Morning crypto market digest: HIVE bets on AI, Morgan Stanley changes fees, and Ledn adds Tether gold
Key events of the night and morning of June 19: Canadian miner HIVE Digital Technologies signs a major $220 million AI contract, Morgan Stanley files fee amendments for its Ethereum and Solana ETFs, and the Ledn platform begins accepting Tether's tokenized gold (XAUt) as collateral. Let's break down the details.
Market: sideways movement with no surprises
Bitcoin (BTC) started the day in a sideways trend. As of 07:00 Moscow time, the asset is trading at $62,688 (approximately ₽4,589,048). Over 24 hours, the low was $62,201 and the high was $64,552. Ethereum (ETH) is also showing a flat trend at $1,695.
In the top 10 by market cap, the best daily performance is from Tron (+0.06%), and the best weekly performance is from Hyperliquid (+13.51%). The worst daily performance is from XRP (-5.85%), and the worst weekly performance is from Dogecoin (-4.19%). In the top 100, DeXe (+20.46% daily) and Jito (+38.97% weekly) are leading. The largest losses are recorded by SPX6900 (-9.56%) and Audiera (-78.97% weekly).
HIVE Digital Technologies: from mining to AI
Canadian Bitcoin miner HIVE Digital Technologies, through its BUZZ HPC division, has signed a three-year contract worth $220 million. The company will deploy 2,304 NVIDIA Grace Blackwell GPUs in Bell Canada's data center for AI startup Cohere. After launch, the project will generate approximately $70 million in annual revenue, bringing high-performance computing income to over $100 million.
HIVE's shares reacted with a rise of about 9%. However, it's worth noting that the company's Bitcoin reserves have decreased from 481 to 150 BTC. This is part of a broader trend: amid record-low mining profitability and a 10% drop in network difficulty, operators are massively redirecting capacity toward AI infrastructure.
Morgan Stanley: record-low fees for ETFs
Morgan Stanley has filed amendments for spot ETFs on Ethereum and Solana. The key detail is that the fee is set at a record low of 0.14%. For comparison, the minimum fee for Ethereum ETFs is currently 0.15% (Grayscale), and for Solana, it's 0.19% (Franklin Templeton). The funds also plan to stake part of the assets for additional income.
This is a significant signal: Morgan Stanley intends to aggressively compete for market share by betting on low costs. In an environment where institutional investors are increasingly fee-sensitive, such a move could substantially accelerate capital inflows into these instruments.
Ledn: Tether gold as collateral
Bitcoin lending platform Ledn will add tokenized Tether Gold (XAUt) as collateral by the end of the year. Clients will be able to obtain liquidity against gold without selling assets or triggering a taxable event—following the same model as with Bitcoin. The collateral is stored in a 1:1 ratio and is not transferred to third parties. Loans are issued and repaid in USDT or USDC stablecoins without mandatory monthly payments.
Expert opinion: Integrating XAUt into lending products is a logical step for expanding the DeFi ecosystem. Tokenized gold combines the stability of a traditional asset with blockchain flexibility. If demand for such loans is high, we will see a wave of similar offerings from other platforms, strengthening the link between traditional finance and the crypto sector.