Why US$60K is the most important number in crypto right now

Why US$60K is the most important number in crypto right now

Bitcoin gained 2.62 per cent to reach US$63,048.16 over a 24-hour period. This price action closely tracks a 2.51 per cent rise in the total crypto market capitalisation. The entire digital asset market simply rebounds from multi-week lows. The Fear and Greed Index currently sits at an extreme fear reading of 15.

This metric confirms that broad market sentiment dictates the price action rather than any catalyst specific to Bitcoin. The broader market still remains down over 12 per cent for the week. We witness a relief rally operating within a larger downtrend. Participants must watch for sustained growth in market capitalisation above US$2.2 trillion to confirm a genuine shift away from bearish momentum. We must look past these temporary fluctuations and focus on the underlying network fundamentals.

Derivatives activity provides the mechanical explanation for this sudden upward push. Bitcoin open interest rose five per cent in the last 24 hours. This metric indicates fresh capital entering leveraged positions. Concurrently, liquidations totaled US$108.03 million. This figure represents a 19.41 per cent increase from the prior day. These numbers point directly to a squeeze of highly leveraged short positions during the upward move.

The price rise was significantly amplified by forced buying as the market liquidated these shorts. Traders should monitor the average funding rate for a flip from negative to positive. Such a shift would signal growing bullish leverage and confirm the strength of this derivatives-fueled bounce. I always treat these leveraged squeezes as speculative gambling where the odds temporarily favour the bulls. The underlying trend requires much more than a short squeeze to reverse.

Institutional flow data presents a more fragile picture of the current market structure. ETF assets under management experienced slight outflows. The total dropped from US$105.32 billion last week to US$102.05 billion currently. This capital withdrawal contradicts the retail frenzy we see in the derivatives market. The immediate technical path hinges entirely on holding the US$62,000 support level. A successful defence of this floor could propel the price toward the US$65,000 resistance zone.

The market needs a daily close above US$64,500 to signal stronger bullish conviction. Without this conviction, the asset risks falling back into the US$60,000 to US$64,000 consolidation range. The trend appears to be stabilising right now, but it remains highly vulnerable amid a multi-week decline. I monitor these ETF flows closely because they reveal the true appetite of traditional finance amid macroeconomic uncertainty. Smart money moves cautiously before major economic announcements, and this behaviour perfectly illustrates that approach.

We cannot analyse these crypto movements in a vacuum because traditional macroeconomic forces dictate global liquidity. The tape repriced everything on Friday when the May jobs report came in hot and wages firmed. This data landed on a market already nervous about inflation.

The last Consumer Price Index print stayed uncomfortably high in annual terms. Producer Price Index readings remain warm, and the current tariff regime continues feeding into prices. A strong labour market and sticky inflation lead to only one conclusion. The Federal Reserve possesses no room to cut rates and has a real reason to maintain a hard stance. The market performed the mathematics in real time. Market participants pulled forward rate-hike expectations, the 10-year yield jumped toward 4.71 per cent, and the US$ broke higher. Gold and equities subsequently took the hit. This environment highlights the inherent flaws in centralised monetary policy. Policymakers react to past data instead of anticipating future realities, creating endless cycles of boom and bust.

This inflation reckoning arrives right before the first Federal Open Market Committee meeting for the new leadership. Markets trade the May data through the lens of Kevin Warsh. He serves as the 17th Chair of the Federal Reserve and took the oath on May 22. Jerome Powell remains a voting Governor. Warsh will preside over his first meeting from June 16 to 17.

The market already decided what it expects from this transition. With a hot labour market, sticky inflation, and tariffs still in the system, a new Chair who built his reputation as an inflation hawk has every incentive to come out hard. He needs to establish credibility from day one. This logic drives the current repricing of rate hikes. A hot Consumer Price Index print hands Warsh the cover to sound hawkish and keeps the USD bid. A soft reading provides the only thing that can take the edge off this move. We will see exactly what kind of leader he truly is very soon.

This macroeconomic tightening also accelerates the push toward decentralised alternatives. As central banks tighten their grip to fight inflation, they simultaneously accelerate the development of Central Bank Digital Currencies. I view these retail digital currencies as ultimate surveillance tools and mechanisms of control. They represent the exact opposite of the financial freedom that Bitcoin provides. When traditional institutions restrict liquidity and monitor every transaction, the value proposition of a permissionless network becomes undeniable. The current inflationary environment forces policymakers into a corner. They must choose between crushing the economy with high rates or allowing inflation to erode the currency.

This dilemma drives visionary individuals and institutions toward assets that operate outside their direct control. The resilience of the Bitcoin network during these periods of extreme monetary tightening proves its viability as a sovereign store of value. People increasingly recognise that true ownership requires absolute independence from government interference and centralised banking systems.

The underlying architecture of Bitcoin demonstrates remarkable structural integrity despite this overwhelming macroeconomic pressure. The psychological floor of this market reveals itself in the order book dynamics. Bid density increases significantly by 42 per cent as the price approaches the US$60,000 threshold. This metric correlates perfectly with the Glassnode Production Cost Metric and the Miner Shutdown Price. Staying above US$60,000 is the mission now.

 

Source: https://e27.co/why-us60k-is-the-most-important-number-in-crypto-right-now-20260608/

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Interview with Author – Anndy Lian [Web4: The Age of Autonomous Intelligence]

Interview with Author – Anndy Lian [Web4: The Age of Autonomous Intelligence]

About Anndy Lian:
Anndy Lian is an all-rounded business strategist in Asia. He has provided advisory across a variety of industries for local, international, public listed companies and governments.

What inspires you to write?
My writing is entirely driven by a desire to tackle systemic problems and demystify the complex technical realities shaping our society. When I look at the current digital landscape, I see an environment where users have been reduced to products and data refugees under the weight of surveillance capitalism.

What inspires me to put pen to paper is the belief that knowledge shared is power multiplied. I write to provide a rigorous, forward-thinking blueprint that gives individuals the tools to understand, challenge tech hype, and reclaim their digital sovereignty.

What authors do you read when you aren’t writing?
When I look at authors and thinkers who influence my perspective, I am drawn to those who possess deep industry realism and refuse to get swept up in corporate or tech hype. I deeply respect pioneers, builders, and strategic minds who put in the work, say what they mean, and focus on practical frameworks over speculation.

My favorite literature consists of foundational whitepapers, rigorous economic models, and strategic treatises that analyze how human coordination, national-level regulation, and digital assets intersect to shape human civilization.

Robert Kiyosaki is one of my favourite. CZ Zhao has a good book too.

Tell us about your writing process.
My writing process is iterative, data-driven, and relies heavily on structural pressure testing. I spent three years and total of 23 versions finishing it. Because I write about bleeding-edge infrastructure and macroeconomic trends, my process begins with a raw critique of market conditions—such as tracking data extraction pipelines, analyzing validator concentration, or evaluating smart contract failures.

Once the core thesis is built, I write extensively to flesh out the concepts, and then I edit aggressively. For this book, I removed over 140 pages from the final draft simply to make it more “readable” and digestible for a mainstream audience. If a concept is too dense to be actionable for a builder or a policymaker, it gets cut.

For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
While I am a non-fiction writer, I do interact extensively with the “characters” of the machine economy: Autonomous AI Agents. My interaction with them involves rigorous behavioral modeling and game-theoretic pressure testing.

When mapping out scenes like the one in “A Day in the Life: 2035,” I am constantly evaluating how an agent like “Nate” would react to real-time supply chain data, health metrics, or zero-knowledge identity requests without human oversight. I don’t “talk” to them in a literary sense; instead, I simulate their algorithmic decision-making loops to ensure they remain cryptographically aligned with human stewardship rather than corporate exploitation.

What advice would you give other writers?
My primary advice is to write with skepticism and edit with courage. Do not write to simply repeat industry buzzwords or to flatter the pre-existing biases of your audience. If your work is going to be the basis for how people understand the future, it must survive intense internal stress tests.

Be willing to throw away entire sections of your work if they do not serve the reader’s clarity. If it takes you years and dozens of revisions to make a complex concept elegant and accessible, put in the work. True impact lies in execution and readability, not speculation.

How did you decide how to publish your books?
For my books, including Web4: The Age of Autonomous Intelligence, the decision of how to publish comes down to a balance of global accessibility, speed to market, and maintaining absolute content integrity. Because technology cycles move at an unprecedented velocity, waiting years in traditional publishing backlogs can render a forward-looking technological blueprint obsolete before it hits the shelves.

I opt for agile publishing frameworks across multiple digital formats (including PDF, Kindle, Mobi, and Epub) alongside physical rollouts (Hardback and Paperback) to ensure the community can access the insights instantly and globally. For new authors exploring the space, I highly advise prioritizing digital-first distribution and open accessibility. If your goal is to empower a global community, your infrastructure must allow you to bypass geographic and corporate gatekeepers seamlessly.

What do you think about the future of book publishing?
The future of book publishing is on the verge of its own agentic turn. We are transitioning away from a passive distribution model toward an era of intelligent, context-aware content ingestion. By 2035, fully autonomous AI agents will account for a massive percentage of digital decision-making, and this includes how information is parsed and consumed.

Books will no longer be static, inert files sitting on a digital shelf. Instead, they will act as dynamic, verifiable knowledge repositories that personal AI agents can query, verify via cryptographic audit trails, and instantly synthesize to assist humans in real-time problem solving. The future of publishing belongs to authors who write structured, high-integrity content that can seamlessly integrate into the cognitive and trust layers of tomorrow’s web.

What genres do you write?: Bitcoin & Cryptocurrencies, Technology & Infrastructure, Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence, Decentralized Finance (DeFi) & Blockchain Governance, Macroeconomics & Digital Sovereignty

 

Source: https://bookgoodies.com/interview-with-author-anndy-lian/

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#BINANCECONENCT EP 9: WEB4 BOOK LAUNCH WITH ANNDY LIAN

#BINANCECONENCT EP 9: WEB4 BOOK LAUNCH WITH ANNDY LIAN

Anndy Lian, a seasoned crypto veteran who has navigated the digital asset space since 2012, recently joined Diana from Binance on X Spaces for an exclusive conversation. The focal point of the discussion was his newly launched book, Web4: The Age of Autonomous Intelligence.

This publication is far more than a standard tech manifesto. It serves as a sharp critique of the current state of Web3 and offers a visionary blueprint for the next evolutionary leap in digital infrastructure. As artificial intelligence dominates global conversations, Lian argues that the crypto industry must adapt or risk long-term irrelevance.

The Great Web3 Illusion

Lian does not mince words when evaluating the current state of the crypto industry. Despite years of marketing centered on trustless systems, he argues that Web3 has failed to deliver on its core promise of true decentralization. The code might be decentralized, but the governance structures remain heavily centralized. Human nature, driven by greed and a desire for control, has inevitably seeped into these systems. Furthermore, the barrier to entry in the space is dangerously low.

This environment has allowed bad actors to launch projects that are essentially scams disguised as innovation. Lian believes the industry desperately needs better people and stronger guardrails to protect the original vision of a fair and transparent digital economy.

The Genesis of Web4

The concept of Web4 is not a reactionary trend. Lian began conceptualizing and writing about it as early as 2021, long before large language models became a household topic. He defines Web4 as the intelligence web, a seamless convergence of blockchain technology and artificial intelligence. In this envisioned ecosystem, autonomous intelligence takes on critical roles. AI agents can manage consensus mechanisms, execute complex tasks, and oversee digital assets without human interference. By removing human bias from governance, Web4 promises a level of decentralization that Web3 has so far failed to achieve. Lian posits that if humans continue to run the show, the system will inevitably tilt toward centralized control. Delegating specific governance and operational tasks to autonomous systems is the key to breaking this cycle.

Behind the Scenes of the Book

The journey to publish this book was grueling. Lian revealed that he wrote twenty-three full versions of the manuscript over three years. The initial drafts were essentially a journal of his experiences, serving as an exposé on the deceptive practices of certain Web3 projects. He wanted to call out the tricks companies use to appear decentralized while maintaining centralized control. Over time, the book evolved from a storytelling critique into a comprehensive architectural guide.

This pivot required massive editing. Lian cut approximately forty percent of the content to make the physical paperback viable. The original manuscript was around 150,000 words, which would have resulted in a 500-page book with prohibitive printing and shipping costs. The final physical edition is a streamlined 80,000 words, while the ebook version retains additional diagrams, appendices, and technical graphics that were removed from the print format.

The Reality of AI Agents Today

Despite his optimistic vision for autonomous systems, Lian remains highly pragmatic about the current limitations of AI technology. He points out that many users fundamentally misunderstand how to interact with AI agents. The quality of the output is entirely dependent on the quality of the input. Users must craft incredibly sharp and accurate prompts to get useful results.

A major pitfall is that people tend to treat AI output as absolute truth. Lian warns that asking an AI for a Bitcoin price prediction without providing proper context, historical data, or specific parameters will yield unreliable results. When asked if he trusts AI to manage his personal crypto portfolio, his answer is a firm no. He compares current trading bots to interns with zero market knowledge. Until AI can process live data with flawless accuracy and execute high-frequency trades safely, human oversight remains mandatory for serious financial decisions.

A Bold Prediction for 2035

One of the most striking claims in the book is the prediction that autonomous systems will be responsible for 50% of all digital decision-making by 2035. While this sounds radical to some, Lian draws a direct parallel to Industry 4.0. A decade ago, the idea of fully automated manufacturing plants seemed like science fiction. Today, it is a standard reality in global supply chains. The same rapid acceleration is happening in the digital realm.

The AI economy will fundamentally change how we work and interact within the next five years. Furthermore, Lian emphasizes a critical caveat. Just as Web3 needs AI to achieve true decentralization, AI itself must be decentralized. Allowing a handful of tech monopolies to control the foundational models of artificial intelligence poses a severe risk to global digital freedom.

The Human Element in an Autonomous Future

A common concern regarding Web4 is the fear of losing human control. Lian addresses this by clarifying that the framework remains fundamentally human-centric. Humans will always be the ones to design the roadmap, identify market gaps, and establish the core values of a project. AI acts as a powerful co-pilot.

It takes the human vision and optimizes it, making the deployment faster, more efficient, and more secure. The end product is still designed for human consumption, ensuring that the technology serves humanity rather than replacing it.

Reviving the Crypto Economy

During the audience Q&A segment, the conversation shifted to the broader state of the crypto market. When asked how to attract more users and venture capital back to the space, Lian offered blunt advice. The industry must stop focusing on quick-money meme coins and decentralized finance Ponzi schemes. Venture capitalists are currently so starved for viable technology investments that many are redirecting their funds into food and beverage businesses. To reverse this trend, crypto builders must focus on sustainable, real-world use cases. Integrating AI elements into these projects could provide the necessary edge to attract serious institutional capital.

A community member also asked about Bitcoin native protocols like SRC20 and Bitcoin Stamps. Lian noted that while these projects are decentralized, they currently lack the AI layer and smart contract functionality required to be classified as Web4. Bridging these assets to ecosystems like Solana or Base is a step forward, but the primary challenge remains adoption. Lian advised community-driven projects to focus on building volume, increasing liquidity, and expanding their user base organically. Major exchanges will naturally pay attention once a protocol demonstrates genuine utility and a strong community, rather than relying solely on venture capital backing.

 

Conclusion

Web4 is not merely a rebranding exercise or a fleeting buzzword. It represents a necessary evolution. By marrying the trustless infrastructure of blockchain with the autonomous intelligence of AI, the industry can finally build the fair, transparent, and truly decentralized future that was originally promised.

 

Get your copy of Web4: The Age of Autonomous Intelligence by Anndy Lian

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