Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

XRP has made its way into Australia’s financial parliamentary record. In the Australian Parliament’s Register of Members’ Interests, Labor MP Sally Sitou indicated her only cryptocurrency holding is XRP with local exchange CoinSpot.

Australian MP Lists XRP The filing identifies the digital currency as “Cryptocurrency (Ripple).” No Bitcoin and no Ether. Only XRP, included in the financial records of one of the world’s 15 largest economies.

The filing also shows that Sitou has physical gold through ABC Bullion and holds a wide-ranging portfolio of Australian and U.S. equities like the Commonwealth Bank, BHP, Meta Platforms and Costco. XRP is currently the sole listed digital asset.

Australian MP XRP Filing This disclosure sits inside a broader shift in how Australia treats crypto. The country’s Digital Assets Framework Bill Passed Parliament in April 2026, requiring exchanges and tokenized custody providers to obtain an Australian Financial Services License. Ripple is already pursuing that license, an early sign of its intent to entrench itself in the country’s regulated market.

Australia’s approach to regulation has changed significantly. In under a year, the nation moved from years of legislative silence to a well-organized licensing system for crypto firms.

The shift provides Ripple, the company behind XRP, an obligation as well as an opportunity. The moved has drawn wide attention on X, citing a continuation in adoption.

🚨🇦🇺 AUSTRALIA MAKES XRP OFFICIAL 🇦🇺🚨

Australia has officially disclosed XRP holdings in a Member of Parliament’s Register of Interests.

XRP is now publicly listed as part of a lawmaker’s financial assets in one of the world’s largest economies.

Adoption continues. 👀 pic.twitter.com/gJmALhkHYE

— John Squire 🇺🇸 (@TheCryptoSquire) July 4, 2026

White House Official’s XRP Filing & XRP’s Track Record Sitou’s revelation was not the only one capturing attention. Ian Kelley, who serves as the War Room Director at the White House and is also a Special Assistant to the President, reported XRP in a public financial filing after his appointment in January 2025.

His filing places the holding in a Coinbase wallet, valued between $1,001 and $15,000. Unlike Sitou, Kelley holds a broader crypto portfolio, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Chainlink, and Cardano all appear alongside XRP.

Each asset in Kelley’s portfolio falls within the same $1,001 to $15,000 disclosure range. Neither filing reveals the exact number of tokens held. But both put XRP on the record in two separate governments on two separate continents.

Political financial disclosures carry weight. They are sworn documents. When a lawmaker or White House official lists an asset, it signals more than personal preference, it normalizes that asset within the official financial order.

For XRP, appearing in two such filings in a single week adds to a growing pattern of political legitimacy. The company’s pursuit of an Australian Financial Services License shows it is tracking the regulatory door as it opens.

Explore the most hyped crypto presale projects before they hit major exchanges.

Charles Hoskinson believes the network’s Ouroboros Leios upgrade will increase transaction capacity, positioning Cardano alongside some of the industry’s fastest blockchain networks, including the XRP Ledger (XRPL).

Hoskinson made the assertion during a virtual interview with David Gokhshtein on The Breakdown podcast. During the discussion, he revealed that Leios technology could boost Cardano’s throughput by as much as 60 times its current capacity.

“Leios will be 60x in terms of throughput inside the system,” he said, highlighting the upgrade’s potential to significantly increase the number of transactions Cardano can process per second. 

If Cardano reaches that level, Hoskinson believes the network will “be as performant as the XRP Ledger (XRPL).” 

Cardano Aims to Match XRPL’s Speed and Efficiency For years, the XRPL has built its reputation on fast settlement times and high transaction throughput, making it a preferred option for payments and cross-border transfers.

The network typically settles transactions within three to five seconds and supports a throughput of up to 1,500 TPS. Notably, the blockchain surpassed 120 TPS in March 2026 while processing around 650 transactions during peak activity.

Against this backdrop, Hoskinson’s latest remarks suggest that Cardano no longer views transaction speed as a competitive disadvantage. Instead, he believes the introduction of Leios will place the network on par with leading blockchain platforms in terms of performance and scalability.

Preserving Decentralization and Security Notably, Hoskinson stressed that Cardano achieved these throughput gains without sacrificing its core principles, particularly decentralization and security.

The blockchain industry has long struggled to balance scalability, decentralization, and security, a challenge commonly known as the blockchain trilemma. Many networks improve performance only by compromising one of the other two elements.

However, Cardano aims to prove that such trade-offs are not inevitable. With Leios, Cardano hopes to deliver the speed required for mainstream adoption while preserving the principles that have guided the ecosystem since its inception. 

Current Status of Leios  Meanwhile, the Ouroboros Leios upgrade officially launched its public testnet on June 23, 2026. Named Musashi Dojo, the testnet represents the first time the protocol has operated in a live network environment.

Looking ahead, Cardano plans to deploy Leios on the mainnet later this year, marking what could become one of the network’s most significant scalability upgrades to date.

DisClamier: This content is informational and should not be considered financial advice. The views expressed in this article may include the author's personal opinions and do not reflect The Crypto Basic opinion. Readers are encouraged to do thorough research before making any investment decisions. The Crypto Basic is not responsible for any financial losses.

The fintech giant of Europe, Revolut, has announced the delisting of Tether’s USDT stablecoin. This move hinges on regulatory changes under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework affecting the crypto industry.

Revolut Moves To Delist Tether’s USDT The company has sent out emails to users with a timeline to sell their USDT before it is withdrawn from eligible accounts.

As explained in the notice, Revolut said, “We’re delisting USDT from our crypto offering.” It also warned users that “From 31 August 2026 12:00 PM GMT, you’ll no longer be able to hold USDT in your Revolut account.”

It will be rolled out in phases. Customers will be able to keep buying USDT until July 6th. After 30th July, the new USDT deposits will not be accepted. Users will continue to be able to sell their tokens or send them to supported external crypto wallets until Aug. 31.

Revolut also urged customers to “Review your holdings before 31 August 2026 12:00 PM GMT.” This provides a couple of weeks for them to consider their options.

If you still have USDT in eligible accounts at the end of the deadline, they will no longer be in crypto. According to Revolut’s crypto delisting policy, any remaining balance will be automatically converted to the base currency that the account is denominated in at the market price of USDT when the delisting is activated.

Tether’s MiCA License Setback Revolut’s decision comes in response to stricter implementation of EU’s MiCA regulations. Stablecoin issuers and crypto services in the bloc must now adhere to new licensing, reserve, disclosure and supervisory requirements.

Tether has not been granted a MiCA licence for USDT. Previously, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino had said that the framework was not designed for the world’s largest stablecoin due to MiCA’s requirement for reserves. This raised questions around the stablecoin reserve composition, liquidity management, and redemption risks.

Following the July 1st enforcement date of MiCA, Revolut joins the growing list of platforms restricting customers’ access to USDT in Europe. Also, it’s important to note that these restrictions will only affect notified users of Revolut. Hence, it will not impact on the availability of USDT in the jurisdictions in which the stablecoin remains supported.

If you’re looking for decentralized futures trading, visit our page on Perp DEXs.

There are four companies in the world worth $3 trillion or more: Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Alphabet. What they have in common is that they either develop the most important consumer hardware on Earth, run the software infrastructure that enterprises depend on, or design the chips that power the AI revolution.

The fifth member of that club is none of those things. Instead, it produces key components for all of them. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM 2.15%) sits at roughly $2.24 trillion in market value as of late June 2026. That makes it the sixth most valuable company on the planet.

Given the numbers it's putting up right now, the $3 trillion mark is not far away. Here's how it gets there.

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The numbers make the case In 2026's first quarter, TSMC reported revenue of $35.9 billion, up 40.6% from the same quarter a year earlier. Net income rose 58.3% year over year. Gross margin came in at 66.2%. Net profit margin was 50.5%. Take a second with that last number. For every dollar TSMC brings in, it keeps fifty cents as profit. That's a level of operational leverage most companies would consider impossible.

For Q2 2026, management guided for revenue between $39 billion and $40.2 billion. The full-year 2026 growth forecast is above 30% in U.S. dollar terms. At that trajectory, TSMC will generate well north of $150 billion in annual revenue this year. If margins hold even close to where they are, the profit picture is extraordinary.

To get from $2.24 trillion to $3 trillion, the stock needs to gain roughly 34%. With earnings compounding at 50% or more year over year, that gap closes quickly.

Why TSMC is the real AI story Everyone focuses on Nvidia when they talk about AI chips, and that's fair. But Nvidia does not manufacture its own chips. Neither does Advanced Micro Devices. Neither does Apple. Every advanced processor in those companies' lineups comes out of a TSMC fab. TSMC has roughly 70% global market share in advanced chip manufacturing, and no competitor is close to challenging that at the most cutting-edge nodes.

Advanced technologies at 7 nanometers (nms) and below now account for 74% of TSMC's wafer revenue. That mix has shifted fast, and it matters because leading-edge nodes carry higher prices and better margins. As AI drives demand for 3nm and eventually 2nm chips, TSMC gets paid more per wafer and keeps more of it.

The AI infrastructure build-out is not a quarter or two of demand. Every hyperscaler is building massive graphics processing unit (GPU) clusters, and every GPU in those clusters is a TSMC chip. Nvidia has Blackwell. Amazon has Trainium. Alphabet's Google has tensor processing units (TPUs). They all flow through TSMC's fabs.

Image source: Getty Images.

Arizona changes the story For years, the argument against owning TSMC was the geopolitical risk. All the important fabs were on Taiwan, and the uncertainty around that geography created what analysts called a "Taiwan discount" on the stock's valuation. That discount is starting to shrink.

TSMC has committed $165 billion to its Arizona expansion, a campus covering more than 2,000 acres with six planned fabs, two advanced packaging facilities, and an R&D center. The first Arizona fab already turned a $514 million profit in its first year of production. Phase two, running at 3nm, is on track for 2027, a full year ahead of the original schedule.

As more production moves to U.S. soil, institutional investors who previously avoided TSM on geopolitical grounds have a reason to buy. That is not a small shift. More buyers chasing the same fundamental story pushes multiples up, which pushes market cap up alongside the earnings growth.

TSMC is not invincible. A serious escalation in Taiwan tensions remains a risk that no analyst can fully price. The company also relies on equipment makers like ASML Holding for the tools it needs to manufacture at leading-edge nodes, which creates supply-chain dependencies. And semiconductor cycles can turn. A broad slowdown in AI infrastructure spending would show up in TSMC's numbers fast.

But if you believe AI is a decade-long build-out, and that someone has to manufacture all those chips, TSMC's path to the $3 trillion club is one of the more visible roads in the market right now.

Micah Zimmerman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends ASML, Advanced Micro Devices, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Mark Alan Peterson, EVP & Chief Financial Officer, reported an open-market sale of 8,334 shares of EPR Properties (EPR +2.18%) for a total consideration of ~$500,000, according to the SEC Form 4 filing.

Transaction summaryMetricValueShares sold (indirect)8,334Transaction value$500,040Post-transaction shares (direct)0Post-transaction shares (indirect)207,750Post-transaction value (direct ownership)$0Transaction value based on SEC Form 4 reported price ($60.00). EPR closed at $58.85 on the transaction date, June 10th 2026.

Key questionsHow does this transaction compare to Peterson’s historical sale sizes?
This 8,334 share sale is at the lower end of Peterson’s historical sell-only transactions, which have ranged from 8,334 to 13,700 shares, reflecting a declining trend as available share capacity has diminished over time.Does the transaction affect Peterson’s overall economic exposure to EPR Properties?
Despite the sale, Peterson continues to hold 207,750 shares indirectly through the Jill J. Peterson Rev. Trust, maintaining substantial economic exposure to the company through convertible Common Shares of Beneficial Interest.What is the significance of the 10b5-1 trading plan in this context?
This sale was effected under a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan adopted on Dec. 23, 2025, indicating the disposition was pre-scheduled and consistent with routine liquidity management rather than market timing.How does the transaction value relate to recent market pricing?
The $60.00 per share sale price was slightly above the June 10, 2026 closing price of $59.36, representing a ~1.1% premium to the closing level on the transaction date.Company overviewMetricValueRevenue (TTM)$718 millionNet income (TTM)$275 millionDividend yield5.39%1-year price change8.3%Note: 1-year price change calculated as of July 1, 2026.

Company snapshotEPR owns and leases a portfolio of experiential real estate assets, including entertainment, recreation, and education properties across 44 U.S. states.It operates as a specialty REIT utilizing a net lease model, generating revenue primarily through long-term rental agreements with tenants in leisure and recreational sectors.The company serves operators of out-of-home entertainment venues, recreational facilities, and specialty education centers seeking stable, high-quality real estate solutions.EPR Properties manages a diversified portfolio valued at approximately $6.7 billion, focusing on properties that facilitate unique consumer experiences. The company’s disciplined underwriting and investment approach targets assets with resilient cash flows and long-term growth potential. This specialization in experiential real estate provides EPR Properties with a distinct competitive advantage in the specialty REIT sector.

What this transaction means for investorsPeterson's sale was pre-scheduled back in December, and it priced slightly above where EPR shares were trading that day, so there's little to read into the timing itself. The more useful question for investors is what has to keep going right for EPR's growth story to hold up. The company just raised its 2026 earnings guidance and expanded its investment spending target to as much as $600 million, largely to fund a $315 million push into attraction properties including a portfolio acquired from Six Flags. That's a bet that regional parks and similar destinations keep pulling in reliable foot traffic even as EPR leans away from its old core of movie theaters. The company's occupancy across its experiential portfolio sat at 99% last quarter, which suggests tenants are performing well enough to support the expansion. The risk is concentration: a handful of tenants still make up a large share of EPR's rental income, so any stumble from a major operator would matter more here than at a more diversified REIT. I like this company for the long haul, and at current levels I think it's worth starting a position or adding a little if you already own it. One thing worth considering: REIT dividends are typically taxed as ordinary income, so where you hold this stock matters. If you're building a position, a Roth IRA can be a smart home for it, since it lets those dividends and any future gains grow and come out tax-free.

Seena Hassouna has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends EPR Properties. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

© Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

The AI arms race has entered a new phase. For the past three years, the biggest technology companies have competed by buying as many Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction) GPUs as they could get their hands on. Now they’re racing to build something even more valuable: their own AI chips. 

That shift is about more than lowering costs. It gives hyperscalers greater control over performance, supply chains, and the pace of innovation. Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) appears ready to take another major step in that direction with a reported $6.5 billion agreement that could strengthen its long-term AI ambitions while reshaping the semiconductor landscape.

Meta Is Building More Than Just Another AI Chip According to reports from Korean media, Meta is negotiating a roughly $6.5 billion agreement with Samsung Foundry to manufacture its third-generation Meta Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA) processors. Unlike the first two MTIA generations, which were built by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE:TSM), the new chips would be produced using Samsung’s cutting-edge 2-nanometer SF2 manufacturing process featuring Gate-All-Around (GAA) transistor technology.

The scale of the reported agreement stands out. The contract reportedly covers hundreds of thousands of semiconductor wafers, making it one of Samsung Foundry’s largest AI orders after its reported $16.5 billion Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) agreement.

The supplier change is just as important as the technology.

MTIA Generation Manufacturing Partner Strategic Focus First Generation TSM Launch custom AI silicon Second Generation TSM Expand AI inference capabilities Third Generation (reported) Samsung Foundry Diversify supply chain and adopt 2nm process This isn’t simply about building faster chips. It’s about ensuring Meta can keep expanding its AI infrastructure without depending on a single manufacturing partner.

Why This Matters for Meta’s AI Strategy Meta has made no secret of its AI ambitions. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said the company plans to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in AI infrastructure while targeting as much as 5 gigawatts of computing capacity by 2030. That scale demands more than buying Nvidia hardware — it requires custom silicon optimized for Meta’s own Llama models and recommendation engines.

Custom chips also improve economics. NVIDIA’s GPUs remain the gold standard for AI training, but they command premium pricing and face periodic supply constraints. By designing its own accelerators, Meta can tailor performance to its workloads while reducing dependence on outside suppliers.

Buying chips is a race to the bottom—owning them is a bid for total dominance. Inside the $6.5 billion power play that signals the end of the Nvidia arms race. © 24/7 Wall St. Diversifying manufacturing adds another layer of protection. TSM remains the world’s leading foundry, but its production capacity is stretched by demand from companies including Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD), and Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO). Using Samsung reduces concentration risk while providing leverage during future pricing negotiations. It also helps hedge against geopolitical uncertainty surrounding Taiwan.

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Looking ahead, these chips could support something even bigger. As Meta expands into AI cloud services, proprietary hardware could become a competitive advantage, much like Amazon‘s (NASDAQ:AMZN)  AWS built custom Graviton processors or Google developed its Tensor Processing Units (TPUs).

The Bigger Trend Investors Should Watch Meta isn’t acting alone. Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG), Amazon, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Tesla have all invested heavily in custom AI silicon. The common goal is simple: reduce long-term infrastructure costs while differentiating their AI platforms.

That doesn’t spell the end for Nvidia. Training frontier AI models will continue requiring enormous numbers of GPUs for years. But inference — the process of actually running AI models — and specialized workloads increasingly favor application-specific chips that consume less power and cost less to operate.

Samsung also benefits if the reported agreement closes. After trailing TSM in advanced manufacturing for years, landing another hyperscaler on its 2nm process would strengthen its credibility and help build momentum for its foundry business.

Key Takeaway In short, Meta’s reported $6.5 billion Samsung agreement is about far more than changing chip suppliers. It’s another sign that the largest AI companies are shifting from buying generic hardware to building customized infrastructure designed around their own software.

Granted, Nvidia remains the dominant force in AI accelerators, and custom chips won’t replace its GPUs overnight. That said, investors should recognize the broader trend. The AI chip market is becoming more fragmented, with hyperscalers increasingly controlling their own destinies.

Ultimately, Meta’s reported move strengthens its long-term competitive position by lowering supply chain risk, improving cost control, and supporting future cloud ambitions. For long-term shareholders, that’s the real story — and one worth following well beyond the latest headline.

Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Meta didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Visa (V +2.87%) has historically been a market-beating stock, but it's been struggling this year, and investors are noticing several headwinds. The stock is down 2% this year, compared with a 9% increase for the S&P 500. Is this a buying opportunity?

The world's tollbooth Visa is the largest credit card network in the world, with more than $17 trillion in payments processed last year and more than 330 billion transactions. It works with 14,500 partnering financial institutions that provide credit, while Visa provides the network that moves the money, taking a small fee from each transaction. It acts as a global "tollbooth" for payments, a service-oriented business that generates high revenue and strong profits.

This is a classic "cash cow" business, with Visa in a dominant position and high barriers to entry. Its network is entrenched in global payments, and it continually adds new services to its platform as finance enters the digital age.

Image source: Getty Images.

In the 2026 fiscal second quarter (ended March 31), revenue increased 17% year over year, while adjusted earnings per share (EPS) were up 20%. Those are powerful results, especially in the high-inflation climate.

However, the market isn't seeing it that way. There are several headwinds, specifically in the rise of stablecoins, which challenge the Visa global network, and legislation related to interchange rates. Stablecoins bypass the Visa rails, and the Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA) threatens to lower fees and break up the Visa-Mastercard duopoly.

On top of that, cross-border volume has been trending down over the past few quarters since it bounced back from pandemic lows.

Is Visa stock a bargain at this price? Visa has a strong economic moat and a dominant position by far. It has an excellent, profitable business model that makes it an important part of the global economy, and it has a robust innovation engine. These are prized features, and Visa stock is typically expensive because of them.

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At the current price, Visa stock trades at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio just under 30, which is slightly below recent averages (31 over the past three years) and much lower than historical averages (35 over the past 10 years). It's a good deal, but not an incredible bargain.

Visa is an excellent, all-weather stock to own for the long term. At this price, I'd call it a great business at a fair price, which is how Warren Buffett looks for stocks. It was part of the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio for years until Greg Abel recently sold it, and it could be a great stock to add to a diversified portfolio at the current price.

Jennifer Saibil has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Berkshire Hathaway, Mastercard, and Visa. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Shares of semiconductor giant Broadcom NASDAQ: AVGO got pummeled after the company’s last earnings report, dropping nearly 20% in two days. Possibly the biggest reason for the company’s large post-earnings decline was its decision not to raise its AI semiconductor revenue guidance.

Broadcom Today

$360.45 0.00 (0.00%)

As of 07/2/2026 04:00 PM Eastern

52-Week Range$269.58▼

$495.00Dividend Yield0.72%

P/E Ratio60.08

Price Target$493.24

In its fiscal year 2027, Broadcom continues to place its sales forecast at over $100 billion for this segment. However, there is a belief in the market that Broadcom’s AI semiconductor sales will be much higher than $100 billion. CEO Hock Tan himself alluded to this, saying in the company’s last earnings call, “2027 will exceed very easily $100 billion.”

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One customer that is likely to play a significant role in Broadcom reaching and potentially soaring past this milestone is ChatGPT maker OpenAI. In 2025, the two companies announced a massive 10-gigawatt (GW) partnership, where Broadcom will develop chips for OpenAI. Notably, the two firms just took a key step forward in their partnership: unveiling Jalapeño, OpenAI’s first Intelligence Processor. For Broadcom, Jalapeño isn’t just a fancy new chip; it’s the key to unlocking a huge revenue opportunity over the coming years.

Jalapeño: Unlocking the Door to $200 Billion in Revenue?Approximately nine months ago, Broadcom and OpenAI announced their 10 GW partnership. At that time, Broadcom noted that it would not start deploying AI chips and systems for the partnership until the second half of 2026. With the firms just now unveiling Jalapeño, it appears that the partnership is progressing right on schedule. In turn, Broadcom’s plan to convert its 10 GW partnership into a large revenue stream is on track.

GWs are a standard unit of measurement for evaluating the size of data center deployments, and each one can translate into billions of dollars in revenue. In fact, in a Broadcom earnings call, Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon estimated that Broadcom’s revenue opportunity was in the range of $20 billion per GW. While the revenue opportunity per GW can vary significantly, Hock Tan said the reality was “not far from” Rasgon’s estimate.

Thus, while acknowledging that these estimates are not precise, it is possible that Jalapeño marks an early step in Broadcom unlocking a $200 billion opportunity. While 10 GWs are not expected to be fully deployed until the end of 2029, that would be a massive revenue driver, nonetheless. Notably, Broadcom’s total revenue over the last 12 months was “only” around $75.5 billion.

OpenAI: A Testament to Broadcom’s Long-Term PartnershipsThe potential size of this opportunity highlights the value of the long-term partnerships that Broadcom engages in. Notably, the two firms announced their partnership nine months ago. However, investors are only now getting a substantial update. Furthermore, significant revenue generation from the deal will not begin until 2027, as revenue will be small through the rest of 2026. This equates to well over a year between the deal announcement and substantial sales. That may seem like an uncomfortably long timeline, but it is exactly what investors should expect from Broadcom.

This is due to the nature of Broadcom’s AI chips. Broadcom designs application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). ASICs are fundamentally different from NVIDIA’s NASDAQ: NVDA graphics processing units (GPUs). GPUs are highly flexible, being able to perform many different tasks well. Due to this, they can serve a wide range of customers right out of the box.

By contrast, as their name implies, ASICs are application-specific; they perform a specific set of tasks extremely well. The tasks they perform depend on each customer's needs. Thus, Broadcom has to closely collaborate with its customers to design a customized chip in the first place.

In the case of Jalapeño, the companies designed it specifically for large language model (LLM) inference. Inference refers to when an LLM generates answers. This contrasts with training, where LLMs learn to think.

Importantly, the vast majority of revenue generation doesn’t take place until after this design phase, when the chips actually get deployed into data centers. Considering this, when Broadcom announces a new custom chip design partnership, investors should not expect it to have an immediate sales impact. Rather, investors should understand that it takes time for these sales to ramp up, and the OpenAI partnership is just another reason to have confidence in Broadcom’s long-term growth opportunities.

Broadcom’s Valuation Sinks as OpenAI Opportunity Nears CloserBroadcom shares now trade at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of around 62x. That sits substantially below its average P/E near 80x over the past three years.

Broadcom Inc. (AVGO) Price Chart for Saturday, July, 4, 2026

Meanwhile, with Jalapeño, Broadcom’s huge opportunity with OpenAI is one step closer to becoming a reality. With its valuation down and a large growth driver not far on the horizon, Broadcom shares look well positioned going forward.

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Moonbeam Network, one of the earliest and most prominent parachains on Polkadot, announced on July 3 that it will fully migrate its GLMR token to Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum Layer 2. The move effectively ends Moonbeam’s four-year relationship with Polkadot and repositions the project within the Ethereum ecosystem.

Holders have until July 31 to bridge their GLMR tokens 1:1 to a new ERC-20 version on Base through a dedicated migration portal. Centralized exchanges are expected to handle the swap automatically for tokens held in custody.

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What’s actually happening here Moonbeam launched in January 2022 as the first parachain on Polkadot. Its entire selling point was giving Ethereum Virtual Machine developers a home inside the Polkadot ecosystem, complete with staking, cross-chain compatibility, and familiar tooling.

Now it’s leaving. The project is rebranding around something called the Moonbeam Protocol, described as a decentralized network focused on AI agent communication and settlement for on-chain economies.

Users currently participating in DeFi protocols on Moonbeam’s parachain need to withdraw their assets before the migration completes. Tokens stuck in liquidity pools, staking contracts, or lending protocols need to be manually unwound before the chain winds down.

What investors should be watching The 1:1 token migration means GLMR holders aren’t being diluted. The more nuanced question is whether the move to Base and the pivot to AI agent infrastructure actually improves the token’s long-term value proposition.

The migration deadline of July 31 creates a compressed timeline that could lead to confusion, lost tokens, or liquidity disruption. Users who don’t actively manage the transition risk complications. The automatic migration through centralized exchanges should catch a large portion of passive holders, but on-chain users need to be proactive.

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

When a stock is removed from the S&P 500, the immediate reaction is mechanical: Every index fund and exchange-traded fund (ETF) tracking the benchmark must sell it. That creates a short window of artificial selling pressure, pressure that has nothing to do with the underlying business.

For dividend investors willing to look past the noise, that moment can be worth a close look.

On June 22, two companies were shown the door by S&P Dow Jones Indices: The Campbell's Company (CPB +1.04%) and Pool Corporation (POOL +1.75%). Both were replaced by semiconductor and electronics names -- a signal of how far the S&P 500 has tilted toward tech. Both Campbell's and Pool Corp. are in the S&P SmallCap 600 now, which means they're not disappearing from the market. They're just less visible.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. Campbell's: The 7% yield story Campbell's carries a dividend yield north of 7% right now. The stock has been under pressure for over a year, plagued by weaker volumes, lingering costs from its 2024 Sovos Brands acquisition, and an ERP system conversion that created operational headwinds. Markets punished the stock, and the yield climbed as the share price fell.

The dividend itself has been in place for 51 years. The payout ratio sits at roughly 76% of earnings -- not lean, but covered. Cash-flow coverage is even healthier. When a 51-year dividend streak is backed by both earnings and cash flow, it carries weight.

What Campbell's has going for it beyond the math is Rao's. The brand crossed $1 billion in trailing-12-month net sales, and in May 2026, Campbell's deepened its commitment by acquiring a 49% stake in La Regina, the Italian producer behind Rao's sauces. The partnership keeps production rooted in Scafati, Italy -- the artisanal identity that made Rao's a premium brand worth paying for. That kind of brand equity is hard to manufacture.

The honest caveat: Campbell's dividend growth has been slow. The payout has grown barely 1.26% over five years. For investors who care about income keeping pace with inflation, that matters. Campbell's today is a high-yield, low-growth dividend story, not a compounding machine. Whether that suits you depends on your investment strategy.

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2. Pool Corp.: The dividend growth machine Pool Corp.'s yield looks modest compared to Campbell's -- around 2.4% today. But the story isn't the yield, it's the trajectory.

Pool has raised its dividend every year for 22 consecutive years. Over the past decade, the dividend has grown at roughly 17% per year. That's the compounding engine the user manual talks about.

When a company grows its earnings consistently, it can raise its dividend consistently. Every raise on a growing base means the investor who bought earlier is now collecting a much higher yield on their original cost. That's the whole idea behind dividend growth investing, and Pool has executed it as well as almost any company in the market.

The business itself distributes pool supplies, equipment, and chemicals to wholesale buyers and professional contractors. About 60% of revenue comes from maintenance and repair -- people have to keep pools clean and running, whether the housing market is hot or cold. First-quarter 2026 net sales were up 6%, with operating income up 7%. The recovery in discretionary pool spending, which stalled after the pandemic boom, is grinding forward.

The digital side is also quietly gaining ground. Pool's proprietary platform, Pool360, now accounts for 13% of net sales and is growing. That's operational efficiency the company is building into the business for the long haul.

The risk worth noting: Pool Corp. is tied to housing market activity and consumer confidence in a way Campbell's simply isn't. If interest rates remain elevated and homeowners continue deferring big-ticket outdoor projects, discretionary sales will remain soft.

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The takeaway Both stocks were pushed out by mechanical index rebalancing, not deteriorating businesses. Campbell's offers an income-heavy position at a rare yield for a consumer staples name, with Rao's as a legitimate long-term growth driver. Pool Corp. is the dividend growth story -- a company that has earned its raises over 22 years and has the business model to keep earning them. Neither is a sure thing, but both deserve a look that goes beyond what the index removal implies.

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Disney is bolstering its namesake streamer by integrating shows and features from Hulu. Illustration by Samuel Boivin/NurPhoto via Getty Images; Chris Delmas/AFP via Getty Images Disney has momentum in streaming, and its leaders are looking for ways to further narrow the gap with Netflix in the battle for eyeballs.

Since launching Disney+ in 2019, Disney's direct-to-consumer business has gone from a promising but costly project to a profit engine.

CEO Josh D'Amaro is prioritizing streaming by investing in technology like AI-generated ad tools for Disney+. He's also named TV head Dana Walden as the company's first-ever chief creative officer and tapped Adam Smith and Joe Earley as co-presidents of the DTC business.

Business Insider recently published organizational charts showing who reports to D'Amaro and Walden, and we have new details on who's helping lead its streaming strategy, including key product and tech executives.

Smith, who's also the product and tech chief for Disney Entertainment, joined the company in September 2024 from YouTube. He has eight direct reports, including Andre Rohe, Disney's EVP of Product Engineering.

Smith has delivered a number of key updates to streaming staffers, including clarity on its "super app" ambitions, news of a shake-up of its streaming commerce and data teams, and a progress report on the Disney+ AI ad tool, which the tech chief said in a recent meeting is "one of the clearest areas where we're really making traction."

Rohe has helped Disney tech staffers better grasp the company's AI goals, including by saying that employees shouldn't be "tokenmaxxing," or using AI tools regardless of how productive they are.

Disney's standing in the streaming warsDisney's streamers have gained ground in 2026, scoring their highest monthly TV viewership share in nearly three years in March before posting their best month versus Netflix in nearly a year, according to Nielsen's US data. The slight rebound comes after Disney's streaming viewership had stagnated for years.

Disney+ and Hulu have become profitable thanks to a large base of loyal, engaged subscribers. Disney made $582 million in streaming profits last quarter, and while the company no longer discloses its subscriber count, it had 196 million subscriptions as of late September 2025.

Despite a steady stream of price hikes, Disney+ and Hulu have the lowest cancellation rates in the business, besides Netflix. Less than 4% of those services' customers quit in May, according to data firm Antenna.

To boost engagement further, D'Amaro is bringing Disney+ and Hulu together to create a one-stop shop in streaming, while looking to use resources more efficiently. The Mouse House's flagship streamer is also betting on short-form video, as are Peacock, Netflix, and Paramount+.

To better understand Disney's product and tech strategy, Business Insider is publishing parts of Disney's internal streaming org chart, based on screenshots sent by an employee.

Below are the complete org charts showing Smith's and Rohe's direct reports, based on Disney's records.

Here are the direct reports to Smith, Disney Entertainment's product and tech chief, in alphabetical order by first name:

NamePositionAndre RoheEVP, Product EngineeringChristopher (Chris) LawsonEVP, Content Platforms & OperationsDanette DugasSenior Executive AssistantDimitri KontopidisExecutive Director of Product & Tech Strategy and OperationsErin TeagueEVP, Product ManagementMeghan BorsicSVP, DesignMichael CupoSVP, Business OperationsTony DonohoeEVP, Ad PlatformsHere are the direct reports to Andre Rohe, Disney's EVP of product engineering, in alphabetical order by first name:

NamePositionAndrew HydeVP, Product Software EngineeringChristopher ShattuckHead of India Product & TechChristopher (Chris) SwordDirector of Data AnalyticsDevika ChawlaSVP, Product Software EngineeringDominique CharretteVP, Data AnalyticsJay DonnellSVP, Product Software EngineeringJustin AltwiesDirector of Product Engineering and Business OperationsMali SonnierSenior Executive AssistantMayank SachanVP, Growth EngineeringMehran BozorgiSVP, Product Software EngineeringNicholas BrookinsSVP, Media EngineeringZachary CavaVP, Product Software EngineeringDo you work for Disney or have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at [email protected] or Signal at jamesfaris.01.

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Media Exclusive Disney More Disney Plus Hulu

For the first time in six decades, Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB +1.61%)(BRKA +1.41%) is run by someone other than Warren Buffett. Greg Abel took over as CEO at the start of 2026, and his first months have given investors plenty to chew on -- most of all a record cash pile of about $397 billion at the end of the first quarter, up from $373 billion at the end of last year. That war chest is equal to more than a third of the company's $1.1 trillion market value.

So, with a new leader and an enormous amount of dry powder, is the stock a buy?

Image source: They Motley Fool.

Abel is already putting his stamp on it Abel has not sat still. In his first big deal, Berkshire agreed to buy homebuilder Taylor Morrison for $6.8 billion, or $72.50 a share -- a 24% premium. He also steered Berkshire into an unusual place for a firm that long avoided technology: a $10 billion private placement in Alphabet, taken at a discount, that pushed its stake in the Google parent past $26 billion. Meanwhile, he put a stop to the recent trimming of the Apple position before he took over, leaving it the portfolio's largest at about 22%. And he restarted buybacks with a repurchase of about $234 million in March, after a 21-month pause.

The pattern says a lot. Abel is deploying capital, not just hoarding it -- but selectively, waiting for a price he likes before he acts. That is recognizably the Buffett playbook, with a sharper willingness to move on a good opportunity.

Taken together, the moves sketch a CEO willing to lean into places his predecessor mostly sidestepped -- homebuilding tied to a national housing shortage, and artificial intelligence by way of Alphabet's spending on it. Warren Buffett, who stayed on as chairman, publicly praised the Taylor Morrison deal, saying Abel pulled it off faster than he could have himself. That matters because the biggest question hanging over Berkshire was never its businesses. It was whether a new hand could allocate capital with the same discipline. Early on, Abel is answering it.

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On valuation, Berkshire trades at about 1.5 times book value, close to its 10-year average, and around 15 times earnings. That is neither cheap nor expensive. What you get for it is a collection of durable businesses -- a sprawling insurance operation, the BNSF railroad, a large energy unit, and an equity book worth more than $300 billion -- plus that record pile of cash.

The operating businesses are pulling their weight, too. First-quarter operating earnings rose about 18% year over year, helped by the insurance units whose float gives Berkshire cheap capital to invest. Those earnings are lumpy (insurance almost always is), but the collection of railroad operations, utilities, and wholly owned businesses under the stock generates meaningful, growing profit that doesn't depend on which way the equity portfolio swings in a given quarter.

And the company's cash is the real swing factor. In a jittery market -- and the recent sell-off in chip stocks is a reminder that volatility always finds its way back -- $397 billion of ready capital is an asset, giving Abel the means to pounce if prices fall. The flip side, however, is that the same cash raises the stakes on how well he deploys it. A misjudged megadeal is the clearest downside, and the fresh tech tilt adds both some opportunity and a risk to a famously tech-averse portfolio. With that said, Apple has been Berkshire's largest equity holding for years. So maybe the growing Alphabet stake is just a normal evolution of Berkshire's business.

On balance, I think Berkshire is a reasonable buy here for patient investors. It isn't a bargain, but it is a fairly priced set of high-quality businesses backed by a record war chest and a new CEO who has shown he will act. The Abel era looks like continuity with a harder edge -- and at about 1.5 times book value, that strikes me as a fair price to pay for it.

For a while now, Michael Saylor’s Strategy has been on a wild ride of criticism. Now, major players like JPMorgan are beginning to issue some warnings. In fact, the banking giant recently called out Strategy’s Bitcoin sales policy. 

For context, Strategy has long relied on a straightforward business model: Raise capital through debt and equity offerings, then use that money to purchase additional Bitcoin [BTC]. 

As a result, a sizeable amount of the circulating supply was essentially locked away rather than actively traded due to its enormous treasury of 847,363 BTC. However, the company’s most recent capital structure is now altering that dynamic.

Strategy’s new game plan raises red flags To pay dividends on its preferred stock or other financial commitments, Strategy has now formally permitted itself to sell a limited quantity of Bitcoin. At the same time, it authorized preferred stock repurchases and launched a $1 billion common stock buyback program. 

Even though the company’s cash reserves of about $2.55 billion cover about 17 months’ worth of preferred dividends and interest costs, JPMorgan thinks this buffer is still insufficient to completely rule out the possibility of future Bitcoin sales. 

The team led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou argued,

A higher coverage of 24-36 months would be needed (by issuing common equity to further increase dollar reserves even if this leads to the common equity trading at a discount to NAV) to make investors more comfortable with the idea that Strategy would not need to sell bitcoins in the foreseeable future.

What is the underlying issue? The primary issue is the rise of what JPMorgan refers to as “two-way risk.”

In the past, Strategy operated virtually solely as a Bitcoin buyer, continuously consuming supply whenever it raised new funds. However, under the new framework, the business can switch between buying and selling based on how much cash it needs.

The fact that Strategy is no longer assured of removing Bitcoin from the market—it might even turn into a source of supply when money is needed—introduces uncertainty.

What’s ahead? In fact, in one of the few times the company has sold Bitcoin for operational rather than portfolio adjustments. Even though the $1.25 billion authorized sale capacity only makes up a small portion of its total holdings, the psychological impact could be far greater than the volume of sales. 

Unfortunately, these shifts occur at a time when the U.S. Spot Bitcoin ETFs are facing net withdrawals, and the price of Bitcoin is also struggling.

Henceforth, the only hope at this point is the approval of the CLARITY Act. It has the potential to restore market integrity and the price of Bitcoin, in turn improving the air surrounding Strategy.

Final Summary Instead of an actual warning, JP Morgan has suggested a higher coverage of 24-36 months for Strategy. Though the recent sell-off by Strategy was minimal, it has still induced fear and uncertainty in the market. 

BlackRock (BLK +1.57%) is one of the largest sponsors of exchange-traded funds (ETFs). ETFs make up around 40% of its business. There's just one problem with that: ETFs generally have low expense ratios. ETFs are a reliable business, but other businesses are more profitable. One such business is private markets, where BlackRock is currently focusing its growth efforts. Here's what you need to know.

BlackRock has a solid foundation To be fair, given the size of BlackRock's ETF business, it generates significant revenue from these generally low-cost products. Economies of scale are hugely important in the finance industry. The company's ETF operation is a solid foundation for its other businesses. And, notably, it can even complement them. That's actually an important fact to consider as BlackRock looks to expand its private markets operation.

Image source: Getty Images.

Private market investments are, basically, investments in non-public businesses. These investments take many forms, including debt, real estate, infrastructure assets, and private company investments. Investors hope that returns from private market investments will be higher than those available from public markets. For BlackRock, a manager of private-market investments, the appeal of the space lies in the higher fees it can generate from managing these investments.

Notably, BlackRock's organic net fee growth rose 8% year over year, marking the seventh consecutive quarter above 5%. The 8% figure is also the highest for the first quarter in five years. A big part of the story has been the company's push over the past several years to build out its private markets business.

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BlackRock is ready for the next big opportunity At this point, BlackRock is something of a one-stop shop, allowing customers to meet a plethora of investment needs with just one relationship. However, there's an important aspect to this story that could allow the company to really hit the accelerator. At this point, private market investments aren't generally available in retirement accounts, like a 401(k).

There are efforts underway to change that, which would open up a whole new playing field for BlackRock. It already has a place at the table, however, so it will just be expanding on existing relationships. That will likely even include increasingly adding private-market investments to ETF products. If you own BlackRock or are considering buying it, you will want to keep a close eye on the growth of its private markets business. It could even be more important to the company's earnings than the sheer size of the assets it manages, given the higher fees private market investments generate.

Solana's RWA ecosystem has reached another major milestone after climbing to a new all-time high of $3.62 billion in total value.

The network added more than $540 million in RWA value over the past 7 days alone, extending a growth trend that has accelerated throughout 2026. At the start of the year, Solana's RWA ecosystem stood at approximately $1.4 billion. In just 6 months, the network has added more than $2 billion in tokenized assets.

The latest milestone places Solana behind only Ethereum, which holds approximately $15.9 billion in RWAs, and BNB Chain, at roughly $3.9 billion.

Growth Continues Across  Over the past 30 days, Solana's RWA market has grown by more than 33%, but the expansion extends well beyond asset value. The ecosystem now hosts 2,119 distinct RWAs and 292,818 RWA holders, reflecting continued growth in both the number of available products and user participation.

Tokenized financial products continue to attract new users, while existing issuers expand their offerings on the network.

Solana Leads 30D Capital Flows According to RWA.xyz data, Solana recorded approximately $967 million in net inflows over the past 30 days, the highest among all blockchain networks by a wide margin.

Ethereum moved in the opposite direction, recording approximately $202 million in net outflows during the same period.

The flow data indicates that new capital has increasingly favored Solana as institutions and issuers expand their onchain products.

Spiko Brings Native Tokenized Fund to Solana Part of that momentum comes from the continued arrival of institutional issuers. On July 2, Spiko officially launched on Solana, becoming the first European issuer to deploy natively on the network.

Spiko is one of the world's largest real-world asset issuers and one of the fastest-growing tokenized fund platforms in history. Its flagship product, the Spiko Amundi Overnight Swap Fund (SAFO), is managed by Amundi, Europe's largest asset manager with €2.4 trillion in assets under management.

Investors can mint, transfer, and redeem fund shares directly onchain, with subscriptions and redemptions settled in Circle's stablecoins.

SAFO is a UCITS-compliant money market fund that offers overnight liquidity while targeting yields above risk-free benchmarks. The launch expands the availability of institutional-grade investment products on Solana and demonstrates growing confidence in blockchain-based financial infrastructure.

With more than $2 billion added in just 6 months, record capital inflows, and increasing participation from major financial institutions, Solana continues to establish itself as one of the leading blockchain networks for real-world asset tokenization. The latest all-time high of $3.62 billion highlights the pace at which traditional finance and blockchain infrastructure continue to converge. 

Read More on SolanaFloor Crypto Projects Pivot From Tokens to Equity as KAST and Claynosaurz Challenge the Traditional Playbook
Solana Breaks Records Across Trading, Revenue, and Transactions in Q2 2026

Is The Whole World Now A Casino?

https://easternherald.com/2026/07/03/securitize-nyse-tokenized-shares-solana-avalanche/

Securitize, an SEC-registered firm backed by BlackRock, has made headlines by becoming the first publicly traded company to tokenize its stock on the Solana blockchain at its initial public offering. The company tokenized $295 million of its own NYSE-listed stock, marking a significant milestone in the convergence of traditional equity markets with blockchain technology. This move is part of a broader trend, as Solana’s real-world asset ecosystem has surged in growth, now settling $644 million in equity volume and attracting major players like Franklin Templeton and Fidelity.

Market participants appear to view this development as consistent with increased demand for Solana’s native token, SOL, which is currently priced around $82. The tokenization represents a boost to Solana’s credibility and utility, potentially driving the price towards the $90 mark. The market for Solana price predictions in July reflects this sentiment, with the likelihood of reaching $90 currently priced at 62.5% YES.

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This development may also indicate a shift in the financial sector’s adoption of blockchain technology, as more traditional institutions explore the possibilities offered by decentralized platforms. The presence of major financial entities in Solana’s ecosystem further underscores this transition.

Key Takeaways Securitize’s tokenization of $295 million in NYSE-listed stock on Solana appears to enhance Solana’s credibility in financial markets. Market pricing suggests participants are increasingly supportive of SOL reaching $90 in July, with current odds at 62.5% YES. The involvement of major financial players like Franklin Templeton and Fidelity indicates a growing institutional interest in Solana’s blockchain infrastructure. What to Watch Observers will be keen to see if Solana’s ecosystem continues to attract institutional interest, potentially driving further price increases. Key developments to monitor include any technical advancements within Solana, changes in regulatory landscapes, and shifts in market sentiment towards blockchain adoption. Additionally, any significant changes in SOL’s volume or price support levels could provide further indications of market direction.

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Term Structure

Contract Odds Δ since publish Volume 24h August 1 2026 62.5% — — View market → August 1 2026 1.1% — — View market → August 1 2026 0.3% — — View market → August 1 2026 5.5% — — View market → August 1 2026 4% — — View market → August 1 2026 1.1% — — View market → August 1 2026 29% — — View market →

Owens Corning (OC +0.32%), a storied company though rarely an investor darling, was a popular stock on the exchange in the holiday-shortened trading week. That was traceable to a media report that stated the company had received a buyout offer. According to data compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence, Owens Corning's equity zoomed almost 11% higher over the four-day stretch.

A big deal, if it's agreed Owens Corning, a construction supplies company perhaps best known for its pink residential insulation products, was the target of an unsolicited bid from industry peer Carlisle.

Image source: Getty Images.

That's the assertion of The Wall Street Journal, which published an article stating that Carlisle made a series of bids, at least one of which valued a deal at well over $10 billion. Citing unidentified "people familiar with the matter," the financial newspaper added that Owens Corning hasn't yet "engaged substantially" with its apparent suitor.

According to the article's sources, Carlisle was considering its next move in the effort. The WSJ said that its offers consisted of a mix of cash and stock.

Neither company has yet officially commented on the report.

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Potent combination On paper, it makes a great deal of sense to combine these two complementary businesses.

But if the article is accurate, Owens Corning could either be holding out for a higher price or shunning Carlisle entirely -- it recently retooled its business strategy, and management might be waiting for the change to take effect before evaluating the company's future. Given all that, I wouldn't trade into or out of Owens Corning on this speculation.

Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Carlisle Companies and Owens Corning. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The law firm of Kirby McInerney LLP continues its investigation on behalf of Primoris Services Corporation (“Primoris” or the “Company”) (NYSE:PRIM) investors concerning the Company’s and/or members of its senior management’s possible violation of the federal securities laws and other unlawful business practices.

[LEARN MORE ABOUT THE INVESTIGATION]

What Happened?

On May 5, 2026, Primoris reported its first quarter 2026 financial results and updated its full-year outlook. Among other things, the Company disclosed revenue of $1.6 billion, down 5.4% compared to the prior-year period, and net income of $17.4 million, compared to $44.2 million in the prior-year period. Primoris further disclosed that Energy segment operating income decreased by $49.1 million, or 62.2%, compared to the prior-year period, due to decreased revenue and increased costs on certain renewable energy projects. The Company stated that these higher costs were driven in part by project redesign efforts, changes in project sequencing, labor productivity challenges, and unfavorable weather conditions. Energy gross profit as a percentage of revenue declined to 7.6%, compared to 10.7% in the prior-year period. On this news, the price of Primoris shares declined by $101.69 per share, or approximately 50%, from $202.92 per share on May 5, 2026 to close at $101.23 on May 6, 2026.

Then on June 22, 2026, Primoris issued a Business Update revealing additional challenges and cost overruns in its Renewables business. The Company disclosed that the expected cost overruns were primarily related to six previously discussed projects, with several of those projects now expected to reach substantial completion during the third and fourth quarters of 2026. Primoris also disclosed that it anticipated lower revenue and gross profit for full-year 2026, primarily driven by lower expected revenue and gross profit in the Renewables business. The Company stated that it now expects full-year 2026 Renewables revenue of approximately $2.1 billion, compared to approximately $3.0 billion for full-year 2025. As a result, Primoris again reduced its full-year 2026 outlook. The Company now expects net income of $71 million to $101 million, EPS of $1.30 to $1.85, adjusted EPS of $2.05 to $2.60, and adjusted EBITDA of $275 million to $325 million. This compares to its prior May 2026 guidance of net income of $223 million to $234 million, EPS of $4.05 to $4.25, adjusted EPS of $4.80 to $5.00, and adjusted EBITDA of $480 million to $500 million. Primoris also announced the departure of Jeremy Kinch from the Chief Operating Officer role, effective immediately. On this news, the price of Primoris shares declined by $23.39 per share, or approximately 22%, from $108.34 per share on June 22, 2026 to close at $84.95 on June 23, 2026.

What Should I Do?

At this stage, no lawsuit has been filed. The investigation is ongoing to determine whether claims may be brought under federal securities laws.

If you purchased or otherwise acquired Primoris securities, have information, or would like to learn more about this investigation, please contact Lauren Molinaro of Kirby McInerney LLP by email at [email protected], or fill out the contact form below, to discuss your rights or interests with respect to these matters at no cost.

[LEARN MORE ABOUT SECURITIES CLASS ACTIONS]

Kirby McInerney LLP is a New York-based plaintiffs’ law firm concentrating in securities, antitrust, whistleblower, and consumer litigation. The firm’s efforts on behalf of shareholders in securities litigation have resulted in recoveries totaling billions of dollars. Additional information about the firm can be found at Kirby McInerney LLP’s website.

This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules.

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European FinTech ZEN.COM has expanded its financial platform to include Mastercard Click to Pay.

This feature joins a platform that already includes multicurrency accounts, foreign exchange, instant cashback, purchase protection and everyday payments, ZEN.COM said in a Friday (July 3) press release.

The integration of Mastercard Click to Pay is available to the 1.5 million consumers ZEN.COM serves across the 33 markets in which it operates, including the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Singapore, according to the release.

Mastercard Click to Pay enables tokenized one-click checkout for online purchases. To use it, users enroll a payment card and get a device recognized as trusted, and then they can complete future purchases at participating merchants with a single click and without having to re-enter their card details, per the release.

“People are searching for simpler experiences,” ZEN.COM Chief Growth Officer Lukasz Neska said in the release. “The future of finance is about removing friction from everyday life, not about adding more financial products for consumers to manage.”

The PYMNTS Intelligence report “The Next-Gen Commerce Playbook: Turning Checkout Into a Compounding Customer Loop” found that 84% of global shoppers say one-click checkout is an important factor when choosing where to shop.

The feature eliminates the friction that appears when repeat shoppers are required to re-enter payment details or repeat authentication steps, according to the report.

“One click checkout capabilities address this friction by enabling fast repeat purchases,” the report said. “Stored credentials and streamlined flows align with customer expectations shaped by leading digital platforms.”

PYMNTS reported in February 2024, about five years after Click to Pay was introduced, that removing the manual data entry with Click to Pay reduces checkout times by 50%.

In another Friday press release about ZEN.COM’s integration of Mastercard Click to Pay, Daria Auguscik, vice president, business development director, Mastercard Europe in Poland, said that consumers expect payments to be as simple, fast and secure as other digital services.

“Click to Pay meets these expectations by combining the convenience of card payments with the security of tokenization,” Auguscik said. “We are pleased that ZEN.COM users can now benefit from this global standard and enjoy an even smoother and more intuitive online checkout experience.”

Tokenized yield products are continuing to move toward retail-facing crypto venues. MEXC has listed an Ondo Finance-linked yield asset on its spot market, giving traders another route into the growing market for blockchain-based exposure to traditional income products.

The listing matters because Ondo has become one of the more visible names in the real-world asset sector, especially around tokenized Treasury-style products. For exchanges, adding these assets is a way to meet demand for yield products that sit somewhere between DeFi and traditional fixed-income exposure.

For more details, visit the official Chainwire platform.

TL;DR MEXC has listed an Ondo-linked tokenized yield asset on its spot market.The listing reflects growing demand for tokenized real-world asset products.Yield-bearing tokens still carry product, liquidity, and counterparty risks that traders need to understand. Tokenized Yield Keeps Moving Into Exchanges The RWA narrative has matured from a niche DeFi theme into one of crypto’s most persistent institutional stories. Tokenized Treasury products, yield-bearing stablecoin alternatives, and on-chain money-market style assets have all attracted attention because they connect crypto rails with familiar sources of yield.

An exchange listing does not automatically make these products simple. It does, however, make them more visible. Retail traders who may not interact directly with protocol interfaces can encounter tokenized yield through the same venues they already use for spot trading.

The Risk Is Different From A Standard Token The key distinction is that yield-bearing tokenized assets are not just speculative crypto tokens. Their performance can depend on the structure of the underlying asset, issuer policies, redemption mechanisms, market liquidity, and interest-rate conditions.

For NewsBTC readers, the clean takeaway is that tokenized yield is becoming more accessible, but not risk-free. The expansion of listings may help the sector grow, but it also puts more responsibility on exchanges and issuers to explain exactly what holders are buying.

RWAs Keep Finding Distribution One reason tokenized Treasury products have gained traction is that they give crypto users a familiar on-chain wrapper around a familiar traditional asset category. That makes them easier to understand than many purely experimental DeFi products.

Distribution is now the next battleground. Protocols can build tokenized yield products, but exchanges and wallets decide how many users actually see them. A listing on a venue such as MEXC can increase visibility, liquidity, and speculative interest around the product.

Still, the category needs careful handling. If users treat a yield-bearing RWA token like a standard spot altcoin, they may miss the risks that sit underneath the yield mechanism.

Ondo’s broader significance comes from the fact that tokenized Treasuries have become one of the few crypto categories with a clear real-world benchmark. Traders can debate valuations, but the underlying demand for on-chain yield products is no longer theoretical.

The cleaner takeaway is to treat this as a specific development inside DeFi, not as a blanket prediction for the whole market. It gives readers a concrete data point to watch while keeping the limits of the story clear.

This article is based on information from Chainwire.

This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) held 847,363 BTC as of late June 2026, acquired for approximately $64.1 billion at an average cost basis of $75,651 per coin, making it the largest corporate holder. Bitcoin’s 52% decline from its October 2025 peak of $126,080 exposed the leverage embedded in Saylor’s treasury model, with Strategy reporting a $12.5 billion loss in Q1 2026 alone. Strategy raised $25.3 billion in 2025 through equity offerings and preferred stock instruments, including STRF, STRK, STRC, and STRD, making it the largest U.S. equity issuer that year. Michael Saylor broke his longstanding pledge never to sell Bitcoin when the company made its first-ever BTC liquidation in May 2026, signaling a shift in operational flexibility. JPMorgan warned in July 2026 that Strategy’s concentrated buying could increase volatility, and any forced liquidation could have an outsized impact on Bitcoin’s overall price dynamics. Few corporate strategies have generated more debate than Michael Saylor’s transformation of Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) into what he calls a Bitcoin Treasury Company. Since buying its first 21,454 BTC in August 2020, Strategy has accumulated more Bitcoin than any public company or government, SEC filings show. 

With 847,363 BTC as of late June 2026, it controls over 4% of Bitcoin’s total supply, StealthEX confirms. But Bitcoin’s steep decline from its October 2025 peak has raised questions about sustainability. This article examines the mechanics, rewards, risks, and how Saylor’s strategy fits the broader crypto ecosystem.

How the Treasury Model Works Strategy’s approach is built on a capital markets flywheel. The company raises capital through at-the-market (ATM) equity offerings, convertible debt, and perpetual preferred stock, and uses the proceeds to purchase Bitcoin. The company’s Q1 2026 SEC filing disclosed that it held 818,334 BTC as of May 3, 2026, reflecting 22% year-to-date growth. The company raised $11.68 billion in that same period.

Strategy measures performance using a proprietary metric called BTC Yield, which tracks the increase in Bitcoin holdings relative to diluted shares outstanding. The company reported 9.4% BTC Yield year-to-date through Q1 2026. 

Michael Saylor has described the strategy as stretching Bitcoin from a nonyielding asset into a capital-markets engine, CoinDesk reported at an April 2026 Mizuho event. Strategy’s preferred stock product STRC carries an 11.5% yield, which the company considers well below Bitcoin’s expected long-term appreciation rate.

The BTC Yield metric obscures a critical dynamic: it measures Bitcoin accumulation relative to diluted shares, but dilution itself has been extreme. Fortune reported in February 2026 that Strategy’s Class A common shares outstanding grew from 76 million in mid-2020 to approximately 314 million by February 2026, an increase of 313%. 

No other major U.S. company has diluted shareholders at anywhere near this rate. This means existing shareholders are receiving more Bitcoin per share, but each share represents a smaller piece of the overall company.

The Risks Materializing in 2026 Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $126,080 in October 2025, and by late June 2026, it had fallen over 52% to approximately $58,500. With an average cost basis of approximately $75,651, Strategy has roughly $14 billion in unrealized losses at current prices.

In May 2026, Saylor broke his longstanding pledge never to sell Bitcoin. Strategy executed its first-ever BTC liquidation, a small sale relative to total holdings, BYDFi reported. The sale was modest, but it shattered the narrative of unconditional accumulation that had underpinned investor confidence.

JPMorgan issued a warning in early July 2026 that Strategy’s concentrated buying could lead to increased volatility and market instability, Phemex reported. The bank cautioned that any liquidation could have outsized impacts on Bitcoin’s price.

Broader pressure compounded: $2.8 billion left spot Bitcoin ETFs in nine consecutive sessions through late May 2026, the longest withdrawal streak since their 2024 debut, Axios reported.

The Reward Case: What Has Worked Despite the drawdown, Saylor’s strategy created significant value over its five-year run. Strategy’s stock appreciated over 1,000% from pre-Bitcoin levels at the peak. The model inspired copycat treasury strategies, including Strive, whose CEO Matt Cole disclosed 14,557 BTC as of April 2026, CoinDesk reported.

Saylor’s thesis received indirect validation from the U.S. government. The White House announced a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, lending government weight to the argument that Bitcoin can sit alongside gold on national balance sheets.

At the Bitcoin 2026 conference, Saylor argued that as capital flows into the Bitcoin network, the price should increase, and outlined conditions under which Bitcoin could eventually reach $10 million per coin.

TD Securities maintained a buy rating on Strategy with a $500 price target, citing the company’s $2.25 billion cash reserve as a buffer against a prolonged crypto winter, The Block reported. Understanding the interplay between Bitcoin treasury strategies and broader market dynamics is essential for evaluating whether the reward thesis still holds.

Regulatory Implications Strategy faces regulatory scrutiny on multiple fronts, and the SEC has reviewed its accounting under ASU 2023-08, which requires fair-value measurement and recognizes price changes in net income.

Strategy urged MSCI to reject a proposal to bar companies with over 50% of their assets in crypto from equity benchmarks. Pending U.S. market structure legislation could reshape how corporate Bitcoin treasuries are reported.

What’s Next? Strategy’s near-term trajectory is tethered to Bitcoin’s price. If Bitcoin recovers toward its cost basis, the model’s leverage amplifies gains. If it declines further, the company faces growing pressure on its preferred stock dividends and potential credit downgrades. Saylor’s 42/42 Plan aims to raise $84 billion over two years to continue accumulating Bitcoin, TradingKey reported. 

Whether capital markets remain willing to fund that ambition at current prices is the central question. Projections about Bitcoin’s future price are speculative and should not be treated as forecasts. The leveraged model carries the risk of substantial loss if sustained weakness forces sales at depressed prices.

FAQs How much Bitcoin does Strategy own?
Strategy held 847,363 BTC as of late June 2026, acquired for approximately $64.1 billion at an average cost basis of $75,651, representing more than 4% of total supply.

What is BTC Yield?
BTC Yield is Strategy’s proprietary metric measuring the percentage increase in Bitcoin holdings per diluted share, designed to show value creation for shareholders over time.

Has Michael Saylor ever sold Bitcoin?
Yes, Strategy executed its first-ever Bitcoin sale in May 2026, breaking Saylor’s longstanding pledge never to sell, though the amount was small relative to total holdings.

What is the 42/42 Plan?
The 42/42 Plan is Strategy’s goal to raise $84 billion over two years through equity and debt offerings to fund continued Bitcoin accumulation at unprecedented institutional scale.

What risks does Strategy’s model face?
Key risks include Bitcoin price declines below cost basis, extreme shareholder dilution, preferred stock dividend obligations, potential forced liquidation, and regulatory or accounting changes.

What did JPMorgan warn about Strategy?
JPMorgan warned in July 2026 that Strategy’s concentrated Bitcoin buying could increase market volatility and that any forced liquidation could disproportionately impact Bitcoin’s price.

Is Strategy’s Bitcoin strategy financial advice?
No, Strategy’s model is a corporate treasury strategy with substantial leverage and concentration risk that may not be appropriate for individual investors with different risk profiles.

References Strategy Inc. “Q1 2026 Financial Results 8-K Filing.” SEC. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001050446/000105044626000024/mstr-20260505x8kxex991.htm CoinDesk. “Michael Saylor Says Bitcoin Has Likely Bottomed.” April 2026. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/04/08/michael-saylor-says-bitcoin-has-likely-bottomed-quantum-risk-overblown Fortune. “When Bitcoin Prices Turned Against Michael Saylor.” February 2026. https://fortune.com/2026/02/20/michael-saylor-bitcoin-prices-preferred-shares-dilution-strategy/ Axios. “Bitcoin Faces Mounting Pressure Beyond Strategy Sale.” June 2026. https://www.axios.com/2026/06/03/bitcoin-saylor-strategy-stocks

Cover image via U.Today Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by our writers are their own and do not represent the views of U.Today. The financial and market information provided on U.Today is intended for informational purposes only. U.Today is not liable for any financial losses incurred while trading cryptocurrencies. Conduct your own research by contacting financial experts before making any investment decisions. We believe that all content is accurate as of the date of publication, but certain offers mentioned may no longer be available.

TL;DR

XRP ETFs took in $6.55M in net inflows on July 2, all from Bitwise. That marks an eighth consecutive positive week, pushing assets under management to $987.91M across seven funds — about 1.5% of XRP's market cap. The coin is trading at $1.09 against $1.10 resistance heading into a low-liquidity holiday weekend.Blockstream CEO Adam Back called the BIP-110 transaction-filtering proposal effectively dead, with mining-pool support at just 0.31% of hashrate.Shiba Inu coin slipped to 32nd place with a $2.55B market cap, overtaken by NEAR Protocol and Tether Gold. Exchange reserves are climbing back toward 87 trillion tokens after whales returned 493B coins in early July, following a 781B withdrawal in June. About $50M separates SHIB from re-entering the top 30.Bitcoin is holding its $59,000–$62,000 accumulation zone after whales added 270,000 BTC and spot ETFs flipped back to $221.7M in net inflows, but the prolonged Independence Day weekend leaves the market exposed to thinner order books, miner selling pressure, and exaggerated moves if BTC fails to hold above $61,000.American XRP ETFs closed their eighth positive week before the weekendFresh capital entered American spot XRP ETFs right before trading closed for the U.S. Independence Day holiday. The final pre-holiday session brought the funds a net inflow of $6.55 million, closing an eighth consecutive week of institutional buying firmly in positive territory, as per SoSoValue.

Bitwise's fund accounted for the entire day's haul, taking all of the week-ending volume while competitors such as Canary and Grayscale stood at zero. Total assets under management across the seven approved XRP funds have now moved close to the $1 billion mark, reaching $987.91 million. For a young sector, that is a meaningful 1.5% of the asset's total market capitalization.

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Total XRP Spot ETF Net Inflow Over the Last 30 Days, Source: SoSoValueTraders calmly absorbed even the freezing of the CLARITY Act crypto bill, whose vote on Capitol Hill was postponed until the end of the summer because of the recess. Accumulation was also not disrupted by the scheduled release of 1 billion tokens from escrow contracts on July 1. The network absorbed the entire volume without a drawdown, against the backdrop of a three-month record in new wallet creation on the XRPL blockchain.

The coin is now trading at $1.09, pressing against key resistance at $1.10. Thin trading over the holiday weekend could easily tip the balance: if buyers lock in a breakout, the asset will have an open road toward the psychological $1.15 mark, justifying July's historically strong status for XRP.

Adam Back declares collapse of Bitcoin's censoring BIP-110 soft forkBlockstream CEO Adam Back entered the ongoing debate around the BIP-110 proposal, calling the attempt to introduce transaction filtering into Bitcoin commercially stillborn. The well-known cypherpunk reacted harshly to the current disputes in the ecosystem, stating that the initiative had failed because of a lack of interest from investors and traders.

At the center of the conflict is a proposal to limit the network's capacity for non-monetary data such as Ordinals and Runes. According to Back, the desire to artificially clean blocks in the name of imaginary security directly contradicts Bitcoin's p2p nature.

i'm a cypherpunk, and have been running nodes since 1990s. exit remailers, tor, file sharing, bitcoin nodes. p2p networks don't exist unless people with mettle run nodes. filter bippers are weak leeches, scared to p2p, demanding to censor to make nodes "safe" for the weak to run.

— Adam Back (@adam3us) July 3, 2026 He stressed that this filtering fork is already dead on arrival, as the market has completely rejected it and exchanges currently have no long positions in fork futures. Back's words are also confirmed by current on-chain metrics: support for BIP-110 from mining pools has stalled at 0.31% of the total hashrate, making soft-fork activation through the UASF mechanism unrealistic.

Back compared the proposal's authors to people who unsuccessfully tried to burn down a rented house, only to end up outside and now "living in a tent" of their own filtering coin. At the same time, BIP-110 supporters continue to strengthen the defenses around their "granite castle."

The industry veteran concluded that the network's antifragility had once again rejected poorly thought-out ideas, and urged censorship supporters either to adapt or finally split off into their own altcoin.

87 trillion trap: Why Shiba Inu fell out of the top 30Shiba Inu (SHIB) has fallen out of the world's top 30 cryptocurrencies, settling at 32nd place with a market capitalization of $2.55 billion. The meme token failed to withstand direct pressure from NEAR Protocol at $2.6 billion and the tokenized gold asset Tether Gold (XAUt) pushing from behind.

While retail traders remain passive, keeping SHIB's daily trading volume at a modest $70.2 million, major players have started a tough positional battle as exchange reserves return to the critical level of 87 trillion coins, as per CryptoQuant.

This trillion-coin barrier has become a liquidity trap for the token. In late June, whales temporarily eased the pressure by moving 781 billion SHIB to cold wallets, but by early July they had replayed the scenario and returned a fresh batch of 493 billion tokens to exchanges.

Netflow of Shiba Inu (SHIB) coin on centralized exchanges month-to-month, Source: CryptoQuantThe rise in supply to 87 trillion is weighing on price action: investors see it as a sign that large wallets are ready to lock in profit on any local rebound, which firmly blocks growth in market capitalization.

Still, it is too early to write SHIB off. The gap from the coveted top 30 is a symbolic $50 million. Against the backdrop of Japanese competition between Mercari and Rakuten Wallet and expectations for a U.S. ETF from T. Rowe Price, the current drop looks more like a prolonged consolidation.

Whether the token returns to the top league depends on only one thing: whether July demand can absorb those trillions of coins hanging in exchange order books.

Crypto market outlook: Bitcoin accumulation and stablecoin pressure define July openingThe crypto market enters the prolonged Independence Day weekend with Bitcoin recovering above $61,000 after ETF outflows stopped, whales rebuilt exposure near $59,000–$62,000, and stablecoin competition intensified against Circle’s USDC dominance.

Bitcoin price action in Summer 2026, Source: TradingViewKey checkpoints:

Bitcoin accumulation phase confirmed: Whales added 270,000 BTC around $59,000 over two weeks, equal to roughly $16.7 billion in fresh accumulation. Long-term holders also shifted from distribution back to accumulation. The $59,000–$62,000 range is now the main investor positioning zone. Whale behavior and sentiment capitulation show larger holders are treating this area as a buy zone.ETF pressure eased before the holiday weekend: Bitcoin cleared $61,000 after a 10-day spot ETF outflow streak ended. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $221.7 million in net inflows on July 3 after the jobs report reduced fears of a fresh rate-hike shock.July 4 liquidity risk: U.S. markets are entering a prolonged Independence Day weekend. That leaves crypto exposed to thinner liquidity, weaker institutional participation and exaggerated weekend moves.Stablecoin competition is escalating: OUSD launch pressure hit Circle, USDG scaled to $100 million on Robinhood Chain, and non-USD stablecoins reached $1.1 billion in supply, with transfer volume up 16x since 2023.Open USD targets USDC dominance: A new Open USD consortium backed by more than 140 firms, including Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock, Coinbase and Stripe, went live with free minting/redemption and shared reserve yield for partners. Circle stock dropped 14–17% as investors priced in direct competition.What matters next week: BTC needs to hold the $59,000–$62,000 accumulation base and keep ETF flows positive. The upside trigger is continued ETF demand plus progress on U.S. crypto market-structure legislation; the downside risk is renewed miner selling, failed ETF follow-through or thin-liquidity weekend pressure. You Might Also Like

While the market argues about XRP price levels, the ledger underneath it is assembling something more ambitious: a full stack of compliance-native DeFi rails aimed at banks, funds, and treasury desks. Here is what is already live, what is in validator voting right now, and why the whole bet could still fail.

Summary

XRP Ledger is expanding its institutional DeFi infrastructure with compliance focused features including a permissioned DEX, native lending, and tokenized asset support. XRPL contributors are advancing XLS 65 and XLS 66 through validator voting to introduce fixed term lending designed for regulated financial institutions. Ripple’s RLUSD and more than $3 billion in tokenized real world assets are strengthening XRPL’s push to become a compliance ready blockchain for institutional finance. The XRP Ledger has spent most of its fourteen-year life being described as a payments chain. Fast, cheap, boring. The description was accurate for a long time, and it also missed what has been happening on the ledger over the past eighteen months. Piece by piece, amendment by amendment, XRPL contributors and Ripple have been laying down infrastructure for something the rest of the industry mostly talks about in conference keynotes: DeFi that regulated institutions can actually use.

The phrase itself, institutional DeFi, tends to produce eye rolls among crypto natives. It sounds like a contradiction, a way of saying decentralized finance with the decentralization filed off. But the buildout on XRPL is concrete enough, and far enough along, that it deserves a serious look. As of this week, the two amendments that would bring native fixed-term lending to the ledger, XLS-65 and XLS-66, are in active validator voting following the Rippled v3.1.0 release in late January. Tokenized real-world assets on XRPL have passed $3 billion. Ripple’s stablecoin RLUSD crossed $1 billion in supply and ranks among the fastest-growing stablecoins in the market. A permissioned exchange layer with protocol-level compliance controls has gone live. None of this made much noise. That is partly the point.

The core bet: compliance at the protocol layer Every major smart contract chain has tried to court institutions, and almost all of them have run into the same wall. Banks and asset managers cannot deploy client capital into open pools where the counterparty might be a sanctioned entity, a mixer, or a teenager with a hardware wallet. The standard industry answer has been to bolt compliance on afterward: whitelisted front ends, wrapped permissioned versions of open protocols, off-chain legal agreements draped over on-chain positions.

XRPL made the opposite bet. Instead of adding compliance on top, its contributors embedded identity and access controls into the protocol itself. Three primitives do most of the work.

Credentials, linked to decentralized identifiers, let trusted issuers attest on-chain that a wallet belongs to a KYC-verified entity, an accredited investor, or a firm with a specific regulatory permission. The attestation lives on the ledger. The underlying documents do not.

Permissioned Domains, which went live under the XLS-80 amendment with 91% validator support, use those credentials to gate access to specific markets. A domain can require that every participant holds a valid credential from an approved issuer. Anyone outside the domain simply cannot trade inside it.

The Permissioned DEX extends the ledger’s native order book exchange, which has existed since 2012, into these controlled environments. Regulated firms can run foreign exchange or tokenized asset markets with full AML and KYC enforcement while settlement still happens on a public blockchain. Activation followed within weeks of validator consensus earlier this year.

Alongside those three sit the supporting pieces: Multi-Purpose Tokens, a standard that embeds metadata and transfer rules at the asset layer so structured financial instruments do not need custom smart contracts; Batch Transactions for atomic delivery-versus-payment, the settlement pattern institutions use for cross-asset swaps; and Token Escrow support extended to IOUs and MPTs.

The design philosophy separates XRPL from nearly everything else in the market. On Ethereum or Solana, an institution wanting a compliant venue has to build one out of general-purpose parts and hope the auditors sign off. On XRPL, the compliance tooling is the venue.

The lending protocol is the real test Infrastructure is necessary but not sufficient. The feature that will decide whether institutional DeFi on XRPL is a real business or a well-documented ghost town is the lending protocol, defined in the XLS-65 and XLS-66 specifications.

The two amendments work as a pair. XLS-65 introduces Single Asset Vaults, which aggregate liquidity from depositors and issue vault shares that can be transferable or locked depending on configuration. XLS-66 builds the actual credit machinery on top: fixed-term, fixed-rate loans with preset amortization schedules, issued through on-ledger contracts between lenders and borrowers.

The design choices are telling. Where open DeFi lending runs on overcollateralization and instant liquidations, the XRPL protocol supports uncollateralized loans with off-chain underwriting. Borrower evaluation, credit scoring, and risk management stay where institutions already have mature models, while issuance, repayment, and default records live on the ledger. First-loss capital structures add a protection layer familiar to anyone who has looked at securitization. Vault operators can restrict participation to KYC and AML compliant entities at the protocol level, which is precisely the feature that separates this from open DeFi.

Doppler Finance, a tokenized capital markets infrastructure firm, put the honest caveat on record this week: a protocol can define how lending activity is recorded and executed on-chain, but it cannot, by itself, create an institutional credit market. Underwriting, treasury management, portfolio monitoring, and regulatory oversight all need operational layers that no amendment can ship. XLS-66 provides the rails. Someone still has to run trains on them.

There is at least one committed passenger. Evernorth, one of the largest XRP treasury firms, has said it will make the lending protocol a core pillar of its digital asset strategy, describing it as a potential fundamental shift in how institutional liquidity moves on-chain and pointing to what it called a multi-billion-dollar annual yield opportunity for the XRP community. Treasury firms holding large XRP positions have an obvious incentive here: idle tokens earn nothing, and a native, compliance-gated lending market is the most direct way to change that.

The amendments are testable on devnet now, and developers can integrate against the lending stack ahead of mainnet activation. The open question is the validator vote. XRPL amendments require sustained support above the 80% threshold for two weeks before activation, and that process can stretch for months with no guarantee of passage. The framework is credible. The activation path is not automatic.

How amendments actually pass, and why it takes forever Because so much of the XRPL story now hangs on validator votes, it is worth understanding the machinery, which differs from every other major chain’s governance.

XRPL has no token voting and no foundation decree. Protocol changes ship as amendments inside validator software releases, and each amendment activates only after more than 80% of trusted validators signal support continuously for two full weeks. Dip below the threshold for an hour and the clock resets. The validator set doing the voting is defined by Unique Node Lists, the curated rosters of validators that operators choose to trust, populated by exchanges, universities, infrastructure firms, and long-time community operators across jurisdictions.

The design makes XRPL upgrades slow, conservative, and hard to capture, three adjectives that read as insults on crypto Twitter and as compliments in a bank’s vendor-risk review. It also means every roadmap date in this article carries an implicit asterisk. Permissioned Domains cleared activation with 91% support, a comfortable margin. The lending amendments face a more complicated vote because they change the ledger’s risk surface in ways some conservative operators have historically resisted; earlier programmability proposals spent long stretches stuck below threshold while operators debated attack surface. The voting is live now following the v3.1.0 release, testable code is on devnet, and the realistic activation window stretches from weeks to quarters depending on how fast the holdouts move.

For traders, this creates a strange information asymmetry. Amendment support percentages are public, on-chain, and updated continuously, yet almost nobody prices them. Watching XLS-66 support climb toward 80% is about as close to a scheduled, verifiable catalyst as this market offers, and it sits in plain sight.

The competition is building the same thing with different parts XRPL is not the only chain that noticed institutions want compliant rails, and an honest assessment has to place the ledger against the two ecosystems actually holding the money.

Ethereum remains the default venue for tokenized institutional product, full stop. BlackRock’s tokenized fund complex, Franklin Templeton’s on-chain money market operation, and the JPMorgan digital asset stack all touched Ethereum first, and the chain holds roughly 68% of global DeFi deposits along with about 70% of stablecoin supply. Its institutional DeFi answer is assembled from general-purpose parts: permissioned pool deployments of Aave, KYC-gated hooks on Uniswap V4, wrapper tokens with transfer restrictions, and off-chain agreements binding it together. The approach works, and its weakness is exactly what XRPL is betting on: every assembled solution is bespoke, every audit is novel, and the compliance burden lands on the builder instead of the protocol.

Solana has moved fastest recently. Token-2022 extensions gave issuers protocol-adjacent controls, transfer hooks, confidential amounts, and interest-bearing logic, and the Solana Developer Platform launched in March with Mastercard, Worldpay, and Western Union attached. Solana’s pitch is throughput plus tooling; its gap is that compliance remains a token-level option instead of a market-level guarantee, and its validator economics and outage history still appear in institutional risk memos even after the Firedancer-era reliability turnaround.

XRPL’s differentiation survives the comparison in one specific sense: it is the only major venue where identity, market access, and settlement controls are native ledger objects that no application can misconfigure. The cost of that purity is a smaller developer surface, a shallower liquidity base, and no general-purpose composability on mainnet. Institutions choosing between the three are effectively choosing which risk they prefer: Ethereum’s complexity, Solana’s history, or XRPL’s emptiness.

Three billion dollars of quiet traction Skeptics can reasonably ask whether any of this is being used. The answer, increasingly, is yes, though the numbers remain small next to the giants.

Over $3 billion in tokenized real-world assets currently sit on XRPL, which places the ledger inside the top ten chains for RWA value. The most striking single data point came from a pilot earlier this year in which Ripple and JPMorgan processed a tokenized U.S. Treasury redemption in under five seconds, settling on XRPL what normally crawls through legacy market plumbing. The ledger also recorded its first month with more than $1 billion in stablecoin volume, and RLUSD passed the $1 billion supply mark while expanding into consortium settlement arrangements.

On the payments and FX side, XRP itself does structural work that most native assets do not. The ledger routes trades through XRP automatically whenever doing so improves pricing, a mechanism called autobridging. If there is no direct liquidity between two stablecoins or two tokenized currencies, the trade hops through XRP. The mechanism works inside the new permissioned environments as well as on the public DEX, though trades cannot bridge between the two. Every account reserve, every transaction fee, and a growing share of FX routing runs through the native asset, which ties institutional adoption of the ledger back to demand for the token in a way that is mechanical instead of narrative.

That linkage matters for anyone holding XRP, which trades near $1.08 at the time of writing after spending weeks pinned around the psychologically loaded $1.00 level. The token is still down more than 50% over twelve months, and the gap between infrastructure progress and price performance has become one of the more uncomfortable facts in the ecosystem. Readers who want the market-structure side of that story can find it in our coverage of why the broader market has been trading risk-off since the spring.

The gap XRPL still has to close For all the compliance tooling, XRPL remains a shallow DeFi venue by the numbers that crypto natives actually check. Chain TVL sits far below rivals: Solana holds roughly $9 billion in DeFi deposits and BNB Chain about $6.5 billion, while XRPL’s locked value is a fraction of either. Deep liquidity attracts deep liquidity, and the ledger has not had it.

Part of the problem is technical, and it is being addressed with unusual candor. XRPL’s native automated market maker, live since 2024, launched with only a constant product curve at a time when roughly 60% of AMM volume across major ecosystems runs through concentrated liquidity designs. In late May, a draft amendment titled AMM Swappable Curves was filed on the XRPL standards repository, proposing three pluggable curve types: constant product, concentrated liquidity, and StableSwap, with a fully programmable Smart AMM reserved for a follow-up specification. Existing pools would stay untouched. If it passes, the ledger’s biggest capital-efficiency gap starts to close. If it stalls in the amendment process, XRPL keeps asking institutions to trade on 2024 infrastructure.

The other gap is programmability. XRPL mainnet deliberately avoids general-purpose smart contracts, which keeps the attack surface small and the behavior predictable, qualities institutions like, but it also means builders who need full flexibility have to go elsewhere. The ecosystem’s answer is a dual track: measured programmability on mainnet through Smart Escrows, which let developers write custom release conditions into the existing escrow primitive, and a live EVM sidechain bridged via Axelar for teams that want Solidity and full composability. Whether liquidity follows that split or gets fragmented by it remains an open question.

Privacy is the next frontier, and the strangest one The roadmap item that best captures XRPL’s institutional positioning is also the one that sounds least like crypto: confidential transfers. Multi-Purpose Tokens are getting zero-knowledge-proof-based encryption of transaction amounts and balances, letting institutions move tokenized assets and manage positions without broadcasting their book to every competitor running a block explorer, while preserving selective disclosure for regulators and auditors.

Full transparency, it turns out, is a bug for professional money, not a feature. No trading desk wants its inventory legible in real time. The XRPL community has moved past exploration into prototyping ZKP integrations with research and compliance teams, with confidential MPT transfers slated as the first milestone. Privacy with accountability is the stated frame: encrypted by default, provable on demand.

Put the pieces in sequence and the shape of the strategy becomes clear. Identity first, through credentials. Access control second, through domains and the permissioned DEX. Assets third, through MPTs and tokenization. Credit fourth, through the lending protocol. Confidentiality fifth, through ZKPs. It reads less like a crypto roadmap and more like someone rebuilding the back office of a mid-sized bank, one amendment at a time.

The sidechain wildcard One more piece complicates the tidy mainnet story: the XRPL EVM sidechain, live and bridged through Axelar, running on eXRP as gas. Its job is to catch the builders mainnet’s minimalism turns away, Solidity teams who want full composability with a route into XRPL liquidity and identity features. The dual-track design is defensible, mainnet stays lean while experimentation happens next door, but it imports the exact problem Ethereum has spent years managing: liquidity and users split across environments with a bridge in between, and bridges remain the industry’s most reliably exploited component. If institutional flows land on mainnet while DeFi innovation concentrates on the sidechain, XRPL ends up running two half-ecosystems instead of one whole one. The optimists’ version is that the sidechain functions as a proving ground, with successful patterns graduating into mainnet amendments the way ZKP research moved from prototype toward the confidential transfer roadmap alongside partners such as Hidden Road, the prime broker Ripple acquired to give institutional clients a familiar front door. Which version plays out is a 2027 question; the split exists today.

RLUSD is the demand engine hiding in plain sight If the lending protocol is the supply side of XRPL’s institutional buildout, the stablecoin is the demand side, and it deserves more attention than it usually gets.

RLUSD launched under a New York trust charter, which put it in the small club of stablecoins that compliance departments can approve without a fight, and its growth since has outpaced nearly every peer on a percentage basis: past $1 billion in supply, expanding into multi-issuer consortium arrangements, and increasingly the settlement leg in XRPL’s FX corridors. The strategic logic is circular by design. Stablecoin corridors generate ledger volume, ledger volume generates XRP fee burn and autobridge demand, and a trusted on-ledger dollar makes every other institutional product viable, because tokenized Treasuries need something to trade against and vaults need a funding currency.

The lending protocol makes the loop explicit. The first wave of XLS-66 vaults is widely expected to be RLUSD-funded, with institutional borrowers taking fixed-term dollar credit against off-chain underwriting. If that market reaches even single-digit billions, XRPL hosts a native short-term credit curve denominated in a regulated stablecoin, which is the kind of boring financial primitive that payments desks, market makers, and treasury managers actually budget for. Whether regulated entities deploy capital into RLUSD-funded vaults at scale is, in one sentence, the whole question the next two quarters will answer.

The watchlist for the next two quarters For readers who want to track the buildout instead of the discourse, the roadmap compresses to a short list of verifiable checkpoints.

• XLS-65 and XLS-66 validator support crossing and holding the 80% threshold, the single highest-signal event on the board.

• Confidential MPT transfers shipping in the stated first-quarter window, XRPL’s first production zero-knowledge feature.

• Permissioned DEX volume and domain creation after activation, the difference between compliance theater and used infrastructure.

• MPT integration with the native DEX, scheduled alongside Smart Escrows, which lets tokenized instruments trade against XRP and IOUs directly.

• The AMM Swappable Curves amendment advancing from draft to vote, closing the concentrated liquidity gap.

• Follow-through from Evernorth and any second public institutional commitment to the lending protocol, because one anchor tenant is a pilot and two is a market.

Each item is public, dated, and falsifiable, which is more than can be said for most crypto roadmaps.

What could still go wrong The bear case does not require much imagination, because pieces of it are already visible.

• Validator activation risk is real and immediate. XLS-65 and XLS-66 need sustained supermajority support, and amendment votes have stalled before. Every month of delay is a month rival chains spend courting the same institutions.

• Infrastructure is not demand. XRPL has built the rails ahead of proven appetite, and outside Evernorth’s stated intent, no regulated lender has committed capital publicly. The chain could end up with the best-documented empty credit market in crypto.

• The competition is not standing still. Ethereum remains the default for tokenized funds from BlackRock and Franklin Templeton, and Solana launched a developer platform this spring with Mastercard, Worldpay, and Western Union as early adopters. XRPL’s compliance-native design is a differentiator, not a moat.

• Regulatory frameworks cut both ways. The same clarity that lets institutions touch permissioned DeFi also lets them demand terms, and there is no assurance the economics of on-ledger credit will beat what prime brokers already offer off-chain.

There is also a subtler risk: that permissioned DeFi succeeds and simply fails to matter for XRP. If activity concentrates in gated domains trading tokenized Treasuries against RLUSD, the native asset’s role could shrink to fees and reserves, a payments-era footprint under an institutional-era ledger. Autobridging and escrow denominated in XRP push against that outcome, but the tension is real and worth watching in the data rather than the marketing.

A ledger playing a long game Step back far enough and the XRPL story inverts the usual crypto sequence. Most chains launch permissionless, attract speculation, and then spend years retrofitting the controls institutions require. XRPL is running the film backward: build the controls first, accept years of looking sleepy next to memecoin casinos, and wait for the moment when regulated capital decides it finally wants on-chain settlement, credit, and FX.

That moment may be closer than the price chart suggests. Tokenization has become the fastest-growing corner of the industry, stablecoin legislation has unlocked bank participation across several jurisdictions, and the first generation of tokenized funds is now large enough to need somewhere to borrow, lend, and hedge. The chains that win that flow will be the ones where a compliance officer can sign off without a novel-length risk memo.

Whether XRPL becomes one of them comes down to two things it does not fully control: an 80% validator threshold, and the willingness of institutions to move from pilots to production. The infrastructure argument has been made, and made well. The adoption argument is still being written, one vault and one loan at a time. For a network that has been declared irrelevant more times than any other top-ten asset, quietly shipping the plumbing while nobody watches might be the most on-brand strategy available.

For readers newer to the mechanics referenced here, our explainers on Ripple Prime and institutional brokerage, consortium stablecoins, and the earlier lending and escrow roadmap cover the building blocks in more depth.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Digital asset markets are volatile and you can lose your entire investment. Always do your own research. Information current as of July 3, 2026.

The amount of XRP tokens locked in Ripple’s escrow accounts continues to drop, according to XRP advocate and legal expert Bill Morgan. Morgan revealed that the portion of XRP held in escrow has now slipped below 32.5% of the total supply. This figure marks a significant shift, sparking renewed debate over longstanding claims that escrow accounts hold between 35% and 40% of all XRP—a range now proven outdated.

Morgan noted that nearly a year ago, escrow accounts constituted close to 36% of all XRP in circulation, but this share has been gradually decreasing over time. While Ripple unlocks 1 billion XRP from escrow every month, only a fraction is returned to escrow accounts. Naturally, this means the locked balance gets smaller as months pass.

Bill Morgan pointed out that the share of XRP held in escrow has now dipped under 32.5%, yet some market watchers continue to cite outdated figures of 35% or even 40%.

Morgan explained that, on average, around 300 million XRP released each month are not relocked in escrow. These tokens, instead, are deployed in institutional partnerships, liquidity services, and ecosystem development. This use case has steadily reduced the share Ripple holds in escrow accounts over time.

Mini glossary: An escrow account refers to token balances locked under a predetermined schedule and released over time. Ripple uses this system to plan the future supply of XRP entering the market.

Challenge to outdated supply dataDespite blockchain data being publicly available, Morgan expressed concern that outdated supply statistics continue to circulate. He especially called out some Bitcoin supporters who still claim Ripple controls more than half of all XRP, dismissing these assertions as inaccurate in light of current numbers.

Should current trends persist, Morgan estimates that by July next year, the share of XRP in escrow accounts could fall below 29% of total supply. This would mean Ripple’s locked token holdings will exert even less influence on overall XRP liquidity.

The fact that Ripple relocks most of the 1 billion XRP released each month into escrow restricts the net amount entering the market, which helps allay concerns over potential sell pressure.

Market sees limited price impactMorgan’s latest remarks came just after Ripple completed its planned release of 1 billion XRP for July. While such monthly unlocks often raise concerns about possible sell pressure, Ripple’s history shows that most released tokens are relocked rather than sold, mitigating market anxiety.

The most recent event did not trigger a significant negative market reaction. XRP’s price climbed between 3% and 4% to break past $1.10, ultimately reaching $1.12. Persistent demand at higher price levels increased confidence that the $1.10 region may now act as a key support, rather than resistance.

IndicatorLevelCurrent escrow account shareBelow 32.5%Share roughly one year agoClose to 36%Monthly unlock from escrow1 billion XRPAverage not relocked300 million XRPCurrent price$1.12These disclosures have reignited debate around XRP’s tokenomics. Supporters see the dwindling escrow balance as a sign of a more market-oriented and dispersed supply structure, which they argue leads to healthier asset distribution over time.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.

Brinc and Ripple have jointly announced a new accelerator program in Hong Kong aimed at supporting early stage cryptocurrency and financial technology startups. Unveiled on July 3, the Hong Kong Financial Innovation Programme will run for 12 weeks, with a particular focus on blockchain-based financial services built on the XRP Ledger platform.

Program scope and objectivesThe accelerator is open to companies ranging from the pre-seed stage up to Series A, targeting teams working on practical digital finance solutions for the broader Asian market. Applications have officially opened via Brinc’s dedicated submission platform.

The program is designed especially for founders developing products in cross-border payments, foreign exchange operations, trade finance, lending solutions, stablecoins, tokenization, settlement networks, and AI-powered payment systems. Selected startups will receive mentorship over the 12-week program from experts in finance, blockchain technology, and business development.

Brinc emphasizes that the program is not only about advancing technology, but also about fostering commercial partnerships and creating real market use cases.

Participants will have opportunities to connect with potential investors, corporate partners, and financial institutions. Eligible projects can also apply for grant funding that does not require any equity transfer, allowing startups to develop products without diluting their ownership structure.

XRPL infrastructure at the forefrontAll participating startups will build their products on the XRP Ledger. Known as Ripple’s native blockchain, XRPL stands out for its rapid transaction speeds, relatively low fees, and suitability for payment and settlement applications. The program is oriented toward developing solutions that can fulfill real financial needs—especially in Hong Kong and across Asian markets.

Mini glossary: Tokenization refers to creating a digital representation of a real world or financial asset on the blockchain. A settlement network is the infrastructure that finalizes and records financial transactions between parties.

Regulatory landscape evolves in Hong KongHong Kong is moving forward with its regulated stablecoin market, having recently introduced a new licensing regime for fiat-referenced stablecoin issuers. Following two license approvals earlier this year, authorities expect to see the first Hong Kong dollar backed stablecoins roll out by mid-2026.

These regulatory developments make the timing of the accelerator especially significant. A clearer regulatory framework could enhance the prospects for startups building payment infrastructure and digital finance solutions to achieve commercial success in the region.

New technical proposal for XRPLMeanwhile, Ripple’s Chief Technology Officer David Schwartz has put forward a new transaction ordering system for the XRPL decentralized exchange (DEX) and automated market maker (AMM). The aim is to reduce risks of front running and sandwich attacks—both of which can harm the integrity of decentralized trading—and to enhance the predictability of transaction execution on the network.

David Schwartz’s proposed transaction ordering system is designed to limit front running risks for DEX and AMM transactions on XRPL.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.