Night crypto market digest: BitGo cuts staff, Sharplink resumes ETH purchases, and StablecoinX prepares for Nasdaq listing
The morning of June 26 greets the market with mixed signals. While major players are restructuring their strategies, Bitcoin and Ethereum are showing sideways movement, and important changes are brewing in the corporate sector. Let's break down the key events that will shape today's trend.
Market: Calm Before the Storm?
Bitcoin (BTC) started the day with consolidation. As of 07:46 Moscow time, the asset is trading near the $59,881 mark, recording a 24-hour low of $58,269 and a high of $61,868. Ethereum (ETH) is also showing a sideways trend, holding around $1,550.
Among the top 10 by market cap, Solana shows the best 24-hour performance (+0.49%), and over the week, Tron (+0.38%). The laggards are Ethereum (-4.42% in 24 hours) and Dogecoin (-9.89% over the week). In the broader top 100, Audiera stands out with a surge (+42.09% in a day), while Mantle fell (-15.61%). The largest weekly losses were recorded by MemeCore (-76.50%).
Sharplink Returns to Buying Ethereum
For the first time in eight months, Sharplink has made a large ETH purchase, acquiring 5,000 coins worth $7.85 million via FalconX. The previous deal was dated October 2025. Notably, no public confirmation from the company itself has been received yet.
As of June 21, Sharplink's portfolio holds 876,285 ETH (about $1.3 billion). The average purchase price is $3,609 per coin, implying an unrealized loss of approximately $1.79 billion at current quotes. Nevertheless, the company remains the second-largest public holder of ETH after Tom Lee's Bitmine Immersion.
StablecoinX Lists on Nasdaq
StablecoinX, a company building infrastructure for the Ethena ecosystem, has completed its merger with the SPAC structure TLGY Acquisition Corp. Shares will begin trading on Nasdaq this Friday under the ticker "USDE." This is the first public company specializing in decentralized verification nodes and software for stablecoins.
Recall that the Ethena USDe stablecoin maintains its peg to $1 not through fiat reserves, but via a delta-neutral strategy using BTC and ETH as collateral and short positions. This scheme is highly vulnerable during negative funding rates. Since October last year, USDe's market cap has collapsed by 70% to $4.5 billion, which, however, still ranks it sixth among all stablecoins.
BitGo Cuts 15% of Staff Amid Losses
Crypto custodian BitGo has announced a 15% reduction in its workforce. The company plans to focus on key areas: security, trading, stablecoins, settlements, and AI infrastructure. The layoffs come amid growing losses: first-quarter revenue rose 112.6% year-over-year (to $3.8 billion), but net loss increased to $60.7 million from $25.7 million a year earlier.
BitGo is not alone in this trend. Previously, Coinbase (14% reduction), Dune (a quarter of its staff), and Jack Dorsey's Block have pivoted towards AI. BitGo's shares fell 4.76% on Thursday to $4.80.
My analysis: BitGo's restructuring and Sharplink's return to ETH purchases are two telling signals. The first indicates harsh optimization in the custodial services sector, where margins are declining. The second points to large institutions' belief in Ethereum's long-term potential, despite current portfolio losses. As for StablecoinX, the Nasdaq listing is an important step for legitimizing synthetic stablecoins, but investors should remember the structural risks of the USDe model.