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On-chain data shows the US is one of the world’s largest Bitcoin holders, with its portfolio now exceeding $24 billion. However, recent events have shown that the possibility of the US government increasing its stash is very low. Particularly, the US government’s strategy for cryptocurrency took a new turn this week after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent clarified that Washington will not be actively buying any additional Bitcoin.
Bessent Rules Out New Purchases But Leaves A Possibility While speaking in a Fox Business interview, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent explained that the government has no plans to buy additional Bitcoin beyond its current reserve. The Treasury chief said the reserve will continue to be funded primarily through assets seized in criminal cases rather than direct purchases. His estimates place the value of the reserve between $15 billion and $20 billion.
Bessent later softened his position on social media, noting that even though the US is not allocating budgetary resources to acquire more Bitcoin, it is committed to “budget-neutral pathways” for expanding reserves to make the country the Bitcoin superpower of the world. The statement suggests that auctions, seizures, and non-traditional acquisitions could still increase holdings in the future, even if the Treasury avoids direct market buys.
Bitcoin Holdings Push Toward $24 Billion Data from blockchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence reveals a bigger picture than Bessent’s estimates of $15 billion to 20 billion. According to Arkham, wallets linked to the US government currently hold about 198,022 BTC, valued at approximately $23.42 billion. Many of these holdings originated from seizures related to criminal activity, including the well-known Silk Road case.
The portfolio, however, extends well beyond Bitcoin. Arkham’s data reveals holdings of about 59,951 ETH, worth $273 million, along with 347 million USDT and smaller allocations across other assets such as 750 WBTC, 40,293 BNB, 5,205 WETH, and 13.6 million BUSD. Taken together, the government’s digital asset holdings are valued at approximately $24.27 billion. This figure recently climbed as high as $25 billion during Bitcoin’s surge above $124,000 last week.
Source: Chart from Arkham Earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed into law the creation of a strategic crypto reserve, a move many interpreted as the start of government-led Bitcoin accumulation. Trump himself had many investors increase their expectations after stating that the United States would prioritize US-based cryptocurrencies like BTC as part of its financial strategy.
This context is what made Bessent’s recent statement so significant. Although the reserve exists in law, the Treasury has now made it clear that active market purchases of Bitcoin are not on the table for the time being. However, it is clear that the US government isn’t planning to sell its holdings anytime soon, which might flood the market with selling pressure.
BTC trading at $114,859 on the 1D chart | Source: BTCUSDT on Tradingview.com Featured image from Pixabay, chart from Tradingview.com
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Scott Matherson is a leading crypto writer at Bitcoinist, who possesses a sharp analytical mind and a deep understanding of the digital currency landscape. Scott has earned a reputation for delivering thought-provoking and well-researched articles that resonate with both newcomers and seasoned crypto enthusiasts. Outside of his writing, Scott is passionate about promoting crypto literacy and often works to educate the public on the potential of blockchain.
PANews reported on February 21 that on-chain analyst Specter published an article on the X platform stating that IoTeX may have suffered a private key breach, with its token safe assets being completely transferred out by attackers, resulting in a total loss of approximately $4.3 million.
On-chain data shows that the attackers transferred multiple contract assets, including USDC, USDT, IOTX, PAYG, WBTC, and BUSD. The stolen assets were subsequently converted into ETH, with approximately 45 ETH transferred across the blockchain to the Bitcoin network. The incident is still under further investigation.
The attacker's addresses that have been disclosed so far are as follows:
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.
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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.
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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.
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Multiple high-performing domestic public mutual fund products have tightened their purchase restrictions.
E Fund Management announced in its latest filing that the E Fund Information Industry Select Fund, managed by Zheng Xi, has cut its purchase limit to 10,000 yuan. The same purchase limit reduction to 10,000 yuan applies to another fund under his management, E Fund Information Industry Fund, while E Fund Global Growth Select Hybrid Fund (QDII) has lowered its purchase limit to 10 yuan. In addition, Guolianan Preferred Industry Fund, Harvest Tech Innovation Fund, and Principal Performance-Driven Fund have also announced purchase limits or adjustments to their limits recently. Jin Zicai, a fund manager closely watched by the market, imposed additional purchase limits on multiple public offering funds under his management, with the four funds involved cutting their purchase limits to 500 yuan starting June 23. Purchase limits on high-performing funds likely stem from multiple considerations: they can avoid return dilution caused by short-term concentrated subscriptions, and proactive limits during overheated market conditions also send risk warning signals to the market. As the first half of the year draws to a close, such moves have become increasingly frequent. Overall, Wind data shows that since June alone, 19 funds with year-to-date net asset value returns exceeding 90% have suspended large subscriptions or adjusted their purchase caps. (Source: Cailian Press)
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The US stock market's optical communication sector rises across the board in pre-market trading, with Corning up 9.28%.
According to Bitget market data, the U.S. stock market's optical communication sector saw broad pre-market gains, with MRVL rising 4.99%, LITE up 3.24%, Nokia up 3.11%, Corning up 9.28%, and AXTI up 6.69%.
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US-listed AI chip stocks saw mixed pre-market performance, with Qualcomm surging 13%.
According to Bitget market data, U.S. AI chip stocks posted mixed pre-market performance: Qualcomm (QCOM.O) surged 13%, Intel (INTC.O) rose nearly 6%, AMD (AMD.O) gained nearly 4%, and Google (GOOG.O) declined 1.4%.
Ether falls harder than Bitcoin in a market-wide risk-off move, while Aave bucks the selloff on V4 and Grayscale tailwinds; total DeFi value drops to about $69 billion
Bitcoin slid below $60,000 and Ether fell harder still on Wednesday, as a selloff in AI and semiconductor stocks and rising bets on a Federal Reserve rate hike pushed investors out of risk assets across the board.
Bitcoin dropped about 4% over the prior 24 hours, slipping under the $60,000 level for the first time in roughly two weeks, while Ether fell about 5%, according to data from CoinGecko. The broad crypto market followed equities lower: total value locked in DeFi protocols fell to about $69.3 billion from roughly $73.2 billion a day earlier, a one-day drop of about 5%, DefiLlama data show.
A Macro-Led SelloffThe immediate trigger sat in equity markets. The Nasdaq Composite closed the prior session down about 2.2%, dragged lower by a sharp drop in semiconductor and AI-linked shares, with a closely watched chip index falling roughly 8%.
Compounding the equity weakness, traders sharply raised the odds of a Federal Reserve rate hike this year after the central bank held its target range at 3.50% to 3.75% but dropped its easing bias. Higher rates lift the dollar and raise the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets, a headwind for Bitcoin and Ether alike. The U.S. Dollar Index climbed to its highest level in more than a year.
Institutional flows have reinforced the pressure. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs have logged their largest 30-day outflow on record, with redemptions running for five straight weeks, according to figures circulated by The Kobeissi Letter. ETF redemptions force authorized participants to sell spot Bitcoin into the market, adding mechanical selling pressure on top of the macro move.
Aave Bucks the TrendAgainst a sea of red, Aave was the standout gainer among large-cap tokens, with its AAVE governance token rising about 4% over 24 hours even as the rest of the market fell, CoinGecko data show. Aave, one of the largest decentralized lending protocols with roughly $12 billion in deposits, has drawn a cluster of bullish catalysts this month.
Standard Chartered initiated coverage of Aave on Tuesday with a price target of $3,500 by end-2030, up 50x from roughly $70 today. The same week, Aave published a security audit tied to its V4 upgrade and founder Stani Kulechov outlined a proposal to bring traditional securities-finance markets onchain.
The LaggardsThe sell-off hit higher-beta large caps the hardest. Cardano's ADA token slid about 6% over 24 hours, the worst performer among major tokens, while Dogecoin's DOGE fell about 6% and Chainlink's LINK dropped roughly 5%, all underperforming Bitcoin's 4% decline, per CoinGecko. Solana's SOL and XRP each fell about 4%, roughly in line with Bitcoin, while BNB slipped about 4%.
Tron's TRX held up best among majors, falling less than 1%, and Hyperliquid's HYPE fell about 3%. None of the laggards showed a token-specific catalyst on the day; the moves tracked the broad risk-off flush rather than any protocol-level development.
LiquidationsThe decline looks orderly rather than disorderly. Liquidations across the market totaled more than $700 million over 24 hours, with the large majority hitting long positions — a sign that leverage is being flushed rather than fresh capital fleeing in panic. That leverage reset can reduce the risk of a sudden cascade lower.
The next catalysts are macro, not onchain. Traders are watching upcoming U.S. inflation data, which could reset rate-hike expectations, and any stabilization in ETF flows that would signal institutional demand returning.
In brief Standard Chartered forecasts AAVE will rise ~50x from ~$70 earlier Wednesday to $3,500 by the end of 2030. The bank believes Aave has moved past an April liquidity crunch that halved deposits, and expects the token to track a projected 37x growth in DeFi assets by 2030. The bullish case depends on unproven steps, such as Aave Horizon through new partnerships with traditional finance firms. Analysts at Standard Chartered are betting big on Aave, one of the largest lending platforms in decentralized finance (DeFi), projecting that its native token could surge nearly 50 times from current levels by the end of the decade—a forecast that arrives just months after the protocol was rattled by a major ecosystem exploit.
In a research note released Wednesday, Geoff Kendrick, the bank's global head of digital assets research, initiated coverage of Aave's token (AAVE) with a price target of $3,500 by the end of 2030—up from roughly $70 when the report was released Wednesday morning.
The bank expects the token to climb in stages, reaching $180 by the end of this year before accelerating to $600, $1,200 and $2,200 over the following three years before hitting the aforementioned projection.
AAVE hit an all-time high price above $661 back in 2021, but hasn’t come close to that mark since, despite rallying to nearly $400 in late 2024 following President Donald Trump’s reelection.
The optimism follows a rough stretch for Aave, which automates lending and borrowing without human middlemen. An April theft of $291 million from a smaller DeFi platform, KelpDAO, spilled over into Aave, impacting liquidity while spooking many DeFi users into withdrawing their assets altogether.
Deposits on the platform have roughly halved since, falling from $44 billion to $23 billion, while active loans have similarly fallen from $18 million to $9.5 billion in the same span. Aave's share of the broader lending market has slipped to 38% of deposits, Standard Chartered said, down from an average of 59% in the year before the incident.
Standard Chartered argues that the damage has largely run its course, pointing to a new risk framework proposed by Aave founder Stani Kulechov and a recent uptick in deposits from a June low. The bank's bigger bet is on the broader trajectory of decentralized finance: It forecasts that the value of tokenized assets deployed in DeFi will grow 37-fold, to $2.7 trillion, by 2030, fueled by the expansion of stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets from TradFi giants, and rising crypto prices.
Because Aave collects fees primarily through the spread between what it pays depositors and charges borrowers, the bank argues its revenue—and by extension its token price—should track that growth closely.
Still, the forecast carries substantial uncertainty. Standard Chartered itself cautions that scaling Aave's institutional lending arm, known as Aave Horizon, is "achievable but not yet proven," and hinges on partnerships with traditional finance firms that have yet to materialize at scale.
Digital asset prices also remain notoriously volatile, with Bitcoin falling to a 21-month low on Wednesday and most other major assets dipping alongside. AAVE rose above $77 earlier in the day, following the report’s release, but then gave up most of the gains as the market sputtered—but it has since topped $79, up nearly 9% on the day as Bitcoin starts to recover.
Alongside its projection of AAVE hitting $3,500 by the end of 2030, Standard Chartered’s report stated price targets of $40,000 for Ethereum (up from $1,614 as of this writing) and $500,000 for Bitcoin (currently $60,831).
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The broader cryptocurrency market remains under intense selling pressure, with Bitcoin (BTC) back at $60,000 for the third time this year. On-chain data shows selling pressure from large-wallet investors, commonly referred to as whales, while total liquidations hit nearly $1 billion in 24 hours. Although sellers remain dominant, DeFi tokens such as Aave (AAVE) and Jupiter (JUP) show resilience and emerge as top performers in the same time period.
Crushing pressure on the crypto marketThe total crypto market cap has fallen by 54% from its October 2025 peak, erasing roughly $2.2 trillion in value over that period, as previously reported by FXStreet. Amid the declining period, total liquidations of $984 million over the last 24 hours, driven by $799 million in long liquidations, indicate firm sell-side dominance among investors.
Adding to the selling pressure, Santiment data shows the whales holding 10 to 10,000 BTC have offloaded 45,074 BTC over the past 8 days. Typically, outflows from such large wallets weigh on crypto, leading to an extended decline.
Crypto liquidation data. Source: CoinGlass
Bitcoin whales holding data. Source: SantimentBitcoin defends a key psychological supportBitcoin hovers above $60,000 at press time on Thursday, holding just above the key horizontal floor. The King Crypto maintains a bearish near-term bias while remaining capped well below the 50-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) at $68,229 and the 200-day EMA at $78,198.
That said, the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) risks crossing below its signal line, hinting at a renewal of bearish momentum. At the same time, the Relative Strength Index (RSI) near 33 still reflects weak demand after the recent slide.
On the downside, immediate support is located at the $60,000 area, where a clear break would expose deeper losses and signal a continuation of the broader correction.
BTC/USDT daily price chart.On the topside, initial resistance appears at the 50-day EMA around $68,229, followed by the former rising trendline break near $73,636 and then the 200-day EMA at $78,198; only a sustained recovery above this layered resistance zone would ease the current downside pressure.
DeFi tokens emerge as resilient cryptoAAVE hovers above its 50-day EMA at $79.45 at press time on Thursday, following its 10% rise the previous day. From a technical perspective, the DeFi token extends a positive rebound in a falling channel pattern, maintaining its near‑term constructive bias. That said, the overhead resistance trendline near the $100 mark, followed by the 200-day EMA at $118, caps the short-term recovery phase. This configuration suggests price is building a short-term base above dynamic support but remains embedded in a broader corrective phase.
Momentum supports the recovery tone, with the RSI near 61 and MACD holding above its signal line, both hinting that buyers retain the upper hand as long as the 50-day EMA holds.
On the topside, initial resistance aligns with the long-standing downward trendline near $100, and above that, the 200-day EMA at $118 acts as a more strategic barrier, limiting any medium-term bullish extension.
AAVE/USDT daily price chart.On the downside, the 50-day EMA at $79.45 is the first meaningful support; a daily close back below this level would undermine the nascent bullish structure and expose the pair to a deeper pullback, while holding above it would keep the recovery path open toward the $100 area.
Jupiter hovers above its 200-day EMA at $0.2198, with the 50-day EMA at $0.1910 underpinning support. The DeFi token maintains a neutral-to-slightly constructive bias as price tests the longer-term average. A rising RSI near 63, a positive MACD line above zero, and a constructive histogram suggest buyers retain the initiative while this squeeze between key EMAs persists.
On the topside, immediate resistance is at the 200-day EMA around $0.2198, with a subsequent hurdle near the downtrend resistance line projected from prior highs at around $0.2498, where a decisive break would signal a more convincing bullish reversal.
JUP/USDT daily price chart.On the downside, initial support is seen at the 50-day EMA at $0.1910, and a daily close back below this level would weaken the current recovery structure and expose the recent range lows.
(The technical analysis of this story was written with the help of an AI tool.)
Aave climbed more than 15% in 24 hours to trade around $82.77, bucking a broad crypto selloff that dragged Bitcoin (BTC) below $60,000 for the third time in June.
While most major tokens fell in lockstep with a broader crypto leverage selloff, AAVE pushed higher on improving protocol fundamentals and fresh institutional attention.
USDT Deposits Signal Returning CapitalOn-chain data is driving some of the renewed interest. USDT deposits are flowing back into the protocol, with Aave’s Ethereum V3 Core market approaching $3 billion in stablecoin deposits.
The returning liquidity strengthens Aave’s lending capacity and improves yield opportunities for depositors, two factors that tend to attract additional capital to the Aave DeFi protocol.
Standard Chartered’s 50x Call Now in FocusThe rally comes a day after Standard Chartered initiated coverage on AAVE with a $3,500 price target by the end of 2030. The bank’s global head of digital assets research, Geoff Kendrick, described Aave as an on-chain bank. He flagged a 37-times increase in assets active in Decentralized Finance (DeFi) as the core driver.
Aave has continued to rally after the news from Standard Chartered. Image Source: BeInCrypto The Standard Chartered Aave price forecast ties most of its upside to tokenized real-world assets flowing into the protocol via Aave Horizon.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s brief drop below $60,000 on June 24 reflected broader risk-off pressure from AI stock and sustained ETF outflows.
AAVE’s rally through that backdrop suggests capital is selectively rotating into DeFi. This is a trend the longer-term AAVE outlook will need to sustain to validate Standard Chartered’s ambitious target.
Vitalik Buterin is one of the most influential people in crypto. He has amassed substantial wealth thanks to his role in creating Ethereum. We calculated his net worth.
Buterin wasn’t rich prior to creating Ethereum. His first major windfall was in 2014. That year he dropped out, at 20 years old, after receiving $100,000 through a Thiel Fellowship. From there his wealth only grew.
The crowdsale for Ethereum began in July of 2014 and raised Bitcoin worth, at the time, $18.3 million. From there, he was able to secure a six-figure salary from the Ethereum Foundation, the non-profit born out of the raise.
However, his main source of wealth is the hundreds of thousands of Ethereum tokens he was able to hold on to from the cryptocurrency’s pre-mine. This gave the foundation and its founders a little under 12 million ETH, which now represents about 11% of the circulating supply.
Though Buterin hasn’t publicly revealed his financial position, his wallet addresses and public statements are enough to get a decent estimate.
Vitalik Buterin’s Cryptocurrency Holdings Looking at his primary wallet addresses, Buterin owns about 352,000 ETH at a current value of $46 million. Between his three main wallets, he also holds ERC-20 tokens worth over $900,000.
These ERC-20s include Augur (REP), Maker (MKR), Kyber Network (KNC), and OmiseGO (OMG).
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However, he also said in February of last year that he held Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Zcash, and Dogecoin worth over “10% the value of my ETH.”
Crypto Briefing calculated his Ethereum holdings on the day of his statement. Though he did not specify the precise investment in each of these coins, we gave each coin an equal allocation of 15% of the value of his ETH, adjusted by historic prices, for simplicity.
Adjusting his Ethereum holdings back to February 2019 levels, his holdings would amount to roughly 2,000 BTC, 58,000 BCH, 140,000 ZEC, and 3.6 million DOGE.
Assuming he held everything, these coins would make up 37% of his portfolio at current prices, or about $35 million.
Since then, the prices for these coins have fluctuated substantially, in line with the massive amounts of volatility in the market. At its peak in early 2018, Vitalik Buterin’s cryptocurrency portfolio was worth well over half a billion dollars.
Today, Vitalik Buterin’s cryptocurrency portfolio amounts to roughly $82 million, composed mostly of Ethereum, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Doge, and Zcash.
What is Vitalik Buterin’s Salary? Outside of his cryptocurrency holdings, Vitalik Buterin has also disclosed that he earns a six-figure salary from the Ethereum Foundation. The last time he commented about his salary he revealed he was making roughly $144,000 per year.
Though this may seem high to some, Buterin claims he was offered an even higher salary and didn’t take it. “Others in the foundation (ie. the ones who actually decided these salary numbers) offered me $185k at one point; I declined,” he said. For the executive of a multi-billion dollar enterprise this salary seems relatively modest.
Vitalik Buterin’s current salary is estimated at somewhere between $140,000 and $250,000.
Cash and Equity Holdings There’s more to the picture. Buterin also has a substantial portion of his wealth in cash. In March of 2019, in a now-deleted tweet, Buterin said that his “fiat holdings are well under $30m,” attributed to $8 million in charitable contributions he disclosed.
Looking at the rest of his finances, Crypto Briefing estimated his fiat holdings at $12 million, bringing his net worth up to $94 million.
But that isn’t all, Buterin also owns “significant corporate shareholdings” in two companies: Clearmatics and Starkware. Clearmatics is a London-based company designing protocols for DeFi while StarkWare is building privacy software using zero-knowledge proofs.
Buterin did not disclose the exact amount invested nor his equity holdings in each of the startups. To date, Clearmatics has raised $13 million and StarkWare has raised $36 million, according to Crunchbase.
Between his cryptocurrency holdings, cash, and equity, it’s possible to calculate the Ethereum co-founder’s wealth. Vitalik Buterin’s net worth is $100 million.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Mitchell Moos. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Top five browser, Opera, has today announced a partnership with Unstoppable Domains, a blockchain-based domain startup. The integration will offer 80 million users access to the decentralized internet via the latest web 3.0 browser.
Opera Becomes the Latest Web 3.0 Browser The latest integration with the Opera browser will allow users to access blockchain-based domains. By typing “.crypto” as one would type “.com,” Opera users will now be able to access decentralized websites.
Decentralized websites are those not hosted on centralized servers like Amazon Web Services. Using services like Amazon’s, news outlets, and businesses hand off control to a third-party. The third-party then has the power to cut off access and effectively end a website.
Unstoppable Domains are, instead, supported by decentralized tools like blockchain technologies. Brad Kam, a co-founder of Unstoppable Domains, said,
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“We believe that tools like Ethereum and IPFS will create a better internet than what exists with DNS and ICANN. It’s just beginning, but this system could replace the old internet entirely.”
The latest partnership with the Opera browser may help accelerate the company’s ambitions. In integrating Unstoppable Domains with a top-five browser, over 80 million users will be exposed to decentralized websites. Kam said, “Our partnership with Opera means that users can now view a .crypto website just as easily as a .com website.”
These websites also behave as cryptocurrency wallets and allow users to make crypto payments.
As a web 3.0 browser, users can now use Opera to connect with MyEtherWallet, Coinomi, Kyber’s Dex, and even Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano’s podcast by adding a “.crypto” in place of a “.com.”
🆕️Thanks to @unstoppableweb , the KyberWidget is now hosted on IPFS, meaning it can be used by anyone, anywhere in the world! Surf the decentralized web by installing the chrome extension https://t.co/Y7PilmeEKS and easily swap between 70+ ERC20 tokens 🔄 at kyber.crypto! #DeFi https://t.co/7lT8yDtpaf
— Kyber Network (@KyberNetwork) March 26, 2020
Unstoppable Domains has been lining up various other partnerships in 2020.
On Mar. 4, the company released a Google Chrome extension to bridge users to Web 3.0. The Tim Draper-backed startup has also made it easier for users to build and host a web domain on either the Ethereum or Zillqa blockchains.
For its part, Opera has long been a crypto proponent. The browser announced an Apple Pay integration earlier this month that lets users buy cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether directly through the browser.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Liam Kelly. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
The prices of many altcoins dropped significantly post the market crash on 12 March. However, many are still optimistic that the coins will put up a good show through the course of 2020. Cardano’s Charles Hoskinson, for instance, is of the opinion that Cardano will outperform Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP and every other blockchain in the industry by the end of 2020.
Cardano
There might be a lot of positive sentiment around Cardano, but one look at the coin’s price chart might suggest otherwise.
Cardano has been trending downwards since 13 February. The coin saw another major drop on 7 March [65% drop], a movement that continued following the market crash on 12 March. However, the coin rose up within 3 days by 64% and it has since, been maintaining the support at $0.02.
There is a symmetrical triangle pattern being formed in the above chart, a development that indicated that the price might break out in either an upward or downward direction. However, the Awesome Oscillator indicator resting above the zero line with green bars confirmed an upward breakout.
The 46th ranked coin on CoinMarketCap had a good start at the beginning of 2020. As seen in the chart above, there was an upward trend seen; however, following 12 March, the price has been on a downward run as it fell by 39% over a period of seven days. Furthermore, the Bollinger Bands appeared to be contracting, a sign that there might be lower volatility levels over the coming days.
Kyber Network’s[KNC] price has been on the rise since the end of December 2019. The network also experienced significant growth in transaction volume, and this might be the pre-effect of the major protocol upgrade scheduled for Q2 of 2020. Looking at the above price v/s volatility chart, it can be seen that the price has been rising upwards since Jan 1, although it experienced a slight glitch post the crash. The volatility levels are also low. Investors seem to be believing in the long-term potential of KNC.
Press time price:$0.434452
Market Cap: $78,163,694
24-hour Trading Volume: $28,299,657
As the price of Bitcoin rose, many of the market’s altcoins followed suit. However, what was interesting about the market’s movement was that most alts were actually outperforming the world’s largest cryptocurrency, at press time, like Kyber Network, a token that recorded 151% in YTD returns.
Zcash [ZEC]
The 27th ranked coin on CoinMarketCap was performing better than most coins on 3 April as it reported 3.39% growth in its value over the past 24 hours. The coin was being traded at $32.56, at press time, and had a market cap of $312.99 million. The 24-hour trading volume of the coin was $420.75 million.
The coin, while it has established an identity of its own as a privacy-centric cryptocurrency, has failed to impress many with its price movements as its value keeps falling on the charts.
However, according to the Chaikin Money Flow Indicator, the coin had entered the buying zone on the charts, a sign of what could be rising prices in the near future.
Bitcoin Gold [BTG]
Bitcoin Gold, with a market cap of around $131.12 million, was ranked 38th on CoinMarketCap’s charts. However, as the price of Bitcoin reacted to the buyers, the price of most altcoins shot up, including BTG’s. The coin was reporting 2.25% gains in a day, with a 24-hour trading volume of $21.55 million, at press time.
According to the Bollinger Bands, the volatility in the market had fallen as the bands converged and bullishness was back in the market, with the moving average sliding under the candlesticks.
Just recently, BTG saw its adoption scale a new level after Cryptwerk enabled users to identify merchants, shops, and services that accept BTG.
Kyber Network [KNC]
Kyber Network had been a popular alt among many investors, especially when the coin was reporting 151.18% in YTD returns. The coin had been marching upwards until it, alongside the rest of the market, collapsed on 12 March. However, the fall wasn’t enough to wipe out its gains. KNC was being traded at $0.4492 with a market cap of $79.61 million, at the time of writing. Its 24-hour trading volume was noted to be $32.96 million.
According to the Relative Strength Index, the coin was slumping towards the overbought zone. However, interest from investors is expected to remain strong as Kyber Network moves towards a protocol upgrade in Q2 of 2020
Several juggernauts of the crypto-industry were named in a class action lawsuit for the alleged sale of unregistered securities. Those mentioned include Binance, BitMEX, Tron, Block.one, Kyber Network, and KuCoin, among dozens of others.
Crypto’s Biggest Companies Face Class-Action Lawsuits According to OffShoreAlert, 11 class action lawsuits were filed against 42 defendants in the Southern District of New York Court on April 3 for the sale of unregistered securities. The lawsuits have separately named industry giants such as Binance, BitMEX operator HDR Global Trading, Tron, Civic, Block.one, Kyber Network, Status, Bibox, Quantstamp, and KuCoin.
Apart from companies, the lawsuit also named several of their executives. Changpeng Zhao of Binance, Brendan Blumer and Larimer of Block.one (EOS), Vinny Lingham of Civic, and Arthur Hayes of BitMEX, to name a few.
All of the lawsuits were brought by Roche Freedman LLP, a law firm based in New York and Miami. The law firm is famous in the crypto industry for representing the estate of Dave Kleiman in its lawsuit against Craig Wright.
Judgement Day for ICO Issuers? Since 2017, ICO investors have collectively lost hundreds of millions of dollars after their investments lost 80% or more of their value. Under law, U.S. investors are entitled to a certain degree of transparency through financial disclosures mandated by the Securities Exchange Commission.
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During the mania, the crypto entrepreneurs who raised these millions often overlooked the legal implications. Cryptocurrency was an entirely new asset. Many played it fast and loose, and made off with huge sums of money with little accountability. A large number of these companies failed.
But, the handful that succeeded were wildly successful, and these are likely the ones worth suing. For these companies, their success might be catching up with them.
Legality of ICOs in Question The lawsuits were filed on behalf of several individuals, including Chase Williams, Alexander Clifford, Eric Lee, and William Zhang, but also include “all others similarly situated.” That is, other people who invested in these projects.
The plaintiffs have alleged that all of the 11 companies included in the lawsuit violated federal securities laws. These companies unlawfully created and issued securities, circumventing regulations through the use of tokens. Exchanges were also implicated for their role in selling these assets to investors in the United States.
What’s surprising is that it’s not just companies. The executives and directors of these industry juggernauts were also named. However, it’s expected that most of the companies included in the lawsuit will outright dismiss the assertions.
But, dismissing all the claims might be difficult. This case is not without precedent.
A judge in the Southern District of New York recently ruled that the tokens issued by Telegram were securities and should have been registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The Commission itself has said many times in the past that most ICOs are assumed to be securities, until proven otherwise. The burden of proof rests on the issuers.
Nevertheless, this lawsuit will put U.S. courts to the test. The 42 defendants named in the case reside in 16 different countries, many of which are lightly regulated. To further complicate matters, some of these companies do not even have bank accounts or established offices, making enforcement a herculean task.
Decentralization is a tenet in the world of Bitcoin. As such, the courts in New York may find it difficult to pin these companies down if they are found culpable.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Priyeshu Garg. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
PANews reported on April 16th that, according to SoSoValue data, expectations of a US-Iran ceasefire boosted market confidence, leading to a general rebound in the crypto market. The GameFi sector performed particularly well, rising 5.38% in the last 24 hours. Among them, Enjin Coin (ENJ) surged 50.96%, and ImmutableX (IMX) rose 9.13%. Meanwhile, Bitcoin (BTC) rose 0.07%, fluctuating narrowly around $74,000; Ethereum (ETH) rose 0.73%, remaining above $2,300.
In other sectors, Layer 2 rose 3.39% in the last 24 hours, with Starknet (STRK) up 8.36%; PayFi rose 2.31%, with XRP (XRP) up 2.87%; Meme rose 2.08%, with SPX6900 (SPX) up 6.63%; AI rose 1.75%, with Siren (SIREN) up 18.99%; DeFi rose 1.35%, with EdgeX (EDGE) up 13.05%; Layer 1 rose 0.88%, with Algorand (ALGO) up 3.59%; and CeFi rose 0.66%, with Gate (GT) up 2.60%.
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has announced it will support the planned network upgrade for the Enjin Coin network. According to the exchange’s statement, to protect user experience and ensure a smooth technical transition, token deposits and withdrawals on the ENJ network will be temporarily suspended starting May 18, 2026, at 16:35.
Binance announced that the network upgrade is expected to take place at approximately 17:35 on the same day, at block height 15,543,000. The platform emphasized that all technical requirements related to the upgrade process will be managed directly by Binance and users will not need to take any additional action during this process.
According to information shared by the exchange, trading of the ENJ token will not be affected during the network upgrade. Users will be able to continue trading normally in the spot and derivatives markets. The suspended service will be limited only to deposit and withdrawal transactions made through the network.
Binance also announced that deposit and withdrawal services will be reactivated once the network is confirmed to be stable and secure following the upgrade. It was stated that no further announcement will be made regarding this reactivation.
Experts consider this update to the ENJ network to be another important technical step towards improving the project’s infrastructure efficiency. Users are advised to complete their transfers before the specified times to avoid any transaction disruptions.
*This is not investment advice.
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Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has announced it will support the planned network upgrade for the Enjin Coin network. According to the exchange’s statement, to protect user experience and ensure a smooth technical transition, token deposits and withdrawals on the ENJ network will be temporarily suspended starting May 18, 2026, at 16:35.
Binance announced that the network upgrade is expected to take place at approximately 17:35 on the same day, at block height 15,543,000. The platform emphasized that all technical requirements related to the upgrade process will be managed directly by Binance and users will not need to take any additional action during this process.
According to information shared by the exchange, trading of the ENJ token will not be affected during the network upgrade. Users will be able to continue trading normally in the spot and derivatives markets. The suspended service will be limited only to deposit and withdrawal transactions made through the network.
Binance also announced that deposit and withdrawal services will be reactivated once the network is confirmed to be stable and secure following the upgrade. It was stated that no further announcement will be made regarding this reactivation.
Experts consider this update to the ENJ network to be another important technical step towards improving the project’s infrastructure efficiency. Users are advised to complete their transfers before the specified times to avoid any transaction disruptions.
*This is not investment advice.
Follow our Telegram and Twitter account now for exclusive news, analytics and on-chain data!
PANews reported on March 30 that, according to Cointelegraph, Walmart-owned OnePay added SUI, Polygon, and Arbitrum to its cryptocurrency portfolio last Thursday. In the preceding days, the platform had already listed 10 tokens, including Solana, Cardano, BitcoinCash, and PAXGold, bringing the total number of newly added cryptocurrency tokens to more than ten.
OnePay launched its cryptocurrency service in January of this year, initially offering only Bitcoin and Ethereum trading. Ron Rojany, General Manager of OnePay's Core Applications and Crypto Business, stated that the platform will cautiously expand into crypto assets, prioritizing asset demand, liquidity, regulatory clarity, and long-term usability, focusing on meeting users' actual needs rather than chasing popular assets. OnePay positions itself as a US version of WeChat, a super app that already offers high-yield savings, credit cards, loans, and other banking services. Its digital wallet can be used for payments at Walmart physical stores and on the Walmart website.
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.
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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.
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Multiple high-performing domestic public mutual fund products have tightened their purchase restrictions.
E Fund Management announced in its latest filing that the E Fund Information Industry Select Fund, managed by Zheng Xi, has cut its purchase limit to 10,000 yuan. The same purchase limit reduction to 10,000 yuan applies to another fund under his management, E Fund Information Industry Fund, while E Fund Global Growth Select Hybrid Fund (QDII) has lowered its purchase limit to 10 yuan. In addition, Guolianan Preferred Industry Fund, Harvest Tech Innovation Fund, and Principal Performance-Driven Fund have also announced purchase limits or adjustments to their limits recently. Jin Zicai, a fund manager closely watched by the market, imposed additional purchase limits on multiple public offering funds under his management, with the four funds involved cutting their purchase limits to 500 yuan starting June 23. Purchase limits on high-performing funds likely stem from multiple considerations: they can avoid return dilution caused by short-term concentrated subscriptions, and proactive limits during overheated market conditions also send risk warning signals to the market. As the first half of the year draws to a close, such moves have become increasingly frequent. Overall, Wind data shows that since June alone, 19 funds with year-to-date net asset value returns exceeding 90% have suspended large subscriptions or adjusted their purchase caps. (Source: Cailian Press)
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The US stock market's optical communication sector rises across the board in pre-market trading, with Corning up 9.28%.
According to Bitget market data, the U.S. stock market's optical communication sector saw broad pre-market gains, with MRVL rising 4.99%, LITE up 3.24%, Nokia up 3.11%, Corning up 9.28%, and AXTI up 6.69%.
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US-listed AI chip stocks saw mixed pre-market performance, with Qualcomm surging 13%.
According to Bitget market data, U.S. AI chip stocks posted mixed pre-market performance: Qualcomm (QCOM.O) surged 13%, Intel (INTC.O) rose nearly 6%, AMD (AMD.O) gained nearly 4%, and Google (GOOG.O) declined 1.4%.
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Micron Technology surges 18% in pre-market trading on US stocks
According to Bitget market data, the US stock storage sector is seeing broad pre-market gains. Micron Technology (MU.O) jumps 18% in pre-market trading, as its strong earnings significantly exceeded expectations, with multiple major banks raising the stock’s target price. SanDisk (SNDK) rises 12.25%, Western Digital (WDC) gains 12.05%, and Seagate Technology (STX) climbs 8.63%.
A new form of digital gold inches closer to debut as NatGold Digital announced on June 2 that its NATG token is ready for European market availability across all 30 European Economic Area member states — following the filing of its MiCA White Paper with the Central Bank of Ireland in April and its subsequent publication under Article 9 of the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation on May 7, 2026, per the company’s official press release.
The announcement marks the most significant milestone yet for NatGold Digital, a Miami-based company pursuing what it calls “digital gold mining” — a patent-pending process that tokenizes the intrinsic value of verified, in-ground gold resources rather than physical gold held in a vault.
The distinction is fundamental. Where conventional gold-backed tokens like PAX Gold represent title to stored bullion, NATG represents certified ownership of gold that has not yet been extracted — a structure NatGold positions with its own tagline: “Not Gold. Not Bitcoin. The Natural Evolution of Both.”
BTC's price trends to the downside on the daily chart. Source: BTCUSD on Tradingview Digital Gold On The Blockchain: The MiCA Filing And What It Means The NATG MiCA White Paper was notified to the Central Bank of Ireland on April 3, 2026 — NatGold’s chosen EU regulatory anchor — and published in accordance with Article 9 of Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 on May 7. Per the press release, acceptance of the filing does not constitute approval or endorsement of NATG by any competent authority, nor should it be interpreted as a recommendation or assessment of the token’s merits — standard MiCA disclosure language that applies to all asset-referenced token issuers operating under the regulation’s notification framework.
The specific date of NATG’s European market availability will be announced separately, per the announcement. Under MiCA’s asset-referenced token framework, NATG would be accessible to eligible market participants across all EEA member states under the passporting provisions that allow a single national filing to unlock EU-wide distribution.
Andrés Fernández, CEO of NatGold Digital Ltd., said in the press release that NATG was designed from the beginning as a globally relevant digital asset, and that the international response to the company’s pre-market reservation program reinforced that the NatGold model speaks to audiences well beyond any single country or market.
The Demand Already Documented The pre-market figures provide context for the European ambition. NatGold’s reservation program, which closed to new participants on February 25, 2026, attracted 17,466 individuals across 162 countries reserving a combined 133,518 NATG tokens — representing more than $469 million in gross demand at the prevailing Baseline Intrinsic Value of $3,518 per token at time of closing, per NatGold’s official website.
The institutional infrastructure supporting the launch was completed on May 22, when NatGold announced the engagement of High Ridge Trust as independent custodian — the final component of the NATG tokenization ecosystem ahead of market launch, per an earlier PR Newswire announcement. Karen J. Wendel, President of High Ridge Trust, described the custody structure as designed to support operational integrity and institutional confidence across the ecosystem, per the May 22 release.
This development marks a pivotal moment for the nascent sector’s approach to commodity-backed digital assets in Europe, such as Gold. A MiCA-compliant gold token backed by certified in-ground resources — rather than vaulted bullion — entering 30 markets simultaneously represents a genuinely novel financial product test within the EU’s new regulatory framework, one that could expand how institutional and retail investors access gold exposure in the digital economy.
Cover image from Grok, BTCUSD chart from Tradingview
In the near future, decentralized finance (DeFi) may provide a whole host of financial services and products, which are currently inaccessible to the vast majority in the world’s population. Much as search engines rapidly made the internet indispensable to modern life, smart contracts could be on their way to becoming a cornerstone of modern finance.
DeFi smart contracts currently hold more than $500M in assets. That’s more than double the amount since the start of the year.
Source: DeFi Pulse But how many people will actually use DeFi applications? Very few people understand Bitcoin (BTC), let alone the more complicated digital assets.
Technical and financial complexity excludes the vast majority of people, and that takes us back to square one. As Crypto Briefing reported earlier this month, the preponderance of arbitrage and other sophisticated trading strategies shows that DeFi has mostly been the preserve of professional traders.
Perhaps that’s why a DeFi portal based out in India has managed to attract investment from some of the largest, most reputable names in the space. InstaDApp announced earlier this week that they had raised $2.4M in seed capital from the likes of Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures as well as Loi Luu, from Kyber Network (KNC).
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“DeFi allows anyone to launch a bank,” explained InstaDApp co-founder Sowmay Jain, in a call with Crypto Briefing. It allows innovation, which is currently limited to a handful of tech hubs, to “happen in any corner of the world.”
InstaDApp provides access to a host of interoperable DeFi applications all from the same interface. Based on a smart contract layer, users can make transactions across otherwise separate protocols in a single step. Previously that would have been expensive and time-consuming, involving multiple transactions and hours spent researching differences in data-sets.
The project’s first protocol bridge was between CDP provider Maker and lending platform Compound, allowing users to easily switch debt positions between the two providers. After launching in early July, the value locked into InstaDApp smart contracts has increased ninefold, from $4M to $35M, in a three-month period.
The number of DeFi protocols has exploded in recent months. There are now more than fifty different projects, according to the data site DeFi Pulse. That includes projects offering decentralized financial products, like Maker or Ampleforth, as well as wallet providers and infrastructure projects, like InstaDApp.
The industry is still not established enough to offer services to everyone, says Jain. A lack of fiat onramps restricts DeFi to those who hold cryptocurrencies, although that will change as digital assets begin to integrate with mainstream finance.
As the numbers of users and providers grow, the technical infrastructure underpinning DeFi will become more important. By offering bridges between the different protocols, InstaDApp believes it can make the DeFi space more attractive to users.
Judging by the seed round, that’s what investors think too. While there are still only a handful of dApps, an investment in the plumbing suggests the market is already thinking long-term about the future of DeFi.
It’s hard to judge how successful a sector will become at such an early stage. But when Google and Amazon were obscure startups in the 1990s, they also attracted multi-million dollar investments.
History never repeats itself, but it does rhyme.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Paddy Baker. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
The Ampleforth Protocol today announced it will begin using Chainlink oracles to adjust the daily supply of its currency, AMPL.
Ampleforth is not your typical cryptocurrency. It’s meant to mimic natural commodity-monies like gold, which aren’t vulnerable to inflation, while also keeping the deflation-resistance of fiat monies. The latter have “supply elasticity” because central banks can add to or remove money from the economy. To mix the two, Ampleforth’s protocol adjusts the supply of AMPL every 24 hours depending on market demand.
And now, the Chainlink integration should give it a better sense of actual demand.
Until now, Ampleforth has been relying on two of its own oracles to make supply changes: a CPI Oracle, which reflects the current price of goods on the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ Personal Consumption Expenditure price index, and its market oracle, which is the volume-weighted average price over the last 24 hours. Thanks to Chainlink, it can now incorporate nine new price feeds of AMPL/USD from three aggregators into its market oracle: BraveNewCoin, Kaiko, and CryptoCompare.
If Ampleforth’s protocol sounds a bit complex, it’s because it intentionally strays from Bitcoin’s design while also functioning differently than fiat. With Bitcoin, if 1 BTC is worth $10,000 and demand doubles, the BTC price doubles to $20,000. That’s because no one can just mint as many BTC as they want; total supply is capped.
With Ampleforth, however, if 1 AMPL is worth $1 and demand doubles, the protocol seeks equilibrium—instead of an AMPL jumping in value to $2, you now have 2 AMPL worth $1.00 each. Alternatively, if demand decreases, you’ll have fewer AMPL.
While that might seem like a case of “six of one, half dozen of the other,” Ampleforth argues that seeking out this sort of price-supply equilibrium increases price stability over time and reduces the risk of deflation, all without a central bank stepping in.
In other words, Ampleforth seeks to be the best of both the fiat and the digital currency worlds. The Chainlink integration is designed to speed that process along. Chainlink uses oracles—essentially, information feeds from a third party—to enable smart contracts that can quickly and accurately respond to real-time market data, which is a necessity for a protocol that relies on recalculating supply every 24 hours.
As of today, that supply is somewhere north of 8 million. It’s anyone’s guess what it will be tomorrow.
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MakerDAO, the “decentralized” bank, went through a mass liquidity crisis. But Maker’s problems extend beyond a single shock—centralization left them doomed from the start.
The 2008 DeFinancial Crisis Have you heard this story before:
Bank finances its investments with an asset, provided by customers. Bank uses those assets to back something else, based on people’s confidence in the collateral. Major turmoil grips the market and the underlying asset becomes unstable. Suddenly, people want their money back. Bank offers some other unbacked guarantee instead to fill the gap, allowing them to profit. Everyone loses, except the bank. The end. Does this sound like something from 2008?
Well, in fact, this story happened just last week. MakerDAO went through its own liquidity crisis. Simply swap ETH for mortgages, DAI for mortgage-backed securities, and USDC for credit default swaps.
Don’t believe me? Maker’s own advertising compares the platform to mortgage-backed loans:
Source: MakerDAO Financialization is a virulent mindset, and MakerDAO is sick with it. Take, for example, the growing evidence of the Maker Foundation’s participation in their own debt auctions. Even if they’re “priming the pump,” such behavior reeks of the same sort of share inflation seen on Wall Street.
The 1% Stands to Benefit from Maker It’s important to ask who benefits from Maker’s success to see where the incentives are. In reality, only a few lucky wallets will benefit from an increase in MKR’s value.
This is evident based on the major tokenholders. Between the MKR Development Fund and primary voting contracts, the top 25 wallet addresses own over 99% of all existing tokens. To make matters worse, the anonymous nature of blockchains makes it difficult to hold these parties accountable.
Though, it is possible to piece together who holds the bags: Dragonfly Capital Partners and Paradigm have acquired a total $27.5 million in MKR—5.5% of global supply. Polychain Capital, a16z and 1confirmation are a few of the other funds who funded MakerDAO.
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These funds would like to say they’re helping to build the future of DeFi, but their presence makes the decentralization of the platform questionable. Most crypto enthusiasts don’t have millions to throw around. And, for context, Bitcoin didn’t need venture capital.
Major investors, of course, want their millions protected. So, to stabilize DAI, Maker opened their vaults to USDC. Why is this problematic? USD Coin is a permissioned and censurable asset, which puts the platform at the mercy of governments. May as well back DAI with fiat.
Dai Only works, Until It Matters Maker’s promises are meaningless when USDC can be frozen at the discretion of Circle’s global blacklist.
In the event that DeFi becomes a disruptive force, and financial statutes are enacted to outlaw it, would Maker—and anyone else relying on them—survive collapse? Or, maybe MakerDAO would get sucked into the vortex of traditional finance, making it no better than old institutions it originally sought to replace.
In short, MakerDAO’s “decentralized autonomous organization” is not decentralized, nor autonomous, nor organized. In their desperation to save their platform, its administrators have entirely abandoned the promises that originally drew crypto enthusiasts to their model.
The admins and their supporters would, of course, argue that what they’re doing works. Of course it does. Traditional finance is already proven, and it works—in the short term.
However, in the long run, it’s only a matter of time before abuse takes over the system and brings things crashing down, just like in 2008.
MakerDAO Is Centralized Finance If it isn’t stopped, the same collusion and rampant abuse on Wall Street will pervade DeFi.
By stabilizing their coin with fiat, MakerDAO has signified that they’ve given up. If people in DeFi wanted dollars they would have purchased Treasury Bonds.
Now, MakerDAO’s only innovation has been creating a “bank-on-the-blockchain.” And, as other traditional financial firms consider building their own networks, it stands to reason that Maker’s current path won’t lead to much success.
In the end, people shouldn’t waste their time bailing out MakerDAO when more promising paths to decentralization still exist.
There Is Another Way to DeFi There are several examples of projects doing it right. Kava is a DeFi platform with similar lending facilities to MakerDAO, but it offers loans on a wide range of collateral, including Bitcoin, Binance Coin, and XRP. Notably, the Kava platform is a purpose-built blockchain designed to handle hyper-volatility and intense liquidity events, the same issues that are currently causing problems for MakerDAO.
Other self-stabilizing tokens are being built without the obfuscated centralization of DAI. AMPL, for example, with its internal inflation protocol, allows for an internally regulated economy with less risk of meddling from executives.
This kind of creativity is exactly what DeFi needs. The field will live and die by its tools, and shoddy imitations of current finance won’t do.
Banking, by definition, requires a certain level of administration. Banking is flawed because human discretion is flawed. The boom and bust cycle won’t end until the human component is mitigated.
DeFi allows for this kind of future. More creative, self-governing code can change the face of finance. Players from Facebook to Goldman Sachs understand this. Unfortunately, they’re attempting to pollute the space with “x-on-the-blockchain” projects instead of tapping into the transformative promise of blockchain technology.
In all, MakerDAO’s thinly veiled attempt to make a “bank-on-the-blockchain” is just another vacuum of the imagination. There is another way. Instead of letting this define DeFi, people should make one simple demand: No banks and no gatekeepers.
This time, we don’t have to wait for another collapse and another bail out. It’s possible to use technology to create something entirely new, the world is simply waiting for the right people to make it happen.
This sponsored guest post was brought to you by Ampleforth, Crypto Briefing’s preferred DeFi partner. Recognition due to co-author Andrew Prensky, with contributions from Richy Qiao.
Disclosure: This is sponsored content. It does not represent Crypto Briefing's editorial views. For more information, see our Editorial Policy.
Today, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) released a document addressing the regulatory, supervisory, and oversight challenges raised by global stablecoins. The document, although only consultative in nature, reveals disturbing plans for a globally coordinated move against stablecoins of all varieties.
The FSB makes ten high-level recommendations addressed to central banks and G20 authorities at the jurisdictional level. More specifically, they recommend a unified global approach to the supervision and regulation of the fiat-pegged cryptocurrencies.
Furthermore, the FSB suggests to authorities that, if they can’t control and regulate fully decentralized stablecoins, they should consider banning them.
FSB Raises Regulatory Alarms Against Global Stablecoins The FSB’s primary focus is on the potential risks that stablecoins could pose to global financial stability, especially those targeted at retail investors. These fiat-pegged cryptocurrencies represent a risk to the financial stability of emerging markets and developing economies, read the document.
Moreover, the FSB argues that global stablecoins could pose significant governance challenges to central banks. The Board seems especially concerned with the macro-financial problems that could arise if, over time, citizens in both advanced and emerging market economies begin favoring stablecoins over existing fiat currencies.
The guidance is aimed at both advanced and emerging economies. Authorities in advanced economies are primarily concerned with stablecoins designed in a decentralized nature, seeing risks in their reliability as a store of value.
Jurisdictions in emerging market economies, meanwhile, express greater concern about foreign-currency-linked stablecoins substituting national currencies, retail deposits, or safe assets. They’re afraid that this could exacerbate bank runs and disintermediate the traditional financial institutions.
According to the FSB, another potential issue is that under distressed macroeconomic conditions—much like the current coronavirus pandemic—global stablecoins could essentially become a sort of a hybrid retail repo market for U.S. Dollars.
If left unchecked, global stablecoins could have a destabilizing effect on capital flows and local fiat exchange rates—especially so in emerging market economies, argued the international regulator.
Source: Financial Stability Board Who Is the Financial Stability Board? It is important to note here that, even though the FSB lacks formal legal power, its recommendations are still influential. One of its primary mandates is to monitor the systemic implications of financial technology innovations and the systemic risks arising from disruptions to central bank operations.
The Board is hosted and funded by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). Its members are representatives of ministries of finance and central banks from all G20 member states, plus ten international organizations, including the IMF, BIS, ECB, the World Bank, and the European Commission.
In practice, the regulator holds a tremendous amount of clout.
The objective of the FSB’s recommendations is to help authorities determine how to mitigate the potential financial risks caused by “global stablecoins,” or GSCs.
More alarming, it includes “other crypto assets that could pose risks similar to some of those posed by GSCs because of comparable international reach, scale, and use,” perhaps alluding to Bitcoin.
This isn’t the first reference to drastic action from the FSB. The regulator was asked to come up with specific recommendations on stablecoins back in February.
Recommendations on Stablecoins to Governments and Central Banks The Board makes ten recommendations concerning the regulation of stablecoins, in the aforementioned document. Among them are a couple that may cause alarm in the cryptocurrency community.
“Authorities should have the ability to mitigate risks associated with or prohibit the use of certain or specific stablecoins in their jurisdictions where these do not meet the applicable regulatory, supervisory, and oversight requirements.”
The FSB recommends that relevant authorities should utilize necessary powers to regulate, control and even prohibit any and all activities related to operating, issuing, managing, providing custody, and the trade or exchange related to global stablecoins.
This could be dire for the likes of Tether and other international stablecoin operators. To make things clear, the FSB defines a global stablecoin as having “ potential reach and adoption across multiple jurisdictions and the potential to achieve substantial volume.”
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“Authorities should apply regulatory requirements to GSC arrangements on a functional basis and proportionate to their risks.”
Christine Lagarde of the European Central Bank (ECB) refers to this principle as “the golden rule of supervision,” otherwise known as the “same business, same risk, same rules” approach.
This means that cryptocurrency issuers can no longer operate in a gray zone. Stablecoins will now have to play on a leveled playing field, adhere to the same rules as banks, e-money issuers, and large payment processors.
If central banks determine that particular GSC arrangements fit the definition of a “systemically important payment system,” then they’ll also fall under the Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures or PFMI.
“Authorities should ensure that there is comprehensive regulation, supervision and oversight of the GSC arrangement across borders and sectors. Authorities should cooperate and coordinate with each other, both domestically and internationally…”
The FSB is stressing the need for global unison in their approach to regulating and supervising stablecoins. The reason why this discussion is taking place at the highest levels of global economic governance is to mitigate possible risks of “regulatory arbitrage.”
In other words, this is the international banking cartel’s way of saying: If someone wants to operate a stablecoin arrangement out of Panama—sure, go ahead. But, they can only sell these stablecoins to Panamanian citizens.
“Authorities should ensure that GSC arrangements have in place a comprehensive governance framework with a clear allocation of accountability for the functions and activities within the GSC arrangement.”
Decentralized and Centralized Stablecoins Both Affected The FSB goes on to explain that the degree of decentralization in GSC arrangements shouldn’t really matter in terms of the demand for regulation, supervision, and oversight.
At the same time, they imply that only permission-based stablecoins should be permitted to operate:
“Fully permissionless ledgers or similar mechanisms could pose particular challenges to accountability and governance and may not be suitable if regulators cannot be assured that appropriate regulatory, supervisory, and oversight requirements are satisfied.”
If the G20 adopts FSB’s views on this, it could also mean the end of Ethereum-based permissionless stablecoins. The entire DeFi sector shouldn’t be expected to fare much better, either.
“Authorities should ensure that GSC arrangements have in place robust systems for safeguarding, collecting, storing and managing data.”
This is simply the FSB saying that GSC businesses should give the G20 authorities “timely and unobstructed access to relevant data and information” on all stablecoin transactions and users. This it the same way traditional banks operate.
The critical question here is whether stablecoins running on permissionless blockchains are even able to do that.
Do wallet addresses and blockchain transactions count as relevant data and information?
Along the same lines, the FSB proposes that authorities should have the “ability to require a GSC arrangement to be governed in a manner that facilitates effective regulation and supervision, including by prohibiting fully decentralized systems.”
“Authorities should not permit the operation of a GSC arrangement in their jurisdiction unless the GSC arrangement meets all of their jurisdiction’s regulatory, supervisory, and oversight requirements, including affirmative approval (e.g. licenses or registrations) where such a mechanism is in place.”
In the broader context of the document, “operation of a GSC arrangement” can mean anything from registering a GSC legal entity to the sale of stablecoins to retail investors.
In that regard, if Tether, for example, wants to continue issuing USDT to citizens of G20 member states (or most of the world), they would need to obtain licenses and register with the relevant authorities in each and every G20 country. Given Tether’s current approach towards compliance, this may not prove practical.
The CTO of Tether, Paolo Ardoino, told Crypto Briefing:
“We welcome the Financial Stability Board’s recognition of the role of stablecoins in the global economy, and its consideration of financial technology innovation in the digital asset space.”
For stablecoin businesses like Tether, Circle, Paxos, Binance, and others this could prove dire because the costs of compliance with the above provisions are enormous. This could, more or less, leave banks as the only source of fiat-backed digital currency.
Potential Market Impact on Cryptocurrency In terms of tangible legislation, the FSB’s recommendations, and its consequent impact on Bitcoin, will likely play out over the course of a few years.
In the meantime, it can be expected that central banks will increase cross-border cooperation to achieve greater supervision over stablecoin issuers and dealers.
Through this, the G20 aims to eliminate all feasibility of regulatory arbitrage and diminish what’s left of the regulatory wiggle room still remaining for stablecoin businesses.
As said by Richy Qiao, Chief Business Officer of decentralized stablecoin Ampleforth:
“This is something we’ve expected for a while. Large stablecoins that are centralized or tied to the financial system only work, until they matter. The FSB’s recommendations are inevitable and could result in the future of the entire crypto ecosystem coming under the control of those who control these types of regulated fiat-backed assets.”
Long-term Implications for Bitcoin and DeFi Stablecoins play a leading role in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. The five largest stablecoins account for two-thirds of all trading volume, despite representing less than 4% of the market capitalization for public ledger tokens.
Rather than moving from crypto to fiat in a bank account, which is regulated and cumbersome by the industry’s standards, it’s instead possible to move into a fiat token that runs on a public blockchain. With USD stablecoins dominating the industry, this creates an extra level of efficiency for those in emerging and frontier markets.
With over 75,000 daily active addresses on USDT alone, the genesis stablecoin only lags behind Bitcoin and Ethereum in terms of adoption. In sum, the most important effect that stablecoins have had on the cryptocurrency markets is improved liquidity.
USDT on-chain volume by Santiment If the G20 heeds the recommendation put forth by the FSB, the stablecoin ecosystem, as people know it, will face immeasurable peril.
The first-order effect of this would be a dramatic reduction in liquidity for cryptoassets. The friction between a globally inefficient banking system and cryptocurrency exchanges will introduce hurdles in the timely deployment of capital.
Exchanges, market makers, and institutional lenders will bear the brunt of the crackdown. Binance’s top five trading pairs use USDT and represent 57% of the exchange’s volume, at the time of writing.
Given the expected erosion of liquidity, market makers may face diminishing workloads and more risk.
Trading pairs, for instance, would have to take place between two speculative tokens, rather than just one speculative token and one stablecoin pair.
Institutional lenders could see demand for funds dry up. Genesis Capital, an institutional lender, revealed that demand for stablecoins shot up from 9.6% in Q1 2019 to a whopping 37.2% in Q4 2019.
Loans disbursed by asset by Genesis Capital Of all the niches in crypto, DeFi—which has undue reliance on stablecoins—will be hit the hardest.
MakerDAO may have its entire business model come under heavy regulation, Compound could be eviscerated, and many of the other value-add services that leverage stablecoins could lose hard-earned traction generated over the last year.
Nine out of the top ten DeFi protocols, by value-locked, rely heavily on stablecoins in their operations. Moreover, exchanges that take advantage of regulatory arbitrage, like Binance, would be nowhere near their current size without stablecoins.
The other global stablecoins that are likely to fall under intense scrutiny if these recommendations are accepted include Facebook’s Libra, Bitfinex-associated Tether, and Circle’s USD Coin.
However, given the circumstances, this may prove favorable for exchanges, like Coinbase, who have gone great lengths to operate under the grace of U.S. regulators. It may also have the effect of pushing altcoin trading further into the sights of regulators, with more strenuous “anti-money laundering” and “know your customer” requirements, added Qiao.
The impact on the cryptocurrency ecosystem should not be understated. The entire crypto industry would be impacted if stablecoins were outlawed, Bitcoin included.
Pushing private stablecoins out of the game would make the implementation and adoption of central bank digital currencies much easier. As a result, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to think the G20 will favor this proposal.
In some ways, the industry is getting what it asked for—regulatory clarity. Central banks are finally shining a light on the regulatory gray zones that exist in the cryptocurrency markets. Though, this light may be a bit brighter than many would have asked for.
Reporting aided by analysis from Ashwath Balakrishnan. Interviews and supplemental quotes by Liam Kelly and Mitchell Moos.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Stefan Stankovic. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
The trajectories of the crypto giants seem more uncertain than ever. Bitcoin and Ethereum continue to attract attention, between hopes and doubts. The former is still perceived as a store of value, but its technical resistances slow down enthusiasm. The latter, a driver of innovations and uses, attracts institutions more. Yet, neither clearly dominates. The question remains open: which of these pillars will truly emerge victorious from this new wave of attention and capital?
In brief Bitcoin draws attention due to its scarcity, monetary role, and a record illiquid supply of 14.3 M BTC. Ethereum attracts institutions thanks to staking, DeFi, and its innovative uses. Dogecoin prepares the first US DOGE ETF, supported by an active community. Tether and MicroStrategy strengthen their institutional weight, one via gold, the other via the S&P 500. Bitcoin dominates the buzz, Ethereum gains institutions’ trust In the buzz of crypto conversations, bitcoin maintains a central place even as the market has fallen into a fear zone. Santiment notes it sparks intense debates about its investment potential, market behavior, adoption stages, and even its comparison to gold. The focus is on its scarcity, utility, and role as a digital monetary network. Discussions range from long-term holding strategies to timing advice, highlighting growing involvement from governments and institutions.
Fundamental signals confirm ongoing interest in bitcoin. Illiquid supply has reached a record 14.3 million BTC, and more than 70% of coins are stored in dormant wallets, evidencing strong long-term investor confidence.
Ethereum is not left behind. Discussions highlight its role in flash tokens and its utility in staking, gaming, and DeFi. Institutions and large wallets accumulate quietly, reinforcing the idea that ETH is becoming the preferred asset for more diversified institutional exposure.
While bitcoin still attracts traders by its aura and volatility, ether weaves another narrative: that of a structural tool of the ecosystem.
Dogecoin, Tether and MicroStrategy blur the crypto market cards The battle is not only between BTC and ETH. Dogecoin bursts onto the scene with a historic project: launching the first US DOGE ETF. According to Santiment, Dogecoin grabs attention for several reasons. The announcement of the upcoming launch of the first DOGE ETF in the US sparked keen interest.
Simultaneously, the company Thumzup, supported by Trump, is expanding mining operations with 3,500 additional rigs. The Dogecoin price holds around 0.21 dollars, supported by an active community and growing institutional interest.
Key figures to remember 14.3 million BTC now illiquid; Over 70% of bitcoins stored without notable activity; Dogecoin targets its first ETF in the United States; Tether holds over 8.7 billion dollars worth of gold. Meanwhile, MicroStrategy remains at the heart of debates with its potential inclusion in the S&P 500 index. This would make the company an unprecedented institutional exposure lever to BTC. Finally, Tether surprises by diversifying its empire. With more than 8.7 billion dollars invested in gold and expansion into refining and trading, the stablecoin giant asserts itself as a strategic player far beyond its initial role.
Meanwhile, MultiversX faces concerns about dilution of its supply and migration of projects to SUI, despite hopes placed in xPortal and xMoney.
Forecasts diverge as much as they multiply. Some predict a seven-figure bitcoin, others a five-figure Ethereum. But others speak instead of an imminent collapse, fueling the idea that unanimity does not exist among financial analysts. The crypto market feeds as much on dreams of grandeur as on fears of a crash.
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Mikaia A.
La révolution blockchain et crypto est en marche ! Et le jour où les impacts se feront ressentir sur l’économie la plus vulnérable de ce Monde, contre toute espérance, je dirai que j’y étais pour quelque chose
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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.
Binance has announced that it will support upgrades to the MANTRA (OM) and MultiversX (EGLD) networks to improve user experience.
Binance to Support MANTRA (OM) and MultiversX (EGLD) Network Upgrades According to the exchange's announcement, the MANTRA (OM) network upgrade will occur at block height 9,664,888. During this period, Binance will temporarily suspend token deposits and withdrawals on the OM network starting at 10:51 AM on October 27, 2025.
Meanwhile, the MultiversX (EGLD) network upgrade will begin around 8:00 PM on October 30, 2025. Token deposits and withdrawals on this network will also be suspended one hour before the upgrade, starting at 7:00 PM on October 30, 2025.
Binance emphasized that token trading for these networks will not be affected by the upgrade. It also stated that the entire process will be handled automatically by the exchange, without requiring any technical intervention from users.
The platform stated that deposits and withdrawals will be reopened once the upgrade is complete and the networks are confirmed to be operating stably, but no additional announcements will be made on this matter.
Binance aims to ensure that users have an uninterrupted and secure trading experience with regular network maintenance and upgrade support.
*This is not investment advice.
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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.
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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.
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E Fund Management announced in its latest filing that the E Fund Information Industry Select Fund, managed by Zheng Xi, has cut its purchase limit to 10,000 yuan. The same purchase limit reduction to 10,000 yuan applies to another fund under his management, E Fund Information Industry Fund, while E Fund Global Growth Select Hybrid Fund (QDII) has lowered its purchase limit to 10 yuan. In addition, Guolianan Preferred Industry Fund, Harvest Tech Innovation Fund, and Principal Performance-Driven Fund have also announced purchase limits or adjustments to their limits recently. Jin Zicai, a fund manager closely watched by the market, imposed additional purchase limits on multiple public offering funds under his management, with the four funds involved cutting their purchase limits to 500 yuan starting June 23. Purchase limits on high-performing funds likely stem from multiple considerations: they can avoid return dilution caused by short-term concentrated subscriptions, and proactive limits during overheated market conditions also send risk warning signals to the market. As the first half of the year draws to a close, such moves have become increasingly frequent. Overall, Wind data shows that since June alone, 19 funds with year-to-date net asset value returns exceeding 90% have suspended large subscriptions or adjusted their purchase caps. (Source: Cailian Press)
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US-listed AI chip stocks saw mixed pre-market performance, with Qualcomm surging 13%.
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Micron Technology surges 18% in pre-market trading on US stocks
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The prospect of Kevin Warsh as the next chair of the Federal Reserve may have sapped the appetite of those trading on a sugar high. But what remains unbroken is the investing world’s curiosity about alternative assets. Investors will continue to ditch Bitcoin for gold as they hedge against inflation risks.
It’s clear from recent price actions that both Bitcoin and gold are products of global liquidity conditions. After news broke that Warsh, the most hawkish among a short list of candidates, is poised to head the Fed, gold had its worst day in more than four decades on Friday, and continued ...
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PANews reported on June 2nd that, according to Decrypt, following the CFTC's approval of Bitcoin perpetual contracts last Friday, prediction market maker Kalshi quickly submitted self-certification applications for perpetual contracts on 12 major altcoins, including Ethereum, XRP, Solana, Dogecoin, Stellar, Chainlink, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Sui, Shiba Inu, Polkadot, and Hedera. The CFTC stated that while approving the Bitcoin perpetual contract, perpetual contracts for other assets will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis; therefore, Kalshi's applications have not yet been approved.
On June 14, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings show the regulator has formally approved a rule change proposed by NYSE Arca that enables the listing and trading of the T. Rowe Price Active Crypto ETF. An actively managed cryptocurrency ETF, the fund will invest in a basket of digital assets meeting SEC-defined "eligible asset" criteria. While it uses a cryptocurrency index as its benchmark, it will not track that index passively. The filing notes the fund is projected to hold roughly 5 to 15 distinct cryptocurrencies, including major tokens like Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), XRP, Cardano (ADA), Avalanche (AVAX), Litecoin (LTC), Polkadot (DOT), Dogecoin (DOGE), and Chainlink (LINK). The SEC filing also reveals the fund may hold stablecoins—primarily USDC—as "tokenized cash" during normal operations to cover expenses and rebalance assets, though these will not count toward its core investment portfolio. The approval notice stresses the product must adhere to NYSE Arca’s rules around anti-manipulation, disclosure, liquidity, and risk management. It also requires the fund to have information barriers (often called "firewalls") and position transparency mechanisms in place to uphold market fairness and prevent insider trading. Analysts say this ETF’s approval further expands cryptocurrency’s footprint within the traditional financial sector, marking the arrival of actively managed multi-crypto ETFs as tradable products under mainstream regulatory oversight.
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In 2021, Forbes magazine published a ranking of the 100 richest people in Ukraine and the 59th place was taken by the crypto entrepreneur from Kharkov, Mykola Udianskyi. His fortune according to the magazine is estimated at $ 180 million. He was one of the first crypto investors in the CIS and today he is the founder of the digital holding Ehold, Bitcoin Ultimatum fork and many other projects.
As a reminder, Mykola acquired LocalTrade in September 2020 after the sale of the Coinsbit exchange in November 2019. Initially, it was planned to transfer LocalTrade under the jurisdiction of Montenegro and repurpose it for futures and OTC transactions, but later the entrepreneur announced the sale of the trading platform. Mykola Udianskyi decided to devote his time to other projects: he focused on the creation of regulated exchanges in the UK and Austria. The entrepreneur’s team is working on the launch of four new exchanges in England and the UAE, Ukraine and Montenegro are next in line this year. In addition, he recently launched the only available regulated exchange in India.
Currently, Mykola’s company is also working on the creation of a Digital Bank, the main feature of which is the simultaneous support of cryptocurrencies and their integration with the traditional banking system. The project is aiming for the implementation of innovative functionality that will make everyday calculations in cryptocurrency as simple as it is now through fiat.
Digital banking is one of the most important development areas in the cryptocurrency industry. Succeeding in this area will combine digital coins with conventional banking, which in turn will erase the line between fiat and cryptocurrencies.
New LocalTrade team and contractors The new leadership of Local Trade has pledged to turn blockchain and digital finance into understandable notions and revolutionize this field. The head of the company is CEO Aaron Levi Yahal. The new top manager has vast experience in marketing and has supported many financial and cryptocurrency projects. His many years of practice have proven to us that the projects Aaron had a hand on all ended up achieving excellent results. Perhaps the most famous one is PureFi, where he holds the position of RegTech Strategist. This is a unique protocol (unparallelled in the market) that allows AML technologies to be implemented in DeFi.
Alexandra Buimister is the chief operating officer of the exchange. Alexandra has a very rich portfolio: she has international experience in the fintech and financial sectors, in addition, she is the founder of alternative banking services. Alexandra has experience in leadership positions in many global brands: BCA Research (Euromoney PLC), Forbes Latvia & Finland, Supreme Group, etc.
Aaron’s team has ambitious plans for the future of the LocalTrade exchange. In order to implement them, he turned to the time-tested SPACE IT Blockchain contractors. The latter is a leading IT company from the UAE.
The CEO of LocalTrade is confident in the high-quality execution of the technical component of his own ideas since he has already used the services of SPACE IT Blockchain several times and knows from his own experience what high standards are set within the company.
How to get the most out of DeFi? According to the company’s management, they are planning on not only upgrading the platform, but they also want to create a fundamentally new product, which has no equal in the world. The community’s reaction to this news is overwhelmingly positive, traders can’t wait to test the updated product.
First and foremost, the team will focus on the security and usability of the updated platform. They intend on developing the FinTech industry, as well as integrate DeFi capabilities that will solve the existing problems through blockchain technology.
The implementation of DeFi completely removes intermediaries from the equation and puts smart contracts in their stead, which, in turn, create trusted protocols. In fact, decentralized finance almost completely eliminates the risk of losing funds due to fraudulent activities, since the user conducts all financial transactions through his personal wallet, the private keys of which are only with him.
The boom in decentralized finance came in the summer of 2020. The excitement in this area caused a huge increase in the prices of certain assets: the DeFi token YFI became an absolute record holder, which increased by 1280 times. Therefore, this branch of the digital economy is one of the most promising and important at the moment.
Although the DeFi topic is over a year old, it is still quite difficult to understand, especially for new crypto investors. On the Internet, there are a huge number of investment proposals in plenty of DeFi projects. However, the problem is that the overwhelming majority of market participants cannot conduct an objective analysis of each of them.
In order for non-professional investors to safely invest in this sector, LocalTrade is creating another product – Marketplace. Only verified DeFi projects will be included here, and users will be able to invest in them without restrictions.
DEX’s Launch Towards the end of summer – early fall 2021, the LocalTrade management plans to launch a decentralized exchange (DEX). The fundamental difference between this service and its centralized counterparts is security and a guarantee of complete anonymity.
The fact is that DEX does not collect nor store any user data on its servers (IP addresses, time zone, screen resolution data, and other digital prints). On decentralized exchanges, there is no need to go through the registration process, let alone verification (KYC / AML). And, most importantly, DEX does not store user funds in their wallets, so clients are the rightful owners of their assets.
Disadvantages of DEX Despite the many positive aspects, decentralized exchanges also have a number of disadvantages. Perhaps the primary weakness of DEX is the small selection of trading pairs and the lack of necessary liquidity in the least popular tokens.
Market makers and liquidity pools are responsible for trading cryptocurrencies on decentralized exchanges. In order to add a new trading pair to the exchange, you need to create a smart pool contract and lock in it a certain amount of an asset that provides liquidity.
Unoptimized smart contracts lead to various inconveniences:
long transaction processing time, high commissions, increased likelihood of canceling the transaction without a refund by gwey (applies to DEX on Ethereum). Solving the problem of sub-optimal smart contracts from LocalTrade The LocalTrade team intends to eliminate this deficiency, for this they decided to use the orderbook model. With its help, it will be possible to add new trading pairs without the need to register a separate smart contract for it each time.
For the creation of the DEX protocol, the LocalTrade team focused on optimizing smart contracts, namely, increasing the speed of work and at the same time reducing commission fees. In the near future, performance will be significantly improved by reformatting the system architecture based on Layer-2.
Loss on the course at high volumes Another problem that worries traders is the significant change in the rate during the processing of large volumes. LocalTrade has a solution to this problem as well: Traders will now set the maximum allowable price range themselves.
All of the above sounded like a fairy tale just a year ago, but now it is already a prospect for the near future. If you look at Aaron’s past and follow the further development of his projects, then we can safely say that the grandiose changes to LocalTrade that he talks about are only a matter of time. We just need to be patient and wait for the best blockchain developers to embody the ideas of Aaron Levi Yahal.
Image: Mykola Udianskyi and Binance founder Changpeng Zhao
The founder of layer-1 blockchain Sonic (S) is speaking up about his decision to step away from crypto in 2022, two years after launching the decentralized finance (Defi) platform Yearn Finance (YFI).
In a post on Medium, Andre Cronje says he stopped his public engagement with DeFi because of regulatory pressure.
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He says it all started in 2021 when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sent him a letter asking for more information on YFI, including whether he raised funds and who the investors were.
Cronje says he complied and provided as much information as he could provide, but the SEC continued to send him letters that later became hostile in tone. The regulator investigated him on different issues, including violations, which Cronje says confused him because he is not a US citizen or resident and he neither sold anything to anyone in the US.
“The letters kept coming, every time pivoting to a new angle of attack. It started ‘investigating’ me from the angle of a raise and SEC violation… When it became apparent that [the raise] was not an angle of attack, it shifted to focusing on the yearn vaults themselves as ‘investment vehicles’.”
Cronje says the time and effort it took him to answer the questions from the regulator diverted his attention.
“At this point, I was practically forced to completely stop development or R&D, and focus solely on this legal and regulatory battle.”
He says the sleepless nights and stress of the ordeal prompted him to quit.
“All in all this took 2 years of my life and finally culminated in a point where I was essentially given a choice. I can keep trying to build things for free, receive no benefit, spend hours of my energy and time to release this code into the wild, while needing to constantly face these attacks and have to spend months of my life and real money to defend it. Or I need to step away.”
Cronje says he is now sharing his experience as the SEC takes a new direction.
“I finally figured I can actually write about this, as previously I was strongly advised by those same investigators to not mention the investigation or it could escalate things.”
XRP Trapped Near $1.00: Record U.S. spot ETF inflows of $116.74 million fail to spark a rally, leaving XRP vulnerable to a drop toward $1.05 unless Washington's upcoming Senate vote on the CLARITY Act triggers a reversal.Bitcoin Eyes $91,150: Despite losing $1.26 billion in weekly ETF outflows, BTC successfully tested its middle Bollinger Band support at $75,029, setting up a potential squeeze toward the $91,150 zone as market dominance rises.Hyperliquid Flips Dogecoin: HYPE surged 46.68% to hit a $16.03 billion market cap, pushing DOGE to 10th place due to a massive $1.16 billion trading-fee buyback engine and aggressive institutional ETF inflows.Millions in ETFs are not saving XRP: Why the $1.05 level is working like a magnetWhile major funds are aggressively buying XRP ETFs in the United States, the token's price chart keeps pulling the price toward the psychological $1 mark. Behind the scenes, however, a powerful political trigger is building up, one that could finally break this bearish trend.
The anomaly of the current moment is most visible in how U.S. spot XRP ETFs recorded their largest capital inflow of 2026 as per SoSoValue, an impressive $116.74 million. Logically, this should have led to a rally, but instead the token's price has fallen by 0.16% since the start of May.
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Institutional millions simply dissolved in the broader skepticism of the crypto market, proving that ETFs alone are currently unable to push prices higher.
XRP price action in May 2026 with net US ETF inflows, Source: SoSoValueThis impotence of buyers is exactly what redirects attention to the weekly chart by TradingView, where a classic technical drama is unfolding. Every weekly close below the middle Bollinger Band cuts off the chances of a bullish comeback, turning the lower band at $1.0596 into an irresistible price magnet. In conditions where the market is moving by inertia, this pull makes a drop toward the round number the most likely scenario for the coming weeks.
The only thing capable of keeping XRP from falling toward $1 is Washington. The market is waiting for a full U.S. Senate vote on the CLARITY Act, which is expected in June, with potential approval by July 2026.
Earlier, XRP had already proven its sensitivity to regulatory news, becoming the top gainer after the successful Banking Committee vote of 15-9. But since that rally turned out to be short-lived, the token remains defenseless against broader market trends until June.
If Bitcoin declines, XRP will not hold its current positions and will head for a meeting with the $1.05 level.
Why Bitcoin is aiming for $91,150 despite altcoin panicAt the same time, amid a local flight from U.S. Bitcoin ETFs and tectonic changes in the Middle East, Bitcoin has entered maximum autonomy mode. While most altcoins are updating local lows, the main cryptocurrency is playing its own game on the weekly chart.
The successful test of the middle Bollinger Band around $75,029 did not simply save the market from panic. It kept alive the ambitious squeeze scenario toward the upper boundary of the indicator, in the $91,150 zone.
This technical strength looks especially paradoxical when looking behind the scenes of exchange order books. Right now, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs are recording their sixth consecutive day of net outflows, losing an impressive $1.26 billion over the week under pressure from sales in BlackRock's IBIT fund.
However, the market found the strength to absorb this massive supply overhang.
Bitcoin weekly price chart within Bollinger Bands, Source: TradingViewThe fact that BTC remained above the critical moving average turns ETF pessimism into a powerful contrarian signal. While retail investors panic-sell into cash, smart money is using the Bollinger Bands as a reinforced concrete slab for position accumulation.
At the same time, a harsh process of natural selection is starting in the crypto market. While Bitcoin withstands the storm, XRP and a group of leading altcoins are capitulating, breaking their 200-day supports in pairs against BTC. This divergence points to an inevitable liquidity flow and a rapid rise in Bitcoin dominance.
The catalyst for this separation is the changing macroeconomic background. Investors are beginning to realize that the nearly agreed peace deal in the Middle East is not just a local de-escalation, but a factor that changes the rules of the game. The oil market, which insiders had been shorting long before the official headlines, is already pricing in de-escalation.
But for this positive factor to turn into a sustainable rally in stock markets, the world needs official statements and, more importantly, a full unblocking of the Strait of Hormuz, which is restraining global inflation.
Buybacks and ETFs lift Hyperliquid above DogecoinHyperliquid's token, HYPE, has climbed to 9th place in the global cryptocurrency ranking by CoinMarketCap, pushing Dogecoin (DOGE) down to 10th. The historic reshuffling happened after HYPE broke above $63, hitting a $16.03 billion market cap against $15.95 billion for the memecoin leader.
This flip represents a clash of market philosophies: the speculative power of community versus strict mathematical tokenomics. While DOGE relies on retail loyalty and is consolidating near $0.103, HYPE deployed institutional capital and DeFi automation to soar 46.68% over the past seven days.
The main driver is Hyperliquid's unique DeFi flywheel. Unlike DOGE, which depends on external news triggers, HYPE is backed by continuous algorithmic buying pressure. Through its Assistance Fund, the protocol automatically directs 97% of all trading fees to buy back HYPE from the open market, a sum that has already crossed a colossal $1.16 billion.
Hyperlquid (HYPE) vs Dogecoin (DOGE) market cap dynamic since start of May 2026, Source: TradingViewThis internal demand coincided with aggressive supply absorption by trading firms (DATs). The PURR fund alone helped lock up roughly 10% of HYPE's market supply using TWAP algorithms. These players carry massive weight: PURR is armed with a $1 billion credit line, and its shares even replaced Solana and XRP ETFs on Goldman Sachs' balance sheet in Q1 2026.
This traditional finance expansion was cemented by newly launched spot ETFs from 21Shares and Bitwise, which pulled in $57 million in net inflows in a single week.
Nevertheless, it is too early to write off Dogecoin. It holds a trump card of inertial strength and whale support. While HYPE stormed all-time highs, large wallets holding 10M–100M DOGE accumulated over 525 million coins in a week, building a heavy price shield around $0.1.
Crypto market outlook: Bitcoin ignores panic ahead of Memorial DayBitcoin is holding above $77,000 after a V-shaped rebound from the $75,000 level. While retail investors panic over $1.26 billion in weekly ETF outflows, a process of natural selection has started in the market: capital is massively fleeing falling altcoins into BTC, accelerating its market dominance.
Key checkpoints:
Bitcoin price and on-chain: The local growth trigger is progress in diplomatic negotiations in the Middle East. While spot ETFs are applying selling pressure, strong hands are using the consolidation for aggressive position accumulation.American Reserve Modernization Act (ARMA): A major bipartisan bill on a strategic Bitcoin reserve under the U.S. Treasury has been submitted to the House of Representatives. Agencies will be required to transfer all seized coins into centralized custody for at least 20 years. BTC sales will be allowed only to repay government debt.Institutional inflows: The capital rotation is confirmed by first-quarter reports. Bank of America, the second-largest bank in the United States, increased its stake in the IBIT fund to $37 million while liquidating positions in ETH and Solana.Macro shock on May 28: The main focus of the week is the release of April Core PCE. Against the backdrop of cheaper oil, markets are waiting for softer Fed rhetoric. A short-term pause in liquidity will come from Memorial Day in the United States on May 25, when U.S. exchanges and ETF trading will be fully closed. You Might Also Like
Bitcoin’s recent drop below key support may have been more than just a bearish breakdown. As price quickly recovers important levels and market structure remains intact on higher timeframes, the move could have been a classic fakeout designed to shake out weak hands before the next major rally begins.
Bitcoin Fakeout Below Key Support May Have Trapped Weak Hands According to Cryptic Trades, Bitcoin’s recent price action involved a brief deviation below a critical high-timeframe support range, a move that aligns closely with the bottoming structure established in April 2025. This technical breach appears to be a calculated market maneuver, functioning primarily as a fakeout intended to flush out overleveraged positions, not long-term investors.
These recurring liquidity sweeps serve a specific purpose: they are designed to trigger long-side stop-losses before a more structural reversal can take hold. As market conditions evolve over the coming days, the analyst is monitoring one final key Point of Interest (POI) before systematically scaling out of active hedges.
Source: Chart from Cryptic Trades on X Despite the successful recovery and subsequent reclaim of the high-timeframe support zone, the asset has yet to overcome the 1D Bull Market Support Band situated near the $78,500 level. Historically, this band has functioned as a robust reversal zone over the past several months, making it the primary technical hurdle that bulls must clear to demonstrate genuine strength.
Should the price reclaim the $78,500 threshold, the outlook would shift to a full bullish bias on the lower timeframes, confirming the recent dip as a mere tactical fakeout rather than a deeper correction. For now, the analyst maintains a cautiously bullish stance, awaiting a more durable continuation to the upside.
Bitcoin Buy Signal Remains Active Despite Market Volatility Lourenço VS reflected on the performance of a trading strategy, noting that a custom indicator has remained steady since triggering a buy signal. The expert designed this tool specifically to avoid getting trapped by the choppiness of false signals. As the system patiently navigates through these minor fluctuations, Lourenço is maintaining a position with confidence.
Another weekly candle has successfully closed above the mid-Bollinger line. Market skeptics continue to draw parallels between current conditions and the spring and summer of 2022, but the comparison is fundamentally flawed because it never occurred during that period.
Even with recent price pullbacks and inevitable volatility, the market continues to post consistent 3-day candle closes above the crucial bull market support band. This ongoing resilience at such a key technical level serves as a strong indicator that the fundamental trend remains firmly tilted to the upside. While the skeptics refuse to acknowledge the incoming momentum, the market seems to be coiling up for its next significant move.
BTC trading at $77,448 on the 1D chart | Source: BTCUSDT on Tradingview.com Featured image from Getty Images, chart from Tradingview.com
Bitcoin’s recent price action suggests the market is approaching an important decision zone where multiple technical and on-chain support levels converge. This raises the possibility of a short-term bullish reaction before the market determines its next larger directional move.
The behavior around the $74K-$75K support and deeper demand regions will likely shape Bitcoin’s medium-term outlook.
Bitcoin Price Analysis: The Daily Chart On the daily timeframe, BTC continues to trade below the descending 200-day MA near $80K, struggling to build bullish momentum. Following rejection from the $82K resistance area, sellers pushed the market back toward the first major support zone at $74K-$75K.
This region is especially important because it aligns with prior demand and recent local lows, and it sits above the 100-day MA near $73K. Historically, overlapping support levels often generate temporary stabilization or corrective rebounds.
The immediate scenario favors a pullback toward the $74K-$75K demand zone. If buyers defend this region successfully, Bitcoin may attempt another corrective move toward $78K-$80K. However, losing the $74K support could expose the next key level around $70K-$71K, followed by the stronger structural support near $65K-$66K.
At this stage, price remains in correction mode rather than a confirmed trend reversal.
Source: TradingView BTC/USDT 4-Hour Chart The lower timeframe highlights increasing indecision near support. Bitcoin recently reacted positively from the $74K-$75K order block and briefly recovered toward $77K, suggesting buyers remain active around this area.
Still, bullish momentum has remained weak, with rebounds repeatedly failing to reclaim higher resistance levels. This indicates that current upward movements may represent temporary relief rallies rather than renewed trend continuation.
The short-term support sits at $74K-$75K. Holding above this zone could encourage another recovery attempt toward the $78K-$80K region. Conversely, a confirmed breakdown below $74K may accelerate selling toward the next major demand area around $70K-$71K.
Therefore, the reaction at current support levels remains critical to determining whether Bitcoin enters a stabilization phase or another bearish leg.
Source: TradingView On-Chain Analysis The UTXO Realized Price Bands provide additional context by tracking the average acquisition cost of different investor cohorts. These levels often serve as psychological support or resistance because they indicate where holders become profitable or begin to experience losses.
Currently, the realized price for the 1M–3M cohort sits near $70K, while the 18M–2Y cohort remains around $63K. Meanwhile, longer-term holders between 12M–18M and 3M–6M maintain realized prices closer to the $90K region.
The significance lies in the confluence between technical supports and realized price bands. Bitcoin’s first major support zone around $ 70K–$71 K aligns closely with the realized price of younger holders (1M–3M), strengthening the likelihood of demand emerging in this area.
A deeper decline toward $63K-$65K would also coincide with the realized price of longer-term cohorts around $63K, alongside an important historical support zone visible on the daily chart.
This suggests that if Bitcoin continues correcting, support levels at $74K-$75K, $70K-$71K, and eventually $63K-$65K may attract increasing buying activity. The market’s reaction around these zones will likely determine whether the current pullback evolves into accumulation or transitions into a broader bearish continuation.
For now, the data point to short-term support potential rather than an immediate trend recovery.
Bitmine has made its largest Ethereum (ETH) buy of the year during the recent market dip, reaffirming the firm’s bullish outlook on the leading altcoin and continued accumulation strategy.
Bitmine Ramps Up Ethereum Purchases On Tuesday, Bitmine Immersion Technologies, the world’s largest Ethereum treasury, announced its largest purchase since December 2025, having acquired roughly $238 million in ETH over the past week.
In its latest update, the company shared it purchased 111,942 ETH during the recent market pullback, which sent the King of Altcoins below $2,200. Bitmine’s Chairman, Tom Lee, affirmed that last week’s correction represented “an attractive opportunity” to increase the company’s holdings.
“We continue to expect a supercycle ahead for crypto and Ethereum, driven by the dual drivers of Wall Street tokenization and agentic-AI. And thus, we continue to steadily acquire ETH, with Bitmine now owning nearly 5.4 million ETH tokens,” stated Lee.
Now, the company’s crypto and cash holdings have reached $12.3 billion at current prices, comprised of 5,390,404 ETH at $2,134 per token, 203 Bitcoin (BTC), a $200 million stake in Beast Industries, an $95 million stake in Eightco Holdings as part of its “Moonshots” initiative, and total cash worth $444 million.
The latest buy has pushed BitMine’s Ethereum holdings closer to its goal of controlling 5% of ETH’s 120.7 million supply, reaching 4.47% of the supply, 89% of its goal, in just 11 months. As a result, “Bitmine is expected to reach the ‘alchemy of 5%’ sometime in 2026,” the chairman affirmed.
In addition, the company revealed that 4,712,917 ETH of its holdings, worth about $10.1 billion, have been staked. Lee also shared that, “At scale (when Bitmine’s ETH is fully staked by MAVAN and its staking partners), the projected ETH staking reward is $276 million annually (using 2.75% 7-day BMNR yield).”
Analysts Eye $1,850 Support Recently, Lee suggested that Ethereum could rally toward new highs by the end of the year, based on his belief that the “crypto winter is over” and a recovery rally could take place over the coming months.
However, some market observers have warned that a long-term bullish rally is not likely this year. In an X post, analyst Ali Martinez highlighted that ETH has been trading within a broad, multi-year range since 2021.
ETH’s multi-year range. Source: Ali Charts on X After falling back to the channel’s lower half earlier this year, the altcoin recently faced a “clean rejection at the mid-range of this structure,” which coincided with a rejection from the 200-week Simple Moving Average (SMA), signaling weakness.
As the price fails to reclaim this area, the analyst noted that the most critical level to hold remains $1,850, explaining that a weekly close below this support would likely trigger downside acceleration. He suggested that this could open a great opportunity for investors, based on the MVRV Pricing Band:
Right now, the highly watched 0.8 MVRV Pricing Band is sitting right around $1,850. Historically, whenever Ethereum drops below the 0.8 MVRV band, the move is not sustained for very long. (…) History shows that this exact zone represents a high-probability macro accumulation window that builds the ultimate foundation for the next major bull market.
Lastly, he affirmed that to invalidate the bearish scenario, ETH would need two clear triggers: a reclaim of the 200-week SMA, located around $2,500, and a clean break above the 50-week SMA around $3,100.
Ethereum’s performance in the one-week chart. Source: ETHUSDT on TradingView Featured Image from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com
According to historical data, the price of Bitcoin has never posted three consecutive months of positive performance in a bear-market year. This trend is about to continue in 2026, with May looking likely to end in the red for BTC after optimistic performances in March and April, and at the start of this month. Recent on-chain data suggests that short-term investors may also be capitulating amid Bitcoin’s disappointing price action over the past few weeks.
Are BTC’s Short-Term Investors Losing Conviction? In a Quicktake post on the CryptoQuant platform, market analyst RugaResearch revealed that a specific cohort of Bitcoin investors moved a significant amount of BTC in the past day. This set of investors is known as the short-term holders, who are famous (or infamous) for being the most reactive in the market.
Specifically, RugaResearch reported that 107,760 BTC within the 1-month to 3-month Spent Output Age Band moved in a single day, the largest value on-chain movement (within this age band) in more than seven months. For context, the Spent Output Age Bands is an on-chain indicator that segments spent transaction outputs into age brackets, showing the proportion of total coins moved and how long they were inactive.
Source: CryptoQuant The 1- to 3-month Spent Output Age Band tracks Bitcoin purchased between late February and late April (from the beginning of BTC’s recovery to around $80,000 last month). RugaResearch said that when this age band witnesses an aggressive move, like the one recently seen, it means that the most recent investors are reacting rather than accumulating.
The crypto pundit spotlighted that the movement of these 107,760 BTC while the Bitcoin price is sub-$74,000 means that a significant portion of the 1-month to 3-month Spent Output Age Band is out of the money — or near breakeven, at best. While it remains to be seen why this move occurred, this shake-up does not suggest conviction among the most reactive set of investors.
RugaResearch wrote:
Exchange inflows tell you if these coins are heading to sell. If they land on exchanges, this flush has legs. If they’re moving to cold storage or OTC desks, it’s redistribution under pressure.
Hence, centralized exchanges’ data is one of the signals to watch in the coming days to decipher the purpose of this move.
Bitcoin Price Momentum Stays Negative For Eight Days At the same time, RugaResearch revealed a worrying trend with the Bitcoin Price Momentum indicator, which has stayed negative since May 22nd. After rising to a nearly one-year high of +20.5% on May 5th, the on-chain metric dropped by 12.9 percentage points about ten days later.
Source: CryptoQuant After flipping to negative a little over a week ago, the Bitcoin Price Momentum currently sits at 4.07%. “When 1m-3m spent output spikes 6.7x overnight while momentum bleeds for 8 straight days, the positioning game shifts,” the market analyst concluded.
As of this writing, the price of BTC stands at around $73,410, reflecting a mere 0.4% dip in the past 24 hours.
The price of BTC on the daily timeframe | Source: BTCUSDT chart on TradingView Featured image from iStock, chart from TradingView
Benjamin Cowen, a cryptocurrency analyst closely followed by the public, highlighted the “Bear Market Resistance Band” and the 200-week moving average (MA) as critical factors in determining the market’s direction in his latest analysis of Bitcoin (BTC) price movements.
Cowen stated that Bitcoin is currently in a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation.
Benjamin Cowen pointed out that historical cycles show Bitcoin has repeatedly tested this resistance band during bear markets and has generally been rejected from there. He noted that in the current outlook, this resistance band is located between $70,000 and $74,000 for an upward breakout, and that Bitcoin remaining below this region keeps the downside risks alive.
Cowen cited the sharp drop in Bitcoin in June, where it opened the week at $73,000 and closed at $63,000, saying, “We saw a $10,000 drop in a single week. This resistance band is putting downward pressure on the trend, while the 200-week moving average is trying to form upward support. Bitcoin is currently struggling to find direction between these two levels.”
Unlike investors who believe the market has “passed its lowest point,” Cowen argues that adherence to 4-year market cycles is necessary, noting that the fact that the price hasn’t yet fallen below the realization level is remarkable. Referring to capitulation periods in past cycles (late 2014, 2018, and 2022), the renowned analyst stated that the possibility of testing lower levels later in the year remains.
Cowen stated that historical data shows Bitcoin typically forms a local bottom at the beginning of summer (June) and then initiates a rebound rally later in the summer (July-August), and made the following predictions:
In both 2018 and 2022, the market, which had been weak in June, experienced upward correction movements towards the middle and end of July. If Bitcoin manages to hold onto its 200-week moving average as support, we could see a short-term rebound in July similar to the one in 2022.
In his analysis, Cowen also touched upon the altcoin market, recalling that during the 2018 cycle, while Bitcoin moved sideways, altcoins were severely crushed in July. Noting the rapid decline in crypto interest on social media, the analyst warned that despite the existence of hundreds of thousands of altcoins in the market, the decrease in individual interest could continue to put pressure on them.
*This is not investment advice.
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Numbers are skyrocketing, protocols are exploding, and one wonders: have we already reached the golden age of crypto? Between valuation records, historic loan volumes, and constant innovations, the crypto market seems to be popping champagne week after week. But behind the euphoria, what do the numbers really tell us? And above all, is this rebound healthy and sustainable? We dissected the latest data, and you will see, the devil is in the details.
In Brief CeFi loans reach $17.78B and exceed $35B including DATCO and ETFs. DeFi explodes to $26.47B, but the number of users drops by 27%. Looping strategies artificially inflate borrowing volumes on Ethereum and its Layer-2s. Total crypto loans now exceed $61.76B, a record above the 2021 peak. Is CeFi Coming Back Stronger Than In 2021? Analysis The dollar wobbles, debt soars… and cryptos break records: centralized finance (CeFi), thought to be down since 2023, rebounds spectacularly. Data from Galaxy Research shows $17.78 billion in CeFi loans by the end of June 2025, a 14.66% increase in one quarter. And this figure doesn’t even consider some heavyweights like DATCO or crypto ETF-backed loans.
CeFi Lending market share by quarter – Source: Galaxy Research Including these additional volumes, $12.74 billion of DATCO debt and between $3 to $6 billion of marginal loans on crypto ETFs, the $34.8 billion 2021 record is surpassed.
Galaxy reminds us that:
As of June 30, Galaxy Research recorded $17.78 billion in outstanding CeFi loans. This represents a quarterly growth of 14.66%, or $2.27 billion.
Why this strong comeback? First, more attractive rates thanks to competition. Second, post-2022 caution: players like Ledn have streamlined their offers and secured their collaterals. Finally, company treasuries’ demand is exploding, seeking structured returns.
In short, CeFi is back. Not by ideology, but by efficiency.
DeFi: An Explosion… but Fueled by Incentives? DeFi also hits new heights: $26.47 billion loans by the end of June 2025, a 42.11% quarterly growth. A record number, far surpassing the 2021 peak. But does this really mean adoption?
The dollar value of outstanding loans on DeFi applications has strongly rebounded since Q1, increasing by $7.84 billion (+42.11%) to reach $26.47 billion – a new all-time record.
On the surface, all seems perfect. But one number raises questions: the number of active Ethereum addresses is 27% lower than in May 2021. In other words: more volume, but fewer users. What is happening?
Net borrowing rate of ETH using stETH as collateral – Source: Galaxy Research The answer is one word: looping. On Aave, “liquid leverage” strategies allow borrowing ETH with stETH, restaking it… then repeating. A form of circular leverage.
Galaxy explains: “Users implement “looping strategies” enabling them to arbitrage the yield of their collateral assets against borrowing costs.”
DeFi grows fast but not always healthily. Watch out for incentive bubbles.
DATCO and ETFs: The Trojan Horse of Crypto Debt? Little known to the public, Digital Asset Treasury Companies (DATCO) are changing the game. Using classic debt to buy bitcoin or ether, these companies create massive leverage… often invisible.
Galaxy warns:
Due to the absence of new debt emissions by bitcoin DATCOs, the treasury companies’ debt balance has not changed… [but] June 2028 remains the date to watch with $3.65 billion maturing.
Among the pioneers: MicroStrategy (now Strategy), but also newcomers on Ethereum. And through crypto ETFs like IBIT, investors can also borrow on margin against their shares.
What to remember:
$12.74 billion of DATCO debt: not included in total volumes; Estimated $3 to $6 billion in ETF margins, an invisible leverage; $3.65 billion of DATCO debts maturing in June 2028; Loan-to-market-cap ratio still low, ~1.5% vs 3% for US stocks; CeFi + DeFi + DATCO + ETF = over $61.76 billion in crypto loans It’s clear: raw numbers often underestimate reality.
While markets break record after record, innovation continues at the frontier of the real world. Credefi and Brickken open a new path with permissionless debt for real-world assets. Proof that while numbers blaze, the real crypto revolution is just beginning.
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Mikaia A.
La révolution blockchain et crypto est en marche ! Et le jour où les impacts se feront ressentir sur l’économie la plus vulnérable de ce Monde, contre toute espérance, je dirai que j’y étais pour quelque chose
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.
