Fan violence in multicultural areas highlights the need for improved community relations and policing strategies to prevent future unrest.

The post Four arrested in London after France-Morocco World Cup match as fan violence hits Edgware Road appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The shift to shorter-term AI debt highlights market caution, potentially impacting Big Tech's financial strategies and investor confidence.

The post Investors dump longer-dated AI debt as Big Tech’s $159 billion borrowing binge tests market appetite appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Haaland's World Cup impact highlights the volatile intersection of sports and crypto, where athlete performance can sway market dynamics rapidly.

The post Haaland’s World Cup stunner beats Brazil and moves crypto markets appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Emerging competitors to TSMC could diversify the semiconductor supply chain, impacting industries reliant on advanced chip technology.

The post New rivals are lining up to challenge TSMC’s chip dominance, and crypto miners should pay attention appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Microsoft's AI infrastructure advancements could accelerate enterprise AI adoption, but potential integration delays may open doors for competitors.

The post Microsoft Foundry’s hosted agents hit general availability, and the AI infrastructure race just got more interesting appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

Circle (CRCL) Wins Final OCC Approval for National Trust Bank

Circle Internet Group secured final approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency today, to establish a national trust bank, a milestone that sent the stablecoin issuer’s shares higher and deepened its ties to the federal banking system.

The regulator cleared Circle to charter First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A., which will operate under the name Circle National Trust. 

The company, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker CRCL, said the charter places the new entity under direct federal oversight by the OCC, the primary supervisor for national banks and national trust banks.

Circle National Trust will provide fiduciary custody services for digital assets held by Circle and its affiliates. Under the business plan the OCC approved, the bank could extend custody services to a limited set of institutional customers, with a focus on banks and regulated derivatives organizations. 

The charter opens a path for the bank to manage the reserve backing USDC, the largest regulated stablecoin, which would bring that multibillion-dollar pool under federal supervision.

National trust banks differ from traditional lenders. They safeguard client assets and provide fiduciary services, and they do not take deposits or issue loans. The structure aligns its digital-asset infrastructure with a long-standing model for holding client assets under strict fiduciary standards.

“OCC approval to establish Circle National Trust marks a defining step in bringing blockchain technology and digital assets into the core of the U.S. financial system,” said Jeremy Allaire, co-founder, chairman, and chief executive of Circle. He said federal oversight of the trust bank “sets a new standard for transparency, governance, and scale” and unlocks a phase of adoption in which large financial institutions can build on public blockchains with confidence.

Investors welcomed the decision. CRCL shares climbed as much as 14% on the day of the announcement, a rebound from a three-month low. Other crypto-linked names, including Coinbase and Strategy, posted gains near 5% this morning as bitcoin bounced.

CRCL shares have since settled to 5% gains.

Circle’s federal framework

The approval caps a process that began when Circle filed its application on June 30, 2025. The OCC granted conditional approval in December 2025, alongside peers such as Ripple, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Paxos. 

The final decision arrives as the GENIUS Act, the federal stablecoin law enacted in July 2025, moves toward full implementation in early 2027. 

That statute requires OCC supervision of large stablecoin issuers, and the trust charter positions Circle to meet the mandate while bringing USDC reserves into a federal framework.

Circle has built a record of regulatory engagement across markets. It received a BitLicense from New York in 2015, became the first global stablecoin issuer to comply with the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets framework in 2024, and holds licenses in the United Kingdom, Singapore, Bermuda, and Abu Dhabi.

The charter strengthens USDC’s role as regulated digital-dollar infrastructure for payments, settlement, and capital markets, Circle said.

This post Circle (CRCL) Wins Final OCC Approval for National Trust Bank first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Metaplanet Announces Joint Study to Bring Bitcoin-Backed Digital Credit to Japan

Metaplanet wants to turn its bitcoin pile into a credit market. On Friday, Japan’s largest corporate bitcoin holder said it has opened a joint study with three partners to build tokenized credit products backed by bitcoin, a step that pushes the company past simple treasury accumulation and toward the role of a financial platform.

The study group brings together Metaplanet, the yen stablecoin issuer JPYC, the regulated security token platform Progmat, and Siiibo Securities, the licensed brokerage Metaplanet bought last month for 2.1 billion yen, or about $13 million. Siiibo becomes Metaplanet Securities on July 13.

The four firms will examine whether bitcoin can serve as collateral for credit instruments that pay interest each day. Metaplanet frames this as a product that exists in the United States but not in Japan. 

Digitization, the company said, would allow trading and settlement of these instruments around the clock, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with rights management at the holder level, pro-rata interest math handled in software, and redemptions recorded on a public ledger.

Bitcoin-backed credit is a young product class. Public companies that hold bitcoin use the asset as core collateral for debt offerings, and those offerings pay dividends or interest. The design takes a static coin balance and turns it into an instrument that throws off cash.

Metaplanet was blunt about how early this is. “The four companies will examine issues in product design, the need for proof-of-concept initiatives, and the possibility of future issuance,” the company said. “At this time, nothing has been determined regarding issuance timing, terms, yield, product details, distribution methods, or the form of collaboration.” 

Why Japan?

The pitch rests on a gap in Japan’s debt market. That market favors large corporations that can float public bonds. Mid-sized and growth companies face steep costs and heavy operational load around issuance, sales, investor management, interest payments, and redemptions. Many of them stay shut out.

Digital credit, in Metaplanet’s telling, could open the door to those smaller firms. Onchain infrastructure would bridge traditional capital markets and blockchain rails, cut the manual work, and give issuers a path to raise money that a public bond sale did not offer them. If it works, a growth company in Tokyo could raise debt on a system that settles at any hour and tracks every holder in code.

Each partner brings one piece. Metaplanet and its securities arm will design the products that fuse bitcoin with credit, sell them to investors, field customer questions, and manage the instruments after issuance. 

JPYC will test whether its yen-pegged stablecoin can move payments and redemptions through the system. Progmat will supply the regulated tokenization layer, which tracks ownership, processes transfers, and wires the whole thing to the stablecoin payment system.

The division of labor maps onto a full stack: an issuer and distributor with a license, a settlement asset, and a token platform.

Metaplanet’s bigger plan

The study fits a strategy the company calls Project Nova, its plan to build a bitcoin-centric financial platform in Japan. The Siiibo purchase gave Metaplanet a Type I Financial Instruments Business Operator registration, the license Japan requires to structure and sell financial products to retail investors. 

Siiibo, founded in 2019, runs an online platform for private-placement corporate bonds and has backed more than 40 issuers across 100-plus offerings. Metaplanet gains that track record, plus a shareholder base of about 250,000 investors to sell into.

Simon Gerovich, Metaplanet’s president and CEO, has cast the shift in stark terms. “We view Bitcoin not as a treasury reserve asset, but as the foundation of the next generation of financial ecosystems,” he said when the Siiibo deal was announced.

Metaplanet holds 43,000 BTC, worth about $2.47 billion. Strategy and Twenty One Capital are the two public holders ranked above it.

For the moment, the digital credit plan is a set of questions and four companies willing to study them. Whether it becomes a product depends on the proof-of-concept work that remains. But the direction is clear: Metaplanet wants its bitcoin to do more than sit on a balance sheet. It wants the coin to underwrite a market.

This post Metaplanet Announces Joint Study to Bring Bitcoin-Backed Digital Credit to Japan first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin is “A Screaming Buy”: Standard Chartered Backs $100,000 Target, Shrugs Off Strategy (MSTR) Sell-Off

Standard Chartered maintained its end-2026 Bitcoin price forecast of $100,000 in a note to investors on Friday, arguing that the recent weakness reflects a failure by Strategy to explain a strategic shift rather than any deterioration in the company’s balance sheet.

Geoffrey Kendrick, the bank’s global head of digital assets research, wrote that Strategy — the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, with 843,775 coins, more than 4% of the 21 million that will ever exist — “appears to be pivoting from its ‘never sell Bitcoin’ mantra to a more complex approach.” 

Clear communication of that pivot, he wrote, will determine how fast the pressure on BTC lifts.

Between 2020 and mid-2025, Strategy’s mNAV — enterprise value divided by the value of its Bitcoin — traded above 1.0. That premium lets the company issue shares, buy Bitcoin, and grow its value by more than the value of the new stock. Convincing the market it would never sell was the load-bearing part of the model.

With mNAV near 1.0, that arithmetic no longer works. Kendrick said Strategy is pivoting toward holding Bitcoin as backing for STRC, its perpetual preferred stock, which functions as a credit product.

The STRC feedback loop

STRC pays a 12% annual dividend, settled twice a month in cash, with the rate reset each month to keep the security near its $100 par value. It has about $10 billion notional outstanding, the largest of the instruments Strategy has deployed.

A negative feedback loop took hold once STRC broke from par, hitting an intraday low of $71.25 on June 26. The divergence began after the June 1 disclosure that Strategy had sold 32 BTC the prior week. STRC still trades near $90, according to Standard Chartered. The USD reserve for STRC dividends stands at $2.55 billion, or 17.4 months of coverage.

Bitcoin is a ‘screaming buy’

The problem with “never sell,” Kendrick argued, is that it constrains how Bitcoin gets perceived. Strategy has announced a monetization program that lets it sell BTC from time to time, including up to $1.25 billion in proceeds for the reserve.

Given its Bitcoin backing, STRC is over-collateralized and should trade back toward $100, the note said. Kendrick compared the mechanism to a central bank promising to do “whatever it takes” and, through credibility, never having to act. 

Effective signaling, he wrote, should remove the need for Strategy to sell any Bitcoin. Kendrick treats the episode as noise rather than a signal about BTC’s medium-term direction. At $64,000, he calls the coin “a screaming buy.”

Strategy sold 3,588 BTC for about $216 million last week, its largest disposal to date, using the proceeds to fund preferred stock distributions and refill the reserve. JPMorgan analysts said the formal sale policy introduces “avoidable two-way risk” by making Strategy both buyer and seller. 

Strategy’s stock trades near $98 on Thursday. BTC traded above $64,400 on Friday.

This post Bitcoin is “A Screaming Buy”: Standard Chartered Backs $100,000 Target, Shrugs Off Strategy (MSTR) Sell-Off first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

JPMorgan Says the Real Threat to Bitcoin Isn’t Strategy (MSTR) — It’s Private Blockchains

Strategy’s recent bitcoin sales and its formal monetization program have rattled investors, but JPMorgan analysts see a bigger danger to bitcoin: blockchain adoption that routes around public networks and the tokens that ride on them.

In a report led by managing director Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou and reported by The Block, the bank argued that Strategy is not the main structural threat to the asset. 

The company sold 3,588 bitcoin for $216 million in early July to cover preferred dividends, its largest disposal on record, and such sales can add bursts of selling pressure. The deeper concern, the analysts said, is where tokenization, payments and settlement end up.

Should that activity settle on permissioned rails rather than public chains, the crypto ecosystem could face a structural de-rating — thinner liquidity, weaker capital flows and slower on-chain volume — a drag that would reach bitcoin in time.

Institutions have leaned toward permissioned blockchains, which offer privacy, know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering controls, governance, throughput, legal accountability and regulatory certainty. 

That preference, per JPMorgan, creates a competitive problem for public networks like Ethereum.

The analysts cited the Bank for International Settlements, which has warned against public permissionless chains for systemic financial infrastructure and has pushed instead for “unified ledgers” that hold tokenized central bank money, bank deposits and assets inside regulated walls.

Tokenization as a real-world use case

Banks are building to that spec. Tokenized deposits — digital claims on bank balances, backed by banking regulation and deposit insurance — stand out as the clearest case. Should such deposits spread in the non-transferable forms regulators favor, they could crowd out stablecoins in institutional payments. 

SWIFT’s blockchain project and central bank digital currency efforts such as the digital euro and digital yuan would reinforce that regulated lane.

Real-world asset tokenization tells a similar story. The market sits near $50 billion, much of it on Ethereum for now, though the analysts read that as early experimentation rather than a settled structure. 

As adoption matures, issuance, custody and settlement could migrate to private infrastructure, leaving public chains for distribution and interoperability. DTCC and Securitize show the pattern in motion, and the analysts questioned whether public settlement is even the most efficient model for regulated firms, given the capital savings of deferred, netted settlement.

What could prove JPMorgan wrong

The Clarity Act, even should it pass this year, might not lift the threat; it could embolden bank-issued deposit tokens at the expense of public stablecoins. 

The analysts flagged three ways their thesis breaks: a hybrid model where both chain types matter, stronger stablecoin adoption under friendly rules, or bitcoin holding its role as “digital gold” and a debasement hedge whatever happens across the rest of crypto.

This post JPMorgan Says the Real Threat to Bitcoin Isn’t Strategy (MSTR) — It’s Private Blockchains first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin’s New Debt Machine is Facing Its First Major Test

Public companies kept stacking Bitcoin in June, but the month’s real story played out in a corner of the market that did not exist a couple of years ago: the preferred shares that treasury firms now use to fund their coin purchases. 

A new report from BitcoinTreasuries.net calls June the first true stress test for this “digital credit” market, and the results offer a mixed but telling verdict on where corporate Bitcoin adoption goes next.

First, the buying. Public treasuries added close to 9,000 BTC before sales in June, or about 7,300 BTC on a net basis, worth some $427 million at the month-end price of $58,398. That counts as moderate growth, and two names did most of the work. 

Michael Saylor’s Strategy added 3,625 BTC net, and Strive added 3,364, with each company spending in the neighborhood of $200 million. 

Strip out those two and the rest of the field bought about 2,000 BTC. For the full second quarter, the report estimates 110,000 BTC in net additions, a pace that beat the two quarters before it.

The context matters here. Bitcoin sat well below its October 2025 peak near $126,000 and dipped under $60,000 during the month. That backdrop set the stage for the drama in digital credit.

Preferred shares to fuel bitcoin

To understand why that drama matters, it helps to know how the model works. Companies such as Strategy no longer rely on their own cash to buy Bitcoin. They issue preferred shares that promise investors a fixed or variable dividend, sell them near a $100 par value, and route the proceeds into coins.

Strategy’s flagship product, STRC, and Strive’s version, SATA, became the two biggest of these instruments. For a stretch, they traded in a tight band around par, and investors treated them as a place to park money at a healthy yield.

That calm bred risk. As the report explains, a long run near par let leverage build inside STRC as buyers borrowed to amplify the trade. When Bitcoin’s price slid, that leverage turned into a trigger. 

Starting June 18, STRC and SATA fell below their $100 par. Leveraged holders got margin-called, forced sales pushed prices down, and STRC bottomed near $75. SATA weakened from a mix of its own pressures and spillover from STRC. 

This was not a crisis of the underlying dividends, which kept flowing, but a crisis of positioning, the report framed.

The recovery came fast enough to reassure the faithful. By July 2, STRC changed hands near $87 and SATA near $97, prices that held into the report’s July 9 publication. Neither Strategy nor Strive missed a dividend. 

Strategy’s bitcoin holdings

The report notes that Strategy held 847,363 BTC at an average cost near $75,651 and had a $1.1 billion dollar reserve in mid-June, while Strive kept an 18-month dividend reserve. The pitch: these are cash-flow questions, not solvency questions.

Strategy did not sit still. Saylor’s firm rolled out share and digital-credit buybacks, raised STRC dividends, and set up a dollar reserve, a package meant to steady prices while it keeps buying coins. Saylor framed it as a balance between commitment to Bitcoin and the “liquidity, discipline, and active capital management” the credit strategy demands.

Since then, Strategy has sold $3,588 and now holds 843,775 bitcoin. 

The market voted with volume. Combined STRC and SATA trading topped $10 billion in June, a monthly record for each, and that came without new at-the-market share sales feeding the pipeline. Demand for the paper, in other words, did not vanish when the price broke.

BitcoinTreasuries.net polled its readers, an audience it concedes leans pro-digital-credit, and found more optimism than fear. A slim majority, 52%, did not see the price drop as a major problem. Most holders sat tight, and 52% of all respondents bought STRC or SATA after June 18. 

At the same time, three-quarters expect price swings to recur, so nobody is calling the risk gone. Looking ahead, 77.8% expect the digital-credit supply to grow by the end of 2027, and about a fifth expect it to clear $50 billion.

This post Bitcoin’s New Debt Machine is Facing Its First Major Test first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

Hong Kong crypto platforms have until July 8, 2027, to ditch one-time passwords for client logins and device registration under new security rules.

By then, licensed virtual asset service providers and internet brokers must use authentication that can resist phishing for client logins and the registration or binding of devices, according to a July 9 circular.

The regulator said one-time passwords, or OTPs, do not meet that standard and should not be used for those two processes.

The rule applies only when clients log in or link a new device, leaving other OTP uses unchanged.

Firms do not have to make existing clients rebind devices that are already linked. Large internet brokers are expected to deploy the stronger methods immediately, while the broader group has a 12-month implementation period.

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Controls around those logins take effect from the outset. Firms must review and improve client notifications, account monitoring, surveillance and incident-response procedures now.

The SFC requires firms to suspend or restrict an account as soon as they spot signs of fraud.

A deadline with liability attached

The order follows phishing campaigns reported in 2025. Fraudsters sent text messages containing links that impersonated brokers and purported to be requests from regulators or government bodies.

Clients handed over login credentials and one-time passcodes on fake sites, giving attackers a path to hijack sessions and move funds.

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The SFC wants firms to monitor irregular logins, new-device activity, trading that deviates from a client’s history, and fund or virtual-asset withdrawals.

Clients should receive prompt notices of successful logins and higher-risk changes, including new devices and the creation or revocation of passkeys.

Passkeys use public-key cryptography in place of a reusable secret that a client can type into a fake site.

The credential is designed to work only with the legitimate service, while the private key remains on the user’s device or with a passkey manager.

The SFC also accepts device binding built around robust verification, with an additional factor such as a biometric check or an account password.

The regulator tied those safeguards to firms’ duty to shield clients from theft and fraud.

It said a firm can be held accountable for client losses when inadequate measures fail to prevent, detect and stop large-scale unauthorized transactions after a hacking incident.

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Senior managers overseeing overall operations and information technology are ultimately responsible for the rollout.

The real test comes by July 2027, when platforms must drop OTP at key login points while improving fraud detection enough to protect clients through the change.

The post Hong Kong gives crypto platforms one year to ditch one-time passwords or cover user losses appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Terraform Labs’ bankruptcy court cleared the Plan Administrator to use Jump Trading documents in a lawsuit seeking at least $4 billion while rejecting four late crypto-loss claims.

One order lets the administrator use Jump Trading documents in the $4 billion lawsuit. The other rejects four late claims, narrowing who may share in any recovery. Neither decides whether Jump owes money or how much creditors could receive.

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Court permits evidence after finding a violation

In a July 8 order, Bankruptcy Judge Brendan L. Shannon found that the Plan Administrator violated the protective order as written by using “Jump Reproduced Documents” in the Illinois lawsuit.

Shannon then modified the order to permit those documents to be used in the Jump action, including in an amended complaint. The change took effect immediately, but the judge left decisions on removing confidentiality designations to the court handling the Illinois case.

The Delaware ruling lets the administrator use the documents in the lawsuit without making them public or deciding whether they support the claims or any creditor recovery.

The Plan Administrator says the case seeks at least $4 billion and alleges that Jump entered a secret arrangement to support TerraUSD and received $1.5 billion in Bitcoin reserves without written agreements or oversight. Those allegations have not been adjudicated.

Jump opposed the change, arguing that it consented to reproduce the materials only under restrictions limiting their use to the bankruptcy. It also said that modification would allow the administrator to bypass a discovery stay in securities cases and expose competitively sensitive information.

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CryptoSlate covered the original lawsuit in December.

The claims ruling has a more limited scope than social media posts suggested. Docket 1276 was a certification filed July 8; the signed order was entered July 9 as Docket 1281.

That order denied motions from four named people seeking permission to file crypto-loss claims after the deadline. It also directed Kroll, the claims agent, to update the register. It did not state that every late claimant is barred.

The administrator reports approximately 16,640 submitted crypto-loss claims and says determinations are continuing on a rolling basis. Submitted claims are not the same as allowed claims, which will determine who can share in distributions.

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What changes for creditor recoveries

Existing claimants now face a simpler reality: any added recovery depends on Jump’s lawsuit surviving early challenges and ending in a judgment or settlement.

If it does, net proceeds could increase the assets available for allowed claims. If it fails, permission to use the documents doesn't generate any revenue on its own.

Four late claims are now out, but any recovery from Jump still depends on a lawsuit with no settled value or outcome.

The post Judge lets Terraform use Jump lawsuit evidence while blocking four late creditor claims appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Regulators have until July 18, 2026, to turn the GENIUS Act from a statute into access rules for stablecoin issuers that want a clear regulatory path into the US.

That date is the Act's one-year rulemaking deadline, not a blanket cutoff for users or every restriction on issuers. Public Law 119-27 requires primary federal payment stablecoin regulators, Treasury, and state payment stablecoin regulators to issue implementing regulations through notice-and-comment rulemaking within one year of enactment.

The law’s effective date is separate from this deadline. According to the OCC, the GENIUS Act takes effect on the earlier of two dates: 18 months after its July 18, 2025, enactment, or 120 days after regulators finalize the implementing rules.

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Issuer status decides who gets in

For stablecoin issuers, the biggest question is whether they can qualify as a permitted payment stablecoin issuer in the first place. The GENIUS Act generally bars anyone outside that category from issuing a payment stablecoin in the United States. Digital asset service providers have separate offer-and-sale restrictions with their own three-year timeline and exceptions.

The OCC's February proposal shows how broad the implementation effort could become. Its rule would apply to national bank subsidiaries, federal savings association subsidiaries, and federal branches, as well as foreign payment stablecoin issuers, nonbank entities seeking federal qualified issuer status, and state-qualified issuers within OCC authority.

The Federal Register proposal also places applications, registrations, supervision, reserves, redemption, custody, revocation, and capital backstops within the same implementation framework. After deciding who gets in, regulators are also defining what issuers must look like once they are approved to operate.

Compliance is the next hurdle. Under Treasury’s FinCEN and OFAC proposal, permitted payment-stablecoin issuers would fall under Bank Secrecy Act rules, bringing anti-money-laundering and sanctions requirements with them.

The OCC followed with a June 22 proposal for OCC-supervised issuers that would create AML/CFT supervision, FinCEN consultation, and information-sharing procedures for enforcement or supervisory actions.

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For issuers, that means access to the US market also depends on whether their controls can satisfy BSA, OFAC, and lawful-order requirements before the rules settle into an operating framework.

Foreign payment-stablecoin issuers face a separate barrier because access to the US market depends on complying with lawful orders and establishing reciprocal arrangements under the GENIUS Act.

It also gives the Treasury one year from enactment to issue rules for these foreign-issuer provisions. The OCC’s proposal includes the process details: registration, rejection, appeals, and rescission for foreign issuers under its jurisdiction.

State-qualified issuers face another barrier. Their home state's regulatory regime must be substantially similar to the federal framework, with Treasury responsible for deciding whether it meets that standard.

Although state certifications will depend on the Act’s effective date, the practical problem arrives much earlier: state equivalence will be hard to determine if federal, Treasury, and OCC rules are still unfinished.

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The stablecoin fight now comes down to who gets through the US market’s front door.

The issuers most exposed are those still trying to secure a place in the US framework: new federal applicants, foreign issuers seeking US availability, and state-qualified issuers relying on equivalence. If July 18, 2026, arrives without a coherent set of rules, they will be the first to feel it.

The post GENIUS Act deadline puts stablecoin issuers on the clock appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Three SEC crypto proposals are now penciled in for July, covering token offerings, broker-dealer custody and trading venues. The agency could start writing the rules before the Senate even decides whether to take up the CLARITY Act.

Earlier this week, SEC Chair Paul Atkins said the agency’s 2026 regulatory agenda aims to bring more crypto products onshore, create clearer rules for capital raising with crypto assets, and clarify how market participants can custody and facilitate the trading of tokenized securities on-chain.

According to him:

“[These efforts are to] ensure that the next chapter of financial leadership is written in the US, and that our capital markets continue to lead the world – in their depth, their dynamism, and their unrivaled ability to transform ingenuity into prosperity.”

That posture has translated into three July NPRM targets covering crypto-asset offerings, broker-dealer rules, and crypto market-structure amendments.

If any of those proposals is published this month, the SEC would move the crypto debate from policy signaling into a formal rulemaking process.

That would come as US lawmakers have yet to decide whether to bring the highly anticipated CLARITY Act to the Senate floor. The bill is designed to establish a federal framework for the crypto industry and clarify how oversight is split between the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

While CLARITY remains the broader market-structure vehicle, its momentum has slowed as the Senate calendar narrows.

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The SEC’s July agenda puts the agency and Congress on competing tracks. CLARITY would address the broader question of who regulates what, while the SEC can move sooner on issuers, broker-dealers, exchanges and tokenized securities.

SEC’s July agenda targets crypto’s issuance-to-trading pipeline

The SEC has a chance to turn its July agenda into actual policy by starting rulemaking where crypto most often collides with securities law: how tokens are issued, how broker-dealers can custody them, and where they can be traded.

RegInfo’s July target puts crypto fundraising first, with the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance weighing new rules for how digital assets can be offered and sold.

The entry says those rules could include exemptions and safe harbors designed to clarify the regulatory framework, provide greater market certainty, facilitate capital formation and protect investors.

That would put token issuers and projects seeking registration, exemption or disclosure paths near the front of the agency’s process. It would also move one of the industry’s longest-running disputes into a formal rulemaking channel after years in which crypto firms argued that the SEC relied too heavily on enforcement actions.

This is also the most legally sensitive of the three July entries. RegInfo lists the legal authority for the Crypto Assets proposal as “not yet determined,” meaning the agency has not identified the statutory footing in the agenda entry itself.

That does not preclude a proposal, but it could become a point of attack if the SEC tries to build a broad offering framework before Congress provides it with clearer authority.

Custody and broker-dealer compliance come next. A separate July entry covers possible amendments to financial responsibility, customer protection, recordkeeping, and reporting rules as they apply to crypto assets. The entry cites Rules 15c3-1 and 15c3-3, as well as Rules 17a-3 and 17a-4.

Those rules would shape how far regulated securities firms can go in crypto. Broker-dealers need clear treatment on capital, custody, customer protection, and books and records before they can support tokenized securities or crypto-linked products across regulated platforms.

Without that treatment, Wall Street firms may have demand for crypto products but still lack the compliance path to handle them at scale.

The SEC’s third target covers market structure, with possible Exchange Act changes governing crypto trading on alternative trading systems and national securities exchanges.

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Together, the three July targets show the SEC is not only looking at one crypto issue in isolation. The agency is preparing possible rule paths across issuance, custody, and trading, which is the same sequence that any regulated crypto market would need to function.

A published SEC proposal would raise pressure on Congress

The race now turns on whether the SEC can put a crypto proposal into the Federal Register before Congress gives CLARITY a Senate vote.

If the SEC publishes one of its July proposals first, the agency would give issuers, broker-dealers and trading venues a concrete rulemaking process to respond to while the broader market-structure bill remains unresolved.

The debate would shift from Capitol Hill into SEC rulemaking, giving industry groups a chance to argue for broader exemptions and more workable custody and trading rules.

It could also change the legislative calculation. A live SEC proposal may give lawmakers a baseline to accept, narrow or override. It could also increase pressure on Senate leaders to act if lawmakers believe the agency is filling gaps that should be settled by statute.

Still, publication alone would not make the SEC path decisive. The proposals would need commission approval, public comment and possible revisions before becoming final. They could also face legal challenges or be reshaped by any market-structure bill Congress passes later.

That makes the July agenda important because of when it could start, not because of what it can finish on its own. It does not replace CLARITY or settle the full US crypto rulebook. But it gives the SEC a way to begin writing securities-side rules before the Senate decides whether the broader bill gets floor time.

The next signal is twofold: whether Senate leaders find time for the CLARITY Act before the Aug. 7 recess, and which SEC proposal is published first.

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If Congress acts first, the SEC’s July agenda could set the machinery of a broader law in motion.

If the Senate stalls, the agency may start writing crypto’s securities rules before lawmakers vote.

The post SEC could start writing crypto rules before the Senate votes on CLARITY appeared first on CryptoSlate.

More than 24 prediction market ETFs proposed by Roundhill, Bitwise, and GraniteShares remain in regulatory limbo, with the SEC yet to act despite the issuers filing their applications in February.

The agency pushed back the expected launch timing to gain clarity on fund mechanics and investor disclosures, delaying products that would have reached the market through the normal 75-day automatic effectiveness window.

Roundhill's filings track Democratic or Republican outcomes in the 2028 presidential race, 2026 Senate control, and 2026 House control.

Bitwise matched the three election bets with its own PredictionShares lineup, then went further with funds wagering on Bitcoin at $100,000, Ethereum at $3,500, and WTI crude oil clearing a specified price in 2026.

Once the SEC accepts the wrapper, almost any measurable event with a legally tradable contract underneath it becomes a candidate for an ETF ticker.

What sits inside the fund

An event contract settles at $1 if the outcome it tracks happens, and $0 if it doesn't. Robinhood's explainer describes the structure as a binary yes-or-no derivative with two outcomes.

Roundhill's filing frames pricing the same way its underlying market does, saying a contract trading at $0.50 reflects a roughly 50% implied probability, with polling, news, and shifting sentiment moving that price and the fund's net asset value with it before any formal settlement occurs.

The funds themselves may hold event contracts directly or use swaps tied to them, and if the targeted outcome does not occur, Roundhill and Bitwise both warn in their filings that the funds could lose all of their value substantially.

Roundhill's filing includes a mechanism for its election funds that allows it to treat an outcome as effectively decided before official results are confirmed, once the relevant contract trades above $0.995 or below $0.005 for five consecutive trading days.

At that point, the fund can recognize the gain or loss and roll its position into the next election cycle.

The fund could already be out of the trade before anyone realizes the outcome was called incorrectly. Roundhill also warns that investors may have little or no recourse if that happens. For anyone considering the ETF, the key issue is simpler: at what point does the market decide an election is settled enough to bet on with confidence?

The wrapper changes who can reach this market

Monthly trading volume on Kalshi and Polymarket peaked at nearly $13.7 billion in June 2026, driven by the FIFA World Cup.

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Jun 29, 2026 · Oluwapelumi Adejumo

Robinhood already offers its event-contract product, and Interactive Brokers lets eligible clients trade event contracts across Kalshi, CME Group, and ForecastEx from a single account.

An ETF places the outcome exposure from prediction markets inside the infrastructure investors already use for stocks, sector funds, and retirement accounts, the same distribution effect spot Bitcoin ETFs delivered for Bitcoin access.

Annualizing June's volume figure, a 1% migration of that trading activity into regulated ETF channels amounts to roughly $1.6 billion, and a 10% migration reaches close to $ 16.4 billion.

Total US ETF assets were $15.7 trillion as of the end of May, meaning even 0.1% of that base landing in prediction market ETFs would put the category near $15.7 billion.

Regulators with different jobs

The SEC's review centers on the wrapper itself: fund mechanics, valuation, settlement risk, liquidity, and whether ordinary retail disclosures capture a product that behaves closer to a binary derivative.

The CFTC regulates the event contracts these ETFs would hold. In June 2026, it proposed new rules for reviewing self-certified prediction-market contracts tied to areas flagged by the Commodity Exchange Act, including gaming, war, terrorism, and assassination.

The CFTC said self-certified event contracts have surged, prompting it to examine manipulation risks, settlement weaknesses, and the misuse of non-public information.

What comes next

In the bull case, approval turns election-, macro-, and threshold-linked funds into liquid products, opening prediction markets to brokerage accounts, much as Bitcoin ETFs opened crypto to mainstream investors.

Investors can express a view on an event straight from a brokerage app, and that same convenience can dull the sense of how binary the payoff structure is.

In the bear case, unresolved settlement and investor-protection concerns keep the category stuck in regulatory limbo long after the original filing window.

Prediction markets keep expanding through platforms like Kalshi, Robinhood, and Interactive Brokers, and event contract exposure stays confined to those specialized venues, well short of ordinary ETF shelves.

Prediction markets have spent years building a case for themselves as forecasting tools, and an ETF approval would carry that argument into every brokerage account already holding stocks, bonds, and Bitcoin funds.

That leaves the SEC and CFTC with an awkward question: should a fund that can be wiped out by one yes-or-no bet sit beside the diversified products investors expect to find on the same shelf?

The post SEC reviews more than 24 ETFs that could bring election betting to brokerage accounts appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Privacy coins are back in the spotlight. $ZEC is up more than 8% over the past 24 hours, trading near $503 and holding above the closely watched $500 level. The move caps a strong week for Zcash and has traders asking whether this is the start of a bigger breakout or just another burst of volatility in a notoriously high-beta asset. Here is what is actually driving the zcash price and where analysts think it goes from here.

What Is the Zcash Price Today?

The zec price today sits at roughly $503, up about 8% on the day, with an intraday high near $505. That keeps $ZEC comfortably above the $500 psychological level and well clear of the $464 mid-range pivot on the chart. On the 2-hour timeframe, the token is pressing toward overhead resistance near $546, with $385 marking the base of the recent range.

The context matters: this is not an isolated one-day pop. $ZEC has been climbing for over a week, having reclaimed $500 for the first time since early June after a brutal stretch. The privacy coin lost more than 40% of its value in early June, crashing from around $624 toward the $300s in under 48 hours after a critical bug was disclosed in its Orchard shielded pool. Today's strength is best understood as a continued recovery from that shock rather than a reaction to a single fresh headline.

Why Is Zcash Pumping Today?

There is no single news catalyst behind today's specific 8% move — it is a mix of a strengthening fundamental narrative and classic trading-day dynamics.

The dominant driver is the upcoming Ironwood upgrade, expected to activate in late July. Ironwood replaces the vulnerable Orchard shielded pool with a formally verified version, mathematically designed to prevent the kind of undetectable counterfeiting flaw that spooked the market in June. It also introduces a "turnstile" migration mechanism to enforce Zcash's fixed supply and harden its shielded pool. For a privacy coin whose entire value proposition rests on verifiable, private money, that directly addresses the trust damage from the bug — which is why the market is treating it as a genuine catalyst, not just hype.

Layered on top is momentum from social sentiment and derivatives. Zcash's social activity has spiked sharply, with its AltRank climbing into the top tier of coins and the large majority of tracked sentiment reading bullish. That has fed a feedback loop: the fundamental upgrade story sparked a technical breakout, which drew in momentum traders and triggered short liquidations — with over $7.6 million in short positions wiped out during one recent leg higher. In other words, today's 8% is part fundamental conviction, part leveraged short squeeze, and part broad altcoin-rotation beta.

Is This a Real Breakout or Just a Trading-Day Effect?

Honestly, it is both — and that is the key thing to understand before chasing it. The Ironwood narrative gives the rally a real fundamental anchor, which separates it from a purely speculative spike. But the mechanics of the move are heavily leverage-driven. Futures volume has dwarfed spot volume during this rally (recent readings showed ZEC futures turnover well above $1 billion against roughly $115 million in spot), and elevated open interest means the price can reverse just as sharply as it rose. High-beta privacy coins are famous for explosive moves on good fundamental news, followed by volatile pullbacks as speculative capital rotates out.

What Are the ZEC Price Predictions From Here?

On the technical side, the immediate battle is at resistance. As long as $ZEC holds above $500, the bullish case points toward the $546 zone next, with a decisive break potentially opening a run toward the $620–$650 liquidity area that several analysts have flagged. A clean breakout above that region is what bulls would need to talk about higher targets. On the downside, losing $500 would likely shift momentum back to sellers, with support around $464, then $450, and the $385 range floor below that.

Longer-term zec price prediction models are cautiously constructive but wide-ranging, reflecting how much hinges on Ironwood landing cleanly. Third-party forecasting sites put the 2026 average trading price somewhere in the $460–$505 band, with monthly peaks stretching toward the $570–$580 area in a bullish scenario, and some multi-year models projecting a return toward four-digit territory only in later years if privacy-coin demand sustains. These are algorithmic projections, not guarantees, and privacy coins carry outsized regulatory and technical risk — so they are best treated as rough scenarios rather than price targets.

The realistic near-term picture: a successful, verified Ironwood activation in late July could provide the next leg higher, while any delay or technical hiccup would likely trigger a deeper consolidation. Bitcoin's stability and broader altcoin sentiment will also heavily influence where $ZEC trades, given how tightly it moves with overall market risk appetite.

When the EU's MiCA transition deadline reshaped the European crypto market on July 1, the big question was simple: where would displaced users go? Binance has now offered an answer — and it is not the one Brussels was hoping for. Here is what the numbers show and why licensed regulated crypto exchanges are throwing serious money at anyone willing to move.

What Did Binance's CEO Reveal About EU Users?

Speaking at the Reuters NEXT Asia summit in Singapore on July 9, Binance co-CEO Richard Teng dropped a striking statistic. Of the EU users who withdrew funds from the platform after the MiCA transition, roughly 70% moved their crypto into self-hosted wallets, while only about 30% flowed to MiCA-regulated entities.

Teng, a former regulator himself, framed it as a warning shot at the EU. His argument: pushing users toward self-hosted wallets actually undercuts the consumer protection MiCA was designed to deliver, because non-custodial wallets fall outside the AML and KYC controls that licensed exchanges must run. In his words, once crypto goes into a self-hosted wallet, the risks amplify rather than shrink.

The claim has been widely reported by Cointelegraph, Reuters, Yahoo Finance and others, so the 70/30 figure is Binance's own data — and it comes with obvious self-interest, given the exchange's exclusion from the bloc. Supporters of self-custody read the same numbers very differently: holding your own keys removes counterparty risk, and many see direct control as the whole point of crypto, not a loophole.

Why Did So Many Binance Users Leave?

The exodus was triggered by Binance's own regulatory setback. The exchange withdrew its MiCA regulation license application in Greece on June 24, after reports that the Greek regulator was preparing to reject it. With no license in place by the July 1 deadline, Binance stopped serving new EU customers and began restricting services, forcing existing users to decide where to move their balances.

The result was Binance's heaviest weekly outflows in more than three years. Net outflows hit roughly $1.23 billion in the week beginning June 29 — up about 207% from the prior week, according to DefiLlama data reviewed by Cointelegraph. That is a lot of capital suddenly looking for a new home.

Are EU Exchanges Welcoming Ex-Binance Traders?

Absolutely — and aggressively. The MiCA deadline handed licensed platforms a rare opening: a wave of experienced traders, already holding funds, being forced to move whether they like it or not. What followed is best described as a land grab, with regulated crypto exchanges competing hard for every migrating account.

The offers have been substantial. OKX Europe rolled out its "Time to Switch" campaign with deposit bonuses of up to 8% (paid out over 52 weeks) plus 400 euros in BTC welcome rewards for new users, and reported record EU sign-ups in the run-up to the deadline. Coinbase countered with a transfer bonus of up to 5% for users moving funds before mid-July.

These campaigns are structurally different from typical crypto marketing. Instead of chasing newcomers, they target established capital from users who already know how to move funds — and are being pushed to do so anyway. Every migrated account becomes a durable source of trading volume, staking balances and fees, which is exactly why the incentives are so generous.

Which MiCA Exchanges Offer the Biggest Rewards?

This is the key question for anyone with funds still sitting on Binance or another platform that did not make the MiCA cut. The bonuses are real, but they are time-limited, capped, and vary a lot by exchange, region and deposit method — so it pays to compare before you move rather than jumping at the first offer you see.

We have put together a full, up-to-date breakdown of every MiCA-regulated exchange currently paying users to switch, including the exact bonus structures, caps and deadlines: see our complete comparison of the best regulated MiCA exchanges here.

What Does This Mean for Europe's Crypto Market?

Teng's 70/30 split points to a deeper shift: many Europeans are not simply swapping one exchange for another — they are choosing to hold assets directly. That leaves the EU with a narrower, more heavily supervised market on the licensed side, and a growing pool of self-custodied capital that sits beyond any regulator's reach. MiCA has settled who is allowed to operate. The open question now is where users actually want to keep their crypto — on a regulated platform, or in their own wallet.

The crypto market is closing out the week on firmer footing. $BTC is climbing back toward a closely watched level as regulatory optimism in the US and a major traditional-finance move offset lingering worries over ETF flows and macro pressure. Here is a breakdown of the crypto news today and what is moving the bitcoin price.

What Is the Bitcoin Price Today?

The btc price today sits at roughly $63,950, up around 1.2% over the past 24 hours and about 4% across the week, extending a rebound from late-June lows near $58,000. That run brings $BTC within reach of $64,000, a level it briefly cleared earlier in the week before easing back.

The recovery has firmed even as its footing stays thin. Institutional futures activity has thinned and downside options protection has turned unusually expensive, leading some derivatives traders to read the setup as a late-stage washout rather than the start of a fresh leg down. After a first half that closed down roughly 20%, this looks more like a bounce off the lows than a confirmed trend change.

The majors have joined the move. $ETH is trading near $1,770 and has outperformed on the week, while $XRP and $SOL have held most of their weekly gains around $1.13 and $80 respectively.

Why Is the Bitcoin Price Rising?

Two catalysts are doing most of the work behind today's bitcoin price strength. The first is regulatory: a fresh draft of the US crypto Clarity Act could land as soon as next week, with insiders pointing to a possible Senate vote later this month. The bill still lacks full bipartisan buy-in, so hurdles remain, but the prospect of movement on clarity act market-structure rules has supported prices. On top of that, the SEC is reportedly preparing to propose a rule this month aimed at easing conditions for crypto startups and fundraising.

The second is institutional infrastructure. Swift is rolling out a new swift blockchain ledger designed to bring 24/7 settlement to 17 global banks, with names like HSBC, UBS, Wells Fargo and Citi preparing to pilot live transactions using tokenized digital assets. The move underscores how mainstream finance keeps migrating onto blockchain rails.

What is Happening With Bitcoin ETF Flows?

The bitcoin etf picture remains mixed. June saw multi-billion-dollar outflows from US spot funds that raised concern about institutional risk appetite, and July flows have been choppy so far. Even so, the market has absorbed selling that would have rattled it a month ago: Bitcoin shrugged off a disclosure that Strategy sold 3,588 BTC for around $216 million — its largest sale since dropping its never-sell stance — without breaking the rebound.

Is Crypto Still Tied to AI Stocks?

For most of 2026, weakness in AI and chip stocks dragged crypto lower with it. This week that link loosened: the ethereum price and bitcoin price held steady even as some AI equities slid. Whether that independence lasts is one of the key questions for the back half of the year, especially as large allocators keep rotating toward AI exposure.

What Comes Next for the Crypto Market?

The crypto market today reflects cautious optimism rather than conviction. Regulatory clarity, potential SEC rule-easing and institutional adoption are providing tailwinds, and Bitcoin's push toward $64,000 shows buyers defending the recovery. The open questions are whether the Clarity Act draft actually materializes next week and whether $BTC can turn its run at $64,000 into a durable base above $60,000.

If you want a regulated, MiCA-compliant European exchange to trade $BTC and other assets, you can check out our full list of regulated exchanges here.

Elon Musk's SpaceX pulled off the largest IPO in history on 12 June 2026, and the debut lived up to the hype: shares priced at $135, opened around $150 and closed near $161 on day one, briefly valuing the company above $2 trillion. Less than a month later, the picture looks very different. $SPCX has drifted back down toward the $145–$150 zone, giving back almost every point of that first-day pop and sitting well below its 16 June intraday high of roughly $225.

That round trip — from a record blockbuster launch to a stock hovering just above its offer price — is why "will SpaceX stock crash?" has become one of the most searched questions in the market right now. Below we break down what is happening, why, and the realistic scenarios from here.

Why is the SpaceX stock price falling?

The slide is less a single catastrophe than a classic post-IPO cool-off colliding with an eye-watering valuation. A few forces are stacked on top of each other:

The debut pop was built on retail euphoria. SpaceX reserved an unusually large share of the offering — reportedly around 30% — for individual investors, and demand ran several times oversubscribed. That kind of frenzy tends to front-load buying, and once the initial rush fades, the price often gravitates back toward where the deal was actually priced. That is roughly what has happened here.

The valuation leaves little room for error. Even after the pullback, $SPCX carries a market capitalisation north of $2 trillion against negative trailing earnings. Bulls are underwriting Starlink's cash flow, a dominant launch franchise and the xAI/Grok AI angle years into the future. When a stock is priced for near-flawless execution, even neutral news can trigger selling.

Sector sentiment turned. Space and satellite peers have sold off in sympathy, and a broader risk-off tone across high-multiple tech has weighed on the newest, most speculative name in the group. Not being eligible for S&P 500 inclusion for at least a year also removes a source of forced index buying that some traders had been counting on.

What are analysts saying about SPCX?

Wall Street is, on paper, still constructive — but the range of opinion is extreme, which is itself a warning sign. Consensus sits at a "Buy," with average 12-month targets clustering somewhere in the low $200s depending on the data provider. Individual targets, however, span from around $115 on the low end to as high as $800 on the most aggressive bull notes, with at least one street-high call implying enormous upside.

That spread — a low-triple-digit bear case against a high-triple-digit moonshot — tells you the honest truth: nobody really knows how to value SpaceX yet. When targets disagree by a factor of five or more, the "average" price target is close to meaningless, and the stock is likely to stay extremely volatile. Notably, at least one prominent value investor has publicly called the listing one of the most overvalued in history and predicted an eventual collapse, while momentum-focused analysts see the next leg higher toward and beyond $250.

Will SpaceX stock crash? Three scenarios

Rather than pretend to know the outcome, it helps to frame the possibilities. None of these is a prediction — they are the paths the market is currently pricing between.

• Bear case — a genuine unwind. If the retail bid keeps fading, a lock-up or anti-flipping window expires and allows more supply onto the market, or a Starship setback or macro risk-off event hits, $SPCX could break below its $135 IPO price and keep going. Given the beta and daily swings the stock has already shown, a fast 30–50% drawdown from current levels is well within the realm of what a name this speculative can do. This is the scenario the "crash" question is really about.
• Base case — a long, choppy consolidation. The stock spends months digesting its valuation, ranging roughly between the IPO price and its debut highs while the business grows into expectations. Volatile, frustrating, but not a crash — the typical fate of a hyped mega-IPO once the dust settles.
• Bull case — the story reasserts itself. Strong Starlink numbers, Starship progress, momentum behind the xAI/Grok integration and eventual index inclusion pull buyers back in, and the stock retests and clears its former highs toward the upper end of analyst targets.

The uncomfortable reality: all three are plausible right now, and the stock can travel a long way in either direction before the fundamental picture is any clearer.

How to trade SpaceX stock price — in either direction?

Here is where many investors get stuck. If you think $SPCX is heading lower, simply owning shares does you no good — and if you think it is heading higher, you may want leverage or the flexibility to move fast. This is exactly the situation CFDs are built for, because they let you take a position in both directions: go long if you back the bull case, or go short if you think a crash is coming.

With XTB you can trade SpaceX ($SPCX) as a CFD — meaning you can open a long position to profit from a rebound, or a short position to profit if the stock falls, all from one account. XTB is a well-established, regulated broker with a fast, intuitive platform, transparent pricing and no minimum deposit, which makes it a practical choice whether you are positioning for the next leg up or hedging against the downside.

👉 Open your XTB account here and trade SpaceX long or short

Whatever your view on the crash question, the key advantage is optionality: you are not forced to pick "buy and hope." You can express a bearish or a bullish thesis — and manage your risk with defined position sizing — through a single regulated platform. Start trading $SPCX with XTB.

The MiCA transition period ended on July 1, 2026, and the damage is now measurable. This wasn't a soft compliance nudge — it was a mass extinction event that redrew the entire European crypto map in a single day. While the market obsessed over price charts, the more consequential story is who's still legally allowed to operate on the continent, and who just quietly disappeared.

How many crypto firms actually survived MiCA?

The numbers are brutal. Public mirrors of the bloc's register counted 244 licensed CASPs across 25 jurisdictions once the deadline passed. Before MiCA, roughly 3,167 firms held national crypto registrations across Europe. Measured against that base, close to 92% of the market did not make the cut.

Framed against the pre-MiCA legacy pool, only 210 of 1,200+ EU crypto firms converted to MiCA authorization. The other 83% are now in breach of EU law. Either way you count it, the vast majority of the old market is gone — and there are no do-overs. The European Securities and Markets Authority has confirmed that there are no extensions and no grace periods.

Who are the biggest casualties?

Two names dominate the losers' column, and both are giants. The two biggest casualties are private. Binance, the largest exchange in the world, withdrew its license application in Greece days before the deadline and restricted services in several EU countries. Tether, the largest stablecoin issuer, chose to stay out rather than restructure its reserves to MiCA's standard.

Tether's exit was a deliberate strategic call, not a failure to qualify. CEO Paolo Ardoino called MiCA's stablecoin reserve requirements "very dangerous" — specifically the rule requiring issuers to hold 60% of reserves in EU bank deposits, which Tether argued creates systemic bank exposure. The practical result is stark: $USDT, the most-traded stablecoin on earth, has been pulled from every EU-licensed venue. 

Binance isn't necessarily gone forever, though. Binance is pursuing a French MiCA licence. If granted, passporting rules allow it to re-enter the EU. The July 1 deadline suspended services; it did not permanently revoke the ability to apply. 

Why does this matter for the survivors?

Because every euro of displaced volume has to go somewhere legal. That matters for the public names because it removes their toughest competition from the regulated arena. Every euro of EU volume that can no longer legally touch Binance or USDT has to find a licensed home.

The market has already tilted decisively toward the compliant perimeter. Approximately 70 percent of EU crypto transactions now occur on MiCA-compliant exchanges, and that share can only grow as unlicensed platforms wind down.

Which exchanges are the winners?

The survivor list is short and increasingly powerful. Major exchanges have secured licenses. The strategic weapon here is passporting: Coinbase spent the run-up securing a MiCA license and opening a Luxembourg hub to passport regulated services across all 27 EU member states. One license now covers a 450-million-person market, a barrier that smaller, unlicensed rivals cannot cross.

On the stablecoin side, the winner is even clearer. Circle is the only issuer among the ten largest stablecoins to secure MiCA authorization for both its dollar token, $USDC, and its euro token, EURC. With $USDT locked out, regulated euro rails now run largely through Circle.

Is the European market healthier or just smaller?

That's the open question. The market that emerges in late 2026 will be smaller, more concentrated, and governed by a single rulebook. Whether that is a feature or a flaw depends on who is still standing. For traders, the upside is real: fewer, better-regulated venues with clearer legal protection. The downside is reduced competition and the friction of migrating away from familiar USDT pairs.

What should EU traders do now?

If your funds are still sitting on an unlicensed platform, the clock has already run out — move them to a MiCA-authorized exchange. You can compare the fully regulated survivors side by side in our broker comparison.

Unless President Trump vetoes the bill, it will become law at midnight, banning the Federal Reserve from developing a CBDC until 2031.

Circle secured final OCC approval to establish a national trust bank, shifting its $73.2 billion stablecoin to a unified federal framework.

The bank argues that the treasury giant's Bitcoin sales are a short-term distraction, reiterating its $100,000 year-end price target.

Plus, Circle wins a national bank charter and pops 10%. And the Clarity Act gets a new draft while the clock is ticking…

A convicted launderer serving time for a $5 million scheme allegedly moved crypto that a court had ordered him to forfeit.

Following Nakamoto's lead, Empery Digital drops $87.1 million in BTC to join the AI race.

Robinhood Chain crosses $100 million milestone in its TVL within just about ten days of launch as the network continues to see rapid adoption.

Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin supply on Ethereum has fallen from a peak of $1.24 billion reached in February.

Shiba Inu’s X account starts promoting third-party smart contracts and low-cap meme rivals, raising questions over the original SHIB project security.

Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama announced that the government is on track to legalize cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Key Highlights

• AI assistants now connect directly to Revolut X for enhanced crypto market analysis
• Platform enables strategy backtesting, portfolio tracking, and customized price notifications
• All trade executions mandate explicit user confirmation before processing
• The exchange provides access to more than 300 digital assets
• Implementation follows industry trend of AI-enhanced cryptocurrency trading platforms

Revolut has launched integration between Revolut X and third-party AI assistants, providing users with conversational access to cryptocurrency trading capabilities. This functionality encompasses research tools, portfolio oversight, notification systems, trade setup, and performance testing, though all transactions require manual user confirmation.

AI-Driven Interface Transforms Crypto Trading Experience

Revolut enables compatibility with multiple AI platforms including Claude, Gemini, OpenClaw, and Cursor via its exchange integration. Additional compatible systems can connect using a universal skill framework or command-line interface. Technical documentation is publicly available through Revolut X’s official GitHub repository.

Traders can query real-time pricing data and obtain straightforward portfolio performance summaries using natural language. Balance inquiries, position tracking, and personalized alert configuration are accessible through conversational commands. The platform processes both instant market orders and delayed limit orders via plain-English instructions.

Backtesting functionality enables traders to evaluate strategies against past market behavior. Users might analyze a Bitcoin grid trading approach across specific timeframes, receiving detailed performance metrics, risk assessments, and optimization recommendations from the system.

Manual Authorization Required for All Transactions

Revolut maintains a mandatory approval step for every order before Revolut X processes the transaction. Connected AI systems cannot independently execute trades without explicit human authorization. This safeguard preserves user control while streamlining the trading workflow.

The company clearly delineates its services from third-party AI platforms utilizing the integration. Revolut assumes no responsibility for operating or validating external assistant accuracy. Users bear full responsibility for verifying market data and trading instructions generated by these tools.

Erroneous prompts or computational errors may generate inappropriate order parameters or flawed analysis. Traders must verify pricing, volume, order specifications, and risk exposure before confirming transactions. Revolut emphasizes the importance of securing API keys associated with exchange accounts.

Platform Expansion Continues Across European Markets

Revolut X debuted in May 2024 as a desktop-focused exchange serving United Kingdom retail traders. The service expanded throughout 30 European territories in November 2024. Mobile application support rolled out to UK and European Economic Area users in March 2025.

The exchange currently facilitates trading in over 300 cryptocurrency tokens through dedicated infrastructure. Revolut built the AI integration leveraging its existing trading API. Engineering teams successfully prototyped the assistant connection to this interface in approximately 30 minutes during initial testing.

Early prototypes demonstrated inventory tracking, price discovery, order execution, monitoring capabilities, and automated alerting functions. Development teams subsequently created comprehensive tools covering authentication, account connectivity, trade execution, and strategy evaluation. Installation documentation now supports over 50 compatible AI assistant applications.

Industry-Wide Movement Toward AI-Enhanced Trading

This release aligns with broader cryptocurrency industry adoption of agent-based trading infrastructure. Gemini introduced comparable account integration via the Model Context Protocol in April. Liquid subsequently deployed live trading features for conversational AI platforms.

Robinhood has publicly announced forthcoming crypto-specific agentic account features for US markets. Coinbase and Base have built proprietary tools supporting portfolio management, payment processing, and wallet operations. Transaction approval requirements remain standard across most implementations.

Revolut delivers this functionality to a user base exceeding 16 million cryptocurrency customers. The broader organization serves over 75 million retail clients throughout its financial services ecosystem. European cryptocurrency operations function through a Cyprus-regulated entity compliant with MiCA regulatory standards.

The post Revolut X Integrates AI Assistants for Advanced Crypto Trading Features appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• SILO stock declined 28% to $5.57 after disclosing a $4 million capital raise.

• The biotechnology company will distribute 619,965 shares along with two distinct warrant categories.

• Each warrant series features a $6.21 strike price and is immediately exercisable.

• Full warrant conversion could bring in an additional $7.7 million in capital.

• The firm intends to allocate funds toward working capital and standard corporate activities.

Silo Pharma experienced a dramatic stock decline of nearly 28% after revealing a $4 million private financing arrangement. Trading saw SILO drop to $5.57 during the morning session before finding support around the $5.50 level. This capital raise encompasses both common stock and warrant instruments that may significantly increase the total outstanding share base.

Silo Pharma, Inc., SILO

SILO Stock Tumbles on Capital Raise Announcement

Silo Pharma committed to distributing 619,965 common shares or their pre-funded warrant equivalents via this private financing. Each unit in the offering commands a $6.452 purchase price in accordance with Nasdaq’s at-the-market regulations. The deal structure incorporates two distinct warrant categories as part of the arrangement.

The Series A-3 warrants grant investors the right to acquire up to 619,965 additional common shares. The Series A-4 warrants provide rights to an identical share quantity but feature a condensed time frame. Each warrant category establishes a $6.21 strike price per underlying share.

Investors can exercise these warrants starting immediately upon issuance, providing instant access to extra equity. The Series A-3 instruments will remain valid for five years following the effectiveness of the resale registration. In contrast, Series A-4 warrants will terminate 18 months after registration becomes effective.

Financing Could Yield Extra $7.7M in Capital

Silo Pharma anticipates collecting roughly $4 million in gross capital from this private transaction. This figure represents pre-expense proceeds before deducting placement agent compensation and transaction-related costs. H.C. Wainwright acts as the sole placement agent managing this offering.

The company stands to collect an additional $7.7 million should all warrant holders convert their instruments through cash payments. Whether warrants get exercised hinges on prevailing market dynamics and individual investor choices. As such, there’s no guarantee the firm will capture any portion of these supplementary funds.

Silo Pharma projects the deal will finalize approximately July 10, pending satisfaction of customary closing requirements. Management intends to channel the net capital toward working capital needs and standard corporate activities. These resources could sustain operational activities while the firm’s therapeutic programs continue through development phases.

Instruments Need Registration for Public Resale

Silo Pharma structured this offering utilizing exemptions provided under Section 4(a)(2) and Regulation D. The securities and warrants lack registration under federal securities statutes or relevant state regulations. Therefore, purchasers face restrictions on reselling these instruments absent registration or qualifying exemptions.

The firm executed a registration rights agreement encompassing all securities distributed in this placement. This agreement obligates Silo Pharma to submit registration documents to the Securities and Exchange Commission. These submissions will address the public resale of issued shares and equity underlying the warrant instruments.

Private placements frequently create downward pressure on smaller biotechnology equities due to increased share availability. Expanded share counts can diminish current stakeholder ownership positions and negatively impact per-share valuations. The significant SILO price drop illustrated investor concerns regarding potential ownership dilution.

Company Focuses on Central Nervous System Therapeutics

Silo Pharma functions as a development-stage pharmaceutical enterprise concentrating on neglected medical needs. Its research pipeline emphasizes psychiatric conditions, persistent pain syndromes and central nervous system pathologies. The company currently lacks any commercially approved therapeutic products.

Key pipeline candidates include SPC-15, designed to address post-traumatic stress disorder and associated stress-related conditions. The development roster also features SP-26 targeting fibromyalgia and chronic pain relief. Additionally, Silo Pharma maintains a preclinical program investigating Alzheimer’s disease treatment.

Pharmaceutical development demands continuous capital infusion as clinical trials and regulatory processes typically entail substantial expenditures. Silo Pharma depends on periodic financing transactions to maintain research activities and corporate functions. While this latest placement supplies needed capital, it simultaneously creates meaningful dilution risk for existing shareholders.

The post Silo Pharma (SILO) Stock Tumbles 28% Following $4M Financing Announcement appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Highlights

• The exchange is building its redesigned platform around autonomous AI trading agents

• Intelligent agents will monitor cryptocurrency markets and complete transactions based on user parameters

• Portfolio recommendations will be generated using investment objectives, risk appetite, and available capital

• The platform aims to evolve from pure crypto exchange into comprehensive financial services provider

• AI agent technology may define the next competitive phase among cryptocurrency trading platforms

Kraken is preparing to unveil a reimagined trading application built on agentic AI technology, making autonomous intelligent systems the cornerstone of its retail offering. The platform will continuously scan cryptocurrency markets, spot trading possibilities, and carry out transactions according to boundaries established by individual traders. This strategic shift sets up the exchange to compete in a fresh wave of innovation where platforms leverage automated financial tools to deepen user engagement.

Autonomous Agents Form Foundation of Trading Experience

The revamped application will deploy artificial intelligence from the initial signup phase to evaluate investment objectives, risk preferences, capital allocation options, and user financial backgrounds. Following this assessment, it will generate a preliminary portfolio structure, outline the reasoning behind asset allocation, and enable users to review and modify recommendations. This methodology is designed to streamline investment choices without demanding that customers develop expertise in sophisticated trading mechanics.

Kraken’s platform will supply users with relevant portfolio updates, market intelligence, and actionable recommendations tailored to each individual account. The intelligent system may additionally flag dormant capital and suggest more productive deployment strategies. The company intends to personalize both conversational interactions and visual interfaces according to specific user requirements.

Agentic trading represents an evolution beyond conventional automation because AI agents dynamically process emerging data and work toward specified objectives. While users maintain control over operational boundaries, the system continually assesses market dynamics and operates within established constraints. This framework has the potential to democratize sophisticated trading capabilities that have historically been accessible primarily to institutional and algorithmic traders.

Artificial Intelligence Powers Broader Market Participation

The exchange anticipates that AI technology will enable casual investors to react more promptly as market dynamics shift. Professional market participants typically maintain active positions during downturns, whereas retail traders commonly withdraw from trading activity. Consequently, Kraken aims to equip its application with capabilities for persistent market surveillance and prompt order execution accessible to all users.

This strategic direction also aligns with the company’s ambition to transcend its identity as a conventional cryptocurrency trading venue. The organization intends to develop operations spanning payment processing, banking services, credit facilities, stablecoin products, and tokenized financial instruments. Artificial intelligence could serve as the unifying layer connecting these diverse offerings through a single interface while minimizing technical knowledge barriers for customers.

The exchange is simultaneously pursuing a demographic beyond institutional clients, proprietary trading desks, and veteran leverage traders. Its established user community already possesses deep cryptocurrency market knowledge and frequently trades through multiple market cycles. The redesigned application, however, specifically addresses individuals requiring enhanced guidance, streamlined functionality, and more transparent portfolio assistance.

Industry Braces for AI Agent Arms Race

Competing platforms including Coinbase and Gemini have similarly launched AI-enhanced trading capabilities and developer tools. These initiatives demonstrate that exchanges increasingly recognize artificial intelligence as fundamental infrastructure rather than supplementary functionality. Consequently, autonomous trading technology appears poised to emerge as a primary competitive dimension throughout the cryptocurrency industry.

This strategic emphasis arrives amid challenging cryptocurrency market dynamics, when exchanges typically experience reduced transaction volumes and weakening customer loyalty. The company maintains that automated assistance could enable users to maintain engagement across both bullish and bearish market phases. Such an approach may decrease reliance on intermittent waves of speculative trading interest.

Established in 2011, the platform stands among the most enduring international cryptocurrency exchanges. Its forthcoming application will integrate trading execution, portfolio advisement, and financial services through a unified AI-powered system. The launch will effectively test whether agentic technology can fundamentally alter retail customer interaction with cryptocurrency trading platforms.

The post Kraken Embraces AI-Powered Agents to Transform Cryptocurrency Trading Experience appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• American AI leaders OpenAI and Google delivered artificial intelligence services to Singapore operations of Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent—companies flagged by the Pentagon.
• These transactions comply with existing U.S. regulations, as current restrictions don’t prohibit AI service provision outside China’s mainland.
• OpenAI terminated several Alibaba-associated accounts following concerns about “distillation”—leveraging AI responses to develop competing models.
• Google acknowledges that location-based restrictions alone cannot prevent determined users from circumventing access controls.
• Anthropic has adopted more stringent measures, refusing service to all Chinese-affiliated organizations while advocating for expanded federal export regulations.

Major American artificial intelligence companies OpenAI and Google have delivered access to their cutting-edge AI systems to Singapore-registered branches of three prominent Chinese technology corporations—Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent—despite their parent organizations being featured on a Pentagon watchlist connecting them to Chinese military operations.

The Financial Times initially broke this story on July 10, 2026.

Understanding the Pentagon’s Military-Linked Companies List

The watchlist in question is officially designated as the 1260H list. This catalog names corporations that American officials suspect maintain connections with China’s People’s Liberation Army.

Inclusion on this roster doesn’t create an automatic prohibition against purchasing U.S. AI technology. Present American regulations don’t prevent Chinese corporations from obtaining advanced AI model access when operating beyond China’s territorial boundaries, explaining the legality of these arrangements.

Both OpenAI and Google verified to the Financial Times that they delivered AI capabilities to these Chinese companies’ Singapore-based divisions.

How OpenAI Addressed the Distillation Concern

Last month, OpenAI revoked access privileges for certain users connected to Alibaba. The organization stated it discovered potential “distillation” activities raising red flags.

Distillation describes a technique where software developers utilize responses generated by sophisticated AI systems to enhance and refine their own rival technologies. OpenAI disclosed that it forwarded information about this behavior to federal authorities.

OpenAI maintains it prevents direct connections originating from China while permitting select Chinese-controlled enterprises to utilize its platforms in jurisdictions where the company believes protective measures can be effectively implemented.

Google stated its AI offerings remain accessible in territories including Singapore and Hong Kong, governed by its terms of service policies. However, Google conceded that geographical limitations alone prove insufficient to prevent technically skilled users from bypassing such restrictions.

Anthropic’s Stricter Position on Chinese Access

Anthropic has implemented more aggressive policies than its competitors. This organization has prohibited Chinese corporations and any overseas entities under their control from utilizing its advanced AI systems.

Anthropic has additionally claimed that Alibaba deployed thousands of fraudulent accounts to extract information from its Claude AI platform.

The firm is actively lobbying federal officials to establish comprehensive export limitations on AI software products, mirroring the constraints already governing sophisticated semiconductor chip exports.

This disclosure has reignited discussions in Washington regarding whether artificial intelligence export regulations have matched the stringency of semiconductor restrictions. Legislators and policy analysts are demanding stricter guidelines governing frontier AI model accessibility.

Alphabet’s stock price showed minimal movement in pre-market trading after the news emerged. Alibaba’s American depositary receipts similarly remained relatively stable.

The post U.S. AI Giants Sold Services to Pentagon-Blacklisted Chinese Firms via Singapore appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• A Ryanair flight departing Thessaloniki for Memmingen was forced to return after a cabin window separated from the aircraft during flight
• A Serbian tourist was nearly ejected from the plane when he was pulled halfway through the window opening
• The passenger’s seatbelt and quick-thinking fellow travelers prevented him from being completely sucked out
• The man received medical treatment for friction injuries and is reported to be stable
• Greek media suggests possible engine debris impact, though official cause remains under investigation

A Ryanair Boeing 737 aircraft was forced to execute an emergency return to Thessaloniki, Greece, this past Friday morning following the mid-flight detachment of a cabin window. The flight had departed for Memmingen, Germany, before the incident occurred.

A Serbian passenger aboard the aircraft experienced a harrowing ordeal when he was partially sucked through the opening created by the missing window. His seatbelt proved to be a lifesaving device, preventing his complete ejection from the pressurized cabin.

Passengers seated in proximity to the affected individual acted swiftly, grabbing hold of him and pulling him back to safety inside the aircraft. The frightening event triggered widespread alarm among all those on board.

“The majority of passengers were asleep when it happened,” one witness explained. “We heard what sounded like an explosion or a burst tire.”

The passenger described how oxygen masks deployed automatically and an unusual odor permeated the cabin. It became immediately apparent to travelers that the aircraft had experienced rapid decompression.

“I could see another passenger’s head and upper body hanging outside through the window opening,” she stated. “Thank God he had kept his seatbelt fastened.”

Emergency Landing and Response

Ryanair issued a statement confirming the flight’s return to Thessaloniki minutes after departure. The plane executed a standard landing procedure and all passengers were transported back to the airport terminal.

The injured passenger received immediate medical attention upon landing. Medical personnel treated him for friction-related burns, and his overall condition was described as stable and good.

Ryanair provided an alternate aircraft to transport the remaining passengers to complete their journey to Memmingen.

Cause Under Investigation

Greek news outlets indicated the incident took place while the aircraft was flying over North Macedonia. Preliminary reports from local sources point to potential engine debris striking the window as a possible explanation.

Ryanair has not issued an official statement regarding the specific cause behind the window failure. Aviation authorities have launched a full investigation into the matter, including examining the rapid cabin depressurization event.

Footage circulating across social media platforms appeared to capture the damaged window and deployed oxygen masks visible throughout the passenger cabin. These videos await independent verification.

The Boeing 737 model involved in this incident represents one of aviation’s most extensively deployed commercial aircraft types globally. Ryanair operates as one of the continent’s premier budget airline carriers.

No additional injuries were documented among the passenger manifest. Investigative proceedings continue as authorities work to determine the exact circumstances of Friday’s incident.

The post Ryanair Passenger Nearly Ejected Through Detached Window During Mid-Flight Emergency appeared first on Blockonomi.

The controversial cryptocurrency project continues to draw attention across the industry after releasing key features and unveiling big upgrades.

Its native token, PI, is also very popular, boasting a multi-million-strong holder base. However, only a small fraction of users own more than 10 million coins. Below is a detailed breakdown of each holder group.

How Many Whales?

The X account BSCN revealed that only 21 accounts hold over 10 million PI each. The next group of investors (those holding between 1 million and 10 million tokens) comprises 9,961 users, while 766 own between 100,000 and 1 million tokens.

Further down the distribution, 353,340 wallets hold between 1,000 and 10,000 PI, and another 1,503,374 accounts sit in the 100 to 1,000 PI bracket. The largest cohort by far consists of small holders: around 80% of all Pioneers (more than 14.5 million users) possess fewer than 10 coins each.

The post on X ignited a heated debate, drawing numerous people who began dissecting the data. Some claimed that the whales couldn’t have mined such an enormous amount of tokens, arguing that they had bought them on exchanges.

Others noted that the overwhelming majority of Pioneers hold extremely small balances, making it difficult for them to contribute to the ecosystem via staking or other utility-driven features.

PI Price Outlook

Unfortunately for the multi-million-holder base, Pi Network’s native token has been suffering lately. Earlier this week, it dropped to a new all-time low of around $0.09, representing a 20% plunge on a monthly scale and a 97% collapse since the all-time high of $3 witnessed at the start of 2025.

Its free fall comes despite the numerous updates introduced by the Core Team. Recall that on Pi2Day (June 28), the developers launched SoloHost, Pi Sign-in, and PiVerify – tools designed to expand the ecosystem beyond native apps and into AI, digital identity, and third-party services.

Earlier this month, Pi Network announced that Pi App Studio released two updates to help creators “build more engaging and useful” application experiences: backend support that enables users to save and retrieve specific data across sessions and an AI-assisted App Planning Phase where creators can develop their ideas with the help of Artificial Intelligence.

Meanwhile, the rising number of tokens held on crypto exchanges and upcoming unlocks (over 127.5 million PI are scheduled for release in the next 30 days) suggest the price could experience a further short-term pullback.

The post Pi Network Holders Breakdown: How Many Pioneers Actually Hold Over 10 Million PI? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Ethereum has staged a notable recovery after defending its recent lows, with buyers gradually rebuilding momentum. While the higher time frames remain constrained beneath major resistance, the lower time frame structure has improved, and on-chain activity appears to be stabilizing following months of cooling network participation.

Ethereum Price Analysis: The Daily Chart

On the daily chart, it is evident that ETH continues to trade within a broader bearish structure despite its recent rebound. The asset remains inside the descending channel that has guided the market lower for several months, while both the 100-day and 200-day moving averages continue to slope downward above the current price, which reinforces the fact that the dominant trend is bearish.

Following the sharp decline toward the $1.5K demand zone, buyers stepped in aggressively, triggering a relief rally back toward the key resistance around $1.8K. This area is particularly important as it coincides with the descending channel’s upper trendline, making it a significant confluence resistance.

The RSI has recovered above the midline after previously entering oversold territory, suggesting bullish momentum has improved. However, the indicator has yet to reach overbought conditions, leaving room for additional upside if resistance is broken.

A decisive daily close above the $1.8K resistance could expose the next supply zone around $2.0K to $2.2K, where previous support has turned into resistance. Conversely, rejection from the current area would likely shift attention back toward the $1.5K support, with a loss of that level increasing the probability of another move toward much lower targets.

ETH/USDT 4-Hour Chart

The 4-hour frame presents a more constructive picture. Ethereum has established a clear higher low following its breakout from the recent consolidation range above $1.5k, which suggests that buyers have regained short-term control.

The highlighted higher low around the $1.75K region has so far been confirmed, indicating improving market structure. The price is now approaching the $1.8K to $1.85K resistance area, which has capped previous recovery attempts in recent weeks.

Momentum has also strengthened, with the RSI climbing back above the neutral 50 level after cooling from earlier highs. This suggests buying pressure remains intact, although resistance overhead could still trigger temporary consolidation.

As long as ETH continues holding above the $1.7K higher-low region, the short-term bullish structure remains valid. A successful breakout above $1.85K would strengthen the case for an extension toward the $2.K to $2.2K supply zone. Failure to maintain the higher low, however, would invalidate the recent recovery structure and shift focus back toward the $1.64K order block, and even the $1.5k critical rebound zone.

On-Chain Analysis

Ethereum’s Active Addresses metric continues to trend lower after peaking earlier in the year. The 30-day EMA of active addresses has been steadily declining, indicating that network participation has cooled significantly compared to previous highs.

Despite this longer-term downtrend in activity, the pace of the decline appears to be moderating, suggesting the network may be entering a stabilization phase rather than experiencing continued deterioration. Historically, periods where active addresses stabilize after prolonged weakness have often coincided with price consolidation before the next major directional move.

At the same time, ETH has managed to recover from its recent lows while active address growth remains subdued. This divergence implies that the current rebound has been driven more by improving market sentiment and positioning than by a broad resurgence in on-chain demand.

For the recovery to evolve into a more sustainable bullish trend, a gradual increase in active addresses alongside continued price appreciation would provide stronger confirmation that capital and user activity are returning to the Ethereum network. Until then, the improving technical structure should be viewed alongside still-muted on-chain participation, suggesting cautious optimism rather than confirmation of a full trend reversal.

The post Ethereum Price Analysis: ETH Faces a Crucial Test After Latest Rebound appeared first on CryptoPotato.

It was another eventful week in the cryptocurrency markets, dominated by negative news, but BTC has somehow managed to stay afloat and mark some gains.

Recall that bitcoin began its recovery last weekend after it had dipped below $58,000 earlier that week for the first time in nearly two years. However, it quickly rebounded and reclaimed the $60,000 resistance. It kept climbing on Friday and Saturday and tapped $63,300 before it retreated slightly to $62,500 on Sunday.

Monday started on the right foot, with a surge to $64,000 for the first time in two weeks. However, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin announced its second sale in under two months at that point, resulting in immediate chaos. As this one was a lot more significant, with the company offloading over 3,500 units, BTC’s price reacted with a painful decline to $61,200.

Instead of plunging further as it did after the previous sale in early June, though, the bulls stepped up and drove it north to almost $64,800. Another leg down followed in the middle of the week, and BTC slipped to $61,600 as the US and Iran launched new strikes against each other in the Middle East and the POTUS said the MoU between the two is over.

Nevertheless, bitcoin bounced off again as the two warring countries are reportedly setting up new talks. It jumped to $64,500 minutes ago, showing a 3.5% weekly increase. ETH is up by almost 3% in the same timeframe to $1,800, while ZEC, UNI, and BCH have marked even bigger gains. In contrast, SOL, DOGE, RAIN, and XLM are deep in the red.

Market Data

Market Cap: $2.29T | 24H Vol: $61B | BTC Dominance: 56.5%

BTC: $64,450 (+3.5%) | ETH: $1,800 (+2.7%) | XRP: $1.11 (-0.35%)

This Week’s Crypto Headlines You Can’t Miss

Why Strategy Selling More Bitcoin May Not Be Bearish After All. Although Strategy’s sale resulted in an immediate nosedive, BTC’s ability to rebound in the following days led to speculation that the move is not as bearish as many thought. This is because it could be a positive step that strengthens confidence in the company’s financial structure.

Ripple (XRP) Scores Major European Win With Full MiCA License. One of the most significant Ripple-related news this week came from Europe as the company received full authorization to operate as a Crypto Asset Service Provider in the Old Continent from Luxembourg’s regulator. This allows it to offer its regulated crypto payments platform throughout the European Economic Area.

Charles Hoskinson Says Ethereum Is Adopting Cardano Ideas Without Credit. Hoskinson accused Ethereum of copying Cardano’s innovations, particularly in UTXO payment models, without proper acknowledgment. Ethereum’s proposal aims to reduce state storage for payments, drawing from Cardano’s long-established concepts.

Solana (SOL) FUD Hits 2026 High: Why It Could Be a Bullish Twist. SOL’s painful decline over the past week led to a large wave of negative comments online and low trading volumes. However, the analysts from Santiment indicated that such environments typically lead to market reversals and more profound rallies.

Analyst Sees Upside for ETH Ahead of Glamsterdam Upgrade. The largest altcoin trades roughly 65% away from its peak, but the upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade could trigger a sharp rebound. Although the social interest remains low, analysts outlined a divergence between steady on-chain usage and weak social media presence that often leads to major price changes.

Bitmine Buys Another 42K ETH as 5% Supply Goal Comes Within Reach. The former bitcoin miner accumulated another 42,197 ETH over the previous week and now controls roughly 4.8% of the asset’s circulating supply. Although its unrealized losses are still well into the billions of dollars, it continues to stake more ETH and expects over $200 million in annualized staking rewards.

Charts

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

The post Bitcoin Reclaims $64K Despite Strategy’s New Sale and Resumed US-Iran Strikes: Weekly Recap appeared first on CryptoPotato.

As the business intelligence and Bitcoin treasury company Strategy just carried out its largest BTC sale this week, analysts are comparing just how deeply the firm is underwater.

CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost reviewed Strategy’s Bitcoin unrealized losses compared to those of the world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance, in their latest report. This is because both entities are major BTC holders, with hundreds of thousands of digital assets sitting in their reserves.

Underwater Comparisons Between Strategy and Binance

According to Darkfost’s report, crypto exchanges collectively hold about 8 million BTC, with roughly 30% concentrated on Binance alone. Bitfinex, Gemini, Kraken, and OKX follow suit with more than 5% of the holdings each.

It is worth mentioning that Binance’s bitcoin reserves are mostly owned by investors. This is because the exchange liquidated about 94% of its proprietary BTC reserves and converted them into stablecoins in early 2025 during a major restructuring. So, since then, it has not actively engaged in selling its own BTC; the bitcoin in question now belongs to investors.

Although Binance accounts for the largest exchange reserves with 656,561 BTC, Strategy still tops the platform with 843,775 units. This feat is despite Strategy executing two batches of BTC sales within less than two months. The first was in late May – 32 BTC for $2.5 million – while the second was earlier this week – 3,588 BTC for $216 million. These sales have been aimed at funding security dividends and corporate liquidity needs. Darkfost said Strategy’s moves reflect the company’s need for liquidity rather than a market conviction.

Strategy In Deeper Losses

Strategy’s 843,775 BTC stash has an average acquisition price of $75,476, but the sales have been taking place around the $60,000 level. So, the business intelligence giant has realized roughly 20% sales losses.

On the other hand, all the BTC sitting on Binance has an estimated realized price of $60,900, well below Strategy’s $75,476. This indicates that the latter’s reserves are still deeper underwater than Binance’s – the treasury firm is sitting on more unrealized losses.

Moreover, Strategy has more BTC holdings than Binance, so the firm has a significantly larger unrealized loss margin than the exchange. If Saylor’s company makes any more sales while BTC hovers around $60,000, it is bound to realize even more losses.

The post Strategy or Binance: Who’s Sitting on More Unrealized Bitcoin Losses? CryptoQuant Weighs In appeared first on CryptoPotato.

[PRESS RELEASE – New York, USA, July 10th, 2026]

TrueDAO announced today the completion of a $10 million strategic funding round. The round was led by Brevan Howard Digital, with participation from Zee Prime Capital and Jump Capital. The proceeds will primarily fund core AI protocol development, AI-driven risk control, security audits, global compliance efforts, and the expansion of ecosystem partnerships.

The journey to this milestone began a year ago when the TrueDAO team set out to build a decentralized financial infrastructure driven by smart contracts, on-chain reserves, dynamic adjustment mechanisms, and community governance. The initiative aimed to address challenges in the traditional crypto industry regarding yield sustainability, risk response, reserve transparency, and governance efficiency; since then, the team has successfully developed the core protocol architecture.

TrueDAO is not designed for a single blockchain application; instead, it aims to serve as a modular financial infrastructure, providing global ecosystem projects with liquidity management, reserve management, risk alerts, yield distribution, and governance support.

This funding round will focus on five key areas: refining smart contracts and protocol modules; building AI-driven risk monitoring and stress-testing systems; implementing independent security audits, real-time monitoring, and bug bounty programs; advancing legal and compliance assessments across various jurisdictions; and releasing developer documentation while expanding ecosystem partnerships.

SoLee, Head of Marketing at TrueDAO stated “Raising $10 million is a significant milestone, but it is not the finish line. While capital accelerates development, it cannot replace security, transparent governance, and genuine value creation. We remain committed to building an on-chain financial infrastructure that is auditable, verifiable, and governable.”

Following the funding, TrueDAO will advance its testnet launch, security audits, developer tools, and ecosystem integration plans, while disclosing protocol operations and reserve data in phases. Specific launch dates, token arrangements, and incentive mechanisms will be subject to official announcements and applicable laws.

About TrueDAO

TrueDAO is an AI-driven decentralized autonomous financial infrastructure project. It is dedicated to building an open, transparent, and composable on-chain financial system through the integration of smart contracts, on-chain data, AI risk analysis, dynamic value adjustment, protocol reserves, and DAO governance.

TrueDAO Website: www.truedao.ai

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