Crypto World
Wintermute Adds Liquidity to Rapidly Expanding Prediction Markets
Wintermute, a leading crypto liquidity provider, is expanding its institutional trading operations into prediction markets, the firm announced on Friday. The move aims to supply continuous two-sided liquidity across event contracts on prominent venues, signaling a deeper push to embed prediction markets within mainstream crypto trading infrastructure.
Wintermute, which handles an estimated $3.5 trillion in annual trading volume across crypto markets, said it would extend its reach into prediction markets without naming specific platforms. The firm described its plan as posting two-sided liquidity across event contracts, offering ongoing bid and offer prices to traders seeking real-time price discovery.
“Prediction markets have the demand profile of a major asset class but the liquidity profile of an early-stage one,” said Jake Ostrovskis, Wintermute’s head of OTC trading. “For these markets to become a reliable real-time source of probability estimates, they need sustained two-sided liquidity. That depth tightens spreads, supports larger trade sizes, and in turn improves the signal embedded in market prices.”
Wintermute emphasized that its involvement reflects a broader trajectory for prediction markets: from a niche forecasting tool to a broader venue for trading event risk. The company stated it would provide continuous bid and offer pricing across event contracts, effectively lowering trading frictions for participants.
This development aligns with a view that prediction markets can complement traditional financial signals by offering probabilistic pricing for real-world events. By introducing steady liquidity and tighter spreads, Wintermute aims to make these markets more attractive to both traders and institutions seeking hedges or directional bets on upcoming outcomes.
Source: Wintermute
This expansion also dovetails with Wintermute’s existing crypto infrastructure, which already spans spot, derivatives, decentralized finance, and over-the-counter markets. By layering prediction markets onto its ongoing operations, the firm hints at a more interconnected crypto ecosystem where event-driven prices could feed into other protocols and strategies.
Market observers have long noted that prediction markets occupy a unique position in the crypto landscape: they can act as real-time aggregators of collective probability, while also presenting liquidity challenges typical of early-stage markets. Wintermute’s entry may accelerate the broader integration of prediction-market data into decentralized finance, potentially enabling novel collateral reuse, yield strategies on locked capital, or oracle feeds derived from probabilities implied by event contracts.
Two of the industry’s most prominent prediction markets—Kalshi and Polymarket—demonstrate the scale and activity of this niche. DeFiRate estimates a combined weekly notional volume of around $5.8 billion across the two platforms, with roughly 400,000 active markets and about 42.7 million weekly transactions.1 Kalshi, regulated by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, has historically held the largest share of market volume, accounting for about 70% of activity in the space.2
As prediction markets grow, their relationship with traditional finance and crypto markets continues to evolve. The ongoing regulatory backdrop remains a critical factor, with Kalshi’s regulatory status cited as a cornerstone of its market credibility. The expansion of liquidity providers like Wintermute could push these markets further toward mainstream adoption, as larger players bring reliability, risk controls, and scale to price discovery on event outcomes.
Beyond the immediate liquidity implications, the convergence of prediction markets with DeFi could foster broader institutional interest. If event-contract prices begin to feed into collateral frameworks or yield strategies, pools of capital might become more efficiently utilized, potentially improving capital efficiency across connected protocols. In parallel, oracle developers could leverage prediction-market prices as alternative data sources for risk assessment and automated decision-making in decentralized applications.
Industry watchers will be watching not just the uptake of liquidity but also which venues gain traction and how regulators respond to an increasingly interconnected set of markets. The balance between real-time price discovery and the risk controls required by large institutions will shape how quickly prediction markets become a staple in crypto and DeFi workflows.
What remains uncertain is which platforms Wintermute will partner with first, how liquidity provisioning will evolve as markets scale, and what the regulatory environment will allow as these markets draw more traditional and institutional participants into an ecosystem historically driven by retail traders and specialized participants.
Readers should monitor announcements from Wintermute for platform onboarding details, as well as forthcoming data on bid-ask dynamics and trading activity in prediction markets. The next few quarters will reveal whether sustained two-sided liquidity can deliver the reliability that so far has limited prediction markets from becoming a premier source of probability signals in crypto and beyond.
Notes
1 DeFiRate data cited in market coverage of Kalshi and Polymarket volume; notional weekly volume across the two platforms is around $5.8 billion, with approximately 400,000 active markets and 42.7 million weekly transactions. Source: DeFiRate, “Prediction Markets Volume.” DeFiRate.
2 Kalshi’s regulatory status and market share referenced in industry summaries noting Kalshi’s CFTC-regulated framework and its leadership in notional volume within this segment. See related coverage on Kalshi and the prediction-market landscape.
Crypto World
Nvidia’s $20B Debt Push Signals Shift Toward AI for Bitcoin Miners
Nvidia is reported to be preparing a large bond sale tied to its AI spending plans, a move that reinforces how aggressively the global tech sector is funding new compute capacity. According to Bloomberg, the chipmaker is seeking to raise at least $20 billion through a multi-part offering to finance AI-related investments and refinance existing obligations.
The report also frames Nvidia’s capital markets push as another signal of sustained demand for AI infrastructure—demand that has, in turn, opened a door for some Bitcoin miners to explore business models beyond crypto. As miners face tighter margins after the 2024 halving, the search for alternative revenue streams is becoming more prominent alongside the AI buildout.
Key takeaways
- Nvidia is reportedly aiming to raise $20 billion via a bond sale spanning seven maturities from two to 30 years.
- The longest-dated notes are expected to yield about 0.9 percentage points above comparable U.S. Treasuries, according to Bloomberg.
- Nvidia’s dominance in AI hardware means its spending plans are closely watched by the broader AI infrastructure industry.
- Bitcoin miners have increasingly used their power and data-center assets for high-performance computing and AI hosting as crypto mining economics remain under pressure.
- Research cited by Cointelegraph indicates miners have been selling off portions of their Bitcoin holdings, including more than 15,000 BTC between October and March, per TheEnergyMag.
Nvidia’s bond plan spotlights AI-funding momentum
Bloomberg reported on Monday that Nvidia is pursuing a high-grade bond offering after identifying the financing needs for its AI expansion. The plan, as described by people familiar with the matter, includes issuing notes across seven maturities, ranging from two years to 30 years.
Pricing details matter for investors because they reflect how the market is currently valuing long-term risk and growth. Bloomberg said the longest-dated bonds are expected to yield roughly 0.9 percentage points above comparable U.S. Treasury securities. While the exact deal terms weren’t finalized in the coverage, the structure suggests Nvidia is looking to lock in funding across a broad time horizon.
For the AI supply chain, the significance is straightforward: Nvidia is positioned at the center of large language model infrastructure through its GPUs, which are widely used by hyperscalers and cloud providers. When such a major platform vendor seeks debt financing at scale, it can be read as a vote of confidence in continued AI investment cycles.
Why this matters for Bitcoin miners’ diversification
Even though Nvidia’s bond offering is not a crypto story on its own, it arrives at a moment when parts of the mining sector are searching for stability outside Bitcoin block rewards. The shared thread is infrastructure: data centers, power capacity, and computing hardware utilization.
Cointelegraph noted that an increasing number of Bitcoin miners have started repurposing energy-intensive facilities for high-performance computing and AI hosting. Instead of relying solely on mining revenue, companies are positioning existing infrastructure—especially power and hosting capabilities—as assets that can serve the AI buildout.
The reporting points to miners that have historically been more closely associated with crypto, including HIVE Digital, TeraWulf, Hut 8, and CleanSpark. Each is described as exploring data center capacity offerings by leveraging internal infrastructure and power agreements to capture demand for computing resources.
This shift is not merely strategic branding. For miners, the practical advantage is that they already operate or control sites where electricity costs and uptime are key—two variables that are also central to operating AI workloads. If the demand for compute remains strong, data-center-led diversification can reduce reliance on a single revenue stream.
Bitcoin mining economics stay tough after the 2024 halving
The push toward AI-adjacent services is happening against a difficult backdrop for core mining economics. According to Cointelegraph’s coverage, the industry has faced heightened margin pressure following the April 2024 halving, which lowered reward issuance and intensified strain when mining difficulty and operating costs remain elevated.
Cointelegraph characterizes the environment using language attributed by analysts as among the harshest in history—an environment that has encouraged miners to take actions such as selling parts of their Bitcoin treasuries, reducing leverage, and looking for non-crypto revenue streams.
To illustrate how widespread the treasury selloff has been, Cointelegraph cited data from TheEnergyMag, stating that Bitcoin miners collectively sold more than 15,000 BTC between October and March. Another reference in the piece points to a timeline acceleration: sales reportedly became faster after BTC peaked above $126,000 in October, based on reporting from TheEnergyMag via MinerWeekly.
That combination—continued sell pressure alongside diversification plans—suggests miners are trying to balance short-term liquidity needs with longer-term repositioning. It also underlines why external funding and infrastructure demand can matter to miners even if the catalyst is coming from traditional tech capital markets.
From mining to AI infrastructure: the next valuation test
As miners explore new roles, investors are likely to focus on whether those businesses can offset weaker mining margins over time. In Cointelegraph’s reporting, analysts at Bernstein are referenced as expecting IREN to derive the vast majority of its value from AI infrastructure, tied to growth in the company’s cloud AI business. The point is less about instant profitability and more about the direction of future cash-flow drivers—an increasingly important question for companies that once relied almost entirely on Bitcoin mining revenue.
What remains uncertain is whether these AI-focused operations can scale quickly enough and on favorable economics to fully compensate for the cyclical nature of mining. The near-term treasury actions highlighted by TheEnergyMag indicate that many miners still need financial support and flexibility as they transition.
Readers should watch whether large-scale AI compute demand continues to translate into sustained demand for hosting and infrastructure services—especially given how much of that ecosystem depends on hardware providers like Nvidia. If AI spending remains robust, it may create a clearer bridge between traditional infrastructure financing and the longer arc of miners’ diversification; if it weakens, the transition will likely face harsher economic tests.
Crypto World
Kraken Launches CFTC-Regulated Perpetual Futures for US Traders
Kraken has moved to expand its onshore crypto derivatives footprint in the United States by launching perpetual futures trading for eligible US customers through its partner platform Bitnomial. The offering is now available via Kraken Pro, adding a US-regulated pathway to a contract type that has historically been dominated by offshore venues.
According to Kraken’s announcement, the new perpetual futures contracts share the same futures wallet as the exchange’s existing CME-listed crypto futures products. That design choice is aimed at simplifying account management for traders who want to handle both contract types through a single setup.
Key takeaways
- Kraken launched perpetual futures for eligible US users via Bitnomial on Kraken Pro.
- The contracts are tied to major assets including BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, ADA, LINK, DOGE, LTC, and AVAX.
- Kraken says traders can use the same futures wallet for the new perps and its existing CME-listed crypto futures.
- The launch follows Kraken’s late-May plan to bring CFTC-regulated perpetual futures to the US through Bitnomial.
- It lands during an ongoing US push to bring crypto perpetual derivatives onto regulated venues after CFTC guidance and approvals.
Kraken’s onshore perp futures launch via Bitnomial
Kraken said the perpetual futures products are accessible through Kraken Pro. The exchange described the contracts as having no expiration date, a common feature of perpetual derivatives intended to keep market exposure continuously available for traders.
The asset list Kraken provided includes Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Solana (SOL), XRP, Cardano (ADA), Chainlink (LINK), Dogecoin (DOGE), Litecoin (LTC), and Avalanche (AVAX).
In practical terms, Kraken highlighted an operational detail: the perpetual futures contracts use the same futures wallet as its existing CME-listed crypto futures. For traders, this matters because it can reduce friction when allocating margin and monitoring exposure across different derivatives products, rather than forcing separate account workflows.
Why the “perps” shift matters for US traders
Kraken positioned the launch against the broader market reality that perpetual futures have largely traded on offshore platforms rather than regulated US venues. In its announcement, Kraken stated that perpetual futures generated more than $60 trillion in global trading volume in 2025.
That scale helps explain why regulatory access is a key competitive battleground for exchanges and venues. For US-based traders—especially those who want regulated execution—access to perpetual exposure has historically been constrained, pushing activity toward non-US platforms.
Kraken’s move therefore represents a direct attempt to bring a widely used derivatives format closer to the regulatory “onshore” boundary, potentially giving domestic participants another option besides CME-linked futures and other regulated products.
How Kraken’s previous US steps set up this launch
Kraken did not introduce this capability in isolation. Over the past year, it has broadened its US-facing offerings in stages, including support for CME-listed crypto futures that began in July 2025, and the launch of margin trading for eligible US customers earlier this month.
Just before this perp futures rollout, Kraken had also outlined its intention to introduce CFTC-regulated perpetual futures through Bitnomial. That plan was detailed in a late-May announcement connected to Kraken’s acquisition of a federally regulated exchange months earlier.
The present launch follows that roadmap, with Bitnomial—acquired by Kraken’s parent, Payward, in April—serving as the platform through which the new perpetual contracts are offered.
US derivatives competition accelerates after CFTC actions
Kraken’s announcement arrives as US venues compete for a share of the crypto derivatives market by seeking regulatory approvals that enable perpetual products domestically. The CFTC has played a central role in signaling that it can support regulated structures for “perpetual” contracts.
On May 29, the CFTC approved Kalshi’s Bitcoin perpetual futures contract and issued a no-action position for Coinbase. Around the same time, Coinbase announced that its Coinbase Financial Markets unit would provide US institutional clients access to global crypto perpetual futures and options markets, which the company said account for roughly 80% of global crypto trading volume.
Kalshi also launched perpetual futures contracts on May 29, describing the product rollout as a major step beyond its prediction-market business.
The sequence reflects more than a single approval; it points to a months-long regulatory effort to reduce uncertainty around how perpetual derivatives can be structured and traded in the US. In a January address, CFTC Chair Michael Selig said the agency would use existing authority to support perpetual futures and other novel derivatives products, arguing that uncertainty had encouraged activity to shift offshore. Later remarks at the Milken Institute’s Future of Finance conference suggested the CFTC was working to establish a framework for “true perpetual futures” in the US.
Against that backdrop, Kraken’s launch can be read as part of a wider industry effort to compete under clearer rules—particularly as more venues test the boundaries of what the CFTC will allow in practice.
Looking ahead, market participants will likely watch how quickly liquidity forms in Kraken’s new contracts, whether traders shift meaningful volume from offshore platforms, and whether other US exchanges follow with their own onshore perpetual offerings. The next regulatory signals from the CFTC could further determine how fast the onshore perps ecosystem expands.
Crypto World
CFTC chair Selig defends decision to approve ‘perps’ in U.S.

Commodity Futures Trading Commission chair Michael Selig weighed into the perpetual futures debate in a Monday appearance on CNBC’s “Fast Money,” defending his agency’s decision to approve the asset domestically.
Selig said that incumbents will always fear the future, but that the commission is looking to onshore products that are being developed internationally to ensure they can be made safely under robust regulations.
“It’s time to approve regulated futures contracts that have no expiration date,” he said. “We’re going to make sure the product’s available, but it’s well regulated here in the U.S.”
In late May, the CFTC approved prediction market platform Kalshi to begin offering bitcoin perpetual futures, or “perps,” futures contracts with no expiration date that allow traders to speculate on a price without owning the underlying asset. Popular overseas, the approval marked the first time the asset class was allowed in the U.S. Kalshi has since expanded its perps offerings to other cryptocurrencies.
Demand for perps has been high. At a Thursday event celebrating its perps product, Kalshi said its contracts had done more than $3 billion in notional volume in just over a week in beta testing.
In an appearance on “Fast Money” shortly after the regulatory decision, CME Group CEO Terrence Duffy blasted the decision to approve perps, including voicing concerns that the leverage carried with the contracts is large and risky.
But Selig dismissed that argument in his appearance Monday.
“The notion that we should be paternalistic and allow for one type of product, because it’s easier to understand, I think that’s frankly a misunderstanding itself, because, of course, options are very complicated,” he said. “We’re going to make sure there’s proper disclosure. And to the extent that there’s questions around suitability, of course, the brokers have to make those calls and make sure that they’re evaluating the customers that are trading in their markets.”
In an appearance on “Fast Money” last week, Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour noted that the maximum leverage that the company is allowing on its perps — around six times — is less than that of what CME offers on some of its futures contracts.
Selig also denied that the reason the CFTC moved to approve perps was due to political pressure from President Donald Trump’s administration. The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., is a strategic advisor to Kalshi.
“That’s absolutely absurd, that insinuation,” he said.
Disclosure: CNBC and Kalshi have a commercial relationship that includes customer acquisition and a minority investment.
Crypto World
DeFi Could Reach $2.7T as Tokenization Expands: StanChart
Standard Chartered expects assets locked in decentralized finance (DeFi) to grow 37-fold to $2.7 trillion by the end of 2030.
The expansion would be driven by both tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) and crypto-native assets moving through onchain protocols, Geoff Kendrick, head of digital assets research at Standard Chartered, said in a research note on Monday.
“I think the next opportunity for generational wealth in digital assets is going to come via the DeFi protocols,” Kendrick said. “I estimate that the amount of tokenized assets active in DeFi will 37x by the end of 2030.”
According to Kendrick, only 3% of stablecoins and 10% of tokenized RWAs are currently used in DeFi. He projected the share of tokenized assets used in DeFi to rise to 30% by the end of 2030, from about 3.5% today.
The forecast underscores growing institutional expectations that tokenization could channel more capital into DeFi. However, reaching $2.7 trillion would require onchain assets to grow rapidly and the share of tokenized value used in DeFi protocols to rise nearly ninefold.

Decentralized finance’s total value locked. Source: DefiLlama
Standard Chartered previously forecast that non-stablecoin tokenized RWAs would grow to $2 trillion by the end of 2028, with tokenized money-market funds and US equities accounting for most of the projected market.
While Standard Chartered expects tokenized assets to drive significantly more activity into DeFi, some researchers have cautioned that tokenization does not guarantee deep or unified markets.
Axis CEO Chris Kim previously told Cointelegraph that issuing the same asset across multiple blockchains and formats can create siloed liquidity, pricing gaps and higher costs, limiting how easily tokenized assets can be traded even as their overall market value grows.
Oya Celiktemur, Ondo Finance’s sales director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, also said at Paris Blockchain Week in April that tokenizing an illiquid asset does not “magically” make it liquid.
Uniswap seen as a potential hub for tokenized markets
Kendrick said Uniswap could emerge as a key trading venue as more tokenized assets move onchain. He highlighted the decentralized exchange’s scale, brand and history of operating through multiple crypto cycles.
Related: Botanix to shut down after 4 years, cites weak demand for Bitcoin DeFi
Kendrick added that those attributes could be particularly important to traditional financial institutions, which are likely to prioritize security and reliability when bringing tokenized RWAs to DeFi.
“If Uniswap can commercialise enough and create significant enough TradFi partnerships to scale, its market cap-to transaction fees multiple is likely to increase, narrowing the gap with Coinbase,” he wrote.
Magazine: Does ‘Paper Bitcoin’ mean there’s an unlimited supply of BTC?
Crypto World
Santiment says Iran deal sparks crypto’s next bull cycle
Bitcoin has climbed more than 11% from its early June low as Santiment says the U.S.-Iran peace agreement may be laying the groundwork for a longer crypto bull market.
Summary
- Santiment says the U.S.-Iran peace deal has boosted risk appetite, helping Bitcoin recover more than 11% from its early June low.
- Glassnode data shows Bitcoin accumulation increased after the drop into the $60,000 range, with multiple wallet cohorts buying the dip.
- Despite the rally, more than $4.8 billion has left U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs since May, highlighting continued investor caution.
According to on-chain analytics firm Santiment, investor sentiment has improved sharply after the United States and Iran reached a peace agreement that eased concerns about supply disruptions, inflation, and escalating geopolitical tensions.
In a June 15 X post, Santiment said traders had spent months reacting to fears surrounding energy markets and global instability. The firm argued that the agreement has instead encouraged investors to focus on reopening trade routes, lowering economic uncertainty, and the prospect of more stable market conditions.
President Donald Trump announced on Sunday that the deal with Iran had been finalized, authorizing the toll-free reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and ending the U.S. naval blockade. A formal signing ceremony is scheduled for June 19 in Switzerland.
On-chain data points to renewed buying
As risk appetite returned, capital moved back into digital assets while oil prices headed lower.
Santiment noted that Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies benefited as traders rotated funds into risk assets following the announcement.
Bitcoin traded above $66,600 on Monday, up roughly 3.5% over recent sessions and more than 11% above its early June low near $59,375. Ethereum climbed to around $1,846, while XRP and Solana gained 8.7% and 7.4%, respectively. The total cryptocurrency market capitalization remained above $2.36 trillion.
At the same time, oil prices moved in the opposite direction. WTI crude settled near $81 per barrel, down roughly 4.4% on the day.
Separate data from Glassnode suggests buying activity had already begun before the latest geopolitical catalyst emerged. The analytics firm reported that Bitcoin’s Accumulation Trend Score started moving toward accumulation after prices fell into the $60,000 range earlier this month.
Glassnode said the pattern indicates investors were absorbing supply during the correction rather than continuing to sell. A separate cohort analysis showed accumulation scores improving across multiple wallet groups, which the firm interpreted as evidence that buyers from different investor segments stepped in as Bitcoin declined.
ETF outflows continue despite improving sentiment
While Santiment sees the market response as potentially significant, the firm emphasized that expectations are playing an important role in the rally.
According to Santiment, financial markets often react before economic benefits become visible. The firm said many participants now view the agreement as an early sign of stability after a volatile period that included inflation concerns, conflict-related uncertainty, and pressure on risk assets.
“If inflation pressures ease and institutional investors finally begin feeling more comfortable themselves, the sharp gains following this announcement may end up looking less like a one-day relief rally and more like the opening chapter of a much larger bull cycle.”
Investor caution has not disappeared entirely. More than $4.8 billion has flowed out of U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds since May, and some market participants remain wary after previous ceasefire agreements in the Middle East failed to hold.
Despite this, Santiment argued that improving market sentiment, falling oil prices, and renewed demand for digital assets have created conditions that could support further gains if macroeconomic pressures continue to ease.
Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials featured on this page are for educational purposes only.
Crypto World
Strategy Adds 1,587 Bitcoin Through MSTR Stock Sales
Michael Saylor’s Strategy, the world’s largest public Bitcoin holder, added to its cryptocurrency reserves last week as BTC continued to trade below the company’s average cost basis of about $75,700.
Strategy acquired 1,587 Bitcoin (BTC) for $100 million between June 8 and Sunday, according to Monday’s 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Source: SEC
The purchase was made at an average price of $63,024 per Bitcoin, bringing the company’s overall average cost basis slightly lower to $75,656.
With the latest buy, Strategy now holds 846,842 BTC, accumulated at a total cost of $64.07 billion. At the current price of about $66,216 per bitcoin, those holdings are worth roughly $56.1 billion, according to CoinGecko data.
MSTR sales behind the purchase
Similar to the previous 1,550 BTC acquisition announced last Monday, Strategy funded the latest acquisition through sales of its Class A common stock (MSTR).
In the filing, the company said it raised about $209 million by selling 1.73 million MSTR shares during the period. Preferred share programs, including STRC, STRF, STRK and STRD, showed no activity during the week.
Related: Bitcoin sales are necessary for Strategy’s digital credit business, Saylor says
According to STRC.live, a tracker of Strategy’s preferred stock programs, STRC traded below its $100 par value for a fourth consecutive week as of June 12. The stock remained in the mid-$96 range, marking its longest stretch below par since launch.
STRC closed at $94.80 on Friday, down around 1%, according to TradingView data.

Source: STRC.live
Strategy executive chairman Saylor hinted at the latest purchase in a post on X on Sunday, writing, “Still adding dots,” a phrase investors have come to associate with the company’s upcoming Bitcoin acquisitions.

Source: Michael Saylor
The latest buy comes about two weeks after Strategy disclosed the sale of 32 BTC on June 1, its first reported Bitcoin sale in years. While the transaction represented only a tiny fraction of the company’s holdings, the sale ignited debate in the community, with some industry observers questioning whether the company was moving away from its long-standing buy-and-hold approach.
Saylor recently defended the sale, telling Cointelegraph that Bitcoin treasury companies must retain the ability to sell holdings to support dividend-paying securities.
Magazine: Bitcoin, the ‘canary in the coal mine,’ XRP transaction demand falls 91.5%: Market Moves
Crypto World
How Trump’s Iran Deal Breaks Sharply From Obama’s 2015 JCPOA
Donald Trump has signed an Iran deal that halts nearly four months of war and reopens the Strait of Hormuz. The framework looks nothing like the nuclear pact Barack Obama struck in 2015.
The agreement extends a ceasefire for 60 days and pushes the nuclear question into later talks. Its design departs sharply from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which Trump abandoned in 2018.
Two Deals Built on Opposite Logic
Obama’s JCPOA brought together the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, and the European Union. Iran accepted verifiable limits on its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief.
The goal then was containment. Negotiators wanted verifiable limits that would hold for a decade or more.
Obama sold the JCPOA as a way to buy time. Trump casts his approach as a path to lasting change.
Trump took the opposite route. He withdrew in 2018, imposed maximum pressure, and reached this deal only after recent strikes on Iran.
That sequence matters. Obama led with diplomacy, while Trump led with leverage built on economic and military force.
Reports describe a 60-day ceasefire, with a framework covering navigation and future nuclear talks.
The two processes also differ in scale. Obama’s pact ran to roughly 159 pages and took about two years to finalize. Trump’s path moved faster, shaped by intermediaries such as Qatar and Pakistan.
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A formal signing is planned in Geneva, after the memorandum was agreed upon remotely. Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf put their names to it.
Enrichment sits at the center
The JCPOA let Iran enrich uranium at home, capped at 3.67 percent for 15 years. It held Iran to 5,060 operating centrifuges and a 300-kilogram stockpile, under close monitoring by inspectors.
Those caps had a purpose. They stretched Iran’s breakout time from two to three months before the deal toward more than a year.
The limits also carried sunset clauses. Centrifuge caps eased after 10 years and enrichment terms after 15, a feature critics called the deal’s weakest point.
Trump wants the reverse. His team has pushed for zero or tightly restricted enrichment on Iranian soil and longer, firmer limits.
After the 2018 exit, those constraints collapsed. By May 2025, the IAEA reported more than 400 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent, far past deal terms.
That figure left breakout near zero, enough for a bomb within days. Iran also became the only non-weapons state enriching to that level.
The 2015 deal had paired access with a snapback tool. That mechanism could restore United Nations sanctions fast if Iran broke its word.
Iran has treated domestic enrichment as a national right. That stance remains the hardest gap to close in any deal.
For now, the 2026 memorandum leaves the issue of enrichment unresolved. Talks over the coming weeks will decide the fate of Iran’s enriched stockpile.
How Trump’s Iran Deal Reshapes Sanctions Relief
Obama front-loaded the rewards. The deal unfroze Iranian assets and reopened oil exports. The US Treasury estimated that Tehran could freely access about $50 billion, not the $100 billion that critics often cite.
Trump has structured relief as phased and reversible. Iranian outlets reported about $24 billion in frozen funds tied to the 60-day window.
Vance disputed that figure, saying it appears nowhere in the text, and a US official said no money moves until compliance.
The current framework also suspends sanctions on Iranian oil and petrochemical exports. European governments signaled they would lift measures only after Tehran took verifiable action.
The 2015 accord kept penalties on terrorism and human rights untouched. Only nuclear-linked measures eased under its terms.
Critics of the older deal argued that the upfront cash strengthened Iran’s regional allies. Trump has framed his version as cash-light and outcome-driven.
“If I make a deal with Iran, it will be a good and proper one, not like the one made by Obama, which gave Iran massive amounts of CASH, and a clear and open path to a Nuclear Weapon.
Our deal is the exact opposite…” The Hill reported, citing Trump.
Scope, Leverage, and the Road Ahead
The JCPOA stayed narrow. It addressed the nuclear program alone and left missiles and regional proxies untouched.
The 2015 text said little about ballistic missiles or groups like Hezbollah. Trump has demanded that future terms confront that behavior.
Trump has tied his approach to broader aims. The memorandum links progress to reopening the Strait of Hormuz and wider security concerns.
The contrast is clear:
- Obama bet on multilateral compromise, while
- Trump bet on pressure and a stricter, longer-lasting settlement.
Iran and Washington have also floated different readings of the terms.
- Tehran has stressed its enrichment rights, while
- The US officials point to firmer limits ahead.
Supporters of the older pact warn that pressure can backfire. They note Iran’s program advanced fastest after the 2018 exit.
The next 60 days of talks will show if a leverage-first strategy delivers what diplomacy alone could not, especially after Trump’s Kharg Island threat raised the stakes.
The coming weeks will test one core question. Can pressure win deeper concessions than the bargain Obama once accepted?
The post How Trump’s Iran Deal Breaks Sharply From Obama’s 2015 JCPOA appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Crypto World
Bybit Launches Tokenized Fixed-Income Products for Users
Crypto exchange Bybit will offer eligible customers access to tokenized bond funds managed by PIMCO and China Merchants Bank International, expanding its push into real-world assets through partnerships with Plume and DigiFT.
Bybit’s new RWA Earn platform launched with two tokenized bond funds: the PIMCO Dynamic Income Opportunities Fund (PDO), which invests across fixed-income assets including corporate debt, mortgage-backed securities and government bonds, and the CMBI Investment Grade Bond Fund, which focuses on investment-grade credit in Asian and global markets.
According to Monday’s announcement, the funds are tokenized through DigiFT, a digital asset exchange regulated in Singapore and Hong Kong, while Plume provides the onchain infrastructure used for subscriptions and fund allocation.
RWA.xyz data shows Plume has more than 250,000 RWA holders and supports over 210 tokenized assets. The network processed more than $512 million in RWA transfer volume during the past 30 days.

Plume Network at a glance. Source: RWA.xyz
Bybit said users can subscribe to the products using USDC (USDC) and will not pay subscription, redemption or onchain transaction fees, though the products are not principal protected and returns are not guaranteed.
Related: Bybit joins Western Union’s new USDPT network as stablecoin expands distribution
Tokenized asset sector grows beyond Treasuries
The launch comes as tokenized real-world assets continue to gain traction across both traditional and crypto finance. According to RWA.xyz data, the tokenized asset market was valued at $31.8 billion as of June 12, led by tokenized US Treasury products with around $14.9 billion in assets.
Commodities accounted for roughly $4.7 billion of tokenized assets, followed by asset-backed credit at $2.2 billion and tokenized stocks at approximately $1.5 billion.

The tokenized asset market is valued at $31.8 billion. Source: RWA.xyz
Crypto companies have increasingly expanded the use of tokenized real-world assets beyond simple buy-and-hold investment products. In April, OKX integrated BlackRock’s BUIDL tokenized Treasury fund into its collateral framework, allowing eligible institutional clients to use the yield-bearing asset as trading margin.
Last week, Archax launched a system on Hedera that enables real-time interest payments for tokenized securities, allowing cash flows to follow assets as they change hands onchain.
The trend has also attracted major Wall Street firms. In May, JPMorgan filed to launch a tokenized money market fund on Ethereum (ETH).
Magazine: Bitcoin copying 2022 ‘almost perfectly,’ Ether to $4K in 2026: Market Moves
Crypto World
Pudgy Penguins Winds Down Pudgy Party After 1M Downloads
Non-fungible token (NFT) project Pudgy Penguins is winding down its mobile game Pudgy Party and halting further development.
In an X post, the team said on Saturday that it would shift its gaming resources toward Pudgy World, a browser-based experience which it described as the flagship gaming product for the Pudgy Penguins ecosystem.
“We’ve made the difficult decision to wind down Pudgy Party and halt further development,” the team wrote, adding that Pudgy World offered greater potential for scalability and introducing new users to the Pudgy Penguins brand.
The mobile game launched in August 2025 and surpassed 500,000 downloads on Google Play alone. Pudgy Party said total downloads have exceeded 1 million.
Pudgy Penguins is consolidating its gaming ambitions around a single flagship product as the project expands beyond NFTs through initiatives spanning toys, gaming, licensing and entertainment.
Total NFT market capitalization climbed to nearly $1.5 billion on Monday from more than $1.3 billion on Friday, according to CoinGecko, but remains far below its 2022 peak of over $17 billion.

7-day NFT market capitalization data. Source: CoinGecko
Crypto games struggle to find sustainable business models
Pudgy Party’s wind-down comes as another Web3 gaming project, Fishing Frenzy, and its developer, Uncharted, announced they would cease operations after failing to establish a viable crypto-gaming model.
“Despite our best efforts, we were ultimately unable to prove our thesis on crypto gaming and could not find product-market-business fit,” Fishing Frenzy said in an X post on Monday.
The team said the company had spent the last year testing approaches and different audiences, but had not found a path that inspired the confidence to continue.
Related: Binance to end NFT support on exchange, shift service to wallet
Fishing Frenzy will shut down its servers on June 25 at 2:00 am UTC. The project has stopped selling USDC packages and made its FISH token spend-only and untradable.
The team said that the USDC remaining in the FISH/USDC liquidity pool would be redistributed to community members and stakers.
Magazine: Does ‘Paper Bitcoin’ mean there’s an unlimited supply of BTC?
Crypto World
Strategy Sold Shares and Bought $100 Million Bitcoin: This Is It? Bottom Was 2 Weeks Away?
Strategy just filed confirmation of a $100 million Bitcoin buy executed at an average of $63,024, which is unexpectedly before it jumped, this hour, to $66,000. Good buy timing this time.
Strategy sold 1,732,553 shares of MSTR between June 8 and 14, 2026, generating $209.0 million in net proceeds through its ATM program. Half of that went into 1,587 BTC at an average of $63,024, the other half padded a USD reserve that now sits at $1.1 billion, earmarked for preferred stock dividends and debt servicing.
With $25.7 billion still available under the MSTR ATM and another $25.2 billion across STRF, STRC, STRK, and STRD preferred offerings, Strategy’s buying capacity is nowhere near exhausted.
The macro backdrop is tilting supportive too, a U.S.–Iran interim peace deal sent the S&P surging and Nasdaq up over 2%, risk assets catching a bid as geopolitical premium unwinds from oil and flows toward equities and crypto.
To make this more interesting, Strive also bought 74 Bitcoin, which was retweeted by Michael Saylor, after they talked about Strategy 32BTC sell last week.
Discover: The Best Crypto to Diversify Your Portfolio
Can Bitcoin Finally Run Now?
The range is well-defined. Our classical pivot analysis puts immediate support at $63,700, with the strongest floor at $62,600. Resistance overhead sits at $68,000 and $72,000, the level that needs a clean break to run the short-term structure more bullish.
Momentum indicators have heated up from prior oversold readings, which is neutral at best. We likely see a continuing chop between $64,000 and $68,000 until on-chain catalyst forces a resolution. The bull case, a push toward $71.5k–$73k, requires $68,000 to break with conviction and sustained volume follow-through.
The bear case, which several Elliott Wave analysts are still running as their primary count, targets $56k–$52k if $60,000 gives way, with $45k cited as an extended downside scenario on higher timeframes.
Strategy’s $63,024 average cost on this tranche is almost exactly at the current pivot. If this level holds, they look sharp. If it doesn’t, macro threats including BOJ rate policy and global liquidity shifts could accelerate the flush.
Discover: The Best Token Presales
Bitcoin Hyper Targets Early Infrastructure Upside Before Companies Like Strategy Catch Bid
Traders watching Bitcoin grind through a range are starting to look at where asymmetric upside actually lives right now. At current levels, BTC needs a 10%+ move just to clear $73k resistance, it’s a meaningful ask in a risk-off macro environment.
Early-stage infrastructure plays on Bitcoin’s own ecosystem are attracting attention precisely because the upside math is different.
Bitcoin Hyper is positioning itself as the first Bitcoin Layer 2 with Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) integration. It is also faster execution than Solana itself, delivered on top of Bitcoin’s security model. It’s an ambitious project with sub-second finality, low-cost smart contract execution, and a decentralized canonical bridge for BTC transfers, all without abandoning the base layer’s trust guarantees.
The presale has raised $32 million at a current token price of just $0.0136, with staking already live. Those are real numbers with real participants.
Find Bitcoin Hyper here, and be ready for the next disruptive crypto product.
The post Strategy Sold Shares and Bought $100 Million Bitcoin: This Is It? Bottom Was 2 Weeks Away? appeared first on Cryptonews.
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