Crypto news

Strategy Inc. (MSTR) shares fell 10% to a two-year low of $92 as bitcoin dropped below $60,000, triggering a $1.1 billion liquidation cascade. CryptoQuant warned the company to halt bitcoin purchases, citing overextension. Strategy's unrealized losses are estimated at $10.6 billion, with cash reserves down 38% and dividend coverage compressed to 14 months. The company's capital model faces strain as MSTR trades at a discount to its bitcoin NAV (0.80x), constraining equity and preferred issuance. Preferred shares like STRC trade below par, hindering fundraising. With 847,363 bitcoin acquired at an average of $75,680, the gap to current prices exceeds $16,000 per coin. Critics suggest selling bitcoin to meet obligations could pressure the asset further.

Bitcoin mining pool DMND has mined the first known Bitcoin block using Stratum V2 protocol, a milestone that shifts block construction control from pools to individual miners. Block 955,318 was mined via DMND for GoMining, which became the first miner to use Stratum V2's Job Declaration feature to select its own transactions and build its own template. Stratum V2 allows miners to participate in pooled mining while retaining the right to construct block templates. GoMining used this to include transactions from its GoBTC Pay protocol. The development demonstrates the protocol's real-world functionality, potentially reducing pools' influence over transaction selection and enhancing censorship resistance.

Ripple launched its RLUSD stablecoin in Japan after receiving regulatory approval from the Japan Financial Services Agency (FSA), classifying it as a new type of electronic payment instrument under the Payment Services Act. Available through a partnership with SBI Holdings and its crypto arm SBI VC Trade, the U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin targets both institutional and retail users, serving as a bridge for payments, tokenization, and collateral management. Backed 1:1 by reserves including U.S. dollar deposits and short-term government bonds, RLUSD has a market cap of $1.6 billion. Japan continues to see growing stablecoin adoption, with SBI launching a yen stablecoin and major banks planning a joint stablecoin.

Bitcoin fell to $59,060 on Wednesday as the US dollar hit a 13-month high, pressuring non-yielding assets. Despite cooling oil prices, traders fear the recovery to $60,000 may be short-lived. The US dollar strength index rose to its highest in over a year, typically negatively correlated with Bitcoin. Gold also declined, and investors favored fixed-income amid persistent inflation and strong economic data. Spot Bitcoin ETF outflows and a slowdown in Strategy's Bitcoin purchases (its lowest weekly intake in 18 months) added to bearish sentiment. Analysts warn further downside from $59,000 is possible.

DeFi protocol Spark has deployed approximately $150 million in stablecoin liquidity across two Uniswap v4 pools on Ethereum, pairing USDS with PYUSD and USDT. The move is part of a collaboration to create shared liquidity and exchange infrastructure for stablecoin issuers, with Spark describing it as one of the largest AMM liquidity migrations in DeFi. Spark plans to introduce a programmable Shared Liquidity Layer and DualPool hook in later phases, using Uniswap v4's architecture to coordinate liquidity distribution. The initial phase uses standard pools. The deployment follows Standard Chartered's prediction that DeFi assets could reach $2.7 trillion by 2030, with Uniswap potentially becoming a key liquidity venue.

Spark and Uniswap have launched the 'FX Layer,' a shared liquidity system for stablecoin swaps designed to reduce slippage for institutions. Built on Uniswap v4, the infrastructure allows multiple stablecoin issuers to share liquidity pools instead of building individual systems. As part of the launch, Spark will migrate $150 million from its USDS ecosystem to Uniswap v4, initially supporting USDS, USDT, and PYUSD. The initiative aims to address fragmentation in the stablecoin market, which has grown following the GENIUS Act and predictions of $1.5 quadrillion in volume by 2035.

BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager with $14 trillion under management, now recommends a 1-2% portfolio allocation to Bitcoin, citing its potential as a complementary diversifier that can boost returns without significantly increasing risk. Michael Gates, BlackRock's lead portfolio manager for model portfolios, stated that a modest allocation could impact returns without dominating day-to-day risk. The firm points to its own iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) as a vehicle for this allocation, which has accumulated nearly $49 billion in assets since its 2024 launch. BlackRock also recently launched a covered-call Bitcoin ETF (BITA) for yield-oriented investors and offers a Bitcoin ETP on the London Stock Exchange, signaling its view that Bitcoin is too big to ignore for institutional portfolios.

The Ethereum Foundation has cut roughly 20% of its workforce and slashed its budget by about 40% as part of a broad reorganization, even as the Ethereum network sees record user activity and growing institutional adoption. The layoffs follow a months-long review of the nonprofit's structure and spending. Ethereum's native token, ETH, has fallen over 44% year-to-date to around $1,670, despite record monthly active users and transaction counts in Q1 2026. Network fee revenue and total value locked have declined, and spot Ether ETFs have seen nearly $1 billion in outflows over seven consecutive weeks. The Foundation is restructuring into five specialized clusters focused on protocol, access, user, community, and institutional layers. It plans to pay staff in ETH and native stablecoins, prioritize privacy and MEV reduction, and scale back initiatives like the multi-client model and Devcon conference. Co-founder Vitalik Buterin favors a 'soft lean-and-done' model for Ethereum's long-term development.

Cardano advanced its scaling overhaul by launching the Musashi Dojo testnet for the Ouroboros Leios protocol, aiming to boost throughput by 5-20x. Meanwhile, the network is progressing the Van Rossem hard fork, which prepares for future upgrades. However, these technical milestones are overshadowed by ADA's decline to $0.14, a 55% drop this year, and a $2.4 million exploit at wallet provider SecondFi that affected 374 addresses. The incident exposed vulnerabilities in wallet generation code, further eroding user confidence. Despite cautious bullish positioning among traders, the ecosystem faces contractions with projects scaling back. Cardano's next challenge is converting technical progress into renewed developer and user activity to reverse market sentiment.

Cardano-based wallet SecondFi has confirmed a security breach that allowed attackers to drain user funds, identifying the root cause as an address-level issue that exposed private keys when users signed transactions. The platform estimates around 16 million ADA (approximately $2.4 million) was affected across 374 addresses. SecondFi has implemented emergency measures securing roughly 129 million ADA, transferring it to an independent third-party custodian pending user verification. The company advised users not to restore recovery phrases into new Cardano wallets, warning that migration does not mitigate the risk. Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson clarified that SecondFi is not an Input Output Global product, stating IOG had no involvement in the code. The platform, which rebranded from Yoroi wallet in April 2026, was originally developed by Emurgo.