Authored by Micah Zimmerman via BitcoinMagazine.com,
Strategy Inc. CEO Phong Le somewhat pushed back Tuesday against the wave of criticism that followed the company’s first Bitcoin sale since 2022, telling CNBC’s Power Lunch that the move was a deliberate, limited exercise designed to signal operational flexibility — not a philosophical reversal.
“We wanted to inoculate the market and we wanted to test our processes,” Le said in what the network described as a first-time interview. “We learned that everything works.”
Between May 26 and May 31, Strategy sold 32 Bitcoin for approximately $2.5 million at an average price of $77,135 per coin — a transaction that, despite representing just 0.004% of the company’s total holdings, set off an outsized market reaction and reignited debate over whether Michael Saylor’s famous “never sell” doctrine was being abandoned.
BITCOIN’S FOUR-YEAR CYCLE IS STILL IN PLAY
Strategy CEO Phong Le however says the drawdowns are "much more" than just where we're at in the four-year cycle.
Inflation, rates, wars, and regulatory clarity are all shaping $BTC's next move. pic.twitter.com/TZANZZaQIF
Le was careful to frame the disposal in terms of balance sheet management rather than conviction. He cited three reasons for the sale: establishing that Strategy can sell when necessary, confirming that internal systems for executing Bitcoin disposals are fully operational, and creating opportunities to capture tax losses on Bitcoin acquired at lower cost basis — the company has purchased BTC at prices ranging from $10,000 to $125,000 per coin.
Critically, he said the sale was not driven by financial distress.
“We did not need to sell our Bitcoin to satisfy our dividends,” Le said. “We’re able to do that through other capital-raising activities.”
Proceeds from the sale were directed toward distributions on the company’s STRC perpetual preferred stock.
Le also pointed out that Strategy remained a net buyer: on balance, the company purchased approximately 1,500 Bitcoin over the same period it sold the 32 coins.
The most pointed exchange came when the host pressed Le on the backlash from investors who believed Strategy had pledged never to liquidate its Bitcoin reserves. Le acknowledged the frustration but was unapologetic.
“We have a set of constituents that we have to be able to answer to,” he said, listing common stockholders, preferred shareholders, debt holders, and Bitcoin holders. “When it makes sense for our common stockholders for us to sell our Bitcoin, we will.”
Le suggested the loudest critics were retail investors and “crypto anarchists” ideologically committed to permanent hodling — not the institutional shareholders the company interacts with directly.
“Our institutional shareholders that we talked to don’t seem to be unnerved by it,” he said.
This was not Strategy’s first Bitcoin disposal. In December 2022, the company sold 704 BTC at $16,776 per coin and repurchased 810 BTC two days later — a tax-loss harvesting maneuver that exploited the lack of a crypto wash-sale rule.
Jeffrey’s chief market strategist David Zervos, who joined Le on set, asked about the macro picture around Bitcoin, noting weakness across traditional safe-haven assets. Le acknowledged the broader headwinds, citing three macro forces pressuring Bitcoin: uncertainty around the Federal Reserve’s interest rate path, two ongoing global wars, and a lack of regulatory clarity from Congress on pending crypto legislation.
Still, Le remained bullish on Bitcoin’s long-term thesis.
“I do think Bitcoin is a hedge against inflation. I think Bitcoin is a hedge against big government,” he said, adding that the current environment — potentially a cyclical drawdown — mirrors the roughly 75% pullback seen in May 2022, four years ago.
Bitcoin price and Strategy shares under pressureThe market, for now, is less sanguine. Bitcoin was trading around $61,600 on June 10, 2026 — down more than 40% from its all-time high of $126,198 reached in October 2025. The sell-off deepened after the Strategy announcement coincided with record spot ETF outflows estimated between $2.8 billion and $3.5 billion, triggering $1.8 billion in forced liquidations in a single day.
MSTR shares have been caught in the same downdraft, trading near $117–$127 as of this week — down roughly 67% from their 52-week high of $457.
Strategy has since resumed buying, acquiring 1,550 BTC at an average price of $65,332 between June 1 and June 7 in a move analysts characterized as an effort to restore market confidence.
As of late May, the company held 845,256 Bitcoin at a total cost basis of approximately $63.97 billion.
Tyler Durden Thu, 06/11/2026 - 07:20Alcoa shares in New York were hammered the most in over a year on Wednesday after CFO Molly Beerman warned investors that the company's alumina segment faces heavy losses from the energy shock and ongoing disruption at the Hormuz maritime chokepoint.
Beerman was blunt with investors while giving a presentation at the Wells Fargo Industrials & Materials Conference.
She said, "Our alumina segment is very pressured right now," adding, "The segment as a whole will be underwater."
Beerman said the unprofitability in the alumina segment stems from a toxic cocktail of soaring energy costs, supply disruptions in the Gulf region, and LNG disruptions in Western Australia following Cyclone Narelle.
Alcoa's alumina refineries are heavily exposed because they rely on fuel and electricity, and typically ship material to aluminum smelters in the Persian Gulf.
Alcoa's alumina refineries are mainly in Western Australia, Brazil, and Spain. None are located in the Gulf region.
What's important is that the company's refining assets are outside the Gulf, but its alumina cargoes feed Gulf smelters, making the business exposed to ongoing Hormuz shipping disruption and Gulf energy shocks.
Alcoa expects 2026 Alumina segment production of 9.7-9.9 million metric tons and shipments of 11.8-12.0 million metric tons.
Beerman's warning sent shares tumbling 9.5% in New York on Wednesday, marking the largest one-day drop in 14 months. Shares were up 2% in premarket trading, clawing back some of yesterday's losses.
Year-to-date, the stock is up 23.4% and is nearing its 2022 highs.
According to Bloomberg data, Wall Street analysts are mostly bullish on AA.
We have cited several institutional metal desks, including Mercuria, Goldman, and JPMorgan, all of which see the Gulf energy shock producing a supply shock in the aluminum market. This has sent prices back to 2022 highs.
Mercuria commodities analyst Nick Snowdon recently told Reuters on the sidelines of the Financial Times Commodities Global Summit in Lausanne, Switzerland, that "The scale of the supply shock we're seeing in the aluminum market is probably the largest single supply shock a base metals market has suffered in the post-2000 era."
Snowdon then told the outlet, "We are already in a 'black swan' event. No one could have foreseen something on this scale."
Latest reporting:
Alcoa recently warned investors that the energy shock would weigh on second-quarter earnings.
Tyler Durden Thu, 06/11/2026 - 06:55
Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity,
New measures would compel client-side inspection of every photo, video and message on devices, escalating the digital ID lockdown already plotted for British smartphones in coordination with major technology firms.
Privacy advocates warn the "child safety" framing masks a broader drive to turn personal phones into mandatory surveillance endpoints, with criminal penalties aimed at any executive who resists.
Reclaim The Net, an organization dedicated to countering online censorship and digital surveillance, flagged the draft legislation in recent updates.
The UK is drafting a law to jail tech execs for 5 YEARS if they refuse to build scanners that scan EVERY photo, video & message on your phone.
Refuse the backdoor = go to prison.
All while screaming "think of the children." https://t.co/fN2rLCwuGk
The group described how UK authorities are preparing to imprison tech executives for up to five years under the Online Safety Act if companies refuse to build and deploy scanners capable of reviewing every piece of content on user devices.
The push targets expanded "client-side scanning" features, requiring devices to inspect material before it is sent or received.
Existing tools from Apple and Google, such as nudity detection in Messages or sensitive content warnings, would be broadened into comprehensive, always-active systems. Non-compliance would trigger direct penalties against company leadership rather than the firms alone.
UK Wants Message Scanning on Phones, Jail CEOs Who Refusehttps://t.co/B3WfHIS21p
— Reclaim The Net (@ReclaimTheNetHQ) June 9, 2026Former Home Office safeguarding minister Jess Phillips, who resigned in May, had publicly pressed for faster action. She stated it had taken a year to secure agreement even to threaten legislation in this space and expressed frustration that promised timelines kept slipping, questioning how many children had gone without protections while focus remained on tech company objections.
? Tech companies like Apple and Google have three months.
Activate safeguards on smartphones and tablets to detect and block nude images for children or we will bring forward legislation to force you to do so.
This scanning requirement advances the same agenda detailed in earlier reporting on UK government plans to tie smartphone access to digital identification. Under those proposals, full device functionality would depend on users submitting verified government ID during setup or ongoing use, often through biometric checks such as video selfies paired with document scans.
Without compliance, devices would default to restricted child-locked modes, limiting core features like unrestricted messaging, streaming and browsing. The approach effectively creates a chokehold on software and internet access for anyone unwilling to submit to centralized identity verification.
? BREAKING: Keir Starmer threatens mandatory ID checks to use mobile phones
"Protecting children online is vital, but these are outrageous plans that will fail to address the underlying causes of online harm. This will only result in population-wide ID checks for all of us to... pic.twitter.com/GQVFUu4jdh
Google has already begun rolling out digital ID support in the UK via Google Wallet on Android devices. Users can add verified copies of passports or other documents after completing a short video selfie and ID scan.
The feature aligns with Online Safety Act age checks and is being explored for wider certification under the government's digital identity trust framework, including potential use for age-restricted purchases.
Apple has implemented parallel restrictions on iOS in Britain, forcing age confirmation steps that previously caused major disruptions for millions of users.
Silkie Carlo of Big Brother Watch condemned the direction. "Protecting children online is vital, but these are outrageous plans that will fail to address the underlying causes of online harm," she said. "This will only result in population-wide ID checks for all of us to use our phones, tablets and laptops."
Carlo added: "Put simply, the Labour Government is introducing ID checks for the internet. No one in a democracy should need to show their passport just to get online."
She noted that the measures substitute performative government control for genuine parental responsibility, with children easily circumventing restrictions by using adult-registered devices. For adults, the backdoor digital ID requirement would mark "the death of anonymity and internet privacy."
?NEWS: The UK Government is planning to force tech companies to restrict phones
"This will only result in population-wide ID checks for all of us to use our phones, tablets and laptops.
These plans would replace efforts for meaningful tech and parental responsibility with... pic.twitter.com/OCUfCRH0RY
GrapheneOS, the open-source privacy and security hardened mobile operating system, has laid bare how Apple and Google are weaponizing hardware-based attestation to eliminate competition and lock users into their approved devices and operating systems.
Apple and Google are gradually expanding their use of hardware-based attestation. They're convincing a growing number of services to adopt it. Google's Play Integrity API and Apple's App Attest API are very similar. Apple brought it to the web via Privacy Pass, which Google...
— GrapheneOS (@GrapheneOS) May 10, 2026Governments are actively accelerating this lock-in. The EU and other authorities are mandating Apple and Google attestation for digital payments, government ID systems, age verification and banking apps, forcing citizens onto approved hardware and OSes just to access essential services.
The new jail threat for non-compliant executives directly operationalizes long-standing intelligence priorities. Client-side scanning has been a GCHQ ambition for years. Once embedded through regulatory compulsion, the technology sits inside every device and can analyze content before encryption takes effect.
Proponents present it as narrowly focused on blocking child sexual abuse material or grooming. The underlying code, however, supports expansion to any content category authorities later designate as prohibited, with updates pushed remotely and without fresh legislation or user consent.
This fits the wider digital ID infrastructure already under construction. The government's One Login platform and planned GOV.UK Wallet aim to centralize identity verification across services, incorporating biometric data, comprehensive audit trails and permission frameworks that can deny access to jobs, purchases or other functions based on compliance status.
Private discussions have included assigning digital IDs to newborns alongside health records, modeled on systems like Estonia's, creating cradle-to-grave profiles from the moment of birth registration.
Officials repeatedly frame these steps as essential child protection. Yet the architecture prioritizes mass data collection and device-level access over precise interventions.
Real exploitation concerns persist, but the chosen tools create permanent surveillance capacity that can be repurposed far beyond the initial justification.
The same political class overseeing high migration levels and repeated institutional failures around grooming scandals now demands ever-deeper monitoring tools.
International parallels reinforce the pattern: global digital identity blueprints promoted through bodies such as the World Health Organization, with backing tied to entities like the Gates Foundation, outline interoperable systems for lifelong tracking from birth, integrating personal data with socioeconomic details and enabling AI-driven behavioral conditioning around services, information and compliance.
In Britain, phone-based digital ID combined with mandatory scanning forms interlocking pieces of this apparatus. What begins as age verification or content filtering quickly becomes the technical foundation for conditioning everyday access to communication and information.
Reclaim The Net has tracked these developments closely, cutting through official language to highlight how incremental demands on technology providers accumulate into fundamental losses of individual control over personal devices.
Privacy-first messaging technology company Signal has issued a direct rebuke of the UK government's scanning demands, charging that the UK government plans on "using a dystopian combination of age verification and content scanning," that "will not safeguard children," adding that "It endangers us all."
— Rare | ???? (@RareAxies) June 8, 2026The company makes clear that forcing client-side scanning across every device, paired with the age verification and digital ID mechanisms already in motion, creates a system that cannot be limited to its stated purpose. Once the technical capability exists to inspect all photos, videos and messages on phones before encryption, the architecture stands ready for expansion far beyond nudity detection.
This position from Signal carries particular weight. The app's entire model rests on unbreakable encryption that keeps even the company itself from accessing user communications. Mandatory device-level scanning directly undermines that foundation, turning every smartphone into a potential informant regardless of which secure app a user chooses.
While ministers insist the measures target predators, Signal and other privacy advocates recognize the inevitable outcome: a surveillance apparatus that endangers the privacy and security of the entire population.
Companies that refuse to weaken their products face the newly proposed criminal penalties against executives, while those that comply hand the state a backdoor into every device.
Threatening prison time for executives who refuse to weaken device security or encryption sends a clear signal. Global technology companies operating in the UK face direct coercion to embed features that compromise user privacy for everyone, not merely targeted suspects.
This is what the UK spyware proposal means.
There must be government spyware on every mobile device. It shall watch everything that happens, including always watching the screen, looking for things the government disapproves of.
When anything is flagged by the software as...
Britain edges closer to pioneering one of the most restrictive internet regimes among democratic nations, where routine phone use requires submission to centralized identity systems and preemptive content inspection. History shows such infrastructures rarely remain limited to their stated initial purposes.
Genuine protection of the vulnerable rests on strong families, community standards and focused law enforcement, not universal device spying sold as safety. The current trajectory constructs the mechanisms for expansive state oversight while eroding the private sphere that has long defined free societies.
As draft laws move from discussion to enforcement with criminal penalties attached, the opportunity to halt this digital chokehold narrows. Defending the principle that individuals retain sovereignty over their own phones and communications is now central to preserving liberty in an age of accelerating technological control.
Tyler Durden Thu, 06/11/2026 - 06:30For months, we have warned readers that the probability of El Niño formation was rising, with downstream risks across critical agricultural growing belts. That forecast has now moved from a risk scenario to reality, as the first major weather body has formally declared the onset of this warming pattern in the equatorial Pacific, threatening to disrupt rainfall, temperatures, crop yields, power demand, and commodity flows into year-end.
Bloomberg commodity expert Javier Blas wrote on X, "The Japanese Meteorological Agency becomes the first major weather body to formally call the onset of El Niño phenomenon in the Pacific."
"It's the first El Niño in three years, and some forecasters expect it to be one of the strongest ever," Blas noted.
The Japanese Meteorological Agency becomes the first major weather body to formally call the onset of El Niño phenomenon in the Pacific.
It's the first El Niño in three years, and some forecaster expect to be one of the strongest ever. https://t.co/v6OlU9mMTu
Our coverage on the El Niño risk:
El Niño is driven by unusually warm Pacific waters and can shift rainfall and temperature patterns worldwide. Early impacts are already appearing, including a delayed Indian monsoon and disruptions to Peru's fishing season. Historically, strong El Niño events have reduced yields for the world's top agricultural belts.
Already...
Thailand white rice, a regional Asian benchmark, surged 20% in May, the largest monthly increase in data going back to 2008, according to Bloomberg.
Here is the Bloomberg overview of El Niño:
What is El Niño?
El Niño was first observed in the 1600s by Peruvian fishermen, who noticed that Pacific waters were unusually warm around Christmas time in some years. They named this naturally occurring phenomenon "El Niño de Navidad" in reference to the Christ Child.
During El Niño, trade winds that normally blow east-to-west and push warm Pacific water toward Asia begin to weaken or even reverse direction. It's unclear what triggers this shift, but it results in warm water drifting toward the Americas, heating large parts of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean. The extra warmth changes the atmosphere above the sea. Storm tracks shift and rainfall patterns move.
How often does El Niño occur?
There's no fixed timetable for when El Niño emerges. It typically appears every two to seven years and varies in strength and duration. The last event was in 2023-2024.
El Niño is part of a larger Pacific climate cycle known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO. The cycle swings between El Niño, its cooler counterpart La Niña and a neutral phase in between. During La Niña, the east-to-west trade winds become stronger, pushing warm water further west and resulting in a cooler-than-usual eastern Pacific.
The immense size of the Pacific Ocean, which covers around a third of the planet's surface, gives ENSO an outsized influence on global weather. While similar climate patterns exist in the Atlantic and Indian oceans, they don't have the same reach. El Niño and La Niña events usually peak between December and January, although their effects can linger for months.
What is a 'Super El Niño'?
El Niño is identified by monitoring the temperature levels in the Pacific Ocean, most commonly in a region known as Niño 3.4. The threshold for El Niño used by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), is when the sea surface temperature exceeds the long-term average by at least 0.5C (0.9F) for five consecutive overlapping three-month periods. For a strong El Niño, the temperature difference must be at least 1.5C; for a very strong El Niño it must reach at least 2C.
"Super El Niño" isn't an official term used by forecasters such as NOAA and the World Meteorological Organization. It's been popularized this year as a very strong El Niño looks to be on the cards.
Very strong El Niños are rare. There have only been around a handful since 1950 and the last one was in 2015-2016. Severe weather events are more likely to occur when there's a stronger El Niño, but they're not guaranteed.
How is the weather affected by El Niño?
The heat that El Niño slowly releases from the Pacific Ocean into the atmosphere often pushes global temperatures to new highs. Scientists expect 2027 to be one of the hottest years on record, potentially dethroning 2024, which came in 1.5C above the pre-industrial average, according to NOAA.
El Niño doesn't hit every region in the same way. The effects typically materialize in the tropics first, before spreading across Australia, Asia, the Americas and Africa.
Australia, southeast Asia, the northern US and Canada usually become hotter and drier, making them more prone to drought and wildfires. India can experience disruptions to monsoon rainfall. The southern US, Chile, Argentina and parts of East Africa frequently experience wetter conditions and a greater risk of flooding.
The Atlantic hurricane season often becomes quieter during El Niño years because increased wind shear — a sudden change in wind speed or direction — tears apart developing storms. The hurricanes that do form could still be highly destructive, but a lower frequency could reduce the harm to communities and infrastructure and limit disruption to oil and gas assets in the Gulf of Mexico.
There are usually around 14 named Atlantic storms from June through November — storms are given names when their wind speeds reach 39 miles (63 kilometers) per hour. NOAA expects there to be only eight to 14 this time around, in part due to El Niño.
By contrast, typhoon activity across the Pacific tends to increase during El Niño years. The warmer water provides more fuel for these tropical storms, meaning Asia could face increased risk of typhoon damage.
Why do the changes from El Niño matter?
El Niño is one of the world's most closely watched climate signals because it offers clues about storms, drought risk, crop yields and energy demand months in advance.
Utilities use ENSO forecasts to gauge demand for heating and cooling. Higher temperatures boost electricity consumption for air conditioning. This can strain power grids and trigger blackouts. Less rainfall reduces output from hydroelectric dams.
Commodity traders watch for threats to crops, mining operations, oil and gas production and shipping routes. Drought can lower water levels in the Panama Canal, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, slowing cargo traffic through one of the world's busiest shipping bottlenecks.
El Niño can have both positive and negative effects but the global economic losses have historically outweighed the regional benefits. Scientists at Dartmouth College looked at the lingering five-year fallout from El Niños and estimated that the 1997-1998 event led to $5.7 trillion in lost gross domestic product globally.
How does El Niño affect food production?
Some crops benefit from El Niño. Higher rainfall in California, for example, is good for avocado and almond yields. However, many staples, including rice, wheat, palm oil, coffee and sugar, are produced in areas likely to face drier and hotter conditions.
Beyond the impact on land, El Niño can disrupt ocean fisheries. The warm Pacific water flowing eastward keeps a lid on cooler, nutrient-rich water ascending to the sea surface, resulting in fewer phytoplankton for fish to eat. Some fish, such as anchovies off the coast of Peru, may seek cooler, deeper water, making them harder to catch, while tropical species may venture to areas that are normally too cold.
Lower crop harvests, smaller fishing hauls and livestock casualties from extreme weather can threaten global food security and push up prices.
The reason the El Niño weather pattern is drawing so much concern is that weather shocks can directly impact agricultural yields, tighten food supplies, and send prices higher. That risk is emerging at the same time energy shocks from the Gulf are already lifting inflation expectations (read here). If food prices begin to accelerate on top of higher energy costs, the result could be a renewed inflationary period in the latter half of the year.
Tyler Durden Thu, 06/11/2026 - 05:45