Illinois has opened a new front in state-level crypto regulation after Governor J.B. Pritzker signed a budget package containing the Digital Asset Tax Act, a measure industry groups are already attacking as one of the harshest crypto transaction taxes in the United States.

TL;DR

• The law introduces a 0.2% privilege tax on digital asset broker transactions.
• The effective date cited in the source packet is January 1, 2027.
• “Most punitive” should be attributed as industry criticism, not stated as neutral fact.

Digital Asset Tax Act…

— Crypto Council for Innovation (@crypto_council) June 17, 2026

What The Illinois Tax Does

The verified source packet says the Digital Asset Tax Act is part of Illinois’ $55.9 billion state budget package. The measure introduces a 0.2% privilege tax on digital asset broker transactions, with an effective date of January 1, 2027.

The law applies to digital asset brokers where either the customer or broker is located in Illinois, with a $100,000 receipts threshold for out-of-state brokers. That means the reach of the tax may extend beyond firms physically based in the state, depending on customer location and transaction activity.

Why The Industry Is Pushing Back

The Crypto Council for Innovation and other industry voices have criticized the measure sharply. The “most punitive” label should be treated as advocacy language rather than an objective legal classification, but the pushback itself is newsworthy because it shows how quickly state-level policy can become a national industry concern.

Crypto firms are likely to argue that transaction-based taxes raise costs, reduce competitiveness and create compliance complexity. If other states copy the model, brokers could face a patchwork of state-specific digital asset rules layered on top of federal obligations.

A State-Level Regulation Test Case

The Illinois measure also highlights how crypto policy is no longer only a federal issue. Even as Congress debates stablecoins, market structure and CBDCs, individual states are experimenting with tax and licensing approaches that can directly affect exchanges, brokers and users.

That creates strategic pressure for crypto companies. They must track not only SEC, CFTC and federal legislation, but also state budgets, tax packages and consumer-protection laws that may include digital asset provisions.

What Comes Next

The next question is whether the industry challenges the tax, seeks amendments before the effective date, or pushes for federal preemption in future market-structure legislation. Firms serving Illinois customers may also need to evaluate how the receipts threshold and broker-location provisions apply to their operations.

For now, Illinois has given the market a concrete example of how states may look to tax digital asset activity directly. Whether it remains an isolated case or becomes a template will matter far beyond Illinois.

This report is based on information from Crypto Council X post

This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.

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SpaceX shares rose in early market trading Monday, extending gains from its record IPO debut after Elon Musk said the company could reach $1 trillion in annual revenue by the end of the decade.

Yahoo Finance data show the stock traded near $170, up about 6% from Friday’s close.

The move followed a strong first session in which SpaceX priced its initial public offering at $135 a share, opened at $150, and closed at $161.11, giving the company a market value of about $2.2 trillion.

The rally also spilled into crypto-linked derivatives tied to the stock. CoinGlass data show SpaceX futures volume climbed 140% to about $930 million, while open interest rose above $540 million.

The early market advance added fresh momentum to one of the most closely watched listings in years, underlining investor appetite for exposure to Musk’s rocket, satellite, and artificial intelligence company after the largest IPO on record.

Retail fuels SpaceX’s record IPO debut

SpaceX raised $75 billion on its first day of trading, making it the largest IPO on record and immediately placing the rocket, satellite, and artificial intelligence company among the most valuable publicly traded companies in the US.

The company’s market value of over $2 trillion put it behind Amazon, valued at about $2.54 trillion, and ahead of Broadcom, valued at about $1.81 trillion.

Available data shows that retail investors played a central role in that debut.

Vanda Research data shows that individual investors bought a net $93.8 million of SpaceX shares on Friday, the largest single-day net retail purchase for any IPO on record.

Moreover, SpaceX accounted for about 4% of all single-stock retail turnover that day, with net purchases more than 3.5 times those of Nvidia, the next most purchased stock.

Meanwhile, the listing also spilled into crypto markets, where traders used tokenized equity products and derivatives to gain exposure to the stock. This is particularly notable, given the challenges that marked the first trading day on some crypto trading platforms, such as Binance.

Still, CryptoQuant data showed strong activity across platforms that listed SpaceX-linked instruments. On Gate.com, trading volume for the tokenized SPCX ticker exceeded $100 million on its first day, compared with about $4 million for Circle and $3.5 million for Tesla on the same venue.

Equity-linked tokens on Gate.com typically generate daily volumes between $10 million and $25 million across the assets shown in the platform’s data. SpaceX’s first-day activity stood well above that range, showing the scale of demand among crypto-native traders.

The activity suggests tokenized equities are becoming a more visible outlet for major stock-market events. These products remain small compared with traditional equity markets, and their regulatory treatment varies by jurisdiction.

Still, the SpaceX debut showed that crypto traders are willing to use on-chain or exchange-based instruments to gain exposure to high-profile public companies without leaving digital asset venues.

Musk stretches the growth case

SpaceX’s rally gained further momentum after Musk posted on X over the weekend that the firm could generate $1 trillion in annual revenue by 2030. He added that he would be surprised if the company failed to exceed that level by 2031.

The projection gave investors a new benchmark for a stock already trading at one of the richest valuations in the public market. SpaceX reported about $18.7 billion in revenue in 2025, meaning Musk’s target would require revenue to increase more than 50-fold in roughly five years.

That forecast also sits well above some of the most optimistic Wall Street estimates. Morgan Stanley projects about $330 billion in revenue by 2030, meaning Musk’s figure is roughly three times that estimate.

Meanwhile, Brett Winton, chief futurist at Ark Invest, has taken a more aggressive long-term view, saying Starlink and Starshield could generate more than $1 trillion in excess cash through 2035 while reaching $400 billion in annualized earnings.

The wide gap between current revenue and those projections helps explain the debate around SpaceX’s valuation.

The company’s revenue base is large for an aerospace business, but still small compared with the market value now attached to the stock. Its 2025 revenue marked strong growth from the previous year, while first-quarter 2026 revenue came in around $4.69 billion.

The company, however, remained in the red as spending increased.

This means that investors backing the stock are betting that several businesses can scale at once. Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite broadband network, is the company’s largest near-term revenue driver. It has become a meaningful source of recurring sales and gives SpaceX a global consumer and enterprise product outside traditional launch services.

Starshield, its government-focused satellite communications unit, has also become part of the bullish case as demand for secure connectivity grows among defense and public-sector customers.

Starship carries the more speculative upside. The launch system is designed to reduce the cost of reaching orbit and support larger commercial, government, and scientific missions. SpaceX has framed it as central to future markets in space logistics, lunar operations, Mars development, and other forms of transport.

The company has also broadened its pitch around artificial intelligence, telecommunications, and space infrastructure.

Its prospectus placed the total addressable market for those ambitions at up to $28.5 trillion, a figure that includes several industries still in their early stages of development.

Those projections help explain the intensity of demand around the IPO. They also show how much of SpaceX’s valuation depends on businesses that must scale quickly, absorb heavy investment, and avoid major technical or regulatory setbacks.

Scrutiny emerges around SpaceX’s valuation

Meanwhile, SpaceX’s market momentum has also drawn warnings from analysts who say its valuation leaves little room for slower growth, higher costs, or delays in its major projects.

CFRA analysts cited SpaceX’s demanding growth assumptions, elevated valuation, and heavy capital needs as key reasons for their cautious view.

Those costs are already rising. SpaceX reported $10.1 billion in capital expenditures for the three months ended March, compared with $4.1 billion a year earlier. The increase reflected spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure, Starship development, and other long-term projects.

At the same time, profitability remains another pressure point. The company lost nearly $5 billion in 2025, while accumulated losses over the past several years are estimated at $50 billion.

SpaceX also warned in its prospectus that it may never become profitable, a disclosure that underlines how much spending may still be required before its biggest bets mature.

Henrik Zeberg, a macro analyst at Swissblock, said the market is treating SpaceX as one of the world’s most valuable companies despite its losses.

He compared the valuation with past periods of market excess and argued that investors are paying ahead for the earnings power the company has yet to prove.

According to him:

“There is no doubt! We have the largest Bubble ever. And it will burst. Not yet. Expect surge into final top…. But soon!”

Nonetheless, Wall Street’s early targets show little agreement on where the stock should trade.

Loop Capital has the highest target at $349, followed by Baird at $320 and Bernstein at $310. Oppenheimer set its target at $190, while New Street Research is at $165.

The average sits near $267, but the wide range reflects sharply different views on SpaceX’s future revenue, margins, and market opportunity.

To sustain the rally, SpaceX will need to show that its largest businesses can grow fast enough to support the price investors are paying. The market will be looking for updates on Starlink growth, Starship progress, government contracts, AI-related spending, and any sign that revenue is moving closer to Musk’s $1 trillion target.

For now, investors are paying a premium for access to a company that was out of reach in public markets for years. That premium could remain intact if SpaceX keeps expanding quickly, but it also leaves the stock exposed if costs rise faster than expected or its path to profitability takes longer than the market currently assumes.

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Bitcoin’s drop toward $60,000 last week exposed how quickly a shift in investor appetite can turn into forced selling when leverage has been rebuilt beneath the surface of the crypto market.

The largest cryptocurrency by market value fell nearly 14% last week, triggering almost $10 billion in liquidations of long futures as traders who had bet on higher prices were pushed out of the market.

Bitcoin later recovered to about $63,000, but the rebound did little to settle the debate over what caused one of the year’s sharpest sell-offs.

Market commentary from Charles Schwab and NYDIG points to a broader explanation. Capital has been rotating toward artificial intelligence, private technology deals, and other high-growth trades at the same time that futures positioning in Bitcoin has become more crowded.

AI becomes the rival trade to Bitcoin

Bitcoin’s latest weakness has unfolded as investors reassess where the strongest speculative returns are coming from.

In a note shared with CryptoSlate, Jim Ferraioli, head of crypto research and strategy at Charles Schwab, said crypto investors have repeatedly shifted toward the market’s dominant momentum trade.

That pattern has played out across precious metals, oil futures during the Iran conflict, memory stocks, and private investment vehicles linked to future IPOs.

In recent months, artificial intelligence has taken that role.

The scale of spending tied to AI has drawn capital across listed equities, data-center infrastructure, and private markets. For investors who once used Bitcoin as a primary way to express a high-growth technology view, AI has become a direct competitor for attention and liquidity.

Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor pointed to that pressure last week after Bitcoin’s decline. He said about $400 billion had flowed into AI infrastructure over the past six months, while US-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs had seen roughly $4 billion in outflows since mid-May.

The contrast underlined the challenge facing Bitcoin. The top crypto is no longer competing only with gold, other digital assets, or macro trades. It is being measured against an AI cycle that has become the main growth story across financial markets.

Greg Cipolaro, global head of research at NYDIG, also identified AI as one of several forces weighing on Bitcoin and the broader crypto market.

His argument centered on the overlap between the two investor bases. According to him, both sectors appeal to investors seeking exposure to emerging technologies, large markets, and high return potential.

As AI-linked stocks have continued to outperform, capital has moved toward the stronger trade.

That shift is also visible in private markets. Investors are already positioning for a potential wave of major technology listings, with companies such as SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic viewed as eventual public-market candidates.

These large offerings can prompt institutions to raise cash or reduce existing positions before committing to new allocations.

For Bitcoin, the result is weaker marginal demand at a difficult point in the cycle. The network’s adoption story has not clearly broken down, but price action has softened as investors compare crypto with a technology trade that currently offers stronger momentum.

Leverage turns rotation into liquidation

Meanwhile, the retreat from Bitcoin became more severe because traders had rebuilt risk in derivatives markets before the selloff began.

Ferraioli said the move reflected a market where leverage had returned, even if positioning was still below the excesses seen in earlier periods. He noted that futures open interest had dropped to about $31 billion in February after reaching a high of roughly $70 billion. By May, it had recovered to about $51 billion.

That recovery showed traders had moved back into leveraged exposure as Bitcoin regained ground. Once the market turned lower, those positions became a source of pressure.

According to him, almost $10 billion in long futures positions were liquidated last week as prices fell, forcing traders who had bet on further gains to close out. The decline in open interest during the selloff suggested that exposure was being removed from the market rather than replaced with fresh positions.

Funding rates also moved back toward negative territory, showing that the long bias that had built up during the recovery had started to unwind. Ferraioli said liquidations relative to overall open interest pointed to a moderate forced reduction in positioning.

That helped explain why Bitcoin’s decline accelerated. The rotation toward AI-linked assets, ETF outflows, and hedge fund selling weakened demand. Then, BTC traders’ derivatives positioning magnified the pressure once prices began moving lower.

In a leveraged market, selling can become automatic. Traders facing margin pressure are forced out of positions regardless of whether they still believe in the longer-term Bitcoin thesis. That process can push prices lower until enough exposure has been cleared.

The shift also showed how quickly Bitcoin’s support structure changed. ETF inflows and improving sentiment had helped the market earlier in the year. By late May, those flows had weakened while futures exposure had expanded.

Ferraioli noted that hedge funds were the main source of selling after Bitcoin peaked in early May. That pullback also aligned with the drop in futures open interest.

By May 31, hedge funds had cut their share of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, or IBIT, to about 19% from around 29%. Investment advisers moved the other way and added exposure during the decline, while retail brokerage accounts also reduced holdings.

The split pointed to a market where longer-term allocators were willing to buy weakness, while more tactical investors moved to reduce risk as momentum broke down.

A flush, Not Yet a Bottom

In view of the above, Ferraioli said the latest price action points to a market clearing out leverage rather than adding a new wave of speculative exposure.

According to him, the market signals are moving in the same direction. Open interest has declined, liquidations have surged, and funding rates have slipped toward negative territory.

Together, those measures suggest traders have been cutting long exposure after positioning became stretched during Bitcoin’s rebound from February levels.

That still leaves the market short of a confirmed bottom as forced liquidations can happen near the end of a selloff, but they can also appear in the middle of a broader decline. However, they do not prove that selling pressure has been exhausted on their own.

Ferraioli said liquidations need to be read alongside open interest and funding rates. A more constructive setup would require open interest to stop falling, funding to stabilize, and forced selling to fade.

If leverage builds again before spot demand recovers, the market could remain exposed to another round of pressure.

Meanwhile, some technical and cost-based levels suggest the BTC decline may be nearing an exhaustion zone.

Ferraioli noted that Bitcoin has returned to areas around its February lows, efficient miner production costs, and the 200-week moving average. Traders often watch those levels for signs that distress selling is slowing and longer-term buyers are beginning to reappear.

The question is whether those support levels can compete with the broader rotation into AI and private technology. Bitcoin’s recovery to about $63,000 showed demand had returned after the liquidation wave, but weaker ETF flows and hedge fund selling continue to weigh on the market.

The next stage will depend on whether fresh capital moves back into crypto. If AI-linked equities, infrastructure deals, and expected technology listings continue to attract the marginal dollar, Bitcoin may struggle to regain momentum even after a major leverage reset.

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Crypto traders have turned Elon Musk’s expected SpaceX listing into a round-the-clock proxy market, pushing more than $1 billion through SpaceX-linked perpetual futures in the last three days as investors try to front-run one of the largest public offerings in Wall Street history.

The shift comes as retail investors face limited allocations in a heavily oversubscribed offering and look for other ways to gain exposure.

It also arrives with a warning from market history as some of the most celebrated technology listings of the past decade opened to enormous demand, only to punish early buyers with steep first-year losses before settling into longer-term trading patterns.

Crypto becomes the early trading floor

Before SpaceX shares begin trading on a traditional exchange, crypto venues have become the closest thing to a live market for the company’s expected public debut.

The SPCX perpetual future, a synthetic contract linked to SpaceX’s pre-IPO valuation, has drawn more than $1 billion in trading volume over the past 72 hours, CoinGlass data show. Since May 30, cumulative volume across participating platforms has exceeded $2.6 billion, with open interest around $363 million.

Unlike ordinary equity options, perpetual futures have no expiration date. Traders can hold positions indefinitely, but they must manage funding payments and the risk of liquidation if prices move sharply against them.

That structure makes the market especially attractive to crypto traders accustomed to high leverage and continuous price movement.

Hyperliquid helped pioneer the SPCX contract, but activity has since spread beyond decentralized finance. Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, now accounts for a large share of the market, showing how quickly a synthetic product can become a major venue for price discovery before the underlying stock exists in public markets.

Meanwhile, the market is attracting bullish bets. Arkham Intelligence said one trader using the handle “wenyu8888888” had placed a $5.7 million, 2x short on SPCX, describing it as the largest SpaceX short it had tracked.

The position highlights how the synthetic market has also become a venue for traders willing to bet that the IPO premium will fade once public trading begins. It also shows how quickly a single leveraged account can become part of the broader spectacle around the listing.

For traders shut out of the official bookbuild, the contract offers a way to express a view on SpaceX before the opening bell.

For market watchers, it offers something Wall Street’s formal IPO process does not: a continuously moving price backed by real capital, leverage, and liquidation risk.

That makes the SPCX market a rough but useful gauge of speculative appetite, as it shows where traders willing to take immediate financial risk believe the stock could trade once public markets get their first chance to price it.

However, it does not grant ownership in SpaceX, voting rights, or any claim on shares.

The premium is still there, but smaller

The futures market continues to suggest that traders expect SpaceX to open above its reported IPO price.

The company’s offering has been priced at $135 a share, giving SpaceX an expected valuation of roughly $1.75 trillion to $1.8 trillion. At about $162, the SPCX contract implies a premium of roughly 17% to the listing price.

While that represents a meaningful gap, it is also a sharp reset from the early days of the contract, when speculative buying drove prices above $220 and, at one point, near $230.

At those levels, traders were pricing in a far larger first-day jump and treating SpaceX as a scarcity asset before its stock became widely available.

The compression in that premium is important because it shows the market has become more selective even as headline demand remains enormous.

Underwriters have drawn hundreds of billions of dollars in investor interest for a planned $75 billion raise, making the deal several times oversubscribed.

In many IPOs, that kind of demand would allow bankers to lift the final price range before shares begin trading. SpaceX’s fixed-price structure leaves less room for that adjustment, forcing investors to accept the $135 price or walk away.

Retail demand has added another layer of pressure. SpaceX reserved a larger-than-usual portion of the offering for individual investors, but the scale of demand means many buyers are likely to receive only part of what they requested.

Some of that frustrated demand appears to be spilling into synthetic markets, where traders can build exposure immediately but take on risks that differ markedly from those of owning common stock.

IPO history gives buyers reason to pause

The rush for SpaceX exposure is running into a warning from the recent history of major technology listings: even strong companies can deliver painful early returns when investors buy at aggressive valuations.

Charlie Bilello, chief market strategist at Creative Planning, has argued that one common mistake investors make during high-profile listings is treating a great business as a great investment at any price.

His analysis of major IPOs shows that the median offering loses 31% in its first year and suffers a peak-to-trough drawdown of 53% along the way.

That point has become more relevant as some investors compare SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic with the early public-market days of Amazon, Google, and Meta. They argue that buying the next generation of dominant technology companies at IPO could resemble buying the last generation of internet giants before they became some of the most valuable businesses in the world.

However, Jim Chanos, the veteran short seller, rejected that comparison and argued that the valuation gap is too large to ignore.

According to him, Amazon went public in 1997 at a valuation of about $450 million, or roughly three times revenue. Google was listed in 2004 at about $23 billion and roughly seven times revenue. Meta debuted in 2012 at a valuation of about $104 billion and around 20 times revenue, then sold off sharply after listing.

Chanos argues that SpaceX is starting from a valuation that already dwarfs those early public-market entry points, leaving less room for investors to benefit from multiple expansion if growth falls short of the market’s most aggressive expectations.

He also pointed to Uber as a cautionary example of how large addressable-market forecasts can fail to translate directly into public-market value. Uber pitched a total addressable market of more than $12 trillion when it went public in 2019. Its market capitalization is now about $150 billion, a little over 1% of that projected opportunity.

Using a similar approach, Chanos argued, would imply a much lower value for SpaceX than the roughly $2 trillion level now being discussed by the market.

Thierry Borgeat, co-founder of the financial research firm Arvy, reached a similar conclusion after tracking the post-listing performance of prominent technology and growth companies over the past decade.

According to him, the record shows that first-year volatility has been the rule, even for companies that later became major market winners.

For context, Facebook fell 54% from its first-year high before recovering. Snap, Uber, Pinterest, Lyft, Rivian, and Robinhood suffered even deeper drawdowns, with declines ranging from 56% to 90% during their first year as public companies.

According to Borgeat, the pattern was not confined to broken listings. Zoom Video Communications finished its first year up 142%, but only after enduring a 40% drawdown. Palantir Technologies closed its first public year up 153%, while still forcing early holders through a 53% decline before the rebound took hold.

Additionally, CrowdStrike, Datadog, and MongoDB also ended their first year in positive territory, but each experienced sharp interim declines.

The lesson from those listings is that early demand can lift a stock on debut without preventing a severe reset once the market begins testing valuation, growth assumptions, and investor patience.

That history complicates the current SpaceX trade. Crypto derivatives still suggest traders expect the company to open above its IPO price.

However, they offer a weaker guide to what happens after the first burst of demand is filled and public-market investors begin deciding whether a valuation near $1.8 trillion leaves enough room for error.

Regulatory scrutiny follows SpaceX’s IPO

Meanwhile, the scale of the listing has drawn scrutiny in Washington, where Sen. Elizabeth Warren has urged the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to delay the offering until regulators address risks to retail investors and market structure.

Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, warned SEC Chair Paul Atkins that a SpaceX listing of this size could create unusual risks for public markets. Her concerns focus on valuation, shareholder rights, and the company’s governance structure.

The letter argued that public investors could be exposed to a company in which control remains heavily concentrated among Musk and insiders.

According to the lawmaker, supervoting shares, mandatory arbitration provisions, and Texas corporate law could limit outside shareholders’ ability to challenge management decisions or seek legal remedies in disputes.

Warren also raised concerns about passive investors. At a valuation near $1.8 trillion, SpaceX would likely become a major component of market indexes after listing. That could force millions of investors in index funds and retirement accounts to gain exposure to the company even if they never chose to buy SpaceX directly.

In view of this, Warren stated:

“These are not normal circumstances: a number of additional factors exacerbate concerns and require action by the SEC to meet its investor protection and market integrity mandates by delaying the [SpaceX] IPO.”

The warning adds a political layer to an offering already defined by unusual scale and retail attention. It does not mean the IPO will be delayed. Registration materials have moved through the SEC process, and underwriters are preparing for a debut that could become one of the most closely watched market events in years.

However, Warren’s intervention gives skeptics a clear framework for questioning the deal. The concerns are no longer limited to whether SpaceX opens higher than $135.

They now extend to whether ordinary investors understand the legal, governance, and valuation risks embedded in the offering.

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Crypto Trading Volume Has Seen A Notable Decline

In a new post on X, on-chain analytics firm Santiment has talked about the latest trend in the trading volume of crypto assets. The “trading volume” here refers to an indicator that keeps track of the total amount of a given token that’s becoming involved in trading activity on the various centralized exchanges.

When the value of the metric rises, it means exchanges are observing increased activity surrounding the asset. Such a trend implies the token is attracting attention from traders. On the other hand, the indicator going down suggests investors may be losing interest in the market as they are participating in fewer trades on exchanges.

Now, here is the chart shared by Santiment that shows how the trading volume of the different top-cap cryptos has changed over the last few years:

As displayed in the above graph, the trading volume peaked for the combined crypto sector back in mid-2025. Since then, the indicator has followed a downward trajectory for the various coins.

After the latest continuation of the downtrend, the crypto trading volume has declined to its lowest level since mid-2024. “Traders appear reluctant to aggressively buy or sell as macro uncertainty, geopolitical tensions, and recent liquidations keep participants on the sidelines,” noted the analytics firm.

While the trend may look bearish at first glance, the past pattern could suggest otherwise for the market. “Historically, some of crypto’s strongest recoveries have emerged from periods when interest, volume, and participation were at their lowest,” explained Santiment. Considering this, it now remains to be seen how the sector will develop in the near future.

While crypto volume may have waned, the same hasn’t been true for adoption. As highlighted by the analytics firm in another X post, the Total Amount of Holders, an indicator tracking the total number of non-empty addresses present on a given network, has been climbing for the different top assets in recent years.

From the chart, it’s apparent that Ethereum is the crypto that has enjoyed the strongest adoption, with the Total Amount Of Holders sitting at 195 million. “While social media remains focused on $ETH’s underperformance, user adoption has continued moving in the opposite direction,” said Santiment.

Bitcoin Price

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is floating around $62,700, up 1.8% in the last 24 hours.

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President Donald Trump’s family has turned crypto into one of the most lucrative businesses tied to its name, outpacing some of the companies that spent years building the digital asset market.

Between the post-election momentum of November 2024 and April 2026, ventures tied to the US President generated roughly $2.3 billion in pretax crypto income, Reuters reported.

To understand the sheer scale of this capital extraction, one must look at the foundational pillars of the industry during that same window.

For context, the Trump firm’s gains exceeded Coinbase’s $2.1 billion in income over the same period, as well as earnings from major crypto operators across mining, stablecoins, exchange-traded funds, and market infrastructure.

IREN, the largest Bitcoin miner by market value, earned $127 million during the period. BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF business, built around IBIT, the world’s largest spot Bitcoin fund, generated an estimated $109 million.

Meanwhile, Circle, the issuer of USDC stablecoin, lost $14 million, while Galaxy Digital, a major crypto company, posted a $430 million loss.

Unlike Coinbase or BlackRock, the Trump Organization did not compete on trading latency, deep liquidity, or assets under management.

Instead, it leveraged an entirely different business model: an asymmetrical risk structure where the family deployed minimal personal capital, yet captured massive upside via token sales, founder allocations, and equity stakes.

However, the market dynamic has proven entirely zero-sum. Data indicates that the $2.3 billion captured by the president’s family mirrors the $2.25 billion in estimated net losses absorbed by the retail and public-market investors who bought into these ventures.

Monetizing the Trump name

World Liberty Financial accounted for the largest share of the Trump family’s reported crypto revenue.

The project began selling governance tokens in October 2024, with Trump and his sons promoted as central figures. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump traveled to pitch World Liberty’s vision of a financial system outside traditional banks, while the company positioned itself as a decentralized finance and stablecoin platform.

The project’s economics gave the family a direct claim on token sale revenue. DT Marks DEFI LLC, a corporate entity linked to the family, secured a contractual right to 75% of token sale proceeds after expenses, generating an estimated $987 million for the family.

That structure allowed the family to collect revenue from the primary token sale, limiting its exposure to later market declines.

However, the token Buyers faced a different outcome. World Liberty investors were sitting on roughly $674 million in losses by the end of April, weighed down by long lockup periods and a sharp decline in the token’s post-listing value.

Meanwhile, a similar pattern emerged with the TRUMP meme coin. The token launched shortly before Trump’s second inauguration and became a speculative vehicle tied to the president’s political brand rather than an asset with clear underlying utility.

Blockchain analysis of exchange transfers suggested the project generated more than $1.2 billion in total revenue, including an estimated $616 million for the Trump family.

Like WLFI, retail buyers absorbed the losses as the token fell from highs of $75.35, leaving investors with more than $700 million in losses.

Wall Street opened another route into the trade

Trump-linked crypto gains also moved through public companies, extending the trade beyond tokens and into brokerage accounts.

ALT5 Sigma, a small Nasdaq-listed company now known as AI Financial Corp., became one of the clearest examples. The company raised $750 million by selling new shares and used $717 million to buy World Liberty tokens. Reuters reported that more than $500 million from that purchase flowed to the Trump family through World Liberty’s revenue-sharing structure.

The deal gave public-market investors indirect exposure to World Liberty through a listed stock. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. later rang the Nasdaq opening bell after the transaction closed, turning the token purchase into a Wall Street event.

The stock then collapsed. Reuters reported that ALT5’s share price fell from more than $9 in August 2025 to 75 cents by the end of April, leaving investors with about $675 million in losses.

The family’s economics were separate from that decline because its gain came from World Liberty’s sale of tokens to ALT5. Outside shareholders carried the risk of the listed company’s falling share price.

American Bitcoin offered another public-market channel. The Bitcoin mining and treasury company, backed by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, gained a Nasdaq listing in 2025.

Reuters reported that the Trump brothers received stakes in American Bitcoin at no monetary cost. Eric Trump’s stake was still worth more than $70 million at the end of April, even after a sharp decline in the stock. Donald Trump Jr.’s stake was not disclosed.

Outside investors again absorbed the losses. American Bitcoin shares fell from $11 at their September launch to $1.15 at the end of April, Reuters reported, wiping out more than $200 million for investors.

The listed-company deals expanded the reach of the Trump crypto business as investors who may never have bought a meme coin or governance token directly were able to take exposure through ordinary equities.

However, the result was the same financial split: Trump-linked entities captured early value, while public investors were left exposed to falling market prices.

Ethics questions follow the money

These market maneuvers are occurring against a complex regulatory backdrop. The current administration has actively championed digital assets, pushing stablecoin legislation and directing federal agencies to adopt a “light-touch” framework.

While this macro policy pivot has undeniably benefited the broader crypto sector, the direct financial windfall enjoyed by the First Family has triggered unprecedented ethical alarms.

Watchdogs argue that while the mechanisms of these corporate maneuvers appear strictly legal under current law, they represent a profound conflict of interest that monetizes an industry the executive branch is actively deregulating.

This intersection of policy and personal profit has drawn fierce legislative blowback.

Democratic lawmakers, spearheaded by Senator Elizabeth Warren, have petitioned agencies like the CFTC and SEC, arguing that the administration’s deep financial entanglements in crypto and prediction markets severely compromise federal rule-making, subordinating public protection to the president’s personal balance sheet.

However, the White House continues to categorically dismiss these allegations, maintaining that the administration’s sole objective is securing American dominance in the global digital asset race.

Representatives for World Liberty have similarly pushed back, framing the protocol as a purely private fintech enterprise rather than a political vehicle.

Yet, beyond the partisan rhetoric, the ledger is remarkably clear. By treating the presidency as a premium licensing asset, the Trump family has executed one of the most efficient capital extraction strategies in modern financial history, leaving a trail of underwater retail investors holding the bill.

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Ethereum’s slide to its lowest level in more than a year is testing the Wall Street trade that brought the token deeper into institutional portfolios.

Data from CryptoSlate shows that the second-largest cryptocurrency fell to as low as $1,506 during the last 24 hours, its weakest level since April 2025, extending a broad crypto selloff that has already drained leverage from derivatives markets and pushed traders toward defensive positioning.

Crucially, the downswing is not confined to ETH’s spot market as the digital asset is also experiencing a broader deterioration across regulated ETF flows, centralized exchange deposits, and derivatives positioning.

This situation comes at a time when the broader crypto market sentiment has significantly weakened, with Bitcoin falling toward a four-month low near $60,000, while Ethereum has erased much of its market support.

ETF outflows weaken Ethereum’s institutional bid

The pressure has been most visible in the ETF market, where the products that gave institutions a regulated way to buy Ethereum have turned into a source of persistent outflows.

Data from SoSoValue shows that spot ETH ETFs have recorded four straight weeks of withdrawals totaling more than $870 million.

During that period, the funds posted a 17-day outflow streak interrupted by only one day of inflows, when investors added $19.3 million.

As a result, sosoValue data show total spot Ethereum ETF assets have declined more than 70% from their $30 billion peak to $8.71 billion, which is equal to about 4.01% of Ethereum’s circulating market capitalization.

The reversal has weakened one of the main arguments behind Ethereum’s institutional expansion. The ETFs were expected to broaden access to the asset, deepen liquidity, and give traditional investors a cleaner way to gain exposure without handling tokens directly.

However, that demand has softened as ETH’s price moved lower and investors have reduced risk across digital assets.

Exchange inflows add another supply risk

As institutional demand-side forces abated, the physical supply available on liquid trading platforms experienced a sudden and substantial expansion.

CryptoQuant data show Ethereum inflows to trading platforms climbed to about 2.24 million ETH in a single day, the highest level in four months. Binance accounted for more than 1.16 million ETH of those inflows, representing more than half of the total.

This surge in active supply can be seen in high-profile on-chain movements that served as glaring evidence of the liquidity migration.

Notably, a wallet linked to Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin awoke after more than three years of dormancy, mobilizing 80,001 ETH, valued at roughly $122 million.

The massive transfer epitomized the broader trend where long-inactive capital breaks from cold storage to seek out active trading venues and liquid architectures amid the mounting market stress.

Large inflows to trading platforms do not automatically mean investors are selling. They can reflect market-making activity, collateral movement, internal transfers, or portfolio restructuring during periods of stress.

However, traders watch the metric closely because coins held on exchanges are easier to sell or use in derivatives activity than coins sitting in private wallets.

The timing has made the increase harder to dismiss. Ethereum was already trading near $1,580 when the inflows accelerated, while Bitcoin had fallen toward $59,000. That combination suggested investors were moving assets during a marketwide reset rather than during a routine period of repositioning.

If exchange deposits remain elevated, the market could face additional short-term volatility.

Derivatives deleveraging deprives market of rebound capital

The velocity of the current crypto market decline has been accelerated by an extensive deleveraging cycle across leveraged futures platforms.

As spot valuations rapidly deteriorated, automated liquidation engines on major exchanges systematically closed out underwater long positions to protect clearinghouse integrity, amplifying organic selling pressure.

Data analyzed by Santiment illustrates that this liquidation wave effectively flushed out a massive block of speculative capital over a narrow four-day window:

• Bitcoin Total Open Interest: Contracted by approximately 25%, dropping to $23.2 billion, which is its lowest operational aggregate since early April.
• Ethereum Total Open Interest: Decreased by 13%, settling at $9.8 billion, a structural low point not seen since March.

While this aggressive deleveraging leaves the underlying market structurally healthier by purging speculative excess and over-extended margin, it introduces an immediate liquidity vacuum.

The severe drop in open interest demonstrates that the speculative floor has thinned, leaving the market highly vulnerable to further spot pressure due to the lack of immediate leveraged capital available to front-run a classic V-shaped recovery.

Consequently, retail crowd sentiment has cratered to its most pessimistic footing since mid-February.

The firm noted that social metrics reveal an exponential increase in the phraseology of capitulation, with organic social discussions increasingly pairing terms like “Bitcoin” and “altcoins” alongside terminal descriptors such as “dead,” “finished,” “over,” and “ending.”

Traders hedge for a break below $1,500

The buildup of stress across ETFs, exchange flows, whale cost bases, and leveraged markets has shifted attention to ETH’s options market, where traders are paying more to protect against another leg lower.

Deribit data show demand for downside protection has increased sharply. The ETH options put-to-call premium rose to 3.7 times on Friday and has shown consistent excess demand for put options since Monday. Put contracts give holders the right to sell at a set price, making them a common hedge when traders expect further losses or want protection against a disorderly move.

ETH’s open interest has clustered around several downside strikes. Traders have built roughly $108 million in open interest around the $1,500 strike, while the $1,400 strike has attracted about $75 million. The $1,000 strike has drawn about $78 million in positioning.

Those levels do not mean the market expects ETH to fall to $1,000 immediately. Instead, they show that traders are paying for protection after several support signals weakened at the same time.

BlockScholes data show the shift has also appeared in volatility pricing. ETH short-dated implied volatility has jumped from a year-to-date low of 36% to 67%, signaling that traders now expect larger near-term price swings.

The move has been accompanied by a sharper skew toward out-of-the-money puts. The seven-day ETH options skew has moved to about -14%, compared with roughly -3% to -4% in late May. Additionally, the demand for puts has also spread across 7-day, 14-day, 30-day, and 90-day maturities.

That broadening shows traders are not just hedging a single event or one short-term move. They are preparing for the possibility that Ethereum’s weakness could extend if ETF outflows continue, exchange inflows stay elevated, and large holders remain below key cost levels.

The next test is whether $1,500 becomes a floor or a trigger. A stabilization in ETF flows and a decline in exchange deposits could help ease pressure.

Without that, the options market’s focus on downside strikes may become the clearest signal of where traders expect the next phase of the selloff to concentrate.

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Ripple is pushing its dollar-backed stablecoin into Turkey, betting that one of the world’s most active digital-asset markets is ready for a more regulated version of the digital dollars already used to navigate currency weakness and limited access to traditional dollar savings.

On June 2, the Brad Garlinghouse-led company announced that its US dollar-pegged stablecoin, RLUSD, is now available to institutional clients in Turkey through integration agreements with local cryptocurrency platforms BiLira, Bitexen, and Bitlo.

The stakes for capturing market share are exceptionally high. Turkey handled nearly $200 billion in annual crypto transactions, almost four times the United Arab Emirates’ $53 billion, making it the dominant crypto economy in the Middle East and North Africa, according to blockchain data firm Chainalysis.

Ripple targets Turkey’s dollar demand

The rollout places RLUSD inside the domestic order books of three established Turkish gateways.

Ripple executives are aggressively targeting corporate and institutional liquidity, positioning the token as a compliance-first alternative to incumbent stablecoins that currently dominate the offshore market.

Since its global launch in late 2024, RLUSD has scaled to a $1.7 billion market capitalization. Ripple’s strategy in Turkey focuses not on retail day traders, but on capturing high-value corporate flows that require strict regulatory certainty.

Jack McDonald, senior vice president of stablecoins at Ripple, noted that the asset is designed to serve as a bridge for enterprise operations. He noted:

“RLUSD has rapidly gained traction in financial use cases, serving as a vital bridge for payments, tokenization, and collateral management.”

By integrating directly with domestic service providers such as BiLira, Bitexen, and Bitlo, Ripple provides a regulated entry point for domestic institutions that require stringent audit standards to hold digital dollars on their corporate balance sheets or to use them for cross-border supplier payments.

Mustafa Alpay, CEO at Bitlo, said:

“[Turkey crypto] users are looking for secure, digital-native means to manage their wealth and hedge against volatility. By integrating a regulated, enterprise-grade stablecoin like RLUSD, we’re providing our customers with the highest standard of digital dollars for enterprise needs.”

Market shaped by domestic pressure

Meanwhile, market observers have noted that Turkey’s outsized role in the global crypto ecosystem is not solely the result of typical retail speculation.

Instead, it sits at the intersection of speculative trading, robust dollar demand, and profound macroeconomic pressure.

According to Chainalysis, Turkey completely dominates the MENA region in digital asset value received.

More recently, data from TRM Labs showed that Turkey rose to become the fifth-largest global market for retail crypto activity in the first quarter of 2026.

The report showed that Turkey generated $40 billion in crypto volume during that three-month period while broader global retail participation contracted by 11%.

This made Turkey one of the few major global markets to expand during a quarter contraction driven by macroeconomic tightening and reduced retail participation.

For a nominal $1.64 trillion economy, the velocity of capital moving into stablecoins and digital assets reflects deep structural challenges.

With the Turkish lira facing persistent devaluation and domestic monetary environments remaining constrained, dollar-denominated crypto assets have become a functional rail for capital preservation.

However, labeling the market solely as a vehicle of economic necessity misses the full picture.

The high transaction volumes reflect a dual-track digital economy: while some users and corporations rely on digital dollars to hedge against inflation and manage working capital, a massive segment of the market remains highly engaged in speculative trading across decentralized networks.

Turkey’s crypto regulatory effort gives Ripple an opening

Ripple’s entry into Turkey is timed against a backdrop of shifting sovereign oversight. As Turkey tightens supervision of its digital asset sector, global firms offering compliance-heavy products are finding a clearer route into the market.

The regulatory environment shifted fundamentally in July 2024, when amendments to the Capital Markets Law introduced stringent licensing requirements for crypto asset service providers operating within the country.

The Capital Markets Board effectively forced platforms to either formalize their operations, enhance trade surveillance, or exit the jurisdiction.

That oversight is now extending aggressively into taxation. In March 2026, Reuters reported that Turkey’s ruling AK Party proposed comprehensive legislation to levy a 10% withholding tax on crypto gains realized on authorized platforms, along with a 0.03% transaction levy on service providers.

By structuring tax collection at the exchange level and requiring platforms to act as fiduciary withholding agents that calculate and remit taxes quarterly, the Turkish government is cementing the role of licensed domestic exchanges while heavily penalizing the use of offshore alternatives.

Speaking on this, Reece Merrick, a senior executive officer at Ripple, said:

“The foundations are in place for Türkiye to double down on its position as one of the world’s most dynamic digital asset markets.

For a company like Ripple, which builds its product suite around institutional compliance and regulatory rigor, these barriers to entry act as a competitive moat.

It allows RLUSD to pitch itself to local exchanges not just as a trading pair, but as a fully auditable asset that aligns with Ankara’s tightening oversight and operational mandates.

RLUSD gives Ripple a broader institutional wedge

The Turkish rollout is part of a broader effort to embed RLUSD across Ripple’s institutional financial products, creating an ecosystem that extends well beyond spot-market liquidity.

According to first-quarter 2026 data from digital asset research firm Messari, RLUSD closed the quarter with a $340.3 million market capitalization natively issued on the XRP Ledger (XRPL), representing a 45% quarter-over-quarter increase.

This growth is heavily tied to Ripple’s positioning of the stablecoin across its treasury management, prime brokerage, institutional custody, and payment rails.

Simultaneously, institutional demand for on-chain collateral is accelerating. Messari noted that the total market capitalization for real-world assets (RWAs) on the XRPL reached $2.25 billion by the end of Q1 2026, surging 124% from the previous quarter.

As traditional financial instruments like private credit and money market funds are tokenized, they require a reliable, dollar-pegged settlement asset to function properly on-chain.

This ecosystem expansion directly impacts the network’s underlying infrastructure. While Ripple aims to limit direct volatility exposure for its institutional stablecoin users, increased enterprise activity on the XRPL inherently drives utility for XRP, the network’s native asset.

By offering a compliant digital dollar, Ripple is providing the necessary fiat-pegged liquidity to power higher-level institutional decentralized finance operations without relying on unsustainable business development incentives or fragmented centralized exchange liquidity.

University partnership adds local infrastructure

To anchor its commercial expansion, Ripple is simultaneously building physical and academic infrastructure within the country.

Alongside the exchange integrations, Ripple announced that Istanbul Technical University (ITU) has joined its global University Blockchain Research Initiative. The partnership would be funded directly by RLUSD allocations.

The firm said the partnership will also establish an XRPL validator node on the ITU campus and finance graduate fellowships and advanced blockchain research.

While the academic partnership secures a local footprint beyond exchange listings, the core narrative remains commercial.

For Ripple, Turkey offers a critical test of whether a regulated dollar stablecoin can compete in a market where demand for digital dollars already exists, but regulators are drawing tighter boundaries around how that demand is met.

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