The convergence of AI and crypto mining signals a transformative shift, offering stable revenue but posing execution and competition challenges.

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The use of AI in warfare escalates technological arms race, complicating defense strategies and potentially altering geopolitical power dynamics.

The post Russian military targets Ukrainian port with AI-powered drones appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Iran's firm stance on the Strait of Hormuz may prolong market instability, affecting global oil supply and geopolitical dynamics.

The post Iran reaffirms control over Strait of Hormuz amid US tensions appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The U.S. strikes may shift the strategic balance in the Strait of Hormuz, potentially reducing Iran's threat to commercial shipping.

The post US Army strikes Iranian missile systems, IRGC boats near Strait of Hormuz appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

This deal underscores the strategic financial maneuvering in football, balancing risk and reward while optimizing player asset management.

The post Genoa secures Hamed Traoré on loan from Marseille with €8M buy option, highlighting football’s traditional transfer economics appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

U.S. Representatives Urge Senate to Vote on CLARITY Act in July, Address Ethics Concerns

Rep. French Hill wants a deadline. 

One year after the House passed the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act, the Arkansas Republican who chairs the House Financial Services Committee used a Fox Business interview with anchor Maria Bartiromo to press Senate leaders for a floor vote before the August recess.

“I’ve encouraged Senate leadership to put it on the floor,” Hill said. “I think if you schedule a floor date here in the month of July, that will cause these final meetings, these final discussions to take place. You’ve got to have a deadline in Congress to get people to move and find consensus.” 

Hill thanked Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Cynthia Lummis, John Boozman and Tim Scott for working toward a deal, and pointed to the 78 Democrats who backed the House measure a year ago.

Hill’s central argument is that the CLARITY Act would resolve the ethics concerns now used to block it, rather than deepen them. 

Critics point to President Trump’s crypto ventures, including $TRUMP meme coin licensing and World Liberty Financial token sales, which a July 1 financial disclosure tied to about $1.4 billion in 2025 income. 

Hill contends a market framework offers the transparency those critics want. 

“If we passed the CLARITY Act last summer, many of the things that people are expressing concern about — meme coin issuance, co-investment, use of exchange, investing in exchanges — all that would be under a market framework of regulation with clarity, no pun intended, and that would provide a lot of transparency to people that are concerned about the Trump family’s investments,” he said.

Clarity Act pairs with the GENIUS Act

Hill framed the bill as the missing half of a system that pairs it with the GENIUS Act, the stablecoin law enacted last year. 

“Stablecoin is like a cell phone not connected to a cell phone network,” he said, “and the market framework is in fact that network that we need.” To keep the pressure on, Hill plans a field hearing in New York next week, led by digital assets subcommittee chair Rep. Bryan Steil, to make the case for a market structure.

His push drew support from two other voices in the same Bartiromo appearance. CFTC Chairman Michael Selig warned of “mission creep beyond what’s really critical here” and cautioned that a stalled bill leaves the rules to regulators. 

Coinbase Vice Chair Ryan VanGrack, a former SEC official, described the measure as “on the one-yard line,” with senators from both parties “working around the clock to get this across the finish line.”

The Senate returns July 13 with about three weeks before recess. Prediction market Polymarket prices Clarity Act 2026 passage near 39%, a fall from the prior month’s 74%.

This post U.S. Representatives Urge Senate to Vote on CLARITY Act in July, Address Ethics Concerns first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Circle (CRCL) Wins Final OCC Approval for National Trust Bank

Circle Internet Group secured final approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency today, to establish a national trust bank, a milestone that sent the stablecoin issuer’s shares higher and deepened its ties to the federal banking system.

The regulator cleared Circle to charter First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A., which will operate under the name Circle National Trust. 

The company, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker CRCL, said the charter places the new entity under direct federal oversight by the OCC, the primary supervisor for national banks and national trust banks.

Circle National Trust will provide fiduciary custody services for digital assets held by Circle and its affiliates. Under the business plan the OCC approved, the bank could extend custody services to a limited set of institutional customers, with a focus on banks and regulated derivatives organizations. 

The charter opens a path for the bank to manage the reserve backing USDC, the largest regulated stablecoin, which would bring that multibillion-dollar pool under federal supervision.

National trust banks differ from traditional lenders. They safeguard client assets and provide fiduciary services, and they do not take deposits or issue loans. The structure aligns its digital-asset infrastructure with a long-standing model for holding client assets under strict fiduciary standards.

“OCC approval to establish Circle National Trust marks a defining step in bringing blockchain technology and digital assets into the core of the U.S. financial system,” said Jeremy Allaire, co-founder, chairman, and chief executive of Circle. He said federal oversight of the trust bank “sets a new standard for transparency, governance, and scale” and unlocks a phase of adoption in which large financial institutions can build on public blockchains with confidence.

Investors welcomed the decision. CRCL shares climbed as much as 14% on the day of the announcement, a rebound from a three-month low. Other crypto-linked names, including Coinbase and Strategy, posted gains near 5% this morning as bitcoin bounced.

CRCL shares have since settled to 5% gains.

Circle’s federal framework

The approval caps a process that began when Circle filed its application on June 30, 2025. The OCC granted conditional approval in December 2025, alongside peers such as Ripple, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Paxos. 

The final decision arrives as the GENIUS Act, the federal stablecoin law enacted in July 2025, moves toward full implementation in early 2027. 

That statute requires OCC supervision of large stablecoin issuers, and the trust charter positions Circle to meet the mandate while bringing USDC reserves into a federal framework.

Circle has built a record of regulatory engagement across markets. It received a BitLicense from New York in 2015, became the first global stablecoin issuer to comply with the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets framework in 2024, and holds licenses in the United Kingdom, Singapore, Bermuda, and Abu Dhabi.

The charter strengthens USDC’s role as regulated digital-dollar infrastructure for payments, settlement, and capital markets, Circle said.

This post Circle (CRCL) Wins Final OCC Approval for National Trust Bank first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Metaplanet Announces Joint Study to Bring Bitcoin-Backed Digital Credit to Japan

Metaplanet wants to turn its bitcoin pile into a credit market. On Friday, Japan’s largest corporate bitcoin holder said it has opened a joint study with three partners to build tokenized credit products backed by bitcoin, a step that pushes the company past simple treasury accumulation and toward the role of a financial platform.

The study group brings together Metaplanet, the yen stablecoin issuer JPYC, the regulated security token platform Progmat, and Siiibo Securities, the licensed brokerage Metaplanet bought last month for 2.1 billion yen, or about $13 million. Siiibo becomes Metaplanet Securities on July 13.

The four firms will examine whether bitcoin can serve as collateral for credit instruments that pay interest each day. Metaplanet frames this as a product that exists in the United States but not in Japan. 

Digitization, the company said, would allow trading and settlement of these instruments around the clock, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with rights management at the holder level, pro-rata interest math handled in software, and redemptions recorded on a public ledger.

Bitcoin-backed credit is a young product class. Public companies that hold bitcoin use the asset as core collateral for debt offerings, and those offerings pay dividends or interest. The design takes a static coin balance and turns it into an instrument that throws off cash.

Metaplanet was blunt about how early this is. “The four companies will examine issues in product design, the need for proof-of-concept initiatives, and the possibility of future issuance,” the company said. “At this time, nothing has been determined regarding issuance timing, terms, yield, product details, distribution methods, or the form of collaboration.” 

Why Japan?

The pitch rests on a gap in Japan’s debt market. That market favors large corporations that can float public bonds. Mid-sized and growth companies face steep costs and heavy operational load around issuance, sales, investor management, interest payments, and redemptions. Many of them stay shut out.

Digital credit, in Metaplanet’s telling, could open the door to those smaller firms. Onchain infrastructure would bridge traditional capital markets and blockchain rails, cut the manual work, and give issuers a path to raise money that a public bond sale did not offer them. If it works, a growth company in Tokyo could raise debt on a system that settles at any hour and tracks every holder in code.

Each partner brings one piece. Metaplanet and its securities arm will design the products that fuse bitcoin with credit, sell them to investors, field customer questions, and manage the instruments after issuance. 

JPYC will test whether its yen-pegged stablecoin can move payments and redemptions through the system. Progmat will supply the regulated tokenization layer, which tracks ownership, processes transfers, and wires the whole thing to the stablecoin payment system.

The division of labor maps onto a full stack: an issuer and distributor with a license, a settlement asset, and a token platform.

Metaplanet’s bigger plan

The study fits a strategy the company calls Project Nova, its plan to build a bitcoin-centric financial platform in Japan. The Siiibo purchase gave Metaplanet a Type I Financial Instruments Business Operator registration, the license Japan requires to structure and sell financial products to retail investors. 

Siiibo, founded in 2019, runs an online platform for private-placement corporate bonds and has backed more than 40 issuers across 100-plus offerings. Metaplanet gains that track record, plus a shareholder base of about 250,000 investors to sell into.

Simon Gerovich, Metaplanet’s president and CEO, has cast the shift in stark terms. “We view Bitcoin not as a treasury reserve asset, but as the foundation of the next generation of financial ecosystems,” he said when the Siiibo deal was announced.

Metaplanet holds 43,000 BTC, worth about $2.47 billion. Strategy and Twenty One Capital are the two public holders ranked above it.

For the moment, the digital credit plan is a set of questions and four companies willing to study them. Whether it becomes a product depends on the proof-of-concept work that remains. But the direction is clear: Metaplanet wants its bitcoin to do more than sit on a balance sheet. It wants the coin to underwrite a market.

This post Metaplanet Announces Joint Study to Bring Bitcoin-Backed Digital Credit to Japan first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin is “A Screaming Buy”: Standard Chartered Backs $100,000 Target, Shrugs Off Strategy (MSTR) Sell-Off

Standard Chartered maintained its end-2026 Bitcoin price forecast of $100,000 in a note to investors on Friday, arguing that the recent weakness reflects a failure by Strategy to explain a strategic shift rather than any deterioration in the company’s balance sheet.

Geoffrey Kendrick, the bank’s global head of digital assets research, wrote that Strategy — the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, with 843,775 coins, more than 4% of the 21 million that will ever exist — “appears to be pivoting from its ‘never sell Bitcoin’ mantra to a more complex approach.” 

Clear communication of that pivot, he wrote, will determine how fast the pressure on BTC lifts.

Between 2020 and mid-2025, Strategy’s mNAV — enterprise value divided by the value of its Bitcoin — traded above 1.0. That premium lets the company issue shares, buy Bitcoin, and grow its value by more than the value of the new stock. Convincing the market it would never sell was the load-bearing part of the model.

With mNAV near 1.0, that arithmetic no longer works. Kendrick said Strategy is pivoting toward holding Bitcoin as backing for STRC, its perpetual preferred stock, which functions as a credit product.

The STRC feedback loop

STRC pays a 12% annual dividend, settled twice a month in cash, with the rate reset each month to keep the security near its $100 par value. It has about $10 billion notional outstanding, the largest of the instruments Strategy has deployed.

A negative feedback loop took hold once STRC broke from par, hitting an intraday low of $71.25 on June 26. The divergence began after the June 1 disclosure that Strategy had sold 32 BTC the prior week. STRC still trades near $90, according to Standard Chartered. The USD reserve for STRC dividends stands at $2.55 billion, or 17.4 months of coverage.

Bitcoin is a ‘screaming buy’

The problem with “never sell,” Kendrick argued, is that it constrains how Bitcoin gets perceived. Strategy has announced a monetization program that lets it sell BTC from time to time, including up to $1.25 billion in proceeds for the reserve.

Given its Bitcoin backing, STRC is over-collateralized and should trade back toward $100, the note said. Kendrick compared the mechanism to a central bank promising to do “whatever it takes” and, through credibility, never having to act. 

Effective signaling, he wrote, should remove the need for Strategy to sell any Bitcoin. Kendrick treats the episode as noise rather than a signal about BTC’s medium-term direction. At $64,000, he calls the coin “a screaming buy.”

Strategy sold 3,588 BTC for about $216 million last week, its largest disposal to date, using the proceeds to fund preferred stock distributions and refill the reserve. JPMorgan analysts said the formal sale policy introduces “avoidable two-way risk” by making Strategy both buyer and seller. 

Strategy’s stock trades near $98 on Thursday. BTC traded above $64,400 on Friday.

This post Bitcoin is “A Screaming Buy”: Standard Chartered Backs $100,000 Target, Shrugs Off Strategy (MSTR) Sell-Off first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

JPMorgan Says the Real Threat to Bitcoin Isn’t Strategy (MSTR) — It’s Private Blockchains

Strategy’s recent bitcoin sales and its formal monetization program have rattled investors, but JPMorgan analysts see a bigger danger to bitcoin: blockchain adoption that routes around public networks and the tokens that ride on them.

In a report led by managing director Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou and reported by The Block, the bank argued that Strategy is not the main structural threat to the asset. 

The company sold 3,588 bitcoin for $216 million in early July to cover preferred dividends, its largest disposal on record, and such sales can add bursts of selling pressure. The deeper concern, the analysts said, is where tokenization, payments and settlement end up.

Should that activity settle on permissioned rails rather than public chains, the crypto ecosystem could face a structural de-rating — thinner liquidity, weaker capital flows and slower on-chain volume — a drag that would reach bitcoin in time.

Institutions have leaned toward permissioned blockchains, which offer privacy, know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering controls, governance, throughput, legal accountability and regulatory certainty. 

That preference, per JPMorgan, creates a competitive problem for public networks like Ethereum.

The analysts cited the Bank for International Settlements, which has warned against public permissionless chains for systemic financial infrastructure and has pushed instead for “unified ledgers” that hold tokenized central bank money, bank deposits and assets inside regulated walls.

Tokenization as a real-world use case

Banks are building to that spec. Tokenized deposits — digital claims on bank balances, backed by banking regulation and deposit insurance — stand out as the clearest case. Should such deposits spread in the non-transferable forms regulators favor, they could crowd out stablecoins in institutional payments. 

SWIFT’s blockchain project and central bank digital currency efforts such as the digital euro and digital yuan would reinforce that regulated lane.

Real-world asset tokenization tells a similar story. The market sits near $50 billion, much of it on Ethereum for now, though the analysts read that as early experimentation rather than a settled structure. 

As adoption matures, issuance, custody and settlement could migrate to private infrastructure, leaving public chains for distribution and interoperability. DTCC and Securitize show the pattern in motion, and the analysts questioned whether public settlement is even the most efficient model for regulated firms, given the capital savings of deferred, netted settlement.

What could prove JPMorgan wrong

The Clarity Act, even should it pass this year, might not lift the threat; it could embolden bank-issued deposit tokens at the expense of public stablecoins. 

The analysts flagged three ways their thesis breaks: a hybrid model where both chain types matter, stronger stablecoin adoption under friendly rules, or bitcoin holding its role as “digital gold” and a debasement hedge whatever happens across the rest of crypto.

This post JPMorgan Says the Real Threat to Bitcoin Isn’t Strategy (MSTR) — It’s Private Blockchains first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Demand for XRP is weakening across several key market indicators, testing whether the XRP Ledger’s (XRPL) growing institutional pipeline can translate into sustained investor and network activity.

US spot XRP exchange-traded funds recorded about $7.2 million in net outflows in the week ended July 10, according to SoSoValue. The withdrawals ended a nine-week inflow streak that brought nearly $200 million into the products.

The weekly outflow ranked among the five largest for XRP funds this year, though it represented only a modest reversal in the broader trend. The products have attracted cumulative net inflows of $1.48 billion, while their combined assets approached $1 billion at the end of the week.

Still, the shift coincided with a decline in futures exposure and some of the weakest XRPL user activity recorded in 2026, suggesting that demand is cooling across both regulated investment products and the wider market.

XRP open interest falls as bullish traders pay more

That cooling in fund demand is also showing up in the leveraged market, where traders are cutting exposure.

Global open interest in XRP futures fell from nearly $3 billion in June to about $2.3 billion by mid-July, according to CoinGlass.

The decline was most evident on Binance, where open interest fell from over $500 million in mid-June to $399 million by July 10, according to CryptoQuant data. Long liquidations rose 94% from the previous week and stood 172% above their three-month average, while short liquidations fell by more than half.

Meanwhile, XRP funding rates moved in the opposite direction. Binance’s XRP funding rate increased 266% over the week despite a shrinking pool of open positions and elevated long liquidations.

The divergence suggests that the remaining bullish traders are paying higher premiums to maintain exposure in a contracting derivatives market.

That structure could leave XRP vulnerable to another funding reset if prices weaken and additional long positions are forced to close.

XRPL activity concentrates as wallet growth stalls

The retreat from leveraged trading is also evident in XRPL, where fewer wallets are participating even as established services generate more activity.

Blockchain analysis platform Santiment reported that XRPL experienced its second-quietest day of the year this week, logging only 25,350 active wallets.

The pipeline of new participants has similarly dried up, with new wallet creation plummeting to 2,130. This is the lowest level recorded since November 2024.

The slowdown followed a brief increase in dip-buying activity in late June. Since then, both active wallet numbers and new wallet creation have fallen back, with no clearer price or network catalyst.

However, other indicators suggest that network activity has become more concentrated among existing users and applications rather than disappearing altogether.

Vet, an XRP Ledger validator, said transactions containing source tags rose 28.6%, while the number of source tags increased 13%. The tags are commonly used by exchanges, payment providers, and other services to identify transactions linked to customers who use shared accounts.

The increase points to greater activity from service-based applications, but it does not necessarily signal broader adoption. A smaller group of established platforms can generate more transactions even as the number of active and newly created wallets declines.

CryptoQuant data showed the same divide. Transaction counts increased about 3% to 4% over the previous week and month, but remained roughly 21% below their three-month average. Active addresses were also 11% below their three-month baseline.

The network-value-to-transactions ratio eased over the period, suggesting utilization may be stabilizing after an earlier decline.

However, the improvement remains limited, as transaction volumes and user participation continue to trail their longer-term averages.

Can XRPL’s institutional growth revive demand for XRP?

XRP’s weakening market position has increased the importance of the institutional activity developing on XRPL.

Data from CryptoSlate shows that the token has fallen about 5% over the past week to roughly $1.11, as ETF outflows, declining futures exposure and weaker wallet growth point to reduced demand across several parts of the market.

At the same time, institutions are making greater use of XRPL for tokenized assets and settlement. Evernorth, an XRP-focused digital-asset treasury company, said about $4 billion of tokenized real-world assets associated with the network now span more than 500 products.

That growth gives developers an incentive to make the ledger more suitable for banks, asset managers and other financial companies. Their latest effort focuses on privacy, one of the main features institutions often require before moving sensitive financial activity onto public blockchains.

The proposed XLS-96 standard would introduce confidential transfers for Multi-Purpose Tokens. It would use encryption and zero-knowledge proofs to hide individual balances and transfer amounts while still allowing validators to verify that transactions comply with the ledger’s supply rules.

The proposal would also allow selective disclosure, enabling issuers to provide transaction information to regulators and auditors without making it publicly available. Controls such as freezing and clawback functions would remain available for confidential assets.

Those features could make XRPL more attractive to institutions that do not want competitors or outside observers monitoring their collateral movements, settlement amounts or trading positions in real time.

Institutional interest in the network is already producing practical use cases. In May, Ondo Finance, Ripple, Mastercard and JPMorgan’s Kinexys platform completed a cross-border redemption involving Ondo’s tokenized US Treasury product.

The tokenized asset portion was processed on XRPL in less than five seconds, while the corresponding dollar payment moved through Kinexys and JPMorgan’s banking network. The transaction showed how assets recorded on the ledger could interact with traditional financial infrastructure.

Adding confidential transfers could help expand that activity by removing a key obstacle to institutional adoption. More tokenized assets, settlement transactions, and financial products on XRPL could, in turn, strengthen demand for XRP if the token is used for liquidity, transaction fees, collateral, or settlement.

The post XRP loses $700 million in futures bets while XRPL builds a $4 billion institutional pipeline appeared first on CryptoSlate.

US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded their first weekly net inflow in more than two months, attracting $197 million across 13 products.

The inflow ended an eight-week run of net redemptions that pulled more than $8 billion from the Bitcoin ETF sector.

Following the renewed inflows, Bitcoin prices appreciated 3% this week, pushing past the $64,000 threshold as market observers eyed the $65,000 level.

Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs register weekly inflows

Data from SoSoValue shows that the week ending July 10 commenced with $265 million in inflows on Monday, followed by an additional $21.4 million on Tuesday.

However, demand temporarily reversed midweek, with net outflows of $84.8 million on Wednesday and $95 million on Thursday. The funds subsequently rebounded on Friday, taking in $90.4 million to close the five-day trading period in positive territory.

Notably, spot Ethereum ETFs mirrored the trajectory of their Bitcoin counterparts, similarly breaking an eight-week streak of net redemptions.

The Ethereum products ended the week with $84.42 million in net inflows, aligning with the broader recovery across cryptocurrency investment vehicles.

The improvement across both Bitcoin and ETH products suggests investors have become less aggressive in reducing their crypto exposure.

Digital asset market intelligence firm Swissblock said:

“The most overwhelming ETF distribution wave of this bear market has ended. As Bitcoin Risk continues easing from Capitulation Risk, Spot ETF flows have turned slightly positive again.”

Demand remains weak

Despite these positive inflows, market analysts caution that this short-term reversal may not signal a sustained institutional return.

Still, one positive week provides limited evidence that the broader demand trend has reversed after eight consecutive weeks of redemptions.

Ecoinometrics, a digital asset analysis firm, noted that Bitcoin maintaining a price near $64,000 is unexpected given the broader capital flight from the ETF sector.

According to the firm, BTC's current price stabilization appears to be outpacing the recovery in demand because a handful of positive-flow days have yet to offset the redemptions recorded over the previous eight weeks.

It added:

“For us, the important signal isn't whether ETF flows turn positive for a day or two. It’s whether they remain positive long enough to reverse the broader trend in cumulative holdings.”

Swissblock also agreed with this view, stating that the current accumulation remains weak and lacks robust institutional conviction.

In view of this, the latest inflow only points to a slowdown in selling rather than a confirmed change in trend.

While Bitcoin ETFs might have broken their eight-week losing streak, the funds still need several more weeks of consistent inflows to show that investors are rebuilding exposure rather than briefly pausing their retreat.

The post Bitcoin’s $64,000 rebound is outrunning ETF demand despite a $197 million inflow appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Cantor Equity Partners I and BSTR said they will not close Adam Back's 30,021-BTC treasury deal under the July 2025 agreement.

One of the market’s most visible Bitcoin treasury launches is now stuck rebuilding its financing before BSTR can reach public investors.

In a July 8 Form 8-K, Cantor Equity Partners I said it and BSTR are discussing a revised structure and amended terms for the proposed business combination. The filing said the companies will not complete the deal under the terms in the original agreement, and that the pending private placements tied to the transaction will not be required to be consummated.

The accompanying company update said the revised structure and terms are intended to better reflect current market conditions. The same update said the shareholder meeting scheduled for July 10 has been postponed indefinitely, while any public shares submitted for redemption will be returned and will not be redeemed.

The financing reset is where the Bitcoin treasury trade meets reality. Before BSTR can worry about how its shares perform, it has to prove investors will still fund the launch on workable terms.

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Jun 29, 2026 · Andjela Radmilac

The old deal was built around scale

BSTR's original pitch rested on size and access to financing. A July 2025 SEC-filed company release said BSTR was expected to launch with 30,021 Bitcoin on its balance sheet, up to $1.5 billion of fiat PIPE financing, 5,021 Bitcoin in an in-kind PIPE, 25,000 Bitcoin from founding shareholders, and up to about $200 million from Cantor Equity Partners I, subject to redemptions.

The same release tied the vehicle to Adam Back as BSTR's chief executive and co-founder of Blockstream. It also framed BSTR around a Bitcoin-per-share mandate, not just a passive holding-company model.

The detailed business-combination filing shows that the 30,021 BTC figure is made up from separate components: a 25,000 BTC seller contribution, a 4,156.11 BTC CEPO Bitcoin equity PIPE, and an 865 BTC Newco equity PIPE. The same filing described cash equity, convertible notes, preferred stock, and Bitcoin-denominated commitments that depended on the transaction reaching closing.

Those commitments did the heavy lifting, turning a large Bitcoin stack into a vehicle built for public-market funding. The original structure combined common equity, convertible notes, preferred stock, Bitcoin-funded subscriptions, and a SPAC shareholder base with redemption rights across several investor groups.

Once the July 8 update said the existing private placements do not have to close, the question changed from whether BSTR had announced enough capital to whether fresh terms can pull that capital back in.

That also changes the role of the postponed shareholder meeting. Postponing the vote would be procedural in itself. Returning the shares submitted for redemption while the parties renegotiate is more consequential because the public float, CEPO cash contribution, and shareholder base remain unresolved. Those variables are exactly what a Bitcoin treasury company needs to settle before it can credibly promise expansion.

That structure made BSTR more than another company saying it wanted Bitcoin. It was a test of whether Bitcoin treasury promoters could combine stock-market access, PIPE capital, in-kind Bitcoin commitments, and public shareholders into a single funding machine.

Now the old machine has to be rebuilt or replaced.

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Jul 2, 2026 · Liam 'Akiba' Wright

The reset puts investors back in control

BSTR and Cantor are still negotiating, with the original terms now off the table.

If the parties reach a revised agreement, additional SEC filings are expected to amend or supplement the registration statement and proxy materials. The next filings will show how much of the original deal is still standing, including the Bitcoin stack, the PIPE commitments, and the price investors now demand to fund it.

They will also show how much demand remains for a digital asset treasury company, even as Bitcoin is not making the launch easy.

CryptoSlate's Bitcoin market page showed BTC trading near $63,688 on July 12, with a market capitalization of roughly $1.27 trillion and about 58% dominance in the broader crypto market. That backdrop is not catastrophic for Bitcoin, but it is very different from a market that treats treasury vehicles as automatic upside.

CryptoSlate readers have already seen the pressure points in other treasury structures. Recent coverage has focused on dilution and Bitcoin-per-share economics, preferred-stock stress at Strategy, and the broader point that treasury companies are really funding stacks with Bitcoin wrappers.

BSTR raises the same question in the process. Instead of asking whether the stock will trade at a premium after trading begins, the reset asks whether the premium assumptions still finance the company before investors ever receive a listed share.

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Jul 3, 2026 · Oluwapelumi Adejumo

For a company that measures success in Bitcoin per share, that distinction is central. Capital that arrives at a lower valuation, with higher yield demands, heavier dilution, or fewer Bitcoin commitments can change the economics, even if the deal still closes. The amended filing will therefore be read less like a relaunch notice and more like a market-clearing document.

That makes the forthcoming terms more important than the vehicle's branding. Investors do not have to reject Bitcoin to demand a different price for balance-sheet exposure, redemption risk and future capital calls.

The next filing is the test

The companies' own risk language points to the variables that now matter. The July 8 filing and release cite risks related to public-shareholder redemptions, public float, liquidity, exchange listing, Bitcoin price volatility, competition, regulatory uncertainty, and the difficulty of scaling Bitcoin accumulation and treasury operations.

Those are the terms of the next negotiation.

If a revised BSTR deal preserves the 30,021-BTC launch scale, keeps meaningful investor commitments, and avoids shifting too much cost onto new shareholders, the digital asset treasury company trade will have a stronger answer. It would show that the market can reprice a large Bitcoin treasury deal without killing the model.

If the revised terms reduce the Bitcoin stack, raise the cost of capital, weaken investor protections, or lean harder on dilution, the message changes. The reset would suggest that the next wave of Bitcoin treasury companies cannot rely on stale premiums from the last cycle.

BSTR has become a live price check for the whole Bitcoin treasury trade. The revised terms will show whether investors still want to bankroll expansion or whether shareholders are left paying for the reset.

The post Adam Back’s 30,021 BTC Bitcoin treasury deal just lost the funding structure holding it together appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Tokenized sovereign debt spent years sounding like a conference phrase in search of a market. But now, the category has enough working components to deserve serious attention: tokenized government money funds, onchain ownership records, programmable transfer rails, and a growing effort to turn government paper into collateral that digital markets can actually use.

While this might sound like a futuristic asset class, the live products on the market today aren't that hard to understand. Most of them aren't sovereign bonds issued directly on public blockchains; they're tokenized claims on short-duration government exposure, usually through money funds or Treasury-heavy structures.

The tokenized bond market is more developed than the buzzword suggests and less radical than the marketing language implies. In most live products, tokenization changes the operating layer: ownership records, transfer rails, subscription mechanics, and settlement can move onto blockchain infrastructure while the underlying assets remain inside regulated fund structures.

OUSG’s live figures show that at least one major tokenized Treasury product has already reached meaningful scale. On July 10, Ondo's official OUSG page showed the Ondo Short-Term US Treasuries Fund had about $407.24 million in total value, a quoted 3.45% APY, and a chain split of roughly $222.07 million on XRPL and $185.17 million on Ethereum.

The same page says instant investments and redemptions have a $5,000 minimum, while OUSG is limited to accredited investors and qualified purchasers.

That already tells you this category has moved past theory. A product with a nine-figure asset value, multi-chain distribution, and explicit subscription rules is a working investment vehicle with a user flow, a compliance boundary, and a real balance sheet.

Ondo’s own page also discloses that OUSG holds positions in several other digital Treasury products, including about $150 million in the State Street Galaxy Onchain Liquidity Sweep Fund, $101.01 million in BlackRock‘s BUIDL, $77.08 million in Franklin Templeton‘s BENJI, and about $69.10 million in Fidelity Treasury Digital Fund.

These numbers show that tokenized sovereign debt is no longer just a claim that Treasury exposure might one day move onchain. Ondo's tokenized Treasury vehicle is already allocating meaningful capital across several other digitally native Treasury products.

That's a stronger sign of maturation than almost any market-size projection because it shows these instruments are truly being used as portfolio building blocks.

Tokenized funds are starting to own each other

A tokenized Treasury fund that holds other tokenized Treasury products shows how these instruments can become portfolio building blocks for one another. Once regulated products begin allocating to other tokenized funds, the category starts to resemble an investable market structure rather than a collection of isolated experiments.

This is also where the link to the broader crypto market becomes easier to see. Stablecoins solved the cash side of digital markets, as they made dollar exposure fast, portable, and easy to settle. What they didn't supply was yield-bearing collateral that could move through the same environment.

That gap has become more visible as the market has matured and as stablecoin usage has grown faster than the pile of idle dollars underneath it, a split already traced in CryptoSlate's coverage of fading stablecoin demand and stronger payment usage.

Short-duration government bonds fit that gap well because they're already at the center of conventional funding markets. Treasury bills and government money funds are widely accepted, low-risk by market convention, and easy to price. If digital asset markets want a collateral layer that institutions will actually trust, this is where they were always likely to start.

That's also why Franklin Templeton’s OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund, Ondo’s OUSG, and products tied to BlackRock keep being mentioned together. They are all trying to solve a similar problem: how to take some of the most widely accepted collateral in traditional finance and adapt it to digital rails while preserving the legal structure institutions rely on.

The answer, at least so far, is conservative. The market didn't start with a dramatic reinvention of sovereign issuance, but with wrappers institutions already understand. A money fund share, a Treasury-heavy fund structure, or a qualified-access vehicle can all be recorded and transferred in a more programmable way while the underlying assets remain in the old legal system.

While that might not sound revolutionary at all, it's why the category is growing so fast.

It also helps explain the institutional turn described in Wall Street's capture of the crypto industry. The first successful form of tokenized sovereign debt imported traditional finance onto more flexible rails instead of bypassing traditional finance.

Tokenization changes the operating layer, not the legal claim

To understand the limits of these products, the token must be separated from the legal claim it represents. Tokenization can change how ownership is recorded, how transfers are processed, how quickly positions move between approved parties, and how easily a fund integrates with automated treasury operations. The investor’s legal rights still depend on the underlying structure, offering documents, and applicable law.

The official White House Digital Assets Report under Executive Order 14178 makes the principle explicit. The report says that the regulatory treatment “follows the nature of the underlying asset.” If the token represents a security, it remains a security. That sounds obvious, but it's the point many overlook.

This is also why access restrictions are still everywhere in the category. Ondo says OUSG is limited to accredited investors and qualified purchasers, while other products rely on permissioned platforms, transfer controls, and administrator oversight. The market is building a regulated digital layer on top of traditional fund law.

That legal reality is part of the model. Institutions won't use these products at scale unless they know who the counterparty is, who can hold the asset, what happens in a redemption event, and what legal claim survives if the token platform fails.

CryptoSlate's analysis of tokenized stocks and unclear ownership gets at the same issue from another angle. The interface can look modern while the underlying issue remains old-fashioned: what exactly do you own, and under which legal structure?

That's also why live asset value shouldn't be confused with true liquidity. OUSG’s official page gives useful balance-sheet and yield data, though large asset value doesn't guarantee deep secondary trading or smooth exits in stress. A tokenized fund can be operationally efficient and remain narrow if transfers are limited, redemptions are gated, or the holder base is highly concentrated.

The growth of the category should be read as progress in usable infrastructure, not as proof that every liquidity problem has already been solved.

The important shift is more modest and more durable than the hype cycle usually allows: tokenized sovereign debt is beginning to look like a real product. It now has named issuers, disclosed balances, visible yields, investor thresholds, and portfolio interactions that can be checked against live pages.

That makes the category easier to analyze and harder to romanticize.

The next stage of onchain finance will depend on making trusted old reserve assets work inside digital systems. Government paper is already the center of traditional collateral markets. What tokenization is doing now is testing whether that same paper can become easier to move, easier to verify, and easier to plug into software without losing the legal protections institutions still demand.

The post A $407 million Treasury fund reveals how Wall Street is building crypto’s missing collateral layer appeared first on CryptoSlate.

There's a contradiction at the heart of American Bitcoin's treasury strategy: its Bitcoin pile is growing while its share price moves in the opposite direction.

The Eric Trump-linked company recently announced that its holdings reached 8,000 BTC, up from more than 7,000 BTC at the end of the first quarter.

Separately, the company announced a 1-for-15 reverse stock split, which combines every 15 shares into one. It's used to raise the price of each remaining share, but it doesn't increase the company's value or change the value of an investor's position at the time of the split.

The split took effect after the market closed on July 2, and split-adjusted trading began on Nasdaq on July 6.

American Bitcoin now has 8,000 BTC on one side of the ledger and a valuation the market is no longer taking on faith. That valuation could hold if buyers continue to reward Bitcoin-per-share growth and mining economics despite the reverse split.

It will become harder to defend if the split is seen as evidence that demand for the stock is too weak to support the strategy.

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The Bitcoin strategy has to carry the stock

American Bitcoin has built a formidable reserve.

In its first-quarter 2026 results filed with the SEC, the company said its Bitcoin holdings grew from roughly 5,401 BTC at the end of 2025 to about 7,021 BTC as of March 31.

Eric Trump, its co-founder and chief strategy officer, said at the time that the company held more than 7,300 BTC and ranked among the largest publicly traded Bitcoin companies.

The company also reported mining about 817 BTC during the quarter and purchasing another 803 BTC.

It also said mining gross margin stayed above 50% despite a roughly 22% quarter-over-quarter decline in Bitcoin's price, while cost to mine fell to about $36,200 per BTC.

That operating model is important because American Bitcoin is trying to differentiate itself from treasury companies that primarily rely on capital raises to buy Bitcoin.

The company argues that mining allows it to acquire Bitcoin at below-market prices and to make additional purchases when capital and market conditions permit.

However, the same filing also showed why a growing Bitcoin reserve isn't enough to support the stock.

American Bitcoin reported about $62.1 million in Q1 mining revenue, an $81.8 million net loss, negative adjusted EBITDA of about $91.3 million, and a $117.2 million loss on digital assets.

The company can point to mining output and BTC accumulation, but investors still have to decide whether those gains justify the stock’s valuation.

The 8,000 BTC milestone strengthens the reserve narrative, but it doesn't solve the problems affecting the shares.

American Bitcoin said the reverse split was primarily intended to raise the price of its Class A stock to meet Nasdaq's minimum bid requirement.

Its June 22 Form 8-K showed shareholders approved a reverse split range of 1-for-5 to 1-for-40. The board later approved the 1-for-15 ratio after the annual meeting.

The company's proxy statement also described the risks of its model.

American Bitcoin warned that the share price might not rise in proportion to the reduction in outstanding shares. It also said that the split might fail to attract new investors and could be negatively received by the market.

It also said the split may reduce liquidity and increase transaction costs for holders left with odd-lot positions.

Those risks change how investors see the 8,000 BTC milestone.

A company can grow its BTC stack and still face a weaker equity market if investors decide the company deserves a lower valuation.

For Bitcoin treasury companies, share price is critical. A strong stock allows the company to issue shares at attractive prices, raise capital with less dilution, and use investor demand to acquire more Bitcoin.

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The proxy statement also highlighted a second issue: the authorized share count would stay unchanged after the reverse split.

The number of outstanding shares will fall, but the total number of shares the company is allowed to issue will stay the same. That leaves a larger pool of shares available for future issuance.

The company said those shares could be used for capital raises, acquisitions, or other corporate purposes, but warned that future issuances could substantially dilute existing holders.

American Bitcoin doesn't have to issue those shares for the possibility of future dilution to affect the stock.

The market only needs to believe that a Bitcoin treasury proxy may need the equity market again.

The stock valuation is the real test

The biggest question now is whether American Bitcoin offers enough additional value to justify buying its stock instead of holding Bitcoin directly or using a simpler Bitcoin investment product.

There's a bullish case for this.

American Bitcoin could keep adding BTC, maintain mining economics, avoid heavy dilution, and see post-split liquidity stabilize. In that scenario, the reverse split may eventually be remembered as an ugly but manageable step in a larger accumulation strategy.

The bearish case is just as clear.

If liquidity remains weak, the stock will continue to trade like a stressed small-cap company; or, if future financing offsets the benefit of reserve growth, the 8,000 BTC milestone will carry much less weight.

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Investors can admire the treasury while marking down the valuation of the company that holds it.

As of July 12, Bitcoin is trading just below $64,000, about 50% below its October 2025 all-time high.

Risk appetite across the crypto market also remains uneven. In that environment, treasury companies receive less automatic credit for simply adding more BTC.

They have to show that owning their stock adds something investors cannot get elsewhere.

For American Bitcoin, the differentiator is its ability to mine and acquire BTC at scale. The pressure point is whether that model can fund continued accumulation without relying on future share issuance, which would dilute existing holders.

The next test is whether investors support the stock if weak liquidity keeps pressuring Bitcoin treasury proxies.

Signals to watch include whether trading and liquidity stabilize, whether the company files a detailed update explaining how the 8,000 BTC is held, and whether future capital raises increase Bitcoin per share or simply fund additional purchases.

That is what makes American Bitcoin a stress test for the broader Bitcoin treasury trade. Political branding can draw attention, while BTC accumulation can strengthen the treasury narrative.

Neither addresses the underlying weakness when a company needs a reverse split to maintain compliance with exchange price requirements.

If buyers continue to reward the reserve build, American Bitcoin can argue that the split was a painful but temporary step toward a larger Bitcoin balance.

If that support fades, the company's 8,000 BTC milestone will look like the moment the gap between the treasury and the stock became impossible to ignore.

The post Eric Trump’s American Bitcoin forces 1:15 reverse split to avoid Nasdaq delisting amid 8k BTC holding appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The crypto market is doing something unexpected this weekend: almost nothing. Despite a third round of US strikes on Iran and Tehran declaring the Strait of Hormuz closed, $BTC has barely flinched. Here is a breakdown of the crypto news today and why the bitcoin price is shrugging off a major geopolitical shock.

What Is the Bitcoin Price Today?

The btc price today sits at roughly $63,900, down around 0.3% over 24 hours but still up about 2% across the week. $ETH trades near $1,803, $XRP around $1.09, $SOL near $76.60, and $DOGE at about $0.073. Total market cap sits near $2.28T. With oil, stock and bond markets closed for the weekend, bitcoin is one of the few assets pricing the latest escalation in real time, with a fuller reaction in crude expected when trading resumes Monday.

What Just Happened Between the US and Iran?

The escalation began on July 7, when US Central Command said US forces struck more than 80 targets in Iran in retaliation for attacks on commercial ships near the Strait of Hormuz, and the US reimposed sanctions on Iranian oil sales. By July 8, President Trump said the memorandum of understanding and the ceasefire with Iran "is over, as far as I'm concerned." Over the weekend, the conflict deepened further: Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps closed the Strait of Hormuz after firing a warning shot at a vessel using an unauthorized route — a serious move, given the strait is one of the most important chokepoints for global oil.

How Did the Crypto Market React to the US-Iran Strikes?

Crypto's first reaction was textbook risk-off. When Trump declared the ceasefire dead, the price of bitcoin fell 2.5% and altcoins took heavier losses, with roughly $450 million in leveraged positions liquidated. Altcoins bore the brunt, with $350 million of the $450 million in total liquidations coming from altcoin pairs. But by July 9 the mood flipped: Bitcoin rose 1.2% to $63,000, ether added 0.75% and Nasdaq 100 futures gained with markets unperturbed by U.S. airstrikes on 90 Iranian military targets.

Why Is Bitcoin Ignoring the Geopolitical Risk?

The key shift is how traders now frame the conflict. According to market analysis, investors have stopped pricing Middle East risk as a crypto-specific event and started pricing it as a rates event — the real worry is whether higher oil prices reignite inflation and keep interest rates elevated. As a result, bitcoin now tracking front-end Treasury yields more closely than traditional hedges like crude or gold. Notably, gold has slid even as tensions climb, hinting at a possible rotation into Bitcoin as a rates-sensitive asset.

What Should Crypto Traders Watch Next?

Traders are fixated on the $60,000 level. Holding it through further escalation would reinforce the "Bitcoin as a rates asset" thesis, while a sharp break lower would suggest the calm was temporary. Sentiment has thawed — the Fear and Greed Index recently climbed out of the extreme-fear zone it had held for 40 straight days — but this looks more like relief than conviction. The bigger risk is Monday's oil open, when crude finally reprices the weekend's Hormuz closure and could send fresh ripples through the crypto market today.

The crypto price today paints a cautiously green picture: the total market cap sits around $2.28 trillion, up roughly 1.2% in 24 hours, with Bitcoin holding the $64,000 line and most of the top 10 posting modest gains. But the numbers are only half the story — the big exchanges are racing to let AI software place trades on your behalf, a shift that could change how everyday people trade crypto. Here's your snapshot for today.

What are the crypto prices today?

Here's where the major coins stand as of today, based on live market data:

• Bitcoin ($BTC): ~$64,100, up about 1.4% on the day
• Ethereum ($ETH): ~$1,795, up around 2.5% — the day's stronger large-cap
• XRP ($XRP): ~$1.11, up roughly 1%
• BNB ($BNB): ~$575, up about 1.2%
• Solana ($SOL): ~$78, roughly flat
• Dogecoin ($DOGE): ~$0.07, up nearly 2%
• TRON ($TRX): ~$0.33, slightly lower

Stablecoins USDT and USDC held their $1 peg as usual. Bitcoin dominance remains firm at around 56.4%, while Ethereum sits near 9.5% — a sign the market's recovery is still being led from the top.

Why is the crypto market up today?

Sentiment has quietly improved after a brutal June, Bitcoin's worst month in four years. A few threads are driving today's tone:

• ETF inflows returned. US spot Bitcoin ETFs recently snapped a long losing streak, ending an eight-week run of outflows with roughly $200 million in net weekly inflows — a signal that institutional appetite is thawing.
• The Fear & Greed Index is easing. The gauge climbed to 26 (Fear) from 23 (Extreme Fear), pointing to calmer nerves even if conviction is still cautious.
• Volume stays thin. The catch: trading volumes remain subdued for the summer, leaving the market sensitive to macro and headline risk.

AI is coming to crypto trading — what does that actually mean?

The freshest story today is the race to let software trade for you. An "AI trading agent" is a program you give permission to act on your behalf: instead of tapping buy and sell yourself, you connect an AI assistant that can read the market, decide, and place the trades for you — a bit like autopilot for your account.

Robinhood said this feature will "soon" reach its crypto traders. Eligible US users would be able to link a third-party AI agent — from providers like OpenAI, Anthropic or Grok — to execute trades and manage their portfolio. No firm US launch date has been given yet.

It's not alone. Kraken is reportedly rebuilding its mobile app around a similar AI assistant, making automated trading the app's headline feature rather than an add-on. The takeaway: letting AI place trades is quickly becoming the new battleground for retail crypto apps. It's powerful — but also brand new, so it's worth understanding exactly what you're handing over before switching on any autopilot.

Tokenized stocks keep spreading on-chain

The real-world-asset trend is picking up pace too. Backpack joined the growing race for 24/7 tokenized equity markets, while tokenized SK Hynix shares became accessible through Telegram Wallet, Backpack and Ondo Finance — letting traders access stock exposure around the clock via crypto rails. It's another sign of the line between traditional finance and on-chain finance continuing to blur.

Other crypto news you should know today

A few more threads moving in the background today:

• South Korea tests stablecoins. Gyeonggi Province will begin a stablecoin pilot in August using zero-knowledge proofs and reserve verification for public-fund transparency.
• Binance Pay expands offline. A Kazakh commercial bank moved to connect roughly 5,000 POS terminals to Binance Pay, letting merchants accept crypto payments at physical checkout.
• ESMA scam warning. Europe's securities regulator flagged phishing emails exploiting MiCA rules, reminding firms that official messages only come from its verified domain.

Bitcoin is trading around $64,100 today, holding onto a roughly 2.6% weekly gain and pressing toward the top of a well-defined range. The bitcoin price today sits in a tug-of-war between a firm floor at $58,000 and a stubborn ceiling near $65,581 — and with June's US inflation report due July 14, the next few sessions could set the tone for weeks. Here's the full BTC price analysis.

What is the Bitcoin price today?

As of writing, BTC/USD trades near $64,100, up about 1.5% on the day and roughly 2.6% over the past seven days. The move comes after Bitcoin's worst month in four years in June, making this rebound a meaningful recovery of composure rather than a fresh breakout. Notably, 24-hour volume has been running around 20% below its recent average — a sign the grind higher is happening on thin conviction, not a flood of buyers.

What are the key Bitcoin support and resistance levels?

The 2-hour chart lays out a clean range that's easy to trade around:

• Resistance – $65,581: This is the line that matters. $BTC tapped it in mid-June and got rejected, and it's capped every attempt since. A clean 2-hour close above it is the trigger bulls are waiting for.
• Support – $58,000: The lower boundary has been tested twice (late June and early July) and held both times, forming a higher-low structure. As long as this floor holds, the broader recovery stays intact.
• Current price – ~$64,100: BTC is trading in the upper third of the range, closer to resistance than support — a constructive sign, but not yet a breakout.

What is the Bitcoin RSI telling us?

Momentum is quietly bullish. The RSI (14) reads around 60, sitting above its signal line and comfortably in the upper half of the range without being overbought. That leaves room for further upside before buyers get exhausted — but it's not the kind of stretched reading that screams "top." In short: momentum supports another push at resistance, it just hasn't confirmed the break yet.

Why does the July 14 CPI report matter for BTC?

This is the swing factor. June's US Consumer Price Index lands on July 14, and it's the next major macro catalyst for risk assets. Here's why it's pivotal:

• A cooler-than-expected print would revive hopes of Fed easing, likely pressuring Treasury yields and the dollar lower — a tailwind that could give BTC the fuel to clear $65,581.
• A hotter print would do the opposite, reinforcing higher-for-longer rate fears and potentially knocking Bitcoin back toward the middle of its range.

Complicating the picture, renewed Middle East tensions have nudged oil prices higher, which feeds back into inflation expectations — exactly the channel the market is watching. ETF inflows turned positive recently, but only for a single session, so it's still unclear whether institutional buyers will step up after the data.

Bitcoin price prediction: what happens next?

The setup is a classic coiled range heading into a known catalyst. Two scenarios stand out:

• Bullish case: A 2-hour close above $65,581, ideally confirmed by a soft CPI print, opens the path back toward the June high near $67,250. Clearing that zone would flip the medium-term structure decisively bullish and put the $70,000 round number firmly in play — the next major psychological target and a level analysts widely flag as the gateway to a broader recovery.
• Bearish case: Rejection at resistance or a hot CPI print sends BTC back toward the $61,000–$60,000 mid-range, with $58,000 as the line that absolutely must hold. A break below it would expose deeper support and put the recovery in question.

The most likely near-term path is continued consolidation between $58,000 and $65,581 until CPI forces a decision. Traders will want to watch whether volume expands on any breakout attempt — a move through resistance on weak volume is far less trustworthy than one backed by real participation.

Can Bitcoin reach 70K soon?

Bitcoin is holding a constructive structure — higher lows, supportive RSI, and price pressing resistance — but it hasn't yet earned a breakout. The $65,581 ceiling and the $58,000 floor define the battlefield, and the July 14 CPI report is the catalyst most likely to break the deadlock. Clear resistance on real volume and the road to $70,000 opens up; fail, and this stays a range to respect rather than a trend to chase.

Circle has received final approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish a national trust bank, marking one of the biggest regulatory milestones a stablecoin issuer has ever reached in the United States. The new entity — formally First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A. — will operate as Circle National Trust under direct federal oversight, and it places the world's largest regulated stablecoin, USDC, deeper inside the U.S. banking framework than ever before.

What did Circle get approved for with this OCC approval?

The OCC granted Circle a de novo national trust bank charter, which lets the company create and operate Circle National Trust as a federally regulated institution. Importantly, this is a trust bank, not a commercial bank — it cannot take consumer deposits or make loans. What it can do is safeguard client assets under strict fiduciary standards, the same role national trust banks have played for decades.

At launch, Circle National Trust will offer fiduciary digital asset custody services for Circle and its affiliates. Its OCC-approved business plan leaves the door open to eventually serving a limited number of institutional customers — mainly banks, financial institutions, and regulated derivatives organizations — depending on demand.

Why does the Circle OCC trust bank matter for USDC?

Until now, the cash and short-term U.S. Treasurys backing USDC have been held by third-party banking partners. With its own federal trust charter, Circle is positioned to eventually hold those multibillion-dollar reserves under its own federally regulated custody — reducing reliance on outside banks.

Here's why that's significant:

• Reserve management is the endgame. The charter is designed to support future management of the USDC Reserve, which would bring those operations under OCC supervision. That's deferred to a later phase, not day one.
• Custody comes first. When the bank opens, its primary job is fiduciary custody for Circle and its affiliates.
• It lowers the barrier for institutions. Federal oversight makes it easier for banks, asset managers, and other regulated firms to build on Circle's infrastructure with more regulatory clarity.

CEO Jeremy Allaire called the approval a defining step in bringing blockchain technology and digital assets into the core of the U.S. financial system, framing federal oversight as a new standard for transparency and governance.

How does this fit into the wider stablecoin regulation race?

Circle isn't moving alone. The approval lands as a wave of crypto firms chase federal banking status. The OCC granted conditional approvals to Circle, Ripple, Paxos, BitGo, and Fidelity Digital Assets back in December 2025, and BitGo has already been upgraded to full approval. Crypto.com secured an OCC custodian license earlier in 2026, and names ranging from Coinbase to traditional finance giants have entered the queue.

The backdrop is the GENIUS Act, the federal framework that set reserve, reporting, and compliance rules for approved stablecoin issuers. Circle's charter is widely read as cementing USDC's position as the incumbent in a newly regulated stablecoin world.

Is there any pushback on the OCC granting these charters?

Yes. Not everyone views the expansion as clean. Some banking groups have questioned the OCC's decision to grant national charters to crypto companies, arguing that crypto trust banks could offer bank-like services without facing the same rules as full-service lenders. Senator Elizabeth Warren has separately challenged whether these firms qualify under the National Bank Act.

So far, that tension hasn't slowed the pace of approvals — but it signals the framework enabling these charters could still face legal or legislative scrutiny down the line.

What happened to Circle stock (CRCL) after the news?

Circle shares (NYSE: CRCL) jumped sharply on the announcement, trading up double digits in premarket before settling to close the session up around 5%. USDC itself, as a stablecoin, held its dollar peg — the market reaction played out in Circle's equity, not the token.

Privacy coins are back in the spotlight. $ZEC is up more than 8% over the past 24 hours, trading near $503 and holding above the closely watched $500 level. The move caps a strong week for Zcash and has traders asking whether this is the start of a bigger breakout or just another burst of volatility in a notoriously high-beta asset. Here is what is actually driving the zcash price and where analysts think it goes from here.

What Is the Zcash Price Today?

The zec price today sits at roughly $503, up about 8% on the day, with an intraday high near $505. That keeps $ZEC comfortably above the $500 psychological level and well clear of the $464 mid-range pivot on the chart. On the 2-hour timeframe, the token is pressing toward overhead resistance near $546, with $385 marking the base of the recent range.

The context matters: this is not an isolated one-day pop. $ZEC has been climbing for over a week, having reclaimed $500 for the first time since early June after a brutal stretch. The privacy coin lost more than 40% of its value in early June, crashing from around $624 toward the $300s in under 48 hours after a critical bug was disclosed in its Orchard shielded pool. Today's strength is best understood as a continued recovery from that shock rather than a reaction to a single fresh headline.

Why Is Zcash Pumping Today?

There is no single news catalyst behind today's specific 8% move — it is a mix of a strengthening fundamental narrative and classic trading-day dynamics.

The dominant driver is the upcoming Ironwood upgrade, expected to activate in late July. Ironwood replaces the vulnerable Orchard shielded pool with a formally verified version, mathematically designed to prevent the kind of undetectable counterfeiting flaw that spooked the market in June. It also introduces a "turnstile" migration mechanism to enforce Zcash's fixed supply and harden its shielded pool. For a privacy coin whose entire value proposition rests on verifiable, private money, that directly addresses the trust damage from the bug — which is why the market is treating it as a genuine catalyst, not just hype.

Layered on top is momentum from social sentiment and derivatives. Zcash's social activity has spiked sharply, with its AltRank climbing into the top tier of coins and the large majority of tracked sentiment reading bullish. That has fed a feedback loop: the fundamental upgrade story sparked a technical breakout, which drew in momentum traders and triggered short liquidations — with over $7.6 million in short positions wiped out during one recent leg higher. In other words, today's 8% is part fundamental conviction, part leveraged short squeeze, and part broad altcoin-rotation beta.

Is This a Real Breakout or Just a Trading-Day Effect?

Honestly, it is both — and that is the key thing to understand before chasing it. The Ironwood narrative gives the rally a real fundamental anchor, which separates it from a purely speculative spike. But the mechanics of the move are heavily leverage-driven. Futures volume has dwarfed spot volume during this rally (recent readings showed ZEC futures turnover well above $1 billion against roughly $115 million in spot), and elevated open interest means the price can reverse just as sharply as it rose. High-beta privacy coins are famous for explosive moves on good fundamental news, followed by volatile pullbacks as speculative capital rotates out.

What Are the ZEC Price Predictions From Here?

On the technical side, the immediate battle is at resistance. As long as $ZEC holds above $500, the bullish case points toward the $546 zone next, with a decisive break potentially opening a run toward the $620–$650 liquidity area that several analysts have flagged. A clean breakout above that region is what bulls would need to talk about higher targets. On the downside, losing $500 would likely shift momentum back to sellers, with support around $464, then $450, and the $385 range floor below that.

Longer-term zec price prediction models are cautiously constructive but wide-ranging, reflecting how much hinges on Ironwood landing cleanly. Third-party forecasting sites put the 2026 average trading price somewhere in the $460–$505 band, with monthly peaks stretching toward the $570–$580 area in a bullish scenario, and some multi-year models projecting a return toward four-digit territory only in later years if privacy-coin demand sustains. These are algorithmic projections, not guarantees, and privacy coins carry outsized regulatory and technical risk — so they are best treated as rough scenarios rather than price targets.

The realistic near-term picture: a successful, verified Ironwood activation in late July could provide the next leg higher, while any delay or technical hiccup would likely trigger a deeper consolidation. Bitcoin's stability and broader altcoin sentiment will also heavily influence where $ZEC trades, given how tightly it moves with overall market risk appetite.

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TL;DR

• Coinbase argues the CLARITY Act would strengthen, not weaken, U.S. national security by bringing crypto platforms under clearer federal oversight.
• Coinbase says the legislation requires strict AML compliance, enhances Treasury sanctions enforcement powers and increases FinCEN resources.
• Senator Elizabeth Warren continues to warn that the CLARITY Act could create opportunities for sanctions evasion.
• Supporters, including Senator Cynthia Lummis, say the bill would provide long-awaited regulatory clarity while reinforcing protections against illicit finance.

Coinbase has intensified its defense of the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, arguing that the proposed legislation would strengthen, not undermine, the United States’ national security framework. The exchange’s response comes after Senator Elizabeth Warren warned that the bill could create new avenues for sanctions evasion and weaken oversight of the crypto industry.

In a statement published on X, Coinbase Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad said the absence of clear digital asset regulations poses a far greater risk than the legislation itself. 

According to Shirzad, regulatory uncertainty allows illicit actors to exploit gaps in oversight, while the CLARITY Act would place crypto companies under robust federal compliance requirements.

Coinbase Says Clear Rules Improve Enforcement

Shirzad argued that the legislation would require digital asset platforms to comply with many of the same anti-money laundering (AML) and national security obligations already imposed on traditional financial institutions.

He said the bill would strengthen the Treasury Department’s ability to detect and block sanctions evasion, expand resources available to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), and give crypto platforms clearer authority to freeze suspicious transactions when requested by law enforcement.

Rather than creating a regulatory loophole, Shirzad maintained that the legislation would bring crypto firms into a more transparent supervisory framework.

“The argument that the CLARITY Act compromises national security gets it exactly backward.” 

He wrote, adding that bad actors benefit most when regulatory expectations remain unclear.

The latest comments were made in response to criticism from Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has repeatedly argued that the current version of the CLARITY Act could weaken U.S. sanctions enforcement.

Earlier this month, Warren described the proposal as a potential “ticket to sanctions evasion,” expressing concerns that parts of the legislation could create compliance gaps that hostile governments, cybercriminal organizations, or illicit financial networks might exploit.

Her objections reflect broader concerns among some lawmakers that the U.S. should prioritize strict financial controls as digital assets become increasingly integrated into the global financial system.

Debate Intensifies Ahead of Key Congressional Decisions

The dispute comes as Congress continues debating several major cryptocurrency bills that could reshape oversight of the industry.

Supporters of the CLARITY Act argue the legislation establishes clear jurisdictional boundaries between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), while introducing comprehensive compliance standards for digital asset intermediaries.

The bill has gained backing from several industry organizations that believe regulatory clarity would encourage innovation while strengthening consumer protections and enforcement capabilities.

Senator Cynthia Lummis has also defended the proposal, rejecting claims that it would weaken financial safeguards. She recently stated that the legislation contains multiple provisions designed to combat illicit finance, including anti-money laundering requirements, sanctions enforcement measures, and reporting obligations for digital asset firms.

Lummis has warned that failure to advance comprehensive crypto legislation during the current congressional session could leave the United States without a clear regulatory framework for several more years.

The discussion surrounding the CLARITY Act reflects a broader debate over how the United States should regulate the rapidly expanding digital asset sector.

The post Coinbase Defends CLARITY Act, Says Bill Strengthens U.S. National Security Rather Than Weakening It appeared first on Blockonomi.

TL;DR

• Stablecoin market capitalization fell by about $10 billion from its May peak, with June recording the biggest monthly dollar decline since the 2022 Terra crash.
• USDT’s supply dropped from around $190 billion to $184 billion, while USDC declined to approximately $73 billion, leading the overall contraction.
• Despite the headline decline, the stablecoin market shrank by only about 3%, indicating that most of the sector’s recent growth remains intact.
• Even as stablecoin supply declined, tokenized real-world assets reached new highs.

The stablecoin market has recorded its largest monthly contraction since the collapse of TerraUSD in 2022, with total market capitalization falling by roughly $10 billion from its May peak. 

While the decline has raised concerns about liquidity across the digital asset market, analysts note that the overall contraction remains relatively modest at around 3%, suggesting the sector continues to retain most of the gains accumulated over the past year. 

The retreat comes as crypto markets navigate weaker investor sentiment, persistent ETF outflows, and heightened macroeconomic uncertainty that has weighed on demand for digital assets.

Tether’s USDT, the world’s largest stablecoin, accounted for much of the decline, with its circulating supply falling from roughly $190 billion to $184 billion. USDC also contracted, dropping to around $73 billion during the same period. Together, the two dominant dollar-backed stablecoins represent the overwhelming majority of on-chain liquidity used across centralized and decentralized crypto markets. 

Although the market lost billions of dollars in capitalization, the overall decline represented only a small percentage of the sector’s total value, highlighting that stablecoin adoption remains significantly higher than it was before the recent expansion cycle.

Stablecoin Market Liquidity Concerns Return to The Spotlight

Stablecoins are widely viewed as the primary source of liquidity within the cryptocurrency ecosystem because they are commonly used to enter and exit positions without converting back into traditional fiat currencies.

A shrinking stablecoin supply is often interpreted as a sign that capital is leaving digital asset markets or remaining on the sidelines. The combined supply of USDT and USDC had been falling since early May, reflecting weaker on-chain liquidity during a period marked by declining crypto prices and softer institutional inflows. 

The reduction also coincided with several weeks of net outflows from U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds, reinforcing concerns that investor demand cooled during June.

Despite the decline in supply, trading activity remained relatively resilient. Stablecoin trading volume on centralized exchanges rose 10.8% in June to approximately $981 billion, marking the first monthly increase in five months. The increase suggests that stablecoins continue to play a central role in crypto trading even as total circulating supply contracts. 

Tokenized Assets Continue Expanding

While stablecoins experienced their sharpest pullback in years, tokenized real-world assets continued moving in the opposite direction.

Recent data found that the total market capitalization of tokenized assets climbed to a record $30.1 billion in June, driven by continued growth in tokenized U.S. Treasuries and public equities. Tokenized Treasury products alone expanded to approximately $17 billion, while tokenized equity trading volumes surged to fresh highs during the month.

The contrasting trends suggest that although short-term liquidity has weakened, institutional interest in blockchain-based financial infrastructure continues to grow.

The broader stablecoin sector is also benefiting from increasing regulatory clarity. Recent developments include new licensing approvals for major issuers and expanding institutional support for dollar-backed digital assets. 

Circle, the issuer of USDC, recently received approval to operate as a federally regulated trust bank in the United States, allowing it to directly oversee reserves backing its stablecoin as it now dominates over USDT. The move reflects growing integration between traditional finance and digital asset infrastructure despite the recent market slowdown. 

Market participants will now be watching whether stablecoin issuance resumes in the coming months. A return to supply growth would likely signal renewed capital entering the crypto ecosystem, while continued contraction could point to a more cautious investment environment during the second half of the year.

The post Stablecoin Market Sheds $10B Since May in Sharpest Monthly Pullback Since Terra Collapse appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• U.S. equity benchmarks finished last week in positive territory, with the Nasdaq posting a 1.7% gain
• Financial sector giants like JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America unveil quarterly results on Tuesday
• Tuesday’s CPI release and Wednesday’s PPI report are both projected to register modest monthly decreases
• Technology leaders Nvidia and Micron are projected to contribute 40% of total S&P 500 profit expansion
• Federal Reserve policy outlook remains tied to economic indicators as markets anticipate potential December rate adjustment

Financial markets are bracing for an action-packed week featuring the official start of second-quarter earnings reports, crucial inflation metrics, and ongoing speculation about whether artificial intelligence investments will continue driving market gains.

The S&P 500 advanced 0.42% on Friday, capping a weekly increase of 1.2%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq posted a 1.7% weekly climb. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lagged behind, shedding 0.5% over the five-day period.

Financial Sector Takes Center Stage in Earnings Season Launch

Tuesday represents a critical milestone for investors. Major financial institutions including JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citibank are all scheduled to release quarterly results simultaneously. Morgan Stanley and BlackRock will follow suit on Wednesday.

The banking industry has benefited from favorable market conditions. Initial public offering activity and trading desk revenues have remained robust, leading Wall Street analysts to project another impressive round of financial performance from the sector.

As the week progresses, Johnson & Johnson, United Airlines, and Kinder Morgan are set to report on Wednesday. Thursday’s schedule includes Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Netflix, and UnitedHealth.

Expectations remain elevated following impressive first-quarter performance. According to LPL Financial’s chief equity strategist Jeffrey Buchbinder, profit margins represent the “key to potentially keeping up this torrid pace of earnings growth.”

Buchbinder emphasized that revenue expansion in the low-teens percentage range must translate into earnings advancement at roughly double that rate. This dynamic places significant emphasis on artificial intelligence to generate tangible efficiency improvements.

According to Buchbinder’s analysis, semiconductor manufacturers Nvidia and Micron are projected to drive 40% of aggregate S&P 500 profit growth independently. When considering AI-related infrastructure companies more comprehensively, the contribution rises to approximately 60%. Beyond the technology sector, only energy companies are forecast to contribute more than one percentage point to earnings-per-share expansion.

Critical Price Data Could Influence Market Direction

Two significant inflation measurements arrive during the middle of the week. The Bureau of Labor Statistics will publish Consumer Price Index figures on Tuesday. Market economists are projecting a 0.1% monthly contraction following May’s 0.5% surge.

Producer Price Index statistics arrive on Wednesday. This metric is similarly anticipated to decline 0.1% on a monthly basis after jumping 1.1% in May.

When measured annually, headline CPI is forecast at 3.8% while headline PPI is expected at 6.2%. Both figures would represent deceleration compared to May’s annual rates of 4.2% and 6.5% respectively. Core CPI, which excludes volatile food and energy components, is also projected to demonstrate slower yearly advancement.

These statistical releases carry substantial weight because the Federal Reserve continues pursuing its 2% inflation objective. According to Bloomberg derivatives pricing, financial markets have incorporated expectations for one quarter-percentage-point rate increase by the December policy meeting.

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh has deliberately avoided providing explicit policy signals. Documentation from the June Federal Reserve gathering revealed that nearly all committee participants remained receptive to either maintaining current rates or implementing cuts if inflation moderates, while simultaneously staying open to additional tightening should price pressures persist.

Capital.com analyst Daniela Hathorn observed that Warsh’s decision to withhold clear forward guidance leaves markets “highly data dependent.”

The University of Michigan consumer sentiment index concludes the week on Friday, delivering additional perspective on American household economic confidence.

The post Market Preview: Bank Earnings and Critical Inflation Reports Dominate This Week’s Trading appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• JPMorgan’s results will reveal the state of consumer credit and banking fundamentals
• Goldman Sachs earnings offer insight into the recovery of investment banking activity
• TSMC provides critical data on AI semiconductor demand and advanced chip production
• Netflix will discuss streaming subscriber trends and advertising revenue progress
• UnitedHealth’s report comes amid concerns about medical cost inflation and margin pressure

A packed week lies ahead with Federal Reserve Chair testimony, fresh inflation figures, and the opening wave of quarterly earnings reports. These five companies could drive significant market movement.

JPMorgan Chase

JPMorgan leads the financial sector’s earnings calendar with its second-quarter disclosure. Key metrics include net interest income performance, lending volume trends, and delinquency patterns in consumer credit portfolios.

Executive commentary regarding consumer spending habits and borrowing behavior will be particularly influential. Financial institutions possess unique visibility into household economic health, making any warning signals especially significant for broader market sentiment.

Robust performance in trading desks and investment banking divisions could bolster confidence in financial stocks. However, deteriorating credit metrics would spark worries about economic headwinds facing consumers and smaller enterprises.

Goldman Sachs

Goldman Sachs offers a window into the state of capital markets and corporate deal-making. The firm maintains substantial exposure to institutional trading, merger advisory, and equity underwriting activities.

Market participants are eager to learn whether improved conditions have translated into higher advisory commissions and underwriting fees. Heightened interest in artificial intelligence companies and potential technology sector listings has renewed optimism about capital markets activity.

Should executives signal a strengthening pipeline of transactions and public offerings, it would reinforce expectations that investment banking revenues are entering an upturn.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing

TSMC could deliver the week’s most consequential technology sector results. As the primary manufacturer of cutting-edge processors for Nvidia, Apple, AMD and Broadcom, the company offers unparalleled visibility into demand patterns across artificial intelligence, mobile devices and cloud infrastructure.

Analysts will scrutinize revenue from advanced manufacturing processes, profitability metrics, and forward-looking statements about AI-driven capital expenditure. Optimistic projections would indicate continued expansion in AI infrastructure by hyperscale cloud operators.

Conversely, conservative guidance might reignite concerns about semiconductor sector valuations.

Netflix

Netflix will provide an update on the competitive streaming landscape and digital advertising momentum. Analysts will examine revenue expansion, operational efficiency, and the development of its advertising-supported subscription option.

The streaming giant has been diversifying into live events and sports programming, creating additional revenue streams beyond conventional subscription models.

Expectations remain elevated. Any disappointment in user engagement metrics or future projections could prompt substantial volatility in share price.

UnitedHealth Group

UnitedHealth faces heightened scrutiny amid escalating medical care expenses and regulatory uncertainty around reimbursement policies. Investors will carefully evaluate its medical loss ratio, forward guidance, and management discussion of both insurance operations and care delivery segments.

Given its position as a dominant force in the healthcare industry, its quarterly performance could influence valuations across managed care providers and the broader healthcare complex.

This week concentrates multiple catalysts into a compressed timeframe. Fresh inflation statistics and Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh’s Capitol Hill testimony may recalibrate interest rate projections, while results from these five corporations will span banking, semiconductor technology, digital media, and healthcare sectors.

The post Five Critical Earnings Reports to Monitor This Week: JPMorgan (JPM), TSMC, Netflix (NFLX) and More appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• Meta delivered Q1 2026 revenues of $56.31 billion, representing a 33% year-over-year increase, driven by ad revenues of $55.02 billion
• Artificial intelligence enhancements are improving ad precision and engagement metrics on Facebook and Instagram platforms
• The company intends to allocate between $125-145 billion toward AI infrastructure capital expenditures throughout 2026
• Reality Labs division recorded operating losses exceeding $4 billion in Q1 2026 against revenues of only $402 million
• Wall Street consensus from 48 analysts rates META as Moderate Buy, with a mean price target of $838.26

Meta Platforms continues printing money while simultaneously deploying capital at an unprecedented scale.

Meta Platforms, Inc., META

First quarter 2026 revenues reached $56.31 billion, marking a 33% year-over-year expansion. Advertising revenues mirrored this trajectory, advancing 33% to $55.02 billion. Impression volume increased 19% while pricing per advertisement gained 12%.

The Family of Apps segment delivered operating profit of $26.9 billion. Operating margins remained steady at 41%. These metrics demonstrate a well-oiled, profitable enterprise.

Yet Meta has committed to deploying capital expenditures ranging from $125 billion to $145 billion throughout 2026.

These funds target servers, data facilities, and network infrastructure. Leadership aims to activate seven gigawatts of computational capacity this year, scaling to 14 gigawatts in 2027. Meta has partnered with Broadcom and TSMC to develop proprietary AI chips, potentially decreasing dependence on Nvidia down the road.

Artificial Intelligence Delivers Tangible Advertising Benefits

Meta doesn’t require a standalone AI offering to capitalize on the technology. Its recommendation algorithms are becoming increasingly sophisticated, driving extended user sessions on Instagram and Facebook. Longer engagement translates to expanded advertising inventory. Enhanced targeting capabilities increase the value proposition for each advertising placement.

The platform now leverages generative AI tools enabling businesses to produce images, videos, and advertising content directly within its ecosystem. This functionality reduces entry barriers for smaller advertisers and may stimulate increased marketing expenditure.

This represents Meta’s first tangible AI investment return — not through a novel subscription offering, but via optimization of its existing profitable model.

Reality Labs Division Continues Substantial Losses

Reality Labs presents a contrasting narrative.

This business unit generated $402 million in Q1 2026 revenue while incurring operational losses surpassing $4 billion. Meta anticipates full-year 2026 Reality Labs losses will approximate the $19 billion recorded during 2025.

AI-enhanced wearables might eventually achieve mainstream adoption, but currently the advertising engine subsidizes a hardware experiment with an uncertain return timeline.

This dynamic creates the fundamental tension within the META investment thesis. The core operation performs exceptionally. The accompanying capital deployment program is massive, and outcome certainty remains elusive.

Analyst sentiment remains constructive. MarketBeat data reveals a Moderate Buy consensus among 48 analysts — comprising 35 Buy ratings, 9 Hold ratings, 3 Strong Buy ratings, and a single Sell rating.

The consensus 12-month price target stands at $838.26, approximately 25% above current trading levels.

META commands market confidence, though the ambitious capex strategy continues testing investor patience.

The post Meta (META) Stock: Can Massive AI Investment Justify the Premium Valuation? appeared first on Blockonomi.

For weeks and weeks, the spot Ripple ETFs, alongside HYPE and sometimes SOL, dominated all cryptocurrency-related exchange-traded funds, while the market leaders suffered.

However, this trend has finally changed as the financial vehicles tracking the performance of the cross-border token turned red in the past week for the first time in over two months.

Streak Broken

Although the actual numbers were not as impressive as they were back in October, November, and December last year when the XRP ETFs launched, they were still in the green for nine consecutive weeks. Moreover, the only week that broke that streak saw a minor $35.21K (not millions) in net outflows, so it doesn’t really count. Within this timeframe, the total net inflows rose from under $1.29 billion to a new all-time high of $1.49 billion as of July 2.

However, the tides finally turned in the past five business days. Interestingly, though, only one day was in the red, with $7.29 million leaving the funds on July 8. A minor $107.38K entered the funds on Friday, while the other three trading days saw no reportable action, according to SoSoValue data.

This is rather concerning as XRP has seen similar net inflow-free days in the past, but that wasn’t the case in the last few months. Now, though, investors appear to have turned their attention away from Ripple’s token and back to the market leaders. As reported yesterday, both the Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs recorded their first green week in two months, with net inflows of almost $200 million and $84 million, respectively.

XRP Price Stalls

Despite the major net inflows for nine weeks, Ripple’s native coin failed to capitalize and record any substantial gains in that time. However, the net ouflows in the past week seem to have harmed it, as current data from CoinGecko shows a 3.2% decline over the past week.

XRP challenged the $1.15 resistance earlier this week, but it was halted there, and the subsequent rejection pushed it south to under $1.10. Although it has rebounded to that level now, the uncertainty continues as many analysts expect a major move ahead.

The direction, as usual, is unknown, but the overall belief within the crypto community is that XRP has reached a decision point and it could either head below $1.00 soon or rocket toward new local peaks.

The post The End of a Ripple Era: XRP ETFs Record First Red Week In Months appeared first on CryptoPotato.

There used to be a time when the cryptocurrency community became accustomed to receiving BTC hints from Michael Saylor on Sunday, only for him to announce a major bitcoin acquisition on Monday. Sometimes, those purchases were in the billions of dollars.

It became such a recurring development that the bitcoin bulls started to take it for granted. However, it all changed recently when the largest corporate holder of the asset made a couple of sales in the span of a few months. Now, Saylor’s hints on X are taken with a grain of salt.

Buy or Sell?

Perhaps the most shining example came last week. On Sunday, Saylor published a post on X, indicating that “Bitcoin Is Digital Energy.” He included a graph of all the orange dots used to demonstrate his company’s countless BTC purchases, and the community speculated that another acquisition is about to be announced.

However, Saylor and his company shocked almost everyone on Monday when, instead of spending millions of dollars to buy more bitcoin, they announced the third-ever and largest-to-date sale. Strategy disposed of 3,588 BTC for $216 million, bringing their total holdings down to 843,775 – still a whopping number, but the perception has changed.

Saylor went on X again today with another picture of all the orange dots from his company with the text that they “tell only part of the story.” Naturally, the community is hopeful again that the firm has started reaccumulating, but could that be another misleading conclusion?

Actual Meaning

Lacie Zhang, Research Analyst at Bitget Wallet, spoke to CryptoPotato about the potential impact of Strategy’s sales. She believes they look “less like a genuine disagreement and more like a difference in time horizon. In the near term, the case for optimism holds up. The sale was disclosed in advance, small relative to the company’s holdings, and ETF demand absorbed it within the same day.”

MSTR’s shares went up after the news was disclosed, with Zhang adding that the new framework announced by the company a few weeks ago will address a “real liquidity gap around its preferred stock dividends.”

“Structurally, however, the more cautious view carries more weight. The dollar figure is trivial, but the precedent is not. Strategy has moved from a one-way accumulator to a company willing to sell Bitcoin whenever liquidity requires it. That marks a shift in how the market should price MSTR’s and Bitcoin’s demand profile going forward, even if it isn’t bearish today,” she explained.

Meanwhile, Bitfinex told us that it was a positive development that BTC’s price remained above $60,000 even after Strategy’s largest sale. Their analysts believe this isn’t a complete bottom yet, as long-term holder loss realization had climbed to 43% of realized value on July 1, with daily losses peaking at $280 million – the highest since December 2022.

“This is textbook late-cycle transfer from weak to strong hands, with large entities under real stress, Strategy among them.”

The post Michael Saylor Hints at Another Bitcoin Move for Strategy: Buy or Sell? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

It’s that time of the week again, the weekend, in which the regular reader and investor might want to explore something lighter, fun, and more optimistic.

In this article, we will review the price predictions for bitcoin in 2026 made by some of the top AIs: ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, and Perplexity. Sit back, enjoy, and let’s all hope at least one of the bullish targets below will be reached.

Let’s Be Realistic (but Also Hopeful)

Instead of starting with ChatGPT as we usually do in these articles, we will try something different and go for the less popular option, Perplexity. Its realistic take on the matter doesn’t envision a new all-time high, but the upper boundary is close to it: $95,000 to $125,000. Both of these sound quite impressive, given the current market state in which BTC fights for $64,000.

To be able to reach these yearly highs, though, Perplexity noted that several factors have to align: institutional ETF demand has to return, more favorable Fed policy, and renewed risk-on appetite from investors.

Grok’s opinion is largely in agreement, as its range is $90,000 to $120,000. No new all-time high, but still double-digit gains. Aside from the aforementioned factors, it outlined moderate macro improvement, no major recessions, and BTC’s increasing dominance as a store-of-value asset.

As with our similar article for XRP, Gemini was the least bullish. Its realistic targets are between $75,000 and $100,000, and it highlighted the same catalysts as above.

ChatGPT was more specific. It didn’t provide a wide range. Instead, it said that its realistic target for Bitcoin’s highest price in 2026 is $95,000.

“This scenario would not require a completely new speculative mania. Bitcoin would need ETF demand to stabilize, corporate buyers to stop reducing their exposure, and macroeconomic conditions to become moderately more supportive,” it said.

All Aboard the Bull Train

The other side of the coin sees bitcoin rocketing toward new all-time high levels. In fact, all of the AIs’ bull case predictions envisioned new records this year. ChatGPT, for example, noted that the primary cryptocurrency can jump past $130,000 and peak about five grand above that level.

Gemini’s target was even higher. Google’s AI noted that under extreme conditions, BTC can top at somewhere between $150,000 and $180,000. Grok’s most optimistic scenario predicted a massive rise toward $200,000 or even slightly above. Perplexity joined the $200,000+ narrative, setting a target of $210,000.

However, all AIs agreed that many, many factors would have to align for such high numbers to be even possible. It’s not just the ETFs and easing monetary policy mentioned above. BTC would need an accelerating global economy, peace deals among many of the warring parties, and a sweeping cross-asset bull run, combined with “expanding institutional digital-asset treasuries,” to propel the cryptocurrency toward new peaks.

The post Bitcoin Price Predictions for H2 2026: Which AI Sees the Biggest Rally and Why? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin’s price experienced minor volatility over the past 24 hours as the US and Iran exchanged a new wave of attacks, and the asset now struggles to remain above $64,000.

Most larger-cap alts have remained sideways over the past day, aside from ZEC and DEXE. The latter has posted a massive double-digit surge to well over $40.

More Volatility to Come Soon?

The previous weekend was quite similar in terms of price action, as BTC remained sideways between $62,400 and $63,400. Its more impressive leg up followed on Monday when it jumped to $64,000 before it was violently rejected and driven south to $61,200 after Michael Saylor’s Strategy announced its biggest BTC sale to date.

Unlike the developments that took place after the previous Strategy sale, bitcoin actually rebounded almost immediately this time and rocketed to $64,600. However, it was rejected there again and dipped to $61,600 as the US and Iran broke the ceasefire with new attacks against each other in the middle of the week.

The bulls intervened once again and helped the cryptocurrency recover a lot of ground. The culmination came yesterday, when it pumped to $64,700. However, it couldn’t keep climbing and dipped to $63,600 after the latest attacks in the Middle East. It now trades close to $64,000 again, but more volatility is likely to take place later tonight or tomorrow when the legacy financial markets open for trading.

For now, bitcoin’s market cap remains at $1.280 trillion, while its dominance over the alts on CG is up to 56.8%.

ZEC, RAIN, UNI, DEXE Up

Ethereum continues its fight with the $1,800 resistance, which has been described as critical by many analysts. XRP, SOL, DOGE, XLM, ADA, and BNB are slightly in the red daily, while TRX, HYPE, and XMR have posted insignificant increases.

ZEC has added 5% of value to trade at $525, RAIN is up by 3% and sits close to $0.015, UNI has tapped $3.65 after a similar increase, while DEXE has stolen the show from the larger cap alts. It has risen by over 17% to $43. APX and HASH are the other double-digit gainers, while BEAT has plummeted by 20% after yesterday’s rise.

The total crypto market cap remains close to $2.260 trillion on CG after a minor daily retreat.

The post Bitcoin, Ethereum Remain Fragile at Key Levels as US Strikes Iran Again: Weekend Watch appeared first on CryptoPotato.

There’s no need to sugarcoat this article, as it’s simply time for fun, speculation, and price predictions from some of the most widely used and popular artificial intelligence tools out there.

Although they will give their own reasons why they think XRP can go toward $6 and even above that (in some cases), history has shown that the final results are oftentimes quite different from what logic dictates.

Realistic Scenarios

We will separate the different forecasts into more realistic sessions and the one from below, which gave wild answers. ChatGPT’s latest version outlined $2.50 as a realistic peak for XRP this year. After all, 2026 has been quite brutal for the crypto market, and Ripple’s token is no exception. It continues to trade well in the red on a YTD scale, having dipped toward $1.00 on a couple of occasions for the first time since late 2024.

“The $2.50 scenario would require XRP to recover alongside the broader market, retain institutional interest, and benefit from Ripple’s expanding regulatory footprint,” said OpenAI’s solution. It added that the company behind the asset recently received full MiCA authorization in Europe, which could serve as a major boost.

Interestingly, Grok and Perplexity shared similar opinions. Both provided larger ranges, but the upper boundary was at $2.50. However, Perplexity believes the lower target is at $1.50, while Grok said it’s around $1.80.

However, Gemini was a lot less bullish on the asset. It noted that a “pragmatic view” puts the token at around $1.40 to $1.65 this year, even though it admitted that XRP has shown resilience in the first half of 2026 despite inflation fears, a hawkish Fed, and growing uncertainty.

Bull Cases

When it came to letting their imagination run wild and provide some wildly bullish targets for XRP this year, none of the AIs we asked disappointed. Once again, Grok and Perplexity worked in tandem, indicating that the cross-border token is somehow capable of breaking its 2025 all-time high of $3.65 and setting a new one at around $5.00.

Both noted that this would be probable if the CLARITY Act passes in the US, global uncertainty diminishes, and the broader crypto market rebounds significantly from the current levels.

Gemini’s range was quite wide, as its bull case scenario sees XRP peaking somewhere between $2.75 and $6.00. However, it admitted that such a far-fetched target at the moment hinges on Washington, the ETF inflows, investor risk tolerance, and other factors.

ChatGPT was a bit more skeptical, highlighting $4.50 as the highest possible target for XRP even in its most bullish scenario. It would require a “genuine altcoin season, strong and sustained ETF demand, Bitcoin remaining bullish, and convincing evidence that XRPL activity and Ripple’s payments infrastructure are creating demand for XRP itself.”

The post Ripple Price Predictions: We Asked 4 AIs How High Will XRP Go in 2026 – Their Answers Were Wild appeared first on CryptoPotato.