Bitmine Is Following Strategy’s Playbook

Welcome back to The Warmup.

Happy Friday to all of you. Unfortunately, we can't say the same for Saylor and Tom Lee.

Here’s what we’re watching:

• Market Snapshot

• Bitmine Is Following Strategy’s Playbook

• Zcash Breakdown Play

• Zcash Fixed a Critical Counterfeiting Bug

Market: Crypto remains under pressure as investors rotate toward safety and volatility picks up.

Bitmine Is Following Strategy’s Playbook

What’s going on:

Bitmine is launching a $300 million preferred stock offering that closely mirrors Strategy’s STRC playbook.

The company will pay a 9.5% dividend and use the capital to support its Ethereum treasury.

The timing is interesting. Strategy’s STRC has fallen below par, and the company recently sold Bitcoin for the first time in four years to help fund dividend obligations.

Bitmine’s setup is different.

It holds 5.42 million ETH and generates hundreds of millions in annual staking revenue, giving it a built-in source of cash flow to help cover dividends.

What it means:

Bitmine’s preferred stock appears more sustainable than STRC because its ETH holdings generate yield.

But the raise is relatively small compared to the firm's multi-billion-dollar unrealized losses on its ETH position.

The structure may be stronger, but $300 million alone won't move the needle much.

Zcash Breakdown Play

What’s going on:

Zcash just broke down hard, dropping over 30% in one day and slicing through the key $500 support zone.

That confirms the bearish setup and puts sellers firmly in control for now.

Key levels we’re watching:

• Support: $250–$300 → potential bounce zone

• Resistance: $450–$500 → former support, now resistance

• Recovery target: Reclaim $500

• Breakdown risk: Daily closes below $300

Directional Bias: Bearish

ZEC needs to stabilize fast. Until buyers reclaim the $450–$500 area, the trend remains weak.

What we’re waiting for:

• Stabilization near $250–$300

• Strong volume on any bounce

• A reclaim of $500

• More clarity around the vulnerability impact

Zcash Fixed a Critical Counterfeiting Bug

What’s going on:

Zcash found and fixed a serious vulnerability in its Orchard shielded pool.

A security researcher, Taylor Hornby, discovered the bug after being hired to look for exploit vectors in the protocol.

The issue could have allowed someone to create unlimited fake ZEC inside the shielded pool without being detected.

The good news: the exploit was fixed on June 1.

The bad news: because Zcash is private by design, there is no way to know for sure if anyone used it before the fix.

The team believes exploitation was unlikely, since the bug was extremely hard to find and the response was fast.

What it means:

Zcash dodged a potentially massive bullet.

The team is now proposing a network upgrade that would move coins into a new shielded pool and add accounting checks to prove whether counterfeit ZEC was ever created.

So the bug is fixed, but the bigger test now is trust. Zcash needs to prove its supply is clean.

• Chainalysis says 'top-tier' gray market peptide vendors turn to bitcoin and stablecoins

• JPMorgan says crypto bill may have only a narrow window for passage this year

• Cosmos Labs acquires block explorer Mintscan, forms Korea subsidiary to expand ecosystem

Bitcoin isn’t broken, but attention has clearly moved somewhere else: AI, compute, and IPOs.

The market is starting to separate real crypto businesses from pure narrative coins.

That means protocols with revenue, users, and demand outside of Bitcoin may hold up better over time.

So the playbook is changing: don’t just buy the dip, buy the assets that can actually survive it.

— The Warmup Team

Always do your own research. This newsletter is supplemental material to help educate readers as they make their own decisions. Projects mentioned here are provided to give a potential early-mover advantage.