Crypto prices have spent much of the year reacting to macro headlines and regulatory uncertainty, but tokenization has remained one of the industry’s few consistent growth stories. Active real-world assets are surging, banks are embracing blockchain infrastructure and tokenized equities are expanding into new markets.

That momentum was on full display this week as Kraken rolled out tokenized access to the highly anticipated SpaceX IPO, offering eligible users in more than 110 markets a chance to participate through xStocks.

Elsewhere, prediction markets surpassed onchain gambling for the first time, and former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried formally asked US President Donald Trump for a pardon.

Tokenized RWAs keep growing through crypto downturn

Tokenized RWAs continue to gain traction despite a weaker crypto market. According to Binance Research, the market for active tokenized RWAs has surged 589% since early 2025, with bonds and money market funds adding $6.5 billion in value while tokenized stocks jumped 422%.

The sector is also becoming more diversified. Platforms such as Ondo Global Markets have fueled demand for tokenized equities, while tokenized precious metals gained $1.5 billion as investors sought safe-haven assets earlier this year. 

At the same time, traditional financial institutions are expanding their blockchain initiatives, from Apex Group’s tokenized fund services to The Clearing House’s planned tokenized deposit network, highlighting growing adoption beyond crypto-native companies.

RWA growth by asset. Source: Binance Research

SpaceX IPO gets tokenized

Crypto exchange Kraken gave eligible users in more than 110 markets access to the SpaceX IPO through xStocks, allowing investors to purchase tokenized shares of Elon Musk’s aerospace company ahead of its public debut. 

According to Kraken, investors who received an allocation will be issued SPCXx, a tokenized representation backed 1:1 by the underlying equity and tradable 24/7 across participating platforms.

The launch comes as demand for tokenized equities continues to accelerate. SpaceX targeted a $75 billion raise in its Nasdaq debut, with the offering reportedly oversubscribed by roughly four times ahead of public trading, putting it on track to become the largest IPO in history.

Prediction markets surpass onchain gambling

Prediction markets surpassed onchain gambling for the first time in the first quarter of 2026, generating $36.6 billion in volume compared with gambling’s $14 billion, according to blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs. The milestone comes after both sectors topped $50 billion in annual volume in 2025, underscoring their rapid growth.

Crypto gambling, however, hasn’t lost momentum. Quarterly wagering volume remained near record highs despite the broader market pullback, with TRM attributing the resilience to a loyal and expanding user base. While so-called high rollers – who averaged $13,558 per bet and $378,000 in lifetime gambling volume – still account for most betting volume, casual bettors and daily users are driving the fastest growth, broadening participation across the sector.

Prediction markets eclipse onchain gambling for the first time. Source: TRM Labs

Sam Bankman-Fried seeks Trump pardon

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has formally applied for a presidential pardon from US President Donald Trump, adding another legal avenue to overturn his conviction in connection with the crypto exchange’s multibillion-dollar collapse. 

The request appears on the US Department of Justice Office of the Pardon Attorney’s list of pending clemency applications. The pardon bid comes as Bankman-Fried continues to appeal his 2023 fraud conviction and 25-year prison sentence after a separate request for a new trial was denied. 

In recent months, he has also posted a series of social media messages that appear increasingly aligned with Trump, despite the president previously saying he did not plan to pardon the former crypto executive.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s pardon request. Source: Office of the Pardon Attorney

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This is why the most exposed institutional holders have been waiting. They are waiting for the coordination work to happen, which a research grant does not accomplish. The work needs an actor with the standing to convene the protocol communities, the custodians, and the regulators who must move together. No funded entity has taken on that role at the scale Bitcoin requires.

The geopolitical race

Government funding accelerated the offense. Every dollar that compounds into quantum hardware compresses the defense’s runway.

The day after the U.S. announcement, Emmanuel Macron committed €1 billion to France’s quantum strategy and called for Europe to “change the scale” of investment, naming the U.S. and China as its competitors.

China had already routed roughly $17.5 billion through three regional venture funds before the U.S. announcement landed; the U.S. move now gives Beijing the political cover to authorize another round. This is what a three-way industrial-policy race looks like, and it just compressed everyone’s planning horizon, whether they were ready or not.

What has to happen now

A serious response begins with coordinated migration work, started before the offense capability matures, because the migration has a long tail, and the runway just got shorter.

What is different about the post-quantum case is the scale of the coordination challenge. Bitcoin is uniquely exposed: any address that has ever spent funds has its public key sitting onchain in the clear, forgeable the moment elliptic curve cryptography breaks, with no way to recall it.

Federal prosecutors have charged a Tennessee resident over an alleged cryptocurrency investment operation that authorities say misused investor funds.

Court documents accuse the defendant of making false claims about returns, reserves, and assets under management. The Justice Department announced the charges on Friday and outlined allegations covering activity between 2020 and 2024.

Prosecutors detail alleged investment scheme

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Misam M. Abidi, 47, of Nolensville, Tennessee, faces an 11-count federal indictment. Prosecutors allege he operated a crypto investment company called Star Credit Holdings. Authorities claim he attracted investors through promises of high returns and claims about financial protections. 

The indictment states that Abidi represented the company as managing more capital than it actually controlled. Prosecutors say investors from multiple states provided funds to the operation. Court filings allege that Abidi used investor money for purposes unrelated to legitimate trading activities. 

Prosecutors claim he paid earlier participants with funds received from newer investors. The indictment describes that structure as a Ponzi-style operation. Authorities also allege he directed investor funds toward personal expenses. According to prosecutors, more than $1.9 million went to Abidi and members of his family.

Authorities cite loans and tax allegations

Federal prosecutors also accuse Abidi of helping investors obtain personal loans. According to the indictment, those loans provided additional funds for Star Credit Holdings. Authorities claim Abidi encouraged investors to borrow money in their own names. Prosecutors further allege he submitted false information connected to at least one loan application. Court documents state that one affidavit falsely claimed an investor’s identity had been stolen.

The indictment also includes allegations tied to federal tax filings. Prosecutors claim Abidi failed to report income connected to the investment operation. Authorities allege those omissions resulted in false tax returns. Federal investigators included tax-related offenses among the listed criminal counts. The charges remain allegations unless proven in court.

U.S. Attorney D. Michael Dunavant addressed the case in a public statement. “Ponzi schemes, cryptocurrency scams, and financial fraud can be devastating to individual investors,” Dunavant said. He added that such conduct can harm financial institutions and the U.S. Treasury. Dunavant also praised federal agencies involved in the investigation. He stated that prosecutors would pursue financial fraud cases throughout the district.

The indictment lists multiple federal offenses

The federal indictment includes several criminal counts. Prosecutors charged Abidi with wire fraud and money laundering offenses. Authorities also charged him with operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business. The indictment further includes counts related to false tax return preparation. Each charge carries separate penalties under federal law. 

Federal investigators have not announced a trial date. Court proceedings will continue in the coming months. If a jury convicts Abidi on all counts, he could face decades in federal prison. The Justice Department announced the indictment on Friday as the latest development in the case.

This offense comes at a time when US lawmakers are trying to cope with crime. As it was reported by crypto.news, bipartisan lawmakers have introduced the Federal Cryptocurrency Theft Enforcement and Coordination Act. The bill would create a federal task force led by the attorney general and involving the DOJ, FBI, Homeland Security, and Treasury.

Bitcoin (BTC) hit $64,000 after Friday’s Wall Street open while analysis warned of “unreliable” BTC price support.

Key points:

• Bitcoin hits local highs during the US trading session as US-Iran peace hopes offer modest risk-asset relief.
• SpaceX looks set to launch the largest IPO ever witnessed,
• BTC price concerns linger over the ability of a key trend line to hold as support.

Crypto, risk assets “shrug off” inflation headwinds

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD retaining gains as crypto and risk-asset markets surfed mixed signals over a US-Iran peace deal.

BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

At the time of writing, there was no official information about whether a deal would go ahead, with US President Donald Trump rebutting details from the Iranian side. 

“What they said, including their weak and pathetic statement on having a deal, bears no relation to the truth,” he wrote in his latest post on Truth Social.

Source: Truth Social

Stocks opted to tread water at the US open on the day that SpaceX launched the biggest initial public offering (IPO) in history. Shares were slated to debut at $170 — $45 above the initial IPO price.

In a fresh analysis, trading resource Mosaic Asset Company said that markets now faced a combination of a strong labor market and high inflation.

“While equity markets seemed to shrug off inflation fears and the impact to valuations and monetary policy, better economic data is giving the average stock a reason to rally,” it summarized in its latest Mosaic Chart Alerts update. 

“While some of the air is being released from the massive rally in AI infrastructure stocks, laggards off the late March lows are turning up recently.”

S&P 500 chart data. Source: Mosaic Asset Company

As Cointelegraph reported, this week’s US inflation data set new multi-year records on the back of the US-Iran war and its impact on oil prices.

BTC price 200-week trend line in focus

While Bitcoin saw new local highs near $64,000, market participants remained highly cautious on the outlook.

Related: Bitcoin miner ‘capitulation’ comes as trader sees later 2026 bear-market bottom

Trader and analyst Rekt Capital was suspicious of a long-term trend line holding up price — the 200-week simple moving average (SMA) at $62,025.

“Bitcoin is currently treating the 200-week SMA as support. But this SMA has historically proven to be an unreliable support, with price breaking down from it over time,” he warned X followers.

BTC/USD one-week chart with 200SMA. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Rekt Capital saw additional friction coming from the fact that BTC/USD had dropped below old all-time highs from 2021.

“This deviation below old All Time Highs for Bitcoin tends to take months to fully develop to ultimately form a Bear Market bottom,” he commented.

“Though Bitcoin has deviated -14% below old ATHs thus far, this process is still technically ongoing and will be for a while.”

BTC/USD one-month chart. Source: Rekt Capital/X

Pi Network price has recovered from its recent record low, but a developing bearish continuation pattern and another wave of token unlocks have kept the risk of a fresh all-time low firmly in focus.

According to crypto.news data, Pi Network (PI) traded near $0.128 on June 12 after rebounding from its June 6 low around $0.119. The token gained roughly 1.8% over the past 24 hours as Bitcoin climbed more than 2% and the total cryptocurrency market capitalization rose to $2.18 trillion.

Improved risk appetite followed reports that President Donald Trump halted planned U.S. airstrikes against Iran, while traders also reacted to SpaceX’s public market debut and its reported Bitcoin holdings.

June 18 has emerged as the next major catalyst for the ecosystem. The Pi Core Team has required all Mainnet node operators to complete the Protocol 25 upgrade by that date, warning that nodes that fail to upgrade may be disconnected from the network.

The upgrade introduces compatibility with Stellar Core V20 and lays the groundwork for Soroban smart contracts, a development many holders view as a step toward DeFi and tokenization use cases within the Pi ecosystem.

Exchange flows have started to improve despite the weak price trend. Recent wallet data showed 579,018 PI leaving tracked centralized exchanges against inflows of 319,304 PI, resulting in net outflows of 259,714 tokens.

Exchange balances stood at roughly 546.4 million PI, while most major trading venues, including OKX, Bitget, MEXC, Gate.io, LBank, and Kraken, recorded negative daily flows.

Reduced exchange balances can ease immediate selling pressure, although the effect remains limited by the network’s unlock schedule.

Fresh supply continues to enter circulation at a rapid pace. Pi unlock data shows that approximately 144.45 million PI tokens will be released over the next 30 days, representing about 2.33% of locked supply. Average daily unlocks stand near 4.8 million tokens, while June 12 alone is scheduled to see more than 14.8 million PI unlocked, the largest single-day release during the period.

Thin liquidity has amplified the impact of those releases. Daily trading activity remains relatively modest compared with the size of incoming supply, leaving the token vulnerable to selling from early miners and users completing KYC verification and Mainnet migration.

Previous unlock waves coincided with accelerated declines as newly available tokens entered exchange wallets.

Descending triangle keeps pressure on key support

The four-hour chart shows PI forming an inverse cup-and-handle pattern after its recovery from the June 6 low near $0.119. Price climbed toward $0.132 before losing momentum and carving out a downward-sloping handle beneath resistance. The structure places key support between $0.124 and $0.125.

A breakdown below that zone would confirm the bearish continuation pattern and expose the measured target near $0.116. Such a move would place the June all-time low back under pressure and could open the door to another leg lower if sellers regain control.

The daily chart presents a similar picture. PI remains trapped beneath a descending trendline that has controlled price action since early May. The token also continues to trade below its Supertrend resistance near $0.146, while a former support area around $0.130 has turned into overhead resistance.

Momentum indicators have yet to deliver a convincing bullish reversal. The MACD remains below the zero line despite some improvement in histogram readings, while price continues to print a sequence of lower highs and lower lows. Stochastic RSI on the four-hour timeframe has climbed into overbought territory, raising the possibility of another short-term pullback.

Token unlocks and macro risks threaten the recovery

Macro conditions remain another source of uncertainty. Pi’s latest rebound arrived alongside a recovery in Bitcoin and risk assets, but any reversal in crypto sentiment could quickly revive selling pressure across smaller-cap tokens.

Large altcoins continue to trade near critical support levels, and leveraged crypto markets remain sensitive to geopolitical headlines and Federal Reserve policy expectations.

For Pi Network, bulls must reclaim $0.130 and then break above the descending trendline near $0.145 to invalidate the current bearish structure. A successful breakout would also put the Supertrend resistance at risk and improve the odds of a move toward $0.18.

Until then, the combination of persistent token unlocks, weak long-term trend structure, and a developing bearish pattern leaves PI vulnerable to another breakdown.

A decisive move below $0.124 would increase the probability of a retest of $0.119 and could open the door to a fresh all-time low below the June bottom.

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried failed to overturn his fraud conviction and 25-year prison sentence tied to the collapse of FTX after a three-judge appeals panel rejected his bid for relief.

The unanimous ruling by the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, New York, found that the government’s case against Bankman-Fried was, in the court’s words, “conservatively stated, robust,” according to Reuters.

Source: Toby Cunningham

“While he ‌was publicly reassuring customers, investors and regulators ‌that FTX customer funds were safe, he was simultaneously using FTX as his own personal piggy bank, spending customer funds ⁠on real estate, ⁠political contributions, and investments,” wrote Circuit Judge Barrington Parker.

The decision comes as Bankman-Fried pursues another avenue to challenge his conviction. As Cointelegraph recently reported, he has formally applied for a presidential pardon from US President Donald Trump, with the request appearing on the US Department of Justice Office of the Pardon Attorney website in early June.

Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2024 after being convicted on fraud and conspiracy charges stemming from the multibillion-dollar collapse of FTX.

Related: Sam Bankman-Fried ramps up Trump support following Ellison’s release

Bankman-Fried’s pardon bid faces long odds

In a recent interview with Fox Business, Bankman-Fried said he was “absolutely” seeking a presidential pardon from Donald Trump. However, the former FTX CEO does not appear to have much support from the president. 

Trump told The New York Times in January that he had no plans to pardon Bankman-Fried. A White House spokesperson also declined to comment on the clemency request, referring Bloomberg last week to the president’s earlier remarks.

Still, Trump has shown a willingness to grant high-profile pardons, including one for Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht shortly after returning to office.

Ulbricht operated the dark web marketplace Silk Road, which used Bitcoin as a primary payment method. He was serving two life sentences plus 40 years before Trump pardoned him in January 2025.

Related: FTX law firm Fenwick & West to pay $54M to victims in settlement

SpaceX shares opened at $150 on Friday before rising to $162, marking a strong start to one of the most closely watched stock market debuts in recent years.

The aerospace and satellite internet company priced its initial public offering at $135 per share on Thursday. SpaceX sold 555.6 million shares, raising $75 billion in what stands as the largest IPO ever.

Bitcoin BTC$63,653.34 was roughly flat at $63,400, while AI-related crypto stocks saw modest gains.

Trading under the ticker SPCX on Nasdaq, the company had been valued at roughly $1.8 trillion based on the IPO price.

The debut gives public investors their first chance to own shares in a company that has reshaped the commercial space industry through reusable rockets and built one of the world’s largest satellite networks through Starlink. The satellite internet business has become a major source of growth, serving customers in remote areas where traditional broadband can be difficult to access.

SpaceX generated about $19 billion in revenue last year from launch services, government contracts and Starlink operations.

The cryptocurrency market reached its definitive bottom for the currency cycle, Standard Chartered Analyst Geoffrey Kendrick said in a note on Friday.

The cycle low is now locked in at $59,000 for bitcoin, a 53% drop from its Oct. 6 all-time high of $126,000, according to Kendrick.

“Winter is over. Welcome back to crypto Spring, he said.

CoinDesk data shows bitcoin touched as low as $59,375 on June 5 in the evening, around 18:00 UTC. At the time of writing, bitcoin hovered just shy of $64,000.

Kendrick, who has $4,000 ether and a $100,000 bitcoin price target by the end of this year, identified two core drivers on Friday that support this market turnaround.

First, recent weeks saw some of the sharpest spot bitcoin ETF selling since inception. Total redemptions exceeded $5.72 billion since the second week of May. He also noted that ETF holders have anecdotally been liquidating their positions to free up cash to participate in the SpaceX initial public offering (IPO).

Elon Musk’s SpaceX shares began trading on Nasdaq at around $150 on Friday and are now about 26% above their IPO price.