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COINTELEGRAPH: SOL rallies as Solana memecoins, prediction market activity surge: Are bulls back?

Solana signaled growing bullish momentum as it broke through a key resistance level, highlighting renewed investor appetite. Recent data on network growth reinforces this positive outlook, especially with the rapid expansion observed in tokenized real world assets. This development has further strengthened Solana’s position in decentralized finance and on-chain asset issuance.

Technical breakout signals buyer strengthAt the time of reporting, SOL was trading at $81.48. In the last 24 hours, trading volume reached $3.02 billion while total market capitalization stood at $47.34 billion. Although the short-term price movement remains largely sideways, both chart structure and on-chain metrics suggest expectations for a potential change in direction remain active in the market.

Crypto analyst Alpha Crypto Signal noted that the daily chart shows an ascending triangle breakout for SOL. This chart pattern, in which price forms higher lows while testing horizontal resistance, often indicates growing buying pressure once the resistance is breached.

Glossary: An ascending triangle is a technical formation where price creates higher lows while repeatedly testing a flat resistance. When this resistance is broken to the upside, it is commonly seen as a sign of increased buying momentum.

According to Alpha Crypto Signal, SOL has broken above an ascending triangle on the daily chart, indicating that buying momentum is strengthening.

Following the breakout, SOL pushed above its major moving averages, further supporting the bullish technical outlook. This shift is being interpreted as a sign that market structure is turning more favorable for buyers. Market participants are now watching closely to see whether the breakout zone will be retested.

If the price holds above the former resistance level, analysts see the $98 to $100 range as the next technical target. Conversely, slipping back below this region could trigger a short-lived pullback in SOL’s price.

Real world asset ecosystem sets new recordData from Solana Floor reveals that the value of Solana-based real world assets ecosystem surged by $540 million over the past week. This brought the total size of the tokenized assets market to an all-time high of $3.62 billion. Solana Floor is known as a leading data and content platform focused on the Solana ecosystem.

The $540 million growth in the past seven days propelled Solana’s tokenized real world assets market to a new peak of $3.62 billion.

IndicatorValueSOL price $81.4824-hour volume $3.02 billionMarket capitalization $47.34 billionRWA ecosystem weekly increase $540 millionTokenized asset market $3.62 billionTechnical target $98 to $100This uptick highlights continuing institutional interest in blockchain-based financial products. Solana’s rapid transaction speed and relatively low costs have helped the network stand out for bringing both physical and traditional financial assets on-chain.

While overall market sentiment has become more constructive following the upward momentum in Bitcoin, SOL has yet to post a definitive breakout rally. Still, as long as the technical breakout is maintained and institutional engagement with the network continues, attention will remain fixed on whether the price can reach the $98 to $100 range in the coming period.

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.

Solana just posted its busiest stretch ever. The network’s usage metrics are touching all-time highs across nearly every meaningful category, and the timing coincides with SOL finally punching through the $80 price level in early July.

SOL is still trading roughly 72% below its January 2025 peak of around $294. So the network is doing more work than it ever has, while its token trades at a fraction of its former glory.

The numbers behind the noise Daily active addresses retested yearly highs near 7 million as of mid-2026. Transaction throughput hit a 7-day average of approximately 1,100 transactions per second, approaching all-time highs for the network.

June 2026 alone saw a record 3.77 billion transactions processed. The first quarter of the year had already clocked over 10 billion total transactions.

April 2026 marked an all-time high of 167 million monthly SPL token-holder addresses.

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SOL’s price crossed the $80 mark around July 1-2, trading in the $80-82 range. The network’s market cap sat in the $47-48 billion neighborhood.

What’s driving the surge Solana’s high throughput and low fees have made it increasingly attractive for decentralized finance applications. The kind of trading activity that would cost hundreds of dollars in fees on Ethereum can run for pennies on Solana.

The total value of real-world assets on the network surpassed $2.5 billion by the end of April 2026. That includes tokenized treasuries, private credit instruments, and other financial products that institutional players are beginning to move on-chain.

The gap between usage and price SOL’s $294 peak in January 2025 was inflated by the same speculative mania that lifted most crypto assets during that cycle.

Market analysts flagged the $80 level as a pivotal technical threshold for SOL. Successfully clearing it could shift sentiment and attract new capital from traders who use price levels as entry signals.

The $2.5 billion in tokenized real-world assets is particularly notable. RWAs represent the intersection of crypto and traditional finance that large institutions actually understand.

What investors should watch The sustainability of the 7 million daily active address figure deserves scrutiny. Crypto networks are notoriously susceptible to bot activity and wash trading that inflate on-chain metrics.

Solana’s low fee structure means the network needs massive throughput just to generate meaningful revenue for validators and stakers.

The 167 million SPL token-holder addresses represent a significant network effect. In crypto, distribution advantages tend to compound over time.

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

As technical signals take the spotlight once more in the cryptocurrency market, XRP, Shiba Inu, and Solana have emerged as the most closely-watched assets in recent days for their attempts at recovery. While all three tokens are showing early signs of improvement on short-term indicators, analysts caution that a sustained upward trend will require a decisive break above their key resistance zones.

XRP approaches the critical $1.12–$1.29 resistance regionXRP, which recently dropped below its multi-month trading range, has spent the past few weeks seeking stability. An increase in trading volume by more than 20% reveals that market participants are once again showing interest. While this uptick in volume alone does not signal a breakout, it does suggest that investors may be positioning ahead of a larger move.

On the technical front, XRP found support near the psychologically significant $1 level before climbing back above its short-term moving average to approach resistance at $1.12. The relative strength index (RSI) also rebounded from oversold territory and is now trending higher.

The immediate test for XRP, according to technical analysis, lies in whether it can overcome the dense resistance cluster between $1.12 and $1.29. Should buyers reclaim $1.29, the path to a $1.50 target may become much more attainable.

This resistance region also encompasses the 50-day and 100-day moving averages, both of which acted as dynamic resistance during the recent downtrend. A breakout above these levels could sharply strengthen the broader technical outlook. Further up, the 200-day moving average, located around $1.50, remains a key long-term barrier for XRP bulls.

Shiba Inu sees a bounce but faces steep hurdlesAfter enduring one of the toughest periods of the year, Shiba Inu is now attempting to stabilize. The meme token rebounded from key support between $0.0000041 and $0.0000042, and was recently changing hands around $0.00000436. Despite this recovery, the broader technical structure continues to skew to the downside.

The RSI’s climb out of oversold territory hints at declining selling pressure. However, the first technical barrier sits at $0.00000459, a level where SHIB has failed to hold during previous attempts at recovery.

If buyers can clear this hurdle, the next target would be the 100-day moving average near $0.0000050, a level carrying both technical and psychological significance. For now, though, SHIB continues to trade below its 50, 100, and 200-day averages, with no clear signs of sustained accumulation or reversal in trading volume to confirm a strong trend reversal.

Solana’s rebound hinges on the $82–$85 rangeFollowing a prolonged decline over recent months, Solana is now facing one of its most significant technical tests. SOL rebounded from its June lows around $65 and surged toward $81, climbing above both short- and medium-term moving averages as momentum picked up.

The main battle for Solana currently centers around the $82 to $85 zone, where the 100-day moving average aligns with previously established support levels—now acting as resistance. This behavior, where prior support becomes new resistance, is a common theme in technical analysis.

Momentum indicators continue to favor Solana. The RSI rising toward 65 is a sign of robust buying interest, though still below overbought levels. Increased trading volume has also supported the recent gains. Meanwhile, relative stability in Bitcoin and Ethereum is helping ease overall selling pressure on major altcoins.

Nevertheless, the downward-sloping 200-day moving average remains the dominant resistance over the longer term. Should SOL face rejection at current levels, price action could return to the 50-day moving average near the $75 support region.

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.

Gnosis Pay has released a comprehensive postmortem detailing a security breach that compromised its card safe infrastructure on June 1, 2026. Though the hackers took about $1.5 million worth of digital assets from the decentralized self-custodial payment network, it has stated that all those affected have been completely compensated, and it will absorb the financial losses.

Gnosis Pay Identified Root Cause Within Two Hours The report, released Friday, details the events of the attack, the technical flaw that allowed the attack to happen, and the steps taken to restore service and enhance security. The post-mortem stated that the first big unauthorized transfer was spotted by the Gnosis Pay monitoring systems, run by treasury manager NOCA, at 06:17 UTC on June 1. The company claimed that its engineering team was able to determine the cause of the incident in just two hours after the first warning.

On 1 June, Gnosis Pay experienced a security incident affecting card accounts. All affected balances were restored.

Post-mortem here: https://t.co/2QZhQG4ndr

— Gnosis Pay 💳 (@gnosispay) July 3, 2026

After the discovery, GNOSIS Pay immediately suspended the card services and temporarily halted the bridge to GNOSIS Chain and provided wallet addresses of attackers to stablecoin issuers to help identify assets that have been stolen. The company also notified external projects that might be impacted by the vulnerability.

The restoration of the funds was carried out in stages over a period of days by Gnosis Pay. The company has activated the first impacted accounts by the night of June 3 and returned balances and payment cards. Newly designed, card-safe modules were then progressively installed to restore full access for 99% of users by June 6. The remainder was put right up shortly thereafter.

Gnosis Pay Announces Broad Security Improvement Measures The company said there were no financial losses, as the entire loss was covered by the company’s Gnosis Pay platform. This is done by taking advantage of two components within the card safe infrastructure of Gnosis Pay, the Delay Module and the Roles Module, the report said.

The investigation revealed that the vulnerability was present since October 30, 2023, in the Zodiac version 3.4.0.
They gained control of approximately $1.5 million worth of various assets, mainly GNO, EURe, USDC.e, and other tokens. An extra around $300,000 was not immediately available, but recovery efforts continue. A total of 5,281 wallets with wallets of at least $1 were impacted in the incident. The company also revealed the attacker address used in the exploit, which is 0x5a7…7a35.

The Gnosis Pay hack adds to a growing list of smart contract exploits drawing scrutiny from institutional observers. Amid rising security concerns across DeFi payment infrastructure, Front-Running Fixes Proposed for XRP Ledger are gaining traction, highlighting that even major blockchain networks are tightening their on-chain transaction controls in response to the same class of vulnerabilities that hit Gnosis Pay.

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XRP holders are nursing losses that have no precedent in the token’s twelve-year trading history. Both short-term speculators and long-term believers are deeply underwater at the same time, a condition that on-chain analysts say could be setting up a sharp relief rally. According to the Santiment update, XRP’s 30-day MVRV has collapsed to -45% while its 365-day MVRV sits at -47%, the lowest combined average return reading the XRP Ledger has ever registered.

Pain Across Every Timeframe MVRV, or market value to realized value, measures the average profit or loss of all tokens that moved within a given period. A deeply negative reading signals that the overwhelming majority of traders who acquired XRP over the past month and year are holding at a loss. It is unusual for both the 30-day and 365-day windows to print such extreme negative numbers together. The metric strips out short-term noise and shows that even those who bought a year ago, typically considered a patient cohort, are now trapped. In dollar terms, the average price at which XRP last moved is far above current spot, meaning the market has been repricing risk aggressively. That simultaneous distress creates a rare setup—one where selling pressure tends to exhaust itself because few participants have unrealized gains left to protect.

What The On-Chain Signal Means For Traders Santiment’s intelligence suggests that historically, the best risk-reward opportunities emerge when fear and frustration peak, not when confidence runs high. When the crowd is feeling maximum pain, both on-chain and in sentiment data, the probability of a mean reversion trade rises. That does not guarantee an immediate price floor. The crypto market remains sensitive to macro headwinds, and XRP could still drift lower if broader selling intensifies. But the data argues that a significant portion of the downside has already been absorbed by those who are now deep in the red. For traders considering a position, the note points out that the risk of further heavy distribution is lower than usual. When the average holder is sitting on losses of this magnitude, the pool of motivated sellers shrinks, often paving the way for a relief bounce. Still, timing remains uncertain, and the signal alone is not a trading trigger; it is a condition worth monitoring alongside volume trends and exchange flow data. Historically, XRP has staged multi-week rallies after hitting such depressed MVRV levels, but each instance depends on broader market support.

Broader Market Risks Remain The XRP Ledger does not trade in isolation. Any fresh regulatory shock or a continuation of weak sentiment across major digital assets could delay the recovery. The signal is a statistical outlier, but outliers can persist longer than traders expect. What makes this instance notable is not just the depth of the drawdown but the fact that it spans both short-term traders and long-term holders simultaneously—a condition that has historically aligned with meaningful local bottoms. Sustained low MVRV can also mark the beginning of an accumulation zone, where patient buyers step in, but a genuine trend reversal still requires a catalyst. Whether the market rewards that setup now depends on whether liquidity and narrative shift in XRP’s favor in the coming weeks.

AUTHOR

Jide Idowu is a skilled freelance writer with expertise in blockchain technology, cryptocurrency, and digital finance. Known for his ability to break down complex topics into clear, engaging content, Jide crafts articles, blog posts, and analyses that resonate with both beginners and seasoned professionals. His work spans a wide range of subjects, from emerging crypto trends to in-depth explorations of blockchain innovations. With a keen eye for detail and a passion for educating readers, Jide is a reliable voice in the rapidly evolving world of digital assets.

The cover page of Donald Trump’s latest annual disclosure is dry enough to sedate even a compliance lawyer. But hundreds of pages in, the document suddenly becomes much more interesting.

A single royalty line worth $635,068,835, tied to a Celebration Coins license, and hundreds of millions more from World Liberty Financial token sales sit in the same official filing.

Trump, the world’s newest Crypto Don, has cashed in. Cue the inevitable scandal about a president raking in eye-watering sums of money from cryptocurrency gamblers, most of whom were losers in this trade, and also his supporters.

More fool them. But isn’t this the kind of corrupt swampiness MAGA set about draining from Washington? Well, up to a point.

The truth is, MAGA always knew Trump was like this. In fact, it’s a big part of why they backed him in the first place.

Trump’s Crypto WindfallTrump’s 2025 disclosure lists CIC Digital LLC, described as wholly owned by the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, receiving royalties from a license agreement with Celebration Coins and reports the amount as $635,068,835.

The same filing reports $236.25 million in token-sale proceeds distributed by World Liberty Financial, plus $65.6 million from the sale of equity in its holding company.

Those numbers are politically explosive—and more than a little grubby—because they involve a sitting president, his family business network, and an industry his administration is figuring out how to, and if it should, regulate.

But Trump has always sold his private accumulation of wealth through big business deals as his defining qualification for public office, displaying both his ruthless money-making skills and his incorruptibility.

When he announced his 2016 campaign, Trump displayed a financial statement and cast his business success as proof the country needed his kind of thinking.

During the first debate that fall, he cited $694 million in income and called it “the kind of thinking that our country needs.”

When his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton suggested he may have paid no federal income taxes, Trump’s reply was blunt, crude, and honest all in one: “That makes me smart.”

The point was never asceticism for Trump, a standard by which many, if not most other politicians seem to be measured. Trump’s bargain with voters was that he understood the game because he had already beaten it.

His pitch was that wealth made him harder to fool, less dependent on donors, and better equipped to turn loopholes into leverage than other politicians. He said as much, years before the first token existed.

“The licensing deals are the best of all deals because there’s no risk,” Trump told Reuters in 2016. A June Reuters investigation found the crypto ventures run on exactly that logic.

Across four Trump-linked projects, the family licensed its name, promoted the products, and collected revenue as buyers piled in—generating about $2.3 billion while outside investors lost roughly the same amount.

Little or no capital of the Trump family’s own was at stake.

Crypto, an exciting but controversial innovation in digital finance, which critics say is a haven for criminals and scammers, has made Trump’s pitch uglier than his old licensing deals for luxury real estate and consumer goods.

It has also made it more Trumpian.

MAGA Bought the DealerThe $TRUMP coin launched days before Trump returned to office and surged from under $10 to as high as $74.59 before falling back, with four-fifths of its supply held by CIC Digital and an entity called Fight Fight Fight.

The coin described itself as “an expression of support,” not an investment or a security—a distinction that should have cooled anyone foolish enough to be treating it as a retirement plan.

A meme coin carrying the president’s personal brand sits somewhere between politics, fandom, gambling, and merchandise. It’s essentially a casino chip with a campaign button stamped on it.

There were losses, though not for Trump.

Roughly two-thirds of investors in the memecoin are underwater, according to the Wall Street Journal, and the Reuters tally put buyers’ collective losses near the family’s $2.3 billion in gains.

No supporter deserves to be fleeced because a favorite leader put his name on a speculative asset.

Still, the naivete defense has limits. The SEC has warned that crypto asset securities can be “exceptionally volatile and speculative,” with a significant risk of loss.

FINRA tells investors that crypto assets can carry a real chance of losing the entire investment.

A voter can call Trump’s crypto dealings unseemly all they like, but a speculator who bought a president-branded token after years of such warnings has a hard time arguing the house owed him a win.

‘Crypto Corruption’ Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat and ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, called Trump’s crypto business “brazen crypto corruption” after the disclosure landed.

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board—no organ of the left—accused the Trump family of “profiting off the presidency in ways that demean the office,” warning the deals could cost Republicans dearly if Democrats retake Congress.

This is more than the liberal pearl-clutching we’re used to about Trump. A president whose family profits from crypto while his government rewrites crypto rules creates an obvious, undeniable problem.

House Judiciary Democrats alleged in a November 2025 report that foreign actors and corporate interests were funneling money into Trump-linked ventures to buy access and favors.

An Abu Dhabi-backed fund alone poured roughly $500 million into World Liberty Financial, and Warren has pressed for legislation barring senior officials and their families from profiting off the industry.

Trump waved off the scrutiny, saying he was profiting only because “everybody’s profiting”—the stock market was up—and that he stays out of his own finances.

His crypto and AI czar David Sacks has said the president’s assets are in a blind trust and his adult sons are not in government.

But the “blind trust” is a fiction: Trump never placed his holdings in a blind trust. They sit in a revocable trust he controls as sole beneficiary, run by Donald Trump Jr.

And the stock market had nothing to do with the windfall—the crypto income is royalties and token sales, not gains on stocks or bonds.

Moreover, House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, defended the Trump family in October last year for their transparency, contrasting it with the Biden family’s business dealings.

“They're admitting they're doing this. The president campaigned as a business guy,” Comer told CNN, adding that Trump “is disclosing this income and that I think is the most important part of the transparency.”

Those defenses may satisfy MAGA loyalists, or at least keep them quiet. Few have broken ranks with Trump over the memecoin. But they should not satisfy anyone who thinks public office needs bright lines around private gain.

An agency ethics official concluded Trump was in compliance with applicable laws. But OGE reviews disclosures, it cannot enforce them, and enforcement rests with a Justice Department run by Trump’s appointees.

Compliance and public confidence are separate problems, and this filing is a map of the distance between them.

Trump’s crypto fortune does not prove every buyer was conned or every policy decision was sold, of course.

It does prove, however, that the Trump movement’s comfort with wealth, deal-making, and rule arbitrage has reached an industry built for speed, opacity, and celebrity-driven speculation. Trump was made for crypto.

The MAGA Bargain It is easy to see the new crypto numbers as a betrayal of Trump’s voters, many of whom are struggling middle-and-working class voters who can never hope to own even a tiny fraction, if that, of what these deals alone made for him.

But this is the kind of transaction many Trump supporters were primed to admire.

Trump’s 2016 defense of tax avoidance turned a vulnerability into a virtue. He did not apologize for using the law to his advantage, he said he used the system because he was running a company.

That logic sat right at the center of his populism. The problem was not his instinct for aggressive self-interest, in Trump’s telling, but stupid leaders who failed to turn pursuit of self-interest into national advantage.

You can see precisely this logic at play in his “America First” approach to diplomacy, defense, and trade, where his turbulent, hard-bargain style is driven by putting U.S. interests—as he sees them—on top of all else.

Look at tariffs. Look at NATO. Look at the Donroe Doctrine. It’s all in plain sight.

Whether the “crypto corruption” story sticks to Trump will depend on how his voters parse it, especially those who bought the coin and experienced losses—as personal betrayal, or as the cost of playing near power.

Will the Trump supporters among the two-thirds of memecoin buyers now sitting on losses begin to defect, or simply shrug and stay with him?

Many Trump supporters have long treated elite scolding of him as proof he is doing something right.

When the same institutions that failed to predict his rise declare his latest moneymaking venture disqualifying, the warning can sound like the same old complaint: that Trump is rich in the wrong way, too openly and too vulgarly.

Trump never hid his worldview. He bragged about wealth, defended tax avoidance as intelligence, and treated political leadership as an extension of deal-making.

Crypto Don is no deviation from the brand. He is the brand, tokenized.

House Must Always WinIf Congress wants to stop presidents and their families from cashing in on crypto, it can write tighter restrictions.

Senate Democrats already tried once with an amendment to bar the president and his family from profiting off the 2025 stablecoin law was stripped out before passage.

Warren is pushing to write similar limits into the market-structure bill now moving through the Senate. If investors want protection from celebrity coins, they can start by believing the risk warnings regulators have already published.

Trump’s opponents are right to see a conflict of interest problem. But they should not be surprised if Trump’s supporters are content with the moral architecture of $TRUMP.

MAGA did not elevate a monk to high office only to discover a hustler in false robes. It backed the man who said he knew how the game worked, and he was willing to play it in America’s interests on the global stage.

Whether it’s in his crypto casino or the Oval Office, Trump’s rule is the same: the house must always win.

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Ondo Finance has launched tokenized U.S. securities backed by BlackRock’s iShares Core S&P 500 ETF and Micron shares, in what it says is the first live third-party custodial tokenized securities solution operating inside the existing U.S. regulatory framework. The launch, announced by Ondo Finance, is supported by Broadridge Financial Solutions, which will provide proxy voting, issuer communications and regulatory disclosures to token holders.

The announcement is significant because it addresses one of the biggest weaknesses in tokenized equity products: governance. Many tokenized stock products give investors price exposure, but not the full shareholder experience. Ondo and Broadridge are trying to close that gap by allowing holders of tokenized securities to receive communications and participate in proxy voting through Broadridge’s ProxyVote.com platform.

The move follows the SEC’s January 2026 statement on tokenized securities, which described a custodial model where a third party holds the underlying securities and issues crypto assets representing the holder’s entitlement to those securities. The SEC said tokenized securities remain securities, regardless of the technology used to represent them.

What Ondo Has Launched Feature Detail Why It Matters Tokenized securities BlackRock iShares Core S&P 500 ETF and Micron shares First assets in the U.S. custodial tokenized securities rollout Blockchain Ethereum Tokens issued on a public blockchain Custody model Underlying shares remain in the traditional U.S. regulated custody chain Keeps the structure connected to existing securities infrastructure Backing 1:1 by underlying securities Designed to avoid synthetic-only exposure Governance Broadridge ProxyVote.com Allows proxy voting, disclosures and issuer communications Under the structure, the underlying securities remain inside the traditional U.S. regulated custody system. Ondo’s registered transfer agent mints corresponding tokens backed one-to-one by those shares, with the tokens issued on Ethereum and held by regulated custodians. Transfer restrictions are enforced through the participating broker-dealer, transfer agent and custodian.

This is materially different from offshore synthetic stock tokens, which often provide economic exposure without the same custody, governance or shareholder rights framework.

Why The Broadridge Partnership Matters Broadridge is one of the most important infrastructure providers in U.S. shareholder communications and proxy voting. Its involvement gives the Ondo structure a governance layer that most tokenized securities products have lacked.

Doug DeSchutter, President of Broadridge’s Investor Communication Solutions business, said: “Tokenization will only scale when it delivers both innovation and investor confidence. By enabling proxy voting, issuer communications, and regulatory disclosures for Ondo’s token holders, we’re living up to our promise to empower investors and issuers by providing them with the full range of trusted governance capabilities for tokenized securities regardless of how assets are structured.”

That matters because tokenized securities cannot scale only as trading instruments. If they are to become credible alternatives to brokerage-held securities, investors need access to disclosures, corporate actions, voting processes and audit trails.

Education: What Is A Custodial Tokenized Security? A custodial tokenized security is a crypto asset that represents an entitlement to an underlying security held by a third party in custody.

In simple terms, the stock or ETF still exists in the traditional securities system. A token is then issued to represent the holder’s interest in that underlying asset.

The SEC’s January 2026 statement distinguished this model from synthetic tokenized securities, where the token issuer creates an instrument that gives economic exposure to a security but may not involve custody of the actual underlying shares.

Model How It Works Main Question Issuer-sponsored tokenized security The issuer tokenizes its own securities Can public companies support tokenized issuance directly? Third-party custodial tokenized security A third party holds the security and issues a token representing entitlement Can token holders get equivalent rights through custody and governance rails? Synthetic tokenized security A token provides exposure to the price of a security Does the product create additional counterparty or swap-like risk? Why This Is Different From Earlier Tokenized Stock Products Tokenized equities have existed for years, but many earlier products were launched outside the United States and often resembled synthetic exposure more than full securities ownership.

The difference here is that Ondo is explicitly trying to operate inside the U.S. regulatory perimeter. The company says the underlying securities stay in the same custody infrastructure used for traditional U.S. securities, while Broadridge supplies the shareholder communications and proxy voting layer.

That combination is important because regulators have repeatedly warned that tokenization does not remove securities law obligations. SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce said in 2025 that tokenized securities remain securities and that blockchain technology does not change the nature of the underlying asset.

Ondo’s structure appears designed around that regulatory reality rather than around avoiding it.

Why IVV And Micron Were Chosen The first two assets also matter.

BlackRock’s iShares Core S&P 500 ETF is one of the largest and most liquid ETF products in the world, giving token holders exposure to a broad U.S. equity benchmark. Micron provides single-stock exposure to a major U.S. semiconductor company tied to AI infrastructure, memory chips and the broader technology cycle.

Choosing one broad ETF and one single stock allows Ondo to test two different use cases. IVV shows how tokenization could work for diversified index exposure. Micron tests how tokenized securities might handle company-specific governance, disclosures and voting.

Why Tokenized Securities Need Governance The governance issue is not cosmetic.

Owning a stock is not only about price exposure. Shareholders also receive disclosures, vote on directors, approve certain corporate actions and participate in the legal and communications framework surrounding public companies.

If tokenized securities only replicate price movement, they are incomplete substitutes for traditional shares.

Broadridge’s role is to make the tokenized investor experience look more like the traditional shareholder experience. Token holders can receive regulatory disclosures, access issuer communications and participate in proxy voting through the same infrastructure used by conventional brokerage investors.

Comparison: Synthetic Tokenized Stock Vs Custodial Tokenized Stock Synthetic Tokenized Stock Custodial Tokenized Stock Provides price exposure Represents entitlement to underlying securities held in custody May not be backed one-to-one by actual shares Designed to be backed one-to-one by underlying shares Governance rights may be limited or absent Proxy voting and issuer communications can be supported Often structured outside U.S. securities infrastructure Designed to remain inside U.S. regulated custody and transfer systems Greater counterparty and structural questions Greater reliance on custody, transfer-agent and broker-dealer controls Why This Matters For U.S. Market Structure The United States has the deepest equity market in the world, but most of its post-trade infrastructure still operates through traditional intermediaries, transfer agents, broker-dealers, custodians and central securities depositories.

Tokenization promises faster settlement, programmable transfer restrictions, wider distribution and potentially 24/7 transferability. But those benefits are only useful if they coexist with investor protections, recordkeeping, legal ownership and corporate governance.

Ondo’s launch suggests that the first scalable U.S. tokenized securities model may not replace existing infrastructure. It may sit on top of it.

That is a more realistic near-term path than attempting to rebuild the entire securities market on a public blockchain.

Broader Competitive Implications The launch comes as exchanges, brokers and crypto firms are racing to define the future of tokenized equities. Coinbase has explored blockchain-based stocks, 24X has sought SEC approval for tokenized equity trading, and traditional market infrastructure providers are testing tokenization across Treasuries, funds and private markets.

FinanceFeeds has recently covered 24X’s SEC filing for tokenized stock trading, Tradeweb’s real-time on-chain U.S. Treasuries transaction, and Robinhood’s use of Morpho for onchain yield. Together, these developments show that tokenization is moving from crypto-native speculation into regulated market infrastructure.

The Risks The model still raises important questions.

Investors need clarity on beneficial ownership, custody protections, transfer restrictions, bankruptcy remoteness, blockchain operational risk, token holder records, tax treatment and how disputes would be resolved if on-chain records and off-chain custody records diverge.

There is also a liquidity question. A tokenized security is only useful if investors can trade it efficiently, move it safely and understand exactly what rights they hold.

Broadridge’s governance layer addresses one major weakness, but it does not eliminate every structural risk associated with tokenized securities.

Outlook: Tokenization Enters Its Compliance Phase Ondo’s launch marks a shift in the U.S. tokenization debate. The market is moving away from the question of whether stocks can be represented on-chain and toward the harder question of whether tokenized stocks can preserve the protections that make U.S. securities markets trusted.

That means custody, transfer agents, broker-dealers, disclosure delivery, shareholder voting and regulatory compliance will matter as much as blockchain settlement.

The partnership with Broadridge is therefore central to the story. Tokenized securities will not scale simply because they are programmable. They will scale if investors, issuers, regulators and intermediaries believe that token holders receive the same rights and protections as traditional shareholders.

Ondo’s first U.S. custodial tokenized securities test that proposition with one broad ETF and one major technology stock. If the model works, it could become a template for bringing more U.S. equities on-chain without forcing the market to choose between innovation and investor protection.

@VALRdotcom, Africa's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, has integrated @HyperliquidX to power a new cross-asset perpetuals product offering over 200 markets. The integration marks Hyperliquid's first direct partnership with a centralized exchange.

Branded "Perps on VALR," the product is set to go live on the web on July 6, 2026, with mobile app availability to follow shortly after.

A Regulated Front End, a Decentralised Back EndThis is the first time a major regulated centralized exchange has natively built on top of Hyperliquid's Layer-1 blockchain. Users will be able to open and manage positions directly within the VALR platform without needing to bridge assets or navigate external decentralized applications. VALR is operating under FSCA regulation while sourcing liquidity from Hyperliquid's decentralised infrastructure.

The expansion enables users to go long or short with leverage across global equities, commodities, precious metals, stock indices, forex pairs, and crypto assets. The equities offering includes contracts linked to companies such as NVIDIA, Tesla, and Apple, as well as pre-IPO markets including SpaceX. The platform will also provide exposure to global benchmarks including the S&P 500, commodity markets such as Brent crude and gold, and forex pairs such as EUR/USD and GBP/USD.

VALR's Place in the African Crypto LandscapeLicensed by South Africa's FSCA and with a provisional licence from the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority, VALR serves over 1.9 million registered users and 1,900 corporate and institutional clients worldwide. The exchange has attracted institutional backing from Pantera Capital and Coinbase Ventures.

For the African crypto ecosystem, the launch is notable. VALR serves a large and growing user base across the continent, where demand for sophisticated trading tools continues to rise. By bringing institutional-grade perpetuals to its platform, VALR aims to bridge traditional finance with decentralized market access.

Hyperliquid is widely recognised as the largest on-chain perpetual futures DEX, optimised for high-speed trading and deep liquidity across multiple asset classes. The deal signals a broader shift in how regulated exchanges are beginning to tap into decentralised infrastructure, using it as a liquidity and settlement layer rather than a competitor. Founder Jeff Yan confirmed that the integration enables the centralized platform to tap into the $HYPE network's high-velocity settlement layer.

Sources:
VALR Official Blog: VALR Launches 200+ Hyperliquid Perps Markets
Crypto Briefing: VALR integrates Hyperliquid to power its new perpetuals product
Crypto Times: VALR Integrates Hyperliquid to Launch 200+ Perpetual Markets in Africa

Senator Demands Trump Meme Coin Ban After $636 Million Windfall

ASTER is showing signs of renewed strength after a range breakout, with analysis suggesting buyers are gradually regaining control. 

The recent Aster (ASTER) price action suggests an optimistic short-term outlook, particularly as its price regains momentum and the broader crypto market shows recovery signs. Provided the token holds above critical support levels, it might experience a considerable rebound to higher resistance areas.

ASTER Breaking Out from Multi-Week Range After spending several weeks consolidating, ASTER has climbed back toward the upper end of its multi-week price range. The coin fell into this range on June 5. While it broke out in mid-June to a high of $0.803 following news of the 99% fee buyback, it fell back and continued to trend within the range.

The recent uptrend has now shifted attention to whether ASTER can successfully break out and target higher prices. Meanwhile, ASTER is already showing early positive signs, with price now trending above the upper resistance trendline at $0.634.

Aster 4H Chart Analysis The coin first broke out on June 2, following its rally to an intraday high of $0.649. Since then, ASTER has consolidated above the key zone, gaining momentum for the next uptrend. This presents an ideal entry point. If the price continues to trade above the $0.634 resistance, the chances of a rally higher remain.

Key Resistance Levels Ahead The immediate resistance should the upward momentum begin is the $0.649 level. ASTER stalled there yesterday, and reclaiming it is crucial for a sustained uptrend.

If buyers successfully clear $0.649, the next technical hurdles appear near $0.665 and $0.709, representing an uptrend of 4% to 11% from the current price of $0.638. Beyond those levels, there are still resistance zones between $0.740 and $0.780.

Ultimately, the breakout could target the previous swing high around $0.803. From the current market price, this represents a 26% increase.

Notably, the bullish outlook would weaken if ASTER loses its breakout structure. Falling below $0.634 invalidates the breakout and pushes the coin back into a range. It also opens the path to retesting lower support regions.

The closest support is $0.612, representing a 4% drop from here. Below this level, another support sits around $0.602. Meanwhile, $0.585 marks the most important floor on the chart, as it represents the lower support of the price range.

A convincing close beneath that level would invalidate the current recovery setup and could expose the token to a deeper decline toward $0.542 and $0.514.

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

Bitcoin Developers are Fighting Over What the Blockchain is For

Nearly 49,000 BTC landed on exchanges in a single day on June 30, a volume so unusual that CryptoQuant labeled it “a rare extreme” that has only occurred four other times in 2026. When that much Bitcoin moves toward the sell button simultaneously, the market tends to get interesting, and not always in the fun way.

The on-chain analytics firm’s weekly report, dated July 2, highlighted the spike as a potential precursor to heightened volatility. Bitcoin was hovering around the $60,000 support level at the time, a price zone that has historically acted as a trapdoor when paired with aggressive exchange inflows.

Whales are driving the bus Here’s the thing about this particular inflow event: it wasn’t a swarm of retail traders panic-selling their fractional holdings. The average deposit size roughly doubled, climbing from about 1 BTC to 2 BTC per transaction.

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Bitcoin wasn’t the only asset seeing heavy exchange traffic. Ethereum inflows surpassed 1.25 million ETH during the same late-June window, while daily altcoin deposit transactions surged to nearly 45,000, a two-month high. When multiple asset classes simultaneously see elevated exchange deposits, it typically signals broader portfolio rebalancing rather than an isolated move in one token.

The historical playbook isn’t encouraging CryptoQuant’s data provides useful context for what happened after previous inflow extremes this year. The largest single-day inflow of 2026, approximately 60,000 BTC on February 6, preceded a period of notable price volatility. Another elevated inflow cluster appeared in April when Bitcoin was trading near $76,000, and that too was followed by choppy, directionally uncertain price action.

With Bitcoin now testing $60,000, which is roughly 21% below the April levels that coincided with the prior inflow spike, the current setup looks more fragile than those earlier episodes.

The CryptoQuant report also flagged macroeconomic crosswinds as a complicating factor. ETF flows, which have been a dominant narrative throughout 2026, can amplify or dampen on-chain signals depending on whether institutional money is flowing in or out of spot Bitcoin products.

What this means for investors Exchange inflow data is a leading indicator, not a guarantee. Not every deposit results in a market sell order. Some coins move to exchanges for margin collateral, derivatives trading, or simply custody reshuffling. But at the aggregate level, spikes of this magnitude have a strong historical correlation with increased volatility and downward price pressure in the near term.

The concentration of whale-sized deposits makes the current signal more significant than a retail-driven inflow of the same magnitude would be. Large holders tend to be more strategic about execution, meaning they may spread selling over days or weeks rather than dumping everything at once.

For traders, the $60,000 level becomes the line in the sand to watch. A decisive break below it on elevated volume could trigger cascading liquidations across leveraged positions, accelerating any downside move.

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

Down Millions and Not SellingBarstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) has once again found himself on the wrong side of a Bitcoin ($BTC) trade, and this time he says he is not moving. Appearing on Fox Business with Stuart Varney, Portnoy confirmed he is down millions on Bitcoin after it fell more than 50% from its October all-time high of $126,080 to a recent price of around $62,000.

"Yeah, I've got regrets," Portnoy told Varney. "I bought the thing at $100,000, so I mean, right now, I don't know what's going on."

At that level, Bitcoin is down by more than half from its all-time high of about $126,000 reached in October 2025. The decline has been driven by a range of factors. Sentiment took a hit after Strategy, founded by Michael Saylor, sold a portion of its Bitcoin holdings, which triggered hundreds of millions of dollars in liquidations and accelerated the sell-off. Losses were compounded by a stronger-than-expected jobs report that sent Treasury yields higher and pressured risk assets broadly.

A Familiar Story With a Different Ending"There's nothing I've been wrong about more than Bitcoin," Portnoy told Varney. His track record with the asset is, by his own admission, painful. He recalled first buying roughly $2 million worth of Bitcoin when it traded around $11,000 after a conversation with Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, only to sell almost immediately because he did not understand their long-term thesis. The decision proved costly as Bitcoin quickly surged, eventually convincing him to re-enter the market at much higher prices.

Portnoy got back in at various higher prices over the following years, building to a peak position of around $15 million before losses brought it down significantly. He also famously panic-sold near a market bottom in 2021, a move he has since described as one of his worst calls.

This time, Portnoy says his approach is different. Despite the continued downward price action, he said he is just holding his ground. "I'll just hold this thing down to $0," he said. "I know if I sell it, it's going to go nuclear again. I'd rather go down with the ship this time."

Portnoy admitted he still struggles to predict the cryptocurrency's moves despite years of following it closely. "I don't know what the hell's going on with it," he said, adding that he intends to keep holding his position even if it continues to fall.

The latest remarks are consistent with a broader pattern. His main psychological anchor, by his own account, remains a conversation with former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who personally convinced him that Bitcoin would inevitably rise to $1 million.

Sources
Fox Business: Dave Portnoy reveals impact of Bitcoin crash on wealth
Decrypt: Dave Portnoy Says He's Losing Millions as Bitcoin Falls
CNBC: Bitcoin cracks $60,000, sinking to lowest level since October 2024

Bitcoin’s key on-chain valuation metrics have dropped into zones that historically preceded major price recoveries, even as the asset trades roughly 51% below its 2025 peak. The MVRV Z-Score and adjusted sell-side risk ratio both entered accumulation territory during the week of June 30, 2026, levels last seen near cycle lows in 2019, 2020, and 2023.

Two Metrics Flashing Accumulation Signals The MVRV Z-Score, which measures the ratio of market value to realized value, has fallen below the +2-standard-deviation threshold after spending much of the prior cycle in elevated territory. Readings above +2 have historically reflected overheated conditions and excessive unrealized profits across the network. 

A move below that threshold typically signals that valuation premiums are cooling and the market is returning to equilibrium.

The adjusted sell-side risk ratio has separately fallen into levels associated with major accumulation periods. When this indicator drops, it suggests that realized profits and losses have shrunk relative to Bitcoin’s overall market capitalization. 

Holders appear increasingly unwilling to sell at current prices, while long-term investors continue removing supply from active circulation. In past cycles, these periods of low sell-side risk preceded renewed upside momentum by several weeks to months.

Bitcoin has held the $58,000 to $60,000 support zone despite months of selling pressure. The asset traded above $61,000 on July 3, 2026, according to CoinGecko data, after briefly falling below $59,000 earlier in the week.

Cantor Fitzgerald’s Cycle Timeline Analysts at Cantor Fitzgerald believe Bitcoin may be entering the later stages of its current correction cycle, according to a summary posted by Coin Bureau on X. Bitcoin is now 252 days past its 2025 peak. In the last three cycles, Bitcoin bottomed an average of 384 days after peaking, which would place a potential floor around October 2026 if historical patterns hold.

The 384-day average masks significant variation across individual cycles, and past timing patterns offer no guarantee of future behavior. Still, the projection reinforces a growing consensus among institutional analysts that the asset is closer to a long-term bottom than the start of a new extended bear market.

What Would Confirm a Reversal The convergence of cooling MVRV readings, declining sell-side pressure, and repeated defense of the $58,000 support zone amounts to the strongest cluster of bottoming signals since late 2023. The combination is significant because each metric captures a different dimension of market stress: valuation premium, realized profit-taking, and buyer absorption at support. 

A sustained reclaim of $65,000 would provide the first structural confirmation that selling pressure has exhausted itself. A breakdown below $58,000, conversely, would invalidate the developing base and expose the asset to a deeper test of the $54,000 region.

US spot Bitcoin ETF flows may offer a secondary confirmation signal. The funds recorded $221.7 million in net inflows on July 2, 2026, after a 10-day outflow streak that drained $2.7 billion, according to SoSoValue data. The rebound suggests institutional appetite has not disappeared even as the Fear & Greed Index remains at extreme fear levels.

MetaMask has pointed out in a research report that US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds experienced their most challenging month yet in June 2026, posting a record $4.5 billion in net outflows since their launch in January 2024. MetaMask noted that this figure surpassed the previous monthly record by 29 percent, according to detailed analysis from MetaMask Alpha, the platform’s market outlook update.

BlackRock’s flagship IBIT fund alone drove a substantial portion of the redemptions, accounting for $3.55 billion across nine consecutive days of outflows.

The broader selloff coincided with a sharp 20.48 percent decline in Bitcoin’s price during the month—the steepest monthly drop since June 2022.

MetaMask’s research team noted that this development extended a pattern first observed in May, when ETFs saw a 13-day streak of outflows totaling roughly $4.4 billion. June’s full-month results confirmed the trend on a larger scale, highlighting how ETF flows have become an increasingly important marginal driver of Bitcoin’s price action.

Divergent signals emerge between institutional products and on-chain activity

While ETF vehicles faced sustained redemption pressure, on-chain data painted a contrasting picture. Wallets classified as whales accumulated more than 270,000 BTC over the same period, per CryptoQuant figures cited in the MetaMask report.

This accumulation occurred amid widespread market caution, with the Crypto Fear & Greed Index lingering between 11 and 15—levels indicating “Extreme Fear”—through much of the latter half of June.

The divergence suggests differing levels of conviction across market segments.

Regulated ETF structures appeared to reflect short-term risk aversion and selling pressure, while larger holders outside these wrappers demonstrated a willingness to add exposure during the downturn.

Market tone began to improve in early July. On July 1, Bitcoin rose more than 4 percent and briefly moved above $61,000 following remarks by former Fed Chair Kevin Warsh at the ECB’s Sintra forum.

Warsh highlighted declining inflation expectations, which helped ease some near-term concerns.

Additional support came from the June employment report, which showed payroll gains of only 57,000—well below expectations near 100,000—with the two prior months revised downward by a combined 74,000 jobs.

These softer figures raised the possibility of earlier Federal Reserve rate cuts ahead of the central bank’s July 29 policy meeting.

MetaMask Alpha concluded that the current environment reflects two competing narratives about Bitcoin’s conviction.

One comes from the regulated ETF wrapper, which has shown notable selling during periods of fear.

The other now emerges from self-custodied whale wallets that continue to accumulate.

With the Federal Reserve’s stance still evolving, the outcome of the late-July meeting is likely to play a significant role in determining which perspective gains traction in the near term.

The June data underscores how Bitcoin’s market structure has matured. ETF flows now represent a meaningful component of daily supply and demand dynamics, yet they coexist alongside independent on-chain behavior from large holders. The MetaMask research update concluded that this split adds nuance to interpretations of institutional participation and may influence how the asset responds to macroeconomic developments in the coming weeks.

21h05 ▪ 5 min read ▪ by Luc Jose A.

Summarize this article with:

After ten consecutive sessions of capital outflows, US spot Bitcoin ETFs have finally regained momentum with 221.7 million dollars of net subscriptions. This rebound ends a historic sequence of disengagement that had weakened institutional investors’ sentiment. Is this the first sign of a sustainable capital return or just a pause in an still fragile trend ? Behind this recovery lie major divergences between issuers and on-chain indicators, which invites to temper the significance of this rebound.

In Brief Bitcoin ETFs end ten consecutive sessions of capital outflows thanks to 221.7 million dollars of net inflows, a first positive signal for the market. The rebound remains mixed, with Fidelity carrying the bulk of subscriptions while BlackRock continues to record significant withdrawals. On-chain data shows that long-term investors continue their accumulation, despite hesitations observed on the ETF side. The confirmation of a true turnaround will now depend on several consecutive days of capital inflows and broader participation of major issuers. Bitcoin ETFs regain positive flows after ten days of capital outflows The US spot Bitcoin ETF market has recorded a break in its outflow momentum. Data compiled at the close of the July 2 session reveal the following accounting elements :

A reversal of net flows : regulated financial products captured a total net inflow of 221.7 million dollars, breaking a ten-session consecutive withdrawal streak ; Fidelity (FBTC) dominance : the fund managed by asset manager Fidelity carried most of the recovery, recording net inflows of about 166 million dollars on its own ; A negative streak in June : this technical performance comes immediately after the worst month ever for US spot ETFs, with June 2026 ending with about 4.5 billion dollars of cumulative net outflows. This sudden liquidity injection marks a statistical break from the massive outflows that heavily damaged short-term investor confidence. The surge led by Fidelity shows there is responsive demand and that some traders were ready to inject liquidity as soon as the price tested institutional support zones. This outcome temporarily stabilizes the general sentiment by putting an end to a correction phase on these financial instruments.

The persistence of outflows at BlackRock Although the overall balance of July 2 is positive, a detailed analysis of issuers reveals fundamental disparities, led by the case of BlackRock. The IBIT fund, the largest vehicle in the category, did not participate in this positive momentum and showed a net outflow of about 40.4 million dollars during the same session.

This negative performance extends a critical trend, with IBIT having been the main driver of June’s decline with about 3.55 billion dollars of withdrawals alone, bringing its recent wave of capital outflows to about 2.2 billion dollars. This lack of synchronization between Fidelity and BlackRock highlights the absence of widespread issuer participation, a factor considered essential to turn an isolated technical reaction into a true lasting trend reversal.

Alongside this contrasted situation on traditional stock markets, on-chain data provides a different perspective on the available supply structure. Research firm Glassnode reveals that long-term investors are in an accumulation phase, despite the turbulence observed in ETFs.

At the same time, the supply breakdown showed that about 10.83 million bitcoins were held at a loss, versus about 9.22 million in profit. This fact demonstrates a progressive absorption of volumes by the network’s historical investors, who take advantage of the price drop to accumulate tokens even as the traditional institutional sector shows signs of uncertainty and portfolio restructuring.

Validation conditions for a true market pivot The evaluation of the long-term viability of this rebound now rests on compliance with a strict technical protocol to which analysts and allocators frequently refer. The first validation milestone requires recording three to five consecutive days of positive net inflows, ideally accompanied by an expansion of participation to other mid-sized funds.

The decisive factor will remain the ability of BlackRock’s IBIT fund to stabilize its flows and stop its negative trend, which would send a capitulation signal among the largest base of institutional holders. Without this convergence, the gains of a single day will amount to a mere statistical anomaly.

In the short and medium term, the implications of this divergence between ETF flows and on-chain accumulation require cautious monitoring of market indicators. If capital inflows do not extend to the majority of issuers and the funding rates of perpetual futures contracts spiral speculatively, this rebound could quickly be invalidated.

Conversely, the conjunction of a drop in institutional selling pressure and continued accumulation by historical wallets could lay the foundation for a solid floor for the coming months. Fund managers must therefore orchestrate their inflows in a phased manner, closely monitoring the five-day cumulative average of flows and the maintenance of low closing prices on the US market to avoid exposure to false recovery signals.

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Luc Jose A.

Diplômé de Sciences Po Toulouse et titulaire d'une certification consultant blockchain délivrée par Alyra, j'ai rejoint l'aventure Cointribune en 2019. Convaincu du potentiel de la blockchain pour transformer de nombreux secteurs de l'économie, j'ai pris l'engagement de sensibiliser et d'informer le grand public sur cet écosystème en constante évolution. Mon objectif est de permettre à chacun de mieux comprendre la blockchain et de saisir les opportunités qu'elle offre. Je m'efforce chaque jour de fournir une analyse objective de l'actualité, de décrypter les tendances du marché, de relayer les dernières innovations technologiques et de mettre en perspective les enjeux économiques et sociétaux de cette révolution en marche.

DISCLAIMER

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and should not be taken as investment advice. Do your own research before taking any investment decisions.

Bitcoin [BTC] has climbed above the $62k mark and is trying to move higher. According to data from Farside Investors, July 2 saw Bitcoin spot ETF inflows of $223.5 million.

This comes after nearly two weeks of capital outflow from ETFS. The shift in investor confidence helped explain Thursday’s 2.56% upward move. At the time of writing, this short-term bounce was underway, and the $64k local resistance zone is the immediate target.

Weaker-than-expected U.S. jobs data fueled expectations that the Fed would lower interest rates, helping to explain the short-term price bounce.

Is Bitcoin giving an early buy signal? Source: Axel Adler Jr. Crypto analyst Axel Adler Jr. drew attention to the Bitcoin Advanced Net UTXO Supply Ratio chart. This metric measures the net balance of BTC supply in profit and in loss. The ratio dropped deep into negative territory in recent weeks, resulting in the green “BUY” signal printed on the chart.

It was the first buy signal since November 2022. Back then, the signal’s turnaround came alongside the market bottom and a recovery from the cyclical lows.

This time around, confirmation would be if the ratio holds its ground above zero, and the Bitcoin price continues to climb higher in the coming weeks.

The threats looming for Bitcoin investors AMBCrypto reported that mining firms such as RiotPlatform, Mara Holdings, Inc., and Hut 8 Mining Corp. have been selling their BTC holdings. It was a response to increasingly expensive mining operations, adding to the bearish strain on the market.

Source: CryptoQuant Analyst Crypto Onchain pointed to the heavy uptick in miner outflows to suggest that these entities were selling their holdings to cover operational costs. This idea holds up with the data presented earlier.

Additionally, the Binance stablecoin netflows averaged -$126 million per day, while funding rates remained positive. The combination of these factors showed smart money, and miners were selling spot holdings while smaller retail players tried to “catch the knife” and buy the dip.

Historically, legacy spot supply entering the market at a time when smaller market participants provided long leverage tended to precede sustained price drawdown and a long squeeze, the analyst concluded.

Final Summary The Advanced Net UTXO Supply Ratio chart for Bitcoin flashed a buy signal for the first time since November 2022, when the signal marked a cyclical bottom. The increasing retail long leverage alongside smart money offloading spot holdings indicated potential for a deeper price drop later in 2026.

Table of contents

Not everyone is heading for the exit. In June, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs hemorrhaged a record $4 billion, marking the worst month of institutional outflows since the products launched. Over that same stretch, however, a quieter force was building: large holders absorbed $16.7 billion worth of bitcoin in just two weeks, according to the original report. The split between ETF sellers and wallet-class accumulators is now one of the market’s most pointed signals.

The data paints two completely different pictures of conviction. For ETF investors, June was a capitulation event, driven by macroeconomic recalibration and a sharp drop in risk appetite across U.S. equities. For wallets holding more than 1,000 BTC — a crude but durable proxy for whales — the sell-off was a buying window. Their combined purchases over two weeks erased any notion that the market had turned uniformly bearish.

A Tale of Two Markets The $4 billion monthly outflow from spot ETFs wasn’t just large. It was unprecedented. Even during previous drawdowns, the combined withdrawals had never reached that intensity. Most of the pressure came from accelerated redemptions at two dominant issuers, suggesting that retail and institutional flows were moving together in the same direction — away from Bitcoin. But outside the ETF wrapper, on-chain data showed a different rhythm. The largest addresses added aggressively at levels where leveraged longs were being flushed and ETF shareholders were cutting exposure.

That asymmetry is important because it highlights how the market has fragmented since the ETF approvals. The ETF crowd is dominated by a mix of short-term traders, RIAs, and registered funds that follow quarterly performance benchmarks. The whale category is more opaque: it includes exchanges, custodians, sovereign vehicles, and early-cycle capital that tends to weather the volatility. When these cohorts diverge this sharply, the market narrative often gets rewritten within a few months.

Institutional Exodus vs. Whale Strategy What made institutional selling so pronounced wasn’t just the Federal Reserve’s posture or the strength of the dollar index. June’s outflows were also amplified by regulatory whiplash, as lawmakers scrambled over key legislation that could decide the licensing and custody framework for digital assets. With the future of U.S. crypto banking rules in flux, risk managers at ETF issuers and market makers likely reduced their Bitcoin exposure to control balance-sheet volatility.

At the same time, a different type of institutional money was finding its way into crypto infrastructure, just not through Bitcoin ETFs. The tokenization sector crossed $20 billion in on-chain value in recent weeks, pulling capital toward real-world asset platforms and settlement networks. Meanwhile, staking strategies on newer layer-1s attracted fresh allocations, as shown by a recent 18% surge in SUI tied to institutional staking demand and fintech integrations. The pattern suggests that large investors were not abandoning crypto — they were rotating away from the most liquid and most scrutinized product into niches where they could extract yield or own infrastructure directly.

What History Suggests About the Divergence Divergences between ETF flows and whale accumulation have appeared before — and they haven’t been random. In the months leading up to the 2023 rally, when the spot ETF narrative was still a regulatory debate, wallets with substantial balances reloaded while Grayscale’s trust traded at a deep discount and sentiment was in the gutter. The recent move doesn’t guarantee a repeat, but the silhouette is similar. Whales with no mandate to file daily holdings reports are operating with a longer time horizon.

The $16.7 billion absorbed over 14 days dwarfs the monthly redemption figure, meaning the market absorbed the selling pressure without breaking. That kind of absorption doesn’t come from passive HODLing alone. It requires active bids, often routed through OTC desks, where large blocks trade without hitting spot order books. If that buying continues into July, it could shift liquidity dynamics quickly. Exchange balances, which had been rising during the ETF sell-off, are one metric to watch: a reversal would signal that accumulation is translating into off-exchange custody, a classic supply-squeeze precursor.

Uncertainty Lingers What’s missing is clarity on the source of the whale demand. It could be a single large entity — a fund, a sovereign, a corporate treasury — or a dispersed cohort of high-net-worth individuals reacting to the same discount. Without identity, the signal is softer than it looks. And while the divergence has historically preceded market bottoms, it can also persist for weeks in a sideways chop before directionality emerges.

For now, the split leaves traders watching two gauges. ETF flows remain the most visible barometer of institutional sentiment, but whale wallets are providing a conflicting read that is harder to dismiss. When $4 billion leaves one door and $16.7 billion enters another, the market isn’t just moving — it’s transferring from weak hands to strong ones. The only question is how long that transfer takes before price responds.

AUTHOR

Brenda is a writer with three years of experience specializing in cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence and emerging technologies. She graduated from the University of Mombasa with a degree in Psychology. She has worked at Cryptopolitan and Blockchain Reporter.

On-chain data for Bitcoin reveals a stark divergence in market trends: while major investors have resumed accumulation after the recent downturn, small investor activity on Binance remains well below previous bull cycle levels.

Whales return to accumulationCrypto analyst Crypto Patel reports that large wallets have amassed more than 270,000 Bitcoin at an average price of $59,000. Despite ongoing selling pressure, this period marks one of the strongest accumulation phases in recent memory.

Crypto Patel notes that large investors have acquired over 270,000 BTC at an average of $59,000, even as the market continues to face selling pressure.

Comparing the 30-day balance changes in whale wallets with Bitcoin price data, significant sales by large holders were observed in late 2025. Although Bitcoin remained above $100,000 from July to November, the balance in these wallets steadily declined during that interval.

The most notable buying spree emerged between late December 2025 and early January 2026, highlighted as the period of heaviest whale accumulation on record. Buying momentum slowed through February and March, yet large investors maintained their positions during this phase.

Fresh accumulation signals around $60,000Throughout April and May, whale balances remained stable. However, the latest data indicates that as Bitcoin retreated to the $60,000–$62,000 range, major investors began expanding their holdings again. This suggests that institutional or high-capital investor interest persisted despite price weakness.

Muted interest from retail investorsWhile whales have become increasingly active, the same enthusiasm is not evident among small investors. Analyst Darkfost, citing Binance data, highlighted that wallets depositing less than 1 BTC to the exchange recorded a total daily inflow of only 329 BTC.

This marks a sharp contrast with previous bull markets. In 2021, the monthly total reached 2,690 BTC, with daily inflows peaking near 4,900 BTC. The influx was even greater in 2018, when monthly retail inflows hit 3,700 BTC and daily numbers soared to 10,400 BTC.

The amount of BTC sent by small investors to Binance is at historic lows compared to previous bull cycles.

ETF adoption and shifting investor preferencesData shows that retail activity sharply declined after the 2021 peak and has not rebounded in the current cycle, even with Bitcoin surpassing $100,000. This shift is largely attributed to the emergence of spot Bitcoin ETFs, which offer investors exposure to Bitcoin without transferring crypto assets onto exchanges.

Additionally, some investors are turning to alternative crypto assets, while others prefer holding Bitcoin for longer durations. As a result, retail exchange activity remains subdued, even as large wallets return to accumulation on the blockchain.

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.

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

TL;DR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Market data confirms that each year XRP recorded consistent declines in Q1 and Q2, a recovery ensued during the third quarter of the year.

XRP has not escaped the ongoing downtrend that began in October 2025, down 40.17% this year alone despite the recent rebound effort in July. However, market data points to an encouraging pattern that could provide some relief in the short term.

Notably, XRP has often alternated between gains and losses in the first and second quarters of each year since it started trading in the public market in 2013. However, in rare cases where it saw consistent losses in Q1 and Q2 within a particular year, the market always delivered gains during the third quarter.

XRP Quarterly Performance in 2014 This pattern has played out three times since 2013. The first instance was in 2014 after XRP saw a strong pullback following the impressive gains recorded the previous year. Specifically, XRP first collapsed nearly 68% in Q1 2014 and then by another 57% in the second quarter of that year.

Notably, during this period, XRP saw consistent losses across multiple consecutive months, including -24.9% in January 2014, -33.62% in February 2014, -35.73% in March 2014, -38.95% in April 2014, -22.53% in May 2014, and then -8.61% in June 2014. 

However, a recovery campaign ensued in July 2014, as the market introduced a relief bounce amid the downtrend. Specifically, XRP gained 36.73% in July 2014, rising from $0.00379 to $0.00519. Despite seeing mild losses in August and September 2014, Q3 closed with a 22.9% upsurge.

XRP Quarterly Performances in 2018 and 2022 The other two times this pattern played out were during the bear markets of 2018 and 2022. After reaching the $3.31 peak in January 2018, XRP recorded its most devastating crash in recorded history over a 3-month period, leading to a massive 77.7% loss in Q1 2018.

The downtrend persisted into the next quarter. Despite an impressive 67% recovery in April 2018, the declines in subsequent months brought Q2 2018 performance to -9.1% for XRP.

While the downtrend slipped into the start of the third quarter, XRP saw a 73.6% increase in September 2018, and this was enough to offset the losses from July and August, leading to a 24.4% rebound in Q3 2018.

XRP Quarterly Performances For the 2022 bear market, XRP first saw a mild 2.14% loss in Q1 despite gains in February and March. However, the Terra implosion resulted in steeper declines in Q2, with XRP dropping 59.4% during that quarter. Interestingly, Q3 introduced a 44.5% recovery while the bear market remained intact.

XRP Already Following the Pattern This year, XRP has already recorded losses in the first and second quarters, with a 27.1% decline in Q1 and a 22.4% drop in Q2. This follows a 35.4% crash during Q4 2025, as the bear market drags on.

Interestingly, the asset already seems to be following the recorded pattern, as it embarks on an early recovery push in July 2026, which has put Q3 at a gain of 6.05% as of the time of reporting.

Market data suggests that XRP has seen an average gain of 17.3% in Q3 since it started trading in 2013. While Q3 has not delivered the highest average gain, this quarter appears to have seen the most consistent recoveries in history, with only three instances seeing declines in 13 years.

If XRP maintains the pattern and records at least the average 17.3% gain for this quarter, it could close the quarter with a recovery above the $1.20 level. While this may provide a glimmer of hope, there is no guarantee that Q4 will extend the rebound push.

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

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

Summary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

XRP, after several weeks of subdued performance, saw its trading volume climb sharply by 21 percent in the past 24 hours. While price movement remained tightly clustered around the $1.10 mark, the increase in volume signals a revived level of interest among market participants. In the crypto space, rising volumes against a backdrop of sideways price action are often interpreted as the first sign of a potential directional breakout.

The broader market’s recovery plays a key roleOne crucial factor behind this uptick has been the renewed risk appetite across the cryptocurrency market. After the steep selloff in June, major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum, as well as many leading altcoins, have been searching for stability. Thanks to its high liquidity and robust retail investor following, XRP routinely stands out as a preferred alternative during periods when investors return to large-scale, non-mainstream assets.

The surge in XRP’s volume, coming even as its price holds steady around $1.10, indicates that interest in the token is once again on the rise within the market.

Historically, XRP has often seen a boost in trading volume concurrent with heightened activity across the wider crypto market. Consequently, analysts view the current increase as not unique to XRP but rather a reflection of a broader recovery sentiment.

The $1.12 to $1.21 range draws close attentionAttention has now shifted to a significant resistance zone from a technical viewpoint. After rebounding from the psychologically important $1.00 level, XRP is edging toward the $1.12 to $1.21 price range. This band is marked by the convergence of both 50 day and 100 day moving averages, along with former support areas that became resistance following the June breakdown.

IndicatorLevelSignificanceCurrent price area$1.10Zone where sideways action persistsFirst support$1.00Psychological thresholdResistance region$1.12 to $1.21Short term technical hurdleVolume change21 percent increaseSignals stronger participationThe approach toward this closely watched area is engaging both buyers and sellers, contributing to the overall increase in trading volume. A decisive break above resistance could bolster hopes for a sustained recovery, whereas a pullback from this area might ramp up volatility once more.

Bargain hunters emerge at local lowsAnother, perhaps less visible but significant, catalyst has been the return of speculative investors looking to buy at perceived bottoms. Following a prolonged correction, XRP had lost much of its value relative to recent local highs. With the token holding above $1.00 and the RSI indicator rebounding from oversold territory, some investors now find the current levels more attractive for possible accumulation.

The ability to remain above $1.00 and a pickup in the RSI have apparently encouraged more investors to seek bottom entry opportunities in XRP.

Although certain technical indicators are hinting at a local bottom formation on the charts, XRP has yet to fully shed its bearish overtones. The asset still sits below major long-term resistance levels. Nevertheless, the spike in volume, improved market sentiment, repeated tests of critical resistance, and a renewed push by bargain hunters are all coming together as notable drivers.

Should buying pressure persist, analysts believe XRP could face a more pronounced technical test in the coming weeks.

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.

The XRP Ledger is carving out a more prominent role within Brazil’s rapidly expanding stablecoin ecosystem. According to crypto researcher SMQKE, the blockchain network has become a key platform, especially for issuing and transferring digital assets pegged to the Brazilian real (BRL). The number of BRL-backed stablecoins in circulation across Brazil has now surpassed 10, with these assets serving both retail users and institutional players in the country’s dynamic fintech sector.

BRL stablecoin adoption rises in BrazilProjects such as BRZ, BRLA, and BRLM are driving the growth of digital payment channels, enabling faster and cheaper cross-border money transfers and fueling the rise of tokenized finance applications. This trend underscores Brazil’s emergence as one of Latin America’s most vibrant fintech markets and highlights the growing appetite for digital assets among consumers and businesses.

SMQKE notes that several of these BRL-pegged stablecoins are leveraging the XRP Ledger infrastructure. The network’s ability to process transactions within seconds and at low cost stands out as a major draw for high-volume stablecoin issuers operating in the Brazilian market.

SMQKE emphasizes that with a portion of Brazil’s BRL-based stablecoins operating on the XRP Ledger, the network is increasingly proving itself as a robust foundation for tokenized financial assets.

Institutional use cases expandThe XRP Ledger is being recognized not just as a theoretical blockchain platform but as a reliable system that powers real-world financial applications. Its native tokenization features, scalable architecture, and solid track record of technical stability make it particularly appealing to institutions developing blockchain-based payment systems and digital asset issuance projects.

Within Ripple’s broader strategy, the XRP Ledger is seen as a foundational infrastructure for stablecoins, tokenized assets, and potentially in the future, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Ripple—which operates in the payments technology sphere—has long played a crucial role in supporting the growth and evolution of the XRP Ledger ecosystem.

IMF interest and technical upgrades in focusThis approach recently received additional validation when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) included the XRP Ledger among blockchain networks used by banks for stablecoin issuance. The move reflects not only the network’s relevance in crypto markets but also its growing profile in connecting crypto with traditional finance infrastructure.

Technical innovation is also underway on the network. The reintroduced Batch amendment now enables users to combine payments, token swaps, NFT purchases, and similar operations into a single secure transaction. This feature is designed to streamline operations and lower costs associated with complex transactions.

Mini glossary: The Batch amendment is a technical update on the XRP Ledger aimed at executing multiple operations in one connected action. It is intended to boost efficiency and lower transaction costs, particularly for payment and asset transfer uses.

The fact that the International Monetary Fund lists XRP Ledger among networks used by banks for stablecoin issuance is considered a sign of growing institutional interest.

With Brazil seeing more real-world stablecoin applications, increasing institutional engagement, and ongoing network enhancements, the XRP Ledger is steadily advancing beyond its origins as a speculative blockchain to become a critical piece of financial infrastructure in the region.

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.