Base Suffers Second Chain Halt

DraftKings Launches Proprietary Prediction Exchange | BTC ETFs Post Second-Worst Week

Marco Manoppo & Karon Pangestu
June 29, 2026

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Good Morning,

The crypto market is fracturing along conviction lines: mainstream IBIT investors are cutting losses after a 40% drawdown and seven straight weeks of outflows, while ETH treasury firms like Sharplink quietly accumulate at a $1.79B unrealized loss, betting the cycle isn't over.

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In Today's Email:

What Matters: Base Suffers Second Chain Halt 👀
Product of the Week: DraftKings Launches Proprietary Prediction Exchange 👑
Charts: Bitcoin ETFs Post Second-Worst Week 📉

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Narratives: ETF Capitulation

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WHAT MATTERS

Base Suffers Second Chain Halt

State of play: Base experienced back-to-back block production stalls on Thursday and Friday, raising reliability questions around the Beryl hardfork upgrade that introduced the B20 token standard and finality upgrades.

Friday's halt lasted roughly 38 minutes, with block production resuming at 16:11 UTC after node operators were directed to restart their mainnet nodes.
Thursday's halt lasted about two hours after an invalid block choked the sequencer at block 47806542, with no user funds at risk but withdrawals interrupted.
The Beryl hardfork was successfully implemented Thursday at 20:00 UTC, introducing the B20 token standard and finality upgrades despite the timing overlap with the first halt.

Why it matters: Two chain halts in 48 hours around a major hardfork is a credibility problem for Base, which has positioned itself as the institutional L2 underpinning Coinbase's onchain ambitions.

Our take: Manual node restarts both times points to a sequencer that doesn't fail gracefully under upgrade pressure. Not catastrophic, but not a good look for a chain competing on reliability.

For builders and investors: Base now has a documented downtime risk. Maintain contingency deployments on secondary L2s until upgrade handling improves.

PRODUCT OF THE WEEK

DraftKings Launches Proprietary Prediction Exchange

DraftKings launched DKeX, its own prediction markets exchange built on Railbird Technologies' CFTC-licensed infrastructure, as the platform reports $3.4B in annualized consumer volume and positions itself to compete directly with Kalshi and Polymarket.

DKeX is built on Railbird Technologies, a CFTC-licensed firm DraftKings acquired in October 2025, giving it full ownership over content, economics, and user experience.
DraftKings reports $3.4B in annualized consumer volume and $11.3B in annualized total trading volume as of June 21, with the World Cup cited as a key driver.
More than 30% of customers have used combinations, bundling multiple contracts into a single position, since the feature launched in mid-May.
DraftKings first entered prediction markets in December 2025 and inked a partnership with Crypto.com to expand its market catalog before launching its proprietary exchange.

Other cool products:

Spark launches stablecoin FX liquidity layer.
Jumper launches private cross-chain swaps.
Steakhouse launches confidential morpho vault.
MiniPay launches self-custodial crypto visa card.

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CHARTS OF THE WEEK

Bitcoin ETFs Post Second-Worst Week

State of play: Seven straight days of outflows and a 40% average loss for IBIT investors mark the deepest retail pain point since spot bitcoin ETFs launched, as a hawkish Fed pivot reframes the macro backdrop for crypto risk assets.

US spot bitcoin ETFs recorded $1.79B in net outflows for the week ending June 26, the second-largest weekly outflow since launch behind only February 2025's $2.61B.
The average IBIT investor is now down roughly 40%, reversing a 30% gain as recently as mid-2025, with bitcoin down over 50% from its October 2025 high of $126,272.
Friday's $444.51M outflow came exclusively from IBIT, extending the daily streak to seven sessions and the seventh consecutive negative week, the longest on record.
Spot ether ETFs lost $273.34M over the same week, their seventh straight weekly outflow, with net assets at $8.38B against $10.90B in cumulative inflows.
Hyperliquid funds took in $108.09M on Thursday, their largest single day since launching May 12, bucking the broader outflow trend.

Our Take: A 40% average loss for IBIT investors is the uncomfortable reality of mainstream bitcoin adoption arriving at the cycle top. 7 consecutive weeks of outflows suggest this isn't profit-taking; it's capitulation from buyers.

Sharplink Resumes ETH Accumulation

State of play: Eight months after its last purchase, Sharplink quietly added 5,000 ETH for $7.85M via FalconX, signaling renewed conviction even as the company sits on roughly $1.79B in unrealized losses at an average cost basis of $3,609 per ETH.

Sharplink's last ETH purchase was October 2025, when it acquired 19,270 ETH for $78.3M, making Thursday's buy comparatively modest.
The company holds 876,285 ETH worth ~$1.3B as of June 21, remaining the world's second-largest public ETH treasury behind Bitmine's 5.67M ETH.
Sharplink rebranded from SharpLink Gaming in February, pivoting into broader onchain yield strategies, and reported $12.1M in Q1 revenue versus $742K a year prior.
Sharplink backed Ethlabs, a nonprofit by former Ethereum Foundation researchers focused on institutional adoption, alongside Bitmine and Joe Lubin.

Our take: Buying 5,000 ETH while sitting on $1.79B in unrealized losses is either deep conviction or an averaging-down strategy with no exit. The purchase is too small to move the needle on cost basis and too quiet to read as a confidence signal.

QUICK BITES

India's USDT premium tops 8.5%.
Average IBIT investor now down about 40%.
Ether treasury Sharplink bought $62.4M ETH last week.
Kiwoom Securities to acquire stake in Bithumb crypto exchange.
Weekly US spot ETF outflows hit $1.8B and Fed rate hike bets mount.
Binance posts over $400M in weekly net outflows as MiCA deadline nears.
Strategy pauses bitcoin buys, establishes $1B digital credit repurchase program.

NOTEWORTHY READS & MEME

0xCL’s read on Altura investigation.
Arkham’s read on Top 10 Richest Crypto Holders.
Void’s read on risk management in liquidity providing at Meteora.

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Disclaimer: All the information presented in this publication and its affiliates is strictly for educational purposes only. It should not be construed or taken as financial, legal, investment, or any other form of advice.