Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Avalanche [AVAX] dipped 9.50% on the 19th of June. This bearish outlook appears to be driven by ongoing geopolitical tensions, the broader market trend, and the breakdown of a major support level. 

At press time, AVAX tanked 9.50% over the past 24 hours and was trading at $6.07. Despite the sharp price decline, the asset’s trading volume recorded a sudden spike, indicating strong participation from market participants.

This surge in activity suggests that traders are actively following the current trend, further reinforcing AVAX’s bearish momentum. 

The decline was likely influenced by the postponement of U.S.-Iran talks following fresh attacks in Lebanon, which turned the crypto market down 2.66%. 

AVAX chart signals more pain ahead According to TradingView’s daily chart, today’s 9.50% decline has extended AVAX’s bearish trend for a third consecutive day. In fact, this drop triggered a breakdown below the key $6.24 support level, which had acted as a major floor since the 6th of June.

Source: TradingView Besides this, AVAX’s broader trend appears bearish due to the persistent breakdown of key support levels at $8.95, $8.21, and now $6.24.

In addition, the price trading below the 200-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) indicates that the asset remains in a strong bearish trend, with sellers firmly in control.

Based on the current price action, if AVAX continues its current trend and remains below the $6.24 level, it could witness further downside in the coming days.

However, a potential recovery would only become likely if the price reclaims the $6.24 level; otherwise, the bearish trend is expected to continue.

At press time, AVAX’s Average Directional Index (ADX) stood at 54.89, well above the key threshold of 25, indicating a strong directional trend in the asset.

Traders and investors’ mixed sentiment  Not only has AVAX’s market structure turned bearish, but trader sentiment has also followed the same path, as market participants appear to be betting on further downside.

Derivatives data from CoinGlass shows that AVAX’s Long/Short Ratio has fallen to 0.8709, indicating strong bearish sentiment among traders.

Meanwhile, Open Interest (OI) has jumped 2.31% to $261.78 million, suggesting that bears are actively building positions, further reinforcing the possibility of additional downside in the coming days. 

As of now, $5.93 on the downside and $6.17 on the upside are the major liquidation levels.

Traders have built $1.24 million worth of long positions at the lower level and $2.75 million worth of short positions at the upper level, indicating that bears are currently dominating the market while bulls appear to be losing momentum.

Source: Coinglass However, on-chain analytics paints a slightly different picture. Data from Nansen shows that the top 100 AVAX addresses have increased their holdings by 1.47%, indicating potential accumulation during the recent price dip.

At the same time, exchange reserves have fallen by 0.30%, suggesting that not only are top holders taking advantage of the decline, but long-term investors are also following the same approach.

Source: Nansen Final Summary AVAX plunged 9.50%, losing a major key support level, with the chart signaling the possibility of further downside ahead. Traders and investors appear to have mixed sentiment, as traders are betting on price declines, while investors seem to be taking advantage of the dip.

Avalanche’s C-Chain is processing transactions at a pace that would have seemed absurd six months ago. Daily transaction counts have climbed from roughly 250,000 to nearly 1.2 million since June 2025, a surge that translates to more than a six-fold increase in monthly volume.

Stablecoins and small payments are doing the heavy lifting USDC transfers have accounted for up to 70% of C-Chain activity during the surge. Most of these aren’t whale-sized moves or DeFi arbitrage plays. They’re low-value payments under $10, which suggests something closer to everyday commerce than speculative trading.

Stablecoin transfer volume on the C-Chain jumped 330% year-over-year. In English: the network is handling more than four times the dollar-denominated stablecoin flow it did a year ago.

Monthly transactions hit 35.8 million in August 2025, marking the second-highest total ever recorded on the C-Chain at that time. For context, cumulative C-Chain transactions crossed 1 billion by late January 2026, and a staggering 43.3% of all those transactions happened in 2025 alone.

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Gaming and fee cuts added fuel The launch of the MapleStory Universe NFT game in May 2025 brought a wave of gaming-driven transactions to the network. MapleStory, the beloved side-scrolling MMO that has been around since 2003, introduced its blockchain-powered universe to a player base that already numbered in the tens of millions globally.

Avalanche slashed its baseline C-Chain fees by 96%, dropping the base fee from 25 nAVAX to just 1 nAVAX. When it costs nearly nothing to send $5 in USDC, people actually do it. When it costs $2 in gas, they don’t.

Daily active users on the C-Chain rose from approximately 30,000 to 600,000 in 2025. That’s a 20-fold increase.

Subnets and real-world assets round out the picture Avalanche’s subnet model, which lets developers launch customized blockchains that still connect to the Avalanche ecosystem, has been expanding progressively. Institutional players have been exploring subnets for real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, adding another layer of transaction volume to the ecosystem.

What this means for investors The 96% fee reduction complicates the relationship between transaction growth and token value. A network processing 6X more transactions at fees that are 96% cheaper is generating roughly 24% of the per-transaction revenue it once did.

Investors should also watch the composition of those transactions carefully. A network where 70% of activity comes from sub-$10 USDC transfers is useful, but it’s also vulnerable to any shift in stablecoin preferences.

The 20X growth in daily active users is probably the most bullish metric in the entire dataset. User growth is harder to fake and harder to reverse than transaction counts.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Sneha Agrawal

With over four years of experience in covering and tracking the financial markets, Sneha Agrawal is a dedicated Crypto Journalist and Editor with passion for researching and writing the crypto pieces. She is currently leading the Block of Fame, here at CoinGape. She likes to keep track of political, legal and financial happenings all around the world - without which she deems her day incomplete. Apart from her Journalistic endeavours, she is a solo traveler, museum goer, and a keen reader of books.

COINTELEGRAPH: Bitcoin fell 21% after Strategy's debt buyback news— Is a Terra Luna-style doom loop next?

Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) around $62,000 is sitting directly on the 200-week moving average, a level that only broke during the FTX, Terra, and Three Arrows Capital collapses in 2022.

ETF Outflows Finally Printed One Green Day After $5B ExitAfter four weeks of relentless selling that drained ETF net assets from $109 billion to $80.40 billion, June 4 printed a modest $3.05 million net inflow. 

One green day does not reverse weeks of institutional distribution. The long/short ratio sits at a nearly neutral 1.01 with open interest declining 2.99% to $46.44 billion, suggesting leveraged players are stepping back rather than committing directionally. 

Additionally, over 24 hours, $209 million in longs were liquidated against $127 million in shorts, confirming the market is still punishing buyers.

Meanwhile, Bankless co-host David Hoffman noted on X that the 200-week moving average has only broken twice in Bitcoin’s history, both times during catastrophic contagion events. 

“I don’t think Saylor’s STRC issuance is anywhere close to that level of toxicity,” he posted, drawing a line between current stress and systemic collapse.

Breaking $60,000 Would Trigger Mechanical Selling From Derivatives MarketDeribit Chief Commercial Officer Jean-David Péquignot warned that $60,000 is not just a psychological level but a structural threshold with real mechanical consequences. 

A significant portion of institutional buyers, including ETF purchasers, large holders, and short-term speculators, entered between $60,000 and $67,000 over the past year and are now sitting near break-even.

“As price undercuts their cost basis, the resulting unrealized losses may incentivize rushed selling, especially as the opportunity cost of holding BTC rises against a surging AI equity sector,” Péquignot said.

The derivatives problem compounds this. Over $1.2 billion in notional open interest sits at the $60,000 strike put options on Deribit. 

Market makers who sold those puts are short gamma, meaning as Bitcoin approaches $60,000 they must sell spot BTC or futures to hedge, mechanically accelerating the decline.

A break below $60,000 could trigger cascading long liquidations as collateral metrics deteriorate across leveraged positions.

Image: Shutterstock

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Pedro wipes the sleep from his eyes, kisses his wife on the cheek, and rolls over to pick up his phone to check on his Luna Classic validators. In the real world, he's waking up for his job as the head brewer at a beerhouse. But in the virtual one, he's known as Vegas, one of the leading voices in the Terra Luna Classic community.

Terra Luna Classic is the blockchain that was forked and abandoned when Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon attempted to save his crumbling empire in 2022. Kwon has since been convicted of fraud and sentenced to 15 years in prison over the $40 billion collapse of Terra. But the network he and his company created—decentralized as it is—lives on, with the support of individuals from around the world who have poured significant amounts of time and money into the project.

Vegas told Decrypt he had approximately $50,000 invested in Terra at the time of its collapse, subsequently finding himself at ground zero when efforts began to salvage the project.

Nowadays, as he walks downstairs in the morning, phone in hand, he checks in on the Terra developer group chat, then his emails for any exploit concerns, and then scrolls through the community Telegram and Discord chats while making himself breakfast. Most days, in the morning or while at work, Vegas will act as a point of contact for community members who have support requests or for developers who need help with proposals.

"In the middle of this, I have to fight all of the drama that is all over Twitter," the Portuguese-born Vegas told Decrypt, calling it a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week job. "If you ask my wife, she will say that I'm crazy, but no. I think there's still hope on the chain. I think there's massive potential for this chain to be a top 10 chain again."

Despite his dedication, Vegas isn't without his detractors. When Decrypt joined the Terra Classic Telegram group to speak with Vegas, we received several DMs accusing Vegas of being a scammer himself. Vegas says it comes with the territory—the perils of decentralization and internal power struggles, even within a group that has suffered one of the worst collapses in crypto’s short history.

"Decentralization is amazing, but at the same time, it is cruel because people want to take the spotlight," Vegas told Decrypt. "I've had physical problems in my real life with people calling the police to my house, to my work, and some other stuff … horrible, horrible times."

Where did this all begin?When Terra collapsed back in 2022, the price of the LUNA token was in free fall, the network's native stablecoin UST had depegged, and Do Kwon made his now infamous “steady lads” call on social media to rally his believers.

In a last-ditch effort, Terraform Labs hard forked the network to remove the depegged algorithmic stablecoin UST, leaving behind the original chain with the new name of Terra Luna Classic—much like Ethereum Classic.

Deploying more capital - steady lads

— Do Kwon 🌕 (@stablekwon) May 9, 2022

With its creators abandoning the original Terra Luna chain, a group of community members called the Terra Rebels started to congregate on Discord. In the short term, the Discord channel doubled as a support network with pseudonymous moderator “K_raucks” creating a suicide help line of sorts.

"A lot of people needed someone to talk to. And it's anonymous on these spaces, so we allowed the space for them to express these feelings," K_raucks told Decrypt. "It's hard when people have lost everything."

The community's first step to rebuilding the chain was proposal 3568, which introduced a 1.2% burn tax on all transactions of Terra Luna Classic, which trades as LUNC. The hope was that it would help boost demand for LUNC and therefore boost its price. The proposal was authored by Vegas and was the source of his first criticism from detractors, who claim it was just a marketing move.

The Terra Rebels continued through the summer and autumn of 2022, attempting to rebuild the chain. Things then came to a head in December when the Terra Rebels received $150,000 from the community pool to separate the Rebel Station wallet's infrastructure from Terraform Labs. This caused community uproar and accusations that the Terra Rebels were trying to centralize power on the chain, and the group disbanded.

Tensions within the LUNC community then flared.

"The situation is simple to explain: If you see someone who you think is winning money and profiting from the chain, you want their position. And you will do every single thing to make their life very, very, very messy," Vegas said.

As a result of the messy politics, Vegas explained, many developers have left Terra Luna Classic over the years.

Amidst this power struggle, the community continued to build. One of these projects includes lending protocol Juris Protocol, which aims to be an Anchor protocol alternative but without the "ponzinomics," its founder Puya Eghtessadi told Decrypt. Others have released meme coins, crypto games, and have formulated plans to repeg the chain's stablecoins.

The community's efforts have seen some modest success, with the price LUNC gaining 17.3% over the past year, per CoinGecko data. The token, however, has fallen 28.7% since proposal 3568 was first introduced in 2022 and is down 99.99% from its all-time high of $119.

While Vegas lies in bed at night dreaming that LUNC will regain its top 10 status one day, many others within the community feel like they've found a family, bonded through trauma—and price action is secondary. And like many families, it's dysfunctional.

"There is a sense of camaraderie, people are going through or have gone through traumatic [events], but you still have this common goal," K_raucks told Decrypt. "What if we can pull off one of the greatest comebacks ever? It's the freaking Hail Mary."

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The broader cryptocurrency market remains under pressure, with Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $62,000 on Tuesday, while market-wide Open Interest stabilizes after hitting a two-month low. Reduced leverage exposure reflects a risk-off phase, as supported by the Fear and Greed Index, which indicates extreme fear in the market. Although downside pressure lingers, Zcash (ZEC) and Terra Classic (LUNC) emerge as top performers over the last 24 hours, defying market trends.

Crypto is under pressureBitcoin’s rebound following a brief slip below $60,000 on Friday, as stronger-than-expected US jobs report data fueled hawkish Fed expectations, is losing momentum. The intraday pullback below $63,000 on Tuesday is consistent with the broader market risk-off sentiment.

CoinMarketCap data shows the Fear and Greed Index down to 15 on Tuesday, from 25 last week, reflecting a sharp decline in investors' risk appetite. Corroborating the de-risking phase, the broader market Open Interest (OI) dropped to a two-month low of $100 billion on Sunday, down from the May 12 peak of $135 billion, driven largely by over $1 billion in daily liquidations last week. As of Tuesday, the OI stands at $103 billion, stabilizing in the near-term as liquidations cool off.

Though the data suggests easing of near-term volatility, persistent downside pressure could extend the decline in Bitcoin and major altcoins.

Fear and Greed Index. Source: CoinMarketCap

Crypto Open Interest data. Source: CoinGlassZcash and Terra Classic attempt to scale the market tideZcash hovers slightly below $450 at press time on Tuesday, holding after a 4% gain above the 100-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) at $430 on Monday. The privacy coin keeps the near-term tone neutral to slightly bullish with a near-term V-shaped recovery from the 200-day EMA at $369. The upward trend in EMAs suggests the broader uptrend remains intact, but it is capped by the 50-day EMA at $485.

That said, the momentum is subdued on the daily chart, with the Relative Strength Index (RSI) hovering around 44 and the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) still below its signal line, which hints that recovery attempts could struggle while price trades beneath the 50-day EMA.

Looking up, the 50-day EMA at $485 could serve as the final dynamic resistance, capping the upside toward the $500 psychological threshold.

ZEC/USDT daily price chart.On the downside, initial support is seen at the 100-day EMA at $430, ahead of a structural band around the 200-day EMA at $369.

Terra Classis mirrors a similar near-term V-shaped rebound from its 200-day EMA at $0.000057 on Saturday. At the time of writing, LUNC is down over 3% on Tuesday as the 50-day EMA at $0.000072 caps the three-day recovery, keeping the near-term bias neutral.

With the MACD and signal line trending in the negative zone and the RSI rising to 45, momentum remains subdued.

A daily close above the 50-day EMA at $0.000072 could extend the LUNC recovery toward $0.000091 resistance, which capped a minor bullish attempt in late May.

LUNC/USDT daily price chart.Looking down, the 100-day and 200-day EMA at $0.000064 and $0.000057, respectively, serve as crucial support zone for buyers to regain control.

(The technical analysis of this story was written with the help of an AI tool.)

MicroStrategy’s STRC Hits Record Low as Monthly Slide Tops 10%

Ali Martinez has cautioned that Strategy’s STRC structure may amplify financial stress in a prolonged Bitcoin bear market, citing similarities to the feedback loop seen in Terra-Luna’s collapse in 2022.

Summary

Ali Martinez warned that Strategy’s STRC structure could increase financial pressure during a prolonged Bitcoin decline. STRC fell as much as 17% below its $100 par value, raising concerns about investor demand. Martinez said the stock’s feedback mechanism shares conceptual similarities with Terra-Luna’s collapse dynamics. In a June 19 X post, Martinez argued that STRC differs from traditional corporate bonds because its dividend rate can be adjusted to help keep the security trading near its $100 par value.

Same-Same, But Different

Most traditional corporate bonds have fixed interest rates. If a company struggles, the market price of the bond drops, but the company's actual monthly interest payments stay the same. The investors take the hit, not the company.

Strategy’s STRC debt… pic.twitter.com/DcN50g2emI

— Ali Charts (@alicharts) June 19, 2026 While conventional bond issuers continue paying fixed interest regardless of market fluctuations, he said Strategy may face pressure to raise dividend payouts if demand for STRC weakens during a Bitcoin downturn.

The concern comes as scrutiny of Strategy’s financing model continues to grow following a sharp decline in its latest preferred stock offering.

As reported by crypto.news earlier, STRC fell as much as 17% below par value on June 18, reaching a record low of $82.53 before recovering to close at $88.59.

Source: Yahoo Finance Rising payouts could increase pressure during a Bitcoin decline Martinez said the structure creates a situation in which Strategy’s financing costs could rise at the same time that the value of its primary treasury asset falls. If Bitcoin remains under pressure and investor demand for STRC declines, the company may need to offer higher dividends to attract buyers and support the stock’s market price.

According to Martinez, additional cash commitments tied to higher payouts could become increasingly burdensome during a prolonged market downturn.

His assessment arrives as investors debate how Strategy should respond to the weakness in STRC. Arca Chief Investment Officer Jeff Dorman recently noted that selling between $3 billion and $4 billion worth of Bitcoin could be one way to relieve pressure on the company’s capital structure.

As reported by crypto.news, Dorman assigned a 25% probability to a large Bitcoin sale and said such a move could provide flexibility while helping restore confidence in STRC. He nevertheless viewed continued sales of MSTR shares as the more likely outcome, assigning that scenario a 70% probability.

Terra comparison focuses on incentives rather than mechanics While drawing comparisons to Terra-Luna, Martinez emphasized that Strategy is fundamentally different from the failed stablecoin ecosystem. He noted that Strategy does not rely on algorithmic tokens or token minting mechanisms, which played a central role in Terra’s collapse.

Instead, his warning focused on what he described as a similar economic dynamic. Martinez argued that both systems place additional financial burdens on the issuer as conditions deteriorate, rather than reducing pressure during periods of stress.

“It is conceptually similar to the Terra/Luna collapse,” Martinez wrote.

Expanding on that view, he said a sustained Bitcoin decline could force more capital toward supporting STRC around its $100 par value. According to Martinez, this could create a “dangerous loop” where falling asset values coincide with increasing financial obligations.

Additional concerns surrounding Strategy’s liquidity position have also emerged in recent weeks. Earlier, market maker QCP estimated that the company’s available liquidity could cover preferred dividend payments for roughly seven and a half months.

At the same time, longtime Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff has questioned how STRC was marketed to investors, arguing that the stock’s decline could eventually raise Strategy’s future fundraising costs if buyers begin demanding higher yields to hold similar securities.

In brief Strategy’s Stretch (STRC) may be volatile, but it’s far from the stablecoin that underpinned Terra’s ecosystem, according Benchmark-StoneX’s Mark Palmer. The Bitcoin-buying firm’s flagship preferred stock is designed to trade at a certain level, but it’s incapable of “depegging” in a technical sense, he wrote. STRC fell as low as $82.53 last week, and on Monday, it recovered some losses to close around $88.65. Strategy’s Stretch (STRC) is facing notable pressure, but it doesn’t resemble the stablecoin that brought crypto to its knees in 2022, according to Benchmark-StoneX’s Mark Palmer.

Although the Bitcoin-buying firm’s flagship preferred stock evoked painful memories as it drifted to record lows last week, comparisons between it and Terra’s collapsed ecosystem remain “fundamentally misguided,” the investment bank’s analyst shared in a Monday note.

Palmer argued that STRC’s weakness has “fueled alarmist commentary across social media,” overlooking core differences between the dividend-paying product and two tokens, TerraUSD and LUNA, which erased $40 billion in market cap as they plummeted years ago.

“STRC is not a stablecoin,” Palmer underscored. “It is not backed by an algorithmic arbitrage mechanism, and it is not dependent on confidence in a reflexive token structure.”

Most stablecoins are backed by a combination of cash and U.S. Treasuries, but TerraUSD attempted to break that mold without any hard reserves, relying instead on a novel “mint-and-burn” framework with its sister token, LUNA, to artificially maintain its peg.

STRC, conversely, is indirectly backed by Strategy’s Bitcoin holdings. The Tysons Corner, Virginia-based firm signaled on Monday that it now owns 847,363 Bitcoin, a sum valued at $54.5 billion with the digital asset changing hands around $64,400.

As Terra’s ecosystem unwound, TerraUSD “depegged,” losing parity with the U.S. dollar as investors swiftly lost confidence in the protocol’s ability to remain stable. The project’s Anchor Protocol was famously known for offering a 20% annual percentage yield on deposits.

That same language was used in relation to STRC’s weakness on Thursday, as the product, which currently offers an 11.5% annual dividend, fell as low as $82.53. On Monday, the preferred stock closed flat at $88.65, or around 11.3% below its $100 par value, according to Yahoo Finance.

STRC, Palmer noted, is engineered to trade around the $100 mark, but its price has been cyclical since it debuted less than a year ago. When STRC trades at or above that threshold, Strategy issues more shares and uses the proceeds to purchase more Bitcoin.

The product has lingered below its $100 par value for several weeks, and some analysts now anticipate that the company will seek to increase the product’s dividend rate in an attempt to support its recovery back toward that level.

There are other levers that Strategy can pull as well. For example, the Bitcoin-buying firm has accumulated cash for three straight weeks, topping off its USD reserve as a way to communicate to preferred stockholders that dividend payments will continue flowing.

When STRC trades below the $100 mark, its ability to purchase Bitcoin may be constrained, but that doesn’t mean there’s a fundamental problem, Palmer wrote.

“There is a meaningful difference between stating that Strategy's preferred stock funding engine has become less efficient,” he said, “and asserting that the company's overall model is broken, as some of its detractors have suggested.”

The investment bank reaffirmed its $570 price target for Strategy. The forecast is far above the multi-year high of $457 that the company’s shares soared to in October.

On Monday, Strategy shares fell 2.8% to $109. The performance added to a negative streak, with the company’s stock price falling for a fifth straight trading day.

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TLDR Table of Contents

TLDRSTRC Decline Sparks Debate Over Terra ComparisonAnalyst Highlights Key Differences Between STRC and USTGet 3 Free Stock Ebooks Strategy’s preferred stock STRC fell to a record low of $82.53 before recovering to around $88.65. Social media users compared STRC’s decline to Terra’s UST stablecoin collapse. Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer said STRC is a preferred stock, not a stablecoin. Palmer argued STRC cannot “depeg” because it was never designed with a fixed peg. STRC offers an 11.5% annual dividend, drawing comparisons to Terra’s former Anchor yield. Strategy’s preferred stock STRC fell to its lowest level last week and sparked comparisons with Terra’s failed UST stablecoin. The stock dropped to an intraday low of $82.53 before recovering and closing near $88.65 on Monday. However, Benchmark Research said the comparison does not reflect how STRC operates.

MicroStrategy Incorporated Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock, STRC

STRC Decline Sparks Debate Over Terra Comparison STRC trades around a target level of $100, and its recent decline has renewed criticism across social media platforms. The stock closed roughly 11% below that level on Monday, and some market participants described the move as a depeg. Critics also pointed to STRC’s 11.5% annual dividend and compared it with Terra’s former 20% yield through Anchor.

The comparison gained attention because both products offered high yields while trading below expected levels. However, Benchmark-StoneX analyst Mark Palmer rejected the argument in a research note released Monday. He stated that STRC and UST use different structures and serve different purposes.

Palmer said STRC is a preferred stock rather than a stablecoin. He explained that stablecoins promise a fixed value, while STRC never guarantees a specific trading price. As a result, he argued that the stock cannot depeg because it was never pegged.

“Strategy’s objective has been to support STRC’s trading at a level near $100, not to guarantee it,” Palmer wrote. He also said the recent move reflected changing market yield expectations rather than a structural failure. Therefore, Benchmark described the decline as a market-driven adjustment.

UST relied on an algorithmic system that linked its value to the LUNA token. The mechanism used mint-and-burn transactions to maintain a $1 target price. When confidence weakened, the process failed, and both assets collapsed.

Analyst Highlights Key Differences Between STRC and UST Palmer said STRC lacks the feedback loop that drove Terra’s collapse in 2022. Instead, the preferred stock draws support from Strategy’s broader balance sheet and bitcoin holdings. According to Strategy, the company now holds 847,363 Bitcoin valued at about $54.5 billion.

The analyst emphasized that STRC does not depend on token creation or destruction to maintain value. Because of that structure, its price can move independently without triggering a similar collapse. Benchmark therefore viewed the comparison as inaccurate.

The stock’s decline has affected Strategy’s capital-raising process. When STRC trades at or above $100, the company can issue shares and use proceeds to purchase bitcoin. However, that process becomes less effective when the stock remains below the target level.

As a result, Strategy has paused issuance through that channel. Palmer acknowledged that the funding mechanism became “less efficient” after the recent decline. He added that reduced efficiency differs from claims that the model no longer works.

Benchmark maintained its $570 price target for Strategy’s common stock, MSTR. Meanwhile, MSTR fell 2.8% on Monday and marked its fifth consecutive daily decline. The stock closed at $109 while STRC remained below its intended trading level.

While there are plenty of blockchain projects focused on dApps and the conversion of tokens, one that stands out is the Bancor Network and its BNT token.

Indeed, this project is one of the most well known in the cryptocurrency space. It has also had its fair share of ups and downs. From a blockbuster ICO to legal challenges. From widespread partnerships to a widely publicized hack.

However, is it something you should consider?

In this Bancor Network Token review, I will give you everything that you need to know. I will also take a look at the long term prospects and adoption potential of BNT.

The Bancor Network has created an elegant solution in its decentralized network which allows traders to swap a wide selection of tokens seamlessly across nearly 10,000 token pairs, and all with a single click.

Image via Bancor Website

Bancor allows users to instantly convert between two tokens without needing a counterparty to the trade. This is all done right within the Bancor wallet, and this model has allowed Bancor to provide traders with automatic liquidity for trades.

More importantly, it allows the network to remain completely decentralized, and much of the functionality of the network is thanks to the innovative use of the BNT token to facilitate trades.

So, this all sounds really intriguing but in order to understand the real heft behind Bancor, we have to go over its relatively eventful history.

Bancor Network BackgroundThe Bancor Network is overseen by the Bancor Foundation, which is based in Zug, Switzerland. The company also operates a Research & Development center in Tel Aviv, Israel, which gives the company a foothold in the rising blockchain hub in Zug as well as the rising Middle Eastern technology center of Tel Aviv.

The company was founded in 2016 by a group is Israelis with a background in Silicon Valley start-ups, as well as experience in scaling startups and blockchain technologies. It was named after the international trade balancing currency initially envisioned by John Maynard Keynes.

Token Sale Page for the Bancor Network Token

The Bancor Network is perhaps most well-known for holding one of the most successful ICOs ever. In 2017 it set a world record by raising over $153 million in Ethereum tokens in less than 3 hours. The world-record has since been topped by several projects (including SIRIN Labs and Tezos), but remains an impressive beginning for the project.

Since the ICO the Bancor Network has seen over $1.5 billion in token conversions take place on its platform, all facilitated by the BNT token. In addition, there are over 100 liquidity providers serving as Bancor nodes, and these nodes provide over $13 million in liquidity by staking BNT tokens to power token conversions.

More recently, on January 1, 2020 Bancor has added dramatically to its liquidity pool by airdropping all of its Ethereum Reserve, which totaled 10% of the BNT marketcap at the time, in the form of ETHBNT Bancor Pool Tokens.

In effect this added 60,000 liquidity providers, although it’s understood that many of the airdrop recipients simply turned around and sold the tokens. Still, the Bancor network has gone from liquidity of just under $4 million on January 1, 2020 to over $17 million as of mid-June 2020.

Cross-chain ConversionBancor has made the user experience of exchanging tokens quite easily. The intuitive wallet app is slick and allows for the quick and easy conversion of tokens similar to what users get when using Coinbase or other custodial wallets.

While the user interface makes it look simple, behind the scenes the Bancor wallet is transacting directly with BNT smart contracts on the blockchain, all while allowing users to retain full control of their private keys and funds at all times.

Cross Chain Token Swap on Bancor

The obvious advantage of Bancor’s wallet is that it not only allows for the exchange of tokens, but it does so without the need for a counterparty. This makes it the first network to allow cross-chain conversions without requiring users to give up their private keys in the process of the exchange.

Bancor began their cross-chain integration efforts with EOS and Ethereum, however, they have plans to add other bridges over time, eventually enabling them to function as a multi-chain liquidity solution that can provide instant token conversions for many of the popular blockchains such as Bitcoin, Tron, and Ripple.

Range of ConversionsAlready Bancor gives traders and investors an amazing range of conversion options, with fee-less, instant trades available for tokens across more than 8,700 token pairs right through the Bancor wallet.

To make a comparison, one of the most popular exchanges Binance has roughly 196 tokens available, but just 586 trading pairs.

Automatic LiquidityOne of the greatest benefits of Bancor and the BNT token is that they bring liquidity to cryptocurrency markets, and without liquidity, currencies are apt to wither and die. After all, who wants to own a currency that can’t be easily bought and sold.

Of course, the top cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin, and others in the top 20 have enough trading volume on their own, but the Bancor Protocol brings a unique solution that delivers automatic decentralized liquidity to any token.

Instant & Affordable Liquidity on Bancor. Image via Bancor Blog

Through the Bancor Protocol any token at all, even those privately created, can get instant liquidity, no matter what size trade volume the token enjoys. This is incredibly important functionality when it comes to facilitating the adoption of decentralized applications.

Since many dApps have their own tokens, and now those tokens are able to be converted with other cryptocurrencies instantly and with a single click right within a user’s wallet.

How Bancor Protocol WorksAt this point, you might be wondering if it’s really necessary to have another decentralized exchange. After all, the centralized exchanges seem far more popular at this point, and there are dozens of active exchanges already providing a trading platform and liquidity for cryptocurrencies.

In short, yes the world does need another exchange, or at least it needs an exchange like Bancor. That’s because the Bancor platform provides a much-needed service of increasing liquidity for any token, and of creating a platform where any token can be exchanged without the need for a counterparty.

This is something that can’t be accomplished with any other asset. Take fiat currencies as an example. If you want to exchange U.S. dollars for Yen you need to find someone willing to sell Yen to complete the transaction. Every asset is like this. There must be a buyer and a seller for a transaction to work.

Overview of the Bancor Protocol for external developers

Bancor only requires one person to complete a trade, with the liquidity provided by the native BNT token and its smart contracts. The BNT token’s smart contracts ensure that there is a balance between tokens at all times. Once any trade is concluded there will also be a total remaining that represents the BNT balance coded into the smart contract.

This structure removes the need for the exchange to act as a third-party to transactions. With Bancor and its BNT token, you are able to continually perform exchanges for Ethereum and EOS compatible tokens right through the Bancor wallet.

You can think of the system as an hourglass. It’s a closed system and it doesn’t matter how you turn the hourglass, it always holds the same quantity of sand. In this analogy, the hourglass represents the BNT smart contract, and the grains of sand are the tokens being traded.

And next up from the team will be a development marketplace for dApps that will also make use of the cross-chain compatibility and balanced smart contracts. Also in the pipeline for the future is staking rewards to incentivize liquidity, and a BancorDAO to add self-governance to the blockchain and fully decentralize.

Bancor Staking RewardsBNT staking rewards are a future enhancement that is planned to incentivize users to provide liquidity for the network. The basis for adding staking is that Bancor needs liquidity to lower fees for traders, while also increasing trading volume and overall network fees. By providing users with an incentive to add liquidity to the network Bancor is expecting to see its network grow and flourish.

Simulated Staking APRs. Image via Bancor Blog

While plans for adding staking rewards are in the early stages the basics are that users will receive rewards of BNT for holding their BNT in an existing liquidity pool such as MKR/BNT or ETH/BNT. The amount of new BNT that will be created as staking rewards and the distribution of staking rewards to different pools on the network will be decided by users voting in the BancorDAO.

This type of reward system is expected to pull new users into the ecosystem thanks to the APR generated by fees and staking rewards. Bancor is carefully designing their staking rewards system to avoid concentrating the rewards in a small number of pools, choosing instead to provide an even distribution across dozens of network pools.

Bancor VortexVortex is the solution implemented in February 2021 which allows users to provide liquidity in BNT to borrow funds while continuing to obtain yield from swap fees.

Vortex reworked the existing vBNT mechanism, which gave the token more uitility aside from providing governance. As you’ll see later this turned out to be very good when Bancor moved to gasless voting, otherwise the vBNT token would have lost all utility.

vBNT is received when staking BNT into a liquidity pool making it the pool token for the Bancor network. Vortex adds additional functionality to vBNT such that user are able to sell vBNT for actual BNT tokens. That means once vBNT is converted the resulting BNT can be exchanged for any other token.

The addition of this functionality makes Vortex a no-liquidation lending platform, which is pretty cool since it allows a liquidity provider the ability to receive future rewards immediately. And because the principal will continue accruing swap fees the loan eventually repays itself.

The no-liquidation aspect of Vortex arises because vBNT and BNT are essentially the same token. Thus any change in the price of BNT is closely mirrored by vBNT. And while vBNT is created in a 1:1 ratio when staking, the price relationship between the two is not that simple.

vBNT Burner ContractOriginally Bancor Vortex was envisioned with a token supply management solution that would capture a portion of trade revenue and use it to buy and burn vBNT. That original model was dynamic and complex, however in March 2021 the DAO voted to replace the dynamic model with a flat-fee model.

Under that flat-fee model 5% of the total protocol swap revenue is shifted to the vBNT Burner Smart Contract, and the addition of this will turn vBNT into a scarcer asset. That is long-term deflationary and positive for the Bancor ecosystem.

The flat burn rate will be incrementally adjusted over the course of 18 months, with the final target being 15%. The theory is that as trade volumes increase the burning of vBNT will also accelerate. In the coming years this vBNT burn mechanism is expected to be a critical part of the flexible monetary policy employed by the DAO.

In the vBNT burn mechanism the burning of tokens is not automatic. Tokens are moved to the burned smart contract and users are then offered the chance to interact with that contract, also paying the necessary gas fees associated with the burn.

Each vBNT token burned represents a BNT token that is locked into the network forever. That increases the scarcity of BNT and supports the growth in total locked value over time.

The Bancor team also envisions new gamified DeFi strategies coming from this model. In addition to direct incentives to activate the burn mechanism, a new type of transparent and equal-opportunity game becomes available for vBNT.

Speculators will have ample capacity to observe each other’s activities on-chain, and may choose to simultaneously create and seize arbitrage opportunities on the vBNT pool at their leisure.

Bancor TeamThe Bancor Network was founded in 2016 by Israeli siblings Guy and Galia Benartzi. Both remain active with the project, with Guy on the Foundation Council, while Galia is in charge of business development. She is also a strong proponent of women in blockchain and crypto.

Other board members include Olivier Nathan Cohen, who is also the founder and COO of Altcoinomy, a crypto KYC operator- facilitating cash out in Swiss private banks, AML screening of ICO investors, and institutional crypto/fiat transactions.

The CTO of Bancor is Yudi Levi, and he’s held that position since the start of Bancor in 2016. Prior to that, he was co-founder and CTO of AppCoin. He also spent over a decade as a chief architect of several mobile projects, including Real Dice, Mytopia, and Particle Code.

The team also has an impressive list of advisors, including Brock Pierce, the Chairman of the Board at the Bitcoin Foundation, and venture capitalist Tim Draper.

The BNT TokenAs was mentioned earlier, Bancor held an ICO on June 12, 2017 that raised $153 million in just three hours. That ICO sold roughly 40 million BNT tokens at an average price of $3.92 each. Currently, there’s a circulating supply of BNT of nearly 70 million tokens.

The BNT token hit its all-time high of $10.00 on January 10, 2018 and its all-time low of $0.117415 on March 13, 2020. As of mid-June 2020 it recovered remarkably from its March all-time low and traded at $1.17 just three months after for an amazing gain of 1,500%! That gain was primarily powered by news of the July 2020 release of Bancor V2.

Bancor’s BNT did not experience quite the same rally as many other altcoins in 2021, although it did see some upside as it reached $9.15 on March 7, 2021. Since then it has cooled significantly and as of May 22, 2021 it is trading at $4.36.

BNT price movements over time. Image via Coinmarketcap.com

The circulating supply can change however since BNT is created as needed to initiate exchanges. The Bancor protocol will create as much BNT as needed to match the value of currencies held within the smart contract. Once staking rewards are added the circulating supply will necessarily increase more rapidly and regularly.

Trading & Storing BNTYou’ll find that most of the trading volume in the BNT token is at Bancor, naturally. It is also offered at a number of other platforms, including Binance and Coinbase, although trade volumes are pretty low.

Moreover, if we were to take a look at the order books on an individual exchange such as Binance it is clear that there is a lack of liquidity there. You will need to be very careful when placing an order there as if reasonable sized orders are likely to lead to slippage.

Once you have your BNT tokens you are going to want to store them in a secure offline wallet. Given that these are ERC20 tokens it means that you can store it any Ethereum compatible wallet.

If you’re trading or staking then storing BNT in the native Bancor Wallet will make sense.

Bancor V2Late in April 2020, with the BNT token languishing around the $0.20 level the team announced that they would soon be releasing Bancor V2. The token didn’t immediately respond, but by mid-May it had began a serious rally, and a month later is trading at $1.17. That’s especially amazing given that the token was at its all-time low just a short time before in mid-March 2020.

Bancor V2 Announcement. Image via Bancor Blog

The Bancor Protocol V2 is expected to add several important features that will put Bancor at the front of the pack of decentralized finance projects. The changes are meant to address four key issues commonly cited as obstacles to the widespread adoption of Automated Market Makers (AMMs):

Exposure to “impermanent loss”Exposure to multiple assetsCapital inefficiency (i.e., high slippage)Opportunity cost of providing liquidityIt’s interesting to see that the new features were created as opt-in and users are able to create and fund new AMMs with some, all, or none of the new features.

Bancor V2 features:

A new automated market maker (AMM) liquidity pool integrated with Chainlink price oracles that mitigates the risk of impermanent loss for both stable and volatile tokens.Provide liquidity with 100% exposure to a single tokenA more efficient bonding curve that reduces slippageSupport for lending protocolsBancor V2.1Even before Bancor V2 was fully launched the Bancor team was already discussing the necessary changes for Bancor V2.1. This next level update was designed to take the AMM model to the next level and it differs from Bancor V2 by finally offering solutions to two problems that have plagued AMMs ever since they were created. Those problems are:

Involuntary Token ExposureImpermanent LossUnlike other AMM protocols, Bancor uses its native BNT protocol token as the counterpart asset in every Bancor pool. Through the use of an elastic BNT supply, the v2.1 protocol co-invests in pools alongside LPs to support single-sided AMM exposure and to cover the cost of impermanent loss with swap fees earned from its co-investments.

Single-Sided ExposureIn the majority of 1st generation AMMs it’s necessary for liquidity providers to contribute equal amounts of each asset represented in the pool.

Obviously this is not only inconvenient, but it can also be a liability when an LP is only interested in providing liquidity for one asset, or possibly even holds just one asset. Bancor v2.1 breaks this by allowing LPs to provide a single token rather than and even or determinate pair.

Using Bancor v2.1 LPs are able to provide single-sided liquidity exposure using either ERC-20 tokens, or the Bancor BNT token.

Impermanent Loss InsuranceIt’s well known that AMMs which are subject to arbitrage opportunities also suffer impermanent loss as a side effect. Any time there are two assets paired in a constant product AMM the product of those two assets must remain constant.

That means any price variations in either asset leads to changes in the amount of each asset held. So, assets that rise in value are liquidated, while assets that fall in value are purchased to maintain the constant product.

In some cases swap fees are used to offset impermanent losses, however these losses can easily exceed any swap fees earned by the LPs. In this case the LP experiences a negative return when they eventually withdraw their assets.

Bancor v2.1 was designed to avoid this situation and ensure that every LP gets back the same value deposited plus trading fees. This is accomplished through a unique concept called Impermanent Loss Insurance.

Impermanent Loss Insurance isn’t automatic, however. It accrues by 1% each day over time, and after 100% it achieves 100% protection on funds in the pool.

There is also a 30-day cliff used, which means any LP who withdraws their capital before it’s been in the pool for 30 days will incur the same impermanent loss as if there was no insurance protection. Once 100 days has passed the insurance protection is full and the LP can receive 100% compensation for any loss incurred within the first 100 days or any time thereafter.

When the pool does not contain enough tokens to cover the losses fully with the staked tokens the insurance can be paid out in an equivalent value of BNT tokens.

LimitationsBancor v2.1 has some very special features, but to allow for the positive features there are also three notable limitations in the platform:‌

Bancor v2.1 will only work with two-asset pools. For pools with more than two assets and custom weights. Developers need to deploy legacy v1 pools.Bancor v2.1 does not support dynamically adjusting supply tokens ("rebase" tokens) that can control and adjust token balances in users' wallets.When withdrawn from the system, BNTs are locked for a pre-set time (default 24 hr) to prevent panic liquidation.RoadmapBancor does not have a formal roadmap, but they do have a focus and continue improving the platform and adding new features. As of May 2021 Bancor has announced three pillars of development that they are working on:

Token Onboarding: Open Bancor’s doors to as many assets as possible by lowering the barrier to whitelisting, and making bootstrapping and incentivizing liquidity easier and cheaper for token projects.Financial Access & Control: Design powerful financial tools for LPs to earn high yield on their idle assets and manage returns in a stress-free, user-friendly environment.World-Class Trading Venue: Capture a growing share of total crypto trading volume by offering the best prices on a broad range of assets, a world-class trading experience including advanced charting & analytics, and novel tools for professional and retail traders.Gasless VotingGasless voting via the Snapshot governance platform was added in April 2021. The popularity of the proposal to move to Snapshot was apparent as the Bancor community not only passed the proposal with a 98.4% majority, it was also the largest voter turnout for any DAO decision thus far, with 84 unique address participating.

The implementation of Snapshot makes it far easier for community members to participate in governance, and this has been borne out in the real world, with over two dozen proposals added to Snapshot in the month following the addition of gasless voting.

If there is ever a problem found with Snapshot there is a quick-release mechanism that will revert governance back to the Ethereum blockchain. This will serve to protect the DAO in the case of emergency.

ConclusionOne of the major roadblocks in mass adoption is the lack of liquidity, and difficulty in exchanging various tokens for each other. The Bancor Protocol has done away with this problem through the automation of liquidity.

It’s true that complete beginners will face a small learning curve, but the UI of the wallet is as simple as they come. Anyone new to cryptocurrencies should have no problem learning how to make exchanges using the Bancor wallet.

And the newest update to the online platform is making things even easier for users as the team is now focusing its efforts more on creating a powerful and easy to use platform rather than building liquidity.

Moreover, the Bancor Protocol is making it easier for developers to build a seamless exchange application between a plethora of tokens. There are also a host of updates that have been planned for the next 6 to 12 months. This is part of the ongoing upgrades to the protocol and applications involved in the Bancor ecosystem.

Of course, there are still questions linger around the project including the issues of regulations in the U.S. and beyond. Potential centralisation of control in the three year transition period may deter some who fear the potential for arbitrary frozen accounts.

You also have the really paltry token performance of BNT especially over the past year. While the majority of tokens were soaring 500% or more in early 2021 the gains for BNT were relatively tame. It was one of the few tokens that did not reach a new all-time high in 2021.

Either way, Bancor does have some great technology, use cases and a strong team powering it forward.

Solana stakers have collectively earned more than $1 billion this year. SOL Strategies wants to make sure that money flows through a healthier, more decentralized validator set.

The company, which trades on both NASDAQ under ticker STKE and the Canadian Securities Exchange as HODL, launched its liquid staking token STKESOL on January 20, 2026. At launch, more than 500,000 SOL were staked into the protocol. That figure has since climbed to roughly 691,000 SOL in total value locked.

How STKESOL actually works STKESOL gives SOL holders a tradeable token that accrues staking rewards relative to the underlying SOL. The token is built on Solana’s audited SPL Stake Pool Program, meaning holders can participate in DeFi applications while their original SOL continues earning staking rewards in the background.

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Rather than funneling everything to the biggest validators, STKESOL uses an algorithmic delegation model. The system routes stake to a diverse set of between 40 and 75 validators, selected through SOL Strategies’ proprietary Stakewiz Wiz Score methodology. That scoring system evaluates over 15 metrics across a 30-day window, covering factors like validator performance and contribution to decentralization.

DeFi integrations and revenue model SOL Strategies lined up integrations with several prominent Solana DeFi platforms at launch, including Orca, Squads, Kamino, and Loopscale.

Orca is one of Solana’s largest decentralized exchanges. Kamino focuses on automated liquidity strategies. Squads provides multisig infrastructure for teams and treasuries. Loopscale handles structured lending.

SOL Strategies generates revenue from STKESOL through two channels: fees on deposits into the staking pool and a share of the staking rewards generated by the underlying SOL.

The company has also been expanding its infrastructure footprint through acquisitions. SOL Strategies acquired Houdini Swap for $18 million and also brought Darklake/Zyga into its portfolio.

The VanEck connection SOL Strategies has been named a staking provider for the VanEck Solana ETF.

The risk side of the equation is worth considering. Liquid staking tokens introduce smart contract risk on top of the underlying staking risk. If there’s a bug in the SPL Stake Pool Program or if the Wiz Score methodology underperforms in selecting reliable validators, stakers could face losses or depeg scenarios. SOL Strategies notes the program has been audited, but audits reduce risk rather than eliminate it.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Solana just got its fourth independent validator client a step closer to production. Mithril, built by Overclock Validator, successfully produced blocks on Solana’s Alpenglow community test cluster on June 24, marking a significant milestone for both the project and the broader network’s push toward client diversity.

Here’s the thing: running a Solana validator has historically required beefy hardware. Mithril wants to change that equation entirely, targeting hardware specs as modest as 16-32GB of RAM.

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What Mithril actually is, and why it matters Mithril is a verifying full-node client for Solana, written in Go. It’s an alternative piece of software that can do the same job as Solana’s existing validator clients, but built from scratch in a different programming language with a different design philosophy.

The initial SVM (Solana Virtual Machine) implementation for Mithril was completed by mid-2024, meaning the team has been building toward this block-production milestone for roughly two years. Producing blocks on a test cluster isn’t the same as running on mainnet, but it’s the kind of concrete progress that separates vaporware from viable infrastructure.

The Alpenglow upgrade: Solana’s biggest consensus overhaul The cluster where Mithril produced its first blocks isn’t just any testnet. Alpenglow represents the largest consensus overhaul in Solana’s history, and the community test cluster has been live since mid-May 2026.

Solana’s current consensus mechanism relies on two core technologies: Proof-of-History and TowerBFT. Alpenglow plans to replace both. The upgrade introduces Votor for fast finality and Rotor for optimized data propagation, targeting a finality time of approximately 150 milliseconds. That’s roughly a 100x improvement in finality speed over the current setup.

Mithril’s roadmap includes native Alpenglow consensus verification through integration of Votor and what the team calls Lightbringer/Rotor. The emphasis is on enabling self-verification on typical consumer hardware, which would be a meaningful departure from the status quo where validator requirements effectively price out smaller operators.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Wall Street, Solana, and Anthropic Bet on Micron—Then Earnings Crushed Expectations

Sell pressure persisted in the cryptocurrency market on Wednesday, pushing Bitcoin to its lowest level in 21 months as leading altcoins and crypto-focused stocks also declined. Analysts suggested this weakness could be linked to a broader risk-off trend impacting semiconductor and artificial intelligence stocks.

Sharp downturn in Bitcoin and altcoinsAccording to CoinGecko, Bitcoin, the world’s largest digital asset by market capitalization, dropped to as low as $59,217 during the day before recovering to $60,700. The coin registered a 2.7% loss over 24 hours. This downside momentum mirrored mounting pressures on Wall Street, bringing Bitcoin closer to its third consecutive daily fall.

Bitcoin’s slide triggered broader declines among altcoins. Ethereum fell 3.1% to $1,610. XRP dropped the same percentage to $1.07, while Solana dipped 2.6% to $67. Dogecoin, meanwhile, sank 4.6% to $0.075 in the same timeframe. There are mounting concerns that XRP could soon dip below $1 for the first time since the post-2024 election rally attributed to Donald Trump’s presidential win.

AssetLatest price24h changeBitcoin$60,700-2.7%Ethereum$1,610-3.1%XRP$1.07-3.1%Solana$67-2.6%Dogecoin$0.075-4.6%Bitwise Senior Investment Strategist Juan Leon emphasized that while days like this can be painful, the market has experienced similar periods before.

Bitwise, a leading digital asset investment firm, offers products focused exclusively on cryptocurrencies. Juan Leon from Bitwise noted that sharp selloffs are often perceived at the time as undermining the market thesis. However, he highlighted that despite the turbulence, technology continues to be adopted as a vital part of modern financial infrastructure.

Crypto investment firm and ETF issuer 21Shares also addressed persistent market weakness. The company had previously suggested that Bitcoin could break out of its historic four year cycle by 2026. In its latest market report published Wednesday, however, 21Shares conceded that, six months on, this forecast has not yet been validated. The statement came as Bitcoin dipped below $60,000 for the second time this month.

21Shares stated that while they anticipated the end of Bitcoin’s four year cycle entering 2026, after six months, price action still largely follows this established pattern.

Market pressures intensified in the run-up to key US inflation data closely watched by the Federal Reserve. Economists predicted the Personal Consumption Expenditures Index would show a 4.1% year-on-year rise on Thursday, marking its third straight month of acceleration.

Risk-off sentiment in equities weighs on cryptoAnalysts noted that investors continued to price in the influence of Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh’s recent hawkish comments on monetary policy. Expectations of tighter financial conditions typically exert additional pressure on risk assets. CME Watch data indicated that the market is currently factoring in a possible Fed rate hike at the September meeting.

According to a note shared by Wintermute OTC trader Jasper De Maere, weaker price trends have led some investors to scale back market participation. He pointed to summer flows as an indication of reduced engagement, which could leave cryptocurrencies exposed to fresh waves of risk-off trading in equities.

Losses deepen for crypto stocksA 0.4% drop in the Nasdaq was led by declines in Micron Technology, but losses were sharper among crypto-related public companies. Shares of Strategy, the largest institutional Bitcoin holder, tumbled 9% to $94.43, touching $92.28 at one point for a 27 month low.

Coinbase stock slid 5% to $150.11 during the session, while Robinhood fell 5.8% to $97.21. The report also highlighted rising cost pressures on Strategy’s preferred Stretch share product, intensifying discussions over the company’s cash position.

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.

PANews June 25 news, according to The Block, Solana meme coin launchpad Pump.fun is hiring a Chief Legal Officer with an annual salary of $1 million to $5 million. The role covers U.S. digital asset regulatory affairs involving the SEC, CFTC, FinCEN, and OFAC, while also being responsible for compliance management in the UK, EU, and Asia-Pacific regions, and handling investigations, litigation, and enforcement agency requests.

Pump.fun has been embroiled in controversies multiple times over the past two and a half years. The recently launched rewards marketplace Pump.fun GO drew criticism after users posted extreme tasks, which have since been removed. During the 2024 meme coin frenzy, the platform's livestream feature was used to promote tokens through self-harm, violence, and animal abuse; the platform suspended the feature and later relaunched it under stricter moderation policies. Additionally, Pump.fun is facing a class-action lawsuit in New York, accused of operating an unregistered securities and racketeering enterprise.

Tokenized stock trading on Solana just posted a single-day record of $644 million in volume. The milestone marks a broader shift that’s been building for months: traders on the network are increasingly swapping memecoins for tokenized versions of real equities.

For the week of June 15-21, 2026, Solana accounted for 95% of all tokenized stock trading volume globally, processing $1.298 billion out of $1.324 billion across every blockchain combined.

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The numbers behind the surge Just days earlier, on June 16, Solana had set a previous daily high of $187.9 million in tokenized equity volume. Much of that spike was driven by SPCX, a tokenized representation of SpaceX shares.

Cumulative tokenized stock transfer volume on Solana crossed the $10 billion mark on June 23, 2026. Cross-chain tokenized equity volumes hit $5.3 billion in May 2026, a 44% increase from the previous month.

What’s powering the shift A key driver of Solana’s dominance in this space is xStocks, a platform that enables on-chain trading of US equities and ETFs. Every tokenized share on xStocks is backed 1:1 by the underlying asset. The platform has now registered over $25 billion in total transaction volume across its trading venues.

What this means for investors The risk side of the ledger deserves attention. Tokenized equities backed 1:1 by real assets depend entirely on the custodial infrastructure holding those underlying shares. If the entity backing the tokens fails, so does the peg.

Regulatory uncertainty also looms large. Tokenized securities exist in a gray area in many jurisdictions, and a crackdown could throttle growth overnight.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Coinbase just plugged its Solana validator into DoubleZero Edge, a high-performance data distribution layer that delivers Solana block data over a private global fiber network. The goal is straightforward: get market data to traders faster by cutting out the latency tax that comes with routing through the public internet.

What DoubleZero Edge actually does When a Solana validator produces a block, that block gets broken into small pieces called “shreds,” which are then distributed across the network. Conventionally, these shreds travel over the regular internet. DoubleZero Edge replaces that with a dedicated fiber network, and the difference is measurable: improvements of 6 to 28 milliseconds over conventional internet routing.

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The platform entered public beta in April 2026 and operates what it describes as a permissionless market for Solana shreds. Validators can monetize their block production data through the network, creating an economic incentive for participation beyond just faster data delivery.

Coinbase’s infrastructure play This isn’t a sudden pivot for Coinbase. The exchange has been referencing DoubleZero integration in its validator reports since 2025, with more recent mentions appearing in May 2026. So the June 24 connection represents the culmination of a deliberate, multi-quarter infrastructure strategy rather than a reactive decision.

Coinbase joins a growing majority. Over 58% of Solana validators currently contribute data to the DoubleZero Edge network. The integration also aligns with Solana’s broader technical roadmap, including the anticipated Alpenglow release.

What this means for traders and investors DoubleZero Edge is explicitly designed to meet institutional-grade standards similar to those seen in traditional financial exchanges. Coinbase’s participation adds credibility to that pitch. When the largest US-listed crypto exchange validates a piece of infrastructure by using it for its own operations, it sends a signal to other institutions that the technology meets a professional standard.

There are risks worth watching, though. The concentration of over 58% of validators on a single data distribution layer raises questions about centralization. If DoubleZero Edge experiences an outage or performance degradation, the impact on Solana’s validator network could be outsized precisely because so many participants depend on it.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

A new CoinGecko analysis found that nearly seven in 10 Pump.fun tokens stopped trading on the same day they launched. 

Summary

Most Pump.fun launches lose trading activity within hours, showing how thin meme demand can be. Only 4.55% of tokens lasted over 90 days, making long-running projects rare on the platform. The data comes as top meme coins keep sliding, adding pressure on speculative token markets. The study reviewed 18.67m tokens created on the Solana-based meme coin launchpad from Jan. 14, 2024, to June 18, 2026.

CoinGecko said 12.8m tokens, or 68.67% of the total, recorded their final Pump.fun bonding-curve trade on launch day. It excluded tokens that never traded at all because those projects had no measurable lifespan.

Fun Fact: 7 in 10 Pumpfun tokens die on the day they launch.

Of the 18.6M tokens launched since mid-January 2024, 68.67% recorded their last trade on the same day they were created.

Read the full study 👇https://t.co/M7dKDfBBG0

— CoinGecko (@coingecko) June 24, 2026 Easy launches drive short lifespans CoinGecko linked the short lifespan to Pump.fun’s easy token creation model. The report said “near-zero barriers” allow creators to launch many coins and move to new ones when early demand does not appear.

Another 2.18m tokens survived only one day after launch. That means 14.99m tokens, or 80.37% of all reviewed launches, stopped trading either on launch day or the next day.

The pattern fits a fast-moving meme coin market where attention often comes from trending pages, social posts, and early wallet activity. Once that attention fades, many tokens lose trading activity almost at once.

Survival drops after first week The survival curve keeps shrinking after the first two days. CoinGecko found that 770,249 tokens lasted two to three days, while 642,614 stayed active for four to seven days.

Only 460,697 tokens made it to the eight-to-14-day range. The report said just 850,180 tokens, or 4.55%, lasted more than 90 days, though that number may undercount coins that moved to Raydium, Meteora, or PumpSwap after completing their bonding curve.

CoinGecko said the data tracks Pump.fun bonding-curve trades, not all later trades on external decentralized exchanges. It still said the low graduation rate means the dataset mostly reflects the average Pump.fun token lifespan.

Retail odds and market pressure In a previous article, crypto.news discussed Pump.fun data showing that nearly half of March 2026 traders ended the month in losses. That report also said about 96% of wallets either lost money or made less than $500.

As crypto.news reported, Pump.fun later launched GO, a bounty marketplace that moved the platform beyond token creation into paid online tasks. The feature drew more than 1,100 submissions and 320 active tasks within hours, showing Pump.fun’s push to keep user activity beyond meme coin launches.

Previously, crypto.news explored Pump.fun’s move beyond meme coins by adding in-app trading for assets such as WBTC, USDC, and Ethereum through Wormhole. That update aimed to reduce the need for users to leave the app when trading wider crypto assets.

The CoinGecko study landed during a weak period for larger meme tokens. Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and Pepe have all lost ground in recent weeks, according to the article context, as traders cut exposure to high-risk tokens.

The new lifespan data shows how fast attention can disappear in meme coin markets. Pump.fun can create large activity numbers, but most launches fail to hold trading interest for more than a short window.

For traders, the numbers show how quickly a new token can lose liquidity and buyers. For creators, they show how hard it is to keep a token alive after its first wave of visibility fades.

The study does not show intent behind each launch, and it does not label tokens as scams. It measures trading life, which makes the finding a market activity snapshot rather than a conduct review.

https://www.binance.com/en/square/post/796393

The unofficial meme coin $GTA, also known as “Greatest Token Alive,” has experienced an explosive surge of over 500% following its launch on the Solana blockchain. The token’s rapid ascent has been accompanied by a listing on Binance Wallet, reflecting significant interest despite its lack of official ties to the upcoming Grand Theft Auto 6 game. This development appears to be driven by cultural hype surrounding GTA 6, aligning with a broader trend of volatility among meme coins themed around popular franchises. The listing on Binance Wallet, a platform that recently adopted a secondary listing model, could further fuel speculative interest.

The market’s response to $GTA’s launch indicates substantial speculative behavior, with the Fully Diluted Valuation (FDV) after launch being closely monitored. Current market pricing suggests a high likelihood that $GTA will exceed lower valuation thresholds, with an overwhelming 99% YES for a $50 million threshold and 94% YES for a $100 million threshold. However, the likelihood decreases significantly for higher valuations such as $500 million, which currently stands at 8% YES.

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The surge in $GTA’s value is consistent with patterns observed in other unofficial meme coins, which often exhibit extreme volatility. Despite the current enthusiasm, historical trends suggest that such assets are prone to sharp declines soon after the initial hype dies down.

Key Takeaways $GTA’s surge and Binance Wallet listing suggest significant speculative interest, consistent with YES outcomes for lower FDV thresholds. Market pricing reflects skepticism about $GTA reaching a $500 million FDV, with current odds at 8% YES. The token’s performance is in line with past meme coin trends, indicating potential for future volatility. What to Watch Observers should monitor $GTA’s market activity closely as it adjusts post-launch. The market’s response to any announcements from Binance or changes in investor sentiment could indicate shifts in FDV expectations. Additionally, developments around the actual Grand Theft Auto 6 release may influence speculative behavior tied to $GTA and similar tokens on Solana.

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Term Structure

Contract Odds Δ since publish Volume 24h $500M 8.5% — — View market → $800M 7.5% — — View market → $50M 98.6% — — View market → $100M 93.5% — — View market → $150M 74.5% — — View market → January 1 2028 39.5% — — View market →

The FIFA World Cup 2026 isn’t just the largest soccer tournament ever staged. It’s shaping up to be the biggest crypto-sports crossover event in history.

With 48 teams, 104 matches, and an estimated audience of six billion viewers spread across three host nations, the tournament running from June 11 to July 19, 2026, has attracted crypto-native sponsors and blockchain infrastructure deals that would have been unthinkable a few World Cup cycles ago. Kraken was named the Official Crypto Exchange Supporter of the FIFA World Cup 2026 on June 9, and it’s far from the only digital asset player angling for a piece of the action.

The tournament itself: what’s different this time For context, the last World Cup in Qatar featured 32 teams and 64 matches. This edition, hosted across Canada, Mexico, and the United States, blows that up by 50% on the team count and over 60% on total games played.

Sixteen host cities will stage matches, with the final set for MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.

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The group-stage format has also been overhauled. The top two teams from each group advance, along with the eight best third-placed sides. In English: more teams survive the group stage, which means more meaningful matches late in the round-robin phase.

Kraken, Chiliz, and FIFA’s Avalanche-powered blockchain Kraken’s official sponsorship deal positions the exchange front and center across North American and European broadcasts reaching that six-billion-viewer audience.

Then there’s Chiliz, the blockchain platform behind fan tokens for major sports clubs and national teams. Fan tokens let holders vote on minor club decisions and access exclusive content, functioning somewhere between a loyalty program and a speculative asset. During previous World Cups and European Championships, Chiliz-linked tokens have historically seen spikes in trading volume around match days, particularly when underdog teams pull off upsets and casual fans rush in.

FIFA itself is building blockchain infrastructure on Avalanche technology for NFTs and digital collectibles. This isn’t a licensing deal with a third party. FIFA is developing its own system, which gives the governing body direct control over the digital asset ecosystem surrounding its most valuable property.

Prediction markets and trading volume implications Crypto prediction markets tied to World Cup outcomes are already active. Platforms like Polymarket demonstrated during the 2024 US presidential election that real-money prediction markets can attract enormous liquidity when the stakes feel personal and the outcomes are binary.

Soccer matches are a natural fit. Win, lose, or draw. Goal totals, group-stage advancement, tournament winner. These are clean, resolvable markets with massive global interest.

What this means for investors For crypto investors, the World Cup creates a few distinct dynamics worth watching. First, exchange tokens and platform-specific assets tied to official sponsors like Kraken could see increased activity as marketing campaigns ramp up.

Second, Chiliz’s CHZ token and its ecosystem of fan tokens historically exhibit event-driven volatility. Traders who’ve played previous tournament cycles know the pattern: volume surges in the days before and during group-stage matches, then either sustains or collapses depending on whether the team advances. The expanded 48-team format extends that window of engagement, which could support higher baseline trading volumes compared to previous tournaments.

The risk side is equally real. Sports sponsorship deals in crypto have a checkered history. FTX’s naming rights deal with the Miami Heat’s arena became one of the most visible symbols of the 2022 market collapse. Investors should watch whether these partnerships drive genuine adoption metrics, like new wallet creation, active trading accounts, and sustained engagement, or whether they amount to expensive brand exercises that fade once the final whistle blows at MetLife Stadium on July 19.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Chiliz has introduced a World Cup campaign that will remove up to 10% of treasury-held Fan Tokens per match victory as participating national teams progress through the tournament.

Summary

Chiliz has launched a World Cup campaign that burns Fan Tokens from treasury reserves when participating national teams win matches. Burn rates start at 1% during the group stage and rise to 10% for a victory in the tournament final. Argentina, Belgium, Portugal, South Africa, and Scotland Fan Tokens are included in the performance linked tokenomics program. According to a June 11 press release shared with crypto.news, the new initiative, called “Burn to Glory,” ties Fan Token supply reductions directly to results achieved by selected national football teams during the upcoming FIFA World Cup.

The program covers Fan Tokens linked to Argentina ($ARG), Belgium ($BELG), Portugal ($POR), South Africa ($SAFA), and Scotland ($SFA). Under the mechanism, tokens held in treasury reserves will be permanently destroyed after each tournament win, with burn rates increasing as teams move deeper into the competition.

At the opening stage of the tournament, each victory will trigger a 1% burn from treasury reserves. Figures released by Chiliz show the percentage rising to 2% in the Round of 32, 2.5% in the Round of 16, 5% in the quarter-finals, 7.5% in the semi-finals, and 10% for a victory in the final.

Because the tokens are removed from treasury holdings rather than circulating supply, the company said successful teams would see their future token supply ceilings reduced while existing holders retain their balances.

Performance-based token burns enter the World Cup “Football fans live every result, every knockout match and every big moment. Through Burn to Glory, those moments can now have a direct impact on the Fan Token economy,” Chiliz CEO and founder Alexandre Dreyfus said in an accompanying statement.

Dreyfus added that the World Cup will be the first major international tournament where the company deploys blockchain-based supply mechanics tied directly to sporting performance. He added that the campaign demonstrates how Fan Tokens are evolving beyond fan engagement products and can increasingly mirror events taking place on the pitch.

Information provided by Chiliz shows that all burns will be executed through on-chain transactions from treasury reserves, allowing token removals to be publicly verified on the blockchain.

The company also said that increasing burn percentages throughout the tournament could create additional interest around matches with larger potential supply reductions. At the same time, shrinking treasury reserves after victories would lower the maximum future supply available to the market.

Expansion follows recent Fan Token initiatives Beyond the burn campaign, Chiliz noted that several international Fan Tokens, including $ARG, $POR, $SAFA, and $SFA, have recently been expanded onto the Solana blockchain as part of the firm’s omnichain strategy.

The latest announcement follows other recent Fan Token initiatives from the company. Earlier this year, Chiliz launched Champions League Final trading competitions involving Paris Saint-Germain ($PSG) and Arsenal ($AFC) Fan Tokens across the Solana and Base networks.

Alongside those efforts, the company has continued public testing of Fan Token Play, a mint-and-burn framework designed to connect token supply dynamics with team performance.

Under the campaign rules released by Chiliz, only official men’s first-team World Cup matches will qualify for token burns. Friendly fixtures, exhibition games, academy competitions, women’s matches, and pre-season events will remain outside the program.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup isn’t just the biggest tournament in soccer history. It’s shaping up to be the most significant crypto-sports crossover event the industry has ever seen.

With 48 teams set to compete across venues in Canada, Mexico, and the United States from June 11 to July 19, FIFA has locked in partnerships with Kraken, Chiliz, and Avalanche that put blockchain infrastructure squarely at the center of the world’s most-watched sporting event.

The crypto lineup: who’s playing and what they’re doing FIFA announced on June 9 that Kraken will serve as the Official Crypto Exchange Supporter for the 2026 World Cup. The partnership targets fan engagement and cryptocurrency adoption across North America and Europe, the two regions where the tournament’s footprint is heaviest.

But Kraken isn’t the only crypto player on the pitch. Chiliz, the company behind the fan-token ecosystem that has become a fixture in professional sports, supports national-team fan tokens for countries including Argentina and Portugal.

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Then there’s Avalanche, which underpins FIFA’s blockchain-based digital collectibles program as the Layer-1 infrastructure partner. The chain handles the backend so fans can focus on collecting rather than configuring wallets.

The tournament itself: 48 teams, 104 matches, historic firsts The 2026 World Cup expands the field from 32 to 48 teams for the first time, resulting in 104 total matches scheduled across the tournament’s five-week run.

Argentina enters as defending champions. Brazil, England, France, Germany, and Spain round out the marquee contenders.

The expansion also brings in four nations making their World Cup debut: Cape Verde, Curacao, Jordan, and Uzbekistan. The opening match is expected on June 11 or 12, with the final set for July 19.

What this means for crypto markets Fan tokens tied to powerhouse nations like Argentina and Portugal through Chiliz could see volume spikes during key matches. Chiliz-based tokens for teams like Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona have historically traded higher around major match days and transfer windows.

Meanwhile, unofficial meme tokens themed around the World Cup are already trading on platforms like Solana. These are not licensed by FIFA and carry all the usual risks of meme-token speculation: low liquidity, no fundamental value, and heavy dependence on social media momentum.

The honest assessment is that most of the pre-tournament crypto activity remains narrative-driven. There isn’t strong on-chain validation yet to suggest that these partnerships are translating into meaningful adoption metrics. Volume trends in fan tokens and collectibles platforms will be the numbers to watch as kickoff approaches.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Mauricio Pochettino did two things in rapid succession during the USMNT’s match against Paraguay: he celebrated an own goal like a man possessed, then immediately grabbed Tyler Adams to bark tactical instructions while everyone else was still high-fiving.

The Argentine coach, appointed to lead the US Men’s National Team in 2024, is treating every second of match time as a classroom. And with the 2026 FIFA World Cup being hosted on American soil, the stakes extend well beyond the pitch, deep into the world of crypto sponsorships and fan engagement platforms that are betting big on this tournament.

Pochettino’s sideline intensity meets World Cup preparation Adams, who plays for AFC Bournemouth, has become a central figure in Pochettino’s system. The midfielder has spoken publicly about the cultural shift happening within the national team under the new coach’s leadership.

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Pochettino announced his 26-player roster on May 26, 2026. The Paraguay match served as both a competitive fixture and a live laboratory for his ideas.

Pochettino has set his sights on at least a semifinal finish, which would be the best result in the program’s modern history.

Kraken and Chiliz are placing massive bets on the tournament Kraken, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, has locked in an official partnership with FIFA for the tournament.

Chiliz, the platform behind fan tokens that let supporters vote on minor club decisions and access exclusive content, has committed between $50 million and $100 million to US fan engagement initiatives tied to the World Cup.

What this means for crypto investors Kraken has been operating since 2011. Chiliz has an existing ecosystem of fan tokens across European soccer leagues.

Super Bowl crypto ads drove massive app downloads in 2022, but retention was poor. The difference with the World Cup is duration: it’s a month-long tournament with daily matches, creating repeated exposure rather than a one-shot awareness spike.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.