BlackRock dumps over $265 million in Bitcoin

BlackRock Inc. (NYSE: BLK) saw its iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) dump more than $265 million in Bitcoin ($BTC) on Thursday.  BlackRocks IBIT recorded a net cash outflow of $265.68 million on June 25, according to data from SoSoValue, analyzed by Finbold on June 26. As such, the fund held a total net asset of approximately $44.43 billion at the time of reporting.  IBIT daily cash flow. Source: SoSoValue  The IBIT fund has registered six consecutive days of cash outflows totaling about $985.69 million. As such, BlackRocks IBIT is about to record seven consecutive weeks of cash outflows of more than $4.89 billion.  On Friday, the firm deposited 4,577 $BTC, valued at over $271 million, into Coinbase Prime. Earlier this week, Robbie Mitchnick, the head of digital assets at BlackRock, warned that the Artificial Intelligence (AI) boom has been sucking the oxygen out of Bitcoin, as Finbold reported.  Moreover, Mitchnick noted that AI stocks have been rallying at the expense of $BTC, gold, and precious metals. As such, BlackRock investors could be rotating their funds from Bitcoin ETFs to AI stocks to capitalize on the ongoing boom.  Bitcoin price outlook as BlackRocks IBIT dumps  Bitcoin price has faced heightened selling pressure over the past few weeks, largely driven

06-27

Coinbase ‘I was fired’ memes revive on X amid Base outage

A blue-check account on X falsely claimed to be a freshly fired Coinbase product manager, earning nearly 200,000 views within hours. The meme fit perfectly into crypto investors predispositions yesterday with irresistible confirmation bias.  Yesterday, bitcoin and ether hit 52-week lows. Base, Coinbases blockchain, was down for roughly two hours. Everything was going down.  The account jokingly explained that Coinbase fired Ravi Riley as “a non-technical PM on the Base sequencer team and my first PR got merged to prod at noon.” Multiple trackers confirmed the roughly two-hour outage, even though it was not caused by Riley, who was never a Coinbase employee.  The memetic implication was that a new hire had crashed Base and then was marched out.  It is, after all, too easy to dunk on Coinbase. The company is the largest publicly traded crypto company and probably has the largest US customer base on social media.  Another Coinbase outage after Brian Armstrong fired workers  Yesterdays meme traces its origin to at least May 5.  Early in the morning on that day, founder Brian Armstrong cut 700 workers, or roughly 14% of his staff. He revoked access on the spot, before most employees started work in the morning, “Coinbase system access has been removed today.

06-27

Bitcoin makes first sub-$60K close since Q3 2024 as tech stocks enter ‘deep bear market’

Bitcoin ($BTC) struggled to reclaim $60,000 on Friday amid continued global market volatility.  Key points:Bitcoin closes below $60,000 on daily time frames for the first time since September 2024.Asian stock markets see another day of major losses on tech-stock concerns.$BTC price analysis hopes for a reclaim of the 200-week trend line as the bull case.  Bitcoin risks $60,000 resistance flip as tech selling persists  Data from TradingView showed that prior support was increasingly becoming the bulls‘ new hurdle after Bitcoin’s first sub-$60,000 daily close since September 2024.  $BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView  Asia stock markets saw more downside on the day, with South Korean circuit-breakers kicking in on a new 8% crash.  Like on Tuesday, US stocks managed to avoid contagion, with the St tell you this,” it added.  Coinbase stock one-week chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView  In its latest analysis, trading company QCP Capital stressed the influence of US inflation trends on risk assets going forward.  As Cointelegraph reported, the May print of the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index, known as the Federal Reserves “preferred” inflation gauge, recorded its highest year-on-year increase since mid-2023.  “Core PCE is nowcast at 3.30%, while headline PCE is nowcast at 3.82%, both still above target,” QCP wrote.  “The Feds 2026 inflation forecast has also moved up

06-27

Crypto M&A Surges to $7.23 Billion Despite Lowest Investor Count Since 2020

Crypto Venture Enters New Phase as Investor Count Falls to 6-Year Low of 651  The number of active crypto investors has fallen to its lowest level in six years, even as capital flowing into acquisitions is accelerating sharply.  Cryptorank data shows unique crypto investors declined to 651 in the second quarter of 2026. That is down from a peak of 2,564 investors in 2022. The only weaker period was 2020, when quarterly participation ranged between 250 and 450 investors.  The data points to a market that is no longer being funded by a wide base of generalist venture firms. Instead, crypto capital is becoming more concentrated among specialist funds, corporate buyers, and strategic investors with longer time horizons.  Source: CryptorankM&A Becomes the Main Source of Momentum  The clearest sign of that shift is the surge in mergers and acquisitions.  Capital deployed through crypto M&A transactions rose from $272 million in Q4 2025 to $2.14 billion in Q1 2026, then to $7.23 billion in Q2 2026. That is a more than 26-fold increase in just six months.  M&A also ranked among the top three fundraising stages, accounting for 15.36% of tracked rounds. The trend follows a sharp pickup in dealmaking earlier in the quarter. In May, Cryptorank reported

06-27

Ripple spent a decade fighting SWIFT. Now it wants to plug into it

Ripple built its identity on replacing SWIFT, the bank-messaging network that moves roughly $150 trillion a year, with $XRP as the bridge that would kill slow correspondent banking. A decade on, the banks kept SWIFT, adopted Ripple as a fast lane beside it, and the disruptor is learning to integrate. What that pivot means for $XRP is the real question.  For most of its existence, Ripple defined itself by a single enemy: SWIFT, the global messaging network that connects roughly 11,000 banks and underpins the movement of something like $150 trillion a year.  Ripples founding pitch was that SWIFT was slow, antiquated plumbing, that moving money across borders through it took days and trapped capital in pre-funded accounts around the world, and that $XRP could replace all of that by acting as a neutral bridge asset that settled value in seconds.  The companys executives spent years framing the contest in exactly those terms, as a young, fast technology coming to take the lunch of an aging incumbent.  A decade later, the scoreboard tells a more complicated story. SWIFT is still standing, still carrying the worlds bank messaging, and the banks that adopted Ripple mostly did so as a fast lane running alongside SWIFT rather

06-27

Crypto lending turns to Wall Street credit rules to win back institutional trust after 2022 collapse

Celsius froze withdrawals in June 2022 before filing for Chapter 11 in July 2022, and Genesis froze redemptions after FTXs collapse and filed for bankruptcy in January 2023, owing approximately $3.4 billion to its 50 largest creditors.  BlockFi, Celsius, Genesis, and Voyager together accounted for 40% of the crypto lending market and 82% of CeFi lending at their peaks, per Galaxy data. The 2022 unwind exposed two failures simultaneously: bad loans and the complete opacity of where risk sat inside those balance sheets.  The answer crypto landed on was to put lending on-chain, which helped address some of the opacity problem.  Building the credit infrastructure that institutional lenders require, such as defined seniority, first-loss retention, enforceable custody arrangements, independent administration, borrower servicing, and legal-grade bankruptcy isolation, demanded a different approach entirely.  Maple and Krakens warehouse facility is a test of whether DeFi can deliver that infrastructure at the collateral layer, using liquid $BTC and $ETH as the asset base.Credit modelWhat it solvedWhat it left exposedWhy it matters2021–2022 CeFi lendingEasy access to yield and borrowingOpaque balance sheets, unclear risk location, weak customer visibilityCelsius, Genesis, BlockFi and Voyager exposed the failure modeAutomated DeFi lendingTransparent collateral and liquidation rulesLimited servicing, workout, legal recovery and borrower monitoringAave/Morpho-style pools

06-27

Hyperliquid‘s ’structural advantages will help HYPE rocket to $319 by 2028 – Multicoin Capital

Multicoin Capital, a crypto-focused venture firm, projects that Hyperliquids $HYPE could hit $319 by 2028. At the press time value of $63, that would imply over 5x upside potential, based on revenue-earning potential.  At ~$63, $HYPE trades at roughly 36x TTM earnings, or approximately 30x earnings. Under our valuation frameworks and base case assumptions discussed in the full report, we project ~$8 billion in annual earnings by 2028, implying a price of ~$319 at a 20x multiple.  According to the VC firm, Hyperliquid will “continue to meaningfully compound growth” as it expands beyond perpetual offerings (perps) to its ‘unified everything exchange’ vision.  For the unfamiliar, Hyperliquid is an L1 chain and a decentralized exchange designed for high-speed trading. Initially, it began with crypto perps but has expanded into RWA (real-world tokenization), prediction markets, and options trading.  Multicoin noted that Hyperliquid [$HYPE] users tripled, from over 300K to nearly 1 million, in 2025. The trading volumes jumped to $2.9T, allowing the DEX to capture $873M in revenue.  The record traction lifted its DeFi perps dominance to nearly 60%. And it has been taking significant market share from centralized exchanges like Binance.  For the VC firm, Hyperliquid‘s traction mirrored Binance’s early days, but with more catalysts.  Hyperliquid is following

06-27

How Are BlackRock And Fidelity Taking Different Paths Into Crypto?

BlackRock and Fidelity are both major players in the crypto market, but they are not building the same thing. BlackRock is using its scale to push blockchain into the infrastructure of traditional finance, primarily through tokenized products and its dominant Bitcoin ETF.  Fidelity is taking a more vertically integrated route, building its own custody, trading, and stablecoin systems in-house. Both firms are serious about digital assets. They just disagree on how to get there.  How Big Are These Two Players In Crypto Right Now?  The numbers tell the first part of the story. BlackRocks iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) held approximately 764,395 Bitcoin as of June 19, 2026, valued at roughly $45-47 billion at current Bitcoin prices, making it the largest Bitcoin ETF in the world and accounting for approximately 61% of all US spot Bitcoin ETF assets. Fidelitys competing product, the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC), holds approximately 185,798 BTC worth around $11.2 billion, placing it second in the category.  Together, IBIT and FBTC command approximately 75-76% of all spot Bitcoin ETF assets in the United States, leaving eleven other funds to compete for the rest. Both funds charge an identical 0.25% expense ratio and track Bitcoin with near-identical returns. The key differences

06-27

Brian Armstrong supports GOP at fundraising dinner with JD Vance

Recently, United States Vice President JD Vance reportedly joined a dinner with donors, including Brian Armstrong, as part of his efforts to fundraise for the Republican Party.  The dinner was held at the home of All-In podcast host Chamath Palihapitiya and included approximately two dozen donors, including Lip-Bu Tan, the chief executive of Intel.  This fundraising dinner reportedly raised approximately $4.2 million, with Axios reporting that donors each paid $250,000.  Chamath Palihapitiya fires two besties at Social Capital  Vance is the Republican National Committee (RNC) finance chair, a role that is allowing him opportunities to get face time with donors before a likely 2028 presidential campaign.  Armstrong has become an increasingly important political donor, contributing to the cryptocurrency-related Super PACs as well as contributing to a variety of different political candidates.  Armstrong has also met repeatedly with President Donald Trump.  Coinbase: Politics for me, but not for thee  This aggressive move into politics from Armstrong comes after the infamous Coinbase blog post; Coinbase is a mission focused company.  This blog post/manifesto made it clear that Coinbase should not “advocate for any particular causes or candidates internally that are unrelated to our mission.”  It further added internal company policies to limit workplace communication about politics, limiting speech that would “debate causes

06-27

Hyperliquid price analysis: Can HYPE reclaim $70 after pullback?

Hyperliquid traded near $63 on June 26 after pulling back from its all-time high of $76.70 earlier this month.  According to crypto.news data, the token is down over the past week, but it still holds a large gain over the past year.  The latest Hyperliquid price data shows $HYPE trading between $59.48 and $65.17 over the past 24 hours. The token holds a top-10 market rank, with a market cap above $14b and fully diluted value above $60b.  $HYPEs recent move looks like a consolidation phase after a sharp rally from the low $30s in March. Price has cooled near $63, but the $60 area remains the main short-term support zone.  A clean break below $60 would put the next support area near $55-$58 back in focus. A move above $65 would show early strength, while a close above $70 would give bulls a stronger case for a retest of the recent high.  Hyperliquid whales keep buying during pullback  Whale activity remains one of the stronger parts of the $HYPE setup. According to Lookonchain, a newly created wallet withdrew 222,493 $HYPE, worth about $14.41m, from Coinbase Prime. Another whale received 44,986 $HYPE, worth about $2.87m, from FalconX.  6 hours ago, #SharpLink received 5,000 $ETH($7.85M) from #FalconX.#SharpLink now

06-27
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