Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Pudgy Penguins (@pudgypenguins) has launched its new Pengu Plushies line in Target (@Target) stores across the United States, the brand announced on July 19. The rollout puts the flagship Pengu character in more than 1,800 Target toy aisles, sitting alongside household names like Bluey and Hello Kitty, and in front of millions of weekly shoppers who have never opened a crypto wallet.

For a project that began as 8,888 profile pictures on Ethereum, that shelf space is the whole point. Most NFT collections from the 2021 boom have faded into irrelevance. Pudgy Penguins spent the past four years turning a cartoon penguin into a consumer brand instead, and the Target launch is the clearest evidence yet that the strategy is working.

What Did Pudgy Penguins Announce?In a post on X, the project said that "Pengu is now available on all Target shelves across the USA" through its new plushie line, calling it the first time the Pengu character has reached a mainstream retail audience at this scale. The official account teased the drop with shelf photos and an offer to send free plushies to fans who said something nice about Pengu.

The launch is not the brand's first Target appearance, but it is the biggest. The timeline shows a steady climb:

Pudgy Toys launched on Amazon in May 2023 and quickly became a number one seller in three separate categoriesA Walmart rollout began in September 2023 across roughly 2,000 stores, later expanding past 3,100Clip-on plushies reached Target's collectibles aisles in May 2024, by which point the toy line had sold over 1 million units and generated $10 million in first-year salesThe Vibes Series 3 trading card set hit Target stores in June 2026, lifting total cards in circulation to around 15 millionThe new Pengu Plushies push the brand from the collectibles section into the main toy aisle, chain-wide.

How Did Pudgy Penguins Outlive Its NFT Peers?The collection launched in July 2021 and sold out fast, but the project nearly died with the rest of the market. Community discontent with the original founders sent the floor price tumbling. In April 2022, entrepreneur Luca Netz (@LucaNetz) acquired the IP and its operating company for roughly 750 $ETH, about $2.5 million at the time, just as NFTs slid into a prolonged bear market.

Where most 2021-era projects depended on secondary trading volume and royalty income that evaporated in 2022, Netz pushed the brand toward physical products and mainstream distribution. Three decisions stand out:

Building toys for kids and families rather than collectibles for crypto natives, with retail shelf space treated as the growth engineKeeping NFT holders aligned with the consumer business through a 5 percent share of net revenue from physical products featuring their individual penguinsFeeding a content flywheel spanning GIPHY animations with billions of views, the browser-based Pudgy World game, the Vibes trading card game, and the PENGU token, launched on Solana in December 2024 with a total supply of 88.88 billion and a broad airdrop to holdersThe result is an IP business that no longer lives or dies on NFT floor prices, which is precisely what separated it from the projects that disappeared. Today the brand operates under Igloo Inc. (@IglooInc), the parent company Netz leads, which also develops the Abstract blockchain (@AbstractChain).

What Does the Rollout Mean for PENGU?The token reaction was positive but measured. $PENGU trades around $0.0064, up 2 percent over the past 24 hours and 10.4 percent on the week, with a market cap of about $403 million at rank #88, per CoinMarketCap. That still leaves it roughly 90 percent below its all-time high.

The gap between brand momentum and token performance is the tension traders keep circling. Plushie revenue does not flow to the token through buybacks, revenue sharing, or staking, so some market watchers view the retail expansion as a franchise-building play rather than an immediate price catalyst. The physical royalty stream rewards NFT holders, not PENGU holders. The token's case rests on visibility: every shopper who meets Pengu in a toy aisle is a potential future participant in the ecosystem.

What Comes Next?The retail machine is running, but the digital side is still being rebuilt. The Pudgy Party mobile game crossed 1 million downloads before the project announced it was ending further development, pivoting resources to the browser-based Pudgy World instead. The brand has more than one door into its ecosystem, though: plushies carry QR codes linking to Pudgy World, Vibes cards tie physical packs to on-chain assets, and Igloo's Abstract chain gives the whole operation its own rails. The open question is conversion. Millions of new shoppers are about to meet Pengu in a toy aisle, and the next chapter depends on how many of them follow any of those doors on-chain.

Sources:

Pudgy Penguins Official announcement post on X confirming the Pengu Plushies rollout across Target storesCoinMarketCap Live PENGU market data including price, market cap, and supply figuresPR Newswire Official 2024 release covering the first Target launch and first-year sales figures

Aster Chain has officially flipped the switch on its mainnet, and the numbers suggest people were already waiting at the door. The privacy-focused Layer 1 blockchain reports 450 million $ASTER tokens staked and 112 real-world asset markets live, marking a significant milestone for a project that started life as a decentralized perpetual futures exchange on BNB Chain.

From DEX to sovereign chain Aster’s mainnet genesis went live on March 17-18, 2026, completing the project’s transformation from a multi-chain decentralized exchange into a full-blown Layer 1 blockchain.

The technical foundation runs on zero-knowledge proofs, a cryptographic method that lets one party prove something is true without revealing the underlying data. In English: you can verify transactions happened without exposing who sent what to whom.

The chain achieves 50-millisecond block times. For context, Ethereum’s block time hovers around 12 seconds, and even Solana targets roughly 400 milliseconds. Aster is claiming speeds that would make it one of the fastest settlement layers in crypto, which matters enormously for the derivatives trading that remains its core use case.

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The project has secured backing from YZi Labs, the family office of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao.

450 million tokens locked up The 450 million $ASTER tokens staked on the network secure the chain through proof-of-stake consensus. Public staking is now live, meaning anyone can participate in securing the network and earning rewards.

The transition from a DEX running on someone else’s blockchain to a sovereign chain with its own validator set gives Aster control over its own consensus rules, fee structures, and upgrade timelines without depending on the roadmap of another network.

Real-world assets enter the chat The 112 RWA markets represent Aster’s push beyond pure crypto trading into tokenized versions of traditional financial instruments. This includes stock perpetuals, which let traders gain exposure to equity price movements without actually holding shares, all settled on-chain.

The privacy angle is particularly relevant. Traditional finance institutions exploring on-chain trading have consistently flagged transaction privacy as a dealbreaker. ZK proofs enable verifiable transactions without public exposure of trade details.

Aster also upgraded its trading features during the first half of 2026, adding advanced order types that bring it closer to the functionality traders expect from centralized exchanges.

What this means for investors The competitive landscape includes dYdX, which migrated to its own Cosmos-based chain, and Hyperliquid, which built a custom Layer 1 for perpetuals. Aster is entering the same arena with a differentiated bet on ZK privacy.

The roadmap includes permissionless elements, governance upgrades, and developer tools called Aster Code.

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

CoinShares, a leading European digital asset investment firm, has introduced its inaugural UCITS exchange-traded fund (ETF) designed to provide investors exposure to publicly listed Bitcoin mining companies. The CoinShares Bitcoin Mining UCITS ETF is domiciled in Ireland and began trading on Deutsche Börse Xetra under the ticker MINE.

ETF structure and market debutThe new ETF is physically replicated and tracks the CoinShares Bitcoin Mining Index. This rules-based index comprises a basket of Bitcoin mining firms, and Solactive AG serves as the administrator of the index. CoinShares highlighted that the fund’s total expense ratio stands at 0.65%, and portfolio rebalancing will occur on a quarterly basis.

At launch, the ETF was priced at €19.50, equivalent to $21.74 per share. Initial trading saw 60 units exchanged on Xetra, amounting to a total turnover of €1,184.

CoinShares stated that the new ETF provides a gateway for European investors seeking indirect exposure to the Bitcoin mining sector via regulated, listed securities.

The fund is issued under the UCITS regulatory structure, offering wide availability across European markets through an Irish platform.

Comparisons with existing productsCoinShares’ existing US-listed ETF, also focused on Bitcoin mining firms and trading under the ticker WGMI, has accumulated net assets of $343.6 million. The UCITS ETF aims to bring a similar investing experience to European clients, recognizing different regulatory environments and investor preferences.

ETFRegionNet AssetsExchangeTickerCoinShares Bitcoin Mining UCITS ETFEuropeN/ADeutsche Börse XetraMINECoinShares Bitcoin Mining ETFUS$343.6 millionN/AWGMIBoth ETFs offer exposure to companies engaged in the Bitcoin mining industry, but the UCITS version responds to European regulations and investor demand for harmonized products.

About UCITSUCITS, or Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities, is the European Union’s standardized regulatory framework for investment funds. This regime allows funds compliant with its rules to be marketed and sold across multiple EU member states without the need for country-by-country registration.

UCITS structures are widely preferred by asset managers in Europe as they ensure a high standard of investor protection and transparency.

Mini dictionary: UCITS (Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities) is the principal European framework that allows investment funds to operate across EU borders under a unified set of regulations, designed to enhance cross-border fund distribution while protecting investors.

CoinShares underlined that the MINE ETF broadens its product offering for European investors looking for sector-specific digital asset exposure within a regulated investment structure.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Fox News on Tuesday that the United States froze a crypto wallet linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps worth $130 million, part of a campaign to track the assets of Iran’s supreme leader around the world.

“We are tracking these accounts all over the world,” Bessent said, in remarks that framed the Treasury work as one prong of an “economic fury” push against Tehran alongside a blockade. “We froze a crypto wallet linked to the IRGC the other day.”

He said investigators had “found the money man for the Ayatollah” and were tracing the holdings of Ali Khamenei, including properties he valued at more than $100 million. Bessent said the Treasury hopes to publish the addresses of those properties. He cast the seizures as a transfer of value to the American people and a squeeze on the regime.

Iran’s economy in ‘freefall’ Bessent also described a collapse in Iran’s economy. He said the rial sits at an all-time low against the dollar and called it in “freefall,” with an inflation rate he put “upwards of 180%.” His account tracks the rial slide that has pushed some Iranians toward bitcoin.

The comments extend a Treasury campaign that has run through the war between Iran, Israel, and the United States. The department has sanctioned Iran’s largest crypto exchange and said the U.S. has seized $1 billion of Iran’s crypto. Blockchain analysts have tied billions in on-chain flows to IRGC-linked wallets, with such wallets receiving more than $3 billion in 2025, a rise from over $2 billion the year before. 

In a separate move, the stablecoin issuer Tether froze $344 million in USDT across two blockchain addresses tied to the IRGC, one of the largest single actions in the sequence.

Bitcoin’s design draws both sides of the fight. It settles without a correspondent bank or a reserve-currency issuer, a trait that lets Iran monetize oil access outside the dollar system and lets Treasury trace and freeze value on a public ledger.

The conflict has reshaped how crypto figures into the region. Since U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran began, bitcoin use inside the country has surged as residents moved value out of the banking system. 

Tehran, for its part, reportedly moved to accept bitcoin from tankers seeking passage through the Strait of Hormuz, a $1-per-barrel toll that turns its grip on the chokepoint into settlement revenue. The strait carries a fifth of the world’s oil.

The war has repriced bitcoin as well. 

Treasury has not published documentation of the $130 million wallet freeze or the property addresses Bessent referenced. The inflation and currency figures came from his remarks rather than from Iranian data.

Micah Zimmerman

Micah first discovered Bitcoin in 2018 but remained a skeptic on the sidelines for too long. Since 2021, he has covered crypto and business and now works as a news reporter for Bitcoin Magazine, based in North Carolina.

Pavel Durov says Telegram will ship a native non-custodial Gram wallet inside every Telegram app this summer. He promised instant zero-fee transactions for more than 1 billion users, and GRAM climbed over 8% after the post.

The Telegram founder made the pledge on his official Telegram channel on Tuesday. It marks his most aggressive step yet toward making Gram the app’s default currency.

GRAM Price Performance. Source: TradingViewNative Gram Wallet Promises Zero-Fee Transactions at ScaleDurov framed the rollout as a first for the industry.

“This summer will see the largest rollout of a non-custodial crypto wallet in human history. Instant zero-fee crypto transactions for over a billion users are about to become reality. We’re bringing a native non-custodial Gram wallet to every Telegram app!” Durov wrote on his Telegram channel.

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Telegram users currently rely on a custodial wallet or the self-custodial TON Space add-on. A native wallet would place key ownership directly inside the core app.

The pledge builds on the rebrand from Toncoin that took effect on June 15 with 81.22% community approval. Telegram, which also launched an Apple Watch app during the rebrand, took over network development in May and cut transaction fees roughly sixfold.

GRAM Price Reacts to the Wallet PledgeGRAM traded near $1.53, up 8.4% in 24 hours with a $4.17 billion market cap, per BeInCrypto Rankings. The token ranks 25th overall yet remains down more than 54% over the past year.

Skeptics persist, however. Blockstream CEO Adam Back recently questioned GRAM’s inflation mechanics after Durov compared the token favorably with Bitcoin (BTC).

Self-custody at Telegram’s scale is untested. Whether a billion users activate the wallet, rather than simply receiving it, will decide the rollout’s real impact.

July 21, 2026 at 2:52 PM UTC

Crypto markets are stirring after months of listless trading on signs that Washington is moving toward a clearer rulebook for digital assets.

Bitcoin rose more than 2% toward $67,000 on Tuesday, while shares of Coinbase Global Inc. climbed as much as 12.6% after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said lawmakers were at the “1-yard line” on the Clarity Act. He urged Congress to pass the long-awaited bill before leaving for recess. Smaller tokens also rallied.

Ionic Digital has secured SEC approval for its registration statement, clearing the final regulatory hurdle before its planned Nasdaq direct listing on July 28.

Summary

Ionic Digital has cleared its final SEC regulatory hurdle ahead of its planned Nasdaq direct listing on July 28. Existing shareholders, including former Celsius creditors, will be able to sell their shares as Ionic lists under the ticker IOND. The company continues building its AI and high performance computing business alongside its Bitcoin mining operations. According to a company statement issued Monday, the digital infrastructure operator expects its Class A common stock to begin trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker IOND, subject to Nasdaq’s final listing requirements.

The company is entering public markets through a direct listing instead of a traditional initial public offering. Under that structure, Ionic will not issue new shares or raise fresh capital from the transaction. Existing registered shareholders will instead be able to sell their holdings on the public market once trading begins.

For many investors, the listing represents the first opportunity to trade shares received through the bankruptcy restructuring of crypto lender Celsius Network. Ionic Digital was created in January 2024 to hold Bitcoin mining assets transferred from the Celsius estate after a U.S. bankruptcy court approved the lender’s restructuring plan.

Former Celsius creditors became shareholders after receiving about 37 million Class A shares under the bankruptcy plan. As previously reported by crypto.news, Celsius later continued distributing funds through additional payout rounds, while some creditors also became eligible to receive equity in Ionic Digital.

Unlike a conventional IPO, a direct listing does not involve underwriters setting an offering price. Instead, Nasdaq determines the opening price using buy and sell orders collected before trading begins. Ionic also stated in earlier SEC filings that direct listings can experience higher price volatility because existing shareholders gain a public venue to sell shares without the price stabilization mechanisms commonly associated with underwritten offerings.

Ionic expands beyond Bitcoin mining Although Ionic began as a Bitcoin mining company, it has increasingly repositioned itself around digital infrastructure supporting artificial intelligence and high-performance computing workloads.

Earlier this month, the company filed its Form S-1 registration statement with the SEC. Before pursuing the listing, Ionic completed a roughly $400 million private equity financing that the company said would fund general corporate purposes, including continued investment in digital infrastructure and data center development.

According to earlier SEC filings, the financing implied a pre-money equity valuation of approximately $2 billion. CEO Andy Stewart previously said the funding strengthened the company’s capital base as it continued building its digital infrastructure platform.

The company’s strategy now extends well beyond cryptocurrency mining. Its Cedarvale campus in Ward County, Texas, has become the centerpiece of that transition after portions of the site were repurposed to support AI and high-performance computing infrastructure.

Earlier company disclosures said the Ward County property includes approximately 234 megawatts of installed capacity. Mining equipment at the site was decommissioned during late 2025 as Ionic prepared the facility for AI infrastructure under a long-term agreement with AI cloud provider Nscale.

According to previous company filings, the lease spans 126 months and is expected to generate about $1.95 billion in contracted revenue, with additional expansion possible if further capacity receives regulatory approval.

During the first quarter of 2026, Ionic reported $44 million in digital infrastructure leasing revenue, while Bitcoin mining revenue declined 82% year over year to $7.4 million from $41.1 million.

The company has also stated that revenue from AI and other high-performance computing services is eventually expected to exceed revenue generated through Bitcoin mining.

Mining companies are transitioning to AI Ionic’s repositioning comes as several publicly traded Bitcoin miners invest more heavily in AI-focused data centers while mining profitability remains under pressure.

As previously reported by crypto.news, Bitcoin miners generated about $1.086 billion in revenue during May, the strongest monthly performance since January. However, lower Bitcoin prices later reduced mining profitability as hashprice declined and network hashrate eased, prompting some operators to scale back less efficient mining equipment.

Industry participants have increasingly turned toward AI infrastructure because many mining companies already control large power supplies, cooling systems and data center facilities that can be adapted for high-performance computing workloads.

IREN has followed a similar strategy. Earlier this year, the company completed its acquisition of Spain-based Nostrum Group, adding roughly 490 megawatts of secured grid-connected power to support European AI cloud expansion. IREN also reported that AI cloud revenue increased during its latest quarter even as Bitcoin mining revenue declined.

HIVE Digital and Bitdeer have also announced projects converting existing mining facilities into AI computing infrastructure, further illustrating how miners are seeking additional revenue streams beyond cryptocurrency production.

For Ionic, however, the upcoming Nasdaq debut represents more than another mining company entering public markets. 

It also provides former Celsius creditors with a long-awaited opportunity to trade shares received through one of the cryptocurrency industry’s largest bankruptcy restructurings while giving investors a chance to evaluate a business increasingly focused on AI infrastructure rather than Bitcoin mining alone.

Galaxy has launched a new initiative aimed at preparing Bitcoin for the potential threat posed by quantum computing. 

The firm, which is spearheaded by cryptocurrency bull Mike Novogratz, has $5 million in grants to fund those developers who are specifically focused on post-quantum security solutions.

The Galaxy Bitcoin Quantum Readiness Initiative will support efforts to develop new signature schemes, Bitcoin upgrade proposals, wallet migration solutions, and so on. 

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The firm has noted that no quantum computer today can break Bitcoin’s security, but that could change "faster than expected," and the Bitcoin community is too conservative to implement a fix fast. 

The initiative will be built around developer funding, ongoing research through Galaxy Research, and a Quantum Advisory Council composed of experts in quantum computing and cryptography.

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"There’s a gap between the quantum computing world, which is moving fast, and the Bitcoin development world, which is just beginning to engage with post-quantum cryptography in earnest," Alex Thorn, the head of research at Galaxy Digital, said in a statement. 

The company said Bitcoin’s reliance on elliptic curve cryptography creates a long-term risk if sufficiently powerful quantum computers become available. However, Galaxy emphasized that no such quantum computer currently exists and that Bitcoin still has time to prepare.

Quantum risk is real Recently, Galaxy published an insightful report that examines Bitcoin’s potential vulnerabilities related to rapid advancements in the realm of quantum computing. 

According to the report, the main risk comes from the possibility that future quantum computers could be capable enough to break the flagship cryptocurrency's elliptic curve digital signatures. 

Millions of coins could be at risk under certain scenarios, according to some estimates.  

However, the firm argued that the risk is recognized and that developers are currently exploring mitigation strategies.

Slow-moving Bitcoin governance remains a major hurdle. BTC has no central authority, so any quantum-resistance upgrade would require great coordination among developers, miners, and so on. 

Solana DeFi protocol Hylo has launched $xBTC, a leveraged token designed to provide roughly 3x exposure to Bitcoin without the traditional liquidation mechanics associated with perpetual futures and margin trading.

Rather than requiring users to manage collateral, margin accounts, or individual leveraged positions, $xBTC packages leveraged Bitcoin exposure into a token that users can hold directly in a Solana wallet.

“3x BTC exposure on Solana is now as simple as holding a token,” Hylo said in its launch announcement, describing $xBTC as a “liquidation-resistant leveraged token that lives in your wallet.”

Hylo has also introduced a 0% minting fee for $xBTC during its launch week.

Hylo Expands Beyond Leveraged $SOL $xBTC represents the next major addition to Hylo’s leveraged token lineup after $xSOL, which launched in July 2025 and remains the protocol’s flagship product.

Hylo designed its xAssets to simplify leveraged exposure by turning positions into standard tokens. Users can access $xBTC at any venue on Solana supported by compatible DEX aggregators.

The model differs from perpetual futures, where traders typically need to manage collateral, funding rates, liquidation thresholds, and active positions.

Hylo argues that tokenizing leveraged exposure could make these strategies more accessible to a broader group of Solana users. However, liquidation resistance does not eliminate the risks associated with leverage. Leveraged tokens can still amplify losses when the underlying asset moves against the position and may experience volatility decay during fluctuating markets.

Hylo team member Shoom previously said $xSOL and future xAssets will use adjusted rebalance bands ranging from 2.54x to 3.84x, compared with the previous 3x to 4.3x range. The change aims to reduce volatility decay across the product line.

$xBTC Advances Hylo V2’s Broader xAsset Strategy The launch follows Hylo’s June 17 announcement of Hylo V2, the protocol’s largest planned expansion to date.

At the center of V2 sits the xAsset Engine, a framework designed to support leveraged tokens across multiple markets. Hylo plans 4 main categories: xCrypto for assets such as $SOL and $BTC, xEquities for tokenized stocks and indexes, xCommodities for markets such as gold, silver, and oil, and xYield for yield-bearing assets.

Hylo has identified potential future equity products linked to TSLA, MSTR, SPY, and NDAQ. The protocol sees an established market for similar products in traditional finance.

V2 Reshapes Hylo’s Collateral and Rebalancing Model Hylo V2 also replaces its Stability Pool with an Earn Pool model and introduces multi-asset collateral. Under V2, the protocol plans to rely more heavily on arbitrageurs and liquidity providers for market-driven rebalancing.

When collateral values decline and leverage rises, the system can sell assets for $USDC. When leverage falls, available $USDC can purchase additional collateral.

Hylo also plans to expand $hyUSD backing beyond Solana liquid staking tokens. Its multi-asset architecture could incorporate Bitcoin, real-world assets, yield-bearing instruments, and $USDC as overflow collateral. Hylo has also explored deploying excess liquidity into tokenized Treasury products.

Turning Complex Strategies Into Tokens Solflare co-founder and CEO Vidor Gencel highlighted the token structure behind Hylo’s approach, arguing that protocols can reduce complexity by packaging strategies into assets that existing wallets and applications already support.

“A token that wraps your protocol's behavior rides on rails every wallet already has,” Gencel said. “If people can understand it, they can buy it.”

With $xBTC now live, Hylo has begun extending that model beyond $SOL. The protocol says $xBTC is only the beginning, with its xAsset framework eventually targeting any market that has reliable oracles, sufficient onchain liquidity, and a risk profile compatible with its system.

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What's Next For Crypto If CLARITY Fails?

Nvidia’s latest chip designs are now in customers’ hands, and with an estimated 80-81% share of the data-center AI GPU market according to IDC data, the company isn’t just leading the AI chip race — it’s lapping the field.

The company confirmed that its newest hardware is shipping to customers. Bitcoin miners are increasingly repurposing their operations to serve AI workloads, creating a new intersection between the GPU supply chain and the digital asset industry.

The Rubin platform and what’s actually shipping The Rubin platform, Nvidia’s next-generation architecture, entered full production in early 2026. Partner systems built on Rubin are expected to become available in the second half of this year. The first cloud deployments of Rubin-based instances are anticipated from AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft.

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H200 AI chips have begun shipping to China, though in minimal volumes as of mid-July. US export restrictions continue to limit what Nvidia can sell into the Chinese market.

Bitcoin miners pivot to AI, and Nvidia benefits either way Bitcoin miners, sitting on massive GPU infrastructure and access to cheap power, are increasingly redirecting their resources toward AI workloads. This shift means that instead of using Nvidia GPUs exclusively for traditional crypto mining operations, these companies are repurposing their hardware and facilities to serve the AI industry.

What this means for investors Nvidia’s 80-81% market share in data-center AI GPUs means that virtually every major AI deployment flows through Nvidia hardware. Nvidia’s CUDA software ecosystem creates substantial lock-in effects for developers and enterprises, making its offerings indispensable for training and inference in nearly all major AI labs and cloud service providers.

For crypto-adjacent investors, the Bitcoin miner pivot toward AI represents a potential valuation catalyst for publicly traded mining companies. Firms that can demonstrate meaningful AI hosting revenue alongside their mining operations may command higher multiples, since AI revenue is viewed as more predictable and less correlated to volatile crypto prices.

AMD, Intel, and a growing number of custom silicon efforts from cloud providers are all competing for Nvidia’s position. However, an 80-81% market share doesn’t erode overnight, especially given the high switching costs in enterprise compute tied to Nvidia’s architecture.

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

COINTELEGRAPH: Bitcoin nears seven-week high as stocks ignore Iran strikes, Trump 10% tariff plans

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.

PANews reported on July 21, citing The Block, that the decentralized trading platform Arcus has officially launched on Robinhood Chain, offering zero-fee, 24/7 trading for over 95 U.S. stock tokens and introducing a beta of perpetual contracts that use the USD stablecoin USDG as margin, covering underlying assets such as U.S. stocks, ETFs, commodities, and crypto assets. Users can trade with cross-margin through a single self-custodial account, supporting leading tech stocks like Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon, as well as products linked to SPY, QQQ, GLD, USO, BTC, ETH, SOL, and XRP. Arcus was founded by Eddie Zhang, with early development involvement from the dYdX team, Robinhood Crypto as a strategic investor, and integration of infrastructure from Paxos Labs and Privy.

TLDR Table of Contents

TLDRWhale Deposits Fall From Earlier HighsThirty-Day Inflows Reach Two-Month LowLower Exchange Supply Supports Current RecoveryGet 3 Free Stock Ebooks XRP reclaimed the $1.13 level as whale deposits to Binance declined sharply. Daily whale inflows fell from 583 million XRP to about 25.3 million XRP. The 90-day average value of whale inflows dropped from roughly $460 million to $69 million. Binance’s 30-day whale inflows declined to 947.4 million XRP, the lowest level in two months. The 30-day total fell 34.4% from its late-June peak of 1.445 billion XRP. XRP returned above $1.13 as large-holder deposits to Binance declined sharply, reducing potential exchange supply. XRP whales now send fewer tokens to the platform, according to recent CryptoQuant data. The shift marks a clear slowdown in large transfers during XRP’s latest price recovery.

Whale Deposits Fall From Earlier Highs CryptoQuant data showed daily whale inflows dropping to 25.3 million XRP, valued near $23 million. Earlier readings reached 583 million XRP, worth about $1.36 billion at prevailing prices. Therefore, XRP whales have reduced the volume available for immediate trading on Binance.

The longer-term trend also shows lower transfer activity from major holders. The 90-day average fell from roughly $460 million in January to about $69 million. This decline indicates XRP whales have moved substantially less value onto Binance over recent months.

Exchange inflows often rise when holders prepare tokens for trading or possible sales. However, lower deposits do not prove that selling has ended across the wider market. They show XRP whales currently send fewer large transfers into Binance accounts.

Thirty-Day Inflows Reach Two-Month Low Arab Chain reported that Binance’s 30-day whale inflows fell to about 947.4 million XRP. The total marks a two-month low as XRP whales continue reducing exchange transfers. Large holders had transferred about 1.445 billion tokens during the late-June peak.

The latest figure reflects a 34.4% decline in less than one month. That reduction highlights slower activity among large holders using the world’s largest crypto exchange. It may also show that XRP whales prefer private wallets or other trading venues.

Arab Chain said declining inflows can signal weaker selling intent or reduced trading activity. Still, the analyst warned against treating one metric as a complete market signal. Price, volume, derivatives data, and broader exchange flows remain necessary for balanced analysis.

Lower Exchange Supply Supports Current Recovery XRP price reclaimed $1.13 while large deposits continued falling on Binance. The price move placed the token back in positive territory during the latest session. Meanwhile, XRP whales supplied fewer coins to the exchange as spot trading conditions improved.

Reduced deposits can limit the amount of XRP immediately available for sale. However, existing exchange balances and smaller transfers can still influence market supply. XRP whales therefore represent one part of the wider liquidity picture.

The current data confirms a meaningful slowdown in large-holder transfers to Binance. XRP whales have reduced both short-term deposits and longer-term average inflows. XRP remains above $1.13 as exchange supply from major holders continues shrinking.

Ripple (XRP) ticks up and trades around $1.13 at the time of writing on Tuesday. This rebound aligns with a broader recovery in the cryptocurrency market, attributed to reports that mediators between the United States (US) and Iran are seeking a 10-day cessation of strikes to find a way back to the signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

US-Iran strikes persistThe US military pressed on with a tenth straight day of strikes, with explosions reported in Sirik, Bandar Abbas, Qeshm Island, Chabahar, and Konarak. Iran responded by targeting US assets throughout the Gulf region.

Geopolitical tensions remain elevated as US President Donald Trump has warned Iran of repercussions following US service member casualties.

The Fear & Greed Index dipped to 25 on Tuesday, placing market sentiment firmly in Extreme Fear territory, down from 29 the day before.

Crypto Fear & Greed Index | Source: AlternativeIf sentiment continues to weaken, the recovery may lose traction. Conversely, a rebound in sentiment could fuel a more constructive market outlook.

“Looking ahead, macro developments are likely to be the main catalysts for the market. The European Central Bank (ECB) and Federal Reserve (Fed) rate decisions, particularly the July 29 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, will be closely watched, while the escalating conflict between the US and Iran remains an additional source of uncertainty for broader risk sentiment,” researchers at K33 stated in Tuesday’s Ahead of the Curve report.

XRP attracts modest on-chain activityInterest in XRP is growing mildly but broadly, as reflected in the Active Addresses metric. CoinGlass data shows that the number of wallets interacting with the XRP Ledger (XRPL) by sending or receiving assets has remained steady around 23,000 on Monday and Tuesday, up from 20,000 last Sunday. This growth suggests that user interest is returning, which may continue to boost demand and support recovery in the short to medium-term.

XRP Active Addresses | Source: SantimentPrice analysis: XRP bulls eye short-term breakout XRP trades at $1.13, keeping a capped tone as price remains below the 50-day, 100-day and 200-day Moving Average Exponentials (EMAs), which align as overhead resistance at $1.15, $1.24 and $1.44 respectively.

The recovery off the recent lows near $1.00 is underpinned by constructive momentum, with the Relative Strength Index (RSI) hovering above the midline at 55 on the daily chart and the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) ticking higher in positive territory. However, these signals only hint at improving demand rather than a clear trend reversal while the pair is still trapped beneath the EMA stack.

XRP/USDT daily chartOn the topside, immediate resistance emerges at the 50-day EMA around $1.15, and a sustained break above this level would expose the next bullish objective at the 100-day EMA near $1.24, ahead of the more strategic barrier at the 200-day EMA around $1.44. On the downside, the latest close at $1.13 acts as a near-term pivot, while the former downtrend-line break level at $1.09 offers a more significant support area. A daily close back below this latter floor would likely revive selling pressure and re-open the path toward deeper retracement levels.

(The technical analysis of this story was written with the help of an AI tool. Know more.)

Ripple FAQs Ripple is a payments company that specializes in cross-border remittance. The company does this by leveraging blockchain technology. RippleNet is a network used for payments transfer created by Ripple Labs Inc. and is open to financial institutions worldwide. The company also leverages the XRP token.

XRP is the native token of the decentralized blockchain XRPLedger. The token is used by Ripple Labs to facilitate transactions on the XRPLedger, helping financial institutions transfer value in a borderless manner. XRP therefore facilitates trustless and instant payments on the XRPLedger chain, helping financial firms save on the cost of transacting worldwide.

XRPLedger is based on a distributed ledger technology and the blockchain using XRP to power transactions. The ledger is different from other blockchains as it has a built-in inflammatory protocol that helps fight spam and distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks. The XRPL is maintained by a peer-to-peer network known as the global XRP Ledger community.

XRP uses the interledger standard. This is a blockchain protocol that aids payments across different networks. For instance, XRP’s blockchain can connect the ledgers of two or more banks. This effectively removes intermediaries and the need for centralization in the system. XRP acts as the native token of the XRPLedger blockchain engineered by Jed McCaleb, Arthur Britto and David Schwartz.

XRP demonstrated renewed positive momentum on Tuesday, July 21, 2026, as the token advanced above short-term resistance levels. Buyers are attempting to extend the recovery, yet major longer-term barriers remain in place for the sixth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.

Ripple achieves regulatory breakthrough in EuropeRipple, the company behind XRP, recently secured full authorization under the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulatory framework. The company received this license on July 6 following a preliminary nod in late June, marking a significant step forward in its European expansion efforts.

The new license officially permits Ripple to operate across all 30 member states of the European Economic Area without needing to obtain separate authorizations in each country. This streamlines cross-border operations for Ripple and increases its appeal to banks, fintech firms, and payment service providers seeking reliable digital asset solutions.

Ripple Payments currently serves 90 payout markets globally, processing millions of US dollars in transaction volume. The platform enables payments in fiat currencies, stablecoins, and XRP, facilitating broad adoption and onboarding within the financial sector.

Stronger adoption of Ripple Payments promotes heightened activity on the XRP Ledger. This raises demand not only for the XRP token but also for the associated ecosystem services.

Mini dictionary: Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) — A regulatory framework launched by the European Union to provide licensing, oversight, and consumer protection for digital asset service providers operating in Europe. MiCA aims to standardize the regulatory environment for cryptocurrencies across EU member states.

XRP market structure and key analyst projectionsAt the time of reporting, XRP traded around $1.13, reflecting a daily increase of 3.34%. The token opened at $1.11152 and posted an intraday high of $1.13715, with a low at $1.11043 and closing at $1.13230. There are currently about 62.47 billion XRP in circulation and a market capitalization near $70.8 billion.

Technical analyst Egrag Crypto outlined a long-term path for XRP, referencing a developing triple-bottom pattern visible in the price chart. According to Egrag, this formation includes a sequence of rising cyclical lows, but the latest cycle lacks full technical confirmation.

According to Egrag Crypto, the chart suggests the third bottom may form between $0.90 and $1.00, though the confirmation of this pattern remains pending. He noted that $1.23 acts as the first critical reclamation level and that a major breakout region lies between $2.38 and $3.54. If confirmed, the analyst’s Fibonacci projections indicate possible targets of $9.28, $15.35, and even $31.65 on extended rallies.

XRP price levels and technical signalsXRP’s near-term technical landscape is defined by its position above some moving averages and below others. The 20-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) stands at $1.10456, while the 50-day EMA sits at $1.14500. XRP is currently trading above the 20-day but just beneath the 50-day average.

The 100-day and 200-day EMAs, at $1.23706 and $1.44027 respectively, remain above the present price, indicating continued overhead resistance. The Relative Strength Index, a momentum indicator, improved to 55.16 with its moving average at 46.41. These readings position the RSI above the neutral level of 50 but well below overbought thresholds, signaling healthier market sentiment in the short term.

Market focus is currently directed toward resistance at $1.14500 and the key reclamation target of $1.23. A drop below the 20-day EMA could bring renewed attention to support levels just under the current price action.

IndicatorValueCurrent XRP price$1.1320-day EMA$1.1045650-day EMA$1.14500100-day EMA$1.23706200-day EMA$1.44027RSI55.16Traders and analysts will closely monitor these technical levels, along with volume and momentum indicators, as XRP continues to consolidate its gains amid Ripple’s regulatory progress in Europe.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.

HomeCryptoMARKETSRipple Labs CTO Emeritus David Schwartz regrets selling XRP.

David Schwartz, Ripple Labs CTO Emeritus and one of the founding architects of XRP Ledger, has one regret: selling XRP.

It was on Jan. 29, 2026, that a crypto user asked him if he regretted selling XRP at $0.10 and Ethereum (ETH) at $1.

Schwartz responded around six months later and said,

"Obviously, I wish I hadn't done those things. But I agreed with my wife to sell at every new ATH and I really, really hate risk. I wish I was more comfortable with risk, but I'm just not that person."

David Schwartz, CTO Emeritus at Ripple, speaks during the Annual Non-Fungible Token (NFT) Event in New York, U.S., on Thursday, Nov. 4, 2021.

Getty Images

The veteran Ripple developer said he hates risks and kept selling his crypto holdings every time their value hit new all-time highs (ATHs), owing to an agreement with his wife.

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Schwartz added that although he wished he were more willing to take on risks, he is risk-averse.

Trending on TheStreet Roundtable:Ripple Prime processes $3T annually as institutional adoption acceleratesXRP eyes bigger move as Binance open interest hits 2026 highRipple wants AI agents to pay with XRP and RLUSDXRP fails to recover after multiple ATHs in previous yearsXRP is the sixth-largest cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of $71.16 billion.

The cryptocurrency has been reaching new ATHs every few years. It hit $3.40 in January 2018 during the crypto peak before it retreated to previous lows. While the 2021 peak wasn't as bullish as 2018, XRP again hit $1.84 in April 2021.

XRP hit its ATH of $3.65 on July 17, 2025, when its regulatory status in the United States got nearly settled.

But the crypto flash crash on Oct. 10 a few months later has led to a price decline from which the cryptocurrency is yet to recover.

Over the last 24 hours, XRP's value has grown 3.7% and was trading at $1.14.

XRP climbed back above the $1.13 level after a sharp reduction in token deposits from large holders, known as whales, to Binance. Data from on-chain analytics provider CryptoQuant pointed to a significant slowdown in major XRP transfers to the leading exchange, coinciding with the token’s latest price recovery.

Sharp drop in whale transaction volumesCryptoQuant reported that daily XRP whale deposits to Binance decreased to 25.3 million tokens, valued at approximately $23 million. This marks a steep decline from previous levels, which reached 583 million XRP, or around $1.36 billion based on prevailing prices. The change suggests whales are less actively preparing their XRP for immediate trading or potential sales on the platform.

The 90-day average for whale inflow value also fell, dropping from nearly $460 million earlier in the year to $69 million more recently. This trend indicates a marked reduction in large transfers and a decline in the supply of XRP available for trading on Binance.

While inflows to exchanges typically rise when significant holders plan to sell or trade substantial amounts, a decrease does not necessarily prove that large-scale selling has ended across the market. Instead, it reflects a period of less activity from major XRP holders engaged with Binance.

Recent CryptoQuant data highlights that daily XRP whale inflows to Binance plummeted from 583 million tokens to just 25.3 million, indicating a major reduction in exchange-bound volume during the token’s price rebound.

Thirty-day inflows reach lowest point in two monthsAccording to research from Arab Chain, Binance’s 30-day cumulative whale inflows fell to approximately 947.4 million XRP, marking the lowest total in the past two months. This comes after a previous peak of 1.445 billion tokens at the end of June, representing a decrease of 34.4% within one month.

Such a reduction suggests that XRP whales not only limit their exchange transfers but may also prefer to hold tokens in private wallets or transact through other platforms. Analysts at Arab Chain noted that sustained drops in whale deposits might point to a more cautious approach to trading or diminished intentions to sell at scale.

However, Arab Chain emphasized that relying on a single metric can be misleading and urged balanced analysis using additional indicators, such as price trends, trading volume, derivatives, and broader exchange flows.

PeriodWhale Inflows to BinancePrevious Peak/ChangeDaily25.3 million XRP583 million XRP (recent peak)30-day947.4 million XRP1.445 billion XRP (late June, -34.4%)90-day avg. (value)$69 million$460 million (earlier in 2024)Mini dictionary: Arab Chain is a digital asset analytics firm that tracks and interprets on-chain activity across major blockchains, offering insight into whale movements, trading patterns, and network health.

Impact on market supply and priceWith fewer large deposits arriving at Binance, XRP’s exchange supply from major holders has diminished. This tightening of immediately available tokens can affect market liquidity and help stabilize the price when overall demand recovers.

During this period, XRP’s market price reclaimed $1.13, moving back into positive territory. Some analysts cite the reduction in whale inflows as a contributor to this momentum, noting that limited exchange supply might slow down further sell pressure.

Despite the decline in large-block deposits, smaller transactions and pre-existing exchange balances can still impact available supply and price dynamics in liquid markets. XRP whales currently represent one important part of the token’s overall liquidity structure, but not the only one.

XRP has maintained a level above $1.13 as exchange supply from major holders continues to shrink, reflecting a significant slowdown in whale deposits to Binance.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.

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.

One-third of all Ethereum is now locked up in staking contracts. Ethereum’s staking ratio climbed to 33.9% by mid-July 2026, an all-time high that represents roughly 40.7 million ETH committed to securing the network. The ratio sat at 30% in January and 32.4% by early June.

The yield paradox and what’s driving participation The annualized staking reward rate has compressed to approximately 1.74%. Validator entry queues have grown longer at times, suggesting demand to join the network isn’t slowing, while validator exits remain relatively low.

ETH itself has been trading in a range between $1,940 and $2,000 during recent weeks.

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Lido’s dominance and the centralization question Lido currently manages around 19.4% of the total staked ETH, making it the single largest staking operator by a wide margin. Behind it, centralized exchanges like Binance and Coinbase hold significant shares, alongside decentralized protocols such as ether.fi and Figment.

If a small number of operators control a disproportionate share of validators, they could theoretically coordinate to censor transactions or, in extreme scenarios, attempt to reorganize blocks.

From 30% to 34%: the growth trajectory The jump from 30% in January to 33.9% in July appears to be organic rather than triggered by any specific protocol upgrade or incentive change. No new staking rewards were introduced and no major technical update lowered the barrier to entry.

Liquid staking tokens, which let users stake ETH while maintaining liquidity through derivative tokens, have made the process accessible to anyone with a wallet. Pooling protocols allow staking without the requirement of 32 ETH to run an individual validator.

What this means for investors With 40.7 million ETH locked in validators, that’s a significant chunk of circulating supply removed from active trading. Staked ETH can be unstaked, but the process takes time, acting as a speed bump against mass liquidation events.

At 1.74%, Ethereum staking yields are now lower than many alternatives in DeFi, and dramatically lower than what some competing Layer 1 networks offer their stakers.

A higher staking ratio means a higher cost for any attacker trying to accumulate the 33% threshold needed to disrupt consensus.

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

Brian Armstrong Warns Traders Against Treating His X Account as “Alpha”

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.

Aztec upgrades to V5, adds full private execution environment to Ethereum L2

While everyone was busy chasing the next Nvidia, Ethereum quietly ate AI hardware’s lunch. Over the past month, ETH outperformed the Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM), a basket of global memory chip companies tied to the AI boom, by 55 percentage points, according to Fundstrat’s Tom Lee.

The case for ETH as AI infrastructure Tom Lee laid out his thesis around July 17, framing Ethereum not as a speculative crypto bet but as critical infrastructure for the AI economy. His argument hinges on a simple idea: as autonomous AI agents proliferate, they need a neutral, programmable system to move money around. Lee says Ethereum provides exactly that, acting as the “guardrails” of consumer trust in a world where machines increasingly transact with other machines.

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The Roundhill Memory ETF launched on April 2 and focuses on global memory chip companies, the kind of firms that supply the physical hardware powering AI workloads.

Institutional money is noticing Significant inflows have been reported into spot ETH ETFs, with BlackRock’s ETHA drawing particular attention.

Both KuCoin and Binance have recently amplified this narrative through their research and media channels, reinforcing the idea that Ethereum occupies a unique position in the AI-related financial ecosystem.

What this means for investors Lee’s core argument represents a strategic pivot: instead of betting purely on which chipmaker wins the AI hardware race, investors could gain exposure to the transactional layer that all AI agents will eventually need, regardless of which hardware they run on.

There is also competitive risk. Ethereum isn’t the only blockchain vying to become the settlement layer for machine-to-machine transactions. Solana, various Layer 2 networks, and even purpose-built AI chains are all competing for the same role.

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

Bitmine drastically reduced the amount of Ethereum [ETH] it was accumulating last week, buying just 7,430 ETH—its lowest weekly purchase since May. This action was taken to prioritize the returns to shareholders.

For perspective, the company spent roughly $13 million on new ETH purchases. However, instead of aggressively growing its ETH treasury, it spent about $86 million repurchasing 5.5 million common shares at an average price of $15.62.

With 5,777,468 ETH, or 4.8% of Ethereum’s total circulating supply, Bitmine’s treasury is still massive despite the slower buying pace. In fact, it is also very close to its long-term objective of owning 5% of all ETH. 

Remarking on the same, Thomas “Tom” Lee, Chairman of Bitmine, said, 

We view the purchase of our common shares as accretive to shareholder value.

Bitmine’s goals achieved so far With this pace, Bitmine is just 0.2 percentage points short of its declared objective of “Alchemy of 5%.”

That said, Bitmine has almost reached this milestone in just 12 months since introducing its Ethereum treasury strategy in June 2025. 

As for staking, Bitmine has already staked 4.92 million ETH, or about 85% of its holdings, through its institutional-grade MAVAN (Made in America Validator Network) platform.

Additionally, the company is projecting $247 million in staking revenue annually at current staking yields of 2.67%, which could increase to about $290 million once its whole ETH treasury is staked.  

This occurs as the price of ETH was trading at $1,929.35 at the time of writing, following a 7.44% increase over the previous week. 

Will Strategy’s weakening BTC strategy impact Bitmine? While this happens in the Ethereum space, Michael Saylor’s Strategy is making headlines, creating countless hubbubs in the crypto space. Needless to say, in the case of Strategy, every dollar raised went toward buying more Bitcoin [BTC].

Each rally served to support the model. Additionally, the corporate treasury continued to grow, which seemed to justify the dilution of shareholders. But now the financial force that started the unrelenting accumulation is asking more of the treasury that it was created to expand.

Yet, despite all the strain, Strategy still has 843,775 BTC (approximately $55.8 billion). This stack of Bitcoin follows this year’s sales of 3620 BTC and the addition of 171,278 BTC.

Source: BitcoinTreasuries.NET Final Summary Instead of expanding its ETH treasury, Bitmine spent about $86 million repurchasing 5.5 million common shares.  This happens while ETH’s price surged by 7.44% in the past week.