News

BlackRock recommended a 1-2% Bitcoin allocation to financial advisors on June 23, positioning its iShares Bitcoin Trust as a “complementary diversifier”—but the timing raised questions as spot Bitcoin ETFs faced over 45 consecutive days of outflows totaling $7.8 billion. The guidance appeared less like a victory lap and more like a retention effort, with IBIT itself logging $171.96 million in single-day redemptions and Bitcoin trading near $62,100, down from $120,000 highs.

Oracle eliminated 21,000 jobs (13% of workforce) while spending $55.7 billion on AI infrastructure, betting labor costs will permanently decline. The company’s $638 billion in signed contracts, including a $300 billion OpenAI deal, suggests this restructuring is structural, not transitional.

Alphabet’s worst single-day drop in over a year wasn’t caused by earnings misses—it was triggered by top AI researchers departing for competitors. The exits expose a critical vulnerability: Google can attract talent but struggles to retain it during AI’s most competitive window.

Allfunds, managing €1.8 trillion in assets, integrates Solana into its platform for 3,300+ institutional asset managers, marking the first major regulated European distribution channel for the blockchain. The partnership reflects shifting regulatory acceptance of public DLT networks for fund operations and positions Solana as a serious competitor to Ethereum in institutional tokenization.

Scammers are stealing cryptocurrency from gamers by selling fake “VIP Digital Access” to Grand Theft Auto VI, charging $250 in Bitcoin before Rockstar’s official preorders. The scheme exploits crypto’s irreversible transactions and mimics legitimate storefronts with professional design and urgency tactics.

The Ethereum Foundation laid off 54 employees (20% of staff) on June 22, completing a restructuring that leaves it with a single executive director and uncertain funding runway. With its client incentives program expired and annual maintenance costs around $30 million, insiders warn developer funding could face a crisis within months.

MoonPay acquired Entendre, an AI-native accounting platform that automates crypto bookkeeping for on-chain financial operations, solving a critical friction point in institutional stablecoin adoption. The deal addresses the tedious manual reconciliation of blockchain transactions across multiple fee layers, ERP systems, and legal entities—automating 93% of journal entries and cutting month-end close time by two-thirds.

Thai authorities arrested eight suspects in a $300 million money laundering network that used illegal cryptocurrency mining to launder proceeds from phone scams and online gambling. The operation was exposed through an electricity theft investigation, revealing how criminals convert illicit cash through mining infrastructure.

Hut 8 agreed to a $2.35 million settlement resolving a securities class action by shareholders who alleged the company concealed power outages and connectivity failures at a Bitcoin mining site acquired through merger. The recovery represents 19.6% of estimated damages, exceeding typical settlement rates, though it remains minimal for the company now trading near $120.

Sweden’s H100 Group won shareholder approval to absorb two Norwegian Bitcoin entities in an all-share deal, tripling its Bitcoin reserve to ~3,501 BTC without spending cash. The unusual catch: H100’s average cost basis is $114,615 per coin versus Bitcoin’s current $62,400 price, meaning the company is deeply underwater on its existing stack.