Author: Gabby

Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley has officially disclosed its ownership of shares in two exchange-traded funds focused on XRP, signaling a growing acceptance of Ripple’s native token within traditional finance. According to a recent quarterly filing with regulators, the financial institution reported holding a modest number of shares in both the Volatility Shares XRP ETF and the Grayscale XRP ETF. While these positions are relatively small compared to the firm’s broader portfolio, the move places Morgan Stanley among a select group of major banks now gaining indirect exposure to XRP through regulated investment vehicles.

This disclosure comes as Morgan Stanley continues to deepen its involvement in the crypto space. Earlier this month, the bank also filed an updated registration for a proposed Solana exchange-traded fund, which would not only track the price of SOL but also generate additional returns through staking rewards. The filing indicates that staking providers would be chosen based on reliability and performance, with rewards incorporated into the trust’s overall returns. Such steps suggest that Morgan Stanley views digital assets as a long-term growth area, despite periodic market volatility.

The XRP ETF holdings are particularly notable given that Ripple’s payment technology has been praised for its speed and lower costs compared to traditional systems like SWIFT. Although Morgan Stanley has not directly purchased XRP, its investment in these ETFs represents a vote of confidence in the asset’s institutional viability. Other financial giants, including Bank of America and UBS, have also reported similar small stakes in XRP-linked products in recent filings, indicating a broader trend of cautious yet growing institutional interest.

Market data reveals that institutional appetite for XRP remains resilient even as other digital assets face headwinds. Over the past three weeks, XRP investment products saw nearly $86 million in fresh inflows, while Bitcoin and Ethereum funds experienced significant outflows. On a recent Thursday, spot XRP ETFs recorded roughly $1.77 million in net inflows, with Bitwise’s product accounting for the entire amount. Meanwhile, derivatives activity has been steady, with traders focusing on options with strike prices around $1.60 and longer-term targets near $3.40 by September. At the time of writing, XRP traded near $1.30, up about 4% in the previous day, though trading volume dipped by roughly 13%.

Private equity heavyweights Apollo Global Management and Blackstone are orchestrating a monumental $36 billion debt syndication to fuel Anthropic’s AI infrastructure expansion. This financing, potentially the largest private credit deal in history, will acquire custom tensor processing units from Google. Anthropic plans to lease these chips to power its Claude chatbot and related AI models, marking a significant escalation in the race for computing power.

The deal’s structure involves Apollo and Blackstone pooling capital from other investors while retaining substantial stakes. Broadcom, a key collaborator on Google’s TPU designs, is underwriting payments on the largest tranches, effectively using its financial strength to de-risk the investment. Investor orders are due this week, and the transaction may close as early as next week, though terms could still adjust.

For Anthropic, this deepens its capital strategy, building on previous equity raises and long-term compute contracts. In April, the company secured roughly 3.5 gigawatts of TPU capacity through an expanded Google and Broadcom partnership, with deployment starting in 2027 as part of a $50 billion domestic compute initiative. That same month, Anthropic raised $6.5 billion at a $965 billion valuation, surpassing OpenAI’s paper valuation as demand for Claude grows.

Anthropic’s revenue run rate has surged past $30 billion annually, more than tripling from $9 billion at the end of 2025. Its enterprise API market share climbed from 12% in 2023 to 32% by mid-2025, driven by large financial and industrial clients integrating Claude into production. This growth persists amid regulatory scrutiny: in April, U.S. Treasury officials convened major bank CEOs over cyber risks from Anthropic’s forthcoming Claude Mythos model, which internal tests showed could uncover vast software vulnerabilities.

Broadcom’s move to guarantee payments signals that AI hardware suppliers are morphing into structured finance partners. The chip firm is central to Google’s TPU roadmap and will support future chips Anthropic leases, including next-gen designs with custom memory bandwidth improvements. This Blackstone-Apollo deal is just one example of private equity’s aggressive push into AI infrastructure. Earlier this month, Anthropic partnered with Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Apollo, and Hellman & Friedman on a $1.5 billion venture to deploy Claude across portfolio companies in healthcare, manufacturing, and other sectors. In crypto markets, this trend highlights how capital concentrates around dominant AI platforms, while tokenized AI projects struggle for attention.

Grayscale Investments is reportedly negotiating a seed investment worth approximately $115 million in HYPE tokens for its proposed Hyperliquid staking ETF, signaling deeper integration of decentralized finance into traditional financial markets. The deal would involve swapping about 2 million HYPE tokens for shares in the fund, providing initial capital ahead of a public listing.

The asset manager has revised its earlier filing with the SEC, shifting from a plain spot HYPE ETF to a staking-focused vehicle now branded as the Grayscale Hyperliquid Staking ETF. This updated structure allows the fund to earn protocol rewards from staked tokens, in addition to price appreciation, pending regulatory approval for both the ETF and its staking mechanics.

If approved, the ETF will trade on Nasdaq under the ticker HYPG. The seed investment comes from Hyper Holdings Global LP, a Hyperliquid entity, which will receive ETF shares in exchange for the HYPE tokens. This move positions Grayscale to compete with 21Shares, which recently launched the first US-listed Hyperliquid ETFs, including one with built-in staking rewards.

The HYPE token has shown strong performance, recently reaching an all-time high above $62 and currently trading near $60.99, with a market cap in the tens of billions. The $115 million seed deal represents roughly 12% of the token’s daily trading volume, which could tighten supply and support prices. Analysts note that while the transaction will likely occur over-the-counter, its effect on market dynamics is similar to a large buy order, reducing available supply in the open market.

On-chain activity shows major holders like Galaxy Digital and Loracle actively staking and unstaking large amounts of HYPE, adding to the narrative that ETF issuers are entering a competitive capital environment. The Grayscale ETF’s success hinges on SEC approval, but the firm’s proactive seed talks suggest confidence in the product’s eventual launch. Traders are watching volume levels and price action to gauge whether ETF demand will sustain HYPE’s upward momentum or if speculators will use the news to exit positions.

Wintermute, a leading quantitative market maker in the crypto space, has started providing continuous two-way liquidity on several major prediction market platforms. This move extends their infrastructure into event contracts that blend digital assets and traditional macro themes. The firm now streams bilateral buy and sell quotes across multiple venues, where aggregate monthly prediction market trading volume has exceeded $20 billion in 2026, despite liquidity still being in an early phase by institutional standards.

According to reports, Wintermute already handles over $3.5 trillion in annual trading volume across spot, derivatives, and DeFi markets. This new business line aims to extend their cross-asset capabilities into event contracts covering elections, macro data releases, and crypto-specific flows. Jake Ostrovskis, Wintermute’s head of OTC trading, noted that demand in prediction markets resembles traditional asset classes, but with thinner order books and wider spreads compared to established futures or options.

The firm’s goal is to post continuous bilateral quotes that tighten spreads, deepen liquidity, and make implied probabilities more usable for traders and institutions. Ostrovskis emphasized that tighter spreads and greater trading capacity should improve the quality of probability signals from platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi, turning them into data sources similar to traditional derivatives markets rather than exotic side bets. This aligns with Wintermute Ventures’ broader view that everything becomes tradeable as crypto rails transform prediction markets into financial tools rather than niche gambling.

Wintermute is not alone in this space; firms like Jump Trading and Galaxy Digital already provide liquidity to event contracts. Lifetime trading volume on Polymarket and Kalshi has surpassed $150 billion, based on data from industry trackers. However, monthly turnover has slightly cooled from a record growth run. Ultra-short event contracts tied to bitcoin and ether dominate flows on these platforms, with five-to-15-minute up-down bets on BTC and ETH accounting for over half of their crypto volume.

Regulatory risks are mounting alongside growth. Spain recently ordered ISP-level blocks on both Polymarket and Kalshi over unlicensed gambling concerns, becoming the fifth country to take such action in 2026. Wintermute’s move effectively treats these markets as another derivatives frontier, leveraging stablecoin settlement, on-chain clearing, and automated risk management that resemble the institutional DeFi stacks they are already building through products like the Armitage vault platform. If Armitage represents Wintermute’s bet on DeFi lending running on institutional-style vaults, their push into prediction markets signals a wager that event contracts will evolve into a derivatives-like infrastructure layer rather than remaining a regulatory gray zone.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has greenlit Kalshi to introduce the nation’s first federally supervised Bitcoin perpetual futures contract, marking a milestone for onshore crypto derivatives trading. Announced on Friday, the CFTC confirmed that Kalshi can list and trade the BTCPERP product, which must adhere to the Commodity Exchange Act and related rules.

Unlike standard futures, perpetual contracts have no expiration date, enabling traders to hold positions indefinitely while betting on price movements. This approval grants US traders access to a derivative that was previously confined to overseas platforms.

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour stated that this move extends the firm’s reach beyond prediction markets into regulated derivatives, potentially enhancing risk management and capital efficiency for American enterprises. The CFTC also issued a no-action letter to Coinbase, allowing its subsidiary to offer certain perpetual futures using Bitcoin, Ether, and stablecoins as margin collateral for eligible customers.

President Donald Trump recently praised the shift, claiming his administration reversed the trend of pushing crypto innovation overseas. While perpetual futures can yield significant profits from small price shifts, industry experts warn that leverage can magnify losses during volatile periods.

As Kalshi expands its financial market role, it faces ongoing legal and political challenges. The company recently sued Minnesota to block a state law banning prediction market platforms, arguing that the CFTC has exclusive jurisdiction over such contracts. Additionally, Kalshi has backed a new advocacy group, Americans for Fair Markets, to promote policies like know-your-customer rules, insider trading bans, and full CFTC funding.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has given the green light for the first bitcoin perpetual futures contract to be traded on a regulated exchange in the United States. This landmark decision ends the dominance of offshore platforms in handling these high-volume derivative products.

According to a Friday announcement, an unnamed regulated exchange received approval to list and trade bitcoin perpetual futures. These contracts allow traders to bet on Bitcoin price movements indefinitely without an expiration date, using a funding rate mechanism to keep prices aligned with the spot market. CFTC Chairman Mike Selig stated that this move supports President Trump’s vision of making America the global crypto hub, calling perpetuals a key risk management tool for the crypto market.

The approval follows months of signals from CFTC leadership and comes just days after President Trump claimed on social media that his administration saved the crypto industry from previous policies that drove innovation offshore. Selig had previously acknowledged the need to reverse the trend of firms moving liquidity abroad.

Perpetual futures have been a staple of offshore exchanges since 2016, accounting for more than 70% of centralized trading volume. In 2025, the global trading volume for these contracts reached $61.7 trillion, a 29% increase from the prior year. The CFTC’s decision is expected to bring this activity back to U.S. soil.

While the CFTC did not name the approved exchange, prediction market platform Kalshi had announced plans to launch crypto perpetuals in April, securing a margin trading license from the regulator. The platform, which planned to offer up to 10x leverage on Bitcoin, scheduled a launch event in New York City for its product codenamed ‘Timeless’. Rival Polymarket also entered the space in April, intensifying competition.

The CFTC’s approach aims to limit excessive leverage and systemic risk, though the guidance is not formal rulemaking, meaning future leadership could reverse it. This shift is part of broader regulatory changes under the Trump administration, including joint SEC-CFTC efforts on crypto asset taxonomy and expanded tokenized collateral frameworks.

Ethereum is fighting to hold its ground near $1,800, with increasing leverage, long-position crowding, and ongoing ETF outflows adding to the downward pressure on the second-largest cryptocurrency. After sliding below the key $2,000 mark, the focus now is on whether buyers can protect the $1,800 to $1,750 support zone.

Data from CryptoQuant shows the estimated leverage ratio hovering around 0.74, while funding rates have remained positive since April. This combination points to heavy long positioning even as prices fall, leaving the market exposed to forced liquidations if the trend continues. The relative strength index is near 31, suggesting oversold conditions, but no solid rebound signal has emerged yet.

U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs have recorded 13 straight sessions of net redemptions, totaling roughly $695 million. A single day saw about $121 million withdrawn, highlighting a waning appetite from institutional investors. The ETF outflows add to a broader rotation into altcoins like Solana, XRP, and Hyperliquid’s HYPE, with combined Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs seeing nearly $2.7 billion in outflows over the past two weeks.

Technical patterns reinforce the bearish outlook. Ethereum had already broken an ascending channel, with the MACD turning negative. Analysts had warned that losing support near $2,080 could lead to a drop toward $1,800. That scenario is now playing out, and derivatives data shows that over $1.7 billion in long positions could be liquidated if prices fall further. The $1,800 level is seen as a psychological floor, and a break below it could trigger more significant declines.

For now, Ethereum’s price action is shaped more by capital outflows and derivatives risk than by spot demand. The key question is whether it can absorb another wave of ETF redemptions and defend $1,800 without sparking a liquidation cascade.

Mark Cuban, the billionaire investor, recently made headlines by selling the majority of his Bitcoin holdings, stating that the cryptocurrency has lost its purpose as a hedge against economic turmoil. In an interview on the Portfolio Players podcast, Cuban revealed that he offloaded about 80% of his BTC after observing gold surge to $5,000 during the US-Iran conflict while Bitcoin declined. He had previously believed Bitcoin would act as a superior version of gold, but the conflict challenged that view.

Cuban’s disappointment was clear when he noted that gold performed as expected during geopolitical stress, but Bitcoin did not follow suit. He argued that during times of fiat currency weakness and geopolitical instability, Bitcoin should behave like a crisis asset, yet it failed to deliver. However, data paints a different picture. Since the Iran war began on February 28, 2026, Bitcoin has actually outperformed gold, gaining over 16% while gold prices fell. At the time of Cuban’s comments, Bitcoin was trading near $77,500, down from its all-time high but still above pre-war levels.

Cuban’s shift has sparked debate among investors. Some see his move as a confirmation that the digital gold narrative is flawed, while others view it as a mistimed decision. Cuban now holds Ethereum for its utility but dismisses most altcoins as junk. The broader market continues to reassess Bitcoin’s role as a safe haven, with some arguing that it behaves more like a high-beta macro asset than a traditional hedge. Regardless, Cuban’s verdict remains blunt: Bitcoin, in his eyes, has lost the plot, even if the numbers suggest otherwise.