Posts from the 'Op-Ed' Category

SpaceX’s US$75B IPO will drain crypto liquidity. Here is what happens next

SpaceX’s US$75B IPO will drain crypto liquidity. Here is what happens next

The cryptocurrency market recently climbed 1.85 per cent to reach a total valuation of US$2.17 trillion over a 24-hour period. Observers might mistake this movement for a sudden resurgence of blockchain-native innovation. This rally stems entirely from a broader macroeconomic rebound rather than any internal technological catalyst.

The digital asset space currently exhibits a 91 per cent correlation with the S&P 500 and an 85 per cent correlation with gold. These numbers prove that traditional interest-rate expectations and global liquidity flows dictate current price action. I view speculative financial activities like crypto trading as a form of gambling that simply offers better odds than traditional casinos. The current market structure forces retail participants into a rigged game in which institutional algorithms dominate order flow. Today, the house plays by traditional macroeconomic rules, and digital assets merely ride the coattails of institutional capital as it rotates through risk-sensitive instruments.

Traditional equity markets experienced a massive surge following distinct geopolitical developments. President Trump cancelled a planned bombing operation, and Tehran subsequently approved a draft agreement to extend the current ceasefire. Major US benchmarks closed sharply higher and reached their best levels of the session on this news. The S&P 500 recorded its best single day since April 8, which marked the initial ceasefire announcement. Small-cap stocks led this broad risk-on rotation with the Russell 2000 climbing 3.02 per cent. Market participants rapidly unwound their fear positions as geopolitical tensions eased, causing the VIX to fall 12 per cent to 19.4.

This unwinding of the previous spike demonstrates how quickly institutional algorithms react to geopolitical headlines. This rapid adjustment proves that modern trading algorithms prioritise geopolitical headlines over fundamental asset values. Investors treat these global conflicts exactly like casino bets, adjusting their exposure the moment a diplomatic headline offers a slight statistical advantage.

Beneath this optimistic equity rally lies a troubling macroeconomic reality, highlighting the urgent need for decentralised financial alternatives. US producer prices rose 1.1 per cent month-on-month in May, completely ignoring analyst estimates of 0.7 per cent. This pushed the year-on-year reading to 6.5 per cent, marking the hottest annual inflation pace since November 2022.

Core producer prices also climbed 0.4 per cent, sitting just below the 0.5 per cent consensus and proving that fuel prices drive the current inflation burden. The World Bank recognised this deteriorating environment and cut its 2026 global growth forecast to 2.5 per cent from 2.9 per cent. They explicitly warned that growth could plummet to 1.3 per cent if energy disruptions deepen further.

The Bank also projects China will achieve only 4.2 per cent growth this year, down from five per cent in 2025, while the Eurozone stagnates at 0.8 per cent. Furthermore, US inflation has erased a full year of inflation-adjusted wage gains, leaving real pay up only 0.1 per cent since Trump took office. Even Japan faces economic headwinds as large manufacturer sentiment turned negative in the second quarter due to the Middle East conflict. Traditional financial systems consistently fail the working class by eroding purchasing power through hidden inflation taxes and arbitrary monetary policy shifts. This harsh economic reality reinforces my core belief that we must build intelligent decentralised Web4 networks to protect human wealth from centralised mismanagement and ensure transparent monetary rules.

Internal crypto mechanics amplified this macro-driven rebound through aggressive margin unwinds and speculative capital rotation. Exchanges liquidated US$75.43 million in Bitcoin positions over the past 24 hours, and short sellers accounted for 86 per cent of that total. This massive short squeeze forced bearish traders to buy back their positions, artificially inflating the price. Simultaneously, speculative capital chased high-momentum narratives, pushing the Intent category up 62.75 per cent. Tokens like Velvet surged over 90 per cent as day traders chased quick profits. This behaviour perfectly encapsulates the speculative gambling nature of the current market.

We even see prominent figures acknowledging this reality. Michael Saylor recently joked about telling his followers never to sell their Bitcoin, while clarifying that he never made the same promise for his own holdings. This candid admission strips away the cult-like devotion and reminds everyone that even the most vocal proponents treat these assets as speculative vehicles. True decentralisation requires moving beyond these personality-driven price pumps and focusing on the actual utility of artificial intelligence-enhanced blockchain architectures. We need smart contracts that execute based on verifiable real-world data rather than the whimsical tweets of influential billionaires.

Meanwhile, the technology sector prepares for a monumental liquidity event. SpaceX plans to price its initial public offering after Thursday’s close at a fixed US$135 per share. This massive offering will raise about US$75 billion at a valuation of roughly US$1.75 trillion, making it the largest listing in recorded history. Such a colossal capital raise will inevitably absorb massive amounts of global liquidity and force investors to make difficult choices between traditional tech equities and digital assets.

The near-term technical outlook for the crypto market hinges entirely on maintaining this fragile correlation with traditional equities. The immediate resistance sits at the US$2.22 trillion level, which aligns perfectly with the 78.6 per cent Fibonacci retracement. A daily close above this threshold would provide bullish confirmation and open the door for further upside. Conversely, support rests at the recent low of US$2.1 trillion, and a break below this level would signal a complete failure of the current rebound. Market participants must closely monitor traditional market reactions to major liquidity events over the next 48 hours. If traditional markets pause or reverse due to the SpaceX offering or worsening inflation data, crypto will likely follow suit.

Watch closely.

Source:
 

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

www.anndy.com
j j j

Why The CLARITY Act Will Not Pass On July 4

Why The CLARITY Act Will Not Pass On July 4

The White House certainly set a July 4, 2026 target for the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. I think this deadline remains purely aspirational. The political calendar simply does not support such an aggressive timeline. A late-summer or early-autumn passage makes far more sense.

The most glaring obstacle blocking a July 4 victory lap involves a severely shrinking Senate calendar. Lawmakers face a massive bottleneck regarding floor time before they leave for their August recess. The Senate already burned through crucial days reauthorizing Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act after a failed procedural vote on June 5. Members must now dedicate significant floor hours to debating military authorization concerning Iran and resolving Department of Homeland Security funding standoffs. Furthermore, a heavy backlog of official presidential nominations demands immediate attention. Legislative leaders simply cannot squeeze a complex market structure bill into this packed schedule.

Beyond the calendar crunch, the legislation faces a mandatory structural unification process that takes considerable time. The Senate Banking Committee passed its version of the bill on May 14 by a vote of 15 to 9. Meanwhile, the Senate Agriculture Committee approved its companion version back in January. Now, staff from both committees must merge these separate drafts into a single, cohesive document. This reconciliation process inherently demands weeks of intense back-and-forth negotiation. Merging jurisdictional boundaries between banking and agriculture committees always triggers fierce debates over oversight authority. Staffers need time to iron out these jurisdictional disputes before leadership can even schedule a full floor vote.

Even after the committees finalize a unified text, the bill must survive the notorious 60-vote filibuster threshold. This mathematical reality forces lawmakers to secure support from at least 7 Democrats. While the legislation cleared the Banking Committee with a bipartisan showing, that fragile coalition could easily fracture on the Senate floor. Key crossover Democrats have already signaled their conditional support. Senator Angela Alsobrooks explicitly stated she will only back a final floor vote if leadership adds strict new ethics provisions regarding government officials holding personal cryptocurrency. As of mid-June, negotiators have not finalized any public deal concerning these ethics and illicit finance clauses. Without a concrete agreement to satisfy these moderate demands, the bill lacks the guaranteed votes necessary to bypass a filibuster. Whipping 60 votes requires countless 1-on-1 meetings between leadership and hesitant moderates, a process that simply cannot happen overnight.

The legislative delays also stem from intense, high-stakes industry lobbying that requires active rewriting of the bill text. Over 200 crypto firms and advocacy groups, including major players like Coinbase and Ripple, fiercely urge Senate leadership to schedule an immediate vote. They want to secure a win before the midterm election campaign window slams shut. Conversely, traditional banking figures mount a formidable opposition. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and the North American Securities Administrators Association actively lobby against specific provisions surrounding decentralized finance obligations and stablecoin yield exemptions. These traditional finance leaders argue that allowing passive yield on stablecoin could disrupt the broader banking system. Crypto companies counter that banning these yields destroys their core business models. Resolving this fundamental clash requires extensive negotiations and likely necessitates rewriting key sections of the bill. Traditional banks actively compare stablecoin yields with those of unregulated money market funds in their lobbying materials to scare regulators into action.

We must also remember that the Senate does not operate in a vacuum. The upper chamber must eventually reconcile its final text with the separate House bill that passed back in July 2025. The House version contains its unique compromises and structural frameworks. After the Senate finally passes its unified bill, a conference committee must bridge the gap between the 2 chambers. This inter-chamber reconciliation adds another massive layer of complexity to the timeline. Lawmakers will debate whether to adopt the House approach to digital asset classification or stick to the Senate framework. These inter-chamber negotiations routinely take months to resolve. Expecting both chambers to finalize a unified, reconciled text by July 4 completely ignores the standard legislative process.

Given all these compounding hurdles, I would correctly view an August or autumn timeline as the sole realistic path forward. The bill still maintains a 60% probability of passing this year, but the finish line sits much further away than political theater suggests. An early August target gives leadership the necessary breathing room to finalize the committee mergers, secure the conditional Democratic votes, and manage the intense lobbying pressures. Pushing the vote past the August recess allows lawmakers to return refreshed and focused solely on this financial legislation without the distraction of intelligence authorizations and funding standoffs. Markets generally prefer certainty over rushed compromises, and a well-crafted bill taking an extra month will ultimately provide better regulatory clarity than a hastily passed July 4 measure. Market participants actually prefer a delayed but robust bill to a rushed, flawed bill that would require immediate legislative fixes next year. This extra time ensures the final text remains airtight and legally sound.

Ultimately, the rumor mill will always generate optimistic deadlines to stir up market excitement and drive trading volume. However, the mechanics of passing a complex financial regulation bill dictate a much slower, more deliberate pace. The CLARITY Act represents a monumental shift in how we regulate digital assets, and it absolutely deserves a thorough, careful legislative process. Lawmakers must navigate a packed calendar, merge competing committee drafts, satisfy moderate Democratic demands, and balance fierce industry lobbying. We should absolutely celebrate the fact that this crucial legislation is finally moving forward after years of delays. We just need to adjust our expectations regarding the exact arrival date and trust the established process.

 

 

Source:

https://www.benzinga.com/Opinion/26/06/53116515/why-the-clarity-act-will-not-pass-on-july-4

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

www.anndy.com
j j j

US$1.3T wiped out: AI stock collapse signals Bitcoin’s next leg down?

US$1.3T wiped out: AI stock collapse signals Bitcoin’s next leg down?

The cryptocurrency market currently exhibits profound signs of structural weakness as we navigate the middle of 2026. Bitcoin cycles have historically experienced massive drawdowns from their respective peaks. Previous bear markets routinely erased between 60 per cent and 80 per cent of the total market value. This specific cycle reached its absolute peak around the US$126,000 mark in October 2025.

Applying a standard 65 per cent drawdown to that peak places the potential bottom precisely in the US$44,100 range. We must look at the historical precedent to understand this trajectory. The 2017 peak experienced an 85 per cent decline. The 2021 peak suffered a 75 per cent correction. The data clearly points toward diminishing percentage drawdowns with each successive cycle. A 65 per cent drop fits perfectly within this established mathematical pattern and aligns with a much deeper correction than most retail participants currently anticipate.

I view Bitcoin fundamentally as a tech stock plus. The entire tech sector currently operates under the direct influence of the AI narrative. When the AI sector experiences a downturn, the entire tech complex follows suit. Consequently, Bitcoin will inevitably dip severely when the underlying tech leaders falter. We witnessed this exact correlation materialise in early June 2026 when AI memory chip stocks took a massive hit overnight. The sell-off began on June 5 and continued with extreme volatility tracking into the second week of June. This single session erased over US$1.3 trillion in market value from the semiconductor sector alone. The sheer scale of this capital destruction underscores the fragility of the current tech rally and its direct impact on digital asset pricing.

The initial trigger for this massive tech slump originated from Broadcom reporting its Q2 2026 earnings. The company revealed that its AI networking revenue missed analyst expectations. This disappointment occurred despite the revenue growing an impressive 143 per cent year over year.

The market reacted violently to this slight miss because investors had priced in absolute perfection. Major memory manufacturers subsequently experienced severe declines. SK Hynix dropped 7.5 per cent on June 10. Samsung Electronics fell 6.1 per cent on the exact same day. Micron Technology faced the most brutal punishment. The stock experienced extreme volatility and dropped roughly 17 per cent over just two sessions following the initial negative news. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index suffered a major single-session drop in many years. The index fell about 10 per cent in a single day, with analysts citing extreme valuation sensitivity and crowded trades as the primary reasons for the violent correction.

Tech stocks continued their downward slide into June 10 and June 11. Asian chip stocks and various AI memory names fell sharply as fears of a massive tech bubble intensified. We must understand why memory stocks took the heaviest punishment during this sell-off. Despite the extraordinarily high demand for AI High Bandwidth Memory, deep concerns emerged regarding a broader memory chip crisis.

Industry reports highlighted significant inventory buildups for legacy memory products. Investors also engaged in aggressive profit-taking. After an annual rally that pushed many memory stocks to unprecedented heights, market participants simply took the opportunity to lock in their massive gains. The combination of oversupply fears in legacy products and extreme profit taking created a perfect storm for the memory sector. Market participants recognise that legacy memory products face severe margin compression. This realisation forces institutional funds to reduce their exposure to the entire semiconductor complex. The resulting cascade of sell orders accelerates the downward price momentum across all related technology assets.

Some analysts maintain that the underlying demand fundamentals for artificial intelligence remain entirely robust despite this catastrophic sell-off. They point to continued high levels of infrastructure spending by major hyperscalers as evidence that the long-term thesis remains intact. The market cares more about immediate capital flows than long-term promises.

We also face a massive shift in capital allocation as big AI initial public offerings approach the market. SpaceX leads this upcoming wave of massive tech listings. This impending influx of new supply guarantees significant capital rotation from existing technology and crypto assets into these new public market opportunities. The market simply lacks the liquidity to sustain current valuations while simultaneously funding these massive new public debuts. Venture capitalists and retail investors alike will redirect their capital toward these fresh opportunities. This rotation ensures that existing digital assets and mature technology stocks will face persistent selling pressure throughout the remainder of the year. The liquidity drain will fundamentally alter the risk appetite across the entire financial ecosystem.

This macro tech weakness directly explains the current on-chain reality for Bitcoin. For the initial time in this specific cycle, more Bitcoin sits at an unrealised loss than in profit. The network currently holds roughly 10.5 million coins underwater against just 9.8 million coins in the green. This underwater crossover represents a critical technical inflexion point. Bitcoin currently tests its 200-week moving average near the US$61,300 level.

Every time this specific underwater crossover appeared in the past, the price landed deep in a bear market near a major cycle low. The community completely disagrees on the interpretation of this data. Some participants desperately believe a bottom forms right here. Others recognise the historical pattern and prepare for significantly more pain ahead. I look at all these converging data points and see a very clear picture.

The evidence overwhelmingly points away from a simple bottom formation. The market structure indicates we have much more downside to explore before reaching a true generational buying opportunity. We must respect the historical data and prepare for a prolonged period of capital destruction.

Source:
 

Anndy Lian is an early blockchain adopter and experienced serial entrepreneur who is known for his work in the government sector. He is a best selling book author- “NFT: From Zero to Hero” and “Blockchain Revolution 2030”.

Currently, he is appointed as the Chief Digital Advisor at Mongolia Productivity Organization, championing national digitization. Prior to his current appointments, he was the Chairman of BigONE Exchange, a global top 30 ranked crypto spot exchange and was also the Advisory Board Member for Hyundai DAC, the blockchain arm of South Korea’s largest car manufacturer Hyundai Motor Group. Lian played a pivotal role as the Blockchain Advisor for Asian Productivity Organisation (APO), an intergovernmental organization committed to improving productivity in the Asia-Pacific region.

An avid supporter of incubating start-ups, Anndy has also been a private investor for the past eight years. With a growth investment mindset, Anndy strategically demonstrates this in the companies he chooses to be involved with. He believes that what he is doing through blockchain technology currently will revolutionise and redefine traditional businesses. He also believes that the blockchain industry has to be “redecentralised”.

www.anndy.com
j j j