Kraken Launches US Perpetual Futures as Nvidia Eyes $20B Bond, Bitcoin Holds $67K

Crypto News

The United States and Iran agreed to keep the Strait of Hormuz toll-free for 60 days starting June 19, coinciding with a fresh round of nuclear talks. President Trump framed the arrangement as a path to permanent toll-free passage, while Tehran signaled it may charge for navigation services once the window closes, citing a jointly managed maritime authority established with Oman. The chokepoint carries a large share of global crude and LNG, so its reopening eased supply-disruption fears. Analysts cautioned that the preliminary deal leaves nuclear enforcement unresolved, limiting the risk-on impulse that crypto markets typically draw from cooling geopolitical tension and a softer energy outlook.

Kraken opened perpetual futures trading to eligible US users through its regulated Bitnomial unit, accelerating the onshoring of crypto derivatives that long concentrated on offshore venues. The product, offered on Kraken Pro, covers Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP, Cardano, Chainlink, Dogecoin, Litecoin and Avalanche, and shares the same futures wallet as the firm’s CME-listed contracts. Perpetuals — contracts with no expiry kept aligned to spot through funding payments — generated more than $60 trillion in global volume during 2025. Kraken added CME futures last July and launched US margin trading earlier this month, steadily widening a domestic stack that many altcoin traders previously could only reach abroad.

Currency markets underscored that the truce changed little for risk appetite. The dollar-won rate erased most of an early drop to close near 1,515 won, after touching 1,503.90 intraday, as traders weighed Hormuz reopening hopes against unresolved nuclear questions. Washington and Tehran electronically signed a memorandum and plan an in-person ceremony in Geneva on June 19, yet US forces said they would maintain a naval blockade until then. Safe-haven demand revived as the dollar index pared losses late in New York. Participants now point to this week’s Federal Reserve meeting, alongside the pace of Hormuz normalization, as the next directional triggers for global risk assets.

Nvidia is weighing its first corporate bond sale since 2021, exploring at least $20 billion across maturities from two to thirty years, with the longest tranche discussed near 0.9 percentage points over Treasuries. Proceeds would first repay outstanding debt, but the move signals deeper ambitions: preserving its AA credit rating while funding strategic AI partnerships without diluting shareholders. The company has invested aggressively, including a $5 billion Intel stake, $10 billion into Anthropic and a reported $30 billion commitment to OpenAI. The issuance mirrors a broader wave — Alphabet, Oracle, Amazon, Meta and others have tapped debt markets for tens of billions to finance the AI build-out.

A startup targeting underserved African languages drew attention after Nkenne secured $30,000 by placing among the top five in Zoom’s inaugural “Solopreneur 50” program, chosen from more than 3,000 applicants. Founded by musician-turned-entrepreneur Michael Odokara-Okigbo, the platform combines speech-to-text, text-to-speech and speech-to-speech translation to preserve tone, dialect and proverbs across 15 African languages, with plans to scale into the hundreds. The company already supplies translation to Nigeria’s national IT development agency and is in talks with telecom operators. Its founder frames the prize as runway rather than reward, betting that language infrastructure becomes a strategic asset across a continent of rapid smartphone adoption.

The regulatory backdrop is shifting in favor of domestic derivatives. On May 29 the Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved Kalshi’s Bitcoin perpetual futures and issued a no-action position to Coinbase, whose financial-markets arm simultaneously opened global perpetual and options access for US institutions. The clearances mark an inflection point for products regulators once pushed offshore, intensifying competition among major venues — and decentralized platforms built on an automated market maker — racing to bring leveraged crypto trading onshore. Structures and investor-eligibility rules still differ sharply across platforms, and observers note further rulemaking is needed before these markets fully mature. For now, each approval expands the regulated surface area for US crypto trading.

Across these threads runs a single question: whether easing macro and geopolitical strain can revive risk appetite while the structural plumbing for crypto matures onshore. COINOTAG’s aggregate data argues caution still dominates. Our Fear & Greed Index reads 20, deep in extreme-fear territory, the kind of sentiment that historically accompanies a bear market rather than a durable recovery. Bitcoin dominance stands at 69.7%, signaling capital huddling in the largest asset, while total crypto market capitalization sits near $1.92 trillion — far below prior all-time-high cycles. With the same AI capital wave reshaping equities and increasingly powering AI trading bot strategies in crypto, and Bitcoin trading around $67,000 ahead of the Fed, geopolitical relief alone looks insufficient; clearer rates guidance and sustained derivatives inflows would need to follow.