Vertcoin was 51% attacked. Coins were double-spent and 603 blocks were replaced by the attacker’s transactions.
Vertcoin Attacked On Dec. 1 at 15:19 UTC, 603 blocks were removed from VTC’s main blockchain and replaced by 553 attacker blocks. There were 5 recorded double-spent transactions. A total of 125 VTC ($29) was redirected to the hacker’s wallet address.
Bittrex, Vertcoin’s most trafficked exchange by real volume, disabled withdrawals on the platform once it became clear the attack was in progress.
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Vertcoin is a Bitcoin clone that claims to be ASIC-resistant through regular mining algorithm changes introduced via hardfork. Vertcoin currently ranks 194th by market capitalization and boasts a market cap of $12.5 million. Vertcoin was previously 51% attacked in December of 2018.
Details on the 51% Attack On Nov. 30, hashrate rental prices for Vertcoin’s mining algorithm Lyra2REv3 increased significantly. There is strong evidence that hashrate rental service Nicehash was used to conduct the attack.
According to James Lovejoy, lead maintainer of Vertcoin, the attacker spent between 0.5-1 BTC to perform the attack. The total value of the attack was roughly 0.44 BTC, meaning the attack likely not profitable.
“Given the reorg was just deeper than 600 blocks (Bittrex’s confirmation requirement for VTC), it is possible that Bittrex was the original target,” said Lovejoy. “But the double-spend portion attack was aborted due to Bittrex disabling their wallet before the fork could be released.”
It is also possible that the attack was merely a proof-of-concept or sabotage attack, continued Lovejoy.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Mitchell Moos. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
A second 51% attack on Vertcoin was just attempted earlier today The hackers (unknown) ended up paying for the attempt out of their own pockets!
The hackers seem to have come out of this whole ordeal $440 worse off. A second 51% attack on Vertcoin was just attempted earlier today but the hackers (unknown) ended up paying for the attempt out of their own pockets!
Turns out, crime DOES pay… just not in the way they intended...
51% Hacking
The lead maintainer on Vertcoin, James Lovejoy revealed that a malicious person(s) targeted the crypto platform Bittrex. This was in order to try and force a manipulative manner onto the Vertcoin blockchain.
In 2014, the cryptocurrency left Bitcoin in the form of a fork. This led to a major attack in December of last year in which a whopping $100k was stolen by hackers.
But the exploit attempt this year has clearly been a whopping fail instead.
“Based on the market prices during the attack's preparation and the difficulty of the blocks the attacker produced, we estimate the attacker spent between 0.5-1 BTC to perform the attack,” Lovejoy explained.
The hackers seem to have come out of this whole ordeal $440 worse off. That’s at the very least too, $4.1k is the most they could have reportedly lost.
“The total value of the block rewards the attack received is 13825 VTC (~0.44 BTC). Given the attack was likely not profitable to perform based solely on block rewards, the motivation for the attack is not certain.”
The Rise of Crypto
The rise in the price of cryptocurrencies has been often accompanied by an increase of general interest by big institutional investors. At the end of 2017, we saw a lot more people enter the market who probably never even heard of cryptocurrency and get involved with the space. Just as institutional investors got attracted into the space through the idea of money, hackers and scammers also jumped on the bandwagon...
For more news on this and other crypto updates, keep it with CryptoDaily!
Last week was quite impressive for Bitcoin as the cryptocurrency recorded a bullish reversal from a low of $6,750 to $7,800 in two days. The bulls were unable to defend the new region, swinging the price back to $7,230 during today’s early hours.
Bitcoin is currently down about 1.29% on the day as it trades at around $7,316 at the time of this writing.
BTC/USD. Source: TradingView The altcoin market, on the other hand, is in a mixed state as some cryptocurrencies are recording slight gains while others are on a disappointing trend. For example, Ether (ETH), is up by 0.20% and trading at $148 while XRP, despite its latest listing on Japan’s largest crypto exchange, is recording losses of 1.14%, trading at $0.218.
It’s also worth noting that Tether (USDT) – the most popular and widely used stablecoin, is currently the world’s fourth-largest cryptocurrency. This is a sign that altcoins are seemingly in a struggle as they lose their positions against a stablecoin, the market cap of which is only increased when Tether issues new USDT.
The total market cap is $198 billion | Bitcoin’s market cap is $132 billion | BTC dominance: 66.4%.
Major Crypto Headlines Huge Responsibility: Coinbase Holds Almost 1 Million Bitcoins. Considering that crypto exchanges are the major target of hackers, Coinbase seems to have a huge responsibility on its shoulder as new reports reveal that the US-based exchange has custody of 966k bitcoins in its wallets.
Japan’s Largest Crypto Exchange, BitFlyer, Adds Support For XRP. Good news for XRP fans and traders as Japanese exchange BitFlyer has officially announced that Ripple (XRP) will be available on its Altcoin Market for trading as of Monday, December 2. Yet, the price failed to react positively, and XRP is down during today’s trading session.
You may also like: Brutal Bitcoin Liquidation Cascade Imminent Below $59K, Warns Analyst Bitcoin Price Crashes Below $60K as Strategy’s MSTR Plunges 10% Mining Profits Dry Up Across Bitcoin, DOGE, LTC, and BCH Vertcoin 51% Attack ‘Motive Uncertain’ as Hackers Lose up to $4,000. Hackers who attempted to steal Vertcoin (VTC) from Bittrex through another 51% attack on the Vertcoin blockchain, netted a total loss between $440 and $4,100. According to the network’s leading maintainer, the wrongdoers targeted Bittrex to manipulate the cryptocurrency’s blockchain.
Significant Daily Gainers and Losers Ebakus (+340.47%) Ebakus (EBK) is in the green zone today with a massive gain over the last 24 hours. Although the cryptocurrency started the trading session with a price around the $0.007200 region, it is now trading at $0.031521, giving traders a remarkable 340% profit on the day. EBK holds a market cap of $2,846,200, with a daily trade volume of $190,944.
Blockium (+84%) A massive 84% profit today has placed Blockium (BOK) as the second most significant gainer over the last 24 hours. BOK is the native token of Blockium, a project that describes itself as a unique P2P financial gamification platform that unites stock and crypto traders. The uptrend movement today shows a recovery from its last week low of $0.000537 to $0.001669. At the time of this writing, the token is exchanging hands at $0.001094 with its 24h trading volume at $203,931.
Fusion (FSN -51%) Today’s trading session is quite sad for FSN traders and holders as the cryptocurrency has lost over 50% of its value in the last 24 hours. FSN’s 7-day chart shows that the token has been on a downward decline falling from a price of $1.2 in the past week to a current price of $0.2.
“Today we know that centralization and big bureaucracies have not, as promised, been the answer for promoting better opportunities for society” ~ Carlos Salinas de Gortari
To ASIC or not to ASIC has been the dilemma for years now. For some, the distinction is very easy; it comes down to choosing between centralization and decentralization. For others, it is about taking all the aspects of mining into consideration and opting for what’s best suitable for the end participants and the network altogether. With ASICs in the scene, one side of the coin depicts decentralization, the other side portrays centralization. A coin that’s puzzling not only to the ones in the cryptocurrency space, but also to the ones outside.
While there are many projects that completely oppose even the idea of ASIC mining, there is an equal number of projects or even more that have warmly embraced the new idea. And, why not? Decentralization means an open-market, which in turn symbolizes technological advancement.
Skating on thin ice On one hand, the argument that’s pro-ASIC is that “it contributes to the network security,” which is debatable. On the other hand, the argument that it leads to centralization of the network is something that’s hard to be brushed off. The security threats of ASIC mining centralization include ASIC boost, selfish mining, eclipse attacks, and launching a 51 percent attack without having 51 percent hash power (just by collaborating with three or four other mining pools). The problems of ASIC mining have taken a prominent seat in the crypto-market.
However, this is not the only factor that bothers miners and participants. There is only a portion of the community that can afford ASIC miners and the ones who can also have their table full with the question of whether or not their ASIC miners will be profitable by the time it ships.
The largest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, is among those cryptocurrencies that have been pro-ASIC mining, and it is because of this very cryptocurrency that ASIC mining has gained a strong foothold in this space. The mining evolution from CPU to GPU to FPGA to ASIC completely superseded Satoshi Nakamoto’s “one CPU, one vote” rule.
Speaking to AMBCrypto, Bob Summerwill from ETC Cooperative said,
“If you see what’s been happening with every single cryptocurrency has ASICs, even the ones that claim to be ASIC resistant. And the reason is very simple, it just you can do it more efficiently. You are just doing a fairly simple algorithm and doing that in hardware is going to more efficient than doing it in software. There’s no going around that and the economic is such that you just cannot resist. It’s just futile to try and resist. The ASICs are going to happen anyway and they are actually good for you. So, resisting is futile and actually counter productive.”
While Bitcoin itself is relatively safe from the biggest problems of ASIC mining and centralization – 51 percent attack, the same, however, does not hold true for other cryptocurrencies. The reason is quite simple; the cost of BTC mining and the price is higher compared to the rest of p-o-w coins. In short, it’s possible, but it’s not quite feasible for the attacker considering there would also be a war against the rest 49 percent, and even if one percent hash rate is lost to the other side, it would mean game-over. Meaning, there’s zero economic incentive for launching a 51% attack on Bitcoin.
The Hash War A classic example of the blunders that can be caused by mining pools powered by ASICs is the Bitcoin Cash vs Bitcoin Satoshi Vision hash war that took place towards the end of 2018. Some market speculators even claimed that the hash war resulted in not only two different chains, but also the crash of Bitcoin’s price and hash rate towards the end of last year.
This was not the first time Bitcoin Cash got dragged into a mining war, nor was it the last time that BCH made headlines concerning matters related to mining. The cryptocurrency was itself a result of a fork war that took place in 2017 over the bigger block size argument. The latest on the shelf was this year’s report on re-org, carried out by BTC.com and BTC.top, with both pools joining hands to reverse blocks of transactions in order to cease an unknown miner from gaining access to coins, an exploit taking advantage of after May 15 hard fork.
Such instances show how the most important pillar of any cryptocurrency in the market, decentralization, can be undermined.
An achievable goal? While many are of the opinion that ASIC-resistance is futile, there are still projects that stand firm against ASIC-mining, keeping decentralization as the most important goal, even though there hasn’t been any substantial proof that this is an achievable goal.
Ethereum and Monero were the two coins that held the beacon of ASIC Resistance; Ethereum with back-and-forth discussion over implementing ProgPoW, and Monero with RandomX.
The Valladolid Debate
While ‘To ASIC or not to ASIC’ is a dilemma that the entire ecosystem faces, ‘to ProgPoW or not to ProgPoW’ is the question the Ethereum community is struggling with.
The reason to implement ProgPoW is simple, ASIC resistance, which even had a greenlight from the auditors. There are several reasons against it: debates of GPU miners buy-outs, Proof-of-Stake shift, and problems with the teams that proposed the algorithm.
Bob Summerwill said,
“When Ethereum was started it was like we don’t want ASICs, we don’t want to be like Bitcoin, we don’t want our mining to be dominated by a few of these Chinese companies. So, we are going to do something which is memory hard and runs on GPUs and not specialist hardware. It’s a different time now and I think what we’ve ended up inheriting there is not something that really makes sense anymore. The ASIC resistance is a myth. You can’t resist it.”
How does ProgPoW aim to answer the ASIC question? ProgPoW would have five key elements to its algorithm: change from Keccack_f1600 to Keccack_f800 [shift from 64-bit words to 32-bit words], the random sequence generated would change every 50 blocks, the DRAM would increase to 256 bytes from 128 bytes, adds reads from a small, and low-latency cache that supports random addresses.
ProgPoW would not eliminate the threat of ASIC mining. It would merely make it minimal by giving GPU miners a boost. The GitHub post reads,
“The design goal of ProgPoW is to have the algorithm’s requirements match what is available on commodity GPUs. If the algorithm were to be implemented on custom ASIC there should be little efficiency gains compared to a commodity GPU.”
The algorithm was supposed to make a debut this year with the Istanbul hard fork, but was postponed to the next one due to audit delays. Sailing through these troublesome factors, it is still unclear whether ProgPoW would ever make it to the Mainnet.
The ‘I have a dream’ of Monero
When Bitmain announced an Antminer designed for Cryptonight-based cryptocurrencies, it left the entire Monero community in a state of shock. If there was one thing that this community was sure of, it was that ASIC miners were a no-no.
The immediate response was to tweak the network algorithm on a constant basis, in this case – every six months. While the strategy did come at a cost – compromising the security of the network, it did work. In the ASIC-manufacturers‘ perspective, it would be pointless in terms of cost and effort to build an ASIC only to see the cryptocurrency change its algorithm to a different one.
Interestingly, the tweak in the mining algorithm brought an end to the popular crypto-jacking service, Coinhive, on 8 March 2019. The official announcement on the discontinuation of the service, stated,
“The drop in hash rate (over 51%) after the last Monero harh fork hit us hard. So did the ‘crash’ of crypto currency market with the value of XMR depreciating over 85% within a year. This and the announced hard fork and algorithm update of Monero network on March 9 has lead us to the conclusion that we need to discontinue Coinhive.”
The Monero community upped the ante with RandomX. The algorithm will be using all components of the core but not all of the chips, including the memory interface of the uncore; a difficult aspect to achieve for ASICs as it only focuses on one element in mining. The algorithm was changed from CryptonightR to RandomX at the end of November 2019. Its maiden voyage has been on easy waters so far. “Test fast, fail fast, adjust fast” has been Monero’s mantra so far.
Hit-and-miss
In December 2019, Vertcoin [VTC], ranked 306 on CoinMarketCap, recorded a 51 percent attack. Interestingly, the cryptocurrency has always been at arms against ASIC mining and had opted for Lyra2REv3 proof-of-work algorithm. Notably, this was not the first time the coin succumbed to the attack as the network faced a 51% attack in December 2018 too. A GitHub post on the attack stated,
“On Sunday, 1 December 2019 15:19:47 GMT 603 blocks were removed from the VTC main chain and replaced by 553 attacker blocks. We note that 600 blocks is the current confirmation requirement for VTC on Bittrex. There were 5 double-spent outputs in which ~ 125 VTC (~$29) was redirected. Each of the double-spent outputs are coinbase outputs owned by the attacker and it is unknown to whom the coins were originally sent before being swept to an attacker address after the reorg.”
Decentralized ASIC mining?
While the topic of ASIC centralization continues to be hot debate every now and then, Blockstream, a blockchain technology company, unveiled its mining colocation service and Blockstream Pool, earlier this year. In an episode of Magical Crypto Friends, CSO of Blockstream, Samson Mow, said that the pool would be contributing to Bitcoin’s mining decentralization as it utilizes BetterHash protocol. Mow had stated,
“So, you can run your own node at home, you can host your miners in a facility or you could have your own miners in your facility and then run BetterHash node that would connect to our pool and then it’s just more decentralized overall […]”
After all that’s said and done, the question here is not if ASIC resistance or mining is the way, but is Decentralization truly achievable?
Decentralization in mining is always going to be something that’s going to be hard to achieve as mining would always centralize in a place where electricity is cheap, farms with either CPUs or GPUs or ASICs are always going to exist.
“Maybe wars aren’t meant to be won, maybe they’re meant to be continuous.”
Bitcoin Gold (BTG), a less popular Bitcoin spinoff, was hit with a 51% attack last week, as per a report published on GitHub. While bitcoin is up by a meager 3.19% amid a crypto market-wide resurgence, BTG has gained over 12% in the last 24 hours. This rally comes despite the attackers making away with roughly 7,000 BTG.
Bitcoin Gold Suffers Two 51% Attacks In A Span Of Hours Vertcoin maintainer and researcher at MIT’s Digital Currency Initiative, James Lovejoy, published a report on GitHub over the weekend. He explained that two deep reorganizations had taken place on the Bitcoin Gold network on January 23 and 24.
By mining with more than half of BTG’s hash rate, the attacker stole 7,000 BTG within a period of approximately six hours. In particular, 1,900 BTG was double spent in the first attack on Thursday, Jan 23 and then 5,267 BTG was double spent a few hours later on Friday, Jan 24. At current market prices, these two attacks led to a loss of $84,840.
Conducting a 51% attack on other proof-of-work networks like Bitcoin, for instance, is practically impossible. This is especially because of Bitcoin’s high hash rate which would render such an attack unprofitable. BTG’s hash rate, however, has been on a firm downtrend since July 2018.
As such, Lovejoy observed that based on the present Nicehash prices, the attacker spent approximately $1700 for each reorg. He added:
“Therefore, it is possible that the attacks were profitable if the double-spends succeeded at defrauding the attacker’s counterparty, or break-even if the double-spends were unsuccessful. This suggests that a confirmation requirement on the order of tens of blocks for BTG is still far too few to make the budget constraint to launch an attack insignificant.”
At the moment, leading crypto exchange Binance has increased its withdrawal times from 12 confirmations to 20 blocks to avoid another attack in the future.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time the Bitcoin Gold blockchain has been hit with a 51% attack. Back in May 2018, BTG worth $18 million was lost through double-spending, which led to the coin being delisted by exchanges like Bittrex.
BTG is among the best performing cryptocurrencies today, outperforming its big brother and most of the cryptocurrencies in the top 50. It has gained 12.71% in the last 24 hours to trade at $12.12. The rally has put its total market capitalization at $209.49 million.
This upsurge comes as a big surprise given that the Bitcoin Gold network recently fell victim to two separate malicious attacks. Moreover, it’s not clear what’s behind the surge, but with the coin’s deteriorating fundamentals (case in point, the hash rate), it is likely going to be a short-lived rally.
The crypto market has just experienced one of the most violent shocks of the year, illustrating once again the fragility of positions heavily linked to leverage effects in the face of macroeconomic uncertainties and technological disruptions. In just a few hours, more than 100 billion dollars of global market capitalization disappeared. This massive purge occurs in a context of global technological rout and regulatory tightening and plunged the Crypto Market Fear & Greed index into an “extreme fear” zone, with a score of 23.
In brief The crypto market suffered a brutal correction, with more than 100 billion dollars wiped out in a few hours and a marked return of fear across the sector. A wave of liquidations exceeding 720 million dollars hit traders using leverage, causing the capitulation of thousands of investors and a widespread drop in major digital assets. Bitcoin, Ethereum and leading altcoins recorded sharp declines, while spot crypto ETFs suffered significant capital outflows, increasing selling pressure. New American initiatives in favor of quantum computing revive concerns about the future ‘Q-Day’, a scenario in which quantum computers could challenge the security of current cryptographic systems. The capitulation of crypto assets The first act of this crisis is characterized by liquidation metrics of a magnitude rarely seen in recent months, which explains the shift of the crypto market into extreme fear. According to market data, more than 720 million dollars of positions were wiped out in 24 hours across all main assets: bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Solana, Dogecoin… Nearly 145,000 traders fell victim to this wave of forced selling.
The losses mostly hit buyers using leverage: 610 million dollars of long positions liquidated, versus 110 million dollars for short positions. As proof of the violence of the bearish wick, 182 million dollars of buying positions were erased in just one hour. The Hyperliquid platform also recorded the biggest individual liquidation on the ETHUSD contract, valued at 15.34 million dollars. On the network, on-chain analyst Axel Adler Jr. has summarized the situation : “weak hands capitulate while strong hands did not even flinch”.
Here is the factual breakdown of losses recorded in the Spot market :
Bitcoin (BTC) : the price heavily stumbled to reach an intraday low of 61,893 dollars, breaking its critical 200-week moving average (200-WMA) at 62,000 dollars, generating 216 million dollars of liquidations alone ; Ethereum (ETH) : the market’s second crypto plunged below the 1,650 dollar mark to hit a floor at 1,639 dollars ; Major altcoins : XRP fell more than 3 % to 1.10 dollars, while other assets like BNB, Solana, Cardano or Dogecoin recorded corrections ranging from 3 to 7 % ; Institutional flows : Bitcoin and Ethereum spot ETFs experienced significant net capital outflows, with BlackRock’s IBIT ETF alone seeing 170 million dollars of redemptions. Faced with this massive unwind of positions, analyst Ted Pillows warned about the need to preserve the technical support zone between 61,000 and 62,000 dollars, predicting that a “cluster drop around the 61,200 dollar level” might occur before any hope of a rebound.
Macro-economic contagion and global monetary tightening Beyond the technical crisis, this collapse finds its deep causes in a combination of macroeconomic factors and major political decisions. Traditional financial markets have effected a strong contagion. The Korean KOSPI index experienced a historic collapse of nearly 10%, its third largest drop ever, while the Nasdaq 100 lost 2.60% in pre-opening.
This global risk aversion is explained by the rise to 4.5% of the 10-year US Treasury bond yield and the strength of the dollar index (DXY), which reached 101.17, its highest level since May last year. Investors, worried about peace talks between the United States and Iran and fearing future interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, eagerly await the PCE inflation figures. The diagnosis for the analysis entity Bit Official is clear: “the weakness of both markets can therefore be explained by the Fed being less accommodative since October 2025, with the AI narrative offering only a practical explanation for the correction”.
The specter of the “Q-Day” and the threat of quantum computing A fundamental event has shaken investors’ long-term confidence: US President Donald Trump signed executive orders aimed at massively boosting quantum computing to ensure national security. The White House officially announced its intention to “relaunch a national innovation effort in quantum technologies, to preserve national security and stimulate American growth in a key industry sector”. This direction places the crypto industry against a critical countdown: 2030, the date by which the US government has imposed the migration of its own critical systems to post-quantum standards.
Experts fear the advent of a “Q-Day” by 2030, the apocalyptic scenario in which quantum computers would be able to break current standard encryptions. This fear is all the stronger as Google has issued a major warning, highlighting that large-scale quantum machines would be able to break standard cryptography by 2029. Thus, some networks like Solana or XRP already plan to integrate quantum upgrades in their roadmaps for 2028, but a study indicates that nearly 7 million bitcoins could be threatened if the flagship crypto does not update its cryptographic signatures in time.
This triple constraint, monetary on one side, technological and political on the other, sketches a complex outlook and invites nuanced analysis. In the short term, the market’s ability to absorb liquidations will depend heavily on this week’s US economic indicators, which will guide Fed policy. Ultimately, the blockchain industry is forced to accelerate its transition to a post-quantum architecture to preserve its promise of inviolability. This crash, while temporarily eliminating excess speculation and the leverage of “weak hands”, forces developers and institutions to look beyond price charts to meet an inevitable industrial and security challenge.
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Luc Jose A.
Diplômé de Sciences Po Toulouse et titulaire d'une certification consultant blockchain délivrée par Alyra, j'ai rejoint l'aventure Cointribune en 2019. Convaincu du potentiel de la blockchain pour transformer de nombreux secteurs de l'économie, j'ai pris l'engagement de sensibiliser et d'informer le grand public sur cet écosystème en constante évolution. Mon objectif est de permettre à chacun de mieux comprendre la blockchain et de saisir les opportunités qu'elle offre. Je m'efforce chaque jour de fournir une analyse objective de l'actualité, de décrypter les tendances du marché, de relayer les dernières innovations technologiques et de mettre en perspective les enjeux économiques et sociétaux de cette révolution en marche.
DISCLAIMER
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and should not be taken as investment advice. Do your own research before taking any investment decisions.
The crypto market is in cautious consolidation on June 24, 2026, with a clear split emerging between assets sensitive to the CLARITY Act and those driven by protocol-level catalysts. Bitcoin is holding at $62,491, up 0.49% — recovering from yesterday’s $62,000 intraday low after $700 million in liquidations. Ethereum is at $1,664, up 0.99%, staying green for the sixth consecutive day ahead of tomorrow’s BitMine Russell 1000 inclusion. XRP is the standout laggard — down 1.4% to $1.08 after a sharp afternoon selloff triggered by CLARITY Act passage odds collapsing to 48% on Polymarket. Solana holds $69.09 (+0.65%) and BNB recovers to $575 (+0.71%). The dominant theme today: the Russell 1000 catalyst lands tomorrow, the CLARITY Act is in crisis, and the market is pricing both simultaneously.
Key Takeaways Bitcoin at $62,491, up 0.49% — holding above $62,000 after yesterday’s liquidation dip Ethereum at $1,664, up 0.99% — sixth consecutive green day, BitMine Russell 1000 inclusion tomorrow XRP at $1.08, down 1.4% — sharp afternoon selloff as CLARITY Act odds drop to 48% on Polymarket Solana at $69.09, up 0.65% — pulling back from $74 highs but holding above $68 support BNB at $575.21, up 0.71% — steady recovery, cleanest chart in the top 5 BitMine Russell 1000 inclusion: tomorrow, June 26 — estimated $2.15B in forced passive fund buying CLARITY Act: Polymarket 48%, Galaxy Research “roughly even” — Senator Lummis warns: miss August = 2030 AssetPrice24hMarket CapVolume 24hBitcoin (BTC)$62,491+0.49%$1.25T$23.4BEthereum (ETH)$1,664+0.99%$200.84B$8.28BXRP$1.08-1.4%$67.36B$1.36BSolana (SOL)$69.09+0.65%$40.1B$1.87BBNB$575.21+0.71%$77.52B$920.38M Bitcoin: Defending $62,000 After Yesterday’s $700M Liquidation Shock Bitcoin is trading at $62,491 — a 0.49% gain — after the most violent session since the post-FOMC selloff. Yesterday’s intraday dip to ~$62,000 triggered more than $700 million in crypto liquidations across all assets. The 24-hour chart today shows the aftermath: BTC opened near $62,330, dipped twice toward $62,000 in the early hours, then recovered steadily to $62,500–$63,000, where it has consolidated through the afternoon.
The structure is defensive. Volume at $23.4 billion — down 25.62% — reflects reduced urgency after yesterday’s panic. Buyers absorbed the liquidation wave; the question now is whether they can push price back above the $63,500–$64,000 resistance zone that capped last week’s recovery.
The CLARITY Act deterioration is the primary headwind. With passage odds at 48%, the $15 billion ETF inflow scenario that underpinned Citi’s $143,000 year-end target is now a coin flip. Bitcoin’s price is not directly legislative — it has commodity classification regardless — but institutional sentiment is correlated with the broader regulatory environment that CLARITY Act passage would create.
Ethereum: Six Green Days, Russell 1000 Tomorrow Ethereum is the standout performer of the week. At $1,664, up 0.99%, ETH has now posted six consecutive green days — an outperformance streak that has no parallel among major assets this month. The 24-hour chart shows a constructive pattern: ETH opened near $1,649, dipped briefly to that level twice before recovering cleanly to $1,665–$1,675, consolidating near the top of the range through the afternoon.
The structural story is unchanged and intensifying. BitMine bought 52,203 ETH on June 22, bringing total holdings to 5.67 million ETH — 4.7% of all circulating supply, valued at $9.8 billion. Tomorrow’s Russell 1000 inclusion forces passive index funds tracking $4+ trillion in benchmarked assets to buy BMNR stock, with analysts estimating up to $2.15 billion in forced inflows.
Separately, the Ethereum Foundation confirmed a 40% spending cut — reducing the structural ETH sell pressure that has historically come from foundation treasury sales. Combined with the 32% staking ratio and BitMine’s accumulation, the liquid float in ETH is compressing.
Volume at $8.28 billion — down 33.38% — is lower than yesterday but the direction is clean. Low volume on a green day above key support ($1,649 held twice) is accumulation, not speculation.
XRP: CLARITY Act Odds Collapse Triggers Afternoon Selloff XRP is the worst performer in the top 5 today — down 1.4% to $1.08 — and the 24-hour chart explains exactly why. XRP held near $1.10–$1.11 for most of the session, then sold off sharply in the early afternoon to $1.08. The timing matches the CLARITY Act news flow: Galaxy Research moved passage odds to “roughly even” and Polymarket dropped to 48%, down from 74% a month ago.
XRP is the asset most directly exposed to CLARITY Act legislative risk. Passage permanently codifies XRP’s commodity classification into federal law — unlocking US bank custody and the pension fund/sovereign wealth fund capital that currently cannot hold XRP under agency-guidance-only classification. Standard Chartered and JPMorgan both project $4–8 billion in ETF inflows in a passage scenario. A slip to 2030 removes that catalyst entirely for this cycle.
The $1.08 level is now testing the lower bound of the June range. Critical support below is $1.05, then the psychological $1.00 floor. Exchange reserves remain at 7-year lows — 1.6 billion tokens, half the October 2025 peak — meaning the thin float amplifies any directional move in either direction.
Solana: Pulling Back from $74 Highs, Holding Key Support Solana is down from its $74 weekly high to $69.09, up 0.65% on the day. The 24-hour chart shows a choppy session: SOL opened near $68.92, tested $68.25 on two brief dips in early trading, then recovered steadily to $69.50–$70.00 before easing back to $69.09 into the afternoon.
The weekly picture remains the strongest of any top asset: SOL has gained approximately 8% over 7 days, outperforming BTC, ETH, XRP, and BNB. The pullback from $74 to $69 reflects normal profit-taking after a sharp weekly move rather than any structural reversal.
Key support is at $68 — the intraday floor that held today. The 50-day moving average at approximately $71.96 is the technical resistance that needs to be reclaimed for the weekly trend to extend further. Volume at $1.87 billion, down 26.36%, confirms the session is consolidative rather than directional.
BNB: Cleanest Chart in the Top 5 BNB is at $575.21, up 0.71% — the most consistent performer today on a risk-adjusted basis. The 24-hour chart shows BNB opened near $571.64, dipped briefly on the open, then trended steadily higher through $574, $576, $578, $580, before settling near $575–$576. No sharp dips, no liquidation spikes — just a clean grind higher throughout the session.
Market cap at $77.52 billion with volume of $920.38 million — the lowest Vol/Mkt Cap ratio (1.18%) in the snapshot, confirming this is low-volatility accumulation rather than speculative trading. Treasury holdings at 686,070 BNB. BNB’s stability today reflects Binance’s structural market share and BNB Chain’s continued fee and utility demand.
The Two Catalysts That Define This Week Russell 1000 inclusion — tomorrow, June 26. BitMine joins the Russell 1000 at market close. Passive index funds must buy BMNR proportionally. Analysts estimate $2.15 billion in forced buying. BitMine’s NAV is almost entirely ETH. Watch BMNR stock and ETH price correlation on inclusion day — a muted reaction suggests the market priced it in; a sharp move signals the $2.15B estimate was underweighted.
CLARITY Act — 48% odds, August deadline. The bill needs 60 Senate votes and a floor commitment before the August recess. Galaxy Research moved from 75% to roughly even. Polymarket at 48%. Senator Lummis: missing August = 2030. A Senate leadership statement committing to a floor vote would immediately reverse the odds. XRP is the asset most directly affected on both upside (passage) and downside (failure). BTC is indirectly affected through the institutional sentiment channel.
What to Watch This Week June 26: BitMine Russell 1000 inclusion — BMNR stock + ETH price on the day Senate calendar: Any floor vote commitment from leadership is the most important market event for XRP $62,000 BTC floor: Second consecutive day testing that level — a break below opens $61,620 and potentially $59,130 $1.00 XRP: The psychological floor that has held every 2026 pullback — now in range if CLARITY Act news deteriorates further
Every major crypto cycle produces one meme coin that captures the cultural moment perfectly. In 2023, that coin was Pepecoin and it rewarded early believers beyond anything most predicted.
Today, a new wave of meme-native projects is emerging, backed by AI infrastructure and structured tokenomics. MemeToro, with its $MT presale underway on BNB Chain, is generating early-stage attention that echoes familiar patterns.
Three specific parallels stand out between $MT’s current presale phase and where PEPE was before the world caught on.
What Made Pepecoin Run Historic Before examining $MT, the Pepecoin 2023 story deserves a factual foundation. Elon Musk began tweeting about Memecoins in early 2021, kicking off a furious rally that culminated in his Saturday Night Live appearance.
Its large market cap now limits the magnitude of future moves, as early asymmetry has largely been captured. The window that early DOGE holders exploited no longer exists for DOGE and PEPE but it may exist for $MT.
Reason 1: Ground-Floor Entry at the Same Price DOGE Once Was The most striking parallel between $MT and early DOGE is the entry price itself. DOGE was trading around $0.004 in January 2021, right before its historic run began.
The $MT presale is currently priced at exactly $0.00139 per token. This is not a coincidence that MemeToro highlights lightly, it is a deliberate positioning signal.
Investors who entered PEPE at sub-penny prices saw life-changing returns within months. $MT sits at that same numerical starting point, in a market cycle where AI-memecoin narratives are accelerating.
Ground-floor entries at this price level are rare for structured, audited projects with working products. For investors who understand what early PEPE positioning looked like, the $0.00139 price point carries significant weight.
Reason 2: Community-First Tokenomics With Real Infrastructure Behind Them PEPE’s 2023 rise was fueled almost entirely by community energy, there was no staking, no utility layer, no ecosystem.
MemeToro takes the community-first model but adds the infrastructure Pepecoin never had. The public sale allocates 71% of total $MT supply directly to the community, one of the highest ratios in any 2026 presale.
Staking is already live, offering up to 35% APR on $MT from day one. Marketing and partnership tokens are locked under a 24-month vesting schedule, protecting against early sell pressure.
The smart contract has been independently audited by approved third-party security firms. Pepecoin proved that community momentum alone can drive enormous gains. $MT pairs that same community-first spirit with tokenomics that reward long-term participation.
Reason 3: An AI Agent That PEPE Never Had and the Market Now Demands The crypto market has evolved significantly since 2023. MemeToro’s $MT AI Agent is where this project most clearly separates itself from anything PEPE offered. The agent autonomously scans social media, global news, and cultural trends in real time. It identifies viral memecoin narratives before they peak, then acts on them without manual input.
This is the infrastructure layer that PEPE never had, an autonomous, AI-driven system built specifically for the memecoin economy. Bonded memecoins created on the platform auto-list on PancakeSwap, secured by BNB for transparent market access.
The platform also integrates prediction markets, portfolio management tools, and creator reward systems under one ecosystem.
MemeToro gives $MT holders both: the meme energy of early PEPE and the AI infrastructure that the current cycle demands.
The Early Window Is Always Finite The most important lesson from PEPE in 2023 is that the early window closed quickly. Those who bought after the headlines arrived entered a different risk-reward environment entirely.
$MT is still in its presale phase at $0.00139, before exchange listings, before mainstream coverage, before the crowd. The presale allows payment via BNB, ETH, USDT, or card, keeping access broad.
For investors who missed the meme coin moment in 2024, the $MT presale is presenting a second look at familiar timing.
More Information on MemeToro ($MT) Presale Here:
Website: https://memetoro.com/
X: https://x.com/memetoro_mt
Telegram: https://t.me/memetoro_mt
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Franklin Templeton, one of the leading names in traditional finance, has unveiled a dedicated crypto assets division following the completion of its acquisition of 250 Digital. The New York-based investment giant announced that its new unit, named Franklin Crypto, will focus on serving sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, and other institutional investors seeking exposure to digital assets.
Integration of 250 Digital kickstarts new eraWith $1.78 trillion in assets under management, Franklin Templeton finalized the acquisition of 250 Digital after reaching an agreement in April. 250 Digital, originally spun off from CoinFund earlier this year, had established itself as a specialized crypto investment operation. This move signals Franklin Templeton’s commitment to formalizing its presence in the digital assets landscape and expanding its capabilities within the sector.
Rather than remaining on the sidelines with limited experimental initiatives, Franklin Templeton is now positioning itself as a full-fledged player in the crypto space. According to their statement, the firm is actively pursuing crypto strategies based on technologies such as XRP Ledger, Stellar, Polygon, and Aptos.
Glossary: XRP Ledger is known as a blockchain network primarily focused on payments and asset transfers. Stellar similarly centers on cross-border transactions, whereas Polygon and Aptos are widely used networks for broader application development.
Industry veterans lead the new unitThe newly formed Franklin Crypto division will be led by Christopher Perkins, a veteran with extensive experience in the crypto industry. On the investment side, Seth Ginns will take on the role of Chief Investment Officer. Both will work closely with Tony Pecore from the Franklin Templeton Digital Assets team to steer the new organization.
Franklin Templeton is allocating its own capital to the liquid cryptocurrency strategies previously managed by CoinFund, highlighting the firm’s increasingly institutional approach to digital assets.
An important detail in the company’s statement concerns the financing of the acquisition, with a portion carried out using BENJI tokens. BENJI represents the on-chain version of the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund.
ETF activity remains strongFranklin Templeton has been especially active in the crypto field in recent years. Earlier this week, the firm filed applications for two new Bitcoin-linked exchange-traded funds. The planned products—Franklin US Equity Bitcoin DRIP Index ETF and Franklin US Innovation Bitcoin DRIP Index ETF—aim to offer investors a mix of 95% U.S. equities and 5% Bitcoin.
Franklin Templeton also drew attention last year with the launch of its XRP ETF. During the trading week from June 14 to June 18, the firm’s spot XRP ETF, XRPZ, recorded the largest net inflow in its category, attracting $6.7 million of net investments over five days.
Based in the United States, Franklin Templeton is recognized as a longstanding and reputable financial institution in asset management. Its recent steps underscore a strategy to broaden the visibility and reach of its digital asset products and investment solutions.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.
When someone reaches “rockstar status”, some would say they’ve officially “made it” once their music has syndicated across the mainstream and lyrics are known and recitable by a large majority of people globally. For a movie or television star, it would mean your face is recognized by the masses and your catchphrase is a part of popular culture. In the crypto and exchange space, the criteria for reaching that status is similar; become a household name within the crypto community. Currently, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin, and exchanges like Coinbase, Binance, and Kraken all come to mind. But just like musicians and actors make strategic moves that catapult themselves into stardom, so too do cryptocurrencies and crypto exchanges.
BiKi.com is a top-20 crypto exchange based out of Singapore. On February 18th, the exchange announced a partnership with Electroneum, as the cryptocurrency company expands its strategic global presence in Southeast Asia. Biki CEO, Ethan Ng said:
“ETN is a very internationally-established project, and we are very honoured they have chosen to list with us… as listing is just the beginning of our journey together, we look forward to growing with them, promoting their token brand name to our 2 million registered users, and launching a joint ETN giveaway campaign to celebrate this partnership.”
Outside of simply listing ETN, BiKi provides value via heightened marketing directly to their customers. This brand exposure enables greater awareness of Electronem’s mission and underlying technology; a huge win for that team. The top Asian digital asset exchange also includes in-app crypto news across various outlets. Further recognition is spread via BiKi’s 200,000+ WeChat user community. Further, the exchange also assembles a crypto project’s local community base from the ground up and assigns top-tier influences in the crypto space with 100K-1M+ followers across social media who actively trade cryptocurrency and serve as a given project’s designated community ambassador; stimulating interest and awareness where it is needed most.
Today, the ETN/USDT trading pair goes live for deposit on BiKi. Trading will officially open on February 25th at 18:00 GMT +8, and withdrawals the following day at noon GMT +8. As part of the go-live of the Electroneum listing on BiKi, 6 million ETN will be given away. For patrons depositing ETN immediately upon listing, they will be entered in a one-million ETN giveaway contest. For those who participate in trading of Electroneum, they will be entered into a five-million ETN giveaway.
Electroneum CEO, Richard Ells went on record saying he and his team are:
“very excited about listing on BiKi as it will increase the exposure of Electroneum to new users in Asia… BiKi is the fastest growing exchange in the world, and we are one of the fastest-growing cryptocurrencies… The team behind [BiKi] has an incredible pedigree, and they have taken it on a rocket ship trajectory of growth. We have seen a huge interest in Electroneum in Asia, and we are excited for ETN to be listed for trading on this innovative exchange.”
Electroneum officially launched in 2015 and since, has undergone many rounds of research and development to craft a real-world crypto ecosystem. ETN is the first cryptocurrency to comply with KYC/AML regulations, and the first to introduce a QR code-based instant payment system with a suite of e-commerce and API tools to enable integration. They are the first crypto to work directly with a major mobile network operator (MNO), and the first to partner with global non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to be validators on its proprietary blockchain. Electroneum aims to empower the unbanked, and be eco friendly. It is the largest ICO by participation, and is community-driven.
BiKi is a global crypto exchange that has been ranked amongst the top 20 according to CoinMarketCap (currently #9). The exchange provides traders more than 150 cryptocurrencies with over 280 trading pairs available. They focus on providing a safe, stable and effective cryptocurrency trading platform. 100% of BiKi’s transaction fees reused to buy back and burn BiKi’s native token; BIKI. Since open its doors in August of 2018, the exchange is seen as one of the fastest growing globally and received investments from Huobi, Genesis Capital, FBG Capital, ChainUP and many more with a total investment of over 10 million USD.
By Q4 2020, the Asian digital asset exchange plans to open it’s public financial blockchain, which CEO Ng says will be a central part of the future for financial institutions in the blockchain space. BiKi aims to continue adding value for its customers via providing more financial services and products that will cater to the ever-growing defi economy. This includes novel means to trade on the BiKi platform. They are also looking to get licensing as part of the Payment Services Act by Singapore’s Monetary Authority, which will allow them to become a diversified exchange with the potential of becoming the financial epicenter of the blockchain industry.
To put it into rockstar terms, BiKi and Electroneum are just playing their first gigs at the town pub on a weeknight. Or to put it into moviestar terms, they’ve just starred in their first off-broadway show. The two talented and innovative teams have entered a trajectory together as two of the fastest-growing crypto-basted projects in this space. Their commitment to support each other in their mission to enable adoption of cryptocurrency around the world and trigger a massive financial revolution has potential to enable global financial inclusion for all and make the two companies globally recognized household names.
Marcus Henry is an American Journalist with over 11 years working in the tech industry. He has been actively involved in the crypto community for the past three years and currently works out of Austin, Texas. He covers breaking news, writes perspective pieces and reflections, and conducts interviews with industry professionals and community members. Follow Marcus Henry on Twitter- @MarcusHenryHODL
Disclaimer: The information above does not constitute investment, financial, trading or any other sort of advice and you should not treat any of my content as such. I do not recommend the purchase, sale, or holding of any cryptocurrency or other product and nothing I write about should be deemed as an offer to purchase, sell, or hold a cryptocurrency or other product or service. Please do your own research and consult a certified financial professional before making any investment decision.
Bitcoin Cash [BCH] has been trading within a range for just over two years. Since April 2024, the once-prominent altcoin has been constrained to within the $272-$684 range.
This range is massive in both time and size, giving swing traders many more opportunities to enter the market with conviction than lower timeframe ranges might.
A month ago, AMBCrypto reported that BCH was likely to continue its downtrend after revisiting the $480-$500 magnetic zone of short liquidations.
This expectation has come to pass. The $460 short-term support zone, once ceded to the sellers, quickly gave way to a 25.16% Bitcoin Cash drop from $465 (bearish retest) to $348.3.
Has the bearish impulse move ended, or should traders expect further losses?
Technical indicators suggest an overextended market Source: BCH/USDT on TradingView The biggest sign that the impulse move downward might be over was the high-volume slide to $348, followed by a lower-timeframe bounce.
The large downward candlewick on Monday, the 18th of May, told a story of an overextended price move.
The RSI was at 26, within the oversold territory, while the Stochastic RSI appeared to form a bullish crossover. Together, they signaled a potential short-term bounce.
The Fibonacci retracement levels (cyan) were plotted using this impulse bearish move. A bounce to $418 is likely, though it can extend as high as $459 and the $489 swing high.
Therefore, traders can look to utilize a bounce to these levels to look for shorting opportunities. It must be noted that a retest of the key Fibonacci levels is not an automatic sell signal.
An internal structural shift on the lower timeframe price chart, such as the 1-hour, can be used to increase the odds of a successful trade.
It is also possible that BCH bears will not allow a sizeable bounce. Depending on the wider market sentiment in the coming days, a bounce might struggle to clear the $400 area before falling to make new lows.
Traders should avoid FOMO and have clear rules to follow before entering. Rather than buying the bounce, swing traders might find a more feasible opportunity in selling the bounce.
Final Summary The Bitcoin Cash rejection at $465 resulted in a 25% price slide that reached a swing low of $348. The current bounce is just a relief rally, and the trend continues to favor the sellers.
The crypto market extended its decline as BCH, SHIB, and PEPE traded among the biggest monthly discounts. Total market value fell 1.24% to $2.46 trillion, while Bitcoin dropped 1.41% to $72k. The persistent outflow of U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs pressed several Crypto Market Coins.
BCH Price Extends Losses After Breaking $300 Bitcoin Cash traded lower after heavy selling pushed the token below the key $300 support level. The coin fell 5.78% in 24 hours to $288.27, extending its monthly decline to 35%. BCH is now displaying one of the highest monthly discounts in crypto Market Coins.
The trading volume increased by 83.67 to a high of 220.48 million, indicating more market activity in the breakdown. In case BCH town has more than $285, short term consolidation can subsequently be effected.
Source: Tradingview Nonetheless, a decisive failure below that may reveal $275 as the second support level. Any recovery above 300 can be an early relief among the traders noting the momentum.
SHIB Price Drops 15% Monthly as Market Weakens Shiba Inu price dropped by 1.06% in 24 hours to $0.00000543, after the presentation was weak in the broader crypto market. The token is also 15% down over the last month, a following of pressure on meme coins.
The most recent action seems to be a part of a bigger risk-off action as Bitcoin and major altcoins were lower. SHIB has burned 787,927 tokens in the past 24 and total burned supply is 41.08%.
Source: SHIB burn data SHIB might stabilize at roughly 0.0000054 in case Bitcoin is at about $72,000 or higher. Nevertheless, a more significant weakness can drive the price to the $0.000005 support.
PEPE Price Faces Pressure After 15% Monthly Loss Pepe price fell 1.98% in 24 hours to $0.00000336, extending its monthly decline to 15%. The fall put PEPE in the list of the top 4 crypto market coins with the highest monthly discounts. The most recent downside was the result of a wider crypto market crash, which strained meme coins and other risky assets.
The trading volume increased by a factor of 58.63 with increased selling being experienced in the fall. In case of pressure PEPE can revisit the $0.00000328 support. But at the level of more than $0.00000334, it may indicate short-term stabilization as per the full PEPE forecast report.
In general, BCH, SHIB, and PEPE are experiencing some pressure with a weak market mood. These crypto market coins are currently trading at significant monthly discounts, and Bitcoin ETF outflows are still influencing short-term risk appetite in the altcoins and meme coins.
The broader crypto market has been in a downtrend since the fourth quarter of 2025, one that has extended into the present, with Bitcoin [BTC] trading around $67,000, below its yearly open.
Bitcoin Cash [BCH] follows a similar but harsher narrative. The asset has not only printed a new low; it has retraced all the way to its 2025 low as the bears take full control. At press time, BCH was closer to its all-time low than any possible path back to its all-time high.
The bears tightened their grip as BCH broke below the $271 multi-year support that had held the asset intact and forced rebounds on several earlier occasions.
Price has since slipped past its 2025 low of $249.4 as sell pressure engulfs the market. Data at press time shows volume up 114% to $513 million, with the volume profile pointing to sellers dominating for a three-day stretch.
Source: TradingView A candle close below the 2025 low would weaken BCH structurally and raise the likelihood of a deeper slide. The nearest target sits at the 2024 low of $209.9, and heavier selling could carry price further toward the $139.3 support zone.
A rebound at the 2025 low it just tagged is plausible on historical form, whether as the start of a reversal or a lower high before a fresh leg down.
Is BCH selling pressure increasing? The momentum indicators tracking this move back the bearish read, among them the Aroon Indicator.
The tool uses two lines to gauge an asset’s trend, the Aroon Up (orange) and the Aroon Down (blue). The Aroon Up above the Aroon Down points to a bullish trend; the reverse points to a bearish one, with the gap between them measuring the strength of each.
At the time of writing, the chart displayed a textbook bearish setup, with the Aroon Down at 100.00%, and the Aroon Up at 0%.
Source: TradingView The accumulation/distribution trend completed the picture by tracking volume distributed to the market over time. Notably, the data estimated the total distribution volume at 8.76 million BCH.
Distribution, though, has not fallen as steeply as price over the same stretch. That divergence, if it holds, raises the probability of a rebound at the current level.
Large holders are leading the BCH sell-off The whale-retail exchange delta, which tracks whether large holders or smaller retail traders are more active, shows whales leading the move.
Whale activity peaked on the 2nd of June, outpacing retail through the period. As long as the delta holds in the whale zone, large holders remain the dominant force behind the selling.
A cross to the red side of the chart would signal that retail has taken over the selling outright.
Source: CoinGlass Final Summary Bitcoin Cash has broken below its $271 multi-year support and slipped past its 2025 low of $249.4, opening the door to the 2024 low at $209.9 as bears take full control. The Aroon Indicator shows a textbook bearish setup with a full 100% gap, while the whale-retail delta points to large holders driving the sell-off.
Circle partners with Nomura Securities to enter the Japanese yen foreign exchange settlement service market.
Stablecoin issuer Circle plans to collaborate with Nomura Securities to launch instant foreign currency settlement for Japanese corporate clients as early as 2027. The initiative will enable large cross-border transactions to be completed immediately, aiming to boost cross-border investment and trade. This will mark the first entry of a major stablecoin issuer into Japan’s corporate transaction market, allowing companies to convert yen into US dollar-denominated stablecoins for investment and instant transfers.
8 minutes ago
Institutions' Preview: Overview of US May Core PCE Price Index Monthly Rate
The US May core Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Price Index monthly rate will be released tonight at 20:30 (UTC+8). Below are the forecasts from multiple institutions: Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation: 0.2%; Royal Bank of Canada: 0.2%; JPMorgan Chase: 0.3%; Goldman Sachs Group: 0.3%; Bank of Montreal: 0.3%; Moody's Corporation: 0.3%; Standard Chartered: 0.3%; UniCredit: 0.3%; ING Group: 0.3%; HSBC Holdings: 0.3%; BNP Paribas: 0.4%; Wells Fargo: 0.4%; Capital Economics: 0.4%; Citigroup: 0.4%; Deutsche Bank: 0.4%; Nomura Securities: 0.4%; Pantheon Macroeconomics: 0.4%; Société Générale: 0.4%; Scotiabank: 0.4%; Morgan Stanley: 0.4%
8 minutes ago
DA Davidson Raises Micron’s Price Target to $2,000, Retains Buy Rating
U.S. investment bank DA Davidson released a research note stating that Micron Technology has entered a new phase with one of the best performance visibility in the semiconductor industry, a stark contrast to its past standing in the sector. Driven by another quarter of results that handily exceeded expectations and positive forward guidance, Micron’s stock price surged sharply. These signals indicate that the current memory chip boom cycle is far from over. While the company is ramping up capacity investments (with capital expenditure (CAPEX) projected to hit $10 billion in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, which will bring additional supply), management expects the memory market to remain tight on supply and demand at least through 2027. Against this backdrop, DA Davidson reiterated its "Buy" rating on Micron and raised its price target from $1,500 to $2,000, equivalent to a 20x price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio based on the company’s 2026 calendar year expected earnings per share (EPS).
8 minutes ago
Morgan Stanley raises Micron's price target to $1,200, maintains 'Overweight' rating.
Morgan Stanley released a report raising Micron Technology (MU.O)’s price target from $1,050 to $1,200, while maintaining an "Overweight" rating. The investment bank lifted its fiscal 2027 earnings per share (EPS) forecast for the chipmaker by roughly 40% to $168, and upgraded its free cash flow (FCF) projection from $104 billion to $140 billion. Aligning with Micron’s management, the bank holds that AI will push DRAM demand to consistently outpace supply significantly after 2027. Micron’s last fiscal quarter results matched this trend, with both its quarterly performance and outlook showing notable upside potential.
8 minutes ago
US officials: Israel has withdrawn troops from parts of the buffer zone in southern Lebanon.
A U.S. State Department official said Israel has withdrawn from parts of the buffer zone in southern Lebanon, describing the move as a "goodwill gesture" toward the Lebanese government.
8 minutes ago
CBRS trades below IPO price post-earnings: Erases all gains six weeks after listing, two smart money firms net $5.8 million from first-day IPO shorts.
According to Hyperinsight monitoring, Cerebras (CBRS), the AI chip firm previously dubbed "Nvidia’s strongest challenger", saw its stock price fall in stages after reporting its first quarterly results since going public, as negative guidance overshadowed better-than-expected performance. The stock has dropped roughly 22% since the earnings release and officially broke below its IPO price today. On-chain whales are overall bearish. CBRS trades at $184 on the Hyperliquid platform, down 7.7% in 24 hours. Large-scale short positions (million-dollar level) total around $11.62 million, 2.39 times the long positions ($4.87 million). Two major short positions were placed precisely at high levels as early as the IPO day or even before the IPO: - Whale 0xe0ff: Shorted at $284.51 on May 14 with a 3x leveraged position of $6.13 million, generating an unrealized profit of $3.24 million (+104%); - Whale 0x9996: Shorted at $275.92 on May 11 with a 5x leveraged position of $5.48 million, generating an unrealized profit of $2.64 million (+162%). It is learned that both addresses currently hold short positions in both CBRS and SPCX, and have recorded substantial unrealized profits, preferring to place short positions at high levels before or on the day of major stock listings. With the realization of negative earnings news in this round, the combined unrealized profit of the two positions is around $5.88 million. Currently, the average entry price of CBRS short whales is around $275, and the current price is over 30% lower than that. The nearest short liquidation line is at $200.13, about 7% away from the current price.
PANews reported on June 10 that, according to PRNewswire, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME Group) has launched Nasdaq CME Crypto Index futures. These contracts are settled in cash at expiration based on the value of the Nasdaq CME Crypto Settlement Price Index, which tracks the performance of the largest and most actively traded cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. As of June 9, the index included Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Solana, XRP, Cardano, Chainlink, and Stellar.
Circle partners with Nomura Securities to enter the Japanese yen foreign exchange settlement service market.
Stablecoin issuer Circle plans to collaborate with Nomura Securities to launch instant foreign currency settlement for Japanese corporate clients as early as 2027. The initiative will enable large cross-border transactions to be completed immediately, aiming to boost cross-border investment and trade. This will mark the first entry of a major stablecoin issuer into Japan’s corporate transaction market, allowing companies to convert yen into US dollar-denominated stablecoins for investment and instant transfers.
8 minutes ago
Institutions' Preview: Overview of US May Core PCE Price Index Monthly Rate
The US May core Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Price Index monthly rate will be released tonight at 20:30 (UTC+8). Below are the forecasts from multiple institutions: Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation: 0.2%; Royal Bank of Canada: 0.2%; JPMorgan Chase: 0.3%; Goldman Sachs Group: 0.3%; Bank of Montreal: 0.3%; Moody's Corporation: 0.3%; Standard Chartered: 0.3%; UniCredit: 0.3%; ING Group: 0.3%; HSBC Holdings: 0.3%; BNP Paribas: 0.4%; Wells Fargo: 0.4%; Capital Economics: 0.4%; Citigroup: 0.4%; Deutsche Bank: 0.4%; Nomura Securities: 0.4%; Pantheon Macroeconomics: 0.4%; Société Générale: 0.4%; Scotiabank: 0.4%; Morgan Stanley: 0.4%
8 minutes ago
DA Davidson Raises Micron’s Price Target to $2,000, Retains Buy Rating
U.S. investment bank DA Davidson released a research note stating that Micron Technology has entered a new phase with one of the best performance visibility in the semiconductor industry, a stark contrast to its past standing in the sector. Driven by another quarter of results that handily exceeded expectations and positive forward guidance, Micron’s stock price surged sharply. These signals indicate that the current memory chip boom cycle is far from over. While the company is ramping up capacity investments (with capital expenditure (CAPEX) projected to hit $10 billion in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, which will bring additional supply), management expects the memory market to remain tight on supply and demand at least through 2027. Against this backdrop, DA Davidson reiterated its "Buy" rating on Micron and raised its price target from $1,500 to $2,000, equivalent to a 20x price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio based on the company’s 2026 calendar year expected earnings per share (EPS).
8 minutes ago
Morgan Stanley raises Micron's price target to $1,200, maintains 'Overweight' rating.
Morgan Stanley released a report raising Micron Technology (MU.O)’s price target from $1,050 to $1,200, while maintaining an "Overweight" rating. The investment bank lifted its fiscal 2027 earnings per share (EPS) forecast for the chipmaker by roughly 40% to $168, and upgraded its free cash flow (FCF) projection from $104 billion to $140 billion. Aligning with Micron’s management, the bank holds that AI will push DRAM demand to consistently outpace supply significantly after 2027. Micron’s last fiscal quarter results matched this trend, with both its quarterly performance and outlook showing notable upside potential.
8 minutes ago
US officials: Israel has withdrawn troops from parts of the buffer zone in southern Lebanon.
A U.S. State Department official said Israel has withdrawn from parts of the buffer zone in southern Lebanon, describing the move as a "goodwill gesture" toward the Lebanese government.
8 minutes ago
CBRS trades below IPO price post-earnings: Erases all gains six weeks after listing, two smart money firms net $5.8 million from first-day IPO shorts.
According to Hyperinsight monitoring, Cerebras (CBRS), the AI chip firm previously dubbed "Nvidia’s strongest challenger", saw its stock price fall in stages after reporting its first quarterly results since going public, as negative guidance overshadowed better-than-expected performance. The stock has dropped roughly 22% since the earnings release and officially broke below its IPO price today. On-chain whales are overall bearish. CBRS trades at $184 on the Hyperliquid platform, down 7.7% in 24 hours. Large-scale short positions (million-dollar level) total around $11.62 million, 2.39 times the long positions ($4.87 million). Two major short positions were placed precisely at high levels as early as the IPO day or even before the IPO: - Whale 0xe0ff: Shorted at $284.51 on May 14 with a 3x leveraged position of $6.13 million, generating an unrealized profit of $3.24 million (+104%); - Whale 0x9996: Shorted at $275.92 on May 11 with a 5x leveraged position of $5.48 million, generating an unrealized profit of $2.64 million (+162%). It is learned that both addresses currently hold short positions in both CBRS and SPCX, and have recorded substantial unrealized profits, preferring to place short positions at high levels before or on the day of major stock listings. With the realization of negative earnings news in this round, the combined unrealized profit of the two positions is around $5.88 million. Currently, the average entry price of CBRS short whales is around $275, and the current price is over 30% lower than that. The nearest short liquidation line is at $200.13, about 7% away from the current price.
PANews reported on June 16th that, according to SoSoValue data, most sectors in the crypto market rose, with the PayFi sector performing particularly well, up 4.03% in the last 24 hours. Specifically, Stellar (XLM) rose 13.54%, and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) rose 6.45%. Meanwhile, Bitcoin (BTC) rose 1.16%, breaking through $66,000; Ethereum (ETH) rose 4.48%, breaking through $1,700.
In other sectors, the DeFi sector rose 2.48% in the last 24 hours, with Uniswap (UNI) up 10.72%; the Layer 1 sector rose 1.26%, with Zcash (ZEC) up 8.46%; the Layer 2 sector rose 0.80%, with Celestia (TIA) up 6.91%; and the CeFi sector rose 0.45%, with MX (MX) up 3.12%.
In addition, the Meme sector fell 0.44%, but SPX6900 (SPX) rose 7.57%; the AI sector fell 0.52%, while Worldcoin (WLD) remained relatively strong, rising 6.13%; the NFT sector fell again by 13.12%, and within the sector, Audiera (BEAT) fell 24.25%.
Bitcoin Cash [BCH], despite a strong run this year, could face another major decline that drives the asset toward $100, according to new on-chain insight.
Data across the spot and perpetual markets point to building selling pressure, with key indicators flashing the risk of a deeper move lower.
Bitcoin Cash faces a possible 50% decline The Aloha on-chain signal, an indicator that has marked the tops and bottoms of asset prices on multiple occasions, shows that neither target has been met for BCH so far.
At press time, data from Alphractal places BCH in the middle of that range, between its top and bottom. Joao Wedson, senior analyst and founder of Alphractal, said he would not be surprised by a further BCH drop despite the asset’s record.
“Even with this impressive track record, I would not be surprised if BCH still falls further.”
Source: Alphractal If a drop materializes, the signal indicates the price would likely find a floor near $100—the level that typically marks its bottom—roughly 50% below where it trades now.
Wedson added that nothing guarantees the decline, noting that “no market ever gives certainty.” However, AMBCrypto reviewed the wider spot and derivatives data to gauge how that move could play out.
BCH whales place large orders but lean short CryptoQuant data shows near-neutral sentiment across BCH’s spot and perpetual markets, though two indicators stand out and point to a rising risk of a bearish move. The average whale order size shows large holders firmly in control, averaging 229.96 BCH, about $44,688 at press time.
That control raises concern because the market’s funding rate has flipped to a negative 0.0028%, suggesting most perpetual-market capital sits in short positions.
Source: CryptoQuant The spot cumulative volume delta tells a similar story, with selling volume outpacing buying. The spot CVD shows taker sellers dominating the market, a trend that has held for weeks alongside BCH’s decline.
If the metric stays in that bearish direction, it would weigh on price and could extend BCH’s losses well below current levels, though it does not confirm a fall to $100.
BCH decouples from Bitcoin BCH has broken away from Bitcoin, with the 20-day correlation coefficient sliding to 0.24 after holding near 1.0 through much of May and early June.
That reading marks a weak positive link rather than the near-lockstep movement of prior weeks; the two assets have largely stopped trading in tandem, though they are not yet moving inversely.
Source: TradingView The breakdown matters because BCH has fallen hard, dropping from above $600 late last year to around $200. If the de-correlation holds while Bitcoin trades sideways or rallies, BCH could extend its slide on its own, or the relationship could snap back.
For now, the prospect of a short-term BCH decline remains in place, leaving the asset exposed to further downside.
Final Summary Analysts say Bitcoin Cash could lose roughly half its value, sliding from around $200 toward the $100 mark, though no one is calling that drop a certainty. BCH has started moving on its own rather than shadowing Bitcoin, which means its next move may not follow the broader market in either direction.
Altcoins are back in style. As the price for one bitcoin has increased to trade around the $8,450 level, several top altcoins are posting double-digit gains against a generally-green backdrop, while Ethereum is on a roll – gaining almost 6% over the last 24 hours.
BNB, Maker, Holo and Chainlink are benefiting the most, posting gains of 8%, 9%, 11% and 14% respectively. But privacy and not-so-much privacy coins are seeing moderate losses, with Monero, Dash and Zcash performing at -0.6%, -1.8% and -1.1%.
While today’s woes may derive from coincidental market fluctuations, pressure from the FATF Travel Rule may cause investors to hold off from privacy coins for now.
What’s behind these impressive gains? BNB
… the sudden surge appears to be caused by a rumor that was later confirmed by CZ: Binance will start offering a fiat-to-crypto on-ramp in China through an integration with Alipay and WeChat. The news was falsely reported by numerous media outlets this morning as being a direct partnership.
Together these are the largest digital wallet providers in China, with adoption comparable to that of credit cards in the U.S. The news will have a profound effect on markets, in light of the ban of all native Chinese cryptocurrency exchanges in 2017, which left mainland traders scrambling to find ways of buying crypto.
Maker
…rise can be attributed to the announcement of a release date for Multi Collateral DAI. Due to Maker’s governance structure, the community will still need to vote for the proposal on November 15, with the CEO of Maker Foundation Rune Christensen urging all participants to do so. The first tokens to be evaluated for additional collateral will be ETH and BAT, with a full risk assessment provided to the Maker community for consideration.
Chainlink
…shows no signs of slowing down. After a variety of announcements that fueled its growth recently, the project delivered the final stroke: the Trusted Computation Framework, a collaboration with Intel, Hyperledger and Ethereum Enterprise Alliance.
The framework is designed to solve scalability issues affecting blockchains by moving computational and private data processing off-chain. Chainlink’s oracles will be providing the bridge between the two worlds, allowing the offloading of very resource-intensive operations without compromising on security. While the news was released two days ago, the daily sentiment for LINK remains ‘very high’ at 83%, according to data from thetie.io
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Holochain
… the rise may be due to a preview of HoloPort, although it is largely an interface update. Sentiment is also neutral.
VanEck publishes investment case for Bitcoin VanEck, one of the two companies that submitted an ETF proposal due for deliberation this month, before subsequently withdrawing it from consideration, has published a comprehensive investment case for Bitcoin.
The report is prefaced with a definition of Bitcoin’s value. The company distinguishes between two different types of value for traded assets, categorizing stocks, real estate and commodities as ‘Intrinsic Value’ assets.
On the other hand gold, art, precious stones and bitcoin are categorized as having ‘Monetary Value,’ which arises from “Behavioral economics, heard behavior, etc.”
Based on these descriptions and other aspects of monetary theory, the report goes on to make a case that Bitcoin is a store of value and can be considered as digital gold.
Curiously, the report highlights some of the same concerns that the SEC has about Bitcoin ETFs; namely the lack of custodians, prime brokers, settlement entities and others, which are preventing significant institutional exposure.
Nevertheless, VanEck argues that increasing adoption figures, the upcoming halving, and increasing development momentum all make for a convincing reason to allocate a part of investor portfolios to Bitcoin.
Nathan Batchelor On Bitcoin Bitcoin has consolidated in a narrow range over the last twenty-four hours, with bulls maintaining the BTC/USD pair above the $8,000 support level. It is worth reiterating that the SEC is deciding on the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF this week, so trading volumes could remain light up until the decision.
TradingView.com In the near-term, the Choppiness Indicator and the Balance of Power Indicator show that short-term BTC/USD buyers are still in control of the cryptocurrency.
The four-hour time frame shows that Choppiness Index is still pointing to further upside. Interestingly, the Choppiness Index has also reached its most overbought reading since October 2018 on the daily time frame.
A higher reading indicates that the medium-term bearish trend is very weak, and suggests that the next directional move in the BTC/USD pair could be explosive.
In my opinion, I believe that the current bearish trend is weakening, and the chances of a rebound back towards the $9,000 level are very strong if the $8,500 level is broken.
The Balance of Power Indicator is also showing that BTC/USD buyers are gaining back control over the short-term. The Balance of Power Indicator is a simple indicator to use, as it shows the strength of buyers against sellers.
A reading higher than zero shows that buyers are in control, while a reading below zero shows that sellers are in control. The four-hour and daily time frames are currently providing positive Balance of Power readings.
* ‘The bullish short-term case is strengthening while the BTC/USD pair holds steady above the $8,100 support level’. *
SENTIMENT
Intraday bullish sentiment for Bitcoin has remained steady, at 65.50%, according to the latest data from TheTIE.io. Long-term sentiment for the cryptocurrency has stabilized, at 61.50%.
UPSIDE POTENTIAL
The early week advance has helped to form a potential double-bottom formation across the lower time frames. According to the upside projection of the double-bottom pattern, the BTC/USD pair could rise towards the $9,200 level if the $8,500 level is breached.
Bitcoin’s 200-day moving average is rising, which should be taken as a positive sign as it indicates growing upside momentum. The BTC/USD pair’s 200-day moving average is currently located around the $8,580 level.
DOWNSIDE POTENTIAL
The BTC/USD pair’s weekly pivot point is the strongest form of near-term technical support, around the $8,100 level. If sellers breach the $8,100 level we should expect a drop towards at least the $8,000 level.
Bitcoin will have to recover fast if price dips under the $8,000 level or the cryptocurrency will likely face a raft of short-term technical selling back towards the September monthly trading low.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Andrey Shevchenko. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Holochain is a project that many say is set to change the way we think about Distributed Ledger Technology. As a result, interest in HOT is at a fever pitch.
Indeed, Holochain is offering an alternative to the current landscape of bloated blockchains and imperfect solutions. However, the project is facing questions of its own including why development is progressing so slowly, months after a highly successful ICO.
So, is it still a project worth considering?
In this Holochain review I will attempt to answer that. I will also take an in-depth look at the use cases of the HOT token and it's long term adoption potential.
What is Holochain?Holochain is being positioned as an alternative to the blockchain, giving developers a framework for creating decentralized applications (dApps).
One huge change to enable this is a switch from the data dependent blockchain to an agent-centric system. Holochain's method avoids keeping a global consensus, using an agent system in which each agent keeping a private fork, and that is stored and managed in a limited manner on the blockchain with a distributed hash table.
Holochain Benefits. Source: Holochain Website
This avoids scalability problems that have plagued blockchain solutions. It also allows any dApps hosted on Holochain to do far more with less resource than required for blockchains. In this Holochain review, we will take an in-depth look at the project, technology and token prospects.
Holochain vs. BlockchainThe traditional blockchain works by storing data via cryptographic hashes on a distributed network. Each node on that network maintains a full copy of the blockchain and the global consensus to verify the network and keep its integrity intact. It's one feature of blockchain technology that has been a strength of the emerging technology.
There are weaknesses that come with the blockchain methodology. One that has been plaguing blockchain developers is scalability issues that are created by requiring each node in the network to verify the entire network.
As the amount of data increases on the blockchain, it becomes increasingly restrictive for transaction throughput on the blockchain. This is why some cryptocurrencies have experienced such long transaction times, and such high network fees.
The name came about because the system used by Holochain resembles the construction of a hologram. In a hologram a coherent 3-D pattern is created by a specific interaction of light beams, and in the Holochain the system creates a coherent whole in a similar manner, putting individual components together to form a whole.
In addition, the technology uses holistic patterns as part of its functionality.
The Public Portion BlockchainThe Holochain system does away with scalability issues by not requiring each node or agent on the network to keep a continually updated record of the entire public blockchain.
Instead, each node keeps its own blockchain which interacts with the node's unique cryptographic key. Imagine the entire public blockchain as a river, and each node is similar to a smaller stream that feeds into the river.
If a node goes offline it creates a fork of the public chain, but the public chain continues forward, without being impacted by the loss of one of its nodes.
Holochain is a Green SolutionBy now everyone knows how much energy is required by Proof of Work blockchains such as Bitcoin. Holochain claims to be a green solution to environmentally destructive blockchains.
Because nodes on Holochain don’t store and validate the entire blockchain there is only a small percentage of bandwidth used in comparison with traditional blockchains.
Moreover, there’s no mining component to Holochain, so the electricity used is minimal, really no more than would be used by the node computers in their normal operations. With the electricity requirements of PoW blockchains constantly on the rise, this environmentally friendly approach seems far better.
Node Data Accessed by the Public SpaceInstead of making each node keeps its own copy of all the data in the entire blockchain, the Holochain central chain maintains a series of rules to verify the data on each node's blockchain. That verification occurs occurs on a distributed hash table.
This means that when a node goes offline its data is not lost to the public blockchain. Instead a limited copy is maintained and verified according to the set of rules.
Node Architecture at Holochain
As you can read in the FAQ section of the Holochain website, the developers compare the system to the way that a living organism stores information in DNA or the way that languages are stored by populations of people.
“Where is the English language stored?” the Holochain developers ask in the FAQ. “Every speaker carries it. People have different areas of expertise or exposure to different slang or specialized vocabularies. Nobody has a complete copy, nor is anyone’s version exactly the same as anyone else, If you disappeared half of the English speakers, it would not degrade the language much.”
How Scalable is Holochain?The question of how many transactions per second Holochain can handle needs to be looked at differently than the way we look at scalability on traditional blockchains.
The quick answer to the question is that scalability is unlimited on Holochain. That's somewhat simplistic, and honestly the idea of transactions per second doesn't apply to Holochain due to its inherent nature.
Rather than keeping a global consensus of data on the blockchain, Holochain uses a distributed hash table to keep a record of the essential type and validity of data that each individual node contributes.
Network topology of five agents running three different apps. Every app is it’s own p2p network. Source
The developers have used an analogy of a dance floor to better explain. You can look at a dance floor and immediately know who is dancing ballet and who is dancing hip-hop.
How many dancers can be dancing at the same time?
As many as will fit on the dance floor. It's apparent that there's no need to use a trusted centralized third-party to keep track of the dancers and what style of dance they are performing.
“So, Holochain as an app framework does not pose any limit of transactions per second because there is no place where all transactions have to go through,” the developers wrote. He went on to say
It is like asking, ‘How many words can humanity speak per second?’ It's an irrelevant question. With every human being born, that number increases. Same for Holochain.
What Dapp's Work With Holochain?Holochain would be a very good fit for any dApps that require a large number of individual inputs where each individual has access to a limited copy of all the inputs.
The immediate use case put forth by Holochain is social media platforms, but they’ve also suggested that Holochain will work well in peer-to-peer platforms, supply chain management, reputational cryptocurrencies or loyalty programs, collective intelligence projects and more.
These projects make a good fit for Holochain because of its agent-centric nature. You can also view a comprehensive overview of the types of apps you can develop on the holohackers map.
Some Apps on Holochain Github Already
Holochain would not work well with any type of private or anonymous datasets however, since each individual node publishes a shared distributed hash table. Holochain is also not suited for any application that hosts large files, or for running data positivist-oriented dApps, like most cryptocurrencies.
The vision adopted by Holograph postulates that there are no absolute truths on the public blockchain, only the individual perspective held by each node that can be brought together to form a larger picture. This has been compared to a blockchain vision of the theory of relativity.
Language SupportHolochain was written in Go, and that particular programming language was chosen for its similarity to C and its ease of use. The code base is fully open source and can be examined at the Holochain GitHub.
When developing dApps for Holochain developers are free to use both Lisp and JavaScript and there is also support for front-end languages such as CSS, HTML and JavaScript.
The Holochain developers have stated that Holochain is flexible in regards to handling new languages, so there is a good possibility that support for additional languages will be added in the future.
The Holochain TeamThe developers behind Holochain have a vast amount of experience. The co-founders both have 34 years of programming experience. Arthur Brock, who is the Chief Architect behind Holochain has been a contract coder since 1984, working with AI systems and as an online alternative currency system designer since 2001.
Holochain Team
Eric Harris-Braun is the Executive Engineer behind Holochain. He has also been a contract coder since 1984, a full time programmer since 1988, a designer of peer-to-peer communication applications (glassbead.com) for many years, a full-stack web developer, as well as having experience in system design, framework design, etc.
Rounding out the team are 12 additional developers, UX/UI experts, and software engineers. The core developers are David Meister, an Australian software architect with over a decade of experience, and Nicolas Luck, a German software architect who also has over a decade of experience developing elegant software solutions.
Adoption and CommunityPossibly because the community is still waiting for the release of the Holochain mainnet, the adoption and community activity isn’t quite what you see from some other projects.
The sub-Reddit for Holochain has just under 7,000 subscribers, but posts are only made every few days on average, and many of the recent posts have no responses or comments.
The development team remains active on Reddit though, with AMA’s and explorations of various team members, community leaders, and features of the platform.
Twitter is another popular social platform in the crypto-world, and Holochain is active there, with almost 30,000 followers. They tweet regularly, and most tweets get about 100 likes, and 20-30 retweets.
The Telegram channel of Holochain is fairly large, with just over 12,500 members, and the Holochain Facebook page has over 5,000 likes. There’s also a Holochain Forum, but it doesn’t appear to be exceptionally busy, with only 1-2 posts a day.
Holochain Token (HOT)Holochain completed a month long ICO on April 28, 2018 during which they raised a bit over 30,000 ETH worth roughly $20 million at the time. There were 133,214,575,156 HOT tokens minted for the ICO. As of October 21, 2019 the HOT token is trading for 0.000950, and has a market capitalization of over $150 million, making it the 37th largest cryptocurrency by market cap.
Immediately following the ICO the token had traded as high as $0.002 for a more than 1,000% gain in a week. The price quickly deflated over the following two months, and by July 2018 was trading below $0.0005.
HOT Price Performance. Image via CMC
Like all the coins in the cryptocurrency markets, HOT has had its ups and downs over the years, trading as low as $0.000341 on June 29, 2018 and as high as $0.002538 on May 29, 2019.
The HOT token is an ERC-20 token that can be stored in any ERC-20 compatible wallet, such as MetaMask, MyEtherWallet, or one of the hardware wallets. Eventually, the ERC-20 tokens will be able to be swapped for Holofuel. That swapping will become available once the Holo mainnet launches.
Rather than burning the HOT tokens after swapping they will be held in a reserve account to help maintain stability in the network. There are no plans yet for when HOT will be completely removed. There are also no set plans for listing Holofuel on exchanges, although the team understands this conversation will need to happen.
HOT TradingWhen it comes to the markets for HOT, it is listed on a number of exchanges. These include the likes of CoinEx, Binance, MXC etc. The volume is seems to be pretty well distributed although CoinEx has over 30% of it.
When it comes to the liquidity on the individual exchanges, it appears to be pretty strong. For example, if we were to take a look into Binance's USDT / HOT order book it appears to be quite deep. There is also pretty reasonable daily turnover.
Register at Binance and Buy HOT Tokens
In addition to this, the Binance Exchange also makes a market in BTC & ETH crosses of HOT. So, this means that you will be able to place large block orders without too much slippage.
What is Holofuel?Holofuel is the planned native cryptocurrency of Holochain, which will be a mutual-credit currency, and will be backed by actual assets.
The Holochain team calls it a “contractual service obligation” because it can be earned and redeemed for hosting on the Holochain platform. Its primary use is for Holochain application (hApp) providers to pay Holo hosts for their services.
The Holochain team believes Holofuel is different from many of the existing cryptocurrencies for three primary reasons:
Mutual Credit: Unlike other cryptocurrencies which are primarily used for speculation, HoloFuel is not tokens created from nothing. It is a double-entry crypto-accounting framework that provides scalability, transparency, and accountability.Asset-Backed: HoloFuel is backed by the computing power of hosts across the globe.Value-Stable: The value of HoloFuel is connected to the computing capacity of the network of hosts. This capacity evolves and changes slowly and isn't subject to huge spikes and crashes the way other speculative tokens are.Ultimately this makes Holofuel a hosting utility token, and there are already several competitors who are much further along in development. Projects like Sia, Storj and Filecoin all reward users for sharing their computing power, harddrive space or bandwidth capacity.
DevelopmentI will also mention here that there have been some criticisms of Holochain, most notably that the project is making little to no progress.
And it’s true the project has been progressing quite slowly. It is still waiting for the alpha testnet to launch 18 months after the ICO was completed.
That’s a long time, and there’s no indication when the mainnet might launch. Of course, the team says they’re taking a long view towards their project, and that they don’t want to rush anything.
Of course, there is a simple way to assess the monthly development output and that would be to take a look into their code public code repositories. By observing the code commits we can get a good idea of how much work is actually being done.
Hence, I decided to dive into the HoloChain GitHub and check out their repositories. Below you have the total code commits for the top 3 most active repos over the past 12 months.
Total Code commits to Select Repos over past year
As you can see, the developers have indeed been quite active. There have been regular commits to all of these select repos over the past year. The project also has over 100 further repositories with varying levels of activity - quite impressive.
If we were to compare this to other projects it's quite clear that Holochain is amoung the most active of all. In fact, on this site they are ranked number 2 when it comes to commits to their core repo.
So, although there have been delays in getting the testnet up and running, one can't complain that the team is not working towards it. If you want to keep up to date with this development you can follow their official blog.
ConclusionWe’ve been told that Bitcoin and blockchain are the future technology, but this might not be entirely true. Blockchain technology is actually nearly 10 years old already, and top cryptocurrencies do little more than mimic our existing corrupt financial system in a quasi-decentralized fashion.
Bitcoin is meant for storing value, and has also become something of a casino for traders. Holochain will be a system of value creation and community engagement that is designed to help us get to a post-monetary society based on community, personal contributions, merit, and service to others. It was designed to grant both data and personal integrity.
It’s not certain if Holochain will be successful, but it is ready to be used, and developers can already begin building the applications they feel can help change our society and our world. Some examples of Holochain dApps can be found here and if you’re interested in developing your own dApp with Holochain you can get started here.
Investors have done very well already with the token seeing a 500% increase from its ICO, and that was during a bear market in crpytocurrencies. Once Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies begin rising again the HOT token could see significant upside.
Disclaimer: These are the writer's opinions and should not be considered investment advice. Readers should do their own research.
Crypto analyst Scott Melker is bullish on Bitcoin, XRP and the crypto markets at large.
The founder of Texas West Capital is revealing his outlook on Bitcoin and a list of altcoins. In a new note on the state of crypto, Melker says BTC is looking bullish on the daily, weekly and monthly charts – with the monthly looking especially enticing.
“[Monthly chart is] incredibly bullish. Anything above the most recent support at $9,243.83 remains as such.
The last monthly candle engulfed the previous 2, with a hammer at the bottom – arguably a morning star reversal. There is quite literally nothing bearish about the chart on this time frame.”
Source: Scott Melker/TradingView Melker says he began buying BTC when it was in the $6,400 range, and he sees no evidence that BTC’s rally above $10,000 is finished.
[adinserter block="1"]
As for the altcoin market, Melker says he’s eyeing XRP, Stellar (XLM), NEO and Holo (HOT).
$XRP
I didn't need a chart to predict this, but it's nice to look at one for confirmation. Blast off. pic.twitter.com/Ow7uY995vE
— The Wolf Of All Streets (@scottmelker) February 13, 2020
$XMR / $BTC
Continuing to consolidate against major resistance. I am expecting a major pop if it breaks. pic.twitter.com/Nue2We0tHY
— The Wolf Of All Streets (@scottmelker) January 30, 2020
$NEO / $BTC
Holy mother. Confirmed breakout of an inverse head and shoulders that has existed for almost 10 months. This should pull a 50% move up just on that pattern. Expecting to see NEO take flight. pic.twitter.com/iGSsUt4I6R
— The Wolf Of All Streets (@scottmelker) February 13, 2020
$HOT / $USDT
This looks crazy bullish. Broke descending support and has now flipped horizontal resistance to support and moved away on strong volume. pic.twitter.com/nFsWTcrjqL
— The Wolf Of All Streets (@scottmelker) February 12, 2020
In the end, Melker says it’s easy to ride a wave in a bull market, but smart traders will take profits and incrementally sell their positions as the price of an asset rises.
“Everyone is a genius in a bull market. We will see how many people actually make it out with their profits…
– Scale out of your trades. This will help remove the pressure of deciding when to exit.
– Take profit often, there’s always another trade. Don’t worry about what happens after you exit.
– Use trailing stops to lock in gains and make sure you never turn a winner into a loser.”
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Although Melker joins a number of analysts who are bullish on the state of the market, veteran trader Josh Rager says the bullish sentiments may be too good to be true.
Rager confirms a sudden influx of messages from people asking him for trading advice. The last time this happened, he says, the market was hit with a major pullback.
The Qtum Foundation today announced the release of Qtum Ally, a new AI agent designed to advance beyond conversational bots into customizable automation tools.
Ally stands out in the crowded AI landscape by offering a focus on user control, privacy, and desktop-native execution, powered by the industry-standard Model Context Protocol (MCP). Ally gives access to 12 different LLM’s in one application, and allows the user to create powerful agents with integrated MCP servers. Users can also load their own custom models. This entire package is contained in one installable application available for Windows and Mac users.
According to Qtum Co-Founder Miguel Palencia: “With Qtum Ally, productivity isn’t about more tools, it’s about smarter orchestration. By unifying services and coordinating multiple LLM’s with MCP, we put everything at your fingertips in a single refined workspace. I challenged our team to remove the clutter and deliver compounding efficiency; Qtum Ally is the result.”
Building Powerful AI Agents with Built-in Model Context Protocol (MCP) ServersQtum Ally is built to support Model Context Protocol (MCP), which is crucial for enabling AI to do things, not just answer questions. Think of MCP as the “USB-C of AI,” providing a universal interface for AI systems to integrate and share data with external tools and services.
Ally is implemented as an MCP host, designed to help users efficiently combine two or more tasks and manage them with minimal input. Unlike complex systems that required coding experience in the past, Ally enables users to:
• Automate real tasks and go beyond mere chat.
• Manage multi-step workflows.
• Utilize LLMs (like ChatGPT or DeepSeek) to use logic to control and make the MCP hosts work together, allowing the automation of practically anything you can think of. For example, Ally can find specific properties for rent, create a list, and even build the results into a PowerPoint presentation and then e-mail you the results through a series of MCP servers.
• Qtum Ally is configured to work with MCP servers and hosts, and it comes bundled with a series of MCP hosts already pre-installed, allowing users to easily add new ones themselves. These lightweight MCP servers expose specific capabilities, connecting to local or remote data sources, databases, or APIs.
Desktop Native: Control, Privacy, and PerformanceQtum Ally is released as an installed application for Windows and Mac, designed to run natively on your desktop. This offers an alternative to many remotely hosted products:
• Users can run Ally on their own system for more privacy and control.
• Qtum Ally’s design adheres to the broader Qtum vision that aims not to collect personal data. It does not collect personal information above and beyond what is already being collected by the large language models themselves.
Unlocking Premium AI Access for FreeAlly is not only free, but it also provides exceptional value by offering a collection of AI utilities supporting various LLM models including Qwen, DeepSeek, Claude, and Gemini.
For a limited period, users of Qtum Ally can access the functionality of the latest paid features from top LLMs. This includes free access to the paid portion of ChatGPT 5.
Qtum Ally can be downloaded and installed directly from the official Qtum Github repository.
About QtumLaunched in September 2017, the Qtum blockchain is a smart contract platform that blends the best parts of Bitcoin and Ethereum. The blockchain is secured by the Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism, and is completely decentralized. Qtum is listed on most major exchanges, including Binance, Kraken, Upbit, OKex, Huobi, etc.
Qtum has released nearly 50 software updates since launch, while including all major updates from Bitcoin and Ethereum. In March 2024, Qtum acquired a GPU farm with thousands of Nvidia cards to begin AI development. Qtum Ally is the latest release from the AI initiative, with plans to integrate the Qtum blockchain token into Ally in the near future.
For more information about Qtum’s AI plans, please visit https://qtum.ai or to download Qtum Ally click here: https://github.com/qtumproject/ai-agent/releases/tag/v0.0.6
As promised, the leading US crypto exchange Coinbase has dramatically increased the number of coins supported on its platform. The company just added Stellar (XLM), a few weeks after the long-rumored debut of XRP.
So which coins will land the coveted Coinbase listing next?
Back in December, Coinbase revealed it’s taking a hard look at 31 additional cryptocurrencies. The platform now supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Stellar, Ethereum Classic, Zcash, 0x, Basic Attention Token and USD Coin.
That leaves 28 coins on Coinbase’s list of prospects.
Coinbase Pro, the company’s professional trading platform, already supports a handful of the coins on the list above: Civic, Dai, District0x, Golem, Loom, Decentraland and Zcash.
QuarkChain is a relatively new project in the cryptocurrency space. Founded in 2017, and did the impossible task of raising funds in 2018 bear market, QuarkChain has become a good project in the eyes of its investors. The blockchain is currently valued at $42 million and has a daily trading volume above $9 million.
We had a chance to catch up with Ms. Anthurine Xiang, the CMO of QuarkChain. She shared some good insights regarding QuarkChain and why it’s set to become a big player in the blockchain space.
Blockmanity: Initially you worked at Wall Street and Silicon Valley. What attracted you to the blockchain industry?
Anthurine: So you see, I have a combined background of finance as well as technology, a really good combination. I knew about Bitcoin for quite a while, but I did not know about blockchain before 2017. While I was working at a tech company in Silicon Valley, one of my colleagues introduced me to blockchain technology and immediately I found it groundbreaking.
At that point, I had just started investing in cryptocurrency (namely Bitcoin and Ethereum) and also started helping cryptocurrency projects in their marketing in Silicon Valley. One of my colleagues started pitching this project – QuarkChain and he invited me to join as there were only 2-3 engineers.
Back in 2017, when I first joined the blockchain industry it was full of scam projects everywhere. But as I look at the industry now, it has matured and we can see a lot of good projects in the industry. I know many engineers from Google and Facebook looking joining this space.
Blockmanity: You had raised funds in 2018, how hard was it to raise funds in this bearish market?
Anthurine: It was really hard to raise funds in the 2018 market. We started raising money in February 2018. I remember we had a very small investment before April. But in April the story changed. The markets were better than February and March. We were also getting noticed at that time.
A lot of projects were doing Airdrops at that time, we decided not to do an Airdrop. We already had a testnet by March 2018, and we invited a few engineers and media and did some transaction in front of them. The transactions were really fast. And, the media posted a few articles about us and the engineers started promoting our project through word of mouth. And that’s how we got initial traction.
One thing that helped us raise funds, is our unique approach to the scalability problem. We are solving the scalability problem using “Sharding”.
Sharding is not new. Back to 2010, every major tech company was doing scalability using a clusters machine. But it didn’t work out as it was expensive and efficient. That’s when the idea of on-demand scaling was implemented. If the demand is high, increase computation and if less decrease the computation. This is called “Sharding”.
In 2018, to improve scalability everyone was either trying to increase the block size or decrease the confirmation time or get a new consensus algorithm. We said leave that, we decided to use sharding which is a proven technology. And it worked. Sharding allows us to scale in a linear way. And different shards also allow people to use their own consensus algorithm.
Anthurine shoqing Quarkchain’s user growth
When we introduced the project we were the only one implementing sharding. The only project which was doing sharding at that time was Zilliqa, but they weren’t using it to its full potential. At that time Ethereum started talking about Sharding as well.
Blockmanity: In your whitepaper, you mention your goal is to achieve 1 million TPS. EOS tried that as well but failed miserably. Why do you think QuarkChain will be able to achieve this?
Anthurine: That is because of Sharding. EOS, they are trying to make a faster chain. Ethereum is trying to make a faster chain. But, there is always a limit for a single chain. The philosophy behind sharding is to scale up using multiple chains.
To speed up, we can come to different chains (shards) and each of these chains can have its own consensus. There will be better faster consensus coming out this year or the future. And we can incorporate them all through sharding. Theoretically, there can even be a million shards.
In our testnet, we had a TPS competition and the number one user achieved 50K TPS. And is due to current technology. With better and faster consensus algorithms we can achieve 1 million TPS in the future.
Blockmanity: Sharding requires a centralized entity requiring to oversee the scalable chains. Doesn’t QuarkChain become that centralized entity, going against the principle of decentralization?
Anthurine: Our blockchain’s design is similar to Polkadot’s. Polkadot’s interoperability works through a hub model. Polkadot’s SDK acts as a hub which connects different chains and facilitates interoperability. Similar to Polkadot, existing blockchains can be forked as a shard on our blockchain.
I would not consider QuarkChain as a public chain but rather like AWS. We provide the infrastructure to speed up transactions and provide interoperability functions to existing blockchains. So this allows us to work with public chains as well.
Each shard on our platform can have its own token economics. The reason public chains work with us because we help them solve the scalability issue. This means they don’t need to solve scalability issue on their own. They can use our infrastructure to achieve their goal.
We are going to add more functional shards in the future. Our next step is to add a privacy shard, which allows people to send money in a private. With our functionality shards, people can exchange tokens in a decentralized manner.
Blockmanity: While going through news on QuarkChain we came across a product call QPocket. What is QPocket?
Anthurine: QPocket is a wallet by us and not infrastructure. Think of QPocket as an entry to DApps. Any DApps sitting on a blockchain, if they want a user-friendly entry point, QPocket will provide them that. It has nothing to do with blockchain but more to do with DApps.
Blockmanity: Speaking in terms of DApps, what according to will be the next killer DApp?
Anthurine: To be honest, I don’t know what would be the next killer DAps. What I know is that we have to be ready for the next killer Dapps, and we should constantly be on the lookout for them. We have to be flexible to provide them the technology they need. We want the next killer DApp built on QuarkChain. It will take time, but personally, I think it will be on the payment side.
Blockmanity: Great, so what’s next for QuarkChain?
Anthurine: Ah good question. QuarkChain is quite flexible. And our step is to increase this flexibility. This is to increase the number of functionality shards.
The next shard we are adding is the privacy shard. We have also signed some contracts with big enterprises to develop the blockchain technology with them.
We are also going to expand our community and get ourselves listed on more exchanges. We recently had our first community governance, and people agreed that they want to accelerate the token release process. After this, we will do a lot more news releases and get a lot of people to know about QuarkChain.
Blockmanity: Great, sound like a busy year ahead. A final question, how can people earn QuarkChain (QKC) tokens?
Ans) There are 2 ways to earn QKC tokens. First, We hold regular bounties which include joining our community and earning some QKC tokens. In fact, the last one ended a couple of weeks back. But it is only sometimes.
Second, and the best way is to join our Guardian program. As a guardian, anyone can join as a candidate with the promise to bring some value to the community. Existing members will vote for you and if you bring the promised value you will earn reward QKC as well as the people who voted for you earn QKC. You can also vote using your QKC and earn more QKC.
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Disclaimer: Blockmanity is a news portal and does not provide any financial advice. Blockmanity's role is to inform the cryptocurrency and blockchain community about what's going on in this space. Please do your own due diligence before making any investment. Blockmanity won't be responsible for any loss of funds.
Rainberry Inc., the company behind BitTorrent, agreed to pay a $10 million settlement that ends a long-running case with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The agreement lets the regulator dismiss its remaining civil claims against Justin Sun and affiliated foundations with prejudice, meaning the SEC cannot refile those specific charges.
Sun acquired BitTorrent and integrated it into his Tron blockchain ecosystem, linking Rainberry and the BitTorrent Token (BTT) to his crypto operations. Officials framed the settlement as closure rather than an admission of wrongdoing.
Settlement Reduces Regulatory Overhang For Crypto Projects Reports indicate the SEC’s case targeted allegations tied to token sales, trading practices, and unregistered offerings involving TRX and BTT. By resolving the matter through Rainberry’s payment, civil claims against Sun and the Tron Foundation were dismissed.
Analysts say the move clears a major legal hurdle and may reassure exchanges, investors, and partners that the immediate regulatory risk has been reduced.
The SEC letter to a Manhattan federal court on Thursday. Source: SEC Justin Sun’s Role And Statements On The Outcome Justin Sun and spokespeople emphasized that he did not admit wrongdoing. Sun framed the settlement as an opportunity to focus on product development, partnerships, and community engagement within the Tron ecosystem.
Public filings now reflect that Rainberry’s payment closes its portion of the case while reinforcing Sun’s ongoing leadership of the integrated BTT and TRX network.
The Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun reached a $10 million settlement to resolve a US Securities and Exchange Commission civil fraud case over his trading activity https://t.co/qJoSVO20WC
— Reuters (@Reuters) March 6, 2026
Traders Watch For TRX Price Breakout The market wasted no time reacting. Trading volume on TRX spiked on settlement news, though key resistance levels around $0.15 remained untested as of Thursday.
This caution is consistent with where TRX has been for the last 18 months. TRX, at the time of writing, was trading at $0.285, meaning that its value is not in line with the record number of transactions being made on chain.
TRX market cap currently at $27 billion. Chart: TradingView At this point, the market is still pricing in the potential risk of an SEC lawsuit and not valuing TRX for being the most used stablecoin network in the world.
Traders are viewing this settlement as lowering their legal exposure, and therefore will not consider this to be the “big” catalyst to move TRX up in price. Traders are chasing liquidity, depth of buy/sell orders, and the overall macro conditions of crypto when trading TRX.
From a legal perspective, it is important to note that although this particular case has now closed, public accusations of wrongdoing remain on record. As a result, both exchanges and custodians must continue to be vigilant in complying with regulations.
Foundations and Ecosystem Outlook The Tron Foundation has been focusing on developing technical solutions and providing support for projects within its ecosystem. The SEC settlement removes one of the obstacles to developing business and joint venture partnerships. However, restoring confidence in the ecosystem will take some time.
Featured image from Crosley Law, chart from TradingView
BitTorrent Chain has upgraded the BTTC Bridge record page with dual views, richer filters and clearer tags so users can track incoming, outgoing and cross-chain flows faster.
Summary
BitTorrent Chain has upgraded the BTTC Bridge transaction record page with new dual views and filters for cross-chain users. The update separates “All Records” from “In Progress” activity and adds multi-dimensional search by status, type and custom date range. Incoming, outgoing and cross-chain transactions now carry clearer visual tags to make following asset flows easier. BitTorrent Chain has rolled out a functional upgrade to the BTTC Bridge transaction record page, aiming to give cross-chain users a clearer view of where their funds are and where they are going. According to the project’s official update, the new interface is now live and is designed to make tracking deposits, withdrawals and cross-chain moves “more efficient and transparent” for everyday users.
The refreshed page introduces a dual-view mode that splits activity into “All Records” and “In Progress,” allowing people who regularly move assets between BTTC, Ethereum, Tron and BNB Chain to quickly distinguish between completed and pending transfers. The team has also added a multi-dimensional filtering tool that lets users combine transaction status, operation type and custom date ranges in a single query, cutting down the time it takes to locate a specific bridge event.
BTTC pushes UX upgrades as cross-chain volume grows As part of the same upgrade, BTTC says the bridge page now features stronger, dedicated markers for incoming, outgoing and cross-chain activities, visually flagging the direction and nature of each transaction. The goal, according to the team, is to help users “quickly locate the flow of funds,” a recurring pain point for less technical participants navigating multi-chain asset movements.
The latest tweak builds on a broader interface overhaul completed in late March, when BTTC redesigned the bridge to incorporate user feedback and streamline the overall flow. That earlier upgrade allowed users to send assets from BTTC addresses back to Ethereum without paying extra bridge fees beyond standard gas costs, while keeping the process fully decentralized and ensuring that private keys and asset details stay out of third-party hands.
BitTorrent Chain positions BTTC as a cross-chain layer connecting networks such as Tron, Ethereum and BNB Chain using a lock‑and‑mint bridge model, with the bridge itself sitting at the heart of that interoperability push. Its recent 2.0 mainnet upgrade to a proof‑of‑stake design, highlighted in BitTorrent’s own roadmap, was pitched as a way to boost throughput and make cross-chain transfers more reliable as volumes grow.
In previous crypto.news coverage of exchange and wallet UX improvements, reporters have noted that clearer transaction histories and better labeling can directly reduce support tickets, user errors and perceived security risks in cross-chain systems. BTTC’s latest bridge record upgrade moves in that same direction, giving power users more granular filters while offering newcomers a cleaner, less intimidating window into their on-chain activity.
TLDR Arizona advanced Senate Bill 1649 to a full House floor vote after clearing the House Rules Committee. The bill would allow the state to create a Digital Assets Strategic Reserve Fund. The proposal permits Arizona to retain seized cryptocurrencies instead of auctioning them. The legislation names XRP, Bitcoin, Monero, NEAR Protocol, and Nano as eligible assets. Lawmakers set criteria to assess adoption levels and transaction activity for reserve assets. Arizona lawmakers advanced Senate Bill 1649 to a full House vote after clearing the House Rules Committee. The proposal would allow Arizona to retain seized digital assets in a state-managed fund. The measure names XRP, Bitcoin, and Monero as eligible assets under defined standards.
Arizona Crypto Reserve Plan Names XRP as Eligible Asset The House Rules Committee approved SB1649 with eight votes in favor. As a result, the bill now heads to the full House for consideration. Lawmakers introduced the measure to create a Digital Assets Strategic Reserve Fund. The proposal allows the state to keep digital assets obtained through forfeiture or surrender. Currently, agencies auction most seized cryptocurrencies.
State Senator Mark Finchem introduced SB1649 earlier this session. The Senate Finance Committee passed the bill with a 4–2–1 vote. Lawmakers set criteria to determine which assets qualify for the reserve. The criteria review adoption rates, annual transaction volume, and ecosystem development. The bill lists XRP, Bitcoin, Monero, NEAR Protocol, and Nano as eligible assets.
The proposal authorizes the State Treasurer to manage the reserve fund. The Treasurer may invest holdings to generate returns for the state. However, the bill requires that investment actions do not increase financial risk. Lawmakers included this provision to guide fund management practices.
If the House approves SB1649, the bill will move to the governor’s desk. The governor may sign the measure into law or veto it. Lawmakers placed the bill on the House calendar following the committee vote.
Bitcoin and Monero Included in Arizona Reserve Framework SB1649 identifies Bitcoin as a primary digital asset for the reserve. Lawmakers also included Monero under the eligibility framework. The bill groups these assets with XRP under a defined fair value threshold. This threshold evaluates economic strength and technical performance.
Under the measure, Arizona may retain cryptocurrencies received through legal processes. Agencies would transfer those assets to the reserve fund instead of auctioning them. The Treasurer would then oversee storage and management of the holdings. Lawmakers structured the bill to formalize how the state handles digital assets.
The legislation forms part of broader digital asset discussions in Arizona. Lawmakers are also considering Senate Bill 1042. That proposal would allow the state to invest up to 10% of public funds in cryptocurrencies. SB1042 remains under review in the state legislature.
At the federal level, digital asset reserves have also entered policy debates. President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. The order also created a broader digital asset stockpile framework. Lawmakers referenced these developments during state discussions.
The House will now determine the fate of SB1649 in a floor vote. If members approve the measure, it will proceed to final executive consideration. The legislative process continues as scheduled in the current session.
TLDR: Counterfeit Ledger Nano S Plus devices use ESP32 chips to steal seeds and PINs in plain text format. A fake Ledger Live app passed Mac App Store review and drained over $9.5 million from 50+ victims. The fraud spans five attack vectors including Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, and physical hardware. Ledger’s genuine check feature fails when hardware is compromised at the supply chain source level. Counterfeit Ledger hardware wallets are at the center of a growing threat targeting cryptocurrency users worldwide.
A security researcher has documented a large-scale operation distributing fake Ledger Nano S Plus devices through multiple online marketplaces.
The compromised units appear identical to legitimate products but carry entirely different internal hardware. Seeds, PINs, and wallet data are being sent directly to attacker-controlled servers, draining any wallet initialized on the device.
Fake Hardware Hides Malicious Chips and Firmware The counterfeit devices replace Ledger’s secure element chip with an ESP32 microcontroller. This substitute chip runs modified firmware labeled “Nano S+ V2 1.”
Unlike the genuine secure element, this hardware stores sensitive data in plain text. That data is then transmitted to remote servers controlled by the attackers behind the operation.
Beyond the hardware, the campaign also distributes a fraudulent version of Ledger Live. This fake app is built with React Native and signed using a debug certificate.
It intercepts transactions and sends sensitive user data to multiple command-and-control servers. Users downloading this version have no visible indication that anything is wrong.
The attack spans five separate vectors: compromised hardware, Android APKs, Windows executables, macOS installers, and iOS apps.
A security researcher just documented a large-scale counterfeit Ledger Nano S Plus operation selling compromised devices across multiple online marketplaces.
The fake units look identical to the real thing but contain completely different hardware. Instead of Ledger's secure… pic.twitter.com/6ZfP9pJkUU
— TFTC (@TFTC21) April 16, 2026
The iOS distribution uses Apple’s TestFlight platform to bypass the standard App Store review process. This approach allows the fraudulent software to reach users without triggering typical security checks. Each channel serves as an independent entry point for the same underlying scam.
Ledger’s built-in genuine check feature is designed to verify device authenticity. However, that verification process can be bypassed when the hardware is tampered with at the source.
This makes the point of purchase a critical security variable. Buying from unauthorized sellers removes the only reliable layer of hardware-level verification.
Separate Mac App Store Fraud Drained Over $9.5 Million Separately, on-chain investigator ZachXBT documented another fake Ledger Live app that passed through Apple’s Mac App Store review. That operation alone drained more than $9.5 million from over 50 victims.
Among those affected was musician G. Love, who lost 5.92 BTC after entering his recovery phrase into the fraudulent application. The app presented itself as the legitimate Ledger companion software.
These two operations together show a clear pattern in how attackers are targeting hardware wallet users. Rather than exploiting firmware vulnerabilities, they are intercepting users before they reach a genuine device.
The fraud happens at the distribution level, not the protocol level. This shift makes user behavior and purchase source more important than ever.
Security best practices remain unchanged despite the evolving tactics. Hardware wallets should only be purchased directly from the manufacturer’s official website.
No legitimate wallet software will ever request a 24-word recovery phrase on screen. Any application asking for seed phrase input is running a scam, without exception.
The broader message from both incidents is straightforward. The hardware itself remains secure when obtained through proper channels.
The vulnerability now lives in the supply chain and software distribution ecosystem. Staying safe requires equal attention to both where a device is bought and how companion software is sourced.
PANews reported on June 1st that, according to Bits.media, at 08:27 Beijing time on May 31st, an independent Bitcoin miner successfully mined block 951771, earning a block reward of 3.14 BTC, worth approximately $230,000. This miner used home-use equipment consisting of 12 Canaan Avalon Nano 3S processors and 2 Avalon Mini 3 processors, with a total hashrate of approximately 147 TH/s, representing about 0.000000001% of the global hashrate, and a probability of finding the block of approximately 1 in 6.7 million. The miner mined through the Braiins Solo platform, which is based on the CKPool software and allows individual miners to mine independently without running a full Bitcoin node.
With the collective cryptocurrency market trading sideways, altcoins are moving helter-skelter. Ethereum, Waves and Augur, three diverse altcoins have moved in different directions, one is is yet to recover, another is trending upwards, while the third is trading flat.
Ethereum
The leading altcoin in the market saw increasing decoupling from Bitcoin earlier in the year, but now the push-and-pull with the leading cryptocurrency is back. Ether, posting a market cap of $14 .1 billion, is trading with a narrow increasingly downward sloping wedge, formed as a consequence of the infamous March 12 drop, when Bitcoin lost almost half its value.
Resistance, for the altcoin, lies quite high at $141, while the press time price was $129. Looking down, the altcoin finds support, closer to its market price at $125.4, which is where the lower bottom of the wedge lies.
Bollinger Bands for Ethereum posit an increase in volatility as the bands are moving further apart. Given that in the last two hours the candlesticks have turned red, the average is now intersecting with the price, if it moves above the price, bearish woes lie ahead.
Augur
Augur, unlike its contemporaries, is trading in an upwards channel, with the price rising since the beginning of the previous week. Owing to the March 12 collapse, Augur had lost almost a third of its value, falling to a low of $7.86. Since then, the upwards channel has pushed the coin as high as $9.86, its press time price.
Since hitting the support of $7.64, the altcoin has seen bullish pulls, allowing it to break resistance after resistance, flipping it into support levels. Two such levels can be charted at $8.24 and $9.54, respectively. Despite the fall on 27 March, REP has managed to steer clear of the drop below the latter support, and now is striving to trade within the upward channel.
MACD line for REP has moved below 0 and has dipped below the Signal line indicating bearish pressures. With the upward channel’s lower-bound trend line close to the price, the coin will face a struggle going forward.
Waves
The Waves platform cryptocurrency, has seen a roller coaster ride since the beginning of 2020, and now is right back to where it started. Since breaking $1 and then $1.5 in February and March, the coin went down with the Bitcoin drop, losing almost 40 percent of its value, and is now trading at $0.815.
Support lines lie at $0.789 and $0.726, while a short term resistance line is present above at $0.962, with the price firmly in between. Since the March 12 drop, the altcoin has seen a visible, albeit weak, upward channel, which is looking to alter given the dropping price since March 27.
RSI for the Waves platform cryptocurrency has been dropping since mid-February, indicating a surging selling pressure, and now is at 40.74 a marginal recovery from 33.9 where it stood on March 14.
The altcoin market has been following Bitcoin’s lead and has suffered immensely. The coins have failed to recover completely and have been undergoing a sideways movement.
Huobi Token [HT]
Source: HT/USD on Trading View
Houbi Token [HT] continued to rise up till March, however, it succumbed to the 12 March attack. The price of the asset was pushed as low as $1.7482, after which it has been trying to resurface. At press time, the value of the coin had reached $3.2535, but a bearish presence was still around as per Awesome Oscillator.
Resistance: $3.5417
Support: $2.3117
At press time
Price: $3.21
Market Cap: $727.45 million
24-hour Trading Volume: $159.34 million
Augur [REP]
Unlike other tokens, REP noticed a sudden spring in its price in January. As correction set in, its value got slashed by more than half but it is still reporting a YTD return of 2.35%. At press time, REP was being traded at $10.13 with its immediate resistance and support marked closely.
According to Bollinger Bands indicators, the market of REP appeared to be volatile as the bands diverged. The trend has switched to a bearish trend as the signal line crept under the candlesticks.
Resistance: $10.84
Support: $8.35
At press time
Price: $9.92
Market Cap: $109.16 million
24-hour Trading Volume: $23.04 million
Verge [XVG]
Unlike the ups and downs in other cryptos, the chart of Verge [XVG] appeared to be pretty simple. The year 2020 started with an upwards stride, but the price has been on a downward spiral since the fall on 15 February. At press time, the coin has been valued at $0.00247 and it reported a negative return of -39.99% in 2020.
