Category: Business

Bitcoin’s latest price action has given bearish analysts more reason to argue that the cryptocurrency is still moving through a deeper correction. Bitcoin has fallen back to $70,000, and selling pressure is building after another failed attempt to hold higher levels. Crypto analyst Crypto Lens has warned that Bitcoin may still need one final move lower to $42,000 before a new bull run back to new all-time highs above $126,000 can begin.

Bitcoin Is Still Inside A Bull Trap

Technical analysis of Bitcoin’s price action is predicting a bearish outlook during a tense moment for the cryptocurrency. Bitcoin has already corrected by over 15% since it reached $82,850 in early May, but technical analysis from crypto analyst Crypto Lens suggests that the downtrend might not end until Bitcoin breaks below $50,000.

Notably, Crypto Lens’ chart presents the current Bitcoin setup as a cycle transition. The analyst’s roadmap begins from the idea that Bitcoin has already printed its major top near $126,199 in October 2025 and has since been moving through a series of failed recovery attempts.

The first major rejection on the chart is labeled as “Bull Trap #1,” which appeared after Bitcoin failed to hold the upper distribution zone close to the all-time high area between November 2025 and January 2026. From there, the price collapsed into a lower red range in February 2026.

Bitcoin then attempted another bounce in May, but Crypto Lens’ chart marks that move as “Bull Trap #2.” The analyst’s view is that this second trap is now close to completion, with the next expected move being a decline into a lower accumulation zone before the market can begin building toward the next major cycle.

Bitcoin Price Chart. Source: @crypto_lens_ On X

The $42,000 Crash Before The $126,000 Bull Run

The most interesting part of Crypto Lens’ analysis is that the bearish target does not cancel the bullish endgame. The chart shows Bitcoin falling into a blue accumulation range around $42,000 before gradually entering a re-accumulation phase and then a markup stage. Therefore, the analysis is effectively arguing that Bitcoin must go lower first because the current structure still lacks a proper bottom.

The roadmap also gives the move a longer time horizon that extends outside 2026. The accumulation range around $42,000 is expected to stretch through the middle of 2026, and the re-accumulation box extends into early 2027. The markup phase then points to a recovery across 2027, with the final target breaking above the current all-time high line at $126,100.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $69,920, down 3.9% over the past 24 hours after slipping below $70,000 from an intraday high of $72,929. The decline also comes amid news that Strategy sold a small portion of its Bitcoin holdings for the first time since December 2022.

Bitcoin treasury company Strategy, and its Chair Michael Saylor, have become synonymous with the phrase “never sell your Bitcoin”—so when the firm did just that, announcing that it had offloaded 32 $BTC for around $2.5 million Monday, the firm’s stock plunged alongside the price of Bitcoin.

However, crypto market analysts don’t believe that it marks the beginning of a wave of similar sales by digital asset treasury companies. Rather, they argue, it’s a much-needed wake-up call to investors to inspect each company closely.

“The market treated a tiny sale the same way it would have treated a large one. That tells you the sensitivity is to the fact that they sold at all, not to the amount,” Luke Nolan, Senior Research Associate at CoinShares, told Decrypt. “So it is a watershed in the sense that the largest and most closely watched holder broke the seal, but not in the sense that it pushes other treasuries to follow.”

In fact, both Tom Lee’s ETH treasury firm BitMine Immersion Technologies and $BTC treasury Strive bought a combined $237 million in digital assets—a figure that dwarfs Strategy’s $2.5 million sale. (Disclosure: Tom Lee is an investor in Dastan, Decrypt’s parent company).

Camran Khosravi, Research Analyst at Bitwise, told Decrypt that whether other treasury companies start selling has little to do with Strategy and everything to do with each firm’s individual finances. He explained that Strategy carries “meaningful” convertible debt of around $6.7 billion and ongoing preferred dividend obligations. By contrast, Khosravi said, Strive has no short or long-term outstanding debt and funds itself through equity rather than debt.

“This is not the end of DATs,” Khosravi told Decrypt, “but it’s a reminder that investors need to look closely at each treasury company’s capital structure instead of just its crypto holdings.”

However, Khosravi believes Strategy’s $BTC sale wasn’t for survival but to show the world that the firm can sell if it wants to, following Saylor’s comments last month that it would do so “to inoculate the market—just to send the message that we did it.”

Khosravi pointed out that Strategy’s sale was “extremely small relative to its holdings” at just 0.004% of its $BTC treasury, and over the same period it raised common stock and used cash to pay down debt. “This does not look like forced selling,” Khosravi said, adding that, “The likelier read is that Strategy is showing its Bitcoin holdings are one of several funding tools it can use alongside equity, preferred stock, debt, and cash to fund its dividend obligations.”

Sam Ruskin, a former analyst at Messari and current investor at Reciprocal Ventures, added that selling crypto is inevitable for publicly traded treasury firms.

“I don’t think any public company has the luxury of ‘holding forever’ when you have a fiduciary obligation to shareholders, especially if you’re down billions of dollars in unrealized profit and loss,” Ruskin told Decrypt, adding that, “they have to please the shareholders at the top.”

Despite the recent sale, Strategy’s Bitcoin reserve is in the red by $5.85 billion, according to the SaylorTracker, following Bitcoin’s 46% drop from all-time high prices set in October 2025, per CoinGecko data. As such, the sale comes after months of pressure mounting against treasury firms throughout the market.

“Many of these firms accumulated exposure during a period when investors were rewarding crypto-related balance sheets with premium valuations,” Georgii Verbitskii, derivatives trader and founder of investor platform TYMIO, told Decrypt. “That environment has changed. Bitcoin has struggled to generate sustained upside momentum, and companies holding digital assets have been under increasing scrutiny since last autumn.”

As a result, Sam Tabar, CEO of strategy asset company BitDigital, believes that market participants are demanding greater evidence of long-term value from treasury companies. Those firms without yield, infrastructure, or a product are bound to struggle more than others going forward.

“What you’re seeing now isn’t the end of digital assets in corporate balance sheets. It’s the market asking harder questions about what the business actually does,” Tabar finished. “Companies that can answer that question clearly will be fine, but those who can’t are going to have a rough time.”

Coinbase has invested in ProShares’ $GENIUS Money Market ETF, known as IQMM, a money market ETF designed to be eligible for stablecoin reserves under the $GENIUS Act.

The investment expands Coinbase’s stablecoin strategy beyond payments, distribution, and developer tools into reserve management, one of the less visible but critical layers needed for stablecoin adoption. The $GENIUS Act set federal standards requiring payment stablecoins to be backed 1 to 1 by high quality, highly liquid assets, creating demand for reserve products built around those requirements.

IQMM is structured around short term US Treasuries with maturities of 93 days or less, cash, and cash equivalents. The fund is designed to meet Section 4 reserve requirements under the $GENIUS Act, giving stablecoin issuers another option for managing liquidity, creation, and redemption activity.

Coinbase said stablecoins have improved how money moves by enabling instant, around the clock settlement for users, businesses, developers, and AI agents. But the company said stablecoin growth also requires stronger infrastructure for managing the assets that support those tokens.

Stablecoin reserve management has historically depended on a narrower set of banking and cash management rails. Coinbase said it expects stablecoin creation and redemption to increasingly rely on a broader mix of high quality cash equivalent assets, including Treasuries, ETFs, money market funds, and tokenized versions of those instruments.

ProShares brings two decades of ETF infrastructure experience to the product, while Coinbase is positioning the investment as part of its broader push to build the full stack for stablecoin adoption. That includes payments, distribution, developer infrastructure, and now reserve operations.

The investment comes as stablecoins move deeper into mainstream financial infrastructure. Coinbase said stablecoins offer a better way to move money, but the industry also needs better ways to manage the reserves behind them.

Charles Schwab, which oversees roughly $12.6 trillion in client assets, has introduced 24/7 trading for select crypto futures on its thinkorswim platforms, enabling near-continuous access to major digital asset contracts including Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, and Ripple. This marks a key expansion of Schwab’s derivatives offering into always-on crypto markets.

Alongside the crypto update, Schwab rolled out a series of enhancements across its trading platforms. Improvements include expected price range data for marginable securities on Schwab.com, expanded dividend reinvestment functionality on Schwab Mobile, and new tools across thinkorswim that improve options visibility, order transparency, and fixed-income position views.

Schwab also broadened fractional investing, extending it to most US stocks and ETFs with a $1 minimum. The update allows clients to invest by dollar value rather than share count, streamlining access and increasing flexibility for both new and experienced investors.

The asset manager expects to introduce crypto spot trading for financial advisors in 2027 via its custody platform, extending its digital asset capabilities beyond futures-based products, according to Citywire. The offering will allow advisors to directly trade spot crypto on behalf of clients as part of Schwab’s crypto strategy.

Kalshi has filed to list a new batch of crypto perpetual futures, including contracts tied to XRP, SOL, ETH, and DOGE, according to CFTC product filings published Monday.

The filings show the products were certified on June 1 under KalshiEX, with additional contracts tied to XLM, SUI, SHIB, LTC, LINK, HBAR, DOT, and BCH also listed as certified. The products are categorized as futures tied to financial instruments.

The move expands Kalshi’s crypto derivatives push beyond Bitcoin after the platform received approval for BTC perpetual futures last week. Perpetual futures are futures contracts without a fixed expiration date, a structure widely used in crypto markets but historically dominated by offshore exchanges.

The latest filing signals that Kalshi is moving quickly to build a broader regulated crypto perps lineup in the US. If launched, the contracts would give traders exposure to some of the largest altcoins through a CFTC regulated venue rather than an offshore exchange.

The planned lineup also places Kalshi more directly in competition with crypto native platforms and other US regulated venues seeking to bring perpetual futures activity onshore. Coinbase has also been moving into US regulated perpetual style products, reflecting a wider shift in crypto market structure.

Securitize is bringing Hamilton Lane’s tokenized Senior Credit Opportunities Fund (HLSCOPE) to the TRON blockchain, expanding distribution of the private credit product to one of the largest digital asset networks, according to a Tuesday statement.

This is the first Securitize-issued asset to go live on TRON, which handles more stablecoin transfers than any other network.

In a statement, Carlos Domingo, co-founder and CEO of Securitize, said the launch of HLSCOPE on TRON demonstrates how tokenized institutional assets can benefit from blockchain networks built for global scale.

“Bringing HLSCOPE to TRON marks an important milestone not only because it is the first Securitize asset launching on the network, but because it expands access to private markets through infrastructure designed for continuous, global financial activity. This is another step toward a more connected and interoperable onchain financial system,” Domingo said.

The fund offers onchain exposure to Hamilton Lane’s senior credit strategy via a regulated feeder structure managed by Securitize. Securitize plans to use Wormhole, its official interoperability partner, to let HLSCOPE tokens move across different blockchain ecosystems.

“TRON supports fast, efficient and scalable global settlement,” TRON’s founder Justin Sun commented on the move. “We believe tokenized real-world assets will play a major role in the future of global finance, and reliable blockchain infrastructure will be critical.”

While Bitcoin investors’ expectations for a new upward trend in the short term are weakening, the leading $BTC has deepened the negative sentiment in the market with its sharp drop in the last 24 hours.

Bitcoin’s price has fallen by more than 5% in the last 24 hours, dropping to $67,312. This brings $BTC’s total loss over the past week to over 12%. The price has fallen below the $68,000 level for the first time since April, and is trading approximately 46% below its all-time high of $126,080.

Among the reasons for the selling pressure in the market is the Bitcoin sale carried out last week by Strategy, a company known for its Bitcoin-focused balance sheet strategy. The company sold 32 $BTC, worth approximately $2.5 million, marking its first Bitcoin sale since 2022. However, the amount sold is quite limited compared to the company’s approximately $57 billion worth of Bitcoin assets.

On the other hand, the ongoing outflows from US spot Bitcoin ETFs are also undermining investor confidence. Bitcoin ETFs have experienced net outflows for the past 11 trading days, with a total capital outflow exceeding $3.4 billion during this period. As a result, the net fund flow into US spot Bitcoin ETFs has turned negative since the beginning of the year. In other words, the amount of money flowing out of ETFs in 2026 has already exceeded the capital entering them.

Investors who took positions in the futures markets expecting a rise also suffered heavy losses. According to CoinGlass data, approximately $600 million worth of Bitcoin long positions were liquidated in the last 24 hours.

Across the cryptocurrency market, a total of $1.24 billion in positions were liquidated in the last 24 hours. Of this, $1.12 billion consisted of long positions, while short position liquidations amounted to approximately $124.85 million.

*This is not investment advice.

The cryptocurrency market is enduring a sharp narrative shift, but the real growth is happening away from the spotlight, according to the co-founder of Solana-native yield protocol Solstice Labs.

Ben Nadareski argued that the industry’s biggest asset is experiencing structural confusion in an interview with CoinDesk onvTuesday.

“Bitcoin is going through a bit of an identity crisis right now,” Nadareski said. “It’s not the store of value, like gold, to the masses. It’s also not the speculative investment vehicle that everybody was really attracted to. While bitcoin and the core assets go through their identity crisis, quiet players in the DeFi industry are growing rapidly.”

Decentralized finance’s “silent” growth is heavily challenged by ongoing exploits, according to Nadareski, a flaw he blamed on developers frequently building innovative code while completely ignoring the core responsibilities of managing capital.

“They don’t quite realize you’re now also a financial asset manager if you’re working in DeFi,” Nadareski stated. “That doesn’t mean you’re in tech. That means you’re building tech in financing, which adds two aspects of risk to the market.”

OpenZeppelin co-founder and former CTO Manuel Aráoz said “DeFi is not safe anymore” last month noting that AI coding agents have made smart contracts fatally vulnerable.

Drift Protocol and Kelp Dao were hacked by North Korean cybercriminals in April in two exploits that drained nearly $600 million from the two lending crypto pools. In February 2025, Bybit suffered a $1.46 billion attack, described as the biggest hack of all time.

Nadareski said that to bridge this trust gap, DeFi platforms must hold themselves to traditional banking standards, implementing real-time proof of reserves and automated multi-signature time locks rather than relying on unproven code layers.

DeFi principles

The entry of legacy banking giants does not mean crypto natives have lost the space, Nadareski said. Instead, he pointed to market structure where Wall Street uses faster digital rails for its operational back offices, while decentralized platforms preserve direct user access.

“The convergence is already among us. The institutions have been coming for years and now they are here,” he highlighted.

Winning platforms will be those that accommodate large financial entities while maintaining low fees and equal access for everyday retail users. Since its launch, Solstice has scaled past $500 million in total value locked (TVL) from over 40 institutional allocators, including Galaxy Digital and Susquehanna.

Solstice has also unveiled a strategic partnership with big-data analytics platform ApexE3, which is backed by Consensys and Tensorix.

Treating decentralized networks as a financial utility rather than a tech playground is the only path forward, according to Nasareski.

“Expect more out of DeFi than you do TradFi,” he concluded. “The average retail end-user anywhere in the world should expect 10 times more of an output of transparency, trust, and optimization of their capital.”

Perpetual futures are beginning to break out of their origins and emerge as a broader asset class beyond crypto, according to a new report from TD Securities.

The bank said recent regulatory developments in the U.S. and growing institutional demand are helping transform perpetual futures, commonly known as “perps,” from a niche crypto instrument into a market structure that could eventually span commodities, equities and private-market investing.

“PERPs are no longer just a crypto product. They are becoming a broader market-structure product,” TD Securities wrote.

Perpetual futures differ from traditional futures because they do not expire. Instead, they rely on funding-rate mechanisms that keep prices aligned with underlying markets. The contracts have become the dominant trading vehicle in crypto, accounting for roughly 80% of global digital asset trading volumes, according to TD.

Momentum accelerated last month when the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) allowed bitcoin perpetual futures to trade on prediction market platform Kalshi. Around the same time, Coinbase (COIN) announced plans to launch U.S. equity-index perpetual futures and moved closer to connecting American customers with offshore perpetual futures markets.

The report argues that institutional demand is expanding beyond cryptocurrencies. Hyperliquid (HYPE), the largest decentralized perpetual futures platform, now offers contracts linked to commodities and private companies. The exchange has become a venue for trading pre-IPO contracts tied to firms such as Cerebras and SpaceX, allowing traders to speculate on valuations before public listings.

Hyperliquid’s growth is also beginning to test the traditional role of exchanges such as CME Group in price discovery.

TD pointed to trading activity during the U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict earlier this year, when commodity markets were closed for the weekend but Hyperliquid remained open. According to the report, notional volume in oil-linked perpetual futures on the platform grew from roughly $25 million to more than $550 million by the third weekend of trading. Hyperliquid also priced in about 80% of the subsequent move in West Texas Intermediate crude before CME’s market reopened.

“The significance was not just the volume, but price discovery happening before traditional commodity markets reopened,” TD wrote.

The trend extends beyond commodities. TD said Hyperliquid’s pre-IPO perpetual futures tied to companies such as Cerebras and SpaceX have become an early test of whether blockchain-based markets can help establish valuations before stocks begin trading publicly.

That growth has drawn scrutiny from incumbent exchanges. TD noted that ICE and CME have pushed regulators to examine Hyperliquid’s oil-linked products while simultaneously exploring similar offerings themselves, highlighting a growing battle between traditional and crypto-native market infrastructure.

TD expects commodities to be the next major growth area for perpetual futures, with oil, gold and copper among the most likely candidates. As regulators move toward creating a formal U.S. framework for the products, the bank said the larger question is whether perpetual futures can retain their appeal once they are brought under tighter oversight.

The cost of running artificial intelligence hardware has opened an unexpected way for AI firms to cut outgoings while allowing individuals to make money from their home technology, according to Titan Network.

The internet infrastructure company said its software pools unused computing resources and rents it out as a “decentralized cloud” to AI companies, who pay less than they would if buying capacity from large, centralized providers.

Powering AI is big business. The software requires massive computing resources, and the data centers consume huge amounts of power to run the machines and cool the buildings. Many bitcoin mining companies have those setups and a number, including MARA Holding (MARA) and Riot Platforms (RIOT), are pivoting to serve the rising demand. On Monday, Alphabet (GOOG) said it planned to raise a whopping $80 billion to spend on AI infrastructure.

“We have two of the top 10 AI companies in the world using our products to realize 75% cost savings on their infrastructure,” Konstantin Tkachuk, founder and chief strategy officer, said in an interview at the Proof of Talk conference in Paris.

The company now has 4 million connected devices worldwide and clients including Tencent, Alibaba, and the AI video platform Kling AI, Titan Network said. About 1 million devices are online at any one time.

Titan is not the first project to try lowering costs by aggregating unused computing capacity in what’s known as a decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) system. Unlike platfoms such as Aethir and Akash Network, which target spare cycles on institutional servers, Titan says it uniquely links to private citizens.

“Titan has broken the code no one else has been to before, enabling regular people to make money from the up-and-coming AI data infrastructure industry,” River Davis, Titan’s creative director, told CoinDesk.

When big companies pay to use the network for data tasks like web scraping, data collection, or content delivery, Titan sends 80% of those corporate earnings directly to the people providing the devices and internet bandwidth, who have downloaded a browser plugin or some specialized software.

The project said it has already captured roughly 5% of the AI data market in Asia.