Economist Henrik Zeberg believes that the most explosive phase of the altcoin market is about to kick off. Zeberg tells his 182,800 followers on the social media platform X that the altseason, when altcoins outperform Bitcoin ( BTC ), is just getting started, and massive alt breakouts are likely to occur in the coming days. He says the Ethereum ( ETH /BTC) ratio is flashing bullish for altcoins, after increasing since tapping a local low in late April. Analysts often use the ETH/BTC ratio as an indicator of potential altcoin seasons. “Altseason has already started. First slowly, later in a more explosive manner. I think we are max three to eight days away from the beginning of that explosive phase. ETH/BTC ratio tells us why… It is close to setting off in the explosive phase!” ETH/BTC is trading for 0.02478 BTC ($2,595) at time of writing. Zeberg suggests that certain altcoins will start breaking out at different times. “In the altseason it will be about identifying the next altcoin which is about to skyrocket. And then have an idea of how far it may run.” Among the alts the economist believes will soon print new all-time highs is Solana ( SOL )-based memecoin dogwifhat ( WIF ). “I maintain my extreme Bullish perspective on WIF.” In January, he suggested WIF could eventually hit $19. WIF is trading for $0.86 at time of writing, down 9.9% in the last 24 hours. Zeberg is also bullish on the Internet of Things (IoT) project Jasmy ( JASMY ). The analyst uses the Elliott Wave theory to forecast a massive run for altcoins. The theory states that an asset tends to witness a five-wave rally with wave three being the longest and the strongest move up. “Ready for Jasmy’s takeoff? We seem to be getting closer to the wave two bottom, little lower. Wave three should take Jasmy much much higher.” Jasmy is trading for $0.01413 at time of writing, down 4.8% on the day. Follow us on X , Facebook and Telegram Don't Miss a Beat – Subscribe to get email alerts delivered directly to your inbox Check Price Action Surf The Daily Hodl Mix Disclaimer: Opinions expressed at The Daily Hodl are not investment advice. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or digital assets. Please be advised that your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any losses you may incur are your responsibility. The Daily Hodl does not recommend the buying or selling of any cryptocurrencies or digital assets, nor is The Daily Hodl an investment advisor. Please note that The Daily Hodl participates in affiliate marketing. Generated Image: DALLE-3 The post Economist Henrik Zeberg Says Altcoins About To Kick Off Explosive Phase, Updates Outlook on dogwifhat and One Under-the-Radar Crypto appeared first on The Daily Hodl .
Real-world tokenization project Keeta plans to offer digital asset holders access to credit services, including mortgages and small business loans, through a new platform built for blockchain-native financial identity. With crypto and blockchain adoption on the rise, Keeta Network ( KTA ) has announced the upcoming launch of PASS, a verified financial identity platform. The initiative is a collaboration between Keeta and SOLO, a credit data infrastructure provider, according to a press release published on June 5. According to the Keeta team, the PASS platform is designed as a bank-grade, blockchain-native credit bureau with features including Know Your Customer, Know Your Business, and verifiable credentials for income and crypto asset holdings. These tools are intended to allow banks and lenders to extend services to crypto-native users by leveraging PASS’s on-chain visibility to underwrite credit. “As digital asset adoption accelerates, Keeta’s blockchain is the first to tackle the scale and regulatory overhead for an on-chain credit bureau, opening the door for lending, borrowing, mortgages, stablecoin payments, and more,” Ty Schenk, chief executive officer and founder of Keeta, said in a statement. Schenk emphasized that PASS is built to bridge the gap between traditional finance and the digital asset ecosystem. Read more: JPMorgan to accept Bitcoin ETFs as collateral for loans “This is the first time that a blockchain network has made real-world financial credentials, like income, assets, and identity, verifiable, tokenized, and trusted for lending,” Georgina Merhom, founder of SOLO, noted. Keeta, backed by former Google chief executive & chairman, Eric Schmidt, is a blockchain network with built-in compliance framework. The project is eyeing traction in the real-world asset tokenization industry currently on fire across the globe. Global businesses and institutions can now tokenize any assets to tap into blockchain’s massive potential, with the sector growing rapidly in 2024 to currently sit at over $23 billion . The rollout of Keeta’s on-chain credit system in partnership with SOLO will occur in phases. Verified financial profiles are expected to go live in the summer of 2025, with additional features, including a lending marketplace, stablecoin-based loan origination, and bank integrations, planned for subsequent release. You might also like: Keeta price hits new all-time high amid 14% spike
The cryptocurrency has traded mostly sideways all week, seemingly unmoved by key developments in the broader economy. Stocks Tread Water as Bitcoin Flatlines U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he had just finished a “very good phone call” with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday morning, initially sending stocks upward, but bitcoin ( BTC) barely
The stablecoin market is currently valued at over $140 billion, but could see substantial growth as new use cases emerge. When combined with artificial intelligence (AI)—another billion-dollar market—stablecoins could quickly rise in demand. This will likely be the case, as a recent trend the Web3 sector is witnessing is the combination of stablecoins and AI-agents. Rebecca Liao, CEO of Layer-1 network Saga, told Cryptonews that autonomous payments and transactions are perhaps the most direct and widespread use case. “AI agents are being designed to make payments, settle transactions, and manage funds on behalf of users or even autonomously,” Liao said. “A recent example of this is Mastercard’s Agent Pay and Visa’s Intelligent Commerce platform, allowing verified AI-agents to make tokenized payments.” #Stablecoins , meet 150M+ checkout counters. Enterprises and #fintechs can now offer Mastercard-branded cards linked to consumers’ stablecoin balances — unlocking new ways to pay and be paid. In partnership with @moonpay , we’re combining our trusted global #payments network with… pic.twitter.com/WMX6sqclze — Mastercard News (@MastercardNews) May 15, 2025 Stablecoins: The Missing Link For AI-Agents Given the increasing use of stablecoins by AI-agents , it’s important to understand why these tokens matter. Illia Otychenko, lead analyst at CEX.IO, believes that stablecoins are a missing link for AI-agents. He noted that stablecoins are capable of addressing several issues that AI-agents may face when performing financial transactions without human support. “Stablecoins typically operate in networks that don’t rely on user expectations or behavior to confirm transactions,” Otychenko said. “Furthermore, bots already play a key role in this space. In 2024, bots accounted for 70% of all stablecoin transfer volume, and this trend has continued into 2025. These networks and infrastructures are already designed with machines in mind.” Otychenko explained that traditional payment rails are human-centric, where a human user exists at one or both ends of a transaction. However, he pointed out that AI-driven transactions don’t resemble this process. Echoing this, Jesse Shrader—co-founder of Bitcoin payment platform Amboss—told Cryptonews that AI agents require a digital form of value to transact, and traditional payment systems simply don’t work in these instances. “Traditional payments like wires, ACH, and card payments don’t scale for micropayments and take too long to settle. Stablecoin payments are better positioned to have rapid settlement, which work within the timeframes of AI queries,” Shrader said. Otychenko added that the combination of stablecoins and AI-agents has the most potential for use cases like micropayments, subscriptions, and investment activities such as arbitrage, liquidity provision, or portfolio rebalancing. “These transactions are fee and value sensitive, making predictability paramount,” he said. “Moreover, using altcoins instead of stablecoins would require hedging against price volatility, introducing an inefficient and unnecessary layer.” How Stablecoins Allow AI-Agents To Transact Although this is still an emerging concept, a few use cases are being applied today. Erik Reppel, head of engineering at Coinbase Developer Platform (CDP), told Cryptonews that stablecoins allow AI-agents the ability to transact instantly, globally, and autonomously—without human intervention. For example, Reppel explained that CDP recently introduced “x402.” This is an open standard that leverages the original HTTP “402 Payment Required” status code . The x402 standard from CDP embeds stablecoin payments directly into web integrations. “Tools like x402 enable agents to pay for data, APIs, and services,” Reppel said. “And because stablecoins are programmable, they come with powerful built-in security primitives—like signed intents and scoped approvals – that will be critical as agents scale their autonomy and capabilities.” While x402 only recently went live, Reppel explained that the standard is already being leveraged. For instance, he shared that Amazon Web Services (AWS) is exploring how x402 could be used for paid compute. This could be a game changer, as statistics show the global Cloud Computing Market is expected to reach $1902.66 billion by 2030. This growth is being driven by the increasing adoption of advanced technologies like AI and machine learning (ML). Reppel added that the decentralized compute and AI-as-a-Service platform Heurist is using x402 to pay for deep research. Web3 file storage platform Pinata is also using x402 to pay per file stored . 1/ Ever wondered why every internet service needs API keys and subscriptions? Why users can't just… pay for things? We launched Heurist Deep Research using @coinbase 's groundbreaking x402 protocol. Here's how we built it pic.twitter.com/mCGstwkbKQ — Heurist (@heurist_ai) June 2, 2025 “We’ve seen solo developers build everything from monetized music playlists to research bots that pay per article. It’s still early, but the momentum is real—x402 is unlocking a whole new class of apps and agents that can pay as they go,” Reppel said. AI-Agents Integrate Stablecoins With The Lightning Network Shrader pointed out that the next wave of AI-agents may also see an integration with stablecoins on the Bitcoin Lightning Network . “Tether’s recent announcement of issuing USDT on the Lightning Network signals a shift away from crypto’s everything-on-the-blockchain mindset to unbounded scalability through Lightning’s off-chain scaling,” he stated. Shrader added that the Lightning Network already maintains the “ L402 protocol ,” which provides a universal HTTP-based payment flow. According to the L402 protocol document, this combines the strengths of Macaroons for better authentication with the strengths of the Lightning Network for better payments. Macaroons are described as “bearer authentication tokens.” Shrader shared that Amboss, along with a handful of other companies, are already combining the Lightning Network and AI in anticipation of stablecoin issuance on the Lightning Network. A Financial Institution Powered Entirely By AI In addition to HTTP payment flows, Circle co-founder and Catena Labs CEO Sean Neville recently launched a project that seeks to create a financial institution powered entirely by AI. Neville said in a news release that AI agents will soon conduct most economic transactions. Catena Labs will therefore use its recent $18 million led by a16z crypto to develop the “first fully regulated AI-native financial institution (FI). ” Catena Labs further remarked that while AI-agents can use traditional systems and financial rails, stablecoins should be viewed as “AI-native money.” The company mentioned that regulated stablecoins like USDC allow near-instant, low-cost, global transactions, which are essential for agents. Challenges To Consider While there is huge potential behind stablecoins and AI-agents, a number of challenges remain. Reppel believes that the biggest challenge with agentic payments is making sure agents act accordingly. He thinks that stablecoins can help ensure this. “Stablecoins are natively programmable, which makes it easy to add guardrails like spend limits or keeping a human in the loop,” he said. Yet Reppel commented that the tradeoff for this type of programmability is that it introduces a wallet, which can be tricky to implement or secure properly. Liao further told Cryptonews that fragmentation, regulatory uncertainty, and on-and-off ramp limitations are problematic. Liao explained that Saga is addressing these challenges in different ways. For example, she elaborated that Saga has a “chainlet infrastructure” tool that provides infinite horizontal scalability and dedicated blockspace for applications. “This is crucial for AI agents, as it means they won’t be bogged down by network congestion or unpredictable gas fees, allowing them to execute high-frequency transactions with stablecoins reliably,” she said. Additionally, Saga has built a “Liquidity Integration Layer” designed to create a unified liquidity environment across different blockchain ecosystems. This is meant to facilitate seamless and automated asset movement. “For AI agents, this means they can more easily access and utilize stablecoins from various sources and move them where needed without complex bridging,” Liao said. Challenges aside, stablecoin and AI-agent use cases are expected to thrive. Reppel commented that on-chain tools that handle key management can make it easier for developers to build safe and reliable agentic systems. “In short, these challenges are being solved with tools that bridge AI and Web3, making them more accessible, intuitive, and developer-friendly,” Reppel said. The post Stablecoins Spark AI-Agent Payment Boom, $140B Windfall in Sight appeared first on Cryptonews .
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US law enforcement has seized 145 domains and an unspecified quantity of cryptocurrency linked to BidenCash, a notorious dark web marketplace. The site is said to have trafficked in millions of stolen credit cards and personally identifiable information. The operation, which was unveiled on June 5 by the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, was carried out in collaboration with the US Secret Service and FBI. Seized domains now divert to law enforcement-controlled servers. BidenCash Enabled Widespread Data Theft Launched in March 2022, BidenCash quickly became a hub for cybercrime activity with over 117,000 users. It facilitated the sale of over 15 million payment card numbers and personally identifiable information that were stolen. As a promotional effort from October 2022 to February 2023, the site gave away 3.3 million stolen card records for free—an aggressive marketing tactic aimed at attracting new customers. Authorities estimate the marketplace generated more than $17 million in illicit revenue. Crypto Assets Also Targeted Along with the domain seizures, US officials obtained court permission to seize cryptocurrency assets linked to the operations of BidenCash. The amount of cryptocurrency seized was not disclosed. The operation was led by the Frankfurt Resident Office of the US Secret Service, its Cyber Investigative Section, and the Albuquerque Field Office of the FBI. Officials stated that the operation is part of a sustained effort to dismantle crypto-enabled criminal networks across the dark web. BidenCash Added to the Growing List of Takedowns The BidenCash shutdown follows Operation RapTor, a massive dark web crackdown in May that brought down various drug trafficking websites. That effort led to 270 arrests in 10 countries and the seizure of around $200 million in assets, much of it in cryptocurrency. Earlier in March, US officials sanctioned Nemesis darknet marketplace operators, another closed-down darknet market. The assets sanctioned were 44 Bitcoin and five Monero addresses that had collectively received over $850,000 between 2022 and 2024. Darknet Market Activity Surging Dark markets generated $1.7 billion in revenue in 2024, a modest year-on-year increase, per TRM Labs’ 2025 Crypto Crime Report. The report notes that Russian-language markets dominate the sector, in great part due to the fact that there is no expectation of Russian law enforcement cracking down on them. The takedown of BidenCash reflects the ongoing challenge for global agencies combating cybercrime and the increasing role of cryptocurrency in illicit online economies.