Organized by ChainCatcher
Important information:
- The Hong Kong SFC: Licensed companies in Hong Kong may continue to serve existing mainland clients, but cannot provide services within the mainland.
- Asset management giant Janus Henderson Investors announces a strategic investment in Ethena, with both parties entering into multiple collaborations.
- CME Group launches the Nasdaq CME Cryptocurrency Index Futures
- Data: Q2 this year may become the worst quarter for public crypto fundraising, with ICOs/IDOs/IEOs raising only $58 million.
- U.S. senators seek to have the U.S. SEC delay SpaceX's IPO and conduct a review
- Robotics company NEURA Robotics completes a $1.4 billion Series C round led by Tether
What important events occurred in the past 24 hours?
Robotics company NEURA Robotics completes a $1.4 billion Series C round led by Tether
ChainCatcher report: According to official announcements, Tether Investments has led the $1.4 billion Series C funding round for NEURA Robotics, one of the largest private financings in robotics and physical AI history, with participation from multiple industrial and financial investors, including several key industrial partners.
NEURA Robotics specializes in multimodal cognitive robots, including humanoid robots, industrial robotic arms, and mobile robots, and has built the unified software platform Neuraverse to connect robots, components, AI models, and computing power. In addition to investing, Tether will integrate its proprietary Wallet Development Kit (WDK) into NEURA robots to provide self-custodial wallet functionality, and test and deploy its QVAC edge AI runtime within Neuraverse to enable local inference and automated settlement, advancing the infrastructure for the "machine economy."
In March, robotics company NeuraRobotics raised approximately €1 billion in funding led by Tether, valuing the company at €4 billion.
U.S. senators seek to have the U.S. SEC delay SpaceX's IPO and conduct a review
ChainCatcher news, according to Jinshi, U.S. Senator and Democratic Caucus Vice Chair Elizabeth Warren has called on the SEC to delay SpaceX's IPO and request a review of the offering.
ChainCatcher report: According to official announcements, crypto financial infrastructure company TVL Capital has completed a $5 million funding round led by Framework Ventures, with participation from institutions including Flow Traders.
Co-founder Lars previously served as Head of Market Research at The Block, and the product is designed to mirror traditional exchange-traded products, offering compliant, composable derivatives and diversified yield structures primarily for institutional investors to meet various structured investment and yield management needs.
ChainCatcher report, according to data from CryptoRank.io, in the second quarter of 2026, fundraising through initial exchange offerings (IEOs), initial coin offerings (ICOs), and initial DEX offerings (IDOs) totaled only $58 million, a 85% quarter-over-quarter decline, with the number of funded projects dropping sharply from 105 in Q1 to 37, a 65% year-over-year decrease.
Only 13 public fundraises occurred in May, the lowest level since December 2020. Since peaking in the first quarter of 2025 (with $849 million raised across 429 deals), the public fundraising market has remained sluggish.
ChainCatcher news, Tom Lee, Chairman of BitMine, Ethereum’s largest treasury, said in an interview with CNBC that the current market is showing signs of tension, primarily due to capital reallocation ahead of SpaceX’s IPO and the market digesting its prior gains. With SpaceX’s IPO valued at $75 billion and set to be included in the Nasdaq 100 Index, many institutional funds need to raise capital in advance—not only to participate in the IPO but also to hold sufficient cash reserves for building meaningful positions in the secondary market after listing. He believes this means institutions may sell off some of their recently appreciated stocks, putting pressure on chip stocks.
Tom Lee believes that memory chip stocks and the semiconductor sector have held above last Friday’s low, indicating that the relevant charts have not fully broken down. The current pullback is healthy, and he does not believe it will disrupt the broader tech stock trading theme. SpaceX’s first-day trading performance is important; if SpaceX underperforms, it will give ammunition to those who believe the market has topped out. However, he notes that since many already view SpaceX’s IPO as a sign of a top, from a contrarian perspective, this may not actually be the top.
Tom Lee still believes that tech stocks will continue to lead the market upward, and he views the current pullback as a buying opportunity. He expects the market this year to follow a “three-phase” pattern, with the strong upward trend likely to persist in the foreseeable future, though a correction may emerge later this year, potentially coinciding with IPO lock-up expirations and related supply pressures. The second-phase pullback could be driven by three factors: market testing of the new Fed chair Kevin Warsh’s policy path, increased stock supply from large IPO lock-up expirations, and potential energy supply constraints later this year.
ChainCatcher news, According to sources, the CFTC is proposing a broad set of new rules to regulate prediction markets. The parameters of these rules will continue to permit most sports-related betting while aiming to prevent clear instances of manipulation.
According to a draft rule copy seen by The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. CFTC will propose new rules on Wednesday aimed at blocking predictive bets it deems contrary to the public interest or highly susceptible to manipulation, such as in cases where an individual could exert excessive influence over the outcome.
The agency's proposal does not directly ban trading any specific type of so-called event contract, but outlines factors that regulators will consider when reviewing certain types of contracts on a case-by-case basis.
The U.S. CFTC has previously provided some preliminary guidance on which types of bets to avoid, and Kalshi and other prediction platforms have taken action in advance.
In addition, insiders revealed that the CFTC is considering other rules, including those designed to protect retail traders.
CME Group launches the Nasdaq CME Cryptocurrency Index Futures
ChainCatcher report, according to PR Newswire, CME Group has announced the launch of the Nasdaq CME Crypto Index Futures. This contract will be cash-settled based on the index value of the Nasdaq CME Crypto Settlement Price Index at expiration.
According to the announcement, the index includes Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, SOL, XRP, ADA, LINK, and Lumens.
ChainCatcher news, Janus Henderson Investors, which manages $480 billion in assets, has announced a multi-faceted partnership with the synthetic dollar protocol Ethena.
- Integrate the AAA-rated collateralized loan obligation (CLO) product, JAAA strategy, into the USDe reserve portfolio to introduce institutional-grade credit exposure.
- Strategic investment in Ethena’s governance token ENA through the blockchain investment arm ANTIK, with the amount undisclosed.
- Commit to incorporating staked sUSDe into the company’s cash management to earn native protocol yields.
- The two parties will jointly develop regulated investment products for USDe and ENA, including ETFs and ETPs, with an intended launch in the second half of 2026.
According to DefiLlama data, Ethena Protocol's TVL is approximately $4.95 billion. Following the announcement, market reaction was muted, with ENA falling about 7% to around $0.082, giving it a market cap of approximately $760 million. This partnership makes Janus Henderson the traditional asset management firm with the deepest integration with Ethena to date.
ChainCatcher report: On-chain investigator Specter has issued a security alert, indicating that an old liquidity pool on the Solana DeFi protocol Raydium appears to have been compromised, with attackers stealing approximately $1.34 million in assets, primarily consisting of USDC, RAY, and wSOL. The hacker has transferred the stolen funds via a bridge to Ethereum, followed by depositing them into Tornado Cash for mixing.
ChainCatcher news, As the group stage of the 2026 FIFA World Cup kicks off, the cumulative trading volume on Polymarket’s World Cup champion prediction market has surpassed $1.8 billion, with over $66 million traded in the past 24 hours and liquidity in the pool reaching $352.7 million. France leads with an implied probability of winning at 16.2%, narrowly ahead of Spain’s 16.0%; together, the two teams account for approximately 32% and are in the same group, set to face each other directly in the group stage, making their match a pivotal pricing moment for the entire tournament market.
France's champion market trading volume reached $40.9 million, and Spain's reached $33.6 million, both the highest for a single-country market. The host country, the United States, recorded a trading volume of $50.9 million, but its implied probability of winning was only about 3%, reflecting high retail participation.
In addition, the 12 group champion markets combined for approximately $3.4 million in trading volume. Trading volume reached $342 million over the past week and $881 million over the past month, indicating a clear acceleration in volume as the event approaches.
OpenAI is negotiating a 20-year lease agreement, with NVIDIA potentially providing credit support.
ChainCatcher report, according to The Information, OpenAI is negotiating a 20-year lease agreement, which would represent its largest infrastructure investment commitment to date. NVIDIA has discussed providing credit support for the project.
ChainCatcher reports, On June 9, the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) announced a proposed regulation aimed at aligning its U.S. dollar stablecoin issuance framework with the federal GENIUS Act. The new rules retain DFS’s original requirements for U.S. dollar stablecoins, including reserves and redeemability, qualified reserve assets, and independent audits, while adding federal provisions such as: setting maximum limits on reserve assets held by any single custodian; requiring entities to establish risk management programs covering internal controls and information security; implementing an internal audit system; managing asset growth and earnings; regulating transactions involving internal personnel and affiliated parties; and governing service provider arrangements.
The proposed rule enters a 10-day pre-proposal comment period effective immediately, followed by a 60-day comment period after publication in the State Register. The final rule will take effect concurrently with the GENIUS Act, with existing New York-licensed issuers granted a one-year transition period. Until then, DFS’s guidance on stablecoin regulation remains in effect.
ChainCatcher report, according to Bloomberg, Ant International, the overseas business subsidiary of Ant Group, is considering raising approximately $1 billion to accelerate business growth, with an expected valuation of $10 billion or more. Sources familiar with the matter said potential investors include existing shareholders General Atlantic and Silver Lake; discussions are ongoing and no final decisions have been made.
If the financing is successfully completed, it will help Ant International prepare for a potential Hong Kong listing as early as this year. If the listing proceeds, it would restart the world’s largest IPO process that was halted by regulators for Ant Group in 2020. Following regulatory restructuring, Ant International established an independent board in 2024. Due to research and development investments and regulatory factors, the overall valuation of parent company Ant Group had declined to approximately $79 billion in 2023.
Ant International generated $3 billion in revenue in 2024 and achieved approximately 25% growth in 2025. As of April 2026, its services span over 220 markets worldwide and support more than 300 payment methods. Its core business consists of four key segments: the cross-border payment network Alipay+, merchant acquiring service Antom, the cross-border trade payment platform WorldFirst, and Bettr, which provides AI-driven digital lending and foreign exchange fund management.
In March 2026, Ant Group received approval from Chinese regulators to acquire Bright Smart Securities & Commodities Group Ltd., a Hong Kong-listed securities broker, to expand its online securities business beyond mainland China. Ant Group is also continuously investing in emerging technologies to develop new revenue streams, with focus areas including large language models, humanoid robots, and a health and wellness app with 140 million users.
ChainCatcher news, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev announced that the company’s brokerage and clearing division, Robinhood Securities, has been approved to serve as an IPO underwriter. It is currently unclear which regulatory body granted this approval, but IPO-related regulatory oversight typically involves FINRA and the SEC.
This initiative is an enhancement to Robinhood’s existing IPO Access service. Through IPO Access, Robinhood users can participate in subscribing to shares of upcoming public companies. Underwriters play a more central role, not only assisting private companies with their listing process but also acting as intermediaries between issuers and investors.
ChainCatcher news, The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission provides further clarification on the May 22 circular. Question (9) in the circular’s frequently asked questions states that licensed companies in Hong Kong may continue to open new accounts for investors from mainland China (i.e., investors using a Chinese resident ID card and/or Chinese passport as identification), provided all account opening requirements are met.
The SFC stated that licensed companies in Hong Kong may continue to serve existing clients from mainland China, provided that such services are not provided within mainland China and that the companies have complied with all relevant laws and regulatory requirements in Hong Kong and applicable jurisdictions. The SFC also noted the joint notice issued by mainland Chinese authorities on May 22, 2026, whose requirements also apply to financial institutions in other jurisdictions (not limited to Hong Kong) regarding their activities in providing services to mainland Chinese investors.
Securitize CEO: Tokenized stocks could drive the RWA market size to $5 trillion
ChainCatcher report, according to CoinDesk, Carlos Domingo, CEO of Securitize, said that tokenized equities could drive the RWA market from its current size of approximately $30 billion to $5 trillion. He noted that the global equity and ETF market is around $1.5 quadrillion, and even if only 2% to 3% were tokenized, it could approach $5 trillion. Domingo believes that tokenized equities, rather than private credit or government bond products, will be the key driver of this growth.
He distinguished between “true” tokenized stocks and many offshore blockchain-based stock products that rely on derivatives or synthetic structures rather than direct ownership of underlying shares. He believes the long-term goal should be for blockchain-based securities to offer investors the same rights as traditional stocks, while benefiting from instant settlement, 24/7 transferability, and deep integration with DeFi. Domingo maintains that public blockchains, particularly Ethereum, remain the preferred infrastructure for institutional tokenization.
Meme Popular Rankings
According to market data from the meme token tracking and analytics platform GMGN, as of June 11 at 09:00,
The top five most popular ETH tokens in the past 24 hours are: HEX, SHIB, LINK, PEPE, mUSD
Over the past 24 hours, the top five trending Solana tokens were: TROLL, WORLDCUP, neet, Buttcoin, WOJAK
The top five most popular tokens on Base over the past 24 hours are: PEPE, toby, ELSA, SKI, cbETH
What are some great articles to read from the past 24 hours?
Galaxy Deep Dive: How does Hyperliquid's HIP-4 upgrade transform the prediction market landscape?
Hyperliquid’s HIP-4 protocol upgrade marks the arrival of a third prediction market model. Among existing industry leaders, Polymarket has a native consumer-facing discovery mechanism, while Kalshi holds regulated U.S. exchange access. Hyperliquid announced HIP-4 in February this year with the goal of bringing outcome-based prediction markets into its “house of all finance,” and the proposal was officially activated on mainnet on May 2.
It has proven that predicting markets is one of the most practical new financial primitives to emerge in recent years for hedgers and speculators. Leveraging Hyperliquid’s established industry standards in perpetual contract execution and infrastructure, it is now poised to capture a share of the event trading volume.
The integration of AI and crypto is still in its early stages, with both serving as complementary "middleware": AI translates human intent into executable programs, while cryptographic technologies provide verifiable and tamper-proof guarantees for computation processes and outcomes. In the direction of AI-enhanced crypto, machine learning is already being used for smart contract auditing, fraud detection, and AI oracles; in the direction of crypto-enhanced AI, verifiable execution is relatively mature, while decentralized compute, data markets, and governance remain largely conceptual.
The Counterattack of Traditional Finance: Consortium Blockchains Are Quietly Making a Comeback
In June 2026, over a dozen of the largest U.S. banks jointly announced plans to build a shared tokenized deposit network by 2027 to directly counter the erosion of deposits by stablecoins. The system has not yet been named; some in the industry refer to it as "the bridge," while others call it "the chain."
This reflects a concept that has been overlooked by the market for years but is now quietly making a comeback: consortium blockchain.
For the world’s fastest-growing tech companies, the public markets are no longer what they once were. Thirty years ago, Amazon went public three years after its founding, with a valuation of $438 million. Netscape went public just eighteen months after its founding.
But today, the fastest-growing companies (Stripe, SpaceX, OpenAI, Ramp) typically remain private for over a decade. The high-growth exposure that investors once easily accessed through public markets has now been quietly preempted by private capital, with ever-rising valuations.