Headlines

Fed Holds Rates Steady as Hawkish Tone Prevails; Policy Statement Fully Revised

The Federal Reserve held its benchmark rate unchanged at 3.50%-3.75% for the fourth consecutive meeting, in line with market expectations.

"Fed Whisperer" Nick Timiraos on the Fed’s rate decision: The latest dot plot reveals a clear hawkish tilt. Among the 18 officials, nine expect at least one rate hike this year, with six anticipating multiple hikes. In contrast, only one official expects a rate cut this year; additionally, one participant (widely believed to be Fed Chair Wash) did not submit an Economic Projections Summary (SEP).

Meanwhile, the Fed’s policy statement underwent a comprehensive overhaul from start to finish, with a notably reduced text length. Overall, the communication framework for this meeting has undergone a significant shift, likely prompting a reevaluation of market expectations regarding the interest rate path.

U.S. Bipartisan Lawmakers Introduce Resolution to Block Presidential Pardon or Sentence Reduction for SBF

Senators Rubén Gallego (D-AZ) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) introduced a bipartisan resolution urging Congress to formally oppose any presidential pardon, sentence reduction, or other form of federal leniency for Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of FTX. The lawmakers emphasized that SBF has already completed his judicial trial and should no longer seek clemency. Gallego described him as "lacking remorse," while Lummis stated he must face his designated accountability rather than "pursue unearned pardons."

Polymarket Celebrates 6th Anniversary as Platform Cumulative Trading Volume Exceeds $88 Billion

The founder of Polymarket posted on X to mark June 17 as the platform’s 6th anniversary, expressing gratitude: "I’m truly humbled to be working on something so meaningful to me. It’s astonishing to see the world gradually catching up to this wild idea called 'information markets.' But we still have a long way to go."

According to Dune data, Polymarket has now surpassed $88 billion in cumulative trading volume since its launch six years ago.

Industry News

Chairman Powell: Inflation Remains Significantly Above 2% Target

Fed Chair Powell stated that inflation remains substantially above the 2% target, with persistently elevated prices constituting a burden. Recent historical trends should not serve as a prelude to ongoing inflationary pressures.

Project Updates

Lighter Updates Buyback Data: Over 15 Million LIT Tokens Repurchased, Representing 6% of Circulating Supply

Lighter officially updated protocol buyback data on X, stating that over 15 million LIT tokens have been repurchased since TGE, accounting for approximately 6% of circulating supply.

Base to Activate Beryl Hard Fork Upgrade, Introducing B20 Native Token Standard

Official announcement confirms Base will roll out the Beryl hard fork upgrade, introducing the B20 native token standard. This will reduce the single-proof withdrawal finalization period from 7 days to 5 days, upgrade Reth V2 with 50% less disk usage and 33% higher throughput.

Beryl will activate on the Sepolia testnet on June 19 at 2:00 UTC+8, and on mainnet on June 26 at 2:00 UTC+8.

B20 is Base’s native token standard—a Rust-compiled, ERC-20 compatible token designed for stablecoins, RWA, and long-tail token issuers, featuring built-in compliance toolkits including transfer policies, freezing and seizure mechanisms, role-based access control, memo fields, and supply caps.

Funding & Investment

Karta Secures $140M Series A Led by Galaxy Ventures and CIM

Karta announced a $140 million Series A funding round led by Galaxy Ventures and CIM. Karta is a U.S. credit card product targeting global travelers, available without requiring a U.S. Social Security Number.

Stablecoin Payments Infrastructure Trace Finance Raises $32M in Series A Led by CoinFund

Trace Finance, a stablecoin payments infrastructure provider, announced a $32 million Series A round led by CoinFund, with participation from Coinbase Ventures. The company plans to leverage the capital to expand operations in Latin America and Asia-Pacific regions and pursue additional regulatory licenses. Trace Finance claims it has already processed over $10 billion in institutional cross-border transaction volume.

Sharon AI Announces $700M Convertible Senior Notes Offering

Sharon AI announced a $700 million convertible senior notes offering to support its computational agreement with NVIDIA.

AI-Powered Financial Compliance Infrastructure Flagright Closes $12.5M Series A, Backed by YC and Others

Flagright, an AI-powered financial compliance infrastructure platform, closed a $12.5 million Series A round led by Infinity Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator, Sella Direct Ventures, and existing investors including Frontline. The funds will accelerate expansion into “explainable AI compliance” use cases and drive U.S. market entry, further solidifying its enterprise-grade standard in financial crime compliance. Flagright noted that financial crime compliance is entering a platformization phase, with banks, payment processors, lenders, and brokerages facing higher transaction volumes, stricter regulations, and increasingly sophisticated illicit tactics—rendering legacy compliance systems inadequate for current demands.

Voices

Kalshi CEO: Competitors Come to Mind Beyond Polymarket—CME and Robinhood Top List

Co-founder and CEO Tarek Mansour of Kalshi told FOX: "Honestly, when I think about competitors, my first thoughts aren’t about Polymarket—they’re about platforms like CME and Robinhood. We’re surrounded by a group of strong competitors."

In follow-up remarks, Tarek highlighted CME and Robinhood—CME previously helped betting giant FanDuel launch its own prediction market product, while Robinhood has launched its in-house prediction market, Rothera. He also mentioned DraftKings, Novig, and Coinbase.

a16z crypto: Crypto Enters the “Show Me” Era—Narrative-Driven Growth Gives Way to Data-Driven Validation

a16z crypto wrote that the crypto industry is entering what they call the “Show Me” era, where markets and media no longer accept projects based solely on vision and whitepapers. Instead, real-world data and verifiable product delivery are now required. For the past decade, many crypto projects operated under a “vision equals product” logic—gaining attention through whitepapers, token narratives, and conceptual proofs. However, with tightening regulation, rising industry incidents, and increased institutional participation, this model is failing. Meanwhile, traditional financial institutions’ accelerated entry into crypto—including BlackRock’s tokenized money fund, Fidelity’s ETF strategy, and JPMorgan Chase’s advancements in on-chain settlement and proprietary blockchain networks—has significantly raised the bar, making “real products and actual use” the new competitive standard.

Burry, the “Big Short” Legend: Wanted to Short SpaceX but Found Options Too Expensive—No Position Taken

Michael Burry, famed for his successful short bet on the U.S. subprime mortgage market, stated he currently holds neither long nor short positions in SpaceX. The reason isn’t based on fundamental analysis of the company, but rather because the cost of shorting remains prohibitively high. Burry wrote that SpaceX is fundamentally “a small aerospace firm, a niche telecom operator, a troubled social media company, and a CoreWeave-light compute provider,” generating annual revenue under $20 billion yet commanding a market valuation of around $3 trillion. These comments were made as SpaceX’s post-IPO stock continued climbing. The company surged 20% on its debut day and rose over 25% in the following week, surpassing Berkshire Hathaway in market cap and ranking among the top five globally—behind NVIDIA, Google, Apple, and Microsoft.