, Casascius-attributed 25 BTC address became active, then sent nearly all of its remaining balance away from the original address.

Casascius attribution and on-chain proof do separate jobs. The visible chain proves the key was used. Galaxy-attributed secondary coverage supplies the label that makes it a physical-coin event.

Keeping those layers separate preserves the cultural hook without turning a tracker alert into more certainty than the record can carry.

A move from an old address becomes supply-only if subsequent routing points to a venue where coins can be sold or financed.

Until then, the strongest verifiable signal is a custody transition. A private key once hidden in a physical object has been used, and the BTC now sits outside the original Casascius-attributed address.

Why a Physical Coin Still Matters

Casascius coins occupy a strange place in Bitcoin history because they turned a purely digital bearer asset into a physical object. The original site describes pieces with their own Bitcoin address and a redeemable private key sealed inside.

The Casascius FAQ explains the tamper-evident hologram and the rationale behind making a physical Bitcoin as a proof-of-concept and conversation piece.

That design created a trade-off outside ordinary wallet custody. Leaving the hologram intact preserves the object as a loaded collectible. Peeling it gives the holder control over the BTC, but changes the item from a funded artifact into a spent collectible.

The owner is choosing between numismatic scarcity and direct wallet liquidity. That choice makes this move more distinctive than a dormant wallet transfer.

A standard wallet can sit idle for years and then move without changing its form. A Casascius redemption changes the nature of the thing itself.

The coin can still exist as a physical object, but its main economic value has shifted back to Bitcoin on-chain.

CryptoSlate covered a larger version of that tension in 2025, when a holder unlocked about $10 million from a rare Casascius bar. That case also forced a choice between keeping a scarce, loaded relic and redeeming the BTC.

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The current 25 BTC move lands differently because of timing. Bitcoin was already under pressure, and old-wallet activity carries a sharper edge when leverage is unwinding.

CryptoSlate's Bitcoin price page shows BTC near $63,000 on June 4, down 5.7% over 24 hours, 13.8% over seven days, and 22% over 30 days.

At that snapshot price, 25 BTC is worth about $1.58 million, which is already below the $1.78 million recently reported in the Galaxy-attributed alert.

Routing, Not Folklore

Bitcoin fell from $71,765 to $67,895 on June 2, triggering about $394 million in one-hour liquidations as leveraged long positions unwound.

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Jun 2, 2026 · Oluwapelumi Adejumo

That selloff makes any movement from old BTC addresses feel more consequential than it would during a calm rally.

The cultural signal and the trading signal are different. The cultural signal is clear: one of Bitcoin's early physical storage formats appears to have rejoined the ordinary liquidity layer.

The trading signal remains unresolved. The watched BTC has left the original address, while the available data leaves open whether it will be sold, stored, pledged, or moved again.

Casascius redemptions connect the Bitcoin of forums, holograms, and physical experiments with the Bitcoin of ETFs, market-cap dashboards, and institutional liquidity.

A physical coin from 2011 can sit untouched for years, then become on-chain BTC in a market where every old coin movement is scanned for supply pressure.

It is a small event compared with Mt. Gox balances, ETF flows, or miner selling, but it is vivid because the holder had to alter a collectible to make the BTC liquid.

The next signal is simple. If the June 4 recipient address routes funds toward an exchange, custodian, mixer, or known liquidity venue, the signal moves from culture and custody into market supply.

If it stays parked, the event remains a clean example of Bitcoin's long memory: old keys, old objects, and old storage habits can still wake up when the asset around them has become a global market.

The post A 2011 physical Bitcoin loaded with 25 BTC was just unlocked during the $62k selloff appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin is enduring a multi-front assault on its spot market liquidity as exchange-traded funds, short-term speculators, and cryptocurrency miners simultaneously distribute assets.

This coordinated selling pressure has drained market demand at the fastest pace since the 2022 collapse of the Terra/Luna ecosystem.

As a result, BTC's price has tanked 12% over the past week, pushing the top crypto towards the $60,000 level amid heavy hedging activities from market traders. BTC is exchanging hands at $64,036 as of press time, according to CryptoSlate's data.

Yet, this spot-market flush has created a structural paradox that could still catapult BTC's value.

The volume of selling has twisted the derivatives market into an increasingly lopsided shape where a record wall of short positions now anchors the market.

However, while traditional spot indicators point downward, any pause in selling could spark a mechanical short squeeze and turn the traders betting against Bitcoin into the forced buyers who fuel its next rally.

Bitcoin ETF exodus runs after the AI trade

The primary driver behind Bitcoin’s recent price weakness is a sharp reversal in institutional capital flows. Spot Bitcoin ETFs recently logged a 13-day streak of consecutive liquidations between mid-May and early June.

According to Galaxy Research, these funds shed 59,351 BTC, pulling roughly $4.33 billion out of the market.

Over a seven-day window, the funds lost $2.78 billion, representing the worst such outflow on record for Bitcoin. The bleeding continued over a 10-day window with $3.06 billion in outflows. The 14-day window saw $4.21 billion exit the market, while the 20-day trailing window recorded $5.42 billion in outflows, shedding 73,080 BTC.

Galaxy Research noted this 20-day period is the single largest outflow window by both dollar value and total Bitcoin volume on record.

Industry executives view this as a macroeconomic realignment rather than an internal failure of the digital asset class. Traditional capital markets are currently routing approximately $400 billion into artificial intelligence infrastructure over a six-month window.

Michael Saylor, chairman of Strategy, said:

“This is a capital rotation, not a Bitcoin impairment. Capital markets are funding the AI buildout at historic scale. Volatility creates opportunity.”

Jeff Park, an advisor at Bitwise, echoed this sentiment. He suggested traders are tapping their Bitcoin allocations to fund the market’s upcoming “hot ball of money” trades, shifting liquidity to chase tech firms like SpaceX and Anthropic.

Moving forward, Park noted, this correlation breakdown will itself become the fuel for future market moves.

Speculative panic and miner capitulation

As institutional support softened, retail and short-term holders entered a phase of outright capitulation.

CryptoQuant data shows that overall Bitcoin demand, which is a combination of the speculative and spot market purchasing, contracted by 501,000 BTC over the past month.

At the same time, short-term BTC holders are driving the most concentrated loss-driven transfers of the year.

Over a 24-hour window, these holders moved 53,800 BTC directly onto exchanges. CryptoQuant researchers highlighted the critical split: 100% of these coins moved while at a loss, while profit-side inflows collapsed to zero.

This means that these underwater buyers are choosing to liquidate their positions directly into market weakness rather than wait out the volatility.

Historically, CryptoQuant noted, peaks in loss-driven inflows from short-term holders cluster around local capitulation events. They mark weak hands, flushing out, and supply transferring from over-leveraged late entrants to higher-conviction holders.

Adding to the overhead supply, BTC miners are also moving coins. CryptoQuant noted that on June 2, Bitcoin miner inflows to the Binance exchange spiked to 24,716 BTC, surpassing a previous February peak by 6.8%.

CryptoQuant researchers pointed out that large miner inflows do not confirm immediate, open-market selling. Miners frequently move coins for strategic purposes, including hedging, liquidity management, or internal treasury rebalancing.

However, concentrating this volume of Bitcoin on a single exchange means miner-held supply has moved directly adjacent to market liquidity.

If these inflows remain elevated in the coming days, traders may interpret the data as a sign of renewed miner distribution.

The supply absorption puzzle

This relentless selling creates a structural puzzle when contrasted with long-term accumulation data. While short-term speculators flee, veteran investors are aggressively absorbing the overhead supply.

Brian HoonJong Paik, CEO of the Bitcoin-focused firm Smash Fi, pointed out that long-term holders added 200,000 BTC to their wallets this month and now control 16.3 million BTC, which is sitting near their all-time high holdings.

Paik said:

“The people who have held Bitcoin the longest are not selling into this weakness. They are buying your panic.”

Yet, the sheer volume of coins hitting the market indicates a massive change of hands.

CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju noted that historically, bear markets conclude only after the spot price falls below the realized price. This metric places the current average investor cost basis around $53,000.

Reaching that level, however, should theoretically prove difficult given the wall of institutional capital that has entered the market.

Ki Young Ju broke down the math to illustrate the scale of this absorption: Since January 2023, Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) bought 711,206 BTC and sold only 32, effectively locking up 711,174 coins.

Furthermore, since Bitcoin traded at $63,000 in March 2024, spot ETFs absorbed an additional 509,102 BTC, while Strategy acquired another 650,706 BTC.

In total, institutions swallowed 1,240,808 BTC, yet the spot price remains anchored at the same level.

For context, total global exchange reserves hover around 2.7 million BTC, and Satoshi Nakamoto’s estimated holdings equal roughly 1 million BTC.

Despite the market absorbing a supply shock larger than Satoshi’s entire stack, the price remains suppressed.

This dynamic highlights that while traditional long-term holders and institutions accumulate heavily, an unusually motivated cohort of sellers continues to cap any upward momentum.

BTC's coiled spring set-up

While the spot market paints a picture of exhaustion, the derivatives market has transformed into a coiled spring. The rush to short Bitcoin during this slide has created a top-heavy leverage structure.

Data from analytics firm Alphractal shows a dramatic 72-hour shift in the global liquidation map. On the first day of the flush, the market sat at 66% short-heavy.

By day two, it reached 76%. By day three, the market shifted to an extreme 89% short bias. The metric now pits $98.3 billion in short positions against a $12.2 billion long stack.

The short-to-long ratio sits at 8.06x. Because the market has already washed out most leveraged longs, limited downside risk remains on the chart. The downside magnetic level at $61,054 holds just $1.3 billion in long liquidations.

Conversely, the upside is heavily clustered with short liquidation triggers. A modest upward move opens up three waves of forced buying: $2.1 billion at $72,201; another $2.2 billion at $80,293; and a final $2.0 billion layer resting at $82,630.

According to Alphractal, short sellers have stacked more than $6.3 billion in sensitive liquidation triggers between 15% and 32% above the current spot price.

The closest structural analog to this dataset occurred in November 2022, when the same metric printed an 84% short-heavy reading. Over the following 11 sessions, Bitcoin surged approximately 24%.

Bitcoin currently faces undeniable spot pressure from miners, panicked retail traders, and fleeing ETF capital.

However, by over-allocating into bearish trades, the market has set a mechanical trap.

The underlying selling pressure remains real, but the resulting structural imbalance means that the slightest pause in spot distribution could easily trigger a violent, upward cascade powered entirely by the traders betting on Bitcoin's decline.

The post Bitcoin’s selloff is creating the short-heavy setup that could reverse it fast appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin’s relationship with the S&P 500 has stopped behaving like a simple correlation trade at exactly the wrong time for bulls.

For much of 2026, the logic was clean enough. When oil jumped during the Iran war, yields rose amid inflation fears, stocks sold off, and Bitcoin followed, as the market treated BTC as a liquidity-sensitive risk asset.

When the pressure eased, both risk trades could recover together.

That link has now fractured. The S&P 500 closed at a fresh record 7,609 on June 2, with the latest leg tied to earnings strength and AI-linked stocks.

At the same time, Bitcoin is trading near $63,508 on June 4, down 13% over seven days, down 21% over 30 days, and 49% below its Oct. 6, 2025 all-time high.

Bitcoin is doing more than quietly lagging a mild equity rally. It is in a major drawdown while the world’s most watched equity benchmark pushes higher.

Bitcoin is reacting to more than the same macro signal as stocks. It is being forced to prove whether the ETF-era bid that carried it from the 2023 anticipation trade through the January 2024 launches and into the 2025 high is still the marginal buyer.

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The S&P 500 correlation made sense

The earlier correlation had a straightforward explanation. The same transmission channel hit two assets that had become sensitive to liquidity.

The Iran/Hormuz shock gave markets a physical reason to price inflation risk. EIA data showed total oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz falling from 20.7 million barrels per day in the fourth quarter of 2025 to 14.6 million barrels per day in the first quarter of 2026.

A World Bank scenario analysis framed the disruption as the largest oil-market shock in history and put 2026 Brent scenarios around $95 to $115 per barrel depending on how the disruption evolved.

That channel flowed straight into rates. The 10-year Treasury yield rose to about 4.45% from 3.96% before the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, as investors priced in higher inflation and fewer Federal Reserve rate cuts.

In that setup, Bitcoin could trade like a stock without being one. Higher oil threatened inflation. Higher inflation kept yields elevated. Higher yields drained risk appetite. Stocks fell, and BTC fell with them.

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The earlier Iran-deal rally setup needed proof in oil flows, gasoline prices, inflation compensation, and Fed pricing before traders could treat it as more than a relief trade.

A separate May analysis noted that Bitcoin’s apparent break from U.S. stocks could have reflected different lead markets at different times of day rather than a durable decoupling.

The out-of-hours detail fits that framework. Weekend crypto trading can outpace U.S. equity desks, especially when oil headlines or rate expectations hit before cash equities reopen.

Once the S&P 500 starts trading, the larger liquidity signal can pull Bitcoin back into the same risk-asset channel. That made the prior break fragile.

This week’s pattern carries more weight. The current move has lasted beyond a weekend rally fading into the U.S. open. It is a multi-day equity high against a crypto selloff.

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The current break is about the buyer

The most important Bitcoin levels are now below the market rather than above it.

Bitcoin’s flash crash below $68,000 triggered around $400 million in liquidations in under an hour and exposed how crowded bullish positioning had become.

The move also pushed BTC below several on-chain levels traders were watching, including the short-term-holder cost basis near $76,900 and the true market mean around $78,000.

That changed the tone. A market that was still trying to frame weakness as a dip suddenly had to price protection.

Current options positioning shows traders paying to protect against a fall toward $50,000 after BTC broke below $70,000, with $60,000 and $50,000 becoming live downside markers rather than distant bear-market talking points.

The immediate battle line is the old $66,900-$68,000 range. That area capped the 2021 cycle, defined part of the 2024 breakout, and is now testing whether the ETF-era rally can defend former resistance as support.

A fast reclaim would argue that the selloff was a liquidation event. Rejection would keep the downside path in control.

The ETF channel is central because it changed Bitcoin’s market structure. The SEC approved spot Bitcoin exchange-traded products on Jan. 10, 2024, opening regulated access to BTC through traditional brokerage accounts.

That channel helped turn Bitcoin from a mostly crypto-native cycle asset into a tradable part of broader institutional portfolios.

The same wrapper that brought in new demand also made flows easier to measure. If spot Bitcoin ETFs are bleeding while AI equities are rallying, a grand anti-Bitcoin thesis is unnecessary.

The marginal buyer only has to be somewhere else, and ETF-flow tables make that test visible day by day.

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That is where the AI and mega-IPO angle becomes interesting. SpaceX has filed an S-1 with the SEC, and S&P Dow Jones Indices has consulted on changes to MegaCap eligibility, including reducing IPO seasoning from 12 months to 6 months and creating exceptions for MegaCap companies.

Nasdaq has also run a 2026 Nasdaq-100 consultation around very large new listings.

SpaceX’s index path remains contingent on index provider decisions and timing. The current documents show methodology pressure rather than automatic S&P 500 inclusion.

If investors are preparing for large AI or space-linked listings while the S&P is already being carried by AI earnings, Bitcoin has to compete for attention, liquidity, and risk budget in a market where the excitement is elsewhere.

DeFi gives Bitcoin little help

The broader crypto backdrop offers little help to Bitcoin.

Institutional blockchain adoption is real, but it is increasingly happening through controlled rails. CryptoSlate’s analysis of Wall Street’s on-chain push argued that tokenization can advance without reviving open DeFi in the form retail users remember.

The distinction affects price because tokenized Treasuries, controlled settlement systems, and permissioned market infrastructure create a different feedback loop from the speculative DeFi cycle that once pulled retail liquidity into crypto.

DeFiLlama data puts aggregate DeFi TVL near $73 million, down from $80 billion in late May, and the all-time high of $173 billion in October 2025, well below the kind of broad risk-appetite signal crypto bulls would want to see.

Thus, open DeFi currently offers little offset to Bitcoin’s ETF-flow problem.

Security pressure adds another drag. CertiK has warned that AI has expanded the digital-asset attack surface, as Chainalysis highlights increased pressure from crypto crime across the industry.

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For Bitcoin, if institutional crypto interest shifts toward ETFs, tokenized assets, and permissioned rails while retail DeFi remains weak, Bitcoin’s price becomes even more dependent on whether regulated spot demand returns.

That leaves Bitcoin without a second speculative engine at the moment its first one is being tested. In prior cycles, weakness in BTC could still sit beside rising retail leverage, yield-farming appetite, and broad altcoin beta.

The current setup is thinner. Tokenization may be growing, but the capital showing up there is less likely to rotate quickly into open crypto risk.

That difference also changes what a rebound would look like. A retail DeFi recovery would show up as rising TVL, broader stablecoin circulation inside open protocols, stronger fee generation, and renewed leverage across lending and perpetual venues.

A tokenization-led recovery can grow balance sheets while leaving public-market crypto beta weak. For BTC, that split keeps the watchlist focused on ETF flows, options, and the $66,900-$70,000 shelf.

The two paths from here

Bitcoin is close enough to major long-term valuation models that assuming a straight collapse is too simple. It is also damaged enough that assuming an immediate recovery is premature.

The power-law framework is useful here because it shows why the current area carries weight.

For those new to the power law, Bitcoin.com’s power-law chart explains the model as a log-log price corridor with fair-value and band assumptions, while recent market discussion has framed BTC as trading near a historically low power-law zone.

The model provides context rather than destiny. Stock-to-flow looked powerful until it failed badly after the 2021 cycle. Power-law context makes the $54,000 to $58,000 area more important than a random chart level.

The market now has two credible paths:

The first path is more likely because the evidence is already pointing there. Bitcoin has broken key levels, ETF demand is under pressure, hedging has moved lower, and equities are rising for reasons specific to AI earnings and index-flow demand.

The base-case reset can happen without a full bear-market collapse. It points first to a support test and base-building attempt.

The second path remains live because Bitcoin is already trading near an area where long-term models and prior market structure should count.

A rapid flow reversal could quickly repair sentiment. If BTC reclaims $70,000 and the short-term holder cost basis is near $76,900, the divergence would look more like forced de-risking than a cycle failure.

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My older $49,000 absolute-bottom area therefore sits as a tail-risk extension rather than the primary forecast.

It becomes credible if Bitcoin loses the $54,000 to $58,000 cluster, if ETF outflows keep running after the liquidation event, and if the AI equity trade continues to absorb the capital that might otherwise have returned to BTC.

For now, Bitcoin is testing whether it can rally with stocks. It is also revealing how much of its ETF-era advance depended on a specific buyer showing up.

The next answer will come from flows and levels, not from the S&P 500’s record alone.

The post Bitcoin’s $63k slide shows ETF demand fighting AI equities for dollar liquidity appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Thomas Lee's BitMine is turning to the preferred-stock market to raise fresh capital for its Ethereum strategy, offering investors a 9.5% annual payout.

On June 3, the company revealed plans to sell 3 million shares of 9.50% Series A perpetual preferred stock with a $100 stated amount, creating a potential $300 million raise.

The shares are expected to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker BMNP if the listing is approved. Moelis & Company and Cantor are serving as joint lead bookrunners.

If sold in full, the offering would add about $28.5 million in annual dividend obligations, paid weekly when declared by BitMine’s board.

The sale comes as the Ethereum treasury company faces a sharper test of the corporate crypto model. Due to current market conditions, BitMine’s unrealized losses on ETH have exceeded $8 billion after ETH’s decline pushed the asset well below the company’s average purchase price.

Still, this move will deepen the link between the firm's balance sheet, its staking operation, and the public-market investors being asked to finance its next stage of accumulation.

A payout built around Ethereum yield

BitMine said proceeds from the offering may be used for general corporate purposes, including additional purchases of ETH and other digital assets, expansion of its staking and validator infrastructure, working capital, Ethereum-related strategic investments, and repurchases of its common stock.

That broad use of proceeds makes the offering more than a balance-sheet repair. It could allow BitMine to keep accumulating ETH while market prices remain weak, reinforcing the company’s role as the largest public Ethereum treasury firm.

Over the past year, the company has built its ETH portfolio position through aggressive purchases and currently holds more than 5.3 million tokens. This represents around 4.5% of ETH's circulating supply.

Notably, a large share of that stack is staked, allowing BitMine to earn protocol rewards while it holds the tokens.

Chairman Thomas Lee has argued that those staking rewards give Ethereum treasury firms an advantage over Bitcoin-focused vehicles. Unlike Bitcoin, ETH can produce yield through staking, allowing a company to earn returns without selling the underlying asset.

That distinction is central to BitMine’s new preferred stock. At a 9.5% coupon, the full $300 million offering would cost roughly $548,000 a week in dividends.

BitMine has said its annualized staking revenue is running in the hundreds of millions of dollars, suggesting the preferred payout is small relative to the income its staked ETH could generate under ordinary market conditions.

Moreover, the broader Ethereum treasury sector is already moving in that direction. Staking accounted for 60% of disclosed revenue across publicly listed ETH treasury firms in 2025, according to a study from staking provider Everstake.

The report said the figure was drawn from companies that separately broke out staking-related income, showing how active deployment has become a larger part of the public ETH treasury model.

That revenue mix helps explain why BitMine is leaning on Ethereum’s yield profile at the same time it is asking investors to accept a fixed 9.5% payout.

The company is not merely holding ETH as a treasury reserve. It is trying to convert that reserve into a recurring income base that can support capital-market financing.

However, the company’s filing also shows why the structure is not risk-free.

BitMine does not pledge a dedicated pool of staking income to the preferred shares. Instead, the filing says dividends may be funded through available cash, ETH yield activity, securities sales, future financing, or other sources.

Meanwhile, the firm also warns that staking income may not be sufficient and that staked ETH may not be immediately available for withdrawal or sale during periods of stress.

That caveat is central to the transaction because the preferred stock turns part of BitMine’s Ethereum bet into a recurring cash obligation.

The Strategy's STRC comparison has limits

BitMine’s move closely resembles the financing model used by Strategy, Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin treasury company, which has repeatedly tapped preferred shares and other securities to fund crypto accumulation and manage its capital structure.

Both companies are using public-market instruments to transform investor demand for yield into balance-sheet capacity for digital-asset purchases. Both have sought to create securities that appeal to investors who may want exposure to a crypto treasury without directly owning the underlying token.

Both are also operating in a market where the value of their main asset can change sharply before the cash obligation attached to the security comes due.

However, this comparison has limits.

Strategy’s STRC preferred is a variable-rate product designed to help keep the shares trading near their $100 stated amount. Its dividend rate can be adjusted monthly, giving Strategy a tool to respond if market pricing drifts away from par.

BitMine’s Series A preferred is simpler in one respect and stricter in another. It carries a fixed 9.5% coupon, paid weekly in arrears when declared, rather than a variable rate that can be reset to influence the trading price.

If dividends are not paid, however, they accumulate and compound weekly. The rate on unpaid dividends can step up over time, capped at 15% annually.

The preferred shares also include a liquidation preference that begins at $100 and adjusts based on a market-price formula, while never falling below $100.

BitMine can redeem the shares at 110% of the stated amount during the first 18 months, 105% from 18 months to three years, and 100% after three years, plus accumulated and unpaid dividends. Holders would also have repurchase rights if certain fundamental changes occur.

Those terms give BitMine flexibility, but they also show the price of raising capital in a weaker crypto market. A 9.5% payout is high enough to draw attention from income investors, but it also reflects the premium demanded from a company whose main asset base is tied to ETH.

The post Ethereum treasury giant offers 9.5% payout as BitMine paper losses top $8.5 billion appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Charles Hoskinson has announced that he is “taking a break” from the pressure around Cardano after an emotional plea to the community. His remarks, however, point to frustration rather than abandonment.

It seems that the Cardano founder is openly questioning his remaining power over the network at a time when ADA holders are blaming him for price weakness, governance disputes, and a fragile application ecosystem.

In a video shared on X, Hoskinson said the second half of the year would be hard for Cardano and warned that more dApps and DeFi projects could die as the ecosystem consolidates.

He asked what role he personally has in fixing that problem and said, “I don't have any special powers with Cardano.” In a separate update from his X account, he said: “I'm taking a break. TTYL.”

That combination has triggered the obvious question: has Hoskinson given up on Cardano? It leaves a public pause amid pressure rather than a resignation. He seems to be trying to separate his public responsibility for Cardano's mood from the formal controls that now sit elsewhere.

A founder without the override

Hoskinson's comments cut to the heart of the central tension in Cardano's current era. He remains the person most associated with the chain in public markets, but Cardano's own governance structure was built to make protocol and treasury control more distributed.

That context matters because Hoskinson's list of limits was specific. He said he lacks governance keys, cannot initiate a hard fork or protocol parameter change, has no access to the treasury, and does not own the Cardano trademark.

The Cardano Constitution defines hard-fork initiation, protocol parameter changes, and treasury withdrawals as governance actions.

The Cardano Developer Portal describes a governance model involving DReps, stake pool operators, and the Constitutional Committee, rather than a founder key that can force a protocol change on demand.

Hoskinson still has influence. He leads Input Output Global, commands a large public audience, and can shape debate around funding, development priorities, and ecosystem strategy.

But influence is different from custody over governance keys, direct treasury access, or unilateral authority to initiate a hard fork.

Hoskinson also pointed out that he does not even own the Cardano trademark.

The Cardano Foundation's trademark policy states that the Cardano marks are owned by the Foundation. That detail matters because his comments went beyond blaming the price. They were about whether the levers people assume he controls are actually his to pull.

Cardano's Voltaire roadmap framed voting and treasury systems as the path to a network no longer under IOHK's management.

CryptoSlate's January 2025 Plomin hard fork coverage described that upgrade as a step that gave ADA holders direct voting power over key network decisions, including parameters, treasury withdrawals, and hard forks.

Hoskinson's frustration is part of Cardano's decentralization story. The same governance structure that lets the community resist founder-backed spending also leaves the founder without a clean override when the market demands an immediate rescue.

That design creates a sharp market tension. Cardano markets still assign personal accountability to Hoskinson because he is the network's most recognizable advocate, while governance routes capital allocation and protocol changes through bodies that can disagree with him.

The more Cardano proves it is decentralized, the less realistic it becomes for traders to expect a founder rescue on demand.

The budget fight behind the break

The timing here is interesting. Cardano is in the middle of a live funding fight over how much control Input Output and other ecosystem institutions should have over treasury resources.

Intersect's 2026 budget process sets out a framework for coordinating treasury requests.

A current CGOV proposal for Cardano Vision 2026 seeks 32.92 million ADA for IO Research, with voting scheduled to run into June 8, 2026.

CryptoSlate previously reported that Hoskinson warned Cardano could lose scientists if Input Output's research funding failed.

That May 22 report described the standoff as a test of decentralized governance, with DReps resisting parts of a funding package tied to research, maintenance, scalability, developer tooling, and other technical priorities.

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A later CryptoSlate article said Hoskinson was refocusing on Cardano and Midnight as governance resistance mounted.

That recent context cuts against a simple abandonment narrative. Days before the break post, the public framing was a deeper return to Cardano's political and technical fight.

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May 26, 2026 · Oluwapelumi Adejumo

Still, the break lands in a market that has little patience for governance nuance. CryptoSlate's June 4 market snapshot showed Cardano ranked No. 13, with ADA near $0.18, down 10% over 24 hours, down 25% over 30 days, and 93% below its all-time high at the time of retrieval.

The direction of pressure is clear enough. The Cardano price page shows an asset that has lost momentum while rival ecosystems compete for developers, stablecoins, and liquidity.

That is where Hoskinson's comments become more consequential. If Cardano's DeFi base, dApp sector, and funding process need to improve, the fix has to move through governance participants, builders, infrastructure teams, and ecosystem institutions.

A founder can argue, persuade, threaten to walk away from specific proposals, or take a break from public pressure. He cannot make a decentralized governance system behave like a company board that reports to him.

The real test is execution

Cardano's near-term question centers on whether the network can turn decentralized control into visible execution.

CryptoSlate's May 21 analysis of Cardano's hard-fork vote and DeFi weakness framed the Van Rossem upgrade as a test of whether cheaper scripts, cryptographic upgrades, and governance coordination can translate into developer activity.

Related Reading

Cardano’s May 29 hard fork vote brings ADA’s DeFi weakness into view

Cardano’s May 29 mainnet vote will test whether cheaper Plutus scripts, ZK-ready cryptography, and governance upgrades can attract developers and strengthen ADA activity.

May 21, 2026 · Gino Matos

That remains the most durable benchmark.

The bearish take is that Hoskinson's break becomes a confidence shock if the community interprets it as withdrawal while funding disputes and usage weakness remain unresolved.

That scenario would leave Cardano with the downside of founder dependency and the friction of decentralized approval: traders still blame one person, while the system requires many parties to act.

A constructive take would be that the moment forces Cardano stakeholders to use the system they built.

DReps, SPOs, Intersect, the Cardano Foundation, EMURGO, Input Output, and builders would have to make budget choices, defend priorities, and deliver measurable results without relying on Hoskinson's presence as the default coordination layer.

The next signal is whether the active research proposal clears or fails, whether Cardano's institutions respond with a clearer execution plan, and whether usage metrics such as TVL, stablecoin liquidity, DEX volume, and active deployments begin to move.

Hoskinson still appears engaged with Cardano's future, even as he steps back from immediate public pressure. His break has exposed a sharper question for the network: if the founder cannot pull the levers people want him to pull, can Cardano's governance system pull them in time?

The post Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson takes “a break” – exposing who really controls ADA’s next move appeared first on CryptoSlate.

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

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

Why Is Zcash Crashing Today?

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

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

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

ZEC Rally Made the Correction More Violent

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

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

This creates a chain reaction:

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

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

Zcash Network Headlines Added More Fear

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

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

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

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

Emergency Orchard Bug Fix Increased Short-Term Risk Sentiment

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

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

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

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

Privacy Coin Narrative Is Still Strong, But Volatile

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

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

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

Zcash Price Analysis: Key Levels to Watch

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

The next important levels to watch are:

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

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

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

The Zcash crash could be seen in two ways.

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

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

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

Final Thoughts: Why ZEC Is Crashing the Most

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

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

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

$ZEC

Cardano Crash June 2026: ADA Drops Below $0.20

The Cardano crash in June 2026 has become one of the biggest talking points in the crypto market, as ADA fell sharply while the broader market also turned red. At the time of writing, Cardano is trading around $0.188, after falling from an intraday high near $0.214. This means ADA is down by roughly 12% in 24 hours, underperforming major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, and Solana.

The broader crypto market is also under pressure. Bitcoin is trading around $63,900, down from an intraday high near $66,799, confirming that the weakness is not limited to Cardano alone. However, the size of ADA’s decline shows that Cardano is facing deeper selling pressure than most top crypto assets.

Why Is Cardano Crashing?

The Cardano crash is not caused by one single factor. Instead, ADA is being hit by a combination of market-wide weakness, technical breakdowns, and Cardano-specific concerns.

The first major reason is the broader crypto market decline. When Bitcoin falls sharply, altcoins usually react with even stronger losses. This pattern is visible again, as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP, and several other major coins are trading in the red.

But Cardano’s decline is stronger because ADA is also dealing with negative ecosystem sentiment. Recent reports highlighted concerns after TapTools, a Cardano analytics platform, announced that it would wind down operations after nearly four years. The platform cited executive departures and rising operating costs as reasons behind the shutdown.

TapTools Shutdown Adds Pressure on ADA

The TapTools shutdown matters because it is not only about one platform closing. For many investors, it raises broader questions about the strength of the Cardano ecosystem, especially during a difficult market cycle.

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson also warned that more projects could fail in 2026, pointing to harsh market conditions and funding challenges across the ecosystem. His comments added more pressure to ADA at a time when traders were already nervous.

This created a negative feedback loop: weak market conditions hurt Cardano projects, project closures hurt sentiment, and weaker sentiment pushes ADA lower.

Cardano Summit 2026 Cancellation Hurts Confidence

Another factor behind the Cardano crash is the cancellation of Cardano Summit 2026 in Singapore. The event was cancelled after a treasury funding proposal failed to reach the required two-thirds supermajority under Cardano’s governance rules. A smaller EMURGO proposal for TOKEN2049 Singapore was approved, but the cancellation of the flagship summit still created concerns around governance alignment and ecosystem momentum.

This does not mean Cardano governance is broken. In fact, it shows that Cardano’s decentralized voting system has real power. However, from a market perspective, the failed vote added to the bearish narrative around ADA at the wrong time.

ADA Price Prediction: Can Cardano Recover?

From a technical perspective, ADA’s biggest problem is the loss of the $0.20 level. This is both a psychological and technical zone. If Cardano fails to recover above $0.20 quickly, traders may continue to treat the chart as bearish.

The next important recovery zone is between $0.22 and $0.24. ADA needs to reclaim this area to reduce bearish pressure and show that buyers are stepping back in. Without that recovery, Cardano could remain vulnerable to further downside.

However, if the broader crypto market stabilizes and Bitcoin rebounds, ADA could attempt a short-term recovery. The main question is whether Cardano-specific sentiment can improve after the recent TapTools shutdown, governance controversy, and ecosystem concerns.

Is the Cardano Crash a Buying Opportunity?

The Cardano crash June 2026 could attract long-term believers who see ADA at historically low levels. However, the current setup remains risky. ADA is not only falling because of the market; it is also facing real questions about ecosystem activity, project funding, and investor confidence.

For short-term traders, the most important level is $0.20. A reclaim of this level could trigger a relief bounce. For longer-term investors, the more important question is whether Cardano can prove that its ecosystem still has enough builders, users, and funding support to compete with faster-growing blockchain networks.

Final Thoughts

The Cardano crash in June 2026 shows how quickly sentiment can shift in the crypto market. ADA is falling harder than most major cryptocurrencies because the token is being hit from several sides at once: a weak crypto market, a technical breakdown below $0.20, the TapTools shutdown, Charles Hoskinson’s warning about possible ecosystem failures, and the cancellation of Cardano Summit 2026.

Cardano is not finished, but the market is clearly demanding stronger proof of growth. Until ADA reclaims key levels and ecosystem confidence improves, the Cardano price prediction remains cautious.

$ADA, $Cardano

The cryptocurrency market is experiencing renewed selling pressure, and Ripple’s native token has become one of the hardest-hit major altcoins. The latest technical developments point to an accelerating XRP price crash, with the asset violating a critical psychological and structural baseline that had previously kept buyers in the game.

Data from the 4-hour XRP/USD chart reveals that the digital asset has officially broken below the key 1.20 support level, shifting market control entirely over to the bears.

XRP Price Analysis: How XRP Coin Crashed

$XRP has been locked in a well-defined downtrend for several weeks. This structural decline is clearly demarcated by a prominent descending yellow trendline that has consistently capped any attempt at a bullish reversal.

The breakdown unfolded rapidly through several distinct phases:

• The Consolidative Failure: XRP initially consolidated below a major horizontal resistance level at 1.30. Unable to muster enough buying volume to test or break this ceiling, sellers gradually pushed the asset lower.
• The Critical Breach: The horizontal line at 1.20 represented a vital historical defense mechanism for bulls. However, consecutive red 4-hour candles shows the price cutting straight through this level with expanding downward velocity.
• Current Position: XRP is actively trading well under the broken support, hovering near the 1.169-1.170 zone. The old support level at 1.20 has now structurally flipped into an immediate overhead resistance level.

Oversold RSI Signals Extreme Selling Intensity

The Relative Strength Index (RSI), which tracks the speed and change of price movements, further confirms the severity of this latest xrp price drop.

The 14-period RSI on the 4-hour interval has plummeted deep into oversold territory, currently printing at 31.03 with its moving average dropping even lower to 28.98. While an oversold RSI sometimes suggests a temporary relief bounce or stabilization could be on the horizon, it primarily highlights the sheer velocity of the institutional and retail distribution taking place.

Traders should exercise caution, as assets can remain technically oversold for extended periods during aggressive structural breakdowns. The fact that the price is hugging the bottom of its immediate trading range indicates that buyers are currently staying on the sidelines, waiting for a definitive macro bottom to form.

XRP Price Prediction: What's Next for XRP?

With the 1.20 support invalidated, market participants are scrambling to identify where the asset might find its next structural floor.

If the current bearish momentum cannot be arrested, the next major horizontal line of defense sits visibly at 1.15. A failure to hold the 1.15 level could accelerate panic selling, opening the door for an extension of the bear market toward psychological territory closer to the 1.00 mark.

For a bullish invalidation or recovery narrative to take shape, XRP would first need to reclaim the 1.20 level on high volume, flip it back to support, and eventually mount a challenge against the long-term descending yellow trendline. Until then, the path of least resistance remains firmly to the downside.

Crypto Price Today with the current Crash

The ongoing correction is not isolated to Ripple. The broader market showcases a synchronized retreat across major digital assets over the last 24 hours and trailing 7 days.

Below is a snapshot of the live prices and performances of the top market capitalization tokens:

he cryptocurrency market faced an abrupt and severe wave of liquidations over the opening days of June, catching market participants off guard. Bitcoin ($BTC) and Ethereum ($ETH) both suffered double-digit percentage losses within a 72-hour window.

The aggressive deleveraging event wiped out roughly $250 billion from the total digital asset market capitalization. Paradoxically, traditional financial markets have shown zero signs of systemic stress, with major US stock indices continuing to trade near their historical highs. This stark divergence leaves investors debating whether the correction is an isolated crypto liquidity shakeout, pure market manipulation, or if digital assets are front-running a broader macroeconomic turn.

Bitcoin Plunges 17% and Drags Altcoins Lower

Bitcoin led the market downturn, crashing by 17% over the course of three days. The premier cryptocurrency plummeted by $12,800, dropping from a stable position at $74,000 down to a local low of $61,300. The rapid velocity of the decline triggered an estimated $1.1 billion in total crypto liquidations across derivatives exchanges, primarily punishing over-leveraged long positions.

The bearish momentum instantly rippled into the altcoin market. Ethereum suffered a concurrent 14% drop, breaking past critical psychological support levels. The second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap hit a 13-month low of $1,715, marking its lowest valuation since April 12, 2025.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs See Record Redemptions

A primary catalyst accelerating the spot price decline is a sudden, aggressive shift in institutional sentiment. Just four days into June, US spot Bitcoin ETFs have already registered a staggering $1.4 billion in net outflows.

This rapid institutional exit follows heightened macro uncertainty regarding upcoming United States employment data and localized geopolitical flare-ups. Analysts point out that rising Treasury yields have forced institutional desks to de-risk, treating spot crypto products as the first line of liquidity to prune from portfolios.

Is the Crypto Crash Manipulated or a Macro Front-Runner?

The lack of negative news or corresponding drops in the equity markets has fueled two competing theories across trading desks regarding whether the crypto market is being actively manipulated:

• Whale Manipulation: With major structural regulations navigating through global committees, large-scale holders ("whales") and institutional market makers may be engineering a local washout. By driving prices down rapidly, they trigger stop-losses and liquidate retail long positions, allowing them to accumulate spot supply at much cheaper price floors.
• Equity Market Front-Running: Historically, the highly liquid, 24/7 crypto market acts as an early liquidity gauge. Some analysts argue that crypto is not manipulated but is simply front-running an impending stock market correction, pricing in sticky Federal Reserve inflation expectations before traditional equities respond.

Traders are now closely watching the $60,000 macro support zone for Bitcoin. Failure to defend this boundary could open the door for an extended bearish structure heading deeper into the summer.

The cryptocurrency market is experiencing a significant downturn today, with major digital assets flashing red across the board. Data from the major token tracking indexes reveals a broad-based sell-off affecting both market leaders and prominent altcoins, wiping out billions in total market capitalization over a 24-hour period.

Crypto Crash Today: Bitcoin and Ethereum Lead the Decline

The CoinMarketCap 20 Index DTF (CMC20) has declined by 5.14% over the last 24 hours, pushing its Year-to-Date (YTD) losses to 30.18%. This underscores a broader systemic correction within the digital asset ecosystem rather than isolated token liquidations.

• Bitcoin ($BTC): The largest cryptocurrency by market cap has dropped by 5.10% over the last 24 hours, trading at $63,501.86. Zooming out, Bitcoin’s weekly performance shows a 13.21% decline, while its YTD performance stands at a loss of 27.44%.
• Ethereum ($ETH): The leading smart contract platform is trading at $1,772.45, reflecting a 5.40% daily decline. Ethereum has felt a deeper impact than Bitcoin over longer timeframes, posting a 10.80% drop over the last 7 days and a staggering 40.26% decline YTD.

Crypto Prices Face Deeper Liquidations

Excluding stablecoins like Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC), which have maintained their pegs, the altcoin market is bearing the brunt of the volatility.

• Solana (SOL) remains one of the hardest-hit large-cap assets in this correction cycle, losing nearly 8% of its value in 24 hours and over 44% since the beginning of the year. Meanwhile, Layer-1 networks like BNB and XRP are down over 6% today.
• Hyperliquid (HYPE) shows a minor variation, down 5.85% today but remaining up 19.82% over the last 7 days due to isolated ecosystem momentum. However, its intraday trajectory matches the dominant market trend.

Crypto Crash Reason: Explaining the Downturn

While digital asset volatility is standard, several macroeconomic and structural factors typically trigger synchronized market drawdowns of this scale:

1. Macroeconomic Headwinds and Interest Rate Pressures

Broader financial markets heavily influence the digital asset space. Sustained high-interest rates set by the Federal Reserve often drive capital away from risk-on assets like cryptocurrencies and tech equities toward safer yields like U.S. Treasuries. Institutional investors pull liquidity from volatile positions during macroeconomic uncertainty.

2. Derivative Liquidations

When major support levels break—such as Bitcoin falling below key psychological thresholds—it often triggers a cascade of automated liquidations on futures exchanges. Long positions are forcefully closed, introducing massive sell volume to the market within a short timeframe, accelerating the drop.

3. Outflows from Institutional Investment Vehicles

Spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs heavily impact price action. Sustained net outflows from these institutional vehicles reduce structural buying pressure, allowing spot market sell orders to push asset prices down more aggressively.

What is Next for the Crypto Market?

The short-term trend remains firmly bearish as trading volume spikes amidst the sell-off, indicating active distribution. Traders are looking for signs of price stabilization around major historical support zones before anticipating a trend reversal. Until macroeconomic indicators ease or institutional buy walls return, the crypto market is likely to experience continued choppy price action.

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

Rep. Bryan Steil said he'll add language to the House congressional stock ban bill to cover prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi.

Demand for peptides fueled by the "looksmaxxing" trend has spawned a $100 million gray market paid for primarily with crypto.

The Nobel Prize-winning AI researcher says humanity is standing in the "foothills of the singularity."

With Bitcoin falling hard this week and down nearly 50% from peak. Strategy's Michael Saylor is pointing the finger at the AI boom.

One of the most outrageous failures in the history of privacy tech just got confirmed.

Cardano (ADA) has plummeted below $0.16 for the first time since December 2020 following a shocking announcement from founder Charles Hoskinson that he is "taking a break" amid an impending "wave of failures" across the ecosystem.

The market's momentum is negative, which is very unlikely to cause a substantial recovery.

Bankless co-founder Ryan Sean Adams has warned that the network is fundamentally a "failed project" unless ETH serves as a trillion-dollar global store of value.

The financial world is harshly scrutinizing Michael Saylor's Strategy Inc. after the company recorded a historic $10.8 billion unrealized loss on its Bitcoin holdings.

Key Takeaways

• NEAR Protocol experienced a sharp 17% decline following Arthur Hayes’ announcement that he liquidated his complete NEAR and Hyperliquid (HYPE) positions.
• The BitMEX co-founder pointed to escalating energy costs related to Iran conflict, anticipated AI company public offerings before Q3, and unfavorable macro timing.
• Blockchain analytics verified Hayes disposed of 247,334 HYPE tokens valued at approximately $18 million, while his NEAR sale quantity remains unconfirmed.
• Open interest in NEAR futures contracts plummeted over 21% to $543 million, indicating traders are unwinding positions instead of establishing new ones.
• Critical support zone for NEAR Protocol exists at $2.00–$2.01, with secondary support around $1.73 should the primary level fail.

NEAR Protocol experienced a devastating selloff of nearly 17% on June 4, 2026, marking it as among the day’s most significant losers in the cryptocurrency market. The dramatic price collapse was primarily attributed to Arthur Hayes, the BitMEX co-founder, publicly disclosing his decision to liquidate all his NEAR and Hyperliquid holdings.

Hayes made his strategic withdrawal public, outlining three primary catalysts: escalating energy prices connected to ongoing Iran military operations, three major artificial intelligence corporations planning initial public offerings ahead of early Q3, and concerns that President Donald Trump might adopt an antagonistic stance toward AI technology. He indicated a comprehensive analysis would appear in his upcoming essay titled “Reality Test,” scheduled for release the subsequent Tuesday.

Blockchain monitoring platform Lookonchain verified that Hayes liquidated 247,334 HYPE tokens, generating approximately $18.02 million in proceeds. While the precise volume of NEAR tokens sold remained undisclosed, the mere public acknowledgment of the transaction significantly undermined market confidence in the asset.

Hayes had earlier expressed bullish sentiment, projecting HYPE could climb to $150. His abrupt reversal toward a defensive posture follows an extended bull run. In response to community inquiries, he noted, “I’ll be back,” indicating the withdrawal represents a strategic repositioning rather than a complete abandonment of the asset.

Futures Market Signals Growing Caution

NEAR futures trading activity surged past $2.8 billion during the selloff day, yet open interest simultaneously contracted by more than 21% to approximately $543 million. This divergence — elevated trading volume paired with declining open interest — characteristically indicates traders are liquidating leveraged positions rather than initiating fresh trades.

This market behavior reflects a broader flight to safety across the cryptocurrency derivatives landscape, extending beyond just Hayes-related selling pressure.

Technically, NEAR Protocol had already shown weakness prior to the announcement. The token encountered strong resistance within the $3.00–$3.10 zone before reversing lower. It subsequently breached key short-term moving averages, placing bullish traders in a vulnerable position.

Critical Price Support Under Test

At press time, NEAR was changing hands around $2.05, representing approximately a 12.8% decline. The $2.00–$2.01 zone has emerged as the critical battleground for near-term price action.

Should this support level prove resilient, a technical rebound toward $2.20–$2.30 becomes feasible. Any meaningful recovery would necessitate reclaiming the $2.55 threshold.

Conversely, a breakdown below $2.00 would likely trigger a test of support near $1.73, with an additional consolidation zone stretching between $1.45 and $1.65.

NEAR currently trades beneath its short-term momentum indicators, with the $2.00 threshold serving as the decisive near-term support benchmark.

The post NEAR Protocol (NEAR) Plunges 17% Following Arthur Hayes’ Complete Position Exit appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• Zcash’s Orchard privacy pool harbored a severe vulnerability that theoretically enabled the creation of unlimited counterfeit ZEC tokens without leaving any trace.
• The security flaw had been present since May 2022 and was uncovered on May 29, 2026, by security researcher Taylor Hornby utilizing Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.8 AI system.
• A hard fork emergency patch was implemented on June 3, 2026, though it remains cryptographically impossible to confirm whether the exploit was previously used.
• The token’s value plummeted more than 30% within a day, falling to approximately $400–$410, while erasing over $3 billion from its total market capitalization.
• Developers at Shielded Labs are putting forward a network enhancement to enable transparent verification of ZEC’s complete supply authenticity.

The privacy-focused cryptocurrency Zcash experienced a devastating price collapse following the revelation of a critical security vulnerability by Shielded Labs, a nonprofit developer organization. The announcement detailed a dangerous flaw that had remained hidden within the protocol’s Orchard shielded pool infrastructure for nearly four years, dating back to May 2022.

The Orchard pool represents Zcash’s most sophisticated privacy mechanism, employing zero-knowledge proof technology to obscure transaction information. The discovered vulnerability enabled malicious actors to inject fraudulent inputs into an elliptic curve multiplication verification process—the fundamental mathematical operation that authenticates transactions. This meant bad actors could potentially have generated fake ZEC tokens that would remain entirely undetectable through blockchain analysis.

Taylor Hornby, a security specialist brought on board by Shielded Labs in April 2026 with the specific mission of identifying protocol weaknesses, located the vulnerability on May 29 through the use of Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.8 artificial intelligence system. Hornby successfully constructed and validated a proof-of-concept exploit in an isolated testing environment, demonstrating the ability to create unlimited counterfeit ZEC. According to Shielded Labs, the same exploit executed on Zcash’s production network would have enabled the generation of unlimited undetectable fraudulent tokens.

The Zcash Open Development Lab (ZODL) received immediate notification and orchestrated an emergency protocol upgrade through a hard fork, which went live on June 3, 2026.

Investor Confidence Shattered by Years of Exposure

While the technical remedy was deployed rapidly, market participants responded with alarm. ZEC’s price collapsed by over 30% in a single trading day, settling near the $400–$410 range at the time of publication. The token’s overall market valuation contracted by more than $3 billion.

The primary concern troubling market participants remains straightforward: Shielded Labs has openly acknowledged the impossibility of cryptographically verifying whether malicious actors exploited the vulnerability during its four-year existence. The privacy-preserving characteristics of the Orchard pool mean that any theoretical exploitation would have occurred without generating any discoverable evidence.

Shielded Labs expressed their belief that exploitation probably did not take place, pointing to the vulnerability’s complexity and the significant expertise and specialized tools required to identify it. While the organization stated it is not deeply worried, they emphasized that users should not depend exclusively on their assessment.

Arthur Hayes, co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, publicly commented on the incident via X (formerly Twitter), confirming he had liquidated his complete ZEC holdings. “Sadly, due to the Orchard Pool exploit, I had to dump our entire ZEC bag,” Hayes posted. He referenced Zcash alongside Hyperliquid and Near Protocol—all positions he exited this week—as “The Holy Trinity,” declaring: “The Holy Trinity is dead.” Hayes did concede, however, that illegal ZEC minting was unlikely, while recognizing it “cannot be formally cryptographically proved impossible.”

History Repeats Itself for Privacy Coin

This incident marks the second time counterfeiting vulnerabilities have emerged in Zcash‘s history. Back in 2018, the Electric Coin Company identified a comparable weakness in the cryptographic foundation of zk-proofs. That issue was resolved in 2019 without any confirmed exploitation or losses.

Mert Mumtaz, co-founder and CEO of Solana infrastructure company Helius, noted this category of vulnerability extends beyond Zcash. “Almost all privacy protocols have a variant of this same vulnerability,” he explained, characterizing it as a theoretical risk inherent to most zero-knowledge privacy systems. “This same FUD comes back every five months as new people learn how privacy pools work,” he commented.

Shielded Labs is currently developing a network enhancement proposal that would introduce a new shielded pool while implementing turnstile accounting requirements for all assets transitioning from the Orchard pool. This mechanism would enable independent verification of ZEC’s total supply integrity by any participant. The organization indicated they will release comprehensive details of their proposal in the coming week.

The post Zcash (ZEC) Plunges 30% Following Disclosure of Critical Four-Year Orchard Pool Vulnerability appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• South Korean police launched their first-ever criminal investigation into domestic Polymarket users for illegal gambling.
• Local users face fines of up to 10 million won under Article 246 of South Korea’s Criminal Act.
• Bets on South Korea’s June 3 local elections reached hundreds of billions of won on Polymarket.
• Polymarket remains fully accessible in South Korea without IP restrictions or regulatory oversight.

South Korean police have opened their first investigation into domestic users of Polymarket, the world’s largest prediction market.

The Gangwon Provincial Police Agency is leading the probe at the request of the National Police Agency. Local users face potential fines under existing gambling laws.

The case draws attention to a legal grey area involving crypto-based prediction platforms that remain widely accessible in the country.

Legal Framework Puts Polymarket Users at Risk

Under South Korean law, all betting activity outside Sports Toto is strictly prohibited. Sports Toto, operated by the Korea Sports Promotion Foundation, carries a maximum betting limit of 100,000 won.

Any platform outside this framework falls under illegal gambling statutes. Domestic Polymarket users could face fines of up to 10 million won under Article 246 of the Criminal Act.

The investigation covers users residing across the country, not only in Gangwon Province. Authorities confirmed the case targets individuals who placed bets through the platform.

Polymarket operates legally in the United States but holds no such status in South Korea. The legal distinction creates a direct conflict for Korean users who access the platform freely.

Attorney Junjung Ahn of Ahn Chang-bo Law Office is representing some of the accused users in the case. He addressed the legal standing of the charges directly. “It appears that the elements of the gambling charge are met,” Ahn stated.

“However, since there have been no cases of punishment for using Polymarket in Korea, it is difficult to predict the severity of the penalty.”

The Korea Media and Communications Standards Commission has not reviewed or restricted Polymarket access. Officials stated no reports about the platform had been submitted to them previously.

This means Polymarket remains fully accessible in Korea without any IP bypass. The absence of regulatory review has allowed the platform to operate without restriction until now.

Election Betting Volume Raises Further Concern

The June 3 local elections in South Korea attracted significant betting activity on Polymarket. Bets tied to the election results reached hundreds of billions of won on the platform.

Korean users placed these bets using dollar-denominated stablecoins without any platform restrictions. Polymarket does not block or flag users based on their geographic location.

The scale of activity during the election period appears to have prompted the National Police Agency to act. The volume involved drew direct attention from law enforcement at the national level.

Authorities are now working through provincial channels to identify and investigate the involved users. The election betting activity served as a key trigger for the current probe.

Stablecoin use adds another layer of complexity to the legal assessment of these cases. Users converted funds into digital dollars to participate in markets denominated in USD.

This method may complicate efforts to track and quantify the actual amounts involved. Regulators have yet to issue formal guidance on stablecoin-based gambling activity.

South Korea has not established a clear legal framework for prediction markets or crypto-based betting platforms. The current case may push legislators to address this gap in the near term.

Until formal rules exist, users remain exposed to prosecution under existing gambling statutes. The outcome of this investigation could set a precedent for similar cases going forward.

The post South Korean Police Opens First Criminal Probe into Domestic Polymarket Users Over Illegal Gambling appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Highlights

• Major exchange enables tokenized equity collateral for derivatives

• Fifteen tokenized securities now eligible as margin backing

• Tech giants’ tokenized shares integrate with futures platform

• Enhanced capital efficiency through cross-asset margin system

• Unified account infrastructure bridges crypto and equity markets

A leading cryptocurrency exchange has introduced a significant expansion to its collateral framework by enabling tokenized representations of major tech stocks to back futures positions. Traders can now utilize tokenized versions of Apple, Tesla, Nvidia, and a dozen other prominent equities and exchange-traded funds as margin for USDT-margined derivatives contracts. This development represents a bridge between digital asset derivatives and conventional equity market exposure through the platform’s integrated account architecture.

Tokenized Securities Join Approved Margin Collateral List

Bitget implemented the enhancement on June 4 within its Unified Trading Account infrastructure. The approved collateral roster encompasses rAAPL, rTSLA, rNVDA, rAMZN, rMETA, rGOOGL, rMSFT, and rINTC. The selection extends to include rMU, rASML, rAVGO, rTSM, rQQQ, rSPY, and rSNDK.

This functionality permits market participants to pledge these tokenized securities and index funds as backing for USDT-margined derivatives contracts. Traders maintain their positions in equity-linked instruments while simultaneously operating futures strategies. The innovation eliminates the requirement to liquidate holdings into a single settlement currency.

Platform Chief Executive Officer Gracy Chen emphasized that clients sought expanded applications for tokenized holdings across various trading instruments. She noted the margin capability introduces versatility within the Unified Trading Account framework. Furthermore, she highlighted improved connectivity between cryptocurrency derivatives and conventional market products.

Integrated Account Structure Enhances Capital Deployment

The exchange’s Unified Trading Account architecture consolidates spot holdings, derivatives exposure, and margin obligations within a single framework. Users can operate diverse instruments without transferring capital between segregated account compartments. This consolidated approach aims to optimize capital deployment across multiple asset categories.

Within the Multi-Asset Mode configuration, qualified assets can satisfy margin obligations for USDT-margined futures contracts. Tokenized equities and ETFs consequently extend beyond simple spot trading applications. This framework provides market participants with enhanced flexibility in capital distribution across markets.

The development addresses growing demand for platforms bridging blockchain-based assets with conventional financial products. Tokenized equities experience expanding adoption as trading venues introduce additional functionalities. The exchange frames this capability as an element of broader account optimization initiatives.

Platform Develops Comprehensive Tokenized Securities Infrastructure

The exchange has substantially expanded its tokenized market capabilities through multiple product releases in recent periods. During May, the platform unveiled Reality, a compliance-oriented tokenization infrastructure for rToken products. These instruments maintain one-to-one tracking relationships with U.S.-listed equities and exchange-traded funds.

Management indicated Reality establishes connections with licensed broker-dealers and domestic market systems. The infrastructure addresses liquidity provision, reserve management, dividend distribution, and corporate event processing. Multiple securities now qualifying for margin application originate from this product lineup.

Bitget Wallet incorporated xStocks technology during May to broaden non-custodial access to tokenized securities. The wallet application added over 130 tokenized equities and ETFs via this technical integration. The platform reports its ecosystem encompasses more than 100 tokenized instruments spanning stocks, ETFs, commodities, foreign exchange pairs, and precious metals.

The post Bitget Enables Apple (AAPL), Tesla (TSLA), and Nvidia (NVDA) Token Collateral for Futures Trading appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Highlights

• BTC declined to $62,715, marking a 14.5% weekly loss amid AI sector reversal
• ETH decreased 4.8% to $1,696 while SOL dropped 5.4% to $66.51
• Broadcom’s disappointing AI semiconductor forecast sparked Nasdaq’s third consecutive decline
• Bitcoin ETF products in the US saw 13 consecutive days of net withdrawals totaling $4.4 billion
• Friday’s employment data from the US will be critical for Fed policy direction and market sentiment

Bitcoin experienced a significant downturn on Friday as a widespread retreat from artificial intelligence-related investments simultaneously impacted cryptocurrency and stock markets.

BTC declined to $62,715 during Asian market hours, representing a 1.9% daily decrease and a 14.5% weekly drop. Ether declined 4.8% to reach $1,696, while Solana tumbled 5.4% to $66.51. Solana has now registered an 18.5% loss over the week.

The decline didn’t originate in the crypto sector. Broadcom was the catalyst.

Broadcom’s Results Trigger Market-Wide Decline

Broadcom released its quarterly earnings on Wednesday. The company’s AI chip projections fell short of market expectations, bringing an end to months of semiconductor stock rallies. This sparked a cascading effect throughout financial markets.

Nasdaq 100 futures declined 1.2% on Friday, extending losses for a third consecutive session. South Korea’s KOSPI plummeted 4.7%. Semiconductor manufacturer SK Hynix dropped 8%. The MSCI Asia-Pacific index declined 1.4%.

Foreign exchange markets felt the strain as well. The Korean won reached its weakest point since 2009. Indonesia’s rupiah traded close to an all-time low as international investors withdrew funds from domestic bond markets.

The Indian rupee stood out as an outlier. India’s central bank implemented measures to draw capital inflows, providing support for its currency.

ETF Withdrawals Compound Crypto Pressure

The market downturn struck cryptocurrency during a particularly weak period. US-based spot Bitcoin ETF products have now recorded 13 consecutive sessions of net withdrawals, accumulating approximately $4.4 billion since mid-May.

Strategy revealed its first Bitcoin sale since 2022 earlier this week. The firm liquidated 32 Bitcoin to fulfill dividend payments on preferred shares. Combined, these developments have eliminated a crucial source of demand that had supported Bitcoin throughout much of the previous 18 months.

Hyperliquid’s HYPE token had been among the few assets maintaining weekly gains. That status shifted on Friday. HYPE plummeted 14.8% to $62.14, reducing its weekly gain to merely 1.5%.

Zcash had similarly maintained positive territory earlier in the week. By Friday, those gains had evaporated.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average moved against the broader trend on Thursday, climbing to an all-time high. Healthcare and banking stocks drove the advance, despite Broadcom’s results weighing on technology shares.

Employment Data Takes Center Stage

The next significant catalyst for markets will be the US nonfarm payrolls data, scheduled for Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET. Market analysts anticipate continued payroll expansion and stable unemployment levels.

A softer-than-anticipated report could reignite speculation for Federal Reserve interest rate reductions under recently confirmed chair Kevin Warsh. Such an outcome would probably drive real yields downward and could propel both AI-related investments and cryptocurrency assets upward.

A robust report could drive markets lower. While awaiting the data release, both equity and crypto markets continue their synchronized downward trajectory.

The post Bitcoin (BTC) Plunges Below $63K as AI Sector Weakness Spreads to Crypto Markets appeared first on Blockonomi.

The wild cryptocurrency market moves continue as most assets have produced even higher fluctuations in the past several hours, which has inevitably harmed over-leveraged traders.

The most significant price fluctuation in the past day came from the recent high-flyer Zcash, which crashed after some community members found a vulnerability in its code. This prompted intense backlash including from popular crypto experts, such as Arthur Hayes, who said he had disposed of his entire ZEC position.

The combination of these factors led to a massive and immediate price crash for the privacy token. It went from over $630 yesterday to under $300 earlier today before it recovered some ground and reclaimed the latter.

Naturally, this intense price move led to substantial liquidations with $100 million worth of ZEC longs getting wrecked on a daily basis, according to CoinGlass.

However, ZEC is far from the only crypto asset affected by the overall market-wide wildness. Ethereum continues to underperform, especially since it lost the $2,000 support earlier this week. It plunged to under $1,650 earlier today, which became a new 14-month low.

SOL has dumped by over 7%, HYPE has plummeted by 9%, while ADA is down by another 16% after Cardano’s founder, Charles Hoskinson, said he would be taking a break.

Bitcoin dumped to $61,000 earlier today, but managed to rebound by almost $2,000. The altcoins’ massacre, though, has helped its recovery in terms of market share.

Bitcoin’s dominance, the index that shows how much of the total market cap belongs to BTC, has risen by over 0.5% in just a day after it had dumped from 58% to 55.5% in a week.

The overall liquidation data shows that more than 255,000 over-leveraged traders have been wrecked in the past 24 hours, with total wipe-out value of $1.21 billion. Longs are once again responsible for the lion’s share with $935 million.

The post Altcoin Massacre Triggers $1.2B in Liquidations as ETH Tanks Below $1.7K and ZEC Gets Smashed appeared first on CryptoPotato.

A newly discovered vulnerability in Zcash’s Orchard privacy pool sent shockwaves through the market on June 5, prompting BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes to exit his entire ZEC position just hours after details of the flaw became public.

The selloff has reignited a long-running debate around privacy-focused cryptocurrencies, which is whether users can fully trust systems where certain types of supply-related exploits may remain hidden until long after they occur.

Hayes Exits as Zcash Team Races to Reassure Users

In a post on X, Hayes said, “The Holy Trinity is dead” and confirmed he had sold his entire ZEC holding following reports of the Orchard Pool vulnerability. The issue was first disclosed by Zcash founder Zooko Wilcox and members of the Shielded Labs, who explained that security researcher Taylor Hornby discovered the flaw on May 29.

The team said that a hacker could have used this weakness to make endless fake ZEC in Orchard, Zcash’s protected transaction area, without getting caught right away.

Developers quickly sprang into action, fixing the issue by June 1. Still, there was a major concern: due to Orchard’s private design, there’s no cryptographic method to show if the bug had been used before it got resolved. That uncertainty appeared to be the deciding factor for Hayes.

“While I think it’s extremely unlikely of any minting, it cannot be formally cryptographically proved impossible,” he wrote, adding that privacy-focused assets require “perfection not improbability.”

The market reacted swiftly, with CoinGecko data showing ZEC fell more than 35% in the last 24 hours to around $386 after trading as high as $611 during the same period.

The token is also down nearly 27% over the last week and more than 40% across two weeks, with trading activity spiking by nearly 46% as investors rushed to reassess risk, leading to daily spot volume topping $1.7 billion.

CoinGlass data shows the volatility triggered nearly $49 million in liquidations during the past day, with long positions accounting for more than $41 million of those losses.

This is the second time in recent days that Hayes has exited a position shortly after making bullish statements. Just yesterday, he revealed that he’d sold his HYPE and NEAR holdings, having previously suggested HYPE could reach $150.

Old Concerns Return as Supply Questions Linger

News of the vulnerability drew different reactions from the crypto community, with investor Udi Wertheimer arguing that privacy coins face a different category of risk than transparent blockchains because counterfeit issuance may remain hidden for extended periods. He pointed to a previous Zcash inflation bug that was disclosed years after it existed.

Others took a more measured view, including Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz, who noted that major software bugs have appeared across crypto, including Bitcoin. He added that the immediate concern is whether exploitation occurred before the patch.

Furthermore, he pointed out that Zcash developers are already working on a future network upgrade that could verify the integrity of the supply through migration to a new shielded pool.

Barry Silbert, founder of Digital Currency Group, also pushed back against the negative reaction, arguing that the disclosure demonstrated the effectiveness of Zcash’s security process rather than a failure of it.

“The AI-enabled assault on blockchains is here and I’m proudly on Team Zcash,” he wrote.

The post Arthur Hayes Dumps Entire Zcash (ZEC) Position After Major Flaw Emerges appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Around 26,000 Bitcoin options contracts will expire on Friday, June 5, with a notional value of roughly $1.6 billion. This is smaller than last week’s end-of-month event, so it is unlikely to impact spot markets.

Crypto markets have been in sharp decline all week, with more than $300 billion leaving the space as Bitcoin continues to weaken and Ether and the altcoins get smashed.

Military strikes between the US and Iran have continued, a deal still seems elusive, and global inflationary pressures are rising.

Bitcoin Options Expiry

This week’s batch of Bitcoin options contracts has a put/call ratio of 0.56, meaning that sellers of long contracts far outweigh short contract sellers. Max pain is around $71,000, according to Coinglass, which is much higher than current spot prices, so most could be out of the money on expiry.

Open interest (OI), or the value or number of Bitcoin options contracts yet to expire, remains highest at the $80,000 strike price on Deribit, with $1.6 billion, but short sellers still have $1.1 billion in OI at $60,000. Total BTC options OI across all exchanges has been declining recently, and is at $31.6 billion, according to Coinglass.

BTC spot is trading around $8,000 below max pain after a brutal week that saw $1.5 billion in liquidations and a brief flush under $62,000 while its positioning skews heavily call-side, said Deribit.

Meanwhile, crypto derivatives provider Greeks Live said, “With the price breaking below $70K, bears have become more aggressive, with significant increases in put positions at $68K, $65K, and $60K.”

Options Expiry Alert
At 08:00 UTC tomorrow, ~$1.81B in crypto options are set to expire on Deribit.$BTC: $1.56B notional | P/C: 0.56 | Max Pain: $71K$ETH: $252M notional | P/C: 0.97 | Max Pain: $2K

BTC spot is trading ~$8K below max pain after a brutal week that saw… pic.twitter.com/qmXv8uhHFr

— Deribit (@DeribitOfficial) June 4, 2026

In addition to today’s batch of Bitcoin options, around 153,500 Ethereum contracts are also expiring, with a notional value of $266 million, max pain at $2,000, and a put/call ratio of 0.97. Total ETH options OI across all exchanges is around $5.7 billion.

This brings the total crypto options expiry notional value to around $1.85 billion, a relatively small event.

Spot Market Outlook

It has been the worst week for crypto markets since early February, with total capitalization tanking to a four-month low of $2.26 trillion.

Bitcoin bottomed at $61,300 on Thursday and has not recovered much above this level on Friday morning. The asset remains down over 50% from its peak and is at the bottom of its range-bound channel, where key support lies.

Ether has been mauled, dropping to a 14-month low of $1,730, where it currently trades. Further losses are looking likely as we enter a red weekend for digital assets.

The post Will Markets Continue to Fall When $1.8B Crypto Options Expire Today? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The bears have taken total control of the crypto market lately, suppressing the prices of multiple leading digital assets, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA), and many more.

Nonetheless, a handful of tokens have managed to remain in green territory, with Worldcoin (WLD) among them.

What’s Coming Next?

A few hours ago, the token’s price briefly exceeded $0.55, climbing to its highest point since January. Later on, it retraced to the current $0.48 (according to CoinGecko), representing a 60% increase on a weekly basis. Its market capitalization surpassed $1.6 billion, making WLD the 51st-largest cryptocurrency.

Perhaps the main catalyst driving the rally is the recent whale activity. The X account BSCN revealed that WLD transactions above $100,000 have reached their highest level this year, adding that growing accumulation, rising network activity, and an upcoming reduction in token emissions have also played a positive role.

X user Crypto Tony labeled WLD as one of “the strongest” altcoins, expecting a pump to $0.63 if the price holds the key level at $0.45. Other popular analysts who chipped in include Altcoin Sherpa and Crypto Catalysts.

The former envisioned a pump to $0.65 if “BTC stays stable,” while the latter noted the asset’s impressive performance amid the recent crypto massacre and predicted a potential ascent to $2.

For his part, Arthur Hayes – co-founder of BitMEX and CIO of Maelstrom – set a future price target of $10. He later described the token as a “shitcoin” that is “going to moon” only because of its connection to the emerging Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology.

Going South?

It is important to note that WLD’s solid price increase can also be followed by a pullback, given how quickly the upward move occurred. Its Relative Strength Index (RSI) is the exact technical analysis tool that highlights this risk.

Recently, it soared past 70, meaning that the asset has entered overbought territory and could be on the verge of a correction. The index runs from 0 to 100, and conversely, anything under 30 is considered a bullish sign.

Meanwhile, some analysts have not been so kind to Worldcoin. X user Ryker described it as a “dead project” that only follows NEAR because of the AI trend. They don’t expect much from WLD, claiming that the team behind it “doesn’t do anything.”

The post Worldcoin (WLD) Explodes 60% Weekly Despite the Crypto Massacre: Further Gains on the Way? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Nasdaq-listed Ethereum treasury firm FG Nexus has recorded cumulative losses of more than $85 million on its Ethereum treasury strategy after selling a large portion of its holdings at a significant discount.

According to data shared by blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain, the company acquired 50,770 ETH for around $196 million at an average price of $3,860 between August and September 2025.

FG Nexus Dumps Holdings at a Loss

The pressure has also been reflected in FG Nexus’ stock performance. The latest market data shows the shares closed at $7.11, down 13.4% on the day, after losing roughly 48% of its value so far this year.

FG Nexus had previously adopted ETH as its primary treasury reserve asset. The company officially started its accumulation program on July 30, 2025, by acquiring 6,400 ETH, exactly on the 10th anniversary of Ethereum’s genesis block. It then increased its exposure through a series of additional acquisitions. CEO and Chairman Kyle Cerminara had earlier said that FG Nexus “plans to become a significant player in the Ethereum network with a goal of a 10% stake in ETH.”

The strategy came under pressure as market conditions deteriorated. ETH, which had been trading above $4,600 in October, declined to about $2,700 by November. This prompted the North Carolina-based company to begin selling. Since then, the crypto asset has seen a much larger drawdown. FG Nexus is among several firms affected by the decline in Ether prices.

Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund exited its entire investment in Ethereum treasury firm ETHZilla in February. Meanwhile, Bitmine, which is the largest ETH treasury company, is estimated to be facing unrealized losses of around $9 billion after ETH fell below $1,800.

Challenges Extend Beyond Price

ETH is currently trading at its lowest level since April 2025. Alongside falling prices, the broader Ethereum ecosystem has also faced a period of uncertainty in recent months. For instance, the Ethereum Foundation (EF) has recently come under increased scrutiny following a series of high-profile departures, including Tomasz Stańczak, Tim Beiko, Josh Stark, and Barnabé Monnot.

The exits sparked speculation about internal instability and disagreements over the Foundation’s direction. In response, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said the Foundation is not the center of Ethereum but only one participant in the network.

The post This Nasdaq Firm Chasing 10% of Ethereum (ETH) Supply Now Sits on an $85M Hit appeared first on CryptoPotato.