wave

According to Jinshi reports, the CEO of Meta Platforms stated that Meta is developing a new personal assistant, which will serve as the foundation for the next wave of products.

The EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) competition phase is coming to an end, but the real challenges for businesses are just beginning. The high costs of maintaining a compliant operational system may change the landscape of the European crypto industry. In the future, the focus of industry competition may shift from "who can obtain a license" to "who has the capacity to bear regulatory costs," driving companies to achieve scalable development through mergers, joint ventures, or partnerships with banks.As MiCA gradually takes effect and the UK's crypto regulatory framework is about to take shape, the European crypto industry is entering a new phase of consolidation. Industry insiders believe that high regulatory standards may spur a new wave of mergers and acquisitions, and cooperation between crypto-native companies and traditional financial institutions will deepen further. This trend in the UK market may be even more pronounced. The UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is developing a new regulatory framework for crypto assets, which is expected to incorporate crypto businesses into the existing financial services regulatory system, subjecting them to capital, operational, and customer asset protection requirements similar to those faced by traditional investment institutions.Steven Lightstone, a partner at Morgan Lewis's London office and co-head of the global fintech team, stated that the FCA aims to promote market competition and support new entrants, but its regulatory standards will be very strict when it comes to consumer protection. Unlike the EU's independently operating MiCA framework, the UK approach will directly utilize the existing financial regulatory system to manage crypto businesses. Meanwhile, the increase in regulatory certainty is driving European banks to accelerate their entry into the digital asset space. Sygnum Europe CEO Simon Schneider noted that currently, less than 20% of banks in Europe offer crypto-related services, indicating a significant market gap. The greatest value of MiCA is not just in creating a new licensing system, but in providing legal certainty for financial institutions to enter the digital asset market.He pointed to Switzerland as an example, where after the introduction of regulations on distributed ledger technology, most large Swiss banks began offering digital asset services, a path that may be replicated in other parts of Europe in the future. In the future, banks may not necessarily replace crypto-native companies but are more likely to rely on specialized infrastructure service providers to collaborate in areas such as custody, brokerage, staking, and asset tokenization. As companies that fail to obtain MiCA licenses gradually exit the European market, assets may further concentrate among regulated entities. However, Schneider believes that self-custody models and institutional custody models will continue to coexist in the long term. Industry insiders believe that the European crypto industry is entering a "regulation-driven consolidation cycle." For crypto startups that previously relied on rapid innovation and asset-light models, the core competitiveness in the future may no longer be just technological speed, but compliance capability, capital scale, and the ability to integrate financial infrastructure.

According to Bitcoin Magazine, Lightning Labs has released the alpha version of Wavelength, a toolkit that provides self-hosted Bitcoin payment capabilities for developers and AI agents through a simple non-custodial API, without the need to run nodes, manage channels, or obtain liquidity.Wavelength supports on-chain Bitcoin, Lightning Network payments, and settlement layers similar to Ark, with each off-chain payment using standard BOLT 11 invoices, allowing interoperability with existing Lightning Network. AI agents can call the API through the Model Context Protocol (MCP), hold balances, and pay for API calls in the smallest units, among other services. Wavelength is live on Signet and testnet, with mainnet access by invitation only, initially supporting Bitcoin, and stablecoin support planned through Taproot Assets.

Famous trader Killa posted that Bitcoin's historical bear markets typically complete a 5-wave adjustment and form two significant peaks. The first peak often occurs after the initial major rebound following the top, known as the "complacency peak," where the market generally believes that the bull market has returned. Subsequently, prices usually continue to decline to new lows. He pointed out that similar structures appeared in the cycles of 2014, 2022, and 2026.After the complacency peak is formed, the market typically experiences a "dead cat bounce" and establishes a phase bottom; as market sentiment deteriorates and short positions concentrate, a short squeeze then drives the price rebound, with the final bottom usually forming after the second significant retest.Killa believes that BTC has currently swept through the bottom formed by the "dead cat bounce" and completed a 5-wave adjustment structure similar to previous cycles. From a structural perspective, the adjustment wave has ended, and the bottom may have already formed. However, he remains cautious about the time cycle. Previous bear markets typically lasted about 365 days before forming the final bottom, while this round, if the bottom has already appeared, has only lasted about 260 days, which is about 100 days earlier than the historical cycle. Currently, he maintains a 50-50 judgment, but compared to significantly making new lows, the likelihood of forming higher lows subsequently is greater.

Lightning Labs announced on the X platform that it has launched Wavelength, a self-hosted Bitcoin payment toolkit designed to make integrating Bitcoin into applications as simple as calling an API.The platform is built on a layer similar to Ark, supporting developers, AI agents, and vibe coders to access Lightning payments for any application without the need to run nodes, manage channels, or acquire liquidity. It also supports AI agents using Bitcoin payment APIs, data sources, and other services through MCP tool calls. Wavelength is currently available in alpha version on signet and testnet, with mainnet access requiring an invitation.

According to monitoring by BitcoinTreasuries.NET, the South Korean listed company K Wave Media has sold its remaining 88 bitcoins to repay a debt of 6 million dollars, reducing its total bitcoin holdings to zero.

According to Jinshi, Paul Ciana, the head of technical research at Bank of America, stated that investors should hedge against further rebounds in the S&P 500 index and prepare for a potential "three-wave correction" in the coming months. Ciana pointed out that the S&P 500 index has risen nearly 17% since the March low, but after reaching a recent peak on June 2, the upward momentum has shown signs of fatigue and could drop to 6,850 points, about 7.6% lower than current levels. He emphasized that as the risk of a correction accumulates, the price trend is "overstretched," and momentum is deteriorating, suggesting a "defensive stance" from July to September.

According to CoinDesk, Wall Street broker Bernstein pointed out in a recent report that the rapid integration of the market technology stack is increasing the likelihood of a new round of mergers and acquisitions in the field of sports event contracts and financial markets.The report states that in the past eight months, major prediction platforms have been developing towards simultaneously controlling customer distribution and exchange infrastructure. Although Kalshi and Polymarket have core technology stacks, their distribution capabilities are relatively lagging, making them potential acquisition targets.Recent actions include DraftKings acquiring Railbird to launch DKeX, Robinhood collaborating with Susquehanna to create Rothera, and Coinbase acquiring The Clearing Company. Bernstein believes that Robinhood and Coinbase are currently in a relatively advantageous position in the competitive landscape, as both have large consumer user bases and fully owned regulated infrastructures, while Kalshi and Polymarket are viewed as potential acquisition targets due to their lack of large-scale distribution capabilities.

Liquid Capital founder Yi Lihua posted that the current Bitcoin trend represents the third wave of decline since the peak of 1011. According to volatility theory and cyclical patterns, this may be the final major drop.Yi Lihua pointed out that the main influencing factors for this round of decline include the performance of the U.S. stock market and Strategy, while closely monitoring the Federal Reserve's response to CPI data to see if it will change interest rate cut or hike expectations, which could trigger a continued pullback in the U.S. stock market. Additionally, black swan or explosive events often occur at the tail end of past bear markets, which have not yet appeared and still require ongoing observation.He believes that based on Bitcoin's peak of $126,000, a 60% drop would bring it down to about $51,000, and a 66% drop would bring it down to about $43,000. Regardless of where the final bottom lies, July and August may be the last bottoming area of this cycle and the most noteworthy time window for bottom fishing in the next three years.

According to the latest industry reports and corporate disclosure documents, the technology industry is experiencing a large-scale wave of layoffs driven by artificial intelligence (AI) in 2026. Despite several companies achieving record high revenues, major tech giants are intensively restructuring their organizational frameworks to reallocate funds towards AI infrastructure development and to enhance operational efficiency through AI. Data shows that in May of this year, the number of layoffs in the tech industry reached the highest monthly record in years, with AI being the core reason for the layoffs.On the execution level, several leading companies have implemented large-scale personnel reductions. Oracle's latest documents reveal that in the past 12 months, 21,000 employees (approximately 13% of the total workforce) have been laid off due to internal AI technology deployment. Amazon cut 16,000 corporate positions in January this year, with management expecting that the widespread application of generative AI will significantly reduce the demand for traditional roles. While Meta laid off about 8,000 employees, nearly 7,000 were reorganized into core AI business positions. Block significantly reduced its workforce by 4,000, nearly halving its total number of employees to adapt to the flattened operational model brought about by AI tools.Additionally, companies including Cisco (4,000 people), Intuit (3,000 people), Atlassian (1,600 people), Cloudflare (1,100 people), Snap (1,000 people), as well as Coinbase, Salesforce, and others have announced substantial layoff plans related to AI transformation this year. At the same time, although Google, Microsoft, and IBM have not disclosed specific total layoff numbers, they are also continuously advancing rolling job replacements and restructuring linked to AI strategies.

DeFi protocol Altura's CEO Ranveer Arora announced that due to "unprecedented" withdrawal requests over the weekend, the platform will orderly close its stablecoin yield vault. It is reported that within 24 hours prior to the announcement, Altura processed over 8.5 million USDT in instant redemptions.This wave of withdrawals was primarily influenced by market panic triggered by the severe de-pegging of another yield-bearing stablecoin, Main Street (msUSD). Although Altura officials clarified that they have no direct risk exposure to Main Street, concerns arose in the market because both projects share the same reserve proof service provider, Accountable. Currently, Altura has notified all counterparties and has begun to unwind its strategic funds in exchanges, private credit, and real-world assets (RWA) to ensure that all redemptions can be completed fairly and transparently. It is understood that the total locked value of the vault on HyperEVM once reached 39 million dollars.

According to Bloomberg, one of Africa's most valuable fintech startups, Flutterwave, has sold a portion of its equity to blockchain company Ripple to drive the expansion of its payment business and strategic cooperation plans.Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga Agboola stated in an interview that Ripple's investment has valued Flutterwave at $3.3 billion. However, he declined to disclose the specific amount of Ripple's investment and the percentage of shares Ripple holds in Flutterwave.Flutterwave is one of Africa's largest payment infrastructure companies, providing businesses with cross-border payment, collection, and financial service solutions, while Ripple has been increasingly expanding its presence in the global payment network and stablecoin sectors in recent years. This investment is seen as an important move for Ripple to further expand into the African payment market.

According to on-chain analysis platform Lookonchain (@lookonchain), a certain over-the-counter trading whale bought 29,000 ETH (approximately $53.1 million) during last week's ETH decline and sold all of it 5 hours ago, making a profit of about $6.4 million from this trading operation.

According to on-chain analyst Ai Yi's monitoring, a certain whale has increased its position again after half a month. Three hours ago, it spent 10 million USDe to buy 5,817.33 ETH at an average price of $1,718.88; since May 18, it has cumulatively invested $30.6 million to build its ETH position, far exceeding the previous wave amount.

The prediction market liquidity aggregation infrastructure Fortune Protocol officially announced the launch of the "Summer Heat" Carnival joint growth event. This event brings together several top AI and infrastructure projects, aiming to create the most anticipated Web3 celebration of summer 2026.It is reported that this carnival will last until June 25, with a total prize pool of up to 2,000 USDT. The event adopts a "zero threshold, high incentive" model, where ordinary users only need to complete basic social interaction tasks through the Galxe platform to share in the generous rewards.As a pioneer in AI-driven prediction markets, Fortune Protocol's collaboration with multiple ecological partners not only achieves a strong synergy in brand presence but also ignites community participation enthusiasm through the "Summer Heat" theme, laying a solid user foundation for the explosion of the prediction market track in 2026.

According to The Block, regarding the gradual shutdown of the Cardano ecosystem data analysis and infrastructure platform TapTools, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson responded that TapTools is another loss in the ecosystem following JPG Store, and warned of a potential "wave of failures," expecting more projects to shut down, DeFi operations to cease, and industry consolidation in the second half of the year.He stated that some older projects no longer have investment value, resources to support struggling projects are limited, and he lacks direct control over ecosystem funding decisions and treasury allocation.

Bitmine Chairman Tom Lee stated that he remains optimistic about the cryptocurrency market entering a new super cycle and believes that Ethereum will become a core beneficiary asset. Tom Lee pointed out that the two main driving forces of this cycle are asset tokenization driven by Wall Street and the rapid development of AI Agents.He stated, "We continue to expect that the cryptocurrency market and Ethereum will usher in a super cycle." Additionally, Tom Lee believes that the significant correction of Ethereum previously has provided an attractive buying opportunity. Currently, the staking scale within the Ethereum ecosystem continues to rise, with over 39.2 million ETH staked, accounting for about 32% of the total supply.According to market news, Bitmine increased its holdings by a total of 111,942 ETH last week, with its ETH holdings accounting for approximately 4.47% of the total supply of 120.7 million ETH.