Crypto and energy markets are bracing for a possible Black Monday selloff. US-Iran negotiations in Switzerland collapsed over the weekend, reviving fears of an oil shock and a risk-off move into Monday.
Iran’s delegation walked out of the talks in protest over fresh threats from President Donald Trump. Based on this, analysts and traders alike anticipate stocks and crypto could open sharply lower.
Switzerland Walkout Revives Oil and Hormuz Fears
The breakdown came at the Bürgenstock resort in Switzerland. The US, Iran, Pakistan, and Qatar had met there to extend a June 17 truce.
Iran’s team refused a group photo and walked out, state media reported.
Trump had warned he would strike Iran again over its proxies in Lebanon. He also told Iranian officials they would not make it home if Tehran closed the Strait of Hormuz.
That threat carries weight because of the cargo. About 20 million barrels of oil cross the strait each day, near 20% of global consumption, the EIA reports.
Still, the waterway has stayed open through past standoffs. Iran threatened closures in 2011 and 2019 but never followed through.
Brent crude had eased to near $80 a barrel last week as crude oil slipped below the same threshold when tankers resumed transit. However, the walkout now clouds that fragile recovery.
The Iranian delegation will not return to negotiations in Switzerland unless U.S. President Trump apologizes for his threats and Israel withdraws from southern Lebanon, pro-Hezbollah Al-Mayadeen reports. Iran’s state media confirms the Iranians have left the negotiation venue. https://t.co/dxgS8sGLfG
— Ariel Oseran أريئل أوسيران (@ariel_oseran) June 21, 2026
When Trump declared a ceasefire earlier this month, stocks and oil reacted while crypto barely moved.
Bitcoin Holds Steady as Black Monday Calls Spread
So far, crypto has not played along. The Bitcoin (BTC) spot price held near $64,181 on Sunday, a touch higher on the day.
Ethereum (ETH) traded near $1,730. Because crypto runs around the clock, that weekend calm is a live signal, not a closed-market guess.
Crypto also has no brakes. US stocks halt automatically if the S&P 500 falls 7%, 13%, or 20% in a day. Those safeguards were built for exactly this kind of panic.
Crypto carries no such circuit breakers. A Monday slide there would run without a pause. Still, weekend sentiment soured.
“If there isn’t a massive Black Monday Crash tomorrow, I will delete my account,” one user remarked.
The phrase he borrowed carries history. On Black Monday in 1987, the Dow fell 22.6% in one session, still its worst day on record.
However, markets clawed back most of those losses within months.
Trader Ted Pillows made a similar case, calling the risk and reward of buying stocks now poor.
Even so, similar weekend warnings have misfired before, and this one could too, with Qatar and Pakistan are still mediating, and both sides have reasons to step back.
Qatar Announces Launch of Lake Lucerne Summit, First High-Level Committee Meeting with Participation of US, Iran, Pakistan
Doha | June 21, 2026
The State of Qatar announces, in its capacity as a mediator, the launch of the Lake Lucerne Summit and the first meeting of a… pic.twitter.com/Dy99n6Owi1
— Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Qatar (@MofaQatar_EN) June 21, 2026
The risk is not hypothetical. Bitcoin has repeatedly sold off with risk assets rather than acting as a haven.
When Israel struck Iran this month, more than $1 billion in leveraged crypto bets were wiped out in a day. Analysts have since mapped a sharp Bitcoin drop if the war reignites.
Monday’s futures open will be the first real test. A return to fighting could trigger a broad risk-off move across crypto.
A quick path back to talks could calm nerves just as fast. For now, traders are watching oil, the strait, and the next signal from Tehran or Washington.
Despite the bears still being in control, the Bitcoin network is seeing a surge in transaction activity. Given the nature of this network activity, market participants may wonder whether the development is a bullish signal or a cause for concern.
According to this week’s CryptoQuant report, record-high transaction counts are driving the surge in Bitcoin network activity. The only issue is that these transactions have little, non-significant economic value.
Bitcoin Network Activity is Surging
CryptoQuant analysts explained that Bitcoin’s network activity turned sharply positive and broke above trend for the first time since late 2024. This is evident in the CryptoQuant Network Activity Index, which has been rising steadily since the beginning of this year. However, the index noted a major regime shift from March 2026, drawing a sharp contrast with bitcoin’s ongoing price decline.
Currently, the Bitcoin network activity is roughly 7% below its all-time high reached in September 2024. Both total daily transactions and average transactions per block are near their all-time high. Daily transactions have surged to levels above 800,000, hovering near readings of the 2023-2025 bull cycle.
“Mean transactions per block (right chart) have also risen sharply, reflecting high and sustained block utilization from the transaction count perspective. Both metrics have maintained elevated readings for several weeks, confirming the surge is structural,” analysts explained.
No Significant Economic Activity
Although these transactions are reaching yearly peaks, their economic content is significantly lower than surges from previous high-activity periods. About 80% of these micro-transactions are below 0.01 BTC, up from 50% in 2023. The sub-0.001 BTC cohorts have also skyrocketed in 2026, approaching prior peaks of 2024. The current dynamic reflects protocol-driven activity where volume is high but transferred value per transaction remains low.
Notably, the micro-transaction surge correlates with a rise in OP_RETURN opcode usage, which is used by data-inscription protocols like Runes and Ordinals. The opcode, which embeds up to 100,000 bytes of data without creating spendable outputs, has spiked to near-record levels this year. The protocols associated with the opcode generate high volumes of dust-value transactions, so this explains the low-value cohort surge.
Meanwhile, the surge in both micro-transactions and OP-RETURN has pushed the Bitcoin mempool to its highest transaction count since late February 2025. Analysts worry that this sustained expansion in non-financial on-chain activity could increase block space competition and raise fees for economic transactions.
Bitcoin’s short-term market structure is giving traders two very different stories at once: demand is appearing on dips, but resistance near the mid-$60,000s is still capping the recovery.
TL;DR
UnitedSignals says BTCUSD could rise as demand begins to exceed supply on the chart.
DomicChaina takes a more cautious view, saying the rebound still looks like a resistance retest below the $64,000–$65,000 area.
That Martini Guy argues Bitcoin reclaiming $63,500 makes it harder to stay aggressively bearish.
The split leaves traders watching whether BTC can turn buyer demand into a confirmed break above resistance.
Buyers Are Showing Up, But The Ceiling Remains
TradingView analyst UnitedSignals described Bitcoin as a “market of buyers,” arguing that BTCUSD could rise as demand begins to exceed supply on the chart. The idea is simple: if buyers are absorbing supply at current levels, Bitcoin may have room to push higher.
The analysis came with a disclosure that the author is part of Trade Nation’s influencer program and receives a monthly fee for using its TradingView charts. That does not invalidate the chart view, but it is useful context when weighing the source.
Other analysts are less ready to call a reversal. DomicChaina noted that BTCUSDT was recovering around $63,500 but still trading below an EMA cluster near $64,050–$64,970. In that view, the bounce has strength, but it has not yet reclaimed the control zone needed to confirm a stronger trend shift.
$63,500 Support Versus $65,000 Resistance
The key battlefield is narrow but important. On X, That Martini Guy pointed to Bitcoin reclaiming the $63,500 support zone after putting in a higher low around $62,400. He argued that the market had every excuse to break lower, yet so far it has not.
That gives bulls a clear level to defend. If BTC holds $63,500, the recovery case remains alive. But DomicChaina’s resistance map suggests the next challenge sits around $64,000–$65,000, where sellers may return if momentum fades.
This is why the current setup is tricky. A market can show buyer demand and still fail at resistance. The difference between accumulation and a dead-cat bounce often comes down to whether price can reclaim the next supply zone, not simply whether it bounces from the lows.
Confirmation Matters More Than Prediction
The split among analysts reflects the state of Bitcoin itself. Bulls can point to higher lows, reclaimed support, and demand on dips. Bears can point to overhead resistance, weak trend confirmation, and the risk that the rebound is only a retest.
For traders, the cleaner approach may be to let the chart decide. A sustained move through $65,000 would strengthen the buyer-demand argument and bring the $67,000 area back into focus. A rejection from that zone would keep Bitcoin trapped in a fragile recovery structure.
Until then, Bitcoin is not giving the market a clean answer. It is giving traders a range, a support level, and a ceiling that still needs to break.
This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.
This article is based on technical analysis shared on TradingView by UnitedSignals, available at at the source
Good news for the American worker came at the worst possible moment for Bitcoin. Initial jobless claims fell by 4,000 to 226,000 for the week ending June 13. Layoffs are in the historically low range they’ve held for most of the post-pandemic era, and the unemployment rate has remained at 4.3% for a third straight month.
These numbers would look unambiguously healthy in almost any other setting. But Bitcoin didn’t seem to agree and slid below $64,000, down almost 3% on the day, after touching an intraday high of $66,315 the previous afternoon.
BTC spent the spring positioned as an asset waiting for the Federal Reserve to loosen financial conditions, and every reading showing a resilient labor market pushes that moment further into the future.
When hiring holds and firing stays contained, the Fed keeps the room it needs to keep policy tight, and Bitcoin has spent two years trading as a liquidity-sensitive instrument that responds to the expected path of interest rates far more than to whether a given economic print sounds encouraging to the people inside it.
Each of those labor numbers feeds directly into the market’s running estimate of what the Fed will do next, which is how a weekly jobless claims report ended up affecting the crypto market.
Why is a good jobs report seen as a liquidity problem?
Bitcoin’s sensitivity to labor data comes from the expectations they produce, not the numbers themselves.
Strong labor data lowers the perceived odds of rate cuts, keeps real yields elevated, supports the dollar, and reduces the appetite for speculative and longer-duration risk, which includes Bitcoin. A number that shows a stable jobs market shows tighter liquidity ahead.
Each layer of the labor data tells the Fed something different, which is why traders parse it all. Initial claims indicate whether companies are firing people, and at 226,000, they suggest employers mostly aren’t.
Continuing claims show whether laid-off workers are getting rehired, and those rose by 24,000 to roughly 1.81 million, the highest in nearly three months, with the average unemployed person now spending 11.6 weeks out of work, the longest duration seen since late 2021.
Payrolls measure how many jobs the economy is actually adding, and May’s 172,000 kept the three-month pace near 188,000. The unemployment rate shows how much slack exists in the system, and wage growth tells the Fed whether inflationary pressures are likely to stick around.
The composite picture from this week is a labor market that’s softening at the edges while remaining strong enough to give the central bank no reason to rush to ease interest rates.
The Fed confirmed that a day before the claims report landed. At Kevin Warsh’s first meeting as chair on June 17, the FOMC held its benchmark rate at 3.50% to 3.75%, as markets had fully expected, and then delivered the hawkish surprise in its projections.
The median dot for the end of 2026 climbed to 3.8% from 3.4% in March, which flips the committee’s base case from a cut to a hike, with 9 of 18 participants now expecting at least one increase this year and 6 expecting two.
Warsh withheld his own dot, stripped the easing language out of the policy statement, and told reporters the committee would deliver price stability, while the Fed lifted its year-end PCE inflation forecast to 3.6% from 2.7% as May CPI ran at 4.2%, its hottest reading since 2023.
Traders repriced the path almost immediately. Futures now put the odds of a December rate hike near 85%; expectations for any 2026 cut have collapsed toward zero; the 2-year Treasury yield jumped more than 16 basis points to 4.22%; and the dollar index rose to its highest level in more than a year.
Bitcoin’s reaction differs from the equity reaction because the two assets are exposed to the same data through different channels. Stocks can absorb strong jobs because robust employment implies consumers still have income and companies still have demand to sell into, which supports earnings.
Bitcoin’s link to the macro picture runs almost entirely through liquidity, rates, dollar strength, and risk appetite, and strong labor data tightens every one of those channels at once.
This is the return of the regime where weak economic news can lift risk assets by raising the odds of Fed easing, and firm economic news can pressure them by delaying it. Crypto investors caught in that regime care more about the policy reaction than about the economy’s underlying health, which is why the marginal buyer can treat a soft data point as a reason to add risk and a firm one as a reason to trim risk.
A single claims print doesn’t set Bitcoin’s trend, and there’s a real bullish counterargument to that. BTC can climb through strong jobs data if ETF inflows overwhelm the macro pressure, if the dollar weakens for its own reasons, if inflation cools without the labor market breaking, or if investors lean on Bitcoin as a hedge against fiscal and political risk.
The best example of this we’ve seen so far is energy, where crude collapsed from about $86 to $76 after the US-Iran framework, a move that’s disinflationary enough to eventually soften the Fed’s stance, and CryptoSlate covered how oil losing its grip handed the next leg of the trade back to liquidity.
Incoming data releases will decide the trade. Warsh’s removal of forward guidance means every CPI, PCE, payrolls, and continuing-claims release between now and December becomes a live policy input, with Treasury yields, the dollar index, and ETF flows acting as the running scoreboard.
The jobs market moves Bitcoin because every labor print changes the market’s Fed script, and this week’s resilient employment told traders that monetary relief is farther away than they’d hoped. Strong hiring is good for the people getting hired, but it works against Bitcoin when crypto needs the Fed to believe the economy is soft enough to ease.
Robert Kiyosaki says he is watching gold, silver, Bitcoin (BTC), and Ethereum (ETH) for a technical reversal before buying, arguing that the macro backdrop, not falling prices, decides whether hard assets are worth holding.
Precious metals extended a steep retreat this week, and a fresh dispute over the Strait of Hormuz tested a days-old US-Iran ceasefire. BTC and ETH edged higher over 24 hours.
Bitcoin and Ethereum Prices After Reported Strait Closure. Source: Coingecko
Kiyosaki Watches Gold and Silver Context, Not Price
Kiyosaki built his case around the environment rather than the chart. The Rich Dad Poor Dad author said a falling market alone never tells him whether to buy or sell.
He pointed to whether political and banking leaders are fixing the economy or making it worse, and has called dips buying opportunities before.
“I have learned to understand the ‘context’ or the environment the asset is in….not the price… So I am watching prices of gold, silver, Bitcoin, and Ethereum on technical charts and will buy when prices reverse their decline,” Kiyosaki wrote in a post.
The metals he is eyeing set records before the pullback. Gold hit an all-time high near $5,595 an ounce in late January and silver topped $100 for the first time.
Both records capped a run nearly doubling gold and quadrupling silver in a year.
This week’s ceasefire then drained the safe-haven premium the February war and Hormuz threats had rebuilt.
Kiyosaki keeps backing silver and Bitcoin and claims the charts point to a rebound, with no price target or timeline.
Hormuz Dispute Keeps the Safe-Haven Bid Alive
The backdrop Kiyosaki described stayed unsettled. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard declared the Strait of Hormuz closed over alleged ceasefire violations and warned vessels away.
Vice President JD Vance countered that no evidence backed the claim. Vance said the waterway stayed open, and CENTCOM reported 55 ships moving more than 17 million barrels of oil through Hormuz on Saturday.
That is close to the 20 million a day, about a fifth of global oil demand, the EIA says the strait normally carries.
Bitcoin traded above $64,000, up about 1.4%, while ETH held near $1,740, with both gains following developments at the Strait of Hormuz.
Even so, BTC sits roughly 49% below its October record near $126,000 and ETH about 65% under its August peak, with BTC down about 17% and ETH 18% over the past month.
Earlier Hormuz tensions dragged Bitcoin lower, and a US strike on Iran under the truce sent Bitcoin, gold, and oil moving within hours.
With US-Iran talks set for Switzerland on Sunday, the next signal is whether the ceasefire holds. For Kiyosaki, the charts rather than the headlines will decide his next move.
Kraken is preparing to bring one of crypto’s most heavily traded derivatives products into a regulated US framework, with the exchange saying eligible clients will soon be able to access CFTC-regulated perpetual futures through Bitnomial.
TL;DR
Kraken says the products are expected to launch within the next 30 days.
The contracts will be listed on Bitnomial, a CFTC-regulated Designated Contract Market recently acquired by Payward.
Supported assets at launch are expected to include BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, ADA, LINK, DOGE, LTC and AVAX.
The rollout is aimed at eligible US clients rather than broad retail access at launch.
Kraken Pushes Perps Into A Regulated US Structure
Perpetual futures have long been central to global crypto trading, but US access has remained constrained because the most liquid versions of these products have typically lived on offshore venues. Kraken’s announcement matters because it points to a domestic structure that keeps the core mechanics traders recognize — continuous pricing, no fixed expiration date and recurring funding payments — while placing the contracts inside a CFTC-regulated venue.
The exchange says the products will sit alongside spot margin and CME-listed futures inside a unified Kraken Pro wallet. That is an important operational point, because the appeal is not only regulatory clarity. For active traders, being able to manage collateral, spot positions and derivatives exposure from one interface reduces friction at a time when institutional crypto desks are becoming more sensitive to venue risk and custody structure.
John Palmer, Kraken’s Global Head of Derivatives, framed the launch around domestic access, saying US traders have been waiting for a regulated way to trade the product that defines global crypto derivatives markets. That phrasing is notable because perpetuals are not a niche product globally; they are the core liquidity layer for much of crypto’s directional speculation and hedging.
Why It Matters For Bitcoin And Crypto Traders
The launch could help pull some derivatives activity away from offshore exchanges if eligible US traders decide the regulatory trade-off is worth it. That does not mean global liquidity shifts overnight, but it gives institutional and qualified participants another route to express leveraged views on major assets while staying within a US-regulated framework.
The asset list also matters. By including BTC and ETH alongside SOL, XRP, ADA, LINK, DOGE, LTC and AVAX, Kraken is not limiting the product to the two largest tokens. That wider initial scope suggests the exchange is positioning the venue as a broader crypto derivatives hub rather than a narrow Bitcoin-only product line.
For Bitcoin specifically, the bigger story is market structure. More regulated venues can deepen institutional participation, improve risk management and potentially reduce the gap between offshore liquidity and US-accessible products. The caveat is that access restrictions mean this is not a sudden retail floodgate.
What To Watch Next
Traders will be watching whether the product launches on schedule, how broad the eligibility criteria are, and whether liquidity builds quickly enough to compete with offshore perpetual futures markets. The central risk is access: if participation remains limited to a narrow institutional tier, the market impact may be more structural than immediate.
Bitcoin’s blockchain is showing its strongest activity since late 2024, creating a rare split between rising network use and a weakening market price.
CryptoQuant said in a note shared with CryptoSlate that its Bitcoin Network Activity Index has moved above its long-term trend for the first time since mid-2024.
The index has climbed steadily since January and recently reached its highest level since late 2024, leaving it only about 7% below the record reached in September 2024.
Bitcoin Network Activity (Source: CryptoQuant)
The shift began in late March and has held for several weeks, suggesting that the rebound in activity is more than a one-day spike.
Meanwhile, the rise in network activity comes as the Bitcoin price remains under significant selling pressure.
The largest cryptocurrency has fallen about 30% this year to below $65,000, according to CryptoSlate data, extending a slide of more than 50% from its late-2025 record near $126,000 as months of selling pressure and weaker risk appetite weigh on the market.
Small transfers drive the rebound
The network rebound is being driven mainly by transaction counts rather than large-value settlement.
CryptoQuant data shows total daily Bitcoin transactions rising above 800,000 at points in 2026, near the strongest readings of the 2023-2025 cycle and more than double the lows seen in 2025. Average transactions per block have also climbed, showing sustained block use from a transaction-count perspective.
The composition of that activity is the more important part of the story.
Transactions worth less than 0.01 BTC now account for about 80% of daily Bitcoin transaction counts, CryptoQuant said. That is up from roughly 44% in 2023.
Bitcoin Total Transactions (Source: CryptoQuant)
The smallest cohorts, including transactions below 0.001 BTC and below 0.01 BTC, have surged this year and are approaching the previous peak reached in 2024.
That means Bitcoin’s network is busier, but much of the growth is coming from very small transfers. In market terms, the blockchain is processing more messages, but not necessarily moving proportionally more economic value.
The pattern resembles prior bursts of protocol-driven activity on Bitcoin, when token experiments, inscriptions, and data services increased transaction counts without matching the value profile of traditional BTC transfers.
OP_RETURN use points to data-heavy demand
The rise in small transfers has coincided with a sharp increase in OP_RETURN usage.
OP_RETURN is used to attach data to Bitcoin transactions without creating spendable outputs. That has made it a common tool for data-layer activity on Bitcoin, including token-related transfers, timestamping, and inscription-adjacent use cases.
CryptoQuant said OP_RETURN outputs have climbed to near-record levels this year, with the increase linked to activity from Runes, Ordinals, BRC-20-style markets, and other data-writing services.
Bitcoin OP_RETURN Code Use (Source: CryptoQuant)
These systems can generate large numbers of low-value transactions because the economic payload is often the data attached to the transaction rather than the amount of BTC being transferred.
That helps explain why the network activity index is rising while the price remains weak. The new activity reflects demand for Bitcoin block space, but it is not the same thing as a broad recovery in investor appetite for BTC.
It also complicates the long-running debate over Bitcoin’s use case. Supporters may view the surge as evidence that Bitcoin is becoming a more active settlement layer for new types of on-chain activity.
However, critics may see it as congestion from transactions that do little to support Bitcoin’s monetary role.
For now, the data supports both readings to some degree. Bitcoin is being used more. But the use is concentrated in small transactions that differ from the financial transfers many investors associate with durable network demand.
Mempool congestion returns, but fees stay low
The jump in micro-transactions has started to affect the mempool, where unconfirmed Bitcoin transactions wait before being added to blocks.
CryptoQuant said the Bitcoin mempool transaction count has risen to about 128,000, the highest since late February 2025. The congestion is concentrated in low-fee transactions, consistent with the increase in OP_RETURN and micro-transaction activity.
The current backlog remains well below the extreme peaks seen in September 2023 and November 2024. Still, the increase shows that non-financial or low-value activity is taking up a larger share of Bitcoin transaction flow.
That could become more important if the trend continues. Higher competition for block space can push up fees, especially for users who need time-sensitive settlement.
In past cycles, congestion from inscriptions and token-related activity created brief periods of elevated fees and renewed debate over whether Bitcoin’s block space should be used primarily for monetary transfers or broader data applications.
So far, the latest activity burst has not produced a comparable fee boom.
YCharts data, based on Blockchain.com figures, showed daily Bitcoin transaction fees at 3.458 BTC on June 18, down 50.25% from a year earlier.
Bitcoin Average Network Fees (Source: BitInfoCharts)
That gap is central to the current story. Transaction counts are rising, but the fee market has not followed with the same force.
Miner revenue remains the weak link
The muted fee response matters because Bitcoin miners have relied more heavily on transaction fees since the April 2024 halving cut the block subsidy to 3.125 BTC.
At roughly 144 blocks a day, the subsidy remains the main source of miner revenue. Fees contribute only a small share in BTC terms when network costs are low, limiting the direct financial benefit miners receive from higher transaction counts.
That makes the current activity surge less straightforward than prior periods when congestion produced large fee spikes. More transactions can signal stronger demand for block space, but if those transactions are low-value and low-fee, the impact on miner economics remains limited.
The result is a mixed signal for the Bitcoin market.
On one hand, the blockchain is seeing its strongest activity in nearly two years, driven by real demand for small transactions and data-linked use cases.
On the other hand, Bitcoin’s price remains under pressure, sellers still dominate the short-term market structure, and the fee market has not shown that users are willing to pay significantly more for settlement.
That leaves Bitcoin with a busy network but an unresolved market question: whether this new wave of activity can become durable economic demand, or whether it remains another burst of low-value traffic that fills blocks without changing the broader investment picture.
“This week’s FOMC meeting exemplified the best of the Fed traditions: vigorous debate, open-mindedness, commitment to mission, responsibility and accountability for performance… Getting monetary policy right — or as near to it as we can do. That is our North Star.”
The committee held the target range for the federal funds rate at 3.50%–3.75%.
Economic activity is “expanding at a solid pace,” with strong productivity, capital investment, and stable labor market, but inflation has run well above 2% for over five years.
On commitment to price stability:
“I’m pleased to report that members of the FOMC are unambiguous and unanimous that this committee will deliver price stability.”
On the new, shorter policy statement:
“It is a bit shorter, a bit simpler, and dispenses with some older language. It just gives you the facts, as best we can judge it.”
“Absent, also, is so-called forward guidance, which we agreed was not well suited to the current policy conjuncture.”
On the dot plot/SEP:
“It has been the practice of this committee for participants to submit these projections and I have encouraged my colleagues to continue to do so. I, however, have refrained from offering projections of my own.”
Median projections showed a slightly higher rate path, with nine officials seeing at least one hike in 2026.
On the five task forces (communications, balance sheet, data sources, productivity/jobs/AI, inflation frameworks):
“These subjects are timely, consequential, and in my view, worthy of a fresh look… They will have a straightforward charge: ask hard questions, examine current practice, consider alternatives.”
“Each task force will have an objective shared by everyone… A Federal Reserve that is clear-eyed about its mission, fit for purpose, and focused on the future.”
Key Q&A Quotes
On the 2% inflation target:
“That is the Federal Reserve’s long-held objective of 2%. The ‘two’ is the left of the decimal point. For now, ‘zero’ is to the right.”
“I see no reason until we have reestablished our commitment and ability to deliver on the 2% inflation objective to revisit that.”
On internal decision-making (“family fight”):
“We can agree to some of the recommendations, disagree with others, have a good family fight about it. But what comes from them will — I hope and believe — make the discussion we have internally better, stronger, more of a dialectic, so that we can finally deliver on that price stability objective.”
On inflation being a choice / commitment:
“The commitment to deliver is strong, unanimous, and unambiguous, and that’s I think an important message we’ve missed for five years, and we’re going to fix that.”
Warsh emphasized data-dependency, reduced forward guidance, and letting markets react to data rather than Fed signals.
He avoided locking in future rate paths and focused on long-term institutional improvements.
Elon Musk’s personal fortune has surpassed the market value of Bitcoin, a milestone that shows how quickly SpaceX’s public-market debut has reshaped both wealth rankings and the broader conversation around speculative risk.
According to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index, Musk’s net worth rose to about $1.32 trillion as SpaceX shares traded above $200, extending a rally that began with the company’s record initial public offering last week.
At that level, his estimated personal wealth exceeds Bitcoin’s roughly $1.29 trillion market capitalization, based on CryptoSlate’s pricing for the digital asset.
Elon Musk Net Worth vs Crypto Market
While this comparison is imprecise by design, it offers a striking snapshot of how SpaceX’s rapid rise has moved into the center of global markets and catapulted Musk’s wealth into uncharted territory.
Over the past year, the total cryptocurrency market has fallen from a peak of about $4.21 trillion to roughly $2.23 trillion, according to CryptoSlate data. During this period, Bitcoin has dropped by more than 50% from its late-2025 record high near $126,000, amid months of selling pressure and weaker risk appetite.
The reversal follows a powerful rally that began during Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign and continued through his return to the White House.
At the time, BTC crossed $100,000 for the first time as investors responded to industry-friendly appointments, regulatory proposals, and expectations that Washington would take a softer approach toward digital assets.
However, those gains have since faded this year as crypto exchange volumes have declined, leveraged positions have been flushed out, and capital has moved back toward large technology stocks, private-market proxies, and newly listed growth companies.
That backdrop makes Musk’s wealth milestone less about Bitcoin losing its role as crypto’s benchmark and more about the speed at which SpaceX has become a competing outlet for speculative capital.
Meanwhile, this comparison is even sharper outside Bitcoin. With the crypto market worth about $2.23 trillion and Bitcoin accounting for roughly $1.29 trillion, Musk’s estimated fortune is now larger than the combined value of the rest of the digital-asset market.
The company priced its IPO at $135 a share and has since rallied by more than 50%, pushing its market value to about $2.7 trillion. The move has placed SpaceX among the world’s most valuable public companies, ahead of Amazon and near Microsoft’s market capitalization.
The rally has been fueled by a rare combination of scarcity, brand power, and momentum. CryptoSlate previously reported that only a limited portion of SpaceX’s equity entered public trading, leaving investors to compete for a small float in one of the most anticipated listings in years. That imbalance has helped turn demand into price pressure.
At the same time, retail investors have been central to the stock’s rapid rise.
South Korean individual investors bought about $795.9 million of SpaceX shares on June 12, the stock’s first day of trading, according to market-flow data cited by Global Market Investor. That made SPCX the most purchased US stock among South Korea’s retail traders in a single session.
The buying exceeded three-month net purchases in several major US technology names. Over the prior three months, South Korean retail investors bought $748.3 million in Micron Technology, $696.2 million in the Nasdaq 100 ETF, and $694.5 million in Marvell Technology, according to the same data.
SpaceX IPO Draws Retail Investors
Meanwhile, the rush for SPCX is also evident in leveraged exchange-traded funds tied to the firm, which have seen heavy trading in their first days on the market.
Eric Balchunas, senior ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said total volume across 2x SpaceX ETFs topped $3 billion, up from about $1 billion the previous day.
One product, trading under the ticker SPCH, recorded about $1.3 billion in day-two volume. Balchunas said that was the highest second-day trading volume ever recorded by an ETF, above the roughly $500 million logged by BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) on its second trading day.
SpaceX Leveraged ETFs (Source: Eric Balchunas)
This demand is notable because many of the products track the same underlying stock and offer similar leverage. That suggests investors are not simply looking for long-term exposure to SpaceX. Many are using the funds to express short-term directional bets.
Ultimately, these numbers show that SpaceX is being treated less like a conventional aerospace listing and more like a global momentum trade.
Investors who missed the IPO allocation have been buying the stock in the open market, while others have turned to exchange-traded funds, options, and crypto-linked derivatives to gain exposure to the same product.
SpaceX valuation questions grow louder
The pace of the rally has intensified questions about whether SpaceX’s valuation is outpacing its business fundamentals.
Musk has said SpaceX could reach $1 trillion in annual revenue by 2030, a target that has helped investors price the company as more than just a rocket-and-satellite business. The market is also assigning value to Starlink, artificial intelligence, launch infrastructure, and Musk’s wider technology ecosystem.
Current financials show a company still spending heavily to build that future. SpaceX reported a net loss of $4.94 billion in 2025 on revenue of $18.67 billion. The company recorded another $4.27 billion loss in the first quarter of 2026, reflecting capital spending on Starlink, launch capacity, computing infrastructure, and artificial intelligence initiatives.
SpaceX Financial (Source: Rand Group)
Those losses have not stopped the rally. But they have widened the gap between what SpaceX is today and what investors are paying for it to become.
That is where the Bitcoin comparison becomes useful. Bitcoin’s market value has always depended on what buyers are willing to pay for scarcity, network strength, and future monetary relevance. SpaceX is now being priced with a similar forward-looking logic, only through the structure of a public company attached to Musk.
For now, public markets are rewarding that story more aggressively than crypto.
While Musk’s fortune may not stay above Bitcoin’s market value forever because SpaceX shares could fall, Bitcoin could rebound, or both could move sharply in opposite directions.
However, the milestone captures the current state of risk appetite: the biggest speculative trade in markets is no longer necessarily a token. It is a rocket company.
The first FOMC meeting with the new Federal Reserve Chair, Kevin Warsh, at the helm of the central bank didn’t provide any surprises, as the entity expectedly left the interest rates unchanged.
With the benchmark remaining between 3.5% and 3.75%, bitcoin’s price reacted with minor initial volatility, but there are some warning signs about an upcoming correction.
Recall that nearly two months ago, the Fed under then-Chair Jerome Powell left the rates unchanged for the third consecutive time. However, there were signs from Powell that rate hikes might follow suit.
Despite today’s non-event, as it was described by David Wessel, director of Brookings’ Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, he also said that Kevin Warsh now finally has the power to change things at the Fed after years of “ranting about” it.
Bank of America’s fund manager survey showed that 55% anticipated Warsh would be hawkish at the press conference, but Stephen Juneau, the bank’s US economist, held the opposite view.
“The investor consensus seems to be that Warsh will lean hawkish in his press conference. We think he’ll be dovish.”
Bitcoin’s price was slightly volatile in the hours leading up to the event, going below $65,000 earlier today before it shot up to $66,400. However, it dipped by over a grand in the first minutes after the news of the unchanged rates went live.
