Didier Deschamps breaks the World Cup management record with 26 games as FIFA's blockchain and digital collectibles strategy scales during the 2026

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China significantly increased its gold reserves amid declining prices. Gold reaching $4,500 by July 2026 at 0.5% YES.

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FIFA's Arsne Wenger defends 2026 World Cup hydration breaks as a health measure, but $250M in Fox Sports ad revenue raises harder questions.

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Chelsea considers Joo Pedro untouchable despite Barcelona's reported 100M interest, with implications for fan token markets on the Chiliz platform.

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US Secretary of War Hegseth says military casualties strengthen resolve in Iran conflict. US invasion of Iran by 2027 at 30.5% YES.

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Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Sentiment Is Turning Bullish — But It’s Too Early to Celebrate: Report

The Bitcoin bottom may be in — but don’t get your hopes up: It might struggle to go up anytime soon, according to one investment firm. 

A Friday report from European asset management firm CoinShares said that investors last week threw fresh cash at Bitcoin — and other crypto — exchange-traded products, indicating a change in sentiment. 

But other factors may hold digital asset markets from going higher, James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, wrote. 

“We have said for some time that Bitcoin has probably reached, or is close to, its floor,” the report read. “But we see no significant upside potential from here.”

The report added that current macroeconomic headwinds, such as the US bombing Iran and rising oil prices, could see inflation go up again. 

Bitcoin’s price was up earlier this week, hitting a seven-day high of $65,501 on news that inflation in the US was softer than expected. It has since erased those gains and was recently trading for $64,010. 

The price of Bitcoin has typically done well on news that inflation is coming down because investors expect interest rates to come down. But Butterfill said that “a rate cut does not look probable at this stage.”

Bitcoin’s worst run on record

CoinShares’ data showed that investors pulled a total of $8 billion out of funds giving crypto exposure — “the worst run on record.” 

Last week, though, things reversed when $287 million hit crypto funds, CoinShares said, with the data so far showing that this week looks likely to be another positive streak.

The price of Bitcoin has typically done well when US investors — previously excluded from crypto investing — have bought shares in exchange-traded funds approved in 2024. 

The products — handled by the likes of BlackRock, Fidelity, and Grayscale — allow more traditional investors or Wall Street institutions to buy positions in Bitcoin via shares that trade on stock exchanges. 

Since BTC’s October all-time high of $126,080, crypto markets have faced a battering as those investors have fast cashed out of the funds. Bitcoin has struggled to make gains, especially after the US and Israel started bombing Iran, leading to a surge in the price of oil. 

The leading cryptocurrency is now nearly 50% below its record. 

“The dominant picture is that the current setup is prompting interest in adding positions, but caution prevails while sentiment remains broadly negative,” CoinShares added. 

This post Bitcoin Sentiment Is Turning Bullish — But It’s Too Early to Celebrate: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Ocean Mining VP Jason Hughes: BIP-110 on Track to Fail as Miner Signaling Stays Below 1%

BIP-110 – My Notes to Miners

This is a guest post by Jason Hughes, VP of Development and Engineering at Ocean Mining. Opinions expressed are entirely his own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine. The article originally appeared on X.com and has been published with the permission of the author. 

Let me start off by saying I’m not pro BIP110, and I’m not anti-BIP110. If it actually succeeds as something that gains true consensus within the network and ends up being enforced by a majority of the network… cool. If so, then we’ll go with it because the network has spoken and accepted it, and all nodes, including non-BIP110 nodes, will be pulled along for the ride. Unfortunately for proponents of the proposal, that simply isn’t currently the case by any measurable metric, nor does it appear to have a trajectory suggesting that will change, either. 

There’s been a lot of misleading information about this whole thing, especially in the context of mining. A few quick key bullet points to briefly counter some hyperbole from proponents: BIP110 is NOT inevitable. It CAN fail. BIP110 can and will cause a chain split/fork in a minority hashrate situation. BIP110 is NOT without risk to miners choosing to adopt it. Miners not supporting BIP110 are not suddenly mining “invalid” blocks just because a proposal that isn’t yet adopted simply exists. You’re not a bad person or evil simply because you don’t like or support BIP110. (The fact that I feel the need to point out that last part is actually kind of sad…)

I was going to write a long post to help keep miners informed about things they need to remain aware of as this all plays out… before realizing I already did so months ago, as a document I authored that I had hoped could be put out as a miner education piece at OCEAN. Sadly, it never got published. So I went ahead and updated it, and well, here it is.

Again, keep in mind this was written months ago, intended to be as agnostic as possible in an effort to make it acceptable as a corporate post. That effort failed, so I’m posting it as a personal document today instead. As a miner making important decisions about your operations, you need to be aware of all of this without the sugarcoating and, frankly, outright misleading information coming from some of the BIP110 proponents.  You must be vigilant and decide what’s right for you. 

While there is certainly some misleading information from the opposition as well, nothing I’ve seen is nearly as egregious as the extremely premature claims of victory and accompanying hyperbole pushed by the BIP110 side. Summarizing my doc a bit, my personal suggestion to miners is this: Signal if you support BIP110. Do not signal if you don’t support BIP110 or don’t care. Either way, monitor the network on/around/before block 961632. 

If you continue to see non-signaling blocks from major pools, you can be reasonably certain they’re not going to suddenly decide later to throw away millions of dollars’ worth of revenue to backtrack and signal for BIP110. If they do, by some chance, start to signal for BIP110, you should monitor that and consider switching as required to stay on the heaviest chain. The key point is that, realistically, only one side can win. It’s either BIP110 succeeds, and miners not on the BIP110 side fail, or BIP110 fails, and miners on the non-BIP110 side succeed. 

Moving on, let’s dive into a small fraction of my rationale. 

QUICK FACT: Between 7 and 15% of Bitcoin Nodes are signaling support for BIP110.

Depending on which centralized crawler you look at… no way to know for sure [how many BIP110 nodes are signaling support]. My personal private crawler puts this number much lower, but that’s a discussion for another day. Suffice it to say, I think it’s logical and correct to say that even 15% is not a majority. 

“But Jason! UASF got Segwit activated with fewer nodes!” 

Yep, because many miners, merchants, users, etc., all actually wanted Segwit. There was tremendous economic and community weight behind it. Without rehashing that whole thing, as plenty of resources on the topic from before BIP110 are worth a read, suffice it to say that BIP110 and Segwit activations are not quite comparable, as many have already pointed out. Segwit, for example, went into its UASF territory with around 1/3rd of the network’s hashrate already signaling support. With that kind of backing, the UASF to help push the MASF over the tipping point made a lot of sense. It doesn’t make sense here for BIP110.

QUICK FACT: 0.6% of blocks over the past 60 days have signaled support for BIP110.

[0.6% is a] pretty stark contrast to even Segwit’s low baseline support. Yes, I know it’s increased slightly in the past couple of weeks, but no new entrants. Just more clearly rented hashrate from one of the same small proponents.

Something to keep in mind is that mining BIP110 signaling blocks via DATUM on OCEAN carries virtually no risk to the miner up until the fork point at block 961632. The cost is negligible, as you’re effectively guaranteed to recoup rental costs, etc.

It’s awesome that the ability to do so exists, and I wouldn’t have it any other way… but just something to keep in mind when weighing signaling from such blocks in the grand scheme of things from a risk-reward, money-on-the-table perspective.

“But Jason! Miners have no incentive to signal until the last minute!”

I also see no evidence to suggest that this could be the case. Subjectively, I disagree with the premise, as it’s not in a mining pool’s best interest to destabilize the network in such a way.  Part of the reason for early signaling and lock-in periods is to help coordinate upgrades in a smooth fashion. Waiting until the last minute negates that benefit entirely. I see no compelling rationale or upside to doing so.

Continuing on this, as part of my personal node monitoring setup, I specifically monitor nodes known to belong to various entities, such as other mining pools, exchanges, large lightning nodes, merchants, etc. A supermajority of which are monitored with explicit permission and confirmation/coordination.

QUICK FACT: All major mining pools I monitor are currently running some variant of Bitcoin Core v30 or v31 (except OCEAN). 

Expanding on that, most [mining pools] have updated their nodes since the proliferation of BIP110’s release, even since the release of Knots 29.3. Additionally, it is known that many mining pools run modified versions of their node software to facilitate various requirements of their specific infrastructure. Such changes would need to be ported to a BIP110-compatible client, tested, evaluated, and deployed ahead of time. I currently see no evidence that this is the case currently.

As far as I can tell, the pools are aware but ignoring. 

“But Jason! Miners don’t determine consensus! Nodes do! Otherwise, they’ll just cancel halvings!”

This is one of the funniest and most ridiculous arguments I’ve heard from the pro-BIP110 crowd.  Comparing a consensus change that can be unilaterally enforced upon the network by miners and accepted by 100% of existing nodes (a soft fork), with a hard fork which no existing node will accept… is disingenuous at best. T

ightening rules (like BIP110): Soft fork, can be enforced by miners if they choose to do so. Loosening rules (like canceling a halving): Hard fork, can not be enforced by miners without effectively 100% buy-in from the entire network… which isn’t likely to happen. Comparing the two is, bluntly, just stupid.

“But Jason! If you don’t upgrade to the latest consensus rules, you’re insecure! You’ll lose funds! You’ll mine invalid blocks! You’ll [insert additional hyperbole here]!”

This would be true of a consensus change that has, well, consensus. While BIP110 has made a valiant effort to gain that consensus, it has yet to have any measurable majority at what is now arguably the 11th hour. Not in nodes, not in hashrate, not in the social layers (consensus.health has a cool visual there where you’ll find me in the middle).

If somehow BIP110 gains 51%+ of the network hashrate on/before block 961632… then, alright. It’s enforced, since as a soft fork a majority of miners can unilaterally enforce it in the absence of a fully adopted URSF (effectively a misnomer, as this would kind of be a hard fork).

“But Jason! It can’t gain consensus by already having consensus! You have to give it a chance!”

Firstly… no I don’t, even though I have.  Second, it’s a rushed proposal that never had the time to even try and gain real consensus. It’s been 7 months since the release of the first BIP110 client. There’s ~3 weeks to go before “mandatory” signaling starts as of now (less by the time you read this). 90% of the time available has passed with no change in overall sentiment from any relevant players. If it hasn’t gained sufficient adoption in the past 7 months, it’s not likely to do so in the next 3 weeks.

“But Jason! CSAM! CSAM! Pedophiles! CSAM!”

I’ll be the first to say, even I personally overstated the risk here early on when Core proposed its OP_RETURN change. I personally expected something particularly egregious to hit the chain almost immediately, and to the best of my knowledge, that’s not yet happened. Could it still happen? Yeah, I suppose.

But considering from a technical perspective, byte-for-byte the same contiguous arbitrary data can provably end up stored in the current chain or the BIP-110 chain without much issue… this particular argument for BIP-110 falls pretty flat to me at this point.

Do I want CSAM in the chain? Of course not. Am I a pedophile if I don’t support BIP110? Also not.

Concluding Thoughts

I could continue to go on and on and on, but I’ll stop here. I’ve wasted enough time on this. I’m sure I’ve done plenty to annoy both sides of the BIP110 debate at this point, as I don’t adopt either stance. I’m sure I’ll catch flak from all angles simply for daring to speak my mind on it.

Overall, I mostly think it was silly to approach addressing a real problem (the OP_RETURN default change in Bitcoin Core) with the maximum anti-spam manifesto based soft fork proposal… which provably cannot stop spam, arbitrary data, etc. (Yes, I know, proponents will claim it’s not about spam… and will also make semantic arguments that it does stop data as well… neither of which appears to be correct.)

I’ll close with the concession that I could be wrong. I’m not Nostradamus, and I can’t accurately predict the outcome with 100% certainty.  I can only go by what the data tells me, and so I give BIP110’s success less than a 5% chance of actually succeeding… and I consider that generous. You can take my opinions on this however you wish, but I highly recommend you don’t discount the actual data points, remain vigilant, and do what’s best for you and your mining revenue. Don’t be gaslit by either side of the debate, and make your own decisions.

Here’s a link to the same document linked above for ease of access.

This post Ocean Mining VP Jason Hughes: BIP-110 on Track to Fail as Miner Signaling Stays Below 1% first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Jason Hughes.

Bitcoin Magazine

SBI Holdings Takes Majority Stake in Singapore’s Coinhako After MAS Approval

SBI Holdings has completed the acquisition of a majority stake in Coinhako, a Singapore-based cryptocurrency platform, after securing approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). 

The Japanese financial group made the purchase through its subsidiary SBI Ventures Asset Pte. Ltd., which injected capital into Coinhako parent Holdbuild Pte. Ltd. and bought shares from existing shareholders. The transaction closed July 16, making Coinhako a consolidated subsidiary.

Coinhako operates through Hako Technology Pte. Ltd., holder of a Major Payment Institution license from MAS, and Alpha Hako Ltd., a crypto asset service provider registered with the British Virgin Islands Financial Services Commission. 

The platform spent a decade building a customer base across Southeast Asia, a region SBI now positions as a base for its digital asset strategy.

SBI plans to combine Coinhako’s customer base, operational expertise, and regional network with its own financial services, technology, and global footprint. The company intends to expand a digital asset corridor that starts with Japan and Southeast Asia, and to develop services tied to its JPYSC yen-denominated stablecoin. SBI also flagged opportunities in tokenization, on-chain finance, and cross-border trading.

“Our group aims to create a global corridor for digital assets by connecting exchanges around the world, enabling investors worldwide to make optimal investments without being hindered by national borders or currency barriers,” Chairman Yoshitaka Kitao said. He described Singapore as a crucial region because its digital asset regulations are ahead of the curve.

Coinhako co-founder and CEO Yusho Liu called the deal a natural step. “For the past 10 years, we have built from the ground up Southeast Asia’s most trusted and legally compliant cryptocurrency platform in the world’s most advanced regulatory environment,” he said, adding that SBI’s backing gives the firm a stronger foundation.

SBI Holding’s crypto moves

The acquisition caps a run of crypto moves by the conglomerate, which holds more than 14 million users and $308 billion in assets under custody. In the past month, SBI led EDX Markets’ $76 million Series C, backed risk manager Gauntlet, launched JPYSC, and partnered with the Solana Foundation on an on-chain financial market in Japan. 

In June, the group agreed to buy Tokyo exchange Bitbank for about $289 million, and this week it teamed with Ondo Finance to tokenize Japanese equities.

One limit remains: JPYSC does not yet support withdrawals to external wallets, which confines its use to SBI’s own platform.

This post SBI Holdings Takes Majority Stake in Singapore’s Coinhako After MAS Approval first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Mining Giant Foundry Asks Miners To Vote on BIP-110 Soft Fork

Foundry Digital, the world’s leading Bitcoin mining pool operator, has said it will allow mining clients how the pool should signal on the BIP-110.

The Rochester, New York-based firm said Friday in an email to miners that they will be able to vote by using their hashrate — literally computing power — to vote either for or against the proposal. 

BIP-110, or the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 110, is a proposal aimed at temporarily restricting spam on the blockchain. If it goes through, a soft fork — a backward-compatible rule change — would take effect, restricting the amount of non-monetary data on the network.

“As miners, it’s important for you to have a voice and participate in the governance of the network,” Foundry said in its announcement. 

“It’s one of the more actively debated proposals in Bitcoin right now, and miners play a direct role in whether it activates,” the company added. 

Also known as the “reduced data temporary soft fork,” the proposal would cap the amount of arbitrary, non-monetary data that transactions can carry. 

Its rules limit most new outputs to 34 bytes, restore an 83-byte limit on OP_RETURN outputs, and reject data pushes above 256 bytes. 

Those for the proposal say that the soft fork would allow Bitcoin to function as pure peer-to-peer money. 

But opponents, including Strategy founder Michael Saylor and Blockstream co-founder Adam Back, argue it converts a policy dispute into a consensus change that could invalidate fee-paying transactions.

Foundry’s process

Under Foundry’s process, each vote carries weight based on an account’s average 10-day hashrate on the pool between July 6 and July 15. Foundry said it will signal based on the majority of hashrate-weighted votes across the signaling period, which it expects to run through early August at block 961,632. 

The company’s starting position is no. It said that until “Yes” votes cross 51% of voting hashrate, Foundry signals “No” with all of its blocks. A crossing of that threshold switches the pool to “Yes” with all of its blocks.

Foundry controls about a third of network hashrate, a share that makes its position consequential for the outcome. Analysts at BGeometrics identified decisions by Foundry and Antpool as capable of moving daily signaling into a meaningful range. A mandatory signaling window near block 961,632, projected for early August, will force the question before the activation timeline closes.

Accounts that do not respond count as “No” votes. Foundry said owners can change their choice while the window remains open, and that individual votes stay confidential, though aggregate results may be shared.

This post Bitcoin Mining Giant Foundry Asks Miners To Vote on BIP-110 Soft Fork first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo and Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Price Falls Under $63,000 on U.S.-Iran Strikes and Trump’s China Charge, but Onchain Data Points to Buyers

Bitcoin price fell below $63,000 on Friday, as a fresh wave of U.S. airstrikes on Iran and a new political dispute between Washington and Beijing pushed investors out of risk assets.

Bitcoin price traded near $62,800, an extension of Thursday’s 1.4% slide from $65,000, according to Bitcoin Magazine Pro data. The token slipped under its 50-day simple moving average, a gauge of near-term momentum that many traders watch.

The bitcoin price retreat tracked a broad decline across global markets. Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 4% and entered a correction, a fall of more than 10% from its June 25 peak, as memory-chip maker Kioxia lost 16.1%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng shed 2%, while the Shanghai Composite fell 3.1% to an 11-month low. 

Futures tied to the Nasdaq pointed to a decline of 1.6%, an echo of Thursday’s drop on Wall Street, where chip shares from Nvidia, Micron, Broadcom and Qualcomm came under pressure on fears that the AI rally has run past its earnings.

Bitcoin price, Iran escalations, and uncertainty in Washington 

Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency, citing the Hormozgan province governorate, said U.S. airstrikes hit five bridges in the southern province. 

A separate missile strike damaged the maritime control tower at Iran’s Chabahar port. WTI crude climbed near $79 a barrel, a rise close to 15% across five sessions, a move that revived concern about inflation and the path of interest rates.

A second front of uncertainty opened in Washington. President Donald Trump declassified intelligence reports that allege Chinese interference in U.S. elections and claimed Beijing obtained 220 million voter records, a threat he cast as a danger to democracy. China’s embassy denied the allegations. 

The dispute itself carries little market weight, though traders fear it could strain ties before Trump’s September meeting with Xi Jinping. The Australian dollar, a proxy for China-linked trade, weakened against the greenback.

Bitcoin price market dynamics

Against that backdrop, some analysts argue the sell-off masks a market whose core drivers have changed little. Nicolai Sondergaard, a research analyst at Nansen, said the bitcoin price tape reflects macro data more than a geopolitical hedge.

“The inflation and liquidity channel is doing more work here than the geopolitical hedge narrative,” Sondergaard said. He pointed to the June CPI report released July 14, which showed headline inflation of 3.5% against a 3.8% forecast and a core reading of 2.6% against 2.9%. The dollar index sank to near 100.77, a multi-month low, and the 10-year Treasury yield eased to 4.57%.

The softer print reset Fed expectations. Odds of a rate hike at the July 28-29 meeting fell from above 40% to the low teens, according to CME FedWatch data. 

“The FOMC meeting on July 28 to 29 is the actual binary,” Sondergaard said. “If the CPI data holds and the Fed signals a credible pivot path, the conditions for sustained ETF inflows are back in place.”

Onchain flows support his read. Spot bitcoin ETFs drew $510 million across three sessions this month, an end to a $2.73 billion outflow streak, with BlackRock’s IBIT in the lead. Nansen’s data shows large wallets held their ground through the strike. 

“Net outflows hit -18.3 BTC in the strike hour, then reverted to a post-shock average of +0.67 BTC per hour, meaning buyers returned within the same session,” Sondergaard said.

Sondergaard framed positioning as constructive rather than fragile. Funding rates sat near zero, a sign that leveraged longs are not crowded, and smart-money long/short ratios ran at 1.58 with no rotation into stablecoins. Retail traders held a ratio of 1.79, a step ahead of the pros but in the same direction. Seven-day inflows concentrated in liquid staking, DeFi lending and decentralized exchanges, a risk-on allocation.

 Sondergaard said the sequence rhymes with past shocks. “Prior Middle East escalations produced the same pattern: short-duration flush, accumulation resumes,” he said.

“MVRV sits at 1.205 with realized price at roughly $53,000 and the long-term holder cost basis around $49,900, which defines the structural floor,” Sondergaard said. “That is not the profile of a market running on geopolitical sentiment.”

At the time of writing, the bitcoin price is $62, 836.

This post Bitcoin Price Falls Under $63,000 on U.S.-Iran Strikes and Trump’s China Charge, but Onchain Data Points to Buyers first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin traded near $62,900 on Friday afternoon, down roughly 38% from its October 2025 all-time high, as Brent crude settled above $85 and the Strait of Hormuz remained effectively closed to normal commercial traffic.

By early Saturday, it had recovered to around $63,900, then traded flat throughout the EU morning.

The disputed waterway normally carries 20.9 million barrels of oil per day, about one-fifth of global petroleum consumption, but tanker crossings have collapsed to near-record lows after the United States reimposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports and Tehran responded with missile strikes on Gulf state infrastructure.

Oil futures, Treasury markets, and US equities will all close for the weekend, but Bitcoin won't. That makes it the first liquid global asset forced to absorb whatever happens next in a conflict that the rest of the financial system can't price until Monday.

Bitcoin's Hormuz problem

Twenty million barrels per day is the normal flow through the Strait. Even partial disruption counts because oil markets price uncertainty before they price actual shortage. Tankers may delay departures rather than risk passage, so insurance and security costs can increase before physical supply is lost. Shipping restrictions can raise oil prices through fear alone.

Brent crude settled at $85.97 on July 17, up 2.06% from the previous day and 24% higher than a year earlier, according to Trading Economics. West Texas Intermediate rose to $80.93, up 2.51%.

The immediate trigger chain is pretty straightforward. The US launched roughly 140 strikes on Iranian military targets on July 11, the largest single strike package of the conflict to date, according to the Hormuz Strait Monitor. Iran retaliated with missile and drone attacks on US bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Jordan, then struck two UAE-flagged supertankers in Omani territorial waters, killing one crew member.

Washington reimposed its naval blockade of Iranian ports on July 12, reversing a core provision of the earlier memorandum of understanding. The US says it will keep Hormuz open and has proposed recovering security costs through a charge on cargo. Iran says regular traffic depends on an end to US intervention.

Higher crude and transport costs feed into inflation expectations. Renewed inflation expectations feed into anticipated Federal Reserve rates and Treasury yields. Higher anticipated yields then strengthen the demand for dollars, and a stronger dollar demand reduces appetite for leveraged and speculative assets.

All of that leads to Bitcoin. It isn't that Bitcoin is directly tied to oil; it's that it sits at the end of a risk-asset waterfall that starts with energy prices and flows through monetary policy.

The Federal Reserve has already tipped its hand. The committee held rates at 3.50% to 3.75% on June 17 in a unanimous 12-0 vote, but the updated dot plot showed a median year-end 2026 rate of 3.8%, up sharply from 3.4% in March. Nine of 18 officials penciled in at least one hike this year, and 17 of 18 judged inflation risks tilted to the upside. Headline CPI is running at 4.2%.

The next FOMC meeting is July 28-29, and as CryptoSlate previously covered, Fed officials are treating war-driven energy prices as an active inflation channel rather than a temporary shock. Kevin Warsh, who now chairs the Fed, has signaled that political pressure on monetary policy is a live variable, adding another layer of uncertainty to the July meeting.

Related Reading

The Fed is cornered in rates decision with just days before its next meeting — what that means for Bitcoin

A fresh oil shock has put Bitcoin on collision course with a higher-for-longer Fed just as traders were betting on relief later this year.

Apr 25, 2026 · Andjela Radmilac

The weekend problem: thin liquidity meets live news

When traditional markets close, Bitcoin becomes the only continuously traded global risk asset with enough liquidity to matter. That means any new tanker attack, shipping suspension, or military strike could hit Bitcoin hours before oil futures, Treasury markets, or US equities can respond. Traders who would normally hedge through those markets will have nowhere else to go.

Thin weekend order books magnify the danger. Fewer market makers are active on Saturdays and Sundays, which means that spreads widen and large market orders can move prices disproportionately. Liquidation cascades can accelerate quickly because there is less natural two-way flow to absorb them.

Perpetual futures funding rates, which reflect the cost of holding leveraged positions, can swing violently as directional bets pile up on one side. A trader attempting to hedge an anticipated Monday selloff in stocks might sell Bitcoin futures over the weekend, adding selling pressure to a market that already lacks buyers.

This is what makes weekends different from normal trading days. It isn't that Bitcoin is a safe haven or a proxy for oil; it's that it becomes a shadow market for risks that have nowhere else to go.

A sharp Bitcoin move following a verified military or shipping development would confirm that traders are using it as a temporary proxy for oil-supply risk, inflation expectations, Monday's anticipated stock-market gap, and demand for dollars and cash. A Bitcoin move without a corresponding geopolitical catalyst should be treated cautiously; weekend volatility often reflects positioning rather than fundamentals.

The link between weekend Bitcoin price action and Monday traditional market opens isn't reliable enough to trade blindly, but we've seen it play out too many times not to matter. CryptoSlate previously reported that Bitcoin's 24/7 structure makes it one of the fastest ways for the market to express macro shifts, particularly when spot ETF demand is weak and leveraged traders are carrying more of the market's momentum. With spot Bitcoin ETFs recording outflows in recent weeks, that leverage-dependent structure is still in place.

Several observable signals would escalate concern from a volatile weekend into something that reshapes Monday's market open: a verified new tanker attack with casualties, a confirmed suspension of all Hormuz transit by a major shipping insurer, a US strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, or an Iranian missile reaching a populated area in a Gulf state capital.

Any of those would likely trigger a gap higher in Brent when futures reopen Sunday evening, a flight to the dollar, and selling pressure across risk assets that Bitcoin would absorb first.

But it's important to note that de-escalation signals matter just as much. If shipping resumes through restricted corridors, or if a third-party mediator produces a temporary transit agreement, Bitcoin could rally as traders unwind weekend hedges. The point is that Bitcoin will price whatever happens first, and it will do so with less liquidity and more leverage than any traditional market.

Bitcoin traded near $62,746 on July 14, after an intraday low around $61,794. By Friday, it had recovered slightly to the $62,900 range, but the overall trend remains down roughly 38% from the October 2025 peak of $126,198. That decline has coincided with rising Treasury yields, a stronger dollar, and the same credit-market stress that CryptoSlate covered earlier this week. The Hormuz conflict adds a geopolitical accelerant to a macro backdrop that was already unfriendly to risk assets.

When oil futures reopen Sunday evening and Treasury futures begin trading in Asia, the market will test whether Bitcoin's weekend move was prescient or noise.

If Bitcoin sold off sharply and Brent gaps higher, the crypto market will have served as an early warning system. If Bitcoin rallied and Brent opens flat, the weekend move will have been a liquidity artifact.

Either way, Bitcoin is the only market that gets to vote before the rest of the financial system returns on Monday. That's a new role for an asset that was supposed to be digital gold, and it's one that traders are still learning how to interpret.

The post Bitcoin is trading through a dangerous weekend as 20% of the world’s oil hangs in the balance appeared first on CryptoSlate.

China’s June trade numbers and second-quarter growth numbers looked strong if you look at them one at a time. However, when you put them together, they describe an economy with a very specific problem: factories are still finding buyers abroad, especially for higher-value industrial goods, while demand at home remains too weak to absorb what the country is producing.

That's how China could post a reported $125.6 billion monthly trade surplus and still deliver a second quarter that disappointed markets. According to the official National Bureau of Statistics release, GDP grew 4.3% year over year in the second quarter, down from 5.0% in the first quarter and below the 4.5% economists had expected. On a quarter-over-quarter basis, growth was just 0.9%.

For a system that still depends heavily on investment, construction, and industrial throughput, that's a significant loss of momentum.

The State Council’s English-language summary of the official data said June imports and exports rose 24.2% year over year, with exports up 20.8% and imports up 29.4%. Over the first half of the year, total imports and exports reached 25.47 trillion yuan, up 16.9%, while exports rose 13.4%. Mechanical and electrical exports rose 20.1% and accounted for 63.5% of total goods trade. Private enterprises accounted for 57% of total trade, and trade with Belt and Road partners rose 14.8%.

While those are certainly strong numbers, they don't solve the weakness in the parts of the economy that depend on domestic confidence.

The same official release showed fixed-asset investment down 5.7% in the first half, infrastructure investment down 2.4%, manufacturing investment down 1.2%, and real-estate development investment down 18%. Retail sales rose only 1.3% over the same period. Private investment fell 8.5%. Floor space sold fell 11.6%, and the value of newly built commercial property sales fell 13.6%.

China might be able to sell aggressively to the world, but that doesn't mean Chinese households, developers, and local governments are ready to spend again.

This is a dangerous discrepancy for China's economy because production isn't the same thing as demand.

GDP doesn't rise because ports are busy, but when output connects to income, investment, and spending across the economy. Exports can keep factories running, industrial employment stronger than it might otherwise be, and bring foreign earnings into the country. They can't, on their own, rebuild confidence in a housing market that has been shrinking for years or persuade cautious households to spend more freely.

Property is one of the most important data points here because home prices and sales affect household wealth, land sales affect local government finances, and construction affects demand for steel, cement, machinery, transport, and a wide range of upstream industrial inputs.

When development investment falls 18%, and newly built commercial floor space sold falls 11.6%, the effect quickly spreads well beyond the property sector. It takes no time for consumers to feel poorer and for developers to pull back. This leads to a loss of revenue for local governments, and infrastructure spending becomes harder to sustain.

That helps explain why we saw weak property numbers with weak private investment and soft retail demand. Households that are worried about job security, home values, and the broader direction of the economy tend to spend carefully. Private businesses that are unsure about future demand tend to hold back on expansion.

Local governments that are managing debt pressure have less room to compensate through large infrastructure pushes. Each one of those decisions feeds the others, which is why weak domestic demand can become self-reinforcing.

Exports managed to fill part of that gap. The strongest gains are clustered in higher-value industrial categories rather than broad-based consumer recovery. The official data shows investment in high-tech industries up 4.6%, with especially strong gains in aerospace vehicle and equipment manufacturing, computer and office device manufacturing, and information services.

That's a healthier mix than the old property-heavy model, and China clearly wants more of it, but it's still not better than a genuine household-led recovery. A country can ship more advanced equipment abroad while still dealing with weak retail sales, a shrinking property sector, and private firms that remain reluctant to invest at home.

That's why the trade surplus now looks like a pressure valve. Selling more abroad helps absorb excess industrial output and keeps growth from slowing even faster, but it also shifts the internal imbalance outward. The more China depends on foreign buyers to carry industrial activity, the more exposed it becomes to tariff policy, anti-subsidy cases, and political resistance in export markets that are already wary of Chinese overcapacity.

Beijing can try to stabilize growth with more investment-led stimulus, which would keep the old model going longer and add to debt burdens in a system already struggling with too much property, too much local-government leverage, and too much reliance on industrial supply.

It can move more directly toward household support through income transfers, consumer subsidies, and broader efforts to repair confidence. Or it can accept slower growth while the economy works through the hangover from the property boom and the slow restructuring of local-government finance.

None of those options is easy to implement. More infrastructure and industrial stimulus would support activity in the short run, though it would also risk producing even more supply in an economy already dependent on external demand. Household support would address the demand problem more directly, though it would require a larger break from the investment-first model that has defined Chinese growth for decades.

Doing too little would leave the economy exposed to a longer period of slow internal demand, with growth leaning more and more heavily on exports just as foreign resistance to those exports is building.

That is why investors are now focused on the late-July Politburo meeting, which Reuters has described as the next major moment for policy direction. The market is trying to judge whether Beijing will answer a domestic-demand problem with another round of targeted industrial support, a broader push to stabilize households, or a more restrained posture that tolerates slower growth while debt repair continues.

Premier Li Qiang’s call for stronger counter-cyclical adjustment suggests officials understand the pressure, but he gave no sign as to where the support will go.

China’s own capital controls and restrictions keep most mainland households away from direct crypto speculation, so the effects this could have on the crypto market run through liquidity, the yuan, and global risk appetite.

When China eases aggressively, the effect often reaches the rest of the world through easier financial conditions, stronger growth expectations, and weaker demand for the dollar. CryptoSlate has tracked that before, especially when People’s Bank of China liquidity injections line up with shifts in risk assets. The same framework also helps explain why China’s retreat from US bonds has carried weight with macro traders watching Bitcoin.

If Beijing chooses meaningful support for domestic demand, global investors are likely to read it as another source of liquidity and another argument for a softer dollar at the margin. That usually improves the backdrop for speculative assets, including Bitcoin. If it chooses restraint while export friction rises, the opposite chain becomes easier to imagine. Growth expectations weaken, the yuan comes under pressure, the dollar strengthens, and global financial conditions tighten.

Crypto tends to struggle in that environment before any later discussion of capital flight or currency hedging enters the picture.

The biggest problem isn't one quarter’s miss but the shape of the recovery China is trying to build. Exports can keep the industrial machine active, and they can even buy time. But they can't create a durable domestic recovery on their own, because a durable recovery requires households that want to spend, businesses that want to invest, and local governments that are able to support activity without deepening the same debt problems they are already trying to repair.

Until those pieces improve together, every strong trade month will carry the same caveat: China is still producing more confidently than it is consuming.

The post China found a $125 billion escape valve for an economy running out of momentum appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Trump Media is turning Truth Social posts into a feed for traders, and prediction markets now face a timing problem.

The issue is what happens after a post becomes public but before most users can see, read, and act on it.

On July 17, the Financial Times reported that Trump Media discussed charging traders up to $100,000 per month for faster access to President Donald Trump’s Truth Social posts.

The report followed Trump Media’s July 16 announcement of Truth API, a licensed feed scheduled for an Aug. 1 launch. The company said the product will cover 10 influential accounts, operate around the clock, and deliver posts faster than Truth Social push notifications.

Trump Media said algorithmic trading firms, banks, and other organizations that bear the cost of information delays are the target market.

The Financial Times reported a monthly price as high as $100,000, though other reports said the figure lacked independent verification. Trump Media also said customers had already signed up, positioning the feed as its first data-licensing business and a new revenue line.

That creates a different market-design problem from the ongoing Gabriel Perez case.

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Perez, President Donald Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator, faces a Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) investigation over wagers on Kalshi contracts that tracked Trump’s speeches. Investigators allege that Perez used access to prepared remarks before Trump delivered them, allowing him to trade in Kalshi “mention markets” before other participants knew what Trump would say.

Kalshi froze his account before he withdrew over $90,000 in profits, referred the activity to the CFTC, and provided evidence from its onboarding and surveillance systems across more than a dozen Trump speeches.

Perez has cooperated with regulators, and the CFTC has declined public comment.

The Perez case centers on alleged access to information before publication. Truth API centers on speed after publication.

Either route can push a prediction contract from forecasting toward capturing an answer that one participant already knows or can process before most users.

Two clocks govern the trade

Kalshi’s rulebook bars people who possess material nonpublic information and people who can influence a contract’s resolution.

Those restrictions place an employee with advanced access to a speech inside a familiar enforcement framework. The CFTC has also told designated contract markets to maintain audit trails, conduct surveillance, and enforce rules against misuse of confidential information.

Truth API creates a separate problem because publication and distribution operate on different clocks.

Trump makes a post public at upload. A machine-readable feed can then transmit and classify it before a retail user receives a notification, refreshes the app, or reads the text.

Political event contracts sharpen that problem because a sentence, word, or policy announcement can settle the economic meaning of a position within seconds.

A contract on whether Trump mentions tariffs during a speech becomes vulnerable once staff can read the prepared text. A contract that tracks a Truth Social announcement can become vulnerable at the instant an API detects decisive language.

That creates a short interval in which trading can continue after a machine has identified the outcome. During that interval, the fastest trader can engage in post-publication arbitrage against participants who still believe they face an unresolved event.

Trump Media’s ownership adds a political layer to the commercial product, since the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust holds about 41% of the company’s outstanding shares, and Trump’s children oversee the trust.

Senator Ron Wyden said the feed would benefit the Trump family and Wall Street firms, and Reuters reported that Trump Media left its inquiry about unequal trading opportunities unanswered.

A platform can prohibit a White House employee from using a confidential script, then apply a different set of controls to a hedge fund that buys lawful access to a published post and routes the text into an algorithm.

The publication gap

A venue could close a speech contract before prepared remarks reach production staff, then settle it from an authoritative transcript. That design would reduce live volume while removing the period in which event workers know more than traders.

A venue could also record the authoritative publication timestamp, compare it with every order timestamp, and pause trading once the source releases decisive information. Trades that arrive during a defined detection window could enter review before settlement.

A post may contain ambiguous language, edits, deleted text, or a link whose content supplies the answer. Exchanges would need source archives, synchronized clocks, and rules that explain which timestamp governs resolution.

The CFTC has placed front-line responsibility on exchanges to monitor event contracts and protect market participants from abusive practices.

Kalshi can connect an order to a verified customer, employment disclosure, and account history.

Crypto-native venues face a thinner identity layer. Wallet clustering can connect addresses and funding paths, but a wallet alone cannot show whether its controller works for the White House, bought an API subscription, or runs a fast bot.

Institutional-grade on-chain markets would need stronger identity checks for sensitive contracts, alerts that reference source timestamps, and cross-venue cooperation when related wallets trade on the same political event.

The CFTC has already shown attention to insider access, while Polymarket has pointed to real-time surveillance, investigations and regulatory referrals as part of its market-integrity framework.

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Market integrity scenarios

In the bull case, platforms adopt pre-speech cutoffs, automatic source-triggered pauses, and auditable timestamp rules.

Regulated venues add employment disclosures for sensitive contracts, and on-chain operators apply identity checks to high-value political markets. Prices preserve value as forecasts because venues close the publication gap before speed turns resolution into an arbitrage contest.

In the bear case, political markets keep trading through the interval between machine detection and broad human awareness.

More staffers, contractors, and paid-feed customers convert timing advantages into profits across speeches, posts, and policy announcements. Prediction odds then reflect information leakage and latency capture, weakening their use as measures of collective expectations.

Truth API can operate as a lawful commercial data product, according to a lawyer Reuters interviewed.

Prediction markets now need separate defenses for confidential knowledge and premium-speed public data, because either route can allow a participant to trade an answer that the rest of the market still treats as a forecast.

The post Trump posts may soon reach trading bots before users and prediction markets are not ready appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Washington just gave one of the world's largest digital currencies a more official place in the US financial system.

On July 10, Circle won final approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to open a national trust bank under federal supervision.

Circle called it a major step for USDC, as the approval makes it easier for banks, payment firms, asset managers, and corporate treasury desks to treat USDC as something solid enough to build around.

However, banks see the same approval and draw a different conclusion. In January, Standard Chartered said stablecoins could pull about $500 billion from US bank deposits by the end of 2028. The Federal Reserve has sketched out an even wider range of possible outcomes.

A December 2025 FEDS Note said stablecoin adoption could cut lending by anywhere from $65 billion to $1.26 trillion, depending on the extent of adoption and where issuers keep their reserves.

So Circle now has a federal banking charter, but it isn’t the kind of charter that turns it into a lender with branches, checking accounts, and insured deposits: its new entity is a national trust bank.

Circle’s own announcement says Circle National Trust will open with fiduciary digital-asset custody for Circle and its affiliates, while reserve management stays on the list of future capabilities. The OCC’s conditional approval, issued on December 12, 2025, described the proposed institution as a “trust bank” conducting “trust-company” activities and made clear that the bank itself remains separate from the stablecoin-issuance function.

Circle got a federal trust-bank structure around custody and fiduciary services. It didn't take on the ordinary business of gathering retail deposits and recycling them into mortgages, business loans, and local credit. But that’s still a meaningful victory for the company because federal supervision gives institutional counterparties a clearer regulatory frame for using USDC.

For banks, especially smaller ones, it sharpens a long-running fear. Stablecoins can gain official legitimacy and broader institutional adoption while competing with deposit-taking institutions that still carry the old obligations and the old funding model.

The charter is essentially an upgrade to Circle's credibility. Stablecoins have spent years in an awkward category somewhere between crypto trading infrastructure and serious financial infrastructure, and OCC supervision pushes USDC further into the second category.

That lines up with the broader direction in Washington, as reported in CryptoSlate’s coverage of the GENIUS Act. The policy fight has moved past whether stablecoins should exist, and the main argument now is about how they should be supervised, where they fit in the financial system, and how close they should be allowed to get to deposit-like products.

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Circle’s transparency page, updated July 13, showed $72.95 billion in USDC in circulation and reserve components totaling about $73.15 billion. About $11.55 billion was held in bank deposits. The remaining $61.60 billion was held in overnight reverse Treasury repo and Treasury bills with maturities under three months. That reserve structure keeps dollars inside the financial system, but it also channels most of them away from ordinary bank deposit funding.

Circle now changes who funds the loans

The usual shorthand says stablecoins pull money out of banks, but that's not exactly how it works.

A customer can withdraw $1,000 from a regional bank and use it to buy USDC. Circle then places the reserve behind that USDC in cash, repo, or Treasury bills. The seller of those Treasury bills can end up with a deposit at another bank. So the dollars are still in the system; it's just the funding that has moved.

However, that's also the main issue the banks have with stablecoins.

A regional lender doesn’t make loans based on national dollar totals, but on the deposits it can actually keep. If those balances migrate to a giant institution, a Treasury-heavy reserve structure, or some other short-term parking place, the local bank loses a cheap and stable funding source. That's how a stablecoin can change credit conditions even when the aggregate stock of dollars barely changes.

The December 2025 FEDS Note treats the issue as a funding problem rather than a culture-war fight between bankers and crypto companies. The paper shows that the outcome depends on three basic things: where stablecoin demand comes from, what users are giving up when they buy stablecoins, and where issuers place the reserve.

Its lending estimates range from $65 billion to $141 billion in a low-adoption case, $190 billion to $408 billion in a moderate case, and $600 billion to $1.26 trillion in a high-adoption case that assumes issuers gain access to Federal Reserve master accounts.

That range is so wide because the transmission mechanism is wide. Stablecoins can change the composition of funding long before they produce any dramatic change in the quantity of dollars. For community and regional banks, that composition is the whole game. Deposits that move into a systemically important bank or into a reserve structure dominated by repo and Treasury bills still exist, but they stop working as low-cost funding for local lenders.

Circle’s own reserve mix makes the pressure easy to see. Roughly 84% of the reserve was held in repo and short-dated Treasuries as of July 13, while about 16% was held in bank deposits. That's the sort of structure a stablecoin issuer would want after the 2023 USDC shock tied to Silicon Valley Bank, as it emphasizes liquidity, short duration, and assets that can be defended easily under stress.

But from the point of view of a small lender, that structure means transactional balances are being pulled away from relationship banking and redirected toward government-backed reserve assets.

That shift also affects credit. A smaller bank that loses deposits has a limited number of choices. It can pay more to keep depositors, which compresses margins. It can replace the funding in wholesale markets, which is usually more expensive and less stable. It can shrink balance-sheet growth, or it can lend less.

That's why the stablecoin debate is, at its core, a debate about credit. As stablecoins get easier to use, deposits get harder to keep, and as deposits get harder to keep, credit gets harder to supply.

Yield on stablecoins only makes this a more complicated issue for banks. A stablecoin used mainly for payments already competes with ordinary transaction balances because it offers speed, portability, and round-the-clock settlement. Add third-party rewards, exchange incentives, or adjacent tokenized cash products, and the product starts to compete with savings, too.

CryptoSlate’s coverage of the GENIUS Act already scratched the surface of how big a policy concern this could become. We're now seeing banks and regulators wondering how close a private digital dollar should be allowed to get to a bank deposit before regulators decide it should be treated like one.

Banks often compare stablecoins with money-market funds, and the Federal Reserve’s May 2026 follow-up note shows why. Stablecoins move on programmable, cross-border rails with instant settlement. They can spread through digital platforms much faster than earlier deposit competitors. They also have an international dimension because foreign demand for dollar stablecoins can offset some domestic outflows if reserve cash stays in US banks.

Banks already understand the threat well enough to start building tokenized deposits and bank-backed stablecoins of their own. That is what an industry does when it sees a new product category coming directly at its funding base.

Circle’s charter gave its institutional counterparties a stronger reason to see USDC as something they could integrate into custody, settlement, and treasury operations without taking the same reputational leap they had to make a few years ago. That doesn't guarantee mass adoption, and it doesn't settle every open legal issue around stablecoins.

However, it does make the next stage easier to picture. More institutions can now actually use USDC, and more payment and settlement volume can move through a privately issued digital dollar with stronger federal backing than before.

Better supervised dollar infrastructure can deepen liquidity, widen usage, and make onchain dollars more useful in ordinary financial activity. CryptoSlate’s recent coverage of stablecoin demand and payment growth has already pointed in that direction.

But the banks' point of view is much different. One sector’s improved settlement rail can weaken another sector’s deposit franchise.

Circle’s OCC approval is therefore much bigger than a regulatory milestone for one issuer. It's a sign of where the US wants stablecoins to go.

Washington is no longer treating them as a temporary byproduct of crypto trading, and it's giving at least some of them a path into federal supervision, even as banks keep warning that the same products can chip away at the funding base behind local credit.

The old legitimacy fight is fading. The harder fight, over who holds the dollars and who loses the lending power attached to those dollars, is just getting started.

The post Circle became a federal trust bank – now lenders warn stablecoins is projected to drain $500 billion appeared first on CryptoSlate.

On the eve of the GENIUS Act’s first anniversary, the stablecoin market holds about $310 billion, including roughly $184 billion in USDT and $73 billion in USDC.

President Donald Trump signed the law on July 18, 2025, creating a federal framework with one-for-one liquid reserves, redemption rights, and monthly reserve disclosures for a market that moved faster than the rulebook.

Federal Reserve researchers measured stablecoin capitalization at $317 billion on Apr. 6, up more than 50% from early 2025, and recorded a 50% increase in Ethereum stablecoin transaction volume since enactment. As of July 17, core implementation measures are still in proposal form.

Kyle Sonlin, president and co-founder of Global Settlement Network, said his conversations with governments and institutions now start from acceptance of stablecoins as financial infrastructure, and his team spends “far less time explaining why stablecoins matter.”

Permission reached the sales desk

Sonlin described GENIUS as a credible federal direction that let banks, payment companies, and infrastructure providers commit money to longer-term plans.

He said that financial infrastructure rarely reorganizes within 12 months, and companies kept preparing for a regulated stablecoin market as agencies worked through implementation.

Triple-A CEO Eric Barbier sees the commercial result inside the enterprise sales funnel. His payment company has recorded more businesses moving from evaluation toward implementation, plus a “marked reduction” in sales cycles for enterprise customers that enable stablecoin payments through its platform.

Barbier’s evidence covers Triple-A’s own pipeline, providing the legitimacy thesis with a concrete operational measure.

Visa’s expansion offers a larger institutional reference point, as its stablecoin settlement pilot supported nine blockchains by April and reached a $7 billion annualized settlement run rate, up 50% from the previous quarter.

On July 16, Visa introduced an enterprise platform that provides financial institutions and fintech firms with access to stablecoin storage, redemption, minting, and burning through a single Visa-managed environment.

The sales environment now has a recognized product, a federal direction, and payment incumbents building access layers.

Deployment depends on banks, custody arrangements, reserve operations, and compliance teams that interpret unfinished rules for each relationship.

Banking friction survives

Diogo Cassinelli, sales and partnerships manager at Trace Finance, said that clarity on issuance addressed half of the operating problem.

Cross-border payment companies still need each banking partner to make an independent compliance judgment about how stablecoins enter accounts, leave accounts and settle across jurisdictions.

Cassinelli said those reviews add “months to timelines that should take weeks,” and the cost repeats whenever an operator enters a new country or adds another bank.

Stablecoin providers can close a customer faster under GENIUS, then spend longer connecting that customer to the banks and payment providers that move the money.

Enterprise buyers now understand the use case and accept the federal direction. Banking partners still need a shared legal and supervisory standard that lets compliance teams approve the same activity consistently.

Edwin Mata, CEO and co-founder of Brickken, placed that plumbing inside a larger capital-markets architecture.

Regulated dollars can provide the cash leg for tokenized securities, private credit, investment funds, and asset servicing. The US opportunity extends from payment acceptance into issuance, distribution, and settlement across on-chain financial products.

Regulatory access sets the field

Alex Witt, general partner at Verda Ventures, gave the first-year verdict a harder edge. He credited GENIUS with legitimizing the sector and drawing institutional firms into the federal perimeter.

Witt also argued that charter decisions and product launches can give selected firms an early advantage before regulators complete the operating rules.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency conditionally approved national trust bank applications or conversions involving Ripple, Fidelity Digital Assets, BitGo, Paxos, and First National Digital Currency Bank in December 2025.

Tether launched USA₮ in January 2026, with Anchorage Digital Bank as the issuer and Cantor Fitzgerald as the reserve custodian and preferred primary dealer.

Those moves show companies building toward GENIUS before its effective date. They also concentrate early access among firms that already have capital, legal teams, banking partners, and federal relationships.

Startups face the same unfinished framework with fewer resources to absorb repeated compliance reviews.

The OCC opened its broad implementation proposal in February, and Federal agencies published an interagency customer-identification proposal in June. Public comments stay open through Aug. 21, more than a month beyond the anniversary deadline Congress set for regulations.

The January test

The Senate Banking Committee advanced the CLARITY Act 15-9 on May 14, leaving the bill short of a floor vote.

In the bull case, final GENIUS rules and further CLARITY progress give banks a common compliance reference, contract integration timelines, and turn regulated stablecoins into routine settlement assets for payments and tokenized markets.

The bear case gives early access durable value, as conditional charter approvals, incumbent payment networks, and established banking partnerships let a small group define distribution before smaller firms can comply at comparable speed.

GENIUS then legitimizes the category and channels much of its commercial value toward companies that entered the federal perimeter first.

The statute takes effect on the earlier of Jan. 18, 2027, or 120 days from the date federal regulators issue final implementing regulations.

The first year lowered the cost of persuasion, and the six months through Jan. 18 will show whether federal rules can lower the cost of connection too.

The post One year later, GENIUS Act just made stablecoins easier to sell appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Federal prosecutors have charged a 21-year-old Florida resident and student, Zyaire Wilkins, over an alleged scheme that hid crypto-stealing malware inside video games uploaded to Steam. Once victims downloaded and installed the games, the malware quietly harvested passwords and personal data and drained their crypto wallets. On Tuesday, the FBI arrested Wilkins, and on Wednesday prosecutors accused him and a number of unnamed co-conspirators of hacking crimes.

What actually happened on Steam?

According to a federal criminal complaint, Wilkins and his alleged partners published multiple malware-laced games over roughly two years. Over the past two years, Wilkins and his partners allegedly published several malware-laden video games on Steam, including BlockBlasters, Dashverse, Lampy, Lunara, and PirateFi. Some reporting on the broader FBI investigation lists additional titles including Chemia, DashFPS and Tokenova.

The games weren't broken shells — they were built to pass as the real thing. All the games were designed to look legitimate, to the point that players could install them and play them, but they all contained malware. That's what made the operation effective: victims had no obvious reason to suspect the title they were playing was siphoning their credentials in the background.

How much crypto was stolen?

The numbers are significant for a scheme run through consumer gaming titles. Using that malware, says the FBI, Wilkins and his accomplices infected around 8,000 victims, and then hacked around 80 cryptocurrency wallets to steal at least $220,000 worth of crypto. The alleged campaign ran between May 2024 and February 2026.

The infected games were pushed hard across social channels. The FBI said the group promoted the games on Discord, Telegram, X, and LinkedIn while using bots to identify users with large cryptocurrency holdings and send targeted messages encouraging them to install the games. In other words, the operation didn't just wait for random downloads — it appears to have deliberately hunted high-value crypto holders.

How did the FBI track him down?

This is where the case gets almost comical. Investigators followed the money out of the scheme's Bitcoin wallet and into gift cards. Investigators put a name to the scheme by following stolen Bitcoin to more than 150 gift cards, most of them spent on Uber Eats.

From there, the trail led straight to Wilkins' door. A subpoena to Uber matched the cards to an account with deliveries at Wilkins' family home and his addresses at the University of West Florida. When agents searched the North Lauderdale residence, they seized several devices and three cryptocurrency wallet seed phrases, one belonging to a Monero wallet. The complaint also notes his crypto history: Wilkins' transaction history showed $382,000 in cryptocurrency sent or received, per the complaint. 

What charges does he face?

Wilkins was arrested Tuesday and charged with conspiracy to obtain information by computer for private financial gain — a count that carries up to a decade in prison. The case is being prosecuted in Seattle, near the Washington headquarters of Steam owner Valve. It's the first arrest tied to the FBI's broader Steam malware investigation, which the bureau went public with back in March. Wilkins' attorney has not commented on the allegations.

The US national debt has climbed to a fresh record, rounding to roughly $39.5 trillion as of mid-2026 — with the Treasury's daily "Debt to the Penny" figures setting new highs through July. It's a number so large it stops meaning anything. So let's do the only thing that makes it real: break it down to what it does to your household, your money, and your crypto.

What does $39.5 trillion actually mean?

Start with the per-household math, because that's where the abstraction ends. Total gross national debt now works out to roughly $115,000 per person and about $292,000 per household in the US. Over the past year alone, the debt grew by around $2.8 trillion — roughly $7.7 billion per day.

Two data points matter more than the headline number:

• The pace. The debt crossed $39 trillion in March 2026 and is on track to hit $40 trillion before the end of the year — a level the US isn't projected to reach in annual GDP until the 2030s. The gap between what the country produces and what it owes keeps widening.
• The interest bill. This is the part that actually touches households. Net interest on the debt is projected near $1.04 trillion for FY2026 — about $7,700 per household just to service the tab, and rising. Interest is on track to eat close to 14% of all federal spending.

That last point is the bridge from a government ledger to your kitchen table.

How does this hit normal households?

The debt doesn't send you a bill directly. It reaches you through three quieter channels.

1. Higher borrowing costs. The $31+ trillion in publicly held debt competes with households and businesses for the same pool of lendable money. When Washington borrows this heavily, it puts upward pressure on interest rates across the board — meaning a more expensive mortgage, pricier car loans, and higher credit-card rates for ordinary people.
2. Inflation pressure and the value of your cash. When a government owes this much, there's a persistent political temptation to let inflation run slightly hot, because inflation quietly shrinks the real value of the debt — and, at the same time, the real value of the dollars sitting in your bank account. Debt this large makes hard money discipline politically harder to sustain.
3. Crowded-out priorities. Every dollar going to interest is a dollar not going to anything else. As debt service climbs toward 14% of the federal budget, it competes with everything from infrastructure to tax relief — and that structural squeeze is a drag on wage growth and job creation over time.

The through-line: a debt this size is fundamentally a story about the long-term purchasing power of the dollar. And that is exactly where it collides with crypto.

How does this change people's crypto habits?

This is where the debt stops being a macro headline and starts shaping behavior. When people lose confidence in the long-term value of fiat, they look for assets that governments can't print more of. That instinct drives a few very real shifts:

• The "debasement trade." A fixed-supply asset like $BTC — capped at 21 million coins — becomes attractive precisely because no central authority can inflate its supply to paper over a fiscal hole. Rising debt is one of the cleanest arguments in the Bitcoin-as-hard-money thesis.
• A hedge, not just a bet. For a growing share of ordinary holders, crypto shifts from a speculative flyer to a deliberate hedge against currency debasement — the same psychological slot gold has occupied for centuries, but easier to buy in small amounts.
• Dollar-cost averaging over timing. When the worry is a slow erosion of fiat rather than a single event, people tend to accumulate steadily rather than trade the news — treating $BTC and hard assets as a savings behavior, not a trade.

None of this is automatic, and it's worth being honest: crypto has often traded like a risk asset, selling off alongside stocks when markets get scared, rather than acting as a clean safe haven. The debasement thesis is a long-term argument, not a guarantee that $BTC rises every time the debt clock ticks up.

And ultimately — what does it mean for the price?

The logic that connects a government ledger to a crypto chart runs through the dollar. If persistent, structural debt gradually weakens confidence in fiat and pushes real interest rates lower, that is historically a tailwind for scarce assets — gold first, and increasingly $BTC alongside it.

The bull case is straightforward: an ever-growing debt pile strengthens the core argument for a fixed-supply asset, and as more institutions and households treat $BTC as "digital gold," structural demand meets fixed supply — the textbook setup for higher prices over a long horizon.

The honest counterweight matters just as much. In the short term, crypto still moves on Federal Reserve policy, liquidity, and overall risk appetite far more than on the debt figure itself. A rising debt number does not translate into a rising $BTC price on any predictable timeline — and if the debt burden ever forced sharply higher interest rates, that could actually pull money out of risk assets, crypto included, at least temporarily.

The takeaway for a normal person isn't to panic-buy on a headline. It's to understand why so many people now hold a slice of hard assets: not because $39.5 trillion guarantees the next rally, but because a debt growing faster than the economy is a long-term bet against the purchasing power of cash — and crypto is one of the few ways an ordinary household can position on the other side of that bet.

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XRP is trading around $1.09, grinding against a descending trendline that has capped every rally since spring. The two-hour chart tells a tidy story: a lower-highs ceiling running down from the $1.30 zone, a hard floor at $1.00, and price boxed in the middle with RSI near 46 — momentum that is committed to neither a breakout nor a breakdown. So the real question for investors isn't just where $XRP goes next week. It's whether, at these levels, Ripple's token is actually worth buying in 2026.

Where is XRP right now?

The structure is a textbook squeeze. Since the June sell-off that dragged $XRP from roughly $1.30 down toward $1.00, price has carved out a consolidation range between $1.00 support and $1.15–$1.20 resistance, all of it underneath that yellow descending trendline.

The key levels to watch are clear:

• $1.00 — the psychological floor and the line separating a bounce from a deeper flush. A daily close below it opens an air pocket toward $0.80.
• **1.15–$1.20** — the overhead band XRP must reclaim and hold to argue the year-long downtrend is over.
• The descending trendline — currently the immediate lid on price. A clean break above it is the first technical signal bulls actually need.

RSI near 46 confirms the stalemate: buyers and sellers are balanced, volatility is compressed, and the market is waiting for a catalyst rather than trending on its own.

What could move the XRP price?

The chart is coiled, but the trigger is fundamental, not technical. The single biggest swing factor remains the CLARITY Act — the U.S. bill that would lock $XRP's status as a commodity into federal law and, in theory, unlock the institutional demand that ETFs and on-chain accumulation have been quietly building toward.

The catch is timing. The bill has cleared the House and the Senate Banking Committee, but it missed its July 4 target and now sits on the Senate calendar with a narrow window before the August recess. Prediction markets have been skeptical, and a slip past recess risks pushing the whole question toward 2027 as midterm politics take over.

On the numbers, forecasts cluster around a few scenarios:

• Bullish (CLARITY passes in the window): a re-rating toward $1.45–$2.20, with some analysts eyeing higher if ETF inflows reaccelerate and the Fed softens.
• Base case (consolidation): continued chop between $1.00 and $1.20 while the market waits.
• Bearish (vote stalls, BTC weak): a break of $1.00 exposing the $0.80 zone, with deeper levels below.

It's worth remembering that Standard Chartered cut its year-end 2026 target from $8.00 to $2.80 earlier this year — a reminder that even long-term bulls have reset expectations.

Is there still hope for XRP in 2026?

Yes — but hope here is conditional, not automatic. The bullish case rests on a genuine disconnect: while price has been flat-to-down, the fundamentals underneath have quietly improved. XRP ETFs pulled in well over $1 billion across a multi-week inflow streak, whale accumulation and XRPL wallet growth hit multi-month highs, and Ripple secured full MiCA authorization in Luxembourg, giving it a regulated foothold across the EEA.

Seasonality adds a small tailwind — July has historically been one of $XRP's stronger months. But that edge is far less reliable this year, because $XRP's price has become tightly correlated to the broader crypto tape. As several analysts have put it, no amount of good Ripple news has been able to override overall market mood — the token trades on Bitcoin's floor and the Fed's next move as much as its own story.

So the hope is real, but it lives or dies on two switches flipping: regulatory clarity arriving, and the broader market steadying. Fundamentals are loading the spring; they just haven't released it yet.

So, is XRP a good investment?

That depends entirely on your risk tolerance and time horizon — and this isn't financial advice. What the setup offers is a relatively defined risk/reward: a well-established $1.00 floor beneath current price, and a binary catalyst (CLARITY) that could re-rate the token sharply higher if it lands. For a risk-tolerant investor, that asymmetry is the appeal.

The counterweight is equally clear. The catalyst is genuinely uncertain — legislative outcomes are binary and can stall, weaken, or slip past their window entirely. Below $1.00 there is little technical support until the $0.80 area, and $XRP remains deeply correlated to a fragile broader market. Anyone treating this as a guaranteed rebound is ignoring how many things have to go right.

The honest summary: $XRP in 2026 is a catalyst trade wrapped around a strong support level. If you believe clarity is coming and the market steadies, the current range looks like accumulation. If you don't, you're paying for a bet that keeps getting delayed. Position size accordingly, and never risk more than you can afford to lose.

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Wall Street opened deep in the red as fresh escalation in the US–Iran conflict sent investors fleeing risk assets, with roughly $1 trillion in market value evaporating in the opening stretch of trading. The trigger: Iran responded to a fresh wave of US strikes by launching an attack on American military bases across several Gulf states.

This is now the sixth straight day of open hostilities. The US and Iran have intensified attacks beyond military targets, raising fears of a return to full war with no agreement reached over the Strait of Hormuz. Overnight, US forces struck southern Iran, hitting six road bridges according to Iranian state media, with separate reports of attacks near Bushehr — home to the country's only nuclear power plant — and Lorestan province.

The market reaction has been textbook risk-off: equities down hard, oil sharply higher, and safe havens bid.

Why did $1 trillion vanish at the open?

Two things spooked traders simultaneously — direct attacks on US bases and the threat to global energy supply. Kuwait activated its air defenses against missile and drone threats, Qatar said it intercepted a missile attack after booms were heard in Doha, and air raid sirens sounded in Bahrain after Iran claimed it targeted US aircraft at Sakhir Air Base.

The energy angle is the real accelerant. The Strait of Hormuz, located between Oman and Iran, is one of the world's most critical energy choke points, typically handling around 20% of global oil traffic. With Tehran asserting control over the waterway, any disruption feeds straight into inflation fears — and that's what's dragging equity valuations down.

What is happening to oil prices?

Crude is climbing fast as the blockade standoff drags on. Brent crude futures advanced 2.8% to trade around $78.14 per barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate rose 2.5% to $73.24. Higher oil means higher input costs, stickier inflation, and less room for rate cuts — a toxic mix for both stocks and risk assets like crypto.

Is crypto going to be affected?

It already is. As the image from CoinMarketCap shows, the major coins are flashing red across the 24-hour and 7-day windows. $BTC is trading around $63,407, down 1.78% on the day and 1.24% on the week. $ETH sits near $1,830, off 3.03% in 24 hours. $BNB (-2.93%), $XRP (-2.35%), and $SOL (-2.55%) are all lower.

So far the hit is modest — a small dip, not a capitulation. But that's exactly the point of caution. In every prior leg of this conflict, crypto has traded as a high-beta risk asset, selling off in sympathy with equities rather than acting as a safe haven. If Wall Street's $1 trillion opening loss deepens into a sustained selloff, crypto historically follows — and often amplifies — the move. Leverage in the system means a sharp equity leg down can trigger cascading liquidations across BTC and altcoins.

The warning is simple: the current crypto dip looks small, but it is directly correlated to a rapidly escalating geopolitical event with no resolution in sight. A single headline — a closed Strait, a US casualty, a broader Gulf entanglement — could turn today's modest red into something far steeper. Traders holding leveraged positions should be especially alert to overnight gap risk while headlines are moving this fast.

What should traders watch next?

Three triggers matter most from here: any confirmation of US casualties (which historically drives the sharpest volatility spikes), developments at the Strait of Hormuz, and whether oil breaks decisively above prior highs. Each would deepen the risk-off tone and put additional pressure on crypto.

Every bull run mints a hundred "Ethereum killers" and a thousand DeFi protocols promising 40,000% APY. Every bear market buries most of them. So the real question in 2026 isn't "what's the hottest new farm?" — it's "which platforms actually survived the exploits, the depegs, the regulatory squeeze, and the liquidity flight, and are still here holding real money?"

The answer is surprisingly short. A handful of protocols now anchor the entire ecosystem, and DefiLlama tracks DeFi TVL in the hundreds of billions across thousands of protocols — but the top ten capture the overwhelming majority of that capital. Below are the five that best combine size, staying power, and a business model that still works when the incentives dry up.

Why did most DeFi platforms die — and these didn't?

Before the list, it's worth understanding the filter. Surviving in DeFi means clearing four hurdles that killed everyone else. First, security: DeFi hacks have drained billions, and one bad oracle design or unaudited contract ends a protocol overnight. Second, sticky TVL: plenty of projects juiced their numbers with token emissions, then watched liquidity evaporate the moment rewards fell. Third, real revenue: a protocol that doesn't earn fees is just a subsidy program with a countdown timer. Fourth, regulatory endurance: with MiCA now shaping how Europeans access crypto, protocols that couldn't adapt got squeezed out of major markets.

The five below cleared all four. Here's who they are.

1. Lido — the liquid staking giant that refuses to shrink

Lido is the closest thing DeFi has to infrastructure. As a liquid staking protocol, it lets you stake ETH (and assets on several other chains) while handing you a liquid token — stETH — that you can then deploy across the rest of DeFi. Stake, stay liquid, keep earning. It's the killer feature that solved one of crypto's oldest problems: locked capital.

That utility has kept Lido perennially at or near the top of the TVL rankings, with the protocol still commanding well into the double-digit billions in 2026. The trade-off is concentration risk — Lido controls a large slice of all staked ETH, which raises legitimate governance and decentralization concerns. But its audits are battle-tested (with a public bug bounty running into the millions), and its 10% fee on staking rewards gives it one of the most durable revenue streams in the space. Lido didn't survive by hype. It survived by being useful every single day.

2. Aave — the lending blue-chip that keeps compounding

If Lido is DeFi's savings account, Aave is its bank. It pioneered the modern lending market: deposit assets to earn interest, or post collateral to borrow against it, all through smart contracts with no middleman. Aave also invented "flash loans" — uncollateralized loans that must be borrowed and repaid inside a single transaction — which became an industry-standard primitive.

In 2026, Aave remains the undisputed leader of DeFi lending, holding well over ten billion in TVL and consistently ranking as the single largest lending protocol, capturing a dominant share of the entire category. Crucially, it earns real money: borrow interest, liquidation fees, and flash-loan fees all feed the treasury, and since 2025 Aave has been buying back its own token with that revenue. Deep liquidity, wide multi-chain support (Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, Polygon, Avalanche and more), and the ongoing V4 upgrade keep it firmly in the "too important to fail" category.

3. Uniswap — the DEX that outlasted every "Uniswap killer"

Countless projects launched to dethrone Uniswap. None did. What began as a simple automated market maker is now a multi-chain trading powerhouse that routinely processes more volume than many centralized exchanges. Its V3 concentrated-liquidity model gave liquidity providers dramatically better capital efficiency, and UniswapX brought intent-based, MEV-protected, cross-chain swaps.

Uniswap's TVL — in the low-single-digit billions — looks modest next to the lending and staking giants, but that misreads how a DEX works. The right yardstick is volume and fees, and on that measure Uniswap sits at the very top of the DEX stack with meaningful annualized revenue. It launched V4 only after nine separate audits and a multi-million-dollar bug bounty. When people say "just swap it on-chain," they almost always mean Uniswap. That default-choice status is exactly why it's still here.

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4. Morpho — the efficiency layer that became a lending powerhouse

Morpho is the newest name on this list, and its survival story is different: it out-engineered the incumbents. It started as an optimization layer sitting on top of Aave and Compound to squeeze better rates out of them, then evolved into Morpho Blue — a minimal, flexible base layer where anyone can spin up an isolated lending market with its own risk parameters.

That architecture has propelled Morpho into the multi-billion-dollar TVL tier and made it one of the top lending venues in all of DeFi. It functions less like a fee-hungry treasury and more like neutral lending "rails," with curator-managed markets (run by risk specialists like Gauntlet) tuning parameters per market. It's audited, formally verified, contest-tested, and runs a live bug bounty. Morpho proves that in 2026 you can still break into the top tier — but only by being genuinely better infrastructure, not by paying people to show up.

5. Sky (formerly MakerDAO) — the original stablecoin machine

The protocol once known as MakerDAO — now rebranded as Sky — is the grandfather of decentralized stablecoins, and it's arguably the best pure business on this entire list. It issues a crypto-backed stablecoin against overcollateralized deposits, and its Sky Savings Rate gives holders a native yield that ripples across the ecosystem (its lending arm, Spark, tracks that rate directly).

Sky sits above six billion in TVL, but the headline number undersells it: its annualized revenue is far higher than most names here, making it a genuine cash machine rather than an incentive-fueled mirage. It runs one of the largest public bug-bounty programs in DeFi. More than a decade after its launch, Sky is still doing the same fundamental thing — turning volatile collateral into a stable, yield-bearing dollar — and still doing it profitably. That's what survival looks like.

Which DeFi platform is right for you in 2026?

There's a clear logic to these five. Want yield on ETH without locking it up? Lido. Want to lend, borrow, or leverage? Aave for depth and safety, Morpho for efficiency and higher rates. Want to trade or provide liquidity? Uniswap. Want a stablecoin backbone with real savings yield? Sky. Between them they cover staking, lending, trading, and stablecoins — the four load-bearing pillars of the entire on-chain economy.

A word of caution, though: TVL rankings move daily, and even blue-chips carry smart-contract, oracle, liquidation, and governance risk. Always verify live figures on DefiLlama before deploying capital, size your positions for the possibility of an exploit, and never chase a headline APY you can't explain. DeFi in 2026 is more mature than ever — but "mature" is not the same as "risk-free."

OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol or Anthropic's Claude Fable 5: Which one is right for you? The answer depends on your needs. Here's our review.

ECB board member Piero Cipollone laid out the three-layer threat banks face from digital payments, and pitched the digital euro as the only structural answer.

Input Output is handing its core infrastructure to outside teams as ADA gets a lift from an imminent protocol upgrade.

Moonshot AI's 2.8-trillion-parameter open-weight model sent chip stocks tumbling and gave Wall Street a Friday it would rather forget.

Moonshot AI's 2.8-trillion-parameter model tops Fable 5 on a creative writing benchmark and leads Arena AI's frontend code leaderboard—at Claude Sonnet pricing.

Bitcoin might be drawing close to the end of its bear phase as an onchain signal that has historically appeared near bottom levels has surfaced again.

Bitcoin's biggest question of what really happened to Satoshi Nakamoto lingers on.

SpaceX founder and big Dogecoin supporter Elon Musk has slid back to billionaire status after his net worth fell below $1 trillion as hype surrounding SpaceX fades.

Dogecoin bears face standstill with short liquidations hitting zero.

Important bundled fix amendment set to activate in the next 11 days, with countdown ongoing.

Key Highlights

• Galaxy Digital has locked in a 15-year naming rights agreement for Texas Tech University’s football venue, now called Galaxy Stadium
• The partnership designates Galaxy as Texas Tech Athletics’ official partner for digital assets and data center operations
• Galaxy runs the Helios data center facility in Dickens County, approximately 60 miles from campus, featuring 1.6 gigawatts of authorized capacity
• Galaxy Stadium will debut on September 5, 2026, when Texas Tech faces Abilene Christian in its season opener
• The Lone Star State continues to attract crypto companies, mining facilities, and blockchain-friendly regulations

In a significant move for collegiate sports branding, Galaxy Digital has secured a 15-year agreement with Texas Tech University to rebrand the school’s football facility as Galaxy Stadium, effective with the 2026 football season.

The partnership was revealed publicly on Friday, July 17, though neither party disclosed the financial parameters of the arrangement.

The inaugural contest at the rebranded venue is scheduled for September 5, when the Red Raiders kick off their season hosting Abilene Christian.

Partnership Details and Scope

The agreement extends beyond simple stadium branding. Galaxy will serve as the official partner for data center operations and digital assets across Texas Tech’s athletic department.

The collaboration aims to develop artificial intelligence initiatives, provide workforce development programs, and create opportunities for student-athletes related to name, image, and likeness monetization.

The official statement did not include specific investment amounts or implementation schedules for these planned initiatives.

Galaxy’s Regional Operations

Galaxy Digital maintains an established presence in West Texas. The company operates its Helios data center facility in Dickens County, located about 60 miles east of Lubbock.

The facility has received approval for 1.6 gigawatts of capacity dedicated to artificial intelligence and high-performance computing applications.

This stadium partnership strategically links Galaxy’s infrastructure operations with a prominent West Texas collegiate athletics program.

The state has emerged as a magnet for cryptocurrency and digital infrastructure enterprises. Companies including Riot Platforms, Cipher Mining, Core Scientific, CleanSpark, IREN, and Hut 8 maintain operations across Texas.

This past February, mining equipment manufacturer Canaan acquired a 49% ownership interest in three Texas-based mining facilities from Cipher Mining in a transaction valued at approximately $40 million.

More recently this month, MARA Holdings revealed intentions to purchase a two-gigawatt powered location in Texas for developing a campus dedicated to Bitcoin mining and high-performance computing operations.

Legislative Landscape and Political Investment

Texas has demonstrated strong policy support for the digital asset sector. Governor Greg Abbott enacted legislation in the previous year establishing the Texas Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.

State administrators began transitioning the reserve’s holdings from spot Bitcoin ETF investments to direct Bitcoin ownership in May.

Political action committees aligned with cryptocurrency interests have invested substantially in Texas electoral races. During May’s congressional primary runoff elections, industry-backed PACs deployed over $10 million supporting preferred candidates. All six candidates receiving support secured victories.

The Texas Tech stadium agreement represents another significant milestone in the state’s expanding cryptocurrency ecosystem, adding a high-profile college sports partnership to the mix.

While the 15-year duration ensures Galaxy maintains long-term visibility at Texas Tech, the complete financial value of the naming rights contract remains undisclosed.

The post Galaxy Digital Lands 15-Year Texas Tech Stadium Naming Rights Deal appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• The moderate scenario projects XRP between $5 and $8 by 2031, driven by growing institutional integration
• In an optimistic scenario, XRP could climb to $15–$25 if it captures significant global settlement market share
• A pessimistic outlook places XRP at $1–$2 should adoption stall or competitive pressures mount
• Exchange-traded fund flows may constrain circulating supply while boosting retail and institutional accessibility
• Across weighted probability scenarios, XRP’s 2031 target centers around $7.90

For years, XRP has maintained its position as one of the cryptocurrency sector’s most debated digital assets. Its specialized focus on facilitating international payments and serving institutional clients distinguishes it from broader platforms like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Following an extended period dominated by regulatory challenges, XRP has transitioned into a more promising chapter. Enhanced legal clarity, the introduction of regulated spot ETF products, and Ripple’s aggressive global partnership strategy have reignited attention from the investment community.

The central question facing investors today is straightforward: what price level could XRP realistically achieve by 2031?

For several years, Ripple has systematically developed relationships with financial institutions and payment service providers worldwide. Meanwhile, the XRP Ledger continues broadening its use cases beyond payments—venturing into tokenization of tangible assets, DeFi applications, and supporting the RLUSD stablecoin infrastructure.

Under moderate assumptions, XRP is projected to trade between $5 and $8 by the end of the decade. Such valuations would correspond to a total market capitalization spanning approximately $325 billion to $520 billion.

Optimistic Projection

The bullish forecast operates under the premise that XRP establishes itself as a dominant infrastructure layer for institutional transaction settlement and international money transfers.

The launch of XRP-based ETF products represents a critical growth driver in this scenario. These regulated investment vehicles have dramatically lowered barriers for traditional investors seeking exposure to the asset. Sustained inflows into these products could create supply constraints while simultaneously expanding demand channels.

Should the tokenized asset sector evolve into a multi-trillion-dollar market—and the XRP Ledger successfully captures a substantial portion of that activity—XRP’s total value could approach the $1 trillion threshold. Under these conditions, individual token prices would fall within the $15 to $25 range.

While this represents an aggressive projection, a growing number of long-term holders no longer consider it entirely implausible.

Pessimistic Projection

The primary vulnerability facing XRP centers on implementation challenges. Ripple’s payment infrastructure could achieve commercial success without necessarily translating into proportionate demand for the underlying XRP token.

Meanwhile, competitive pressure continues intensifying. Ethereum Layer 2 solutions, Solana’s payment rails, fiat-backed stablecoins, and emerging central bank digital currencies all represent viable alternatives for institutional payment settlement.

Under this less favorable scenario, XRP’s trading range could remain confined between $1 and $2 throughout the next half-decade.

XRP’s distinguishing characteristic remains its institutional orientation. Rather than positioning itself as a multipurpose blockchain platform, it’s strategically aligned as foundational infrastructure supporting the global financial system.

When factoring probability weights across bear, base, and bull scenarios, the blended price expectation for XRP by 2031 lands at approximately $7.90.

The post XRP Price Forecast 2031: Is $20 Within Reach? Breaking Down the Realistic Scenarios appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Highlights

• Major whale acquired 89,396 ETH valued at approximately $164.88 million across three days
• Ethereum declined 3.6% in the last 24 hours, currently hovering around $1,823
• US market sentiment stays bearish even with $68M in ETH ETF inflows recorded this week
• Network active addresses dropped to December lows while transaction volume surged to record highs
• Crypto analyst Michaël van de Poppe projects ETH could reach $2,200–$2,400 with $1,780 support intact

Ethereum currently trades around $1,823 following a 3.6% decline in the past day. The cryptocurrency pushed toward $1,944 three days earlier but faced resistance, retreating to $1,819 before staging a modest bounce.

While prices declined, significant whale movements emerged. Blockchain monitoring service Lookonchain identified two freshly established wallets that pulled 20,000 ETH from Coinbase Prime across two separate 10,000 ETH transactions totaling $37.72 million. This same whale entity had previously acquired 30,000 ETH valued at $57.6 million on July 16, pushing its three-day accumulation to 89,396 ETH worth roughly $164.88 million.

Data from CryptoQuant’s Spot Average Order Size indicator revealed substantial whale-sized orders occurring for seven straight days. That said, the metric captures both buy and sell orders, confirming heightened whale activity without indicating directional bias.

According to CoinGlass analytics, Ethereum’s Spot Netflow stayed negative for the second consecutive day at -$23.6 million compared to -$49 million previously. This indicates ongoing but decelerating net outflows from exchanges.

Mixed Network Fundamentals

US-based spot Ethereum ETFs are poised to finish the week with $68 million in combined net inflows spanning Monday through Thursday. Exchange reserves have simultaneously decreased by 253,000 ETH since July 5, indicating investors are transferring holdings to personal wallets.

Despite these positive signals, the Coinbase Premium Index—which measures US institutional demand—continues trading in negative territory. Ethereum network active addresses have contracted to a 14-day simple moving average of 397,000, marking the lowest reading since December, even while daily transactions climbed to an all-time high of 2.65 million.

The amount of staked ETH has climbed to an unprecedented 40.93 million ETH. Much of this increase, however, stems from a single participant: treasury management firm BitMine Immersion, which has staked 4.9 million ETH since December.

Technical Outlook and Key Levels

The Balance of Power indicator shifted dramatically from 0.93 to -0.61, signaling that sellers currently dominate near-term price momentum.

Looking at the daily timeframe, Ethereum maintains its position above the 20- and 50-day exponential moving averages positioned at $1,791 and $1,812 respectively. Immediate resistance appears at $1,909, followed by $1,942 and $2,018. Downside support levels include $1,806, with stronger zones at $1,741 and $1,524.

Prominent crypto trader Michaël van de Poppe (@CryptoMichNL) stated on X that Ethereum hitting $2,000 soon is “incredibly more likely,” pointing to an emerging uptrend and solid support maintaining at $1,780. He outlined subsequent price targets between $2,200 and $2,400, emphasizing that the market structure “shouldn’t be overcomplicated.”

Over the past 24 hours, ETH saw $91.4 million in total liquidations, with long positions accounting for $61 million of that figure.

The post Ethereum (ETH) Price Retreats 7% as Whale Accumulates $165M — Recovery Ahead? appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao argued on X that Bitcoin offers inflation protection unlike artificial intelligence
• The cryptocurrency’s capped supply of 21 million coins contrasts sharply with AI firms’ unlimited share dilution potential
• Zhao previously projected Bitcoin could reach $1 million by 2033 based on historical growth patterns
• BTC surged past $65,000 following softer-than-expected US producer price index data
• Upcoming AI company IPOs like OpenAI and Anthropic could temporarily divert investment away from cryptocurrency markets

Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao ignited discussion across crypto circles this week with a succinct post on X that garnered 1.3 million impressions. His message was brief and pointed: “AI is great, but it does not protect you against inflation. Bitcoin does.” The statement stood alone without further elaboration or supporting thread.

The comment resonated widely because it established a distinct boundary between two dominant investment narratives defining the current market cycle. Market participants have increasingly found themselves choosing between Bitcoin and AI equities as both assets vie for speculative investment dollars.

The Significance of Bitcoin’s Supply Cap

Zhao’s position hinges on the concept of scarcity. Bitcoin operates with an immutable ceiling of 21 million coins. This quantity remains permanently fixed regardless of central bank policies or government monetary expansion programs.

Artificial intelligence corporations face no comparable constraint. These companies maintain the ability to dilute existing shareholders through new equity issuance, accumulate debt, and scale operations without limitation. While such expansion can benefit shareholders financially, it fails to provide equivalent safeguards against monetary devaluation.

Traditional fiat currencies depreciate approximately 6 to 7 percent each year according to various economic analyses. Government bonds have generated negative inflation-adjusted returns throughout much of the recent decade. AI-focused equities have delivered strong nominal gains, yet strong performance differs fundamentally from inflation hedging capability.

Current Bitcoin Valuation and Economic Context

Bitcoin currently trades around the $63,000 level, representing approximately a 50 percent decline from its record peak. Most market observers classify this as bear market conditions.

However, the cryptocurrency recently climbed above $65,000 after United States producer price data registered below market consensus. The weaker inflation print diminished speculation regarding additional Federal Reserve interest rate increases.

Ethereum similarly benefited from the macroeconomic development, pushing back above the $1,900 threshold in the same timeframe. These price movements demonstrated that Bitcoin remains highly responsive to monetary policy expectations and global liquidity dynamics.

Zhao maintains his bullish long-term perspective. Earlier this month, he presented a scenario projecting Bitcoin could reach $1 million by 2033 across two market cycles, utilizing historical growth multipliers ranging from three to five times per cycle. He noted the previous cycle generated weaker returns around 2x, attributing this partially to AI companies capturing capital that might otherwise have flowed into digital assets.

Potential Capital Competition from AI Public Offerings

Anticipated initial public offerings from OpenAI and Anthropic have generated renewed concerns about capital allocation strategies. Substantial IPOs typically force institutional investors to liquidate existing holdings in order to finance new equity positions.

Several former cryptocurrency mining operations have pivoted toward AI-focused infrastructure. TeraWulf currently pursues financing for an artificial intelligence data facility tied to a two-decade partnership with Anthropic, representing a strategic shift from its original mining operations.

Zhao has publicly expressed preference for AI infrastructure plays including data centers and computational hardware. Nevertheless, his conviction regarding Bitcoin remains unchanged. He views these asset classes as fulfilling distinct investment objectives.

Bitcoin represents the inflation protection vehicle. Artificial intelligence represents the growth opportunity. In Zhao’s framework, investors must recognize this fundamental distinction.

The post Bitcoin (BTC) Outperforms AI as Inflation Safeguard, Says Former Binance CEO CZ appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• BTC recovered to approximately $63,972 on Saturday following mid-week losses
• Moonshot AI, a Beijing-based company, unveiled Kimi K3, surpassing leading models from OpenAI and Anthropic
• Technology and cryptocurrency markets experienced turbulence as the AI breakthrough challenged assumptions about costly infrastructure requirements
• Mining operations with AI and high-performance computing agreements may face reduced profitability from cost-efficient alternatives
• Market watchers predict potential movement toward $74,000–$76,000, though downside risk to the low $50,000 range persists

Bitcoin staged a recovery approaching $64,000 on Saturday following several challenging days triggered by an unexpected Chinese artificial intelligence announcement and diminishing prospects for United States cryptocurrency regulatory reform.

Trading at $63,972 during early Saturday hours, BTC climbed from its weekly bottom of $62,505. The cryptocurrency had earlier approached $65,000 following the release of softer inflation figures from the United States.

Market sentiment shifted when Moonshot AI, headquartered in Beijing, introduced Kimi K3, an open-weight artificial intelligence system. The model achieved a score of 1,679 on a prominent frontend coding evaluation, surpassing Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 at 1,631 and OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 at 1,618.

Featuring 2.8 trillion parameters, the system employs a mixture-of-experts architecture that selectively activates portions of its framework for specific tasks. Complete model weights will become publicly available on July 27.

This development unsettled financial markets by suggesting that advanced AI capabilities need not remain scarce or prohibitively expensive. Bitcoin’s price movements have increasingly mirrored semiconductor equities due to strengthening connections with the AI investment landscape.

Mining Operations Face New Challenges

Publicly traded Bitcoin mining companies that have pivoted capacity toward artificial intelligence and high-performance computing applications face particular vulnerability. Should efficient systems like Kimi K3 diminish requirements for premium data center infrastructure, the financial viability of existing agreements could deteriorate.

Market analyst Daan Crypto Trades observed that BTC struggled to breach its local trading boundary, with the 4-hour 200 EMA temporarily holding before experiencing a bearish retest. He characterized recent trading patterns as “very choppy” and consistent with typical summer market dynamics.

Analyst Ted Pillows emphasized that Bitcoin must successfully reclaim the $65,000 threshold before substantial upward momentum can materialize.

Technical Outlook and Price Projections

Castillo Trading forecasts Bitcoin may advance toward the $74,492–$76,696 range before a post-midterm correction drives prices toward $51,000–$56,000. This target zone encompasses the 2025 yearly opening price and multiple volume-based resistance thresholds.

Justin Bennett’s liquidity analysis suggests BTC could initially retreat toward $61,300, rebound to $67,300, then experience another downward movement. A decisive break above $67,300 with sustained holding would signal improved market conditions.

Bitcoin currently trades within a range bounded by $60,000 support and $70,000 resistance, with the median positioned near $70,000. Recapturing $65,683 represents the initial milestone toward reaching that upper boundary.

The post Bitcoin (BTC) Recovers After Chinese AI Breakthrough Disrupts Markets appeared first on Blockonomi.

Notional volume on prediction markets climbed sharply in the second quarter of 2026 and reached $113.8 billion, up 48.7% from the previous quarter.

CoinGecko found that the momentum accelerated in June, when monthly notional volume surged to a record $50.7 billion, which represented a 92% increase from the average monthly volume of $27.5 billion posted over the prior five months.

Sports Drive June Surge

In its latest report, CoinGecko attributed the spike to a packed calendar of major sporting events beginning in late May, such as the UEFA Champions League Final, Stanley Cup, NBA Finals, FIFA World Cup, and Wimbledon. The sports-driven activity was particularly evident on Polymarket, where sports-related contracts accounted for 81% of trading volume in June, as opposed to 40% in January.

Despite this increase in sports trading, Polymarket’s market share declined quarter-over-quarter from 35.8% to 30.2%. On the other hand, Kalshi has managed to expand its lead after increasing its share from 42.4% in the first quarter to almost 58.9% in the second.

Meanwhile, Rothera, the Robinhood/Susquehanna International Group joint venture launched in May, quickly climbed to fourth place in June with $2.1 billion in notional volume.

Wall Street and Big Tech Into the Race

Prediction markets gained momentum. Last month, Cboe Global Markets launched Cboe Predicts, its new prediction markets platform featuring securities-based binary option contracts tied to the Mini-S&P 500 Index. The contracts, trading under the symbols XSPBW and XSPBX, are already available through Interactive Brokers, while Charles Schwab is expected to add access in the coming months.

Cboe also said more brokerage firms are likely to support the products over time. The contracts allow traders to take a “yes” or “no” position on whether the Mini-S&P 500 Index will settle at or above a specified level at expiration.

Additionally, the New York Times reported that Meta is developing a standalone prediction markets app called Arena, where users would predict real-world outcomes using points instead of real money. According to the report, the experimental project is a top priority for CEO Mark Zuckerberg and could eventually expand to real-money betting. The initiative follows Meta’s earlier Forecast app, a points-based prediction platform launched in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic before being discontinued in 2022.

The post Sports Events Push Prediction Market Trading to Record Highs in June appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Ethereum remains trapped below a major higher-timeframe resistance cluster despite recovering strongly from its June lows. The recent rejection near local highs has pushed the asset back into an important support zone, while the price is approaching a technical decision point that should determine whether buyers can extend the recovery toward higher resistance or whether another corrective leg unfolds.

ETH Price Analysis: The Daily Chart

On the daily timeframe, ETH continues to trade below the descending 100-day and 200-day moving averages, confirming that the broader market structure remains bearish despite the recent rebound.

The asset recently failed to sustain a move above the short-term resistance around $1.9K and has now pulled back into the $1.75K-$1.85K demand zone. This region has acted as support throughout the current recovery and now represents the first line of defense for buyers.

As long as Ethereum holds above this area, another push toward the major decision zone between $2K and $2.15K remains possible. This region also aligns with the descending long-term trendline and the declining 100-day moving average, making it the most significant resistance cluster on the daily chart.

A successful breakout above this confluence would mark an important structural improvement, while rejection would likely shift attention back toward the long-term demand zone around $1.45K-$1.55K.

ETH/USDT 4-Hour Chart

The 4-hour chart shows Ethereum pulling back after failing to extend above the recent swing high near $1.95K. The correction has pushed it back to the short-term demand zone around $1.76K-$1.84K, which has repeatedly attracted buyers over the past week.

This area now serves as the immediate support needed to preserve the sequence of higher lows established since early July. Holding above it could allow another attempt toward the upper boundary of the current recovery structure and eventually the daily resistance around $2K.

However, losing this demand zone would likely expose the lower support levels around $1.7K before buyers attempt another recovery.

Sentiment Analysis

The liquidation heatmap highlights a large concentration of short liquidations positioned above the current market, with the most notable liquidity cluster sitting around the $1.95K-$2K region.

Importantly, this liquidity pool aligns closely with the key technical resistance visible on both the daily and 4-hour charts. The cluster sits directly beneath the higher-timeframe supply zone around $2K-$2.15K and near the descending trendline, creating a strong confluence between derivatives positioning and technical resistance.

This alignment increases the probability that Ethereum could first stage an upside liquidity grab into the $1.95K-$2K area to sweep leveraged short positions before facing renewed selling pressure from the overhead supply zone. A decisive breakout through both the liquidity cluster and the daily resistance would invalidate this scenario and instead strengthen the case for a broader bullish reversal.

The post Ethereum Price Analysis: $2K Dream Remains on the Table as ETH Defends Key Levels appeared first on CryptoPotato.

It’s easy to get lost in the sea of news coming daily in the cryptocurrency world, from bitcoin price volatility to regulatory battles in Washington and everything in between. Sometimes, interesting stories are just passed by.

Here are four of the most intriguing news developments that went live in the past week and you might have missed.

North Korea-Linked Dev at MetaMask

According to an internal script obtained by Drop Site News, Consensys, the entity behind the popular Ethereum wallet MetaMask, confirmed that a consultant introduced through a third-party provider was later found to have links to North Korea. The reason for concern is that the country’s authorities have long employed hackers to infiltrate popular cryptocurrency projects, find or insert vulnerabilities, and later exploit them for their own benefit.

The developer in question worked with MetaMask for about a month and contributed to code related to the wallet before their access was terminated. Consensys said it temporarily suspended product releases to investigate the incident but found no evidence that assets or data were stolen, malicious code was deployed, or users were affected.

Knaken Goes Bankrupt

A Rotterdam court declared the local crypto exchange Knaken bankrupt after prosecutors alleged that approximately €7 million ($7.6 million) in customer funds were missing and could not be accounted for. Users were unable to access the platform for approximately a month since it halted operations in June.

The court concluded that Knaken did not have enough assets to repay all customers. This collapse comes at an intriguing time as the European Union just implemented its MiCA requirements, and it raises questions about how effectively the new regulatory framework can protect customers from platforms operating without the required authorization.

Injective Submits TA-1

The team behind the popular blockchain project said they submitted Form TA-1 to the US SEC to register as a transfer agent. If approved, Injective could maintain official ownership records for tokenized securities directly on-chain.

Transfer agents traditionally record ownership changes, process transfers, and help issuers maintain shareholder records. However, Injective’s new approach aims to represent a practical attempt to connect public blockchains with regulated US capital markets rather than simply using unregulated stock representations.

Injective has filed its transfer agent registration with the SEC, marking a major step towards becoming a leading blockchain with a regulated pathway to issue securities onchain.

This advances RWA market infrastructure in the New Internet Economy, right here in the US. pic.twitter.com/u97CMk1rBT

— Injective (@injective) July 16, 2026

Robinhood Chain Gains ETH Traction

Robinhood Chain’s first couple of weeks of existence have been quite overwhelming, especially for Ethereum. Reports emerged a few days ago that over $70 million worth of the altcoin was already bridged to the newly launched chain.

These significant early inflows suggest impressive interest in the new ecosystem, but the real test will be whether the liquidity remains after this initial hype period and develops into sustained trading and application usage. Is this indeed demand for tokenized assets rather than short-term speculative activity?

The post Here Are Four Important Crypto Stories You Might Have Missed This Week appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Ethereum (ETH) could be entering the final stage of a long-term bullish pattern that eventually sees it go as high as $22,000, according to new analysis shared by pseudonymous crypto commentator NoName on July 17.

While the projection is highly speculative, it has added to a growing debate over whether ETH’s June lows marked the start of a broader recovery.

Analyst Points to Long-Term Chart Patterns After ETH Rebound

According to a chart the market watcher shared on X, since 2021, Ethereum has been building what technical analysts call an expanding diagonal, consisting of five waves, with each successive wave becoming larger than the last one. They pointed out that the first four waves were already done, with the fourth having found support between $1,072 and $1,385.

“That’s the floor this entire structure was building toward,” NoName explained, adding that expanding diagonals often end with a fifth wave that breaks above the previous cycle high. They also compared ETH’s structure to a historical Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) fractal and said that both charts have a similar formation and could produce a similar breakout. Based on that interpretation, the projected target is anywhere from $12,000 to $22,000.

“Same structure, same resolution,” wrote the analyst. “Wave 5 target: 12k-22k.”

They also described ETH as “one of the most underpriced assets on the market” currently, suggesting that many people had given up on it, which could create an opportunity for long-term investors.

Another analyst, Crypto Patel, reached a similar conclusion using a different framework. In his version, he said that Ethereum has been following a Wyckoff accumulation pattern that could eventually lift the asset toward $10,000 by 2027 or 2028, provided the recent swing low around $1,500 remains intact. The trader also identified resistance between $2,400 and $2,600 and called it the first major hurdle the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency will have to overcome before any larger advance in its price could begin.

CryptoQuant contributor CW8900 also struck an optimistic note, sharing data showing that Ethereum wallets holding more than 100,000 ETH have gone back to green following the latest rebound. According to him, whales have only fallen into loss during major market bottoms, and their return to profit on many occasions has coincided with either a sustained rally or a meaningful short-term recovery.

The Other Side of the Coin

In June, ETH went very close to the $1,500 level, but softer-than-expected US inflation data released this week helped push it up to its highest level in a month and a half at $1,940 before sellers dragged it back below $1,900.

At the time of writing, CoinGecko data showed the asset trading close to $1,800, having dropped by about 5% in 24 hours but still up more than 3% during the past week.

But while those recent gains have improved sentiment, the market is not all rowing in the same direction. According to analyst Crypto Rover, a repeating 1,369-day cycle points to a scenario where ETH could move back below $1,500 before a lasting bottom forms.

The post Analyst Says Long-Term Bullish Setup Could Take Ethereum to $22K appeared first on CryptoPotato.

2026 has been quite interesting and unexpected in terms of investments. Gold and silver started the year strong with massive gains and new all-time highs, while BTC has been mostly trading downward.

While bitcoin’s correction intensified after the January rejection at $95,000, the two largest precious metals tumbled as well. Perhaps a large portion of gold’s losses could be attributed to how investors turned on the largest ETF tracking its performance.

Will GLD Stage a Comeback?

Data provided by the analysts at the Kobeissi Letter indicated that the world’s largest gold-backed ETF, World Gold Council’s GLD, has seen a substantial investor exodus that began in March this year. In the span of just the third month of the year, the financial vehicle lost a whopping $8.5 billion. This became the largest monthly withdrawal in GLD’s 22-year history.

This worrying trend eased to an extent in the following months, but red continued to dominate. Investors pulled out $1.7 billion in April, a more modest $872 million in May, and $3.2 billion in June. The mid-month data for July shows that the withdrawals have dropped to under $50 million, prompting the analysts to speculate whether the gold market is “setting up for a comeback.”

BREAKING: The largest US gold-backed ETF, $GLD, has recorded -$14.4 billion in outflows since March 1st.

This is 50% more than the -$9.6 billion in outflows seen across all Bitcoin ETFs since the October peak.

In March alone, investors withdrew -$8.5 billion from $GLD, the… pic.twitter.com/0Wvwlqxpxi

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) July 16, 2026

These net outflows coincided with gold’s price collapse. The bullion peaked at $5,600/oz in late January, but it has lost nearly 30% of its value since then, declining to $4,000/oz as of Friday’s close.

BTC ETFs Bleed Too

With roughly $130 billion in AuM, GLD is more than twice as big as all spot Bitcoin ETFs combined. As such, it’s rather difficult to compare the respective net outflows. Nevertheless, the ongoing narrative is that investors have turned on BTC, which is supported by the recent negative streak that began in May.

In the span of approximately two months, investors pulled out just over $8 billion from all BTC ETFs, pushing the cumulative total net inflows down to $51.22 billion from $59.34 billion. June was the worst month, with over $4.5 billion leaving the funds, which was more than GLD’s exodus.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that the underlying asset’s price performance has been quite painful within this timeframe. BTC was rejected at $83,000 when the withdrawal wave began in mid-May, and plunged to a multi-year low of $57,700 on July 1. Although it has recovered some ground since then, the ETFs’ behavior remains highly uncertain to support a more profound rally.

The post The ETF Battle Between Gold and Bitcoin: Is BTC Really Losing? appeared first on CryptoPotato.