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Concerns are growing over the Ethereum Foundation's management and direction following the announced resignation of Executive Director Hsiao-Wei Wang, CoinDesk reported. At least eight executives have now departed the foundation over the past five months. Former Ethereum Foundation researcher Dankrad Feist commented that the talent drain reflects leadership flaws rather than ideological differences. He dismissed speculation that Wang's departure, which came shortly after the reveal of the new CROPS (Censorship Resistance, Open Source, Privacy, Security) strategic framework, was due to disagreement over the strategy. Feist asserted that those who left were actually proponents of CROPS and that the problem lies with the foundation's management, not its strategic direction. He warned that this situation would unfortunately have a very negative impact on Ethereum.

The Bank of England (BoE) has announced its final regulatory framework for stablecoins, easing some of its previously proposed restrictions, Decrypt reported. The central bank has scrapped a previously considered limit on individual stablecoin holdings. In its place, the BoE has introduced a temporary guardrail that caps the total issuance size per stablecoin at 40 billion pounds (approximately $53 billion). Additionally, reserve asset regulations have been relaxed. Issuers are now permitted to invest up to 70% of their reserves in interest-bearing government debt, such as short-term UK government bonds. This is an increase from the 60% previously proposed.

Decentralized lending protocol Goldfinch is facing a crisis due to loan defaults by its partner firms, Protos reported. According to the report, two of Goldfinch's eight lending firms have officially defaulted, and the remaining six have entered debt restructuring. Total losses exceed $18 million, with allegations that over $50 million is being improperly managed. Consequently, Goldfinch's GFI token has plummeted 99.8% from its January 2022 peak of $32.94 to under $0.07.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has launched an experiment to test claims that AI-based text analysis can undermine online anonymity. He announced on X that within the last 10 years, he wrote and published a significant document related to Ethereum under a pseudonym. Buterin has challenged the public to find the document, stating he is curious to see how easy or difficult the task will prove to be.

Coinbase has announced the listing of GEOD. Trading is scheduled to begin at 12:00 a.m. UTC today, provided liquidity conditions are met.

A coalition of U.S. crypto industry groups is urging Congress to pass a bill on mining and staking taxation in its original form, according to The Block. The proposed legislation clarifies that rewards from these activities should be taxed at the point of sale, not when they are created. The industry argues that the current practice of taxing rewards upon creation imposes excessive burdens and administrative uncertainty on taxpayers, asserting that it is more reasonable to tax assets when they are actually cashed out.

Anchorage Digital, a federally chartered U.S. crypto bank, has launched a deposit token platform, CoinDesk reported. The platform is designed to enable banks to offer 24/7 blockchain-based payment services without replacing their existing core banking systems. Deposit tokens represent customer funds as digital tokens on a blockchain, while the actual capital remains in traditional bank deposit accounts.

Bastian Aue (Aerugo), an operations team member at the Ethereum Foundation (EF), stated that Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) could become the next major front in the cypherpunk war, according to Wu Blockchain. He emphasized that the Ethereum Foundation holds censorship resistance, privacy, and self-sovereignty as its core values, adding that the foundation does not exist to maximize its appeal to short-term speculators or institutional investors.

According to on-chain analysis firm CryptoQuant, Bitcoin's transaction frequency has reached its most active level since 2024. The firm noted that despite hedge funds reducing their BTC exposure, network activity is on the rise, creating a divergence between increasing transaction activity and sluggish price performance. CryptoQuant also highlighted that small-value daily transactions of under 0.01 BTC account for approximately 80% of this flow, indicating that while transaction frequency is high, the overall volume remains small.

Global asset manager Franklin Templeton announced it has completed its acquisition of crypto asset manager 250 Digital. The transaction includes all of 250 Digital's employees and a liquidity-focused crypto investment strategy previously managed by CoinFund. Franklin Templeton also plans to invest in related products. In conjunction with the acquisition, Franklin Templeton has launched Franklin Crypto, a new digital asset management unit for institutional investors. Leveraging the firm's existing digital asset research and risk management framework, Franklin Crypto will provide active cryptocurrency investment strategies for institutional clients.

A new wallet has withdrawn 2,500 BTC, worth approximately $163 million, from Binance, Onchain Lens reported. Withdrawals from exchanges are typically interpreted as a sign of intent to hold.

Blockchain development automation platform Enso has launched a real-world asset (RWA) tokenization platform, Cointelegraph reported. The platform supports the trading of more than 500 RWA tokens, including U.S. stocks, ETFs, U.S. Treasurys, commodities, and stablecoins. These include stocks of major U.S. tech companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Meta, and SpaceX.

An early SHIB whale who purchased 103 trillion SHIB for 37.8 ETH (worth about $13,700 at the time) in 2020 has been selling off portions of their holdings, EmberCN reported, citing on-chain data. Over the past month, the investor has sold approximately 3.8 trillion SHIB for around $20.73 million. The investor, who once held 17.4% of the total SHIB supply, saw their holdings peak at a value of about $9.1 billion in 2021. Despite selling off small portions over the years, the whale still holds approximately 96.27 trillion SHIB. This remaining amount constitutes about 16.3% of the total supply and is currently valued at around $457 million.

According to Lookonchain, a whale address identified as 'bc1qhx' has deposited 2,480 BTC, worth approximately $161 million, to Binance. The address is known to have purchased 2,500 BTC about a month ago at a price of $80,936 per BTC, for a total of around $202 million. Based on the current deposit, the whale is facing an unrealized loss of over $39 million. Deposits to exchanges are typically interpreted as an intention to sell.

Sharplink (SBET), a Nasdaq-listed company that strategically buys Ethereum, announced it has entered into a securities purchase agreement to raise approximately $75 million. The company plans to issue 10,013,400 common shares and an equal number of warrants. The proceeds will be used for working capital, additional ETH purchases, and share buybacks. Sharplink also disclosed that it held a total of 875,776 ETH as of June 16.

The three major U.S. stock indices opened mixed today. - S&P 500: +0.06% - Nasdaq: -0.08% - Dow Jones: +0.26%

U.S. investment bank Benchmark is maintaining its Buy rating and $570 price target for Strategy (MSTR), despite a recent sharp decline in the company's STRC preferred stock. Benchmark analyst Mark Palmer explained that STRC is not a stablecoin like TerraUSD (UST) and does not rely on an arbitrage mechanism. He described STRC as a variable dividend perpetual preferred stock based on Strategy's holdings of 847,000 BTC, valued at approximately $55 billion. Palmer analyzed the recent drop not as a structural problem but as a re-evaluation driven by changes in the market's required rate of return. Palmer stated that the stock cannot be considered to be "depegging" as it was never designed to be pegged to $100, adding that the recent movement is a result of an adjustment in the market's required yield. Benchmark also noted that Strategy holds about $1.4 billion in cash and has the flexibility to adjust its dividend policy and capital structure. "While the recent price declines in STRC and MSTR can be seen as a stress test for Strategy's financing model, they do not signify a structural collapse, given its Bitcoin-based balance sheet and ability to adjust its capital structure," Benchmark added.

Publicly traded companies, excluding mining firms, recorded a net purchase of $43.48 million in Bitcoin (BTC) last week, according to data from SoSoValue. Strategy accounted for the majority of this, investing approximately $34.90 million to acquire 520 BTC at an average price of $67,068. The company's current holdings stand at 847,363 BTC. Other notable transactions include new purchases of 95 BTC by Japanese food company DayDayCook and 18 BTC by Brazilian Bitcoin firm OrangeBTC. In contrast, Japanese listed company Metaplanet has not added to its BTC holdings for nine consecutive weeks. The total BTC holdings of the listed companies included in the statistics now amount to 1,141,444 BTC, representing about 5.7% of the cryptocurrency's circulating supply. CoinNess previously reported that Strive had purchased 759 BTC.

Bitmine (BNMR) announced it purchased 52,203 ETH last week, bringing its total holdings to 5,672,956 ETH. Bitmine Chairman Tom Lee said the company plans to maintain its strategy of steadily accumulating ETH through 2026, explaining that its current holdings represent approximately 4.7% of Ethereum's total supply.

According to CoinNess market monitoring, BTC has risen above $65,000. BTC is trading at $65,018.11 on the Binance USDT market.

Global payments company MoneyGram has joined the Solana network as a validator, expanding its blockchain payment strategy. This marks its third foray into blockchain infrastructure, following its involvement with Tempo and Midnight. MoneyGram will contribute to network security by staking SOL and plans to deepen its multi-year digital asset payment business, which includes its Stellar-based stablecoin, MGUSD. CEO Anthony Soohoo highlighted the move as a model for how institutions can leverage blockchain to enable faster and cheaper cross-border payments. The specific amount of SOL being staked was not disclosed.

Matt Cole, CEO of Strive, announced on X that the company has purchased 759 BTC at an average price of $65,850.

UK asset manager Baillie Gifford has announced the launch of the Baillie Gifford Enhanced Yield Fund (BAGEY), a tokenized bond fund built on Solana (SOL) and Ethereum (ETH) in collaboration with global custodian BNY. The U.S. dollar-denominated fund offers investors exposure to an actively managed portfolio of short-term corporate bonds, with a current expected yield of around 7%. Theo Golden, Baillie Gifford's Head of Digital Assets and Tokenization, explained that BAGEY is not a token wrapper on an existing fund but is issued directly on the blockchain, allowing investors to hold the fund and its rights directly. BNY provides the tokenization and wallet infrastructure for the fund, which operates as a UK-regulated open-ended investment company (OEIC).

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, and OKX have established a 50:50 joint venture to build infrastructure for tokenization and digital financial products. The new entity, which will operate as a U.S.-registered broker-dealer and futures commission merchant (FCM), is set to provide OKX customers with secure access to ICE futures and the New York Stock Exchange's tokenized stock market. Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has been appointed co-chairman. The two companies plan to lead the development of a regulatory-compliant, blockchain-based financial ecosystem.

MicroStrategy purchased 520 BTC over the past week. The company also added $400 million to its USD reserves.