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Standard Chartered’s roadmap has XRP at $28 by 2030. Read the fine print and every dollar above $3 depends on one bill passing a Senate that has sat on it for a year. The most institutional price target in crypto is a bet on Congress, trading at one-in-three odds.

Summary

Standard Chartered’s Geoffrey Kendrick cut his 2026 XRP target 65% in February, from $8 to $2.80, the deepest cut across the bank’s crypto coverage, while raising his long-range ladder to $7 in 2027, $12.60 in 2028, and $28 by 2030. The conditions are explicit: the near-term target needs only a macro recovery, but the 2027 and 2028 legs require the CLARITY Act to pass and spot ETF inflows to scale past $4 billion. The $28 endpoint assumes XRP becomes core financial infrastructure at a market cap near Bitcoin’s 2025 peak. Both conditions are currently failing. CLARITY has gone a year without a Senate floor vote, its text keeps slipping, and prediction markets price 2026 passage near one in three. ETF inflows have collapsed from $200 million a week to roughly $2 million. The honest math is stark: Bitwise’s formal valuation model spans $29.32 to 13 cents for 2030, a 200-fold range driven by the same binary assumptions, and analyst consensus clusters at $5 to $10 only “if CLARITY clears.” XRP trades near $1.10. Every institutional target above roughly $3 is, mechanically, a legislative forecast wearing a price target’s clothes, and holders pricing the roadmap without pricing the Senate are reading half the document. Price targets are supposed to be about assets. The most cited institutional forecast in XRP is, on inspection, about a legislature. Standard Chartered’s Geoffrey Kendrick, the closest thing crypto has to a house analyst on Wall Street, maintains a roadmap that carries XRP from roughly $1.10 today to $28 by 2030, and he has been unusually honest about the machinery underneath it: the near-term number needs nothing but a market recovery, while every rung above it requires the bill the roadmap depends on to become law and ETF money to arrive in billions. Those are not market variables. One is a bill that has spent a full year without a Senate floor vote, whose text has slipped repeatedly, and which prediction markets price near one-in-three for 2026; the other is a flow that has decayed from $200 million a week at launch to roughly $2 million now. The roadmap is rigorous, transparent, and conditional to its core, and the market that quotes its endpoints has mostly declined to read its conditions. This piece reads them, prices them, and asks what an XRP holder actually owns: an asset with an institutional bull case, or a leveraged position on the United States Congress.

The roadmap, with its fine print restored Kendrick’s forecast deserves to be laid out properly, because its evolution is more informative than any single number in it.

The original ladder, published in April 2025 while Ripple was still litigating with the SEC, projected $5.50 by the end of 2025, $8 by the end of 2026, and $12.50 by 2028, resting on three named catalysts: resolution of the SEC case, spot ETF inflows of $4 billion to $8 billion, and growing payments use. What happened next is the interesting part: the catalysts substantially arrived, the SEC dropped its appeal, spot XRP ETFs launched in November and pulled in over a billion dollars faster than any product since Ethereum’s, Ripple spent roughly $2.7 billion assembling a prime brokerage and treasury stack, and the price went to $1.16 anyway, its lowest in fifteen months, dragged by a market-wide selloff Kendrick described as capitulation-prone. His February response was the deepest cut in the bank’s crypto book, the 2026 target from $8 to $2.80, alongside reductions for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana.

And then the detail most coverage skipped: he raised the far end. The revised ladder runs $2.80 this year, $7 in 2027, $12.60 in 2028, $19.60 in 2029, $28 in 2030, with the long-range numbers lifted even as the near ones fell. The conditions attached are explicit in the bank’s work and in every serious reading of it. The $2.80 leg requires only macro repair, lower rates, risk appetite, a crypto market that stops falling. The $7 and $12.60 legs require the CLARITY Act to pass and cumulative ETF inflows to scale beyond $4 billion. The $28 endpoint requires XRP to stop being a traded asset and become, in the bank’s own blunt framing, core global financial infrastructure, at a market capitalization near $1.7 trillion, which is approximately what all of Bitcoin was worth at its October 2025 peak. The roadmap is not a prediction that compounds; it is a staircase where each step has a named gatekeeper, and from the second step up, the gatekeeper is the federal government.

The conditions, marked to market Take the two named conditions and price them with current data, because that exercise is the entire article.

Condition one: CLARITY becomes law. The bill’s year has been a study in almost. It cleared the Senate Banking Committee in May on a bipartisan 15-9 vote, which was real progress and is also the last floor-adjacent event it has produced. The revised text has slipped repeatedly, most recently after a White House meeting failed to break the deadlock, with the merged draft’s ethics provisions, the Trump family’s crypto holdings, and Democratic co-sponsorship all unresolved; not one Democrat currently backs the draft in circulation, and the August recess eats the calendar from the other end. Prediction markets, which watched the same year happen, price 2026 passage around 32%, down from near 50% in the spring. Senator Lummis has warned publicly that missing this window could shelve the bill for years. None of this makes passage impossible, majorities want a market-structure law in the abstract, but a one-in-three market probability is what the condition is currently worth, and the roadmap’s $7-and-above rungs inherit that discount factor whole.

Condition two: ETF inflows past $4 billion. For readers needing the base mechanics, crypto.news has explained how the flow condition is measured. The products launched spectacularly, $667 million in the first month, a billion dollars faster than any recent debut, an eight-week inflow streak that ran even as Bitcoin funds bled. Then the decay set in, and the current run-rate is the condition’s obituary: weekly flows that touched $200 million now measure around $2 million, July has printed zero-inflow days and the first outflows, cumulative inflows sit near $1.49 billion, barely a third of the condition’s threshold, and the assets that did arrive are roughly $493 million underwater against a $1.10 token. The internals are thinner than the totals: some 82% of complex assets sit in three funds, and a category-level inflow day increasingly means two issuers’ sales desks had a decent Thursday while five products recorded nothing. Analysts modeling the flows tie their recovery to, of all things, condition one, arguing institutional allocation resumes when legal status is permanent, which means the two conditions are not independent. They are one condition wearing two hats, and the hat that matters sits in the Senate.

The case for the conditional bull The strongest honest version of the roadmap’s defense is worth stating fully, because Kendrick is not naive and the structure of his call has real merit.

Conditional targets are what rigorous analysis looks like. A forecast that names its dependencies, CLARITY, $4 billion of flows, infrastructure adoption, is falsifiable and updatable in a way that round-number moonmath never is, and Kendrick’s willingness to cut his own headline number 65% in public is the behavior of an analyst marking to reality instead of defending a franchise. Note also what he did at the long end: raised it, on the argument that the fundamental build-out, the acquisitions, the licenses, the ETF wrapper existing at all, improved XRP’s decade even as its year collapsed. That is a coherent position, not a hedge.

The legislative bet itself is less speculative than a one-in-three market price makes it sound, on this view. Market-structure legislation has bipartisan support in principle, an industry spending historic sums to get it, a White House demanding it, and a predecessor, GENIUS, that proved the votes exist when text and politics align. Bills look dead until the week they pass; prediction markets priced GENIUS pessimistically inside its own final month. If CLARITY or any successor framework lands in 2027 instead of 2026, the roadmap’s ladder shifts a year without breaking, and an asset priced at $1.10 against a $7 conditional target offers the kind of asymmetry institutional allocators are paid to notice. The Bitwise model’s bull leg reaching $29.32 says a formal valuation framework, not just a bank’s conviction, can generate these numbers when the assumptions fire.

And beneath both conditions sits the quiet third catalyst the roadmap only gestures at: the institutional stack behind the thesis, the trust-bank charter awaiting final approval, the pending Fed master account that would be a first for a crypto-native firm, the prime brokerage clearing trillions. If that stack converts into settled volume that actually requires the token, the fee-and-utility floor under the price rises regardless of Washington’s calendar. The bulls’ summary is fair: the conditions are named, the discount is priced, and the asymmetry is the product.

LATEST: Ripple accelerates its evolution with deep liquidity, growing $XRP reserves, native stablecoin, Hidden Road integration, banking access, and institutional settlement engine pic.twitter.com/CoXOfAYveE

— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) April 19, 2026 The case that a conditional target is not a target The skeptical reading does not dispute Kendrick’s numbers. It disputes what kind of object they are.

A price target whose upper rungs require an act of Congress is a legislative forecast, and banks are not better at those than prediction markets are. The one-in-three CLARITY price is not an inefficiency waiting to be arbitraged by people who read committee schedules; it is the aggregated judgment of a market that has watched this specific bill slip for a year, and the roadmap’s expected value collapses once the conditions are weighted honestly. Multiply the ladder out: $7 in 2027 at a one-in-three legislative probability, further discounted by an ETF condition running at a third of its threshold with decaying flows, prices the conditional rungs somewhere far below the headline, which is, notably, roughly where the market actually trades the token. On this reading, XRP at $1.10 is not ignoring the institutional bull case. It is pricing it correctly, conditions included, and the gap between spot and roadmap measures the conditions’ improbability rather than the market’s ignorance.

The Bitwise spread makes the point mathematically. A formal model that outputs $29.32 in its bull state and 13 cents in its bear state for the same asset in the same year is not describing a range of outcomes for a business; it is describing a binary event with a token attached. Two hundred-fold spreads do not appear in the valuation of assets whose futures are continuous; they appear when everything depends on a switch, and the switch here, the regulatory ground under the target plus the institutional adoption it gates, sits outside the asset entirely. Holders own exposure to the switch without any influence over it, which is a structurally different proposition from owning a claim on a growing system, and it deserves a different name than price target.

History supplies the uncomfortable base rate. XRP’s community has already lived one complete cycle of this structure: years of arguing the SEC case was the only thing suppressing the price, followed by the case resolving, the ETFs launching, the acquisitions closing, and the token underperforming the entire asset class anyway, down more than 60% from its 2025 high while its catalysts fired one by one. The lesson the tape taught, that clearing the named obstacle does not deliver the promised repricing, is precisely the risk the new roadmap reproduces at a higher level of government. And the flows condition has already offered its preview: the ETFs arrived, the inflows came, the price fell through all eight weeks of the streak, and the buyers stopped. A thesis that failed its own dress rehearsal does not become sturdier by moving the decisive scene to the Senate floor.

The roadmap’s quiet third catalyst deserves fuller treatment before the verdict, because it is the one input whose calendar Washington does not control alone. Ripple’s institutional stack has kept compounding straight through the price collapse: the national trust bank charter, conditionally approved in December, awaits final OCC sign-off, with only one crypto-native firm ever having completed that journey; the Federal Reserve master account application, which would give a crypto company direct access to the central bank’s payment rails for the first time, sits in a queue the Fed has formally paused for new Tier 3 decisions until the end of 2026, with Kraken’s five-year path to approval as the only precedent; and the prime brokerage assembled from the Hidden Road acquisition now clears institutional volume at a scale no other crypto firm matches. Analysts modeling the master-account scenario describe it as the catalyst no price target has fully priced, the event that would move XRP’s story from regulatory permission to infrastructure incumbency. The honest caveat is that this catalyst shares the others’ defect at one remove: charters and master accounts are also government decisions, made by regulators instead of legislators, on calendars measured in years. The stack is real, its compounding is observable, and its conversion into token demand remains the same unproven step the whole thesis keeps deferring. It widens the bull case’s foundations without shortening its timeline, which is precisely why the bank parked it under the 2029 and 2030 rungs, not the near ones.

The comparison set inside the ETF complex sharpens the flow condition further, because the aggregate numbers hide a structure that matters for whether $4 billion is even reachable. Seven US spot XRP products launched within weeks of each other, and the field has already stratified beyond recovery: Bitwise, Canary, and Franklin hold roughly 82% of complex assets, the remaining funds regularly print zero-flow days, and the best single day of July, under $7 million, came almost entirely from two issuers’ distribution. That concentration converts the headline condition into a narrower question than the roadmap implies. Getting from $1.49 billion to $4 billion does not require a market-wide change of heart about XRP; it requires two or three sales organizations to find another two and a half billion dollars of allocator demand for a product their clients currently hold at a half-billion-dollar unrealized loss. Fund flows follow performance with a lag in both directions, which is how the launch streak ran eight weeks into a falling price and why the decay since has been so complete. The precedent that haunts the setup is the launch itself: XRP reached its first billion of ETF inflows faster than any asset since Ethereum, an achievement the roadmap’s original version treated as the catalyst arriving, and the price fell throughout. A condition that was substantially met once, at maximum velocity, without producing the predicted repricing, now needs to be met again, from a lower base, against worse performance, before the next rung unlocks. That is the version of the flow condition an allocator actually faces, and it is meaningfully harder than the single cumulative number in the bank’s fine print suggests.

What a holder actually owns Strip the argument to its usable core and the position clarifies.

Below roughly $3, XRP’s institutional targets are macro calls, and the asset trades like the rest of the risk complex, with the same Fed, the same liquidity, the same beta. In that band, the roadmap says little that Bitcoin’s chart does not. Above roughly $3, every institutional number in circulation, Kendrick’s $7 and $12.60 and $28, the consensus $5-to-$10 cluster, Bitwise’s bull leg, is conditioned on the same two-headed event: American market-structure law passing and the institutional allocation it is assumed to unlock. A holder at $1.10 therefore owns three stacked exposures, a crypto-market beta, a Washington binary priced near one-in-three, and a residual bet that legal clarity converts into token demand, the step the SEC-resolution cycle already failed to deliver once.

None of that makes the position irrational; binaries with asymmetric payoffs are a legitimate thing to own, and the roadmap’s transparency about its conditions is exactly what makes the position priceable at all. What it makes irrational is quoting the ladder without its gates, and the gates have a calendar. The floor-vote window before the August recess, the fall session after it, and the 2027 political cycle beyond are, mechanically, the price target’s actual chart. Watch Polymarket’s CLARITY line before watching XRP’s, watch the weekly ETF prints for any sign the $4 billion condition resurrects, and watch whether the text that keeps slipping ever stops slipping. The bank told everyone precisely what has to happen. The market is telling everyone precisely how likely it thinks that is. The only mistake available to a holder is reading one document and not the other. Crypto.news has also explained why reading institutional positioning honestly means treating delayed disclosures and flow headlines as conditions, not proof.

Frequently asked questions What is Standard Chartered’s current XRP forecast? The bank’s revised roadmap, published with its February cuts, projects $2.80 for end-2026, $7 in 2027, $12.60 in 2028, $19.60 in 2029, and $28 by 2030. The 2026 target was cut 65% from $8, the largest reduction across the bank’s crypto coverage, while the longer-range targets were raised. At $28, XRP’s market capitalization would reach roughly $1.7 trillion, near Bitcoin’s October 2025 peak value.

What conditions does the roadmap depend on? Explicitly stated ones. The $2.80 leg requires only a broad crypto-market recovery. The $7 and $12.60 legs require the CLARITY Act to pass and cumulative spot ETF inflows to scale past $4 billion. The $28 endpoint assumes XRP becomes core global financial infrastructure rather than a traded asset. The bank’s original 2025 roadmap carried similar named catalysts: SEC case resolution, ETF inflows, and payments adoption.

How likely is the CLARITY Act to pass? Prediction markets currently price 2026 passage around 32%, down from near 50% in spring. The bill cleared the Senate Banking Committee 15-9 in May but has gone a year without a floor vote, its revised text has slipped repeatedly including after a failed White House meeting, no Democrat backs the current draft, and the August recess shortens the calendar. Senator Lummis has warned a missed window could shelve it for years.

How are the ETF inflows tracking against the $4 billion condition? Poorly. Cumulative net inflows sit near $1.49 billion since the November launch, roughly a third of the threshold, and the run-rate has collapsed from about $200 million a week at launch to around $2 million, with July printing zero-inflow days and the streak’s first outflows. Assets are roughly $493 million underwater at current prices, and about 82% of the complex sits in just three funds.

Why did XRP fall even as its earlier catalysts arrived? That is the cycle’s hardest lesson. The SEC dropped its appeal, spot ETFs launched with record early demand, and Ripple deployed roughly $2.7 billion on institutional acquisitions, yet the token fell more than 60% from its 2025 high with the broader market. Analysts attribute the gap to macro conditions, persistent early-holder selling, and the structural fact that network adoption does not automatically create token demand.

What does the Bitwise model’s range mean? Bitwise’s formal valuation framework outputs 2030 scenarios from $29.32 down to 13 cents, a roughly 200-fold spread. Ranges that wide indicate a binary structure: the outcomes depend overwhelmingly on whether legal clarity and institutional adoption fire, not on incremental business performance. It is the same conditionality as the bank roadmap, expressed as a probability distribution rather than a ladder.

Is a conditional price target still useful? Yes, if read whole. Named conditions make a forecast falsifiable and updatable, and Kendrick’s public 65% cut shows marking to reality. The danger is quoting the ladder without its gates: above roughly $3, every institutional XRP target in circulation depends on the same legislative and flow conditions, so the honest way to use the roadmap is to track the conditions, Polymarket’s CLARITY odds and weekly ETF prints, alongside the price.

What should XRP holders watch next? Three calendars. The Senate floor window before the August recess and the fall session, since the legislative condition dominates everything above $3. The weekly ETF flow prints, for any sign the $4 billion condition revives, including whether inflows broaden beyond the three dominant funds. And Ripple’s institutional stack, final trust-bank approval and the pending Fed master account, which is the roadmap’s quiet third catalyst. This is not investment advice.

Disclaimer: This article is for information and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. It discusses analyst forecasts and legislative probabilities that can change quickly and may prove wrong in either direction. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any asset. Always do your own research. Information is accurate as of July 21, 2026.

Ripple-backed XRP Ledger’s newest software update is starting to roll out as The number of validators upgrading to v3.2.0 is increasing. According to the recent XRPL Explorer data, 66% of the trusted validators are running the release. The migration progresses while the network is getting ready for the amendment, called fixCleanup3_2_0.

XRP Ledger v3.2.0 Sees Increasing Validator Support As per the upgrade tracker, there are now 99 validators running v3.2.0. This is 66% of the validator set. It also reveals 481 nodes (57.33%) are running the latest version. However, there is still significant use of older software. Version 3.1.3 is still on 42 validators, representing 28% of the total. It also has 322 nodes that are powered, representing 38.38% of all 825 nodes.

The XRP Ledger has a very critical amendment process. They must be supported by over 80% of the trusted validators. That support should not change during 2 consecutive weeks. The new statistics indicate the network is still short of that. To reach the threshold, another 25 percentage points of additional adoption are needed for v3.2.0.

XRP Ledger version 3.2.0 includes a number of technical enhancements as it covers infrastructure improvements. It is also packed with fixes and developer enhancements. There is one major change via XLS-0095.

The proposal officially changes the name of the server software from rippled to xrpld. The rollout started on June 15. The configuration paths need to be updated for validators and node operators. They also need to update deployment scripts, metadata references, and database directories.

About The Fix Amendment The fixCleanup3_2_0 amendment has already passed the necessary voting level. Currently, it has 85.71% validator support. For this, 30 validators cast their votes in favor while six validators voted against.

The proposed plan is now in the required two-week activation process. The activation period will be July 29, 2026, at 09:57 UTC. It will continue as long as support remains above 80% for the entire countdown.

The node operators are advised to upgrade their nodes before activation as per XRPL validator Vet. The mod is an enhancement to the existing features, rather than new additions. Resolves some accuracy and rounding problems in Single Asset Vaults and Lending Protocol. It also fixes problems related to the Permissioned DEX and Permissioned Domains.

Washington has been arguing about who gets to regulate crypto for years. By July 23, XRP holders may finally get an answer, at least on paper.

The CLARITY Act, which would formally define which digital assets fall under the SEC’s jurisdiction and which belong to the CFTC, is approaching what traders and lobbyists are treating as a soft deadline. Senate leadership has signaled a late-July target for floor action, and markets are pricing in a real probability of passage.

What the CLARITY Act actually does The CLARITY Act tries to write the rule book. It would establish a framework for classifying digital assets, draw a cleaner line between SEC and CFTC oversight, and give projects a pathway to shift from securities status to commodity status once a network becomes sufficiently decentralized.

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The bill cleared the House and advanced through the Senate Banking Committee as of May 14, 2026. Passage requires 60 votes, which means the bill needs bipartisan support to survive a filibuster. Two sticking points are holding things up: provisions around ethics disclosures for public officials holding digital assets, and language related to illicit finance and anti-money laundering obligations.

Why XRP specifically is watching this so closely The SEC sued Ripple Labs in late 2020, alleging that XRP was an unregistered security. A federal judge ruled in 2023 that XRP sold on public exchanges did not constitute securities transactions. The CLARITY Act, if passed, could effectively close that file by reclassifying XRP as a digital commodity under CFTC oversight.

Commodity-classified assets face a different, and generally less burdensome, regulatory regime than securities. Exchanges can list them without the same disclosure infrastructure. Fund managers can build ETF products around them more easily. XRP-linked ETF applications are already in motion at the SEC.

What investors should watch between now and the deadline The July 23 window isn’t a formal legislative deadline. What it reflects is the Senate’s stated intent to address the crypto market structure bill before the August recess. Missing the window doesn’t kill the bill, but it extends the uncertainty. August recess means September at the earliest for floor action, and fall legislative calendars fill up fast with budget fights and appropriations deadlines.

The 2023 court ruling sent XRP up significantly in a single session. A Senate vote, whether yes or no, will likely produce a similar response.

The CLARITY Act isn’t XRP-specific legislation. A successful passage would establish a framework that applies across hundreds of digital assets. Ethereum, Solana, and a long list of layer-2 and DeFi tokens all sit in the same jurisdictional gray zone that the bill is trying to resolve.

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

Ethereum chatter has collapsed to 2020 levels while banks build on the chain and a nonprofit teaches institutions to buy it. The token trades as if neither audience exists. Three groups are pricing three different assets, and only one of them is right.

Summary

Retail attention on Ethereum has collapsed: tweet volume is at 12-month lows near 40,000 mentions, levels last seen in 2020, NFT activity has gone quiet, and daily active addresses have fallen from above 1.5 million in January toward 544,000. Institutional commitment is moving the opposite way: a dedicated nonprofit launched to onboard institutions, tokenization is a headline topic in traditional finance, ETF flows turned positive again in July, and BlackRock, JPMorgan, and Robinhood all build on Ethereum rails. The price has ignored both signals, trading near $1,800, down roughly 42% this year and about 64% from its August peak near $5,000, while network fee revenue sits near cycle lows. The loudest defection came from inside: Bankless co-founder David Hoffman sold his remaining ETH in May, arguing the money thesis has run its course, and doubled down this month on the fee problem behind it. The divergence resolves through one question, value accrual: whether the activity institutions bring ever becomes fees the token captures. Retail priced a story that died. Institutions price rails that work. The token prices cash flows that keep falling. Three different groups of people are currently looking at Ethereum, and they are not seeing the same asset. The first group, crypto-native retail, has mostly stopped looking: social mentions of Ethereum have fallen to roughly 40,000, a level last recorded in 2020 when Wall Street did not know the chain existed, and the loud consumer corners of the ecosystem, NFTs above all, have gone quiet enough to hear the servers hum. The second group, institutional finance, is arriving in the opposite direction, with a purpose-built nonprofit teaching banks how to hold ETH, tokenization on every conference agenda, and the largest asset managers in the world settling real products on Ethereum rails. And the third participant, the market itself, is pricing the token as if neither group matters: ETH trades near $1,800, down about 42% on the year and nearly two-thirds below its August peak, while the chain’s fee revenue scrapes along at cycle lows. In May, the divergence produced its emblematic moment, when one of Ethereum’s most committed public advocates announced he had sold every coin he owned while insisting he still believed in the network. All three groups are behaving rationally. They are simply pricing three different things, and working out which of the three the token actually is has become the most consequential question in crypto’s second-largest asset.

The retail exit, measured The evidence that ordinary crypto users have checked out of Ethereum is not anecdotal; it shows up in every proxy for attention and grassroots usage at once.

The cleanest measure is the crudest: how much people talk about it. Tweet volume for Ethereum has fallen to fresh 12-month lows around 40,000 mentions, with Bitcoin near 130,000, and the comparison point is what makes the number land, because attention this low was last seen in 2020, before the ETFs, before the Merge, before the institutional era the industry spent a decade demanding. Social chatter is a rough instrument, but it has historically tracked retail capital and marked cycle temperature, and its collapse while institutional adoption sets records is precisely the inversion that makes this moment strange. Rising mentions once meant rising retail inflows; now the crowd that generates mentions has left the theater.

On-chain, the story repeats with better instrumentation. Daily active addresses, above 1.5 million in January, have trended down toward 544,000, a fall of nearly two-thirds that tracks the price drawdown from above $3,400 in December to under $2,000. The consumer economy that once made Ethereum a cultural object, NFT trading, consumer mints, the speculative long tail, has thinned to the point where daily NFT volumes measure in the hundreds of thousands of dollars against a $41 billion DeFi treasury sitting largely still. The capital stayed; the crowd left. Total value locked has barely budged through the attention collapse, which tells you who remains: professional and semi-professional capital that thinks in quarters, parked in lending markets and liquid staking, indifferent to vibes.

The generous reading of the exit is rotation, that retail attention went to memecoins on faster chains and to the AI trade, and rotations reverse. The harsher reading is that Ethereum’s retail base was loyal to a story, the ultrasound money, world-computer, ETH-is-money story, and stories do not survive a 64% drawdown from peak while the supply inflates and the burn sits idle. Either way, the measurable fact stands: the audience that carried Ethereum through every previous cycle is not currently in the building.

The institutional entry, measured Run the same exercise on institutions and every needle points the other way, which is what makes this a divergence, not a decline.

The most explicit signal is organizational: the launch of Ethereum Institutional, a nonprofit created specifically to educate banks, asset managers, and corporates on adopting Ethereum, with contributors drawn from the ecosystem’s core. Institutions do not get dedicated onboarding bodies for networks in decline; the entity exists because inbound demand outgrew the ecosystem’s capacity to answer it. Around it sits a thickening layer of professional evangelism, Etherealize pitching Wall Street directly, with its leadership publicly arguing that institutional engagement has moved past pilots into production, and a restructured Ethereum Foundation spinning out ETH Systems as a for-profit focused on institutional privacy tooling, funded by trading firms and treasuries. The ecosystem is visibly reorganizing itself around the client it now serves.

The client, meanwhile, keeps shipping. The tokenization wave that dominates traditional-finance conferences runs disproportionately on Ethereum and its L2s: BlackRock’s tokenized fund complex, JPMorgan’s settlement infrastructure reaching public rails, Robinhood building its chain as an Ethereum L2, stablecoin issuance concentrating on the network that hosts the deepest collateral markets. For more context on the institutional product driving adoption, crypto.news has explained how tokenized money market funds are moving regulated cash instruments on-chain. Even the flow data, the weakest leg of the institutional case, has stopped arguing against it: after a heavy second quarter of net outflows, US spot ETH ETFs turned positive again in July, with inflow days in the tens of millions, uneven but real. And the treasury bid persists through the drawdown, with corporate and fund vehicles continuing to accumulate at prices the retail cycle would have considered a catastrophe.

Institutions, in short, are doing exactly what the industry spent years saying it wanted: adopting the infrastructure, at scale, without asking permission from the price. Which sharpens the puzzle instead of resolving it, because their arrival has coincided with the asset’s worst sustained underperformance of the modern era.

The defection that named the problem The reason the price ignores both audiences was articulated most clearly by the person whose exit hurt the narrative most.

David Hoffman spent years as one of Ethereum’s most effective advocates, co-founding Bankless and popularizing the ETH-is-money thesis, the argument that Ethereum’s token would become the internet’s base money, scarce, productive, and re-rated accordingly. On May 21 he sold the last of his personal ETH, and his explanation was more damaging than the sale: the thesis, he argued, has largely run its course, with ETH unlikely to be re-rated meaningfully higher or lower from here, money to some degree, but not the maximally successful version the ecosystem set out to build. Former core developer Eric Connor’s response compounded it, noting ETH has grossly underperformed the broader crypto market for years and attributing the lag to relentless supply from early millionaires, not protocol failure, an explanation that manages to be reassuring about the technology and damning about the asset simultaneously.

Hoffman has kept pressing the underlying point since, arguing this month that Ethereum faces a false choice between maximizing fees and being money, and that while it hesitates, distribution-rich competitors, Robinhood’s chain among them, are positioned to eat the revenue base out from under it. That is the distribution rival eating the revenue base. Strip the personalities away and his case reduces to an arithmetic claim: layer-one tokens are ultimately priced on the fees their block space earns, Ethereum deliberately pushed activity to L2s that pay almost nothing back, mainnet fee revenue has fallen from roughly $40 million a day in early 2025 toward $10 million, and no amount of institutional construction on top of the network changes the token’s cash flows if the construction happens where the token does not collect rent. It is the value-accrual critique, delivered by someone who spent five years selling the opposite conclusion, which is exactly why it landed.

Three prices for three assets Here is the resolution of the divergence, and it requires taking all three groups seriously at once, because each is pricing a real thing.

Retail priced the story, and the story died. The asset retail owned was ultrasound money: a supply that shrinks with use, a burn that turns adoption into scarcity, a meme that fit on a sticker and compounded reflexively. That asset genuinely existed for a stretch after the Merge and genuinely does not now, with the burn collapsed, supply mildly inflating, and the December blob-fee floor a patch on the leak, not a restoration. That is the monetary mechanics under this divergence. Attention followed the story out. Retail is not wrong to be gone; the thing it bought is gone.

Institutions price the rails, and the rails work. The asset institutions are adopting is not the token’s monetary narrative but the network’s properties: the deepest liquidity, the most battle-tested settlement, the compliance tooling, the credible neutrality that lets BlackRock and a DeFi protocol share infrastructure. That asset is thriving, and nothing in the price contradicts it, because most institutional use, tokenized funds, L2 settlement, stablecoin rails, consumes Ethereum’s security while paying trivially for it. Institutions are not wrong to build; the thing they are buying works regardless of what ETH costs.

The market prices the cash flows, and the cash flows are falling. The token, stripped of both stories, is a claim on fees plus a staking yield plus a monetary premium the market is currently revoking. Fee revenue down roughly three-quarters from early 2025, activity migrated to venues that remit almost nothing, and a persistent seller overhang from the early-holder class Connor described: the price is not ignoring the fundamentals, it is agreeing with them, and its verdict is that until institutional construction becomes token revenue, construction is not a bull case.

Which means the entire divergence compresses into one testable question: does the institutional economy on Ethereum ever start paying Ethereum? The mechanisms are known and partly shipped, the blob-fee floor reconnecting L2 growth to burn, mainnet settlement of high-value tokenized assets that does pay real fees, staking demand from treasuries and ETFs that locks supply. If tokenization scales and its settlement gravity pulls value to mainnet, the fee line inflects, and the market re-rates the token toward what institutions already believe about the network. If the activity stays where the rent is lowest, Ethereum becomes magnificent public infrastructure attached to a stagnant asset, the outcome Hoffman priced when he sold. Both futures are live. The tape, for now, is voting with him, and the burden of proof sits, for the first time in Ethereum’s history, on the bulls’ arithmetic rather than their story.

One more actor deserves a paragraph before the watchlist, because the divergence is reorganizing Ethereum’s own institutions in real time. The Ethereum Foundation, historically the ecosystem’s ambivalent center, has spent the year restructuring around exactly the split this piece describes: research and protocol work continuing in the nonprofit core, a new institutional-outreach apparatus forming at arm’s length, and ETH Systems spinning out as a for-profit, funded by trading firms and corporate treasuries, to build the privacy and compliance tooling institutional users keep requesting. Longtime contributors have scattered across the new entities, and the ecosystem’s own commentators describe the reorganization with a candor that borders on gallows humor. The institutional turn, in other words, is not something happening to Ethereum from outside; it is something Ethereum’s leadership has chosen, budgeted, and staffed, accepting the retail exit as a completed fact and reallocating toward the audience that stayed. That choice has consequences for the token question this piece turns on. An ecosystem organized around institutional settlement will prioritize exactly the upgrades, privacy, compliance hooks, high-value mainnet settlement, most likely to make institutional activity pay mainnet fees, which is the bull path. It will also, inevitably, deprioritize the consumer-facing culture that once generated the monetary meme, which forecloses the old path back. The foundation has effectively placed the ecosystem’s bet for it: that the second audience can be converted into revenue before the absence of the first audience becomes terminal for the asset’s premium. The fee line, again, will grade the wager.

What to watch Three lines on three charts settle this faster than any debate.

The fee line. Daily network fee revenue near $10 million is the bear case in one number; a sustained inflection, driven by blob-fee floors under growing L2 volume or high-value mainnet settlement, is the single cleanest signal the value-accrual gap is closing. Watch the trend through the fall, not any single week. That is where the fee line actually comes from.

The flow composition. ETF inflows resumed in July after a negative quarter; whether they compound, and whether staking-enabled vehicles and treasuries keep locking supply through price weakness, tests whether the institutional bid extends from the network to the token. Uneven, headline-driven flows extend the stalemate; a durable streak changes the supply math. Crypto.news has also explained how the flow machinery works.

The attention floor. Retail metrics this depressed have historically marked accumulation zones as often as terminal decline, and tweet volume at 2020 levels with institutional adoption at record highs is a configuration crypto has simply never printed before. If price ever starts responding to the institutional story, the crowd’s return would be the accelerant. Its continued absence is the cheapest real-time measure of how dead the old narrative remains.

Ethereum’s strange summer is best understood as an estate in probate. The old asset, the retail money-meme, has died, and its heirs have left. The new asset, institutional settlement infrastructure, is thriving but pays no rent to the name on the deed. And the token is the estate itself, valued daily by a market that only counts income. The network has never been more used or less loved, and the gap between those two facts is either the buying opportunity of the cycle or the proof that usage was never the same thing as value. Three audiences have placed their bets. The fee line will grade them.

Frequently asked questions What does the retail exit from Ethereum look like? Tweet volume for Ethereum has fallen to roughly 40,000 mentions, a 12-month low last seen in 2020, while Bitcoin sits near 130,000. Daily active addresses have declined from above 1.5 million in January toward 544,000, NFT activity has thinned to daily volumes in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the consumer-speculative corners of the ecosystem have gone broadly quiet, even as DeFi’s roughly $41 billion in locked value stays put.

What is the evidence institutions are moving in? A dedicated nonprofit, Ethereum Institutional, launched to onboard banks and asset managers, alongside Etherealize’s direct Wall Street outreach and the Ethereum Foundation spinning out a for-profit institutional tooling arm. BlackRock’s tokenized funds, JPMorgan’s settlement rails, and Robinhood’s L2 all build on Ethereum, tokenization dominates traditional-finance agendas, ETH ETF flows turned positive again in July, and treasury vehicles kept accumulating through the drawdown.

Why did David Hoffman sell his ETH? The Bankless co-founder sold his remaining ETH on May 21, arguing the ETH-is-money thesis has largely run its course and that he does not expect the market to re-rate the asset meaningfully in either direction. He has since pressed the structural point: layer-one tokens are priced on fees, Ethereum’s activity moved to L2s that pay almost nothing back, and competitors with distribution are positioned to erode the remaining revenue base.

Why is the ETH price ignoring institutional adoption? Because most institutional use pays the token almost nothing. Tokenized funds, L2 settlement, and stablecoin rails consume Ethereum’s security while generating minimal mainnet fees, and daily fee revenue has fallen from roughly $40 million in early 2025 toward $10 million. The market prices the token on cash flows plus monetary premium, and with the premium fading and fees falling, the price tracks the arithmetic, not the adoption headlines.

Is this different from the ultrasound money problem? It is the same root with a different face. The ultrasound story broke because cheap L2 data ended the fee burn that made ETH deflationary, which is monetary mechanics. This divergence is about audiences: retail owned the monetary story and left when it died, institutions own the infrastructure story and keep building, and the token’s price follows fees rather than either narrative. The December blob-fee floor addresses both by reconnecting L2 growth to mainnet revenue, at a baseline level.

What would make the price start responding? A durable inflection in fee revenue is the cleanest trigger: growing L2 volume paying meaningful blob fees under the December floor, high-value tokenized-asset settlement on mainnet, and staking demand locking supply through ETFs and treasuries. If institutional activity starts converting into token cash flows, the market has something to re-rate. Without that conversion, adoption and price can stay decoupled indefinitely.

Could retail attention at 2020 levels be a buy signal? Historically, deeply depressed attention has coincided with accumulation zones as often as with terminal decline, and the current configuration, record institutional adoption against 2020-level retail interest, has no precedent to price from. Low attention removes a reflexive bid but also exhausts sellers. It is a condition, not a signal, and its resolution depends on the fee and flow lines rather than on sentiment itself. This is not investment advice.

What are the key numbers to track from here? Daily network fee revenue against the roughly $10 million cycle low, the persistence of ETH ETF inflows after July’s turn positive, staking and treasury accumulation as a share of supply, active addresses against the 544,000 area, and the growth of tokenized-asset settlement that pays mainnet fees. Together they answer the only question that closes the divergence: whether use of Ethereum ever becomes revenue for ETH.

Disclaimer: This article is for information and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. It describes market conditions and network metrics that change quickly, and past patterns do not guarantee future outcomes. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any asset. Always do your own research. Information is accurate as of July 21, 2026.

Cardano price has surged 9.3% to an intraday high of $0.176 after the Van Rossem hard fork activated Protocol Version 11, while improving risk appetite and whale accumulation have supported bullish sentiment.

Summary

Cardano price surged 9.3% after the Van Rossem hard fork activated Protocol Version 11. A 4-hour rounding bottom places $0.20 within reach if ADA clears $0.18 resistance. Whale accumulation supports the recovery, but weak DeFi activity and geopolitical risks remain. According to data from crypto.news, Cardano (ADA) price traded near $0.1745 at press time on July 21 after briefly giving back part of the advance. The token cleared the $0.166 resistance that had capped several recovery attempts during July, while daily trading volume rose as buyers returned after the weekend upgrade.

Cardano activated Van Rossem on July 18 after delegated representatives, stake pool operators, and the Constitutional Committee approved the proposal through the Voltaire governance system. As crypto.news reported, the vote secured 77.63% DRep approval, 52.7% support from stake pool operators, and six affirmative Constitutional Committee votes.

Protocol Version 11 introduced new Plutus functions, revised smart contract cost models, zero-knowledge proof support, and tighter node-security requirements. The event became Cardano’s first major protocol upgrade to complete the full proposal, debate, and ratification process through on-chain governance.

Commenting on the upgrade, Cardano delegated representative Jason Appleton described the governance process as a key part of the event.

“The best part: it was ratified on-chain by delegated community reps before activation. Upgrades by governance, not decree.”

A sustained break above $0.18 would put $0.20 within reach ADA’s 4-hour chart has developed a rounding-bottom structure from the July 13 low near $0.155. Price has since formed progressively higher lows and pushed through the pattern’s first resistance area between $0.170 and $0.173.

Cardano price has formed a rounding bottom pattern on the 4-hour chart — July 21 | Source: crypto.news The structure places its neckline at $0.20, where ADA reached a local high in early July. Before testing that level, bulls must overcome resistance around $0.177 and the three-day liquidation cluster near $0.180. A move from the current price to $0.20 would produce a further gain of roughly 14.6%.

Buying pressure has also strengthened on the 4-hour timeframe. The MACD line stands at 0.0022, above its 0.0012 signal line, while the positive histogram has expanded to 0.0010. Chaikin Money Flow remains above zero at 0.11, which confirms that net capital has entered ADA during the recovery.

Daily indicators offer a less decisive picture. The Stochastic RSI has climbed to 81.38, above its signal line at 60.13, after rebounding from neutral territory. However, the reading has entered the overbought zone and could produce a short consolidation before another attempt at $0.18.

Cardano price daily chart — July 21 | Source: crypto.news ADX sits at only 15.24 on the daily chart. Such a low reading shows that ADA has not yet established a powerful directional trend despite the sharp intraday gain. A daily close above $0.18, followed by rising ADX, would give the rounding-bottom setup firmer confirmation.

Fibonacci levels drawn from the May peak at $0.2889 to the June low at $0.1388 place immediate support at the 78.6% retracement near $0.1709. The next major resistance rests at the 61.8% level of $0.1962, just below the rounding bottom’s $0.20 neckline. A breakout there could open $0.2139 and $0.2316.

Large holders had accumulated before the hard fork. Santiment data showed that wallets with 100,000 to 100 million ADA held 25.6 billion tokens, their largest balance since February 2023. Smaller wallets holding fewer than 100 ADA reduced their combined balance by about 0.7% over four months.

Derivatives traders also increased exposure before the upgrade. Cardano futures open interest rose from $385 million to $445 million between Monday and Thursday, while the funding rate turned positive at 0.0042%, according to CoinGlass data. Positive funding means long traders are paying shorts, though excessive leverage could increase liquidation risk.

The three-day liquidation heatmap places the nearest large short cluster between $0.179 and $0.180. A break through that area could force bearish positions to close and accelerate the move toward $0.196. Below the market, concentrated long liquidations sit near $0.172, $0.169, $0.165, and $0.160.

Cardano liquidation heatmap | Source: CoinGlass Global markets supplied another tailwind. South Korea’s Kospi gained 3.6%, Japan’s Nikkei rose 3.3%, and Taiwan’s Taiex advanced 4.2% as semiconductor shares recovered from last week’s sell-off, according to the Associated Press. Bitcoin’s return above $66,000 also directed fresh demand toward high-beta altcoins.

Loss of $0.169 would weaken the recovery setup Cardano’s bullish case depends first on the $0.170 Fibonacci level and the former breakout zone around $0.169. A daily close below that region would place ADA back inside its July range and expose the 4-hour rounding bottom to invalidation.

Further selling could pull the token toward $0.165, followed by $0.160 and the pattern floor near $0.155. A break below $0.155 would erase the sequence of higher lows, while the June bottom at $0.138 would become the next major support.

Cardano’s fundamentals still present a separate risk. DeFiLlama data places network total value locked near $86 million, far below the capital held by competing layer-1 networks. Van Rossem must lead to measurable growth in users, transactions, and locked capital for the upgrade’s price impact to last.

Security concerns have also returned after a Wanchain-linked Cardano bridge exploit drained about 515 million NIGHT tokens worth roughly $9 million, crypto.news reported. Although the incident did not compromise Cardano’s base layer, further ecosystem losses could hurt developer and investor confidence.

Oil prices and the U.S.-Iran conflict remain the primary macro threats. Renewed strikes or disruption around the Strait of Hormuz could lift energy costs, revive inflation fears, and reduce demand for speculative assets. Under those conditions, ADA could lose $0.169 before the rounding bottom reaches its $0.20 neckline.

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

Strike will remain a standalone company after the proposed three-way merger was scrapped, while Twenty One Capital and Elektron continue discussions, Bloomberg reported.

A proposed merger involving Tether-backed crypto companies Twenty One Capital, Strike and Elektron Energy has reportedly been scrapped.

Jack Mallers will step down as CEO of Twenty One Capital while remaining CEO of Strike, according to Bloomberg. Elektron Energy CEO Raphael Zagury has been appointed to succeed Mallers.

Strike will continue operating as a standalone company instead of combining with Twenty One Capital. Discussions between Twenty One and Elektron are continuing, Bloomberg reported. Tether holds majority stakes in both companies.

Twenty One’s (XXI) NYSE-traded shares were little changed in Tuesday’s premarket activity.

As Cointelegraph reported in April, Tether said it planned to vote in favor of a proposed merger between Twenty One Capital and Mallers’ Bitcoin payments company, Strike. The proposal also envisioned merging the combined company with Bitcoin miner Elektron Energy.

Twenty One Capital launched in 2025 with backing from Tether, Cantor Fitzgerald and SoftBank. Tether bought SoftBank’s stake in the company in May.

Twenty One held 43,514 Bitcoin at the time of writing, making it the world’s second-largest corporate BTC holder behind Michael Saylor’s Strategy, according to tracking website BitcoinTreasuries.

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.

EUR/USD edges lower on Tuesday as the US Dollar (USD) strengthens amid heightened tensions in the Middle East. At the time of writing, the pair trades around 1.1405, hovering near one-week lows.

Meanwhile, stronger-than-expected ZEW surveys provided little support to the Euro (EUR). Eurozone Economic Sentiment jumped to 23.4 in July from 9.5 in June, beating the forecast of 11.2. Germany’s Economic Sentiment Index climbed to 26.3 from 10.5, well above the market expectation of 18.

The US military carried out a tenth consecutive night of strikes against Iran, while Tehran targeted US military assets across the region. The US Dollar Index (DXY), which tracks the Greenback’s value against a basket of six major currencies, trades around 101.15, extending its gains for a fourth straight day.

Diplomatic efforts offer some hope of a pause in the fighting. Mediators have proposed a 10-day ceasefire aimed at reviving last month’s interim US-Iran agreement. However, continued military exchanges have disrupted energy shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, triggering a rebound in Oil prices and reigniting inflation concerns.

As a result, traders expect the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Federal Reserve (Fed) to keep monetary policy tighter for longer. Both central banks are expected to leave interest rates unchanged at their upcoming policy meetings. However, further rate hikes remain possible if inflation pressures intensify.

Euro holds tight range as ECB repricing supports but fails to spark momentumAnalysts at Scotiabank observe that short-term rates markets “are showing signs of stabilization ahead of Thursday’s ECB decision, consolidating the recent hawkish repricing that has delivered fundamental support to the EUR via yield spreads.”

In terms of policy expectations, Scotiabank highlights that “markets are pricing little change for the July 23 decision, favoring September with 22bpts of tightening currently reflected in OIS with a cumulative 43bpts by December.”

From a technical perspective, the bank’s stance remains “neutral – the EUR’s technicals are offering little in terms of momentum as the RSI shows signs of stabilization just below the neutral threshold at 50.” They add that “recent price action has been narrowly confined to a tight range roughly bound between 1.1380 and 1.1480,” and that they “remain neutral absent a meaningful push toward 1.1500 and the 50-day MA at 1.1516.”

Euro Price Today The table below shows the percentage change of Euro (EUR) against listed major currencies today. Euro was the strongest against the British Pound.

USDEURGBPJPYCADAUDNZDCHFUSD0.06%0.41%0.28%0.19%-0.15%0.12%0.25%EUR-0.06%0.35%0.22%0.14%-0.18%0.06%0.20%GBP-0.41%-0.35%-0.11%-0.21%-0.53%-0.28%-0.15%JPY-0.28%-0.22%0.11%-0.08%-0.40%-0.17%-0.02%CAD-0.19%-0.14%0.21%0.08%-0.33%-0.08%0.06%AUD0.15%0.18%0.53%0.40%0.33%0.25%0.40%NZD-0.12%-0.06%0.28%0.17%0.08%-0.25%0.13%CHF-0.25%-0.20%0.15%0.02%-0.06%-0.40%-0.13% The heat map shows percentage changes of major currencies against each other. The base currency is picked from the left column, while the quote currency is picked from the top row. For example, if you pick the Euro from the left column and move along the horizontal line to the US Dollar, the percentage change displayed in the box will represent EUR (base)/USD (quote).

Key Takeaways CDW continues acquisitions and capital allocation to support long-term growth and shareholder returns.CDW returned $282 million to shareholders in Q1 2026 through buybacks and dividends.CDW expects Geared for Growth to deliver $100M-$200M annual run-rate improvements by 2027-2028. CDW Corporation (CDW - Free Report) continues to execute a disciplined capital allocation strategy focused on supporting long-term growth while returning capital to shareholders. The company supplements organic growth through acquisitions that expand its capabilities across key technology areas. Previous acquisitions, including Mission Cloud Services, Enquizit, Sirius Computer Solutions and Lexicon Tech Solutions, have strengthened CDW's cloud, managed services and lifecycle offerings, enabling it to address evolving customer priorities. On the last earnings call, management stated that it continues to evaluate merger and acquisition opportunities that can accelerate its three-part growth strategy while maintaining flexibility within its capital structure.

The company also continues to generate strong cash flow that supports its shareholder-return strategy. During the first quarter of 2026, CDW generated adjusted free cash flow of $251 million, representing 85% of non-GAAP net income and remaining within its long-term objective of converting 80% to 90% of non-GAAP net income into cash. The company utilized this cash in line with its 2026 capital allocation objectives by returning $201 million through share repurchases and $81 million through dividends, bringing total capital returned to shareholders to $282 million, or 112% of adjusted free cash flow during the quarter.

Management remains committed to maintaining net leverage within its targeted range of 2x to 3x while proactively managing liquidity. At the end of the first quarter, net leverage was 2.5x, within the company's target range. CDW also reiterated that dividend growth remains its first capital allocation priority, targeting a payout ratio of approximately 25% of non-GAAP net income, while share repurchases and acquisitions continue to serve as important drivers of shareholder value.

In addition to its capital deployment strategy, CDW expects productivity initiatives under its Geared for Growth program to begin contributing benefits in the second half of 2026. The multi-year initiative is designed to simplify operations, modernize processes and embed AI across the business. Management has identified expected annual run-rate improvements of $100 million to $200 million through 2027 and 2028, with a portion of the savings being reinvested to support the company's broader growth strategy and future investment capacity. Separately, in May 2026, CDW's board authorized an additional $1 billion for share repurchases, increasing the company's remaining buyback authorization as of March 31, 2026, to approximately $1.48 billion subject to future board approvals.

Taking a Look at CDW’s CompetitorsTD SYNNEX Corporation (SNX - Free Report) maintains a balanced capital allocation strategy through shareholder returns while supporting business growth. In fiscal 2025, the company returned $742 million to shareholders, including $596 million through share repurchases and $146 million in dividends. In the second quarter of fiscal 2026, it returned $151 million, comprising $112 million of share buybacks and $39 million of dividends. During the first half of fiscal 2026, TD SYNNEX repurchased $192 million of shares and paid $77 million in dividends. The company stated that this shareholder return policy reflects its financial strength and expectations of generating sufficient earnings and distributable cash flows.

Accenture plc (ACN - Free Report) follows a disciplined capital allocation strategy, balancing acquisitions, investments and shareholder returns. In fiscal 2025, the company invested $1.5 billion across 23 acquisitions, including Avanseus, RANGR Data, Decho and IAMConcepts, to expand capabilities across AI, data, engineering and identity and access management. At the end of the third quarter of fiscal 2026, Accenture held $10.2 billion in cash and cash equivalents against $5 billion in long-term debt, while generating $3.8 billion in operating cash flow and $3.6 billion in free cash flow. The company also maintained its consistent dividend payments, distributing $3.7 billion in fiscal 2025.

CDW Price Performance, Valuation and EstimatesShares of CDW have gained 5.2% in the past month compared with the Computers - IT Services industry’s growth of 1.7%.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Valuation-wise, CDW seems attractive, as suggested by the Value Score of B. CDW trades at a forward 12-month price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 12.04, below the industry’s 16.94.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for CDW’s earnings for 2026 has been revised marginally upward over the past 60 days.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

CDW currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Road Town, British Virgin Islands, July 21st, 2026, Chainwire

STON.fi, the leading AMM protocol on The Open Network (TON), today announced the launch of cross-chain swaps in the STON.fi app, giving users a direct way to move stablecoins between TON, TRON, Ethereum, Base, BNB Chain, Polygon, Avalanche, Arbitrum, and Robinhood Chain through a unified, self-custodial interface. 

The launch connects TON to major liquidity and application ecosystems across crypto. As a result, users can move capital between stablecoin markets, TON-native assets, DeFi protocols, and Telegram-native applications without relying on centralized exchanges, bridges, or wrapped assets.

Stablecoins have become one of crypto’s most important markets, with more than $300 billion in total market capitalization, led by TRON and Ethereum as the two largest stablecoin networks. Through cross-chain swaps, STON.fi connects TON with major stablecoin ecosystems in both directions: TON users gain access to liquidity across networks, while TRON and EVM users get a more direct path into TON-native assets, wallets, DeFi protocols, and Telegram-native applications — all through one self-custodial experience without managing bridges, wrapped assets, routing decisions, or settlement uncertainty.

Omniston, the execution layer developed by STON.fi, coordinates the full swap process between source and destination chains. More than a routing or liquidity aggregation system, it is designed to help cross-chain stablecoin flows complete predictably, from pricing to settlement.

"People don't think in terms of blockchains — they think in terms of what they want to do," said Slavik Baranov, CEO of STON.fi Dev. "Our goal is to make moving between ecosystems feel as simple as swapping within one network. Omniston handles the complexity so users can focus on the outcome, not the infrastructure."

For users, the key benefits are speed and predictability. Most swaps complete in 15–40 seconds, allowing users to swap assets between any supported chains without the longer wait times often associated with cross-chain transactions. When a swap is confirmed, Omniston connects the order with independent liquidity providers, known as resolvers, that supply the asset on the destination chain. The transaction is executed through linked Hashed Timelock Contracts (HTLCs) — smart-contract escrows on both chains that use the same cryptographic condition — so both sides of the swap complete together or the transaction does not complete at all. Before confirming, users see the asset and amount they are expected to receive. If the swap cannot be completed, funds are returned instead of being left stuck, partially executed, or unclear.

With cross-chain swaps now live, STON.fi is moving beyond a chain-specific DeFi protocol toward a product built around user intent. As stablecoin liquidity, consumer applications, and DeFi markets spread across networks, users need easier ways to move value without giving up self-custody or managing the infrastructure behind each transaction. For TON and the broader crypto market, the launch introduces a more practical access layer between major liquidity networks, application ecosystems, and the wider onchain economy.

For more information, users can visit STON.fi's cross-chain swap interface: app.ston.fi/cross-chain 

About STON.fi

STON.fi is a cross-chain decentralized application for token swaps across TON, TRON, and major EVM-compatible blockchains. Originally established as the leading AMM protocol and one of the most widely used DeFi applications on The Open Network (TON), STON.fi helps users swap assets, access DeFi opportunities, and move value across blockchains through a simple cross-chain experience. Its cross-chain capabilities are powered by Omniston, the execution layer developed by STON.fi to support reliable and predictable swaps across multiple networks. Backed by leading investors including CoinFund, Delphi Ventures, The Open Platform, Karatage, TON Ventures, and others, STON.fi is building the infrastructure that connects users, liquidity, and applications across the onchain economy.

ContactHead of Communications
Ekaterina
STON.fi Dev
[email protected]

Disclaimer: Press release sponsored by our commercial partners.

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Wall Street expects a year-over-year decline in earnings on higher revenues when Asbury Automotive Group (ABG - Free Report) reports results for the quarter ended June 2026. While this widely-known consensus outlook is important in gauging the company's earnings picture, a powerful factor that could impact its near-term stock price is how the actual results compare to these estimates.

The stock might move higher if these key numbers top expectations in the upcoming earnings report, which is expected to be released on July 28. On the other hand, if they miss, the stock may move lower.

While management's discussion of business conditions on the earnings call will mostly determine the sustainability of the immediate price change and future earnings expectations, it's worth having a handicapping insight into the odds of a positive EPS surprise.

Zacks Consensus EstimateThis auto dealership chain is expected to post quarterly earnings of $6.30 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of -15.2%.

Revenues are expected to be $4.46 billion, up 2.1% from the year-ago quarter.

Estimate Revisions TrendThe consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has been revised 0.88% lower over the last 30 days to the current level. This is essentially a reflection of how the covering analysts have collectively reassessed their initial estimates over this period.

Investors should keep in mind that the direction of estimate revisions by each of the covering analysts may not always get reflected in the aggregate change.

Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

Earnings WhisperEstimate revisions ahead of a company's earnings release offer clues to the business conditions for the period whose results are coming out. Our proprietary surprise prediction model -- the Zacks Earnings ESP (Expected Surprise Prediction) -- has this insight at its core.

The Zacks Earnings ESP compares the Most Accurate Estimate to the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the quarter; the Most Accurate Estimate is a more recent version of the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate. The idea here is that analysts revising their estimates right before an earnings release have the latest information, which could potentially be more accurate than what they and others contributing to the consensus had predicted earlier.

Thus, a positive or negative Earnings ESP reading theoretically indicates the likely deviation of the actual earnings from the consensus estimate. However, the model's predictive power is significant for positive ESP readings only.

A positive Earnings ESP is a strong predictor of an earnings beat, particularly when combined with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold). Our research shows that stocks with this combination produce a positive surprise nearly 70% of the time, and a solid Zacks Rank actually increases the predictive power of Earnings ESP.

Please note that a negative Earnings ESP reading is not indicative of an earnings miss. Our research shows that it is difficult to predict an earnings beat with any degree of confidence for stocks with negative Earnings ESP readings and/or Zacks Rank of 4 (Sell) or 5 (Strong Sell).

How Have the Numbers Shaped Up for Asbury Automotive?For Asbury Automotive, the Most Accurate Estimate is lower than the Zacks Consensus Estimate, suggesting that analysts have recently become bearish on the company's earnings prospects. This has resulted in an Earnings ESP of -0.46%.

On the other hand, the stock currently carries a Zacks Rank of #3.

So, this combination makes it difficult to conclusively predict that Asbury Automotive will beat the consensus EPS estimate.

Does Earnings Surprise History Hold Any Clue?While calculating estimates for a company's future earnings, analysts often consider to what extent it has been able to match past consensus estimates. So, it's worth taking a look at the surprise history for gauging its influence on the upcoming number.

For the last reported quarter, it was expected that Asbury Automotive would post earnings of $5.68 per share when it actually produced earnings of $5.37, delivering a surprise of -5.46%.

Over the last four quarters, the company has beaten consensus EPS estimates two times.

Bottom LineAn earnings beat or miss may not be the sole basis for a stock moving higher or lower. Many stocks end up losing ground despite an earnings beat due to other factors that disappoint investors. Similarly, unforeseen catalysts help a number of stocks gain despite an earnings miss.

That said, betting on stocks that are expected to beat earnings expectations does increase the odds of success. This is why it's worth checking a company's Earnings ESP and Zacks Rank ahead of its quarterly release. Make sure to utilize our Earnings ESP Filter to uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they've reported.

Asbury Automotive doesn't appear a compelling earnings-beat candidate. However, investors should pay attention to other factors too for betting on this stock or staying away from it ahead of its earnings release.

Stay on top of upcoming earnings announcements with the Zacks Earnings Calendar.

SCHAUMBURG, Ill., July 21, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Paylocity, a leading provider of HCM, Finance, and IT solutions, today introduced Paylocity Ignite AI, its platform-wide AI with agents that automate manual work, help reduce risk, and enable teams to move faster. Embedded throughout Paylocity’s platform, Ignite AI brings data, insights, and automation into moments where decisions are made and work gets done.

Purpose-Built Agents That Help Teams Take Action

Ignite AI includes new, purpose-built agents that automate tasks across pay, time, recruiting, and other areas where work often slows down.

Answer & Insight Agent

Getting answers from your data today means running reports, exporting spreadsheets, or waiting on someone else to dig them out. And even then, a report shows what happened, not why. Clients told us they need to explore their data on their own terms, because every business asks different questions. The Answer & Insight Agent was built for exactly that: ask a question in natural language and get answers in real time, pulling from your company data across the platform.

Hire faster by understanding exactly where the recruiting funnel breaks downProactively manage overtime in real time before it becomes a cost problemVisualize turnover trends in a clear chart with actionable insights ready to share with senior leadersAnalyze what is driving costs across locations, teams, and shiftsSpot the pay, performance, or retention risks hiding across the workforceUnderstand where onboarding stalls and what it's costing in productivity The real power is in the back-and-forth: ask follow-ups, visualize trends, and go deeper. Because the agent isn’t built around a fixed set of questions, it goes wherever your thinking does. It turns blind spots into real-time, strategic decisions.

Payroll Analysis Agent

Reviewing every anomaly in a large payroll before the deadline takes hours, and errors still slip through. The Payroll Analysis Agent helps payroll teams catch issues before submission by:

Surfacing anomalies based on each organization's historical payroll trendsExplaining what changed and why it matters in plain languageFocusing review on the areas that need attention Payroll admins spend less time hunting for issues and more time resolving them.

Candidate Fit Agent

High-volume recruiting teams need every advantage to move quickly without sacrificing quality. The Candidate Fit Agent helps recruiters:

Surface candidates for review based on role criteriaSummarize how applicants match role requirements, while flagging criteria that may not be compliantReduce time spent sorting and sourcing across large applicant pools Recruiters stay in control of every hiring decision, spending less time screening and more time engaging candidates.

Ignite AI also includes additional agents that improve data quality and streamline payroll operations, including the Resume Summary Agent, which gives recruiters candidate overviews; the Data Inspection Agent, which detects gaps in employee records and guides resolution before they cause downstream issues; and the Time Correction Agent, which surfaces time errors, requests, and compliance issues so supervisors can resolve them before payroll deadlines. These join a growing set of agentic experiences available today including guided benefits enrollment, expense submission, and accounts payable validation, with additional agents planned across scheduling, candidate engagement, and more.

Managing AI with Confidence

To help organizations scale AI responsibly, Paylocity is introducing the Ignite AI Hub, a centralized dashboard for managing and measuring AI across the organization.

With Ignite AI Hub, leaders can:

Measure business impact and productivity gainsMonitor adoption across teamsControl which agents are activeIdentify new opportunities for automation The Ignite AI Hub provides the visibility and control organizations need to confidently deploy AI while keeping people at the center of decision-making.

Shaped Directly by Clients

Ignite AI was developed alongside clients. Paylocity assembled an advisory group of HR and business leaders to help identify high-impact opportunities, validate real-world use cases, and guide product innovation.

“The way Paylocity is weaving AI across the platform is better than anything I’ve seen in other systems,” said Ryan Zimmerman, VP of Human Resources at POLYWOOD. “I’m so excited by the momentum I’m seeing and to be part of shaping it.”

"It actually feels like I have another team member supporting me," said Genevieve Gonnigan, VP of HR & People and Culture, at Lincoln Park Zoo. "Manual processes are a time suck, and Ignite AI turns things that would be a 5- to 10-minute process into a 30-second question or resolves them on its own."

“Ignite AI is the next evolution of AI at work: embedded across the Paylocity platform, built for every team, and informed by the real-world needs of clients who use it every day,” said Toby Williams, President and CEO of Paylocity. “It brings intelligence and automated action directly into the flow of work, helping organizations move faster, make confident decisions, and unlock greater value from their teams. This is only the beginning of what we're building.”

Learn more about Ignite AI.

About Paylocity

Headquartered in Schaumburg, IL, Paylocity (NASDAQ: PCTY) is an award-winning provider of HCM, Finance, and IT software solutions. Paylocity offers one unified, easy-to-use platform that helps businesses across HR, Finance, and IT streamline operations, manage spend and talent, and build culture and connection—with AI embedded directly into everyday workflows to save time, reduce manual effort, and support better decisions. Known for its unique culture and consistently recognized as one of the best places to work, Paylocity accompanies its clients on the journey to create great workplaces and help all employees achieve their best. For more information, visit www.paylocity.com.

CONTACT:
Nicole Andergard Reddy
[email protected]

503-855-7385

, /PRNewswire/ -- Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. today announced that its U.S. wholesale brokerage, binding authority and programs division, Risk Placement Services, Inc. (RPS), has acquired Greensburg, Pennsylvania-based W.N. Tuscano Agency, Inc. (Tuscano). Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Tuscano is a managing general agency (MGA) and wholesale insurance broker for independent agents in western Pennsylvania. The Tuscano team, led by Robin Tuscano, will remain in their current location under the direction of Steve Levin, Northeast Region leader for RPS.

"Tuscano is a highly regarded agency that complements our market expertise and further expands our wholesale capabilities in Pennsylvania," said J. Patrick Gallagher, Jr., Chairman and CEO. "I am delighted to welcome Robin and his associates to our growing, global team."

Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. (NYSE: AJG), a global insurance brokerage, risk management and consulting services firm, is headquartered in Rolling Meadows, Illinois. Gallagher provides these services in approximately 130 countries around the world through its owned operations and a network of correspondent brokers and consultants.

SOURCE Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.

Zcash [ZEC] has rallied nearly 37% since developers deployed the Ironwood [NU6.3] upgrade to testnet earlier this month, with the privacy-focused cryptocurrency outperforming many of its peers ahead of the protocol’s next major network upgrade.

As the community prepares for Ironwood’s mainnet activation, the upgrade also marks the beginning of the end for zcashd. This is the network’s long-running reference node, making this one of the most significant transitions in Zcash’s history.

Ironwood aims to strengthen confidence in Zcash’s supply The Zcash Open Development Lab deployed the Ironwood [NU6.3] upgrade to testnet on July 2, with activation following on July 4. The milestone serves as the final testing phase before the planned mainnet rollout later this month.

Ironwood was introduced following the disclosure of an Orchard protocol vulnerability in June. While developers said there was no evidence the issue had been exploited or that user funds were at risk, the flaw highlighted a limitation in proving the integrity of Zcash’s shielded supply.

To address that, Ironwood introduces a new shielded pool alongside a “turnstile” mechanism that enables the network to verify the amount of ZEC migrating into the new pool without compromising transaction privacy.

The upgrade is designed to strengthen confidence in Zcash’s circulating supply while preserving the privacy guarantees that distinguish the network from other cryptocurrencies.

Legacy zcashd node heads for retirement Ironwood also marks a major infrastructure shift for the ecosystem.

The long-running zcashd reference implementation will not support NU6.3. It is being phased out as the network transitions to a Rust-based architecture built around Zebra, Zaino, and Zallet.

Developers have urged node operators to migrate before Ironwood activates on mainnet, as legacy zcashd nodes are approaching their automatic end-of-life shutdown. It will no longer participate in the upgraded network.

The transition represents one of the largest architectural changes since Zcash launched. It replaces the software that has underpinned the blockchain for years.

ZEC price prediction: Bulls pause after 37% advance At press time, ZEC traded around $546, up roughly 37.4% from its early July lows.

The rally has since slowed into a period of consolidation, with buyers attempting to establish support after reaching the recent highs.

The daily RSI stood at around 58, indicating bullish momentum remained intact without entering overbought territory. That suggests buyers still hold a modest advantage. However, the strong upside momentum seen earlier in the month has begun to moderate.

Source: TradingView The immediate resistance lies around $560, where recent advances have repeatedly stalled.

A decisive breakout above that level could pave the way for another attempt at $600, a price zone that acted as resistance earlier this year.

On the downside, the $500 region has emerged as the first meaningful support. Holding above that level would preserve the current higher-low structure. At the same time, a break below it could trigger a deeper pullback before buyers attempt another advance.

Final Summary Zcash’s Ironwood upgrade has entered its final testing phase, introducing a new shielded pool while paving the way for the retirement of the legacy zcashd node. ZEC has gained nearly 37% since Ironwood entered testnet, with bulls now attempting to break above the $560 resistance to target $600.

Wall Street analysts expect Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings (KNX - Free Report) to post quarterly earnings of $0.49 per share in its upcoming report, which indicates a year-over-year increase of 40%. Revenues are expected to be $2.01 billion, up 8% from the year-ago quarter.

Over the last 30 days, there has been an upward revision of 7.5% in the consensus EPS estimate for the quarter, leading to its current level. This signifies the covering analysts' collective reconsideration of their initial forecasts over the course of this timeframe.

Before a company reveals its earnings, it is vital to take into account any changes in earnings projections. These revisions play a pivotal role in predicting the possible reactions of investors toward the stock. Multiple empirical studies have consistently shown a strong association between trends in earnings estimates and the short-term price movements of a stock.

While it's common for investors to rely on consensus earnings and revenue estimates for assessing how the business may have performed during the quarter, exploring analysts' forecasts for key metrics can yield valuable insights.

Given this perspective, it's time to examine the average forecasts of specific Knight-Swift metrics that are routinely monitored and predicted by Wall Street analysts.

Analysts forecast 'Revenue, excluding truckload and LTL fuel surcharge' to reach $1.73 billion. The estimate suggests a change of +3.6% year over year.

The consensus among analysts is that 'Truckload and LTL fuel surcharge' will reach $271.42 million. The estimate points to a change of +43.1% from the year-ago quarter.

The consensus estimate for 'Operating revenue- LTL' stands at $405.31 million. The estimate suggests a change of +4.8% year over year.

The collective assessment of analysts points to an estimated 'Revenue, excluding fuel surcharge- LTL Segment' of $340.60 million. The estimate indicates a change of +0.9% from the prior-year quarter.

The average prediction of analysts places 'Operating Ratio' at 93.5%. Compared to the current estimate, the company reported 96.1% in the same quarter of the previous year.

Analysts expect 'Adjusted Operating Ratio' to come in at 92.9%. Compared to the present estimate, the company reported 93.8% in the same quarter last year.

The combined assessment of analysts suggests that 'Adjusted Operating Ratio - Truckload' will likely reach 92.9%. The estimate compares to the year-ago value of 94.6%.

It is projected by analysts that the 'Adjusted Operating Ratio - LTL' will reach 91.4%. The estimate is in contrast to the year-ago figure of 93.1%.

Based on the collective assessment of analysts, 'Adjusted Operating Ratio - Logistics' should arrive at 96.3%. The estimate compares to the year-ago value of 94.8%.

Analysts' assessment points toward 'Average tractors - Truckload' reaching 20,865 . Compared to the present estimate, the company reported 21,311 in the same quarter last year.

According to the collective judgment of analysts, 'Load count - Intermodal' should come in at 38,307 . Compared to the present estimate, the company reported 32,682 in the same quarter last year.

Analysts predict that the 'Average revenue per load - Intermodal' will reach $2623.91 . Compared to the current estimate, the company reported $2572.00 in the same quarter of the previous year.

View all Key Company Metrics for Knight-Swift here>>>

Shares of Knight-Swift have experienced a change of +0.3% in the past month compared to the -0.6% move of the Zacks S&P 500 composite. With a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), KNX is expected to outperform the overall market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks here >>>> .

NEAR Protocol Deploys NIST-Approved Post-Quantum SigningNEAR Protocol has activated quantum-safe signing on mainnet as part of network upgrade 2.13, making it one of the first Layer-1 blockchains to ship a NIST-approved post-quantum signature scheme in a live production environment. The upgrade adds quantum-safe signing through the NIST-approved FIPS-204 (ML-DSA) scheme alongside dynamic resharding, a scalability enhancement that enables the protocol to automatically scale as network demand grows.

The team chose FIPS-204 (ML-DSA, formerly known as CRYSTALS-Dilithium), a lattice-based digital signature algorithm formally standardized by NIST in August 2024 as part of the agency's first batch of post-quantum cryptography standards. The upgrade allows account holders to migrate to post-quantum cryptography through a single on-chain transaction without transferring assets or changing account addresses.

The urgency behind the move is hard to ignore. Google's Quantum AI team has published research on the risk to cryptocurrency directly, with an estimated $470 billion of Bitcoin at risk. A U.S. executive order issued in June 2026 also requires federal agencies to transition high-value systems to post-quantum cryptography by the end of the decade, with digital signature migration scheduled for completion by 2031.

Automatic Resharding Removes a Key BottleneckThe second major component of the 2.13 upgrade addresses scalability. NEAR's sharded architecture previously scaled horizontally by adding shards, but each addition required a full protocol upgrade involving weeks of validator coordination, a vote, and a staged rollout. Dynamic resharding now enables the network to automatically scale by splitting shards without validator votes or manual upgrades.

On blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum, addresses are derived from keypairs tied to breakable cryptography, so migrating to a new signing scheme means migrating the address itself. NEAR accounts are decoupled from cryptography: since mainnet launched in 2020, NEAR has used human-readable account IDs controlled through rotatable access keys, not bound to a single keypair. This architectural choice is what makes the migration comparatively straightforward for NEAR users.

NEAR is also actively working with hardware and software wallet builders, including Ledger, on bringing post-quantum support to the market.

Sources:
NEAR Protocol Official Press Release via PR Newswire
Crypto Times: NEAR Launches Quantum-Safe Mainnet Upgrade With Resharding
CoinTrust: NEAR Activates Quantum-Resistant Security

Blockchain

21 July 2026 | 09:38 Solana ended the second quarter with two very different stories. Trading in tokenized assets on the network more than doubled to a record $5.8 billion in quarterly volume, but overall decentralized exchange activity, lending and revenue generated from network use all declined.

Key Takeaways Tokenized-asset trading volume on Solana reached $5.8 billion in Q2, rising 114% and led by tokenized equities. Solana retained 32% of spot DEX volume despite a sharp decline in overall trading. Network revenue fell 43%, showing that trading growth did not translate directly into greater fee demand. SOL investment products attracted capital while staking income remained heavily dependent on token issuance. The contrast is not necessarily contradictory. Tokenized-asset volume measures how much tokenized financial exposure changed hands on Solana’s exchanges, while total DEX volume, lending and Real Economic Value show how much of the network’s activity converted into fees and borrowing demand.

Together, the figures suggest that Solana’s capital-markets ecosystem expanded faster than the revenue the network earns from it.

Tokenized Equities Became Solana’s Main Growth Story Tokenized-asset trading volume increased by 114% quarter over quarter and set a record for a sixth consecutive quarter, according to Blockworks Advisory’s Q2 2026 Solana Tokenholder Report. The report was commissioned by the Solana Foundation, which may provide input on its content, although Blockworks Advisory states that it retains editorial control. That funding relationship is worth keeping in mind when weighing the report’s framing, even where the underlying data is verifiable.

Solana tokenized asset volume by category. The $5.8 billion figure describes trading volume, not the market value of assets held on Solana and not revenue earned by the network. It measures how much tokenized exposure was bought and sold through Solana’s decentralized exchanges during the quarter.

Tokenized equities dominated that activity with $4.8 billion, or 84% of the total, roughly four times their Q1 volume. The report estimates that Solana now processes approximately 97% of tokenized-equity trading across all blockchains. June alone contributed $3.3 billion of equity volume, a surge catalyzed by the tokenized listing of SpaceX following its June 12 public offering. Private credit added $803 million, with smaller contributions from commodities and collectibles.

The market continued expanding after the quarter ended. On July 10, 2026, tokenized exposure to SK Hynix went live on Solana through Backpack Securities, xStocks and Ondo Finance.

Those products provide similar economic exposure through different legal, custody and redemption structures. That distinction matters because tokenized assets are not a single standardized product category. As our guide to RWA tokenization platforms explains in detail, investors still need to examine who issued each token, what backs it, whether it can be redeemed and which users are eligible to hold it.

Solana Kept Its DEX Lead as Trading Slowed Solana decentralized exchanges processed $160.8 billion in spot volume during Q2. That was down 44% from $288.5 billion in the previous quarter, but the network still handled approximately 32% of spot DEX volume across the blockchains measured.

Spot DEX volume share by blockchain. Ethereum followed with 25%, while Base and BNB Chain accounted for 16% and 12%, respectively. Q2 was the eighth consecutive quarter in which Solana controlled more than 30% of the measured spot market.

This combination requires context. Solana did not lose its relative position against competing networks, but the overall market became less active. Maintaining market share in a contracting market is different from generating absolute growth. The monthly path was more constructive than the quarterly total: volume fell from $52.3 billion in April to $48.0 billion in May, then rebounded 26% to $60.5 billion in June as tokenized-asset activity accelerated.

Application revenue also fell 31% to $228.4 million. Perpetual futures presented a different picture, with notional volume increasing 60% quarter over quarter to $183 billion, but that recovery did not offset weaker activity across the rest of the ecosystem.

The composition of that revenue also complicates the diversification story. Pumpfun, the memecoin launchpad, remained the ecosystem’s largest business with $90.1 million, or 39% of all application revenue, and accounted for 97% of launchpad revenue. Tokenized equities may be the growth story, but the single biggest earner on Solana is still the speculative category the network is described as moving beyond. That concentration reached a new high in Q2 precisely because the rest of the market shrank faster.

Network Revenue Fell Faster Than Market Share Solana’s Real Economic Value, or REV, totaled $51 million in Q2, down 43% from the previous quarter. REV measures transaction fees and out-of-protocol tips paid by users while excluding inflationary token issuance.

Solana quarterly network revenue breakdown. Monthly REV declined from $18.6 million in April to $18.1 million in May and $14.3 million in June. Priority fees fell 45% to $30.8 million, while Jito tips dropped 50% to $9.9 million. Base and vote fees contributed another $10.3 million.

The decline also cost Solana relative position among blockchains. The report ranks Solana fourth in quarterly network revenue with a 12% share, behind Hyperliquid at 33% with $141.4 million, Tron at 21% and Ethereum at 15%, down from Solana’s 18% share in Q1. Hyperliquid’s lead rests on the trading-fee engine we examined in our analysis of the platform’s $1.2 billion in cumulative fees. The comparison is uncomfortable for Solana’s economics: a network processing billions of transactions earned roughly a third of what a single derivatives-focused chain collected in the same quarter.

Solana still processed 9.8 billion non-vote transactions during the quarter, with a median transaction fee near $0.0004. However, 27% of those transactions reverted, a share the report attributes to automated arbitrage strategies and describes as a feature rather than a bug. That characterization is the report’s reading, not a settled fact. Daily active addresses also fell from 2.4 million in Q1 to 2.0 million, meaning the network processed nearly as many transactions from a noticeably smaller user base. The network remained heavily used, but high transaction counts did not automatically produce high revenue because individual transactions remained extremely inexpensive.

Lending Has Not Followed Tokenization Higher Deposits across Kamino and Jup Lend ended the quarter near $4.1 billion, while outstanding loans stood at approximately $1.6 billion. Deposits declined 8.3%, and loans fell 7.9%.

The pullback was more pronounced in real-world asset lending. Deposits connected to RWA markets dropped from $1.23 billion in Q1 to $640 million in Q2, a decline of 48%.

This exposes an important gap in the tokenization narrative. Solana can host record trading in stocks, credit products and funds without those assets immediately becoming widely used as collateral or generating substantial borrowing demand.

A stronger confirmation of adoption would involve tokenized-asset growth occurring alongside expanding collateral use, higher borrowing demand and deeper secondary-market liquidity. Q2 delivered the first part, but not the others.

Staker Income Still Came Mostly From Inflation SOL’s nominal staking yield ended the quarter near 5.5%, down from 5.8% at the end of Q1. With inflation around 3.8%, the estimated real staking yield was approximately 1.7%.

Stakers earned $487 million during Q2, down 23% from $630 million in the previous quarter. More than 98% of that revenue came from token issuance, while Jito tips contributed roughly $8.2 million.

This means staking rewards continued to depend primarily on newly issued SOL rather than fees generated by network activity. For long-term token economics, the balance between issuance, fee income and token burning is more informative than the headline staking percentage alone.

The Proposed Burn Increase Is Not Yet Active The report estimated that SIMD-553 could burn between 7,500 and 9,000 SOL per day under current activity assumptions, roughly ten times the existing rate and equivalent to around 12% to 15% of daily issuance.

That is a modeled scenario, not the current burn rate or a guaranteed outcome. SIMD-553 remains a proposal and would need to pass the necessary governance and implementation stages before changing SOL’s supply dynamics.

Under Solana’s current fee structure, 50% of the base transaction fee is burned. The remaining half and all priority fees are paid to the validator producing the block.

A larger burn could strengthen the connection between network activity and SOL demand, but it would not automatically make the token deflationary. Even the report’s estimated burn remains below total daily issuance.

Investment Products Attracted Capital Through the Downturn SOL spot investment products recorded approximately $120 million in net inflows during Q2, extending positive flows for a third consecutive quarter. Over the same period, Blockworks data showed $3.7 billion of outflows from Bitcoin products and $500 million from Ethereum products.

Solana quarterly ETP flows. The comparison should be treated carefully because the products differ substantially in size, age and investor base. Still, the direction of flows suggests that some investors continued building regulated Solana exposure despite weaker onchain revenue and lower market activity.

Official SEC filings confirm the expansion of that investment infrastructure. The Grayscale Solana Staking ETF trades on NYSE Arca under GSOL, while the 21Shares Solana ETF trades on Cboe BZX under TSOL. The pipeline is still growing: Morgan Stanley filed a third round of SEC amendments on July 14 for spot Ethereum and Solana ETFs expected to trade under MSSE and MSOL. Traditional financial institutions are building similar infrastructure on other networks as well, as we covered in out report on JPMorgan’s tokenized money market fund.

Positive fund flows do not guarantee higher SOL prices or stronger network revenue. They show demand for regulated exposure, which is separate from activity taking place inside Solana applications.

What Solana’s Q2 Results Actually Show Q2 was not simply strong or weak. Solana gained ground as infrastructure for trading tokenized assets and retained its lead in decentralized spot trading, but the network generated less revenue and experienced weaker lending demand.

The constructive interpretation is that Solana is broadening beyond the speculative activity that powered its earlier revenue peaks. The more cautious interpretation is that tokenized-asset growth has not yet translated into enough borrowing, trading intensity or fee generation to strengthen the network’s underlying economics, that the user base contracted during the quarter, and that the largest single source of application revenue remains a memecoin launchpad.

The next confirmation would come from several metrics improving together: continued tokenized-asset growth, recovering REV, greater use of tokenized securities as collateral, sustained investment-product inflows and a larger share of staking rewards funded by actual fees instead of issuance.

Until then, Solana’s institutional expansion is real, but the economic value captured by the network remains the part that still needs to catch up.

Source review: Q2 figures were checked against Blockworks Advisory’s Q2 2026 Solana Tokenholder Report, which was commissioned and funded by the Solana Foundation, with Blockworks Advisory stating it retains editorial control. Recent developments were reviewed against Solana Foundation publications, Solana’s technical documentation and SEC filings as of July 21, 2026. Coindoo has no commercial relationship with any entity mentioned.

This article is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice.

Author

Alex is Editor-in-Chief of Coindoo and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, with nearly a decade of experience covering financial markets - crypto first, then everything else. It started in 2016 with Bitcoin. Like most people at the time, he didn't fully understand it - so he kept digging. Blockchain, tokenomics, the projects, the cycles. That curiosity never stopped, and eventually pulled him into traditional markets too: equities, commodities, macro. Not because he left crypto behind, but because you can't properly understand one without the other. What drives him is straightforward: he wants to know why something is happening, not just that it's happening. Most market coverage stops at the headline - price up, price down, here's a chart. Alex finds that kind of reporting actively unhelpful. If you walk away from an article without understanding the mechanism behind the move, what did you actually learn? He holds a degree in Tourism from New Bulgarian University - not the most obvious path into financial markets, but markets have a way of pulling in people who are simply too curious to stay out. He has authored over 200 in-depth analyses and more than 10,000 articles across crypto and traditional finance. He still thinks every day in markets teaches him something new. That's probably why he hasn't stopped.

Redwire Corporation (NYSE:RDW) is trending Tuesday after a busy start to the week, with the company opening a new research facility in Indiana and announcing a major manufacturing expansion in Huntsville, Alabama.

Redwire stock is showing exceptional strength. Why are RDW shares rallying? Redwire Expands Microgravity Innovation in IndianaThe company marked the opening with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on July 20, attended by Indiana Governor Mike Braun, Redwire Chairman and CEO Peter Cannito, and several former NASA astronauts.

“The new Georgetown facility serves as the cornerstone of Redwire’s ability to scale, support major programs around the world, and help shape the expanding orbital economy that will drive the future of space development while benefiting millions here on Earth,” said Mike Gold, President of Redwire Space.

Redwire Expands Huntsville Campus, Adds150 Jobs“Huntsville is one of the fastest growing technology hubs in the United States, uniquely positioned at the intersection of America’s space and defense industries, which makes it the ideal location to expand our capabilities and strengthen America’s industrial base,” said Cannito.

Redwire Shares RiseRDW Price Action: At the time of publication, Redwire shares are trading 2.68% higher at $8.83, according to data from Benzinga Pro.

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Sandisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) stock climbed over 10% in Tuesday’s session as bullish analyst commentary and a broader rally in technology stocks fueled buying in the memory-chip maker.

Nasdaq futures rose 1.30%, while S&P 500 futures gained 0.39%, supporting risk appetite across the technology sector.

Morgan Stanley Sees Memory Cycle StrengtheningMorgan Stanley analyst Joseph Moore said the recent pullback in U.S. memory stocks presents an attractive buying opportunity. He cited persistent data center memory shortages and forecast memory prices will rise at least 25% from the second quarter to the third quarter of 2026.

Moore said the current memory cycle remains driven almost entirely by data center demand, while weaker consumer electronics, PC and smartphone markets have weighed on investor sentiment. However, the firm’s channel checks found no evidence that supply constraints in the data center market are easing.

The analyst also said memory shortages could become even more severe in 2027 and 2028, adding that Morgan Stanley is buying the sector on weakness.

The positive analyst commentary comes as investors remain optimistic about the next phase of the memory cycle. A stronger broader market is also boosting higher-beta technology stocks, helping SanDisk outperform the wider market before the opening bell.

AI Memory Pricing Drives Micron SentimentHis reasoning is simple—if AI-driven price increases begin to weigh on PC and smartphone makers, or encourage new competitors to enter the market, today’s supercycle could prove shorter than investors expect.

He flagged expectations for overall memory demand to rise more than 50% to 60% next year, while AI-specific demand could climb 60% to 100%.

Sandisk Earnings And Analyst OutlookSandisk is scheduled to report quarterly results on Aug. 5.

Wall Street expects earnings of $33.38 per share, compared with 29 cents per share a year earlier. Revenue is projected to reach $8.24 billion, up from $1.90 billion in the prior-year period.

The stock trades at about 47.5 times earnings, reflecting a premium valuation.

According to analyst consensus, Sandisk carries a Buy rating with an average price forecast of $1,842.80. Recent analyst actions include:

Bank of America Securities: Buy; raised price forecast to $2,500 on July 1. Bernstein: Outperform; raised price forecast to $3,000 on June 30. Citigroup: Buy; raised price forecast to $2,500 on June 25. ETFs With Significant Sandisk ExposureSandisk is a major holding in several exchange-traded funds, including:

Large inflows or outflows in these funds can result in additional buying or selling of Sandisk shares.

Price ActionSNDK Stock Price Activity: SanDisk shares were up 10.14% at $1,532.05 at the time of publication on Tuesday, according to Benzinga Pro data.

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Graphene Manufacturing Group Ltd (TSX-V:GMG, OTCQX:GMGMF) has signed a global exclusive memorandum of understanding (MOU) with French rail manufacturer Alstom to test and develop graphene products for the rail industry, with an initial focus on heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems.

Under the agreement, GMG and Alstom will collaborate on evaluating, developing and commercializing graphene-based products for rail HVAC applications. The MOU is global and exclusive, according to the company.

Alstom is focused exclusively on the rail industry, producing products and services including high-speed and regional trains, metros, trams, signalling systems and rail infrastructure. The company employs about 87,800 people across 61 countries and reported revenue of €19.2 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2026.

GMG CEO Craig Nicol wrote that the agreement provides an opportunity to introduce the company's graphene technology into the rail sector.

"Rail systems demand the highest standards of performance, durability and efficiency — and we believe graphene is uniquely positioned to deliver meaningful improvements across a range of applications,” Nicol said. “We look forward to working closely with the Alstom team to develop and commercialise graphene products that will help shape the future of rail."

GMG non-executive chairman and director Jack Perkowski described the agreement as a significant milestone for the company and said it could create an additional source of revenue.

"The fact that a company of Alstom's scale and technical sophistication has chosen to partner exclusively with GMG to evaluate develop and commercialize graphene-based products for the rail industry is a powerful validation of our technology and our team's capabilities,” Perkowski said. “This arrangement has the potential to open a new revenue stream for GMG and reinforces our strategy of targeting large, established industries where graphene's unique properties can deliver measurable, real-world impact."

A Tesla robotaxi drives on the street along South Congress Avenue in Austin, Texas, U.S., June 22, 2025. REUTERS/Joel Angel Juarez/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

CompaniesJuly 21 (Reuters) - Tesla (TSLA.O), opens new tab on Tuesday expanded its robotaxi service to Orlando and Tampa, as the electric-vehicle ​maker races to prove that it can ‌scale its autonomous ride-hailing business beyond its initial launch markets.

The move comes a day before Tesla reports second-quarter ​earnings, with Wall Street closely watching the ​progress on robotaxis, which underpin much of ⁠the company's valuation as CEO Elon Musk shifts ​focus toward artificial intelligence, autonomous driving and humanoid ​robots.

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Tesla launched its robotaxi service in Austin in June last year and expanded to Dallas and Houston earlier this ​year and Miami this month. The company ​has also been conducting supervised testing in California's San Francisco ‌Bay ⁠Area.

Investors have questioned the pace of the rollout after Tesla missed several expansion targets. In response, Musk has said the company was deliberately taking ​a cautious ​approach, and ⁠that rigorous safety testing was the main constraint to faster deployment of ​the service.

Unlike rivals such as Alphabet-owned (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Waymo, ​which ⁠relies on lidar sensors, Tesla's robotaxi system uses cameras and AI-based software to navigate. Tesla plans ⁠to ​eventually deploy its purpose-built Cybercab ​vehicle, which does not have pedals or a steering wheel.

Reporting by ​Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli

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Google logo is displayed at Google's headquarters in New York City, U.S., July 1, 2026. REUTERS/Aleksandra Michalska/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

LISBON, July 21 (Reuters) - Alphabet's Google (GOOGL.O), opens new tab has successfully connected a new transatlantic subsea cable to Sines in Portugal, it said on Tuesday, adding another U.S.-Europe ​data route as demand for cloud computing and artificial intelligence services ‌surges.

Google's Nuvem, named after the Portuguese word for "cloud", links Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, with Sines, south of Lisbon, via Bermuda and the Azores.

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The Nuvem cable system, which spans about ​7,000 km (4,350 miles), comprises 16 fibre pairs with a total design capacity ​of around 384 terabits per second.

Giorgia Abeltino, head of government ⁠affairs and public policy for Google Cloud EMEA, said Nuvem was part of ​a wider vision for Portugal and Europe to invest in the strategic infrastructure ​underpinning the digital economy.

Subsea cables form the backbone of the world wide web, carrying more than 95% of global data traffic.

Two high-capacity subsea cables already link Portugal with other continents — ​the Google-owned Equiano cable that runs to South Africa via other African ​countries, and the EllaLink that runs to Brazil from Sines.

State Reform and Innovation Minister Goncalo ‌Matias said ⁠Nuvem was part of a broader strategy to make Portugal a hub for data centres, AI and innovation, while bolstering Europe's digital resilience and sovereignty.

"Portugal is becoming what geography always invited us to be — the Atlantic gateway of ​Europe, the meeting point ​of three continents: ⁠Europe, Africa, and the Americas," he said at the cable landing ceremony.

Portugal's Atlantic coastline positions it as a prime ​hub for intercontinental subsea cables, helping to turn the country ​into a ⁠magnet for AI-driven data centres.

Lisbon also seeks to leverage abundant low-cost renewable energy from hydro, solar and wind sources, with more than 2.6 gigawatts of capacity under ⁠development.

The ​pipeline is led by the 1.2-GW Start Campus ​project in Sines, which is set to benefit from Microsoft's MSFT.O AI infrastructure investments, and is expected to ​grow substantially in the years ahead.

Reporting by Sergio Goncalves; Editing by Jan Harvey

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A view shows a Microsoft logo at Microsoft offices in Issy-les-Moulineaux near Paris, France, March 25, 2024. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

SummaryCompaniesAzure customers will be able to build software using Mistral data centers in FranceMistral adds Medium 3.5 and OCR 4 models to Microsoft FoundryMicrosoft president says deal does not include new financial stake in MistralSAN FRANCISCO, July 21 (Reuters) - Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab ​has agreed to spend billions of dollars on Mistral's computing infrastructure in Europe under a deal that ‌will also expand distribution of the French AI startup's technology through the U.S. cloud and software giant, the companies said on Tuesday.

As part of the agreement, Microsoft Azure customers will be able to develop software using Mistral's data centers in France, giving Microsoft more capacity in Europe and ​regulated industries an alternative to U.S.-controlled infrastructure.

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Mistral, meanwhile, has added its AI models called Medium 3.5 and OCR ​4 to Microsoft's app builder known as Foundry. Microsoft Copilot Studio has brought on Medium 3.5 ⁠as well.

Finally, businesses with independent data centers that access Microsoft services via Azure Local will have the option to run ​Mistral's "open" models, which give customers license to develop AI as their own.

The deal underscores growing interest in Europe and elsewhere to ​reduce dependence on U.S. technology so other countries may have greater say in their future society and economy. It may also help Microsoft meet rising demand for open models.

Though the push for "sovereign" AI is now years old, a U.S. decision last month to pause foreign access to two advanced ​models from San Francisco-based Anthropic has made technology independence a more urgent issue in Europe.

In a joint interview with Reuters, Microsoft ​President Brad Smith and Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch said the partnership aimed to deliver such sovereignty while allowing access to U.S. software and ‌security features.

"By ⁠putting Mistral's models on Azure Local and on Mistral's computational capacity, we can combine American and European technology and do it in a way that provides continuous and assured access," Smith said.

STAYING IN AI RACEDecoupling Europe from U.S. technology would be a tall order. Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab chips powering the global AI boom, also key to Mistral's data-center buildout, are American-designed. Nvidia, like Microsoft, is a ​Mistral investor.

Smith said the deal ​announced on Tuesday did not ⁠include any new financial stake in the startup, and Mensch declined to comment on a Bloomberg News report, opens new tab that Mistral was in talks to raise around €3 billion ($3.4 billion) at a €20 billion valuation.

The ​Paris-based lab has come to represent one of Europe's top hopes in AI. So far ​it has targeted ⁠manufacturing, financial services and defense sales and has won business from France's armed forces. Its valuation remains dwarfed by U.S. peers such as Anthropic.

Still, Mensch said the deal showed how Microsoft and Mistral were "working together on closing the gap on the infrastructure side in ⁠Europe."

Mistral is ​targeting 1 gigawatt of compute capacity by 2030, and the Microsoft agreement - ​specifics of which Mensch declined to provide - validates its strategy.

The companies are working on a joint go-to-market plan, they added.

"This is going to help both of ​our companies grow our businesses, unquestionably," Smith said.

Reporting by Jeffrey Dastin in San Francisco; Editing by Sayantani Ghosh and Jamie Freed

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Jeffrey Dastin is a correspondent for Reuters based in San Francisco, where he reports on the technology industry and artificial intelligence. He joined Reuters in 2014, originally writing about airlines and travel from the New York bureau. Dastin graduated from Yale University with a degree in history. He was part of a team that examined lobbying by Amazon.com around the world, for which he won a SOPA Award in 2022.

Posted by Defense World Staff on Jul 21st, 2026

Andra AP fonden reduced its position in shares of AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T – Free Report) by 40.3% during the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 728,787 shares of the technology company’s stock after selling 491,513 shares during the quarter. Andra AP fonden’s holdings in AT&T were worth $21,128,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of AT&T during the fourth quarter worth approximately $2,181,977,000. Amundi boosted its stake in shares of AT&T by 67.5% during the 3rd quarter. Amundi now owns 42,295,492 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,094,184,000 after buying an additional 17,040,328 shares during the period. Alyeska Investment Group L.P. grew its holdings in shares of AT&T by 620.8% during the 4th quarter. Alyeska Investment Group L.P. now owns 11,891,778 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $295,392,000 after acquiring an additional 10,241,949 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its holdings in shares of AT&T by 2.6% during the 4th quarter. State Street Corp now owns 332,089,723 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $8,249,109,000 after acquiring an additional 8,314,678 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership increased its stake in shares of AT&T by 49.2% in the fourth quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 25,155,597 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $624,865,000 after acquiring an additional 8,297,201 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 57.10% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Citigroup raised their price target on AT&T from $29.00 to $31.50 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, March 23rd. Barclays dropped their price objective on AT&T from $26.00 to $24.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, July 8th. KeyCorp raised their price objective on shares of AT&T from $30.00 to $36.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, March 25th. Weiss Ratings downgraded shares of AT&T from a “buy (b)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research report on Friday, May 29th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company initiated coverage on shares of AT&T in a research note on Wednesday, July 8th. They set an “underweight” rating and a $18.00 price target on the stock. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, ten have issued a Buy rating, eight have assigned a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $29.14.

Get Our Latest Stock Analysis on T

Trending Headlines about AT&T Here are the key news stories impacting AT&T this week:

Positive Sentiment: AT&T is set to raise some home internet plan prices by $5, which could lift average revenue per user and improve near-term margins. These AT&T home internet plans are getting a $5 price hike Positive Sentiment: EDO said AT&T had one of the most engaging ads during FIFA World Cup 2026™, suggesting its marketing is resonating with viewers and potentially supporting brand strength. Kalshi, Oura Ring, and AT&T Score the Most Engaging Ads of the FIFA World Cup 2026™, ranked by TV outcomes data on edo.com/worldcup Neutral Sentiment: AT&T is working with major peers on a network-level tool to fight AI-driven identity fraud and is also testing low-latency 5G mobility technology, highlighting ongoing innovation but no immediate financial impact. AT&T (T) Takes On Identity Fraud While Testing Real Time 5G Mobility Neutral Sentiment: AT&T disclosed $2.65 million in Q2 lobbying spending, focused on broadband, spectrum, cybersecurity, and telecom policy issues that are important to the business but unlikely to move the stock on their own. Lobbying Update: $2,650,000 of AT&T SERVICES INC AND ITS AFFILIATES lobbying was just disclosed Neutral Sentiment: RBC Capital lowered its price target on AT&T to $27 from $31 while keeping an outperform rating, which is mildly positive overall but signals a slightly less optimistic valuation view. AT&T had its price target lowered by Royal Bank Of Canada from $31.00 to $27.00. Negative Sentiment: News that AT&T may raise home internet prices for lower-income customers could trigger churn concerns and political backlash, partially offsetting the benefit of higher pricing. AT&T is raising prices again, and this time low-income customers won’t be spared AT&T Stock Performance Shares of NYSE T opened at $22.00 on Tuesday. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $22.92 and its 200-day simple moving average is $25.28. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.05, a quick ratio of 0.87 and a current ratio of 0.92. AT&T Inc. has a 52 week low of $19.89 and a 52 week high of $29.79. The firm has a market cap of $152.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 7.38, a P/E/G ratio of 0.86 and a beta of 0.24.

AT&T (NYSE:T – Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, April 22nd. The technology company reported $0.57 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.55 by $0.02. AT&T had a return on equity of 12.49% and a net margin of 16.94%.The firm had revenue of $31.51 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $31.29 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.51 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 2.9% on a year-over-year basis. AT&T has set its FY 2026 guidance at 2.250-2.350 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts expect that AT&T Inc. will post 2.32 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

AT&T Dividend Announcement The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, August 3rd. Stockholders of record on Friday, July 10th will be paid a $0.2775 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, July 10th. This represents a $1.11 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 5.0%. AT&T’s payout ratio is presently 37.25%.

AT&T Profile (Free Report)

AT&T Inc is a global telecommunications company that provides a broad range of communications and digital entertainment services. Its core activities include consumer and business wireless services, broadband and fiber internet, and network infrastructure. The company operates branded wireless services through AT&T Mobility and deploys fixed-line and fiber networks to deliver high-speed internet and related home services.

AT&T’s product and service portfolio spans mobile voice and data plans, smartphones and device sales, home internet (including fiber-to-the-home where available), and managed connectivity solutions for enterprise customers.

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State-Funded Program with the Colorado Water Conservation Board Targets Snowpack and Rain Year-Round in the Yampa River Basin's Flat Tops Range

NAPLES, FL / ACCESS Newswire / July 21, 2026 / Rain Enhancement Technologies Holdco, Inc. (NASDAQ:RAIN), a leading provider of ionization rain and snowfall enhancement technology, today announced that the Colorado Water Conservation Board (CWCB), the Colorado River District, and the Upper Yampa Water Conservancy District have publicly supported RET's pending application for a paid weather enhancement pilot project, with installation targeted by October 2026. The project is designed to provide more year-round snow and water to Northwest Colorado's Yampa River Basin. The program is expected to be funded through a grant from CWCB, with the Upper Yampa Water Conservancy District serving as the fiscal agent.

The pilot is being coordinated with the Colorado River District and the CWCB and is designed to increase snowfall and rain in the Flat Tops Mountain range of the Rockies. This area feeds Stagecoach and Yamcolo Reservoirs, two of the Upper Yampa Water Conservancy District's primary water supply facilities.

"This is exactly the kind of program we set out to build: a complementary year-round solution that integrates seamlessly into existing water management strategies," said Randy Seidl, CEO of Rain Enhancement Technologies. "Western US water managers are under real pressure to have more water, and our ionization technology gives them a chemical-free way to do that."

"We think this is an excellent opportunity to bring a new tool to bear on rain and snow that feeds our storage," said Andy Rossi, General Manager of the Upper Yampa Water Conservancy District. "Targeting the Flat Tops area gets right at the water supply that fills Stagecoach and Yamcolo, and we're glad to help bring this pilot to Northwest Colorado."

RET's WETA platform uses a ground-based ionization process rather than traditional chemical-based cloud seeding, operates autonomously without aircraft or chemical dispersal, and functions year-round rather than being limited to sub-freezing conditions. In a comparable, independently monitored installation in Utah's La Sal Mountains this past winter, RET measured a 20% snow water equivalent (SWE) increase, equivalent to roughly 8,750 acre-feet. This was over the winter operating season only, with warm rain enhancement operations now underway to provide further increases. Applied to the Flat Tops coverage area, expected to span approximately 120 square miles, RET estimates the pilot could generate over 10,000 additional acre-feet of water in an average precipitation year.

RET offers flexible lease-to-own and purchase options for the WETA platform that is available to Upper Yampa upon completion of the pilot program.

About Rain Enhancement Technologies, Inc.

Rain Enhancement Technologies was founded to provide the world with reliable access to water, one of life's most important resources. To achieve this mission, RET develops, manufactures, and commercializes ionization precipitation generation technology that enhances rainfall and snowpack to address water scarcity challenges. The Company is also developing applications for fog mitigation to expand its weather modification capabilities. RET's chemical-free, solar-powered technology seeks to transform water resource management for businesses, society, and the planet. To learn more, go to www.investor.rainenhancement.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

The disclosure herein includes certain statements that are not historical facts but are forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements generally are accompanied by words such as "believe," "may," "will," "estimate," "continue," "anticipate," "intend," "expect," "should," "would," "plan," "project," "forecast," "predict," "potential," "seem," "seek," "future," "outlook," and similar expressions that predict or indicate future events or trends or that are not statements of historical matters, but the absence of these words does not mean that a statement is not forward looking. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, (1) statements regarding the execution of an agreement for the funding and award of the pilot, (2) statements regarding expected installation of the Company's technology; (3) references with respect to the anticipated benefits of the Company's WETA platform and technology; (4) references to the market opportunity for rain enhancement technologies and products; (5) the projected technological developments of RET; and (6) current and future potential commercial and customer relationships. These statements are based on various assumptions, whether or not identified in this press release, and on the current expectations of RET's management and are not predictions of actual performance. These forward-looking statements are provided for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to serve as, and must not be relied on by any investor as, a guarantee, an assurance, a prediction or a definitive statement of fact or probability. Actual events and circumstances are difficult or impossible to predict and will differ from assumptions. Many actual events and circumstances are beyond the control of RET. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, as set forth in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in the Company's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2024, filed with the SEC on April 16, 2025, as amended from time to time, and on Form 10-Q for the calendar quarter ended March 31, 2026, filed with the SEC on May 15, 2026, as amended from time to time. If any of these risks materialize or our assumptions prove incorrect, actual results could differ materially from the results implied by these forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties above are not exhaustive, and there may be additional risks that Rain Enhancement Technologies, Inc. ("RETI") and RET do not presently know or that RETI and RET currently believe are immaterial that could also cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements. In addition, forward-looking statements reflect RETI and RET's expectations, plans or forecasts of future events and views as of the date of this press release. RETI and RET anticipate that subsequent events and developments will cause RETI and RET's assessments to change. However, while RETI and RET Holdco may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, RETI and RET specifically disclaim any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing RETI and RET's assessments as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release. Accordingly, undue reliance should not be placed upon the forward-looking statements.

Media Contacts
Neal Stein
Technology PR Solutions
321-473-7407
[email protected]

Linda Maynard
Rain Enhancement Technologies
(617) 869-4832
[email protected]

SOURCE: Rain Enhancement Technologies

DETROIT — General Motors will launch new gas-powered Cadillac vehicles beginning next spring as the automaker continues to shift gears away from all-electric vehicles.

GM CEO Mary Barra said Tuesday that the next-generation Cadillacs will include new versions of the company's CT5 sedan, outdated XT5 midsize SUV and discontinued three-row XT6 SUV.

"Starting next spring and continuing into 2028, we will begin launching the next generation of Cadillac ICE [internal combustion engine] vehicles," Barra said during the company's second quarter earnings call. She said the vehicles will be in addition to Cadillac's current all-electric crossovers and Escalade SUV.

The new product announcements add to GM's pullback in EVs. The automaker had planned for Cadillac to exclusively sell electric vehicles by the end of this decade. The company also has walked back EV plans for other brands and increased gas-powered engine production, including V-8 offerings.

GM has recorded $10.9 billion in EV-related charges since the second half of last year after slower-than-expected electric vehicle adoption as well as U.S. regulatory changes easing emissions standards and eliminating support for EVs.

Barra reiterated that GM's plans include "onshoring significant manufacturing" for the Detroit automaker beginning next year, in part by expanding production of its full-size SUVs to a Michigan plant that was previously slated to produce EVs.

The full-size SUVs — Escalade, Chevy Tahoe and Suburban, and GMC Yukon and Yukon XL — are currently exclusively produced at the company's Arlington Assembly plant in Texas.