Alternative Investing Report - June 17, 2026

In partnership with

*as of 6/16; Sources: S&P, BTC, FTSE, DJRE, GOLD

Another major private credit fund is limiting withdrawals, as BlackRock’s $25 billion HPS Corporate Lending Fund (HLEND) capped its redemptions at 5% in Q1. Investors had requested to withdraw 13.3% of outstanding shares, and BlackRock’s decision follows that of many other major private lenders, including Blackstone, Apollo, and Blue Owl. These restrictions comes as median dividend coverage for U.S. private credit lenders fell below 1, meaning payments to the lenders are no longer covering their dividend obligations.

➨ TAKEAWAY: The private credit sector has been struggling this year, and is experiencing a liquidity crunch as investors want out and many borrowers struggle to pay back loans. Pitchbook’s global private credit survey found that lenders think the biggest challenge facing the industry is the growing negative perception of the sector. Investors are losing confidence in the asset, stunting fundraising and growth, and with returns falling and defaults climbing, the short-term outlook could be bleak.

SpaceX’s IPO is in the books, but you can still learn a lot about the company from Slava Rubin and Jan-Erik Asplund’s in-depth analysis last week. They looked into SpaceX's business segments, valuation, market potential, and everything else investors need to know before making an investment decision.

🏡 Construction sinks to recent lows: Housing starts fell 15.4% in May and are down 8.7% annually, hitting the lowest level in six years. Multifamily starts plunged a shocking 41.6%, as borrowing and construction costs skyrocket. Building permits also fell 0.7% monthly, with multifamily permits dropping 3.5%, all of which could lead to a future housing and apartment supply crunch.

🤖 Salesforce Buys Fin: The massive sales software company is buying Fin, an AI customer service agent startup, for $3.6 billion. The company was previously valued at $1.27 billion way back in 2018, and has a reported annual revenue run rate of $400 million, meaning Salesforce paid a 9x multiple.

🥃 New whiskey record: A one of one bottle of 50 year-old Yamazaki single malt whiskey sold for $1 million, doubling its high estimate and breaking the all-time record for any Japanese whiskey. The other bottle in the same auction at Bonham’s Hong Kong, a 52 year-old Karuizawa, also topped the old record and doubled its estimate, selling for $790,000.

🪙 Yield-bearing Bitcoin ETF: BlackRock filed for a Bitcoin ETF that will pay investors a monthly dividend and it is expected to launch next week. The iShares Bitcoin Premium Income ETF is planning to generate income by selling call options on its own spot Bitcoin ETF.

🐉 Tokenized Pokémon: The top seven platforms for tokenized Pokémon cards generated a record-high $230 million in sales in May, more than seven times the total from last year. This trend has been largely driven by “gacha” games, which are essentially digital packs of cards, mimicking the experience of opening a real-life physical pack.

🤖 Mistral fundraise: The French AI startup, Europe’s most valuable AI company, is reportedly in discussions to raise $3.5 billion at a $23 billion valuation, nearly double its valuation from last September.

AAVE is the native token of Aave, the largest blockchain-based lending protocol which has around 60% of the market share for decentralized finance (DeFi) lending. In April, hackers stole $292 million in an exploit of KelpDAO and used Aave to launder the funds, leaving the protocol with more than $200 million in bad, unsecured debt. This led to users withdrawing nearly half of all the funds on Aave and the token’s price fell by 20% in one day. It has continued falling since then, dropping below $60. In the past week, there were signs that Aave is starting to recover from the April incident, with deposits rising again. The token has been one of the biggest gainers of the last week, though it does still remain well below its all-time high of above $500 and the recent peak above $350 last August.