Stablecoin holdings among investors fell from 50.2% in December to 42.8% in May, Bybit's Q2 Asset Allocation report reveals. Bitcoin remains the largest single asset held, accounting for 26% of total assets. That should not come as a surprise, but excluding stablecoins, Bitcoin and Ethereum comprise 61% of users' crypto investments. Retail traders favor Bitcoin over Ethereum. This preference persists despite renewed optimism for ETH Spot ETFs, analysts note. Institutional positions in Bitcoin and Ethereum are more concentrated than retail traders'. Holdings stand at 39.4% and 20.9% respectively as of May. The report highlights institutional investors' clear preference for Bitcoin. Satoshi would be proud of us. His creation remains the leading crypto despite all the new winds blowing in the crypto world recently. Since Bitcoin Spot ETF approval in January 2024, institutional Bitcoin holdings have increased. It clearly shows us that ETFs were really the way to go. Ether positions have decreased. This suggests institutions view Bitcoin as more attractive. Concerns about Ether Spot ETFs not including staking rewards may be a factor. Retail traders demonstrated market timing skills during the March-April 2024 correction. They reduced Bitcoin positions in March and gradually increased them in April and May. This indicates some avoided the pullback and capitalized on the market's rebound. The report also examined asset allocation strategies across user segments. Institutions hold more concentrated positions in Bitcoin and Ethereum. Their concentration ratio increased from 25.4% in December 2023 to 39.4% in May 2024. Retail traders maintain more diversified portfolios. However, they show a slight increase in concentration due to preference for new altcoins. Altcoin holdings fluctuated, initially dropping from 25% in January 2024 to 20.9%, before rebounding to 22.5% in May 2024. New trading narratives drove these fluctuations. Bitcoin Layer 2 projects and meme tokens gained popularity among retail traders. Institutions increased altcoin positions in Q2 2024, primarily through new token investments. Stablecoin advocates argue for their potential to disrupt payments. PayPal introduced its PYUSD stablecoin last year to facilitate instant, low-cost transfers. Stripe announced on April 25 that it would allow merchants to accept stablecoins for online transactions. Stripe's initiative starts with USDC stablecoins on Solana, Ethereum, and Polygon blockchains.

Michael Saylor, MicroStrategy's executive chairman, and a frantic crypto bull, has made some new bold claims about Bitcoin's future. Saylor predicts Bitcoin will reach $10 million per coin. Yes, you got that right. $10 million. His comments came during a podcast interview with Robin Seyr. He believes China will fully embrace the cryptocurrency. "The cost of Bitcoin's going to go up to 10 million dollars a coin," Saylor stated. He added, "Perfect money is economic immortality. Imperfect money is: we all have a short, brutal life." Saylor views Bitcoin as a corporate immortality mechanism. He posed the question: "What if I told you I could make your company live forever?" He argues that Bitcoin has rendered previous economic models obsolete. "Economics is pseudoscience before Satoshi," Saylor asserted. "It's a quasi-religious liberal art, and it's full of people's opinions and prejudices and biases." Saylor contends that Bitcoin investment could extend corporate longevity. "The average life expectancy of a corporation is something like 10 years," he noted. He elaborated on the potential impact: "We're talking about eliminating corporate mortality; we're talking about stretching economic vitality easily by a factor of 10, maybe by a factor of a hundred, maybe by a factor of a million." Saylor strongly believes we will see widespread adoption of Bitcoin in not so distant future, and he specifically mentioned China's potential embrace of the cryptocurrency. Which might sound a little confusing, given how harshly Chinese authorities treat the crypto market. And as usual, Saylor's statements reflect his strong belief in Bitcoin's transformative power for both corporations and national economies. Yet, the traditional financial experts and analysts find it hard to seen anything beyond bullish speculations in Saylor's words.

Bitcoin's value dropped to $61,000. And this is one of those rare occasions when the reason is obvious to anyone. The decline follows Mt. Gox's announcement of imminent creditor repayments. Mt. Gox Rehabilitation Trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi confirmed the news. Repayments in Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash will begin in early July. The decade long wait is over. Yes, 10 years have passed since the exchange's collapse. "We have taken time to ensure safe and reliable repayment to creditors," the note stated. It outlined steps taken, including technical safeguards and regulatory compliance. Mt. Gox was once a dominant player in Bitcoin trading. It's hard to believe now, but it handled over 70% of Bitcoin's volume once. That was a pretty obvious centralisation, many people disliked. But then Mt. Gox collapsed. The announcement sparked market concerns. Fears of a potential sell-off caused Bitcoin's price to fall 6.5% from the previous day. It hit a low of $61,060 before slightly recovering. The price drop hit derivatives traders hard. Bitcoin long positions worth $90.78 million were liquidated in 12 hours. This data comes from CoinGlass, a derivatives analytics platform. Market fears may be justified. Three Mt. Gox wallets hold 141,686 BTC, valued at approximately $8.71 billion. Big moves like that often make waves on the market. A similar incident occurred on May 28. Bitcoin's price fell after funds moved to an unknown wallet. It was later clarified that repayments had not yet started. The repayment deadline was previously extended to October 2024. This suggests the reimbursement process could take up to four months.

Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell has raised eyebrows with recent Bitcoin-related tweets. His posts are rather provocative and have already ignited discussions about potential cryptocurrency interest from one of the biggest tech companies in the world. The exchange began with Dell tweeting about scarcity's value. Michael Saylor of MicroStrategy responded, a famous BTC bull responded, calling Bitcoin "Digital Scarcity." Dell suddenly retweeted Saylor's comment. But that wasn't the end of the story. Dell later shared a Bitcoin meme featuring Sesame Street's Cookie Monster. And we are all excited. These posts have fueled speculation about Dell's crypto stance. Maybe this was just a playful engagement. But some analysts wonder if it signals deeper interest. Dell Technologies started to accept Bitcoin payments back in 2014. Crypto community - pretty young at that time - was excited, but not for long. The company discontinued this option in 2017 due to low demand. As of now, Dell Technologies is pretty rich, but has no interest in crypto. The company has $34.6 billion in current assets. This includes $5.8 billion in cash. The company has not disclosed any cryptocurrency investments. Dell's tweets may be personal amusement rather than corporate strategy. The Cookie Monster meme could suggest a balanced view on crypto investment. Market observers are analyzing potential implications. Many caution against reading too much into the tweets. Dell has not made official statements about cryptocurrency plans. The company's future stance on digital assets remains uncertain.

BtcTurk, a leading Turkish cryptocurrency exchange, has fallen victim to a cyber attack. The incident resulted in unauthorized access to some of its hot wallets. The exchange reports asset losses for some users. But the overall financial stability remains intact, the BtcTurk officials claim. The hack occurred on June 22. It raised concerns in the crypto community. The total amount lost remains undisclosed. BtcTurk stated that only hot wallets of 10 cryptocurrencies were compromised. Cold wallets, holding the majority of assets, remain secure. The exchange has disabled all withdrawal and deposit transactions. Binance CEO Richard Teng announced a joint investigation with BtcTurk. It has led to the recovery of $5.3 million in stolen assets. Teng stated: "Binance is assisting BtcTurk with investigations and has frozen over $5.3M in stolen funds so far. Our investigations & security teams work around the clock as part of our proactive efforts to protect the ecosystem from bad actors. We will provide further updates as relevant." On-chain investigator ZachXBT provided insights into the potential hackers. He linked them to an address that recently transferred 1.96 million AVAX ($54.2 million) to Coinbase and THORChain. This transfer caused a 10% decline in AVAX price. ZachXBT's theory is based on BtcTurk's market AVAX address on the Avalanche X-chain. The exchange has not confirmed or denied this theory. BtcTurk assures users of their assets' safety. It claims the hack has not affected its robust financial position. This incident marks the second crypto exchange hack in 2024. In May, Japanese platform DMM Bitcoin lost $305 million in BTC. Crypto exchange hacks draw attention due to their custodial nature. These platforms control users' private keys. They often hold larger funds than decentralized finance (DeFi) counterparts. For perspective, Binance records 13 times the daily trading volume of Uniswap, the largest decentralized exchange. This data comes from Coingecko.