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Right this moment’s prime information:
Crypto majors soar 2-5% as oil falls 14%; BTC at $82.3k
ZEC (35%), TON (+28%) and DASH (+25%) lead large day for alts
Coinbase cuts 14% of its workforce, cites AI and market circumstances
a16z raises $2.2B for contemporary crypto fund, targeted on infra for merchandise
Michael Saylor teases promoting Bitcoin to “inoculate the market”
📈 Bitcoin Climbs Above $82K as Trump Pauses Venture Freedom, Oil Breaks Under $100
Actual progress on the Iran Battle entrance?
Trump posted on Fact Social Tuesday that the US would pause “Venture Freedom” citing “nice progress” towards a whole and remaining settlement with Iran.
Market response was swift:
Oil broke beneath $100 per barrel instantly, falling 14% to $89
Inventory futures soared, with the Nasdaq up 1.5% premarket
BTC climbed to $82,270 and a brand new native excessive
ETH adopted up 1.5% to $2,411
SOL rallied 5% to $89.40
And downstream leaders ZEC (+38%) and TON (+23%) rallied much more.
Trump’s actual phrases: “We’ve got mutually agreed that, whereas the Blockade will stay in full drive and impact, Venture Freedom… might be paused for a brief time frame to see whether or not or not the Settlement might be finalised and signed.” Secretary of State Rubio individually instructed reporters that “Operation Epic Fury” was now “over.”
These renewed hopes come only a week earlier than Trump heads to Beijing for a gathering with Xi Jinping. Markets appear to suppose he’ll need a deal carried out earlier than his go to…
🤖 Coinbase Is Chopping 14% of Its Workforce
Brian Armstrong despatched a company-wide memo on Tuesday saying Coinbase will lower roughly 700 workers, about 14% of its 4,951-person workforce.
He mentioned the 2 drivers had been 1) a down crypto market cycle requiring value self-discipline, and a couple of) AI basically altering the economics of constructing software program. “Over the previous yr, I’ve watched engineers use AI to ship in days what used to take a workforce weeks. Non-technical groups at the moment are transport manufacturing code and plenty of of our workflows are being automated.” (Watch out with that final assertion, Brian—we aren’t followers of non-technical groups transport code for crypto protocols amidst an enormous exploit szn).
As for the main points of the re-org, Coinbase plans to flatten to a most of 5 organizational layers beneath the CEO and COO, undertake a player-coach management mannequin, and experiment with single-person groups combining engineering, design, and product in a single function. They’re focusing on 50% of inside code written by AI. Armstrong described the ambition as constructing Coinbase into an “intelligence”—an AI-native group the place people work on the edges reasonably than on the heart of each workflow.
COIN inventory briefly rose then fell 2.5% on the day, regardless of inexperienced crypto majors.
💰 a16z Simply Raised One other $2.2B for Crypto
Andreessen Horowitz closed Crypto Fund 5 at $2.2 billion Tuesday, bringing its whole crypto dedicated capital to $9.8 billion throughout 5 funds.
The increase is intentionally half the dimensions of Fund 4’s $4.5 billion, and a16z says it shortened the fundraising cycle deliberately to remain nimble as crypto narratives shift sooner than a multi-year deployment window permits. CTO Eddy Lazzarin was promoted to common associate alongside the announcement.
The core funding thesis for the fund is constructed round what Chris Dixon calls crypto’s transition from infrastructure to on a regular basis merchandise. They level to stablecoins because the clearest proof, as utilization has saved rising by means of the downturn as a result of individuals are truly utilizing them to avoid wasting, ship cash, and pay for issues. Past stablecoins, a16z sees significant traction in perpetual futures, prediction markets, onchain lending, and tokenized real-world belongings.
Dixon commented: “The founders we’re backing with this $2.2 billion fund are engaged on the a part of the cycle that will get much less consideration and produces extra of the lasting worth: turning new infrastructure into merchandise individuals use each day.”
This increase adopted Haun’s $1B increase introduced yesterday and brings general crypto VC to $8B+ for 2026. Not unhealthy, not unhealthy in any respect…
📉 Technique Posted a $12.54B Q1 Loss, Saylor Teases Promoting Bitcoin
Technique reported a $12.54 billion internet loss for Q1 2026 on Tuesday, the most important quarterly company lack of the yr, and a direct results of Bitcoin falling from roughly $87,000 to $68,000 between January 1 and March 31.
Underneath FASB’s mark-to-market guidelines for company crypto holders, that value decline required Technique to file the unrealized loss in full.
Regardless of the headline loss, Technique seems to be sturdy.
They added roughly 89,600 BTC in Q1 (2nd greatest quarter ever), bringing whole holdings to 818,334 BTC at a mean value of $75,537
STRC, its most popular inventory instrument, raised $2.18 billion in Q1 alone and now represents the world’s largest most popular inventory by market cap
The $1.2 billion annual STRC dividend is roofed by 2.5 years of money on the stability sheet.
However probably the most shocking and controversial replace was Saylor’s remark at Consensus Miami on Tuesday—that Technique would possibly promote a small quantity of Bitcoin “simply to inoculate the market” and “ship the message that we did it.” On one hand, Saylor has mentioned he’d by no means promote any Bitcoin, so this could be a serious pivot. However, many have pointed to any Saylor promoting as an occasion that may result in Bitcoin promoting off severely. So maybe his motive is to only rip the bandaid off and present that the market affect received’t be that unhealthy. Or perhaps he’s carried out the mathematics and is aware of he must promote to pay the STRC dividend funds.
Both means, get your popcorn prepared for the primary Saylor promote if / when it comes. There might be fireworks…
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🙈 Iggy Azalea Is Being Sued Over Her MOTHER Meme Coin
Burwick Regulation filed a federal class motion lawsuit in opposition to Iggy Azalea within the Southern District of New York on Tuesday on behalf of traders in her MOTHER meme coin, which launched on Solana in Could 2024.
The token hit a peak market cap of roughly $200 million inside weeks of launch and now trades at about $1.2 million, a 99.5% collapse. The swimsuit alleges Azalea misled patrons about MOTHER’s real-world utility with guarantees that by no means totally materialized.
The core allegations: Azalea promoted MOTHER because the native forex of an ecosystem she managed, together with Motherland (a web-based on line casino) and Unreal Cellular (a telecom firm she co-founded). The on line casino was by no means solely depending on MOTHER and infrequently accepted Tether as a substitute. The Unreal Cellular integration by no means occurred in any respect. The grievance additionally flags undisclosed preparations with market makers Wintermute and DWF Labs, and early blockchain analytics exhibiting $2 million in insider buying and selling exercise across the launch, claims Azalea denied on the time.
Burwick Regulation has made movie star meme coin litigation its specialty. The agency beforehand filed fits over Hailey Welch’s HAWK coin, the LIBRA token, and Pump.enjoyable. Notably, it has but to safe a profitable judgment in any meme coin case—so take this one with a grain of salt…
🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets
Crypto majors are inexperienced on renewed peace hopes, up 2-5%; BTC +1% at $82.3k; ETH +1% at $2,404; SOL +5% at $90; HYPE +2% at $44.4
ZEC (+37%), TON (+28%), VVV (+23%) and NEAR (+13%) led prime movers
Oil -14% at $89; Gold -0.3% at $4,40
Inventory futures are very inexperienced with NAS up 1.6% and DOW again to 50k
Bullish agreed to accumulate Equiniti for $4.2 billion, the regulated switch agent serving 3,000 public firms and $500B in annual funds, creating the primary end-to-end tokenized securities platform
Kelp DAO introduced it’s migrating rsETH to Chainlink following the $292M exploit, whereas releasing screenshots alleging LayerZero personnel accepted the 1-of-1 DVN setup that enabled the hack; LayerZero disputed the declare
CME Group introduced Bitcoin Volatility futures launching June 1, letting merchants guess on how a lot BTC will swing by monitoring CME’s 30-day implied volatility index (BVX)
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei warned Tuesday of a 6-12 month window to patch tens of hundreds of vulnerabilities discovered by its Mythos mannequin earlier than Chinese language AI catches up
The Solana Basis and Google Cloud launched Pay.sh, letting AI brokers pay for APIs utilizing stablecoins on Solana per request, with no accounts or subscriptions
Determine CEO Mike Cagney instructed Consensus Miami that Determine is focusing on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac instantly utilizing blockchain-based origination that cuts prices 91%, from $11K to $1K
Company Treasuries & ETFs
Meme Coin Tracker
Meme leaders had been very inexperienced; DOGE +4%, SHIB +3%, PEPE +3%, PENGU -4%, TRUMP +2%, BONK +6%, SPX +5%, FARTCOIN +13%
Goblin (+380%), YEP (+46x), PayAI (+290%) and TripleT (+30%) led notable movers; Playing cards +20% as properly
Asteroid +15% to $185M led ETH movers
💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker
MoonPay acquired DFlow, a Solana-based buying and selling infrastructure agency, in a $100 million all-stock deal
Jito Labs launched JTX at Solana Speed up, a self-custodial buying and selling platform providing CEX-speed execution with out giving up key custody
🚚 What is going on in NFTs?
NFT leaders are principally purple on the day; Punks even at 31 ETH, BAYC -7% at 9.9 ETH, Pudgy -2% at 5.3 ETH; Hypurr’s -2% at 343 HYPE
Slonks (+450%), Arsham Voyagers (+24%) and Aeons (+14%) led notable movers
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