Strategy introduces Net BTC, Net BPS, BTC Hurdle ARR, and BTC Floor ARR metrics for its 843,775 BTC treasury, building new financial language for

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LMAX Group is exploring a sale or IPO targeting a $5 billion valuation, with Morgan Stanley and KBW advising on the institutional crypto trading

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BNY Mellon, Goldman Sachs, and Citizens Financial issue preferred shares at the tightest spreads since 2008, signaling shifting bank risk

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Torino FC signs Swiss defender Eray Cmert on a free transfer through 2028, beating Fiorentina and Lazio in a move that highlights football's

The post Torino signs Eray Cömert on free transfer, and it tells us something about European football’s quiet financial shift appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

US deploys EA-37B jets to Crete amid Iran tensions. Military action by Iran against a Gulf state on July 30 at 45.5% YES.

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Bitcoin Magazine

Top Crypto Industry Groups Pen Letter to Senate Leaders Urging Them To Support the Clarity Act

Top crypto advocacy groups the Crypto Council for Innovation, Blockchain Association, and the Digital Chamber have said in a letter that they support the latest draft of the Clarity Act. 

In a letter Friday, the trade associations said that passing the bill is necessary to establish the “first comprehensive federal consumer protection framework for digital asset markets” as more Americans begin to use and invest in crypto. 

U.S. lawmakers are currently mulling over the latest draft of the Clarity Act — a crypto market structure bill aims to set in stone digital asset regulation. The latest draft bans officials and their families from issuing or promoting crypto. 

“Nearly 67 million Americans, about one in four, already own digital assets, and recent research demonstrates that this trend is only growing,” the letter said. 

“This is a crucial opportunity for the Senate to improve upon the status quo by establishing durable rules for digital assets that protect consumers, safeguard markets, and ensure that innovation can thrive in the United States,” it added. 

Banking representatives, regulators and crypto industry leaders have been meeting at the White House to work on the Clarity Act since last year. 

The bill was passed by the House of Representatives but has been in deadlock after banking chiefs raised concerns over stablecoins and the yield they would potentially pay customers. 

America’s biggest crypto exchange, Coinbase, pulled support for the bill in January after clashing with banking chiefs who said that earning yield on stablecoins should be banned. 

U.S. banks have said they could lose customers if crypto exchanges offer more attractive products for their deposit base. 

Latest Clarity Bill 

A new bill has been circulating this week and it is expected it will head to floor vote. 

On Thursday, Goldman Sachs chairman and CEO David Solomon became one of the first big bankers to throw his support behind the bill. 

The latest draft bans officials and their families from issuing or promoting crypto — a sore point for Democratic politicians who have argued that President Donald Trump’s family has unfairly benefited from crypto ventures.

“These improvements reflect engagement with policymakers across both parties and demonstrate that a well-crafted market structure framework can promote innovation while also bolstering national security,” the letter by the trade associations added. 

This post Top Crypto Industry Groups Pen Letter to Senate Leaders Urging Them To Support the Clarity Act first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Democrats Push Back on GOP Ethics Text as Thune Doubts a Pre-Recess Clarity Vote

Senate Democrats have rejected the ethics provision in the latest Clarity Act draft in blunt terms, and Majority Leader John Thune cast doubt on Thursday that the crypto market-structure bill can pass before the August recess.

“Whatever piece of s–t they sent back to us, that was not a serious effort,” Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona told Politico, faulting Republicans for turning months of talks into language he called far from a deal. Gallego said he is at work on a counteroffer with Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina “and other Republicans that are not being named right now.” “We are still in this fight,” he said. “We are going to send back language.”

The dispute centers on enforcement. Democrats say they will not accept an ethics provision with the Department of Justice as its sole enforcer, a stance rooted in distrust of the Trump Justice Department to police the president. 

Earlier talks broke down over the role state attorneys general would play in enforcing the rules.

The GOP language came from an agreement between the White House and Republican Senators Cynthia Lummis and Bernie Moreno. Lummis defended it, and said in a statement that “President Trump is supporting the most robust ethics rules ever imposed on the office of the presidency.” 

The new draft would bar federal officials from issuing digital assets and would sunset in 2029, and the White House has pressed Democrats to accept it. Tillis called the White House-approved language “good,” yet allowed that “the baseline… falls short of what some of the Democrats want,” and said one more talk with the White House lies ahead.

The ethics fight traces to President Trump’s crypto ventures, which a July disclosure tied to more than $1 billion in income over the past year. A group of seven Democrats led by Angela Alsobrooks said this week the text “falls short” on consumer protection, illicit finance, and conflicts of interest.

The Clarity Act has 14 days before the August deadline

Thune tempered expectations on the calendar. Industry and congressional negotiators had marked August 7 as the date the bill needed to clear the Senate for a real shot at passage this year. 

“I don’t think we’ll be able to get them done,” Thune told reporters, in reference to Clarity and a separate college-sports bill. “I would like to at least get Clarity started. We’ll see where the votes are.”

A start before the recess would leave the bill for a narrow window in September, with midterm campaigning and other priorities set to crowd the floor. Thune’s staff pointed to a Russia sanctions bill that the late Senator Lindsey Graham championed as the next item for floor time. White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt pushed back on Thune’s read, and told CoinDesk he was “perplexed” and “slightly more optimistic,” with the first week of August still open.

The bill has moved through months of bipartisan talks, and the House passed its version in July 2025. Beyond ethics, some Republicans have flagged the treatment of stablecoin yield, and Goldman Sachs, one of the bill’s backers, sits opposite JPMorgan in a Wall Street split over the measure. Galaxy Research has cut its passage odds to 50-50.

This post Democrats Push Back on GOP Ethics Text as Thune Doubts a Pre-Recess Clarity Vote first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoinist.App Brings Private Mining Pools to iOS

RAS AL KHAIMAH, UAE, July 23, 2026: BFM Company Limited today introduced Bitcoinist.App, a non-custodial Bitcoin mining app and Learn-to-Mine platform released exclusively for iOS. Available from the Apple App Store, Bitcoinist.App gives people a simple way to learn how Bitcoin mining works, access real hashpower, create private Bitcoin mining pools, and receive payouts directly to a wallet they control. Onboarding uses Sign in with Apple, and users can begin from an iPhone without buying mining hardware or entering payment information.

Most people will never run a miner at home. In some regions, particularly parts of the developing world, high room temperatures can cause mining equipment to overheat, while the electricity needed to run air conditioning around the clock can make home mining prohibitively expensive. Noise and the miner’s own continuous power draw add to the barrier. In many parts of the world, people access the internet primarily through mobile data on a phone, without a practical wired connection for dedicated mining equipment. A physical miner also needs a stable network connection. Bitcoinist.App lowers those barriers with a simple iOS interface for learning about Bitcoin and directing real, remotely hosted hashpower through three modes:

• Learn and unlock. The built-in Bitcoin Academy offers a 31-lesson video curriculum that explains Bitcoin and mining in practical terms. Educational videos and optional rewarded ads can unlock free mining rental time, so users can start mining from day one without a purchase.
• Rent or connect. Paid access is offered through an in-app subscription. Users can access hashpower in 1 TH/s increments from miners hosted in UAE data centers and third-party facilities, or from capacity supplied through third-party hashpower marketplaces. Mining does not run on the iPhone. The app is a simple control layer for real hashpower, and pricing is published in the app. Support for connecting user-owned hardware, including home miners like the Bitaxe, is planned.
• Route and pool. Users can create a private mining pool, invite friends and family to combine hashpower, and compete with the global hashrate. They can also mine solo or route miners to the Ocean pool for steadier payouts.

Bitcoinist.App is strictly non-custodial. There is no internal wallet or platform balance. Users choose an external self-custody wallet for payouts; mined bitcoin is sent to that address rather than held inside the app. Bitcoinist.App does not hold user private keys or mined funds.

Bitcoinist.App provides mining infrastructure and education, not a yield product, investment scheme, or custodial wallet. An in-app subscription or ad-supported access provides mining time, not bitcoin and not a promised return. Mining outcomes depend on network difficulty, pool performance, transaction fees, and deployed hashpower. Some hosting and hashpower capacity comes from third parties, so availability and performance can vary by provider. Nothing in this release guarantees any amount of mined bitcoin.

“We designed Bitcoinist.App to orange pill the masses through mining and education,” said Fouad Jamil, Founder and CEO of Bitcoinist.App. “People can begin with a phone, learn what Bitcoin mining actually does, direct real hashpower, and receive every sat in a wallet they control. We are not mining for users and we never custody their bitcoin. We provide the infrastructure and tools; users decide where their hashpower goes.”

Bitcoinist.App is operated by BFM Company Limited, registered in RAK DAO, Ras Al Khaimah, UAE (Bitcoin Mining license No. 07010714), with mining infrastructure in UAE data centers and third-party mining facilities around the world. Additional capacity may be supplied through third-party hashpower marketplaces. Availability is subject to regional eligibility.

Download the app

Bitcoinist.App is now publicly available exclusively on iOS. Users can download the app from the Apple App Store.

About Bitcoinist.App

Bitcoinist.App is a Bitcoin-only, non-custodial mining app and education platform available exclusively on iOS. Designed for ease of use, it lets people learn about Bitcoin, unlock free mining rental time through educational videos and optional rewarded ads, or choose an in-app subscription for ongoing access to real hashpower. Users can create private mining pools with friends and family, compete with the global Bitcoin hashrate, or route miners to Ocean, while payouts go directly to self-custody. Mining does not run on the iPhone. Bitcoinist.App is operated by BFM Company Limited (RAK DAO, Ras Al Khaimah, UAE). The official website is bitcoinist.app. Follow Bitcoinist.App on X, Telegram, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.

Press contact

pr@bitcoinist.app

Press kit

bitcoinist.app/bitcoinist_presskit.zip

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored press release. Readers are encouraged to perform their own due diligence before acting on any information presented in this article.

This post Bitcoinist.App Brings Private Mining Pools to iOS first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Bitcoin Magazine.

Bitcoin Magazine

Elizabeth Warren Claims Clarity Act Would Help Trump — And ‘Criminals and Cartels’

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren has blasted the Clarity Act draft bill, claiming it would allow criminals and cartels to move money. 

Speaking in a video statement on X Wednesday, Warren hinted that the potential law would allow President Donald Trump to make money from crypto. 

Lawmakers are currently mulling over the latest draft of the Clarity Act, which aims to set in stone digital asset regulation. The latest draft bans officials and their families from issuing or promoting crypto. 

“This latest draft bill would make it easier for criminals, oh, and cartels and terrorists to move money and finance their operations — and it fails to protect investors and our financial system,” Warren said in the video. 

“It’s going to a vote on the floor. There’s a glaring omission: it does not stop Donald Trump from cashing in on his presidency.” 

“This isn’t regulation — this is a giveaway. This bill should be dead on arrival,” added Warren. 

But X users added clarification to Warren’s video, highlighting that the Senate GOP’s updated draft includes ethics provisions banning federal officials from issuing or sponsoring digital assets. 

Trump’s crypto ventures 

Warren has long been a crypto critic, initially arguing that billions of dollars go missing every year thanks to tax dodging crypto users. 

Most recently, Warren has called for a probe into the Trump family’s top crypto ventures. 

President Trump campaigned on a ticket to help the crypto space but some Washington lawmakers have criticized the way the Trump family has profited from digital asset ventures, such as the Republican’s meme coin, TRUMP, and World Liberty Financial project. 

Trump and the White House have always denied any conflicts of interest. 

Latest Clarity Bill 

Senate Republicans began circulating new text of the bill this week, ahead of a possible floor vote. 

US banking representatives, regulators and crypto bigwigs have been meeting at the White House to work on the Clarity Act since last year. 

The bill was passed by the House of Representatives but banking chiefs raised concerns over stablecoins and the yield they will potentially pay customers. 

Banking representatives have warned they could lose their deposit base and, in turn, their ability to lend to U.S. businesses if companies are allowed to pay rewards on stablecoins.

On Thursday, Goldman Sachs chairman and CEO David Solomon became one of the first big bankers to throw his support behind the bill. 

This post Elizabeth Warren Claims Clarity Act Would Help Trump — And ‘Criminals and Cartels’ first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Smarter Web Company Sells Bitcoin to Clear $11.7 Million Debt Facility

The Smarter Web Company has sold a portion of its Bitcoin treasury to repay an $11.7 million convertible debt facility held by TOBAM, a move the company frames as a choice for balance-sheet flexibility over equity dilution.

The company sold 177.8909127 BTC at an average price of $65,762 to retire the instrument, known as the “Smarter Convert,” ahead of schedule. The transaction totaled $11,698,540 and was settled roughly two weeks early. After the sale, Smarter Web still holds 2,700 BTC in treasury.

Smarter Web’s financing decisions 

On its face, a Bitcoin treasury company selling part of its holdings can read as a signal of weakening conviction. But the transaction is a debt-management decision.

Smarter Web was not exiting its Bitcoin position. It used BTC to extinguish a debt obligation and avoid issuing 7,718,551 ordinary shares, an outcome that would have diluted existing shareholders had the convertible converted into equity instead.

Bitcoin treasury companies typically generate headlines in one direction: a purchase, a rise in total holdings, a deeper commitment to Bitcoin as a balance-sheet asset. Investors respond according to their view of corporate crypto exposure, but the pattern is usually additive.

Smarter Web sold Bitcoin to settle a specific financing instrument, the company said. That is different from a sale driven by lost confidence in the asset, and different again from a forced sale tied to a liquidity shortfall.

The company faced a capital-structure choice. It could leave the convertible in place and risk dilution from a future conversion into shares, or it could draw down part of its Bitcoin position to repay the debt directly. Management chose the second path, prioritizing a cleaner balance sheet over preserving the full Bitcoin position.

For shareholders, the logic may be more legible than the alternative. A new issuance of millions of ordinary shares carries a direct and immediate dilutive effect on per-share value. 

A reduction in Bitcoin holdings, by contrast, leaves the company’s per-share equity structure untouched while removing a fixed liability from the balance sheet.

Smarter Web’s remaining 2,700 BTC treasury indicates the company has not abandoned its Bitcoin strategy. The sale addressed one financing obligation, not the broader thesis behind the holdings.

This post Smarter Web Company Sells Bitcoin to Clear $11.7 Million Debt Facility first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

The revised CLARITY Act is exposing unusual divisions across Wall Street, Washington and the crypto industry as lawmakers struggle to build support for a Senate vote.

Senate Republicans this week released a new draft that would bar the president and other federal officials from issuing or sponsoring digital assets.

The changes have drawn sharply different reactions from influential figures across finance and crypto.

Goldman Sachs Chief Executive David Solomon reportedly urged Congress to advance the sweeping market-structure bill despite disagreements within the banking industry over provisions that could intensify competition for deposits.

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, meanwhile, has sided with Sen. Elizabeth Warren on one of the bill’s most contentious political issues, arguing that President Donald Trump should stay out of crypto markets while in office.

The contrasting positions underline the complicated coalition surrounding CLARITY as senators seek compromises on stablecoin rewards, government ethics and financial regulation, with the bill’s path to passage narrowing.

Goldman Sachs breaks with banking opposition

In a recent interview, Solomon took a different position from major banking groups that want lawmakers to tighten the bill before it advances.

The banking executive told Politico he was “very supportive” of moving the legislation forward to establish a market structure and allow innovation to develop. While acknowledging that the bill remained imperfect, he said creating a level playing field and greater market stability should take priority.

That stance contrasts with a coalition of banking groups that said the latest Senate draft still threatens the deposits that support lending across the US.

The American Bankers Association, Bank Policy Institute, Consumer Bankers Association, Financial Services Forum, Independent Community Bankers of America and National Bankers Association said lawmakers should strengthen restrictions on interest-like payments for holding stablecoins.

The groups warned that allowing such rewards could draw deposits away from banks and reduce funding available for small-business, mortgage and agricultural lending.

“We appreciate [lawmakers] willingness to consider targeted changes that would strengthen the prohibition on interest-like payments for holding stablecoins,” the groups said, adding that the payments could “siphon away the bank deposits” used to finance lending.

The dispute has become one of the main fault lines between banks and crypto companies as stablecoins expand beyond trading into payments, settlement and other financial services.

Banks argue that exchanges and other intermediaries could effectively compete with deposit accounts by offering rewards on stablecoin balances while operating under a different regulatory framework. Crypto companies have pushed back, saying broader restrictions would curb competition and protect incumbent lenders.

JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Jamie Dimon has also raised concerns about the framework, putting Solomon on the opposite side of an increasingly public debate within Wall Street over how far Congress should go in restricting stablecoin rewards.

The disagreement comes even as large financial institutions deepen their involvement in blockchain-based finance. Goldman and other banks have explored tokenized deposits, stablecoins and blockchain settlement as digital assets become more closely integrated with traditional markets.

Solomon’s support suggests Goldman Sachs is willing to tolerate unresolved disputes over those provisions to secure a broader federal framework for crypto markets.

Hoskinson backs Warren as crypto industry pushes for passage

The political divide is becoming more complicated inside crypto, where support for CLARITY is increasingly colliding with concerns over Trump’s personal involvement in the industry.

In an X post, Hoskinson blamed the Trump administration’s handling of crypto policy for making the legislation more partisan.

Hoskinson said Democrats had increasingly framed the issue as “Crypto = Trump = Corruption,” making it harder to build bipartisan support for legislation. He said:

“No progress can be made if crypto is partisan.”

He also backed Warren’s argument that Trump’s position creates a conflict with direct participation in financial markets. Over the past year, Warren has consistently criticized Trump's crypto ventures, while arguing that the current bill will “supercharge Trump’s crypto corruption.”

In view of this, Hoskinson posited that “the president shouldn’t be a market participant” because “he is the ultimate insider” whose policies and actions influence the broader industry.

The comments put Hoskinson alongside one of crypto’s most persistent critics on a narrow but consequential issue while stopping well short of opposing broader market-structure legislation.

That distinction is important because much of the crypto industry continues to press Congress to pass CLARITY despite acknowledging shortcomings in the latest draft.

Chris Dixon, who leads crypto investing at Andreessen Horowitz, said the legislation would establish protections that are currently missing from US crypto markets and argued that lawmakers should not allow disagreements over individual provisions to derail the broader framework.

“No law is perfect, and the CLARITY Act is no different,” Dixon said, adding that the latest version reflected months of bipartisan negotiations and significant compromises by the industry.

He argued that passage would give the US clearer rules for digital assets and help prevent financial innovation from moving to jurisdictions with more developed regulatory frameworks.

The contrast illustrates the increasingly narrow line the industry is trying to hold.

Crypto firms broadly want Congress to establish federal rules governing digital-asset markets. Still, Hoskinson’s comments show that support for the legislation does not necessarily translate into acceptance of Trump’s personal crypto interests.

CLARITY Act path narrows

Those divisions are emerging as Democratic opposition and a shrinking Senate calendar make CLARITY’s path to passage increasingly difficult.

Seven Democratic senators who have participated in negotiations said the updated CLARITY Act still falls short despite the addition of the new ethics restrictions.

Sens. Angela Alsobrooks, Cory Booker, Catherine Cortez Masto, Ruben Gallego, John Hickenlooper, Mark Warner and Raphael Warnock said provisions covering elected-official ethics, consumer protection, illicit finance, conflicts of interest and market integrity still need to be strengthened.

Their position is significant because Republicans cannot pass the market-structure legislation on their own. CLARITY needs 60 votes to advance in the Senate, requiring support from Democrats who remain willing to negotiate but are not prepared to back the current text.

At the same time, the remaining window for the bill has also narrowed.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune reportedly said he does not expect the Senate to complete the legislation before lawmakers leave for their August recess, undercutting a deadline that negotiators had increasingly used to force compromises on the remaining disputes.

The likely delay removes some of that immediate pressure while pushing the bill deeper into an election-year calendar already crowded with other legislative priorities.

Sen. John Kennedy had warned that failure to secure a positive vote before the August break would shift the odds against supporters, reflecting concerns that reaching an agreement could become harder once senators return.

That leaves negotiators facing two related problems: finding enough Democratic votes for the legislation and finding enough Senate floor time to act on any agreement they reach.

CLARITY Act supporters are nevertheless continuing to press for passage.

Sen. Bill Hagerty, one of the Republican lawmakers backing the legislation, said “the time for CLARITY is now,” arguing that the US needs clearer digital-asset rules to protect consumers while keeping investment and jobs in the country.

Crypto companies are also making a similar case. Coinbase President Emilie Choi said the broader regulatory framework should appeal even to lawmakers and voters who have little enthusiasm for the industry because it would establish federal oversight and consumer protections that are currently lacking.

She said:

“Whether you like crypto, hate crypto, or don’t care, you should want this bill passed. It’s now down to the Senate to help America set the standard.”

The post CLARITY Act splits Wall Street and crypto as Goldman Sachs breaks with banks and Charles Hoskinson backs Warren appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin fell below $65,000 as surging oil prices and higher Treasury yields triggered a broader retreat from risk assets.

Data from CryptoSlate shows the largest cryptocurrency traded near $64,980 as Brent crude remained on track for a weekly gain of almost 10%. Oil settled 7% higher at $100.69 a barrel on July 23, its first close above $100 since May, before retreating to about $96.70 in European trading as of press time.

The move rippled across global markets. The 10-year US Treasury yield climbed to roughly 4.7%, its highest since January 2025, while the S&P 500 fell 1.2% and the Nasdaq Composite lost 2.2% on July 23.

The repricing followed attacks on two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea that prompted President Donald Trump to threaten Iran and the Houthis with “major military punishment.” The latest escalation raised fresh concerns over energy flows already disrupted by reduced traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

Oil shock revives rate pressure

The surge in crude is now feeding directly into expectations for interest rates, adding another source of pressure on Bitcoin.

Higher energy costs risk keeping inflation elevated through transportation, manufacturing and consumer prices, limiting the Federal Reserve’s room to ease policy. Treasury markets have already begun reflecting that shift as investors demand higher yields to hold longer-dated government debt.

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Traders have also increased bets on another Fed move. CME FedWatch placed the probability of a quarter-point rate increase at the July 28-29 meeting near 40%, a repricing that would further tighten financial conditions for assets sensitive to liquidity.

André Dragosch, head of research for Europe at Bitwise, said a sustained rise in oil could push the 10-year Treasury yield above 5%.

Dragosch said the pressure could extend beyond U.S. monetary policy. Major oil importers such as Japan may need to raise cash as their energy bills increase, potentially creating another source of selling in US Treasuries.

Jurrien Timmer, Fidelity Investments’ director of global macro, pointed to another complication. With the correlation between bonds and equities still positive, he said rising term premiums could weigh on both asset classes at the same time.

That would leave investors with fewer places to absorb a broader risk-off move.

For Bitcoin, the combination of higher oil prices, rising yields and weaker diversification across traditional markets could amplify pressure just as spot demand and ETF flows begin to lose momentum.

Bitcoin demand weakens as ETF flows reverse

The tougher macro backdrop is arriving as the demand that supported Bitcoin’s recent rebound begins to lose momentum.

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds posted $225.2 million in net outflows on July 23, snapping a seven-session inflow streak, SoSoValue data showed.

The funds had taken in nearly $1 billion during that run and remained about $274 million in positive territory for the week through Thursday.

While one day of outflows does not mark a broader institutional retreat, the reversal removes a source of demand that had helped underpin Bitcoin as pressure from rising yields and weaker equities intensified.

Meanwhile, on-chain data point to a similar loss of momentum.

CryptoQuant founder and CEO Ki Young Ju said spot demand has weakened, while futures demand remains positive but well below the levels recorded during Bitcoin’s rebound three months earlier.

CryptoQuant data showed spot demand had been largely negative or flat since June even as Bitcoin recovered from its early-July lows. Futures traders continued to add exposure, but at a much slower pace than during the previous advance.

The divergence suggests Bitcoin’s recovery is becoming more reliant on derivatives demand at a time when tighter financial conditions could make leveraged positions more vulnerable to a reversal.

This imbalance adds to the pressure around $65,000, where Bitcoin is struggling to preserve gains made earlier this month.

Red Sea attacks threaten to prolong oil pressure

The immediate risk is that the tanker attacks could turn the Red Sea into a second sustained source of disruption for global energy shipments.

Trump said Iran would be held responsible for further Houthi attacks and threatened military retaliation against both Tehran and the group. He later said damages to ships and cargo from future attacks could be covered with Iranian funds controlled by the United States.

The warning came as the US completed a 13th consecutive night of strikes against Iran, with little indication that either side was preparing for near-term negotiations.

Energy markets are already contending with sharply reduced traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Renewed Houthi attacks would add pressure around Bab el-Mandeb, the narrow passage connecting the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and a key route for shipments moving toward the Suez Canal.

A prolonged disruption could keep oil prices elevated even after Friday’s pullback.

JPMorgan analysts estimated that each additional month of constrained supply could add $7 to $8 a barrel to Brent. A three-month disruption could push the benchmark’s monthly average toward $114, they said.

Such an outcome would extend the same pressures that drove Bitcoin below $65,000 this week. Higher oil prices could keep inflation expectations elevated, sustain upward pressure on Treasury yields and reduce the Federal Reserve’s room to loosen monetary policy.

Bitcoin would face that backdrop while spot demand remains weak and ETF flows show early signs of losing momentum.

That leaves the oil market as an important near-term variable for crypto traders. A de-escalation that restores shipping flows could ease some of the pressure on rates and risk assets.

Further attacks, however, would increase the chances that the energy shock lasts long enough to tighten financial conditions further.

The post Bitcoin declines below $65,000 as Trump threatens Iran after tanker attacks send Oil above $100 appeared first on CryptoSlate.

CertiK tracked just one crypto-related home invasion in the first half of 2025. A year later, its publicly verifiable tally had surged 20-fold.

Physical-coercion crimes, often called wrench attacks, bypass digital defenses by threatening a holder or relative until someone surrenders access or moves funds. The change turns a crime statistic into a custody-design problem: a secure key is not enough if one frightened person can release all the value immediately.

In CertiK's H1 2026 wrench-attack report, released July 23, across all attack types, the security firm counted 52 verified incidents, up 33.3% from 39 a year earlier. It recorded roughly $124.1 million in financial exposure from losses and ransom demands, compared with about $10.5 million in H1 2025, an 11.8-fold increase.

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Within the dataset, Europe accounted for 39 cases and France for 33, a clear concentration in the visible record.

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Custody has to survive coercion

A hardware wallet or offline seed phrase can still be bypassed as a sole safeguard when a holder is forced to unlock a wallet, reveal recovery material, or authorize a transaction. The first priority is therefore to eliminate unilateral authority over significant funds.

CertiK recommends multisignature or multiparty computation with geographically distributed signers so no person at the scene can approve the full transfer. The second layer adds time and limits through withdrawal delays, transaction caps, allowlists, and staged vaults. An independent emergency freeze is another way to stop a transfer without asking the person under threat to resist.

Wallet providers can support that architecture with configurable limits, delayed withdrawals, and duress-aware controls, while firms should map everyone who can move funds, approve transactions, or reset access, and then separate those roles behind approval thresholds.

The safeguards turn an attacker’s demand into a dead end, buying time while approval limits keep the bulk of the funds locked away.

The same defense begins before any transaction. CertiK says attackers can combine leaked databases, tax or compliance records, exchange customer data, public wallet activity, social profiles, real-estate information and phone intelligence into profiles of a holder's identity, address, family, routines and estimated wealth.

The report leaves the scale of profiling and proxy targeting unclear. Even so, every scrap of personal data can become a trail leading attackers to a holder’s door.

Relatives and associates can offer attackers a shorter path to whoever controls the funds. Crypto companies must protect that wider circle through transaction safeguards, access monitoring and tighter limits on storing sensitive identity data.

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CertiK frames geographic shifts, proxy targeting, and criminal identity-data markets as possible H2 developments without assigning odds.

Where the threat moves next remains murky. Wallet security must now protect people under duress and shrink the data trail leading attackers to their doors.

The post Crypto home invasions jump 20x as wrench-attack exposure hits $124 million appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin mining pool Poolin Technology filed for Chapter 11 with $163.7 million in IOUs owed to wallet users. Its two Texas affiliates are seeking court approval for asset sales with opening offers worth $52 million.

The offers equal about 31.8% of the IOUs, yet they cover assets held by Lonestar affiliates rather than cash in Poolin Technology's wallet business. No reliable recovery estimate exists while the final sale prices, liens, estate allocations, bankruptcy expenses, and allowed claims remain unresolved.

An auction could draw bids from crypto miners and AI data-center operators, pushing the sale price higher. The money would then move through the bankruptcy court’s payment order before reaching Poolin Technology’s unsecured wallet creditors.

Poolin was once one of Bitcoin's largest mining pools. Its hashrate climbed above 25 EH/s in 2021 and 2022, while its share of the network peaked near 18% around 2020. Addresses tagged to the pool have mined 28,371 blocks and earned 256,805 BTC in rewards.

Poolin Technology Pte. Ltd., Lonestar Taproot LLC and Lonestar Dream Inc. filed voluntary Chapter 11 petitions in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey on July 22. Their cases are being jointly administered under case 26-18325.

Poolin's first-day declaration lists $163,723,500 of unsecured wallet-holder IOUs and $173,109,791 across its preliminary prepetition capital structure. Formal schedules and statements of financial affairs are still forthcoming.

What separates the $52 million from wallet holders

Prospective buyer Thor CALAP LLC signed a $15 million stalking-horse agreement for the Pyote assets and a separate $37 million agreement for Tarbush-related assets. The proposed transactions establish $52 million in aggregate opening consideration for substantially all of the covered Texas mining assets.

Poolin Technology itself reports about $1.2 million in a New Jersey bank account, an office lease and an intercompany claim. The Texas sites, power rights and equipment sit with the Lonestar affiliates. The filings identify those assets by debtor even though the three cases are jointly administered.

Poolin Technology’s claim against its affiliates may determine how much of the mining assets’ value reaches wallet creditors. The court has yet to decide what that claim is worth or how it will be handled.

The amended sale motion would transfer existing liens to the sale proceeds while preserving their validity and repayment priority. Administrative expenses, priority claims, sale costs, disputes and final claims reconciliation would further separate gross consideration from cash available for unsecured distributions.

A competing transaction could also bear the proposed bid protections. They include a 3% breakup fee for each stalking-horse agreement, plus expense reimbursement capped at $250,000 for Tarbush and $150,000 for Pyote. The motion seeks administrative-expense treatment for those protections, payable from the proceeds of a competing sale.

Poolin Technology and Lonestar Dream each estimate assets of $1 million to $10 million, while Taproot estimates $50 million to $100 million. Each debtor selects liabilities of $100 million to $500 million and 10,001 to 25,000 creditors.

Those broad, standardized ranges say little about what the group is worth as a whole. The declaration’s preliminary capital structure offers a clearer starting point, though upcoming schedules may change the picture.

How wallet lending and Texas losses consumed Poolin

The IOUs grew out of a wallet business that borrowed stablecoins against customers’ crypto. Poolin Wallet later offered deposit products promising annual returns of roughly 2% to 8.8%, according to the declaration.

When Bitcoin fell below $20,000 in June 2022, the pledged collateral lost value and triggered calls for more collateral. Poolin shifted its financing relationship to Antalpha Technologies, which lent against the digital assets. Poolin used financing proceeds for customer withdrawals, interest, mining equipment, its US expansion, and ordinary operating costs.

By September 2022, Poolin could no longer meet withdrawal demand. It suspended payouts and issued about $163.7 million of IOUs, with roughly 11,700 wallet holders carrying balances above $100. CryptoSlate reported the freeze as the liquidity crunch unfolded.

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Management says Antalpha liquidated roughly $265 million of digital-asset collateral in November 2022 against about $260 million due. Poolin then ceased its ordinary-course operations, while the Texas mining expansion continued to generate losses.

That expansion had been designed for access to as much as 600 megawatts of power. Only 100 MW was initially available, leaving the business with more mining equipment than it could deploy.

The debtors recorded about $8.8 million in equipment-sale losses over fiscal 2023 through 2025 and about $45.9 million of cumulative losses across the Lonestar business.

CryptoSlate analysis tracked continued stress in tagged Poolin miner balances, documenting the long tail of the 2022 crisis; Poolin's current bankruptcy filings now define the asset and claims questions that matter for recoveries.

Lonestar Dream closed the Texas mining and hosting operation on July 10 and does not intend to resume mining.

The Chapter 11 strategy is a wind-down centered on selling the sites and related assets, with no renewed mining revenue built into the recovery case.

The court-controlled route to a better recovery

The stalking-horse agreements would establish opening floors if the court approves the proposed process. The debtors say they contacted more than 335 strategic, financial and hybrid prospects, including crypto miners and AI or high-performance computing data-center operators. The outreach produced 28 nondisclosure agreements, seven letters of intent and three additional indications of auction interest.

AI infrastructure offers plausible pricing upside because powered land, grid interconnections, substations and power rights can be valuable beyond Bitcoin mining. Recent mining-sector transactions have increasingly centered on access to power for AI data centers.

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The marketing figures leave the final purchase price unknown. Nondisclosure agreements and indications of interest fall short of qualified offers, and prospective buyers still have to value these particular sites above the Thor CALAP terms after accounting for development needs, contracts and closing risk.

The proposed process still awaits court approval. As of CryptoSlate's July 24 review of the docket, the first-day hearing remained scheduled for July 27 at 11 a.m. Eastern Time. The sale motion was absent from the filed first-day agenda and separately proposed an Aug. 12 hearing on bid procedures.

If approved, the motion proposes a Sept. 8 deadline for qualified offers, a Sept. 10 auction if more than one qualifies, a sale hearing no later than Sept. 16 and a Nov. 30 closing deadline. Court approval and actual bidder participation control each milestone.

Wallet holders’ payouts hinge on the final sale price and what remains after the court settles liens, estate allocations, Poolin Technology’s intercompany claim and other approved claims.

The current agreements therefore establish only signed opening offers totaling $52 million, equal to less than one-third of the wallet IOUs in gross arithmetic.

More competitive bids could lift the sale price, but customers’ payouts will depend on what remains after costs and how much can move between the separate bankruptcy estates. Their wallet claims have been unresolved for nearly four years.

The post Bitcoin mining giant Poolin files for bankruptcy owing 11,700 users $164 million appeared first on CryptoSlate.

DTCC now runs a tokenization trial with roughly 40 firms, including JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, Vanguard and the NYSE, to represent shares and Treasuries on-chain, tokens that become usable collateral only when a lending market can answer who prices them and what happens once the venues behind that price go quiet.

DefiLlama puts on-chain RWA market cap above $51 billion, and those same assets generate only near $3.8 billion in DeFi active total value locked (TVL), a utilization rate near 7.7%.

Pricing becomes the gatekeeper

A lending market needs a feed, a set of venues that the feed draws from, and rules for what happens when those venues go quiet to price assets such as tokenized stocks, bonds, and gold.

Someone has to choose the oracle, test its independence, cap exposure, and decide when liquidations trigger.

Matthew Fisher, CEO of Katana Network, said an oracle's configuration starts with the venues it pulls price data from at launch, and teams upgrade it as liquidity migrates toward newer or deeper venues.

For newly listed tokens, that upgrade lags, since liquidity hasn't concentrated in any single trusted venue yet.

Fisher said institutions delegate that vetting to professional curators, the vault operators such as Steakhouse and Gauntlet who evaluate collateral, approve markets and set exposure limits on Morpho, or to protocols like Aave that build their own oracle relationships directly.

He noted:

“The institutions appreciate that there is a professional kind of in the room.”

A December 2025 study on decentralized credit found a small number of curators managing ERC-4626 vaults now intermediate a disproportionate share of total value locked, concentrating underwriting decisions in that layer of the stack.

Fisher's account of institutional behavior lines up with what the data already shows independently.

He said that a single oracle manipulation inside one market a curator trusted can taint that curator's entire track record. A curator carrying a damaged record into an investment committee gets what Fisher called “a hard no,” regardless of how it performs elsewhere.

Who pays when it fails

Fisher described the curator as the party that owns the risk decision, absorbing the reputational and commercial fallout when a market breaks.

The depositor typically absorbs the financial loss directly, and pool-based models like Aave or isolated markets on Morpho often leave the underlying protocol with no direct liability at all.

April's KelpDAO exploit puts that mismatch on display, with Aave governance estimating $230 million in bad debt from the related rsETH position, which originated outside Aave's own codebase, with its Umbrella module absorbing about $50 million as a first line of defense.

That accountability gap raises a concern about institutions trusting curators whose primary penalty for a bad call is reputational, while the depositor eats the first dollar of loss.

First-loss capital, mandatory insurance, fee clawbacks and auditable exposure disclosures are the kinds of demands that could close it.

Bitcoin trades continuously across deep global venues, so its oracle design centers on aggregation and manipulation resistance. Tokenized equities, bonds and commodities inherit a market calendar their reference asset still observes.

Fisher said there's “not an objective right approach” to pricing those assets once the primary market closes.

Some platforms compute a moving average from market-maker quotes once trading halts. Binance historically leaned on funding rates to influence weekend pricing before announcing new plans for that approach this year.

Katana routes gold, silver and oil through Chainlink and closes those markets to new positions once the underlying exchange closes. Traders can still reduce existing positions, and isolated margin contains any losses that follow.

The London Stock Exchange plans a night-time session, LSE 24, for 2027, alongside Nasdaq's move toward 23-hour weekday trading and Cboe's proposed 23×5 US equity trading. Weekends, trading halts and asset-specific gaps sit outside all three plans.

The adoption test

In the bull case, platforms standardize off-hours pricing, circuit breakers, first-loss capital and curator disclosures over the next several years.

Citi projects tokenized assets reaching $8.2 trillion by 2030 under its bull scenario. If DeFi utilization climbs toward 12% to 18% in that world, RWA-linked DeFi active TVL could land near $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion, turning tokenized Treasurys, equities and commodities into genuine collateral primitives.

In the bear case, tokenization keeps expanding in issuance terms without solving its governance layer.

Citi's bear scenario puts tokenized assets at $2.7 trillion by 2030. If DeFi utilization stays in the 2% to 4% range that today's data implies, RWA-linked DeFi active TVL lands closer to $54 billion to $108 billion.

Tokenized assets pile up on balance sheets, and DeFi lending and composability barely touch them.

Fisher noted that institutional oracle sensitivity for tokenized equities, bonds, or commodities whose underlying markets close on weekends is higher than to crypto-native assets.

Institutions need a governance stack around their price feeds durable enough to survive an investment committee, along with a settled answer for who absorbs the loss the day a feed gets it wrong.

The post DeFi’s next institutional hurdle is deciding who can be trusted to price real-world assets appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Barely a week after the Ostium oracle exploit hit Arbitrum, another perpetuals DEX on the same network was drained. On July 22, 2026, AFX Trade lost roughly $24.15 million USDC after an attacker compromised the validator signing keys behind a bridge the protocol operates. The stolen funds were moved to Ethereum and swapped for around 12,467 ETH — nearly emptying the platform's total value locked.

Once again, the weak point wasn't the smart contract code. It was the off-chain infrastructure sitting around it, and in this case a bridge that AFX ran itself rather than Arbitrum's native one.

What happened to AFX Trade?

Security firm Blockaid flagged the exploit at 21:30 UTC on July 22. The attacker gained control of the validator signing keys for AFX's USDC custody bridge — the component that authorizes cross-chain withdrawals. With enough signatures to meet the bridge's quorum, the malicious withdrawal looked entirely legitimate to the system.

That detail matters: Blockaid noted the on-chain logic worked exactly as designed. Five hot-validator signatures met the threshold needed to approve the transfer, so the contract released the funds without any bug being triggered. The problem was that the keys producing those signatures were in the wrong hands.

After draining the vault, the attacker bridged the USDC from Arbitrum to Ethereum and swapped it for roughly 12,467 ETH at an average of around $1,937 per token. According to PeckShield, the converted ETH was consolidated into a single wallet.

Was the Arbitrum network itself hacked?

No — and that distinction is important. The exploit hit a third-party bridge that AFX maintains on top of Arbitrum, not Arbitrum's native bridge or the wider Layer 2. Steven Goldfeder, co-founder of Offchain Labs (the team behind Arbitrum), stated the network's native bridge had not been hacked or exploited in any way.

A breach of Arbitrum's own bridge would have rippled across the entire Layer 2 ecosystem. A compromised app sitting on top of it, by contrast, is a contained failure — bad for AFX and its users, but not a systemic threat to other Arbitrum protocols.

Why are bridges such a common target?

Bridges have been one of the most lucrative attack vectors in DeFi for years, and the reason is structural. They hold large pools of locked assets and depend on validator sets or multisig arrangements to authorize transfers. That concentrates trust in a small set of keys — and if those keys are compromised, the on-chain code will happily approve withdrawals that look properly signed.

The AFX incident fits the pattern precisely. The trading engine and Arbitrum's core infrastructure were untouched; the single weak link was the signing layer of a bridge the team operated itself. It echoes the broader story of 2026, in which most major DeFi losses have come from compromised off-chain components rather than flawed Solidity.

How much was stolen, and where is the money now?

Around $24.15 million in USDC was drained — close to the protocol's entire TVL. Unlike many exploits where funds vanish into a mixer, here the trail is still visible: the attacker swapped the USDC for roughly 12,467 ETH and left it sitting in a known Ethereum wallet, with no large follow-on withdrawals reported. Security firms Blockaid and PeckShield are actively tracing the address.

That the funds haven't been laundered yet leaves a narrow window for recovery — which is exactly what AFX is trying to exploit.

What is AFX doing to recover the funds?

Hours after the attack, AFX suspended the compromised bridge and made a public offer to the attacker: return 70% of the stolen assets and keep the remaining 30% — roughly $7.2 million — as a "white hat bounty." The team posted a specific Ethereum address for the return.

This has become a standard playbook in crypto exploits. The logic is blunt: recovering 70% beats recovering nothing, and modern on-chain forensics make laundering a large sum increasingly hard without eventually being identified. It's not without critics, though — some security researchers argue that paying attackers normalizes a "steal first, negotiate later" dynamic. Whether it works here depends entirely on whether the attacker prefers a clean exit to the risk of trying to move the ETH.

As of now, the exact method by which the keys were compromised is still under investigation, and the funds remain in the attacker's wallet.

What does the AFX hack mean for DeFi traders?

For anyone using perpetual DEXs on Layer 2 networks, the lesson is to look underneath the trading interface. A protocol can have solid smart contracts for its perps engine and still be gutted if the bridge it relies on has centralized validator keys. The AFX and Ostium incidents within a single week — both on Arbitrum, both off-chain compromises — make that point hard to ignore.

Practical takeaways for traders: understand whether a platform relies on a self-operated bridge, be cautious about how much capital you leave parked in one venue, and follow official channels rather than rumor threads during an active incident.

Where can you trade crypto on regulated platforms instead?

Incidents like the AFX hack are a reminder of the trade-off that comes with unaudited or lightly regulated venues. In the EU, the MiCA framework now sets a common standard: since July 1, 2026, any platform serving EU clients needs a Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP) authorization, covering governance, client-asset safeguarding, IT security, and AML requirements. As of late July 2026, the ESMA register lists close to 300 authorized CASPs across the EEA, with a single authorization passporting across all member states.

If you'd rather trade on regulated, compliant platforms than expose funds to a bridge or oracle-dependent perp DEX, it's worth comparing venues by their license status, fees, and available assets. Our broker and exchange comparison page breaks this down side by side so you can pick a platform that matches how you actually trade.

One regulated option is XTB, a publicly listed, established broker that has secured approval to offer spot crypto trading to EEA clients (via its Cyprus authorization), alongside its regulated brokerage products. You can open an account with XTB here.

On July 15, 2026, the perpetuals DEX Ostium was drained of $23.75 million USDC after an attacker got hold of an oracle signer private key and used it to manufacture fake profitable trades until the vault ran dry. Ostium paused trading within an hour of the first malicious transaction, and after an eight-day investigation and hardening effort, reopened the platform on July 23.

Unlike the smart contract bugs that once dominated DeFi hack headlines, this attack targeted the off-chain infrastructure that feeds prices into the protocol — the part most audits and bug bounties are never paid to look at.

What exactly happened to Ostium?

The root cause was a compromised oracle signer private key rather than a flaw in Ostium's Solidity code. Security firm Blockaid, which first flagged the incident, reported that the attacker used a registered PriceUpKeep forwarder to submit future-dated, authorized oracle reports. Those reports tricked the protocol into thinking a series of trades were profitable.

From there the attacker ran roughly 20 looped open-and-close trades through delegated actions, pulling repeated payouts from Ostium's main OLP (liquidity provider) vault without ever taking on real market exposure. The vault's payout logic trusted the forged price input as genuine, so it settled trades that only looked profitable because the feed itself had been faked.

Why is an oracle signer key such a big deal?

An oracle signer key works like a master password for price data. When a protocol like Ostium settles perpetual trades, it relies on signed price feeds to decide who's in profit and who isn't. Whoever controls that signing key can effectively tell the protocol whatever price they want — bypassing the automated checks meant to keep the feed honest.

That's what makes this class of attack so damaging. The smart contracts did exactly what they were programmed to do; they simply acted on fraudulent instructions from someone who had access they shouldn't have had. It fits a broader 2026 pattern in which the largest DeFi losses increasingly come from the human and infrastructure layer rather than buggy code.

How much was lost, and where did the money go?

Ostium confirmed the exact figure: 23,752,746 USDC drained from the OLP vault. Early estimates had varied — Blockaid put the net loss near $18 million and CertiK closer to $22 million — but the protocol's own accounting settled on roughly $23.75 million gross. Galaxy Research traced eight payouts to a single wallet, including transfers of around $11.86 million, $4.49 million, and $3.59 million.

Crucially, the exploit hit shared liquidity in the public OLP vault, not individual trader collateral. Trader margin stayed isolated and frozen inside the smart contracts throughout the pause. The stolen USDC, however, was converted into roughly 12,084 ETH and routed through the mixing service Tornado Cash, which significantly limits the chances of recovery.

Has the Ostium hack been resolved?

Partly. Trading resumed on July 23 at 10:00 a.m. ET (2:00 p.m. UTC), but the situation isn't fully closed. Here's where things stand:

Trading reopened in phases — risk-management functions and reduce-only orders came back first, with remaining features restored gradually to keep the system stable. Open positions and pending orders carried over rather than being closed during the outage, and every position was recalculated at the live market price at reopen, so no trader was liquidated because of price moves during the pause.

The stolen funds have not been recovered. Ostium is working with cybersecurity firms Mandiant, zeroShadow, and Collisionless, plus the SEAL 911 emergency response group and law enforcement, and has been coordinating with exchanges, bridges, and stablecoin issuers to trace the money.

Compensation for impacted liquidity providers is still being finalized. Ostium said it will contribute from its own balance sheet alongside partners to make affected LPs whole, but a detailed recovery plan was still pending at reopen. So while trading is live again, the funds recovery and LP reimbursement pieces remain open.

Does funding and auditing protect a protocol like this?

Not on its own. Ostium had raised around $27.8 million from top-tier backers including General Catalyst, Jump Crypto, Coinbase Ventures, Wintermute, and GSR, and had gone through multiple audits. None of that addressed key management for its oracle signers.

Notably, Ostium's Immunefi bug bounty scope treated registered keepers — including PriceUpKeep and their forwarders — as trusted, explicitly placing any finding that required a compromised or malicious keeper outside the program. In other words, the exact attack surface that was exploited had been declared out of scope for researchers.

What does the Ostium hack mean for DeFi and RWA platforms?

It's another reminder that securing oracle infrastructure matters as much as auditing smart contracts — arguably more, as RWA protocols pull in equities, commodities, forex, and index prices from off-chain sources. Any protocol relying on a single trusted signer key or the same oracle provider should be asking whether it's exposed to the same single-point-of-failure.

For traders, the practical takeaways are familiar but worth repeating: revoke unnecessary contract approvals, be cautious with funds parked in perp DEX vaults, and watch official channels rather than rumor threads during an active incident.

Where can you trade crypto on regulated platforms instead?

Incidents like the Ostium hack are a reminder of the trade-off that comes with unaudited or lightly regulated venues. In the EU, the MiCA framework now sets a common standard: from July 1, 2026, any platform serving EU clients needs a Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP) authorization, which covers governance, client-asset safeguarding, IT security, and AML requirements. As of late July 2026, the ESMA register lists close to 300 authorized CASPs across the EEA, and a single authorization passports across all member states.

If you'd rather trade on regulated, compliant platforms than expose funds to an oracle-dependent perp DEX, it's worth comparing venues by their license status, fees, and available assets. Our broker and exchange comparison page breaks this down side by side so you can pick a platform that matches how you actually trade.

One regulated option is XTB, a publicly listed, established broker that has secured approval to offer spot crypto trading to EEA clients (via its Cyprus authorization), alongside its regulated brokerage products. You can open an account with XTB here.

Bitcoin and the wider crypto market moved sharply lower on Thursday as escalating tensions between the United States and Iran pushed oil above $100 per barrel. The renewed geopolitical uncertainty erased part of this week’s crypto recovery and returned inflation and interest-rate concerns to the center of the market.

Bitcoin fell below $65,000 after recently approaching $67,000. Ethereum slipped under $1,900, while XRP, Solana, Dogecoin and Cardano recorded even larger daily losses.

The immediate question is whether this is a temporary reaction to breaking news or the beginning of another significant crypto correction.

Why Did Oil Rise Above $100?

Brent crude jumped approximately 7% to more than $100 per barrel, reaching its highest level in nearly two months. West Texas Intermediate also moved above $90.

The surge followed attacks by Iran-aligned Houthi forces on two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea. The group also threatened to disrupt Saudi oil shipments through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, one of the world’s most important maritime trade routes.

These attacks are particularly concerning because shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has already been severely disrupted. If both the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea become increasingly dangerous for tankers, a substantial share of global energy supplies could face delays or complete interruption.

US President Donald Trump subsequently promised significant military punishment against Iran and its regional allies, raising concerns that the conflict could expand further.

Goldman Sachs analysts have warned that Brent crude could rise above $120 if the supply disruption continues.

Why Is Bitcoin Falling When Oil Rises?

Bitcoin does not depend directly on oil, but a major energy shock can affect nearly every risk asset.

Higher oil prices increase transportation, manufacturing and electricity costs. Businesses frequently pass those costs on to consumers, creating another source of inflation.

If inflation starts accelerating again, the Federal Reserve may be unable to reduce interest rates. It could even consider additional rate increases if price pressures become severe enough.

That possibility is already entering market expectations. Following oil’s surge, traders reportedly began assigning an almost 40% probability to a Federal Reserve rate hike at its next meeting. Only a few days earlier, the probability had been in the single digits.

Higher rates generally hurt Bitcoin, technology stocks and other speculative investments. Investors can earn more from government bonds while taking considerably less risk, reducing the appeal of non-yielding assets.

Crypto Market Turns Red

Bitcoin was trading around $64,700 after falling roughly 2% over 24 hours. The decline followed its rejection near the important $67,000 resistance level.

Ethereum dropped close to 3% to approximately $1,888, losing the psychologically important $1,900 level. The damage was more pronounced among several major altcoins:

• XRP declined approximately 3.8%.
• Solana fell around 3%.
• Dogecoin lost nearly 5%.
• Cardano dropped more than 5.5%.
• Stellar declined approximately 4.5%.

Hyperliquid, Zcash and Monero were among the few major cryptocurrencies remaining positive during the same period.

The performance suggests investors are reducing exposure to higher-risk altcoins first. This is typical during periods of geopolitical uncertainty, when liquidity moves toward cash, government bonds and other defensive assets.

Bitcoin’s Safe-Haven Narrative Faces Another Test

Bitcoin is frequently presented as digital gold and a hedge against political instability. However, its reaction to the latest Iran escalation tells a more complicated story.

Instead of rising alongside geopolitical risk, Bitcoin declined with stocks. This suggests that traders are still treating BTC primarily as a risk asset, especially when an international crisis threatens inflation and monetary policy.

Bitcoin may benefit from currency debasement and long-term concerns about government debt. In the short term, however, sudden market shocks often lead investors to sell liquid assets to reduce risk or cover losses elsewhere.

This does not necessarily invalidate Bitcoin’s long-term safe-haven argument. It does show that Bitcoin can behave very differently from gold during the initial stage of a crisis.

Can Bitcoin Recover?

The $64,000 to $65,000 area is now the first important zone to watch. If Bitcoin stabilizes above this region, the decline could remain a normal correction following its 13% recovery from July’s lows.

A rebound would need to push BTC back above $67,000. Breaking that resistance could reopen the path toward $70,000 and then the 200-day moving average near $72,800.

The bearish scenario would begin with a decisive loss of $64,000. That could expose the recent support zones around $62,000 and $60,000. Altcoins would likely experience proportionally larger losses if Bitcoin moves toward those levels.

The next move will depend heavily on developments in the Middle East. Any indication of de-escalation or restored shipping routes could pull oil lower and help crypto recover. Additional attacks on tankers, energy facilities or strategic waterways could push oil higher and extend the risk-off move.

Is Another Crypto Crash Coming?

The current decline is not yet large enough to confirm a new crypto crash. Bitcoin remains above its recent lows, and the market has not experienced the type of widespread liquidation cascade normally associated with a major breakdown.

However, the combination of $100 oil, rising bond yields, renewed rate-hike expectations and escalating military action creates a dangerous environment for speculative assets.

Crypto investors should therefore watch oil alongside Bitcoin. As long as Brent remains above $100 and the conflict continues expanding, BTC may struggle to regain $67,000—even if ETF demand and regulatory developments remain supportive.

For now, geopolitical risk has taken control of the market, and Bitcoin’s next major move may be decided outside the crypto industry.

Ethereum is knocking on the door of $2,000. After bottoming near $1,500 in June, $ETH has staged one of its most constructive recoveries of the year, climbing steadily through July to trade at $1,921 at the time of writing. The chart shows a clean sequence of higher lows, and the daily RSI at roughly 60 and rising confirms that momentum has swung firmly back to buyers. The question now is whether ETH can convert this momentum into a breakout above the psychologically loaded $2,000 mark.

Where does Ethereum trade right now?

ETH is changing hands around $1,921, down a marginal 0.63% on the day but comfortably inside its July uptrend. The recovery has been orderly rather than explosive: price reclaimed the $1,800 zone and has been holding above it, turning former resistance into fresh support. The 4H structure reveals a clear and steady uptrend throughout July — a series of higher lows building from $1,450 through $1,600, $1,700, $1,800, and now approaching $1,900 — the most constructive price structure ETH has shown all year. That structural shift is what separates the current move from the failed bounces earlier in 2026.

What are the key resistance levels for ETH?

The immediate battle is at $2,000 (marked orange on the chart). This is both a psychological round number and a technical ceiling where prior selling clustered. Above it, the next major hurdle sits at $2,400 (yellow), the level that capped ETH throughout April and May, followed by the green line at $2,600. A daily close above $2,000 would open the path toward that $2,400 zone; until then, ETH remains in a recovery phase rather than a confirmed breakout. Broader forecasts echo this: longer-term forecasts can still point above $2,000–$2,500 by year-end, but that now depends on ETF stabilization, stronger liquidity, and renewed risk appetite.

What are the downside support levels?

On the way down, $1,800 is the first line of defense — the level ETH just reclaimed and must now hold to keep the bullish structure intact. Below that, support steps down to $1,600, then $1,540, and finally $1,400 (all marked yellow), which roughly aligns with June's capitulation lows. Losing $1,800 on a daily close would be the first warning that the July recovery is unwinding.

Ethereum price prediction: high and low targets

Putting the chart together with current momentum, here's how the near-term scenarios break down.

• Bullish target (high): A confirmed daily close above $2,000 clears the way toward $2,400, with the RSI still having room before overbought territory. This is the higher-probability path while ETH holds above $1,800.
• Bearish target (low): A rejection at $2,000 followed by a break of $1,800 support puts $1,600 and then $1,540 back in play. A deeper flush would retest the $1,400 zone.

Analyst forecasts broadly align with the upside case. Ethereum's July 2026 price prediction targets $1,960, with a range of $1,718–$1,960, while some models see momentum extending into August. It's worth noting that the monthly close carries outsized weight here: if ETH closes July above $2,050, some traders are targeting $4,000 and above, along with a new all-time high this cycle.

BitMEX announced the closure of its exchange, which will take effect on 23 September 2026 at 04:00:00 UTC. The exchange was co-founded by Arthur Hayes, and the decision follows a strategic review by owner HDR Global Trading Limited. With immediate effect, the platform has stopped all new account registrations.

Why is BitMEX shutting down?

Following a strategic review of the business and the broader crypto industry, the board of HDR Global Trading Limited, owner and operator of BitMEX, decided to close the exchange. The company did not cite financial difficulties or regulatory action as the reason, describing the move instead as the outcome of a broader strategic assessment. BitMEX also did not disclose what the review found, or whether the sale process that began last year produced a bidder.

BitMEX was one of the pioneers of crypto derivatives trading and helped popularize perpetual swap contracts — a product that lets traders speculate on asset prices without expiration dates. The team noted it invented the 100x leverage perpetual swap, now the most traded product in the crypto industry.

What happens to my funds?

BitMEX told users their assets remain fully safe and under their control during the transition period. The exchange said assets exceed liabilities per its Proof of Reserves and Liabilities page, and that it lost zero customer funds to hacks across its full operating history.

Users are urged to close all positions and withdraw funds well before the deadline. KYC-verified users who fail to withdraw before the shutdown will incur an account management fee of $50 per month or 1% of the balance, whichever is higher. 

What is the wind-down timeline?

The exchange will continue operating normally until late August before gradually winding down. Starting August 26 at 04:00 UTC, users will no longer be able to open new positions and will only be allowed to reduce or close existing trades. The exchange will force-close remaining open positions ahead of the shutdown to wind down the market in an orderly fashion, and anything still open at the closure time will be force-closed immediately.

BitMEX also confirmed it has unstaked all BMEX tokens held in staking, making them immediately available to holders.

What should users watch out for?

BitMEX warned users of potential phishing scams related to the closure and noted that withdrawal processing may face delays due to blockchain confirmation times. The main challenge the exchange faces is offramping user assets into fiat, as network congestion on the Bitcoin blockchain could cause significant withdrawal delays.

The closure comes amid a shifting competitive landscape. Centralized exchange perpetual futures volume fell 10% to $12.7 trillion in Q2 2026, while decentralized alternatives such as Hyperliquid rose to become the second-largest perpetuals exchange by open interest, behind Binance.

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Strategy CEO Phong Le reveals a 105% capital shift as BlackRock and VanEck drive $756 million into STRC, altering the rules of corporate Bitcoin purchases.

A strategic Shiba Inu whale ends an 8-month pause, using Binance liquidity as the price of SHIB hits key 2022 support levels.

Cardano spot flow indicator flashes crucial signal that might be hard to ignore as market drops.

Japan’s upcoming Bitcoin ETFs could hit $18.4 billion by 2028, drawing from a massive $14.6 trillion pool of idle household savings.

Shiba Inu is facing downside pressure, but it isn't related to its trading activity, as exchange activity shows that traders are moving tokens off exchanges.

Quick Summary

• Intel delivered better-than-anticipated earnings results, strengthening investor faith in its recovery strategy
• Tesla stock continued its downward trajectory following disappointing quarterly numbers and profit margin worries
• Alphabet encountered investor skepticism over ambitious AI infrastructure investment plans despite solid performance
• Crude oil prices retreated beneath the $100 threshold, though geopolitical uncertainty persists
• SpaceX postponed its Starship test launch for the second consecutive time this week

A surprising earnings victory from Intel dominated Friday’s trading session on Wall Street, even as Tesla and Alphabet wrestled with ongoing investor disappointment following their recent quarterly announcements. Meanwhile, crude oil prices moderated somewhat, and SpaceX encountered another setback in its Starship testing schedule.

Intel Delivers Unexpected Quarterly Success

Intel revealed quarterly financial results that exceeded analyst projections. The chipmaker benefited from increased demand within its data centre division and heightened enthusiasm for its artificial intelligence chip offerings.

Management highlighted meaningful advancement in its foundry operations, a critical component of the company’s strategy to rival competitors such as TSMC. These results provided investors with renewed optimism that Intel’s transformation efforts are beginning to yield tangible results.

Despite facing intense competition from industry leaders Nvidia and AMD, this quarter allowed Intel to reclaim some investor trust. The performance marked a welcome development for a company that has endured considerable challenges recently.

Shares surged, making Intel among the day’s top performers and providing a much-needed positive signal during an otherwise turbulent stretch for the semiconductor giant.

Tesla Stock Extends Post-Earnings Slide

Tesla saw its shares continue to tumble as investor wariness persisted following the company’s quarterly report. Declining profit margins on vehicles and softening demand for electric cars remained primary concerns driving the selloff.

The automaker is simultaneously pouring significant capital into artificial intelligence initiatives, robotics development, and self-driving technology. A growing segment of investors is expressing frustration over the timeline for these investments to generate meaningful returns.

Chief Executive Elon Musk has repeatedly emphasized that AI and autonomous capabilities represent the foundation of Tesla’s long-term value proposition. However, the market’s current focus remains firmly fixed on immediate financial performance and profitability metrics.

The persistent share price weakness underscores how rapidly investor sentiment can deteriorate when quarterly results fail to meet heightened expectations.

Alphabet’s Aggressive AI Investment Strategy Divides Market

Alphabet reported quarterly earnings that surpassed Wall Street estimates, driven by solid performance across both Google Cloud services and digital advertising segments. Despite these positive results, shares retreated after management outlined plans for substantially increased spending on AI infrastructure.

The investment community remains divided on the strategy. One camp views the capital allocation as necessary to maintain competitive positioning in the rapidly evolving AI landscape. Another faction demands more concrete evidence of return on investment before endorsing additional spending commitments.

Crude Prices Retreat as Volatility Continues

Oil prices slipped back beneath the $100-per-barrel threshold after temporarily crossing above that psychological level earlier this week. The pullback provided modest encouragement to equity investors concerned about energy costs.

Nevertheless, ongoing geopolitical instability in the Middle East continues to inject uncertainty into energy markets. Any fresh supply chain disruptions or shipping complications could rapidly drive prices higher once again.

Inflationary pressures connected to energy expenses remain a persistent concern, ensuring that oil price movements will continue to be a critical variable for market participants in the coming months.

SpaceX Encounters Second Consecutive Starship Setback

SpaceX revealed an additional postponement of its Starship test flight, marking the second delay within a seven-day period. The setback represents a notable interruption in the company’s ambitious aerospace development timeline.

While delays are commonplace in complex spacecraft development programmes, the consecutive postponements have attracted increased scrutiny. Market observers and industry analysts are awaiting a revised launch timeline and assessing potential implications for subsequent mission planning.

SpaceX remains among the most closely monitored private aerospace enterprises, with substantial expectations surrounding both its satellite deployment initiatives and deep-space exploration ambitions.

The post Market Movers: Intel (INTC) Surprises While Tesla (TSLA) and Alphabet (GOOGL) Face Investor Doubts appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Highlights

• BlackRock is bringing $12.3 billion in investment-grade bonds to market to finance Meta’s data center facility in El Paso, Texas
• The debt offering is structured through Sopaipilla Investor, a BlackRock-linked holding company, featuring notes with a 2048 maturity date
• Initial pricing guidance indicates a spread of approximately 2.875 percentage points above U.S. Treasury yields
• The Texas facility is designed to provide up to 1 gigawatt of AI-focused computing power
• BlackRock entities control 80% of the project ownership, with Meta holding the remaining 20% interest

In what stands as one of 2025’s most significant infrastructure debt offerings, BlackRock has initiated the marketing of $12.3 billion in investment-grade bonds designed to finance a Meta data center development in El Paso, Texas.

The bond issuance is being executed through Sopaipilla Investor, a holding entity connected to BlackRock. The structure involves a single note series with a 2048 maturity, currently showing price guidance of approximately 2.875 percentage points above comparable Treasury securities.

On the trading day, BLK stock climbed approximately 0.88%, while META saw a modest gain of about 0.27%.

Meta Platforms, Inc., META

The transaction is being managed by JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, with pricing anticipated to occur in the coming week.

Major Infrastructure Investment

The planned El Paso facility aims to provide up to 1 gigawatt of computing resources — a significant capacity allocation focused exclusively on artificial intelligence applications.

BlackRock entities Global Infrastructure Management and HPS Investment Partners collectively own an 80% position in the development. Meta maintains ownership of the remaining 20% share.

The investment-grade rating on the bonds generally indicates reduced risk for purchasers and enables more competitive borrowing terms.

Market Sentiment Under Scrutiny

Market observers are paying particular attention to the timing of this offering. It arrives amid increasing scrutiny regarding the volume of capital being allocated to AI infrastructure throughout the technology sector.

Just days ago, Alphabet’s announcement of a $205 billion capital expenditure plan created investor anxiety and pressured its share price downward. Against this context, this Meta-related financing serves as an immediate gauge of ongoing institutional demand for substantial AI infrastructure debt.

BlackRock’s choice to pursue such a sizable offering at this juncture indicates belief that institutional investor demand continues to be robust, particularly for investment-grade securities.

Utilizing a holding company framework — in this case, Sopaipilla Investor — represents standard practice in infrastructure finance, isolating the debt from primary corporate balance sheets while maintaining connection to the physical assets.

Meta’s minority ownership position in the development allows the company to secure data center resources without shouldering the complete capital requirements on its financial statements.

The El Paso region has emerged as an attractive hub for data center construction, offering advantages including land availability, electrical infrastructure, and supportive regulatory conditions.

With the debt instrument extending through 2048, purchasers are committing to an exceptionally long-term perspective on AI infrastructure requirements — securing exposure spanning more than twenty years.

The investment-grade credit designation should facilitate interest from pension systems, insurance providers, and other substantial institutional purchasers that mandate investment-grade securities.

JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley, both among Wall Street’s premier debt capital markets firms, are managing the syndication, lending additional credibility to the transaction’s structure.

Final pricing is scheduled for next week, with ultimate terms dependent on investor feedback collected throughout the marketing period.

The post BlackRock (BLK) Markets $12.3B in Bonds for Meta’s Texas AI Data Facility appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Highlights

• Major US indices wobbled Friday following Thursday’s brutal session that erased roughly $800 billion in value from the Magnificent Seven tech giants
• Surging artificial intelligence expenditures at Alphabet and Tesla sparked the technology sector retreat
• New Section 301 tariffs from President Trump, spanning 10% to 12.5%, became active during overnight hours
• Crude retreated Friday but Brent remained positioned for weekly gains after briefly surpassing the $100 threshold
• Verizon and American Express delivered profit wins yet disappointed on sales; Intel rallied on stronger-than-expected results

American equities struggled to find stable footing Friday morning following one of 2024’s most punishing technology sector routs. Market participants grappled with a complex mix of fresh trade barriers, ballooning AI infrastructure costs, and elevated energy prices.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average managed a modest 0.3% advance, while the S&P 500 treaded water near breakeven. The Nasdaq Composite declined 0.4% as technology names maintained their downward pressure.

All three benchmark indices were tracking toward negative weekly performance. The elite Magnificent Seven cohort of mega-cap technology companies saw approximately $800 billion in combined market capitalization evaporate during Thursday’s session alone.

The sharp decline followed quarterly reports from Alphabet and Tesla, which disclosed dramatically escalating capital expenditures tied to artificial intelligence infrastructure. Market participants responded negatively to the mounting expense levels.

Intel provided a rare positive development. The semiconductor manufacturer’s shares climbed in morning action after exceeding analyst profit forecasts in its Thursday evening release.

Fresh Trade Barriers Activated

During overnight hours, President Trump’s latest round of comprehensive tariffs became operational. The Section 301 levies encompass virtually all American imports, imposing rates ranging from 10% to 12.5% on the nation’s primary trade partners.

Administration officials indicated the revised tariff framework was engineered to withstand potential legal challenges more effectively than earlier iterations.

Certain energy commodities received exemptions from the tariff schedule. Officials justified this decision as oil markets were already experiencing upward price pressure that could undermine inflation reduction efforts.

Brent crude futures declined 2.8% Friday, trading beneath $98 per barrel. Nevertheless, the global benchmark remained positioned for a positive weekly performance after momentarily breaching the $100 level earlier in the trading week.

Corporate Results Show Divergence

Verizon Communications and American Express each exceeded profit projections but came up short on top-line growth. Both stocks retreated despite the earnings victories.

NextEra Energy surpassed per-share earnings estimates while similarly missing revenue targets. Unlike Verizon and American Express, its shares advanced.

Intel’s robust quarterly performance emerged as an exceptional bright spot for the technology sector during an otherwise challenging week.

Market Breadth Tells Different Story

The equal-weight S&P 500 ETF, which assigns identical importance to each constituent, climbed 0.5% Friday. This performance indicated the broader market remained resilient — with weakness concentrated in a select group of large-cap technology names.

The iShares Semiconductor ETF plunged 4.3%, creating significant headwinds for broader index recovery. Technology and consumer discretionary stood as the sole major sectors posting losses.

Scheduled economic releases included S&P Global’s July purchasing managers index data for both services and manufacturing sectors, alongside fresh residential sales statistics.

The post Wall Street Stumbles as Trump Tariffs Launch and Oil Flirts with $100 Milestone appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• Shares of BAH climbed approximately 14.9% on Friday following a fiscal first-quarter adjusted EPS of $1.81 that significantly exceeded the $1.48 analyst consensus
• Reported net income declined to $198M ($1.63 per share) compared to $271M ($2.16 per share) in the year-ago quarter; revenue decreased 4.2% to $2.8B
• Adjusted EBITDA increased 7.4% on a year-over-year basis to $334M; margins expanded to 11.9% from the prior year’s 10.6%
• Company backlog climbed to $39.48B at quarter-end June 30, representing a 3.2% increase year-over-year
• Management maintained full-year projections: adjusted EPS of $6.00–$6.35 and revenue between $11.2B and $11.7B

Shares of Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH) experienced a dramatic rally of approximately 14.9% during early Friday trading sessions following the defense contractor’s release of fiscal first-quarter financial results that significantly exceeded profit expectations despite softer revenue performance.

Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation, BAH

The company delivered adjusted earnings per share of $1.81 for the quarter, substantially surpassing the FactSet analyst consensus of $1.48. However, reported net income decreased to $198 million ($1.63 per diluted share) from $271 million ($2.16 per diluted share) recorded in the comparable quarter of the previous fiscal year.

Quarterly revenue declined 4.2% on a year-over-year basis to $2.8 billion, marginally below Wall Street’s projection of $2.81 billion.

Adjusted EBITDA demonstrated growth of 7.4%, reaching $334 million for the period. The company’s adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 11.9%, representing an improvement from the 10.6% margin achieved in the prior-year quarter.

The firm’s civil government business segment continues to present challenges for overall financial performance. Booz Allen implemented workforce reductions affecting thousands of employees during the previous year following significant contract cutbacks within this division.

The current administration has intensified scrutiny on federal consulting organizations, demanding justification for their services and proposals for meaningful cost reductions. Booz Allen has experienced the impact of this heightened oversight.

During October, management announced a restructuring initiative targeting $150 million in cost savings. The workforce reductions implemented are a direct consequence of this strategic realignment.

Total employee headcount was approximately 30,900 at the conclusion of June, representing a 7.5% decrease compared to the same point in the previous year.

National Security Portfolio Showing Momentum

The company’s national security operations present a contrasting narrative. Booz Allen reported that customer demand is accelerating throughout this business segment.

Management is strategically reallocating resources toward sophisticated cybersecurity capabilities, defense technology solutions, and AI-driven products. This strategic reorientation appears to be resonating positively with the investment community.

The total contract backlog reached $39.48 billion at June 30, reflecting a 3.2% year-over-year increase. This metric indicates a robust project pipeline despite ongoing challenges in the civil government segment.

Booz Allen derives approximately 98% of its roughly $12 billion in annual revenue from government-affiliated contracts. The balance between national security projects and civil government work has become an increasingly critical metric for investors to monitor.

Annual Outlook Remains Unchanged

Chief Executive Officer Horacio Rozanski indicated the organization remains positioned to achieve its full-year financial targets.

Booz Allen maintained its guidance projecting adjusted EPS in the range of $6.00–$6.35, adjusted EBITDA between $1.24B and $1.29B, and revenue spanning $11.2B to $11.7B.

Current FactSet analyst consensus estimates call for adjusted EPS of $6.26, EBITDA of $1.26B, and revenue of $11.42B — all comfortably within management’s guidance ranges.

The substantial earnings outperformance combined with management’s confidence in maintaining full-year guidance proved sufficient to drive significant stock appreciation despite the revenue shortfall and year-over-year decline in reported profitability.

The post Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH) Stock Soars 15% on Strong Q1 Earnings Beat appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Major memory chip supply agreements between Samsung, SK Hynix and US technology firms will be revealed during South Korea’s presidential San Francisco trip
• President Lee Jae Myung is holding meetings with prominent US tech leaders, including Jensen Huang of Nvidia and Sam Altman of OpenAI
• Anticipated agreements encompass extended supply contracts, strategic collaborations, and formal memorandums of understanding
• The two South Korean manufacturers command approximately 80% of the worldwide HBM chip marketplace
• American technology corporations are also planning to reveal strategic capital commitments toward AI data infrastructure

South Korea’s leading semiconductor manufacturers are preparing to finalize substantial supply agreements with US technology corporations. These revelations are anticipated during President Lee Jae Myung’s San Francisco trip scheduled for this weekend.

Presidential policy adviser Kim Yong-beom informed journalists that these agreements will encompass extended memory chip supply arrangements with international technology collaborators. He indicated that “exceptionally substantial and significant numbers” are projected to be disclosed.

The diplomatic visit is being positioned as an initiative to reinforce technological and economic cooperation between the United States and South Korea.

Key Participants in the Discussions

During his San Francisco stay, President Lee has arranged meetings with Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang and OpenAI’s Chief Executive Sam Altman. He will also participate in an artificial intelligence summit accompanied by prominent South Korean industry executives.

The South Korean delegation features Samsung Electronics Chairman Jay Y. Lee, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, and Hyundai Motor Executive Chair Euisun Chung. From the American contingent, attendees include Broadcom’s Hock Tan, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, and Naver Corporation’s Lee Hae-jin.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., SMSD.L

This summit convenes leading figures from both AI hardware manufacturing and software development sectors.

High-Bandwidth Memory’s Central Role

High-bandwidth memory chips, commonly known as HBM, form the cornerstone of these pending agreements. These specialized semiconductors are essential components within graphics processing units that drive AI data facilities and advanced language processing systems.

Samsung and SK Hynix collectively dominate approximately 80% of the worldwide HBM chip sector. This commanding market position provides South Korea with considerable negotiating power in AI supply chain discussions with American enterprises.

According to the Korea Economic Institute of America, discussions will primarily concentrate on South Korea’s contribution to American AI infrastructure development and the provision of advanced HBM semiconductor technology.

Anticipated arrangements encompass strategic collaborative frameworks, formal understanding documents, and extended supply commitments. American technology enterprises are simultaneously preparing to unveil strategic capital allocations toward AI data center development, although precise specifications remain undisclosed.

President Lee’s San Francisco stopover represents part of a broader diplomatic journey to South America, where he is scheduled to participate in summits with regional leadership.

Should these semiconductor agreements materialize, they would represent a significant strengthening of commercial relationships between South Korean chip producers and America’s technology sector during a period of rapidly accelerating demand for AI computing infrastructure.

The post South Korean Chipmakers Samsung and SK Hynix Prepare Massive US Memory Deals appeared first on Blockonomi.

The biggest meme coin by market capitalization is down 12% over the past month, while its most recent plunge below a critical level suggests sellers may now be in full control.

On the other hand, Ali Martinez pointed to the formation of a rare setup that could be a precursor to a major bull run.

Will Bears Keep the Wheel?

DOGE has tumbled by roughly 5% on a 24-hour scale and is currently worth around $0.069 (according to CoinGecko). The X account BSCN noted that in its weekly anomaly report, Santiment flagged the meme coin as “hype without news,” warning that a price drop below $0.071 would hand control to the sellers.

“Santiment’s core read was that DOGE trades as amplified Bitcoin beta, falling harder in selloffs, and this session proved it on cue,” it added.

According to the analytics platform, a quick reclaim of the key $0.071 zone would repair the setup, but staying beneath it would indicate that bears continue to dominate.

Other market observers who also touched upon DOGE include Kamran Asghar and Scient. The former claimed that the token is approaching “a make or break” level, predicting that “the next big move could shock everyone.” The latter was firmly on the bearish side, expecting a further drop in the coming days.

The Bullish Signals

Contrary to its poor performance as of late, the renowned analyst Ali Martinez outlined that DOGE’s weekly TD Sequential indicator has flashed numerous consecutive buy signals. He labeled the development “a rare setup that could be warning a major bull rally is approaching.”

X user Cryptollica chipped in, too, noting the “dead attention” surrounding Dogecoin recently. At the same time, they believe this is the best moment to jump on the bandwagon, saying:

“Invest when no one else cares. That way, you will make money.”

The institutional interest is also worth mentioning. Earlier this week, spot DOGE ETFs witnessed their first green day since mid-June. However, the capital flowing into these products remains negligible, and appetite from big players like pension funds and hedge funds should seriously increase to positively impact the price.

The post Dogecoin (DOGE) Slips Below a Key Level: Can Bulls Repair the Damage? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The previous business week ended with a leg down that drove the primary cryptocurrency to $62,500. However, it reacted swiftly and recovered to $64,000 during the weekend.

The gradual climb continued on Sunday and Monday morning when BTC peaked at $65,000, but it was rejected and slipped south by over a grand to $63,750. The next leg up was a lot more impressive. Bitcoin didn’t stop at $65,000, and even the $66,000 resistance fell on the first attempt. Thus, the asset’s rally extended for a bit more, reaching $67,000 (on some exchanges) for the first time since the middle of June.

It came on the heels of renewed ETF net inflows and new accumulations from certain large investors. However, the price run couldn’t be sustained for long, and BTC quickly dipped back down to $66,000 on Wednesday, $65,000 on Thursday, and it plunged to $64,000 earlier today.

Despite its $3,000 correction from the local top, bitcoin remains about 2% up on the week. Similar gains are evident from Ethereum, which challenged $1,950 at one point, and TRX, which remains at around $0.33. Even more impressive price performance comes from XMR; a 9% pump has driven the privacy token to over $350. UNI and HBAR have posted notable gains as well, while HYPE, ZEC, CC, and DOGE remain in the red on a weekly scale.

Bitcoin’s market dominance has also dwindled in the past few days. It exploded to over 57% during the mid-week run, but it has dipped below 56% on CoinGecko now.

Market Data

Market Cap: $2.295T | 24H Vol: $61B | BTC Dominance: 55.9%

BTC: $64.000 (+2%) | ETH: $1,855 (+2.4%) | XRP: $1.09 (+1.7%)

This Week’s Crypto Headlines You Can’t Miss

Strategy Extends Bitcoin Buying Pause While Growing Its USD Reserve: Details. Saylor’s company appears to have listened to some market experts who suggested that it should pause its BTC purchases in favor of rebuilding its USD reserve. The past week proved that narrative right once again with another no-buy bitcoin announcement.

Veteran Crypto Exchange BitMEX to Shut Down in September. After nearly a decade in existence, the veteran derivatives platform BitMEX announced that it will close shop in September. The creator of the 100x perpetual swap will permanently cease operations on September 23 and urged users to withdraw their funds by then. While on the subject, DEX aggregator Odos said it will shut down next week.

SEC Agrees to Overhaul Recordkeeping After Settling Coinbase Lawsuit Over Gensler’s Lost Texts. Despite not admitting any wrongdoing, the US Securities and Exchange Commission settled with Coinbase a lawsuit launched by the exchange and agreed to pay $150,000 in attorney fees. The regulator also said it will review its own internal processes.

‘Hackers Day’: 3 Crypto Protocols Drained of $35 Million in 24 Hours. July 23 became known in the crypto community as ‘Hackers’ Day’ with 3 major exploits taking place within less than 24 hours. The largest of the bunch was against Arbitrum-based protocol AFX Trade, in which the bad actors swiped over $24 million in USDC.

EU Hits Russia With Toughest Crypto Crackdown Yet. The European Union approved its 21st sanctions package against Russia, targeting 11 crypto operators and 94 financial institutions to combat sanctions evasion. Many of those platforms came from Belarus and Nigeria and were linked to numerous Russian financial activities.

Ethereum (ETH) Is Cheap, But Not at Bottom Yet: Analysts. The world’s largest altcoin may be trading well below its record peaks and at a discount, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it has bottomed yet. Analysts at CryptoQuant noted that only two out of five signals suggest that the worst is behind ETH.

Charts

This week, we have a chart analysis of Ethereum, Ripple, Cardano, Binance Coin, and Hyperliquid – click here for the complete price analysis.

The post Bitcoin Rejected at $67K, Strategy Stays on Hold, BitMEX Shuts Down: Weekly Crypto Recap appeared first on CryptoPotato.

In the summer of 2024, a meme coin named DADDY went viral on crypto X, and its price skyrocketed within days. The controversial influencer Andrew Tate supported the token, and in the following months and years, his announcements or actions have triggered substantial price volatility.

Just a few days ago, he was arrested, which resulted in a major price decline for DADDY. Check out what exactly happened.

Tate Behind Bars

Besides being famous for his successful kickboxing career, Tate has also made global headlines due to his legal troubles. Over the years, he has faced multiple charges in the UK, Romania, and the USA, and has been arrested on numerous occasions.

On July 19, he and his brother (Tristan Tate) were once again detained in Miami after the British authorities issued 38 new criminal counts against them, including rape, actual bodily harm, and human trafficking.

“We have decided to prosecute Andrew and Tristan Tate for further offenses including rape, arranging or facilitating trafficking for sexual exploitation and offenses relating to indecent images of a child,” Malcolm McHaffie, head of the Special Crime Division at the CPS, said.

Andrew Tate, who denies the allegations, is due to face trial in Britain later this year, and according to his recent X post, he has been situated in a Special Housing Unit (SHU). He described his current location as “the highest level of security which exists,” claiming he has no contact with the outside world, is not allowed visitations, and has a neighbor who is “a cannibal who screams throughout the night.”

Several X users found his remarks controversial, questioning how he could still be tweeting when supposedly cut off from the world beyond prison walls.

And while his ability to interact with social media from behind bars may be surprising, the price action of the meme coin DADDY is anything but. Its price has tumbled by roughly 40% since his arrest, currently trading at a mere $0.0092 (per CoinGecko), while its market capitalization has shrunk from $8 million to less than $5 million.

DADDY: From a Crypto Sensation to a Worthless Token

Nearly two years ago, the token saw the light of day, and it acted as an opposition to MOTHER (another meme coin which is affiliated with the Australian model Iggy Azalea). Being widely known as a misogynist and one who often praises male dominance, Tate supported DADDY for “the patriarchy.”

His backing and the huge initial hype triggered a serious pump for the token, whose price briefly jumped to nearly $0.30, while its market capitalization was aiming at $100 million.

However, DADDY doesn’t rely on fundamentals but on clear speculation and enthusiasm on social media, so what happened next should come as a surprise. The price entered a steep downward trend, only worsened by the insider trading accusations directed at Tate.

The post Andrew Tate’s Meme Coin Crashes 40% Since His Arrest: Details appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Ethereum remains under pressure on the higher timeframes despite showing signs of stabilization over the past several weeks. The daily structure continues to trade below key moving averages, while the 4-hour chart shows buyers attempting to build a higher low above a key support area. On-chain data also continues to provide a constructive backdrop as exchange balances keep declining.

Ethereum Price Analysis: The Daily Chart

The daily chart shows ETH trading around $1.86K after recovering from the June sell-off that briefly pushed the price into the major demand zone around $1.5K. Although that support area successfully halted the decline, the broader trend has yet to shift decisively in favor of the bulls.

The asset sits just above the higher trendline of the long-term descending channel after the recent breakout. However, both the 100-day and 200-day moving averages are still overhead, indicating that sellers still control the higher timeframe structure. The recent test of the 100-day moving average around $2k has been rejected, which leaves ETH trapped beneath several technical barriers.

The first resistance sits around the $2K supply zone, where the key moving averages also converge. A stronger resistance zone is located roughly around $2.4K, which capped the previous recovery attempt in April. Reclaiming these levels would be required to suggest that the broader downtrend is losing momentum.

ETH/USDT 4-Hour Chart

The lower timeframe presents a more constructive picture. Since the early July rebound, ETH has been printing higher highs and higher lows while respecting a rising trendline (white) that continues to support the advance.

Yet, following the rejection from the higher boundary of the ascending channel (yellow), the asset has pulled back toward the white trendline, where buyers have so far stepped in. These trendlines form a short-term rising wedge, and as long as price remains above the lower bound and the $1.75K support zone, the short-term bullish structure remains intact.

The next objective for buyers is another test of the recent highs around $1.9K to $1.95K. A decisive breakout above that region and the channel could open the path toward the daily supply zone at $2K.

On the other hand, a breakdown below the white ascending trendline would weaken the short-term structure and increase the probability of a deeper retracement toward $1.75K, with $1.7K and $1.6k serving as the next notable support levels.

On-Chain Analysis

The Exchange Supply Ratio continues to trend lower, reaching fresh lows despite Ethereum’s prolonged corrective phase. This metric measures the proportion of ETH held on centralized exchanges, and a declining reading generally indicates that coins are leaving exchanges and moving into private wallets or long-term storage.

The persistent decline suggests that sell-side liquidity available on exchanges continues to shrink. Historically, sustained exchange outflows have often reflected improving investor conviction and reduced immediate selling pressure.

Although this alone does not guarantee an upside reversal, the on-chain backdrop appears considerably healthier than the current price structure. If demand begins to strengthen while exchange balances remain depressed, the reduced available supply could provide additional support for a broader recovery once ETH overcomes its key technical resistance levels.

The post Ethereum Price Prediction: Where Is ETH Headed After the $1,950 Rejection? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin stayed around $65,000 on Friday after gaining nearly 4% over the past month. New data suggests the market may no longer be facing endless downside risk.

In fact, Bitcoin’s Sharpe ratio has fallen to -23, which, according to crypto analyst Ali Martinez, is a level that could be an optimal window for spot accumulation.

Seller Exhaustion

The Sharpe ratio measures the amount of return generated for each unit of risk or volatility. While a positive reading indicates returns have outweighed risk, a negative one reflects periods of severe drawdowns for investors. Martinez explained the current -23 reading indicates deep seller exhaustion rather than unlimited downside, which creates an “asymmetric” risk-to-reward entry point for long-term BTC investors.

He added that similar Sharpe ratio compressions in 2015, 2019, and 2022 coincided with final bear market capitulation phases.

Martinez had previously identified a rare technical setup on Bitcoin’s monthly chart that has historically appeared near the end of previous bear markets. While on-chain metrics such as MVRV and CVDD still indicate a possible cycle low between $40,000 and $50,000, Martinez said that a setup of three technical indicators – the RSI near 43.65, the CMO around -71, and a test of the 50-month moving average – historically appeared near major market bottoms.

A similar view has also been put forward by Grayscale, which said that BTC’s market bottom may be determined more by macroeconomic conditions than by the traditional four-year cycle.

While the cycle model suggests Bitcoin could bottom around September or October, the asset manager argued that it has matured and is increasingly influenced by broader economic trends, including US Federal Reserve policy and real interest rates. According to Grayscale, if the Fed avoids further rate hikes and economic growth remains resilient, BTC may have already reached its low.

$75K Hurdle

Not everyone, however, is convinced of that. For instance, trader Ardi said he would need to see the asset break above $75,000 before considering the asset’s $57,000 low as the final bottom of the current market cycle.

The trader argued that $75,000 represents the neckline of the previous range’s double-bottom pattern, and reclaiming that level would be the earliest sign that the higher-timeframe downtrend from $126,000 is beginning to lose validity. Even then, Ardi argued that a breakout alone would not be sufficient.

He said BTC would also need to either sustain an extended rally or trade sideways for several months, similar to its February rally, allowing time to strengthen the case that a lasting bottom has formed. At present, Ardi believes the evidence still weighs against that scenario. He went on to add that Bitcoin has not gone through a “genuine” bottoming phase or a late-stage capitulation, but has instead continued “grinding lower.”

He also pointed out that accepting $57,000 as the cycle low would imply the “shallowest” bear-market drawdown on record and a trough arriving roughly three months earlier than in previous cycles, despite the broader market structure remaining bearish.

The post Bitcoin’s Sharpe Ratio Signals an ‘Optimal’ Spot Accumulation Window appeared first on CryptoPotato.