Connect with us

Business

Bitcoin traders are still rattled after $340 billion wipeout

Published

on



Bitcoin is struggling to stage a meaningful recovery after last month’s stumble, with signs of fatigue continuing to mount across crypto markets.

The token briefly topped $107,000 on Monday before slipping back below $105,000, underscoring fragile sentiment after a broad selloff that erased billions in market value. The downturn was partly fueled by large holders taking profits near this year’s highs and lingering unease following the early-October liquidations.

Momentum has yet to return. Open interest in Bitcoin perpetual futures sits around $68 billion, well below the $94 billion peak seen last month, while funding rates—a measure of leveraged positioning— remain flat.

Flows into exchange-traded funds also show little enthusiasm. U.S.-listed Bitcoin ETFs drew just $1 million in net inflows on Monday, even as stocks and credit rallied after Washington moved to end the government shutdown.

From a technical perspective, Bitcoin remains pinned below its 200-day moving average, now near $110,000—a threshold analysts see as key for any sustained upside move. Bitcoin has lost about $340 billion in market value since a surprise tariff announcement by Donald Trump triggered record liquidations on Oct. 10. 

Despite posting gains for the year, Bitcoin has lagged behind both gold and technology stocks, leaving it vulnerable to rotation by momentum-driven investors. Crypto assets did rise modestly alongside other risk assets following signs of progress in Washington, but the broader tone remains cautious.

Here’s what market participants have to say about the choppy trading.

George Mandres, senior trader at XBTO Trading: It feels like a dead cat bounce. Equities trade risk-on, with expectations that the U.S. government reopening can add more fuel to the rally. In crypto, the sentiment is different for now as the narrative around OG whales (early Bitcoin) buyers, selling a significant amount of coins has received a lot of mind-share. This supply, combined with the pressure on premium on digital asset treasury firms and the lack of new money coming to the space, as proxied by ETF inflows is affecting risk sentiment.

Tony Sycamore, analyst, IG Australia: I think the most notable features over the past 24 hours is that Bitcoin has tracked the rally in risk assets higher after that correlation broke down last month. We would need to see this correlation hold in place for more than a session to say that the recent period of dislocation is over. But positive signs nonetheless. The other point is, technically—I could argue the correction from the $126,272 high is complete at the recent $98,898 low and that the uptrend has resumed. A sustained move above the 200-day moving average at around $110,000 would greatly increase conviction in this view.    

Alex Kuptsikevich, chief market analyst, FxPro: The crypto market capitalization fell by 1.1%, cooling off after an impressive surge in the first half of Monday. The 50-day moving average near $3.62 trillion acted as technical resistance, and the market’s climb stalled at $3.6 trillion. Despite Monday’s impressive surge, the market may be forming a new, lower local maximum, continuing the downward trend that began just over a month ago. The market is clearly not ready to switch to a mode of frenzied optimism, continuing to take profits after growth impulses have been realized. The reduction in support from corporate buyers is having an impact.

Rachael Lucas, analyst at BTC Markets: The recent lift in crypto prices looks like a classic short-covering rally, layered with a dash of institutional FOMO. Bitcoin bounced off key support at the 50-week SMA around $103,000 after testing lows near $98,900 and is now eyeing resistance at $110,400. If it breaks above that, we could see a run toward $115,600 to $118,000.

On the downside, $103,000 remains a critical structural level. A break below that could open the door to $86,000, with deeper support at US$82,000 aligning with the 100-week SMA. Any slip below those zones could reignite selling pressure.



Source link

Continue Reading

Business

Billionaire Palantir cofounder Joe Lonsdale calls elite college undergrads a ‘loser generation’ as data reveals rise in students seeking support for disabilities

Published

on



That reality is showing up on a campus. A growing share of college students are seeking medical evaluations for ADHD, anxiety, and depression—and requesting academic accommodations such as extended time on exams and papers. At some of the country’s selective universities, the numbers are striking: more than 20% of undergraduates at Brown and Harvard are registered as disabled. At UMass Amherst, it’s 34%; Stanford, 38%, according to data analyzed by The Atlantic.

While it’s clear that many students requesting accommodations do so for legitimate medical reasons and that increased diagnoses may reflect greater mental-health awareness, some experts have raised concerns about overdiagnosis and whether universities are making it too easy for students to qualify. And the debate has set off a wildfire on social media this week, catching the attention of high-profile business leaders, including Joe Lonsdale, the billionaire venture capitalist and Palantir cofounder.

Lonsdale’s response offered no sympathy. “Loser generation,” he wrote in reaction to a graph showing the rising number of undergraduate students reporting disabilities.

“At Stanford it’s a hack for housing though and at some point I get it, even if it’s not my personal ethics. Terrible leadership from the university.”

He argued that families have been slowly using disability accommodations to give their children an academic advantage—when they might not actually need it.

“Claiming your child has a disability to give them a leg up became an obvious dominant game theoretic strategy for parents without honor in the 2010’s,” Lonsdale wrote earlier this month on X. “Great signal to avoid a family / not do business with parents who act this way.”

And while it’s unclear how many students, if any, are trying to game the system, Lonsdale has made his broader view clear: he doesn’t think universities are preparing young people—or evaluating them—in ways that matter.

“No great companies are interested in the BS games played by universities,” he added.

Fortune reached out to Lonsdale for further comment.

Lonsdale’s complicated history with higher education

Though a Stanford alum himself, Lonsdale has a complicated history with the institution and higher education more broadly.

In the early 2010s, while serving as a mentor in a Stanford tech entrepreneurship course, Lonsdale was accused of sexual assault by a student—and banned from mentoring undergraduates for 10 years and from campus entirely. The assault charges were later dropped, but Lonsdale acknowledged violating a rule prohibiting consensual relationships between mentors and students.

Less than a decade later, in 2021, Lonsdale cofounded his own school—the University of Austin—with Niall Ferguson, Bari Weiss, and others. The institution prides itself on freedom of speech and overcoming the “mediocrity” of traditional higher education. It welcomed its first group of undergraduates last fall and remains unaccredited.

The school has drawn support from Lonsdale’s fellow Palantir cofounder and Stanford alum Alex Karp, who has also criticized the college system.

“Everything you learned at your school and college about how the world works is intellectually incorrect,” Karp, Palantir’s CEO, told CNBC earlier this year.

Instead, the 58-year-old said Palantir is building a new credential “separate from class or background,” that is the “best credential in tech.”

“If you did not go to school, or you went to a school that’s not that great, or you went to Harvard or Princeton or Yale, once you come to Palantir, you’re a Palantirian,” Karp said during an earnings call earlier this year. “No one cares about the other stuff.”



Source link

Continue Reading

Business

Exclusive: Crypto startup LI.FI raises $29 million for cross-blockchain price discovery tool

Published

on



When businesses decide to engage with crypto, they quickly discover the landscape is fragmented across numerous blockchains. If they want to move assets between different chains, they must often rely on a technology called bridging that can prove insecure and expensive. Philipp Zentner, cofounder and CEO of LI.FI, created his company to address these issues. The startup provides businesses with price comparisons of exchange rates and bridging fees. It also aims to find businesses the most efficient and cost-effective pathway for each transaction. 

On Thursday, LI.FI announced that it raised $29 million in funding led by Multicoin and CoinFund, bringing the total capital to about $52 million. Zentner did not disclose the company’s valuation. 

“You can think of us like a combination of Google Flights and Google Maps,” he said in an interview with Fortune. “[We’re] a competitive price comparison and transaction pathfinding for businesses in crypto finance.”

The businesses that LI.FI partners with are fintechs, brokerage apps, trading desks, wallets, and neobanks. The startup has more than 800 partners, including Robinhood, Binance, and Kraken. The company says that its value proposition is that its service allows companies to go to market faster and saves them time on research, integration, and maintenance. 

Zentner says that LI.FI is profitable and generates revenue through transaction fees, though he declined to disclose specific revenue numbers. It has $8 billion in monthly transaction volume as of October, which is about seven times more than its monthly volume from a year prior. The company has more than 100 employees. 

“As crypto trading becomes a core feature inside mainstream fintech apps, the hardest problem is…making fragmented blockchains, liquidity, and execution work seamlessly together,” said Spencer Applebaum, investment partner at Multicoin Capital, in a statement. “LI.FI Protocol gives fintechs and web3 wallets a single API to offer both trading and cross-chain asset movement, handling on-chain routing and execution behind the scenes.”

With the new funding, LI.FI plans to expand into different transaction domains, including perpetual futures, yield opportunities, prediction markets, and lending markets. Zentner says with the new capital he also aims to hire more employees.

Join us at the Fortune Workplace Innovation Summit May 19–20, 2026, in Atlanta. The next era of workplace innovation is here—and the old playbook is being rewritten. At this exclusive, high-energy event, the world’s most innovative leaders will convene to explore how AI, humanity, and strategy converge to redefine, again, the future of work. Register now.



Source link

Continue Reading

Business

A San Francisco woman just gave birth in a Waymo robotaxi — and Waymo says it’s not the first time

Published

on



 Self-driving Waymo taxis have gone viral for negative reasons involving the death of a beloved San Francisco bodega cat and pulling an illegal U-turn in front of police who were unable to issue a ticket to a nonexistent driver.

But this week, the self-driving taxis are the bearer of happier news after a San Francisco woman gave birth in a Waymo.

The mother was on her way to the University of California, San Francisco medical center Monday when she delivered inside the robotaxi, said a Waymo spokesperson in a statement Wednesday. The company said its rider support team detected “unusual activity” inside the vehicle and called to check on the rider as well as alert 911.

Waymo, which is owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet, declined to elaborate on how the vehicle knew something was amiss.

The company has said it has cameras and microphones inside as well as outside the cars.

The taxi and its passengers arrived safely at the hospital ahead of emergency services. Jess Berthold, a UCSF spokesperson, confirmed the mother and child were brought to the hospital. She said the mother was not available for interviews.

Waymo said the vehicle was taken out of service for cleaning after the ride. While still rare, this was not the first baby delivered in one of its taxis, the company said.

“We’re proud to be a trusted ride for moments big and small, serving riders from just seconds old to many years young,” the company said.

The driverless taxis have surged in popularity even as they court higher scrutiny. Riders can take them on freeways and interstates around San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and Phoenix.

In September, a Waymo pulled a U-turn in front of a sign telling drivers not to do that, and social media users dumped on the San Bruno Police because state law prohibited officers from ticketing the car. In October, a popular tabby cat named Kit Kat known to pad around its Mission District neighborhood was crushed to death by a Waymo.



Source link

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © Miami Select.