Prediction markets are becoming one of the fastest-growing segments in crypto. As traders search for alternatives to traditional token speculation, platforms that allow users to forecast real-world outcomes are attracting new users, liquidity, and institutional interest.
The sector is benefiting from several powerful trends. Artificial intelligence is improving forecasting models, decentralized finance is expanding participation, and users are increasingly looking for ecosystems that generate activity beyond simple token trading.
For investors searching for the top prediction market crypto coins to buy in June 2026, four projects stand out: Rain (RAIN), Gnosis (GNO), Limitless (LMTS), and MemeToro ($MT).
Each approaches prediction markets differently, creating a diverse set of opportunities within the growing sector.
Rain (RAIN) Continues Leading the Prediction Market Sector Rain has emerged as one of the strongest-performing prediction market crypto projects this year.
While much of the altcoin market struggled with volatility, Rain gained nearly 9% over the past week and continued attracting users to its forecasting infrastructure. The project’s total value locked has expanded beyond $142 million, highlighting growing confidence in the platform.
One factor driving adoption is the increasing role of AI-powered forecasting systems.
Automated agents are using Rain’s infrastructure to create and participate in prediction markets, helping increase transaction activity and liquidity. At the same time, the protocol has permanently removed more than 143 million RAIN tokens from circulation, strengthening its tokenomics.
Current projection models continue targeting the $0.02 area over the coming months, making Rain one of the most closely watched prediction market crypto projects today.
Gnosis (GNO) Remains a Veteran Prediction Market Name Few projects have stronger roots in prediction markets than Gnosis.
The platform helped pioneer decentralized forecasting long before prediction markets became a major crypto narrative. Today, Gnosis remains an important infrastructure layer within the sector.
Recent market conditions have not been easy.
Like many altcoins, GNO has faced pressure from broader liquidations across crypto markets. However, the project continues defending a critical long-term support zone while remaining above its 200-day moving average.
This has encouraged many investors to view the current environment as an accumulation phase rather than a breakdown.
For those seeking exposure to a more established prediction market ecosystem, Gnosis remains one of the most recognizable names in the category.
Limitless (LMTS) Offers Early-Stage Prediction Market Exposure Limitless takes a different approach.
Unlike Rain and Gnosis, the project remains much earlier in its development cycle. As a micro-cap asset, Limitless has experienced tighter liquidity conditions during recent market uncertainty.
That reality creates both risks and opportunities.
The project is currently navigating a period of price discovery while investors wait for upcoming protocol milestones that could influence adoption and transaction activity. Because of its smaller size, Limitless has greater sensitivity to market sentiment than larger competitors.
Many traders continue monitoring the platform closely because successful execution could significantly increase visibility within the prediction market sector.
However, it remains a higher-risk opportunity compared with more established alternatives.
How MemeToro Brings Prediction Markets Into SocialFi MemeToro approaches prediction markets from an entirely different angle.
Instead of operating solely as a forecasting platform, the project integrates prediction markets into a larger AI-powered SocialFi ecosystem. This creates multiple participation layers that extend beyond forecasting alone.
Users can enter decentralized prediction markets using both $MT and BNB while forecasting outcomes across crypto, sports, entertainment, and global events. These markets sit alongside several other ecosystem products designed to encourage ongoing engagement.
This broader ecosystem model differentiates MemeToro from traditional prediction market protocols.
Breaking Down the MemeToro Utility Stack Prediction markets represent only one component of the MemeToro platform.
The ecosystem also includes an AI-powered memecoin creation engine that allows users to launch assets through an automated no-code system. Artificial intelligence continuously monitors social trends, cultural developments, and market narratives to identify emerging opportunities.
The platform further supports participation through staking rewards of up to 35% APR and integrated market intelligence tools.
Stage 2 of the MemeToro presale has already surpassed 92% completion, raising more than $72,955 toward its current target. Once the stage concludes, the token price will increase from $0.00139 to $0.00154.
To support structural stability, marketing and partner tokens undergo a 24-month vesting schedule. Presale purchases are completely exempt from vesting and are entirely distributable on the launch date. Verified holders can participate in the network’s staking mechanism, which currently offers up to 35% APR in programmatic rewards.
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X: https://x.com/memetoro_mt
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While many altcoins continue struggling with weak sentiment and declining liquidity, prediction-focused platforms are benefiting from growing demand for forecasting tools, decentralized information markets, and AI-assisted decision-making systems.
Investors increasingly view prediction protocols as more than simple betting platforms. These ecosystems create recurring engagement, attract active users, and often generate sustained on-chain activity regardless of broader market conditions.
Among the projects attracting the most attention before July 2026 are Rain (RAIN), MemeToro ($MT), and Gnosis (GNO). Each offers a different approach to prediction markets, making them some of the most closely watched prediction tokens in the current market environment.
Rain Continues Delivering Strong On-Chain Growth Rain has emerged as one of the standout performers in the prediction market sector.
Unlike many cryptocurrencies that remain heavily tied to broader market sentiment, Rain has shown signs of decoupling from wider crypto weakness. The token recently climbed 8.7% to approximately $0.0161 while maintaining steady user growth across its ecosystem.
The platform’s fundamentals help explain that performance.
Rain’s total value locked has expanded to more than $142 million, reflecting rising participation and growing confidence in its infrastructure. At the same time, more than 143 million RAIN tokens have been permanently removed from circulation through token burns.
Another important factor is artificial intelligence.
The protocol is increasingly being used by AI-powered forecasting systems that require reliable prediction infrastructure. This trend has helped drive transaction activity and contributed to Rain’s growing market relevance.
Many analysts continue targeting the $0.02 region over the coming months if current growth metrics remain intact.
Gnosis Focuses on Stability During Market Volatility Gnosis represents a very different type of prediction market investment.
Unlike newer platforms chasing rapid expansion, Gnosis has spent years establishing itself as one of the foundational names in decentralized forecasting. The project remains closely associated with prediction markets despite evolving into a broader infrastructure ecosystem.
Recent market conditions have tested many long-term projects.
The broader altcoin selloff and the fallout from the MemeCore collapse created pressure across multiple sectors. However, Gnosis has largely focused on maintaining stability rather than pursuing aggressive growth initiatives.
Technical indicators show the asset continuing to defend important long-term support levels and multi-month moving average zones.
For investors prioritizing maturity and resilience over rapid expansion, Gnosis remains one of the most established prediction-focused assets in crypto.
MemeToro Combines Prediction Markets With AI and SocialFi MemeToro enters the prediction market category from a different direction.
Rather than functioning as a dedicated prediction protocol, the platform integrates prediction markets into a much larger AI-powered SocialFi ecosystem. This creates multiple forms of engagement while maintaining prediction markets as a core utility layer.
The project operates on BNB Chain and centers around behavioral finance, community participation, and artificial intelligence. Users can participate in prediction markets using both $MT and BNB while forecasting outcomes across cryptocurrency, sports, entertainment, and major global events.
This broader ecosystem model allows the platform to attract users interested in more than forecasting alone.
As a result, prediction markets become part of a wider participation framework.
Inside the MemeToro Ecosystem Prediction markets are only one component of the MemeToro platform.
The ecosystem also includes an AI-powered memecoin creation engine that enables users to launch tokens through a no-code deployment process. Artificial intelligence continuously analyzes social conversations, cultural trends, and market narratives to identify emerging opportunities.
Participants can also access staking opportunities offering rewards of up to 35% APR. Combined with integrated trend-monitoring tools and SocialFi mechanics, these features create multiple reasons for users to remain active inside the ecosystem.
The native $MT token powers every major function across the platform. This integrated structure has helped differentiate MemeToro from standalone prediction market projects.
MemeToro Project Update: Stage 2 Presale Nears Completion The MemeToro Stage 2 presale has reached 92.82% of its target, having raised $72,955.51 of the allocation’s $78,590.46 goal. Upon completion of this round, the $MT token price will transition from the current rate of $0.00139 to the Stage 3 rate of $0.00154.
Operating on the BNB Chain, the MemeToro platform integrates four core functionalities under a single ecosystem:
An AI agent that creates memecoins based on live trending data. Prediction markets for wagering on real-world events. An online casino that utilizes $MT tokens natively. A staking system offering up to 35% APR. The $MT token has a fixed total supply of 1.2 billion, with 71% assigned to the presale with no vesting restrictions. The platform currently accepts payments via credit/debit card, ETH, BNB, USDT, and USDC at memetoro.com.
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Nicolas Pépé earned the Michelob Ultra Superior Player of the Match award after powering Ivory Coast to a 2-0 victory over Curaçao at the 2026 FIFA World Cup on June 25. The Villarreal forward’s performance secured his nation’s spot in the knockout stages.
What happened on the pitch Pépé, the Ivorian forward who plays his club football at Villarreal in La Liga, scored at least one goal in the 2-0 win against Curaçao, earning him the match’s top individual honor, an award branded by Michelob Ultra as the tournament’s official beer sponsor.
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He was instrumental in Ivory Coast’s 2023 Africa Cup of Nations triumph. Germany’s Deniz Undav is among the other players who have received the same Michelob Ultra award during this tournament.
The sponsorship landscape crypto lost Michelob Ultra’s presence as a World Cup title sponsor is traditional brand marketing at its most straightforward. There are no NFT tie-ins, no fan tokens bundled with the award, no blockchain-based voting mechanism for selecting the best player.
The absence of crypto from marquee World Cup sponsorship slots punctures a narrative that was popular during the last cycle: the idea that crypto brands would inevitably displace traditional advertisers at the world’s biggest events. FTX had its name on an NBA arena. Crypto.com bought naming rights to the Staples Center. Coinbase ran a Super Bowl ad during the 2021-2022 bull market period.
No crypto tokens or digital assets are associated with Nicolas Pépé or Michelob Ultra in this context. No tokens were minted. No smart contracts were executed. It was a footballer playing well and a beer brand getting its money’s worth.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Most people have never touched a smart contract. The interfaces are confusing, the stakes are high if you get something wrong, and the mental overhead of managing crypto wallets while trying to actually do something productive is, generously speaking, a lot. Karl Floersch thinks AI agents are the answer to that problem.
Floersch, co-founder of Optimism and one of the more influential architects of Ethereum’s Layer-2 ecosystem, laid out a vision in a recent Cointelegraph video where autonomous AI systems handle the heavy lifting of Web3 interaction. Trading, smart contract deployment, economic coordination across Ethereum’s network, all of it managed by agents operating on behalf of users who would rather not learn Solidity to participate in the decentralized economy.
What Floersch is actually arguing Floersch’s argument goes further than just user experience. He positions AI agents as potentially the first class of participants to fully utilize the cryptoeconomic mechanisms that smart contract platforms were designed for. Coordination tools, reputation systems, incentive structures built into protocols, these were always theoretically powerful. The problem was that humans are slow, error-prone, and disinclined to manage the constant micro-decisions those systems require. Agents are not.
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Floersch has previously discussed reputation systems designed specifically for AI agents operating within blockchain environments, suggesting this is less of a passing observation and more of an ongoing research focus.
Optimism’s positioning in the agentic future Optimism runs on the OP Stack, a modular framework that powers a growing number of enterprise and developer-focused blockchain deployments. The launch of OP Enterprise in 2026 extended that infrastructure toward institutional use cases.
If AI agents become meaningful participants in on-chain activity, Layer-2 networks like Optimism stand to benefit in a fairly direct way. More agent-driven transactions mean more throughput demand. More autonomous economic coordination means more use of the smart contract infrastructure those networks provide. Floersch’s thesis, intentionally or not, maps fairly cleanly onto a world where Optimism’s core product becomes more valuable.
What this means for the market and investors There is also a governance angle. Optimism uses tokenized governance models, and if AI agents become meaningful stakeholders in on-chain economic activity, the question of how those agents participate in governance, or whether they should, becomes a live issue rather than a theoretical one.
The risk, as with most convergence narratives, is that the timeline is longer and the path more complicated than the optimistic version suggests. Autonomous agents operating with real economic stakes introduce new failure modes, new vectors for exploitation, and new regulatory questions that have not been answered anywhere in the world yet. An agent that makes a mistake in a smart contract does not get to call customer support.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
OpenAI will reportedly stagger the GPT-5.6 release after the US government raised security concerns, limiting who can reach the model first.
Federal officials would gain a say over which customers receive early preview access, according to a new report.
What the GPT-5.6 Release Report SaysThe Information reported that the Trump administration asked OpenAI to phase the launch rather than open it widely at once. The outlet said federal reviewers would approve preview access one customer at a time during the early window.
Staggered launches already sit in OpenAI’s playbook. The company withheld the full GPT-2 model for roughly nine months in 2019 over misuse fears. Its GPT-5.5 model launch on April 23 reached paid tiers before free users.
More directly, OpenAI shipped a cyber-focused version of GPT-5.5 only to vetted defenders under a trusted-access program. The GPT-5.6 plan would extend that template to Washington itself.
A Federal Review Framework Takes ShapeThe reported request maps onto Executive Order 14409, which President Donald Trump signed on June 2. It asks developers to give the government up to 30 days of access to their most capable models before release.
Federal officials would also help choose which trusted partners get early access.
A classified benchmark led by the National Security Agency would decide which systems count as covered frontier models. The threshold turns on a model’s advanced cyber capabilities.
A separate Treasury-run clearinghouse would hunt and patch software flaws, extending the administration’s cyber defense doctrine.
The framework is voluntary and bars any licensing regime, part of a wider federal AI policy push. Officials cast it as a way to test frontier models for cyber risks. Some former advisers have criticized that case as overblown.
OpenAI has not officially confirmed GPT-5.6 or a firm launch date, and earlier timing has slipped toward July. How tightly Washington shapes early access could set a template for the next frontier releases from OpenAI and Anthropic.
PANews reported on June 26 that L2BEAT researcher @sergeyshemyakov posted on X platform, a suspicious DAO proposal appeared in Tornado Cash on June 25. The target contract of the proposal is unverified, which is highly unusual for Tornado Cash DAO proposals, indicating that the proposal should be considered malicious. The proposal creator's address received funds through Railgun 4 days ago. If the proposal passes and is executed, the governance contract will perform a delegatecall to the target contract. Sergey Shemyakov stated that the Tornado Cash fund pool itself is safe, but the proposal may directly attack the Tornado Cash DAO, which currently holds approximately $23 million worth of TORN tokens.
Oil prices erase all war-related premiums in 11 days, Brent crude falls below pre-war levels, but critical inventory shortages could spark a rebound.
International oil prices have quickly fallen back to pre-US-Iran conflict levels, erasing all gains made during the conflict in just 11 days – a move that has surprised markets widely. Brent Crude dipped as low as $72.06 on Thursday, breaking below the pre-conflict last trading day’s settlement price of $72.48, and has plunged more than 39% from its March peak of $118.35. WTI Crude closed at $71.92, down roughly 36% from its high. This round of decline has far outpaced expectations. The industry had widely estimated that mine clearance in the strait would take time and Gulf production capacity would need months to recover, but actual progress has been much faster. JPMorgan analysts noted that the market rebalanced through a "distinctly different combination of demand loss and inventory drawdown", which is very different from initial assumptions. However, the rapid easing may not be stable. S&P Global data showed that 78 oil tankers transited the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, hitting a post-conflict high, but this is still only 57% of pre-conflict levels, with many of these vessels being those trapped earlier and departing in a concentrated manner. TD Securities’ head of commodity strategy warned that the market may have overestimated the pace of supply and inventory recovery, and inventory pressure has become a key variable. U.S. Cushing inventories fell to 19 million barrels last week, about 1 million barrels below the level needed to keep the system stable. TD Securities forecasts that an additional 600 million barrels of global inventory may be drawn down by October; once inventories fall below a critical threshold, oil prices could rebound quickly. For the outlook, Mizuho Securities analysts believe the market is already in an "oversold" state, and expect oil prices to rebound to the $80 range in the coming weeks. Full production recovery in countries like Iraq and Kuwait is not expected until this autumn, when the supply-demand pattern may change again.
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Ansem: Pessimism Hits Extreme Levels, Entering Bitcoin Now Is a Favorable Trading Opportunity
Crypto KOL Ansem has published a post reaffirming Bitcoin’s long-term investment thesis, stating that despite his previous bearish stance, the current price level presents a strong buying opportunity. He noted that Bitcoin’s core narrative as the “hardest currency” remains intact: it cannot be seized by governments, enables instant cross-border transfers, and is insulated from the long-term depreciation of the U.S. dollar, making it an ideal vehicle for long-term wealth storage. Between 2024 and 2025, gold outperforming Bitcoin temporarily dented the “digital gold” narrative, but he believes market confidence will rebound once price momentum picks up. On the macro front, Ansem argues that with the Strait of Hormuz reopening and inflation pressures set to ease, the Federal Reserve’s hawkish stance may have peaked, at which point the Fed and Washington policymakers will have room to cut rates rather than continue hiking. A strong U.S. dollar and rising interest rates have weighed on gold, but if capital from profit-taking in AI stocks flows into real estate, cash, and long-term value storage assets, both gold and Bitcoin will benefit. Institutional investors like Paul Tudor Jones still hold interest in Bitcoin. Earlier, Ansem admitted he was bearish on Bitcoin due to risks in the holdings of Saylor, founder of Strategy, and had previously thought $60,000 would be hard to defend, but he noted he is now reacting to buy-side entry signals. He pointed out that current price action is already pricing in the worst-case scenario of Saylor being forced to sell, and even if he does need to offload, it would not happen for at least six months. He concluded that Bitcoin is currently at the intersection of its long-term historical support levels and what he describes as the most pessimistic market sentiment he has ever seen, making entry in early Q3 a notable trading opportunity.
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Polymarket suffered a vulnerability attack from a third-party vendor, leading to the theft of approximately $3 million, and the platform has pledged full compensation.
Prediction market platform Polymarket disclosed on Thursday that a third-party vendor of its was hacked, with attackers injecting malicious code into the platform’s frontend to steal roughly $3 million in Polymarket’s proprietary stablecoin pUSD from fewer than 15 user accounts. The funds were later converted to ETH and aggregated into a single Ethereum wallet, and as of press time, the assets have not been moved. Polymarket noted that the frontend vulnerability has been identified and patched, with affected users to receive full compensation, though the platform declined to name the specific compromised vendor. This marks Polymarket’s second security incident in two months. Last month, hackers exploited a private key leak to breach an internal wallet used for user deposits and reward distributions, leading to approximately $700,000 in losses. Both incidents were peripheral breaches that did not impact the core protocol, but the consecutive security lapses underscore the potential risks stemming from the platform’s reliance on third-party vendors. Polymarket had recently faced controversy over a Wall Street Journal investigation that alleged it illegally marketed to U.S. users through simulated trades and fake profit videos; the latest security incident has added further pressure on the platform.
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Hashrate metals supply and demand face major shift, countdown to U.S. copper tariff decision.
Last July, the U.S. government unveiled a copper tariff plan. Previously, it imposed a 50% tariff on semi-finished copper products, while refined copper was temporarily exempted, but the plan aims to phase in additional tariffs on refined copper starting in 2027. Whether the plan will take effect will be decided by the end of June. The U.S. Department of Commerce is required to submit its investigation report on Section 232 tariffs before June 30, and will make a final decision based on the findings. As the deadline for the U.S. Section 232 tariff report approaches on June 30, the global market for metals linked to AI computing power will face a new round of volatility. International investment banks including Goldman Sachs analyze that if the U.S. implements the new copper tariff policy, U.S. buyers may launch large-scale stockpiling. Currently, U.S. COMEX copper inventories have exceeded 650,000 tons, hitting a record high. Meanwhile, in the international market, supply tensions for small metals closely tied to the AI computing power industry chain—such as tungsten, tin, tantalum, and indium—are likely to further intensify. (Jinshi)
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ARK Invest added to its holdings in Coinbase, Circle, Bullish, and Robinhood stocks amid market dips.
With crypto-related stocks declining broadly on Thursday, Cathie Wood’s investment firm ARK Invest once again added to its positions at discounted levels, boosting its holdings in stocks of Coinbase, Circle, Bullish, and Robinhood.
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Ansem: Solana has hit its bottom, bullish on SOL/ETH pair trading.
Crypto KOL Ansem has published a bullish view on the SOL/ETH trading pair. Earlier today, Ansem stated: "Solana has hit its bottom — I was the first to call it! Right now, everyone is extremely bearish on SOL, just like when it fell to $8 in 2023. I believe buying SOL at current prices with a holding period of over six months is a solid trade."
TLDR: MemeCore $M token dropped 75% in one day, falling from $2.92 to $0.51 with no hack or exploit. Arkham data showed zero transfers above $50,000 on its native chain for over two weeks prior. Over 90% of $M supply was held by insiders, letting a small float set the price for billions. Spot listings on Kraken and Bitget plus futures on Binance and Bybit extended the price distortion. The MemeCore $M token collapsed 75% in a single day, dropping from $2.92 to $0.51. The crash erased nearly $3 billion in value.
No hack, exploit, or announcement preceded the fall. On-chain data had been flashing warning signs for weeks, and blockchain investigator ZachXBT had flagged concerns as early as April.
A $14 Billion Valuation Built on $100,000 in Liquidity The MemeCore $M token carried a fully diluted valuation of roughly $14 billion at its peak. Against that figure, Dexscreener recorded under $100,000 in real on-chain liquidity.
Arkham Intelligence showed zero transfers above $50,000 on its native chain for over two weeks. That gap between stated value and actual activity is what analysts call a ghost market cap.
A ghost market cap forms when insiders hold most of the token supply. ZachXBT reported that over 90% of $M supply was concentrated among insiders.
The tiny fraction available for trading set the price for the entire supply. A few parties trading at $3 marked billions in holdings at that same price.
The mechanism is straightforward. When illiquid tokens are priced off a tiny traded float, the market cap becomes theoretical.
Insiders could never sell their positions into a market that small without collapsing the price immediately. The valuation exists on paper but has no corresponding market depth to support it.
This structure is not unique to MemeCore. It is a recurring feature in tokens where teams retain the overwhelming majority of supply. The price remains stable only as long as no one tries to exit at scale. When that changes, the collapse is fast.
Exchange Listings Amplified the Gap Between Price and Reality MemeCore secured spot listings on Kraken and Bitget before the crash. It also gained perpetual futures markets on Binance and Bybit, where leverage trading was available.
These listings gave the $M token credibility it may not have earned through organic on-chain activity. Centralized order books then became the dominant price-discovery venue.
Once a token trades on major exchanges, the on-chain liquidity becomes secondary. The order book sets the price, and traders reference that figure without examining what sits underneath. That dynamic held until it did not, and the exchange price was eventually dragged toward its on-chain reality.
ZachXBT noted after the crash that the red flags had simply caught up with the token. The warning signs were present for months before the price broke. The question, as he framed it, was only a matter of timing, not outcome.
The MemeCore $M token collapse illustrates how supply concentration and thin liquidity combine to create fragile valuations.
Exchange listings extend the lifespan of such structures but do not resolve the underlying mismatch. When price finally meets on-chain reality, the correction tends to be severe and swift.
SUI Group Holdings Limited, the NASDAQ-listed capital provider, just tripled its lending commitment to Bluefin. An additional 4 million SUI loan announced on June 25 brings the total facility to 6 million SUI, up from the original 2 million SUI established in September 2025.
SUIG’s revenue share jumps from 5% to 11%, paid in SUI.
What the deal actually funds The additional lending isn’t just Bluefin padding its balance sheet. The capital is earmarked to support Bluewater Labs Inc. in acquiring assets related to Suilend from Concurrent C, Inc.
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Suilend is the largest lending and DeFi platform on the Sui blockchain. SUIG is bankrolling a move to consolidate significant DeFi infrastructure under a single umbrella.
The partnership agreement runs through September 2028, with options for extension by mutual consent.
SUIG’s position in the Sui ecosystem SUIG reportedly held over 100 million SUI in its treasury as of September 2025. Lending out 6 million SUI represents roughly 6% of the reported holdings.
The initial partnership with Bluefin dates back to September 2025, when the first 2 million SUI loan was structured. Nine months later, the facility has tripled.
SUIG underwent a rebranding from Mill City Ventures III, Ltd. in 2025 and is the only public company with an official relationship with the Sui Foundation.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
The problem with AI agents handling money has always been the same: give an agent access to a wallet and you’ve handed it the keys to the kingdom. Mysten Labs thinks it has a better way.
Sui Network has unveiled a prototype built on its Seal multi-party computation system that allows AI agents to participate in onchain markets and execute payments without ever receiving or controlling private keys. The Seal MPC system commenced its rollout on Sui’s testnet around June 19, 2026, building on a decentralized key server prototype that first went live on testnet in March of the same year.
What Seal MPC actually does Seal sidesteps the private key problem entirely. Instead of handing an agent a private key, the system routes transaction authorization through MPC committees, groups of independent nodes that collectively approve or deny a transaction without any single party ever assembling the complete key. The agent proposes, the committee decides, and no individual node can act unilaterally.
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Authorization isn’t arbitrary either. Sui’s on-chain Move smart contracts enforce human-readable spending policies automatically, covering things like daily caps, approval thresholds, and counterparty restrictions. An agent can’t simply decide to wire funds to an unknown address if the policy says otherwise. The contract enforces the rule before the transaction ever goes through.
Fair competition in onchain markets Beyond payments, Sui’s official announcement highlighted a second application: fair competition between AI agents in onchain markets.
Seal’s cryptographic architecture allows agents to submit bids that remain completely hidden until a synchronized reveal. No agent can observe a competitor’s strategy before committing to its own. The reveal happens simultaneously for all parties, enforced by the protocol rather than by any single trusted party.
Mysten Labs has been deliberate about the sequencing here. The decentralized key server prototype launched in March 2026, giving the ecosystem time to evaluate the infrastructure before the fuller MPC system arrived in June. Audits and validations are required before real funds flow through the system at scale.
What this means for Sui’s broader AI infrastructure play Seal doesn’t exist in isolation. Mysten Labs has been assembling what it describes as a programmable access layer for AI agents on Sui, with Seal sitting alongside tools like Walrus, Sui’s decentralized storage solution, and encrypted messaging capabilities.
SUI serves as the native gas token for the network, meaning any increase in transaction volume from AI agent activity translates directly into demand for the token.
The risks are real. MPC systems have their own attack surface, particularly around the coordination of committee nodes and the potential for collusion. The requirement for audits before live transaction handling reflects genuine technical stakes. A flaw in the authorization flow doesn’t just affect one wallet, it affects every agent and policy running on the same infrastructure.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
The most misleading phrase in crypto security may also be the most familiar one.
A smart contract can execute exactly as written and still become part of a theft. If you wonder how, have you considered that the code may never be the part that breaks?
We blame smart contracts (the code), but the real vulnerability is the humans running the project. Attackers aren’t finding brilliant math flaws; they are tricking a founder into clicking a bad link, stealing their computer’s access keys, and altering the app from the inside. Yet once funds move on-chain, these failures often get flattened into the same headline category. Yep, you guessed it right – A DeFi hack!
That is the diagnosis problem.
A smart-contract bug, a bridge-signature compromise, an oracle failure, a governance abuse path and a stolen private key do not describe the same wound. Once the failure is misnamed, the fix starts in the wrong place.
Ethereal Ventures recently framed this as a control-plane problem – The security of the systems around the protocol, not only the protocol logic itself. AMBCrypto takes that argument in a narrower direction. In fact, before the industry debates the fix, it needs to name the failure correctly.
Of course, the data makes the mislabeling harder to ignore. For example, Halborn found that in 2024, off-chain incidents made up 56.5% of attacks and 80.5% of stolen funds.
Source: Halborn’s 2025 review of the top 100 DeFi hacks Chainalysis also found that private-key compromises accounted for the largest share of stolen cryptos in 2024.
So, the uncomfortable question is simple: Is “better code” enough when the attacker’s best path is stealing the key that tells the code what to do?
If most losses are coming from off-chain weaknesses, why does the industry keep calling every major incident a DeFi hack?
A headline is not a diagnosis “DeFi hack” works as a headline because it is short. It fails as a diagnosis because it hides the thing that actually broke.
Ritesh Kakkad, Co-founder of XDC Network, put it bluntly when he said,
The term DeFi hack has done a lot of damage. Not because it’s wrong, but because every time something breaks we use it as a full stop instead of a starting point. Ronin, Nomad, both got filed under the same label but they were trust architecture failures, nothing to do with contract quality.
That distinction matters.
So, what actually broke? A stolen private key, a bridge-validator failure, a poisoned interface and broken protocol logic may all end with funds moving on-chain. But they begin in different places.
This brings us to where the knowledge of the application plane and control plane helps.
Source: AWS Documentation / Application vs Control Plane The application plane is what users touch and includes swaps, lending markets, vaults, transfers and bridge activity. The control plane is what gives the system authority to act: admin keys, signers, upgrade paths, bridge validators, oracles and governance permissions. Then, there is the human and operational layer around it: devices, GitHub access, CI/CD pipelines, cloud accounts, contractor permissions and incident response.
And yet, most public narratives collapse these layers into one word – Hack.
Imagine opening a DeFi app and approving what appears to be a routine transaction. The page looks familiar. The wallet prompt seems normal. The blockchain later records a valid approval. But what if the screen was altered before the signer ever saw it? What if the failure sat in the app interface, the access credentials, or the workflow around the signing process?
How does crypto security compare to traditional tech companies? Traditional enterprise systems usually separate these failures because each one triggers a different response. Crypto often loses that precision once the stolen funds land on a block explorer.
Operational layer Enterprise tech norm Common Web3 weakness Access control Limits who can log in, from which device, and with what approval. Admin duties are conducted on personal laptops, with core team members often coordinating multi-million dollar actions over standard Telegram or Discord chats. Control plane Layered approval systems and audit trails Multisig can still leave too much power with a small group of people and keys. CI/CD Separates testing, approval, and release, so bad updates are harder to push live. Compromised credentials can alter what users or signers see Failure mode changes from case to case The post-mortems (or evidence) tell a more complicated story than the headlines. Most crypto post-mortems begin too late. They ask, “How much was stolen?” before asking, “What actually failed?”
Look at Ronin, for instance, remembered as one of crypto’s defining bridge hacks. In March 2022, attackers drained 173,600 ETH and 25.5 million USDC from the Ronin Bridge. However, the mechanics matter here.
Ronin’s bridge needed 5-of-9 validator signatures to approve withdrawals. The attacker did not need to find a conventional smart-contract bug to get there. Four Sky Mavis validator keys were compromised. The fifth approval came through an old Axie DAO permission path linked to Ronin’s gas-free RPC setup, which had not been properly revoked.
Once those five approvals were in place, the bridge treated the withdrawals as valid.
That is the part the “bridge hack” label tends to flatten. The weak point was not simply the bridge as a product, or DeFi as a category. It was the authority structure around the bridge: who could approve movement, how those approvals were protected, and why an old access path was still capable of mattering.
It’s the same story elsewhere Ronin was not an exception. Orbit Chain, WazirX and Bybit all point to the same pattern from different angles. Even the wrench attack incidents in France belong in the broader diagnostic conversation. They were not DeFi failures, but they showed the same uncomfortable truth: attackers follow control, whether that control sits in code, a multisig, a browser interface, or a person.
Where is the money going? The broader data complicates the usual story too.
Immunefi recorded $1.635 billion in crypto losses across 40 incidents in Q1 2025. They tagged it the worst quarter for hacks in crypto’s history. But the split matters.
Source: Immunefi Crypto Losses Q1 2025 Report Most of that figure came from two CEXs. And together, those incidents accounted for roughly 94% of the quarter’s losses.
That does not mean DeFi risk disappeared. But by value, the quarter was dominated by CeFi and signing-related failures, not a wave of protocol-math breaks.
Chainalysis’ report on theft highlighted something similar too.
Source: Chainalysis / Cryptocurrency hack volumes over time It also found that personal wallet compromises became a larger part of the loss picture, rising from 7.3% of stolen value in 2022 to 44% in 2024. 158,000 individual wallet-compromise incidents affected 80,000 unique victims in 2025, even as DeFi hack losses stayed suppressed despite higher TVL.
Read together, the data does not let either side win an easy argument.
On-chain code still fails. Off-chain systems clearly fail too. The more useful pattern is that large losses increasingly expose the machinery around the code: validators, signers, interfaces, wallet infrastructure, cloud systems, personal devices and human access. But the bigger danger begins after the first failure.
Why does one small mistake crash the whole system? In DeFi, a broken assumption rarely stays where it starts. A bridge asset can become collateral. Collateral can support loans. Loans can feed vaults. Vaults can sit inside aggregators. By the time users see the headline, the risk may have already passed through several layers. That is where misdiagnosis becomes more than sloppy language.
For your context, in TradFi, if a bank fails, regulators might freeze assets while they figure out what happened. In DeFi, code executes automatically.
Once systems are connected, naming the wrong failure can distort how the market understands every exposure built on top of it.
Domino effect of interconnected risk Composability is usually treated as DeFi’s great advantage. Protocols seamlessly plug into one another, assets migrate across chains, tokens double as collateral, and liquidity is recycled endlessly across markets.
However, this frictionless design is a double-edged sword because the very architecture that accelerates growth also accelerates failure.
When a cross-chain bridge issues an asset, that asset rarely stays put. It travels. It enters lending markets, sits inside yield vaults, gets routed through aggregators, or serves as collateral for entirely separate positions.
If the bridge’s security model breaks, the damage cannot be contained to the bridge contract itself. Every downstream protocol that treated that bridged asset as a safe, pristine store of value suddenly inherits the rot.
This is where the “Money Lego” metaphor starts to look too clean.
Source: Mapping Microscopic and Systemic Risks in TradFi and DeFi XChainWatcher makes the bridge version of this problem clearer. The study found that bridge vulnerabilities have caused $3.2 billion in losses since May 2021, while also flagging failures that normal “DeFi hack” coverage can miss.
Source: XChainWatcher / Ronin attack discovered days after malicious withdrawals So, the first failure may begin as a bridge assumption, a signer, an oracle, or a governance path. The second-order failure is “trust” moving downstream. Toxins move through the financial plumbing long before the market even realizes a breach has occurred.
Better question is which layer failed Did the code behave incorrectly? Was the protocol fed bad data? Did a bridge validator or multisig signer lose authority? Was a frontend or CI/CD pipeline compromised before users even saw the transaction? Did governance change the rules? Or was the person with access targeted directly?
Those questions lead to different answers.
Better audits matter, yes. They can reduce code-level risk. But they cannot solve stolen keys, compromised signers, weak bridge controls, exposed cloud credentials, and poor operational security. And, they definitely can’t stop people being targeted because they control access to crypto wealth.
That is the point of being precise. If the industry keeps mislabeling the failure, it will keep fighting the wrong battle.
“DeFi hack” may remain useful as a headline shortcut. As a diagnosis though, it is often too blunt to be true. Maybe the better question is where the failure actually began.
Final Summary DeFi protocols plug into one another seamlessly; a security breach at one foundational layer causes immediate downstream damage. An overwhelming majority of stolen funds are actually lost to off-chain operational failures, compromised signing keys, and human vulnerabilities.
Axelar recently introduced its new interface at app.axelar.network, a new way of moving assets across chains through Axelar’s secure and decentralized interoperability network. The goal is to make cross-chain interaction feel more direct, reliable, and easy to use, starting with asset transfers and expanding over time to support more Axelar-powered workflows.
Below, you’ll find a step-by-step guide to bridging tokens between chains using Axelar. In this example, we’ll move POL from Polygon to BNB Chain.
Step 1: Connect your walletGo to app.axelar.network.Click Connect Wallet and choose your wallet, such as OKX Wallet or MetaMask.If you don’t see your wallet, search for any supported wallet or click Show More.Approve the connection in your wallet pop-up by clicking Connect.
Step 2: Choose what you’re sendingClick the chain and token selector.Select Polygon as the source network.Choose POL as the token you want to bridge.Tip: Use the search boxes to find a chain or token quickly. You can only bridge assets you already hold.
Step 3: Choose what you’re receivingClick the destination chain and token selector.Select BNB Chain as the destination network.Choose WPOL as the token you want to receive.This means you are moving POL from Polygon to BNB Chain in one cross-chain transaction.
Step 4: Send to a different wallet addressSkip this step if you want to receive the tokens in your own connected wallet.
Paste the destination wallet address, or connect a separate destination wallet.Click Confirm.Double-check the destination address before continuing. Once a transfer is submitted, it cannot be reversed.
Step 5: Enter the amount and bridgeEnter the amount you want to send, or click MAX to use your full available balance.Review the fee, estimated completion time, and the amount you’ll receive on BNB Chain.When everything looks correct, click Bridge.Your wallet will ask you to confirm the transaction. Review the details and approve it in your wallet.
Step 6: Wait for the transfer to completeTrack the transfer on the Transaction Status screen.The progress will update automatically as the transaction moves through each step.Once the status shows Completed, your tokens have arrived in the destination wallet on BNB Chain.
Step 7: Disconnect your wallet (Optional)Click your wallet address.Click Disconnect to end the connection.
Axelar has long powered cross-chain movement behind the scenes. Now, users can access that infrastructure directly.
Move assets across chains through Axelar.
Available now at: https://app.axelar.network
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CoinEx has issued a detailed public response following a recent Wall Street Journal report discussing the exchange’s historical exposure to Iran-related cryptocurrency transactions, rejecting suggestions that it maintained commercial relationships with sanctioned Iranian entities while outlining a series of compliance enhancements implemented in recent months.
The exchange said it has never maintained commercial relationships with the Iranian government, government agencies, or entities affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and argued that the report should distinguish between blockchain transaction flows and evidence of platform knowledge or participation.
According to CoinEx, its official domain has been blocked inside Iran since 2021 after being blacklisted by Iranian authorities. The company said this demonstrates that it has neither operated as a government-recognized platform nor served as an official channel for Iranian state actors.
CoinEx also stated that it has never established offices or operating entities in Iran. While the platform operates a global referral program, it said that any promotional activities conducted by individuals in Iran were independent actions rather than company-organized operations.
Transactions Referenced in the Report Addressing transactions involving Alireza Derakhshan and entities associated with Zedcex and Babak Zanjani, CoinEx said the referenced transactions occurred before those parties became subject to U.S. Treasury sanctions.
The exchange added that it does not knowingly provide products or services to sanctioned persons or entities and continuously updates its sanctions screening procedures as sanctions lists and regulatory requirements evolve.
Regarding the Bybit security incident, CoinEx said it assisted with account blocking and asset freezing shortly after becoming aware of the attack and has initiated an internal review of transactions referenced in the Wall Street Journal report.
CoinEx also noted that it was itself the victim of a cyberattack in 2023 that multiple public investigations attributed to a North Korea-linked threat actor, resulting in losses of approximately US$80 million. The company said this experience reinforces its commitment to cooperating with blockchain security firms and law enforcement agencies in combating cybercrime and tracing stolen assets.
On-Chain Data Requires Careful Interpretation CoinEx argued that blockchain analytics provide valuable risk indicators but cautioned against interpreting transaction flows alone as evidence that a centralized exchange knowingly facilitated illicit activity.
According to the company, blockchain attribution remains an analytical methodology subject to varying interpretations across different providers, while techniques such as mixers, cross-chain bridges and layered transactions significantly complicate attribution.
The exchange also said aggregating bidirectional blockchain flows into a single total and describing that figure as assets “processed” by the exchange may create a misleading impression of platform involvement.
Compliance Measures Expanded CoinEx said it has strengthened its compliance program following sanctions imposed on Nobitex and other Iran-related developments.
Measures announced by the company include restricting new registrations from Iran, enhancing identification and review procedures for higher-risk accounts, implementing broader geo-fencing and regional access controls, strengthening KYT monitoring for sanctioned wallets and high-risk transaction patterns, and continuing enforcement against accounts suspected of using the platform for illicit financial activity.
The exchange described these actions as part of a broader effort to continuously strengthen its global compliance framework.
Looking Ahead CoinEx said it expects regulatory expectations for digital asset platforms to continue evolving globally and plans to continue investing in customer due diligence, anti-money laundering controls, sanctions screening, transaction monitoring and blockchain risk intelligence.
The company said it remains committed to operating a secure and transparent digital asset platform while continuing to improve its compliance capabilities in line with evolving global regulatory standards.
Disclaimer: TheNewsCrypto does not endorse any content on this page. The content depicted in this Press Release does not represent any investment advice. TheNewsCrypto recommends our readers to make decisions based on their own research. TheNewsCrypto is not accountable for any damage or loss related to content, products, or services stated in this Press Release.
CoinEx refuted claims linking the state-backed companies from Iran to shift funds via its cryptocurrency exchange network. They promised to step up efforts regarding sanctions and compliance screenings amid growing concerns regarding the issue. CoinEx rejected the accusations that its platform was involved in facilitating transactions for Iranian state-backed organizations following the recent Wall Street Journal report on the matter. According to the report, about $3.84 billion of cryptocurrency inflows related to Iran were identified by investigators as having gone through the platform since 2019, which puts CoinEx in a spotlight as regulators are putting more pressure on crypto exchanges conducting cross-border transactions.
Moreover, CoinEx rejected all the allegations about the existence of any business relations with Iranian government entities, local exchanges, the Revolutionary Guard, or any sanctioned entities. The company also noted that CoinEx does not have offices and legal entities in Iran. To prove its point of view, CoinEx mentioned that Iranian authorities have recently blocked the platform’s official website in 2021 after adding it to the blacklist.
CoinEx Official Statement Regarding The Wall Street Journal Report
CoinEx is aware of the recent report published by The Wall Street Journal. We fully respect media oversight and press freedom, and understand the public's heightened concern regarding compliance, anti-money…
— CoinEx Global (@coinexcom) June 25, 2026 Exchange Challenges Transaction Analysis The debate heated up after reports claimed a connection between certain transaction trails on wallets related to the Iranian central bank with the stolen coins from the notorious Bybit hack. CoinEx rejected this analysis and stressed that transaction trails on the blockchain cannot be used to prove involvement in questionable practices.
CoinEx claims that blockchain is open and transparent, but different analysts can come to different conclusions analyzing relations between the wallets and transaction trails. In addition, according to the company, the reported total amount of transactions was wrong because the investigators summed up incoming and outgoing flows into one number.
CoinEx Increases Compliance Efforts Despite refuting the claims made against it, CoinEx emphasized that it is continuously reviewing the transactions listed in the report. The firm also underscored its efforts in cooperating during the Bybit hack, in which it assisted in blocking and freezing the accounts connected to the illicit activities once it became aware of the situation.
On the other hand, CoinEx has increased its sanctions screening, transaction monitoring, geo-fencing, and anti-money laundering policies on its platform. The cryptocurrency exchange firm also increased its Know Your Customer policy and limited registration from high-risk areas. With the increasing regulatory attention towards Iran-based crypto activities, CoinEx indicated that it will continue to invest in compliance infrastructure and on-chain risk monitoring.
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TRM Labs says CoinEx processed billions in Iran-linked crypto flows, putting exchange compliance and sanctions screening back under the spotlight.
TL;DR TRM Labs traced $3.84 billion in Iran-linked activity through CoinEx. The report links the flows to sanctioned entities and Iranian exchange infrastructure. The finding adds pressure on offshore exchanges as sanctions enforcement expands across crypto rails. TRM Puts CoinEx Under The Compliance Spotlight TRM Labs has published a new report alleging that CoinEx became a major gateway for Iran-linked crypto activity, processing $3.84 billion in transactions tied to Iranian users and entities over several years. The report names a range of flows connected to Iranian exchange infrastructure and sanctioned actors, making it one of the more significant compliance stories of the week.
The key issue is not simply whether Iranian users accessed a global crypto exchange. It is whether exchange controls, IP restrictions and sanctions screening were strong enough to prevent large-scale flows linked to restricted jurisdictions. TRM’s report argues that CoinEx handled activity that should have raised serious compliance questions.
Why The Numbers Matter The $3.84 billion figure is large enough to move the story beyond routine compliance housekeeping. It raises questions about whether smaller or mid-tier exchanges are being used as alternative rails after larger platforms tighten access for sanctioned markets. That matters because enforcement pressure has increasingly shifted from mixers and DeFi protocols to centralized exchanges that act as fiat and liquidity gateways.
TRM’s findings also come after a broader wave of US sanctions and blockchain analytics reports focused on Iranian crypto infrastructure. For regulators, the pattern is likely to reinforce the argument that crypto exchanges need active transaction monitoring, not just basic account-level KYC.
A Wider Crypto Enforcement Theme The larger trend is clear: blockchain analytics firms are now central to sanctions enforcement. Their reports can shape public narratives, inform regulatory action and pressure exchanges before any formal court case appears. That makes analytics reports market-relevant in their own right.
For CoinEx, the immediate challenge is reputational. For the wider industry, the lesson is that compliance gaps are no longer hidden just because transactions happen on-chain across different wallets and exchanges.
The main point is not that one headline settles the direction of the market by itself. It is that the same themes keep showing up across the tape: regulation is becoming more specific, institutional products are moving closer to normal financial rails, and traders are reacting quickly whenever liquidity thins out. That is why the source detail matters here. The development gives the market one more data point at a time when Bitcoin, Ethereum and the wider altcoin complex are already being judged through the lens of leverage, policy risk and institutional participation.
The practical reading is that this story belongs inside the wider market structure rather than as an isolated announcement. Traders are still working through a mix of weaker liquidity, tougher policy questions, institutional product launches and renewed stress in high-beta tokens. That means even stories that look narrow at first can become useful because they show where capital, regulation and infrastructure are moving. The safest framing is to avoid treating the development as a guaranteed price catalyst and instead focus on what it changes for market participants, builders and investors watching the next stage of crypto adoption.
This coverage is based on information from TRM Labs.
This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.
Security research firm TRM Labs has flagged Seychelles-based global crypto exchange CoinEx as a key enabler for Iran-linked illicit capital flows.
According to TRM Labs, over $3.8 billion was traded between CoinEX and the four Iranian crypto exchanges, including Nobitex, which were sanctioned by the U.S. earlier this month. Out of the nearly $4 billion flagged flows, over half of the funds were routed from Nobitex, at an average of $1M per day since 2018.
The report alleges that top local Iranian exchanges moved 5-10% of their volumes via CoinEx, noting that it was a ‘coordinated arrangement’ rather than organic adoption.
Source: TRM Labs For Ari Redbord, global head of policy at TRM Labs, the Iranian regime’s international crypto infrastructure was intact as CoinEx was not part of the sanctioned entities in early June.
In an email statement, Redbord told AMBCrypto,
CoinEx isn’t just another exchange with incidental Iran exposure — it has functioned as the backbone of Iran’s cryptocurrency ecosystem for seven years, processing nearly USD 4 billion across more than 60 Iranian platforms.
He added,
This indicates a willingness to engage with Iranian actors such as the IRGC and enable the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world to evade sanctions and destabilize the region.
According to Redbord, the four sanctioned crypto exchanges, including Nobitex, account for 78% of Iran’s domestic cryptocurrency volume. He claimed that CoinEx has direct on-chain exposure to the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its proxies in Palestine and Lebanon.
In fact, the firm established that CoinEx received $67M from the Central Bank of Iran, further underscoring how embedded it is with the Iranian government.
Iran’s alleged Bitcoin mining operations Additionally, the report noted that the state could have received mining payouts. The security firm cited Nobitex-linked addresses that received payouts from ViaBTC, a Hong Kong-based mining infrastructure firm.
Notably, TRM Labs uncovered over $154 million in mining rewards, adding that,
Given that industrial-scale cryptocurrency mining in Iran is subject to strict government oversight, these activities could also indicate access to state-authorized mining infrastructure or partnerships.
Interestingly, the report didn’t flag Binance, which was recently speculated to be another conduit for Iran-sanctioned entities to move funds.
During the West Asia crisis, the U.S. turned Iran’s crypto into a chokepoint, freezing over $1 billion of its funds. The sanctioning of the four exchanges was part of the broader U.S pressure to bring Iran to accept its deal. It marked a classic case of crypto on the geopolitical chessboard.
As of writing, negotiations are still ongoing between the two countries. But it’s unclear whether a permanent peace deal will be achieved soon.
Final Summary CoinEx handled nearly $4 billion for Iran-sanctioned entities, making it a key global strategy for the regime, according to TRM Labs. Recent U.S. sanctions only targeted 78% of Iranian crypto volumes
In brief TRM Labs said it uncovered over $3.84 billion in crypto flows between CoinEx and more than 60 sanctioned Iranian platforms over a seven-year period. The exchange rejected the allegations, arguing that it is a neutral global platform serving ordinary users, with no official ties to Iranian entities. The confrontation comes amid U.S. enforcement, marked by sanctions against Iran’s largest crypto exchange and a $1 billion Bitcoin seizure. CoinEx denied allegations on Thursday that the Seychelles-based crypto exchange knowingly served as a conduit for billions of dollars in sanctioned Iranian funds, pushing back against a report from The Wall Street Journal that leaned heavily on analysis from TRM Labs.
The crypto analytics firm published a blog post drawing connections between CoinEx and more than 60 Iranian platforms, including Nobitex, which was slapped with U.S. sanctions earlier this month for allegedly facilitating terrorist financing, sanctions evasion, and ransomware payments.
For years, CoinEx has shared a close connection with the platform known as Iran’s largest crypto exchange, gaining on-chain exposure to Iranian military entities while also serving as Nobitex’s “single largest external counterparty,” according to TRM.
CoinEx pinned its defense on neutrality, asserting that it operates as a global exchange that serves ordinary users worldwide, with no official ties to Iranian authorities or sanctioned entities.
“We firmly reject any narrative that conflates ordinary user activity with state-level sanctions evasion, and any inference that equates on-chain fund flows with platform knowledge of, support for, or participation in illicit activity,” CoinEx said in an X post.
Over the past seven years, more than $3.84 billion has flowed between CoinEx and a mining pool owned by the exchange’s parent company, ViaBTC, which TRM said its data shows. The firm described CoinEx as “the single biggest lifeline for Iran’s cryptocurrency ecosystem.”
Because CoinEx, which debuted nearly a decade ago in Hong Kong, has transaction exposure to more than 60 entities operating in Iran, TRM argued that “this connectivity is unlikely to be independent market behavior.”
On top of that, TRM alleged that CoinEx’s platform was subject to a year-long money laundering scheme that ended this month, in which the exchange received $67 million derived from Iran’s central bank through a web of transfers extending across several blockchains.
On X, CoinEx said that it moved quickly after Nobitex was sanctioned to strengthen identification of Iranian users, implement comprehensive geo-fencing, detect suspicious transactions, and ramp up “action against accounts using the platform for illicit activity.”
While recent reports suggest that the Iranian government has accepted Bitcoin as payment for transiting the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil supplies once flowed, the U.S. government has been proactive, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Days before Nobitex was sanctioned alongside three other exchanges, Bessent said the U.S. had seized $1 billion worth of cryptocurrency from entities linked to Iran. He posited at the time that some individuals “might not have realized that their wallet had been grabbed.”
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In brief TRM Labs said it uncovered over $3.84 billion in crypto flows between CoinEx and more than 60 sanctioned Iranian platforms over a seven-year period. The exchange rejected the allegations, arguing that it is a neutral global platform serving ordinary users, with no official ties to Iranian entities. The confrontation comes amid U.S. enforcement, marked by sanctions against Iran’s largest crypto exchange and a $1 billion Bitcoin seizure. CoinEx denied allegations on Thursday that the Seychelles-based crypto exchange knowingly served as a conduit for billions of dollars in sanctioned Iranian funds, pushing back against a report from The Wall Street Journal that leaned heavily on analysis from TRM Labs.
The crypto analytics firm published a blog post drawing connections between CoinEx and more than 60 Iranian platforms, including Nobitex, which was slapped with U.S. sanctions earlier this month for allegedly facilitating terrorist financing, sanctions evasion, and ransomware payments.
For years, CoinEx has shared a close connection with the platform known as Iran’s largest crypto exchange, gaining on-chain exposure to Iranian military entities while also serving as Nobitex’s “single largest external counterparty,” according to TRM.
CoinEx pinned its defense on neutrality, asserting that it operates as a global exchange that serves ordinary users worldwide, with no official ties to Iranian authorities or sanctioned entities.
“We firmly reject any narrative that conflates ordinary user activity with state-level sanctions evasion, and any inference that equates on-chain fund flows with platform knowledge of, support for, or participation in illicit activity,” CoinEx said in an X post.
Over the past seven years, more than $3.84 billion has flowed between CoinEx and a mining pool owned by the exchange’s parent company, ViaBTC, which TRM said its data shows. The firm described CoinEx as “the single biggest lifeline for Iran’s cryptocurrency ecosystem.”
Because CoinEx, which debuted nearly a decade ago in Hong Kong, has transaction exposure to more than 60 entities operating in Iran, TRM argued that “this connectivity is unlikely to be independent market behavior.”
On top of that, TRM alleged that CoinEx’s platform was subject to a year-long money laundering scheme that ended this month, in which the exchange received $67 million derived from Iran’s central bank through a web of transfers extending across several blockchains.
On X, CoinEx said that it moved quickly after Nobitex was sanctioned to strengthen identification of Iranian users, implement comprehensive geo-fencing, detect suspicious transactions, and ramp up “action against accounts using the platform for illicit activity.”
While recent reports suggest that the Iranian government has accepted Bitcoin as payment for transiting the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil supplies once flowed, the U.S. government has been proactive, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Days before Nobitex was sanctioned alongside three other exchanges, Bessent said the U.S. had seized $1 billion worth of cryptocurrency from entities linked to Iran. He posited at the time that some individuals “might not have realized that their wallet had been grabbed.”
Daily Debrief NewsletterStart every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.
The cryptocurrency industry is once again in the spotlight as compliance with international sanctions takes center stage. According to a new report by TRM Labs, organizations linked to Iran conducted approximately $3.84 billion in transactions via CoinEx between 2019 and 2026. The flow of funds is alleged to have enabled access to global crypto markets despite wide-reaching international sanctions.
Key findings in the TRM Labs reportBlockchain analytics firm TRM Labs stated it has monitored transactions connected to both the Central Bank of Iran and the local Iranian crypto exchange Nobitex. The report found that before reaching CoinEx, the funds passed through a network of intermediary wallets. This complex structure made direct tracing of transactions more difficult and allowed users to tap into greater international liquidity.
Glossary: KYC stands for “Know Your Customer” rules. In this process, crypto exchanges verify users’ identities and monitor transaction risks to bolster compliance with anti-money laundering and sanctions regulations.
According to TRM Labs, Iranian-linked funds were funneled to CoinEx through a series of intermediary wallets, a structure that reportedly allowed users to access the global crypto market despite international sanctions.
Data in the report revealed that the transaction volume between Nobitex and CoinEx peaked at $763 million in a single year—a figure cited as one of the most striking indicators of the relationship between the two platforms.
The link between Nobitex and CoinExNobitex, Iran’s largest crypto exchange, is said to have served as the main point of departure for assets leaving the country. CoinEx was described as the platform where these assets connected to wider international markets. As of 2024, the report suggests that CoinEx has become Nobitex’s largest foreign counterpart.
Previously, Binance reportedly played this role, but as Binance tightened its sanctions controls and compliance procedures, its connection with Nobitex diminished. This shift has increased CoinEx’s prominence as the key bridge linking Nobitex to international markets.
Sanctions process and regulatory pressureFounded in 2017 by Haipo Yang and headquartered in Seychelles, CoinEx announced it has adopted stricter KYC procedures in recent years. The exchange also stated that it has limited access for users based in Iran. Nevertheless, the report highlights the significant scope of past transaction flows between Iranian entities and CoinEx.
The issue came to the fore when US authorities imposed sanctions on Nobitex on June 2, 2026, citing alleged links to groups including Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. TRM Labs said it identified more than 60 Iranian organizations connected to these crypto flows.
Compliance grows more urgent for exchangesThe overarching picture underscored by the report shows that compliance and regulatory oversight are no longer secondary in the cryptocurrency market. As regulatory pressure increases, exchanges investing more in transaction monitoring and institutional controls appear better positioned to reduce user risk.
Recent waves of sanctions are further boosting the competitive strength of platforms that prioritize trust, transparency, and risk management. In this context, investors are reportedly giving closer attention to compliance policies, rather than focusing solely on trading fees and product offerings when choosing an exchange.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.
Microsoft has a new image generation model, and it debuted near the top of the leaderboard. MAI-Image-2.5, announced June 2 by Microsoft AI’s Superintelligence team, ranks second in image editing and third in text-to-image generation on the Artificial Analysis Image Arena, a benchmark built on blind human preference votes.
What the numbers actually say In text-to-image, MAI-Image-2.5 scores between 1253 and 1276 on the Elo scale, placing it third overall. In image editing, it posts an Elo score of 1251, good enough for second place.
The gains over its predecessor, MAI-Image-2, are measurable and specific. MAI-Image-2.5 records a 107-point improvement in text rendering and a 90-point jump in cartoon, anime, and fantasy imagery on benchmark tests.
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Microsoft released the model in two configurations. The standard MAI-Image-2.5 is the high-fidelity option, priced at $47 per million image output tokens. The MAI-Image-2.5-Flash variant trades some ceiling for speed, coming in at $19.50 per million tokens.
Where it sits in the competitive landscape MAI-Image-2.5 outranks several Google Gemini image offerings and clears every prior Microsoft model on the Artificial Analysis leaderboard. OpenAI’s GPT Image 2 variants still sit above MAI-Image-2.5 on both rankings.
Access for developers is live through Microsoft Foundry and through third-party platforms including OpenRouter.
What this means for the market MAI-Image-2.5 powers image generation directly in PowerPoint and enables precise editing inside OneDrive, with safety guardrails built into both integrations.
The pricing structure positions MAI-Image-2.5 for developer and enterprise workloads at scale. At $47 per million tokens for the full model and $19.50 for Flash, the model targets the enterprise buyer who runs volume and needs predictable costs.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Ben Delo, the BitMEX co-founder who was pardoned by Donald Trump last year after a US criminal conviction, has moved back to the UK from Hong Kong with a very specific agenda: pouring money into Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party.
Delo announced his relocation on April 8 and has already donated £4 million ($5.1 million) to the party across two installments. That makes him one of Reform UK’s largest individual donors heading into the next general election cycle.
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Following the money trail The £4 million arrived in two tranches. The first £2 million landed on January 14, followed by another £2 million on March 2.
Delo’s relocation wasn’t purely about patriotic homecoming. The Labour government introduced a £100,000 cap on donations from British citizens living overseas. By physically returning to the UK, Delo sidesteps that restriction entirely, freeing him to donate without ceiling constraints.
He’s not the only crypto-minted donor writing large checks to Farage’s operation. Christopher Harborne, another wealthy figure with ties to the digital asset industry, donated £3 million to Reform UK in January 2026. Between just these two donors, the party pulled in £7 million from crypto-linked contributors in the opening months of the year.
From conviction to pardon to politics Delo co-founded BitMEX, the crypto derivatives exchange that at its peak was one of the most influential trading platforms in the digital asset world. In 2022, US authorities convicted Delo for violations of the Bank Secrecy Act. The charges centered on BitMEX’s failure to implement adequate anti-money laundering controls.
The consequences were a 30-month probation period and a $10 million fine. In 2025, Donald Trump granted Delo a presidential pardon, wiping the conviction from his record. That pardon effectively reopened the door for Delo to engage in political life.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Buying interest returned to Lighter [LIT] as the token extended its recent recovery, supported by stronger trading activity and renewed demand across the market.
At the time of writing, the altcoin traded around $1.69 after gaining 7.34% over the previous 24 hours, while daily trading volume climbed 50.25% to $63.3 million.
The rally has kept LIT above the $1.50 support level and pushed it back toward the $1.74 supply zone.
Lighter also maintained a market capitalization of approximately $422.66 million, reflecting sustained participation as buyers challenged a major resistance area.
Can Lighter overcome its next major hurdle? Lighter extended its advance within a well-defined ascending channel before reaching the $1.74 supply zone, where previous rallies had repeatedly stalled.
Buyers defended the $1.50 support level after a brief pullback, allowing price to recover and revisit the upper boundary of the structure.
However, repeated rejections beneath resistance showed that sellers continued protecting this region. Even so, the series of higher lows preserved the broader bullish structure throughout the channel.
The chart also identified $2.00 as the next major resistance beyond the supply zone.
If buyers reclaim $1.74 with sustained demand, price could continue toward that level. However, failure to clear resistance could keep Lighter trading within its current rising channel.
Source: TradingView Selling pressure faded as the bullish crossover approached Technical indicators reflected mixed conditions as Lighter tested overhead resistance.
The DMI remained constructive, with the +DI at 23.53 holding above the -DI at 14.92w. The ADX stood at 27.92, indicating that the prevailing uptrend retained reasonable strength.
Although the MACD line remained below the signal line, the histogram narrowed to -0.0118, showing that selling pressure had continued fading after the recent recovery.
This improvement suggested bearish pressure had weakened despite the bullish crossover not yet materializing. If the histogram continues narrowing and the MACD line crosses above the signal line, the indicator would confirm a bullish crossover.
Ultimately, the crossover will strengthen the case for another attempt above the $1.74 supply zone.
Source: TradingView Where could liquidation pressure build next? The liquidation heatmap revealed dense liquidity clusters between $1.70 and $1.75, placing the current price directly beneath an area likely to attract heightened volatility.
Several large liquidation pockets also appeared around $1.69. This suggests that a move above nearby resistance could trigger additional liquidations and accelerate the advance.
Meanwhile, sizeable liquidity zones rested near $1.62 and $1.56, providing downside targets if selling pressure increases. Those clusters showed that leveraged positions had concentrated around nearby price levels rather than farther away.
As a result, the next decisive move would likely emerge once either buyers or sellers force price through one of these heavily populated liquidity areas.
Source: CoinGlass Can Lighter open the path toward $2.00? Lighter maintained a constructive technical structure, and the ongoing momentum points toward a breakout above the $1.74 supply zone.
With buying pressure strengthening, the ascending channel is set to remain intact, driving price toward the $2.00 resistance level.
Final Summary Lighter held its ascending channel as buyers challenged a key resistance around $1.74. Fading selling pressure and overhead liquidations could support another breakout attempt if demand persists.
Hyperscale Data, Inc. (NYSE:GPUS) shares fell on Thursday, reversing momentum from a positive rally following the company’s announcement of a major AI data center services agreement.
The company said Thursday that it held approximately $94.8 million in cash, restricted cash, Bitcoin and silver as of June 24, 2026.
• Hyperscale Data shares are sliding. Why are GPUS shares down?
AI Data Center Agreement Announced WednesdayHyperscale Data announced on Wednesday that its subsidiary, Alliance Cloud Services, signed a master services agreement with a California-based neocloud provider for colocation and data center services at its Michigan campus.
The deal covers 20 megawatts of AI compute capacity expected to come online in the fourth quarter of 2026, with an option to expand to 52 megawatts.
Hyperscale Data expects the agreement to generate more than $1.2 billion over the full term. Revenue could exceed $3 billion if the customer exercises the additional 32-megawatt option and extensions.
Balance Sheet and Campus TransitionHyperscale Data also said it held approximately $94.8 million in cash, restricted cash, Bitcoin and silver as of June 24, 2026, equal to 100.42% of the market capitalization of its class A common stock at that day’s close.
The company expects to spend $100 million to $120 million to retrofit about 60,000 square feet at its Michigan campus for the initial 20-megawatt deployment.
The campus could eventually support more than 300 megawatts, subject to approvals, financing and infrastructure.
“We are extremely confident in the Company’s position after the announcement of the signing of a Master Services Agreement (“MSA”) worth approximately $1.2 billion, presuming exercise of the two five-year extensions, but before any exercise of options for additional power capacity,” commented Executive Chairman Milton "Todd" Ault III.
“We strongly believe that the value we are creating for stockholders, including the recurring monthly revenue from the MSA, is not being properly recognized and no value is being ascribed to this transformational event for the company.”
GPUS Technical Outlook: Key Moving Averages and MomentumThe stock is currently trading about 16.4% below its 20-day simple moving average of 22 cents, signaling recent weakness. However, it remains slightly above its 50-day SMA of 17 cents, suggesting that level may be acting as near-term support.
Momentum remains neutral, with the Relative Strength Index at 45.83, indicating the stock is neither overbought nor oversold.
The moving averages show a mixed technical setup. While the 20-day SMA remains above the 50-day SMA, suggesting some short-term strength, the 50-day SMA remains below the 200-day SMA, indicating the broader trend remains bearish.
Overall, the setup suggests limited near-term support, but the longer-term trend remains under pressure.
GPUS Stock Price Activity: Hyperscale Data shares were down 7.98% at 17 cents at the time of publication on Thursday, according to Benzinga Pro data.
Image via Shutterstock
This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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PANews, June 25 - According to Cryptopolitan, prediction market platform Kalshi has filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, challenging the state's newly signed SB3019 bill. The bill requires prediction market platforms to obtain a state license and imposes a 0.2% tax on digital asset transactions involving Illinois customers, effective July 1.
Kalshi argues that federal law grants the CFTC exclusive jurisdiction over exchange-traded derivatives, and additional state regulatory requirements conflict with the Commodity Exchange Act. If Kalshi withdraws sports event contracts from Illinois to comply with state law, it would directly violate the CFTC’s uniformity requirement; continuing operations without a license would violate state law, and implementing geo-blocking technology would be costly. The lawsuit is the latest case in the jurisdictional dispute over prediction markets between the CFTC and the states, with the CFTC having sued nine states to assert federal authority.
Key Highlights Shares of Nokia advanced over 3% during Thursday’s premarket session following the announcement of a strengthened Amazon Web Services partnership. The collaboration focuses on delivering Nokia’s Autonomous Networks Fabric through AWS infrastructure, aiming for Level 4 network autonomy capabilities. The solution integrates agentic AI technology, digital twin modeling, and intent-based networking designed for telecommunications providers. NOK shares currently trade 71.3% higher than their 200-day simple moving average, with a golden cross pattern formed in October 2025. Second quarter financial results are scheduled for July 23, with analyst expectations of 7 cents EPS and $5.59 billion in revenue. Shares of Nokia (NOK) climbed more than 3% during Thursday’s premarket hours, reaching $14.27, following the telecommunications equipment maker’s announcement of a broadened collaboration with Amazon Web Services aimed at developing autonomous network infrastructure.
Nokia Oyj, NOK
The agreement enables Nokia’s Autonomous Networks Fabric to operate on AWS, providing telecommunications companies with cloud-delivered AI-powered tools intended to advance network operations toward Level 4 autonomy — meaning networks capable of operating with minimal human intervention.
$NOK is expanding its autonomous network push with $AMZN AWS and Databricks.
Nokia is packaging agentic AI, digital twins and closed-loop operations into a platform it says has already helped operators reach 90%+ automation and cut network slice rollout times by up to 85%. pic.twitter.com/JOIliQKCmf
— Shay Boloor (@StockSavvyShay) June 24, 2026
According to Nokia, the solution currently manages orchestration, network assurance, and inventory management capabilities. Full commercial availability is projected for later in 2026.
The platform integrates data management systems, agentic AI capabilities, digital twin technology, and intent-based networking frameworks. The objective is to transition telecommunications carriers from manual network management toward automated, cloud-first operations capable of dynamically responding to real-time traffic patterns.
Nokia’s Chief Technology Officer for AI and Autonomous Networks stated bluntly: “This is how telcos will compete in the AI era.”
This latest agreement expands upon previous collaborative efforts between Nokia and AWS, which included AI-enhanced network slicing capabilities and a commercial 5G Core software-as-a-service offering. Telecommunications operators utilizing the platform may benefit from increased automation efficiency, accelerated service deployment, and reduced infrastructure expenditures, according to statements from both companies.
Technical Analysis of NOK Stock From a technical perspective, the trend structure remains constructive. NOK currently trades 6.5% above its 50-day simple moving average of $13.42, 33.9% above its 100-day SMA of $10.68, and 71.3% above its 200-day SMA of $8.34.
The golden cross pattern — characterized by the 50-day SMA crossing above the 200-day SMA — materialized in October 2025 and continues to hold.
In the immediate term, the stock is positioned marginally below its 20-day SMA of $14.77 while maintaining levels close to its 20-day exponential moving average of $14.26. The relative strength index registers 47.61, indicating neutral momentum without signs of overbought conditions.
Immediate resistance lies at the $15.00 level. Primary support is located around $13.00, coinciding with the 50-day moving average zone.
Wall Street sentiment remains favorable. JP Morgan maintains an Overweight rating with a $21.00 price objective, revised upward on June 12. Argus Research initiated coverage with a Buy rating and $15.00 target in April. The consensus recommendation stands at Buy with an average price target of $14.67.
Upcoming Earnings Report The next significant catalyst for NOK arrives on July 23, 2026, when the company releases its second quarter financial results.
Wall Street analysts project earnings per share of 7 cents, representing an increase from 4 cents in the comparable year-ago quarter. Revenue estimates stand at $5.59 billion, versus $5.15 billion reported in the prior-year period.
The stock trades at a price-to-earnings multiple of 86.3x, representing a premium valuation relative to industry peers — a level that will require sustained operational performance to justify.
Nokia’s Benzinga Edge momentum metric registers 96.94, positioning near the top among comparable companies. The quality score also rates favorably at 77.08. However, the value score of 33.98 indicates the stock has experienced substantial multiple expansion.
Security and privacy are paramount for Web3 AI agents - and heyAura is no exception. Find out more about what we do to safeguard those.
heyAura, as a Web3 AI assistant, works with wallet onchain history, portfolio state, and transaction preparation. The assistant can help users understand their assets, assess risk, compare opportunities, and prepare actions. A product trusted with execution needs to be secure and provide privacy through careful code review, clear approval flows, and tighter handling of wallet data. In this article, we look into detail into heyAura’s security and privacy.
Existing security baselineheyAura
inherited AdEx along with its established ecosystem, the $ADX token, and long-running security. AdEx has been stress-tested through time and considered a veteran in the space with nearly a decade of enduring market cycles.
Listed on Binance, Kraken, and numerous other exchanges, the $ADX token forged its resilience with time and remains the centerpiece of heyAura’s governance and utility.
On the review side, $ADX has been audited by CertiK and others.
Security innovationWe are also setting up an AI-based auditing system that will run continuously against the application codebase.
Contrary to the traditional audit method of a single audit report, heyAura will keep reviewing its code as it changes. The continuous AI-assisted review will add another layer of security around day-to-day development and shorten the gap between code changes and security checks.
Privacy-preserving local modelOne of the most important parts of heyAura’s design is the privacy-preserving local model direction.
The assistant works with sensitive wallet context: balances, positions, approvals, transaction history, and behavioral signals.
The local model direction keeps the first layer of wallet interpretation in the user environment where possible. That reduces how much raw wallet context needs to leave the wallet in order to produce useful output. When remote processing is required, the system sends less raw wallet data and only what the task requires.Or simply put in a situation of a potential security breach your data stays protected on your device.
User approval is the final phaseheyAura can prepare actions, but the user must still approve them.
That applies to swaps, bridges, trades, and any other execution-related tasks. The assistant can reduce the work between understanding a position and acting on it but the final decision always stays in the user’s hands.
Authentication and identitySecurity for heyAura also includes authentication.
heyAura is moving to agent-driven workflows, making identity and authentication more important. Billions supports that layer through verifiable identity infrastructure that can strengthen trust across services and interactions. With Billions’ integration heyAura’s identity can be verified by others and allow it to authenticate those who try to communicate with it.
In conclusion: setting a security standardThe security model behind heyAura is built around a few core requirements. Sensitive wallet context should stay local where possible, and remote systems should receive less when they are needed. Code review should continue as the product evolves, surpassing isolated audit points. Actions should still require user approval, and authentication is mandatory as workflows move closer to agent-driven interaction.
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Lime, the electric scooter and e-bike rental company formally known as Neutron Holdings, is heading for the public markets with a Nasdaq listing under the ticker LIME. The company filed its S-1 registration with the SEC on May 8 and kicked off its roadshow on June 22, with pricing expected during the week of June 29.
The offering includes 6.96 million shares priced between $24 and $26 each, targeting approximately $174 million in proceeds. That would put Lime’s post-IPO valuation somewhere between $1.66 billion and $1.8 billion.
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Uber’s bet and the revenue question Uber plans to purchase up to $20 million in shares, accounting for roughly 11.5% of the total offering. Uber also accounted for about 14% of Lime’s revenue in 2025, meaning the ride-hailing company is simultaneously Lime’s biggest distribution partner and now one of its most visible public market backers.
Lime operates as the largest global provider of shared micromobility services, offering short-term rentals of electric scooters and e-bikes across hundreds of cities.
The balance sheet tells a different story Lime reported a net loss of $59.3 million in 2025. As of March 31, 2026, Lime held roughly $261 million in cash against current liabilities of approximately $1 billion.
The $174 million IPO raise, if fully subscribed at the top of the range, would bring total cash closer to $435 million. That still leaves a significant gap against those looming liabilities.
What this means for investors The $1.66 billion to $1.8 billion valuation range positions Lime as a mid-cap transportation play. Investors watching this IPO should pay close attention to the final pricing and first-day trading dynamics. Strong demand above the $26 top of range would suggest institutional appetite for micromobility exposure at scale. Pricing at or below the $24 floor would indicate that even with Uber’s endorsement, the market wants a discount for the financial risk.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
While most of the crypto market sold off on June 25, Sei Network's native token $SEI moved in the opposite direction, trading near $0.058 and up roughly 9% on the day as Bitcoin slipped under $60,000 and most major altcoins stayed firmly in the red.
The move was backed by real volume. CoinGecko data shows 24-hour trading volume for $SEI surged around 190% to approximately $72 million, confirming the price action was not a low-liquidity drift. @SeiNetwork was among the day's clear standouts in an otherwise weak market.
Short squeeze and Giga hype fuel the rally Two catalysts appear to be driving the outperformance. The first is a short squeeze that built around the $0.06 level, forcing leveraged bears to cover their positions and amplifying the upside move. The second is growing anticipation around the network's upcoming Giga upgrade.
Sei Labs published the Giga roadmap in late May 2026, targeting over 200,000 transactions per second and sub-400 millisecond finality. At the core of the performance leap is a protocol called Autobahn, a multi-proposer consensus mechanism. Traditional blockchains rely on a single block proposer at a time, creating a bottleneck. Autobahn lets multiple validators propose blocks simultaneously, which is how throughput scales from thousands to hundreds of thousands of TPS.
For context, Sei's prior throughput benchmarks sat in the range of 5,000 to 12,500 TPS. The Giga upgrade represents roughly a 40 to 50-fold increase in raw capacity. Beyond consensus, the upgrade also introduces asynchronous execution, allowing the network to process transactions in parallel and decouple execution from the consensus layer itself.
Phased rollout, not a single launch The upgrade is not a single event. Sei Labs is rolling it out progressively throughout 2026, with no single definitive launch date, and has set up a public milestone tracker at giga.seilabs.io.
Alongside the Giga upgrade, Sei Network committed in 2026 to becoming an EVM-only chain, deprecating its original CosmWasm smart contracts and native Cosmos transaction types through community-approved proposal SIP-3. Binance confirmed support for the full transition to EVM compatibility starting June 1.
The day's price action suggests the market is beginning to price in that technical roadmap, at least in the short term. Whether the rally holds will depend on whether the Giga milestones continue to arrive on schedule and whether broader crypto sentiment improves.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
Sources:
Crypto Briefing: Sei Giga Upgrade Roadmap, Targets 200,000 TPS and 400ms Finality
CoinGecko: Sei (SEI) Live Price and Market Data
MEXC, a pioneer in 0-fee digital asset trading, will list five Ondo tokenized stock spot trading pairs spanning AI, semiconductor, and energy sectors on June 25, 2026, at 12:00 UTC, giving global users onchain exposure to U.S. stocks without a traditional brokerage account or market-hours restrictions.
Ondo Global Markets is a tokenization platform that provides onchain exposure to thousands of U.S. publicly traded securities, including stocks and ETFs, for investors outside the United States. Each token is supported by specific assets held through regulated custodial brokers and tracks the total return of the underlying security, including dividend reinvestment. Non-US retail and institutional users can mint and redeem tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs instantly, 24 hours a day, five days a week.
As part of its deepening collaboration with Ondo Finance, MEXC is adding five new tokenized stock tradingpairs on spot markets — CCJON/USDT, TTMION/USDT, RMBSON/USDT, SYMON/USDT, and KEELON/USDT — covering Cameco (uranium energy), TTM Technologies (PCB manufacturing), Rambus (semiconductor & silicon intellectual property), Symbotic (AI automation), and Keel Infrastructure (data center & energy infrastructure). This further solidifies MEXC and Ondo’s shared commitment to expanding real-world assets trading opportunities for investors worldwide. Full details are available on the MEXC announcement page.
MEXC and Ondo Finance remain committed to expanding the tokenized real-world assets ecosystem, with plans to continue listing new assets and deepening users’ access to traditional financial markets worldwide. Beyond tokenized assets, MEXC has also officially launched “RealStocks“, an innovative equity product that provides eligible users with real share ownership and dividends. This opens an additional channel for users to access U.S. stock markets within a single platform.
About MEXC MEXC is the world’s fastest-growing cryptocurrency exchange, trusted by more than 40 million users across 170+ markets. Built on a user-first philosophy, MEXC offers industry-leading 0-fee trading and access to over 3,000 digital assets. As the Gateway to Infinite Opportunities, MEXC provides a single platform where users can easily trade cryptocurrencies alongside tokenized assets, including stocks, ETFs, commodities, and precious metals.
MEXC Official Website｜X ｜Telegram ｜How to Sign Up on MEXC
This content does not constitute investment advice. Given the highly volatile nature of the cryptocurrency market, investors are encouraged to carefully assess market fluctuations, project fundamentals, and potential financial risks before making any trading decisions.
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ONDO price came under renewed selling pressure on Tuesday as millions of tokens moved onto major crypto exchanges. These large-scale transfers raised concerns over ONDO’s short-term outlook and triggered an intraday drop of nearly 10%.
Significant inflows to exchanges intensified sellingAccording to data shared by Nazoku, which tracks on-chain activity, the wallet labeled as a custodian vault (address 0xBf6) sent 3.637 million ONDO—worth around $1.14 million—to Coinbase via an intermediary wallet. About an hour earlier, another wallet (0x1c0) transferred 4.013 million ONDO to Coinbase as well.
Some of the transferred tokens were broken into smaller amounts and deposited on Binance and Bybit. The transaction volume notably exceeded the available liquidity at the time. With more than 7.6 million ONDO tokens flowing into exchanges while the price was already weakening, the market reacted suddenly, dragging the token even lower.
Large ONDO transfers to exchanges, coupled with an already fragile market structure, added downward pressure on the token’s price.
Nazoku, a platform specializing in on-chain analytics, highlighted that intermediary wallets were used to distribute the tokens in smaller chunks to different exchanges, rather than executing a single large transfer.
$0.30 stands out as critical short-term supportMarket data indicate that ONDO recently lost the $0.36 threshold, a level viewed as pivotal for both buyers and sellers. Rejection from this area deepened the negative sentiment and shifted focus to the next major support at $0.30. Earlier this year, ONDO surged as high as $0.45, but since then, it has recorded lower highs and lower lows, underscoring persistent weakness.
As long as ONDO maintains levels above $0.30, the price may continue sideways or attempt a rebound towards $0.36. A sustained move below $0.30 could bring $0.243 into play as the next potential target.
Inability to reclaim $0.36 has fueled further sell pressure. The report notes that the token last traded at around $0.29, highlighting how the $0.30 mark has become a key inflection point in the short term.
IndicatorLevelIntraday declineApprox. 10%Lost support$0.36Critical support$0.30Downside target$0.243Reported trading priceApprox. $0.29Futures trading sees volume surge despite price dropDespite ONDO’s price weakness, trading activity in the perpetual futures market saw a strong uptick. As reported by Niels, ONDO’s perpetual futures volume climbed to $1.122 billion, up sharply compared to the $133 million recorded on May 31.
This surge in trading volume indicates that short-term traders remained highly active even as the spot market faced intense selling. The simultaneous increase in derivatives activity alongside the spot market decline highlights the heightened volatility currently surrounding ONDO.
The sharp inflow of ONDO tokens to major exchanges set off a wave of selling, which quickly drove the price down to $0.29. Observers continue to watch whether support at $0.30 will hold or if further declines toward $0.243 are likely.
For now, with the token’s price still under pressure and futures interest climbing, ONDO appears poised for continued volatility in the near term. The interplay between exchange inflows and market reactions will remain a key area of focus for traders and analysts.
In summary, the latest token movements and sharp trading shifts have placed ONDO’s crucial support levels and short-term trajectory in the spotlight as the market weighs its next move.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.
Traditional stock markets close at 4 p.m. Eastern, take weekends off, and observe a generous holiday calendar. Ondo Finance just decided that’s an outdated concept.
The platform has launched 24/7 instant minting and redemption for tokenized US stocks and ETFs through its Ondo Global Markets platform. Previously, minting and redemption on the platform operated on a 24/5 schedule tied to US market hours. Now, qualified purchasers can create or redeem tokens at any hour, on any day, including weekends and holidays.
What Ondo actually built Ondo’s platform now offers access to over 200 tokenized stocks and ETFs. That roster includes heavyweight tickers like NVDA and AAPL, wrapped as blockchain-native tokens backed by real securities held at broker-dealers.
The minimum investment starts at $1, and minting and redemption fees have been waived entirely. In English: someone outside the US can get fractional exposure to Apple stock for a dollar, at 2 a.m. on a Sunday, without paying a fee to do so.
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The infrastructure powering this is Ondo’s Nexus system, which handles on-demand asset creation and redemption linked directly to the underlying securities.
The offering is targeted at non-US qualified investors. This isn’t a product available to US retail traders.
Building on a strong foundation Ondo’s OUSG tokenized Treasuries product already supports 24/7/365 minting and redemption, with approximately $1.03 billion in total value locked.
In March 2026, the platform tokenized Franklin Templeton ETFs. A month later, in April 2026, Ondo established a partnership with Broadridge for onchain voting, addressing one of the persistent governance gaps in tokenized securities. If you hold a token representing a share, can you actually vote at a shareholder meeting? The Broadridge integration is Ondo’s answer to that question.
The platform now tracks over 430 assets across its ecosystem.
Why this matters beyond Ondo The NYSE has signaled ambitions in tokenized equity trading, indicating that traditional finance isn’t dismissing tokenization — it’s racing to figure out how to participate.
By enabling round-the-clock minting and redemption, Ondo is reducing one of the friction points that has historically made tokenized securities less attractive than their traditional counterparts. These products are backed by real securities at broker-dealers, meaning counterparty risk doesn’t disappear just because the wrapper is a token. And while Ondo has navigated the regulatory landscape carefully by restricting access to non-US qualified purchasers, any shifts in regulatory posture across jurisdictions could reshape the playing field quickly.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Binance will delist the IPUSDT and IPUSDC USDT-margined perpetual contracts due to the rebranding of the Story brand.
Per an official announcement, following the rebranding of the Story (IP) brand to Data Network, Binance will automatically liquidate IPUSDT and IPUSDC U-margined perpetual contracts at 17:00 CST (UTC+8) on June 28, 2026, and remove these perpetual contract trading pairs after liquidation concludes. Users are advised to close their positions voluntarily before trading is suspended to avoid automatic settlement of their positions. Starting from 16:30 CST (UTC+8) on June 28, 2026, users will no longer be able to submit new non-reduce-only orders for the aforementioned perpetual contracts. A separate announcement will be released when the new contract goes live.
2 hours ago
Sources: Israeli military withdrawal from Lebanon is an important "red line" for Iran.
Local time on June 25, a source close to the negotiation team said that Israel's withdrawal from Lebanese territory is one of the conditions for a final Iran-US agreement, and is regarded as an important "red line" by Iran's negotiation team. The source further stated that the final memorandum of understanding will guarantee Lebanon's sovereignty and territorial integrity. The agreement text previously reached in Switzerland already emphasized a "conflict resolution mechanism" that is participated in and uniformly implemented by Iran. Iran is currently following up on the specific implementation timeline. (CCTV)
2 hours ago
Apple's stock price fell by 6%, marking its largest decline since April 2025.
According to Bitget's market data, Apple's stock price fell by 6%, marking its largest decline since April 2025.
2 hours ago
Analyst: Bitcoin falls below $60,000, but institutions and whales are not continuing to bet on further declines.
Greeks.live macro researcher Adam posted on X: "Tomorrow is the quarterly expiry, and Bitcoin has dipped below $60,000. As seen in the GEX chart, $60,000 is clearly the highest open interest price point. Meanwhile, large positions are also starting to accumulate at $58,000 and $59,000, signaling rising market risk. Institutional investors and major holders have not continued to bet on a downward move; they are just waiting for the expiry."
2 hours ago
TD Cowen Analyst: SpaceX May Acquire T-Mobile
TD Cowen analysts said SpaceX could acquire T-Mobile to accelerate its wireless communication ambitions if a network sharing agreement cannot be reached. The report points to Starlink’s existing partnership with T-Mobile US as a strategic fit. This idea is purely speculative, but it underscores the growing competitive pressure the space exploration firm faces in the telecom industry.
An address with 2x leverage long on 3.46 million SYN currently has an unrealized profit of about $662,000
PANews, June 25 – According to Lookonchain, a newly created address 0x2A32 opened a 2x leveraged long position on the decentralized trading platform Aster DEX, buying approximately 3.46 million SYN with a notional position size of about $1.69 million. The position has been open for less than two days and is currently showing an unrealized profit of roughly $662,000.
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Binance will delist the IPUSDT and IPUSDC USDT-margined perpetual contracts due to the rebranding of the Story brand.
Per an official announcement, following the rebranding of the Story (IP) brand to Data Network, Binance will automatically liquidate IPUSDT and IPUSDC U-margined perpetual contracts at 17:00 CST (UTC+8) on June 28, 2026, and remove these perpetual contract trading pairs after liquidation concludes. Users are advised to close their positions voluntarily before trading is suspended to avoid automatic settlement of their positions. Starting from 16:30 CST (UTC+8) on June 28, 2026, users will no longer be able to submit new non-reduce-only orders for the aforementioned perpetual contracts. A separate announcement will be released when the new contract goes live.
2 hours ago
Sources: Israeli military withdrawal from Lebanon is an important "red line" for Iran.
Local time on June 25, a source close to the negotiation team said that Israel's withdrawal from Lebanese territory is one of the conditions for a final Iran-US agreement, and is regarded as an important "red line" by Iran's negotiation team. The source further stated that the final memorandum of understanding will guarantee Lebanon's sovereignty and territorial integrity. The agreement text previously reached in Switzerland already emphasized a "conflict resolution mechanism" that is participated in and uniformly implemented by Iran. Iran is currently following up on the specific implementation timeline. (CCTV)
2 hours ago
Apple's stock price fell by 6%, marking its largest decline since April 2025.
According to Bitget's market data, Apple's stock price fell by 6%, marking its largest decline since April 2025.
2 hours ago
Analyst: Bitcoin falls below $60,000, but institutions and whales are not continuing to bet on further declines.
Greeks.live macro researcher Adam posted on X: "Tomorrow is the quarterly expiry, and Bitcoin has dipped below $60,000. As seen in the GEX chart, $60,000 is clearly the highest open interest price point. Meanwhile, large positions are also starting to accumulate at $58,000 and $59,000, signaling rising market risk. Institutional investors and major holders have not continued to bet on a downward move; they are just waiting for the expiry."
2 hours ago
TD Cowen Analyst: SpaceX May Acquire T-Mobile
TD Cowen analysts said SpaceX could acquire T-Mobile to accelerate its wireless communication ambitions if a network sharing agreement cannot be reached. The report points to Starlink’s existing partnership with T-Mobile US as a strategic fit. This idea is purely speculative, but it underscores the growing competitive pressure the space exploration firm faces in the telecom industry.
GitHub has been the home to Bitcoin Core and many other software projects in the Bitcoin industry for over a decade, but it was not the first collaborative version control platform to host the digital currency’s code, and it may not be the last.
Recent performance issues in GitHub have triggered a new wave of criticisms of the platform, reviving old concerns and dissatisfactions with its design and reliability. Matt Corallo, one of the longest-acting Bitcoin core contributors, took to X recently to announce the decision to migrate off the platform, not Bitcoin core’s code base yet, but the Rust Lightning dev kit, a code base he is closely involved with.
In an X quote retweet thread that goes back through multiple viral posts complaining about the platform, Corallo said, “our org currently has no CI (quality testing processes) because GitHub wrongly flagged a contributor, not an admin or maintainer, just someone new who opened a few pull requests. We’ve escalated it through corporate account managers and still basically nothing.” A week or so later, he added: “GitHub has decided our open-source project has been permanently banned with no explanation and no option to appeal, pointing to a ToS that clearly does not cover anything we’ve ever done.” – “I guess it’s time for Bitcoin projects to leave GitHub.”
The banned contributor appears to be Luis Schwab, who replied “I’ve had my account banned twice within a week “by mistake”. Relying on GitHub’s goodwill is not a good long term strategy.” Multiple other Bitcoin and crypto engineers replied with similar experiences, saying they too had migrated off the platform or been banned without recourse, like Roman Storm, who replied, “In 2022, GitHub locked my account over Tornado Cash sanctions. I’m a US citizen. They told me to get an OFAC license to access my own account. The sanctions were later ruled unlawful and overturned. The account is still locked. I’ve filed ticket after ticket – now they don’t even respond. Abolish GitHub.”
Corallo blames the AI wave on the recent mass banning of accounts and increasingly aggressive measures taken by the massive platform. The popularity of vibe coding has brought a new wave of attention, amateur projects and automated bot-like behavior to the already overburdened platform. Today, GitHub claims to host over 420 million repositories and over 4 million organizations worldwide. GitHub was acquired by Microsoft in 2018, which, to some, also explains its steady downfall.
Even Andrew Poelstra, another senior Bitcoin Core and Rust Lightning contributor, with over a decade of experience in the industry, wrote a devastating take-down of GitHub, defending the decision to migrate. “This site has an overwhelming amount of LLM slop, and they have no intention of stopping it, though they did write this insane blog post taking credit for FOSS as a way of acknowledging the problem,” he began, continuing to explain that the merging of code into the master repositories had now been “broken for several days.” This caused cascading issues that confused the “merge script,” a security program that makes sure updates to a code base are done properly.
The bug meant that tracking and merging pull requests — contributions from other developers — didn’t work as expected. “Tracking PRs is the one thing GitHub is supposed to do, and it’s broken. It’s no longer more convenient to stay here than to leave, which was the only reason we’ve stayed so long,” Poelstra continued. “The usual problems where diffs and comments are hidden, the site being slow and unreliable, the permissions model being insane and broken, the lock-in, the crappy and slow API, etc. [All of] which we could live with if the basic functionality worked, but it doesn’t.”
As a result, the next destination for Rust Lightning and perhaps other Bitcoin projects in the industry may be Forgejo, a lightweight GitHub alternative optimized towards self-hosting and high agency projects. Corallo confirmed to Bitcoin Magazine that “rust-bitcoin already started migrating to git.rust-bitcoin.org” and Rust Lightning would follow.
The repositories will likely continue to host a copy on GitHub, though no public statements have been made about any kind of long-term mirroring strategy of the code base, meaning it will eventually just live on their own site.
The company says it has mined the first known Bitcoin block using Stratum V2’s Job Declaration feature, as it also rolls out new marketplace tools for digital mining assets.
GoMining says it has mined what it believes is the first known Bitcoin block produced using the Stratum V2 protocol’s Job Declaration functionality, marking an early real-world deployment of technology designed to give miners greater control over how Bitcoin blocks are constructed.
The block was mined through the DMND bitcoin mining pool, with GoMining creating and declaring its own block template rather than relying on the mining pool to determine which transactions were included. The approach represents one of the core features of Stratum V2, an open-source mining protocol that aims to improve security, efficiency and decentralization within Bitcoin mining.
According to the company, the block included transactions associated with GoBTC Pay, GoMining’s open-source Bitcoin instant payments protocol, demonstrating that miners can include transactions tied to their own applications while continuing to participate in pooled mining.
“For years, mining pools have largely determined which transactions are included in Bitcoin blocks,” said Mark Zalan, CEO of GoMining. “By creating our own block template and including GoBTC Pay transactions, we’re demonstrating one of the practical capabilities that Stratum V2 makes possible.”
Mining pools have traditionally been responsible for constructing block templates, leaving individual miners with little influence over transaction selection despite providing the computing power. Stratum V2 introduces Job Declaration, allowing miners to build their own templates while still benefiting from pooled mining rewards.
The protocol has been under development for several years with contributions from members of the Bitcoin community. Supporters argue that broader adoption could reduce centralization among mining pools by distributing block construction decisions across participating miners.
“A miner just mined the first Stratum V2 block to power their own product end to end,” said Alejandro De La Torre, CEO and co-founder of DMND. “GoMining declared the template and included their GoBTC Pay payments with no pool in the way. We built DMND for exactly this.”
The milestone comes as Bitcoin mining companies continue exploring new infrastructure and protocol upgrades aimed at improving network resilience and operational flexibility.
Separately, GoMining has also expanded its digital mining ecosystem with the launch of a new “Step Down Auction” feature for its secondary marketplace. The automated sales mechanism allows sellers to list Digital Miners at a starting price that gradually decreases until a buyer purchases the asset, eliminating the need for competitive bidding.
The marketplace update also broadens public access to listings, introduces additional price history and ROI metrics, and adds new sorting and filtering tools designed to improve liquidity and price discovery for digital mining assets.
Together, the announcements highlight GoMining’s dual focus on advancing Bitcoin’s underlying mining infrastructure while expanding the user experience around tokenized mining products. While the Stratum V2 milestone targets improvements at the protocol level, the marketplace enhancements are aimed at making digital mining assets easier to trade and evaluate within the company’s ecosystem.
Whether the Stratum V2 implementation accelerates adoption across the wider mining industry remains to be seen. However, successfully mining a production Bitcoin block using miner-controlled template creation provides one of the first practical demonstrations of the protocol’s capabilities outside of testing environments.
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After the latest US inflation figures were released, Bitcoin tumbled sharply during the Wall Street opening, falling as low as $58,035. This marks the lowest level recorded since September 2024. The sudden sell-off in the cryptocurrency market coincided with heightened volatility in major stock indices.
The US Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Price Index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge of inflation, rose 4.1% year over year in May. On a monthly basis, the index climbed 0.4%, while the core indicator—which excludes food and energy—increased by 0.3%. The data indicated that inflation is cooling less rapidly than anticipated, accelerating the sell-off across risk assets.
According to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, in May the PCE Price Index gained 0.4% monthly, with the core PCE index (excluding food and energy) rising by 0.3%.
Stock markets also saw a spike in volatility. At the time of reporting, the Nasdaq Composite Index was down 0.5%, with the S&P 500 managing a slight gain. Notably, the Nasdaq 100 dropped 2% within just 30 minutes of the opening bell, underscoring the nervous sentiment spreading through risk assets.
Liquidations top $600 million in one hourBitcoin’s rapid drop triggered large-scale liquidations in the derivatives market. According to data from CoinGlass, over $600 million worth of crypto positions were wiped out within a single hour across the entire market. The majority of these forced closures were on long positions, reflecting how investors betting on higher prices were caught off guard.
CoinGlass is a widely followed data platform tracking liquidation trends in crypto derivatives markets. In this context, “liquidation” refers to a leveraged position being automatically closed out by an exchange due to insufficient collateral to cover losses.
Mini glossary: In leveraged trading, “liquidation” occurs when a price move sharply opposes an investor’s position, triggering an automatic closure to protect collateral. This process can swiftly fuel further cascading sell-offs.
Niels Klaver, co-founder of STABL Agency, commented that the BTC pair appears to be approaching the final downward leg of this bear cycle, identifying $55,000 as the next short-term target.
Analysts highlight critical $60,000 supportSome market commentators have argued that recent price swings are being orchestrated to squeeze positions. The pseudonymous trader Killa claimed that Bitcoin is currently in a manipulation phase, though these assessments have not been independently verified.
In contrast, analyst Rekt Capital pointed out that the $60,000 support level has clearly weakened. According to him, after the June monthly close, it will become clearer from which level a potential rebound in July might begin.
Rekt Capital also noted that the current market environment resembles the price structure of the 2022 bear market. In his view, the 50-month exponential moving average could now act as the next significant resistance zone for Bitcoin if downward momentum persists.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.
Strategy director Jarrod Patten has sold another 1,500 MSTR shares as the company’s stock has fallen to a fresh 52-week low and investor scrutiny over its Bitcoin treasury strategy has intensified.
Summary
Strategy director Jarrod Patten sold another 1,500 MSTR shares after exercising stock options, extending a months-long insider selling streak. MSTR stock fell to a fresh 52-week low near $86 as Bitcoin weakened and Rosen Law Firm launched a shareholder investigation. Two Prime CEO Alexander Blume said investor trust, rather than dividend payments, has become Strategy’s biggest challenge. According to a recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Patten exercised options to acquire 1,500 Strategy Class A shares on June 23 at a strike price of $18.236 per share before selling the entire position the same day at $106.08 per share.
The filing shows the options cost roughly $27,354 to exercise, while the sale generated about $159,120, leaving an estimated pre-tax gain of approximately $131,766.
The latest transaction extends a selling streak that has continued for months. SEC records show Patten has sold 55,750 Strategy shares during the past three months, with those transactions producing roughly $9 million in proceeds.
The insider sales have coincided with growing criticism from some investors over the company’s financing strategy and the potential impact of additional share issuance.
Earlier this month, Patten completed another options exercise using the same $18.236 strike price before selling the shares at around $134 each. As crypto.news previously reported, that transaction generated more than $200,000 in profit.
Strategy stock continues to face heavy selling pressure While the insider sale occurred earlier this week, pressure on Strategy shares has intensified in recent trading. Yahoo Finance data show MSTR fell below the $100 mark earlier this week before sliding to around $86 on Thursday, leaving the stock down more than 6.5% on the day and roughly 23% over the past week.
The decline has unfolded alongside another sharp move lower in Bitcoin, which briefly slipped below $59,000 after stronger-than-expected U.S. inflation data reinforced expectations that interest rates could stay higher for longer. As cryptocurrency prices weakened, investors also reassessed companies with large Bitcoin holdings, including Strategy.
At the same time, legal pressure surrounding the company has increased. Rosen Law Firm recently announced that it is investigating whether Strategy made materially misleading business disclosures and said it is evaluating possible securities claims on behalf of shareholders.
Analysts say investor confidence has become the key concern Market criticism has also expanded beyond the stock’s recent decline. In a June 25 X post, longtime Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff argued that Strategy’s falling share price was adding pressure to the cryptocurrency market. Schiff wrote, “As I warned, MSTR’s death spiral has pricked the Bitcoin bubble,” before adding that both MSTR and the company’s STRC preferred shares had suffered steep losses while Bitcoin fell toward $58,000.
Meanwhile, comments from Two Prime CEO Alexander Blume, as reported by CoinDesk, point to investor confidence as the central issue facing Strategy. Blume argued that repeated changes to Michael Saylor’s stated plans have weakened trust among retail investors, potentially making it harder for the company to regain market confidence even if its financial obligations remain intact.
Bitcoin (BTC) dropped below $60,000, a key psychological support, on Thursday as losses in megacap technology stocks weighed on investors' broader risk appetite, adding pressure to an already fragile crypto market.
BTC/USD vs. Nasdaq and S&P 500 daily performance chart. Source: TradingView
The decline has triggered a classic bearish reversal setup that may push the BTC price under the $54,000 mark in the coming days.
Key takeaways:
Bitcoin’s break below $60,000 has erased its June gains and activated multiple bearish setups.Bitcoin’s rounded top and daily bear flag breakdowns are both projecting a downside target below $54,000.BTC's rounded top breakdown signals more pain aheadThe BTC/USD pair fell as much as 4.8% on Thursday, hitting an intraday low near $58,000 and erasing its entire June advance. The pullback also completed what appears to be a rounded top pattern on the four-hour chart.
BTC/USD four-hour chart tracking the rounded top bearish setup. Source: TradingView
In technical analysis, a rounded top forms when buying momentum gradually exhausts, shifting the asset from an uptrend to a downtrend in an inverse-U-shaped structure. The pattern officially resolves when the price breaks below the "neckline" or the structure's base support.
By measuring the distance from the top of the dome to the neckline and projecting that same distance downward from the breakdown point, analysts calculate a clear target.
For Bitcoin, this measured downside target sits just under the $54,000 level, representing an approximate 8.9% drop from current prices.
On the daily chart, Bitcoin has simultaneously triggered a bear flag breakdown.
BTC/USD daily chart tracking the bear flag breakdown setup. Source: TradingView
This secondary pattern independently projects an identical move toward the $54,000 zone, adding substantial weight to the bearish case.
Bitcoin MVRV bands increase $54,000 target oddsBitcoin’s on-chain price bands also point to the same downside area highlighted by the rounded-top and bear-flag setups.
Glassnode’s MVRV pricing bands compare Bitcoin’s market price with its realized price, or the average price at which coins last moved on-chain. In simple terms, they show whether the market is trading at unusually high profit or loss levels.
BTC MVRV pricing bands vs. price. Source: Glassnode
As of Wednesday, Bitcoin was trading near $60,997, while the 1.0 MVRV band, shown in green, sat around $53,390. That level closely matches the technical downside target near $54,000, making it an important support zone if BTC extends its decline.
A deeper selloff, however, could push Bitcoin toward the 0.8 MVRV band, shown in blue, near $42,700. Historically, Bitcoin’s major bear-market bottoms have formed around this lower blue band, where unrealized losses become extreme, and capitulation risk rises.
This article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph's Editorial Policy and is intended for informational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice or recommendations. All investments and trades carry risk; readers are encouraged to conduct independent research.
Bitcoin (BTC) dropped below $60,000, a key psychological support, on Thursday as losses in megacap technology stocks weighed on investors' broader risk appetite, adding pressure to an already fragile crypto market.
BTC/USD vs. Nasdaq and S&P 500 daily performance chart. Source: TradingView
The decline has triggered a classic bearish reversal setup that may push the BTC price under the $54,000 mark in the coming days.
Key takeaways:
Bitcoin’s break below $60,000 has erased its June gains and activated multiple bearish setups.Bitcoin’s rounded top and daily bear flag breakdowns are both projecting a downside target below $54,000.BTC's rounded top breakdown signals more pain aheadThe BTC/USD pair fell as much as 4.8% on Thursday, hitting an intraday low near $58,000 and erasing its entire June advance. The pullback also completed what appears to be a rounded top pattern on the four-hour chart.
BTC/USD four-hour chart tracking the rounded top bearish setup. Source: TradingView
In technical analysis, a rounded top forms when buying momentum gradually exhausts, shifting the asset from an uptrend to a downtrend in an inverse-U-shaped structure. The pattern officially resolves when the price breaks below the "neckline" or the structure's base support.
By measuring the distance from the top of the dome to the neckline and projecting that same distance downward from the breakdown point, analysts calculate a clear target.
For Bitcoin, this measured downside target sits just under the $54,000 level, representing an approximate 8.9% drop from current prices.
On the daily chart, Bitcoin has simultaneously triggered a bear flag breakdown.
BTC/USD daily chart tracking the bear flag breakdown setup. Source: TradingView
This secondary pattern independently projects an identical move toward the $54,000 zone, adding substantial weight to the bearish case.
Bitcoin MVRV bands increase $54,000 target oddsBitcoin’s on-chain price bands also point to the same downside area highlighted by the rounded-top and bear-flag setups.
Glassnode’s MVRV pricing bands compare Bitcoin’s market price with its realized price, or the average price at which coins last moved on-chain. In simple terms, they show whether the market is trading at unusually high profit or loss levels.
BTC MVRV pricing bands vs. price. Source: Glassnode
As of Wednesday, Bitcoin was trading near $60,997, while the 1.0 MVRV band, shown in green, sat around $53,390. That level closely matches the technical downside target near $54,000, making it an important support zone if BTC extends its decline.
A deeper selloff, however, could push Bitcoin toward the 0.8 MVRV band, shown in blue, near $42,700. Historically, Bitcoin’s major bear-market bottoms have formed around this lower blue band, where unrealized losses become extreme, and capitulation risk rises.
This article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph's Editorial Policy and is intended for informational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice or recommendations. All investments and trades carry risk; readers are encouraged to conduct independent research.
