Crypto World
Why Perfectly Fair Crypto Transaction Ordering Isn’t Achievable
Today’s blockchains already treat consensus as a matter of two properties: nodes must agree on the same history (consistency) and the system must keep processing transactions (liveness). But that framing leaves a crucial gap—what users ultimately care about is not only whether transactions get confirmed, but whether their relative ordering is meaningfully fair when multiple parties submit transactions that can interact economically.
A new line of research is trying to formalize “transaction order fairness” and map out what is possible under real-world networking constraints. The core takeaway: perfect “first-come, first-served” ordering is mathematically out of reach in asynchronous distributed systems, even before considering adversaries. The practical question becomes how to approximate fairness while keeping liveness and minimizing opportunities for extractive behavior.
Key takeaways
- Perfect receive-order fairness (“first-seen, first-executed”) cannot be guaranteed on public networks because messages arrive at different times and there is no shared clock.
- Even when each node has a clear local arrival order, group preferences can conflict—captured by the Condorcet paradox—making a single linear order impossible to satisfy.
- Hashgraph’s fairness model uses a DAG of events with median timestamps to respect causal relationships while bounding how far adversarial influence can shift ordering.
- BOF-style protocols (from the Aequitas/Themis line of work) relax fairness by ordering transaction “batches” derived from Condorcet cycles, enabling stronger liveness guarantees.
Why “fair ordering” is harder than it sounds
In public blockchains, ordering isn’t just an implementation detail—it can decide who captures value and who pays. When privileged roles like block builders or sequencers determine execution order, they can potentially exploit that power through strategies that front-run, back-run, or sandwich transactions. Research on maximal extractable value (MEV) describes this as a direct consequence of who can influence ordering.
To counteract this, some proposals treat transaction ordering fairness as a third consensus objective alongside consistency and liveness. The general idea is to constrain the block producer’s ability to bias ordering beyond what the network conditions and protocol rules imply—making execution more predictable and less vulnerable to systematic exploitation.
But the most intuitive fairness notion runs into a structural limitation. In an asynchronous distributed system, there is no globally defined reception order because different nodes observe transaction messages at different times. Without a shared clock and with arbitrary message delays, no protocol can ensure that every node’s “arrival order” maps perfectly onto a single network-wide execution order.
The Condorcet paradox: why majority “first” can loop
The strongest form of fairness is often described as Receive-Order-Fairness (ROF): if most nodes receive transaction A before transaction B, then A should be processed before B. ROF sounds straightforward, but the network reality undermines it. Nodes see messages at different speeds, so different nodes can legitimately observe different pairwise “firsts.” Even if those local observations are consistent for each node, the collective can still become inconsistent.
This is where the Condorcet paradox comes in from voting theory, and it translates cleanly to distributed ordering. Even when each participant has an internal preference for which of two items comes first, the majority preference across multiple pairs can form a cycle:
- Most nodes see A before B
- Most nodes see B before C
- Most nodes see C before A
When that happens, there is no single linear ordering that satisfies all majority pairwise preferences. The implication for blockchain consensus is direct: if fairness is defined too strictly in terms of majority “first-seen” comparisons, the protocol may be unable to produce any ordering that matches the majority view across all pairs.
Because of this impossibility, systems aiming for “fairness” must adopt weaker—but more achievable—guarantees.
Hashgraph’s approach: DAG causality plus median timestamps
Hedera’s hashgraph algorithm tackles transaction ordering fairness through a leaderless, event-driven model. According to the described model, transactions are transformed into cryptographically linked events inside a directed acyclic graph (DAG). Consensus ordering then emerges from how nodes collectively observe and sign those events, rather than from a single proposer unilaterally choosing a sequence.
Operationally, when a node receives a transaction, it creates an event and gossips it to peers. Subsequent events record hashes of earlier events they have seen, and nodes digitally sign the result. This creates a provable causal structure: if one event is an ancestor (direct or indirect) of another, the protocol provides a cryptographic guarantee about which event was created first by some node.
The ordering logic then distinguishes between events with causal relationships and those that are concurrent. Events connected by DAG ancestry are ordered according to their causal dependencies. For concurrent events (those without ancestor relationships), the protocol resolves relative ordering using a “round-received” concept and then refines that using median timestamps.
Median timestamps, as described, are derived from a set of node-reported local receive times, but constrained by the hashgraph’s ancestry. That constraint matters: nodes cannot claim to have observed an event before its causal predecessors without creating detectable inconsistency in the DAG. Under the standard assumption used in Byzantine fault tolerance—fewer than one-third of nodes are Byzantine—the median timestamp should remain within a bounded range of honest timing reports, limiting adversarial ability to arbitrarily skew ordering.
However, hashgraph’s fairness is not infinite. The described research emphasizes that fairness is bounded by an adversarial “surface” where a node can still influence its gossip behavior: which events it relays first and whether it delays relaying. While the DAG cannot fabricate a false causal history, strategic propagation patterns can reshape the inputs that ultimately feed into median timestamp computation.
There is also the Condorcet paradox risk for concurrent events. The DAG eliminates ambiguity for causally linked events because the ancestry is fixed at creation. But concurrent events can still be observed in different orders by different nodes, leaving some ordering tension that is then handled by the protocol’s round and median mechanisms.
BOF protocols: fairness by collapsing Condorcet cycles
Another line of work frames fairness differently—by explicitly embracing cycles. BOF (Batch-based Order Fairness) protocols define “blocks” as sets of transactions that form a Condorcet cycle, then enforce fairness at the level of how those blocks relate, while allowing arbitrary internal ordering inside each block.
In the BOF formulation described, fairness is controlled by a parameter γ: if a sufficient fraction γ of nodes observe block b before block b′, then honest nodes cannot output b after b′. When fairness constraints induce a cyclic relation, the protocol collapses the strongly connected component (SCC) into a single batch/block, because no linear order can satisfy all the directed constraints simultaneously.
A key practical point is that this approach relaxes strict ROF requirements. When a cycle occurs, internal ordering becomes irrelevant to the fairness guarantee, since the protocol treats the entire cycle participation as atomic at the batch level. The research description notes that deterministic rules (such as a hash-based rule) may then sort transactions within the batch, but the fairness criterion does not attempt to make those internal orders correspond to any global first-seen preference.
The Aequitas protocol line is described as having weaker liveness: its strict fairness constraints require waiting for complete Condorcet cycles, and if cycles can chain indefinitely, finalization delays could grow without bound—creating a “freeze” risk.
Themis is introduced as a refinement intended to preserve γ-BOF while improving liveness. As described, Themis also builds a dependency graph and collapses SCCs during a “FairFinalize” stage, but it avoids waiting for the full cycle to close. Instead, it uses deferred ordering and “batch unspooling” so SCCs can be output incrementally while new transactions keep flowing. The result, as presented, upgrades Aequitas’ weak liveness into standard liveness with a delay bound.
Themis also addresses communication scaling concerns. In its basic form, participants exchange messages with most other nodes, leading to communication growth roughly proportional to the square of the network size. An optimized variant, SNARK-Themis, replaces much of that direct exchange with succinct cryptographic proofs, so verification can scale more efficiently as the node count increases.
Finally, the protocol design includes a mechanism to prevent denial-style manipulation. If a malicious proposer tries to exploit the system by proposing an empty block, Themis’s deferred ordering accepts a partially ordered batch and leaves exact finalization to a subsequent honest proposer, based on verifiable transaction relationships rather than discretionary choices by the current proposer. This is framed as a way to tie finalization to bounded network delay rather than arbitrary proposer behavior.
What to watch next
The central unresolved question across these approaches is how to balance fairness guarantees against the operational costs—especially complexity, communication overhead, and the practical handling of concurrency. As more consensus designs incorporate formal ordering fairness ideas, investors and builders should watch for implementations that demonstrate bounded delays in real network conditions while maintaining robustness against adversarial reordering.
Prediction markets company Kalshi has filed a lawsuit against state officials in Illinois over legislation it says “expressly bans sports event contracts” on its platform.
In a Tuesday filing in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Kalshi alleged that Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, Attorney General Kwame Raoul, and other officials on the state’s gaming board “usurped” the authority of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) over prediction markets.
Specifically, the company alleged that legislation signed into law last week in Illinois, requiring prediction market platforms to be licensed in the state to offer sports event contracts, violated federal law. Kalshi claimed that it would be “irreparably harmed” when the law, Illinois Senate Bill 3019, takes effect on July 1.
“If Kalshi complies with the new state law by ceasing to offer its sports event contracts in Illinois, that would put Kalshi in violation of the CFTC’s uniformity requirements, harm Kalshi’s commercial interests, and require the company to implement complex and expensive technological solutions to limit access in Illinois — incurring costs that would not be recoverable when Kalshi ultimately prevails in the action,” said the complaint.
Source: PACER
The Illinois law, passed as part of a state budget package for the fiscal year 2027, included a 0.2% tax on crypto transactions and has already been heavily criticized by many in the industry.
The legislation amended the state’s definition of an “exchange wager” to include “an agreement, contract, transaction, or swap that is offered, traded, or executed on a prediction market or exchange tied to a sporting contest or sporting event,” making prediction market companies subject to the same rules as entities offering sports betting.
Related: Mark Zuckerberg ordered Meta staff to develop moneyless prediction market: NYT
“[…] Kalshi faces similar irreparable harms if it attempts to comply with SB 3019 by offering sports events contracts in compliance with Illinois’s costly and restrictive licensing and regulatory regime,” said the company. “Nor can Kalshi avoid these harms by simply disregarding the unlawful state requirements because an enforcement action by Illinois could subject Kalshi to criminal penalties.”
Legal fights eventually headed to the Supreme Court?
Kalshi’s lawsuit was the latest in a jurisdictional fight between federal and state authorities over sports betting on prediction markets.
The CFTC, headed by Commissioner Michael Selig, has claimed exclusive authority over the companies under the Commodity Exchange Act, arguing that the platform’s event contracts are “swaps” within its jurisdiction. The agency has filed several lawsuits against state authorities over this claim, most recently in response to Kentucky’s restrictions on prediction markets.
Some experts expect that the legal battles will end up at the US Supreme Court, given the opposing claims by federal regulators and state gaming officials.
Magazine: AI is banking the unbanked in Africa… faster than crypto
Crypto-aligned political action committees (PACs) helped back multiple candidates in US congressional primaries on Tuesday, with several of those supported—spending more than $8 million in total on media in the races described—emerging as winners. The results set up new matchups for the November election and highlight how digital-asset interests are increasingly intersecting with mainstream electoral politics.
Fairshake and its affiliates were among the most active, according to disclosures referenced in the reporting. The PAC network, largely backed by major crypto companies including Coinbase and Ripple Labs, reported combined media spending of about $8 million to support candidates considered favorable to digital asset policy priorities in the next congressional session.
Key takeaways
- In New York, Democrat Ritchie Torres won the 15th district primary with 71.9% of the vote.
- In Utah, Republican Blake Moore won the 2nd district primary with 57.5% of the vote.
- Fairshake affiliate Protect Progress backed Maryland’s 5th district candidate Adrian Boafo, who won the Democratic primary with 32%.
- Not all “pro-crypto” backed candidates won, including Alex Bores in New York’s 12th district.
- Next statewide primary focus is expected to shift toward Colorado and Arizona, though no major additional spending by affiliates had been disclosed as of Wednesday.
Crypto-linked PAC spending shows up in primary results
Tuesday’s primaries for select US House and Senate races in Utah, Maryland, and New York produced wins for candidates aligned with crypto industry policy interests. One of the central players in the effort was Fairshake, a PAC and network of affiliates that has positioned itself as a key political vehicle for digital asset priorities.
According to the figures cited, the crypto-aligned PACs spent about $8 million on media across the relevant races. In New York, Ritchie Torres—supported by the described crypto-aligned efforts—secured victory in the state’s 15th congressional district primary, taking 71.9% of the vote. In Utah, Blake Moore won the Republican primary for the 2nd district with 57.5%.
Maryland offered a more closely contested outcome among the cited races. Protect Progress, a Fairshake affiliate, reported $5.5 million in expenditures supporting Adrian Boafo, who won the Democratic primary for Maryland’s 5th district with 32% against other candidates described as opposed to “spending from crypto billionaires.”
Fairshake spokesperson Geoff Vetter said the group “went big and we went early,” adding that the campaign aimed to move Boafo “from fifth place to the halls of Congress.”
Reporting also notes that Fairshake previously described having “$150 million cash on hand” in June, after earlier spending connected to state primary efforts. That prior activity included a separate round of spending referenced in earlier coverage by Cointelegraph, underscoring the PAC’s pattern of deploying resources well before election deadlines.
Where the money could matter most
The primary results matter for more than just individual contests. They reflect a strategy: using targeted advertising to shape which candidates advance to November in districts where crypto policy could become a campaign issue. PACs such as Fairshake have framed their efforts around sending lawmakers viewed as “pro-crypto,” aiming to influence legislative direction in the next Congress.
In addition to Fairshake and Protect Progress, other crypto-aligned PACs referenced as having reported support for 2026 candidates included Fellowship—backed by Cantor Fitzgerald and Anchorage Digital—and the Blockchain Leadership Fund, described as a hybrid PAC backed by Anchorage and Chainlink Labs. Together, these groups illustrate that crypto political spending is not concentrated in a single committee.
The June cash figure cited for Fairshake suggests the network has continued financial capacity to remain active beyond a single election cycle, and Tuesday’s wins may encourage further investment in competitive contests.
Some backed candidates still fell short
While several candidates aligned with crypto industry interests won Tuesday’s primaries, the picture was not uniform. Alex Bores, a Democrat running in New York’s 12th district, lost the primary to Micah Lasher.
According to the reporting, Bores faced criticism from Lasher during a June debate. Lasher alleged that Bores may have benefited from Ripple Labs co-founder Chris Larsen spending $3.5 million to support his campaign. That exchange illustrates a political tension often found in high-spending races: even when PAC-aligned candidates are competitive, opponents may attempt to shift the narrative toward donor influence and away from policy substance.
For voters, these dynamics can become a decisive factor in how campaigns are framed—especially when digital asset-related money is already in the spotlight.
Looking ahead to Colorado and Arizona primaries
Attention is expected to move to upcoming primaries in Colorado and Arizona. The reporting indicates that Colorado is scheduled for June 30 and Arizona for July 21. Fairshake affiliates had not disclosed significant spending in any races as of Wednesday, according to the account.
That timing is important. It suggests that crypto-aligned PACs may be pacing their media spending to target later or more competitive windows—or waiting for clearer signals about which candidates need reinforcement. Still, the absence of disclosed spending so far does not rule out later investment closer to those dates.
The report also contextualizes Fairshake’s prior activity in those states. In 2024, the PAC and affiliates reportedly spent more than $10 million in Arizona to support Ruben Gallego’s Senate race, and about $2.1 million to support Democratic Representative Yadira Caraveo in Colorado’s 8th district. Gallego ultimately won, while Caraveo lost in the November 2024 election to Republican Gabe Evans.
With that background, upcoming Colorado and Arizona primaries may serve as a test of whether earlier spending patterns translate into similar success—or whether PAC strategy shifts in response to local dynamics and candidate field changes.
As the next primary dates approach, readers should watch for new disclosures of PAC expenditures and for how candidates in Colorado and Arizona respond to crypto-related campaign narratives—particularly whether the same “early and aggressive” ad strategy credited in Tuesday’s races repeats or evolves.
Bitcoin (BTC) has fallen 3% over the past 24 hours, trading into a dense buy-side liquidity zone after slipping below $61,000. More than $525 million in buy bids initially stacked between $60,500 and $61,500 created a key area of demand as liquidation risk builds on both sides of the market.
BTC’s orderbook data shows concentrated liquidity pockets below $60,500 and near $65,000, placing liquidity flows at the center of Bitcoin’s short-term price action.
Bitcoin momentum weakens below $63,000
Bitcoin closed at $62,700 on Tuesday, its lowest daily candle close since June 10. The move also produced a bearish engulfing candle against Monday’s range, erasing the prior day’s gains and signaling weaker short-term momentum.
BTC/USDT, one-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
The price has since consolidated beneath $63,000 after losing that level as support. The one-hour chart shows a series of lower highs following the rejection near $66,000 earlier this week. The momentum indicator, or relative strength index (RSI), has cooled from recent overbought levels, while Bitcoin continues to trade above the June range low near $60,500.
BTC/USD, one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
Crypto trader Lennaert Snyder called for caution and expected BTC to test the lower liquidity before considering long exposure. The trader said,
“Bitcoin started a little bounce, but I’m not convinced and not buying in yet,” Snyder wrote in a recent market update.
The trader identified $61,500 and $60,500 as the primary levels to watch for bullish reactions. On the upside, he pointed to $63,500 and $64,000 as potential areas where liquidity could attract price before another move lower.
$530 million in BTC buy bids sit below $61,000
Data from Velo shows that BTC traders initially added 8,366 BTC to bid liquidity between $61,500 and $60,500. At the time of writing, Bitcoin has traded through a significant portion of that range, triggering roughly $270 million worth of buy orders as the price dipped below $61,000.
The remaining bids remain near the lower end of the liquidity cluster, where traders are attempting to absorb the latest wave of selling pressure.
BTC buy bids analysis. Source: Velo Chart
The move below $61,000 has already flushed a significant portion of the leveraged long positions clustered around $61,500. CoinGlass data shows more than $125 million in long liquidations over the past hour, reducing downside liquidation pressure near the current price.
With much of the nearby long-side leverage cleared out, the liquidation map now shows a growing imbalance toward short positions positioned above spot price.
Now, more than $1.2 billion in short positions sit near $63,500. A stabilization in the remaining bid liquidity around $60,500-$61,000 may shift attention toward those positions, especially as the downside liquidation pools become less concentrated following the latest flush.
Bitcoin liquidation map. Source: CoinGlass
The next major concentration of liquidation risk sits near $65,000, where more than $2.4 billion in short positions are vulnerable. Such setups often trigger fast moves as liquidations fuel additional buying. For now, the largest liquidity concentrations remain near $60,500, where both spot demand and leveraged exposure remain heavily stacked.
Related: BTC price four-year trend calls for $76K as analysis says Bitcoin ‘not broken’
Key Points
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Presidential postponement leaves Federal Reserve digital currency prohibition uncertain.
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Legislation would prevent Fed-issued digital dollar implementation until 2030.
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Presidential signature contingent on passage of voter registration requirements.
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Private stablecoin exemptions preserved within housing legislation framework.
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Senate cryptocurrency regulatory proposals encounter additional legislative complications.
President Donald Trump has put a federal prohibition on central bank digital currencies in jeopardy after canceling Wednesday’s anticipated signing ceremony for a comprehensive bipartisan housing reform package. The measure would prevent the Federal Reserve from launching a retail central bank digital currency until the end of 2030. Trump’s decision ties the legislation’s fate to separate voter identification requirements.
Presidential Approval Conditional on Election Reform Measure
Through his Truth Social platform, Trump announced the ceremony cancellation moments before its scheduled commencement at the White House. He stipulated that congressional lawmakers must first approve the SAVE America Act, legislation mandating citizenship verification during federal voter registration. This maneuver threw both the housing reform package and its embedded CBDC prohibition into sudden legislative limbo.
The SAVE America Act mandates documentary proof of United States citizenship for individuals registering to participate in federal elections. Proponents characterize this requirement as essential election integrity infrastructure, while critics contend it creates unnecessary obstacles for legitimate voters. Trump has urged Republican senators to expedite the proposal despite minimal Democratic backing.
The housing legislation sailed through the House of Representatives with 358 affirmative votes against 32 negative votes, following Senate passage by an 85-to-5 margin. The bill consequently arrived at the executive branch with extraordinary bipartisan consensus. Trump nevertheless suspended the ceremony despite widespread support from congressional leadership in both chambers.
Digital Currency Prohibition Embedded Within Housing Reform
The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act principally addresses housing inventory expansion, affordability challenges, mortgage lending protocols, and construction regulatory obstacles. Congressional negotiators, however, inserted provisions barring the Federal Reserve from developing or deploying a retail CBDC. This prohibition would maintain force through December 31, 2030.
The language additionally encompasses digital instruments exhibiting characteristics substantially similar to central bank digital currencies. Critically, it carves out private dollar-denominated assets functioning through transparent, permissionless, and decentralized infrastructure. This exclusion safeguards eligible stablecoins from the federal restriction.
Trump has previously issued executive guidance prohibiting federal agencies from establishing, deploying, or advocating for a United States CBDC absent explicit statutory authority. While the Federal Reserve has conducted exploratory research into digital currency possibilities, no digital dollar has been introduced. The congressional language would therefore codify existing executive policy through statutory law.
Legislative Postponement Complicates Cryptocurrency Regulatory Agenda
Trump retains the option to sign the housing package following congressional advancement of his preferred election legislation. Constitutional procedures also permit the measure to achieve legal status without presidential signature. Timing will depend on formal legislative presentation protocols and congressional scheduling dynamics.
This postponement may generate additional uncertainty surrounding the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act currently pending. That legislation would establish jurisdictional boundaries for digital asset oversight and allocate regulatory responsibilities among federal agencies. Trump has previously expressed support for establishing comprehensive market structure frameworks for the cryptocurrency industry.
The CLARITY Act awaits Senate floor deliberations, potential amendments, and conclusive voting. Simultaneously, legislators continue negotiating ethical guidelines concerning political figures’ participation in digital asset enterprises. The housing legislation dispute now injects another political prerequisite into an already congested Senate legislative schedule.
Trump has not issued explicit veto threats regarding the market structure legislation or other pending cryptocurrency proposals. Nevertheless, his refusal to advance unconnected measures may decelerate congressional progress across multiple policy domains. The CBDC prohibition consequently remains entangled with broader controversies involving housing policy, electoral procedures, and digital asset regulatory frameworks.
Crypto World
The Death of the Petrodollar: Nouriel Roubini Outlines Shift to AI-Backed ‘Technodollars’
Economist Nouriel Roubini has declared the “death of the petrodollar” and backed a new tokenized reserve asset called ‘Technodollar’ tied to US productive assets, marking his first formal move into digital assets after years as one of crypto’s most prominent critics.
Speaking on the Expert Council podcast this week, Roubini said stablecoins fail to protect investors from the same inflation and debasement risks that affect traditional fiat currencies.
He argued that the next reserve asset should be linked to technology, artificial intelligence, defense, semiconductors, and other parts of the US economy.
The comments came as Atlas Capital Team launched USAFi, a tokenized reserve asset issued in Dubai under the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority’s Asset-Referenced Virtual Asset framework.
Atlas says USAFi introduces a new category of regulated digital reserve infrastructure. The token is structured as a permissionless ERC-20 asset and is directly collateralized by the Atlas America Fund, an SEC-registered, actively managed ETF listed on Nasdaq under the ticker USAF.
The Illusion of On-Chain Safety
For years, crypto investors have treated dollar-pegged stablecoins such as USDT and USDC as safe places to park capital during market stress.
Roubini said that view misses a larger problem. Stablecoins may help with payments, but they still track a fiat currency that can lose purchasing power during inflationary periods.
“Stablecoins are going to be useful as a means of payment… but if the critique of cryptocurrency was the risk of debasement that comes from inflation, then something that is not interest bearing, like a stablecoin, just a digital dollar with zero interest rate, is subject to the same kind of a debasement risk as a fiat,” Roubini said. “Stablecoins are a very imperfect way of providing this hedging. Highly imperfect is essentially a digital version of the fiat currency with all the problems of fiat currencies.”
His argument is simple. A token that only tracks the dollar does not solve the dollar’s weakness. It moves that weakness onto the blockchain.
That matters more in an economy facing persistent inflation, geopolitical shocks, and climate-related risks. In that environment, Roubini argues that investors need exposure to assets that can preserve real value, rather than digital cash that earns no yield.
From Petrodollars to Technodollars
Atlas framed USAFi around a larger shift in the global reserve system.
In a whitepaper published alongside the launch, the firm said the world has moved from the gold standard of 1944 to 1971, then to the energy-backed petrodollar from the 1970s onward. It now sees a new phase built around what it calls the “technodollar.”
The thesis is that US economic power is increasingly driven by technology rather than oil. Atlas says a reserve asset backed by AI-linked equities, semiconductors, defense technology, cyber infrastructure, short-duration Treasuries, gold, and climate-resilient real estate offers a better hedge for the modern economy.
USAFi’s collateral comes through the Atlas America Fund, which is custodied at BNY Mellon. Atlas says the fund uses machine learning to manage risk across its portfolio.
“The machines do the homework and the people on the investment committee, which Nouriel chairs, make the call,” said Reza Bundy, Atlas Capital CEO and Chairman.
Bringing the Asset On-Chain
Atlas partnered with Securitize to bring the asset onto public blockchains. Securitize is the tokenization platform behind several institutional real-world asset products, including BlackRock’s tokenized fund infrastructure.
The goal is to make USAFi usable as on-chain collateral, rather than keeping it inside a closed institutional environment.
“We think that the tokenized version of it could actually be a very good fit as working as a reserve asset for DeFi collateral,” said Carlos Domingo, founder and CEO of Securitize.
The launch also reflects a broader shift in real-world asset tokenization. Tokenized Treasuries and money market products have already gained traction, but Atlas is pitching USAFi as a more adaptive reserve asset for periods of inflation and macro stress.
For Roubini, the core point is that digital assets cannot rely only on fiat replicas. If investors want protection from debasement, he argues, the collateral itself must change.
USAFi is his first major test of that idea.
The post The Death of the Petrodollar: Nouriel Roubini Outlines Shift to AI-Backed ‘Technodollars’ appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Bitcoin (BTC) hit new two-week lows at Wednesday’s Wall Street open as traders predicted a rally to a “poor” lower high.
Key points:
- Bitcoin price action edges closer to range lows, which traders still see holding.
- A relief bounce should enter soon, they say, with targets closer to $70,000.
- US-Iran peace progress has little bullish impact on risk assets, with US stocks flat at the open.
BTC price nears range lows: Is $70,000 next?
Data from TradingView showed BTC price action dropping below $60,000 for the first time since June 10.
BTC/USD four-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
Traders had warned of increasing short interest with rising funding rates, boosting the odds of a capitulatory move lower.
“It’s time to start bouncing soon on the LTF,” trader Killa wrote in ongoing commentary on X, referring to low time frames.
“Range bound till proven otherwise.”
BTC/USD chart segment. Source: Killa/X
Killa uploaded a further chart showing a relief bounce toward $70,000, being due following the bounce.
BTC/USD chart segment. Source: Killa/X
Fellow trader RektProof had a broadly similar forecast, seeing BTC/USD trading in a range with $60,000 as its floor “for the rest of the month.”
“Overall, a move to supply and back down to the EQ lows before forming back to poor highs + 70k,” he added.
BTC/USDT one-hour chart. Source: RektProof/X
Stocks tread water as Hormuz oil transit progresses
On a macro level, US stocks appeared to have already priced in relief from the US-Iran peace deal.
Related: BTC price four-year trend calls for $76K as analysis says Bitcoin ‘not broken’
Upside was limited at the open despite US President Donald Trump offering further details of mutual cooperation between the two sides.
Trump specifically made reference to the Strait of Hormuz oil transit route, writing in a post on Truth Social that there would be “no tolls, no insurance costs, & no other charges of any kind being sought or received by Iran on ships traveling” via the route.
Source: Truth Social
The S&P 500 traded up 0.4% at the time of writing, while the Nasdaq Composite Index even turned slightly negative on the day.
Earlier, Cointelegraph reported on several factors keeping risk-asset enthusiasm in check, including forward earnings guidance by tech giant Micron Technologies and the May print of the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index, due out on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.
Crypto World
Strategy Stock Falls Below $100 for First Time in Two Years as Analysts Pick Apart Its Bitcoin Bet
Shares of Strategy, the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, fell below $100 on Wednesday for the first time since March 2024, leaving the company trading at a discount to the Bitcoin on its balance sheet and turning investor attention to which layer of its capital structure is still worth owning…. Read the full story at The Defiant
Cryptocurrency mining profitability remains under pressure across major proof-of-work networks, according to new data shared by Alphractal, which shows the sector is experiencing stagnation and reduced returns.
The analytics platform said that while miners continue to play an important role in maintaining network security and decentralization, the data suggests that profitability remains difficult across major proof-of-work networks.
Growing Pressure on Miners
Alphractal’s Mining Equilibrium Index compares miners’ average revenue per hash over 30 days against the 365-day average. Readings above 1.0 signal above-average profitability, while values below 0.5 point to stressed conditions for miners.
Among the four largest proof-of-work assets tracked by the index, Bitcoin posted the highest reading at 0.75, which makes it the strongest performer in terms of mining profitability.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) followed at 0.66, which suggests relatively better conditions than the rest of the group. The OG meme coin, Dogecoin (DOGE), registered a score of 0.60, as mining profitability declined significantly over the years. Litecoin (LTC), on the other hand, recorded the lowest reading at 0.58, making it the weakest performer among the four assets.
However, Bitcoin’s position at the top of the list does not necessarily point to favorable conditions for miners. As recently reported by CryptoPotato, Bitcoin mining difficulty fell by more than 10%, in one of the largest downward adjustments of the year, and demonstrated that fewer miners are participating in the network. At the same time, the Bitcoin hash rate has continued to decline.
The figure briefly dropped below 790 EH/s this month from record levels above 1.2 ZH/s reached last year.
Alphractal also acknowledged that the current environment has made crypto mining increasingly dependent on access to capital, operational efficiency, and patience.
BTC Sales By Mining Companies
Several publicly listed Bitcoin miners have been selling their BTC holdings at the fastest pace since the previous crypto bear market. Back in April, The Energy Mag published a report that revealed that major mining companies such as MARA, CleanSpark, Riot, Cango, Core Scientific, and Bitdeer collectively sold more than 32,000 BTC during the first quarter of 2026.
The amount of Bitcoin sold surpassed the combined net sales recorded throughout all four quarters of 2025. The figure also set a new industry record as it exceeded the roughly 20,000 BTC liquidated by public miners during the second quarter of 2022, when the market was shaken by the collapse of the Terra-Luna ecosystem.
The post Mining Profits Dry Up Across Bitcoin, DOGE, LTC, and BCH appeared first on CryptoPotato.
Protect Progress, the super PAC affiliated with crypto industry flagship Fairshake, spent $5.5 million backing Adrian Boafo in Maryland’s Democratic primary for the 5th Congressional District on June 23, a 24-candidate field for the seat vacated by retiring House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.
Boafo won. Fairshake spokesperson Geoff Vetter put it plainly: “We went big, and we went early. We did our part to move Adrian Boafo from fifth place to the halls of Congress.”
That is not a boast. It is a data point. Boafo entered the race without top-tier name recognition in a district crowded with stronger-profile rivals, including former U.S. Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, who carried Nancy Pelosi’s endorsement. The crypto PAC’s independent expenditure campaign changed the arithmetic of the race.
MD-05 is rated safely Democratic in the general election. Boafo’s primary win is effectively his congressional seat.The execution event, crypto-backed members voting as a bloc on market structure legislation, comes next.
The Maryland result is a single data point inside a larger, faster-moving pattern. Crypto legislation is stacking up in Congress, and the industry has been explicit about its strategy: build the vote count before the bills arrive on the floor, not after. Fairshake and allied crypto PACs have raised $188.9 million for the 2026 cycle، an aggressive early pace relative to the $359.4 million they deployed across the entire 2024 cycle. The Maryland win is proof of concept, not a one-off.
How $5.5M Buys a Congressional Nomination in a 24-Candidate Field
The structural logic of primary targeting is straightforward: low-turnout primaries in safe seats are the cheapest legislative votes the industry can buy. A $5.5 million independent expenditure in a crowded Democratic primary, where winning margins can be decided by a few thousand ballots, delivers substantially more ROI than the same sum deployed in a competitive general election.
Protect Progress is the Fairshake network’s affiliate vehicle for House races. The PAC began spending on Boafo well before the final push. Estimates from AdImpact and FEC data place early-cycle expenditures at $3.1 to $4.5 million by early June, including roughly $300,000 in a single week on TV and mail, before the final burst brought the total to $5.5 million.
This was a sustained intervention, not a last-minute rescue.
When AIPAC’s United Democracy Project is included, total outside support for Boafo reaches approximately $10-$11 million, accounting for more than 80% of all pro-Boafo advertising. The ads themselves did not mention crypto as an issue، they ran on endorsements from Governor Wes Moore, Senator Angela Alsobrooks, and Steny Hoyer.
The financial architecture and the campaign message were kept in separate lanes, which is legally required for independent expenditures and strategically useful for optics.
Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen called the spending an “obscene amount of big special-interest money.” That framing will repeat in November and in the next cycle. It has not yet altered the outcome of a race where Fairshake was deployed at this scale.
Crypto PAC Have Raised $188.9M This Cycle: Maryland is the Latest Proof of Concept
The Maryland congressional election was not the only race on the board Tuesday. Fairshake simultaneously spent $1.3 million backing Representative Ritchie Torres in New York’s 15th district، described internally as one of the industry’s most reliable House allies، and $516,000 on incumbent Representative April McClain Delaney in Maryland.
All supported candidates won or were winning as counts concluded.
The week prior, Fairshake had committed $12 million to Barry Moore’s Alabama Senate bid, the largest single-race deployment in the PAC’s 2026 cycle to date. The pattern is bipartisan by design: Moore is a Republican; Boafo and Torres are Democrats. The crypto PAC’s selection criterion is a candidate’s regulatory posture, not party affiliation.
The Blockchain Leadership Fund, backed by Anchorage Digital and Chainlink, also aligned publicly with Boafo in MD-05, adding a second layer of industry coordination beyond Protect Progress.
Fairshake’s broader donor base، heavily funded by Coinbase and Andreessen Horowitz, which have each contributed tens of millions to crypto-aligned political vehicles، had approximately $126 million remaining on-hand at the end of May, with general election spending not yet begun. The industry is not running low on ammunition.
Prediction market platform Kalshi currently prices a Democratic House majority at 79% odds. If that holds in November, the crypto industry will have built campaign-finance relationships with a significant portion of the incoming majority caucus, relationships established at the primary stage, before general election loyalties had to be negotiated.
The post Fairshake’s $5.5M Maryland Bet Pays Off: Boafo Heads to Congress appeared first on Cryptonews.
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