Crypto World
Bitmine Chair Tom Lee Shrugs Off ETH Treasury Losses, Asks If ETFs Should Face Same Scrutiny
Bitmine Immersion Technologies chairman Tom Lee pushed back on criticism of the company’s Ethereum treasury strategy on Tuesday, arguing that paper losses come with the territory when a public vehicle is built to mirror the price of Ethereum through a full market cycle.
Lee’s comments were made in response to a social media post that accused Bitmine of sitting on a steep unrealized loss and setting up future selling pressure for Ether.
“BMNR is now sitting on a -$6.6 Billion dollar unrealized LOSS on the ETH they’ve accumulated. This is ETH in the future that will be sold, putting a future ceiling on ETH prices. Tom Lee was the final exit liquidity for OG ETH whales to get out of their worthless token,” the tweet read.
Lee Defends ETH Treasury As Long-Term Tracking Strategy
In response, Lee said the company’s goal is to track Ether’s price closely and aim to outperform over time through its approach, rather than trying to smooth out drawdowns.
He said unrealized losses show up naturally during broad crypto pullbacks, and he questioned why critics treat that as uniquely problematic when index products also swing lower during market declines.
Ether has slid sharply in the latest leg of the downturn, and Bitmine’s growing treasury has amplified the mark-to-market moves that come with a concentrated position.
Bitmine itself has framed the strategy as a long-duration bet on Ethereum’s role in finance and capital markets, pairing accumulation with staking infrastructure.
Bitmine’s ETH Holdings Climb To 4.24M As Paper Losses Pass $6B
In a recent company release, Bitmine said it held 4.24M ETH as of Jan. 25 and said it acquired 40,302 ETH over the prior week. Meanwhile, unrealized losses topped $6B.
The same statement pointed to a shifting political and institutional backdrop. It quoted President Donald Trump saying that Congress is working on crypto market structure legislation that he hopes to sign soon, and it positioned tokenization as a theme gaining traction among large financial players.
Lee has also tied the sell-off to market structure stress, pointing to the aftershocks of a record $19B liquidation event in October and to the way flows into metals can drain risk appetite from crypto during fragile periods.
The episode has reopened a wider debate around corporate-style crypto treasuries, especially those using Ether rather than Bitcoin.
Lee appears to be treating the recent drawdown as part of the cycle, not proof that the strategy is broken, and he has kept his longer-term pitch intact that Ethereum sits at the centre of where finance is heading.
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Voters in New Jersey’s 11th congressional district are heading to the polls today in a special election that could tighten the Republican House majority to its absolute limit, pitting progressive Democrat Analilia Mejia against Republican Joe Hathaway in a district that Democrats carried by 9 points in 2024.
Summary
- The NJ special election fills the seat vacated by Governor Mikie Sherrill, who resigned from Congress in November 2025 after winning the governorship; Democrats hold a 65,000-voter registration advantage in the district.
- A Mejia win would leave House Speaker Mike Johnson able to lose just two GOP votes on party-line legislation, down from the current razor-thin margin of 218 Republican seats plus one independent.
- Mejia, backed by Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, ran on taxing billionaires and holding Trump accountable; Hathaway positioned himself as a moderate Republican who would not be a “rubber stamp” for the president.
New Jersey voters are deciding today which party fills the vacant House seat in the 11th congressional district, a race that has drawn national attention because of its direct impact on the GOP’s already razor-thin House majority. Progressive Democrat Analilia Mejia faces Republican Joe Hathaway in a district with roughly 65,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans.
The seat opened when Mikie Sherrill resigned in November 2025 after winning the New Jersey governorship. Cook Political Report rated the race “Solid D,” and a March GBAO poll had Mejia leading 53% to 36%.
Republicans currently hold 218 House seats plus one independent who caucuses with them. Democrats hold 213, with four seats vacant. A Mejia win would reduce the GOP margin further, leaving Speaker Mike Johnson able to lose just two Republican votes on any party-line legislation without Democratic support.
That thinning margin has already been felt in 2026. As crypto.news reported, House Republicans are currently deadlocked over FISA reauthorization and budget reconciliation, consuming legislative bandwidth at the exact moment the CLARITY Act needs Senate Banking Committee attention before midterm politics close the window. A narrower majority makes every defection more consequential.
Who the Candidates Are
Mejia, 48, is a progressive activist and former national political director for Senator Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign. She won a crowded February primary by narrowly defeating former Congressman Tom Malinowski, whose campaign was broadly seen as damaged by a $2 million ad blitz from a super PAC aligned with AIPAC that backfired with Democratic primary voters. Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Mejia. Her platform centers on taxing billionaires, universal healthcare, holding Trump accountable, and affordability.
Hathaway, 38, is a Randolph Township councilman and former mayor. He ran as a self-described “commonsense, independent” Republican, repeatedly distancing himself from Trump. “I won’t be a rubber stamp,” he said at an April debate. Trump has not endorsed Hathaway. Hathaway raised $500,000 by end of March versus Mejia’s roughly $1 million, with 70% of his donations coming from $1,000 contributions or higher.
Broader Midterm Implications
Beyond the immediate math, the race is being closely watched as a signal of Democratic voter energy heading into November’s midterms. Special elections in recent years have shown Democrats consistently outperforming their expected margins in suburban districts, and political scientists are watching whether Mejia’s margin tracks or exceeds the district’s historical lean.
The race also tests how effective a progressive candidate can be in an affluent suburban district, with Newsweek noting that her performance could shape Democratic candidate strategy in similar districts across the country heading into the midterm cycle.
The chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Michael Selig, said he would not wait for the appointment of additional commissioners to lead the regulatory agency before moving ahead on rulemaking potentially related to digital assets and prediction markets.
In a Thursday hearing of the House Agriculture Committee, Selig responded to questions from ranking member Angie Craig, who called out the lack of leadership at the CFTC, which normally has a bipartisan panel of five commissioners. The Minnesota representative asked the chair to commit to not finalizing regulations while he is the only commissioner.
“In the interim, we cannot, for the sake of the American people, slow down in our rulemaking,” said Selig. “It’s very important that we get investor protections, consumer protections and safeguards for our markets. And so, I cannot, unfortunately, commit to not do my job that I was appointed to do by the president.”
Selig, who has served as the CFTC’s sole commissioner and chair since December, has come under scrutiny from many lawmakers for unilaterally leading the agency on rules favoring crypto and prediction markets with no bipartisan group of commissioners. As of Thursday, President Donald Trump had not publicly announced any nominations to staff the agency nor signaled he intended to do so.
“We’re going to do more through rulemaking,” said Selig in response to a question on the CFTC’s leadership from Representative Don Davis. “We can’t have the staff deciding on discretion what the rules are.”
Related: CFTC probes oil futures trades tied to Trump’s moves in Iran: Report
The CFTC chair proposed rulemaking in March that could amend or issue new regulations over event contracts on prediction markets. Selig has been outspoken about claiming that the agency has “exclusive jurisdiction” over prediction markets as the companies behind some platforms face state-level lawsuits related to sports betting laws and proposed legislation to crack down on insider trading.
CFTC’s legal fight over prediction market continues
Gaming authorities in several US states have filed lawsuits against prediction market companies like Kalshi and Polymarket, alleging the platforms offered sports betting in violation of state laws.
New Mexico Representative Gabe Vasquez questioned Selig at Thursday’s hearing with a visual aid showing that bets on event contracts and through state-level gaming “aren’t much of a difference, yet they are regulated completely differently.” He accused the CFTC of using “loopholes” to bypass state laws and requirements for prediction markets, causing some jurisdictions to miss out on revenue.
“The CFTC was not created or intended to regulate sports gambling,” said Vasquez, adding:
“Are we regulating real economic risk, or are we allowing prediction markets to steal billions of dollars in an unregulated free-for-all, with no consumer protection as Congress and the CFTC turns a blind eye?”
Companies like Kalshi have argued that they are under the sole jurisdiction of the CFTC. This argument led the company to court wins in Arizona and New Jersey, where this month judges blocked state officials from taking action against Kalshi.
Magazine: Should users be allowed to bet on war and death in prediction markets?
Lido’s token is the only top DeFi token in the green over the past 30 days, fueled by a $20 million treasury repurchase program.
Top Ethereum liquid staking protocol Lido’s governance token has emerged as a rare bright spot in a battered DeFi sector, gaining 30% over the past 30 days while every other major token slid into the red.
LDO is trading at $0.42, up 12% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.
The contrast with its DeFi peers is stark. Over the same 30-day window, AAVE fell 7%, Uniswap (UNI) dropped 15%, Curve’s CRV slipped 9%, and Etherfi’s ETHFI shed 16%. MORPHO was the closest to breakeven among top DeFi tokens, losing just 0.5%.
The catalyst behind LDO’s outperformance is a $20 million buyback program. The Lido DAO voted to spend up to 10,000 stETH ($23 million) to repurchase LDO tokens from the open market, routing purchases through centralized exchanges and market makers in 1,000 stETH batches due to thin on-chain liquidity. Each batch requires a separate Easy Track governance motion to execute. At current prices, the full program could retire roughly 8% of LDO’s circulating supply, according to the proposal.
The buyback coincides with a broader strategic pivot. In December, the DAO approved a $60 million budget to push Lido beyond its core liquid staking business. That plan began taking shape in March when the protocol launched EarnUSD, its first stablecoin vault, which allocates USDC and USDT deposits across lending markets, real-world asset integrations and structured positions.
But despite the rally, LDO remains down more than 94% from its November 2021 peak of $7.30, and Lido’s share of staked ETH has slipped to a year-to-date low of roughly 23%, according to a Dune dashboard.
The buyback proposal itself acknowledged the token’s distressed valuation, calling the gap between LDO’s price and Lido’s revenue “one of the most significant dislocations” in the project’s history.
TLDR
- CFTC Chairman Mike Selig told lawmakers that AI tools help the agency maintain oversight despite a reduced workforce.
- About 25% of the CFTC staff has left since 2025 following federal workforce cuts.
- Selig said Microsoft Copilot supports internal workflows and investigations across the agency.
- The enforcement division seeks three additional staff positions but remains below 2025 staffing levels.
- Lawmakers questioned whether the CFTC has enough resources to oversee crypto and prediction markets.
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is expanding oversight of crypto and prediction markets despite fewer staff. Chairman Mike Selig told lawmakers that AI tools help maintain enforcement capacity. He said the agency continues rulemaking and investigations while operating with reduced personnel.
AI Tools Support Oversight as Workforce Shrinks
Selig told the House Agriculture Committee that AI supports surveillance and investigations. He said Microsoft’s Copilot assists staff across internal workflows and case reviews. He added that the agency runs “more efficiently and effectively” despite staff reductions.
About 25% of CFTC employees have left since 2025 under federal workforce cuts. Agency records show the enforcement division seeks three new hires next year. The request would raise staffing to 108, still 23% below the 140 positions in 2025.
Committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson addressed the expanding mandate over digital assets and prediction markets. He asked Selig to request more qualified staff if operational needs rise. Selig replied, “Absolutely,” and reiterated that enforcement remains a “top priority.”
Representative Angie Craig questioned whether the workforce can meet current demands. She said the agency serves as the primary regulator of two fast-growing markets. Craig urged Congress to provide staff, funding, and statutory authority.
The commission currently operates with only Selig as a member. Federal law calls for five commissioners, including two from the minority party. Lawmakers asked whether Selig would advance major rules alone.
Selig said the agency cannot slow rulemaking for the public’s sake. He confirmed plans to proceed with regulatory actions as a single commissioner. The CFTC has started a preliminary rule process for U.S. prediction markets.
Bitcoin and Ethereum Fall Under Expanding CFTC Role
The Senate continues work on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. The bill would assign the CFTC central authority over non-securities crypto trading. That mandate would include bitcoin at $75,158.21 and Ethereum’s ether.
Selig’s predecessor, Rostin Behnam, had argued for more staffing to oversee crypto. He said the agency lacked resources to police expanding prediction markets. Selig now leads the regulator during rapid growth in those markets.
Platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi have expanded from millions to billions in annual volumes. Selig said the CFTC claims legal jurisdiction over these prediction markets. He acknowledged “numerous investigations ongoing” but declined to share numbers.
Selig said regulated platforms serve as the first line of defense. He described the CFTC as a second line against insider trading and fraud. He warned that violators will face “the full force of the law.”
He said the agency regularly rejects contracts that fail review. He stated, “We’re actively reviewing what’s out there,” and emphasized a “zero tolerance” policy. The CFTC continues to assess hundreds of new binary event markets each day.
HIVE Digital Technologies said it plans to raise $75 million through a private offering of 0% exchangeable senior notes due 2031, with proceeds expected to fund GPU purchases, data center development and other capital investments.
According to Thursday’s announcement, the notes will be issued by a wholly owned subsidiary and offered to qualified institutional buyers, with an option to raise an additional $15 million. Final terms, including the exchange rate, will be set at pricing.
The notes will be exchangeable under certain conditions, with HIVE able to settle conversions in cash, common shares or a combination of both. They will not bear regular interest, will not accrete and are unsecured obligations of the issuer, fully guaranteed by HIVE.
HIVE’s Nasdaq-traded shares (HIVE) sank 11.5% on Thursday while industry tracker CoinShares Bitcoin Mining ETF (WGMI) fell 1.5%, per Yahoo Finance data. HIVE is the seventh-largest holding in that exchange-traded fund, at 4.89% weight.
Proceeds will be directed to the company’s subsidiaries for general corporate purposes, including capital expenditures tied to graphics processing units and data center expansion. HIVE also said it plans to enter capped call transactions with financial counterparties to limit potential dilution from future conversions.
Separately, the company said it has received conditional approval to list its shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange, with trading expected to begin later this month, subject to meeting listing requirements.
HIVE was among the first Bitcoin miners to pivot into high-performance computing in 2022, a shift that is now beginning to show up in its financial results. In its third quarter, the company reported $93.1 million in revenue, up 219% year over year, despite weaker Bitcoin prices and rising network difficulty.
In February, HIVE signed a two-year, $30 million agreement to deploy 504 Nvidia B200 GPUs for enterprise AI cloud services.
Related: Public crypto miners sold more BTC in Q1 2026 than all of 2025: Report
Mining companies lean into AI data center pivot
The fundraising comes as publicly traded Bitcoin miners continue to expand into high-performance computing and AI workloads.
Companies including MARA Holdings, Riot Platforms, Bitdeer Technologies, TeraWulf, Hut 8, CleanSpark and IREN have all made moves into AI and high-performance computing, leveraging existing access to power and data center infrastructure.
In January, CleanSpark agreed to buy 447 acres in Texas to build a 300-megawatt AI-focused data center, with plans to expand to 600 MW, while in February, MARA acquired a majority stake in French computing infrastructure company Exaion as part of its push into AI and cloud services.
Meanwhile, CoreWeave, which began as a crypto mining operator and pivoted toward high-performance computing as early as 2019, has grown into a major provider of AI cloud infrastructure.
On Wednesday, the company announced a $6 billion agreement with Jane Street to provide AI computing capacity across its data centers, alongside a $1 billion equity investment from the firm, days after signing a multi-year deal with Anthropic to support its Claude large language models.
The shift is also extending beyond traditional miners. On Thursday, renewable-powered data center developer Soluna Holdings moved to consolidate ownership of its Texas-based campus, positioning the site for a transition toward AI-focused computing.
Magazine: Forget stablecoin yield, how does the CLARITY Act treat DeFi?
Crypto World
An AI Scientist Proposed an ADHD Treatment on the Blockchain: BIO Price Explodes Is This What DeSci Has Been Waiting For?
Decentralized science is having a moment. Bio Protocol crypto surged roughly 90% as AI-driven biotech funding collides with onchain infrastructure, and traders are asking whether DeSci has finally found its cycle.
Price data remains thin at the top, but the underlying catalyst is concrete. Bio Protocol’s $6.9M funding round, led by Maelstrom Fund, backed the rollout of Bio V2, a full-stack AI-native platform enabling onchain fundraising and autonomous AI co-scientists called BioAgents.
The AI-scientist angle, including a reported peptide proposal targeting ADHD, lit up crypto-science communities. Broader AI token momentum, visible in FET’s ongoing support test, suggests the narrative has legs beyond a single project pop.
Can BIO Crypto Token Sustain Its +40% Move Or Is a Reversion Incoming?
Bio Protocol’s 40% price spike arrived without a clean technical base, which cuts both ways. The move originated from a low-liquidity range, meaning the rally was fast and thin (classic low-float DeSci behavior).
Without verified exchange-level data, precise support and resistance levels are difficult to pin, but the structural setup follows a familiar pattern: explosive breakout on catalyst, followed by a consolidation or partial giveback before any sustained continuation.
BIO right now is sitting between hype and real utility, and the difference shows up in whether demand actually sticks after the spike, because if DeSci momentum keeps building and the platform starts delivering real results, that is where price can hold higher levels and turn this into a sustained move instead of a one-off event.
But that only works if interest stays tied to actual usage, not just narrative, and that is still being tested.
The risk is simple: if the price cannot hold above its pre-announcement level on a weekly close, it usually means the move was just hype-driven, and once that fades, the price tends to drift back down.
Also worth watching the broader space, because if related tokens start rolling over, that usually drags everything with it, and BIO would not be an exception.
LiquidChain Targets Early Mover Upside as DeSci Momentum Builds Across Chains
Bio Protocol’s spike demonstrates a pattern traders know well: the biggest returns in any emerging narrative go to the earliest positioned capital. By the time a 40% move is on the ticker, the asymmetric entry has already closed. That’s the uncomfortable arithmetic of late-stage entries — real catalyst, shrinking upside.
For traders looking ahead, LiquidChain is building the cross-chain infrastructure layer that emerging DeSci and DeFi applications will require, regardless of which individual token wins.
LiquidChain is a Layer 3 protocol that combines Bitcoin’s capital base, Ethereum’s DeFi depth, and Solana’s execution speed into a single, unified liquidity environment, without asset wrapping.
Its Deploy-Once Architecture means developers build once and access users across all three ecosystems simultaneously.
The LIQUID presale is currently priced at $0.0145, with $674,947.04 raised to date. Features include a Unified Liquidity Layer, Single-Step Execution, and Verifiable Settlement backed by trust-minimized state verification. Presales carry material risk, tokens may not list at a premium, and infrastructure plays require adoption to generate returns.
The post An AI Scientist Proposed an ADHD Treatment on the Blockchain: BIO Price Explodes Is This What DeSci Has Been Waiting For? appeared first on Cryptonews.
BMNR stock price trades at $22.34, up 4% on the day. A bullish RSI divergence has flashed for the second time in a week and options positioning has shifted toward calls.
Yet Bitmine’s institutional interest remains pinned near zero. Institutional capital is not following the momentum. The last time this divergence appeared, it delivered just a 13% bounce before fading. A head-and-shoulders pattern on the daily chart adds a 23% downside risk if the current move fails.
A Bullish Divergence Flashes Again but the Last One Only Gave 13%
BMNR stock price has been declining since peaking in early January. However, the Relative Strength Index (RSI), a momentum indicator that measures the speed and size of recent price moves, is showing signs of a potential reversal.
Between December 31 and April 9, price made a lower low while the RSI made a higher low. That formed a standard bullish divergence, a signal that selling pressure is weakening. However, that divergence only led to a 13% price rise before the rally stalled.
A similar signal has now flashed between December 31 and April 14. Price again made a lower low while the RSI printed a higher low.
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Options positioning on Bitmine stock supports the near-term shift. In late March, the put-call volume ratio, which compares bearish bets against bullish bets, stood at 1.04. That reflected nearly balanced positioning with a slight bearish tilt. As of April 15, it has dropped to 0.35, heavily favoring calls.
Open interest ratio fell from 0.47 to 0.42. That drop means existing bearish positions are being closed. New activity is favoring calls while old puts are being unwound.
The divergence and options data both point to short-term strength. However, a 13% bounce and a fade is exactly what happened last time. Whether this attempt succeeds depends on one metric that has refused to cooperate.
Institutional Money Flow Hasn’t Crossed the Zero Line
The Chaikin Money Flow (CMF), a proxy for institutional capital sits at 0.00 on the daily chart. It has barely touched the zero line and still leans on the negative side.
Since March, only a few brief instances of CMF crossing above zero have occurred. Each time, the reading quickly fell back below. That pattern means institutional capital has ridden brief bounces but has not committed to accumulating BMNR stock.
The broader structure explains why. The daily chart shows a head-and-shoulders pattern forming, a bearish formation. If the pattern completes, the measured breakdown projects a roughly 23% decline from the neckline.
The divergence says bounce. The CMF says institutions are not behind it. The head and shoulders says the larger structure remains bearish. That conflict is what makes the price levels ahead critical.
BMNR Stock Price Levels That Decide Between Bounce and Breakdown
The BitMine price chart maps where stock price either validates the divergence or confirms the bearish pattern.
A drop below $21.08 would invalidate the divergence. That was the swing low where the latest signal formed. Below that, $20.87, the 0.382 Fibonacci level, acts as the next floor. A loss of $19.46, the 0.618 Fibonacci, would suggest the CMF was right. From there, $17.17, the head-and-shoulders neckline, becomes the target. A neckline break projects a BMNR price decline toward $13.14.
Yet a daily close above $23.16 would reclaim the top of the current range. That move would weaken the right shoulder and give the divergence room to run. Beyond that, $23.86 is the head’s peak and the level above which the bearish pattern breaks entirely.
BMNR stock price at $23.16 separates a successful divergence from a repeat of the 13% fade. A close above it gives institutions a reason to follow. A drop below $21.08 hands the chart back to the head and shoulders.
The post A 13% Bounce Is All BMNR Stock Got Last Time: Can This Bullish Attempt Do Better? appeared first on BeInCrypto.
ETH held above $2,300, while SOL reclaimed $90 and XRP jumped to $1.46.
Bitcoin and Ether traded in a tight range on Thursday, consolidating near their highest levels in over two months as profit-taking offset the tailwinds from last week’s ceasefire rally and a fresh wave of ETF inflows.
BTC changed hands at $75,274, up 0.8% over the prior 24 hours and 4.7% on the week, per CoinGecko. Ether slipped 0.3% on the day to $2,355 but held a 6.7% weekly gain. Both assets remain well above the ranges that defined much of February and March, but have stalled since Tuesday’s sharp rally on renewed optimism around U.S.-Iran peace talks.
Altcoins Outpace BTC
Several top-100 altcoins outperformed Bitcoin on the day, led by Solana and XRP. SOL climbed 5.9% over 24 hours, reclaiming the $90 level for the first time since late March as network activity continues to expand and ETF products see sustained inflows. The token is up 7% on the week.
Ripple (XRP) rose 5% to $1.46, buoyed by anticipation around the SEC’s CLARITY Act roundtable and the Senate Banking Committee’s targeted late-April markup. XRP spot ETFs recorded $17.11 million in net inflows on April 15, their largest single-day intake since early February, bringing total assets under management above $1.25 billion.
BNB added 2.0% to $635.75, while the broader altcoin market showed pockets of strength.
Total crypto market capitalization held near $2.64 trillion, with Bitcoin dominance dropping to roughly 57%.
ETF Flows Turn Positive for 2026
Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $786 million in net inflows during the last full trading week, according to SoSoValue data, pushing year-to-date BTC ETF flows back into positive territory.
Ether ETFs saw their strongest week since mid-January, pulling in $187 million over the same period and reversing three consecutive weeks of outflows that totaled roughly $308 million. Year-to-date ETH fund flows remain in the red, however, highlighting the uneven demand picture between the two largest cryptocurrencies.
SEC Convenes Roundtable
The SEC convened a public roundtable in Washington on Thursday focused on options market structure. While the session is not directly tied to the CLARITY Act, the digital asset market structure bill that passed the House in July 2025, the commissioners leading the discussion are the same officials steering the agency’s broader crypto agenda.
The Senate Banking Committee is targeting a late-April markup of the CLARITY Act, which would draw a statutory line between the SEC’s and the CFTC’s jurisdiction over digital assets. SEC Chair Paul Atkins has said publicly that both agencies are operationally ready to implement the law once Congress passes it.
Looking Ahead
The next catalyst for directional price action may come less from crypto-native developments than from the geopolitical calendar. The expiration of the Iran ceasefire on April 22 looms as the most consequential near-term event.
A breakdown in talks could revive the risk-off environment that weighed on digital assets throughout February and March, while progress toward a lasting deal would likely extend the rally that brought BTC from the mid-$60,000s to above $75,000 in under two weeks.
xAI Terafab teams have contacted Applied Materials, Tokyo Electron, and Lam Research for price quotes and delivery times on chipmaking equipment, with Musk’s representatives telling suppliers the project needs to move at “light speed” and offering to pay above quoted prices for priority.
Summary
- Staff from the Tesla and SpaceX joint venture behind Terafab have reached out to major chip equipment makers for quotes on photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, and testers, per Bloomberg.
- Samsung was also contacted for support but responded by offering to allocate more production capacity at its Taylor, Texas facility rather than joining the initiative directly.
- The first milestone is a pilot line capable of processing 3,000 wafers per month, with silicon chip manufacturing targeted to begin by 2029.
xAI Terafab has moved from announcement to active procurement, with teams from the Tesla and SpaceX joint venture contacting Applied Materials, Tokyo Electron, and Lam Research for chipmaking equipment prices and delivery windows, Bloomberg reported April 16 citing people familiar with the matter.
The outreach covers photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers, and other tools. In one instance, staff asked a supplier on a holiday Friday for estimates to be delivered the following Monday. Musk wants to move at “light speed,” the supplier was told, and Terafab is offering to pay considerably above quoted amounts if suppliers give it priority.
The contacts mark the first concrete indication that Terafab has crossed from concept to procurement planning. No formal orders have been placed, and suppliers are being given minimal information about the products to be manufactured, which analysts say reflects the project’s early stage.
Terafab is a $25 billion joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI. Musk unveiled it at Giga Texas in Austin in March 2026, describing it as “the most epic chip-building exercise in history.” The project targets one terawatt of annual AI compute output, roughly 50 times current global AI chip production, through a vertically integrated facility combining design, fabrication, packaging, and advanced logic under one roof.
Intel joined the initiative on April 7 as foundry partner, contributing its 18A process node, the most advanced logic manufacturing capability produced entirely within the United States. Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said Musk has “a proven track record of reimagining entire industries.”
Samsung Said No to Joining
The Terafab team also approached Samsung Electronics for direct support. Samsung declined, instead offering to allocate additional production capacity for Tesla at its planned Taylor, Texas facility. That response underscores ongoing skepticism in the established semiconductor industry about Terafab’s ambitions, even as individual equipment suppliers engage.
Bernstein Research estimated the true capital required to hit one terawatt of annual compute at approximately $5 trillion, roughly 200 times the $25 billion budget cited. Berenberg’s head of tech equity research, Tammy Qiu, said her bank has yet to include Terafab in its financial models for ASML, whose EUV equipment would likely be needed at scale.
Timeline and Crypto Market Angle
The first step is a pilot line capable of processing 3,000 wafers per month, with silicon chip manufacturing targeted to begin by 2029. The chips would power Tesla’s Full Self-Driving stack, Optimus humanoid robots, and SpaceX and xAI space infrastructure.
Tokyo Electron shares rose 5.3% in Tokyo on Thursday on news of the supplier contacts. Shares of Applied Materials, Lam Research, and other equipment makers also moved higher. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives called it an early step toward Tesla’s long-term AI infrastructure strategy.
For crypto, the Terafab buildout intensifies competition for high-end fabrication capacity globally. As analysts have noted, AI compute and Bitcoin mining are both industrial-scale races for the same underlying semiconductor resources, with the winner in AI chip supply increasingly determining which AI players can scale, and which crypto mining operations can remain cost-competitive.
Across two record-breaking days this week, Strategy’s 11.5% dividend-paying preferred stock, STRC, likely raised more than $1.2 billion and could even have raised as much as $2.7 billion.
Whatever the figure, it was enough to trigger popular crypto YouTuber Coffeezilla to take the STRC controversy mainstream.
The volatile, quasi-pegged STRC is the subject of intense debate among bitcoin (BTC) investors on social media.
It usually pays monthly dividends and trades near $100, yet has fluctuated more than 9% across its brief lifespan and can suspend dividend payments at the discretion of its board of directors.
Depending on the estimation methodology ahead of Monday’s formal SEC filing, Strategy’s STRC sales on Monday and Tuesday this week could have funded the purchase of anywhere between 17,204 and 29,914 BTC.
Although that pace is certainly unprecedented — and likely unsustainable — if it were to actually persist, Strategy’s rate of purchases would remove over 10% of the circulating supply of BTC from the market within 12 months.
Skeptical as ever, Coffeezilla published an 18-minute video on his second YouTube channel, which boasts 1.5 million subscribers and is reserved for higher production content.
The sleuth questioned almost every claim about STRC made by its issuer, Michael Saylor’s BTC acquisition company Strategy. He cautioned against CEO Phong Le’s advice to consider STRC for someone’s primary savings, including people living paycheck-to-paycheck.
He highlighted why STRC is not a bank account, money market, nor any type of insured savings product.
Not a bank account, money market, or fixed income
Coffeezilla also highlighted the lack of redemption rights of STRC holders who must re-sell their stock to other traders, not the company, in order to get their money back.
He contested any characterization of voluntary dividend payments as “fixed income” and lamented promoters misrepresenting its features to Main Street workers.
Coffeezilla’s criticism racked up 800,000 views in less than 24 hours. He compared STRC’s 11.5% yield to Terra Luna’s unsustainable returns on its Anchor stablecoin offering that once reached 20%, and flagged Strategy’s junk B- credit rating from S&P.
He was particularly concerned that 80% of STRC buyers are retail investors, indicating a lack of financial sophistication for a highly sophisticated, leveraged, and financially engineered offering.
Coffeezilla then zeroed-in on Saylor’s repeated comparisons of STRC to money market funds, even though STRC isn’t any type of money market fund, noting that Strategy itself admits that it’s “not required to hold any assets to back the STRC Stock.”
Strategy now holds more than 780,897 BTC at an average cost basis of $75,577. BTC actually trades near $74,000, meaning its entire treasury is underwater.
Coffeezilla controversy with STRC suitcoiners
Adam Livingston, a staunch supporter of Strategy, posted a 32-minute rebuttal within hours. He opened with his characteristically sensational style, falsely claiming, “STRC is the greatest fixed income investment ever.”
Coffeezilla disagreed wholeheartedly, saying, “STRC is not fixed income, it’s variable. It doesn’t guarantee return of principle which is famously what fixed income does.”
ZachXBT, the on-chain investigator, rebuked Livingston’s combative tone.
Read more: We calculated the present value of STRC — it’s bad for MSTR
The math behind STRC marketing
The substantive disagreement hides under the theatrics. Even though BTC has only rallied 23% in five years, Saylor believes it’s going to appreciate 30% per year on average going forward.
As a result of this belief, paying lavish dividends like 11.5% makes sense.
Coffeezilla didn’t center on that belief, however. He focused on Strategy’s retail-focused and simplistic marketing.
On CNBC, Saylor called STRC “a bank that pays you 10% interest” and on an earnings call recommended it “for your family treasury.” To induce demand and keep STRC trading near its intended $100 par, Strategy has hiked the dividend seven times since it launched the product at 9%.
Unlike an insured savings account, STRC fell to $90.52 in November 2025 and again to $93.10 in February 2026.
The STRC debate generated 6,536 posts on X in 17 hours and trended nationally.
After its dividend date on Tuesday, which encourages people to buy for the monthly dividend, trackers reported $0 estimated STRC sales by Strategy after its ex-dividend. The stock is trading 0.8% below its par today.
As Protos has previously reported, STRC carries no FDIC insurance, no SIPC protection, no redemption rights, and no obligation to maintain the stock’s $100 par value on Nasdaq.
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