🗞️ Exclusive: The Next Asymmetric Opportunity
💸 Yield You Can Underwrite
💰 Yield Recap
📈 Weekly Market Review

Two thoughts I want to share with you this week.

The first is exclusive. I believe AI is the next asymmetric opportunity, with the same shape Bitcoin had a decade ago and a cost curve collapsing in real time. Read on for our full thesis and where Bitcoin fits in the world AI is building toward.

The second comes back to our own backyard. BTC yield should not live inside a black box. Bitcoin set the standard for verifiable, real-time finance, and hBTC is designed to meet it: allocators can see how capital is deployed, when rewards are earned, and how risk is controlled.

Our latest publication breaks it down in full.

Bitcoiners were early to sovereign money because they understood the infrastructure before the market did.

A similar window is opening around intelligence.

The cost of AI inference has collapsed, while the largest AI companies are still subsidizing access to win distribution and workflow dependency. SemiAnalysis estimates that a fully used $200/month ChatGPT Pro plan can represent roughly $14,000 in API-equivalent token usage.

The opportunity is practical and time-sensitive: embrace AI while access is still cheap and start embedding it into daily workflows now. Use it to write faster, research better, summarize complex information, analyze data, review decisions, automate repetitive work, improve code, and sharpen judgment.

Open-weight models make this opportunity more aligned with Bitcoin values. Closed frontier models still lead on peak performance and convenience, but open-weight models are making advanced intelligence more portable, customizable, and less dependent on a single provider. Artificial Analysis ranks GLM-5.2 at 51 on its Intelligence Index, versus 60 for Claude Fable 5.

For Bitcoiners, the opportunity is bigger than productivity. 

In our view, AI and Bitcoin are on a path to converge. As AI agents begin coordinating services and interacting with financial systems, they will need money that is global, programmable, neutral, and native to the internet. Bitcoin is the strongest foundation for that future, and being early means preparing now.

At Hermetica, we are applying the same principle internally. We are integrating AI across research, operations, analysis, and engineering to scale execution without outsourcing accountability.

BTC yield does not have to live inside a black box.

Bitcoin raised the standard for finance by making key metrics publicly verifiable in real time, yet many yield products still depend on retrospective explanations.

hBTC brings BTC yield up to the Bitcoin standard by giving allocators full transparency into how capital is deployed, how leverage is managed, when rewards are earned, what controls are active, and which risks remain. 

Read our latest publication for a breakdown of how hBTC makes BTC yield transparent, measurable, and underwritable in real time.

What bear market?

USDh: 7.3%

hBTC: 1.4%

Stables earning. Bitcoin earning.

Hard to hear the panic over all this yield.

Bitcoin recovered from $62,600 last week to $64,100, ending a five-week losing streak.

Crypto continues to underperform equities. Bitcoin is down about 24% year to date, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq made record closes as recently as June 2. This week, crypto and equities sold off together as hawkish rate repricing pressured risk assets, but Bitcoin remained more exposed.

The crypto drawdown is driven by capital rotation. The marginal risk dollar is still moving toward AI equities. SpaceX completed its IPO on June 12, closing up 19% at $161 for a valuation above $2T, while OpenAI and Anthropic listing expectations continue to pull attention into the AI complex. Managers with exposure across crypto, AI, and technology stocks can use crypto as a liquid source of capital when increasing exposure to public and private AI opportunities.

Data Summary:

Simple Moving Averages (SMA) in Figure 1:

Bitcoin held the 200-week SMA at $62,100, the level that marked broad cycle bottoms in 2015, 2018, and 2022. Price is trading just below the 7-day SMA at $64,900 after that average turned up from $62,000. The 30-day SMA at $68,800 still defines the downtrend, while the 180-day SMA at $75,800 and 360-day SMA at $92,000 remain far overhead. Support levels are $62,100, $60,000, and $59,100, while resistance levels are $64,900, $66,000, $68,800, $75,800, and $92,000.

Net outflows totaled $73.4M this week.

The six-week outflow streak is nearing an end. Daily flows were two-way across Bitcoin and other crypto ETFs, down from $705M last week and $1.748B the week before. June 12 was the first all-green session since mid-May, with roughly $86M of inflows and no fund seeing redemptions.

DVOL fell to 40.19% from 46.36% as price stabilized around the 200-week SMA and geopolitical de-escalation reduced energy tail risk. Implied volatility compressed after Friday’s sub-$60,000 price reversal. Options markets treated the bounce as a short-term base rather than the start of another leg lower.

The equal-weighted basis spread rose to 3.11% APR from 2.85%, with every observed maturity now positive. June 26 is the curve low at 1.87%, and December 25 is the high at 3.82%, leaving a low-to-high spread of roughly 1.95 percentage points.

The early-June backwardation has fully resolved, confirming forced deleveraging rather than a persistent carry breakdown. The curve is back in normal contango, with a soft front end and steadier back end. Still, a 3.11% average remains below the 5%-8% range typical of healthy bull markets, while flat-to-slightly-positive perp funding confirms the bounce is spot-driven rather than a levered squeeze.

New Fed Chair Kevin Warsh chaired his first FOMC on June 16-17, with the committee unanimously holding the federal funds range at 3.50%-3.75%, unchanged since December. The dot plot removed March’s expected 2026 cut and now shows a 3.8% year-end median, implying one quarter-point hike, with cuts pushed into 2027 and 2028.

Warsh declined to submit his own dot, shortened the statement, removed easing-bias language, announced task forces to review Fed operations, and reaffirmed an ample-reserves stance with no near-term balance-sheet runoff. The 2-year sits near 4.2%, the 10-year near 4.46%, the 30-year near 4.93%, and DXY is near 99.6.

Geopolitical developments involving the U.S. and Iran shifted materially this week, with a new memorandum of understanding reopening the Strait of Hormuz to commercial traffic and setting a 60-day window for negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, sanctions relief, frozen assets, and related transit arrangements. Oil fell hard on the news, with WTI near $74 and Brent near $80 from the low-$90s, and the futures strip prices drift toward $72 by next February.

Sincerely,
The Hermetica Team