Bitcoin rode a roller coaster, Russia recognized digital assets as property subject to theft, the EU regulator reminded businesses about MiCA, and other developments from the week.
Bitcoin returned to $64,000
Early in the week, the price of the digital gold jumped from near $64,000 to a local high of $67,278 (on Binance). Reports of a truce between the U.S. and Iran were the main catalyst for the move.
Observers remained cautiously optimistic about a potential agreement amid emerging disagreements between the parties. Additional pressure came from bearish factors such as weak demand. Against this backdrop, bitcoin turned lower, and after the first meeting of the U.S. Federal Reserve under Kevin Warsh on Thursday, it broke below $64,000. The regulator kept the key rate at 3.5–3.75% per year, and the head of the agency even allowed for a possible increase before year-end.
On Friday, June 19, the price slumped to $62,000. The drop was triggered by renewed uncertainty over the Middle East. U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance postponed a trip to Switzerland planned as part of signing an agreement with Iran.
Over the weekend, the cryptocurrency firmed to slightly above $64,000 after the U.S. delegation did fly to the talks. Analysts said cheaper oil provided an additional boost, drawing flows into risk assets.
As a result, bitcoin’s weekly change was minimal. That allowed several major altcoins to outpace the first cryptocurrency. Solana gained 8.6%, Ethereum rose 3.5%, and the Hyperliquid token added nearly 12%.
Weaker investor interest in bitcoin was confirmed by a record six-week streak of net outflows from spot ETFs. Since mid-May, the products have lost roughly $5.43 billion in aggregate. Total assets fell to $78.3 billion — the level of November 2024.
About $10 million was withdrawn from Ethereum funds over the week, marking six straight periods of outflows.
The Crypto Fear and Greed Index rose from 18 to 23. The metric remained in “extreme fear” but approached the upper end of that range.
Total market capitalization held around $2.2 trillion. Bitcoin dominance edged down from ~59% to 58.4%. Ethereum’s share increased by 0.3 percentage points to 9.5%.
Russia’s Supreme Court recognizes cryptocurrency as property subject to theft
On June 16, the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation amended a 2002 resolution on case law for theft, robbery and assault. Digital rubles, digital rights and digital currency were added to the list of property subject to theft.
Separately, the court clarified when theft of non-cash funds is complete — the crime is considered finished once the money is debited from the victim’s account.
When qualifying theft from a bank account or electronic money, the court should recognize only non-cash funds in accounts or electronic money as the object of such a crime.
If the money of one victim is stolen through several consecutive debits but the actions are united by a single intent, this should be treated as one continuing crime.
What to discuss with friends?
- Media: Bankman-Fried planned a token launch after his release.
- An outdated contract on the Aztec network was hacked for $2 million.
- TechCrunch called AI an excuse for layoffs.
- JPMorgan said mining economics are deteriorating.
Developer warns of a potential Ethereum funding crisis
The Ethereum ecosystem could face a “slowly building funding crisis” in the next three to nine months, former Ethereum Foundation (EF) staffer Trent Van Epps said.
According to him, the current risks stem from EF’s philosophy of stepping back from being the sole center of authority. However, legitimacy still concentrates around the foundation for a number of reasons.
Van Epps highlighted two funding pressure points:
- Treasury capacity constraints. In June 2025, the foundation presented a plan to cut annual spending from 15% to a baseline 5% by 2030;
- the end of the Client Incentive Program in April 2026. The four-year program has been a key funding mechanism for client teams via staking, and there is no replacement yet.
By Van Epps’s estimate, the Ethereum ecosystem needs around $30 million for developers.
Without stable funding, the ecosystem risks losing people with critical expertise, falling behind on scaling and preparations for challenges such as quantum computing, and undermining mainnet reliability, Van Epps concluded.
ESMA tells crypto platforms without MiCA to exit the EU
Starting July 1, crypto companies without a MiCA license must stop serving clients in the European Union, ESMA reminded.
The regulator required service providers to prepare wind-down plans in advance.
According to Hogan Lovells, by May only 194 companies had obtained official authorization — a small share of the 3,000 firms that previously operated in the region. About 75% of legacy platforms are expected to shut down or leave the European market.
For regular users, this means account blocks. Exchanges without licenses will stop accepting deposits and will require customers to withdraw funds.
Also on ForkLog:
- Michael Saylor presented a five-tier model of the Bitcoin economy.
- CME Group will file a lawsuit against the CFTC.
- Alchemy and Visa launched payments for AI agents.
- The U.S. will ban the issuance of a CBDC until 2030.
Ethereum proposal offers post-quantum account protection for $0.07
Nicolas Consigny, lead of the Kohaku project at the Ethereum Foundation, introduced a concept to protect accounts from quantum-computer attacks. The solution, called SPHINCS-, would secure wallets without a hard fork.
The cost of implementation is about $0.07. The method is based on the SPHINCS+ signature standard developed by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
Consigny adapted the algorithm for efficient use on Ethereum. SPHINCS- does not require protocol changes and would serve as an interim step before leanSPHINCS, which would further reduce costs through data aggregation.
The new approach aims to mitigate risks to the elliptic curve digital signature algorithm currently used by the network.
What else to read?
Step by step, we broke down how to analyze bitcoin transactions manually, streamline the work with tools and automation, and why even the most advanced tracing yields probabilities rather than a definitive answer.
We examined the situation in Cardano amid talk of a deep crisis at the blockchain project and its prospects. Details were shared by former IOG employee — the protocol’s developer — and now a professor at the Department of Cybersecurity of the Institute of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, Roman Oleinikov.
We compiled the most notable security events of the week in our regular digest.
