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Bitcoin has experienced sharp volatility in recent days, driven by escalating and de-escalating geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. Over the weekend, BTC broke below the key $100,000 psychological level following reports of US military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, sparking panic among investors. However, sentiment swiftly shifted when news of a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Iran broke, triggering a strong rally. Bitcoin surged back above $105,000, highlighting the market’s hypersensitivity to global conflict headlines.

Supporting this recovery is data from the UTXO Block P/L Count Ratio Model by CryptoQuant, which offers insight into investor behavior. At the $112K peak earlier this month, the model recorded a spike to 34,000 points, signaling a wave of profit-taking as many holders sold into strength. Since then, the metric has plunged to just 216 points, suggesting that profitable selling has dried up, and a growing portion of transactions are now being realized at a loss.

This shift indicates that sellers have largely stepped aside, and buyers are beginning to take control at these lower levels. As long as Bitcoin maintains strength above $100K, the path forward could favor a more stable recovery.

Bitcoin Eyes Stability After Volatile Surge

Bitcoin is once again at a pivotal moment, having surged more than 7% in under 25 hours to reclaim higher price levels above $105,000. While the bounce has renewed bullish hopes, Bitcoin remains firmly within the consolidation range that has defined price action since May. Despite the aggressive move, short-term direction remains unclear as global tensions—especially in the Middle East—and tightening macroeconomic conditions continue to inject volatility into the market.

Top analyst Axel Adler shared fresh insights that highlight a key shift in investor behavior. According to CryptoQuant’s UTXO Block P/L Count Ratio Model, when Bitcoin hit its $112,000 all-time high earlier this month, the model spiked to 34,000 points. This marked a wave of profit-taking, as many investors capitalized on peak valuations. However, the metric has since plummeted to just 216 points, indicating that profitable sales have virtually vanished and that more participants are now realizing losses.

This steep decline signals that sellers have largely exited the market, creating space for new buyers to accumulate at lower levels. The shift in behavior suggests that while downside risks still exist, a sharp price crash is less likely in the near term. With selling pressure cooling and long-term conviction returning, Bitcoin appears to be entering a more constructive phase.

BTC Holds Above Key Support Amid Rebound Attempt

The daily Bitcoin chart reveals a sharp bounce from the $98,200 low back toward the $105,000 region, reclaiming a critical support zone near $103,600. This level had previously acted as both support and resistance since March and is now a key battleground for bulls. Price briefly dropped below the 50-day simple moving average (SMA) but has quickly recovered above it, signaling renewed short-term strength.

The bounce also comes after Bitcoin tested the 100-day SMA (near $96,000), a historically reliable area of buyer interest during corrective phases. However, despite the bullish reaction, BTC has yet to reclaim the $109,300 resistance level that capped multiple rallies since early June.

The spike in volume on the most recent green candle suggests demand is returning at lower levels, validating on-chain data that indicated sellers are stepping aside. Still, Bitcoin remains in a broad consolidation pattern, and a failure to break above $109,300 would keep the current rangebound structure intact.

To signal a true trend reversal and renewed momentum toward all-time highs, BTC must close decisively above $109,300. Until then, traders should expect continued choppiness as macro uncertainty and geopolitical events weigh on short-term sentiment.

Featured image from Dall-E, chart from TradingView

The XRP community is in shock following the emergence of Ripple’s co-founder, Arthur Britto, after a 14-year silence. Britto has been inactive on the X platform over these years but is known to have played a major role in Ripple and the XRP Ledger’s (XRPL) development. 

Ripple Co-Founder Makes First-Ever Post On X

Arthur Britto made his first ever post on the X platform on June 23, despite joining the platform in August 2011. His post was simply a blank face emoji, which got the XRP community wondering what it might mean and why exactly the Ripple co-founder has returned now. Britto has cut a mysterious figure, despite co-founding the crypto firm alongside Jed McCaleb and Chris Larsen. 

Following Britto’s first X post, Ripple Chief Technology Officer (CTO) David Schwartz confirmed that the Ripple co-founder wasn’t hacked or compromised. Well-known XRP Ledger Validator Vet also replied, saying ‘no way,’ expressing his shock at Britto’s remergence. Meanwhile, Pumpius, a prominent XRP community member, gave an overview of who Britto was. 

In an X post, he first declared that the co-founder may be the “most important ghost in crypto history,” putting him ahead of Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto, who remains a mystery. Pumpius further stated that Britto helped build the XRP Ledger to help create a neutral bridge asset capable of handling global liquidity. 

Arthur Britto is also said to have designed the 100 billion XRP supply cap and co-authored the XRP whitepaper before he then disappeared without any trace on social media. Away from Ripple and the XRP Ledger, Pumpius revealed that Britto now runs PolySign. The company is working on building institutional custody, and Ripple allegedly has ties to PolySign. 

Community Members Raise Price Angle 

XRP community members also related Arthur Britto’s reemergence to the XRP price and what it could mean for the altcoin. Prominent community member Edo Farina said that the co-founder’s post has to be the “moon sign” that XRP holders have been waiting for, indicating that the price might soon surge. 

Crypto influencer John Squire highlighted how the co-founder was the same person who once said that XRP was designed to reach $10,000. He then questioned if this was a coincidence or if something big was brewing. Squire went on to answer the question by highlighting how the XRP Ledger has recorded its highest transactions in four months this week. 

He added that Britto’s appearance also coincides with “record on-chain volume, Ripple IPO rumors, and pre-bullrun conditions.” Based on this, he declared that the Ripple co-founder’s sudden burst into the scene is “not nothing” but most likely a pattern. 

At the time of writing, the XRP price is trading at around $2.19, up over 7% in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Bullish pressure is returning to the crypto market as Bitcoin, the largest digital asset, rebounded strongly after dropping below the $100,000 mark during the weekend. The recent pullback appears to have influenced the sentiment of short-term investors as indicated by a negative MVRV reading.

Bitcoin’s Short-Term Investors Turn Cautious

While Bitcoin and the market are slowly turning green, several key metrics are still in a bearish state. A recent report from Glassnode, a world-leading financial and on-chain platform, highlights a negative trend among short-term BTC holders.

The Bitcoin short-term holder Market Value to Realized Value (MVRV) ratio has declined sharply. Specifically, this metric is frequently used to assess sentiment and profitability among more recent market participants. 

Therefore, this notable drop in the key STH MVRV metric reflects the growing unease of recent investors due to the ongoing volatility of BTC’s price. It also points to weakening conviction sentiment among short-term holders.

Starting with the BTC Short-Term Holders Realized Price, Glassnode noted that the asset has persistently found support in the range since April. According to the platform, this range is also the cost basis of investors holding BTC for more than 155 days.

Even though this range has held strongly, the short-term holders’ MVRV is currently decreasing and is situated at just 0.03, a level that shows growing pressure on newer investors with only 3% unrealized gains.

It is worth noting that BTC Short-Term Holders Realized Price is currently positioned at the $98,100 price mark. During the weekend, Bitcoin retested this level due to the heightened volatility observed across the crypto market.

Even though recent corrections have rebounded close to this level, Glassnode noted that the Cost Basis Distribution indicates a denser supply slightly below, at about $97,000 to $98,000. In the meantime, this zone might serve as a true pivot in the following drawdown as pressure builds up on newer BTC holders.

Behavior Of BTC Investors

In another X post, Glassnode has outlined the current action of BTC investors following an analysis of the Bitcoin Supply By Investor Behavior metric. The metric is often used to determine the activity of investors, whether they are selling or holding.

Glassnode’s main area of focus in this crucial metric is the Loss Sellers, which is observed to have risen significantly in the past few days. Typically, this uptick in loss sellers signals increasing uncertainty and frustration among players who purchased BTC at higher price levels. Data from the platform reveals that this cohort has grown from 74,000 to 95,600, representing an increase of over 29% since June 10. 

While pressure on weak hands has spiked, Conviction Buyers also witnessed a notable increase. A rise in Conviction Buyers suggests that sentiment is not collapsing. Presently, some are reducing losses while others are actively reducing their cost basis.

Palau’s Office of the Public Auditor (OPA) has released the long-awaited performance audit of the government’s XRP-Ledger-based stablecoin pilot, confirming that Ripple Services Inc. funded the 25-month experiment with a single $25,000 payment and that just over half of that grant has been spent. The 12-page report closes the accounting on the Palau Stablecoin (PSC) project, which ran from 26 October 2021 to 27 November 2023.

Ripple’s $25K Grant Confirmed In Palau Stablecoin Audit

The audit documents show Ripple wired $25,000 into the National Treasury on 10 March 2023. Of that amount the Ministry of Finance (MOF) disbursed $14,035, mainly to reimburse three participating merchants—Surangel & Sons, Penthouse Hotel and King’s Minute Mart—for redeeming PSC tokens spent by 154 volunteer government employees, each of whom received an allocation of 100 PSC (one-to-one with the US dollar). The unspent balance of $10,965 remains in the Treasury pending a political decision on a potential second phase.

Ripple’s contribution was properly booked under the FY 2023 budget law (RPPL 11-24) and, in OPA’s words, “was properly accounted for and deposited into the National Treasury,” a finding that dispels earlier speculation that the grant bypassed normal budget channels.

OPA opened the probe at the request of Senator Mark Rudimch, whose Resources, Commerce, Trade & Development Committee raised questions in July 2023 about the programme’s constitutionality and financial controls. The audit therefore set two narrow objectives: whether the MOF had legal authority to partner with a private company and whether it followed Palauan law in doing so.

On substance, the auditors concluded the MOF “acted within its broad authority and did not violate its mandate,” but they flagged two procedural breaches. First, neither the original October 2021 memorandum of understanding nor the December 2022 Ripple Master Hosted Stablecoin Services Agreement was certified “for form and legality” by the Attorney General, as required by 40 PNC § 612. Second, the National Director of Program, Budget & Management did not certify fund availability when the services agreement was signed, a step mandated by 40 PNC § 401(b).

“The Republic of Palau cannot ascertain the form and legality of the agreements as intended by law,” OPA wrote, urging the MOF in a formal recommendation “to ensure that every government contract…is certified by the Attorney General before execution.”

The Ministry accepted the admonition, but in its written reply stressed that “agreements that do not bind the Republic are often acceptable without AG review,” adding that it had “consistently relied upon legal advice provided by the Office of the President’s legal staff.” On the budget-certification lapse, officials noted that certification did occur at the time of each disbursement and argued the grant was already covered under annual outside-assistance provisions. “Thank you for the findings, which are accepted as presented,” the MOF told auditors.

XRP Ledger Pilot Ended: What’s Next?

Beyond the procedural fixes, OPA offered a nuanced verdict on the policy experiment itself. It praised the pilot’s design for exploring “technological solutions enabling the Ministry of Finance to manage the minting, distribution, redemption and destruction of PSC…recorded on the public XRP Ledger,” and it highlighted potential benefits for financial inclusion and lower transaction costs. Yet the report also cautioned that rolling out a circulating national stablecoin would require explicit legislation by the Olbiil Era Kelulau (Palau’s Congress); without such an act, any expansion “would be unlawful.”

For Ripple, the audit caps a three-year engagement whose cash outlay—$25,000—was modest compared with typical central-bank-digital-currency pilots. While the report makes no judgement on technical performance, it confirms that the XRP Ledger handled mint-and-burn cycles and retailer redemptions. For Palau’s policymakers, the next decision is whether to draft the legislation that would turn PSC from a proof-of-concept into legal tender—or to leave the remaining grant dollars unspent and the project on the shelf.

At press time, XRP traded at $2.1696.

Dogecoin has been under intense pressure in recent days, with its price sinking to a new local low of $0.14 after shedding more than 35% of its value over the past month. Despite intermittent bounces, Dogecoin’s price action has been relatively weak, and the meme coin is now retesting a long-term trendline drawn from the 2021 all-time high.

There have been speculations about how much longer this correction might last and when the next major reversal could begin. According to technical speculations by a crypto analyst, Dogecoin is still on track to register a new peak by August.

Estimating Dogecoin Top Formation

Crypto analyst Javier, posting on the social media platform X, has drawn attention to Dogecoin’s past behavior in major bull cycles by showing a repeating pattern in how long Dogecoin typically takes to form both its bottoms and its tops. According to the chart and notes shared by the analyst, historical bottoms have often developed over 112 to 133 days, with an average of about 122 days. 

Meanwhile, Dogecoin’s cycle tops have historically formed within 91 to 119 days, averaging around 107 days. These durations have been consistent across multiple cycles since 2017. This trend is visualized in the chart below, which highlights four different breakouts and corrections spanning from 2017 to the current cycle.

The data shows that DOGE is currently progressing through a similar phase. According to the analysis, Dogecoin had already dropped to a low of about $0.14 in April. Interestingly, despite the crash in the past 24 hours, Dogecoin seems to have respected this low. 

The ongoing price action is now that of a movement towards a new peak, which should take an average of 119 days. More notably, the analyst noted that the maximum time it has taken for a top in any previous cycle is 119 days. If repeated, the analysis points to August 4, 2025, as a probable peak for the current leg of Dogecoin’s price action. This means a strong move to the upside may soon begin before the next reversal toward a new low. From where we are, the reversal should start between the next 14 and 49 days.

Reversal Window Between Mid-July And Early August

The analyst projects that if the current pattern holds true, the next meaningful reversal for Dogecoin could begin anytime from around 49 to 14 days before this projected August 4 top. This places the likely window for a price bottom and new peak between now and mid-July and early August.

The implication here is that the meme coin may still experience additional short-term downside or sideways movement before reentering a bullish trend.  At the time of writing, DOGE is trading at $0.1642, up by 5.7% in the past 24 hours.

Fluence is building what centralized clouds cannot: an open, low cost and enterprise grade compute layer that is sovereign, transparent, and open to everyone.

2025 has started the way 2024 ended with cloud giants investing aggressively to dominate AI infrastructure. Microsoft is spending over $80 billion on new data centers, Google launched its AI Hypercomputer, Oracle is investing $25 billion into its Stargate AI clusters, and AWS is prioritizing AI-native services. Specialized players are scaling rapidly too. CoreWeave raised $1.5 billion in its March IPO and is worth over $70 billion currently.  

As AI becomes critical infrastructure, access to compute power will be one of the defining battles of our era. While hyperscalers consolidate and centralize compute power by building exclusive data centers and vertically integrating silicon, networks like Fluence offer a radically different vision—a decentralized, open, and neutral platform for AI compute, tokenizing compute to meet AI’s exponential demand and having FLT as a RWA Tokenized compute asset. 

Fluence is already collaborating with top decentralized infrastructure networks across AI (Spheron, Aethir, IO.net) and storage (Filecoin, Arweave, Akave, IPFS) on multiple initiatives, reinforcing its position as a neutral compute-data layer. To bring this vision to life, the roadmap for 2025–2026 focuses on the convergence of three key action areas:

1. Launching A Global GPU-Powered Compute Layer

Fluence will soon support GPU nodes across the globe, enabling compute providers to contribute AI-ready hardware to the network. This new GPU mesh will upgrade Fluence platform from CPU-based capacity into an additional AI-grade compute layer, designed for inference, fine-tuning, and model serving. Fluence will integrate container support for secure, portable GPU job execution. Containerization enables reliable ML workload serving and establishes critical infrastructure for future inference, fine-tuning, and agentic applications across the decentralized network.

Fluence will explore privacy-preserving inference through confidential computing for GPUs, keeping sensitive business or personal data private while helping reduce costs of AI inference. Using trusted execution environments (TEE) and encrypted memory, this R&D initiative enables sensitive workload processing while maintaining decentralization and supporting sovereign agent development.

Key Milestones:

• GPU node onboarding – Q3 2025

• GPU container runtime support live – Q4 2025

• Confidential GPU computing R&D track kickoff – Q4 2025

• Pilot confidential job execution – Q2 2026

2. Hosted AI Models And Unified Inference

Fluence will provide one-click deployment templates for popular open-source models including LLMs, orchestration frameworks like LangChain, agentic stacks, and MCP servers. The Fluence platform AI stack will be expanded with an integrated inference layer for hosted models and agents. This simplifies AI model deployment while leveraging community contributions and external development support.

• Model + orchestration templates live – Q4 2025

• Inference endpoints and routing infra live – Q2 2026

3. Enabling Verifiable, Community-Driven SLA 

Fluence will introduce a new approach to network trust and resilience through Guardians—retail and institutional actors who verify compute availability. Rather than relying on closed dashboards, Guardians monitor infrastructure through decentralized telemetry and earn FLT rewards for enforcing service-level agreements (SLAs).

Guardians turn an enterprise-grade infrastructure network into something anyone can participate in—without needing to own hardware. The Guardian program is complemented by the Pointless Program, a gamified reputation system that rewards community contributions and leads to Guardian eligibility.

Key Milestones:

• Guardian first batch – Q3 2025

• Guardians full rollout and programmatic SLA – Q4 2025

4. Integrating AI Compute with a Composable Data Stack

AI is not just compute—it’s compute + data. Fluence is building deep integrations with decentralized storage networks like Filecoin, Arweave, Akave, and IPFS to provide developers with access to verifiable datasets alongside execution environments. These integrations will allow users to define jobs that access persistent, distributed data and run on GPU-backed nodes—turning Fluence into a full-stack AI backend that is orchestrated via FLT. 

To support this, the network will offer composable templates and prebuilt SDK modules for connecting compute jobs with storage buckets or on-chain datasets. Developers building AI agents, LLM inference tools, or science applications will be able to treat Fluence like a modular AI pipeline—with open data, compute, and validation stitched together by protocol logic.

Key Milestones:

• Decentralized storage backups – Q1 2026

• Integrated dataset access for AI workloads – Q3 2026

From Cloudless Compute To Shared Intelligence

With a roadmap focused on GPU onboarding, verifiable execution, and seamless data access, Fluence is laying the foundation for the next era of AI—one that will not be controlled by a handful of hyperscalers, but powered by a global community of cooperating and decentralized compute providers and participants

The infrastructure for AI must reflect the values we want AI to serve: openness, collaboration, verifiability and accountability. Fluence is turning that principle into a protocol.

Join the mission:

• Apply as a GPU provider

• Sign up for the Fluence Beta for Cloudless VMs

Start climbing the Pointless leaderboard and earn your way to Guardian status

Disclaimer: This is a paid release. The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the content provider and do not necessarily represent those of Bitcoinist. Bitcoinist does not guarantee the accuracy or timeliness of information available in such content. Do your research and invest at your own risk.

Senator Adam Schiff of California rolled out a bill on Monday aimed squarely at the highest office in the land. It would bar the president, vice president and their immediate family from getting into any crypto business while wearing the badge of public office. The move comes as concern is growing over political power mixing with digital money moves.

Strict Ban On Crypto Endorsements

According to the Curbing Officials’ Income and Nondisclosure (COIN) Act, no sitting president or vice president could issue, sponsor or endorse any cryptocurrency, meme coin, NFT or stablecoin.

The same rule would cover their spouses and children. Based on reports, the plan even makes them report any sale of digital assets over $1,000. That simple step could force more transparency on deals that happen behind closed doors.

Heavy Penalties For Violators

The COIN Act sets clear penalties for anyone who steps out of line. Civil fines would match the profit made on a bad deal. Anyone who breaks the rule could also face up to five years in prison.

It’s a steep price. That level of punishment sends a strong signal that these are not harmless side projects but serious conflicts of interest.

U.S. Democratic lawmakers introduce bill to combat crypto-related conflicts of interest

Ten Democratic lawmakers, including California Senator @SenAdamSchiff, have introduced the “Curbing Officials’ Income and Nondisclosure” bill or COIN Act, to prevent the president and public…

— CoinNess Global (@CoinnessGL) June 23, 2025

Links To Trump’s Crypto Deals

Schiff did not hide why he pushed this bill. Based on reports, US President Donald Trump pulled in $58 million from crypto ventures in 2024, mostly from WLFI token sales.

That haul was second only to his hotel and resort earnings. And he’s eyeing another $390 million token sale in 2025, plus gains from his meme coin that launched in January.

His companies are also involved in Bitcoin mining and a proposed $2.3 billion Bitcoin treasury plan under Trump Media and Technology Group.

The SEC cleared that $2.3 billion filing on June 13, covering 85 million shares and 29 million tied to convertible notes.

Challenges In A Divided Congress

Getting this through won’t be easy. Nine Senate Democrats have signed on as co-sponsors. Of those, seven backed last week’s GENIUS Act, which set stablecoin rules for Congress but left the president untouched.

That split vote showed how tricky it is to balance broad crypto rules with a law aimed at one person. The House is under Republican control, and any bill that could put a president in a bind is likely to stall in committee.

Featured image from Pexels, chart from TradingView

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell announced on Tuesday that banks will have the autonomy to determine their customer base, signaling an open door for digital asset investors and the introduction of new investment products centered around crypto assets. 

Freedom To Engage In Crypto Activities 

During his remarks before the House Financial Services Committee, Powell emphasized that banks are now positioned to offer banking services specifically tailored to the cryptocurrency industry and its associated companies.

On Tuesday, Powell further stressed that these digital asset activities must be conducted with a focus on maintaining safety and soundness for everyday investors. 

This announcement follows the Federal Reserve’s recent decision to remove reputational risk from its bank examination criteria on Monday, a change that aligns with similar actions taken by other US banking regulators, such as the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

Banks had expressed concerns that the previous emphasis on reputational risk could lead to subjective judgments from regulators, potentially penalizing institutions for engaging in legally permissible activities, including cryptocurrency, that do not pose significant financial risks. 

With the removal of this standard, the Federal Reserve has signaled a more lenient regulatory environment, allowing financial institutions to engage more freely in crypto-related projects and offerings.

Inflation Forecast

Addressing broader economic issues that can influence cryptocurrency prices, Powell highlighted ongoing concerns about inflation, which remains above the Fed’s target of 2%. 

The Fed chair noted that the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on the economy is still uncertain, stating, “Policy changes continue to evolve, and their effects on the economy remain uncertain.” 

Powell explained that the effects of tariffs will depend on their ultimate levels and that historically, tariffs have led to one-time price increases rather than sustained inflationary pressures.

As for inflation metrics, Powell indicated that the Fed’s preferred measure is likely to rise to 2.3% in May, with the core measure—excluding food and energy—expected to edge up to 2.6%. 

In April, these figures were recorded at 2.1% and 2.5%, respectively. Powell and his colleagues on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) are carefully considering these dynamics and do not feel rushed to adjust policy until more data on the impact of tariffs becomes available.

Featured image from DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com 

Norway’s Green Minerals and Anthony Pompliano’s ProCap Financial have emerged as the latest companies looking to adopt Saylor’s Strategy Bitcoin playbook. These companies combined have earmarked over $2 billion, which they plan to use to accumulate BTC. 

Green Minerals & ProCap Financial Adopt Strategy’s Bitcoin Model

In a press release, Green Minerals announced the adoption of a Bitcoin Treasury, just like Saylor’s Strategy, as part of the company’s overall blockchain strategy. The company plans to accumulate BTC as a “forward-thinking financial approach” to diversify its treasury away from traditional fiat currencies.

Green Minerals further revealed that it has set an ambitious target to raise up to $1.2 billion to help boost its Bitcoin Treasury. Simply put, the company plans to raise $1.2 billion to buy BTC, which is also bullish for the Bitcoin price. 

The company’s Executive Chairman, Ståle Rodahl, highlighted how Bitcoin’s “decentralized, non-inflationary properties make it an attractive alternative to traditional fiat.” He added that by integrating a Bitcoin Treasury, like Saylor’s Strategy, they are not just mitigating fiat risks but also reaffirming their commitment to financial innovation. 

Meanwhile, Anthony Pompliano’s ProCap BTC LLC is also set to become a Bitcoin Treasury company through a $1 billion merger with Columbus Circle Capital Corp. According to the press release, the new company, which will be known as ProCap Financial, will hold up to $1 billion in Bitcoin on its balance sheet, following Strategy’s BTC model. 

As part of the announcement, Anthony Pompliano revealed that they have raised over $750 million for the public Bitcoin Treasury company. This represents the largest initial fundraising for a public BTC company. The companies involved in the proposed merger raised $516.5 million in equity and $325 million in convertible notes. 

Interestingly, Pompliano responded to Michael Saylor’s congratulatory message on the deal, stating how his idea is spreading globally as people realize the value of Bitcoin. 

Strategy Makes Purchase Of Its Own

Amid the announcement from the new Bitcoin Treasury companies, Saylor’s Strategy has made another Bitcoin purchase. The company announced that it acquired 245 BTC for $26 million between June 16 and 22. Saylor’s company now holds 592,345 BTC, which it acquired for $41.87 billion at an average price of $70,681 per BTC. 

Strategy is the largest public Bitcoin Treasury company, well ahead of second-placed MARA Holdings, which currently holds 46,374 BTC, according to CoinGecko data. It is worth noting that the latest Bitcoin purchase was Strategy’s second-smallest this year. The company had purchased 130 BTC in March for $10.7 million, which is the smallest purchase in 2025. 

At the time of writing, the Bitcoin price is trading at around $105,800, up over 4% in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

Per a press release, Chainlink entered in a partnership with global payment provider Mastercard. The partners will create a bridge to connect legacy payment rails with on-chain DeFi transactions.

Chainlink Opens Door For Millions to Buy Crypto

According to the release, the deal will be conducted with the collaboration of zerohash, Swapper Finance, Shift4 Payments, and XSwap. The partners will use the Uniswap protocol to settle the payments allowing over 3 billion cardholders to directly buy crypto from a fully decentralized platform. The press release claims:

This breakthrough is powered by Chainlink’s secure interoperability infrastructure and Mastercard’s trusted global payments network, removing long-standing barriers that have kept mainstream users from accessing the onchain economy.

While one of the partners, zerohash, will provide liquidity and onchain services to settle the legacy payments into the Uniswap smart contract; the others, Shift4 Payments, Swapper Finance, and XSwap, will provide a ‘next generation app experience.’

Part of the Chainlink ecosystem, XSwap uses this protocol’s standard for data and interoperability, the release continues, to provide core compliance, custody, and transaction infrastructure. In that way, it is easy for the cardholders to convert fiat into crypto without the usual barriers between the two sectors.

Sergey Nazarov, Co-Founder of Chainlink, stated the following while thanking the Mastercard team for their ‘innovative implementation’ and the rest of the partners for achieving a ‘complex’ task in collaboration with the Chainlink community:

This is the type of traditional finance and decentralized finance convergence that Chainlink was built to make possible. I’m excited about Chainlink’s ability to enable this critical connection between the traditional payments world and the over three billion cardholders in the Mastercard user base, directly into the next generation trading environments of onchain decentralized exchanges (…).

People Want to Buy Crypto With Ease

On the other hand, Raj Dhamodharan, executive vice president, Blockchain & Digital Assets at Mastercard, believes that the product will satisfy a demand from the cardholders allowing them to connect to the crypto market with ease.

The collaboration with Mastercard will ‘unlock’ bridge between crypto users, including merchants, and potentially boost the growth and adoption of cryptocurrencies. Drew Turchin, Head of Business Development at Uniswap Labs also added:

The Uniswap protocol has become foundational for onchain markets, enabling developers around the world to build new tools for a wide range of users. It’s exciting to see this Swapper leverage the protocol and is another great example of how the protocol continues to serve as critical infrastructure in the financial stack.

Cover image from Unsplash, LINKUSDT chart from Tradingview

Midnight, Cardano’s privacy-focused side-chain, has seen its long-anticipated “Glacier Drop” transition from concept to a fully documented specification with the release of the project’s 45-page Tokenomics and Incentives Whitepaper dated June 2025. The document crystallises what had previously been hints—namely that the entire genesis mint of 24 billion NIGHT tokens is being put on the table for a community-driven distribution whose first salvo is the Glacier Drop. “Token supply: 24 billion NIGHT tokens minted on Cardano, which are mirrored on the Midnight network,” the paper states, before adding that expansion via block rewards is strictly disinflationary, tapering toward zero once every token is circulating.

NIGHT is described as a non-expendable utility token that continuously generates the shielded network resource called DUST. Every block credits fresh DUST to a designated, privacy-preserving address until the address hits a cap that is mathematically linked to the amount of NIGHT backing it; if the holder moves or re-designates their NIGHT, the previously accumulated DUST decays to zero. “As it is generated continually and indefinitely, there is no limit to how much DUST can be generated over time,” the white-paper explains, underscoring that DUST itself is non-transferable and burns on use, severing the traditional link between transaction fees and token price volatility.

Block producers are instead paid in newly circulating NIGHT that flows out of a Reserve using a “base distribution rate” calibrated to deliver an initial network inflation around three per cent per annum. Because the rate is applied to the shrinking Reserve balance, annual issuance decays along an exponential curve, meaning the reward pot lasts “in the order of hundreds of years.” A fixed subsidy guarantees that even empty blocks earn something, but a variable component tied to block fullness redirects otherwise-lost rewards to the on-chain Treasury, creating a carrot for maximum transaction inclusion.

Cardano’s Biggest Airdrop: Who Gets What And How

The white-paper calls the Glacier Drop “phase one of a three-step claim journey,” and it allocates the entire 24 billion supply to this opening phase to 8 chains, albeit with conditions designed to defeat Sybil bots and sanctioned entities. Half of the supply is reserved for Cardano native-token holders, one fifth for Bitcoin addresses, and the balance is split among Ethereum, Solana, XRP Ledger, BNB Chain, Avalanche and Brave wallet participants according to the US-dollar value of their holdings at the moment of a random, already-taken historical snapshot.

Individual eligibility is algorithmic and transparent. If, at the snapshot, an address on any of the eight networks held the equivalent of at least $100 in its native asset—and is not flagged on OFAC’s SDN list—it can claim. Midnight then requires two cryptographic proofs: first, the address owner signs a message to demonstrate custody; second, the claimant supplies a fresh, unused Cardano address to receive the thawed NIGHT once the redemption window opens. Custodial exchange accounts are out of luck unless the custodian chooses to claim on users’ behalf.

The Glacier claim window will run for sixty days. Claimed tokens are locked in a Cardano smart contract and “gradually thaw” throughout a subsequent redemption period; the cadence of that unlock schedule has not yet been published, but Midnight emphasises that the mechanism is meant to blunt opportunistic dumping and encourage early participation in block production, governance and DUST-fuelled application building. Unclaimed NIGHT does not disappear: it rolls into phase two, the Scavenger Mine, where participants solve public-good computational puzzles for a share of the leftovers while simultaneously seeding core network infrastructure. Whatever survives that torrent becomes the bounty for phase three, Lost-and-Found, a final recovery chance after main-net launch.

Prospective claimants therefore have a concrete checklist. They must confirm that their balances are held in self-custody at the snapshot height, ensure the wallet remains unsanctioned, and prepare to sign a message once the NIGHT Claim Portal goes live. They must also create an unused Cardano address—a privacy best-practice given that Midnight will publish audit proofs for every redemption transaction on-chain. With those pieces in place, the only moving parts left are the opening block number of the claim portal and the publication of the exact thaw schedule, both of which the team says will appear on Midnight’s official website in “short order.”

At press time, ADA traded at $0.5817.