Good Morning,

Here's a quick preview of today’s content: Trump Media cleared by the SEC for multi-billion dollar bitcoin treasury, Ethereum Foundation shows support for Roman Storm, Amazon and Walmart are interested in stablecoins, another French kidnapping and ransom took place, a new country makes crypto legal, and so much more.

Feeling a market bounce back this week 🔮

Also, Happy Monday – Let’s dive in.

Market Snapshot

  • Rising tensions between Israel and Iran triggered a broad market sell-off, spilling over into crypto markets as traders de-risk across assets

    • Bitcoin and Ethereum saw modest pullbacks as investor appetite for risk assets waned. Traders moved capital into cash, gold, and U.S. Treasuries

  • Crude oil spiked over +7% following Israeli strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure

    • Higher energy costs stoked inflation fears, which could delay Fed rate cuts which is typically a negative for crypto

  • With geopolitical uncertainty rising, traders showed preference for stablecoins over volatile altcoins – Tether and USDC volumes rose sharply across exchanges

  • Altcoin Impact: Layer-1 and DeFi tokens saw steeper declines than Bitcoin, as riskier digital assets bore the brunt of the market's defensive pivot

Headline Roundup
The major headlines driving crypto markets

  • Tornado Cash founder Roman Storm collects $500k donation from Ethereum Foundation for defense in July trial (TB)

  • Walmart and Amazon reportedly both exploring stablecoin use cases (NG)

  • The SEC hires Jamie Selway as Director of Trading and Markets division – and she brings years of crypto experience that you can see here

  • Kathleen Wrynn leaves JPMorgan to lead Invesco’s $1.6B crypto ETF department (DT)

  • Trump Media cleared by the SEC for Bitcoin treasury after recent $2.3B fundraise (TB)

  • U.S. bitcoin mining companies return record profits in Q1 according to JPMorgan analysts (BM)

  • IBM project Quantum Starling set to launch by 2029 and may pose a major threat to the foundation of bitcoin’s security (DT)

  • Sharplink Gaming becomes largest ETH Treasury with $463M purchase (DT)

  • Bluebird Mining Ventures makes strategic shift to turn gold mining revenues into bitcoin to build a treasury reserve (BM)

  • Elizabeth Warren and other democratic Senators raise concerns with Meta’s stablecoin plans (TB)

  • Mihailo Bjelic is being replaced by Sandweep Nailwal after leaving Polygon Foundation (TB)

  • Pudgy Penguins continues to dominate the NFT market with NASCAR announced as their latest partnership (TB)

  • Community banks and credit unions to gain access to stablecoin solutions in 2025 via Beam and Braid (BW)

  • NBA Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal to pay $1.8M as part of FTX settlement (DT)

  • Cardano founder Charles Hoskins proposes idea to flood $100M of ADA tokens for ecosystem development (TB)

  • Cantor Fitzgerald analysts double down on $COIN ( ▲ 0.69% ) ‘buy’ recommendations with long-term outlook and latest $AMEX partnership (TB)

Venture Capital

  • Yupp emerges from stealth with $33M seed round led by A16Z Crypto (NG)

  • Kaj Labs commits $32M to Imagen Network for decentralized AI social networking (NF)

  • Cross-chain startup OneBalance closes $20M Series A co-led by CyberFund and Blockchain Capital (TB)

  • SBI Ven Capital invests €1M into Colossus Digital’s bridge round for staking governance marketplace (PR)

  • Hey Anon secures 400,000 S backing from Sonic Labs for defi interactions (SL)

Launches

  • Bybit’s first DEX on Solana, Byreal, is launching on June 30th (CB)

  • Plasma raises deposit cap to $1B to allow more community investors to participate in public sale after first sale closed in minutes (TB)

  • Coinbase continues to follow retail trading trends listing Fartcoin, PancakeSwap, and Subsquid (TB)

Regulation

  • Vietnam legalizes crypto under new digital technology law (CT)

  • The U.S. Senate will officially vote on the GENIUS stablecoin bill on June 17th – everything to know ahead of tomorrow’s vote here

  • Dogecoin and HBAR ETF review periods extended by SEC (DT)

Cybersecurity

  • Four individuals in France kidnap TikTok crypto trading influencer and hold for ransom (CB)

  • Gotbit founder to serve 8 months in prison for crypto wash trading while the firm has to forfeit $23M (DT)

  • Crypto security report shows Russian agencies are using cryptocurrency as payment for spies (DT)

  • Germany’s FIU reports anti-money launder reports involving crypto jumped 8%+ last year (DT)

  • AI deep fakes were responsible for a large amount of the $4.3B of crypto scams in 2024 (DT)

Extra Reads

Chart of the Day

Google Searches for Bitcoin are near 5-year lows while price is still close to all-time highs 🤔

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