The Weekly Wrap: BTC Briefly Below $60K, MSTR Below $100 & Crypto Sentiment in Extreme Fear

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This Week’s Top Stories

“Ethereum Foundation enters a deep restructuring as both co-executive directors depart, budgets shrink and new organizations step in to share the load.” – The past two weeks 

• Former Ethereum Foundation (EF) contributor Trent VanEpps warned of a possible "slow burning funding crisis" for core development within the next 3 to 9 months, pointing to EF spending cuts and the expiring Client Incentive Program. He put core development’s annual funding need at roughly $30 million and argued that the EF was never meant to be the network's permanent steward, meaning that new funding institutions might be needed in the future.
• Simultaneously, co-executive director and board member Hsiao Wei Wang resigned effective Thursday last week, following fellow co executive director Tomasz Stańczak's earlier exit, leaving both seats vacant. At least eight senior members have now left the EF in five months, raising questions over leadership turnover and future governance.
• This week, following last week’s announcements, Ethlabs launched as an independent nonprofit Ethereum R&D organization founded by former EF researchers and backed by BitMine, SharpLink, Joe Lubin, Anchorage, Octant, and SNZ. It will focus on protocol research and claims that no funder will have influence over its roadmap.
• One day later, the EF unveiled a new structure built around five work clusters, protocol, access, user, community, and institutional, plus operations, and announced that it had cut 54 roles, or about 20 percent of the previous headcount. Vitalik Buterin said the 2026 budget will fall by roughly 40 percent as the EF shifts to an endowment model.

Bitcoin Briefly Below $60K, MSTR Below $100 With Majority of Crypto Assets Down on The Week 

Bitcoin briefly traded below $60’000 on Thursday and bottomed around the $58’000 level, marking a new multi year low for Bitcoin and its lowest price since October 2024. This level, around $58’900, could be important for BTC, as it marked the last low before Bitcoin’s rally above $100’000 following the Trump election at the end of 2024. A strong reaction here and Bitcoin holding this level could be a sign of confidence. 

While Bitcoin fell below $60’000, Strategy shares fell below $100 for the first time since March 2024 and are currently trading at their lowest level since February 2024, well below their October 2024 low, if we want to compare it to the situation Bitcoin is currently in. The $100 level is not only an important psychological level, but also marks the highest weekly close for MSTR in 2021 and the lowest weekly close for MSTR in 2024. As long as it trades below this level, many investors are likely to remain less confident about holding the stock.

Most crypto assets are down on the week, with WLD, down 24 percent, XLM, down 17 percent, and MNT, down 18 percent, among the worst performers this week, while JUP, up 21 percent, AAVE, up 19 percent, and LIT, up 6 percent, managed to put in quite decent gains.

Is the Halving Cycle Still in The Room with Us? 

You might remember my article on the Bitcoin halving cycle from back in April 2024, written in light of the fourth halving. I argued that analyzing the time based cyclical patterns around previous Bitcoin halvings reveals intriguing insights into how the halving could be one of the drivers behind Bitcoin’s market dynamics. In the article, I found that, historically, the average time between Bitcoin halvings is 1’388 days, which is three years and nine months. The average historical duration between a halving and the next market cycle top is 480 days, which is one year and four months. The average historical duration between a market cycle top and the next market cycle bottom is 383 days, which is one year and two weeks, and the historical average duration between a market cycle bottom and the next halving is 523 days, or one year and five months. 

In the chart below, we can see BTC price performance between cycle lows. Mature BTC cycles have clustered around 1’430 days from low to low, which would mean that we currently still have roughly four months to go until Bitcoin finds a new low and bottoms for the next cycle. My article from April 2024 supports this thesis as well, as the current Bitcoin all time high occurred roughly 480 days after the last halving, and the 383 days from the all time high to the next cycle bottom would also put the bottom at the end of October. 

We need to look at this with a grain of salt, however, because halving cycles now work more as a psychological relic than as a source of miner led supply pressure.

Institutions x Onchain Finance 

The Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and OKX announced a 50 to 50 joint venture to develop infrastructure for tokenizing digital financial products. The partnership and an investment in OKX from ICE were already announced in March this year, but the latest news provides some more insight into how this collaboration might play out in the coming months. Pending regulatory approval, the venture plans to operate as a U.S. registered broker dealer. Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will serve as co-chair. 

There was some more news combining institutions and onchain finance, as Kraken is apparently in talks to acquire a 15 percent stake in Aave Group, the entity behind Aave, at an implied valuation of $385 million. 

Under the proposed transaction, Kraken would invest 35’000 ETH in exchange for 250’000 AAVE tokens and a 15 percent equity stake, valuing the deal at approximately $71 million, according to people familiar with the matter. Aave founder Stani Kulechov, however, responded to the reports by saying that Aave Labs would never sell AAVE at a 70 percent discount and that the reports inaccurately described the proposed transaction. Whether this deal plays out in the coming weeks remains to be seen.

The outflows continue while some DATs keep buying 

Last week, digital asset investment products recorded net outflows of $336 million, with Bitcoin spot ETFs leading the outflows, as almost $300 million left the products. Ethereum spot ETFs saw $75 million in net outflows, while Solana attracted $6 million and Hyperliquid saw $28 million in net inflows. 

This week, however, the picture is looking much worse, with Bitcoin spot ETFs recording one of their worst outflow days ever, as $700 million flowed out in a single day. Bitcoin products are on track for another billion dollar outflow week, with current net outflows sitting at $1.3 billion so far this week. 

According to Galaxy Research, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs have posted their largest 30 day net outflow on record. Data shows that the funds saw $6.35 billion in net outflows over the past 30 days, ranking first across all 582 rolling 30 day windows tracked by Galaxy Research and highlighting continued institutional outflows. 

Interestingly, SharpLink bought Ethereum for the first time in eight months. The second largest Ethereum treasury company bought 5’000 ETH last week and now holds 876’285 ETH. BitMine also continued to buy more ETH and announced another $92 million Ethereum purchase, adding roughly 52’000 ETH to its treasury.

Extreme Fear All Over the Place in Crypto 

Crypto market sentiment has declined further this week and is currently at 13, down from 23 at the beginning of the week. Interestingly, sentiment in the stock market has also declined further and is now in extreme fear as well, sitting at 25. While the U.S. stock market did not perform very well this week and is on track to close the week down more than 2 percent, AAII members actually turned significantly more bullish this week, with almost 45 percent bulls, up from 36 percent last week, as a large portion of neutral members turned bullish.

• Solana treasury firm Solmate's largest stakeholder sues board for self-dealing, fiduciary breaches. – Link
• OKX Europe chief says 80% of crypto exchanges won't survive MiCA as deadline nears. – Link
• Pump.fun offers up to $5 million salary for chief legal officer role. – Link
• Multicoin predicts HYPE hits $319 by 2028 as Hyperliquid turns into an 'everything exchange'. – Link
• Kalshi in talks to raise funds at $40 billion valuation. – Link
• According to FT, Binance has notified EU clients that it will stop providing services to them from next week after failing to obtain a MiCA license. – Link

Boring Summer Incoming or Further Imminent Downside? 

Bitcoin is barely hanging on to the $60’000 level at the time of writing, and the current sentiment among crypto market participants has reached multimonth lows, at least. Gold and silver have also continued to trade lower, while the US stock market is still less than 5 percent away from its recent all time highs. The US Dollar Index has been on an upward trend since the beginning of the year and has been trading above the 100 level for a couple of days now. Oil continues to trade lower and has corrected more than 50 percent from its March high amid the conflict between the U.S. and Iran. 

SPCX is currently trading around $150, which is still above the IPO price and exactly the price at which it started trading on its market debut two weeks ago. Meanwhile, the odds of the Clarity Act passing in 2026 have dropped to 44 percent on Polymarket, as market participants seemingly lose hope that the new regulation will actually be passed into law this year before the midterms. 

But what could this all actually mean for the crypto market? As we have discussed earlier, when looking at the halving cycle, there could still be some more pain ahead. However, there are also signs that this cycle could in fact fall short in terms of time, and some indicators are already showing signs of bottom formation. Still, it remains too early to tell as of now. In terms of price action, the $58’900 level is certainly important, and a weekly close below that level would likely be interpreted as a bearish sign by many traders. On the upside, the highest weekly close from 2021, roughly at $65’500, could be an important level to keep an eye on should BTC trade higher over the coming weeks. 

Below, you can find some of the key data releases and events to watch out for next week. 

Tuesday, 30 June 2026 

China – Manufacturing PMI 

UK – GDP 

USA – JOLTS Job Openings 

Wednesday, 1 July 2026 

Eurozone – CPI, Core CPI 

Thursday, 2 July 2026 

Switzerland – CPI 

USA – Nonfarm Payrolls, Unemployment Rate, Initial Jobless Claims