Today's top news highlights:
The U.S. Clarity Act has been included in the Senate's legislative agenda.
Binance Futures will launch 6 USDT-margined TradFi perpetual contracts today.
Regulation & Macro
A Bitcoin theft case prosecuted by the Licang District People's Procuratorate of Qingdao City has been adjudicated. The defendant, Zhang, was sentenced to 10 years and 9 months imprisonment for theft and fined 100,000 yuan. In the early morning of a certain day in 2024, the victim, Feng, had his cryptocurrency wallet logged in, and 107 Bitcoins were transferred out, equivalent to over 22.54 million yuan at the market price that day. Zhang obtained the mnemonic phrase during the wallet registration process, cracked the wallet, and then transferred the Bitcoins. The procuratorate traced the funds and determined that the stolen Bitcoins were exchanged for over 660,000 yuan. The procuratorate determined that Bitcoin has economic value and exclusive control, meeting the characteristics of "property" under criminal law, and used the actual proceeds of over 660,000 yuan as the amount of theft. After the defendant appealed, the Qingdao Intermediate People's Court rejected the appeal and upheld the original judgment in November 2025.
The U.S. Clarity Act has been included in the Senate's legislative agenda.
The U.S. Clarity Act has been submitted to the Senate Banking Committee and placed on the Senate legislative agenda. The Senate Banking Committee passed the bill by a vote of 15 to 9 on May 14, and it officially entered the agenda on June 1. It is now eligible for full Senate consideration, and the next key hurdle is a full Senate vote.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released a draft strategic plan for fiscal years 2026-2030, proposing a rational, coherent, and principled approach to provide a regulatory foundation for digital assets and distributed ledger technology. This modern framework will ensure that custody, trading, and staking services operate under appropriate regulation, clarifying the division of jurisdiction between the SEC and the CFTC, aiming to ensure clear, principled rules of the game in the crypto market, promoting innovation while protecting investors. The document also proposes the responsible use of AI and blockchain technologies to improve regulation.
Project Updates
Binance Futures will launch 6 USDT-margined TradFi perpetual contracts today.
Binance Futures will launch Dell (DELL) USDT perpetual contracts at 18:00 (UTC+8) on June 3, 2026; IBM (IBM) USDT perpetual contracts at 18:05; ServiceNow (NOW) USDT perpetual contracts at 18:10; Salesforce (CRM) USDT perpetual contracts at 18:15; IREN (IREN) USDT perpetual contracts at 18:20; and Ondas (ONDS) USDT perpetual contracts at 18:25. All contracts support leverage up to 20x.
Binance Alpha Box airdrops are now open, with the airdrop pool containing Folks Finance (FOLKS) and Forest Protocol (FOREST) tokens. Users holding at least 230 Binance Alpha Points can claim one token airdrop, with reward tiers including 21, 26, or 75 FOLKS, or 590, 735, or 2090 FORES. Claiming costs 15 points, on a first-come, first-served basis, with the point threshold decreasing by 5 every 5 minutes if not all points are allocated. Users must confirm their claim within 24 hours.
Microsoft releases Majorana 2 quantum chip, boasting 1000x improved reliability.
Microsoft unveiled its new Majorana 2 topological quantum chip at its Build conference, claiming it is 1,000 times more reliable than its predecessor, with an average qubit lifetime of 20 seconds, and some reaching one minute. The chip uses a lead-based design for better protection of the qubits. Microsoft expects to achieve scalable quantum computing by 2029, with AI tools playing a key role in the development. This announcement has exacerbated concerns about "Q-Day," when quantum computers could potentially crack Bitcoin's public-key encryption, putting approximately $461 billion worth of Bitcoin at risk.
Mastercard expands on-chain settlements, betting on stablecoins and 24/7 financial services.
Mastercard is expanding its settlement network to support regulated stablecoins, planning to offer stablecoin settlement, intraday settlement, and weekend/holiday settlement services. The new framework will run parallel to existing fiat currency settlement processes, initially supporting Circle's USDC, Paxos' PYUSD, USDG, and USDP, Ripple's RLUSD, and SoFiUSD, covering networks such as Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Base, Arbitrum, and XRPL. Cross River, Lead Bank, CBW Bank, ARQ, and Nuvei will be among the first participants.
Kraken's Ethereum Layer 2 network, Ink, experienced a chain-wide outage, with intermittent network availability and services yet to be fully restored. The official statement indicates that user transactions and cross-chain bridging may be unstable until the chain returns to normal. Ink is collaborating with its infrastructure partner, Gelato, to investigate the root cause of the outage.
According to a U.S. SEC 8-K filing, Strive purchased 2,500 bitcoins between May 23 and June 1, worth approximately $185.2 million, at an average price of about $74,092 per bitcoin. The funds came almost entirely from SATA preferred stock. Strive's total holdings have now increased to 19,000 BTC, a 15.2% increase. The CEO disclosed a 23% return on BTC so far this quarter and a 36.7% return year-to-date.
A Bitcoin wallet that had been dormant since 2011 transferred 35.55 BTC (approximately $2.54 million) yesterday to prove it was not abandoned. This followed a lawsuit in New York alleging that nearly 3.8 million dormant Bitcoins were abandoned property.
Microsoft unveiled seven new models at its Build conference, covering inference, code, image, transcription, and speech tasks, including MAI Thinking-1, MAI Code-1-Flash, and MAI Image-2.5. These models are built from scratch based on clear data sources, emphasizing efficiency and collaborative operation. The flagship inference model, MAI-Thinking-1, is competitive in STEM inference and coding tasks, while the code model, MAI-Code-1-Flash, outperforms Claude Haiku 4.5 on all coding benchmarks and reduces token usage by 60%. It is already available on GitHub Copilot.
Franklin Templeton integrated its tokenized money market fund, BENJI, into MoonPay Trade.
Franklin Templeton has integrated its tokenized money market fund, BENJI, into MoonPay Trade. Institutional users can directly exchange supported stablecoins for fund units on-chain, and reverse exchanges are also supported. This integration connects the Benji technology platform with MoonPay Trade's institutional pricing, routing, and execution engines. BENJI holders can exchange their holdings for stablecoin liquidity through MoonPay for on-chain workflows such as treasury management.
TapTools, the real-time data analytics platform for the Cardano ecosystem, has announced a phased shutdown following the departure of five senior executives. Two co-founders, the COO, and the CTO left earlier this year, and the leadership instability made continued operation unsustainable. The platform will begin shutting down over the next two weeks but has indicated its willingness to be acquired or offered external resources. Launched in 2022, TapTools was a widely used tool among Cardano users, but its operating costs were high.
Investment and financing news
DeepSeek is expected to raise approximately $7 billion in its first funding round, with a valuation potentially reaching $59 billion. Tencent and CATL will be the largest external investors, while NetEase and JD.com also plan to participate.
NewLimit, an anti-aging company co-founded by Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong, has completed a $435 million Series C funding round, led by Founders Fund, with participation from Thrive Capital, Greenoaks, and others. Its valuation has reached $3.1 billion, more than double that of a year ago. The company focuses on reversing cellular aging, and its first drug targeting alcohol-related liver disease will begin human trials next year.
Opinions & Analysis
Cardano's founder warned that the shutdown of TapTools could trigger a "wave of failures."
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson warned of a potential "wave of failures" following the phased closure of the ecosystem data analytics platform TapTools, predicting more project shutdowns, DeFi shutdowns, and industry consolidation in the second half of the year. He stated that some older projects no longer have investment value, resources to support struggling projects are limited, and he lacks direct control over ecosystem funding decisions and treasury allocation.
Important data
The Bitcoin fear index (BVIV) surged nearly 20% on Tuesday, its biggest one-day gain since February 5, reaching 46.45%. This followed two months of calm market sentiment, with the BVIV hovering around 40% even after Bitcoin fell from $82,000 to $75,000 last week. On Tuesday, as Bitcoin spot prices fell over 6% to $66,000, the BVIV rose sharply, demonstrating an inverse correlation with Bitcoin prices.
A whale sold 7,901 ETH for $14.65 million and still holds 6,502 ETH.
As the crypto market corrects, Bitmine, the Ethereum reserve company backed by Tom Lee, has seen its unrealized losses exceed those of Strategy's Bitcoin holdings. Bitmine holds 5,416,901 ETH, worth approximately $10.03 billion, with unrealized losses of about $8.9 billion; Strategy holds 843,706 BTC, with a market capitalization of approximately $56.26 billion, and unrealized losses of about $7.6 billion.
Garrett Jin, an agent of the "1011 Insider Whale," deposited 577,717 ETH (worth $1.35 billion) into Binance between May 6 and 10 at an average price of $2,337. Subsequently, the price of ETH fell by more than 20%, allowing him to accurately time the market top.
During the previous US stock trading session, MRVL (Marvell Technology) saw a contract trading volume of $307 million on Hyperliquid, making it the largest US stock in terms of trading volume outside of the Nasdaq 100, ranking among the top ten in all contracts, with open interest reaching $130 million. MRVL's total trading volume on Nasdaq for the day was $31.54 billion, meaning the trading volume on Hyperliquid was nearly one percent of that.
In the past hour, the cryptocurrency market saw approximately $300 million in liquidations across all contracts, including $292 million in long positions and $8.52 million in short positions. Bitcoin liquidations totaled $152 million, and Ethereum liquidations totaled $62.5582 million.
A new wallet withdrew 810 BTC, worth $54.11 million, from Binance through multiple addresses.
A whale, posting a chart showing it holds 281,789 BTC long positions, worth $19.09 million, with an opening price of $67,777. Based on large trades on Binance at the same price during the same period, its actual position is estimated to be 3,076.88 BTC, worth $208 million. It also shorted 2,739 BTC between May 28th and June 2nd, profiting $3.308 million.
Galaxy Digital withdrew 179,000 HYPE (US$12.62 million) from Coinbase in the past 7 hours. A newly created wallet, 0x6436, withdrew another 135,824 HYPE (US$9.73 million) 8 hours ago, bringing its total withdrawals over the past two days to 399,730 HYPE (US$28.92 million).
ETH fell to $1870. The "largest long position holder on Hyperliquid," who opened a long position of 120,000 ETH ($271 million) at an average price of $2261, is currently experiencing a floating loss of $47 million. His average opening price was $2261, and his liquidation price ranged between $1617 and $1355, with the most recent liquidation price difference being only about $250.
