Corporate Accumulation, May CPI, & Cursor Acquisition

Had to get this out before the U.S. World Cup Match! Hope you’re all also tuning in!

This Week in Crypto

Another slow week for Bitcoin. BTC spent the week hovering around $66K and dropped to $62K today.

• The cause was likely that Israel launched renewed airstrikes across southern Lebanon overnight, prompting Iran to refuse to deploy its delegation to Switzerland.

• The formal US-Iran memorandum signing, originally scheduled for today, has been postponed indefinitely.

• Ethereum (-3.26%), XRP (-4.61%), and Solana (-4.89%) all also dropped on the news.

In better news, the corporate accumulation resumed.

• MARA purchased 1,000 BTC for around $66.7M, reversing its earlier selling.

• Strategy added another 1,587 BTC, and Bitmine continued accumulating as well.

Ethereum got an upgrade:

• The Glamsterdam final devnet went live on June 16 with all 10 EIPs, including enshrined proposer-builder separation, parallel execution, and quantum-resistant wallet testing.

• This is the upgrade Ethereum developers have been building toward for most of the year - parallel transaction processing, on-chain block building, a 78.6% reduction in gas fees, and throughput targeting 10,000 transactions per second, roughly ten times what Ethereum handles today.

This Week in TradFi

The Fed held its benchmark rate steady at 3.50%-3.75% on June 17 in a unanimous 12-0 vote.

• Nine of 18 voting members projected a rate hike before year-end, with six projecting two 25bps hikes.

• The committee raised its year-end PCE inflation forecast to 3.6%, up from 2.7% in March.

May CPI came in at 4.2% YoY, above expectations and well above the Fed’s 2% target.

• The core measure, which strips out food and energy, registered at 2.9%.

• Wells Fargo economists expect May PCE, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, due next Thursday, to come in at 4.1% annually.

• Inflation has now been above the Fed’s 2% target for five consecutive years. Might need to reevaluate that target.

Nonfarm payrolls grew 172,000 in May, defying expectations of a slowdown, also complicating the case for rate cuts.

• A resilient labor market, in isolation, is good news, but the story gets more complicated with the context of persistent inflation and a hawkish Fed.

This Week in Tech

SpaceX debuted on the Nasdaq on June 12 under the ticker SPCX, closing at $161, a 19% jump from its $135 IPO price.

• This week, reality began its traditional visit: SPCX is trading at $174.90 as of Thursday, down from a Wednesday close of $191.82.

• But that’s not all - four days after its record IPO, SpaceX announced it was acquiring Cursor, the AI coding assistant, for $60B in all-stock.

  • Cursor's market share had declined from 41% in June 2025 to about 26% in May, and a source told TechCrunch the $2B it was planning to raise wasn't going to be enough to help it break even

And some more Anthropic news:

• The Trump administration ordered Anthropic to revoke SK Telecom’s access to Claude Mythos over alleged China connections, then escalated into broader AI model restrictions after Amazon researchers flagged security vulnerabilities in Fable 5.

• The White House ordered access restricted to US nationals only. Rather than implement citizenship verification, Anthropic chose to disable both models entirely.

As usual, below are some fundraising announcements, M&A, and tech personnel changes that caught our eye:

• Critical Energy, founded by a SpaceX alum, has raised $22M to turn rocket engines into geothermal power plants.

• Odyssey, a world model AI startup, has raised a $310M Series B at a $1.45B valuation.

• Pramaana Labs has raised $27M in seed funding, led by Khosla Ventures.

Arch is building a next-gen wealth management platform for individuals holding Alternative Assets. Our flagship product is the crypto-backed loan, which allows you to securely and affordably borrow against your crypto.

Disclaimer: None of the above is financial advice, seriously.