Bitcoin Plunges to $61K as $3B Liquidated, Coinbase Lists SpaceX Pre-IPO Perps

Crypto News

The crypto market absorbed one of its sharpest two-day washouts in months, with Bitcoin sliding to $61,300 before stabilizing near $62,500 and triggering roughly $3 billion in liquidations. Open interest dropped 8.5% to $111.4 billion as leveraged longs were forcibly unwound, while put skews steepened on both BTC and ETH. The $60,000 strike on Deribit now carries more than $1 billion in notional open interest, signalling traders are positioning for further downside. Solana open interest pushed to a record even as price weakened, a pattern that typically reflects aggressive short accumulation rather than constructive buying.

Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon signed an executive order on June 3 titled Data Centers the Wyoming Way, opening the state to large-scale AI data center investment while shielding households from rising electricity costs. The order requires developers to absorb the power expenses their facilities create, addressing one of the most contentious issues fueling national backlash against hyperscale builds. The framework rests on eight principles spanning grid stewardship, water use, wildlife protection and workforce training, with agencies required to report back within sixty days. Wyoming already operates the Frontier Stable Token, reinforcing its positioning as a digital-asset-friendly jurisdiction tied directly to federal AI policy.

Bitget launched its Anti-Scam Month 2026 initiative under the theme More Assets, Stronger Shield, citing Interpol data showing financial scams tied to multi-asset markets caused more than $442 billion in losses globally in 2025. The campaign targets fraud vectors emerging as tokenized stocks, real-world assets and AI-linked products converge inside single trading environments. Throughout June the exchange will release a multi-part security series covering SMS spoofing, fake applications, phishing systems, malicious smart contracts and AI-generated scams. The final phase will publish anti-scam reports co-authored with onchain security agencies and real-world asset institutions, alongside X Spaces sessions on emerging threat patterns.

Coinbase launched pre-IPO perpetual futures, starting with a SpaceX contract that lets traders gain exposure to Elon Musk's aerospace firm ahead of its expected public listing at a $1.8 trillion valuation. The USDC-settled contracts trade 24/7 with no expiry or rollover and offer up to 5x leverage, automatically converting into standard perps once a company completes its IPO. The SpaceX listing kicks off a planned pipeline spanning technology, artificial intelligence, energy and space sectors. The rollout intensifies competition with Binance, OKX, Bitget, Crypto.com and Ventuals, though access remains blocked in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Singapore, India and Australia.

Delphi Digital declared the airdrop era effectively over after tracking 3.7 million wallets across six major tokens over five years. Between 78% and 94% of recipient wallets sold most of their allocation within ninety days, with exit rates rising 4 to 11 percentage points beyond the widely cited thirty-day figure. The research covered Uniswap, Arbitrum, Jupiter and Pudgy Penguins across four chains, concluding that free token giveaways now manufacture sellers rather than committed holders. Arbitrum reportedly paid an estimated $1.16 billion to users who departed within a month. Newer designs like MegaETH lock 53% of supply behind performance targets, while Pendle routes roughly 80% of revenue into staker buybacks.

Bitrue formally opened its Crypto World Cup 2026 promotions with a $25 million USDT prize pool distributed over two months across daily check-ins, trading contests, prediction events and mystery rewards. Participants can claim repeatable daily sign-in tickets, complete seven-day streaks for bonus rewards and compete for a grand prize of 1 BTC alongside iPhones and stablecoin allocations. Trading contests will distribute 50,000 USDT per season while daily airdrops share 2,000 USDT among qualifying users. The exchange has expanded football-linked listings on spot and futures markets, including the WORLDCUP token and Chiliz-ecosystem fan tokens such as JUV and PSG, deepening its sports-finance crossover.

The dominant narrative this cycle is the collision of geopolitical risk with deleveraging in crypto's most reflexive corner of derivatives, even as institutional rails keep widening. Iran's strike on Kuwait airport snapped a nine-day S&P winning streak, sent oil higher and accelerated the liquidation cascade that pulled altcoins like NEAR, ZEC and JUP down more than 13%. Yet capital is not retreating: Wyoming is courting AI infrastructure, Coinbase is bridging private equity into DeFi-adjacent perps, and tokenomics is shifting from handouts toward performance-linked supply, redefining how the next bull market distributes value.