ABADOU MADRIDI

Cantor said bitcoin’s cycle suggests the bear market may be entering its final stretch, with a market bottom possible in the coming months. In a note, the bank urged investors to focus on networks with durable value accrual, according to CoinDesk.

President Donald Trump's 927-page federal financial disclosure, released Tuesday by the Office of Government Ethics, reveals more than $1.2 billion in combined crypto earnings for 2025 — driven by his memecoin business and the World Liberty Financial DeFi venture his family controls. The filing arrived one day after a landmark Supreme Court ruling expanded presidential power over the independent agencies that regulate digital assets, including the SEC and CFTC, sharpening conflict-of-interest questions about Trump's simultaneous roles as crypto investor and crypto policymaker.The Three Income Streams That Topped $1.2 BillionCIC Digital, Trump's memecoin business, earned approximately $636 million in royalties — the largest single income stream in the disclosure. Trump launched the token three days before his January 2025 inauguration, a timeline that made the asset's existence and pricing inseparable from his political transition. World Liberty Financial, the DeFi venture approximately 38% owned by a Trump family entity, added approximately $515 million from token sales and $65 million from equity in its holding company — a combined $580 million from a single crypto venture. Trump separately disclosed more than $100 million in Bitcoin and Ethereum holdings.The scale of these earnings has no precedent in presidential financial disclosure history. Previous presidents with significant financial interests have typically disclosed real estate, equity portfolios, and book royalties. Trump's disclosure is the first to show a sitting president earning nine-figure sums from digital assets he simultaneously has authority to regulate.The Supreme Court Ruling That Arrived the Day BeforeThe timing of the disclosure alongside Trump v. Slaughter — a 6-3 Supreme Court decision released Monday — is the most consequential context for understanding the conflict of interest questions now in play. The ruling lets presidents fire commissioners at independent regulatory agencies without cause, overturning Humphrey's Executor, a 91-year-old precedent that had shielded those agencies from White House political influence. Legal analysts have noted the ruling extends to the SEC and CFTC — the two agencies with primary jurisdiction over crypto regulation.Trump welcomed the decision on Truth Social: "This Decision gives tremendous additional Power back to the Presidency, where it belongs. It is an Honor to be the sitting President who, after all these years, WON this very important, and hard fought, Case." The combination of a disclosure showing $1.2 billion in crypto earnings and a ruling giving Trump direct removal power over the SEC and CFTC commissioners creates a regulatory conflict-of-interest structure without historical precedent.World Liberty Financial and the Foreign Government DimensionWorld Liberty Financial has drawn the most acute scrutiny of the Trump crypto ventures — not solely because of its scale but because of who has used its infrastructure. In May 2025, Abu Dhabi state fund MGX settled a $2 billion Binance investment using the firm's USD1 stablecoin, routing foreign government money through a token the president's family helps control. Senate Democrats demanded hearings into the venture's foreign ties following that transaction. The White House has denied that the reported UAE deal shaped any Trump administration policy positions.The MGX-USD1 transaction and the $515 million in World Liberty Financial token sales documented in Tuesday's disclosure now sit alongside the Supreme Court ruling in a regulatory environment where the president can remove the commissioners of the agencies overseeing both. Lawmakers have pushed to bar federal officials from crypto transactions of this kind, though no such legislation has yet passed.The Market Context and Who Lost While Trump GainedThe disclosure landed while Bitcoin sat near $58,500 — down more than 50% from its October 2025 record above $126,000. Most small wallets that bought the Trump memecoin have lost money, according to public blockchain data. Trump's $636 million in memecoin royalties, set against those retail losses, represents a transfer of value from the retail buyers of the token to its creator — a dynamic that will keep the conflict-of-interest questions active as the agencies Trump now has direct removal power over write the sector's regulatory rules.The CLARITY Act — currently progressing toward a Senate floor vote after July 13 recess — is the legislation most directly relevant to those rules. Its passage under an administration where the president has disclosed $1.2 billion in crypto earnings and gained removal power over the SEC and CFTC will be scrutinized through a conflict-of-interest lens that Tuesday's disclosure has made significantly sharper.

The market for digital assets is attracting renewed attention after the publication of a U.S. financial statement related to Donald TRUMP’s interests. The document reveals the scale of income from crypto, with significant emphasis placed on cryptocurrencies, token sales, and blockchain-related projects. Among the declared assets are Bitcoin and Ethereum, two major references in the sector. This publication comes as the links between politics, regulation, and the crypto industry are becoming increasingly important in the United States.

Bitcoin touched its lowest level since September 2024 on Thursday, falling to $58,100 before rebounding to approximately $59,700 — a recovery that has so far failed to spread convincingly across the broader crypto market. Ethereum extended its losing streak to three consecutive days, dropping a further 1% to around $1,550. Another $1 billion in futures positions were liquidated in 24 hours. And the derivatives market — from implied volatility to options skew to open interest composition — is flashing signals that suggest the bounce may be technical rather than structural.
The Bounce: $58,100 Low, $59,700 Recovery, Barely Moving Since
Bitcoin recently traded near $59,700 after touching $58,100 — a level that represents a full round-trip below the $59,375 cycle low that Standard Chartered's Geoffrey Kendrick declared the confirmed bottom on June 13. The breach of that level, even briefly, complicates the bottom-confirmation framework that had been building throughout June and raises the question of whether the $59,000-$60,000 zone is providing genuine support or is simply the level at which short-term buyers and short-covering temporarily offset the structural selling pressure.
US equity markets opened Friday indicating further weakness. Nasdaq 100 futures fell 1% and S&P 500 futures dropped 0.4% since midnight UTC as the three-month tech rally continued to unwind. The correlation between crypto and AI-driven tech equities that has defined June remained fully intact — Bitcoin's bounce from $58,100 was not driven by any crypto-specific catalyst but by the same brief stabilization visible across risk assets more broadly.
The One Bright Spot: AAVE Surges 6.8% on Kraken Acquisition Talks
In an otherwise uniformly bearish session, AAVE added as much as 6.8% since midnight — building on a 17% gain over the past week — after CoinDesk reported that Kraken is in talks to acquire a 15% stake in the DeFi lender at a $385 million valuation. The AAVE move is the clearest example this week of what works in the current environment: specific, fundamental catalysts from real business development rather than macro narrative, exactly the kind of event-driven price action that can outperform in a broadly risk-off market where narrative-led assets are underperforming.
Solana also outperformed modestly, adding 2% to trade around $68.95 after tumbling to $64.05 on Thursday — an honorable mention in a session where most assets extended losses.
Derivatives: $1 Billion in Liquidations, Shorts Being Added, Volatility Spiking
The derivatives picture is the most important element of Friday's session for assessing what comes next. Over the past 24 hours, another $1 billion in futures positions were liquidated — with long positions again accounting for the majority, continuing the pattern that has persisted since Wednesday's FOMC-driven selloff. Notably, Ethereum saw more liquidations than Bitcoin in the past 12 hours — consistent with ETH's larger percentage decline and its failure to participate in Bitcoin's bounce.
Bitcoin futures open interest rose for a second consecutive day to 778,000 BTC — a sharp increase from recent lows near 730,000 BTC — with the surge occurring during Thursday's late selloff. Rising open interest during a price decline signals that traders are adding new short positions into the dip rather than covering existing ones, anticipating further downside. This is structurally different from the short-squeeze dynamics that drove earlier bounces and suggests the current positioning is weighted toward more selling rather than a forced recovery.
The implied volatility picture reinforces the concern. Bitcoin's BVIV index jumped to 53% — its highest since June 7 and a sharp rise from the June 16 low of 39% when the market was calm ahead of the FOMC. ETH's implied volatility index climbed to 66%. The VIX rose to 20% from 15% recently but remains within its range since early April — equities are not in panic mode, which means crypto is expressing more fear than the broader risk environment appears to warrant.
The one-week Bitcoin options skew on Deribit is approaching 30% — reflecting a substantial premium for put options over calls and underscoring strong near-term downside fear. The one-month and three-month skews are conveying the same message. Block flows included a large trade in the $53,000 put expiring July 10 — a bet on Bitcoin falling a further 10% from current levels within two weeks — alongside demand for Ether risk reversals.
Ether and Altcoin Positioning: Mixed Signals
Ethereum's derivatives picture is somewhat more constructive than Bitcoin's, despite the price underperformance. ETH futures open interest has remained stable near 14 million ETH since at least June 15 — suggesting traders are not aggressively adding shorts into Ether's decline, which is a modest positive relative to Bitcoin's surging short interest. A similar pattern holds for XRP.
Solana's open interest has pulled back from record highs but remains elevated — pointing to potential continued volatility in either direction. The OI-adjusted 24-hour cumulative volume delta shows bearish dominance across most of the top 25 cryptocurrencies, with the notable exceptions of BNB, SOL, and TON — bears are more aggressive than bulls across the market, favoring market orders over passive limit orders, a trend that has persisted since Tuesday.
Token Losers: AI Tokens, HYPE, ENA
AI tokens continued their unwind — RENDER, NEAR, FET, and TAO each lost between 1% and 1.5% on Friday, extending a decline that has tracked the AI equity selloff in semiconductor and tech stocks throughout the week. HYPE fell 2.6% and has now lost 18.5% since touching a record high 12 days ago — the most dramatic reversal of H1 2026's biggest winner as the risk-off environment finally caught up with even Hyperliquid's extraordinary year-to-date gains.
Ethena's ENA remains one of the worst-performing altcoins, losing another 5% on Friday and now down 34% from its June 3 monthly high. ENA's specific underperformance reflects a structural issue beyond the broader bear market: a portion of the platform's yield-generation strategy depends on positive funding rates, which have now flipped negative — meaning the product's income mechanism is working against holders rather than for them in the current market environment.
What Comes Next: PCE, Options Expiry, and the $59,000 Floor
Friday's session combines three simultaneous events that will determine whether Bitcoin's $58,100 low holds as a floor or marks the beginning of a deeper breakdown. Core PCE — the Fed's preferred inflation measure — delivers the H1's final major inflation data point, with a soft reading the only scheduled catalyst capable of shifting the macro headwind that has driven $6 billion in 30-day ETF outflows. The $10.6 billion Deribit options expiry at month-end adds mechanical pressure from 80% of positions currently out-of-the-money clustered around the $60,000 put. And the $59,000-$60,000 floor — tested once on June 5, defended through the month, and now retested at $58,100 — is the technical level on which the entire H2 recovery thesis depends.