Japanese Finance Minister reportedly held an emergency online meeting with U.S. Treasury Department officials

Global asset management giant Franklin Templeton officially wrapped up its acquisition of 250 Digital on June 23, and simultaneously launched a new digital asset division called Franklin Crypto—marking its continued expansion into the field of actively managed crypto assets. The deal was originally struck back in April. 250 Digital is a spin-off business from CoinFund. Following the integration, Franklin Crypto will operate as an independent active management platform, targeting institutional investors such as pension funds and sovereign wealth funds. Franklin Templeton currently manages around $1.78 trillion in total assets. This move is viewed as a significant step toward integrating digital assets into traditional institutional investment portfolios.

**June 23** Bitget Market Data shows shares of HIVE Digital Technologies, a Bitcoin mining firm, surged over 22% intraday on Monday, with market sentiment shifting firmly bullish. The key catalyst for the rally is an AI research study from Columbia University that validated the performance of HIVE’s GPU cluster in Paraguay. The study found that HIVE’s Nvidia A40 GPU cluster—after software optimization—delivered performance on par with Nvidia’s H100 in specific large-scale model training tasks, and stood out in a pre-training job using roughly 1.4 billion parameters. Notably, the New York-based research team led the experiment, but all actual computing work was completed in Asunción, Paraguay, more than 5,000 miles away. This setup proved remote intercontinental iterative training is a viable model. HIVE reps stated the results confirm its “geographically distributed computing power architecture” is feasible, and back the company’s strategy to build AI computing infrastructur

June 23 — Market reports indicate that crude oil inventories at the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve dropped by roughly 9.1 million barrels last week, totaling 331.2 million barrels — the lowest level recorded since 1983. (Kinjun)

June 22 — Top U.S. cryptocurrency industry lobbying organizations have sent a joint letter to the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, urging progress on the “Tax Clarity for Mining and Staking Act” and pushing for standardized tax treatment for crypto miners and stakers. The bill, introduced by Republican Congressman Mike Carey, would allow taxpayers to choose when to incur tax obligations on new mining or staking-generated assets: either pay taxes at the time the assets are acquired, or defer tax payments until the assets are sold. Supporting groups including the Blockchain Association, Digital Chamber, and Crypto Council for Innovation argue the current U.S. tax system unfairly forces those contributing to network security (miners and stakers) to pay taxes on income that hasn’t been converted into liquid cash yet. Supporters note the proposal does not grant indefinite deferral, but merely avoids immediate taxation on illiquid income to ease cash flow pressure on miners and network

On June 22, Coinbase Markets announced that spot trading for GEODNET (GEOD) will launch on June 23, 2026. Per the announcement, the GEOD-USD trading pair will begin trading at 9:00 AM either Beijing Time or Pacific Time (PT) on June 23—timing will depend on liquidity conditions—and will only be accessible in eligible trading regions. GEODNET will roll out across Coinbase, the Coinbase App, and Coinbase Advanced at the same time, while institutional clients can access the asset directly via Coinbase Exchange.

June 22 — Africa-focused crypto lending project Goldfinch, backed by venture capital firm a16z, has suffered a major setback amid multiple loan defaults and restructurings. The project’s native token, GFI, has crashed roughly 99.8% from its all-time high, with its market capitalization plummeting from a peak of around $390 million to under $6 million. Per disclosures from project contributors and depositors, roughly 8 borrowers were in Goldfinch’s lending portfolio: 2 have defaulted, while 6 more are in restructuring, leaving tens of millions of dollars in total losses and impairments. One user said their invested funds are “essentially lost.” Launched in 2021, Goldfinch positioned itself as a decentralized credit protocol aimed at Africa and other emerging markets, securing backing from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Coinbase Ventures, and other investors. At its early peak, the project had issued over $100 million in cumulative loans to financial and consumer enterprises across multip