Crypto Morning Brief: The Federal Reserve maintains interest rates for the fourth consecutive time, and S&P assigns SpaceX a "BBB" credit rating

Author: Deep Tide TechFlow

Yesterday's Market Trends

S&P assigns SpaceX a "BBB" credit rating with a stable outlook

On June 19, S&P rated SpaceX (SPCX.O) as BBB. S&P believes SpaceX’s launch and connectivity businesses are performing steadily, but the huge capital requirements and uncertainties in AI business offset this.

S&P stated: “This rating does not include SpaceX’s long-term plans such as lunar landings, Mars missions, building data centers in space, and constructing large chip factories in Texas, as most of these plans are not yet quantifiable and thus outside our rating scope. However, we note that if these plans advance, long-term financing may be needed in the future.” S&P also provided a stable outlook, expecting that despite SpaceX’s large investment plans, its adjusted leverage ratio will remain below 2.0 times.

Federal Reserve announces the fourth consecutive pause on interest rate hikes this year

On June 18, according to CCTV News, the Federal Reserve announced on the 17th that it would keep the federal funds rate target range unchanged at 3.5% to 3.75%. This marks the fourth consecutive pause this year, aligning with market expectations.

The Fed’s economic forecast summary also shows that the median forecast for the federal funds rate in 2026 has increased from 3.4% in March to 3.8%. This indicates that Fed officials expect rate hikes this year. The summary also shows that the median forecast for the personal consumption expenditure price index (PCE) inflation this year has risen sharply from 2.7% in March to 3.6%, and the core inflation forecast median has increased from 2.7% to 3.3%. The US economic growth forecast for this year has been revised down from 2.4% to 2.2%.

On the 17th, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, in his first press conference since taking office, stated that policymakers will focus on “achieving price stability.” He admitted that inflation has remained well above the Fed’s 2% target and said, “Persistent high prices are a burden for the American people.”

Anthropic releases Phase Two of Project Fetch: Claude Opus 4.7 speeds up by 10 times in robot tasks

On June 19, Anthropic announced the results of the second phase of “Project Fetch,” evaluating the capability improvements of its latest model in real robot operations. The experiment was conducted in August 2025, where non-robot expert Anthropic employees used off-the-shelf quadruped robots to complete a series of complex tasks, comparing “using Claude model assistance” versus “relying solely on humans and the internet.” Results showed that under the fully autonomous operation of the latest model Claude Opus 4.7, its average speed in all feasible tasks significantly surpassed human teams, with execution speed at least 10 times faster.

Anthropic stated that this progress is not due to specialized robot training but is a result of general large model capability expansion. It also pointed out that AI is transitioning from “assisting humans with tools” to the early stage of “directly operating physical tools,” similar to the evolution from software engineering to agent-based programming.

Kalshi’s annual revenue exceeds $2 billion, preliminary talks with investment banks about IPO

On June 19, according to The Information, prediction market platform Kalshi’s annualized revenue has surpassed $2 billion, and it has begun early, informal discussions with multiple investment banks regarding an initial public offering (IPO).

Fidelity applies to launch ETFs that reinvest stock dividends into Bitcoin

On June 19, Franklin Templeton submitted applications to the US SEC for several ETFs, aiming to reinvest stock dividends into Bitcoin, namely Franklin US Equity Bitcoin DRIP Index ETF and Franklin US Innovation Bitcoin DRIP Index ETF, expected to take effect as early as September 1, 2026.

These ETFs will track the VettaFi US Large-Cap 500 Bitcoin DRIP Index and related innovation indices, with an initial allocation of 95% US large-cap stocks and 5% Bitcoin. During quarterly rebalancing, if Bitcoin’s proportion exceeds 5%, it will be adjusted to 4.5%, with a maximum Bitcoin allocation of 20%. Bitcoin exposure will be achieved through spot Bitcoin ETPs, futures, options, and other tools.

Elon Musk: Measuring real-world practicality, Chinese AI reaching Fable level by Q1 next year would be remarkable

On June 19, after Elon Musk previously said China’s AI might reach Fable level “possibly by Q1,” Tang Jie, founder of Zhipu AI, responded that “it won’t take that long.” Musk then said that based on benchmark tests, that’s the case, but if measured by real-world practicality, even reaching Fable level by Q1 would be very impressive. He also mentioned that Anthropic is correctly focusing on maximizing useful intelligence, which may not show up in benchmarks but will be clearly reflected in revenue.

Earlier reports indicated that Musk said China’s AI reaching Fable level might be by Q1 next year.

Fidelity launches stablecoin reserve management fund

On June 18, according to CoinDesk, Fidelity Investments launched the Fidelity Reserves Digital Fund, a money market fund aimed at stablecoin issuers and institutional investors, designed to manage reserves compliant with the GENIUS Act. The act requires payment stablecoin issuers to hold reserves in cash, short-term US Treasuries, and qualifying government money market funds.

The fund will invest in US Treasuries with maturities of 93 days or less, cash, and overnight repurchase agreements, highly liquid instruments. The current stablecoin market size is about $32 billion, and industry forecasts cited by State Street suggest that as institutional adoption increases, this sector could expand to $1.9 trillion to $4 trillion by 2030. State Street has previously launched similar products, and traditional asset managers are accelerating efforts to compete in this potentially trillion-dollar market.

CME plans to sue US CFTC over legality of perpetual futures approval

On June 18, CME Group’s (CME) soon-to-be-retiring CEO Terrence Duffy announced that the company will sue the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) starting Thursday, over the regulator’s approval of prediction market platform Kalshi’s Bitcoin perpetual futures.

Duffy said that perpetual futures should fundamentally be recognized as swaps under the Dodd-Frank Act framework, not regular futures contracts, which will be the core basis of CME’s lawsuit. He also stated that CME has exclusive authorization from relevant benchmark providers, so regardless of whether the products are perpetual contracts, they should go through CME.

Previously, Kalshi had expanded related products to other cryptocurrencies after approval. CFTC has not responded to this yet.

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing and the HKMA launch pilot project for digital payment solutions after derivatives market close

On June 18, HKEX and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority announced the launch of a joint pilot project to explore new digital payment solutions for trading after-hours in derivatives markets. The pilot aims to optimize Hong Kong’s capital markets and meet the growing demand for after-hours trading. HKEX and HKMA are studying the introduction of “Digital Hong Kong Dollar”—a 24/7 wholesale CBDC—to pay for margin deposits after market close, enhancing risk management outside banking hours while maintaining existing operational procedures.

Tether gradually terminates operations of aUSDT, focusing on core products like XAUT

On June 18, Tether announced that after evaluating user activity, market demand, and overall strategic focus, it will phase out support for Alloy by Tether platform and aUSD₮. Starting immediately, the platform will disable new positions and minting of aUSD₮, while existing users can still redeem and withdraw Gold-backed stablecoin XAU₮ within three months.

From September 17, 2026, users who have not redeemed will no longer be able to withdraw XAU₮ via the platform. Tether stated that resources will be redirected to XAU₮ and other core products within its ecosystem.

Market Trends

Recommended Reads

STRC hits all-time low, Saylor’s perpetual motion machine stalls

STRC drops to a record low, not only indicating Michael Saylor’s high-yield preferred stock financing tool has failed but also exposing the fragility of the Bitcoin treasury company model in a bear market—when Bitcoin declines, preferred stock discounts, and issuance channels close, the positive feedback loop of financing to buy more Bitcoin begins to reverse, even forcing sales of Bitcoin to pay dividends. The market’s real concern is not whether Strategy will collapse but whether the faith supporting this “perpetual Bitcoin-buying machine” is cracking.

Reforming the Fed, Wosh can’t wait anymore

In Wosh’s first Fed meeting since taking office, the real focus is not just maintaining rates but officially launching a comprehensive reform of the Fed’s decision-making framework, communication mechanisms, and inflation models—he used the shortest-ever statement to weaken forward guidance while delegating core issues like inflation framework, dot plots, and data systems to five working groups. This suggests that in the coming months, the biggest risk for markets will no longer be rate hikes or cuts but the rewriting of Fed rules itself, with policy uncertainty likely to be much higher than in recent years.

Intel CEO Chen Lihwu’s first podcast interview: Our goal is “10x in 5-10 years,” betting on advanced packaging, glass substrates, and artificial diamonds

While everyone focuses on AI chips and GPUs, Intel CEO Chen Lihwu is betting on another track. In his first in-depth podcast interview since taking office, he outlined a goal of achieving 10x growth in 5-10 years, shifting Intel’s focus from solely pursuing advanced process nodes to new materials like advanced packaging, glass substrates, gallium nitride, silicon carbide, and even artificial diamonds. He also discussed how Agent AI is driving CPU demand, collaborating with Musk on Terafab, and Intel’s long-term foundry plans. As Moore’s Law approaches physical limits, this interview not only reveals Intel’s revival blueprint but also the next phase of AI infrastructure competition.

Ethereum Q1 2026 Review: On-chain activity hits new highs, tokenized assets lead the industry

The core contradiction this quarter: Ethereum’s mainnet usage hit record highs, yet network transaction fees declined simultaneously. Ethereum actively promotes network scaling, sacrificing short-term fee income with the long-term logic that cheaper block space will unlock massive potential demand, ultimately driving sustained network revenue growth.

15%-25% annualized return, is BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF opportunity or trap?

BlackRock is turning Bitcoin into a “dividend-paying asset.” Its latest Bitcoin income ETF BITA sells covered call options to generate up to 15%-25% annualized yield, but at the cost of capping upside potential. As institutions shift from simply holding Bitcoin to extracting cash flow from it, a new question arises: is this an innovative product to attract more traditional capital, or a financial engineering-driven illusion of returns? In this issue, we analyze the operation of BlackRock’s BITA and its potential long-term impact on Bitcoin’s future trajectory.