The surge in RV park popularity highlights the need for more affordable accommodation solutions during major global events, impacting fan experiences.

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The 2026 World Cup highlights crypto's growing role in sports, potentially reshaping fan engagement and investment dynamics globally.

The post 2026 World Cup sparks crypto crossover as Socceroos chase history against Paraguay appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Stanford's AI-driven drug discovery could revolutionize pharmaceutical timelines, potentially speeding up treatment availability during health crises.

The post Stanford deploys AI scientist agents to accelerate drug discovery timelines from months to days appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Anthropic's strategic hire signals a robust push for AI dominance in Europe and Africa, emphasizing the importance of regional adaptation.

The post Anthropic hires Orange’s AI chief Steve Jarrett for Europe expansion appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Apple's price hikes highlight industry-wide supply chain pressures, signaling potential cost increases for consumers across tech sectors.

The post Apple raises prices on iPads, Macs, and HomePods up to $2,800 appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

Perception Exits Beta With Four Digital Asset Integrations

Perception, a real-time narrative intelligence platform for digital asset firms, has exited beta and announced integrations with BitGo (NYSE: BTGO), Swan, Relai, and Bitcoin Well (TSX.V: BTCW).

The four companies embedded Perception’s data layer into their internal AI workflows during the beta period, ahead of today’s public launch.

The platform targets a structural problem in how digital asset teams gather market intelligence. High-value industry discourse has scattered across a fragmented web of specialized media, conference transcripts, social platforms, and regulatory filings — channels that standard monitoring tools and general-purpose AI models do not reach. 

The company argued in a note to Bitcoin Magazine that legacy tools compound the problem rather than solve it: as AI-generated content floods public channels, noise-to-signal ratios worsen, and tools that simply scrape the open web transfer that degradation to their users.

General-purpose large language models face a related limitation. 

Their outputs reflect what search engines surface and what was indexed during training — not what is happening before market consensus forms. For firms making positioning decisions in real time, that lag carries real cost.

Perception as a reasoning layer 

Perception’s approach is to serve as a context layer between reasoning models and live industry data, aggregating signal from more than 1,000 curated sources. The company describes the product not as a research tool but as infrastructure — a feed that AI agents can query to stay current on narrative shifts, competitor coverage, and share of voice before those signals reach mainstream channels.

The launch comes against a backdrop of headcount reductions at major digital asset firms. Coinbase, Dune, and Block have each cut teams by significant margins over the past year, pushing remaining staff toward higher-leverage workflows. 

Perception’s pitch is that firms can maintain analytical depth without proportional team growth by routing live, curated industry context into automated pipelines.

The product suite spans three categories: Narrative Systems (Pulse and Voices), Workflow Engines (Work and Brains), and Integration Models (Stream and MCP). REST APIs and a Model Context Protocol gateway allow firms to pipe structured narrative data into their own models or dashboards.

Fernando Nikolic, Perception’s founder and former Vice President of Marketing at Blockstream, put the distinction plainly: “General AI does not summarize the market; it homogenizes it on stale averages. The pioneers in our space are combining AI’s reasoning capabilities with a live, specialized context feed to engineer their own narratives, map competitor share of voice, and secure their market positioning.”

Whether the model scales beyond established players remains the central question. The four launch partners signal demand from firms with resources to build custom AI workflows. Perception’s durability will depend on how accessible that infrastructure becomes for teams operating with leaner budgets.

New subscribers who sign up before July 15, 2026, can lock in a rate of $499 per month using the code BETA499, ahead of standard pricing of $799 per month.

This post Perception Exits Beta With Four Digital Asset Integrations first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitplanet Signs Agreement with Antalpha to Launch Bitcoin Mining Operations

Bitplanet Inc. has signed a memorandum of understanding with Nasdaq-listed fintech company Antalpha and its mining ecosystem partners to enter the Bitcoin mining business, the company announced.

Under the agreement, Bitplanet will deploy KRW 15 billion (approximately $10.8 million) in Bitcoin mining equipment and begin operations this month. The equipment is set for deployment at colocation sites in Oman and Paraguay — regions the company cited for competitive electricity costs and stable power infrastructure.

Antalpha, which operates the Antalpha Prime technology platform, provides BTC supply-chain and margin lending services to the Web3 industry. The partnership gives Bitplanet access to Antalpha’s global mining network, including supply-chain resources and technical support.

Bitplanet is targeting output of more than 7 BTC per month and over 80 BTC per year from its first phase of equipment. 

The company plans to manage mined Bitcoin as a long-term financial asset, distributing holdings across liquidity reserves, risk-hedging funds, and reinvestment capital — a model the company is calling a Digital Asset Treasury, or DAT.

Bitcoin mining as a means of stacking bitcoin for Bitplanet

The approach differs from corporate Bitcoin treasury strategies that rely on open-market purchases. By mining Bitcoin, Bitplanet adds a production-based acquisition channel alongside its existing system integration business.

“Our partnership with Antalpha is a signal that Bitplanet has entered the global BTC mining ecosystem, and an important milestone marking the point at which the operational model we have presented begins to translate into tangible business results,” said Paul Lee, CEO of Bitplanet. 

“We will continue to collaborate with Antalpha and its ecosystem partners across BTC mining, digital asset infrastructure, and related financial services, expanding the scope of our partnership,” Lee said.

Bitplanet is a South Korea-based company building AI energy infrastructure across Bitcoin mining, GPU hardware distribution, and AI data centers.

This post Bitplanet Signs Agreement with Antalpha to Launch Bitcoin Mining Operations first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Mining Pool DMND Mines First Known Stratum V2 Block; GoMining Constructs Its Own Template

Bitcoin mining pool DMND has mined the first known Bitcoin block produced using the Stratum V2 protocol, a technical milestone that shifts control over block construction from pools to individual miners. The block — number 955,318 — was mined through DMND’s pool for GoMining, which became the first miner to use Stratum V2’s Job Declaration feature to select its own transactions and build its own block template, according to a note shared with Bitcoin Magazine. 

Under the dominant model in Bitcoin mining today, miners contribute their computing power to a pool, and the pool decides which transactions go into each block. The miner has no say in that selection. 

Stratum V2, an open-source protocol developed with broad industry support, changes this arrangement. It allows miners to retain their participation in pooled mining — which smooths out revenue variance — while taking back the right to construct the block template themselves. Job Declaration is the specific mechanism that makes this possible: a miner submits its own proposed block template to the pool, the pool validates it, and the miner’s version goes forward.

GoMining used that mechanism to include transactions from GoBTC Pay, an open-source, non-custodial Bitcoin instant payments protocol the company announced at Consensus Miami in May 2026. The result is the first known case of a miner using Stratum V2 in a live production environment to power its own product through the block it helped create.

“A miner just mined the first Stratum V2 block to power their own product end to end,” said Alejandro De La Torre, CEO and co-founder of DMND. “GoMining declared the template and included their GoBTC Pay payments with no pool in the way. We built DMND for exactly this.”

GoMining CEO Mark Zalan framed the significance in structural terms. “For years, mining pools have determined which transactions are included in Bitcoin blocks,” he said. “By being the first to declare our own block template and include GoBTC Pay transactions, we’re demonstrating one of the practical capabilities that Stratum V2 makes possible.”

Bitcoin miners gain transaction control

The implications extend beyond this single block. Mining pool transaction selection has been a long-standing concern in Bitcoin, both for censorship resistance and for the distribution of power over the network’s transaction layer. 

If Stratum V2 adoption grows, miners — not pools — become the decision-makers on what enters the blockchain. DMND’s production deployment shows the protocol can function in a live environment, which removes one barrier to that broader adoption.

GoMining, which serves five million users and ranks among the top-ten Bitcoin miners by hashrate, operates data centers in the U.S. and internationally. 

The company offers tokenized hashrate products alongside its payments and earning tools. DMND describes itself as a pool built for the Stratum V2 era, with Job Declaration running in production.

This post Bitcoin Mining Pool DMND Mines First Known Stratum V2 Block; GoMining Constructs Its Own Template first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Price Flash Crashes from $61,000 to $58,000 as Market Waits For Support

Bitcoin price plunged to an intraday low of approximately $58,000 Thursday morning before staging a partial recovery, as a bear market that began after October’s all-time high shows no clear signs of exhaustion — and a closely watched long-term valuation model appears to have broken for the first time in its history.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency by market cap was trading around $59,315 as of mid-morning Thursday, down more than 3% on the day and roughly 53% below its October 6, 2025 all-time high of $126,198. 

Bitcoin price rallied as high as $61,868 in the early hours before sellers overwhelmed buyers, sending the price off a cliff in a matter of minutes.

Thursday’s flash crash followed an already bruising 24 hours. On Wednesday, Bitcoin had already traded below $60,000 for a time at the lower support trendline of the Bitcoin Power Law — a long-term valuation model popularized by physicist Giovanni Santostasi that plots price against time on a logarithmic scale and has historically contained all of Bitcoin’s price action for over a decade. 

Analysts tracking the model noted that while Bitcoin has flirted with the floor in past market dislocations — most notably during the March 2020 COVID crash and the FTX collapse in November 2022 — a sustained close below the support band had never been registered until this week.

The bitcoin price support trendline, which drifts upward roughly 0.093% per day as Bitcoin’s network matures, was sitting in the low $60,000s at the time of the breakdown. Thursday’s intraday dip to the $58,000s pushed prices further below that level, deepening the historic deviation.

Whether the breach constitutes a structural breakdown of the model — or a temporary excursion that will ultimately resolve higher — is up for debate. 

Historically, the Power Law Oscillator reaching extreme lows has preceded significant recoveries.

Bitcoin price sell-off

The macro backdrop driving the selloff over the last couple months is well-documented. Spot Bitcoin ETFs have seen outflows in the billions in recent weeks. Strategy sold Bitcoin for the first time in four years, rattling institutional confidence. 

Escalating U.S.-Iran tensions have sent oil prices higher, reviving inflation fears and prompting some Federal Reserve officials to float the possibility of rate hikes rather than cuts.

Capital rotation out of crypto and into AI-related equities has compounded the pressure, with investors chasing a different technology narrative entirely.

With Bitcoin price now sitting more than 50% below its all-time high and the Power Law model in uncharted territory, bulls face a critical test with bears clearly in control. 

This post Bitcoin Price Flash Crashes from $61,000 to $58,000 as Market Waits For Support first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

SBI Holdings Agrees to Acquire Japanese Crypto Exchange Bitbank in $288.6 Million Deal

SBI Holdings has signed agreements to acquire all shares of Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Bitbank in a deal valued at 46.7 billion yen, or approximately $288.6 million, the companies announced on June 24. 

The transaction will make Bitbank a wholly owned subsidiary of SBI Group through its investment arm, SBICAH GK.

The deal represents the largest consolidation move in Japan’s regulated crypto market to date. SBI and Bitbank entered into both a basic agreement and a share transfer agreement, with the transaction structured in two phases. 

SBI will acquire shares held by Bitbank’s founders and individual shareholders in August. Bitbank will then buy out shares held by existing corporate shareholders MIXI and Ceres by the end of October, completing the full transition into full ownership.

The transaction is subject to clearance from the Japan Fair Trade Commission and other standard closing conditions. Both companies expect the deal to close around October 2026.

Bitbank told its users the acquisition will have no effect on existing services. The exchange said customers can continue trading and using the platform without disruption throughout the ownership transfer.

SBI is now Japan’s largest crypto group

The Bitbank deal reshapes SBI’s position in Japan’s digital asset market. Combined with SBI VC Trade, its existing crypto exchange unit, the merged operation will hold an estimated 2.92 million crypto asset accounts and approximately 1.1 trillion yen — around $6.8 billion — in assets under custody. 

That figure would place SBI ahead of bitFlyer and Coincheck by trading volume, making the group the largest regulated crypto exchange operator in Japan.

SBI has moved to build this position through a series of acquisitions. In April 2026, the company’s VC Trade absorbed Bitpoint Japan. The Bitbank deal extends that consolidation, adding a brand with a long record in Japan’s regulated market and, according to the company, zero hacking incidents since launch.

For Bitbank CEO Noriyuki Hirosue, who is among the shareholders selling their stake, the deal marks an exit for a founder who built one of Japan’s more trusted exchange brands over more than a decade.

The acquisition comes at a moment of structural change for Japan’s crypto industry. Japanese authorities are examining whether to bring digital assets under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, a reclassification that could take effect as early as fiscal 2027. If that change goes through, crypto exchange operators would face stricter compliance requirements — a shift that favors large, well-capitalized groups over smaller independent platforms.

SBI has positioned itself ahead of that shift. Beyond exchange operations, the group launched JPYSC, Japan’s first trust bank-backed yen stablecoin, the same day it announced the Bitbank deal. 

The group also rolled out a Visa-branded rewards card that converts spending into Bitcoin and other crypto through SBI VC Trade, and it completed a co-launch of Ripple’s RLUSD dollar stablecoin in Japan.

The result is a financial group with exposure across exchange trading, custody, stablecoins, and crypto-linked payments — built through deal-making at a pace that few competitors in Japan can match.

This post SBI Holdings Agrees to Acquire Japanese Crypto Exchange Bitbank in $288.6 Million Deal first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin’s prolonged decline is forcing cryptocurrency companies to cut staff, automate more work, and abandon the expansion plans that defined the last bull market. At the same time, it is also creating one of the industry’s busiest periods for takeovers.

Crypto mergers and acquisitions reached $7.23 billion during the second quarter of 2026, up from $2.14 billion in the first three months of the year.

The two quarters brought total capital deployed through deals to $9.37 billion. CryptoRank’s data framed the broader first-half surge as a 26x increase versus the same period last year, underscoring how sharply deal activity has accelerated even as spot-market conditions weakened.

That acceleration has unfolded as Bitcoin trades near its lowest level in almost two years and some of the industry’s largest employers continue to reduce headcount.

The divergence shows where capital is moving during the downturn as companies are spending less on broad hiring and speculative growth.

Instead, traditional financial institutions, banks, card networks, trading firms, and well-capitalized crypto businesses are buying payment systems, regulatory licenses, custody operations, and market infrastructure that could take years to build internally.

The result is a bear market that has weakened many crypto companies without eliminating institutional demand for their technology.

Traditional finance fuels crypto infrastructure buyout wave

Traditional financial institutions are fueling the wave of crypto acquisitions, opting to purchase fully developed digital asset infrastructure rather than building compliance and technology systems from scratch.

Banks, payment processors, and financial technology companies are aggressively targeting startups that already hold custody solutions, payment rails, and regulatory approvals.

This shopping spree is heavily driven by stabilizing global policies. The European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework has established a unified licensing standard, while ongoing stablecoin legislation in the US has given corporate giants the confidence to make long-term bets.

Legal and advisory experts note that this policy support is a primary catalyst. According to the Architect Partners Q1 crypto M&A financing report, the banking and securities industries are fully embracing blockchain and are repositioning the technology as a foundational layer for legacy financial markets.

Mastercard’s $1.8 billion buyout of stablecoin firm BVNK serves as a prime example. The acquisition allowed the card network to immediately secure the technology and licenses necessary to process stablecoin payments, bypassing years of internal development.

Other Wall Street heavyweights are also securing strategic footholds through targeted investments. Intercontinental Exchange has backed prediction platform Polymarket, Citadel Securities invested in brokerage provider Alpaca, and Standard Chartered’s venture arm funded market maker Keyrock.

Asset managers are also executing outright acquisitions to capture institutional demand. Franklin Templeton, which manages $1.7 trillion in assets, recently launched a dedicated digital asset division called Franklin Crypto.

The move was finalized through the acquisition of 250 Digital, which absorbed the firm’s investment team and the liquid crypto strategies it had previously managed under CoinFund, to offer actively managed cryptocurrency products directly to Franklin Templeton’s global client base.

Across the board, private capital is heavily favoring businesses that connect blockchain to the broader financial system. The first-quarter funding data showed a distinct preference for stablecoin utility, such as foreign exchange, enterprise payouts, and cross-border settlement, rather than speculative crypto-native projects.

In this environment, regulatory credentials function as major competitive moats. Targets with broker-dealer capabilities, federal bank charters, or registered investment adviser status, including Alpaca, Anchorage, and Superstate, attract stronger buyer interest because they provide acquirers with immediate legal clearance to operate.

While traditional finance flexes its balance sheets, blockchain networks are silently emerging as a new class of aggressive buyers.

Historically, layer-1 and layer-2 networks relied on independent developers to build applications on their chains. Now, facing intense competition for users, these networks are buying consumer-facing applications directly.

Polygon’s recent acquisitions of Coinme and Sequence highlight this pivot. By purchasing payment access and wallet infrastructure, the blockchain is securing its own end-to-end user experience and locking in transaction volume, showing that technical capacity alone is no longer enough to retain market share.

Crypto job cuts deepen as AI and compliance reshape the workforce

The pace of corporate acquisitions contrasts sharply with the continued contraction in the digital asset labor market.

According to June 2026 data compiled by Tiger Research, the industry currently has just 2,932 active job openings globally.

This figure is a shadow of the aggressive hiring sprees seen throughout 2021 and early 2022, when trading platforms, decentralized finance protocols, and NFT marketplaces were all expanding their headcounts simultaneously.

The employment retreat, which began during the 2022 market downturn and accelerated following the collapse of FTX, resulted in a roughly 40% drop in job openings across North America and Europe. The market has yet to rebound to its previous heights.

In fact, workforce reductions have continued steadily through the first half of this year. Major platforms, including Gemini, Coinbase, Kraken, Algorand, Crypto.com, and, more recently, the Ethereum Foundation, have initiated fresh rounds of cuts.

Executives attributed the downsizing to a mix of sluggish token valuations, broader macroeconomic pressures, and operational efficiencies driven by artificial intelligence. For context, Coinbase explicitly framed its restructuring as a transition toward an “AI-native” operational model.

This technological pivot is evident in the recruitment data: the share of crypto job listings requiring AI proficiencies more than doubled over a year, surging from 23% in early 2025 to over 53% by March 2026.

While overall hiring remains muted, the composition of the workforce is fundamentally changing. Companies are not implementing blanket hiring freezes. Rather, they are aggressively narrowing their focus toward technical and regulatory expertise.

According to Tiger Research, engineering positions account for about 34% of active openings, while legal and compliance roles represent roughly 10%. The shift is more pronounced at centralized exchanges, where compliance positions make up 16% of openings and outnumber sales and business development roles by more than two to one.

This shows that these companies are prioritizing staff needed to secure licenses, manage risk, and maintain core infrastructure while reducing spending on marketing and community growth.

Furthermore, the limited hiring that does exist is highly concentrated among a few heavyweights, rather than distributed across early-stage startups. Centralized exchanges generate nearly a third of all open positions.

The stablecoin and payments sector accounts for another substantial fraction, but that activity is heavily centralized. Tether and Ripple alone are responsible for over 80% of the listings in that category.

Ultimately, the data paints a picture of targeted corporate restructuring and defensive posturing, rather than an industrywide labor market revival.

Distressed crypto companies become acquisition targets

Messari’s recent acquisition by Blockworks perfectly encapsulates the intersection of widespread job cuts and accelerating consolidation.

Crypto analytical firm Blockworks purchased the analytics provider for roughly $10 million, a precipitous drop from its $300 million valuation following a 2022 capital raise. Before this sale, the research firm had endured three separate workforce reductions starting in 2023.

This steep discount highlights the severe reality check facing digital asset startups reliant on venture capital, advertising, or subscription models.

Diminishing runways and sluggish revenue generation are forcing smaller enterprises to the negotiating table, allowing well-capitalized buyers to absorb specialized talent, proprietary data, and distribution at a fraction of their former private-market valuations.

Industry analysts anticipate these financial pressures will soon ripple into the digital-asset treasury sector. Throughout 2025, numerous publicly traded treasury entities successfully raised capital by trading at a premium relative to their cryptocurrency reserves.

However, a combination of slumping token prices and deteriorating equity performance has dragged many of these vehicles below the value of their underlying holdings. This discount severely limits their ability to issue additional equity to further accumulate tokens.

Galaxy Digital researchers suggest corporate combinations offer a viable path forward for these firms. Well-positioned treasury companies, like Michael Saylor's Strategy, could acquire their discounted peers, merging balance sheets while simultaneously targeting revenue-generating operating businesses to reduce reliance on token price appreciation alone.

Meanwhile, the M&A wave may also eventually encompass decentralized autonomous organizations, aided by maturing legal frameworks.

Recent legislative developments, such as Wyoming’s Decentralized Unincorporated Nonprofit Association (DUNA) structure, grant DAOs a recognized legal mechanism to hold off-chain assets and intellectual property.

With clearer governance and ownership rights, protocol treasuries are better positioned to execute buyouts of complementary software projects or dedicated development teams.

Nevertheless, these decentralized mergers remain highly experimental compared with the traditional, compliance-driven corporate acquisitions that dominate the current market cycle.

Capital is still available, but it has become selective

Although crypto deal activity has approached $10 billion in the first half of 2026, capital allocation has become far more selective.

The standout exception to this strictly institutional focus is the prediction market sector. Event-betting platforms have captured massive funding commitments as they vie for mainstream dominance.

For context, Kalshi is reportedly negotiating a funding round that would value the federally regulated exchange at $40 billion, nearly double its previous $22 billion price tag. Polymarket has similarly absorbed heavy backing as the rivalry for prediction-market supremacy intensifies.

Beyond forecasting, however, the venture thesis has narrowed dramatically. Capital is overwhelmingly flowing into businesses that serve as bridges between digital assets and the legacy financial system.

Tokenization firms and institutional trading venues are securing large checks because they pitch a sustainable, insulated revenue model: charging banks, brokerages, and asset managers for regulated services, rather than relying on fickle retail crypto traders. Superstate recently closed an $82.5 million round to scale its blockchain-based securities issuance, and Alpaca has carved out a dominant footprint in the settlement of tokenized US equities and exchange-traded funds.

This funding trajectory indicates that investors are shifting their bets from conceptual tokenization pilots to live, regulated financial products.

Tellingly, pure-play decentralized finance protocols and experimental base-layer blockchains were entirely missing from the quarter's mega-rounds.

This selective deployment of venture capital mirrors the broader M&A trend. Liquidity exists, but it is ring-fenced for startups that boast regulatory licenses, institutional distribution channels, and concrete utility to traditional finance.

The bear market is effectively pruning the industry, forcing weaker models to consolidate or lay off staff, while richly rewarding the infrastructure providers built to outlast the crypto winter.

The post Bitcoin’s bear market struggle is killing crypto jobs but fueling a $10 billion Wall Street-backed M&A boom appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Binance withdrew its MiCA application in Greece after reported resistance and told users the absence of a formal decision before the transition deadline forced it to seek authorization elsewhere.

Reports noted that talks with regulators in Ireland and Latvia had also encountered friction, though Binance maintains that Greece was its only formal application.

ESMA has since directed unauthorized crypto-asset service providers to stop onboarding new EU clients and restrict existing services to exit and withdrawal activity.

A crypto-asset service provider license under MiCA is a fitness test administered by a national regulator, who, upon approving the applicant, extends that approval to all 27 EU Member States through passporting.

That regulator certifies Binance's management body, qualifying shareholders, AML controls, custody systems, client-asset segregation, internal governance, and group structure as sound enough to operate without borders.

Article 62 of MiCA spells out exactly what applicants must document. Article 63 gives national competent authorities explicit grounds to refuse authorization when the management body threatens sound and prudent management, client interests, or market integrity, or poses a serious risk of money laundering and terrorist financing.

Regulators can also consult AML authorities and financial intelligence units before granting any license. That architecture makes Binance's history the primary licensing evidence that regulators weigh before any authorization decision.

A record that follows

In November 2023, the US Department of Justice announced that Binance pleaded guilty and agreed to pay more than $4 billion to resolve violations of the Bank Secrecy Act, money transmission, and sanctions, while Changpeng Zhao separately pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an effective AML program.

Treasury's FinCEN settlement reached $3.4 billion and OFAC's $968 million, both accompanied by monitorship and compliance undertakings.

A European regulator assessing Binance under MiCA must weigh that record as active evidence.

The DOJ and Treasury findings directly address the same controls that MiCA requires regulators to evaluate before authorizing passporting rights: AML systems, sanctions screening, management accountability, and group governance.

Binance argues that it has since rebuilt its compliance infrastructure, employing roughly 1,500 compliance staff and having no outstanding MiCA issues. The regulator's question is whether that rebuild is supported by evidence or merely asserted.

Europe's pre-MiCA history with Binance gave regulators in Greece, Ireland, and Latvia a file to consult as the company searched for an authorization route, and before any regulator had to make a bloc-wide licensing call.

Binance exited the Netherlands in 2023 after failing to register, following a fine from the Dutch central bank for operating without authorization. In Germany, the company withdrew its BaFin custody-license application after regulators reportedly made clear they would not grant it.

Belgium's FSMA ordered Binance to stop providing virtual-currency services from outside the European Economic Area, noting that Binance had not demonstrated which legal entities were offering services or whether they were properly authorized.

The FSMA also pointed to Binance's own terms, which referenced 27 corporate entities, 19 of them outside the EEA. French prosecutors opened a judicial probe in 2025 into allegations of money laundering and tax fraud, which Binance denied.

MiCA consolidates that accumulated record into a single authorization decision that cannot be reversed at the border.

The CZ issue

Zhao stepped down as CEO in November 2023 as part of the DOJ settlement, but has remained a major beneficial owner, and Reuters reported that European regulators were examining his continued influence over the company.

Binance's EU regional head, Gillian Lynch, told Reuters that Zhao is fully removed from company management.

MiCA's fitness standards go beyond job titles: they require regulators to assess whether management and qualifying shareholders exercise effective control in a way consistent with sound governance, client protection, and market integrity.

A European authority approving Binance must document and supervise a group structure that proves the EU entity is insulated from informal control, reputational contagion, or group-level interference from outside the bloc.

MiCA's architecture places CASP authorization with the national competent authority, coordinated through AML/CFT consultation channels and ESMA guidance.

The ECB's explicit opinion role under the regulation applies to asset-referenced token issuers when monetary policy, payment systems, or financial stability are at stake, and it carries no equivalent lane for ordinary exchange authorization.

The ECB has separately advocated for stronger EU-level oversight of systemically important cross-border firms, an institutional reform position that addresses supervisory architecture.

France, Italy, and Austria have each warned that differences in national supervision could allow crypto firms to choose the regulator that imposes the lightest scrutiny.

French officials have explicitly described regulatory shopping as a search for the weakest link. A Greek, Irish, or Latvian regulator approving Binance would carry a bloc-wide political judgment, and would absorb reputational exposure if that decision later proved wrong.

Reports noted that regulators in Ireland, Latvia, and Greece coordinated closely, pointing to a collective supervisory posture.

Two futures

If any EU Member State approves Binance after the company implements verifiable governance reforms, MiCA serves as a normalization path for large exchanges with compliance liabilities, granting Binance EU-wide access and regulators a documented framework that can withstand scrutiny in Paris and Rome.

If no regulator accepts that burden in the near term, the outcome will be a sustained period of restricted EU activity, with Binance users directed to sell or withdraw, while competitors with existing MiCA licenses absorb European market share.

Chainalysis estimated that illicit cryptocurrency addresses received at least $154 billion in 2025, with stablecoins accounting for 84% of illicit transaction volume. That backdrop gives regulators a stronger incentive to test major exchanges’ AML controls against evidence rather than assurances before granting passporting rights across the bloc.

The contest is over who bears the liability of the passport: Binance brings 300 million global users and more than 4 million EU app downloads last year, along with its compliance narrative, while EU regulators hold the authorization power and the reputational incentive to use it carefully.

MiCA's first major credibility test is whether any national authority deems Binance's evidence of change strong enough to stake the entire bloc's supervisory reputation on.

The post Why Europe is struggling to give Binance the MiCA license it needs appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin's rebound above $60,000 just failed because the bundle of U.S. macro data released June 25 gave risk traders the opposite of clean relief: sticky inflation, firm demand, a stronger growth revision, fewer jobless claims, and resilient ex-transport orders.

Bitcoin briefly flash-crashed in a liquidation-driven flush, falling from an intraday high near $61,844 to a low of about $58,189 before recovering part of the move, trading around $59,630. The rebound leaves BTC off the intraday lows as of press time, but the price remains below the pre-drop range.

The move coincided with a heavily one-sided liquidation event. CoinGlass liquidation readouts showed about $482 million in crypto liquidations over one hour, with roughly $427 million coming from longs and only about $54 million from shorts, while BTC accounted for about $272 million of the total.

The equity move was also sharp but partially retraced. SPY dropped from the high-$730s into the $728 to $730 area before rebounding to $737 on the latest 30-minute candle. That candle showed an open at $735, a high at $737, a low at $734, and a close at $737, while the chart label still showed SPY down about 1.30%.

DXY reversed lower after trading up toward the 101.8 area, falling back to 101.376 on the latest print. The U.S. 10-year yield also dropped hard, moving from the upper-4.4% area to around 4.374%, leaving rates near the lower end of the displayed range after the flash move.

The move kept Bitcoin closer to the $58,000 area than to a restored upside range, turning $60,000 from a recovery target into the line buyers still had to prove.

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Bitcoin has lost 16% this month while ETF redemptions and weak US trading activity deepen pressure on the market.

Jun 24, 2026 · Oluwapelumi Adejumo

The rejection was more than another chart-level failure. The release arrived after Bitcoin had already slipped below $60,000, then denied traders the soft-data narrative that could have helped risk assets rebound.

The June 25 releases showed sticky price pressure, high income and spending, a firmer growth revision, fewer jobless claims, and an orders report whose weak headline was softened by a stronger ex-transport reading.

The data undercut the relief trade

The most direct pressure came from the May personal income and outlays release. BEA said personal income rose 0.7%, disposable personal income rose 0.7%, PCE rose 0.7%, and real PCE rose 0.3%.

Prices also stayed elevated. The headline PCE price index rose 0.4% month over month and 4.1% year over year, while core PCE rose 0.3% month over month and 3.4% year over year.

That combination gave the market a difficult mix. Spending and income were still expanding, while inflation had not cooled enough to make quick policy relief easier to price.

For Bitcoin, that meant the rebound was fighting the same macro headwind that often hits long-duration and high-beta assets first.

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Jun 23, 2026 · Andjela Radmilac

The growth data reinforced that message. BEA's third estimate for first-quarter GDP revised real growth to a 2.1% annualized pace from the second estimate of 1.6%.

A stronger growth revision alongside sticky inflation usually keeps immediate rate relief harder to price.

Labor data added another piece. The Labor Department's weekly claims report showed initial jobless claims at 215,000 for the week ending June 20, down from the prior week's revised 227,000.

Lower claims kept the labor-market slowdown argument from carrying the risk-asset rebound.

Durable goods were more mixed, but the detail still leaned against an easy dovish interpretation. The Census Bureau's advance durable goods report showed May orders down 4.5% as transportation equipment drove the decrease.

Orders excluding transportation rose 1.3%, which made the underlying signal more resilient than the headline decline suggested.

Bitcoin became the high-beta expression

The market reaction required a smaller catalyst than a uniform downside surprise would have. The full bundle only had to weaken the idea that U.S. data had softened enough to pull policy expectations lower.

That is why the failed reclaim near $60,000 was different from a standalone support test. Bitcoin was already fragile after its latest slide, and the macro release arrived at the moment buyers needed a reason to defend the rebound.

The data indicated an economy that still had sufficient demand and labor strength to keep inflationary pressures relevant.

CryptoSlate's Bitcoin data showed how far the asset had already moved. BTC's 8.01% seven-day decline and $48 billion in 24-hour volume pointed to heavy trading around the break.

The $60,000 level had become both a confidence test and a round number.

The market also entered the release with other crypto-specific stress points already in view. Recent CryptoSlate coverage had mapped liquidation risk near the $57,300 area, ETF-flow pressure around the $58,000 zone, and the possibility that Bitcoin's PCE reaction could collide with quarterly options expiry.

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Those factors can intensify a move once the price starts to slide, while the macro release provided the broader reason the rebound lost support.

Bitcoin's next attempt at $60,000 now looks tied to broader liquidity conditions rather than only to crypto-native dip buying.

If risk assets stabilize after absorbing the June 25 releases, BTC can treat the data shock as another failed downside push and try to rebuild above the reclaim line.

That path would require the market to stop treating strong activity data and sticky inflation as a fresh reason to keep pressure on high-beta assets.

If the dollar and rate-sensitive parts of the market continue to weigh on risk, the $58,000 area remains exposed. That would keep liquidation-zone and ETF-flow pressure relevant as accelerants, especially with options expiry close enough to affect positioning.

The next signal is bigger than crypto-native dip buying. Bitcoin needs the macro backdrop to stop fighting the rebound before buyers can turn $60,000 back into support.

The post Bitcoin’s $60K rebound just collapsed as $427M in long liquidations followed sticky inflation data appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Chainlink's Project Pangea turns stablecoins toward a quieter but consequential job: helping banks settle foreign-exchange trades with less time between trade execution and final exchange of funds.

The June 23 announcement from Chainlink describes a framework for T+0 international FX settlement designed around compliant fiat-referenced digital assets, including EUR and KRW stablecoins.

T+0, or same-day settlement, means a transaction is completed, and ownership and payment are exchanged on the same day the trade is executed, rather than waiting one or more business days for final settlement.

That makes the project a test of settlement risk. If a euro stablecoin and a Korean won stablecoin can move against each other in direct payment-versus-payment settlement, the useful outcome is a shorter window in which one party has paid while the other side is still waiting.

The potential reward is freed-up capital and lower counterparty exposure if controlled bank trials show the model can work beyond an announcement.

A bank workflow test for FX desks

Project Pangea centers on a specific institutional problem: FX markets are constantly moving, but settlement often depends on processes that separate trade execution from the final exchange of funds. The announcement frames the target as a shift from slower settlement cycles to T+0 atomic settlement, in which both currency legs are exchanged simultaneously.

In plain English, the test asks whether compliant stablecoins can become settlement instruments for banks while those banks keep the messaging rails they already know. Chainlink's capital markets materials describe the project as connecting bank instructions through existing SWIFT infrastructure and ISO 20022 messaging, with Chainlink infrastructure translating those instructions into on-chain settlement activity.

Swift's own ISO 20022 guidance shows why that workflow compatibility is important. ISO 20022 is the structured messaging standard through which banks increasingly coordinate cross-border payment instructions.

The EUR/KRW pairing is also important. The framework points to compliant regional currencies, with Qivalis representing the euro side and FairSquareLab and UniKA tied to the Korean market.

That keeps the experiment focused on whether stablecoins can support bank FX settlement between jurisdictions that already have their own regulatory and banking systems.

A compact way to read the announcement is to separate what the project is testing from what banks still need to see.

The institutional value sits beyond raw transfer speed. Pangea aims at the harder operating question of whether regulated stablecoins can reduce the operational and counterparty risk embedded in institutional FX settlement.

Payment-versus-payment links the delivery of one currency to the delivery of the other. In traditional FX operations, settlement delays can leave firms exposed if one leg completes before the other.

Pangea's atomic-settlement framing says the euro and won legs should move together, which would reduce that mismatch if the framework works in controlled bank trials.

That is where stablecoins become bank infrastructure rather than consumer tokens. A compliant EUR stablecoin and a compliant KRW stablecoin would need reliable issuance, redemption, liquidity, controls, and legal treatment before banks could rely on them for production settlement.

The announcement describes a framework and development path ahead of any completed market utility.

The announcement lends the framework institutional weight by citing a working group spanning Europe and South Korea that collectively manages more than $10 trillion in assets, including Qivalis’ 37-bank euro stablecoin consortium and UniKA’s Korean banking coalition. Those figures are Chainlink’s framing, while adoption still depends on bank trials, liquidity, operating approvals, and legal treatment across both currency legs.

A pilot can demonstrate that messages, token transfers, and compliance controls fit together. The harder step is turning that technical fit into routines accepted by treasurers, legal teams, regulators, liquidity providers, and operations desks.

The live tension is therefore practical rather than ideological: stablecoins are being tested against a real banking pain point, while the project still needs real transaction volume before it becomes market infrastructure.

The euro and Korean legs still need operating details

Qivalis gives the euro side of the project a more institutional profile. ING said in May that Qivalis had reached 37 bank participants and planned to launch a regulated euro-denominated stablecoin in the second half of 2026, subject to regulatory approval.

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That background helps explain why Pangea's euro component is more bank-shaped than a placeholder currency leg would be.

CryptoSlate has also covered Europe's bank-backed stablecoin push as a test of whether on-chain finance develops a stronger euro base while dollar stablecoins dominate. For Pangea, the relevance is operational: FX settlement between EUR and KRW depends on more than a technical bridge.

It requires bank-grade confidence that the currency tokens are acceptable instruments in the markets where they circulate.

The exact settlement assets and the regulatory path remain open. A live pilot would still need to identify the specific EUR or KRW stablecoins involved, whether early tests use real-value or controlled-trial flows, and how liquidity and redemption would work across the pair.

Those details will decide whether the framework becomes bank infrastructure or stays a well-designed experiment.

The Korean side carries similar caveats. FairSquareLab describes itself as a digital financial infrastructure company, and the Pangea release places it alongside UniKA and Qivalis in the settlement framework.

Final operating rules for won-denominated settlement, including liquidity, redemption, and compliance handling, remain the next layer of institutional work.

Chainlink is the most visible crypto brand in the announcement, but its relevant role is infrastructure. The core issue is whether Chainlink infrastructure can sit between bank instructions and on-chain settlement while making the bank workflow feel familiar to operations teams.

There is an adjacent precedent for that kind of institutional testing. CryptoSlate previously covered Chainlink-related pilots with Swift and UBS, as well as a Visa-linked stablecoin swap.

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Those examples show that banks and payment companies have repeatedly returned to the same problem: how tokenized assets and tokenized money can move through institution-compatible workflows. For Project Pangea, they serve as background outside the EUR/KRW operating setup.

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Swift's own digital-currency experiments provide a broader institutional backdrop. In 2024, Swift said collaborative work explored more complex CBDC use cases, including FX and settlement scenarios.

That points to a broader institutional search for tokenized money that can integrate with existing messaging systems, while Project Pangea's specific participants and operating model are outlined in the Pangea announcement itself.

The next test is operational

The answer to the central question is conditional. Regulated EUR and KRW stablecoins can address a real FX settlement problem by making PvP settlement operationally safer while banks retain their existing workflows.

Project Pangea is designed around that condition: keep the bank messaging layer familiar, then change the settlement layer underneath it.

The first signal to watch is whether the framework moves from announcement to controlled bank trials with clear disclosures about transaction type, stablecoin instruments, and settlement finality. A simulated technical flow would be useful, but it would leave the liquidity and risk questions open.

A real-value trial would carry more weight if it identifies the guardrails around redemption, reserves, compliance, and dispute handling.

The second signal is whether the euro and won sides both become bank-grade instruments. Qivalis' planned euro stablecoin launch gives the European leg a visible path, but the framework also needs clarity on the KRW side.

Credible issuance and liquidity in both currencies would make the difference between a PvP diagram and a settlement market.

The final signal is whether banks consider Swift and ISO 20022 compatibility sufficient to reduce adoption friction. If the familiar messaging layer allows operations teams to test tokenized settlement while keeping their operating processes largely intact, stablecoins could gain a foothold in a space that has little to do with retail payments.

If legal, treasury, or regulatory teams still require a separate operating model, the technology may work before the institution is ready to use it.

Project Pangea is therefore an early institutional test before stablecoins can be treated as routine bank FX settlement rails. It puts regulated stablecoins in front of a real settlement problem and asks whether the crypto rail can recede into the bank workflow around it.

The post Chainlink’s latest stablecoin push targets the capital stuck in bank FX settlement appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin price fell below $60,000 this week and touched its lowest level since October 2024 as traders abandoned expectations for interest-rate cuts and began preparing for the Federal Reserve to raise borrowing costs later this year.

According to CryptoSlate's data, the largest digital asset dropped more than 4% in the last 24 hours to as low as $59,030 before recovering to roughly $61,650 as of press time. This move extended a decline that has erased more than 50% of its value since the record reached last October.

The distress in Bitcoin cascaded swiftly across the broader digital asset ecosystem. Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, dropped approximately 3% to trade near $1,650.

Alternative cryptocurrencies experienced similar depreciations. Major digital assets including Solana, BNB, Cardano, XRP, Dogecoin, and Hyperliquid all traded firmly in negative territory as the risk-off sentiment permeated every tier of the crypto market.

A cascading liquidation event

The swift, broad market descent triggered a sharp unwinding of leveraged positions across crypto derivatives exchanges. As the asset sliced through critical technical boundaries, algorithmic selling and margin calls compounded the downward momentum.

Market data tracker Coinglass reported that approximately $1 billion in derivative contracts were forcefully closed within a 24-hour window. The wipeout affected more than 176,000 individual market participants.

The drawdown disproportionately impacted traders positioned for a rebound. Liquidations of long contracts, which are bets that prices would appreciate, accounted for about $781 million of the total, compared to $211 million in short liquidations.

This heavy imbalance reflects a market that was fundamentally mispositioned, with speculators caught leaning bullishly into a structural decline.

Bitcoin-specific contracts bore the brunt of the washout, suffering $417 million in forced closures. The single most severe liquidation materialized on the Binance exchange, involving a $12 million Bitcoin swap contract.

Meanwhile, ETH-linked derivatives traders absorbed roughly $230 million of the total liquidation wipeout.

Spot sellers and ETF redemptions drive the break

Trading data indicate that the decline began in the spot market, where investors buy and sell the underlying asset, rather than in futures markets.

More than $470 million in Bitcoin sell orders were executed on Binance within one minute as the price crossed below $60,000, CryptoQuant data showed. Sell orders on the exchange exceeded $1.2 billion within the following hour.

The volume of orders clustered near $60,000 indicates that many investors had chosen the level as an exit point. Once those orders entered the market, available demand proved insufficient to absorb the supply without a steep drop in price.

Broader demand also remains weak. Glassnode said realized losses, withdrawals from spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, and increased demand for defensive options continued to weigh on sentiment.

Although some investors have bought at lower prices, the accumulation has not been strong enough to support a sustained recovery.

ETF redemptions have added to the pressure. The 13 US spot Bitcoin funds are approaching a seventh consecutive week of net outflows, with investors withdrawing more than $6 billion over the period, SoSoValue data showed.

US macro fuels Bitcoin descent

The primary catalyst for the current selloff appears to be rooted in US monetary policy expectations.

Earlier in the year, market participants had aggressively priced in multiple interest rate cuts for 2026. Those forecasts have evaporated.

Instead, resilient inflation data and the economic fallout from the Iran conflict have prompted a stark repricing of Federal Reserve policy.

With the resumption of maritime shipping through the Strait of Hormuz alleviating some immediate geopolitical anxiety, the focus has shifted entirely to the strength of the US economy and the central bank's mandate to cool prices.

The US Dollar Index (DXY) has surged in response, breaking back above the 100 threshold and hitting a 13-month peak of 101.5. A stronger dollar historically applies inverse pressure to Bitcoin and other risk assets, as a higher-yielding fiat currency diminishes the appeal of non-yielding digital alternatives.

CryptoQuant analyst Axel Adler pointed out that the market is no longer hoping for a pivot. According to Adler, traders are pricing in a higher probability of a Federal Reserve interest rate hike by October, a scenario that would extend the restrictive liquidity backdrop if it materializes.

Historically, this would represent a hostile environment for highly speculative assets.

The bond market's reaction further validates this shift in expectations. With Treasury yields inching upward, the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets like Bitcoin has risen substantially. The tightening financial conditions strip away the excess liquidity that typically fuels speculative frenzies in the cryptocurrency sector.

For an asset class that thrives on abundant capital and zero-interest-rate environments, the prospect of a rate hike by the fourth quarter represents a formidable structural headwind.

Bitcoin is still waiting for market capitulation

Despite the steep drawdown and current market situation, some crypto analysts argue that the bottom may not yet be established.

James Lavish, co-managing partner at the Bitcoin Opportunity Fund, expressed reservations about the nature of the current selloff.

Lavish noted that genuine market bottoms are typically accompanied by massive volume spikes indicative of total panic and capitulation. The current price action, he suggested, resembles a buyer's strike rather than a final flush-out, pointing to persistent negative sentiment that could eventually force a deeper collapse.

Nevertheless, Lavish maintained that the long-term risk-to-reward ratio remains highly attractive at these depressed levels, provided the fundamental architecture of the Bitcoin network remains intact and central banks eventually return to currency debasement.

For now, however, digital asset investors face a grueling wait. As the Federal Reserve contemplates further tightening and institutional capital remains sidelined, Bitcoin's path back to its former highs looks increasingly arduous.

The post Bitcoin crash below $60,000 triggers $1 billion loss as markets now price Fed rate hike by October appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Just days before a hard EU regulatory deadline, Binance has dropped a bombshell on its European users. In a series of posts on X, the world's largest crypto exchange confirmed it is pulling its licence application in Greece and will try again elsewhere in the bloc.

With the clock ticking and millions of European users watching, here's what actually happened, what it means for your funds, and whether this had anything to do with crypto's brutal price drop this week.

What happened with Binance in the EU?

Binance had been trying to use Greece as its gateway into the European Union. The plan was straightforward on paper: get one MiCA licence, then "passport" it across all 27 member states. That plan has now collapsed.

The withdrawal didn't come out of nowhere. Binance's announcement came just one week after a Reuters report indicated its application was going to be rejected by the Greek finance regulator, the HCMC. In other words, Binance jumped before it was pushed. The company framed it as a prudent decision, noting that with no formal response ahead of the deadline, it chose to move forward in a way that gave users more clarity.

And the timing is critical. The MiCA transitional period for crypto-asset service providers ends on July 1, 2026, and after that date any firm without proper authorization is effectively locked out of the EU market. That gives Binance a razor-thin window to sort out an alternative.

What does this mean for crypto users on Binance?

This is the question on every European user's mind — and the honest answer is: mostly reassurance, with some uncertainty around the edges.

• Your funds are safe. Binance has been emphatic on this point. "The most important message is this: your funds remain safe and secure," the company stated, adding that it is actively reaching out to all EU users via email and in-app notifications.
• Some users may face disruption. Binance has been upfront that not everyone walks away untouched. The firm said that because it must take steps before July 1 to remain compliant, some users may be impacted, and it will communicate directly with affected users about next steps. What "impacted" means in practice — restricted new sign-ups, limits on certain products, or regional service changes — will vary by jurisdiction and hasn't been fully spelled out yet.
• Watch out for scams. Periods of confusion are a goldmine for fraudsters, and Binance issued a pointed warning. The exchange stressed it will never contact users by phone, will only communicate through official channels or email, and will never ask for passwords, 2FA codes, or private keys. If you're an EU user, treat any unexpected "urgent" message with extreme suspicion.

The practical takeaway: don't panic, but do keep an eye on official Binance channels for any account-specific instructions in the coming days.

Did this cause the crypto price crash?

Short answer: no, not really.

It's tempting to link this headline to the brutal sell-off that just dragged Bitcoin below $60,000 and XRP toward $1, but the timeline doesn't support a direct cause-and-effect. The crypto crash was driven by a confluence of macro factors — a sharp sell-off in tech and AI stocks, sticky inflation keeping the Fed hawkish, relentless $Bitcoin ETF outflows, and the fading CLARITY Act catalyst. Those were the real heavyweights moving the market.

The Binance news is better understood as a sentiment drag than a price driver. Landing in an already-fragile, fear-driven market, a regulatory wobble at the world's largest exchange doesn't help confidence — but there's no evidence it triggered the cascade. The market was bleeding before this headline hit, and the structural causes sit firmly in the macro and ETF picture, not in a single licensing setback.

That said, regulatory uncertainty around the biggest on-ramp in crypto is exactly the kind of background noise that can deepen risk-off sentiment when traders are already nervous. It's a contributing chill, not the cause of the freeze.

What happens if Binance finds another EU country?

This is where the story could swing back to neutral — or even positive.

The whole point of MiCA is a single market. Once approved in one EU nation, a firm can "passport" — or transfer its compliance — to the other member nations. So if Binance secures a licence in a different member state, it can in theory restore seamless access across the bloc, and this entire episode becomes a speed bump rather than an exit.

There's already a frontrunner. France has been mentioned as a potential landing spot, and it would be a logical choice — Binance already holds a registration with France's AMF as a digital asset service provider, a designation that predates MiCA, making it easier than starting from scratch.

But it's not a guaranteed clean save. The "passport" system has its critics. Last year, French regulators spoke out about disallowing passporting, threatening to block some firms that received approval in more lax EU states. And Binance's troubles aren't unique to Greece — Greek, Irish and Latvian regulators had reportedly raised concerns about Binance's past legal issues and corporate structure. If multiple regulators are skeptical, finding a willing home could prove harder than Binance's confident messaging suggests.

Will Binance Leave the EU?

For European Binance users, the immediate message is reassuring: your funds are safe, and the company insists it isn't leaving Europe. The real risk is operational disruption in the short term and the open question of whether Binance can secure a new licence before — or shortly after — the July 1 deadline.

On the market side, don't blame this for the crash. The price carnage was a macro and ETF story; the Binance news is a confidence headwind layered on top of an already-jittery market. If Binance lands a licence in France or another member state and passports it across the EU, this likely fades into a footnote. If it can't, the conversation about access for millions of European users gets a lot more serious.

For now: watch your inbox, ignore the scammers, and keep your eyes on which EU flag Binance plants next.

XRP is getting hammered. As Bitcoin smashed below the $60,000 floor, Ripple's token cratered right alongside it, sliding all the way down to around $1.08 after briefly dipping below $1.05. The $1 psychological level — once a distant safety net — is now staring traders dead in the face.

How did XRP crash to $1?

This wasn't an XRP-specific collapse — it was guilt by association. $XRP has a long, well-documented history of amplifying Bitcoin's moves to the downside. On every major Bitcoin drop this year, XRP has lost close to twice as much as Bitcoin, with the ratio staying consistent at around 1.8 to 1.

So when Bitcoin broke below $60,000, XRP didn't stand a chance of holding firm. The setup here is arguably uglier than the last big flush. Bitcoin breaking below $60,000 for the first time since October 2024 — after Strategy broke its years-long never-sell rule and spot Bitcoin ETFs ended their longest outflow streak ever — created conditions worse than the February Iran-war crash, when buyers had stepped in at the $1.11 level that has now broken.

And the key support that bulls had been defending all year finally gave way. XRP was holding $1.28 — the level buyers had defended on every dip since February — barely a week ago, before sliding steeply with $1.11 broken and the $1 floor closing in.

XRP Price Analysis: Is XRP RISKY to Buy?

The daily chart paints a textbook bearish picture. Since topping out near the $1.50 resistance zone in mid-May, XRP has been locked inside a clean descending trendline — a steady sequence of lower highs and lower lows that has capped every bounce attempt.

The key technical takeaways:

• The downtrend is intact. Every rally since mid-May has been sold into at the descending yellow trendline. The mid-June bounce toward $1.30 failed exactly there before rolling over again.
• Broken support turned resistance. The $1.15 and $1.20 levels that once acted as support have flipped into overhead resistance. XRP now trades below both.
• The $1.00 line is the last stand. The green support line sits right at the psychological $1.00 mark. That's the level the entire chart is now gravitating toward.
• RSI at 40.53. Momentum is bearish but not yet deeply oversold on the daily. The RSI sitting around 40 means there's still room to fall before sellers are fully exhausted — a warning sign for anyone expecting an immediate bounce.

The structure is clear: until XRP can reclaim the descending trendline and flip $1.15 back to support, the path of least resistance points lower.

XRP price prediction: where does Ripple go next?

Here's where it gets interesting. The near-term picture hinges almost entirely on two things — Bitcoin and the CLARITY Act.

• The bearish case (downside to $1 and below). With $1.05 broken, the chart is thin. Analysts identify $1.13 as XRP's critical weekly support, noting that a confirmed break below it could bring the $0.90–$1 target zone into focus, citing Bitcoin's weakness as the key drag. Worse-case macro scenarios get uglier still — should Bitcoin drop beneath $60,000 while ETF decisions stall and regulatory progress halts, some projections suggest XRP could settle between $0.21 and $0.75. That's a tail risk, not a base case, but it shows how much damage a prolonged BTC breakdown could do.
• The bullish case (a violent snap-back). Here's the twist that makes XRP fascinating right now. While the price bleeds, on-chain data tells the opposite story. XRP whales now control 45.83 billion tokens — 68.5% of circulating supply, the highest concentration since May 2018 — and Binance whale outflow dominance recently hit 91.4%, the same reading that preceded XRP's rally from $0.50 to over $3 in late 2024. On top of that, positioning is extremely lopsided: short bets currently outweigh longs by roughly 9 to 1, meaning any surprise positive catalyst — like a Senate floor vote going through — could trigger a short squeeze that moves XRP far faster than fundamentals alone would suggest.
• The CLARITY Act is the wildcard. This is the single biggest swing factor. If the bill clears and the macro stabilizes, Standard Chartered forecasts XRP could hit $2.80, with the bullish analyst range extending toward $8 — but if the CLARITY Act stalls and slips to 2030 or beyond, prices could drop closer to $0.53. That's roughly 30–40% downside against 2.5x–7x upside, which is exactly why XRP holders are glued to this vote.

The levels that matter

For your XRP price prediction watchlist, keep these on the radar:

• Immediate support: $1.05, then the all-important $1.00 psychological floor.
• If $1 breaks: the $0.90 zone comes into play, with little technical support beneath.
• Upside reclaim: XRP needs to break back above the descending trendline and flip $1.15 into support to even begin repairing the structure. Above that, $1.20 and $1.30 are the next hurdles.

XRP Price Prediction: Will XRP Crash Below 1$?

XRP's crash to $1 isn't a Ripple problem — it's a Bitcoin problem, amplified by XRP's tendency to fall nearly twice as hard on every BTC drop. The daily chart is firmly bearish, the descending trendline is still in control, and the $1.00 line is the last meaningful support before things get really thin.

But the setup is a coiled spring. With whales accumulating, shorts dangerously crowded, and the CLARITY Act floor vote looming as a binary catalyst, XRP could see an explosive move in either direction. For now, respect the downtrend — but don't be surprised if a single headline flips this chart violently.

Bitcoin Crash Sends BTC Below $60K

Bitcoin is back under pressure after falling below the key $60,000 level, triggering a fresh wave of fear across the crypto market. The move came as major cryptocurrencies turned red, with Ethereum slipping below $1,600 and several top altcoins posting sharp daily losses.

This is no longer just a normal pullback. Bitcoin has now broken one of the most important psychological levels in the market, and traders are asking whether BTC could be heading toward $55,000 next.

The crash also comes at a dangerous time for crypto sentiment. Recent articles and market reactions already focused on the broader sell-off across stocks, crypto, and metals. But the latest move adds another layer of pressure: Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, is now becoming one of the biggest fear points in the Bitcoin market.

Why This Bitcoin Crash Feels Different

Bitcoin has corrected many times before. What makes this drop more sensitive is the combination of three factors happening at once.

First, BTC has lost the $60,000 level, which many traders were watching as a key short-term support zone. Once this level broke, selling pressure accelerated quickly.

Second, Ethereum also dropped below $1,600, confirming that the weakness is not limited to Bitcoin. The broader crypto market is bleeding, with major coins such as BNB, XRP, Solana, Dogecoin, Zcash, Chainlink, and others also trading in the red.

Third, Strategy’s stock is crashing alongside Bitcoin. That matters because Strategy is not just another crypto-related stock. It is the biggest corporate Bitcoin holder in the world, and its entire market story has become deeply tied to BTC.

When Bitcoin falls and MSTR falls at the same time, investors start asking a much bigger question: is the Bitcoin treasury trade now becoming a risk instead of a strength?

Strategy’s Bitcoin Losses Are Now the Market’s Big Fear

Strategy currently holds around 847,363 BTC, acquired at an average price of roughly $75,651 per Bitcoin. That puts the company’s total Bitcoin acquisition cost at around $64.1 billion.

With Bitcoin trading near $59,300, Strategy’s Bitcoin stack is worth roughly $50.2 billion. That means the company is sitting on an estimated paper loss of about $13.9 billion compared with its acquisition cost.

If Bitcoin falls to $55,000, the value of Strategy’s BTC holdings would drop to around $46.6 billion. In that scenario, the estimated paper loss would widen to nearly $17.5 billion.

That does not mean Strategy has lost this money in cash. These are unrealized losses unless the company sells Bitcoin. But the market does not always wait for realized losses. It prices fear, pressure, and risk before the actual event happens.

This is why MSTR is now becoming such a central part of the Bitcoin crash story.

Are Strategy’s Losses Real or Just Paper Losses?

For investors, the answer is both.

On one side, Strategy’s Bitcoin losses are mostly paper losses as long as the company continues holding its BTC. If it does not sell, there is no direct realized loss from selling coins at a lower price.

But accounting-wise, the situation is more complicated. Under the newer fair-value accounting rules for crypto assets, changes in the value of Bitcoin can affect reported earnings. That means a major Bitcoin decline can show up as a fair-value loss on the income statement, even if the company does not sell the coins.

So the market is not only watching whether Strategy sells Bitcoin. It is also watching how the decline affects its balance sheet, its stock price, its ability to raise money, and investor confidence in the entire Bitcoin treasury model.

Could Strategy Be Forced to Sell Bitcoin?

There is no evidence that Strategy is being forced to sell Bitcoin right now. That is important.

The danger is not that forced selling is confirmed. The danger is that the fear of forced selling starts to dominate the market.

Strategy built its Bitcoin strategy by using capital markets, including stock issuance, convertible debt, and preferred shares. That model works best when MSTR trades at a strong premium and investors are willing to finance more Bitcoin accumulation.

But when BTC falls and MSTR crashes, that model becomes more fragile. If the stock keeps dropping, raising new capital becomes harder. If raising capital becomes harder, investors may start worrying about dilution, debt pressure, dividend obligations, or even the possibility that Strategy may eventually need to sell Bitcoin to manage obligations.

Again, this does not mean a sale is happening now. But markets often sell first and ask questions later.

That is why Strategy’s stock crash matters so much for Bitcoin. MSTR has become a leveraged symbol of Bitcoin confidence. If that confidence breaks, it can increase panic across the entire crypto market.

Bitcoin Price Prediction: Is $55K Next?

The key level now is $60,000.

If Bitcoin fails to reclaim $60,000 quickly, the bearish scenario becomes stronger. In that case, BTC could continue sliding toward the next major support zone around $55,000.

A move to $55,000 would not be surprising if panic continues across crypto and if MSTR remains under pressure. It would also represent a deeper reset of the Bitcoin rally, forcing traders to question whether the market is entering a longer correction phase.

The bearish path looks like this:

Bitcoin fails to recover $60,000, sellers defend the $60,000 to $62,000 zone, MSTR continues falling, and market fear pushes BTC toward $55,000.

However, the bullish case is not dead yet.

If Bitcoin quickly reclaims $60,000 and then moves back above $62,000, the crash could turn into a sharp bear trap. In that case, traders may see the drop as panic selling rather than the start of a deeper collapse.

For now, BTC needs to recover $60,000 first. Without that, the $55,000 target becomes the main level to watch.

Is This the End of the Crypto Era?

No, this does not look like the end of crypto. But it may be the end of the easy crypto leverage era.

The last cycle was driven by ETF optimism, institutional buying, treasury companies, corporate Bitcoin accumulation, and the idea that Bitcoin could keep rising as long as new capital kept flowing in.

Now the market is testing that idea.

If Strategy, the most famous Bitcoin treasury company, is sitting on massive paper losses while its stock crashes, investors may become more cautious toward every company trying to copy the same model.

That does not kill Bitcoin. But it does change the market narrative.

Bitcoin is no longer only trading on ETF flows, macro news, or halving-cycle expectations. It is now also trading on whether the biggest corporate BTC holder can survive a major drawdown without triggering more fear.

What Happens Next?

The next few days are critical.

If Bitcoin stabilizes above $60,000, the market may calm down and treat this crash as a painful but temporary correction. If BTC loses momentum and fails to recover, $55,000 becomes the next major downside target.

The Strategy situation will also be important. If MSTR stabilizes, it could reduce panic around the Bitcoin treasury trade. But if MSTR continues crashing, Bitcoin may face even more pressure as investors start questioning whether corporate BTC accumulation has turned from a bullish narrative into a systemic market risk.

For now, the Bitcoin price prediction is simple: BTC must reclaim $60,000 to avoid a deeper drop. If it fails, $55,000 could be next.

Bitcoin has cracked the psychological $60,000 floor, and the entire crypto market is drowning in red. After spending most of the day clinging to support, BTC broke down hard in the afternoon session and is now changing hands around $59,462 — a level not seen in months.

If you're wondering what's behind this crypto crash, you're not alone. Let's break down exactly what happened and why everything is falling apart at once.

Bitcoin Price Today: What Happened to Bitcoin?

The intraday damage is brutal. Bitcoin opened the day holding firm near the $62,651 previous close, even pushing toward $62,800 in the early hours. Then came the breakdown.

Looking at the chart, the real bleeding started around 15:00 UTC. After one last failed push higher, BTC rolled over and never looked back — a textbook lower-high, lower-low cascade. The drop accelerated through the afternoon, slicing through $62,000, then $61,000, then $60,000 like they weren't even there. By 20:00 UTC, Bitcoin had bottomed near $59,462, marking a decline of more than 5% on the day.

This wasn't a slow grind. It was a sharp, leveraged flush — the kind of move that triggers cascading liquidations and feeds on itself.

Crypto Crash Today: How bad is the damage across the market?

This is not a Bitcoin-only story. The entire top of the market is deep in the red:

• Bitcoin ($BTC): ~$59,447 — down 5.02% on the day, down 9.76% over 7 days, and a painful 32.07% in the red year-to-date.
• Ethereum ($ETH): ~$1,570 — down 5.48% today and a brutal 47.07% YTD, making it one of the worst performers among the majors.
• $BNB: ~$552 — down 3.87% on the day, holding up slightly better than the rest.
• $XRP: ~$1.05 — down 4.43% today and down 13.16% over the week, one of the heaviest weekly losers.
• Solana ($SOL): ~$65 — down 5.21% on the day and a staggering 47.44% YTD.

Only the stablecoins (USDT, USDC) are holding their pegs, as you'd expect. Everything else is bleeding, and the year-to-date numbers tell the bigger story: this isn't just a bad day, it's the continuation of a deep, grinding downtrend.

Crypto crash reason: why is everything falling?

So what's actually driving this? It's not one single trigger — it's a perfect storm of pressure points hitting at once.

1. Tech and AI stocks dragged everything down

The biggest immediate culprit is risk-asset spillover. Tech and AI stocks sold off sharply, dragging crypto and other risk assets lower, with major chipmakers and AI companies dropping on profit-taking and rotation out of high valuations, causing Bitcoin to move in tandem as investors turned defensive. When traders flee high-valuation tech, crypto gets caught in the same wave.

2. Sticky inflation and a hawkish Fed

Macro is still working against crypto. Ongoing worries over inflation and Fed rate cuts have kept investors cautious, with sticky inflation data delaying hopes for rate cuts and reducing appetite for high-risk assets. As long as rates stay high, speculative assets like Bitcoin stay under pressure.

3. Relentless ETF outflows

Institutional demand has been draining away. Modest but ongoing spot Bitcoin ETF outflows have added selling pressure and could intensify if they accelerate again. ETF flows are one of the clearest signals of institutional appetite, and right now that signal is flashing red.

4. The Saylor "never sell" narrative cracked

Sentiment took a structural hit earlier this cycle when Strategy made its first Bitcoin sale in over three years, breaking from the company's long-standing principle that Bitcoin should be amassed and never sold. Even though the dollar amount was tiny, the symbolic blow to market confidence still lingers.

5. The CLARITY Act catalyst is slipping away

The one bullish catalyst the market was banking on is fading. Bitcoin's key catalyst for renewed investor interest, the crypto market structure bill known as the Clarity Act, is drifting further out of reach as legislative priorities shift and lawmakers remain divided on key provisions. With no near-term regulatory green light, there's little to spark a relief rally.

Bitcoin Price Future: What are the key levels to watch now?

With $60,000 gone, the technical picture has turned ugly. On higher timeframes, $BTC remains in a clear downtrend with lower highs and lower lows, momentum stays bearish, and sellers remain in control unless a major catalyst appears.

On the downside, immediate support sits around the $55,000 level — both the February 2026 lows and a significant volume node — and a break below that would likely accelerate selling toward the $50,000–$52,000 range. On the upside, the old $60,000 floor now flips into resistance, and the immediate major resistance sits near $74,000 — a long way back up.

The Trump administration is pushing hard to get the crypto market structure bill across the finish line before lawmakers leave town. Negotiations have continued as Republicans aim to put the crypto bill on the floor ahead of Congress's August recess, even after the talks hit repeated snags over how much authority state attorneys general should have to enforce ethics rules.

For traders, this isn't just political theater. The CLARITY Act is widely seen as the single biggest regulatory catalyst hanging over the market right now — and the next few weeks could decide whether it becomes a price driver or another disappointment.

What is the CLARITY Act?

The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act — formally H.R. 3633 — is the framework meant to finally answer the question that has haunted US crypto for years: who regulates what. The legislation draws a line between the SEC's jurisdiction over securities and the CFTC's oversight of commodities as those categories apply to digital assets, and also tackles token classification, DeFi oversight, and consumer protections. 

The bill has already cleared major hurdles. The CLARITY Act passed the House 294-134 in July 2025, and the Senate Banking Committee advanced it 15-9 in May 2026. On June 1, 2026, it was placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar, making it formally eligible for full Senate floor consideration.

Why does the August recess matter so much?

Timing is everything here. More than 200 organizations, including Coinbase and Ripple, have urged the Senate to act before recess, warning that delay could effectively kill the bill's chances in this session.

The math is brutal. Once the legislation is finished — combining the banking and agriculture committee versions and adding an ethics provision — Senate leadership would need to set aside floor time, potentially a full week out of the handful remaining before the August break. Miss that window, and the next realistic shot slips toward September or the unpredictable post-election "lame duck" session.

The single number that matters most: the full Senate floor vote requires a supermajority of 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. Committee approval doesn't guarantee that.

How could the CLARITY Act affect Bitcoin's price?

Here's where it gets interesting for anyone watching their portfolio.

Markets are currently in wait-and-see mode. $Bitcoin has been consolidating near the low-$60K range as traders hold off on fresh positioning until the Senate delivers a verdict, with participants stuck in a cautious hold pattern heading into the vote. That kind of compression often precedes a sharp move once the uncertainty resolves — in either direction.

The bullish case is significant. Analysts argue a clean passage would remove one of the biggest overhangs on the market:

• Institutional clarity: The bill could provide clearer rules on token classifications, exchange operations, and institutional participation, reducing one of the biggest uncertainties weighing on the US crypto market. 
• Sector rotation: If passed, sectors such as DeFi, Layer 1s, Layer 2s, and real-world asset protocols could benefit the most.
• ETF inflows: Standard Chartered has projected $8 billion in $XRP ETF inflows on passage. 
• Short squeeze fuel: During the May committee vote, more than $550 million in leveraged Bitcoin short positions were sitting exposed to a squeeze if bullish momentum accelerated.

Price targets reflect that optimism. One intelligence outfit placed its 12-month Bitcoin trading band at $95,000 to $130,000 in the base case, anchored to Citi's $112,000, Bernstein's $150,000 target, and JPMorgan's $170,000 framework — with the most bullish scenarios reaching $200,000.

What happens to Bitcoin if the CLARITY Act fails?

The downside is just as real. A failed or stalled vote could send Bitcoin back toward the $75,000 region, while a successful one would strengthen institutional confidence. And the odds are far from a lock — Polymarket has priced 2026 passage at around 67%, down from 82% in February.

The sticking point remains the ethics language. The conflict-of-interest section meant to limit government officials from profiting off crypto has been contentious, partly because its genesis traces back to President Trump's own wide-ranging crypto interests — and White House officials have repeatedly said they won't tolerate a bill that targets the president. No ethics deal, no 60 votes.

Will CLARITY Act Increase Crypto Prices?

The CLARITY Act is shaping up as a binary catalyst. A floor vote before the August recess could be the green light institutional money has been waiting for, potentially uncorking the compressed range Bitcoin has been stuck in. A miss pushes the timeline into a far murkier window and risks a sentiment unwind.

For now, the market is holding its breath. Keep an eye on the 60-vote count and any ethics compromise language — those are the two dominoes that decide which way prices break.

How could the CLARITY Act affect Bitcoin's price?

Here's where it gets interesting for anyone watching their portfolio.

Markets are currently in wait-and-see mode. $Bitcoin has been consolidating near the low-$60K range as traders hold off on fresh positioning until the Senate delivers a verdict, with participants stuck in a cautious hold pattern heading into the vote. That kind of compression often precedes a sharp move once the uncertainty resolves — in either direction.

The bullish case is significant. Analysts argue a clean passage would remove one of the biggest overhangs on the market:

• Institutional clarity: The bill could provide clearer rules on token classifications, exchange operations, and institutional participation, reducing one of the biggest uncertainties weighing on the US crypto market. 
• Sector rotation: If passed, sectors such as DeFi, Layer 1s, Layer 2s, and real-world asset protocols could benefit the most.
• ETF inflows: Standard Chartered has projected $8 billion in $XRP ETF inflows on passage. 
• Short squeeze fuel: During the May committee vote, more than $550 million in leveraged Bitcoin short positions were sitting exposed to a squeeze if bullish momentum accelerated.

Price targets reflect that optimism. One intelligence outfit placed its 12-month Bitcoin trading band at $95,000 to $130,000 in the base case, anchored to Citi's $112,000, Bernstein's $150,000 target, and JPMorgan's $170,000 framework — with the most bullish scenarios reaching $200,000.

What happens to Bitcoin if the CLARITY Act fails?

The downside is just as real. A failed or stalled vote could send Bitcoin back toward the $75,000 region, while a successful one would strengthen institutional confidence. And the odds are far from a lock — Polymarket has priced 2026 passage at around 67%, down from 82% in February.

The sticking point remains the ethics language. The conflict-of-interest section meant to limit government officials from profiting off crypto has been contentious, partly because its genesis traces back to President Trump's own wide-ranging crypto interests — and White House officials have repeatedly said they won't tolerate a bill that targets the president. No ethics deal, no 60 votes.

Will CLARITY Act Increase Crypto Prices?

The CLARITY Act is shaping up as a binary catalyst. A floor vote before the August recess could be the green light institutional money has been waiting for, potentially uncorking the compressed range Bitcoin has been stuck in. A miss pushes the timeline into a far murkier window and risks a sentiment unwind.

For now, the market is holding its breath. Keep an eye on the 60-vote count and any ethics compromise language — those are the two dominoes that decide which way prices break.

Bitcoin touched its lowest price in 21 months early Thursday—and prediction market users don't see the crypto carnage ceasing imminently.

The price of Bitcoin rapidly fell to nearly $58,000 after Strategy's STRC preferred shares notched a new low and MSTR fell alongside.

Police disrupted SocGholish, Amadey, and StealC, malware that harvests crypto wallets and passwords, freezing €41 million in crypto.

A massive Micron earnings beat has lifted global markets, pushing crypto higher after yesterday's nasty sell off took BTC sub-$60k.

The prediction market seeks a valuation near double the $22 billion it hit last month, as a federal-state fight over regulation escalates.

Former International Monetary Fund (IMF) economist and prominent macro trader Mark Dow has resurfaced to weigh in on the latest crypto market downturn.

As Bitcoin drops to $59,307, analyst Bob Loukas warns that Bitcoin is not dead, but social media hype is.

While retail traders track XRP's $1 milestone during a $1.48 billion liquidation storm, monthly Bollinger Bands point to a deeper, technically justified bottom at $0.91.

Japanese financial conglomerate SBI Group has significantly expanded its digital asset footprint with the multi-stage, 46.7 billion yen ($289 million) acquisition of Bitbank.

BlackRock makes another Bitcoin and Ethereum deposit, sparking concerns about its continued sell attempts as the price of both crypto assets plunges lower.

TLDR

• BlackRock transferred 3,410 BTC and 5,132 ETH to Coinbase Prime.
• The combined value of the transfers reached approximately $217 million.
• Bitcoin transfers accounted for about $209.64 million of the total value.
• Ethereum transfers were valued at approximately $8.43 million.
• Lookonchain tracked the transactions across multiple blockchain transfers.

BlackRock transferred another $217 million worth of Bitcoin and Ethereum to Coinbase Prime on June 25. The transactions followed continued ETF outflows across both products and renewed attention on the asset manager’s blockchain activity. Lookonchain tracked the transfers, while BlackRock did not disclose the purpose behind the deposits.

BlackRock Moves Bitcoin and Ethereum to Coinbase Prime

Lookonchain reported that BlackRock deposited 3,410 BTC and 5,132 ETH to Coinbase Prime through several transactions. The transfers carried an estimated value of $209.64 million in Bitcoin and $8.43 million in Ethereum. The movement occurred on Thursday, June 25.

Blockchain data showed about seven transfers during the operation. Nearly every Bitcoin transaction moved 300 BTC to Coinbase Prime. One separate transaction carried the Ethereum holdings to the same platform.

Market participants linked the transfers with recent ETF withdrawals because similar activity appeared during previous outflow sessions. However, BlackRock did not issue a statement explaining the latest deposits. The company also provided no public update regarding the destination of the transferred assets.

Exchange deposits often attract attention because they can precede trading activity. However, blockchain transfers alone do not confirm that an asset manager has sold any holdings. The available on-chain data only confirms the movement between wallets.

Bitcoin and Ethereum Transfers Follow ETF Withdrawals

The latest deposits arrived while both Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange-traded funds continued recording withdrawals. BlackRock has transferred digital assets to Coinbase Prime during earlier outflow periods. Those previous transactions also prompted market discussion about possible sales.

Some traders interpreted the latest deposits as preparation for another disposal of holdings. Others pointed out that Coinbase Prime supports institutional custody and settlement services. Therefore, wallet transfers alone cannot establish whether any sale occurred.

BlackRock has not confirmed any direct sale connected to the June 25 transfers. The company also has not addressed market speculation surrounding the transactions. As a result, only the blockchain records remain publicly available.

Lookonchain’s published wallet activity showed that the combined transfers reached about $217 million. Bitcoin represented most of the transferred value, while Ethereum accounted for a smaller portion. The deposits reached Coinbase Prime through multiple wallet movements.

Previous blockchain records showed similar transfer patterns during sessions with ETF redemptions. Those observations have contributed to continued discussion whenever BlackRock moves assets to Coinbase Prime. Still, no public filing connected the latest transfers to completed market sales.

The recorded transfers included 3,410 BTC and 5,132 ETH. Based on prices during execution, the combined value reached approximately $217 million. BlackRock has not released any further information regarding the June 25 wallet activity.

The post BlackRock Sends $217M in Bitcoin and Ethereum to Coinbase Prime appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• XRP Ledger validators warned users about fake JPYSC tokens using the stablecoin’s ticker.
• SBI launched JPYSC on June 24 through SBI VC Trade for account holders only.
• SBI has not confirmed any JPYSC issuance on the XRP Ledger or other public chains.
• JPYSC currently cannot move to external wallets or public blockchain networks.
• SBI said public-chain circulation is ready but still awaits tax and regulatory approval.

XRP Ledger (XRPL) validators warned users against fake JPYSC tokens after SBI launched its yen stablecoin. The alert followed claims about a possible XRPL issue. SBI has not confirmed any release.

XRP Ledger Community Flags Fake JPYSC Claims

XRPL validator Vet, Hussein Zangana, said SBI has made no public JPYSC issue on XRPL. Therefore, any current JPYSC ticker remains suspicious.

The warning followed the June 24 launch of JPYSC by SBI Holdings through SBI VC Trade. The launch drew attention because SBI has links with Ripple.

Another XRP community member said monitoring tools now track trustlines linked to known SBI addresses. Those systems could help detect official activity later.

Community checks focus on issuer addresses, trustlines, and token metadata on the XRP Ledger. However, validators said users need SBI confirmation before treating any asset as valid.

The alerts target scam tokens that may copy the JPYSC name or ticker. Such tokens can appear quickly on public ledgers because anyone can create assets.

Vet said JPYSC has received no public XRPL announcement from SBI. As a result, he urged users to verify sources before any interaction.

JPYSC Remains Limited to SBI VC Trade

SBI launched JPYSC as a yen stablecoin for SBI VC Trade account holders. SBI Shinsei Trust Bank issues the token, while SBI VC Trade distributes it.

The stablecoin came from a joint effort between SBI and Startale Group. It operates as a trust-type electronic payment instrument under Japan’s framework.

SBI said this structure removes the ¥1 million transaction cap applied to some payment products. The company presented JPYSC as a regulated yen stablecoin.

For now, SBI keeps JPYSC inside SBI VC Trade accounts. Users cannot withdraw the token to external wallets or blockchains.

SBI said it has completed technical and operational work for public blockchain circulation. Yet the company still awaits regulatory and tax treatment before transfers.

The company has not named any public chain for JPYSC deployment. Therefore, XRP Ledger links remain unconfirmed despite community speculation.

SBI Chairman and CEO Yoshitaka Kitao called blockchain migration in finance “irreversible.” He described JPYSC as part of Japan’s blockchain finance infrastructure.

Startale founder Sota Watanabe said external wallet transfers are technically ready. He said remaining issues relate mainly to regulation and tax rules.

No SBI statement has connected JPYSC to the XRP Ledger. Community members continue tracking issuer activity while warning users against fake tokens.

The post XRP Ledger Validators Warn Users as Fake JPYSC Tokens Surface appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Bitplanet signed a memorandum of understanding with Nasdaq-listed Antalpha and its mining partners.
• The company will deploy KRW 15 billion, or about $10.8 million, in Bitcoin mining equipment.
• Mining operations will begin this month at colocation sites in Oman and Paraguay.
• Bitplanet targets output of more than 7 BTC per month and over 80 BTC per year.
• The company plans to hold mined Bitcoin under its Digital Asset Treasury strategy.

Bitplanet has signed a memorandum of understanding with Nasdaq-listed Antalpha to start Bitcoin mining operations. The company will deploy KRW 15 billion, or about $10.8 million, in mining equipment. The plan places equipment in Oman and Paraguay, where the company cited low power costs and stable supply.

Bitplanet Plans Bitcoin Mining Rollout With Antalpha

Under the agreement, Bitplanet will work with Antalpha and mining ecosystem partners. The company said the partnership gives it access to resources and technical support.

Antalpha operates the Antalpha Prime technology platform and serves the Web3 market. It provides BTC supply-chain services, margin lending, and infrastructure support.

Bitplanet said it will use KRW 15 billion for its first mining phase. The company expects the equipment to begin operations this month.

The machines will run at colocation sites in Oman and Paraguay. Bitplanet selected those locations because of competitive power prices and supply.

The company aims to produce more than 7 BTC each month from the first deployment. It also targets output of more than 80 BTC per year.

The mining plan adds a new line to Bitplanet’s system integration operations. Therefore, the company will acquire Bitcoin through production, not through purchases.

Bitcoin Output to Support Digital Asset Treasury Plan

Bitplanet plans to hold mined Bitcoin as a long-term financial asset. It will divide holdings across liquidity reserves, hedging funds, and reinvestment capital.

The company calls that structure a Digital Asset Treasury, or DAT. The model links mining output with treasury management and capital allocation.

Paul Lee, CEO of Bitplanet, said the agreement marks entry into the BTC mining ecosystem. He said the company’s operating model has started producing results.

“Our partnership with Antalpha is a signal that Bitplanet has entered the global BTC mining ecosystem,” Lee said. He called the deal “an important milestone” for the company’s plan.

Lee said Bitplanet will keep working with Antalpha and its partners. He said the companies plan to expand cooperation across mining and digital asset infrastructure.

The partnership also covers financial services. As a result, the agreement gives both companies room to widen work.

The agreement connects Bitplanet with Antalpha’s mining network and contacts. In turn, the company gains support for sourcing and deployment.

Bitplanet describes itself as a South Korea-based firm building AI energy infrastructure. Its focus areas include Bitcoin mining, GPU hardware distribution, and AI data centers.

The post Bitplanet Taps Antalpha Network to Start Bitcoin Mining Operations appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• Shares of Alibaba plunged up to 4.9% in Hong Kong trading, reaching their lowest level in 16 months
• Anthropic claims Alibaba gained unauthorized access to its Claude AI system through “distillation” techniques
• The AI company detailed these allegations in correspondence sent to White House officials and U.S. lawmakers
• Other Chinese tech firms including Baidu (BIDU) and Xiaomi (XIACY) saw declines exceeding 3%
• Year-to-date, Alibaba shares have tumbled 33%, prompting Nomura to slash its 2027 EBITA projection by 15%

Shares of Alibaba (BABA) reached their lowest point in 16 months during Thursday trading in Hong Kong following serious allegations from Anthropic regarding unauthorized access to its artificial intelligence technology.

Alibaba Group Holding Limited, BABA

The Chinese e-commerce and cloud computing behemoth saw its shares decline by as much as 4.9% during Hong Kong market hours. This follows a 3% drop in U.S.-listed shares on Wednesday. Year-to-date losses now stand at 33%.

According to Bloomberg reports, Anthropic dispatched correspondence to White House personnel and multiple U.S. senators this week, claiming that Alibaba has been conducting what it describes as an “industrial-sized” operation to gain illicit access to its Claude AI models.

The alleged technique, known as “distillation,” involves training an inferior AI system using outputs generated by a more sophisticated model. Anthropic maintains that this campaign was executed by entities connected to Alibaba and its artificial intelligence research division, Alibaba Qwen.

This isn’t the first instance where Anthropic has sounded the alarm on such activities. Back in February, the organization identified a comparable operation involving Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, along with two additional Chinese AI laboratories attempting to extract functionality from its Claude infrastructure.

DeepSeek gained significant attention in January 2025 following the launch of a budget-friendly AI model that disrupted the technology sector.

Broader Impact on Chinese Technology Stocks

The market reaction extended beyond Alibaba. Search engine giant Baidu (BIDU) experienced a decline exceeding 3%, while electronics manufacturer Xiaomi (XIACY) similarly dropped more than 3% as market participants retreated from Chinese AI-related equities across the board.

These movements signal increasing anxiety that Chinese technology enterprises may encounter more significant obstacles in the worldwide artificial intelligence competition, despite continuing to deliver competitively priced solutions.

Challenges Accumulating From Various Fronts

The timing of these accusations couldn’t be worse for Alibaba. The corporation is simultaneously grappling with sluggish domestic consumer spending and deteriorating investor confidence in Chinese internet companies.

Additionally, a sector rotation is underway—capital is flowing toward hardware and chip manufacturers in South Korea and Taiwan, draining resources from the Chinese tech space.

On the e-commerce front, Nomura analysts calculated that China’s June 18 shopping event experienced an 8% year-over-year decline in core e-commerce revenue. This performance fell significantly short of market consensus expectations for stable growth.

Consequently, Nomura reduced its projection for Alibaba’s 2027 EBITA by 15%.

Anthropic’s correspondence to U.S. government officials represents a significant escalation, transforming what might typically remain a legal or technical matter into a concern for Washington policymakers.

As of Thursday, Alibaba had not issued any public statement addressing these accusations.

The post Alibaba (BABA) Stock Plunges to 16-Month Low Amid AI Model Theft Claims appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• Sandisk shares rallied 18% on Thursday following competitor Micron’s exceptional Q3 performance, which delivered $25.11 EPS versus the anticipated $20.78 and generated $41.5B in total revenue.
• With Sandisk’s earnings announcement scheduled for Aug. 24, market analysts project EPS will surge to $33.72, representing more than a sequential doubling.
• Year-to-date, Sandisk has climbed 853%, while the 12-month performance shows an extraordinary 4,670% gain.
• Technical indicators show the stock’s 14-month RSI reached 99.1, signaling extreme overbought conditions according to traditional metrics.
• Current trading levels show Sandisk positioned 246% above its 200-day moving average and 51% beyond its 50-day moving average.

Sandisk (SNDK) shares experienced an 18% surge on Thursday, reaching $2,263.57, propelled by memory sector competitor Micron (MU) delivering exceptional fiscal Q3 results that triggered widespread gains across both companies.

Sandisk Corporation, SNDK

Micron reported adjusted earnings of $25.11 per share, significantly exceeding Wall Street’s consensus forecast of $20.78. The company’s quarterly revenue reached $41.5 billion, approximately quadrupling compared to the same period last year and surpassing analyst projections of $35.8 billion.

While Sandisk’s earnings release isn’t scheduled until Aug. 24, the impressive Micron results provided market participants with valuable insight into current memory sector dynamics.

Wall Street analysts have already positioned for strong results from Sandisk’s forthcoming announcement. Consensus estimates project earnings of $33.72 per share, representing more than twice the company’s previous quarterly results.

Micron’s GAAP earnings increased 104% quarter-over-quarter in its most recent period. Market participants appear to be positioning for Sandisk to deliver comparable performance, especially considering two additional months of favorable memory pricing conditions.

AI-Driven Demand Creates Persistent Supply Constraints

During Micron’s earnings conference call, CEO Sanjay Mehrotra emphasized that artificial intelligence-related demand continues at elevated levels, with the company deploying capital at unprecedented rates to expand capacity. Despite these investments, he indicated that supply constraints will persist for the foreseeable future.

This ongoing supply-demand mismatch has been a primary catalyst for Sandisk’s extraordinary performance trajectory. The company’s shares have appreciated 853% during the current calendar year and have posted a remarkable 4,670% advance over the trailing 12 months, powered by AI infrastructure investment and constrained memory availability.

Both companies are securing extended-term supply agreements with clients at premium pricing levels. Micron disclosed that certain products are generating operating margins exceeding 80%. Sandisk has adopted a comparable commercial approach, potentially insulating its profitability profile even if market conditions moderate.

Evaluating Valuation Extremes

The stock’s meteoric rise has attracted scrutiny from market technicians monitoring momentum indicators. Prediction markets platform Polymarket recently characterized Sandisk as “officially the most overbought stock in history,” citing its technical positioning.

The quantitative data supports some degree of valuation concern. Sandisk’s 14-month RSI registered 99.1 as of Wednesday, based on Dow Jones Market Data. Traditional technical analysis considers readings above 70 as indicating overbought conditions. For perspective, the company’s record 14-day RSI of 95.32 was established in September 2025.

On a more compressed timeframe, the 14-day RSI measured 55.8 at Wednesday’s closing bell, which falls within neutral territory. However, the extended-term momentum indicators present a more challenging picture.

Sandisk currently trades 246% above its 200-day moving average of approximately $652, and sits 51% above its 50-day moving average of $1,489.

The company has maintained public market status for roughly 16 months following its separation from Western Digital. During this period, shares have advanced from a $40 trough to a peak of $2,354.39.

Sandisk’s current market capitalization stands at $284 billion.

The post Sandisk (SNDK) Stock Soars 18% Following Micron’s Stellar Quarterly Performance appeared first on Blockonomi.

According to analyst Shanaka Anslem Perera, the story everyone has been telling about Bitcoin (BTC) this year, that big money fled to gold and left crypto behind, is wrong.

He laid out the actual flow of data in a post on X, showing how the picture is considerably different from what the rotation narrative suggests.

ETF Flows Tell a Different Story

The analyst argued that, based on spot Bitcoin ETF data, investors have not abandoned the flagship cryptocurrency. Since their launch in January 2024, they have attracted more than $53 billion in net inflows, something that took gold ETFs some five years to achieve.

Things changed during the recent market correction, when about $4.4 billion flowed out in 13 consecutive trading sessions. But Perera pointed out that the money left Bitcoin to chase highs in AI and semiconductors, describing investors who made the shift as tourists who react to every changing narrative.

Per his analysis, BTC has found itself caught between two competing trades.

“When the market wanted offense, the money left Bitcoin to chase AI and chip stocks at fresh highs,” he wrote. “When the market wanted defense, the money left Bitcoin for Treasuries and cash.”

He also claimed that the gold side of the story had a similar hole in it. Indeed, big gold ETFs bled this year, but, according to Perera, the money didn’t go to BTC as some headlines had suggested, but it went into cheaper gold products, essentially meaning it was a “fee swap” and not a defection to Bitcoin.

There was a similar misread inside crypto, as XRP and Solana funds pulled money while BTC bled. Many market watchers thought it was a changing of the guard, but Perera pointed out that since those funds sit on bases 40 to 50 times smaller than Bitcoin’s, relatively modest inflows may look dramatic on a chart while having very little meaning at scale.

Debate Over Safe Haven Continues

What makes Perera’s analysis worthwhile is how it makes a distinction between what he called Bitcoin’s two shareholder bases: short-term ETF investors that react quickly and emotionally to economic data and market sentiment, and long-term holders who continue accumulating during periods of weakness.

According to the analyst, when most headlines about ETFs focused on outflows, the long-term holders added about 125,000 BTC to their holdings, basically buying the coins that the ETF crowd was panic-selling on every CPI print.

The debate around Bitcoin’s role has become quite loud this year, with billionaire Ray Dalio saying in March that gold and BTC cannot be compared, as institutions still prefer the metal as a store of value.

Other research also cast doubt on the rotation narrative, with analyst Charlie Bilello finding that both gold and Bitcoin were trading below their long-term trend levels at the same time, suggesting parallel weakness rather than capital moving directly from one to the other.

The post Bitcoin Didn’t Lose to Gold, the Rotation Story Is Wrong: Analyst appeared first on CryptoPotato.

It’s another painful day in the cryptocurrency markets, especially for the altcoins. Ethereum, which traded at roughly $1,800 just over a week ago, tumbled toward $1,500, but it’s yet to break its negative June record, at least for now.

In contrast, Ripple’s XRP has been at the forefront of the latest declines. The token plunged to just over $1.00 minutes ago, which became its lowest price tag since late 2024.

Analysts, even those who have been predominantly bullish on XRP’s future price trajectory, have warned that the asset could unravel if it decisively loses the psychologically important $1.00 level.

CasiTrades, for example, warned that the token could drop to a low of $0.87 before it rebounds. Ali Martinez was even more bearish, outlining targets of below $0.70 and all the way down to $0.15 in a very extreme scenario.

Many other altcoins have posted similar losses in the past hour alone. SOL is down by over 3.5%, ZEC has plunged by 4%, while ADA is close to breaking below $0.14 after a 3.7% drop.

Naturally, the liquidations have skyrocketed given this enhanced volatility, especially since BTC broke below $59,000 and plummeted to $58,000.

Expectedly, BTC is responsible for the lion’s share. Over $320 million worth of longs have been wiped out in the past hour alone. ETH follows suit with nearly $140 million, while XRP is third with just over $40 million – all from longs.

In total, the liquidations are up to $630 million in the past hour, and $600 million is from longs. The total value for the past day is $1.5 billion, with $1.22 billion from longs.

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In what appears to be a repeat of yesterday’s developments, bitcoin’s price has headed south once again, but this time it even plunged below $59,000 for the first time in nearly two years.

With no other major catalysts known at the moment, all roads seem to be leading today to Michael Saylor’s Strategy and the FUD around it.

BTC’s New Drop

As reported yesterday, Strategy’s main stock, MSTR, plummeted by 10% to a then-two-year low of $93. Bitcoin reacted with a similar decline to $59,050, but managed to rebound and even jumped to almost $62,000 earlier today.

This became another dead-cat bounce, though. The bears stepped up once again in the past 30 minutes or so, driving the cryptocurrency to its lowest position since before the US presidential elections in late 2024 at $58,000.

Although the asset has found support for now at this point, the overall landscape remains highly bearish, with BTC dumping by well over $20,000 in six weeks.

Analysts continue to relate the cryptocurrency’s adverse price moves to those of Strategy’s MSTR and STRC. The former is down by another 7% to a new multi-year low today of $88, with KALEO predicting another massive leg down toward $25. STRC is far off its par price of $100, currently trading at $76, which essentially increases the pressure on both the company and its massive BTC holdings.

Liquidations Pop

With most altcoins mimicking bitcoin’s massive crash, it’s no wonder that the total value of wrecked positions is on the rise. In fact, there have been almost $500 million worth of liquidations in the past hour alone, with nearly all of them coming from longs.

The 24-hour scale is even more painful, as data from CoinGlass shows a $1.3 billion wipe-out. More than 210,000 traders have been wrecked within the same timeframe. The single-largest liquidation took place on Binance and was worth over $19 million.

The post Déjà Vu: Bitcoin Tumbles Below $59K as Strategy’s MSTR Crumbles Again appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The leading cryptocurrency has been in a clear decline lately, with the downturn intensifying over the past 24 hours as the price briefly tumbled below $60,000 for the second time this month.

As expected, the latest pullback has prompted a wave of doomsday predictions, with some claiming that bitcoin is “going to zero.” The popular American businessman and media personality, Dave Portnoy, floated the idea, but numerous industry participants dismissed the grim scenario.

‘The Bitcoin Journey is a Hero’s Journey’

The founder and CEO of Barstool Sports created a heated debate on X with his post. Several hours ago, he urged “all the bitcoin and crypto people who say it’s going to a million and how it’s the future” to convince him that the digital asset is not a scam and not headed toward rock bottom at $0.

“Cause it seems like it’s going to zero,” he added.

What followed was a massive wave of support toward BTC and its fundamentals, along with accusations that Portnoy simply speaks of things he doesn’t understand. One of the prominent people presenting strong arguments in favor of the cryptocurrency was Jack Mallers. The founder and CEO of Strike reminded that over the past 13 years, BTC has been the subject of such forecasts numerous times, especially after catastrophic events like Mt. Gox’s crisis and FTX’s meltdown.

Yet somehow, BTC is still around with a market capitalization of over $1 trillion, Mallers noted. He said the asset has been “the best thing I could have poured my life into over the last 13+ years.” Mallers then moved on to give Portnoy important advice:

“The Bitcoin journey is a hero’s journey. You kill your ego. You surrender the idea that you’re the all-knower of the future, the main character, and important enough to matter to this thing. Bitcoin doesn’t care what you think, and it doesn’t need your permission. You either have the balls to build conviction in it, or you don’t.”

Last but not least, Mallers challenged Portnoy to sell his BTC if he believes in the government and its ability “to not print away” people’s purchasing power.

Altcoin Daily also joined the discussion. The X user described BTC as “a global gold 2.0” that people can “actually own, send globally, and hold without a bank, CEO, or government changing the rules.”

“You know value and price are not the same thing. The internet crashed, too. It still changed the world,” they added.

Historically, BTC cycle bottoms have coincided with peak pessimism, when numerous people declared the asset dead or insisted that “it’s going to zero.” Some of the commentators on Portnoy’s post outlined that parallel, arguing that the market floor might be near.

Shift Focus From BTC

Portnoy has long stirred controversy with his Bitcoin takes, initially calling the asset a “Ponzi scheme.” He then softened his tone and withdrew his scam claims.

He also has experience in the meme coin sector, launching tokens such as GREED, GREED2, and JAILSTOOL, which experienced massive price volatility and severe crashes. Several X users reminded him of those efforts, predicting that BTC will recover sooner or later, but the dubious coins he once shilled are unlikely to rise from the dead.

The post ‘It Seems Like BTC is Going to Zero?’ Prominent Voices Explain Why Dave Portnoy Is Wrong appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Jiang Zhuoer, co-founder of BTC.TOP mining pool, on June 25 published a long-term prediction for Bitcoin (BTC), saying it could bottom between $42,000 and $44,000 sometime in the October-to-December 2026 window.

Jiang made the call while the OG cryptocurrency was trading near $62,000, down about 51% from its all-time high above $126,000, which was set in October 2025.

MSTR Sentiment May Lead to the Next Bitcoin Bottom

According to the miner, Strategy’s mNAV ratio, which compares its share price with the value of its BTC holdings per share, has entered the same range seen during the previous bear market. An mNAV reading above 1 suggests that investors are paying a premium, while a figure below 1 means there’s pessimism brewing.

Per Jiang’s assessment, that metric has fallen to 0.72, very close to the 0.70 level recorded in May 2022. He argued that the current reading may signal a sentiment low for Strategy investors, although not necessarily for Bitcoin itself.

When mNAV bottomed in May 2022, as the analyst explained, BTC was trading near $31,000 and went on to reach a cycle low six months later when it dropped to around $15,000. If that same lag applies now, Jiang postulated that the flagship crypto will reach a low in Q4 2026, with prices falling to roughly $42,000 to $44,000.

His prediction also relied on a 4-year market model that compares Bitcoin’s long-term price swings to a bouncing ball, where each bounce results in the loss of amplitude. According to the model, as BTC’s total market cap grows, its volatility naturally decreases cycle by cycle.

Strategy MSTR stock recently fell to its lowest level since February 2024, and was changing hands at just above $94 at the time of writing. Meanwhile, the company’s preferred STRC shares have also been trading below their par value of $100, with data from the firm showing it stood at $80.84, and this, Jiang says, has also contributed to the current market stress, with other analysts suggesting it could pressure Strategy to sell some of its Bitcoin.

Market Context Around Jiang’s Call

Bitcoin’s current weakness is not hard to see in the data, with Santiment noting earlier today that wallets holding between 10 and 10,000 BTC had dumped 45,074 coins over an 8-day period, helping push the asset below $60,000 for the first time since October 2024. CoinGlass data showed nearly $416 million in Bitcoin liquidations in the last day, with long positions accounting for more than $319 million.

Analyst Wise Crypto described the move as a leverage flush, with more than 175,000 traders affected when BTC briefly touched $59,000. The asset has since made some recovery from that dip and was trading close to $62,000 at press time, although it was still down about 4% in the last week and almost 20% over the past month.

Meanwhile, another market watcher, Ali Martinez, flagged that the Coinbase Premium Index has been negative for 46 straight days. The metric compares the price of Bitcoin on Coinbase with offshore exchanges, with a negative reading suggesting weaker demand from American investors and institutions.

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