Michael Burry expands his short position against Nvidia, adding bearish bets on Applied Materials, Micron, Tesla, and the semiconductor ETF SOXX.

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Google, OpenAI, and xAI back an open letter urging US policymakers not to restrict open-weight AI models, joining 25 signatories including Nvidia

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Troy Jackson replaces Platner as the Democratic candidate for Maine Senate. Democrats winning the Maine Senate race in 2026 at 67% YES.

The post Troy Jackson replaces Platner in Maine Senate race against Collins appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Tokenized real-world assets have become the largest market on Hyperliquid, with a 19.5% chance Hyperliquid will reach $100 by December 31, 2026.

The post Tokenized RWAs become largest market on Hyperliquid, surpassing crypto categories appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The combined market cap of the world's 10 largest stocks fell from $28.44T to $27.8T, shedding roughly $640 billion in aggregate value.

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Bitcoin Magazine

Morgan Stanley Bitcoin ETF Nearly Notches $400M in Assets

Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley Bitcoin exchange-traded fund now has close to $400 million in assets under management — despite only launching in April. 

The NYSE Arca-listed fund, which is the first by a bank, got off to a roaring start when it debuted, bringing in over $33 million in fresh cash on its first day. 

Now, the fund has over $391 million in assets, demonstrating the popularity of the product. Many ETFs never reach $400 million in assets at all, let alone in one quarter.

Senior Bloomberg Intelligence ETF analyst Eric Balchunas revealed Friday that the product has been one of the most successful funds launched this year so far. 

This week alone, investors have thrown $15.7 million in new cash at the product, according to Farside Investors data. 

Morgan Stanley has been making big crypto moves for years now. Back in 2021, it started offering wealthy clients exposure to Bitcoin via funds such as those by Galaxy Digital.

And last year, the bank’s CEO and Chairman, Ted Pick, said that the bank was working with regulators to see how they could offer crypto safely.

Back in April, the bank’s head of digital assets, Amy Oldenburg said client education — not product design — is the central challenge facing Bitcoin adoption.

ETF action this week

After weeks of outflows and sloppy price action, American Bitcoin ETFs have taken in fresh cash over the past seven days. 

Farside Investors shows the products have received a total of $274 million in new investment so far this week. 

The funds had been on a winning streak, receiving nearly $1 billion over seven days until Thursday, when every ETF experienced outflows — except for Morgan Stanley’s product. 

Bitcoin’s price was recently trading for $64,096, down over 1% over the past 24 hours. The cryptocurrency is virtually unmoved over a seven-day period. 

European asset management firm CoinShares last week said that while investors are back at putting fresh cash in Bitcoin ETFs, other factors may hold digital asset markets from going higher. 

“We see no significant upside potential from here,” James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, wrote.

This post Morgan Stanley Bitcoin ETF Nearly Notches $400M in Assets first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

$7 Trillion Investment Giant Fidelity Backs New Crypto Clarity Act

Investment giant Fidelity is the latest big player to back the latest version of the long-awaited Clarity Act. 

The Boston-based firm’s “Public Policy” account on X said Friday that it was urging the Senate to pass the bill. 

Lawmakers have been hashing out the crypto market structure bill since last year. A new improved draft circulating the Senate this week bans officials and their families from issuing or promoting crypto — a sticking point for opposition politicians. 

“The time is now for clear rules of the road that are essential to strengthening investor confidence, providing certainty for market participants, and reinforcing U.S. leadership in global digital asset markets,” the company said. 

Fidelity — which manages around $7 trillion in assets — was joined Friday by crypto advocacy groups the Crypto Council for Innovation, Blockchain Association, and the Digital Chamber, as well as the National Fraternal Order of Police and other politicians in backing the bill. 

Top asset manager Fidelity is interested in the bill as the firm manages Bitcoin and other digital asset exchange-traded funds: products which give American investors exposure to crypto via shares that trade on stock exchanges. 

The SEC approved a number of spot BTC ETFs in 2024, which have since gone on to be some of the most successful ETF launches ever. 

Clarity stalls

Republicans passed the Clarity Act last year but the bill has been in deadlock — mainly because banking chiefs raised concerns over stablecoins and the yield they would potentially pay customers. 

Coinbase pulled support for the bill in January after clashing with banking bigwigs who said that earning yield on stablecoins should be banned. 

U.S. banks argue that they could lose customers if crypto exchanges like Coinbase offer more attractive products for their deposit base. 

Some lawmakers — like Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren — have argued that President Donald Trump’s family has unfairly benefited from crypto ventures. 

Warren this week argued that the Clarity Act could further be used for Trump to cash in on crypto but the latest draft bans officials and their families from issuing or promoting crypto. 

This post $7 Trillion Investment Giant Fidelity Backs New Crypto Clarity Act first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

State Department to Debut Freedom Tech Program with Bitcoin Policy Institute, Palantir as Founding Partners

The U.S. State Department is launching a program that includes Bitcoin as a way to advance digital freedom worldwide. 

Named the Freedom Tech Excellence Program, the initiative will see the State Department work with the Bitcoin Policy Institute, data-analytics firm Palantir Technologies, defense technology company Anduril Industries, and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation on issues including online surveillance, encryption, AI governance, and protecting free expression online.

According to the program’s stated goals, participants will focus on five priority areas: First Amendment and free expression protections in the digital age; countering unlawful digital surveillance and online scams; privacy-enhancing technologies such as strong encryption and VPNs; responsible governance of emerging technologies including AI; and safeguarding children and other users online.

The inclusion of the Bitcoin Policy Institute signals that the Department views Bitcoin and blockchain technology as tools relevant to circumventing censorship and financial surveillance in authoritarian states — a theme the organization has long championed in its advocacy work.

The FTEP will operate through limited-term assignments, placing private sector personnel inside the State Department on temporary embeds tasked with shaping diplomatic efforts around specific digital freedom issues. 

President Trump campaigned on a ticket to help the crypto space and since taking office, his government has taken a more pro-crypto approach to both regulating and including elements of the space in his administration. 

In March 2025, for example, President Trump signed an executive order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a separate U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile, capitalized with roughly 200,000 Bitcoin already held by the government through criminal and civil forfeiture. 

The order framed Bitcoin alongside strategic reserves the U.S. maintains for materials like gold, petroleum, and pharmaceuticals, treating it as a scarce national asset rather than merely a speculative one.

This post State Department to Debut Freedom Tech Program with Bitcoin Policy Institute, Palantir as Founding Partners first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

National Fraternal Order of Police Gives Green Light to Clarity Act in Latest Support for Crypto Bill

The National Fraternal Order of Police became the latest organization to throw its support behind the long-awaited Clarity Act. 

In a statement Friday, specifically addressed to Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren and Timothy Eugene Scott, the fraternal organization wrote that it approved of the latest bill. The FOP works to improve the working conditions of law enforcement officers.

The newest draft bans officials and their families from issuing or promoting crypto, something opposition lawmakers previously had issue with. On Wednesday, Senator Warren, a long-time crypto critic, said that the latest bill would allow President Donald Trump to make money from crypto, as well as benefit criminals. 

“The latest version of the ‘Clarity Act’ includes several provisions that improve the ability of State and local law enforcement to protect consumers, investigate financial crimes, and coordinate with their Federal partners,” the letter read. 

“The revised bill establishes safeguards aimed at addressing fraud and victimization involving digital asset kiosks and related activity while also providing for anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance obligations across the digital asset ecosystem.”

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. 

More support for the bill 

Top crypto advocacy groups the Crypto Council for Innovation, Blockchain Association, and the Digital Chamber also threw their support behind the latest draft of the Clarity Act on 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. 

The Clarity Act, which Republicans passed last year, has been in a deadlock mainly because 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. 

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

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.

President Trump campaigned on a ticket to help the crypto space but his digital asset ventures have raised eyebrows among Washington lawmakers who think the Trump family has unfairly profited from crypto businesses. 

This post National Fraternal Order of Police Gives Green Light to Clarity Act in Latest Support for Crypto Bill first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Sealed in Foil: BMAG’s New Focus on Trading Cards

Somewhere right now, on a livestream, someone is tearing open a foil package while hundreds of people watch. Trading cards have become a spectator sport. The card market is at all-time highs, cardboard repriced by the hour, rare cards selling for eight figures, and a general sense of frenzy. But watch enough of it and something strange becomes clear. Nobody is looking at the cards. The audience isn’t consuming images, it’s consuming anticipation.

The card boom has also surfaced hard questions, and the hardest ones surround grading. The past year saw the hobby’s dominant grading house facing scrutiny over grades that shifted after cards moved through its own buyback program, and collectors began asking, who grades the grader. When a single subjective number separates a card from ten times its value, and the arbiter of that number also holds a position in the asset, the hobby has a verification problem. These are, in the language of bitcoiners, trusted-third-party problems.

The two worlds keep arriving at the same three questions: what’s real, what’s rare, and what holds value. A graded slab and a confirmed transaction on the timechain are answers to the same anxiety. Collectors demanding transparent grading and provenance that can’t be quietly revised are asking for verification over trust, whether they use those words or not. In that sense, card collectors and bitcoiners already share the same ideals.

This is why BMAG (Bitcoin Museum and Art Gallery) is making trading cards a serious part of its program. Seven years as the cultural wing of the Bitcoin Conference, more than 130 BTC ($8+ million) in art and collectibles sales, the first Magic: The Gathering tournament at a Bitcoin Conference, staged in Las Vegas with Kraken and on-site TAG grading, and the conviction that cards are asking the same questions bitcoin already answered.

Source: https://my.taggrading.com/card/P7612780

The fullest expression of that focus arrives this August. At Bitcoin Asia 2026, August 27-28 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, BMAG will debut a full Trading Card Expo on the conference floor. The Expo is anchored by a marketplace of established vendors from across Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, alongside live activations, grading and authentication, card auctions, and a curated gallery presentation surrounding it all. Cards and collectibles will be available for purchase, and attendees are encouraged to bring their own cards for grading or resale to the 40+ card vendors. Hong Kong is one of the most active card markets in the world and a Bitcoin conference is the natural room for it.

But a marketplace alone isn’t the point. The trading card has an art pedigree longer than most people realize. Jefferson Burdick, the father of American card collecting, spent his final years transferring thousands of cards into albums at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where his collection remains today. Art Spiegelman worked at Topps inventing series like Garbage Pail Kids before his mainstream graphic novel successes. And the critic Brian Droitcour recently put his finger on why the format matters right now: a Magic card is an image that does something, rarity and function entwined, while NFTs inherited that logic and captured only the rarity. Droitcour argues that NFTs dissolved the old hierarchy between the artwork and the collectible, and that the most interesting artists working today make objects that are both at once. 

A generation of artists has taken that invitation literally. Over the past few years, a loose scene of mostly pseudonymous artists, formed across crypto subcultures, Twitter timelines, and private group chats, has been quietly staging one of the more genuine artistic rebellions of the decade. Where the establishment crypto-art world courted galleries with polished generative work, these artists went the other direction, making images dense with meme references, anime, veiled art history, and internet debris, layered so deep that critics had to invent new words for them. They call the style schizocollage. In Spike Art Magazine, Dean Kissick placed the work in the lineage of deliberately “bad painting,” a tradition Marcia Tucker gave institutional credentials when she inaugurated the New Museum with an exhibition of that name in 1978. And increasingly, the scene’s work has been heading not toward the gallery wall but toward cardboard: the pack, the pull, the sleeve, and the slab treated not as merchandising afterthoughts but as the medium itself.

BMAG has spent years working in a room the traditional art world ignored, the art gallery inside a Bitcoin conference. When the painter Nardo showed at Bitcoin MENA in 2024, our conversation kept circling memes as units of cultural transmission and the internet’s layered debris as legitimate subject matter for painting. A year later his Citadel, a seven-foot oil painting built from a 4chan meme, debuted at the Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas: a monument raised to an internet shitpost. The card movement runs on the same current at a different scale, small enough to fit in a penny sleeve. It’s a conversation we’ve continued in these pages all year, with founders like Alladan Flinn of Based Trading Cards, who describes cards as physical timestamps of the Bitcoin movement. We’ll have much more to say about the artists of this scene, and what they’re bringing to Hong Kong, in the weeks ahead.

The Card Expo debuts at Bitcoin Asia 2026, August 27-28 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. Vendors of cards, collectibles, and related goods can apply for a table here. Tables are limited.

Follow BMAG on X at @BMAG_HQ for new partnership announcements, auctions, and first looks at the artists coming to Hong Kong.

This post Sealed in Foil: BMAG’s New Focus on Trading Cards first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Dennis Koch.

President Donald Trump joked about seeking a fourth term as millions of dollars in his namesake meme coin moved toward exchanges.

Trump used the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner to revive one of his longest-running political provocations, pulling out a red “Trump 2028” hat and declaring that he intended to run again.

He joked:

“I’m pleased to announce my intention to, and this is somewhat of a scoop, my intention to run for a fourth term as president of the United States. I won three times. Now I’m going to do it again.”

Trump has repeatedly claimed he won the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden.

Around the same time, wallets associated with the team behind Official Trump memecoin moved 10.84 million TRUMP tokens worth roughly $16.91 million, blockchain tracker Lookonchain reported.

The assets appeared likely to be routed through crypto custodian BitGo before potentially reaching exchanges. No sale has been confirmed.

The two developments are not directly connected. But their timing puts renewed attention on a cryptocurrency built around Trump’s political brand as its price falls, and more project-controlled tokens move through the market.

Crypto bettors dismiss Trump's fourth-term odds as token transfers mount

Trump’s latest 2028 tease faces a constitutional obstacle that prediction-market traders see little prospect of disappearing soon.

The 22nd Amendment prevents a person from being elected president more than twice. Trump, who won the 2016 and 2024 elections, acknowledged during his speech that he was joking before later producing the 2028 hat and announcing what he called his fourth campaign.

Traders on Polymarket assigned just a 4% probability to a contract asking whether presidential term limits would be repealed or altered this year.

The market had generated less than $20,000 in trading volume, suggesting limited conviction that the constitutional restriction will change before the end of 2026.

The token movements, meanwhile, are part of a more sustained trend.

Lookonchain said project-linked wallets have moved 48.25 million TRUMP, worth about $172.4 million, across three batches over the past five months. TRUMP has fallen more than 66% during that period and traded around $1.55, down about 3% over the previous 24 hours.

The sequencing does not establish that the transfers caused the decline. Moving tokens to custodians or exchanges can serve several purposes, including liquidity provision, market making, distributions, or eventual sales.

Previous transfers, however, have followed similar routes. Blockchain records cited by analysts show earlier TRUMP movements passing through BitGo before reaching exchanges, adding scrutiny to each new batch as more of the token’s supply becomes available.

Project-linked wallets move more supply as TRUMP sinks

The latest movement comes as the project expands liquidity programs while preparing to use more of its unlocked token inventory.

Earlier this month, the TRUMP team said development had focused on market depth, new trading venues and ecosystem expansion.

Its Kamino campaign distributed about 114,000 TRUMP as incentives for users providing liquidity, while a TRUMP-SOL pool grew from about $2,000 when it launched in March to a peak of $1.66 million in May.

The team also established pools on Orca and Raydium and said liquidity providers were supporting trading across centralized and decentralized venues.

The project has separately disclosed plans to selectively deploy, sell, distribute or monetize portions of unlocked inventory to fund partnerships, acquisitions, token dispositions and other initiatives. Those disclosures provide broader context for the wallet movements but do not establish the purpose of the latest transfer.

The activity is taking place after a steep reversal in TRUMP’s market value. The token surged to a record $75.35 shortly after its January 2025 launch but has since surrendered almost all of that advance.

A Reuters investigation published in June estimated that the meme coin generated more than $1.2 billion in total revenue and that the Trump family received roughly $616 million from the venture.

However, the economics for many buyers moved in the opposite direction.

Reuters estimated that investors who bought TRUMP had accumulated more than $700 million in losses.

Those losses were not evenly distributed. Some early traders and larger holders made substantial profits, while many later buyers were left holding tokens worth significantly less than their purchase prices.

The divergence has put particular focus on the structure of TRUMP, where entities affiliated with the project control a large share of supply while tokens are gradually released under a multi-year unlock schedule.

VIP rewards give top holders reasons to stay invested

As more token supply enters circulation, the project is giving its largest holders additional reasons to keep their holdings through a Trump Coin Club, which is a recurring rewards program.

The club links access to major sporting events with leaderboard rankings based on TRUMP holdings. Participants accumulate higher scores by holding more tokens for longer periods, giving top holders an incentive to maintain or increase their positions.

The model was first put to use during the recently concluded FIFA World Cup. The top 19 holders qualified for a three-day experience surrounding the tournament final at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, including access to a private suite.

That format is now being extended into other events. The next competition will send the top 23 TRUMP holders to the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix from Oct. 9 through Oct. 11 for another three-day suite experience.

World Cup participants also have an advantage in the new contest. Holders who maintained their token balances after the July 5 snapshot receive a 10% boost based on their final World Cup score. Dropping below that balance removes the bonus, while selling the entire position eliminates the holder from the leaderboard. Final rankings will be locked Sept. 30.

The Coin Club is already promoting another holder event around Super Bowl LXI in Los Angeles in February 2027, signaling that this is developing into a broader calendar of rewards tied to TRUMP ownership.

The structure gives the token an additional use beyond market trading while tying its highest-value perks to continued ownership. That incentive is becoming more relevant as TRUMP trades near its lows and project-linked wallets continue moving additional supply.

The post Trump jokes about 4th term as $17 million in TRUMP tokens move onto exchanges appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Galaxy Digital said the Senate has four working days to save the CLARITY Act, as it cut passage odds to 30%.

In a July 24 note to clients, the crypto investment firm lowered its estimate for CLARITY Act chances this year from 50%, saying lawmakers need a deal by July 30 to leave enough time for floor proceedings before the August recess.

Alex Thorn, Galaxy Digital's head of research, said:

“[CLARITY Act] is a strong bill that improves regulation, protects investors, promotes innovation, grows USA the time for incremental negotiations is over. we need a last-ditch effort.”

The warning came just two days after US Senate Republicans released an updated 616-page combined version of the crypto market-structure bill following months of negotiations.

The new text merges measures approved by the Senate Banking and Agriculture committees while adding government ethics restrictions, law-enforcement provisions and changes to the GENIUS Act.

CLARITY Act updated draft fails to unlock Democratic votes

The combined bill includes several concessions aimed at resolving disputes that had stalled negotiations for months.

Its most politically sensitive addition is a new ethics package barring senior federal officials, including the president, vice president, members of Congress and federal judges, from issuing or sponsoring cryptocurrencies while in office.

The legislation also expands provisions targeting fraud and illicit finance, strengthens CFTC registration and custody requirements and makes changes to stablecoin oversight under the GENIUS Act.

Those revisions, however, have not secured the Democratic votes Republicans need to advance the legislation.

Seven Democrats involved in the negotiations, including Sens. Mark Warner, Angela Alsobrooks, Cory Booker, Catherine Cortez Masto, Ruben Gallego, John Hickenlooper and Raphael Warnock, said that the latest proposal still “falls short.”

The senators called for stronger protections covering government ethics, consumer safeguards, illicit finance, conflicts of interest and market integrity, while saying they would continue negotiating with Republicans.

That response complicates the vote count at a critical stage.

Republicans control 53 Senate seats, but the CLARITY Act would need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster and advance toward final passage. Galaxy expects Republican Sens. Josh Hawley and Rand Paul to oppose the measure, while Sen. Mitch McConnell has not voted since his June hospitalization.

Galaxy therefore estimates that CLARITY Act supporters may begin with roughly 50 dependable Republican votes, though it stressed that the figure is based on public statements and reporting rather than a confirmed whip count.

That leaves the negotiating Democrats central to any path toward 60.

The shrinking Senate calendar makes replacing those votes or extracting further concessions increasingly difficult.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said this week that he did not expect lawmakers to finish all pending legislation before the summer break. However, he left open the possibility of starting CLARITY.

“I would like to at least get Clarity started,” Thune said. “We’ll see where the votes are.”

Galaxy said leadership effectively needs an agreement by July 30 because beginning the floor process would still require time to file cloture, hold procedural votes, debate amendments and move the legislation toward final passage before senators leave Washington.

Waiting until September would place CLARITY into a more crowded legislative calendar dominated by government funding negotiations and election-year politics.

Supporters step up pressure as the clock runs down

The deteriorating vote outlook has triggered a fresh lobbying push aimed at getting the CLARITY Act onto the Senate floor.

The Digital Chamber, Crypto Council for Innovation and Blockchain Association sent a joint letter Friday urging Thune and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to prioritize floor consideration even as bipartisan negotiations continue.

The three groups said the updated legislation strengthens tools for combating illicit finance and creates broader federal consumer safeguards for digital-asset markets.

“These improvements reflect engagement with policymakers across both parties,” the groups wrote, arguing that the legislation could support innovation while strengthening national security.

They also urged leadership to move ahead without waiting for every remaining disagreement to be resolved.

Meanwhile, support for the bill has also expanded beyond the crypto industry.

The National Fraternal Order of Police, which represents more than 382,000 law-enforcement officers, endorsed the revised legislation after previously raising concerns about how developer protections could affect criminal investigations.

FOP President Patrick Yoes said revisions had satisfactorily addressed the group’s concerns and preserved authorities needed to investigate financial crimes involving digital assets.

The group highlighted provisions covering state and local enforcement, anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance, fraud involving crypto kiosks and the seizure of illicit assets.

The endorsement gives CLARITY supporters a response to one of the criticisms surrounding earlier drafts: that protections for non-custodial software developers could inadvertently constrain law enforcement.

Another campaign is coming from the National Black Church Initiative, which says it represents 150,000 African American and Latino faith communities with 27.7 million members.

NBCI urged Thune and Schumer to pass the legislation before the August recess, arguing that clearer oversight could protect consumers from digital-asset fraud while opening access to financial services, entrepreneurship and investment.

NBCI President Rev. Anthony Evans said:

“The Black Church cannot afford to be late to the future of finance, and we cannot allow our people to enter that future unprotected.”

The push is increasingly turning toward the Senate floor itself.

Jake Chervinsky, the chief executive officer at the Hyperliquid Policy Center, said the compromises already embedded in the legislation leave little reason for further delay.

“There are no serious objections left on the substance of the Clarity Act,” Chervinsky said, calling for every senator who presents themselves as supportive of crypto to be forced to take a position in a floor vote.

That pressure leaves Senate leaders with a shrinking choice between continuing negotiations off the floor or beginning proceedings while the remaining disputes are still unresolved.

The post US Senate has 4 days to save CLARITY Act as odds fall to 30% – Galaxy Digital says appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin traded around $64,000 on July 25 after changing hands near $65,000 around the ECB’s July 23 decision as the central bank kept rates unchanged, its bond portfolios continued shrinking, and euro-area banks tightened access to business and housing credit.

The ECB kept its three key interest rates unchanged, leaving the deposit facility rate at 2.25%, the main refinancing rate at 2.40% and the marginal lending facility rate at 2.65%, while the balance-sheet and bank-credit channels continued moving in a restrictive direction.

Official monthly data shows that the ECB’s asset purchase program and pandemic emergency purchase program portfolios declined by a combined €39.447 billion in June as maturing securities passed through the balance sheet without reinvestment. The latest weekly figures indicate that the two portfolios had fallen by approximately another €31.1 billion by July 17.

The ECB listed €27.039 billion of expected APP redemptions and €24.714 billion of expected PEPP redemptions during the month, producing a combined total of €51.753 billion whose realized value may vary as securities mature and accounting adjustments pass through the portfolios.

Those numbers explain why an unchanged interest rate decision remained relevant for Bitcoin investors, since the policy pause preserved June’s increase while central-bank bond demand continued receding, banks tightened their lending standards and safer interest-bearing assets offered increasingly competitive returns.

The ECB paused rates while financial conditions kept tightening

The July decision preserved the ECB’s 25-basis-point increase from June, which meant borrowers continued paying the higher rates while policymakers retained room for another increase if the energy shock spread more deeply into wages and consumer prices.

Quantitative tightening also remained active, with the ECB confirming that its asset purchase program (APP) and pandemic emergency purchase program (PEPP) portfolios would continue declining as principal payments from maturing securities passed through the system without reinvestment.

Source: ECB July monetary policy decision, monetary policy statement, APP holdings and PEPP holdings. Portfolio values are reported at amortized cost, while monthly declines are calculated from the ECB’s end-May and end-June holdings.

When an ECB-held bond reaches maturity, the issuer repays the Eurosystem, and reinvesting that payment would return the central bank to the bond market as a buyer. Allowing the bond to roll off shrinks the ECB’s assets and transfers more responsibility for absorbing replacement debt to private investors.

Governments refinancing maturing obligations must therefore attract private buyers for the newly issued bonds, and those investors may raise cash by selling other securities, redirect capital that could have entered equities or digital assets, or demand higher yields before accepting the additional duration.

The effect this will have on banking system reserves depends on how each repayment and refinancing transaction settles. The effect on portfolios, however, is much more direct because private investors must carry more government debt as the ECB gradually withdraws its recurring demand.

Banks in the EU still hold ample reserves, and the ECB has described the balance sheet decline as measured and predictable, although asset prices respond to changes in marginal supply and demand well before the financial system approaches an outright reserve shortage.

As the central bank steps back from the bond market, yields and portfolio allocations can begin shifting because the next group of buyers requires enough compensation to absorb securities that previously benefited from a large and dependable official purchaser.

Market expectations create another channel through which a rate pause can tighten financial conditions. The ECB directly controls overnight policy rates while investors determine most longer-term yields by pricing future interest rates, inflation, government borrowing, and the compensation required to hold debt over several years.

A stable overnight rate can therefore accompany rising sovereign and corporate yields when investors expect inflation to keep policy restrictive, and those higher yields eventually influence mortgage pricing, business borrowing, bank funding costs, and the valuations assigned to equities and other risk assets.

The ECB said overall financial conditions had tightened slightly since its June meeting, while banks reported stricter standards for business loans and mortgages as they grew more cautious about borrowers and less willing to carry additional credit risk.

Policy communication reinforced that pressure because the ECB kept its options open and tied future decisions to incoming inflation data and the duration of the energy shock, leaving investors to price a potentially prolonged period of restrictive conditions.

Markets therefore traded the expected path of policy alongside the rate announced that afternoon, with every shift in inflation expectations, lending standards and bond supply influencing the returns investors demanded across the financial system.

CryptoSlate examined a similar mechanism when the Federal Reserve held rates while other parts of the US liquidity system continued absorbing capital, showing how a central-bank pause can preserve restrictive settings that are already moving through funding markets and investor portfolios.

How ECB liquidity reaches Bitcoin

Bitcoin exists outside the ECB’s direct lending system, although its buyers allocate capital inside the same global market as sovereign bonds, money-market funds, equities, private credit, commodities, and cash.

Asset managers, hedge funds, market makers, companies and individual investors continuously compare the expected return from Bitcoin with the income available from lower-volatility assets, while also weighing funding costs, currency exposure, and the amount of leverage available through banks and derivatives markets.

Higher yields on safer assets raise the return Bitcoin must compete against, while more expensive borrowing reduces the attractiveness of leveraged positions and tighter bank balance sheets limit intermediaries' capacity to finance trades, warehouse exposure, or provide deep liquidity.

These conditions can lead hedge funds to reduce leverage, market makers to quote shallower order books, venture funds to encounter greater difficulty raising capital, and companies to keep surplus cash in interest-bearing instruments that offer predictable returns.

Higher real yields also compete with Bitcoin for capital by strengthening demand for cash-like assets, supporting the dollar and increasing the discount rate investors apply to assets whose value depends heavily on future growth and expanding liquidity.

The same pressure reaches crypto-native funding through the stablecoin market, where slower supply growth leaves less tokenized cash available for exchange settlement, collateral, and DeFi.

CryptoSlate has documented periods when stablecoins processed more value even as the available cash pool contracted, illustrating how transaction activity can remain elevated even as the amount of deployable liquidity supporting asset prices shrinks.

Demand from spot Bitcoin ETFs provides another transmission route because products like BlackRock’s IBIT connect Bitcoin directly to the allocation decisions of investors who also hold stocks, government bonds, money-market funds, and other regulated products.

When those investors reduce exposure to volatile assets, weaker ETF creations remove a source of spot demand, and the effect can become more pronounced when stablecoin growth, derivatives leverage, and market depth are weakening at the same time.

CryptoSlate previously found that ETF inflows can coexist with a broader stablecoin liquidity drain, which means one source of demand may support Bitcoin while another part of the market experiences a reduction in available capital.

Europe contributes directly to this global allocation process because the euro serves as a major reserve currency and the euro area contains one of the world’s largest banking and investment bases, with institutions allocating across domestic bonds, US Treasuries, equities, gold, private credit, and digital assets.

A European fund can sell government debt, convert euros into dollars and purchase US assets, while currency hedges, short-duration bonds, and Bitcoin ETFs offer additional ways to adjust the balance between return, volatility, and liquidity.

Each decision depends on relative yields, hedging costs, market volatility, and access to financing, which means changes in ECB policy can influence capital flows well beyond euro-denominated assets.

Higher euro yields can retain more capital in European debt, tighter bank lending can increase demand for market-based or dollar funding, and a weaker euro can raise the local-currency cost of dollar-denominated Bitcoin for an unhedged European investor.

The ECB’s influence reaches Bitcoin through these relative comparisons, as institutions continually rebalance portfolios according to the income available from bonds, the cost of borrowing, and the expected return from holding a volatile digital asset.

The Federal Reserve maintains the strongest direct connection to crypto because dollar liquidity anchors stablecoins, Treasury collateral and global funding markets, while the ECB, Bank of Japan and People’s Bank of China shape the same international pool of credit and investable capital.

The combined direction of major central banks helps determine whether investors operate with cheap funding and abundant cash or face expensive leverage alongside increasingly attractive returns from bonds and money-market instruments.

The five signals that matter after a central bank pause

Headline rates belong inside a wider liquidity dashboard because central bank balance sheets reveal whether earlier asset purchases are being maintained or reversed. Real yields, on the other hand, show what investors can earn after inflation, and credit data indicates how willing intermediaries are to finance risk.

Currency indexes and cross-currency funding costs add another layer by showing where capital is becoming more expensive, particularly for institutions that borrow in one currency, invest in another, and hedge the resulting exchange-rate exposure.

Crypto-specific data completes the picture, with stablecoin supply measuring tokenized liquidity, ETF flows tracking regulated demand, futures basis and funding rates showing the price of leverage, and market depth revealing how much risk liquidity providers are prepared to absorb.

A central bank can ease financial conditions through slower balance-sheet runoff, renewed reinvestment, cheaper lending operations, or broader collateral access while leaving its headline rate unchanged, making the surrounding policy machinery as important as the announced rate itself.

In July, the ECB preserved June’s rate increase, allowed €39.4 billion of APP and PEPP holdings to roll off, and reported tighter lending standards across business and mortgage credit, creating a restrictive combination even as policymakers paused further rate increases.

The next announcement of “no change” should therefore trigger five immediate checks across the balance sheet, the expected rate path, real yields, bank credit, and market leverage, since those indicators reveal whether the financial environment is genuinely stabilizing or continuing to tighten beneath the headline.

For Bitcoin, the ECB’s July decision meant investors still faced scarcer capital, costlier financing, and higher returns across competing assets, giving crypto markets every reason to care about a rate decision that appeared uneventful at first glance.

The post Bitcoin is now fighting the ECB’s €51.8 billion bond wall for a shrinking pool of capital appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Stablecoin supply has roughly doubled since January 2024, while entity-adjusted transaction volume has grown fourfold to fivefold, according to Coinbase Institutional, opening a wide gap between the amount of dollar liquidity held onchain and the volume of activity that liquidity supports.

Market capitalization records the stock of stablecoins in circulation, which captures available liquidity, reserve demand, and issuer scale. Transaction throughput, on the other hand, records how intensively those tokens move through exchanges, payment systems, treasury accounts, and settlement workflows.

A system holding $500 billion that moves infrequently offers greater capacity than one holding $250 billion, but the smaller system can support more economic activity when each dollar changes hands repeatedly. Stablecoins are now moving toward that second model, where network value increasingly reflects how much can be settled with the existing pool of digital dollars.

Coinbase’s indexed comparison shows the shift clearly: stablecoin market capitalization has roughly doubled from its January 2024 level, while adjusted transaction volume has grown several times faster. Monthly adjusted volume has climbed from a few hundred billion dollars in 2023 to well above $1 trillion in recent months, indicating that each unit of supply is circulating more frequently.

Supply captured stablecoins’ exchange era

Market capitalization became the standard adoption measure because it suited the first major use of stablecoins. Traders held Tether’s USDT, Circle’s USDC, and other dollar-linked tokens on exchanges, where they served as trading capital, derivatives collateral, DeFi liquidity, and shelter from volatile crypto assets.

Under that structure, additional supply almost always represented additional demand. Rising balances suggested that more capital had entered crypto, deeper liquidity was available across markets, and traders had accumulated greater purchasing power. Redemptions often accompanied falling activity and were a clear sign of capital leaving the ecosystem.

However, stablecoins have now spread into institutional treasury accounts, cross-border transfers, payment applications, and tokenized markets. One token can now settle several transactions before its holder redeems it or returns it to an exchange, allowing activity to grow faster than the underlying supply.

So now supply looks and works more like installed capacity, while throughput shows actual utilization. A larger float gives the market more liquidity to deploy, but faster circulation lets the same float support more activity.

Monetary velocity describes how frequently a unit of money changes hands during a given period. A $100 bill held in a drawer generates little transaction activity, while the same $100 can pay a worker, who pays a supplier, who pays a freight company, which then pays another business. The quantity of money stays constant as the value settled through it accumulates.

We can apply the same principle onchain. Stablecoin velocity is generally calculated by dividing transaction volume by outstanding supply, though the result depends heavily on which transfers enter the numerator.

Raw blockchain data can include exchange sweeps, automated routing, arbitrage loops, and transfers between addresses controlled by the same entity. Entity-adjusted datasets group related addresses and filter activity judged to have limited independent economic substance, producing a closer estimate of genuine financial transfers.

CryptoSlate’s analysis of automated stablecoin activity illustrates the scale of that distinction, with gross blockchain totals shrinking sharply once internal, bot-driven and other non-economic transfers are removed.

Coinbase’s figures use entity-adjusted volume. Even after those filters, activity has grown much faster than supply, supporting the conclusion that stablecoins are circulating more intensively.

The metric can’t identify the purpose of every transfer. Trading, arbitrage, collateral movements, and treasury rebalancing still account for a large share of activity, and a sharp monthly increase may reflect financial-market turnover more than household spending. Those transactions remain economically significant because they use stablecoins as settlement instruments.

Visa’s Economic Empowerment Institute calculated total stablecoin velocity at 13.56 during the fourth quarter of 2025, meaning the average token changed hands more than 13 times during the quarter. US M1 velocity stood at 1.65 over the same period.

While the difference is stark, it's important to note that these numbers describe different forms of activity. M1 velocity links cash and checking deposits to spending on goods and services, while total stablecoin velocity includes investment, trading, funding, liquidity management and settlement.

Visa tested a retail proxy by isolating stablecoin transfers worth $250 or less. That measure produced velocity of 0.08 in the fourth quarter, and retail-sized transfers represented less than 1% of total stablecoin activity. Everyday purchases therefore remain a small part of overall turnover.

A wholesale benchmark provides a closer comparison. Visa calculated Fedwire velocity at 93.84 for the same quarter, almost seven times the stablecoin figure of 13.56. Stablecoins have developed meaningful financial turnover, but the established US wholesale system still processes value at a far greater intensity relative to the reserve balances supporting it.

The comparison puts stablecoins between two categories. Their total velocity exceeds the velocity of retail money because financial activity dominates their use, while their relative turnover remains below Fedwire. That position supports the settlement infrastructure thesis without treating stablecoins as a replacement for consumer money or wholesale banking systems.

Payment networks report payment volume and transaction counts, ports track cargo movement, communications networks monitor traffic, and wholesale settlement systems measure the value transferred across them. Their economic significance comes from the activity they carry.

When it comes to stablecoins, circulating supply establishes the available pool of dollar liquidity, while throughput shows whether businesses, financial institutions, and crypto markets are using that pool to settle recurring activity.

This leaves us with two forms of growth, where new issuance expands capacity, and faster circulation raises utilization. Coinbase’s data suggests utilization has become the stronger force since early 2024.

CryptoSlate has traced the same development across the payments industry, where Visa, Stripe and Mastercard are building stablecoin settlement systems beneath familiar consumer and business products. A customer may still interact with a card, bank account or payment application, while tokenized dollars handle part of the institutional transfer behind the transaction.

We've already seen this change affect operating businesses. DoorDash’s work on stablecoin-powered payouts shows how global platforms are exploring faster movement between corporate accounts, merchants and workers, where settlement speed affects working capital and access to earnings.

Throughput is reshaping stablecoin competition

The difference between supply and throughput is changing how competition looks between the two largest stablecoins. USDT retains the largest circulating supply and broad distribution across global trading venues, while USDC has captured a growing share of adjusted transaction activity.

Coinbase’s July analysis placed USDC’s share of adjusted stablecoin volume at roughly 70%, up from the mid-20% range in 2024. USDT continued to lead by outstanding supply, dividing stablecoin leadership into two categories: dollars held and dollars moved.

Coinbase associates USDC’s rising share with regulated financial activity, payments, settlement, and treasury operations. Trading, arbitrage, and liquidity management also contribute to the number, so the data points to high institutional turnover, not consumer adoption.

CryptoSlate documented the same divergence when USDC moved ahead of USDT in adjusted transfer volume, even as Tether preserved a much larger supply base. More recent network data showed USDC accounting for about 67% of June’s adjusted stablecoin volume, with activity increasingly distributed across Base and Ethereum.

The numbers show that the largest stablecoin balance and the busiest stablecoin settlement network don't have to be the same thing.

Coinbase found that weekends have consistently accounted for roughly one-fifth of adjusted weekly stablecoin volume across several years, giving the market a steady stream of settlement activity outside the standard windows used by many banks and corporate treasury systems.

This has nothing to do with crypto conviction: institutions are looking for settlement availability, and stablecoins are the best way to get it. Card authorizations continue through weekends, and FedNow supports instant payments around the clock, but Fedwire treats Saturdays and Sundays as holidays under its current schedule, and ACH operates through defined processing windows. Stablecoins can transfer on public blockchains throughout the week without depending on a bank business day.

That gives stablecoins a practical advantage in global markets, where counterparties operate across time zones and crypto trades continuously. Capital can move between an exchange, market maker, custodian, or treasury account on Saturday through the same blockchain process used during the working week.

CryptoSlate has covered this advantage for years, including Checkout.com’s introduction of round-the-clock USDC settlement for merchants. The persistent weekend share now shows that continuous availability has developed into recurring use across the wider market.

The next winners will control stablecoin movement

On July 16, Visa introduced its Stablecoin Platform, an enterprise service that gives financial institutions, fintech companies, and crypto businesses access to stablecoin operations through a Visa-managed environment.

The beta platform begins with Open USD and includes wallet infrastructure, minting and burning connectivity, bank-account links, transfers, redemption, approval controls and audit logs. Visa says the service can connect stablecoins with its existing settlement, card and money-movement products.

The launch follows the formation of the broader Open USD network, where Visa, Mastercard, Coinbase and more than 100 other companies joined a partner-led stablecoin initiative built around distribution and usage.

The product shows just how much competition there already is in this space. Institutions need custody, compliance, treasury controls, wallet administration, fraud management, and links to bank accounts before stablecoins can become routine operating tools. Issuers earn income from reserve assets, while payment companies and service providers can capture value each time those tokens move.

Stablecoin supply remains central to issuer economics because reserve assets generate interest income, while a larger float deepens liquidity and expands transaction capacity. It also increases demand for Treasury bills and other short-duration assets.

CryptoSlate has tracked how stablecoin reserves have become a significant source of Treasury demand, giving supply growth a direct connection to government funding markets and issuer profitability.

Throughput, on the other hand, creates a separate source of economic value. Payment processors, custodians, banks, blockchain networks, compliance firms, and tokenization platforms can participate in stablecoin movement even when they issue none of the underlying dollars.

A high-volume network can generate demand for transaction processing, foreign-exchange conversion, identity controls, fraud monitoring, and treasury services. A large supply base can produce substantial reserve income with a lower circulation rate. The strongest businesses want to combine both models, using a broad float to attract liquidity and operational services to capture recurring activity.

Stablecoin adoption is entering a phase where market capitalization provides the capacity figure and velocity provides the utilization figure, giving analysts a better way to separate digital dollars held inside the system from those supporting repeated financial activity.

Coinbase’s fourfold to fivefold increase in adjusted volume, USDC’s growing share of that activity, and the persistent weekend contribution all point toward a market whose strongest expansion is occurring in settlement intensity. Visa’s research shows where the boundary is: stablecoins currently resemble wholesale financial instruments more closely than consumer cash, and their relative turnover remains far below Fedwire.

The next stablecoin leaders may include issuers with the largest reserves, payment companies connecting tokens to merchants and banks, custodians managing institutional balances, or blockchain networks carrying the highest-quality settlement flows. Their position will depend on how much value they can move, how reliably they can move it, and how deeply those transfers become embedded in recurring financial operations.

Stablecoins are beginning to resemble payment networks more than digital bank balances. As that transition advances, supply will show how much capacity the system holds, while throughput will show how much economic work the system performs.

The post 8x faster than US cash: The $1T network settling millions while banks sleep on weekends appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Ten once-prominent cryptocurrency networks now carry a combined market value of $12.06 billion, trading an average of 97.13% below their all-time highs.

A recent report by Taurex noted that recovery needs across the group range from roughly 21.5x for Avalanche, the largest of the ten at $2.91 billion, to roughly 323x for Internet Computer, which sits furthest from its peak at 99.7% below.

Blockchains fund security, developer grants and network growth through token issuance, validator rewards and treasury spending, models that work best when prices climb, and newly minted tokens still carry real dollar value.

At this scale of drawdown, the same issuance produces far less funding, dilutes holders further and adds recurring token supply with little demand behind it.

The sharper test asks whether these ten networks can still fund security, grants and engineering if their tokens never return to their highs.

CryptoSlate defines the subsidy coverage ratio as user-paid fees divided by token rewards and incentives. The ratio shows how much of a network's measured incentive burden is covered by direct user demand, treasury spending, or other subsidies.

A ratio of 1.0 means user-paid fees match measured incentives, and anything below that shows a funding gap. A very low reading points to a network that stays heavily subsidy-dependent.

The metric shows how much economic activity must grow, or how much spending must fall, for the network to become self-sustaining.

Some networks burn collected fees, and that value never reaches validators or miners, so a climbing fee count can show real demand without paying the people who secure the chain.

A second variant, routed security coverage, divides the fees validators and miners actually receive by consensus rewards, giving a cleaner read on whether infrastructure operators actually collect payment for their costs.

Where the evidence already shows up

Algorand validators earned 6.93 million ALGO in staking rewards in May 2026, and the network collected just 50,000 ALGO in fees that same month, implying roughly 0.7 cents of fees for every ALGO of validator rewards, before accounting for fee-sink and Foundation subsidies.

June brought 6.57 million ALGO in validator rewards against the 40.15 million ALGO the network distributed across the first half of the year.

Internet Computer sets node-provider rewards in XDR and converts them into ICP using a 30-day average, so a weaker ICP price forces it to hand out more tokens to cover the same dollar-denominated cost.

Users burn ICP to mint the cycles that pay for computation, which makes the real test whether that burn and transaction fees can offset governance and node-provider rewards over time.

Filecoin is trying to close the gap outright, as its 2026 strategy pushes rewards toward paid usage and useful work, with final vesting periods ending later this year. Filecoin filed a Solstice proposal on July 17 that would reshape storage-provider rewards and fund services to attract paying customers and data to the network.

Polkadot issuance began stepping down in March 2026 and continues doing so every two years until it hits a hard cap. Parity's Dynamic Allocation Pool now lets fees, coretime sales and slashes route dynamically across validators, nominators, the treasury and reserves as that issuance shrinks.

That leaves the network deciding in real time who receives funding first.

A July 2026 research update found the Cosmos Hub releasing 0.153% of its supply in claimed rewards every week, roughly 3.6 times Near's rate and 5.7 times Ethereum's.

It proposed adjusting future issuance based on observed demand and how much selling the market can absorb. A separate proposal put the Hub's Nakamoto coefficient at six, with the largest validator alone controlling more than 17% of staked supply.

Avalanche carries the largest market value in the group at $2.91 billion, which makes it the hardest of the ten to dismiss as a dead asset.

The network burns its transaction fees, and validator rewards mint fresh AVAX from a fixed cap of 720 million tokens at the end of each staking period, so fee burns do not directly pay the people securing the chain.

Flare's FIP.16, approved in April 2026, restructured fee burning, infrastructure-provider economics and reward mechanics once the network completed a 300 million FLR burn, leaving net inflation near 2.66%.

Ethereum Classic's monetary policy cuts block rewards by 20% every 5 million blocks on a preset schedule. The next reduction, Era 6, lands around block 25 million this July and automatically tightens miner economics.

Worldcoin runs on a different model and needs separate treatment, as its strain comes from unlocks. The daily community token release fell 50%, from 3.2 million WLD to 1.6 million WLD, cutting the total WLD unlock rate 43% in July.

Pi Network also sits outside the classic validator-subsidy model. It allocates 65% of its supply to mining rewards and just 5% to liquidity, so its test is whether apps and payments inside Pi generate enough use to justify continued distribution.

The next two years

The strain concentrates unevenly across each network, and foundations decide whether to preserve grants, cut issuance, or protect treasury runway.

Validators and miners pay their costs in fiat and collect rewards in tokens that have lost most of their value, and smaller operators are the first to leave when that math stops working. Developers lose funding when treasuries hold mostly depreciated tokens, and holders absorb continued dilution well past a 95% decline.

In the bull case, paid demand catches up to token issuance. Storage demand lifts Filecoin's provider revenue, and coretime sales and treasury reform give Polkadot more paid activity to work with.

App usage or fee capture could push Avalanche and Cosmos Hub's subsidy coverage ratios toward the point where fees genuinely offset rewards. Networks that reach that point can operate below their all-time highs on usage that no longer depends on continuous token issuance.

In the bear case, the subsidy gap holds. Fees stay thin against rewards the way they did for Algorand in May, foundations trim grants to protect runway, and smaller validators exit as fiat costs stay fixed and token rewards keep losing value.

Unlocks like Worldcoin's daily WLD release add supply faster than demand expands to absorb it, and governance ends up cutting issuance faster than usage can replace it.

Filecoin's Solstice proposal, Polkadot's issuance step-down, Cosmos Hub's demand-linked emissions framework, and Flare's FIP.16 all show governance already redesigning who pays for security and growth before prices force the issue further.

The real test for these ten networks over the next two years is usage, since it asks whether user fees alone can cover the bills these networks have always had to pay.

The post These 10 altcoins are still worth $12B after a 97% collapse – but do users pay enough to them keep running? appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Samsung has put stablecoins on the roadmap for Samsung Wallet. The announcement came at Galaxy Unpacked 2026 on 22 July, and would place dollar-pegged digital currencies directly inside an app already installed on millions of devices. Samsung says the move would make it one of the first major mobile brands to support stablecoins natively on smartphones.

That is a genuinely significant distribution story. It is also, for now, an announcement rather than a product — and the distinction matters a great deal when you start asking what it does to prices.

Samsung Stablecoins: What exactly did Samsung announce?

During the Galaxy Unpacked event, Samsung said its in-house wallet app will include stablecoin support, positioning Wallet as "the foundation of a connected financial ecosystem" across Galaxy devices and services, bringing payments, rewards and digital assets into one experience.

The on-stage demo showed a USDC account with send, receive and top-up functions. Samsung did not, however, confirm partnerships with any stablecoin issuers.

It arrived bundled with a more concrete product. Samsung launched the Galaxy Card in the US with Barclays and Visa — the first financial product built directly around Samsung Wallet. The card offers 5% cashback on certain purchases in Samsung's own stores alongside other perks. The pattern here is worth noting: the card is shipping, the stablecoin support is signposted.

Is this really a billion-user crypto on-ramp?

Samsung's global Galaxy install base is frequently put in the region of a billion devices, and that is the ceiling this story points at. But Samsung Wallet itself is not available everywhere — it operates in roughly 30 to 40 markets, and the Galaxy Card launching alongside the announcement is US-only. One estimate framed the immediately addressable figure at 241 million Galaxy phones.

Samsung has not confirmed a timeline or a regional rollout plan. Stablecoin regulation differs sharply across its markets, and that alone makes a simultaneous global switch-on implausible. The US, where the Galaxy Card and Barclays partnership are launching, is the likely first target.

So: a billion-device ceiling, a low-hundreds-of-millions realistic near-term ceiling, and an actual launch audience of zero until Samsung ships it.

Why does this matter more than previous Samsung crypto moves?

Because it changes what the wallet is rather than what it links to.

Samsung has been circling crypto for years. It shipped an embedded cryptocurrency wallet with hardware-backed security in the Galaxy S10 back in 2019, and integrated Coinbase One into Samsung Wallet in the US to give millions of consumers an easier path into crypto.

But offering users the ability to buy Bitcoin through a partner app is one thing. Embedding a dollar-equivalent digital currency into the core wallet experience is a fundamentally different proposition.

Stablecoins have largely stayed inside crypto — circulating between exchanges and platforms that ordinary users never touch. A default slot in the wallet app that comes preinstalled on the phone removes the single biggest barrier to that changing: nobody has to download anything, sign up anywhere, or learn what a seed phrase is.

The competitive pressure is the other half of the story. Apple, which restricted NFC access on iPhones until EU regulatory pressure forced changes, has announced no stablecoin integration for Apple Wallet. If Samsung ships this at scale, rival manufacturers and wallet providers face pressure to move sooner than they had planned.

How would this affect crypto prices over the medium term?

Here is where a lot of coverage gets sloppy, so let's be precise about the mechanism.

Stablecoin adoption is not a direct bid on Bitcoin. Someone topping up a USDC balance to buy coffee is not buying BTC. They may never buy BTC. The demand this creates flows to dollar-pegged tokens, and issuing more USDC means Circle buys more short-term Treasuries — not more crypto.

The transmission to asset prices is indirect and works through three channels:

1. Settlement layers capture the fees. Stablecoin transactions have to settle somewhere. Whichever chains Samsung routes volume through — Ethereum, its L2s, Solana, or something else — would see real transaction demand rather than speculative demand. That is the clearest medium-term link to a tradeable asset, and it depends entirely on technical choices Samsung has not disclosed.

2. Issuers are the direct beneficiaries. Circle's listed equity (CRCL) is a far more direct expression of this trade than any token. Stablecoins already exceed $320 billion in market capitalisation, dominated by USDT and USDC. Distribution through a top-two smartphone vendor moves that number.

3. The funnel effect — slow, real, unquantifiable. Users who hold a stablecoin balance in an app they already trust are meaningfully closer to buying a volatile asset than users who hold nothing. Historically, that's how retail crypto adoption has worked: stablecoin first, speculation second. But this operates over years, not quarters, and no one can put a number on the conversion rate.

And over the long term?

The honest answer is that infrastructure announcements of this type have a poor record of showing up in price charts on any timeline traders care about.

Samsung has not disclosed which stablecoins will be supported or when the feature launches globally. Until those two questions are answered, this is a directional signal about where consumer fintech is heading, not a catalyst.

What it does change is the structural argument. The case for stablecoins as payment infrastructure — rather than as trading collateral — gets materially stronger when the default wallet on hundreds of millions of phones supports them natively. Visa and blockchain data firm Allium now publish on-chain stablecoin volumes, reflecting how far fiat-backed tokens have already moved beyond trading into payments infrastructure.

For anyone positioning around this: watch for the launch date, the named issuer, the chain, and the first market list. Those four details will tell you whether this is a headline or a business.

Worth keeping in perspective, too, that the wider market is not currently trading on adoption news. $Bitcoin is around $63,900 and down roughly 27% year-to-date, with the Fed's 28–29 July meeting dominating positioning. A roadmap item at a phone launch will not outweigh that.

Crypto prices are red across the board today. Bitcoin is trading around $63,877, down 1.65% on the day, after failing to break through the $67,000 area earlier this week. $Ethereum, $XRP, $Solana and most other majors followed $Bitcoin lower, and the market has now given back almost the entire gain it built over the past seven days.

Where do crypto prices stand today?

Only three assets in the top 15 are green on the day: Monero, UNUS SED LEO and – barely – nothing else. Zcash is the worst performer of the group, down almost 6% in 24 hours and more than 11% on the week after a heavy run-up.

What stopped Bitcoin at $67,000?

Bitcoin's July recovery was real. $BTC printed $66,990 on 21 July, its highest price since mid-June, putting it up 15.9% from the $57,803 cycle low recorded on 1 July. That move ran straight into the resistance band traders had flagged for weeks.

Analysts noted that Bitcoin had climbed to its highest level in more than a month but that the rally never accelerated, arguing a decisive break above the previous $67,000 high would be needed to open the path toward $73,000. That break never came. Instead, BTC was rejected and has spent the days since drifting lower, with the 50-day EMA still sitting above spot price and capping every attempt higher this year.

Momentum vanished almost exactly where confidence looked strongest: trading volume fell 12% to $150 billion, open interest stayed near $116 billion, and liquidations came in at a relatively modest $165 million – leaving traders unsure whether this was ordinary profit-taking or another failed breakout.

Crypto Crash Reason: Why is the crypto market down today?

There is no single trigger. Several pressures stacked up at once:

• Oil and inflation. Bitcoin first slipped below $66,000 as surging oil prices reignited inflation concerns, with the risk-off rotation showing up inside crypto too as BTC dominance climbed to 59% and capital retreated from altcoins. By 23 July, crude above $100 a barrel combined with a sharp decline in US equities to pull Bitcoin back below $65,000, with Ethereum and Dogecoin each down 3% on the day.
• ETF outflows returning. Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded their first outflows in seven days on 23 July, even with price holding above $64,000. That matters because inflows were the main thing supporting the July bounce. 
• Leverage getting flushed. Total liquidations hit $282 million on 24 July – $192 million of that from long positions – while $1.43 billion in Bitcoin and Ethereum options expired the same day. Sentiment deteriorated alongside it, with the Fear and Greed Index falling to 37, firmly in fear territory. 
• Geopolitics. Renewed tensions between the US and Iran created a broader risk-off mood in global markets, with further strikes and stalled diplomacy dimming hopes of a near-term ceasefire.
• Bad headlines from the industry itself. Poolin Technology, once the largest Bitcoin mining pool, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US with liabilities between $100 million and $500 million – a day after derivatives exchange BitMEX announced it would shut down on 30 September.

Did the entire market follow Bitcoin lower?

Almost entirely, yes. Ethereum extended its correction after failing to hold above the $1,900 resistance area, falling to around $1,800 and erasing gains made earlier in the week, while XRP was rejected near $1.14 and Dogecoin sold off as traders cut exposure to riskier assets. The pullback was broad: nearly every asset in the CoinDesk 20 Index traded lower, with Sui, Cardano's ADA and NEAR leading declines at 3–4% and Solana down roughly 2.5%.

The one real divergence is inside the privacy sector. Monero is up 2.74% on the day and nearly 12% on the week, while Zcash – the sector's biggest gainer of the past months – is unwinding hard. That looks like rotation within a theme rather than fresh money entering it.

Zoom out and the year is still brutal. XRP is down almost 41% year-to-date, Solana down 40.6%, Dogecoin down 40.7%, Ethereum down 37.5%. Only TRON (+15.95%) and Hyperliquid (+135.88%) are meaningfully green in 2026.

Bitcoin Price Analysis: What levels matter next for Bitcoin?

The immediate question is whether $64,000 holds. Bitcoin had been holding a range between $64,000 and $66,800 for most of the past week, and today's price sits just under the floor of it.

On the upside, the first resistance zone runs $65,000–$66,500, with a close above it needed to confirm a genuine breakout toward $68,000–$70,000. On the downside, first support is $63,000–$64,000, with the more critical demand zone at $60,000–$62,000. Below that, the $58,000–$60,000 area is the level most analysts treat as decisive – a sustained break under $58,000 risks triggering stops and liquidations toward $50,000.

What traders should watch this week

The Fed is the big one. Rising odds of a Fed rate hike were already cited among the reasons crypto sold off on 24 July, and the meeting lands on 28–29 July. A hawkish tone would remove the last argument for the July recovery continuing.

Beyond that: whether ETF flows turn positive again, whether oil retreats from the $85–$100 zone, and whether the CLARITY Act regains momentum in Washington after stalling.

Glassnode has pointed out that the long-term holder base still hasn't reached the pain levels historically associated with cycle lows – stress is present, but the picture remains open rather than resolved.

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.

The AI Kill Switch Act would let Homeland Security order frontier AI throttled or shut down, with fines up to $20 million a day for defying it.

For the first time, real-world assets—stocks, commodities, and market indices—outpaced crypto on the world's biggest decentralized derivatives exchange.

Samsung showed a wallet mockup holding Circle's USDC at Galaxy Unpacked. But details are scarce.

Anthropic's new everyday model undercuts its own frontier product on cost and beats it almost everywhere that counts.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune signals the crypto market-structure bill likely won't clear the chamber before the August recess, as Democrats reject the GOP's ethics language and analysts slash the odds of passage.

Dogecoin ETF flows hit zero after short-lived comeback.

Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao has joined SpaceX founder Elon Musk in jokingly mocking his exit from the trillionaire club after the stock began to fall.

Charles Hoskinson pushes back against Ark Invest director's harsh criticism of Cardano.

Coinbase's CLO, Paul Grewal, is curious if the Senate is genuinely supportive of the CLARITY Act getting passed as a major law enforcement group shows support.

XRP bulls faced heavy losses on Saturday as leveraged long positions accounted for nearly $2 million of the $2.12 million in liquidations recorded over the past 24 hours.

TLDR:

• The Clarity Act faces a Senate delay as Democrats demand stronger ethics restrictions covering presidential crypto profits and enforcement.
• Republicans need at least seven Democratic votes, making bipartisan support essential before the digital asset bill can reach the president.
• Critics say the draft may let Trump retain indirect crypto interests while his children continue operating separate digital asset ventures.
• Stablecoin reward rules, bank deposit risks, campaign spending, and weaker prediction market odds add pressure to the ethics dispute.

The Clarity Act faces a new Senate roadblock as Donald Trump’s family crypto interests intensify an ethics dispute. Bloomberg reports that Democrats want stronger limits before supporting the digital asset bill. They argue the current proposal may let Trump and his relatives keep earning from memecoins and World Liberty Financial. 

Republicans need at least seven Democratic votes to move the legislation through the Senate. Negotiators now view ethics rules as the central issue, alongside consumer safeguards and illicit finance controls. The dispute has reduced expectations for passage before the August recess and weakened market confidence in a deal this year.

Clarity Act Ethics Dispute Tests Bipartisan Senate Support

Senate Republicans released revised language this week to revive negotiations after months of delay. Democrats and watchdog groups rejected the offer, saying its ethics protections leave gaps. Their concern centers on whether the Clarity Act would restrict presidential profits from regulated crypto markets.

The proposal would allow Trump to divest his stake or place assets in a blind trust. It does not require a full sale. Critics question language covering officials with a direct interest in digital assets. Trump holds exposure to World Liberty Financial through DT Marks DEFI LLC, which owns about 38% of the venture. That structure could complicate enforcement under the proposed standard.

The draft excludes the children of government officials. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump could therefore continue their crypto business activities. The measure would not recover income already generated from token and memecoin ventures. Watchdogs argue those limits weaken the bill’s ability to address existing conflicts.

Democrats oppose giving the Justice Department primary authority over the new ethics rules. The framework would block state attorneys general from acting as an independent enforcement channel. Senator Angela Alsobrooks has described ethics as the decisive issue in negotiations. Senators Ruben Gallego and Thom Tillis are developing a possible compromise for the White House.

Timing now adds pressure. Senate Majority Leader John Thune does not expect the Clarity Act to pass before the August recess. Negotiators still need agreement on consumer protection and illicit finance measures. Without changes, Democrats may withhold the votes Republicans need for swift passage.

Trump Crypto Business Deepens Wider Regulatory Divisions

Ethics is not the only obstacle facing the Clarity Act. Banks want tighter limits on stablecoin rewards, fearing deposits could move into yield-bearing crypto accounts. That shift could reduce lending capacity and pressure banking profits. Tillis has discussed circuit-breaker powers for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or other regulators if deposits fall sharply.

Senator Cynthia Lummis opposes that approach. She is one of the digital asset bill’s strongest Republican supporters. The disagreement shows how the Trump crypto business controversy intersects with fights over market structure and banking competition.

Critics have challenged a provision ending the ethics rules on January 20, 2029. That date matches the inauguration of Trump’s successor. Opponents say the sunset could limit accountability after his term. Republicans argue the proposal creates restrictions beyond those accepted by previous presidents.

Political pressure may shape negotiations. Fairshake and two affiliated super PACs have raised $164 million for the midterm elections. Federal filings show they have spent $66.6 million. Crypto-friendly Democrats risk industry opposition if talks collapse, while progressives could attack any compromise.

Senator Chris Murphy has urged Democrats to frame crypto corruption as a campaign issue. Other Democrats worry that rejecting the Clarity Act could direct industry spending against Senate candidates.

Prediction markets reflect the uncertainty. Polymarket traders placed the Clarity Act’s passage odds near one in three. That level is roughly half the probability recorded after a Senate committee backed an earlier version on May 14. The Trump crypto business dispute now sits at the center of falling expectations.

The post Clarity Act Faces Senate Resistance Over Trump Crypto Profits appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Federal Reserve rate hike odds climbed to 38% after Brent crude crossed $100, reversing the market’s earlier confidence in near-term rate cuts.
• Two-year Treasury yields reached 4.37%, while the ten-year yield approached 4.7%, increasing financing pressure across stocks, housing, and crypto.
• June CPI cooled to 3.5%, but May PCE inflation reached 4.1%, leaving policymakers divided before the July 28–29 policy meeting.
• Bitcoin traded near $64,000 as higher bond yields and stronger cash returns reduced the appeal of volatile, non-yielding risk assets.

Investors have sharply increased bets on a Federal Reserve rate hike after Brent crude briefly moved above $100 a barrel. The surge followed renewed supply fears linked to the Iran conflict and shipping risks across key Middle East routes. Futures markets now assign a 38% chance of a quarter-point increase on July 29, up from 13% one week earlier. 

Rising oil prices have also lifted Treasury yields and tightened financial conditions across global markets. Bitcoin traded near $64,000 during a volatile trading week. Investors reassessed demand for risk assets before next week’s scheduled Federal Open Market Committee policy decision.

Federal Reserve Rate Hike Bets Rise as Oil Fuels Inflation

Brent crude settled above $100 on Thursday after gaining 7% during the session. West Texas Intermediate also climbed above $92 as traders priced possible supply disruptions. The move placed Brent about 25% above its level at the June Fed meeting. Higher fuel costs can quickly reach transport, manufacturing, and household budgets.

The inflation picture gives policymakers conflicting signals. June consumer prices fell 0.4% from May, while annual inflation slowed to 3.5%. Core inflation held at 2.6%, offering support for officials who prefer patience. Yet May PCE inflation reached 4.1%, while core PCE stood at 3.4%. Both readings sit well above the Fed’s 2% target.

The central bank kept its federal funds target at 3.5% to 3.75% in June. Its statement said inflation stayed elevated partly due to supply shocks, including energy. A Federal Reserve rate hike next week would lift the range by 25 basis points. It would also mark a rapid response to renewed inflation pressure.

Short-term Treasury yields reflect that policy risk. The two-year yield reached 4.37% on July 23, its highest level since early 2025. The ten-year yield approached 4.7%, raising borrowing costs for companies and households. Higher Treasury yields can pressure equity valuations, mortgage rates, and speculative assets.

CME said federal funds futures trading was 50% higher than before the comparable July 2025 decision. That volume reflects wide uncertainty over whether policymakers will act immediately or wait for more inflation evidence.

Federal Reserve Rate Hike Risk Pressures Bitcoin Markets

Bitcoin faces a difficult backdrop when yields rise and liquidity expectations weaken. The asset traded near $63,993 on July 25 after moving between roughly $63,700 and $65,055. A Federal Reserve rate hike could increase demand for cash and government bonds. Those instruments provide income without Bitcoin’s price volatility.

The oil shock also creates a policy problem that rates cannot solve directly. Higher borrowing costs may reduce demand, but they cannot restore disrupted crude supply. That trade-off increases recession concerns if energy prices stay high while credit conditions tighten. Investors must therefore track both inflation data and geopolitical developments.

Fed officials appear divided before the July 28 and 29 meeting. Some policymakers have argued that inflation requires faster action. Others favor waiting until September for more evidence on prices and economic activity. That disagreement leaves markets sensitive to every oil move, public comment, and inflation release.

The next PCE report arrives on July 30, one day after the Fed decision. Policymakers will not have that data before voting. They must instead assess June CPI, May PCE, energy markets, tariffs, services inflation, and labor conditions. That limited information raises the risk of a divided committee.

Oil prices eased below $100 on Friday, but Brent still ended near $96.78. A sustained retreat could reduce immediate pressure for a Federal Reserve rate hike. Another supply disruption could reverse that relief quickly. Markets will watch the Strait of Hormuz, Red Sea shipping, Treasury yields, and Fed guidance through Wednesday.

The post Federal Reserve Rate Hike Bets Surge as Oil Crosses $100 Mark appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Points

• Apple is requesting authorization to incorporate Chinese memory semiconductors into products distributed internationally, citing supply constraints and cost management
• Micron Technology, America’s sole major memory chip producer, is actively opposing this initiative through extensive lobbying efforts
• Memory semiconductor costs have surged fourfold in the last twelve months, primarily due to AI infrastructure requirements
• The Pentagon has classified both Chinese manufacturers — CXMT and YMTC — as military-affiliated entities
• The White House faces a critical choice between consumer affordability and safeguarding domestic semiconductor capabilities

A high-stakes confrontation is unfolding that places Apple, the Trump administration, and US manufacturing interests on a collision course.

Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, has engaged in multiple meetings with top Trump administration figures, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The objective: securing approval to source memory chips from ChangXin Memory Technologies and Yangtze Memory Technologies, both Chinese firms.

Apple’s argument centers on addressing worldwide memory supply constraints while keeping prices manageable for consumers. Critically, these Chinese-made components would be restricted to Apple products distributed in foreign markets, not domestically.

However, Micron Technology stands as a formidable obstacle. As America’s only substantial domestic memory chip manufacturer, Micron’s CEO Sanjay Mehrotra has delivered stark warnings to government officials that permitting American technology giants to purchase from Chinese manufacturers — regardless of where the final products are sold — poses significant risks to the domestic semiconductor sector.

Micron has drawn parallels to the decline of American steel and manufacturing industries, where Chinese competition contributed to widespread industrial erosion.

Micron Technology, Inc., MU

Memory Chip Costs Skyrocket

The memory semiconductor market has experienced dramatic price inflation, with costs multiplying by four over the past year according to TechInsights data. The primary driver is unprecedented demand from artificial intelligence data centers, which consume massive quantities of cutting-edge memory at elevated price points.

This AI-driven consumption has significantly reduced available inventory for smartphones, automotive systems, and medical equipment — fundamentally altering Apple’s traditional negotiating leverage with semiconductor suppliers.

Apple has directly accused Micron of exploiting the supply shortage for excessive profits. The tech giant highlights Micron’s gross profit margins, now surpassing 80%, as proof of unreasonable pricing practices. Apple further alleges that Micron is prioritizing production expansion for AI customers over consumer electronics manufacturers.

Micron disputes these allegations entirely. The company maintains that price increases reflect broader market dynamics beyond simple memory costs, while emphasizing its commitment to invest $250 billion in expanding American manufacturing infrastructure.

Security Concerns Add Complexity

The two Chinese manufacturers central to this controversy carry substantial national security implications. YMTC appears on the US Entity List — a restrictive trade designation — while both CXMT and YMTC have received Pentagon classifications as Chinese military-affiliated companies.

Michael Kratsios, the White House technology adviser, stated explicitly to congressional members this week that American corporations should avoid commercial relationships with Entity List-designated firms.

Apple attempted a similar partnership with YMTC in 2022 but withdrew following intense political backlash, including a pointed warning from then-Senator Marco Rubio that Apple was “playing with fire.” Rubio now serves as Secretary of State and remains actively engaged in current deliberations.

President Trump has publicly commended both Apple and Micron for their domestic investment commitments and has refrained from declaring a position on this matter. The timing is further complicated by ongoing trade negotiations with China, adding strategic dimensions to any resolution.

The post Apple (AAPL) vs Micron (MU): Trump Faces Critical Decision on Chinese Chips appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• Shares of CoreWeave (CRWV) plummeted 11.4% Friday, touching an intraday bottom of $71.67 from a previous closing price of $81.10
• Jefferies and Citigroup both slashed their ratings from Buy to Hold midweek
• First-quarter revenue surged 111.6% year-over-year to $2.08 billion, though earnings per share of -$1.40 fell short of expectations by $0.23
• Company insiders have offloaded more than 17 million shares valued at approximately $2 billion during the past three months
• Analyst consensus remains Moderate Buy with an average price target of $136.25

Shares of CoreWeave (CRWV) experienced a sharp decline Friday, plunging 11.4% and bottoming out at $71.67 during intraday trading before settling near $71.88. This marked a significant retreat from Thursday’s closing price of $81.10. Trading volume reached approximately 25.2 million shares, trailing slightly behind the stock’s average daily volume of 28.2 million.

CoreWeave, Inc. Class A Common Stock, CRWV

The steep decline came on the heels of back-to-back analyst downgrades. Wednesday saw both Jefferies and Citigroup revise their stance on CRWV, slashing ratings from Buy to Hold. This coordinated shift in sentiment from two prominent Wall Street firms intensified selling pressure on a stock that had already retreated considerably from its 52-week peak of $153.20.

However, not all analysts have soured on the name. Roth Capital maintained its Buy recommendation alongside a $150 price objective. Rosenblatt stayed bullish with a Buy rating and an ambitious $250 target. Robert W. Baird launched coverage with an Outperform designation and $100 target. Oppenheimer boosted its price target from $140 to $150 while reaffirming Outperform.

Despite recent downgrades, the broader analyst community remains constructive. Among 37 analysts monitored by MarketBeat, one assigns a Strong Buy, 21 recommend Buy, 14 suggest Hold, and just one advises Sell. The consensus price target of $136.25 represents substantial upside from current trading levels.

Quarterly Earnings Shortfall Compounds Concerns

CoreWeave delivered its most recent quarterly results on May 7th. The company posted Q1 revenue of $2.08 billion, representing impressive year-over-year expansion of 111.6%. While the top-line performance appeared robust, profitability metrics painted a less favorable picture.

The company reported adjusted earnings per share of -$1.40, falling short of the Street’s expectation of -$1.17 by $0.23. Net margin registered at -25.57% while return on equity came in at -43.07%. Current analyst projections call for full-year EPS of -$4.57.

From a balance sheet perspective, CoreWeave carries a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.68. Both the quick ratio and current ratio stand at 0.31, indicating constrained near-term liquidity. The stock’s 50-day moving average sits at $97.75, while the 200-day moving average rests at $95.47—both significantly above where shares currently trade.

Heavy Insider Selling Raises Eyebrows

Substantial insider selling activity has captured market attention. Chief Executive Officer Michael Intrator offloaded 61,797 shares on July 8th at an average sale price of $86.94, generating proceeds of approximately $5.37 million. This disposal was conducted through a pre-established Rule 10b5-1 trading arrangement.

Separately, insider Brian Venturo disposed of 76,912 shares on July 1st at $86.99 per share, totaling $6.69 million. This transaction trimmed his holdings by 21.31%.

Across the trailing 90-day period, company insiders have collectively sold 17,070,099 shares worth roughly $1.98 billion. Despite this aggressive selling, insiders maintain ownership of approximately 24.2% of outstanding shares.

On the institutional front, Capula Management boosted its CoreWeave stake by 62% during the first quarter, acquiring an additional 18,679 shares to bring its total position to 48,804 shares valued at about $3.78 million. Multiple smaller institutional investors similarly established new positions or expanded existing ones during the quarter.

CoreWeave’s 52-week low stands at $63.80. With shares currently hovering in the low $70s, the stock is now much closer to its annual floor than to the average analyst price target of $136.25.

The post CoreWeave (CRWV) Stock Plunges 11% Following Dual Analyst Downgrades appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• Financial Times reports Waymo is exploring options to terminate its Uber partnership
• Shares of Uber Technologies fell 4.3% during Friday’s trading session
• Disagreements between the companies include vehicle maintenance standards, navigation protocols, operational availability during inclement weather, and partnership economics
• Waymo has informed Uber of intentions to independently operate in Austin and Atlanta beginning January 2028
• Their Phoenix collaboration already concluded in late June 2026

Shares of Uber Technologies experienced a 4.3% decline on Friday, with selling pressure intensifying during the final trading hour after the Financial Times published a report indicating Waymo is evaluating the termination of their collaborative arrangement.

Uber Technologies, Inc., UBER

Since establishing their partnership in 2023, the companies have jointly provided Waymo autonomous vehicles through Uber’s platform in the Austin and Atlanta metropolitan areas.

According to the Financial Times article, which referenced individuals with knowledge of the discussions, Waymo executives have conducted internal deliberations regarding the potential dissolution of their agreements with Uber. Reuters was unable to confirm these details independently, and representatives from both organizations declined to provide comments.

Tensions between the autonomous vehicle company and the ride-hailing platform have been escalating over recent months. Waymo has expressed dissatisfaction regarding vehicle maintenance standards and route optimization. Meanwhile, Uber has characterized the partnership’s economic structure as “financially untenable” and voiced frustration about Waymo’s fleet becoming unavailable during adverse weather conditions.

A source with direct knowledge of the relationship told the Financial Times that both organizations are “moving toward incompatible strategic goals.” The diplomatic language suggests the collaboration may be approaching its natural conclusion.

Phoenix Partnership Already Dissolved

Warning signs emerged earlier this year. The companies discreetly terminated their autonomous vehicle collaboration in Phoenix, Arizona during late June — a region where they had previously coordinated operations.

Waymo has formally communicated to Uber its strategic decision to launch independent operations in both Austin and Atlanta markets commencing January 2028, the earliest date permitted under their existing contractual framework for competitive market entry.

Rather than an abrupt dissolution, this represents a methodical disengagement with a predetermined timeline.

Competition Emerges Between Former Allies

The conflict extends beyond operational disagreements. The Financial Times revealed that both corporations are pursuing competing legislative agendas, advocating for robotaxi regulations that advance their respective strategic interests — frequently in direct opposition to each other.

Uber’s approach has centered on partnerships with external autonomous vehicle manufacturers, including Waymo, enabling the company to expand its robotaxi capabilities without developing proprietary self-driving technology.

Should Waymo proceed with separation, Uber would face pressure to strengthen relationships with alternative AV providers or fundamentally reconsider its technology partnership strategy.

Alphabet stock (GOOGL), Waymo’s parent company, gained 0.65% on Friday, contrasting sharply with Uber’s performance, which absorbed investor anxiety with a 4.31% decline.

For the moment, both companies continue their partnership operations in Austin and Atlanta. Market observers should monitor developments closely as the January 2028 deadline approaches.

The post Uber (UBER) Stock Tumbles 4% Amid Reports of Waymo Partnership Dissolution appeared first on Blockonomi.

After a major rally toward a monthly peak, bitcoin’s price has lost momentum and is down to $64,000, which is very close to a level that could provide more insight into which way the asset is going next.

Popular analyst Ali Martinez outlined the two most likely charts depending on whether BTC breaks out or down.

$67K Again or $60K?

The analyst told his over 165,000 followers on X that the primary cryptocurrency has returned to the key support level at $63,800 after failing at $67,000 earlier this week. He believes this critical line will determine the next leg, whether it will head back toward that aforementioned monthly high or crumble down to $60,000 as it did on a few occasions in June and in early July.

Keep an eye on Bitcoin $BTC at $63,800.

If this level holds as support, I’m watching for a rebound toward $67,000. But if it breaks, the next downside target sits around $60,000. pic.twitter.com/kAn0hDIEmc

— Ali Charts (@alicharts) July 25, 2026

Given his recent assessment of the upcoming month, though, the odds are leaning bearish. As reported earlier, Martinez outlined historical data showing that August has been anything but a positive month for the largest cryptocurrency. The last four editions have all been in the red, and only three out of the past 12 have posted gains. The last significant August rally came nine years ago when it pumped by 65% during the 2017 bull run.

On the positive side, CW reported that small whales holding between 100 and 1,000 BTC have seen their positions turn green. The analyst claimed that such developments in the past preceded short-term upticks or more profound rallies.

BTC Still Capped

Rekt Capital noted that all of BTC’s recent breakout attempts have been halted at approximately $65,500 on the weekly scale, which is where the 50-Month EMA is positioned. He warned that BTC may be “developing a new multi-week lower high” after the latest rejection.

In addition, he noted that the declining buy-side volume hints at another bearish shift, as sellers have stepped up lately.

“The more seller-dominant the volume becomes while Bitcoin is at resistance, the greater the chances for a rejection from here,” he concluded.

The post Bitcoin Is Testing a Crucial Level: Breakout or Breakdown Next? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds ended their third consecutive week in the green, but momentum faded at the end of it.

In the meantime, the funds tracking Ethereum continue to outperform, gaining over $100 million as the underlying asset challenged the $1,950 level.

BTC ETFs Still in the Green but…

The funds tracking the market leader were in a tough spot for weeks. Eight, to be precise. In this streak that began in mid-May and felt it went on for eternity, they saw over $8 billion withdrawn from investors, with the total net inflows going down from over $59.34 billion to $51.08 billion on July 2.

However, investors finally changed their tune at this point and broke this negative trend during the first full week of July, inserting nearly $200 million. Another $75.67 million followed during the subsequent week, and the one that just ended began on a high note. In fact, the actual net inflows stood at approximately $1 billion during the seven consecutive green days – from July 14 until July 22.

This coincided (or propelled) with bitcoin’s price rally that drove the asset to $67,000 on Wednesday for the first time in over a month. However, the asset was rejected there, driven south to $64,000 on Friday, while the ETF outflows returned. On Thursday and Friday, investors pulled out $225.18 million and $240 million, respectively.

As such, even though the week ended slightly in the green, it was a relatively modest $33.79 million.

ETH ETFs Still Do Better

A rather interesting trend that began two weeks ago was replicated once again. The spot Ethereum ETFs turned out to be more attractive to investors, with almost $104 million in net inflows. Only one day was in the red, with investors pulling out $70.62 million on Friday. Before that, they had poured in $38.09 million on Monday, $37.47 million on Tuesday, $72.64 million on Wednesday, and $26.32 million on Thursday.

Perhaps due to these rather impressive numbers, the underlying asset surged past $1,900 mid-week and peaked at just over $1,950. However, it couldn’t keep the momentum going and slipped by about $100 on Friday and Saturday.

The total net inflows of the ETH ETFs have recovered over $200 million in the past three weeks, but are still well below the $12.09 billion seen in May.

The post Crypto ETF Recap: Ethereum Still Outpaces Bitcoin, but Cracks Are Emerging appeared first on CryptoPotato.

For much of the past two years, publicly listed companies competed to raise capital to buy BTC and presented themselves as leveraged alternatives to holding the asset directly.

The model worked quite promisingly for a while, and their shares traded comfortably above the value of the BTC on their balance sheets. Some experienced massive growth within months. However, Scorpions’ immortal song has come to life – there’s a wind of change.

Who Is Selling?

Although we have talked extensively about Strategy’s change of attitude over the past several months, the company remains the largest corporate holder and the pioneer of the entire move, so we can’t skip it. It began accumulating BTC roughly six years ago. It increased the rate and size of its purchases after the US presidential elections in late 2024. The market became accustomed to hearing new multi-million- (and sometimes billion-) dollar accumulations every Monday.

However, it all changed with a tiny sale in Q2 and a significantly larger one in early July of over 3,500 units. The company has made no new acquisitions for weeks now, while focusing on rebuilding its USD reserve. On the plus side, it didn’t sell in the past couple of weeks either. Nevertheless, analysts are adamant that the first sale changed everything, even though it’s apparent (for now) that Strategy has not abandoned Bitcoin.

Satsuma Technologies, though, did. The UK-listed BTC treasury company proposed selling all of its remaining BTC, returning most of the proceeds to shareholders, delisting from the London Stock Exchange, and effectively dismantling the treasury vehicle. The firm had already sold 579 BTC in December last year to raise approximately $50 million to address convertible loan obligations. Now, shareholders have approved plans to dispose of the remaining 668 BTC.

Recent reports suggested that Bitcoin miners have disposed of a record 32,000 units in the first quarter of the year, further intensifying the selling pressure.

Separately, Jack Mallers stepped down as CEO of Twenty One Capital earlier this week to focus on Strike. Although this doesn’t necessarily mean that the firm will sell its BTC holdings, it originally promoted itself as a passive Bitcoin holder.

Mallers’ departure, in which he said there are too many differences between himself and the Board of Directors, hints at a major restructuring. It serves as another example of a major treasury vehicle being forced to rethink how it creates value beyond BTC exposure.

Who Might Follow?

Metaplanet, described as Asia’s Strategy, joined the trend a couple of years ago and made some major BTC acquisitions. Its stock benefited immensely, as its business transformed. However, the late 2025 market crash and subsequent bear cycle have not been kind, with the same stock plunging by nearly 90% at one point. It halted its Bitcoin acquisitions for months before returning with a 2,823 purchase in early July.

It has remained silent since then, but there’s no sign that its strategy has changed or that it might need to dispose of some crypto holdings soon.

Perhaps the most vulnerable companies are the smaller ones, trading below net asset value, carrying expensive debt, lacking meaningful operating revenue, or facing shareholder pressure to unlock their crypto holdings. Nakamoto Inc. is among those that stand out, as it already sold about 5% of its BTC position in March, and another 600 units in June.

Despite the evident trend change, none of the above means that the corporate Bitcoin treasury is finished. However, it marked the end of a period in which every treasury announcement involved another purchase. Now, uncertainty dominates, just like the market phase, but those who survive will likely be the strongest companies generating operating revenue and managing their liabilities. The weakest may have to sell and restructure.

The post The Bitcoin Treasury Shakeout Has Begun: Which Companies Are Selling and Who’s Next? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange continues to update its product line, introducing new ways to keep users on the platform as investor interest has shifted elsewhere.

In the latest move, the CZ-founded company outlined the significant APR provided to certain holders and traders of Ripple’s stablecoin.

Recall that Binance first listed RLUSD at the start of the year, which included a popular zero-trading-fee promotion for a certain period. Naturally, some of the trading pairs available in January were against XRP.

Although the stablecoin was initially available only on Ethereum, it added support for Ripple’s XRP Ledger less than a month later.

The updates continued in the following months, including Binance adding the stablecoin to its Earn program, allowing holders to earn some rewards.

The latest post from the exchange provided more details on what investors can actually earn. It reads that the APR has remained variable in the past week, but it was an impressive figure of 22.25%.

Binance explained that users holding and trading the stablecoin can continue to earn weekly XRP rewards, and the asset has been added on the exchange’s Margin/Earn program.

22.25% APR (variable) in the last 7 days.

Hold RLUSD, trade, and earn weekly XRP rewards, it’s live now on Binance Margin/Earn.

More info → https://t.co/LmdiRKIG7w pic.twitter.com/PmTM87BU7b

— Binance (@binance) July 25, 2026

RLUSD saw the light of day at the end of 2024, even before the legal issues concerning the company behind it were resolved. Although it’s generally aimed at institutional usage, it continues to attract retail participants as well.

Its market capitalization has grown to almost $1.6 billion as of press time, making it the 9th largest stablecoin by that metric.

Earlier this year, RLUSD was included in Mastercard’s stablecoin initiative, alongside other major names such as USDC, PYUSD, USDP, and SoFiUSD.

More recently, Ripple launched a new platform called Ripple Mint, which aims to enhance institutional access to RLUSD for easier minting, redemption, and management.

The post Major Binance Update for Ripple (XRP) Investors: Details appeared first on CryptoPotato.

If you spend enough time on Crypto X (formerly Twitter) or Reddit or any other social media with a bias toward cryptocurrencies, as we tend to do, you will notice an interesting pattern regarding XRP and the company behind it.

While Ripple continues to expand with new licenses, partnerships, regulatory approvals, and even acquisitions, the majority of comments are focused on its native token’s price performance. So, do people actually care about Ripple, or is it all about XRP’s next big run?

Ripple Keeps Growing

Before we dive into our findings, let’s first apologize to any XRP Army participants who might not fall under this category. After all, its community is one of the biggest and loudest online, and we don’t want to rattle any cages.

Now, let’s talk about how big Ripple has become in recent years. The company, which was once sued by the SEC and whose execs considered shutting down, launched its own stablecoin less than two years ago, which has now become a $1.6 billion asset.

Ripple has also invested heavily in institutional infrastructure, such as the acquisition of Hidden Road (now called Ripple Prime), acquired other businesses, launched services for tokenized assets, rolled out AI-focused developer tools for the XRP Ledger, and continued pushing cross-border payments.

Unlike previous cycles, the company is no longer known only for payments, as it now operates across stablecoins, custody, tokenization, institutional finance, and even dev tooling. From a business and expansion perspective, 2025 and 2026 have been the firm’s busiest and arguably most successful years to date.

Yet, almost none of those announcements translated into immediate price moves for the underlying asset.

Retail Investors Still Obsessed by XRP Only

Despite all of those developments, XRP rocketed mostly after it became known that Gary Gensler would step down from his role at the SEC, which essentially marked the beginning of the end of the legal spat between the two. It peaked just over a year ago, and it has been mostly downhill since then. Even the ETF launches in November didn’t result in the promised price gains.

To many market participants, Ripple is simply the company behind the token. And, they don’t directly buy shares of that company; they accumulate XRP. If a banking partnership doesn’t increase the demand for the asset immediately, they don’t really care about it. If RLUSD’s expansion doesn’t benefit XRP somehow, they stand aside.

This partly explains why Ripple-related headlines often generate less excitement than XRP price movements, whale accumulations, or technical analysis. We have seen this firsthand.

As such, even though Ripple and XRP will forever remain connected, it still means that the former can generate revenue without affecting the latter, while the token can rally due to factors not related to the company behind it.

Search trends, social media engagement, and trading activity all point in the same direction: traders are consistently attracted to XRP far more than Ripple itself.

The post Do People Interested in XRP Actually Care About Ripple? appeared first on CryptoPotato.