CME Rolls Out Nasdaq CME Crypto Index Futures; Janus Henderson Backs Ethena in Strategic Deal

Key developments in the past 24 hours: Tether leads NEURA Robotics' $1.4B Series C NEURA Robotics said it closed a $1.4 billion Series C led by Tether Investments, calling it one of the largest private financings in robotics and physical AI. The round included multiple industrial and financial investors, including several strategic industrial partners. NEURA builds multimodal cognitive robots—humanoids, industrial arms and mobile robots—and runs a unified software platform, Neuraverse, designed to connect robots, components, AI models and compute. Tether said it will integrate its Wallet Development Kit (WDK) into NEURA robots to enable self-custodial wallet functions, and will test and deploy its QVAC edge AI runtime within Neuraverse for local inference and automated settlement aimed at supporting a "machine economy." NEURA previously raised about €1 billion in March, also led by Tether, valuing the company at €4 billion. Warren urges SEC to delay SpaceX IPO for review U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic Caucus' vice chair, called on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to delay SpaceX' planned IPO and conduct a review of the offering, according to Jinshi. TVL Capital raises $5M led by Framework Ventures Crypto financial infrastructure firm TVL Capital announced a $5 million raise led by Framework Ventures, with Flow Traders among participants. Co-founder Lars previously led market research at The Block. The company says its product is designed to resemble traditional exchange-traded products, offering compliant, composable derivatives and structured yield solutions geared toward institutions. Public crypto fundraising slumps; Q2 2026 tracking as worst quarter CryptoRank.io data show that in Q2 2026, public fundraising via IEOs, ICOs and IDOs totaled just $58 million—down 85% quarter over quarter. The number of funded projects fell to 37 from 105 in Q1, a 65% year-over-year drop. May recorded only 13 public fundraises, the lowest since December 2020. The market peaked in Q1 2025 with $849 million raised across 429 deals. Tom Lee: chip stock selling tied to IPO-related rebalancing BitMine chairman Tom Lee told CNBC that recent pressure—particularly in chip stocks—appears driven by capital reallocation ahead of SpaceX' IPO and by investors digesting prior gains. With SpaceX' IPO valued at $75 billion and expected to enter the Nasdaq 100, he said institutions may raise cash to participate and to build secondary-market positions after listing, prompting sales in recently appreciated names. Lee said memory-chip and broader semiconductor charts have held above last Friday's lows, calling the pullback healthy and not a break of the broader tech trade. He flagged SpaceX' first-day performance as a key sentiment marker, while adding that widespread "top" talk around the IPO could be contrarian. He expects a "three-phase" year: continued strength near term, with a later correction potentially tied to lockup expirations, market testing of incoming Fed chair Kevin Warsh's policy path, and possible energy supply constraints. CFTC drafts broader rules for prediction markets Sources say the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is preparing a sweeping proposal to regulate prediction markets, aiming to allow most sports-related contracts while reducing manipulation risk. A draft seen by The Wall Street Journal outlines factors regulators would weigh case by case, particularly where a participant could exert outsized influence over outcomes. The proposal does not explicitly ban specific event-contract categories. The CFTC is also considering additional investor-protection measures, including for retail traders. CME launches Nasdaq CME Crypto Index Futures CME Group announced the launch of Nasdaq CME Crypto Index Futures. The cash-settled contract settles to the Nasdaq CME Crypto Settlement Price Index at expiration. The index includes Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, SOL, XRP, ADA, LINK and Lumens. Janus Henderson makes strategic investment in Ethena; plans ETFs/ETPs Janus Henderson Investors, with $480 billion in assets under management, announced a multi-part partnership with synthetic dollar protocol Ethena. The firm will integrate its AAA-rated CLO strategy, JAAA, into USDe reserve assets to add institutional-grade credit exposure. Via its blockchain investment arm ANTIK, Janus Henderson will also make a strategic investment in Ethena's governance token ENA (amount undisclosed) and plans to incorporate staked sUSDe into cash management to earn protocol yield. The companies said they will co-develop regulated investment products for USDe and ENA, including ETFs and ETPs, targeting launches in the second half of 2026. DefiLlama data put Ethena's TVL at about $4.95 billion. ENA fell roughly 7% to around $0.082 after the news, for an approximate market cap of $760 million. Janus Henderson is described as the deepest-integrated traditional asset manager with Ethena so far. Raydium pool allegedly exploited; ~$1.34M stolen On-chain investigator Specter reported that an older liquidity pool on Solana DeFi protocol Raydium appears to have been compromised, with about $1.34 million stolen—primarily USDC, RAY and wSOL. The funds were bridged to Ethereum and deposited into Tornado Cash. Polymarket World Cup winner market tops $1.8B in volume As the 2026 FIFA World Cup group stage begins, Polymarket's World Cup champion market has exceeded $1.8 billion in cumulative trading volume. More than $66 million traded in the past 24 hours, with liquidity at $352.7 million. France leads with an implied 16.2% chance of winning, just ahead of Spain at 16.0%; the two share a group match that could become a major repricing catalyst. France's market has seen $40.9 million in volume, Spain's $33.6 million. The U.S. market posted $50.9 million in volume with an implied win probability near 3%, suggesting heavy retail activity. Across the 12 group-winner markets, combined volume is about $3.4 million. Weekly volume hit $342 million, and monthly volume reached $881 million. OpenAI in talks for 20-year lease; NVIDIA may back financing The Information reports OpenAI is negotiating a 20-year lease—its largest infrastructure commitment to date—with NVIDIA discussing potential credit support. New York DFS proposes stablecoin rules aligned with GENIUS Act On June 9, the New York State Department of Financial Services proposed updates to align its U.S. dollar stablecoin framework with the federal GENIUS Act. DFS said it will retain existing requirements on reserves, redeemability, qualified reserve assets and independent audits, and add provisions including: caps on reserves held with any single custodian; mandatory risk management programs covering internal controls and information security; internal audit requirements; controls around asset growth and earnings; rules for transactions involving insiders and affiliates; and governance of service-provider arrangements. The proposal enters a 10-day pre-proposal comment period effective immediately, followed by a 60-day comment period after publication in the State Register. The final rule would take effect alongside the GENIUS Act, with a one-year transition period for existing New York-licensed issuers. DFS' current stablecoin guidance remains in force until then. Ant International weighs $1B raise; potential Hong Kong listing Bloomberg reports Ant International, Ant Group's overseas unit, is considering raising about $1 billion to accelerate growth, at an implied valuation of $10 billion or more. Potential backers include existing shareholders General Atlantic and Silver Lake; discussions are ongoing. A successful financing could support a Hong Kong IPO as early as this year, potentially reviving the world's largest IPO effort that was halted in 2020. After restructuring, Ant International formed an independent board in 2024. Ant Group's valuation fell to about $79 billion in 2023 amid R&D spending and regulatory factors. Ant International generated $3 billion in revenue in 2024 and posted about 25% growth in 2025. As of April 2026, it operated across more than 220 markets and supported over 300 payment methods. Its core segments include Alipay+ (cross-border payments), Antom (merchant acquiring), WorldFirst (cross-border trade payments), and Bettr (AI-driven digital lending and FX fund management). In March 2026, Ant Group won approval from Chinese regulators to acquire Bright Smart Securities & Commodities Group Ltd. to expand online securities offerings beyond mainland China. Robinhood Securities cleared to act as IPO underwriter Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said the firm's brokerage and clearing unit, Robinhood Securities, has been approved to serve as an IPO underwriter, expanding on its IPO Access product. The approving regulator was not specified; IPO oversight typically involves FINRA and the SEC. Hong Kong SFC: licensed firms may serve mainland clients, but not onshore Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission issued further guidance on its May 22 circular. In FAQ (9), the SFC said licensed Hong Kong firms may continue opening accounts for mainland China investors—using Chinese resident ID cards and/or passports—if all onboarding requirements are met. Firms may continue serving existing mainland clients provided services are not delivered within mainland China and firms comply with applicable Hong Kong laws and other relevant jurisdictional requirements. The SFC also referenced a joint notice issued by mainland authorities on May 22, 2026, stating its requirements apply to financial institutions in other jurisdictions—not limited to Hong Kong—when providing services to mainland investors. Securitize CEO: tokenized equities could push RWA market to $5T CoinDesk cited Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo saying tokenized stocks could expand the real-world asset (RWA) market from roughly $30 billion today to $5 trillion. He put global equities and ETF markets at about $1.5 quadrillion and argued that tokenizing just 2% to 3% could approach $5 trillion. Domingo said tokenized equities—not private credit or government bonds—could be the main growth engine, and distinguished "true" tokenized shares from offshore products based on derivatives or synthetic exposure. He said the long-term aim is for blockchain securities to deliver rights comparable to traditional stocks, while adding instant settlement, 24/7 transferability and deeper DeFi integration. He added that public blockchains, particularly Ethereum, remain the preferred institutional infrastructure. Meme token heat map (as of June 11, 09:00) GMGN data show the top five most popular ETH tokens over the past 24 hours: HEX, SHIB, LINK, PEPE, mUSD. Top five trending Solana tokens: TROLL, WORLDCUP, neet, Buttcoin, WOJAK. Top five on Base: PEPE, toby, ELSA, SKI, cbETH. Notable reads Galaxy Deep Dive looks at how Hyperliquid's HIP4 upgrade introduces a third prediction-market model and could help capture event-trading volume. New research led by Cornell University and 13 other universities reviews the current state and misconceptions of Crypto x AI, framing AI and crypto as complementary middleware. A feature examines the quiet return of consortium blockchains, as major U.S. banks plan a shared tokenized deposit network by 2027. Pantera Capital commentary explores how tokenization is reshaping private equity and early-stage investing as high-growth companies stay private longer.