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According to the latest report from Tiger Research, as of June 18, 2026, the number of active job openings in the cryptocurrency industry is only 2,932, a significant decrease of over 97% from the estimated peak of about 130,000 in 2022.The report shows that the wave of layoffs in the cryptocurrency industry continues in the first half of 2026. March was the month with the highest concentration of layoffs, with several companies including Gemini, Crypto.com, Algorand, OP Labs, PIP Labs, and Messari announcing layoffs at the same time. Some companies were acquired at low prices after multiple rounds of layoffs; for example, Messari was acquired by Blockworks for about $10 million in June 2026 after experiencing three rounds of layoffs, while its previous valuation had reached $300 million.In terms of recruitment structure, positions in centralized exchanges (CEX) account for the highest proportion, reaching 30.8% (904 positions), mainly contributed by OKX, Bybit, and Binance. The stablecoin and payment sector accounts for 13.4%, but is highly concentrated in two companies, Tether and Ripple.In addition, the demand for AI skills in job postings continues to rise, with the proportion of cryptocurrency job postings mentioning artificial intelligence skills increasing from 23% in early 2025 to 53.1% in March 2026.

According to The Kobeissi Letter, the 2x leveraged long MicroStrategy ETFs ($MSTX, $MSTU) have both fallen about 82% this year; another 2x leveraged product $MSTP has also dropped 81%.During the same period, MicroStrategy ($MSTR) itself has decreased by 46% this year, with a single-week drop of 27% last week. As a result, $MSTX, $MSTU, and $MSTP nearly halved last week.The report points out that the leveraged MicroStrategy ETFs launched in 2024 (both long and short) have seen declines of over 90% since their launch, despite billions of dollars flowing in previously, but the leverage effect is significantly amplifying the losses.Note: Leveraged ETFs typically use a daily reset mechanism, aiming to achieve an integer multiple of the underlying's daily price changes. In highly volatile markets, even if the underlying has an overall increase or decrease over a period, frequent price fluctuations can cause the compounding effect to lead to actual performance deviating from the expected multiple, continuously eroding the net asset value. This is known as "volatility decay" (also referred to as Beta Slippage).

According to CoinDesk, the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine announced that it has transferred over $8.3 million worth of USDT to a cryptocurrency wallet controlled by the country's asset recovery agency ARMA (National Agency for the Search, Tracking, and Management of Assets). This marks the first successful inclusion of seized cryptocurrency assets into national management in Ukraine's history.The transfer was made based on a court order and stems from an investigation by the National Bureau into an international hacker organization. The funds involved came from a wallet belonging to a member of this organization, which has been accused of attacking individuals and businesses in Europe and the United States to steal data and extort money. The proceeds were laundered in Ukraine through high-value assets such as real estate and vehicles. Currently, four suspects have been detained but have not yet been sentenced, with estimated losses exceeding $100 million.The report notes that the funds are currently only held in custody and have not been formally confiscated, as confiscation requires a court ruling. At this time, Ukraine is considering establishing a strategic reserve for cryptocurrency, similar to previous ideas from the United States. The reserve funds would come from confiscated cryptocurrency assets in criminal and civil cases, rather than being purchased on the open market.

According to official news, USDC issued by Circle will become the first supported stablecoin on the digital asset custody platform of global financial services company BNY, with both parties deepening their cooperation on institutional-grade stablecoin services.BNY clients can now hold USDC in their digital asset custody wallets and instruct Circle to mint USDC from dollars or redeem USDC for dollars, covering the complete lifecycle of institutional stablecoin business.Circle's Chief Business Officer Kash Razzaghi stated that this cooperation is a continuation of the long-term relationship between the two parties, connecting on-chain assets with traditional assets for BNY clients. In the future, both parties plan to expand this capability to more stablecoin issuers and digital cash workflows.

According to CoinDesk, FundBank has been renamed IRACE Digital and has acquired Tenet Bank in the Cayman Islands. This transaction will incorporate digital asset banking operations and fintech-focused clients into IRACE's existing institutional banking business.Former Zodia Custody CEO John Cronin has been appointed as the Global CEO, and IRACE is expanding into the areas of custody, liquidity, and trading infrastructure.

According to Jinshi reports, Rocket Lab's stock price rose 6.7% in pre-market trading after the company announced it would acquire satellite communications company Iridium for $8 billion.

According to CoinGlass data, gold (XAUT) is currently priced at $4042.66, with a 24-hour decline of approximately 0.68%. The total contract open interest for XAUT across the network in the last 24 hours reached $525 million, with the Gate platform's open interest exceeding $114 million, ranking third in the entire network.

According to Decrypt, the Ukrainian prosecutor's office has for the first time transferred seized cryptocurrency assets to the state asset management agency ARMA, with over 8.3 million USDT moved to its custody wallet.The funds come from the wallet of a suspected member of an international hacking group, which has been accused of carrying out ransomware attacks and data theft against businesses and individuals in Europe and the United States, and laundering money in Ukraine through the purchase of real estate and vehicles, causing losses of over 100 million dollars. Currently, four suspects have been detained, with assets worth over 11.1 million dollars seized, including real estate, vehicles, approximately 1 million dollars in cash, and cryptocurrency assets. This takeover by ARMA marks the first custody case involving digital assets following its reforms in 2025 to enhance the transparency of asset management related to criminal cases.

According to Bloomberg, AirTrunk, a data center operator under Blackstone Inc., has selected partner banks and plans to conduct a real estate investment trust (REIT) initial public offering (IPO) in Singapore.According to informed sources, the fundraising scale for this IPO is expected to be around $1.5 billion, with the listing work likely to be completed as early as this year. Currently, Citigroup Inc., DBS Group Holdings Ltd., and Jefferies Financial Group Inc. have been chosen to assist in preparing for the listing project.

On June 29, WEEX announced that the platform has launched the $GetRichQuick 0 transaction fee event: New users who net recharge 100 U and have their first transaction as GetRichQuick/USDT spot can receive a reward of 10 USDT; both new and existing users whose $GetRichQuick spot trading volume reaches 100 U can participate in sharing a prize pool of 10,000 USDT based on trading volume rankings; invite friends to participate in this event to earn up to 1,000 USDT in rewards. Event time: 6/26 18:00 - 7/3 18:00 (UTC+8).

New Fire Group released its interim performance report for the six months ending March 31, 2026. The group recorded a loss of approximately HKD 244.9 million (unaudited), a significant increase of about 1890% compared to a loss of HKD 12.3 million in the same period of 2025. Among them, the cryptocurrency asset trading business recorded revenue of HKD 1.9447 billion, a year-on-year decrease of about 43.4%.In terms of business segments, in the asset management business, as of the end of the reporting period, the assets under management (AUM) reached approximately USD 145.6 million; the number of New Fire quantitative trading clients increased by about 12.9% compared to the same period last year.In the trust and custody business, the number of private banking accounts successfully opened during the reporting period increased from 37 to 305; the number of accounts interested in opening increased from 106 to 668.In the cryptocurrency over-the-counter trading business, the number of OTC trading clients increased from 8 to 31, with a monthly compound growth rate of 31.1%.In addition, the group's compliant exchange in Japan, BitTrade, has accumulated a total of 288,214 registered users.

According to CryptoQuant analyst MorenoDV_, the current reading of the Bitcoin UTXO profit and loss ratio model has fallen into a historically low range, indicating that the market is undergoing a deeper internal cleanup.However, the analyst emphasizes that this does not mean the bottom has been confirmed— the 365-day moving average needs to decline further to prove that the market's long-term profit structure has been fully reset, rather than just a short-term oversold reaction. Although a brief rebound may occur due to a short squeeze, it should not be seen as a structural recovery signal if the profit and loss ratio fails to sustain its reconstruction.Overall, signs of internal cleanup in BTC are beginning to emerge, but historical patterns suggest that the market may still need to endure more pressure before fully emerging from this bear market.

According to Documenting Bitcoin, the Bitcoin network successfully mined a block using the Stratum V2 protocol for the first time. Compared to the currently widely used Stratum V1, Stratum V2 allows miners to independently construct block templates and choose transactions to package, rather than being completely determined by the mining pool. This retains the mining pool's revenue distribution mechanism while reducing the mining pool's control over transaction packaging, which helps enhance the decentralization and censorship resistance of Bitcoin mining.

Vitalik Buterin published an article titled "Obfuscation: building the final boss of cryptography (Part I)", systematically outlining the entire technical tree behind the mainline of the obfuscation protocol (iO). The article points out that obfuscation technology can transform programs into "encrypted programs", allowing computations on plaintext inputs while hiding internal logic. Theoretically, it can achieve "trustless trusted third parties", and when combined with blockchain, it can build nearly trustless voting systems, auction protocols, and various other applications. However, the current iO scheme, while technically polynomial time, incurs enormous practical overhead, with expected runtimes exceeding the lifespan of the universe.The article details the construction process of lattice-based iO, covering the stacking of primitives such as fully homomorphic encryption (FHE), attribute-based encryption (ABE), obfuscated circuits, function encryption, and XiO. Vitalik stated that the field has moved from "impossible" to "provably secure" over the past decade, but there remains a significant gap to practical application. He proposed three future paths: further optimizing the existing lattice-based route, adopting bolder cryptographic assumptions to simplify constructions, or exploring entirely new assumptions that are completely different from lattices, emphasizing that if any direction succeeds, it will largely "solve cryptography", enabling any protocol describable by an ideal trusted third party to be securely implemented.

According to SoSoValue data, last week's trading days (Eastern Time from June 22 to June 26) saw a net outflow of $1.79 billion from Bitcoin spot ETFs.The Bitcoin spot ETF with the highest net outflow last week was the Blackrock ETF IBIT, with a weekly net outflow of $1.303 billion, and the historical total net inflow for IBIT currently stands at $60.77 billion. Following that was the Fidelity ETF FBTC, with a weekly net outflow of $315 million, and the historical total net inflow for FBTC currently stands at $10.14 billion. The Bitcoin spot ETF with the highest net inflow last week was the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust BTC, with a weekly net inflow of $71.71 million, and the historical total net inflow for BTC currently stands at $2.38 billion.As of the time of writing, the total net asset value of Bitcoin spot ETFs is $72.82 billion, with an ETF net asset ratio (market value compared to total Bitcoin market value) of 6.08%, and the historical cumulative net inflow has reached $51.61 billion.

According to BBX data, last weekend Japan's largest financial group completed the most important cryptocurrency acquisition, and U.S. bipartisan senators launched a new regulatory offensive against prediction market platforms. The core developments are as follows:SBI Holdings, Inc. (Tokyo Stock Exchange: 8473) announced the acquisition of the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Bitbank (privately held) for approximately $289 million. After the transaction is completed, SBI's cryptocurrency business will surpass all competitors, creating Japan's largest cryptocurrency exchange. SBI Holdings is one of Japan's largest independent financial services groups, already owning cryptocurrency-friendly network bank SBI Shinsei Bank, cryptocurrency asset custodian SBI Digital Asset Holdings, and multiple Bitcoin mining and cryptocurrency venture capital investments. Bitbank is one of Japan's largest spot BTC exchanges and holds an official cryptocurrency exchange license from the Financial Services Agency (FSA) of Japan. This acquisition marks a shift for traditional Japanese financial institutions from "strategic trial" in the cryptocurrency sector to "scale acquisition dominance," alongside the joint stablecoin plan of the three major banks: Mitsubishi UFJ ($MUFG), Sumitomo Mitsui ($SMFG), and Mizuho ($MFG) (targeting March 2027), forming the most intensive wave of cryptocurrency layout in Japan's financial industry by 2026.U.S. Senators John Curtis (Republican, Utah) and Adam Schiff (Democrat, California) reported on June 28 that they jointly sent a letter to the CFTC, urging it to conduct a formal investigation into the prediction market platform Polymarket (privately held), citing a "concerning" investigative report regarding Polymarket's "deceptive marketing" practices, which accused it of systematic misleading in user acquisition and risk disclosure. This is the third regulatory offensive against prediction market platforms initiated by Congress this year (previously, the House Oversight Committee launched an insider trading investigation on May 22); the two senators come from different parties, which is significant. For Robinhood Markets, Inc. (NASDAQ: $HOOD), this investigation poses indirect pressure—Robinhood's prediction market/event contract business (which achieved a record daily trading volume in June) faces the same regulatory qualitative disputes as Polymarket; however, Robinhood's defensive advantage lies in its ongoing application for a CFTC Designated Contract Market (DCM) license, providing a clearer compliance path compared to Polymarket.

American Express is hiring a Vice President of Stablecoin and Blockchain Partnerships and Strategy in New York, responsible for formulating the company's overall strategy in the fields of programmable currency, stablecoin payments, and blockchain financial infrastructure, promoting collaboration with stablecoin issuers, blockchain networks, tokenization platforms, wallets, and fintech companies, and overseeing projects such as stablecoin payments, tokenized settlements, digital identity, and programmable commerce from concept validation to implementation.

According to Chosun Biz, South Korea's Kiwoom Securities is seeking to acquire a stake in South Korea's second-largest virtual asset exchange, Bithumb. Both parties are discussing the issuance of new shares through a third-party allotment, with the specific equity ratio and investment scale still being coordinated.South Korean securities companies are rushing to enter the virtual asset industry ahead of the issuance of security tokens (STO) and the institutionalization of stablecoins; the Financial Services Commission of South Korea is also discussing the major shareholder equity regulations in the second phase of the virtual asset law, which will generally limit the shareholding ratio of major shareholders in virtual asset exchanges to 20%, with exceptions allowing up to 34%. Bithumb's largest shareholder, Bithumb Holdings, currently holds 73.56%, and if the relevant regulations are implemented, it will need to reduce its stake by more than 50 percentage points.

According to Coinglass data, the current average funding rate for BTC across the network over 8 hours is 0.0039%. Among the current mainstream exchanges, the rate for Binance is 0.0032%, OKX is 0.0005%, Bybit is 0.0016%, and Gate is 0.0069%.