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The U.S. military announced yesterday that it has lifted its blockade on all maritime traffic to and from Iranian ports and coastal areas. It confirmed that the passage of ships is no longer being blocked and all enforcement activities have been suspended.

The price of spot gold is down more than 1% intraday, trading at $4,215.05 per ounce.

MicroStrategy's (MSTR) perpetual preferred stock, STRC, is trading at $85.60, down 3.85% from yesterday. This marks another consecutive all-time low for the stock.

The United States and Iran have declared an immediate and permanent end to military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon. The U.S. is scheduled to fully lift its maritime blockade on Iran within 30 days.

Small transactions of less than 0.01 BTC now account for approximately 80% of all Bitcoin transactions, a significant increase from under 50% in 2023, CryptoQuant reported on X. The analytics firm also noted that the use of OP_RETURN is approaching all-time highs, driven by growing demand for protocols like Runes and Ordinals. This surge is primarily fueled by an increase in network activity rather than a rise in the monetary value of transactions, CryptoQuant added.

Major exchanges have seen $105 million worth of futures liquidated in the past hour. In the past 24 hours, $509 million worth of futures have been liquidated.

According to CoinNess market monitoring, BTC has fallen below $63,000. BTC is trading at $62,964.14 on the Binance USDT market.

Hsiao-Wei Wang has officially resigned from her positions as Co-Executive Director and board member of the Ethereum Foundation, Wu Blockchain reported. She emphasized that Ethereum's core strength lies in its permissionless, open infrastructure built by developers and contributors worldwide. Wang added that while her future plans are undecided, she will remain a member of the Ethereum community.

Renaiss, a BNB Chain-based liquidity infrastructure project for real-world asset (RWA) collectibles, has secured $1.5 million in funding, The Block reported. The round was led by YZi Labs, with participation from Gate Ventures, Hash Global, and others. The capital will be used to expand the Renaiss Vault Network, enter new collectible sectors, enhance product and ecosystem integration, improve capital efficiency, and grow its global operations.

Ethereum's monthly active users (MAU) reached an all-time high of 13.2 million in the first quarter of this year, an 85.9% increase from the previous year, according to Token Terminal. The network processed 200.4 million transactions, up 81.5% year-over-year, while its transactions per second (TPS) grew by 81.7% to 25.78. In contrast, Ethereum's Layer 1 fee revenue fell by 81.9% to $39.9 million over the same period.

Cryptocurrency asset management firm ReserveOne's attempt to list on Nasdaq via a SPAC merger has been scuttled by investor opposition, Bloomberg reported. The planned $1 billion deal, which had attracted attention for involving prominent figures like former U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, was halted after two major investors demanded its cancellation.

Thorchain (RUNE) has suspended trading for over a month following a $10 million hack, on-chain analyst Specter pointed out. He explained that Thorchain had not previously suspended trading, including simple swaps between ETH and BTC, even when other projects were hacked or faced money laundering allegations. This time, however, all network-wide trading has been completely halted because its own chain was compromised. Specter advised users to exercise caution.

Kalshi is launching a prediction market service in Canada, Walter Bloomberg reported. The service, which will be available through Wealthsimple, offers a new way to participate in future events and trends.

Kraken has officially launched a Solana-based decentralized exchange (DEX) trading service on its mobile application, Unfolded reported. Users can trade thousands of tokens via a built-in Privy wallet and major Solana protocols, with their holdings integrated into the existing portfolio screen. Trades can be executed from the current user interface using USD or USDC balances. Kraken stated that it plans to expand support for additional blockchain networks as part of its "DeFi mullet" strategy, which combines user experience with on-chain infrastructure.

The Algorand (ALGO) Foundation has unveiled a roadmap to transition its blockchain to a quantum-resistant structure by the end of next year, CoinDesk reported. According to the plan, a series of upgrades will be implemented starting this year, including the introduction of post-quantum accounts, multi-sig wallets, and staking support. A subsequent phase will involve upgrading the network's fundamental core structure.

Bitcoin lending company Ledn will support Tether Gold (XAUT) as a collateral asset, The Block reported. The move will allow users to take out loans against gold in the same way they currently do with Bitcoin. Tether made a strategic investment in Ledn last November, and the two companies have maintained their partnership.

Strategy's (MSTR) preferred stock, STRC, hit an all-time low of $88.51 during trading, CryptoSlate reported. The stock, which is designed to maintain a price near $100 through dividend rate adjustments, has since fallen to around $89. This has sparked growing market concerns that Strategy may need to increase its dividend rate or raise additional funds to sustain future payouts. Andre Dragosch, head of research for Europe at Bitwise, analyzed that a higher dividend rate might be necessary for STRC to recover to the $100 level in the current market environment. Meanwhile, CryptoQuant analyst JA Maartunn pointed out that if Strategy were to sell BTC to cover dividend payments, it could lead to a drop in BTC's price, creating a vicious cycle that would devalue the company's own holdings.

Canadian Bitcoin mining firm DMG Blockchain Solutions announced it mined a total of 22 BTC in May. As of the end of the month, the company held 393 BTC, a net increase of four BTC from the previous month.

The U.S. Federal Reserve Board (FRB) announced today it is seeking public comment on a proposal to require certain payment stablecoin issuers to establish and maintain an effective Customer Identification Program (CIP). The proposal would introduce customer identification requirements for stablecoin issuers comparable to those for banks and credit unions. The comment period for the proposal will last for 60 days.

Layer-1 blockchain Avalanche (AVAX) announced today the launch of the Avalanche Payments Collective, a group comprising 28 institutions. According to an official blog post, the collective aims to formalize the network already operating on Avalanche and unite organizations building the infrastructure for next-generation payment and settlement systems. Members include Franklin Templeton, VanEck, WisdomTree, Paxos, Agora, Ethena, Anchorage Digital, and Kraken.

The three major U.S. stock indices opened higher today. - S&P 500: +0.95% - Nasdaq: +1.76% - Dow Jones: +0.53%

DeFi lending protocol Ionic announced on its official X account that it is shutting down the project. The team attributed the shutdown to the aftermath of an exploit last year and urged all users to withdraw their assets. Ionic suffered a hack in February of last year, with estimated damages of around $8.6 million.

Jeff Walton, CEO of publicly traded asset manager and Bitcoin accumulation firm Strive (Nasdaq: ASST), said in a recent interview that his goal is to bring $200 billion in new capital to Bitcoin through the credit market. He added that he expects more institutions to issue digital credit in the future. Strive previously announced plans to expand its at-the-market (ATM) offering programs for its ASST and SATA shares by $2.1 billion each, totaling $4.2 billion, to fund additional BTC purchases. The SATA shares follow a model similar to Strategy's (MSTR) preferred stock, STRC, which issues new shares to buy BTC whenever the price exceeds its $100 par value. As of June 18, Strive holds approximately 19,105 BTC.

Prominent crypto analyst Michaël van de Poppe has identified the $64,000 level for Bitcoin (BTC) as a key variable that will determine the market's future direction. He suggested that if BTC fails to hold the $64,000 support, it could test lower lows. However, if the price maintains this level, the next target range could be between $74,000 and $79,000, which could also sustain an altcoin bull run. Citing the BTC/Gold ratio and the weekly Relative Strength Index (RSI), he added that Bitcoin is currently showing a pattern similar to historical bottoms. While acknowledging the possibility of a further decline, he described the current range as a very attractive long-term entry point.

Blockchain infrastructure firm Alchemy is launching AgentCard, a Visa virtual card designed specifically for AI agents, The Block reported. AgentCard is a card and digital identity solution designed to enable AI agents to autonomously conduct payments and transactions. It natively supports token-based payments issued by Visa and will also support cryptocurrency payments and protocols designed for AI agents where merchants permit. These include the x402 protocol, incubated by Coinbase, and Stripe's Machine Payment Protocol (MPP).