SpaceX officially begins trading on the Nasdaq today under the ticker SPCX, after pricing its IPO at $135 per share on Thursday evening. The offering raised roughly $75 billion, making it the largest public listing in stock market history, with an implied valuation between $1.75 trillion and $1.8 trillion. Demand was extraordinary — the deal was oversubscribed roughly four times over, pulling in more than $150 billion in institutional bids and over $100 billion from retail investors.

In a structural break from tradition, SpaceX reserved up to 30% of shares for retail allocation, far above the standard 5–10% slice. Brokers like Fidelity dropped their IPO participation minimum to $2,000 to accommodate the rush, with indications-of-interest closing on June 10. The offering is expected to formally settle on June 15.

For crypto markets, the SpaceX listing has been a quiet liquidity drain. Global asset managers spent the past week selling high-beta tech proxies and digital assets to free up cash for SPCX allocations, contributing to bitcoin's slide below $63,000 and ether's slip near $1,650. Watch the post-listing tape closely — any institutional re-rotation could spark a sharp rebound in risk assets.

Japan's House of Representatives passed a sweeping amendment to the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act on Thursday, reclassifying Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP and other major cryptocurrencies as financial instruments alongside stocks and bonds. The bill now heads to the upper house, where passage is widely expected. Implementation is targeted for fiscal 2027, with the headline tax change rolling out in 2028.

The reform's biggest punch lands on taxes. Japan's current regime taxes crypto gains as miscellaneous income at rates as high as 55% — the new framework replaces that with a flat 20% capital gains rate, aligning digital assets with equities. It also opens a regulatory path for spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, with the Japan Exchange Group targeting product launches by 2027. Stricter rules come bundled in: insider trading bans, mandatory annual transparency reports, and prison terms for unlicensed exchange operators jumping from three to ten years.

This matters globally. Japanese retail poured an estimated $21.7 billion into XRP alone between mid-2024 and mid-2025 despite punishing tax treatment. Cutting that rate by more than half and adding ETF rails could unlock a wave of pent-up institutional and household demand from the world's third-largest economy.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released May CPI data on Wednesday: headline inflation rose 0.5% month-over-month and 4.2% year-over-year, the hottest annual reading since April 2023. Core CPI, which strips out food and energy, climbed 0.2% on the month and 2.9% annually, matching forecasts. Markets had been bracing for the number, but the composition of the report tells the real story.

Energy was the dominant driver, with prices up 3.9% in May alone and 23.5% over the past 12 months as the Iran war continues to choke supply routes through the Strait of Hormuz. Gasoline jumped 40.5% year-over-year and fuel oil surged 58.9%. Shelter and food inflation both accelerated marginally. Core commodity prices, by contrast, actually declined 0.1% — suggesting tariff pass-through and underlying demand pressures remain muted.

The Fed meets June 16–17 and is widely expected to hold the funds rate at 3.5%–3.75% for the fourth straight meeting. CME FedWatch and Polymarket are now pricing roughly a 63% chance of a hike by October if energy pressures persist. For crypto holders, that means dollar liquidity stays tight and ETF flows remain the swing variable.

Bitcoin opened Thursday at $61,456 before clawing back above $63,000 by mid-morning — a tepid relief rally on shrinking volume. Ether tracked the same pattern, opening at $1,620 and recovering to $1,660. Beneath the surface, the picture is more bearish: global crypto trading volume contracted by $4 billion day-over-day to $81 billion, and the Crypto Fear & Greed Index ticked up only marginally to 12, still firmly inside extreme fear territory.

Two flows explain the weakness. US spot Bitcoin ETFs have bled roughly $5 billion since mid-May, with $77.4 million in net outflows on June 9 alone, and Ether ETFs lost another $40.9 million the same day. On top of that, institutional desks have been raising cash for SpaceX IPO allocations, turning crypto into what analysts have called an involuntary liquidity donor. Together those forces capped every bounce attempt this week.

Technically, BTC needs to reclaim and hold $64,000 to neutralize the bearish setup; failure risks a retest of the $58K–$60K zone. Ether looks worse, with the weekly chart bearish across major momentum indicators. The June 16–17 FOMC meeting and any post-IPO liquidity reversal are the next major catalysts.

In a sharp turn Thursday evening, President Trump announced he had called off planned military strikes on Iran, pointing to a breakthrough in talks to end the war that began on February 28. The announcement followed a tense week in which US Central Command struck Iranian targets and Tehran retaliated against Gulf allies. Asian and European futures rallied overnight, and oil eased back below $100 per barrel after briefly testing higher.

The market implications are immediate. Brent crude has whipsawed between $77 and $119 per barrel since the conflict began, and energy is now the dominant driver of US inflation — accounting for more than 60% of May's monthly CPI gain. A genuine de-escalation would unwind much of that energy-led inflation premium, giving the Fed room to revisit rate cuts later this year and easing pressure on risk assets globally.

Skepticism is warranted. The World Bank just cut its global growth forecast citing Iran-war fallout, Iran threatened to target all vessels in the Strait of Hormuz earlier this week, and prior ceasefire signals have collapsed quickly. But if the truce holds, expect tailwinds for equities, crypto and EM currencies — and a heavy bid for short-dated Treasuries.