Former Treasury Secretary Downplays Economic Recession Concerns, Calls Stock Market Pullback a Natural Phenomenon

Tom Lee, chairman of BitMine — the largest Ethereum treasury — stated that traditional finance (TradFi) and the cryptocurrency market will eventually merge into a single market. He added that his strong bullish conviction in ETH and the Ethereum blockchain has remained consistent over the past six years, reaffirming his long-term bullish stance.

Since the resumption of hostilities between the U.S. and Iran this week, transit volumes through the Strait of Hormuz have dropped significantly. According to Kpler data, Thursday’s transit volume fell to 22 vessels from 30 the previous day. Local time on Tuesday, Iran targeted vessels in the strait (including a damaged Qatari LNG carrier), sparking renewed clashes between the two sides. Since the reciprocal attacks on Tuesday, only two LNG carriers have entered the strait, while one has exited. After the U.S. and Iran signed an agreement on June 17 to launch negotiations to end the conflict, transit volumes had risen briefly, peaking a few days later before the ceasefire was broken. Shipping brokerage Braemar LNG said in a client report on Friday that shipowners, acting with caution, have withdrawn available capacity from the region "until the geopolitical situation becomes clearer". This move has reduced the number of available vessels and pushed up transportation costs.

Robinhood has officially announced that its AI agent feature is expanding into the cryptocurrency trading space. Eligible U.S. users will be able to connect third-party AI agents to execute crypto asset trades, co-develop trading strategies with the AI agents, and set specific risk limits, eliminating the need for continuous account monitoring. The platform also disclosed that since launching the beta version of its AI agent feature for stock and options trading, more than 70,000 "agentic accounts" have been created to date, though it has not yet revealed an official launch timeline for the crypto-focused AI agent trading function.

Recent reports say Tencent is in discussions to become the largest shareholder of Manus, a general-purpose AI agent company. According to the reports, a Chinese capital group led by Tencent will repurchase all of Manus’ equity from Meta at a valuation of around $2 billion. Reporters from Southern Metropolis Daily reached out to Tencent for confirmation, but the company had no response as of press time. Another insider familiar with the matter revealed that after the transaction, Tencent will remain a minority shareholder and will not hold a controlling stake.

According to on-chain detective Specter’s monitoring, Hedera Network is suspected of having suffered a hack. Attackers have bridged over $3.7 million from Hedera Network to Ethereum via LayerZero, and the stolen funds are currently being converted from WBTC to ETH.

Analyst Darkfost noted that since October 2025, the total market value of global Bitcoin treasury companies’ holdings has shrunk from $396 billion to $272 billion, erasing over $100 billion in value. Over the same period, the total Bitcoin held by these firms rose from 953,000 to 1.14 million coins — the market value drop was driven entirely by falling Bitcoin prices, not sell-offs. However, it is worth noting that since May this year, when Bitcoin entered a significantly undervalued range, the pace of these firms’ Bitcoin purchases has slowed sharply and nearly stalled. The companies’ most concentrated buying period ran from November 2024 to October 2025, during which their holdings tripled in less than a year at purchase prices roughly between $75,000 and $125,000 — a zone right within Bitcoin’s all-time high territory. The pressing question now is: With these firms having built up large positions at the peak, will they sell off at low levels? Strategy recently became the first to initiate Bitcoin sales; whether other treasury companies will follow suit and become a new source of selling pressure for the market remains to be seen. Given their current total holdings of 1.14 million Bitcoin, if more firms are forced to cut positions amid the slumping market to ease financial strains, this could pose additional downside risks to Bitcoin’s price.