Meta's cloud venture could reshape the competitive landscape, challenging established giants and potentially redefining enterprise trust dynamics.

The post Meta targets cloud market, challenging Amazon, Microsoft, and Google appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The June employment report could solidify high interest rates, impacting risk assets and potentially slowing economic growth.

The post June employment report to assess US jobs market improvement appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The hiring of philosophers and scientists by tech giants to explore AI emotions could reshape ethical frameworks and influence AI policy development.

The post Anthropic, Google, and Meta are hiring philosophers and scientists to figure out if AI has feelings appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Anthropic's pricing strategy for Claude Fable 5 could reshape AI infrastructure economics, impacting decentralized AI and crypto market dynamics.

The post Anthropic launches Claude Fable 5 with one-week trial and 50% usage cap for subscribers appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

DDC's buyback highlights market skepticism and potential risks of leveraging Bitcoin holdings, impacting investor confidence and financial stability.

The post DDC Enterprise approves $10M share repurchase program as Bitcoin holdings dwarf market cap appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

The 2036 Issue: The Future Is Now, Words of Wisdom from Jeff Booth

SPOILER ALERT: Jeff Booth does not know what the world will look like in 2036.

I know, I know… You probably wanted to hear from Jeff — author of The Price of Tomorrow and someone with incredible foresight and vision — that all eight billion of us would be living in the type of abundance he often talks about on podcasts.

You likely wanted to read that Jeff foresees Bitcoin replacing fiat by 2036 and that we’ll all be able to just kick back and relax as we enjoy living in a deflationary system by then.

I, too, was slightly disappointed when he didn’t paint a picture of a Bitcoin-fueled utopia that will exist a decade from now.

That said, in true Jeff Booth fashion, he offered some perspective that was perhaps even more profound than expected:

“It can exist for them right this second,” said Jeff in regard to when people can begin to reap the benefits of existing in a Bitcoin-buoyed system. “The question is ‘Do people move their time and energy to this new system?’”

Leave it to Jeff, someone who I often refer to as the Eckhart Tolle (author of The Power of Now) of Bitcoin to remind us that we don’t have wait for a day in the far off future when Bitcoin has transformed the world, we can begin to use right now it to transform our own personal world and the worlds of those with whom we engage.

“We are the change,” said Jeff. “We always have been.”

There’s just one caveat to Jeff’s message, though…

To fully experience the benefits that Bitcoin offers, we cannot simply view it as another asset within a broken system, we have to see it for what it actually is: a protocol.

Bitcoin As A Protocol 

According to Jeff, seeing Bitcoin as anything but a protocol will not only result in our not fully benefitting from it, but ultimately in the failure of the protocol itself.

That’s a lot, I know.

Let’s unpack it.

When Jeff looks out at the world, he sees a spectrum of Bitcoin enthusiasts — and, of course, those who will continue to simply dismiss Bitcoin.

The latter will resume focusing their efforts on trying to reform the broken and insolvent system that continues to steal their time and wealth while consistently blaming the powers that be for their lot in life, further handing over their power to those actors in the process.

If you’re reading this article, you’re likely not one of those types. You, instead, exist somewhere on a spectrum of Bitcoin understanding that Jeff has conceptualized.

On one side of that spectrum are those who take risky bets with bitcoin or even with other crypto assets in efforts to get rich quickly. This type lends much of their energy to searching for the next scheme to trade. Very few in this world win big and almost all lose over a longer time horizon.

One level up from that are those who see bitcoin as a store of value. The problem with this perspective is that the asset is trapped within the broken monetary and financial systems instead of replacing them. If bitcoin only remains a store of value, its ownership will continue to centralize over time, leading to a Bitcoin elite, a new breed of kings, as opposed to a world in which all human beings benefit from bitcoin. This scenario will also lead to continued issues with Bitcoin custodians.

“If we continue to have a debt-based system on top of bitcoin, bitcoin will continue to be held by custodians who will get liquidated time and time again as they take risks with their customers’ bitcoin,” said Jeff. “It’ll look like Celsius and BlockFi over and over and over again.”

Finally, there are those who see Bitcoin as a protocol.

They understand that Bitcoin emerges in layers, each of them enabling it to be used more easily and privately as money. It’s those for whom Bitcoin will serve as a true catalyst.

“It’s only if you view Bitcoin through the protocol lens that the world will change for you,” said Jeff.

“Every single other one of those perspectives relies on ‘It’s somebody else, not me.’ But the last one says ‘I create the future from my intention,’” he added.

“So, when we think about 2036, the real question is ‘How many people realize that they have the agency to change the world?’”

While this may seem like a relatively easy question to answer for oneself, it becomes more challenging when considering that we exist in a world that is constantly trying to distract us from what Bitcoin truly is.

Don’t Get Caught

From flavor of the month FUD to hero worship, it’s easy to give up your power.

“People often give their agency away to the likes of those who spread fear around quantum computing breaking Bitcoin or to those talking about how Jeffrey Epstein tried to infiltrate Bitcoin Core,” said Jeff.

Much of the Core vs. Knots debate was also driven by fear, which also siphoned people’s power, according to Jeff. With regard to this particular issue, Jeff noticed the name calling and ad hominem attacks, but opted not to contribute to the drama. Instead, he simply saw it as a signal that the issue was worth investigating. He believes that the debate offered people an important opportunity to fight for what they want Bitcoin to be.

“We’re used to seeing only a small part of consensus and not seeing views that are outside of it,” said Jeff. “The consensus mechanism and the agency of all participants fighting for what they see bitcoin as allows each person to see the entire debate and make their choice of what bitcoin is to them.”

Jeff went on to say that instead of being driven by fear and blindly digging in with one side or the other in such debates, it’s important to look inward at these times. Both doing so and advocating for what you want Bitcoin to be is ultimately how the protocol stays safe in his eyes.

“If there are enough hypervigilant people focused on the issues, Bitcoin stays secure,” said Jeff. “If there are enough people building on this and they are all hypervigilant as they build, it stays decentralized.”

Bitcoin enthusiasts also give away their agency to figures in the Bitcoin space who convince them that bitcoin is nothing more than a store of value — digital capital, if you will — according to Jeff.

“If you talk about digital capital and digital assets or building a debt-based system on top of Bitcoin, you aren’t viewing Bitcoin as a protocol,” explained Jeff. “Building a debt-based system on top of Bitcoin is centralizing, which isn’t good for Bitcoin. If you’re trying to concentrate bitcoin and become a new king, then both Bitcoin and the game you’re playing will ultimately fail.”

Jeff attributes the fact that some aren’t able to see how building a system that resembles the system Bitcoin was designed to replace is ultimately doomed to the notion that many are trapped in old mental models. In other words, we often bring our baggage from the old system into this new one. Those who see Bitcoin as a protocol, those using it as money in Bitcoin circular economies on a day-to-day basis, fundamentally understand Bitcoin through a different lens. They intuitively know that every choice, want, and need is a choice to distribute value or give value. And as bitcoin becomes more ubiquitous as money, then those playing financial games with bitcoin will ultimately be forced to give up their coins.

“You can try to create debt on top of bitcoin, but, eventually, as Bitcoin adoption increases, prices will begin falling so fast that those trying to centralize Bitcoin will have to figure out a way to deliver value to society in excess of what they’re spending to pay back and service their debt, which they won’t be able to do, forcing them to distribute their bitcoin,” said Jeff.

In short, Bitcoin inevitably liquidates those playing a zero-sum game; therefore, according to Jeff, it’s best to focus on what you’re doing to provide value to the world rather than focusing on how prominent figures in the Bitcoin space are rebuilding the same type of debt-based system that we’re trying to escape on top of bitcoin.

Why Bitcoin Remains Decentralized and Secure

For this issue, the editorial staff and writers involved have presupposed that Bitcoin is still sufficiently decentralized and secure come 2036. The truth is, though, as Jeff points out, if we all don’t claim our own power and embrace Bitcoin as a protocol, then it centralizes and fails.

Put another way, Bitcoin is not inevitable.

Yet, at the same time, Jeff is all but 100% convinced that Bitcoin does, in fact, succeed.

Why is that? you might ask.

Well, to use Jeff’s own words, he believes that Bitcoin will win because he “believes in us.”

Now, I know what you might be thinking: How could Jeff believe in us?… I mean, has he seen all the pleb slop out there? Has he seen how quickly many have been to abandon their Bitcoin vision and morals in pursuit of fiat gains? And does he think we’re all as good at thinking for ourselves as he is?

While I didn’t ask Jeff those questions, I’d imagine his answers to the second and third ones are “yes” and that he’s too humble to even respond to the final one. And as for the first question, he answered it without my posing it to him directly.

“As time goes on, more and more people discover what Bitcoin truly is, and each of them begins to move their agency into this space,” he explained. “In the process, people discover that their agency matters and that they can bend reality to their will. And when we share different thoughts about Bitcoin with others, it opens people’s minds, further causing them to shift their time and energy. I’m so positive that Bitcoin succeeds because I believe in the best in us, and I’ve already seen so many people move their time into this space and how that has had such a positive impact on them.”

Still, Jeff, c’mon! Most of us are still simply trying to convince our friends and family members that Bitcoin isn’t a scam, much less something that they should be moving their time and energy into. Even the idea of moving one’s time and energy into Bitcoin seems like an abstract and foreign concept to most people today.

Jeff gets that, too. And so he offered a caveat:

“Not everybody has to move their time — only a small fraction do.”

Now, given that my intention in writing this piece isn’t simply to help share Jeff’s perspective but to encourage you to embrace your own agency and power, I’m not going to share how much that small fraction is composed of in Jeff’s mind. Doing so might put you back into the mindset you may have had before you started reading this piece, the “Bitcoin is inevitable, and my efforts mean nothing in regard to its success or failure” mindset. Since that’s neither productive nor empowering, let’s not go there. The point is that Jeff believes that there are enough of us out there who will “hold the line and fight for freedom” as we work to maintain what he terms “the honest chain.”

“__% of people will cheat and go back to the dishonest chain,” said Jeff. “They’ll tell themselves ‘I needed to do it for my family.’ Deep down, they won’t have wanted to move to the dishonest chain, but they will feel that the consequences of not doing so were just too great. So, they’ll take the bribe. They’ll tell themselves ‘If not me, somebody else will do it, and I have to do it, too.”

Though that remaining percentage of people who support the honest chain may be small, it will be more than enough to have the balance of most people eventually move with them, according to Jeff.

“That small group forces a foundation from which others can benefit,” said Jeff.

A beautiful dimension of Bitcoin is that it’s a group, as opposed to a single figure, that keeps the network safe. And what shields this group is that Bitcoin enables them to remain anonymous. This can be contrasted with public leaders or religious figures who’ve challenged power and been martyred for it.

“Those leaders and religious figures had to be killed because they were open and very dangerous to the system of power,” said Jeff. “Now, those who want to stand up for what’s right no matter what to keep Bitcoin protected can do so because privacy is built into its layers. If this fight were occurring in the open, the intransigent minority, those who want to stand up for what is right, would be knocked off in time; it would be too dangerous for them to stand up.”

In this light, Bitcoin could be viewed as the greatest tool for human liberation we’ve ever seen. And the most exciting part is, we may have all of the components we need to scale it securely and in a manner that offers people transactional privacy.

Scaling Bitcoin: We May Already Have All We Need

Given how often Jeff refers to scaling Bitcoin in layers, I asked him how many layers he envisions Bitcoin having by 2036, anticipating that he had some ideas for layers that few of us could have yet conceptualized.

To my surprise, his answer to my question was direct: “I think we have almost everything already.”

(LFG.)

“We have Bitcoin, composed of energy, mining, and the consensus rules,” began Jeff. “Next, we have Lightning, Liquid, Ark, etc. This is the transport layer where you can now transport value instantly at very fast speeds. On top of or integrated with that, you have fedimints for ecash, the privacy layer. We also have Nostr, the identity layer, web of trust, and privacy layer. And that might be all we require. Everything there is enough to enable all applications to take part in the first global free market that’s ever existed.”

But what about a capital markets layer? Will we see tokenized assets on a Bitcoin layer by 2036, or at any point in the future for that matter?

According to Jeff, that’s a hard “no.”

“Tokenization is part of the fiat scam,” said Jeff. “The idea with tokenization is that people are going to take more assets and drive more money into those assets. In the world I’m talking about, you don’t need tokenization because the protocol preserves value for you — everything is priced in prices that are falling.”

According to Jeff, tokenized assets, whether on traditional ledgers (e.g., brokerage accounts) and on blockchains, are part of the current system, which is extractive. In a world underpinned by bitcoin, people won’t need to rely on tokenized assets to preserve their wealth.

“In this new world, capital markets get way smaller,” said Jeff. “In 1900, capital markets only made up about 1% of the economy, and now it’s closer to 40%. Tokenization helps the extractive economy carry on; it becomes unnecessary in a world in which Bitcoin succeeds as a protocol.”

Jeff contextualized his point by describing how he and the team at ego death capital, the Bitcoin venture capital firm that he co-founded, think about making investments in a world where bitcoin continues to appreciate in value.

“At ego death, we deploy risk capital where we think we can exceed a 45% IRR (internal rate of return),” Jeff explained. (Bitcoin’s IRR over the past 15 years is approximately 45%.) “Most startups don’t get funded with debt. Family and friends typically fund startups and what they’re doing is saying ‘I believe you can do this,’ while not necessarily considering the fact that most startups fail because it’s so hard to create value in the free market. Investors only come in when they see a startup starting to win and when they think a business will provide tons of value moving forward.”

And most investors in public markets today are only investing because fiat currencies are losing value at such an alarming rate. In a world that’s on a bitcoin standard, speculating in markets as a means to preserve value is no longer necessary.

Start Today

Each of our actions in this Bitcoin space have power.

They are helping to chart a course in which, by 2036, there will be exponentially more of us reaping the benefits of living on a bitcoin standard.

While that future surely isn’t promised, Jeff feels confident that we’re on the right path.

“Our future is created by these collisions of us talking to each other, learning from one another, and expanding our knowledge to other people,” he explained.

Plus, the longer Jeff works with and invests in high-integrity builders in the Bitcoin space, the more confident he feels that Bitcoin remains decentralized and secure, as it must for it to succeed.

With that said, Jeff understands that many will sell out as the fight continues to be brought to Bitcoin’s doorstep, which is why he says that we should feel free to “slay our heroes.” Instead, he believes, we should look within ourselves for answers.

The Bitcoin story isn’t one of looking out to or up to; it’s one of looking inward and embracing responsibility and critical thinking, both of which are necessary in pursuit of increased personal power and agency.

If we want a world transformed by Bitcoin in 2036, we have to start by making the essential personal transformations and moving more of our time and energy into Bitcoin today.

Don’t miss your chance to own The 2036 Issue — featuring articles written by many influential figures in the space pondering the challenges of the next decade!

This piece is featured in the latest Print edition of Bitcoin Magazine, The 2036 Issue. We’re sharing it here as an early look at the ideas explored throughout the full issue.

This post The 2036 Issue: The Future Is Now, Words of Wisdom from Jeff Booth first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Shinobi.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Price Reclaims $60,000 As Strategy (MSTR) and Strive (ASST) Jump More Than 10%

Bitcoin price climbed above $60,000 on Wednesday, a level the asset had ceded during the last couple weeks of turbulence, after Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh told a central bank forum that the threat of persistent inflation had moderated.

The cryptocurrency traded near $60,171 this afternoon, a gain of about 2.7% on the day, with a 24-hour high of $60,474 and a low of $57,718. Trading volume for the session reached $26.68 billion.

Warsh, in remarks at the European Central Bank forum in Sintra, Portugal, said inflation expectations in surveys and bond prices had eased. He paired the observation with a warning that price growth remains too elevated and that the Fed will not accept inflation above its 2 percent target. 

“We’re going to deliver price stability,” Warsh said.

Markets read the balance as a tilt toward relief. Bitcoin advanced as U.S. stocks rose and the dollar retreated from a weekly high. A softer dollar tends to lift demand for Bitcoin and other risk assets.

The move offered a reprieve in a hard year. Bitcoin sits about 30% below where it started 2026 and more than $66,000 under its record of $126,277, a slide that has kept the bear-market label in view. Its market value stands near $1.2 trillion.

Strategy (MSTR) and Strive (ASST) jump over 10% at times in intraday trading

Bitcoin treasury companies posted sharper gains. Strategy, the software firm turned Bitcoin holder under Michael Saylor, rose close to 7.5% on the day — with highs of 13% during the day. Strive jumped more than 10% at times to $12.02. 

Both trade as leveraged proxies for Bitcoin, and their swings tend to exceed those of the coin. Strive has spent 2026 building a treasury that now tops 16,000 BTC, and the stock has climbed more than 100% across three months.

Earlier this week, Strategy released a new Digital Credit Capital Framework that raised the dividend on its STRC preferred shares to 12%, authorized up to $2 billion in share buybacks, and created a bitcoin monetization program allowing limited BTC sales for specific corporate purposes. 

The company also established a $2.55 billion U.S. dollar reserve to cover preferred dividends and debt interest, with board rules requiring at least 12 months of coverage at all times. Strategy said any bitcoin sales would be limited to replenishing reserves, funding dividends and interest when preferable to issuing equity, or financing stock buybacks, while reaffirming bitcoin as its primary treasury asset.

This post Bitcoin Price Reclaims $60,000 As Strategy (MSTR) and Strive (ASST) Jump More Than 10% first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

AI’s Bitcoin Moment: Why the Open-Source Fight Looks Like Crypto Back in 2014

A new installment of Chain of Thought, the Brownstone Research newsletter written by Ben Lilly, argues that the battle over open-source artificial intelligence is following the same path Bitcoin walked a decade ago, and that investors who recognize the pattern stand to profit.

The note opens with testimony that Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei gave to Congress in July 2023. Amodei acknowledged that open source is “a good thing” in most scientific fields and that the risks of open models released so far were “relatively limited,” but he warned that the scaling of open-source models was heading “down a very dangerous path.” 

Lilly reads the subtext plainly: if open models are dangerous, then the closed models sold by companies like Anthropic are the safe choice — and the policy that follows is to restrict the open and elevate the closed.

Bitcoin’s early skeptics mirror what AI is facing

That framing is one digital-asset investors know well. 

He revisits Bitcoin’s early skeptics, from Rep. Jared Polis buying the first Bitcoin on Capitol Hill in 2014 to Sen. Joe Manchin’s call to ban a “dangerous currency,” through the 2023 accusations that regulators tried to cut crypto off from the banking system in what critics dubbed “Operation Choke Point 2.0.” 

The industry survived, he notes, and Washington is now moving toward clearer rules through the passed GENIUS Act and the pending CLARITY Act.

Decentralized AI, which Lilly calls “DeAI,” is having that same fight now. He points to recent developments as evidence the walls are going up: a U.S. export ban on Anthropic’s latest release, which he says will push the company toward permissioned access that verifies a user’s identity before granting a model, and OpenAI’s decision to restrict its GPT-5.6 rollout to trusted partners. 

He expects identity requirements to spread. “It’s for your protection, you see,” he writes. “It always is.”

The note leans on a national-security anecdote to explain the fear driving these moves. Lilly cites NSA chief Joshua Rudd, by way of Sen. Mark Warner, describing how Anthropic’s “Mythos” model broke into “almost all of our classified system, not in weeks, but in hours.”

Yet open source is closing the gap, according to the piece. Lilly says the recent GLM-5.2 scored on par with Anthropic’s Sonnet 4.6 from February, leaving open models roughly three to four months behind the frontier, and predicts an open rival to Mythos and GPT-5.6 by fall. 

He argues the bigger unlock is decentralized training on peer-to-peer networks that mirror Bitcoin and Ethereum — swapping compute-for-network-security for compute-for-model-training. Distributed training, he notes, has grown from sub-1-billion parameters to 100 billion in two years.

He names three early projects — Dark Bloom, which enables low-cost private inference on idle Macs; c0mpute, a decentralized inference network; and Pluralis, which trains AI across distributed consumer GPUs — and expects more to launch tokens and reward users for contributing compute.

The note ends with the notion that governments will try to ban open models and they will fail. For him, investing in the space “will be like buying Bitcoin in 2014, back when it was still ‘dangerous.'”

This post AI’s Bitcoin Moment: Why the Open-Source Fight Looks Like Crypto Back in 2014 first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Moody’s Flags Quantum Threat to Bitcoin and Digital Assets After Trump Orders

A pair of executive orders signed by President Trump on June 22 has pushed the quantum computing question from the research lab into the boardrooms of crypto exchanges, custodians and stablecoin issuers. 

In a June 24 sector comment, Moody’s Ratings warned that the credit implications for digital assets are significant, and that the industry now faces pressure to prove it can defend the cryptography at its foundation.

The orders make quantum computing and its security a strategic national priority. One directs the development of a quantum computer “powerful enough to initiate the era of quantum-enabled scientific discovery,” with system specifications due within 90 days. 

A second accelerates the federal migration to post-quantum cryptography, moving preparedness deadlines to 2030-31 from the prior 2035 target. 

That four-year jump is the detail crypto builders should note.

Moody’s frames the risk in stark terms for public blockchains. Bitcoin relies on public-key cryptography to secure ownership, authorize transactions and manage core infrastructure. A sufficiently capable quantum computer could break the elliptic-curve signatures that guard private keys. 

Unlike a bank wire, an on-chain transaction offers limited ability to reverse a theft or recover funds. As the analysts put it, compromised keys “may lead to immediate and irreversible on-chain outcomes.”

The finality that makes Bitcoin trustless also removes the safety net.

Moody’s: There is a 2030 deadline for a decentralized network

The near-term danger is not a working quantum machine but a strategy called “harvest now, decrypt later.” Adversaries capture encrypted data today and store it for the day a capable machine arrives, an event the industry calls “Q-Day.” 

For Bitcoin, dormant wallets and reused addresses with exposed public keys form a standing target. Satoshi-era coins, held in early pay-to-public-key outputs, sit among the most exposed.

Moody’s expects market participants to face growing demand for “cryptographic agility,” the ability to inventory, update and replace vulnerable algorithms without severe disruption. 

The firm suggests exchanges, custodians and tokenization platforms will need migration paths toward quantum-resistant standards, plus honest assessments of the exposure in existing wallets, custody arrangements and smart contracts.

There is a credit-rating logic underneath the warning. Institutions that present credible quantum transition plans, Moody’s argues, stand better positioned to win adoption from regulated financial players and to satisfy rising supervisory expectations on cyber resilience. 

For a sector courting Wall Street and pension money, quantum readiness becomes a gatekeeping requirement rather than a distant science project.

For Bitcoin, the technical fix exists in the form of proposed quantum-resistant signature schemes, but adoption demands consensus, soft forks and coordinated wallet migration across a decentralized network. That is the harder problem. Moody’s has now put a date on the deadline, and the clock reads 2030.

This post Moody’s Flags Quantum Threat to Bitcoin and Digital Assets After Trump Orders first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Preferred Stock Is Becoming Bitcoin Treasury Firms’ Financing Tool of Choice: Report

A new class of Wall Street securities has grown from an experiment into a multibillion-dollar market in under two years, and a June 2026 research report from BitcoinTreasuries.net argues the expansion has just begun.

The report, produced in partnership with the DeFi protocol Apyx, tracks the rise of preferred shares issued by public companies and backed by their bitcoin holdings. Such shares now carry a combined market value of about $13 billion. That figure represents close to 1% of the $1.3 trillion global preferred market, a share the report’s authors expect to reach 3 to 5% by 2030 and as much as 10%, or $130 billion, beyond that horizon.

The instrument sits at the center of a financing puzzle facing companies that hold bitcoin as a treasury asset. Firms such as Strategy, led by Michael Saylor, want long-duration capital to buy more bitcoin without diluting common shareholders or taking on debt that must be repaid at a fixed date. Bitcoin’s price swings make that balance difficult. 

Bitcoin traded near $124,720 in October 2025, then fell to below $60,000s by mid-June 2026, a drawdown of about 47% in eight months.

Preferred shares offer a path around the problem. When a company issues them, its common share count does not rise, so existing owners avoid dilution. The shares are classified as equity rather than debt, which means no maturity date and no forced repayment. In exchange, holders receive a dividend that ranks ahead of common stock.

 For income investors shut out of bitcoin’s upside, the structure converts the token’s volatility into a yield product.

Preferred shares are pushing Bitcoin expansion

Those yields dwarf what fixed-income markets pay. The five main bitcoin-backed preferred securities in the U.S. carry effective yields between 10.8% and 15.2%, against the 3 to 4%offered on high-yield savings accounts. 

Strategy’s lineup accounts for most of the market: STRF, STRC, STRK and STRD together hold a market value near $12.5 billion. Strive, an asset manager turned bitcoin treasury company, issued a fifth security, SATA, with a market value around $330 million.

The report’s central claim is that demand outstrips supply. Fixed-income institutions such as mutual funds, banks, pensions and insurers hold $10.9 trillion in U.S. treasuries. A shift of 10 to 20 basis points from that pool would generate $10.9 billion to $21.8 billion in demand, enough to validate the near-term market projection on its own. 

Supply, though, is capped by the amount of bitcoin available as collateral. Of the 20 million bitcoins in circulation, holdings in exchanges, spot ETFs and mining firms are excluded as customer assets or operating reserves. 

That leaves the 1.26 million bitcoins held in corporate treasuries, worth about $83 billion. Strategy alone controls some 845,000 of them, or 67%.

Collateral coverage is the feature the report leans on to make the case for safety. Bitcoin-backed preferreds maintain coverage ratios of 3.8 to 4.5 times, meaning issuers hold $3.80 to $4.50 in bitcoin for every $1 of preferred equity.

 By comparison, the median large-bank mortgage in the third quarter of 2025 advanced 76 cents against every dollar of home value. “The security of these instruments is significantly higher than 95% of the bonds in the market,” Jeff Walton, chief risk officer at Strive, said in the report, “because they’re actually backed by capital, not future cash flows.”

Not every firm qualifies to issue. Walton set out requirements: a clean balance sheet free of senior secured debt, scale to support an issuance of $100 million or more, and a team versed in tax treatment, covenant design and dividend policy. 

Encumbered bitcoin, he said, ranks ahead of preferred equity and would block most deals. Strive itself used a $225 million SATA offering in January to retire debt inherited from its acquisition of Semler Scientific, a move that left all of its bitcoin unencumbered.

The risks are structural rather than hidden. Strategy’s common stock, MSTR, acts as a volatility amplifier, and it has fallen more than bitcoin over the past year. “When bitcoin’s price declines, Strategy’s will dip more,” said Tony Lau, an investment partner at Primitive Ventures, who described a possible cascade in the stock. 

Three of the four Strategy preferreds trade at discounts to their $100 par value. The dividends themselves depend on a company’s ability to keep raising capital against a rising bitcoin price, though both Strategy and Strive have disclosed cash reserves sufficient to cover at least twelve months of payments.

Strategy CEO Phong Le told investors in February that the firm’s balance sheet holds unless bitcoin falls to $8,000 and stays there for five or six years.

For now, the report frames preferred equity as an instrument in its “0 to 1 moment” — a market where appetite exceeds what issuers can produce, and where the gap favors the companies willing to build the product.

This post Preferred Stock Is Becoming Bitcoin Treasury Firms’ Financing Tool of Choice: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire used Open USD's launch to draw a harder line around USDC's moat: a partner-owned stablecoin can challenge Circle only if its distribution becomes live, regulated transaction flow.

His July 1 response followed Open Standard's June 30 announcement of Open USD.

The launch post said more than 140 businesses had signed up to use the token, including Visa, Stripe, Mastercard, American Express, Coinbase, BlackRock, BNY, Google, Shopify, Solana, Base, Ripple and Fireblocks.

Open Standard said OUSD would offer no-cost minting and redemption at scale, send reserve earnings to partners after a management fee, and operate through an independent board made up of partners.

Related Reading

Visa Mastercard and Coinbase join Open USD as partner-led stablecoin increases DeFi yield war

Open USD may turn stablecoin competition into a DeFi incentive war, with Plasma and other partners using shared economics to fight for user liquidity.

Jul 1, 2026 · Gino Matos

The roster gives OUSD credible distribution. Allaire's challenge is whether that distribution can become liquidity, regulated availability and repeat usage before USDC's incumbent rails absorb the demand.

USDC's moat is measured in flow

In his response, Allaire framed stablecoins as internet platform businesses that tend toward winner-take-most outcomes because liquidity, integrations, and regulatory access compound over time. He pointed to USDC's integrations, liquidity, licensing footprint, CCTP, and Gateway as the infrastructure that makes USDC easier for developers and institutions to continue using.

Allaire said,

Circle's own materials list native USDC support on 35 networks and cite its MiCA compliance and licensing disclosures, reinforcing that the incumbent's moat is operational as well as brand-driven.

Related Reading

Circle adds $3 billion Wall Street Arc token risking an uncomfortable rivalry with Coinbase

A longtime stablecoin partnership is entering a new phase as Circle seeks to own more of the infrastructure around USDC.

May 12, 2026 · Oluwapelumi Adejumo

USDC's volume lead is large across several cuts, even though the measurement varies. Allaire cited Artemis data indicating USDC handled nearly $30 trillion in on-chain transactions in Q1 2026 and accounted for about 80% of dollar stablecoin blockchain transaction volume.

Circle's May 11 Q1 release separately reported $21.5 trillion in USDC on-chain transaction volume, $77.0 billion in USDC in circulation, and a 63% share of stablecoin transaction volume under Visa Onchain Analytics.

USDC also accounted for 80% of total stablecoin transaction volume in a CEX.IO Q1 stablecoin report, which found that bot-driven activity accounted for 76% of total stablecoin volume. Those cuts point to USDC's lead in measured on-chain dollar-token flow, while Open USD is still awaiting launch.

OUSD is attacking the economics around that position. Its pitch gives businesses no-cost minting and redemption at scale, shared reserve earnings and a collective governance model.

Related Reading

CLARITY Act stablecoin fight shifts from yield to who captures digital-dollar economics

Washington’s stablecoin rules are turning a yield fight into a broader contest over payments, reserves, wallets, and bank rails.

Apr 28, 2026 · Liam 'Akiba' Wright

Allaire argued that those features can create redemption pressure, leave less funding for infrastructure investment, or slow decision-making within a large consortium. He also pushed back on the idea that Coinbase's presence in the Open USD coalition means a break with Circle, saying the USDC partnership remains strong.

Allaire commented,

The same companies can endorse OUSD while still using USDC wherever liquidity, compliance, and customer flows are already strongest.

Open USD's next proof point is measurable usage across the partner base. After launch later this year, the token will need to demonstrate repeatable volume across multiple venues in payment, exchange, remittance, DeFi, and treasury.

Until that flow appears, Allaire's challenge stands: OUSD has distribution and incentives, while USDC has the live network effect it must displace.

Allaire concluded,

The post Circle CEO says Open USD must break USDC’s network effect before its 140 backers matter appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin is entering the second half of the year with its support system, which powered its last rally, under pressure.

Data from CryptoSlate shows that the largest digital asset has fallen about 33% this year and more than 50% from its October record high above $126,000, trading near its weakest level since September 2024 at around $58,600 as of press time.

This price action has pushed Bitcoin below key long-term trend levels and made the first half of 2026 its worst start to a year since the 2022 crypto crisis.

That makes July a test of whether the market is nearing exhaustion or beginning another leg lower. The next four weeks bring three pressure points: whether exchange-traded fund outflows slow, whether the Federal Reserve signals another rate increase, and whether Congress can move the CLARITY Act before the August recess.

The outcome could determine whether Bitcoin rebounds toward $100,000 by year-end or retests the $50,000 to $55,000 area, which analysts now see as the next major structural support zone.

ETF demand has flipped from cushion to pressure

ETF flows have become one of the clearest signs that Bitcoin’s institutional support is weakening.

Data from SoSoValue show US spot Bitcoin ETFs posted about $4.5 billion in net outflows in June, their worst month since the products began trading in January 2024.

BlackRock’s IBIT accounted for most of the withdrawals, underscoring how the largest regulated demand channel for Bitcoin has become a source of sustained selling pressure.

The weakness was spread across the month rather than concentrated in a single trading session. Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded only three days of inflows in June, with those positive days totaling less than $100 million combined.

The rest of the month was dominated by redemptions, including several sessions in which hundreds of millions of dollars left the products.

That pressure followed Bitcoin below the $60,000 area and challenged one of the central assumptions behind the ETF-led phase of the market: that regulated funds would provide a steadier base of demand during drawdowns.

Ecoinometrics, a Bitcoin analysis platform, said the decline was consistent with the pressure visible in fund flows, noting that:

“Bitcoin below $60K shouldn’t surprise anyone watching ETF flows. The last 30 days have seen some spectacular days of selling. But they’ve really been defined by relentless selling.”

The firm said nearly every recent trading session had seen capital exit spot Bitcoin ETFs, creating one of the most persistent stretches of outflows since the funds launched. It added:

“That’s the kind of demand shock that keeps pushing prices lower.”

However, the withdrawals do not necessarily point to panic selling.

This is because many ETF investors entered the market at lower prices and may be taking profits or cutting exposure after Bitcoin’s sharp advance last year. But the persistence of the outflows shows that institutional investors are not yet stepping in to absorb the decline.

That marks a clear shift from the earlier stage of the cycle, when ETF demand helped pull Bitcoin deeper into mainstream portfolios and supplied a visible stream of new capital. In June, the same structure showed how quickly large allocators can retreat when prices weaken, macro conditions tighten and momentum fades.

The market is now treating ETF flows as a better gauge of confidence in the top crypto.

So, a return to steady inflows would suggest institutional buyers are willing to rebuild exposure after the drawdown.

But continued redemptions would leave Bitcoin more dependent on long-term holders and less protected by Wall Street demand heading into the second half of the year.

The Fed has removed the rate-cut trade

The ETF retreat is happening just as the rate-cut narrative that carried much of the early-year optimism has broken down.

The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady at its June meeting, but the decision itself was not the market-moving part. The tone was.

Under Chair Kevin Warsh, policymakers have shifted toward a more hawkish stance as inflation remains above target and tariff-related price pressure continues to show up in consumer data.

That has forced traders to reprice the second half of the year. Rate relief, which many crypto investors expected to arrive under a Trump-appointed Fed chair, is no longer the base case. Markets are now considering the possibility that the next move could be a hike rather than a cut.

That shift matters for Bitcoin because the asset does not pay yield.

When Treasury yields rise and the dollar strengthens, investors have less incentive to hold assets whose value depends heavily on liquidity expectations. Bitcoin is absorbing that pressure even as its ETF channel sees redemptions.

The Fed’s change in tone also undercuts one of the market’s earlier assumptions about Warsh. Many crypto investors expected him to lean dovish because President Donald Trump had long pushed for lower rates.

However, that expectation was never as firm as the market treated it. Surveys had suggested only a narrow lean toward dovishness on rates, while many investors expected Warsh to take a tougher stance on the Fed’s balance sheet and preserve some independence from the White House.

The June meeting forced a reset. In March, policymakers were still leaning toward one or two cuts by year-end. By June, the median projection had shifted toward a possible hike, even though the committee remained divided.

That leaves Bitcoin without the macro support many investors expected heading into the summer.

Financial conditions are not easing, the dollar has firmed, and Treasury yields have moved back toward recent highs. For an asset still treated by many allocators as a high-beta liquidity trade, that is a difficult backdrop.

Strategy’s shift raises questions over BTC treasury demand

Meanwhile, market pressure has also spread to the corporate Bitcoin treasury trade, where Strategy’s first sale in years drew attention well beyond the transaction's size.

Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) disclosed in May that it sold 32 Bitcoins, worth about $2.5 million. The sale represented only a small fraction of its holdings and did little to alter the company’s overall exposure.

However, the larger concern was the signal it sent to a market that has long viewed Strategy as Bitcoin’s most committed corporate buyer.

For much of the cycle, Strategy stood for a straightforward trade: raise capital, buy Bitcoin and hold through volatility. That made the company an important reference point for investors, especially as spot ETF inflows and corporate treasury purchases reinforced each other.

The sale complicated that view. It suggested Strategy may now be prepared to treat Bitcoin as part of a wider capital-management strategy, rather than as an asset reserved only for accumulation.

The company later reinforced that shift, saying it could sell part of its Bitcoin holdings to strengthen its balance sheet, support its perpetual preferred securities and fund stock repurchases.

The statement gave investors a clearer view of how management could balance Bitcoin exposure against liquidity needs, financing costs and shareholder returns.

Strategy remains closely tied to Bitcoin. Its holdings remain large, and one small sale after years of purchases does not change the market’s supply balance.

Still, the company’s new flexibility has raised a broader question of whether Bitcoin treasury companies will continue to act as steady buyers if prices remain weak and funding conditions tighten.

That question has become more important as Strategy adjusts its financing structure, dividend commitments and reserve policy.

The framework could make the company more resilient by improving liquidity and reducing balance-sheet strain. It also gives management more room to prioritize financial discipline over constant Bitcoin purchases.

For a market already under pressure from ETF outflows, the shift adds another source of uncertainty. Stable corporate holders could help absorb weakness. Slower buying or further deleveraging would remove part of the demand base that supported Bitcoin’s previous advance.

AI is competing for the same risk capital

Despite this current situation, Bitcoin is competing for capital in a market where artificial intelligence has become the preferred risk trade.

Over the past year, hedge funds, asset managers and wealth advisers have poured into AI-linked stocks as investors search for exposure to one of the fastest-growing themes in global markets.

The demand has spilled into new listings, derivatives and exchange-traded products tied to companies seen as beneficiaries of the AI buildout.

That appetite has kept risk-taking alive across parts of Wall Street. But much of the money is moving toward chipmakers, data-center operators, software companies and other firms with a clearer earnings link to AI infrastructure, rather than into crypto.

The split complicates Bitcoin’s market signal. Its decline is not due to investors abandoning risk altogether. Capital is still moving into speculative areas, but Bitcoin is no longer the main destination.

AI offers investors a more immediate corporate growth story as large technology companies continue to spend heavily on chips, cloud capacity and data centers.

Bitcoin, by contrast, is entering the second half of the year with weaker ETF flows, policy uncertainty and renewed questions about corporate treasury demand.

That divergence has left Bitcoin outside a rally in other high-growth assets. If AI continues to absorb capital through the summer, Bitcoin may need a stronger catalyst than lower prices to regain investor attention.

CLARITY Act becomes July’s policy catalyst

After a first half shaped by ETF outflows, renewed rate pressure and questions over corporate Bitcoin buyers, the Senate calendar has become one of crypto’s few near-term openings for a shift in sentiment.

The CLARITY Act would create a federal market structure framework for digital assets and define the roles of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Its passage would give exchanges, banks, asset managers and token issuers a clearer basis for building products and expanding services in the US.

A delay or failure would leave the industry facing the same regulatory uncertainty that has weighed on investment, product development and market confidence for years.

The timing is tight because US Senate leaders have only a narrow window before the August recess, while lawmakers still need to reconcile committee versions, address Democratic concerns over ethics and illicit-finance provisions, and secure enough votes to move the bill through the chamber.

That makes July a key test for the market. If the bill advances, Bitcoin could gain a policy catalyst at a time when ETF redemptions and macro conditions are weighing on risk appetite.

However, if the effort slips into the fall, one of the clearest sources of potential positive sentiment in the second half would fade.

In view of this, Thomas Perfumo, Kraken's Chief Economist, described the CLARITY Act as the catalyst to watch over the next four weeks, saying passage could help restore sentiment and momentum.

Notably, Grayscale has also tied the bill to Bitcoin’s near-term path, placing it alongside Strategy’s balance-sheet decisions and the Fed’s rate outlook as factors that could determine whether BTC is nearing a low or remains exposed to further losses.

The post Bitcoin starts H2 in a bear market as ETFs, Fed and Strategy set $100K-or-$50K test appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Xapo Bank is best for Bitcoin-first global members who want regulated USD banking, premium custody, and card/payments in one app rather than a high-volume trading exchange. Its strongest point is the combination of Gibraltar-regulated banking, 1:1 Bitcoin custody claims, and security controls such as MPC and a 48-hour BTC Vault delay; the biggest caveat is that it is a premium, members-only service with limited exchange-style market tools and no public Merkle proof-of-reserves report in the provided notes. To reduce costs and risk, verify the live in-app spread before converting BTC/USD and use the Vault only for long-term Bitcoin you do not need to move quickly.

Unique Selling Propositions

• Xapo Bank is closer to a private Bitcoin bank than a standard crypto exchange: it focuses on USD, Bitcoin custody, payments, yield, a card, and Bitcoin-backed loans rather than order-book trading.
• The security and regulatory posture are strong relative to many crypto-native platforms, but public reserves transparency is limited because full audit reports and Merkle-style liabilities are not disclosed in the provided notes.
• The annual membership fee makes the product better suited to larger balances and security-conscious users, not casual buyers, altcoin traders, or API-driven trading desks.

Xapo Bank Overview

Xapo Bank Pros and Cons

Pros

• Regulated bank/VASP structure, with Xapo Bank regulated as a Gibraltar credit institution and Xapo VASP regulated for DLT services.
• Eligible fiat deposits are covered by the Gibraltar Deposit Guarantee Scheme up to £120,000 per depositor per credit institution.
• Bitcoin custody model is built around 1:1 segregation and a stated no-lending/no-rehypothecation policy.
• Security stack includes MPC, offline/bunker custody claims, app controls, biometrics, hardware keys, and a BTC Vault with a 48-hour withdrawal delay.
• Strong payments utility for a Bitcoin-focused platform, including card access and major fiat transfer rails where available.
• Bitcoin-backed loans provide a way for eligible users to access USD liquidity without immediately selling BTC.

Cons

• $1,000 annual membership fee makes the service less suitable for small balances or casual users.
• Not a full-featured trading exchange: no confirmed maker/taker book, advanced order book, derivatives, or broad API ecosystem.
• Public proof-of-reserves detail is limited; no public Merkle liability proof or full audit report was provided.
• Asset scope is intentionally narrow in the questionnaire, with Bitcoin as the core asset and other crypto/wealth products varying by product and region.
• BTC deposits are not protected by the Gibraltar Deposit Guarantee Scheme.
• Region and product availability are not fully disclosed in the notes and may vary by jurisdiction.

What is Xapo Bank? Background and Oversight

Xapo Bank is a members-only, Bitcoin-focused private bank and custodial crypto platform. It began as a Bitcoin custody company and evolved into a regulated Gibraltar bank serving users who want to manage USD and Bitcoin from a single app. The questionnaire positions Xapo Bank for high-net-worth individuals, Bitcoin-native users, and global citizens who need cross-border access to USD and Bitcoin rather than a conventional multi-asset exchange.

Xapo’s public timeline says Xapo was founded in 2013, that Xapo Bank was officially born in 2021, and that the platform later added banking features and rebranded around Bitcoin banking. Xapo Bank Limited is listed by Xapo as a Gibraltar-regulated credit institution under Permission No. 23171, while Xapo VASP Limited is listed as a GFSC-regulated DLT provider under Permission No. 26061.

Recent updates:

• 2021: Xapo says Xapo Bank was officially born under GFSC regulation.
• 2023: Xapo says it offered fiat payment rails alongside stablecoin and BTC rails.
• 2026: Xapo’s legal fee schedule was last updated on April 20, 2026, and should be treated as the source for current fee checks.

Features and Services

Trading Options

Xapo Bank is not positioned as a high-frequency exchange. The core trading function in the questionnaire is in-app BTC/USD conversion, with fees or spread shown before confirmation. The provided notes do not confirm public order books, maker/taker tiers, derivatives, futures, options, advanced order types, or an exchange API.

The fee schedule currently distinguishes between core USD/BTC exchange and crypto wealth trades. It says Xapo VASP does not charge a transaction fee for USD/BTC exchange and instead includes a spread in the quoted Bitcoin price, currently listed at 0.10% and subject to change.

Supported Assets

The questionnaire describes Xapo Bank as deliberately Bitcoin-centric. Its core user experience is built around USD and Bitcoin, with Xapo arguing that specialization improves security, clarity, and long-term wealth management.

Current public materials reference additional rails or wealth products, including USDT/USDC handling and stocks/ETFs, but product availability, eligibility, and regional scope are not fully specified in the provided notes.

Earn, Staking, and Other Products

Xapo offers yield on USD and BTC balances. The notes say USD yield is funded through traditional banking activity and that for BTC Savings, yield is funded from Xapo Bank’s own capital rather than by lending, staking, or rehypothecating member Bitcoin, and is currently in the 0.1–0.5% APR range with instant access. Xapo’s public yield article similarly says it does not lend or leverage deposits and uses its own capital to fund daily yield.

Xapo also offers the BTC Credit Fund, a separate investment product that lends Bitcoin to vetted financial institutions and targets up to 4% APY in Bitcoin returns. The Fund is managed by Hilbert Capital, regulated by the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA), requires a minimum 30-day lock-in period, and has a minimum investment threshold. Unlike BTC Savings, the Fund does use member Bitcoin in its lending strategy.

Other products include the Xapo card, BTC Vault, and Bitcoin-backed loans for eligible members. The Xapo card is described as a debit card available after onboarding and payment of the membership fee, with benefits including Bitcoin cashback, foreign exchange benefits, high spending limits, and the ability to link to USD and/or Bitcoin wallets.

Listings and Delistings Policy

Policy details not fully specified in provided notes.

For the core product described in the questionnaire, listings are less relevant because Xapo Bank is Bitcoin-first rather than a broad token-listing exchange. If Xapo’s newer wealth or crypto products support additional assets, the notes do not provide a formal listing framework, delisting timeline, user notice period, or asset review methodology. Users should treat non-BTC asset availability as product- and region-dependent until confirmed in the app or legal terms.

Xapo Bank Fees and Trading Costs

Xapo’s current legal fee schedule (last updated April 2026) is the authoritative source for fees: USD/BTC exchange carries no transaction fee and uses a quoted BTC spread currently listed at 0.10%. All fee figures in this article must be checked against the live fee schedule before publication; do not rely on questionnaire-sourced figures.

Xapo Bank Fees

Deposit and withdrawal fees: Xapo’s fee schedule says small BTC deposits below BTC 0.0007 may be subject to variable treatment or fees, and the threshold can change during extreme market conditions. Lightning payments have no Xapo fee, but Lightning network fees apply and are capped by Xapo at 15 sats; USDT and USDC transfers may carry blockchain fees and variable spreads depending on market exchange rates and transfer size.

How to reduce costs: use the in-app quote preview, compare the BTC spread before converting, avoid unnecessary SWIFT transfers when lower-cost regional rails are available, and consider whether the annual membership fee makes sense relative to your expected balance and usage.

Payments and Fiat Support

Xapo Bank’s strongest non-custody feature is payments. The questionnaire lists SWIFT, SEPA, Faster Payments, and debit card usage, while the current legal fee schedule also lists FedACH, FedWire, USDT, and USDC fee items. Availability may vary by member, entity, product, and region.

Is Xapo Bank Safe? Security and Proof of Reserves

Xapo Bank appears stronger than a typical crypto exchange on custody design and regulated banking, but it should not be treated as risk-free. Fiat deposits and Bitcoin holdings have different protections: eligible fiat deposits are covered by the Gibraltar Deposit Guarantee Scheme up to £120,000 per depositor per credit institution, while BTC deposits are not covered by that scheme.

For custody, Xapo says member Bitcoin is held 1:1, segregated from corporate funds, and not rehypothecated or used for Xapo’s own trading. The questionnaire also says Xapo does not lend, stake, or reuse member Bitcoin, and that all BTC is held in full custody. Xapo’s public compliance page states that every satoshi is held in a 1:1 reserve and segregated from its own funds.

Security controls include physically protected, geographically distributed custody infrastructure, MPC key management, strict access controls, app-level protections, biometrics, hardware keys, and root/jailbreak detection. The BTC Vault adds a mandatory 48-hour withdrawal delay and does not pay yield on Vault funds.

Proof of reserves is the weaker part of the transparency picture. Xapo states that it uses financial statement audits and publishes capital/liquidity transparency information, but the provided notes say full audit reports are not publicly shared, and no public Merkle liabilities proof or wallet-by-wallet reserve attestation was provided.

Incident history: the provided notes state there have been no historical security incidents in which Xapo Bank lost customer funds due to a breach of its custody systems. No independent incident report was included in the notes, so this review treats that as a company-provided claim rather than an externally verified finding.

UX and Customer Support, KYC and Geographic Access

Xapo Bank is designed around a mobile app that combines USD, Bitcoin, card controls, conversions, savings, and custody features. The app is meant to give members a single view of fiat and Bitcoin balances and simplify movement between the two.

Support appears stronger than a mass-market crypto exchange because the product is members-only and positioned around dedicated relationship management. Xapo’s public site advertises dedicated relationship managers, around-the-clock VIP service, and in-app/email support, but specific response-time SLAs were not provided.

KYC is mandatory. Xapo’s terms say users may need to provide identity verification and screening documents to create or maintain an account, and the questionnaire says Xapo applies KYC, AML, sanctions screening, and ongoing monitoring.

Who is Xapo Bank Best for

Xapo Bank is best for users who hold meaningful Bitcoin and want a regulated, premium custody-and-banking environment rather than a self-custody setup or a trading-first exchange. It is most compelling where the user values USD banking access, strong custody processes, card spending, and BTC-backed liquidity more than low-cost retail trading or broad asset coverage.

• Bitcoin holders who want institutional-style custody without managing private keys themselves
• Global citizens who need USD banking plus Bitcoin in one app
• Higher-balance users who can justify the $1,000 annual membership fee
• Members who value fiat rails such as SWIFT, SEPA, Faster Payments, FedACH, or FedWire where available
• Eligible BTC holders who want USD liquidity through Bitcoin-backed loans
• Users who prefer a relationship-manager model over anonymous exchange support

Not ideal for: small-balance users, altcoin traders, derivatives traders, self-custody purists, or developers needing a public API, sandbox, SDKs, and high-frequency trading infrastructure.

Final Verdict

Xapo Bank’s main strength is its narrow but coherent Bitcoin banking model: regulated USD banking, premium BTC custody, global payments, card functionality, and BTC-backed lending in one members-only app. The trade-off is that Xapo Bank is not a full crypto exchange: it has limited public market-quality data, no confirmed maker/taker order book, no broad derivatives suite, no disclosed API ecosystem, and only partial public reserves transparency. Key restrictions are the $1,000 annual fee, region-by-region product availability, and the fact that BTC deposits are not protected by the Gibraltar Deposit Guarantee Scheme.

Exchanges and custodial platforms are trading venues and service providers, not vaults. Keep only the assets you need on-platform and understand the difference between protected fiat deposits and custodial BTC.

Best For

Bitcoin-first users who want premium regulated banking, custody, and payments rather than a standard trading exchange.

PROS

• Regulated Gibraltar banking/VASP structure
• Strong Bitcoin custody model and 1:1 segregation claims
• Eligible fiat deposit protection up to £120,000
• BTC Vault with 48-hour withdrawal delay
• Useful fiat rails, card access, and BTC-backed loan option

CONS

• $1,000 annual membership fee
• No public Merkle proof-of-reserves report disclosed
• Limited exchange-style trading tools
• BTC deposits are not covered by deposit insurance
• Region and product availability vary

Visit Website: https://www.xapobank.com/en

FAQ

Is Xapo Bank safe?

Xapo Bank has a stronger security and regulatory profile than many crypto-native platforms because it combines a regulated bank, a regulated VASP, 1:1 Bitcoin custody claims, MPC, app security controls, and a BTC Vault. It is still custodial, and BTC is not covered by the Gibraltar Deposit Guarantee Scheme.

What markets can I trade on Xapo Bank?

The core confirmed market is BTC/USD conversion inside the Xapo app. The provided notes do not confirm a public order book, derivatives, futures, options, or maker/taker trading tiers.

What are Xapo Bank’s fees?

The annual membership fee is $1,000. Xapo’s current legal fee schedule says USD/BTC exchange has no transaction fee and a quoted BTC spread currently listed at 0.10%, while crypto wealth trades are listed at 1% of trade value; fiat rail and card fees vary by service.

Does Xapo Bank require KYC?

Yes. Xapo is a regulated financial institution and requires identity verification and screening information for account opening and ongoing use. The questionnaire also describes AML, KYC, sanctions screening, and transaction monitoring.

Which countries or regions does Xapo Bank support or restrict?

The provided notes do not include a full supported or restricted country list. Xapo’s terms restrict use where illegal or where Xapo decides to prohibit access, and product availability can vary by jurisdiction.

How long do deposits and withdrawals take?

Specific fiat payout times are not disclosed in the provided notes. Available rails include SWIFT, SEPA, Faster Payments, and other fee-schedule rails, but timing depends on the rail, member eligibility, intermediaries, and compliance checks.

Does Xapo Bank have proof of reserves?

Xapo says member Bitcoin is held 1:1 and segregated, but the provided notes do not include a public Merkle proof, public wallet attestation, or full audit report. Xapo says full audit reports are not publicly shared.

Does Xapo Bank offer an API?

No public API, sandbox, SDK, or developer ecosystem is confirmed in the provided notes. The questionnaire says Xapo’s current focus is its closed-platform mobile app, with developer access only a possible future consideration.

Does Xapo Bank lend out user Bitcoin to generate yield?

For BTC Savings: no. Xapo states that BTC in the savings product is not lent, staked, or rehypothecated, and that yield is funded from Xapo Bank’s own capital. For the BTC Credit Fund: yes. The Fund lends Bitcoin to vetted financial institutions as its yield-generation mechanism. It targets up to 4% APY and is a separate, distinct product from BTC Savings.

Disclaimer

This communication is not intended for, and must not be acted upon by persons resident in the United Kingdom.

The post Xapo Bank Review: Premium Bitcoin Banking for Global USD Users appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Open Standard's Open USD is trying to make the stablecoin yield fight about distribution before the token is live.

The company announced Open USD on June 30 as a stablecoin for global money movement. Its headline feature is a reserve-sharing model: businesses can mint and redeem at no cost, without artificial volume caps, while partners receive reserve earnings minus a small management fee.

Open Standard also says Open USD will be operated by an independent company with partner-led governance. Founding CEO Zach Abrams framed the product as a stablecoin built by and for the businesses that will use it.

Open USD has yet to show live supply, redemption history, reserve attestations, or a visible place in stablecoin market tables. It is expected to launch later in 2026.

Even so, its stated design points directly at the most contested part of the stablecoin business: reserve economics.

If U.S. rules limit passive yield to stablecoin holders, Open USD‘s bet is that the fight moves elsewhere. Instead of paying users to sit on tokens, the economic value can flow to merchants, payment processors, wallets, exchanges, marketplaces, DeFi venues, and other companies that drive transaction volume.

Related Reading

Visa Mastercard and Coinbase join Open USD as partner-led stablecoin increases DeFi yield war

Open USD may turn stablecoin competition into a DeFi incentive war, with Plasma and other partners using shared economics to fight for user liquidity.

Jul 1, 2026 · Gino Matos

Open USD puts distribution at the center

Open Standard's pitch is simple in public but aggressive in market structure. It describes Open USD as shared infrastructure and says participants can earn revenue based on usage.

Its announcement lists more than 140 businesses across payments, finance, technology, commerce, and crypto, including Visa, Stripe, Mastercard, BlackRock, BNY, Google, Coinbase, Solana, Base, Aave, Ripple, Fireblocks, Shopify, and DoorDash.

The partner list maps where the economics could flow. Payment networks control merchant access. Exchanges and wallets control where balances sit. Marketplaces control payout flows.

DeFi protocols control liquidity venues, while banks and asset managers control the plumbing for trust, custody, and reserves. If those firms can share in reserve economics, a stablecoin issuer's traditional advantage becomes a distribution negotiation.

That is why Open USD reads as an attempt to turn stablecoin float into partner compensation. In the classic model, reserve income is the issuer's economic engine.

In Open Standard's stated model, most of that value is supposed to return to the companies that adopt and distribute the stablecoin.

The caveat is large. Open Standard's public materials say reserves are maintained at major financial institutions in compliance with U.S. regulatory requirements, but they have yet to fully identify the legal issuer, reserve manager, custodian, redemption counterparties, or reserve composition.

Those details determine whether the model can satisfy both compliance and marketing teams.

The strongest economic comparison is Circle. Circle's 2025 Form 10-K says reserve income represented 96.0% of 2025 revenue and that reserve income depends on stablecoins in circulation and the reserve return rate.

The filing also shows that distribution is already expensive. Circle reported $1.4 billion of Coinbase-related distribution costs in 2025 and described allocations to Coinbase tied to USDC held on Coinbase's platform and broader ecosystem growth.

Coinbase's 2024 Form 10-K tells the other side of the same arrangement. Coinbase says its stablecoin revenue from Circle is determined by daily income generated from USDC reserves.

That revenue has exposure to USDC market capitalization, platform balances, approved ecosystem participants, deducted expenses, and interest rates.

Those filings make Open USD's market signal sharper. Reserve economics are already moving between issuer and distributor in USDC's ecosystem.

Open USD proposes to make that bargain more explicit and more widely available to the companies that can drive usage.

Related Reading

Circle’s USDC business rides interest rates as partners took $460.6 million of quarterly reserve income

USDC scaled to $75.3B, but gatekeepers captured 63% of the yield, turning growth into a pay to play bargain.

Feb 26, 2026 · Gino Matos

Tether sits in a different category. DeFiLlama stablecoin data showed a total stablecoin market capitalization of near $311.4 billion on July 1, with USDT at around $184.4 billion and 59.2% dominance, while USDC was at around $73.4 billion.

CryptoSlate's market pages showed a similar gap, with USDT having a far higher 24-hour trading volume than USDC, at $67 billion in exchange volume and $1.5 billion in DEX volume. USDC recorded a sizeable yet smaller $10.8 billion in exchange volume and $1.9 billion in DEX volume.

Tether's moat extends beyond reserve yield. It is offshore dollar liquidity, exchange integration, settlement habit, and deep trading-pair usage.

Open USD can pressure that over time only if it becomes liquid across venues and geographies. Its earlier challenge is to Circle's institutional claim that USDC is the default regulated stablecoin rail for businesses that need compliance, transparency, and distribution.

CLARITY turns yield into a routing problem

The policy backdrop gives Open USD its opportunity.

Section 404 of the Senate Banking Committee's Digital Asset Market Clarity Act draft would prohibit covered parties from paying direct or indirect interest or yield tied to payment stablecoin balances to restricted U.S. customers or users.

The same section preserves room for bona fide activity-based or transaction-based rewards under future rules.

That distinction is where Open USD fits the current debate. If law and regulators draw a hard line around passive, deposit-like yields to holders, the market still has to decide whether businesses can be rewarded for actual distribution, transactional activity, or commercial use.

Open USD's shared-economics model sits in that zone.

Related Reading

Banks pushed Congress to kill stablecoin yield with CLARITY Act – Coinbase may have found the loophole

Coinbase and Ethena could turn idle USDC balances into activity-based yield, challenging banks as lawmakers move to limit passive stablecoin rewards.

Jun 3, 2026 · Oluwapelumi Adejumo

Open USD functions as a policy stress test. Its public materials describe partner economics and distribution incentives, while the final treatment of merchant rewards, exchange incentives, wallet rebates, and partner revenue shares depends on law, rulemaking, and program design.

The White House Council of Economic Advisers has argued that a prohibition on yield-bearing stablecoins would do little to protect bank lending while sacrificing consumer benefits.

The Bank Policy Institute has argued the opposite: that yield-bearing stablecoins can reduce deposits and lending after households and businesses adjust their balance sheets.

Related Reading

White House exposes stablecoin yield ban wouldn't help banks, raising the stakes for CLARITY in the Senate

The report’s own projections show the ban barely nudges bank lending while putting stablecoin innovation and consumer yields on the line.

Apr 15, 2026 · Liam 'Akiba' Wright

Open USD leaves that fight open. It changes the underlying business question.

If the law makes passive user yield harder, the next fight may be over whether reserve economics can be paid to the companies that enable stablecoin transactions.

That creates the tension Open USD is built around. A holder reward looks like a consumer finance product; a partner revenue share looks like a commercial distribution arrangement.

The final rules will determine how much distance must exist between those categories, which parties can receive economic benefits, and what disclosures or controls companies need before reserve value can flow back to platforms that originate usage, rather than directly to end users.

That makes rule-writing important for each link in the distribution chain. A payment network, wallet, exchange, or marketplace can all help generate usage, but their incentives may be reviewed differently depending on who receives the payment and whether it reaches restricted U.S. users.

Usage is the next test

Open Standard's partner list is unusually strong; reported balances remain the adoption test.

The launch test is practical. The market needs to see who issues Open USD, where the reserves sit, what backs them, how redemptions work, which chains launch first, which partners actually route money through it, and whether balances appear in market data after launch.

Until then, Open USD remains a serious proposal with credible distribution names and the incumbent test still ahead.

The implication is practical. Open USD can pressure Circle by turning USDC's existing reserve-income bargaining problem into a product feature.

It can pressure stablecoin regulation by showing that yield debates extend beyond the holder's wallet. It can pressure payment and merchant platforms by giving them a reason to treat the choice of stablecoin as an economic decision, alongside infrastructure and compliance.

The model still has to prove that the partner board, reserve structure, compliance model, redemption path, and actual usage can survive launch.

If that evidence never appears, the announcement remains a warning shot. If it does, the stablecoin war shifts from a fight over which issuer keeps the float to a fight over which network can share it without breaking the rules.

The post Is OpenUSD the answer to bank push back on CLARITY? Hints stablecoin yield concessions will fail appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Florida has turned crypto ATM scam prevention into a business-liability test for kiosk operators.

The state’s newly chaptered HB 505, now Chapter 2026-178, creates a virtual currency kiosk framework that will require fraud warnings, receipts, daily transaction caps, registration filings, and a conditional refund right for fraud victims.

The timing matters. Most of the act takes effect Jan. 1, 2027, while the section requiring virtual currency kiosk businesses to register before operating starts March 1, 2027.

That staged rollout gives operators time to prepare while setting a clear enforcement path for regulators. Florida is assigning kiosk businesses specific duties before, during, and after a transaction.

The most consequential piece is the refund provision. Once the relevant provisions take effect, a kiosk business must issue a full refund within 72 hours for a customer’s first virtual currency kiosk transaction if the customer reports the alleged fraud to the business and to law enforcement or a governmental agency within 60 days and provides proof, such as a police report or notarized affidavit.

The result is a state-level test of whether crypto ATM fraud controls can be built into the economics of the kiosk business itself.

Related Reading

Bitcoin ATMs were crypto’s street-corner bank. Now regulators are shutting the door

Crypto’s first real-world retail infrastructure is breaking down under the weight of scam complaints, legal pressure and the growing normalization of regulated Bitcoin investing.

May 30, 2026 · Andjela Radmilac

Fraud controls become operating rules

Florida’s Office of Financial Regulation had already described the gap that HB 505 now addresses. In a December 2024 statute review, OFR said Florida had 26 known virtual currency kiosk providers, only nine of which were licensed as money transmitters.

It also said peer-to-peer, two-party kiosk operators were not required to hold a Florida money-transmitter license unless they acted as intermediaries.

That distinction created a practical regulatory problem. Some kiosk operators could sit outside ordinary money-transmitter licensing while still offering machines that turn cash into irreversible crypto transfers.

OFR pointed to consumer notifications as one prevention tool, including US Secret Service warning signs posted around hundreds of Central Florida kiosks. It then raised the possibility that kiosk operators themselves could be required by law to post disclosures even when their activity did not require a money-transmitter license.

HB 505 takes that logic further. It links the warning to transaction caps, receipts, registration information, compliance records, and refund documentation, all of which can be checked later.

The law’s structure turns several consumer-protection ideas into operating requirements. Operators will need to manage the customer experience before the transaction begins, keep records after it ends, and document compliance for renewal or inactive-registration scenarios.

The registration timeline is staged. A virtual currency kiosk business already operating in Florida on or before Jan. 1, 2027, must submit a registration application to OFR within 30 days after that date.

The actual statutory section requiring registration before operation takes effect March 1, 2027.

The consumer harm data explains why lawmakers moved in that direction. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center said Florida recorded 1,213 complaints involving cryptocurrency kiosks in 2025 and $32.8 million in adjusted losses.

Nationally, IC3 listed 13,460 complaints and nearly $389 million in adjusted losses, while cautioning that these complaints may involve other transaction types used in scams involving kiosks.

AARP Florida separately said in February that the state had more than 3,100 crypto ATMs and more than $33 million in reported crypto ATM-facilitated fraud and scam losses over five years.

The refund right has strict limits

The refund provision is the most significant policy shift because it changes who bears the immediate cost of a fraudulent kiosk transaction.

A public warning leaves the victim with the loss if the warning fails. A refund duty forces the operator to price, prevent, or manage at least some of that risk.

The right has defined boundaries. It applies to the customer’s first virtual currency kiosk transaction. The customer must notify both the kiosk business and a law enforcement or governmental agency within 60 days.

The customer must also provide proof of the alleged fraud, such as a police report or notarized affidavit. The business then has 72 hours to issue the full refund.

That structure is likely to affect operations. Operators may need clearer onboarding records to determine whether a customer is new or existing.

They may need systems that track same-day activity across their own machines. They may need customer-service processes for fraud reports and refund requests.

They may also need to maintain records showing refunds were provided in required circumstances, because the law allows OFR to request evidence of compliance during renewal or inactive-registration processes.

The caps create a second pressure point. A $2,000 daily cap for new customers directly targets the first days of a customer relationship, when a scam victim may be most vulnerable and when an operator has the least history with that person.

The $10,000 cap for existing customers leaves more room for legitimate use, but it still places an outer limit on a customer’s daily kiosk volume.

For operators, that is a revenue constraint on high-dollar transactions and a compliance cost around tracking, disclosures, receipts, and refunds.

Related Reading

The US Bitcoin ATM industry is breaking under fraud, bans, and fees

Bitcoin Depot’s collapse shows how fraud losses, state bans, KYC rules, and high fees are forcing a reassessment of the US Bitcoin ATM model.

May 19, 2026 · Gino Matos

Florida’s framework lands as federal lawmakers are also looking at crypto ATM scams. On June 11, Reps. Sean Casten and Maria Elvira Salazar introduced the Stop Crypto ATM Scams Act, a federal proposal that includes daily transaction limits, warnings, receipts, anti-fraud measures, and refunds of charges collected on fraudulent transactions.

The proposal also says states should retain authority to impose stronger consumer protections, including full refunds for defrauded customers.

That federal proposal is not law. Still, it shows why Florida’s model could matter beyond Florida.

Related Reading

Canada wants to ban crypto ATMs as fraud fears turn Bitcoin access into a political target

Crypto ATMs helped bring crypto to ordinary users, but Canada now says they've have become too useful for criminals.

May 2, 2026 · Andjela Radmilac

The debate is moving away from whether crypto ATM users should be warned and toward how much responsibility operators should carry when the machines become part of fraud workflows.

Florida’s law answers with a hybrid model. It keeps kiosks legal while making access conditional on documented fraud controls.

Licensed money transmitters are exempt from separate kiosk registration, yet they remain subject to the same key operating rules around disclosures, transaction limits, receipts, and refunds.

That makes the law more than a local consumer warning. It is a blueprint for making kiosk access conditional on documented fraud controls.

The practical test will come in 2027. If operators absorb the requirements without pulling back from Florida, the model could look exportable to other states seeking a middle path between outright bans and public education campaigns.

If operators reduce kiosk availability, raise costs, or tighten customer screening, the law may still travel, but as a clearer trade-off: less frictionless access in exchange for less unchecked exposure to fraud.

Either way, Florida has changed the policy question. The issue is whether kiosk businesses should be required to slow, document, cap, and in some cases refund the transaction when the warning fails.

The post Florida’s new crypto ATM law makes scam refunds the cost of doing business appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The MiCA enforcement deadline has finally landed, pushing the world's biggest exchange out of the EU. A 140-company alliance just detonated a bomb under the leading regulated stablecoin issuer. And Bitcoin is grinding near its lowest levels in over a year as institutional demand stays soft. Here's what's actually moving the market today.

Why is Bitcoin falling today?

Sentiment is firmly risk-off. The global crypto market cap sits around $2.11 trillion, down roughly 1.8% over 24 hours, with total trading volume near $76.9 billion. $BTC is trading around $58,500, off about 2.2% on the day, while $ETH is near $1,573, down roughly 1.4%.

The mood gauge tells the story. The Fear & Greed Index has dropped to 11 — deeper into "extreme fear" — down from 15 a day earlier, as total market cap slipped from $2.16T to $2.11T. The backdrop is a persistent bear phase: ETF outflows, worries over a delayed CLARITY Act, and money rotating out of crypto and into AI stocks have all extended the downturn that dragged $BTC to its lowest levels since 2024 last week. Not everything is red, though — Polkadot and the XRP Ledger ecosystem were among the day's biggest gainers, and Stellar's $XLM climbed close to 12%. 

What does the Binance EU exit mean for the market?

Today is the day MiCA gets real. As of 1 July 2026, any crypto firm serving EU residents must hold a MiCA licence — and Binance doesn't. It withdrew its Greek licence application on 24 June, leaving it without authorisation in any EU country, and from today it halts new sign-ups, spot trading, deposits and Earn products for EU users, though withdrawals stay open.

The scale of the regulatory cull is the real headline. Of more than 3,000 firms that were operating across Europe, only around 210 have secured full CASP authorisation — a pass rate near 7%. Rivals like Coinbase, Kraken and OKX cleared the bar; the world's largest exchange did not. For traders, that means hundreds of thousands of users across Spain, France, Italy and Poland are now weighing where to move their funds — a live migration that favours already-licensed venues.

Why did Circle stock crash?

This is arguably the biggest structural story of the week. Circle ($CRCL) shares fell about 16.5% on 30 June after a consortium of more than 140 companies unveiled Open USD (OUSD), a stablecoin built to compete head-on with USDC. The stock traded as low as $63.10 after opening near $72.46, one of its sharpest single-day drops since listing, and is now down more than 40% over the past month. 

What makes OUSD dangerous to incumbents is its economics. Launch partners include Stripe, Coinbase, Mastercard, Visa and BlackRock, and the new stablecoin lets partners keep the reserve earnings — striking directly at one of the core economics of today's issuers. Where issuers like Circle earn revenue by investing reserves in short-term Treasuries and keeping most of the interest, OUSD instead distributes that yield to participating businesses, with free, uncapped minting and shared governance. The Coinbase angle stings most: Circle paid Coinbase roughly $908 million in a single recent year in USDC distribution fees — and that partner is now backing a rival. OUSD is expected to go live later this year, initially on chains including Base and Solana.

Other regulatory news to watch

Several fronts are heating up at once. Jefferies has warned of crypto market volatility as the CLARITY Act faces a key Senate test, noting passage would boost institutional adoption while delays would prolong regulatory uncertainty. Meanwhile, the stablecoin rulebook is diverging across borders: the UK's Financial Conduct Authority has proposed lowering stablecoin capital buffers, undercutting the EU's stricter MiCA requirements. And in Asia, Taiwan has passed a sweeping crypto law introducing licensing, reserve mandates and tough penalties, now awaiting final presidential approval.

Binance is shutting the door on EU customers. From 1 July 2026, the world's largest crypto exchange can no longer offer services to residents of the bloc, after failing to secure a licence under the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) before the transition period closed. If your funds are sitting on Binance, you don't need to panic — but you do need a plan. This guide explains what happened and walks you through moving your crypto to a regulated platform, step by step.

What actually happened with Binance and MiCA?

MiCA is the EU's single rulebook for crypto. To legally serve customers anywhere in the bloc, an exchange must hold a Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP) licence from one member state — that licence then "passports" across all 27 EU countries and the wider European Economic Area. The transition period that let legacy operators keep working while awaiting authorisation closed on 1 July 2026, the hard enforcement date.

Binance bet on Greece as its entry point. On 24 June 2026, it formally withdrew the application it had filed with the Hellenic Capital Market Commission, citing prolonged review timelines and the absence of any formal decision — just days before the deadline. The exchange says it remains confident it will secure an EU licence in the coming months and intends to approach France next. But any approval will land after 1 July, leaving a gap where Binance is locked out.

The scale of the cull is striking. Of more than 3,000 crypto firms operating across Europe, only around 210 received full MiCA authorisation by the deadline — a clearance rate of roughly 7%. Rivals including Coinbase, Kraken, OKX and Crypto.com cleared the bar; the largest exchange in the world did not.

Are my funds on Binance safe?

Yes. This is a suspension and orderly wind-down, not a shutdown or a seizure. From 1 July, Binance halts new spot orders, deposits, sign-ups and Earn, staking and launchpool products for EU residents — but funds remain accessible and withdrawals stay active. The Convert feature stays usable for selling only, so you can wind down positions in an orderly way.

Think of it as closing the register while leaving the warehouse open so you can collect your goods. That said, staying on an unlicensed platform means giving up the consumer protections MiCA was built to guarantee. ESMA has called on unlicensed firms to halt new registrations, restrict activity to asset transfers and account closures, and give customers clear timelines. The sensible move is to migrate to a licensed platform or a self-custody wallet.

Why is Bitpanda a strong alternative?

Bitpanda is a European-headquartered exchange that is already fully regulated, holding licences with Germany's BaFin, Austria's FMA and Malta's MFSA. It secured MiCA authorisation through Austria, meaning it can legally serve users right across the EU, with a strong focus on capital security and consumer protection. For anyone leaving an unregulated venue, that is exactly the kind of safe harbour the new rules were designed to reward.

One key tip before you move: under MiCA, USDT (Tether) cannot be traded on regulated EU platforms. If you hold USDT on Binance, convert it to a MiCA-compliant asset such as USDC, or to EUR, before transferring — so your funds arrive ready to use.

How do I move my funds from Binance safely?

1. Open and verify your Bitpanda account

Sign up here, complete identity verification (KYC) and enable two-factor authentication (2FA). Have your ID ready — verification usually takes only a few minutes.

2. Tidy up your Binance holdings first

Convert any USDT to USDC or EUR and consolidate small balances. This avoids assets being unusable on a MiCA-regulated platform and keeps network fees lower.

3. Get your Bitpanda deposit address

Choose the asset you want to receive (e.g. $BTC, $ETH or a stablecoin), select Deposit, and copy the wallet address. Make sure you pick the same network you'll use on Binance (e.g. Bitcoin, Ethereum/ERC-20).

4. Withdraw from Binance to Bitpanda

On Binance, go to Wallet → Spot → Withdraw. Select the asset and the matching network, paste your Bitpanda address, and double-check it character by character. For transfers above €1,000 you may be asked for Travel Rule details — your own name must match your KYC on both platforms.

5. Send a small test first

Withdraw a small test amount before moving everything. Wait for it to arrive (usually 2–15 minutes depending on the network), confirm it landed correctly, then send the rest.

6. Confirm and you're done

Once the full balance appears in Bitpanda, you're fully migrated to a regulated EU platform — consumer protections intact and your crypto ready to trade.

What's the catch with switching now?

The main thing to watch is the USDT conversion — don't transfer Tether and expect to use it on a regulated platform. Beyond that, the usual rules apply: always send a test transaction, match networks exactly, and verify addresses character by character. The market context also matters: with millions of users facing restricted access, capital is expected to shift fast toward compliant platforms, so acting sooner rather than later avoids any last-minute congestion.

Exclusive CryptoTicker × Bitpanda Offer

Switching anyway? Claim both rewards while the limited allocation lasts:

• 5% Bitcoin cashback on your crypto investments via Bitpanda
• €25 BTC welcome bonus, credited after your first trade of at least €100

Promo code: CRYPTOTICKER — strictly limited, first come, first served. Campaign runs until 5 July 2026.

Looking for a secure, fully regulated alternative to Binance? On Bitpanda, use code CRYPTOTICKER to claim 5% cashback + €25 in BTC — but it's limited, so move fast.

Claim 5% Cashback + €25 BTC on Bitpanda | Code: CRYPTOTICKER

The crypto market is bleeding again, but the biggest story may not be the Bitcoin crash itself.

Bitcoin has slipped below the $59,000 level, Ethereum is trading near $1,560, and most major altcoins are flashing red. Dogecoin, TRON, XRP, BNB and Litecoin are all under pressure, while only a few names such as Zcash, Stellar and Hyperliquid are showing relative strength.

At first glance, this looks like another risk-off day for crypto. But behind the sell-off, a much bigger shift is taking place: some of the world’s largest financial and payment companies are moving deeper into stablecoins.

A new initiative called Open Standard has launched a global dollar-backed stablecoin named Open USD, with major names including Visa, Mastercard and Coinbase involved. Reports also point to backing or participation from companies such as BlackRock, Google and Stripe, making this one of the most important stablecoin stories of the year.

The result is a strange but important contradiction: crypto prices are falling, but crypto infrastructure is becoming more institutional than ever.

What Is Open USD?

Open USD is a new U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin designed to make digital dollar payments cheaper, easier and more scalable for businesses.

According to Reuters, the project is being launched by a consortium of more than 140 participating businesses under the Open Standard initiative. The stablecoin is designed to be freely minted and redeemed by businesses, with no volume restrictions. The model also includes shared reserve earnings for participating consortium members after a management fee.

That detail is important.

Stablecoins are already one of the most useful parts of crypto. They allow users and businesses to move dollars onchain without relying on traditional banking rails for every transfer. But the market is still dominated by a small number of players, mainly Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC.

Open USD appears to be targeting that dominance by offering a more open, business-friendly model. Instead of just creating another dollar token, the project seems designed as a shared infrastructure layer for companies that want access to stablecoin payments without building everything from scratch.

Why Visa and Mastercard Entering Stablecoins Matters

For years, stablecoins were seen as a crypto-native product. Traders used USDT and USDC to move between exchanges, avoid volatility and park liquidity during market swings.

Now, the biggest payment networks in the world are no longer watching from the sidelines.

Visa and Mastercard entering deeper into stablecoin infrastructure suggests that the payment industry sees digital dollars as a long-term part of global settlement. This does not mean stablecoins will replace credit cards tomorrow. But it does mean the biggest players in payments are preparing for a world where money moves faster, cheaper and across borders with fewer intermediaries.

Mastercard has already been expanding settlement capabilities to include stablecoins, intraday transfers, weekend settlement and holiday settlement options. That shows the company is not treating stablecoins as a temporary trend, but as part of the next payment infrastructure cycle.

This is why the Open USD launch matters more than a normal token launch. It is not a meme coin. It is not another speculative altcoin. It is a sign that traditional finance and crypto payment rails are moving closer together.

Could Open USD Challenge USDT and USDC?

The real question is whether Open USD can compete with USDT and USDC.

USDT remains the largest stablecoin in crypto and is deeply integrated across global exchanges. USDC, meanwhile, has stronger regulatory and institutional positioning, especially in the United States. Together, they dominate the digital dollar market.

But Open USD has one major advantage: distribution.

If Visa, Mastercard, Coinbase, Stripe, BlackRock and other major companies support the same stablecoin infrastructure, Open USD could gain faster access to businesses, wallets, exchanges, payment platforms and fintech apps.

That does not guarantee success. Stablecoins need trust, liquidity, regulatory clarity and deep integrations. Traders and businesses do not switch stablecoins just because a new one launches. They switch when the new option is cheaper, safer, faster or more useful.

Still, the launch could pressure both USDT and USDC. If Open USD succeeds, the stablecoin market could become less about crypto exchanges alone and more about payments, business settlement and mainstream financial infrastructure.

Why This Is Happening While Bitcoin Is Crashing

The timing is what makes this story powerful.

Bitcoin is showing weakness below $59,000, and technical sentiment across the market looks fragile. Many major coins are trading with “sell” or “strong sell” signals, while altcoins remain under pressure.

Normally, a Bitcoin crash dominates the crypto news cycle. But this time, the market is split between short-term price fear and long-term infrastructure adoption.

That is the key point: prices can crash while adoption continues.

In previous cycles, crypto infrastructure often slowed down during bear markets. This time, payment giants, banks and asset managers are still building. JPMorgan has also been talking about digital assets moving closer to the core of the financial system, especially through tokenization and programmable money.

This creates a very different market narrative.

Retail traders may be asking whether Bitcoin is heading to $55,000 or lower. Institutions, meanwhile, appear to be asking how stablecoins, tokenized assets and digital settlement systems can become part of the financial system.

Is This Bullish for Crypto?

Open USD is not automatically bullish for Bitcoin in the short term.

A new stablecoin does not mean BTC will reverse today. It also does not mean Ethereum, Solana, XRP or BNB will immediately recover. The market is still dealing with weak momentum, low confidence and heavy selling pressure.

But from a structural perspective, this is bullish for the crypto industry.

Stablecoins are one of the clearest real-world use cases in crypto. They are used for payments, trading, settlements, remittances, cross-border transfers and onchain liquidity. If major global companies are now competing to build stablecoin infrastructure, that supports the argument that crypto is not disappearing — it is becoming more embedded in traditional finance.

The market may be crashing, but the infrastructure layer is expanding.

That is why this story matters.

The Bigger Picture: Stablecoins Are Becoming the Mainstream Crypto Use Case

For years, Bitcoin was the face of crypto. Then came Ethereum, DeFi, NFTs, meme coins and ETFs. But stablecoins may now be the sector’s most important bridge to the real world.

They do not need users to believe in price appreciation. They do not need people to speculate. They simply need to be useful.

Businesses want faster settlement. Payment companies want cheaper rails. Fintech apps want global dollar access. Crypto exchanges need deep liquidity. Institutions want tokenized cash equivalents that can move across blockchain networks.

Stablecoins sit at the centre of all of that.

That is why Open USD could become one of the most important launches of the year. Not because it will pump like a meme coin, but because it shows that the stablecoin race is entering a new phase.

Final Thoughts

The crypto market looks weak today. Bitcoin is below $59,000, Ethereum is struggling, and most large-cap altcoins are trading in the red.

But the launch of Open USD tells a different story.

While traders focus on the crash, Visa, Mastercard, Coinbase, BlackRock and other major players are moving deeper into stablecoins. That means the next crypto battle may not only be about Bitcoin price predictions or altcoin pumps. It may be about who controls the future of digital dollars.

If Open USD gains adoption, the stablecoin war could become one of the biggest crypto narratives of the year.

For now, Bitcoin may be falling. But the financial giants are still building.

It's been a brutal week across the crypto market, but some tokens got hit far harder than others. While $Bitcoin and $Ethereum bled on macro pressure, a handful of altcoins suffered eye-watering collapses — led by a meme-coin platform that lost three-quarters of its value in a matter of days.

Here are the 5 cryptos that crashed hardest over the past 7 days, ranked by their losses, along with the reason behind each drop.

5 Cryptos That Crashed Hardest This Week 

1. MemeCore ($M): down 75.75%

The week's undisputed worst performer is MemeCore, which cratered a staggering 75.75% over 7 days, now trading around $0.6894 with a market cap of roughly $909M. Notably, it's actually up 16% on the day — a small dead-cat bounce after the carnage.

This was a textbook thin-liquidity implosion. MemeCore's token price fell from $3 to $0.50 in less than 30 minutes on Wednesday evening, with low trading volume and concentrated insider ownership making it vulnerable to a sudden crash. The structural red flags were there all along. Most of the supply is held by a handful of insiders, and the token carried allegations of insider-driven market price manipulation, limited trading volume, and listings on just a handful of exchanges.

The trigger remains murky, but the mechanics are clear. It's unclear what started the drop, but with minimal active bidding, it didn't take much to consume MemeCore's available market liquidity. The one silver lining: the crash cleared out most of the excess leverage, with nearly $8 million in long positions liquidated, and price has since shown early signs of stabilization around the $0.65 level.

2. Ethena ($ENA): down 63.58%

Ethena's ENA token was the second-worst performer, down a brutal 63.58% YTD and bleeding 8.20% on the day, now trading near $0.07270 with a $675.7M market cap.

ENA's problem is structural and well-flagged: token unlocks. ENA remains exposed to token unlock pressure, where a large portion of supply has already been unlocked while the remaining supply continues to vest — and these unlocks can limit price recovery by creating steady selling pressure even when the underlying project has strong adoption. The core challenge is one of demand. ENA still has to prove that protocol growth actually translates into token demand, and until that becomes clearer, it remains a token with weak near-term momentum.

It's not all bleak, though — there are genuine catalysts brewing. Ethena-backed StablecoinX completed its merger with TLGY Acquisition Corp and is set to begin trading on Nasdaq under the ticker USDE, expanding its stablecoin infrastructure business. 

3. Mantle ($MNT): down 56.08%

Mantle is next, down 56.08% over the period and trading around $0.4224 with a $1.39B market cap. It was also among the day's biggest losers. Mantle (MNT) fell 13.19% in 24 hours to around $0.43, with trading activity near $62.62 million, ranking it among the top losers of the day. -

Mantle's decline has been less about a single scandal and more about the broader risk-off rotation hammering mid-cap altcoins. As capital flees to safety and Bitcoin dominance climbs, ecosystem and Layer-2 tokens like MNT tend to suffer outsized drawdowns with little token-specific news to cushion the fall.

4. Worldcoin ($WLD): down 25.75% (7d)

Worldcoin, now trading around $0.4179 with a $1.46B market cap, fell 25.75% over 7 days. But unlike MemeCore's panic implosion, WLD's drop looks far healthier. Worldcoin's decline looks more like a cooldown after a strong multi-week run — it had rallied for five straight weeks, putting plenty of short-term holders into profit, so profit-taking was always on the cards.

That distinction matters: a pullback driven by profit-taking after a sustained rally is a very different animal from a liquidity-driven collapse. WLD is still up 1.03% on the hour, hinting at some stabilization.

5. Cosmos ($ATOM): down 21.30% (YTD)

Rounding out the list is Cosmos, trading around $1.51 with a $782.5M market cap, down 21.30% YTD and 13.70% over 7 days. Like Mantle, ATOM's weakness is largely a victim of the broader environment rather than any single headline.

As an established Layer-0 ecosystem token without a fresh catalyst, ATOM has been swept up in the same risk-off tide pulling capital out of altcoins and into Bitcoin. With sentiment firmly in "Bitcoin Season," even fundamentally solid projects like Cosmos struggle to attract buyers, leaving them to drift lower alongside the broader altcoin market.

Why are Altcoins Down?

None of these drops happened in a vacuum. The entire market has been under heavy pressure, and the macro backdrop explains why speculative altcoins fell hardest. Capital has been running toward safety rather than risk, with Bitcoin dominance climbing above 58% and the Altcoin Season Index deep in "Bitcoin Season" territory.

The drivers are familiar: a hawkish Fed, ETF outflows, and broad risk aversion. Markets are now pricing in a rate hike in 2026 after previously expecting cuts, sustained Bitcoin ETF outflows have added pressure, and capital is rotating toward AI narratives and institutional partnerships rather than memecoins and speculative tokens.

The biggest fear hanging over markets right now isn't a crypto problem at all — it's artificial intelligence. A growing chorus of analysts is warning that the AI boom has inflated into a bubble, and that an AI bubble crash could send shockwaves straight into Bitcoin ($BTC) and the broader crypto market.

Here's the uncomfortable part: the early warning signs analysts flagged have already played out. Crypto has been bleeding for months as capital rotated out of digital assets and into AI stocks — Bitcoin has already fallen from above $100K to around $60K. So the real question now isn't "what if there's a small AI wobble." It's: what happens if the AI bubble actually crashes from here, on top of an already-weakened market?

What is the AI bubble — and why are analysts warning about it?

The "AI bubble" refers to the fear that valuations across AI stocks and infrastructure have inflated far beyond what the underlying economics justify. The warning signs are flashing in institutional surveys. In a Bank of America survey, 45% of fund managers flagged an "AI bubble" as the market's biggest tail risk, up from just 11% two months earlier, and more than half said they believe AI stocks are already trading in bubble territory due to huge spending and poor return on investment.

The core problem is a massive mismatch between spending and revenue. Financial analyst HedgieMarkets warned the AI boom risks a far harsher crash than the 2000s dot-com bubble, arguing the sector spent roughly $400 billion to generate just $60 billion in revenue in 2025, with most firms seeing no returns. Worse, the way it's been financed makes it fragile. Unlike the equity-funded dot-com era, today's AI expansion is debt-driven, raising the risk of cascading failures across private equity, banks, insurers and already-stressed consumers if growth expectations collapse.

The scale of the liquidity involved is staggering. Arthur Hayes estimates roughly $1.5 trillion in debt was issued by hyperscalers and AI infrastructure companies between November 2022 and mid-2026 — almost exactly matching the $1.5 trillion rise in M2 money supply over the same period — leading him to argue "AI sucked up all created dollars."

The correction analysts warned about has already started

This is the key context most coverage misses. Back in late 2025, when analysts first sounded the alarm, $Bitcoin was trading above $100K, and the warning was that an AI-driven risk-off move could drag it down toward $60K–$75K.

At the time, that was the bear case. Analysts warned Bitcoin could fall to the $60,000–$75,000 range if the AI bubble pops, with institutional support helping limit losses compared to past crashes. There was even a fundamental floor argument. Analyst Nomad Bullstreet suggested Bitcoin's price may not decline below its average production cost, estimated around $71,000–$75,000.

But here's the thing: the market has already fallen into that zone. Bitcoin slid from above $100K all the way to around $60K — and the driver was exactly the dynamic analysts described. The warning was never about AI directly attacking crypto code — it's about capital, the vast rivers of speculative money that have flowed into both sectors. A loss of faith in AI valuations would trigger a broad risk-off panic, and digital assets, sitting on the speculative end of the spectrum, often get sold first.

In other words, the mild correction the analysts forecast isn't a future risk — it's already happened. Capital has been rotating out of crypto and into AI infrastructure all year, and Bitcoin pre-emptively priced in a lot of that pain. The old $60K–$75K "production cost floor" has already broken.

That reframes everything. The relevant question is no longer "what if AI corrects" — it's "what if the bubble actually crashes now, from a starting point that's already deep in the red?"

How would a full AI bubble crash hit crypto from here?

If the warned-about rotation was phase one, an outright crash would be phase two — and it would land on a market with far less cushion than it had at $100K.

Crypto's behavior makes it especially vulnerable. The crypto market in 2026 continues to act as a high-beta risk asset, meaning it tends to amplify broader market sentiment, particularly in response to tech and AI-linked equity volatility — and a crash could trigger an outsized initial drop even if crypto fundamentals haven't changed.

There's also a forced-selling dimension that accelerates everything. Institutional funds and quantitative traders that allocate across both tech stocks and crypto may cut both simultaneously in times of stress, while leveraged positions in crypto futures and perpetuals can trigger cascading liquidations that accelerate the downward move. And the liquidity logic is brutal: if AI stocks collapse, no excess capital remains to flow into Bitcoin, and banks that lent against AI valuations would pull back credit, tightening conditions broadly.

It's not unanimously bearish, though. Some see a crash as ultimately bullish for Bitcoin further out. Arthur Hayes believes an AI bubble crash could create short-term pressure on Bitcoin, but his long-term outlook remains bullish because a major market shock could push governments and central banks back toward liquidity support, stimulus, and money printing — a "dump then pump" thesis.

The extreme bear case: Bitcoin at $20K, ETH at $800?

Here's the scenario circulating among the most aggressive bears — and a clear caveat upfront: these are worst-case, low-probability targets that would require a full systemic financial crisis, not just a sector correction.

But with Bitcoin already at ~$60K — having broken the old "floor" — a true AI bubble crash from current levels is what makes these deeper targets even thinkable. In a systemic unwind, where the AI bubble crashes violently, debt-driven contagion spreads to banks and credit markets, and crypto's high-beta nature plays out fully, the speculative cascade from here looks like:

• Bitcoin ($BTC) toward $20,000 — roughly another 65% down from current levels, requiring the institutional bid to evaporate entirely amid forced selling.
• Ethereum ($ETH) toward $800 — consistent with ETH's tendency to fall harder than BTC, amplified by relentless ETF outflows.
• XRP ($XRP) toward $0.30 — reflecting how altcoins typically lose multiples of Bitcoin's percentage in a deep flush.
• Solana ($SOL) toward $20 — among the most exposed, given its high-beta profile and reliance on speculative capital.

Be clear-eyed about what this requires: not just an AI correction (which has arguably already begun), but a full-blown global financial crisis with cascading credit failures. As one expert warned, economic historian Carlota Perez cautioned that an AI and crypto bust could lead to a global economic collapse of "unimaginable proportions." That's the tail risk these numbers reflect — a doomsday cascade, not the probable path.

Will the AI Bubble Affect Crypto Prices?

The framing that matters most: the correction analysts warned about has largely already happened — that's a big part of why Bitcoin fell from $100K to $60K as capital rotated into AI. What hasn't happened yet is a full AI bubble crash, and if it comes, it would hit a market that's already weakened and has far less cushion than it did six months ago.

That's what makes the extreme targets — BTC $20K, ETH $800, XRP $0.30, SOL $20 — worth knowing as a worst-case stress test. They're not a base-case forecast; they'd require systemic financial contagion, not just an AI sector wobble. But starting from $60K rather than $100K, the downside math is no longer as far-fetched as it once sounded.

The smart takeaway: respect the AI-correlation risk, keep your leverage in check, and watch the Nasdaq and AI-stock sentiment as closely as the crypto charts — because right now, that's where Bitcoin's next big move is being decided.

Brokerage and crypto exchange Robinhood opened the public mainnet for its Arbitrum-powered Ethereum layer-2 network on Wednesday.

Venice reached a $1 billion valuation as founder Erik Voorhees argued AI companies should protect users' conversations.

The 1.6 trillion-parameter mixture-of-experts model spent two months disguised as "Owl Alpha" before Meituan claimed it—and it undercuts GPT-5.5 and Claude Sonnet 5 on price by a wide margin.

A 40-scientist panel found that AI capabilities are outrunning both scientific understanding and government oversight.

Bitcoin mining firm American Bitcoin fell to a new low price Wednesday, one day before executing a 1-for-15 reverse stock split.

WARNING: Cybersecurity researchers at McAfee have uncovered "Silent Swap," a highly sophisticated malware campaign that forcibly sideloads a fake "Google Notes" extension into Chromium browsers.

The XRP Ledger (XRPL) developer community is buzzing following the successful return of the highly anticipated "Batch" amendment.

Ripple locked 700 million XRP back in escrow, capping its July release at $319 million to match tight market capacity.

The Winklevoss twins have made huge Bitcoin deposits into a major crypto exchange in a suspected attempt to sell and take profit while Bitcoin struggles to recover.

Tom Lee links his Ethereum treasury firm, Bitmine, to the new non-profit alliance.

Key Takeaways

• Walmart shares plummeted more than 5% Wednesday, reaching their lowest point in eight months following a six-session losing streak
• Cleveland Research identified a deceleration in U.S. comparable store sales that may threaten analyst consensus figures, especially in July
• Shares began trading at $113.26, significantly beneath the 50-day moving average of $123.25
• Company insiders offloaded more than $1.06 billion worth of shares during the previous three months without any reported purchases
• Wall Street maintains a Moderate Buy rating with a consensus price target of $138.85, though valuation concerns have emerged

Shares of Walmart began Wednesday’s session at $113.26, representing a decline exceeding 5% and positioning the stock for its weakest closing price in eight months. This marked the sixth straight trading day of declines for WMT.

Walmart Inc., WMT

The catalyst behind the selloff was research from Cleveland Research, which identified signs of decelerating U.S. comparable store sales. The research firm cautioned that this trajectory may negatively impact consensus forecasts, with July’s performance being particularly critical.

In response to inventory challenges, Walmart has implemented price reductions and leveraged tariff refunds to cushion margin pressure. While this represents a strategic response, it underscores the genuine cost and demand challenges confronting the retailer.

The share price deterioration persists even after a robust first-quarter performance. The company delivered earnings of $0.66 per share in May, aligning with analyst projections, while revenue of $177.75 billion surpassed the anticipated $174.84 billion — representing a 7.4% year-over-year gain. Management also maintained its fiscal 2027 guidance of $2.75–$2.85 in earnings per share.

However, investors appear focused on future challenges rather than recent accomplishments.

Significant Insider Transactions Draw Attention

Insider trading patterns have been notably lopsided. Throughout the past quarter, company insiders divested more than $1.06 billion in WMT shares. No insider purchases were documented during this timeframe.

Executive Vice President Christopher Nicholas disposed of 2,900 shares at $123.92 on May 21st. Fellow EVP Latriece Watkins subsequently sold 11,000 shares at $118.97 on May 28th. Both transactions occurred through pre-established Rule 10b5-1 trading arrangements.

Although scheduled sales are standard practice, the substantial magnitude of insider selling has attracted investor scrutiny.

The stock currently trades at a P/E ratio of 39.74 — representing a premium valuation that several analysts question in light of potential growth deceleration. While its GF Score of 86/100 indicates strong long-term fundamentals, near-term momentum has turned decidedly negative.

Analyst Community Maintains Optimistic Stance

Notwithstanding the downturn, Wall Street analysts haven’t abandoned Walmart. The stock maintains a Moderate Buy consensus rating with an average price objective of $138.85 — substantially above present trading levels.

Recent analyst ratings feature a $145 Buy target from BTIG, $140 from Truist, and $137 Outperform ratings from both Wolfe Research and Royal Bank of Canada. Among 36 tracked analysts, 31 maintain Buy ratings and four recommend Hold. A single analyst assigns a Strong Buy rating.

Several institutional investors expanded positions during the first quarter. Littlejohn Financial Services established a fresh $2.81 million position, while Union Bancaire Privee UBP SA increased its holdings by 253.3%.

Walmart’s 52-week high stands at $135.15. The stock’s 200-day moving average rests at $122.22, a threshold now breached to the downside.

With a 1-year low of $94.23, there’s context for evaluating potential downside if selling momentum persists.

The post Walmart (WMT) Stock Plunges Over 5% Amid Sales Growth Concerns appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• OPEN shares climbed more than 9% Wednesday, reaching approximately $5.05
• Russell 3000 Index welcomed Opendoor, with inclusion taking effect June 26
• Leadership compensation structure emphasizes performance metrics, attracting investor focus
• Eric Jackson from EMJ Capital projects $82 per share by 2028 and $500 by 2033
• Options traders showed strong conviction: 99,802 call contracts at double normal volume, Put/Call Ratio at 0.14

Opendoor Technologies (OPEN) shares surged over 9% during Wednesday’s session, reaching the $5.05 level, fueled by a combination of benchmark index entry, optimistic Wall Street commentary, and aggressive derivatives positioning in the proptech name.

Opendoor Technologies Inc., OPEN

The rally followed confirmation that Opendoor secured a spot in the Russell 3000 Index, officially taking effect at market close on June 26. Such benchmark additions typically trigger institutional buying from passive funds replicating the index composition.

Market participants have also taken note of CEO Kaz Nejatian’s compensation framework, which emphasizes performance-driven incentives. This structure demonstrates executive alignment with shareholder value creation over the long haul rather than guaranteed base compensation.

The most vocal optimist remains Eric Jackson from EMJ Capital, who has characterized Opendoor as experiencing “real estate’s Tesla moment.” Jackson projects the stock could reach $82 per share by 2028, with an ambitious long-range forecast of $500 by 2033.

Jackson’s investment case centers on Opendoor’s vertical integration strategy, asset class ownership, and possibilities around real estate tokenization. While extremely aggressive, the thesis has captured market attention.

Chart Analysis and Key Price Levels

Examining the technical picture, OPEN currently trades 12.7% above its 20-day simple moving average of $4.51 and 5.8% above its 50-day average at $4.81. This positioning indicates near-term momentum favors buyers.

The extended timeframe presents a more complicated scenario. Shares remain 14.6% beneath the 200-day moving average of $5.96, indicating the long-term trend hasn’t completely reversed course.

The MACD indicator sits above its signal line with positive histogram readings, suggesting strengthening momentum. However, the death cross formation from March — when the 50-day average dropped below the 200-day — remains a technical headwind signaling unresolved long-term weakness.

Critical resistance appears at $5.50, a psychological level where previous rallies have encountered selling pressure. Downside support emerges at $4.50, coinciding with the 20-day moving average zone.

Derivatives Activity Signals Bullish Positioning

The options arena delivered perhaps the most compelling signal Wednesday. Total call volume reached 99,802 contracts in OPEN, approximately double normal activity levels.

The most heavily traded positions included the July 2nd weekly $5 calls and $5.50 calls, combining for nearly 32,200 contracts. Implied volatility expanded more than 3 points to 85.43%.

The Put/Call Ratio registered just 0.14 — an extremely low reading indicating traders are predominantly positioned for continued upside movement in coming sessions.

Opendoor is scheduled to report quarterly earnings on August 6.

The post Opendoor (OPEN) Stock Surges 9% Following Russell 3000 Addition and Options Activity appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• Meta is preparing to enter the AI cloud infrastructure space, positioning itself against established enterprise providers
• Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh indicated that inflationary pressures are subsiding while maintaining commitment to the 2% objective
• Major indexes including the S&P 500 and Dow Jones advanced as the second half of 2026 began
• Nike stock declined following cautious guidance on China market performance, overshadowing positive earnings results
• Crude oil values retreated as diplomatic progress between Washington and Tehran reduced supply concern

Meta Prepares to Challenge Cloud Giants With AI Infrastructure Offering

Meta emerged as a standout performer following news that the technology giant is developing a standalone AI cloud infrastructure platform.

This strategic expansion would mark a significant departure from Meta’s traditional advertising-focused revenue model, positioning the company against entrenched cloud computing leaders serving artificial intelligence enterprise clients.

Market participants have demonstrated considerable enthusiasm for firms expanding AI infrastructure capabilities throughout this year. Meta’s substantial experience operating massive-scale AI systems across its social media ecosystem is viewed as a competitive advantage in penetrating this expanding market segment.

Warsh Signals Declining Inflation Threat at Federal Reserve

Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh communicated to financial markets that inflationary threats have diminished, while emphasizing the central bank’s continued focus on achieving its 2% inflation benchmark.

His remarks preceded Thursday’s employment data for June, which market observers are scrutinizing for indicators regarding the trajectory of monetary policy adjustments.

For technology-oriented and expansion-focused equities, declining inflation expectations typically represent favorable conditions. Reduced borrowing costs generally enhance the present value of projected earnings, particularly benefiting companies in rapid-growth industries.

Equity Markets Maintain Upward Trajectory as New Half-Year Begins

U.S. stocks continued their positive momentum, with both the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average recording advances on July’s opening trading session.

These gains follow what proved to be one of the most robust quarterly performances for equity markets since 2020. Market participants maintained their optimistic stance on long-term profit expansion despite persistent questions surrounding interest rate policy and economic conditions.

Semiconductor equities experienced modest headwinds throughout the trading day, though robust performance across industrial, healthcare, and consumer sectors provided sufficient support to keep broader market indices in positive territory.

Nike Shares Retreat Despite Earnings Success on China Market Concerns

Nike delivered quarterly financial results exceeding analyst projections, yet the stock declined following management’s cautious assessment of persistent challenges in the Chinese market.

Market participants concentrated on the company’s forward-looking statements rather than historical performance metrics. Leadership suggested the recovery timeline may extend beyond previous market expectations.

Nike’s quarterly performance serves as an important barometer for international consumer demand patterns. The market’s reaction to the report exemplifies a consistent theme throughout this earnings cycle — forward guidance carries greater weight than retrospective achievements.

Crude Oil Values Decline Following Diplomatic Progress With Iran

Crude oil prices retreated after diplomatic engagement between the United States and Iran alleviated concerns regarding potential interruptions to global supply chains.

Declining energy prices help moderate inflationary forces while reducing operational expenses for sectors including aviation, retail distribution, and manufacturing operations.

Given inflation remains a primary consideration for market participants, developments in energy markets will continue receiving significant attention alongside forthcoming economic indicators.

The post Market Movers: Meta’s Cloud Ambitions, Warsh’s Inflation Update, and Nike’s China Troubles appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• Shares of SanDisk tumbled 9.44% during Tuesday’s session even as Bank of America issued an optimistic price target increase
• Bank of America elevated its SNDK price objective from $2,100 to $2,500 while reiterating its Buy recommendation
• BofA’s Wamsi Mohan anticipates average selling prices could surge as much as 35%, while bit growth may increase 13% sequentially
• The memory maker has soared 800% in 2024 and an eye-popping 4,755% over the trailing year, reaching a $323 billion market capitalization
• Valuation concerns include a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 33 — exceeding both Nvidia and Micron — alongside troubling technical indicators

SanDisk shares experienced a steep decline on Tuesday, surrendering 9.44% of their value during the trading session. The selloff occurred paradoxically on the very day that Bank of America Securities announced an upward revision to its price target, moving from $2,100 to $2,500.

Sandisk Corporation, SNDK

Bank of America’s equity analyst Wamsi Mohan maintained his Buy recommendation on the shares. His optimistic thesis centers on the persistent mismatch between NAND flash memory supply and demand, a condition he anticipates will persist through 2027.

Mohan’s research indicates SanDisk’s average selling prices could experience gains of up to 35%. Additionally, he projects bit growth — representing the total volume of memory units delivered — will expand by 13% on a sequential quarter basis.

Using these assumptions as a foundation, Bank of America now forecasts that SanDisk will report $9.1 billion in revenue for the June quarter alongside earnings per share of $37.01. These projections exceed the Street’s current consensus estimates of $8.35 billion in revenue and $34.26 in EPS.

For the subsequent quarter, BofA’s model anticipates revenue reaching $11.5 billion with EPS climbing to $48.55.

Multi-Year NAND Supply Deals Enhance Earnings Predictability

A critical element supporting Mohan’s optimistic outlook involves SanDisk’s strategic emphasis on securing long-term NAND supply agreements, referred to as NBMs. These multi-year commitments guarantee future revenue streams and provide greater clarity for investors modeling future profitability.

Bank of America anticipates widespread adoption of these contractual arrangements among cloud infrastructure providers and enterprise clients. The investment bank also highlighted that these agreements are designed to preserve gross margin levels within SanDisk’s established target parameters.

This strategic pivot has contributed significantly to SanDisk’s extraordinary market performance. The stock has skyrocketed 800% since the beginning of the year and an astonishing 4,755% over the past twelve months. This explosive growth has transformed what began as a Western Digital spinoff into a company valued at $323 billion.

The bullish sentiment extends beyond Bank of America. Mizuho Securities increased its target from $1,825 to $2,200. Cantor Fitzgerald established an even higher objective at $2,900. Susquehanna Financial Group represents the most aggressive bull case with a $3,250 price target.

The analyst community’s consensus rating stands at Strong Buy — featuring 14 Buy ratings, two Hold ratings, and zero Sell recommendations over the most recent three-month period. The mean price target across all analysts sits at $1,979.38, suggesting approximately 3% downside from present trading levels.

Growing Concerns About Valuation and Market Dynamics

Notwithstanding the widespread analyst enthusiasm, multiple risk factors deserve consideration — and Tuesday’s sharp decline serves as a cautionary reminder.

SanDisk’s forward price-to-earnings multiple has expanded to 33 times, surpassing Nvidia at 22 times and Micron Technology at 18 times. This valuation premium has begun attracting scrutiny from market participants.

Supply-side dynamics present another concern. Elevated memory pricing could incentivize rival manufacturers including Micron, Kingston Technology, and Kioxia Holdings to accelerate production capacity, which would ultimately exert downward pressure on pricing.

From a technical analysis perspective, the weekly chart reveals a bearish divergence in the Relative Strength Index. The RSI has been declining even as the stock price has continued advancing — a formation that frequently precedes price corrections.

The equity currently trades at $2,238, substantially above its 50-day moving average of $1,458.

The post SanDisk (SNDK) Stock Drops 9.44% Despite Bank of America’s $2,500 Price Target Upgrade appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Kroger revealed plans to purchase Giant Eagle in a transaction valued at $1.65 billion, consisting of $1.25 billion cash and $400 million in liability assumption.
• The acquisition brings approximately $9 billion in yearly revenue, 197 grocery locations, and 11 independent pharmacy outlets.
• Shares of Kroger declined 2.12% during Wednesday’s session, adding to a year-to-date drop of 12.11%.
• Transaction completion is anticipated in 2027, contingent upon regulatory clearance.
• Analysts at Wolfe Research characterized the acquisition as evidence Kroger is operating “more offensively,” projecting approximately 6% revenue growth.

Shares of Kroger (KR) slipped 2.12% during Wednesday trading following the supermarket operator’s announcement that it would purchase family-run grocery chain Giant Eagle in a $1.65 billion transaction.

The Kroger Co., KR

The transaction structure includes $1.25 billion in cash consideration alongside $400 million in liability assumption. The Cincinnati-based retailer stated the purchase won’t push its net total debt to adjusted EBITDA multiple beyond its designated target corridor of 2.3 to 2.5 times.

Giant Eagle maintains a footprint of 197 grocery stores and 11 independent pharmacy locations throughout northern Ohio, western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, and Indiana—regions where Kroger maintains an established market position.

The regional chain generates approximately $9 billion in yearly sales—a substantial contribution to Kroger’s operations.

Greg Foran, Kroger’s Chief Executive Officer, characterized the transaction as an obvious “strategic fit,” highlighting Giant Eagle’s customer loyalty initiatives, pharmaceutical services, and proprietary brand offerings as valuable assets.

What the Numbers Look Like

Greg Badishkanian, an analyst at Wolfe Research, noted the purchase aligns with Kroger‘s leadership team’s “increased openness to do M&A” and will enable the retailer to strengthen its store concentration while expanding into neighboring territories.

Wolfe’s analysis suggests Giant Eagle’s EBIT margins fall within the 2.0–2.5% range—comparable to Albertsons—and anticipates an additional EBIT contribution between $200 million and $250 million.

With Kroger’s sales forecast to reach $151 billion by 2027, the acquisition would increase total revenue by approximately 6%, bringing it to roughly $160 billion. Badishkanian anticipates modest EPS accretion during the second complete year following transaction closure.

The 197 additional locations would expand Kroger’s total store portfolio by roughly 7% from its existing network of 2,739 stores.

When Does the Deal Close?

Kroger anticipates finalizing the Giant Eagle acquisition in 2027, pending regulatory approval and customary closing requirements.

The grocery retailer indicated the transaction will contribute positively to adjusted EPS during the second complete year post-closure—when excluding one-time transaction expenses and integration-related costs.

To reassure shareholders, the company reaffirmed its commitment to maintaining dividend distributions and continuing its $2 billion stock buyback initiative.

Wednesday’s trading volume registered approximately 1.86 million shares, significantly below Kroger’s three-month average daily volume of roughly 7.77 million.

KR shares have declined 12.11% year-to-date and dropped 20.93% over the trailing twelve-month period.

Analyst sentiment on KR reflects a Moderate Buy consensus, comprising six Buy recommendations and seven Hold ratings issued within the past three months. The mean price target stands at $69.33, suggesting potential upside of approximately 27.4% from present levels.

The post Kroger (KR) Stock Drops 2% Following $1.65 Billion Giant Eagle Acquisition Announcement appeared first on Blockonomi.

The second-largest cryptocurrency has been severely damaged by the prolonged bear market, closing Q2 firmly in the red. Even more striking is that this marks the third consecutive quarter of losses for ETH – something unseen in the asset’s history and a clear signal of how persistent the current downturn has become.

Analysts speculate that bulls might have to endure more pain in the near future, with some projecting a price crash to as low as $1,000.

The Bears Take Total Control

It was last August that ETH climbed to a new all-time high of almost $5,000. Since then, it has headed south and currently trades at around $1,560 (per CoinGecko), representing a whopping 70% decline from the historic peak.

Weak market conditions and seasonal factors suggest the asset may experience a further short-term plunge. One should keep in mind that July has rarely been a favorable month for Ethereum, as it has finished the period in the red six out of the last ten times.

The analyst who uses the X moniker Ted noted that ETH has been holding up better than BTC lately, but warned that the former isn’t out of the woods yet. He paid special attention to the $1,700 level, arguing that if the asset fails to reclaim it, the probability of setting a new low will rise significantly.

Crypto with Haris ₿ addressed the increasingly popular predictions that ETH could plunge to $1,000 during this cycle, adding that such an extreme downside scenario is far less plausible than many fear.

“Ethereum has already been one of the hardest-hit major coins this cycle and is now building a strong base around the $1,500-$1,600 zone. Even with another Bitcoin flush, I think the realistic downside is around $1,200-$1,300. Could we go below $1,200? Maybe. But I think the risk of trying to catch that exact level is much higher than people realize,” he stated.

Meanwhile, the recent whale behavior strengthens the bearish outlook. Ali Martinez revealed that large investors sold around $900 million in ETH over a single week, while the analytics platform Lookonchain reported that an anonymous market participant cashed out almost 2,500 coins, incurring a major $4.33 million loss.

Some Bullish Signals

Still, it is not all doom and gloom for Ethereum. The number of coins stored on crypto exchanges remains quite close to the ten-year low recorded in June: a development that reduces selling pressure.

Moreover, ETH’s Relative Strength Index (RSI) continues to hover around 30, indicating that the asset has entered oversold territory and could be due for a rebound. The technical analysis indicator ranges from 0 to 100; anything above 70 is considered a warning of an impending pullback.

The post Ethereum (ETH) Sets a Historic Negative Record: More Pain Ahead? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

US spot Bitcoin ETFs continued to see money leaving the funds on June 30, as investors pulled out $223 million – for the last nine days in a row. In total, the ETFs saw $4.51 billion exit during June, their biggest monthly outflows since launching in January 2024.

Tim Sun, Senior Researcher at HashKey Group, said that while the ETF outflows certainly reflect a weakening of marginal buying pressure for Bitcoin, the core issue isn’t just that ETF funds are flowing out – it’s where those outgoing funds are actually headed.

Bitcoin ETF Exodus

In a statement to CryptoPotato, Sun said that if investors were simply moving their funds into cash or short-term bonds, it would indicate a temporary shift toward safer assets while markets waited for macroeconomic uncertainty to ease. Instead, the researcher said that fund flows since the beginning of the year suggest that institutional investors are reallocating capital to sectors such as artificial intelligence (AI), semiconductors, and the GPU supply chain.

“The market hasn’t completely lost its risk appetite; rather, it is re-selecting its preferred risk assets.”

Sun explained that Bitcoin and AI-related stocks share several characteristics, such as long duration, high volatility, and high narrative elasticity. However, institutional investors currently favor the AI supply chain because companies in that sector are able to turn revenue and capital spending into business results much faster than Bitcoin can deliver returns through its investment narrative.

As a result, he believes the current ETF outflows should be viewed as a sign that Bitcoin’s short-term appeal has weakened compared with AI and semiconductor investments, rather than evidence that the long-term investment case for crypto has disappeared. Sun described the trend as a “capital reallocation within risk assets: Bitcoin’s marginal attractiveness is temporarily weaker than that of AI and semiconductors.”

At the same time, he noted that Bitcoin could attract institutional capital again if the AI trade becomes overcrowded and experiences a correction or if macro liquidity improves.

The Strategy Crisis

ETF outflows aren’t the only headwind for Bitcoin. Strategy, the largest corporate holder of BTC, also faces growing challenges in maintaining its financing model. Sun acknowledged that downside risks remain significant. He said the market’s main concern is not any single development but the simultaneous weakening of the two major sources of marginal buying demand that previously supported Bitcoin’s rally.

On one side, ETFs have shifted from consistent inflows to outflows, while on the other, the market is re-pricing the financing capacity of Strategy. Even so, Sun stressed that the company’s biggest risk is not necessarily that it will trigger a broader market sell-off, but that its ability to keep purchasing BTC at the same pace could decline.

“What truly needs to be observed is whether it will be forced to alter its financing cadence, replenish cash reserves, slow down its buying pace, or even pause purchases altogether.”

If Strategy pauses its buying, Sun stated that it “might not necessarily be a bad thing, because it means the previous distortion of true supply and demand – caused by Strategy’s financial flywheel model – will be alleviated.” In that case, he added Bitcoin would have the opportunity to establish price support based on genuine market demand instead of relying primarily on ETF inflows and Strategy’s purchases.

The post The Vanishing Bitcoin Bid: Where Are the ETF Billions Going? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

[PRESS RELEASE – Dubai, UAE, July 1st, 2026]

BNB Chain, one of the largest blockchain ecosystems worldwide, today announced the launch of BNB Agent Studio, a new platform that creates a category of AI agents that survive infrastructure failure, accept payments, and can be provably owned and transferred: deployed from a simple prompt in ~15 minutes.

BNB Agent Studio is a developer platform that enables engineers to define what they want inside Claude Code, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible development tool. By abstracting away the complexities of building onchain applications, the launch addresses three fundamental challenges that have prevented AI agents from operating truly autonomously: deployment, discoverability, and continuity.

Co-engineered with the AWS Generative AI Innovation Center, the solution includes an Infrastructure-as-Code generator that automatically provisions an agent’s cloud environment in accordance with current security and least-privilege best practices. It simply generates the code needed and deploys the agent to Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, Amazon’s managed agent runtime.

“Building an autonomous AI agent has typically meant assembling a fragile stack of four or more separate vendor integrations: a wallet, an identity layer, payments, an AI model, and hosting. We’re talking days and weeks of integration work. BNB Agent Studio replaces all of that with a single install, designed as one product from the ground up.” said Nina Rong, Executive Director of Growth at BNB Chain.

Key capabilities:

• BNB Agent Studio agents natively integrate LLM aggregators, allowing them to charge for their services and accept crypto payments for the work they perform. Those earnings allow the agent to fund its own operating costs, creating a self-sustaining cycle that keeps the agent running as long as it has work to do.
• BNB Agent Studio combines AWS AgentCore as the runtime with BNB Chain’s onchain infrastructure, so an agent’s core intelligence is simultaneously hosted on AWS and persisted onchain. The agent can be paused, resumed, migrated, and passed to a new owner without losing any of its accumulated intelligence. Its existence is no longer contingent on any single environment.
• Each agent is issued a verifiable digital identity (ERC 8004) controlled by cryptographic keys that stay on the owner’s own machine: not held by BNB Chain, not stored with any third party.

‘’With Amazon Bedrock AgentCore as the runtime, BNB Chain will unlock an entirely new category: AI agents as owned, tradeable, persistent digital entities. This vision will enable agents to be paused, resumed, migrated, recovered, and transferred, including through tokenisation.” Nina continued.

Today’s launch builds on BNB Chain’s recently announced BNB Agent SDK, which established a modular standard for identity (ERC8004), commerce (ERC8183), payment, and memory in AI agents. BNB Agent Studio is designed to be the fastest path from concept to a fully operational agent.

This is the initial release of BNB Agent Studio. Financial decisions have always demanded human time and attention to find the right yield, compare options, and act before an opportunity closes. When agents can do all of this autonomously, and when those agents are owned assets that persist, earn, and compound, the way people interact with their money changes fundamentally. BNB Chain intends to ship new capabilities on a fortnightly basis, with each update expanding the platform’s tooling for developers building in the agentic economy.

About BNB Chain

BNB Chain is the leading community-driven decentralized blockchain ecosystem powering Web3 applications across DeFi, AI, gaming, and consumer use cases. Its multi-chain architecture spans BNB Smart Chain (BSC), opBNB, and BNB Greenfield, providing the infrastructure for builders deploying onchain applications at scale. For more information, visit the official website.

The post BNB Chain Launches BNB Agent Studio: The AI Agent Infrastructure Behind Smart Money appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Ripple remains one of the most discussed subjects in the crypto space as the company continues to advance its ecosystem and participate in major initiatives.

However, XRP has faced heavy pressure in the extended bear market, struggling to maintain momentum and hold above the $1 psychological barrier.

Joining the Giants

Several hours ago, Ripple announced that it is “proud to join” Open USD as a “day-one integration partner,” reinforcing its commitment to multichain infrastructure supporting institutional adoption across the crypto space.

Open USD (OUSD) is a new stablecoin designed for large-scale global payments. It is built by the independent organization Open Standard and aims to address several issues businesses face when using such financial products. OUSD is expected to go live later in 2026, and prominent backers include BlackRock, Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Coinbase, and others.

Just a few days ago, Ripple received approval from the Japanese Financial Services Agency (JFSA) to launch its own stablecoin (called RULSD) in the country. Shortly after, it revealed that last year it had committed $25 million in RLUSD to support underserved US small business owners and career programs for military veterans.

Despite these efforts, the stablecoin has lost some steam lately. Its market capitalization has dropped to roughly $1.4 billion, making it the 49th-biggest cryptocurrency.

The ETFs

The institutional interest in XRP remains solid. Over the past several weeks, ETF inflows have far exceeded outflows, signaling that pension funds, hedge funds, and other conservative market participants continue to increase their exposure to the asset.

Since day one, these products have generated a cumulative total net inflow of almost $1.5 billion. Recall that the first company to launch a spot XRP ETF in the USA was Canary Capital, while shortly after, Bitwise, Franklin Templeton, 21Shares, and Grayscale followed suit.

It is important to note that such investment vehicles with BTC and ETH as underlying assets have been bleeding heavily in recent months, underscoring a clear decline in institutional appetite.

XRP Price Outlook

Despite the aforementioned developments, XRP continues its fight to stay above $1. As of press time, it trades at around $1.04, representing a 20% plunge on a monthly scale.

Earlier this week, analyst Ali Martinez revealed that the Tom DeMark Sequential Indicator has flashed a buy signal on XRP and outlined the rising network activity. At the same time, though, he noted that whales have reduced their exposure to the asset, which can be interpreted as a bearish factor.

The post Ripple News and XRP Price Update Today: July 1 appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin’s battle around the $60K region is entering a decisive phase after sellers are forcing a breakdown below this major support area. With momentum still favoring the sellers, traders are now watching whether demand can prevent a deeper correction toward the mid-$50K region.

Bitcoin Price Analysis: The Daily Chart

On the daily timeframe, BTC has extended its bearish trend after losing several major support zones. The recent rejection by the 200-day moving average around $80K and the breakdown of the 100-day moving average near $ 74 K have reinforced the longer-term downtrend, with both moving averages now sloping lower and acting as dynamic resistance.

The price is currently trading around $58.7K after breaking slightly below the $60K demand zone. This indicates that buyers have struggled to defend one of the market’s most important psychological levels. The next significant support lies around the $55K region, while a deeper correction could expose the broader demand area near $52K.

On the upside, Bitcoin would first need to reclaim the $60K level quickly before challenging the $66K to $68K resistance zone. Beyond that, the $72K to $74K area remains the primary barrier, as it coincides with the long-term moving averages. The broader bearish structure would only begin to improve if BTC manages to reclaim this region.

BTC/USDT 4-Hour Chart

The lower timeframe presents a similarly bearish picture. Bitcoin continues to trade inside a descending structure, respecting both the upper and lower boundaries throughout the recent decline. Every recovery attempt has produced another lower high, confirming that sellers remain in control.

The latest rejection from the $66K to $68K supply zone pushed BTC back toward the lower boundary of the channel. Price is now hovering around $58.7K, slightly beneath the $60K support area, increasing the probability of another test of lower liquidity and a breakdown of the channel structure.

Meanwhile, the RSI has formed a modest bullish divergence, with momentum making slightly higher lows while price printed fresh lows. Although this divergence could trigger a short-term relief bounce, it has yet to receive confirmation through a decisive breakout above nearby resistance.

On-Chain Analysis

Bitcoin’s Net Unrealized Profit/Loss (NUPL) has fallen sharply to approximately 0.09, placing the metric deep within the low-profit region shown on the chart.

NUPL measures the aggregate unrealized profit or loss held across the Bitcoin network. Higher readings generally reflect widespread investor optimism and elevated profitability, while lower values indicate shrinking profits and deteriorating market sentiment.

The current reading suggests that the majority of holders have seen a significant reduction in unrealized gains compared to previous months. Historically, such depressed NUPL levels have been associated with periods of capitulation or late-stage bear market conditions, when weak hands are gradually flushed out of the market.

While this does not guarantee an immediate reversal, it indicates that much of the speculative excess has already been removed. If selling pressure begins to ease and long-term investors continue accumulating, these historically depressed profitability levels could eventually provide the foundation for a broader recovery. Until price reclaims key resistance zones, however, the technical structure continues to favor the sellers.

The post Bitcoin Price Prediction: BTC Risks Drop Toward $55K After $60K Breakdown appeared first on CryptoPotato.