Increased US military actions in the Strait of Hormuz could heighten regional instability and impact global oil markets significantly.

The post Trump declares US will take control of Strait of Hormuz amid Iran tensions appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Solana's dominance in DEX volume highlights its potential to reshape trading dynamics, but also underscores the risks of network centralization.

The post Solana ranks first in 24-hour DEX volume at $4.15B, leaving competitors in the dust appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Escalating tensions near the Strait of Hormuz could lead to sustained oil price volatility, impacting global economic stability and energy policies.

The post Oil hits $85 as battle for Strait of Hormuz alarms energy markets appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Solana's DEX volume surge highlights its growing influence in the crypto space, potentially impacting its market position and future valuation.

The post Solana leads 24-hour DEX volume with $4B, surpasses BNB and Robinhood chains appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Heightened geopolitical tensions may lead to sustained economic instability, increased inflation risks, and volatile global trade dynamics.

The post Gulf markets fall as US-Iran tensions disrupt Strait of Hormuz appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitwise Sees a Bottom in Bitcoin’s Worst Vibes Yet: ‘Darkest Before the Dawn’ 

Bitcoin closed the second quarter of 2026 mired in its deepest and longest downturn since the last bear market, according to Bitwise Asset Management’s newly released Q3 2026 Crypto Market Review. 

Yet the $9 billion crypto asset manager frames the pain as a setup rather than a collapse, arguing the industry has never been sturdier beneath the surface.

Bitcoin fell 13.4% in Q2 and is down 32.9% for the year, dropping below $60,000 in June for the first time since 2024 and landing roughly 52% under its October peak of $126,080. That extends what Bitwise calls “crypto winter” to nine months and marks the third straight quarter of negative returns for the broader Bitwise 10 Large Cap Crypto Index, its longest losing streak since 2022. 

Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan does not sugarcoat it, writing that “the vibes in crypto are among the worst I’ve seen in my eight years in this industry.”

Even so, bitcoin held up far better than most of its peers. Its 32.9% year-to-date decline was the shallowest drawdown among major large-cap tokens, easily beating Ethereum’s 46.9% slide, Solana’s 40.6% and Cardano’s 56.5%. 

Bitcoin now commands a 64.2% share of the roughly $1.88 trillion total crypto market and carries a 77.4% weight inside the Bitwise 10 index, cementing its status as the sector’s relative safe haven even in a broad selloff.

Bitcoin ETF outflows hit a record

The quarter’s most jarring statistic came from the exchange-traded product complex that has anchored bitcoin’s institutional era. U.S. spot bitcoin ETPs bled $4.9 billion in Q2, their worst quarter since launching in January 2024, according to Bitwise. 

Assets under management still stand at $72.4 billion, with $53.4 billion in cumulative net flows since inception, but the reversal underscored how quickly professional sentiment can sour. 

Filings show investment advisors hold about 43% of professionally owned ETP shares and hedge fund managers another 28%, with Jane Street ($1.8 billion) and Millennium ($1.0 billion) the largest reported holders.

Structural demand nonetheless continued to outstrip new issuance. Bitwise noted in their report that spot ETPs and public companies have together bought roughly 3.6 times the bitcoin mined since the ETFs debuted — about 1.55 million BTC of demand against just 455,416 BTC of new supply.

Treasury companies keep buying, but Strategy blinks

Public-company bitcoin treasuries grew to 1.28 million BTC, up 11.3% quarter over quarter and equal to 6.11% of the 21 million cap, even as the number of firms holding bitcoin slipped by three to 184. Companies added 130,467 BTC in Q2. Strategy remains the runaway leader at 846,842 BTC, trailed by XXI (43,514), Metaplanet (40,177), MARA Holdings (35,303) and Bitcoin Standard Treasury Company (30,021).

The most symbolically loaded move belonged to Strategy, which sold bitcoin for the first time since 2022 — offloading $218 million late in the quarter to fund dividend obligations while keeping holdings valued at $52.3 billion and a $2.55 billion cash reserve. Falling prices punished the equity harshly: Strategy’s stock (MSTR) dropped 30.3% in Q2 and 42.8% year to date, making it one of the worst performers among crypto equities.

The report also touched on several developments that are reshaping bitcoin’s market plumbing. The CFTC approved the first bitcoin perpetual futures at a U.S.-regulated exchange, Kalshi, pulling crypto’s dominant derivative onshore. 

Charles Schwab launched retail spot BTC trading, and E*Trade extended access to its 8.6 million users. On the regulatory front, the market-structure CLARITY Act stalled in the Senate over ethics provisions, with prediction markets pricing its 2026 passage odds at just around 20%, down from 75% in May. 

Bitwise argues that if CLARITY passes it would likely mark the bottom, and if it fails the industry keeps building under friendly regulators.

Hougan’s core argument is one of cycle-over-cycle progress. Bitcoin’s seasonality data offers modest near-term hope, with July historically averaging a 10.7% gain. 

And the firm’s portfolio work still shows a 5% bitcoin allocation adding to a traditional 60/40 mix in 100% of three-year rolling windows since 2014.

“The market is quoting bear-market prices on an industry that is twice the size it was at the last cycle’s bottom,” Hougan writes — a foundation, he says, that “determines what grows in the spring.”

Bitcoin is trading below $62,000 today.

This post Bitwise Sees a Bottom in Bitcoin’s Worst Vibes Yet: ‘Darkest Before the Dawn’  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

‘Don’t Let China Win’: President Trump Presses Senate on Clarity Act in Final Stretch

The Senate returns to Washington on July 13, with the clock running down on the most consequential piece of crypto legislation in years. Lawmakers now have roughly four weeks to schedule, debate, and pass the CLARITY Act before the August recess. 

President Trump weighed in directly on Monday, posting on Truth Social that “in honor of Senator Lindsey Graham, a big supporter, the U.S. Senate should pass the Clarity Act” and warning that China and other countries “would like to take complete and total control of this major financial ‘happening,'” as well as A.I. 

White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt amplified the urgency, noting the critical week coincides with the one-year anniversary of the GENIUS Act and cautioning, “We cannot afford to delay any longer.”

This is a window many policy watchers see as the last realistic chance to enact comprehensive digital-asset market structure legislation this Congress.

The CLARITY Act would draw a firm regulatory line between the SEC and the CFTC, granting the commodities regulator exclusive jurisdiction over spot markets for “digital commodities” while leaving the SEC to oversee investment-contract assets. 

It cleared the House in July 2025 by a bipartisan 294–134 vote and advanced out of the Senate Banking Committee in May by a 15-9 margin, with two Democrats joining all Republicans. 

Those committee votes, however, came with warnings that floor support was not guaranteed.

This week’s milestone is the release of updated text merging the Senate Banking and Agriculture Committee versions, the clearest signal yet of what survived negotiations and what remains unsettled. 

Clarity Act issues remain 

The bill missed the July 4 signing ceremony that White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt had targeted, and while meetings ran through the recess, the thorniest issues remain unresolved, according to Crypto in America. Getting to 60 votes may prove harder than getting this far, and with the Republican conference shrinking, Democratic buy-in matters more than ever.

Chief among them is the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, folded into the CLARITY Act as Section 604, which would shield non-custodial software developers from being treated as money transmitters. 

Law enforcement groups argue the language, as written, would hamper investigations into on-chain crime, and Democratic support may hinge on revisions.

An ethics standoff

The more explosive fight is over ethics. Negotiators have yet to reach a CLARITY Act deal with the White House on guardrails around conflicts of interest tied to President Trump’s crypto ventures, after disclosures showed he earned more than $1 billion from crypto-related businesses last year. 

House members have pressed the Senate to act while addressing those concerns, and a coalition of more than 200 companies has urged leadership to bring the bill to the floor. The coalition argued that the bill would establish a clear federal framework for digital assets and help keep innovation in the U.S.

Complicating the math, the death of Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and the continued absence of Mitch McConnell (R-KY) leave Republicans with almost no room for error in reaching 60 votes.

Sentiment is split. Solana Policy Institute President Kristin Smith says momentum is building and a floor vote before recess remains achievable, echoing CFTC leadership calling the bill “so close.” 

Others are wary: Galaxy Digital cut its passage odds to 50-50, citing the shrinking calendar and competing priorities like the NDAA. The firm said the legislation still faces procedural hurdles, unresolved ethics and developer-protection disputes, and a crowded Senate agenda that could delay consideration until September. Galaxy said the odds would improve if Senate leaders commit to a July vote. Odds were as high as 70% earlier this year.

The next four weeks may be CLARITY’s last chance in the 119th Congress.

This post ‘Don’t Let China Win’: President Trump Presses Senate on Clarity Act in Final Stretch first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Strive (ASST) Adds 18 Bitcoin, Pushing Treasury to 19,900 BTC

Strive, Inc. (Nasdaq: ASST) bought 18 bitcoin last week, a modest addition that lifted the Dallas-based company’s treasury to 19,900 coins, according to an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.

The purchases ran from July 6 through July 10 at an average price of about $64,028 per bitcoin, including fees and expenses, for a total of some $1.2 million. The buy is small next to Strive’s earlier moves this year, and it tracks a bitcoin price that has fallen well below the levels the firm paid in prior rounds.

Alongside the purchase, Strive reported cash and cash equivalents of $154.1 million as of July 10, up $700,000 from July 2. The company still holds 505,000 shares of Strategy’s Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock, known as STRC, with a fair value of $44.2 million, down $202,000 over the same stretch. 

Its own preferred instrument, the Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Preferred Stock that trades as SATA, remains at 7.83 million shares outstanding.

Strive’s jump from an asset manager to treasury company

Strive traces its bitcoin strategy to a fast run of moves that began last year. Vivek Ramaswamy and Anson Frericks founded Strive Asset Management in 2022, and in 2025 the firm went public through a reverse merger with Asset Entities, taking the ASST ticker and reframing itself as the first public asset-management bitcoin treasury company. Its stated aim is to accumulate bitcoin and outperform the asset over the long run.

The accumulation came in bursts. Strive bought 1,567 bitcoin in late 2025 at an average of $103,315 and funded the effort through preferred-stock offerings. In January 2026, it added 123 more at $91,561 and won Semler Scientific shareholder approval for an all-stock acquisition that would bring about 5,048 bitcoin onto its balance sheet. 

The combined company would hold close to 12,800 coins at that time, a total that would rank among the largest corporate holders and place it ahead of names such as Tesla and Trump Media. By May 1, Strive’s own treasury had reached 15,000 bitcoin.

A smaller step in a lower market

Monday’s filing shows a different pace. An 18-coin purchase at $64,028 stands in contrast to the six-figure prices Strive paid a few months ago, a gap that reflects a broad decline in bitcoin through the first half of the year.

The measured addition, paired with a cash balance that held near $154 million, points to a company adding to its position at a slower cadence while it works through the Semler deal.

This post Strive (ASST) Adds 18 Bitcoin, Pushing Treasury to 19,900 BTC first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Strategy (MSTR) Raises $467 Million in Cash, Leaves Stash of 843,775 Bitcoin Untouched

Strategy (MSTR) sold about $466.7 million worth of its stock last week and put the proceeds toward cash rather than bitcoin, according to an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. The move lifted the company’s U.S. dollar reserve to $3 billion and marked another week without a purchase from the largest corporate holder of bitcoin.

Between July 6 and July 12, the Michael Saylor–led firm sold 4,818,781 Class A common shares through its at-the-market equity program. It issued no preferred stock under its other ATM facilities during the period. 

The company said the fresh cash pushed its dollar reserve up by some $450 million, and that it holds the reserve to cover dividend payments on its preferred stock and interest payments on its outstanding debt.

Strategy neither bought nor sold bitcoin over the week. Its holdings stand at 843,775 BTC, a position the company acquired for an aggregate price of about $63.69 billion including fees and expenses, at an average of $75,476 per coin. 

At current prices near $63,000, that stack is worth about $53 billion, which leaves the firm with roughly $10.7 billion in paper losses. The holdings equal around 4% of bitcoin’s 21 million supply cap.

Markets read the filing without much enthusiasm. MSTR fell close to 3% in premarket trading on Monday, extending a slide that has erased 38% of the stock’s value since the start of the year. Bitcoin dropped through the weekend to trade around $62,500, a decline that pulled the so-called bitcoin proxy lower with it.

A shift in Saylor’s posture

For most of Strategy’s history, the pattern ran one direction: raise capital, buy bitcoin, repeat. This year has broken that rhythm. The company has leaned on a wider capital structure, and its recent disclosures show cash building rather than coins.

The clearest break came on July 5, when Strategy sold 3,588 BTC for $216 million — the largest bitcoin sale in its history. The disposal followed a Sunday post from Saylor on X, part of a weekly ritual that market watchers treat as a signal. 

In the past, captions such as “A good time to add more dots” and “Looks better with more dots” landed ahead of purchase announcements. The tone has turned harder to read. A June 28 message reading “We’re gonna need more charts” preceded a new capital framework instead of a buy, and Sunday’s post, captioned “Orange dots tell only part of the story,” arrived before a filing that showed no purchase at all.

The building block behind the change is STRC, a preferred instrument that expanded the company’s capital structure and created new obligations to service. That structure is what makes the cash reserve matter. Dividend and interest commitments now form a fixed cost that 

Strategy must meet whether bitcoin rises or falls, and the dollar reserve exists to keep those payments funded.

How much runway does Strategy have?

For now, the near-term picture looks manageable. A $3 billion reserve gives Strategy a cushion against its dividend and interest commitments, and Monday’s filing shows the company can raise cash without touching its bitcoin. 

Selling stock dilutes shareholders but leaves the treasury whole; selling coins does the opposite. This week, Strategy chose the first path.

The open question is what happens if the choice starts to narrow. As long as the equity market absorbs new share sales at prices the company finds workable, the ATM program can fund its obligations. A sustained slide in MSTR, or a longer bitcoin downturn, would tighten that math and could turn optional sales into forced ones.

The firm’s paper losses give the shift its weight. Strategy sits on about $10.7 billion in unrealized losses, and its stock has surrendered 38% this year. Against that backdrop, the pivot from buyer to cash-builder reads less as a retreat than as a company managing a capital structure that now carries fixed costs of its own.

Bitcoin traded flat near $62,500 in the hours after the disclosure.

This post Strategy (MSTR) Raises $467 Million in Cash, Leaves Stash of 843,775 Bitcoin Untouched first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

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

Rep. French Hill wants a deadline. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clarity Act pairs with the GENIUS Act

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crypto exchanges are increasingly becoming distribution platforms for Wall Street exposure as trading in tokenized stocks and real-world asset derivatives accelerates across crypto markets.

Tokenized assets became the most-listed category across major centralized exchanges in the first half of 2026, accounting for nearly one in every five new listings, CryptoRank data shows. The category represented less than 7% of listings in 2025.

The expansion was driven largely by tokenized equities issued through platforms including xStocks, bStocks and Ondo’s tokenized markets.

Their rise marks a sharp change in exchange strategy after years in which memecoins, gaming tokens and other crypto-native assets dominated listing pipelines.

The shift comes as conventional retail participation in US stocks cools. American retail investors purchased a net $13 billion in equities over the past month, the lowest total since the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, according to data from financial analytics firm VandaTrack.

Net purchases fell by $18 billion, or 58%, from early 2026 levels. Buying of individual stocks declined 71% to $3.2 billion.

The US figures cover a different market and investor group from the global tokenized-asset data. Crypto exchanges are nevertheless expanding stock-linked products for users seeking continuous trading, fractional access and exposure outside conventional brokerage infrastructure.

Tokenized stock trading is already scaling

The rapid growth in derivatives activity gives exchanges a clearer reason to expand their Wall Street-linked product offerings.

Trading volume in real-world asset perpetual futures on centralized crypto exchanges rose 57% in June to a record $311 billion, according to CoinDesk exchange data. Binance accounted for $245 billion, or 78.6% of the market.

The category had generated negligible activity in late 2025 before expanding sharply through the first half of 2026.

The SpaceX initial public offering helped accelerate demand for crypto-based exposure to traditional financial instruments, particularly among traders seeking access outside the limits of conventional brokerage and equity-market infrastructure.

Perpetual futures allow users to speculate on an asset's price without owning the underlying security and without an expiry date. They have become one of the most active products on crypto exchanges, where leverage and 24-hour trading can amplify both volume and volatility.

Meanwhile, the growth extends beyond derivatives.

Data from RWA.xyz shows that the tokenized stock market has grown by more than 470% in the past year to around $1.87 billion. Monthly transfer volume for these assets has also climbed to $8.4 billion, indicating that tokenized equities are attracting activity beyond the exchange-listing pipeline.

Kraken said in February that xStocks had surpassed $25 billion in total transaction volume. The figure included centralized and decentralized exchange transactions, as well as minting and redemptions, with more than $3.5 billion in on-chain activity.

Those figures show that the increase in listings is occurring alongside measurable activity in both tokenized equities and derivatives linked to traditional assets.

Exchanges are listing fewer tokens as Wall Street assets replace crypto's old favorites

The rise of tokenized assets has coincided with a broader slowdown in exchange listings and a retreat from the speculative sectors that defined the previous crypto cycle.

Cryptorank stated that major centralized exchanges listed 351 tokens in the second quarter of 2026, the lowest quarterly total since the third quarter of 2023. New listings declined for a second consecutive quarter, making it only the second period since the start of 2024 in which delistings outpaced additions.

The slowdown follows a record year in 2025, when listing activity peaked alongside Bitcoin's all-time high. Rather than replacing the lost volume with another wave of crypto-native projects, exchanges have shifted toward tokenized versions of traditional financial assets.

Tokenized assets became the largest listing category in the first half of 2026, having accounted for less than 7% of new listings in 2025. Exchanges added 42 tokenized assets in the second quarter alone, trailing only blockchain infrastructure and decentralized finance.

At the same time, the categories that dominated the previous bull market continued to lose momentum.

Memecoin listings have declined for six consecutive quarters. Exchanges added 196 memecoins in the fourth quarter of 2024, but that figure fell to 41 in the second quarter of 2026, a 79% decline and the lowest quarterly total since the third quarter of 2023.

GameFi experienced an even sharper contraction. New gaming-token listings fell 84% from their second-quarter 2024 peak to just 15 in the second quarter of 2026.

Meanwhile, CryptoRank’s broader tokenized-assets category, which includes equities, commodities and other RWAs, has shown greater persistence than many of the previous cycle’s leading narratives.

For context, around 7% of tokens listed in 2025 had been removed by mid-2026 across all categories. NFT projects recorded the highest delisting rate at 19%, followed by GameFi at 14% and memecoins at 11%.

None of the 172 assets in CryptoRank’s tokenized-assets category listed in 2025 had been delisted by mid-2026.

This lower delisting rate shows that tokenized assets have so far remained more persistent on exchanges than categories such as NFTs, GameFi and memecoins. It also supports the view that exchanges are treating products tied to established financial markets as a longer-lived listing category.

Crypto platforms push into traditional brokerage territory

The divergence between weak US net stock buying and rising global activity in tokenized equities hints that access to traditional markets is becoming more fragmented.

Crypto exchanges can combine spot trading, leveraged derivatives, tokenized assets and stablecoin settlement on a single platform. That structure allows users to move between cryptocurrency and traditional market exposure without transferring funds into a separate brokerage account.

Tokenized products can also trade continuously and provide fractional access to assets that may otherwise be difficult for some international investors to obtain.

Those advantages come with legal and structural differences.

A tokenized equity may represent a claim backed by an underlying share, a synthetic instrument tracking its price, or another contractual arrangement. Investors may not receive the voting, custody or shareholder rights associated with owning the stock directly.

Perpetual futures provide price exposure without ownership and can expose traders to leverage, funding-rate and liquidation risks.

Regulatory restrictions also limit availability in several jurisdictions. Many tokenized stock products are unavailable to US residents even when they track shares of US-listed companies.

The listing and volume data nonetheless show that centralized exchanges are broadening their role. Platforms that spent the previous two market cycles competing to distribute new crypto-native tokens are increasingly competing to distribute financial products linked to stocks, commodities and other established markets.

The next major exchange-listing cycle may depend less on launching thousands of new coins and more on listing products tied to existing financial assets on trading venues that never close.

The post Crypto exchanges are becoming the new distribution channel for Wall Street assets appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Cross-chain transaction protocol Relay has claimed that buyers on Robinhood Chain, Robinhood's permissionless Ethereum Layer 2, lost money after tokens they purchased disappeared from their wallets.

Relay highlighted the issue and said the money was gone, without promoting the tokens or saying why they disappeared from wallets.

The incidents were reportedly not wallet or private-key compromises. Keys and balances beyond the identified tokens remained untouched, it said. Relay is blocking tokens as they appear, verifying assets it deems safe, and reminding users that anyone can list a token.

Relay linked the losses to specific, likely dubious, token purchases on the Robinhood Chain. However, it did not say the trades went through Robinhood Wallet or suggest that brokerage accounts and other Robinhood products were affected.

Relay announced,

We’re aware of reports of tokens disappearing from wallets after purchase on Robinhood Chain. There’s been an increase in scam tokens designed to remove themselves after purchase.

If you bought one, the funds you spent are unfortunately gone. We’re blocking these tokens as they show up and verifying safe ones.

Relay did not publish the affected contract addresses or transactions, leaving the reported losses independently unverified.

Related Reading

Robinhood launched a Wall Street layer 2 chain and the market crowned a $150M cat coin first

Robinhood’s new chain lets third-party markets form around its brand, adding a question about where the broker ends and permissionless infrastructure begins.

Jul 9, 2026 · Gino Matos

Robinhood launched the permissionless public mainnet on July 1. The company says it serves nearly 28 million customers across 38 countries, though that figure reflects its companywide reach rather than the number of chain users or affected buyers.

The warning arrived during Robinhood Chain's first surge in speculative trading. Decentralized exchange volume peaked near $400 million on July 7, and Pump.fun added trading for Robinhood Chain tokens on July 8.

Related Reading

Robinhood’s expanding crypto bet meets a faster-moving prediction market boom

New blockchain, tokenized stock and DeFi products deepen its crypto bet, but prediction markets may be catching up faster.

Jul 2, 2026 · Oluwapelumi Adejumo

Who blocks a token before the trade?

Open token creation allows developers to deploy contracts without Robinhood's approval. Third-party tokens and liquidity can form around Robinhood's brand without an app listing. Relay's warning shifts the issue from which assets attract attention to what buyers see before they sign.

Related Reading

Kraken adds 2,500 unapproved Solana tokens to its app – says risk stays on-chain

Kraken’s app now gives eligible users Solana DEX access while warning that the tokens remain outside its listing review.

Jun 22, 2026 · Liam 'Akiba' Wright

Relay operates a separate bridge and swap interface that supports Robinhood Chain. Robinhood Wallet's own support page says its in-app swaps route through 0x API and LI.FI, and the interface used by the affected buyers remains unidentified.

0x says it supports tokens by default unless they are blocked for compliance reasons, while custom ERC-20 tokens become tradable once liquidity exists on a market the API sources. Relay says it screens transactions against sanctions and risk databases and maintains an internal blocklist.

Its warning said it was blocking the affected tokens and verifying others, but did not establish whether buyers saw a warning before signing or only after completing their purchases.

Related Reading

Singapore puts Hyperliquid on warning list over protections it says it never claimed

The MAS warning list does not stop the network, but it shifts pressure to the front end users actually see.

Jun 26, 2026 · Liam 'Akiba' Wright

Robinhood's general scam guidance covers malicious smart contracts, pump-and-dump schemes and rug pulls, and tells users to review transaction details before signing. The page does not explain what token screening, if any, occurs before an in-wallet swap or address tokens whose balances disappear after purchase.

The next test is how quickly warnings and blocklists move across trading interfaces, and whether a token removed from Relay remains available elsewhere. Relay's post leaves the contract addresses, buyer count, total losses, and technical cause undisclosed. Users need an asset's status before an irreversible purchase, when a warning can still change the outcome.

The post Robinhood Chain tokens are reportedly vanishing from wallets causing buyers to lose funds appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Hedera-based lending protocol Bonzo Lend has locked withdrawals after an oracle verifier accepted a proof containing a zeroed signature and public key, allowing a wallet to borrow $9.05 million against 250 SAUCE.

Bonzo Lend and Bonzo Points remained paused as of July 13, while the protocol’s official status page listed Bonzo Lend and all affected asset markets as under maintenance.

Liquidity providers remain unable to withdraw while Bonzo Finance Labs and the Bonzo Finance Foundation determine a recovery path and the conditions for reopening.

Wallet A first deposited 250 SAUCE, worth only a few dollars. At 00:51 UTC, it submitted a SAUCE/wHBAR price update that inflated the token's value by roughly 12 orders of magnitude even though the market price stayed near 0.2 HBAR.

Eight seconds after the manipulated price reached the oracle's on-chain storage, the wallet borrowed 6.63 million USDC.

It then borrowed 34.5 million wrapped HBAR, bringing the principal extracted by Wallet A to approximately $9.05 million at Bonzo's reference prices.

Related Reading

How tokenized stocks fail as collateral even when the stock price does not move

Edel’s exploit was small, but it hit the next frontier for tokenized equities: credit markets, where 1:1 backing is not enough if wrappers, vaults and exchange rates can be gamed.

Jul 2, 2026 · Gino Matos

How zeros passed the verifier

The submitted update contained no valid oracle signature. Its signature field was [0,0], while the referenced committee public key was also the zero point, known in cryptography as the point at infinity.

Supra's verifier sent those inputs to Hedera's pairing precompile. Because both points represented the mathematical identity, the pairing equation returned true as designed.

The verifier then treated that result as proof of a committee signature because it had not first rejected zero, identity, and off-subgroup inputs.

In plain English, the network answered the equation it received correctly, while the verifier mistook that answer for authorization.

Bonzo said its lending contracts then followed their programmed loan-to-value rules using the price already stored by the oracle.

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Jun 18, 2026 · Gino Matos

A separate Wallet B borrowed roughly $1 million while the abnormal price remained live. That wallet contacted Bonzo, identified itself as a white-hat responder, and stated that it intended to return the funds.

Bonzo counted roughly $1 million as recovered, though the funds had yet to be returned and the final tally was still unsettled.

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Jan 25, 2026 · Gino Matos

Bonzo reported that Supra fixed the verifier, but the lending pool remains closed.

The remaining questions include whether regression tests confirm that the verifier rejects identity inputs, whether Bonzo adds price-deviation checks or tightens collateral parameters, and how available assets will be handled when withdrawals resume.

Bonzo’s official status page continued to list the incident as unresolved on July 13. Its latest formal update, posted July 11, said the protocol remained paused.

Bonzo has yet to announce reimbursement, a reopening date, or user-facing withdrawal terms, leaving liquidity providers dependent on the recovery plan that comes next.

The post How a zeroed oracle signature unlocked $9M from Hedera DeFi lender Bonzo Lend appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The Justice Department plans to end its criminal case against Matthew Goettsche, who prosecutors accuse of helping run the BitClub Network fraud scheme, before an October trial.

Bloomberg Law, citing two people familiar with the matter, said the deputy attorney general's office instructed prosecutors in New Jersey to seek a dismissal with prejudice.

It also reported that Goettsche's lawyers told the court on July 8 that the parties had reached an agreement in principle to resolve the pending charges and needed time to finalize terms. The DOJ’s dismissal plan has yet to be formally presented to the court.

That leaves alleged victims awaiting the terms that would determine what happens to the case and any funds. Final deal requirements, the status of any dismissal motion, and the disposition of any money remain undisclosed.

Related Reading

Congress moves to rebuild crypto crime task force after DOJ dismantled its dedicated crypto team

The bill avoids market regulation while trying to rebuild federal coordination for hacks, tracing, and victims.

Jun 15, 2026 · Liam 'Akiba' Wright

The $722 million figure and the recovery question

The DOJ's BitClub case page says Goettsche and other defendants were charged in a scheme that allegedly obtained at least $722 million from investors between 2014 and 2019. The government alleged that BitClub sold shares in purported crypto-mining pools, used false or misleading mining-earnings figures, and rewarded recruitment of new investors.

Publicly available terms leave the victim's loss, forfeiture, restitution, and Goettsche-specific recovery amounts undisclosed.

The DOJ directs people who believe they were victims to an FBI questionnaire, while leaving any award or distribution process undisclosed. A DOJ spokesperson told Bloomberg Law that the government was recovering a substantial amount owed to investors. A final agreement could clarify whether forfeiture, restitution or separate civil claims remain in play.

Related Reading

DOJ seizures of $580M expose how crypto investment scams scaled into shift work with quotas and scripts

Justice Department says it froze or seized $580M in three months by hitting scam infrastructure.

Mar 1, 2026 · Gino Matos

The possible reversal also follows a 2025 DOJ memo that said the department would stop using criminal cases to impose regulatory frameworks on digital assets and would review ongoing matters for consistency with that policy. The memo said inconsistent investigations should be closed.

Related Reading

CLARITY Act moves to a fight between cops and coders

A White House meeting with law enforcement groups shows CLARITY’s toughest Senate fight may be over crypto crime, and whether software developers should be blamed when criminals use their code.

Jun 12, 2026 · Gino Matos

The same memo told prosecutors to prioritize cases involving people who victimize digital-asset investors. Without public dismissal terms or a stated rationale, however, it remains unclear how the reported decision fits that priority.

The next filing may show whether prosecutors move to dismiss the case before the October trial. If they do, any agreement or court order could also shed light on what happens next for restitution, forfeiture, or other efforts to recover victims' funds.

The post DOJ moves to drop $722M BitClub case before trial as victims wait to learn what they will recover appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Adjusted stablecoin transaction volume reached a record $1.79 trillion in June, according to Visa Onchain Analytics, up 63% from May's $1.10 trillion and 125% higher than a year earlier. Across the same four weeks, the total pool of stablecoins in circulation shrank by $7.7 billion, the largest monthly dollar decline since the TerraUSD collapse in May 2022.

The market has been treating that record volume as confirmation that money is pouring into crypto, but a closer look at the data tells us that it's a much, much more complicated market than that. While usage reached an all-time high, the cash base underlying it contracted, meaning the same dollars are turning over faster in a shrinking pool.

This isn't good news for the market. Even though Circle and Visa see the numbers as a payments milestone, traders should see them as a liquidity warning.

Supply and volume answer two completely different questions

Stablecoin supply is the total value of issued tokens. It works as crypto's cash balance: the dollar-denominated capital parked on exchanges, held in wallets, and locked into DeFi contracts, available to be spent on something else. DefiLlama currently places that figure near $312 billion.

Volume is the amount transferred over a period. Visa's adjusted measure, developed with Allium, Artemis, and Castle Island Ventures, filters out high-frequency bots, exchange treasury rebalancing, and repetitive smart-contract calls, so the $1.79 trillion is designed to be an estimate of economically meaningful on-chain activity. Adjusted volume in the first half of 2026 totaled $8.82 trillion, already exceeding the $5.8 trillion recorded in all of 2024.

The two can move in opposite directions, and in the second quarter, they did. CEX.IO's Q2 report put total supply at roughly $312 billion, down more than $3 billion from Q1's record $315 billion and the first quarterly contraction since Q3 2023. Across Q2 as a whole, however, adjusted volume declined 5.5% alongside the supply contraction.

Yield-bearing stablecoins drove most of that decline, falling 15% and shedding more than $3.5 billion, with Ethena's sUSDe losing 52% of its market cap and Sky's sUSDS down 16%.

Treasury-backed products went the other way, as BlackRock's BUIDL added 2%, Circle‘s USYC gained nearly 16%, and Ondo's USDY grew by more than 66%.

June's $1.79 trillion in adjusted volume amounts to roughly 5.7 times the entire outstanding stablecoin base. That comparison mixes a monthly flow with a quarter-end stock, so treat it as a rough illustration of intensity rather than an absolute liquidity ratio.

USDC handled about $1.21 trillion of June's adjusted total, or 67%, while Tether's USDT accounted for roughly $576 billion, or 32%. USDT remains far larger, with about $184 billion in circulating supply, compared to USDC's $73 billion, so the smaller float is doing the majority of the moving.

Transaction counts, meanwhile, fell by 530 million in Q2 to 4.48 billion, the steepest quarterly drop CEX.IO has on record. The data tell us that there have been fewer transactions, with greater value, drawn from a smaller pool.

Supply is also fragmented across networks. Ethereum‘s L2s lost 24% of their stablecoin base in Q2, roughly $4.34 billion, with Arbitrum alone shedding 45% as liquidity migrated toward Hyperliquid. HyperEVM's own stablecoin supply climbed 300% to $5.6 billion over the same period, and Tron added $3.4 billion. Ethereum's base layer took the largest absolute hit, giving up more than $10 billion.

Falling stablecoin supply can leave Bitcoin more exposed to weak demand

Stablecoins are the most accessible source of deployable dollars in crypto. Traders hold them to buy spot, shift collateral between platforms, settle derivatives, and park gains during volatility without leaving the crypto ecosystem entirely.

A contracting base can reduce immediately available on-chain dollar liquidity, especially when ETF flows and corporate buying also weaken. That can leave the market more sensitive to large orders, although the supply decline alone does not establish the cause of any Bitcoin move.

We've seen this pattern play out with Bitcoin in the second quarter. BTC fell 14% across Q2 and traded below $60,000, its weakest level since 2024, while stablecoin supply posted its rare contraction.

Institutional data provider Talos identified three simultaneous drags on demand and liquidity: a decline in stablecoin supply, spot Bitcoin ETF outflows, and slower corporate treasury buying. US spot Bitcoin ETFs have shed more than $4 billion in June, their worst monthly outflow since launch. Bitcoin has since recovered to around $63,000, well below the $93,000 it opened the year at.

Stablecoin supply falls for plenty of reasons with little bearing on crypto sentiment, including issuers redeeming tokens for bank dollars, DeFi users unwinding yield positions, and capital rotating into tokenized Treasury products.

What the contraction does reliably indicate is that fewer digital dollars are available to buy risk assets at a moment when other major sources of demand are also pulling back.

Payment companies see the increased volume as a win because their business depends on velocity and not on float. Visa's own stablecoin settlement pilot reached a $7 billion annualized run rate in April across nine networks. Stripe's treasury product now extends USDC-denominated balances to businesses in 101 countries, connecting them to ACH, wire, and SEPA.

CryptoSlate covered that in late June, when search interest and headline supply were already cooling while the payment and treasury layer kept expanding. Nuvei's $2.75 billion acquisition of Payoneer points the same way, folding token settlement into regulated commerce infrastructure.

An increasingly positive regulatory outlook on stablecoins and crypto companies has already begun to accelerate this kind of institutional adoption. Circle received final OCC approval on July 10 to establish First National Digital Currency Bank, a federally chartered national trust bank operating as Circle National Trust, with USDC reserve management flagged as a future capability. The approval landed with GENIUS Act implementing rules still due from federal agencies this month.

A shrinking float has done nothing to slow the institutional interest, and the BIS has already documented how stablecoin reserve flows now register in Treasury bill yields.

Now that the dollars are flowing, the market is fighting over where they'll settle. Coinbase's Base processed about $565 billion in adjusted June volume, narrowly ahead of Ethereum's $562 billion, with Tron third at roughly $320 billion. Wallets, fee structures, and app integrations are deciding where tokenized dollars come to rest, and issuers now have to compete on distribution as much as on trust.

Two trends are unfolding at the same time. Stablecoin payment infrastructure is expanding, with record monthly adjusted volume, Circle's federal trust-bank approval, and more processors treating dollar tokens as a standard capability.

As a crypto liquidity reserve, however, the pool of deployable capital is shrinking while trading demand weakens alongside it.

The post Stablecoins are moving more money while crypto’s cash pile gets smaller appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The crypto market opened the week in the red. $BTC pulled back below a closely watched level as renewed US-Iran hostilities rattled risk assets and traders locked in weekend gains. But underneath the selloff, the ETF data just delivered a signal that has been missing for two months. Here is a breakdown of the crypto news today and what is moving the bitcoin price.

What Is the Bitcoin Price Today?

The btc price today sits at around $63,000, down roughly 1.4% over the past 24 hours after sliding from above $64,300 at the weekly close. The move triggered about $253 million in 24-hour liquidations, skewed toward longs, though the flush was modest — roughly a sixth of the market's worst single-day wipeouts over the past month. $Bitcoin has now traded inside a $59,000 to $66,000 range for a month, so today's drop sits firmly within established territory rather than signaling a breakdown.

Zoom out and the picture stays sober: BTC is down about 30% year-to-date and more than 50% below its October record.

Why Is Bitcoin Falling Today?

Two forces met at once. First, geopolitics: reignited US-Iran tensions over the Strait of Hormuz pushed investors out of risk assets across the board. South Korea's Kospi index shed 9.2%, and WTI crude gained 3% to trade above $73 a barrel as the conflict continued. Second, profit-taking: Bitcoin and the broader market rallied into the weekend, so part of Monday's slide is simply traders banking gains after a strong run.

Which Altcoins Are Hit Hardest Today?

The steeper losses landed further down the risk curve:

• Lighter ($LIT): down 8% in its first major selloff after a 200%+ two-month rally.
• Cardano ($ADA): down 19% since July 4, after a violent 39% June drop and a 40%+ early-July bounce.
• Jupiter ($JUP): down more than 15% on the week as daily volume collapsed to just $17 million, versus $500 million+ regularly in 2025.

On the corporate side, Strategy (MSTR) raised $466.7 million via a stock sale last week, lifting its cash reserve to $3 billion while keeping its Bitcoin stack unchanged at 843,775 coins.

Are Bitcoin ETF Inflows Turning Positive Again?

This is the signal worth watching. Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded their first weekly inflows in nine weeks, pulling in roughly $197 million, according to SoSoValue. That breaks an eight-week outflow streak that bled $2.43 billion in May and $4.5 billion in June. July has now logged $124 million in net inflows so far.

In plain terms: after two brutal months of institutions pulling out, the tide may be turning. Analysts caution the structural bid stays unproven until BlackRock's IBIT sees sustained inflows — but for the first time in a while, the flow data leans constructive.

What Crypto Events Should Traders Watch This Week?

This is one of 2026's busiest macro weeks, and two levers dominate:

• Inflation data: June CPI lands Tuesday, PPI Wednesday — two chances to read the Fed's rate path. Softer prints could strengthen the case for easier policy, which has historically supported Bitcoin.
• Fed Chair Warsh testimony: Kevin Warsh testifies before the House and Senate this week, his first appearance since May. At his June debut he held rates steady and tilted the dot plot toward hikes, sending Bitcoin tumbling — so traders will parse every word.

On regulation, the CLARITY Act reconciliation push continues alongside the July 18 GENIUS Act stablecoin deadline. Every step toward asset-classification clarity chips away at the regulatory-uncertainty discount weighing on the market.

What Do XTB Stock Savings Plans Offer?

XTB's savings plan offering covers individual stocks as well as ETFs — not just exchange-traded funds — meeting the growing demand for hands-off, recurring stock investing. Investors can set up an automated savings plan on a single share, an ETF, or a mix of both.

The headline number: XTB offers 3,469 stocks eligible for savings plans, on top of its lineup of ETFs, ETNs, and ETCs. That makes automated, recurring investing available across a large slice of the global equity market — not just fund-based products.

How Much Does an XTB Savings Plan Cost?

The fee structure is one of the most competitive parts of the offering, and it applies uniformly across every eligible stock, ETF, ETN, and ETC:

• 0% commission on monthly trading volume up to 100,000 EUR
• 0.2% commission (minimum 10 EUR) on volume above that threshold

For the vast majority of retail investors — who rarely approach a six-figure monthly savings rate — this effectively means commission-free automated investing. The cost only becomes a factor at volumes far beyond typical private savings plans.

What Are XTB's Savings Plan Templates?

Alongside individual stocks, XTB offers pre-built savings plan templates. Rather than researching and assembling a portfolio from scratch, investors can pick a ready-made plan aligned with a theme or goal — particularly useful for beginners who want a starting point rather than a blank page.

Examples of the predefined plans include:

• Growth — built around funds like a NASDAQ 100 ETF and an MSCI World ETF
• Dividends — including a FTSE All-World High Dividend Yield ETF and an S&P Euro Dividend Aristocrats ETF
• Semiconductors — featuring stocks such as Nvidia, TSMC, Broadcom, and AMD
• Renewable Energy — with names like Ørsted, First Solar, and AXIA Energia

Several additional templates are available, and the platform offers a streamlined, intuitive setup process.

Why Do Savings Plans Matter for Long-Term Investors?

Automated savings plans are the mechanism behind dollar-cost averaging — investing a fixed amount at regular intervals regardless of price. Instead of trying to time the market, you buy consistently, smoothing out your average entry price over time and removing the emotional guesswork that trips up most investors.

Adding individual stocks to that model matters. With savings plans no longer confined to diversified funds, the same automated, low-cost approach can be applied to specific companies — whether that's a single conviction holding or a self-built basket of names — while still keeping the discipline of recurring, scheduled buying.

How to Start a Stock Savings Plan on XTB

Getting started is straightforward, and the interface is designed to make setup quick even for first-time investors:

1. Open or log in to your XTB account and complete verification.
2. Fund your account via SEPA transfer, card, or e-wallet.
3. Browse the eligible stocks and ETFs, or pick one of the ready-made templates.
4. Set your recurring amount and interval (for example, monthly).
5. Confirm the plan — from there, purchases run automatically.

Because XTB offers real stocks and ETFs in its savings plans (not derivatives), you own the underlying assets directly, with commission-free investing up to the volume threshold noted above.

👉 Start your XTB savings plan here →

One of the most important companies in crypto came within reach of disappearing entirely — and taking its plan for $XRP with it. In a candid talk this week, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse revealed just how close the firm came to shutting down and handing its XRP treasury to shareholders rather than fighting the SEC. Here is the xrp news today and why it still matters for the xrp price.

What Did Ripple's CEO Actually Reveal?

Speaking at the University of Kansas School of Business, Garlinghouse said he and co-founder Chris Larsen seriously considered winding Ripple down and distributing its XRP holdings to shareholders after the SEC sued the company in 2020. The mechanics were surprisingly simple: Ripple holds a large treasury of XRP, so the founders could have distributed those tokens to shareholders on a pro rata basis and wound the business down — a maneuver not unlike an airdrop to equity holders. Doing so would have ended the case outright, since Ripple could then tell the regulator it no longer held the asset the SEC claimed was a security.

Why Did Ripple Decide to Fight Instead?

According to Garlinghouse, the deciding factor was not confidence in winning — it was people. A shutdown would have put hundreds of employees out of work, while litigating kept the company operational. He was candid about how difficult the call was, saying he was glad in retrospect, but that it was not obvious at the time. Former CTO David Schwartz reinforced how dire things looked: the company received advice from lawyers that it was done, unsavable, and that leadership should cut a deal to save themselves.

How Much Did the SEC Fight Cost Ripple?

The price of standing its ground was steep. Garlinghouse put Ripple's four-year legal bill at roughly $150 million and confirmed the SEC named him and Chris Larsen personally. He argued the personal charges were a pressure tactic — Schwartz suggested the SEC named Garlinghouse and Larsen personally as a deliberate maneuver to weaken their resolve and force a quick capitulation. Garlinghouse also said he met SEC officials four times between 2017 and 2019 without a lawyer and was never warned that XRP might be treated as a security, feeding a long-standing industry complaint about regulation-by-enforcement.

How Did the XRP Lawsuit End?

Ripple ultimately won on the central question. Judge Analisa Torres ruled that XRP in itself is not a security, and the case was settled last year after a change in SEC leadership that took a more accommodating stance toward crypto. That outcome preserved XRP's primary corporate backer and kept development of its cross-border settlement rails alive — a very different ending from the one Ripple's own lawyers had predicted.

What Does This Mean for the XRP Price Today?

The revelation is a look back, not a new catalyst, so the immediate xrp price impact is muted — $XRP trades near $1.09, down around 1.4% on the day amid a broader market pullback. But there is a quieter bullish read underneath. On-chain data points to accumulation beneath the surface, with roughly 64.9 million XRP flowing into Binance against 49.2 million flowing out on July 7 — a net spot-buying imbalance of about 15.7 million XRP. 

One important caveat: Schwartz later pushed back on the more dramatic headlines, saying his earlier comments were taken out of context and that he never claimed Garlinghouse seriously considered shutting the company down. Either way, the story is a reminder of just how existential the regulatory fight was — and how much of XRP's survival came down to a single decision.

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

What Is the Bitcoin Price Today?

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

What Just Happened Between the US and Iran?

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

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

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

Why Is Bitcoin Ignoring the Geopolitical Risk?

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

What Should Crypto Traders Watch Next?

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

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

What are the crypto prices today?

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

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

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

Why is the crypto market up today?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tokenized stocks keep spreading on-chain

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

Other crypto news you should know today

A few more threads moving in the background today:

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

Forget the XML blocks and persistence scripts. OpenAI’s new prompting guide says define the destination, set the stopping conditions, and get out of the way.

About 200 protesters marched through San Francisco on Saturday, calling on leading AI companies to halt development of more powerful models over concerns about AI safety, jobs, and the environment.

New Hampshire's newly-signed crypto law introduces protections for users, miners, and stakers within its boundaries.

According to new Anthropic research, Claude consistently expresses different values across models and languages.

Democrats are mounting a final case against the Clarity Act centered on its lack of language restricting Trump's sprawling crypto fortune.

Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz has pushed back against claims that the SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple focused only on XRP sales.

The market recovery is in process right now, but the volumes we have right now aren't enough.

The U.S. government has sent more than approximately $183 million to Coinbase Prime, according to blockchain data from Galaxy Research.

Earlier today, Hire Heroes USA announced the first 25 recipients of the Ripple Effect: Certified Veteran Employer Grants Program.

This week could be critical for the passage of the much-talked-about Clarity Act, according to White House crypto advisor Patrick Witt.

Key Takeaways

• Circle secured final OCC clearance to launch First National Digital Currency Bank as a federally chartered trust bank
• Shares climbed 5% Friday on the regulatory approval but retreated 4.7% to $63.03 by Monday’s close
• Mizuho maintained its Neutral stance, citing concerns that the charter won’t address fundamental USDC challenges
• USDC’s circulating supply has contracted approximately $7 billion since March, dropping to roughly $74 billion
• Baird reduced its CRCL price target from $138 down to $100 while maintaining an Outperform rating

Circle Internet Group (CRCL) achieved a significant regulatory milestone last week. However, investor enthusiasm proved short-lived.

The company secured final authorization from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to launch First National Digital Currency Bank. Shares surged 5% Friday when the news broke. That optimism evaporated quickly—by Monday’s session, the stock had surrendered nearly the entire rally, closing down 4.7% at $63.03.

Circle Internet Group, CRCL

The weak follow-through signals growing doubt among institutional investors about whether the banking charter addresses the company’s core challenges.

Mizuho maintained its Neutral rating with an $85 price objective, stating bluntly: “While a positive development, we believe the market reaction is likely overly optimistic, as this does not resolve fundamental issues that have been hurting the stock of recent.”

The federal charter grants Circle the authority to operate under direct national banking supervision, concentrating on digital asset custody, reserve operations, and fiduciary activities. That regulatory achievement is clear-cut. The more pressing concern centers on USDC’s underlying performance.

USDC Circulation Contracts Significantly

USDC’s total supply in circulation has declined by approximately $7 billion from its March 2026 high to around $74 billion by July. This represents the most substantial monthly decline since 2022, with redemptions consistently exceeding new token creation.

The broader stablecoin sector experienced its steepest monthly contraction in years during June, coinciding with cryptocurrency markets hovering near 2026 lows. While blockchain transaction activity remains robust, the shrinking supply threatens Circle’s revenue from both transactions and reserve interest income.

Mizuho specifically highlighted this trend, noting that USDC’s market capitalization decline since March creates legitimate concerns regarding the stablecoin’s expansion potential.

Emerging Rivals Intensify Market Dynamics

The competitive landscape has evolved considerably. Open USD, a recently introduced stablecoin that complies with GENIUS Act requirements, emerged from a consortium exceeding 140 financial services and technology firms, including Mastercard, Stripe, and Coinbase.

Mizuho cautioned this development increases the likelihood that stablecoins become increasingly commoditized products, complicating Circle’s efforts to maintain market dominance despite possessing a national trust bank charter.

“We remain on the sidelines,” the research team concluded.

Baird adopted a more constructive long-term perspective but still lowered its price objective from $138 to $100. The firm retained its Outperform rating, highlighting Circle’s pioneering position as a GENIUS Act-compliant stablecoin provider and expanding stablecoin adoption as positive factors.

Baird anticipates Q2 revenue will fall marginally short of Wall Street projections, though EBITDA should align with consensus expectations. The firm kept its 2027 earnings estimates intact, noting that reduced USDC circulation levels are balanced by elevated reserve interest rates.

Wolfe Research continues to rate the stock Underperform with a $65 price target.

CRCL shares have declined 65% over the trailing twelve months. The stock was last quoted at $63.00 according to recent market data.

The post Circle (CRCL) Stock Slides 5% Despite Federal Banking Approval appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• Between July 6 and July 12, Strategy executed an at-the-market offering, selling 4.8 million shares of MSTR for $466.7 million
• The company’s Bitcoin portfolio stayed at 843,775 BTC, with an average acquisition cost of $75,476 per token
• Cash reserves jumped approximately 18% to reach $3 billion, providing dividend coverage extending beyond 20 months
• Wall Street firms Benchmark and TD Cowen reaffirmed Buy recommendations, setting targets at $570 and $260 respectively
• Shares dropped roughly 3% to the $91.50–$91.80 range in pre-market trading Monday

Last week, Strategy raised $466.7 million through an equity offering while abstaining from Bitcoin purchases — a decision that’s drawing praise from Wall Street analysts.

Strategy Inc, MSTR

Ahead of Monday’s Nasdaq session, MSTR stock traded down approximately 3% in the $91.50–$91.80 range, per data from Yahoo Finance and The Block. Bitcoin experienced similar weakness, declining over 2% in the past 24 hours to approximately $62,580.

The equity transaction occurred through Strategy’s at-the-market program during the July 6–12 window, moving 4.8 million Class A shares. Monday’s SEC 8-K filing revealed the details of this capital raise.

Notably, Strategy refrained from any Bitcoin transactions throughout this timeframe. The company maintains its position of 843,775 coins, purchased at a $75,476 average cost basis.

This strategic move elevated Strategy’s dollar reserves by roughly 18% week-over-week, climbing from $2.55 billion to $3 billion by July 12.

Wall Street Endorses the Approach

Both Benchmark and TD Cowen released research notes Monday supporting the company’s decision.

TD Cowen maintained its Buy stance with a $260 target price. Analyst Lance Vitanza characterized the 8-K disclosure as “an early indication that management is beginning to execute against the framework” outlined during a recent investor presentation. The firm highlighted the expanded cash position and absence of Bitcoin purchases as evidence of “greater balance-sheet discipline.”

Benchmark similarly upheld its Buy rating, though analyst Mark Palmer established a significantly more aggressive $570 price objective. Palmer framed the equity sale as constructing a “dividend war chest,” emphasizing that current reserves can sustain the company’s annual dividend commitments for more than 20 months.

Neither research team views the Bitcoin purchase pause negatively. Both emphasized that investors should concentrate on Strategy’s objective of increasing Bitcoin-per-share metrics while maintaining the stability of its preferred equity financing structure.

Available Capital Capacity

Strategy retains $23.8 billion in untapped capacity within its MSTR ATM program. This figure incorporates $21 billion from a fresh facility unveiled March 23. Management indicated it might access this additional capacity as the current offering approaches full utilization.

This development follows Strategy’s recent sale of 3,588 BTC — valued at roughly $216 million — executed to replenish reserves and support preferred share dividend distributions. These transactions occurred from June 29 through July 5, at average prices of $59,256 and $60,773 per Bitcoin.

Strategy is also gearing up for its inaugural semi-monthly STRC preferred dividend distribution on July 15, following the twice-monthly payment schedule introduced June 8.

In its June 29 regulatory filing, Strategy disclosed selling 12.7 million MSTR shares generating $1.15 billion in net proceeds, again without any corresponding Bitcoin acquisitions during that period.

The post Strategy (MSTR) Stock Dips 3% After $467M Share Sale Without Bitcoin Purchase appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Highlights

• PI plummeted 17% during Monday’s session, reaching an unprecedented low of $0.0785
• Trade volume exploded 129% to reach $17.7 million, demonstrating intense selling momentum
• The token has declined more than 60% year-to-date and 97% below its $2.99 record high
• Technical indicators including Accumulation/Distribution, MFI, and Funding Rate signal continued bearish pressure
• Long-standing ecosystem participants known as “pioneers” appear to be liquidating their positions

The Pi Network cryptocurrency experienced a devastating decline on Monday, July 13, when PI crashed to an unprecedented low of $0.0785, representing a brutal 17% single-day collapse. This dramatic downturn coincided with widespread reports of long-term network participants, referred to as “pioneers,” aggressively liquidating their token positions.

Throughout July, the digital asset has hemorrhaged approximately 30% of its market value. Extending the timeframe to 30 days reveals a devastating 40% decline. When examining performance from January through the present, PI has surrendered over 60% of its value, establishing itself as among the poorest-performing cryptocurrencies within the billion-dollar market capitalization category.

The token achieved its peak valuation of $2.99 during February 2025. From that zenith, PI has now collapsed by a staggering 97%.

Transaction volume surged dramatically by 129% during the weekend capitulation, climbing to $17.7 million. This substantial volume increase confirms that aggressive selling activity is driving the decline, rather than gradual erosion from limited trading interest.

Bearish Forces Dominate Market Dynamics

The Accumulation/Distribution metric currently registers at negative 343 million, providing clear evidence that sellers maintain overwhelming control. Meanwhile, the Money Flow Index has deteriorated to 23, positioning itself within the capital-exodus range between 20 and 50.

Should the MFI penetrate below the 20 threshold, PI would enter technically oversold territory, occasionally triggering temporary price recoveries. At present, however, the token remains firmly entrenched in bearish conditions.

The Funding Rate has plummeted to approximately -0.0565%, revealing that derivatives traders have established substantial short positions. This concentration of bearish sentiment, coupled with deteriorating price action, suggests additional downside remains probable.

PI has been confined within a descending channel pattern spanning several months. While such formations can resolve in either direction, prevailing technical indicators strongly favor continuation of the downtrend.

Expert Perspectives on Path Forward

On social platform X, market commentator Dr. Altcoin identified two potential strategies for the project to address the substantial influx of tokens entering circulation.

“To absorb the millions of Pi being unlocked and potentially entering the market, Pi Network now has only two options: Allow more Tier 1 exchanges, such as Binance and Coinbase, to list Pi [or] introduce a sustainable buyback-and-burn mechanism,” Dr. Altcoin wrote.

Following the most recent price collapse, PI’s total market capitalization contracted to $880 million.

Certain community members continue expressing optimism regarding the ecosystem’s future prospects, highlighting ongoing development of applications and utility functions. Nevertheless, mounting frustration is evident among participants whose anticipated financial gains have failed to materialize.

PI currently trades near a critical support threshold. A definitive break below this level would likely trigger additional selling waves and establish even deeper all-time lows.

The post Pi Network (PI) Token Crashes to Record Low Amid Mass Pioneer Selloff appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• HYPE has declined more than 2% on Monday, with the token now challenging critical support near the $68.50 trendline
• Futures Open Interest contracted by over 2% across 24 hours to reach $2.72 billion, accompanied by $2.48 million in liquidated long positions
• Institutional investors poured $10.36 million into HYPE ETFs during the previous week, marking a ninth uninterrupted week of capital inflows
• Markets launched under HIP-3 have expanded their share of Hyperliquid perpetual trading volume from 2% to approximately 50% throughout 2026
• Critical support rests at the 50-day EMA level of $63.13; a breakdown beneath this threshold may drive prices toward $53.71

Hyperliquid (HYPE) is currently exchanging hands near $65 on Monday, reflecting a decline exceeding 2% as widespread risk aversion across markets weighs on cryptocurrency valuations. This downturn continues the negative price movement observed during the previous week.

Escalating geopolitical tensions between the United States and Iran centered around oil tanker navigation rights in the Strait of Hormuz have triggered a flight from risk-oriented assets, with cryptocurrencies caught in the selloff. Alternative tokens such as HYPE have experienced heightened selling pressure as a result.

Derivatives market intelligence from CoinGlass indicates that Open Interest decreased by more than 2% during the last 24-hour period, settling at $2.72 billion. Aggregate liquidation events reached $2.93 million, with positions betting on price increases accounting for $2.48 million of this figure.

The funding rate metric has experienced a pronounced decline to 0.0275%, signaling an increase in traders establishing short positions. This represents a notable departure from the optimistic market positioning observed in prior weeks.

Institutional Capital Continues Flowing In

Notwithstanding near-term price weakness, HYPE exchange-traded funds attracted $10.36 million in net inflows throughout the past week. This achievement represents the ninth consecutive week that institutional investment vehicles focused on HYPE have recorded positive capital flows.

Cryptocurrency analyst Michaël van de Poppe shared an optimistic assessment on July 12, stating that the HYPE chart “is ready to break out upwards” with a price objective of $100. His thesis rests on consistent revenue expansion, a pattern of ascending peaks and troughs, and the asset maintaining position above both its 21-day and 50-day moving average indicators.

From a technical perspective, HYPE is currently challenging a breakout from an important ascending trendline situated around $68.50. The 50-day exponential moving average positioned at $63.13 now represents the nearest support zone requiring monitoring.

The Relative Strength Index has deteriorated below the neutral 50 mark to 48, while the MACD indicator is charting below its signal line. These technical readings collectively suggest diminishing bullish momentum.

A daily candle closure beneath the $63.13 threshold could establish conditions for a move toward the 50% Fibonacci retracement level located at $53.71. Conversely, a price recovery scenario would establish the previous swing high at $75.58 as the initial resistance target.

Permissionless Markets Drive Volume Growth

Beyond immediate price dynamics, Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 infrastructure has demonstrated explosive adoption. HIP-3 enables developers to launch permissionless perpetual futures markets directly onchain.

The protocol’s contribution to aggregate Hyperliquid perpetual futures volume has surged from roughly 2% when 2026 commenced to approaching 50% presently. This expansion correlates with increasing retail trader appetite for onchain equity derivatives products.

TradeXYZ has emerged as the dominant participant within this category, operating markets including XYZ100 (which tracks the Nasdaq-100 index) alongside individual equity perpetuals on companies like Nvidia and Tesla, all settled using stablecoins.

The continuous 24/7 market availability represents a fundamental attraction point—participants can respond to breaking developments at any moment without restriction to traditional market hours.

HYPE exchange-traded funds documented their ninth consecutive week of institutional capital inflows totaling $10.36 million as of the most recent reporting period.

The post Hyperliquid (HYPE) Tests Critical Support Amid Nine-Week ETF Buying Streak and $100 Price Forecast appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Highlights

• Stephen Gregory, CEO of Binance.US, aims to capture 20% of America’s cryptocurrency exchange market following a prolonged regulatory freeze
• Trading fees have been slashed dramatically: 0% for makers and just 0.02% for takers on over 250 spot trading pairs
• Future product expansion includes derivatives trading, perpetual futures contracts, and prediction market platforms
• SEC withdrew its civil case against Binance, Binance.US, and Changpeng Zhao in May 2025
• Banking services for USD transactions resumed across most states in February 2025

After enduring a challenging two-year period marked by intense regulatory scrutiny, Binance.US is mounting an aggressive campaign to recapture significant market territory in the American cryptocurrency landscape.

Stephen Gregory, the exchange’s chief executive, characterized the recent past as a period of enforced dormancy linked to regulatory complications affecting the broader Binance ecosystem. The platform is now transitioning into an active growth phase.

At its peak, Binance.US commanded approximately one-fifth of the United States crypto trading volume. Gregory has established this benchmark as the company’s renewed objective, positioning the platform as a direct challenger to established players like Coinbase and Kraken.

According to Gregory, the company initiated direct conversations with its most significant former clients to understand what incentives would encourage their return to the platform.

Ultra-Competitive Fee Structure Powers Revival Plan

Binance.US implemented dramatic fee reductions in April, establishing zero-cost maker fees and taker fees of 0.02% or less on more than 250 spot market pairs. Certain trading pairs feature taker fees as minimal as 0.01%.

Gregory characterized the service as “virtually a fee-free exchange.” This pricing approach aims to increase order flow, narrow bid-ask spreads, and enhance overall market liquidity.

The platform operates with a streamlined workforce to maintain operational efficiency. Gregory indicated that custody solutions could generate supplementary revenue beyond core trading operations.

Binance.US emphasizes its status as an independent American entity with separate governance. While sharing branding and beneficial ownership with Binance.com, it operates under exclusive licensing for U.S. market participants.

Product Diversification Awaits Regulatory Green Light

Gregory revealed that Binance.US intends to pursue regulatory licenses enabling derivative instruments, perpetual futures contracts, and prediction market platforms. These offerings are currently unavailable on the platform.

All expansion initiatives require regulatory clearance. The existing service portfolio encompasses spot trading, cryptocurrency conversion, over-the-counter transactions, and staking services. Geographic restrictions apply to certain features based on user location.

Regulatory conditions have improved substantially for the platform. The Securities and Exchange Commission discontinued its civil action against Binance, Binance.US, and founder Changpeng Zhao in May 2025.

Fiat currency deposit and withdrawal capabilities were reinstated for most supported jurisdictions in February 2025, following the loss of certain banking relationships in 2023.

Stephen Gregory assumed the CEO position on March 9, succeeding Norman Reed, who transitioned to an advisory capacity. Gregory brings extensive compliance expertise to the leadership role.

The exchange confronts ongoing challenges in restoring market depth and user confidence. Several U.S. jurisdictions remain either unsupported or limited to cryptocurrency-only services due to varying state-level regulatory approvals.

Gregory emphasized that expanding Binance-branded liquidity access for American traders represents a key priority. “Competition provides the strongest customer safeguards,” he stated.

Achieving the ambitious 20% market share objective hinges on whether competitive fee structures, expanded licensing, and diversified product offerings can successfully restore trading activity to previous levels.

The post Binance US Aims for 20% Market Dominance Following Regulatory Storm appeared first on Blockonomi.

Robinhood Chain has generated $816,000 in gross revenue since launching on July 1, with 89% captured by Robinhood, 10% by Arbitrum as middleware, and only 0.15%, or $1,538, paid to Ethereum for settlement, which doesn’t sound great.

Robinhood Chain is an EVM-compatible Arbitrum-based layer-2 network that uses ETH as its native gas token, but Ethereum is not seeing any revenue benefits yet.

Bullish or Bearish for Ethereum?

Lorenzo Valente, director of research at Ark Invest, said, “If your thesis is ‘ETH is money,’ Robinhood building here is ultra bullish.” “More activity, more ETH collateral, more lindyness,” he added.

However, for those who believe ETH is a revenue-generating asset, “this is the ultra-bear case.” He added that Robinhood was never going to build on Solana, Sui, or any “monolithic layer-1” because it wants stack customization.

“They want to be landlords, not renters. Ethereum won this deal on merit. It’s just not pricing it right … Ethereum sells the most valuable settlement layer in crypto at marginal cost.”

Valente said that a healthier split would be 75% to Robinhood, 10% to Arbitrum, and 15% to Ethereum.

The Robinhood Chain is the cleanest case study of what happened to ETH’s economics over time.

Since inception, @RobinhoodApp Chain has grossed ~$816K in revenue.@Arbitrum, the middleware provider, takes 10%: ~$80K.

Arbitrum then pays Ethereum for settlement: $1,538.

The… pic.twitter.com/Jc8k4yi60M

— Lorenzo Valente (@LorenzoARK) July 13, 2026

Responding to the post, Consensys founder Joe Lubin said Ethereum layer-1 revenue fees should stay low to foster growth.

“Tens of thousands of companies will set up shop over the next 2-3 years on some mix of Ethereum L1, L2s, and private permissioned EVMs.”

“Monetary premium will grow very large, fee revenue to L1 from so much activity,” he added before concluding that staking and other locking away of ETH will reduce supply, and “net burning of ETH under ultrasound conditions will further grow the value of ETH.”

Since its launch a fortnight ago, 82,895 ETH worth around $147.5 million has been bridged to Robinhood Chain, according to Defillama. Analysts say this has become another demand sink, along with staking, which has 33% of the supply locked, treasury companies, and ETFs.

No Love For ETH Prices

Despite this bullish narrative, Ether prices remain at multi-year bear market lows with low volume and negative sentiment. ETH is trading flat on the day at around $1,780 following a dip to $1,750 during early Tuesday trading in Asia.

It has moved off its cycle low of just over $1,500 in late June, but has hit resistance at $1,800 six times over the past ten days. This remains the barrier to break for ETH to continue its slow climb higher.

The major catalysts for Ether are macro and likely to be inflation coming down and lower chances of a Fed rate hike.

The post Here’s Why Robinhood Chain Is Ultra Bullish for ETH Despite Cannibalizing Revenue appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Long-time crypto trader Ogle warned on July 13 that small meme coins with limited liquidity can collapse within minutes when a few large holders decide to sell.

Pointing to recent losses around the latest sensation in the space, CASHCAT, the market watcher reiterated the risks in chasing fast-moving tokens, where paper gains can disappear really fast when leverage, thin markets, and concentrated ownership collide.

Why a Few Wallets Can Move the Whole Market

In a post on X, Ogle made a basic observation about this market: that a lot of people are sitting on hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of dollars in gains that they have not actually cashed out. According to him, if even two or three of these traders were to sell, it would trigger a major price drop, especially for smaller meme coins.

“When a ton of people have made hundreds of $k or $m in a token, unrealized, in this type of market, it only takes 2-3 of them to sell (if the token is small, especially a meme with little liquidity) for everything to collapse quickly,” he wrote.

The analyst explained that the problem became even worse if the token was listed on perpetual futures exchanges, where traders often borrowed funds to place large bets.

He gave an example of CASHCAT, the meme coin built on the Robinhood Chain, that jumped more than 3,200% over the past week and briefly pushed its market cap to around $226 million about a day ago when its price hit an all-time high (ATH) of $0.2288 per CoinGecko data.

According to Lookonchain, that rally saw a few winners, including one trader who bought 15 million CASHCAT tokens for about $838 and turned that into a profit of over $1 million. However, had they waited a few more days, they would have walked away with nearly $2.9 million. Another trader spent $69 and sold for $711, which, while a tidy 10x on their investment, would have been worth $2.7 million had they also waited.

However, things may have also gone south for those traders since, as Ogle noted, the asset experienced some pretty big liquidations, which came right after the launch of a perpetual contract on Hyperliquid.

Data from CoinGecko shows CASHCAT’s value crashed by approximately 60% with about 90% of long positions liquidated, intensifying selling pressure and volatility. At the time of writing, the meme coin had made some recovery and was trading just below $0.16, although that price still represented an over 18% dip in 24 hours, pushing the coin more than 30% below its ATH.

Utility Tokens vs. Short-Term Meme Bets

In his X post, Ogle, who’s an advisor for the Trump family-backed World Liberty Financial, said that while meme coins can produce quick returns, his trading experience had seen him make the biggest gains from utility-focused assets such as Solana, BNB, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin.

According to him, those investments are slower plays that require patience, and many traders often lose interest before the assets can deliver larger returns.

The post Crypto Veteran Warns: A Handful of Sellers Can Wipe Out Meme Coins in Minutes appeared first on CryptoPotato.

A hacker made off with over $135,000 after hijacking the X accounts of SpaceX and Starlink to promote a meme coin.

The profiles were used to shill a Robinhood-based token that briefly hit a $2 million market cap before crashing to almost zero.

SpaceX and Starlink Fall Victim to Compromise

Screenshots circulating on social media show both accounts reposting content from the token’s profile, with the posts featuring a Sam Altman (SCATMAN) meme coin and tags claiming they were associated with SpaceX.

On-chain data shows the hacker created 10 trillion tokens and sold the entire stash, converting it into 59 Ether (ETH) worth around $108,000 shortly after the posts went live.

According to Lookonchain, a separate wallet linked to the attacker made another sale of 59.28 million SCATMAN tokens for 14.7 ETH, valued at approximately $27,000, bringing the total profit to roughly $135,000. The on-chain analytics platform also identified the two addresses used by the hacker.

Per GeckoTerminal data, SCATMAN’s market cap surged to over $2 million before being immediately rug-pulled. Meanwhile, both companies have since deleted the fake posts and regained control of their accounts.

Rug Pulls Remain Common in Crypto Space

Prominent social media account takeovers have become common in the crypto space, many of which have been used to pump and dump low-cap cryptocurrencies.

For instance, Scroll co-founder Ye Chen’s X account was hijacked in January 2026, with attackers impersonating platform staff and sending phishing messages about copyright violations that tricked crypto leaders into clicking malicious links.

A couple of months later, Pepe creator Matt Furie’s account was used to promote a scam token. Around the same time, WinRAR’s official account was also compromised to push a fake Solana meme coin to its followers.

The most notable breach came in May when Keith Gill, popularly known as Roaring Kitty, had his dormant account breached. In this case, hackers launched Red Kitten Crew (RKC) on Solana and walked away with more than $600,000 in half an hour.

Each case followed a pattern seen in crypto several times, where influencers create hype, developers cash out, and retail traders are left dealing with losses.

The post Scammer Makes $135K After Hijacking SpaceX, Starlink Accounts to Shill Meme Coin appeared first on CryptoPotato.

A Duke University finance professor, Campbell Harvey, has said that a 51% attack on Bitcoin, long dismissed as a theoretical exercise that would only destroy value for whoever tried it, has quietly become something an attacker could profit from because of today’s derivatives markets.

However, many BTC supporters dismissed the claim made during the July 12 episode of Scott Melker’s Wolf of All Streets podcast, arguing that it ignores the practical economic barriers that would likely stop such an attack.

Derivatives Have Changed Bitcoin’s Risk Profile

According to Harvey, a 51% attack, where a single entity gains the majority control of the Bitcoin network’s hash power, has always been technically possible but made little economic sense. This is because an attacker would need to spend billions of dollars on mining hardware but would only end up destroying the value of the asset they had just compromised.

“Why would you spend billions investing in mining equipment, take over the network, but the price of Bitcoin collapses to zero?” Harvey posited. “So you spend all that money and get nothing?”

But now, he believes that equation has changed, given that derivative markets carry enough liquidity for an attacker to short BTC before launching an attack and profit as the price falls.

“The difference today is the derivatives markets,” he told Melker. “What you want to do is simultaneously during the attack take a short position on Bitcoin, and with a short the ideal outcome is if the asset goes to zero.”

The professor did point out that the trade would have to take place on offshore derivatives platforms since it amounted to blatant market manipulation. In his research paper titled “Gold and Bitcoin,” he estimated that such an operation would cost about $8 billion, which is roughly 50 basis points of BTC’s total market value, although he framed the scenario as a risk management exercise and not a prediction, arguing that investors should consider every credible threat instead of dismissing uncomfortable possibilities.

When asked the same question, Grok estimated that anyone looking to carry out such an attack would need to spend more than $10 billion on mining machines and about $1.3 million in electricity costs every hour. It also noted that any attempt would most likely be detected immediately.

Interestingly, Harvey does not think the same scenario can work on Ethereum. According to him, since Ethereum switched to proof-of-stake, an attacker has to acquire more than half of the liquid ETH supply to control one-third of all staked Ether, which would rapidly drive prices higher during the attempt and eliminate the short-selling opportunity he described for Bitcoin.

The educator’s criticism of Bitcoin went beyond its network security, as he argued that the OG cryptocurrency is too volatile to qualify as a safe haven asset or reliable store of value. He said that price swings have stayed high even after years of market growth and deeper liquidity. At the time of writing, BTC was trading near $62,000 after slipping to near $61,000 last week following the renewal of hostilities between the US and Iran.

Bitcoin Community Pushes Back

The response on X to Harvey’s interview was mostly dismissive, with market watcher David Levenson calling the professor’s take “a fundamental misunderstanding of how derivatives work.” Another listener, PrivateCoSaylor, argued that Bitcoin’s social consensus could reject blocks produced by an attacker, making the strategy economically self-defeating.

However, there were those who aired different concerns, including pseudonymous trader Toni, who noted that while the whole argument rested on profit being the motive, the same wouldn’t hold if a nation-state or short seller simply wanted Bitcoin to fail regardless of any losses they incurred.

The post Expert: Bitcoin Faces $8B Attack Risk, Ethereum More Secure appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The meme coin remains stuck in a heavy downtrend caused by the prolonged bear market and other negative factors.

Despite the grim conditions, Shiba Inu’s holders base continues to rise, recently reaching a new all-time high.

The New Record

The total number of SHIB wallets has been rising slowly recently, but at the beginning of the month there was a sharp jump. According to the X account BSCN, the meme coin saw an explosive jump of almost 75,000 new holders between July 5 and July 6 – far above its typical daily growth.

It remains unclear why the figure soared so sharply, as some speculate there might have been a technical glitch. In any case, the total number currently stands at 1,676,535, which is a new all-time high.

The growing figure contrasts with the plummeting price of Shiba Inu. As of this writing, it trades at around $0.0000042, reflecting a 15% plunge on a monthly scale and a staggering 95% crash from the historic peak witnessed in 2021.

SHIB remains the second-largest meme coin, but only thanks to the double-digit collapse MemeCore (M) recently experienced. The market capitalization of the self-proclaimed Dogecoin killer has tumbled below $2.5 billion, making it the 36th-biggest cryptocurrency.

Further Slump Incoming?

The rising number of SHIB wallets is perhaps the only real glimmer of optimism for Shiba Inu lately. Its burning mechanism, which saw a major resurgence last week, has once again slowed, while Shibarium’s activity has fallen to near-idle levels.

The layer-2 scaling solution, designed to enhance Shiba Inu’s ecosystem by boosting speed, lowering transaction fees, and improving scalability, initially processed millions of transactions on a daily basis. Over the past months (especially after Shibarium’s exploit last year), those have tumbled to mere thousands and hundreds.

These negative factors, combined with the fading interest in the meme coin, suggest that bulls might have to suffer more pain in the near future. According to BSCN, SHIB’s daily trading volume was close to $700 million a year ago, but today (July 13) it is struggling to reach $50 million.

The sentiment among analysts and industry participants is also particularly negative. Recently, popular trader James Wynn described SHIB as “old, dead, and boring,” suggesting it may not recover for another 5-10 years until nostalgia potentially brings it back.

The post Key Shiba Inu Metric Reaches a New ATH, Yet SHIB’s Price Keeps Sliding: Details appeared first on CryptoPotato.