Live markets: Bitcoin, ether lead $1 billion liquidation losses as AI trade keeps going
Strategy's common stock hit a multi-year low, while its STRC preferred stock plunged to a new record low.
YayaNews contributes financial news and market context through the YayaNews editorial workflow.
Strategy's common stock hit a multi-year low, while its STRC preferred stock plunged to a new record low.
(Coinmarketcap)
8:44 p.m., June 25
Stephen Alpher
Share
Share this post
Copy link
X icon
X (Twitter)
OpenAI mulling delaying IPO until 2027: NYT
Previously reportedly eyeing an IPO in the second half of 2026, Sam Altman's OpenAI is "leaning" toward delaying coming public until next year,
reports the NYT
.
The recent dip in Elon Musk's SpaceX (SPCX) following its mega-IPO, as well as general choppiness in markets, are among the reasons causing OpenAI executives to reconsider their plans, the story continued.
8:24 p.m., June 25
Stephen Alpher
Share
Share this post
Copy link
X icon
X (Twitter)
Coinbase's Brian Armstrong thinks this bear is just the four-year cycle playing out
The four-year cycle folks are surely having their day, as bitcoin (BTC) in 2026 is crashing as they expected it to, based on what happened in 2014, 2018, and 2022.
To review, Bitcoin's four-year cycle refers to what many believe is recurring historical pattern of boom and bust tied to the network's "halving" events, at which the block reward is cut in half roughly every four years.
The cycle typically begins a major bull run in the year following a halving, a bear market peak, and a bottom about 12 to 13 months later — which in this case means somewhere around October 2026.
Those who argue against the four-year cycle point out that there's already more than 19 million bitcoin in circulation. The halving events of today thus have very little effect on supply, so they shouldn't affect the price that much.
Nevertheless, the halving epoch that began in April 2024 to this point is kind of playing out as the four-year cycle proponents expected.
"Bitcoin has always been operating in 4-year cycles where it crashes at the end,"
posted levelsio on X
. "2014, 2018, 2022, 2026. It's actually great because every 4th year people really get super sad and give up on it. There's also surely some sentiment pumping to push the price down so people can buy in cheap again. The next cycle up is 2027-2031."
"Yep,"
replied
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong minutes ago.
6:58 p.m., June 25
Stephen Alpher
Share
Share this post
Copy link
X icon
X (Twitter)
STRC isn't next Luna: Arkham adds its voice as Strategy's stocks crumble
"The price of STRC simply reflects the market’s view of how likely Saylor is to continue paying dividends," s
ays Arkham
, reminding of one key fact often omitted in the current debate:
"Strategy does not legally have to pay these dividends. If Strategy gets in trouble, Saylor does not have to prioritize STRC shareholder dividends."
Unlike Terra Luna, the analysis continued, Strategy cannot be "get liquidated" as STRC's value falls. "If it looks like Strategy won’t be able to raise capital and pay dividends, investors may sell STRC, but Saylor is not forced to spend money keeping the price up."
While this scenario is not likely to be a good one for either Strategy's common or preferred holders, it illustrates that there's little to no chance of some sort of liquidation event for the company's nearly 850,000 bitcoin.
6:05 p.m., June 25
Stephen Alpher
Share
Share this post
Copy link
X icon
X (Twitter)
Bitcoin settles in under $60,000
As opposed to earlier very brief visits below $60,000 during this bear market, bitcoin (BTC) appears to be comfortably settling in below that level, having now spent a decent amount of the last two days there.
About two hours before the close of U.S. stocks, bitcoin is trading at $59,500 — actually
higher by 0.4%
over the past 24 hours.
U.S. stocks are mixed, with the Nasdaq down 0.4%, the S&P 500 flat, and the DJIA up 0.3%. Micron Technology (MU) remains higher by 13% following its earnings beat Wednesday evening.
"Why would u buy bitcoin here at $59K when its biggest holder [Saylor's Strategy] is distressed,"
asked Wazz on X
.
MSTR is down 7.6% to a multi-year low of $87, while its preferred stock STRC hit a record low today, currently down 5.1% to $76.70.
4:19 p.m., June 25
Stephen Alpher
Share
Share this post
Copy link
X icon
X (Twitter)
Lag 7: Micron's surge hitting more than just crypto
Micron Technologies (MU) continues with strong gains following its blowout earnings last night, with a 12.4% gain.
It's a well-worn narrative at this point that the flood of investor interest into the AI trade has left crypto starved of capital. Memory chip prices have surged so much, though, that the consumers of those chips — namely the Mag 7 — are feeling the sting.
Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are all sharply lower as Micron soars on Thursday, with the other two group members — Tesla and Meta — little changed.
Not even including today's big decline, market technician
J.C. Parets noted
the "Lag 7" notched a new 52-week low yesterday versus the S&P 500.
2:03 p.m., June 25
Helene Braun
Share
Share this post
Copy link
X icon
X (Twitter)
IREN inks multiyear Golden State Warriors jersey deal
IREN has signed a multiyear jersey sponsorship agreement with the Golden State Warriors, replacing Rakuten Group Inc., which had held the NBA team's uniform patch rights since 2017 when the league first allowed jersey sponsorships.
The agreement gives IREN branding on Warriors jerseys and reflects the Warriors' focus on companies tied to AI, Mike Kitts, IREN’s chief commercial officer, told Bloomberg. The Warriors “sit in the AI capital of the world,” he said in an interview. “The AI space was really, really interesting to us, and it felt like we had a real opportunity to put a landmark deal together.”
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. IREN shares were down 3% on the day, trading at $48.90.
1:30 p.m., June 25
Helene Braun
Share
Share this post
Copy link
X icon
X (Twitter)
Apple hikes prices across the board
Apple has increased prices across its Mac and iPad lineup, citing rising memory and storage chip costs, while leaving iPhone prices unchanged for now, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
Mac computers now cost roughly 15% to 20% more, while iPad prices increased between 15% and 25%.
The price increases come one week after CEO Tim Cook warned that sharp increases in memory and storage chip costs would likely force Apple to charge more for some products. In a statement, Apple said it had "reached a point where we need to begin raising prices" and added that it had "never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly."
iPhone prices remain unchanged, although the company signaled that additional price increases could follow.
12:37 p.m., June 25
James Van Straten
Share
Share this post
Copy link
X icon
X (Twitter)
Bitcoin holds above $61,000 as U.S. PCE inflation meets expectations
The highly anticipated U.S. core PCE data, the Fed's preferred inflation measure, came in as expected at 8:30 ET.
Core PCE rose 0.3% month over month (MoM) and 3.4% year over year (YoY), matching forecasts, while headline PCE printed slightly cooler at 0.4% MoM and 4.1% YoY.
The data confirms stickiness in inflation, keeping expectations for two Federal Reserve interest rate hikes largely unchanged. However, the fact that it came in line with estimates does ensure there is no additional hawkish shock to the market.
In the meantime, stronger than expected U.S. GDP growth and personal income reinforced the resilience of the US economy.
Bitcoin, therefore, holds steady above $61,000, with gold staying below $4,000 per ounce.
12:17 p.m., June 25
Shaurya Malwa
Share
Share this post
Copy link
X icon
X (Twitter)
Gnosis's official X account was hacked and posted a fake rewards link
The official Gnosis X account was compromised in early US hours Thursday and used to post a fraudulent message inviting users to vote on a rewards date, with a link to check eligibility.
Gnosis Pay, a separate and related official account,
warned users not to interact
with the post or the link. The Gnosis team acknowledged the hack, said it had notified X, and urged the community to report the post while it works to recover the account.
The link points to an external site and should not be clicked. Wallet-draining scams routinely use compromised project accounts to post fake reward or eligibility links, using urgency, early reward bonuses in this case, to push users into connecting their wallets.
10:41 a.m., June 25
James Van Straten
Share
Share this post
Copy link
X icon
X (Twitter)
Markets await PCE inflation data as DXY remains above 101
Markets are focused on the upcoming U.S. Core PCE inflation data, with consensus expecting the year over year reading to come in at 3.4% and the month over month figure at 0.3%.
Inflation fears have led markets to price in two 25 basis point Federal Reserve rate hikes over the next eight months. This has weighed on risk assets, with bitcoin hovering around $60,000. Precious metals have also weakened, with gold falling below $4,000 an ounce and silver slipping below $58.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Dollar Index (DXY) has climbed above 101. A hotter than expected PCE reading would likely strengthen the dollar and add further pressure on risk assets.
8:54 a.m., June 25
James Van Straten
Share
Share this post
Copy link
X icon
X (Twitter)
Spot bitcoin ETF flows retreat to lowest cumulative level since July 2025
Bitcoin briefly fell below $60,000 during the US trading session, coinciding with $469 million in net outflows from US spot Bitcoin ETFs. This marked the 30th largest single day redemption since the ETFs launched in January 2024.
As a result of the consistent outflows for the past few months, cumulative net inflows remain at $52.8 billion, a level last seen on 14 July 2025, although this is approximately $2.3 billion below the peak reached a few days later.
8:06 a.m., June 25
Omkar Godbole
Share
Share this post
Copy link
X icon
X (Twitter)
The U.S. two-year Treasury yield is on the cusp of a major move
The U.S. two-year Treasury yield is on the cusp of a significant technical breakout.
Highly sensitive to near-term interest rate expectations, the two-year yield is testing the descending trendline that has capped its decline since the October 2023 peak of 5.26%.
A decisive move above this trendline would mark a classic bullish breakout for yields, signaling potential for further upside.
[@portabletext/react] Unknown block type "image", specify a component for it in the `components.types` prop
Such a development would imply tighter financial conditions, likely supporting a stronger U.S. dollar while exerting downward pressure on risk assets, including bitcoin and equities.
6:45 a.m., June 25
Shaurya Malwa
Share
Share this post
Copy link
X icon
X (Twitter)
Oil has erased nearly all its wartime gains
Brent crude fell below $72.48 a barrel on Thursday, wiping out every gain made since the U.S.-Iran war began, as tankers resumed open passage through the Strait of Hormuz and oil markets flooded with supply.
West Texas Intermediate traded near $69.
Cheaper oil eases the inflation pressure that pushed the Fed hawkish in the first place, and a sustained drop could eventually shift the rate outlook that has weighed on bitcoin all month.
The chain runs oil lower, then inflation softer, then Fed less hawkish, then risk assets get room to recover. But that sequence works with a lag of months, not days, so the oil move is a tailwind in the making rather than one that's arrived.
6:12 a.m., June 25
Shaurya Malwa
Share
Share this post
Copy link
X icon
X (Twitter)
Aave jumps 15% as Standard Chartered sets a $3,500 price target for 2030
Aave's AAVE token climbed about 15% in the past 24 hours to around $80, its sharpest single-day move in months, after Standard Chartered initiated coverage with a $3,500 price target for end-2030 - or roughly 50 times more than where the token traded when the note landed Wednesday morning.
The call comes from Geoff Kendrick, the bank's global head of digital assets research, who also put a $100 target on Uniswap's UNI token last week.
His Aave thesis is that the protocol will recover its dominant position in decentralized lending as the broader DeFi market grows, with assets across the sector projected to expand roughly 37 times by 2030.
AAVE reaching $180 by year-end before climbing in stages to $600, $1,200 and $2,200 over the following three years, Kendrick said.
The protocol has had a rough stretch, however.
A $291 million exploit at lending platform KelpDAO in April spilled into Aave, triggering a liquidity crunch that cut deposits from $44 billion to about $23 billion and pushed Aave's share of the DeFi lending market from a 59% average down to 38%.
Meanwhile, the target depends on steps that have not happened yet.
Aave Horizon, the protocol's push to bring traditional finance firms onchain as borrowers, is central to Kendrick's model but unproven.
AAVE's all-time high is $661, set in 2021, meaning the 2030 target requires the token to go five times past levels it has never reached. Kendrick's UNI target drew some criticism this week over its methodology, and the same scrutiny applies here.
6:01 a.m., June 25
Shaurya Malwa
Share
Share this post
Copy link
X icon
X (Twitter)
Bitcoin touched $59,000 overnight, then bounced as AI chip stocks recovered
Bitcoin dropped to $59,175 overnight, its lowest point since early June, before recovering to about $61,500 by Thursday morning, per CoinDesk data. Nearly $1 billion worth of futures positions were liquidated across crypto majors, such as bitcoin, ether, solana, and others, to tokenized versions of stocks, such as Micron Technology Inc (MU) and Sandisk (SNDK).
The dip triggered roughly $430 million in long liquidations on bitcoin-tracked futures, or bets on higher prices that were automatically closed as the price fell.
No single catalyst drove the move. Bitcoin has lost about 10% since Monday's peak near $65,500, pulled lower by the same forces that have dominated all week: a hawkish Fed, six straight weeks of ETF outflows, thinning summer liquidity, and a quarter-end options expiry on June 30 that traders say is keeping the market unstable.
Major market-maker Wintermute had flagged $59,000 as the bear-market low to watch in its Tuesday's note.
The bounce came from outside crypto. Micron Technology reported quarterly earnings after the close that shattered analyst estimates, sending its shares sharply higher and lifting the broader memory chip complex.
SK Hynix separately disclosed plans for a U.S. stock listing seeking roughly $29 billion, one of the largest offerings ever. Samsung and Kioxia rallied in Asia Thursday morning.
The same AI chip trade that sent the Kospi down 10% on Monday on fears the spending boom was stalling is now the thing steadying crypto, with Micron's results reading as confirmation that demand for AI memory is structural, not speculative.
The quarter-end remains the week's live risk. Bitcoin's $59,000 low held, but $1.6 billion in leveraged long positions sit clustered below $58,000, per CoinGlass, meaning a break there would accelerate the drop.
Thursday's PCE inflation print, the Fed's preferred price gauge, is the next data point that could move the market in either direction.
Latest Crypto News
1
Asset management giant Invesco files for tokenized fund targeting stablecoin reserve market
6 hours ago
2
Coinbase's Base blockchain resumes after two-hour outage disrupted network
8 hours ago
3
Strategy's yield-generating STRC stock is more correlated with BTC than ever
9 hours ago
4
Kraken in talks to buy 15% stake in DeFi lender Aave at $385 million valuation
9 hours ago
5
a16z-backed crypto firm rebrands, shifts focus to solving AI’s global copyright headache
9 hours ago
6
BlackBerry is making a massive comeback as an 'uncrashable' software layer for AI and robotics
10 hours ago
7
Strategy has a 10-month cash runway for dividends, but retail investors are losing faith
11 hours ago
8
Quant fund says bitcoin is near a major inflection point as rare onchain signals align
11 hours ago
9
Bitcoin tumbles to new multi-year low of $58,000, but a short-squeeze setup emerges
11 hours ago
10
Crypto for Advisors: Bitcoin: planning for inheritance
11 hours ago
Latest Research
CEX Volumes Drop to Lowest Since September 2024 as RWA Perps Hit Record High
CEX Volumes Drop to Lowest Since September 2024 as RWA Perps Hit Record High
In May, combined exchange volumes fell 3.45% to $4.41T; the lowest since September 2024. RWA perpetual futures volumes rose 10.4% against the trend, hitting a new all-time high.
By
CoinDesk Research
Jun 15, 2026
In May, combined exchange volumes fell 3.45% to $4.41T; the lowest since September 2024. RWA perpetual futures volumes rose 10.4% against the trend, hitting a new all-time high.
Why it matters
:
In May, combined exchange volumes fell 3.45% to $4.41T; the lowest since September 2024. RWA perpetual futures volumes rose 10.4% against the trend, hitting a new all-time high.
View Full Report
More From
Tech
Coinbase's Base blockchain resumes after two-hour outage disrupted network
Upheaval at the Ethereum Foundation has some of crypto’s biggest names feeling bullish
Live markets: Bitcoin claws back some of the losses after Micron beats earnings
CD20
$1,576.02
CD20 down 3.79 percent
3.79%
BTC
$58,455.91
BTC down 3.73 percent
3.73%
ETH
$1,523.95
ETH down 5.83 percent
5.83%
XRP
$1.01
XRP down 5.43 percent
5.43%
SOL
$66.03
SOL down 2.41 percent
2.41%
Live markets: Bitcoin, ether lead $1 billion liquidation losses as AI trade keeps going
Original YayaNews editorial coverage, published for informational purposes.
This article is sourced from CoinDesk. It is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
Topics & Symbols
Continue Reading
Related Reading
Bitcoin Rebounds Off Yearly Lows But US Stocks Flash Warning Sign
Bitcoin’s ability to reclaim $60,000 may be hindered by soaring ETF outflows, bearish options expiries and a stock market tilted toward the AI industry.
Does Botanix’s Failure Prove Bitcoiners Don’t Care About DeFi?
Botanix’s failure shows that Bitcoiners still favor wrapped BTC on Ethereum and custodial yield over experimental Bitcoin-native DeFi.
BitGo Lays off 15% of Staff in Stablecoin, AI Focus
BitGo has laid off about 15% of its staff, an estimated 90 people, as the crypto infrastructure firm aims to focus on stablecoins and AI-backed infrastructure.
Invesco, $2.5T asset manager, files for tokenized fund targeting stablecoin reserves
The $2.5 trillion asset manager deepens its blockchain push after taking over Superstate's tokenized money market fund as fund manager earlier this year.
