Bitcoin’s BTC quiet climb on Monday accelerated to its strongest price in June, rebounding from last week’s decline to near all-time high levels.

The largest crypto advanced by 3.7% over the past 24 hours, topping $110,000, and it’s changing hands by only 2% from its record prices observed in May. Ethereum’s ether ETH kept pace with a 3.8% gain during the same period, bouncing above $2,620. Native tokens of Hyperliquid HYPE and SUI SUI outperformed most large-cap cryptocurrencies, rising 7% and 4.5%, respectively.

Bitcoin’s move higher caught leveraged traders off-guard, liquidating over $110 million worth of short positions within an hour, CoinGlass data shows. Across all crypto assets, some $330 million of shorts were liquidated during the day, the most in a month. Shorts are seeking to profit from declining asset prices.

The move happened while traditional markets showed muted action, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes flat on the day. Crypto-related stocks bounced during the session to catch up with BTC’s recovery over the weekend.

«A ‘peaceful rally’ is a perfect way to describe this price action,» said well-followed analyst Caleb Franzen, founder of Cubic Analytics. «Just a consistent development of higher highs and higher lows. Any signs of weakness? Buyers step in and defend the trend.»

The crypto market is now on steadier footing for a potential next leg higher after bitcoin’s 10% decline to near $100,000 and with more than $1.9 billion in liquidations across crypto derivatives over the past week, having flushed excessive leverage, Bitfinex analysts noted in a Monday report.

However, on-chain data indicates rising sell pressure from long-term holders that could overwhelm demand, the analysts added.

“Bitcoin is now at a crossroads—balanced between structural support and waning bullish momentum, waiting for its next macro cue,” the Bitfinex note added.

Those macro catalysts may come later this week, noted Jake O, OTC trader at crypto trading firm Wintermute.

«U.S. and Chinese trade representatives are scheduled to meet today, with markets likely sensitive to any headlines following last week’s positive momentum, and the data calendar remains light until Wednesday, when CPI will offer fresh insight into U.S. inflation,» he said.

UPDATE (June 9, 21:51 UTC): Adds short liquidation data from CoinGlass.

A tsunami of new bitcoin BTC treasury companies — firms that almost exclusively dedicate themselves to accumulating bitcoin — is flooding the market.

Since all of them are more or less following Strategy’s (MSTR) playbook, questions are rising about the best ways to value them, and compare them to each other.

“The most important metric for a bitcoin treasury is the premium it trades at relative to its underlying net assets, including any operating company,” Greg Cipolaro, global head of research at bitcoin financial firm NYDIG, wrote in a June 6 report.

On the surface, that means adding up the company’s bitcoin, cash and enterprise value excluding the bitcoin stuff, and subtracting obligations such as debt and preferred stock. “It’s this premium that allows these companies to convert stock for bitcoins, effectively acting as a money changer converting shares for bitcoins,” Cipolaro said.

One of the most popular metrics, mNAV, measures a company’s valuation to its net asset value — in these cases, their bitcoin treasuries. An mNAV above 1.0 signals that investors are interested in paying a premium for exposure to the stock relative to its bitcoin stash; however, an mNAV below 1.0 means the equity is now worth less than the company’s holdings.

But mNAV alone is “woefully deficient” to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of these firms, Cipolaro said. The research report made use of other metrics such as NAV, mNAV measured by market capitalization, mNAV by enterprise value, and equity premium to NAV to provide a more complex picture.

The table shows, for example, that Semler Scientific’s (SMLR) and Trump Media’s (DJT) equity premium to NAV (which measures the percentage difference between a fund’s market price and its net asset value), are the lowest of the eight measured companies, coming in at -10% and -16% respectively, despite the fact that both companies have an mNAV above 1.1.

Alas, both SMLR and DJT are little-changed on Monday even as bitcoin climbs to $108,500 versus Friday evening’s $105,000 level. MSTR is higher by just shy of 5%.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is working on policy to exempt decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms from regulatory barriers, said Chairman Paul Atkins.

Software developers building DeFi tools have no business being blamed for how they’re used, Atkins and other SEC Republicans contended at the final of five crypto roundtables that have been held at the agency since the leadership turnover under President Donald Trump.

The chairman told a roundtable of DeFi experts on Monday that he’s directed the SEC staff to look into changes to agency rules «to provide needed accommodation for issuers and intermediaries to seek to administer on-chain financial systems.» Atkins called that potential exemptive relief «an innovation exemption» that would let entities under SEC jurisdiction bring on-chain products and services to market «expeditiously.»

«Many entrepreneurs are developing software applications that are designed to function without administration by any operator,» Atkins said in remarks at the event. While he noted the technology enabling private peer-to-peer transactions can «sound like science fiction,» he said «blockchain technology makes possible an entirely new class of software that can perform these functions without an intermediary.»

«We should not automatically fear the future,» Atkins said.

DeFi is a subsection of the broader cryptocurrency industry that seeks to recreate financial tools and products with code that replaces the role of traditional intermediaries such as banks and brokerages.

The Republican members of the commission — currently outnumbering the Democrat 3-1 — have been eager to move forward with crypto-friendly policy. While DeFi is often given short shrift in policy discussions that focus more on regulation of the higher-volume industry of crypto exchanges, brokers and custodial services. Though DeFi developers have faced years of distrust from U.S. government agencies, Republicans now in power are seeking to lighten those pressures.

«The SEC must not infringe on First Amendment rights by regulating someone who merely published code on the basis that others use that code to carry out activity that the SEC has traditionally regulated,» said Commissioner Hester Peirce, who has led the SEC Crypto Task Force established this year. However, she also noted that «centralized entities can’t avoid regulation simply by rolling out the decentralized label.»

Erik Voorhees, the founder of decentralized exchange ShapeShift, joked that when he got his first SEC subpoena 12 years ago, he didn’t think he’d be invited to speak at the agency years later.

«I appreciate the change of tone and the change of stance for the commission,» he said. «I think that’s absolutely a positive for America.»

Read More: U.S. SEC’s Crypto Trading Roundtable Delves Into Easing Path for Platforms