The Bitcoin Policy Institute and three partner organizations will be able to send employees to work alongside State Department officials to address issues including digital freedom.

The US Department State Department has launched a program to “advance diplomatic efforts on digital freedom and freedom of expression” using a Bitcoin (BTC) advocacy organization as a partner.

In a Friday X post, the Bitcoin Policy Institute (BPI) said that it would be a founding partner in the US State Department’s Freedom Tech Excellence Program (FTEP), alongside Palantir Technologies, Anduril Industries and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. According to the organization, the program will allow its employees “to work alongside state department experts and defend digital freedoms around the world.”

“FTEP brings private sector talent to the Department for limited-term assignments to advance diplomatic efforts on key issues including online freedom of expression, privacy-enhancing technologies, countering digital surveillance, and responsible AI governance,” said the State Department.

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The OCC denied the UK company’s application this week citing AML/CFT risks, despite approving similar charters for digital asset companies in the last year.

Update (July 25, 4:39 pm UTC): This article has been updated to include a response from Wise.

Payments company Wise will to change its strategy for applying for a charter license with the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to one “under a GENIUS Act framework,” the legislation to regulate stablecoins in the country.

According to a Thursday notice from Wise, the company plans to submit a new application for a national trust bank charter under a GENIUS Act framework. Investment banking group William Blair said that Wise will likely not shift its position on payment stablecoins with the new OCC application, despite being denied a charter to establish a national trust bank on Tuesday.

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Daily NK reported that North Korea arrested former state cyber operators accused of hacking two state banks and laundering funds through crypto.

North Korean authorities have reportedly arrested a group of former state cyber operators and IT specialists accused of hacking two state banks and laundering stolen funds through cryptocurrency.

South Korean outlet Daily NK reported Thursday, citing an anonymous source in Pyongyang, that the group allegedly hacked the internal networks of North Korea’s central bank and the Foreign Trade Bank, converting stolen state funds into cryptocurrency before laundering them through China-based brokers.

Cointelegraph could not independently verify the report.

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Fidelity called on the US Senate to pass the CLARITY Act, joining industry groups and crypto firms pushing for market structure legislation.

Fidelity called on the US Senate to pass the CLARITY Act on Friday, saying clear digital asset regulations are needed to strengthen investor confidence, provide certainty for market participants and reinforce US leadership in global crypto markets.

The company joins a growing coalition of financial firms and crypto organizations urging US lawmakers to advance digital asset market structure legislation.

Earlier Friday, the Crypto Council for Innovation, the Digital Chamber and the Blockchain Association called on Senate leaders to bring the bill to the floor. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong also called for a full Senate floor vote on Wednesday.

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Dango will close its network on Aug. 13, joining BitMEX, Odos and Satori Finance in a wave of recent crypto shutdowns.

Layer-1 blockchain Dango will wind down operations by halting trading on its perpetual decentralized exchange (DEX) on Wednesday and shutting down its network on Aug. 13.

“Despite our best effort, various reasons have led us to conclude there is no viable path to a lasting commercial success,” Dango said in a Friday X announcement.

Dango founder Larry Liu added that the team faced cash shortages, legal challenges that slowed momentum, the loss of team members, and broader market conditions.

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Ethereum ETFs snapped a five-day inflow streak and Bitcoin ETFs logged a second day of outflows, though both funds extended their weekly inflow streaks to three.

US-listed spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs) logged $70.62 million in net outflows on Friday, ending a five-day inflow streak.

Ethereum funds saw $211.25 million in net inflows over the previous five sessions from July 17 to Thursday, according to SoSoValue data. They still posted $103.9 million in net inflows for the week ended Friday.

Despite the outflows, Ethereum ETFs extended their weekly inflow streak to three straight and have attracted $337.74 million in net inflows so far in July.

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The exchange, already sanctioned by the UK, is now on a list of 18 entities “providing crypto-assets services or payment services“ in defiance of the EU’s measures against Russia.

The European Union has listed cryptocurrency exchange HTX, formerly Huobi Global, as part of a package of sanctions targeting Russia amid the country’s war on Ukraine.

In a Thursday decision, the European Council amended its previous measures “in view of Russia’s actions destabilizing the situation in Ukraine” to include HTX in a list of 18 entities “providing crypto-assets services or payment services established outside of the Union that are significantly frustrating the purpose of the prohibitions” against Russia. The country continues to face sanctions globally over its war in Ukraine following a military invasion in 2022.&

“The Union has repeatedly taken measures to identify financial institutions, credit institutions or entities providing crypto-asset services or payment services that facilitate a continued financial lifeline for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, whether by connecting to the system for transfer of financial messages of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation or by enabling the circumvention of Union restrictive measures, and to prohibit any transaction between those institutions or entities and Union operators,” said EU officials.

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Jan3 CEO Samson Mow says the recovery could signal renewed confidence in preferred-share products used by Bitcoin treasury companies.

Strive’s SATA preferred shares have rebounded from a June low of $83.30 to about $97, recovering most of the selloff and moving back within roughly 3% of their $100 par value, according to Yahoo Finance data.

Strive introduced SATA in November 2025 as part of its strategy to finance the expansion of its Bitcoin treasury through preferred equity. The variable-rate perpetual preferred stock is intended to trade near its $100 par value by adjusting its dividend rate, allowing Strive to raise capital for its Bitcoin (BTC) treasury without issuing additional common shares.

SATA is one of a growing number of preferred-share products tied to Bitcoin treasury strategies, an emerging segment that companies such as Strategy describe as “digital credit.”

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According to Senator Elizabeth Warren, the House bill “won’t solve the problem“ of insider trading in Congress as lawmakers will still be allowed to own and sell stocks.

The US House of Representatives has passed a bill that would ostensibly prohibit members of Congress, their spouses and dependent children from purchasing publicly traded stocks.

In a 232-198 vote in the House on Wednesday, lawmakers approved the Stop Insider Trading Act, sending the bill to the Senate for consideration. Representative Bryan Steil, the Wisconsin lawmaker who sponsored the bill, said that the legislation “ensures no lawmaker can profit off of insider information” and “institutes strict penalties for any violation.”&

“We have not had a bill on the House floor on this topic with this opportunity before,” said Steil from the House floor on Wednesday, describing the penalties:

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The window for US lawmakers to address a comprehensive crypto market structure bill before the 2026 elections is closing, and industry organizations are calling for action.

The Crypto Council for Innovation, Digital Chamber and Blockchain Association wrote to US Senate leaders on Friday calling for the chamber to prioritize “floor consideration” of the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act.

In a Friday letter to Senator Majority Leader John Thune and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the three cryptocurrency advocacy groups urged consideration of the CLARITY Act, which Republican lawmakers have been pushing for a vote before the chamber breaks for state work periods in August.& Although the bill has advanced through the Senate banking and agriculture committees, some lawmakers said they planned to withhold their votes until key provisions were addressed.

“[We] recognize that constructive bipartisan negotiations remain underway to secure and expand support for this critical piece of legislation,” said the letter. “We appreciate these good-faith efforts of Senators on both sides of the aisle, and we encourage those discussions to continue.”

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The digital rights group says India’s order to remove Jack Dorsey’s BitChat repositories from GitHub exceeds the government’s legal authority and threatens free speech.

India’s Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) has condemned a government order directing GitHub to remove repositories for Jack Dorsey’s decentralized messaging app BitChat, calling the move unconstitutional and warning it threatens free speech and open-source software.

The statement came a day after India’s cybercrime agency ordered GitHub to disable access to three BitChat repositories within three hours, saying the decentralized messaging app could be used to bypass internet shutdowns, evade lawful surveillance and facilitate unlawful activities.

In its statement posted on X on Friday, IFF argued the order exceeded the government’s legal authority because it was issued under Section 79(3)(b) of India’s Information Technology Act instead of the country’s formal website-blocking process, which includes procedural safeguards. The group called on the government to withdraw the notice and publish all takedown orders issued under the provision.

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Bitcoin ETF inflows, cooling AI momentum and potential regulatory progress under the CLARITY Act are fueling speculation that capital is rotating back into crypto.

Crypto markets showed renewed signs of life this week as institutional investors fueled the longest streak of inflows into US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) since April and crypto-linked stocks rallied on optimism over US regulation. But the more intriguing story may be unfolding outside crypto: AI’s grip on speculative capital is beginning to loosen.

After dominating markets for nearly two years, the AI trade is becoming more selective as investors distinguish between companies with sustainable earnings and those riding the hype cycle. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, or SOX, recently slipped into a technical bear market after falling 20% from its recent high, although it remains well above year-ago levels.

Some analysts believe the shift could mark the beginning of a broader rotation back into digital assets. While it’s too early to call a lasting trend, improving regulatory clarity, a recovery in ETF demand, and easing enthusiasm for AI are creating a more constructive backdrop for crypto than investors have seen in months.

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The organization sold locked WLD tokens to strategic investors as it seeks to grow its biometric identity network amid rising demand for human verification online.

World Foundation has raised an initial $52.5 million through a sale of locked WLD tokens to strategic investors, with Pantera Capital leading the funding round.

The round also included Bain Capital Crypto, Eightco Holdings, Selini Capital, Susquehanna Crypto and other investors, according to a Friday announcement shared with Cointelegraph. The WLD tokens sold in the fundraising are subject to a 12-month lockup.

The nonprofit behind the World protocol said that new funds will be used to expand World ID, its system designed to distinguish people from AI agents. World ID generates a digital credential after users complete biometric verification at a World Orb device.

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Bitcoin saw several dips under the $64,000 mark as a Binance “plunge protection team” reemerged with bid liquidity to avoid a deeper BTC price rout.

Bitcoin (BTC) fell more than 1.6% on Friday as its latest price correction accelerated after Wall Street opened.

Key points:

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD approaching $64,000 as bulls struggled to preserve recent gains.

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A Bitcoin development roadmap that addresses quantum computing risks could see the price surge by “double digits” very quickly, according to Charles Edwards.

Bitcoin developers need to swallow their pride and outline a clear plan to harden the blockchain against quantum computing attacks, according to Capriole Investments founder Charles Edwards. He says the day they finally bite the bullet, the price will respond very quickly.

“If the Bitcoin core team says in two or three months: ‘this is our roadmap, we’re gonna solve it in the next two years, these are the rough steps we’ll take,’ that would be amazing news,” Edwards tells Cointelegraph on Trade Secrets.&

“I think that would discount a lot of the risk pretty much overnight,” Edwards says.

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Thailand’s SEC filed a criminal complaint against Bitkub and two former directors over alleged false disclosures linked to a 2021 cyberattack involving $50 million in assets.

Thailand’s crypto industry is facing fresh regulatory scrutiny after authorities accused Bitkub, one of the country’s largest digital asset exchanges, of providing false information to regulators.

Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a criminal complaint against Bitkub Online and two former directors over alleged false reporting connected to a 2021 cyberattack, the regulator announced on Thursday.

The complaint names former Bitkub directors Sakolkorn Sakavee and Thaweesap Rawan, who the SEC said were responsible for submitting company reports during the period under investigation.

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Odos Protocol will shut down on July 30, giving users one week to withdraw assets. The team did not provide a reason for the decision.

Decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator Odos Protocol announced plans to shut down operations, giving users until July 30 to withdraw their assets.

The team said in a Thursday X post that the Odos DAO is separate from the operating company and will announce its own plans, while the ODOS token will continue to exist onchain. It didn’t provide a rationale for the decision.

Odos Protocol’s DEX aggregator volume has been declining over the past two years, falling to $169 million in July 2026 from a peak of $7.8 billion in December 2024. The protocol generated $2.72 million in annualized revenue, according to DefiLlama data.

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Tokenized RWA trading became Hyperliquid’s largest trading category for the first time, accounting for more than half of the decentralized exchange’s weekly trading volume.

Perpetual decentralized exchange (DEX) Hyperliquid’s weekly trading volume in tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) exceeded that of all other asset categories combined for the first time.

RWAs generated $25.1 billion in trading volume from July 13 to July 19, accounting for 52% of Hyperliquid’s total weekly volume of $48.2 billion, according to Blockworks data.

“Hyperliquid’s RWA market alone was larger than the combined crypto perpetual volume of every other DEX,” wrote ARK Invest’s research director for digital assets, Lorenzo Valente, in a Thursday X post.

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Ten tokenized dairy cows backed a $19,600 loan registered on Brazil’s B3, in one of Brazil’s first uses of tokenized livestock as loan collateral.

Brazil’s B3 stock exchange has reportedly found a new use for dairy cows by backing a loan with tokenized cattle.

The transaction involved a loan of 100,000 Brazilian reais ($19,600) secured by 10 dairy cows from Fazenda Engenho Velho in the southern Brazilian state of Paraná, valued at about 120,000 Brazilian reais ($23,500). The deal was structured by Brazilian investment fund Target FIDC, according to CNN Brasil.

Each cow received a unique digital token linked to an encrypted digital identity, while AI-powered smart collars from agriculture tech company Cowmed monitor each animal’s health, reducing the need for physical inspections.

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Samsung Electronics plans to add stablecoin support to Samsung Wallet, expanding its mobile payments and rewards platform to include digital assets.

South Korean technology giant Samsung Electronics said it plans to expand Samsung Wallet beyond traditional payments by adding support for stablecoins.

The company is moving toward integrating payments, rewards and digital assets into a single wallet experience, Samsung product manager Lee Dinham said during the annual Galaxy Unpacked showcase on Wednesday.

“Samsung Wallet will expand beyond cash and savings. It will embrace new forms of digital value, including stablecoins,” Dinham said. He added that the move would make Samsung “one of the first major mobile brands to bring native stablecoins to a smartphone, enabling fast and trusted digital value transfers.”

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The Philippine bank is preparing a stablecoin settlement pilot intended to speed up and reduce the cost of overseas payments to Filipino remote workers.

The Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) is planning to pilot a stablecoin-based settlement rail for cross-border payments to freelancers, virtual assistants and other workers receiving overseas income, according to local media reports.&

Developed with global digital clearinghouse Meridian, the system is intended to reduce the cost and processing time of inbound payments while retaining safeguards used in traditional banking transactions, according to ABS-CBN and the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Stablecoins would be used as a settlement instrument before the funds are converted to Philippine pesos and credited to recipients’ BPI accounts.&

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Bitcoin supply profitability improved versus its 2026 low, but analysis warned that a fake recovery had already broken down at the start of June.

Bitcoin (BTC) investors are back in aggregate profit, but onchain data suggests it’s too early to confirm a new bull market.

Key points:

According to onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant, Bitcoin supply in profit rebounded above the 50% mark in July.

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Mirae Asset reportedly plans to use the South Korean crypto exchange as a hub for tokenized assets, stablecoins and digital finance.

South Korean crypto exchange Korbit will reportedly rebrand as Digital X after becoming part of Mirae Asset Group.&

Mirae Asset founder and global strategy officer Park Hyeon-joo announced the new name in an internal email to employees on Thursday, according to a Herald Business report. Park reportedly described Digital X as central to the group’s “Mirae Asset 3.0” strategy, which aims to combine digital assets with traditional finance.&

The company plans to expand into real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, security token offerings, stablecoins and traditional asset products. Park said the exchange would prioritize anti-money laundering controls, customer verification, information security and fraud detection as South Korea develops its crypto and tokenized securities rules.

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Ripple launches Mint to expand RLUSD access for institutions as the stablecoin’s market cap approaches $1.6 billion.

Ripple, a blockchain-focused fintech company, has launched Ripple Mint, a platform that gives institutions new ways to access, mint, redeem and manage its US dollar-pegged stablecoin, Ripple USD (RLUSD).

The company announced Ripple Mint on Thursday, describing it as a unified platform that lets institutions manage RLUSD through a web interface or direct application programming interface (API) integrations.

“Ripple Mint is built to give institutions flexible access to digital dollars through the workflows that fit their needs,” Ripple said, adding that the platform is designed to support both manual operations and automated integrations as institutions adopt stablecoins for payments, trading and treasury activities.

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Bitcoin miner Poolin filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and initiated a $52 million sale of its two West Texas mining sites as part of its future creditor recovery program.

Singapore-based Bitcoin mining pool Poolin and two of its US affiliates filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in a New Jersey court on Wednesday.

Poolin’s court filing shows that the mining pool operator has estimated liabilities of $100 million to $500 million, assets of $1 million to $10 million and 10,001 to 25,000 creditors.

Poolin and its affiliates are also seeking court approval to sell two West Texas mining sites to Thor CALAP LLC under a proposed $52 million stalking-horse bid. This includes $37 million for the Tarbush assets, including assumed liabilities, and $15 million for the Pyote site, including the power rights, equipment and all other assets tied to the mining facilities.

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The EU will bar Belarusian nationals and residents from owning, controlling or managing exchanges and other MiCA-regulated crypto firms from Aug. 25.

The European Union will prohibit Belarusian nationals and residents from owning, controlling or managing crypto exchanges and other crypto service providers regulated under the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework starting Aug. 25.&

The measure appears in Council Decision (CFSP) 2026/1847, adopted Thursday to amend the EU’s sanctions framework targeting Belarus over its involvement in Russia’s war against Ukraine. The document expands an existing restriction that applied only to companies providing crypto wallet, account or custody services.&

The decision enters into force on Thursday, while the expanded crypto provision will apply from Aug. 25.&

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After attracting nearly $1 billion over seven trading sessions, US-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded their first daily net outflow since July 13.

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) ended a seven-session inflow streak on Thursday, marking their first day of net outflows since July 13.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $225.2 million in net outflows on Thursday, attracting nearly $1 billion in net inflows over the last seven trading sessions, according to SoSoValue.

Despite Thursday’s outflows, the funds had still attracted about $274 million in net inflows this week as of Thursday.

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After attracting nearly $1 billion over seven trading sessions, US-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded their first daily net outflow since July 13.

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) ended a seven-session inflow streak on Thursday, marking their first day of net outflows since July 13.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $225.2 million in net outflows on Thursday, attracting nearly $1 billion in net inflows over the last seven trading sessions, according to SoSoValue.

Despite Thursday’s outflows, the funds had still attracted about $274 million in net inflows this week as of Thursday.

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The proposed class action alleges BitMEX used privileged trading access and server freezes to profit from forced liquidations.

[Update 07:24 UTC, July 24: Adds BitMEX response in fifth paragraph.]

BitMEX is facing a class action lawsuit accusing the crypto derivatives platform of fraudulently engineering customer liquidations to seize traders’ Bitcoin collateral.

On Thursday, BKX Services Inc. and David Namdar filed the complaint in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. The plaintiffs allege they lost a combined 622.66 BTC through forced liquidations on BitMEX, with BKX claiming losses of at least 305.81 BTC and Namdar alleging losses exceeding 316.85 BTC.&

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On Wednesday, Senate Republicans released the proposed text for the CLARITY Act, which has been met with pushback from Democrats regarding ethics provisions.

Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego says he will be working with Republicans to come up with a counterproposal to White House-approved ethics provisions in the CLARITY Act, saying the draft released this week was “not a serious effort.”

On Wednesday, Senate Republicans released the proposed text for the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, including language on ethics that would bar all US federal officials — including US President Donald Trump — from issuing or sponsoring any digital asset. Democrats said the ethics provisions fall short.

“Whatever piece of s--- they sent back to us, that was not a serious effort,” Senator& Ruben Gallego told Politico on Thursday.

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BitMEX will have removed 65 derivative contracts and trading pairs in July, compared with just 19 across the first six months of the year.

Crypto exchange BitMEX accelerated its delisting of derivative contracts and trading pairs in July due to “insufficient trading interest,” offering a glimpse at declining activity on the platform surrounding its decision to wind down the exchange.

BitMEX’s website shows that in early July, it delisted 21 derivative contracts; two weeks later, BitMEX delisted nine spot pairs for lack of trading interest. On Thursday, BitMEX added another 35 derivative contracts to the queue for delisting, totaling 65 delistings in July.

Related: BitMEX to shut down after 11 years in crypto derivatives

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Nasdaq, Cboe and the London Stock Exchange are among major exchanges moving toward longer trading hours.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission is set to host a public roundtable in September to discuss moving toward 24-hour trading in US equity markets.

“We are moving towards a new day – and night – in the US equity markets,” SEC Chair Paul Atkins said on Thursday.

“With the expansion to overnight trading, I’m excited at the prospect of US equity markets aligning with those markets that already trade continuously.”

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The Bitcoin donation can be used to support Donald Trump as a New York court considers whether to reverse a $5 million settlement between the CFTC and Gemini.

Update (July 24, 5:10 pm UTC): This article has been updated to clarify the source of the MAGA Inc. contribution.

With a court set to consider a reversal of a $5 million settlement from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC’s) case with cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, the company’s co-founders sent $10 million in Bitcoin (BTC) to a super political action committee (PAC) supporting President Donald Trump.

According to the MAGA Inc. Super PAC’s July report to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) filed on Monday, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss through the Gemini Trust Company sent two separate contributions of more than $5 million in Bitcoin on June 19.&

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The Bitcoin donation can be used to support Donald Trump as a New York court considers whether to reverse a $5 million settlement between the CFTC and Gemini.

With a court set to consider a reversal of a $5 million settlement from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC’s) case with cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, the company has sent $10 million in Bitcoin (BTC) to a super political action committee (PAC) supporting President Donald Trump.

According to the MAGA Inc. Super PAC’s July report to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) filed on Monday, the Gemini Trust Company run by co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss sent two separate contributions of more than $5 million in Bitcoin on June 19.&

The donation, which the PAC may use for independent expenditures to support Trump, was recorded about three weeks after the CFTC filed a joint motion with Gemini in federal court in an attempt to reverse a January 2025 settlement over the company allegedly making false or misleading statements. CFTC Chair Michael Selig claimed at the time that the agency under former US President Joe Biden “politically targeted” the Winklevosses through enforcement actions.

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Bitcoin price forecasts diverge as US-Iran war tensions fueled an ongoing oil and bond-market surge, while July Fed rate-hike odds neared 40%.

Bitcoin (BTC) fell below $65,000 on Thursday as US stocks slid amid another round of escalation in Iran.

Key points:

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD hitting three-day lows of $64,799 on Bitstamp.

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The research released by the organization said that crypto companies will directly or indirectly lead to 232,000 jobs across the entire US economy in 2026.

Research from the National Cryptocurrency Association (NCA), an organization backed by Ripple Labs, broke down the economic impact of the entire crypto industry on the United States, estimating that salaries, worker spending and output will have contributed $55 billion this year.

According to a report released Wednesday by the Pragmatic Policy Group on behalf of the NCA, the total economic contribution was based on direct, indirect and induced employment. Of the sectors to benefit from crypto’s economic contributions, the NCA said that investments in securities and commodity contracts were among the highest at $9.7 billion, while housing and real estate were a combined $4.8 billion.&

The research found that about 34,000 people in the US were directly employed by crypto companies, accounting for just a fraction of the 232,000 jobs supported by the industry across the entire economy. This would mean crypto companies directly employ more Americans than the coffee and tea manufacturing and aerospace industries, according to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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BitMEX’s shutdown marks the end of one of crypto’s earliest derivatives exchanges as analysts point to rising regulatory costs, market concentration and the shift toward licensed trading venues.

The closure of crypto derivatives exchange BitMEX is prompting fresh questions about whether the industry is entering a new phase of consolidation, as analysts point to market-share concentration and rising regulatory costs squeezing smaller platforms.

While BitMEX helped pioneer perpetual swaps that became a cornerstone of digital asset derivatives trading, its daily Bitcoin futures volume began declining around May 2021 and never recovered to its 2020 daily peak of between $1 billion and $5 billion, according to data from CryptoQuant.

Restructuring adviser Roshan Dharia told Cointelegraph the exchange’s demise reflects structural pressures facing mid-sized centralized exchanges, where liquidity has increasingly concentrated among the industry’s largest players and regulatory compliance costs continue to rise. He said:

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A hacker reportedly took over Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev’s X account to promote a fake “VLAD” memecoin, posting what appeared to be a malicious token contract address.

One or more hackers took over Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev’s X account on Thursday after a post appeared promoting a fake memecoin called “VLAD” and included what appeared to be a malicious token contract address.

The post attracted more than 175,000 views in less than 20 minutes before users identified it as a scam and warned others not to interact with the token.

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Goldman chief David Solomon will support the crypto market structure bill now in Congress, even as financial companies and banks are hesitant over provisions on stablecoins.

David Solomon, chair and CEO of financial giant Goldman Sachs, has given his support for a “not perfect” cryptocurrency market structure bill under consideration in the US Senate even as many provisions continue to divide lawmakers and his fellow industry leaders.

According to a Thursday Politico report, Solomon said that the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act was “not perfect” but needed to create a “level playing field to enhance market stability.” Solomon stands out as the head of a major financial company backing the legislation, which many of his peers are opposing by arguing that the bill allows crypto companies to pay users interest or yield on stablecoins outside standard rules for financial institutions.

“The CLARITY Act — like all legislation — is not perfect,” said Solomon, according to Politico. “And there are lots of things that you could debate and argue about. But I think one of the most important things that it does is that it creates a level playing field to enhance market stability and allow these markets to develop appropriately.”

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Both parties say they want US crypto market structure legislation, but a dispute over ethics rules and who enforces them is becoming the bill’s biggest obstacle.

The long-awaited US Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (CLARITY) has hit another snag.

This time, it’s not software developers or the turf war between federal regulators at stake, but the thornier question of ethics — ironic, given many politicians’ demonstrable disdain for them.

After months of negotiations and what Coinbase’s chief executive Brian Armstrong called “thousands of hours of work on both sides,” disagreement over a code of conduct could make or break CLARITY once and for all.

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The investment marks Empery’s latest push into AI infrastructure as the company shifts capital away from its Bitcoin treasury strategy.

Empery Digital said it invested $20 million in Cardinal Data Power, acquiring an approximately 8% stake in the private developer of powered data center campuses.

The investment was part of Cardinal Data Power’s approximately $70 million Series A financing and will support development of a 750-megawatt data center campus in West Texas. The project is expected to deliver its first power in 2027, expand to about 1 gigawatt by 2029 and eventually exceed 5 gigawatts.

Cardinal develops powered data center campuses for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing workloads. The company said it combines power generation, natural gas supply and electrical infrastructure to accelerate development of large-scale computing sites.

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Ether trades below its realized price while onchain indicators point to easing selling pressure and recovering demand, though a definitive cycle bottom has yet to emerge.

Ether is becoming increasingly attractive from a valuation standpoint, particularly relative to Bitcoin, but onchain data suggests the market has yet to reach a definitive cycle bottom, according to CryptoQuant.

In its latest weekly report, the analytics company said Ether (ETH) is trading roughly 17% below its realized price, or the average onchain acquisition cost of all ETH in circulation, of about $2,300. Historically, ETH trading below its realized price has coincided with periods of market undervaluation and long-term bottoms.

Ether is also showing signs of improving relative to Bitcoin (BTC). CryptoQuant said that ETH’s market value-to-realized value (MVRV) ratio has retreated from extreme overvaluation, exchange inflows have declined, exchange-traded fund (ETF) holdings have begun to recover after months of weakness, and ETH/BTC spot trading volumes have fallen into a range historically associated with market bottoms.

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Are the fears of an AI driven hacking epidemic totally overblown, or is this just the lull before the storm?

A wave of high profile crypto hacks in April that many suspected had been orchestrated using sophisticated AI tools to identify smart contract exploits, led to fears that every DeFi protocol was suddenly at risk.

In May, Manuel Aráoz, founder of the blockchain security platform OpenZeppelin, declared “all of DeFi unsafe” following $630 million in crypto losses from exploits in April.

But even as the industry braced for the scenario of DeFi protocols falling like dominoes to agentic AI, the stream of attacks seemed to ebb.

That led Dragonfly managing partner Haseeb Qureshi to declare recently that fears of a DeFi “hackpocalypse” were a “false alarm.” He pointed out that even including April’s big hacks, the year to date has seen “a lower rate of hacked $ per month” and that the “median hack size by year is also declining.”

So who’s right? Are the fears of an AI driven hacking epidemic totally overblown, or is this just the lull before the storm?

“I think the ‘hackpocalypse’ narrative is overstated if it suggests AI has already replaced compromised keys, weak infrastructure and human error as the main causes of Web3 losses,” Stephen Ajayi, Hacken’s leading offensive security engineer, tells Magazine.

But he adds that doesn’t mean the fears are entirely misplaced.

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A consortium led by Strategy and BlackRock has pledged $15 million to secure the Bitcoin network from the threat of a quantum computing breakthrough.

Michael Saylor’s Strategy announced the launch of the Bitcoin Security Consortium, a group of financial institutions and Bitcoin companies supporting the long-term quantum security of the Bitcoin network.

The consortium pledged an aggregate $15 million over the next three years to support developers securing the Bitcoin network against the threat of a quantum computing breakthrough, Strategy announced in a Thursday press release.

Other founding members include Anchorage Digital, ARK Invest, BlackRock, Block, Blockstream, Coinbase, Fidelity Digital Assets and Galaxy. The consortium’s day-to-day work will be coordinated by Mike Schmidt, who serves in a volunteer capacity and is the executive director of Brink, a non-profit that supports Bitcoin open-source developers.

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The partnership expands Binance’s compliance efforts by providing intelligence and training to help detect cryptocurrency activity tied to human trafficking and child exploitation.

[Update 16:00 UTC, July 23: Adds Chainalysis data in penultimate paragraph.]

Binance has partnered with nonprofit STOP THE TRAFFIK to bolster its ability to identify and investigate cryptocurrency activity linked to human trafficking and child exploitation.

The crypto exchange said Thursday that it will receive specialized intelligence, training and insights from the UK group’s Centre for Intelligence-Led Prevention to help identify emerging criminal typologies and strengthen investigations into illicit activity linked to human trafficking.&

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Crypto exchange Bitget said it was registered as a financial service provider with New Zealand’s financial regulator, enabling it to expand its services in the country.

Cryptocurrency exchange Bitget said it is now registered as a financial services provider on New Zealand’s Financial Services Providers Register (FSPR).

The registration enables the platform to offer services including foreign currency exchange, domestic and cross-border money transfers, client asset custody, portfolio and money management in the country, Bitget said in a statement on Thursday.

The FSPR’s registry did not show Bitget’s registration at the time of writing.

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BitMEX’s BMEX token plunged about 90% after the exchange announced plans to shut down, ending nearly 12 years in business as its Bitcoin futures market share shrank.

[Update, 15:18 UTC, July 23 - Adds comment from cofounder beginning in sixth paragraph.]

BitMEX’s utility token lost almost all of its value after the exchange announced Thursday it would wind down operations.

The BitMEX (BMEX) token plunged 90% to as low as $0.002 from $0.06, according to CoinGecko data. It traded at $0.0063 at the time of writing.

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Bernstein analysts remain bullish on the Bitcoin mining sector, as deals with third-party providers will be necessary to address the computing power limits of AI data centers.

Bernstein said that it remains overweight on the Bitcoin mining sector, citing the growing partnerships between Bitcoin mining companies that are necessary to address the power constraints of artificial intelligence (AI) data centers.

The investment manager’s Bitcoin mining industry deal tracker registered a new AI-related deal every week in July, with combined deals standing at more than 7.5 gigawatts or the contracted equivalent of $150 billion in multi-year contracts, according to a Thursday research note shared with Cointelegraph.&

The analysts said that third-party computing capacity from Bitcoin miners will remain highly valuable as access to power remains the AI industry’s real bottleneck amid growing political pushback against building new US data centers.

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HYPE briefly fell 8% from its local highs as Multicoin Capital, Selini Capital and Galaxy Digital queued nearly $150 million of the token for withdrawals.

Key points:

Hyperliquid’s HYPE token slid to around $58 on Wednesday in the face of large unstaking events initiated by crypto funds. Data obtained from hedge fund and analytics platform Block Liquidity shows Multicoin Capital holding a combined $138.78 million in staked HYPE, of which roughly 83% — about $116 million — sits in pending withdrawal.

That’s as Selini Capital and Galaxy Digital have queued HYPE tokens worth $4.4 million and $29.4 million, respectively, for withdrawal. In addition, a Multicoin-linked wallet also deposited roughly 167,000 HYPE, worth $11.2 million, to Coinbase, possibly to be sold.&

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Kazakhstan plans to require miners to meet strict infrastructure standards and transfer part of their mined crypto assets to a state-backed reserve under new rules.

Kazakhstan, one of the world’s largest Bitcoin mining hubs, approved a new framework for large-scale crypto mining that links access to electricity with contributions to a state-backed digital asset reserve.

The government approved rules for strategic digital mining on July 18, Kazakhstan-based news outlet Zakon.kz reported Wednesday, citing Government Resolution No. 638 published in the PRG.kz legal database.

The rules define strategic digital mining as a framework that gives miners access to electricity quotas at regulated tariffs in exchange for transferring part of their mined crypto assets to Astana Hub, a government-backed technology cluster.

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Bitwise predicted that Hyperliquid and Robinhood TradFi ventures should form the basis for a crypto bull-market comeback that would lift Bitcoin and Ether.

Bitcoin (BTC) is “finally showing signs of a bottom,” but the next bull market will have a different source.

Key points:

In a blog post on Wednesday, Matt Hougan, chief investment officer at crypto asset manager Bitwise, revealed his picks for what will “lift” BTC price action going forward.

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Coinbase plans to expand its Singapore office from 150 to about 200 employees by the end of 2026 as it expands its presence in the Lion City.

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase plans to expand its presence in Singapore and grow its headcount from 150 to about 200 staff members by the end of 2026.&

The cryptocurrency exchange is mainly looking to hire more engineers, customer service, relationship management staff and institutional sales representatives for its Singapore office, which opened at One Raffles Quay on Wednesday, Hassan Ahmed, Coinbase’s country director for Singapore, told the Business Times in an interview. A Coinbase spokesperson confirmed to Cointelegraph that the exchange plans to expand its operations in Singapore.

Ahmed said that Singapore is increasingly becoming a strategic hub for cryptocurrency innovation. Coinbase received a major payment institution license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the city-state’s central bank, in October 2023, enabling it to expand its services to Singaporean individuals and institutions.

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Grayscale’s head of research said that Bitcoin may have bottomed, arguing that macro factors, such as interest rate decisions as increasingly driving the price action of this maturing asset class.

Crypto-focused asset manager Grayscale said that Bitcoin’s price may have bottomed earlier than the traditional four-year cycle, which would imply a cycle low in September or October.&

Grayscale’s head of research, Zach Pandl, argued that Bitcoin (BTC) has “grown up” as an asset and is increasingly driven by macroeconomic factors.&

“If the Fed forgoes rate hikes and economic growth holds up well, Bitcoin’s price may already have bottomed,” Pandl wrote in a Wednesday report.

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Crypto home invasions rose to 20 in H1 2026 from one a year earlier, while France accounted for 33 of 52 verified wrench attacks, according to CertiK.

Home invasions became the most common form of crypto wrench attacks during the first half of 2026, rising to 20 publicly reported incidents from just one a year earlier, according to blockchain security firm CertiK.&

On Thursday, CertiK said it verified 52 wrench attacks worldwide in the first half of 2026, up 33.3% from 39 incidents during the same period in 2025. Kidnappings rose to 16 from 12, while robberies declined from five incidents to one.&

CertiK said the recorded financial exposure linked to the attacks reached about $124.1 million, up from $10.5 million a year earlier. The figure is not limited to confirmed thefts and may include ransom demands, victim transfers, frozen or recovered assets and failed ransom demands.&

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BitMEX announced it will shut down operations on Sept. 23, 2026, after owner HDR Global Trading Limited decided to close the crypto exchange.

BitMEX, one of the pioneers of cryptocurrency derivatives trading, announced it will shut down operations after owner and operator HDR Global Trading Limited decided to close the company following a strategic review.

BitMEX announced Thursday that it will stop exchange services on Sept. 23, 2026, at 04:00 UTC and urged users to close positions and withdraw funds before the deadline.

“We want to reassure you that your assets remain fully safe and under your control during this transition period,” BitMEX said in a statement to users.

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Mirae Asset Consulting has become Korbit’s largest shareholder after completing its acquisition, with the exchange saying trading and customer asset protections are unchanged.

Mirae Asset Consulting, an affiliate of one of South Korea’s largest financial groups, has completed its acquisition of a controlling stake in South Korean crypto exchange Korbit, becoming the exchange’s largest shareholder after completing regulatory procedures.

Korbit said in a Thursday announcement published on its website that its operating entity remains unchanged and that trading, deposits and withdrawals will continue without interruption.&

The exchange added that customer assets remain segregated under South Korea’s Virtual Asset User Protection Act.

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US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $69 million in inflows on Wednesday, extending their inflow streak to seven sessions and bringing total inflows during the period to nearly $1 billion

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have totaled about $1 billion in net inflows over seven straight trading sessions.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $68.99 million in net inflows on Wednesday, bringing cumulative inflows since July 14 to $999.38 million, according to data from SoSoValue.

The current streak remains below April’s nine-session run, when spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted $2.1 billion in net inflows.

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Kakao Group and Circle signed an MOU to explore won stablecoin payments, remittances, merchant settlement and tokenized financial services.

Kakao Group has partnered with stablecoin issuer Circle to explore payment infrastructure for won-backed stablecoins as South Korea prepares a broader regulatory framework for crypto assets.&

On Thursday, the companies announced that Kakao, Kakao Pay and Kakao Bank had signed a strategic memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Circle Internet Group. Under the agreement, the companies will explore ways to connect Circle’s blockchain and global payment infrastructure with Kakao’s consumer platforms and financial services.

The agreement highlights how major South Korean consumer and financial platforms are positioning themselves ahead of expected stablecoin legislation, even before the regulatory framework is finalized.&

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Swiss cantonal bank BancaStato integrated Sygnum’s crypto trading and custody services into its Avaloq-powered digital banking apps for Bitcoin and other assets.

[Update 13:41 UTC, July 23: Updates with comments from BancaStato in the 13th paragraph.]

Swiss bank BancaStato has launched regulated cryptocurrency trading using digital asset bank Sygnum and banking software provider Avaloq.

BancaStato, the cantonal bank serving Switzerland’s Italian-speaking Ticino region, joined Sygnum’s business-to-business (B2B) banking platform to offer crypto asset services, according to a Thursday announcement shared with Cointelegraph.

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US officials warn that Chinese firms conducting covert, industrial-scale AI distillation could face sanctions and export restrictions.

A White House official accused Moonshot AI of distilling Anthropic’s Fable AI model to develop Kimi K3, which launched last week.

In a post on X on Wednesday, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios alleged the Chinese AI firm developed an internal platform to distill US models at scale, using methods designed to evade detection.

“Legitimate AI distillation used to create smaller, more efficient models plays a vital role in this open innovation ecosystem,” he said. “However, large-scale, covert industrial distillation aimed at stealing proprietary U.S. technology and undermining American research is unacceptable.”

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The settlement follows a watchdog report last year that blamed “avoidable errors” for the loss of nearly a year’s worth of Gary Gensler’s text messages.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission agreed to pay $150,000 in legal fees to settle a Coinbase lawsuit seeking internal records from the agency at the height of the Biden-era SEC crackdown on crypto.&

The agreement, filed on Wednesday, ends a two-year lawsuit between the SEC and Coinbase, in which the crypto exchange sought internal documents from the regulator to uncover evidence of “crypto by enforcement.” An internal report in 2025 revealed the SEC had deleted nearly a year of former SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s texts due to “avoidable” errors.&

“The agency tasked with policing corporate record-keeping somehow lost reams of its own text messages between Mr. Gensler and other officials during the most intense period of the anti-crypto campaign,” said Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal in an op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, adding that the SEC will pay a $150,000 “award” and has fixed its record retention policies.&

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AFX, a decentralized perpetual exchange operating on Arbitrum, reportedly lost $24.15 million on Wednesday, while the Verus Ethereum bridge was attacked hours later.

[Update 7:20 am UTC, July 23: Adds comments from Blockaid CEO Ido Ben Natan starting in the eighth paragraph.]

Hackers stole more than $31.6 million across two unrelated crypto bridge exploits spaced just hours apart, targeting bridges operated by decentralized perpetual exchange AFX and Verus Protocol.&

According to Blockaid, AFX, a decentralized perpetual exchange operating on Arbitrum, reportedly lost $24.15 million on Wednesday through a hack targeting one of its cross-chain bridges. Hours later, Blockaid said it detected an exploit targeting the Verus Ethereum Bridge that resulted in about $7.5 million in crypto being stolen.&

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The benchmark tracks blockchain networks using protocol revenue, offering an alternative to traditional market capitalization-weighted crypto indexes.

S&P Dow Jones Indices and Pantera Capital launched a digital asset index that tracks blockchain networks and protocols based on protocol revenue, marking a departure from crypto benchmarks built around market capitalization or token prices.

The index draws from the S&P Cryptocurrency Broad Digital Asset Index but only includes assets that meet minimum thresholds for protocol revenue, market capitalization and liquidity. Eligible networks are then ranked by aggregate protocol revenue over the previous two quarters and weighted by adjusted market capitalization, with the largest holding capped at 35% and the remaining constituents generally capped at 20%. The index is rebalanced quarterly.

According to an announcement from the companies, the benchmark is intended for institutional allocation and may serve as the basis for investment products or as a reference for actively managed digital asset portfolios. S&P said the rules-based framework is designed to distinguish established blockchain activity from speculative exposure.

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Donavan McKinney, running against Michigan incumbent Shri Thanedar, said that “the crypto lobby is paying my opponent back for helping Trump“ with the PAC-funded ads.

An affiliate of the cryptocurrency-aligned political action committee (PAC) Fairshake is attempting to influence voters in a primary race for Michigan’s 13th Congressional District, with about $1 million in media on the line.

In filings with the US Federal Election Commission (FEC) as of Tuesday, the Protect Progress PAC had spent more than $986,000 on ads supportive of Democratic incumbent Shri Thanedar and opposing his challenger, Donavan McKinney. The reported expenditures came two weeks before the Democratic candidates were set to face off in an Aug. 4 primary to determine who will stand in the November general election.

Source: FEC

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According to Senator Cynthia Lummis, one of the bill’s advocates, the ethics language would apply to US presidents’ crypto ventures, including Donald Trump’s.

Senate Republicans have released the proposed text for the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, including language on ethics that would bar all US federal officials — including President Donald Trump — from issuing or sponsoring any digital asset.

In the 616-page text of the CLARITY Act made public on Wednesday, US lawmakers included language that the White House described as the “most comprehensive and wide-ranging ethics provision in history.“ The bill said all public officials, employees and their spouses would be barred from issuing or sponsoring digital assets and crypto platforms would similarly be blocked from listing assets issued or sponsored by federal officials.

Text of CLARITY Act released on Wednesday. Source: Cynthia Lummis

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Anthropic will provide Claude AI models to companies participating in the UK Financial Conduct Authority’s next Supercharged Sandbox cohort, as the regulator pushes to test AI applications in financial services.

Anthropic will provide its Claude AI models to firms participating in the UK Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) second Supercharged Sandbox cohort, expanding the regulator’s effort to help financial companies test artificial intelligence applications in a controlled environment.

Participants will receive access to Claude, including Claude Code and Claude Cowork, to develop applications ranging from agent-led payments and fraud detection to compliance automation and AI governance.& The second cohort includes 21 organizations, among them Scottish Widows, Money Advice Trust and TrueLayer.

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The SEC commissioner said crypto vaults, onchain lending products and other asset management tools may trigger US securities laws, depending on how they are structured and operated.

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce said crypto vaults and onchain lending products may fall under US securities laws, urging developers to assess whether products that actively manage user assets require regulatory compliance.

In a statement published Wednesday, Peirce said crypto vaults and lending strategies that involve discretionary decisions, including allocating assets, selecting yield-generating activities, setting lending terms and determining liquidation thresholds, may fall within the scope of federal securities laws, depending on their structure and operation.

She said some vaults could be treated as securities offerings or investment companies, while parties managing vault allocations or lending parameters could also trigger investment adviser requirements.

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The group alleged that the tax signed into law in June “discriminates against people who transact in digital assets“ and should be blocked from implementation and enforcement.

Cryptocurrency and blockchain advocacy organization The Digital Chamber is suing the State of Illinois over the state’s 0.2% tax on crypto transactions expected to go into effect in 2027.

In a Tuesday filing in the circuit court of Sangamon County, Illinois, the Chamber alleged that the Illinois state tax for the 2027 fiscal year was “facially invalid.” The organization filed a civil suit against Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and the Department of Revenue’s David Harris, claiming that the crypto tax was “slipped into the state’s budget” without a debate or feedback from people potentially affected.&

“The lawsuit argues that no one should be taxed differently because of how ownership is recorded or transferred,” said the chamber in a Tuesday blog post. “Put simply, this tax discriminates against people who transact in digital assets. This tax is universally applied, regardless of whether the investor realizes any gain, or whether ownership is even being transferred.”

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The proposed alliance would enable more than 150 broker-dealers to trade and settle digital asset securities through OTC Link ATS using BitGo’s custody infrastructure.

Digital asset infrastructure provider BitGo and OTC Markets Group, the operator of regulated over-the-counter securities markets, plan to partner on digital asset trading and custody infrastructure for broker-dealers, a move that could expand institutional access to tokenized securities through existing market infrastructure.

The companies said Wednesday that the proposed alliance will serve more than 150 broker-dealers using OTC Link ATS, an alternative trading system regulated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. If implemented, participating broker-dealers would be able to quote, trade and settle digital asset securities using the same electronic trading infrastructure they currently use for over-the-counter and US equity markets.

Under the proposal, BitGo Bank & Trust would act as the qualified custodian, while settlement would be facilitated through BitGo’s Go Network. The proposed framework is initially intended to support digital asset securities, with the potential to expand to tokenized assets and commodities as regulatory frameworks evolve.

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Bitcoin and US stocks stayed strong in the face of US-Iran escalation as analysis predicted BTC price action outperforming equities later.

Bitcoin (BTC) held higher on Wednesday as crypto and risk assets continued to brush off US-Iran war tensions.

Key points:

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD down 1% on the day, having earlier hit five-week highs near $67,000.

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Proponents of the digital euro say its a better alternative to cash that’s fully backed by the ECB. But critics argue it could provide the EU with too much power over its citizens.

The digital euro is one of Europe’s most contentious financial projects.

Supporters see it as a way to preserve the bloc’s monetary sovereignty, reduce its reliance on foreign payment providers, and ensure central bank money survives in an online economy dominated by USD stablecoins.

Critics, however, argue the digital euro could be a way for a supranational organization to surveil — and in certain circumstances, even control — the population of Europe.

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Franklin Templeton’s digital assets lead said that the autonomous AI agent economy will increase demand for blockchain protocols hosting machine-to-machine micropayments.

Artificial intelligence (AI) agents are the next “killer” use case for blockchain and cryptocurrency, according to investment management giant Franklin Templeton’s head of digital assets and innovation.

Sandy Kaul said in a X post on Wednesday that the AI agent economy will increase demand for blockchain protocols hosting machine-to-machine micropayments, as legacy card networks are unsuitable for agentic payments due to high fees and settlement times.

“To capture the AI growth opportunity today, most investors buy shares of AI-aligned companies and related verticals. But will the same playbook work for agentic AI,” Kaul said in the introduction to his more-than-1,800 word post.

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Binance set multimonth records for net BTC outflows on Tuesday, adding to an emerging trend of positive inflows to the US spot Bitcoin ETFs.

Bitcoin (BTC) buyers are showing “better absorption” at $65,000 after Binance saw its largest net outflow in nearly two years.

Key points:

New research from onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant released on Wednesday confirms that daily BTC withdrawals from the world’s biggest exchange are outpacing inflows.

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A security vulnerability in the Zilliqa Ledger app is enabling attackers to reconstruct private keys using publicly available onchain data.

Layer-1 blockchain network Zilliqa warned that a vulnerability in the Zilliqa Ledger app could allow attackers to recover users’ private keys using publicly available onchain data.

“The vulnerability causes signatures to be generated with predictably weakened ephemeral nonces, from which an attacker can recover the signer’s private key,” Zilliqa said in a Wednesday X post.

Zilliqa said protective measures are in place to prevent further losses and that a coordinated remediation plan is being finalized. Users who signed at least five native Zilliqa transactions with a Ledger device are considered compromised and are advised to await further guidance before taking any action.

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US prosecutors are seeking more than $25 million in cryptocurrency allegedly connected to international fraud and laundering networks.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed five civil forfeiture complaints seeking more than $25 million in crypto allegedly tied to international investment, romance and recovery scams targeting victims in Canada and the United States.&

On Tuesday, the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and the US Secret Service’s Washington Field Office said that the assets were recovered through separate investigations by the Cyber Fraud Task Force. Investigators identified several laundering networks and confirmed thousands of victims worldwide who were misled into believing they were making legitimate digital asset investments.&

The action highlights the growing scale of crypto-enabled romance and investment scams, which often combine social engineering with fraudulent trading platforms and layered wallet transfers to conceal stolen funds.

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The integration provides institutional clients with access to Kalshi’s event contracts and crypto perpetuals via Talos’ existing trading infrastructure.

Institutional crypto trading platform Talos has integrated with Kalshi, allowing select clients to trade the prediction market operator’s event contracts and crypto perpetuals through the same infrastructure they already use for digital assets, eliminating the need for a separate connection.

Talos will offer algorithmic order types including Iceberg, TWAP and POV, along with multi-leg execution for perp-to-perp and perp-to-spot spread trades. The company said institutional clients will also be able to execute block trades in Kalshi contracts through its request-for-quote platform using participating over-the-counter liquidity providers.

Later this year, Talos plans to extend its dealer software to brokers and trading platforms, allowing them to offer Kalshi event contracts directly to customers where permitted. The company also plans to launch a unified prediction market data feed that standardizes events, trades, order books, open interest and implied probabilities across venues.

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Trading activity on South Korea’s five major crypto exchanges fell sharply as the KOSPI surged, signaling a shift in retail investors toward equities.

South Korea’s major crypto exchanges have seen their trading activity fall sharply over the past year as the country’s stock market surged, suggesting retail speculative interest may be shifting toward equities, Cointelegraph analysis shows.

The Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) benchmark more than doubled over the period, while volumes across the country’s largest won-based crypto platforms contracted.

Cointelegraph reviewed CoinGecko’s historical 24-hour volume readings for Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and Gopax, comparing seven-day periods in July 2025 and July 2026.

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Foundry USA asked its mining customers to signal their support for BIP-110, an actively debated proposal seeking to shrink the amount of data that can be stored in a Bitcoin transaction.

Foundry USA began asking mining customers to vote on how the pool should signal on Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP-110), a soft fork proposing to shrink how much data can be stored in Bitcoin transactions to limit non-monetary transactions, such as Ordinals, on the Bitcoin network.

The world’s largest mining pool by hashrate also released educational resources on the proposal and said that the voting window will close at Bitcoin block 961,632, or sometime in early August.

Foundry’s mining clients can cast their votes by accessing a link received via email.

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SecondFi will wind down after a $2.6 million ADA theft, while users still await recovery tools that were initially expected within weeks of the exploit.

Cardano-based wallet SecondFi is preparing to shut down after a security breach exposed issues around wallet security and left hundreds of users awaiting recovery options.

SecondFi said it will wind down SecondFi and Yoroi wallet services after attackers stole about 16.1 million ADA, worth roughly $2.6 million, due to a cryptographic flaw in its wallet software, according to an update published on Wednesday.

The platform said an independent investigation by blockchain intelligence provider Groom Lake identified a sophisticated external actor behind the attack and found indicators potentially linked to North Korea’s Lazarus Group, although no attribution has been confirmed. It added that the breach hit 374 wallets.

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Galaxy pledged up to $5 million in grants for developers working on Bitcoin’s quantum security and elected a council of quantum-advisory experts to research quantum-resistant migration solutions.

Galaxy Digital has pledged up to $5 million in grants to open-source developers building post-quantum cryptography for Bitcoin.

The company also formed a quantum advisory council under its Bitcoin Quantum Readiness Initiative, which it announced Tuesday. The council includes Barry Sanders, professor and scientific director of Quantum City at the University of Calgary; Damien Bérubé, an MIT Sea Grant Knauss fellow; and Eran Tromer, professor of computer science at Boston University.

The grants will fund quantum-resistant upgrade proposals, post-quantum cryptography, Bitcoin signature schemes, wallet and custodian migration tooling and formal security audits.

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US spot Bitcoin ETFs extended their inflow streak to six sessions, bringing in about $930 million while remaining down $4.84 billion on a net basis year to date.

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded their sixth consecutive day of net inflows on Tuesday, adding $203.1 million.

The Bitcoin ETFs attracted about $930 million over the six-session streak, their longest run of consecutive inflows since April, according to SoSoValue data.

The inflows came as Bitcoin traded above $65,000 and briefly climbed to $66,700 on Tuesday. At publication, Bitcoin traded at $65,802, up about 2% over the previous 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.

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US spot Bitcoin ETFs extended their inflow streak to six sessions, bringing in about $930 million while remaining down $4.84 billion on a net basis year to date.

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded their sixth consecutive day of net inflows on Tuesday, adding $203.1 million.

The Bitcoin ETFs attracted about $930 million over the six-session streak, their longest run of consecutive inflows since April, according to SoSoValue data.

The inflows came as Bitcoin traded above $65,000 and briefly climbed to $66,700 on Tuesday. At publication, Bitcoin traded at $65,802, up about 2% over the previous 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.

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The attack allowed the exploiter to liquidate multiple Bitcoin-backed vaults before swapping the assets for profit.

Update July 22 at 4:37 am UTC: The article has been updated to include additional information from Slowmist about the exploit method.

Balance Coin, an algorithmic stablecoin designed to maintain a peg to the US dollar, has fallen more than 99% following a reported exploit.

Balance Coin, the native stablecoin of Balance Protocol, is trading at $0.001358 at the time of writing, down from $0.9954, according to CoinMarketCap.

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OpenAI called it an “unprecedented cyber incident” after its AI models broke out of their sandbox to hack an AI startup during a security evaluation.

OpenAI disclosed Tuesday that a combination of its AI models, including GPT-5.6 Sol and a more capable unreleased model, escaped its testing environment and hacked AI startup Hugging Face last week to cheat on a test meant to measure their capabilities.

In a blog post, OpenAI said the evaluation was designed to operate in a highly isolated environment with restricted network access. The models, however, found a way to gain internet access through a zero-day vulnerability in an internally-hosted third party software, OpenAI said.

“After gaining Internet access, the models inferred that Hugging Face potentially hosted models, datasets and solutions for ExploitGym,” it said. “Knowing this, the model searched for and successfully found ways to gain access to secret information that it could use to cheat the evaluation.”&

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The agreement gives Balaji Srinivasan’s tech community a potential new base as Malaysian authorities clamp down on the Network School over alleged licensing breaches.

Balaji Srinivasan’s Network School, a community of “digital nomads,” is eyeing a new campus in Kazakhstan after its Forest City campus had its business license revoked over alleged premises-use violations.&

A memorandum of understanding was signed between Kazakhstan’s Minister of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry Zhaslan Madiyev and Srinivasan to establish the first Network School campus in Kazakhstan, according to a statement from the ministry.&

The Kazakhstan agreement gives the Network School a potential new base after its Johor operation was ordered to cease operations effective Wednesday. Kazakhstan has been positioning itself as an emerging technology hub, including plans for Central Asia’s first “crypto city” in Alatau.&

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According to one lawyer testifying before a House subcommittee hearing, the CLARITY Act could grant the CFTC the authority it needs to address the “explosive growth of prediction markets.”

Lawmakers in the US House Committee on Agriculture’s Subcommittee on Commodity Markets, Digital Assets, and Rural Development held a hearing on how the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) could address oversight of prediction market companies, including discussions of pending crypto market structure legislation.

In a Tuesday hearing on “Examining Customer Protections and Market Integrity in Sports Event Prediction Markets,” Carl Kennedy, a partner at New York law firm Katten Muchin Rosenman, said that the CFTC was likely too “short-staffed” to fully deal with the regulation and enforcement of prediction market platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket. According to the lawyer, the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act under consideration in the US Senate could grant the commodities regulator additional authority not only to address digital assets but also the “explosive growth of prediction markets.”

“I do believe that with additional resources — they’re about to perhaps receive additional authorities under the CLARITY Act — with additional resources to address these new asset classes in the cash markets and crypto, as well as to deal with the explosive growth of prediction markets, I think that the CFTC certainly should receive additional resources,” said Kennedy.

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The blockchain developer will continue operating under court supervision as it restructures following a market-making scandal, a co-founder’s suspension and exchange delistings that rocked the project.

Movement Labs, the developer behind the Movement Ethereum layer-2 blockchain, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, according to court records.

The petition was filed July 15 under Subchapter V, a streamlined reorganization process for qualifying small businesses. The filing allows the company to continue operating while it restructures under court supervision.

On Monday, the court approved interim requests allowing Movement Labs to maintain its bank accounts and cash management systems and obtain debtor-in-possession financing to fund operations during the bankruptcy process. Creditors have until Sept. 14 to file claims.

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Ether’s rally faces onchain headwinds, but rising staking demand and Google earnings could spark the push toward $2,100.

Key takeaways:

Ether (ETH) tested the $1,950 mark for the first time in seven weeks on Tuesday, triggering $62 million in liquidations across leveraged bearish positions. The move delivered 29% gains from the $1,500 low on June 26 and aligned with the broader risk-on mood that drove Bitcoin (BTC) above $66,500. Can ETH push through to $2,100?

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A senior official with Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency reportedly recommended other agencies establish similar units to address crypto-related crime.

Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) established a dedicated investigative unit to probe cases involving cybercrime and financial fraud linked to cryptocurrency.

First reported by Dawn news on Tuesday, the crypto investigation unit will probe digital asset use in crimes, while Pakistan’s Virt­ual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA) will continue being responsible for digital asset regulation. FIA Counter-Terrorism Wing Director Muhammad Athar Waheed reportedly recommended other agencies in the country establish similar units to address crypto-related crime.

Bilal Bin Saqib, who chairs PVARA, said in December 2025 that Pakistan ranked as the world’s third-largest crypto market by retail activity. Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said at the same event that, based on Pakistan’s crypto regulation and adoption, the country could become a world leader in the industry by 2030.

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Telegram founder Pavel Durov said the messaging platform will roll out a native non-custodial Gram wallet this summer, bringing self-custody crypto transactions to its more than 1 billion users.

Telegram plans to roll out a native non-custodial Gram wallet across its messaging app this summer, potentially bringing self-custody crypto payments to more than 1 billion monthly active users.

In a post on Wednesday, founder Pavel Durov said the wallet would allow users to send cryptocurrency instantly and without fees. He described it as the “largest rollout of a non-custodial crypto wallet in human history,” though Telegram has not disclosed a firm launch date or additional technical details.

Pavel Durov announces Telegram’s Gram wallet. Source: Pavel Durov

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Bitcoin topped $67,000 while crypto stocks rallied on optimism over US crypto legislation and signs investors may be rotating out of AI trades.

Bitcoin and the broader cryptocurrency market looked poised for a recovery on Tuesday as progress on landmark US crypto legislation boosted sentiment, with analysts also pointing to a slowdown in the AI trade as a potential catalyst for capital rotating back into digital assets.

Bitcoin (BTC) briefly climbed above $67,000 and Ether (ETH) neared $1,950, while crypto-related stocks rallied sharply. Coinbase shares rose 12%, American Bitcoin gained 14% and Cipher Digital jumped 17%.

The gains came after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said lawmakers were at the “1-yard line” on the long-debated CLARITY Act, which would define the regulatory roles of the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission over digital assets.

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The price of Bitcoin moved above $66,000 to reach a seven-week high on Tuesday as reports circulated of a deal with the White House to address ethics in the CLARITY Act.

The White House agreed to provisions in a crypto market structure bill that could ensure support from some Democratic lawmakers in the US Senate.

According to a Tuesday Punchbowl report, White House officials met with Republican Senators Cynthia Lummis and Bernie Moreno to reach an agreement on ethics language in the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act under consideration in the Senate.

Neither Lummis nor Moreno have publicly announced the details of the deal, which could facilitate Democratic support in what is expected to be a tight Senate vote, but the report suggested that it could affect US President Donald Trump’s crypto investments.

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Researchers found dollar-backed stablecoins are less affected by capital controls than traditional bank deposits, raising new questions about monetary sovereignty in emerging markets.

Researchers at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) found that dollar-backed stablecoins are creating a new form of “digital dollarization” that appears largely unaffected by capital controls, particularly in emerging markets.

The new study suggests governments may have less ability to curb stablecoin adoption than traditional foreign-currency bank deposits.

BIS researchers analyzed foreign-currency deposits and dollar-pegged stablecoin inflows across more than 130 economies, finding that both tend to increase during periods of macroeconomic stress. Unlike traditional bank deposits, however, stablecoin flows showed little response to capital controls or other FX restrictions. The authors said this likely occurs because “stablecoins are partly circulating outside the regulatory perimeter.”

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The integration with validator Yuma gives millions of MEXC users access to Bittensor, an AI-focused blockchain whose ecosystem now spans 128 specialized subnets.

Cryptocurrency exchange MEXC has launched staking support for Bittensor’s native TAO token, allowing users to earn rewards by helping secure one of the largest decentralized artificial intelligence networks.

Bittensor validator Yuma announced Tuesday that MEXC has integrated its validator infrastructure to support TAO staking for the exchange’s reported 40 million users. Yuma participates in Bittensor’s consensus mechanism by evaluating the performance of network subnets — specialized AI applications that perform specific machine learning tasks — and assigning weights that help determine how staking rewards are distributed.

The companies said the integration is intended to expand access to the Bittensor ecosystem and increase participation in the network.

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Bitcoin and crypto joined US stocks in brushing off US-Iran war escalation and the threat of fresh trade tariffs before the end of the month.

Bitcoin (BTC) built on gains at Tuesday’s Wall Street open as crypto echoed resilient US stock markets.

Key points:

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD approaching $67,000, closing in on seven-week highs.

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The UCITS ETF, CoinShares’ first in Europe, began trading on Deutsche Börse Xetra, tracking a rules-based index of publicly listed BTC miners.

CoinShares has launched its first UCITS exchange-traded fund (ETF) in Europe, which tracks publicly listed Bitcoin mining companies, giving European investors exposure to the sector through an Irish-domiciled fund listed on Deutsche Börse Xetra.

The CoinShares Bitcoin Mining UCITS ETF began trading Tuesday under the ticker MINE. The physically replicated fund tracks the CoinShares Bitcoin Mining Index, a rules-based basket of listed Bitcoin miners administered by Solactive AG, the asset manager said in an announcement.

The ETF was last trading at 19.50 euros ($21.74) per share. Deutsche Börse Xetra data showed 60 units traded for a turnover of 1,184 euros. The similar US-traded CoinShares Bitcoin Mining ETF (WGMI) has net assets of $343.6 million.

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Arcus, built by the dYdX team, adds tokenized stocks and perpetual futures on Robinhood Chain as platforms compete to bring traditional assets onchain.

A decentralized exchange (DEX) backed by Robinhood is expanding into tokenized stocks and derivatives as platforms compete to build onchain markets for traditional assets.

Arcus, a DEX built by the team behind decentralized trading platform dYdX and backed by Robinhood Crypto, launched tokenized stocks and perpetual futures on Robinhood Chain on Tuesday, according to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph.

The company previously launched spot markets when Robinhood Chain went live on July 1. Arcus offers more than 95 stock tokens, perpetual markets and crypto assets through a self-custodial trading account, with Paxos-issued stablecoin USDG serving as its primary collateral and settlement asset.

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Morpho Midnight introduces fixed rates and defined maturities alongside Morpho Blue’s variable-rate lending markets.

Lending protocol Morpho has launched Morpho Midnight on Base, adding fixed-rate, fixed-term loans to its onchain credit network alongside the variable-rate markets offered through Morpho Blue.&

In an announcement sent to Cointelegraph, Morpho said the offer-driven protocol lets lenders and borrowers propose their own interest rates, maturities and other loan terms instead of relying on a protocol-defined utilization curve. Loans are issued as fixed obligations, with terms set through competing offers rather than algorithmic pool pricing.&

Predictable rates and defined maturities are standard features of traditional credit markets. However, they remain uncommon in decentralized finance (DeFi), where borrowing costs generally fluctuate based on market utilization. Fixed terms could make onchain lending more attractive to institutions and businesses that need to manage funding costs, returns and risk exposure in advance.&

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Strike will remain a standalone company after the proposed three-way merger was scrapped, while Twenty One Capital and Elektron continue discussions, Bloomberg reported.

A proposed merger involving Tether-backed crypto companies Twenty One Capital, Strike and Elektron Energy has reportedly been scrapped.

Jack Mallers will step down as CEO of Twenty One Capital while remaining CEO of Strike, according to Bloomberg. Elektron Energy CEO Raphael Zagury has been appointed to succeed Mallers.

Strike will continue operating as a standalone company instead of combining with Twenty One Capital. Discussions between Twenty One and Elektron are continuing, Bloomberg reported. Tether holds majority stakes in both companies.

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Gate Europe’s Giovanni Cunti says some MiCA-licensed crypto firms may struggle to sustain compliance costs as Europe enters its new regulatory era.

Crypto companies already licensed under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) could still exit the market as compliance costs mount, according to Gate Europe’s CEO.

Giovanni Cunti told Cointelegraph’s Chain Reaction on Monday that stricter regulatory requirements have made it increasingly difficult for new entrants to compete and that some licensed firms could ultimately be unable to absorb the ongoing costs of operating under the framework.

“I think there are going to be quite a few more of the ones that acquire MiCA license that will not be capable to sustain the cost and the resources that are needed to carry on this business in the long term,” Cunti said.

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The State Duma legislation creates a regulated framework for crypto market participants and now moves to President Vladimir Putin for his signature before becoming law.

Russia’s lawmakers moved the country closer to its first comprehensive crypto market framework after completing final readings on a bill that would regulate digital asset activity.

Russia’s State Duma, the lower house of parliament, approved bill No. 1194918-8, titled “On Digital Currency and Digital Rights,” in its second and third readings on Tuesday, according to official parliamentary records.

If enacted, the bill would establish rules for crypto market participants, including exchanges, brokers, asset managers and custodians, while allowing crypto assets to be used in foreign trade operations.

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Bitcoin beat out local resistance to pass $66,000 amid predictions of as much as 6% BTC price upside if momentum continued.

Bitcoin (BTC) passed one-month highs on Tuesday as price action defied the odds to top $66,000.

Key points:

BTC/USD hit highs of $66,306 on Bitstamp, according to TradingView data. That’s a level last seen on June 17.

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Bitcoin beat out local resistance to pass $66,000 amid predictions of as much as 6% BTC price upside if momentum continued.

Bitcoin (BTC) passed one-month highs on Tuesday as price action defied the odds to top $66,000.

Key points:

BTC/USD hit highs of $66,306 on Bitstamp, according to TradingView data. That’s a level last seen on June 17.

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A UK parliamentary group launched an inquiry into banking restrictions on crypto firms and consumers, including their impact on investment and competition.

[Update: July 21, 2026, 10:30 AM UTC: Added comments from Yuriy Brisov, a partner at London-based consultancy firm Digital & Analogue Partners.]

A United Kingdom parliamentary group has launched an inquiry into whether crypto businesses and consumers face barriers to banking services, including account access and restrictions on crypto-related transactions.

On Monday, the Crypto and Digital Assets All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) said that it would examine how the restrictions affect investment, competition and economic growth. The group said it would assess whether the restrictions are proportionate.

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US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $227 million in inflows as BTC climbed above $65,000, extending their longest winning streak since early May.

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) posted their fifth consecutive day of net inflows, marking their longest winning streak in nearly three months.

Bitcoin ETFs attracted $226.9 million in net inflows on Monday, the strongest daily inflows since July 6, bringing total net inflows over the five-day streak to about $727.3 million, according to data provider SoSoValue.

The five-session streak is the longest run of consecutive inflows since a five-session stretch from April 30 through May 6. Monday’s inflows reduced year-to-date net outflows for US spot Bitcoin ETFs to below $5 billion.

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The Coinbase-backed Ethereum layer-2 is preparing to expand its financial offerings as it pivots away from its earlier social-first strategy.

Base is close to launching 1:1-backed tokenized equities, according to Jesse Pollak, creator of Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network.

Pollak said in a Tuesday X post that Robinhood Chain, the recently launched Ethereum layer 2, had gotten tokenized equities in an EVM environment right, adding that Base was behind on that front.

Lazer Technologies head of fintech Garrett Skrovina asked about the timeline for launching 1:1-backed equities on Base, to which Pollak replied: “Imminent — dotting i’s and crossing t’s, but should be very soon.”

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The filing expands Grayscale’s growing lineup of crypto-related exchange-traded products outside of Bitcoin and Ether.

Crypto asset manager Grayscale on Monday filed an S-1 registration statement for the first US Worldcoin ETF, which would give investors a way to gain exposure to the WLD token through an exchange-traded product.

According to the preliminary prospectus, the Grayscale Worldcoin ETF is intended to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol GWLD.

BitGo Bank & Trust would custody the Worldcoin (WLD), while BNY Mellon would serve as administrator and transfer agent. CSC Delaware Trust Company would serve as a trustee.

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The settlements add to former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky’s $10 million FTC settlement in April.

Celsius co-founders Shlomi Daniel Leon and Hanoch “Nuke” Goldstein have been ordered to pay over $6 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges alleging they misrepresented the safety of the Celsius platform before the company collapsed.&

Goldstein, Celsius’ former chief technology officer, was ordered to pay $2.014 million under an order signed Monday by US District Judge Denise Cote. Leon, the firm’s former chief strategy officer, was ordered to pay $4.1 million under a separate order entered on June 29.&

The settlements extend the fallout from the 2022 collapse of Celsius beyond its former CEO Alex Mashinsky. The crypto lending platform, which held $25 billion in assets at its peak, owed its users $4.7 billion when it filed for bankruptcy in July 2022.&

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Retail users in Vietnam who trade on offshore crypto exchanges like Binance or OKX face heavy penalties. Network School controversy in Malaysia over Israeli citizen ban.

Vietnam will fine retail crypto users up to $1,900 if they trade on unlicensed overseas platforms such as Binance, OKX and Bybit, instead of on licensed local exchanges.

There’s just one problem: Vietnam’s Finance Ministry has yet to issue any exchange licenses for its regulated digital asset market, which is due to start on Sept. 1. Five exchanges have been approved in principle however.

Domestic investors who trade crypto that’s been designated exclusively for foreign investors can be fined up to $3800. Crypto companies providing or advertising services without a license, those who fail to properly ID customers, or unlawfully deal with crypto account data, can be fined up to $7600.

Balaji Srinivasan’s utopian Network School in Forest City, Malaysia is under fire over allegations it has been hosting Israeli citizens using second passports.

The claims trace back to an activist group Malaysia Protest 4 Palestine, which has accused the school of becoming a “gathering place for Israeli entrepreneurs.”

In other countries such a kerfuffle might result in a few BDS protesters or a boycott, but Malaysia has no diplomatic relations at all with Israel, and bans Israeli citizens from even visiting.

That said, dual nationals with Israeli passports are allowed... for now, although the controversy suggests that particular loophole may be closed soon.

Vitalik, Bryan and Balaji at the Network School. (X)

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The move comes as traditional exchanges face growing competition from crypto markets and tokenized equity platforms that offer around-the-clock trading.

The London Stock Exchange is planning to launch a night-time trading venue in the first half of 2027, joining a growing number of global exchanges offering or planning near-24-hour trading.

According to a report from the Financial Times, the LSE’s new venue will operate separately from its main market and run from 5:00 p.m. to 7:50 a.m. London time. It will initially offer access to exchange-traded products such as those tracking the UK or US stock market.

Related: Backpack joins race for 24/7 stock markets with tokenized equities

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The decision keeps the administration’s chief crypto policy negotiator in place during what could be a decisive few weeks for the CLARITY Act.

The White House’s top crypto adviser Patrick Witt said he will not take a leave of absence at the end of the month for military training, allowing him to remain in place to help advance the CLARITY Act in the Senate.

“Last week, it was reported that I was set to leave for mandatory training as part of my service in the Georgia Army National Guard, right before Clarity hits the Senate floor,” Witt said in an X post on Monday.&

“While I remain committed to fulfilling my service obligation, I am grateful to report that my training has been deferred, and that I will be able to see this effort through to the end,” he added.&

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Coinbase vice chair Ryan VanGrack said that Democratic lawmakers had added provisions on customer protection to a digital asset market structure bill under consideration in the US Senate.

As lawmakers in the US Senate are likely to vote soon on the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, representatives from advocacy organizations and companies are providing details of closed-door negotiations over the bill, which is expected to be the most comprehensive piece of legislation affecting the crypto industry.

In a Monday CNBC interview, Coinbase vice chair Ryan VanGrack said while the final negotiations over text of the CLARITY Act were taking place in the Senate, Democratic lawmakers had added additional protections for customers to give what he called “more teeth” to the legislation. He did not explicitly mention any progress on adding ethics provisions to the bill, which many Democrats said will be necessary for their votes.&

“[A]t the end of the day, this is about customer protections,” said VanGrack. “The status quo lacks this infrastructure, lacks these protections, and the Democrats used this opportunity, wisely, to make sure that customers were first and foremost in [this bill].”

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The recognition allows regulated firms in Abu Dhabi Global Market to offer services involving Tether Gold as tokenized commodities gain broader adoption.

Tether Gold (XAUT) has been recognized as an Accepted Spot Commodity in Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), allowing firms in the international financial center to offer services involving the tokenized gold asset if they hold the required regulatory permissions.

The recognition follows ADGM’s earlier acceptance of Tether’s USDt (USDT) as an Accepted Fiat Referenced Token, extending the company’s regulated product lineup in one of the Middle East’s largest international financial centers.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said the designation gives regulated firms a clearer path to offer XAUT, while ADGM said it would support business growth by expanding the products and services available to companies operating in the financial center.

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Despite muted derivatives sentiment, Bitcoin’s decoupling and Strategy’s cash raise set the stage for a potential rally to $70,000.

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin (BTC) showed relative strength over the past week, despite failing to break above $65,500. More importantly, the cryptocurrency has decoupled from traditional markets as investors took profits in memory-chip makers amid fears of excessive valuations in the artificial intelligence sector. Still, judging by Bitcoin’s derivative metrics, top traders are not particularly confident about a rally toward $70,000.

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Despite muted derivatives sentiment, Bitcoin’s decoupling and Strategy’s cash raise set the stage for a potential rally to $70,000.

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin (BTC) showed relative strength over the past week, despite failing to break above $65,500. More importantly, the cryptocurrency has decoupled from traditional markets as investors took profits in memory-chip makers amid fears of excessive valuations in the artificial intelligence sector. Still, judging by Bitcoin’s derivative metrics, top traders are not particularly confident about a rally toward $70,000.

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The SEC alleges Mining Automatic and its founder raised $22 million from investors by promising guaranteed crypto mining returns while spending only a fraction of the funds on mining operations.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has sued crypto mining investment business Mining Automatic and its founder, Zan Shaikh, alleging they raised $22 million from investors while spending only about 13% of the funds on mining operations.

Mining Automatic was operated by Massachusetts-based Bright Vision Distribution LLC, which the SEC said raised the money from more than 380 investors between June 2023 and May 2025.

The company allegedly promised guaranteed monthly returns from crypto asset mining despite operating a business that could not generate the advertised payouts. The SEC said investor money was instead used for marketing, personal expenses and unrelated ventures.

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The wallet company said it expected the layoffs to generate between $10 million and $13 million in savings as part of its strategy to build a full-stack card issuance and payments platform.

Cryptocurrency wallet company Exodus will cut a quarter of its workforce in a restructuring move toward stablecoin payments infrastructure.

In a Friday notice, Exodus said it would cut 25% of its staff& to “better align its cost structure and organizational priorities with its strategy to build a full-stack card issuance and payments platform.” The announcement followed the wallet company’s acquisition of Monavate and Baanx, which it said at the time would lessen its dependence on third-party providers for services including stablecoin payments.

“Exodus expects to recognize approximately $2.5 million to $3.5 million of pre-tax charges in connection with the action, consisting primarily of severance and related personnel costs,” said the notice. “The Company expects the action to generate approximately $10 million to $13 million of annualized cash operating expense savings and to see the full benefit of these savings in 2027.”

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Bitcoin miners rallied as investors cheered multi-billion-dollar AI infrastructure contracts, underscoring the sector’s accelerating shift toward data centers and cloud computing.

Shares of several Bitcoin mining companies surged Monday after Hut 8 and IREN announced major AI infrastructure deals, reinforcing investor optimism around miners expanding into artificial intelligence and high-performance computing.

IREN, Cipher Digital, CleanSpark, Hut 8 and MARA Holdings each gained at least 11% in early Monday trading. The rally followed Hut 8’s announcement of a 15-year, $9.8 billion lease for its AI data center campus and IREN’s disclosure of $2.8 billion in cloud services contracts with AI developers. Both companies began as Bitcoin (BTC) miners before accelerating a pivot toward AI infrastructure and cloud computing as mining economics weakened.

IREN now expects its AI cloud business to generate more than $4 billion in annual recurring revenue by the end of 2026.

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The West African country’s executive order established a virtual asset council and addressed the fragmentation of crypto regulation for oversight and enforcement.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of Nigeria has moved to address what his office called the fragmentation of digital asset regulation.

The Nigerian president’s special adviser Bayo Onanuga said that an executive order signed on Friday would “harmonize the regulation of virtual assets, strengthen cooperation among the nation’s financial, revenue and capital markets agencies, protect citizens from fraud, and safeguard the integrity of the financial system while enabling responsible innovation.”

It also established a virtual asset council headed by some of the nation’s top financial regulators to direct related policies, and Nigeria’s tax authority will update its policies on digital assets.

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The brokerage’s blockchain strategy, including tokenized equities and its Arbitrum-based Robinhood Chain, could reduce its reliance on traditional crypto trading, analysts said.

Analysts at Bernstein have raised their price target on Robinhood Markets, based on their investment thesis that the online brokerage’s next phase of growth will be driven by tokenized equities and prediction markets rather than traditional crypto trading.

In a Monday research note, Bernstein raised its price target on Robinhood (HOOD) stock to $160 from $130 per share and maintained its Outperform rating. HOOD stock was last seen trading around $101.

The analysts said prediction markets are poised to become Robinhood’s fastest-growing business, forecasting segment revenue to reach $1.7 billion by 2028, representing a 64% compound annual growth rate.

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Bitcoin faced troublesome resistance at $65,000 while traders still saw a potential BTC price breakout into a “bullish market structure.”

Traders balked on Bitcoin (BTC) at $65,000 on Monday as crypto and risk-assets remained under pressure.

Key points:

Data from TradingView showed BTC price volatility returning around Monday’s Wall Street open.

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The Bitcoin miner raised its year-end AI cloud revenue target to more than $4 billion after signing $2.8 billion in new contracts with AI developers.

Bitcoin miner IREN’s shares rose around 15.7% on Monday after the company raised its year-end AI cloud annualized run-rate revenue target to more than $4 billion after signing $2.8 billion in new multi-year cloud services contracts with AI developers.

The company said about 85% of its revised annualized AI cloud revenue target is now under contract, with customers including Microsoft, Nvidia, Perplexity and Figure AI.

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Renowned trading analyst Peter Brandt says investing in Bitcoin today, will pay off much better in two to three years than buying AI stocks at current prices.

Veteran trader Peter Brandt says he has pinpointed the exact day in 2026 when he expects Bitcoin to hit the bottom of this market cycle.

“I’ll go out on a limb and say we bottom on October 4th. So we’ll see,” Brandt tells Cointelegraph during an interview for Trade Secrets.&

Of course, picking the exact day of a market bottom is a tough ask, but the 51-year trading veteran has held firm on his October prediction for Bitcoin’s cycle low for quite some time.

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Strategy boosted its cash reserve to $3.225 billion after selling MSTR shares, while investors weighed the value of its STRC preferred stock.

Strategy, the world’s largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, is raising fresh capital through sales of its Class A common stock while maintaining its current Bitcoin holdings.

Strategy raised $263.5 million through sales of its MSTR common stock under its at-the-market (ATM) program between July 13 and July 19, according to a Form 8-K filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.

The company made no Bitcoin purchases or sales during the reporting period, leaving its holdings unchanged at 843,775 BTC, acquired for a total purchase price of $63.69 billion. The average acquisition cost of its holdings is $75,476, according to Strategy’s website. Bitcoin was last trading at roughly $64,657.

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Hyperliquid plans to require developers to stake 500,000 HYPE, worth about $30.4 million, to deploy permissionless prediction markets under HIP-4.

Hyperliquid plans to introduce permissionless prediction markets by requiring developers to stake 500,000 HYPE tokens (about $30.4 million) to launch them under HIP-4.

The proposal introduces a capital threshold and slashing mechanism intended to discourage poorly defined or improperly settled markets&

In an announcement, Hyperliquid said permissionless deployment will become available on testnet before expanding to mainnet in a future network upgrade. Validators will vote on standard outcome templates that deployers can use to create markets, while each deployer will initially be limited to 100 outcomes. The allocation will be released for reuse when a market is settled.&

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The new rules establish penalties as much as $1,900 for crypto violations, including unlicensed trading and AML breaches, ahead of Vietnam’s regulated crypto market launch.

Vietnam has decreed administrative penalties for use of unlicensed cryptocurrency platforms, adding an enforcement framework to the country’s upcoming regulated market.

Decree No. 284/2026/NĐ-CP, issued last Thursday, imposes fines of up to 50 million Vietnamese dong ($1,900) on investors who trade through unlicensed platforms, with fines of up to 200 million dong ($7,700) for unauthorized crypto offerings and serious anti-money laundering (AML) violations.

The rules also authorize authorities to suspend crypto-related activities, revoke licenses and confiscate assets.

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Zilliqa said exchanges paused ZIL deposits and withdrawals after an exchange partner’s cold wallet was compromised, with the amount stolen still undisclosed.

Zilliqa, a layer-1 blockchain network, said it is investigating a security incident involving an exchange partner after ZIL was stolen from a cold wallet.

In an X post on Monday, Zilliqa said it had asked exchanges to temporarily pause ZIL deposits and withdrawals as a precaution while it investigates the incident.

Zilliqa did not disclose the amount of ZIL stolen, identify the affected exchange partner or explain the possible cause of the incident. “We understand the community will have questions. We will share further updates as soon as we have verified information,” it said.

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Institutional due diligence is shifting toward continuous monitoring, signer controls and incident readiness after operational failures accounted for most crypto losses.

Institutional investors are looking beyond smart contract audits after traditional trust signals such as prior audits and operating history failed to predict which crypto projects would be exploited, according to Hacken.

In its Q2 2026 Security & Compliance Report, Hacken said that only 9% of 1,427 tracked projects had third-party monitoring, while 4% combined monitoring with an active bug bounty and a security audit. The report highlighted that compromised keys, signers and infrastructure accounted for 88.3% of the roughly $764 million stolen during the quarter.&

Hacken said projects unable to provide ongoing evidence of operational security may face higher perceived risk, reduced investment and more difficult access to insurance or counterparties.&

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Europe’s second-biggest Bitcoin treasury company said the September reverse stock split should attract more institutional investors to the French company.

Capital B, Europe’s second-largest Bitcoin treasury company, will consolidate its shares in a 10-for-1 reverse stock split aimed at broadening its institutional investor base.

The reverse split will reduce the number of shares to about 30.1 million from 300.7 million. Each new share will replace 10 existing shares and carry a par value of 0.80 euros ($0.90), up from 0.08 euros, Capital B said in a Monday statement.

The Euronext Growth Paris-listed company said the conversion will occur automatically on Sept. 8 without changing the aggregate value of investors’ holdings.

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Russia’s State Duma is set to consider the crypto regulation bill in second and third readings, with rules for investors and cross-border payments included.

Russia’s parliament, the State Duma, is preparing to hold final readings on a bill to regulate the cryptocurrency market.

The draft bill No. 1194918-8, titled “On Digital Currency and Digital Rights,” will undergo second and third readings on Tuesday, according to Anatoly Aksakov, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Financial Markets, as reported by RBC.

The bill would introduce limits for non-qualified investors, including a 300,000 ruble ($3,800) annual limit on crypto purchases through a single intermediary and a 100,000 ruble limit for transfers abroad. Qualified investors would face higher limits of 3 million rubles for purchases and 1 million rubles for transfers abroad, respectively.

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Grayscale plans to establish regular cash distributions from staking rewards generated by its Ether and Solana exchange-traded products.

Asset manager Grayscale plans to establish regular cash distributions from rewards generated by its Ether (ETH) and Solana (SOL) staking exchange-traded products (ETPs), giving holders recurring access to yield generated by underlying assets.&

In Form 8-K filings submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Grayscale said it intends to amend the trust agreements governing the Grayscale Solana Staking ETF (GSOL) and the Grayscale Ethereum Staking ETF (ETHE) around Aug. 7. The amendments would require each trust to convert staking rewards into cash no less often than quarterly and distribute net proceeds to shareholders.&

The framework could make staking returns more accessible to traditional investors by delivering cash rewards through broker-held products, eliminating the need for shareholders to hold crypto, pick validators and manage staking operations. However, Grayscale said distribution amounts cannot be predicted as they will depend on the staking rewards during each period and expenses deducted by the trusts.&

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Bitcoin preserved a key long-term trend line as support for a third week as US-Iran war tensions delivered new five-week highs in oil prices.

Bitcoin (BTC) starts the last full week of July holding key support while macro clouds continue to gather.

Key points:

In a familiar move, Bitcoin saw sell-side pressure soon after the weekly close going into Monday morning, with local lows reaching $63,700, data from TradingView confirms.

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US spot Bitcoin ETFs extended their inflow streak to two weeks with $75.7 million in net inflows, but analysts said demand remains insufficient to fuel a sustained uptrend.

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are seeing renewed investor demand, but the latest inflow streak has yet to provide enough momentum for a stronger recovery.

Bitcoin ETFs recorded $75.7 million in net inflows for the week ending July 17, marking a second consecutive week of positive flows, according to SoSoValue data.

The latest inflows followed $197.4 million in net inflows the previous week, bringing July’s total ETF inflows to $200.2 million. US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $4.5 billion in net outflows in June, with total 2026 net flows still negative at $5.2 billion.

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The Bank of Korea’s CBDC pilot will add two regional banks, new payment features and tests of government subsidy payments using tokenized bank deposits

The Bank of Korea may launch the second phase of Project Hangang, its wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot, as early as September, according to Yonhap News.

The next stage expands participation to nine banks from seven, introduces new payment features and tests government subsidy disbursements through tokenized bank deposits. Regional lenders Kyongnam Bank and iM Bank will join the existing group of participants.

Project Hangang uses a blockchain-based wholesale CBDC issued by the central bank as the settlement asset for deposit tokens issued by commercial banks. Consumers can then use the bank-issued tokens for everyday payments.

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The upgrade reduces smart contract execution costs while laying the groundwork for Ouroboros Leios, a major scalability upgrade expected later this year.

Cardano has activated its van Rossem hard fork as of Saturday, upgrading the Cardano mainnet to version 11, which is expected to lower smart contract execution costs and lay the groundwork for Ouroboros Leios, a major scalability upgrade for the protocol.&

Onchain data from Cardanoscan shows the network moved from Protocol Version 10 in epoch 643 to Version 11 in epoch 644.

“As well as Plutus improvements and Plutus Cost Model enhancements, this upgrade lays the foundation for the next upgrade, the Dijkstra era hard fork, which will introduce Ouroboros Leios to Cardano,” Input Output wrote in a weekly development report on Friday.

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The attacker allegedly used a flash loan and rapid swaps to manipulate the bridge’s stablecoin exchange rate.

Allbridge, the company behind cross-chain stablecoin bridge Allbridge Core, said it has paused the protocol as a precaution after a “security incident” that reportedly saw $1.65 million drained on Sunday.

The incident affected Allbridge Core’s Solana deployment, with the attacker having already bridged the stolen funds from Solana to Ethereum before moving them into privacy pools.&

“Allbridge Core is experiencing a security incident,” it said in a post on X on Sunday. “We have paused the protocol as a precaution while we investigate. If you have liquidity in affected pools, please withdraw now.”&

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The planned rollout would let thousands of transportation contractors receive digital yen payments more frequently and quickly.

AZ-COM Maruwa Holdings, a major Japanese logistics company, plans to adopt JPYC to make payments to around 2,300 business partners, in what is expected to be the first large-scale corporate use of the yen-denominated stablecoin in Japan.&

According to a report from Nikkei, JPYC will be used to pay fees and compensation to individual contractors who handle transportation, including truck drivers; the use of the stablecoin will allow faster and more frequent payments, as it does not charge transfer fees.&

AZ-COM Maruwa is also considering a partnership with JPYC and an investment of over 1 billion Japanese yen ($6.2 million).

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Financial Services Commission Chair Lee Eog-won posted the figures on the second anniversary of the enactment of the Virtual Asset User Protection Act.

South Korea’s financial authorities investigated more than 40 cases of unfair trading, including market manipulation and fraudulent crypto trading, in the last two years.&

According to an X post by Financial Services Commission Chair Lee Eog-won, 30 cases were reported to or referred to investigative agencies, which identified 25 suspects since the Virtual Asset User Protection Act took effect in July 2024.

Lee said the average unlawful gains were around 1.4 billion Korean won ($940,000).

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The fate of the CLARITY Act hinges on Trump’s ethics, so the odds aren’t looking great. Prediction market volumes hit new highs, and more news.

Polymarket suggests the odds of the CLARITY Act passing this year are just 40%, after a raft of Democratic Senators, including Chris Murphy, Jeff Merkley and Chris Van Hollen, spoke out against the bill.

A crucial Senate vote could happen as early as this week, with Senate Majority Leader John Thune stating it will definitely be held before Aug. 10.

Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren is trying to spoil the vote by highlighting how much money President Donald Trump has extracted from the industry. She demanded Trump voluntarily release his crypto earnings for this year, after his 2025 disclosure showed he earned more than a billion dollars from crypto last year. The controversy means that Senate Democrats are unlikely to support the bill without a provision banning elected officials promoting or issuing cryptocurrency.

Summer Mersinger, the CEO of the Blockchain Association and a former commissioner at the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said: “Ethics is the big elephant in the room.”

Source: Polymarket

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The man in control of the biggest Bitcoin corporate treasury said he shares the objectives but disagrees about the remedy detailed in the proposed temporary fork.

Strategy executive chairman Michael Saylor took to social media on Sunday to detail his “110 reasons” why a proposed temporary fork to limit non-monetary transactions on the Bitcoin network, or BIP-110, is a bad idea.

Bitcoin Improvement Proposal-110 was introduced in December 2025 to stop nonfungible token-like Ordinals inscriptions and other arbitrary data from spamming the network and to preserve BTC’s main use as a peer-to-peer cash system.

In a roughly 3,700 word post on X.com, the man in control of the largest Bitcoin (BTC) corporate treasury made a case for what he said are “neutral rules, hard consensus, open markets, and permissionless innovation.”

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US regulators failed to finalize implementing regulations by the GENIUS Act’s one-year deadline, issuing 10 proposed rules instead.

US regulatory agencies missed Saturday’s rulemaking deadline under the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, one year after the law was signed.&

While several regulatory agencies published proposed rules and collected public feedback during the past year, no final regulations were issued before the deadline.

Those agencies include the Department of the Treasury, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Federal Reserve Board, according to rulemaking trackers by law firm Chapman and crypto investment company Paradigm.

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Korea’s Virtual Asset User Protection Act lacks explicit sanctions provisions for hacking and similar incidents, clouding the scope of penalties facing the Upbit operator Dunamu.

South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) has reportedly sent an inspection opinion letter to Dunamu, the operator of crypto exchange Upbit, concerning the $36 million hack from November 2025.

Local news outlet Yonhap News reported Sunday that the FSS had recently sent Dunamu an inspection opinion letter.

The letter marks the formal start of a sanctions procedure by the financial authorities. It provides Dunamu with an opportunity to respond to the inspection’s findings before the regulator notifies the company of its proposed sanctions.

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The proceedings come as South Korea’s Virtual Asset User Protection Act lacks explicit sanctions provisions for hacking and computer system incidents, leaving the scope of penalties uncertain.

South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) has reportedly sent an inspection opinion letter to Dunamu, the operator of crypto exchange Upbit, regarding the $36 million hack from November 2025.

Local news outlet Yonhap News reported Sunday that the FSS had recently sent Dunamu an inspection opinion letter.

The letter marks the formal start of a sanctions procedure by the financial authorities. It provides Dunamu with an opportunity to respond to the inspection’s findings before the regulator notifies the company of its proposed sanctions.

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Electronic Transactions Association (ETA) CEO, Jason Oxman, indicated that members of his organization might start recognizing Bitcoin’s disruptive potential, suggesting that this might lead to more partnerships between traditional electronic payment providers and Bitcoin startups.

Electronic Transactions Association (ETA) CEO, Jason Oxman, indicated that members of his organization might start recognizing Bitcoin’s disruptive potential, suggesting that this might lead to more partnerships between traditional electronic payment providers and Bitcoin startups.

On August 6, the ETA, which represents companies like Visa, MasterCard, Amazon and PayPal, welcomed BitPay, the first virtual currency company to become an ETA member, according to the press release. The announcement expressed the ETA’s commitment to embrace new technologies, and said to expect “more such partnerships as the payments industry innovates for the future.”

In a recent interview with CoinDesk, the head of the financial trade group specified that the ETA did not advocate for Bitcoin and had not taken an official position to the detriment of others technologies, stating that his support extended equally to all forms of electronic transactions.

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Cybersecurity company Kaspersky said a newly identified malware framework is targeting cryptocurrency investors through social engineering tactics and trojanized GitHub apps.

Kaspersky has uncovered a new malware framework targeting cryptocurrency investors.

Dubbed “OkoBot,” the malware initiates an infection chain that starts with social engineering tactics such as ClickFix, which tricks users into running malicious commands, or trojanized GitHub apps that deliver a backdoor to infected devices, the cybersecurity company wrote in a Wednesday report.

The malware can harvest crypto wallet files, browser data and user credentials, inject malicious extensions and capture wallet application windows to steal assets. Kaspersky said it identified multiple attacks involving this malware family since January 2026.

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Autorité nationale des jeux has ordered France’s internet service providers to geoblock Polymarket, citing illegal gambling and market manipulation concerns.

France’s National Gambling Authority has ordered internet service providers to block access to Polymarket as it considers prediction websites to be illegal gambling.

Formally known as Autorité nationale des jeux (ANJ), the regulator said in a statement on Friday that Polymarket’s operations are not authorized in France and that advertising unauthorized gambling sites constitutes a criminal offense with fines of up to 100,000 euros ($114,000).

Prediction markets allow users to buy and sell contracts tied to the outcomes of future events, from elections and sporting events to economic data and geopolitical developments. Polymarket has surged in popularity over the past two years, with billions of dollars in worldwide trading volume, while drawing scrutiny from regulators over whether its event contracts constitute illegal gambling or unlicensed financial products.

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The FTX Recovery Trust and company have distributed about $10 billion since the exchange filed for bankruptcy in November 2022, leaving users cut off from their funds.

The trust behind reimbursing creditors with ties to defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX announced that its next distribution of funds would start on July 31.

In a Friday notice, the FTX Recovery Trust and crypto exchange said that they would distribute about $900 million to claimants in the recovery plan’s “convenience and non-convenience classes.” Eligible creditors can receive funds through their BitGo, Kraken or Payoneer accounts within one to three business days starting from July 31.

The distribution will mark the fifth round of attempts of repaying FTX’s creditors. Convenience claims under $50,000 will receive a 120% reimbursement under FTX’s recovery plan, while others will receive between a 103-105% distribution.

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Galaxy Digital will rename Texas Tech’s football stadium under a 15-year agreement, expanding its West Texas presence as the state attracts growing crypto investment.

Digital asset and AI infrastructure company Galaxy Digital has signed a 15-year naming rights agreement with Texas Tech, renaming the university’s football stadium Galaxy Stadium beginning with the 2026 season.

The partnership also makes Galaxy the official data center and digital assets partner of Texas Tech Athletics, with the companies planning to collaborate on student-athlete name, image and likeness opportunities, artificial intelligence initiatives and workforce development programs.

According to Friday’s announcement, the stadium will debut under its new name on Sept. 5, when Texas Tech opens its season against Abilene Christian. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

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Through an introduction with a “reputable third-party service provider,“ the company took on a developer who, as part of an investigation, was revealed to be tied to North Korea.

Blockchain company Consensys accidentally used a software developer linked to North Korea who had access to some of its systems for a month.

First reported on Friday by Drop Site, Consensys earlier this year took on a software developer under the alias Tyler Knapp who was later discovered to have ties to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or North Korea. The move caused the company to temporarily suspend product releases and conduct an investigation into the matter

“‘Knapp’ was introduced to us through an existing relationship with a reputable third-party service provider and collaborated with Consensys as a consultant,” Consensys general counsel Matt Corva stold Cointelegraph. “He was never hired as a Consensys employee. Very quickly after being introduced, we discovered the threat, followed our security protocols, immediately terminated any access and launched a comprehensive investigation that confirmed there was no misappropriation of assets or data, no malicious code deployed, and no impact to user safety and security.”

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Bolivia moves to recognize USDT amid a dollar shortage, while Bitcoin miners’ AI ambitions face fresh investor scrutiny.

Stablecoins have long been pitched as a faster way to move dollars across borders. In Bolivia, they’re increasingly becoming a way to access dollars in the first place. The country’s recent proposal to recognize Tether’s USDt (USDT) for payments underscores how economic instability is driving adoption in many emerging markets.&

Elsewhere, Bitcoin miners are discovering that pivoting to AI infrastructure may unlock new revenue streams, but it doesn’t shield them from investor scrutiny.

Bolivia is considering a regulatory framework that would recognize Tether’s USDT as a payment currency, marking another step in the country’s push to integrate digital assets into its financial system.

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The feature offers European customers a voluntary path away from Tether’s USDT as MiCA rules reshape the region’s stablecoin market.

OKX Europe has launched a one-way conversion feature allowing customers to deposit USDT and convert it into USDC, offering a regulated migration path as the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) rules limit support for the world’s largest stablecoin.

According to a company announcement shared with Cointelegraph, the feature lets customers deposit Tether’s USDt (USDT) into their OKX Europe account and convert the tokens into USDC (USDC), one of the largest stablecoins available under the European Union’s MiCA framework.

Tether has not obtained authorization to issue USDT under MiCA, prompting many European platforms to restrict deposits, delist trading pairs or convert customer balances into compliant alternatives as the European Union completed the framework’s rollout on July 1.

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With the Senate likely voting on a crypto bill within days, Elizabeth Warren asked for information on Donald Trump’s earnings between January and July ahead of a 2027 deadline.

Update (July 17, 11:59 pm UTC): This article has been updated to include a response from the White House.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, one of the more outspoken voices in the US Congress associating digital assets with illicit activities, has called on President Donald Trump to release additional information on his crypto investments ahead of a mandated deadline.

In a Thursday letter, Warren requested Trump voluntarily release a financial disclosure report on his earnings related to cryptocurrency between Jan. 1 and July 15. The request came after Trump’s 2025 financial disclosures showed he had earned $1.4 billion from crypto-related ventures in 2025, including through his memecoin, Official Trump (TRUMP), and his family’s company World Liberty Financial.

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Bitcoin saw a key rejection at local highs before reversing lower, moving with stocks for a second day as US-Iran war downside took its toll.

Bitcoin (BTC) dipped below $62,500 at Friday’s Wall Street open as stocks took a fresh hit from the US-Iran war.

Key points:

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The Bank of England approved HSBC Orion to go live in its Digital Securities Sandbox, with the first Digital Gilt Instrument transaction expected in the first quarter of 2027.

HSBC, one of the world’s largest banks, has received approval to operate in the United Kingdom’s Digital Securities Sandbox (DSS), allowing its digital assets platform, HSBC Orion, to support the issuance, servicing and settlement of digital securities.

The bank announced Tuesday that HSBC Orion will operate as a digital securities depository within the DSS, a regulatory environment designed to test new technology for securities markets. HSBC said it is the first company approved by the Bank of England to go live in the sandbox.

HSBC’s platform will support digitally native bond issuance, including the UK’s planned digital sovereign bond — Digital Gilt Instrument (DIGIT) — and corporate bonds. HSBC said HSBC Orion has enabled more than $5 billion in digital bond issuances globally.

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SBI Holdings received regulatory approval to acquire a majority stake in Singapore-based crypto exchange Coinhako as it expands into stablecoins, onchain finance and tokenized assets.

Japanese financial services group SBI Holdings has acquired a majority stake in Holdbuild, the parent company of Singaporean crypto platform Coinhako, after receiving regulatory approval from Singapore’s central bank.

The approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) enabled SBI to acquire company shares from existing shareholders through a capital injection, making Coinhako a consolidated subsidiary of SBI, the company announced on Thursday.

Coinhako holds a Major Payment Institution license under MAS through its subsidiary, Hako Technology Pte. Ltd. SBI announced its intent to acquire a majority stake in the Singaporean crypto exchange in February.

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Kraken, Bitstamp, 1inch and Bitfinex have all set up shop in the British Virgin Islands — but you might find it tricky to book an on-site meeting with one of their executives.

More than $1 out of every $10 of the world’s tokenized US Treasuries is issued by a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands.

That places the small Caribbean territory behind only the United States as a key jurisdiction for the rapidly growing asset class, according to BVI Finance.

BVI Finance’s Destination Digital report in June found that BVI entities accounted for approximately $1.5 billion of the $14.98 billion global market for tokenized US Treasuries as of June 1.

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The Rotterdam court said bankruptcy was necessary to ensure an orderly settlement because the company lacked enough assets to fully repay users.

A Dutch court has declared cryptocurrency platform Knaken Cryptohandel BV and its affiliated foundation bankrupt after prosecutors said 7 million euros ($8 million) in customer assets were missing.

The Rotterdam court issued the ruling on Thursday, saying the bankruptcy was needed to ensure an orderly settlement after Knaken blocked access to its platform and accounts.

According to the court, the company has insufficient assets to fully repay users. The court also said customers lacked sufficient information to determine their legal position.

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ECB’s Piero Cipollone said stablecoin adoption could erode bank deposits, but the digital euro will keep banks at the center of payments.

European Central Bank Executive Board member Piero Cipollone said wider stablecoin adoption could erode commercial banks’ retail deposit base.

He made the remarks Friday in a speech to Italy’s Federation of Cooperative Credit Banks in Rome, where he argued that digital payments are reshaping banking and increasing Europe’s reliance on non-European payment infrastructure.&

Cipollone said banks are already losing payment fees and transaction data to mobile payment providers. He added that the digital euro would help preserve banks’ role in the payments system.

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The pair pleaded guilty after investigators linked them to the Scattered Spider cybercrime group, which US prosecutors say extorted dozens of companies.

The United Kingdom National Crime Agency (NCA) and City of London Police said two men associated with the “Scattered Spider” hacking group were sentenced to five years and six months in prison.

The two pleaded guilty during their first court appearance at Woolwich Crown Court on June 22 and were sentenced on Thursday, according to a press release from the NCA.

British authorities said the pair were part of the Scattered Spider cybercrime group, which investigators have linked to high-profile ransomware and cryptocurrency extortion attacks targeting companies in the UK and the US.

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ESMA adds 14 CASPs to its MiCA register, with banks and Ripple Payments Europe among the new entries as total providers reach 294.

European authorities added 14 crypto companies to the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework register in the second post-deadline update, signaling a slower licensing pace after an initial surge.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) updated its interim MiCA register on Thursday, bringing the total number of licensed crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) to 294.

The new entries include Ripple Payments Europe, the European payments arm of blockchain company Ripple, as well as Portugal-based Bison Bank and Croatia’s state-owned bank, Hrvatska poštanska banka (HPB).

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Bitcoin supply in loss hit 50% nearly 50 days ago, mimicking the countdown to BTC price bear-market bottoms.

Bitcoin (BTC) has been counting down to its next bottom for nearly two months, a classic onchain metric suggests.

Key points:

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Federal prosecutors allege the South Dakota investor used false promises to raise money, repaid earlier investors with new funds and laundered proceeds through crypto exchanges.

A federal grand jury has indicted a South Dakota cryptocurrency investor on wire fraud, money laundering, bank fraud and aggravated identity theft charges over an alleged $20 million investment scheme, the US Department of Justice said Thursday.

According to the indictment, 43-year-old Benjamin Paul Wiener persuaded people to invest money and digital assets with his companies by making false statements and fraudulent representations.

Prosecutors allege Wiener used funds from new investors to repay earlier investors and cover personal expenses after existing funds were depleted.

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A macOS malware steals credentials to hijack Telegram sessions, decrypt cryptocurrency wallets or trick users into entering their wallet recovery phrases through fake applications.

A macOS information-stealing malware can hijack Telegram Desktop sessions and compromise cryptocurrency wallets, according to blockchain security firm SlowMist.

The malware harvests data from the macOS Keychain, Safari cookies, Apple Notes, Telegram Desktop and databases associated with more than a dozen cryptocurrency wallets.

After collecting passwords and authenticated sessions, the malware copies users’ authenticated Telegram Desktop session data, wallet databases and browser wallet extension data.

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US spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted $79.2 million on Thursday, lifting their three-day inflow total to about $368 million as Bitcoin attempted a price recovery.

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded $79.2 million in net inflows on Thursday, extending their inflow streak to three consecutive trading sessions.

The latest inflows followed $108 million on Wednesday and $181 million on Tuesday, bringing the three-day total to about $368 million, according to SoSoValue data.

Cumulative net inflows into US spot Bitcoin ETFs climbed to $51.2 billion, while total assets under management rose to $77.7 billion.

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“Over time the economic incentives will drive $DOG Mode’s adoption and force Bitcoin Core to stop gatekeeping and allow these completely valid transactions,” said Leonidas.

Bitcoin Ordinals advocate Leonidas has proposed developing a new open-source Bitcoin client, aimed at removing restrictions affecting Runes and Ordinals transactions.&

In a post to X on Friday, Leonidas called the proposed client “Bitcoin $DOG Mode,” which would lift the maximum individual transaction size to 3.9 million weight units (WU), compared to Bitcoin Core’s 400,000 WU, and lower the dust limit to 1 satoshi (sats) from 294-546 sats.

The changes would make it easier to send Ordinals inscriptions and Runes, which have been described as Bitcoin’s take on fungible and non-fungible tokens. Both have been controversial within the Bitcoin community, with critics arguing they amount to “spam” on the Bitcoin network.&

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The launch gives Bybit a locally operated platform in one of Asia’s largest crypto markets, home to more than 21 million crypto exchange users.

Crypto exchange Bybit announced Thursday it launched a locally operated platform in Indonesia after acquiring a majority stake in digital asset firm PT Enkripsi Teknologi Handal, formerly known as NOBI.&

The deal saw NOBI rebranded as Bybit Indonesia. The crypto exchange said it plans to introduce its services in phases, starting with 500 cryptocurrency trading pairs.&

The exchange will be led by Lawrence Samantha as CEO and Dionisius Evan as chief operating officer, both formerly senior executives at NOBI.&

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The paid Truth API is aimed at high-frequency trading firms seeking “the fastest” access to market-moving Truth Social posts, including those from US President Donald Trump.

Trump Media, the company that operates the Truth Social network, said Thursday it was launching a new paid-for API that gives Wall Street firms “the fastest” access to posts from the most influential Truth Social accounts, including US President Donald Trump.

The API is targeted to be available to institutional customers from Aug. 1, 2026, and is aimed at high-frequency and algorithmic trading firms that require a low-latency, machine-readable feed, said the company on Thursday.&

“Markets already move on Truth Social posts,” said Kevin McGurn, interim CEO of TMTG in a statement. “Truth API delivers a direct, licensed, real-time feed of the platform’s most market-moving Truths while advancing our strategy to monetize proprietary assets through a high-margin, recurring revenue stream.”

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“If we are not welcome, there are many other countries that would welcome us,” said Network School founder Balaji Srinivasan in a message to the Malaysian prime minister.

Network School founder Balaji Srinivasan is seeking a memorandum of understanding with Malaysia after authorities probed his Forest City tech community over allegations it was hosting Israeli citizens using second passports.&

Malaysia’s Home Affairs Ministry said Tuesday it was investigating Srinivasan’s start-up community in Johor following claims it included Israelis in violation of immigration laws. Initial checks found all 266 foreigners held valid documents.&

Srinivasan said the agreement would give Network School legal certainty to continue investing in Malaysia. Without it, he said, the community could take its capital to countries that are more welcoming.&

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Bitcoin futures traders are propping up the current market move, while liquidation heatmap data provides hints on where BTC price may go next.

Increased activity across Bitcoin’s (BTC) futures markets is playing the dominant role in its short-term price action, which keeps tracing back to where leveraged positions are stacked. Prices tend to gravitate toward where liquidity is most concentrated, and as Bitcoin battles to hold above $64,000, reviewing current liquidation scenarios may provide insight into BTC’s next move.&

Liquidation heatmap data shows a cluster of short positions concentrated between $65,500 and $66,000, roughly 3% away from current market pricing. A push through $65,600 may put that shelf in play and could accelerate a larger rally toward $67,000.

Below market pricing, support is layered in the $63,500 to $63,750 range, with the closest cluster 1% away, and larger liquidity pools are found at $63,000-$63,250 (about 1.5% down) and $62,500-$62,750 (about 2.3% down).&

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The round of layoffs was part of Polygon transitioning operations to payments following a $250 million deal to acquire Coinme and Sequence in January.

Marc Boiron, CEO of Polygon Labs, announced additional layoffs as the company finalizes its acquisition of cryptocurrency exchange Coinme.&

In a Thursday X post, Boiron said that Polygon would say “goodbye to many of [its] colleagues” as the company began the “transformation from operating as a blockchain foundation into operating as a blockchain-enabled payments company.” The move was part of a $250 million deal announced in January for Polygon to acquire Coinme and wallet infrastructure platform Sequence.

“These changes are about the company we’re building, not the quality of the people leaving,” said Boiron. “A blockchain foundation and a blockchain-enabled payments company do not operate the same way. This transition means changing how we’re organized and the talent we need, not just what we build.”

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According to ABC News, federal regulators are investigating whether the longtime White House staffer used nonpublic information to profit from event contracts tied to President Donald Trump’s speeches.

US President Donald Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator is in talks with federal regulators about allegations that he used nonpublic information to profit from bets on Kalshi markets tied to the president’s speeches, ABC News reported Thursday, citing sources familiar with the matter.

According to the report, Gabriel Perez, a technical assistant who has operated Trump’s teleprompter since 2016, allegedly placed bets on more than a dozen markets tied to Trump’s speeches, generating more than $100,000 in profits.

Kalshi detected the activity through its surveillance systems and referred the trades to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the outlet said. The contracts were part of the platform’s “Mentions” markets, which allow users to bet on whether particular words, phrases or topics will appear in public speeches.

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Bitcoin buyers have returned to spot, futures and ETF markets but geopolitical headwinds could quickly unravel the progress of the past two weeks.

Bitcoin (BTC) spent the week split across two scenarios. One highlighted improving onchain buying pressure and ETF inflows, while the other remained synced to sentiment gauges and news events that projected fear.

The spot and futures cumulative volume delta, a running tally of buy and sell orders, confirmed a $925 million net buying day for Bitcoin on Wednesday. This order book activity absorbed the entire post-CPI pullback in open interest and price rather than collapsing into it. Meanwhile, the spot Bitcoin ETFs added $107.7 million in net inflows on Wednesday marking the second consecutive positive day following $181 million on Tuesday.

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Anton Bukov said that he no longer takes an active role at 1inch and was “fired” in 2025 after pushing for changes to the company’s management and operations.

Anton Bukov, the co-founder of 1inch, said that he was completely exiting his role in the company’s operations after more than seven years.

In a Thursday X article, Bukov said that he had departed 1inch to launch a new project called Second Tier. Although he said he will remain a co-founder with a 50% ownership in the company, 1inch and Bukov released contradictory statements online regarding his role since last year.

According to Bukov, he was “fired” from 1inch in November 2025 after “push[ing] for change” in the company’s management and operations. 1inch followed by posting its own account to X, saying that the co-founder “had not been actively involved in any associated organizations” related to the project since December 2025.

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The company said the filing would create a regulated pathway for maintaining ownership records for tokenized securities onchain.

Injective said Thursday it has filed a transfer agent registration with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, seeking to bring one of the core record-keeping functions of securities markets onto blockchain infrastructure.

Transfer agents are a core part of US market infrastructure, maintaining shareholder records and tracking changes in securities ownership. Injective, a layer-1 blockchain focused on decentralized finance and tokenized real-world assets, said bringing that function onchain would create a regulated pathway for issuing and managing tokenized assets.

Source: Injective

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The Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets approved BitPay’s application as a crypto-asset service provider under the Markets in Crypto-Assets requirements.

Crypto payments company BitPay announced that it had secured a license by the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets, allowing the company to operate in European Union member states under the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework.&

On Thursday, BitPay said that the approval as a crypto-asset service provider (CASP) by Dutch financial authorities would allow the company to expand its services in the region, including crypto and stablecoin payments. The company was one of the latest to be licensed under MiCA following a July 1 requirement for all entities offering crypto-related services to be regulated.&

“Europe is one of the most important regions for the future of payments,” said BitPay’s European head, Jonathan Arler.

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Bitcoin fell 1.5% from local highs amid a reversal in US stocks as markets moved from bullish US inflation cues to retail profit-taking.

Bitcoin (BTC) cooled off with US stocks on Thursday as tech selling tempered gains from low inflation.

Key points:

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A former CFTC commissioner urged lawmakers not to “kill all the hard work that we put in the rest of the bill” by making ethics a make-or-break issue on crypto market structure.

Summer Mersinger, the CEO of the Blockchain Association and a former commissioner at the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), anticipated a vote on a cryptocurrency market structure bill as soon as next week with the window closing for lawmakers before August state work periods.&

Speaking at the Injective Summit in Washington, DC, on Thursday, Mersinger said that US lawmakers working to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act in Congress had a “few little nits that they’re still working out” but were “very close on the main part of the language” around the bill. According to the Blockchain Association CEO, a vote in the Senate could come as early as next week, provided lawmakers reached an agreement on ethics.

“Ethics is the big elephant in the room,” said Mersinger on the crypto bill. “That’s what we hear from every office is that we’ve gotta figure out ethics. Today there’s a meeting at the White House with some Republican senators. We’re hopeful that an agreement comes out of that and that it’s something the Democrats will accept or that they can make some changes but get to an agreement.”

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A former CFTC commissioner urged lawmakers not to “kill all the hard work that we put in the rest of the bill” by making ethics a make-or-break issue on crypto market structure.

Summer Mersinger, the CEO of the Blockchain Association and a former commissioner at the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), anticipated a vote on a cryptocurrency market structure bill as soon as next week with the window closing for lawmakers before August state work periods.&

Speaking at the Injective Summit in Washington, DC, on Thursday, Mersinger said that US lawmakers working to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act in Congress had a “few little nits that they’re still working out” but were “very close on the main part of the language” around the bill. According to the Blockchain Association CEO, a vote in the Senate could come as early as next week, provided lawmakers reached an agreement on ethics.

“Ethics is the big elephant in the room,” said Mersinger on the crypto bill. “That’s what we hear from every office is that we’ve gotta figure out ethics. Today there’s a meeting at the White House with some Republican senators. We’re hopeful that an agreement comes out of that and that it’s something the Democrats will accept or that they can make some changes but get to an agreement.”

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Eligible E*TRADE retail clients can now buy, sell and hold Bitcoin, Ether and Solana through a partnership with crypto infrastructure provider Zero Hash.

Morgan Stanley’s E*TRADE platform has launched spot cryptocurrency trading, allowing eligible clients to buy, sell and hold Bitcoin, Ether and Solana through a partnership with crypto infrastructure provider Zero Hash.

Clients can view their crypto holdings alongside stocks and other traditional investments on the E*TRADE platform, while transfer functionality for moving digital assets on and off the platform is expected later this year.

The self-directed channel served 8.6 million households and held about $1.56 trillion in client assets as of March 31, according to Morgan Stanley’s latest financial supplement.

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Tradable will bring up to $1 billion in private credit assets to Stellar, extending the blockchain’s push into institutional finance and tokenized real-world assets.

Tokenization platform Tradable plans to bring up to $1 billion in private credit assets onto the Stellar blockchain, expanding institutional access to tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) as demand for onchain private markets continues to grow.

Tradable said Thursday that $500 million in notional value is expected to be available when the initiative launches, and it will increase the amount to $1 billion over time. The company will use Stellar’s network to support institutional functions, including compliance, investor onboarding and asset lifecycle management.

The timing of the initiative’s launch was not disclosed.

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The BNP-backed brokerage infrastructure provider is expanding into tokenized markets and AI-native financial services as both DeFi and TradFi companies pursue onchain business.

Brokerage infrastructure provider Alpaca said Thursday that it raised $135 million in a funding round led by Peak XV, along with as much as $300 million in debt financing from Kraken parent Payward and BMO.

A January Series D round pulled in $150 million that brought the fintech’s value to $1.15 billion, according to the statement. Earlier investors include the venture capital arm of BNP Paribas.

Alpaca said it will use the new financing to accelerate its agent-first brokerage and API-first prime brokerage infrastructure.

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Users spent a record $324 million on onchain gacha in June, even as Bitcoin hit a 21-month low. The thrill of scoring a top Pokemon card from a random pack is becoming big business

June 2026 was brutal for the crypto market. Bitcoin (BTC) fell more than 20%, hitting a 21-month low, while spot Bitcoin ETFs saw a record $4.5 billion in outflows.

That did not stop users from spending a record $324 million on onchain gacha during the month, according to Blockworks Research. A year earlier, the monthly figure was closer to $50 million.

Spending hit a new all time high in the depths of a bear market. While crypto prices were tanking, people were opening more and more packs of tokenized Pokémon cards — driven by the thrill, the hope of a profit or the urge to expand a collection.

It’s an entire randomized Real World Asset (RWA) sector that’s flown under the radar… until now.

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Prediction markets reached a record $113.8 billion in notional volume in Q2 as spot CEX trading, derivatives volume and stablecoin market cap declined.

Cryptocurrency markets struggled broadly in the second quarter of 2026, with declines across stablecoins, spot trading and derivatives, but prediction markets reached record highs.

Spot trading volume across the top 10 centralized exchanges (CEXs) fell to $1.95 trillion in the second quarter of 2026, a 27.9% drop from $2.7 trillion in Q1, according to CoinGecko’s latest Crypto Industry Report published Thursday.

CEX perpetual futures volume also declined 10% to $12.7 trillion, while the stablecoin market slipped 1.6% to $305.1 billion. In contrast, prediction markets recorded their strongest quarter on record with $113.8 billion in notional volume.

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MoonPay acquired Glide, a crypto infrastructure startup founded by former Robinhood Wallet engineers, to expand cross-chain crypto deposit infrastructure.

MoonPay has acquired the crypto infrastructure startup Glide, integrating Glide’s deposit and routing technology, the companies said in a joint announcement shared with Cointelegraph on Thursday.

MoonPay, a financial technology platform that provides fiat-to-crypto payment services, said the deal is part of MoonPay’s broader effort to become a digital asset infrastructure provider, adding capabilities beyond its original crypto payments business.

Glide was founded in 2023 by Tushar Soni and Qinyu Tong, former members of the team behind Robinhood Wallet. The company was founded to help applications accept deposits from different tokens, wallets, exchanges and payment sources. Glide supports more than 100 tokens across 30 blockchain networks, according to the platform’s documentation.

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The market capitalization of tokenized stocks rose to a record $2.3 billion, as investors sought exposure to the growing list of tokenized equity products launched by cryptocurrency exchanges.

The global market capitalization of tokenized stocks rose to a record $2.3 billion on Wednesday, as more investors sought exposure to blockchain-based equity products.

The Ethereum network boasted the largest market share, at 34%, followed by BNB Chain with 30% and the Solana network with 23%, data aggregator Token Terminal shared in a Wednesday X post.

The largest increase came from Kraken exchange’s xStocks, which accounted for $507 million worth of tokenized stocks and Binance’s bStocks, with $334 million. Ondo Finance remained the largest tokenized stock issuer with $955 million in onchain equities, according to Token Terminal data.

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The global task force said criminal networks are using stablecoins and developing proprietary tokens to evade asset freezes as countries struggle to enforce crypto AML rules.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) warned that criminals are increasingly exploiting stablecoins for illicit finance, with most identified onchain criminal activity now involving the dollar-pegged cryptocurrencies.

In its latest report published Thursday, the global anti-money laundering watchdog said criminal networks have also begun developing proprietary stablecoins designed to resist freezing and asset seizures.

The FATF urged jurisdictions to accelerate implementation of crypto AML standards as illicit actors exploit regulatory gaps.

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ARK Invest’s director of research disputed a16z crypto’s thesis that traditional finance will adopt permissioned blockchain infrastructure instead of decentralized finance, saying institutions will increasingly rely on DeFi rails.

ARK Invest’s director of research pushed back against investor a16z crypto’s thesis that traditional finance will adopt blockchain through permissioned infrastructure rather than decentralized finance (DeFi).

Lorenzo Valente said in a Wednesday X post that public blockchains have already outperformed private blockchain initiatives, citing the growth of tokenized assets on Ethereum and other open networks.

He added that crypto-native firms such as Circle and Coinbase, rather than incumbent financial institutions, are best positioned to build the next generation of financial infrastructure.

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Visa and Artemis found that infrastructure bottlenecks are preventing broader commercial adoption of the autonomous AI agent economy.

Artificial intelligence (AI) agents are posing a challenge to the incumbent global card payments infrastructure that is struggling to process high-frequency micropayments, according to a joint report released by payments giant Visa and investment thesis platform Artemis.

The joint report published Wednesday found that traditional cards were built for human commerce with low-frequency transactions, which is insufficient for AI agents, which need infrastructure with near-zero fees and faster settlement to make agentic micropayments commercially viable.

New infrastructure is increasingly necessary since AI agents crossed a key capability threshold in mid-2025, enabling them to discover unfamiliar APIs, evaluate prices and decide on autonomous payments.

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The Senate approved a resolution opposing clemency for former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried as prediction markets put the odds of a Trump pardon by July 31 below 1%.

The US Senate has adopted a resolution opposing executive clemency for former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, the convicted crypto executive behind one of the industry’s largest collapses.

The Senate has agreed by unanimous consent to the simple resolution (S. Res. 772), with a nonbinding measure stating that Bankman-Fried should not receive executive clemency, according to a Wednesday X post by the Senate Press Gallery.

The resolution affirms the Senate’s commitment to the rule of law and the integrity of the US financial system following Bankman-Fried’s conviction on fraud and conspiracy charges related to FTX’s collapse.

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Tether reportedly invested $20 million into Ualá, as part of the Argentine neobank’s $197 million funding round announced earlier in March.

Stablecoin giant Tether reportedly invested $20 million in the Argentine neobank Ualá, as part of its broader push in Latin America.

The investment formed part of a $197 million equity funding round announced by Ualá in March and led by Allianz X, according to Bloomberg. Ualá disclosed Tether as a participant in the round at the time but did not reveal the size of its investment.

Cointelegraph contacted Tether for confirmation but had not received a response by publication.

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Bitcoin realized losses appeared to be copying a reversal structure that marked previous bear-market bottoms, with $69,000 a new BTC price battleground.

Bitcoin (BTC) “cycle peak buyers” could already be pointing the way to the next bear-market bottom.

Key points:

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Vlad.fun suspended its platform after discovering a “serious internal integrity issue” involving members of its team, without disclosing the nature of the alleged misconduct.

Robinhood Chain memecoin launchpad Vlad.fun has suspended operations after discovering what it described as a “serious internal integrity issue” involving members of its own team.

The project said Wednesday that it took the platform offline while it investigates the incident and consults legal counsel on potential action against those responsible. Vlad.fun did not disclose the nature of the alleged misconduct.

Hours before announcing the shutdown, Vlad.fun warned users that a token bearing the platform’s name circulating on its leaderboard was not official, reminding traders that anyone could create tokens on the permissionless launchpad. The project did not indicate whether the two incidents were related.

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The deal gives Hyperion an equity stake in Skew and a share of listing-service revenue as it expands the utility of its HYPE treasury assets.

Nasdaq-listed Hyperion DeFi said it entered an agreement with Skew Technologies to deploy 500,000 Hyperliquid (HYPE) tokens to support institutional perpetual futures markets on Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 permissionless listings.

Under the agreement, Hyperion will receive an equity stake in Skew and a share of listing-service revenue generated from the platform, according to a Wednesday press release.

The companies said the service is designed to help institutional clients launch custom perpetual futures markets on Hyperliquid.

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US President Donald Trump is set to meet with several senators on Thursday as negotiators race to get the CLARITY Act across the line before the Senate’s August recess.

US President Donald Trump is set to meet with several senators at the White House on Thursday to discuss progress on the crypto market structure bill.&

According to Politico, Senator Bernie Moreno said a group of senators will brief the president on the bill and “its path to success.” Senator Cynthia Lummis will also attend, according to a Senate Republican aide.

“We’ll be talking about the entirety of the bill. I mean, obviously the president’s been very engaged in this bill,” said Moreno. “He’s the one who’s really driven the innovation that I think will pay dividends.”&

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Base creator Jesse Pollak is stepping back from leadership of the Base App after admitting he was “definitively wrong” to bet on social experiences driving crypto adoption.

Base creator Jesse Pollak says he is stepping back from leading the Base App after admitting he made a “wrong bet” on social, leaving the chain to fall behind on prediction markets and perpetual futures.&

In a post to X on Wednesday, Pollak said he had bet that creator, content and messaging apps would drive adoption, but instead the market “disintegrated completely.”&

“We realized how our focus on social had meant that base had fallen behind in key areas that were now increasingly critical — we had perps (shoutout avantis!) and prediction markets (shoutout limitless!), but both were well behind scaled competitors.”

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Researchers found that Polymarket’s five-minute Bitcoin prediction markets create incentives to manipulate spot prices around contract settlement, proposing longer settlement windows as a potential fix.

Researchers at Stanford University and Singapore Management University found that Polymarket’s five-minute Bitcoin prediction markets create incentives for traders to manipulate spot prices around settlement, allowing sophisticated participants to profit at the expense of retail traders.

The study examined contracts in which traders bet on whether Bitcoin’s price would end above or below a predetermined level after five minutes. Because the contracts settle using Chainlink price feeds based on Bitcoin’s price at the end of each trading window, traders have an incentive to influence the spot market immediately before settlement.

Analyzing trading activity before and after Polymarket introduced the contracts in July 2024, the researchers found sharp increases in Bitcoin spot-market order flow just before settlement, followed by rapid price reversals, which were consistent with settlement-price manipulation.

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Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority approved the London-headquartered fintech company for broker-dealer, management and investment, and exchange services in the UAE.

UK-based financial company Revolut has received approval from the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) of Dubai to offer crypto-related services in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

In a Wednesday notice, Revolut said that, following a green light from the Central Bank of the UAE for payment activities, VARA gave in-principle approval for the company to offer broker-dealer, management and investment, and exchange services in the UAE. The company said its services via the app and the Revolut X exchange would allow UAE-based users to buy, sell and hold digital assets.

“This approval lays the foundation for Revolut to introduce its trusted virtual asset services within a regulated environment,” said Revolut’s head of digital assets in the UAE free zone establishment, Joseph Khair.

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President Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general faced criticism from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on his approach to crypto enforcement and the pardon of former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao.

Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche faced backlash Wednesday over the Justice Department’s (DoJ) enforcement of crypto-related crimes and other actions as President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney appeared before a Senate hearing considering his nomination to lead the agency.

The ranking Democrat, Senator Dick Durbin, used part of his opening statement at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to criticize Trump’s AG pick for what he described as “dismantling DoJ’s enforcement team and shutting down ongoing criminal investigations of the crypto industry.”

Blanche was reportedly behind the disbanding of the Justice Department’s crypto enforcement unit in April 2025 as deputy attorney general.

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Ostium halted trading and advised revoking contract approvals after blockchain security firms reported an apparent oracle-related exploit of its OLP liquidity vault, with estimated losses ranging from $18 million to $22 million.

Decentralized trading protocol Ostium paused trading Wednesday after blockchain security firms Blockaid and CertiK reported an apparent exploit of its OLP liquidity vault.

Blockaid estimated the exploit resulted in $18 million in losses, while CertiK placed the figure at about $22 million. Both firms attributed the incident to an apparent compromise of Ostium’s oracle system, which supplies external price data to the protocol.

Source: Ostium

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The deployment marks Aave V4’s first expansion beyond Ethereum and introduces lending infrastructure designed to support future markets for tokenized real-world assets.

Decentralized lending protocol Aave has launched V4 on Avalanche, marking the first expansion of its latest lending infrastructure beyond Ethereum and setting the stage for future lending markets backed by tokenized real-world assets.

The deployment introduces Aave V4’s Hub & Spoke architecture, which allows specialized lending markets to operate with their own collateral requirements and risk parameters while drawing on shared liquidity across the protocol.

According to Aave, one of the first planned markets on Avalanche will support borrowing against tokenized assets.

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Securitize and Cantor Fitzgerald are developing infrastructure for tokenized IPOs and secondary equity offerings within the existing US securities framework.

Securitize and Cantor Fitzgerald have partnered to support blockchain-based initial public offerings (IPOs) and follow-on equity offerings for listed companies, a move that could further expand the use of tokenized securities in traditional capital markets.

The companies said Wednesday that they are developing a framework for primary issuances that would allow companies to raise capital through tokenized securities while remaining within the existing regulatory framework for public offerings. The framework would support both IPOs and follow-on, or secondary, offerings in which already public companies issue additional shares to raise capital.

Under the agreement, Securitize will provide the tokenization infrastructure used to issue, distribute and service the digital securities. Its SEC-registered broker-dealer affiliate, Securitize Markets, will participate in the offering and settlement process. Cantor will contribute its equity capital markets and trading capabilities typically associated with public offerings.&

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Bitcoin moved up to its highest levels since June 22 as US PPI inflation numbers provided the week’s second surprise macro data drop.

Bitcoin (BTC) saw three-week highs on Wednesday as US inflation data beat expectations for a second day.

Key points:

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Surging volumes on Robinhood Chain could be very good for Ethereum, but only if the “ETH is money” crowd turn out to be right.

Robinhood Chain’s explosive launch this month has reignited one of Ethereum’s longest-running debates: Do successful layer-2 networks increase demand for ETH, the asset, or do the new entrants capture all of the value for themselves?

The retail brokerage’s Arbitrum-based Ethereum L2 has become one of Ethereum’s busiest rollups since its launch on July 1.

More than $141 million in Ether was bridged onto the chain in its first two weeks. DeFiLlama data shows more than half a million wallets now hold ETH on the network, and a memecoin frenzy saw Robinhood Chain surge past the Ethereum L1 and Coinbase’s Base L2 in 24-hour DEX trading volume.

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AMLA is expanding its crypto oversight as firms complete the transition to the EU’s MiCA licensing regime.

Mass user migration following the end of the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) transitional period could strain compliance at virtual asset service providers (VASPs) in the European Union, according to Bruna Szego, chair of the Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AMLA).&

“Because we know customers will rush to withdraw, this will put additional pressure on these VASPs,” Szego said during a Wednesday briefing with the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.

Szego said firms winding down their EU operations could come under pressure as customers rush to withdraw, while licensed crypto companies could face onboarding challenges as they absorb new users. She urged service providers to maintain efficient compliance procedures throughout the transition.

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Japan’s revised Financial Instruments and Exchange Act introduces crypto insider trading rules, tougher penalties and new oversight requirements for crypto businesses.

Japan is set to reshape its cryptocurrency market with stricter trading rules, stronger user protections and a framework closer to traditional finance.

The country’s parliament on Wednesday passed revisions that classify crypto assets as financial assets under Japan’s Financial Instruments and Exchange Act (FIEA), according to a report by local news agency Nikkei.

The changes move Japan’s crypto regulation away from the Payment Services Act (PSA), which treated digital assets primarily as payment instruments, and introduce insider trading rules and stronger oversight for crypto businesses.

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South Korea’s Economy Ministry plans to include digital assets and intellectual property under the country’s new state-asset management framework.

South Korea plans to adopt the National Asset Basic Act to update the country’s state asset management system from the outdated State Property Act of 1950.

The Ministry of Economy and Finance (MOEF) hopes to modernize the management of national assets and explicitly includes digital assets and intellectual property, broadening the definition of state assets, the MOEF announced during a briefing at the President’s Blue House on Wednesday.

As part of the reform, the ministry also reiterated plans to tokenize government bonds on a blockchain to reduce transaction, as part of a 2027 pilot project. It also plans to explore the tokenization of state-owned real estate to encourage retail participation and share part of the generated returns with the public.

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BTC price upside predictions include $68,000 within two weeks and up to $80,000 next month, contrasting with warnings of a 2022 bear-market rerun for the rest of 2026.

Bitcoin (BTC) may hit up to $80,000 by August, a new prediction says as data lays out key nearby BTC price levels.

Key points:

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The Czech Finance Ministry added Polymarket to its blacklist of unauthorized online gambling websites, requiring internet providers to block access within 15 days.

The Czech Finance Ministry added Polymarket to its list of unauthorized online gambling websites on Monday, requiring internet service providers (ISP) to block access.

The ministry listed the prediction market’s website under the country’s Gambling Act, which prohibits operators from offering unlicensed online gambling services to Czech users.

Under the Gambling Act, ISPs must block access to websites included on the ministry’s blacklist within 15 days of publication of the name.

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Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest added $13.9 million worth of Circle shares on Tuesday, extending its July buying spree to 725,517 shares amid a steep stock decline.

Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest is doubling down on its bet on USDC issuer Circle even as the company’s stock remains under pressure.

ARK bought another 220,000 shares of Circle Internet Group (CRCL) across three of its actively managed exchange-traded funds on Tuesday, according to the company’s daily trade disclosure reviewed by Cointelegraph.

Based on Circle’s Tuesday closing price of $63.22 on the New York Stock Exchange, ARK’s latest purchase was worth about $13.9 million.

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Stripe and Advent reportedly offered to buy PayPal for $53 billion, at a 28% premium compared to the company’s Tuesday closing price.

Payments company Stripe and private equity firm Advent International reportedly made a joint offer to acquire PayPal Holdings.

The offer includes about $50 billion in committed financing, Reuters reported Wednesday, citing sources familiar with the matter. The joint offer seeks to acquire PayPal at $60.50 per share, which would value the company at a 28% premium to PayPal’s Tuesday closing price.

This is Stripe’s second attempt to acquire PayPal. According to a February Bloomberg report, the payment processing company held early acquisition talks with PayPal, which was facing growing competition from smartphone-based payment services such as Google Pay and Apple Pay.

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“We are disappointed by this decision and believe it is unfair to Kalshi,” the company’s legal counsel said on X.

Kalshi says it is being put in an “impossible position” after the US commodities regulator on Tuesday said it was blocking the prediction market platform from canceling trades in Michigan, contradicting a recent state court order.

On June 29, Kalshi was ordered by Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina to cease offering sports betting contracts to Michigan users while a lawsuit over whether Kalshi violated the state’s sports betting laws plays out. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission ordered Kalshi on Tuesday not to comply with the state order and continue operating.

“We are disappointed by this decision and believe it is unfair to Kalshi,” Robert DeNault, the company’s head of enforcement and legal counsel said in a statement on X.&

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“US Treasury is committed to disrupting and degrading Iran’s illicit financial activities, including its abuse of digital assets,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed the US government ordered the freezing of more than $130 million in cryptocurrency held in wallets linked to Iran on Tuesday, as hostilities ramped up in the Middle East.&

Earlier on Tuesday, blockchain investigator Specter pointed to onchain data showing Tether froze four Tron wallets holding $131 million worth of USDt (USDT). Bessent confirmed on X that the wallets were tied to the Central Bank of Iran.&

“US Treasury is committed to disrupting and degrading Iran’s illicit financial activities, including its abuse of digital assets,” Bessent said Tuesday. “We will continue to aggressively follow the money and deny the Iranian regime access to the proceeds of its illicit revenue schemes.”

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Ethereum staking generated 98% of Bitmine’s revenue last quarter as the company’s pivot from Bitcoin mining gained momentum following its March validator launch.

Bitmine Immersion Technologies recorded $45.7 million in revenue from Ether staking and validation last quarter, following the launch of its institutional-grade Ethereum staking platform in March.&

Staking revenue accounted for 98% of total revenue for the three months ended May 31, far outpacing the $624,000 from self-mining Bitcoin (BTC) and the $168,000 from consulting services, according to Bitmine’s latest 10-Q filing. On Monday, Bitmine said it had staked 85% of its ETH holdings, or about 4.9 million Ether (ETH).&

“Bitmine has staked more ETH than other entities in the world. At scale (when Bitmine’s ETH is fully staked by MAVAN and its staking partners), the projected ETH staking reward is $284 million on an annualized basis,” said Tom Lee, chairman of Bitmine.&

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Coinbase’s Rob Witoff said the company is leaning more on AI to help with execution, but still needs high-agency humans for judgment and strategy.

Artificial intelligence now helps write more than 95% of Coinbase’s code, offering new insight into the crypto exchange’s AI strategy following its decision to cut 14% of its workforce earlier this year.&

Coinbase cut 700 staff in May. In an email to employees, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said AI has “dramatically” changed the pace of work and there was a need to “return to the speed and focus of our startup founding, with AI at our core.”&

“Effectively, 100% of our employees are using AI on a daily basis here,” Coinbase’s head of platform, Rob Witoff, told Cointelegraph. “And close to 100% of our code, probably somewhere between 95% and 100%, is written by or with LLMs today.”

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Senate Majority Leader John Thune reportedly said the chamber will consider a vote on the crypto market structure bill before Aug. 10, though it’s unclear whether it has enough Democratic support to pass.

The US Senate is expected to vote soon on a comprehensive bill to establish market structure rules for digital assets that is backed by Republican lawmakers, while some Democrats continue to push for ethics provisions.

In a Tuesday press conference, Democratic Senators Chris Murphy, Jeff Merkley and Chris Van Hollen spoke alongside representatives for Americans for Financial Reform and Indivisible and Hollywood actor Ben McKenzie in opposition to the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act. The lawmakers said that the bill did not address what they called “[Donald] Trump’s crypto corruption,” referring to the US president’s ties to the industry through his memecoin, his family’s World Liberty Financial company and other businesses and investments.

“There is no reason to pass a new regulatory system for crypto if this system does not stop Trump’s corruption of the entire industry,” said Murphy. “This bill is worthless if it protects Trump’s dominance over an industry that he will have more control to regulate. In fact, the bill is in and of itself a fundamental corruption if it gives Trump’s corruption the protection of law.”

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Backed by Dragonfly, FirstMark and Coinbase Ventures, the startup is expanding software that helps businesses integrate stablecoins into treasury and payment workflows.

Stablecoin treasury platform Velocity raised $38 million in a Series A funding round to expand infrastructure that helps enterprises and financial institutions use stablecoins for cross-border settlement and treasury operations.

The funding round was led by Dragonfly and FirstMark, with participation from Activant Capital, Capital One Ventures, QED Investors, Coinbase Ventures, Wintermute Ventures and Ripple. Velocity said it plans to use the capital to expand its banking and payments network, develop new products and strengthen its regulatory capabilities.

Founded in 2025, Velocity develops software that connects stablecoin networks with banking, custody, compliance and settlement systems. The company targets enterprise finance teams, payment providers, fintech firms and financial institutions using stablecoins for cross-border payments and treasury operations.

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The two governments issued recommendations on the treatment of digital assets as the US prepares to implement a 2025 law on payment stablecoins.

The US Department of the Treasury and HM Treasury released a set of recommendations as part of the Transatlantic Taskforce for the Markets of the Future, which included stablecoin activity and tokenized finance.

In a joint statement on Tuesday, the two treasury entities issued four recommendations focused on digital assets as part of bilateral cooperation between the two countries on financial markets. The task force recommended that authorities consider a private-sector-led group focused on “testing of cross-border use cases for tokenized assets” and that financial agencies in the US and the Bank of England identify shared approaches on the regulation of tokenized assets.&

On stablecoins, the US and UK released a joint statement aimed at regulatory alignment and establishing a “dynamic stablecoin market across borders.”&

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The change in tax policy, expected to affect about 700,000 people in the UK, is tied to the disposal of crypto in lending and liquidity pools.

The UK’s tax authority plans to treat “certain disposals” related to cryptocurrency lending and liquidity pools as transactions that would effectively defer the country’s capital gains requirements.

In a Monday announcement, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) said that starting on April 6, 2027, it would adopt a “no gain, no loss” approach to disposals involving crypto loans and liquidity pools. According to the tax authority, this measure would defer capital gains tax on digital assets “until an economic disposal.”&

“This measure will support fairness in the tax system,” said the UK tax authority. “It aligns the tax treatment more closely with the economics of these arrangements by ensuring that gains and losses are generally recognized only when the participant makes an economic disposal of the cryptoassets.”

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The companies will explore using USDC for JCB’s cross-border treasury operations and merchant payments in Japan as regulated stablecoin adoption gains momentum.

Japan’s largest domestic payment network, JCB, signed a memorandum of understanding with Circle to explore using USDC for cross-border payments and merchant transactions.

Under the memorandum, the companies will initially explore using USDC for JCB’s internal cross-border fund transfers through a proof of concept, while also evaluating stablecoin payments at merchants in Japan for international visitors. The companies said they will also assess technologies that support interoperability across multiple blockchain networks.

The agreement builds on a separate initiative JCB launched in January with Digital Garage and Resona Holdings to test stablecoin payments at physical stores in Japan. That project focuses on identifying technical and operational challenges to bringing stablecoin payments to domestic merchants.

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The Bitcoin miner’s Georgia agreement with an undisclosed investment-grade technology company expands its footprint in AI and high-performance computing infrastructure.

Shares of CleanSpark surged as much as 22% on Tuesday after the Bitcoin miner announced a 20-year data center lease in Georgia, reflecting its ongoing expansion into digital infrastructure beyond cryptocurrency mining.

CleanSpark said it signed a 20-year triple-net lease with an undisclosed investment-grade global technology company for a 175-megawatt data center at its Sandersville, Georgia, campus. The company estimates the deal will generate approximately $6.6 billion in contracted revenue over the initial term, increasing to $11.6 billion if the tenant exercises two five-year extension options.

Under the agreement, the tenant will install computing infrastructure at the site, with phased deliveries expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2027.

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Institutions can now stake Tron's native token directly from Anchorage's custody platform as the company expands support for one of the largest USDT settlement networks.

Digital asset custodian Anchorage Digital has added native TRX staking for institutional clients, expanding its support for the Tron blockchain as demand for regulated access to staking services grows.

The launch expands Anchorage's support for Tron after introducing institutional custody for TRX, the network's native token, earlier this year. Clients can now stake TRX directly from the company's custody platform or Porto self-custody wallet, allowing them to earn protocol rewards for helping secure the blockchain without moving assets outside their existing custody environment.

Anchorage said the expansion reflects growing institutional interest in the Tron ecosystem, one of the largest networks for USDt (USDT) settlement. According to the company, Tron processed roughly $2 trillion in USDT transfers during the first quarter of 2026 while averaging 10.9 million daily transactions and 3.2 million active addresses. Tether's transparency data shows nearly $90 billion of USDT currently circulates on the network.

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BTC price action returned to $64,000 on low US CPI inflation, but traders remained wary of rejection at key resistance.

Bitcoin (BTC) spiked past $64,000 into Tuesday’s Wall Street open as US inflation saw a surprise sudden downturn.

Key points:

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OpenAI’s ChatGPT now displays Kalshi’s World Cup prediction market odds in search results, marking the AI firm’s first reported deal with a prediction market platform.

Sam Altman’s OpenAI is bringing prediction market data to ChatGPT, giving World Cup fans a new way to track match predictions.

OpenAI has started displaying Kalshi’s prediction market odds for FIFA World Cup matches in ChatGPT search results, according to a report by The New York Times.

The integration had not been publicly announced at the time of publication. Kalshi declined to comment to Cointelegraph, while OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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MicroStrategy blew up during the dot-com era, before Michael Saylor transformed it into the world's largest corporate Bitcoin holder. Did he learn his lesson?

In March 2000, Strategy executive chairman Michael Saylor watched more than $6 billion disappear from his fortune in a single day.

MicroStrategy's shares had plummeted more than 60%, thrusting the thirty-five year old software entrepreneur into the center of the dot-com crash.

The company later settled civil fraud charges with the US Securities and Exchange Commission over its accounting practices without admitting or denying wrongdoing. MicroStrategy did not cause the dot-com bubble to burst, but the saga was one of the era's high-profile corporate blowups and the company became a symbol of the periods excesses and risks.

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Humanity Protocol’s founder said they will refocus on operational security, as malicious actors are switching from smart contract vulnerabilities to exploiting human behavior.

Humanity Protocol will refocus its cybersecurity efforts on operational security following a June $36 million exploit that was traced back to a compromised employee laptop, according to the founder of the decentralized identity company, Terence Kwok.

In an interview with Cointelegraph, Kwok said that the exploit stemmed from last year’s mainnet launch, when several production keys were inadvertently backed up onto the laptop that was compromised, including admin hot wallet keys and a quorum of multisig owner keys across both chains.& He said:

The exploit and Humanity Protocol’s action highlight an increase in cryptocurrency hackers refocusing their attacks on staff-level vulnerabilities and operational shortcomings, rather than exploiting smart contract code.

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ABA and state banking associations published a joint letter calling for more detail on the CLARITY Act’s stablecoin yield provisions, ahead of the bill’s House hearing on Friday.

A wide swath of the US banking industry is urging Senate leaders to amend the stablecoin yield provisions of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (CLARITY) now under consideration.&

The American Bankers Association (ABA), the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) and 76 other state banking associations sent a joint letter to Senate leaders that claimed that the current language on stablecoin interest, yield and rewards is too ambiguous and argued that new amendments need to prevent payment stablecoins from acting as deposit substitutes rather than pure transaction tools.

The joint letter, which showed support for the broader bill, said the ABA is concerned that ambiguities within the bill “could encourage stablecoin arrangements to effectively function as substitutes for deposits, despite Congress’ longstanding and clearly stated intent that payment stablecoins should serve as transaction tools rather than store-of-value products,” according to a press release published on Monday.

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Superteam UK lead Stephen “Cap” Newnham is taking on Nigel Farage in the Clacton by-election with pledges on pension reform and onchain transparency.

Stephen “Cap” Newnham, who leads the Solana community group Superteam UK, said he will run as an independent candidate in the Aug. 13 parliamentary by-election in Clacton against Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.

On Tuesday, Newnham outlined five campaign pledges, including support for local entrepreneurs, digital and artificial intelligence education, financial literacy in schools and onchain political transparency. He announced his intention to stand as an independent candidate on July 9.

Newnham’s fourth pledge, “You should own your pension,” argues that existing structures like self-invested personal pensions and small self-administered schemes allow savers to choose where their assets are held. He also pledged full transparency, with donations and meetings published in plain English and onchain.&

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The European Central Bank will beta test a digital euro with 36 providers, including Revolut, after the project drew more than 50 applications.

The European Central Bank is moving the digital euro from planning into testing, with dozens of payment companies joining the next stage of the project.

The ECB selected 36 payment service providers (PSPs) to participate in a digital euro pilot, according to an official announcement published Tuesday.

The list of selected PSPs includes fintechs Stripe and Revolut alongside traditional banks including Deutsche Bank, UniCredit and BPCE. Revolut has recently adjusted some cryptocurrency services for EU users by phasing out support for Tether USDt.

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Total value stolen and median hack size are declining compared to 2025, signaling that the AI hacking apocalypse was a false alarm, argued Dragonfly managing partner Haseeb Qureshi.

Fears that artificial intelligence would trigger a wave of catastrophic decentralized finance (DeFi) hacks in what was coined as a “hackpocalypse” have not materialized, according to Dragonfly managing partner Haseeb Qureshi.

While the incident count grew to a record high, the median size of hacks has dipped below $500,000 this year, down from over $2 million in 2025. Qureshi argued that this shows malicious actors using AI are targeting “small protocols and abandonware” while larger DeFi protocols have fortified themselves against AI’s threat.

Excluding outlier months with large incidents, such as the Bybit hack in February 2025 along with the Drift Protocol and KelpDAO& exploits in April of this year, 2026 has still seen less value hacked per month than the previous year, said Qureshi.

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A solo Bitcoin miner secured a $200,000 block reward with a budget mining rig, pushing payouts to hobby-level miners to $4.7 million for the past year.

A solo Bitcoin miner hit the jackpot and validated a solo block with a single Bitaxe mining rig, marking a rare win that beat massive statistical odds.

The retail Bitcoin miner secured a 3.125 Bitcoin (BTC) block reward, currently worth about $200,000, on Friday at block number 957382, according to blockchain data from mempool.space.&

The miner was using a single Bitaxe mining rig, according to the BTC mining pool Public Pool. The Bitaxe was a budget, lower-power Bitcoin miner that costs less than $200 and has a hashrate of about 1 terahash per second (TH/s), which is a tiny fraction of the global Bitcoin network.

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Bitcoin RSI continued to copy previous bear markets as a trader predicted that historical BTC price bottom signals would "happen again" in 2026.

Bitcoin (BTC) should repeat history and put in a bear-market bottom when a classic indicator hits zero, a trader says.

Key points:

In an X post at the weekend, Max Crypto went on record to forecast the end of the 2026 bear market when the stochastic relative strength index (RSI) hits a new swing low.

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South Korea will test tokenized government bonds linked to the Bank of Korea’s wholesale CBDC system in 2027 as token securities rules take effect.

South Korea plans to conduct a 2027 pilot linking tokenized government bonds to its institutional central bank digital currency (CBDC) infrastructure, moving sovereign debt tokenization from a proposal to an official government timeline.&

On Tuesday, the government unveiled its 2026 Economic Growth Strategy for the Second Half, which includes the plan. In addition to assigning a date for the pilot, the strategy said authorities would study how to make the Bank of Korea's (BOK) CBDC infrastructure interoperable with other blockchains, enabling a potential connection between external distributed ledgers and the bank’s permissioned system.&

The project would test whether South Korea’s wholesale CBDC, designed for use by financial institutions, can support capital markets infrastructure, rather than serving only as a digital payment instrument.

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US spot Bitcoin ETFs saw their largest single-day outflows in July, with $424.66 million leaving the funds, reversing a brief return to positive weekly flows.

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) returned to outflows, reversing the previous week’s short-lived return to positive flows.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $424.66 million in net outflows on Monday, marking their biggest single-day withdrawal in July so far, according to SoSoValue data.

The latest outflow reversed last week’s $197.4 million new inflows, which had briefly ended an eight-week run of weekly withdrawals and raised hopes that institutional demand was recovering.

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Witt’s departure comes during a critical moment for the CLARITY Act, with deputy director Harry Jung expected to assume his responsibilities.

Patrick Witt, the White House’s pointman on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, is taking a leave of absence at the end of July for several months of military training, Crypto In America reported.

Witt, who has served as the executive director of the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets since August, is expected to wrap up his work on July 24 before reporting for Judge Advocate General (JAG) training with the Georgia Army National Guard. The training will qualify him to serve as a legal officer in the Guard, the report wrote.

“Patrick has always been forthcoming and honest with every stakeholder that he was taking military leave later this month,” said Cody Carbone, CEO of Digital Chamber, on Tuesday.&

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Witt’s departure comes during a critical moment for the CLARITY Act, with deputy director Harry Jung expected to assume his responsibilities.

Patrick Witt, the White House’s pointman on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, is taking a leave of absence at the end of July for several months of military training, Crypto In America reported.

Witt, who has served as the executive director of the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets since August, is expected to wrap up his work on July 24 before reporting for Judge Advocate General (JAG) training with the Georgia Army National Guard. The training will qualify him to serve as a legal officer in the Guard, the report wrote.

“Patrick has always been forthcoming and honest with every stakeholder that he was taking military leave later this month,” said Cody Carbone, CEO of Digital Chamber, on Tuesday.&

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The transfers have raised questions over Trump’s Bitcoin reserve pledge, though deposits to Coinbase Prime do not confirm an impending sale.

The US government moved nearly $300 million in seized Bitcoin and Ether to Coinbase Prime on Monday, renewing speculation that the assets could be sold.&

Data from Arkham shows 3,940 Bitcoin (BTC) (worth $243.95 million) and 30,014 Ether (ETH) (worth $53.09 million) were sent to Coinbase Prime on Monday. The funds were linked to several high-profile US government crypto seizures.

“These coin movements were comprised of coins seized from ryan farace (“xanaxman”) and defunct crypto exchange btc-e,” said Galaxy Research head Alex Thorn, referring to the Bitcoin movements. The Ether is linked to Brian Krewson, an Oracle employee implicated in a $54 million crypto storage and money laundering scheme.&

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Bitcoin backed mortgages and stablecoin yield are hot topics in Japan right now, as Hyundai experiments with Avalanche for global stablecoin transfers. Asia Express

A crypto wallet linked to a suspected romance-scam money launderer processed more than $122.5 million in 10 months, according to Interpol.

Interpol& said that Thai authorities arrested two suspects and uncovered a money-laundering network that funneled proceeds from romance scams into cryptocurrencies, using cross-chain token swaps to obscure the trail.

The investigation was part of Operation First Light 2026, an Interpol-coordinated campaign targeting social engineering scams and the financial infrastructure used to launder their proceeds.

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The Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association expressed support for the CLARITY Act but urged changes to the legislation’s language.

Update, July 14, 1:09 pm UTC: This article was updated to include comments from Blockchain Association chief policy officer Lindsay Fraser.

The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act has secured its second public endorsement from a major US law enforcement organization, coming just weeks before what many see as a make-or-break legislative deadline before the Senate’s August recess.

In a July 10 statement, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association (FLEOA) said it submitted a letter to the US Senate Banking Committee endorsing the CLARITY Act, while calling for changes to strengthen accountability in decentralized finance (DeFi) and preserve investigators’ existing powers.&

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OP_CSFS authenticates signatures over arbitrary data. OP_CAT concatenates stack values into a single message. Together, they let Bitcoin scripts verify transaction structure at spend time, without pre-signed key management or new consensus rules beyond the two opcodes themselves.

This is Part 4 in the technical article series about Bitcoin covenants by Cointelegraph Research. To read the previous article, click here.&

The following opcodes do not independently implement full covenant functionality. Instead, they are building blocks for constructing covenants when combined with other opcodes or script elements.

OP_CSFS is a proposed opcode that would allow Bitcoin script to verify signatures over arbitrary messages supplied on the stack. It is different from OP_CHECKSIG, which verifies signatures over the spending transaction according to the active SIGHASH mode. By enabling signature verification for data other than the serialized transaction details, OP_CSFS enables a broader class of constructions, including oracle-based scripts where an external party signs off-chain messages that represent real-world events. For example, a trusted oracle could publish Schnorr signatures over messages that encode external outcomes, and an OP_CSFS-based script could condition payments on the presence of a valid oracle signature.&

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Reed Smith’s Aquarius platform automates regulatory filings and legal workflows as demand for MiCA compliance tools grows across Europe.

Reed Smith, a global law firm with over 30 offices across North America, Europe and Asia, has launched an automated compliance platform designed to help crypto companies navigate the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation as the bloc enters a new phase of crypto oversight.

The platform, called Aquarius, automates key compliance tasks including crypto-asset classification, regulatory white paper generation, due diligence and environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosures. Reed Smith said it plans to expand the platform to support crypto compliance regimes in the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong and Singapore.

According to the firm, Aquarius is intended to simplify MiCA compliance for companies entering the European market or expanding their crypto offerings in the region by combining automated workflows with legal expertise.

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As foreign currency reserves remain under pressure, Bolivia is considering a framework to let the world’s largest stablecoin be used for payments, savings and trade.

Bolivia is evaluating integrating Tether's USDt into its national payments system, a move that could mark one of Latin America's most significant stablecoin adoption initiatives as the country grapples with a persistent shortage of US dollars.

Economy and Public Finance Minister Jose Gabriel Espinoza told a press conference on Monday that the government is assessing a regulatory framework that would allow USDT to circulate “as just another currency,” alongside the boliviano and the US dollar.&

According to the Spanish news outlet CriptoNoticias, the framework is still under review and, if adopted, would recognize USDT for everyday transactions, including payments, savings and trade, without relying exclusively on cash or the traditional banking system.

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Hyundai completed a proof-of-concept using Tether's USDT to settle a cross-border treasury transfer between its US and Mexican subsidiaries, highlighting growing enterprise interest in stablecoin-based payments.

Hyundai Motor's US and Mexican units completed a pilot cross-border treasury transfer using Tether's USDT stablecoin, settling a $20,000 payment in about seven minutes on the Avalanche blockchain.

According to Tether, Hyundai Motor America converted the funds into USDT, transferred the stablecoin to Hyundai Motor Mexico and converted it back into US dollars. The transfer and verification process took about seven minutes, compared with three to four hours or more for a traditional cross-border bank transfer.

Tether said the pilot used Axiym's settlement infrastructure, while Hyundai Card designed the remittance structure and oversaw the regulatory, compliance, accounting and operational requirements needed to support the proof of concept.

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With the death of Senator Lindsey Graham and another senator hospitalized, Republicans’ current majority in the chamber has been reduced to 51-47, likely requiring more Democratic support to pass crypto market structure.

US President Donald Trump is urging members of the Senate to pass the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act “in honor of” Senator Lindsey Graham, who died over the weekend.

In a Monday Truth Social post, Trump said that Graham had been “a big supporter” of the CLARITY Act, calling on the Senate to pass the legislation. The chamber has four weeks in session before a month-long state work period in August, giving lawmakers a small window of opportunity to pass the crypto market structure bill. Graham died at age 71 on Saturday.

Source: Donald Trump

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With the death of Senator Lindsey Graham and another senator hospitalized, Republicans’ current majority in the chamber has been reduced to 51-47, likely requiring more Democratic support to pass crypto market structure.

US President Donald Trump is urging members of the Senate to pass the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act “in honor of” Senator Lindsey Graham, who died over the weekend.

In a Monday Truth Social post, Trump said that Graham had been “a big supporter” of the CLARITY Act, calling on the Senate to pass the legislation. The chamber has four weeks in session before a month-long state work period in August, giving lawmakers a small window of opportunity to pass the crypto market structure bill. Graham died at age 71 on Saturday.

Source: Donald Trump

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Bitcoin bulls faced an uphill struggle to preserve $62,000 as stocks opened down on Strait of Hormuz rhetoric between the US and Iran.

Bitcoin (BTC) fell further into Monday’s Wall Street open as markets reacted to the US-Iran escalation.

Key points:

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Bitcoin bulls faced an uphill struggle to preserve $62,000 as stocks opened down on Strait of Hormuz rhetoric between the US and Iran.

Bitcoin (BTC) fell further into Monday’s Wall Street open as markets reacted to the US-Iran escalation.

Key points:

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Coinbase’s venture capital arm leads 2026 crypto investing even as funding withered and unique investors shied away amid the bear market.

Update, July 14, 6:56 am UTC: This article has been updated to include comments from Hoolie Tejwani, head of Coinbase Ventures.

Coinbase Ventures, the corporate venture capital (VC) arm of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, led the ranks of crypto-focused VC's with 30 deals in the first half of 2026.

Runner-up Animoca Brands completed 19 investments, while Silicon Valley VC a16z logged 18 deals and stablecoin giant Tether completed 15, according to data aggregator CryptoRank.&

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Strategy boosted its US dollar reserve to $3 billion after selling $466.7 million in MSTR shares, while keeping its 843,775 Bitcoin holdings unchanged.

Strategy, the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, raised fresh capital by selling MSTR shares through its at-the-market (ATM) offering last week while leaving its BTC treasury unchanged.

Strategy sold 4.8 million shares of its Class A common stock for $466.7 million between July 6 and July 12, according to a Monday 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.&

The company did not buy or sell any Bitcoin during the period and reported holdings of 843,775 BTC at an average purchase price of $75,476 per BTC.&

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The government-backed roadmap calls for the UK’s first digital gilt by early 2027 and seeks to make tokenized bonds usable for trading and borrowing.

The United Kingdom could add as much as 33 billion British pounds ($44 billion) to its annual economic output by 2035 by becoming a leader in tokenized financial markets, according to a government-backed industry task force.&

The estimate appears in the first report from Wholesale Digital Markets Champion Chris Woolard, who was appointed by HM Treasury to help implement the government’s digital markets strategy.&

Developed with an industry task force, the report sets out a 12-month plan to test blockchain in a financial transaction where securities are used to borrow cash. It also calls for the UK to issue its first tokenized government bond by the first quarter of 2027.

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A dormant whale transferred BTC worth $188 million after seven years of holding, adding to the growing ratio of whale transfers to cryptocurrency exchanges.

A wallet last active when Bitcoin was trading near $6,500 transferred $188 million of its holdings in recent days, its first onchain movement in seven years.

With the biggest cryptocurrency now trading at around $64,000 apiece, the whale transferred 2,931 Bitcoin (BTC) from wallet "356my" to wallet address "bc1qn" on Sunday, according to blockchain data platform Arkham.&

The whale is likely looking at a nearly 10-fold gain on the long-dormant holdings, according to blockchain analytics platform Onchain Lens.

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Binance futures volume jumped 80% in June, to $1.61 trillion, outpacing rivals while broader crypto trading activity remained weak.

Binance’s futures market volume is hitting a new 2026 high even as cryptocurrency spot trading remains stuck at its weakest levels in two years.

Binance, the world’s largest centralized exchange (CEX) by trading volume, recorded $1.6 trillion in futures trading volume in June, its highest level of 2026, according to CryptoQuant analyst Maarten Regterschot, who posts under the moniker "Maartuun."

“That might seem unexpected,” Maartunn wrote in a post on Friday, noting that Bitcoin remains in the mid-$60,000 range as many cautious traders continue to describe the market as bearish.

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Bitcoin price analysis called for the end of the bear market within three months as the US-Iran war sent BTC lower from strengthening $64,000 resistance.

Bitcoin (BTC) starts the new week with a bump as traders brace for more macro volatility.

Key points:

Bitcoin continues to circle its lowest levels since Q3 2024, but one theory is already calling for the return of the bull market as soon as September.

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SBI VC Trade will open JPYSC lending applications on July 16, offering an initial 3% annual rate for a 12-week term without deposit insurance.

Tokyo-based SBI VC Trade will begin accepting applications Thursday for a Japanese yen-denominated stablecoin lending service offering an initial annualized rate of 3% on JPYSC lent for 12 weeks.

Customers will lend JPYSC to the SBI Holdings subsidiary from Thursday and receive the tokens back with a lending fee at maturity, the company said in a Monday press release. At the advertised rate, the gross return over the 12-week term would be about 0.69%, before tax.

The company said the product pays more than the 0.325% to 1% annual rate SBI cited for ordinary yen deposits. Still, it is not a bank deposit, is not covered by deposit insurance and generally cannot be canceled early.

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Lawson will test yen stablecoin payments in Tokyo as Netstars launches a merchant service supporting USDC, USDT and JPYC.

Japanese convenience-store operator Lawson plans to test yen-denominated stablecoin payments at a Tokyo location in August, examining whether stablecoin payments can work inside a standard convenience store checkout flow.

On Monday, blockchain company HashPort said it had signed an agreement with Lawson and telecom group KDDI to conduct the trial at the Lawson Takanawa Gateway City store. Participants will use HashPort's non-custodial wallet, while the store will process payments through the company's point-of-sale system without needing to open or manage crypto wallets.&

The pilot aims to explore how stablecoin payments can be integrated into Japan’s existing retail infrastructure while shielding merchants from much of the operational complexity associated with accepting digital assets.

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The AI-native cohort of the expanding gig economy could increasingly use stablecoins to avoid slow and expensive traditional payment rails, Australian crypto exchange Swyftx said.

AI-enabled microbusinesses could provide a major boost for stablecoin transaction volumes as the global gig and freelance payment market grows, according to Australian crypto exchange Swyftx.&

In a second-quarter industry report, Swyftx estimated the global gig and freelance payments market could reach $2.1 trillion by 2033, with AI-native workers accounting for $775 billion. Swyftx’s base-case model projected that $262 billion of the AI-native cohort’s payment volume could be settled in stablecoins, based on an assumed adoption rate of roughly 33%.&

“We see the vibe-coding and AI economy as a significant potential tailwind for stablecoin use,” Pav Hundal, lead market analyst at Swyftx, told Cointelegraph.

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Thailand has been plagued by Chinese-affiliated scam centers, with illicit gains flowing through a “gray money” economy.

Thailand’s central bank is stepping up stablecoin surveillance as part of a wider effort to crack down on money laundering, illicit finance and “gray money” in the country.

The Bank of Thailand is working with the Kingdom’s Securities and Exchange Commission to audit high-volume stablecoin transactions, with a focus on USDt (USDT), cash transactions and currency exchanges, to identify and stop illicit financial flows.

“The measures we are implementing are not short-term fixes; they require the continuous deployment of multiple parallel strategies,” Bank of Thailand Governor Vitai Ratanakorn said, according to local media outlet The Nation on Saturday.

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Analysts are not yet ready to call it a recovery in institutional demand for Bitcoin.

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded a net inflow of $197.4 million in the week ended Friday, snapping an eight-week streak of weekly outflows dating back to May.

Data from Farside Investors shows that most of the week’s gains came from the BlackRock iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, which recorded $291.9 million in inflows. This was offset by outflows from the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust ETF, the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund and the ARK 21 Shares Bitcoin ETF.&

The end of the outflow streak could suggest institutional demand for Bitcoin is recovering after two months of sustained selling pressure. However, analysts say it’s too early to tell.

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Even Ethereum's critics say Robinhood Chain is bullish for ETH. Nigel Farage and US President Donald Trump become embroiled in crypto related scandals, and more.

The successful launch of the layer-2 network& Robinhood Chain& has boosted investor sentiment around Ethereum. The newly launched blockchain uses ETH as its native gas token and around $141 million in ETH has already been bridged to the chain.

More than half a million wallets holding ETH are now on the network, which surged past the Ethereum L1 and rival L2 Base over the past 24 hours, with DEX volumes of $877.56 million. The L2 is an offshoot of TradFi trading platform Robinhood, which offers tokenized stocks to customers in 120 countries, further strengthening the EVM-compatible ecosystem.

L2s have been seen by many pundits as bearish for Ethereum as they take activity away from the L1 without returning much in the way of transaction fees. However even some former ETH bears are now reassessing that thesis. Influencer Ansem wrote:

Mike Dudas from 6th Man Ventures added that "robinhood chain is the single most bullish thing i've seen in eth-land in years."

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Standard Chartered sees communication challenges facing the biggest digital asset treasury company as "muddying the waters" for Bitcoin in the near term.

Strategy co-founder and chairman Michael Saylor again took to social media on Sunday to offer his latest signal to investors, even as one analyst said Saylor’s messaging needed more clarity to help Bitcoin regain its momentum.

“Orange dots tell only part of the story,” was Saylor’s message in a post that accompanied a chart from Saylortracker.com, similar to previous social media messages that have preceded news of Strategy's Bitcoin (BTC) purchases, typically announced the day after his posts.

In recent weeks, the largest digital asset treasury company and major BTC holder has moved away from its long-time “never sell Bitcoin” approach to a willingness to sell the biggest crypto as needed to fund dividends for holders of its STRC preferred stock and to replenish its cash reserves. Earlier this month, Strategy sold $216 million worth of Bitcoin, reducing its total holdings to 843,775 tokens, according to a July 6 filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

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Pakistan’s virtual-assets regulator called for continued dialogue on the treatment of digital assets after meeting an Islamic scholar who backed a ruling against purchases made with crypto.

Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA) Chairman Bilal bin Saqib has called for continued dialogue on the treatment of digital assets under Islamic law after meeting prominent scholar Mufti Taqi Usmani, who backed a ruling against purchases made with crypto.

In a Saturday post, Saqib said the discussion covered blockchain technology, digital assets, stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), as well as the need to protect Pakistanis from fraud, exploitation and financial harm.

Saqib said the different categories of digital assets merit “careful technical assessment alongside rigorous Shariah examination, rather than being viewed through a single lens.”

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Cambridge estimated that Ethereum consumes 7.87 GWh annually and has the second-lowest market-value-adjusted energy intensity among the proof-of-stake networks studied.

A new Cambridge University study placed Ethereum near the lower end of energy intensity among major proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchains, although the network still used more electricity overall than most of the PoS networks studied.

The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance estimated that activity on Ethereum consumes about 7.87 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity annually. When adjusted for market value, the network used roughly 33 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per $1 million of market value, the second-lowest figure among the proof-of-stake networks assessed, behind BNB Chain.

Solana used the most electricity, at about 13.48 GWh per year. Its energy intensity was roughly 283 kWh per $1 million, around 8.5 times Ethereum’s, while the networks in the comparison consumed about 38 GWh combined.

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Cambridge estimated that Ethereum consumes 7.87 GWh annually and has the second-lowest market-value-adjusted energy intensity among the proof-of-stake networks studied.

A new Cambridge University study placed Ethereum near the lower end of energy intensity among major proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchains, although the network still used more electricity overall than most of the PoS networks studied.

The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance estimated that activity on Ethereum consumes about 7.87 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity annually. When adjusted for market value, the network used roughly 33 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per $1 million of market value, the second-lowest figure among the proof-of-stake networks assessed, behind BNB Chain.

Solana used the most electricity, at about 13.48 GWh per year. Its energy intensity was roughly 283 kWh per $1 million, around 8.5 times Ethereum’s, while the networks in the comparison consumed about 38 GWh combined.

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The ongoing debate over a proposed temporary fork comes despite a broad downturn in Ordinals transaction activity over the last two years.

Strategy executive chairman Michael Saylor and Blockstream CEO Adam Back have doubled down on their opposition to BIP-110, a proposed temporary fork to limit non-monetary transactions on the Bitcoin network.

Bitcoin Improvement Proposal-110 was introduced in December 2025 to stop nonfungible token-like Ordinals inscriptions and other arbitrary data from spamming the network and to preserve Bitcoin’s main use as a peer-to-peer cash system.

While critical of Ordinals activity, Saylor and Back fear a fork could do more harm than good to the network’s credibility. “There are 110 things more dangerous to Bitcoin than spam,” Saylor said in a post to X on Saturday, adding that BIP-110 could invalidate ordinary transactions on the network.

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The sales come months after a major Empery shareholder demanded the firm ditch its Bitcoin treasury strategy and sought the resignation of its CEO and board.

Shares in Bitcoin treasury company Empery Digital rose on Friday after the firm disclosed it had sold nearly half its Bitcoin holdings to fund an AI data center project and pay down debt.

Empery Digital (EMPD) shares popped 4.2% to $3.95 within the first 35 minutes of Nasdaq trading on Friday after the company revealed that it sold 1,400 Bitcoin (BTC) at an average of $62,200 a coin for roughly $87.1 million over the past two months.&

The Round Rock, Texas-based company, which previously operated as an electric powersports vehicle manufacturer, said some of the proceeds funded its 25% stake in a Hunt Properties-affiliated venture, which is acquiring an industrial site to be converted into an AI data center.& Another $10 million was used to pay off outstanding debt.

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The sales come months after a major Empery shareholder demanded the firm ditch its Bitcoin treasury strategy and force the resignation of its CEO and board.

Shares in Bitcoin treasury company Empery Digital rose on Friday after the firm disclosed it had sold nearly half its Bitcoin holdings to fund an AI data center project and pay down debt.

Empery Digital (EMPD) shares popped 4.2% to $3.95 within the first 35 minutes of trading on Friday after the company revealed that it sold 1,400 Bitcoin (BTC) at an average of $62,200 a coin for roughly $87.1 million over the past two months.&

Empery, which previously operated as an electric powersports vehicle manufacturer, said some of the proceeds funded its 25% stake in a Hunt Properties-affiliated venture, which is acquiring an industrial site to be converted into an AI data center.& Another $10 million was also used to pay off outstanding debt.

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The sales come months after a major Empery shareholder demanded the firm ditch its Bitcoin treasury strategy and force the resignation of its CEO and board.

Shares in Bitcoin treasury company Empery Digital rose on Friday after the firm disclosed it had sold nearly half its Bitcoin holdings to fund an AI data center project and pay down debt.

Empery Digital (EMPD) shares popped 4.2% to $3.95 within the first 35 minutes of trading on Friday after the company revealed that it sold 1,400 Bitcoin (BTC) at an average of $62,200 a coin for roughly $87.1 million over the past two months.&

Empery, which previously operated as an electric powersports vehicle manufacturer, said some of the proceeds funded its 25% stake in a Hunt Properties-affiliated venture, which is acquiring an industrial site to be converted into an AI data center.& Another $10 million was also used to pay off outstanding debt.

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Real Vision chief crypto analyst Jamie Coutts said it's far too early to call $1 million by 2030, but he's confident Bitcoin could climb up to $250,000 over the next couple of years.

Bitcoin could be entering the latter stages of the bear market, with downside momentum beginning to slow down, according to Real Vision chief crypto analyst Jamie Coutts.

“I think we're getting through most of the bear market action. It's still not over, clearly. But you know, I think we're approaching at least the second half,” Coutts said during an interview on Cointelegraph’s Trade Secrets.

Coutts described Bitcoin’s current price action as a “typical garden-variety bear market,” with BTC trading around the $63,000 mark, roughly 50% below its October 2025 all-time high of $126,100.

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Despite strong tokenization gains and institutional accumulation, weak onchain and derivatives data leaves ETH vulnerable to a $1,700 retest.

Ether (ETH) price gained 3% from Thursday to Friday, outperforming the broader crypto market. The move was tied to increasing tokenization, Robinhood Chain’s success and ongoing corporate treasury purchases. However, ETH failed to break above $1,800 amid weak onchain and derivatives metrics. Is Ether price bound to retest $1,700?

Key takeaways:

The successful launch of the layer-2 network Robinhood Chain has boosted Ether investors’ sentiment. The newly launched blockchain uses ETH as its native gas token and has netted $106 million in bridge deposits. The TradFi trading platform Robinhood offers tokenized stocks to customers in 120 countries, further strengthening the EVM-compatible ecosystem.

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An attacker inflated the value of SAUCE collateral and borrowed $9 million from Bonzo Lend through a flaw in Supra’s onchain oracle verifier.

Hedera-based lending protocol Bonzo Lend lost about $9 million after an attacker manipulated the price of the SAUCE token used as collateral, allowing the account to borrow assets far beyond the value deposited.

In a preliminary incident report published Saturday, Bonzo said the attacker deposited 250 SAUCE, worth only a few dollars, before submitting a price update that inflated the token’s value by roughly 12 orders of magnitude. The wallet then borrowed 6.63 million USDC and 34.5 million wrapped HBAR from the lending pool.

The case illustrates how oracle failures can turn low-value collateral into a tool for draining large amounts of liquidity from lending protocols, even when the application and underlying network continue operating as designed.&

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Bitcoin price gains approached 10% for the first two weeks of the month, but analysis warned of the bear market returning from August onward.

Bitcoin (BTC) is seeing its best month of July since 2022, but analysis warns that the result could be firmly bearish.

Key points:

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Bitcoin price gains approached 10% for the first two weeks of the month, but analysis warned of the bear market returning from August onward.

Bitcoin (BTC) is seeing its best month of July since 2022, but analysis warns that the result may be firmly bearish.

Key points:

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An IMF working paper says US dollar stablecoins can improve access to foreign currency but may also help coordinate exits from local currencies during periods of severe exchange-rate stress.

US dollar stablecoins could improve access to foreign currency in economies with fixed or heavily managed exchange rates, but may also amplify currency runs when pressure on the domestic currency becomes severe, according to a new paper published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).&

The findings come from a working paper by economist Brandon Joel Tan who modeled how stablecoins affect parallel foreign-exchange (FX) markets when official dollar access is rationed.&

The paper, “Stablecoins and Fragility in Fixed Exchange Rate Regimes,” suggests that stablecoins can help people get access to dollars when banks or official exchange channels cannot meet demand. However, during a currency crisis, the same widely watched stablecoin price could prompt many people to abandon the local currency, suggesting that regulators may need temporary limits on unusually large or panic-driven transactions.&

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An IMF working paper says dollar stablecoins can improve access to foreign currency but may also help coordinate exits from local currencies during periods of severe exchange-rate stress.

Dollar stablecoins could improve access to foreign currency in economies with fixed or heavily managed exchange rates, but may also amplify currency runs when pressure on the domestic currency becomes severe, according to a new paper published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).&

The findings come from a working paper by economist Brandon Joel Tan. Titled “Stablecoins and Fragility in Fixed Exchange Rate Regimes,” the paper modeled how stablecoins affect parallel foreign-exchange (FX) markets when official dollar access is rationed.&

The findings highlight that stablecoins can help people get access to dollars when banks or official exchange channels cannot meet demand. However, during a currency crisis, the same widely watched stablecoin price could prompt many people to abandon the local currency simultaneously, suggesting that regulators may need temporary limits on unusually large or panic-driven transactions.&

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More than 70,000 agentic accounts have already been created by Robinhood equities and options traders since late May, when Robinhood launched a beta version of the product.

Robinhood said eligible US-based customers will soon be able to connect third-party AI agents to make crypto trades on their behalf, marking the latest expansion in autonomous trading after the company rolled out a similar product to equities and options traders in May.

“You can work with an agent to create a strategy with specific guardrails and not need to be constantly monitoring your account,” a Robinhood executive said during a presentation on Friday.

Robinhood didn’t set a date for when it would roll out the product to eligible US crypto traders but noted that its UK customers would be next in line to access the offering.

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Matthew Goettsche was set to face trial in October for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and selling unregistered securities.

The US Department of Justice is reportedly moving to drop charges against the founder of BitClub Network, a purported crypto mining platform that allegedly defrauded investors of $722 million between 2014 and 2019.

A court filing shows Matthew Goettsche’s attorneys wrote to New Jersey District Court Judge Claire Cecchi on Wednesday, stating that the parties “reached an agreement in principle” to resolve the pending charges “but need time to finalize the terms.”

Goettsche’s attorneys' letter to New Jersey District Court Judge Claire Cecchi. Source: Bloomberg Law

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The redesigned app will use AI to recommend trades and tailor investing tools around users' financial goals as Kraken expands into broader financial services.

Crypto exchange Kraken is adding AI-powered financial tools to its mobile app as exchanges increasingly compete to offer personalized investing tools beyond basic trading features.

According to a company announcement, users will begin by setting financial goals and preferences, allowing the app to tailor its interface and recommendations around those objectives rather than requiring customers to navigate complex trading tools. The company said the redesigned platform will help users pursue goals such as buying a home, saving for retirement or building an emergency fund.

Kraken said its "financial intelligence" continuously monitors markets, identifies investment opportunities and recommends trades, but does not execute transactions autonomously. Every recommendation requires the user's approval before a trade is placed, with the company positioning the technology as a decision-support tool rather than an automated trading system.

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Five senators called for committee hearings to investigate US President Donald Trump’s policies potentially being influenced by crypto funding from United Arab Emirates-linked and other entities.

Five Democratic senators have called for committee hearings “to investigate the national security implications of President Trump’s cryptocurrency holdings” as the chamber considers digital asset market structure legislation.

In a Friday notice, the Democratic ranking members of five US Senate committees and subcommittees asked lawmakers to address President Donald Trump’s 2025 financial disclosure, in which he reported earning about $1.4 billion connected to crypto ventures like his memecoin and family’s World Liberty Financial platform. The lawmakers said that the reports “heighten concerns about the President pushing Congress to pass crypto legislation in favor of the very industry he’s cashing in on,” referring to the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, on which the Senate is expected to vote this month.

“We call on our respective Committees to hold hearings to investigate the national security implications of President Trump’s cryptocurrency holdings, including the influence of the [United Arab Emirates] or unknown third parties on President Trump’s actions,” said the notice.

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Donald Trump confirmed on social media that he would not sign the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which includes a ban on a US CBDC until the end of 2030, setting the stage for the bill to become law on Saturday.

A bipartisan housing bill containing a ban on a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the United States is set to become law as the deadline approaches for President Donald Trump to sign it.

Just after midnight on Friday, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act will have been in Trump’s hands for 10 days, excluding Sundays, the maximum amount of time a bill can be on the president’s desk without a veto or a signature. Under the US Constitution, the legislation will automatically become law without action from Trump, who canceled the signing ceremony for the bill on Jun 24.

In a Friday social media post, Trump confirmed that he would not sign the housing bill, calling Republicans in Congress who voted on the legislation “dumb” and urging the Senate to instead prioritize a controversial voting bill, the SAVE America Act. The legislation, which would require people to provide proof of US citizenship in person to register, has received widespread criticism for claims that it would disenfranchise citizens already eligible to vote.

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State representative Keith Ammon said the New Hampshire executive council's vote against Bitcoin-backed bonds was “short-sighted,” urging the body to reconsider the measure.

Policymakers in New Hampshire’s executive council voted against a proposal that would have allowed the state to issue $100 million in bonds backed by Bitcoin (BTC).

At a Wednesday hearing, the five-member panel voted 3-2 against the New Hampshire Business Finance Authority’s (BFA) proposed issuance of $100 million in BTC-backed bonds. The proposed investments, which the authority approved in November 2025, already had support from Governor Kelly Ayotte.

“It was an extremely short-sighted decision,” said state representative Keith Ammon in a Thursday X post after the vote. “I can't believe I witnessed it in person. They should gather all relevant facts and information and reconsider their vote at a future meeting.”

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The launch comes as tokenized stocks become one of the fastest-growing corners of crypto, with exchanges and traditional finance firms racing to expand 24/7 trading.

Crypto exchange Backpack has launched 24/7 trading for select tokenized US equities, allowing international investors to trade stocks including SpaceX, Micron and SanDisk around the clock.

Under the initial offering, Backpack said that investors would receive direct ownership of the underlying securities rather than synthetic exposure, with trades settling instantly and funded in fiat currency or stablecoins. The initial offering includes a limited selection of US equities, with additional stocks planned.

The company also offers Solana-based tokenized versions of the securities, which can be transferred between wallets, used in decentralized finance applications and converted 1:1 into the corresponding shares through Backpack.

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Stablecoins are carving out specialized roles as regulation reshapes the market, while Strategy’s Bitcoin sale and Vanguard’s tokenization push highlight crypto’s evolving financial landscape.

Crypto’s infrastructure is starting to look a lot more like traditional finance. New data from Dune shows that the world’s stablecoin leaders — Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC — are no longer competing for the same users, with each now dominating a different corner of the market. Meanwhile, demand for MiCA-compliant euro stablecoins is accelerating, hinting that the stablecoin economy is slowly expanding beyond the US dollar.

Elsewhere in Crypto Biz, Strategy reignited debate over its “never sell” philosophy after offloading more than $200 million in Bitcoin (BTC) to fund shareholder dividends, while Vanguard signaled that even Wall Street’s biggest crypto skeptics are embracing tokenization.

USDT has become crypto’s dominant payments stablecoin while USDC has cemented itself as DeFi’s preferred settlement asset, according to new data from Dune.

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Bitcoin price gains came thanks to US whales propeling the Coinbase Premium above a key trend line, new analysis from CryptoQuant reported.

Bitcoin (BTC) demand shifts are “behind” the price rebound to $64,000, new analysis claims.

Key points:

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The Fed named a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen to co-lead an AI productivity and jobs task force under Chair Kevin Warsh’s policy review.

The US Federal Reserve named Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) co-founder Marc Andreessen to help lead a task force studying how artificial intelligence and other new technologies could affect productivity and jobs.

Andreessen will serve on the Fed’s Productivity and Jobs task force alongside Charles I. Jones, a Stanford University economics professor currently on leave at Anthropic, and Asha Sharma, Microsoft's executive vice president and Xbox CEO.

The new task force will assess how general-purpose technologies such as AI will affect employment and productivity to better inform the central bank's policymaking, the Fed said in a Thursday press release.

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A MiCA license allows crypto firms to operate in the EU, but the ESMA’s review will test whether custodians can meet the required security and resilience standards.

Getting licensed under the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) framework is only the beginning for crypto custodians, as regulators turn their attention from authorization to operational resilience.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) on Wednesday launched a Common Supervisory Action (CSA) to examine the operational resilience of crypto asset service providers (CASPs), placing custody services at the center of the review.

“The signal is quite clear: for custodians, a licence is the start line, not the finish,” Sebastien Dessimoz, co-founder and managing partner at digital asset infrastructure firm Taurus, told Cointelegraph.

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As the CLARITY Act advances, crypto's growing political influence in Washington is under scrutiny. But the crypto lobby's massive campaign spend is only part of the story.

The crypto industry has spent years convincing Washington that it deserves a seat at the table. Now, as Congress inches toward passing the CLARITY Act, a long-awaited crypto market structure bill, it seems it finally has one.

The question is no longer whether lawmakers are listening to digital asset advocates, but whether the crypto lobby’s deep pockets and influence in election campaigns will be enough to get the legislation over the line.

That debate comes as Senate negotiators work toward a potential floor vote before Congress breaks for its August recess.&

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US prosecutors charged Rossen Iossifov over the alleged laundering of $290,000 in forfeited crypto from a Kraken account.

United States prosecutors have charged a man serving a federal prison sentence over the alleged removal and laundering of about $290,000 in crypto assets held in a Kraken account subject to a forfeiture order.&

The Department of Justice said on Thursday that Rossen Iossifov, a Bulgarian national, conspired in January 2024 to withdraw and transfer crypto that a federal court had ordered forfeited following his 2021 conviction. Prosecutors allege that the assets were moved through illicit mixing services and crypto exchanges before the US could take possession.&

The case shows how attempts to move crypto after a forfeiture order can trigger fresh criminal charges, even after the underlying conviction.

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Wall Street banks, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, are restricting employee prediction market trades as insider trading fears spread across Polymarket and Kalshi.

Wall Street banks are restricting employee trading on prediction market platforms due to fears that they may use nonpublic information to trade event contracts.

Goldman Sachs has reportedly banned its employees from trading on event contracts that are specific to the bank, including financial markets, macroeconomic events, elections and geopolitics, CNBC reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Unidentified sources from Morgan Stanley also told CNBC that the bank has policies regarding prediction market trading by employees, while a spokesperson for Bank of America said the bank was in the process of issuing new prohibitive measures for employees on prediction market trading.

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Circle announces it received final OCC approval for a national trust bank that will initially serve the company and affiliates, with possible future custody services for institutional clients.

USDC stablecoin issuer Circle on Friday announced it received final approval from the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish First National Digital Currency Bank (FNDCB), a national trust bank that will operate under the name Circle National Trust.

“OCC approval to establish Circle National Trust marks a defining step in bringing blockchain technology and digital assets into the core of the US financial system,” Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said.

The approval comes after Circle applied for the charter in June 2025, allowing it to establish a federally regulated trust institution and expand its digital asset custody infrastructure.

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CRYL is offering Bitcoin-backed loans to individuals and businesses as Japanese firms explore broader uses for BTC in lending and credit markets.

Japanese lender CRYL has launched Bitcoin-backed loans of up to 1 billion yen ($6.2 million), allowing individuals and businesses to raise fiat currency without selling their BTC.&

On Thursday, the company announced that borrowers can access between $6,200 and $6.2 million at annual rates of 3.5% to 7%. The loans carry collateral ratios of 40% to 60%. They run for one year and can be used for expenses, including taxes, business funding and property purchases.

The launch expands Japan’s small market for regulated crypto-backed financing. In 2020, Fintertech, a Daiwa Securities Group and Credit Saison joint venture, launched a similar service and currently lends up to $3 million against Bitcoin or Ether. However, CRYL's service advertises a higher ceiling and a lower minimum, while limiting collateral to BTC.&

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Bitcoin miner TeraWulf is reportedly seeking $3.5 billion in debt financing led by Morgan Stanley for its Kentucky data center campus leased by AI company Anthropic.

US-listed Bitcoin mining company TeraWulf is reportedly seeking to raise $3.5 billion in debt to expand its Justified Data campus in Kentucky, a facility leased by artificial intelligence company Anthropic under a long-term agreement.

The deal is expected to launch this year, with investment bank Morgan Stanley leading the financing effort, TeraWulf chief financial officer Patrick Fleury said, according to a Thursday Bloomberg report.

The deal could include leveraged loans and high-yield bonds, marking TeraWulf’s first entry into the leveraged loan market, the report stated.

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Metaplanet said it is studying Bitcoin-backed digital credit products in Japan with JPYC and Progmat, but no product has been launched.

Japanese investment and Bitcoin treasury company Metaplanet's securities arm, Metaplanet Securities, stablecoin issuer JPYC and tokenization infrastructure provider Progmat are tying up on a joint study on Bitcoin-backed digital credit products in Japan.

The study involves using BTC as collateral and a credit enhancement tool combined with the Japanese yen-pegged JPY Coin (JPYC) stablecoin for settlement and payments, while security tokens will be used to manage holder rights, Metaplanet said Friday.

The joint study will examine whether Bitcoin can be used as collateral or credit enhancement for digital corporate bonds and other credit instruments, with 24/7 accessibility, settlement and daily interest accrual for holders, issued on the blockchain ledger. No product has been launched yet as part of the experiment.

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Bitcoin bulls faced "crucial resistance" at $65,000 next as BTC price action diverged from oil and US dollar strength.

Bitcoin (BTC) eyed new July highs on Friday as US-Iran peace momentum kept oil lower.

Key points:

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD climbing above $64,000, coming within $400 of new three-week highs.

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EU lawmakers have again allowed tech firms to scan chats for abuse material, but exempted end-to-end encrypted messages.

The European Parliament has passed legislation allowing tech firms to scan messages for child sexual abuse material until 2028, a controversial law dubbed “chat control” by critics.

EU lawmakers on Thursday largely voted against extending the regulation, dubbed “Chat Control 1.0,” but stopping it required 361 lawmakers to reject it. Only 314 voted to stop the law, and 276 supported it.

The vote advances reviving the “chat control” rule that expired in April, and has been a controversial topic among privacy and cryptography advocates, as the originally designed law breaks the principle behind encrypting messages.

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Robinhood’s choice to use Ethereum further solidifies its position as the “ultimate settlement layer and liquidity foundation for tokenized assets,” said HashKey Group’s Tim Sun.

The amount of Ether bridged to Robinhood’s new layer-2 blockchain exceeded $70 million in just the first week, according to Token Terminal.&

Robinhood Chain, an EVM-compatible Arbitrum-based layer-2 network that uses ETH as its native gas token, launched on July 1 with the company describing it as “AI-native and purpose-built for real-world assets.”&

“If adoption continues, the chain could become a meaningful new source of demand for& ETH,” said Token Terminal on Thursday.&

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Zcash’s next upgrade will replace the once-compromised Orchard pool and may offer clues about whether counterfeit tokens were created via a recent bug.

Zcash’s Ironwood network upgrade, the solution to an “infinity” bug discovered in May on the privacy-focused blockchain’s main private transaction pool, Orchard, is set to go live on July 28.&

Announced in June, Ironwood closes the current Orchard pool, prevents new activity in it and sets up a new private pool. Funds leaving Orchard would have to pass through an accounting checkpoint before entering Ironwood, which could produce evidence about whether any counterfeit Zcash (ZEC) tokens were produced through the Orchard bug.&

“Zcash's Ironwood mainnet activation height has been set and tagged! All of the major organizations are committed to activation of NU6.3 at height 3428143, which is approximately July 28th at 8AM EST,” Zcash core developer Sean Bowe said on Thursday.

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Injective said the security vulnerability was patched up immediately and claims there were no downloads of the malicious package.

Hackers compromised a widely used Injective software package in a supply chain attack with malware in an attempt to steal crypto wallet private keys.

Security firm Socket discovered on Thursday that a popular NPM (node package manager) with around 50,000 weekly downloads used for building on the Injective blockchain was maliciously modified to steal wallet private keys and seed phrases.

Socket reported that the malware had been downloaded more than 300 times, and “the campaign itself isn’t yet fully contained, despite the developer whose account was infiltrated quickly detected the compromise.

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“DeFi usually swings much harder than Bitcoin, so holding up this well is unusual,” says Bitwise, as DeFi tokens have outperformed Bitcoin.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens have held up unusually well against Bitcoin over the past month, suggesting the market may be “quietly re-rating” the sector, says crypto index fund maker Bitwise.

Bitcoin (BTC) fell about 22% in June, while Bitwise’s index tracking tokens from major DeFi protocols fell only 4% over the same period, Bitwise said in a report Thursday.

“DeFi usually swings much harder than Bitcoin, so holding up this well is unusual, and almost no one is talking about it,” it said.&

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The soon-to-be former chief legal officer did not announce the details of his next move but said that he would continue working with the Board of Coinbase National Trust Company.

Paul Grewal, who has served as Coinbase’s chief legal officer since 2020, announced that he would transition to an advisory role at the exchange starting on July 31.

In a Thursday X thread and LinkedIn post, Grewal said Coinbase’s legal vice presidents Molly Abraham and Ryan VanGrack would step into new roles as general counsel and vice chair, respectively, following his departure at the end of the month. Abraham said that she would “take the helm” at the exchange’s legal team.

Source: Paul Grewal

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Bitdeer shares rallied after the company announced a $36 million Nevada manufacturing facility that will produce its SEALMINER Bitcoin mining machines and expand its hardware business.

Shares of Bitdeer Technologies Group rose on Thursday after the Bitcoin (BTC) mining infrastructure company announced a $36 million manufacturing facility in Nevada, a move that expands its US production capacity and could reduce its reliance on third-party suppliers for mining hardware.

Bitdeer climbed 14.1% to $14.33, fully recovering from a selloff earlier in the week. Despite Thursday’s rally, the stock remains roughly 27% below its June high but is up 26% year-to-date.

The gains followed Bitdeer’s announcement that it will build a manufacturing facility in Sparks, Nevada, to assemble its SEALMINER line of Bitcoin mining machines. The plant will produce key mining hardware components, with commercial production expected to begin by the end of the year.

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Both US financial regulators are understaffed at the leadership level and lacking Democratic commissioners, with no announcement from President Donald Trump on filling the roles.

White House officials claimed that they had “not received names” in response to requests to Senate Democrats for potential commissioners to two US financial regulatory agencies.

In a Thursday letter to US Senate majority leader John Thune and minority leader Chuck Schumer, White House officials said that they had already solicited names from Senate Democrats for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The leadership panels of both financial agencies are understaffed, with only Republican members nominated and confirmed by the Senate.

The letter came in response to a June 10 request from 12 Senate Democrats over staffing concerns at US federal agencies, including the SEC and CFTC. Although US President Donald Trump has put forward some Democratic names for positions at agencies, including the National Labor Relations Board and International Trade Commission, many lawmakers have expressed concerns about the financial regulators being understaffed with crypto market structure legislation pending.

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The companies urged the regulator to exempt blockchain developers and non-custodial wallet providers from rules designed for traditional financial intermediaries.

Crypto wallet provider Phantom and the Hyperliquid Policy Center have urged the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to exempt blockchain protocol developers and non-custodial wallet providers from regulations designed for traditional financial intermediaries.

In response to a CFTC request for information on regulations affecting fintech firms, the companies asked the agency to confirm that blockchain protocol developers do not have to register solely for creating onchain software, issue guidance allowing regulated derivatives firms to use blockchain infrastructure, and codify exemptions preventing non-custodial wallet providers from being treated as introducing brokers.

The companies argued that existing CFTC regulations were designed for custodial financial intermediaries that hold customer assets and process trades, while onchain protocols allow users to transact directly without intermediaries controlling funds or executing orders.

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As AI-driven mining stocks retreat, investors are examining executive stock sales, governance and shareholder alignment across leading Bitcoin miners, according to Blocksbridge Consulting.

Several publicly traded Bitcoin miners have enjoyed sharp stock re-ratings after pivoting toward AI infrastructure, but investors are increasingly questioning whether insiders and major shareholders capitalized on the rally before the sector cooled, raising fresh governance concerns, according to Blocksbridge Consulting.

In its latest Miner Weekly newsletter, Blocksbridge said the AI narrative helped lift valuations for several Bitcoin mining companies as they repositioned operations around data centers, power infrastructure and hyperscaler partnerships. However, sentiment has since weakened, with AI and chip stocks pulling back. The TEM AI Infrastructure Growth Index, which tracks Bitcoin miners, artificial intelligence cloud providers, power suppliers and other AI infrastructure companies, has decline 16% over the past month.

That shift has brought insider transactions into sharper focus. Executives at TeraWulf, Cipher Digital, Riot Platforms and Core Scientific have disclosed stock sales, many of them executed under prearranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plans. While such plans are common and designed to avoid conflicts around nonpublic information, the sales have attracted greater scrutiny as AI-related stocks have retreated, Blocksbridge said.

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Labour lawmakers proposed a full moratorium on crypto donations in March, which some have sought be made permanent after millions of dollars in contributions were linked to Reform leader Nigel Farage.

Members of the UK’s ruling Labour party are considering a total ban on digital asset donations in response to Nigel Farage's resignation from Parliament and the potential influence crypto billionaires had on his policies.

The Guardian reported Thursday that Labour MPs are looking to overhaul existing rules on donations to political parties and candidates. Specifically, lawmakers have proposed that a moratorium on crypto donations enacted in March be made permanent after it was revealed that the Reform leader personally accepted millions of British pounds in what he called “gifts” from industry figures.

“Amendments to the representation of the people bill which my colleagues and I have tabled are vital safeguards against the wider threat that’s seen [$268 million] come flooding in to build a whole media political complex behind populists in Britain,” said Liam Byrne, MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North and the Labour chair of the business select committee calling for a permanent crypto donation ban. “We simply cannot afford to let our crumbling defenses be undermined any further.”

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US 10-year Treasury yields nears dangerous level while major Deribit Bitcoin options expiry approaches.

Bitcoin (BTC) reclaimed the $63,000 mark on Thursday, but traders fear a correction ahead of Friday’s $1.4 billion options expiry on Deribit. The concerns stem from the US government bond yield climbing toward a level that many view as a warning sign. Is the $62,000 support level at risk?

Key takeaways:

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The Bitcoin miner's shares climbed about 15% after announcing it's acquiring a Texas site with up to 2 GW of power capacity to expand its AI and digital infrastructure strategy.

Bitcoin miner MARA Holdings shares rose about 15% in early trading Thursday after the company announced plans to acquire a Texas powered-land site with access to up to 2 gigawatts of electricity for AI computing and Bitcoin mining.

The 1,200-acre site in Matagorda county, about 90 miles southwest of Houston, is expected to provide access to an initial 1 GW of grid capacity by October 2027 and up to 2 GW by April 2028. MARA said it plans to develop the site as a digital infrastructure campus supporting both high-performance computing and Bitcoin mining.

Upon full energization, the site is expected to more than double the Bitcoin (BTC) miner's potential power capacity to about 4.8 GW. HIF USA will retain a minority ownership stake in the project if MARA signs a lease with a high-performance computing tenant, according to the companies. The companies did not disclose financial terms of the transaction.

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Bitcoin gained new upside targets for the daily close and beyond after US president Donald Trump said that Iran "wants to make a deal."

Bitcoin (BTC) saw intraday highs after Thursday’s Wall Street open as US stocks rebounded on fresh Iran peace hopes.

Key points:

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Dealing with large post quantum signatures slowing down Bitcoin can be solved with bigger blocks, or aggregating signatures using STARK proofs.

ZK STARKs are the best way to deal with the issues created with making Bitcoin quantum-safe — and to reach mass adoption at the same time — says StarkWare co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson.

What’s more, he claims Blockstream founder Adam Back agrees.

Ben-Sasson has been in the news this week for his controversial suggestion on X to increase Bitcoin inflation to 4% annually. Grok’s analysis of the replies found “zero clear support for the proposal.”

But as the co-inventor of STARKs — quantum-secure, hash-based zero-knowledge proofs — he’s on much firmer ground, with some leading Bitcoin researchers supporting the concept.

Ben-Sasson’s own project Starknet last week announced its own three phase project to become quantum secure.

Adding zero-knowledge proofs to Bitcoin does not make the blockchain quantum secure by itself. ZK proofs are a way to deal with the problems caused by adding much larger post-quantum (PQ) signature schemes to Bitcoin.&

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Hong Kong’s regulator has ordered crypto platforms and online brokers to meet newly issued phishing-resistant login requirements within the next 12 months.

The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) on Thursday issued new requirements for phishing-resistant authentication methods for virtual asset trading platforms (VATPs) and online brokers in the special administrative region.

The new standards require stronger phishing-resistant authentication methods and device binding while prohibiting the use of one-time passwords through SMS, email or app-based logins.& Platforms must implement the changes within the next 12 months.

The requirements outlined stronger alternatives such as passkeys, registered devices with cryptographic verification and hardware security keys, which the SFC described as phishing-resistant solutions.

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Sony Bank received preliminary approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish a US stablecoin issuance business, with $40 million in starting capital.

Sony Bank, a subsidiary of Sony Financial Group, said it's received preliminary approval to establish a new US national trust bank subsidiary that will issue US dollar-denominated stablecoins.

The new unit, Connectia Trust, National Association, gained preliminary approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) on July 2.

It will be fully owned by Sony Bank and will support the issuance and management of US dollar-denominated stablecoins, according to a Monday announcement by Sony Financial Group.

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Interpol said a suspect's crypto wallet processed over $122.5 million in 10 months as authorities uncovered the scheme during a global anti-fraud operation that led to 5,811 arrests.

A crypto wallet linked to a suspected romance-scam money launderer processed more than $122.5 million in 10 months, according to Interpol, as authorities expanded a global crackdown on online fraud.

Interpol said Thursday that Thai authorities arrested two suspects and uncovered a money-laundering network that funneled proceeds from romance scams into cryptocurrencies, using cross-chain token swaps to obscure the trail.

The Thai investigation was part of Operation First Light 2026, an Interpol-coordinated campaign targeting social engineering scams and the financial infrastructure used to launder their proceeds.

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Revolut said USDT support remains unchanged outside EEA and Switzerland as it winds down the stablecoin offering in selected European markets.

Revolut, a crypto-friendly digital banking platform, said its Tether USDt (USDT) delisting will not affect all customers globally.

The delisting will affect Revolut customers in the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland, while support for the stablecoin will continue in other markets, a spokesperson for the company told Cointelegraph.

Revolut said the decision followed a review of its crypto services and risk considerations under the European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA).

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Perpetual futures and Hyperliquid’s blockchain infrastructure are expanding into traditional asset classes with around-the-clock trading, according to Pantera Capital.

Perpetual futures are on track to become one of the dominant trading instruments in global finance, with decentralized exchange Hyperliquid demonstrating how blockchain-based infrastructure could challenge traditional markets, according to Pantera Capital.

The blockchain-focused asset manager said in a Wednesday X post that perpetual futures offer structural advantages over traditional derivatives, including 24/7 trading, no contract expiries, simpler position management and continuous price discovery, making them increasingly attractive beyond crypto markets.

Pantera, an investor in the Hyperliquid ecosystem, said Hyperliquid has become the leading example of that shift by expanding perpetual futures beyond cryptocurrencies into equities, commodities and stock indexes as part of founder Jeff Yan's vision of “housing all of finance.”

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Bitcoin spot ETFs posted a fresh net outflow on Wednesday as analysis said that their "most overwhelming" outflow streak had ended without a clear demand recovery.

Bitcoin (BTC) institutional demand is “not yet strong” despite positive inflows to the US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Key points:

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The Bank of Korea reiterated its call for bank-led won stablecoin issuance while advancing deposit token pilots, as issuer rules remain a sticking point in South Korea’s digital asset bill.

The Bank of Korea (BOK) has doubled down on its stance that won-denominated stablecoins should first be issued through bank-led consortiums.

According to local reports from Digital Asset and EDaily, the central bank made the comments in materials submitted on Thursday to the National Assembly's finance committee. Local outlets reported that the BOK called for safeguards, including priority issuance by bank-led consortiums and a statutory policy body involving relevant agencies.

The latest comments reinforce the BOK's months-long push to keep won stablecoin issuance under bank-led structures. The central bank's stance has divided policymakers and industry groups and contributed to delays in South Korea's digital asset bill.

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Swift launched its new blockchain ledger that will host a tokenized bank deposit pilot for 17 major banks seeking faster cross-border payments.

The world's largest financial messaging network, Swift, said its blockchain-based ledger is ready for initial use after nine months of development.

Seventeen major banks, including HSBC, Citi, BNP Paribas, UBS, ANZ, DBS and Standard Chartered, are preparing to pilot cross-border payments using tokenized bank deposits on the new ledger, Swift announced on Thursday.&

The ledger will enable participating banks to support 24/7 cross-border payments, including overnight and weekend transactions, while maintaining existing compliance, credit, risk and control standards embedded in current payment processing.

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Binance is exploring new licensing paths into Europe while continuing to expand its regulatory footprint in Asia, says co-CEO Richard Teng.

Binance is in talks with regulators that have invited the exchange to apply for crypto licenses following its withdrawal from the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) application in Greece, according to co-CEO Richard Teng.

Teng said at the Reuters NEXT Asia conference in Singapore on Thursday that the discussions are still “premature” and declined to identify the jurisdictions.&

MiCA created a single licensing framework for crypto firms across the European Union. After the bloc's transition period expired on July 1, the European Securities and Markets Authority said crypto firms must serve EU clients through a MiCA-authorized entity, with limited exceptions for unsolicited cross-border business.

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Alfa-Bank is testing cryptocurrency trading for qualified investors as Russia moves toward regulating digital assets and banks prepare new crypto services.

Russia’s largest private bank, Alfa-Bank, is reportedly preparing to offer cryptocurrency services as the country continues developing a legal framework for the digital asset market.

Dmitry Vitman, chief operating officer of Alfa-Bank’s corporate and investment banking division, said the bank plans to roll out a suite of crypto services once the relevant digital asset legislation takes effect, Russian publication RBC reported on Wednesday.

The announcement comes as Russia’s largest banks prepare for a regulated crypto market, with Sber, VTB and T-Bank also outlining crypto plans amid progress on the country's digital asset legislation.

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Senator Ron Wyden has called on Senate leaders to ensure the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act remains in the CLARITY Act when it is brought to the floor.

US Democratic Senator Ron Wyden has urged Senate leaders to ensure that crypto developer protections stay in the crypto market structure legislation that lawmakers are looking to pass ahead of the midterms.

Wyden told Senate Minority Leader John Thune and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer to preserve a section of the CLARITY Act known as the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA), according to a letter shared by Crypto in America podcast co-founder Eleanor Terrett on Wednesday.

“Developers who make and release software that allows people to manage their own digital assets — and, critically, where the developer does not control user assets — should not be treated as money transmitters solely because they create or publish software,” Wyden wrote.

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Onchain scammers netted more than $14 billion last year, and approval phishing remains a primary attack vector.

A crypto user lost nearly $1 million on Wednesday after signing a phishing token approval on Ethereum, according to onchain data. It comes as the industry recorded $366 million in phishing losses in the first half of the year.&

A Scam Sniffer alert on Thursday revealed a victim lost 999,999 USDt (USDT) to an Ethereum phishing token approval scam. Scammers first tried draining a rounded $1 million via multicalls but failed due to insufficient funds, then succeeded seconds later by pulling the exact remaining balance in follow-up transfers.

“The script recalculated and pulled the exact remaining balance,” Scam Sniffer said.

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Hackers have also been exploiting the codebases of defunct decentralized finance protocols, draining millions of dollars in customer funds.

Blockchain security experts are urging crypto protocols to reaudit their smart contracts as AI tooling is making it easier for hackers to identify vulnerabilities more quickly than ever before.&

“Our data argues for continuous review rather than a one-time audit,” TRM Labs head of policy Ari Redbord told Cointelegraph, adding that “attack techniques are moving faster than a single audit from launch day can account for.”

CertiK reported Monday that hackers stole another $1.32 billion in the first half of 2026 and have adopted increasingly sophisticated strategies in response to strengthened security measures across the industry.

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Ongoing strong demand for AI infrastructure “would likely sustain upward pressure on prices for technology products and electricity,” Federal Reserve policymakers said.

Federal Reserve officials were split last month on whether to increase interest rates or keep them steady, with many seeing accelerating demand for artificial intelligence as a driver of inflation, according to meeting minutes released on Wednesday.

The minutes covered the first monetary policy meeting under Fed Chair Kevin Warsh. Many Federal Open Market Committee members said that “ongoing strong demand for AI infrastructure would likely sustain upward pressure on prices for technology products and electricity,” according to the minutes.& &

AI-related inflationary pressure, colloquially known as “chipflation,” stems from the rising cost of semiconductors used by data centers. This surge in demand, along with data center competition for energy, has pushed up consumer prices for a wide range of electronic goods, devices and power, and may continue as AI demand increases.

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Crypto venture firm Paradigm is widening its investment gaze toward AI and other frontier industries with its latest fund.

Paradigm has raised $1.2 billion for its fourth fund, which will expand the crypto venture capital firm’s investments into artificial intelligence and related technologies.

The company said on Wednesday that its latest fund will invest “first in crypto, and now across AI, robotics and other frontiers.”

“We continue investing in crypto and the reinvention of markets and the financial system,” Paradigm added, highlighting its investments in the crypto perpetuals exchange Hyperliquid and the prediction markets platform Kalshi.

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Zapper provided crypto market data to over 2 million monthly active users and oversaw more than $13 billion in processed transactions during its peak.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) analytics platform Zapper announced it will shut down next month, becoming the latest crypto platform to fold amid a market downturn.

In a post to X on Wednesday, Zapper CEO Seb Audet said Zapper’s website, mobile app and API services would shut down on Aug. 3, marking the end of a seven-year run after receiving backing from the likes of billionaire investor Mark Cuban in 2021.

“We evaluated a number of different options, pursued some to the fullest extent possible, and came to the realization that an orderly wind down is the best course of action,” Audet said.

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The size and scope of the US stock market “gives policymakers a strong incentive to backstop major drawdowns,” said Bitget Wallet COO, Alvin Kan.

Crypto markets could benefit from increased liquidity if the US central bank steps in to support the $75 trillion equity market in a bear market, as it is "too big and too important to fail,” according to analysts.

The US equity market has grown by 68% over the past five years and has added roughly $6 trillion in market value so far this year.& However, analysts and experts, such as goldbug Peter Schiff, have warned that years of rapid growth could be setting up the market for a major correction.

Such a correction could see the Fed "break decades of precedent" and buy equity ETFs to support the stock market, Bloomberg's ETF expert Eric Balchunas said on Tuesday, while other analysts said the resulting move to increase liquidity could set up an environment for cryptocurrencies to benefit.

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Bitcoin faces renewed sell pressure amid an oil price surge, Japan economic contagion risks and a fresh round of selling from Strategy.

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin traded down 3.5% on Wednesday as new developments in the US-Iran war pushed oil prices higher and Japan’s bond markets faced renewed stress. That combination triggered broader de-risking across markets. At the same time, concerns over potential Bitcoin sales from Strategy intensified, with traders now bracing for a possible correction below $60,000.

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Industry data shows trading activity and market value accelerating as crypto companies and traditional financial institutions expand tokenized equity initiatives.

Tokenized stock transfers more than doubled over the past month to $8.41 billion, according to RWA.xyz data, as activity in onchain equity markets continued to accelerate.

The sector's distributed value also climbed 43% over the same period to $2.16 billion, while the number of holders increased 17% to more than 409,000, according to the data platform.

Growth was led by several of the market's largest tokenization platforms. Figure's distributed value surged 935% over the past 30 days, while Securitize's rose 332% and xStocks' increased around 62%.

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EU officials reportedly plan to consider changes to the Markets in Crypto-Assets framework, dubbed by some as “MiCA 2.0,” in response to a US stablecoin law and rules on tokenized payments and deposits.

European Union officials are reportedly planning to revise the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework amid the implementation of a US law on stablecoins.

According to a Wednesday report from Euronews, EU officials planned to revisit proposed changes to MiCA to broaden the framework's scope, specifically regarding non-EU companies issuing stablecoins.&

The revised rules, which authorities will reportedly consider in 2027, were in response to the US government’s Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins, or GENIUS, Act, putting pressure on EU officials to clarify how US stablecoin issuers could be regulated in member states. Officials will also reportedly consider expanding MiCA to include rules on tokenized payments and deposits.

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Bitcoin hovered around the $62,000 mark following a spike in oil prices, escalating hot war in Iran and traders’ move to cut risk ahead of a Federal Reserve policy statement.

Bitcoin (BTC) trades slightly above $62,000 and is down nearly 2% over the past 24 hours amid a risk-off mood across global markets. The pressure is not coming from crypto exclusively and is more so attributed to a sharp selloff in semiconductor and AI stocks.&

Renewed profit-taking from Samsung sent Asian markets reeling overnight, and military escalation between the US and Iran sent oil up around 5%. As a result, US stocks opened lower, and on Wednesday the Federal Reserve released the minutes from its June meeting, a report traders typically watch closely for clues on the timing of any rate cut.&

Currently, markets price roughly a 73% chance the Fed holds rates steady at its next meeting on July 29, but the major takeaway for investors will be how the tone of the minutes frames the Fed’s view on inflation and interest rates.& &

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The Bitcoin Standard Treasury Company and Cantor Equity Partners I announced that they were looking into amending the terms of a 2025 merger deal that “better reflected market conditions.”

The Bitcoin Standard Treasury Company (BSTR), founded by Blockstream CEO Adam Back, wants to change the terms of its merger agreement with Cantor Equity Partners for a public offering.

According to a Wednesday announcement, BSTR and Cantor Equity Partners I, the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) created by financial services giant Cantor Fitzgerald, scrapped the original terms of a 2025 merger agreement and will negotiate a new deal. Although the details were not included in the announcement, both companies said that they intended to negotiate terms that “better reflected market conditions.”

Source: BSTR

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A new Binance Research report said stablecoins are fast becoming a preferred settlement layer for tokenized TradFi markets while gaining traction in payments and savings.

Stablecoin-settled perpetual contracts tied to traditional financial assets topped $1.1 trillion in trading volume during the first half of 2026, according to Binance Research, underscoring the growing role of stablecoins in tokenized financial markets.

According to Binance Research, stablecoins are increasingly being used to settle TradFi-linked perpetual contracts, a market that's grown to roughly 11% of all crypto perpetual trading volume in the first five months of 2026.

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Andrew Bailey reportedly said Bank of England policy remained independent after a meeting with Nigel Farage that included discussions on cryptocurrency.

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey has reportedly denied that lobbying efforts by Nigel Farage influenced the central bank’s approach to a potential central bank digital currency (CBDC), saying policy decisions were made independently.

According to a Wednesday report by The Guardian, which obtained a letter written by Bailey, the governor said the BoE is “able to spot” attempts to influence its policymaking. The letter followed a meeting with Farage, during which the two discussed several issues, including cryptocurrencies.

“Following our meeting, Mr. Farage spoke with the press outlining that we had discussed a range of topics, including cryptocurrencies,” Bailey reportedly wrote in the letter. “I am happy to confirm that no policy changes have taken place as a result of interventions by Mr. Farage.”

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Bitcoin price pressure took BTC toward the "crucial" $61,000 mark as oil prices soared on the collapse of the US-Iran ceasefire.

Bitcoin (BTC) stayed below $62,000 after Wednesday’s Wall Street open as US president Donald Trump closing a key world oil route.

Key points:

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The non-custodial Bitcoin exchange petitioned to annul a French decree implementing DAC8, arguing the rules could create surveillance and physical risks for up to 135 million European crypto holders.

Bitcoin exchange Bull Bitcoin said Wednesday that it had petitioned France's Council of State (Conseil d'État) to strike down a French decree implementing the European Union's DAC8 crypto tax reporting rules.

DAC8 requires crypto service providers to collect users' identity and transaction data and automatically report it to national tax authorities, which then exchange the information with their counterparts across EU member states. The directive went into effect on Jan. 1, 2026.

The exchange said in a Wednesday press release that DAC8 risks creating a “mass database” linking legal identity and home addresses, including transactions with no relevance to taxation.

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India’s tax department reportedly found that fewer than a quarter of the 645,000 people who made crypto transactions reported them on tax returns.

India’s tax department reportedly found widespread gaps in crypto tax reporting, warning that offshore exchanges, private wallets and peer-to-peer (P2P) trades are making crypto activity harder to track.&

Reuters on Wednesday reported government documents showed that fewer than a quarter of 645,000 individuals who made crypto transactions in the year ending in March 2023 reported the trades on their tax returns. The department also reportedly estimated that India had about 39 million crypto traders holding over $2.1 billion in crypto at the end of May.&

The findings add a tax-enforcement factor to the country’s long-running digital asset policy debate, moving the issue beyond the central bank's financial-stability concerns and into questions on offshore trading and recoverable tax revenue. India was ranked first in Chainalysis' 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index.

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Tokenized Real World Assets span treasuries, real estate, stocks, commodities and private credit. The sector is still small in TradFi terms but it's growing very, very fast.

Standard Chartered head of digital assets research Geoff Kendrick predicted in a recent research note that assets in DeFi could reach $2.7 trillion by 2030.

He said that, currently, only 3% of stablecoins and 10% of tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) are used in DeFi. However, he predicts this will rise to 30% by 2030.

That would be a 37-fold increase from where they are now, but the growing tempo of tokenization gives Kendrick reason for an optimistic outlook.&

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Kazakhstan targets gas-powered electricity for mining, income tax exemptions for regulated crypto transactions and cross-border stablecoin payments in a new decree signed by the president.

Kazakhstan, one of the world’s largest Bitcoin mining hubs, is moving to expand its crypto sector as a new decree introduces rules for stablecoin payments, tax breaks for regulated crypto activity and new energy options for mining.

Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has signed a decree aimed at building a regulated digital asset market, the Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development (MAIDD) announced on Wednesday.

Developed jointly by MAIDD, the central bank and the Astana International Financial Centre, the order is viewed as a tool to increase regulatory clarity for crypto businesses, investors and digital asset service providers.

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Analysis flagged a Bitcoin moving average derivative that last triggered at the end of the 2022 bear market as BTC price action returned to its reversal zone.

Bitcoin (BTC) is seeing a “textbook” bear-market bottom as speculators take profits on the trip toward $65,000.

Key points:

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Bitcoin-focused macroeconomist Lyn Alden said BTC must stand on its own as Strategy sold 3,588 BTC, while warning about leverage risks tied to STRC.

Bitcoin is facing its weakest sentiment cycle yet, according to Lyn Alden, a Bitcoin-focused macroeconomist who said the asset must stand on its own as Strategy disclosed a $216 million Bitcoin sale earlier this week.

“I don’t think there’s anything coming to save Bitcoin,” Alden said in a Tuesday interview with journalist and Bitcoin educator Natalie Brunell, saying the asset's long-term success must come from its own fundamentals rather than external catalysts.

“The asset just has to survive on its own merits,” Alden said, pointing to Bitcoin’s underlying properties as a liquid, permissionless way to store and send value, instead of relying on a new source of demand.

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Toss has reportedly partnered with Optimism and Sunnyside Labs for a proof of concept on the feasibility of a Korean won-based stablecoin for payments.

Viva Republica, the operator of South Korea-based mobile money transfer app Toss, reportedly signed a memorandum of understanding with blockchain company Optimism to test a Korean won-based stablecoin infrastructure for institutional payments.

The companies, along with privacy solutions provider Sunnyside Labs, will conduct a three-month proof of concept (PoC) using Optimism's OP Stack and Sunnyside's Privacy Boost protocol to develop a Korean won-based stablecoin and assess whether these technologies can be applied to domestic blockchain-based payment infrastructure for financial institutions, reported Yonhap News on Wednesday.

The PoC will explore whether financial institutions can control the settlement process, the feasibility of implementing know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) verification requirements and whether transactions can remain private on a public blockchain ledger.

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The EU securities regulator will assess custody providers’ key management, incident response and reliance on third-party technology providers.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), a key EU regulator supporting the implementation of the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework, is launching a dedicated process for reviewing crypto custody providers.

ESMA plans to conduct a common supervisory action (CSA) focused on the operational resilience of crypto-asset service providers (CASPs), with a specific emphasis on custody services, according to an official announcement on Wednesday.

“The CSA will assess the maturity of CASPs’ digital operational resilience frameworks in relation to custody activities,” ESMA said, adding that the reviews will focus on areas including key and storage management, alongside other operational risks.

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Kalshi appealed to the Second Circuit after a New York federal judge denied its request to block state gambling officials from enforcing local laws against its sports event contracts.

Kalshi is appealing a New York federal judge's rejection of its bid to block state gambling officials from enforcing local laws against the prediction market platform's sports-related event contracts.&

In a notice filed on Tuesday in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), Kalshi said it would take the case to the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The appeal followed a same-day opinion and order denying the platform operator's motion for a preliminary injunction against officials at the New York State Gaming Commission.&

The appeal escalates a growing legal fight over whether sports prediction markets are federally regulated derivatives or state-regulated gambling products. This question has already split courts across the United States.

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Berachain launched the first stage of its PoL Next upgrade, which will phase out the BGT token and shift the network's reward system to WBERA.

Berachain is preparing a hard fork that will replace its dual-token incentive model with one centered on its main BERA token.

Set for Wednesday at 4 pm UTC, the hard fork will end Bera Governance Token (BGT) emissions and shift the network's incentive system to Wrapped BERA (WBERA), the Berachain Foundation announced in a Tuesday X post.

Following the upgrade, the network will distribute fixed amounts of WBERA instead of BGT as block rewards. The change replaces Berachain's previous dual-token model, which split the network's functions between the transferable BERA token and the non-transferable governance token BGT.

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Base is scheduled to activate its B20 token standard on Wednesday at 6 pm UTC, allowing developers to begin creating native tokens on the network.

Coinbase-backed Ethereum layer-2 network Base is set to activate its B20 token standard on mainnet, introducing a native framework for stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) and other fungible tokens.&

According to Base documentation, B20 is scheduled to go live at 6 pm UTC on the mainnet, enabling developers to begin creating tokens under the new standard.

The activation will enable developers to use Base's native token standard to create stablecoins, RWAs, tokenized equities and other fungible tokens without requiring them to build and audit custom ERC-20 contracts.

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So-called “chat control” rules could be revived in the EU, with lawmakers again set to vote on the legislation Thursday.

EU lawmakers are set to vote again on controversial legislation dubbed “chat control” by its critics, which would allow tech firms to scan messages for child sexual abuse material.

On Tuesday, the European Parliament voted through a rarely used urgent procedure that will bring lawmakers to a vote Thursday on whether to extend the legal framework, which expired in early April.

“Today's vote violates our own rules of procedure, the European Parliament decided to use an urgent procedure for Chat Control 1.0,” Pirate Party MEP Markéta Gregorová said on Tuesday. “This means that on Thursday, we will once again vote on extending the derogation that allowed online platforms to scan our private communications.”

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StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson argued that Bitcoin private keys get lost over time, meaning the amount of usable Bitcoin will diminish. Many disagree.

The debate over whether Bitcoin's fixed supply cap should be lifted has resurfaced after StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson suggested Tuesday that it should replaced with a 4% annual issuance rate.

In a post to X on Tuesday, Ben-Sasson said the current 21 million cap “doesn't make sense” because private keys are lost over time and “as time goes to infinity, all keys will be lost.”

Crypto wallet hardware provider Ledger estimated in November that up to 4 million Bitcoin had been burned or permanently lost. Ben-Sasson said he still supports a hard upper bound on Bitcoin's supply, and that a 4% annual inflation rate roughly tracks the growth of the human population.

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Swyftx interim co-CEO Andrea Yuen says the company "won’t be a pure crypto spot exchange in future,” after it secured a license allowing it to offer payment services.

Australian crypto exchange Swyftx says it will be seeking opportunities in the crypto payments space after securing a license from Australia’s market regulator.&

Swyftx said on Wednesday that it received its Australian Financial Services License (AFSL), joining the likes of Coinbase, BTC Markets and Crypto.com. The license allows it to offer derivative products, such as crypto options or futures, to retail customers, as well as non-cash payment facility authorization, setting up the fintech to offer payment services to business and retail clients. It does not hold an AFSL to offer spot crypto.&

“Swyftx won’t be a pure crypto spot exchange in future,” Swyftx interim co-CEO Andrea Yuen told Cointelegraph. “In particular, we see a lot of opportunity in the payments space following local changes to credit card surcharging.”

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“The security risk is the part we take most seriously,” the team said, citing old code and AI exploit risks.

Privacy-focused layer-1 blockchain Secret Network is proposing to move from its longtime home on Cosmos to Ethereum layer-2 Arbitrum, citing security risks from artificial intelligence, among other reasons.&

Secret Network has been running privacy-preserving smart contracts on Cosmos since 2020, as the ecosystem had strong momentum back then, but the “environment has changed,” the team said Tuesday.& &

“The security risk is the part we take most seriously,” it said. “Old code is becoming dramatically easier to analyze … With AI, the cost of attacking stale code is falling across the board.”&

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The CFTC has launched a rare crypto-related enforcement action against a commodity pool operator that allegedly defrauded investors of more than $14 million.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has sued a North Carolina man, accusing him of operating a commodity pool featuring crypto that defrauded investors of more than $14 million.

The CFTC’s lawsuit, filed in federal court on Tuesday, alleged that Trevor Vernon and his company, Argent Capital Management, operated a commodity pool featuring equity index futures, options on equity index futures and crypto.

The agency alleged that from March 2022 to February 2026, Vernon solicited $14.8 million from at least 60 investors and falsely claimed he was a successful trader, even though his trading actually “resulted in consistent and catastrophic losses” for the pool’s investors.

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The cost of eliminating margin calls and forced liquidations is an interest rate as high as 14.2% and an obligation to pay on time, Strike CEO Jack Mallers said.

Bitcoin financial services platform Strike has launched a “volatility-proof” Bitcoin-backed loan that eliminates margin calls and forced liquidations amid the depths of a bear market, but only for those who can pay on time and handle a 14% interest rate.

In an announcement on Tuesday, Strike CEO Jack Mallers said the offering came in response to broad customer feedback on Strike’s first Bitcoin loan product, which launched in May 2025 and triggered many liquidations during a timeframe in which Bitcoin (BTC) dropped 54% from peak to trough.

“No margin calls. No price liquidations. No matter how far bitcoin falls, your bitcoin doesn't move,” Strike CEO Jack Mallers said of the new Bitcoin loan product. The trade-off is an expensive interest rate, a shorter six-month loan term, and an obligation to pay on time to avoid liquidation, Mallers said.

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The financial regulator’s agenda included proposed rule changes related to crypto broker-dealers, digital assets on national securities exchanges and potential safe harbors.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced proposed rule changes that its chair said would “help clarify the regulatory framework for crypto assets and provide greater certainty to the market” as part of its annual agenda.

In a Tuesday notice, SEC Chair Paul Atkins said that the agency’s 2026 agenda was intended to align with the Trump administration’s policy goals on crypto, which included clarification on tokenized securities and capital raising with digital assets. The agenda included three proposed rule changes addressing crypto broker-dealers, digital assets on alternative trading systems and national securities exchanges, and potential exemptions and safe harbors for digital assets.

“The proposed rules may provide greater certainty to the market, facilitate capital formation, and accommodate innovation within the crypto asset markets while, at the same time, ensuring that investors are adequately protected and provided with the information they need to make informed investment decisions,” said the SEC on one of the proposed rules “relating to the offer and sale of crypto assets.”

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ETH charts a path toward $2,000 as TradFi adoption, DAT buying and a long-awaited network upgrade boost investor interest.

Key takeaways:

Ether (ETH) price rallied 15% in five days, distancing itself from the $1,500 low hit on June 26. Part of the improvement in investor sentiment can be pinned to the final tests on Ethereum’s Glamsterdam upgrade, targeted for later in 2026. Moreover, BitMine Immersion Technologies' continued Ether accumulation helped strengthen the support level. Will $2,000 come next?

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The asset manager is hiring a head of digital assets to lead its strategy for tokenization, stablecoins, blockchain infrastructure and client-facing products.

Vanguard is hiring a head of digital assets to lead the asset manager's strategy on tokenization, stablecoins, blockchain infrastructure and client-facing digital asset products, signaling a broader push into the sector after years of resisting crypto investment offerings.

According to the job description on Vanguard's website, the executive will be responsible for determining how Vanguard participates in digital assets, including evaluating client-facing products, tokenization, stablecoins, custody models, blockchain-based settlement and digital asset operating infrastructure.& The role will also represent Vanguard in discussions with regulators, clients and industry groups.

Hiring announcement for Vanguard head of digital assets. Source: Vanguardjobs.com

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The proposed bonds to be backed by cryptocurrency still need approval from New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte and the state’s five-member executive council.

The New Hampshire Secretary of State’s office announced that lawmakers would discuss issuing $100 million in bonds backed by Bitcoin (BTC) at a public hearing.

In an update to the New Hampshire governor and executive council agenda, the state’s Business Finance Authority (BFA) has scheduled a meeting for Wednesday regarding the proposed issuance of $100 million in BTC-backed bonds. The BFA approved the bond in November 2025, saying that it planned to issue the vehicles upon approval from Governor Kelly Ayotte and the state’s five-member executive council.

“This is an innovative way to bring more investment opportunities to our state and position us as a leader in digital finance without risking state funds or taxpayer dollars,” said Ayotte on the bonds, following the BFA approval.&

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The crypto exchange's parent company says Mazars' withdrawal from its 2022 audit caused millions in damages and tied the dispute to Operation Chokepoint 2.0.

Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, has won a $22 million arbitration award against former auditor Mazars USA and asked the Delaware Court of Chancery to enter judgment on the award, according to a letter published Tuesday by co-CEO Arjun Sethi.

Payward said Mazars withdrew from the exchange's nearly completed 2022 audit despite finding no fraud, raising no concerns about management's integrity and reporting no disagreements with the company.

"An audit is not a favor. It is oxygen,"& Sethi wrote, arguing that independent audits are essential for obtaining banking services, licenses and other business relationships.

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Dune data shows Tether's USDT has become crypto’s dominant payments stablecoin while Circle's USDC powers DeFi, highlighting how blockchain choice shapes stablecoin use.

The world’s biggest stablecoins are increasingly becoming chain-specific financial products, with Tether’s USDt (USDT) and Circle’s USDC (USDC) serving distinct roles across the crypto ecosystem rather than competing head-on.

Dune’s Digital Asset Brief found that USDT overwhelmingly dominates onchain payments. During the first half of 2026, the biggest stablecoin settled about $95 billion in identified commerce payments, compared with $14 billion for second-biggest USDC. It also accounted for roughly 92% of the $48 billion in business-to-business payment volume. On Tron, USDT’s largest network, around 93% of the token’s supply is held in ordinary wallets rather than on exchanges, underscoring its role as a payment and remittance asset.

USDC, meanwhile, has established itself as the dominant stablecoin in decentralized finance. USDC on Base processed roughly $2.6 trillion in transfer volume in June, the highest of any token-chain pair, while on Ethereum, that stablecoin handled another $1.6 trillion.&

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Mercado Bitcoin will use the funding to expand tokenized finance across Latin America, adding to Tether's growing portfolio of infrastructure investments.

Tether has invested $20 million in Brazilian crypto platform Mercado Bitcoin to support the company's expansion into tokenized assets, stablecoin payments, lending and other blockchain-based financial services across Latin America.

Since its 2013 launch, Mercado Bitcoin has expanded beyond crypto trading into regulated financial services, including tokenized assets, credit, stablecoin payments and cross-border services.

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The Reform party leader and Brexit champion confirmed that he was the subject of probes by UK authorities following reports of what he called “gifts” from figures tied to crypto ventures.

Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK’s Reform party, announced that he would resign as a member of Parliament and stand in the by-election that could replace him.

On Tuesday, Farage announced that he would resign as MP representing Clacton in response to what he called “foul means” by established politicians. The UK lawmaker’s resignation followed reports that he had personally received millions of dollars’ worth of donations and gifts from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne and George Cottrell, a convicted fraudster linked to a crypto casino.

“Let me be absolutely clear: I have done nothing wrong,” said Farage in an X livestream. “I have not broken the law in any way at all. I have not misused public money.”&

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The funding round comes as institutional investors continue backing crypto market infrastructure despite slower venture investment across the digital asset sector.

EDX Markets, a cryptocurrency exchange focused on institutional investors, has raised $76 million in a Series C funding round led by Japan’s SBI Holdings, marking one of the larger funding rounds this year for crypto market infrastructure as institutional adoption continues to expand.

The company said Monday it will use the proceeds to expand its spot trading, clearing and settlement services, develop new products and grow internationally. EDX operates a US-focused institutional spot exchange and a Singapore-based perpetual futures venue for eligible non-US institutional clients.

The latest round builds on previous backing from traditional financial companies, including Citadel Securities, Fidelity Digital Assets, Virtu Financial and Charles Schwab, highlighting continued investor appetite for institutional crypto infrastructure despite a slower venture funding market.

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Bitcoin came off two-week highs while US stocks dipped and John Bollinger described BTC price action as "at a critical point."

Bitcoin (BTC) circled $63,000 after Tuesday’s Wall Street open as chip companies led a dip in US stocks.

Key points:

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APO lets a Bitcoin signature authorize any compatible UTXO rather than one fixed outpoint. It allows for rebindable pre-signed transactions for Lightning, vaults, and layer-2 protocols without new key management overhead.

This is Part 3 in the technical article series about Bitcoin covenants by Cointelegraph Research. To read the previous article click here.&

SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT, as proposed in BIP 118, builds on the earlier SIGHASH_NOINPUT concept mentioned in the 2015 Lightning Network paper by Joseph Poon and Thaddeus Dryja, and later formally proposed by Joseph Poon on the bitcoin-dev mailing list in February 2016.

SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT is not a new opcode but a proposed new value for the SIGHASH flag, designed to be deployed as a soft-fork upgrade to Bitcoin. The SIGHASH flag is appended to a signature and determines which parts of a transaction are signed and will be checked by the CHECKSIG opcode. The selected flag is chosen by the signer, not enforced by the scriptPubKey. Due to the technical details related to upgradability in a softfork, the SIGHASH_ANYPREVOUT proposal only extends to spends from taproot addresses.

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Some Bitcoin analysts point to a deeper downside risk, while others believes they can see the early signs of a recovery.

Bitcoin is trading in a market that’s getting harder to define.

Hovering around $64,000 at the time of writing, Bitcoin is down by almost 50% from its cycle peak. That's a much shallower draw down than previous cycles, but the bull run this time around did not reach the same heights.

The 2025 rally was driven by exchange-traded fund (ETF) inflows, post-halving momentum and renewed institutional demand, pushing the market to a new all-time high of more than $126,000 in October 2025.

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K33 said Bitcoin has historically bottomed within weeks of more than half of its circulating supply being held at a loss, with strong one-year returns following in most previous cycles.

The growing Bitcoin supply held at a loss suggests that the crypto market is nearing its cycle bottom, according to digital asset brokerage company K33.

Over 50% of all Bitcoin (BTC) is currently held at a loss, K33 said in a report published Tuesday.

K33 added that because the past year's bull market was less extreme than previous cycles, the current downturn could also be less severe.

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The European Parliament adopted a digital assets report calling for further assessment of DeFi, staking, crypto lending and NFTs after MiCA’s transition period ended.

EU lawmakers on Tuesday adopted a position paper on digital assets, setting out their view on how the bloc should approach crypto regulation after the rollout of its Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework.

The paper calls on the European Commission to assess whether activities including decentralized finance (DeFi), crypto lending and borrowing, staking and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) should be brought more clearly into the EU’s regulatory perimeter. It also urges consistent application of MiCA across member states and warns against national rules that could fragment the bloc’s digital asset market.

The vote turns the report, “Digital assets – challenges for the competitiveness and integrity of the European Union’s financial system,” into Parliament’s formal policy position on digital assets, but it does not directly amend MiCA or create new legal obligations for crypto firms.

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Coinbase said its UK investment services authorization will allow institutional and advanced traders to access derivatives, while retail users will be able to trade equities.

Coinbase announced it secured a United Kingdom investment services license, allowing the platform to expand its local offering beyond spot trading and into products like equities and derivatives.&

On Tuesday, Coinbase said the authorization would enable UK users to trade financial instruments alongside crypto on its platform. Institutional and advanced traders would gain access to perpetual futures tied to crypto, equities and commodities, while retail would be able to access equities.&

The company said the approval marks its largest UK product expansion since entering the market and advances its vision of an “everything exchange” that combines crypto and traditional financial assets under a single platform. Coinbase said future rollouts would remain subject to regulatory permissions and UK market rules.

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The move follows a June 23 exploit that has now resulted in closing down the wallet, with users urged to withdraw their assets before all functions are disabled on Aug. 3, 2026.

Non-custodial multichain cryptocurrency wallet Ctrl Wallet will shut down its services, weeks after a security exploit, and told users on Tuesday to withdraw their assets within the next month.

Ctrl Wallet reported a security issue on June 23 effecting some Cardano wallets on the platform and said it entered a temporary "maintenance mode" to protect user assets until its engineering team restores full functionality.&

Earlier today, the wallet's operators announced that starting Aug. 3, 2026, sending, receiving, swapping funds and all other actions within the app will be unavailable, except for exporting users' recovery phrases.

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The Ethereum co-founder said AI recognized his intellectual habits, ending a two-week public challenge to identify an anonymous contribution he made.

Vitalik Buterin has confirmed that AI-assisted analysis used by Co-Invest CEO Franklyn Wang correctly identified his anonymous contribution to an Ethereum proposal.

The identification comes two weeks after Buterin publicly challenged whether current AI tools could pierce online anonymity.

Wang's winning submission identified an anonymous rewrite of EIP-7503 by analyzing the way it explained mathematical and technical concepts.

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Bitcoin NUPL metric data suggested that BTC price action should make new cycle lows in order to preserve historical patterns.

Bitcoin (BTC) has further to fall for one of its “cleanest cycle clocks” to signal a bear-market bottom, new analysis says.

Key points:

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The Digital Chamber filed an amicus brief urging the dismissal of the New York lawsuit seeking ownership of 39,069 dormant Bitcoin wallets, arguing it would set a dangerous precedent for self-custodial wallets.

Blockchain trade association the Digital Chamber filed an amicus brief in the New York lost property case seeking ownership of thousands of dormant Bitcoin addresses.&

The Monday filing is the second amicus brief in the case. It opposes the claims of ownership, arguing that treating dormant wallets as abandoned property would create a “pervasive cloud on title across self-custody wallets.”

Digital Chamber argues that a ruling based on the plaintiffs’ theory would undermine the “foundational principles of digital property ownership, with negative ripple effects reaching the traditional finance industry.”

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Decta's report said the market cap of eight MiCA-compliant euro stablecoins rose to $673.9 million in the year before Europe’s CASP transition period ended.

The market capitalization of compliant euro stablecoins grew 128% in the year leading up to the end of the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) transition period, according to payments infrastructure firm Decta.

Decta said in a Sunday report that the combined market cap of eight MiCA-compliant euro stablecoins rose to $673.9 million on June 28, 2026, from $295.6 million on June 30, 2025. Trading volume rose 43.1% to $67.3 million from $47 million. The number of MiCA-compliant euro stablecoins tracked in the report also rose to eight from five over the period.

Decta tracked eight euro stablecoins that were actively issuing tokens and had market capitalization and trading volume during the study period. By contrast, the European Securities and Markets Authority interim MiCA register lists a broader set, including tokens that may not meet Decta's activity criteria.

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One crypto trader noted the $2 million loss could have been prevented had the victim read the transaction route before signing the transaction.

A trader who swapped $2.01 million worth of Ether on a decentralized exchange has been left with just $14,500 worth of tokens after a router directed the order through a low-liquidity pool, allowing an Ethereum block builder to profit massively from a same-block arbitrage trade.

The trader swapped 1,126.44 of Ether (ETH) but only received 5,776 Lighter (LIT) tokens, in a “textbook case of same-block backrun extraction,” according to GoPlus Security.

“This was a real, highly imbalanced backrunner arbitrage, not a classic sandwich attack,” GoPlus Security said. Titan Builder was the biggest beneficiary, walking away with $1.8 million from the transaction, which took place on Monday at 1:59 am UTC.

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Yield Guild Games said tough crypto and video game market conditions mean its YGG Play business is no longer commercially sustainable.

Crypto gaming company Yield Guild Games says it has shut down its crypto game publishing arm, YGG Play, and will instead focus on feeding data to artificial intelligence.

Yield Guild Games said Monday that it would also lay off 35 employees, adding that a prolonged crypto market downturn and a “similarly brutal” video game publishing market meant YGG Play “cannot be commercially sustainable.”

It said a major market crash on Oct. 10 “fundamentally altered retail market psychology, and we do not expect the crypto consumer market or the Web3 games publishing market to recover sufficiently in the near term.”

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“Investors are now more confident about the instrument,” said Grayscale’s Zach Pandl regarding STRC, which reclaimed $90 for the first time in three weeks.

Strategy's $216 million Bitcoin sale on Monday should be seen as a positive development for the price of Bitcoin and as a move that renews confidence in STRC, according to analysts.

The sale of 3,588 BTC to fund preferred stock dividend payments and replenish cash has boosted Strategy’s dollar reserves to cover 17 months of dividend payments. “The rebound in STRC suggests investors are responding positively to this decision,” Grayscale Research said Monday.

Andri Fauzan Adziima, research lead at Bitrue Research Institute, told Cointelegraph that Strategy’s recent sale was a “smart, stabilizing move that actually strengthens the setup for Bitcoin.”

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US President Donald Trump once called Bitcoin “a scam,” but admitted on Monday that he got involved in crypto “a little bit for politics.”

US President Donald Trump says he got involved in crypto “for politics” and became pro-crypto after seeing how much money the industry was making.

At a press conference in the Oval Office on Monday to announce “Trump Accounts,” an investment account for children under 18, Trump was asked whether the accounts would allow for Bitcoin (BTC).

“I’ve become a big crypto guy only for one reason: If we don’t have it, China’s going to have it,” Trump answered. “I’m a fan, I wasn’t initially, I didn’t know much about it, but, for some of my first term, I wasn’t much involved, and I watched it grow, and it's a huge industry.”

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Blockchains will face increasing pressure to compromise on decentralization to meet user demand for speed and scalability, Injective CEO Eric Chen said.

Layer-1 blockchains will come under increasing pressure to sacrifice decentralization for speed and efficiency as adoption of the technology grows, according to Injective CEO Eric Chen.

This pressure will come from the need to satisfy users’ desire for faster speeds or more block space for higher throughput, Chen told Cointelegraph’s Chain Reaction podcast on Monday.&

“In our mind, it’s essentially about finding scaling opportunities without compromising the fundamental pillars that define what a blockchain is,” he said.&

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The report follows comments from White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt in May, who said the administration was examining the legal implications of creating a Bitcoin reserve.

The Trump administration’s push to establish a US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve has reportedly hit a roadblock, as the Commerce and Treasury departments are at odds over how the reserve should be structured and which agency should have primary oversight of the holdings.

US President Donald Trump’s March 2025 executive order called for the SBR to be housed inside the Treasury Department, while other agencies would assist with asset seizures to build the reserve.&

However, concerns have emerged over whether the Treasury has the legal authority to manage the Bitcoin (BTC) holdings, partly because of its volatility, Bloomberg reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.&

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Bitcoin reversed course from its Monday open selloff and closed the day above $64,000 as bulls began to price in Strategy’s selling.

Bitcoin (BTC) fell from nearly $64,000 on Sunday to about $62,000 on Monday, and the primary trigger behind the move appeared to be a SEC disclosure showing Strategy’s largest ever sale of 3,588 BTC. The fuller explanation for the price action can be found deeper in the plumbing.

Sunday’s climb toward $64,000 was almost entirely futures driven. Net futures buying reached roughly $415 million for the day, capped by a single four-hour burst of about $687 million that force-closed some $33 million in bets against Bitcoin. Spot flows over the same session were slightly negative, and this gap matters since a rally with no cash buyers behind it rests on positions that can be forced to unwind at any moment.

Monday morning delivered the unwind, and it accelerated as Strategy’s filing landed. The largest corporate Bitcoin treasury holder sold BTC for $216 million to fund dividend payments, with a further $1.25 billion of sale capacity still untouched.&

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Bollinger Bands creator John Bollinger says the charts suggest Bitcoin could take off from here. Vitalik Buterin unveils a new Ethereum strawmap, but why is it taking so long?

Michael Saylor's Strategy sold 3,588 Bitcoin (BTC) to fund preferred stock dividend payments and replenish its cash reserves.

Strategy sold the Bitcoin for $216 million, reducing its total holdings to 843,775 Bitcoin, according to a Monday 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

This included 1,363 Bitcoin sold at an average price of $59,256 between last Monday and Tuesday, and 2,225 Bitcoin sold at an average price of $60,773 between Wednesday and Sunday.

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The reported transaction comes as Tether maintains it has no plans to go public, even as other crypto companies pursue or delay IPOs.

Former Tether chief investment officer Richard Heathcote is seeking to sell part of his 1.26% stake in the stablecoin issuer, according to a Bloomberg report citing people familiar with the matter.

Heathcote stepped down as Tether's chief investment officer in March to take an advisory role after overseeing the stablecoin issuer's investment portfolio. Bloomberg reported the planned sale involves only part of his 1.26% ownership stake.

Tether issues USDt (USDT), the world's largest stablecoin by market capitalization. With a circulating supply of roughly $184 billion, USDT accounts for roughly 59% of the stablecoin market, according to DefiLlama data.

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Bitcoin sold off as news of Strategy selling BTC shook investors’ nerve but the quick rebound suggests bulls remain ambitiously positioned.

Key takeaways:

Bitcoin price quickly recovered from the selloff to $61,300 that followed Strategy’s Bitcoin sale announcement. Despite the negative impact on traders' sentiment, the additional $216 million cash position eased concerns about the company's ability to pay dividends and cover its debt. Does the quick recovery suggest that Bitcoin bulls back in control?

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The developers behind the memecoin project said they had informed law enforcement after the attack and were working to “recover funds and identify those responsible.”

The decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) behind the Bonk (BONK) memecoin reported that an unknown entity had removed $20 million worth of the tokens in what it described as an attack using a “malicious governance proposal.”

In a Monday X post, the Bonk project said that it had informed law enforcement after the $20 million attack and was working to “recover funds and identify those responsible.” According to BonkDAO, the parties had drained $20 million in tokens from the project’s treasury on the Solana blockchain.

One of the dog-themed memecoins, along with tokens like Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB), BONK launched in December 2022, with its developers airdropping half of the token’s total supply. The price of BONK dropped about 7% over 24 hours amid reports of the attack, to about $0.05.

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The Luxembourg approval completes the company's MiCA licensing process, enabling it to provide regulated crypto-asset services across the European Economic Area.

Ripple said it has received full authorization under the European Union's MiCA crypto framework after Luxembourg's financial regulator granted the company a Crypto Asset Service Provider (CASP) license.

The authorization follows Ripple's preliminary approval in June and, together with the company's existing Electronic Money Institution license, allows the blockchain payments company to offer regulated crypto-asset services across the European Economic Area (EEA).

Ripple said the approval makes it one of a small number of digital asset companies with full authorization under MiCA. The company now holds more than 75 regulatory licenses worldwide, including authorization from the United Kingdom's Financial Conduct Authority secured in January.

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Bitmine's big buy contrasts with crypto treasury peer Strategy, which reported selling millions of dollars worth of its Bitcoin holdings on Monday.

Bitmine Immersion Technologies, holding one of the largest Ether (ETH) stockpiles as part of its treasury strategy, said Monday it added of $74 million worth of the second-biggest crypto by market cap, in contrast with Strategy, a major Bitcoin (BTC) holder, which offloaded coins to fund its dividend payments.

Bitmine said that it held 5,742,237 ETH as of Sunday, marking an increase of 42,197 Ether since it reported on its holdings last week. The ETH holdings were reported when the token was valued at about $1,759, making its most recent buys worth about $74 million.& The price of ETH has since increased to $1,792 apiece at the time of publication.

Bitmine chair Tom Lee said optimism about the passage of the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act in the US was an “important milestone” that could allow “smart contract platforms like ethereum to benefit” among the company’s reasons for maintaining its treasury strategy, adding:

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The UN Development Programme said blockchain payment pilots in five countries cut costs, improved resilience and will now inform wider use across its humanitarian and development programs.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has signed a new agreement with the Stellar Development Foundation to expand the agency's use of blockchain-based payments after completing pilot projects in five countries, signaling a broader role for public blockchain infrastructure in its development programs.

The agreement follows 16 months of research and pilot programs in Haiti, Syria, Kenya, Guatemala and The Gambia, with additional projects in Colombia and Papua New Guinea, the agency said Monday. According to UNDP, the next phase will establish the process for country offices to use blockchain payments across a wider range of programs.

UNDP said the pilots produced measurable results. In Syria, a Cash for Work program that recorded payments onchain reduced distribution costs from 10% to 2%, while a pilot in Haiti continued processing payments during a cellular network outage.&

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The Bitcoin miner signed a 20-year AI infrastructure lease with Anthropic and sold its majority stake in a separate AI data center joint venture.

Bitcoin miner TeraWulf, moving deeper into AI infrastructure,& signed a 20-year data center lease with Anthropic expected to generate about $19 billion in contract revenue.

The company also announced Monday that it is selling a majority stake in a separate AI data center joint venture to reinvest in wholly owned projects.

The company's shares rose about 12% in Monday morning trading following the announcement, extending a roughly 107% year-to-date gain, according to Yahoo Finance data at the time of writing.

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Bitcoin wiped out much of its latest gains thanks to a market reaction to Strategy's 3,600 BTC sell-off, but analysis eyed a potential buy announcement in the coming days.

Bitcoin (BTC) saw flash volatility into Monday’s Wall Street open as markets reacted to tech company Strategy’s new BTC sales.

Key points:

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The FCA’s vision for agentic AI points toward a financial system where programmable money and tokenized assets could play a much larger role.

The United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has issued a broad regulatory blueprint for retail financial services, warning that retail financial services are hurtling toward total automation driven by autonomous “agentic AI.”

The landmark report, “AI and the future of retail financial services,” spearheaded by executive director Sheldon Mills, details a structural shift away from periodic, human-led decisions toward continuous, automated financial services that could increasingly rely on programmable financial infrastructure.

“The central shift is from human-led, episodic financial activity towards services that are AI-enabled, continuous and delegated,” Mills wrote. In January, the FCA launched a review into the implications of advanced AI on consumers, retail financial markets and regulators.

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Crypto exploits rose 59% quarter-on-quarter to $807.5 million in Q2, due partly to the KelpDAO and Drift Protocol exploits, which came at the hands of North Korean hackers.

Crypto losses fell 46.8% year-on-year to $1.32 billion in the first half of 2026, but crypto security firm CertiK says the drop is misleading, warning that attackers are becoming more sophisticated and destructive.&

Phishing drove the bulk of losses in the first quarter, totaling $508.2 million. Wallet compromises were the biggest attack vector in the second quarter, contributing to $807.5 million in losses, CertiK said in a report.&

More than 70% of the losses in Q2 came from the KelpDAO and Drift Protocol hacks, which are believed to have been carried out by North Korean state-sponsored hackers.&

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Strategy sold $216 million in Bitcoin to fund its dividend payments, as wealth manager Bernstein maintained its year-end Bitcoin price target of $150,000.

Michael Saylor's Strategy sold 3,588 Bitcoin (BTC) to fund preferred stock dividend payments and replenish its cash reserves.

Strategy sold the Bitcoin for $216 million, reducing its total holdings to 843,775 Bitcoin, according to a Monday 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

This included 1,363 Bitcoin sold at an average price of $59,256 between last Monday and Tuesday, and 2,225 Bitcoin sold at an average price of $60,773 between Wednesday and Sunday.

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Belgium’s FSMA warned consumers about six crypto-asset service providers it added to a fraudulent CASP list days after the EU’s MiCA transitional period expired.

[Update: 11:26 UTC, July 7 - Updates with regulator's comment beginning in the fifth paragraph.]

Belgium’s financial markets regulator warned consumers against six crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) it said were operating in the country without authorization, days after the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) licensing deadline took effect.&

On Monday, the Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) identified several CASPs active in Belgium without authorization under MiCA regulation. FSMA named Aurum Foundation, Bank Bit, Bithf Pro, Dxago, Global Dynamic Trade and ZeriaFunding. The regulator said it had added these entities to its list of fraudulent CASPs.&

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Bitcoin saw its highest levels in nearly two weeks at the weekly close, but bulls needed a push beyond $65,000 for real trend inflection, said the latest BTC price analysis.

Bitcoin (BTC) starts the second week of June near two-week highs with traders keen to see bullish continuation.

Key points:

Bitcoin kept up pressure on short positions into the weekly close, hitting $63,960 — its highest levels since June 23, per data from TradingView.

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South Korea’s media and communications review body will hear from Polymarket before deciding whether to issue a corrective request against the prediction market platform.

South Korea’s media and communications review body said it will hear from Polymarket before deciding whether to take corrective action against the prediction market platform.&

On Monday, the Broadcasting, Media and Communications Review Committee said it would allow Polymarket to submit its position before making a final decision on a corrective request regarding gambling concerns.&

“We decided to provide an opportunity for Polymarket to submit its opinion to thoroughly verify the legality of Polymarket and the way the service is operated,” the committee said, according to a machine translation of the press release.

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A Bitcoin address dormant for nearly 15 years moved $1.9 million in BTC as a New York lawsuit seeks ownership of thousands of inactive holdings.

A dormant Bitcoin address transferred 30 BTC worth about $1.88 million for the first time in almost 15 years.

Bitcoin address "1KV47" made its first outgoing transfer on Saturday since receiving 30 BTC in August 2011, blockchain data shared by Galaxy Research shows.

The address is among 39,069 listed in a New York lawsuit filed by "Noah Doe" and two Wyoming-based companies seeking ownership of dormant Bitcoin holdings. The case could test how inactive cryptocurrency holdings are treated under the state's lost-property law.

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Before he was an MP, Nigel Farage was reportedly gifted staff, security and other benefits from George Cottrell, a convicted fraudster involved in a crypto casino.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage reportedly accepted gifts that he did not publicly disclose from a crypto entrepreneur convicted of fraud in the US, according to The Sunday Times.&

The news outlet reported on Saturday that Farage was gifted staff, security, transport and accommodation by George Cottrell, an aristocrat involved in an offshore crypto casino who has been a close adviser to Farage for more than 10 years.

Farage said in a statement on Sunday that he “followed the rules” over the gifts from Cottrell, which he received before he was elected a member of parliament in July 2024, and called The Times’ report a “hit job.”

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Stablecoins are maturing and are positioned for even greater reach as the market evolves, said crypto researcher Nick Ruck.

Adjusted stablecoin transaction volume hit a record $1.79 trillion in June, up 63% from May’s $1.1 trillion, according to payments giant Visa.

June’s record stablecoin transaction volume surpassed the previous record of $1.78 trillion in February, and is up 125% from the prior-year period, according to Visa’s Allium-powered stablecoin analytics dashboard.&

“June 2026 was another record month for stablecoin transaction volume, just ahead of February 2026,” said Zach Pandl, head of research at Grayscale, on Sunday.&

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Thousands of crypto wallets across multiple blockchains could be vulnerable due to weak recovery phrase generation.

Thousands of crypto wallets are at risk of being drained due to the use of weaker-than-intended recovery phrases, an exploit that Blockchain security research firm Coinspect has dubbed “Ill Bloom.”

The wallets at risk span Bitcoin, Ethereum, Polygon, Rootstock, Tron and Solana, Coinspect said in a disclosure on Sunday, with the issue related to weak randomness — an insecure pseudorandom number generator — used during recovery phrase generation on certain software wallets.&

“If funds recently moved without your permission, this vulnerability may be why,” Coinspect said.&

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“We need to think about new tools and a different way of working with the [AI] market in a more collaborative way,” says Nikhil Rathi, CEO of the UK’s finance watchdog.

European regulators and central bankers have warned that rulemaking cannot keep pace with rapid advances in agentic artificial intelligence and have called for guardrails to protect the financial system.&

Bank of England deputy governor Sarah Breeden is one of several central bankers who have said that agentic AI could amplify volatility during bouts of market stress.

Breeden questioned if guardrails are needed, “analogous to circuit breakers or kill switches that would limit or stop trading market-wide if faulty AI models cause market meltdown,” she said at the European Central Bank’s annual meeting in Sintra, Portugal, on Tuesday.

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Nansen analysis shows that just under half a million wallets profited on Donald Trump’s memecoin, while the large majority of buyers lost out.

Nearly 1 million buyers of Official Trump (TRUMP), US President Donald Trump’s memecoin, have lost a collective $3.8 billion on the token as of the end of June, newly reported analysis shows.

As of the end of last month, 988,905 TRUMP buyers, or around two out of every three buyers, have lost money on the memecoin, The New York Times reported on Saturday, citing a report by analytics firm Nansen.

Those buyers lost a total of $3.81 billion, which includes those who have held on to the token at a loss.

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Japan's SBI Crypto shuts down 12th largest Bitcoin mining pool in the world, Russia gears up to launch digital ruble despite EU sanctions, and more: Asia Express.

The Indian central bank reportedly urged lawmakers to keep banks insulated from crypto and private stablecoins while preserving room for regulated tokenization.

According to a report by The Economic Times, RBI Deputy Governor Rohit Jain and Executive Director P. Vasudevan presented the central bank’s position to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance on Thursday.

In a background note submitted to the panel, the RBI reportedly said prohibition remained a recognized policy option and recommended preventing the use of crypto in payments and settlements while restricting banking-sector exposure.

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Japan's SBI Crypto shuts down 12th largest Bitcoin mining pool in the world, Russia gears up to launch digital ruble despite EU sanctions, and more: Asia Express.

The Indian central bank reportedly urged lawmakers to keep banks insulated from crypto and private stablecoins while preserving room for regulated tokenization.

According to a report by The Economic Times, RBI Deputy Governor Rohit Jain and Executive Director P. Vasudevan presented the central bank’s position to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance on Thursday.

In a background note submitted to the panel, the RBI reportedly said prohibition remained a recognized policy option and recommended preventing the use of crypto in payments and settlements while restricting banking-sector exposure.

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Bitcoin reached its highest levels in nearly a fortnight over the weekend, but BTC price action faced an "absolutely terrible" Monday track record.

Bitcoin (BTC) consolidated near two-week highs into Sunday’s weekly close as traders geared up for fresh market turbulence.

Key points:

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South Africa’s tax authority proposed draft guidance clarifying how crypto assets are taxed under existing income and capital gains tax rules, seeking public input until Aug. 31.

South Africa’s tax authority has proposed new guidance that clarifies how crypto assets are taxed under existing income and capital gains tax frameworks.

The South African Revenue Service (SARS) on Wednesday published draft guidelines on crypto asset taxation, applying South Africa’s existing tax framework, primarily the Income Tax Act, 1962, alongside capital gains tax rules.

The draft provides that most crypto activities, including trading, swapping and spending, are generally treated as disposals that may trigger tax events. It still emphasizes that the rules depend heavily on each taxpayer’s specific circumstances.

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Binance recorded $1.23 billion in weekly net outflows, up 207% from the previous week, as Ethereum withdrawals surged to a three-year high.

Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, recorded a sharp surge in weekly outflows as Ethereum withdrawal activity climbed to a multi-year high.

According to DefiLlama data viewed by Cointelegraph on Sunday, Binance saw $1.23 billion in net outflows during the week beginning June 29, a 207% increase from roughly $400 million the week prior, while monthly net outflows totaled about $3.2 billion.

Separately, CryptoQuant community analyst Darkfost reported Friday that Binance’s Ethereum withdrawal transactions hit their highest level in more than three years, with over 166,000 withdrawal transactions in a single day.

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Part of the Ethereum Foundation’s plan to make Ethereum more private and scalable is to introduce a new virtual machine, with leanISA and RISC-V among the top candidates.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has named quantum resistance, scalability and privacy as three of Ethereum's top priorities under a new "Lean Ethereum" strawmap, which lays out the network's technical direction for the remainder of the decade.&

In a post to X on Saturday, Buterin said the collection of upgrades will roll out over the next three to four years, touching nearly every layer of Ethereum in a transformation he compared in scale to the September 2022 Merge, which shifted the network away from energy-intensive mining.&

“Quantum safety has shifted up a LOT in priority,” he said, adding that finalizing a quantum-safe solution for blobs has “become urgent.” Enhancing privacy is another priority, Buterin said, stating that it has become a “first class goal.”

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Moonbeam didn’t provide a timeline for when it would launch the AI agent platform but told GLMR holders to bridge their tokens from the Polkadot parachain to Base before July 31.

Polkadot-based interoperability protocol Moonbeam said it is pivoting to Ethereum layer 2 Base to launch an AI agent communication and settlement network, aimed at capturing a share of the emerging market.&

“This is a pivot to the most exciting frontier in crypto: autonomous AI agents that find each other, negotiate work, and pay each other entirely on-chain, without a middleman,” Moonbeam said in a statement announcing the Moonbeam Protocol on Friday.&

“We believe AI-native on-chain coordination represents a significant long-term opportunity. This transition allows us to focus resources around that direction,” Moonbeam added.

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Eligible users can now use select tokenized stocks and ETFs as collateral for futures and margin trading without selling their holdings.

Crypto exchange Kraken has begun accepting select tokenized stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) as collateral for futures and margin trading, allowing eligible users to open leveraged positions without selling their holdings.

The feature initially supports 10 tokenized stocks and ETFs, including Apple, Nvidia, Tesla, Strategy, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF and Invesco QQQ Trust. Eligible users can post those holdings as collateral without selling them first.

Each eligible asset is assigned a collateral haircut that reduces its lending value based on risk. Broad-market ETFs receive the lowest haircut at 10%, while more volatile stocks such as Strategy and Robinhood are discounted by 30%.

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Kalshi posted a record month for trading volume as the expanded FIFA World Cup boosted prediction market activity, DefiLlama data shows.

Kalshi posted a record month for trading volume in June, nearly $9.4 billion, as the 2026 FIFA World Cup fueled activity across prediction markets, DefiLlama data shows.

That was up from about $5.3 billion in May. Polymarket International also climbed to roughly $4.3 billion from about $3.5 billion a month earlier.

The tournament kicked off on June 11 and is the first FIFA World Cup to feature 48 teams, up from 32 in previous editions. CNBC reported the competition became the biggest driver of prediction market trading in June, with Dune Analytics showing record notional trading volumes on Kalshi and Polymarket.

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DefiLlama data shows Kalshi posted a record month for trading volume as the expanded FIFA World Cup boosted prediction market activity.

Kalshi posted a record month for trading volume in June as the 2026 FIFA World Cup fueled activity across prediction markets.

DefiLlama data shows Kalshi recorded nearly $9.4 billion in trading volume in June, up from about $5.3 billion in May. Polymarket International also climbed to roughly $4.3 billion from about $3.5 billion a month earlier.

The tournament kicked off on June 11 and is the first FIFA World Cup to feature 48 teams, up from 32 in previous editions. CNBC reported the competition became the biggest driver of prediction market trading in June, with Dune Analytics showing record notional trading volumes on Kalshi and Polymarket.

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Bitcoin price strength could "break" the entire downtrend if the reversal pattern completed, John Bollinger suggested in light of the BTC rebound.

Bitcoin (BTC) is completing a “perfectly fractal” reversal pattern that a well-known analyst hopes could end the bear market.

Key points:

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Revolut notified some customers it will delist USDT after Aug. 31, with remaining holdings automatically converted into users’ base currency.

Revolut, a crypto-friendly digital banking platform headquartered in the United Kingdom, notified some users it will delist Tether USDt (USDT) stablecoin in August, citing regulatory and risk concerns.

In a Friday customer notice seen by Cointelegraph, Revolut said users will no longer be able to buy USDT starting July 6, with full delisting scheduled for Aug. 31, 2026.

If users do not sell or withdraw their USDT by the end of August, Revolut will automatically convert any remaining USDT holdings into users’ base currency at the day’s exchange rate, the company said.

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Tim Draper disputes Arkham's Bitcoin wallet attribution, saying: “I haven’t touched it. Arkham has it wrong.”

Update July 5, 6:45 am UTC: This article has been updated to include additional comments from Tim Draper.&

Billionaire investor and longtime Bitcoin bull Tim Draper said blockchain analytics company Arkham incorrectly linked him to a wallet involved in a large Bitcoin transfer to Coinbase Prime.

“It just wasn’t me. I haven’t touched it. Arkham has it wrong,” Draper told Cointelegraph, adding that he still expects Bitcoin to reach $250,000 within one year.

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Tim Draper denies moving Bitcoin after blockchain analysts linked him to a wallet that transferred 1,000 BTC to Coinbase Prime.

Billionaire investor and longtime Bitcoin bull Tim Draper has denied moving his Bitcoin after blockchain analysts linked him to a large BTC transfer to Coinbase Prime.

“Haven’t touched my BTC,” Draper told Cointelegraph on Friday, adding that he still expects Bitcoin to reach $250,000 within one year.

The statement came after blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain reported Friday that a wallet “possibly linked” to Draper had transferred 1,000 Bitcoin worth about $62 million to Coinbase Prime, citing data from Arkham.

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Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan said the bottom is “closer than ever,” while a Swan Bitcoin analyst suggested investors buy now at a discount rather than overpaying later.

Bitcoin’s realized profit and loss ratio has fallen to a 43-month low of -0.35, a figure that signals extreme market-wide loss conditions but has historically coincided with market bottoms, blockchain analytics platform CryptoQuant said.

The Bitcoin realized P&L ratio — which measures the net percentage of Bitcoin (BTC) in profit or loss relative to total supply — hasn’t fallen this low since December 2022, shortly after FTX shockingly collapsed and sent Bitcoin below $16,000.

“Historically the indicator has marked BTC bottoms with extreme precision,” CryptoQuant said on Thursday. In 2015 and 2019, the Bitcoin realized P&L ratio also fell below -0.35 before price rallies followed.&

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The Major County Sheriffs of America said it still wants the CLARITY Act amended to give local law enforcement more resources to investigate illicit finance cases.

The Major County Sheriffs of America reportedly said it no longer opposes the CLARITY Act after initially raising concerns over how the bill would affect illicit finance investigations.

In a letter to US Senate Banking Committee chair Tim Scott and Senator Elizabeth Warren on Friday, the MCSA said it shifted its stance on the CLARITY Act to “neutral” after some of its concerns in a May 14 letter regarding Section 604 in the bill were addressed.

Section 604 relates to the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, which seeks to protect developers from liability for illicit activity committed by users on their decentralized platforms.

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Bitcoin and Ether bounced off multi-year lows as dip buyers finally stepped in, and the spot BTC ETFs saw a $221 million inflow on July 2.

Bitcoin (BTC) rallied, $50 short of $63,000, on July 3, and Ether (ETH) outperformed the wider market, pushing to $1,775. The end-of-week rally comes a few days after BTC fell to a 21-month low and ETH sank to fresh year-to-date lows. Highlighting the negative sentiment, the Crypto Fear & Greed index registered “Extreme Fear” at 11 out of 100.&

Crypto Fear & Greed Index. Source: Alternative.me

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Rising interest in Solana-network memecoins and prediction markets was followed by a rally in SOL price. Will the momentum continue?

Key takeaways:

Solana’s SOL token jumped to its highest mark in over 30 days on Friday at $83, marking a decoupling from the altcoin market. SOL’s rally gained steam from a surge in tokenized trading volume on Solana, inflows of stablecoin liquidity, and an unexpected comeback in memecoin activity. Can SOL reclaim the $90 level?

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The restriction proposed by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand would bar members of Congress, the US president and their spouses from “issuing or sponsoring their own digital assets.”

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, one of the US lawmakers behind negotiations for a digital asset market structure bill in Congress, has proposed barring elected officials and the president from issuing or sponsoring their own tokens, citing President Donald Trump’s and First Lady Melania Trump’s memecoins.

In a Friday notice, Gillibrand said that Congress should support measures barring elected officials and their spouses from “issuing or sponsoring their own digital assets.” The New York lawmaker said that the proposed restriction would include any US president and their spouse, but did not specifically mention extending the provision to the office of the vice president or other members of their families.&

“This is a commonsense requirement that should get broad bipartisan support – public officials and their spouses should not be issuing memecoins,” said Gillibrand. “We cannot let self-dealing destroy an opportunity to strengthen consumer protections, crack down on illicit finance, and expand economic opportunity for the millions of Americans our financial system has left behind.”

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The US President disclosed earning more than $1 billion from crypto ventures amid discussions of a digital asset market structure bill in Congress and legislation to ban CBDCs awaiting his desk.

US President Donald Trump has responded to criticism of his 2025 financial disclosures, showing that he earned $1.4 billion in income from crypto-related ventures while in office.

In a Thursday interview with CNBC’s Joe Kernen, Trump said that there was “nothing illegal” and “nothing wrong” with profiting from his crypto investments as president. He claimed that other people were responsible for his investments and he didn’t “even know who they are,” not directly answering questions about perceived conflicts of interest as president.

Donald Trump (left) and Joe Kernen (right). Source: CNBC

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The European regulator said companies cannot circumvent EU financial rules by marketing binary-style products as event contracts rather than derivatives.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA)& has warned that many prediction market contracts may already fall under existing restrictions on binary options, saying companies cannot avoid financial regulations simply by marketing them as "event contracts."

In a public statement on Friday, the regulator reminded companies that event contracts meeting the definition of financial instruments are already prohibited from being marketed, distributed or sold to retail investors under national measures implementing ESMA's 2018 binary options restrictions.

ESMA said the assessment depends on a contract's characteristics rather than how it is marketed, adding that event contracts with binary outcomes and fixed payouts are likely to qualify as financial instruments subject to the restrictions.

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Strategy authorizes Bitcoin sales, Open USD takes on USDT and USDC, Fidelity defends Bitcoin security and crypto ramps up political spending for 2026.

For years, Michael Saylor’s Strategy built its brand around a simple mantra: Buy Bitcoin. Never sell. This week, that narrative changed.& &

The company authorized up to $1.25 billion in Bitcoin sales under a new capital framework. At current prices, that equates to roughly 21,000 BTC that could eventually hit the market — a reminder that even Bitcoin’s most committed corporate holder isn’t immune to the realities of capital management.

This week’s Crypto Biz explores how the digital asset industry is entering a more pragmatic phase, where ideological purity is giving way to financial discipline. It also examines the intensifying stablecoin race as issuers compete for reserve yield, Fidelity's latest defense of Bitcoin's long-term security model and the crypto industry’s growing political influence ahead of the 2026 US midterm elections.

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Bitcoin set new highs for July after the Dow Jones and global stocks market cap set new all-time highs before the US Independence Day holiday.

Bitcoin (BTC) saw new July highs on Friday as bulls kept pushing over the US holiday period.

Key points:

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Lawyers and industry executives expect EU regulators to enforce MiCA differently as unauthorized crypto companies are required to wind down operations.

Update (July 4, 6:30 AM UTC): This article has been updated to correct information regarding MiCA compliance costs.

The European Union’s cryptocurrency industry has entered a new enforcement phase as the transition period under the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation came to an end.

The end of the transition means crypto companies without MiCA authorization can no longer legally serve EU clients and are expected to wind down operations or face multimillion-euro fines and other enforcement action.

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Upbit said it only expressed interest in potentially joining the OpenStandard ecosystem in the future, as several South Korean firms distanced themselves from the OUSD initiative.

South Korean crypto exchange Upbit said it is not participating in the issuance of Open USD, after its operator Dunamu was named among more than 140 businesses involved in the new stablecoin initiative.&

“Upbit has only indicated our potential willingness to consider taking part in the future expansion of the OpenStandard ecosystem,” an Upbit spokesperson told Cointelegraph.&

The clarification follows similar pushback from Samsung Electronics and other South Korean companies listed by Open Standard.&

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Belgian authorities say a European phishing gang stole over $572,000 from victims before laundering the proceeds through cryptocurrency.

Belgian authorities arrested a 19-year-old suspected of being a key figure in a European phishing and money-laundering network that stole more than 500,000 euros ($572,000) using fake government emails and phone calls to trick victims into installing remote-access software.

Authorities detained the suspect in an Airbnb in Antwerp, where a second suspect was also found. The Federal Judicial Police launched the investigation in March 2026, when phishing attacks became a priority in the region, according to a Thursday police report.

The main suspect was brought before an investigating judge, who issued an arrest warrant. The gang used money mules and cash carriers and laundered the proceeds through cryptocurrencies.

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ESMA publishes its first post-deadline MiCA register update, adding 37 crypto-asset service providers, including Standard Chartered and FalconX.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published the first update to its register of crypto companies under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) after the transitional period ended Wednesday.

Friday's update to the register added 37 licensed crypto-asset service providers (CASPs), including global banking group Standard Chartered, which secured MiCA authorization from Luxembourg regulators on June 25.

Among the new CASPs are digital asset prime brokerage FalconX, Sygnum Europe and Ronin EM, while the register of electronic money tokens (EMTs) has added Crédit Agricole’s CACEIS.

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Bitcoin supply dynamics pointed toward the end of the 2026 bear market after the first "buy" signal since November 2022, but analysis warned that BTC price could still go lower.

Bitcoin (BTC) has added another bear-market bottom signal this month as analysis draws comparisons to November 2022.

Key points:

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Shielded Labs said exchanges, mining pools and wallets may need more time to complete Zcash’s Z3 software migration and safely prepare for Ironwood.

Shielded Labs has raised the possibility of delaying Zcash's Ironwood network upgrade, warning that ecosystem participants like exchanges, mining pools and wallets may not have enough time to prepare their systems for the planned activation in late July.&

Jason McGee, executive director of Shielded Labs, said in a Zcash community forum post that two major projects are moving forward at the same time. Alongside Ironwood, infrastructure providers are being asked to replace Zcash’s longstanding node and wallet software, zcashd, with a new collection of tools known as the Z3 stack.

The concerns highlight the trade-off between quickly restoring confidence in Zcash’s shielded supply and giving ecosystem participants enough time to deploy and audit the new infrastructure safely.&

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