Bitcoin BTC$67,166.20 recovered 0.7% on Wednesday, but remains at a crucial crossroads after a 9.5% decline since Sunday.

The largest cryptocurrency traded recently near $67,000, firmly in the middle of a range that persisted between February and April after a failed breakout attempt above $81,000 last month.

If bitcoin tumbles below $60,000 it would probably trigger a wave of liquidations and a possible slide to as low as $54,000, a level of support dating back to both 2024 and 2021.

Ether (ETH), meanwhile, trades at $1,870 after rising by 0.9% since midnight UTC, although the bounce comes after a selloff that saw it tumble to its lowest point since February.

The U.S. stock market rallied to record highs again on Tuesday. The divergence is starting to trigger concerns among some crypto investors because the two asset classes have historically moved in tandem.

AI crypto tokens continued to outperform the peers. NEAR, RENDER and FET all rose by around 9% on Wednesday following Tuesday’s market-wide selloff.

Derivatives positioning

• Over $1.7 billion in leveraged crypto futures bets were liquidated in the past 24 hours, double the day-earlier amount.
• Most liquidations were bullish long positions after BTC slumped to $65,500 earlier today. The 24-hour volume surged 27% to nearly $300 million while cumulative industry-wide notional open interest (OI) fell just over 2%.
• The combination of large liquidations and falling open interest suggests aggressive crowding out of leveraged bullish plays and a reduction in new leveraged exposure.
• Open interest in bitcoin futures hovers at record highs above 800K BTC, up for the third straight day even as spot prices decline. That validates the downtrend and points to an influx of new shorts or bearish positioning.
• The seven-day OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta is negative, indicating bears are leading price action by actively shorting with market orders rather than using passive limit orders.
• Most major tokens, including ETH, ADA, SUI, XRP and SOL, also show negative seven-day and 24-hour cumulative volume deltas, signaling bear leadership across markets. Funding rates for these tokens remain slightly positive to slightly negative, implying the bearish side is not overcrowded and there’s room for further downside.
• Open interest in ZEC futures, however, has risen for the third straight day to 2.43 million ZEC as the token has gained 6.3% over seven days, bucking the broader malaise. ZEC also shows a positive 24-hour CVD alongside HYPE, indicating bullish sentiment.
• Fear is creeping back in. BTC and ETH 30-day implied volatility indices (BVIV and EVIV) jumped sharply Tuesday, posting their largest single-day gains since the Feb. 5 crash. Continued increases in the measure could presage further market pain.
• Options flow on Deribit shows traders paying up for downside protection. The one-week put-call skew climbed to nearly 20% early today, reflecting an outsized demand for puts. The most traded instruments in the past 24 hours were the $70K put expiring June 5 and the $55K put expiring June 26.
• In block flows, BTC call spreads and ETH put spreads were the most favored bets.

Token talk

• Ethena (ENA) is one of Wednesday’s top-performing altcoins, rising by 9.3% since midnight UTC and more than 20% in 24 hours after Coinbase (COIN) said it will integrate Ethena features in a new savings account product.
• There was a notable gain for privacy coin zcash (ZEC). The token has risen 2% since midnight and 12% in the past 24 hours as it attempts to steer itself away from danger.
• CoinMarketCap’s “Altcoin Season” indicator is now at 53/100, the highest since early March as investor appetite for high-risk altcoins remains despite weakness among the crypto majors.
• Humanity protocol (H) appears to be entering a corrective phase after it lost a quarter of its value in 24 hours following a 200% rally in the past week, with clear profit-taking occurring. Daily trading volume dropped 55% to $314 million.

• Ethena (ENA) jumped nearly 20% after the Coinbase open-market token purchase news.
• Anchorage deal expands Ethena into institutional lending markets.
• The next key resistance level sits at around $0.1367.

Ethena’s ENA token has recorded a sharp intraday jump of about 19.5%, pushing the price to roughly $0.1025 at press time.

The sudden rebound has brought Ethena back into focus, especially as trading activity surged to more than $410 million in 24-hour volume, signalling a clear spike in market participation.

While the broader trend remains down over longer timeframes, the short-term price action reflects a strong shift in sentiment tied to recent ecosystem developments.

Coinbase Ventures’ investment in Ethena

A major driver behind the latest rally is Ethena’s deepening relationship with Coinbase.

Coinbase Ventures made its first-ever investment in Ethena by purchasing ENA directly on the open market, a move that immediately stood out to traders because it signalled direct alignment rather than a private funding allocation.

Coinbase Ventures is proud to back @Ethena through an open market purchase of ENA.

Ethena is a critical player in onchain finance, and we are excited for the closer partnership with Coinbase and USDC.

— Coinbase Ventures 🛡️ (@cbventures) June 2, 2026

More importantly, Coinbase is not treating Ethena as a passive investment. The two are working on a broader rollout of on-chain savings and financial products designed for Coinbase’s user base of more than 100 million accounts.

This includes integration of Ethena’s synthetic dollar ecosystem into Coinbase-linked savings products, with early initiatives expected to launch within days of the announcement.

The market reaction reflects how distribution can shift valuation expectations.

Access to Coinbase’s retail and institutional ecosystem introduces a potential pathway for Ethena’s USDe and related yield products to reach users far beyond crypto-native platforms.

That potential expansion is a key reason ENA saw a sharp repricing in such a short window.

Anchorage Digital partnership

Alongside Coinbase, Ethena has also expanded its infrastructure reach through a partnership with Anchorage Digital.

The collaboration introduces a framework for institutional off-chain lending using Anchorage’s Atlas platform, which handles collateral custody, risk monitoring, and liquidation controls.

This setup allows institutions such as asset managers and trading firms to access crypto credit markets without taking direct custody of assets.

Anchorage holds collateral within a regulated structure while Ethena manages capital deployment into lending operations.

The lending system is designed to unlock new yield streams beyond Ethena’s existing synthetic dollar mechanics.

It also marks a shift in strategy, as Ethena moves from purely DeFi-based yield generation toward a hybrid model that includes institutional credit exposure.

Ethena’s underlying technicals remain stable

While ENA has been volatile, the technical analysis shows no signs of instability.

And looking at the Ethena charts, technical indicators show a mixed signal environment with a majority in the neutral zone.

Oscillators lean slightly bearish, while moving averages are evenly split between buy and sell signals.

The 14-day RSI sits at 39.56, placing it in a neutral zone where neither buyers nor sellers dominate momentum.

ENA currently trades below all its exponential moving averages (EMAs), including the  10-day, 20-day, 50-day, 100-day, and 200-day EMAs, suggesting the broader structure remains bearish.

Outlook for ENA price movement

Despite the strong daily move, Ethena remains in a broader downtrend when viewed over longer periods.

The token is still trading significantly below previous highs, and the technical structure remains mixed.

Short-term indicators show momentum returning, with price action recently breaking above multiple resistance levels during the intraday rally.

However, the presence of resistance from shorter-term exponential moving averages suggests that the move is still developing rather than fully confirmed as a trend reversal.

At the same time, total value locked within the Ethena ecosystem remains above $4.5 billion, indicating that usage levels have not collapsed alongside price.

This divergence between protocol activity and token valuation is now one of the central points of market focus.

Future price movement is likely to depend on whether upcoming product launches tied to Coinbase integration translate into measurable user adoption.

If onboarding through Coinbase and institutional lending flows begin to scale meaningfully, Ethena’s valuation could continue to re-rate alongside its expanding financial infrastructure footprint.

If ENA holds above the $0.10 breakout level and the onboarding through Coinbase and institutional lending flows begin to scale meaningfully, a move toward the next resistance near $0.1367 is plausible.

However, there is a risk of a “sell the news” reaction after the launch, or if the broader market sell-off intensifies, it could potentially push the price back to test support at $0.095.

XRP (XRP) dropped to $1.25 on Tuesday after a market-wide sell-off, erasing all the gains made since early February. 

Key takeaways:

• XRP fell to $1.25 after a broader market sell-off, testing a long-term trend line and the 50-month exponential moving average support area.
• Support weakness has traders looking at $1 and under next, while optimists see a “bear trap” forming.
• June has historically been a weak month for XRP, with traders increasing bets on a drop below $1.20.

XRP price action teases “bear trap”

Data from TradingView shows that the XRP price opened June at $0.33, just below the 50-month exponential moving average (EMA).

More importantly, XRP is also trading “directly on/slightly below the White MACRO Trend Line,” analyst Egrag Crypto said in a Monday post on X, referring to the multi-year ascending trend line that has supported the price since 2017.

Related: Three key XRP metrics suggest ‘explosive price expansion’ is next

In previous instances, when XRP opened the month below the 50 EMA during macro drawdowns, the “structure often begins to form a bottoming zone,” as shown in the chart below. Currently, the price is trading below the macro trend line. The price might wick below it before recovering, as seen in 2020, 2023 and 2024.

“The market is leaning heavily bearish,” Egrag Crypto said, adding:

“If XRP reclaims the 50 EMA and the Macro trend line, this setup could become one of the biggest bear traps of the cycle.”

XRP/USD one-month chart. Source: X/Egrag Crypto

For analyst ChartNerd, a target for new local lows lay at around $0.70-$0.90.

“Many of you admire this beautiful $XRP fractal, which leaves the door open to a $0.90/$0.70 XRP before any major reversal,” the trader summarized alongside a chart showing a potential bottoming zone for XRP.

XRP/USD monthly chart. Source: X/ChartNerd

Fellow analyst Kamile Uray said $1.26-$1.30 was an important support zone, which bulls were required to defend to prevent a deeper correction toward $0.94-$1.11. 

XRP/USD daily chart. Source: X/Kamile Uray

As Cointelegraph reported, XRP could drop to retest the Feb. 6 low of $1.11 and then the psychological support at $1 after the $1.27 support was broken.

June is usually a bad month for XRP

Unfortunately for the bulls, XRP tends to struggle in June. Since 2014, the price has closed in the red for eight of the past 12 months, with average returns of about −5%.

The June losses were even more pronounced in years where XRP closed May in the red, according to data from Cryptorank.

XRP monthly returns. Source: Cryptorank

The chart above shows that the losses are significantly higher in bear cycles, such as 2018’s -23.8% and 2022’s -21.5%. 

The -34.4% drop in June 2021 is an outlier due to the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s lawsuit against Ripple, which took a toll on XRP price for years.

If history is anything to go by, XRP’s price action could continue trending lower in June, with a possible recovery beginning in July.

Key Highlights

• ALAB shares climb 11.14% following enhanced Taiwan operations announcement
• Company expands Cloud-Scale Interop Lab to accelerate rack-scale AI validation
• Stock surge linked to strengthened partnerships with AMD, NVIDIA, Arm, and major Taiwan ODMs
• Enhanced Taiwan presence aimed at reducing AI platform deployment timelines
• Expansion positions Astera Labs closer to global AI hardware supply chain

Shares of Astera Labs (ALAB) experienced significant upward momentum following the semiconductor company’s announcement of expanded Taiwan facilities and enhanced Cloud-Scale Interop Lab capabilities. The stock finished trading at $355.76, representing an 11.14% gain, before experiencing modest pre-market retreat to $354.20, a decline of 0.44%. This slight pullback suggested investors took some profits after the substantial intraday advance driven by AI infrastructure growth prospects.

Astera Labs, Inc. Common Stock, ALAB

Company Strengthens Taiwan Operations for AI System Development

Astera Labs announced its enhanced Taiwan presence will bolster engineering capabilities, operational efficiency, and collaboration with key ecosystem partners throughout the AI hardware value chain. The expanded Cloud-Scale Interop Lab facility aims to accelerate platform validation processes. This strategic positioning brings Astera Labs into closer proximity with leading semiconductor manufacturers, server producers, and contract manufacturers.

Taiwan occupies a critical position in global AI system manufacturing, as the region serves as a primary hub for rack-scale platform assembly and integration. Astera Labs’ enhanced local presence seeks to minimize bottlenecks in debugging processes, diagnostic procedures, and qualification workflows. Furthermore, the company anticipates that increased on-site support will enable customers to transition systems from development to production environments more efficiently.

This expansion complements Astera’s recent enhancements to its Scorpio fabric switch product line. The updated portfolio accommodates flexible 32-to-320-lane configurations designed for advanced rack-scale AI infrastructure. Therefore, the expanded Taiwan operations provide additional resources to address sophisticated connectivity requirements across distributed AI computing clusters.

Strategic Partnerships Accelerate Platform Validation Cycles

Astera Labs identified key technology partners including AMD, Arm, Intel, and NVIDIA as collaborators benefiting from the enhanced Taiwan operations. The company also maintains active relationships with prominent Taiwan-based original design manufacturers such as GIGABYTE, Ingrasys, Inventec, Quanta Cloud Technology, and Wiwynn. This comprehensive partner network facilitates integrated validation spanning chip architecture, system design, and volume manufacturing.

Contemporary AI infrastructure initiatives demand accelerated coordination among semiconductor vendors and system integrators. Training platforms and inference deployments require thorough testing protocols before entering large-scale production. Accordingly, Astera’s expanded laboratory provides collaborative space for early-stage platform verification among multiple stakeholders.

The company indicated its Taiwan-based team will expand expertise across hardware engineering disciplines, technical support functions, quality assurance, and operational management. These competencies help minimize development cycle duration during product refinement and platform certification processes. They enable more responsive troubleshooting when customers encounter design challenges or integration complications.

Stock Performance Reflects Growing AI Infrastructure Focus

The 11.14% closing gain for ALAB demonstrated robust investor interest following the Taiwan expansion disclosure. The modest pre-market decline indicated short-term position adjustments after the significant single-day advance. However, the stock retained the majority of its gains, maintaining investor attention on Astera’s strategic position within AI infrastructure development.

Astera’s core business operates within the rapidly expanding semiconductor connectivity sector serving AI data center applications. Rack-scale architectures demand high-performance interconnects among GPUs, CPUs, memory subsystems, switching fabric, and networking components. Consequently, validation efficiency has emerged as a critical determinant in AI computational capacity deployment timelines.

The Taiwan facility expansion strengthens Astera’s geographic positioning within the ecosystem responsible for advanced AI system production. It also facilitates enhanced customer engagement at industry events like Computex 2026, where AI infrastructure continues as a prominent focus area. Thus, the ALAB share price rally reflects heightened investor interest in companies positioned to enable AI infrastructure scaling and deployment.

Canadian Bitcoin miner HIVE Digital Technologies’ Bitcoin holdings fell by 331 BTC in the latest quarter, even as the miner reported a sharp rise in annual revenue from Bitcoin mining and high-performance computing (HPC).

The company reported holdings of 150 Bitcoin (BTC) in its fiscal year update on Monday, down from 481 BTC at the end of Q4 2025, according to company figures and CoinGecko data. The 331 BTC reduction represents about $23 million in value at current prices, with Bitcoin trading roughly 21% lower year-to-date.

HIVE did not explicitly say it sold Bitcoin. The company mined 2,885 BTC during fiscal 2026 and generated $297.8 million in revenue, up 158% from a year earlier, driven largely by expanded Bitcoin mining capacity and HPC revenue.

Source: Bitcoin Treasuries

The shrinking Bitcoin treasury highlights how public miners are balancing accumulation against expansion costs as they invest in energy-heavy mining sites and diversify into AI computing infrastructure.

Revenue jumps to $297.8 million as mining drives growth, costs rise

HIVE’s total revenue rose to $297.8 million from $115.3 million a year earlier, with digital currency mining revenue rising to $278.3 million, while HPC contributed $19.5 million, almost doubling year-over-year.

Source: HIVE Digital Technologies

Despite the sharp increase in revenue, rising costs continued to pressure results. Operating and maintenance expenses climbed as HIVE expanded its mining and data center footprint, while depreciation rose to $170.4 million, nearly triple the prior year and one of the largest expenses on the income statement.

Related: TeraWulf acquires Kentucky AI data center site with planned 1 GW capacity

Miner bets on AI alongside Bitcoin

HIVE said its HPC business revenue is up from $10 million a year earlier, as demand for AI computing services increased.

The company said contracted annual recurring revenue from its HPC division reached $35 million by year-end, supported by deployments of Nvidia-powered GPU clusters and new enterprise contracts.

It also highlighted plans for a 320-megawatt AI data center project in the Greater Toronto Area, which it said could eventually host more than 100,000 GPUs.

The expansion underscores a broader trend among public Bitcoin miners, many of whom are seeking new revenue streams from AI and cloud computing as mining economics become more competitive and capital-intensive.

Magazine: HYPE chases $100 target, ETH could dump below $1800: Market Moves