While residents of California, Iowa, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota are voting today in Democratic and Republican Congressional primaries, the cryptocurrency industry is more focused on the Maryland primaries later this month.

According to filings with the US Federal Election Commission (FEC) as of Tuesday, the Coinbase- and Ripple-backed political action committee (PAC) Fairshake affiliate Protect Progress spent about $3 million combined to support Democratic candidates in House races across California and New Jersey. Another affiliate, Defend American Jobs, spent more than $411,000 to support Republican Senator Mike Rounds’ reelection bid in South Dakota.

In addition to its activities in California, Protect Progress appeared to be prepared for significant spending in Maryland, where primary elections are scheduled for June 23.

FEC filings showed the crypto-backed PAC spent more than $3.1 million on media to support Democratic candidate Adrian Boafo in Maryland’s 5th district, and about $320,000 on Ritchie Torres’ reelection to New York’s 15th district, which will also hold a primary on June 23.

Source: FEC

Today’s California races will be another test of the cryptocurrency industry’s influence over US elections after Fairshake and other PACs backed House and Senate candidates who won their primaries in Texas last week. In addition to Fairshake, which reported a war chest of more than $193 million as of January, crypto-aligned PACs included Fellowship, backed by $11 million from financial company Cantor Fitzgerald and crypto custodian Anchorage Digital and the Blockchain Leadership Fund funded by $175,000 from Chainlink and Anchorage.

Related: Senator Lummis says China will ‘write the rules’ of new financial era if CLARITY fails

Fairshake has been open about its intention to force out House and Senate lawmakers it considers “anti-crypto,” such as Representative Al Green, who voted against the stablecoin legislation GENIUS Act and digital asset market structure bill, CLARITY. The Texas lawmaker lost his primary for the state’s 18th congressional district after Protect Progress spent $5 million supporting his opponent, Democrat Christian Menefee.

CLARITY Act added to the US Senate legislative calendar

After advancement by the US Senate Agriculture Committee in January and the Banking Committee in May, lawmakers have added the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act to the chamber’s calendar for consideration and a potential vote. Notably, both versions of the bill with amendments passed by the respective committees will likely need to be consolidated before a vote.

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NewLimit, a longevity biotech startup co-founded by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, has raised $435 million in Series C funding to move its first age-reprogramming medicine toward human trials.

NewLimit Secures $435M Series C

NewLimit announced the funding round on June 2, saying Founders Fund led the raise. New investors Thrive Capital, Greenoaks and Quiet Capital joined the round, while existing backers Kleiner Perkins, Abstract, Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, Valor Equity Partners, Eli Lilly Ventures and Human Capital also took part.

The company said it will use the funds to push its first aging reprogramming drug into human clinical trials next year. “Following breakthrough results, we’re bringing longevity medicine to human trials,” NewLimit said.

Startup Targets Cell Aging

NewLimit focuses on epigenetic reprogramming, a method that aims to restore youthful function in old cells. The company says its medicines are designed to treat diseases linked to aging by changing how cells behave, without changing the DNA code itself.

Its first program targets the liver. NewLimit said its liver therapy helped old human liver cells show signs of younger function in early research. The company plans to test how that approach works in people during its first human trial.

Armstrong’s Bet Moves Beyond Crypto

NewLimit was founded in 2021 by Armstrong, former GV partner and bioengineer Blake Byers, and computational biologist Jacob Kimmel, who serves as chief executive and president. The company has become one of Armstrong’s most visible projects outside Coinbase.

The raise also comes as crypto.news has tracked Armstrong’s wider push into AI and automation. Recent coverage said Coinbase used AI to cut account restriction resolution times by 90%, while Armstrong also listed AI tools, stablecoins and tokenization among key finance upgrades.

Longevity Funding Gains Momentum

The $435 million round places NewLimit among the better-funded private longevity startups. The Wall Street Journal reported that the raise lifted NewLimit’s valuation to $3.1 billion, more than triple its level from last year.

The company still has no approved product on the market. Its next test will come in human studies, where it must show that early cell-level results can translate into a safe and useful medicine.

NewLimit said it first believed that bringing an aging medicine into human trials would take more than a decade. The company now says recent scientific results helped it move faster than expected.

The raise gives NewLimit more capital to expand its research across liver, immune, metabolic and vascular programs. It also gives Armstrong’s biotech project a larger role in the growing market for longevity medicine.

Key Takeaways

• BTC price declined to $67,000 amid capital rotation into artificial intelligence equities
• Bitcoin exchange-traded funds experienced their second-worst three-week withdrawal period ever, losing 62,794 BTC
• K33 Research cautions that increasing leverage combined with weakening institutional interest may drive prices lower
• Bitwise’s Matt Hougan describes cryptocurrency markets as transitioning from momentum-driven to a “contrarian opportunity”
• Alternative cryptocurrencies with solid fundamentals including Hyperliquid, Zcash, and Stellar demonstrate resilience

Bitcoin continues its descent toward $67,000 as capital exits the cryptocurrency sector in favor of artificial intelligence equities, prompting warnings from leading research organizations about potential further declines.

According to Vetle Lunde, research director at K33, bitcoin’s current weakness stems from a fundamental shift in investor perception: the opportunity cost of maintaining BTC positions appears excessive while AI stocks continue their impressive rallies.

“Many market participants perceive the opportunity cost of maintaining BTC exposure as prohibitively high amid the continued surge in AI-related equities,” Lunde noted in Tuesday’s research report.

Market data confirms this trend. Bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded outflows totaling 62,794 BTC across the most recent three-week period—marking the second-largest withdrawal streak in their history.

The selling pressure intensified following bitcoin’s inability to sustain levels above its 200-day moving average during the previous month. BTC remains confined beneath this technical threshold while both the Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 indices continue establishing new all-time highs.

Anticipation surrounding potential public offerings from companies such as SpaceX and Anthropic may be diverting additional investment capital away from digital assets, according to K33’s analysis.

Derivatives Markets Flash Caution Signals

The futures and options landscape is displaying concerning indicators. CME bitcoin futures open interest has contracted to levels not witnessed since October 2023, suggesting institutional participants are reducing their market exposure.

Simultaneously, perpetual futures funding rates have climbed despite bitcoin’s price deterioration. This dynamic indicates accumulating leveraged long positions within a declining market environment—a configuration K33 identifies as problematic.

K33’s earlier assessment suggested bitcoin’s February decline to approximately $60,000 likely represented this cycle’s bottom. The research firm now expresses reduced confidence in that projection.

“The underlying selling pressure evident in these leveraged long positions serves as a warning signal for potentially deeper corrections, warranting a cautious approach,” the analysis stated.

Cryptocurrency Transforms Into Contrarian Position

Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer at Bitwise, characterized the situation straightforwardly: cryptocurrency no longer represents the market’s most compelling opportunity.

“With AI equities, robotics enterprises, SpaceX, and similar opportunities available—particularly with the Nasdaq-100 delivering 43% year-over-year gains—cryptocurrency’s appeal has diminished,” Hougan observed.

He described cryptocurrency’s evolution from a momentum-driven trade to a contrarian position. This transformation fundamentally alters investor behavior patterns. Momentum-based strategies thrive on enthusiasm and follow-through, while contrarian approaches demand discipline and fundamental analysis.

Nvidia stock has surged approximately 1,500% since ChatGPT’s introduction in late 2022. Such extraordinary performance makes competing for investor attention challenging for bitcoin.

Hougan emphasized this cycle differs from previous downturns. Rather than bitcoin functioning as a defensive asset, capital is migrating toward smaller digital assets offering tangible utility, including Hyperliquid, Zcash, and Stellar.

He further suggested this pivot toward fundamental value analysis potentially signals the bear market’s conclusion may be approaching rather than just beginning.

The aggregate cryptocurrency market capitalization has contracted to $2.38 trillion, representing a 46% decline from its October zenith.

The US Treasury has sanctioned four Iranian crypto exchanges, including the country’s largest, Nobitex, marking the latest effort in its campaign called “Economic Fury” that aims to cut Iran off from the financial system.

The Treasury said on Tuesday that it added crypto exchanges Wallex, Bitpin and Ramzinex to the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s sanction list, prohibiting US businesses and persons from providing services to those platforms.

“While Iran’s economy is in free fall, the regime has chosen to co-opt digital asset technologies for its own corrupt agenda, including evading sanctions and transferring wealth out of the country,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

The Treasury’s efforts to cut financial networks from Iran are at the center of its “Economic Fury” campaign, which commenced on April 14, months into the Iran war that kicked off with joint US-Israeli strikes on the country in February.

Source: Treasury Department

The US has repeatedly struck Iran amid efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement and resolve a dispute over the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane that transits about one-fifth of the world’s oil.

One of the top priorities for Treasury is to end Iran’s nuclear programme, Bessent said. 

“As promised, Treasury will continue to follow the money in support of Economic Fury, whether it is through the banking system or through digital assets, to prevent the regime from developing a nuclear weapon.”

The latest sanctions come four days after Bessent revealed that the Treasury had seized nearly $1 billion in crypto from Iranian crypto exchanges and wallets since the Iran war began.

Nobitex the centerpiece of Iran’s “digital dollar pipeline”

The Treasury said Nobitex, Iran’s largest crypto exchange, has continued to facilitate payments for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other sanctioned entities.

On Tuesday, blockchain forensics platform Chainalysis said that Nobitex is at the center of Iran’s “digital dollar pipeline,” and that it handles about 50% of the country’s crypto trading volume.

Related: US Senate advances resolution to curb Trump’s Iran war powers 

The Treasury claimed that Nobitex has contributed to the repression of the Iranian people by facilitating state-linked surveillance of civilians. 

Nobitex’s CEO, Seyed Ali Khoee, and chairman Amir Hossein Rad were also added to OFAC’s sanction list.

The Treasury said it has cut off “tens of billions of dollars” worth of funding channels from otherwise being accessible to the Iranian regime and its proxies.

That includes action taken against alleged shadow bank networks, as well as foreign officials and companies seeking to support Iran’s oil trade and military activities.

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Bitcoin prices have dropped 7% on the day, breaking key support to a nine-week low after the US and Iran launched fresh strikes as talks over a possible ceasefire have stalled. 

Bitcoin (BTC) fell to $65,385 on Coinbase in early trading on Wednesday, its lowest level since late March, according to TradingView.

The slump follows the largest daily fall since Feb. 5 as BTC shed more than $4,500 on Tuesday. 

According to CoinGlass data, around 277,000 traders have been liquidated over the past 24 hours, with total liquidations of around $1.83 billion. More than 90% of them were long positions, primarily in Bitcoin and Ether (ETH).

Bitcoin has fallen below $66,000 in the most significant single-day drop since February. Source: TradingView

Andri Fauzan Adziima, the research lead at Bitrue Research Institute, told Cointelegraph that Bitcoin’s current drop is more about “leveraged liquidations, heavy ETF outflows, and technical breakdowns than pure Iran news, but it amplifies the fear.” 

Adziima said he expected “choppy consolidation,” as real support sits lower around $64,000 to $65,000, “with any de-escalation or strong macro rebound potentially sparking a sharp relief rally.”

The $150 billion crypto market capitalization exodus came as the US continued its military strikes against what it called “aggressive Iranian behavior.” 

US Central Command stated on Tuesday that it had successfully defeated multiple Iranian ballistic missiles and drones, and “conducted self-defense strikes” on Qeshm Island in response to attempted attacks by Iran across the Middle East.

“Iran launched several ballistic missiles toward regional neighbors; however, all failed to hit their intended targets,” CENTCOM said. Two Iranian missiles were fired at Kuwait, and three missiles were launched at Bahrain, it added. 

Related: Crypto turns ‘contrarian bet’ as AI stocks draw investor attention: Bitwise

The latest skirmish comes amid a two-month ceasefire between the US and Iran, which has included indirect talks on extending the ceasefire and lifting a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. However, negotiations have yet to yield an agreement. 

President Donald Trump claimed on Truth Social on Tuesday that “reports that the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the USA, stopped speaking a few days ago are false and erroneous.” 

“The conversations between us have been going on continuously, including four days ago, three days ago, two days ago, one day ago, and today,” he said. 

The comments came after Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported on Tuesday that the country would halt all conversations with the US until Israel ceased attacking Lebanon.

Magazine: Big Questions: Do we really only need 2–5 cryptocurrencies?

​The European Banking Authority and the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) have signed a memorandum of understanding to police cross-border stablecoin activities. 

The EBA said on Tuesday that the deal is part of its duties under the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) Regulation and sets out principles and procedures for exchanging information and coordinating stablecoin supervisory activities, market trends, and risks between New York and the European Union.

NYDFS said the deal would “enhance the supervision of entities engaged in stablecoin activities, identify market trends and risks, and promote the integrity of the stablecoin market.” 

Banks and major financial institutions in the US and Europe have tested using stablecoins for payments, spurred on by laws regulating the tokens in the US and EU. The global stablecoin market has grown to more than $319 billion as of Wednesday, according to DefiLlama.

Source: European Banking Authority 

Some of the information the two watchdogs will share includes the issued stablecoin, total volume in circulation, the number of holders, results of external and internal audits and the regulatory standing of specific products and services.

The MOU also provides a framework for the two regulators to assist each other and coordinate efforts during crises or emergencies. However, only supervised entities’ stablecoin-related activities will be monitored, not all activities a company might conduct.

Related: ‘Stablecoins’ are an outdated term from crypto’s early years: A16z

US President Donald Trump signed stablecoin regulations into law in July, while the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets framework came into effect toward the end of 2024. US dollar-denominated stablecoins currently make up the lion’s share of activity in the sector, with Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC the two largest by market capitalization.

Jimmy Xue, co-founder of quantitative yield protocol Axis, told Cointelegraph in January that the global stablecoin market has largely plateaued after rapid expansion, entering a consolidation phase as new regulation, liquidity constraints, and higher real-world yields weigh on new issuance.

Xue added that a cautious macroeconomic environment, combined with competitive Treasury yields, further reduced appetite for rapid stablecoin expansion.

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The future of asset management is shifting on-chain, but the transition is exposing a major structural conflict over traditional corporate revenue.

Speaking on a panel at the Proof of Talk summit in Paris, Jenny Johnson, CEO of Franklin Templeton, a $1.74 trillion asset manager, openly addressed the industry hesitation to deploy decentralized networks. According to Johnson, major financial firms are dragging their feet because public blockchain architecture directly challenges their existing profitability.

“This technology threatens a huge number of business models that exist today in traditional finance,” Johnson stated bluntly. “If you see any kind of hesitation, it’s because there is a threat to the business model. Think about the toll-takers in a transaction.”

She explained that if a blockchain can handle settlement instantly via a smart contract, large banks can no longer collect transaction fees as third-party intermediaries.

While crypto-native networks favor open architecture, traditional financial systems are beginning to migrate to public networks due to the significant transaction efficiencies. To demonstrate the cost savings, Johnson cited Franklin Templeton’s history running its tokenized money market fund, Benji, on public networks.

“It was so dramatically cheaper,” Johnson explained, breaking down the internal data. “It cost us about $1.30 a transaction for 50,000 transactions on the old system. And it cost us about $1.13 to run on the Stellar blockchain.”

Johnson’s mention of Benji comes just hours after the Wall Street giant announced it is expanding its digital asset strategy through a new partnership with MoonPay that will allow institutional investors to move between stablecoins and the asset manager’s tokenized money market fund through an onchain workflow.

“In everyday life, anybody—individual, medium, or large enterprise—we want to have a trusted party,” Johnson noted. “We don’t want to keep our assets in our private wallets, in our safes at home. We want to delegate this peace of mind to a third party. And that’s why custodians or banks still have a future.”

The shift of institutional wealth into digital assets will depend entirely on building standard, low-cost compliance rails for legacy investment funds. While Blockstream CEO Adam Back pointed out that bitcoin allows users to maintain true fiscal privacy without an institutional partner, Johnson concluded that standard investors will continue to demand a heavily regulated custody layer.

Blockchain Association has rallied support from 160 former national security and law enforcement officials for the CLARITY Act as the crypto market structure bill awaits consideration by the full U.S. Senate.

According to a letter sent Tuesday by the Blockchain Association to Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer, former officials from national security and law enforcement backgrounds urged lawmakers to approve the legislation, arguing that it would strengthen oversight of digital asset markets rather than weaken it.

“The United States has long led the world by pairing innovation with the rule of law. The Clarity Act advances that tradition. It strengthens American competitiveness, protects American consumers, supports American law enforcement, and reinforces America’s role as the global standard-setter for financial integrity and technological leadership.

We urge the Senate to advance the Clarity Act and to support a framework that strengthens both law enforcement capabilities and our national security.” 

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– Excerpt from the Blockchain Association letter.

The group said the CLARITY Act contains provisions that expand law enforcement tools and financial crime prevention measures across the crypto sector. In the letter, signatories argued that the legislation would improve investigators’ ability to track illicit activity while bringing more digital asset activity under U.S. regulatory supervision.

Support for the bill comes as lawmakers continue debating the measure’s final form. Discussions in Congress have included whether ethics restrictions should be added to limit elected officials’ participation in crypto-related business ventures, an issue that has drawn attention because of President Donald Trump’s digital asset interests.

Former officials back enforcement provisions

Within the letter, the officials highlighted several sections they believe would strengthen compliance and enforcement efforts, including expanded obligations tied to the Bank Secrecy Act and U.S. sanctions rules, along with Treasury Department-led information sharing between government agencies and private sector participants.

The proposal would also establish a permanent interagency working group dedicated to crypto-related illicit finance investigations, according to the letter.

Describing the bill as an enforcement measure rather than a rollback of oversight, the signatories wrote that the provisions are intended to improve compliance, accountability, coordination, and visibility throughout digital asset markets.

Separately, the Blockchain Association said it plans to increase its advocacy efforts in Washington. The organization is preparing meetings across 18 Senate offices and will host a virtual town hall on Thursday focused on the bill’s law enforcement and national security implications.

Scheduled participants include Senator Cynthia Lummis, Representative Tom Emmer, and Patrick Witt, executive director of the White House President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets.

The Blockchain Association has remained active on several policy issues in Washington this year. In April, the group’s executive vice president of legal and government relations, Ashok Pinto, urged the Federal Reserve to formally remove “reputation risk” from bank supervision rules, arguing that the standard had contributed to debanking concerns affecting crypto firms and created uncertainty for regulated businesses.

CLARITY Act advances toward Senate debate

Momentum around the legislation has increased since the Senate Banking Committee approved the CLARITY Act in a 15-9 bipartisan vote in May. As previously reported by crypto.news, the bill has since been placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar, making it eligible for floor consideration once Senate leadership schedules debate.

Senator Lummis has previously said the legislation could help settle the long-running jurisdictional dispute between the SEC and CFTC over digital asset oversight. Coinbase has also described the bill as nearing completion, while institutional investors have already begun trading on its prospects through prediction market contracts facilitated by Galaxy Digital.