SK Hynix has become the dominant supplier of those chips, a position that made it South Korea’s most valuable listed company this month, passing Samsung for the first time in 25 years. The two firms together supply most of the world’s HBM and have struck supply deals with Nvidia and OpenAI.

Such spending is a headwind for crypto because it is the same capital cycle that has competed with digital assets for investor money all year. Crypto fell through much of the month even on days when AI chip stocks rebounded – the divergence suggestive of how investors view the two classes.

Gabe Selby of CF Benchmarks said much of the new money and attention has flowed into AI plays, leaving crypto fighting for a smaller share of overall risk appetite.

The rotation has shown up in places that used to feed crypto directly.

When gold, silver and bitcoin sold off together in recent weeks as a hedge trade unwound, the cash leaving those hard assets moved into AI stocks rather than into bitcoin.

Even bitcoin miners have been redirecting computing capacity toward AI hosting, where contracted payments beat the swings of mining revenue.

South Korea’s $518 billion commitment is a decade-long bet that AI infrastructure spending is structural rather than a passing boom. Crypto has spent the year on the other side of that flow, and the open question is now whether the money chasing chips and AI listings eventually circles back or stays put.

Crypto opened Monday flat. Bitcoin traded near $59,700, down 0.3% on the day and 6.8% on the week, as a de-escalation in the U.S.-Iran conflict lifted equity futures but left digital assets unmoved, per CoinDesk data.

Ether edged up 0.3% to $1,572, Solana added 1.5%, while XRP and dogecoin continued to slide.

Axios reported Sunday that the U.S. and Iran agreed to fully halt strikes and meet this week in Qatar to resume talks over the Strait of Hormuz and a broader end to the conflict. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures gained 0.5% as of Monday, but crypto did not follow.

The non-reaction fits the pattern of the past two weeks. Bitcoin jumped on the peace deal signing June 19, then gave it back as the hawkish Fed and ETF outflows reasserted. Traders have now been burned by enough geopolitical relief rallies that the Qatar meeting registers as a maybe rather than a catalyst.

South Korea announced plans to double DRAM production capacity in the Seoul metro area over five years, with Samsung and SK Hynix committing 800 trillion won, about $518 billion, to build four new fabrication plants.

Asian tech hardware shares slid on the rotation, even as eight of eleven MSCI Asia Pacific subgroups gained. The same AI chip trade that whipsawed markets last week remains the dominant cross-asset current.

The test for crypto this week is whether the Iran talks in Qatar produce anything durable, and whether Thursday’s PCE print softens enough to shift the Fed narrative. Both need to land to give bitcoin a reason to move.

Sharplink, a crypto treasury firm that had paused its Ether purchases for roughly eight months, has restarted accumulation with a concentrated buy program. Arkham on-chain records reviewed by Cointelegraph show the company spent a total of $62.4 million on Ether purchases over the last three days.

According to Arkham data, Sharplink bought 5,000 ETH on Thursday, then added another 5,000 ETH (about $7.9 million) on Friday. On Saturday, it reportedly purchased 29,196 ETH (about $46.7 million) across three separate over-the-counter transactions, bringing the total to 62.4 million USD worth of Ether acquired since the resumption.

Key takeaways

• Arkham on-chain tracking indicates Sharplink accumulated 5,000 ETH on Thursday, 5,000 ETH on Friday, and 29,196 ETH on Saturday via OTC trades.
• The reported three-day total purchase value is $62.4 million, reinforcing the view that Sharplink has restarted active Ether treasury management.
• Sharplink has not publicly explained the timing or rationale for resuming buys after an eight-month pause.
• The Ether purchases coincided with Sharplink’s participation in backing Ethlabs, a new Ethereum-focused research and development nonprofit.
• Despite the accumulation, broader indicators cited in the report point to ongoing pressure on Ether investment flows, including continued outflows from spot Ether ETFs.

A renewed accumulation sprint after an eight-month break

The size and cadence of Sharplink’s recent purchases suggest the firm is not merely topping up occasionally. After halting Ether buying for eight months, it returned to the market last week and, based on Arkham entity tracking, quickly escalated the pace across three consecutive days.

The company was historically regarded as one of the closest competitors to Bitmine in the race for the largest ETH treasury holdings. While the latest trades do not provide an explicit reason for the restart, the pattern—multiple large orders concentrated over just a few days—implies a deliberate re-engagement with Ether as a core treasury asset.

When Cointelegraph initially reached out for comment, Sharplink declined to explain why it resumed buying Ether and why it did so at that specific time.

Ethlabs timing highlights a different angle: institutional readiness

Beyond treasury strategy, the buy activity arrived alongside a separate development tied to Ethereum’s longer-term positioning for institutional use. The same week that Sharplink restarted Ether purchases, both Bitmine and Sharplink—along with Ethereum co-founder and Sharplink chairman Joe Lubin—backed the launch of a new research and development nonprofit called Ethlabs.

In a Monday statement, Ethlabs was described as an effort to “ready Ethereum for the next phase of institutional adoption.” The organization’s stated aim is to ensure the network can handle demand at scale as tokenized assets, stablecoins, and other on-chain economic activity continue to move toward Ethereum as a settlement layer.

Sharplink’s accompanying remarks framed Ethereum’s role in terms of convergence: as stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, funds, and AI-enabled commerce increasingly operate on-chain, the firm argued that Ethereum is becoming a “neutral, credibly permissionless settlement layer” for global economic activity. Ethlabs, in that view, exists to help the network absorb that demand.

For investors and builders, the practical relevance is twofold. First, large treasury operators signaling renewed commitment to Ether can be read as confidence in the asset’s role within the ecosystem. Second, an R&D initiative focused on institutional readiness points to a narrative push beyond price—toward infrastructure and capability that could support wider adoption over time.

Ether weakness persists as ETF outflows continue

Sharplink’s restarting buys comes at a moment when Ether has faced notable headwinds in the broader market. The report notes Ether is down 22.8% month-on-month and nearly 50% compared with the start of the year. It also references a period in which Tether’s USDT briefly surpassed Ether by market capitalization, underscoring how quickly sentiment can shift even as large holders accumulate.

Separately, the article highlights spot Ether ETFs as a near-term sentiment indicator. CoinShares data referenced in the piece shows US spot Ether ETFs recorded their seventh straight week of outflows last week, with $12.9 million in net outflows. Those withdrawals were reportedly driven mainly by outflows from BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA).

Taken together, the picture is uneven: while ETF investors appear to be reducing exposure, at least one major treasury player is increasing its Ether holdings with rapid, concentrated purchases. That divergence often matters for traders because it can influence how liquidity and narrative react during dips—particularly if treasury buyers provide consistent spot demand while exchange-traded demand remains soft.

What to watch next

Sharplink has not disclosed a reason for the resumption or provided guidance on whether the current pace is temporary or part of a longer accumulation cycle. Investors should watch for continued on-chain buying signals from the Sharplink entity and for whether ETF outflows persist or reverse, since those two data streams may increasingly determine Ether’s near-term market tone.

The Bank for International Settlements has warned that artificial intelligence “exuberance” could have major financial consequences, as heavy reliance on debt financing in AI ventures raises the risk of cascading defaults if investor optimism fades.

The five largest hyperscalers are set to spend more than $1 trillion on AI-related capital expenditures from 2025 through 2026, and these commitments are outpacing earnings, the Basel-based institution said in its annual economic report released Sunday.

“Equity valuations are elevated, particularly for firms at the core of AI development … sustaining such high growth could become increasingly challenging,” the bank said. 

AI investment enthusiasm has surged with the recent SpaceX IPO and planned public offerings from Anthropic and OpenAI, leading some market observers to draw parallels to previous boom-bust cycles such as electrification exuberance in the late 1920s and the dot-com bubble in the late 1990s.

The global economy displayed “surprising resilience” in 2025 despite successive shocks, partly driven by AI investments, the bank said. 

However, “perils have grown” in 2026, with concerns over the risks of persistent inflation, which rose to a three-year high of 4.2% in the US in May, according to TradingEconomics. 

The sustainability of AI-related investments, “growing financial vulnerabilities and weakening fiscal positions,” has added to those perils, the BIS report said. 

“Should inflation rise significantly or AI-led investment turn to a bust, the macroeconomic consequences could be amplified by existing financial vulnerabilities.”

Rapid AI boom raises questions about its sustainability. Source: BIS

If central banks tighten policy to contain inflation, this could precipitate a “sharp pullback in [AI] asset prices after a prolonged period of exuberant risk-taking,” which could trigger “disruptive macro-financial feedback loops,” the BIS said. 

“A reversal of AI optimism could likewise have major financial consequences, given AI firms’ rising leverage and growing footprint in credit markets.”

A potential flashpoint for systemic risk

The BIS cautioned that a large correction in AI valuations could have more pronounced wealth effects and a “sharper consumption pullback” than in the past, given US market dominance. “Financial stability could also be at risk in the event of an AI bust.” 

Related: AI agents with crypto could escape and become ‘unstoppable,’ experts warn

Nick Ruck, director of LVRG Research, told Cointelegraph that the BIS was right to flag the AI investment surge as a potential flashpoint for systemic risk, “as financing has relied on enormous debt and highly leveraged nonbank structures that can rapidly unwind and amplify this cycle into a crisis.”

“The current macroeconomic environment is already fragile from being stretched by inflation, record national debt, and disrupted commodity markets, so a bust of the AI capital stack could send shockwaves through an already strained global economy.”

The BIS also cautioned about stablecoins, which risk fragmenting the global monetary system and could weaken sovereign monetary control, it said. 

Chipflation could compound the problem

The AI industry could also become a victim of its own success, as surging semiconductor and memory chip prices, driven by increasing AI data center demand outstripping supply, could compound inflation, which consumers will ultimately have to bear.

This phenomenon, known as “chipflation,” is causing prices for devices from smartphones to laptops to climb, Morgan Stanley analysts cautioned earlier in June. 

In March, BlackRock reported that surging semiconductor prices were “posing upside risks to global goods inflation.” 

Meanwhile, Apple is already passing costs on to customers by hiking prices. The tech giant announced Thursday that a wide array of products, from iPads to Macs and home devices, would see increases from 18% to nearly 33% due to soaring memory and storage chip costs. 

Price jumps for DRAM chips defy deflationary price dynamics. Source: BlackRock

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Dubai’s crypto licensing ecosystem continues to expand. The emirate’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) has granted its 50th virtual asset service provider (VASP) license, with tokenized-assets platform Tribe Tokenisation FZE receiving the latest approval on Monday.

While VARA’s license count is a useful headline for market growth, a regulator spokesperson cautioned that a granted license does not automatically mean a firm has already started commercial operations. Newly authorized companies may be required to go through a controlled operationalization period before offering services or onboarding customers.

Key takeaways

• VARA has issued its 50th VASP license to Tribe Tokenisation FZE, adding to Dubai’s rapidly growing authorization pipeline.
• VARA says an active license does not necessarily reflect that a company has completed its commercial launch.
• According to VARA, 39 licensed VASPs were considered fully operational at the end of 2025, with an updated 2026 figure being validated.
• Dubai’s licensing totals are higher than those seen in Hong Kong and Singapore, but the categories being counted are not directly comparable across jurisdictions.

What the 50th VASP license signals for Dubai

VARA’s approval of Tribe Tokenisation FZE reflects the continued rollout of Dubai’s standalone regulatory framework for virtual assets, created to attract digital asset businesses while keeping a distinct compliance track. VARA was established in March 2022 as Dubai’s dedicated crypto regulator.

The milestone matters most for firms planning expansions or new product launches, because licensing can influence whether customers, counterparties, and institutional partners treat a business as compliant and operationally ready. At the same time, VARA’s clarification helps calibrate expectations: the regulator indicated that licensing is only one step in a broader process that may include a period of controlled operationalization.

That distinction is important for investors and market observers because license approvals can outpace the moment when services actually become available to the public. Without additional context, a growing VASP count could look like instant market activation even when new entities are still preparing their infrastructure, controls, and customer-facing workflows.

Operational numbers: licenses versus “fully operational” status

VARA also pointed to the difference between being licensed and being active in the market. A spokesperson told Cointelegraph that holding an active license “does not necessarily” indicate a firm has completed its commercial launch. In practice, newly licensed companies may move through a controlled operationalization phase before they offer services or begin onboarding customers.

As of the end of 2025, VARA classified 39 licensed VASPs as fully operational. The spokesperson added that VARA is validating an updated figure for 2026, implying that the operational count may change as firms complete their rollout and as the regulator updates its assessment criteria.

For market participants, this creates a more nuanced way to interpret Dubai’s regulatory momentum: instead of treating license totals as a proxy for active competition, investors and users may want to monitor operationalization progress and VARA’s periodic “fully operational” updates.

How Dubai compares with Hong Kong and Singapore

Dubai’s 50 licensed VASPs place it above the headline numbers reported in Hong Kong and Singapore—two jurisdictions also attempting to position themselves as regulated destinations for crypto-related activity. However, VARA’s spokesperson emphasized that totals across jurisdictions are not directly comparable because each regime licenses different types of businesses.

In Singapore, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) listed 37 major payment institutions (MPI) authorized to provide digital payment token (DPT) services. Singapore regulates DPT services within its payments framework rather than operating a standalone VASP regulator that mirrors VARA’s approach.

Hong Kong provides another contrast. The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) lists 13 formally licensed virtual asset trading platforms, but the scope is narrower because the regime is specifically limited to operators of trading platforms, rather than covering the broader range of VASP activities that VARA may license under its framework.

VARA attributed Dubai’s market growth to an activity-based regulatory framework and a wider financial ecosystem supporting digital asset businesses. Beyond licensing categories, VARA said it also evaluates evidence of market activity such as transaction volumes, assets under management, employment, and audited financial data when assessing how the sector is developing.

Why the “activity-based” approach may affect market quality

A key takeaway from VARA’s explanation is that the regulator appears to be measuring more than just compliance paperwork. By considering transaction volumes, assets under management, staffing, and audited financial information, VARA is effectively pushing regulated firms to demonstrate real operational substance—not only formal authorization.

This approach can influence how quickly regulated firms convert from “licensed” to “business generating activity.” It also suggests why VARA’s operational figure (39 fully operational at the end of 2025) may lag behind the total license count as the regulator processes new entrants and as firms transition through operationalization.

For the broader market, these differences are especially relevant at a time when jurisdictions are competing for crypto business but varying significantly in how they structure oversight, define licensing categories, and evaluate readiness to operate. Dubai’s latest license adds another data point, but the more informative metric may be how many of those approvals translate into fully operational entities capable of meeting the regulator’s broader activity checks.

Next, investors and builders looking at Dubai’s regulatory landscape should watch for VARA’s updated “fully operational” count for 2026 and for signals on how quickly newly licensed firms complete their operationalization stages—because that is where licensing momentum is most likely to translate into real market activity.

U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs have recorded $4.06 billion in net outflows this month, according to data from SoSoValue. It marks the largest monthly redemption on record, exceeding the previous high of $3.56 billion in February 2025.

Last week, the funds saw redemptions of about $1.79 billion, the second-highest weekly outflow since trading began in January 2024. (These figures could shift slightly based on flows over the final two trading days of the month.)

This trend runs counter to expectations early in the month of renewed demand following SpaceX’s IPO on June 12.

Spot ETFs serve as a widely followed barometer for institutional investors seeking regulated exposure to bitcoin without directly holding the cryptocurrency.

June’s outflows followed $2.43 billion in net redemptions in May, bringing the two-month total close to $6.5 billion. That figure is comparable to the current market capitalization of zcash (ZEC), currently ranked among the world’s 15 largest cryptocurrencies by market cap.

On a year-to-date basis, net outflows tally roughly $5 billion in the first half of 2026.

The impact of this collapse in institutional demand is evident in bitcoin’s price performance, which has declined around 30% in the first half, underperforming nearly every major asset class except Strategy (MSTR). Shares in the bitcoin-holding publicly listed firm have tanked by 45%.

The Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), Dubai’s crypto regulator, has granted its 50th virtual asset service provider (VASP) license.

On Monday, VARA said its latest approval went to tokenized assets platform Tribe Tokenisation FZE.

The milestone provides one measure of the growth of Dubai’s crypto licensing regime, though license totals alone do not show how many firms are operational or the level of business they generate.

A VARA spokesperson told Cointelegraph that holding an active license does not necessarily mean a firm has completed its commercial launch. Newly licensed companies may go through a controlled operationalization period before offering services or onboarding customers.

Related: Senate Dems urge probe into $500M crypto deal between Trumps, UAE

At the end of 2025, VARA classified 39 licensed VASPs as fully operational. The spokesperson said the regulator is validating an updated figure for 2026.

Dubai’s bid to attract crypto firms

Dubai has spent the past several years positioning itself as a global hub for digital asset businesses. As part of that effort, the emirate established VARA in March 2022 as a dedicated crypto regulator and has sought to attract crypto businesses through a standalone licensing framework.

Against that backdrop, Dubai’s 50 licensed VASPs exceed the totals reported in Hong Kong and Singapore, two other jurisdictions competing to attract regulated crypto businesses. Each jurisdiction licenses different types of crypto businesses, meaning the headline totals do not represent identical categories of firms.

As of Friday, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) listed 37 major payment institutions (MPI) authorized to provide digital payment token (DPT) services. Singapore regulates DPT services within its broader payments regime rather than through a standalone VASP regulator like VARA.

List of licensed virtual asset trading platforms in Hong Kong. Source: SFC

Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has listed 13 formally licensed virtual asset trading platforms. The count is narrower because the regime is specifically limited to platform operators.

The VARA spokesperson attributed Dubai’s market growth to its activity-based regulatory framework and broader financial ecosystem, and said the regulator also considers transaction volumes, assets under management, employment and audited financial data when assessing market activity.

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