Here’s what happened in crypto today

Today in crypto, Michael Saylor teased another Bitcoin purchase by Strategy for the ninth week running, Tether’s CEO says the stablecoin issuer has no plans to go public, and Bitcoin layer-2 Alex Protocol was hacked for $8.3 million.

Michael Saylor teases fresh Bitcoin buy after $1 billion stock offering

Strategy co-founder and executive chairman Michael Saylor posted a chart of the company’s Bitcoin holdings on June 8, signaling a possible upcoming acquisition.

On June 8, Saylor posted “Send more Orange” on X. Saylor’s cryptic posts are often followed by announcements of new Bitcoin (BTC) purchases. If Strategy follows up the post with another BTC buy, it will mark the ninth week of consecutive Bitcoin purchases from the company. 

The post comes shortly after the company purchased an additional 705 BTC between May 26 and June 1 for around $75 million at an average price of $106,495 per coin, bringing the company’s total Bitcoin holdings to 580,955 BTC, currently valued at approximately $61.4 billion.

Data from SaylorTracker shows that the company is up approximately 50% on its investment, amounting to around $20.6 billion in unrealized profit. 

Saylor’s X post follows Strategy’s announcement of a $1 billion stock offering, quadrupling its previously announced $250 million raise. The company said it will use the proceeds to fund additional Bitcoin purchases and general corporate expenses

Tether CEO snubs IPO, says $515 billion valuation is “a bit bearish”

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino says the stablecoin issuer has no intention of going public, just days after rival Circle made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

“No need to go public,” Ardoino said on June 7, just two days after Circle, which is behind the stablecoin USDC (USDC), entered the public market on June 5. Circle’s shares climbed 167% on its first trading session on the NYSE.

Ardoino addressed valuation speculation raised by Artmesis CEO Jon Ma, who claimed that if Tether, which is behind the stablecoin USDT (USDT), were to go public, it would rank as the 19th largest company globally with a valuation of $515 billion, larger than multinational giants like Costco and Coca-Cola.

While Ardoino called the $515 billion valuation a “beautiful number,” he said it might actually be too low. “Maybe a bit bearish considering our current (and increasing) Bitcoin + gold treasury, yet I’m very humbled,” Ardoino said.

Bitcoin DeFi platform Alex Protocol loses $8.3 million to exploit

Alex Protocol, a Bitcoin decentralized finance (DeFi) platform on the Stacks blockchain, suffered an exploit on June 6, resulting in $8.3 million in digital asset losses.

In an X announcement, Alex Protocol said the breach was caused by a vulnerability in its self-listing verification logic. The attacker used the flaw to drain liquidity from several asset pools. 

The Bitcoin DeFi platform said the attackers siphoned about 8.4 million Stacks (STX) tokens, 21.85 Stacks Bitcoin (sBTC), 149,850 in USDC (USDC) and USDt (USDT), and 2.8 Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC). The incident is one of the largest exploits in the Stacks ecosystem to date.

In response to the incident, Alex Lab Foundation, the organization supporting the protocol, pledged to fully reimburse affected users using its treasury reserves. 

Cointelegraph reached out to Alex Protocol through its X account but did not receive a response by the time of publication.