Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Europe’s First Bitcoin-Backed Stock Pays 10%: Why Did Nearly Half Go Unsold?

On-chain detective ZachXBT published a post stating that cross-chain bridge project TeleSwap was allegedly hit by an attack of more than $735,000 on July 15, 2026. As of now, five days after the incident, the project team has not publicly disclosed any information regarding the event. ZachXBT noted that shortly after suspicious funds flowed out, TeleSwap’s Bitcoin hot wallet ceased processing transactions. Approximately two hours ago, the attacker transferred the stolen funds to Tornado Cash. According to his disclosure, the addresses linked to the stolen funds include: bc1pz95zv3qhpmt52yezs84a5zrddrk5jsxm8a60rln5kzlk06e87a3q8pf79l0x2448cbaee50a67030692b7519a954e5550dc27180xfc5048fbba2f74ed482ffcd7663601f818c5bb470xf8706a51f8df01a71f408e50c901dd14916a12c7. TeleSwap’s Bitcoin hot wallet address is: bc1q5wnpn4k99wc587maaaa6eqnx27g4r6mduxg2s5. To date, TeleSwap has not issued an official statement on the incident, and the cause of the attack and the status of fund recovery remain unconfirmed.

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Native Markets Discontinues USDH, Will Continue to Support 1:1 Redemptions and Exchanges in the Coming Months

According to official announcements, Native Markets has announced that the USDH official website has been sunset. Over the coming months, users will still be able to redeem and exchange USDH for U.S. dollar assets at a 1:1 ratio via the redemption page provided by the Bridge. Native Markets stated that the final exit procedures for USDH and related information will continue to be made available through the USDH official website.

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Hackers Attack Kenya's Presidential Official Website, Demand 5 Bitcoin Ransom

Kenya's government is investigating the hacking incident targeting President William Ruto's official website. On July 18, attackers briefly altered the president's official site page and demanded a ransom of 5 BTC, threatening to leak undisclosed data if not paid. Kenya's Cabinet Secretary for Information, Communication and Digital Economy stated that the government has activated its cybersecurity response mechanism and is conducting a forensic investigation in collaboration with relevant agencies. There is currently no evidence indicating unauthorized access to or leakage of sensitive data, and government digital services remain operational.

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Bitcoin mining firm LM Funding rebrands as PowerCompute, shifting focus to AI computing power infrastructure.

Bitcoin mining company LM Funding America (NASDAQ: LMFA) announced it will rebrand to PowerCompute Inc. and adopt a new stock ticker "PWCM" effective July 22. The company stated that the rename marks its strategic transformation, as it leverages its existing 26 megawatts (MW) of owned power infrastructure to expand into high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure businesses. Currently, the firm operates two facilities in Oklahoma and Mississippi, U.S., with 26 MW of power capacity, and plans to provide infrastructure services to AI computing clients. It will also continue holding Bitcoin assets as part of its balance sheet.

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U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve stocks have fallen to their lowest level since 1983.

U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) crude oil inventories fell by approximately 5.1 million barrels last week, dropping to 311.4 million barrels, the lowest level since 1983.

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Morgan Stanley: As memory shortage intensifies, DRAM prices may rise by at least 25% quarter-on-quarter in the third quarter.

Morgan Stanley analyst Joseph Moore noted that following discussions with multiple data center procurement personnel last week, the current tight memory supply shows no signs of easing. DRAM and other memory products are expected to rise by at least 25% on a comparable basis from the second quarter to the third quarter, a figure higher than previous forecasts from Morgan Stanley and third-party institutions. Moore added that the memory shortage could further deteriorate in 2027 and 2028, as AI demand is consuming massive DRAM capacity, squeezing supplies for other sectors such as PCs and smartphones. Morgan Stanley further holds that the current market is not only grappling with surging memory demand driven by AI, but insufficient memory supply itself is emerging as a key bottleneck limiting AI expansion.

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The US military said it has forced seven commercial vessels to divert course and disabled one to restrict access to Iranian ports.

U.S. Central Command said that as of July 20, U.S. military forces have forced seven commercial vessels to alter their routes and disabled one merchant ship to prevent vessels from entering or leaving Iranian ports. (Jinshi)

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New Ceasefire Hopes Add $550 Billion to US Stocks as Oil Retreats

Bitcoin (BTC) remains capped below its 50-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) around $65,026 on Monday. Pi Network (PI) and Pump.fun (PUMP) show steady recovery on Monday, outperforming other crypto assets over the last 24 hours. 

Bitcoin nears key level breakoutBitcoin maintains a capped tone just under its 50-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) at $65,026 while remaining well below the 200-day EMA near $74,769. This configuration suggests the broader trend still leans to the downside despite a modest recovery off recent lows.

The Relative Strength Index (RSI) at 55 has edged into positive territory, and the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) histogram stays in the positive zone with its signal line, hinting at improving momentum, yet price action remains constrained beneath $65,000.

On the topside, immediate resistance is seen at the 50-day EMA around $65,026, with additional supply aligning higher at the $70,000 round figure and the 200-day EMA near $74,769.

BTC/USDT daily price chart.On the downside, the next significant support sits at the horizontal level of 60,000, where buyers previously emerged, and a sustained break below that floor would likely reopen a deeper corrective phase despite the current momentum uptick.

Pi Network hints at a bullish trend reversalPi Network shows a steady recovery trend, extending for the fourth consecutive day on Monday. PI extends a positive rebound within a falling channel pattern, testing to reclaim the 127.2% Fibonacci extension at $0.09613, measured from $0.1998 to $0.1183. The dominant structure remains bearish, with the overhead trendline near $0.1060, which could cap the upside.

The MACD has crossed back above its signal line in negative territory and flipped the histogram positive, hinting at a tentative easing of downside momentum. The RSI near 43 stays below the midline, but the rebound from the oversold zone reflects modest improvement in momentum.

PI/USDT daily price chart.As long as PI/USD trades below both these moving averages, rallies are likely to face supply into these zones, and the broader technical picture would remain vulnerable to renewed downside pressure on failures ahead of $0.1153.

Pump.fun gains bullish momentumPump.fun hovers near the $0.002000 mark on Monday, following a 20% jump the previous day. PUMP maintains a constructive near-term bias, with over 35% gains last week and reclaiming both the 50-day and 200-day EMAs at $0.001597 and $0.001915, respectively.

The recovery targets the previous swing high near $0.002251, followed by the 127.2% Fibonacci extension level at $0.002700, calculated from the $0.00251 to $0.001153 downswing.

The RSI near 71 signals overbought conditions, despite a firm positive trend in the MACD and signal lines, which hint at sustained upside momentum.

PUMP/USDT daily price chart.On the downside, initial support is provided by the 200-day EMA at $0.001915, followed by the 78.6% retracement at $0.001951 and the 50% level at $0.001611.

(The technical analysis of this story was written with the help of an AI tool. Know more.)

COINTELEGRAPH: Trader maintains $67K BTC price target: Five things to know in Bitcoin this week

Bitcoin (BTC) trades just below its 50-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) near $65,000 on Monday, a key technical level that could determine its next directional move. Institutional demand via ETFs improved somewhat last week, providing some tailwind for the Crypto King, but the latest round of strikes between the US and Iran has dampened risk appetite.

Geopolitical risks cap BTC’s upsideUS Central Command (CENTCOM) said on X that it has completed the ninth consecutive evening of strikes against Iran on July 19, at 10 p.m. ET. 

US President Donald Trump said that the latest strikes were being carried out in honor of US service members killed in recent days. CENTCOM added that the strikes are aimed at degrading Iranian military capabilities used to attack commercial vessels and civilian mariners transiting the Strait of Hormuz. 

In response, Iran fired ballistic missiles and one-way attack drones targeting US allies in the region, with Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, and Iraq reporting a new wave of attacks.

Adding to this, the US recently resumed a naval blockade of Iranian ports and restricted an earlier Oil-selling license. On the other hand, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is aggressively monitoring and attempting to restrict vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. 

The latest developments have heightened the risk of a broader regional conflict, prompting traders to price in a higher geopolitical risk premium and dampening overall risk appetite. The renewed rise in Oil prices has revived fears of energy-driven inflation, which has strengthened the safe-haven US Dollar (USD) and capped the Crypto King’s upside.

Institutional demand shows mild signs of improvementSoSoValue data shows that spot BTC ETFs recorded a mild inflow of $75.67 million last week, marking the second week of positive flows after weeks of withdrawals. The sustained inflows suggest institutional investors are gradually returning to the market. If these flows continue and intensify this week, BTC could see further recovery.

Total Bitcoin spot ETF net inflow weekly chart. Source: SoSoValue“ETF inflows return, but not yet enough for Bitcoin to break out,” Simon-Peter Massabni, Head of Business Development at XS.com, said in an email comment.

Massabni explained that the market sentiment has stabilized somewhat, supported by softer US inflation data and renewed inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs. However, the fact that prices have yet to decisively break above the $65,000-$65,500 range suggests that current buying pressure is only strong enough to contain the downside, but not yet sufficient to confirm a new uptrend.

“In the near term, the $65,000-$65,500 range remains the key resistance area. If Bitcoin breaks above and holds this zone, the recovery could extend toward $67,000–$68,000. Conversely, if prices continue to face rejection and ETF inflows weaken again, Bitcoin could return to test the area around $62,000, followed by $60,000.”

“In my view, the market does not lack reasons to start buying Bitcoin. What is still missing is a sufficiently strong catalyst – most likely a flow of capital large and persistent enough to turn the current rebound into a genuine trend,”, Massabni concluded.

Bitcoin Price Forecast: BTC could extend gains if it closes above the 50-day EMABitcoin price trades at $64,200 on Monday, holding just above nearby horizontal support around $64,004 but still capped by a dense band of Exponential Moving Averages (EMAs) overhead. The 50-day EMA at roughly $65,000, together with the 100-day and 200-day EMAs higher up at about $68,128 and $74,074, respectively, keeps the broader tone bearish as price continues to consolidate beneath these trend-defining barriers. 

The Relative Strength Index (RSI) around 52 stays near neutral territory, while the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) remains in positive territory but has been losing altitude, which suggests upside momentum is fading rather than accelerating.

On the topside, immediate resistance is seen at the 50-day EMA near $65,000. A daily close above this level would be needed to open a clearer path toward the 100-day EMA around $68,128 and then the 200-day EMA near $74,074, with a more distant horizontal cap emerging near $84,410.

On the downside, immediate support is seen near $64,004, where buyers previously emerged, and a break below this floor would expose further weakness toward the key psychological level at $60,000.

(The technical analysis of this story was written with the help of an AI tool. Know more.)

Bitcoin, altcoins, stablecoins FAQs Bitcoin is the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, a virtual currency designed to serve as money. This form of payment cannot be controlled by any one person, group, or entity, which eliminates the need for third-party participation during financial transactions.

Altcoins are any cryptocurrency apart from Bitcoin, but some also regard Ethereum as a non-altcoin because it is from these two cryptocurrencies that forking happens. If this is true, then Litecoin is the first altcoin, forked from the Bitcoin protocol and, therefore, an “improved” version of it.

Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies designed to have a stable price, with their value backed by a reserve of the asset it represents. To achieve this, the value of any one stablecoin is pegged to a commodity or financial instrument, such as the US Dollar (USD), with its supply regulated by an algorithm or demand. The main goal of stablecoins is to provide an on/off-ramp for investors willing to trade and invest in cryptocurrencies. Stablecoins also allow investors to store value since cryptocurrencies, in general, are subject to volatility.

Bitcoin dominance is the ratio of Bitcoin's market capitalization to the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies combined. It provides a clear picture of Bitcoin’s interest among investors. A high BTC dominance typically happens before and during a bull run, in which investors resort to investing in relatively stable and high market capitalization cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. A drop in BTC dominance usually means that investors are moving their capital and/or profits to altcoins in a quest for higher returns, which usually triggers an explosion of altcoin rallies.

Shares of Hut 8 gained over 12% in premarket trading Monday after the company announced a $9.8 billion lease agreement that fully commercializes its Beacon Point AI data center campus in Nueces County, Texas.

The 15-year triple-net lease covers an additional 352 MW of IT capacity and expands the existing commitment from the same high-investment-grade customer to 704 MW.

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Hut 8 said it will construct a second AI factory based on NVIDIA’s DSX reference architecture, while the campus remains fully supported by 1,000 MW of utility capacity already secured through AEP Texas.

Including annual rent escalations, the latest agreement lifts the site’s total base-term contract value to $19.6 billion and is expected to contribute roughly $655 million in annual net operating income once stabilized.

The company said the transaction validates its power-first infrastructure strategy, which focuses on securing power before attracting long-term AI tenants.

Hut 8’s contracted AI data center portfolio now totals 949 MW across Beacon Point and River Bend, backed entirely by investment-grade counterparties and representing $26.6 billion in contracted revenue over the base lease terms.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Capital B, Europe’s second-largest Bitcoin treasury company, will consolidate its shares in a 10-for-1 reverse stock split aimed at broadening its institutional investor base.

The reverse split will reduce the number of shares to about 30.1 million from 300.7 million. Each new share will replace 10 existing shares and carry a par value of 0.80 euros ($0.90), up from 0.08 euros, Capital B said in a Monday statement.

The Euronext Growth Paris-listed company said the conversion will occur automatically on Sept. 8 without changing the aggregate value of investors’ holdings.

Capital B said the move is intended to support its institutional development and appeal to a wider pool of investors.

Last month, shareholders approved up to 105 billion euros in financing capacity to support the company’s Bitcoin acquisition strategy.

Capital B holds 3,139 Bitcoin at the time of writing. Germany’s Bitcoin Group SE holds the most among European companies, with 3,605 BTC, according to Bitcoin Treasuries.

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

World’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder Strategy has no plans to slow down its Bitcoin buying. After surprising the market with a $216 million BTC sale, CEO Phong Le says the company is “not going anywhere.” 

While Michael Saylor’s latest post has sparked speculation that another massive Bitcoin buying could be announced today.

Strategy CEO Says More Bitcoin Buying Is ComingStrategy President and CEO Phong Le has assured the investors that the company’s recent Bitcoin sale does not signal a change in its long-term strategy.

Speaking after Strategy sold 3,588 BTC worth about $216 million, Le said the transaction had little impact on the market.

“We sold about $200 million of Bitcoin, but it did not move the market. In fact, the market moved up during that period of time. So we’re not going anywhere.”

Le added that Strategy remains the largest identified corporate holder of Bitcoin and wants to continue expanding that position.

“We’re the largest identified holder of Bitcoin. My objective would be to be the largest buyer of Bitcoin for the foreseeable future. We’re not going anywhere.”

His comments come just days after many investors questioned whether Strategy had started reducing its Bitcoin exposure.

$3 Billion Cash Reserve Gives Strategy More FlexibilityFurther, when asked why Strategy recently increased its cash reserves instead of immediately buying more Bitcoin.

Lee said it was built after preferred shareholders requested a stronger liquidity position.

“We accumulated $3 billion in cash because we listened to our preferred shareholders… Building up the U.S. dollar reserve was a big part of that.”

According to Le, Strategy remains financially comfortable and does not see debt becoming a concern unless Bitcoin falls much further.

“When Bitcoin gets down closer to $8,000 to $10,000, that’s when we have to consider some of the risks associated with our debt. Until that point in time, we feel very secure about the balance sheet.”

He also confirmed that once the company’s preferred shares recover, Strategy expects to issue more shares and continue buying Bitcoin.

Michael Saylor’s Post Sparks Bitcoin Buying SpeculationAdding to the excitement, Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor recently posted “What’s Next?” on X.

The post included the company’s orange dot chart, which has historically appeared before major Bitcoin purchase announcements. Because of that pattern, many investors believe Strategy could soon announce another Bitcoin acquisition this week.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin is trading around $64,212, down slightly over the past 24 hours. From a technical perspective, analysts say BTC is approaching the breakout point of a W pattern on the daily chart. 

If confirmed, Bitcoin could rally toward $71,334, potentially creating another buying opportunity for Strategy.

Story Ends Here

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In brief Michael Saylor, executive chairman of Strategy, has published a 110-point essay opposing Bitcoin's proposed BIP-110 soft fork. BIP-110 would temporarily restrict non-financial data such as Ordinals and inscriptions on Bitcoin. Saylor argues the change sets a dangerous precedent by using consensus to invalidate currently valid, fee-paying transactions. Michael Saylor has escalated his opposition to a contentious Bitcoin proposal, publishing a sweeping 110-point essay over the weekend arguing that BIP-110—a soft fork meant to curb non-financial data on the network—would cause more harm than the problem it targets.

Titled "110 Reasons BIP 110 Is a Bad Idea," the Strategy executive chairman billed the text as a “case for neutral rules, hard consensus, open markets, and permissionless innovation." Saylor said he shares supporters' goals—keeping validation cheap, payments affordable, and Bitcoin focused on sound money—but rejects their remedy.

BIP-110 would, for around a year, tighten Bitcoin's consensus rules to limit the techniques used to embed arbitrary data, targeting the inscriptions and Ordinals that have crowded block space and pushed up fees since 2023. Supporters, including developer Luke Dashjr and the Bitcoin Knots camp, cast it as a way to fight spam, while critics say it would reject valid transactions and could split the network.

Kill or cure?Saylor's essay builds on his earlier argument that the danger lies in the precedent that BIP-110 would establish. Bitcoin "cannot read intent," he wrote—the network can't tell whether bytes represent an image, a proof, a contract, or a future application—so restricting the forms used to store data also blocks legitimate ones. "'Spam' is not a consensus primitive," he argued, and disapproval of a use "is not invalidity."

Changing consensus to police one contested use, he warned, creates a template others could reuse, with privacy tools, novel custody, stablecoin settlement or token systems potentially facing “similar arguments.” That, he wrote, is "not a prediction" but "a governance risk." The restrictions would lapse after about a year, "but the precedent does not." He brands BIP-110 a "Bitcoin Iatrogenic Proposal"—one where the treatment itself does the damage.

Saylor also objects to the activation design, which lowers the miner-signaling threshold to 55% from the 95% used in earlier soft forks and drops the usual option to let a proposal quietly expire. Signaling has been running below 1%, far short of that 55% bar, according to the proposal's monitoring dashboard, and Saylor cautioned that mismatched enforcement "can divide the network."

“Guardians of neutrality”Saylor cast the dispute as a fight over Bitcoin's character. "Bitcoin's strength is not that everyone agrees on every use," he wrote, arguing that it lies in the fact that "disagreement is contained by neutral rules and hard consensus." He concluded that, "Bitcoin does not need guardians of purity. It needs guardians of neutrality."

The Strategy chairman’s stance aligns him with Blockstream CEO Adam Back, Casa's Jameson Lopp and Bitcoin advocate Samson Mow, who have also pushed back on BIP-110, against Dashjr and the Knots camp. BIP-110's mandatory signaling window opens in August, with activation targeted around September 1.

The manifesto lands as Saylor’s Bitcoin treasury firm pivots from its “never sell” stance to “active capital management,” pausing its Bitcoin purchases as it builds up its cash reserve to $3 billion in order to fulfil stock dividend payments and debt interest obligations. Last week, Strategy CEO CEO Phong Le said last week the firm wouldn't worry about its debt unless Bitcoin crashed to the $8,000–$10,000 range.

On Myriad, a prediction market owned by Decrypt’s parent company Dastan, users place just an 8% chance on Strategy holding over 1 million BTC by the end of the year, down from 17% a week ago.

Daily Debrief NewsletterStart every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.

In one week, Bitcoin sat still through missile strikes in the Strait of Hormuz and then fell with Asian chip stocks. The war test and the tech test gave opposite answers about what Bitcoin is, and both answers are correct. Working out how is the most useful thing a holder can do right now.

Summary

Bitcoin held a tight range near $63,000 through a weekend of US strikes on Iran and renewed missile attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a marked change for an asset that once sold off on a single Hormuz headline. Days later it fell below $63,000 anyway, dragged by an AI-valuation rout that sent Japan’s Nikkei down nearly 5% in its worst session since March and knocked more than 500 points off the Nasdaq. Gold went the other way in the same selloff, rising back above $4,000 as the dollar index climbed, which is exactly what a hedge is supposed to do and exactly what Bitcoin did not. Analysts increasingly locate Bitcoin’s driver in the liquidity and inflation channel, not the geopolitical hedge narrative, with the soft June CPI and Fed repricing doing more work than the missiles. Down roughly 50% from its October 2025 peak near $126,200, Bitcoin has tracked the same rate fears and AI jitters as the Nasdaq. The honest conclusion is not that the hedge thesis died, but that it was always narrower than advertised: Bitcoin hedges money, not missiles. Two tests were administered to Bitcoin this month, days apart, by events nobody scheduled. The first was a war test: American strikes on Iran, then Iranian missiles fired at commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, ending a week-long lull. Oil jumped, gold firmed, Treasuries caught a safety bid, and Bitcoin did something it has almost never done in its history. Nothing. It held a tight range through a weekend of exactly the headlines that once triggered instant three-percent drops.

The second was a tech test: a rout in AI and chip stocks that produced the Nikkei’s worst session since March and a 500-point Nasdaq slide. This time Bitcoin moved immediately, straight down, below $63,000, while gold rose back above $4,000 in the same session. One asset, two shocks, two opposite responses, one week. Either Bitcoin has matured past panic or it has been absorbed into the tech trade, and the strange truth is that both readings are right, because they are answers to different questions.

The week that ran the experiment The facts first, because the sequencing is the argument.

The war leg came first. Following US strikes on Iranian targets, Iran’s military fired at least two missiles at commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, ending a pause in attacks under a US-Iran understanding. Brent crude climbed toward $88 a barrel, up roughly 30% over two weeks, the classic supply-shock signature. Gold firmed. And Bitcoin held near $63,800 through the weekend and into the week, trading in a range so tight that market desks remarked on it. This is the asset that fell as much as 3% in hours when Israeli strikes on Iran first landed in 2025, an episode that liquidated over a billion dollars of leveraged longs in a day. The same category of headline now produced approximately no response. Whatever Bitcoin was in that earlier episode, it is not that now.

JUST IN: Iran’s IRGC vows to target two Israeli or US universities in the region in retaliation for strike on Tehran’s University of Science and Technology pic.twitter.com/vYKPyNtZmC

— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) March 29, 2026 The tech leg followed. Concerns over stretched AI valuations, brewing for weeks, broke into a rout: heavy selling in Asian semiconductor names took the Nikkei down as much as 5% in its worst session since March, the Nasdaq shed more than 550 points at its lows, and a separate session saw SK Hynix plunge 12% in Seoul, dragging the Kospi down 7%. US index futures pointed lower, and the risk-off rotation ran the textbook route: the dollar index rose to around 100.75, and gold advanced 0.61% to reclaim $4,000. Bitcoin went with the chip stocks, not with the gold, sliding below $63,000, with ether falling harder, as much as 3% toward $1,830, in the usual pattern of a liquidity-driven selloff where the majors bleed and everything beneath them bleeds more. One strategist compressed the week into a phrase, describing a market bruised by “AI fatigue and Hormuz heat.”

Put the two legs side by side, and the discrimination is unmistakable. Bitcoin ignored the war variable and responded to the liquidity variable, in the same week, with the same holders, at the same price level. Markets rarely run experiments this clean.

The maturation reading The first interpretation is the one Bitcoin’s advocates should be making carefully rather than triumphantly, because it is real but narrower than it sounds.

An asset that no longer panics on kinetic conflict headlines has, by definition, graduated from one class of behavior. The old pattern was mechanical: geopolitical shock, risk-off reflex, leveraged crypto longs liquidated first because crypto trades around the clock and its leverage is the most accessible to margin calls. During the 2025 Israel-Iran escalation, a derivatives executive described the dynamic plainly: in moments of acute military risk, liquidity gets prioritized over narrative, traders raise dollars and cut volatile exposure, and Bitcoin, being the most liquid volatile thing on earth, gets sold. That reflex appears to have weakened substantially. Holding a tight range through strikes, ship attacks, and a hawkish Fed repricing is not what a panic asset does.

Part of the change is structural and measurable. The marginal holder is different now: ETF vehicles, corporate treasuries, and long-horizon allocators sit where leveraged retail once dominated, and Strategy’s stack of 843,775 BTC did not move an inch through the week. Positioning data points the same way, with open interest growing only modestly and funding rates near flat, the signature of a market without a crowded leveraged side to flush. An unlevered holder base with multi-year horizons simply has no mechanism for transmitting a Hormuz headline into a forced sale, and the tape now reflects that.

There is also a subtler point the maturation camp is entitled to: not-reacting is what the digital gold thesis predicts for this specific shock. Gold itself did not spike dramatically on the missiles; it firmed. Hard-asset hedges are not supposed to convulse on war news, they are supposed to sit there being unconfiscatable while everything levered convulses around them. On the war leg alone, Bitcoin behaved more like gold than it ever has.

The tech-proxy reading Then came the second leg, and the second reading, which the first cannot explain away.

When the AI rout hit, the hedge behaved like a hedge and Bitcoin behaved like a chip stock. Gold up, dollar up, Bitcoin down with the Nasdaq. If Bitcoin’s holders had truly rotated into the it-is-digital-gold consensus, the AI selloff was the moment to prove it, a valuation scare in the exact sector Bitcoin is supposedly a refuge from. Instead the correlation asserted itself immediately, and the explanation is uncomfortable for the maturation camp: the marginal dollar flowing into Bitcoin over the past two years is substantially the same dollar that has been chasing AI. Same risk budget, same momentum style, same sensitivity to the rate path. When that dollar gets scared, it sells both positions, because to its owner they were always the same trade, long technological transformation with leverage on liquidity.

The longer tape supports this reading brutally. Bitcoin sits roughly 50% below its October 2025 record near $126,200, and the path down has tracked the same rate fears, the same liquidity squeeze, and now the same AI-valuation jitters dragging the Nasdaq, with the whole crypto complex down roughly 48% from a $4.2 trillion peak. Nothing in that drawdown looks like an uncorrelated store of value; all of it looks like the high-beta end of a single global risk trade. Analysts working the flows have said so directly: Nansen’s Nicolai Sondergaard argued the tape reflects the inflation and liquidity channel doing the work, not the geopolitical hedge narrative, pointing to the soft June CPI print, 3.5% headline against 3.8% expected, that reset Fed expectations, sank the dollar to multi-month lows, and eased the 10-year toward 4.57% in mid-July. Bitcoin rallied on that print and fell on the AI rout, which is to say it traded monetary conditions twice and missed zero times.

On this reading, the calm during the war was not maturity. It was indifference of a specific kind: the asset’s owners no longer believe Middle East risk changes dollar liquidity much, so they do not trade it, exactly as the Nasdaq does not trade it. Bitcoin did not rise above the war. It joined the asset class that ignores wars until oil makes the Fed’s job harder.

The synthesis the week actually supports Here is the resolution, and it requires giving up a slogan on each side.

The two tests were testing different claims. The war test asked: is Bitcoin still a panic asset, sold reflexively on any shock? The answer is no, and that answer is genuinely new, structurally grounded in the changed holder base, and worth something. The tech test asked: is Bitcoin an uncorrelated hedge against the financial system? The answer is also no, and the honest advocates conceded that one quarters ago. What remains, once both slogans are surrendered, is a precise and actually useful identity: Bitcoin is a liquidity asset. It prices the supply of money and the appetite for risk, with almost nothing else admitted. Missiles do not move it, because missiles do not move M2. CPI moves it. The Fed moves it. The AI trade moves it, because the AI trade is currently the main pipe through which risk appetite expresses itself.

This is narrower than digital gold and more dignified than Nasdaq beta, and it maps cleanly onto the original thesis if you read the original thesis carefully. Bitcoin was designed as a hedge against monetary debasement, not against geopolitics. Gold hedges both, which is why gold rose on the missiles and on the money. Bitcoin hedges one, with leverage and volatility attached, and it spent this week showing precisely that split: flat on the geopolitics, violently responsive to anything touching rates and liquidity. Holders who wanted a war hedge bought the wrong asset, and this week told them so gently, without even charging them for the lesson. Holders who want a monetary hedge own an instrument that is currently marked 50% below peak because the monetary environment, restrictive rates, a hawkish chair saying the inflation fight is not over, oil threatening the rate-cut path, is exactly what it is priced to hate.

The short-term picture follows from the identity. Polymarket puts the odds of the Fed holding rates at the July meeting at 94%, allocators warn the restrictive regime could stretch into late 2026, and every barrel Brent adds on Hormuz risk tightens the constraint further by feeding the inflation the Fed is fighting. The path for a liquidity asset in that world runs through the liquidity, not the headlines: Bitcoin’s war, the only one it has ever traded, is with the FOMC.

The test the week did not run Intellectual honesty requires naming the scenario this week’s experiment never reached, because both readings survive it only by assuming it away.

The war leg tested limited escalation: strikes, shipping attacks, a contained supply scare that added a risk premium to oil without breaking the market’s basic assumption that the conflict stays regional. Bitcoin’s indifference to that is now on the record. What remains untested is the discontinuity, the event large enough to jump categories: a sustained closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of global oil transits, a direct exchange that pulls in Gulf producers, anything that converts a risk premium into a supply crisis. In that world the transmission channels stop being separable. Oil gaps rather than climbs, imported inflation stops being a forecast and becomes a print, the rate-cut path does not narrow but closes, and the same liquidity channel that Bitcoin trades every day delivers the geopolitical shock it has been ignoring, at full force, all at once.

How Bitcoin behaves in that scenario is simply unknown, and the week’s evidence supports two incompatible guesses. The maturation evidence, unlevered holders, flat funding, treasuries that do not move, suggests the asset rides through even that, repriced lower with everything else but without the panic mechanics of old. The liquidity-asset evidence suggests something harsher: if Bitcoin is the highest-beta expression of dollar liquidity, then the moment a geopolitical event tightens liquidity violently is the moment Bitcoin underperforms everything, including the chip stocks, because beta is symmetric and the direction is down. Gold, meanwhile, would be doing what it did this week at ten times the scale. The divergence that measured 60 basis points on a Thursday could measure twenty points in a crisis, and every allocator holding both assets as interchangeable hedges would discover the difference in a single session.

There is one more asymmetry worth logging before the test arrives. Bitcoin’s calm this month was partly a positioning artifact, the absence of a crowded leveraged side to liquidate, and positioning is the least stable fact in markets. The structure that produced the indifference, ETF-heavy ownership, flat funding, modest open interest, is a snapshot, not a property of the asset. A two-month rally that rebuilds leverage restores the old transmission mechanism intact, and the next Hormuz headline would find the flush the last one could not. The market has not learned to ignore war. It has, for the moment, arranged itself so that war has nothing to grab. Those are different achievements, and only one of them survives a change in the funding rate.

Which is the honest caveat to the week’s clean result: the experiment ran under laboratory conditions, limited war, clean positioning, a soft CPI at its back. The finding, that Bitcoin trades money and not missiles, is real and holders should build on it. The confidence interval around it should stay wide enough to admit the one scenario where money and missiles become the same variable, because that is the scenario in which the distinction this article has carefully drawn stops mattering, and the only hedge that works is the one that was never correlated to begin with.

What to watch The oil-to-CPI transmission. The one channel through which the actual war reaches Bitcoin: Brent up 30% in two weeks becomes imported energy inflation, which caps rate-cut optionality, which is the variable Bitcoin genuinely trades. Watch crude and inflation expectations, not the strike maps.

Whether the calm survives a bigger escalation. The maturation reading has been tested against limited strikes and shipping attacks. A full Hormuz closure that gaps oil would test whether the indifference holds when the geopolitical shock is large enough to become a monetary one, which is the boundary where the two readings finally collide.

The funding and open-interest tape. The flat funding and modest open-interest growth that muted this month’s moves is a configuration, not a law. If leverage rebuilds into any rally, the panic-asset behavior the war test declared dead gets its mechanism back, and the next headline will find a crowded side to flush.

Bitcoin spent one week failing the hedge test and passing the panic test, and the market’s confusion about which result matters is understandable, because the asset’s own marketing spent a decade conflating them. The week’s actual finding is smaller and sturdier: Bitcoin has stopped trading the war because the war was never its subject. Money is. It has never traded anything else, and at half its peak, in a restrictive regime, with its chair promising the fight is not over, it is trading its subject with complete fidelity. The missiles were noise. The FOMC is the war.

JUST IN: Chamath Palihapitiya says two problems face Bitcoin bulls

Marginal liquidity prefers prediction and equity markets while energy for mining is better used for AI pic.twitter.com/tlGTBMFwqA

— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) July 20, 2026 Disclaimer: This article is for information and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. It describes recent market behavior, which does not predict future behavior, and correlations between assets change without warning. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any asset. Always do your own research. Information is accurate as of July 20, 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions How did Bitcoin react to the US-Iran escalation? Barely, which is the story. Bitcoin held a tight range near $63,000 to $63,800 through a weekend of US strikes and renewed Iranian missile attacks on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, even as Brent crude climbed toward $88 a barrel. That marks a sharp change from earlier episodes, such as the 2025 Israel-Iran escalation, when similar headlines dropped Bitcoin as much as 3% in hours and liquidated over a billion dollars of leveraged positions.

Then why did Bitcoin fall below $63,000? Because of the tech selloff, not the war. A rout in AI and chip stocks sent Japan’s Nikkei down nearly 5% in its worst session since March and knocked more than 550 points off the Nasdaq at the lows, with a related session dragging South Korea’s Kospi down 7% on a 12% plunge in SK Hynix. Bitcoin fell alongside the equity move while US futures pointed lower, in a broad liquidity-driven risk-off rotation.

What did gold do during the same selloff? The opposite. Gold advanced 0.61% to climb back above $4,000 while the dollar index rose to around 100.75, the classic hedge-plus-haven pattern. The divergence is the sharpest evidence in the week’s tape: in a stress event, gold performed the role of an uncorrelated hedge and Bitcoin traded with the technology stocks, not against them.

Does this mean the digital gold thesis is dead? It means the thesis was always narrower than the slogan. Bitcoin was designed as a hedge against monetary debasement, not geopolitics, and the week showed exactly that split: no reaction to missiles, strong reaction to anything touching rates and liquidity, including the soft June CPI print of 3.5% versus 3.8% expected. Gold hedges both money and war. Bitcoin, on current evidence, hedges money, with volatility attached.

Why has Bitcoin stopped panicking on war headlines? Structurally, the holder base changed. ETFs, corporate treasuries, and long-horizon allocators replaced much of the leveraged retail positioning that once transmitted headlines into forced selling, and Strategy’s 843,775 BTC did not move through the week. Positioning data showed only modest open-interest growth and near-flat funding rates, meaning there was no crowded leveraged side for a shock to flush.

Is Bitcoin just a Nasdaq proxy now? The correlation is real but the label overshoots. Bitcoin is down roughly 50% from its October 2025 peak near $126,200, tracking the same rate fears and AI-valuation jitters as the Nasdaq, and analysts such as Nansen’s Nicolai Sondergaard locate the driver in the inflation and liquidity channel. The tighter description is a liquidity asset: it prices monetary conditions and risk appetite, which currently express themselves through the tech trade.

How could the Iran conflict still hit Bitcoin? Through oil and inflation. Brent is up roughly 30% in two weeks, and sustained energy inflation would constrain the Federal Reserve’s ability to cut rates, extending the restrictive regime that Bitcoin, as a liquidity asset, is priced against. A severe escalation, such as a closure of the Strait of Hormuz, could convert a geopolitical shock into a monetary one, which is the channel Bitcoin actually trades.

What are the key signals to watch next? Three. The oil-to-inflation transmission, since that is the war’s only route into Bitcoin’s driver. The July FOMC, where markets price a 94% chance of a hold and where guidance on the inflation fight sets the liquidity path. And derivatives positioning: if leverage rebuilds into any rally, the muted-reaction regime of this month loses the structural feature that produced it, and headline sensitivity can return.

Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Ripple (XRP) are starting the week on a mild constructive note as the broader crypto market attempts to recover. BTC is approaching a key technical hurdle at $65,028, and ETH is holding above the important $1,800 support zone. Meanwhile, XRP continues to defend the $1.09 level, keeping its near-term recovery outlook intact. The price action of these top three cryptocurrencies shows that the resilience of these support zones suggests that buyers are still active despite recent market volatility.

Bitcoin could extend gains if it closes above 50-day EMABitcoin trades at $64,927 on Monday, recovering 1.45% over the previous week. Despite the mild rebound, BTC maintains a bearish bias, with price remaining below a dense band of Exponential Moving Averages (EMAs). BTC is capped by the 50-day EMA at $65,028, with the 100-day EMA at $68,141 and the 200-day EMA at $74,112 stacked higher, which collectively suggest that rallies are still occurring within a broader corrective phase.

The Relative Strength Index (RSI) around 54 hints at mildly positive momentum, while the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) remains in positive territory but has been losing altitude, reinforcing the idea of a constrained bounce rather than a sustained bullish reversal as long as these overhead EMAs are not reclaimed.

On the downside, immediate support is seen near $64,004, where buyers previously emerged, and a break below this floor would expose further weakness toward the key psychological level at $60,000.

On the topside, initial resistance is provided by the 50-day EMA at $65,028, followed by the 100-day EMA at $68,141, then the 200-day EMA at $74,112, before a more distant barrier near $84,410 comes into focus. Only a decisive daily close above the 50-day EMA would start to ease the immediate bearish pressure. At the same time, a sustained move through the 100-day and 200-day EMAs would be needed to restore a more constructive medium-term outlook.

Ethereum remains strong as it holds the 50-day EMAEthereum price trades at $1,882 on Monday after rebounding 3.62% in the previous week. ETH holds above the 50-day EMA at $1,818, hinting at a cautiously constructive bias, but it remains well below the 100-day and 200-day EMAs at $1,938 and $2,180, respectively, which continue to cap the broader recovery. 

The RSI hovers near 60, while the MACD remains in positive territory, both suggesting bullish momentum is improving but still has to contend with overhead trend barriers.

On the topside, initial resistance emerges at the 100-day EMA around $1,938, ahead of the psychological horizontal barrier at $2,000 and the longer-term 200-day EMA near $2,180.

On the downside, immediate support is seen at the 50-day EMA around $1,818, with a deeper floor only appearing at the prior horizontal support zone near $1,385, where buyers would be expected to defend the broader medium-term base.

XRP support remains strongXRP trades at $1.10 on Monday, with a mild recovery in the previous week. XRP holds well below the 50-day, 100-day and 200-day EMAs at $1.14, $1.23 and $1.44 respectively, which keeps the broader tone bearish despite the recent stabilization off the lows. 

The RSI sits just below the 50 line. At the same time, the MACD is marginally positive, hinting at waning downside momentum rather than a decisive bullish shift, with price remaining capped beneath these EMAs.

On the topside, immediate resistance is seen at the 50-day EMA near $1.14, followed by the 100-day EMA at $1.23 and the horizontal barrier at $1.30; beyond that, the 200-day EMA at $1.44 and the higher horizontal level at $1.90 define a more distant supply zone. 

On the downside, initial support aligns with the upper boundary of the prevailing downward channel at around $1.00, where a break would expose further weakness and reinforce the broader bearish structure.

(The technical analysis of this story was written with the help of an AI tool. Know more.)

Cryptocurrency prices FAQs Token launches influence demand and adoption among market participants. Listings on crypto exchanges deepen the liquidity for an asset and add new participants to an asset’s network. This is typically bullish for a digital asset.

A hack is an event in which an attacker captures a large volume of the asset from a DeFi bridge or hot wallet of an exchange or any other crypto platform via exploits, bugs or other methods. The exploiter then transfers these tokens out of the exchange platforms to ultimately sell or swap the assets for other cryptocurrencies or stablecoins. Such events often involve an en masse panic triggering a sell-off in the affected assets.

Macroeconomic events like the US Federal Reserve’s decision on interest rates influence crypto assets mainly through the direct impact they have on the US Dollar. An increase in interest rate typically negatively influences Bitcoin and altcoin prices, and vice versa. If the US Dollar index declines, risk assets and associated leverage for trading gets cheaper, in turn driving crypto prices higher.

Halvings are typically considered bullish events as they slash the block reward in half for miners, constricting the supply of the asset. At consistent demand if the supply reduces, the asset’s price climbs.

A major US crypto exchange is introducing streamlined options contracts aimed at unlocking broader adoption in the derivatives space.

Kraken says it has launched European-style, USD-settled Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) options on its Pro platform, starting with request-for-quote functionality for eligible international clients.

Expansion to a public order book, Europe,and more assets are planned next.

The new offering integrates into existing accounts with portfolio margin and supports collateral in over 30 currencies to lower barriers for retail traders.

Kraken says the simplified structure aims to make derivatives more accessible without requiring complex setups.

“Crypto options activity is still a fraction of what it is in traditional markets but the gap is closing as professional and institutional capital continues to move into digital assets.

The existing options market in crypto has been built for a narrow slice of the trader base. Our offering broadens access through a straightforward, dollar-settled contract design that tracks the underlying asset directly, in the same account clients already use for spot and futures.”

Kraken says future phases will broaden availability and add liquidity through order books.

Generated Image: Midjourney

Cryptocurrency prices remain under pressure on Monday, as Bitcoin (BTC) falls toward $64,000. Altcoins, including Ethereum (ETH) and Ripple (XRP), uphold a weakening technical structure. ETH is trading sideways between support at $1,826 and resistance at $1,937. Meanwhile, XRP hovers below the pivotal $1.10 level, edging lower toward the primary $1.00 support.

US-Iran war persists weighing on risk assetsThe United States (US) and Iran escalated hostilities over the weekend, intensifying military tensions across the region. The US military confirmed a ninth consecutive night of strikes targeting Iranian command centers, defense installations, communication hubs, and missile sites.

Iran retaliated by striking US military assets in Kuwait and Bahrain, while the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps reported two oil tankers attempting an unsafe passage through the Strait of Hormuz were disabled following explosions.

The Crypto Fear & Greed Index edged up to 29 on Friday, shifting out of Extreme Fear and signaling a cautious uptick in market sentiment. This gradual improvement in risk appetite underscores the persistent US-Iran attacks.

Crypto Fear & Greed Index | Source: AlternativePrice analysis: Bitcoin's short-term outlook stays bearish Bitcoin trades above 64,000, retaining a capped bias as it holds below the key moving averages. The 50-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) at $65,002 and the Parabolic SAR at $65,420 sit just overhead, reinforcing near-term upside friction, while the 100-day and 200-day EMAs at $68,127 and $74,008 respectively outline a broader bearish structure.

Meanwhile, momentum is more constructive, with the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) remaining in positive territory and the Relative Strength Index (RSI) hovering slightly above the midline, hinting at mild buying pressure that has yet to overcome the stacked resistance band.

BTC/USDT daily chartOn the topside, immediate resistance is clustered between the 50-day EMA at $65,002 and the Parabolic SAR at $65,420, and a daily close above this band would be needed to open the way toward the 100-day EMA at $68,127 and then the 200-day EMA near $74,008. On the downside, structural support is traced back to the broken descending trendline region around $52,994, where a deeper correction could look for buying interest if the current consolidation resolves lower, though that zone remains distant from present price action.

Altcoins outlook: Ethereum and XRP extend consolidationEthereum trades at $1,865, holding above the 50-day EMA at around $1,817 while still capped below the 100-day EMA near $1,937. This configuration, alongside a Parabolic SAR reading at roughly $1,826, suggests the pair retains a cautious constructive tone as it respects nearby trend-following support but has yet to retake its broader medium-term moving-average barrier.

The RSI hovers around 59, hinting at mildly positive momentum without entering overbought territory, while the MACD histogram remains positive, reinforcing a modest bullish bias so long as price sustains above the nearest support band.

ETH/USDT daily chartOn the topside, initial resistance appears at the 100-day EMA around $1,937, and a sustained break above this level would expose the more distant 200-day EMA near $2,178 as the next significant hurdle for buyers. On the downside, immediate support is seen around the current pivot area near $1,865, with additional demand emerging from the Parabolic SAR zone at about $1,826 and the 50-day EMA clustered close by near $1,818. A daily close below this confluence would weaken the current constructive bias and open the door to a deeper corrective phase.

XRP holds below the key moving averages , with the 50-day EMA around $1.15, the 100-day EMA near $1.24 and the 200-day EMA closer to $1.45, keeping the broader tone bearish despite the recent rebound. The Parabolic SAR at roughly $1.06 now trails price on the downside, suggesting that while downside pressure dominates, the immediate trend has stabilised, a view mildly reinforced by a slightly positive MACD reading and a RSI hovering just below the midline.

XRP/USDT daily chartInitial resistance lies at the 50-day EMA near $1.15, and a break above this level would expose the 100-day EMA around $1.24, with the 200-day EMA near $1.45 acting as a more distant cap. On the downside, the Parabolic SAR offers initial support around $1.06. A decisive drop below this trailing level would reopen the path toward lower lows, while holding above it would keep XRP consolidating beneath the EMA cluster.

(The technical analysis of this story was written with the help of an AI tool. Know more.)

Bitcoin, altcoins, stablecoins FAQs Bitcoin is the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, a virtual currency designed to serve as money. This form of payment cannot be controlled by any one person, group, or entity, which eliminates the need for third-party participation during financial transactions.

Altcoins are any cryptocurrency apart from Bitcoin, but some also regard Ethereum as a non-altcoin because it is from these two cryptocurrencies that forking happens. If this is true, then Litecoin is the first altcoin, forked from the Bitcoin protocol and, therefore, an “improved” version of it.

Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies designed to have a stable price, with their value backed by a reserve of the asset it represents. To achieve this, the value of any one stablecoin is pegged to a commodity or financial instrument, such as the US Dollar (USD), with its supply regulated by an algorithm or demand. The main goal of stablecoins is to provide an on/off-ramp for investors willing to trade and invest in cryptocurrencies. Stablecoins also allow investors to store value since cryptocurrencies, in general, are subject to volatility.

Bitcoin dominance is the ratio of Bitcoin's market capitalization to the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrencies combined. It provides a clear picture of Bitcoin’s interest among investors. A high BTC dominance typically happens before and during a bull run, in which investors resort to investing in relatively stable and high market capitalization cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. A drop in BTC dominance usually means that investors are moving their capital and/or profits to altcoins in a quest for higher returns, which usually triggers an explosion of altcoin rallies.

A US court has ordered the forfeiture of more than $8.3 million in cryptocurrency and physical assets tied to Angelo Martino, a former ransomware negotiator who was convicted of secretly colluding with the BlackCat ransomware group while posing as a trusted advisor to his victims.

A Double Agent Inside the Incident Response Industry Martino was employed at the Chicago cybersecurity company DigitalMint, where he negotiated on behalf of companies whose computers were hacked and held for multimillion-dollar ransom payments. Rather than protecting clients, Martino shared confidential information he gained from his work as a ransomware negotiator, including victim organisations' negotiating positions and insurance policy limits, to extract the maximum payment for himself and other BlackCat affiliates.

In all, he and his associates extorted more than $75 million in ransoms from four companies and a nonprofit organisation that he represented as a negotiator. The victims included hospitality, retail, medical, and financial services businesses. Martino, 41, of Land O'Lakes, Florida, was sentenced to 70 months for his role in conspiring with BlackCat/ALPHV actors to extort multiple victims, as well as conspiring with other former cybersecurity professionals to attack additional victims in 2023.

Alongside Martino, Ryan Goldberg of Georgia and Kevin Martin of Texas were also involved in the scheme. On May 1, his co-conspirators Kevin Martin and Ryan Goldberg were each sentenced to 48 months in prison for their roles in the conspiracy.

Multi-Chain Crypto Portfolio and Physical Assets Seized The US District Court for the Southern District of Florida issued a forfeiture order targeting his hidden crypto portfolios. The total value of the seized assets is estimated at $8.37 million, spread across several blockchain ecosystems: 90.319 $BTC worth approximately $5.84 million; 7,999.873 $XMR worth approximately $2.46 million, held in the privacy-focused Monero cryptocurrency; 56,174.15 $XRP seized from wallet "...EkThx6"; and 39,760.79 $XLM held at address "...5RJ3BD". Small holdings of Solana's native SOL token were also confiscated during the operation.

Authorities have also seized a bayfront home with an estimated value of $1.68 million, a second single-family home with an estimated value of $396,000, multiple vehicles, a food truck, and a 29-foot luxury fishing boat that Martino obtained using proceeds from his crimes. A hearing to determine the amount of restitution to be ordered against Martino is set for September 17.

Sources:
US Department of Justice: Florida Ransomware Negotiator Sentenced to Prison
Help Net Security: Ransomware Negotiator Who Betrayed Clients Sentenced to 70 Months
CyberScoop: Former DigitalMint Ransomware Negotiator Sentenced to 70 Months

Crypto may not be struggling because the technology has stopped developing. According to Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz, the bigger problem right now is that the market has lost the attention of speculative traders.

The traders who once chased Solana and other high-flying crypto assets are now looking for excitement elsewhere. “Every young kid that used to buy Solana is buying Hynix or some memory company,” Novogratz said. He pointed to the growing interest in semiconductor stocks and other hot trades.

He also added sports betting, same-day options and Korean stocks as areas that have absorbed much of the speculative energy. This energy once flowed into crypto.

Crypto Has Lost Its “Vibe”Novogratz compared the current market to the previous gold and silver bubble, saying crypto has experienced a similar speculative peak.

“That’s what tops look like,” he said, while stressing that a market topping does not mean the asset class disappears. For him, the current crypto mood is simple: “Meh.”

“People just aren’t as excited about it because there’s other things to be excited about,” Novogratz said.

Still, he does not believe Bitcoin’s long-term story has been broken. He said Bitcoin price could hold around $60,000. However, reaching $80,000 and eventually $100,000 would require three major catalysts. These are the CLARITY Act passing, Federal Reserve rate cuts and a renewed base of buyers.

He does not expect rate cuts this year. However, he sees the CLARITY Act as roughly a 60/40 or possibly two-thirds chance of passing. His base case is that Bitcoin remains between $60,000 and $80,000 for the rest of the year. If it breaks above $80,000, $100,000 could become the next major resistance.

The Technology Is Still Being BuiltDespite the lack of hype, Novogratz believes crypto infrastructure is continuing to develop behind the scenes.

“I’m literally doing deals with five or six, hopefully, big traditional institutions to help build infrastructure,” he said. He pointed to automatic settlement and the ability to transfer value over the internet as technologies that could eventually be used across financial markets.

Crypto also remains more important in many overseas markets than in the United States. Traditional financial services in the U.S. are already highly developed.

The Next Crypto Phase Could Be DifferentOverall, his broader message is that the speculative frenzy may have moved elsewhere for now. However, the underlying technology has not gone away.

The next major crypto phase, he said, may not be driven purely by hype and leveraged trading. Instead, the infrastructure being built today could eventually create a more sustainable market. One that brings real financial institutions and users into the ecosystem even after the speculative crowd has moved on.

Story Ends Here

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Bitcoin Has a New Defense Against Quantum Hackers, But It Can’t Save Everyone

TL;DR

Binance and Bybit lost nearly $2.3 billion in stablecoin reserves over the past 30 days. Binance recorded approximately $1.55 billion in outflows, while Bybit lost around $786 million. Declining stablecoin reserves suggest weaker incoming liquidity and reduced buying power. Bitcoin’s inability to sustain moves above key levels is being linked to a lack of fresh market capital. A recovery in stablecoin inflows could become an important catalyst for renewed crypto market momentum. Bitcoin’s prolonged struggle to escape its current consolidation range is being accompanied by a worrying trend in exchange liquidity, with billions of dollars in stablecoins leaving major trading platforms.

Data from CryptoQuant shows that stablecoin reserves across exchanges have continued declining, signaling that investors are pulling capital away from centralized platforms rather than preparing for increased exposure to digital assets.

The latest figures show Binance and Bybit recorded combined stablecoin outflows of nearly $2.3 billion over the past 30 days. Binance experienced the largest decline, losing approximately $1.55 billion in stablecoin reserves, while Bybit saw around $786 million leave its platform.

The sharp reduction in available stablecoin liquidity comes as Bitcoin remains trapped below key resistance levels, with the market struggling to attract the fresh capital needed for a sustained breakout.

Binance Stablecoin Reserves Point to Falling Market Liquidity Table of Contents

Binance Stablecoin Reserves Point to Falling Market LiquidityBitcoin Faces Liquidity Problem Despite Holding Key LevelsBinance and Bybit Lead Exchange Stablecoin ExodusWeak Demand Keeps Crypto Market Sentiment Fragile Stablecoins such as USDT and USDC are often viewed as the primary source of liquidity within crypto markets. Traders typically move stablecoins onto exchanges when preparing to buy assets, making exchange reserves an important indicator of potential purchasing power.

When reserves rise, it can suggest that investors are positioning themselves for market exposure. However, declining reserves often indicate that capital is being withdrawn, either into private wallets, alternative investments, or out of crypto entirely.

The recent decline across major exchanges suggests that demand for immediate crypto exposure remains limited.

According to CryptoQuant’s data, the broader exchange stablecoin reserve trend has been negative since the beginning of the year, with outflows consistently outweighing inflows.

The chart shows that after periods of strong stablecoin accumulation during previous market rallies, exchange reserves have shifted into a prolonged contraction phase, particularly heading into 2026.

Bitcoin Faces Liquidity Problem Despite Holding Key Levels Bitcoin has spent nearly 165 days testing the $60,000 region, with attempts to regain stronger upside momentum failing to produce a decisive breakout.

Although BTC briefly moved above $80,000 in May, the rally lost momentum as buyers failed to maintain sufficient demand pressure.

Market analysts have increasingly pointed toward liquidity conditions as one of the major factors limiting Bitcoin’s upside potential.

Unlike previous bullish cycles where increasing stablecoin reserves provided additional buying power, the current environment reflects cautious positioning among investors.

The lack of fresh stablecoin inflows means exchanges have fewer readily available funds from traders looking to accumulate Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.

This creates a difficult environment where even positive catalysts may struggle to generate sustained price movements without renewed capital entering the market.

Binance and Bybit Lead Exchange Stablecoin Exodus Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, has seen one of the most significant reductions in stablecoin reserves.

A $1.55 billion decline over 30 days represents a substantial withdrawal of available trading liquidity. Meanwhile, Bybit’s $786 million decline highlights that the trend is not isolated to a single platform.

Combined, the two exchanges have lost close to $2.3 billion in stablecoins, suggesting a broader shift in investor behavior.

Rather than keeping capital available on exchanges, many market participants appear to be moving funds into self-custody wallets or reducing their exposure to crypto markets.

This behavior typically reflects a more defensive market environment where investors are waiting for clearer signals before committing additional capital.

Weak Demand Keeps Crypto Market Sentiment Fragile The stablecoin outflow trend adds to other signs of cautious positioning across the cryptocurrency market.

Bitcoin’s inability to establish a strong breakout above major resistance levels has reduced confidence among traders, while declining liquidity has made it harder for buyers to create meaningful upward momentum.

Lower exchange reserves do not necessarily indicate a bearish long-term outlook. In some cases, withdrawals can represent investors moving assets into long-term storage rather than selling.

However, the timing of the decline suggests that immediate market demand remains weak.

For Bitcoin to regain a stronger bullish structure, analysts believe the market will likely need renewed liquidity injections, whether through institutional demand, retail participation, or increased stablecoin deployment. The current liquidity environment highlights one of the biggest challenges facing Bitcoin’s next potential move higher.

While institutional adoption, spot Bitcoin ETFs, and broader regulatory developments continue shaping the industry, price momentum ultimately depends on available capital entering the market.

For now, declining stablecoin reserves indicate that investors remain cautious, limiting the buying pressure required for Bitcoin to break decisively out of its long consolidation phase.

Until exchange liquidity begins recovering, Bitcoin may continue facing resistance as the market waits for fresh demand to return.

Strategy introduced its Digital Credit Capital Framework, boosting its U.S. dollar reserve target to roughly $3 billion.

American business intelligence firm Strategy has bolstered its financial position by addressing liquidity concerns raised earlier this year. In a July 14 follow-up, the on-chain analytics firm CryptoQuant said the company’s new capital framework has eased short-term financial pressure. The firm, however, noted that questions remain about Strategy’s long-term Bitcoin strategy.

The update follows CryptoQuant’s June 23 assessment, which warned that Strategy’s cash reserves were shrinking even as Bitcoin purchases continued. At the time, analysts estimated the company had enough liquidity to cover preferred dividend obligations for only about 14 months without additional funding.

Strategy Rolls Out New Capital Framework To address those concerns, Strategy introduced its Digital Credit Capital Framework on June 29 to strengthen its financial flexibility. The plan established a board-approved U.S. dollar reserve policy that initially targeted about $2.55 billion before later raising the goal to roughly $3 billion.

The framework also raised the STRC dividend rate to 12% and approved up to $1 billion each for preferred securities issuance and MSTR share repurchases. It also introduced a Bitcoin Monetization Program, allowing the company to sell up to $1.25 billion in Bitcoin to support reserves and funding needs.

The on-chain analytics firm said the measures are closely aligned with recommendations made in its earlier report. Strategy also paused additional Bitcoin purchases and sold 3,588 BTC worth about $216 million between June 29 and July 5. It further raised $466.7 million through its MSTR at-the-market share offering.

As a result, cash reserves rose from roughly $1.44 billion to about $3 billion, extending estimated dividend coverage to around 29 months. During the same period, Strategy maintained its Bitcoin holdings at approximately 843,775 BTC by suspending further accumulation.

Questions Over Future Bitcoin Management Remain According to CryptoQuant, the market has responded positively to the stronger liquidity position, although some uncertainty remains. STRC recovered from a June low near $75 to around $88 but continued trading below its stated value of $100.

You may also like: Buy or Sell? What Michael Saylor’s Cryptic New Tweet Means for Bitcoin What Happens to Bitcoin if the Fed Raises Rates in July? Bitcoin’s Coinbase Premium Has Been Negative for 60 Days – Why It Matters Even so, analysts said the framework does not explain when Bitcoin purchases could resume after the recent pause. They also said the Bitcoin Monetization Program prioritizes dividends, reserves, and share repurchases without defining a clear Bitcoin trading strategy.

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For years, Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin [BTC] strategy looked nearly impossible to challenge. Every capital raise financed another Bitcoin purchase. Every rally reinforced the model. Shareholder dilution also seemed justified because the corporate treasury kept expanding.

Yet, success gradually introduced a different challenge. The financial engine behind the relentless accumulation is now demanding more from the treasury it was built to grow. At press time, Strategy held 843,775 BTC, worth about $54.5 billion. This milestone comes after adding 171,278 BTC this year.

Source: Bitcoin Treasuries However, those holdings carry a $63.69 billion cost basis, with an average purchase price of $75,482. That gap has shifted attention from accumulation toward the sustainability of the model. Reflecting that transition, the recent sale of 3,588 BTC was used to support STRC dividends and strengthen $3 billion in cash reserves.

That said, the real question remains. Can Bitcoin‘s future appreciation continue offsetting dilution, financing costs, and an increasingly self-dependent capital structure?

The engine behind Strategy Dependence on the rising price of Bitcoin is no accident; it has been the foundation of Strategy’s accumulation engine since day one.

Meanwhile, the Market to Net Asset Value (mNAV) has slipped to just 1.03x. The metric gauges how the market values a Digital Asset Treasury (DAT). Previously, it spiked as high as 2.51x, but the sharp decline has eroded the premium that once made equity issuances highly accretive.

Rather than relying on operating cash flow, the company depended on maintaining an enterprise mNAV above 1, allowing it to issue shares at a premium and recycle fresh capital into Bitcoin purchases.

For years, that formula worked remarkably well in favor of the DAT. As mNAV climbed to 3.89x, Strategy raised $25.3 billion during 2025 and accelerated its treasury expansion without materially weakening shareholder exposure. However, currently,  the math has changed.

Source: Strategy Therefore, Strategy will likely have to shift its focus away from adding to its Bitcoin holdings and toward creating flexibility within its balance sheet. Still, not everyone views the recent pressure as evidence that the model is failing.

 Lead Information Compliance Assurance Manager at SpaceX, Vincent Peters, observed,

People often confuse volatility with failure. Bitcoin has experienced extraordinary appreciation punctuated by significant corrections.

He added that while those corrections create headlines, they “don’t necessarily invalidate a long-term strategy.” Unless Bitcoin regains sustained upward momentum, rebuilding the premium may prove more important than acquiring the next Bitcoin.

The per-share challenge That changing reality is also reshaping how Strategy measures success. The company was never trying to own more Bitcoin for the sake of it. Instead, the objective was to ensure every shareholder owned more Bitcoin over time. Such a distinction made BTC Yield and Bitcoin per share the clearest measures of whether the model was truly creating value. For several years, the model delivered on that promise.

BTC yield reached 9.4% in early 2026, while Bitcoin per share climbed to 207,776 satoshi (sats), supported by 171,278 BTC in net accumulation. Yet, the BTC yield has fallen off slightly, hovering around 6.6% as of press time. Although the flywheel has slowed down considerably, that same slowdown has started to impact how well Strategy is performing, according to those same metrics.

As enterprise mNAV compressed toward 1.03x, each new share issued generated less incremental Bitcoin ownership than before.

Source: Strategy More importantly, investors are no longer watching Strategy solely for the size of its Bitcoin treasury. They are watching whether it can continue funding future purchases. That debate has also attracted criticism from longtime Bitcoin skeptic Peter Schiff, who questioned Strategy’s capital allocation. He argued,

The model needlessly destroyed shareholder value by selling discounted MSTR shares instead of Bitcoin.

That shift matters. Rather than being simply the largest owner of Bitcoin, Strategy has become a proxy indicator for institutional demand for Bitcoin.

Therefore, the debate is moving beyond treasury growth alone, with the focus now on whether Strategy can maintain investor confidence in its ability to generate shareholder wealth over the long term by continuing to fund future purchases.

The cost of conviction Building the world’s largest corporate Bitcoin treasury has given Strategy its greatest financial burden. That trade-off is becoming harder to ignore as Strategy’s capital structure grows more complex.

The DAT has approximately $1.76 billion annually in Stretch (STRC) dividend obligations. In addition to those, it also has convertible notes and continuing equity financing. Meanwhile, its software business generates only about $500 million in annual revenue.

Source: Strategy Therefore, there exists a large funding gap. This funding gap explains why, currently, capital markets are equally important to the price of Strategy’s Bitcoin.

As Andrew Bahlmann, founder of Deal Leaders International, noted,

Having conviction with respect to an asset does not equate to having confidence in the ability to finance it.

He added that lenders ultimately favor collateral that remains stable across market cycles rather than assets whose value fluctuates sharply.

Strategy has approximately $2.5 to $3 billion in cash reserves. Therefore, it retains some financial flexibility. Still, prolonged mNAV compression may limit access to accretive capital. This would increase reliance upon reserves or selective sales of the Strategy’s Bitcoin to meet obligations. As such, this challenge is evident when compared to peers.

Metaplanet continues to expand through lower-cost yen-denominated financing. This is by accepting currency risk in exchange for cheaper capital despite mNAV near 0.92x. In contrast, Semler Scientific has adopted a more conservative approach, relying on lower issuance and minimal preferred obligations.

Source: Bitcoin Treasuries Strategy still commands unmatched scale with 843,775 BTC, yet its funding model is also the most demanding. The comparison highlights a growing trade-off across Bitcoin treasury companies.

All in all, aggressive accumulation can accelerate growth, but resilient capital structures ultimately determine how well that growth survives prolonged market stress.

Final Summary Bitcoin accumulation alone no longer guarantees Strategy’s long-term success. BTC treasury growth now hinges on sustainable capital, not just larger holdings.

Table of contents

Bitcoin’s oldest vulnerability didn’t disappear when the network grew into a trillion-dollar asset. The risk that quantum computers could one day forge digital signatures and steal coins from exposed addresses has lingered since the beginning. Now a group called Project Eleven has funded a proof-of-concept that offers a recovery path—but only for wallets that use a specific key derivation structure. And the most famous stash on the network doesn’t qualify.

According to the original report, the proof runs in 243 milliseconds on a laptop. It leverages the wallet’s own key-derivation path—the hierarchical deterministic (HD) path defined in BIP32—to assert ownership after a quantum attacker has forged the corresponding signatures. The concept, funded by Project Eleven, aims to give users a way to reclaim coins trapped in addresses once their public keys become exposed on-chain.

The tension between progress and protection has always been asymmetric in Bitcoin. A quantum-capable adversary wouldn’t need to break the entire network; they could simply target any address whose public key is visible. That includes practically all spent-from addresses in pay-to-public-key-hash (P2PKH) and, critically, the early pay-to-public-key (P2PK) outputs that still hold a significant number of coins—including the roughly 1.1 million BTC attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto.

The Derivation Path Fix Modern HD wallets generate keys deterministically from a master seed, following a structured path such as m/44′/0′/0′/0/0. That path becomes an alternative credential: if you can prove you know the path and the master seed, you can reassert control over coins even if the original public key was compromised. In essence, the path acts as a second authentication factor. The proof-of-concept demonstrates that this credential can be used to construct a valid transaction within 243 milliseconds on standard hardware.

That mechanism doesn’t work for Satoshi’s coins. Those early outputs were created using raw public keys, without any hierarchical derivation path that a modern wallet would recognize. They remain locked in a pre-BIP32 world. The proof is not a silver bullet; it’s a tool for the post-HD era of Bitcoin, which began years after Satoshi disappeared. Rolling out such a recovery mechanism would likely require a soft fork or at least broad community consensus, something Bitcoin’s governance process rarely delivers quickly.

Satoshi’s Coins and the Quantum Clock The 1.1 million BTC sitting in Satoshi-era addresses represent a permanent test case. If a quantum computer ever reaches the threshold where it can derive private keys from public keys in a reasonable time frame, those coins would become instantly stealable. The absence of a derivation path makes the new recovery tool irrelevant for them. Whether Satoshi’s coins should be considered a donation to the quantum future or a ticking clock for Bitcoin’s security model is a debate that flares up regularly among core developers.

Meanwhile, developer activity across blockchains remains high, underscoring that security research is not stagnant. Top 10 Blockchains by Developer Activity This Week includes networks with strong protocol research, and Bitcoin’s own developer community has been exploring proposed solutions like Lamport signatures and post-quantum cryptography for years. The Project Eleven proof adds another piece to that evolving puzzle.

What Remains Unknown Several questions are left open. First, how would users securely present their derivation path without exposing the master seed? The proof likely handles this cryptographically, but implementing it in practice introduces new attack surfaces. Second, would miners and node operators support a protocol change that might be perceived as enabling recovery of lost coins—a concept that carries its own philosophical baggage in Bitcoin’s immutability culture? And third, the exact timeline for quantum threats remains speculative. Breakthroughs in quantum error correction could compress the window for coordinated protocol upgrades.

For now, the project offers a practical illustration that Bitcoin’s scripting flexibility can be used to address quantum risks—provided the coins sit in wallets built after a certain point. The real test will be whether the community can move from a proof-of-concept to a live network upgrade before the threat becomes real. Satoshi’s coins, however, will likely remain the network’s silent exception.

AUTHOR

Kester is an experienced freelance content writer. His focus is primarily on blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. One might even refer to him as a "blockchain enthusiast." He has been following advancements in the crypto and blockchain area for several years, researching and writing his insights in the media. In addition to being a skilled content writer, Mushumir is also knowledgeable in SEO and digital marketing. He aspires to succeed as a content creator in the digital realm, dealing with customers in the finance and tech industries to generate traffic through engaging taglines and content. Mushumir enjoys traveling, reading, and playing cricket when he is not writing. He now works as a news and article writer for BlockchainReporter.

TLDR: Table of Contents

TLDR:Bitcoin Puell Multiple Marks Its Highest Cycle BottomHistorical Bitcoin Puell Multiple Readings Show a Narrower EdgeLarge Bitcoin Orders Absorb Retail Selling Near $64,700 Bitcoin Puell Multiple’s cycle low of 0.53 is its highest bottom recorded since 2018 began.  Sub-0.65 Puell readings since 2013 preceded median 180-day gains near 55 percent historically. Large Bitcoin orders added $1.4B in positive delta as retail sold roughly $604M near $64,700. Bitcoin’s shallower price drawdowns each cycle, not halvings, explain the rising Puell floor. Bitcoin’s Puell Multiple has posted its highest cycle bottom on record, with the current reading at 0.84 after falling to a low of 0.53.

The metric measures miner revenue against its 365-day average, and each cycle’s floor has landed higher since 2018.

The trend arrives as separate on-chain data shows large Bitcoin holders absorbing supply sold by smaller traders near the $64,700 level. Analysts say both signals point to shifting market structure rather than a single decisive bottom.

The Bitcoin Puell Multiple tracks miner income from new coins against its own 365-day moving average. A low reading signals miners are earning less than usual from freshly minted supply. Analyst thechessONCHAIN explained that daily readings carry noise, so the depth of the low matters most.

This cycle’s floor sits at 0.53, the highest bottom recorded across four cycles. Prior lows landed near 0.28 in December 2018 and 0.35 in July 2022, with September 2024 reaching 0.49.

The Bitcoin Puell Multiple currently reads 0.84, well above the 0.53 low already logged. Each successive cycle has produced a shallower bottom than the one before it. That pattern has held consistently since the metric first flagged a cycle low in 2018.

According to thechessONCHAIN, the four-year halving is not driving the shallower lows. The Puell Multiple scales both miner revenue and new supply, so halvings cancel out mathematically. The real cause is that Bitcoin’s price now falls less sharply during each downturn.

Historical Bitcoin Puell Multiple Readings Show a Narrower Edge Since 2013, Bitcoin Puell Multiple readings below 0.65 preceded a median 180-day gain near 55 percent. That figure roughly doubles the 28 percent median return from a random entry point. Drawdowns during these episodes stayed capped between 30 and 40 percent.

Deep bear markets have historically produced steeper drawdowns of 60 to 70 percent. Low Puell Multiple readings tend to arrive with comparatively contained downside risk instead.

Only 57 to 67 percent of these low-reading episodes ended higher after 180 days. That win rate sits barely above Bitcoin’s overall 63 percent baseline for random entries. thechessONCHAIN pointed to July 2022 as an example where the signal still failed to hold.

The 2024 and 2026 lows both formed while Bitcoin’s price remained relatively elevated. That makes them Puell Multiple lows rather than confirmed price bottoms. A move beneath recent lows for several weeks would carry more decisive weight.

Large Bitcoin Orders Absorb Retail Selling Near $64,700 Separate order-flow data from analyst Ardi shows a split between small and large Bitcoin traders. Bitcoin traded near $64,739.37 while retail-sized spot orders posted about $604 million in net selling. Mid-sized orders stayed close to flat, sitting near negative $25 million.

$BTC

While everyone has been watching price chop inside the same range, the participants behind the move have been trading in completely opposite directions.

Retail-sized spot orders have recorded roughly $604M in net selling.

Mid-sized orders are sitting slightly negative at… pic.twitter.com/dd4iZmtxhJ

— Ardi (@ArdiNSC) July 19, 2026

The largest order-size cohort told a different story over the same period, accumulating more than $1.4 billion in positive volume delta. Ardi noted smaller participants have been selling the range while larger buyers absorbed the supply.

This divergence helps explain why Bitcoin has continued forming higher lows recently. Repeated attempts to push price lower have failed to break the broader trading range. Large-order accumulation appears to be offsetting consistent selling pressure from smaller accounts.

Ardi cautioned that a reclaim of $64,800 would need this divergence to persist. A reversal, where large-order buying fades while retail selling accelerates, would weaken the setup. For now, larger orders continue absorbing what smaller traders are selling across the range.

ZHIPU posts a short-term plunge of over 17%; major long investors, who are nearly 300% underwater on their principal, continue adding positions to average down.

According to Hyperinsight monitoring, ZHIPU on Hyperliquid plummeted before Hong Kong stock market opening. Within about an hour, it hit a low of $120.7, down roughly 17%; the decline continued during Hong Kong trading hours. On the news front, ZHIPU completed the placement of 19.78 million new H shares on July 13. On July 17, Moonshot AI released the 2.8-trillion-parameter open-source model Kimi K3, intensifying market concerns over China’s large language model competitive landscape, leading ZHIPU’s Hong Kong-listed shares to drop 28.49% that day. No new company-specific negative news has been identified as of press time. The sharp price drop has further hit ZHIPU’s largest long position holder: a whale wallet starting with 0xddb. The whale currently holds 7,300 contracts with 10x isolated long leverage, with a position value of approximately $905,000, average entry price of $174.2, and liquidation price of around $78.3. It has an unrealized loss of about $367,000, a return rate of -288.2%, equivalent to 2.88 times its initial position cost of $127,000. The whale first opened a long position near $198.45 on the evening of July 6 and has not sold since; at 10:12 today, it added 409.1 contracts against the trend at $129.6. - HyperInsight Bot is now live. Add @HyperInsightBot to your Telegram group and set it as an admin (enable message sending permission) to automatically sync on-chain information.

5 minutes ago

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) will issue the Guidelines for the Construction of Computing Power Standard System, and promote the establishment of standards including market-based pricing for computing power.

The State Council Information Office held a press conference to brief on the development of industry and information technology in the first half of 2026. Xie Cun, spokesperson of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and Director-General of the Department of Information and Communication Development, stated that over the past two years, more than 70 major computing power corridors have been built around national computing power hub nodes, with network performance between these hub nodes improved by 10%. The current explosive growth of large AI models and agent applications has driven a continuous rise in demand for intelligent computing power. Going forward, the MIIT will continue to follow the systematic work approach of "point, chain, network, dimension, and system" to optimize the deployment of computing infrastructure resources, build interconnected computing power nodes, and enhance the utilization efficiency of computing power resources. In terms of focusing on key points, the MIIT will optimize the deployment of computing power resource supply, coordinate factors such as industrial development and energy supply, promote the construction of intelligent computing clusters and the coordinated development of computing power and electricity, build a tiered computing power layout, and strengthen overall monitoring of computing power. Additionally, it will issue guidelines for the construction of a computing power standard system, and promote the establishment of standards including computing power service capability evaluation and market-based pricing for computing power.

5 minutes ago

Moody's: South Korea's economic growth may slow in the second quarter.

Moody's Analytics noted in a report that South Korea's second-quarter economic growth is likely to slow to 0.9% from 1.8% in the first quarter. Driven by an AI-fueled semiconductor boom, exports—especially semiconductor shipments—will again act as the key growth driver. South Korea's domestic demand is projected to stay weak, with consumption seeing only a marginal improvement. High energy costs have amplified inflationary pressures, while government measures can only partially ease the strain. South Korea's preliminary second-quarter GDP figure will be released on Thursday.

5 minutes ago

A South Korean trading platform triggered the KOSPI index circuit breaker, halting program trading for 5 minutes.

South Korean exchange KRX triggered the sidecar mechanism due to KOSPI index volatility, suspending program trading for approximately five minutes. The sidecar mechanism is designed to address sharp short-term fluctuations, restricting only program trading while manual trading remains normal. Unlike the circuit breaker mechanism, the sidecar does not halt entire market operations, functioning more like a "speed bump" during periods of market volatility. By contrast, circuit breakers are typically used in extreme market scenarios, suspending all trading across the market when triggered to prevent panic-driven volatility from escalating further.

5 minutes ago

Citigroup downgraded its rating for the South Korean stock market to "Neutral".

Citigroup has adjusted its rating on South Korean stocks from "overweight" to "neutral" amid sharp volatility in chip stocks over recent weeks, as the bank seeks to reduce its exposure to artificial intelligence (AI) themed investments. A poster child for the global AI trading frenzy, South Korea’s KOSPI index has become the world’s best-performing stock market this year. However, in recent weeks, the market has faced sharp swings due to retail investors’ enthusiasm for single-stock leveraged ETFs and valuation concerns. Citigroup remains structurally bullish on the AI sector’s outlook, but has shifted its stance on the South Korean market to neutral.

5 minutes ago

SK Hynix experienced sharp price swings that trapped three newly entered whales, with the latest buyer chasing the rally only $60 away from liquidation.

According to Hyperinsight monitoring, SK Hynix (SKHX) on Hyperliquid saw sharp volatility after opening this morning. The token opened at $1168.1, surged to a high of $1270.1 within half an hour, marking an ~8.7% gain, before quickly pulling back. At 9:55 a.m., it hit a low of $1185.3, down ~6.7% from its peak. During this swing, three whales sequentially opened long positions on SKHX, holding a total of 11,620.674 contracts worth roughly $14.036 million. Based on SK Hynix’s current quoted price of $1198, all three long positions are now underwater: - Whale starting with 0xf4b: New long position with 10x leverage, holding ~$2.715 million, average entry price of $1210.6, unrealized loss of ~$9,000, liquidation price of $1130.4. - Whale starting with 0x564: New long position with 10x leverage, holding ~$4.918 million, average entry price of $1238.9, unrealized loss of ~$125,000, liquidation price of $851.5. - Whale starting with 0x2ab: Converted from a short position to long and continued adding to longs, with 10x leverage, holding ~$6.403 million, average entry price of $1212.8, unrealized loss of ~$25,000, liquidation price of $650.3. Notably, the 0xf4b whale is closest to liquidation. When SKHX dipped to $1185.3 intraday, the gap between its entry price and liquidation price narrowed to just ~$54.9; as the price rebounded to $1298, the gap has since widened to ~$68.

5 minutes ago

COINTELEGRAPH: Will the US get CLARITY this week? Bitcoin's new $80K target: Hodler's Digest, July 19

ZHIPU posts a short-term plunge of over 17%; major long investors, who are nearly 300% underwater on their principal, continue adding positions to average down.

According to Hyperinsight monitoring, ZHIPU on Hyperliquid plummeted before Hong Kong stock market opening. Within about an hour, it hit a low of $120.7, down roughly 17%; the decline continued during Hong Kong trading hours. On the news front, ZHIPU completed the placement of 19.78 million new H shares on July 13. On July 17, Moonshot AI released the 2.8-trillion-parameter open-source model Kimi K3, intensifying market concerns over China’s large language model competitive landscape, leading ZHIPU’s Hong Kong-listed shares to drop 28.49% that day. No new company-specific negative news has been identified as of press time. The sharp price drop has further hit ZHIPU’s largest long position holder: a whale wallet starting with 0xddb. The whale currently holds 7,300 contracts with 10x isolated long leverage, with a position value of approximately $905,000, average entry price of $174.2, and liquidation price of around $78.3. It has an unrealized loss of about $367,000, a return rate of -288.2%, equivalent to 2.88 times its initial position cost of $127,000. The whale first opened a long position near $198.45 on the evening of July 6 and has not sold since; at 10:12 today, it added 409.1 contracts against the trend at $129.6. - HyperInsight Bot is now live. Add @HyperInsightBot to your Telegram group and set it as an admin (enable message sending permission) to automatically sync on-chain information.

5 minutes ago

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) will issue the Guidelines for the Construction of Computing Power Standard System, and promote the establishment of standards including market-based pricing for computing power.

The State Council Information Office held a press conference to brief on the development of industry and information technology in the first half of 2026. Xie Cun, spokesperson of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and Director-General of the Department of Information and Communication Development, stated that over the past two years, more than 70 major computing power corridors have been built around national computing power hub nodes, with network performance between these hub nodes improved by 10%. The current explosive growth of large AI models and agent applications has driven a continuous rise in demand for intelligent computing power. Going forward, the MIIT will continue to follow the systematic work approach of "point, chain, network, dimension, and system" to optimize the deployment of computing infrastructure resources, build interconnected computing power nodes, and enhance the utilization efficiency of computing power resources. In terms of focusing on key points, the MIIT will optimize the deployment of computing power resource supply, coordinate factors such as industrial development and energy supply, promote the construction of intelligent computing clusters and the coordinated development of computing power and electricity, build a tiered computing power layout, and strengthen overall monitoring of computing power. Additionally, it will issue guidelines for the construction of a computing power standard system, and promote the establishment of standards including computing power service capability evaluation and market-based pricing for computing power.

5 minutes ago

Moody's: South Korea's economic growth may slow in the second quarter.

Moody's Analytics noted in a report that South Korea's second-quarter economic growth is likely to slow to 0.9% from 1.8% in the first quarter. Driven by an AI-fueled semiconductor boom, exports—especially semiconductor shipments—will again act as the key growth driver. South Korea's domestic demand is projected to stay weak, with consumption seeing only a marginal improvement. High energy costs have amplified inflationary pressures, while government measures can only partially ease the strain. South Korea's preliminary second-quarter GDP figure will be released on Thursday.

5 minutes ago

A South Korean trading platform triggered the KOSPI index circuit breaker, halting program trading for 5 minutes.

South Korean exchange KRX triggered the sidecar mechanism due to KOSPI index volatility, suspending program trading for approximately five minutes. The sidecar mechanism is designed to address sharp short-term fluctuations, restricting only program trading while manual trading remains normal. Unlike the circuit breaker mechanism, the sidecar does not halt entire market operations, functioning more like a "speed bump" during periods of market volatility. By contrast, circuit breakers are typically used in extreme market scenarios, suspending all trading across the market when triggered to prevent panic-driven volatility from escalating further.

5 minutes ago

Citigroup downgraded its rating for the South Korean stock market to "Neutral".

Citigroup has adjusted its rating on South Korean stocks from "overweight" to "neutral" amid sharp volatility in chip stocks over recent weeks, as the bank seeks to reduce its exposure to artificial intelligence (AI) themed investments. A poster child for the global AI trading frenzy, South Korea’s KOSPI index has become the world’s best-performing stock market this year. However, in recent weeks, the market has faced sharp swings due to retail investors’ enthusiasm for single-stock leveraged ETFs and valuation concerns. Citigroup remains structurally bullish on the AI sector’s outlook, but has shifted its stance on the South Korean market to neutral.

5 minutes ago

SK Hynix experienced sharp price swings that trapped three newly entered whales, with the latest buyer chasing the rally only $60 away from liquidation.

According to Hyperinsight monitoring, SK Hynix (SKHX) on Hyperliquid saw sharp volatility after opening this morning. The token opened at $1168.1, surged to a high of $1270.1 within half an hour, marking an ~8.7% gain, before quickly pulling back. At 9:55 a.m., it hit a low of $1185.3, down ~6.7% from its peak. During this swing, three whales sequentially opened long positions on SKHX, holding a total of 11,620.674 contracts worth roughly $14.036 million. Based on SK Hynix’s current quoted price of $1198, all three long positions are now underwater: - Whale starting with 0xf4b: New long position with 10x leverage, holding ~$2.715 million, average entry price of $1210.6, unrealized loss of ~$9,000, liquidation price of $1130.4. - Whale starting with 0x564: New long position with 10x leverage, holding ~$4.918 million, average entry price of $1238.9, unrealized loss of ~$125,000, liquidation price of $851.5. - Whale starting with 0x2ab: Converted from a short position to long and continued adding to longs, with 10x leverage, holding ~$6.403 million, average entry price of $1212.8, unrealized loss of ~$25,000, liquidation price of $650.3. Notably, the 0xf4b whale is closest to liquidation. When SKHX dipped to $1185.3 intraday, the gap between its entry price and liquidation price narrowed to just ~$54.9; as the price rebounded to $1298, the gap has since widened to ~$68.

5 minutes ago