Crypto

A large build-up of speculative short positions in the yen raises the risk of a sharp short squeeze if the BOJ signals more aggressive tightening, potentially unwinding yen-funded carry trades that support risk assets.

A short but busy week lies ahead on the US economic calendar, with all eyes on the Federal Reserve while hopes of a Middle East de-escalation have been reignited. 

New Mexico is the eighth state sued by the CFTC over prediction markets, as Gary Gensler doubted the regulators' claim of authority over sports event contracts. 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. Read more

The Aztec Connect platform was deprecated in March 2023, but the immutable smart contract still held over $2 million in crypto assets. 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.  Read more

Monetary policy may be back in focus, with Kevin Warsh's first policy meeting as Fed chairman coming this week.

XRP extended its rebound from recent lows on the strongest buying activity in weeks, with institutional flows and ETF demand supporting a push toward the $1.20 level.

Bitcoin mining difficulty has undergone its second-largest downward difficulty adjustment this year, following February’s 11% shift. 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. Read more

A peace agreement that reopens the Strait of Hormuz pulled the geopolitical premium out of oil and put back into risk assets.

The price of crude oil is tumbling, and U.S. stock futures are moving higher.

A single missing feature in Bitcoin Script has spawned twelve competing proposals. Cointelegraph Research gives an overview. Recently, the concept of so-called covenants has received renewed attention as Bitcoin development and protocol discussions underwent a renaissance. Covenants could enable and facilitate a wide range of applications, including new trustless and scalable layer 2s, fully non-custodial vaults with more complex spending logic, and more efficient payment channels. However, most paths to implementing this functionality require a soft fork of Bitcoin's consensus rules, a process that would likely spark debate within the community. With the recent diversification of consensus clients into Core and Knots nodes, reaching agreement on such a change has become less likely. In spite of recently pushing for a soft-fork of their own, namely BIP-110, the Knots side tends to advocate for protocol ossification and appears less supportive of facilitating scaling solutions on the base layer. The recent con...

"I hereby fully authorize the toll-free opening of the Strait of Hormuz," added the POTUS.

Financial advisors are still bullish on crypto, but stablecoins and blockchain applications are now attracting more institutional attention than Bitcoin.

A pattern stretching back to bitcoin's earliest days has held through every market cycle. It has yet to be tested in the current one.

The startup that beat Midjourney at a penny per image is back with a 4K model that plans pictures like code—and refuses far less than its rivals

Standard Chartered’s Geoff Kendrick tells clients “winter is over” as the analyst said crypto prices have likely seen the low for the cycle, ahead of Strategy’s Bitcoin purchase update. Standard Chartered analyst Geoff Kendrick on Friday told clients that he believes crypto asset prices have seen the low in the current cycle and he is looking for confirmation in three indicators: Strategy’s reporting that it bought more Bitcoin last week; crypto exchange-traded funds (ETF) saw positive inflows on Friday; and, oil prices continue to break lower. “We have now seen the low in crypto asset prices for the cycle. That would be USD59k for BTC (53% down from USD126k high),” Kendrick said in a brief note to clients on Friday. The biggest crypto was last trading on Sunday at about $63,704, according to CoinMarketCap data. Depending on how investors read Strategy chief Michael Saylor’s near-weekly tweet issued earlier on Sunday, The first sign that Kendrick is watching for may have come.  Read more

One month after THYP launched on Nasdaq, the three US-traded spot HYPE ETFs have pulled in $161 million in net inflows. June 5 was the only session to register an outflow, a $2.9 million redemption from BHYP, and every other trading day has closed in the green. The clean flow record partly reflects access mechanics, […] The post HYPE ETFs quietly pulled $161M in one month as Wall Street buys crypto’s on-chain exchange bet appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Lawmakers are debating taxes, the CFTC put out a prediction market proposal and court cases are heating up.

The market produced its most oversold signal for this cycle, as investors panic-sold with no regard for price.

Everyone knows about the ETFs, but almost nobody knows about the dozens of obscure institutional products being built around Bitcoin while the funds soak up all the attention, from a $40 million insurance reserve in Barbados to an S&P-rated bond deal sold to Wall Street investors by Jefferies. The ETFs answered only one question, which […] The post From reinsurance to structured credit: The financial products you didn’t know Bitcoin was powering appeared first on CryptoSlate.

XRP's price has also recovered a small portion of the recently lost value.