Hi! In today’s edition:
📉 Bitcoin broke a level it hadn't seen in two months, and a long-dormant volatility indicator suddenly came back to life
🎯 A major crypto investment firm just opened a door for hedge funds and family offices that retail prediction-market users have walked through for years
🏛️ Two of the loudest crypto critics in the Senate made a coordinated move against a Trump-era rule that would put digital assets inside ordinary Americans' retirement plans
🇮🇷 The US government sanctioned the crypto infrastructure used by 11 million people in one country, naming a family with ties to the supreme leadership
Bitcoin Slides to $65,000, Two-Month Low as Fear Gauge Spikes 20%
Bitcoin broke below $70,000 Tuesday for the first time since April 7, trading near $65,400 at its lowest, as Strategy's first BTC sale since 2022 and a record 10-day spot ETF outflow streak weighed on investor sentiment.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs bled another $483.76 million on Monday, with BlackRock's IBIT accounting for $440.29 million of that. Cumulative ETF outflows since May 15 reached roughly $2.96 billion, pushing 2026 YTD flows negative for the first time. Strategy sold 32 BTC for $2.5 million to fund STRC preferred dividends, its first disclosed sale since December 2022.
The BVIV fear gauge that uses implied volatility from options markets surged nearly 20% to 46.45, its biggest single-day jump since the February 5, 2026, crash. DeFi TVL sank to $78 billion, the lowest since October 2024. Galaxy Research called the ETF outflows "real directional recalibration."
Galaxy Opens Institutional OTC Prediction Markets With $10 Million Arca Trade on CLARITY Act
Galaxy Digital launched institutional OTC prediction markets trading on Tuesday through its Global Markets desk, executing a $10 million opening trade with crypto-native hedge fund Arca on outcomes tied to the passage of the CLARITY Act.
The offering gives hedge funds, family offices, and other institutions access to prediction market liquidity on Kalshi and Polymarket at sizes not available through retail interfaces. Galaxy acts as the principal counterparty, allowing it to warehouse risk and pair prediction-market positions with hedges in equities, commodities, and other assets across a single event view.
"Event-driven markets are becoming core to how sophisticated investors express macro views, and they deserve institutional infrastructure to match," said Jason Urban, Galaxy's Global Co-Head of Digital Assets.
Sanders and Warren Push Labor Department to Scrap Proposed Crypto 401(k) Rule
Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), joined by Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), sent a 14-page letter Monday urging Acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling to scrap the proposed Fiduciary Duties in Selecting Designated Investment Alternatives rule that would open 401(k) plans to crypto and other alternative assets.
The rule, proposed March 30 after Trump's executive order, would create a safe harbor for fiduciaries offering private equity, real estate, and digital assets in retirement plans. The lawmakers argued it would expose roughly $14.2 trillion in retirement savings to "more risky, complex, and expensive investments" in violation of ERISA.
The letter landed on the same day the rule's 60-day public comment period closed. The Labor Department will now review comments before finalizing, revising, or dropping the rule.
US Treasury Sanctions Iran's Largest Crypto Exchange Nobitex Under Economic Fury Campaign
The U.S. Treasury Department's OFAC sanctioned Nobitex, Iran's largest crypto exchange with roughly 11 million users, along with three other Iranian platforms—Wallex, Bitpin, and Ramzinex—on Tuesday under the Trump administration's Economic Fury campaign.
Treasury said Nobitex "processed over 50 percent of all Iranian digital asset inflows in 2025" and facilitated payments to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, including wallets tied to IRGC-affiliated ransomware actors. Wallex received 12%, Bitpin 10%, and Ramzinex processed over $2.45 billion historically. OFAC also designated Nobitex chairman and co-founder Amir Hossein Rad, CEO Seyed Ali Khoee, and brothers Ali and Mohammad Kharrazi, who Reuters identified as relatives of Iran's supreme leadership.
The action lands a week after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the US had seized roughly $1 billion in Iranian crypto since the campaign began.
🔉 UNEASY MONEY LIVE 📢
A $50M Polymarket market is resolving "No" on a MicroStrategy Bitcoin sale that the company's own 8-K says clearly happened — and just nine wallets control about half of UMA's dispute votes.
Kain, Taylor, and Luca dig into whether token-vote resolution can be trusted, plus Solana's SOL burn fight, a secret court order that froze "private" USDC, and whether Hyperliquid is really bigger than Nasdaq.
Live Today at 4pm ET.
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🟧 Strive added 2,500 BTC to its treasury between May 22 and June 1, bringing total holdings to 19,000 BTC even as Strategy disclosed its first sale since 2022. Strive also announced an expansion of its ATM programs to a combined maximum of roughly $5.15 billion across Class A common and SATA preferred stock.
🪙 Mt. Gox moved $739 million worth of bitcoin to two new addresses Monday, according to Arkham Intelligence, the largest single movement from the estate in months. With the repayment deadline now October 31, 2026, every transfer renews concerns about the supply overhang from creditors who may sell after distribution.
🇺🇸 CME Group recorded $50 million in trading volume across its newly launched 24/7 crypto derivatives market over the opening weekend. The launch closes a structural gap that has historically driven weekend volume onto offshore venues like Hyperliquid and Binance.
🇬🇧 The UK House of Lords urged the Bank of England to reconsider proposed stablecoin holding caps and other restrictions, arguing they could undermine London's competitive position as Europe's digital finance hub. The committee called for a regulatory regime more aligned with US and EU frameworks.
🔄 Movement Network rebranded as a Layer 1 focused on stablecoin settlement and yield after securing money transmitter licenses, marking a pivot from its earlier Layer 2 framing following the token-dumping scandal.
🔒 Ethena tapped Anchorage for secure offchain collateral custody as it pushes deeper into institutional lending, with Anchorage Digital Bank serving as the regulated qualified custodian for collateral assets backing institutional credit lines.
📊 Backpack launched a securities platform that blends traditional brokerage trading with tokenized stock products, joining Binance, Robinhood, and Kraken in the race to build a unified TradFi-crypto interface for retail users.
🏛️ Hamilton Lane's tokenized HLSCOPE fund launched on Tron through Securitize, marking the first Securitize-issued tokenized product on a chain that has previously been viewed warily by institutional issuers.
⛏️ HIVE Digital Technologies reported a 158% jump in annual revenue to $298 million, even as its bitcoin holdings fell to just 150 BTC. The miner has been steadily liquidating BTC to fund expansion into HPC and AI compute services.
💵 MoneyGram launched MGUSD, its own stablecoin issued on Stellar, joining the rush of payment giants building digital dollar rails. MGUSD will power MoneyGram's existing global remittance network across 200+ countries.
🏦 Franklin Templeton partnered with MoonPay to let institutional investors swap stablecoins for yields on its tokenized money market funds 24/7, with the BENJI fund as the initial offering.
📱 Andrew Yang's Noble Mobile acquired Helium Mobile, the crypto-incentivized wireless service built on the Helium network, in a deal that brings decentralized telecom infrastructure into a more conventional consumer wrapper.
🎰 SpeedLabs launched with $6.5 million in seed funding to build momentum-based prediction markets for sports betting, an emerging adjacent category to Kalshi and Polymarket's event contracts.
📊 SignalPlus closed a $50 million Series B1 with BlockBooster Digital Venture Fund I as anchor investor at $10 million. The crypto derivatives infrastructure provider supports institutional options and structured products trading.
Pantera Capital: Housing all of finance
