Bitcoin Slips Below $61K as Strategy Faces $12.55B Loss, CBDC Ban Heads to Trump

Crypto News

Qualcomm pushed deeper into artificial-intelligence infrastructure on Wednesday, unveiling a data-center CPU called Dragonfly C1000 and naming Meta Platforms as a launch customer for the chip when volume production begins in 2028. The processor targets agentic AI workloads with an emphasis on power efficiency, leveraging the mobile-chip designer’s low-consumption expertise. Qualcomm also agreed to acquire software firm Modular Inc. for roughly $3.9 billion in stock to strengthen its AI capabilities, and lifted its 2029 non-handset revenue target to $40 billion from $22 billion. The company is now competing directly with Nvidia, Intel and Broadcom for hyperscalers such as Alphabet and Amazon. QCOM shares jumped 15% after hours.

Memory-chip maker Micron Technology delivered a forecast that blew past Wall Street estimates, signaling that AI-driven demand remains intense. The company projected fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of about $50 billion, well above the roughly $43.2 billion analysts expected, sending MU shares up around 15% in extended trading and lifting Nasdaq 100 futures. Micron reported record fiscal third-quarter revenue of $41.46 billion and gross margins near 85%. Management said it has signed 16 multi-year strategic supply agreements averaging three years to smooth the sector’s notorious boom-and-bust cycles, and expects tight capacity to persist beyond 2027 as high-bandwidth memory for next-generation Nvidia platforms stays in short supply.

Washington’s crypto agenda gained a tax dimension as Senator Steve Daines, a Montana Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said lawmakers could release a digital-asset tax bill as early as this fall. Daines said the framework is already drafted and shares far more with the House Ways and Means Committee’s version than it differs, raising the prospect that both chambers avoid a stalemate. The legislation would address long-unsettled questions such as the treatment of staking rewards, mining income and small transactions. The move would layer tax certainty onto the market-structure focus of the CLARITY Act, the bill currently dominating the Senate’s crypto calendar, testing whether Congress can advance two complex measures at once.

Strategy’s leveraged Bitcoin bet came under sharper scrutiny as Bitcoin dropped below $60,000 on Wednesday, touching an intraday low near $59,500. The company’s 847,363 BTC, bought for about $64.1 billion at an average price of $75,651, were valued near $51.55 billion, leaving an unrealized paper loss of roughly $12.55 billion. Its preferred share STRC slid to $82.20, pushing its effective yield to 13.99% as investors demanded higher compensation for risk. MSTR stock has fallen 78.37% since July 2025, far steeper than Bitcoin’s 42.77% decline over the same span, underscoring how leverage magnifies drawdowns. Even so, Strategy added another 520 BTC this week.

Japan’s costly defense of the yen drew fresh attention as Tokyo weighed new ways to manage its roughly $1.3 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves. Authorities spent about $73 billion buying yen from late April, a record single intervention, yet reserves shrank by roughly $77 billion in May, a 5.6% drop and the largest monthly decline since 2000. The yen still weakened to around 161.70 against the dollar on Wednesday, within striking distance of its 1986 low of 161.96. Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama held an online meeting with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, while officials cautioned that chasing higher returns on reserves would compromise the liquidity needed for future intervention.

US lawmakers handed the crypto industry a landmark policy win as the House passed the Pathway to Housing in the 21st Century Act, sending President Trump a provision that bars the Federal Reserve from issuing a retail central bank digital currency through 2030. The Senate approved the measure 85-5 on June 22, while the House had earlier passed its version 396-13. The language codifies Trump’s January 2025 executive order opposing a digital dollar, citing financial-privacy concerns. Crucially, the ban exempts privately issued, dollar-pegged tokens, leaving stablecoins as the primary vehicle for digital dollars through the decade.

These six threads trace a single arc: capital is consolidating around AI infrastructure and US policy clarity even as crypto’s risk assets bleed. COINOTAG’s aggregate market data frames the strain — the Fear & Greed Index sits at 12, deep in Extreme Fear, total crypto market capitalization has compressed to about $1.74 trillion, and Bitcoin dominance has climbed to 70.2%, a flight-to-quality signal that punishes the broader altcoin market. Strategy’s disclosed average cost of $75,651 against Bitcoin trading near $61,000 — more than 51% below its October 2025 all-time high above $126,000 — shows how quickly leveraged treasuries erode in a downturn, even as regulatory tailwinds like the CBDC ban and a pending tax framework build a sturdier long-term foundation.