Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX and one of Hyperliquid's most vocal public supporters, has sold his entire positions in HYPE and NEAR Protocol. Hayes announced the exit on X on June 4, citing three macro headwinds he said altered his near-term risk calculus. "I just dumped my entire $HYPE and… Read the full story at The Defiant

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Canada launched a national artificial intelligence (AI) strategy on June 4, promising 250,000 jobs, while UC Berkeley reported record failing grades in computer science classes that professors trace to student overreliance on the same technology.

Prime Minister Mark Carney unveiled the AI for All strategy in Toronto with AI Minister Evan Solomon. Days earlier, Berkeley faculty disclosed failure rates suggesting AI is reshaping how students learn.

Canada Bets Big on Its AI Strategy

The strategy targets up to $200 billion in added growth and 250,000 new jobs over five years, according to the official release. It aims to lift business AI adoption from just over 12% to 60% by 2034.

That gap is the point. Canada ranks among the slowest G7 nations to adopt AI at scale, despite holding a fast-growing digital sector.

The plan succeeds the 2017 Pan-Canadian AI Strategy, the world’s first national AI plan, which seeded the Vector, Mila, and Amii research institutes.

It also promises free AI literacy for 1 million post-secondary students and trusted AI agents for every learner. That promise now meets a cautionary signal from California.

“AI is here. The question is whether it will improve the lives of all Canadians or benefit only a few… That’s why we need an ambitious new strategy: AI for All,” Carney said in a statement.

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Berkeley Shows AI’s Classroom Cost

Elsewhere, at UC Berkeley, 35.3% of Computer Science 10 (course code) students failed in spring 2026, up from under 10% in prior years, per Berkeleytime data. The department expects only 7% to fail.

Teaching professor Dan Garcia traced the spike to a sharp rise in AI-enabled cheating. Nearly 30 students were caught using large language models (LLMs) on take-home exams.

“One professor discovered a student’s linear algebra class had an “open AI” policy for homework and exams. That student then couldn’t do basic linear algebra in the next course,” noted Hedgie, a financial markets analyst.

Garcia said his office hours, once full, now often sit empty. Faculty warn the failures signal weaker fundamentals, not only misconduct.

The risk compounds when automating skilled jobs meets graduates who never mastered the basics.

“Companies are firing experienced engineers while the pipeline that produces new ones is being gutted by the same technology,” one user quipped.

A Workforce Squeezed at Both Ends

The timing is stark. AI-cited layoffs hit a record 38,579 in May, 40% of all U.S. cuts and the leading reason for a third straight month, outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas reported.

AI has been blamed for 87,714 cuts so far in 2026, already past the 54,836 logged in all of 2025. Critics call the label cover for routine cost-cutting.

Some tech workers now seek refuge in other sectors as employers restructure around automation.

Block confirmed layoffs tied to AI, while Wall Street opened stable digital asset roles for displaced talent.

Can Canada be able to build skills faster than AI erodes them? The coming months of AI-driven job restructuring and promised legislation will offer the first test.

The post Canada Launches AI for All Strategy as UC Berkeley Counts the Classroom Cost appeared first on BeInCrypto.

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Canton Network captured roughly 42% of all blockchain fees in the first quarter of 2026, climbing to the top of Messari’s fee rankings as institutional activity on the network grew.

The chain generated about $193 million of the $457 million in total fees across 21 blockchains that Messari tracked, according to its Q1 2026 State of Blockchains report.

Why Canton Leapt to the Top of the Fee Table

Canton Network ranked first among the 21 networks for fees in Q1 2026. Its $193 million share represented about 42% of the group total. Aggregate fees rose roughly 2% over the prior quarter.

That gain stood out in a weak market. Most networks saw key metrics fall as prices sold off through the quarter. Canton moved the other way, lifted by growing institutional crypto adoption rather than retail trading.

Despite the news, however, the native token, Canton Coin (CC), traded near $0.15 at the time of writing. It had slipped about 3% over the prior 24 hours, leaving CC ranked around 20th by market value despite its earlier bullish chart setup.

What Drove the Fee Growth

Canton runs as a Layer-1 built for regulated institutions. Digital Asset launched the network in May 2023 alongside more than 30 financial firms.

It uses privacy features and a Global Synchronizer, now governed by the Canton Foundation under the Linux Foundation, that lets separate institutional systems settle transactions together.

Founding participants include Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas, and Deutsche Börse. JPMorgan’s Kinexys unit moved to issue its JPMD deposit token on Canton in January, and DTCC is working to tokenize US Treasuries it custodies. HSBC completed a tokenized deposit pilot on the network in April.

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Fees climbed as tokenized real-world assets, repo markets, and banks settling bonds on-chain scaled up.

Messari noted that real-world assets kept rising even as other metrics declined across the sector.

Q1 2026 State of Blockchains is live. 21 networks, five core metrics, one clear theme: even in a down quarter, a few networks grew fees, stablecoins, and RWAs,” the researchers indicated.

Messari framed the quarter around selective strength.

A Concentrated Picture

Growth was narrow rather than broad. A handful of chains carried the gains while many others declined. Tron was the only top-five network to grow market value, rising about 10% to $29.7 billion.

“TronDAO was the only top 5 network to grow market cap (+10.3% QoQ to $29.7B). With ~$83M in Q1 fees all burned in TRX, fee accrual helped insulate it from the broader bear market. Total fees actually rose ~2% QoQ to $457M – driven by Canton Network. Canton Network jumped to the #1 fee chain, capturing 42% of all fees ($193M) as institutional activity ramped. Tokenized RWAs kept climbing while other metrics declined,” indicated Luis Rincon, Head of Research Operations at Messari.

Real-world asset growth clustered too. Sei led with a 350% quarterly jump, ahead of Base at 93% and BNB Chain at 76%. Ethereum added the most in absolute dollar terms, close to $3.9 billion.

Stablecoin supply rose modestly to $299 billion, with Polygon and BNB Chain growing fastest.

The pattern echoes Canton’s earlier token price pullback and points to value consolidating on networks tuned for specific uses.

Whether Canton holds the top fee spot may depend on how quickly institutions keep moving assets on-chain.

The post Canton Network Tops Fee Generator Rankings as Institutions Drive Q1 2026 Activity appeared first on BeInCrypto.

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Shielded Labs proposed a new Zcash network upgrade that would let anyone verify the privacy coin's supply has not been secretly inflated, after disclosing that a recently patched bug in the network's main shielded pool could have allowed undetectable counterfeiting of ZEC. Shielded Labs, a… Read the full story at The Defiant

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Professional ownership of US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) declined sharply in the first quarter as Bitcoin’s bear market deepened, suggesting that trading-oriented institutions were a significant source of selling pressure during the downturn.

A new report by CoinShares analyzing quarterly 13F filings — regulatory disclosures that reveal the equity holdings of investment managers with at least $100 million in assets — found that professional investors reduced their Bitcoin ETF exposure to 261,000 BTC from 313,000 BTC in the first quarter, a 17% decline.

The combined value of those holdings fell 35% to $17.8 billion, while the share of total US Bitcoin ETF assets held by 13F filers declined to 20.8% from 24.7%.

“This dataset is consistent with what bitcoin markets have historically looked like in drawdowns,” CoinShares digital asset analyst Matt Kimmell wrote in the report. “Leveraged and tactical strategies unwind.”

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The selling was heavily concentrated among hedge funds and brokerages, which accounted for roughly 96% of the reduction in exposure. Hedge funds cut their holdings by 31,400 BTC, or 39%, while brokerages reduced exposure by 18,800 BTC, a 53% decline.

In contrast, investment advisors — the largest professional cohort with 150,300 BTC in holdings — reduced exposure by just 5.9%. Banks more than doubled their Bitcoin ETF holdings, adding 7,800 BTC during the quarter.

The decline in professional ownership coincided with a sharp correction in Bitcoin’s price. The asset’s value fell 22% during Q1, extending declines from late 2025 and briefly dropping below $60,000. At its lowest point, Bitcoin was down roughly 50% from its October 2025 all-time high above $126,000.

The share of Bitcoin ETF holdings by professional managers declined in the first quarter. Source: CoinShares

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Related: Strategy debt, AI boom, Bitcoin collapse have analysts predicting doom: Are they right?

Despite BTC market volatility, regulatory backdrop improves

Despite the market volatility, CoinShares said the first quarter delivered several regulatory developments that could support the digital asset industry’s long-term growth.

Among them were efforts by US regulators to provide greater clarity around the division of oversight between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), as well as proposals affecting how digital assets may be treated in retirement accounts.

Regulatory progress has continued beyond Q1, with the SEC recently making digital assets a strategic priority through 2030. In a draft document released this week, the agency vowed to “provide a firm regulatory foundation for digital assets and distributed ledger technologies through a rational, coherent, and principled approach.”

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SEC Chair Paul Atkins’ message in the agency’s draft Strategic Plan through 2030. Source: SEC

CoinShares also highlighted the growing acceptance of Bitcoin among traditional financial institutions. Earlier this year, BlackRock acknowledged Bitcoin’s potential role in modern portfolios, arguing that the traditional stock-and-bond diversification model has become less reliable in the post-2020 investment environment.

Nevertheless, market participants remain focused on the fate of the CLARITY Act, a proposed market structure bill that would establish a more comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets and further define the roles of the SEC and CFTC. 

The current version of the bill has drawn scrutiny from the banking industry, though some lawmakers expect it could reach the Senate floor for a vote as early as August.

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Related: Crypto Biz: Crypto infrastructure spending rises as ETF appetite cools

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Alexander Browder, the son of American-British political activist Bill Browder, said that he has been targeted by Russia over allegations that officials used the ruble-pegged A7A5 stablecoin to evade sanctions amid the country’s war on Ukraine.

In a Wednesday X post, Browder said his work through the website Global Cryptocurrency Laundering Database had resulted in him being “sanctioned by an authoritarian regime for uncovering corruption.” Specifically, he alleged in a March report that A7A5 was backed by deposits from Russian financial institution Promsvyazban and was used to circumvent Western sanctions stemming from Russia’s war on Ukraine.

“The Ruble-backed stablecoin A7A5 is one of the most prevalent issues facing the West. It is sanctioned in the UK, US and EU but it still operates,” said Browder. “A7A5 holds value through its ability to be converted into cash by criminals. Western governments need to put pressure on the specific exchanges which allow the conversions to happen and the countries which facilitate these exchanges.”

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Source: Bill Browder

The stablecoin pegged to the ruble processed more than $110 billion in onchain transactions, according to a CertiK report this week. European Union officials sanctioned A7A5 in October 2025, saying the stablecoin was intended to bypass war-related financial restrictions on Russia’s economy.

Related: HTX denies UK sanctions allegations as new data flags $7.6B Russia-linked flows

Browder says his actions “touched a raw nerve” with Russia’s government. According to British news outlet The Times, he may be the youngest person to ever be sanctioned by Russia. The government has also banned certain journalists from entering the country.

His father is known for exposing corruption in Russia and leading the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign.

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Russian lawmakers weigh legislation to impose criminal penalties for unlicensed crypto activities

In April, lawmakers in Russia’s parliament advanced a bill that could allow authorities to impose criminal penalties on unlicensed digital asset services and mandate registration with the country’s central bank. The proposed bill, “On Digital Currency and Digital Rights,” if passed, could ban unlicensed crypto platforms starting in July 2027.

Magazine: Bitcoin miners are pivoting to AI, so why is the hashrate near ATHs?

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Charles Hoskinson, the founder of Cardano, says boosting the ADA price was never his job, and he is stepping back from videos, interviews, and X (Twitter) to reflect.

He documented heavy personal abuse on the platform and framed the moment as a choice between purpose-driven research and pure speculation.

A Founder Steps Back From the Spotlight

In a video address to the Cardano community, Hoskinson confirmed he is pausing his public output. He plans to keep building while going quiet on social channels.

“I’m gonna keep working on midnight, but I’m not gonna make videos publicly, and I’m not gonna do my interviews.“

He pointed to relentless toxicity on X (Twitter), where an analysis of 130 replies found 35 were hostile or abusive. He has since hit back at what he calls coordinated attacks.

Price Was Never the Point

Hoskinson drew a hard line on his role, rejecting any responsibility for ADA’s market performance. The token now trades near 18 cents after a sharp 24-hour drop.

“What I’m not passionate about is making the price of ADA go up.”

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He warned that chasing valuation is a losing game for the whole ecosystem.

“I’m smart enough, and I’m old enough to know if you play the game of token go up, you’ll never win, because there’s always a new person to demand the token go up even more.”

He added that the project must stand for more than speculation. “If this is a place where only money matters… You’ll lose everyone, including me.”

The warning lands as Cardano DeFi projects struggle, with tools like TapTools winding down.

A Call for Reform

Hoskinson aimed his sharpest criticism at the Cardano Foundation, calling its lack of accountability the worst mistake of his career.

He also flagged the difficulty of passing research proposals as a core grievance.

He called for an exodus from current management, new leadership, and a new roadmap. Despite the warnings, he insisted the project can endure.

“Cardano is not a protocol. It’s the people behind the protocol.”

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The post “I’m Not Here to Pump ADA”: Charles Hoskinson Steps Away as Cardano Faces Biggest Identity Crisis Yet appeared first on BeInCrypto.

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Strategy’s preferred stock STRC closed Wednesday at $94.65, about 5% below its $100 par value, touching off a wave of alarm on social media.

While some critics have aired concern about the sustainability of the structure that has helped fund Strategy’s Bitcoin buying spree, a few supporters argue that STRC’s move down is normal for preferred securities.

STRC Is Acting Like a Preferred Stock

One of those pushing back against the panic was crypto commentator Scott Melker, known as The Wolf of All Streets to his 1 million followers on X.

“A 5% discount to par is not evidence that something is broken,” he wrote in a June 4 social post. “It’s evidence that investors are demanding higher yield, pricing risk, or reacting to market conditions – exactly what preferred stocks do.”

The mechanics here matter. STRC launched in July 2025 at a $100 par value, not a price floor, and according to the analyst, that par figure determines how liquidation preference and certain redemption provisions work, but it does not obligate the stock to trade there.

He pointed out that many preferred stocks often spend long periods below their stated par, and STRC’s monthly dividend adjustment was designed to pull the price back to $100 by raising the yield when demand softens. As of today, Strategy’s data shows STRC trading at $94.65 with an effective yield of 12.15%, which is higher than its current dividend of 11.50%. The larger market yield is a direct result of the lower share price.

That dynamic became a focal point of the debate, with Bitcoin author Adam Livingston arguing that the market is simply pricing risk at a 12.5% yield.

The Risk Underneath the Yield

Despite Melker’s assurances, the concern gaining traction goes beyond bond math. Strategy’s total preferred dividend obligations are close to $1.7 billion per year, and, as Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff previously pointed out, its software business does not come close to covering that figure.

Recall that the payments largely depend on the company’s ability to keep issuing new STRC shares, which, as several observers noted in the comments section of Melker’s X post, can become more difficult if the shares continue to trade below par.

Schiff, who called STRC a Ponzi scheme back in April, argued that the lower STRC trades, the more Strategy will have to raise the official dividend to stabilize it, and that would see it burning through cash faster and pulling forward any eventual Bitcoin sales.

Last month, crypto media personality Ran Neuner made a similar point, stating that if STRC doesn’t recover to $100, Strategy can’t issue more shares at par, which would then limit its ability to raise cash. As a result, the market would then start pricing STRC below par more permanently. This would force further yield increases to attract buyers, which would in turn require more cash, potentially including BTC sales, to fund those payments.

The post STRC Falls 5% Below Par: Normal Preferred Behavior or Warning Sign? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

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Grok AI is not sugarcoating its XRP price prediction, calling the correction from $3.50 exactly what it is: brutal and steep. But Elon Musk’s AI is equally direct about where the end-of-2026 prediction points.

$3 to $5 as the realistic bull target, with high-conviction scenarios reaching $7 to $8 and above from a current price of $1.18.

The foundation of that call is not wishful thinking; it is a convergence of 4 forces that have been building simultaneously while price has been grinding lower.

Bitcoin recovering toward new highs lifts the entire market, and XRP has historically been one of the biggest beta plays when that happens.

Final regulatory clarity on crypto, including stablecoins and market structure, removes the overhangs that have kept institutional capital cautious about deploying at scale.

Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin, gaining real traction for cross-border payments and settlements, is the utility story becoming a revenue story, directly boosting XRP Ledger transaction volume and demand for XRP as the bridge asset in those flows.

And ETF inflows returning would add the structural institutional demand that turns a narrative into a sustained trend.

What Grok is describing is a market that has been pricing in the worst-case outcomes for months, where every positive development has been ignored, and every macro headwind has been amplified.

When that sentiment cycle turns, assets with the strongest fundamental cases tend to move the furthest the fastest, and XRP’s combination of regulatory clarity, real-world utility, and institutional access infrastructure makes it one of the most complete setups in the altcoin space for that reversal.

Xrp (XRP)

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The bear case is the one the chart is threatening to test right now. A Bitcoin breakdown below $60,000 would likely drag XRP under $1.00 for the first time in years.

Grok AI acknowledges that RLUSD’s growing real-world utility provides a better prediction floor than previous cycles, but it is not dismissing the sub-$1.00 scenario as impossible, given where Bitcoin is sitting today.

Grok AI Price Prediction: The Chart Is Testing the Most Important Support in Its Entire Post-Settlement History

XRP is closing the current week at $1.191 with a weekly low of $1.140, and this weekly chart, going back to 2023, is showing something that has not happened since before the entire institutional repricing began.

The pre-breakout base from 2023 through October 2024 held XRP between $0.40 and $0.70 for over a year. The November 2024 vertical move to $3.40 launched from a base of $0.55, and the dotted support line on this chart sits at approximately $1.20, which is the level XRP has been defending since February 2026.

This week’s candle broke that line intraweek, with the low of $1.140 testing into the gap between $1.00 and $1.20 that has almost no structural support built into it.

The recovery back to $1.191 on the current close is keeping the weekly close marginally above $1.20, but the margin is thin enough that a single bad macro day next week could close this candle well below the floor.

The $1.00 level is the last psychological and structural barrier before XRP is priced out of the entire post-settlement premium.

Getting there on a weekly close would represent a complete unwinding of the regulatory clarity narrative that the market spent most of late 2024 pricing in, and would validate the bear case Grok identified around a Bitcoin breakdown below $60,000.

On the upside, the first meaningful resistance is now $1.40, which was support for months before breaking down this week.

Above that $1.60 is the zone where the market spent most of March and April consolidating, and clearing $1.60 on a weekly close is the minimum requirement before any conversation about the $3 to $5 target becomes technically credible.

Whether that extreme reading marks the capitulation bottom that Grok’s $3 to $5 call needs as its starting point, or whether it continues lower toward 25 as Bitcoin tests $60,000, is the question that defines the next 3 months for XRP holders.

LiquidChain Is Catching the Attention of XRP holders

Smart money does not wait at resistance. It moves before the next thing becomes obvious.

Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP are all capped at the same bands they have been testing for weeks. The macro relief keeps getting delayed. The institutional inflows keep getting pushed back. Waiting on catalysts outside your control is a strategy with a known ceiling.

Early-stage infrastructure plays do not have that ceiling. A small market cap means a modest rotation produces dramatic movement. The gap between what something is actually worth and what the market currently thinks it is worth is where asymmetric returns come from. That gap only exists while the project is still undiscovered.

Multi-chain fragmentation is bleeding DeFi every single day. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana run completely isolated liquidity systems. Every user moving value between them pays for that disconnection in fees, slippage, and failed transactions.

LiquidChain collapses all 3 into a single execution layer. One deployment. Full ecosystem access. No cross-chain tax.

The presale is at $0.01454 with just over $700,000 raised. That is ground floor, not a marketing phrase.

Execution is unproven. Adoption is unknown. Established assets offer a smoother ride toward a ceiling that is already visible. LiquidChain offers an earlier seat at a table that has not been set yet.

Explore the LiquidChain Presale

The post Can Elon Musk Grok AI Be Right About This Scary 2026 XRP Price Prediction? appeared first on Cryptonews.

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