Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Michael Saylor spotlighted Strategy’s BTC Breakeven ARR on Tuesday, July 7. He argued Bitcoin (BTC) only needs 3.3% yearly growth to fund the firm’s preferred dividends from capital gains indefinitely.

The metric divides annual preferred dividend obligations, now roughly $1.76 billion by company figures, by the value of the corporate Bitcoin reserve. Saylor called it one of the most misunderstood numbers attached to Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy).

What BTC Breakeven ARR Means for MicroStrategyStrategy reports holding 843,775 BTC, worth roughly $53.8 billion with Bitcoin trading near $63,603, and the stack keeps growing. The company disclosed 818,334 BTC in its May earnings release, meaning it added over 25,000 coins through a drawdown.

Saylor, the company’s founder and executive chairman, made the case in a Tuesday post on X (Twitter).

“One of the most misunderstood $MSTR metrics is BTC Breakeven ARR. If BTC appreciates faster than 3.3% over time, BTC capital gains can fund $STRC dividends indefinitely.”

A companion chart from Strategy illustrates the trade-off. At zero Bitcoin growth, the reserve plus a $2.55 billion cash buffer covers about 31 years of payments, per the company’s dashboard. The buffer alone funds roughly 17 months.

BTC capital gains fund STRC credit dividends. Source: MicroStrategyThe pitch leans on a real track record. MicroStrategy has paid 23 consecutive preferred distributions totaling over $693 million since early 2025, per its Q1 release.

Critics Question the Bitcoin Dividend MathThe model assumes obligations stop compounding, and so far, they have not. Preferred dividends hit $229.5 million in the first quarter of 2026, up from $10.6 million a year earlier. Preferred equity outstanding has swelled past $13.5 billion.

Skeptics also doubt the funding side. JPMorgan recently warned that Strategy’s Bitcoin sales policy could add up to $1.25 billion in sell pressure. On-chain data already pointed to a new Bitcoin sale of 491 BTC on July 1, which was later confirmed to be 7x bigger.

Meanwhile, STRC paid an 11.5% annualized rate in May yet trades below its $100 par target. Preferred holders still price in risk despite the low breakeven hurdle.

STRC Price. Source: StrategyWhether 3.3% proves a low bar depends on Bitcoin reclaiming its long-term trend, with the price down nearly 49% from its October peak.

However, coming payments may reveal how much of the burden falls on BTC sales rather than capital gains.

Prediction market platform Polymarket has announced support for instant, self-custodial deposits via the Bitcoin Lightning Network, with the new feature backed by the Spark Protocol. Compared to prior on-chain deposit methods that required waiting for 3 to 6 block confirmations and took 10 to 60 minutes, the new solution delivers near-instant settlement while lowering deposit barriers and transaction costs. According to details, Spark can conduct checks for double-spend risks, transaction fees, and Replace-by-Fee (RBF) at the time of transaction broadcast, enabling "zero-confirmation" posting. It also supports on-chain, Lightning Network, and stablecoin payment rails, removing the need for the platform to operate its own Lightning Network nodes. Polymarket noted that this step will further boost Bitcoin users' capital efficiency and strengthen its competitiveness against rival Kalshi.

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Billionaire Grantham is bearish on SpaceX: 90% probability of eventual collapse, casts doubt on the AI and Mars narratives.

Billionaire investor Jeremy Grantham, long renowned for warning of asset bubbles, has publicly cast doubt on SpaceX’s current roughly $2 trillion valuation, claiming the company’s AI business, Mars program, and long-term growth thesis all carry major flaws. He stated his "90% bet" is that SpaceX will eventually face a historic collapse. Grantham called it "incredible" that SpaceX attributed around 90% of its addressable market to AI in its IPO prospectus, adding that its AI products lack competitiveness compared to those of OpenAI and Anthropic. Still, mainstream Wall Street institutions remain broadly optimistic about SpaceX. With the company officially added to the NASDAQ-100 Index, it is expected to draw more passive capital inflows. Several investment banks including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley have issued positive ratings, noting that Starship, Starlink, and its AI business will serve as core drivers of future growth.

4 minutes ago

Tether burned 2.5 billion USDT on Ethereum in a single day, marking the largest single-day burn since February.

CryptoQuant cited on-chain data, reporting that on July 7, Tether Treasury burned $2.5 billion worth of USDT on the Ethereum network. This marks the largest single burn on the network since February this year, exceeding the $2 billion burn on May 8, and second only to the all-time high of $3.5 billion recorded on February 10. Meanwhile, the USDT balance flowing into and out of Binance via the Tron network dropped to roughly $806 million, its lowest level since December 29, 2025 (when it hit $391 million), falling below the $1 billion threshold and signaling a significant contraction in USDT liquidity on Binance’s Tron channel. The large-scale burn by Tether Treasury primarily reflects redemption, fund management, or cross-chain rebalancing operations rather than a direct market signal. However, the synchronized contraction of Ethereum’s USDT supply and Binance’s Tron liquidity is worth ongoing monitoring, as market participants will watch whether the liquidity of dual-chain stablecoins continues this concurrent tightening trend.

4 minutes ago

CASHCAT's market cap briefly topped $98 million, surging over 11-fold in 24 hours.

According to GMGN market data, the market capitalization of CASHCAT, a meme coin on Robinhood’s chain, has continued its rally, briefly crossing $98 million before pulling back to $92.47 million, surging over 11 times in 24 hours. CASHCAT was originally the mascot of Robinhood’s U.S. stock app before being rebranded as Robinhood. On July 1 this year, Robinhood launched its own Layer 2 (L2) public chain, Robinhood Chain, focusing on on-chain finance and real-world assets (RWA). Vlad Tenev, co-founder and CEO of Robinhood, posted on X today that while the company is building Robinhood Chain into the best public chain for real-world assets (RWA), it is also “very suitable for trading meme coins.” BlockBeats reminds users that most meme coins have no intrinsic value and are highly volatile, so trading them requires caution.

4 minutes ago

Iran announces its initial response to the US: Strikes 85 key US military facilities

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of Iran issued a statement accusing the U.S. of repeating its treacherous habitual practices, claiming U.S. forces launched airstrikes on multiple coastal bases and civilian facilities in Hormozgan Province and the Mahshahr coastal region in the early hours of today, blatantly violating the ceasefire agreement and trampling on the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding. In an initial response to the aggression, the IRGC Navy and Aerospace Force conducted a joint missile and drone operation, destroying 85 key U.S. military facilities located at Salman Port, the U.S. 5th Fleet base in Bahrain, and Kuwait’s Ali Al Salem Air Base. An enemy MQ-9 drone that attempted to interfere in the operation was also shot down. Separately, U.S. President Donald Trump posted a video titled "U.S. Strikes Iran" on social media, which showed ground targets being hit, with flames and smoke rising against the night sky. Trump provided no text commentary for the video, but later reposted it with a netizen’s post attached. The post read: "Breaking News: Massive Strikes on Iran." Earlier U.S. sources reported that Trump, who was attending the NATO summit in Turkey, had approved the plan to strike Iran and issued the strike order.

4 minutes ago

US CFTC sues crypto commodity pool operator Trevor Vernon, alleging $14.8 million in investment fraud.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sued Trevor Vernon and his company Argent Capital Management, accusing them of operating a commodity pool involving stock index futures, options, and crypto assets from March 2022 to February 2026. They raised approximately $14.8 million from at least 60 investors while falsely advertising investment performance, allegedly committing investment fraud. The CFTC stated that the related trades caused investors to lose over $8.6 million. Vernon not only concealed the losses but is also suspected of misappropriating around $3 million to pay returns to investors, with the operation being "similar to a Ponzi scheme", and embezzled $136,000 for private air travel. The regulator also noted that the trades involved commodities such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, and requested the court to order them to cease relevant trading and registration activities, as well as recover illegal proceeds, impose civil penalties, and compensate investors.

4 minutes ago

Despite the plunge in chip stocks, global institutions are snapping up SK Hynix ahead of its blockbuster Nasdaq listing.

SK Hynix’s roughly $28 billion American Depositary Receipt (ADR) offering was oversubscribed several times ahead of pricing, with around 1,000 institutional investors taking part in roadshows, drawing strong subscriptions from global long-term funds and tech investors. If completed smoothly, the offering will rank among the largest U.S. listings by a foreign company, with the chipmaker set to debut on the Nasdaq Global Select Market this Friday. Despite recent sharp volatility in the global semiconductor sector, SK Hynix’s stock has declined around 17% this month, yet institutional subscription enthusiasm has not been materially impacted. Market observers note that U.S. investors have relatively limited investment access to the South Korean memory chip leader, and the scarcity premium plus long-term growth prospects tied to AI remain key supports for the offering. Jung In-yoon, CEO of Fibonacci Asset Management Global, said market volatility “may affect short-term investor sentiment or execution timelines, but I would be surprised if it materially disrupts the transaction itself. Unless market conditions deteriorate significantly from here, the pricing impact should be manageable.”

4 minutes ago

Tue, 7/07/2026 - 20:30

Clearstream, the major European post-trade services provider and subsidiary of the Deutsche Börse Group, is doubling down on its digital asset strategy by expanding its institutional cryptocurrency custody offering.

Clearstream, the major European post-trade services provider and subsidiary of the Deutsche Börse Group, has expanded its cryptocurrency custody footprint. 

The firm has announced the addition of a roster of new cryptocurrencies, including the Ripple-linked XRP, Stellar (XLM), Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL), Litecoin (LTC), and Avalanche (AVAX). These new digital assets join Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH). 

According to the firm, this expansion caters to the growing demand for MiCA-compliant (Markets in Crypto-Assets) digital assets within institutional finance.

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Initial entry into crypto Clearstream is one of the world's largest settlement and custody firms. It provides infrastructure securities across 60 different markets.

In early 2025, the Deutsche Börse Group announced that Clearstream would begin offering crypto custody and settlement services to its institutional clients.

The launch, which officially went live in April 2025, was made possible via an internal partnership. Clearstream used Crypto Finance (another entity within the Deutsche Börse Group that had recently secured a highly coveted MiCAR license) as its sub-custodian. 

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This structure made it possible for Clearstream to rely on Crypto Finance's expertise while maintaining strict regulatory compliance across Europe.

As mentioned above, the original offering was strictly limited to the two largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization: Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Clients of Clearstream’s International Central Securities Depository (ICSD) were able to use their existing accounts in Clearstream Banking S.A. (Luxembourg) to access cryptocurrency custody and settlement.

The most recent additions show that the firm is doubling down on crypto. 

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Strike’s new volatility-proof Bitcoin loans shift price risk from borrowers onto the lender’s capital providers. Tether supplies the $2.1 billion credit facility behind the program and co-designed the loan structure itself. A proposed merger would fold Strike, Twenty One Capital, and miner Elektron Energy into one Tether-linked platform. The combined stack covers every core banking function except the safety net regulated banks carry. The headline this week belongs to Strike. On July 7 the company launched Bitcoin-backed loans with no margin calls and no price liquidations, promising that collateral stays untouched no matter how far Bitcoin falls, as long as borrowers keep paying. Most coverage stopped there. The more consequential story sits one layer down, with the entity actually carrying the risk. A loan that never liquidates on price means somebody holds undercollateralized debt through every drawdown, and that somebody, directly and indirectly, is Tether. The merger proposal from April read as corporate maneuvering at the time. Yesterday’s launch is what it looks like in production: a stablecoin issuer assembling deposits, credit, energy, mining, and capital markets into a working bank for the Bitcoin economy. No banking license. No central bank behind it. No deposit insurance in front of it.

The loan Strike sells, the risk Tether keeps Strike’s volatility-proof structure only works with deep pockets behind it. A borrower posts $100,000 in BTC at the product’s 45% loan-to-value cap and takes $45,000 in cash. If Bitcoin then falls 60% and stays there, the collateral covers about $40,000 against a $45,000 debt. A conventional crypto lender would have sold at 85% LTV. This one waits, holding the shortfall until repayment or maturity.

That patience is a balance-sheet luxury, and the balance sheet providing it is not Strike’s. Jack Mallers announced a $2.1 billion credit facility that he said gives the company capacity to meet demand at any order size, and Tether co-developed the volatility-proof loan structure itself. Even Strike’s proof-of-reserves system, which lets borrowers verify their collateral at a segregated on-chain address, was built with Tether’s help. Strike originates and services. Tether underwrites the tail risk. Traditional finance has a name for this division of labor: the originator model, the same architecture mortgage banks run with their warehouse lenders.

Six of seven banking functions, already in place Take the classic functions of a commercial bank and check them against what Tether now touches. The gaps are few.

Banking function Tether’s version Scale Deposits USDT in circulation Largest stablecoin by supply Lending Own CeFi loan book + Strike credit facility $2.1B facility; top-3 CeFi lender Payments & custody Strike (proposed merger) 95+ countries Reserves / treasury Twenty One Capital BTC treasury Top-tier corporate BTC holder Physical infrastructure Elektron Energy mining (proposed merger) ~50 EH/s, ~5% of network hashrate Capital markets Planned securitization arm Loan-book and mining revenue debt Lender of last resort None – Tether Investments published a proposal to merge Twenty One Capital with Strike and Elektron Energy, a mining operator managing roughly 50 EH/s, about 5% of Bitcoin’s network hashrate, into a single listed platform integrating treasury holdings, mining, financial services, lending, and capital markets. Mallers endorsed it from the stage at Bitcoin 2026. “Simply put, I think it’s a great idea,” he said, adding that his founding goal was always a Bitcoin company rather than a payments app.

Terms and timelines remain undisclosed, but the machinery is moving: in June, Tether designated an additional independent director to XXI’s board to restore the audit committee to SEC and NYSE independence standards, the kind of housekeeping that precedes a transaction, not one that follows a dead deal.

Mallers described an operation built around loan-book securitization, mining revenue securitization, Bitcoin-backed debt, and structured products. Packaging loans into securities and selling them onward is how banks recycle capital and lend beyond their own balance sheets. Nobody in crypto has run that machine at size. A merged Tether-Strike entity would be the first with both the origination volume and the distribution to try.

Three lenders now hold 89% of a market that used to have ten The crypto credit market recovered from 2022 with far fewer players. According to Galaxy Research data, the three largest centralized lenders, Tether among them alongside Galaxy and Ledn, hold combined loan books of $9.9 billion, close to 89% of the CeFi lending market. Tether sits at the top of that group with its own book, and now also funds the most aggressive product structure in the industry through Strike.

The pre-collapse era looked different. Celsius, BlockFi, Voyager, and Genesis competed for the same borrowers, and when they fell, the survivors absorbed the clients and the market kept functioning. The 2026 market has no such redundancy. One dominant creditor now stands behind deposits (USDT), wholesale credit (the Strike facility), and soon, if the merger completes, a meaningful slice of the mining hardware securing the network itself. Bank supervisors have a term for an institution whose failure would cascade through every layer of its system. Crypto has quietly grown one without anyone signing off on the designation.

To be fair to the other side of the ledger: Tether reports billions in annual profit from reserve yields, which gives it more loss-absorbing capacity than any pre-2022 crypto lender ever had. The company can genuinely afford to sit on underwater loans through a bear market. That is exactly what makes the no-liquidation promise credible today. It is also what makes the arrangement fragile in the one scenario that counts. A shock hitting Tether itself, whether from reserves, regulation, or redemption pressure, would now propagate simultaneously into stablecoin markets, the CeFi loan book, Strike’s borrowers, and a mining fleet. Banks carry deposit insurance and central bank liquidity lines for precisely this correlation problem. This structure carries neither.

Ledn and Unchained now need a $2 billion backstop of their own For borrowers, none of this is visible. Loans get approved, Bitcoin stays put, and the plumbing behind the $2.1 billion never surfaces in the app. The market feels it differently. Competing lenders like Ledn and Unchained still run LTV-triggered liquidation models, and matching Strike’s no-liquidation terms would require a capital partner willing to eat drawdowns measured in years, not hours. Few candidates exist. The likely outcome is consolidation around whoever has the largest balance sheet, which is the opposite of what a market still scarred by 2022 says it wants.

Bitcoin’s spot price mechanics change too. Forced liquidations have amplified every major sell-off since 2018 by dumping collateral onto exchanges at the worst possible moment. Loans that never sell on price remove one of those feedback loops. The selling pressure does not vanish; it converts into credit exposure sitting on Tether-linked balance sheets, waiting.

The open question lands on regulators’ desks, not traders’ screens. U.S. stablecoin legislation focused on reserve quality and redemption rights, not on what an issuer’s investment arm does with its profits. Lending billions against volatile collateral through affiliated platforms sits outside that perimeter entirely, and European supervisors under MiCA face the same gap. The proposed merger, which would put Elektron founder Raphael Zagury in the president’s seat of a listed entity combining all these pieces, will eventually force a decision: at what point does the Bitcoin economy’s largest private creditor become subject to something resembling bank supervision, and who moves first, Washington or Brussels?

Source: Binance EN

This is a general announcement. Products and services referred to here may not be available in your region. Fellow Binancians, Starting at approximately 2026-07-08 15:00 (UTC), Binance will suspend the deposits and withdrawals of token(s) on the Metal DAO (MTL) network to support its network upgrade and hard fork to ensure the best user experience. The network upgrade and hard fork will take place at approximately 2026-07-08 16:00 (UTC). Please note: The trading of token(s) on the aforementioned network will not be impacted.Binance will handle all technical requirements involved for all users.Deposits and withdrawals for token(s) on the aforementioned network will be reopened once the upgraded network is deemed to be stable. No further announcement will be posted.There may be discrepancies between this original content in English and any translated versions. Please refer to the original English version for the most accurate information, in case any discrepancies arise. For more information, please refer to the announcement from the project team. Thank you for your support! Binance Team 2026-07-08

According to monitoring by OnchainLens, Circle has issued an additional 250 million USDC on the Solana blockchain. So far in 2026, Circle’s total USDC issuance on the Solana chain stands at $65.03 billion.

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Paradigm led M1X Global's seed round to advance sovereign debt tokenization infrastructure.

Crypto venture capital firm Paradigm has led the seed round financing of sovereign debt tokenization platform M1X Global, supporting its expansion of on-chain sovereign debt issuance and management capabilities. M1X Global’s core product, USDM1, is launched in partnership with the government of the Marshall Islands. It is a U.S. dollar-denominated sovereign debt instrument issued directly on public blockchains, backed by U.S. short-term Treasury securities at a 1:1 ratio, and governed by New York State’s legal framework to protect investors. The proceeds from this round will primarily be used to drive institutional adoption of USDM1, including its use as compliant collateral in scenarios such as repo, margin, and collateralized financing, as well as to deepen integrations with banks, custodians, and trading platforms. Earlier, M1X Global closed an oversubscribed $3 million angel round in March 2026, with investors including Balaji Srinivasan and others.

6 minutes ago

Trump pressures retailers to cut prices to fight inflation, demanding supermarkets lower beef prices.

According to a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report, the Trump administration recently directly pressured major U.S. supermarket chains including Walmart, Kroger, and Albertsons to cut beef prices during the Independence Day shopping peak, in an effort to ease food inflation. Walmart subsequently announced price cuts on thousands of items, with ground beef prices reduced by up to 12%. Trump then posted that Walmart had lowered prices "at the government's request" and called on other retailers to follow suit. This move is part of the Trump administration's measures to control inflation. In addition to pushing for food price cuts, Trump has previously called for lower gasoline prices, limits on credit card interest rates, and lower drug prices, aiming to ease voters' dissatisfaction with high prices ahead of the midterm elections. However, U.S. cattle herds are at their lowest level in 75 years, and tight supply continues to drive up beef prices. U.S. ground beef prices rose 12% year-on-year in May, indicating that food inflationary pressures have not been fully alleviated.

6 minutes ago

Binance will support the Metal DAO (MTL) network upgrade and hard fork.

Binance will suspend MTL network deposits and withdrawals at 15:00 UTC on July 8. The network upgrade and hard fork are scheduled to occur at 16:00 UTC. MTL spot trading will remain unaffected during the upgrade; deposits and withdrawals will resume once the upgrade is completed and the network stabilizes, with no further announcement to be issued on this matter.

6 minutes ago

Polymarket launches instant Bitcoin Lightning Network deposits, integrates Spark Protocol.

Prediction market platform Polymarket has announced support for instant, self-custodial deposits via the Bitcoin Lightning Network, with the new feature backed by the Spark Protocol. Compared to prior on-chain deposit methods that required waiting for 3 to 6 block confirmations and took 10 to 60 minutes, the new solution delivers near-instant settlement while lowering deposit barriers and transaction costs. According to details, Spark can conduct checks for double-spend risks, transaction fees, and Replace-by-Fee (RBF) at the time of transaction broadcast, enabling "zero-confirmation" posting. It also supports on-chain, Lightning Network, and stablecoin payment rails, removing the need for the platform to operate its own Lightning Network nodes. Polymarket noted that this step will further boost Bitcoin users' capital efficiency and strengthen its competitiveness against rival Kalshi.

6 minutes ago

JPMorgan Chase: Potential barriers to the merger between Tesla and SpaceX have been underestimated.

JPMorgan analyst Rajat Gupta stated that while a merger between Tesla and SpaceX "makes sense on paper", current speculation around the deal underestimates the potential hurdles that could derail it. These hurdles include cross-jurisdictional regulatory approvals, governance and voting rights symmetry, and the widespread view that the merger would be seen as an acquisition led by SpaceX rather than a merger of equals. He added: "Overall, we will monitor SpaceX's acquisition currency, the regulatory landscape, and Elon Musk's voting power at Tesla as potential catalysts for a possible merger." JPMorgan noted that if the transaction proceeds, the most likely structure would be an all-stock acquisition of Tesla led by SpaceX.

6 minutes ago

Strike launches volatility-resistant Bitcoin-collateralized loans, eliminating the margin call mechanism.

Strike has launched a new "Volatility-Proof" Bitcoin mortgage product that eliminates margin calls and forced liquidations triggered by Bitcoin price declines. Jack Mallers noted that regardless of how much Bitcoin’s price drops, as long as borrowers make timely repayments, their pledged Bitcoin will not be liquidated due to price fluctuations. The new product features a maximum loan-to-value (LTV) ratio of 45%, a 6-month term, and an annual percentage rate (APR) ranging from roughly 10.7% to 14.2% — higher than Strike’s standard loan offerings. Should a borrower default, they must repay within 10 days or coordinate with the platform; otherwise, Strike retains the right to sell a portion of the Bitcoin collateral to cover the outstanding balance. The company added that the product is now available in most U.S. states, applicable for new loans, refinancing, and debt consolidation.

6 minutes ago

Moving stablecoins has always come with a hidden tax. You want to send $50 in USDC, and the network wants a cut in its native token, which you may or may not own. Sui just made that problem disappear, at least for stablecoin transfers.

On May 20, 2026, Sui Network activated a protocol-level feature that sets the gas cost for stablecoin peer-to-peer transfers to exactly zero. Not subsidized by a third party. Not abstracted away by a dApp. Zero, baked directly into the infrastructure.

The transfer cost is the same whether you’re moving $1 or $1,000,000.

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How it actually works The technical engine behind this is a new system called Address Balances. Rather than requiring users to hold SUI tokens to pay fees, the protocol absorbs the cost of stablecoin transfers at the network layer itself.

Sui’s fix is architectural, not cosmetic. That’s the distinction that separates it from gas abstraction solutions built at the wallet or application layer, which still rely on someone, usually a relayer or the app developer, paying the fee in the background.

Supported stablecoins at launch include USDC, USDsui, suiUSDe, USDY, FDUSD, AUSD, and USDB. Infrastructure provider Fireblocks is among the backers supporting the rollout.

The numbers are hard to ignore Within roughly five days of the feature going live, the network processed nearly $65 billion in stablecoin transfers. Sui’s cumulative stablecoin volume since early 2024 has already surpassed $2.27 trillion.

The SUI token responded accordingly, gaining approximately 5% following the announcement.

The risk worth watching is whether zero-cost transfers at the protocol level creates long-run sustainability questions for network economics. Gas fees, even small ones, have traditionally served as a spam deterrent and a revenue mechanism for validators. How Sui has structured the economics behind this feature, specifically who absorbs the cost and what prevents abuse at scale, will be worth watching as volume grows.

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

The sUSDe ARM is now open for external depositors.

The sUSDe ARM is the first ARM Vault deployed for a yield-bearing stablecoin. The same mechanism that has processed over $3B in volume across stETH and eETH now applies to Ethena’s sUSDe.

sUSDe Has a Redemption Path that Standard AMM Pools IgnoresUSDe is redeemable for its full USDe collateral value through Ethena's unstaking process. That creates a predictable secondary-market dynamic: sUSDe trades at a discount to its USDe backing on DEXs because the unstaking queue takes time, and that illiquidity premium reflects in sUSDe pricing.

In a standard stablecoin pool, that discount is captured by arbitrageurs. The LP earns a swap fee, and the spread leaves the system instead of going back to the liquidity providers that support it.

Unlike traditional AMMs, the sUSDe ARM routes the spread back to LPs.

When sUSDe trades at a discount on DEXs, the ARM sells its USDe liquidity for discounted sUSDe, initiates Ethena's unstaking process, and receives USDe when the redemption settles. When no arbitrage opportunity is present, idle USDe routes to Aave V3. The lending rate earns yield for ARM Vault depositors when arbitrage opportunities aren’t present.

That is the mechanism: redemption arbitrage when discounts are present, lending yield when they are not.

USDe Holders Earn Yield Without Taking Directional Exposure.Depositors earn from sUSDe/USDe arbitrage while holding a stablecoin-denominated position. The current trailing 30-day APY is 4.6%. Yield is tied to market conditions: wider sUSDe discounts produce higher spreads and stronger LP returns.

At minimum, idle capital earns Aave V3 lending rates between arbitrage cycles.

Every ARM Cycle Brings sUSDe Closer to Fair Value.The ARM's arbitrage doubles as peg support: it absorbs sUSDe whenever it trades below redemption value, deepening liquidity and reinforcing the peg to USDe. For sUSDe holders across the Ethena ecosystem, that means tighter secondary-market pricing and reduced friction when exiting to USDe.

The ARM Framework Extends Beyond Liquid StakingThe stETH and eETH ARMs demonstrated that routing the arbitrage value to LPs, rather than external arbitrageurs, produces stronger capital efficiency than standard AMM pools. The sUSDe ARM applies the same logic to a stablecoin market.

LSTs, LRTs, yield-bearing stablecoins, and RWAs all share the same structural dynamic: a primary-market redemption value that secondary markets price around. The sUSDe ARM is the first stablecoin deployment of this framework.

The sUSDe ARM is now open to the public.

Explore the sUSDe ARM → https://app.originprotocol.com/#/arm/1:ARM-sUSDe-USDe

Ondo Finance Opens Permissionless Derivatives Access to Global Traders@OndoFinance has officially launched @OndoPerps, a perpetual futures platform purpose-built for tokenized real-world assets (RWAs). The platform offers round-the-clock trading on a range of popular US equities and commodities, including $NVDA, $TSLA, and $XAU, with leverage of up to 20x available to eligible users.

The platform targets non-US users worldwide, offering 24/7 trading of perpetual futures on prominent US equities and ETFs with leverage up to 20x. Due to regulatory considerations, the platform is available exclusively to users outside the United States.

The launch is notable for its collateral structure. It lets non-US users trade major US stocks, ETFs, and commodities around the clock with leverage, using tokenized securities themselves as collateral. This departs from the industry norm, where most decentralized derivatives platforms rely on stablecoins such as USDC for margin. The system also supports cross-collateralization: a basket of different tokenized securities can collectively back a single perpetual position, giving traders more flexibility in how they allocate margin.

A First for Decentralized DerivativesOndo describes the platform as the first perpetual trading platform specifically designed for real-world assets. The structural significance lies in the collateral model. By allowing tokenized stocks to serve as margin directly, Ondo aims to keep more capital deployed inside the ecosystem rather than sitting idle in stablecoin balances waiting for a trade.

At launch, Ondo Perps supports perpetual futures on a broad lineup of assets, including AAPL, AMD, AMZN, COIN, GOOGL, META, MSFT, MSTR, NFLX, NVDA, ORCL, PLTR, QQQ, TSLA, XAU, and XAG. More stocks, funds, and commodities are planned for future additions, expanding the platform's coverage over time.

The launch builds on Ondo's broader dominance in the tokenized asset space. Its tokenized stock platform, Ondo Global Markets, holds more than 70% market share among tokenized equity issuers, according to RWA.xyz. That platform crossed $1 billion in total value locked on May 11, which Ondo said made it the first tokenized stock platform to hit the mark in under eight months, with TVL having doubled since January 2026.

According to CEO Ian De Bode, Ondo Finance is positioning itself to move beyond its original focus on asset tokenization, with ambitions to broaden into trading services, prime brokerage, and asset management, building a comprehensive blockchain-based financial infrastructure.

Sources
TheStreet Crypto: Ondo is bringing leveraged stock trading on-chain with Ondo Perps
CoinSpot: Ondo Finance prepares to launch Perps for the RWA market
Metaverse Post: Ondo Finance to launch Ondo Perps, a perpetual trading platform for tokenized RWAs

Japan's SBI Holdings has crossed 2 million registered accounts on its crypto exchange platform, a milestone that reflects both deliberate corporate strategy and a broader shift in how Japanese retail investors are engaging with digital assets.

A Milestone Shaped by Consolidation and Loyalty Programs The 2 million figure was recorded on July 6, and it was not achieved through organic growth alone. The round figure was formed through the merger of accounts from the VCTRADE and BITPOINT platforms following SBI's April acquisition of BITPoint Japan. That deal accelerated a push that SBI's management had been building through a series of crypto reward programs tied to its broader financial product suite.

At the center of that push is $XRP. SBI Holdings distributed $XRP to its own shareholders as a formal shareholder benefit, a program renewed in 2026 with distributions beginning May 1, effectively reaching hundreds of thousands of Japanese retail investors. The tiers are modest but deliberate: shareholders holding 100 to 999 shares receive 500 yen worth of $XRP, while investors with 1,000 or more shares may receive up to 1,000 yen in $XRP depending on their holding period.

The rewards do not stop at share ownership. In February 2026, SBI issued a blockchain-based bond worth 10 billion yen, approximately $64.5 million, that rewarded retail investors with $XRP alongside fixed interest payments. Separately, SBI Shinsei Bank launched a pilot program on June 10, 2026, that lets depositors redeem 20% of their deposit interest as vouchers for cryptocurrencies, including $BTC and $XRP, targeting around 4.33 million eligible accounts.

Yen Weakness and the Search for Alternative Assets The timing of this retail crypto surge is not coincidental. A sustained weakening of the Japanese yen has pushed both corporations and individual savers to look beyond traditional yen-denominated instruments. Japanese firms are not accumulating $BTC and $XRP for classic exchange speculation, but for a new national practice in which corporations include cryptocurrency in their shareholder loyalty programs.

SBI Holdings has maintained close ties with Ripple since 2016 and remains one of its largest external shareholders, with an estimated 9% equity stake. That relationship now underpins a financial infrastructure stack spanning tokenized securities, stablecoin distribution, and payment corridors. SBI VC Trade began distributing Ripple's U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin, RLUSD, in Japan on March 31, 2026, following Japan's revised Payment Services Act.

SBI's ambitions in the domestic exchange market are clear. The conglomerate's goal is to overtake historical competitors by client base, including Coincheck, which still leads with 2.62 million accounts, and to build a full-fledged on-chain ecosystem anchored around Ripple and XRP Ledger technologies.

Sources
Crypto Briefing: SBI VC Trade surpasses 2M registered accounts as Japanese firms use Bitcoin and XRP for loyalty programs
U.Today: Japanese Firms Accumulate More Bitcoin and XRP Amid Yen Drop, SBI Reports
DL News: Japanese securities giant to issue $65 million worth of XRP-paying blockchain bonds

As financial infrastructure providers turn to blockchain-based solutions to overhaul cross-border payments, the institutional use of stablecoins is rapidly expanding. The latest example is Nuvion’s integration of Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin into its global banking and payments platform.

Unified access to fiat and digital assets via a single APIBy adding RLUSD to its AI-powered platform, Nuvion aims to deliver faster reconciliation to corporations and fintech firms. With this integration, users can seamlessly access blockchain-enabled payment flows without disconnecting from traditional financial infrastructure.

The inclusion of RLUSD marks another step in broadening Nuvion’s unified finance platform. Now, businesses can transition between fiat currencies and digital assets through a single API, enabling the use of various payment channels within the same ecosystem.

Mini glossary: RLUSD is a stablecoin developed by Ripple, designed with regulatory compliance in mind. XRPL is the open-source blockchain network in Ripple’s ecosystem, focusing on digital asset transfers.

Cross-border payments have long struggled with issues such as redundant intermediary banks, high transaction costs, delayed transfers, and limited transparency. These challenges can put pressure on company cash flows, complicate treasury management, and slow the pace of international trade.

Accelerating settlement for institutional paymentsNuvion believes that integrating RLUSD could help alleviate many of these pain points. The company’s solution aims to offer near real-time settlement, more efficient liquidity management, and blockchain-based payment options tailored for institutional use.

Nuvion CEO Keisha Clark explained that the future of global payments is real-time, programmable, and borderless, and that RLUSD integration will enable businesses to access faster settlements, greater flexibility, and modern financial services through a unified platform.

With this expanded platform, businesses can manage treasury operations across multiple currencies and embed stablecoin payments directly into their applications—without having to set up their own blockchain infrastructure. This approach may simplify payment processes and reduce technical burdens for enterprises.

Ripple strengthens RLUSD role in institutional paymentsThe partnership also supports Ripple’s strategy to promote RLUSD in enterprise payment networks. Ripple, a financial technology leader in digital payment solutions, focuses on using blockchain infrastructure for cross-border transfers.

RLUSD can be utilized on both the XRP Ledger and Ethereum networks, providing companies with access to multiple blockchain ecosystems while supporting greater liquidity in Ripple’s digital payments network.

Regulatory-compliant stablecoins are standing out as key instruments bridging the gap between traditional finance and blockchain, especially as demand grows for faster, more efficient global transactions.

Nuvion’s RLUSD integration is viewed as a significant step toward continuous, compliance-focused, and programmable networks for corporate payment infrastructure. This transformation is expected to improve payment flows in cross-border trade.

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.

In This Article Korea's XRP Ripple Premium Is Structural, Not AccidentalWhale Activity and Exchange Outflows Back the Retail StoryXRP Price Context: Recovery in Progress, Global Volume Softer XRP Ripple has reclaimed the top spot on Upbit, South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, with $52.33M in 24-hour trading volume, outpacing Bitcoin at $42.14M and Ethereum at $24.30M on the same venue.

Roughly 10% of Upbit’s entire $493.74M daily crypto exchange volume was in XRP while the two largest coins by global market cap finished second and third.

(SOURCE: CoinGecko)

The gap matters because Bitcoin and Ethereum represent the default institutional benchmarks for crypto demand. When XRP trading volume overtakes both on a major regulated exchange, it is a signal that Korean retail capital is rotating toward the token with intention, not just chasing a news headline.

Even with XRP dominating trading volume in South Korea, the token is trading at $1.13, down -1.4% over the past 24 hours, with overall daily trading volume at just over $1.71Bn.

Korea’s XRP Ripple Premium Is Structural, Not Accidental The current volume snapshot fits a pattern that has been building for years. According to Upbit’s own disclosure, XRP was the exchange’s largest digital asset by cumulative trading volume in 2025, surpassing $1 trillion in trading volume on the platform and exceeding Bitcoin’s total.

Ryan Yoon, an analyst at Tiger Research cited by Investing.com, attributes the sustained dominance to South Korean retail investors, particularly those in their 40s and 50s, rotating capital out of domestic and US equities and back into crypto, with XRP as their primary target.

Earlier this year, XRP trading volume on Upbit surged 289% in a single hour during a momentum window, compared to a 128% increase on Binance over the same period.

The divergence illustrates just how sensitive the Korean crypto market is to XRP price catalysts relative to global venues. PANews reports that approximately 15% of global XRP trading volume now originates from South Korea.

DISCOVER: Best Meme Coin ICOs to Invest in 2026

Whale Activity and Exchange Outflows Back the Retail Story 🚨🚨🚨Something interesting is happening with $XRP liquidity.

Upbit just took the top spot in XRP trading volume, beating Binance, Coinbase, and every other global exchange on the heatmap.

Liquidity is positioning before headlines catch up.

Why is South Korea betting on $XRP? pic.twitter.com/OG61uKXEo1

— X Finance Bull (@Xfinancebull) March 8, 2026

The volume data is one half of the picture. The other is where the coins go after they are traded. In May, an unidentified investor withdrew 6.3 million XRP from Upbit in a single transaction.

Around the same time, on-chain data tracked by CoinGlass showed whale investors, large holders whose moves can shift market structure, pulled $135M worth of XRP off exchanges in a single week.

Exchange outflows, where coins move from trading platforms into private wallets, are a standard on-chain metric (a measure derived directly from blockchain transaction data) interpreted as accumulation rather than selling preparation.

Data from CoinGlass shows net XRP outflows from exchanges totaled $30.38M over the past seven days and $147.50M over the past month.

That combination, high spot trading volume on Upbit alongside sustained net outflows globally, suggests two distinct buyer cohorts: active Korean retail traders on one side and longer-horizon accumulators on the other.

EXCLUSIVE: Earn $10 USDC Via Binance Sign-Up

XRP Price Context: Recovery in Progress, Global Volume Softer The "3rd Retest" would be a gift 🎁 $XRP https://t.co/VaSUr4R1OR pic.twitter.com/kRbJ4Sc36Z

— 🇬🇧 ChartNerd 📊 (@ChartNerdTA) July 6, 2026

On the XRP Ripple price, the token bottomed at $1.01 during last month’s broader market selloff before recovering to approximately $1.14, a 12.87% rebound. Over the past week, it is up +8%, with a -1.4% loss in the most recent 24-hour window. XRP’s current market capitalization is roughly $77Bn, ranking it sixth among cryptocurrencies globally.

One counterpoint worth flagging: global XRP trading volume over the same 24-hour period fell 31% to approximately $1.21Bn. The strength on Upbit is therefore a Korean-specific phenomenon running against a softer global backdrop, not a uniform global surge.

That divergence reinforces the argument that domestic Korean crypto market dynamics, retail rotation, KRW liquidity depth, and Ripple’s longstanding relationships with Korean remittance providers are doing the heavy lifting.

Institutional demand is also building alongside the retail story. XRP-linked ETFs have attracted over $1.21Bn in cumulative inflows globally, according to data cited by TradingView, while Bitcoin and Ether spot ETFs recorded net outflows over the same period.

That institutional channel may eventually decouple XRP’s Korean spot activity from pure retail sentiment and anchor it to a broader demand base.

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Bitcoin and Ethereum supplies on exchanges are reported to be near their lowest levels since 2017 and 2015, respectively, according to Santiment. This development suggests a significant shift of these digital assets away from centralized platforms into long-term holdings, staking, and decentralized finance options. The decrease in exchange supplies could be indicative of reduced sell-side liquidity, potentially leading to increased price pressures if demand remains strong. Market participants appear to view this trend as consistent with long-term holding patterns and institutional accumulation.

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Key Takeaways Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange supplies are at historic lows, suggesting reduced sell-side liquidity. Market activity implies a shift toward long-term holding and institutional accumulation for both assets. Pricing suggests participants view this supply squeeze as potentially increasing upward price pressures on Bitcoin and Ethereum. What to Watch Market observers will be closely monitoring any changes in Bitcoin and Ethereum’s demand dynamics, as continued strong demand could amplify price increases. Key indicators include institutional investment flows, particularly through ETFs and staking platforms. Additionally, regulatory developments and technological upgrades within the Ethereum network could further impact market pricing, as seen with previous major updates such as The Merge.

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Term Structure

Contract Odds Δ since publish Volume 24h December 31, 2026 1.2% — — View market → December 31, 2026 2.6% — — View market → December 31, 2026 3% — — View market → December 31, 2026 4.2% — — View market → December 31, 2026 5.5% — — View market → January 1 2027 11.5% — — View market → January 1 2027 17.5% — — View market → January 1 2027 2.1% — — View market → January 1 2027 2.5% — — View market → January 1 2027 4.5% — — View market → January 1 2027 4.5% — — View market → January 1 2027 7.5% — — View market → January 1 2027 67.6% — — View market → January 1 2027 11% — — View market → January 1 2027 3.9% — — View market → January 1 2027 22% — — View market → January 1 2027 44% — — View market →

Tether Backs Mercado Bitcoin With $20 Million@Tether has led a $20 million strategic financing round in Mercado Bitcoin, the São Paulo-based digital asset platform, to accelerate the build-out of on-chain financial infrastructure across Latin America. The deal signals a broader push by Tether to deploy capital into emerging-market blockchain rails, following a string of similar investments in recent months.

The funding will support the migration of payments, credit, and capital markets onto blockchain infrastructure. Mercado Bitcoin brings an established footprint to the partnership: the platform serves over 4 million clients across 12 years of operation, operates as a cryptocurrency exchange, asset tokenization company, and digital bank, and is Brazil's first crypto unicorn. According to the original announcement, the user base has since grown to 4.5 million.

Regulatory Licenses and Tokenized Asset AmbitionsA key part of the investment rationale is Mercado Bitcoin's regulatory standing. The company holds over 10 licenses across Brazil and Europe, including a Payment Institution license from the Banco Central do Brasil, giving it a regulated framework from which to offer on-chain financial products at scale.

The capital also supports R2B, Mercado Bitcoin's tokenized asset issuance arm. Since launching its asset tokenization unit, MB Tokens, the São Paulo-based exchange has issued more than 340 tokenized products, including tokenized private credit, fixed-income instruments, and revenue-sharing products. The platform ranks as the number one real-world asset token issuer in Brazil and fifth globally.

The investment fits a broader pattern for Tether. Tether Investments functions as an independent arm, deploying capital from Tether's profits into technology and infrastructure. The stablecoin issuer has been active across several deals in 2026, directing funds into Bitcoin infrastructure and financial services platforms globally.

For Mercado Bitcoin, fresh capital from one of the digital asset industry's most prominent names adds both funding and credibility as it competes to position Latin America as a leading region for regulated, on-chain finance. The tokenization of real-world assets is projected to surge from approximately $0.6 trillion in 2025 to nearly $19 trillion by 2033, according to a report by Ripple and Boston Consulting Group.

Sources:
CoinDesk: Mercado Bitcoin to Tokenize $200M in Real-World Assets
Tether.io: Tether Investments Strategy Overview

Zcash developers are using formal verification to mathematically prove the correctness of the Ironwood network upgrade and shielded pool to rule out undetectable counterfeiting bugs after a recently disclosed vulnerability in Orchard exposed the limitations of relying on conventional code audits, as explained by developer and crypto researcher Sean Bowe in a Tuesday blog post.

Ironwood is designed to address a flaw discovered in the Orchard shielded pool and restore confidence in the cryptocurrency’s supply integrity. The flaw was discovered by Shielded Labs researcher Taylor Hornby and patched before any known exploitation.

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According to the developers, undetectable counterfeiting can only arise from flaws in a protocol’s mathematical specification or from broken cryptographic assumptions, while implementation bugs always leave evidence that can be detected by replaying the blockchain with corrected software.

The team said its formal verification effort focuses on proving the correctness of Ironwood’s cryptographic specification rather than auditing implementation code, arguing this is sufficient to rule out undetectable counterfeiting bugs under standard cryptographic assumptions.

The work is being carried out with contributors from zkSecurity and the Zcash Open Development Lab using the Lean theorem prover alongside traditional audits and AI-assisted analysis.

Expected to activate this month, Ironwood will close the old shielded pool and launch a corrected replacement. Users will migrate funds through a “turnstile” mechanism designed to help demonstrate that no counterfeit ZEC entered circulation while eventually capping the amount of value remaining in Orchard.

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

NEAR Protocol just rewrote its economic rulebook. The protocol’s on-chain governance body, House of Stake, passed proposal HSP-027 between June 20 and 27, 2026, voting to eliminate the developer gas rebate entirely. Starting with a nearcore upgrade expected around August 2026, every eligible execution fee on the network will be burned rather than partially returned to smart-contract owners.

NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin confirmed the vote’s outcome, endorsing the shift toward full fee burns as a step in the right direction for the NEAR token’s long-term economics.

What was the rebate, and why kill it now? The 30% developer gas rebate let smart-contract owners reclaim a slice of the gas fees their contracts generated. The average rebate per contract fell from roughly 27.6 NEAR in June 2025 to just 1 to 5 NEAR per month by 2026.

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Proposal HSP-027, authored by NEAR One’s Anton Astafiev, made the case that the rebate had diluted to the point of irrelevance. No significant dissent was recorded during the discussion period.

The implementation timeline is tied to the nearcore v2.14 upgrade, currently scheduled for around August 2026. Until that upgrade ships, the existing rebate mechanics remain in place.

The deflationary mechanics behind the vote Under the old model, 30% of eligible execution fees were recycled back to contract developers. Under the new model, those same fees get burned, permanently removing NEAR from circulation.

What this means for developers and investors For developers currently building on NEAR, if your dApp was accounting for gas rebates as any part of its revenue model, that line item disappears when nearcore v2.14 ships. For most projects, 1 to 5 NEAR per month was barely worth the accounting overhead. The governance proposal acknowledged this, with the community framing the change as a push toward more sustainable business models.

HSP-027 passed without significant opposition. Watch the August nearcore v2.14 upgrade closely, as the on-chain burn data in the weeks following implementation will be the first real-world test of how much additional supply pressure the rebate removal generates.

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

Team1, the global community arm of the Avalanche ecosystem, has rolled out a new Builder Grants program designed to put money directly into the hands of early-stage builders. The program offers two tiers of funding: Mini Grants of up to $10,000 and Accelerator Grants that can reach $30,000.

The program launched on July 1, 2026.

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Two tiers, two different builders Mini Grants, capped at $10,000, target what Team1 calls “budding entrepreneurs.” Accelerator Grants step things up to $30,000 and come with a more rigorous selection process. A voting committee made up of both Avalanche insiders and community members decides who gets funded.

Team1’s growing role in Avalanche Team1 isn’t new to the Avalanche ecosystem, and it isn’t operating on a shoestring budget. The group received a $1.15 million grant from the Avalanche Foundation back in December 2024, funding that was earmarked for community support and operational expansion.

The organization now claims more than 450 members spread across over 40 countries. Its playbook includes events, workshops, and educational resources, all aimed at converting curious developers into active Avalanche builders.

What this means for the Avalanche ecosystem and investors The $1.15 million that the Avalanche Foundation invested in Team1 in late 2024 is now being recycled into direct builder support. For AVAX holders, more builders on Avalanche means more applications, which means more transactions, which means more demand for the network’s native token.

The limited external coverage of this initiative suggests Team1 is playing an inside game, focusing on converting its existing community of 450-plus members into active builders rather than making a splash for the broader crypto market.

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

In the run-up to a major release, Aqua, we have strengthened our leadership team by appointing a chief product and technology officer and a new head of product design.

As Chief Product and Technology Officer (CPTO), Holly Atkinson will focus on shaping product strategy to ensure that 1inch continues to innovate with its core routing infrastructure and successfully launches a new shared liquidity product, Aqua.

Holly brings experience across full-stack engineering, blockchain architecture, product development and executive leadership. Before joining 1inch, she worked as a Blockchain Architect at The Sandbox, led metaverse technology initiatives at Boson Protocol and began her Web3 career as a Full Stack Engineer at Tracr.

1inch also welcomes George Evans as Head of Product Design. George joins us with more than 15 years of experience building and leading design teams at companies including Careem, Noon and Majid Al Futtaim. At 1inch, he will lead the product design function, focusing on creating intuitive user experiences, strengthening design across the product portfolio and ensuring design plays a central role in product development.

These appointments come as we prepare for major product launches. Following recent major integrations, including the partnership with Robinhood Chain to expand access to tokenized real-world assets, we are preparing the public launch of Aqua, a shared liquidity protocol. 

As one of the company's most significant upcoming initiatives, Aqua is designed to address liquidity fragmentation across DeFi and contribute to the next generation of on-chain finance infrastructure.

Check out 1inch products.

Hyperliquid’s suite of spot ETFs just pulled in $112 million in a single week, setting a new record for the decentralized perpetual futures platform. The bulk of that capital flowed into Grayscale’s HYPG, a staking ETF that launched on June 3, 2026, and has already accumulated roughly $128.6 million in assets under management.

The numbers behind the HYPE Three ETFs currently offer exposure to Hyperliquid’s native HYPE token: 21Shares’ THYP, Bitwise’s BHYP, and Grayscale’s HYPG. All three launched between mid-May and early June 2026, and the early data is striking.

Combined cumulative net inflows topped $150 million within just the first month of trading. By mid-June, the trio had amassed roughly $209 million in total assets, representing about 1.4% of HYPE’s market cap.

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Trading volume across the three products surged to nearly $900 million. THYP and BHYP hit peak daily inflows of approximately $25.5 million around May 20-21, contributing to weekly records that exceeded $70 million before HYPG even entered the picture.

Not a single week of net outflows has been recorded across any of the three funds in early data. HYPE experienced an eight-day inflow streak in late May that coincided with the token’s price surging past the $62 to $73 range, with the token hitting multiple all-time highs and peaking somewhere between $60 and $75.

Why institutions are paying attention Grayscale’s HYPG charges a 0.29% management fee and offers staking rewards north of 2% annually, giving investors exposure to HYPE’s price action while earning yield through a regulated wrapper.

Hyperliquid itself runs on a custom Layer-1 blockchain with sub-second transaction finality. The platform built its reputation as the dominant venue for decentralized perpetual futures trading, but it’s been expanding into stocks and commodities.

During the same period that HYPE ETFs were setting records, Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs experienced outflows, with investors appearing to rebalance toward HYPE products for regulated exposure.

What this means for investors The $209 million in combined ETF assets representing only 1.4% of HYPE’s market cap suggests substantial room for growth if institutional adoption deepens, compared to Bitcoin ETFs where ETF holdings represent a significantly larger share of total supply.

Risks remain real. Hyperliquid’s platform concentration in derivatives trading means a single exploit or regulatory action could dent confidence quickly. The expansion into stocks and commodities adds another variable: if Hyperliquid successfully bridges traditional and crypto markets on a single infrastructure layer, the HYPE token’s value proposition grows considerably.

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

Source: Binance EN

This is a general announcement. Products and services referred to here may not be available in your region. Terms and conditions apply. Fellow Binancians, Binance Earn is excited to launch BTC Yield, a BTC-denominated yield strategy designed for long-term BTC holders. BTC Yield gives a simple way to seek weekly BTC income without actively trading options. BTC Yield is powered by options strategies – specifically, a covered call approach which aims to generate option premium by selling BTC call options. Simply subscribe with BTC in exchange for BTCY, maintain BTC-denominated exposure through BTCY, and become eligible for potential weekly BTC distributions. With competitive APY, large quotas, and direct access through Binance Earn, BTC Yield offers an intuitive way to capture returns from an institutional-grade strategy. Product Highlights: Weekly Distributions: The product seeks to automatically distribute BTC to your Spot Account every week.BTC-related exposure: Your BTCY holdings are BTC-denominated, maintaining BTC-denominated exposure.Professionally Managed Strategy: Executed by Binance team using a covered call strategy that continuously harvests option premiums as yield.Flexible Redemption: Supports both Fast Redemption and Scheduled Redemption (bi-weekly settlement) to meet different liquidity needs.Open-Ended Structure: No fixed maturity date. Yield Mechanism: Users subscribe with BTC in exchange for BTCY; principal and yield are settled in BTC upon redemption. The strategy systematically sells BTC call options and distributes the collected premiums as yield to holders. Realized option premiums each week may be distributed to BTC Yield holders in two ways: BTC Distribution: A portion of yield is automatically distributed weekly to the holder's Spot Account in BTC, proportional to their BTCY holdings. Strategy Value Appreciation: A portion of yield remains in BTC-denominated Yield and is reflected in the daily-updated value, so the BTC amount represented by each BTCY value increases over time. Risk Warning: BTC Yield is not principal-protected. The value of BTCY may fluctuate with market and strategy performance, and loss of your BTC principal is possible. BTC distributions are not guaranteed. How to Get Started: AppStep 1: Tap [More] on the App homepage.Step 2: Go to [Earn] > [BTC Yield].Step 3: Tap [Subscribe] and enter the amount of BTC to commit.Step 4: Read and agree to the terms and tap [Confirm].WebsiteStep 1: Navigate to the [Earn] section, select [Advanced Earn] and click [BTC Yield].Step 2: Click [Subscribe] and enter the amount of BTC to commit.Step 3: Read and agree to the terms and click [Confirm]. Important Risk Warning: BTC Yield is a high-risk product and is not principal protected. Users are exchanging their BTC for BTCY. The value of BTCY may rise or fall as denominated in BTC, and users may receive back less BTC than they originally allocated, including in some cases a significant loss of value or loss of the full amount allocated. Any weekly BTC distribution is not guaranteed and may be zero. BTC Yield uses a covered call strategy, which may limit participation in upward BTC price movements. As a result, BTC Yield may underperform a direct holding of BTC, particularly in strongly rising markets. The product may also be affected by market volatility, options pricing, execution factors, fees, costs and Binance’s valuation methodology. Redemptions of BTC Yield are subject to processing rules, valuation timing, liquidity, operational availability and possible delays. The BTC amount returned on exit is determined by the applicable valuation at the relevant processing time, not the value displayed when the request is submitted. Fast Exit or Scheduled Exit may be unavailable, delayed or subject to limits and fees. BTC Yield is an on-platform book-entry product. It is not an on-chain token, cannot be withdrawn off-platform and cannot be transferred to another user. Participation in BTC Yield also exposes users to Binance credit risk. In the event of Binance’s insolvency, operational failure, or if BTC Yield is suspended or discontinued, users may be unable to exit promptly or recover some or all of their allocated BTC. Users should read the BTCY Product Terms, FAQ, and General Risk Warning. BTC Yield Launch Promotion: Subscribe to BTC Yield with BTC and Share a 100,000 USDC Valued Prize Pool To celebrate the launch of BTC Yield, Binance Earn is running a limited-time exclusive campaign. Eligible users who hold BTCY during the Promotion Period will share a 100,000 USDC valued prize pool, to be allocated to a Discount Buy position. To clarify, rewards are in the form of, and will be automatically distributed, as a Discount Buy position to eligible users’ Earn Accounts. Promotion Period: 2026-07-07 08:00 (UTC) to 2026-07-21 23:59 (UTC) Reward Rules: During the Promotion Period, the system will automatically snapshot eligible users’ BTCY holding balance daily at 16:00 (UTC). After the Promotion Period ends, users will receive airdrop rewards in Discount Buy positions based on their daily average BTCY holding and the rewards structure and caps below. Reward Structure: Eligible Users’ BTCY Daily Average Holding of During the Promotion PeriodShared Prize Pool Amount (Equally Shared, Subject to a Per-User Cap)Per-User Cap0.5 BTCY ≤ Daily average holding < 1 BTCY15,000 USDC50 USDC1 BTCY ≤ Daily average holding < 10 BTCY40,000 USDC300 USDC10 BTCY ≤ Daily average holding < 30 BTCY20,000 USDC1,000 USDCDaily average holding ≥ 30 BTCY25,000 USDC2,500 USDC Reward Calculation: The prize pool for each tier will be equally shared, subject to the per-user cap, among all eligible users of that tier after the campaign ends. Every eligible user within the same tier will receive the same reward amount;Per-User Reward = Tier Prize Pool / Total Number of Eligible Users in that Tier, rounded down to the nearest whole unit;Per-User Cap: The reward for each eligible user in each tier is capped at the maximum reward amount specified in the table above.If the calculated per-user share exceeds the cap, each user will receive only the cap amount, and any remaining pool will not be further distributed.The more eligible users, the smaller each user's share; the fewer eligible users, the larger each user's share (up to the per-user cap).The final list of eligible users and per-user reward amount will be subject to platform verification, including a risk review of all qualifying accounts. Example 1 (below cap): If a tier's shared prize pool amount is 40,000 USDC, the per-user cap is 300 USDC, and 200 users are qualified, each user will receive 40,000 / 200 = 200 USDC (below the per-user cap, each user will receive the full amount).Example 2 (cap triggered): If a tier's prize pool is 25,000 USDC, the per-user cap is 2,500 USDC, and only 8 users are qualified, the calculated share would be 25,000 / 8 = 3,125 USDC, which exceeds the cap. Each user will therefore receive 2,500 USDC only (cap applied). Notes: Minimum Threshold: Users must maintain a daily average BTCY holding greater than or equal to (≥) 0.5 BTCY.Flexible Holding: Subscribe or redeem at any time during the Promotion Period; rewards are calculated based on the daily average of the snapshots.Account Aggregation: Holdings of the master account and its sub-accounts will be aggregated for calculation and are subject to a single reward cap; sub-accounts are not eligible for a separate allocation. Reward Distribution: Rewards will be automatically distributed as a Discount Buy position to eligible users’ Earn Accounts within 14 days (2026-08-04) after the Promotion Period ends.Disclaimer: Discount Buy is a high risk product and your position may go up or down resulting in you not getting back the amount invested. You may be required to trade at a less favourable rate on the Settlement Date. More Information: BTC Yield Product PageFrequently Asked Questions on BTC YieldBTC Yield Product Terms Terms and Conditions: These terms and conditions (“Activity Terms”) govern users’ participation in the activity above (“Activity”). By participating in this Activity, users agree to these Activity Terms, and the following additional terms: (a) Binance Terms and Conditions for Prize Promotions; (b) Binance Terms of Use; and (c) Binance Privacy Notice; all of which are incorporated by reference into these terms and conditions. In the case of any inconsistency or conflict between these Activity Terms, and any other incorporated terms, the provisions of these Activity Terms shall prevail, followed by the following in this order of precedence, and to the extent of such conflict: (a) Binance Terms and Conditions for Prize Promotions; (b) Binance Terms of Use; and (c) Binance Privacy Notice.Only users who complete identity verification and confirm their participation during the Promotion Period can qualify for rewards in the Promotion. The products or features referred to above may not be available in your region. Users are responsible for informing themselves about and observing any restrictions and/or requirements imposed with respect to the access to and use of Binance services in each country from which the services are accessed.Holdings of the master account and its sub-accounts shall be aggregated and subject to a single reward cap. Sub-accounts shall not be entitled to a separate allocation.The BTC Yield Terms apply.Binance reserves the right to disqualify a user’s reward eligibility if the account is involved in any dishonest behavior (e.g., wash trading, illegally bulk account registrations/logins, self dealing, or market manipulation). Binance further reserves the right to disqualify any participants who tamper with Binance program code, or interfere with the operation of Binance program code with other software.Binance reserves the right at any time in its sole and absolute discretion to determine and/or amend or vary these terms and conditions without prior notice, including but not limited to canceling, extending, terminating or suspending this Promotion, the eligibility terms and criteria, the selection and number of winners, and the timing of any act to be done, and all Participants shall be bound by these amendments. 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From its all-time high of $126,198 in October 2025, Bitcoin has fallen over 51% to its current price of slightly above $62,000.

Recent releases from three on-chain datasets that came out in quick succession paint a picture that goes beyond a simple price chart: this correction seems to be structurally distinct from the ones that came before it.

The Efficiency Problem Is Real, And It's Not Going Away

On July 1, Ki Young Ju, CEO of CryptoQuant, offered a comprehensive examination of capital efficiency over Bitcoin's cycles.

This research offers a different viewpoint on the idea that "Bitcoin still has 10x left" regarding its potential for growth.

The astounding return of 55,436% was the product of $2.7 billion in net inflows in 2011. A return of around 2,000% was achieved on an investment of $365 billion between 2018 and 2021.

A meager 689% gain has been produced by $697 billion in realised-cap growth in the current cycle.

An injection of about $5 million in fresh cash was necessary in 2011 to accomplish a doubling of the price. Currently, $101 billion is the anticipated sum needed.

It's time to reevaluate Bitcoin's essence, and that's not merely a minor point.

Institutional investors are now needed to make a dent in a market where millions used to be enough to make a dent.

Ju's analysis emphasizes how dire the situation is: Bitcoin needs to gain more than $1 trillion in fresh market capitalization to experience another parabolic leap.

This calls for seeing it as an essential macro allocation instead of just an ETF transaction aimed at ordinary investors.

The market value of gold is over $27 trillion.

About $1.3 trillion is the market capitalization of Bitcoin.

While the gap suggests a bright future, the difficulties in streamlining processes are to blame for the slower pace of development and higher capital needs compared to the plans for 2017 or 2021.

Even if the monetary quantities involved are historically unprecedented, the technical conclusion is that future rallies will look less steep in percentage terms when compared to the last one.

Some important mathematical discoveries were recently brought to light by CryptoQuant, which makes it difficult for anybody to predict if Bitcoin will maintain its 2017 percentage increases.

The Float Is Drying Up - And That Cuts Both Ways

There is a change on the supply side that is arguably more closely related to the present price fluctuations than the efficiency narrative.

A record high of 79% of the supply was held by long-term investors, according to a study published June 15 by K33 Research.

Furthermore, as of June 6, just 218,421 BTC that had been dormant for more than two years were activated, which is the lowest amount seen since the same date in 2012, when just 70,600 BTC had migrated.

During what K33 calls a distribution phase in June 2024, 1.18 million BTC were released from cold storage.

Contrarily, according to on-chain tracker Alphractal, the percentage of long-term holders has risen to 78% from 74% in the last cycle.

Also, in the past few months, some 830,000 BTC have been moved out of temporary wallets.

K33's Vetle Lunde argues that record holder concentration, low reactivation, and dropping trading volume are not signs of fresh selling forces but rather a tendency that usually emerges in the later stages of Bitcoin downturn markets.

Logic dictates that there will be fewer coins available for trade when over 80% of them are dormant.

So, because the order book isn't as strong, prices are more affected by any spike in demand, be it from institutions, individual investors, or ETFs.

The way one sees liquidity dynamics is rather bullish, but it doesn't show whether demand will come through or not.

Investments from ETFs, stablecoin growth, and institutional interest have not yet reached levels that would suggest a long-term recovery, and this is the key point that businesses like Bitfinex, Wintermute, and Glassnode have been stressing.

Although supply-side tightening is critical, it is not sufficient to ensure a market bottom on its own.

CoinDesk data from late June showed that long-term investors were holding almost 5.58 million BTC at a loss, which was the second-highest total ever recorded, second only to March 2020.

Despite this group's total percentage of supply continuing to expand, this occurs. In the same tales, one will find both confidence and hardship.

The P&L Signal: Fourth Time This Metric Has Flashed Since 2022

Among the data points published by CryptoQuant on July 3, the most recent and important aspect stands out.

The realized profit-and-loss ratio of Bitcoin has dropped to -0.35, the lowest level in 43 months.

This slump is reminiscent of December 2022, just after the FTX collapse, when BTC was worth less than $16,000.

Significant market rallies followed readings below -0.35 in 2015 and 2019, according to CryptoQuant's historical data.

This indicator shows how much of the total supply is now making money as opposed to losing money, as calculated on a realized basis.

Capitulation has already taken place, not that it is imminent; according to readings, this is negative.

Crucial is the context.

With a low of around $57,950 achieved on July 1, BTC hit its lowest price in 652 days. In the duration after, it saw a 7% bounce and is now trading between $61,000 and $63,000.

Adam Livingston of Swan Bitcoin points out that the current price of Bitcoin is just 16% higher than its realized value.

Returns of 41% for six months and 81% for twelve months have been achieved in the past thanks to this spread.

Matt Hougan, CIO of Bitwise, brought up the unwinding of Strategy's Stretch (STRC) preferred shares in a recent thread.

There were worries regarding the long-term viability of dividends connected to Michael Saylor's treasury concept when this stock dropped below its $100 par value to about $75 in June.

Instead of portending imminent stress, Hougan posited that this occurrence could have contributed to the system's elimination of unnecessary risk.

The market is currently assessing a clearly defined barrier.

Despite four separate tests this year, $60,000 support has remained strong, and centralized exchange inflows have remained around 50,000 BTC per day, suggesting a tendency of exhaustion rather than aggressive selling, whenever selling pressure has escalated.

If one looks at the daily and weekly charts, one could see a potential "W" reversal forming.

This would coincide with the lower Bollinger Band and show tiny fractal patterns inside the bigger framework, according to experienced technician John Bollinger.

If the price falls below $60,000, it will expose the realized-price region around $53,000, which proponents of the capitulation bottom argument must defend if it is to remain valid.

The Macro Overlay

All of these deals take place within a larger macro framework.

BlackRock's IBIT has led the way in redemptions, with spot Bitcoin ETFs marking their worst month since their launch in June, seeing net outflows of over $4.5 billion.

K33 reports that sales have slowed but have not yet translated into cash inflows.

The markets are still adjusting to the idea of a Federal Open Market Committee headed by Kevin Warsh, and the change in leadership at the Federal Reserve creates substantial uncertainty.

Interest rate policy has always been a major short-term driver for Bitcoin.

There has been a little reduction in the probability of rate rises following a June employment report that was disappointing, adding just 57,000 jobs instead of the expected 100,000+.

With the launch of meinKrypto by DZ Bank for Bitcoin trading and custody under MiCA and the preparations underway for a similar rollout by DekaBank across about 340 German savings banks, institutional plumbing is slowly but surely evolving at the periphery.

But this is more of a demand driver than a flow catalyst.

A future upward rise, should it materialize, will require far more institutional finance than earlier cycles to accomplish comparable percentage increases, according to the synthesis: declining capital efficiency.

The amount of accessible float to absorb that capital is more constrained than ever before due to record-long-term holder concentration.

The market has probably taken a lot of surrender into consideration, as the P&L reading is at a 43-month low.

When taken independently, each data point provides unique insights.

Taken as a whole, they show how the market is structured to facilitate bottom-forming, but a key component, institutional demand on a broad scale, is still up in the air.

XRP traded near $1.13 on July 7, down 1.69% in the past 24 hours, according to crypto.news market data. 

Summary

XRP’s rebound needs a clear break above $1.14 to confirm stronger short-term momentum for bulls. ETF inflows remain positive, but CLARITY delays have removed a near-term policy catalyst for XRP. Spot CVD has improved across exchanges while Binance perpetual traders keep selling into rebounds. The token moved between $1.11 and $1.16 during the session, while trading volume stood at about $1.73 billion.

The rebound from the late-June low near $1.00 remains intact, but buyers have not yet turned it into a stronger breakout. the token pushed back toward the $1.14 to $1.18 zone, but it failed to hold the upper part of that range.

The price now sits near a short-term decision area. A close above $1.14 would show that buyers are gaining control. A clean move above $1.18 to $1.20 would give bulls a stronger signal and place the next resistance levels back in focus.

The downside level is also clear. If XRP loses $1.10, the current rebound would weaken. A move below that area could expose $1.06, which some traders now see as the next retest zone.

XRP ETF inflows help, but policy catalyst slips The recovery has come while XRP-linked investment products continue to attract demand. The latest background data showed spot XRP ETFs recorded a ninth straight week of net inflows, adding $17.19 million despite broader policy uncertainty.

Those inflows have helped support the market, but they have not been enough to break the larger downtrend. As previously reported, XRP ETFs gave investors regulated access, but they did not solve the wider legal question around XRP’s status under U.S. law.

The CLARITY Act remains the main policy catalyst for many traders. The bill missed its July 4 target and now faces an Aug. 7 deadline before the Senate’s summer break.

That delay removed a near-term trigger for digital assets. The bill has passed the House, cleared the Senate Banking Committee, and sits on the Senate calendar, but staff still need to merge Banking and Agriculture versions before a full Senate vote.

Moreover, Standard Chartered has said XRP ETFs could attract $4 billion to $8 billion in first-year inflows if CLARITY passes. That forecast depends on legal clarity unlocking larger institutional demand.

Technical setup stays mixed The XRP/USDT daily chart shows price recovering from the late-June low, but the broader trend remains weak after the June breakdown. The token is trading above the middle Bollinger Band near $1.10, which keeps the short-term rebound alive.

The upper Bollinger Band sits near $1.18. That matches the area traders are watching for a stronger breakout. Until the token closes above that zone, the move remains a rebound inside a weak structure rather than a confirmed trend shift.

XRP price chart, source: crypto.news The lower Bollinger Band sits near $1.01. That level remains important if selling pressure returns. A break below $1.10 would increase the risk of a move back toward that area.

Momentum also shows a mixed picture. The Stochastic RSI is elevated, with readings near 88.63 and 95.08. That shows strong short-term momentum, but it also places XRP close to overbought territory. Since the faster line has moved below the slower line, the rebound may be losing some force.

EGRAG Crypto said XRP must defend $1.10 after moving below the 21 EMA on the four-hour chart. He said, “Hold $1.10 = structure still alive,” while a loss of $1.06 would increase caution.

#XRP – The Retest That Matters 👀 – Short-Term ( 4H TF): #XRP is now at the real short-term test.

📒Note: We broke below the 21 EMA, and you all know the 21 EMA is my momentum gauge across timeframes.

📒Note: But the structure is not dead yet. Why? Because #XRP is now wicking… pic.twitter.com/8T7pBTbQHE

— EGRAG CRYPTO (@egragcrypto) July 6, 2026 Dark Defender took a more bullish weekly view and said XRP is “launching the Wave 5 without the Clarity Act.” Other analysts also pointed to higher long-term targets, but those views still depend on price clearing the current resistance zone first.

Spot demand rises while perps stay defensive On-chain and derivatives data show a split market. CryptoQuant analyst Amr Taha said XRP’s estimated spot CVD across centralized exchanges rose from about minus $42 million on May 12 to plus $406 million by July 7.

That change points to stronger spot buying across exchanges. It suggests market buyers have absorbed more available XRP supply over the past two months.

The derivatives market shows the opposite trend. Binance perpetual CVD fell from about minus $48 million to minus $783 million over the same period. That shows sustained sell-side pressure from perpetual traders.

Open interest also fell from about $255 million on May 22 to $203 million on July 7. That drop suggests leveraged traders have reduced exposure while spot buyers have become more active.

Binance spot data has improved, but it has not turned positive. Estimated spot CVD on Binance rose from about minus $212 million on June 25 to minus $173 million on July 7, showing that selling pressure has eased but not fully reversed.

Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials featured on this page are for educational purposes only.

Hyperliquid (@HyperliquidX) $HYPE has overtaken Dogecoin (@dogecoin) $DOGE to claim ninth place in the global cryptocurrency market cap rankings, marking one of the more notable ranking shifts of the current cycle.

What Is Driving the Move The rally has been underpinned by a combination of rising platform usage, competitive fees, and a mechanical buyback programme embedded directly in the protocol. Around 99% of fees from Hyperliquid's perpetuals and spot order book are routed to the Assistance Fund, which continuously purchases and burns HYPE tokens, removing them permanently from circulating supply. The result is a structural link between trading volume and token demand: the more the exchange trades, the more tokens get bought and destroyed.

That volume has been substantial. Hyperliquid has now crossed $1.1 billion in cumulative buybacks, with the protocol recording a single buyback of $283 million, described as the largest in the industry since the start of 2026. The platform has burned over 41 million tokens to date, reducing circulating supply by roughly 4.2%.

Geopolitical tension also played a role. When Middle East volatility spiked, Hyperliquid's around-the-clock trading gave it an edge over venues that observe fixed daily halt periods. TD Securities noted that the platform's oil perpetual futures volume jumped from $25 million to over $550 million across three weekends of the US-Israel-Iran conflict, as traders sought continuous price discovery when traditional markets were closed.

Where HYPE Stands Now HYPE set an all-time high of $76.87 on June 16, 2026. At the time of writing, the token sits approximately 9% below that level, having gained 13.3% over the prior seven days, according to CoinGecko data. The token has risen roughly 205% since January 2026.

Institutional interest has added further support. The Bitwise spot HYPE ETF began trading in May 2026 and spot HYPE ETF products collectively recorded $111 million in inflows as of June 30, a contrast to outflows seen in Bitcoin and Ethereum funds over the same period.

The broader narrative around the ranking change reflects a shift in what the market is rewarding. DOGE, which held a top-ten position for much of the past two years, has lacked comparable fundamental catalysts. Analysts have noted that the 2026 cycle has broadly favoured tokens with clear revenue streams over legacy meme coins.

Sources:
DeFiLlama: Hyperliquid Protocol Fees and Revenue
Crypto Briefing: Hyperliquid Records Largest Crypto Buyback at $283M Since January
Watcher.Guru: Hyperliquid Overtakes Dogecoin, Eyes New All-Time High

Etherfi submitted a TEMP CHECK proposal to the Aave governance forum on July 3 to build a dedicated, Etherfi-managed Aave V4 whitelabel instance on Optimism mainnet. The goal: replace Etherfi Cash’s existing proprietary debt manager with Aave’s battle-tested lending architecture, starting with a $175M initial asset cap and a plan to scale toward $500M by the end of 2026.

What the deal actually looks like Etherfi would operate a specialized Aave V4 hub exclusively for its credit card backend. In exchange, Aave DAO would receive 20% of all reserve-factor revenue generated by the instance. At full deployment, that revenue share translates to an estimated $5-6 million annually flowing to the Aave DAO.

The proposal also calls for deploying a dedicated GHO GSM on Optimism. This would create direct demand for GHO through real-world card spending.

Etherfi currently reports approximately 70,000 active cardholders with $1 billion in annualized spending flowing through its Visa card product.

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Why Optimism, and who’s paying for what The Optimism Foundation is committing $20M from its treasury to support the initiative, alongside additional incentive arrangements that haven’t been fully detailed in the governance discussion yet.

The deployment timeline is aggressive. Etherfi is targeting completion within July 2026, with an initial five-day feedback window for the governance community before the proposal moves to a snapshot temp check vote.

The bigger picture for Aave and DeFi lending The current total value locked in discussions around this deployment sits at approximately $220M, with the $175M initial cap designed to prove the concept before scaling.

The GHO integration deserves particular attention. Aave’s stablecoin has struggled to find demand drivers that don’t rely on incentive programs or recursive yield strategies. A credit card product that converts GHO to fiat at the point of sale creates the kind of sustainable, repeated demand that purely on-chain use cases haven’t delivered at scale.

What this means for investors For AAVE token holders, the revenue-sharing model creates a new income stream tied to real-world consumer spending rather than volatile crypto trading activity. The $5-6M annual projection at full scale might not sound massive for a protocol with Aave’s market cap, but the precedent matters more than the initial dollars.

The risk side of the equation isn’t trivial. Running a credit card backend on a smart contract protocol introduces attack surface that traditional fintech infrastructure doesn’t have. Any exploit on this instance could mean disrupted card payments for tens of thousands of users.

There’s also governance risk to consider. The proposal still needs to pass through Aave’s full governance process, and the community has historically been cautious about whitelabel deployments that could create reputational exposure. The five-day feedback window will be telling.

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

PYTH gained more than 25% over the past week, outperforming most large-cap altcoins. The Pyth Core upgrade on July 31 ends free, permissionless access to the network’s price feeds. All subscription revenue flows to the Pyth DAO, which funds monthly open-market token buybacks. Santiment ranks Pyth among the top three Solana ecosystem projects by development activity. Pyth Network’s native token has climbed more than 25% over the past seven days, trading around $0.045 with a market capitalization of $355 million, according to CoinMarketCap data. The rally comes three weeks before the Pyth Core upgrade goes live on July 31, a structural overhaul that ends the network’s free price data model and replaces it with paid subscriptions whose revenue feeds directly into PYTH buybacks. he timing invites an obvious reading – traders positioning before the deadline – though the move also coincides with a broader altcoin rotation, so the upgrade cannot claim sole credit. What the pace does show is acceleration: 12% of the gain arrived in the past 24 hours alone.

The end of free data Any developer has been able to pull Pyth’s price data free of charge since 2021, an arrangement that ends this month. According to the official Pyth Network blog, accessing any Price Feeds API after July 31 will require an active paid plan and an API key managed through the Pyth Terminal.

Pricing follows a tiered structure: the entry-level Starter Plan covers crypto prices, NAV data, redemption rates and indices, traditional asset classes sit in separate brackets, and institutions that want everything pay a flat monthly rate at the top of the scale.

Plan Coverage Monthly price Starter Crypto, NAV, redemption rates, indices $500 Individual asset classes US equities, futures or FX, per bracket $2,500 – $6,500 Full access All asset classes $10,000 The team stresses that API endpoints stay identical, so protocols built on Pyth since 2021 will not face broken integrations. The infrastructure serving those endpoints is another matter. Core feeds merge into the same scaling technology that powers Pyth Pro, which the project says reduces latency, improves price accuracy and expands symbol coverage well beyond the current catalog.

Three moving averages down, one barrier left The 4-hour PYTH/USDT chart from TradingView, based on Binance data, shows the token cutting cleanly through its 50, 100 and 200-period simple moving averages during the latest leg up. Those averages now sit clustered between $0.0361 and $0.0389, well below the current price near $0.0452. When a price trades above all three of these lines, it usually signals that short, medium and longer-term momentum have aligned in the same direction, something PYTH has not managed since its early May local top above $0.062.

The same chart carries a warning for anyone entering at current levels. The Relative Strength Index, an indicator that measures how fast and how far a price has moved, briefly pushed above 80 before settling near 72. Readings above 70 typically describe an overbought market, meaning the asset has risen quickly enough that a pause or pullback becomes more likely in the short term. The candle that tagged $0.048 on July 7 already met sellers, and the price has since retreated about 2%.

Metric Value Price $0.04512 24h change +12.01% 7d change +25.39% Market cap $355.35M 50 / 100 / 200-period SMA $0.0389 / $0.0369 / $0.0362 RSI 72 For traders watching levels, the former resistance band around $0.042, where the price stalled twice in early July, now acts as the first area of potential support. A deeper retracement would bring the moving average cluster near $0.038 back into focus. On the upside, $0.048 remains the barrier that rejected the latest push.

A buyback engine tied to real revenue Every dollar of subscription revenue flows to the Pyth DAO. From there, the Pyth Reserve spends one third of its accumulated treasury balance each month on open-market PYTH purchases, creating a direct link between commercial adoption and buying pressure on the token.

The scale of what becomes billable is not trivial. The network entered 2026 with more than 2,850 active price feeds serving over 650 onchain applications, usage that until now generated no recurring revenue. If even a fraction of those integrations convert into paying subscribers, the DAO treasury grows, and with it the monthly buyback budget.

The supply side makes the rally more notable than the percentage alone suggests. On May 19, Pyth released roughly 2.13 billion tokens from vesting, an unlock worth around $92 million that expanded the circulating supply by more than a third, according to data from Tokenomist. Cliffs of that size usually cap price action for months while the market digests the new float. PYTH instead spent seven weeks basing near its yearly lows and is now climbing into the upgrade with that overhang already behind it.

Some rough arithmetic shows what is at stake. If just 200 of those 650 integrations take the $500 Starter Plan, that is $1.2 million in annual recurring revenue reaching the DAO – modest against PYTH’s $355 million market cap, but recurring. The bull case requires institutional brackets: fifty clients on full access would mean $6 million a year, and a third of the growing treasury converting into monthly market buys. Neither scenario is confirmed, and that is precisely why the first revenue disclosure matters more than the upgrade date itself.

The upgrade also retires older parts of the network. Pyth is deprecating its original Pythnet appchain and winding down Oracle Integrity Staking emissions as data delivery migrates to the newer Pyth Lazer pipeline. Fewer emissions combined with recurring buybacks tilt the token’s supply dynamics toward scarcity, provided the subscription business actually generates meaningful revenue. That remains the open question, and the Core tier has no revenue history yet to test it against – the only disclosed figures so far come from Pyth Pro’s institutional side, which crossed $1 million in annual recurring revenue with a few dozen subscribers.

A hard deadline for builders Teams running infrastructure on Pyth face a hard deadline. Anyone using the standalone Price Pusher to manage on-chain updates must upgrade to version 10.5.0 or later and attach a Hermes access token obtained through the Pyth Terminal, otherwise automated price updates will start failing on July 31, according to the network’s developer documentation. The DAO will handle major contract switches automatically, but new integrations should fetch the updated contract addresses from the Pyth Developer Hub rather than relying on legacy references.

Development data gives the rally support that is independent of the upgrade itself. Santiment Intelligence placed Pyth third among all Solana ecosystem projects by development activity in its latest monthly ranking, behind only Chainlink and Solana itself, based on enhanced GitHub event data. Sustained developer output during a commercial pivot is not a given, and Pyth holding that position suggests the engineering side is keeping pace with the business restructuring.

Broader market rotation is working in the token’s favor too: CoinMarketCap’s Altcoin Season Index has climbed to 49, and capital moving into mid-cap tokens has lifted several oracle and infrastructure names this week. The next real test comes after July 31, when the first subscription figures will show whether the buyback program has meaningful funding behind it or whether the market front-ran a mechanism that still needs paying customers.