Hyperliquid, Aster, And The Hard Truth About Decentralized Exchanges In The US – Benzinga

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While most are looking at the recent public feud between Changpeng…

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“Worst Crypto Winter”

In a series of posts on X and a recent Privacy Podcast appearance, Ben-Sasson described the current downturn as “the worst crypto winter” he has witnessed since entering the industry in 2013.

Over the past month, BTC and ETH have eroded more than 16% amid geopolitical uncertainty and capital rotation into AI-focussed companies.

Despite improving prices and growing institutional interest, he argued that crypto remains in the middle of an identity crisis.

Ben-Sasson attributed the recent market recovery primarily to macroeconomic developments rather than industry-specific catalysts.

“Crypto will be the new rails for TradFi and financial institutions, or crypto will…

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DonAlt Lays Out The Death Loop In Plain Terms

When the market drops, STRC depegs, Saylor sells Bitcoin below his average to repeg it, which pushes Bitcoin lower, forcing more Bitcoin sales.

When the market recovers, he issues more STRC at higher Bitcoin prices and the cycle repeats with a higher cost basis each time.

Peter Schiff added the immediate damage. STRC closed at $89, meaning buyers who paid $100 par value at launch are down 11%. 

New buyers now get a 12.92% yield. If Saylor raises the coupon to 13% to attract demand, he must sell more MSTR at a deeper discount to fund it. If he does not raise the yield, STRC keeps falling.

Saylor’s Counter: Refusing To Sell Bitcoin Would Destroy… Read more on Benzinga

Evernorth CEO Ashish Birla says blockchain is no longer a futuristic concept but a technology solving real financial problems today.

Tokenization As The Next Big Shift

In a National Cryptocurrency Association podcast on June 17, Birla highlighted that blockchain’s core value lies in removing intermediaries and replacing them with decentralized trust.

Instead of relying on platforms such as PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL) to move money, users can send stablecoins directly through blockchain rails, enabling faster and cheaper global payments.

He pointed to stablecoins as one of the clearest examples of blockchain adoption, noting that dollar-backed tokens are especially important outside the U.S., where…

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Warsh Killed Forward Guidance and Nine Committee Members Want a Rate Hike

The FOMC statement under Warsh ran barely half a page compared to the page-and-a-half releases under Jerome Powell. 

Warsh did not add his own position to the dot plot. Nine committee members already project a rate hike before year-end, and the CME FedWatch tool shows markets pricing only a 15% chance that rates stay flat through December.

Analyst Benjamin Cowen argued Wednesday that the pricing-in of a rate hike is itself the headwind, regardless of whether one actually happens. 

Bitcoin depends on looser monetary policy to outperform, and the two-year Treasury yield heading back up historically forces the Fed to…

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Shiba Inu’s (CRYPTO: SHIB) official X account highlighted on Wednesday the approval of a new exchange-traded fund that could hold SHIB, signaling growing institutional recognition for the memecoin.

SHIB Achieves Regulated Entry In Wall Street

The SEC approved the T. Rowe Price Active Crypto ETF last week, which is slated to list on the NYSE Arca exchange under the ticker TKNZ.

“‘Just a meme coin,’ they said,” SHIB’s X account noted, countering the long-standing skepticism that memecoins work purely on speculation and are not fit to be institutional-grade assets.

SHIB’s inclusion would be its first regulated ETF exposure in the U.S. Note that SHIB does not have an approved…

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XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) has pulled back from this week’s gains, but analysts believe the recovery structure stays “intact” as long as the coin defends the key support at $1.20.

The Headwinds And Tailwinds

In a note shared with Benzinga, Shawn Young, Chief Analyst at MEXC Research, stated that XRP’s biggest headwind is “weak follow-through” across the broader cryptocurrency market, though he noted that inflows into spot exchange-traded funds are providing support.

The analyst viewed progress on the Clarity Act as a key catalyst that could improve “institutional confidence” in XRP.

Key Levels To Watch Out For

XRP surged to $1.28 earlier this week on reports of a U.S.–Iran peace deal,…

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Is Musk ‘Orange-Pilled’?

In an X post, Martinez paired a line drawing of Musk with the Bitcoin logo, with the caption, “The world’s first TRILLIONAIRE owns Bitcoin. Let that sink in.”

Details about Musk’s personal BTC holdings remain sketchy. Back in 2020, he revealed he had only 0.25 BTC, but there has been no clear update since then.

Notably, Musk went viral for entering Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters carrying a porcelain bathroom sink after acquiring the company in 2022. He later tweeted, “Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!”

The ‘DogeFather’

Martinez also pointed out Musk’s ownership of Dogecoin, showing a line sketch of him holding the Shiba Inu mascot.

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