Binance Research said April’s DeFi exploits triggered about $13 billion in total value locked outflows, cutting liquidity across on-chain protocols. 

The research arm said the on-chain leverage ratio rose to about 38%, a level last seen in 2021, as TVL fell faster than borrowing.

The move did not come from a clear return in real borrowing demand. Binance Research said “meaningful deleveraging has yet to materialize,” even after a wider crypto market pullback. That means the ratio moved higher because the base of locked capital became smaller. When TVL falls, each dollar of debt weighs more on the system.

Drift and KelpDAO drive April losses

Binance’s May market report said DeFi TVL fell 10.7% month over month to $82.7 billion in April. It also said protocols suffered $635.24 million in exploits during the month, the highest monthly total since the Bybit incident in February 2025. DefiLlama counted 28 hack events during April, which Binance called a record monthly count.

As crypto.news reported, the first 18 days of April already saw more than $606 million stolen across 12 incidents. The two largest attacks were Drift Protocol, at about $285 million, and KelpDAO, at about $292 million. Later, crypto.news reported that the two attacks together represented $577 million in losses and were linked to North Korea’s Lazarus Group.

Those two cases carried most of April’s reported losses. They also showed that DeFi exploit risk no longer comes only from code bugs. Reports tied the attacks to social engineering, compromised systems, governance weaknesses, and bridge infrastructure.

Aave and KelpDAO recovery stay in focus

The KelpDAO incident also spread pressure across connected lending markets. Binance Research said the KelpDAO exploit created about $230 million in bad debt on Aave and cut Aave’s TVL by half. The event showed how one bridge failure can move through DeFi when stolen collateral enters lending markets.

KelpDAO later completed the operational part of its rsETH recovery plan. As previously reported, the protocol sent a final batch of 20,373.7 rsETH to the LayerZero smart contract used for cross-chain transfers. The protocol said minting, redemptions, and reward functions were operating normally again after earlier restart steps.

The recovery steps reduced some direct pressure on KelpDAO users. They did not remove the wider concern around DeFi leverage. Binance Research’s data suggests that the market still carries debt against a smaller pool of locked assets.

Recent exploits show risks remain active

Security incidents continued after April, though reported losses dropped in May. CertiK put May hack losses at $68.3 million, down nearly 90% from April’s roughly $650 million, as reported. Still, DeFi projects kept facing attacks tied to bridges, old contracts, private keys, and operational controls.

Recent cases include Humanity Protocol, Aztec Connect, and Raydium. Humanity Protocol said more than $36 million was stolen after attackers compromised administrative keys linked to its bridge systems. Aztec Connect lost about $2.1 million from an old immutable contract, while Raydium said it would reimburse users after a $1.3 million exploit hit five legacy Solana liquidity pools.

The latest cases keep DeFi security in focus as leverage remains elevated and liquidity remains weaker than before April’s exploit wave. Binance Research’s reading points to a market where TVL has fallen, borrowing has not recovered strongly, and deleveraging remains incomplete.

Bitcoin BTC$65,790.78 briefly traded above $67,000 late Monday before slipping back under $66,000 in a move that is indicative of how cautiously crypto is treating the Iran peace deal that has rallied other markets.

The token changed hands at $65,845 on Tuesday, up 0.3% over 24 hours and 4.8% on the week, per CoinDesk data. It touched a 24-hour high of $67,217 before fading. Ether held up better, rising 2.8% on the day to $1,764 and 5.8% on the week. Solana gained 3.2% to $73, XRP added 3.2% to $1.22 and Hyperliquid’s HYPE led the majors again, up 6.3% to $69.

The macro backdrop turned sharply friendlier on Monday. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance signed an electronic copy of a memorandum of understanding with Iran, and Trump said the Strait of Hormuz, already partially open, will fully reopen on Friday.

Brent crude slipped below $83 a barrel after its biggest drop in more than two weeks. The S&P 500 added 1.7% on Monday and the Nasdaq 100 rose 3.1%.

Yet bitcoin has not moved like an asset pricing in relief.

Grayscale researchers say Anthropic’s abrupt shutdown of access to its latest frontier AI models following a US government directive underscores the risks of centralized control over advanced AI systems. In a Monday note, Grayscale head of research Zach Pandl argued that the episode could accelerate interest in decentralized alternatives such as Bittensor.

According to the report, the US ordered Anthropic to suspend access to its models for foreign nationals on national security grounds. Anthropic then disabled access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all users to comply with the directive, prompting a measurable shift in crypto market attention toward decentralized AI networks.

Key takeaways

• Grayscale’s Zach Pandl links Anthropic’s compliance move to the broader problem of centralized “frontier AI” access being controlled by a small number of entities.
• The US directive focused on foreign nationals, but Anthropic disabled access for all users, which Pandl called a warning sign for access risk.
• Grayscale reports that TAO rose sharply after the cut-off, climbing 30% within 12 hours and reaching a three-week high of $283 on Monday.
• Bittensor is positioned as an alternative network intended to provide AI access through decentralized infrastructure rather than a single lab.
• Industry observers cited by Cointelegraph argue the event sets a precedent for how governments can restrict commercial AI models quickly, potentially without standard procedural safeguards.

US directive prompts a wider shutdown

Cointelegraph reported that on Friday the US government directed Anthropic to suspend access to its AI models for foreign nationals, citing national security concerns. In response, Anthropic disabled access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all users, not just those affected by the foreign-national requirement.

Pandl pointed to the speed and breadth of the change as evidence that centralized frontier AI access can be constrained overnight. He framed the episode as more than a policy dispute: it is a practical demonstration of how quickly access to cutting-edge capabilities can be revoked when decision power sits with a small set of institutions.

Grayscale: centralized control drives demand for decentralized AI

In his Monday note, Pandl said the US order “shows the centralized control of frontier AI technology and drives home the need for decentralized alternatives.” He argued that investors are likely to keep looking for different architectures that don’t rely on one company’s ability to grant or suspend access.

Grayscale expects that demand for decentralized AI—citing Bittensor specifically—will continue to rise as users search for options that are not subject to the same access chokepoints. Pandl linked this to the idea that governments and large AI labs increasingly influence “who can access these tools and under what conditions,” particularly as AI capabilities advance.

To illustrate the market reaction, Grayscale said that in the 12 hours after Anthropic cut access to its latest models, Bittensor’s TAO token climbed 30%. The note also claims TAO reached $283, a three-week high, on Monday—an indicator that traders were actively repricing decentralization narratives in response to the event. (TAO performance and the cited price level were attributed in the source to CoinGecko.)

“Think of it as Bitcoin for AI.”

Pandl described Bittensor as aiming to provide access to AI resources through an open, global, decentralized network—an “alternative vision” meant to reduce reliance on a single provider or centralized permissioning.

Why investors are watching decentralized networks

The debate here is not only technical; it’s about resilience. When a model vendor disables a service, users can lose access regardless of their location, and builders may have less certainty about continuity. Grayscale’s framing suggests that centralized AI deployment increases the probability of sudden disruptions tied to regulatory or security directives.

For market participants, the takeaway is that decentralized AI ecosystems are being evaluated not just on model quality or tooling, but on the structure of access itself. In other words, the episode became a live stress test of how quickly frontier AI access can change—and that test appears to have influenced attention toward networks positioned as alternatives.

However, important uncertainty remains: decentralized networks do not automatically guarantee immunity from regulation or other forms of restriction, and crypto token performance can reflect multiple factors besides the specific access event. Still, the timing described in Grayscale’s note suggests that traders and holders interpret the Anthropic directive as supportive of decentralization narratives.

Industry voices call it a precedent for AI governance

Beyond Grayscale, the source also includes comments from other participants in the AI-and-crypto space. Cointelegraph quoted EdgeRunner AI co-founder Colton Malkerson, who argued that the incident marks a “breaking point” for corporate data independence. He compared centralized AI access to “renting” intelligence from big labs, saying it is worse when access can be canceled and the provider can monitor the user’s activities as a condition of the service.

Tech entrepreneur and author Brett Hurt likewise described the US action as “a precedent,” arguing that if a government can silence a commercial AI model overnight without public hearing, technical disclosure, or an appeals process, then all labs may effectively operate under an unseen constraint.

These viewpoints align with Grayscale’s central message: access to advanced AI is increasingly treated as a policy lever. For crypto-native AI networks, that creates a motivating question for investors and users—whether decentralized systems can offer more continuity when centralized providers face sudden external directives.

Going forward, readers should watch how Anthropic’s compliance approach evolves—particularly whether access remains uniformly disabled—and whether additional policy moves target other frontier model providers. At the same time, market participants will likely continue tracking whether decentralized AI tokens capture sustained inflows, or whether the initial reaction fades as the situation clarifies.

Rate hikes are typically bearish for risk assets like cryptocurrencies, especially from the BOJ, whose long era of ultra-low rates had supported global equity and bond bull markets.

The positive crypto reaction likely stemmed from a key dovish element in the announcement: the BOJ’s decision to pause its bond taper.

As InvestingLive noted, “The bond taper pause from April 2027, fixing monthly JGB purchases at around 2 trillion yen, is the complicating factor: it removes a source of upward yield pressure at the long end and could be read as a concession to government concerns about borrowing costs, raising questions about the BOJ’s operational independence even as it tightens policy rates.”

By pausing the reduction in bond purchases (or steadying the unwind), the BOJ is effectively looking to cap upward pressure in government bond yields. This may help keep long-term borrowing costs in check, supporting financial markets and providing a counterbalance to the tighter short-term policy stance.

Overall, while the headline rate hike was expected, the dovish tilt on bond purchases likely helped soothe markets and fueled the bounce in bitcoin.

Veteran trader Peter Brandt said Bitcoin remains one of the clearest markets for classical chart analysis. 

In a June 15 X post, he wrote, “There are few other markets that so neatly comply to understanding using classical charting principles as Bitcoin.”

Brandt’s weekly BTC chart showed several channels, wedges and consolidation areas across 2023 to 2026. The latest structure looked weaker, with Bitcoin trading near $65,261 and below the 18-week moving average around $71,253.

The chart also showed BTC breaking below a rising channel formed earlier in 2026. The ADX indicator stood near 28.27, pointing to a moderately strong trend. ADX does not show direction, but the break below the channel and moving average suggested stronger downside pressure.

CryptoQuant sees whale selling ease

CryptoQuant shared a different market signal. Its data showed that Bitcoin Inflow Coin Days Destroyed fell from 2.16 million to about 33,000, suggesting that older coins were no longer moving to exchanges at the same pace.

The earlier sell-off was most active in early June, when Bitcoin fell from about $71,300 to $63,800. That phase showed long-held coins moving into exchanges as large holders reduced exposure.

Comparing market value of SpaceX stock and Pepeto reveals something most investors have not stopped to calculate. SpaceX debuted on Nasdaq at $135 on June 12, closed at $170.54, and briefly touched $176.52, giving IPO holders a 19% gain on day one after raising $75 billion in the largest public offering ever, according to CNBC.

By every measure in traditional finance, that debut was historic. But comparing market value of SpaceX stock and Pepeto puts that 19% into a frame that makes it look small.

Pepeto sits at $0.0000001876 with $10.27 million raised, a working exchange already live, and a Binance listing ahead that analysts project could deliver 100x or greater. The IPO gave one day of returns. The presale gives a window to enter before the listing makes the biggest debut in market history feel small.

SpaceX raised $75 billion selling 555.6 million shares at $135, topping Saudi Aramco’s $29 billion record from 2019, according to CNBC. It holds 18,712 Bitcoin worth $1.29 billion, the eighth largest corporate BTC holder, and Saylor declared on June 13 that 25% of the Mag8 now holds Bitcoin, according to CoinDesk.

SpaceX and Pepeto both live in the world of capital formation, but the return profiles could not be further apart.

Pepeto: Why a Sub-Penny Presale Delivers What a $2.1 Trillion Stock Cannot

An IPO at $2.1 trillion is a milestone. It is also a ceiling, because doubling SpaceX needs another $2.1 trillion in fresh market cap. The investors who got in at the $135 IPO price saw 19% on day one, and the average analyst target sits at $164, roughly 2% above where it trades now. The story is real, but size makes the growth math slow.A presale works the opposite direction, with the entry before the listing, not after.

Pepeto sits at $0.0000001876 with a live exchange that handles every swap fee-free across Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Solana. The bridge transfers tokens between blockchains without deducting from the balance, the scanner reviews every token before capital gets exposed, and SolidProof audited the code before the presale opened.

Over $10.27 million flowed in while fear dominated the market. Staking at 170% APY compresses supply daily while the Binance listing approaches. The creator of the original Pepe token reached $11 billion with zero products, then built every smart contract powering this platform.

Comparing market value of SpaceX stock and Pepeto makes the gap clear, because a $2.1 trillion company offers single-digit upside while a presale at six decimal zeros offers a return that only exists before a listing prices it away.

SpaceX (SPCX) Stock at $170.54 as the Opening Day Energy Fades and Analyst Targets Sit Flat

The excitement is already cooling. SpaceX (SPCX) trades at $170.54 on June 14, down from its $176.52 intraday peak as normal price discovery replaces IPO adrenaline, according to Tradingview.

The average analyst target is $164, barely 2% above the current level, and SpaceX reported a $4.28 billion net loss last quarter. Starlink revenue drives the long-term case, but the valuation already bakes in years of growth. A $2.1 trillion company grinding 5% higher is a fine investment, not the kind of entry that changes anything.

Conclusion

Comparing market value of SpaceX stock and Pepeto puts the biggest IPO in history next to a presale targeting the kind of return no stock at any valuation can hand you, because SpaceX rewarded IPO holders with 19% on day one and analysts now see barely 2% more, a fine outcome unless what you are after is a number that multiplies. Pepeto offers that.

Three hundred dollars at $0.0000001876 is the kind of stake that turns into a down payment, a tuition check, or the start of something that was not on the table the week before. SpaceX holders will watch a chart drift a few percent either way, while the people who entered this presale will be telling the story over dinner. Visit Pepeto before the listing prices it away.

Click To Visit Pepeto Website To Enter The Presale

FAQs

How does comparing market value of SpaceX stock and Pepeto show the return gap?

SpaceX at $2.1 trillion gave IPO holders 19% with the analyst target at $164, roughly 2% above current levels. Pepeto at $0.0000001876 targets 100x from a single Binance listing.

Can Pepeto presale returns beat SpaceX stock gains based on the market value comparison?

Pepeto raised $10.27 million during Extreme Fear with live exchange tools, 170% APY staking, and the Pepe creator leading the build. The presale-to-listing math delivers multiples a $2.1 trillion valuation cannot generate.

Disclaimer: This is a Press Release provided by a third party who is responsible for the content. Please conduct your own research before taking any action based on the content.