Cointelegraph

Bitcoin came just shy of $66,000 during Monday morning trading after US President Trump claimed that the US had brokered a peace deal with Iran that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
“The deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete. Congratulations to all!” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform late on Sunday.
“I hereby fully authorize the toll-free opening of the Strait of Hormuz, and, simultaneously herewith, authorize the immediate removal of the United States Naval blockade,” Trump said. “Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!”
“With the opening of the Strait upon the signing of the deal on Friday [...] oil will flow on both ends again for the region, and the World!” he said in a separate post.
Source: Donald Trump
Trump has claimed dozens of times over the last two months that a deal to end the war was near, and the crypto markets have traded on news of the Iran war since it started in February with US-Israeli strikes.
Markets reacted positively to Trump’s latest claim, with Bitcoin (BTC) reaching $65,881 on Coinbase on Monday morning, according to TradingView. It is the highest the asset has traded over the last 12 days, having not been over $66,000 since June 3.
Andri Fauzan Adziima, the research lead at Bitrue Research Institute, told Cointelegraph that the potential deal “removes a major geopolitical risk premium, triggering a clear risk-on move as uncertainty fades.”
“Bitcoin has broken above $65,000, fueled by traders rotating back into crypto amid lower oil pressure and a broader stability narrative under a pro-crypto administration,” he added, but cautioned that there could be “last-minute signing issues” with the deal.
The details of the deal between the US and Iran were not immediately available, and it would not be implemented until Iran signs, which is expected on Friday under mediation by Pakistan, the Associated Press reported.
Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, confirmed the agreement on state television while the secretariat of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said the war on all fronts “will end immediately and permanently beginning tonight” and that the US blockade “will be terminated immediately and in full.”
Bitcoin has been gradually trending up since it fell below $60,000 briefly on June 6; however, it remains 48% down from its peak of over $126,000 in October.
The broader crypto market also gained 2% in total capitalization on the day, with several altcoins, including Hyperliquid (HYPE), Zcash (ZEC) and Near Protocol (NEAR) were outperforming, some with double-digit percentage gains.
There was also movement in crude oil prices, with WTI Crude falling 5% to its lowest level since early March at just over $80 per barrel, while Brent Crude mirrored the move, dropping 4.6% to $83.30.
More volatility may be ahead
Wednesday could add more volatility to crypto markets as the Federal Reserve is scheduled to make its interest rate decision, the first under new chair Kevin Warsh.
The new central bank chair appears more receptive to cuts, but increasing inflation, which has topped 4% again, strengthens the case for rate increases.
The CME Fed Watch tool currently predicts a 96.6% probability that rates will remain unchanged at 3.5% to 3.75%
Magazine: OpenAI files for IPO, SEC scraps 611 rule and Hungary overhauls crypto: Hodlers Digest

New Mexico is the latest US state to be pulled into the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s legal fight for its jurisdiction over prediction markets after the state sued Kalshi for allegedly offering illegal sports betting.
The CFTC said on Friday that it sued New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, state Attorney General Raúl Torrez, and members of the New Mexico Gaming Control Board in federal court “to block the state’s efforts to apply state gaming laws against CFTC-registered contract markets.”
New Mexico sued Kalshi on June 4, arguing the company is offering sports betting to residents without a license and that its sports event contracts function the same as traditional sports bets.
The state also claimed Kalshi allowed those aged between 18 and 20 to use the platform, below New Mexico’s minimum gaming age of 21.
New Mexico is the eighth state that the CFTC has sued after state authorities had taken enforcement action against prediction market platforms, with Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New York, Arizona, Connecticut and Illinois also facing lawsuits from the regulator.
In its complaint against New Mexico, the CFTC claimed that event contracts are “swaps” under federal commodities laws, and Kalshi is a Designated Contract Market (DCM) under the “exclusive jurisdiction” of the CFTC.
“New Mexico’s attempt to prevent a CFTC-regulated DCM from offering CFTC-approved financial products intrudes on the exclusive federal scheme Congress designed to oversee United States commodity derivatives markets,” the CFTC argued.
“New Mexico is the latest state seeking to nullify black letter law and decades of judicial precedent by imposing state gaming laws on federally regulated derivatives exchanges subject to the CFTC’s exclusive jurisdiction,” CFTC Chairman Mike Selig said in a statement.
Source: Mike Selig
“The CFTC has the expertise and responsibility to protect its exclusive jurisdiction over commodity derivatives, and that’s exactly what we’ll continue to do,” he said.
The CFTC asked the court to rule that New Mexico state laws that would apply to transactions on CFTC-regulated DCMs are invalid and for a permanent injunction prohibiting the state from taking action against prediction market platforms.
Gary Gensler doubts CFTC claim over sports bets
Gary Gensler, a former chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the CFTC, also weighed in on the CFTC’s legal battle with the states, casting doubt on the federal regulator’s claim that it has authority over sports event contracts.
In an amicus brief filed to the Sixth Circuit on Thursday in Kalshi’s fight with Ohio’s authorities, Gensler argued that the Dodd-Frank Act, passed in 2010 in response to the 2008 financial crisis to regulate swaps, was not meant to encompass sports event contracts.
“Congress did not include sports betting contracts within the statutory Dodd-Frank definition of swap,” Gensler argued. He added that sports event contracts do not fit the purpose or language defining a swap under commodities laws, “which focus on hedging economic risk.”
Gary Gensler appearing on CNBC to discuss his amicus brief. Source: YouTube
“Sports bets are very rarely, if ever, about hedging,” Gensler argued.
Gensler told CNBC on Thursday that the question “at the core of this issue is did Congress in 2010 say, ‘No, none of the states can regulate this’ — it's going to this little small agency that I once was proud to run — and the answer is categorically ‘No.’”
Magazine: Should users be allowed to bet on war and death in prediction markets?

Aztec Connect, a deprecated decentralized finance platform, was drained of around $2.1 million in crypto on Sunday after an attacker exploited its verification function.
Aztec Labs posted to X on Sunday that it was “investigating a potential exploit affecting Aztec Connect,” adding that around $2.1 million was transferred from the platform’s smart contract, which did not affect users or assets on the current Aztec network.
The exploit is the latest in the $44 million worth of crypto that has been stolen so far this month from at least 12 other exploits, according to DeFiLlama.
A private key compromise on the Humanity Protocol has been the largest so far in June, with $30 million lost on June 8, followed by the Syscoin Bridge, which saw $8 million swiped in a fake proof exploit the previous day.
Crypto security firm BlockSec said that an attacker exploited a mismatch in how the platform verified transactions and settled them on Ethereum.
It said that verified transactions on Aztec Connect’s contract were “not effectively bound to the transaction set enforced by the ZK proof,” allowing its verification path and settlement logic on Ethereum “to interpret the transaction list differently.”
The attacker could then place transactions where the contract credited value without validating it on Ethereum, which created unbacked balances that could then be withdrawn. The attacker did this seven times across seven different assets.
The attacker made off with 909 Ether (ETH), 270,000 Dai (DAI), 167 of wrapped staked ETH and a handful of other cryptocurrencies.
Some of the assets stolen in the exploit. Source: CertiK
Aztec Network is a privacy-focused layer-2 zero-knowledge (ZK) rollup on Ethereum. Aztec Connect was the previous version of the platform that launched in 2022 as a DeFi bridge.
Aztec Connect was deprecated in March 2023, with deposits halted and the team shifting resources to the next-generation Aztec Network.
“Aztec Labs holds no admin keys or control over the system; it cannot be paused or upgraded by us,” the team said.
Crypto developer “Param” said Aztec Connect’s smart contracts became “fully immutable” and could no longer be upgraded or paused.
“The incident is another reminder that abandoned DeFi contracts can still become targets years later,” they said.
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Bitcoin mining difficulty dropped by 10.09% on Sunday, marking the blockchain’s 11th-largest downward adjustment and easing some of the pressure on miners.
Galaxy Research said that mining difficulty fell from 138.96 trillion to 124.93 trillion at block 953,568 on Sunday, the second biggest drop of 2026 and a 20% decrease from its peak in November.
The price of Bitcoin (BTC) has fallen by around 15% so far in June, which has “squeezed miner margins,” Galaxy said. It added that the epoch, the time between when mining difficulty is adjusted, ran for 15.6 days, above the typical 14 days, as hashrate came offline.
Mining difficulty keeps block production stable even as the amount of mining power on the network changes. The drop means that Bitcoin miners will have an easier time mining blocks, as the falling hashrate means less competition.
Historical Bitcoin difficulty declines, with the drop on Sunday highlighted in orange. Source: Galaxy Research
Total hash rate, or the amount of mining computing power, is currently 886 exahashes per second (EH/s). It has fallen 12% so far this month and is down 23% from its peak in October, according to Blockchain.com.
The remaining miners now earn around 9% more per machine, according to crypto trader Merlijn Enkelaar.
Bitcoin mining difficulty fell more than 11% in February due to storm curtailments and a 25% BTC price crash. The highest ever difficulty drop was in July 2021, after China’s ban on mining and a following exodus.
The next difficulty adjustment is expected on June 27, with Coinwarz predicting a slight 1.69% increase to around 127 trillion.
Hashprice returns to above $30
Hashprice, which quantifies how much a miner can expect to earn from a specific quantity of hashrate, has increased 13% as a result of the difficulty dip and is currently $33 per Petahash per second per day, according to Hashrate Index.
It is an important threshold as it pushes more miners to a gross breakeven point, The Energy Mag reported on Saturday.
It reported that efficient fleets of miners will continue to generate profit at a lower hashprice, while older-generation machines that have higher electricity costs are likely to be turned off.
Magazine: OpenAI files for IPO, SEC scraps 611 rule and Hungary overhauls crypto: Hodlers Digest

Ethereum could begin adding post-quantum protections to accounts for as little as $0.07, without waiting for a hard fork, according to the Ethereum Foundation's Kohaku project lead Nicolas Consigny.
In a Saturday X post, Consigny shared a paper proposing a cheaper way for Ethereum users to protect their accounts against future quantum-computing threats. The approach adapts SPHINCS+, a post-quantum signature standard developed by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, to work more efficiently on Ethereum.
Dubbed “SPHINCS-,” the proposal aims to reduce onchain verification costs without requiring a protocol change or precompile. Consigny described SPHINCS- as a bridge toward a future post-quantum signature system dubbed “leanSPHINCS,” which aims to further reduce verification costs through aggregation.
The proposal seeks to address the long-term risk of a quantum threat to Ethereum's Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm with a cost-efficient solution that may be deployed before a dedicated hard fork is developed.
Signature scheme SPHINCs variant security degradation and onchain verification costs. Source: Ethresearch.ch
Future quantum computing threats stirs crypto community
In April, post-quantum startup Project Eleven awarded a prize to researcher Giancarlo Lelli for using a quantum computer to break a 15-bit elliptic-curve key.
Bitcoin’s keys are 256 bits long, significantly larger than the 15-bit key Lelli managed to crack. He derived the private key from a public key paired to it, using a variant of Shor’s algorithm, a quantum computing technique that theoretically poses a threat to the type of cryptography used by Bitcoin.
According to Glassnode, about 1.92 million Bitcoin, representing nearly 10% of the total supply, are considered “structurally unsafe” in a future quantum attack scenario. Another 4.12 million BTC, or 20.6% of the supply, are classified as “operationally unsafe” due to key or address management practices.
Source: Glassnode
The analytics company estimates that the remaining 69.8% of the supply, or 13.99 million Bitcoin, remains unexposed to a quantum computing threat, broadly in line with Ark Invest’s March estimate that 65% of the supply was safe.
Magazine: Bitcoin vs. the quantum computer threat — Timeline and solutions (2025–2035)

A malicious attachment delivered through a phishing email points to the involvement of North Korea-linked threat actors in Humanity Protocol's recent hack, according to blockchain security company Quantstamp.
The decentralized identity company said a compromised employee's laptop enabled attackers to steal $36 million in Humanity (H) tokens on Monday.
The malicious attachment was disguised as a token lockup schedule update from South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb. It installed malware that gave attackers full remote access to the laptop, Quantstamp said in its incident response.
The phishing email that led to the Humanity Protocol compromise. Source: Quantstamp
Quantstamp added that the malware was signed with a South Korean Hancom digital certificate, a pattern it described as “characteristic of DPRK intrusions.” The malware enabled attackers to copy Humanity Protocol director Chong Yee Wai's MetaMask wallet credentials and private keys.
The suspected North Korean link would add to a series of major crypto thefts attributed to the country. North Korea-linked threat actors were tied to at least $578 million of the $634 million stolen in crypto-related incidents in April.
North Korean hackers tied to some of the largest crypto hacks
According to a May report by blockchain security company CertiK, the same actors have been linked to about $2 billion of the $3.4 billion lost to crypto exploits in 2025, while accounting for 12% of total incidents. CertiK said the figures reflect a focus on “precision and scale.”
Over the past decade, North Korea-linked actors stole an estimated $6.75 billion in cryptocurrency across 263 documented incidents, the report said.
CertiK added that North Korea has “industrialized” crypto theft into a core state revenue mechanism, making these operations a substantial share of the regime’s external income.
Total DPRK crypto theft over the years. Source: CertiK/Skynet
North Korea rarely responds to cybercrime allegations, but on May 3, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson rejected them in a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency, the country's state media.
The spokesperson accused the US of spreading “incorrect” narratives about the “non-existent ‘cyber threat’” from North Korea.
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Bitcoin (BTC) circled $64,000 into Sunday’s weekly close as a US-Iran peace deal appeared imminent.
Key points:
Bitcoin stays higher as US president Donald Trump pledges an Iran peace deal on Sunday.
The Strait of Hormuz, a key global oil route, will be "open to all," he says.
Bitcoin analysis says no bearish chart patterns are active as open interest hints at a lasting price rebound.
Iran peace deal keeps Bitcoin rebound afloat
Data from TradingView showed price action settling after local highs of $64,750 on Bitstamp.
BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
These had accompanied an announcement by US president Donald Trump that a peace deal would be signed on Sunday.
“The Deal is scheduled to get signed tomorrow, and immediately after it is signed, the Hormuz Strait is OPEN TO ALL,” he wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Source: Truth Social
Among traders, there was fresh hope that sell pressure on Bitcoin was easing as a result. Trader SuperBro noted that the 200-week simple moving average (SMA) was holding as support.
“In a word, constructive,” they summarized about low-time frame BTC price action in a post on X.
SuperBro dismissed concerns about a bearish breakdown pattern being in play, instead focusing on a point of control (nPOC) level on exchange order books above current spot price.
“$65K-$67K is a big test, at the last swing low and volume POC. If we can rip through this zone then the bear case takes a massive hit,” they concluded.
BTC/USD one-day chart. Source: SuperBro/X
Cointelegraph previously reported on misgivings about the 200-week SMA, which history had shown to be “unreliable” as a bear-market safety net.
Key BTC price setup "finally happening"
Continuing, trading account Cryptic Trades eyed a key combination of rising open interest and falling funding rates on exchanges.
“It's finally happening,” it told X followers about what could support more sustainable BTC price strength.
Cryptic Trades suggested that current conditions showed a lack of belief on the part of bulls, removing the risk of new longs getting trapped before a new downturn.
“In other words, these aren't longs aggressively chasing the move. These are bears doubling down, increasing their short positions, and betting that the downtrend isn't over,” it explained.
“This is exactly the kind of setup that generally marks durable bottoms. The market starts moving higher, sentiment remains overwhelmingly bearish, and the most keep leaning the bearish. This is how aggressive short squeezes are born.”
BTC liquidation heatmap. Source: CoinGlass
Data from CoinGlass showed that the local highs coincided with a large band of potential short liquidations.

US President Donald Trump said a deal to end the fighting between the US and Iran is scheduled to be signed on Sunday, despite officials in Tehran previously casting doubt on the timeline.
“The Deal is scheduled to get signed tomorrow, and immediately after it is signed, the Hormuz Strait is OPEN TO ALL,” said Trump on Truth Social on Saturday.
Source: Donald Trump
Pakistan, which is mediating talks between the US and Iran, also signaled an agreement could be reached within 24 hours.
The deal, a memorandum of understanding, is expected to extend the ceasefire between the US and Iran for 60 days and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
The naval blockade has choked 20% of the world’s supply of oil and liquefied natural gas, which has led to higher global asset prices and a sentiment shock that has pressured crypto markets for months.
“We are closer to a peace deal than ever before,” Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on X on Saturday. “With finalisation likely expected in the next 24 hours, Pakistan is preparing for the electronic signing of the peace deal immediately after, followed by technical level talks next week.”
Iran has not confirmed the Sunday signing.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei told state media earlier that the memorandum wouldn’t be signed on Sunday, but could happen “in the coming days.”
“We will have to wait and see about the exact date of the signing of the memorandum of understanding, although it will not be tomorrow,” Baghaei said.
Analysts say peace deal will benefit crypto
Crypto analyst Michaël van de Poppe said a peace deal between Iran and the US will likely prompt a surge in Bitcoin, along with positive ETF flows.
Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded about $315.84 million in net outflows for the week ended Friday, marking the fifth consecutive week of outflows for the Bitcoin-linked crypto funds.
“Liquidity will pour back into risk-on assets as liquidity will seek for an opportunity and after SpaceX IPO was done, most likely this will go towards crypto,” he added.
On Wednesday, CoinShares head of research James Butterfill told Cointelegraph the recent outflow from digital asset investment products was being primarily driven by geopolitics, with uncertainty around the Iran conflict weighing on the outlook for interest rates.
Bitcoin was trading at $64,491 at the time of writing, up 1.5% over the past 24 hours.
Magazine: Bitcoin, the ‘canary in the coal mine,’ XRP transaction demand falls 91.5%: Market Moves

The Trump administration’s decision to cut foreign access to Anthropic’s most powerful AI models was reportedly triggered by calls from Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.
According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Jassy contacted senior government officials on Thursday after Amazon researchers discovered a way to prompt Anthropic’s Fable 5 model into returning information that could be used for cyberattacks.
The call, along with warnings from at least five other firms, led to a frantic shuffle within the White House to gauge the threat and contact Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who reportedly pushed back on the administration’s concerns and requests to voluntarily pull the model.
“In reaction, the Admin issued the export control. The Admin did this reluctantly,” said David Sacks, the co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, on Saturday. “It’s been very surprised that Anthropic hasn’t wanted to cooperate with a reasonable safety request (ie fixing the jailbreak issue).”
Source: David Sacks
The episode sheds light on what led to the US directive that forced Anthropic to pull its new model from the public on Friday night. Anthropic Claude is estimated to have around 18,900 monthly active users.
In a blog post on Friday, Anthropic said it believed the US directive was the result of a misunderstanding about the threat posed by a “non-universal jailbreak,” which came from an unnamed report.
Amazon did not confirm if it spoke to government officials about Anthropic’s models.
“As a leading cloud provider that serves a large number of private and public sector customers, it’s not uncommon for governments to seek ​our counsel on potential security risks,” a spokesperson said. “When they occur, we don’t share the details of these discussions.”
Anthropic said it is working to restore access for its users.
“The Admin’s hope now is that Anthropic remediates the safety issue,” Sacks said, which would see the export control lifted, and Fable goes back into general release.
“The Admin wants all of this to happen as soon as possible.”
AI tokens surge after Anthropic crackdown
The episode has also demonstrated the US government's ability to promptly switch off access to US-based AI models on command, leading to a rally in decentralized AI tokens on Friday and Saturday.
The native token of Bittensor, a decentralized AI protocol that lets people build and monetize artificial intelligence models, which some refer to as “the Bitcoin of AI,” surged 23.9% over the past 24 hours.
Venice Token (VVV), the native utility and privacy coin powering Venice AI, a decentralized, uncensored AI platform founded by Erik Voorhees, rose 16%.
Near Protocol, a blockchain project building the infrastructure to support a decentralized AI agent economy, rose 6.2%.
Source: Erik Voorhees
Magazine: Bitcoin, the ‘canary in the coal mine,’ XRP transaction demand falls 91.5%: Market Moves

Zcash founder Zooko Wilcox said a security audit by Anthropic's Claude Mythos artificial intelligence model found no serious vulnerabilities in the privacy-preserving cryptocurrency's protocol.
Requested by Shielded Labs, a Swiss-based non-profit supporting the development of Zcash, the AI security audit did not find “any more serious bugs” in the Zcash protocol, according to a Saturday X post by Wilcox.
On June 3, Zcash developers temporarily suspended Orchard transactions after discovering a vulnerability in the shielded pool. Functionality was restored later that day through an emergency upgrade.
The issue stemmed from a four-year-old forgery bug in the Orchard shielded pool that was discovered by security researcher Taylor Hornby with the help of Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.8 model. The Zcash Foundation said there was no evidence that the vulnerability was exploited, nor was there any unauthorized value creation detected, while user privacy was unaffected.
Source: Zooko Wilcox
AI models spark crypto security concerns
While developers are using new AI models to identify vulnerabilities, the technology is simultaneously raising security concerns across the crypto industry.
On Tuesday, Anthropic released the first public version of its Claude Mythos model, Fable 5. The company said last month that the Mythos model uncovered more than 10,000 high or critical-severity vulnerabilities in “systemically important software,” leading to concerns about whether it should be publicly released.
The company said users that Fable 5 was “made safe for general use” and has safeguards that reroute some topics, such as cybersecurity, to a different model, Claude Opus 4.8.
On Friday, Anthropic said it suspended access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 AI models due to a US government export control directive citing national security concerns.
The proliferation of these new AI models has shifted the cybersecurity playing field in favor of the threat actors, causing a “vulnerability apocalypse” that is fueling a resurgence in decentralized finance (DeFi) hacks, Mitchell Amador, the CEO of bug bounty platform Immunefi, told Cointelegraph in a recent interview.
Crypto hacks surged to $634 million in April, the highest monthly value since the Bybit hack led to about $1.4 billion in losses in February 2025, according to DefiLlama data.
Magazine: The legal battle over who can claim DeFi’s stolen millions

Michael Saylor, executive chairman of Strategy, defended the company's recent Bitcoin sale, saying the ability to sell the asset is necessary to continue issuing "digital credit."
Strategy disclosed its first reported Bitcoin sale since 2022 in a June 1 filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, offloading 32 BTC in a move that appeared at odds with Saylor's long-running "never sell your Bitcoin" mantra.
In an interview with Cointelegraph at the BTC Prague conference, Saylor said that Bitcoin treasury companies must retain the ability to sell holdings when necessary to support dividend-paying securities and other Bitcoin-backed credit products.
“If the company's policy is that we won't sell the Bitcoin, then the credit won't have value and the equity won't have value," he said, adding:
The company is in the business of selling digital credit. The credit is backed by capital. Bitcoin is capital."
Cointelegraph’s Ciaran Lyons (left) and Strategy founder Michael Saylor (right) at BTC Prague. Source: Cointelegraph
Saylor described products like Strategy's STRC preferred stock as "digital credit" instruments that use the company's Bitcoin balance sheet to support credit obligations. For Strategy, such securities have become a primary vehicle for raising capital to acquire more Bitcoin.
Digital credit is a "trillion-dollar" opportunity for Bitcoin finance, Saylor says
Digital credit markets are emerging as the next “trillion-dollar opportunity” in finance, a development that Saylor said could enable yield-bearing digital money products.
“I see Bitcoin as the digital transformation of capital. I see STRC as the digital transformation of credit,” Saylor said, explaining that digital credit products can offer yields of up to 8%, which is three to four times more than traditional savings accounts.
Saylor said digital credit products could transform how people see credit markets, while also bringing billions of dollars into the Bitcoin ecosystem.
He cited projects such as Saturn and Apyx as examples of yield-bearing products built on top of digital credit markets. One of those products recently faced a test of its resilience.
On June 4, Apyx Finance's dividend-backed synthetic stablecoin (apxUSD) depegged to as low as $0.90 as Bitcoin traded below $63,000 and STRC shares fell below their $100 par value.
According to Apyx, the decline in STRC, the stablecoin's primary collateral asset, reduced the protocol's reserve value. The company also cited falling Bitcoin prices, thinning liquidity and derivative-driven market dynamics as factors behind the depeg.
At press time, apxUSD traded at $0.96, below its $1 peg. Source: Coingecko
The full interview with Saylor will be available on Cointelegraph's YouTube channel in the coming days.
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Investors are increasingly backing stablecoin and credit infrastructure rather than decentralized finance (DeFi) lending alone, with Morpho Labs' latest funding round drawing attention to onchain credit markets, according to Spark CEO Sam MacPherson.
Morpho announced Tuesday that it raised $175 million in a round led by Paradigm, a16z crypto and Ribbit Capital. While Morpho is widely known as a DeFi lending protocol, the company said that it aims to become a credit infrastructure layer for banks, asset managers and fintechs.
Onchain credit markets allow users and institutions to borrow, lend and deploy capital using blockchain-based assets. Investors are betting the sector will grow alongside stablecoins and other tokenized financial products.
As stablecoins scale, "credit becomes one of the most important pieces of infrastructure in the stack," MacPherson told Cointelegraph.
Morpho's growing role as lending infrastructure
Morpho has a total value locked (TVL) of $6.72 billion and about $3.47 billion in active loans, according to DeFiLlama data. Risk management platform Sentora said in a Friday newsletter that the figures indicate “significant liquidity depth.”
Morpho's total value locked and active loans have climbed sharply since late 2024.Source: DeFiLlama
Sentora also pointed to Coinbase's use of Morpho smart contracts to originate more than $2.17 billion in corporate USDC loans as evidence that the protocol is being used as lending infrastructure rather than solely as a retail DeFi platform.
Sentora argued that the trend extends beyond crypto-native lending. The firm said exchanges, custodians and asset managers are actively evaluating blockchain-based lending systems to power credit products, while protocols compete to become the underlying infrastructure for business-to-business integrations.
Capital flows to late-stage crypto firms
Morpho intends to measure the success of the raise over the next 12 to 18 months by expanding integrations with banks, asset managers and large platforms, attracting more institutional capital and rolling out features from traditional credit markets to drive adoption, co-founder Merlin Egalite told Cointelegraph.
“The problem we are trying to solve is less about replacing competitors and more about establishing ourselves as the credit infrastructure layer that banks, asset managers and fintechs build on," he said.
Morpho's raise “largest” in DeFi history. Source: Merlin Egalite
The funding round, which Egalite called “the largest raise in DeFi history,” comes as venture capital increasingly concentrates on a small group of established crypto infrastructure projects.
According to a Q1 2026 report by CryptoRank, capital allocated to Series C and later-stage crypto funding rounds surged 1,020% year over year and 320% quarter over quarter. The category accounted for 28.4% of venture funding across just nine deals, while seed and pre-seed funding fell 38.1% and represented only 5.2% of total capital.
Egalite said that he is unconcerned about capital concentration.
Asia Express: North Korea denies crypto hacks, Upbit’s bank tests Ripple

Key takeaways:
While bearish ETH futures trends and spot ETF outflows signal weak institutional appetite, staking demand prevents further decline.
Falling exchange deposits and accumulation by BitMine indicate holder confidence in ETH's long-term value.
Ether (ETH) price failed to reclaim the $1,700 level over the past week, tracking a broader weakness across cryptocurrency markets. This correction contrasts sharply with the bullish momentum seen in the US stock market. Traders worry that Ether's appeal has faded due to sluggish on-chain activity and a distinct lack of demand for bullish leveraged positions.
ETH futures annualized funding rate. Source: Laevitas
The ETH perpetual futures annualized funding rate flipped negative on June 5, meaning shorts are paying premiums to keep their positions open. Bullish traders remain uncomfortable adding risk despite a 30% price correction over the past five weeks. The ETH futures aggregate open interest has also dropped significantly, indicating a pullback in institutional activity.
ETH futures aggregate open interest on major exchanges, ETH. Source: CoinGlass
Total exposure on ETH futures has fallen 30% in a month, hitting a 13-month low. This shrinking institutional appetite is evident in US-listed Ether spot exchange-traded funds, which posted $323 million in net outflows over two weeks.
ETH staking demands contrast with weak on-chain activity
Regardless of whether the decline in ETH futures demand can be pinned to record-breaking demand for the SpaceX (SPCX US) IPO, the impact on trader sentiment remains negative. Declining Ethereum on-chain activity has likely fueled this ETH price downtrend.
Ethereum Total Value Locked vs. weekly DApp revenue, USD. Source: DefiLlama
The total value locked (TVL) on the Ethereum network dropped 33% in two months to $37.5 billion. Concurrently, decentralized application (DApp) revenues plunged 43% in May compared to the previous six months. This reduced on-chain volume is typically associated with lower network fee generation and falling ETH utility.
Curiously, rising demand for Ethereum staking contrasts sharply with the bearishness in ETH derivatives. Staking approval for US-listed ETFs and aggressive accumulation by BitMine (BTMN US) vastly outpaced outflows during the period, despite a modest 2.7% yield.
ETH staking validator queue, ETH. Source: ValidatorQueue
The entry queue for ETH staking validators currently sits at 50 days, totaling over 2.9 million ETH. In contrast, the exit queue has zero wait time, a major sign of strength, given that 39.5 million ETH are currently staked. While there is no guarantee that stakers will lock up their tokens forever, this metric signals deep confidence in Ethereum's long-term prospects.
ETH estimated balance on exchanges, ETH. Source: Glassnode
Meanwhile, exchange-held ETH deposits dropped to 15.05 million from 16.15 million three months ago, pointing to heavy accumulation. This shift was partly driven by BitMine, which added 337,078 ETH to its balance sheet over the past 30 days, according to CoinGecko data.
Ultimately, weak demand for bullish ETH leverage shouldn’t be misread as a sign of rising downside risk. As long as staking metrics stay solid and spot ETF outflows remain reasonably contained, the odds of an ETH price crash to $1,500 look slim.

Anthropic said it suspended access to its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 AI models after receiving a US government export control directive citing national security concerns.
In a statement posted Friday, Anthropic said it received the directive at 5:21 pm ET, instructing it to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees.
Anthropic abruptly disabled the models for all users in order to ensure compliance. It said all other Anthropic models, such as Opus 4.8, are not affected.
"We are complying with the government’s legal directive and are removing access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all users," the firm said.
The directive comes just days after Anthropic released Fable 5 and Mythos 5, two powerful AI models built on top of Mythos Preview, a general-purpose language model that the company previously said had found thousands of vulnerabilities in critical software.
Anthropic said the government did not provide specific details about the alleged threat, but said it believes authorities are concerned about a possible “jailbreak” method capable of bypassing Fable 5's safeguards.
“To date, the government has only given us verbal evidence of a potential narrow, non-universal jailbreak, which essentially consists of asking the model to read a specific codebase and fix any software flaws,” said Anthropic.
A non-universal jailbreak is a far lower threat than a "universal jailbreak," a method to broadly bypass a model's safeguards, it explained.
"We disagree that the finding of a narrow potential jailbreak should be cause for recalling a commercial model deployed to hundreds of millions of people. If this standard was applied across the industry, we believe it would essentially halt all new model deployments for all frontier model providers," it added.
Anthropic said it believes the government order is a result of a misunderstanding and is working to restore access for users as soon as possible.
Magazine: Does ‘Paper Bitcoin’ mean there’s an unlimited supply of BTC?

Crypto trading platforms Bybit, Binance, Bitget Wallet and MEXC canceled their tokenized SpaceX IPO campaigns and offered refunds for users as SpaceX went public on the Nasdaq on Friday.
SpaceX’s IPO, which was reported as more than four times oversubscribed, raised $75 billion as it became a publicly traded company. SpaceX shares opened for trading at $150 on Friday, up from its IPO price of $135. It closed the day at $161.11, valuing the company at over $2 trillion.
However, major crypto platforms offering tokenized access to the IPO were unable to fulfill demand for SpaceX allocations, with several blaming Kraken-owned xStocks’ inability to deliver the underlying assets.
Bybit, which was offering tokenized access to SpaceX through its new Bybit IPO Express, was one of the first to announce the cancellation.
“Due to xStocks’ inability to deliver the underlying assets, no SpaceX allocations were received. As a result, subscribed users will not receive SpaceX allocations.”
Binance's SpaceX tokenized IPO campaign, which attracted over $557 million in USDC deposits, said it was unable to proceed to the campaign due to “circumstances outside of our control.” Binance Wallet was also relying on xStocks.
Source: Changpeng Zhao
Bitget Wallet and MEXC also said they would be refunding affected users after being unable to secure an allocation of xStocks’ tokenized SPCX.
“It’s disappointing that this didn’t work out in the end. We are in the process of sending out the refunds,” Bitget Wallet chief operating officer Alvin Kan said on X.
“Yes, we have hit a setback, and trust in the industry has taken a blow, but we’ll come out of this stronger,” he added.
Magazine: Does ‘Paper Bitcoin’ mean there’s an unlimited supply of BTC?

New research from Galaxy Digital suggests that Bitcoin's cycle low could form at higher price levels than previous bear markets due to the absence of speculation. The analysis places the potential bottom between $62,000 and the network's realized price at $53,600.
Galaxy head of research Alex Thorn analyzed every Bitcoin cycle top and bottom and noted that the four-year cycle continues to track closely with BTC’s historical timing. The peak-to-trough declines have steadily narrowed across market cycles, falling from 85% and 84% in earlier periods to 77% in 2022 and 51% in 2026.
Bitcoin’s four-year cycle peak-trough analysis. Source: Galaxy Research/X
Thorn argued that Bitcoin’s October 2025 top differed from previous cycle peaks. Only two of eleven traditional topping indicators flashed, while the widely followed Pi Cycle Top indicator failed to trigger for the first time. Bitcoin’s MVRV ratio, which compares market value to realized value, peaked at 2.29, compared with 2.93 to 5.91 in prior cycles. The analyst said,
“The key insight: a calm top RAISES the floor. Because October’s top was so muted, the network’s cost basis sits at 43.7% of ATH, vs ~34%, 21%, and 17% in prior cycles.”
The report also found that several key bottoming signals are still absent. Only four of thirteen indicators have triggered so far, with most of the stronger signals yet to appear.
BTC cycle bottom indicator list. Source: Galaxy Research/X
Historical timing also points to the possibility of a bottom ahead. The previous cycle bottoms formed roughly 12 to 13 months after the market peak, while the current drawdown is about eight months old.
Thorn noted that, based on the current cost basis of $53,600, Galaxy estimates a base-case bottom range of $40,000 to $46,000. A deeper "washout scenario" points to $30,000-$37,000, while a shallower decline could hold near $51,000-$54,000. Despite the scenarios, Thorn also warns,
“The catch: the floor can move. cost basis is reflexive. in a real panic, coins change hands at a loss and drag the average down. A 10-30% cost basis decline pulls the implied floor from ~$40k back toward $28k.”
Bitcoin bottom range based on realized price analysis. Source: Galaxy Research
Related: Big Tech crash, oil volatility rattles markets: Will Bitcoin hold above $60K?
Bitcoin demand still trends lower: CryptoQuant
Onchain analysis from CryptoQuant currently places Bitcoin inside a valuation zone historically associated with major bear-market lows. BTC recently traded near $59,000, leaving it roughly 9% above its realized price of $53,600.
Bitcoin value zone based on realized price bands. Source: CryptoQuant
Past cycle bottoms, including the November 2022 FTX-driven sell-off, formed at or slightly below the realized price, suggesting the bottom range may again fall below the cost basis of $53,600 and overlap with Galaxy’s base projection between $46,000 and $40,000.
Demand data paints a more cautious picture. CryptoQuant reported a combined weekly decline of 652,000 BTC across speculative futures demand and apparent spot demand, marking the sharpest contraction since January 2022. The firm's one-year demand gauge has also turned negative, signaling fewer BTC buyers than a year ago.
Related: Bitcoin surfs SpaceX IPO at $64K as trader warns key BTC price support may crumble

Bitcoin (BTC) is gaining buyers’ interest after setting a new yearly low at $59,000 last week. Order book data and liquidity suggest a rally is pending and more than $2 billion in short liquidity is concentrated near $65,000. BTC's bid-ask ratio has remained positive since last Friday.
The shift in positioning and sentiment also aligns with a bullish chart pattern targeting the $67,000–$70,000 range.
BTC bulls attempt to regain control near support
Bitcoin's recent rebound to $63,500 followed a bullish divergence between the price and the relative strength index (RSI) on the four-hour chart. The price printed a lower low during the early-June sell-off while the relative strength index (RSI) formed a higher low. The signal pointed to fading downside momentum before buyers stepped in.
BTC/USD, four-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
Bitcoin is also trading within an ascending triangle pattern. A confirmed breakout may target the daily fair value gap between $67,500 and $70,500, an area of trading imbalance or liquidity gap left behind during the recent market correction.
The order book activity supports the move. Data from Hyblock shows the bid-ask ratio remained positive at 0.05 after Bitcoin tagged its yearly low at $59,000 last Friday. The metric tracks aggressive buying and selling activity. A positive reading suggests buy-side market orders have been slightly outpacing sell-side orders.
BTC price, bid-ask ratio, spot CVD. Source: Hyblock
The cumulative volume delta (CVD) data adds another layer of support. Smaller cohorts (up to $10,000 and $100,000 orders) have shown improving buying activity with $53 million and $157 million, respectively, while the largest participants ($100,000-$10 million) have significantly reduced net selling pressure by $900 million.
Crypto analyst Kripto Holder highlighted a $2.68 billion short-liquidity cluster near $64,600, calling it the primary upside liquidity pool.
The analyst said Bitcoin's ability to hold above $63,000 following renewed conflict in the US-Iran war adds weight to the recovery case. Spot CVD inflows also indicate demand from spot buyers.
Related: Metaplanet to form securities arm through Siiibo acquisition
BTC needs to reclaim $66,000 soon: Analyst
Market analyst PILTR noted that BTC's long exposure has gradually increased over the past five days. The current positioning tracks 237 long levels against 128 short levels, creating an estimated $4 billion positive imbalance.
Those price levels closely align with analysis from crypto trader Ardi, who argued that Bitcoin is still trading within a bear pennant following its decline from $83,000 to $59,000. The analyst identified $64,000 and $66,000 as the two most important levels for the current recovery.
BTC/USD, four-hour analysis by Ardi. Source: X
According to Ardi, a move above $64,000 would clear both horizontal resistance and the pennant structure, giving Bitcoin additional room to the upside. The next hurdle sits near $66,000, a former major range support level that now acts as resistance.
Reclaiming that area would strengthen the case for a move into the liquidity zone above the price and the unfilled fair value gap between $68,000 and $70,000.
However, PLTR also flagged weekend positioning as a near-term variable. The analyst noted that weekly profit-taking often creates opposing flows into weekends, especially after a sustained build-up in long exposure.
Related: Bitcoin miner 'capitulation' comes as trader sees later 2026 bear-market bottom

Crypto data and media company Blockworks has acquired analytics firm Messari for more than $10 million, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
Messari is a crypto research and analytics company backed by investors including Brevan Howard Digital and Point72 Ventures. The company raised $35 million in a Series B funding round in 2022 that valued it at around $300 million.
Source: Messari
According to The Wall Street Journal, the steep discount reflects both Messari's recent struggles and broader weakness across the crypto sector.
Earlier this year, Messari replaced CEO Eric Turner with Diran Li and reduced headcount as part of a broader shift toward artificial intelligence. In a LinkedIn post announcing the change, Li said the company had "parted ways with many teammates" while transitioning to an "AI-first company."
Source: LinkedIn, Diran Li
Founded in 2018, Blockworks began as a crypto media and events company before expanding into research and data products. In April, the company announced a Series A extension at a $192 million valuation.
In a blog post announcing the acquisition, Blockworks said Messari provides data coverage for more than 40,000 digital assets and operates an API used by investors, exchanges and developers. The company said the combined business would expand its market data, research, compliance and investor-relations offerings.
In a separate post on X, Messari wrote that existing users would continue to have uninterrupted access to its enterprise services and APIs following the deal.
M&A activity reshapes crypto intelligence sector
The Blockworks-Messari deal comes amid a broader wave of consolidation across crypto data, research and media platforms.
Earlier this month, Paris-based crypto data firm Kaiko acquired Amberdata, a US-focused digital asset data provider, to expand its offerings in derivatives analytics, onchain data and AI-powered research tools.
Kaiko said the acquisition would help it serve institutional clients including banks, asset managers, hedge funds and exchanges, while adding Amberdata's derivatives analytics and options data products. The company described the transaction as part of a broader strategy to consolidate institutional-grade crypto market data and analytics.
In January, blockchain oracle provider RedStone acquired Security Token Market and its TokenizeThis conference, adding a dataset covering more than 800 tokenized assets across equities, real estate, debt and funds as it expanded its institutional data business.
A few months later, the Jito Foundation acquired SolanaFloor, a Solana-focused news, research and analytics platform, after it shut down following a $40 million treasury wallet breach at parent company Step Finance. The deal revived the publication and kept its editorial team in place.
Magazine: Bitcoin miners are pivoting to AI, so why is the hashrate near ATHs?

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried failed to overturn his fraud conviction and 25-year prison sentence tied to the collapse of FTX after a three-judge appeals panel rejected his bid for relief.
The unanimous ruling by the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, New York, found that the government’s case against Bankman-Fried was, in the court’s words, “conservatively stated, robust,” according to Reuters.
Source: Toby Cunningham
“While he ‌was publicly reassuring customers, investors and regulators ‌that FTX customer funds were safe, he was simultaneously using FTX as his own personal piggy bank, spending customer funds ⁠on real estate, ⁠political contributions, and investments,” wrote Circuit Judge Barrington Parker.
The decision comes as Bankman-Fried pursues another avenue to challenge his conviction. As Cointelegraph recently reported, he has formally applied for a presidential pardon from US President Donald Trump, with the request appearing on the US Department of Justice Office of the Pardon Attorney website in early June.
Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2024 after being convicted on fraud and conspiracy charges stemming from the multibillion-dollar collapse of FTX.
Related: Sam Bankman-Fried ramps up Trump support following Ellison’s release
Bankman-Fried’s pardon bid faces long odds
In a recent interview with Fox Business, Bankman-Fried said he was “absolutely” seeking a presidential pardon from Donald Trump. However, the former FTX CEO does not appear to have much support from the president.
Trump told The New York Times in January that he had no plans to pardon Bankman-Fried. A White House spokesperson also declined to comment on the clemency request, referring Bloomberg last week to the president’s earlier remarks.
Still, Trump has shown a willingness to grant high-profile pardons, including one for Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht shortly after returning to office.
Ulbricht operated the dark web marketplace Silk Road, which used Bitcoin as a primary payment method. He was serving two life sentences plus 40 years before Trump pardoned him in January 2025.

Bitcoin (BTC) hit $64,000 after Friday’s Wall Street open while analysis warned of “unreliable” BTC price support.
Key points:
Bitcoin hits local highs during the US trading session as US-Iran peace hopes offer modest risk-asset relief.
SpaceX looks set to launch the largest IPO ever witnessed,
BTC price concerns linger over the ability of a key trend line to hold as support.
Crypto, risk assets "shrug off" inflation headwinds
Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD retaining gains as crypto and risk-asset markets surfed mixed signals over a US-Iran peace deal.
BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
At the time of writing, there was no official information about whether a deal would go ahead, with US President Donald Trump rebutting details from the Iranian side.
“What they said, including their weak and pathetic statement on having a deal, bears no relation to the truth,” he wrote in his latest post on Truth Social.
Source: Truth Social
Stocks opted to tread water at the US open on the day that SpaceX launched the biggest initial public offering (IPO) in history. Shares were slated to debut at $170 — $45 above the initial IPO price.
In a fresh analysis, trading resource Mosaic Asset Company said that markets now faced a combination of a strong labor market and high inflation.
“While equity markets seemed to shrug off inflation fears and the impact to valuations and monetary policy, better economic data is giving the average stock a reason to rally,” it summarized in its latest Mosaic Chart Alerts update.
“While some of the air is being released from the massive rally in AI infrastructure stocks, laggards off the late March lows are turning up recently.”
S&P 500 chart data. Source: Mosaic Asset Company
As Cointelegraph reported, this week’s US inflation data set new multi-year records on the back of the US-Iran war and its impact on oil prices.
BTC price 200-week trend line in focus
While Bitcoin saw new local highs near $64,000, market participants remained highly cautious on the outlook.
Trader and analyst Rekt Capital was suspicious of a long-term trend line holding up price — the 200-week simple moving average (SMA) at $62,025.
“Bitcoin is currently treating the 200-week SMA as support. But this SMA has historically proven to be an unreliable support, with price breaking down from it over time,” he warned X followers.
BTC/USD one-week chart with 200SMA. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
Rekt Capital saw additional friction coming from the fact that BTC/USD had dropped below old all-time highs from 2021.
“This deviation below old All Time Highs for Bitcoin tends to take months to fully develop to ultimately form a Bear Market bottom,” he commented.
“Though Bitcoin has deviated -14% below old ATHs thus far, this process is still technically ongoing and will be for a while.”
BTC/USD one-month chart. Source: Rekt Capital/X