SimpleSwap.io

More assets are now available on SimpleSwap ⚡️

$CODEX, $COCA, $ELIZAOS, $IAUON, $QIE, $RAVE, $SPA, $SPORTFUN, $SPYX, $TAG, $TBC, and $ZEST are now supported for wallet-to-wallet swaps.

➡️ Explore the latest additions and choose your pair

Self-Custody Is Solved. Moving Between Your Assets Isn't.

"The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work."

– Satoshi Nakamoto, P2P Foundation, February 2009

17 years later, that argument is won. Self-custody is the default for serious capital.

But a second question has quietly replaced the first: if trust in custody is solved, why does moving between your own assets still feel like 2017?

Our new long read traces what changed, what didn't, and what comes next.

👉 Read the full piece on CryptoSlate

The market quietly changed what it rewards.

For years, crypto ran on narratives. Decentralization was the pitch, and capital flowed into projects promising to reinvent everything from finance to social media. The problem was never the vision. It was the gap between the idea and actual use.

Today, narratives still capture attention, but utility keeps it. The strongest projects solve concrete problems: payments, identity, ownership, and infrastructure that works behind the scenes.

The biggest barrier was never really technology. It was usability. Crypto spent years asking people to understand complex tools before they could feel any benefit.

The next phase is simpler: products that work, settle reliably, and keep users in control. The best infrastructure is the kind you barely notice.

The bottom line: this isn't crypto dying. It's crypto growing up. Narratives fade, but useful products compound.

So which projects are actually doing the quiet work right now?

New listing: SpaceX tokenized stock ($SPCXX) is now swappable on SimpleSwap – price exposure to the biggest IPO on record, brought on-chain and backed 1:1.

Real-world assets keep moving on-chain. Swap in wallet-to-wallet, stay in control of your keys

We asked three teams building the self-custody stack one question: where does the category go after storage is solved?

@ELLIPAL — "Self-custody is a discipline you keep every time you move funds."
@Swapzone — "The new challenge is no longer storage, but execution."
@Zano — "Strip self-custody or permissionless access away, and what's left is theatre."

Three teams, one conclusion: the next decade isn't about who holds the coins. It's about how they move.

👉 All three quotes in full, in our new long read

$BTC is trading around $66,465, up on the week after recovering from a drop below $60,000 – its highest level since early June.

The interesting part: sentiment hasn't fully caught up with the price. The Fear & Greed Index remains at 23 – Fear – while spot ETFs just recorded ~$85.9M in inflows, hinting that selling pressure may be easing.

$ETH holds near $1,813, recovering hard off its lows and continuing to outperform BTC year-to-date. BTC dominance is near 59%, while the Altcoin Season Index has climbed to 51/100 from ~30 earlier this year. Still Bitcoin Season, but rotation is slowly building.

Key levels: $66.9K is the first resistance, $73K the major hurdle. Support sits around $61.8K-$62K.

Where do you see BTC heading into this week's Fed meeting? 📊

We're at BTC Prague 2026 🤝

Self-custody, liquidity, institutional capital, market structure – basically our daily to-do list, but on stage.

We'll write up the sharpest insights over the next few days. Follow along for the highlights, minus the hype.

Self-custody used to mean one thing. In 2026, it means two.

The first question – who holds your assets – has been answered. Cypherpunks started arguing for individual control in 1992. Bitcoin made it real in 2009. By 2026, more capital sits in self-custodial wallets than ever before. The instinct won.

The second question is louder now: who builds the route when you actually want to move between assets?

Liquidity in 2026 lives in pieces, scattered across hundreds of centralized venues, thousands of DEX pools, and more than a dozen networks. For any given pair and check size, the best executable path changes minute to minute. The default has been for the user to build it by hand.

Our new long read traces how the routing problem got this big, what to look for in a workflow that doesn't make you assemble swaps manually, and why one quiet category is now doing the work.

The first decade of crypto was about who holds the coins. The second is about how they move.

Read the full piece

SimpleSwap is integrating NEAR Intents 🤝

The integration adds intent-based cross-chain execution to SimpleSwap’s liquidity pool. You declare the outcome – send X, receive Y – and a solver network handles routing, cross-chain settlement, and execution under the hood.

No wallet connect, no bridge to configure, no approval flows. Funds move from a wallet you own to a wallet you own, with no interface connection in between, which fits how SimpleSwap has been built since 2018.

For larger positions it matters more directly: intent-based routing runs through solver competition, adding a different source of depth on cross-chain pairs alongside the existing CEX and DEX providers.

👉 Read more about the SimpleSwap × NEAR Intents integration

Web3 is dead

That was Multicoin's Kyle Samani responding to StarkWare's Eli Ben-Sasson, who called this moment crypto's identity crisis: institutions are moving in, the industry is evolving, and the old narratives are fading

Sounds bearish. But the reality may be much simpler.

The 2020-21 cycle was built on big promises. Blockchain gaming, decentralized social media, Web3 entertainment. Some of it worked. Most of it didn't.

What survived wasn't the loudest narrative. It was the infrastructure people actually use: DeFi, payments, stablecoins, self-custody, and the rails that move value across the ecosystem.

This isn't the death of Web3. It's the end of the idea that a narrative alone is enough.

The market is increasingly rewarding utility over slogans. Can it settle transactions? Does it solve a real problem? Does it give users more control over their assets?

The industry isn't shrinking – it's maturing. Maybe this isn't an identity crisis after all. Maybe it's crypto growing up.

What do you think?

Together with Bitrefill, we sent our analyst, Rick, across Latin America for 10 days with one rule: no fiat. One wallet, three countries – Brazil, Chile, Argentina. Flights, hotels, a tango show, 3 bottles of Malbec, one emergency pair of sneakers, all paid in crypto.

SimpleSwap moved the crypto; Bitrefill turned it into real-world spending.

👉 Full diary

The PayFi era is here💳

For years, stablecoins were mainly used for trading. Today, they're increasingly becoming payment infrastructure.

This week, MoneyGram launched its own stablecoin, MGUSD, on Stellar, giving 60M+ customers access to digital-dollar rails across nearly 500,000 locations worldwide.

And it's not an isolated move:

🔹 Stripe acquired Bridge
🔹 Mastercard partnered with BVNK
🔹 Western Union launched its own stablecoin on Solana
🔹 Fiat-backed stablecoin supply has surpassed $273B
🔹 Real-world stablecoin payments doubled to nearly $400B in 2025

What's happening is bigger than crypto.

Traditional payment companies are building around stablecoins because faster settlement, lower costs, and global accessibility are becoming competitive advantages.

One detail worth noting: despite all this momentum, real-world payments still account for only a small share of total stablecoin volume.

When do you think stablecoins become a mainstream payment method rather than just a crypto settlement tool?

Extreme Fear. Is the 2026 bull market over? 😱

BTC is down ~45% from its October 2025 ATH, the Fear & Greed Index is back in Extreme Fear, and spot Bitcoin ETFs just posted their longest outflow streak of the year.

Sounds bearish. But a 45% correction is relatively normal for Bitcoin. In 2021, BTC dropped ~78% from its peak. Earlier cycles saw drawdowns of 80%+.

What's more interesting is what's happening beneath the surface.

BTC dominance has slipped from ~60% to ~58%, while the Altcoin Season Index has risen from lows around 30 to 49. Historically, an altseason requires an index value of 75+ and a much deeper decline in BTC dominance – but this suggests that capital is beginning to rotate.

Privacy coins keep leading the cycle, and select AI and L1 names are catching bids even as BTC sells off.
Strength is selective, not broad – which looks more like rotation than capitulation.

So what do you think: has the bear market already begun, or are we simply in an accumulation phase?

📈 Humanity ($H) is attracting a lot of attention right now.

The token recently reached a new ATH above $0.85, with daily trading volume surpassing $300M and open interest approaching $500M.

What makes the move notable is that it comes at a time when much of the broader market remains relatively subdued. Similar pockets of strength have recently appeared in assets like $TON, $ZEC, and several AI-related projects.

The next major test comes on June 25, when a sizable token unlock is scheduled to hit the market.

If demand remains strong, the additional supply may be absorbed without significant disruption. If not, the event could become the first real stress test for the rally.

For now, $H is one of the clearest examples of capital concentrating around a specific theme while the broader market searches for direction.

What are your expectations for $H after the unlock? 👇

$BTC opens the week at $72,834, $ETH slips back below $2K to $1,978. Fear & Greed at 34 – fear territory. $BTC dominance at 59.1%.

We're still trading right on the trend line, and a breakdown looks like the more likely scenario from here. $73,700 is the immediate level to defend – hold it and a relief rally is possible. Lose it, and $70K becomes the line in the sand.

On the upside, $78,000 remains a hard ceiling after rejection there last week.

One macro footnote: MicroStrategy confirmed its first Bitcoin sale since 2022 – just 32 $BTC to fund preferred stock distributions. Tiny in size, but the direction of the signal will get read carefully.

Recovery catalyst? Better macro data or a geopolitical breakthrough would help – but neither is on the calendar right now.

Where do you see BTC this week? 📊

$61.5B and Counting: The Bitcoin accumulation nobody saw coming ⚡

Strategy just hit 818,334 $BTC – overtaking BlackRock to become the world's largest institutional Bitcoin holder. A software company. Michael Saylor. Bitcoin as the treasury.

That's 3.9% of all $BTC that will ever exist.

Target: 1 million coins by end of 2026. 185,000 coins left. Eight months.

Wall Street's talking about it:
JPMorgan says $170K based on Bitcoin's gold valuation model, Citi walked their target down to $112K, and Novogratz is screaming $500K if the US actually builds a Bitcoin reserve.

BlackRock's IBIT? Sitting second.
It's still the second-largest holder, but Strategy's buying faster than ETF money flows in. Marathon's accumulating too, but nowhere near this scale.

Oh, and one thing: Saylor hinted that he might sell some Bitcoin before the end of the year to optimize his long-term strategy.

Who hits 1M BTC first – Strategy, BlackRock, or someone else?