Strike just threaded the needle. The Bitcoin-focused payments app, founded by Jack Mallers, announced that its European subsidiary, Zap (Strike) Europe Limited, has received full authorization as a crypto-asset service provider from Malta’s Financial Services Authority. The timing is not subtle: the EU’s MiCA transitional period ends on July 1, 2026, meaning any firm without proper authorization will be forced to stop operating across the bloc.
The MiCA bottleneck The Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation is the EU’s first attempt at building a unified rulebook for crypto service providers across all 27 member states. MiCA covers authorization requirements, consumer protections, and operational conduct standards, replacing the prior system of fragmented national rules.
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Out of more than 1,200 registered crypto entities across the EU and European Economic Area, only around 230 to 244 have actually secured full MiCA authorization as of June 2026. That’s roughly a 20% pass rate. The European Securities and Markets Authority made clear there would be no extensions to the transitional period. July 1 is a hard wall, meaning roughly 1,000 previously registered entities are staring down forced operational wind-downs.
Strike’s authorization through Malta’s MFSA gives it passporting rights across the entire bloc. One license, 27 countries.
Strike’s European play Strike began serving eligible European customers back in April 2024, operating under the pre-MiCA patchwork of national regulations. This new authorization replaces that prior arrangement with a single, standardized credential.
The app specializes in Bitcoin-specific services: buying, selling, and payments, with a particular focus on the Lightning Network for faster, cheaper transactions. Jack Mallers has long positioned Strike as a bridge between traditional finance and Bitcoin’s payment rails, particularly through Lightning Network integration. The European authorization extends that thesis to a market of roughly 450 million people.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
The perpetuals exchange will start burning the LIT it buys with revenue and tap its token reserve to keep staking yields flowing.
Lighter, one of the largest decentralized perpetuals exchanges by trading volume, said it will start permanently burning the LIT tokens it buys back with exchange revenue and will fund staking rewards from its ecosystem token reserve.
Lighter has bought back about 15.5 million LIT — roughly 6.3% of circulating supply — using exchange revenue since its token generation event, the company said in an X post Tuesday. Those tokens will now be withdrawn from the exchange and sent to a burn address on Ethereum mainnet, with the first burn set for the weeks after the end of the second quarter.
Separately, Lighter will begin paying staking rewards from its remaining ecosystem tokens, targeting an initial 6% annualized yield. With about 125 million LIT staked, that yield would distribute roughly 7.5 million LIT a year from a remaining reserve of 250 million.
The changes pull in two directions on supply. Burning bought-back tokens removes them from circulation, while paying staking yield from the reserve releases tokens that were not yet circulating, partly offsetting the burns. The update also answers requests from holders for clarity on what happens to the LIT the protocol repurchases, a recurring question across perpetuals exchanges that run buybacks.
Lighter briefly overtook Hyperliquid in monthly perpetuals volume around its December launch, when airdrop incentives pulled traders to its zero-fee order book. Activity has since cooled as those incentives wound down, which puts more weight on whether the token's economics can sustain demand on their own.
LIT rose about 2% over 24 hours and is up roughly 20% over the past week and about 39% over the past 30 days, outpacing Bitcoin, which fell almost 3% over the past day and about 20% over the past month, according to CoinGecko. The token trades near $1.84, about 77% below its record high. Its market capitalization is around $461 million; its fully diluted valuation, which counts the full one billion token supply against the 250 million now circulating, is roughly $1.84 billion.
Buybacks Become BurnsLighter had been buying LIT on the open market with exchange revenue since its token launch at the end of December, but had not committed to destroying the tokens. It said Tuesday that the buybacks will now reduce supply permanently through burns, executed by sending LIT to an Ethereum burn address.
The exchange flagged one mechanical caveat: the tokens it burns may be undistributed LIT rather than the exact tokens it repurchased, an approach it said is economically equivalent for holders and cheaper to administer.
The buybacks are funded by trading activity. Lighter has generated about $2.87 million in protocol revenue over the past 30 days and roughly $53 million since launch, according to DefiLlama.
Continued Exchange RevenueThe burn program depends on continued exchange revenue to fund the buybacks, and revenue has been modest relative to the token's valuation.
Funding staking from the 250 million-token reserve also draws down a finite pool; that reserve could deplete faster if revenue weakens or staking participation climbs, and the 6% target is not fixed.
Lighter said it will execute the first burn in the weeks after the close of the second quarter, a milestone holders will be able to verify onchain.
Staking Shifts to the ReserveLighter launched its staking program in January and has distributed about 3.72 million LIT to stakers so far, including roughly 170,000 LIT from a fee-credits program.
Those rewards were bootstrapped with pre-launch revenue while exchange income was directed entirely toward buybacks. Effective immediately, the protocol will instead draw on ecosystem tokens, which it said is a more aligned use because the rewards flow to holders with the longest time horizons.
The targeted 6% yield is denominated in LIT and can be adjusted at the team's discretion based on market conditions, protocol performance and sustainability, Lighter said. At about 125 million LIT staked, roughly half of circulating supply is committed to the program.
Lighter laid out four priorities for managing its treasury going forward: rewarding long-term stakers, reducing supply through burns, preserving tokens for future partnerships and growth programs, and stewarding the reserve for long-term value. The company said its ecosystem tokens exist to grow the protocol, deepen liquidity and reward users.
Bitcoin enters the third quarter still in a bear market, with technical analysis suggesting one more leg lower remains likely before a bounce develops in July, followed by a sharp bearish August and a possible final low forming around October.
Where Bitcoin Stands Right Now
The current structure remains clearly bearish according to Elliott Wave analysis tracking the decline since June. Bitcoin is consolidating between micro support and resistance, with the first resistance zone sitting between $60,812 and $62,589.
A break above that level would be the first signal that the anticipated Q3 bounce has begun. Until then, one more low remains the more likely scenario, potentially testing the $55,500 to $56,000 support cluster that aligns with a larger Fibonacci support zone on higher timeframes.
The broader market regime indicators reinforce the bearish read. A 365-day regime divider confirms Bitcoin remains in bear market conditions, and price is currently trading below an entire bearish-aligned moving average ribbon spanning $64,000 to $81,000, closely matching the $67,000 to $77,000 resistance zone that has rejected multiple rally attempts this cycle.
Why July Could Bring Relief
Despite the bearish backdrop, seasonality offers a genuine reason for optimism in the near term. Historical data shows July has consistently been one of the stronger months for Bitcoin even during bear market years, often producing a corrective three-wave rally before renewed selling resumes. August, by contrast, has historically been one of the most bearish months of the year.
A bullish divergence is also forming on the RSI, with price posting a lower high while the RSI itself prints a higher low, a pattern that frequently precedes short-term rallies back toward resistance. Combined with the seasonal pattern, this supports the case for a July bounce, whether as a smaller wave two within the current decline or a larger corrective structure.
The Q3 Targets
If the current Elliott Wave structure plays out, Bitcoin’s first major downside target sits near $39,000, based on a 100% Fibonacci extension from the recent wave structure. The path there could be direct or could involve an extended bounce first. On the upside, any July rally is expected to face resistance between $67,000 and $77,000, with the 200-day moving average near $75,000 reinforcing that zone.
Time cycle analysis points toward a potential final low forming around October, give or take 30 days, consistent with how previous Bitcoin bear markets have typically lasted between 360 and 380 days. This would place the end of the current bear market squarely within Q4 2026, setting up the next bull market phase.
Story Ends Here
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Cryptocurrency analytics company CryptoQuant reported increased selling pressure in the XRP futures market.
According to the company’s assessment, the funding rate for XRP futures contracts traded on Binance has fallen to approximately -0.0139, reaching its lowest level in the last three months.
CryptoQuant noted that this drop in funding rates during the period when XRP was trading around $1.05 indicates a shift in investor sentiment in the derivatives market towards short positions. Negative funding rates show that demand for short positions exceeded demand for long positions, suggesting that investors believe downward pressure on the price may continue in the short term.
According to the analysis, XRP funding rates have fluctuated between positive and negative zones in recent months. Periods of positive funding generally coincided with increases in the XRP price and increased demand for long positions. However, in recent weeks, as the upward momentum has weakened, negative funding rates have become more dominant.
CryptoQuant stated that the current outlook indicates a cautious stance in the futures market, with investors shifting towards more defensive strategies rather than opening new long positions.
However, the company noted that extremely low funding rates should not always be interpreted negatively. If short positions become overcrowded in the market, a strengthening of spot demand or the emergence of a positive catalyst could lead to the closing of short positions. In this scenario, a sudden recovery in the XRP price, known as a “short squeeze,” could be observed.
*This is not investment advice.
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Zero-knowledge scaling company StarkWare has released a quantum-resistant roadmap for Starknet, arguing that other chains will remain exposed if the industry is “too stubborn or stupid” to act.
In an announcement on Tuesday, Starknet framed its three-phased quantum-resistant roadmap as evidence that the crypto industry has no excuse for remaining vulnerable to future quantum computing attacks.
“The tried-and-tested cryptography exists to secure every crypto key in the world, if necessary changes are made, and the only reason anyone will remain vulnerable is if heads remain buried in the sand,” said Eli Ben-Sasson, CEO at StarkWare.
Efforts to quantum-proof blockchains are accelerating as some researchers warn that quantum computing could outpace blockchain’s defenses and cryptographically relevant quantum machines could be ready before 2030.
The Bitcoin community remains divided on how to approach securing old coins against the quantum threat, while other networks are forging ahead with quantum roadmaps.
Ben-Sasson said Starknet can become resistant to quantum attacks by “seizing on its architecture advantage.” Its underlying cryptography is zero-knowledge STARK (Scalable Transparent Argument of Knowledge) proofs, which are “inherently post-quantum safe.”
Ben-Sasson said that if Starknet can become quantum-resistant by “seizing on this cryptography,” then anyone else can do it by choosing the right cryptography. “We need to be nimble in blockchain and crypto,” he said.
“There’s an awful irony in the notion that a young industry born from rejecting the way things have always been done is stalling and procrastinating about making changes for quantum security.”He added that crypto has an “elliptical illusion,” distorting reality around elliptic-curve cryptography, the current standard for securing blockchains.
Believing that this will be quantum resistant is “false confidence” that is leaving the industry “dangerously complacent,” he said.
Some migration problems are genuinely hard, involving technical trade-offs, governance decisions, and dependencies that no single team controls, he added, but said: “difficulty is not an excuse for delay.”
“The crypto industry shouldn’t need wake-up calls from the White House or anyone else. We should all be acting and seizing on the best cryptography that exists.”Starknet’s three-phase roadmap The first phase involves swapping out some of its current security math (Pedersen hashing) for quantum-resistant versions and adding quantum-resistant signatures.
Phase two focuses on migration tooling that quietly upgrades existing smart contracts to the new quantum-safe standard, without forcing developers to manually rebuild apps.
Phase three covers dependencies that Starknet cannot resolve alone, which largely depend on Ethereum’s quantum upgrade roadmap.
Circle, Ethereum, Solana, Tezos and Algorand have all proposed quantum-proof roadmaps, while the Bitcoin community remains at loggerheads.
Magazine: Bitcoin slides to $58K, XRP hits $1 but onchain data promising: Market Moves
Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.
Zero-knowledge scaling company StarkWare has released a quantum-resistant roadmap for Starknet, arguing that other chains will remain exposed if the industry is “too stubborn or stupid” to act.
In an announcement on Tuesday, Starknet framed its three-phased quantum-resistant roadmap as evidence that the crypto industry has no excuse for remaining vulnerable to future quantum computing attacks.
“The tried-and-tested cryptography exists to secure every crypto key in the world, if necessary changes are made, and the only reason anyone will remain vulnerable is if heads remain buried in the sand,” said Eli Ben-Sasson, CEO at StarkWare.
Efforts to quantum-proof blockchains are accelerating as some researchers warn that quantum computing could outpace blockchain’s defenses and cryptographically relevant quantum machines could be ready before 2030.
The Bitcoin community remains divided on how to approach securing old coins against the quantum threat, while other networks are forging ahead with quantum roadmaps.
Ben-Sasson said Starknet can become resistant to quantum attacks by “seizing on its architecture advantage.” Its underlying cryptography is zero-knowledge STARK (Scalable Transparent Argument of Knowledge) proofs, which are “inherently post-quantum safe.”
Ben-Sasson said that if Starknet can become quantum-resistant by “seizing on this cryptography,” then anyone else can do it by choosing the right cryptography. “We need to be nimble in blockchain and crypto,” he said.
“There’s an awful irony in the notion that a young industry born from rejecting the way things have always been done is stalling and procrastinating about making changes for quantum security.”He added that crypto has an “elliptical illusion,” distorting reality around elliptic-curve cryptography, the current standard for securing blockchains.
Believing that this will be quantum resistant is “false confidence” that is leaving the industry “dangerously complacent,” he said.
Some migration problems are genuinely hard, involving technical trade-offs, governance decisions, and dependencies that no single team controls, he added, but said: “difficulty is not an excuse for delay.”
“The crypto industry shouldn’t need wake-up calls from the White House or anyone else. We should all be acting and seizing on the best cryptography that exists.”Starknet’s three-phase roadmap The first phase involves swapping out some of its current security math (Pedersen hashing) for quantum-resistant versions and adding quantum-resistant signatures.
Phase two focuses on migration tooling that quietly upgrades existing smart contracts to the new quantum-safe standard, without forcing developers to manually rebuild apps.
Phase three covers dependencies that Starknet cannot resolve alone, which largely depend on Ethereum’s quantum upgrade roadmap.
Circle, Ethereum, Solana, Tezos and Algorand have all proposed quantum-proof roadmaps, while the Bitcoin community remains at loggerheads.
Magazine: Bitcoin slides to $58K, XRP hits $1 but onchain data promising: Market Moves
Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.
StarkWare released what it described as crypto’s “strongest” post-quantum roadmap, setting out a three-phase plan to make Starknet quantum-ready by replacing remaining elliptic-curve dependencies and introducing migration tools for existing contracts.
The proposal builds on what StarkWare called Starknet’s “architectural advantage,” with its zero-knowledge STARK proofs relying on hash-based cryptography that the company said is post-quantum secure by design.
StarkWare said the plan could make the network quantum-ready within months, according to a statement shared with The Block on Tuesday.
Per the statement, the first phase of the roadmap would replace Pedersen hashing with BLAKE2 across state commitments, contract addresses, and network configuration, while also introducing post-quantum consensus signatures such as Falcon-512.
The second phase focuses on migration tooling for legacy contracts, while the final phase addresses external dependencies that remain linked to Ethereum, including bridge syscalls and blob data availability, which depend on Ethereum's own post-quantum transition.
"This document says: here is how we'll do it for Starknet. It's our path to making Starknet a safe haven for funds whatever quantum may bring. And the subtext is that if we can do it by seizing on this cryptography, then anyone else can do it by choosing the right cryptography," StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson said.
Industry preparedness Ben-Sasson said the cryptographic tools needed to secure digital assets against quantum threats already exist and argued that remaining vulnerabilities would stem from inaction rather than technical limitations.
He added that every crypto key could be protected if the necessary changes are implemented and criticized what he described as industry stubbornness around post-quantum migration.
The executive also coined the term "elliptical illusion" to describe what he called misplaced confidence that blockchains built on elliptic-curve cryptography will remain secure without significant changes as quantum computing advances.
Elliptic-curve systems underpin transaction signatures and ownership verification across Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and much of the broader digital infrastructure used today.
The roadmap follows a separate development earlier this year when StarkWare researcher Avihu Mordechai Levy published a proposal for quantum-safe Bitcoin transactions that operates without a soft fork or modification to Bitcoin's underlying protocol.
The approach, referred to as QSB, replaces elliptic-curve assumptions with hash-based constructions including Lamport signatures. Levy reported the method achieves roughly 118-bit second pre-image resistance under a quantum threat model while remaining compatible with Bitcoin's existing script limitations of 201 non-push opcodes and 10,000 bytes.
Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.
Survey: 88% of enterprises plan to adopt stablecoins within the next year, with cross-border payment costs reduced by an average of 35%.
Payment infrastructure company Cybrid has released a new survey report indicating stablecoins are rapidly gaining traction in enterprise payment scenarios. The survey found that 42% of participating enterprises already use stablecoins for cross-border payments, while 88% said they are likely or very likely to adopt stablecoins within the next 12 months—only 2% of firms stated they will continue to rely entirely on traditional payment systems. According to the report, enterprises using stablecoins save an average of 35% on cross-border payment costs, with firms processing over $100 million in monthly payments achieving an average cost reduction of 47%. Payroll and contractor payments represent the most prominent use case, followed by supplier payments, customer payments, investment and revenue management, and treasury management, among others. Additionally, 71% of respondents identified a clear regulatory framework as the primary factor driving further mainstream adoption of stablecoins, outranking considerations such as infrastructure provider credibility and system integration. The survey was conducted from April to May this year, covering 468 senior executives from tech, financial services, and e-commerce sectors in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
3 hours ago
FalconX secures EU MiCA license, allowing it to offer compliant crypto services to institutional clients in Europe.
Institutional digital asset broker FalconX announced it has obtained the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) license issued by the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA), enabling it to provide compliant digital asset trading, custody, liquidity and related institutional services across the European Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA). FalconX stated that this license allows it to operate across EU member states under a unified regulatory framework, eliminating the need for individual country-specific licenses. Currently, the firm serves over 2,000 institutional clients worldwide, including asset management firms, hedge funds, banks and family offices, with cumulative transaction volumes exceeding $2.5 trillion and over $8 billion in institutional financing disbursed. FalconX noted that as the MiCA regulatory framework is fully implemented, institutional clients’ demand for compliant trading, custody and liquidity services continues to grow, and regulatory credentials are becoming a key competitive advantage in Europe’s digital asset market.
3 hours ago
Guo Wengui sentenced to 30 years in prison in connection with a fraud case involving over $1 billion.
A US court has sentenced Miles Guo (also known as Ho Wan Kwok) to 30 years in prison. In 2024, a jury convicted Guo on multiple charges including racketeering, fraud, and money laundering, with his formal sentencing now issued. Prosecutors stated that Guo defrauded over $1 billion from global victims through a series of related scam schemes spanning five years. Notably, in 2021, he promoted the cryptocurrency project Himalaya Coin (H-Coin), claiming the tokens were backed by 20% gold reserves and promising to cover all investors’ losses, raising approximately $500 million in total. Additionally, the court previously ordered the forfeiture of nearly $900 million in Guo’s illegal proceeds, as well as his luxury mansion in New Jersey and multiple high-end vehicles. Guo had close ties to Steve Bannon, a former senior advisor to US President Donald Trump; Bannon was arrested in 2020 aboard Guo’s yacht.
3 hours ago
The first-half 2026 funding rankings have been released, with Kalshi and Polymarket raising a combined $1.8 billion.
According to statistics, the 14 largest global funding rounds in the first half of 2026 raised a total of $4.3 billion, with prediction markets, AI, and payment sectors drawing the most investor interest. Specifically, prediction market platform Kalshi topped the list with a $1.2 billion funding round, while Polymarket secured $600 million—together, the two raised $1.8 billion, accounting for over 40% of the total capital of the top 14 rounds. In the AI space, Replit, Exa AI, and OpenRouter closed funding rounds of $400 million, $250 million, and $113 million respectively. For blockchain projects, Canton Network, Arc, and Morpho raised $355 million, $222 million, and $175 million respectively. Meanwhile, payment, RWA, infrastructure, and compliance projects including Rain, Slash, Goldcom, Alpaca, and Elliptic also featured on the list.
3 hours ago
Open Standard launches stablecoin Open USD, with over 140 institutions including Visa, BlackRock, and Coinbase participating.
Open Standard has announced the launch of Open USD (OUSD), a new stablecoin for global fund flows, noting that over 140 enterprises have joined its ecosystem, including financial, payment, and crypto industry players such as Visa, Stripe, Mastercard, American Express, BlackRock, BNY, DBS, Coinbase, OKX, MetaMask, Aave, Ripple, Fireblocks, Solana, and Polygon. According to the introduction, Open USD follows three core design principles: supporting zero-cost, large-scale minting and redemption for enterprises; returning all reserve asset yields to partners after deducting a small management fee; and being governed by a board of directors composed of independent firm Open Standard and its partners, rather than controlled by a single issuer. Open Standard states that Open USD will officially launch later this year, with the goal of building an open, low-cost, high-throughput stablecoin infrastructure with a sharing economy mechanism to meet the needs of the internet economy and global enterprise-level payments.
3 hours ago
Pump.fun is discontinuing support for its tokenized agent issuance feature, stating it will focus on optimizing retail user trading experience.
Pump.fun announced it will immediately cease support for its Tokenized Agent token issuance feature. The feature will no longer be available for new token launches, though projects that have already activated it will remain unaffected. The platform noted that over recent months, consistent community feedback has pointed out that excessive issuance options have sparked unnecessary user vs. user (PVP) competition. Moving forward, Pump.fun will prioritize issuance models and product features that explicitly enhance retail trading experiences.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
BlackRock just made synthetic dollars an institutional asset class. The firm announced it is integrating Ethena’s USDe token into Aladdin, the portfolio and risk-management platform that oversees more than $20 trillion in assets for some of the world’s largest institutions.
In practical terms, this means pension funds, sovereign wealth managers, and asset allocators who already use Aladdin can now access and monitor USDe through their existing workflows. No new infrastructure required. No separate onboarding. Just another line item in a system that already tracks a meaningful chunk of global wealth.
What the deal actually involves The partnership has two sides. First, there’s the Aladdin integration itself, which gives institutional clients visibility into USDe positions alongside their traditional holdings. Second, BlackRock’s tokenized Treasury fund, BUIDL, will serve as the primary reserve asset for Ethena’s upcoming white-label stablecoin products. It means future synthetic dollar products built on Ethena’s infrastructure will be backed, in part, by tokenized US Treasuries managed by BlackRock.
Ethena is also providing a $100 million liquidity facility to support BUIDL, creating a reciprocal relationship where both parties have financial skin in the game.
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Here’s the thing about USDe: it’s not your standard stablecoin. Traditional stablecoins like USDC or USDT maintain their peg by holding reserves of cash and cash equivalents. USDe takes a different approach entirely, using a delta-neutral hedging strategy with crypto derivatives to generate yield while maintaining dollar parity. It holds long crypto positions and simultaneously shorts them via futures, capturing the funding rate spread as income while keeping the net exposure close to zero.
USDe currently has a circulating supply of roughly $4.45 billion, making it one of the larger synthetic dollar instruments in crypto.
Why this matters for institutional adoption The market noticed. Ethena’s ENA governance token surged roughly 5-12% following the announcement, while Bitcoin prices held relatively steady. That divergence suggests traders viewed this as a company-specific catalyst for Ethena rather than a broad risk-on signal for crypto.
By positioning its tokenized Treasury fund as the reserve backbone for white-label stablecoins, BlackRock is essentially creating a template for how institutional-grade synthetic dollars get built going forward. Any fintech or DeFi protocol that wants to launch a branded stablecoin through Ethena’s infrastructure would, by extension, be using BlackRock’s tokenized Treasuries as collateral.
What investors should watch The delta-neutral strategy that powers USDe carries its own set of risks. Funding rates in crypto derivatives markets can turn negative during prolonged bear markets, which would compress or eliminate USDe’s yield advantage. During severe market stress, the basis trade that underpins the whole system can behave unpredictably.
There’s also the competitive landscape to consider. Tether and Circle dominate the stablecoin market with combined supplies well north of $100 billion. USDe at $4.45 billion is a fraction of that.
The $100 million liquidity facility from Ethena to BUIDL also creates an interesting dynamic. It aligns incentives but introduces counterparty interdependence. If USDe were to face redemption pressure, the liquidity facility commitment could become a constraint rather than a cushion.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
The prolonged rivalry between OKX founder Star Xu and Binance's founder Changpeng Zhao appears to be far from over, as fresh accusations are beginning to emerge following Binance's recent regulatory setback in Europe.
Xu had earlier slammed CZ and Binance after the exchange was denied a MiCA license in Europe, raising questions about Binance's operating standards.
Xu dismisses jealousy claimsAfter CZ accused Xu of being jealous during a recent interview that questioned the root cause of their issues and the drive behind the sustained fallout, Xu clapped back in a recent post, dismissing the claims.
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Xu claimed that he was not jealous while publicly declaring that he was only ashamed of CZ and his business dealings, making reference to CZ's previous legal troubles, market controversies, and compliance issues.
Xu shares backstory of issues with CZWhile the saga between both founders did not start recently, the crypto community has constantly raised concerns about what could have triggered the rivalry and public disagreement between the industry leaders.
In his statements, the OKX founder further shared a brief backstory about the genesis of his ordeal with the Binance founder in what he described as unresolved issues that date back to CZ's earlier involvement with OKCoin.
Xu accused CZ of repeatedly delivering misleading narratives in his recently released book. He further explained that CZ mentioned him several times in the book while providing false claims and inaccurate accounts of past events.
Although Xu concluded his statement with claims that he had no interest in reopening old wounds or spending time revisiting old disagreements from years back, he signaled that he would be willing to publicly discuss the matter if necessary.
MEXC, a pioneer in 0-fee digital asset trading, today announced the listing of Ondo’s tokenized Strategy’s preferred stock on its spot market, further expanding its tokenized U.S. stock offerings.
STRCON tracks Strategy Pref (STRC), Strategy’s preferred stock. The company formerly known as MicroStrategy, Inc., is the world’s largest corporate holder of bitcoin, with holdings of 847,363 BTC as of June 21, 2026, according to company filings. The STRCON/USDT spot trading pair will be listed at 14:00 (UTC) on June 30, 2026. Deposits opened earlier the same day at 08:00 (UTC). Full listing details are available in MEXC’s official announcement.
Ondo Global Markets is a tokenization platform focused on bringing real-world assets on-chain. It provides non-U.S. investors with instant access to tokenized U.S. stocks, ETFs, and other securities. Ondo Global Markets surpassed $1 billion in total value locked in May 2026 and accounts for more than 70% of the tokenized equity issuer market, according to RWA.xyz data. MEXC’s ongoing collaboration with Ondo continues to expand access to the U.S. stock market for users through tokenized assets.
As a one-stop trading platform, MEXC is committed to providing users with diverse access to global markets. Beyond Ondo’s tokenized U.S. equities, MEXC also offers “RealStocks,” a product that allows users to hold real share ownership and dividends within the crypto trading environment they already use.
About MEXC MEXC is the world’s fastest-growing cryptocurrency exchange, trusted by more than 40 million users across 170+ markets. Built on a user-first philosophy, MEXC offers industry-leading 0-fee trading and access to over 3,000 digital assets. As the Gateway to Infinite Opportunities, MEXC provides a single platform where users can easily trade cryptocurrencies alongside tokenized assets, including stocks, ETFs, commodities, and precious metals.
MEXC Official Website｜ X ｜ Telegram ｜How to Sign Up on MEXC
This content does not constitute investment advice. Given the highly volatile nature of the cryptocurrency market, investors are encouraged to carefully assess market fluctuations, project fundamentals, and potential financial risks before making any trading decisions.
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America’s capital markets lead the world because they adapt.
Paper certificates gave way to book-entry records. Trading floors gave way to electronic markets. Manual processes gave way to faster settlement, automated clearing, and global access. Each step raised fair concerns. Each step required guardrails. But America stayed ahead because we did not treat every new tool as a threat to the old system.
Tokenization is the next step in that history.
Patrick McHenry is the vice chairman of the advisory board at Ondo Finance, and a former U.S. Representative who chaired the House Financial Services Committee.
The current debate over tokenized stocks has centered on a basic question: what is the proper form for securities in the U.S. market? Some argue tokenization should happen primarily through existing market infrastructure: broker-dealers, custodians, securities intermediaries, DTC, and related records. Others have introduced products in various forms backed by U.S.-listed securities designed to meet the needs of the fast-growing cohort of investors that prefer to invest onchain. Still others point to issuers and transfer agents as the preferred pathway.
That debate is worth having. But it should not be reduced to one approved model. A better question is whether different models can compete on substance while preserving investor protection and the strength of U.S. markets.
Tokenized securities are not one thing. They can and do take different forms, and carry different rights. They can sit in different parts of the market structure. Treating them all the same will lead to bad policy and worse products for investors and issuers alike, ultimately putting the U.S. capital markets at a competitive disadvantage globally. There are at least three models to consider.
The first model is market infrastructure tokenization. The underlying securities remain within the existing legal and operational framework: broker-dealers, custodians, securities intermediaries, DTC, and related records. Blockchain can then be used for recordkeeping, reconciliation, collateral monitoring, transfer controls, and operational efficiency. This approach does not require abandoning the existing U.S. securities market system. It uses technology to improve specific parts of it.
The second model is customer-driven tokenization. These products start from a different place: what does the investor want to accomplish? Some products may be notes or other instruments designed to track the performance of U.S.-listed stocks or ETFs, supported by underlying securities and collateral. Others may use tokenized records for entitlements held through intermediaries. These products are not the same as directly registered shares. They should not be marketed as if they are.
But familiar forms of market exposure, including brokerage-held securities, ETFs, depository receipts, structured notes, and other equity-linked instruments, are well-established parts of the market today. Tokenization alone does not make them more or less legitimate. Their economic and legal structures should dictate their regulatory treatment.
The third model is issuer-sponsored tokenization. A company and its transfer agent support tokenized ownership directly. This may be the right model for many issuers. It can connect tokenized records to shareholder systems and support familiar processes for corporate actions, recordkeeping and communications.
Brokerage held securities, depository receipts, structured notes, and direct registration all coexist in today’s market. They do not provide identical rights. Investors choose among them because they serve different needs. The important questions are whether the structure is clear, the risks are disclosed, the backing is real where promised, and the product does what it says it does.
That is the right standard for tokenized markets as well.
One wrong outcome of the current tokenization debate would be a market where products borrow the language of stocks without telling investors what they actually hold or misleading investors altogether. That would harm investors and undermine confidence in the technology.
Another wrong outcome would be a market where tokenization becomes a set of private walled gardens. That would convert a promising new technology into a tool that narrows competition before the market has had a chance to learn what works.
America should avoid both mistakes.
Open markets and regulated markets are not opposites. The U.S. has the deepest securities markets in the world because it combines investor protection with competition, capital formation, and adaptability. That balance is hard to maintain. But it is the reason companies raise capital here, investors around the world seek access here, and innovation happens here rather than offshore.
A more customer-centric approach to tokenization can support that strength. It can connect global demand back to U.S. assets and U.S. liquidity. It can give investors clearer records and more portable products. It can make collateral and entitlements easier to monitor. It can improve transparency without discarding the legal protections embedded in the current system.
This is not theoretical. Market participants are already experimenting with different models. Some are built around existing securities infrastructure. Others are onchain products directly and indirectly backed by U.S.-listed securities and ETFs. Still others are issuer-led.
Those differences matter. They are evidence that the market is working through the right questions.
For years, I argued in Congress that digital asset policy needs clear rules of the road. That remains true. Clarity protects consumers and investors. It also keeps innovation in the United States. But clear rules should not mean forcing emerging new products into a legacy framework. Nor should they mean letting any one group decide which model is allowed to exist. The point is not to pick a single winner at the starting line. The point is to let different models compete on substance and provide optionality to meet the varying needs of investors and issuers.
That is how American markets work best.
Tokenized securities markets do not need more gatekeepers. They need clear distinctions, strong controls, and room for responsible competition.
That is how America has led, and how it can continue to lead, financial markets into the future.
Note: The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of CoinDesk, Inc. or its owners and affiliates.
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Building the Zcash Machine: Tachyon and Quantum Readiness
Building the Zcash Machine: Tachyon and Quantum Readiness
Zcash’s Tachyon upgrade aims to scale shielded payments, improve quantum readiness, and test whether its funding, security, and governance can hold.
9 hours ago
Zcash’s Tachyon upgrade aims to scale shielded payments, improve quantum readiness, and test whether its funding, security, and governance can hold.
Why it matters:
Zcash’s Tachyon upgrade aims to scale shielded payments, improve quantum readiness, and test whether its funding, security, and governance can hold.
Survey: 88% of enterprises plan to adopt stablecoins within the next year, with cross-border payment costs reduced by an average of 35%.
Payment infrastructure company Cybrid has released a new survey report indicating stablecoins are rapidly gaining traction in enterprise payment scenarios. The survey found that 42% of participating enterprises already use stablecoins for cross-border payments, while 88% said they are likely or very likely to adopt stablecoins within the next 12 months—only 2% of firms stated they will continue to rely entirely on traditional payment systems. According to the report, enterprises using stablecoins save an average of 35% on cross-border payment costs, with firms processing over $100 million in monthly payments achieving an average cost reduction of 47%. Payroll and contractor payments represent the most prominent use case, followed by supplier payments, customer payments, investment and revenue management, and treasury management, among others. Additionally, 71% of respondents identified a clear regulatory framework as the primary factor driving further mainstream adoption of stablecoins, outranking considerations such as infrastructure provider credibility and system integration. The survey was conducted from April to May this year, covering 468 senior executives from tech, financial services, and e-commerce sectors in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
3 hours ago
FalconX secures EU MiCA license, allowing it to offer compliant crypto services to institutional clients in Europe.
Institutional digital asset broker FalconX announced it has obtained the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) license issued by the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA), enabling it to provide compliant digital asset trading, custody, liquidity and related institutional services across the European Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA). FalconX stated that this license allows it to operate across EU member states under a unified regulatory framework, eliminating the need for individual country-specific licenses. Currently, the firm serves over 2,000 institutional clients worldwide, including asset management firms, hedge funds, banks and family offices, with cumulative transaction volumes exceeding $2.5 trillion and over $8 billion in institutional financing disbursed. FalconX noted that as the MiCA regulatory framework is fully implemented, institutional clients’ demand for compliant trading, custody and liquidity services continues to grow, and regulatory credentials are becoming a key competitive advantage in Europe’s digital asset market.
3 hours ago
Guo Wengui sentenced to 30 years in prison in connection with a fraud case involving over $1 billion.
A US court has sentenced Miles Guo (also known as Ho Wan Kwok) to 30 years in prison. In 2024, a jury convicted Guo on multiple charges including racketeering, fraud, and money laundering, with his formal sentencing now issued. Prosecutors stated that Guo defrauded over $1 billion from global victims through a series of related scam schemes spanning five years. Notably, in 2021, he promoted the cryptocurrency project Himalaya Coin (H-Coin), claiming the tokens were backed by 20% gold reserves and promising to cover all investors’ losses, raising approximately $500 million in total. Additionally, the court previously ordered the forfeiture of nearly $900 million in Guo’s illegal proceeds, as well as his luxury mansion in New Jersey and multiple high-end vehicles. Guo had close ties to Steve Bannon, a former senior advisor to US President Donald Trump; Bannon was arrested in 2020 aboard Guo’s yacht.
3 hours ago
The first-half 2026 funding rankings have been released, with Kalshi and Polymarket raising a combined $1.8 billion.
According to statistics, the 14 largest global funding rounds in the first half of 2026 raised a total of $4.3 billion, with prediction markets, AI, and payment sectors drawing the most investor interest. Specifically, prediction market platform Kalshi topped the list with a $1.2 billion funding round, while Polymarket secured $600 million—together, the two raised $1.8 billion, accounting for over 40% of the total capital of the top 14 rounds. In the AI space, Replit, Exa AI, and OpenRouter closed funding rounds of $400 million, $250 million, and $113 million respectively. For blockchain projects, Canton Network, Arc, and Morpho raised $355 million, $222 million, and $175 million respectively. Meanwhile, payment, RWA, infrastructure, and compliance projects including Rain, Slash, Goldcom, Alpaca, and Elliptic also featured on the list.
3 hours ago
Open Standard launches stablecoin Open USD, with over 140 institutions including Visa, BlackRock, and Coinbase participating.
Open Standard has announced the launch of Open USD (OUSD), a new stablecoin for global fund flows, noting that over 140 enterprises have joined its ecosystem, including financial, payment, and crypto industry players such as Visa, Stripe, Mastercard, American Express, BlackRock, BNY, DBS, Coinbase, OKX, MetaMask, Aave, Ripple, Fireblocks, Solana, and Polygon. According to the introduction, Open USD follows three core design principles: supporting zero-cost, large-scale minting and redemption for enterprises; returning all reserve asset yields to partners after deducting a small management fee; and being governed by a board of directors composed of independent firm Open Standard and its partners, rather than controlled by a single issuer. Open Standard states that Open USD will officially launch later this year, with the goal of building an open, low-cost, high-throughput stablecoin infrastructure with a sharing economy mechanism to meet the needs of the internet economy and global enterprise-level payments.
3 hours ago
Pump.fun is discontinuing support for its tokenized agent issuance feature, stating it will focus on optimizing retail user trading experience.
Pump.fun announced it will immediately cease support for its Tokenized Agent token issuance feature. The feature will no longer be available for new token launches, though projects that have already activated it will remain unaffected. The platform noted that over recent months, consistent community feedback has pointed out that excessive issuance options have sparked unnecessary user vs. user (PVP) competition. Moving forward, Pump.fun will prioritize issuance models and product features that explicitly enhance retail trading experiences.
PANews reported on June 30, according to CoinGecko’s “2026 TradFi on Crypto Exchanges Report,” that since early 2025, crypto exchanges have listed 358 spot and perpetual contract products for real-world assets (RWA), covering stocks, ETFs, commodities, foreign exchange, and pre-IPO contracts. Traditional financial assets are accelerating their migration onto the chain.
According to the report, RWA perpetual contract trading volume surged to $347 billion in May 2026, with a year-to-date cumulative total exceeding $1.32 trillion, primarily driven by Binance, MEXC, and Hyperliquid. Among these, tokenized stock perpetual contracts were the most actively traded, with Micron Technology, Circle, and Nvidia as the top-volume underlyings.
According to CoinGecko statistics, SpaceX became the hottest pre-IPO trading asset, with monthly turnover reaching $305 million in May alone. The deviation between its pre-listing contract prices and the actual opening price was kept within 5%, signaling that the price discovery capability of on-chain pre-IPO markets is strengthening.
Survey: 88% of enterprises plan to adopt stablecoins within the next year, with cross-border payment costs reduced by an average of 35%.
Payment infrastructure company Cybrid has released a new survey report indicating stablecoins are rapidly gaining traction in enterprise payment scenarios. The survey found that 42% of participating enterprises already use stablecoins for cross-border payments, while 88% said they are likely or very likely to adopt stablecoins within the next 12 months—only 2% of firms stated they will continue to rely entirely on traditional payment systems. According to the report, enterprises using stablecoins save an average of 35% on cross-border payment costs, with firms processing over $100 million in monthly payments achieving an average cost reduction of 47%. Payroll and contractor payments represent the most prominent use case, followed by supplier payments, customer payments, investment and revenue management, and treasury management, among others. Additionally, 71% of respondents identified a clear regulatory framework as the primary factor driving further mainstream adoption of stablecoins, outranking considerations such as infrastructure provider credibility and system integration. The survey was conducted from April to May this year, covering 468 senior executives from tech, financial services, and e-commerce sectors in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
3 hours ago
FalconX secures EU MiCA license, allowing it to offer compliant crypto services to institutional clients in Europe.
Institutional digital asset broker FalconX announced it has obtained the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) license issued by the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA), enabling it to provide compliant digital asset trading, custody, liquidity and related institutional services across the European Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA). FalconX stated that this license allows it to operate across EU member states under a unified regulatory framework, eliminating the need for individual country-specific licenses. Currently, the firm serves over 2,000 institutional clients worldwide, including asset management firms, hedge funds, banks and family offices, with cumulative transaction volumes exceeding $2.5 trillion and over $8 billion in institutional financing disbursed. FalconX noted that as the MiCA regulatory framework is fully implemented, institutional clients’ demand for compliant trading, custody and liquidity services continues to grow, and regulatory credentials are becoming a key competitive advantage in Europe’s digital asset market.
3 hours ago
Guo Wengui sentenced to 30 years in prison in connection with a fraud case involving over $1 billion.
A US court has sentenced Miles Guo (also known as Ho Wan Kwok) to 30 years in prison. In 2024, a jury convicted Guo on multiple charges including racketeering, fraud, and money laundering, with his formal sentencing now issued. Prosecutors stated that Guo defrauded over $1 billion from global victims through a series of related scam schemes spanning five years. Notably, in 2021, he promoted the cryptocurrency project Himalaya Coin (H-Coin), claiming the tokens were backed by 20% gold reserves and promising to cover all investors’ losses, raising approximately $500 million in total. Additionally, the court previously ordered the forfeiture of nearly $900 million in Guo’s illegal proceeds, as well as his luxury mansion in New Jersey and multiple high-end vehicles. Guo had close ties to Steve Bannon, a former senior advisor to US President Donald Trump; Bannon was arrested in 2020 aboard Guo’s yacht.
3 hours ago
The first-half 2026 funding rankings have been released, with Kalshi and Polymarket raising a combined $1.8 billion.
According to statistics, the 14 largest global funding rounds in the first half of 2026 raised a total of $4.3 billion, with prediction markets, AI, and payment sectors drawing the most investor interest. Specifically, prediction market platform Kalshi topped the list with a $1.2 billion funding round, while Polymarket secured $600 million—together, the two raised $1.8 billion, accounting for over 40% of the total capital of the top 14 rounds. In the AI space, Replit, Exa AI, and OpenRouter closed funding rounds of $400 million, $250 million, and $113 million respectively. For blockchain projects, Canton Network, Arc, and Morpho raised $355 million, $222 million, and $175 million respectively. Meanwhile, payment, RWA, infrastructure, and compliance projects including Rain, Slash, Goldcom, Alpaca, and Elliptic also featured on the list.
3 hours ago
Open Standard launches stablecoin Open USD, with over 140 institutions including Visa, BlackRock, and Coinbase participating.
Open Standard has announced the launch of Open USD (OUSD), a new stablecoin for global fund flows, noting that over 140 enterprises have joined its ecosystem, including financial, payment, and crypto industry players such as Visa, Stripe, Mastercard, American Express, BlackRock, BNY, DBS, Coinbase, OKX, MetaMask, Aave, Ripple, Fireblocks, Solana, and Polygon. According to the introduction, Open USD follows three core design principles: supporting zero-cost, large-scale minting and redemption for enterprises; returning all reserve asset yields to partners after deducting a small management fee; and being governed by a board of directors composed of independent firm Open Standard and its partners, rather than controlled by a single issuer. Open Standard states that Open USD will officially launch later this year, with the goal of building an open, low-cost, high-throughput stablecoin infrastructure with a sharing economy mechanism to meet the needs of the internet economy and global enterprise-level payments.
3 hours ago
Pump.fun is discontinuing support for its tokenized agent issuance feature, stating it will focus on optimizing retail user trading experience.
Pump.fun announced it will immediately cease support for its Tokenized Agent token issuance feature. The feature will no longer be available for new token launches, though projects that have already activated it will remain unaffected. The platform noted that over recent months, consistent community feedback has pointed out that excessive issuance options have sparked unnecessary user vs. user (PVP) competition. Moving forward, Pump.fun will prioritize issuance models and product features that explicitly enhance retail trading experiences.
Hyperliquid (HYPE) is trading under pressure, testing support around $64.00 at the time of writing on Tuesday. This drawdown follows a limited upswing near $68.00 the previous day, undermining the short-term technical outlook.
Hyperliquid falters amid deteriorating sentimentHYPE’s near-term bearish bias aligns with the persistently weak sentiment in the broader crypto market, as evidenced by the Fear & Greed Index in the Fear Territory at 15 on Tuesday, up only slightly from 12 the day before. This translates to a lack of appetite for risk assets, limiting gains and rebound potential.
Crypto Fear & Greed Index | Source: AlternativeReflecting the prevailing bearish sentiment across the broader crypto market, Hyperliquid’s Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ecosystem has seen its Total Value Locked (TVL) decline to $5.74 billion as of Monday, down from $6.12 billion on June 18.
TVL represents the aggregate value of assets deposited within a protocol’s smart contracts by network participants eyeing rewards on their HYPE holdings.
A persistent decrease in TVL signals waning investor confidence, prompting participants to scale back their exposure. Conversely, a consistent uptick in TVL would signal renewed bullish sentiment, as investors demonstrate greater willingness to allocate capital to the protocol’s smart contracts.
Hyperliquid DeFi TVL | Source: DefiLlamaIn the meantime, retail demand is gaining momentum, triggering a steady increase in the Hyperliquid perpetual futures Open Interest (OI). CoinGlass data show the OI rising to $2.7 billion on Tuesday, from $2.4 billion the day before. If sustained, demand for HYPE derivatives could absorb spot market selling pressure and help steady the rebound above $70.00.
Hyperliquid futures OI | CoinGlassPrice analysis: Hyperliquid bulls step up to defend key supportHyperliquid trades near $65.00, holding a mildly bullish near-term bias as it remains above the 50-day, 100-day and 200-day Exponential Moving Averages (EMAs). The spot price trades over the short and medium-term EMAs at $64.44 and $64.53, respectively, while the longer-term 200-day EMA at $62.63 offers a deeper layer of trend support, suggesting the recent recovery is backed by a constructive underlying structure.
Momentum remains relatively supportive, with the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) histogram in positive territory on the daily chart. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) hovers near 53 on the same chart, indicating steady buying interest without stretching into overbought conditions.
HYPE/USDT 4-hour chartOn the downside, immediate support lies near the clustered band of short and medium-term EMAs at $64.53 and $64.44, where a pullback could attract dip buyers as long as HYPE defends this zone. A deeper slide would expose the 200-day EMA at $62.63 as the next key floor area, whose loss would materially weaken the bullish bias and open the door to a broader corrective phase. Potential buy-the-dip demand could moderate the losses at the current level or near the 200-day EMA, paving the way for gains toward the descending trendline resistance at $67.50 and the next key psychological barriers at $70.00 and $75.00.
(The technical analysis of this story was written with the help of an AI tool.)
Open Interest, funding rate FAQs Higher Open Interest is associated with higher liquidity and new capital inflow to the market. This is considered the equivalent of increase in efficiency and the ongoing trend continues. When Open Interest decreases, it is considered a sign of liquidation in the market, investors are leaving and the overall demand for an asset is on a decline, fueling a bearish sentiment among investors.
Funding fees bridge the difference between spot prices and prices of futures contracts of an asset by increasing liquidation risks faced by traders. A consistently high and positive funding rate implies there is a bullish sentiment among market participants and there is an expectation of a price hike. A consistently negative funding rate for an asset implies a bearish sentiment, indicating that traders expect the cryptocurrency’s price to fall and a bearish trend reversal is likely to occur.
TradingView, the charting platform used by millions of traders worldwide, has added native support for Hyperliquid trading pairs. Symbols like HYPEUSD now appear directly in TradingView’s interface, ready for technical analysis alongside data from Coinbase, Binance, and every other major venue.
Here’s the thing: TradingView categorized Hyperliquid as a centralized exchange. The platform that built its entire identity on being decentralized and non-custodial is now sitting in the same bucket as Binance and Kraken in TradingView’s taxonomy.
A DEX wearing a CEX label Hyperliquid operates as a Layer-1 blockchain purpose-built for trading. It runs a fully on-chain central limit order book with gasless orders and sub-second transaction finality. Users never surrender custody of their assets.
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Alongside Hyperliquid’s own data, TradingView also sources pricing from oracles like Pyth, giving traders multiple reference points for the same assets.
Hyperliquid’s numbers tell the story Open interest on the platform hit $8.9 billion in May 2025. That figure represents roughly 8.3% of aggregate perpetual open interest across the entire crypto derivatives market.
The platform now offers over 300 markets spanning cryptocurrencies, equities, commodities, and indices with leverage options reaching 40-50x.
The HYPE token, which powers governance and fee distribution within the ecosystem, carries a market capitalization of approximately $16.6 billion with prices around $65.
What this means for traders and the broader market Third-party automation tools already exist that connect TradingView alerts directly to Hyperliquid order execution. With native charting now available, the pipeline from analysis to trade becomes even more seamless. A trader can spot a setup on a TradingView chart and route the order to Hyperliquid without the friction of switching between platforms or manually replicating chart data.
The risk calculus isn’t gone. Hyperliquid’s on-chain architecture introduces smart contract risk and potential vulnerabilities that don’t exist on traditional centralized platforms. Its rapid growth also means the system hasn’t been stress-tested across every conceivable market condition. And the CEX label from TradingView, while flattering in terms of perceived quality, might create confusion among traders who assume centralized custodial protections apply when they don’t.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Getting money onto a blockchain is the step where most users stop. Not because they lack funds. They already hold balances on Coinbase, Binance, OKX, and dozens of other platforms. The problem is the process: withdraw from an exchange, copy a wallet address, pick the right network, confirm the fee, wait. Most people abandon it somewhere in that chain.
Mesh removes it. A single integration connects a product to hundreds of exchanges and wallets across more than 100 digital assets, and Mesh handles authentication, routing, and transfer underneath, so a user never has to move funds manually
Any app built on Movement can embed Mesh, let a user connect an account they already hold on an exchange or wallet, and pull that balance onchain in a couple of taps.
What Mesh builtMesh is the first global crypto payments network, backed by Dragonfly, Paradigm, and Coinbase Ventures at a $1 billion valuation, connecting hundreds of exchanges, wallets, and blockchains into a single system. The closest comparison is Plaid, but for crypto accounts. It connects a financial app to your bank account; Mesh does the same for exchanges and wallets. One integration gives a product access to all of them, and Mesh orchestrates the rest - connection, authentication, transfer - so the product never manages separate connectors.
Mesh also handles any-to-any conversion: a user can hold MOVE on an exchange and receive a stablecoin on Movement, with the conversion handled automatically. What someone holds and what a product needs never have to match.
Over the past five years, Mesh has built integrations with hundreds of platforms, and that reach matters for Movement because every connected account is a potential funding source for every app on the network.
Motion Wallet ships with Mesh firstMotion Wallet is Movement's self-custodial wallet. Keys stay on the user's device. It ships with the Mesh integration first. A user opens Motion Wallet, connects an exchange account through Mesh, and funds their wallet in a few taps. The same integration pattern is open to every partner building on Movement.
Full CEX deposit support on Movement is targeted for Q3 2026. The integration takes one to three weeks once Movement network support is live across exchanges.
Why this fitsRemittances to low and middle-income countries reached $685 billion in 2024. Those transfers settle in seconds on Movement. But before any of that happens, money has to get onto the network. Movement is where it goes once it does.
Most users in the markets where Movement's partners are building already hold a balance on an exchange. They have the money. They do not have a way to move it into an app without going through a cumbersome withdrawal process. Mesh changes that.
The markets Mesh is expanding into next in Latin America, Asia, and Europe; are the same markets Movement's partners are building in. Supporting Movement means balances already sitting on exchanges can fund the products those partners are building for those markets. It puts Movement Network's settlement infrastructure at the end of a funnel that starts on every major exchange.
Move is for Money.
This post is informational only and does not constitute an offer or solicitation of any digital asset, security, financial instrument, investment product, or stablecoin, or financial, investment, legal, or tax advice. Mesh's products and services are operated solely by Mesh, subject to Mesh's terms and applicable law. Products built on Movement Network by independent partners are operated by those partners subject to their own terms, eligibility criteria, and jurisdictional availability, and may not be available to US persons or in jurisdictions where prohibited. Product descriptions reflect publicly available information and have not been independently verified. Forward-looking statements reflect current expectations and are not guarantees.
Survey: 88% of enterprises plan to adopt stablecoins within the next year, with cross-border payment costs reduced by an average of 35%.
Payment infrastructure company Cybrid has released a new survey report indicating stablecoins are rapidly gaining traction in enterprise payment scenarios. The survey found that 42% of participating enterprises already use stablecoins for cross-border payments, while 88% said they are likely or very likely to adopt stablecoins within the next 12 months—only 2% of firms stated they will continue to rely entirely on traditional payment systems. According to the report, enterprises using stablecoins save an average of 35% on cross-border payment costs, with firms processing over $100 million in monthly payments achieving an average cost reduction of 47%. Payroll and contractor payments represent the most prominent use case, followed by supplier payments, customer payments, investment and revenue management, and treasury management, among others. Additionally, 71% of respondents identified a clear regulatory framework as the primary factor driving further mainstream adoption of stablecoins, outranking considerations such as infrastructure provider credibility and system integration. The survey was conducted from April to May this year, covering 468 senior executives from tech, financial services, and e-commerce sectors in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
3 hours ago
FalconX secures EU MiCA license, allowing it to offer compliant crypto services to institutional clients in Europe.
Institutional digital asset broker FalconX announced it has obtained the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) license issued by the Malta Financial Services Authority (MFSA), enabling it to provide compliant digital asset trading, custody, liquidity and related institutional services across the European Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA). FalconX stated that this license allows it to operate across EU member states under a unified regulatory framework, eliminating the need for individual country-specific licenses. Currently, the firm serves over 2,000 institutional clients worldwide, including asset management firms, hedge funds, banks and family offices, with cumulative transaction volumes exceeding $2.5 trillion and over $8 billion in institutional financing disbursed. FalconX noted that as the MiCA regulatory framework is fully implemented, institutional clients’ demand for compliant trading, custody and liquidity services continues to grow, and regulatory credentials are becoming a key competitive advantage in Europe’s digital asset market.
3 hours ago
Guo Wengui sentenced to 30 years in prison in connection with a fraud case involving over $1 billion.
A US court has sentenced Miles Guo (also known as Ho Wan Kwok) to 30 years in prison. In 2024, a jury convicted Guo on multiple charges including racketeering, fraud, and money laundering, with his formal sentencing now issued. Prosecutors stated that Guo defrauded over $1 billion from global victims through a series of related scam schemes spanning five years. Notably, in 2021, he promoted the cryptocurrency project Himalaya Coin (H-Coin), claiming the tokens were backed by 20% gold reserves and promising to cover all investors’ losses, raising approximately $500 million in total. Additionally, the court previously ordered the forfeiture of nearly $900 million in Guo’s illegal proceeds, as well as his luxury mansion in New Jersey and multiple high-end vehicles. Guo had close ties to Steve Bannon, a former senior advisor to US President Donald Trump; Bannon was arrested in 2020 aboard Guo’s yacht.
3 hours ago
The first-half 2026 funding rankings have been released, with Kalshi and Polymarket raising a combined $1.8 billion.
According to statistics, the 14 largest global funding rounds in the first half of 2026 raised a total of $4.3 billion, with prediction markets, AI, and payment sectors drawing the most investor interest. Specifically, prediction market platform Kalshi topped the list with a $1.2 billion funding round, while Polymarket secured $600 million—together, the two raised $1.8 billion, accounting for over 40% of the total capital of the top 14 rounds. In the AI space, Replit, Exa AI, and OpenRouter closed funding rounds of $400 million, $250 million, and $113 million respectively. For blockchain projects, Canton Network, Arc, and Morpho raised $355 million, $222 million, and $175 million respectively. Meanwhile, payment, RWA, infrastructure, and compliance projects including Rain, Slash, Goldcom, Alpaca, and Elliptic also featured on the list.
3 hours ago
Open Standard launches stablecoin Open USD, with over 140 institutions including Visa, BlackRock, and Coinbase participating.
Open Standard has announced the launch of Open USD (OUSD), a new stablecoin for global fund flows, noting that over 140 enterprises have joined its ecosystem, including financial, payment, and crypto industry players such as Visa, Stripe, Mastercard, American Express, BlackRock, BNY, DBS, Coinbase, OKX, MetaMask, Aave, Ripple, Fireblocks, Solana, and Polygon. According to the introduction, Open USD follows three core design principles: supporting zero-cost, large-scale minting and redemption for enterprises; returning all reserve asset yields to partners after deducting a small management fee; and being governed by a board of directors composed of independent firm Open Standard and its partners, rather than controlled by a single issuer. Open Standard states that Open USD will officially launch later this year, with the goal of building an open, low-cost, high-throughput stablecoin infrastructure with a sharing economy mechanism to meet the needs of the internet economy and global enterprise-level payments.
3 hours ago
Circle CEO: USDC remains the world's most trusted stablecoin, will continue to expand its ecosystem and welcome market competition.
Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire stated that as the internet continues to reshape the global infrastructure for storing and transferring value, stablecoins will emerge as one of the world’s largest market opportunities — a core reason Circle was founded and has since built the world’s largest compliant stablecoin network. Allaire noted that USDC remains the world’s most trusted, widely adopted, and institutional-grade stablecoin, with thousands of partners across sectors including banking, payments, capital markets, and enterprises. Circle will continue expanding the USDC ecosystem, including supporting more blockchain networks, enhancing cross-chain interoperability, and enabling more partners to participate in the economic value generated by the USDC network. Additionally, Allaire said Circle welcomes ongoing innovation and competition in the stablecoin space, and will expand support for more U.S. dollar and non-U.S. dollar stablecoins across its products: Arc, CCTP, StableFX, Circle Wallets, and CPN, to advance the development of a stablecoin-centric internet financial system.
Pump.fun has pulled the plug on its Tokenized Agent launch option, effective immediately. The Solana-based token launchpad says community feedback made the decision clear: too many ways to launch a token was creating toxic player-versus-player dynamics that were hurting everyone involved.
The feature lasted roughly three and a half months. Tokenized Agent launched on March 13, 2026, and was deprecated on June 30, 2026.
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What Tokenized Agent actually did The Tokenized Agent feature let token creators set up AI agents that would take revenue generated by those agents and funnel it back into the token through automated buybacks and burns. Creators could customize the whole thing using a skills.md file, tweaking buyback ratios and burn mechanics to fit their project’s specific needs.
The smart contracts powering these agents operated independently of pump.fun’s direct control. Once set up, they ran on their own.
One important detail: existing tokens that already used the Tokenized Agent feature won’t be affected. Tokens currently in the bonding curve or already migrated to PumpSwap will continue functioning as normal. This is a forward-looking change, not a retroactive one.
A broader simplification push Pump.fun has framed this deprecation as the first step in a larger effort to streamline the platform.
What this means for investors The Tokenized Agent feature offered utility for AI-focused projects looking to build sustainable tokenomics through systematic buybacks and burns. Projects that were planning to use this mechanism now need to find alternative approaches.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
More than 450 million $ASTER tokens are now staked across @Aster_DEX, a figure that underlines growing confidence in the protocol's long-term infrastructure as the network continues to mature.
Staking as a Security Layer Aster Chain is a high-performance, privacy-focused Layer 1 blockchain designed specifically for derivatives trading. It powers Aster DEX, enabling a decentralized exchange environment where traders retain full custody of their assets and benefit from strong privacy protections. The network uses Proof-of-Staked Authority (PoSA) as its consensus mechanism, meaning staked tokens play a direct role in validating transactions and securing the chain. When users stake $ASTER, they delegate their tokens to a validator. Each validator contributes differently to the network, and this performance determines the validator's total rewards.
The initial validator lineup securing the Aster network includes established entities such as Trust Wallet, BNB Chain, World Liberty Financial (WLFI), Lista DAO, and PancakeSwap. With over 450 million tokens now committed, the staking pool represents a substantial portion of tokens locked away from liquid circulation, reinforcing network security and reducing sell-side pressure simultaneously.
Tokenomics Built Around Staking The staking milestone sits within a broader tokenomics overhaul Aster executed earlier this year. Aster ended its fixed monthly token unlock schedule and replaced it with a staking-only emission model, reducing the number of new tokens released each month by 97%. Ecosystem tokens now only enter circulation as staking rewards, at a rate of 450,000 $ASTER per epoch (weekly), equivalent to between 1.8 million and 2.25 million tokens per month.
Aster operates a dual-reward staking model, including a 150,000 $ASTER Base APY and a 300,000 $ASTER Loyalty Rewards program that increases payouts based on a staker's lock duration and trading activity. Tokens locked in staking are temporarily removed from liquid supply, a dynamic that parallels accumulation-driven supply tightening seen in other token ecosystems where staking incentives meaningfully reduce sell pressure.
The project also noted that the new emission model, combined with an existing buyback program, could make $ASTER a deflationary asset over time. The buyback program directs up to 80% of daily platform fees toward $ASTER token purchases. Aster remains one of the top on-chain perpetuals platforms by volume, according to The Block's data, giving the buyback mechanism a steady source of fee revenue to draw from.
The 450 million staking figure signals that a growing share of token holders are opting for yield-bearing security positions over active liquidity, a shift that, if sustained, would tighten available supply and deepen the protocol's validator base as it scales.
Sources:
CoinMarketCap: Aster DEX Slashes Monthly Token Unlocks by 97% With Staking Switch
The Block: Aster Perps DEX Switches to Staking-Only Token Emission Model
Aster Official Docs: Aster Chain Overview
For years, Michael Saylor’s company was the poster child for corporate Bitcoin maximalism. Buy Bitcoin. Hold Bitcoin. Buy more Bitcoin. Repeat until the heat death of the universe.
That narrative just took a significant hit. Bitcoin dropped more than 3% to approximately $58,000 after Strategy Inc, formerly MicroStrategy, unveiled a new “Digital Credit Capital Framework” that authorizes up to $1.25 billion in Bitcoin sales.
What Strategy actually announced The framework introduces a Bitcoin monetization program that gives Strategy the flexibility to sell up to $1.25 billion worth of its holdings. Alongside that, the company authorized up to $2 billion in repurchases of digital credit securities and common stock.
Strategy also bumped the dividend on its STRC preferred shares from 11.5% to 12%. In English: the company needs more cash to service its preferred stock obligations, and it’s willing to sell some Bitcoin to get it.
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Saylor framed the whole thing as a “flexible capital tool” designed to maximize Bitcoin holdings per share over the long term. The company currently holds around 847,363 BTC, purchased at an average price of roughly $75,680 per coin. The authorized sales represent a relatively small slice of that stash.
The market’s verdict was swift Bitcoin’s 3% slide to $58,000 came almost immediately after the announcement. The decline didn’t happen in a vacuum. It arrived alongside broader crypto market weakness, including ETF outflows and persistent macroeconomic headwinds that have been weighing on risk assets for weeks.
Strategy’s own stock and preferred shares have been under severe pressure, hitting multi-year lows even as Bitcoin traded in the $58,000 to $62,000 range. With the company’s average purchase price sitting near $75,680, the current market price means Strategy is sitting on unrealized losses across its massive position.
That math creates a feedback loop that critics have been warning about. When Bitcoin drops, Strategy’s balance sheet deteriorates. When Strategy’s balance sheet deteriorates, its ability to raise capital cheaply erodes. When it can’t raise capital cheaply, it has fewer options for servicing its obligations, which brings us right back to selling Bitcoin.
The company insists that the framework doesn’t obligate immediate sales.
Why this matters beyond one company Strategy isn’t just any Bitcoin holder. With 847,363 BTC, it is by far the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin on the planet. Its accumulation strategy, funded through a creative mix of equity raises, convertible notes, and preferred stock offerings, essentially became an investment thesis unto itself.
The timing is also notable. Bitcoin has been struggling to maintain momentum above $60,000 amid a broader risk-off environment. Adding even the possibility of institutional selling into a market already dealing with ETF outflows is the kind of catalyst that tends to accelerate moves to the downside rather than cushion them.
Saylor has been remarkably consistent in his public conviction about Bitcoin. His stated goal with this framework is to enhance liquidity and preserve Bitcoin exposure, not abandon it. And $1.25 billion against a position worth tens of billions at current prices is, mathematically, not a liquidation event.
For anyone holding Bitcoin or Strategy-related securities, the key variable to watch is whether the company actually executes sales under this framework and at what pace. With Bitcoin trading roughly $17,000 below Strategy’s average cost basis, the margin for error has gotten uncomfortably thin.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
By the end of 2025, the power capacity tied to artificial intelligence data centers worldwide had reached about 29.6 gigawatts (GW), enough to run all of New York state at peak demand, according to Stanford University’s annual report on the AI industry.
The report, released in April, suggests that compute itself is abundant and getting cheaper. Permitted, grid-connected, ready-to-draw electricity is in high demand, but the sources to power it are much harder to come by. One industry has spent the past decade quietly building exactly that infrastructure for a different reason: Bitcoin mining.
AI data center power capacity reached about 29.6 GW by the end of 2025, comparable to New York state at peak demand. Source: Stanford University
Chips get more efficient, but total demand risesThe economics of chips are moving in the opposite direction. Stanford said the cost of GPU computation has dropped more than 99% since 2006, while leading chips now perform far more work per watt than they did a decade ago. But efficiency gains have not reduced total demand. They are instead poured back into larger models rather than banked as savings, keeping the pressure on the power grid.
The cost of GPU computation has fallen more than 99% since 2006, even as total power draw climbed. Source: Stanford University
Stanford estimates that the most demanding training runs, including for systems such as Llama 4 Behemoth, have pulled upward of 100 megawatts (MW), comparable to a small power plant. Capacity dedicated to AI has risen some 200-fold in three years, from under a gigawatt in 2022, and data center electricity use is projected to keep rising through 2030.
The squeeze is geographic as much as numerical. The United States hosts 5,427 data centers, more than 10 times any other country, according to Stanford.
Chips can be ordered and delivered in months, but energizing a site, with its substation, interconnection approval and cooling, takes years.
Counted across full systems rather than the accelerators alone, AI’s cumulative power demand through 2024 reached an estimated 9.4 GW, close to the national electricity use of Switzerland or Austria and about half the estimated draw of Bitcoin mining.
Estimated all-in AI power demand (through 2024) sits near half of Bitcoin mining's. Source: de Vries-Gao, Stanford University
The asset was never the hardwareBut Bitcoin miners cannot just hand their machines to an AI lab. Mining ASICs (the chips that solve Bitcoin calculations) do one narrow job and are useless for training or inference. What does transfer is everything around the chips, such as the energized sites, power contracts, grid hookups and the shells to cool dense racks.
A Bitcon miner that already has a grid connection has infrastructure ready to fill the gaps for the AI developers, and renting that capacity beats starting over. Miners also tend to sit where AI wants to be anyway, in cheap-power US states like Texas and the Gulf Coast.
Mining economics is itself a numbers-crunching game. JPMorgan recently estimated Bitcoin’s all-in production cost at about $78,000 per coin, well above BTC’s market price of around $53,400 at the time of writing, down by more than 34% year-to-date, according to CoinGecko.
Bitcoin is down by around 34% in 2026. Source: CoinGecko
Cointelegraph previously reported that hashprice had fallen below breakeven for many miners, putting about 20% of the industry in unprofitable territory.
Some major contracts between miners and AI infrastructure operators followed. In November 2025, Iren signed a five-year GPU cloud deal with Microsoft worth about $9.7 billion, served from a 750-megawatt campus in Childress, Texas. In December, Bitcoin miner Hut 8 signed a 15-year, $7 billion lease with Fluidstack for 245 megawatts at its River Bend site in Louisiana, with the payments backstopped by Google.
TeraWulf reported $12.8 billion in contracted high-performance computing (HPC) revenue and now earns more from leasing than mining. Core Scientific has expanded its CoreWeave agreement to $10.2 billion over 12-year terms. Across the listed miner sector, CoinShares counts more than $70 billion in announced AI and HPC contracts, but much of the value is years out. Hut 8's River Bend site, for example, is not due to start commissioning until the second quarter of 2027.
Investors have nonetheless rewarded the shift. Hut 8 stock jumped about 20% in premarket trading the day its lease was announced, Reuters reported, and across the sector, valuations are increasingly tied to compute pipelines rather than the Bitcoin price alone. Indeed, CoinShares said the miners with HPC contracts were trading at 12.3 times the value of their 12-month revenue vs 5.9 times for pure play miners. CoinShares' projects listed miners could derive as much as 70% of revenue from AI by the end of 2026, up from roughly 30% in Q1.
Why it is not a free pivotHowever, the conversion is far from cheap, and is not just a matter of plug-and-play. CoinShares estimates that mining infrastructure costs about $700,000 to $1 million per MW, while AI-grade, liquid-cooled infrastructure can cost $8 million to $15 million per MW. Hyperscalers also demand power density, redundancy and uptime guarantees that many mining facilities were never designed to provide.
Miners are covering that gap with debt and new capital raises. Iren had already disclosed about $3.75 billion in convertible note debt at the end of March, then raised another $3 billion through a new convertible note sale in May.
The sector is also leaning on a small group of hyperscalers and AI infrastructure buyers. If demand cools, customers renegotiate or projects slip, miners that have torn out ASICs may have fewer options to fall back on.
Whether that shift away from BTC mining pays off remains an open question. Signing multibillion-dollar AI contracts is one thing, but delivering the earnings investors expect is another.
For now, the market is placing a premium on miners making the transformation rather than those that simply produce new BTC. If AI demand continues to outpace electricity supply, those assets could prove more valuable than the machines they were originally built to support. If not, some of today’s biggest AI plans could prove to be costly bets, rather than real second acts for former Bitcoin miners.
Magazine: Bitcoin miners are pivoting to AI, so why is the hashrate near ATHs?
Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.
Satoshi Nakamoto published the Bitcoin white paper on October 31, 2008, and remained active in development until December 2010 before disappearing without revealing a true identity. A 2026 New York Times investigation by John Carreyrou identified Blockstream CEO Adam Back as the strongest candidate, using stylometric analysis of cryptography mailing list archives. Back denied being Nakamoto, calling the evidence coincidental, while Blockstream stated the story was built on circumstantial interpretation rather than definitive cryptographic proof. A UK court ruled in May 2024 that Craig Wright forged evidence supporting his claim to be Satoshi, and Wright received a suspended one-year prison sentence in December. Satoshi’s untouched Bitcoin wallet holds an estimated 1.1 million BTC, making the pseudonymous creator one of the wealthiest individuals in the world if still alive. John Carreyrou, the investigative journalist who exposed Theranos, published a 12,000-word investigation in The New York Times in April 2026, naming British cryptographer Adam Back as the most likely person behind the Satoshi Nakamoto pseudonym, according to CNBC’s reporting on the investigation.
This article traces the verified timeline of Satoshi Nakamoto’s activity, examines the major candidates who have been proposed or investigated, and assesses what is actually known versus what remains speculation.
What Satoshi Nakamoto Created and When The name Satoshi Nakamoto first appeared on October 31, 2008, attached to a white paper titled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” published on a cryptography mailing list. The Bitcoin network launched on January 3, 2009, when Nakamoto mined the genesis block.
Nakamoto remained active in development, forum discussions, and email correspondence until December 2010, when public communications ceased, according to the Wikipedia timeline, and the last known communication was in April 2011.
Nakamoto used a Japanese name and listed Japan as a place of residence, but analysis of posting timestamps and language patterns suggested a British English speaker operating in a time zone consistent with the United Kingdom.
The white paper cited Adam Back’s Hashcash system, Wei Dai’s b-money, and other precursors to digital currency, placing Nakamoto squarely within the cypherpunk movement of the 1990s and 2000s. The wallet associated with Nakamoto’s early mining activity holds an estimated 1.1 million BTC, untouched since 2010.
At current prices, that holding would rank among the largest personal fortunes in the world. The wallet’s inactivity is itself evidence: either the private keys have been lost, the holder is deceased, or the holder has chosen not to move the funds for strategic or ideological reasons.
The 2026 New York Times Investigation: Adam Back Carreyrou and co-writer Dylan Freedman built their case around several threads. They collected email archives from three cryptography mailing lists active between 1992 and 2008 and fed them into an AI-powered stylometric analysis tool, as reported by TechCrunch.
The analysis compared writing patterns, including compound noun hyphenation and common grammatical quirks like mixing up “its” and “it’s.” Back emerged as the closest match. The circumstantial evidence extended beyond writing style. Back invented Hashcash, a proof-of-work system cited in the Bitcoin white paper.
He was active in cryptography circles that discussed digital cash throughout the 1990s but went relatively quiet during Nakamoto’s most active period. He reappeared publicly after Nakamoto’s disappearance.
Carreyrou also noted inconsistencies in Back’s recollections of early Bitcoin discussions during an in-person interview at a Bitcoin conference in El Salvador. Back posted on X (formerly Twitter) on April 8, 2026: “I’m not Satoshi, but I was early in laser focus on the positive societal implications of cryptography.”
Blockstream, where Back serves as CEO, issued a statement calling the investigation “built on circumstantial interpretation of select details and speculation, not definitive cryptographic proof.” Fortune’s analysis of the investigation noted that Nick Szabo, whose initials invert to S.N., ticks many of the same boxes without requiring elaborate explanations, according to Fortune’s coverage.
Other Major Candidates: From Szabo to Wright Nick Szabo designed “bit gold,” a direct precursor to Bitcoin, and published extensively on digital currency before Nakamoto’s white paper appeared. Stylometric analysis by blogger Skye Grey in December 2013 linked Szabo’s writing patterns to Nakamoto’s. Szabo has denied being Satoshi.
A separate 2026 documentary titled “Finding Satoshi” proposed that Nakamoto was a partnership between cypherpunk Len Sassaman and Hal Finney, according to Wikipedia’s Satoshi Nakamoto entry.
Hal Finney, a cryptographer and early Bitcoin contributor who received the first Bitcoin transaction from Nakamoto, was proposed as a candidate before his death from ALS in 2014. Finney denied the claim during his lifetime.
Dorian Nakamoto, a Japanese-American physicist in California whose birth name is Satoshi Nakamoto, was identified by Newsweek in 2014 in a widely criticized article. He denied any involvement with Bitcoin.
Craig Wright, an Australian computer scientist, claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto beginning in 2015. A UK High Court ruled in May 2024 that Wright’s submitted evidence included forgeries and that he had “lied to the court extensively and repeatedly.”
Wright received a suspended one-year prison sentence in December 2024 for contempt of court related to a separate $911 billion lawsuit against Block, Inc., according to Wikipedia’s legal summary.
Regulatory Implications Satoshi’s identity carries legal weight beyond curiosity. If identified, the individual would face tax obligations on an estimated 1.1 million BTC. Jurisdictional authorities, including the IRS and HMRC, would have grounds to pursue historical filings.
The SEC’s classification of Bitcoin as a commodity rather than a security could face challenges if the creator were shown to retain controlling influence. The Craig Wright litigation demonstrated that false identity claims can trigger criminal proceedings.
What’s Next? The mystery may be unsolvable by design. Cryptographic proof, meaning a signed message from Satoshi’s known private keys, remains the only definitive method of identification.
The Bitcoin protocol operates independently of its creator’s identity, and the community has largely accepted that the network’s decentralization makes the question academically interesting but functionally irrelevant.
Future investigations will likely continue to produce circumstantial cases without the signed proof that would settle the question.
FAQs Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?
Satoshi Nakamoto is the pseudonym used by the person or group who created Bitcoin, published the white paper in October 2008, and vanished by 2011.
How much Bitcoin does Satoshi own?
Analysis of early mining patterns estimates Satoshi’s wallet holds approximately 1.1 million BTC, untouched since 2010, making it one of the largest crypto holdings.
Did the New York Times identify Satoshi?
A 2026 investigation by John Carreyrou named Adam Back as the strongest candidate based on stylometric analysis, but Back denied it, and no proof exists.
Is Craig Wright Satoshi Nakamoto?
No. A UK High Court ruled in May 2024 that Wright forged evidence and lied extensively, and he received a suspended prison sentence in December 2024.
Why does Satoshi’s identity matter?
Identifying Satoshi could trigger tax obligations on over 1 million BTC, influence regulatory classification of Bitcoin, and affect market confidence in its decentralization.
What is Hashcash and how does it relate?
Adam Back invented Hashcash, a proof-of-work system directly cited in the Bitcoin white paper, which became the foundation for Bitcoin’s mining consensus mechanism.
Could Satoshi be a group of people?
Some researchers believe Satoshi was a small collective acting under one pseudonym, which would explain the breadth of expertise across cryptography, economics, and coding.
References CNBC Report on NYT Investigation: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/08/latest-investigation-of-bitcoin-founder-ties-identity-to-blockstream-ceo-adam-back.html TechCrunch Coverage of Adam Back Denial: https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/08/british-cryptographer-adam-back-denies-nyt-report-that-he-is-bitcoin-creator-satoshi-nakamoto/ Fortune Analysis of Investigation: https://fortune.com/2026/04/08/who-is-the-real-inventor-of-bitcoin-satoshi-nakamoto/ Wikipedia Satoshi Nakamoto Entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto
HashKey Exchange, a Hong Kong-based regulated digital asset exchange, has officially activated customer funds accounts through DBS Bank to begin fiat transfer services. The initiative permits improved fiat deposits, settlements, and withdrawals for corporate and institutional users. As per HashKey Exchange’s official press release, the move broadens its banking infrastructure with the integration of the virtual account service of DBS Bank. The development focuses on enhancing fund detection, reconciliation, and overall transfer management.
📢 HashKey Exchange has activated customer funds account with DBS Bank @dbsbank, enhancing fiat deposits, withdrawals and transaction settlement services.
We have also integrated DBS Bank’s same-name virtual account service, enabling same-name deposits, fund identification and…
— HashKey Exchange (@HashKeyExchange) June 30, 2026 HashKey Exchange Improves Fiat Settlement Framework with Exclusive DBS Bank Integration The activation of the DBS Settlement Account underscores Hashkey Exchange’s endeavors to deliver compliant and secure financial infrastructure for the wider digital asset markets. The newly activated consumer funds account through DBS Bank unveils enhanced fiat settlement functionalities for HashKey customers. Additionally, the account will enable seamless processing of transfer settlements, deposits, and withdrawals. In this respect, it will create a relatively effective connection between the next-gen digital asset services and conventional banking systems.
The news comes after HashKey Exchange’s development of a robust corporate account in partnership with DBS Bank last year. By expanding this collaboration to consumer fund settlement infrastructure and management, both entities are fortifying the operational model backing institutional-scale digital asset transfers. The DBS Settlement Account’s activation is set to provide automated reconciliation and improved payment tracking capabilities.
Apart from that, the service offers clearer detection of incoming capital by letting users deposit under their names. It also minimizes the complexities related to manual reconciliation procedures. Additionally, the integration is anticipated to benefit corporate and institutional consumers that organize high-frequency transfers, complicated financial operations, and large-value transactions. Thus, the provision of transparent capital tracking and seamless settlement processes, the move can elevate operational efficiency along with backing stronger risk management and compliant practices.
Reinforcing Commitment to Deliver Secure Digital Asset Transfer Infrastructure According to HashKey Exchange, the partnership with DBS Bank for the latest service is broadening its span beyond fundamental corporate banking activities. The joint effort now covers areas like fiat withdrawal and deposit processing, settlement, and consumer fund segregation services. While discussing this development, HashKey Exchange Business Group’s CEO, Haiyang Rui, asserted that the move represents a crucial step in advancing transfer efficiency as well as reconciliation convenience. Overall, the initiative reaffirms HashKey Exchange’s commitment to offering a more effective, transparent, and secure setting for digital asset transfers.
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Umair Younas is a cryptocurrency-related content writer linked with this work since 2019. Here, at Blockchainreporter, he serves as a news and article writer. He is a crypto, blockchain, NFTs, DeFi, and FinTech enthusiast. He has strong command over writing authentic reviews about brokers and exchanges and he has collaborated with our education team to write educational content as well. He has a dream to raise awareness among people about digital currencies. His works are well-researched and brimmed with information hence they provide fresh insights. Stay tuned to his posts if you want to stay up-to-date with the crypto-verse.
Strategy, the company formerly known as MicroStrategy and the largest publicly traded corporate holder of Bitcoin, just did something it swore it would never do. It approved selling Bitcoin.
The board authorized a new “Digital Credit Capital Framework” on June 29 that allows the company to sell up to $1.25 billion worth of BTC. The goal is to boost its USD reserves from $2.55 billion to roughly $3.8 billion, giving it enough runway to cover preferred dividends and interest obligations for about 25.9 months.
The numbers behind the pivot Strategy currently holds 847,363 BTC. The authorized sales represent approximately 1.5% of that stash, which sounds modest until you remember that 1.5% equals $1.25 billion.
The company’s annual dividend and interest obligations total approximately $1.76 billion. Under its existing $2.55 billion reserves, that translates to roughly 17.4 months of coverage.
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Strategy already started selling before the formal announcement. In late May 2026, the company offloaded 32 BTC for $2.5 million, averaging about $77,135 per coin.
Beyond shoring up reserves, the framework also enables up to $2 billion in buybacks of preferred securities and common stock, with roughly $1 billion targeted specifically at preferred securities.
Why the ‘never sell’ era is over Executive Chairman Michael Saylor built his entire post-2020 brand on one message: buy Bitcoin, hold Bitcoin, never sell Bitcoin. The company’s stock became a leveraged proxy for BTC exposure, attracting investors who wanted amplified upside without directly holding crypto.
With $1.76 billion in annual obligations and reserves providing less than 18 months of coverage, the board faced a straightforward choice: sell some Bitcoin now on their own terms, or potentially be forced to sell later under worse conditions.
What this means for investors The initial market response was positive, with MSTR shares moving up in pre-market trading.
Moving from 17.4 months to 25.9 months of runway is meaningful, but it still depends on Strategy not needing to increase its obligations further. If Bitcoin drops significantly and the company needs to post additional collateral or faces margin pressures on its leveraged positions, that 25.9-month cushion could shrink faster than expected.
The $2 billion buyback authorization includes roughly $1 billion targeted at preferred securities. Buying back preferred securities at a discount could be accretive for common shareholders, but funding buybacks with Bitcoin sales means the company is trading BTC for reduced share count.
For crypto markets specifically, the 1.5% being sold is unlikely to move the needle in terms of direct selling pressure.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
The US spot Bitcoin ETF market just had its worst month on record. June 2026 closed with $4.06 billion in net outflows, surpassing the previous monthly low of $3.56 billion set in February 2025.
The month featured seven consecutive days of net redemptions at one point, with a single-day peak outflow of $696.3 million.
BlackRock’s IBIT absorbed roughly $1.3 billion in withdrawals across just five days.
By the close of June, total assets under management across US spot Bitcoin ETFs sat at $72.82 billion.
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Daily outflows continued through the final week of the month. June 29 alone saw $231 million in net redemptions.
Bitcoin’s price dropped below $60,000 during June, hitting a year-to-date low of $58,190. That represents a decline of nearly 30% from where Bitcoin started 2026.
June did not happen in a vacuum. A 12-to-13 day outflow streak that began in mid-May and stretched into early June had already totaled around $4.4 billion before the calendar officially flipped.
2026 also marked the first calendar year in which net flows for US spot Bitcoin ETFs have turned negative overall. These products launched in January 2024.
Even with the dollar outflows at record levels, Bitcoin holdings within ETF vehicles remained close to historical peaks when measured in BTC terms.
Corporate treasury buyers continued purchasing Bitcoin during the June dip, which provides some counterbalancing demand that does not show up in ETF flow data.
BlackRock’s IBIT remains the dominant product by assets despite the outflows. The concentration of redemptions in IBIT over that five-day stretch is partly a function of its size.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Bitcoin (BTC) fell toward $58,000 around Tuesday’s Wall Street open as the clock ticked down to a brutal quarterly close.
Key points:
US stocks' Q2 gains leave Bitcoin far behind as bulls nurse losses of nearly 20%.Bitcoin faces renewed pressure from the risk of Japanese government moves to support the yen.BTC price weakness is forcing capitulation by top buyers, says analysis.Bitcoin "about to get spicy" amid 40-year dollar/yen highData from TradingView showed downside gaining the upper hand as volatility increased into the US session.
With $60,000 increasingly looking lost as support, commentators saw the tussle between bulls and bears continuing on short time frames.
“Open Interest pumping, noticed some large longs entering on this dip, it's about to get spicy,” commentator Exitpump wrote in fresh analysis on X.
BTC/USD order-book data. Source: Exitpump/X
Trader Killa eyed a repeat of weekly price patterns, in which Mondays formed the swing low or high of the following week.
“$BTC Keeps consolidating in this price range. Marginally higher lows and equal highs,” trader Daan Crypto Trades continued.
“Look out for whichever direction breaks first, I think a quick move should follow after that seeing how compressed this is becoming.”BTC/USDT perpetual contract one-hour chart. Source: Daan Crypto Trades/X
Bitcoin thus reinforced its divergence from US stocks with total Q2 losses nearing 20%.
By contrast, trading resource The Kobeissi Letter noted the S&P 500 was up 14% over the quarter, marking its best performance since 2020.
“This would mark the 2nd-largest quarterly gain since the 2008 Financial Crisis recovery,” it added in an X post alongside data from Bloomberg.
“At the same time, the Nasdaq 100 is up +25%, on track for its strongest quarter in 5 years. This would also mark the Nasdaq 100's 2nd-best quarterly performance in 25 years.”US stocks performance comparison. Source: The Kobeissi Letter/X
Kobeissi described an “accelerating” global stocks rally, with the US providing the impetus.
In a potential headwind for crypto, the US dollar hit new multidecade highs against the Japanese yen, increasing the odds of government intervention.
USD/JPY reached 162.50 on the day, its highest since the mid 1980s.
“Whether it’s Japan, India, South Korea or MSTR, It’s the same problem,” analyst and YouTube personality George Gammon summarized to X followers on the day.
“You’ve got dollar liabilities and not enough dollars. So you sell assets to get dollars putting downward pressure on the asset. Yen, Rupees, Won, or Bitcoin.”Bitcoin hodlers "appear to be cutting losses"In new research, onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant warned of a fresh round of Bitcoin investor “capitulation.”
At sub-$70,000 levels, contributor Crypto Sunmoon warned that those who had bought BTC around all-time highs were now selling at a loss.
“Since the break below $70K, exchange inflows have risen sharply, with the majority of this volume consisting of coins held for roughly six to twelve months, coins most likely accumulated near the cycle highs,” they wrote in a Quicktake blog post.
“This pattern is consistent with capitulation among cycle-top buyers, as holders appear to be cutting losses rather than continuing to hold through the drawdown.”Source: CryptoQuant
CryptoQuant data showed onchain movements increasingly involving coins that last moved around all-time highs, along with increasing inflows to exchanges.
“For some, this will be a painful stretch. That said, capitulation events of this kind among cycle-top investors have historically coincided with long-term bottom formation, a pattern observed in both the 2018 and 2022 cycles,” Crypto Sunmoon added.
This article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph's Editorial Policy and is intended for informational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice or recommendations. All investments and trades carry risk; readers are encouraged to conduct independent research.
Most market predictions hedge. Hayes' did not. Asked by TheStreet Roundtable to name a call the market is getting completely wrong, the BitMEX co-founder did not flinch:
"The AI bubble will pop in or around 2028," Arthur said.
"The Fed and other central banks will print money to save the banking system from the bad AI debt they underwrote. This will not solve the financial crisis."
It's a striking call from someone whose macro predictions have, for better or worse, shaped a significant portion of crypto discourse over the past several years. Hayes isn't simply betting against AI valuations. He is just making a specific claim about how the unwind plays out, who pays for it, and where the money goes next.
Why Bitcoin wins from the falloutHayes' thesis hinges on a distinction between liquidity and innovation and it's the line that does the most work in his entire argument.
"Central banks cannot print their way out of Moore's law, and this liquidity will flow to Bitcoin," Hayes told the outlet.
In other words, printing money can paper over a banking crisis, but it cannot manufacture the computing breakthroughs the AI trade was priced on.
He closed the point with a forecast that left little room for ambiguity:
"Bitcoin will perform better than ever as trillions of dollars of liquidity flow into the hardest money ever created."
A debt spiral already in motionAccording to Hayes, the mechanism behind his prediction is already underway, not some distant hypothetical.
"The banking system and central banks will create credit to deliver to defense spending programs and AI CAPEX expenditures," he said. "Once the AI bubble pops, the authorities will attempt to print their way out of a financial crisis."
That response, he argued, is where the real story begins.
This is not a standalone prediction. Earlier in the same conversation, Hayes said that the Federal Reserve is already trapped by its own balance sheet.
"The Fed is already fiscally dominated, which is why I do not believe the newly appointed chairperson Kevin Warsh will be able to shrink the Fed's balance sheet," he added.
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"Nor will he be able to meaningfully hike rates when the U.S. Treasury must roll over trillions of dollars a year of short-term treasury bills."
Hayes also pointed to a quieter structural shift already underway, one he believes is being underpriced relative to the AI story.
"Stablecoins are popular and will disintermediate domestic banking systems in emerging markets," he said, arguing that dollar-backed stablecoins are already moving volumes that rival major payment networks, without the banking license that would normally be required to do so.
In his view, traditional banking survives where currencies still hold real purchasing power, largely in advanced Western economies, but loses ground everywhere else.
That dynamic, he suggested, is a separate but related symptom of the same monetary trust problem driving his Bitcoin thesis.
Popular on TheStreet Roundtable:Analyst sends blunt message on Elon Musk's Bitcoin tiesEx-Trump advisor unveils new Bitcoin price targetAnalyst issues bold call on Cathie Wood's favorite crypto stockWhat could prove him wrongEven his own conviction has a limit.
Asked what would invalidate his thesis entirely, Hayes was specific:
"The thesis could be invalidated if politicians around the world could implement austerity and get re-elected in democracies or receive implicit support of the elites in autocracies."
That, he implied, is a low-probability outcome, which is precisely why his 2028 call stands as confidently as it does.
Hayes pushed back when asked if younger Americans, priced out of homes and savings, are turning to Bitcoin by default.
"These young Americans turned to pseudo-gambling," he said, pointing to sports betting, zero-day options, and meme coins as proof.
With wages stagnant and inflation eating into what little they can save, he argued, most are chasing quick wins, not allocating deliberately into Bitcoin.
Canaccord Genuity analyst Joseph Vafi trimmed his price target on Strategy Inc. (NASDAQ: MSTR) from $163 to $130 on June 30, while keeping his Buy rating intact.
The stock has dropped 41% in June 2026 alone, closing lower in 11 of the previous 12 months.
What the numbers actually say Vafi’s revised $130 target implies roughly 40% upside from MSTR’s recent trading range of $82 to $93. The previous target of $163 was set just weeks earlier, on June 3, 2026. For context on just how far expectations have shifted: earlier targets on MSTR reached as high as $474 in 2025.
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Other analysts on the Street are considerably more bullish. Consensus estimates for MSTR range from $276 to $350, which means Canaccord’s revised target sits well below the pack.
Strategy’s Bitcoin position is enormous, and that is both the asset and the risk As of June 22, 2026, Strategy holds 847,363 BTC in its corporate treasury, making it the largest publicly traded corporate Bitcoin holder in the world. The company acquired that Bitcoin at an average cost of approximately $66,385 per coin.
The company has funded its Bitcoin accumulation through a combination of equity issuances and debt, a strategy that works beautifully in a rising Bitcoin market and becomes a serious liability when prices stall or fall.
What this means for investors watching MSTR Canaccord maintaining a Buy rating despite the target cut sends a specific message: this is a valuation adjustment, not a thesis abandonment.
The divergence among analysts is worth paying attention to. When consensus estimates range from $276 to $350 and one firm is sitting at $130, something is genuinely uncertain about how to value this company.
Watch how Strategy manages its financing over the coming months. MSTR’s ability to continue acquiring Bitcoin depends on its access to equity and debt markets, which tends to become more challenging when a stock is down 41% in a single month.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Block Inc., the company formerly known as Square, has officially entered the Bitcoin mining hardware race. The company launched its Proto Rig modular mining system on August 14, 2025, at Core Scientific’s facility in Dalton, Georgia, with CEO Jack Dorsey in attendance.
The Proto Rig is compact. Its chassis measures 39 cm x 29 cm x 50 cm, roughly the size of a small desktop computer tower. Each unit can accommodate up to nine hash boards and three power units, pushing hash rates up to 810 TH. In select configurations, the Proto Rig can hit 14.1 J/TH. The system supports advanced liquid-cooling options and is built around a modular design philosophy: components are swappable, error signaling is built to be clear and actionable, and operators can identify a problem, pull the faulty component, and replace it without sending the whole rig overseas.
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Alongside the hardware, Block introduced Proto Fleet, an open-source software package designed to manage mining operations. The software includes secure boot capabilities and AI-assisted interfaces for diagnostics. Stratum V2 support comes included out of the box, giving individual miners more control over which transactions they include in blocks rather than leaving that decision entirely to mining pool operators.
Core Scientific is the initial shipping target for the Proto Rig. Core Scientific operates some of the largest Bitcoin mining facilities in North America and recently emerged from bankruptcy with renewed focus on both mining and AI hosting infrastructure.
The Bitcoin mining hardware market has a concentration problem. Bitmain has historically controlled over 80% of the market for ASIC miners. Block’s bet is that a modular, repairable, open-source alternative can chip away at that concentration, decentralizing both hashrate distribution and the hardware supply chain itself.
The 14.1 J/TH efficiency figure, if it holds up at scale in real-world deployments, positions the Proto Rig competitively against current-generation hardware. Investors should watch Core Scientific’s deployment timeline closely, as real-world performance under sustained load will determine whether this represents a genuine market disruption.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Anchorage Digital has announced an integration with Binance to bring off-exchange settlement to institutional crypto traders, giving clients access to the world’s largest crypto exchange by volume without surrendering custody of their assets.
The partnership, powered by Atlas — Anchorage Digital’s suite of settlement infrastructure — marks the first off-exchange settlement implementation within that platform. Under the arrangement, institutions can trade on Binance while their assets remain in segregated custody at Anchorage Digital Bank, the first federally chartered crypto bank in the United States.
The structure mirrors how institutional trading works in traditional financial markets, where custody and execution are kept separate. In those markets, assets are held with a custodian and transferred only at final settlement — never sitting on the balance sheet of the trading venue. Crypto has long lacked that separation, requiring institutions to pre-fund exchange accounts and accept counterparty exposure to the venue itself.
“Institutions need crypto market structure that reflects the standards they already rely on in traditional finance,” said Nathan McCauley, co-founder and CEO of Anchorage Digital in a note to Bitcoin Magazine. “Off-Exchange Settlement, powered by Atlas, is designed to separate custody from execution, helping institutions access exchange liquidity while keeping assets in secure custody.”
The arrangement also allows institutions to pledge both crypto assets and USD accounts as collateral, enabling capital deployment while satisfying trading margin requirements — an approach consistent with workflows at traditional financial firms.
Binance has been building out its institutional infrastructure over the past several years, expanding triparty banking and collateral management offerings for professional clients. The Anchorage Digital integration extends that effort.
“Working with Anchorage Digital gives institutional clients another way to access Binance liquidity while managing custody and collateral through a model that is more familiar to traditional financial markets,” said Catherine Chen, Head of VIP & Institutional at Binance.
Crypto adoption and off-exchange settlement Atlas is designed to support a range of institutional workflows beyond off-exchange settlement, including trading, lending, collateral management, and other capital markets functions.
Anchorage Digital says the platform is built for the current phase of institutional crypto adoption, where firms entering the market have compliance, custody, and operational requirements that earlier crypto infrastructure was not designed to meet.
Anchorage Digital is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Goldman Sachs, KKR, GIC, and Visa, and carries a valuation of $4.2 billion.
In addition to Anchorage Digital Bank N.A., the company operates through Anchorage Digital Singapore, licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, and Anchorage Digital NY, which holds a BitLicense from the New York Department of Financial Services.
Micah Zimmerman
Micah first discovered Bitcoin in 2018 but remained a skeptic on the sidelines for too long. Since 2021, he has covered crypto and business and now works as a news reporter for Bitcoin Magazine, based in North Carolina.
Appearing on the New Era Finance Podcast at a conference in Prague, Michael Saylor, founder of MicroStrategy and a well-known Bitcoin investor, clarified the claims circulating in the cryptocurrency markets recently that “MicroStrategy sold Bitcoin.” Saylor argued that the panic created by the rumors on social media (X) was unfounded, and detailed the rational and strategic reasons behind the sale.
Contrary to market rumors, Saylor claimed the company had not abandoned its Bitcoin strategy, drawing attention to the scale of the sale. “We bought 175,000 Bitcoin right in the middle of the bear market this year. In contrast, we only sold 32 Bitcoin,” Saylor stated, adding that this amount represented a negligible and insignificant two ten-thousandths (0.02%) of their total assets.
So, if the amount was so small, why was it sold? Saylor reminded everyone that his company operates as a massive “treasury company,” obligated to both pay dividends to its lending investors and protect its equity investors. Saylor summarized their strategy with these words: “We have to defend our lending and equity investors. This may sometimes require us to sell 1 Bitcoin to buy 20 Bitcoin. This is actually more tax-efficient and a completely rational step economically.”
He underlined that if they lose the trust of credit markets, they may find themselves in a situation where they cannot buy any Bitcoin at all.
Saylor stated that these small sales transactions on the institutional side should not set a bad example for individual investors, and added that he had not touched his own investments: “I personally bought a lot of Bitcoin and haven’t sold a single Satoshi yet.”
According to Saylor, the main reason Bitcoin is lagging behind current stock markets (especially the record-breaking S&P 500) is the “AI” craze. He stated that there is currently a huge “AI Black Hole” in the market, and this enormous gravitational force is pulling in all credit and equity capital (to companies like OpenAI, SpaceX, and Google).
Saylor stated that while billions of dollars are flowing into these companies, $10-20 billion is also leaving the crypto ecosystem and shifting to these popular stocks. However, he added that he believes capital will return to Bitcoin, which has become more valuable, once the AI craze subsides.
Finally, Saylor reiterated his confidence in Bitcoin’s long-term projection, seeing 2026 as a turning point: “2026 is a great year because it’s the year Bitcoin emerges as the agreed-upon global digital capital, and nobody disputes that anymore.”
*This is not investment advice.
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With the clock continuing to tick down on the possibility of a successful legislative session for the CLARITY Act, bitcoin seems to be firmly entrenched in another summer doldrums, with the price bouncing along at approximately $60,000 while struggling to find a catalyst toward higher levels. Even with these lower levels dominating crypto conversations and policy debates the institutional pivot toward blockchain, on-chain payments, and tokenized transactions is accelerating in the background. Such adoption is important for a number of reasons, but two in particular should stand out to investors and policymakers alike.
Firstly, and at a more generalized level, the utilization of on-chain payments and tokenized assets by large household financial names is continuing to bring transparency and important debates around compliance and security to the crypto sector. Specifically, the majority of debate and discourse around the CLARITY Act centers around not only the ability of stablecoin issues to provide yield and yield adjacent products, but how these institutions should be regulated. As frustrating as this may be for some proponents, these are critically important decisions if mass market adoption remains the end goal.
Secondly, and arguably equally as important for non-crypto-natives, are the improvements being made to the traceability and transparency linked to on-chain transactions. Traceability and the ability to reverse and/or augments payments and transactions made in error are attributes of modern payments that consumers and institutions alike expect, and making this feature more accessible for crypto transactions is an integral step in achieving wider market share.
Let’s take a look at some of the headlines driving these themes and narratives forward.
Blockchain Traceability Is Becoming a Core Market IssueFor years, blockchain’s transparency was treated as a yes or no topic with transactions either being completely visible on-chain or behind the walled garden of a permissioned network. Chainalysis’ proposed formal framework for defining wallet clusters moves the conversation beyond that oversimplification. The key issue is moving from whether on-chain data can be analyzed in real time across multiple chains and environments to how financial analysts and institutions can leverage this available data.
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By separating address grouping, attribution, and operator, the proposal addresses a weakness that has long existed in blockchain analytics; confidence can be mistaken for proof especially given the lack of authoritative auditing standards. This potential confidence-as-assurance issue has increased as digital assets become more integrated with payments, trading, tax reporting, and anti-money-laundering programs. Crypto markets will not gain institutional trust simply because transactions are recorded on an immutable ledger. Trust depends on whether conclusions drawn from that ledger are reproducible, explainable, and defensible to both crypto-native investors and more recent members of the crypto space. For investors and policymakers, standardized blockchain analytics is rapidly becoming as important as standardized financial reporting.
TradFi Support For Crypto Legislation Comes With A WarningJPMorgan’s support for a federal digital asset framework should be viewed as a meaningful signal, but not as an endorsement of regulation at any cost, especially given the leadership position of JPM both in TradFi circles and the on-chain payment space. The bank’s position is straightforward; innovation should be encouraged, but the economic function (otherwise known as tokenomics) of an asset should determine its oversight. In other words, a tokenized security still functions economically as a security, and should be treated as such.
Building on that thread, another example would be that a platform performing exchange-like functions should face exchange-like responsibilities, and that a stablecoin offering yield-like incentives without bank-level safeguards risks becoming shadow banking under a different label. This approach may frustrate industry participants seeking broad exemptions or changes, but it reflects a reality that policymakers cannot ignore. The next stage of crypto adoption will depend less on ideas related to decentralization and more on whether the market can demonstrate consumer protection, liquidity, transparency, and accountability for how errors are addressed. Regulatory clarity is valuable, but clarity that codifies loopholes will not create durable market confidence, and will simply relocate risk.
On-Chain Deposit Growth Shows Where Institutional Adoption Is HeadingWhile public debate and conversation remains focused on cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, the more consequential blockchain story may be unfolding inside regulated financial institutions. J.P. Morgan’s expansion of Kinexys blockchain deposit accounts across eight currencies illustrates how major banks are approaching tokenized money; not as a replacement for banking infrastructure, but rather as an upgrade to existing products and services.
Institutional clients gain access to around-the-clock settlement, programmable treasury capabilities, and potentially more efficient cross-border liquidity while remaining inside a regulated banking environment. This is a different model from relying on privately issued stablecoins or navigating fragmented public blockchain networks. It also reinforces a broader market trend related to the fact that tokenization is increasingly about modernizing deposits, payments, collateral, and settlement rather than simply creating new speculative assets. The competitive question for banks is evolving from earlier conversations linked to whether or not blockchain will affect payments.
The emerging question for institutions is solidifying around just how institutions can implement an on-chain solutions quickly enough to attract mass market users while preserving compliance, control, and client trust.
With the clock continuing to tick down on the possibility of a successful legislative session for the CLARITY Act, bitcoin seems to be firmly entrenched in another summer doldrums, with the price bouncing along at approximately $60,000 while struggling to find a catalyst toward higher levels. Even with these lower levels dominating crypto conversations and policy debates the institutional pivot toward blockchain, on-chain payments, and tokenized transactions is accelerating in the background. Such adoption is important for a number of reasons, but two in particular should stand out to investors and policymakers alike.
Firstly, and at a more generalized level, the utilization of on-chain payments and tokenized assets by large household financial names is continuing to bring transparency and important debates around compliance and security to the crypto sector. Specifically, the majority of debate and discourse around the CLARITY Act centers around not only the ability of stablecoin issues to provide yield and yield adjacent products, but how these institutions should be regulated. As frustrating as this may be for some proponents, these are critically important decisions if mass market adoption remains the end goal.
Secondly, and arguably equally as important for non-crypto-natives, are the improvements being made to the traceability and transparency linked to on-chain transactions. Traceability and the ability to reverse and/or augments payments and transactions made in error are attributes of modern payments that consumers and institutions alike expect, and making this feature more accessible for crypto transactions is an integral step in achieving wider market share.
Let’s take a look at some of the headlines driving these themes and narratives forward.
Blockchain Traceability Is Becoming a Core Market IssueFor years, blockchain’s transparency was treated as a yes or no topic with transactions either being completely visible on-chain or behind the walled garden of a permissioned network. Chainalysis’ proposed formal framework for defining wallet clusters moves the conversation beyond that oversimplification. The key issue is moving from whether on-chain data can be analyzed in real time across multiple chains and environments to how financial analysts and institutions can leverage this available data.
MORE FOR YOU
By separating address grouping, attribution, and operator, the proposal addresses a weakness that has long existed in blockchain analytics; confidence can be mistaken for proof especially given the lack of authoritative auditing standards. This potential confidence-as-assurance issue has increased as digital assets become more integrated with payments, trading, tax reporting, and anti-money-laundering programs. Crypto markets will not gain institutional trust simply because transactions are recorded on an immutable ledger. Trust depends on whether conclusions drawn from that ledger are reproducible, explainable, and defensible to both crypto-native investors and more recent members of the crypto space. For investors and policymakers, standardized blockchain analytics is rapidly becoming as important as standardized financial reporting.
TradFi Support For Crypto Legislation Comes With A WarningJPMorgan’s support for a federal digital asset framework should be viewed as a meaningful signal, but not as an endorsement of regulation at any cost, especially given the leadership position of JPM both in TradFi circles and the on-chain payment space. The bank’s position is straightforward; innovation should be encouraged, but the economic function (otherwise known as tokenomics) of an asset should determine its oversight. In other words, a tokenized security still functions economically as a security, and should be treated as such.
Building on that thread, another example would be that a platform performing exchange-like functions should face exchange-like responsibilities, and that a stablecoin offering yield-like incentives without bank-level safeguards risks becoming shadow banking under a different label. This approach may frustrate industry participants seeking broad exemptions or changes, but it reflects a reality that policymakers cannot ignore. The next stage of crypto adoption will depend less on ideas related to decentralization and more on whether the market can demonstrate consumer protection, liquidity, transparency, and accountability for how errors are addressed. Regulatory clarity is valuable, but clarity that codifies loopholes will not create durable market confidence, and will simply relocate risk.
On-Chain Deposit Growth Shows Where Institutional Adoption Is HeadingWhile public debate and conversation remains focused on cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, the more consequential blockchain story may be unfolding inside regulated financial institutions. J.P. Morgan’s expansion of Kinexys blockchain deposit accounts across eight currencies illustrates how major banks are approaching tokenized money; not as a replacement for banking infrastructure, but rather as an upgrade to existing products and services.
Institutional clients gain access to around-the-clock settlement, programmable treasury capabilities, and potentially more efficient cross-border liquidity while remaining inside a regulated banking environment. This is a different model from relying on privately issued stablecoins or navigating fragmented public blockchain networks. It also reinforces a broader market trend related to the fact that tokenization is increasingly about modernizing deposits, payments, collateral, and settlement rather than simply creating new speculative assets. The competitive question for banks is evolving from earlier conversations linked to whether or not blockchain will affect payments.
The emerging question for institutions is solidifying around just how institutions can implement an on-chain solutions quickly enough to attract mass market users while preserving compliance, control, and client trust.
Bitcoin’s price chart might still look like an EKG readout, but underneath the drama, something quieter and arguably more important is happening. The network’s actual payment infrastructure is getting busier, faster, and bigger.
On-chain transaction counts have been holding steady in the range of 600,000 to over 800,000 confirmed transactions per day. Meanwhile, the Lightning Network, Bitcoin’s Layer-2 scaling solution designed to make payments fast and cheap, processed an estimated $1.17 billion across 5.22 million transactions in November 2025 alone.
Lightning grows up The average transaction size on Lightning nearly doubled year-over-year in 2025, climbing from $118 to $223. That shift matters because it signals the network is being used for real commerce and settlement, not just hobbyist micropayments.
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The most dramatic example came in January 2026, when a $1 million payment was routed through Lightning to the exchange Kraken. That single transaction demonstrated that Lightning can handle large-scale transfers, not just the sub-$50 payments it was initially designed to facilitate.
Channel capacity on the Lightning Network reached multi-year highs of over 5,400 BTC by early 2026. Channel capacity is essentially the amount of Bitcoin locked into Lightning’s payment channels, ready to be used for instant transactions. More capacity means the network can handle larger individual payments and greater aggregate volume without bottlenecks.
Base layer stays busy Daily confirmed transaction counts ranging from 600,000 to over 800,000 suggest that on-chain activity remains robust even when prices are volatile. During previous market downturns, on-chain activity tended to crater alongside price. The current pattern breaks that historical tendency.
The growing use of Bitcoin for cross-border remittances is a particularly notable development. Sending money internationally through conventional channels still involves fees that can eat 5-10% of the transfer amount, plus multi-day settlement times. A Lightning transaction settles in seconds for a fraction of a cent.
What this means for investors The doubling of average Lightning transaction sizes is a leading indicator worth watching. If that trend continues, it means Bitcoin’s payment infrastructure is moving upmarket from consumer micropayments to business-to-business settlement and institutional transfers.
For investors evaluating Bitcoin’s fundamental case, the on-chain data tells a story that price charts alone cannot. Transaction counts aren’t declining during volatile periods. Lightning capacity keeps expanding. Average payment sizes are growing. The network is being used for increasingly serious financial activity, from remittances to million-dollar institutional transfers.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Bitcoin [BTC] was down 3.4% in the past 24 hours, with $104.38 million in liquidations. Of these, $91.66 million worth of positions were long and were forced to close as BTC dipped deeper below $60k.
Source: CryptoRover on X In a post on X, influencer CryptoRover shared a piece of technical analysis. The price chart outlined the descending triangle pattern that Bitcoin made in 2021-2022, and the RSI also formed a similar structure.
The same pattern was repeating in 2025-2026. It is possible that, like the previous time, the market bottom would need some time to form before it breaks out past the triangle pattern.
If the previous cycle repeats itself, a bullish turnaround can commence in Q4 2026. It should be remembered that, as things stand, whale accumulation was underway but not rapid enough to warrant a market turnaround.
Will it be this simple for Bitcoin investors? Source: Axel Adler Jr. Crypto analyst Axel Adler Jr. observed that the Bitcoin long-term holder MVRV has compressed to 1.24. The metric is the ratio of the market value of long-term holders’ coins, compared to their average purchase price.
The current reading of 1.24 is the lowest in three years and shows the market is approaching historical cycle lows. The MVRV needs to fall into the “Very Low” green capitulation zone to give a bottom confirmation.
Additionally, the long-term holder’s average cost basis is at $48.4k. A price drop below this level will put this cohort underwater, on average, and signal capitulation from even the most hardcore holders.
Bitcoin is on track with the 4-year cycle Source: Benjamin Cohen on X Founder and CEO of Into The CryptoVerse, Benjamin Cohen, used the 200-week moving average to highlight that the 4-year cycle was right on track.
June of 2022 and 2026 saw this moving average breached to the downside, setting up a remarkable similarity across cycles.
Source: Joao Wedson on X The rising long/short ratio implied more traders were going long in the derivatives market than were positioned short. “This excessive Long exposure is one of the main reasons behind the recent selloffs”, wrote CEO of Alphractal Joao Wedson.
It implied that, like the wave of long liquidations in the first week of June, another long squeeze could commence in the coming days and weeks.
Final Summary The Bitcoin price action has breached the 200-week moving average and could go down further in the coming months. The market was approaching historical bottom conditions, compared to previous cycles, but was not quite there yet.
The institutional investment vehicle market has just received a major warning signal, demonstrating that a single arbitrage by a giant can disrupt the entire capital flow of an industry. While crypto-backed financial products seemed to stabilize approaching the half-year close, a wave of massive withdrawals shook the listed index funds, calling into question the short-term resilience of institutional demand.
In Brief Bitcoin ETFs record an eighth consecutive day of net outflows, largely caused by a $300.38 million withdrawal from BlackRock’s IBIT fund. Ethereum ETFs follow the same trend, despite some capital inflows that partially limit session losses. Investors are not leaving cryptos but redirecting their capital towards ETFs backed by XRP, Solana, and HYPE, which continue to attract positive flows. This fragmentation of institutional investments raises a key question: is this a simple end-of-quarter rebalancing or the beginning of a lasting change in allocation strategies? A Series of Massive Outflows in Bitcoin ETFs The spot Bitcoin ETF sector showed a total net loss of $231.10 million, extending a particularly difficult negative streak for asset managers. This significant financial move indicates an eighth consecutive day of net outflows for these funds, reflecting a strong psychological capitulation among some capital managers.
A detailed analysis of the players shows a behavior divide between different financial issuers :
BlackRock (IBIT) : the fund alone suffered a massive withdrawal of $300.38 million on Monday’s session, acting as the main destabilizing factor ; Grayscale (Bitcoin Mini Trust) : the structure weakened by shedding $22.95 million during the session ; Fidelity (FBTC) : the product recorded a more modest withdrawal amounting to $3.94 million ; The overall balance : transactional activity remained sustained with a volume of $2.13 billion for the day, leaving total net consolidated assets at $73.19 billion. This liquidation trend did not spare the spot Ether ETF sector, which posted a combined negative balance of $30.04 million. Moreover, a BlackRock product, ETHB, suffered the largest loss of the session with $37.55 million in net outflows. Grayscale’s Ether Mini Trust also turned negative with a loss of $5.72 million.
Withdrawals were very partially offset by positive performances of BlackRock’s ETHA (+$5.87 million), Fidelity’s FETH (+$5.25 million), and Grayscale’s ETHE (+$2.10 million). At the end of this session, trading volume on Ethereum ETFs amounted to $547.38 million, maintaining total assets under management at $8.59 billion.
The Rush to Altcoins While BlackRock absorbed these historic withdrawals, fierce resistance formed among other issuers on the market, reflecting unprecedented fragmentation in investor sentiment. Ark & 21Shares’ ARKB leads inflows, capturing $49.97 million, and Grayscale’s GBTC fund experienced a significant rebound with positive inflows of $35.10 million.
Investors also supported Morgan Stanley’s MSBT with $7.26 million, as well as VanEck’s HODL for $3.83 million. This spectacular divergence shows that the lack of love does not affect everyone, but only specific client profiles. The analysis of the situation reveals an undeniable fact: “without IBIT’s massive withdrawals, the Bitcoin ETF market would have appeared much healthier”.
The capital outflow from these two flagship funds immediately represented a diversification opportunity towards altcoin derivative products, which resist the trend. Thus, XRP-backed ETFs generated inflows of $15.34 million, led by Bitwise’s vehicle which captured $11.49 million and Canary’s vehicle with $3.40 million, bringing total net assets of this class to $971.63 million.
Solana funds followed with $5.52 million in net flows, mainly supported by Bitwise’s BSOL for $4.63 million and Fidelity’s FSOL for $892,130. Finally, HYPE ETFs completed this alternative allocation picture by collecting $2.23 million exclusively through Bitwise’s BHYP product, bringing its net assets to $334.70 million.
The Impacts of Institutional Fragmentation In light of these movements, the short-term future of institutional barometers will oblige analysts to split their reading between heavy index management and thematic yield-seeking. The Crypto Fear and Greed index, which remains in the extreme fear zone, shows that small holders are still frozen by macroeconomic uncertainty.
Conversely, the rapid reallocation towards XRP, Solana, or HYPE shows that professional fund managers are not fleeing the sector but actively optimizing their products.
The coming weeks will be decisive to know if the massive outflows at BlackRock represented a technical end-of-quarter rebalancing or the beginning of a structural disengagement of corporate treasuries regarding the two flagship assets.
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Luc Jose A.
Diplômé de Sciences Po Toulouse et titulaire d'une certification consultant blockchain délivrée par Alyra, j'ai rejoint l'aventure Cointribune en 2019. Convaincu du potentiel de la blockchain pour transformer de nombreux secteurs de l'économie, j'ai pris l'engagement de sensibiliser et d'informer le grand public sur cet écosystème en constante évolution. Mon objectif est de permettre à chacun de mieux comprendre la blockchain et de saisir les opportunités qu'elle offre. Je m'efforce chaque jour de fournir une analyse objective de l'actualité, de décrypter les tendances du marché, de relayer les dernières innovations technologiques et de mettre en perspective les enjeux économiques et sociétaux de cette révolution en marche.
DISCLAIMER
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and should not be taken as investment advice. Do your own research before taking any investment decisions.
XRP is trading at a critical juncture, with both technical indicators and on-chain metrics signaling a potential turning point. Over recent days, the price has been oscillating between $1.00 and $1.06, a range that analysts view as decisive for the cryptocurrency’s short-term direction. According to Santiment data, XRP touched approximately $1.01 on June 25 and was last observed trading close to $1.04. This marks one of the lowest levels for XRP in the past 19 months.
Short-term recovery signals in technical analysisAnalyst Ali Charts highlights that the Tom DeMark Sequential indicator on the daily XRP chart has triggered a buy signal. The appearance of a “9” candle in this pattern is considered a key sign of short-term downside exhaustion—an indicator closely watched by traders. Historically, this setup has often paved the way for brief price rebounds lasting from one to four days.
Ali Charts notes that the Tom DeMark Sequential “9” signal and the Morning Star Doji pattern on the daily chart suggest a higher probability of XRP forming a local bottom, and if buying volume increases, the price could move toward $1.30.
The analyst points to two distinct bullish reversal signals. Alongside the Tom DeMark Sequential’s buy indication, the last three sessions have formed a Morning Star Doji candlestick pattern—a formation often used in technical analysis to help identify potential local bottoms.
On-chain UTXO Realized Price Distribution data also highlights $1.06 as a key support level for XRP, where over 830 million tokens have recently changed hands. Ali Charts suggests that holding above $1.06 could pave the way for a recovery toward $1.27 and $1.35. Conversely, a daily close below this threshold would leave the price vulnerable to further declines toward $0.80, $0.62, and $0.51.
Mini glossary: UTXO Realized Price Distribution is an on-chain data set tracking the amount of assets last moved at specific price levels. Analysts use this to identify strong support and resistance zones.
IndicatorLevelSignificanceMain support$1.06Holding above maintains recovery prospectsUpside targets$1.27, $1.35Watched if buying interest strengthensDownside risks$0.80, $0.62, $0.51In play if daily close falls below $1.06On-chain activity rises amid ongoing selling pressureXRP’s on-chain metrics show heightened activity. Ali Charts reports that daily active XRP addresses have surged from around 23,000 to nearly 40,000 in the past two weeks, reflecting an increase of almost 50%. During the same period, the spike in active addresses reached 72%, even as open interest dropped to its lowest point since July 2025. Despite XRP’s ability to stay above the $1 mark, the coin remains stuck below the pivotal $1.10 resistance.
Santiment reports that 4,941 new wallets were created on XRP Ledger in a single day, marking the strongest network growth surge in more than three months. The analysis notes that this surge in wallet creation could signify revived on-chain activity for the XRP Ledger, which underpins all $XRP transactions.
Santiment highlights that this rise in new wallets coincided with XRP trading near its $1 support, and for every negative social comment, there were 3.7 positive ones in the same period.
Nevertheless, the uptick in network activity has yet to outweigh ongoing selling pressure. Ali Charts observes that large investors have continued distributing XRP even as active addresses rise. In the past five days, major wallets are reported to have sold over 30 million XRP, indicating that wallet activity upticks could reflect both new demand and assets being moved to exchanges.
Institutional interest and regulatory developments remain in focusOn the institutional side, interest in XRP has not disappeared entirely. Recent market data indicates a net inflow of $15.34 million into XRP spot ETFs as of June 29. Bitwise led the way with $11.94 million, followed by Canary XRPC with a $3.40 million inflow. Total cumulative net inflows now stand at $1.485 billion.
Market participants are also monitoring progress on the United States CLARITY Act. Crypto analyst Crypto Crusader argues that the broader context around Ripple and XRP is being overlooked, suggesting that Ripple has been working to expand its global regulatory presence ahead of legislative changes. However, the CLARITY Act process has been delayed, as US lawmakers are focused on other regulations after returning from recess.
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.
Despite ongoing turbulence in the crypto ETF market putting pressure on many products, funds focused on XRP have stood out as a rare sector where institutional demand remains strong. According to SosoValue data, XRP ETFs attracted a total of $15.34 million in new inflows on the last trading day of June 29.
Bitwise leads the inflowsOf the total daily inflow on June 29, $11.94 million was funneled into Bitwise’s XRP ETF product, making Bitwise the fund with the highest daily inflow in this segment. Market data suggests that Bitwise clients were the main drivers of this positive momentum.
Recognized as a prominent asset manager specializing in digital assets, Bitwise provides institutional investment solutions across the crypto markets.
IndicatorDataTotal XRP ETF inflow on June 29$15.34 millionBitwise daily inflow on the same day$11.94 millionBitwise cumulative net inflow$505.17 millionSince the launch of the Bitwise XRP ETF in November 2025, its cumulative net inflow has reached $505.17 million. Despite a decline in XRP prices in recent months, inflows into the fund have largely continued, highlighting ongoing institutional interest in this product.
On June 29, of the $15.34 million flowing into XRP ETFs, $11.94 million was directed to the Bitwise fund, making it the dominant player for the day.
XRP stands out in ETF performanceOver the past three months, XRP ETFs have outperformed Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the wider group of crypto ETFs in daily performance. The key takeaway here is that while other products have continued to see outflows, inflows to XRP funds have remained stable.
The data indicates that institutional interest in XRP is gaining strength relative to larger market-cap assets. However, this resilience in ETF demand has not translated into equivalent gains in the XRP spot price.
In the past three months, XRP has surpassed both Bitcoin and Ethereum in ETF inflows, maintaining more balanced entries as other major crypto products faced ongoing weakness.
Price impact remains limitedAnalysts note that ongoing demand for XRP ETFs could potentially have a more visible mid-term impact on price. Nevertheless, there remains a noticeable disconnect between institutional fund inflows and actual spot market performance at this stage.
As a result, while robust inflows into XRP ETFs are drawing attention, additional data is needed before a clear price recovery trend can be confirmed.
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.
Price action rarely tells the whole story. XRP is hovering just above $1.00 after touching a 19-month low of $1.01 on June 25, yet on-chain activity is telling a different tale. The XRP Ledger recorded 4,941 new wallet creations in a single day—the strongest network growth spike in over three months—according to the Santiment update. Fresh addresses are appearing right as the coin sits on its most critical support zone in over a year.
The simultaneous spike in social sentiment adds another layer. The crowd is treating the $1.00–$1.05 range as a dip-buy opportunity, pushing the positive-to-negative comment ratio to 3.7, also a three-month high. That level of FOMO hasn’t been seen since the last major relief rally. Some of the optimism stems from XRP’s history of rebounding sharply from deep lows and the lingering institutional narrative around ETF prospects. The signal, however, remains mixed: rapid wallet growth is often interpreted as retail accumulation, but when it coincides with elevated bullish commentary and a fragile price, the setup can also precede short-term local tops.
Network growth divergence 4,941 new wallets in a day is not a trivial number for XRP Ledger. Such spikes typically accompany genuine demand-side interest, whether from existing users onboarding new participants or from a wave of first-time buyers. This network expansion stands out because it has materialized during a period of prolonged price weakness rather than euphoric highs. In many on-chain cycles, users tend to exit or stay idle when price approaches multi-month lows. What makes this instance notable is the opposite behavior: users are joining the network while sentiment surveys show a crowd increasingly convinced that sub-$1.05 is a buying zone.
Still, network growth alone doesn’t guarantee follow-through. Wallet creation can reflect speculative intent or bot activity as easily as it can signal organic accumulation. The key question is whether these new wallets will fund up and become active participants in on-chain transfer flows or simply exist as placeholders. Traders often watch whether a surge in new addresses aligns with an uptick in transaction count and exchange outflows to confirm real absorption. Without that confirmation, the wallet spike remains a potential head-fake.
FOMO meets fragile structure The crowd’s 3.7-to-1 bullish ratio also deserves scrutiny. Extremely one-sided social sentiment around a distressed asset can act as a contrarian indicator. When traders become too comfortable calling a bottom, the market often forces a deeper flush. XRP’s price is only a few percentage points above the $1.00 floor, and any bull trap that breaks that level could trigger a cascade of sell stops. On the other hand, if the sentiment is validated and spot demand absorbs the selling pressure, the combination of fresh wallets and bullish narrative could build a base for a more durable recovery.
The broader context matters too. XRP’s narrative has long been shaped by regulatory ambiguity, and ongoing regulatory battles still hang over the token’s institutional adoption thesis. Meanwhile, institutional capital flowing into tokenized assets suggests that narrative-driven accumulation isn’t isolated to XRP. For now, market participants are left parsing whether this on-chain flare is the early signal of a structural shift or just another bout of retail FOMO that fades before real volume arrives.
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Max delves deep into the cryptocurrency realm, with a passion for altcoins and NFTs. Convinced of crypto's transformative potential, he envisions a decentralized financial future. Max's background in the financial sector grants him unique insights into global monetary systems. In his leisure, Max embraces the thrill of adventures and is an avid sports enthusiast, finding balance and rejuvenation away from work.
Ripple has joined an unprecedented consortium of over 140 financial, technological, and crypto heavyweights, including BlackRock, Mastercard, Google, and Visa, to adopt "Open USD."
Cover image via U.Today
Ripple has been included on the list of the 140 financial, technological, and crypto heavyweights that will use a new stablecoin that has been dubbed "Open USD."
The product, which has been backed by titans of the likes of Mastercard, BlackRock, Google, and Visa, and Stripe, aims to address various bottlenecks that have hampered the growth of the stablecoin market (scalability, governance, and other issues).
Open Standard, an independent entity, will be responsible for issuing and operating the new stablecoin, meaning that it will not be controlled by a single corporate issuer.
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A new stablecoin model? The current stablecoin ecosystem often burdens large-scale businesses with prohibitive minting and redemption fees. At the same time, third-party issuers hoard the lucrative yield generated by the underlying cash reserves.
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The new stablecoin is specifically addressing these bottlenecks. Participating businesses will be able to mint and redeem Open USD entirely free of charge. The earnings generated by the stablecoin will be shared by all of the partners. What is notable is that the consortium model also prevents unilateral changes to the protocol.
TradFi, big tech, and cryptoRipple has notably aligned with traditional payment giants like Mastercard, Visa, and American Express, as well as institutional banking heavyweights like BlackRock and BNY.
The project also boasts the backing of major tech platforms such as Google, DoorDash, and Shopify, alongside crypto-native firms like Coinbase, Fireblocks, and Solana.
Open USD will offer Ripple a highly liquid rail for cross-border settlement and decentralized finance operations.
It remains to be seen how Ripple's USD (RLUSD), Ripple's own highly regulated stablecoin with a market cap of $1.4 billion, will fit into this.
Mastercard has noted that it will require "trusted networks, broad participation, and collaboration across the industry."
XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) is approaching a pivotal technical level, even as Ripple unveiled a new lending protocol aimed at expanding the XRP Ledger’s institutional financial infrastructure.
In a Ripple blog post on June 29, Ripple introduced the XRPL Lending Protocol, an on-chain lending framework designed to expand the XRP Ledger into institutional credit markets.
This will enable loans backed by tokenized assets such as Treasuries, stablecoins, commodities and private credit without requiring holders to sell them.
Unlike traditional DeFi lending platforms, the protocol keeps credit underwriting, compliance and loan negotiations off chain while automating loan origination, interest accrual, repayments and default handling on chain.
Ripple said its dual-layer design, combining Single Asset Vaults with a standardized lending protocol, creates scalable financing infrastructure that mirrors traditional capital markets.
The lending protocol will trigger a spike in the use of Ripple’s stablecoin on-chain. XRPL which is already handling institutional settlement will assist in reducing operational complexity and enable institutions to manage more of the financial lifecycle in one place.
XRP Gearing For Volatile MoveIn an X post on June 30, crypto chart analyst Ali Martinez noted XRP is nearing a decisive move, with multiple technical and on-chain indicators pointing to heightened volatility:
From a chart perspective, Martinez added that XRP has already encountered resistance at the upper boundary of its trading channel and is now drifting toward the channel’s midpoint, which aligns with the $0.70-$0.80 support zone.
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Cryptocurrency analyst Ali Martinez has released his latest roadmap for XRP, blending on-chain data with technical indicators to assess the token’s outlook. According to Martinez, XRP breached the crucial $1.06 support level, a move that signals the potential for a deeper downward trend in the market.
Loss of $1.06 support highlights further riskData on price distribution reveals that more than 830 million XRP tokens have changed hands around the $1.06 mark. This level had previously served as one of the strongest defense zones for buyers. As of June 30, XRP’s price slipped below this heavy-volume area, dropping to $1.03 and intensifying pressure on the technical outlook.
With this break, many investors who took positions near $1.06 are now in the red. This creates a potential resistance region, as rising prices could encounter increased selling pressure from holders seeking to break even. Martinez also notes that bullish signals observed on the daily chart have weakened due to this latest development.
Ali Martinez emphasizes that unless XRP reclaims the $1.06 level, any rebound could amount to little more than a temporary pause rather than a lasting reversal.
Whale selling diverges from retail activityMartinez points to a significant divergence among XRP holders. Large wallet investors—so-called whales—have opted to sell in line with the broader market’s declining liquidity, while smaller investors continue to try to absorb the selling pressure.
The number of daily active addresses on the XRP network has surged by roughly 50%, approaching 40,000. This uptick indicates ongoing interest from individual investors. Nonetheless, such heightened participation has not been enough to alter the overall bearish price outlook on its own.
Glossary: The TD Sequential indicator is a technical analysis tool used to spot short-term exhaustion and possible reversal points in price movements. It does not issue directional signals by itself and is typically used alongside support, resistance, and volume metrics for confirmation.
On the daily chart, TD Sequential flashed a local rebound signal that has kept some optimism alive in the short term. However, Martinez cautions that without a move back above $1.06, the potential impact of this signal remains limited.
Two main downside targets emerge on weekly chartIn the weekly timeframe, XRP has encountered resistance at the upper band of its long-term ascending channel. Martinez’s latest analysis indicates that the failure to maintain $1.06 spotlights two main downside targets.
The first target sits at $0.80, which corresponds to the middle region of XRP’s trading channel and hosts a significant volume block. The second, more critical target is $0.70—a level where global trend support coincides with areas of previous accumulation.
Martinez’s roadmap suggests the likelihood of continued decline has increased, with weekly candle closes serving as the key determinant for market direction. Should selling by whales persist and retail holders capitulate, XRP could face an additional correction approaching 30%.
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.
