Equities update | June 26th, 2026

Week 26 was marked by sharp swings across global equity markets as investors reassessed the sustainability and wider economic effects of the AI investment cycle. Newly listed Cerebras reported a 94% year-on-year increase in quarterly revenue to US$193m, but its shares fell after management guided to 2026 gross margins of 38–41%, below the 47% achieved in Q1. In contrast, Micron’s strong earnings reinforced the strength of the memory cycle, illustrating growing divergence between memory producers benefiting from scarcity and other semiconductor companies facing margin and capital-intensity concerns. Apple’s decision to raise MacBook and iPad prices provided further evidence that AI demand is crowding out conventional memory supply and transmitting higher costs into consumer products; DRAM prices rose as much as 98% in Q1 and are expected to increase by a further 58–63% this quarter. Market volatility was amplified by elevated retail leverage in Korea and Taiwan, particularly across semiconductor names, contributing to forced deleveraging and added to risk off sentiment into crypto markets and placed further pressure on Strategy and STRC. Nevertheless, consolidation continued across digital assets, with SBI Holdings’ acquisition of Ceres’ stake in Bitbank demonstrating that larger financial institutions continue to expand their crypto infrastructure despite weaker market conditions.

Week 26 Key Developments in Blockchain Equities:

• Index Performance: The Index fell 7.4% this week, modestly underperforming Bitcoin, which declined 7.1%. May headline PCE inflation accelerated to 4.1% year-on-year, its highest level since April 2023, while core PCE rose to 3.4%, reinforcing expectations of a rate hike later this year. First-quarter GDP growth was revised higher to 2.1% from 1.6%, although consumer spending was cut sharply to 0.5%, suggesting that headline resilience is increasingly reliant on business investment rather than broad-based household demand. Treasury yields nevertheless declined materially, although this provided limited support to blockchain equities as a stronger dollar, Bitcoin ETF outflows, leveraged liquidations and weakness across the AI trade outweighed the benefit of lower discount rates. 

• Block Index Key Movers: 7-day top performers: GMO Internet (3.1%), Citibank (1.3%), Mercari (1.2%) 7-day worst performers: Strategy Inc (-24.2%), Iren (-20.4%), Galaxy Digital (-17.4%) 

• Index constituent SBI Holdings expands its Japanese digital-asset platform through the acquisition of Ceres’ stake in Bitbank - SBI Holdings agreed to acquire Bitbank in a ¥46.7bn transaction that includes Ceres’ exit from its minority stake. Combining Bitbank with SBI VC Trade would create Japan’s largest crypto-exchange group by customer assets, with approximately ¥1.1tn under custody and 2.92m accounts. Ceres crystallises its investment but loses future exposure to Bitbank, while SBI gains greater scale across trading, custody and customer distribution. SBI also launched the yen-denominated JPYSC stablecoin and began domestic distribution of Ripple’s RLUSD, extending the opportunity into reserve management, payments, FX conversion and tokenised-asset settlement. Near-term revenues should remain driven by trading activity, but the transaction gives SBI a larger customer and asset base through which to distribute stablecoin and tokenisation products.

• Index constituent Strategy Inc shifts towards balance-sheet defence as MSTR and STRC reach new lows - Strategy purchased a further 520 Bitcoin for US$34.9m, increasing holdings to 847,363 Bitcoin, but directed approximately US$300m of the US$335.5m raised through MSTR issuance towards rebuilding its USD reserve to US$1.4bn. MSTR stock fell below US$87, its lowest level in more than two years, weakening the premium that historically made common-equity issuance accretive to Bitcoin per share. Pressure also spread to STRC, which briefly traded near US$74 on Thursday, around 26% below par and implying a current yield of approximately 15.5% on its 11.5% stated dividend. This reduces STRC’s usefulness as a repeatable funding source and suggests that a modest dividend adjustment may be insufficient to restore the security towards US$100. The issue is not yet one of solvency given Strategy’s substantial Bitcoin holdings and continued access to common-equity funding, but rather whether it can restore confidence in STRC and rebuild MSTR’s premium without materially increasing cash costs or shareholder dilution.

Other news - Index constituents:

• Sharplink raised US$75m through a registered direct offering – The company agreed to issue 10.0m shares and an equal number of four-year warrants at a combined price of US$7.49, representing a 41% premium to its previous close and a premium to the NAV of its 875,776 ETH holdings. Proceeds may fund further ETH purchases or share repurchases, while full warrant exercise at US$8.15 could provide an additional US$81.6m, albeit with further dilution.

• Circle agreed a strategic partnership with Bahrain-based INFINIOS – INFINIOS will integrate USDC, EURC and Circle’s API infrastructure across cross-border payments, treasury management, merchant settlement and embedded-finance products in the Middle East. The agreement expands Circle’s distribution into a strategically important payments region, although no transaction volumes or revenue contribution were disclosed.

• Flow Traders outlined its “Horizon 2030” growth strategy – The company is targeting more than €1bn of net trading income, a return on trading capital above 50% and an EBITDA margin above 45%, supported by expansion across digital assets, tokenised markets and 24/7 liquidity provision. However, its Q2 pre-close update indicated slightly weaker sequential performance as crypto ETP volumes fell 47% from Q1, partly offset by the tokenised RWA market growing to approximately US$32bn.

Other news – Non - Index constituents:

• Intercontinental Exchange and OKX formed a digital-assets joint venture – The NYSE owner and crypto exchange intend to develop tokenised securities and other digital financial products.

• Hyperscale Data received a utility commitment for up to 125MW of additional power in Montana – The capacity could support further Bitcoin mining, AI, cloud or HPC development, materially increasing the potential scale of the site, although construction requirements, customers and financing have not yet been disclosed.

• StablecoinX completed its business combination and will begin trading on Nasdaq under the ticker USDE – The listing creates a new public-market vehicle focused on the Ethena stablecoin ecosystem and adds to the expanding group of listed companies offering direct exposure to stablecoin infrastructure.