Crypto World
Will ETH lag Bitcoin in 2026?
Ethereum has fallen harder than Bitcoin, down nearly 70% from its high while the ETH/BTC ratio sits near multi-year lows. Will Ether keep lagging the market leader through 2026, or is the underperformance setting up a reversal? Here is the case on both sides, and what would flip it.
Summary
- Ethereum trades near $1,550 as of late June 2026, down roughly 68% from its August 2025 all-time high near $4,950 and below every major moving average, the weakest technical picture among the large-cap majors.
- The ETH/BTC ratio sits near multi-year lows because Ether has fallen harder than Bitcoin’s roughly 52% drawdown, extending a multi-year stretch of underperformance against the market leader.
- The case for continued underperformance rests on Bitcoin’s ETF and treasury-driven institutional dominance, competition from Solana for on-chain activity, and a muddier investment narrative for Ether.
- The case for a reversal rests on deep-value pricing, staking yield, the Layer-2 and tokenization ecosystem, potential rotation of ETF flows, and the tendency of Ether to outperform in late-cycle altcoin phases.
- Year-end forecasts span roughly $1,266 at the bearish end to $4,400 to $5,300 at the bullish end, a gap that turns on whether capital rotates back toward Ether or stays concentrated in Bitcoin.
Ethereum (ETH) is trading near $1,550 as of late June 2026, and it has fallen harder than almost any other large-cap crypto asset, which raises the question this article addresses: will Ether keep underperforming Bitcoin through the rest of 2026, or is the very depth of its decline setting up a reversal?
The numbers frame the problem starkly. Ether is down roughly 68% from its August 2025 all-time high near $4,950, a far deeper drawdown than Bitcoin’s roughly 52% fall from its own peak, and it trades below every major moving average, from the 20-day exponential average on up through the 200-day near $2,317, with a completed death cross and a relative strength index near 30.
The Fear and Greed reading sits around 13, even deeper in extreme fear than Bitcoin’s, and the $1,500 to $1,600 zone has become the line in the sand that bulls are defending; a clean loss of it opens $1,450 and then $1,400. Most tellingly for this question, the ratio of Ether’s price to Bitcoin’s sits near multi-year lows, the clearest single expression of how badly Ether has lagged the asset the market treats as its anchor.
That ratio, ETH measured against BTC, is the real subject of this piece, because the question is not only where Ether’s dollar price goes but whether it keeps losing ground to Bitcoin specifically. This article works through it from both directions: where Ethereum stands technically, what the ETH/BTC ratio actually measures and why it matters, the structural reasons Ether has underperformed, the case that the underperformance continues, the case that it reverses, what the analysts forecast, the specific conditions that would flip the ratio one way or the other, and three scenarios for both the ratio and the absolute price into year-end. The aim is to give a fair hearing to both sides, because this is a genuinely contested question on which thoughtful people disagree.
The forecasts here are information, not advice. And the framing to carry throughout is that Ether’s 2026 outcome has 2 layers: its dollar price, which depends heavily on the broad market, and its performance relative to Bitcoin, which depends on whether capital rotates back toward Ether or stays concentrated in the market leader. Both layers point to the same underlying question of whether Ethereum can reclaim the narrative momentum it has lost.
Where Ethereum stands right now
The technical condition of Ethereum is the weakest among the large-cap majors, and being honest about that is the starting point. Near $1,550, Ether trades below its 20-day, 50-day, 100-day, and 200-day exponential moving averages, the last of which sits up near $2,317, meaning price is far beneath even its slowest-moving trend line. A death cross, the bearish crossover of shorter and longer averages, has completed, confirming the downtrend on the technical framework many traders use.
The relative strength index near 30 indicates oversold conditions and weak buying momentum, and the broader structure since the spring has been one of lower highs and lower lows, with sellers in control through a steep decline from the $2,000-plus range earlier in the year down to the current zone. The $1,500 to $1,600 area is the critical support, having acted as the 2026 floor, and below it the next levels are $1,450 and $1,400.
Sentiment is correspondingly grim. The Fear and Greed reading around 13 is a deeper extreme fear than Bitcoin’s, reflecting how thoroughly the market has soured on Ether specifically. The drawdown of roughly 68% from the August 2025 high near $4,950 is severe even by crypto standards and significantly worse than Bitcoin’s contemporaneous decline, which is the heart of the underperformance story. To improve the picture,
Ether needs, at minimum, to reclaim short-term resistance near $1,700 to $1,750, and a genuine trend change would require recovering the higher averages up toward $2,000 and then $2,317. Until then, the structure is bearish, and the burden of proof sits with buyers.
This is the uncomfortable backdrop against which the underperformance question must be answered: Ether is not merely down; it is down harder than Bitcoin, deeper in fear, and weaker on the charts, which is exactly why some see capitulation and opportunity while others see a structurally lagging asset with further to fall.
What the ETH/BTC ratio is telling us
To analyze underperformance properly, you have to understand the ETH/BTC ratio, because it strips out the broad market and isolates the question of Ether versus Bitcoin specifically. The ratio simply expresses Ether’s price in terms of Bitcoin rather than dollars, and it rises when Ether outperforms Bitcoin and falls when Ether lags. Right now it sits near multi-year lows, which is the precise, quantified statement of the problem: over an extended period, and especially through the 2025 to 2026 drawdown, Ether has lost value against Bitcoin, not just against the dollar. When both assets fall, but one falls more, the ratio captures the difference, and Ether’s roughly 68% drawdown against Bitcoin’s roughly 52% means Ether has shed a meaningful chunk of its value relative to the market leader.
Why does this matter beyond bookkeeping? The ETH/BTC ratio is one of the most-watched gauges in crypto because it functions as a barometer of risk appetite and capital rotation within the asset class. When the ratio rises, it typically signals that capital is rotating out of Bitcoin and into Ether and the broader altcoin complex, the classic risk-on, altcoin-season dynamic. When it falls, as now, it signals that capital is concentrating in Bitcoin, treating it as the safer, more institutionally endorsed crypto asset while shunning the higher-beta alternatives.
A ratio near multi-year lows therefore tells a story: the market, in its current risk-off and Bitcoin-dominated mood, has been choosing Bitcoin over Ether decisively. For the question of whether Ether underperforms again in 2026, the ratio is both the scoreboard and the leading indicator.
A continued decline or stagnation in the ratio means underperformance persists; a sustained turn upward would be the clearest sign that Ether is regaining ground. Everything that follows, the structural arguments and the catalysts, ultimately expresses itself through which way this ratio moves.
Why Ethereum has underperformed
Understanding the causes of Ether’s underperformance is essential to judging whether it continues, and several structural forces have converged against it. The 1st and arguably most important is the institutional bid for Bitcoin that Ether has not matched in kind.
Spot Bitcoin ETFs and a wave of corporate Bitcoin treasuries have created sustained, price-insensitive demand that treats Bitcoin as digital gold and a primary reserve asset, a role with no clear Ether equivalent. While Ether has its own ETFs, the institutional narrative around Bitcoin as a macro reserve asset has been far more powerful, channeling the bulk of institutional crypto allocation toward Bitcoin and leaving Ether to compete for a smaller, more speculative pool of capital. In a risk-off market, that distinction is decisive: capital flows to the asset with the strongest institutional endorsement, which has been Bitcoin.
The 2nd force is competition for Ethereum’s core use case. Solana and other high-throughput chains have captured a large share of the on-chain activity, particularly the memecoin and high-frequency trading culture, that once would have flowed to Ethereum, challenging Ether’s status as the default smart-contract platform and muddying its growth narrative.
The 3rd is a narrative problem of Ether’s own. Following its technical upgrades, the relationship between network activity and value accrual to the token has become more complicated, with much activity migrating to Layer-2 networks whose fees do not always translate cleanly into demand for Ether, leaving the investment case harder to articulate than Bitcoin’s simple scarcity story.
Together, these forces- Bitcoin’s institutional dominance, Solana’s competitive pressure, and a muddier value-accrual narrative- explain why capital has favored Bitcoin and why the ETH/BTC ratio has fallen to multi-year lows. They are real and structural, not merely cyclical, which is what gives the continued-underperformance thesis its force.
The case that the underperformance continues
The bearish-on-ratio case holds that the forces just described are durable and that Ether keeps lagging Bitcoin through 2026. Its strongest pillar is that the institutional preference for Bitcoin is structural rather than temporary. As long as the dominant institutional narrative casts Bitcoin as the crypto reserve asset and digital gold, with ETFs and treasuries channeling allocation toward it, Ether will struggle to attract a comparable bid, and in any risk-off phase capital will continue concentrating in Bitcoin.
This is not a sentiment that flips quickly; it reflects how large allocators have categorized the two assets, and that categorization has only deepened through the current drawdown. On this view, the ETH/BTC ratio at multi-year lows is not an anomaly poised to mean-revert but the accurate reflection of a lasting shift in how the market values the two.
The competitive and narrative pillars reinforce the case. If Solana and other chains continue to capture on-chain activity and developer attention, Ethereum’s growth story weakens further, and a weakening fundamental narrative makes it harder for Ether to outperform regardless of price level. The muddled value-accrual picture, with activity on Layer-2 networks not cleanly driving Ether demand, means that even genuine ecosystem growth may not translate into the token appreciation that would lift the ratio. Bears also note that Ether’s deeper drawdown is itself a warning: an asset that falls harder than the market leader in a downturn is displaying higher beta and weaker relative strength, traits that tend to persist until a clear catalyst changes them.
In this reading, the most likely path for 2026 is that Ether’s dollar price may rise or fall with the broad market, but it continues to underperform Bitcoin specifically, with the ratio grinding sideways to lower, because none of the structural forces working against it have meaningfully reversed. The underperformance, on this thesis, is a feature of the current market regime, not a temporary dislocation.
The case for a reversal
The bullish-on-ratio case is equally serious and rests on the proposition that Ether’s underperformance has gone far enough to create the conditions for its own reversal. The 1st pillar is deep value. After a 68% drawdown that has driven Ether to multi-year lows against Bitcoin and into extreme fear, the bull argument is that the selling has been overdone, that much of the bad news, the competition, the narrative confusion, the risk-off flight to Bitcoin, is now priced in, and that assets this oversold relative to the leader have historically offered strong mean-reversion potential when sentiment turns.
The 2nd pillar is Ether’s genuine fundamental base, which remains the deepest in the smart-contract world: it anchors the largest decentralized finance ecosystem, hosts the bulk of tokenized real-world asset activity, supports a sprawling Layer-2 network of scaling solutions, and offers a staking yield that gives holders a return Bitcoin does not. These are real assets that a reversal thesis can build on.
The 3rd pillar is the potential for capital rotation, which is how ratio reversals historically happen. In past cycles, after Bitcoin leads a move and its dominance peaks, capital has frequently rotated into Ether and the broader altcoin complex in a late-cycle altcoin season that drives the ETH/BTC ratio sharply higher, and bulls argue the current extreme in Bitcoin dominance and Ether weakness is exactly the kind of setup that precedes such a rotation.
Specific catalysts could trigger it: ETF flows rotating from Bitcoin toward Ether, particularly if Ether ETF staking features attract yield-seeking institutional capital; a stumble in Solana’s momentum that returns activity and attention to Ethereum; a broad macro shift to risk-on that lifts the higher-beta assets most; and the growth of tokenization and institutional finance building on Ethereum translating into clearer token demand.
On this view, the very severity of Ether’s underperformance, the multi-year-low ratio and the extreme fear, is the contrarian signal, and 2026 could be the year the ratio turns as capital rotates back toward a deeply discounted asset with the strongest fundamental ecosystem in its category. The reversal is not guaranteed, but it is a coherent thesis grounded in real catalysts and historical precedent.
What the analysts forecast
The analyst forecasts for Ether’s dollar price in 2026 span a wide range that maps onto the underperformance debate. On the bearish side, model-driven and cautious forecasters see continued weakness: Traders Union’s statistical model projects a year-end average near $1,266, and DigitalCoinPrice has pointed to a 4th-quarter low around $1,370, both implying Ether stays near or below current levels and, by extension, likely keeps underperforming a Bitcoin that most forecasters see holding higher absolute levels. These bearish targets are consistent with the thesis that the structural forces against Ether persist and that the ratio does not recover.
On the bullish side, forecasters such as BitScreener have projected Ether reaching toward $4,676 by year-end, and others, including Cryptopolitan and the optimistic scenarios at LiteFinance, point to ranges of roughly $4,400 to $5,300, which would imply a powerful recovery and, if Bitcoin does not rise proportionally, a sharp improvement in the ETH/BTC ratio.
The gap between roughly $1,266 and $5,300 for the same asset in the same year is enormous, and like Bitcoin and XRP, it reflects genuine uncertainty rather than careless modeling. The bearish numbers assume the structural underperformance continues and Ether stays pinned near its lows; the bullish numbers assume a reversal driven by rotation, deep-value mean reversion, and Ether’s fundamental strengths reasserting themselves.
What the forecasts collectively reveal is that Ether’s 2026 outcome is even more binary than Bitcoin’s, because it depends not only on the direction of the broad market but on whether capital rotates back toward Ether specifically. An investor who believes the rotation comes will lean toward the high forecasts; one who believes Bitcoin’s dominance is structural will lean toward the low ones.
The forecasts cannot settle the debate; they can only show how much rides on it. For the underperformance question specifically, the spread is a reminder that Ether is the higher-variance bet, capable of both deeper losses and sharper recoveries than the market leader, which is precisely the profile of an asset whose relative performance is genuinely up for grabs.
What would flip the ratio, and what would keep it down
The underperformance question ultimately resolves into a set of watchable conditions, and naming them is more useful than guessing. The ratio would flip in Ether’s favor on several developments. The clearest would be a broad rotation into altcoins, the classic late-cycle dynamic in which Bitcoin dominance peaks and capital flows down the risk curve into Ether first; a sustained turn upward in the ETH/BTC ratio off its multi-year lows would be the signal that this is underway. ETF flows rotating toward Ether, especially if staking-enabled Ether products draw yield-seeking institutional capital, would provide a concrete demand catalyst.
A stumble in Solana’s momentum that returns on-chain activity and developer attention to Ethereum would repair the competitive narrative. A macro shift to risk-on, with the Federal Reserve easing and liquidity improving, would favor the higher-beta asset, which is Ether. And technically, reclaiming resistance near $1,700 to $1,750 and then the higher averages toward $2,000 and $2,317 would confirm a trend change. If these align, the reversal thesis gains the upper hand.
The conditions that keep Ether underperforming are the mirror image. Continued institutional concentration in Bitcoin, with ETFs and treasuries channeling allocation toward the market leader and away from Ether, would preserve the structural imbalance. Ongoing Solana strength and further erosion of Ethereum’s on-chain dominance would keep the fundamental narrative weak.
A persistent risk-off market would keep capital huddled in Bitcoin instead of rotating into higher-beta Ether. And technically, a loss of the $1,500 support that opens $1,450 and $1,400 would confirm that sellers remain in control and that the ratio is still falling. The practical discipline for anyone watching this question is to track the ETH/BTC ratio directly as the scoreboard, alongside Bitcoin dominance, ETF flow data, Solana’s activity trends, and the macro backdrop. Those signals will reveal whether 2026 is another year of Ether lagging the leader or the year the long underperformance finally reverses. The market will answer the question through the ratio; the job is to watch it instead of to assume.
Three scenarios for Ethereum in 2026
Translating the debate into scenarios captures both the dollar price and the relative-performance dimension. In the bull scenario, the underperformance reverses. Capital rotates into Ether in a late-cycle altcoin phase, ETF flows and staking demand pick up, Solana’s momentum cools, the macro turns risk-on, and Ether recovers toward the $4,400 to $5,300 range that the optimistic forecasts describe, with the ETH/BTC ratio turning sharply higher off its multi-year lows.
In this world, Ether not only rises in dollar terms but decisively outperforms Bitcoin, rewarding the deep-value and rotation thesis. It is a coherent path, grounded in historical precedent and real catalysts, but it requires the structural forces that have favored Bitcoin to loosen.
In the base scenario, Ether broadly tracks the market without a clean resolution of the underperformance question. It stabilizes around current levels, recovers modestly if the broad market does, but continues to lag Bitcoin or merely matches it, with the ETH/BTC ratio grinding sideways near its lows instead of reversing decisively. Ether’s dollar price spends 2026 in a wide, volatile band, and the relative-performance question stays unresolved into 2027. This middle path reflects how balanced the structural arguments are and is a reasonable central expectation. In the bear scenario, the underperformance deepens.
Bitcoin’s institutional dominance persists, Solana continues to pressure Ethereum, the market stays risk-off, Ether loses the $1,500 support and slides toward $1,400 and below, validating the bearish forecasts near $1,266, and the ETH/BTC ratio falls further as capital keeps choosing Bitcoin. Which scenario unfolds depends on capital rotation, ETF flows, the Solana competition, and the macro backdrop, all of which express themselves through the ETH/BTC ratio. All 3 are live, and the breadth between them is exactly why Ether is the higher-variance bet among the majors heading into the rest of 2026.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will Ethereum underperform Bitcoin in 2026?
It is truly contested. Ether has underperformed Bitcoin badly, down roughly 68% from its 2025 high versus Bitcoin’s roughly 52%, pushing the ETH/BTC ratio to multi-year lows. The case for continued underperformance rests on Bitcoin’s structural institutional dominance through ETFs and treasuries, competition from Solana for on-chain activity, and a muddier value-accrual narrative for Ether. The case for a reversal rests on deep-value pricing after the severe drawdown, Ether’s strong fundamental ecosystem and staking yield, and the potential for capital to rotate into Ether in a late-cycle altcoin phase. The deciding signal is the ETH/BTC ratio itself; a sustained turn higher would mark a reversal, while continued weakness would confirm more underperformance.
Why has Ethereum fallen harder than Bitcoin?
Several structural forces have weighed on Ether more than Bitcoin. The biggest is the institutional bid for Bitcoin as digital gold and a reserve asset, channeled through ETFs and corporate treasuries, with no equally powerful equivalent for Ether. Competition from Solana and other high-throughput chains has captured on-chain activity that once flowed to Ethereum, weakening its growth narrative. And Ether’s value-accrual story has grown more complicated, with much activity migrating to Layer-2 networks whose fees do not cleanly translate into demand for the token. In a risk-off market, capital concentrates in the asset with the strongest institutional endorsement, which has been Bitcoin, leaving higher-beta Ether to fall harder.
What is the ETH/BTC ratio and why does it matter?
The ETH/BTC ratio expresses Ether’s price in terms of Bitcoin instead of dollars; it rises when Ether outperforms Bitcoin and falls when Ether lags. It matters because it strips out the broad market and isolates the question of Ether versus Bitcoin specifically, and because it functions as a barometer of risk appetite and capital rotation within crypto. A rising ratio typically signals capital rotating out of Bitcoin into Ether and altcoins, the classic altcoin-season dynamic; a falling ratio, as now near multi-year lows, signals capital concentrating in Bitcoin. For the underperformance question, the ratio is both the scoreboard and the leading indicator, so watching it directly is the best way to judge whether Ether is regaining or losing ground.
What would make Ethereum outperform again?
A reversal would likely require capital rotation into Ether, the late-cycle dynamic in which Bitcoin dominance peaks and money flows into Ether and altcoins, signaled by the ETH/BTC ratio turning up off its lows. Concrete catalysts include ETF flows rotating toward Ether, especially staking-enabled products attracting yield-seeking capital; a stumble in Solana’s momentum returning activity to Ethereum; a macro shift to risk-on that favors higher-beta assets; and Ether reclaiming technical resistance near $1,700 to $1,750 and then the higher averages toward $2,000 and $2,317. The bull thesis also leans on deep value after the 68% drawdown and Ether’s strong fundamentals in decentralized finance, tokenization, Layer-2s, and staking. If these align, the long underperformance could reverse in 2026.
What are analysts forecasting for Ethereum in 2026?
The range is very wide. Bearish, model-driven forecasts see continued weakness, with Traders Union projecting a year-end average near $1,266 and DigitalCoinPrice pointing to a 4th-quarter low around $1,370, implying Ether stays near its lows. Bullish forecasts are far higher, with BitScreener toward $4,676 and others, including Cryptopolitan and optimistic scenarios at LiteFinance, in the $4,400 to $5,300 range, implying a strong recovery. The gap from roughly $1,266 to $5,300 reflects genuine uncertainty: the low end assumes structural underperformance continues, while the high end assumes a reversal driven by rotation and deep-value mean reversion. Ether’s outcome is more binary than Bitcoin’s because it depends on whether capital rotates back toward Ether specifically.
Is Ethereum a better buy than Bitcoin right now?
This article does not give buy recommendations, and the honest answer is that it depends entirely on the question it examines. Ether offers higher potential reward if the underperformance reverses, because it is more deeply discounted and has more room to mean-revert, but it carries higher risk because the structural forces favoring Bitcoin- institutional dominance, Solana competition, and a muddier narrative- may persist. Bitcoin has been the safer, more institutionally endorsed asset that capital has favored in the risk-off market. Choosing between them is really a bet on whether capital rotates back toward Ether in 2026 or stays concentrated in Bitcoin, which is the unresolved question at the center of this analysis. Both are highly volatile and can lose value.
This article is information, not financial or investment advice. Ethereum and Bitcoin price levels, the ETH/BTC ratio, indicator readings, and analyst forecasts reflect data available as of June 28, 2026, are point-in-time, and can change rapidly. Cryptocurrency is highly volatile, and you can lose money. Price predictions are inherently uncertain, and the scenarios described are not guarantees. Do your own research and consult a qualified financial professional before making any investment decision.
Stellar trades near $0.18, but a May 2026 plan for the DTCC to connect its tokenization service to Stellar, with XLM named as the settlement token, could route trillions in traditional securities onto the network. What would that actually mean for the price? Here is the realistic read, separating the landmark from the hype.
Summary
- Stellar trades near $0.18 as of late June 2026, down from a July 2025 high near $0.52, with the Fear and Greed reading in extreme fear despite strong network fundamentals. In May 2026, the DTCC, the backbone of United States securities settlement, announced it would connect its tokenization service to Stellar, with XLM designated as the settlement token and live assets targeted for the first half of 2027.
- The deal is a genuine long-term, high-conviction catalyst because it links potential institutional securities volume directly to the network, but the 2027 timeline means price until then is driven by speculation and sentiment.
- The central question for the price is value accrual: whether routing securities settlement through Stellar translates into sustained demand for the XLM token, a question complicated by XLM’s fixed supply with no burn mechanism.
- Year-end 2026 forecasts span roughly $0.18 at the bearish end to $1.20 to $2.50 in bullish models, a gap that turns on whether the DTCC and other catalysts begin converting fundamentals into token demand.
Stellar (XLM) is trading near $0.18 as of late June 2026, and it presents one of the sharpest disconnects in crypto: a network with strong and growing fundamentals attached to a token sitting near multi-year lows.
XLM is down from a July 2025 high near $0.52, the Fear and Greed reading is mired in extreme fear, and yet the underlying network is arguably healthier than ever, with tokenized real-world assets on Stellar having climbed past $2.83 billion, stablecoin payment volume around $5.5 billion, developer engagement at record highs, and consensus achieved in under six seconds through its Federated Byzantine Agreement design.
Into that gap between fundamentals and price landed the most consequential development in Stellar’s recent history: in May 2026, the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, the institution that sits at the center of United States securities settlement, announced it would connect its tokenization service to Stellar, with XLM named as the settlement token and live assets targeted for the first half of 2027.
The announcement raised an obvious and high-stakes question for anyone watching XLM: if the backbone of traditional securities settlement is routing tokenized assets through Stellar, what does that mean for the price of the token?
This article answers that question as realistically as possible, separating the genuine significance of the deal from the hype that inevitably surrounds it. It works through where Stellar stands now and why the fundamentals-price gap exists, what the DTCC deal actually is, why it could be a landmark, the all-important value-accrual question of whether network volume translates into token demand, the problem of the 2027 timeline, the other catalysts stacking up around XLM, the supply dynamics that complicate the bull case, what the analysts forecast, and three scenarios for the price.
The aim is to give XLM holders and observers a clear-eyed read rather than either dismissive skepticism or breathless promotion, because the DTCC deal is simultaneously a real, high-conviction catalyst and a development whose price impact is years away and structurally uncertain. The forecasts here are information, not advice. And the thread running through the whole analysis is the same question that haunts every payments-token valuation: does the network’s success actually accrue to the token, or can the volume flow through while the token is bypassed? For Stellar, the DTCC deal makes that question concrete and urgent.
Where Stellar stands and the fundamentals gap
Begin with the disconnect that defines XLM right now, because it is the context for everything the DTCC deal might change. Stellar near $0.18 is down significantly from its July 2025 high near $0.52, and the Fear and Greed reading sits in extreme fear, the same deeply pessimistic sentiment weighing on the broader crypto market.
On the charts, XLM has spent 2026 oscillating, with periods of consolidation around the high teens to low twenties in cents and sharp volatility, including swings of substantial magnitude within single months, but the broad trend has left the token near the lower end of its range and below where it traded a year ago. By the standard technical and sentiment measures, XLM looks like what it is: a beaten-down mid-cap altcoin in a fearful market.
What makes Stellar unusual is that its fundamentals tell a very different story from its price. The value of tokenized real-world assets issued on Stellar has surged past $2.83 billion, growing at a rapid clip, and stablecoin payment volume on the network has reached roughly $5.5 billion, both signs of genuine, growing utility rather than mere speculation. The network supports a large base of accounts and a wide array of fiat and crypto on-ramps, achieves fast and cheap settlement through its consensus design, and has added the Soroban smart-contract platform to enable tokenization and decentralized finance.
Developer engagement is at record levels. This is the crux of the Stellar investment debate: a network whose real-world usage and institutional positioning are strengthening, attached to a token whose price has fallen to multi-year lows. Bulls read the gap as a buying opportunity and evidence of accumulation, on the logic that price will eventually catch up to fundamentals. Skeptics read it as evidence that network usage does not reliably accrue value to the XLM token, which is precisely the question the DTCC deal forces to the center. The fundamentals-price gap is the setup; the DTCC deal is the potential catalyst that either closes it or exposes it as permanent.
What the DTCC deal actually is
To assess its impact, you have to understand precisely what was announced, because the details determine the significance. In May 2026, the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation revealed plans to connect its tokenization service to the Stellar network. The DTCC is not a peripheral player; it is the central infrastructure of United States securities settlement, the institution through which an enormous share of the country’s stock and bond transactions are cleared and settled, handling quadrillions of dollars in securities annually across the traditional financial system. Its decision to build tokenization capability on a public blockchain at all is significant, and its selection of Stellar specifically, with XLM named as the settlement token for the infrastructure, is what makes the announcement material for the token. The plan targets live assets in the first half of 2027, meaning the connection is a forward-looking build rather than something already moving volume today.
The stated logic is that tokenization, representing traditional securities as digital tokens on a blockchain, can make settlement faster, cheaper, and programmable, and that Stellar’s compliance-focused, settlement-oriented architecture is suited to regulated finance. The phrase that captured attention is that the arrangement brings the potential for trillions in traditional securities onto the network over time, with XLM as the settlement token directly linking that future institutional volume to token demand. That is the bullish framing, and it is grounded in real fact: the DTCC genuinely chose Stellar, XLM is genuinely named as the settlement token, and the addressable volume is truly enormous. But three qualifications matter from the outset and shape the rest of this analysis.
First, the assets go live in 2027, not now. Second, the scale of what actually migrates onto Stellar, as opposed to the theoretical addressable market, is unknown. And third, and most important for the price, the mechanism by which settlement volume translates into sustained XLM demand is the contested value-accrual question instead of an automatic pass-through. The deal is real and large in potential; what it means for the token depends on details that are not yet settled.
Why it could be a landmark
Taken at its strongest, the DTCC deal is a genuine landmark, and the bull case for its significance deserves a full and fair statement. The first reason is validation. When the institution at the heart of United States securities settlement chooses to build tokenization infrastructure on Stellar, it is an endorsement of Stellar’s architecture for regulated, institutional finance that no marketing campaign could buy. It signals that Stellar’s long-standing bet on compliance and settlement, often overlooked during the speculative manias that drove other chains, is being recognized by exactly the kind of counterparty it was designed to serve. For a network whose pitch has always been institutional and payments-focused instead of retail-speculative, having the DTCC select it is the strongest possible third-party confirmation of the thesis.
The second reason is the direct linkage to token demand, at least in principle. Because XLM is named as the settlement token for the DTCC tokenization infrastructure, future institutional volume flowing through that infrastructure has a potential channel to XLM demand, unlike vaguer partnership announcements that leave the token’s role ambiguous. The third reason is scale and trajectory. The addressable market for tokenized securities is measured in the trillions, and even capturing a modest fraction would represent settlement volume far beyond anything Stellar handles today, which is why the deal is framed as a long-term, high-conviction bullish driver instead of a short-term price catalyst. It fits a broader pattern in which Stellar has positioned itself as compliance-ready infrastructure for tokenization, evidenced by its alignment with regulatory frameworks and its role hosting regulated stablecoins.
The strongest version of the bull case, then, is that the DTCC deal is the moment Stellar’s institutional thesis begins to be validated by the most credible possible counterparty, with a direct potential link to token demand and an addressable market large enough to transform the network’s economics. Whether that potential converts into token price is the next, harder question.
The value-accrual question
Here is where realism has to enter, because the gap between a network landmark and a token price runs straight through the value-accrual question, and Stellar’s situation has a cautionary parallel close at hand. The question is whether routing securities settlement through Stellar actually creates sustained demand for the XLM token, or whether the volume can flow through the network while the token captures little of the value. This is not a hypothetical concern invented for skepticism; it is the same question that has dogged XRP, where Ripple’s commercial success in cross-border payments has not reliably translated into XRP token appreciation, because much settlement activity can occur without participants holding the token for any meaningful duration. Stellar faces a structurally similar issue: a settlement token may be used transiently to bridge value during a transaction without anyone needing to hold XLM as a durable asset, in which case enormous settlement volume could produce only modest, fleeting token demand.
The specifics of how XLM is used in the DTCC infrastructure will determine which way this resolves, and those specifics are not yet fully clear. If XLM is required as a persistent bridge or reserve asset that institutions must hold to access the settlement rails, and if the volume is large, the demand could be substantial and sustained. If, instead, XLM functions as a momentary settlement medium that is acquired and released within transactions, or if stablecoins denominated in dollars do most of the actual value transfer while XLM plays a minimal technical role, then the token demand could be far smaller than the headline volume suggests.
The honest assessment is that the DTCC deal creates a potential channel for value to accrue to XLM, but it does not guarantee that it will, and the magnitude depends on technical and economic details that remain to be seen. This is the single most important caveat for anyone pricing XLM off the DTCC news. The deal could be a genuine landmark for the network and still deliver a muted token-price impact if the value-accrual mechanism is weak, exactly as has happened with XRP. The network’s success and the token’s success are related but not identical, and conflating them is the most common error in valuing payments tokens.
The 2027 timeline problem
Even setting aside the value-accrual question, the DTCC deal carries a timing problem that directly affects how it should be priced today. The plan targets live assets in the first half of 2027, which means that for the entire rest of 2026 and into early 2027, there is no actual DTCC settlement volume flowing through Stellar, only the anticipation of it. This matters because, until the infrastructure goes live and shows real volume, XLM’s price will be driven by speculation and sentiment about the future instead of by current flows, which makes it vulnerable to the same volatility that afflicts any narrative-driven asset. The market has already shown this dynamic, with XLM experiencing sharp moves and pullbacks, including a notable drop after a rally, as enthusiasm about the deal collided with the reality that nothing changes operationally for many months.
The timing problem cuts in two directions, and a fair analysis acknowledges both. On one hand, it tempers the near-term bull case: those expecting the DTCC deal to lift XLM’s price in 2026 are betting on sentiment and positioning instead of on actual usage, and sentiment can fade, reverse, or be overwhelmed by broader market conditions long before 2027 arrives. A deal that goes live in 18 months provides little support for a token if the broad crypto market stays fearful in the meantime.
On the other hand, the long runway means the catalyst is not yet spent: if and when the infrastructure goes live in 2027 and begins showing real volume, that could be a fresh, concrete catalyst at a point when much of the speculative anticipation may have faded, potentially providing an upside surprise to a token that the market had given up on.
For pricing XLM through the rest of 2026 specifically, the timeline problem means the DTCC deal is best understood as a long-term thesis underpinning the token instead of a near-term price driver, and that anyone buying XLM on the DTCC news in 2026 is making a multi-year bet whose payoff, if it comes, is concentrated in 2027 and beyond, contingent on the value-accrual question resolving favorably.
The other catalysts stacking up
The DTCC deal does not stand alone; it sits atop a cluster of other developments that collectively strengthen Stellar’s institutional thesis, and a complete picture has to account for them. The most important is the regulatory designation.
On March 17, 2026, United States regulators designated Stellar as a digital commodity, the same classification extended to a short list of major tokens, which removed a significant barrier by clarifying XLM’s legal status and making it eligible for custodial services from institutions that safeguard assets. That designation is foundational because it is what allows firms to build regulated products on Stellar and to hold XLM with legal confidence, and it underpins the DTCC deal and the others.
Building on it, CME Group XLM futures are expected during 2026, which would provide regulated derivatives infrastructure and a potential structural source of institutional demand and price discovery, and an Amundi fund and other institutional vehicles point to growing traditional-finance engagement with the token.
Several more developments round out the picture. Stellar is widely seen as a beneficiary of the CLARITY Act, the legislation that aims to codify digital-asset rules and that could advance in 2026, in the same way XRP is, since both are payment-focused tokens whose institutional adoption hinges on regulatory certainty. Stellar’s design aligns with European regulatory frameworks, evidenced by regulated stablecoins launching on the network, giving it a compliance posture suited to multiple jurisdictions. And the Soroban smart-contract platform expands what the network can host, broadening its addressable market into tokenization and decentralized finance.
The significance of this cluster is that the DTCC deal is not an isolated bet but part of a coherent institutional thesis: regulatory clarity through the digital-commodity designation and potential CLARITY Act passage, derivatives infrastructure through CME futures, traditional-finance vehicles through funds like Amundi’s, and the flagship tokenization linkage through the DTCC.
If the thesis works, these catalysts reinforce one another, with regulatory clarity enabling the institutional products that enable the volume that could drive token demand. The caveat from the value-accrual discussion still applies to all of them, but the breadth of the catalyst stack is itself a meaningful part of the bull case for XLM.
The supply picture that complicates the bull case
A factor specific to XLM that any honest price analysis must weigh is its supply structure, which cuts against the simplest bullish narratives in an important way.
Following a 2019 community vote, Stellar ended its annual token issuance, fixing the total supply near 50 billion XLM and removing the inflationary dilution that suppresses price appreciation on many rival networks. That fixed supply is truly favorable: it means new issuance does not constantly dilute holders, and if demand rises against a fixed supply, the price pressure is upward. To that extent, the supply structure supports the bull case, and it is a point bulls rightly emphasize.
But there is a crucial qualification that complicates the value-accrual story. Stellar has no token-burn mechanism that meaningfully reduces circulating supply as the network is used. On some networks, transaction activity burns tokens, so that rising usage automatically tightens supply and creates upward price pressure independent of speculative demand, a direct link between network use and token scarcity. Stellar lacks this channel at scale, which means that fee-driven demand from network activity does not automatically remove XLM from circulation.
The implication for the DTCC deal is significant: even if substantial securities settlement volume flows through Stellar, that activity will not, by itself, shrink the XLM supply the way a burn mechanism would, so 1 of the clearest channels through which network usage could force token-price appreciation is absent.
The price would have to rise through genuine, sustained holding demand for XLM as an asset, not merely through transactional throughput, which loops back to the value-accrual question. The fixed supply is a modest positive; the absence of a burn mechanism is a real limitation on how mechanically network success can translate into token-price gains. Together they mean XLM’s bull case depends more heavily on durable demand for the token itself than on raw volume, which raises the bar for the DTCC deal to move the price.
What the analysts forecast
The analyst forecasts for XLM in 2026 span an extraordinarily wide range, even by the standards of the other majors, and the spread maps directly onto the questions this article has raised. At the bearish end, the algorithmic forecaster CoinCodex reads Stellar as bearish on technical indicators and, strikingly, its model does not project XLM reaching $1 until 2047, treating the token as a slow-compounding asset that the current setup does not favor.
Other cautious forecasters cluster low: Traders Union’s model points to roughly $0.40 to $0.48 for year-end, and DigitalCoinPrice sees around $0.32, both well above current levels but far below the bullish targets and treating Stellar as an infrastructure asset that appreciates slowly instead of a narrative rocket. Base-case forecasts that assume regulatory clarity holds and tokenization grows at a moderate pace tend to land in a $0.25 to $0.50 band, a meaningful recovery from current levels without a breakout.
At the bullish end sit forecasters who weigh the institutional catalysts heavily. Coinpedia’s hybrid model is the most bullish of the major platforms for 2026, placing XLM in a moderate range of $1.20 to $1.80 and a stronger scenario toward $2.50 if it reclaims key resistance, explicitly anchoring the thesis in institutional adoption velocity, rising stablecoin and tokenized-asset volume, and the catalysts described above, with a longer-term 2030 target as high as $6.19 under favorable conditions.
CoinLore and others produce aggressive cycle targets in the range of roughly $0.50 to $1.69 for the year. The gap, from a model that does not see $1 until 2047 to 1 targeting $2.50 this year, is enormous, and it reflects exactly the unresolved questions: whether the DTCC deal and the other catalysts convert into token demand, whether the value-accrual mechanism is strong or weak, and whether the 2027 timeline leaves 2026 to sentiment.
The bullish forecasts assume the institutional thesis begins paying off in token demand; the bearish ones assume the fundamentals-price gap persists because usage does not accrue to the token. The forecasts cannot settle which is right; they can only show how much rides on the DTCC deal and its peers actually closing that gap.
Three scenarios for Stellar around the DTCC catalyst
Pulling the analysis into scenarios clarifies the range without pretending to certainty. In the bull scenario, the market begins to price the institutional thesis ahead of the 2027 go-live. Confidence grows that the DTCC deal, the digital-commodity designation, CME futures, and the broader catalyst stack will convert into real XLM demand, an altcoin-favorable phase arrives, and XLM recovers toward the $1.20 to $2.50 range that the most bullish credible models describe, with the fundamentals-price gap finally closing as anticipation of trillions in tokenized volume lifts the token. This path requires the market to look through the 2027 timeline and to bet that the value-accrual question resolves in XLM’s favor, and it leans on the breadth of the catalyst stack as the engine. It is achievable but conditional on a favorable read of exactly the questions that remain open.
In the base scenario, the most defensible central case, XLM recovers modestly to a $0.25 to $0.50 band. Regulatory clarity holds, the catalysts develop roughly on schedule, and the token grinds back up from its lows as the institutional thesis slowly gains credibility, but without a breakout, because the DTCC volume is not live until 2027 and the value-accrual mechanism remains unproven through 2026.
This recovery-without-breakout outcome fits the weight of base-case forecasting and reflects the reality that the biggest catalyst is years from delivering actual volume. In the bear scenario, the fundamentals-price gap persists or widens. The broad market stays fearful, the DTCC anticipation fades as 2027 stays distant, doubts deepen about whether settlement volume will ever accrue to the token given the no-burn supply structure, and XLM stalls in the $0.10 to $0.20 range or drifts lower, validating the bearish models that treat it as a slow-compounding asset. Which scenario unfolds depends on the broad market, the pace of the catalysts, and above all whether the market comes to believe that routing securities through Stellar will create durable demand for XLM. All 3 are live, and the DTCC deal is the pivot around which they turn, a genuine landmark for the network whose translation into token price remains the open question.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the DTCC tokenization deal with Stellar?
In May 2026, the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, the central infrastructure of United States securities settlement, announced it would connect its tokenization service to the Stellar network, with XLM named as the settlement token and live assets targeted for the first half of 2027. The DTCC clears and settles an enormous share of United States securities transactions, so its decision to build tokenization capability on Stellar is a major institutional endorsement. The arrangement carries the potential to bring tokenized traditional securities onto the network over time, with XLM as the settlement token linking that future volume to potential token demand. It is a forward-looking build, not something moving volume today.
Will the DTCC deal make XLM’s price go up?
It could, but it is not automatic, and the timing and mechanism matter. The deal is a genuine long-term, high-conviction catalyst because it links potential institutional securities volume to the network with XLM named as the settlement token. But assets do not go live until the first half of 2027, so through 2026 the price is driven by speculation instead of actual flows. More fundamentally, whether settlement volume translates into sustained XLM demand is the contested value-accrual question: a settlement token can be used transiently without anyone holding it durably, and Stellar lacks a burn mechanism that would tighten supply as usage grows. The deal could be a landmark for the network and still deliver a muted token-price impact if value accrual is weak.
Why is Stellar’s price so low if its fundamentals are strong?
This is the central Stellar paradox. The network’s fundamentals are strong and growing, with tokenized real-world assets past $2.83 billion, stablecoin payment volume around $5.5 billion, record developer engagement, and fast, cheap settlement, yet XLM trades near $0.18, down from a 2025 high near $0.52, with sentiment in extreme fear. Bulls read the gap as a buying opportunity on the logic that price will catch up to fundamentals. Skeptics read it as evidence that network usage does not reliably accrue value to the XLM token, the same issue that has dogged XRP. The gap exists because network success and token-price appreciation are related but not identical, and the mechanism linking them for XLM is contested.
What is the value-accrual question for XLM?
It is whether routing activity like securities settlement through Stellar actually creates sustained demand for the XLM token, or whether volume can flow through the network while the token captures little value. A settlement token may be used transiently to bridge value within a transaction without anyone needing to hold XLM as a durable asset, in which case large settlement volume could produce only modest, fleeting token demand. This is the same question that has limited XRP’s price despite Ripple’s commercial success. For the DTCC deal, the magnitude of token-price impact depends on whether XLM is required as a persistent bridge or reserve asset or functions only as a momentary settlement medium, details that are not yet fully clear.
Does Stellar’s fixed supply help the price?
Partly, but with an important limitation. Following a 2019 community vote, Stellar ended annual issuance and fixed total supply near 50 billion XLM, removing the inflationary dilution that suppresses many rival tokens, which is favorable because rising demand against fixed supply creates upward price pressure. However, Stellar has no token-burn mechanism that meaningfully reduces circulating supply as the network is used. On some networks, transaction activity burns tokens so that rising usage automatically tightens supply; Stellar lacks this at scale, so fee-driven demand does not automatically remove XLM from circulation. The implication is that even large settlement volume will not shrink supply by itself, so the price must rise through durable holding demand instead of throughput, which raises the bar for catalysts like the DTCC deal
What are analysts forecasting for Stellar in 2026?
The range is extraordinarily wide. At the bearish end, CoinCodex’s model is bearish and does not project XLM reaching $1 until 2047, while Traders Union sees roughly $0.40 to $0.48 and DigitalCoinPrice around $0.32 for year-end, treating XLM as a slow-compounding infrastructure asset. Base-case forecasts that assume moderate growth cluster in a $0.25 to $0.50 band. At the bullish end, Coinpedia models $1.20 to $1.80 and up to $2.50 if resistance is reclaimed, anchored in institutional adoption, with a 2030 target as high as $6.19. The gap, from no $1 until 2047 to $2.50 this year, reflects the unresolved questions of whether the DTCC deal and other catalysts convert into token demand and whether the fundamentals-price gap finally closes.
This article is information, not financial or investment advice. Stellar price levels, network metrics, the DTCC announcement details, and analyst forecasts reflect data available as of June 28, 2026, are point-in-time, and can change. Cryptocurrency is highly volatile, and you can lose money. Price predictions are inherently uncertain, and the scenarios described are not guarantees. Do your own research and consult a qualified financial professional before making any investment decision.
The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published a crypto regulatory framework that brings the regulator’s long-awaited “crypto roadmap” to completion, setting out how digital-asset firms will be authorized and supervised in the country.
In a Tuesday press release shared with Cointelegraph, the FCA said the new regime introduces mandatory licensing for crypto firms, adds capital stress-testing requirements, strengthens rules around market manipulation and insider dealing, and adjusts the capital requirements applicable to stablecoin issuers.
Key takeaways
- UK crypto firms will need FCA authorization to operate, including trading platforms, custodians, stablecoin issuers and staking intermediaries.
- A licensing window runs from September through Feb. 28, 2027, with the regime set to go live Oct. 25, 2027.
- Firms already authorized under UK money laundering regulations will not automatically be converted and must obtain new authorization.
- Stablecoin requirements are being refined, including changes to reserve composition rules and the treatment of reserves held in certain arrangements.
- The FCA plans additional work later this year on DeFi guidance and operational resilience for distributed ledger technology (DLT) users.
When FCA licensing begins—and how the transition will work
The FCA’s framework is designed to replace the current uncertainty around where crypto activities sit within the UK’s regulatory perimeter. According to David Geale, executive director of payments and digital finance at the FCA, the regulator has built a system intended to provide “regulatory certainty” without forcing firms to choose between compliance and innovation.
“We’ve created a framework that doesn’t force firms to choose between regulatory certainty and room to innovate – this regime means they can have both in a stable, competitive home to build and grow.”
Under the new rules, authorization will be required for a range of crypto businesses. The FCA explicitly includes cryptocurrency trading venues, custodial providers, stablecoin issuers, staking firms and other intermediaries that fall within the scope of the regime.
For companies already operating with authorization under the UK’s money laundering regulations, the FCA said those permissions will not be automatically converted. These firms will need to secure the relevant FCA authorization under the new framework.
The FCA also outlined transitional “savings provisions” that allow certain firms to continue specified activities for a limited time while they pursue authorization. It further stated that pre-application support meetings for companies will be available starting next month.
As the licensing process approaches, the regulator plans to publish key policy statements through a webinar on July 17. Separately, it will issue an additional policy statement in September explaining how the regulatory perimeter applies to cryptoasset activities.
Earlier this year, the FCA concluded a consultation on guidelines for the UK’s future crypto regime on June 3, nearly a month before this Tuesday publication.
Authorization standards include capital stress testing and tougher conduct rules
A central feature of the FCA’s framework is a move toward holding crypto firms to standards comparable to other financial service providers in the UK. The FCA said the new regime includes requirements for capital stress-testing, alongside improved rules aimed at market manipulation and insider trading.
For investors and counterparties, the practical importance of these provisions is that they shift compliance from a mostly guidance-led approach toward defined supervisory expectations—particularly around whether firms can withstand adverse conditions and how they are expected to prevent misconduct in market-related activities.
The FCA did not detail figures in the release provided here, but it did emphasize that the framework is meant to establish consistent regulatory expectations for firms operating in the UK crypto market—moving from a period of consultation toward an authorization-led model with clear timelines.
Stablecoin rules: simpler reserve requirements, new safeguards, and user withdrawal rights
The FCA’s framework keeps the core stablecoin approach but makes targeted adjustments to elements that issuers must meet. Among the changes, the regulator simplified the backing asset composition requirement by removing the requirement for estimated redemption forecasts. The FCA also said it will require statutory trust over reserves and will remove unallocated backing fund accounts.
In addition, the FCA’s guidelines will require stablecoin issuers to provide specific withdrawal rights to users and set conditions around reserve holdings. The framework allows a 5% excess to be held in the backing asset pool, and it permits limited intragroup custody arrangements provided that safeguards are in place.
The FCA described the stablecoin approach as establishing a “baseline regime for stablecoin issuance.” It also said it will consult with the Bank of England later this year on how its rules apply to stablecoin issuers that are recognized as systemic by HM Treasury.
For market participants, this matters because stablecoin oversight has direct implications for liquidity and redemption processes. By spelling out user withdrawal rights and reserve structures, the FCA is attempting to reduce uncertainty around how issuers hold and manage the assets intended to back stablecoins.
Next steps: DeFi guidance, operational resilience, and scope limits for “true DeFi”
The FCA’s publishing of the framework does not end the work. The regulator said later this year it will host a separate consultation on decentralized finance (DeFi) guidance and on operational resilience guidelines for firms using distributed ledger technology (DLT).
It also plans to consult on updates to the Financial Crime Guide relevant to crypto asset firms, reflecting the ongoing focus on compliance and risk management as the industry grows.
On DeFi specifically, the FCA indicated it will pursue a case-by-case approach. Matthew Long, director of payments & digital assets at the FCA, said in remarks included in the source material that “true DeFi” scenarios—those with “no identifiable person undertaking the activity”—would fall out of the regulation’s scope.
This distinction is important for builders and users: it suggests that the FCA’s approach may concentrate on identifiable intermediaries and accountable entities, rather than attempting to regulate protocols in an abstract sense where no responsible actor can be identified.
With licensing now set to move from planning into a timed authorization process—plus additional DeFi and operational resilience consultations later this year—market participants should watch how transitional savings provisions are applied, how stablecoin issuers interpret the reserve and withdrawal requirements, and where the FCA draws the line between regulated intermediaries and activities it considers outside the remit of “true DeFi.”
The Canadian musician Aubrey Drake Graham, better known as Drake, placed a sizeable crypto wager on a World Cup match.
Unlike many previous occasions, though, this time he cashed out a substantial profit.
Finally a Win
Yesterday (June 28), Canada (one of the countries hosting the FIFA World Cup 2026) played South Africa in a crucial match that determined the first team to advance to the round of 16. Top-tier games like this tend to draw swarms of gamblers hoping to predict the winner and score a quick profit.
Drake also tried his luck, betting $770,000 worth of USDT on his homeland, Canada, to eliminate its opponent. “The Reds” defeated “Bafana Bafana” after scoring 1-0 at the very end of the game. The odds for Canada to go through were 1.30, meaning Drake made a profit of around $230,000 in USDT.
Seeing the musician’s bet go his way is almost surprising, as the football teams he supports usually end up defeated. In 2022, he wagered over $600,000 worth of BTC on FC Barcelona to beat its biggest rival, Real Madrid. However, the Catalan team lost “El Clásico,” and Drake ultimately parted with his stake.
In 2024, Drake bet $300,000 in BTC that Canada would beat Argentina in the Copa América semi-final. The odds for the North American country were 9.60 since it was the massive underdog, meaning a potential win would have brought the rapper a profit of more than $2.5 million in the leading cryptocurrency.
Nonetheless, Argentina (the reigning world champion) delivered the predictable outcome, cruising to a 2-0 victory, with captain Lionel Messi sealing the match with the second goal.
Drake also tried his luck at this year’s Champions League final, which featured Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain. He placed a $1 million bet on the British team only to watch them lose 4-3 in a penalty shootout.
The Drake Curse
These unfortunate events have prompted the creation of the phrase “the Drake curse,” which refers to a superstition that whichever team or athlete he publicly supports tends to perform poorly.
His losing bets spread far beyond football matches. In 2024, Drake lost $700,000 worth of BTC on a UFC fight, while earlier this year he parted with $1 million in the cryptocurrency after the New England Patriots lost the Super Bowl to the Seattle Seahawks.
The post Drake Breaks the Curse With a Crypto Win on a World Cup Bet: Details appeared first on CryptoPotato.
Revolut has published the internal hiring playbook behind its growth, revealing that it reviewed more than 1 million applications last year to fill roughly 1,000 roles, with an acceptance rate of nearly 0.1%.
The London fintech framed the disclosure as a free blueprint for founders, arguing that small teams of exceptional people consistently outperform large teams of average performers.
Talent Density Over Headcount
Revolut said it grew from 100 employees in 2017 to more than 12,000 in 2025, and that maintaining that pace meant rebuilding its standard recruitment process from scratch.
The blueprint comes from QuantumLight, the quantitative venture firm founded by Revolut CEO Nik Storonsky, which first published it in 2025 alongside the close of a $250 million debut fund and now runs it across its portfolio.
The rise has been steep. Revolut’s valuation climbed from $45 billion in 2024 to $75 billion in a November sale, a 67% jump that made it Europe’s most valuable private tech company.
It serves more than 65 million customers and posted a record annual profit of $2.3 billion in 2025.
That momentum has funded faster expansion, including a $116 million France push backed by President Emmanuel Macron.
Hiring for Attitude Over Experience
The playbook argues that scale-ups should hire for ambition and trajectory rather than decades of tenure. Revolut said it favors leaders with 7 to 8 years of experience, or contributors with 2 to 3 years, who can grow with the company.
It said it had replaced senior executives with hungrier junior hires.
“Density scales. Bureaucracy doesn’t.,” Revolut explained in its post.
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Nearly every role passes through three structured interviews. The first is a problem-solving case study in which candidates receive no data until they ask for it, testing how they reason under uncertainty.
The second, which Revolut calls the Bar Raiser, borrows a name and method from Amazon, which has used them since 1999: a dedicated interviewer can veto any candidate who would not rank above half of current peers. The third test management judgment.
Revolut also replaced outside recruiters with an internal team on quota-based pay, arguing agencies do not optimize for long-term quality.
Why it Matters
The model has drawn interest from rival banks. JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon recently voiced admiration for Revolut’s speed, even while criticizing crypto reform.
“I’m jealous, damn it. You watch these people. They move,” Bloomberg reported, citing Dimon.
Revolut keeps pushing outward. It opened its first bank outside Europe in Mexico this year and continues leaning on digital assets, teasing a physical crypto card as it widens banking services.
The disclosure also serves Storonsky’s venture fund, which sells the same system to founders. Whether a model marketed by Revolut’s own backer suits slower, regulated rivals remains unclear.
The post Revolut Reveals the Hiring Secret Behind Its $75 Billion Rise appeared first on BeInCrypto.
BlackRock will list Ethena's USDe as an approved digital asset on Aladdin, its institutional portfolio and risk-management platform, the two firms said Monday, opening the synthetic dollar to the asset managers, banks, insurers and pension funds that run money on the system. Ethena, whose USDe… Read the full story at The Defiant
BNY, the world's largest custodian bank, has made USDC the first stablecoin supported on its Digital Asset Custody platform, giving institutional clients a single environment to store, transfer, mint, and redeem Circle's dollar-pegged token alongside traditional assets. The integration, announced… Read the full story at The Defiant
Bitget has launched a two-month global trading league with 240,000 USDT in total prizes as the exchange combines crypto futures and traditional market CFDs in one competition.
Summary
- Bitget has launched the UEX Futures League, combining crypto futures and traditional market CFDs in one global trading competition.
- The two-stage tournament offers a total prize pool of 240,000 USDT, with top teams advancing to a live global championship.
- The launch follows Bitget’s Stock+ rollout and MiCA application in Austria as the exchange expands its multi-asset offering.
According to Bitget, the new UEX Futures League will allow traders to compete across crypto futures and contracts for difference through a single trading account. The tournament is designed around team-based performance, with rankings decided by return on investment.
The competition will run in two separate rounds. Bitget said the crypto futures phase will take place from June 1 to June 30, while the CFD phase will run from July 1 to July 31. Each round carries a 120,000 USDT prize pool.
The exchange said the top eight teams from each stage will qualify for the UEX Global Alpha Tournament, a live invitation-only final for the best-performing teams. Bitget plans to bring 16 teams from around the world into the final stage, with the top three traders from each team taking part.
Finalists will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to an undisclosed location, where they will compete in live trading sessions for the championship, according to Bitget.
Bitget is using competition to promote multi-asset trading
The UEX Futures League comes as Bitget promotes its Universal Exchange model, which brings crypto, commodities, forex, indices and other financial products into one trading environment.
Bitget said the league is not built around simulations or classroom-style learning. Instead, participants will trade in real market conditions while representing their teams and communities.
Commenting on the launch, Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said:
“Trading has always been competitive, but it’s also one of the most social parts of our industry. The UEX Futures League brings those elements together by turning trading into a team experience where users can collaborate and represent their communities.”
Chen added that combining crypto and traditional markets in one competition creates an event focused not only on performance, but also on the people and communities involved in trading.
The format follows Bitget’s recent push to expand beyond crypto-only products. In a separate update, the exchange said its Stock+ feature under Stocks 2.0 allows eligible users to buy real U.S. stocks using crypto.
According to Bitget, users can fund Stock+ trades with digital assets, which are converted into Circle’s USDC stablecoin before the stock purchase is completed.
Stock+ and MiCA plans add context to Bitget’s expansion
Bitget said Stock+ differs from synthetic stock products and derivatives because eligible users gain ownership of the underlying U.S. shares through regulated brokers. The company added that holders may receive cash dividends and stock split adjustments tied to their positions.
The exchange also said Stock+ supports U.S. pre-market, regular market and after-hours sessions, giving crypto holders access to U.S.-listed companies without moving funds through separate banking and brokerage systems.
Alongside product expansion, Bitget EU has also moved on the regulatory front. In a June 17 update, Bitget said its European unit had submitted an application to Austria’s Financial Market Authority for authorization as a crypto-asset service provider under MiCAR.
The company said the application remains under regulatory review. Bitget also told users that existing access to Bitget Global products and services continues under current contractual and legal arrangements posted online.
Taken together, Bitget’s UEX Futures League, Stock+ launch and MiCAR application show the exchange building around multi-market access, team-based trading and regulated regional growth, while keeping crypto at the center of its platform.
Large XRP transfers are becoming more prominent across centralized exchanges overall, while their activity on Binance has declined. Data from the 7-day moving average of the XRP Whale vs Retail Spread across all centralized exchanges rose from 26% on May 6 to 50.9% on June 29. This is an increase of 24.9 percentage points.
According to CryptoQuant, the latest trend indicates that transfers involving more than 100,000 XRP are making up a much larger share of exchange outflows compared to smaller retail-sized transactions than they did in early May.
Whale Presence Outside Binance
The same cannot be said for Binance. CryptoQuant found that the exchange’s Whale vs Retail Spread dropped from 62% on June 11 to 44.6% on June 29, a decline of 17.4 percentage points. As a result, Binance’s reading now stands 6.3 percentage points below the broader centralized exchange average of 50.9%.
The Whale vs Retail Spread measures the difference between XRP outflow volumes generated by transfers above 100,000 XRP and those involving 100,000 XRP or less. Higher readings indicate that whale-sized transactions account for a larger share of exchange outflows than retail transfers.
The analysis revealed that the growing gap between Binance and the wider exchange market essentially suggests that large XRP transfers are becoming less concentrated on Binance and increasingly distributed across other trading platforms.
Price Struggles
XRP spent most of June under pressure after falling from above $1.30 at the start of the month to around $1.05 at the time of writing. Although the crypto asset saw a brief rebound in mid-June, the recovery quickly faded as sellers regained control and pushed prices lower again.
It even slipped behind BNB and USDC in market capitalization. With XRP currently testing the crucial $1.06 support previously identified by Ali Martinez, the asset is now exposed to lower support areas at $0.80, $0.62, and $0.51.
Meanwhile, Glassnode reported that XRP investors are realizing more losses than profits. Despite the weakness, some analysts remain optimistic. EGRAG CRYPTO, for one, believes that if XRP follows historical price patterns linked to its “Central Line,” the asset could eventually reach between $5.70 and $8, based on gains seen during previous market cycles.
The post XRP Whales Are Moving On, and Binance Is No Longer Their Top Choice appeared first on CryptoPotato.
David Schwartz, who co-founded the XRP Ledger, has proposed a transaction reservation scheme as a potential fix for front-running on the network’s decentralized exchange and automated market maker.
His proposal was in response to a post from the XRP-focused account XRPresso.io, which argued that validators and well-connected nodes can exploit pre-validation transaction visibility to extract value from regular traders.
Front-Running Concerns on XRPL
According to XRPresso, transfers usually sit in a publicly visible queue before a ledger closes on the XRPL, with validators and some nodes able to see these pending trades. As such, they are in a position to assess whether sandwiching them would be profitable, and then to submit multiple entries to game their position in the final canonical ordering.
And because that ordering is decided by a known, deterministic formula involving transaction hashes, submitting similar entries increases the odds of landing in a favorable slot relative to the target trade. That, as XRPresso claimed, could see everyday users trading through standard wallets and apps getting systematically disadvantaged while more sophisticated operators extract value from their trades.
Schwartz acknowledged that the issue is real but pushed back on parts of the framing. He pointed out that all participants have an equal opportunity to see transfers and argued that validators don’t gain any structural advantage unless several of them conspire. Such an action, he said, would be visible on-chain and lead to the removal of the offending validators from the trust lists.
“If multiple validators did conspire, or a single validator attempted it, it would be *very* obvious to everyone exactly who was doing this,” he wrote.
Furthermore, he said that there have never been any reports of anyone attempting something like that, except as a proof of concept. The biggest issue, according to him, has been profitability, since to make money, the actors would need both high liquidity that would make volumes worth the effort available and low liquidity to move the price measurably and at a reasonable cost.
Still, he offered a solution in which a user would submit a reservation transaction specifying a ledger sequence number and a transaction ID, and pay a reservation fee. If the reservation succeeds and the actual activity is broadcast before that ledger closes, it gets guaranteed priority over any other formed after the original was disclosed.
“This guarantees that you can execute your transaction ahead of any transaction that was formed after your transaction was disclosed,” explained the developer. “You would use this approach any time you want to perform a transaction that you want to ensure cannot be sandwiched or front run.”
The Front-Running Debate in DeFi
XRPresso responded that while Schwartz’s reservation idea is worth exploring, it would add cost and complexity and does not fully address the underlying visibility problem in the pre-validation stage. According to them, targeted confidentiality for the details of pending actions would be a cleaner long-term fix, with such approaches already being used on other chains.
The front-running problem isn’t unique to the XRP ecosystem, and Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao proposed a dark pool perpetuals DEX last year that uses zero-knowledge cryptography to hide order data until execution. That idea drew criticism too, with some decentralization advocates claiming that hiding order books will just recreate the insider dynamics that crypto was meant to move away from.
The post Ripple CTO Emeritus Unveils Plan to Tackle XRPL DEX Front-Running appeared first on CryptoPotato.
Bitcoin is hovering around a critical decision point, with retail investors leaning toward the exit while parts of the broader market—especially corporate and long-oriented players—appear more willing to wait. At the time of writing, BTC is trading near $60,300, and the market’s behavior suggests hesitation rather than panic or strong risk-on conviction.
Under the surface, multiple signals are pointing to a fragile stabilization: US spot Bitcoin ETF outflows have been a major headwind, leverage dynamics in Bitcoin futures are cooling, and trading activity is subdued as participants wait for the next catalyst.
Key takeaways
- ETF outflows remain a drag: In June, investors withdrew $4.4 billion from US spot Bitcoin ETFs, the worst month this year.
- Institutions are not in “sell mode”: While some buying has slowed, the majority of corporate BTC treasuries have not reduced existing positions, and Strategy continues to buy BTC at a slower pace.
- Leverage is unwinding without chaos: Total open interest across Bitcoin futures is $19.92 billion, down slightly from about $20.1 billion two weeks ago, while long borrowing costs have fallen from 0.25% to 0.12%.
- Downside risk is tied to a specific level: A break below $58,800 is flagged as the “danger zone,” with roughly $500 million of long positions potentially forced out.
- Near-term direction depends on confirmation: Price needs to reclaim $62,000 to improve the odds of a sustained push higher; macro events could quickly reverse sentiment.
Retail pressure meets institutional restraint
The clearest tension in the current setup is between retail sentiment and larger, slower-moving capital. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index sits at 36 out of 100, signaling fear but not total capitulation. That aligns with a market that is not fully breaking—yet capital is still flowing out in meaningful amounts.
According to SoSoValue, June saw investors pull $4.4 billion from US spot Bitcoin ETFs, the worst month so far in 2024. ETF flow data is often a useful proxy for retail and mainstream allocation behavior, and the trend suggests many participants have either de-risked or waited for a better entry.
At the same time, institutional behavior looks more defensive than bearish. The same reporting notes that although Strategy continues to purchase BTC, the pace and size of buying have slowed. Importantly, while ETF and treasury accumulation are not described as a fresh “buying phase,” a majority of corporate BTC treasuries have not reduced their existing holdings. That matters because it reduces the likelihood of a broad, synchronized corporate unwind—one of the catalysts that can accelerate drawdowns.
Futures positioning: leverage unwinds, but confidence isn’t fully restored
While ETF flows paint a cautious picture, Bitcoin’s derivatives data points to gradual deleveraging rather than forced liquidation. Total open interest across Bitcoin futures on all exchanges is reported at $19.92 billion, compared with roughly $20.1 billion two weeks earlier. That change implies risk is being trimmed, but not in a sudden stampede.
Borrowing costs also support the idea that the sharpest stress may have eased. The long funding rate—described here as the cost of holding long positions—has dropped from 0.25% to 0.12%. Lower carry costs can signal fewer participants crowding into longs, but the level still reflects that traders are paying to hold—suggesting they’re positioning for recovery without fully leaning in.
Crucially, a specific downside threshold is being highlighted at $58,800, noted as Bitcoin’s low for the day. If BTC breaks below that level, the market could see a delayed liquidation cascade: an estimated $500 million worth of traders holding long positions may be forced to close. In practical terms, that kind of shift can transform a slow grind lower into faster downside momentum, which in turn can spread selling pressure beyond the initial break.
Why volume is quiet: the market appears to be waiting for a trigger
A common feature of consolidation phases is muted price action accompanied by limited confirmation in the flow and positioning data. Here, trading volume is described as down, and changes in open interest are small—signals that the market may be paused between participants who have already sold and those who want to buy but are not yet convinced.
This “waiting” dynamic can be interpreted in two directions at once. Retail may be done selling for now, but the absence of a volume-led rebound suggests buyers are not willing to step in at size while uncertainty persists. The result is a narrower range where breakouts can fail quickly if the catalyst is missing.
Corporate activity underscores that asymmetry. MicroStrategy reportedly bought 3,600 Bitcoin in June for $236 million, a clear example of a company treating volatility as an opportunity. However, the broader institutional picture is characterized as a hold rather than a surge into accumulation. That pause can keep the market range-bound—until either downside pressure forces risk reduction or renewed confidence brings fresh demand.
What levels and macro events could decide the next move
From a technical standpoint, the article frames $62,000 as a key reclaim level for Bitcoin to make a meaningful upward move. Without that, any rallies may struggle to attract sustained follow-through, especially if ETF outflows continue.
On the downside, the risk is not only price-based but catalyst-driven. The reporting points to potential macro developments that could weigh on sentiment during the week—specifically citing the June employment report and any escalation or resumption of military action related to Iran. Even when crypto-specific demand is the dominant narrative, broader risk appetite often determines whether traders treat pullbacks as buying opportunities or as reasons to step aside.
For now, the market appears suspended between cooling leverage and persistent capital caution. If BTC holds above $58,800, the current pause could evolve into a stabilization phase. If it slips below, the liquidation risk tied to long positioning could accelerate the move toward $56,000, potentially extending pressure into the following week.
Traders and longer-term investors should watch whether ETF outflows continue to improve or worsen, and whether futures positioning remains orderly as Bitcoin tests the $58,800 and $62,000 thresholds—especially around the next macro headline that could quickly change risk appetite.
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