Bitcoin Near $61K as SBI Lists RLUSD, Meta Builds Arena Prediction Market

Crypto News

The prediction market Polymarket now prices Anthropic as the clear favorite to hold the best AI model at the end of 2026, with roughly 66% odds, ahead of Alphabet's Google at about 13%, OpenAI near 10% and xAI close to 8%. The market settles against the Chatbot Arena text leaderboard, where global users vote on blind model comparisons and outcomes are decided by aggregated preference rather than expert opinion. A separate market gives Chinese developers such as DeepSeek about a 20% chance of seizing the top spot, reflecting how cheaper, near-parity models are commoditizing AI access even as US labs defend the performance frontier through year-end.

Metaplanet unveiled a shareholder reward program on June 24 in partnership with HashPort and JPYC, distributing the yen-pegged stablecoin JPYC through HashPort's non-custodial Web3 wallet. Eligible holders owning at least 100 shares as of June 30 can register between July 13 and August 31, with the first 1,000 applicants entered into a lottery. Three top winners receive 100,000 JPYC, thirty receive 10,000, and remaining participants get 1,000 each, lifting the total payout above 1.5 million yen. Recipients must hold their JPYC for one month without redeeming to fiat, and Metaplanet had already invested in JPYC through a subsidiary in April.

Crypto exchange Coincheck began regular publication of an institutional onchain analytics product, the Coincheck Prime Onchain Report, produced with Web3 firm Kirifuda. Aimed at corporate and institutional clients, the report reads public blockchain data—transfers, smart-contract activity and holding balances—to map capital flows and structural shifts in digital-asset markets. Planned themes include stablecoin trends, the formation of real-world-asset markets and capital movement between centralized exchanges and DeFi venues. Early editions examined Polymarket, Hyperliquid and Coinbase's Bitcoin-backed lending, signaling that competitive advantage is shifting from merely owning market data toward interpreting it for business decisions.

SBI VC Trade began offering Ripple's dollar-pegged stablecoin RLUSD on June 24, framing it as Japan's first type-4 electronic payment instrument under the revised Payment Services Act. RLUSD becomes the firm's second dollar stablecoin after USDC, issued by Ripple's New York-chartered Standard Custody & Trust Company and backed by dollar deposits and short-dated Treasuries with monthly third-party attestations. Deposits and withdrawals are fee-free but currently limited to Ethereum, with additional chains to follow. The same day, SBI Shinsei Trust Bank announced JPYSC, a trust-type type-3 instrument, underscoring how quickly Japan's regulated stablecoin framework is taking shape.

Meta is reportedly building a standalone prediction-market app called Arena, modeled on platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi, with development described as a high priority directed by CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Users would initially wager game-style points rather than cash, though a real-money version has not been ruled out, and Meta intends to funnel its vast social user base toward the app. The push follows explosive sector growth: combined Kalshi and Polymarket volume reached $50 billion in 2025 and has already topped $130 billion this year, with Kalshi raising $1 billion in May at a $22 billion valuation.

Washington's regulatory calendar is tightening. The House Financial Services Committee will hold a hearing on the Federal Reserve's semi-annual monetary policy report on July 14, where new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh is expected to deliver his first congressional testimony, a session traders anticipate could move markets. On July 17, a subcommittee field hearing in New York will examine the CLARITY Act, the market-structure bill clarifying SEC and CFTC jurisdiction over digital assets. Senator Cynthia Lummis is pressing for a Senate vote before the August recess, though disputes over conflict-of-interest provisions continue to slow the bill's path.

Taken together, these threads—institutional onchain tooling, regulated stablecoin rails, prediction-market expansion and the AI race—describe an industry building durable infrastructure even as spot prices weaken. COINOTAG's aggregate market data captures the disconnect: the Fear & Greed Index sits at 17, deep in extreme fear, Bitcoin dominance has climbed to 70.1%, and total crypto market capitalization stands near $1.75 trillion with Bitcoin trading around $61,000. The strain shows in treasury equities, where Strategy's stock slipped below $100 for the first time since 2024, and in DeFi, where lending markets such as Aave saw heavy withdrawals this year. Capital is consolidating into Bitcoin and regulated venues while altcoin risk appetite stays compressed, far below the all-time high set above $122,000 last October.