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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Michael Saylor Not In Trouble, Scaramucci Says

During an interview with CNBC, Scaramucci stated that Saylor is “definitely not in trouble,” pointing to a “very deep capital pool” at his disposal.

“You have to really understand the mechanisms of the balance sheet to understand that Bitcoin can go a lot lower, and he’s virtually not in trouble,” the money manager said.

Scaramucci said that the MSTR stock still trades at a premium to its underlying Bitcoin reserves, which gives people the “necessary arbitrage” to get comfortable with.

“I like him. I think he’s going to be right,” Scaramucci added.

Saylor has defended the company’s model, claiming in November that as…

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Cryptocurrency bettors aren’t expecting any change to the Federal Reserve’s policy in July, following the central bank’s unanimous decision to keep the federal funds rate unchanged on Wednesday.

Polyamarket Projects Rates To Remain Steady

Bets in favor of rates falling below the current 3.50%–3.75% range remained very low. Over $11.8 million has already been wagered on the outcome, making it one of the most traded contracts on Polymarket.

These predictions broadly aligned with the CME FedWatch tracker, which currently estimates a 70% chance of rates remaining steady in July. The probability of a 25-basis-point rate hike rose to almost 30%, up from 8.5% the previous day.

The Hawkish… Read more on Benzinga

Leading cryptocurrencies were red, while stock futures rallied overnight on Wednesday after President Donald Trump signed a historic “Memorandum of Understanding” with Iran to end all hostilities.

Crypto Market Fails To Rally

Bitcoin retreated from $66,000 to below $64,000, as trading volume jumped 25% over the last 24 hours. Ethereum slid below $1,800, while XRP and Dogecoin also recorded intraday declines.

Nearly $440 million was liquidated from the market in the last 24 hours, with $300 million in long  positions traders alone wiped out, according to Coinglass data. 

Bitcoin’s open interest fell by 2.62% over the last 24 hours. That said, the majority of the retail and whale derivatives…

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Bitwise advisor Jeff Park says investors should start thinking less about Bitcoin’s (CRYPTO: BTC) upside speculation and more about the risk of not owning it at all.

“If You Don’t Own Bitcoin, You’re Basically Short BTC”                

In a “When Shift Happens” interview clip published on June 17, Park argued that Bitcoin remains a hedge against fiat currency debasement.

But its relevance could grow further as artificial intelligence reshapes labor, data ownership and wealth distribution.

“If you don’t own Bitcoin, you’re basically short Bitcoin,” Park said.

He said investors often focus on whether Bitcoin is too expensive, but the larger question is what downside they…

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