Blockworks has acquired Messari after securing a $192 million valuation earlier this year, deepening its push into crypto data infrastructure as competition intensifies to build the industry’s information layer.

According to an announcement from Blockworks, the deal combines two of the largest crypto information businesses and represents the company’s first major acquisition since completing a Series A extension financing round that valued it at $192 million.

Messari brings coverage of more than 40,000 crypto assets to the transaction. The company has spent eight years building data products covering markets, exchanges, stablecoins, protocols, token unlocks, fundraising activity, research, social sentiment, event monitoring, and other market segments. Blockworks said Messari’s API has become widely used by funds, exchanges, developers, and other institutional participants.

Earlier this year, crypto.news reported that Blockworks had raised fresh capital while repositioning itself from a media-focused company into a provider of institutional-grade data and intelligence services. The company shut down its flagship news division in October 2025 and redirected resources toward Blockworks Intelligence and its proprietary data platform.

The deal links issuers with institutional users

Alongside the acquisition, Blockworks described plans to connect crypto asset issuers with investors, exchanges, regulators, platforms, and other market participants through a unified data and disclosure system.

Blockworks said its existing products focus on the issuer side of the market through tools such as the Token Transparency Framework, investor relations services, research products, and institutional distribution. Messari, meanwhile, has built products used by funds, custodians, brokerages, fintech firms, regulators, exchanges, and developers seeking market intelligence and data access.

Commenting on the transaction, Blockworks co-founder Jason Yanowitz said the acquisition connects issuers and investors through a shared information network.

“Issuers maintain a trusted record of their business, and investors, exchanges, regulators, and investors consume that record through research, APIs, and automated workflows.”

As described by the company, the combined platform is intended to provide standardized disclosures, ratings, research, investor relations tools, market data, monitoring systems, compliance workflows, and diligence infrastructure for participants operating in onchain capital markets.

AI demand becomes part of the investment thesis

Beyond combining products, Blockworks tied the acquisition to its view that crypto’s information sector will consolidate around a smaller group of dominant data providers.

Drawing comparisons with established financial information companies such as S&P Global, Moody’s, FactSet, and Bloomberg, Blockworks argued that crypto still lacks the disclosure, ratings, benchmark, and workflow infrastructure that support traditional capital markets.

Yanowitz also said artificial intelligence could increase demand for crypto market data rather than reduce it. According to the executive, digital assets already generate structured and real-time information that can be consumed directly by automated systems, creating opportunities for platforms that combine issuer disclosures, market intelligence, onchain activity, and AI-focused workflows.

Messari CEO Diran Li said both companies have spent years working to improve transparency and structure across crypto markets.

“Coming together allows us to pursue that shared vision more efficiently and build a stronger platform for the customers, investors, and institutions moving onchain.”

For existing customers, Blockworks said Messari’s products and data coverage will continue operating after the acquisition. Product development will focus on expanding data coverage, strengthening APIs, improving investor relations software, enhancing monitoring and compliance tools, and delivering more research and ratings capabilities across the combined platform.

Litecoin has drawn fresh attention as large holders increased their positions while transaction activity stayed weak.

Santiment data showed whale and shark wallets rising over the past five months. The discussion around LitVM also brought new focus to Litecoin’s utility debate.

Whales and sharks increase Litecoin holdings

According to an observation by Santiment, wallets holding at least 10,000 LTC increased by 42 over five months. That represented a 7% rise among Litecoin’s largest holder groups. The increase came while Litecoin’s price action remained weak across the same period. Large-holder growth continued even as short-term market activity failed to strengthen. 

Santiment data placed this accumulation beside declining transaction volume in U.S. dollars. The contrast showed that larger wallets expanded exposure while network activity stayed near yearly lows. LitVM has become a major discussion point across Litecoin’s social activity. The project seeks to bring smart contract functionality to Litecoin through its zkLTC wrapper. 

That debate placed Litecoin among the top trending assets in Santiment’s social data. Transaction volume remained near yearly lows despite the renewed discussion. However, Santiment noted that stronger rallies often bring retail activity back quickly. For now, Litecoin data shows rising whale and shark wallets, weak transaction volume, and growing attention around LitVM.

Litecoin price climbs 1.28% as LTC holds near $43

The Santiment data adds context to Litecoin’s latest price move, as whale accumulation continued while LTC traded near $43 after a 1.28% daily gain. A deep dive reveals that the price moved through several short-term fluctuations before establishing a stronger upward trend later in the session. Trading activity remained concentrated within a relatively narrow range for much of the period.

Source: CoinMarketCap

During the early hours, Litecoin recorded multiple declines and recoveries around the mid-$42 range. The price then moved lower and briefly approached the session’s weakest levels near $42.20. After reaching that area, Litecoin reversed direction and began a sustained recovery. Momentum strengthened around midday as the asset climbed above $42.75. The advance continued through the afternoon and pushed the price beyond $43.00. Several pullbacks appeared during the rise, although the broader movement remained upward.

The strongest rally occurred during the evening session. Litecoin surged above $43.30 and recorded its highest level of the day before retreating. Following that peak, the price moved lower but remained above earlier trading levels. Later activity showed a series of moderate fluctuations between roughly $42.85 and $43.15. Volatility eased compared with the earlier rally, and price movements became more contained. By the end of the period, Litecoin traded at $42.95, maintaining most of the gains recorded after the midday recovery and holding comfortably above the session’s intraday lows.

SpaceX stock started trading on the Nasdaq on Friday after the company completed a record-breaking public offering. The aerospace and satellite company priced its shares at $135 each and raised about $75 billion through the sale of 555.6 million shares.

The listing marked the end of SpaceX’s status as a private company. The offering assigned the company an initial market value of around $1.78 trillion. SpaceX trades under the ticker symbol SPCX.

Strong Demand Supports SpaceX IPO

Investor interest remained high ahead of the market debut. According to Reuters, the offering attracted demand that exceeded the available shares by four times. However, large institutional investors often place larger orders to secure allocations, which means actual demand may differ from headline figures.

SpaceX and its underwriters also retained an option to sell roughly 83 million additional shares if demand remains strong. The shares carry a value of about $11.2 billion. Reports also indicated that retail investors submitted more than $100 billion in orders. In addition, the company aimed to allocate about 30% of shares to individual investors, a level above the 5% to 10% commonly seen in most public offerings.

Pricing Process Drew Attention

Reports showed that SpaceX stopped accepting orders on Wednesday, one day earlier than expected. The move gave the company and its banking partners additional time to determine share allocations before trading began.

On Friday morning, Nasdaq market makers started matching buy and sell orders to establish the opening price. This process often takes longer for large and closely watched listings. As a result, trading may begin well after the opening bell.

Market Performance Will Determine Initial Success

Once trading starts, market forces will determine the stock price. The company no longer controls pricing after the shares enter public trading.

Investors will closely monitor where the stock opens compared with the $135 offer price. They will also watch the closing price on the first trading day. Those figures will provide an early indication of how investors view the SpaceX IPO and whether the market considers the debut successful.

By completing the largest public offering on record, SpaceX has entered a new phase as a publicly traded company. Market participants will now focus on how the stock performs in the coming sessions.

TLDR:

• Blockworks acquired Messari for over $10M, merging crypto’s two largest data and analytics platforms.
• Messari covers 40,000+ crypto assets and operates one of the most powerful APIs in the industry.
• The deal targets both onchain asset issuers and institutional underwriters with a unified data layer.
• Blockworks aims to build a full system of record for onchain markets as institutions move onchain.

Blockworks has acquired Messari in a deal worth more than $10 million, combining two of crypto’s largest data and analytics platforms.

Both firms launched in 2018 and have since built distinct but complementary capabilities across research, market intelligence, and API infrastructure.

The acquisition follows a recent Blockworks Series A extension, which valued the company at $192 million. Co-founders Jason Yanowitz and Michael Ippolito described the move as a step toward creating a trusted system of record for onchain markets.

Messari Brings Critical Data Infrastructure to the Combined Entity

Messari has spent eight years building comprehensive coverage across more than 40,000 crypto assets. Its platform tracks assets, markets, exchanges, stablecoins, protocols, token unlocks, fundraising, and social sentiment.

This data is already embedded in fund workflows, exchange listing processes, and developer applications across the industry.

The Messari API is widely regarded as one of the most powerful in the sector. It allows funds, exchanges, and developers to pipe structured data directly into their own systems. As crypto trading increasingly moves toward automation, API quality becomes a core competitive factor.

Yanowitz explained the reasoning behind the deal directly. “An agent is only as good as the data it can reach and the API it can call,” he wrote. “That is why Messari matters.” The statement captures how the acquisition is framed around infrastructure, not just market share.

Messari also provides AI-compatible data infrastructure, making it accessible to agentic workflows. The firm’s tools have evolved beyond human users to serve machine-driven processes. This positions its data layer as essential for the next phase of market structure.

Before the acquisition, Messari underwent internal leadership changes and workforce reductions. Those shifts created an opening for consolidation within the fragmented crypto data sector. Blockworks moved quickly after closing its Series A extension to pursue this deal.

Blockworks and Messari Target Institutional Onchain Finance

As traditional financial assets move onchain, the infrastructure requirements are changing fast. Issuers of onchain assets need standardized disclosures, investor relations tools, and performance tracking.

Blockworks has been developing exactly this through its Token Transparency Framework and full-stack IR platform.

On the other side of the market, underwriters need reliable data to diligence and monitor assets. These include funds, exchanges, custodians, brokerages, regulators, and AI agents. Messari’s market intelligence and API coverage directly serve this group.

Yanowitz and Ippolito outlined the combined mission in a joint statement. “Our mission is simple: Bring transparency and trust to onchain markets as institutions come onchain,” they wrote.

“The acquisition of Messari accelerates this mission.” The statement reflects how both companies see the deal as a convergence of purpose.

The combined entity plans to offer compliance workflows, ratings, and programmatic data access for AI agents. In legacy markets, building this kind of infrastructure required significant analyst headcount. In crypto, the underlying data is already digital, structured, and available in real time.

Blockworks described the longer-term goal directly. “As stocks, bonds, currencies, and commodities move onchain, more of the market will run onchain,” Yanowitz wrote.

“Everything runs on Blockworks.” The Messari acquisition moves that vision from concept to execution.

Dogecoin has climbed as much as 7.6% and briefly touched $0.091 after SpaceX’s blockbuster stock market debut pushed Elon Musk’s net worth above the $1 trillion mark.

According to market data, Dogecoin (DOGE) rose to an intraday high of $0.091 on June 12 before retreating to around $0.087 at press time, giving back part of its gains as traders reacted to renewed interest surrounding Elon Musk and SpaceX.

The rally came after SpaceX began trading on U.S. exchanges at $150 per share, an 11% premium to its $135 IPO price. Shares later surged to $176 before easing to roughly $161. The move lifted the aerospace company’s valuation above $2.1 trillion and, based on estimates tied to Musk’s ownership stake, made him the first person to surpass a $1 trillion fortune.

Across the crypto market, the listing coincided with a rebound in risk assets. Bitcoin moved back above the $64,000 level after recent weakness, while several major digital assets recovered part of their losses.

Dogecoin, which has frequently responded to developments involving Musk, emerged as one of the strongest performers during the session.

Technical indicators point to improving momentum

On the four-hour chart, DOGE has recovered from its June 6 low near $0.0776 and broken above a descending trendline that had capped prices for more than a week. The token also climbed back above the 0.618 Fibonacci retracement level near $0.0867, a zone that is now being watched as near-term support.

Momentum indicators have also improved. The MACD histogram has turned positive, and the MACD line remains above the signal line, suggesting buying pressure has strengthened following the recent rebound.

At the same time, the recovery remains incomplete. The Supertrend indicator continues to show resistance near $0.088, a level DOGE has only recently begun testing. A sustained move above that area could bring the next Fibonacci resistance zones around $0.0896 and $0.0924 into focus, while a rejection could expose support near $0.0827 and the recent low.

Analysts warn enthusiasm may not last

Despite the positive reaction, some market observers remain cautious about the durability of the move.

Several analysts have argued that Dogecoin’s surge may be driven primarily by excitement surrounding Musk’s trillionaire milestone and SpaceX’s highly anticipated public debut rather than a change in Dogecoin’s underlying fundamentals.

Additional concerns stem from the outlook for Bitcoin. In a recent report, Galaxy Digital projected that Bitcoin could eventually fall toward $30,000 before establishing a market bottom. Such a scenario, if it materializes, could weigh on sentiment across the digital asset market, including speculative assets such as Dogecoin.

For now, DOGE remains tied to the attention generated by Musk’s latest achievement. While traders have responded positively to the SpaceX listing, the token’s inability to hold its intraday peak suggests some investors are already locking in profits as the initial excitement begins to cool.

Even as crypto markets have spent much of the year swinging to macro news and regulatory uncertainty, tokenization has continued to move forward—pushing real-world assets (RWAs) into a more central role for the industry.

This week’s developments highlighted that divide: Kraken launched tokenized access to the SpaceX IPO through its xStocks offering, Binance Research pointed to rapid RWA growth, prediction markets crossed above onchain gambling by volume for the first time, and former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried took another step in his legal fight by formally seeking a presidential pardon from Donald Trump.

Key takeaways

• Binance Research says active tokenized RWAs have grown sharply since early 2025, with money-market and bond products adding $6.5B and tokenized stocks up 422%.
• Kraken is offering eligible users in 110+ markets tokenized access to the SpaceX IPO via xStocks, with tokenized shares issued as SPCXx backed 1:1 by the underlying equity.
• TRM Labs reports prediction markets generated $36.6B in Q1 2026 volume, surpassing onchain gambling’s $14B for the first time.
• Sam Bankman-Fried has formally applied for a presidential pardon, with the request showing up in the DOJ Office of the Pardon Attorney’s pending clemency list.

RWA tokenization keeps expanding beyond crypto’s swings

Tokenized real-world assets have remained one of crypto’s most consistent growth narratives, even when broader market conditions soften. According to data cited from Binance Research, the market for active tokenized RWAs has expanded by 589% since early 2025.

The composition of that growth also matters. The same Binance Research update attributes $6.5 billion in value gains to tokenized bonds and money market funds, while tokenized stocks posted a separate jump of 422%—suggesting that both fixed-income-like products and equity exposure are finding demand simultaneously.

Just as important, the RWA ecosystem is diversifying across asset classes and use cases. The article notes that Ondo Global Markets has helped drive interest in tokenized equities, while tokenized precious metals added $1.5 billion as investors sought safety earlier this year.

Adoption is also spreading through traditional finance infrastructure. The coverage highlights blockchain-related moves from established institutions, including Apex Group’s tokenized fund services and The Clearing House’s planned tokenized deposit network—signals that tokenization is increasingly being treated as an operational capability rather than a niche crypto experiment.

Kraken adds SpaceX IPO access via tokenized shares

Kraken’s latest tokenization push focuses on primary market participation. Through xStocks, the exchange says eligible users in more than 110 markets can gain access to the SpaceX IPO.

Per Kraken, investors who receive an allocation will be issued SPCXx, described as a tokenized representation backed 1:1 by the underlying equity. Kraken further states that these tokenized shares are tradable 24/7 across participating platforms.

The rollout arrives amid unusually high attention around SpaceX’s planned public debut. The coverage points to SpaceX targeting a $75 billion raise on Nasdaq and notes that the offering was reportedly oversubscribed by roughly four times ahead of public trading—positioning the deal as potentially the largest IPO in history.

For market participants, this matters because it tests whether tokenized equity distribution can function as a practical bridge between traditional allocation processes and the liquidity expectations associated with crypto rails. The key detail to watch is how Kraken’s “allocation to token” workflow performs at scale, particularly for investors in jurisdictions that qualify for xStocks access.

Prediction markets overtake onchain gambling by volume

Another sign of shifting user behavior comes from prediction markets. TRM Labs data cited in the report shows prediction markets surpassed onchain gambling by volume for the first time in Q1 2026.

TRM Labs says prediction markets generated $36.6 billion in volume versus gambling’s $14 billion during the same period. The milestone follows both categories crossing $50 billion in annual volume in 2025, underscoring how quickly both sectors have grown.

At the same time, the report emphasizes that crypto gambling has not stalled. Quarterly wagering volume remained close to record highs, and TRM Labs attributes the resilience to a loyal—and expanding—user base. According to TRM’s analysis, “high rollers” still account for most betting volume, averaging $13,558 per bet and $378,000 in lifetime gambling volume, but the fastest growth is coming from casual and daily bettors. That participation shift—moving beyond a narrow set of top-volume users—could help explain why prediction markets can surge without gambling collapsing.

Investors and builders watching these markets may want to track how liquidity and user acquisition dynamics differ between prediction platforms and gambling venues. Volume leadership can reflect product-market fit, but it can also reflect changes in user mix and platform distribution.

Bankman-Fried seeks Trump pardon as appeals continue

In the US legal arena, former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has formally applied for a presidential pardon from Donald Trump, according to the coverage. The report states the request appears on the DOJ Office of the Pardon Attorney’s list of pending clemency applications.

The pardon bid adds another layer to Bankman-Fried’s wider legal strategy. The coverage notes he is still appealing his 2023 fraud conviction and 25-year prison sentence, and that a separate attempt to secure a new trial had been denied.

The report also points to recent social media activity that appears increasingly aligned with Trump, while recalling that Trump previously said he did not plan to pardon Bankman-Fried. That tension highlights the uncertainty surrounding clemency applications: even when a pardon request is formally filed, the political and procedural outcome remains far from guaranteed.

For the broader crypto industry, this matters less for immediate market mechanics and more for precedent. Outcomes in high-profile cases often influence how regulators, courts, and market participants think about accountability, risk disclosures, and the long-term relationship between crypto firms and enforcement.

Looking ahead, the main threads to follow are whether tokenized equities can scale smoothly from headline deals like SpaceX into a broader primary-market pattern, whether RWA growth continues to outpace crypto’s macro-driven volatility, and how quickly prediction platforms can sustain volume growth while the legal process around major exchange founders continues in parallel.