Crypto World
Congress wants to ban lawmakers from prediction markets
While the crypto market burned through the early days of June 2026, a quieter but consequential fight was unfolding in Washington.
Summary
- The Senate has already banned senators and staff from trading on prediction markets.
- House lawmakers want to add prediction-market restrictions to a broader congressional stock-trading ban.
- Lawmakers can possess private information and directly influence the outcomes these markets price.
- Polymarket and Kalshi support the restrictions as a way to strengthen market credibility.
Congress is moving to ban its own members from betting on crypto prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi, the platforms that let users trade contracts on the outcomes of elections, policy decisions, and real-world events.
The Senate already did it: on April 30, 2026, senators unanimously passed a rule barring themselves and their staff from trading on prediction markets, effective immediately.
Now the House is preparing to follow, with Representative Bryan Steil working to attach prediction-market restrictions to a broader bill banning lawmakers from trading individual stocks, and a vote possible this summer.
The driving concern is stark and specific: members of Congress have access to non-public information that moves the very outcomes these markets price, from legislation to policy to national security, which makes their participation a form of insider trading hiding in plain sight.
The strangest part of the story is who supports the ban. Polymarket and Kalshi, the platforms that would lose these users, are publicly cheering it on.
This piece explains what is being proposed, why it is happening, the real cases driving it, and what it means for the prediction-market industry.
What is actually being proposed
The push is not a single bill but a cluster of overlapping efforts at different stages, and understanding the landscape requires separating what has already happened from what is still in motion.
The furthest-along action is already done. On April 30, 2026, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a rule barring senators and their staff from trading on prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket, effective immediately.
Unanimous passage in a chamber as divided as the Senate is itself remarkable, signaling that concern about lawmakers betting on prediction markets crosses party lines completely.
The Senate move came amid rising worry about insider trading on these platforms and about event contracts that can involve sensitive outcomes, and it applied to senators and their offices right away instead of waiting on a lengthy implementation process.
The House is the current battleground. Representative Bryan Steil, who chairs the House Administration Committee, is working with Republican leadership to bring the House in line with the Senate.
His chosen vehicle is H.R. 7008, a bill that would prohibit members of Congress, their spouses, and their dependents from buying individual stocks, and that would require lawmakers to publicly disclose an intent to sell at least seven days before completing a transaction.
Steil’s plan is to attach prediction-market language to this stock-trading ban, extending the same logic, that lawmakers should not trade on markets their decisions can move, from stocks to prediction contracts.
The stock-trading bill was reported out of committee and placed on the House calendar, making it eligible for a floor vote that Steil expects could happen during the summer.
Violations would trigger penalties of either $2,000 or 10% of the investment’s value, whichever is larger.
Around these two main efforts sit several parallel proposals that show how broad the concern has become.
The PREDICT Act would bar the president, vice president, and all 535 members of Congress from prediction-market trading, a scope covering roughly 537 federal officials.
Representative Ritchie Torres introduced the Campaign Funds Integrity Act of 2026, which targets the use of campaign funds for prediction-market gambling with criminal penalties of up to five years imprisonment, enforced through the Federal Election Commission and referrals to the Department of Justice.
A separate bipartisan Senate bill from Senators Adam Schiff and John Curtis takes aim at a different target entirely, seeking to ban prediction markets from listing sports-betting and casino-style contracts.
The common thread is a Washington that has suddenly decided prediction markets need guardrails, with lawmaker participation as the most urgent piece.
Why this is happening now
Prediction markets have existed for years, so the obvious question is why the crackdown is arriving in 2026.
The answer is a combination of the markets’ explosive growth, their unique insider-trading problem, and a series of concrete incidents that made the abstract risk undeniable.
The growth is the backdrop. Prediction markets surged in prominence around the 2024 U.S. election, when Polymarket in particular drew attention for reflecting real-time political sentiment more accurately than some traditional polls, and the sector’s volume has since reached records.
As these markets grew from a niche curiosity into a multibillion-dollar arena where serious money rides on political and policy outcomes, the stakes of who is allowed to trade on them grew accordingly.
A market small enough to ignore became a market large enough to demand rules.
The insider-trading problem is what makes lawmakers specifically dangerous.
Prediction markets price the probability of future events, and a huge share of the most-traded contracts are about exactly the things members of Congress control or influence: whether a bill passes, what a policy decision will be, the outcome of a confirmation, or the direction of a regulatory action.
A lawmaker trading on these markets is, in many cases, betting on the outcome of their own work, with access to non-public information about what is likely to happen.
This is structurally worse than the stock-trading problem that the STOCK Act tried to address, because with prediction markets the lawmaker does not just have inside information about an event, they often have direct power over the event itself.
They can bet on an outcome and then vote to make it happen. That is not a hypothetical conflict of interest; it is a mechanism for converting political power directly into trading profit.
The concrete incidents turned the theoretical risk into a visible scandal.
Kalshi suspended and fined one U.S. Senate candidate and two House candidates for political insider trading on their own campaigns, betting on races where they had non-public knowledge of their own positions.
More dramatically, a U.S. Army Special Forces master sergeant was charged in an indictment accusing him of using classified information to make Polymarket bets related to the American military mission that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, a case that linked prediction-market betting directly to the misuse of national-security secrets.
These cases gave lawmakers and the public a tangible picture of the danger: people with privileged information, whether about their own campaigns or classified operations, turning that information into prediction-market profit.
Once the risk had names and indictments attached, the legislative response accelerated.
The twist: the platforms support the ban
The most counterintuitive element of the story is that Polymarket and Kalshi, the platforms that would lose these high-profile users, are not fighting the bans.
They are actively endorsing them, and understanding why reveals how the industry is thinking about its own future.
When the Senate passed its ban, both companies publicly cheered.
Polymarket said it was “in full support,” noting that its rulebook and terms of service already prohibited such conduct and calling codification into law “a step forward for the industry,” while offering to help move it forward.
Kalshi co-founder Tarek Mansour was equally enthusiastic, saying Kalshi already proactively blocks members of Congress and enforces against insider trading.
He called the Senate rule “a great step to increase trust in our markets by making it an industry standard,” before urging the House to follow.
These are not grudging acceptances. They are endorsements from the companies the legislation targets.
The strategic logic is clear once you think about what these platforms actually want.
Prediction markets are fighting for mainstream legitimacy and regulatory acceptance, trying to establish themselves as serious, trustworthy financial infrastructure, not gambling dens or vehicles for manipulation.
Their biggest existential threat is not losing a few hundred lawmaker accounts. It is being seen as rigged, as places where insiders profit at the expense of ordinary participants.
An insider-trading scandal involving a member of Congress would be far more damaging to the industry’s legitimacy than the loss of those members as customers.
By supporting the ban, the platforms get to position themselves as responsible actors who want clean markets, removing a source of scandal risk while earning goodwill with the regulators who hold their future in their hands.
There is also a competitive and verification angle.
The platforms already claim to block and enforce against this conduct, so a legal ban mostly codifies what they say they already do, costing them little while giving them a public-relations and regulatory win.
It lets them argue that prediction markets are self-aware about their risks and willing to accept guardrails, which strengthens their case in the larger, more consequential regulatory fights over whether and how prediction markets should be allowed to operate at all.
In effect, the platforms are trading a small, scandal-prone user segment for enhanced legitimacy, which is an easy trade when their central challenge is being taken seriously.
The lawmaker ban is the cheap, popular reform that buys credibility for the harder regulatory battles ahead.
How prediction markets actually work
To understand why lawmaker participation is so fraught, it helps to understand the mechanism these platforms use, because it is precisely that mechanism that turns inside information into a clean profit opportunity.
A prediction market is, at its core, a marketplace for contracts that pay out based on whether a specified event happens.
A contract on “Will this bill pass by year-end” might trade at 40 cents, reflecting a market-implied 40% probability, and it settles at $1 if the bill passes and zero if it does not.
Anyone who believes the true probability is higher than the market price can buy the contract and profit if they are right, and anyone who thinks it is lower can effectively bet against it.
The price of the contract becomes a real-time, money-backed estimate of the event’s likelihood, which is what makes these markets useful.
They aggregate the views of many participants, weighted by how much money each is willing to risk, into a single probability that often outperforms polls and pundits.
This is the legitimate appeal that has drawn serious interest, including the praise Polymarket received for tracking the 2024 election more accurately than traditional forecasting.
But that same mechanism is what makes inside information so valuable on these platforms.
In a normal financial market, having private information about a company is useful but indirect, because many factors move a stock price.
In a prediction market, the contract pays out based on a single, specific outcome, so private knowledge about that exact outcome translates almost perfectly into profit.
If you know with certainty that a bill will pass because you control the vote, a contract priced at 40 cents is a near-guaranteed 150% return, with none of the noise that complicates stock trading on inside information.
The directness is the problem.
Prediction markets convert specific knowledge about specific outcomes into specific payouts, and no one has more specific knowledge about legislative and policy outcomes than the legislators and officials who determine them.
This is why the lawmaker issue is structurally distinct from the stock-trading concerns the STOCK Act addressed.
A member of Congress trading stocks on inside information is exploiting an information advantage.
A member of Congress trading prediction markets on the outcome of their own legislation is exploiting both an information advantage and a control advantage, because they do not just know what will happen, they decide what will happen.
They can take a position and then act to make it pay off.
That combination, knowledge plus control plus a mechanism that pays out directly on the specific outcome, is what makes prediction-market participation by lawmakers uniquely indefensible.
It is also why the Senate’s ban was unanimous and the platforms themselves endorse the restriction.
The global and enforcement problem
Even if the lawmaker bans pass cleanly, two harder questions sit underneath them: how to enforce the rules, and how to handle the parts of the prediction-market world that operate outside U.S. reach.
Enforcement is hard, especially for the crypto-native platforms.
A centralized, regulated venue like Kalshi can identify its users through know-your-customer requirements and block or flag members of Congress, which is why Kalshi can credibly claim it already enforces against lawmaker trading.
But Polymarket operates on the Polygon blockchain as a more decentralized, crypto-native platform, and the pseudonymous nature of on-chain activity makes it far harder to verify who is actually behind a given wallet.
A lawmaker determined to evade a ban could, in principle, trade through a wallet not linked to their identity, and the platform might have no straightforward way to detect it.
This raises the uncomfortable question of whether the bans would force decentralized prediction-market protocols to implement identity verification, which would cut against the permissionless design that defines them.
Analysts judge it unlikely that the lawmaker-focused bills would target platforms directly, since their enforcement mechanism is aimed at the officials through congressional ethics rules and potential criminal penalties rather than at the venues.
However, the verification problem remains a real gap between a ban on paper and a ban in practice.
The global dimension compounds it.
Prediction markets operate across borders, and capital and contracts can flow through jurisdictions outside U.S. control.
Congress has been debating whether additional restrictions should apply to prediction markets operating outside the U.S., recognizing that a purely domestic rule can be circumvented by routing through offshore or decentralized venues.
This mirrors the broader challenge of regulating crypto generally: the technology is global and permissionless, while regulation is national and jurisdiction-bound.
Rules written for U.S.-regulated venues like Kalshi may simply push activity toward platforms and structures that are harder to reach.
The lawmaker bans are most enforceable precisely where they matter least, on the compliant, identity-verified platforms that already block such conduct, and least enforceable where determined evasion is easiest, on decentralized and offshore venues.
These enforcement and jurisdictional gaps do not undermine the case for the bans, which remain a clear integrity improvement, but they do temper expectations about what the bans can accomplish in practice.
A determined bad actor with inside information and technical sophistication may find ways around a rule that catches the casual or compliant.
The bans should therefore be understood as raising the barrier and setting a standard rather than as an airtight solution.
The real value may be as much normative as practical: codifying into law that lawmakers must not bet on the outcomes they control establishes a clear ethical line and a basis for prosecution, even if perfect enforcement remains elusive.
That is meaningful, but it is not the same as making the conduct impossible.
The gap between the two is where the harder, less settled parts of prediction-market regulation will continue to play out.
The bigger regulatory picture
The lawmaker bans are the most advanced piece of a much broader regulatory reckoning with prediction markets, and the lawmaker issue is in some ways the easy part of a far more complicated set of questions.
The harder questions concern the markets themselves rather than who trades on them.
Prediction markets occupy an awkward regulatory position: they use futures and commodity-contract mechanisms that fall under federal oversight by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which lets them offer event contracts nationwide, sidestepping the state-by-state regulation that governs traditional sports betting and gambling.
This has created tension on multiple fronts.
The Schiff-Curtis bill targets the sports-betting and casino-style contracts that critics argue are gambling dressed up as financial trading, exploiting the federal-oversight loophole to offer nationwide what would be tightly regulated if done through traditional channels.
Congress is also debating whether additional restrictions should apply to prediction markets operating outside the U.S., and how to handle decentralized, crypto-native platforms that are harder to regulate than centralized venues.
Polymarket’s own regulatory history illustrates the complexity.
The platform settled with the CFTC in 2022 and has been unavailable to U.S. users, operating on the Polygon blockchain as a crypto-native, decentralized-leaning venue, which raises questions a centralized exchange like Kalshi does not.
Kalshi operates as a CFTC-regulated designated contract market, fully inside the U.S. regulatory perimeter.
The two leading platforms therefore sit in different regulatory positions, and the various bills affect them differently.
A particularly thorny question is whether any of this legislation could force decentralized prediction-market protocols to implement identity verification.
However, analysts judge it unlikely that the lawmaker-focused bills would target platforms directly, since their enforcement mechanism is aimed at the officials rather than the venues.
The political timing adds pressure.
As with the CLARITY Act and other crypto legislation, the prediction-market bills are racing against a crowded congressional calendar and the approaching midterm elections, which shorten the window for action.
Steil expects a possible House vote on the stock-and-prediction-market bill this summer, but broader market-structure bills governing how prediction markets operate would fall under the House Agriculture or Financial Services Committees and could take much longer.
The likely near-term outcome is that the narrow, popular, bipartisan lawmaker ban advances while the harder questions about the markets’ fundamental legality and scope remain unresolved, pushed into a future session.
The lawmaker ban is the reform everyone can agree on. The structural questions are where the real fights will happen.
What it means
Pulling it together, the lawmaker prediction-market bans are significant both for what they directly do and for what they signal about the broader trajectory of prediction markets as an industry.
What they directly do is close an obvious and indefensible loophole.
Allowing members of Congress to bet on prediction markets pricing the outcomes of their own decisions was a conflict of interest so clear that it produced unanimous Senate action, a rarity in modern Washington.
The bans, where they pass, mean that the roughly 537 most powerful federal officials cannot convert their privileged access to non-public information and their direct power over outcomes into prediction-market profit.
That is a genuine integrity improvement, and the real insider-trading cases, the fined candidates and the charged Special Forces sergeant, show it addresses an actual problem, not a theoretical one.
What it signals is that prediction markets have arrived as a serious enough financial arena to warrant federal attention, which cuts both ways for the industry.
On one hand, regulation is a form of legitimization: markets that are being carefully regulated are markets that are being taken seriously, and the platforms’ eager support for the lawmaker bans reflects their understanding that accepting guardrails is the path to mainstream acceptance.
On the other hand, the lawmaker bans are the leading edge of a regulatory wave that includes much harder questions: about sports betting, the federal-oversight loophole, decentralized platforms, and whether these markets are financial instruments or gambling.
Those questions could constrain the industry far more than a ban on a few hundred officials ever would.
The easy reform is passing. The consequential ones are coming.
For anyone watching the prediction-market space, the practical takeaway is to distinguish the lawmaker bans from the broader regulatory fight.
The lawmaker bans are popular, bipartisan, supported by the platforms themselves, and likely to pass in some form, and they are good for the industry’s legitimacy.
The deeper questions, about what these markets can list, who can operate them, and how decentralized venues fit into the U.S. regulatory perimeter, are where the industry’s future will actually be decided.
Those fights are just beginning.
The image of Polymarket and Kalshi cheering on a ban of their own most prominent users captures the moment perfectly: an industry trading short-term customers for long-term legitimacy, betting that accepting regulation now is the price of survival later.
Whether that bet pays off depends not on the lawmaker bans, which are nearly settled, but on the harder battles over the markets themselves, which are only starting.
Congress wanting to ban lawmakers from prediction markets is the easy, obvious first move in a much longer game.
This article is for informational purposes and does not constitute financial, investment, or legal advice. The figures and analysis described reflect data available as of June 2026. Always do your own research and consult with qualified professionals before making decisions.
Bitmine Immersion Technologies has raised its Ethereum treasury to 5.54 million ETH, putting the company closer to its goal of owning 5% of the network’s supply.
Summary
- Bitmine added 126,971 ETH last week, lifting its total Ethereum holdings to 5.54 million tokens.
- More than 4.71 million ETH is staked, generating projected annual revenue of about $230 million.
- The company now controls 4.59% of Ethereum’s supply and expects to reach 5% during 2026.
Bitmine adds 126,971 ETH during market pullback
In a Monday announcement, Bitmine said its holdings reached 5,543,872 ETH as of June 7. At the company’s reference price of $1,630 per ETH, the position was worth about $9.04 billion. Its wider portfolio included 204 Bitcoin, $247 million in cash, a $180 million Beast Industries stake and an $88 million Eightco position.
The company bought 126,971 ETH during the week, increasing its total from 5,416,901 ETH. As previously reported by crypto.news, the earlier balance represented 4.49% of Ethereum’s supply. Bitmine now says it controls 4.59% of the estimated 120.7 million ETH supply, placing it 92% of the way toward its “Alchemy of 5%” target.
Staked Ethereum reaches 4.72 million tokens
Bitmine reported 4,718,677 staked ETH, valued at about $7.7 billion using the same reference price. That amount equals more than 85% of its total Ethereum holdings. The company uses its Made in America Validator Network, known as MAVAN, and other staking partners to earn rewards while supporting Ethereum transactions.
“Annualized staking revenues are now projected at $230 million,” Chairman Tom Lee said.
Bitmine reported a seven-day annualized staking yield of 2.99%. It estimated that staking its full ETH balance through MAVAN and partner platforms could raise annual rewards to about $270 million, though returns may change with network conditions.
A separate crypto.news report examined whether Bitmine’s growing stake could add concentration risks around Ethereum. Bitmine says MAVAN focuses on security, performance and resilience. Its expanding staked balance also makes validator operations a key part of the treasury model.
Tom Lee maintains the 5% Ethereum strategy
Lee said Bitmine increased buying because the latest ETH price decline did not match what he described as stronger Ethereum fundamentals. “We increased our buying,” Lee said, adding that the company expects to reach its 5% supply goal during 2026 as planned. The target would require Bitmine to hold about 6.04 million ETH if supply remains near 120.7 million.
The company links its Ethereum strategy to growing use of public blockchains for tokenized financial assets and artificial intelligence systems. Those remain forward-looking views from Bitmine’s management. Crypto.news recently reported that the company held 5.42 million ETH and 4.72 million staked tokens before the latest purchase.
BMNR trading remains high as treasury expands
Bitmine reported average daily BMNR trading volume of $829 million over five sessions through June 5. The company ranked its shares as the 148th most traded stock in the United States, behind Workday and ahead of Pfizer.
The company describes its treasury as the largest disclosed corporate Ethereum position. It ranks second among public crypto treasuries behind Strategy, based on figures included in the release. Bitmine also retains cash and smaller equity positions alongside its main ETH holding at present.
Key Takeaways
- Tesla shares advanced 1.4% to $396.65 during Monday’s premarket session, rebounding from Friday’s 6.6% decline
- SpaceX’s $75 billion public offering has garnered two-times oversubscription — significantly below the four to five times threshold Wall Street considers successful
- Betting markets assign 43–50% probability to a potential Tesla-SpaceX combination by late 2026 or mid-2027
- Analysts maintain a collective “Hold” rating on TSLA with a mean price objective of $404.37
- Company insiders have offloaded 55,218 TSLA shares totaling $20.6 million in the previous three months
Tesla (TSLA) shares jumped 1.4% to reach $396.65 during Monday’s premarket hours, recouping losses after Friday’s harsh 6.6% tumble.
Friday’s downturn followed robust employment data that sparked concerns about potential interest rate increases. The tech-heavy Nasdaq plummeted 4.2% during that session, pulling down technology stocks across the board. Broadcom’s lackluster quarterly results further dampened investor sentiment.
By Monday morning, attention had pivoted toward a single company: SpaceX.
Elon Musk’s aerospace venture is scheduled to finalize its IPO pricing this Thursday. According to Reuters, the $75 billion offering has attracted $150 billion in investor interest — resulting in a two-times oversubscription ratio.
While that figure appears substantial on its surface, Wall Street professionals view it as underwhelming. Successful initial public offerings typically achieve oversubscription levels ranging from two to five times. For a high-profile transaction like SpaceX, achieving four or five times oversubscription would signal strong post-debut performance potential.
It’s worth noting that the week has just begun. Investor appetite can fluctuate considerably in the coming days.
A pressing concern for Tesla shareholders involves whether investors might liquidate TSLA positions to fund SpaceX purchases. Such technical selling pressure could temporarily suppress the stock price, regardless of underlying business performance.
The Tesla-SpaceX Connection Deepens
Both enterprises have been forging stronger ties recently. Collaborative efforts span artificial intelligence initiatives and chip production capabilities. Prediction platforms are assigning meaningful probability to a potential combination — Kalshi estimates 50% likelihood before May 2027, while Polymarket indicates 43% probability before 2026 concludes.
Any potential merger would occur following SpaceX’s market debut. Nevertheless, these probability assessments are capturing market attention.
Tesla commenced Monday trading at $391.00. The shares currently trade within their 52-week range bounded by $281.85 on the low end and $498.83 at the peak. The 50-day moving average stands at $395.33, while the 200-day average registers $416.11. Entering Monday’s session, TSLA had declined 13% year-to-date while posting a 37% gain over the trailing twelve months.
During its latest quarterly report, Tesla delivered $0.41 in earnings per share, marginally surpassing the $0.39 analyst consensus. Revenue totaled $22.39 billion, falling slightly short of the anticipated $22.96 billion. On a year-over-year basis, revenue expanded 15.8%.
Institutional Holdings and Executive Transactions
Among institutional investors, Manchester Capital Management expanded its Tesla position by 52.6% during the fourth quarter, concluding the period with 18,449 shares valued at approximately $8.3 million. Multiple additional investment firms similarly increased their allocations in recent quarters.
Executive trading activity paints a contrasting picture. Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja divested 3,000 shares at $450.00 on May 13th, generating proceeds of $1.35 million. Board member Kathleen Wilson-Thompson sold 26,409 shares at $378.11 on April 30th. Collectively, company insiders have liquidated $20.6 million in stock value throughout the past ninety days.
Wall Street opinions remain divided. Deutsche Bank initiated coverage with a “Buy” recommendation. Wedbush maintained its “Outperform” stance alongside a $600 price objective. Jefferies continues rating the stock “Neutral.” GLJ Research upholds its “Sell” rating. The aggregate consensus from 44 analysts registers as “Hold” with a $404.37 average target price.
Tesla presently maintains a $1.47 trillion market capitalization and trades at a PE multiple of 358.72.
According to Lookonchain, a wallet attributed to Arthur Hayes withdrew 33,978 Hyperliquid (HYPE) tokens worth approximately $2.09 million from Bybit on June 8. Hayes has since denied making any purchase.
HYPE Falls 23% After Hayes Exits, Then a Disputed Re-Entry
Hayes’ exit above $72 preceded a roughly 23% decline in HYPE, which slid below $56 in the days that followed. He attributed his HYPE and NEAR exit to macro hedging and a desire to wait for a better entry point.
Lookonchain identified a withdrawal of 33,978 HYPE from Bybit at an average price near $61.5, linking the address to Hayes through Arkham Intelligence labels.
If accurate, the sequence would describe a sell-high, buy-lower trade executed while Hayes publicly denied having repositioned.
The response left no ambiguity but offered no additional context or wallet information.
Can On-Chain Data Prove He Bought?
The credibility of the allegation depends entirely on whether the flagged address actually belongs to Hayes. Arkham uses a combination of on-chain data, exchange deposit records, and machine learning to assign wallet labels to known entities.
The platform targets an accuracy rate of 95% or higher for major figures, but that still leaves room for error.
A mislabeled wallet is a plausible outcome, and no direct confirmation has emerged linking the address to Hayes.
Arkham’s influencer wallet tracking has previously drawn scrutiny for attributions that required revision after the fact. Without a verified on-chain signature or corroborating exchange data, the claim remains unconfirmed.
HYPE was trading at $61.43 at the time of writing, up 4.58% over the past 24 hours, with a market cap near $13.65 billion and a rank of 10 by market cap.
Hayes has previously held a $150 HYPE price target for 2026. Whether he has re-entered that position remains, for now, an open question.
The post Arthur Hayes Denies $2.09 Million HYPE Buyback: Who Is Telling the Truth? appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Bitcoin (BTC) starts the second week of June with damage control — and new macro lows are still expected this year.
- Traders see a relief bounce coming next for BTC price action, but the bottom, they agree, is not in.
- US inflation data will test markets’ resolve as the US-Iran war drags on.
- Peace-deal pledges by US President Donald Trump do little to stabilize the risk-asset picture.
- Multiple onchain indicators give analysts hope that the worst of the sell-off is over.
- Crypto sentiment dives to some of its lowest levels on record.
Bitcoin bear-market bottom is months away
Bitcoin saw modest relief around its latest weekly close, data from TradingView shows, but among traders, the lack of major good news is conspicuous.
“Previous weekly candle closed very bearish, and left an imbalance at 72.5K. As long as we hold the 59.1K previous weekly low, my final long target for this week is that 72.5K imbalance,” trader Lennaert Snyder wrote in one of his latest analysis posts on X.
BTC/USDT four-hour chart. Source: Lennaert Snyder/X
Trader Mark Cullen warned that even in the event of a relief bounce, the bear-market low was still to come.
“Now $BTC has swept the 60K level, which happened a bit quicker than i had originally anticipated,” he told X followers.
“I expect we have a bit more sideways and up for the rest of June. I am not expecting the ultimate market low until middle to late Q3.”
BTC/USD one-day chart. Source: Mark Cullen/X
With slightly different timing, crypto commentator ColinTalksCrypto had similar expectations. BTC/USD, he noted, had closed below a key long-term trend line, the 200-week simple moving average (SMA).
“Thus, we likely get a bounce for a 1-3 months and then a drop to a new low in Q4,” he argued.
ColinTalksCrypto said that Q4 “has high odds of being the cycle bottom.”
BTC/USD one-week chart with 200SMA. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
CPI and PPI inflation to challenge multiyear highs
May US inflation data will add fuel to market nerves this week, with markets already betting on interest-rate hikes.
The May prints of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Producer Price Index (PPI) are slated to reflect the ongoing influence of the US-Iran war on the economy.
Both indexes hit multiyear highs when last updated for April, and the latest data from CME Group’s FedWatch Tool shows expectations of Federal Reserve policy changing quickly.
“The BASE case shows two rate HIKES by early 2027. There is even a rising 17% chance of 3 rate HIKES by April 2027,” trading resource The Kobeissi Letter noted in analysis late last week.
“Just months ago, markets saw up to 4 rate CUTS in 2026 alone.”
Fed target rate probabilities (screenshot). Source: CME Group
As Cointelegraph reported, US stock markets have broadly shaken off inflation risks, hitting repeated all-time highs as tech stocks drive optimism.
That picture is also looking less stable this week as rate-hike nerves filter through. South Korea’s stock market was halted for volatility on Monday after falling 8% at the open.
Korea Composite Index one-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
“Something just shifted in the world’s hottest stock market,” Nic Puckrin, founder of crypto platform Coin Bureau, commented on Sunday.
“Koreans stocks are up 90% this year. But the options chart on the Korea ETF has flipped from bullish bets to downside protection. The is a sign that those still in the trade are no longer confident.”
Market data for iShares South Korea ETF. Source: Nic Puckrin/X
Iran war peace promises fail to tame markets
Coming in tandem with macro pressure are developments in the US-Iran war, which remains an unpredictable market volatility catalyst.
Last week, US President Donald Trump said that the conflict would “work out well,” but the assurances failed to stop new multiyear lows for BTC/USD.
Exchanges of fire in the interim meant that the sense of uncertainty continued.
Quoted by the Financial Times and others on Sunday, Trump again sought to put a positive slant on events, saying that the latest strikes would not impact ongoing peace negotiations.
“The deal may make it on its own merit, or not, but this will not have any effect on it,” he said in a telephone interview.
Bitcoin appeared buoyed by Trump’s words, which included an assertion that Israel would have “no choice” but to accept an Iran deal.
Oil prices gained into the new week, with WTI crude returning above $95 per barrel.
CFDs on US WTI crude oil one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
Commenting, crypto trader and analyst Michaël van de Poppe warned that the new week would start with a bump.
“I would expect to see prices drop slightly lower going into the Monday open, as the stock markets were falling off a cliff on Friday evening,” he told X followers.
“After US open, or on Tuesday, this rotates back up and we’ll start to see a glimpse of upwards momentum on Bitcoin.”
BTC/USDT one-day chart. Source: Michaël van de Poppe/X
Indicators point to easing sell pressure
In Bitcoin circles, talk continues to focus on whether BTC has seen its bear-market bottom with the latest dip below $60,000.
Last week, Cointelegraph reported on an analysis concluding that most prerequisites for a market rebound were already in place.
In its latest research, onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant added to the list of reasons why the worst of the rout should be over.
“Together, these indicators suggest that speculative excess has largely been removed from the system,” contributor XWIN Japan wrote in a QuickTake blog post.
“Market sentiment has shifted from euphoria to caution, and investors are entering a period of patience and accumulation.”
The three indicators in question are the spent out profit ratio (SOPR) for long-term (LTH) and short-term (STH) investors, along with the overall BTC supply held at a loss, as well as the 200-day simple moving average (SMA).
The latter is already on the radar for traders after BTC/USD returned to it for the first time since 2023 last week.
“The LTH-SOPR / STH-SOPR ratio has fallen significantly, indicating that long-term holders are no longer realizing the large profits seen during the previous bull market,” XWIN continued about the other components.
“Supply in Profit has dropped to roughly 47%, meaning more than half of Bitcoin holders are now at break-even or in a loss position. This is a sharp contrast to bull market conditions, when over 90% of supply is often in profit.”
Bitcoin supply in profit (screenshot). Source: CryptoQuant
CryptoQuant also flagged a “demand shortage” thanks to tech stocks stealing the limelight from crypto as a whole.
Sentiment reflects “widespread despair” opportunity
Crypto market sentiment has returned to single figures, per data from the Crypto Fear & Greed Index — but a buying opportunity could be already here.
Related: Bitcoin risks new purge with bear-market losses still $35B below 2022 total
The Index, which uses a basket of factors to determine the overall market mood, measured 8/100 on Monday — well within its “extreme fear” zone.
Such a low score was last seen at the start of April, and is one of the lowest ever recorded.
Crypto Fear & Greed Index (screenshot). Source: Alternative.me
Monitoring social media cues, research platform Santiment described the “highest level of pessimism since mid-February.”
“Historically, these moments of widespread despair have often appeared close to market bottoms,” it told X followers.
“When traders begin declaring an asset class ‘dead,’ especially something largely speculative-driven like crypto, it typically signals that many sellers have already exited their positions, leaving less supply available to push prices significantly lower.”
Crypto sentiment data. Source: Santiment/X
In February, when the $60,000 zone first came back into focus, a collapse in sentiment preceded a rebound to the mid-$70,000 range.
“While sentiment alone cannot predict exact turning points, historical patterns indicate that periods when investors are most convinced that crypto is ‘finished’ have frequently provided safer-than-average opportunities for patient traders willing to take the opposite side of the crowd’s emotions,” Santiment added.
Bybit, the world’s second-largest crypto exchange by trading volume, has joined the tokenization race to capture the highly-anticipated public listing of SpaceX later this week with its new Bybit IPO Express service.
The Dubai-based exchange is the second crypto exchange to offer tokenized initial public offerings (IPO) following Kraken. Its parent company Payward said it would soon allow its Kraken customers and xStocks alliance members to participate in U.S.-listed IPOs through tokenized shares.
Binance, Bitget and Gate previously offered pre-IPO markets in the form of derivatives. That means investors are not actually buying the actual shares.price. Instead, they are betting on a prediction market or trading IOUs based on what they believed the company would be worth.
Bybit’sIPO services are powered by Payward Services’ xStocks and are eligible retail investors worldwide who can participate in blockbuster IPO projects by subscribing to tokenized representations of publicly traded equities.
“The launch marks a fundamental step in the convergence of traditional capital markets and crypto-native infrastructure, as exchanges increasingly compete to expand beyond digital asset trading into broader financial services,” Bybit said in its press release.
The aim of such services is democratize access millions of users to participate in IPOs that were previously only available to institutional investors, private banking clients, and select brokerage networks.
Bybit also said that through xStocks’ regulated blockchain, holders of tokenized listed stocks can access extended trading hours, Decentralized Finance (DeFi) composability and flexibility and crypto-native settlement.
“For Bybit customers, it is the first time cryptocurrency exchange users can purchase shares at IPO pricing outside of the competitive secondary market,” the press release added.
Bybit said the registration period for the SpaceX IPO is from June 7 to 11. Allocation follows on June 11 and 12, the day when the token also becomes publicly available for trading on Bybit spot. Elon Musk’s SpaceX plans a $75 billion IPO on June 12 at a $1.75 trillion valuation, ranking it among the largest ever.
Strategy (MSTR) acquired 1,550 bitcoin for approximately $101 million, increasing its total holdings to 845,256 BTC, according to a Monday announcement from Executive Chairman Michael Saylor.
The purchase comes after bitcoin fell around 15% last week, briefly trading below $60,000 before rebounding above $62,000. The decline in bitcoin price followed, at least partially, after Saylor sold 32 bitcoin on June 1.
The latest acquisition marks the first buy since the company’s bitcoin sale and expands Strategy’s reserve while also adding to its balance sheet liquidity.
The company disclosed that it increased its U.S. dollar reserves by $100 million, bringing total cash reserves to $1 billion. To fund both initiatives, Strategy issued $181 million of common stock during the period.
The latest purchase was made at an average price of $65,332 per bitcoin, below Strategy’s overall average acquisition price of $75,680. Following the purchase, the company holds 845,256 BTC acquired for just under $64 billion.
Read more: Michael Saylor revives bitcoin-buy speculation as scrutiny over Strategy grows
Crypto World
Why a hidden math metric shows bitcoin may be getting too cheap for investors to ignore
After a massive selloff last week, one of bitcoin’s closely watched onchain metrics is approaching a threshold that has historically marked bear market bottoms.
The metric is called the market value-to-realized value (MVRV) Z-Score. Every major bitcoin cycle bottom has coincided with the Z-Score touching or briefly dipping below zero (into the green zone, in the chart).
And right now, it is knocking on the door of the zone that has coincided with the lowest point of previous bear markets. It happened in 2011-2012 when bitcoin saw its first major crash. It happened again in 2014 and late 2018. Most recently, it fell below zero in the second half of 2022, marking a price bottom that paved the way for a three-year bull run.
What is the MVRV Z-Score
The metric compares the deviation of bitcoin’s market value – what the token is worth right now based on the current market price – from it’s realized price.
The second figure, widely considered close to fair value, is obtained by averaging the prices of every bitcoin since the last time it was transacted onchain.
When the market price is far above fair value, bitcoin is considered expensive relative to its own history. When the market price falls toward or below the fair value, bitcoin is cheap. The Z-Score takes the difference between those two numbers and measures how extreme it is statistically.
The result is a single line that cuts through the noise of day-to-day price action and shows where the price is relative to the broader market cycle. A high Z-Score means the market is running hot, and a low or below-zero score means the opposite.
According to BitBo, the Z-Score is currently at 0.24, just above the upper boundary of the historically significant “green zone,” which begins at approximately 0 and extends slightly below zero.
In other words, it’s very close to the “accumulation” zone. To be clear, this is not a price level, but only a measure of how stretched or compressed bitcoin’s market value is relative to its realized value.
Absolute bottom?
However, the bottom might not be in just yet, as the behavior of wallet holders suggests there might still be a bit more selling needed for it to be truly in.
Onchain data suggests that Long-Term Holder MVRV (LTH-MVRV), which measures the profitability of coins held for at least 155 days, and Short-Term Holder MVRV (STH-MVRV), which focuses on coins held for less than 155 days, haven’t converged yet.
When these two data points close the gap, historically, a major cycle low forms. This was previously seen in 2015, 2019, and 2022.
However, currently, STH-MVRV stands at 0.84, while LTH-MVRV remains elevated at 1.29. Meaning long-term holders are still sitting on relatively large unrealized profits, indicating that further downside in bitcoin may be required before a typical bear market bottom is established.
While it is impossible to time market bottoms, after the brutal selling last week that wiped hundreds of billions off crypto’s market value, conditions that have historically preceded recoveries are beginning to emerge.
Read more: Bitcoin, ether eye worst weekly rout since FTX collapse as cryptos shed $390 billion
Strive (ASST) picked up another 32 bitcoin for roughly $2.1 million at an average of $63,911, CEO Matt Cole disclosed Monday.
That is the exact number Strategy (MSTR) sold last week, its first bitcoin sale in four years, at an average of $77,135 to help fund preferred-stock dividends.
The buy adds to the 19,000 BTC the Dallas firm reported on June 2, a position built with no debt and run through its ASST and SATA at-the-market programs.
Bitcoin trades near $63,400, up about 1.3% over the past 24 hours and steadily climbing back from the slide that followed Strategy’s sale, per CoinDesk data.
Key Takeaways
- Eli Lilly shares climbed over 4% during early Monday session following weekend disclosure of promising clinical trial results.
- The company’s investigational obesity medication retatrutide demonstrated a 60.6% reduction in sleep apnea severity and up to 73.1% decrease in knee pain during Phase 3 studies.
- Foundayo, Lilly’s oral treatment, produced weight reduction outcomes in women throughout all menopause phases, supported by findings from 1,500 study subjects.
- Novo Nordisk announced Wegovy surpassed 3 million prescriptions since January rollout — yet shares dropped 3% in early European markets.
- Over the last twelve months, Eli Lilly shares have gained 47% while Novo Nordisk has declined over 40%.
Eli Lilly dominated the weekend news cycle with pharmaceutical updates. The pharmaceutical giant released a series of encouraging clinical trial findings throughout Saturday and Sunday, prompting an immediate market reaction Monday morning — LLY shares surged more than 4% before the opening bell, securing its position as the S&P 500’s second-strongest performer trailing only Micron.
The spotlight focused primarily on retatrutide, Lilly’s investigational next-wave obesity treatment. Phase 3 clinical trial data unveiled at the American Diabetes Association gathering in New Orleans demonstrated that the once-weekly injection achieved a 60.6% reduction in moderate-to-severe obstructive sleep apnea severity among obese adults.
The identical clinical study revealed retatrutide delivered up to 73.1% reduction in knee osteoarthritis discomfort.
These findings complement previously disclosed data where patients living with obesity achieved 28% body weight reduction using the medication, and adults managing type 2 diabetes experienced significant blood glucose improvements.
Retatrutide represents Lilly’s “triple G” therapeutic approach — it activates GLP-1, GIP, and glucagon receptors simultaneously, advancing beyond current dual-mechanism medications like Zepbound, which already holds approval for sleep apnea treatment.
Among the studies, 2% of diabetic patients receiving the minimum dosage experienced major adverse cardiovascular events. Lilly emphasized these incidents weren’t definitively attributed to the medication. Complete findings appeared in the Lancet on Saturday.
Foundayo Broadens Treatment Scope
The weekend wasn’t finished yet. Sunday brought additional updates when Lilly unveiled analysis demonstrating its oral medication Foundayo produced weight loss across women at all menopause stages. The data emerged from 1,500 female participants enrolled in the company’s ATTAIN-1 and ATTAIN-2 Phase 3 clinical studies.
This represents a substantial broadening of the medication’s addressable population, encompassing pre-menopausal, perimenopausal, and post-menopausal women.
Novo’s Positive Update Met With Market Indifference
Novo Nordisk delivered favorable news Monday as well. The Copenhagen-based pharmaceutical company announced its oral Wegovy obesity treatment has surpassed 3 million prescriptions since its pill formulation launched in early January — representing one new prescription approximately every five seconds.
Novo characterized it as among the most successful U.S. pharmaceutical product introductions on record.
Yet investors remained unimpressed. Novo shares declined 3% during early European trading hours, with American depositary receipts indicating a 1.8% drop ahead of U.S. market open. Denmark’s stock exchange was shuttered Friday, meaning Monday’s movement partly reflected catch-up trading.
Novo’s equity has endured a challenging period, tumbling more than 40% throughout the past year. Lilly, conversely, has advanced 47% during the identical timeframe.
LLY traded approximately 4% higher Monday morning as the newest data wave continued strengthening its competitive standing in the obesity treatment landscape.
Despite the slight recovery, the crypto sector remains suppressed under the ongoing bear market.
One popular analyst believes that Ripple’s XRP, which was heavily affected by the latest correction, may plummet under $1 in the short term, noting that such a move could turn out to be an excellent buying opportunity.
The Hidden Benefit?
As of this writing, XRP trades at around $1.15 (per CoinGecko’s data), representing a 12% decline from last Monday’s valuation. X user Ali Martinez said he is closely monitoring $0.90, adding that a slip to such a low level could present “a compelling long-term buying opportunity.”
Some of the commentators on the post doubted that Ripple’s cross-border token would tumble below $1. However, others revealed they have placed buy orders at $0.50, with Martinez describing this as “not a bad idea.”
The recent actions of the whales suggest that the price is at real risk of a further decline. Recently, these market participants offloaded 60 million tokens over a week, signaling fading confidence and potentially triggering panic among smaller investors, which could lead to a more serious sell-off.
Additionally, one anonymous whale opened a nearly $1.5 million short position on XRP. These big investors are often rumored to have inside knowledge of upcoming events likely to impact the token’s price. We have yet to see whether this whale will make a profit from the massive bet or whether this would turn into a reckless gamble.
Time to Rally?
Other analysts are quite optimistic that the worst is over, predicting a decisive comeback in the near future. X user CRYPTOWZRD said the asset closed the previous day on a bullish note, adding that a surge above $1.15 could offer an upside move.
For their part, Joshua Dalton envisioned a pump to the rather unreal (at least as of the moment) $3.50 by the end of June, while Zach Humphries revealed purchasing XRP for the first time in two years.
“The last time I bought XRP it was at $0.50 and scooping it up at $1.09 feels like a very similar opportunity,” they explained.
Institutional interest in the token remains solid, which could support a move higher. Unlike spot BTC and ETH ETFs, those with XRP as the underlying token have attracted a substantial amount of capital even amid the market crash – a sign that big players like pension funds and hedge funds continue to increase their exposure despite the bearish conditions.
The post The Ripple (XRP) Crash Scenario That Could Create Massive Opportunity: Analyst appeared first on CryptoPotato.
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