MoonPay has acquired the crypto infrastructure startup Glide, integrating Glide’s deposit and routing technology, the companies said in a joint announcement shared with Cointelegraph on Thursday.

MoonPay, a financial technology platform that provides fiat-to-crypto payment services, said the deal is part of MoonPay’s broader effort to become a digital asset infrastructure provider, adding capabilities beyond its original crypto payments business.

Glide was founded in 2023 by Tushar Soni and Qinyu Tong, former members of the team behind Robinhood Wallet. The company was founded to help applications accept deposits from different tokens, wallets, exchanges and payment sources. Glide supports more than 100 tokens across 30 blockchain networks, according to the platform’s documentation.

Glide aims to remove friction from crypto deposits

Soni and Tong founded Glide to solve recurring problem they observed while working with Web3 consumer startups, where users struggled to fund their wallets, Soni told Cointelegraph.

“Funds sat on the wrong chain, in the wrong token, on an exchange, or on a card, and every deposit meant bridges, swaps, and drop-offs,” he said.

The Glide co-founders met at Robinhood, where they worked together on Robinhood Wallet. “We got into Y Combinator with a plan to build wallet infrastructure for Web3 consumer startups, but working with those startups showed us that users struggled to get money into their wallets,” Soni said.

Qinyu Tong (left) and Tushar Soni. Source: Y Combinator

Glide eventually shifted its focus from wallet infrastructure to building a unified deposit flow that allows users to fund wallets from different chains, tokens, wallets, exchanges or cards without manually completing bridges and swaps.

MoonPay pushes deeper into digital asset infrastructure

Following the acquisition, Glide’s technology will be integrated into MoonPay Deposits, a product already used by applications including Wallet in Telegram, Moonshot and Paysafe.

MoonPay CEO and co-founder Ivan Soto-Wright told Cointelegraph the acquisition fits into the company’s broader infrastructure strategy, following recent deals for security, trading and accounting capabilities.

Related: Robinhood Chain sees over $70M in ETH bridged during first week

“Every acquisition this year has added a layer of the infrastructure that businesses and their users need to operate with digital assets: moving money, securing it, trading it, accounting for it,” Soto-Wright said.

He added that Glide addresses one of the biggest pain points in crypto transfers: users losing funds because they send the wrong token on the wrong chain, predicting that future blockchain-based platforms will require infrastructure that makes those complexities invisible.

MoonPay has not disclosed the financial terms of the Glide acquisition.

The deal marks MoonPay’s sixth acquisition announcement of 2026, as the company continues expanding its digital asset infrastructure stack through acquisitions including Sodot, Decent and DFlow, Entendre and Dawn Labs.

Its investors include Thrive Capital, Paradigm, Valhalla Ventures, Tiger Global Management and Coatue, according to startup data platform Tracxn.

Former acting chair of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Caroline Pham, was named chief legal officer and chief administrative officer late last year.

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Ether treasury company Bitmine Immersion Technologies added more than 27,000 Ether to its holdings last week as the firm joined the Russell index tracking the largest 1,000 US companies.

Bitmine said Monday that after its latest $43 million purchase, it held just over 5.7 million Ether (ETH) bought at an average price of $1,569 per token and held 4.7% of the ETH supply of 120.7 million tokens, closer to its goal of owning 5% of Ether’s supply.

Bitmine chairman Tom Lee said the past week “was a challenging one for crypto investors as ETH fell by 8%, even as Ethereum witnessed notable positive developments such as the creation of Ethlabs, and even the Bank of England softened its stance around stablecoins.” 

The latest Ether purchase adds to Bitmine’s lead as the largest public corporate holder of Ether. Meanwhile, its inclusion in the Russell 1000 means more investor demand for Bitmine shares, as many mutual funds, ETFs and pension funds track the Russell 1000 and must buy the stock once it’s added.

Related: Bitmine eyes dividend-paying preferred shares, echoing Strategy’s playbook

“Being added to the Russell 1000 is expected to add hundreds and possibly thousands of additional institutional investors as equity owners of Bitmine,” Lee said.

Lee had said in May, when Bitmine was first considered for the Russell index, that up to 25% of the market cap of a stock included in the index is held by passive index funds.

Shares in Bitmine (BMNR) gained 1.7% Monday to end trading at $13.80, but the company’s stock has slid 9% over the past trading week alongside Ether.

Shares in Bitmine rose Monday, stemming losses over the past trading week. Source: Google Finance

Meanwhile, rival crypto treasury firms Sharplink and Forward Industries, along with crypto exchange Gemini and crypto services firm Galaxy Digital, were also added to the Russell 3000 Index on Friday, which tracks the largest 3,000 US companies.

Ether fell below $1,600 last week, with Lee commenting that “it is not surprising to see ‘window dressing’ leading to investors reducing their holdings in assets that have fallen in the past three months.”

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Crypto gaming company Yield Guild Games says it has shut down its crypto game publishing arm, YGG Play, and will instead focus on feeding data to artificial intelligence.

Yield Guild Games said Monday that it would also lay off 35 employees, adding that a prolonged crypto market downturn and a “similarly brutal” video game publishing market meant YGG Play “cannot be commercially sustainable.”

It said a major market crash on Oct. 10 “fundamentally altered retail market psychology, and we do not expect the crypto consumer market or the Web3 games publishing market to recover sufficiently in the near term.”

The layoffs add to the more than 5,000 jobs that crypto companies have cut this year, with many citing a crypto market slump and a refocus toward opportunities presented by artificial intelligence.

“Sunsetting YGG Play is a heavy decision, but it is a market decision, not a product decision,” Yield Guild Games co-founder Gabby Dizon said. “I am proud of what this team achieved under such tough conditions.”

Source: Yield Guild Games

Yield Guild Games said it would be closing YGG Play’s website, its web app that launched games and its community-focused rewards site. It would also end all marketing support for third-party games.

The company’s board game-style browser game LOL Land and its puzzle game Waifu Sweeper would also be taken down. The Web3 versions of the baseball game GIGACHADBAT and the battle game Ragnarok Breaker would continue as normal.

The company said sunsetting YGG Play and its restructure would extend its operating runway to four years, adding it had $20.6 million in its treasury as of the end of the first quarter.

Yield Guild pivots to AI data

Yield Guild Games said it would refocus its resources “into the AI data economy” to provide information that can be used to train AI models.

It will initially create a pipeline for gaming datasets, and said its global community “can generate these behavioral datasets just by playing.”

The company said it was “an organic next step” and the data would help AI networks understand “human irrationality and emergent behavior,” as video game players “constantly make complex, split-second decisions.”

More than 5,000 crypto layoffs in 2026

The crypto industry has cut over 5,000 jobs so far this year, with Block Inc. undertaking the largest round of layoffs in February by cutting 4,000 staff, or about half its workforce at the time.

Last month, crypto infrastructure company BitGo laid off 15% of its staff, an estimated 90 people, while Robinhood cut 10% of its workforce.

Earlier in the year, Kraken laid off 150 workers, and Coinbase cut 700 employees. Gemini also laid off 200 employees in February and Crypto.com cut about 180 staff a month later, both citing the use of AI.

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Crypto infrastructure company BitGo Holdings laid off about 15% of its staff on Thursday as its CEO pledged to focus the company on areas including trading, stablecoins and artificial intelligence.

“Today I’m sharing a hard decision: we are reducing our workforce by nearly 15%,” BitGo co-founder and CEO Mike Belshe posted to X on Thursday. “The ecosystem has evolved, and the way we build financial services has changed dramatically.” 

“We need to be sharper, more focused, and concentrate our people and energy on the areas that matter most: security, trading, stablecoins, settlement, and AI-powered infrastructure,” he added.

The layoffs add to the thousands of jobs lost in the crypto industry so far in 2026, with many companies citing efficiency gains from AI and a wide crypto market slump as the reason for the cuts.

Source: Mike Belshe

BitGo did not confirm the number of staff affected in the layoffs. Its 2025 annual report published in March disclosed it had 603 full-time employees as of Dec. 31, 2025, meaning the layoffs could have impacted about 90 staff.

Belshe said the layoffs were “a one-time action” and BitGo does not “anticipate further reductions.” The company is still hiring for 51 roles across various regions, according to its job board.

BitGo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Related: Blockworks acquires Messari in crypto data consolidation push

Shares in BitGo (BTGO) closed Thursday down 4.67% at $4.80, extending a nearly 73% slide from its public debut at $18 on Jan. 22.

Shares in BitGo on Thursday slid more than 4.5% after the company announced it cut 15% of its staff. Source: Google Finance

Crypto companies have so far cut more than 5,000 jobs this year, with Block Inc. undertaking the biggest round of layoffs by cutting 4,000 staff or about half its workforce in February. 

Robinhood cut 10% of its workforce on June 16, while in May, crypto exchange Kraken cut 150 staff, data company Dune cut 25% of its workforce and Coinbase cut 700 employees, or about 14% of its workforce.

Earlier this year, Gemini laid off 200 employees and Crypto.com also laid off about 180 staff, with both citing the rising use of AI.

So far this year, the wider US technology sector has seen over 121,500 layoffs from over 200 companies, according to Layoffs.fyi.

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Ether treasury company Sharplink has bought Ether for the first time in eight months as the token sank to its lowest price this year on Thursday.

On-chain data from Arkham shows a wallet associated with Sharplink received 5,000 Ether (ETH), worth $7.85 million, from crypto prime brokerage FalconX on Thursday. The last time it received Ether from FalconX was on Oct. 26, when it bought $78.3 million worth of ETH. 

The purchase comes as Ether hit $1,537 on Thursday, its lowest price in 2026. The latest purchase could suggest a revival of the company’s active Ether accumulation strategy.

“I’m seeing genuine corporate accumulation conviction holding strong amid subdued price action,” Andri Fauzan Adziima, the research lead at Bitrue Research Institute, told Cointelegraph. 

Sharplink CEO Joseph Chalom told Cointelegraph in May that he saw three catalysts that could spur growth in the price of Ether.

The first was the passage of the CLARITY Act in the US, while the second was a return to market risk appetite, which will depend on an easing in geopolitical tension and cooling of the artificial intelligence investment thesis. Chalom’s third catalyst was the continued growth of real-world asset tokenization. 

The Senate is yet to vote on its version of the CLARITY Act, and the House Financial Services Committee said it would hold a hearing on the bill on July 17. The US and Iran are working toward a final peace agreement to end months of conflict and tokenized real-world assets have now reached a distributed asset value of $31.55 billion, close to its highest level this year.

Sharplink now holds 876,285 ETH

Sharplink was founded in 2019 as an affiliate marketing service provider to the sports betting and gambling industries, but pivoted to become an Ethereum treasury company in June 2025, with Consensys co-founder and CEO Joe Lubin named as chairman.

It became the largest publicly traded corporate holder of ETH, but lost the title to Bitmine in August, just two months after Bitmine launched its own Ether buying strategy. 

Related: Bitmine, Sharplink and Joe Lubin back Ethereum R&D nonprofit

The company now holds 876,285 ETH and ETH equivalents, which it has accumulated over time through active ETH purchases and staking rewards. Its competitor, Bitmine, holds 5.67 million ETH after acquiring another 52,203 ETH last week. 

Source: Sharplink

“We continue to maintain a steady pace of accumulation throughout 2026. We believe we are in the early stages of crypto spring,” Bitmine chairman Tom Lee said. 

Sharplink added to the Russell indexes

The purchase also comes just days before Sharplink is expected to join the Russell 2000 and Russell 3000 indexes on Monday. 

Inclusion in the indexes is widely viewed as positive because many active and passive funds, including exchange-traded funds, typically buy stocks from them.

Chalom in May said that joining the Russell indexes would broaden the company’s shareholder base and strengthen its access to capital markets.

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Crypto-focused venture capital firm Blockchain Capital is in the process of raising another $700 million for two new funds, according to Bloomberg, citing a person familiar with the matter.

The firm is raising capital for its seventh early-stage fund aimed at experimental or early-stage projects as well as a second growth fund, which covers more mature companies that already have some traction, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

Blockchain Capital previously raised a total of $1 billion for crypto investments, the source said. The new funding rounds are expected to be completed in the next six months, but the firm has already begun deploying some of the new capital.

Venture capital funds are responsible for investing in crypto startups. Blockchain Capital has more than $2 billion in assets under management and has invested in crypto exchanges Kraken and Coinbase, and stablecoin issuers Circle and Tether. 

Cointelegraph has contacted Blockchain Capital for comment. 

Average fundraising deal size up 50% in the past 30 days

Despite a crypto market slump, the average crypto funding deal size is up nearly 50% over the last 30 days, according to market intelligence platform Messari.

The average crypto funding deal size is up nearly 50% over the past 30 days. Source: Messari

However, crypto projects have raised only $466 million so far in April, down from $3 billion in March, with Bitcoin miner and artificial intelligence infrastructure company Core Scientific’s $1 billion debt financing through investment bank Morgan Stanley the largest deal of the month.

“Capital concentration is heavily skewed by debt and late-stage mega-rounds, masking a more modest median deal size,” Messari analysts said.

“While total capital inflows were bolstered by massive transactions like Core Scientific’s $1 billion post-IPO debt financing and Polymarket’s $600 million undisclosed round, the majority of activity remains in the sub-$10 million range,” they added.

Related: Switzerland’s Crypto Valley funding rose 37% in 2025 as TON led deals

Monthly crypto fundraising has also cooled significantly since its peaks in November 2021 and May 2022, when funding consistently exceeded $4 billion per month.

However, according to Messari, institutional infrastructure and fintech-adjacent crypto services such as financial platform Slash and cross-border payment company OpenFx are still attracting high-value raises, with capital flowing toward platforms that bridge traditional finance and digital assets.

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Financial services giant Western Union is targeting May for the rollout of its new stablecoin as part of a crypto plan that includes its digital asset network and US dollar stable card. 

“Over the last few months, we’ve crossed an important threshold. It is no longer a question of if Western Union will be active in digital assets, it is now how fast can we scale,” said Western Union president and CEO Devin McGranahan during the company’s first-quarter earnings call on Friday. 

“At the foundation of our strategy is USDPT, our US dollar-backed stablecoin. USDPT is now in its final stages of readiness and is expected to go live next month,” he added. 

A growing number of traditional financial institutions have been adopting stablecoins. Lamine Brahimi, co-founder of crypto custody provider Taurus, told Cointelegraph earlier this month that banks and corporations across Europe are actively selecting infrastructure partners to support stablecoin adoption.

Other banks and financial institutions onboard

Western Union first announced the stablecoin in October, and said it would be built on Solana and issued by Anchorage Digital Bank. It plans to combine it with the digital asset network to allow users to use the token seamlessly.

McGranahan said exchange partners will support access, conversion and distribution of USDPT and banking and financial institution partners in priority corridors will facilitate direct settlement and treasury use cases.

“Together, these relationships position USDPT as a foundational asset for scaling digital payments and settlement across our platform,” he added.

Currently, US dollar-denominated stablecoins account for the lion’s share of the $320 billion stablecoin market capitalization. 

Tether’s USDt (USDT) leads with a market cap of more than $189.7 billion, followed by Circle’s USDC (USDC) at $77.7 billion and Sky Dollar at $8.2 billion, according to DeFi analytics platform DefiLlama.

Tether’s USDT is the leading US dollar-denominated stablecoin. Source: DefiLlama

Digital asset network launching with first partner

McGranahan added that Western Union’s digital asset network (DAN), which aims to allow stablecoins and other cryptocurrencies to move across its global payment system and link to real-world cash access, will add its first partner this week. 

“Our partner pipeline represents tens of millions of crypto wallets globally, creating a powerful distribution channel that brings digital asset users directly into Western Union’s retail and digital network, solving an industry-wide issue of ramping from crypto to cash as a safe and effective utility,” he added.

Western Union’s digital asset network adds its first partner this week. Source: Western Union

Last month, Western Union announced DAN would allow users to convert digital dollars into local currency at more than 360,000 collection points worldwide.

Stable card launch later this year

Meanwhile, Western Union is also planning to launch a US dollar stable card, which will allow users to hold and spend stablecoins later this year.

Related: Western Union teams with Crossmint to support USDPT stablecoin on Solana

McGranahan added that going forward, Western Union plans to make digital assets a core part of its platforms.

“The focus ahead is scaling, expanding adoption, increasing velocity, and embedding digital assets more deeply into Western Union’s core money movement platform.”

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Stock and crypto trading platform Robinhood is cutting 10% of its workforce as it restructures its organization, a move the company said will improve efficiency.

CEO Vlad Tenev told staff the company is reducing 10% of its full-time employees as part of “flattening” its org structure, according to a statement on X by Robinhood on Tuesday.

In an internal memo, Tenev said the company cannot “default to operating as a heavily-layered organization” if it wants to scale its mission, adding that Robinhood must “continuously raise” its performance bar.

The rationale mirrors explanations offered by major crypto companies such as US exchange Coinbase and Jack Dorsey’s Block, which have also linked layoffs this year to reducing management layers and improving efficiency.

Layoffs to affect around 290 employees

The layoffs are expected to affect about 290 employees, as Robinhood currently has approximately 2,900 full-time employees, a spokesperson for the company told Cointelegraph.

Robinhood previously reported roughly 2,900 in full-time staff as of Dec. 31, 2025, according to its Form 10-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

In a separate Form 8-K filed on Tuesday, the company said the reduction in force also includes the closure of a small number of remaining open roles across the company.

Source: Robinhood Comms

Robinhood estimated it will incur about $28 million in total restructuring-related charges, including roughly $20 million for employee severance and benefits and about $8 million in share-based compensation costs. The company said it expects to recognize these charges in the second quarter of 2026.

Tenev says business “has never been stronger” despite weak Q1 results

Robinhood said it is taking the action “from a position of business strength,” pointing to June month-to-date average daily trading volumes at record levels across equities, options and prediction markets.

Tenev said that the company’s business “has never been stronger,” adding that the workforce reduction is a proactive move aimed at improving execution and focus.

Related: Robinhood enters Canada after $180 million WonderFi acquisition

The announcement did not specifically mention artificial intelligence-driven restructuring, but said the company will continue hiring selectively, invest in top-tier talent and “utilize frontier technologies” to improve performance.

The move comes after first-quarter results missed analyst expectations, with revenue and earnings coming in below forecasts. Crypto trading was a key drag, with volumes down roughly 50% year-on-year, underscoring ongoing volatility in transaction-based revenue streams.

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Michael Saylor’s Strategy, the world’s largest public Bitcoin holder, added to its cryptocurrency reserves last week as BTC continued to trade below the company’s average cost basis of about $75,700.

Strategy acquired 1,587 Bitcoin (BTC) for $100 million between June 8 and Sunday, according to Monday’s 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Source: SEC

The purchase was made at an average price of $63,024 per Bitcoin, bringing the company’s overall average cost basis slightly lower to $75,656.

With the latest buy, Strategy now holds 846,842 BTC, accumulated at a total cost of $64.07 billion. At the current price of about $66,216 per bitcoin, those holdings are worth roughly $56.1 billion, according to CoinGecko data.

MSTR sales behind the purchase

Similar to the previous 1,550 BTC acquisition announced last Monday, Strategy funded the latest acquisition through sales of its Class A common stock (MSTR).

In the filing, the company said it raised about $209 million by selling 1.73 million MSTR shares during the period. Preferred share programs, including STRC, STRF, STRK and STRD, showed no activity during the week.

Related: Bitcoin sales are necessary for Strategy’s digital credit business, Saylor says

According to STRC.live, a tracker of Strategy’s preferred stock programs, STRC traded below its $100 par value for a fourth consecutive week as of June 12. The stock remained in the mid-$96 range, marking its longest stretch below par since launch.

STRC closed at $94.80 on Friday, down around 1%, according to TradingView data.

Source: STRC.live

Strategy executive chairman Saylor hinted at the latest purchase in a post on X on Sunday, writing, “Still adding dots,” a phrase investors have come to associate with the company’s upcoming Bitcoin acquisitions.

Source: Michael Saylor

The latest buy comes about two weeks after Strategy disclosed the sale of 32 BTC on June 1, its first reported Bitcoin sale in years. While the transaction represented only a tiny fraction of the company’s holdings, the sale ignited debate in the community, with some industry observers questioning whether the company was moving away from its long-standing buy-and-hold approach.

Saylor recently defended the sale, telling Cointelegraph that Bitcoin treasury companies must retain the ability to sell holdings to support dividend-paying securities.

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Canadian Bitcoin miner HIVE Digital Technologies’ Bitcoin holdings fell by 331 BTC in the latest quarter, even as the miner reported a sharp rise in annual revenue from Bitcoin mining and high-performance computing (HPC).

The company reported holdings of 150 Bitcoin (BTC) in its fiscal year update on Monday, down from 481 BTC at the end of Q4 2025, according to company figures and CoinGecko data. The 331 BTC reduction represents about $23 million in value at current prices, with Bitcoin trading roughly 21% lower year-to-date.

HIVE did not explicitly say it sold Bitcoin. The company mined 2,885 BTC during fiscal 2026 and generated $297.8 million in revenue, up 158% from a year earlier, driven largely by expanded Bitcoin mining capacity and HPC revenue.

Source: Bitcoin Treasuries

The shrinking Bitcoin treasury highlights how public miners are balancing accumulation against expansion costs as they invest in energy-heavy mining sites and diversify into AI computing infrastructure.

Revenue jumps to $297.8 million as mining drives growth, costs rise

HIVE’s total revenue rose to $297.8 million from $115.3 million a year earlier, with digital currency mining revenue rising to $278.3 million, while HPC contributed $19.5 million, almost doubling year-over-year.

Source: HIVE Digital Technologies

Despite the sharp increase in revenue, rising costs continued to pressure results. Operating and maintenance expenses climbed as HIVE expanded its mining and data center footprint, while depreciation rose to $170.4 million, nearly triple the prior year and one of the largest expenses on the income statement.

Related: TeraWulf acquires Kentucky AI data center site with planned 1 GW capacity

Miner bets on AI alongside Bitcoin

HIVE said its HPC business revenue is up from $10 million a year earlier, as demand for AI computing services increased.

The company said contracted annual recurring revenue from its HPC division reached $35 million by year-end, supported by deployments of Nvidia-powered GPU clusters and new enterprise contracts.

It also highlighted plans for a 320-megawatt AI data center project in the Greater Toronto Area, which it said could eventually host more than 100,000 GPUs.

The expansion underscores a broader trend among public Bitcoin miners, many of whom are seeking new revenue streams from AI and cloud computing as mining economics become more competitive and capital-intensive.

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