Good Morning, Asia. Here’s what’s making news in the markets:

Welcome to Asia Morning Briefing, a daily summary of top stories during U.S. hours and an overview of market moves and analysis. For a detailed overview of U.S. markets, see CoinDesk’s Crypto Daybook Americas.

Bitcoin BTC is trading around $106,402.39 as Asia begins its trading day, up roughly 0.9%, recovering slightly from a weekend decline attributed to significant outflows from spot Bitcoin ETFs and increased geopolitical uncertainty.

The largest digital asset by market cap had previously dropped 2% from $105,987 to $103,748 amid notable trading volume spikes, influenced by $616 million in ETF outflows, marking the end of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust’s 31-day inflow streak, and heightened tensions from stalled U.S.-China trade talks.

Analysts are increasingly watching BTC’s unconventional correlation with Japan’s 30-year government bond yields, as highlighted by macro strategist Weston Nakamura.

Nakamura suggests that this alignment, stronger recently than traditional connections with U.S. equities, implies a deeper global macro shift in financial markets, indicating Japan’s growing influence over cross-asset dynamics.

As investors navigate these complex macroeconomic factors, bitcoin continues to test crucial support levels near $104,300, reflecting both caution and ongoing market volatility.

Crypto Must Prepare for Quantum Threat ‘Linearly’, Not Reactively: Analyst

Crypto could face catastrophe if it continues to overlook quantum computing’s advancing threat, warns Rick Maeda of Presto Research, who recently published a report on quantum risks, which argued that the industry was unprepared.

A key barrier, he said in an interview with CoinDesk, is an economic incentive issue, as investors remain reluctant to fund quantum-resistant technology because he argued that “it’s difficult to create a way to monetize this.”

«Crypto is underprepared,» he said. «The biggest risk is just waiting too long.»

Maeda argues that blockchains dependent on elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) urgently need systematic preparation to withstand future quantum attacks.

«Preparation has to come almost linearly, because we can’t wait until the threat is real to start taking it seriously,» he told CoinDesk in an interview. «By then, it’s already too late.»

Yet Maeda offers several caveats to balance fears about quantum computing’s immediate capabilities.

He argues that current quantum systems operate at only around 10 logical qubits with high error rates, significantly below the thousands needed to compromise ECC. Additionally, recent quantum advancements, such as Google’s processor developments, come with trade-offs in efficiency versus accuracy.

While immediate panic isn’t necessary, Maeda emphasizes the urgency of incremental, sustained efforts to bolster cryptocurrency’s defenses before quantum threats become a reality.

News Roundup

Meta Shareholders Reject Bitcoin Treasury Proposal in Landslide Vote

Meta shareholders overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to shift some of the company’s $72 billion cash reserves into bitcoin, with only 0.08% of nearly 5 billion votes cast supporting the initiative, CoinDesk previously reported.

Proposed by Ethan Peck of wealth management firm Strive and backed by the conservative National Center for Public Policy Research, the measure aimed to hedge inflation risks by using bitcoin as a strategic treasury asset.

Meta has previously ventured into crypto projects, notably the Libra stablecoin effort in 2019, which later collapsed amid regulatory pressures. Despite recent pullbacks from ambitious metaverse projects, the company continues exploring stablecoin-based payments across its platforms. Meta shares rose 3.5% on Monday, trading at $670.09 each.

Crypto Lobbyists Urge US Senate to Focus on Stablecoin Bill

Crypto industry lobbyists are urging U.S. senators to stay focused as the GENIUS Act, a bill aimed at regulating stablecoin issuers, faces potential distraction from unrelated amendments during its final Senate debate, CoinDesk previously reported.

Advocacy groups like the Blockchain Association and Crypto Council for Innovation emphasized the need to maintain the bill’s narrow goal, especially as senators behind the Credit Card Competition Act try to attach their unrelated legislation as an amendment.

The GENIUS Act, which targets the regulation of stablecoins such as Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC, has already garnered bipartisan support in the Senate Banking Committee. Despite complications from unrelated legislative additions, analysts from Capital Alpha Partners give the stablecoin bill a 60-65% chance of becoming law this year, noting that success in the Senate would mark a significant milestone, though the House of Representatives would also need to approve the legislation.

Market Movements:

• BTC: Bitcoin rose 0.9% to $106,402.39, rebounding slightly after ETF outflows and geopolitical tensions triggered a weekend drop, as analysts highlighted its growing correlation with Japanese long-end bond yields.
• ETH: Ethereum gained 3% to $2,539.04 after staging a V-shaped recovery from intraday lows, supported by strong institutional inflows and resilient buying around the key $2,500 level.
• Gold: Gold surged over 2% to $3,371.40 on Monday, hitting a three-week high as the U.S. dollar weakened 0.27%, boosting safe-haven demand amid geopolitical tensions and economic uncertainty.
• Nikkei 225: Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.36% Tuesday morning, as Asia-Pacific markets advanced following overnight Wall Street gains despite a resurgence in global trade tensions.
• S&P 500: U.S. stocks rose Monday, with the S&P 500 gaining 0.4%, as investors brushed aside escalating trade tensions with China and the EU.

Elsewhere in Crypto:

• Ethereum Foundation Lays Off Some Staff Amid R&D Restructuring (CoinDesk)
• Strategy to offer 2.5 million new ‘Stride’ preferred shares to fund its bitcoin buying spree (The Block)
• Ethereum Should Scale by 10X Over the Next Year: Vitalik Buterin (Decrypt)

The U.S. Senate’s stablecoin bill is heading back into the final days of floor debate, and the crypto industry’s Washington lobbyists are calling for senators to stay focused on the task even as other legislative efforts muscle into the debate.

If the bill clears those potential obstacles and passes this week, it’ll mark the first time a major piece of crypto legislation has cleared the Senate.

The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act is the Senate’s much-revised effort to regulate the issuers of stablecoins — the steady tokens generally based on the value of a U.S. dollar, such as Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC. The bill already cleared the Senate Banking Committee and an earlier floor-vote test with major bipartisan support, though many Democratic critics tied the effort to concerns over President Donald Trump’s personal crypto business interests.

«As the bill continues through the amendment process, we respectfully urge lawmakers to remain committed to its central goal: providing a targeted and comprehensive approach to stablecoin oversight,» some of the top Washington lobbying groups said in a joint statement on Monday, signed by the leaders of the Blockchain Association, Crypto Council for Innovation, DeFi Education Fund and the Digital Chamber.

This marks a first policy engagement from new Blockchain Association CEO Summer Mersinger, who just left her commissioner post at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Friday.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune had said he’d throw open the final debate on the GENIUS Act open to amendments, and more than 50 of them were delivered. As often happens to legislation with momentum, lawmakers have latched onto the bill in hopes of letting their unrelated efforts ride its coattails to victory. In this case, the senators behind the Credit Card Competition Act that aims to force more competition between card issuers filed to add that as an amendment to the stablecoin legislation.

Policy analysts such as Ian Katz at Capital Alpha Partners give the credit-card initiative very low odds of getting signed into law — 10-15%, Katz said in a Monday research note. His firm had a more optimistic outlook for the GENIUS Act, putting it at «a 60-65% chance of becoming law this year.»

While approval in this chamber of Congress represents the most difficult of all the hurdles faced by the legislation, it would still need approval in the House of Representatives, which may have its own ideas on how to approach stablecoins.

Read More: U.S. Stablecoin Bill Approval Could Trigger a Long-Term Crypto Bull Market: Bitwise

The Ethereum Foundation has laid off some members of its research and development team as part of a broader restructuring effort aimed at refocusing on critical protocol design challenges, the organization said in a blog post Monday.

The shake-up comes as the Switzerland-based nonprofit grapples with ongoing criticism over its management and strategic direction. Some in the Ethereum community have warned for over a year that failure to address key technical hurdles could threaten Ethereum’s status as an industry leader, and the organization has already undergone leadership changes in part to address these concerns.

The foundation is rebranding its Protocol Research and Development division under the simplified name “Protocol,” and is repositioning the group around three main priorities: scaling Ethereum’s base layer, expanding blobspace (a key part of its data availability strategy), and improving user experience.

“The changes we’re announcing today are a departure from our previous ways of working, but we feel these set us on a more responsive and effective path,” the foundation said in its post.

The EF did not disclose how many staff were affected by the layoffs. “[S]ome members of PR&D won’t be continuing with the Ethereum Foundation,” the blog stated. “We hope these individuals continue on in the Ethereum ecosystem and encourage others building out their teams to seek them out.”

A spokesperson for the foundation did not respond to a request for comment.

The restructured Protocol team will serve as a hub for Ethereum’s core development efforts, aiming to improve public visibility into upgrade timelines, technical documentation, and research.

“We’re hopeful that this new structure will empower our internal teams to focus more clearly and drive key initiatives forward,” said Hsiao-Wei Weng, the co-executive director at the EF in a post on X.

Read more: Ethereum Foundation Picks New Co-Executive Directors, Following Leadership Reshuffle