Key HighlightsLeading AI Cryptocurrency Tokens for 2025Bittensor (TAO)Near Protocol (NEAR)Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (FET)Render Network (RENDER)Akash Network (AKT)Is AI Crypto Investment Worthwhile? Bittensor (TAO) incentivizes participants in a decentralized machine learning ecosystem through token rewards NEAR Protocol (NEAR) develops AI-focused infrastructure on a high-speed, cost-efficient Layer 1 network Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (FET) consolidates several AI blockchain initiatives into a unified platform Render Network (RENDER) delivers a distributed GPU marketplace supporting AI and rendering workloads Akash Network (AKT) creates decentralized cloud infrastructure competing with conventional hosting services Leading AI Cryptocurrency Tokens for 2025 The intersection of artificial intelligence and blockchain technology is transforming digital asset markets. An expanding array of cryptocurrency ventures now integrate AI capabilities with distributed ledger systems, opening fresh investment avenues. Below are five notable AI-centered digital currencies deserving attention.
Bittensor (TAO) Bittensor has emerged as a premier AI-driven cryptocurrency initiative. This platform enables developers and academics to supply machine learning algorithms to a distributed network. Participants receive TAO token compensation proportional to their contributions’ utility.
Bittensor (TAO) Price The appetite for artificial intelligence computation keeps expanding. Bittensor presents an open-source counterpart to proprietary AI infrastructure controlled by major technology corporations. While the token experiences volatility, numerous investors recognize its extended-horizon promise.
Near Protocol (NEAR) Near Protocol operates as a scalable Layer 1 blockchain network that has pivoted toward artificial intelligence initiatives. This venture has committed resources to AI-centric infrastructure and developer toolsets for creating AI-enhanced decentralized applications.
NEAR delivers rapid transaction processing and minimal transaction costs, making it appealing for AI application creators. Should artificial intelligence continue propelling blockchain adoption, Near stands well-positioned to capitalize on this trajectory.
Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (FET) The Artificial Superintelligence Alliance consolidates multiple AI blockchain projects within a single comprehensive framework. Its mission involves establishing a network enabling autonomous AI agents to interact and execute functions without dependence on centralized infrastructure.
This initiative has captured investor interest through its ambitious scope and strategic vision. While implementation challenges exist, it maintains status as one of the most substantial and prominent AI ecosystems within cryptocurrency markets.
Render Network (RENDER) Developing AI models demands substantial computational resources. Render Network tackles this challenge by operating a decentralized exchange where participants can access idle GPU processing capacity from network contributors.
Initially launched as a rendering solution for visual content creators, the platform has broadened its scope to accommodate AI computing tasks amid surging graphics processor demand. Render Network bridges those requiring computational power with providers willing to monetize their hardware.
Akash Network (AKT) Akash Network functions as a distributed cloud infrastructure platform. Software developers can secure processing capacity through an open marketplace, frequently at more competitive rates than conventional cloud vendors including Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud Platform.
As artificial intelligence enterprises require additional computational infrastructure, decentralized solutions like Akash are attracting increased recognition. Though currently modest relative to entrenched cloud providers, the project has witnessed rising investor engagement.
Is AI Crypto Investment Worthwhile? AI-focused cryptocurrency ventures present elevated risk profiles compared to more mature digital assets. Numerous projects remain in nascent developmental phases, competitive pressures are substantial, and market dynamics can transform rapidly.
Long-term-oriented investors should prioritize projects demonstrating practical applications, sustained development activity, and expanding user adoption. Pursuing speculative short-term price fluctuations within this sector has proven historically hazardous.
The fusion of artificial intelligence and blockchain technology will likely persist as a dominant trend throughout upcoming years. Bittensor, Near Protocol, Artificial Superintelligence Alliance, Render Network, and Akash Network represent projects constructing foundational infrastructure for this emerging landscape.
Microsoft has quietly started swapping out the AI brains behind Excel and Outlook. As of July 7, 2026, the company began routing a meaningful share of Copilot prompts in those two apps to its own internally built MAI models, stepping back from its reliance on OpenAI and Anthropic for the kind of everyday, high-volume tasks that add up fast on an inference bill.
What is actually changing The MAI models, short for Microsoft AI, are now handling tens of thousands of prompts weekly inside Excel and Outlook. These are the bread-and-butter requests: summarizing an email thread, drafting a reply, formatting a spreadsheet, that sort of thing.
Microsoft has been clear that this is not a full divorce from its external partners. OpenAI’s frontier models will continue to power more complex, demanding tasks where raw capability still matters. Anthropic’s models also remain embedded in specific Office applications for select use cases.
Advertisement
The MAI models themselves were introduced at Microsoft’s Build conference in June 2026, where the company unveiled MAI-Thinking-1 and MAI-Code-1-Flash as part of a broader push to establish its own presence in the AI model landscape. The Build showcase framed these models as competitive in quality while being cheaper to operate.
Why this matters beyond the product update Microsoft’s relationship with OpenAI is one of the most closely watched partnerships in tech. Microsoft has poured billions into OpenAI over several years, and that investment gave it early access to GPT models that became the backbone of Copilot.
Running AI at the scale Microsoft does, across hundreds of millions of Microsoft 365 users, means inference costs are not a rounding error. Every prompt routed to an external provider is a fee. Building in-house models that are good enough for routine tasks is one of the more straightforward ways to solve it.
What investors should watch Routing routine prompts to cheaper in-house models means higher margins on each Copilot seat sold, which is a straightforward positive for the unit economics of the business.
The more interesting question is what this means for OpenAI’s revenue picture. Microsoft is OpenAI’s largest customer and primary cloud partner. If Microsoft progressively shifts more prompt volume to MAI models, OpenAI’s inference revenue from that relationship narrows. OpenAI has been expanding its own direct enterprise relationships and consumer products to diversify away from that dependency.
Anthropic faces a similar dynamic. Its models remain in specific Office applications for now, but the logic that pushed Microsoft toward in-house alternatives for Excel and Outlook can easily extend to other products.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
Strike has launched a Bitcoin-backed loan product built to remove margin calls and price-based liquidations.
Summary
Strike says its new Bitcoin-backed loans remove price liquidations while keeping payment duties in place. Borrowers avoid margin calls, but missed payments can still lead Strike to sell collateral. The product targets Bitcoin holders who need cash but do not want forced selling. Jack Mallers, Strike’s founder and chief executive, said the new product protects borrowers from forced selling when Bitcoin falls. He described the offer as a “volatility-proof” loan that lets users borrow dollars while keeping their BTC posted as collateral.
Introducing volatility-proof loans by @Strike: bitcoin-backed loans the price can never liquidate.
No margin calls. No price liquidations. No matter how far bitcoin falls, your bitcoin doesn't move.
Volatility is inevitable. Liquidation isn't. Borrow dollars. Keep the bitcoin. pic.twitter.com/U1DtEtt6Jm
— Jack Mallers (@jackmallers) July 7, 2026 The launch follows Strike’s first Bitcoin-backed loan product, which arrived in May 2025. As previously reported, Strike issued more than $10 million in BTC-backed loans within two days of that launch.
No margin calls, but not risk-free The new product removes price-triggered actions tied to loan-to-value levels. Mallers said, “No margin calls. No price liquidations. No matter how far bitcoin falls, your bitcoin doesn’t move.”
That structure differs from many crypto lending products, where a sharp price drop can force borrowers to add collateral or face liquidation. Strike says borrowers can keep their collateral untouched if they make payments on time.
The protection has limits. If a borrower misses an interest or maturity payment, Strike gives a 10-day window to pay or contact the company. If the borrower does not respond or settle the overdue amount, Strike may sell part of the Bitcoin collateral.
Mallers also warned users about the difference between price risk and payment risk. “That’s why we call it ‘volatility-proof,’ not ‘liquidation-proof,’” he said.
Higher cost funds the protection The new loan carries a higher cost than Strike’s standard Bitcoin-backed loans. The annual percentage rate can reach 14.2%, based on a 2.95 percentage-point premium above Strike’s standard loan range.
Strike’s standard loan product has charged rates between 7.75% and 11.25%, depending on terms and payment choice. The “volatility-proof” version also uses a shorter six-month term and a maximum initial loan-to-value ratio of 45%.
In simple terms, a borrower who posts $100,000 in Bitcoin can borrow up to $45,000. The lower borrowing limit and higher rate give Strike more room to manage the risk of sharp BTC price moves.
Mallers said the added cost supports hedging. “The secret sauce is that we’re taking the extra charge that we’re giving you guys and we’re putting it on extra hedges in the market to protect all of us,” he said.
Bitcoin lending market searches for trust The launch comes while crypto lenders keep testing ways to make Bitcoin-backed credit easier to use. A Ledn research report found that 88% of surveyed crypto holders would consider a crypto-backed loan, while only 14% currently use one.
Ledn and Protocol Theory called that gap a trust problem, not only a demand problem. Market volatility, fear of liquidation, and low confidence in lenders have limited wider use.
Other firms also continue to build crypto-backed lending products. As crypto.news previously reported, Coinbase launched crypto-backed loans in the U.K. through Morpho on Base, allowing users to borrow up to $5 million in USDC against Bitcoin, Ethereum, and cbETH.
Strike’s new product tries to address one of the main fears in Bitcoin lending: forced selling during market crashes. It does not remove repayment risk. Borrowers still need to pay on time, and the higher rate makes the product costly for users who need longer-term credit.
Whale transaction counts on Lighter and Mantle have jumped to levels not seen since early 2026, right as broader altcoin turbulence returns to the market. According to the Santiment update, LIT just recorded 86 transactions above $100,000 in a single day while MNT hit 37 large-size moves. Both figures mark the highest whale activity in six months for each network. The timing is hard to ignore. Altcoin volatility has picked up, and large wallets appear to be positioning ahead of retail that is still sorting through market noise.
The LIT spike sits at the intersection of a few narratives that have been slowly building. Lighter is a perpetual DEX, and recent chatter around buyback and burn mechanics, staking yield adjustments, and fresh partnership speculation has given whales a reason to move. Perp DEX volumes across chains have been uneven lately, but on-chain large transaction data often leads retail interest by a few days. When whales move first, the question is whether they are accumulating ahead of a catalyst or rotating out of a position that retail hasn’t yet priced in.
For Mantle, the whale signal looks tied to a different playbook. The network has been pushing deeper into real-world asset tokenization and tokenized equities. That space has seen a flurry of activity recently, with real-world asset tokenization already crossing $20 billion on-chain. Mantle’s expansion around tokenized stocks and pre-IPO vaults gives large wallets an exposure path that is still relatively undercovered. The 37 transactions over $100K suggests that serious capital is starting to treat MNT as more than just another Layer 2 token.
Why the whale timing matters now Whale activity spikes rarely happen in isolation. They often cluster around periods when altcoin volatility is rising, partly because large holders can generate more impact with less slippage during choppy conditions. Right now, broad altcoin volatility has driven sharp gains for select tokens, and that environment tends to awaken capital that had been sitting on the sidelines. Neither LIT nor MNT has seen a headline-grabbing price explosion yet, but large wallet behavior suggests that some actors are front-running the narrative rather than chasing it.
What remains uncertain The on-chain signal is strong, but it leaves several questions unresolved. High whale transaction counts do not reveal whether the flows are net buying or selling. They only confirm that large entities are active. It is possible that some whales are distributing into liquidity while new buyers step in, making the net effect opaque until price action confirms one direction. Additionally, the spike in LIT transactions could be tied to a single coordinated event—like a protocol announcement or a large liquidity provision—rather than broad accumulation. For MNT, the RWA narrative is still developing, and whale attention may be premature if tokenized equity adoption takes longer than expected. Traders watching these two assets will need to pair the Santiment whale data with exchange flow data and holder concentration trends to get a fuller picture. For now, the data shows that large wallets are paying attention. Whether that translates into sustained price moves depends on how the underlying narratives play out in the coming weeks.
AUTHOR
Max delves deep into the cryptocurrency realm, with a passion for altcoins and NFTs. Convinced of crypto's transformative potential, he envisions a decentralized financial future. Max's background in the financial sector grants him unique insights into global monetary systems. In his leisure, Max embraces the thrill of adventures and is an avid sports enthusiast, finding balance and rejuvenation away from work.
Key Highlights SOL currently hovers between $79 and $82, marking approximately 10% growth in the last seven days following a notable recovery Roughly $120 million worth of SOL tokens exited centralized exchanges during the past week, signaling reduced selling pressure A SuperTrend buy signal has emerged on SOL’s 3-day price chart Prominent crypto analyst Ansem projects SOL could reach $150 in the coming months World, an innovative on-chain prediction marketplace within Phantom wallet, went live July 1 on the Solana network Solana (SOL) is currently positioned around the $79–82 price range following a 13.67% weekly climb that has captured the interest of market participants and technical analysts alike. This upward movement marks a significant shift after an extended period of sideways consolidation throughout the broader altcoin sector.
Solana (SOL) Price Trading volume exceeds $1.6 billion daily, demonstrating a clear change in short-term momentum. Market participants are now questioning whether this bullish trend can maintain its strength moving forward.
Approximately $120 million in SOL value departed from centralized exchanges throughout the previous week, representing roughly 1.5 million tokens relocated from trading venues. Such exchange outflow patterns typically indicate investors are transferring assets to self-custody solutions or staking protocols rather than positioning for immediate liquidation.
While this dynamic diminishes immediate selling pressure, it doesn’t automatically ensure price appreciation. Market bulls must successfully maintain the $75–77 support region for this bullish structure to remain viable.
The SuperTrend technical indicator has generated a buy signal on SOL’s 3-day chart timeframe. Historical data shows the previous sell signal on this identical timeframe preceded a significant price decline — making this development particularly noteworthy for technical traders. Bulls are seeking a definitive close above $82 before declaring the trend fully established.
Crypto Influencer Ansem Projects $150 Price Level Well-known crypto analyst Ansem, recognized for his consistent optimism regarding Solana, has openly projected SOL will recapture the $150 mark within several months. He recently re-emerged in the spotlight coinciding with the release of his memecoin project ANSEM (The Black Bull).
His thesis centers on the observation that on-chain tokens have been consolidating beneath critical resistance zones for more than twelve months, and such prolonged consolidation periods historically precede substantial directional breakouts. While he has also mentioned a longer-range objective of $600, most market participants view $150 as the more immediate target.
The MACD indicator maintains bullish momentum while the RSI reading hovers around 60 — positioned in neutral territory without reaching overbought or oversold extremes.
Resistance levels concentrate between the upper $80s and lower $90s. A decisive breakout above the $92–95 zone accompanied by substantial volume would create a pathway toward the psychological $100 milestone.
New Prediction Market Platform World Debuts on Solana Ecosystem On July 1, World made its debut as an on-chain prediction marketplace integrated within the Phantom wallet interface and accessible at world.xyz. The protocol enables participants to trade event-based contracts linked to cryptocurrency valuations and the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
The platform leverages Chainlink for oracle services and processes settlements via the CASH stablecoin. Operating on a non-custodial framework, it directs order flow through designated liquidity providers.
Phantom’s substantial existing user network provides World with immediate distribution throughout the Solana ecosystem. Prediction market platforms drive continuous on-chain transaction activity, contributing to sustained network utilization.
Analyst Ash Crypto highlighted on X that SOL has produced its initial green monthly candle in nine months, with the token advancing 38% from its $60 bottom and accumulating $14 billion in additional market capitalization.
For the first time in 9 months, $SOL has printed a green monthly candle.
SOL is now up +38% from its low of $60, adding $14 billion in market cap. pic.twitter.com/JOx0TyaZwg
— Ash Crypto (@AshCrypto) July 7, 2026
SOL’s critical upcoming threshold remains $82. Sustained trading above $80 coupled with a successful breach of the $92–95 resistance barrier would bring the $100 level back into serious consideration.
Robert Kiyosaki issued a fresh recommendation amid ongoing market turbulence, steering attention away from traditional safe havens like Bitcoin and commodities. Instead, he wants followers to study big systemic change.
Here is what the author of Rich Dad Poor Dad now recommends, why he shifted his focus, and how critics are reacting.
What Robert Kiyosaki Recommends Instead of Bitcoin and GoldThe recommendation is not an asset but a book about financial collapse and wealth transfer. In a recent post on X, Kiyosaki highlighted “The Entropy Trap” by Mickey M. Maini as the essential read for this moment in history.
The book carries a foreword by Jim Rickards, a name Kiyosaki often cites. Furthermore, he explained that it reveals how trust-dependent assets could collapse as faith in traditional financial systems steadily erodes worldwide.
Follow us on X to get the latest news as it happens.
VIB: Very Important BOOK.
Best most important new book for this time in history became available on Amazon last week.
WHY: is book so important.?
A: Because book explains why today’s Rich will become tomorrows poor.
WHY: Because the informed will be tommorrow’s ULTRA…
— Robert Kiyosaki (@theRealKiyosaki) July 7, 2026 Those assets include specific instruments. Kiyosaki pointed to US bonds, ETFs, and mutual funds as examples that rely entirely on trust. Moreover, he argues their value could unravel once confidence in the system finally breaks down.
“You can see that today as large bond holders, such as Japan have already started dumping US Bonds. People who know what’s going to happen and what assets to hold ….will become the world’s new rich,” Kiyosaki said on X.
His core thesis flips the usual playbook. Those who identify non-trust-dependent assets will become the next “ultra rich”. Meanwhile, those following outdated rules risk financial ruin during the coming reset he describes.
Why Did Kiyosaki Change His Message NowThe shift marks a notable evolution in Kiyosaki’s messaging. Rather than doubling down solely on gold, silver, or crypto, he now emphasizes deeper knowledge and preparation for an entropy-driven financial reset.
He frames the change in terms of historical patterns. Wealth transfers, he argues, repeat throughout history during major systemic breakdowns. Furthermore, he pointed to large holders, such as Japan dumping US bonds as an early warning sign.
The timing follows a public admission. In late June 2026, gold crashed from highs near $5,600 toward the $4,000 range. Kiyosaki then posted bluntly, “I was wrong. Gold still crashing. That’s real life.”
I was wrong. Gold still crashing!
Thats real life.
RD Lesson: Profuts are made when you buy…. Not when you sell.
I still believe gold will be $35 k in about 5-years.
But that is real life: All markets go up and down.
Another RD lesson: The richest investors invest for…
— Robert Kiyosaki (@theRealKiyosaki) June 29, 2026 Despite the setback, he held firm in the long term. He maintained his $35,000 gold target within five years. Moreover, he stressed that profits are made when buying, not selling, and that markets naturally fluctuate.
Critics remain deeply skeptical, however. Detractors highlight his history of bold, sometimes unfulfilled forecasts and question extreme targets like $35,000. Nevertheless, Kiyosaki continues to position himself as an educator, urging proactive learning over any single asset class.
“Don’t worry Robert. You’ll be hilariously wrong again about gold being 35k/oz in 5 years,” one user replied.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel to watch leaders and journalists provide expert insights.
Starknet is rolling out its v0.14.3 upgrade to mainnet on July 8, bringing a suite of changes designed to make the Layer 2 network cheaper, faster, and harder to break. The headline features: dynamic gas fees that adjust to STRK’s token price, a 30% cut to target gas per block, and a quiet but meaningful shift toward quantum-resistant cryptography.
For a network whose native token is currently trading around $0.03 and whose total value locked sits at roughly $204 million, this is less a victory lap and more a necessary step to stay competitive in an increasingly crowded L2 landscape.
What’s actually changing The most consequential piece of the upgrade is SNIP-35, a proposal that introduces dynamic L2 gas base fee adjustments. Instead of static minimum gas fees, the network will now automatically recalibrate fees based on two variables: the fluctuating price of the STRK token and real-time network congestion.
Advertisement
The second major change involves block architecture. Starknet v0.14.3 reduces the target L2 gas per block by 30% while keeping the maximum block size unchanged. The result is smaller but more frequent blocks, which translates directly into shorter block production times and reduced transaction latency.
The upgrade also introduces Keccak support for client-side proving and transitions specific operations from Pedersen hashing to BLAKE hashing. The BLAKE switch is explicitly aimed at quantum resistance.
Breaking changes and developer migration Starknet v0.14.3 deprecates RPC v0.8, meaning any developer or application still relying on that version needs to migrate before the switch flips.
StarkWare, the primary development team behind Starknet, has been providing migration guidance ahead of the July 8 date. The testnet activation happened in June, following multiple delays from earlier targets like June 22, giving developers a window to test their applications against the new protocol.
The mainnet migration itself is expected to incur approximately 8 minutes of downtime.
What this means for investors STRK trading at around $0.03 puts it in a challenging position. The dynamic fee adjustment mechanism ties gas fees to STRK’s market price, creating a feedback loop where network revenue remains somewhat stable in dollar terms regardless of token volatility.
Watch the TVL numbers in the two weeks following July 8. If locked value climbs meaningfully from the current $204 million, it suggests the fee and latency improvements are translating into actual user behavior changes.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Whale transaction counts on Lighter and Mantle have surged to six-month highs, according to the Santiment update published on July 7. The data arrives as spot altcoin volatility climbs, pulling attention back to on-chain signals that often precede meaningful price action. Lighter ($LIT) recorded 86 transactions exceeding $100,000, while Mantle ($MNT) logged 37 such large-wallet moves—both the highest levels seen in half a year.
The spike in LIT whale transactions appears tied to a cluster of catalysts that have rekindled interest around the protocol. Lighter operates as a perpetual DEX built for low-latency trading. Recent tokenomics adjustments—including buyback and burn mechanics and staking yield enhancements—have dovetailed with partnership announcements that signal product expansion. The combination has created a narrative that resonates with large traders looking for asymmetric opportunities in the derivatives layer, where volume can shift rapidly once a protocol gains traction.
Lighter’s Perpetual DEX Narrative and Tokenomics Overhaul Perpetual DEX protocols have been one of the more consistent sectors within DeFi through 2025 and into 2026, and Lighter’s positioning in this vertical gives it a meaningful wedge. When whale entities begin moving significant sums, it often reflects confidence that liquidity will remain deep enough to exit positions. The 86 large transactions registered by Santiment are a data point suggesting that professional participants see something in Lighter’s setup that retail hasn’t fully absorbed yet. Tokenomics redesigns—specifically buyback and burn models—can compress circulating supply in ways that appeal to funds that model token value based on supply-side dynamics. The staking yield layer adds another dimension, potentially locking up tokens and reducing sell pressure.
Still, caution is warranted. Whale transaction surges don’t always translate into immediate price appreciation. They can also signal distribution, or simply large players repositioning within the ecosystem. Without additional context—like exchange inflow data or wallet cohort breakdowns—the signal is directional but not definitive.
Mantle’s Real-World Asset Ambitions Attract Large Wallets Mantle’s whale activity spike comes alongside the network’s expanding push into real-world assets and tokenized equities. The ecosystem has been building toward tokenized stocks and pre-IPO vaults, themes that have gained institutional traction as the tokenization sector crossing $20 billion on-chain showed just weeks ago. Mantle’s native token $MNT has become a proxy for exposure to this narrative, and the 37 transactions over $100K captured by Santiment align with a period when tokenized Treasuries and equities are drawing more serious bids. Large wallets paying attention to an RWA-layered L1 or L2 is a pattern that played out on other chains before significant valuation repricings.
On the technical side, elevated whale activity on Mantle coincides with a broader push toward utility tokens that have a clear product roadmap. Developer engagement across layer-2 networks has remained high, as noted in recent developer activity data showing Ethereum-aligned chains retaining strong mindshare. Mantle’s bid for tokenization and equity infrastructure is distinct from the general DeFi arms race, which may be part of what’s drawing large wallets during a noisy altcoin period.
The divergence between whale behavior and retail sentiment stands out. While large addresses have been quietly accumulating or repositioning, the broader retail audience remains distracted by headline volatility and short-term price moves across the altcoin complex. If history is any guide, sharp increases in whale transaction counts can mark an early phase where informed capital begins to price in upcoming catalysts before public attention catches up. What remains uncertain is whether these moves are isolated to the Lighter and Mantle ecosystems or part of a broader large-wallet rotation toward tokens with concrete narrative backing—perpetual swap demand on one side, tokenized real-world assets on the other.
AUTHOR
Mysterious crypto writer with expertise in blockchain, offering deep insights that captivate and intrigue readers. With a unique ability to uncover hidden insights and trends, Samuel delivers in-depth analysis and thought-provoking content that keeps readers on the edge of their seats. His writing style is engaging and informative, blending technical knowledge with a sense of intrigue, making complex crypto topics accessible to both newcomers and seasoned industry professionals. Samuel’s work continues to capture the attention of the crypto community, solidifying his reputation as a trusted voice in the space.
The speed at which Mantle is onboarding tokenized private company equities has turned from trickle to signal. The network just landed Bending Spoons (BSPx) as its third such listing in under 30 days, according to the original report. That cadence is rare for a sector still defined more by experimentation than by sustained volume. Mantle is now explicitly positioning itself as a distribution layer between traditional finance and on-chain markets, and the BSPx listing underlines the operational capacity backing that claim.
Tokenized equities remain a small fraction of the broader real‑world asset (RWA) market. Yet the RWA space itself crossed $20 billion in on‑chain value earlier this year, a milestone that recent analysis tracked alongside major institutional moves. Bending Spoons, the Italian mobile app developer behind products like Evernote and Remini, is privately held—there is no public stock. Bringing its tokenized shares on-chain lets accredited investors access exposure without the friction of traditional private markets. For Mantle, repeatedly drawing such assets suggests its infrastructure is being treated as ready for production, not just pilot phases.
Why the Listing Pace Matters Three tokenized equity launches inside a single month on one Layer 2 is atypical. Most networks handling RWAs lean heavily on tokenized government securities or stablecoin collateral. Illiquid private company shares carry different risks: settlement complexity, issuer‑side compliance demands, and thin secondary liquidity. Mantle’s quick succession of BSPx after earlier issuances signals that the technical and legal rails are holding.
Not every blockchain can reliably support tokenized equity without external trust assumptions. Mantle’s design—built as an Ethereum rollup with a native focus on institutional‑grade bridging—has been refined over quarters. The network’s modular data availability layer and its native token economics aim to keep gas costs predictable, which matters when issuers want to avoid fee spikes during distribution events. Three listings with real companies indicate that the sales pitch is landing with corporates that can choose any chain.
The Private‑Market Liquidity Gap Private company shares have long been stuck in an illiquidity trap. Employees hold options, early investors sit on paper gains, and secondary transactions are manual, slow, and opaque. Tokenization doesn’t solve legal transfer restrictions overnight, but it does make compliant fractional sales technically feasible. That’s why Mantle’s cadence—moving from concept to live listings—is being watched by market operators who see a pipeline forming.
At the same time, on‑chain orderbooks for tokenized equities are immature. The spreads on BSPx are unlikely to resemble anything seen on Nasdaq. Early adopters are effectively betting that infrastructure precedes liquidity, not the reverse. For Mantle, the play is to aggregate enough high‑quality private names that market makers and custody providers eventually consider integrating with its native asset vaults. That is a long game, but the velocity of new listings shortens the feedback loop.
Regulatory Shadows and How Mantle Fits Any securities‑adjacent token launch in 2026 operates under a regulatory framework that is still hardening. Weeks of intense lobbying in Washington recently culminated in a battle over a landmark crypto bill, as reported just days ago. The outcome will likely shape what can be tokenized without triggering legacy securities laws. Mantle’s focus on equities places it directly in the crosshairs of these debates.
The network’s disclosure has not detailed how it structured the BSPx offering under applicable exemptions, which will matter to institutional compliance desks. European private companies like Bending Spoons may lean on EU prospectus exemptions, but the token marketing likely touches investors across jurisdictions. That jurisdictional patchwork remains the largest unhedged risk for the space. Mantle’s consistent listing pace will force these questions to be answered sooner rather than later.
What The Market Is Discounting Tokenized equity is not an asset class yet—it is a product category in alpha. The market is not pricing in sudden volume or deep liquidity for BSPx. What it may be discounting, however, is how quickly a Layer 2 network can become the default conduit for private company tokens if existing financial intermediaries continue to move slowly. Institutional interest is real: recent moves such as a Nasdaq firm deepening its staking footprint on Sui show that traditional players are testing blockchain rails in earnest.
Mantle’s ability to land three name‑brand issuances in rapid succession suggests it understands that speed of execution, rather than permissionless maximalism, is what attracts equity issuers. The test for BSPx will be whether secondary market data—however modest—starts to flow on-chain, and whether that attracts a fourth issuer even faster. For now, the network is stacking proof points that a tokenized private capital market can run on its infrastructure, one listing at a time.
Each new tokenized equity on Mantle adds a data point for an industry that remains reliant on narratives. The underlying message is that private company shares are not a one‑off gimmick on the network—they are becoming the baseline, not the exception.
AUTHOR
Max delves deep into the cryptocurrency realm, with a passion for altcoins and NFTs. Convinced of crypto's transformative potential, he envisions a decentralized financial future. Max's background in the financial sector grants him unique insights into global monetary systems. In his leisure, Max embraces the thrill of adventures and is an avid sports enthusiast, finding balance and rejuvenation away from work.
Ondo Finance just made its boldest play yet. The protocol launched Ondo Perps, a platform that lets traders take perpetual futures positions on tokenized US equities, ETFs, and commodities, all on-chain, all day, every day.
The ONDO token is currently trading around $0.33, reflecting the market activity surrounding the platform’s rollout.
What Ondo Perps actually does Ondo Perps lets users trade perpetual futures on tokenized versions of traditional equities. The platform offers up to 20x leverage. Traders can use tokenized stocks themselves, like NVDA, TSLA, and AAPL tokens, as collateral to open positions, a meaningful departure from most perps platforms, which typically require stablecoins or native tokens as margin.
Advertisement
The platform entered public beta shortly after its target launch date of June 9, with broader general availability expected in July. It’s primarily aimed at non-US users.
Why this matters for the tokenization thesis Ondo Finance built its reputation on tokenized Treasury products, giving crypto-native users access to yield from US government debt without leaving the blockchain. Ondo Perps creates a derivatives layer on top of tokenized equities, adding leverage, hedging capabilities, and round-the-clock trading to assets that traditionally only move during New York market hours.
Ondo is building an integrated stack: tokenized assets on one side, derivatives trading on the other, all connected through the same protocol on networks like Ethereum and Solana.
Traditional equity markets operate roughly 6.5 hours per day, five days a week. Perps on tokenized equities let traders react to news in real time, whether it’s 3 PM on a Tuesday or 2 AM on a Saturday.
Market positioning and investor considerations The ONDO token has been trading in a range between $0.30 and $0.34 as the platform gains traction.
The non-US restriction signals that Ondo’s legal team is aware of the regulatory landscape and has opted for a geographic firewall rather than trying to navigate US securities regulations head-on. This is the same playbook used by virtually every major crypto derivatives platform, from Binance’s international arm to dYdX.
For traders outside the US, the value proposition is access to leveraged equity exposure without needing a traditional brokerage account, without market hour limitations, and with the ability to use tokenized assets as productive collateral. Oracle reliability for pricing tokenized equities in a 24/7 environment, when the underlying stocks only trade during market hours, introduces potential pricing discrepancies.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
Why Is Ondo Using Tokenized Stocks as Trading Collateral? Ondo Finance has launched a pre-alpha version of its perpetual futures platform that allows users to trade with tokenized stocks as collateral, adding a new use case for real-world assets beyond simple onchain exposure.
The platform, Ondo Perps, lets eligible traders use tokenized stocks to access perpetual futures tied to commodities such as oil and gold, as well as popular equities including Apple and Tesla. The service is available 24/7 to traders outside the U.S., Panama, and other prohibited jurisdictions.
The move targets one of the central questions facing tokenized real-world assets: whether they can become active financial infrastructure rather than static representations of offchain securities. If tokenized stocks can be used as collateral across derivatives markets, they may gain a broader role in trading, margin management, and capital efficiency.
Ondo said the platform is designed to deliver liquidity and capital efficiency closer to traditional derivatives venues while keeping the onchain structure of tokenized assets. The firm is also offering early trading rewards, including $150,000 in USDC tied to first-week activity.
How Does This Change The Role Of Tokenized Stocks? Tokenized stocks have mostly been framed as onchain versions of traditional market exposure. Ondo’s new product changes that framing by treating them as collateral that can support leveraged trading across other markets.
That matters because collateral utility is one of the main ways tokenized assets can become more useful to traders. A tokenized stock that only tracks a share price has limited functionality. A tokenized stock that can sit inside a margin system and support futures trading becomes part of a broader capital stack.
Ondo Perps allows users to trade perpetual futures on U.S. stocks, ETFs, and commodities around the clock, with leverage of up to 20x. That structure gives non-U.S. users exposure to markets that traditional brokerage and derivatives platforms often limit by geography, trading hours, or collateral type.
Ondo Finance President Ian De Bode framed the change as part of a wider shift in market access. “We are rapidly approaching an investing experience that is, quite frankly, far better than what a traditional brokerage account can offer,” he said.
Investor Takeaway Ondo’s launch points to a more active phase for tokenized real-world assets. The key development is not only tokenizing stocks, but making them usable inside trading and collateral systems that can compete with traditional derivatives infrastructure.
Why Is The Product Limited By Jurisdiction? The platform’s availability outside the U.S., Panama, and other prohibited jurisdictions shows how closely tokenized equities and derivatives remain tied to regulatory boundaries. Tokenized stocks may trade onchain, but they still reference securities that are regulated in traditional markets.
That makes jurisdictional access central to the business model. Offering 24/7 permissionless trading to eligible global users gives Ondo a wider potential market, but excluding U.S. users reduces the regulatory pressure attached to launching stock-linked perpetual futures and tokenized equity collateral.
The setup also reflects a broader pattern in crypto market structure. Firms are building products that look more flexible than traditional brokerage accounts, but they are still forced to manage securities rules, derivatives oversight, custody requirements, and regional restrictions.
For institutions and larger traders, the jurisdictional limits are not a minor detail. They define who can access the product, how liquidity develops, and whether tokenized stock collateral can scale into a deeper market rather than remain a specialized offshore trading tool.
Can Ondo Stand Out In Perpetual Futures? Ondo is entering a competitive perpetual futures market that already includes crypto-native platforms such as Hyperliquid and Ostium. Its main point of difference is the link between real-world asset tokenization and derivatives collateral.
The company has been expanding its tokenized asset business over the past year. It previously launched 24/7 onchain access to more than 100 U.S. stocks and ETFs for eligible investors in Asia-Pacific, Europe, Africa, and Latin America. More recently, it expanded its U.S. footprint with tokenized versions of BlackRock’s iShares Core S&P 500 ETF and Micron shares under a third-party custodial framework.
That expansion gives Ondo a broader base for its perpetual futures strategy. The more tokenized stocks and ETFs it supports, the more useful its collateral model becomes. Traders could eventually use equity-linked assets to manage exposure across commodities, equities, and other perpetual markets without moving capital back into traditional brokerage rails.
The risk is that tokenized equity products sit in a complex regulatory zone. If access rules tighten, or if regulators question how stock-backed tokens are used in leveraged derivatives trading, growth could slow. Liquidity will also be important. A platform built around capital efficiency needs deep markets, reliable pricing, and confidence that collateral can be valued and managed during volatility.
Ondo’s pre-alpha launch is therefore an early test of whether tokenized stocks can move from market-access products into core trading infrastructure. If the model gains traction, tokenized real-world assets may become less about passive exposure and more about how traders finance, hedge, and leverage positions across global markets.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
Every major AI added memory in the first half of 2026. OpenAI's Dreaming. Claude Chat Memory. Gemini Personal Intelligence. Grok Skills. Microsoft's M365 Copilot Memory rollout. Five launches, five more walled gardens.
Each one is a retention feature. Your context lives on their servers, serves their product, and stops at their wall. If you move to a different AI tomorrow, or use two at once, you start from zero.
Until now. Vana was built to give you an exit from walled gardens so that your data belongs to you. Today, the Vana App Upgrade is live in Beta. And the memory layer inside it is now something you own.
What is the Vana App upgrade? The Vana App upgrade gives you a personal data server, on your device, that you control.
Connect your data sources once. Your Spotify listening history, your Oura sleep and recovery data, your calendar, your conversations across platforms. That data lives locally, not on any platform's servers. It's yours.
From there, you decide what it serves and to whom. Grant a permission, revoke it anytime. No platform intermediary, no asking anyone for access to your own context. Your data becomes self-sovereign.
You can permission your data to any app built on Vana's Data Portability API, or port your memory using MCP.
Portable Memory MCP Vana has acquired the team behind Memory Protocol to lead these important upgrades. Jack Spallone has joined the Vana team and brought his deep know-how and expertise on portable memory into the Vana stack.
The Vana App upgrade ships an MCP endpoint for your personal server. That means Claude can read from it. ChatGPT can read from it. Any MCP-compliant tool can read from it. Your memory and context are now portable, from one source you own, across every AI or app you use.
This is what we mean by open data infrastructure for human-grounded AI. Portability as a protocol.
For builders Vana's Data Portability API now makes it possible to ship apps that read from a user's Vana personal server with their permission.
Your users bring their own context to your app. You don't need to build memory infrastructure from scratch. You don't need to ask a third-party platform for access to user data. You can ask the user directly.
Start building, or add personal data portability to your app today. The docs are at docs.vana.org. We will be holding Builder Workshops and Office Hours in Vana's Discord throughout the week, so be sure to tune in.
How to try it Try the Beta version of the Vana App Upgrade at app.vana.org.
Those who try it out and offer feedback will be given priority slots for the Full Release.
Interested in building on it? Visit docs.vana.org. For workshops and questions, join our Discord.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
OnchainLens monitoring shows that Pump.fun’s official address has transferred 68,596 SOL tokens worth $5.65 million to Kraken, and is likely to sell them imminently.
Relevant content
Billionaire Grantham is bearish on SpaceX: 90% probability of eventual collapse, casts doubt on the AI and Mars narratives.
Billionaire investor Jeremy Grantham, long renowned for warning of asset bubbles, has publicly cast doubt on SpaceX’s current roughly $2 trillion valuation, claiming the company’s AI business, Mars program, and long-term growth thesis all carry major flaws. He stated his "90% bet" is that SpaceX will eventually face a historic collapse. Grantham called it "incredible" that SpaceX attributed around 90% of its addressable market to AI in its IPO prospectus, adding that its AI products lack competitiveness compared to those of OpenAI and Anthropic. Still, mainstream Wall Street institutions remain broadly optimistic about SpaceX. With the company officially added to the NASDAQ-100 Index, it is expected to draw more passive capital inflows. Several investment banks including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley have issued positive ratings, noting that Starship, Starlink, and its AI business will serve as core drivers of future growth.
4 minutes ago
Tether burned 2.5 billion USDT on Ethereum in a single day, marking the largest single-day burn since February.
CryptoQuant cited on-chain data, reporting that on July 7, Tether Treasury burned $2.5 billion worth of USDT on the Ethereum network. This marks the largest single burn on the network since February this year, exceeding the $2 billion burn on May 8, and second only to the all-time high of $3.5 billion recorded on February 10. Meanwhile, the USDT balance flowing into and out of Binance via the Tron network dropped to roughly $806 million, its lowest level since December 29, 2025 (when it hit $391 million), falling below the $1 billion threshold and signaling a significant contraction in USDT liquidity on Binance’s Tron channel. The large-scale burn by Tether Treasury primarily reflects redemption, fund management, or cross-chain rebalancing operations rather than a direct market signal. However, the synchronized contraction of Ethereum’s USDT supply and Binance’s Tron liquidity is worth ongoing monitoring, as market participants will watch whether the liquidity of dual-chain stablecoins continues this concurrent tightening trend.
4 minutes ago
CASHCAT's market cap briefly topped $98 million, surging over 11-fold in 24 hours.
According to GMGN market data, the market capitalization of CASHCAT, a meme coin on Robinhood’s chain, has continued its rally, briefly crossing $98 million before pulling back to $92.47 million, surging over 11 times in 24 hours. CASHCAT was originally the mascot of Robinhood’s U.S. stock app before being rebranded as Robinhood. On July 1 this year, Robinhood launched its own Layer 2 (L2) public chain, Robinhood Chain, focusing on on-chain finance and real-world assets (RWA). Vlad Tenev, co-founder and CEO of Robinhood, posted on X today that while the company is building Robinhood Chain into the best public chain for real-world assets (RWA), it is also “very suitable for trading meme coins.” BlockBeats reminds users that most meme coins have no intrinsic value and are highly volatile, so trading them requires caution.
4 minutes ago
Iran announces its initial response to the US: Strikes 85 key US military facilities
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of Iran issued a statement accusing the U.S. of repeating its treacherous habitual practices, claiming U.S. forces launched airstrikes on multiple coastal bases and civilian facilities in Hormozgan Province and the Mahshahr coastal region in the early hours of today, blatantly violating the ceasefire agreement and trampling on the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding. In an initial response to the aggression, the IRGC Navy and Aerospace Force conducted a joint missile and drone operation, destroying 85 key U.S. military facilities located at Salman Port, the U.S. 5th Fleet base in Bahrain, and Kuwait’s Ali Al Salem Air Base. An enemy MQ-9 drone that attempted to interfere in the operation was also shot down. Separately, U.S. President Donald Trump posted a video titled "U.S. Strikes Iran" on social media, which showed ground targets being hit, with flames and smoke rising against the night sky. Trump provided no text commentary for the video, but later reposted it with a netizen’s post attached. The post read: "Breaking News: Massive Strikes on Iran." Earlier U.S. sources reported that Trump, who was attending the NATO summit in Turkey, had approved the plan to strike Iran and issued the strike order.
4 minutes ago
US CFTC sues crypto commodity pool operator Trevor Vernon, alleging $14.8 million in investment fraud.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sued Trevor Vernon and his company Argent Capital Management, accusing them of operating a commodity pool involving stock index futures, options, and crypto assets from March 2022 to February 2026. They raised approximately $14.8 million from at least 60 investors while falsely advertising investment performance, allegedly committing investment fraud. The CFTC stated that the related trades caused investors to lose over $8.6 million. Vernon not only concealed the losses but is also suspected of misappropriating around $3 million to pay returns to investors, with the operation being "similar to a Ponzi scheme", and embezzled $136,000 for private air travel. The regulator also noted that the trades involved commodities such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, and requested the court to order them to cease relevant trading and registration activities, as well as recover illegal proceeds, impose civil penalties, and compensate investors.
4 minutes ago
Despite the plunge in chip stocks, global institutions are snapping up SK Hynix ahead of its blockbuster Nasdaq listing.
SK Hynix’s roughly $28 billion American Depositary Receipt (ADR) offering was oversubscribed several times ahead of pricing, with around 1,000 institutional investors taking part in roadshows, drawing strong subscriptions from global long-term funds and tech investors. If completed smoothly, the offering will rank among the largest U.S. listings by a foreign company, with the chipmaker set to debut on the Nasdaq Global Select Market this Friday. Despite recent sharp volatility in the global semiconductor sector, SK Hynix’s stock has declined around 17% this month, yet institutional subscription enthusiasm has not been materially impacted. Market observers note that U.S. investors have relatively limited investment access to the South Korean memory chip leader, and the scarcity premium plus long-term growth prospects tied to AI remain key supports for the offering. Jung In-yoon, CEO of Fibonacci Asset Management Global, said market volatility “may affect short-term investor sentiment or execution timelines, but I would be surprised if it materially disrupts the transaction itself. Unless market conditions deteriorate significantly from here, the pricing impact should be manageable.”
Bitcoin has shed over half its value since its October 2025 peak, drifting to roughly $63,000 at press time. Presently, it has largely held a tight range between $58,000 and $63,000.
The decline stems mostly from mounting geopolitical tension that built after the peak—the U.S.-China tariff war and the unresolved West Asia conflict—which pulled capital out of Bitcoin.
Sentiment has since settled on the geopolitical front, but moves by major holders cast doubt on whether a sustainable rally is coming. Michael Saylor’s Strategy recently sold $216 million worth of Bitcoin to fund a dividend payment, sharpening that uncertainty. On-chain data offers a cleaner answer.
Bitcoin’s apparent demand signals quiet accumulation Despite the outflows, Bitcoin’s apparent demand on a 30-day basis points to a silent, growing accumulation of the asset.
Since June 3, buyers have scooped up roughly 200,000 Bitcoin, lifting apparent demand from -275,000 to -75,000 Bitcoin. The metric measures the gap between newly issued Bitcoin and the supply that has stayed inactive.
Source: CryptoQuant The rise reflects a degree of accumulation, though it stops short of confirming a bullish market.
Apparent demand still sits in negative territory on the chart. A material run looks unlikely until the metric flips positive, particularly while the upward push toward the positive end stays weak. For now, the trend warrants caution rather than a bullish read, and the market has yet to confirm otherwise.
Structure hints at limited downside Structurally, the king cryptocurrency shows signs that further downside from this level carries a lower probability.
Bitcoin has found a base at the lower band (green line) of the Bollinger Bands, a level that has often played a critical support role once price trades there for a stretch.
The Bollinger Bands have repeatedly flagged rebound points on the chart. Each of the last five instances, circled in red, typically carried price to the blue or upper red line—levels that currently sit at $69,928 and $82,544.
The moving average convergence divergence (MACD) indicator, on the other hand, suggests a rally may not materialize soon, with Bitcoin more likely to tick slightly lower or consolidate further within its present range.
The MACD blue line crossing the orange line—while holding a narrow gap—implies Bitcoin keeps trading in the direction it currently sits, between $58,000 and $63,000, before any surge materializes. It also suggests the odds of an extreme plunge remain slim.
Bitcoin season index and exchange reserves stay calm The market has not entered a Bitcoin season, the euphoric stretch where the asset prints fresh local highs and potentially tests an all-time high.
The index tracking this currently reads 52, lending modest support to the view that select altcoins are drawing renewed capital flow.
Source: CryptoQuant Bitcoin is likely to meet lighter selling pressure as it stands, given the overall decline in supply held on exchange reserves. That availability has dropped from 2.715 million Bitcoin to roughly 2.707 million on the chart.
For now, capital movement points to settled sentiment, and Bitcoin looks set to stay calm as the gradual decline tendency holds steady.
Final Summary Bitcoin remains range-bound, with on-chain data pointing to accumulation but not a confirmed bullish reversal. Apparent demand is improving as buyers accumulate BTC, though the metric remains negative, warranting caution.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
Michael Saylor spotlighted Strategy’s BTC Breakeven ARR on Tuesday, July 7. He argued Bitcoin (BTC) only needs 3.3% yearly growth to fund the firm’s preferred dividends from capital gains indefinitely.
The metric divides annual preferred dividend obligations, now roughly $1.76 billion by company figures, by the value of the corporate Bitcoin reserve. Saylor called it one of the most misunderstood numbers attached to Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy).
What BTC Breakeven ARR Means for MicroStrategyStrategy reports holding 843,775 BTC, worth roughly $53.8 billion with Bitcoin trading near $63,603, and the stack keeps growing. The company disclosed 818,334 BTC in its May earnings release, meaning it added over 25,000 coins through a drawdown.
Saylor, the company’s founder and executive chairman, made the case in a Tuesday post on X (Twitter).
“One of the most misunderstood $MSTR metrics is BTC Breakeven ARR. If BTC appreciates faster than 3.3% over time, BTC capital gains can fund $STRC dividends indefinitely.”
A companion chart from Strategy illustrates the trade-off. At zero Bitcoin growth, the reserve plus a $2.55 billion cash buffer covers about 31 years of payments, per the company’s dashboard. The buffer alone funds roughly 17 months.
BTC capital gains fund STRC credit dividends. Source: MicroStrategyThe pitch leans on a real track record. MicroStrategy has paid 23 consecutive preferred distributions totaling over $693 million since early 2025, per its Q1 release.
Critics Question the Bitcoin Dividend MathThe model assumes obligations stop compounding, and so far, they have not. Preferred dividends hit $229.5 million in the first quarter of 2026, up from $10.6 million a year earlier. Preferred equity outstanding has swelled past $13.5 billion.
Skeptics also doubt the funding side. JPMorgan recently warned that Strategy’s Bitcoin sales policy could add up to $1.25 billion in sell pressure. On-chain data already pointed to a new Bitcoin sale of 491 BTC on July 1, which was later confirmed to be 7x bigger.
Meanwhile, STRC paid an 11.5% annualized rate in May yet trades below its $100 par target. Preferred holders still price in risk despite the low breakeven hurdle.
STRC Price. Source: StrategyWhether 3.3% proves a low bar depends on Bitcoin reclaiming its long-term trend, with the price down nearly 49% from its October peak.
However, coming payments may reveal how much of the burden falls on BTC sales rather than capital gains.
Bitcoin financial services platform Strike has launched a “volatility-proof” Bitcoin-backed loan that eliminates margin calls and forced liquidations amid the depths of a bear market, but only for those who can pay on time and handle a 14% interest rate.
In an announcement on Tuesday, Strike CEO Jack Mallers said the offering came in response to broad customer feedback on Strike’s first Bitcoin loan product, which launched in May 2025 and triggered many liquidations during a timeframe in which Bitcoin (BTC) dropped 54% from peak to trough.
“No margin calls. No price liquidations. No matter how far bitcoin falls, your bitcoin doesn't move,” Strike CEO Jack Mallers said of the new Bitcoin loan product. The trade-off is an expensive interest rate, a shorter six-month loan term, and an obligation to pay on time to avoid liquidation, Mallers said.
Strike’s Jack Mallers is presenting the new Bitcoin-backed loan product. Source: Jack Mallers
The Bitcoin industry has spent the better part of a decade racing to build financial products that expand Bitcoin's use case beyond a savings technology. A report in June from crypto lending platform Ledn, however, found that while 88% of surveyed crypto investors said they would consider a crypto-backed loan, only 14% use them.
Ledn said confidence in crypto-lending products and market volatility are among the main reasons for this 6-to-1 “crypto collateral gap” that has slowed adoption.
Volatility has been one of the biggest obstacles behind that push, with Bitcoin dropping 30% or more in 10 of the past 12 years, while also experiencing a 50% or more drawdown four times since 2014, Mallers noted.
Other crypto market participants offering Bitcoin-backed loans are Binance, Coinbase, Nexo and Xapo Bank.
Strike charges double-digit interestThe maximum initial loan-to-value ratio for the volatility-proof loans is 45%, meaning that a customer who puts up $100,000 in Bitcoin as collateral can borrow up to $45,000, while the annual percentage rate (APR) is also 2.95 percentage points higher than Strike’s standard loan product.
“The secret sauce is that we’re taking the extra charge that we’re giving you guys and we’re putting it on extra hedges in the market to protect all of us.”Strike’s standard Bitcoin loans charge an annual percentage rate between 7.75% and 11.25%, meaning the volatility-proof products could carry interest between 10.7% and 14.2%.
"If you're OK with a slightly shorter term and a little bit higher of a fee, there is no price move that can liquidate you," Mallers said.
Over the past year, Bitcoin has fallen 54% from its all-time high of $126,080 in October to $58,190 on June 25.
Bitcoin investor Fred Krueger said the loan product "could eliminate one of Bitcoin's biggest structural problems: forced selling during market crashes."
“Instead of volatility causing automatic liquidations, defaults would be driven by borrowers' inability to service debt rather than by temporary price swings," he said.
“Great product for those who need near-term liquidity and don’t want to risk liquidation,” added Vibes Capital Management executive chairman Rob Topping, though he also acknowledged the 14% APR was expensive.
Customers must pay up or face consequencesIf a client misses a payment, they have 10 days to make the payment or contact Strike to explain their financial situation, Mallers said.
Failing to pay after that 10-day period may mean Strike starts liquidating their Bitcoin to cover the overdue amount, Mallers warned.
“If we don’t hear from you for a few weeks, then I may have no choice but to sell off some of the Bitcoin because it seems like you’re doing a hit-and-run.”“That’s why we call it ‘volatility-proof,’ not ‘liquidation-proof,’” Mallers added.
The Bitcoin loans are offered in most US states and can be taken out in both personal and business names. They can be used for new loans, refinancing or consolidating.
While the minimum loan amount varies from state to state, the minimum loan offered through personal loans is $10,000, while businesses in certain states can access loans as low as $5,000.
Features: Bitcoin miners are pivoting to AI, so why is the hashrate near ATHs?
Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.
Bitcoin financial services platform Strike has launched a “volatility-proof” Bitcoin-backed loan that eliminates margin calls and forced liquidations amid the depths of a bear market, but only for those who can pay on time and handle a 14% interest rate.
In an announcement on Tuesday, Strike CEO Jack Mallers said the offering came in response to broad customer feedback on Strike’s first Bitcoin loan product, which launched in May 2025 and triggered many liquidations during a timeframe in which Bitcoin (BTC) dropped 54% from peak to trough.
“No margin calls. No price liquidations. No matter how far bitcoin falls, your bitcoin doesn't move,” Strike CEO Jack Mallers said of the new Bitcoin loan product. The trade-off is an expensive interest rate, a shorter six-month loan term, and an obligation to pay on time to avoid liquidation, Mallers said.
Strike’s Jack Mallers is presenting the new Bitcoin-backed loan product. Source: Jack Mallers
The Bitcoin industry has spent the better part of a decade racing to build financial products that expand Bitcoin's use case beyond a savings technology. A report in June from crypto lending platform Ledn, however, found that while 88% of surveyed crypto investors said they would consider a crypto-backed loan, only 14% use them.
Ledn said confidence in crypto-lending products and market volatility are among the main reasons for this 6-to-1 “crypto collateral gap” that has slowed adoption.
Volatility has been one of the biggest obstacles behind that push, with Bitcoin dropping 30% or more in 10 of the past 12 years, while also experiencing a 50% or more drawdown four times since 2014, Mallers noted.
Other crypto market participants offering Bitcoin-backed loans are Binance, Coinbase, Nexo and Xapo Bank.
Strike charges double-digit interestThe maximum initial loan-to-value ratio for the volatility-proof loans is 45%, meaning that a customer who puts up $100,000 in Bitcoin as collateral can borrow up to $45,000, while the annual percentage rate (APR) is also 2.95 percentage points higher than Strike’s standard loan product.
“The secret sauce is that we’re taking the extra charge that we’re giving you guys and we’re putting it on extra hedges in the market to protect all of us.”Strike’s standard Bitcoin loans charge an annual percentage rate between 7.75% and 11.25%, meaning the volatility-proof products could carry interest between 10.7% and 14.2%.
"If you're OK with a slightly shorter term and a little bit higher of a fee, there is no price move that can liquidate you," Mallers said.
Over the past year, Bitcoin has fallen 54% from its all-time high of $126,080 in October to $58,190 on June 25.
Bitcoin investor Fred Krueger said the loan product "could eliminate one of Bitcoin's biggest structural problems: forced selling during market crashes."
“Instead of volatility causing automatic liquidations, defaults would be driven by borrowers' inability to service debt rather than by temporary price swings," he said.
“Great product for those who need near-term liquidity and don’t want to risk liquidation,” added Vibes Capital Management executive chairman Rob Topping, though he also acknowledged the 14% APR was expensive.
Customers must pay up or face consequencesIf a client misses a payment, they have 10 days to make the payment or contact Strike to explain their financial situation, Mallers said.
Failing to pay after that 10-day period may mean Strike starts liquidating their Bitcoin to cover the overdue amount, Mallers warned.
“If we don’t hear from you for a few weeks, then I may have no choice but to sell off some of the Bitcoin because it seems like you’re doing a hit-and-run.”“That’s why we call it ‘volatility-proof,’ not ‘liquidation-proof,’” Mallers added.
The Bitcoin loans are offered in most US states and can be taken out in both personal and business names. They can be used for new loans, refinancing or consolidating.
While the minimum loan amount varies from state to state, the minimum loan offered through personal loans is $10,000, while businesses in certain states can access loans as low as $5,000.
Features: Bitcoin miners are pivoting to AI, so why is the hashrate near ATHs?
Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.
Strategy’s $216M Bitcoin sell-off disclosure has not sparked the death spiral projected by some analysts last week.
In fact, Grayscale now thinks the firm’s $1.25B BTC sale plan could help “support BTC price stability.”
In its latest report, Grayscale’s Head of Research Zach Pandl noted,
The rebound in the price of STRC suggests investors are now more confident about the instrument. Strategy is selling more Bitcoin. But this will restore confidence in its financing structure and help Bitcoin find a more durable bottom, in our view.
Source: Grayscale After Strategy’s disclosure on Monday, the firm’s interest-paying preferred stock Stretch (STRC) briefly climbed above $90 for the first time since the 22nd of June.
STRC de-pegged from its $100-parity level in mid-June amid broader market concerns on how the firm would fund dividend obligations as the crypto winter extended itself. The initial USD reserve was also partially emptied to retire convertible debt that further compounded the worries.
To address these concerns, Strategy announced a new plan that included a formal $1.25B BTC sale. The $216M BTC sell-off is just the first step aimed at having a buffer to cover the dividend obligations.
Surprisingly, the markets have not reacted negatively as they did when Strategy sold 32 BTC. In the first week of June, BTC dumped by over 20% to $59K after Strategy disclosed that it sold 32 BTC.
On Monday, BTC moved lower but quickly pared the losses and closed the day with gains of just 0.6%.
Source: BTC/USDT, TradingView Most analysts expected a similar negative reaction if the firm went ahead with the $1.25 billion BTC sale plan. In fact, JPMorgan warned against it and instead recommended increasing the USD reserve to 3 years’ coverage by selling MSTR shares.
For JPMorgan, such a BTC sell-off would directly drive the market lower.
Galaxy Research echoed a similar warning, adding that selling BTC won’t resolve the firm’s “structural issues.” In fact, Galaxy added that such a move would trigger a BTC sell-off, which would weigh down on STRC and MSTR.
So far, the market has faded the fears. In fact, analyst James Van Straten said it could signal a market bottom for BTC.
When bad news no longer pushes prices lower, the bottom may be in.
However, for Peter Schiff, a long-time Strategy critic, the firm might still be incurring losses since it has been selling BTC below its average buying price.
Given MSTR’s average cost, that’s a realized loss of about $15K per Bitcoin, or about $54 million. With over 840K Bitcoin left to sell, the total losses will be much greater.
Worth noting, however, that BTC’s near-term recovery will depend on the FOMC meeting minutes scheduled for 8th of July.
Final Summary Market faded Strategy’s $216M BTC sale as the price stayed above $63K Grayscale billed the move as supportive for BTC to find a more “durable bottom.”
Prediction market platform Polymarket has announced support for instant, self-custodial deposits via the Bitcoin Lightning Network, with the new feature backed by the Spark Protocol. Compared to prior on-chain deposit methods that required waiting for 3 to 6 block confirmations and took 10 to 60 minutes, the new solution delivers near-instant settlement while lowering deposit barriers and transaction costs. According to details, Spark can conduct checks for double-spend risks, transaction fees, and Replace-by-Fee (RBF) at the time of transaction broadcast, enabling "zero-confirmation" posting. It also supports on-chain, Lightning Network, and stablecoin payment rails, removing the need for the platform to operate its own Lightning Network nodes. Polymarket noted that this step will further boost Bitcoin users' capital efficiency and strengthen its competitiveness against rival Kalshi.
Relevant content
Billionaire Grantham is bearish on SpaceX: 90% probability of eventual collapse, casts doubt on the AI and Mars narratives.
Billionaire investor Jeremy Grantham, long renowned for warning of asset bubbles, has publicly cast doubt on SpaceX’s current roughly $2 trillion valuation, claiming the company’s AI business, Mars program, and long-term growth thesis all carry major flaws. He stated his "90% bet" is that SpaceX will eventually face a historic collapse. Grantham called it "incredible" that SpaceX attributed around 90% of its addressable market to AI in its IPO prospectus, adding that its AI products lack competitiveness compared to those of OpenAI and Anthropic. Still, mainstream Wall Street institutions remain broadly optimistic about SpaceX. With the company officially added to the NASDAQ-100 Index, it is expected to draw more passive capital inflows. Several investment banks including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley have issued positive ratings, noting that Starship, Starlink, and its AI business will serve as core drivers of future growth.
4 minutes ago
Tether burned 2.5 billion USDT on Ethereum in a single day, marking the largest single-day burn since February.
CryptoQuant cited on-chain data, reporting that on July 7, Tether Treasury burned $2.5 billion worth of USDT on the Ethereum network. This marks the largest single burn on the network since February this year, exceeding the $2 billion burn on May 8, and second only to the all-time high of $3.5 billion recorded on February 10. Meanwhile, the USDT balance flowing into and out of Binance via the Tron network dropped to roughly $806 million, its lowest level since December 29, 2025 (when it hit $391 million), falling below the $1 billion threshold and signaling a significant contraction in USDT liquidity on Binance’s Tron channel. The large-scale burn by Tether Treasury primarily reflects redemption, fund management, or cross-chain rebalancing operations rather than a direct market signal. However, the synchronized contraction of Ethereum’s USDT supply and Binance’s Tron liquidity is worth ongoing monitoring, as market participants will watch whether the liquidity of dual-chain stablecoins continues this concurrent tightening trend.
4 minutes ago
CASHCAT's market cap briefly topped $98 million, surging over 11-fold in 24 hours.
According to GMGN market data, the market capitalization of CASHCAT, a meme coin on Robinhood’s chain, has continued its rally, briefly crossing $98 million before pulling back to $92.47 million, surging over 11 times in 24 hours. CASHCAT was originally the mascot of Robinhood’s U.S. stock app before being rebranded as Robinhood. On July 1 this year, Robinhood launched its own Layer 2 (L2) public chain, Robinhood Chain, focusing on on-chain finance and real-world assets (RWA). Vlad Tenev, co-founder and CEO of Robinhood, posted on X today that while the company is building Robinhood Chain into the best public chain for real-world assets (RWA), it is also “very suitable for trading meme coins.” BlockBeats reminds users that most meme coins have no intrinsic value and are highly volatile, so trading them requires caution.
4 minutes ago
Iran announces its initial response to the US: Strikes 85 key US military facilities
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of Iran issued a statement accusing the U.S. of repeating its treacherous habitual practices, claiming U.S. forces launched airstrikes on multiple coastal bases and civilian facilities in Hormozgan Province and the Mahshahr coastal region in the early hours of today, blatantly violating the ceasefire agreement and trampling on the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding. In an initial response to the aggression, the IRGC Navy and Aerospace Force conducted a joint missile and drone operation, destroying 85 key U.S. military facilities located at Salman Port, the U.S. 5th Fleet base in Bahrain, and Kuwait’s Ali Al Salem Air Base. An enemy MQ-9 drone that attempted to interfere in the operation was also shot down. Separately, U.S. President Donald Trump posted a video titled "U.S. Strikes Iran" on social media, which showed ground targets being hit, with flames and smoke rising against the night sky. Trump provided no text commentary for the video, but later reposted it with a netizen’s post attached. The post read: "Breaking News: Massive Strikes on Iran." Earlier U.S. sources reported that Trump, who was attending the NATO summit in Turkey, had approved the plan to strike Iran and issued the strike order.
4 minutes ago
US CFTC sues crypto commodity pool operator Trevor Vernon, alleging $14.8 million in investment fraud.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sued Trevor Vernon and his company Argent Capital Management, accusing them of operating a commodity pool involving stock index futures, options, and crypto assets from March 2022 to February 2026. They raised approximately $14.8 million from at least 60 investors while falsely advertising investment performance, allegedly committing investment fraud. The CFTC stated that the related trades caused investors to lose over $8.6 million. Vernon not only concealed the losses but is also suspected of misappropriating around $3 million to pay returns to investors, with the operation being "similar to a Ponzi scheme", and embezzled $136,000 for private air travel. The regulator also noted that the trades involved commodities such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, and requested the court to order them to cease relevant trading and registration activities, as well as recover illegal proceeds, impose civil penalties, and compensate investors.
4 minutes ago
Despite the plunge in chip stocks, global institutions are snapping up SK Hynix ahead of its blockbuster Nasdaq listing.
SK Hynix’s roughly $28 billion American Depositary Receipt (ADR) offering was oversubscribed several times ahead of pricing, with around 1,000 institutional investors taking part in roadshows, drawing strong subscriptions from global long-term funds and tech investors. If completed smoothly, the offering will rank among the largest U.S. listings by a foreign company, with the chipmaker set to debut on the Nasdaq Global Select Market this Friday. Despite recent sharp volatility in the global semiconductor sector, SK Hynix’s stock has declined around 17% this month, yet institutional subscription enthusiasm has not been materially impacted. Market observers note that U.S. investors have relatively limited investment access to the South Korean memory chip leader, and the scarcity premium plus long-term growth prospects tied to AI remain key supports for the offering. Jung In-yoon, CEO of Fibonacci Asset Management Global, said market volatility “may affect short-term investor sentiment or execution timelines, but I would be surprised if it materially disrupts the transaction itself. Unless market conditions deteriorate significantly from here, the pricing impact should be manageable.”
Strike has launched a new "Volatility-Proof" Bitcoin mortgage product that eliminates margin calls and forced liquidations triggered by Bitcoin price declines. Jack Mallers noted that regardless of how much Bitcoin’s price drops, as long as borrowers make timely repayments, their pledged Bitcoin will not be liquidated due to price fluctuations. The new product features a maximum loan-to-value (LTV) ratio of 45%, a 6-month term, and an annual percentage rate (APR) ranging from roughly 10.7% to 14.2% — higher than Strike’s standard loan offerings. Should a borrower default, they must repay within 10 days or coordinate with the platform; otherwise, Strike retains the right to sell a portion of the Bitcoin collateral to cover the outstanding balance. The company added that the product is now available in most U.S. states, applicable for new loans, refinancing, and debt consolidation.
Relevant content
Billionaire Grantham is bearish on SpaceX: 90% probability of eventual collapse, casts doubt on the AI and Mars narratives.
Billionaire investor Jeremy Grantham, long renowned for warning of asset bubbles, has publicly cast doubt on SpaceX’s current roughly $2 trillion valuation, claiming the company’s AI business, Mars program, and long-term growth thesis all carry major flaws. He stated his "90% bet" is that SpaceX will eventually face a historic collapse. Grantham called it "incredible" that SpaceX attributed around 90% of its addressable market to AI in its IPO prospectus, adding that its AI products lack competitiveness compared to those of OpenAI and Anthropic. Still, mainstream Wall Street institutions remain broadly optimistic about SpaceX. With the company officially added to the NASDAQ-100 Index, it is expected to draw more passive capital inflows. Several investment banks including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley have issued positive ratings, noting that Starship, Starlink, and its AI business will serve as core drivers of future growth.
4 minutes ago
Tether burned 2.5 billion USDT on Ethereum in a single day, marking the largest single-day burn since February.
CryptoQuant cited on-chain data, reporting that on July 7, Tether Treasury burned $2.5 billion worth of USDT on the Ethereum network. This marks the largest single burn on the network since February this year, exceeding the $2 billion burn on May 8, and second only to the all-time high of $3.5 billion recorded on February 10. Meanwhile, the USDT balance flowing into and out of Binance via the Tron network dropped to roughly $806 million, its lowest level since December 29, 2025 (when it hit $391 million), falling below the $1 billion threshold and signaling a significant contraction in USDT liquidity on Binance’s Tron channel. The large-scale burn by Tether Treasury primarily reflects redemption, fund management, or cross-chain rebalancing operations rather than a direct market signal. However, the synchronized contraction of Ethereum’s USDT supply and Binance’s Tron liquidity is worth ongoing monitoring, as market participants will watch whether the liquidity of dual-chain stablecoins continues this concurrent tightening trend.
4 minutes ago
CASHCAT's market cap briefly topped $98 million, surging over 11-fold in 24 hours.
According to GMGN market data, the market capitalization of CASHCAT, a meme coin on Robinhood’s chain, has continued its rally, briefly crossing $98 million before pulling back to $92.47 million, surging over 11 times in 24 hours. CASHCAT was originally the mascot of Robinhood’s U.S. stock app before being rebranded as Robinhood. On July 1 this year, Robinhood launched its own Layer 2 (L2) public chain, Robinhood Chain, focusing on on-chain finance and real-world assets (RWA). Vlad Tenev, co-founder and CEO of Robinhood, posted on X today that while the company is building Robinhood Chain into the best public chain for real-world assets (RWA), it is also “very suitable for trading meme coins.” BlockBeats reminds users that most meme coins have no intrinsic value and are highly volatile, so trading them requires caution.
4 minutes ago
Iran announces its initial response to the US: Strikes 85 key US military facilities
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of Iran issued a statement accusing the U.S. of repeating its treacherous habitual practices, claiming U.S. forces launched airstrikes on multiple coastal bases and civilian facilities in Hormozgan Province and the Mahshahr coastal region in the early hours of today, blatantly violating the ceasefire agreement and trampling on the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding. In an initial response to the aggression, the IRGC Navy and Aerospace Force conducted a joint missile and drone operation, destroying 85 key U.S. military facilities located at Salman Port, the U.S. 5th Fleet base in Bahrain, and Kuwait’s Ali Al Salem Air Base. An enemy MQ-9 drone that attempted to interfere in the operation was also shot down. Separately, U.S. President Donald Trump posted a video titled "U.S. Strikes Iran" on social media, which showed ground targets being hit, with flames and smoke rising against the night sky. Trump provided no text commentary for the video, but later reposted it with a netizen’s post attached. The post read: "Breaking News: Massive Strikes on Iran." Earlier U.S. sources reported that Trump, who was attending the NATO summit in Turkey, had approved the plan to strike Iran and issued the strike order.
4 minutes ago
US CFTC sues crypto commodity pool operator Trevor Vernon, alleging $14.8 million in investment fraud.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sued Trevor Vernon and his company Argent Capital Management, accusing them of operating a commodity pool involving stock index futures, options, and crypto assets from March 2022 to February 2026. They raised approximately $14.8 million from at least 60 investors while falsely advertising investment performance, allegedly committing investment fraud. The CFTC stated that the related trades caused investors to lose over $8.6 million. Vernon not only concealed the losses but is also suspected of misappropriating around $3 million to pay returns to investors, with the operation being "similar to a Ponzi scheme", and embezzled $136,000 for private air travel. The regulator also noted that the trades involved commodities such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, and requested the court to order them to cease relevant trading and registration activities, as well as recover illegal proceeds, impose civil penalties, and compensate investors.
4 minutes ago
Despite the plunge in chip stocks, global institutions are snapping up SK Hynix ahead of its blockbuster Nasdaq listing.
SK Hynix’s roughly $28 billion American Depositary Receipt (ADR) offering was oversubscribed several times ahead of pricing, with around 1,000 institutional investors taking part in roadshows, drawing strong subscriptions from global long-term funds and tech investors. If completed smoothly, the offering will rank among the largest U.S. listings by a foreign company, with the chipmaker set to debut on the Nasdaq Global Select Market this Friday. Despite recent sharp volatility in the global semiconductor sector, SK Hynix’s stock has declined around 17% this month, yet institutional subscription enthusiasm has not been materially impacted. Market observers note that U.S. investors have relatively limited investment access to the South Korean memory chip leader, and the scarcity premium plus long-term growth prospects tied to AI remain key supports for the offering. Jung In-yoon, CEO of Fibonacci Asset Management Global, said market volatility “may affect short-term investor sentiment or execution timelines, but I would be surprised if it materially disrupts the transaction itself. Unless market conditions deteriorate significantly from here, the pricing impact should be manageable.”
Kuwait’s military is officially in active defense mode. On June 2, 2026, the Kuwaiti Army reported intercepting seven ballistic missiles in a single engagement, part of a broader wave of drone and missile attacks attributed to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targeting Kuwaiti and US assets in the region.
The Kuwaiti Army’s General Staff pushed public advisories through state news agency KUNA, urging civilians to follow safety protocols and stay alert for debris falling from intercepted projectiles. Debris from interceptions has fallen in residential zones, which is why the Kuwaiti government is not treating this as a background military matter.
Advertisement
What’s actually happening in the Gulf Kuwait’s air defense network has been running hot since February 2026, when Iranian threats against Gulf states and US military assets began escalating into live fire. The IRGC has been the attributed source of the attacks, which have targeted both Kuwaiti infrastructure and American interests operating in the region. Some incidents reportedly involved dozens of projectiles detected in a single wave, making June 2 part of a sustained campaign rather than an isolated provocation.
Why crypto traders are watching the Gulf During a May 2026 escalation in the same regional conflict, Bitcoin dropped below $73,000. Liquidations tied to that move totaled $1 billion as traders caught on the wrong side of leveraged positions got wiped out in a compressed timeframe.
The June 2 interception event did not produce an immediate, documented move in crypto markets. But the pattern established over the prior months is clear: major escalation events in the Iran conflict have corresponded with Bitcoin price drops and significant liquidation cascades.
What investors should be watching Kuwait sits at the northern tip of the Persian Gulf, sharing a border with Iraq and positioned within range of Iranian ballistic missile systems. Its air defense network being actively engaged is a materially different signal than proxy skirmishes further from core Gulf infrastructure.
For crypto specifically, traders running leveraged long positions on Bitcoin or other major assets should be pricing in the possibility of additional sharp drawdowns if the conflict escalates further. The May liquidation event, totaling $1 billion, demonstrated how quickly an adverse geopolitical headline can cascade through a market where leverage is common and stop-loss clusters are tight.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
The creator of the Cashu ecash protocol just made Bitcoin payments look as simple as tapping your phone against someone else’s. Calle, the pseudonymous developer behind Cashu, demonstrated an NFC tap-to-pay feature on July 7 that transfers Bitcoin-backed ecash tokens between two phones, no internet connection required.
How tapping phones moves Bitcoin Cashu is an open-source protocol that creates ecash tokens, essentially digital IOUs backed by Bitcoin or Lightning Network deposits held at entities called “mints.” You deposit Bitcoin, you get tokens on your device. Those tokens live locally on your phone, just like cash lives in your wallet.
Near-field communication, the same tech that powers Apple Pay and contactless credit cards, allows one phone to beam those ecash tokens to another phone with a simple tap. No cell signal. No Wi-Fi. No blockchain confirmation delay. Just two devices, touching briefly, and value changes hands.
Cashu uses a cryptographic technique called blind signatures, originally conceived by David Chaum in the 1980s. The mint that issues your tokens can verify they’re legitimate without knowing who spent them or where. That’s a meaningful distinction from on-chain Bitcoin transactions, which leave a permanent, traceable record on a public ledger.
Advertisement
Numo and the growing Cashu ecosystem Back on February 24, the Cashu ecosystem saw the launch of Numo, a free, open-source Android application built specifically for contactless payments using Cashu ecash and NFC technology.
Numo works by turning a merchant’s Android phone into an NFC payment terminal, no specialized hardware needed. The app emulates an NFC tag for payment requests, and compatible customer wallets can send ecash tokens directly to the merchant’s device. It’s available as an APK download.
Numo can automatically transfer received ecash to a Lightning address, so a merchant taps to receive ecash and the value flows into their Lightning wallet.
Cashu itself has been building toward this moment since Calle first introduced the protocol in October 2022. The protocol supports offline transfers through multiple channels beyond NFC, including Bluetooth and QR codes.
Why offline matters more than you think Lightning Network brought transaction times down to near-instant and fees to fractions of a cent, but Lightning still requires both parties to be online. Cashu’s offline capability addresses this gap directly. Ecash tokens stored on-device can move between phones in environments where no other crypto payment method would function.
The tradeoff is trust. Unlike on-chain Bitcoin, where the network itself guarantees settlement, Cashu ecash requires trust in the mint that issued the tokens. If a mint goes offline permanently or acts maliciously, your tokens could become worthless.
What this means for investors and the broader market There’s no token to buy here. Cashu operates as a pure open-source framework with no associated market-traded asset.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shot down a US MQ-9 Reaper drone over Jam County in Bushehr Province, and crypto markets responded the way they always do when geopolitical risk spikes: violently and without mercy.
Bitcoin fell below $73,000 in the immediate aftermath, while roughly $1 billion in liquidations swept across cryptocurrency exchanges. The vast majority of those liquidations hit leveraged long positions, meaning traders betting on continued upside got caught flat-footed by a military escalation thousands of miles from any blockchain node.
What happened in Iranian airspace The IRGC confirmed the shootdown on June 9-10, citing what it called “precise intelligence monitoring” as the basis for engaging the American drone. The MQ-9 Reaper carries a price tag of approximately $32 million per unit.
Advertisement
The incident fits into a broader pattern of aerial confrontations between the US and Iran throughout 2026, with multiple reported drone encounters this year alone. Iran has a history of intercepting American unmanned aircraft, most notably the downing of a US RQ-4 Global Hawk back in June 2019, an incident that nearly triggered a military response from the Trump administration at the time.
The IRGC went further in its public statements, referencing additional claimed actions against US air assets, including references to an RQ-4 drone and an F-35. The group also claimed to have attacked the US Fifth Fleet stationed in Bahrain, though the full scope and verification of these claims remain part of a rapidly evolving situation.
Why crypto markets care about a drone over Bushehr When Bitcoin moves against leveraged bets sharply enough, exchanges automatically close positions to prevent further losses. That forced selling creates a cascade effect, pushing prices down further, which triggers more liquidations, which pushes prices down further. The nearly $1 billion in liquidations tells you exactly how many market participants were positioned for calm seas when a storm rolled in.
Bitcoin’s slide below $73,000 represented a meaningful pullback. The asset had been trading well above that level prior to the incident, and the speed of the decline underscored just how thin the liquidity can become when fear enters the picture.
The bigger picture for investors The pattern is well-established. Iran shot down that RQ-4 Global Hawk in 2019, and markets wobbled then too. The difference now is that crypto markets are significantly larger and more interconnected with traditional finance, meaning the transmission mechanism from geopolitical shock to digital asset price action is faster and more severe than it was seven years ago.
The liquidation data itself is worth monitoring, because the $1 billion figure suggests significant leverage had built up in the system, and clearing that out could actually create a healthier market structure going forward if no further escalation occurs.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
According to Onchain Lens monitoring, whale address 0x77ee recently opened a 40x leveraged short position on Hyperliquid for 493 BTC (valued at approximately $31.08 million), with an entry price of $63,240.9 and a liquidation price of $73,962.2. The position currently has an unrealized profit of around $112,400, delivering a return on equity (ROE) of 14.47%. Data shows the address holds a total of 15 positions, with a total position size of roughly $79.79 million, 92% of which are short positions. That said, the address’s cumulative historical trading losses still amount to $5.66 million.
Relevant content
Billionaire Grantham is bearish on SpaceX: 90% probability of eventual collapse, casts doubt on the AI and Mars narratives.
Billionaire investor Jeremy Grantham, long renowned for warning of asset bubbles, has publicly cast doubt on SpaceX’s current roughly $2 trillion valuation, claiming the company’s AI business, Mars program, and long-term growth thesis all carry major flaws. He stated his "90% bet" is that SpaceX will eventually face a historic collapse. Grantham called it "incredible" that SpaceX attributed around 90% of its addressable market to AI in its IPO prospectus, adding that its AI products lack competitiveness compared to those of OpenAI and Anthropic. Still, mainstream Wall Street institutions remain broadly optimistic about SpaceX. With the company officially added to the NASDAQ-100 Index, it is expected to draw more passive capital inflows. Several investment banks including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley have issued positive ratings, noting that Starship, Starlink, and its AI business will serve as core drivers of future growth.
4 minutes ago
Tether burned 2.5 billion USDT on Ethereum in a single day, marking the largest single-day burn since February.
CryptoQuant cited on-chain data, reporting that on July 7, Tether Treasury burned $2.5 billion worth of USDT on the Ethereum network. This marks the largest single burn on the network since February this year, exceeding the $2 billion burn on May 8, and second only to the all-time high of $3.5 billion recorded on February 10. Meanwhile, the USDT balance flowing into and out of Binance via the Tron network dropped to roughly $806 million, its lowest level since December 29, 2025 (when it hit $391 million), falling below the $1 billion threshold and signaling a significant contraction in USDT liquidity on Binance’s Tron channel. The large-scale burn by Tether Treasury primarily reflects redemption, fund management, or cross-chain rebalancing operations rather than a direct market signal. However, the synchronized contraction of Ethereum’s USDT supply and Binance’s Tron liquidity is worth ongoing monitoring, as market participants will watch whether the liquidity of dual-chain stablecoins continues this concurrent tightening trend.
4 minutes ago
CASHCAT's market cap briefly topped $98 million, surging over 11-fold in 24 hours.
According to GMGN market data, the market capitalization of CASHCAT, a meme coin on Robinhood’s chain, has continued its rally, briefly crossing $98 million before pulling back to $92.47 million, surging over 11 times in 24 hours. CASHCAT was originally the mascot of Robinhood’s U.S. stock app before being rebranded as Robinhood. On July 1 this year, Robinhood launched its own Layer 2 (L2) public chain, Robinhood Chain, focusing on on-chain finance and real-world assets (RWA). Vlad Tenev, co-founder and CEO of Robinhood, posted on X today that while the company is building Robinhood Chain into the best public chain for real-world assets (RWA), it is also “very suitable for trading meme coins.” BlockBeats reminds users that most meme coins have no intrinsic value and are highly volatile, so trading them requires caution.
4 minutes ago
Iran announces its initial response to the US: Strikes 85 key US military facilities
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of Iran issued a statement accusing the U.S. of repeating its treacherous habitual practices, claiming U.S. forces launched airstrikes on multiple coastal bases and civilian facilities in Hormozgan Province and the Mahshahr coastal region in the early hours of today, blatantly violating the ceasefire agreement and trampling on the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding. In an initial response to the aggression, the IRGC Navy and Aerospace Force conducted a joint missile and drone operation, destroying 85 key U.S. military facilities located at Salman Port, the U.S. 5th Fleet base in Bahrain, and Kuwait’s Ali Al Salem Air Base. An enemy MQ-9 drone that attempted to interfere in the operation was also shot down. Separately, U.S. President Donald Trump posted a video titled "U.S. Strikes Iran" on social media, which showed ground targets being hit, with flames and smoke rising against the night sky. Trump provided no text commentary for the video, but later reposted it with a netizen’s post attached. The post read: "Breaking News: Massive Strikes on Iran." Earlier U.S. sources reported that Trump, who was attending the NATO summit in Turkey, had approved the plan to strike Iran and issued the strike order.
4 minutes ago
US CFTC sues crypto commodity pool operator Trevor Vernon, alleging $14.8 million in investment fraud.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sued Trevor Vernon and his company Argent Capital Management, accusing them of operating a commodity pool involving stock index futures, options, and crypto assets from March 2022 to February 2026. They raised approximately $14.8 million from at least 60 investors while falsely advertising investment performance, allegedly committing investment fraud. The CFTC stated that the related trades caused investors to lose over $8.6 million. Vernon not only concealed the losses but is also suspected of misappropriating around $3 million to pay returns to investors, with the operation being "similar to a Ponzi scheme", and embezzled $136,000 for private air travel. The regulator also noted that the trades involved commodities such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, and requested the court to order them to cease relevant trading and registration activities, as well as recover illegal proceeds, impose civil penalties, and compensate investors.
4 minutes ago
Despite the plunge in chip stocks, global institutions are snapping up SK Hynix ahead of its blockbuster Nasdaq listing.
SK Hynix’s roughly $28 billion American Depositary Receipt (ADR) offering was oversubscribed several times ahead of pricing, with around 1,000 institutional investors taking part in roadshows, drawing strong subscriptions from global long-term funds and tech investors. If completed smoothly, the offering will rank among the largest U.S. listings by a foreign company, with the chipmaker set to debut on the Nasdaq Global Select Market this Friday. Despite recent sharp volatility in the global semiconductor sector, SK Hynix’s stock has declined around 17% this month, yet institutional subscription enthusiasm has not been materially impacted. Market observers note that U.S. investors have relatively limited investment access to the South Korean memory chip leader, and the scarcity premium plus long-term growth prospects tied to AI remain key supports for the offering. Jung In-yoon, CEO of Fibonacci Asset Management Global, said market volatility “may affect short-term investor sentiment or execution timelines, but I would be surprised if it materially disrupts the transaction itself. Unless market conditions deteriorate significantly from here, the pricing impact should be manageable.”
New Hampshire is taking another big step toward using Bitcoin in public finance. On Wednesday, the state’s Governor and Executive Council will hold a public hearing . They will decide whether to approve a plan for up to $100 million in Bitcoin-backed bonds.
If approved, the plan would move forward as one of the first municipal bond projects in the US linked to Bitcoin.
What Is the Plan?The bonds would help finance private Bitcoin purchases through a company connected to Bitcoin miner CleanSpark. The state would not borrow the money itself. Instead, it would act as a middleman by issuing the bonds. Meanwhile, the private borrower is responsible for paying investors back.
State officials say this means taxpayer money is not at risk.
Governor Kelly Ayotte has called the idea a way to attract investment. Additionally, it would make New Hampshire a leader in digital finance without using public funds.
Granite Staters pay way too much for electricity, and it’s unacceptable that utilities would attempt to block relief after overcharging for more than a decade.
New Hampshire joined fellow New England states in calling for the return of $1.5 billion to ratepayers, including $150… pic.twitter.com/3DyjjlmiiN
— Governor Kelly Ayotte (@KellyAyotte) July 6, 2026 Why It MattersNew Hampshire has been one of the most crypto-friendly states in the US. In 2025, it became the first state to create a strategic Bitcoin reserve. This allows the government to invest a small portion of public funds in large digital assets like Bitcoin.
The new bond proposal is another move that could strengthen the state’s position in the crypto industry.
But There Are RisksNot everyone is convinced the idea is a good one.
Financial experts warn that Bitcoin’s price can change very quickly. If the value of the Bitcoin used as collateral drops too much, around 12.5% from the required level, the bonds could be forced into early liquidation.
Moody’s has also given the proposed bonds a Ba2 rating. This rating is considered speculative and carries higher credit risk than investment-grade bonds.
Finance professor David Krause said the project could be a useful experiment. However, it may not be practical as a long-term public financing tool because of Bitcoin’s volatility.
Looking AheadThe hearing is expected to be the final major government step before the bonds can be issued. While approval seems likely, the real challenge will come after launch. The project’s success will depend heavily on Bitcoin’s price and market conditions.
If the plan moves forward, New Hampshire could set an example for other US states. Other states are exploring new ways to use digital assets in public finance.
Story Ends Here
Trust with CoinPedia:CoinPedia has been delivering accurate and timely cryptocurrency and blockchain updates since 2017. All content is created by our expert panel of analysts and journalists, following strict Editorial Guidelines based on E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness). Every article is fact-checked against reputable sources to ensure accuracy, transparency, and reliability. Our review policy guarantees unbiased evaluations when recommending exchanges, platforms, or tools. We strive to provide timely updates about everything crypto & blockchain, right from startups to industry majors.
Investment Disclaimer:All opinions and insights shared represent the author's own views on current market conditions. Please do your own research before making investment decisions. Neither the writer nor the publication assumes responsibility for your financial choices.
Sponsored and Advertisements:Sponsored content and affiliate links may appear on our site. Advertisements are marked clearly, and our editorial content remains entirely independent from our ad partners.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
New Hampshire is about to do something no state has ever done: put Bitcoin behind a municipal bond. The state’s lawmakers and Executive Council are set to review a $100 million Bitcoin-backed bond issuance at a public hearing on July 8, 2026, a move that could fundamentally reshape how governments interact with digital assets.
The hearing will take place before Governor Kelly Ayotte and the five-member Executive Council, representing the final approval hurdle after the New Hampshire Business Finance Authority board gave its endorsement back in November 2025. If this gets the green light, it becomes the world’s first Bitcoin-backed municipal bond.
How the bond actually works The bonds will be secured by $160 million worth of Bitcoin collateral, creating a 160% over-collateralization ratio. The bond includes a mandatory liquidation clause: if the Bitcoin coverage ratio drops below 140%, the collateral gets liquidated automatically.
Advertisement
The proceeds from the bond will finance Bitcoin acquisitions by CleanSpark, a publicly traded Bitcoin mining company. BitGo, one of the largest digital asset custodians in the industry, will handle custody of the collateral. The bond carries a 2029 maturity date.
Moody’s has assigned a provisional Ba2 rating to the bond. That’s below investment grade, sitting in the upper range of what’s commonly called “junk” territory. The rating agency’s caution reflects Bitcoin’s price swings, which could trigger that liquidation mechanism during a downturn.
The players and the politics The deal involves a handful of key partners beyond CleanSpark and BitGo. Wave Digital Assets and Rosemawr Management are facilitating the transaction, with law firm Orrick providing legal counsel. The New Hampshire BFA itself earns fees from the arrangement, which will flow into a newly created Bitcoin Economic Development Fund.
Governor Ayotte has positioned the initiative as a way to put New Hampshire at the forefront of digital finance innovation, emphasizing that the structure eliminates taxpayer exposure. The July 8 hearing is a public proceeding, meaning residents and stakeholders can weigh in before the Executive Council makes its decision. The BFA board’s November 2025 approval was a necessary prerequisite, but the Executive Council holds final authority over whether the bonds actually get issued.
What this means for investors and the broader market Moody’s Ba2 rating signals that the credit markets aren’t ready to treat these bonds like traditional munis. Institutional investors who are restricted to investment-grade holdings won’t be able to touch them, limiting the buyer pool to funds and individuals comfortable with speculative-grade debt.
The over-collateralization structure and automatic liquidation trigger at 140% address the most direct objection to crypto-backed debt: what happens when the collateral crashes. The mandatory nature of the liquidation removes human judgment from the equation during periods of market stress. Municipal bonds represent a $4 trillion market in the US, making even a $100 million issuance a symbolic entry point.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Litecoin is back in the analyst spotlight as technical indicators and on chain data suggest the cryptocurrency could be gearing up for a significant move. Despite the price remaining stuck below major resistance levels, the fact that LTC has repeatedly held its long term support raises questions about whether a multiyear downtrend is finally nearing its end.
Is Litecoin forming a bottom?Market analyst Celal Kucuker believes Litecoin is on the verge of establishing a long term bottom. According to Kucuker, if the optimistic scenario plays out, LTC could rally to an all time high near 471 dollars. Well known for its peer to peer payments infrastructure, Litecoin has built a reputation as one of the most established networks in crypto.
Celal Kucuker points out that bottoming patterns are emerging in the long term chart, and he forecasts that a bullish turn could send Litecoin towards 471 dollars.
Currently, LTC is trading near 45 dollars. The chart shows a rounded bottom structure, and higher lows have appeared as the price tests its long term downtrend line. This could indicate that buyers remain active at certain levels, providing crucial support in an uncertain market.
However, short term uncertainty persists. Analyst Crypto With Gopal notes that Litecoin’s hourly chart has reformed an ascending wedge pattern, which has historically preceded price pullbacks. He identifies the 45.30 to 46.00 dollar range as key short term resistance, suggesting careful monitoring for potential reversals.
Crypto With Gopal highlights that the ascending wedge seen on Litecoin’s chart has previously led to support breakdowns, and the 45.30 to 46.00 region stands out as an immediate resistance zone.
On chain metrics highlight robust network activityRegardless of price action, network activity on Litecoin remains robust. Lite Strategy data shows that throughout June, the blockchain consistently attracted over 200,000 daily users, peaking at around 228,000 by month’s end. Most days, the user count fluctuated between 230,000 and 260,000, underscoring strong utility and engagement.
This steady usage suggests Litecoin continues to be adopted for payments and everyday transactions. While consistent network activity does not guarantee price increases by itself, it is a fundamental factor that analysts weigh as they try to assess if the prolonged downtrend can be broken.
The 136 dollar threshold remains pivotal for the long termFrom a longer term perspective, analysts are watching the 136 dollar mark as a decisive threshold. This level corresponds with both previous resistance and the neckline of a large accumulation structure. A persistent move above 136 dollars could indicate a significant breakout on higher timeframes and potentially trigger renewed investor interest in LTC.
Kucuker’s analysis also points to 417 dollars as an intermediate target, with the suggestion that this threshold may act as the next major challenge ahead of a possible all time high attempt. Still, a failure to break above the 45.30 to 46.00 dollar band could result in a short term correction. Surpassing this resistance would, on the other hand, invalidate the bearish near term outlook.
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.
Litecoin has begun to show signs of recovery after experiencing persistent selling pressure in recent weeks. Improvements in technical indicators, a steady increase in open interest on futures markets, and robust activity on the network are fueling optimism that buyers may be regaining control in the market.
Technical indicators point to potential trend reversalFollowing its recent decline, Litecoin’s price first reclaimed support at $42.05 and subsequently moved back above the $44.05 level. This zone now stands out as the primary support area in the short term. If the price manages to remain above $44.05, it could provide a firmer foundation for further upward moves.
On the momentum front, data also signal a positive shift. The MACD indicator has produced a bullish crossover, and the widening positive histogram highlights strengthening buying momentum. Moreover, the On Balance Volume (OBV) indicator is trending upwards, indicating that the recent price recovery is being supported by rising trading volumes.
Glossary: The MACD is a momentum indicator used to measure the strength and direction of price trends. On Balance Volume (OBV) combines price movement with trading volumes to help determine which side, buyers or sellers, is dominating the market.
As long as Litecoin’s price holds above $44.05, buyers in the market are expected to target resistance at $47, followed by the key psychological threshold at $50.
Rising open interest and network activity support recoveryAccording to data from CoinGlass, open interest in Litecoin futures rose from around $200 million in mid-June to roughly $300 million at the start of July. This simultaneous increase in both price and open interest points to accelerating capital inflows and suggests that investors are developing greater conviction in market direction.
IndicatorPrevious levelCurrent levelOpen interestAround $200 millionAround $300 millionSupport level$42.05$44.05Resistance targets$47$50On-chain data reinforce this positive outlook. Throughout June, the Litecoin network consistently maintained over 200,000 daily active addresses, closing the month with roughly 228,000. This indicates steady user interest on the network, even amid broader market fluctuations.
The Litecoin Foundation has also highlighted this surge in activity. As an organization supporting the development of the Litecoin ecosystem, the Foundation has maintained strong community engagement through initiatives such as its recent campaign with Stack Wallet. The Foundation has emphasized that activity on the network continues to be vibrant.
Maintaining daily active addresses above 200,000 throughout June demonstrates stable user participation on the Litecoin network.
Key levels to watchAs long as LTC holds above $44.05, the next resistance level of $47 comes into focus. If this barrier is surpassed, the $50 mark could become the next significant target. Conversely, if the price slips below $44, selling pressure may intensify and the $42 support zone could be retested.
At last check, Litecoin was trading at $44.86, marking a modest 0.04% increase over the past 24 hours.
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.
XRP may have entered one of the most pivotal technical phases in years after breaking above a stubborn level that has capped its advances for an extended period. Market analyst Crypto Kid notes that this price region, previously a repeated ceiling for the coin, has now flipped into a support area. This shift is leading investors to revisit the possibility of XRP retesting its historic peak at $3.65.
Reshaping market structureAccording to Crypto Kid, XRP has turned a resistance zone that spanned multiple market cycles into a support base. In technical analysis, such moves are seen as signals that buyers are mounting stronger momentum and the broader trend is turning upward. The analyst believes that maintaining this support could pave the way for a renewed push toward the $3.65 mark.
The significance of this level runs deeper than just short-term price action. Last July, XRP reached its all-time high of $3.65 following the US House of Representatives’ approval of three major crypto-related bills, including the GENIUS Act and CLARITY Act. Hopes for a clearer regulatory environment at the time helped accelerate the asset’s rally.
Mini glossary: An order block marks a technical area on the price chart where strong buy or sell orders concentrate. Analysts view these zones as levels that may reveal institutional activity and can play a decisive role in future price moves.
Crypto Kid assesses that XRP has turned its long-standing resistance band into support, and if this structure holds, a fresh test of the $3.65 peak could be in play.
$1.10 support under short-term watchIn the immediate term, the market is eyeing the $1.10 level. XRP holding sideways above this threshold is seen as vital for sustaining its bullish structure. Should there be brief dips, buyers defending this zone could further reinforce the overall positive outlook.
The next key resistance stands at approximately $1.22. This area commands special attention as an order block on the four-hour chart coincides here. If XRP manages a convincing breakthrough above $1.22, analysts suggest the upside move could gain stronger momentum.
LevelTypeSignificance$1.10SupportCould indicate if short-term bullish structure holds$1.22ResistanceBreaching it may strengthen bullish momentum$3.65All time highProminent as a long-term target and key technical thresholdTrading volume surges sharplyAccording to CoinCodex data, XRP is currently trading at $1.12. The asset attracted attention after climbing above the initial key threshold at $1.14. Over the same period, trading volume soared more than 200%, signaling a robust revival in market participation.
XRP stands out as a digital asset closely linked to the Ripple ecosystem and is known for its use case in cross-border payments. Reaching the $3.65 level would require a significant further rally, but the strengthening support areas and growing trading activity suggest a recovery in market sentiment.
CoinCodex data shows XRP holding steady at $1.12, with trading volumes up more than 200%.
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.
Japanese companies are quietly reshaping how they manage corporate cash. With the yen continuing to slide, more firms are turning to $BTC and $XRP as an alternative store of value, according to SBI VC Trade, the crypto arm of Tokyo-based financial group SBI Holdings.
The company said use of its corporate service, SBIVC for Prime, has grown as the weak yen drives firms to spread reserves beyond cash, with added demand from companies that hand out Bitcoin or $XRP through shareholder-perk programs. In other words, some Japanese businesses are not just holding crypto on the balance sheet, they are distributing it directly to investors as a form of shareholder reward.
Account milestone masks the full pictureSBI VC Trade said registered accounts across its VCTRADE and BITPOINT services have surpassed 2 million, roughly doubling since 2025 and aided by its April 2026 merger with BitPoint Japan. That headline figure deserves some context. The 2 million figure combines its VCTRADE and BITPOINT services and follows SBI VC Trade's April 2026 merger with sister firm BitPoint Japan. The company plans to fully integrate the two brands around the end of December, which it said should cut costs and unify service levels. So a meaningful portion of the account growth reflects consolidation rather than purely organic demand.
The milestone tracks a broader pickup in regulated crypto access in Japan, where a strict licensing regime has kept the market smaller than in the US or South Korea, but is steadily drawing retail and corporate users as stablecoins and treasury strategies take hold.
Stablecoins add another layerCorporate treasury adoption is not the only growth driver. SBI VC Trade listed USDC in March 2025 in what it called Japan's first dollar-stablecoin listing, and in June 2026 added Ripple's dollar-backed RLUSD alongside JPYSC, a yen-pegged token it described as the country's first trust-based yen stablecoin, and began offering lending against stablecoins.
SBI's ambitions extend well beyond the current account count. SBI's planned acquisition of Bitbank, announced in June 2026, is projected to add approximately 960,000 accounts, which would bring the combined total to around 2.92 million. That would place it ahead of domestic rivals bitFlyer and Coincheck and cement its position as Japan's largest regulated crypto operator.
The broader trend points to a structural shift in how Japanese corporates view digital assets: less as a speculative trade and more as a practical tool for treasury management and shareholder engagement in an environment of persistent yen weakness.
Sources:
CoinDesk: Bitcoin, XRP draw Japanese firms as weak yen drives treasury diversification
Genfinity: SBI acquires Bitbank, cementing Japan's largest regulated crypto operator
Clearstream, the major European post-trade services provider and subsidiary of the Deutsche Börse Group, is doubling down on its digital asset strategy by expanding its institutional cryptocurrency custody offering.
Clearstream, the major European post-trade services provider and subsidiary of the Deutsche Börse Group, has expanded its cryptocurrency custody footprint.
The firm has announced the addition of a roster of new cryptocurrencies, including the Ripple-linked XRP, Stellar (XLM), Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL), Litecoin (LTC), and Avalanche (AVAX). These new digital assets join Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH).
According to the firm, this expansion caters to the growing demand for MiCA-compliant (Markets in Crypto-Assets) digital assets within institutional finance.
HOT Stories
Initial entry into crypto Clearstream is one of the world's largest settlement and custody firms. It provides infrastructure securities across 60 different markets.
In early 2025, the Deutsche Börse Group announced that Clearstream would begin offering crypto custody and settlement services to its institutional clients.
The launch, which officially went live in April 2025, was made possible via an internal partnership. Clearstream used Crypto Finance (another entity within the Deutsche Börse Group that had recently secured a highly coveted MiCAR license) as its sub-custodian.
You Might Also Like
This structure made it possible for Clearstream to rely on Crypto Finance's expertise while maintaining strict regulatory compliance across Europe.
As mentioned above, the original offering was strictly limited to the two largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization: Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Clients of Clearstream’s International Central Securities Depository (ICSD) were able to use their existing accounts in Clearstream Banking S.A. (Luxembourg) to access cryptocurrency custody and settlement.
The most recent additions show that the firm is doubling down on crypto.
Clearstream, the post-trade services arm of Deutsche Börse Group, has expanded its regulated crypto custody offering to include six new digital assets beyond Bitcoin and Ether: $XRP, $ADA, $SOL, $LTC, $XLM, and $AVAX.
Six Altcoins Enter Institutional-Grade CustodyThe expansion builds on Clearstream's fully regulated crypto custody service launched last year. The firm says the move broadens client choice in crypto asset integration within established custody infrastructure, bridging the gap between traditional finance and the digital asset world. All six additions are held under the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation framework, via Crypto Finance, a MiCAR-regulated sub-custodian that is also part of Deutsche Börse Group.
Clearstream operates the German and Luxembourg central securities depositories and an international central securities depository for the Eurobonds market, with roughly €19 trillion in assets under custody, placing it among the world's largest settlement and custody firms for domestic and international securities. Putting altcoins on that shelf is not a symbolic gesture. It means regulated European institutions can now hold $XRP, $SOL, $ADA, $LTC, $XLM, and $AVAX through the same post-trade plumbing they use for equities and bonds.
MiCA Framework and the Crypto Finance ConnectionThe custody and settlement service is delivered through Crypto Finance, in which Deutsche Börse acquired a controlling stake for more than €100 million in 2021. Crypto Finance (Deutschland) GmbH is regulated by BaFin in Germany, while Crypto Finance AG is regulated by FINMA in Switzerland. The group secured its MiCAR license in January 2025, one of the first providers to do so in the EU.
Clients of Clearstream's International Central Securities Depository can access crypto custody and settlement through their existing Clearstream Banking S.A. accounts in Luxembourg, using established formats such as SWIFT. No additional contractual or technical relationship with separate crypto service providers is required. Clearstream says the expansion caters to the growing importance of MiCA-compliant crypto assets in institutional finance.
The infrastructure is now in place. Whether institutional capital follows in meaningful size remains the central question.
Sources:
Asset Servicing Times: Clearstream adds six new cryptocurrencies to custody offering
LeapRate: Clearstream expands crypto custody to 6 new digital assets
Clearstream official newsroom: Deutsche Börse Group provides institutional clients access to crypto assets
Institutional positioning around Ripple appears to be taking a different path.
The key takeaway is that this isn’t the usual whale accumulation or strategic buyback designed to create scarcity and fuel a sudden parabolic move.
Instead, the focus seems to be shifting toward growing conviction in XRPL’s infrastructure, with tokenization momentum increasingly becoming the main theme.
As the chart below shows, around $4 billion in tokenized RWAs are now live on XRPL, spanning more than 500 products. More importantly, there are already early examples of institutional usage.
Earlier this year, a treasury redemption involving JPMorgan Chase, Ondo Finance, and Mastercard was settled on XRPL in roughly four seconds, according to the companies involved.
Source: RWA.xyz Unlike scarcity-driven rallies, this momentum points to a different type of market dynamic.
From a psychological perspective, rising tokenization activity on XRPL shifts the focus away from pure speculation and toward network utility. The narrative is gradually shifting from investors accumulating Ripple [XRP] as an asset to institutions using XRPL as infrastructure for real-world financial applications.
This becomes even clearer when comparing Ripple’s tokenization growth with ETF momentum, showing how institutional capital is positioning around the ecosystem. This is especially notable with XRP already up more than 8% in June.
In this context, this divergence could be setting the stage for XRP’s Q3 momentum.
Tokenization emerges as XRPL’s key institutional growth driver While tokenization is growing across the market, what makes Ripple’s RWA momentum different?
Notably, $4 billion in total tokenized real-world assets [RWAs] sat on XRPL at press time. Roughly 4x the size of its entire ETF market.
To put this into perspective, XRP’s ETF market is around $1 billion. This means tokenization activity on XRPL is already four times larger than ETF exposure. This shows where the ecosystem’s growth is starting to concentrate, with more focus shifting toward real-world asset adoption.
Notably, this becomes even more interesting when paired with Ripple’s ETF momentum. Spot XRP ETFs have seen consistent demand, recording net inflows for eight straight weeks. They brought in around $23 million during the final full week of June, pushing cumulative inflows to roughly $1.47 billion.
Source: SoSoValue In this context, a 4x larger RWA market puts XRPL’s tokenization growth into perspective.
Technically speaking, if ETF inflows represent around $1.47 billion, a 4x RWA market would imply roughly $5.9 billion in tokenized asset activity. This highlights the growing scale of capital shifting toward RWA adoption, not just traditional XRP exposure.
This is especially notable as XRP ETF flows have outperformed both BTC and ETH flows during the same period. This adds to Ripple’s Q3 momentum, suggesting that the current cycle is being driven less by speculation and more by growing institutional conviction in the XRPL network.
The XRP Ledger has moved closer to activating its xrpld v3.2.0 upgrade after more than 55% of trusted validators adopted the latest software version. According to XRP Ledger Explorer data, 84 trusted validators, or 55.63% of the validator set, are now running xrpld v3.2.0. By comparison, version 3.1.3 remains active on 58 validators, representing 38.41% of the validator set, and on 440 nodes, or 52.51% of the network.
What the v3.2.0 Upgrade Includes XRP Ledger version 3.2.0 includes infrastructure improvements, bug fixes, and developer enhancements throughout the network. One of the most significant changes is the official renaming of the main server software from rippled to xrpld, under the XLS-0095 proposal. The software identity rebrand explicitly reinforces the decoupling of the decentralized public ledger from Ripple Inc., while technical enhancements optimize backend architecture, dropping overall validator server memory consumption by 30 to 40 percent.
Alongside the software release, developers also introduced the fixCleanup3_2_0 amendment. According to the release documentation, the amendment contains security-related fixes covering Single Asset Vaults, the Lending Protocol, permissioned decentralized exchanges, Multi-Purpose Tokens (MPTs), and permissioned domains. In addition, the update allows developers and users to access XRP Ledger protocol information and server definitions without operating a full server, a change intended to simplify integrations for wallets, APIs, blockchain explorers, and other automated services.
What Still Needs to Happen Before Activation Under the network's governance rules, a protocol amendment requires support from more than 80% of trusted validators for two consecutive weeks before it can be activated. Based on the current figures, roughly another quarter of the validator set must migrate to v3.2.0 before the upgrade can move toward activation. Even as validator adoption of the software continues to climb, support for the attached fixCleanup3_2_0 amendment remains well below the activation threshold, with the amendment having secured roughly 40% support so far.
Ripple has publicly supported the amendment, helping strengthen confidence around the proposed changes. Security firm Halborn completed a third-party audit of both amendments before the protocol entered the mainnet validator voting stage, adding further reassurance for the lending-related fixes bundled into the update. Developers are also continuing to monitor validator migration issues flagged in the project's GitHub tracker, though none of the documented defects have triggered network-wide service disruptions.
Sources:
XRP Ledger edges closer to key upgrade as validator support surges (crypto.news)
XRP Ledger v3.2.0 Full Upgrade Inches Closer As Validator Adoption Hits 55% (CoinGape)
XRP Ledger Amendments documentation (xrpl.org)
Ethereum's grip on DeFi remains unmatched@ethereum continues to dominate decentralized finance in a way no rival chain has come close to replicating. According to @DefiLlama, Ethereum holds 53.1% of total DeFi TVL at roughly $38 to $40 billion, placing it ahead of every other chain combined. That lead has compressed over time, but the gap in absolute terms remains enormous.
Ethereum's DeFi TVL share fell from 63.5% to around 53% between January 2025 and mid-2026, as rival networks steadily captured more liquidity. Lower-cost networks continued drawing traders and developers seeking faster transaction speeds and cheaper execution. Even so, in absolute terms, Ethereum still commands the largest DeFi stack on any single chain, though competing blockchains have been absorbing capital at a faster rate, diversifying DeFi's liquidity footprint.
One important nuance worth noting: much of what is built for Ethereum, including Base, Arbitrum, and Optimism, settles to Ethereum but registers as a separate chain in DeFi analytics dashboards. If layer-2 TVL were consolidated under the Ethereum umbrella, the network's effective share would be substantially higher.
A four-way scrap for second placeBehind Ethereum, the competition for the runner-up spot is remarkably tight. According to DefiLlama's chain rankings, Solana holds around 6.76% of total DeFi TVL, followed closely by @BNBCHAIN at 6.55%, Bitcoin at 6.16%, @trondao at 6.01%, and @base at 5.31%. In dollar terms, that puts @solana, @BNBCHAIN, @trondao, and @base all packed between approximately $4.4 billion and $5.1 billion, effectively in a dead heat.
Each chain has carved out a distinct niche. BNB Chain dominates DEX flow, Tron leads stablecoin settlement, and purpose-built venues like Hyperliquid control perpetuals. Solana shows the strongest momentum through user numbers and activity, but Ethereum's network effects, security track record, and institutional liquidity create a high bar that no single competitor has cleared yet.
Bitcoin-native DeFi tells a more complicated story this week. Despite $BTC posting a 10% price gain over seven days, its DeFi TVL moved in the opposite direction, falling roughly 10%. That divergence highlights a persistent challenge for Bitcoin-native DeFi: capital flows to Bitcoin for yield, not active trading, and the BTCFi model centers on collateral use and lending protocols rather than exchange activity. A rising $BTC price can actually reduce dollar-denominated TVL if users withdraw collateral to take profits rather than redeploy it.
Current market trends suggest DeFi no longer revolves around a single blockchain. Competing ecosystems now focus on specialized sectors, including stablecoin transfers, perpetual trading, consumer applications, and Bitcoin-backed finance. Ethereum remains the anchor, but the multi-chain reality is becoming harder to ignore.
Sources:
DefiLlama Chain Rankings by TVL
CoinLaw: DeFi Market Statistics 2026
Bitcoin.com News: Ethereum DeFi TVL Dominance Drops to 53%
Stablecoins are, undoubtedly, the main operating assets in digital finance. Visa’s stablecoin analytics dashboard showed more than $51 trillion in total transaction volume over the past 12 months.
Meanwhile, TRM Labs estimated stablecoins at 30% of all on-chain crypto transaction volume in 2025. This one asset category carried almost one-third of tracked crypto value movement, while Bitcoin and all other altcoins together accounted for the remaining share.
Almost every blockchain activity today runs through these dollar-pegged assets, whether it’s trading, treasury movement, or cross-border settlement.
So, stablecoins are arguably the most explosive asset class in terms of growth. What’s the next phase? As with any financial product, its adoption. And that can only happen through local-currency settlement, regulated access, and payment use cases tied to national economies.
In the UAE, this is already happening.
Not enough people are paying attention to what just happened in the UAE.$DDSC – a regulated, dirham-backed stablecoin – is now live on ADI Chain, approved by the Central Bank of the UAE.
Every transaction on ADI Chain needs $ADI for gas.
Now think about the UAE processing… https://t.co/OOtC1sS7vJ
— Sjuul | AltCryptoGems (@AltCryptoGems) February 12, 2026 UAE’s Financial Future is Running on Stablecoins Chainalysis estimated more than $56 billion in crypto value received by the country during its 2024 to 2025 reporting window, up 33% year over year, with institutional transfers driving a large share of activity and merchant services expanding across smaller retail transaction sizes.
On July 3, 2026, DDSC, the UAE dirham-backed stablecoin developed by International Holding Company, First Abu Dhabi Bank, and Sirius International Holding, received approval from the Central Bank of the UAE to partner with selected exchange platforms regulated by Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority.
The approval gives DDSC a regulated route from institutional settlement into wider market access, allowing users to access, buy, and redeem a dirham-backed stablecoin through compliant exchange channels.
UAE Stablecoin Adoption Stats A Dirham Stablecoin for a Dollar-Dominated Market Most stablecoin liquidity today remains tied to the US dollar. This gives global crypto markets deep liquidity and a familiar settlement currency, while domestic payment use cases still depend on conversion, exchange access, and banking relationships.
DDSC brings a local-currency option into the UAE’s own monetary environment. Pegged 1:1 to the UAE dirham and settled on ADI Chain, the token gives users a digital asset denominated in AED instead of forcing local commerce into dollar units.
This distinction is important for payment adoption because UAE shoppers, merchants, suppliers, and treasury teams all price everyday obligations in dirhams.
A stable asset in AED can keep pricing and settlement aligned while adding blockchain settlement speed, programmable payments, and 24/7 availability.
The UAE has already built much of the regulatory base around this category:
The Central Bank’s Payment Token Services Regulation created a framework for stablecoin-related services, including issuance, conversion, custody and transfer. VARA maintains a public register of licensed Virtual Asset Service Providers in Dubai, including platforms authorized for exchange services. DDSC connects these two regulatory channels. Central Bank approval covers the payment-token side, while access through selected VARA-regulated platforms gives users a familiar exchange route into the asset.
From Treasury Flows to Everyday Payments DDSC entered the market with an institutional focus. Since launch, IHC says it has processed more than AED 150 million in transactions. In May 2026, IHC executed an AED 110 million DDSC transaction on ADI Chain, presented as one of the region’s largest disclosed stablecoin transactions.
DDSC is more than able to support high-value settlement. The new approval, therefore, adds distribution, giving individuals, merchants, and businesses a route to acquire and redeem the asset through regulated exchange platforms.
DDSC is left with a more complete adoption path. Large transactions can prove settlement capacity, while exchange availability can bring the asset into daily commercial use. The first phase demonstrated settlement readiness, and the next phase focuses on availability through licensed venues.
VARA-Regulated Platforms and Compliance Control The approval applies to selected exchange platforms regulated by VARA, giving DDSC a controlled rollout through licensed channels and keeping access aligned with the UAE’s compliance framework.
For context, VARA oversees virtual asset activity in and from Dubai, excluding the Dubai International Financial Centre. Its public register lists licensed Virtual Asset Service Providers and the activities each provider is authorized to offer, including exchange services, broker-dealer services, custody, lending and investment management.
Indeed, stablecoin payments touch redemption confidence, merchant settlement, AML controls, custody, user access, and financial institution requirements. Exchange access through regulated platforms helps combine these requirements within a market structure users already understand.
DDSC’s rollout also shows how the UAE is separating regulated payment tokens from general crypto assets. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and volatile tokens continue to serve trading and investment use cases, while stablecoins such as DDSC are designed around payment value, redemption, and settlement.
This gives businesses a more suitable instrument for pricing, invoices, supplier transfers and customer payments.
A View Toward Merchant and Business Payments IHC said the stablecoin can support everyday payments once available through selected regulated platforms, including shoppers paying merchants, businesses settling with suppliers and transfers between people.
Retail customers want fast payments, merchants want predictable settlement, and businesses want lower operational friction across invoices, treasury, and cross-border counterparties. There is no doubt that stablecoins can support these flows when they combine price stability, reliable redemption, and regulatory acceptance.
DDSC’s AED designation gives it a local advantage. A UAE merchant accepting a dollar stablecoin still faces accounting and FX conversion work. A dirham-backed token fits local pricing more naturally, while on-chain settlement can reduce delays linked to banking hours and intermediary processing.
A Local Currency Asset for the UAE Digital Economy The UAE has spent years building a regulated digital asset environment across Abu Dhabi, Dubai and federal authorities. DDSC adds a local-currency payment asset to this environment, backed by major UAE institutions and aligned with the Central Bank’s payment-token framework.
DDSC’s growth ultimately depends on platform availability, merchant acceptance, redemption experience and business integration.
Even so, its Central Bank approval to partner with selected VARA-regulated exchange platforms brings the UAE dirham further into on-chain finance and gives the country’s digital asset market a regulated payment token built for domestic use and future regional settlement.
