Binance News

Iran’s Foreign Ministry said a Switzerland meeting originally scheduled for Friday has been postponed.
According to Odaily, the ministry said plans are being made to hold the meeting in the coming days.

On Jun 19, 2026, 12:55 PM(UTC). according to Binance Market Data, SNDKB has achieved a new all-time high, trading at 2,220.64 USDT. The 24-hour increase of 8.21%

Small Bitcoin transfers below 0.01 BTC now account for about 80% of all Bitcoin transactions, according to CryptoQuant.
According to NS3.AI, CryptoQuant said this marks a sharp increase from 2023, when the share of these small transactions was below 50%.
CryptoQuant attributed the shift to higher network activity rather than an increase in transaction value.

Bitcoin fell 2.5% in 24 hours to just below $62,400 — extending its losing streak to four consecutive days in the wake of Wednesday's hawkish Federal Reserve meeting and a fresh market narrative that has emerged with alarming speed: Strategy's STRC preferred stock collapsing below par, and five months of below-cost BTC prices quietly forcing the weakest Bitcoin miners toward capitulation.
The CoinDesk 20 Index dropped 3.3%, with Ether, XRP, and Solana all weaker. The CoinDesk Smart Contract Platform Select Capped Index fell 4%, while the CoinDesk 80 and CoinDesk DeFi Select Index followed close behind — confirming that smart contract and DeFi tokens are leading the downside, consistent with the pattern of higher-beta assets absorbing disproportionate selling pressure in risk-off conditions.
The STRC problem: Strategy is now openly being priced as a potential forced seller
The dominant market narrative has shifted from the hawkish Fed dot plot — which showed 9 of 18 officials projecting 2026 rate hikes — to something more specific and more immediately threatening to Bitcoin's price structure. Strategy's STRC preferred stock has collapsed below par, and the market is drawing the most dangerous possible conclusion.
"Strategy, the largest listed BTC holder, has watched its STRC preferred collapse below par, and the market is now openly pricing the tail that it has to sell coins to defend the structure," analysts at Marex said. "Add five straight months of BTC trading under its estimated $78,000 production cost, quietly forcing the weakest miners to capitulate, and you have two real sellers that were not in the frame a week ago."
This is the precise "capital waterfall" scenario that Marex's Ilan Solot had described weeks ago — where every option available to Strategy damages some stakeholder group — now being actively priced by the market rather than theoretically discussed. Strategy's $1.1 billion USD reserve was built specifically to prevent this scenario, but STRC collapsing below par suggests the market is questioning whether that buffer is sufficient given the scale of the preferred dividend obligations against a prolonged below-cost BTC price environment.
The miner capitulation element adds a second distinct source of forced selling that was not meaningfully in the frame during last week's recovery. With Bitcoin below $62,400 and estimated mining production costs near $78,000, every day of continued price weakness increases the financial pressure on leveraged miners who cannot sustain operations at current prices. Miner capitulation events have historically added concentrated selling pressure at exactly the wrong moment — when Bitcoin is already under stress from other sources.
Derivatives: $450 million in long liquidations, puts targeting $52,000
The derivatives picture has deteriorated materially since Wednesday's Fed meeting. More than $450 million in leveraged bets were liquidated in the past 24 hours, with longs continuing to bear the brunt — consistent with the pattern that has played out since the hawkish dot plot landed.
Open interest in Bitcoin and Ether futures is largely unchanged over 24 hours, but Solana futures OI has increased to over 70 million tokens — just shy of the June 5 record of 71.57 million. XRP futures OI is hovering at its highest level since October last year. The persistence of elevated open interest despite ongoing price weakness and negative funding rates points to a market where leverage has not been sufficiently flushed — leaving the potential for outsized volatility in either direction if a catalyst arrives.
Cumulative volume delta data confirms sellers are in control. Most of the 25 largest tokens — with the exception of TRX and LAB — show negative OI-adjusted CVD over the past 24 hours, meaning sellers are executing at market orders and leading the price action rather than passive limit orders providing support from below. This has been the consistent playbook since at least Wednesday.
Funding rates reinforce the bearish mood. Most tokens show flat to negative funding, with ADA, XLM, and BCH particularly stressed at between minus 20% and minus 30% — extreme negative readings that reflect heavily short-skewed positioning in those specific markets.
Most significantly for Bitcoin's near-term trajectory: traders are lifting put options in size, positioning for a potential slide to $52,000 or lower in the coming weeks. The 25-delta skew — which measures the relative premium of puts versus calls at equivalent delta — shows one-week puts trading at a volatility premium of 10% or more, a strongly bearish signal from the options market that suggests professional traders are buying downside protection rather than positioning for recovery.
The $52,000 scenario and what it means
A move to $52,000 would represent a further 16% decline from current levels and would take Bitcoin below its realized price of approximately $53,600 — the level CryptoQuant identified as the threshold where the average holder is at a loss. Historically, trading below realized price has marked the deepest phases of bear markets, but not necessarily their immediate end.
Standard Chartered's Geoffrey Kendrick had identified $59,375 as the cycle low — a call that was made before STRC's collapse below par and before miner capitulation fears entered the market narrative as active concerns. The emergence of two potential forced sellers that were "not in the frame a week ago," as Marex put it, represents a genuine change in the supply-side dynamics that that earlier bottom call was based on.
Whether Friday's Geneva signing of the US-Iran memorandum — and the Strait of Hormuz reopening that accompanies it — provides sufficient positive macro catalyst to offset the STRC and miner capitulation narratives will be a key test of the market's resilience at current levels. The Juneteenth holiday closure of US equity markets on Friday adds the complication of reduced liquidity precisely when the signing occurs, amplifying whatever reaction crypto markets produce in either direction.

Thursday's selloff in digital credit markets was the sharpest the nascent sector has experienced — but Strive Asset Management CEO Matt Cole is drawing a firm distinction between what happened and what it means. "What happened today was a leverage liquidation event, not a deterioration in underlying credit quality," Cole wrote on X, as Strategy's preferred equity STRC fell as low as $82.50 before recovering to $89, and Strive's own SATA dropped below $93 before rebounding to $97. Both products are designed to trade close to their $100 par value.
"A liquidation event and a credit event are not the same thing," Cole added.
How the selloff happened: carry trade meets margin call
Cole's diagnosis of the selloff's mechanics is specific and credible. Both STRC and SATA offer double-digit yields — an unusual income opportunity in the crypto-adjacent space that attracted investors seeking enhanced returns through leverage. As prices began falling, margin calls triggered forced selling by those leveraged holders, creating a self-reinforcing decline that detached from the underlying creditworthiness of either issuer.
"There is an old saying in income markets that the road to hell is paved with carry," Cole said — a reference to the well-documented pattern of yield-seeking investors piling into leveraged carry trades that appear stable until they aren't, at which point the unwind is sudden and severe.
The dynamic Cole is describing mirrors what Marex's Ilan Solot had warned about weeks earlier in his "capital waterfall" framework for Strategy: products offering high fixed yields attract leveraged buyers, and when those products trade below par, the forced unwind creates selling pressure that is entirely mechanical and disconnected from the issuer's actual financial condition.
The Treasury parallel: strong credit, stressed market
Cole reached for a historical analogy to calibrate the severity of what happened versus what it actually means. He compared the episode to hedge fund blowups involving leveraged US Treasury positions — events where the forced selling created significant market stress and price dislocation, but where the Treasury securities themselves remained strong credits throughout. The stress was in the leverage structure, not in the underlying asset.
Applied to STRC and SATA: both products fell sharply not because Strategy or Strive deteriorated as credits, but because the investors who owned them with leverage were forced to sell at any price to meet margin calls. "Our dividend reserves remain intact. Our company is not under stress," Cole said directly, adding that the firm's underlying credit profile is largely unchanged from before the selloff.
The rebound: buyers stepped in aggressively
The intraday recovery from the lows provides some evidence for Cole's framing. STRC recovered from $82.50 to $89 — a $6.50 rebound from the low. SATA recovered from below $93 to $97 — approaching but not yet reclaiming par. "Both STRC and SATA experienced significant buying interest off their intraday lows," Cole noted, pointing to the rebounds as evidence of continued underlying demand for digital credit assets once the forced selling exhausted itself.
The speed and scale of the rebounds are consistent with Cole's leverage liquidation thesis: if the selling had reflected genuine credit deterioration, buyers would not have stepped in so aggressively at the lows. Buyers who believe the credit is sound will absorb forced selling at distressed prices — which is precisely what appears to have happened.
The broader implication for the digital credit market
Thursday's episode exposes a structural vulnerability in the digital credit sector that is not unique to STRC or SATA: when high-yield products in a volatile asset class attract leveraged buyers, the resulting fragility is inherent to the leverage structure rather than to the underlying credit quality. The market is learning this lesson in real time, with STRC falling to $82.50 and SATA below $93 serving as the first major stress test for a product category that barely existed eighteen months ago.
Cole's framing — that a liquidation event and a credit event are fundamentally different things — is analytically correct, but it does not resolve the practical challenge that the two events are nearly indistinguishable in the moment they are occurring. Markets that sold STRC to $82.50 were not making a nuanced distinction between leverage unwinds and credit impairment; they were responding to a price in freefall and protecting their own positions.
For the digital credit market to develop the institutional credibility it needs to attract durable, non-leveraged capital, episodes like Thursday's will need to be followed by exactly what appeared to happen: aggressive buying at the lows, full recovery toward par, and demonstrated dividend continuity that validates Cole's assurance that "our dividend reserves remain intact."
Whether STRC and SATA's recovery from Thursday's lows holds through Friday's Juneteenth-reduced-liquidity session — and through whatever reaction the Geneva signing produces — will be the next test of whether the digital credit market's first major stress event ends as a leverage liquidation that resolves cleanly or escalates into the credit event Cole explicitly distinguished it from.

Bitcoin's network is busier than at almost any point in its history — but the transactions driving that activity are not people moving money. Microtransactions below 0.01 BTC now account for approximately 80% of all daily Bitcoin transactions, pushing CryptoQuant's Bitcoin Network Activity Index into positive territory for the first time since 2024, according to a Thursday report by CryptoQuant head of research Julio Moreno.
The index is now just 7% below the all-time high recorded in September 2024 — meaning Bitcoin's blockchain is operating near peak capacity in terms of transaction volume, even as price action remains muted and institutional ETF flows have been negative for weeks.
How microtransactions went from 44% to 80%
Transactions below 0.01 BTC represented approximately 44% of all daily Bitcoin transactions in 2023. Their share has nearly doubled since then — fueled largely by Ordinals, Runes, BRC-20 tokens, and other data-inscription protocols that generate high volumes of dust-value transactions, some as low as 546 satoshis — the minimum value required for a transaction to be considered non-dust by the network.
The growth reflects the expanding use of Bitcoin's blockchain as a data layer rather than purely a value transfer mechanism. "The economic value of these transactions is, however, disproportionately small," Moreno wrote — a precise observation that carries an important implication: near-record network activity is not indicating near-record economic demand for Bitcoin as money. It is indicating near-record demand for Bitcoin's blockchain as a censorship-resistant data storage medium.
OP_RETURN: near-record usage and an ongoing community debate
The primary technical mechanism behind the surge is OP_RETURN — a Bitcoin script opcode that allows data to be embedded directly on the blockchain without creating spendable outputs. OP_RETURN usage has climbed to near-record levels in 2026, following the removal of an 80-byte relay limit by Bitcoin Core developers in 2025 — a change that split the Bitcoin developer community. Critics argued the removal would accelerate the use of Bitcoin's blockchain for non-financial data storage, effectively subsidising inscription activity at the expense of ordinary financial transactions competing for block space.
The 2025 debate appears to have been predictive. With OP_RETURN now capable of embedding up to 100,000 bytes of data on-chain without creating spendable outputs, it has become the standard mechanism for Bitcoin data-layer protocols — enabling Runes, Ordinals, BRC-20 tokens, and data-timestamping services to operate efficiently at scale.
Mempool congestion: highest since February 2025
The surge in microtransactions has pushed Bitcoin's mempool — the holding area for unconfirmed transactions awaiting inclusion in a block — to approximately 128,000 transactions, its highest count since February 2025. Mempool congestion of this scale creates a competitive fee environment: users who need their transactions confirmed quickly must bid higher fees, while inscription-driven dust transactions add volume that competes for the same finite block space.
Moreno flagged the structural risk directly: sustained growth in non-financial activity could "increase block space competition and raise fees for economic transactions" — meaning the very users who want to use Bitcoin as money may face higher costs as a direct consequence of inscription protocol growth. This tension between Bitcoin's utility as a value transfer network and its growing role as a data layer is one of the most active debates in the Bitcoin development community and has no consensus resolution.
Historical context: Ordinals 2023 and Runes 2024
The current congestion has precedent, though it has not yet reached prior peaks. Transaction backlogs surged in 2023 as Ordinals and BRC-20 activity competed with ordinary transfers for block space — a period that introduced the inscription debate to mainstream Bitcoin discourse. Another significant spike emerged in late 2024 following the launch of the Runes protocol, which offered a more efficient standard for fungible token issuance on Bitcoin than BRC-20.
The current surge differs from those episodes in one important way: it is more sustained and structurally embedded rather than concentrated in short boom periods. With OP_RETURN limits removed and multiple data protocols now operating simultaneously — Runes, Ordinals, BRC-20, and data-timestamping services all generating microtransaction volume — the network congestion appears less likely to resolve naturally when a specific protocol's novelty fades.
The positive signal within the noise
Despite the economic activity concern Moreno raised, the Network Activity Index turning positive for the first time since 2024 is not entirely without positive implications for Bitcoin's broader ecosystem. Developer activity, data protocol usage, and user experimentation with Bitcoin's programmability have historically preceded periods of increased mainstream interest and adoption. The Ordinals boom of 2023 introduced a new generation of developers to Bitcoin's scripting capabilities. Runes brought fungible token issuance to Bitcoin in ways that competed directly with Ethereum and Solana's token ecosystems.
Whether the current microtransaction surge represents the early stages of a similar adoption wave — or simply inscription protocol activity that inflates network statistics without corresponding economic value creation — is the question that Moreno's report raises but does not fully resolve. For investors focused on Bitcoin's price recovery and on the demand-side signals that CryptoQuant has identified as necessary for a confirmed market turn, network activity driven by 546-satoshi inscriptions is a different signal than network activity driven by large-value economic transfers — and distinguishing between the two remains essential context for interpreting Bitcoin's on-chain health during the current correction.

Goldman Sachs has revised its year-end gold forecast down by $500 per ounce to $4,900, citing the Federal Reserve's now-entrenched higher-for-longer posture following Wednesday's hawkish dot plot. The bank's commodity analysts Lina Thomas and Daan Struyven now assume the Fed's first rate cut has been pushed to March 2027, with a second cut in December 2027 — a timeline that removes the easing catalyst that had underpinned much of the bull case for non-yielding assets through early 2026.
"Our gold price views remain structurally constructive but tactically cautious, with near-term downside risk and medium-term upside risk," the analysts said.
Gold's bear market deepens: $135 from the $4,000 level
At current prices near $4,100, gold has now fallen more than 22% from its January all-time high of $5,327 per ounce — firmly in bear market territory by conventional definition. The revised Goldman target of $4,900 implies meaningful upside from current levels but represents a significant downgrade from the $5,400 prior forecast that was built on an assumption of Fed rate cuts materializing in 2026.
Gold is now just $135 away from $4,000 — a level not seen since November — making the next few weeks particularly significant for the precious metal's medium-term technical structure. A break below $4,000 would represent a new stage of the bear market that began after January's peak, adding further pressure to the debasement trade thesis that drove the initial surge from below $2,000 in October 2023 to $5,327 in January 2026.
The mechanism: no yield, higher rates, repricing of the easy-money thesis
Goldman's forecast revision captures a straightforward but consequential dynamic. Gold pays no yield — making it directly sensitive to the opportunity cost of holding it versus interest-bearing alternatives. With the Fed's June dot plot showing 9 of 18 officials projecting 2026 rate hikes and the first cut now pushed to March 2027, the yield differential between gold and Treasury bills or money market funds has widened to levels that make the opportunity cost of gold ownership increasingly uncomfortable for institutional allocators.
"The market may be repricing the entire easy money thesis that drove gold to record highs earlier this year," as CoinTelegraph noted — a process that would logically continue as long as Fed rate hike expectations remain elevated rather than easing. Goldman's $4,900 target essentially bakes in that repricing completing before year-end, with a modest recovery from current levels as the Iran deal's disinflationary impact works through the data and medium-term structural demand from central banks and reserve diversification continues.
"Only when inflation drops, rate cuts become viable, and liquidity improves alongside lower capital costs, will the overall risk appetite truly reverse," HashKey Group senior researcher Tim Sun told CoinTelegraph — a framing that applies equally to gold, Bitcoin, and every other non-yielding risk asset simultaneously.
Bitcoin faces the identical macro headwind
The parallel to Bitcoin is explicit and direct. Bitcoin has fallen 28.3% since January — slightly more than gold's 22% decline from its all-time high. Both assets are non-yielding, both are classified as stores of value under the debasement trade thesis, and both are being repriced downward by the same higher-for-longer rate environment. CME FedWatch now shows a high probability of rates staying the same or rising through the remainder of 2026, consistent with the June dot plot's hawkish distribution.
The critical distinction — and the reason Bitcoin's decline has been larger percentage-wise than gold's — is that Bitcoin carries additional risk factors that gold does not. Strategy's STRC preferred stock collapse below par has introduced forced-seller fears around the market's largest corporate Bitcoin holder. JPMorgan estimates 20% of Bitcoin miners are now operating at a loss at current prices, with publicly traded miners having already sold more than 32,000 BTC in Q1 alone to cover operating costs. And Bitcoin's 0.6 correlation with the S&P 500 means it absorbs equity market risk-off pressure that gold, with its lower equity correlation, partially escapes.
Goldman's $4,900 gold target resting on a March 2027 first rate cut timeline provides a useful framework for Bitcoin as well. If the Fed's next cut is not until March 2027, the primary macro catalyst for a sustained Bitcoin recovery — improved liquidity conditions and reduced opportunity cost of holding non-yielding risk assets — is approximately nine months away. In the interim, the structural accumulation dynamics identified by Glassnode, K33, and CryptoQuant would need to hold against continued macro headwinds for Bitcoin to build the base that precedes recovery without a rate cut catalyst.
The structural bull case remains intact — but it requires patience
Goldman's own framing — "structurally constructive but tactically cautious, with near-term downside risk and medium-term upside risk" — could be applied word for word to Bitcoin in the current environment. The long-term structural case for both assets has not changed: central bank gold purchases continue at record pace, Bitcoin's long-term holder supply is at an all-time high of 79%, and the debasement dynamics that drove both assets to records in 2025 will reassert when monetary policy eventually eases.
The tactical reality is that with the Fed dot plot projecting hikes rather than cuts, the March 2027 first-cut assumption creates a prolonged period of macro headwind that neither asset can easily outrun through structural fundamentals alone — at least not in the near term.

The narrative around Bitcoin ETFs has always assumed one direction of travel: traditional investors cautiously entering crypto through a familiar wrapper. BlackRock's Jay Jacobs, US head of equity ETFs, is describing something more interesting — a two-way street, where crypto natives are entering the broader ETF ecosystem through Bitcoin and then staying.
"IBIT was a way for traditional investors to now get into digital assets. But we have seen a lot of people really kind of enter into IBIT, starting with digital asset ETPs," Jacobs told Cointelegraph on the Chain Reaction podcast Thursday. Around three-quarters of IBIT investors had never owned an ETF before the Bitcoin product launched — meaning BlackRock's $48 billion flagship crypto fund has been as much an on-ramp for crypto investors into traditional finance as it has been the reverse.
The behavioral pattern: Bitcoin first, then S&P 500
Once investors get exposure to IBIT, Jacobs said many start buying other BlackRock funds — including the S&P 500 tracker IVV, the artificial intelligence fund BAI, and the gold ETF IAU. The sequencing is striking: Bitcoin as the entry point, traditional asset classes as the follow-on. "We absolutely see it as this is a way to engage with a different group of people than maybe we've engaged with in the past," Jacobs said.
IBIT, launched in January 2024, currently holds 765,936 BTC with $48 billion in assets under management — making it the largest spot Bitcoin ETF globally and, based on Jacobs' behavioral data, one of the most effective financial product on-ramps ever created for a previously underserved investor demographic.
BlackRock also launched its newest Bitcoin product on Wednesday — the iShares Bitcoin Premium Income ETF (BITA) — which generates income by selling covered call options on Bitcoin holdings, adding a yield-generating dimension to its crypto product suite that directly addresses income-oriented investors who had limited reason to own Bitcoin exposure previously.
The "Great Convergence": TradFi and DeFi, not TradFi versus DeFi
The behavioral shift Jacobs describes fits within a broader framework BlackRock is calling the "Great Convergence" — the accelerating overlap between crypto, decentralized finance, and traditional finance that is dissolving the boundaries that have historically separated them.
"Historically, you've seen a lot of different assets held separately — DeFi versus TradFi, actively managed funds versus index funds, private assets versus publicly listed assets," Jacobs said. "And what's happening is people are looking for more solutions to manage their portfolios."
His framing of where this leads is specific: "I think you're gonna hear a lot less about versus — TradFi versus DeFi — and I think you're gonna see a lot more ampersands. It's TradFi and DeFi."
The convergence is visible across multiple dimensions simultaneously. Tokenized real-world assets have surged 589% since early 2025 according to Binance Research. The Clearing House — backed by JPMorgan, Citibank, Bank of America, BNY, and Wells Fargo — is building a tokenized deposit network to compete with stablecoins. VanEck launched the first US spot BNB ETF. Kraken launched regulated perpetual futures for US clients. Standard Chartered's Kendrick initiated coverage on UNI with a $100 price target based on RWA flows into DeFi. The distinction between "crypto" and "finance" is narrowing at every level of the market simultaneously.
Pre-IPO perps: the convergence in practice
The most vivid recent example of the Great Convergence in action was the SpaceX IPO — where crypto traders accessed pre-IPO exposure through perpetual futures and tokenized stocks on crypto exchanges before the company began trading on Nasdaq. Pre-IPO perpetual futures volumes have surged from approximately $1 billion in early May to about $22 billion, according to CryptoQuant data — with Binance establishing itself as the largest venue for the product category.
The VELVET token's 1,400% weekly surge on SpaceX pre-IPO exposure narrative — and its subsequent sell-the-news risk after listing — illustrated both the appetite for and the fragility of this convergence in its early stages. But the direction of travel is clear: crypto infrastructure is increasingly serving as the primary venue for financial products and risk exposures that would previously have required traditional finance participation.
Why this matters during the current correction
Jacobs' data provides important context for understanding the ETF outflow dynamics that have dominated this analysis throughout May and June. The $5.72 billion in IBIT and broader Bitcoin ETF redemptions since the April CPI shock represented institutional and retail investors making macro-driven decisions to reduce risk exposure — the same decisions they would make with any financial product during a period of elevated inflation, hawkish Fed communication, and geopolitical uncertainty.
But the underlying behavioral finding — that 75% of IBIT investors had never owned an ETF before, and many subsequently expanded into S&P 500, AI, and gold exposure — suggests that the long-term structural demand being built through IBIT is not simply Bitcoin demand. It is a new investor cohort being introduced to portfolio construction for the first time, with Bitcoin as the entry point. That cohort, once introduced to the broader ETF ecosystem, is unlikely to disappear even during extended crypto bear markets — which may be why BlackRock has consistently maintained its crypto product development pace including BITA's Wednesday launch despite the sustained outflow environment.

Four matches were played at the 2026 FIFA World Cup on June 19, with South Africa and Czechia sharing the points in a 1-1 draw, Switzerland claiming a 4-1 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada producing a commanding 6-0 victory against Qatar, and Mexico defeating South Korea to secure progress to the knockout stage.
South Africa 1-1 Czechia
Czechia made a fast start against South Africa, taking the lead after just five minutes and seven seconds through Michal Sadilek.
South Africa pushed for a response and were handed a late opportunity when Pavel Sulc was penalized for handball in the 83rd minute. Teboho Mokoena converted from the spot to bring South Africa level.
The result leaves both teams on one point in Group A, meaning each side will likely need a win in their final group match to keep their qualification hopes alive.
Switzerland 4-1 Bosnia and Herzegovina
Switzerland produced a strong second-half performance to defeat Bosnia and Herzegovina 4-1.
Johan Manzambi opened the scoring in the 74th minute, reacting quickly to a knockdown inside the penalty area and finishing first time past Bosnia goalkeeper Nikola Vasilj. Ruben Vargas doubled Switzerland’s lead in the 84th minute, before turning provider in the 90th minute to set up Manzambi for his second goal of the match from close range.
Bosnia and Herzegovina pulled one back in stoppage time through substitute Ermin Mahmic, who struck powerfully from a corner in the 93rd minute. However, Switzerland restored their three-goal margin in the 97th minute, with Granit Xhaka converting a penalty to seal the win.
Canada 6-0 Qatar
Canada recorded their first-ever World Cup victory in emphatic fashion, beating Qatar 6-0 in front of a packed Vancouver Stadium.
The result puts Canada in a strong position to reach the last 32, but the win was overshadowed by a serious injury to midfielder Ismaël Koné.
The incident occurred eight minutes into the second half, with Canada already leading 3-0. Koné was challenged late by Assim Madibo while competing for possession and suffered a broken tibia and fibula in his left leg. The injury ended his tournament and he is expected to undergo surgery.
Despite the setback, Canada’s dominant display marked a significant moment in their World Cup campaign.
Mexico Beat South Korea To Reach Knockout Stage
Mexico became the first team to qualify for the World Cup knockout stages after defeating South Korea.
Luis Romo scored from close range after South Korea goalkeeper Kim Seung-gyu spilled the ball, allowing the midfielder to tap into an empty net.
The victory confirms Mexico’s place in the next phase of the tournament. Depending on results, Mexico could face England in the last 16 if both teams win their groups and then progress through the round of 32.
South Korea struggled to make a major impact in the match but remain in contention to advance.
Upcoming matches, all times local:
12:00 — USA vs Australia, Group D18:00 — Scotland vs Morocco, Group C20:00 — Türkiye vs Paraguay, Group D20:30 — Brazil vs Haiti, Group C

JPMorgan said Bitcoin has traded below miners’ estimated production cost for five consecutive months, highlighting sustained pressure on mining economics.
According to NS3.AI, the bank said BTC hashrate and mining difficulty have become more sensitive to price fluctuations this year.
JPMorgan added that mining difficulty fell 10% in the second week of June.

Hyperliquid entered the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization after its HYPE token reached an all-time high of $76.70 on June 16, 2026.
According to NS3.AI, the platform has expanded beyond cryptocurrency trading into oil futures and stock index products, while also adding offerings tied to pre-IPO exposure, prediction markets, gold, and other commodities.
Hyperliquid said it uses 99% of its trading fees to buy back HYPE tokens.

The Federal Reserve Board has requested public comment on a proposal that would require certain payment stablecoin issuers to establish and maintain effective customer identification programs (CIP). According to Foresight News, the proposal was issued jointly by the Federal Reserve and four other agencies.
Under the proposal, the affected stablecoin issuers would be required to follow customer identification standards similar to those applied to banks and credit unions.
The public comment period would run for 60 days after the proposal is published in the Federal Register.

XRP fell 5% to around $1.12 after Israeli military attacks in southern Lebanon jeopardized the Trump-Iran deal and delayed critical talks, reviving fears of a wider regional conflict. According to BeInCrypto, the strikes have complicated U.S. diplomatic efforts and postponed talks between the Trump administration and Iran, while Axios reported Vice President JD Vance postponed a planned trip to Switzerland for U.S.-Iran talks expected to begin on Friday. XRP traded in a 24-hour range of $1.13-$1.18 as oil volatility and broader crypto weakness weighed on risk assets.

Oil gained on Friday after planned negotiations between the US and Iran were delayed. In addition, according to Bloomberg, tanker traffic out of the Persian Gulf slowed.

Spot gold rose $17 to $4,164 per ounce, while WTI crude oil extended its short-term decline by $1 to a low of $75.33 per barrel.
According to Odaily, the moves followed comments from senior U.S. officials that Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah had agreed to a ceasefire starting at 4:00 p.m. local time on Friday, or 21:00 (UTC+8).

According to CoinMarketCap data, the global cryptocurrency market cap now stands at $2.17T, down by 1.42 over the last 24 hours.Bitcoin (BTC) traded between $62,272 and $64,082 over the past 24 hours. As of 09:30 AM (UTC) today, BTC is trading at $63,291, down by 0.93%.Most major cryptocurrencies by market cap are trading mixed. Market outperformers include RE, HEI, and SYN, up by 1025%, 63%, and 34%, respectively.Iran Postpones the Peace Signing — And Bitcoin's Week Just Got a Lot More ComplicatedThe Geneva signing is off — for now — landing on a market already absorbing a hawkish Fed dot plot, Strategy's STRC preferred stock crashing below par, and JPMorgan estimating 20% of miners are now operating at a loss. Bitcoin fell for a fourth straight day toward $62,400, and Goldman Sachs just pushed its first Fed rate cut to March 2027 — a timeline that is Bitcoin's problem as much as gold's.The one thing keeping the bears from getting too comfortable: Strive's Matt Cole called Thursday's digital credit carnage a leverage liquidation, not a credit event — and STRC and SATA both rebounded sharply from their intraday lows the moment forced selling exhausted itself. Meanwhile, Bitcoin's blockchain is quietly running near all-time high transaction volumes, even if 80% of those transactions are sub-0.01 BTC microtransactions.Iran Says Switzerland Meeting Scheduled for Friday Has Been PostponedKey Takeaways:Iran's Foreign Ministry confirmed the Switzerland meeting originally scheduled for Friday has been postponed; plans are being made to hold it "in the coming days" — no new date confirmedThe postponement removes the last concrete near-term positive catalyst for crypto markets, which had been pricing in Hormuz reopening benefits and geopolitical de-escalation following the week's oil price decline to ~$75The delay continues the now-familiar pattern: Trump declares a "great settlement," Pakistan's PM says peace is "never been this closer," Iran's FM echoes the optimism — then the signing date slips, and the optimism partially unwindsUS equity markets are closed Friday for Juneteenth — meaning crypto markets will be among the first and most liquid venues to react to any further Iran developments over the long weekend, in thin conditionsSummary:The postponement is the fourth time in as many weeks that markets have priced in an imminent Iran deal only to have the timeline slip. Each cycle has produced a partial rally followed by partial reversal — with the net effect being that oil has still declined meaningfully from $120 to ~$75 as the deal's eventual signing is increasingly treated as "when, not if." The practical implication for the weekend is thin liquidity in crypto with no US equity market as a reference point, a delayed deal, and a hawkish Fed dot plot freshly in the rearview mirror — the most challenging combination for price stability since the peak of the correction in early June.Bitcoin Wilts for a Fourth Straight Day — Strategy's STRC Collapse and Miner Capitulation Create Two New Forced SellersKey Takeaways:Bitcoin fell 2.5% to just below $62,400 — four consecutive days of losses following Wednesday's hawkish FOMC; the CoinDesk 20 dropped 3.3%; smart contract and DeFi tokens led the downside with a 4% decline in the CoinDesk Smart Contract Platform IndexStrategy's STRC preferred stock collapsed below par — Marex: "the market is now openly pricing the tail that it has to sell coins to defend the structure" — activating the "capital waterfall" scenario Solot had warned about weeks earlierJPMorgan estimates 20% of Bitcoin miners now operating at a loss with BTC below $62,400 vs estimated $78,000 production cost; publicly traded miners already sold 32,000+ BTC in Q1; miner capitulation adds a second source of structural forced selling$450M+ in long liquidations over 24 hours; options traders lifting puts targeting $52,000 or lower; 25-delta one-week skew shows puts trading at a 10%+ volatility premium over calls — strongly bearish professional positioningMost of the 25 largest tokens show negative OI-adjusted CVD — sellers executing at market orders, leading price action; ADA, XLM, BCH funding rates between -20% and -30% — extreme bearish skew in derivativesSummary:The emergence of two forced-seller narratives that "were not in the frame a week ago" — Marex's precise framing — is the week's most structurally significant development. Unlike sentiment-driven selling (which reverses with sentiment), forced selling from STRC-obligated Strategy distributions and below-cost miners has a mechanical quality that doesn't respond to positive headlines in the short run. Strategy's $1.1B dollar reserve was built specifically to prevent the STRC scenario — the market is now stress-testing whether that buffer is sufficient. The $52,000 put positioning is notable: professional options traders pricing a further 16% downside is a concrete signal of where the market sees the risk distribution, not just a theoretical scenario."The Most Difficult Day in the History of Digital Credit" — Strive's Cole Says STRC Crash Was Leverage, Not CreditKey Takeaways:STRC fell as low as $82.50 (vs $100 par) before recovering to $89; SATA dropped below $93 before rebounding to $97; Strive CEO Matt Cole: "What happened today was a leverage liquidation event, not a deterioration in underlying credit quality"Cole's mechanics diagnosis: both products offer double-digit yields, attracting leveraged buyers who were forced to sell at any price when margin calls triggered — a self-reinforcing mechanical decline disconnected from issuer creditworthinessHe reached for the leveraged Treasury hedge fund blowup analogy: the underlying credit (US Treasuries) remained strong throughout, just as STRC and SATA's underlying credits remain intact; "our dividend reserves remain intact, our company is not under stress"Aggressive buying stepped in at the intraday lows on both products — consistent with the leverage liquidation thesis, where forced selling exhausts itself and genuine credit buyers absorb discounted supplyThe critical unresolved question: a leverage liquidation event and a credit event are indistinguishable in the moment — sustained recovery to par, with confirmed dividend continuity, is the only demonstration that Cole's distinction holdsSummary:Cole's analytical framing — leverage liquidation vs credit deterioration — is the correct distinction, but it carries a timing problem: you can only confirm which it was after the fact. The rapid rebounds from intraday lows are the most important evidence in favor of his thesis; if buyers stepped in aggressively at $82.50 and $93, the market is pricing the assets as credits with temporarily distressed prices, not impaired credits. The test is whether STRC and SATA hold their recoveries through Friday's thin Juneteenth trading and the postponed-Iran-deal weekend — sustained recovery validates Cole's call; renewed selling toward the lows would shift the market's read toward structural credit concern regardless of the fundamental analysis.Bitcoin Network Activity Nears All-Time Highs — But 80% of Transactions Are Worth Less Than $6,000Key Takeaways:Microtransactions below 0.01 BTC now account for ~80% of all daily Bitcoin transactions, up from 44% in 2023 — driven by Ordinals, Runes, BRC-20 tokens, and OP_RETURN data inscriptions; CryptoQuant's Network Activity Index is now just 7% below its September 2024 all-time highBitcoin's mempool has swelled to ~128,000 unconfirmed transactions — its highest since February 2025 — as inscription protocols compete with ordinary financial transfers for finite block space, raising fees for economic transactionsThe OP_RETURN limit was removed by Bitcoin Core developers in 2025 (previously 80 bytes, now up to 100,000 bytes) — enabling Runes, Ordinals, and data-timestamping services to operate at scale; a move that split the developer community at the time and appears to have been predictive of the current surgeThe structural tension: near-record network activity does not indicate near-record economic demand for Bitcoin as money — it indicates near-record demand for Bitcoin's blockchain as a censorship-resistant data storage layer; the economic value of 80% of transactions is disproportionately smallSummary:Network activity near all-time highs while ETF flows remain negative and price is below $63,000 is a reminder that Bitcoin's on-chain metrics require careful interpretation. A blockchain processing 80% microtransactions looks healthy by volume but tells a different story about economic demand than one processing 80% large-value transfers. The mempool congestion is real and creates genuine fee pressure for ordinary users — the same tension that Ordinals sparked in 2023, now more structurally embedded across multiple simultaneous protocols. For investors focused on Bitcoin's price recovery, the network activity surge is background noise to the demand-side signals that actually drive price: ETF flows, whale accumulation, and the macro rate environment that remains the primary determinant of institutional risk appetite.Goldman Sachs Cuts Gold Target by $500 — No Rate Cuts Until 2027, and Bitcoin Faces the Same HeadwindKey Takeaways:Goldman Sachs cut its year-end gold forecast from $5,400 to $4,900 — pushing the assumed first Fed rate cut to March 2027, with a second in December 2027; "structurally constructive but tactically cautious, near-term downside risk and medium-term upside risk"Gold at ~$4,100 is 22% below its January ATH of $5,327 — now just $135 from $4,000, a level not seen since November; a break below would represent a new stage of the bear market and further pressure on the debasement trade thesisBitcoin has fallen 28.3% since January — slightly more than gold's 22% — facing the identical higher-for-longer macro headwind plus additional risk factors gold does not carry: STRC forced-seller fears, miner capitulation, and a 0.6 S&P 500 correlation that absorbs equity risk-off pressureJPMorgan estimates 20% of miners operating at a loss; publicly traded miners sold 32,000+ BTC in Q1 already; if the March 2027 first-cut timeline holds, the primary macro recovery catalyst for non-yielding risk assets is nine months awayHashKey's Tim Sun: "Only when inflation drops, rate cuts become viable, and liquidity improves alongside lower capital costs will the overall risk appetite truly reverse" — framing that applies to both gold and Bitcoin simultaneouslySummary:Goldman's "structurally constructive, tactically cautious" framing for gold maps precisely onto Bitcoin's current condition — the long-term thesis is intact, the nine-month macro headwind is real. The March 2027 first-cut assumption creates a prolonged basing period that neither asset can easily outrun through structural fundamentals alone. For Bitcoin specifically, the structural accumulation data from Glassnode (259,000 BTC net bought at the lows, Accumulation Trend Score at 1.0 for two weeks) provides a foundation — but Goldman's timeline implies that foundation needs to hold for months, not weeks, before the macro environment turns constructive enough to convert accumulation into a sustained price recovery. Market movers:NVDAB: $210.04 (+1.37%)SPCXB: $178.8 (-7.75%)MUB: $1118.08 (+2.51%)TSLAB: $398.62 (+0.04%)SNDKB: $2186.09 (+7.07%)ETH: $1691.9 (-2.94%)BNB: $571.78 (-3.25%)XRP: $1.1251 (-4.46%)SOL: $68.32 (-4.87%)TRX: $0.3211 (-0.06%)

Iranian crude oil flows appeared to surge after a months-long US naval blockade on the Islamic Republic’s ports was lifted. In the same period, according to Bloomberg, visible tanker traffic from Iran’s neighboring countries thinned even as seven supertankers sailed.

Arthur Hayes sold 6,000 ETH today for around $10.14 million after buying ETH over the past four days. According to NS3.AI, the sale was executed at $1,690 per ETH.
The reported sale price was below Hayes’ average purchase price of $1,793.

Russia sold a stake in a top gold miner that it seized from a billionaire last year for $1.3 billion. According to Bloomberg, the sale came after multiple attempts and at about half the price Russia originally sought.

Malta’s financial regulator is asking market participants to provide feedback on a proposed legal framework aimed at software-governed organizations, as it evaluates how such structures should be treated under law. According to Cointelegraph, the regulator argues that many decentralized finance (DeFi) projects are not fully decentralized, raising questions about accountability and oversight when governance is carried out through software.
The regulator’s position centers on the view that the practical operation of numerous DeFi initiatives may involve identifiable control points or decision-makers, despite being presented as decentralized. By seeking industry input, the authority is signaling that it wants to shape rules that reflect how these organizations function in practice, particularly where governance mechanisms and responsibility may be unclear. The consultation indicates an effort to develop a legal approach that addresses software-based governance while considering the extent to which DeFi projects meet decentralization claims.

SpaceX’s IPO underwriters are preparing to hold a call with investors as early as next Monday to discuss a potential bond issuance, according to 36Kr. People familiar with the matter said the bond sale is expected to be at least $20 billion, with proceeds intended to refinance a $20 billion bridge loan that matures in September 2027.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. cut its year-end gold forecast by $500 an ounce. According to Bloomberg, the bank made the change as it no longer expects the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates in 2026.

Oil steadied after Iran asserted its authority over the Strait of Hormuz. According to Bloomberg, Israel and Hezbollah reportedly agreed to a ceasefire starting Friday.

Global oil markets are focused on activity in the Strait of Hormuz after the US and Iran signed an interim deal to end their war and reopen the waterway. According to Bloomberg, equities have largely shrugged off the turmoil, while central banks and traders are watching for signs of further energy-supply disruption and potential inflation impacts.

U.S. senators are stepping up negotiations to advance the CLARITY Act toward a full Senate vote after the July 4th recess. According to NS3.AI, bipartisan senators are expected to meet this week to discuss provisions that remain in dispute.
One of the contested areas involves a clause focused on liability for developers of non-custodial software. Sources cited in the report said the upcoming discussions will center on resolving disagreements over such clauses as lawmakers work to move the bill forward.

Starbucks Corp. laid off corporate workers in its London and Hong Kong hubs that oversee parts of its international business. In the restructuring, according to Bloomberg, the coffee chain is giving third-party licensees greater latitude to run its stores outside of North America.

Asian buyers of Middle Eastern crude are under pressure to accept cargoes or face penalties, according to Bloomberg.

Several storage-related stocks and assets rose after the market was broadly bearish on the storage sector three months ago, according to a post on X by Serenity.
According to Odaily, Serenity cited gains in Micron Technology from $380 to $1,122, SanDisk from $565 to $2,155, and MSCI from $132 to $219.
Serenity also listed SK Hynix rising from 849,000 won to 2.685 million won and Samsung Electronics increasing from 172,000 won to 362,000 won.
Serenity added that if highly extended optimistic forecasts emerge in the market—such as predictions that Samsung will become the world’s most profitable company in 2028—investors may need to step outside prevailing narratives and make independent judgments. Serenity referenced past shifts in market themes, including oil, LNG, helium, and Iran.
Serenity said similar dynamics may be repeating in optics and photonics, describing photonics and storage as two core themes that may still be in an early stage of a “supercycle.”

Iran exported about 18 million barrels of crude oil over the past five days, according to maritime intelligence firm TankerTrackers.
According to Odaily, TankerTrackers reported the update on the 19th local time.

Most Latin American currencies advanced in a quiet session for global markets amid holidays in the US and parts of Asia. According to Bloomberg, the moves left assets in a holding pattern as traders awaited fresh news out of the Middle East.

Ghana is considering transferring control of Gold Fields Ltd.’s Tarkwa mine to local firms when its leases expire next April. According to Bloomberg, the move is part of a push to increase the country’s control of its gold industry and capture more proceeds from high bullion prices.

Axelar Network said a bridge hack led to an approximately $4.67 million loss, while adding that its core protocol was not affected.
According to NS3.AI, the network attributed the loss to the bridge incident and stated that the core protocol remained unaffected.

The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the dollar against six major currencies, fell 0.12% on June 19 to close at 100.729 in late trading. According to ChainCatcher, the euro rose to $1.1477 from $1.1459 in the previous session, while the British pound increased to $1.3234 from $1.3203.
The dollar weakened against the Japanese yen, falling to 161.26 yen from 161.68 yen. It strengthened against the Swiss franc to 0.8066 from 0.8051 and against the Canadian dollar to 1.4174 from 1.414.
The dollar also declined versus the Swedish krona, trading at 9.5742 from 9.5874 in the prior session.

Brent crude posted its steepest weekly drop in months, down about 9% week-on-week, while Bitcoin (BTC) slipped about 1%, challenging the idea that oil moves crypto. According to BeInCrypto, five-year data show Bitcoin’s correlation with crude is just 0.036, with conditional readings near zero in both volatile and calm oil regimes.
The report says derivatives positioning is a bigger driver: BTC futures open interest rose from $21.83 billion to about $23.45 billion since June 11 as funding flipped from roughly +0.0023% to about −0.002%. It also cites the Fed holding rates on June 17 under Chair Kevin Warsh.

European Central Bank Chief Economist Philip Lane said the neutral interest rate could be as high as 2.5%, suggesting the latest rate hike may not yet be restraining the economy, according to 36Kr. Speaking Thursday at an event hosted by Deutsche Bank, Lane said last week’s tightening decision may not have started to curb economic growth. He added that the ECB began last week’s move from a clearly neutral position, and that based on a range of neutral-rate models, the upper end of the neutral-rate range has risen to 2.5% from 2.25%.

India is still not seen as cheap relative to global peers even as valuations have eased and foreign inflows have weakened, according to Bank of America’s India CEO Vikram Sahu, according to Bloomberg. Sahu made the comments in an interview on “Insight with Haslinda Amin” with Haslinda Amin and Menaka Doshi.

Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. told customers to resume loading its crude oil from ports within the Persian Gulf, according to Bloomberg, citing a notice sent to customers and corroborated by multiple term lifters.

Jio Platforms is preparing for what could become India’s biggest initial public offering, according to Bloomberg. The telecom company serves nearly 525 million subscribers and counts Meta, Alphabet and KKR among its backers.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the United States has an obligation and responsibility to end fighting across all fronts, including Lebanon. According to Odaily, Araghchi made the remarks during a phone call with Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar.
Araghchi said the United States should be held responsible for any actions that violate the terms of a memorandum of understanding.