Crypto Market Sheds $38B as Strategy Sells BTC, Anthropic Files $965B IPO

Crypto News

The total crypto market capitalization slipped 1.6% over the past 24 hours, erasing roughly $38.42 billion as Strategy's first Bitcoin disposal since 2022 unsettled traders. The aggregate value briefly touched $2.38 trillion before stabilizing near $2.40 trillion. BTC retreated to $70,914 and tested key trendline support, while Stellar (XLM) led declines with an 11% drop after a month-long rally lost momentum. The sale broke a long-standing narrative that the largest corporate holder would never trim its position, and risk appetite contracted across the board as traders repositioned around the symbolic shift in institutional behavior.

Anthropic confidentially submitted a draft S-1 registration statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on June 1, marking the first major artificial intelligence laboratory to formally pursue a public listing this cycle. The Claude developer recently closed a private funding round at a $965 billion valuation, surpassing rival OpenAI, while its annualized revenue run rate climbed from $10 billion to roughly $47 billion within a single year. Wall Street analysts framed the filing as a confidence signal for the broader AI sector, with at least three major AI conglomerates now expected to test public markets during 2026 amid renewed institutional demand for exposure.

Prediction venue Polymarket faced significant trader backlash over a proposed "No" resolution on its market tied to Strategy's Bitcoin disposal, with more than $20 million in open positions hinging on the dispute. The disagreement centers on whether disclosure timing or the actual event timing should determine the contract's settlement, a distinction with material consequences for traders who took directional exposure on the corporate sale narrative. The controversy underscores ongoing governance friction in event-driven crypto markets, where ambiguous wording around real-world resolution criteria can produce contested outcomes and erode user trust in DeFi-adjacent prediction protocols.

The LAB token rocketed 67% to a record $16.24 even though the vast majority of its supply remains locked, with on-chain investigator ZachXBT alleging that insiders control more than 95% of the float through over-the-counter desks and designated market makers. The move illustrates how thin circulating supply can amplify price discovery into an unsustainable all-time high, drawing speculative capital into structurally fragile setups. Analysts highlighted the episode as a cautionary case study for retail traders chasing low-float listings, where exit liquidity for early backers tends to come at the expense of late participants.

Geopolitical risk re-entered the macro picture as Iran halted all U.S. nuclear negotiations on Monday and threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint that handles roughly a fifth of global seaborne oil. WTI crude jumped about 8% toward $96 while Brent neared $100 before easing from intraday highs. The escalation tightened the correlation between energy markets and risk assets, with crypto traders treating any sustained oil spike as a potential headwind to liquidity. Persistent tensions in the region historically pressure equities and digital assets simultaneously, complicating positioning for those rotating between safe havens and the altcoin complex.

While Bitcoin absorbed the bulk of the selling, divergence emerged elsewhere in the top tier. Ether (ETH), Hyperliquid (HYPE), and Zcash (ZEC) began attracting bullish positioning, a rotation that helped steady the broader market gauge even as the lead asset weakened. The behavior suggests selective capital deployment rather than indiscriminate de-risking, with traders favoring names that have shown independent technical structure. Measured against the late-March swing low of $2.23 trillion, the overall market remains in an uptrend, with $2.38 trillion identified as the immediate level whose loss would expose the broader rebound thesis to deeper retracement risk.

Taken together, the session's flow points to a market wrestling with two competing forces: a structural confidence shock from Strategy's symbolic sale, and a fresh validation pulse from Anthropic's blockbuster IPO filing reaffirming institutional appetite for next-generation technology exposure. Layered onto that are renewed Middle East tensions and idiosyncratic episodes like LAB's float controversy and the Polymarket dispute, each reinforcing a theme of governance and disclosure scrutiny. The dominant narrative this cycle is no longer pure accumulation but rotation under stress, with capital migrating toward assets that combine credible liquidity, transparent supply mechanics, and exposure to the AI-driven macro upcycle.