Owens Corning (OC +0.32%), a storied company though rarely an investor darling, was a popular stock on the exchange in the holiday-shortened trading week. That was traceable to a media report that stated the company had received a buyout offer. According to data compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence, Owens Corning's equity zoomed almost 11% higher over the four-day stretch.
A big deal, if it's agreed Owens Corning, a construction supplies company perhaps best known for its pink residential insulation products, was the target of an unsolicited bid from industry peer Carlisle.
Image source: Getty Images.
That's the assertion of The Wall Street Journal, which published an article stating that Carlisle made a series of bids, at least one of which valued a deal at well over $10 billion. Citing unidentified "people familiar with the matter," the financial newspaper added that Owens Corning hasn't yet "engaged substantially" with its apparent suitor.
According to the article's sources, Carlisle was considering its next move in the effort. The WSJ said that its offers consisted of a mix of cash and stock.
Neither company has yet officially commented on the report.
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Potent combination On paper, it makes a great deal of sense to combine these two complementary businesses.
But if the article is accurate, Owens Corning could either be holding out for a higher price or shunning Carlisle entirely -- it recently retooled its business strategy, and management might be waiting for the change to take effect before evaluating the company's future. Given all that, I wouldn't trade into or out of Owens Corning on this speculation.
Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Carlisle Companies and Owens Corning. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Eli Lilly (LLY +1.35%) is a Wall Street darling thanks to its success in the GLP-1 weight-loss market. There's a problem here, however, because weight-loss drugs now account for nearly two-thirds of the drug maker's revenues. Johnson & Johnson (JNJ +3.57%) CEO Joaquin Duato isn't interested in being so reliant on just one healthcare niche. In fact, he's steering the company away from the hot GLP-1 sector. Here's why.
Wall Street loves a good story GLP-1 weight-loss drugs are a new product category in the pharmaceutical sector. They appear to be miracle drugs, with Eli Lilly a leading company in the space. But Novo Nordisk (NVO +3.29%) is in the mix, too, as are several other companies working on these hot new drugs. If you get caught up in the hype, it almost seems like a drug stock has to have a GLP-1 drug plan, or they aren't even worth looking at as an investment. However, there are a lot of other conditions that are treated with drugs.
Image source: Getty Images.
J&J has decided to sidestep the hype and focus on areas where it has core competencies. One area of focus is oncology, or cancer drugs. The company has a strong position in bone and lung cancer, and it recently acquired a company with an attractive prostate cancer drug candidate. Instead of playing catch-up in weight loss, J&J is leaning into areas where it already has a strong position. And there are multiple levers for growth in the drug niches where J&J is focused, providing diversification that doesn't exist in the GLP-1 weight loss space today.
Diversification is a key part of the J&J story That said, while Eli Lilly is starting to look like a one-trick pony, J&J is anything but. In addition to being one of the world's largest drug companies, it is also one of the largest medical device companies, too. This segment of the business focuses on products such as surgical items and new joints. Like drugs, medical devices are usually life necessities. And this segment allows J&J to offer investors diversification that a pure-play drug-maker can't.
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There's one more little wrinkle to consider. GLP-1 drugs are so hot that Eli Lilly's leading position has resulted in a massive stock price advance. Its price-to-earnings ratio is over 40x. J&J's P/E is 29x. It wouldn't be fair to suggest that J&J is cheap, but it is notably cheaper than Eli Lilly. It also offers a more attractive dividend yield, at 2.1% compared to Eli Lilly's 0.6%.
All in, Johnson & Johnson looks like a more attractive investment than Eli Lilly, even though it has chosen to stay away from the hot new drugs that are all the rage among investors. But, sometimes, operating out of the spotlight can be very rewarding for investors who think long term, particularly if you have an income focus.
Reuben Gregg Brewer has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. The Motley Fool recommends Johnson & Johnson. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Primoris snížila celoroční výhled na rok 2026 po dalších problémech a překročení nákladů v Renewables. Čistý zisk má být 71 až 101 milionů USD, proti dřívějším 223 až 234 milionům USD.
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The law firm of Kirby McInerney LLP continues its investigation on behalf of Primoris Services Corporation (“Primoris” or the “Company”) (NYSE:PRIM) investors concerning the Company’s and/or members of its senior management’s possible violation of the federal securities laws and other unlawful business practices.
[LEARN MORE ABOUT THE INVESTIGATION]
What Happened?
On May 5, 2026, Primoris reported its first quarter 2026 financial results and updated its full-year outlook. Among other things, the Company disclosed revenue of $1.6 billion, down 5.4% compared to the prior-year period, and net income of $17.4 million, compared to $44.2 million in the prior-year period. Primoris further disclosed that Energy segment operating income decreased by $49.1 million, or 62.2%, compared to the prior-year period, due to decreased revenue and increased costs on certain renewable energy projects. The Company stated that these higher costs were driven in part by project redesign efforts, changes in project sequencing, labor productivity challenges, and unfavorable weather conditions. Energy gross profit as a percentage of revenue declined to 7.6%, compared to 10.7% in the prior-year period. On this news, the price of Primoris shares declined by $101.69 per share, or approximately 50%, from $202.92 per share on May 5, 2026 to close at $101.23 on May 6, 2026.
Then on June 22, 2026, Primoris issued a Business Update revealing additional challenges and cost overruns in its Renewables business. The Company disclosed that the expected cost overruns were primarily related to six previously discussed projects, with several of those projects now expected to reach substantial completion during the third and fourth quarters of 2026. Primoris also disclosed that it anticipated lower revenue and gross profit for full-year 2026, primarily driven by lower expected revenue and gross profit in the Renewables business. The Company stated that it now expects full-year 2026 Renewables revenue of approximately $2.1 billion, compared to approximately $3.0 billion for full-year 2025. As a result, Primoris again reduced its full-year 2026 outlook. The Company now expects net income of $71 million to $101 million, EPS of $1.30 to $1.85, adjusted EPS of $2.05 to $2.60, and adjusted EBITDA of $275 million to $325 million. This compares to its prior May 2026 guidance of net income of $223 million to $234 million, EPS of $4.05 to $4.25, adjusted EPS of $4.80 to $5.00, and adjusted EBITDA of $480 million to $500 million. Primoris also announced the departure of Jeremy Kinch from the Chief Operating Officer role, effective immediately. On this news, the price of Primoris shares declined by $23.39 per share, or approximately 22%, from $108.34 per share on June 22, 2026 to close at $84.95 on June 23, 2026.
What Should I Do?
At this stage, no lawsuit has been filed. The investigation is ongoing to determine whether claims may be brought under federal securities laws.
If you purchased or otherwise acquired Primoris securities, have information, or would like to learn more about this investigation, please contact Lauren Molinaro of Kirby McInerney LLP by email at [email protected], or fill out the contact form below, to discuss your rights or interests with respect to these matters at no cost.
[LEARN MORE ABOUT SECURITIES CLASS ACTIONS]
Kirby McInerney LLP is a New York-based plaintiffs’ law firm concentrating in securities, antitrust, whistleblower, and consumer litigation. The firm’s efforts on behalf of shareholders in securities litigation have resulted in recoveries totaling billions of dollars. Additional information about the firm can be found at Kirby McInerney LLP’s website.
This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules.
Meta Platforms plánuje v roce 2026 kapitálové výdaje ve výši 125 až 145 miliard USD, hlavně na AI infrastrukturu. Cílem je posílit reklamu, která tvořila 98 % tržeb v prvním čtvrtletí.
The market is focused these days on the immense amount of capital flooding the artificial intelligence (AI) build-out. The hyperscalers are getting all the attention as they embark on an extraordinary investment cycle.
Meta Platforms (META 4.80%) is one such business. The dominant social media platform, which has historically posted huge profits and free cash flow, plans to spend $125 billion to $145 billion on capital expenditures (capex) in 2026, mostly for AI infrastructure. That upper bound is about double the $72 billion figure from last year.
Investors are probably wondering why Meta is transitioning from a capital-light business to a capital-intensive one. There might only be one reason.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
It's all about Meta's advertising On the Q1 2025 earnings call, Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company has five major opportunities related to the AI revolution. The list includes better recommendations and content, business messaging, the Meta AI assistant, and AI devices. But perhaps the most important priority is leveraging AI to improve advertising capabilities.
"Our goal is to make it so that any business can basically tell us what objective they're trying to achieve -- like selling something or getting a new customer -- and how much they're willing to pay for each result, and then we just do the rest," Zuckerberg mentioned on the call.
He continued by saying that if Meta is successful in this regard, then "the increased productivity from AI will make advertising a meaningfully larger share of global GDP than it is today."
Connect the dots, and it becomes clear that Meta's ultimate goal is to keep growing its ad revenue at a rapid clip over the long haul. Ad sales totaled $55 billion in the first quarter (ended March 31), representing 98% of the company's entire top line. Advertising is what Meta is all about. That's not going to change.
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The market looks concerned During Q1, Meta reported a 19% year-over-year increase in ad impressions, while the average price per ad rose 12%. These two variables helped lift the company's revenue by 33% compared to the first quarter of 2025. That was the fastest growth rate since Q3 2021.
To justify the $135 billion in capex earmarked for 2026, investors will become more demanding about Meta's financial performance. In fact, they probably already are, as the "Magnificent Seven" stock is down 15% in 2026 (as of June 29) and 29% off its record.
Time will tell whether this AI capex boom will lead to satisfactory returns for one of the world's elite businesses.
ZEN.COM přidává Mastercard Click to Pay do své platformy pro 1,5 milionu zákazníků na 33 trzích včetně EHP, Británie a Singapuru. Funkce umožní tokenizované platby jedním kliknutím bez opětovného zadávání údajů.
European FinTech ZEN.COM has expanded its financial platform to include Mastercard Click to Pay.
This feature joins a platform that already includes multicurrency accounts, foreign exchange, instant cashback, purchase protection and everyday payments, ZEN.COM said in a Friday (July 3) press release.
The integration of Mastercard Click to Pay is available to the 1.5 million consumers ZEN.COM serves across the 33 markets in which it operates, including the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Singapore, according to the release.
Mastercard Click to Pay enables tokenized one-click checkout for online purchases. To use it, users enroll a payment card and get a device recognized as trusted, and then they can complete future purchases at participating merchants with a single click and without having to re-enter their card details, per the release.
“People are searching for simpler experiences,” ZEN.COM Chief Growth Officer Lukasz Neska said in the release. “The future of finance is about removing friction from everyday life, not about adding more financial products for consumers to manage.”
The PYMNTS Intelligence report “The Next-Gen Commerce Playbook: Turning Checkout Into a Compounding Customer Loop” found that 84% of global shoppers say one-click checkout is an important factor when choosing where to shop.
The feature eliminates the friction that appears when repeat shoppers are required to re-enter payment details or repeat authentication steps, according to the report.
“One click checkout capabilities address this friction by enabling fast repeat purchases,” the report said. “Stored credentials and streamlined flows align with customer expectations shaped by leading digital platforms.”
PYMNTS reported in February 2024, about five years after Click to Pay was introduced, that removing the manual data entry with Click to Pay reduces checkout times by 50%.
In another Friday press release about ZEN.COM’s integration of Mastercard Click to Pay, Daria Auguscik, vice president, business development director, Mastercard Europe in Poland, said that consumers expect payments to be as simple, fast and secure as other digital services.
“Click to Pay meets these expectations by combining the convenience of card payments with the security of tokenization,” Auguscik said. “We are pleased that ZEN.COM users can now benefit from this global standard and enjoy an even smoother and more intuitive online checkout experience.”
With the artificial intelligence (AI) trade captivating investors' hearts and minds (and their dollars), it's not surprising that some market participants may be overallocated to that theme. These days, it's an understatement to say tech stocks are prominent.
Just look at the S&P 500 (^GSPC +0.00%). A once-diverse collection of large-cap U.S. companies, the index is heavily weighted toward AI and tech. Each of its top 10 holdings, which account for more than 34% of the index's weight, touches AI in some form.
Most of those are low-yielding stocks, and some don't even pay dividends. So investors seeking the benefits of sector diversification and equity income should augment their tech holdings with some different "flavors," one of which is Lockheed Martin (LMT +4.45%).
Image source: Lockheed Martin.
Lockheed Martin may be an inviting entry point As things stand today, Lockheed Martin is arguably a good-news/bad-news stock. In an effort to finish on an upbeat note, let's dispense with the bad news.
Investors expecting this aerospace stock to benefit from the war in Iran are disappointed. Over the past 90 days, the stock has fallen 15.7% and is 27% below its 52-week high, putting it in bear-market territory.
Those are ominous statistics, but there are bright sides to the story. For example, the company has a $194 billion backlog, confirming it remains one of Uncle Sam's go-to large-scale defense contractors. That's valuable at a time when the White House is seeking $1.5 trillion in fiscal 2027 defense spending, roughly half of which will be allocated to weapons modernization and procurement, areas of Lockheed's expertise.
Adding to the case for this industrial stock, particularly for long-term investors, is the dividend. Lockheed yields 2.7%, or more than double the dividend yields of the S&P 500 and the largest industrial exchange-traded fund (ETF). The defense giant is committed to that payout, as evidenced by the fact that the dividend hike unveiled last October marked the 23rd consecutive year the dividend was increased.
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Investors may find comfort in knowing that the industrial sector's shareholder yield, a combination of buybacks and dividends, is above that of the S&P 500 and the technology sector.
Lockheed has some tech inroads To be sure, Lockheed Martin isn't a tech stock, but it does have some exposure to tech themes that resonate with investors. Included in the Pentagon's budget is $66 billion for overall tech spending and $13.4 billion for AI, marking the first time the department is breaking out dedicated AI expenditures.
Much of that spending is slated for autonomous systems, an area of focus for Lockheed. The company's ability to integrate autonomous systems across a variety of frontiers, including air, cyber, land, and sea, makes it a valuable long-term provider to the U.S. government.
While Lockheed isn't a tech company in the traditional sense, tech is very much a part of the long-term growth story. So investors are getting a stock with the potential to benefit from tech and one committed to dividend growth. That may just be a win-win.
MEXC zařadila na spotový trh výnosový token navázaný na Ondo Finance, čímž rozšiřuje přístup k tokenizovaným výnosovým produktům. Krok odráží rostoucí poptávku po tokenizovaných Treasury produktech.
Tokenized yield products are continuing to move toward retail-facing crypto venues. MEXC has listed an Ondo Finance-linked yield asset on its spot market, giving traders another route into the growing market for blockchain-based exposure to traditional income products.
The listing matters because Ondo has become one of the more visible names in the real-world asset sector, especially around tokenized Treasury-style products. For exchanges, adding these assets is a way to meet demand for yield products that sit somewhere between DeFi and traditional fixed-income exposure.
For more details, visit the official Chainwire platform.
TL;DR MEXC has listed an Ondo-linked tokenized yield asset on its spot market.The listing reflects growing demand for tokenized real-world asset products.Yield-bearing tokens still carry product, liquidity, and counterparty risks that traders need to understand. Tokenized Yield Keeps Moving Into Exchanges The RWA narrative has matured from a niche DeFi theme into one of crypto’s most persistent institutional stories. Tokenized Treasury products, yield-bearing stablecoin alternatives, and on-chain money-market style assets have all attracted attention because they connect crypto rails with familiar sources of yield.
An exchange listing does not automatically make these products simple. It does, however, make them more visible. Retail traders who may not interact directly with protocol interfaces can encounter tokenized yield through the same venues they already use for spot trading.
The Risk Is Different From A Standard Token The key distinction is that yield-bearing tokenized assets are not just speculative crypto tokens. Their performance can depend on the structure of the underlying asset, issuer policies, redemption mechanisms, market liquidity, and interest-rate conditions.
For NewsBTC readers, the clean takeaway is that tokenized yield is becoming more accessible, but not risk-free. The expansion of listings may help the sector grow, but it also puts more responsibility on exchanges and issuers to explain exactly what holders are buying.
RWAs Keep Finding Distribution One reason tokenized Treasury products have gained traction is that they give crypto users a familiar on-chain wrapper around a familiar traditional asset category. That makes them easier to understand than many purely experimental DeFi products.
Distribution is now the next battleground. Protocols can build tokenized yield products, but exchanges and wallets decide how many users actually see them. A listing on a venue such as MEXC can increase visibility, liquidity, and speculative interest around the product.
Still, the category needs careful handling. If users treat a yield-bearing RWA token like a standard spot altcoin, they may miss the risks that sit underneath the yield mechanism.
Ondo’s broader significance comes from the fact that tokenized Treasuries have become one of the few crypto categories with a clear real-world benchmark. Traders can debate valuations, but the underlying demand for on-chain yield products is no longer theoretical.
The cleaner takeaway is to treat this as a specific development inside DeFi, not as a blanket prediction for the whole market. It gives readers a concrete data point to watch while keeping the limits of the story clear.
This article is based on information from Chainwire.
This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.
Hyperliquid s HIP-3 a HIP-4 rozšířil obchodování o tvůrci nasazované perpetuals a outcome trhy. HIP-3 už od 13. října 2025 umožňuje tokenizované akcie a komodity, HIP-4 přidává predikční trhy a další event kontrakty bez tokenového hlasování.
Two protocol upgrades turned Hyperliquid from a crypto perpetuals exchange into something closer to an operating system for markets. HIP-3 lets anyone with enough staked HYPE launch a perpetuals exchange for stocks, oil, or gold. HIP-4 adds prediction markets that settle without a token vote. Here is how both work, what they have built so far, and where the risks sit.
Hyperliquid spent its first two years being described as the fastest decentralized perpetuals exchange in crypto. The description was accurate and incomplete. Since late 2025, the network has been executing a more ambitious plan: turning its core trading infrastructure into a platform that other builders deploy markets on top of, the way developers deploy apps on cloud infrastructure. Grayscale Research made the comparison explicit in a June 2026 note, writing that Hyperliquid now looks less like a stock exchange and more like Amazon Web Services.
Two upgrades carry that transformation. HIP-3, live on mainnet since October 13, 2025, opened perpetual futures listing to outside builders and brought tokenized stocks, commodities, and indices onto the platform at scale. HIP-4, live since May 2, 2026, added a second market primitive built for prediction markets and other event contracts. Together they explain why seven of the top ten markets by volume on a crypto exchange are now things like Nvidia stock and gold, and why the platform is picking a direct fight with Polymarket and Kalshi.
This guide walks through what each proposal does, how the mechanics work, what has happened since launch, and what can still go wrong.
First, the basics: what a HIP is Hyperliquid is a layer 1 blockchain built around a fully on-chain central limit order book. Its core engine, HyperCore, processes around 200,000 orders per second and handles matching, margining, and liquidations for every market on the chain. A separate component, the HyperEVM, runs Ethereum-style smart contracts on the same consensus layer. The native token, HYPE, secures the network through staking, pays fees, and absorbs most protocol revenue through a continuous buyback program. Cumulative protocol revenue passed $1 billion in late June 2026, with an annualized run rate near $840 million.
Changes to the protocol arrive through Hyperliquid Improvement Proposals, or HIPs, which the community debates and HYPE stakers weigh in on before the core contributors ship the code. The first two set the pattern. HIP-1 created the standard for launching spot tokens, with ticker slots sold through recurring Dutch auctions, so listing a token became a market process instead of an application form. HIP-2 added a protocol-native liquidity mechanism that seeds order books for new tokens automatically, solving the empty-book problem that kills most new listings on other venues. Both dealt with spot markets, and both introduced ideas that return later: auctions as the allocation mechanism for scarce listing slots, and protocol-level guarantees standing behind builder-created markets. The third and fourth proposals took those ideas after the two bigger prizes: perpetual futures on everything, and event contracts on anything.
HIP-3: builder-deployed perpetuals Before HIP-3, listing a new perpetual market on Hyperliquid worked the way it works on most exchanges: the core team decided. That created a bottleneck and a gatekeeper, two things the platform’s own community had complained about as the asset universe stayed narrow while demand for stock and commodity exposure grew.
HIP-3, called Builder-Deployed Perpetuals, removed the gatekeeper. Since October 2025, any builder who stakes 500,000 HYPE can deploy an independent perpetuals exchange on HyperCore, without core team approval. At current prices near $64, that stake represents roughly $32 million, a number that matters for reasons covered below.
The deployer controls nearly everything about their market. They choose the assets, the oracle that sets the mark price, the collateral token, margin requirements, leverage limits, funding parameters, and the front-end experience. The first three assets in any HIP-3 exchange deploy without an auction. Additional assets go through a Dutch auction shared across all HIP-3 deployers, similar to the HIP-1 ticker auctions.
What the deployer does not control is the plumbing. HIP-3 markets inherit the full HyperCore stack: the same matching engine, the same order types, the same margining and liquidation logic, and the same solvency guarantees as the validator-operated markets. A trader interacting with a builder-deployed market gets the same execution quality as on the flagship crypto perps.
The economic design has three pillars:
The stake is a bond, not just a ticket. The 500,000 HYPE can be slashed if the deployer misbehaves, for example by manipulating an oracle or breaking market rules, and the requirement holds for 30 days even after a deployer halts all markets. Fees split down the middle. HIP-3 markets charge users twice the fee of validator-operated perps, and the deployer keeps 50%. The protocol collects the same revenue per trade either way, so builder markets grow the pie without cannibalizing it. Cross margin has eligibility standards. Validators only allow cross margin on HIP-3 assets with sufficient observable liquidity, a reliable external oracle, and resistance to price manipulation, and any 50% intraday move in the reference price triggers a review. The design goal is alignment: builders with $32 million at stake and a 50% revenue share have every reason to run clean, liquid, well-oracled markets, and a slashing mechanism waits for the ones who do not.
What HIP-3 actually built The proposal would be a footnote if nobody used it. The opposite happened. The first market, a synthetic Nasdaq-style index called XYZ100, went live within days of activation. Its deployer, TradeXYZ, then built out United States equities including Nvidia, Tesla, Google, and Amazon, plus gold and silver contracts benchmarked to COMEX front-month futures, and later secured official licensing rights to the S&P 500 ticker, a landmark moment for a DeFi protocol.
The numbers followed. Open interest across HIP-3 markets passed $1.43 billion within months of launch. By spring 2026, seven of Hyperliquid’s top ten markets by volume were tokenized equities or commodities, not crypto pairs. During the West Asia crisis earlier this year, when traditional commodity venues closed for the weekend, traders moved to Hyperliquid to trade oil, gold, and silver around the clock, and HIP-3 markets drove up to 40% of the platform’s total volume. Non-crypto assets showed 60% trader retention in late March, a signal that around-the-clock access to traditional markets is a durable product, not a novelty. At peak HIP-3 activity the platform generated $2.3 million in daily fees, funding $11 million in HYPE buybacks.
Other deployers took different angles. Kinetiq built around its liquid staking token. Liminal used HIP-3 markets to run fully on-chain delta-neutral yield strategies across equities, FX, and commodities, including markets collateralized with yield-bearing assets like Ethena’s USDe. In June, Hyperliquid and TradeXYZ launched the FOMO app, a single interface for trading equities, pre-IPO stocks, crypto, indices, and commodities. Access also spread through consumer wallets: HIP-3 markets can be traded through any Hyperliquid-compatible front end, including Phantom.
The listing economics also flipped in a way worth pausing on. Under the old model, and on centralized exchanges generally, a new asset waits for an exchange’s business development calendar, and projects have long complained about the cost and opacity of the process. Under HIP-3, listing latency collapsed from a governance or negotiation timeline to a deployment transaction plus an auction, and the gatekeeping moved from relationships to capital. A pre-launch project that wants a perpetual market for hedging no longer needs a major venue’s blessing; it needs a deployer willing to run the market. Comparable systems show how unusual this is: dYdX v4 still routes every new market through a governance vote with a week or two of latency, and GMX listings run through its core team. Hyperliquid is the first chain-level implementation where market creation itself carries no approval step.
The concentration is the caveat. TradeXYZ accounts for more than 90% of all HIP-3 open interest, and Blockworks Research has flagged the deployer economics as a structural risk: with a roughly $30 million lockup, auction costs, and stiff competition, a smaller deployer’s break-even period can stretch to four years. Blockworks has proposed lowering the stake for small builders and letting them keep 100% of revenue until they recover their costs. Hyperliquid’s own documentation says the 500,000 HYPE threshold is expected to fall as the infrastructure matures. Until it does, HIP-3 is permissionless in principle and an oligopoly in practice.
HIP-4: outcome markets HIP-3 covered continuous markets, things with a price that moves all day. It could not cleanly handle discrete events. A perpetual future needs an oracle that updates continuously with limits of roughly 1% deviation per update, a design suited to leveraged trading on a live price and incompatible with questions that jump from uncertainty to a hard answer in one instant, like an election call or an inflation print.
HIP-4, announced on February 2, 2026 and live on mainnet since May 2, added a purpose-built primitive for exactly that. Outcome markets are fully collateralized contracts that settle to exactly 0 or 1 at expiry. Each market has two sides, typically Yes and No, and the order books for the two sides are merged: an order to buy Yes at a price of 0.62 is the same order as one to sell No at 0.38, so all liquidity concentrates in one book. Positions are collateralized in USDH, the network’s native stablecoin, and because every position is fully backed, there is no liquidation risk.
The market lifecycle has a distinctive opening. Each new outcome market starts with a single-price clearing auction lasting around 15 minutes, during which traders submit limit orders but nothing executes. The auction clears at the price that matches the most volume, and unfilled orders roll into continuous trading on the standard order book. The mechanism exists to concentrate early liquidity and produce a fair opening price instead of a thin, gappy first print. It borrows a page from how traditional exchanges open trading each morning, which is fitting for a protocol that keeps hiring ideas from the market structure it wants to replace.
The architecture runs natively inside HyperCore, sharing the matching engine, order types, and throughput of every other market on the chain. That matters for one under-discussed reason: liquidity providers can quote prediction markets with the same tooling and speed they use on perps, instead of the bespoke market-making setups that thinner prediction venues require. Deep books were always the missing ingredient on long-tail event markets, and Hyperliquid’s bet is that professional liquidity follows familiar infrastructure.
The fee structure is openly aggressive. Opening or minting an outcome position costs nothing. Fees apply only on closing, burning, or settling, and makers pay zero. That pricing targets Polymarket and Kalshi, which processed a combined $44.8 billion in June on the back of the World Cup, and the community reaction at announcement made the intent plain. When the proposal dropped in February, crypto.news covered the market pricing in exactly that ambition, with traders framing HIP-4 as Hyperliquid trying to house all of finance.
Initial markets are curated and validator-deployed, starting with recurring daily Bitcoin price threshold contracts that reset each day, run by the prediction platform Outcomexyz. Planned categories include politics, sports, macro data releases, crypto events, and entertainment. A later phase opens permissionless deployment: builders will stake 1,000,000 HYPE per market slot, slashable and burned if validators find oracle manipulation, invalid state transitions, or prolonged downtime. One slot supports rolling and recurring markets, recycling after each settlement.
Settlement without a token vote The deepest difference between HIP-4 and the incumbent on-chain prediction markets is not fees. It is how truth gets decided.
Polymarket outsources contested resolutions to UMA’s optimistic oracle, where token holders vote on disputed outcomes, an architecture that has produced repeated controversies in 2026, including a $60 million market on a Strategy Bitcoin sale that resolved against the documented facts. The full mechanics and failure modes of that system are covered in our companion guide to how prediction markets resolve.
HIP-4 replaces the token vote with the chain itself. Settlement runs through Hyperliquid’s validator set executing automated resolution against pre-specified, objective data sources. There is no dispute window, no escalation, and no path for a token holder with a position in the market to also vote on its outcome. The trade-off is scope: deterministic settlement works for objective questions with a clean data source, which is why the first markets are price thresholds. Ambiguous questions, the kind that generate the worst oracle disputes elsewhere, are exactly the kind HIP-4’s design avoids listing.
What all of this looks like from the trader’s side For a user, the machinery above mostly disappears. HIP-3 markets sit in the same interface as the flagship crypto perps, trade through the same API, and settle against the same margin account. A trader shorting gold on a builder-deployed market places the order the same way they would short Ethereum, and the differences show up in three places worth knowing.
Fees are higher on builder markets. The headline rate on a HIP-3 perp is twice the validator-operated rate, which at base tiers works out to roughly 3 and 9 basis points for makers and takers before discounts, with the deployer keeping half. Staking discounts, referral rebates, and collateral-based reductions still apply on top, so an active HYPE staker narrows the gap considerably.
Oracle quality varies by deployer. On validator-operated markets, the network itself maintains the price feed. On a HIP-3 market, the deployer chooses and operates the oracle, which is why the mark price on a weekend oil contract can drift from where Monday’s COMEX open eventually prints. During the West Asia crisis, Hyperliquid’s oil market traded on its own oracle through days when no traditional reference price existed at all. That independence is the product and the risk in one feature.
Collateral differs by market. Most markets margin in stablecoins, but HIP-3 supports alternative collateral where the deployer enables it, including yield-bearing assets, and HIP-4 outcome positions collateralize in USDH. Settlement demand for outcome markets flows through the stablecoin into the same fee-and-buyback loop that already routes nearly all protocol revenue toward HYPE, which is why analysts treat HIP-4 volume as a direct token catalyst rather than a side business.
The practical entry points have multiplied too. Beyond the native app, HIP-3 and HIP-4 markets surface through Phantom, through the FOMO app for the equities lineup, and through any front end built on the public API, since every builder market shares the unified HyperCore order flow.
The risk column Every part of the story above has a counterweight, and an honest explainer lists them.
Deployer concentration is the loudest one. A permissionless system where one builder holds 90% of open interest has recreated a gatekeeper one level up, and the $32 million entry stake keeps it that way for now. Regulatory exposure is the second. Hyperliquid operates without KYC in most of the world, the United Kingdom’s FCA has declared the platform unauthorized, and pending United States market structure legislation could either validate or constrain synthetic stock perpetuals, a product category regulators have barely begun to examine. Institutional ceilings are the third: a June JPMorgan report saw limited institutional demand for perpetual futures generally, citing unbounded basis risk and missing clearing protections, which matters for a token whose valuation leans on volume growth. And the products themselves are dangerous instruments. Leveraged perpetuals on any underlying can liquidate a position in minutes, and cross margin across markets adds its own failure modes.
There is a subtler risk in the oracle layer that the slashing design only partially covers. A deployer’s oracle is a single point of interpretation for its markets, and unusual conditions expose the gap: when traditional venues close and a HIP-3 commodity market keeps trading, the mark price is whatever the deployer’s methodology says it is, with no external reference to check against until markets reopen. Validators review any 50% intraday reference move and slashing punishes proven manipulation, but a subtly mispriced weekend, honest or otherwise, transfers money between longs and shorts without tripping any threshold. Traders in builder markets are underwriting oracle methodology whether they think about it or not.
None of that has slowed the platform yet. Hyperliquid controls an estimated 70% of on-chain perpetuals volume, spot HYPE ETFs drew $111 million in inflows in late June while Bitcoin and Ethereum funds bled, and the ecosystem is spending on the long game, including a $29 million policy center in Washington. Whether the moat holds is a different question from whether it exists.
The bigger picture for L1 competition HIP-3 and HIP-4 also reframe what layer 1 blockchains compete on. Ethereum and Solana fight over DeFi liquidity, users, and fees, a race with its own 2026 scoreboard. Hyperliquid opted out of the general-purpose contest and vertically integrated one thing: markets. The bet is that an exchange-shaped blockchain with permissionless market creation captures more value than a general-purpose chain hosting exchange apps. dYdX tried a dedicated appchain with governance-gated listings. GMX built on someone else’s layer 2. Hyperliquid is the first to make market creation itself permissionless at the chain layer, and the early evidence, an order of magnitude expansion in what can be traded on-chain, suggests the design space was bigger than the industry assumed.
What to watch from here Three markers will tell the story over the next year. First, whether the HIP-3 stake requirement drops and the deployer set widens beyond one dominant builder. Second, whether HIP-4 volume becomes measurable against Polymarket and Kalshi once permissionless deployment opens and categories expand past crypto prices. Third, whether regulators treat builder-deployed stock perpetuals as an innovation to license or a loophole to close. The upgrades themselves are shipped and working. The open question, as always in this industry, is what survives contact with scale.
Frequently asked questions What is Hyperliquid HIP-3? HIP-3, called Builder-Deployed Perpetuals, is a Hyperliquid protocol upgrade live since October 13, 2025. It lets any builder who stakes 500,000 HYPE deploy an independent perpetual futures exchange on HyperCore, choosing the assets, oracle, collateral, and fee capture, while inheriting Hyperliquid’s matching engine, margining, and liquidation systems. It moved market listing from a core team decision to a permissionless, stake-secured process.
What is Hyperliquid HIP-4? HIP-4 is the outcome markets upgrade, announced February 2, 2026 and live on mainnet since May 2, 2026. It adds fully collateralized event contracts that settle to exactly 0 or 1 at expiry, with merged Yes and No order books, USDH collateral, no liquidation risk, and zero fees to open a position. It is Hyperliquid’s entry into prediction markets.
How much does it cost to deploy a HIP-3 market? A deployer must stake 500,000 HYPE, worth roughly $32 million at current prices near $64. The stake is slashable for misconduct and must be held for 30 days even after all of the deployer’s markets are halted. The first three assets deploy without an auction; additional assets go through a shared Dutch auction. Documentation says the threshold should fall over time.
What can you trade on HIP-3 markets? Builder-deployed markets cover tokenized United States equities such as Nvidia, Tesla, Google, and Amazon, index products including a licensed S&P 500 contract and the Nasdaq-style XYZ100, commodities such as gold, silver, and oil benchmarked to COMEX and other references, FX, and long-tail crypto assets. Seven of Hyperliquid’s top ten markets by volume are now non-crypto assets.
How does HIP-4 settlement differ from Polymarket? Polymarket resolves contested markets through UMA’s optimistic oracle, where token holders vote on disputed outcomes. HIP-4 settlement is deterministic: Hyperliquid’s validator set resolves each contract against a pre-specified objective data source, with no dispute window and no token vote. The design avoids governance attacks but limits markets to questions with clean, objective answers.
Who is TradeXYZ? TradeXYZ is the dominant HIP-3 deployer, accounting for more than 90% of builder-deployed open interest. It launched the first HIP-3 market, the XYZ100 index, built out the equities and commodities lineup, secured S&P 500 ticker licensing, and co-launched the FOMO trading app with Hyperliquid in June 2026. Its dominance is also the center of the deployer concentration debate.
Is trading on Hyperliquid safe? The protocol has strong solvency engineering and a clean track record on its core markets, but the products are high-risk by nature. Leveraged perpetuals can liquidate quickly, HIP-3 markets depend on each deployer’s oracle quality, the UK’s FCA lists the platform as unauthorized, and synthetic stock perpetuals sit in a regulatory gray zone. Position sizing and jurisdiction checks matter.
Does HIP-4 have liquidation risk? No. Outcome positions are fully collateralized in USDH at purchase, so the maximum loss is the amount paid for the position and no liquidation engine is involved. That distinguishes outcome markets from perpetuals, where leverage means positions can be forcibly closed. The risk in outcome markets is being wrong about the event, or holding through a settlement data error.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Digital asset markets are volatile and you can lose your entire investment. Always do your own research. Information current as of July 3, 2026.
Strategy držela ke konci června 2026 847 363 BTC za zhruba 64,1 miliardy USD. Při průměrné nákupní ceně 75 651 USD za minci má nyní asi 14 miliard USD nerealizované ztráty.
Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) held 847,363 BTC as of late June 2026, acquired for approximately $64.1 billion at an average cost basis of $75,651 per coin, making it the largest corporate holder. Bitcoin’s 52% decline from its October 2025 peak of $126,080 exposed the leverage embedded in Saylor’s treasury model, with Strategy reporting a $12.5 billion loss in Q1 2026 alone. Strategy raised $25.3 billion in 2025 through equity offerings and preferred stock instruments, including STRF, STRK, STRC, and STRD, making it the largest U.S. equity issuer that year. Michael Saylor broke his longstanding pledge never to sell Bitcoin when the company made its first-ever BTC liquidation in May 2026, signaling a shift in operational flexibility. JPMorgan warned in July 2026 that Strategy’s concentrated buying could increase volatility, and any forced liquidation could have an outsized impact on Bitcoin’s overall price dynamics. Few corporate strategies have generated more debate than Michael Saylor’s transformation of Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) into what he calls a Bitcoin Treasury Company. Since buying its first 21,454 BTC in August 2020, Strategy has accumulated more Bitcoin than any public company or government, SEC filings show.
With 847,363 BTC as of late June 2026, it controls over 4% of Bitcoin’s total supply, StealthEX confirms. But Bitcoin’s steep decline from its October 2025 peak has raised questions about sustainability. This article examines the mechanics, rewards, risks, and how Saylor’s strategy fits the broader crypto ecosystem.
How the Treasury Model Works Strategy’s approach is built on a capital markets flywheel. The company raises capital through at-the-market (ATM) equity offerings, convertible debt, and perpetual preferred stock, and uses the proceeds to purchase Bitcoin. The company’s Q1 2026 SEC filing disclosed that it held 818,334 BTC as of May 3, 2026, reflecting 22% year-to-date growth. The company raised $11.68 billion in that same period.
Strategy measures performance using a proprietary metric called BTC Yield, which tracks the increase in Bitcoin holdings relative to diluted shares outstanding. The company reported 9.4% BTC Yield year-to-date through Q1 2026.
Michael Saylor has described the strategy as stretching Bitcoin from a nonyielding asset into a capital-markets engine, CoinDesk reported at an April 2026 Mizuho event. Strategy’s preferred stock product STRC carries an 11.5% yield, which the company considers well below Bitcoin’s expected long-term appreciation rate.
The BTC Yield metric obscures a critical dynamic: it measures Bitcoin accumulation relative to diluted shares, but dilution itself has been extreme. Fortune reported in February 2026 that Strategy’s Class A common shares outstanding grew from 76 million in mid-2020 to approximately 314 million by February 2026, an increase of 313%.
No other major U.S. company has diluted shareholders at anywhere near this rate. This means existing shareholders are receiving more Bitcoin per share, but each share represents a smaller piece of the overall company.
The Risks Materializing in 2026 Bitcoin hit an all-time high of $126,080 in October 2025, and by late June 2026, it had fallen over 52% to approximately $58,500. With an average cost basis of approximately $75,651, Strategy has roughly $14 billion in unrealized losses at current prices.
In May 2026, Saylor broke his longstanding pledge never to sell Bitcoin. Strategy executed its first-ever BTC liquidation, a small sale relative to total holdings, BYDFi reported. The sale was modest, but it shattered the narrative of unconditional accumulation that had underpinned investor confidence.
JPMorgan issued a warning in early July 2026 that Strategy’s concentrated buying could lead to increased volatility and market instability, Phemex reported. The bank cautioned that any liquidation could have outsized impacts on Bitcoin’s price.
Broader pressure compounded: $2.8 billion left spot Bitcoin ETFs in nine consecutive sessions through late May 2026, the longest withdrawal streak since their 2024 debut, Axios reported.
The Reward Case: What Has Worked Despite the drawdown, Saylor’s strategy created significant value over its five-year run. Strategy’s stock appreciated over 1,000% from pre-Bitcoin levels at the peak. The model inspired copycat treasury strategies, including Strive, whose CEO Matt Cole disclosed 14,557 BTC as of April 2026, CoinDesk reported.
Saylor’s thesis received indirect validation from the U.S. government. The White House announced a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, lending government weight to the argument that Bitcoin can sit alongside gold on national balance sheets.
At the Bitcoin 2026 conference, Saylor argued that as capital flows into the Bitcoin network, the price should increase, and outlined conditions under which Bitcoin could eventually reach $10 million per coin.
TD Securities maintained a buy rating on Strategy with a $500 price target, citing the company’s $2.25 billion cash reserve as a buffer against a prolonged crypto winter, The Block reported. Understanding the interplay between Bitcoin treasury strategies and broader market dynamics is essential for evaluating whether the reward thesis still holds.
Regulatory Implications Strategy faces regulatory scrutiny on multiple fronts, and the SEC has reviewed its accounting under ASU 2023-08, which requires fair-value measurement and recognizes price changes in net income.
Strategy urged MSCI to reject a proposal to bar companies with over 50% of their assets in crypto from equity benchmarks. Pending U.S. market structure legislation could reshape how corporate Bitcoin treasuries are reported.
What’s Next? Strategy’s near-term trajectory is tethered to Bitcoin’s price. If Bitcoin recovers toward its cost basis, the model’s leverage amplifies gains. If it declines further, the company faces growing pressure on its preferred stock dividends and potential credit downgrades. Saylor’s 42/42 Plan aims to raise $84 billion over two years to continue accumulating Bitcoin, TradingKey reported.
Whether capital markets remain willing to fund that ambition at current prices is the central question. Projections about Bitcoin’s future price are speculative and should not be treated as forecasts. The leveraged model carries the risk of substantial loss if sustained weakness forces sales at depressed prices.
FAQs How much Bitcoin does Strategy own?
Strategy held 847,363 BTC as of late June 2026, acquired for approximately $64.1 billion at an average cost basis of $75,651, representing more than 4% of total supply.
What is BTC Yield?
BTC Yield is Strategy’s proprietary metric measuring the percentage increase in Bitcoin holdings per diluted share, designed to show value creation for shareholders over time.
Has Michael Saylor ever sold Bitcoin?
Yes, Strategy executed its first-ever Bitcoin sale in May 2026, breaking Saylor’s longstanding pledge never to sell, though the amount was small relative to total holdings.
What is the 42/42 Plan?
The 42/42 Plan is Strategy’s goal to raise $84 billion over two years through equity and debt offerings to fund continued Bitcoin accumulation at unprecedented institutional scale.
What risks does Strategy’s model face?
Key risks include Bitcoin price declines below cost basis, extreme shareholder dilution, preferred stock dividend obligations, potential forced liquidation, and regulatory or accounting changes.
What did JPMorgan warn about Strategy?
JPMorgan warned in July 2026 that Strategy’s concentrated Bitcoin buying could increase market volatility and that any forced liquidation could disproportionately impact Bitcoin’s price.
Is Strategy’s Bitcoin strategy financial advice?
No, Strategy’s model is a corporate treasury strategy with substantial leverage and concentration risk that may not be appropriate for individual investors with different risk profiles.
References Strategy Inc. “Q1 2026 Financial Results 8-K Filing.” SEC. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001050446/000105044626000024/mstr-20260505x8kxex991.htm CoinDesk. “Michael Saylor Says Bitcoin Has Likely Bottomed.” April 2026. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/04/08/michael-saylor-says-bitcoin-has-likely-bottomed-quantum-risk-overblown Fortune. “When Bitcoin Prices Turned Against Michael Saylor.” February 2026. https://fortune.com/2026/02/20/michael-saylor-bitcoin-prices-preferred-shares-dilution-strategy/ Axios. “Bitcoin Faces Mounting Pressure Beyond Strategy Sale.” June 2026. https://www.axios.com/2026/06/03/bitcoin-saylor-strategy-stocks
Americké spotové Bitcoin ETF po deseti dnech odlivů otočily trend a přilákaly čistý příliv 221,7 milionu dolarů. Hlavní zásluhu měl Fidelity s asi 166 miliony, zatímco BlackRock IBIT dál zaznamenal odliv 40,4 milionu dolarů.
After ten consecutive sessions of capital outflows, US spot Bitcoin ETFs have finally regained momentum with 221.7 million dollars of net subscriptions. This rebound ends a historic sequence of disengagement that had weakened institutional investors’ sentiment. Is this the first sign of a sustainable capital return or just a pause in an still fragile trend ? Behind this recovery lie major divergences between issuers and on-chain indicators, which invites to temper the significance of this rebound.
In Brief Bitcoin ETFs end ten consecutive sessions of capital outflows thanks to 221.7 million dollars of net inflows, a first positive signal for the market. The rebound remains mixed, with Fidelity carrying the bulk of subscriptions while BlackRock continues to record significant withdrawals. On-chain data shows that long-term investors continue their accumulation, despite hesitations observed on the ETF side. The confirmation of a true turnaround will now depend on several consecutive days of capital inflows and broader participation of major issuers. Bitcoin ETFs regain positive flows after ten days of capital outflows The US spot Bitcoin ETF market has recorded a break in its outflow momentum. Data compiled at the close of the July 2 session reveal the following accounting elements :
A reversal of net flows : regulated financial products captured a total net inflow of 221.7 million dollars, breaking a ten-session consecutive withdrawal streak ; Fidelity (FBTC) dominance : the fund managed by asset manager Fidelity carried most of the recovery, recording net inflows of about 166 million dollars on its own ; A negative streak in June : this technical performance comes immediately after the worst month ever for US spot ETFs, with June 2026 ending with about 4.5 billion dollars of cumulative net outflows. This sudden liquidity injection marks a statistical break from the massive outflows that heavily damaged short-term investor confidence. The surge led by Fidelity shows there is responsive demand and that some traders were ready to inject liquidity as soon as the price tested institutional support zones. This outcome temporarily stabilizes the general sentiment by putting an end to a correction phase on these financial instruments.
The persistence of outflows at BlackRock Although the overall balance of July 2 is positive, a detailed analysis of issuers reveals fundamental disparities, led by the case of BlackRock. The IBIT fund, the largest vehicle in the category, did not participate in this positive momentum and showed a net outflow of about 40.4 million dollars during the same session.
This negative performance extends a critical trend, with IBIT having been the main driver of June’s decline with about 3.55 billion dollars of withdrawals alone, bringing its recent wave of capital outflows to about 2.2 billion dollars. This lack of synchronization between Fidelity and BlackRock highlights the absence of widespread issuer participation, a factor considered essential to turn an isolated technical reaction into a true lasting trend reversal.
Alongside this contrasted situation on traditional stock markets, on-chain data provides a different perspective on the available supply structure. Research firm Glassnode reveals that long-term investors are in an accumulation phase, despite the turbulence observed in ETFs.
At the same time, the supply breakdown showed that about 10.83 million bitcoins were held at a loss, versus about 9.22 million in profit. This fact demonstrates a progressive absorption of volumes by the network’s historical investors, who take advantage of the price drop to accumulate tokens even as the traditional institutional sector shows signs of uncertainty and portfolio restructuring.
Validation conditions for a true market pivot The evaluation of the long-term viability of this rebound now rests on compliance with a strict technical protocol to which analysts and allocators frequently refer. The first validation milestone requires recording three to five consecutive days of positive net inflows, ideally accompanied by an expansion of participation to other mid-sized funds.
The decisive factor will remain the ability of BlackRock’s IBIT fund to stabilize its flows and stop its negative trend, which would send a capitulation signal among the largest base of institutional holders. Without this convergence, the gains of a single day will amount to a mere statistical anomaly.
In the short and medium term, the implications of this divergence between ETF flows and on-chain accumulation require cautious monitoring of market indicators. If capital inflows do not extend to the majority of issuers and the funding rates of perpetual futures contracts spiral speculatively, this rebound could quickly be invalidated.
Conversely, the conjunction of a drop in institutional selling pressure and continued accumulation by historical wallets could lay the foundation for a solid floor for the coming months. Fund managers must therefore orchestrate their inflows in a phased manner, closely monitoring the five-day cumulative average of flows and the maintenance of low closing prices on the US market to avoid exposure to false recovery signals.
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Luc Jose A.
Diplômé de Sciences Po Toulouse et titulaire d'une certification consultant blockchain délivrée par Alyra, j'ai rejoint l'aventure Cointribune en 2019. Convaincu du potentiel de la blockchain pour transformer de nombreux secteurs de l'économie, j'ai pris l'engagement de sensibiliser et d'informer le grand public sur cet écosystème en constante évolution. Mon objectif est de permettre à chacun de mieux comprendre la blockchain et de saisir les opportunités qu'elle offre. Je m'efforce chaque jour de fournir une analyse objective de l'actualité, de décrypter les tendances du marché, de relayer les dernières innovations technologiques et de mettre en perspective les enjeux économiques et sociétaux de cette révolution en marche.
DISCLAIMER
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and should not be taken as investment advice. Do your own research before taking any investment decisions.
XRP ETF v USA přilákaly 6,55 milionu USD čistých přílivů, a to už osmý týden v řadě. Bitwise pokryl celý denní příliv a aktiva ve správě dosáhla 987,91 milionu USD.
Cover image via U.Today Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by our writers are their own and do not represent the views of U.Today. The financial and market information provided on U.Today is intended for informational purposes only. U.Today is not liable for any financial losses incurred while trading cryptocurrencies. Conduct your own research by contacting financial experts before making any investment decisions. We believe that all content is accurate as of the date of publication, but certain offers mentioned may no longer be available.
TL;DR
XRP ETFs took in $6.55M in net inflows on July 2, all from Bitwise. That marks an eighth consecutive positive week, pushing assets under management to $987.91M across seven funds — about 1.5% of XRP's market cap. The coin is trading at $1.09 against $1.10 resistance heading into a low-liquidity holiday weekend.Blockstream CEO Adam Back called the BIP-110 transaction-filtering proposal effectively dead, with mining-pool support at just 0.31% of hashrate.Shiba Inu coin slipped to 32nd place with a $2.55B market cap, overtaken by NEAR Protocol and Tether Gold. Exchange reserves are climbing back toward 87 trillion tokens after whales returned 493B coins in early July, following a 781B withdrawal in June. About $50M separates SHIB from re-entering the top 30.Bitcoin is holding its $59,000–$62,000 accumulation zone after whales added 270,000 BTC and spot ETFs flipped back to $221.7M in net inflows, but the prolonged Independence Day weekend leaves the market exposed to thinner order books, miner selling pressure, and exaggerated moves if BTC fails to hold above $61,000.American XRP ETFs closed their eighth positive week before the weekendFresh capital entered American spot XRP ETFs right before trading closed for the U.S. Independence Day holiday. The final pre-holiday session brought the funds a net inflow of $6.55 million, closing an eighth consecutive week of institutional buying firmly in positive territory, as per SoSoValue.
Bitwise's fund accounted for the entire day's haul, taking all of the week-ending volume while competitors such as Canary and Grayscale stood at zero. Total assets under management across the seven approved XRP funds have now moved close to the $1 billion mark, reaching $987.91 million. For a young sector, that is a meaningful 1.5% of the asset's total market capitalization.
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Total XRP Spot ETF Net Inflow Over the Last 30 Days, Source: SoSoValueTraders calmly absorbed even the freezing of the CLARITY Act crypto bill, whose vote on Capitol Hill was postponed until the end of the summer because of the recess. Accumulation was also not disrupted by the scheduled release of 1 billion tokens from escrow contracts on July 1. The network absorbed the entire volume without a drawdown, against the backdrop of a three-month record in new wallet creation on the XRPL blockchain.
The coin is now trading at $1.09, pressing against key resistance at $1.10. Thin trading over the holiday weekend could easily tip the balance: if buyers lock in a breakout, the asset will have an open road toward the psychological $1.15 mark, justifying July's historically strong status for XRP.
Adam Back declares collapse of Bitcoin's censoring BIP-110 soft forkBlockstream CEO Adam Back entered the ongoing debate around the BIP-110 proposal, calling the attempt to introduce transaction filtering into Bitcoin commercially stillborn. The well-known cypherpunk reacted harshly to the current disputes in the ecosystem, stating that the initiative had failed because of a lack of interest from investors and traders.
At the center of the conflict is a proposal to limit the network's capacity for non-monetary data such as Ordinals and Runes. According to Back, the desire to artificially clean blocks in the name of imaginary security directly contradicts Bitcoin's p2p nature.
i'm a cypherpunk, and have been running nodes since 1990s. exit remailers, tor, file sharing, bitcoin nodes. p2p networks don't exist unless people with mettle run nodes. filter bippers are weak leeches, scared to p2p, demanding to censor to make nodes "safe" for the weak to run.
— Adam Back (@adam3us) July 3, 2026 He stressed that this filtering fork is already dead on arrival, as the market has completely rejected it and exchanges currently have no long positions in fork futures. Back's words are also confirmed by current on-chain metrics: support for BIP-110 from mining pools has stalled at 0.31% of the total hashrate, making soft-fork activation through the UASF mechanism unrealistic.
Back compared the proposal's authors to people who unsuccessfully tried to burn down a rented house, only to end up outside and now "living in a tent" of their own filtering coin. At the same time, BIP-110 supporters continue to strengthen the defenses around their "granite castle."
The industry veteran concluded that the network's antifragility had once again rejected poorly thought-out ideas, and urged censorship supporters either to adapt or finally split off into their own altcoin.
87 trillion trap: Why Shiba Inu fell out of the top 30Shiba Inu (SHIB) has fallen out of the world's top 30 cryptocurrencies, settling at 32nd place with a market capitalization of $2.55 billion. The meme token failed to withstand direct pressure from NEAR Protocol at $2.6 billion and the tokenized gold asset Tether Gold (XAUt) pushing from behind.
While retail traders remain passive, keeping SHIB's daily trading volume at a modest $70.2 million, major players have started a tough positional battle as exchange reserves return to the critical level of 87 trillion coins, as per CryptoQuant.
This trillion-coin barrier has become a liquidity trap for the token. In late June, whales temporarily eased the pressure by moving 781 billion SHIB to cold wallets, but by early July they had replayed the scenario and returned a fresh batch of 493 billion tokens to exchanges.
Netflow of Shiba Inu (SHIB) coin on centralized exchanges month-to-month, Source: CryptoQuantThe rise in supply to 87 trillion is weighing on price action: investors see it as a sign that large wallets are ready to lock in profit on any local rebound, which firmly blocks growth in market capitalization.
Still, it is too early to write SHIB off. The gap from the coveted top 30 is a symbolic $50 million. Against the backdrop of Japanese competition between Mercari and Rakuten Wallet and expectations for a U.S. ETF from T. Rowe Price, the current drop looks more like a prolonged consolidation.
Whether the token returns to the top league depends on only one thing: whether July demand can absorb those trillions of coins hanging in exchange order books.
Crypto market outlook: Bitcoin accumulation and stablecoin pressure define July openingThe crypto market enters the prolonged Independence Day weekend with Bitcoin recovering above $61,000 after ETF outflows stopped, whales rebuilt exposure near $59,000–$62,000, and stablecoin competition intensified against Circle’s USDC dominance.
Bitcoin price action in Summer 2026, Source: TradingViewKey checkpoints:
Bitcoin accumulation phase confirmed: Whales added 270,000 BTC around $59,000 over two weeks, equal to roughly $16.7 billion in fresh accumulation. Long-term holders also shifted from distribution back to accumulation. The $59,000–$62,000 range is now the main investor positioning zone. Whale behavior and sentiment capitulation show larger holders are treating this area as a buy zone.ETF pressure eased before the holiday weekend: Bitcoin cleared $61,000 after a 10-day spot ETF outflow streak ended. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $221.7 million in net inflows on July 3 after the jobs report reduced fears of a fresh rate-hike shock.July 4 liquidity risk: U.S. markets are entering a prolonged Independence Day weekend. That leaves crypto exposed to thinner liquidity, weaker institutional participation and exaggerated weekend moves.Stablecoin competition is escalating: OUSD launch pressure hit Circle, USDG scaled to $100 million on Robinhood Chain, and non-USD stablecoins reached $1.1 billion in supply, with transfer volume up 16x since 2023.Open USD targets USDC dominance: A new Open USD consortium backed by more than 140 firms, including Visa, Mastercard, BlackRock, Coinbase and Stripe, went live with free minting/redemption and shared reserve yield for partners. Circle stock dropped 14–17% as investors priced in direct competition.What matters next week: BTC needs to hold the $59,000–$62,000 accumulation base and keep ETF flows positive. The upside trigger is continued ETF demand plus progress on U.S. crypto market-structure legislation; the downside risk is renewed miner selling, failed ETF follow-through or thin-liquidity weekend pressure. You Might Also Like
Ripple spouští XRPL AI Starter Kit pro platby řízené AI agenty na blockchainu XRP Ledger (XRPL). AI agenti budou moci používat XRP i RLUSD pro digitální transakce.
Ripple has unveiled plans to integrate agentic AI payments into the XRP blockchain, marking a significant technological advancement. The integration will occur through the new XRPL AI Starter Kit, enabling autonomous AI agents to utilize XRP and the RLUSD stablecoin for various digital transactions. This development positions XRP to play a pivotal role in machine-to-machine commerce, with RLUSD offering a stable settlement option. Ripple’s initiative aligns with its broader strategy to enhance agentic systems and strengthen security controls, evidenced by its recent strategic hires and the launch of an AI-driven operations platform.
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Key Takeaways Recent developments suggest Ripple’s integration of agentic AI payments could enhance XRP’s utility in machine-to-machine commerce. Market pricing indicates a modest increase in optimism, with the probability of XRP reaching $1.60 in July rising from 4% to 6%. Current activity levels in XRP markets suggest participants are closely monitoring potential impacts on adoption and price movement. What to Watch Market participants will be watching for further announcements from Ripple and its partners that could influence XRP’s adoption. Key indicators to monitor include regulatory developments such as the CLARITY Act and potential market catalysts like an XRP ETF announcement. Continued shifts in market odds may indicate how participants are interpreting the impact of these developments on XRP’s price trajectory.
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Term Structure
Contract Odds Δ since publish Volume 24h August 1 2026 0.6% — — View market → August 1 2026 6% — — View market →
XRPL posouvá institucionální DeFi: hlasování validátorů běží u XLS-65 a XLS-66, které mají přinést nativní fixní půjčky pro regulované instituce. Na síti už běží permissioned DEX a tokenizovaná aktiva přesáhla více než 3 miliardy USD.
While the market argues about XRP price levels, the ledger underneath it is assembling something more ambitious: a full stack of compliance-native DeFi rails aimed at banks, funds, and treasury desks. Here is what is already live, what is in validator voting right now, and why the whole bet could still fail.
Summary
XRP Ledger is expanding its institutional DeFi infrastructure with compliance focused features including a permissioned DEX, native lending, and tokenized asset support. XRPL contributors are advancing XLS 65 and XLS 66 through validator voting to introduce fixed term lending designed for regulated financial institutions. Ripple’s RLUSD and more than $3 billion in tokenized real world assets are strengthening XRPL’s push to become a compliance ready blockchain for institutional finance. The XRP Ledger has spent most of its fourteen-year life being described as a payments chain. Fast, cheap, boring. The description was accurate for a long time, and it also missed what has been happening on the ledger over the past eighteen months. Piece by piece, amendment by amendment, XRPL contributors and Ripple have been laying down infrastructure for something the rest of the industry mostly talks about in conference keynotes: DeFi that regulated institutions can actually use.
The phrase itself, institutional DeFi, tends to produce eye rolls among crypto natives. It sounds like a contradiction, a way of saying decentralized finance with the decentralization filed off. But the buildout on XRPL is concrete enough, and far enough along, that it deserves a serious look. As of this week, the two amendments that would bring native fixed-term lending to the ledger, XLS-65 and XLS-66, are in active validator voting following the Rippled v3.1.0 release in late January. Tokenized real-world assets on XRPL have passed $3 billion. Ripple’s stablecoin RLUSD crossed $1 billion in supply and ranks among the fastest-growing stablecoins in the market. A permissioned exchange layer with protocol-level compliance controls has gone live. None of this made much noise. That is partly the point.
The core bet: compliance at the protocol layer Every major smart contract chain has tried to court institutions, and almost all of them have run into the same wall. Banks and asset managers cannot deploy client capital into open pools where the counterparty might be a sanctioned entity, a mixer, or a teenager with a hardware wallet. The standard industry answer has been to bolt compliance on afterward: whitelisted front ends, wrapped permissioned versions of open protocols, off-chain legal agreements draped over on-chain positions.
XRPL made the opposite bet. Instead of adding compliance on top, its contributors embedded identity and access controls into the protocol itself. Three primitives do most of the work.
Credentials, linked to decentralized identifiers, let trusted issuers attest on-chain that a wallet belongs to a KYC-verified entity, an accredited investor, or a firm with a specific regulatory permission. The attestation lives on the ledger. The underlying documents do not.
Permissioned Domains, which went live under the XLS-80 amendment with 91% validator support, use those credentials to gate access to specific markets. A domain can require that every participant holds a valid credential from an approved issuer. Anyone outside the domain simply cannot trade inside it.
The Permissioned DEX extends the ledger’s native order book exchange, which has existed since 2012, into these controlled environments. Regulated firms can run foreign exchange or tokenized asset markets with full AML and KYC enforcement while settlement still happens on a public blockchain. Activation followed within weeks of validator consensus earlier this year.
Alongside those three sit the supporting pieces: Multi-Purpose Tokens, a standard that embeds metadata and transfer rules at the asset layer so structured financial instruments do not need custom smart contracts; Batch Transactions for atomic delivery-versus-payment, the settlement pattern institutions use for cross-asset swaps; and Token Escrow support extended to IOUs and MPTs.
The design philosophy separates XRPL from nearly everything else in the market. On Ethereum or Solana, an institution wanting a compliant venue has to build one out of general-purpose parts and hope the auditors sign off. On XRPL, the compliance tooling is the venue.
The lending protocol is the real test Infrastructure is necessary but not sufficient. The feature that will decide whether institutional DeFi on XRPL is a real business or a well-documented ghost town is the lending protocol, defined in the XLS-65 and XLS-66 specifications.
The two amendments work as a pair. XLS-65 introduces Single Asset Vaults, which aggregate liquidity from depositors and issue vault shares that can be transferable or locked depending on configuration. XLS-66 builds the actual credit machinery on top: fixed-term, fixed-rate loans with preset amortization schedules, issued through on-ledger contracts between lenders and borrowers.
The design choices are telling. Where open DeFi lending runs on overcollateralization and instant liquidations, the XRPL protocol supports uncollateralized loans with off-chain underwriting. Borrower evaluation, credit scoring, and risk management stay where institutions already have mature models, while issuance, repayment, and default records live on the ledger. First-loss capital structures add a protection layer familiar to anyone who has looked at securitization. Vault operators can restrict participation to KYC and AML compliant entities at the protocol level, which is precisely the feature that separates this from open DeFi.
Doppler Finance, a tokenized capital markets infrastructure firm, put the honest caveat on record this week: a protocol can define how lending activity is recorded and executed on-chain, but it cannot, by itself, create an institutional credit market. Underwriting, treasury management, portfolio monitoring, and regulatory oversight all need operational layers that no amendment can ship. XLS-66 provides the rails. Someone still has to run trains on them.
There is at least one committed passenger. Evernorth, one of the largest XRP treasury firms, has said it will make the lending protocol a core pillar of its digital asset strategy, describing it as a potential fundamental shift in how institutional liquidity moves on-chain and pointing to what it called a multi-billion-dollar annual yield opportunity for the XRP community. Treasury firms holding large XRP positions have an obvious incentive here: idle tokens earn nothing, and a native, compliance-gated lending market is the most direct way to change that.
The amendments are testable on devnet now, and developers can integrate against the lending stack ahead of mainnet activation. The open question is the validator vote. XRPL amendments require sustained support above the 80% threshold for two weeks before activation, and that process can stretch for months with no guarantee of passage. The framework is credible. The activation path is not automatic.
How amendments actually pass, and why it takes forever Because so much of the XRPL story now hangs on validator votes, it is worth understanding the machinery, which differs from every other major chain’s governance.
XRPL has no token voting and no foundation decree. Protocol changes ship as amendments inside validator software releases, and each amendment activates only after more than 80% of trusted validators signal support continuously for two full weeks. Dip below the threshold for an hour and the clock resets. The validator set doing the voting is defined by Unique Node Lists, the curated rosters of validators that operators choose to trust, populated by exchanges, universities, infrastructure firms, and long-time community operators across jurisdictions.
The design makes XRPL upgrades slow, conservative, and hard to capture, three adjectives that read as insults on crypto Twitter and as compliments in a bank’s vendor-risk review. It also means every roadmap date in this article carries an implicit asterisk. Permissioned Domains cleared activation with 91% support, a comfortable margin. The lending amendments face a more complicated vote because they change the ledger’s risk surface in ways some conservative operators have historically resisted; earlier programmability proposals spent long stretches stuck below threshold while operators debated attack surface. The voting is live now following the v3.1.0 release, testable code is on devnet, and the realistic activation window stretches from weeks to quarters depending on how fast the holdouts move.
For traders, this creates a strange information asymmetry. Amendment support percentages are public, on-chain, and updated continuously, yet almost nobody prices them. Watching XLS-66 support climb toward 80% is about as close to a scheduled, verifiable catalyst as this market offers, and it sits in plain sight.
The competition is building the same thing with different parts XRPL is not the only chain that noticed institutions want compliant rails, and an honest assessment has to place the ledger against the two ecosystems actually holding the money.
Ethereum remains the default venue for tokenized institutional product, full stop. BlackRock’s tokenized fund complex, Franklin Templeton’s on-chain money market operation, and the JPMorgan digital asset stack all touched Ethereum first, and the chain holds roughly 68% of global DeFi deposits along with about 70% of stablecoin supply. Its institutional DeFi answer is assembled from general-purpose parts: permissioned pool deployments of Aave, KYC-gated hooks on Uniswap V4, wrapper tokens with transfer restrictions, and off-chain agreements binding it together. The approach works, and its weakness is exactly what XRPL is betting on: every assembled solution is bespoke, every audit is novel, and the compliance burden lands on the builder instead of the protocol.
Solana has moved fastest recently. Token-2022 extensions gave issuers protocol-adjacent controls, transfer hooks, confidential amounts, and interest-bearing logic, and the Solana Developer Platform launched in March with Mastercard, Worldpay, and Western Union attached. Solana’s pitch is throughput plus tooling; its gap is that compliance remains a token-level option instead of a market-level guarantee, and its validator economics and outage history still appear in institutional risk memos even after the Firedancer-era reliability turnaround.
XRPL’s differentiation survives the comparison in one specific sense: it is the only major venue where identity, market access, and settlement controls are native ledger objects that no application can misconfigure. The cost of that purity is a smaller developer surface, a shallower liquidity base, and no general-purpose composability on mainnet. Institutions choosing between the three are effectively choosing which risk they prefer: Ethereum’s complexity, Solana’s history, or XRPL’s emptiness.
Three billion dollars of quiet traction Skeptics can reasonably ask whether any of this is being used. The answer, increasingly, is yes, though the numbers remain small next to the giants.
Over $3 billion in tokenized real-world assets currently sit on XRPL, which places the ledger inside the top ten chains for RWA value. The most striking single data point came from a pilot earlier this year in which Ripple and JPMorgan processed a tokenized U.S. Treasury redemption in under five seconds, settling on XRPL what normally crawls through legacy market plumbing. The ledger also recorded its first month with more than $1 billion in stablecoin volume, and RLUSD passed the $1 billion supply mark while expanding into consortium settlement arrangements.
On the payments and FX side, XRP itself does structural work that most native assets do not. The ledger routes trades through XRP automatically whenever doing so improves pricing, a mechanism called autobridging. If there is no direct liquidity between two stablecoins or two tokenized currencies, the trade hops through XRP. The mechanism works inside the new permissioned environments as well as on the public DEX, though trades cannot bridge between the two. Every account reserve, every transaction fee, and a growing share of FX routing runs through the native asset, which ties institutional adoption of the ledger back to demand for the token in a way that is mechanical instead of narrative.
That linkage matters for anyone holding XRP, which trades near $1.08 at the time of writing after spending weeks pinned around the psychologically loaded $1.00 level. The token is still down more than 50% over twelve months, and the gap between infrastructure progress and price performance has become one of the more uncomfortable facts in the ecosystem. Readers who want the market-structure side of that story can find it in our coverage of why the broader market has been trading risk-off since the spring.
The gap XRPL still has to close For all the compliance tooling, XRPL remains a shallow DeFi venue by the numbers that crypto natives actually check. Chain TVL sits far below rivals: Solana holds roughly $9 billion in DeFi deposits and BNB Chain about $6.5 billion, while XRPL’s locked value is a fraction of either. Deep liquidity attracts deep liquidity, and the ledger has not had it.
Part of the problem is technical, and it is being addressed with unusual candor. XRPL’s native automated market maker, live since 2024, launched with only a constant product curve at a time when roughly 60% of AMM volume across major ecosystems runs through concentrated liquidity designs. In late May, a draft amendment titled AMM Swappable Curves was filed on the XRPL standards repository, proposing three pluggable curve types: constant product, concentrated liquidity, and StableSwap, with a fully programmable Smart AMM reserved for a follow-up specification. Existing pools would stay untouched. If it passes, the ledger’s biggest capital-efficiency gap starts to close. If it stalls in the amendment process, XRPL keeps asking institutions to trade on 2024 infrastructure.
The other gap is programmability. XRPL mainnet deliberately avoids general-purpose smart contracts, which keeps the attack surface small and the behavior predictable, qualities institutions like, but it also means builders who need full flexibility have to go elsewhere. The ecosystem’s answer is a dual track: measured programmability on mainnet through Smart Escrows, which let developers write custom release conditions into the existing escrow primitive, and a live EVM sidechain bridged via Axelar for teams that want Solidity and full composability. Whether liquidity follows that split or gets fragmented by it remains an open question.
Privacy is the next frontier, and the strangest one The roadmap item that best captures XRPL’s institutional positioning is also the one that sounds least like crypto: confidential transfers. Multi-Purpose Tokens are getting zero-knowledge-proof-based encryption of transaction amounts and balances, letting institutions move tokenized assets and manage positions without broadcasting their book to every competitor running a block explorer, while preserving selective disclosure for regulators and auditors.
Full transparency, it turns out, is a bug for professional money, not a feature. No trading desk wants its inventory legible in real time. The XRPL community has moved past exploration into prototyping ZKP integrations with research and compliance teams, with confidential MPT transfers slated as the first milestone. Privacy with accountability is the stated frame: encrypted by default, provable on demand.
Put the pieces in sequence and the shape of the strategy becomes clear. Identity first, through credentials. Access control second, through domains and the permissioned DEX. Assets third, through MPTs and tokenization. Credit fourth, through the lending protocol. Confidentiality fifth, through ZKPs. It reads less like a crypto roadmap and more like someone rebuilding the back office of a mid-sized bank, one amendment at a time.
The sidechain wildcard One more piece complicates the tidy mainnet story: the XRPL EVM sidechain, live and bridged through Axelar, running on eXRP as gas. Its job is to catch the builders mainnet’s minimalism turns away, Solidity teams who want full composability with a route into XRPL liquidity and identity features. The dual-track design is defensible, mainnet stays lean while experimentation happens next door, but it imports the exact problem Ethereum has spent years managing: liquidity and users split across environments with a bridge in between, and bridges remain the industry’s most reliably exploited component. If institutional flows land on mainnet while DeFi innovation concentrates on the sidechain, XRPL ends up running two half-ecosystems instead of one whole one. The optimists’ version is that the sidechain functions as a proving ground, with successful patterns graduating into mainnet amendments the way ZKP research moved from prototype toward the confidential transfer roadmap alongside partners such as Hidden Road, the prime broker Ripple acquired to give institutional clients a familiar front door. Which version plays out is a 2027 question; the split exists today.
RLUSD is the demand engine hiding in plain sight If the lending protocol is the supply side of XRPL’s institutional buildout, the stablecoin is the demand side, and it deserves more attention than it usually gets.
RLUSD launched under a New York trust charter, which put it in the small club of stablecoins that compliance departments can approve without a fight, and its growth since has outpaced nearly every peer on a percentage basis: past $1 billion in supply, expanding into multi-issuer consortium arrangements, and increasingly the settlement leg in XRPL’s FX corridors. The strategic logic is circular by design. Stablecoin corridors generate ledger volume, ledger volume generates XRP fee burn and autobridge demand, and a trusted on-ledger dollar makes every other institutional product viable, because tokenized Treasuries need something to trade against and vaults need a funding currency.
The lending protocol makes the loop explicit. The first wave of XLS-66 vaults is widely expected to be RLUSD-funded, with institutional borrowers taking fixed-term dollar credit against off-chain underwriting. If that market reaches even single-digit billions, XRPL hosts a native short-term credit curve denominated in a regulated stablecoin, which is the kind of boring financial primitive that payments desks, market makers, and treasury managers actually budget for. Whether regulated entities deploy capital into RLUSD-funded vaults at scale is, in one sentence, the whole question the next two quarters will answer.
The watchlist for the next two quarters For readers who want to track the buildout instead of the discourse, the roadmap compresses to a short list of verifiable checkpoints.
• XLS-65 and XLS-66 validator support crossing and holding the 80% threshold, the single highest-signal event on the board.
• Confidential MPT transfers shipping in the stated first-quarter window, XRPL’s first production zero-knowledge feature.
• Permissioned DEX volume and domain creation after activation, the difference between compliance theater and used infrastructure.
• MPT integration with the native DEX, scheduled alongside Smart Escrows, which lets tokenized instruments trade against XRP and IOUs directly.
• The AMM Swappable Curves amendment advancing from draft to vote, closing the concentrated liquidity gap.
• Follow-through from Evernorth and any second public institutional commitment to the lending protocol, because one anchor tenant is a pilot and two is a market.
Each item is public, dated, and falsifiable, which is more than can be said for most crypto roadmaps.
What could still go wrong The bear case does not require much imagination, because pieces of it are already visible.
• Validator activation risk is real and immediate. XLS-65 and XLS-66 need sustained supermajority support, and amendment votes have stalled before. Every month of delay is a month rival chains spend courting the same institutions.
• Infrastructure is not demand. XRPL has built the rails ahead of proven appetite, and outside Evernorth’s stated intent, no regulated lender has committed capital publicly. The chain could end up with the best-documented empty credit market in crypto.
• The competition is not standing still. Ethereum remains the default for tokenized funds from BlackRock and Franklin Templeton, and Solana launched a developer platform this spring with Mastercard, Worldpay, and Western Union as early adopters. XRPL’s compliance-native design is a differentiator, not a moat.
• Regulatory frameworks cut both ways. The same clarity that lets institutions touch permissioned DeFi also lets them demand terms, and there is no assurance the economics of on-ledger credit will beat what prime brokers already offer off-chain.
There is also a subtler risk: that permissioned DeFi succeeds and simply fails to matter for XRP. If activity concentrates in gated domains trading tokenized Treasuries against RLUSD, the native asset’s role could shrink to fees and reserves, a payments-era footprint under an institutional-era ledger. Autobridging and escrow denominated in XRP push against that outcome, but the tension is real and worth watching in the data rather than the marketing.
A ledger playing a long game Step back far enough and the XRPL story inverts the usual crypto sequence. Most chains launch permissionless, attract speculation, and then spend years retrofitting the controls institutions require. XRPL is running the film backward: build the controls first, accept years of looking sleepy next to memecoin casinos, and wait for the moment when regulated capital decides it finally wants on-chain settlement, credit, and FX.
That moment may be closer than the price chart suggests. Tokenization has become the fastest-growing corner of the industry, stablecoin legislation has unlocked bank participation across several jurisdictions, and the first generation of tokenized funds is now large enough to need somewhere to borrow, lend, and hedge. The chains that win that flow will be the ones where a compliance officer can sign off without a novel-length risk memo.
Whether XRPL becomes one of them comes down to two things it does not fully control: an 80% validator threshold, and the willingness of institutions to move from pilots to production. The infrastructure argument has been made, and made well. The adoption argument is still being written, one vault and one loan at a time. For a network that has been declared irrelevant more times than any other top-ten asset, quietly shipping the plumbing while nobody watches might be the most on-brand strategy available.
For readers newer to the mechanics referenced here, our explainers on Ripple Prime and institutional brokerage, consortium stablecoins, and the earlier lending and escrow roadmap cover the building blocks in more depth.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Digital asset markets are volatile and you can lose your entire investment. Always do your own research. Information current as of July 3, 2026.
The XRP Ledger is carving out a more prominent role within Brazil’s rapidly expanding stablecoin ecosystem. According to crypto researcher SMQKE, the blockchain network has become a key platform, especially for issuing and transferring digital assets pegged to the Brazilian real (BRL). The number of BRL-backed stablecoins in circulation across Brazil has now surpassed 10, with these assets serving both retail users and institutional players in the country’s dynamic fintech sector.
BRL stablecoin adoption rises in BrazilProjects such as BRZ, BRLA, and BRLM are driving the growth of digital payment channels, enabling faster and cheaper cross-border money transfers and fueling the rise of tokenized finance applications. This trend underscores Brazil’s emergence as one of Latin America’s most vibrant fintech markets and highlights the growing appetite for digital assets among consumers and businesses.
SMQKE notes that several of these BRL-pegged stablecoins are leveraging the XRP Ledger infrastructure. The network’s ability to process transactions within seconds and at low cost stands out as a major draw for high-volume stablecoin issuers operating in the Brazilian market.
SMQKE emphasizes that with a portion of Brazil’s BRL-based stablecoins operating on the XRP Ledger, the network is increasingly proving itself as a robust foundation for tokenized financial assets.
Institutional use cases expandThe XRP Ledger is being recognized not just as a theoretical blockchain platform but as a reliable system that powers real-world financial applications. Its native tokenization features, scalable architecture, and solid track record of technical stability make it particularly appealing to institutions developing blockchain-based payment systems and digital asset issuance projects.
Within Ripple’s broader strategy, the XRP Ledger is seen as a foundational infrastructure for stablecoins, tokenized assets, and potentially in the future, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Ripple—which operates in the payments technology sphere—has long played a crucial role in supporting the growth and evolution of the XRP Ledger ecosystem.
IMF interest and technical upgrades in focusThis approach recently received additional validation when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) included the XRP Ledger among blockchain networks used by banks for stablecoin issuance. The move reflects not only the network’s relevance in crypto markets but also its growing profile in connecting crypto with traditional finance infrastructure.
Technical innovation is also underway on the network. The reintroduced Batch amendment now enables users to combine payments, token swaps, NFT purchases, and similar operations into a single secure transaction. This feature is designed to streamline operations and lower costs associated with complex transactions.
Mini glossary: The Batch amendment is a technical update on the XRP Ledger aimed at executing multiple operations in one connected action. It is intended to boost efficiency and lower transaction costs, particularly for payment and asset transfer uses.
The fact that the International Monetary Fund lists XRP Ledger among networks used by banks for stablecoin issuance is considered a sign of growing institutional interest.
With Brazil seeing more real-world stablecoin applications, increasing institutional engagement, and ongoing network enhancements, the XRP Ledger is steadily advancing beyond its origins as a speculative blockchain to become a critical piece of financial infrastructure in the region.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.
The amount of XRP tokens locked in Ripple’s escrow accounts continues to drop, according to XRP advocate and legal expert Bill Morgan. Morgan revealed that the portion of XRP held in escrow has now slipped below 32.5% of the total supply. This figure marks a significant shift, sparking renewed debate over longstanding claims that escrow accounts hold between 35% and 40% of all XRP—a range now proven outdated.
Morgan noted that nearly a year ago, escrow accounts constituted close to 36% of all XRP in circulation, but this share has been gradually decreasing over time. While Ripple unlocks 1 billion XRP from escrow every month, only a fraction is returned to escrow accounts. Naturally, this means the locked balance gets smaller as months pass.
Bill Morgan pointed out that the share of XRP held in escrow has now dipped under 32.5%, yet some market watchers continue to cite outdated figures of 35% or even 40%.
Morgan explained that, on average, around 300 million XRP released each month are not relocked in escrow. These tokens, instead, are deployed in institutional partnerships, liquidity services, and ecosystem development. This use case has steadily reduced the share Ripple holds in escrow accounts over time.
Mini glossary: An escrow account refers to token balances locked under a predetermined schedule and released over time. Ripple uses this system to plan the future supply of XRP entering the market.
Challenge to outdated supply dataDespite blockchain data being publicly available, Morgan expressed concern that outdated supply statistics continue to circulate. He especially called out some Bitcoin supporters who still claim Ripple controls more than half of all XRP, dismissing these assertions as inaccurate in light of current numbers.
Should current trends persist, Morgan estimates that by July next year, the share of XRP in escrow accounts could fall below 29% of total supply. This would mean Ripple’s locked token holdings will exert even less influence on overall XRP liquidity.
The fact that Ripple relocks most of the 1 billion XRP released each month into escrow restricts the net amount entering the market, which helps allay concerns over potential sell pressure.
Market sees limited price impactMorgan’s latest remarks came just after Ripple completed its planned release of 1 billion XRP for July. While such monthly unlocks often raise concerns about possible sell pressure, Ripple’s history shows that most released tokens are relocked rather than sold, mitigating market anxiety.
The most recent event did not trigger a significant negative market reaction. XRP’s price climbed between 3% and 4% to break past $1.10, ultimately reaching $1.12. Persistent demand at higher price levels increased confidence that the $1.10 region may now act as a key support, rather than resistance.
IndicatorLevelCurrent escrow account shareBelow 32.5%Share roughly one year agoClose to 36%Monthly unlock from escrow1 billion XRPAverage not relocked300 million XRPCurrent price$1.12These disclosures have reignited debate around XRP’s tokenomics. Supporters see the dwindling escrow balance as a sign of a more market-oriented and dispersed supply structure, which they argue leads to healthier asset distribution over time.
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.
Držitelé XRP čelí phishingové kampani s falešnými NFT „reward“ a „payout“, která po schválení transakcí odčerpává peněženky. Jeden uživatel přišel zhruba o 15 000 USD.
The wallets of XRP users are currently being drained with the help of a new sophisticated phishing campaign that is based on the distribution of fake non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
A recent alert from XRP blockchain explorer Bithomp states that scammers are using fake "reward" and "payout" tokens to trick investors into authorizing malicious transactions.
A single user lost a staggering $15,000 to the exploit in such a way.
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The screenshots shared by Bithomp show that the transaction type was logged as an NFTokenAcceptOffer.
The victim believed they were claiming a digital asset called "Ripple Payout Token #7357".
The code executed a massive withdrawal valued at roughly $15,000 from the victim's balance and transferred it to the scammer's wallet. Obviously, the user ended up with a worthless bogus NFT.
The anatomy of a scam Bad actors exploit the low transaction fees on the XRP Ledger to mint hundreds of such fraudulent NFTs every single day.
The scammers use highly official-sounding terminology to give the scam some sort of urgency and legitimacy.
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There is a massive stream of new tokens with the names of the likes of "Securing XRPL Proof", "XRP Earning Permit", "XRP Cashback Card", "Ripple Benefit Badge", "Boosting Ripple Card" and "Ripple Grant Voucher."
The scammers distribute these tokens to active XRPL wallets or promote them on social media platforms,
The site prompts them to sign a transaction once they connect their wallets.
Crypto scam epidemic The scale of cryptocurrency fraud has reached unprecedented levels, with a recent FBI report showing that cryptocurrency-related fraud accounted for the most reported losses among all scam categories last year. Americans lost over $11.3 billion to crypto-related scams in 2025.
A 2026 report by blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis estimates that a record $17 billion was stolen globally through crypto scams. Impersonation scams continue to reign supreme, and the rise of generative AI makes it more challenging to fight the scammers.
Ripple a Brinc spustily v Hongkongu 12týdenní fintech akcelerátor zaměřený na řešení na XRP Ledgeru. Program cílí na startupy od pre-seedu po Series A.
Brinc and Ripple have jointly announced a new accelerator program in Hong Kong aimed at supporting early stage cryptocurrency and financial technology startups. Unveiled on July 3, the Hong Kong Financial Innovation Programme will run for 12 weeks, with a particular focus on blockchain-based financial services built on the XRP Ledger platform.
Program scope and objectivesThe accelerator is open to companies ranging from the pre-seed stage up to Series A, targeting teams working on practical digital finance solutions for the broader Asian market. Applications have officially opened via Brinc’s dedicated submission platform.
The program is designed especially for founders developing products in cross-border payments, foreign exchange operations, trade finance, lending solutions, stablecoins, tokenization, settlement networks, and AI-powered payment systems. Selected startups will receive mentorship over the 12-week program from experts in finance, blockchain technology, and business development.
Brinc emphasizes that the program is not only about advancing technology, but also about fostering commercial partnerships and creating real market use cases.
Participants will have opportunities to connect with potential investors, corporate partners, and financial institutions. Eligible projects can also apply for grant funding that does not require any equity transfer, allowing startups to develop products without diluting their ownership structure.
XRPL infrastructure at the forefrontAll participating startups will build their products on the XRP Ledger. Known as Ripple’s native blockchain, XRPL stands out for its rapid transaction speeds, relatively low fees, and suitability for payment and settlement applications. The program is oriented toward developing solutions that can fulfill real financial needs—especially in Hong Kong and across Asian markets.
Mini glossary: Tokenization refers to creating a digital representation of a real world or financial asset on the blockchain. A settlement network is the infrastructure that finalizes and records financial transactions between parties.
Regulatory landscape evolves in Hong KongHong Kong is moving forward with its regulated stablecoin market, having recently introduced a new licensing regime for fiat-referenced stablecoin issuers. Following two license approvals earlier this year, authorities expect to see the first Hong Kong dollar backed stablecoins roll out by mid-2026.
These regulatory developments make the timing of the accelerator especially significant. A clearer regulatory framework could enhance the prospects for startups building payment infrastructure and digital finance solutions to achieve commercial success in the region.
New technical proposal for XRPLMeanwhile, Ripple’s Chief Technology Officer David Schwartz has put forward a new transaction ordering system for the XRPL decentralized exchange (DEX) and automated market maker (AMM). The aim is to reduce risks of front running and sandwich attacks—both of which can harm the integrity of decentralized trading—and to enhance the predictability of transaction execution on the network.
David Schwartz’s proposed transaction ordering system is designed to limit front running risks for DEX and AMM transactions on XRPL.
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.
Ethereum withdrawals on Binance have caught the crypto world’s attention with one of the most remarkable moves in recent months. According to CryptoQuant data, 166 thousand ETH left the exchange in the past 24 hours, marking the strongest daily outflow recorded since March 2023.
Outflows hit a three-year highThe data show that Ethereum withdrawals from Binance have surged to their highest level in over three years. This move comes as the market is searching for direction and signals a notable shift in investor behavior. As one of the world’s highest-volume crypto exchanges, large withdrawals from Binance tend to be watched closely by market observers.
CryptoQuant data revealed that the Ethereum withdrawals on Binance have reached their highest point in more than three years, with 166 thousand ETH leaving the platform in the past 24 hours.
The sharp spike in withdrawals has fueled the view that crypto investors may be choosing to move their assets off exchanges and into long-term storage. The fact that this activity took place while the Ethereum price hovered around $1,500 has fueled speculation that some investors find this zone a compelling buying opportunity.
Mini glossary: CryptoQuant is an analytics platform that tracks the crypto market using on-chain blockchain data and exchange flows. Large outflows from exchanges are at times interpreted as a signal that investors may prefer holding over selling.
Ethereum seeks a recoverySince its latest peak at the start of 2025, Ethereum has faced sustained correction pressure, with its value dropping about 67%. Interestingly, over the same period, Ethereum’s decline has outpaced Bitcoin’s pullback by roughly 15 percentage points.
MetricDataDaily ETH outflow from Binance166 thousand ETHPrevious similar outflow recordHighest since March 2023ETH change since 2025 peak67% declinePrice movement in last 48 hoursApproximately 10% riseDespite this, there have been signs of price recovery over the last two days. Ethereum climbed roughly 10% in 48 hours to again top $1,700. The timing of both the withdrawal surge and rising prices has prompted debate over whether accumulation momentum is returning to the market.
The sharp withdrawal activity in Ethereum took place while the price steadied near $1,500, fueling expectations that some investors view this level as a bargain-buying opportunity.
The latest volatility shows how quickly investor sentiment can shift. Especially for major exchanges, sizable asset outflows offer key signals on how investors are positioning themselves and may hold clues beyond short-term price action.
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.
Na Ethereu se vrací býčí sázky: funding rate stouply na 0,016 % i přes nižší cenu ETH. Celkový open interest je 4,35 mld. USD, takže trh zatím nepůsobí přehřátě.
3 July 2026 | 19:55 The Ethereum derivatives market is flashing a fascinating divergence: trader conviction is recovering much faster than the underlying spot price.
Following a sharp flush out in early June, leverage is quietly returning to the market. However, unlike previous speculative peaks, this rebuilding phase is characterized by localized aggressive positioning rather than market-wide exhaustion.
Key Takeaways ETH funding rates hit 0.016% despite lower prices. Total open interest sits at $4.35B, avoiding overheating. Bullish conviction rebuilds with ETH 15-20% below peaks. Conviction Leading Price The first clear signal of returning bullish sentiment shows up in funding rates, the periodic fee paid between long and short traders to keep perpetual contract prices pegged to the spot index.
Ethereum funding rates across all exchanges. Currently, funding rates across major exchanges have accelerated back to approximately 0.016%. To put this in perspective, this is significantly higher than the 0.009% levels observed in late May, even though Ethereum was trading much higher at the time ($2,000–$2,150).
Late May Pre-Washout vs. Current Stabilization ETH Spot Price: $2,000 – $2,150 in late May vs. $1,730 at the time of writing. Average Funding Rate: ~0.009% in late May vs. ~0.016% currently. Total Open Interest: High peak over $12B in late May vs. ~$4.35B (below the 30-day average) currently. When ETH fell to its early June floor near $1,540, a massive wave of leveraged long positions was wiped clean from the order books, temporarily cooling the market. Crucially, funding rates refused to stay negative for any meaningful duration. Short sellers never took dominant control. Instead, as spot prices consolidated and stabilized around the $1,700–$1,730 liquidity pocket after 9% gain for the week according to CoinMarketCap data, buyers aggressively stepped back in, driving the cost of holding leverage to its highest point in weeks.
ETH/USDT daily technical price chart. The Structural Volatility Shield While funding rates show that active traders are increasingly eager to bet on upside, the second dataset proves that the broader market is not yet dangerously over-leveraged.
Binance’s 30-day Open Interest (OI) Z-Score, which measures how far current leverage volume deviates from its statistical average, currently sits at -0.56, according to report, shared by CryptoQuant. Total open interest across the market is hovering around $4.35 billion, remaining comfortably below the 30-day baseline of $4.81 billion.
Binance ETH Open Interest Z-Score analysis. What this tells us is that while individual participants are using higher leverage (high funding), the total volume of leveraged positions in the system is still entirely manageable. The speculative excesses of early cycle shifts might be successfully digested.
This localized positioning marks a pivotal shift from the retail-led euphoria that defined the 2025 cycle peaks. In previous rallies, market-wide leverage was often driven by speculative cascades, where retail over-leveraging forced rapid, correlated liquidations. Conversely, the current fragmentation suggests that institutional allocators are re-entering with a more surgical approach.
Data from SoSoValue reinforces this thesis, showing a clear, consecutive ramp in Ethereum Spot ETF inflows, climbing from $14.89M on July 1 to $29.08M by July 2. This reversal follows a grueling nine-day streak of consecutive net outflows, underscores a deliberate, capital-intensive accumulation phase.
For these desks, a non-correlated recovery is actually a health signal; it indicates that the market is currently supported by structural demand rather than reactive, emotion-driven sentiment. By avoiding a broad, systemic blow-up, the market is constructing a more durable floor. This layout makes the current environment significantly more attractive for institutional mandates that prioritize structural stability over parabolic, high-risk exposure.
Will Spot Follow Derivatives? This structural layout sets up a high-stakes race between derivatives conviction and spot market demand.
Positive funding rates are fundamentally healthy during sustained uptrends; they signal an appetite for risk and structural momentum. The underlying risk surfaces when derivatives positioning outpaces spot market accumulation.
If Ethereum’s spot demand strengthens and absorbs this momentum, the rising funding rates could serve as fuel for a clean, sustainable recovery. However, if spot buying fails to break key overhead resistance levels, these newly minted, high-funding long positions will become exposed. A failure to move higher could transform this growing optimism into a localized liquidation trap, prompting short-term cascade liquidations and heightened volatility.
The early June washout effectively cleared the board, but it did not break the underlying risk-on bias of the market. With traders front-running a recovery while ETH still sits 15-20% below its spring highs, all eyes now turn to spot order books to validate the move.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Always conduct your own research before making investment decisions.
Author
Alex is Editor-in-Chief of Coindoo and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, with nearly a decade of experience covering financial markets - crypto first, then everything else. It started in 2016 with Bitcoin. Like most people at the time, he didn't fully understand it - so he kept digging. Blockchain, tokenomics, the projects, the cycles. That curiosity never stopped, and eventually pulled him into traditional markets too: equities, commodities, macro. Not because he left crypto behind, but because you can't properly understand one without the other. What drives him is straightforward: he wants to know why something is happening, not just that it's happening. Most market coverage stops at the headline - price up, price down, here's a chart. Alex finds that kind of reporting actively unhelpful. If you walk away from an article without understanding the mechanism behind the move, what did you actually learn? He holds a degree in Tourism from New Bulgarian University - not the most obvious path into financial markets, but markets have a way of pulling in people who are simply too curious to stay out. He has authored over 200 in-depth analyses and more than 10,000 articles across crypto and traditional finance. He still thinks every day in markets teaches him something new. That's probably why he hasn't stopped.
Charles Hoskinson říká, že exploit SecondFi může Cardanu prospět, protože urychlí vyšší standardy zabezpečení peněženek. Incident zasáhl aplikaci, ne samotný Cardano protokol.
Charles Hoskinson believes that the recent SecondFi wallet exploit could ultimately strengthen the Cardano ecosystem rather than weaken it.
As concerns continue to grow that the incident could expose ADA users to additional attacks, Hoskinson has pushed back against those fears. In his recent commentary, he argued that the event will accelerate improvements across the ecosystem and lead to stronger security standards for wallet providers.
SecondFi Exploit Is a Fundamental Win for Everybody: Hoskinson According to Hoskinson, ADA holders will benefit from a broader range of security options following the exploit. These improvements may include more resilient wallet architectures, stronger authentication methods, and additional protective mechanisms designed to reduce the risk of similar exploits in the future.
Consequently, Hoskinson views the incident as a catalyst for innovation in wallet security rather than evidence of any weakness within the Cardano blockchain itself.
Furthermore, he expects the exploit to reinforce the ecosystem’s commitment to open-source development while increasing skepticism toward closed-source solutions. Hoskinson described this shift as “a fundamental win for everybody.”
SecondFi Users Continue Recovery Efforts Meanwhile, ADA users are still recovering from the attack on SecondFi, formerly known as Yoroi Wallet, which is operated by EMURGO, one of Cardano’s founding entities.
The exploit, which occurred last week, resulted in losses totaling 16 million ADA across three separate wallet-draining incidents.
In a statement released today, EMURGO confirmed that its teams are collaborating with technical experts from across the Cardano ecosystem on an on-chain recovery process that remains on schedule.
https://t.co/Wud0K5WIkG
— EMURGO (@emurgo_io) July 2, 2026
Notably, the company is developing an on-chain claims portal that will enable affected users to recover their assets once the reimbursement process begins. SecondFi also urged users not to delete the app and advised them to keep their seed phrases secure to simplify future recovery efforts.
In the meantime, the company has launched an official wallet checker tool that allows users to determine whether they were affected by the exploit. EMURGO further disclosed that assets recovered by white-hat responders remain secure and will contribute to the reimbursement effort.
Additionally, the company has established a recovery fund aimed at compensating victims affected by the exploit.
Hoskinson Reiterates That Cardano Was Not Hacked Amid widespread fear, uncertainty, and doubt surrounding the incident, Hoskinson reiterated that the attack targeted a specific application built on the network rather than the Cardano protocol itself.
He emphasized that Cardano has never been hacked since launch and continues to operate normally, with block production proceeding at a consistent pace.
DisClamier: This content is informational and should not be considered financial advice. The views expressed in this article may include the author's personal opinions and do not reflect The Crypto Basic opinion. Readers are encouraged to do thorough research before making any investment decisions. The Crypto Basic is not responsible for any financial losses.
Cardano je téměř připraveno na hard fork V11 „van Rossem“ a Binance s Coinbase už potvrdily technickou připravenost. Čeká se jen na finální souhlas Ústavního výboru.
According to recent ecosystem data, the layer-1 blockchain is approaching full readiness for the V11 hard fork, which has been officially dubbed "van Rossem."
Major cryptocurrency exchanges, including industry giants Binance and Coinbase, have already signaled their operational readiness.
The much-anticipated upgrade is essentially ready to go, but it still needs to receive the final sign-off from the Constitutional Committee (CC).
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The "van Rossem" hard fork?The upgrade has been named after the late Max van Rossem, and it is meant to honor his substantial contributions to building the Cardano community and developing its governance structure.
Technically, V11 is categorized as an "intra-era" hard fork. This means developers can introduce new features and optimize the protocol without moving to a new blockchain era (this makes it possible to minimize protocol disruptions).
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According to Cardano ecosystem contributors, the hard fork will introduce cheaper smart contracts, ZK-ready cryptography, as well as some new built-in functions.
The van Rossem hard fork is supposed to act as a bridge to Cardano's next Dijkstra era.
Full readiness The van Rossem hard fork requires the decentralized approval of multiple independent actors.
The network has already successfully executed the hard fork on its Preview and Preprod testnets to make sure that it is stable enough for a grand launch.
Currently, on-chain metrics show overwhelming support and operational readiness.
Stake Pool Operators (SPOs) have rapidly upgraded their infrastructure. Currently, 88% of all blocks minted in the past seven days were produced using the V11 node software.
Binance and Coinbase, the world's leading cryptocurrency exchanges, have thrown their support behind the fork.
The required voting thresholds from both Delegated Representatives (DReps) and SPOs have been reached.
eDreams ODIGEO spolu s Visa umožní AI agentům přímo dokončovat nákupy na platformách eDreams, Opodo, GO Voyages a Travellink. Visa k tomu využije Trusted Agent Protocol a Agentic Directory.
Travel subscription company eDreams ODIGEO (eDO) is working with Visa to enable AI agents to initiate transactions on its platforms.
The integration enabled by this collaboration will enable general AI interfaces to complete purchases directly on eDO’s eDreams, Opodo, GO Voyages and Travellink travel brands, eDO said in a Friday (July 3) press release.
eDreams ODIGEO Chief Marketing Officer Frédéric Esclapez said in the release that this capability will build on eDO’s existing foundation for “conversational travel.”
“The structural complexity of global travel demands a highly sophisticated execution engine, which we have built through our AI-first approach,” Esclapez said. “Now, by working with Visa to support secure AI agent-initiated transactions, we are unlocking even more possibilities for how people purchase travel.”
To support these transactions, eDO is using Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol and Agentic Directory to recognize and manage interactions with verified AI agents, while customer banks use Visa Payment Passkey to help ensure each transaction is verified and trusted.
“AI agents are already playing a growing role in how people discover products, but until now, those journeys have often stopped short at the point of payment,” Mathieu Altwegg, head of product and solutions at Visa Europe, said in the release. “What we’re now enabling with partners like eDreams ODIGEO is the ability for those interactions to continue through to purchase — allowing merchants to securely complete those journeys — opening up a new channel through which customers can transact.”
Visa unveiled Agentic Directory on June 10, saying this tool shows agents and merchants that a company has been verified as a legitimate participant in agentic commerce.
The company introduced its Trusted Agent Protocol in October 2025 to facilitate AI shopping by allowing secure communication between merchants and AI agents.
Visa Payment Passkey was introduced in May 2024 to confirm a consumer’s identity and authorize online payments with a facial or fingerprint scan.
Michele Herron, senior vice president and head of North America Value-Added Service at Visa, told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster in an interview posted in May that the fully autonomous AI shopping agent may still be emerging, but its building blocks are already visible.
Travelers se obchoduje poblíž rekordního maxima a od začátku roku přidala 15,4 %. Růst táhnou vyšší úrokové sazby a disciplinované upisování, přičemž čistý investiční výnos v 1. čtvrtletí stoupl o 8 % na 1 miliardu USD.
This year, technology stocks have dominated headlines, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite up 12% since the start of the year. The strong performance is driven largely by memory and semiconductor stocks as hyperscalers invest heavily in building out their AI infrastructure.
While tech stocks are grabbing the headlines, insurance stock Travelers (TRV +2.30%) is trading near a record high, underscoring its resilience and fundamental strength. The stock has also increased 15.4% since the start of the year.
Can it continue to rally? Let's dive into what's driving the stock to find out.
Image source: Getty Images.
Travelers' stellar growth is driven by higher interest rates and underwriting discipline Travelers has reached record heights, fueled by a robust business model that demonstrates disciplined insurance underwriting while reaping rewards from elevated interest rates through its investment portfolio.
Unlike cyclical financial stocks, such as banks, Travelers benefits from higher-for-longer interest rates. That's because insurers invest premium float before claims are paid, and elevated bond yields translate directly into growing net investment income, providing growth independent of insurance premiums.
In the first quarter, Travelers' net investment income rose 8% to $1 billion, up from $930 million last year. This solid growth was driven by its fixed maturity portfolio and higher long-term reinvestment yields on its invested assets.
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Net written premium growth was down 2% year over year in the first quarter; however, a large portion of this was due to Travelers' divestment from its Canadian insurance business. When adjusting for this change, the company's premiums grew modestly year over year. Its slower premium growth reflects the softening of the insurance market after years of inflation and hard-market conditions. With that said, insurance underwriters continue to maintain pricing power to offset inflationary pressures.
What stood out for Travelers was its improving profitability, with net income surging 333% to $1.7 billion. The company benefited from easier year-over-year comparisons to 2025, which was punished by the California Palisades and Eaton wildfires.
Travelers' combined ratio, which represents underwriting profitability by dividing claims costs and expenses by total premiums earned, was a stellar 88.6%. This, coupled with favorable reserve developments and growth in interest income, boosted earnings.
Data by YCharts.
Looking ahead, catastrophe expectations look favorable for property insurers like Travelers. Forecasts from NOAA's National Weather Service predict a below-average hurricane season, which would limit large catastrophe losses if projections are accurate.
Travelers is a smart stock that can provide diversification Travelers' stock is trading near all-time highs and priced cheaply at around 11.8 times forward earnings. Insurance stocks tend to trade at low multiples, but the stock remains attractively priced despite its new highs. Looking ahead, the company stands to benefit if Treasury yields remain elevated while also having pricing power to adapt if inflationary pressures persist.
The company continues to post stellar underwriting results, and its future performance hinges on maintaining underwriting discipline, as growing interest income isn't guaranteed. With this in mind, Travelers' stock is more defensive and an excellent choice for investors looking to diversify away from volatile technology stocks.
Exxon Mobil a Chevron míří k nejsilnějším čtvrtletním ziskům za roky, tažené vyššími cenami ropy a silnými rafinačními maržemi. Trump zároveň tlačí na ropný průmysl, aby před listopadovými mezivolbami snížil ceny benzínu.
America’s biggest oil companies are poised to post their strongest quarterly earnings in years — as President Donald Trump has been ramping up pressure on the industry to lower gas prices ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Exxon Mobil and Chevron are expected to report second-quarter profits that are more than three times higher than in the first three months of the year, fueled by a surge in crude prices after the US-Israeli conflict with Iran disrupted global energy markets, Reuters reported.
LSEG estimates project Exxon will earn roughly $15.9 billion in adjusted net income, while Chevron is forecast to post about $9.9 billion.
The anticipated windfall could create political headaches for the White House, which has made lowering fuel costs a priority as drivers continue to face elevated prices at the pump.
Exxon Mobil is expected to report second-quarter profits that are more than triple its first-quarter earnings, according to analyst estimates. Christopher Sadowski for NY Post “Gasoline Retailers must get their Prices down, IMMEDIATELY!” Trump wrote in a June 29 social media post.
Although benchmark crude has largely retreated to levels seen before the conflict, gasoline prices remain significantly higher.
Analysts attribute the disconnect to tight fuel inventories, strong export demand and unusually high refining margins rather than crude prices alone.
The administration has intensified scrutiny of the industry, with the Justice Department examining potential gasoline price gouging.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has also warned refiners and producers that additional administrative measures remain possible if retail prices fail to fall.
Behind the scenes, oil industry lobbyists have increased outreach to lawmakers and administration officials as companies seek to counter criticism over fuel prices.
Chevron is forecast to benefit from higher refining margins and robust fuel export demand during the second quarter. Weston Hancock/SOPA Images/Shutterstock Industry executives argue they have only limited control over what consumers ultimately pay, noting that refining costs, transportation, marketing expenses and taxes account for much of the final price.
Trade groups echoed that argument, saying gasoline prices are influenced by numerous factors beyond crude oil, including regulatory requirements such as renewable fuel mandates.
“Gasoline prices don’t move in lockstep with crude oil, especially during a major global disruption affecting supply, refining and inventories,” Bethany Williams, a spokesperson for the American Petroleum Institute, told Reuters.
Analysts expect the second quarter to produce the industry’s strongest results since 2022, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent energy markets soaring.
Gasoline prices remain elevated even as crude oil has retreated to near pre-conflict levels. John McCoy for CA Post Much of the earnings growth is being driven by a sharp rebound in refining profitability.
According to energy advisory firm TPH, gasoline refining margins averaged about $25 per barrel during the quarter, while diesel margins climbed to roughly $45 per barrel — their highest levels since mid-2022.
President Trump has pressed oil producers to lower gasoline prices ahead of the November midterm elections. AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson Strong overseas demand for US fuel exports further boosted refiners after supply disruptions abroad.
Despite continued frustration among motorists over gasoline prices, analysts at BMO Capital Markets expect the major oil companies to keep prioritizing shareholder returns through expanded stock buybacks rather than increasing production.
Industry executives maintain that profits naturally rise and fall with market cycles, arguing that periods of high earnings often follow times when companies absorb significant financial risk during weaker markets.
Bitwise upravil 2. dodatek k podání S-1 pro spotový NEAR ETF u SEC a přidal staking, přičemž jako burzu pro listing zvolil NYSE Arca. Schválení zatím čeká.
Crypto asset manager Bitwise has updated its filing for the proposed NEAR ETF, advancing progress after almost a year. The issuer revealed key details related to staking, listing exchange, listing plans, custodians and others. NEAR price has jumped almost 12% amid the latest crypto market recovery.
Bitwise NEAR ETF Updates Filing with the US SEC Bitwise submitted a 2nd amendment to the S-1 form for its spot NEAR ETF, according to the latest filing with the US SEC. It added staking as a second objective to derive additional income for investors, along with providing regulated exposure to NEAR held by the trust.
Bitwise NEAR ETF also named NYSE Arca as the selected exchange for listing and trading the spot ETF. The issuer has not yet revealed management fees, ticker, or potential fee waiver.
Moreover, The Bank of New York Mellon is selected as cash custodian, administrator, and transfer agent. Coinbase Custody to serve as crypto custodian.
Bitwise Asset Management, parent of Bitwise Investment Advisers, plans to provide seed capital to launch the NEAR ETF. The issuer currently awaits approval from the US SEC.
The amendment refines disclosures around risks, including staking-related tax events, redemption liquidity, and market volatility.
As CoinGape reported earlier, Grayscale also amended its NEAR ETF filing with the US SEC. This came amid institutional interest in artificial intelligence (AI) amid the blockbuster SpaceX IPO frenzy.
Will Price Rally Further? NEAR Protocol price rebounded 5% amid the latest crypto market recovery. The price is currently trading at $2.03, with a 24-hour low and high of $1.90 and $2.04, respectively.
Furthermore, trading volume has increased by 6% over the last 24 hours, indicating a rise in interest among traders. However, the price is trading below the 50-day moving average. Notably, Kalshi also launched NEAR perpetual futures recently amid massive interest from investors.
CoinGlass data showed massive buying in the derivatives market in the last few hours. The total NEAR Protocol futures open interest jumped more than 13% to $472 million in the last 24 hours. The 4-hour futures OI on Binance, OKX, and Bybit climbed more than 6%, 5%, 5.50% respectively.
If you’re looking to earn passive income with crypto, check out our 8 proven ways to earn passive income in July 2026.
AGNC Investment Corp. má dividendový výnos 13,1 %, ale její čistý úrokový spread i příjem z dollar rollu se dál zmenšují. Dividenda je zatím krytá, budoucí udržitelnost je ale nejistá.
AGNC Investment Corp. (AGNC +1.72%), one of the largest mortgage real estate investment trusts (mREITs) in America, pays a massive forward dividend yield of 13.1%. Is that high yield a bright red flag, or is AGNC actually a safe income play for long-term investors?
Image source: Getty Images.
How does AGNC pay such a high dividend? Unlike equity REITs, which buy properties and lease them out to generate income, mREITs buy mortgages and mortgage-backed securities (MBS) to collect interest. To insulate itself from another credit crunch or housing market crash, AGNC allocates 89% of its $94.7 billion portfolio to Agency MBS assets backed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or Ginnie Mae. REITs and mREITs also must pay out at least 90% of their taxable income as dividends to maintain a lower tax rate.
To generate stable profits, mREITs must earn sufficient interest on their long-term MBS to cover the debt financing of their short-term MBS purchases. This strategy works as long as the housing market remains stable and the Fed's short-term rates remain lower than its long-term rates.
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To see how sustainable AGNC's dividend is, we should check its net interest spread, or the gap between the average yield it earns on its MBS and the average costs of funding its ongoing purchases, and the ability of its net spread and dollar roll income (the profit it books from its ongoing sales and purchases of MBS) per share to cover its dividends.
Metric
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
Year-end net interest spread
2.15%
2.74%
3.08%
1.91%
1.81%
Net spread & dollar roll income per share
$3.02
$3.11
$2.61
$1.88
$1.50
Dividends per share
$1.44
$1.44
$1.44
$1.44
$1.44
Data source: AGNC.
AGNC hasn't raised its dividend since it reduced its payout in 2020. Its net interest spread remains positive -- and its net spread and dollar roll income per share can still cover its dividends -- but that gap has been shrinking over the past two years.
The Fed's six rate cuts in 2024 and 2025 reduced its borrowing costs for funding new MBS purchases, but they also reduced the value of its older, higher-rate mortgages. Homeowners refinanced at lower rates, but AGNC's own interest rate swaps were locked in at higher rates. The Fed could raise its rates in the second half of 2026 if inflation doesn't cool off. That would simultaneously raise AGNC's short-term borrowing costs while cooling the housing market.
While AGNC's dividend is sustainable for now, there's no guarantee it can cover its future dividends with its net spread and dollar roll income. If you don't fully understand that delicate balancing act, it's smarter to stick with other lower-yielding dividend stocks instead.
Leo Sun has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
West Pharmaceutical Services letos vzrostla o 32,9 % díky silnému prvnímu čtvrtletí, kdy tržby stouply o 21 % na 845 milionů USD a upravený EPS vzrostl o 47 %. Firma zároveň zvýšila celoroční výhled.
Key Takeaways WST climbed nearly 33% YTD after first-quarter revenues jumped 21% and adjusted EPS surged 47%.West Pharma is benefiting from strong GLP-1 demand, with HVP Components posting 23% organic growth.West Pharma raised 2026 guidance as biologics growth and Annex 1 regulations support future expansion. Shares of West Pharmaceutical Services Inc. (WST - Free Report) have staged an impressive comeback in 2026, rising 32.9% year to date. The stock has outpaced the industry’s 30.3% decline and the S&P 500 Index’s 28.2% increase.
The rebound reflects improving investor confidence following a strong first-quarter earnings beat, accelerating demand in high-value injectable drug components and improving growth visibility across biologics and GLP-1 therapies. West Pharma reported first-quarter 2026 revenues of $845 million, up 21% year over year, while adjusted EPS surged 47%.
The strong performance led management to raise full-year guidance. Supported by structural growth in biologics, obesity drugs and injectable therapies, West Pharma appears to be entering a stronger growth cycle, which can extend the current momentum through the remainder of 2026.
WST’s YTD Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Factors Supporting the RallyGLP-1 Drug Demand Continues to Drive High-Value Product Growth: Accelerating demand for GLP-1 therapies used to treat obesity and diabetes remains West Pharma's largest growth catalyst.High-Value Product (HVP) components, which account for nearly half of the company's revenues, delivered 23% organic growth in the first quarter.
Management highlighted that GLP-1 products accounted for 10% of total company sales, with demand supported by broader insurance coverage, reduced drug pricing and new indications. Management believes the adoption of oral GLP-1 therapies is expanding the overall market rather than replacing injectable therapies, supporting long-term growth visibility.
Biologics Business Is Emerging as a Durable Long-Term Growth Engine: Beyond GLP-1, biologics continues to be a major structural growth driver. West Pharma reported 26% organic growth in biologics-related business during the first quarter, benefiting from strong commercial wins and growing adoption of its premium NovaPure packaging solutions.
Biosimilar launches globally are expanding therapy usage and increasing demand for injectable packaging solutions. Management emphasized continued strong customer win rates for new biologic launches, suggesting sustained growth beyond the obesity drug cycle.
Annex 1 Regulatory Transition Creates Multi-Year Demand Tailwind: European Annex 1 sterile manufacturing regulations are creating another powerful growth catalyst. West Pharma reported a 66% year-over-year increase in Annex 1-related projects, with management expecting these initiatives to contribute approximately 200 basis points to 2026 revenues.
Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly converting standard components toward higher-value HVP solutions to meet stricter compliance requirements. This transition is also supporting margin expansion, with adjusted operating margin improving 350 basis points to 21.4% in the first quarter.
Strategic Product Portfolio Expansion Strengthens Future Pipeline: Recent strategic moves further improve West Pharma’s long-term positioning. The company completed the divestiture of SmartDose 3.5mL manufacturing rights to AbbVie Inc. (ABBV - Free Report) .
Following this, management will focus on more scalable delivery platforms like SmartDose 10mL. The $112.5 million from AbbVie, following the SmartDose 3.5mL divesture, will boost WST’ cash position, which may lead to higher investment in its high-value product component business. West Pharma expanded its Dublin manufacturing facility to support high-volume injectable therapies, particularly next-generation GLP-1 treatments. The commercial launch of Synchrony S1 prefillable syringe systems also strengthens exposure to the growing biologics and vaccine delivery markets.
WST’s Growth Drivers
Image Source: westpharma.com
Competition Remains Intense as Baxter and BD Push Innovation StrategiesCompetition remains significant from Baxter International Inc. (BAX - Free Report) and Becton Dickinson and Company (BDX - Free Report) , popularly known as BD. Baxter is currently undergoing a turnaround, with Baxter reporting only 3% reported sales growth while facing infusion pump disruptions, manufacturing cost inflation and tariff pressure.
In contrast, BD reported stronger execution, with 2.6% revenue growth and double-digit expansion across biologic drug delivery and advanced monitoring platforms. Compared with Baxter and BD, West Pharma currently demonstrates superior top-line momentum, significantly stronger margin expansion and more direct exposure to high-growth injectable biologics.
While Baxter remains focused on operational recovery and BD continues broad-based innovation expansion, West Pharma’s sharper focus on high-value pharmaceutical packaging gives it a more concentrated growth advantage in 2026. BD and Baxter remain formidable long-term competitors, but West Pharma presently holds stronger growth momentum.
Risks and Challenges Could Moderate Further UpsideDespite strong momentum, risks remain. Rising oil and commodity costs could pressure margins, although management expects mitigation efforts to limit impact. The SmartDose 3.5 divestiture removes a revenue stream that contributed meaningfully in prior periods, creating short-term revenue transition risk.
West Pharma also remains highly dependent on continued injectable GLP-1 demand growth, making it vulnerable if obesity drug adoption slows unexpectedly or oral GLP-1 demand diminishes demand for injections. In addition, increasing competition from Baxter and BD in drug delivery technologies could intensify pricing pressure over time as injectable therapy markets continue expanding globally.
A Glance at WST’s EstimatesThe Zacks Consensus Estimate for WST’s 2026 and 2027 earnings per share (EPS) implies year-over-year growth of 18% and 10.5%, respectively, to $8.60 and $9.50. In the past 60 days, the consensus mark for the company's 2026 EPS has risen 10 cents.
Revenues for 2026 are projected to grow 8.4% to $3.33 billion and another 6.4% to $3.54 billion in 2027.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
ConclusionWest Pharma’s strong earnings momentum, structural exposure to GLP-1 therapies, biologics expansion and regulatory-driven product upgrades suggest the stock’s 2026 rally is supported by strong fundamental factors. While competitive and cost pressures remain, the company appears well positioned for continued upside through the rest of 2026.
WST currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Solana už překonala Ethereum v objemu obchodů, aktivních uživatelích i poplatcích na L1. Ethereum dál vede v TVL, stablecoinech a institucionálním zázemí.
Solana now beats Ethereum on trading volume, active users, and fee revenue. Ethereum still holds the money. Halfway through 2026, the question is no longer who is faster. It is whether the two chains are even running the same race.
Summary
Solana has overtaken Ethereum in Layer 1 activity with higher transaction volume, more active users, stronger DEX trading, and greater fee revenue. Ethereum continues to dominate in total value locked, stablecoin liquidity, institutional adoption, and developer activity despite losing ground in onchain usage. The rivalry has shifted from a direct competition into two distinct models, with Ethereum focused on settlement and custody while Solana leads in trading and execution. There was a time when the Ethereum versus Solana debate could be settled with a smirk and an outage screenshot. Solana was the chain that went down. Ethereum was the chain that mattered. Then Solana stopped going down, its trading volume flipped Ethereum’s, its ETF launched to institutional inflows while Ethereum funds bled for seventeen straight days, and the smirk changed sides.
Halfway through 2026, both tokens are deep in a bear market. ETH trades near $1,714 after a brutal second quarter that included a 29.5% thirty-day drawdown at the June lows, its worst quarterly stretch in years. SOL trades near $81, down roughly 78% from its cycle high, hit even harder in raw percentage terms. Price settles nothing here. The interesting story is underneath, in the on-chain data, where the two networks have diverged so completely that comparing them now requires deciding which metrics count.
So: is Ethereum losing the L1 race to Solana? The honest answer is that Solana has already won several of the events, Ethereum still owns the ones with the most prize money, and the race itself has split into two different sports.
How we got here: a short history of a long feud The rivalry has run through three distinct acts, and the current one makes no sense without the first two.
Act one, 2021 through 2022, was Solana as the venture-backed challenger: a chain built for speed, championed by Sam Bankman-Fried, and dismissed by Ethereum partisans as a centralized science project. The dismissal briefly looked like prophecy. Solana suffered repeated full-network outages, including the infamous February 2024 halt that lasted nearly five hours after a legacy loader bug forced a coordinated validator restart, and when FTX collapsed in November 2022, SOL crashed toward single digits as the market priced in guilt by association. Obituaries were published. Several were smug.
Act two, 2023 through 2024, was the resurrection nobody ordered. Solana’s developer community kept shipping through the winter, the Jupiter and Jito ecosystems matured, memecoin mania found its natural home on the only chain where a thousand trades cost less than a sandwich, and DEX volume began the climb that ended with the flip of Ethereum in late 2024. Ethereum spent the same period executing its own plan flawlessly and discovering the plan had a hole in it: the Dencun upgrade in March 2024 introduced blob space and cut L2 costs by an order of magnitude, which supercharged rollup adoption while gutting the fee burn that had underwritten the ultrasound money narrative. Activity exploded across the Ethereum stack, and ETH the asset captured almost none of it.
Act three is now: both chains institutionally legitimate, both tokens deep underwater, and the argument relocated from architecture threads to fund flow tables. Uniswap founder Hayden Adams warned back in 2025 that Ethereum’s confused scaling identity could hand DeFi leadership to Solana; in 2026 that warning reads less like a hot take and more like a memo the market already acted on.
The scoreboard, metric by metric Start with what Solana has flatly won: activity.
On a representative day in late June, Solana processed 127 million transactions from more than 2 million active addresses. Ethereum mainnet processed 2.8 million transactions from roughly 512,000 active addresses. That is not a gap. That is a different order of magnitude. Solana sustains 600 to 700 real transactions per second on average against Ethereum L1’s 15 to 20, at a cost of roughly $0.00025 per transaction against Ethereum’s dollars-per-swap mainnet pricing.
Trading volume tells the same story. Solana’s weekly DEX volume hit $11.49 billion in April against Ethereum’s $7.62 billion, a 51% lead. In February the monthly gap was wider still: $117 billion on Solana against $52 billion on Ethereum, more than double. Jupiter, the aggregator that routes the overwhelming majority of Solana order flow across Raydium, Orca, Phoenix, and Meteora, alone processes $2 billion to $4 billion in daily volume. Solana flipped Ethereum on DEX volume in late 2024 and has held the lead through every market condition since.
Then comes the metric that should worry Ethereum researchers most: revenue.
Solana generates over $1 million in chain fees per day. The major Ethereum L2s, where most Ethereum user activity now lives, generate under $200,000 combined, because blob-based data posting after the Dencun upgrade pushed L2 costs, and therefore L2 fee revenue, toward zero. Ethereum deliberately commoditized its own execution layer to win the rollup war. The result is a settlement layer with shrinking direct income and a rival that monetizes every swap on a single unified ledger.
Now flip the card, because Ethereum’s wins are just as lopsided.
Total value locked Ethereum L1 holds roughly $55.6 billion in DeFi deposits, around 68% of the entire global DeFi market, and the combined L1 plus L2 figure exceeds $80 billion. Solana holds between $8 billion and $12 billion depending on the week and the methodology, a figure that took a $270 million hit in April when the Drift Protocol exploit tore through its perps ecosystem. The deepest protocols in the industry, Lido at $27.5 billion, Aave at $27 billion, EigenLayer at $13 billion, all live on Ethereum, and Aave V4 launched on Ethereum mainnet in April to reinforce the point.
Stablecoins Ethereum hosts roughly 70% of all on-chain stablecoin supply, around $32 billion in USDC and $60 billion in USDT, and remains the venue where BlackRock, Franklin Templeton, and JPMorgan build tokenized products first. Solana carries about $14 billion in stablecoins, though each of those dollars turns over roughly six times faster than its Ethereum counterpart.
Developers Ethereum counted 31,869 active developers against Solana’s 17,708 at the latest Electric Capital reading, and added more new developers over the trailing year than any other ecosystem. Solana ranked second.
One chain has the users, the volume, and the revenue. The other has the money, the institutions, and the builders. Losing, it turns out, depends entirely on where you point the camera.
How the race split in two The reason the comparison keeps producing contradictory answers is that the two chains stopped competing on the same terms years ago, a divergence we chronicled when the ecosystems first collided in early 2025.
Ethereum abandoned the monolithic race on purpose. Its roadmap treats the base layer as settlement infrastructure while execution migrates to rollups: Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, and a long tail of zk systems that post proofs and data back to mainnet. Base alone captures nearly half of all L2 DeFi value, Arbitrum another 31%, and the top three rollups process close to 90% of all L2 transactions. Measured as a stack, the Ethereum ecosystem still dwarfs Solana on almost every capital metric. Measured as an L1, Ethereum mainnet is a slow, expensive chain that its own designers no longer intend retail users to touch.
Solana made the opposite bet: one ledger, one global state, sub-second finality at 400 milliseconds, and a relentless engineering campaign to make the single chain fast enough that nothing else is needed. The Firedancer validator client built by Jump Crypto, rolling toward full deployment late this year, is the endgame of that bet, with a theoretical ceiling measured in the hundreds of thousands of transactions per second. The network reliability problem that defined Solana’s reputation in 2022 and 2023 has largely disappeared; outages went from routine to rare, and the chain has traded its crash-prone image for something closer to an execution monopoly on retail flow.
The philosophical split produces the statistical one. Capital sits and compounds on Ethereum because that is what the architecture rewards: deep pools, long-duration lending, staking layered on restaking. Capital churns on Solana because sub-cent fees make churning free: high-frequency trading, memecoin rotation, dollar-cost-average bots, payments. Ethereum became the deposit ledger. Solana became the trading floor.
Follow the fees: two broken business models, one working one The revenue gap deserves its own examination, because it is the metric where architecture decisions turn into economics, and where both chains have problems they rarely advertise.
Ethereum’s fee engine used to be the envy of the industry. EIP-1559 burned base fees, high demand made ETH deflationary, and the ultrasound money framing wrote itself. The rollup migration dismantled the machine step by step. Execution moved to L2s, whose sequencers keep the margin between what users pay and what blob posting costs, and Dencun made blob posting cost next to nothing. The result in 2026: mainnet burns a fraction of its former fee load, L2s pay Ethereum pennies for security worth billions, and the value accrual question, what does ETH earn when Base wins, has replaced scaling as the ecosystem’s defining unsolved problem. Ethereum built a settlement business and priced its product like a public good.
Solana’s engine is simpler and currently stronger: one chain captures every fee at every layer. The base fee is fixed at 5,000 lamports per signature, roughly a hundredth of a cent, while priority fees let users bid during congestion, and stake-weighted quality of service plus local fee markets keep hot accounts from clogging the scheduler. On top of the protocol fees sits the Jito MEV economy, where searcher tips flow to validators and stakers, turning order-flow chaos into staking yield. Over $1 million in daily chain revenue against sub-$200,000 for the entire major L2 basket is the visible output.
The caveat is concentration of source. A large share of Solana’s fee revenue traces to speculative trading, memecoins above all, which makes the revenue line high-beta to the exact market segment least likely to survive a deep winter. Ethereum’s fee problem is structural but its demand is diversified; Solana’s fee machine works beautifully and runs on the most flammable fuel in crypto. Neither model is finished.
Fusaka and the second-half Ethereum upgrade path aim at scaling data further without answering value capture, while Solana’s validator economics, where thin margins already pushed the validator count down 68% from its 2023 peak, depend on fee and MEV income holding up.
The other front: stablecoins, payments, and tokenized everything DEX volume gets the headlines, but the war’s second front may matter more by 2027, because it is the one institutions actually fund: who carries the tokenized economy.
Ethereum’s position is incumbency at scale. Roughly 70% of stablecoin supply, the deep USDC and USDT float that institutional desks require, and essentially the entire first generation of tokenized funds. When Ondo debuted its SEC-aligned tokenized stock model with BlackRock ETF shares this week, the underlying rails were Ethereum-ecosystem by default. Stablecoin legislation cleared the path for bank issuance and for the consortium models now emerging among major institutions, and banks build where the auditors already have coverage, which is one more network effect compounding for the incumbent.
Solana’s position is velocity and consumer reach. Its $14 billion stablecoin float turns over roughly six times faster than Ethereum’s, because sub-cent fees make stablecoins usable as money instead of just collateral. USDC settles on Solana in under a second for a fraction of a cent, which is why Visa chose it for settlement pilots, why payment processors keep adding it, and why the Solana Developer Platform launched with Mastercard, Worldpay, and Western Union rather than with hedge funds. Solana is also mounting a genuine RWA challenge through Token-2022, whose compliance extensions target exactly the issuer requirements Ethereum handles with bespoke contracts, and both chains now face a third competitor for the same institutional flow in the compliance-native stack being assembled on the XRP Ledger.
The stakes here dwarf the DEX war. Stablecoins are a $320 billion asset class growing through legislation, and tokenized funds are the institutional product with the steepest adoption curve. If Ethereum keeps the float while Solana takes the flow, the split-decision structure of this whole rivalry repeats at a much larger scale, with Ethereum as the vault and Solana as the checkout lane of tokenized finance.
The institutional tiebreaker For most of crypto history, the institutional column belonged to Ethereum without argument. That is the column where 2026 has produced genuine movement.
The regulatory sequence mattered first. The SEC’s March 2025 classification of sixteen digital assets including SOL as commodities dissolved the securities overhang that had kept allocators away, and spot Solana ETFs began trading on October 28, 2025, making SOL the third asset after BTC and ETH with U.S. spot fund access. The flows since then have been small next to Bitcoin’s but directionally embarrassing for Ethereum: through the spring drawdown, Solana ETFs crossed $1 billion in cumulative inflows while Ethereum funds posted a seventeen-day outflow streak that stripped hundreds of millions, and July has opened with ETF flow reports showing ETH and SOL products gaining together while Bitcoin funds bleed. Goldman Sachs disclosures showed over $100 million in SOL exposure, and CalPERS entered the asset class the same quarter.
Solana’s institutional push went beyond funds. The Solana Foundation launched its Developer Platform in March with Mastercard, Worldpay, and Western Union among early adopters, shipped a quantum-readiness plan built on the NIST-standardized Falcon signature scheme in April, and rolled out on-chain, stake-weighted validator governance this week. Token-2022 extensions gave the chain the compliance hooks, confidential transfers, transfer restrictions, interest-bearing instruments, that enterprise issuers require. The pitch that Solana is a casino chain unsuitable for serious money has aged badly.
Ethereum’s institutional position remains the stronger one on stock rather than flow. It custodies the tokenized funds, hosts the deep stablecoin float, and runs the staking infrastructure through which more than 35 million ETH, nearly 29% of supply, secures the network across a million-plus validators. When a treasury desk needs to move nine figures with minimal slippage, Ethereum’s depth is still the only game available. BitMine Immersion bought its way past 5 million ETH this spring precisely on that thesis. But stock is what you accumulated yesterday. Flow is what you are winning today, and the flow has been tilting one direction for over a year.
The uncomfortable items on both ledgers Neither chain gets to run its highlight reel without the blooper file.
Solana’s validator count has collapsed to roughly 795 active validators from more than 2,500 in 2023, a 68% decline that concentrates block production and hands critics a decentralization argument with real teeth. Its DeFi remains thin and concentrated: one aggregator with 95% market share is a single point of failure wearing a market structure costume, and the $270 million Drift exploit showed what happens when a load-bearing protocol breaks. Its volume mix still leans on memecoin speculation, the most cyclical demand source in the industry, and February’s $117 billion month can become a $40 billion month without a single thing going wrong technically.
Ethereum’s problems are quieter and arguably deeper. Lido alone controls roughly 24% of staked ETH, a concentration risk of its own. The rollup roadmap solved scaling and created a value-capture puzzle nobody has answered: if execution fees accrue to Base and Arbitrum while blobs cost pennies, what exactly does ETH the asset earn from Ethereum the ecosystem’s growth? Retail has already voted, migrating to L2s so completely that mainnet active addresses look like a ghost town next to Solana’s. And the fragmentation tax is real: liquidity split across a dozen rollups with seven-day optimistic exits is a worse user experience than one chain with 400-millisecond finality, no matter how elegant the settlement theory. The KelpDAO exploit this spring, which erased $13 billion of TVL in 48 hours of contagion, showed that composability depth cuts in both directions.
Both assets, meanwhile, have been terrible investments this year, a market-wide condition tied to the macro regime we examined in the context of Bitcoin’s liquidity dependence. Fee revenue and active addresses have not protected SOL holders from a 78% peak drawdown, and settlement supremacy has not protected ETH holders from underperforming Bitcoin for most of the cycle. Whatever race is being run, neither token’s chart looks like a victory lap, and on-chain fundamentals have been decoupled from price across the majors for much of 2026.
So who is actually winning? Frame the question three ways and you get three defensible answers.
If the L1 race means base-layer usage, Solana won it, and the margin is no longer close. Two hundred times Ethereum’s L1 throughput, forty times its transaction count, five times its daily fee revenue, and a lead in DEX volume that has survived every market regime since late 2024. By the definition of Layer 1 that existed when the rivalry started, the contest is over.
If the race means where value lives, Ethereum is not losing and may never lose within this cycle. A 68% share of global DeFi TVL, 70% of stablecoin supply, the institutional tokenization pipeline, and the largest developer base in the industry constitute a network-effect fortress that Solana’s growth has dented but nowhere near breached. Capital has inertia, and inertia compounds.
If the race means trajectory, the tape favors Solana with an asterisk. It is winning new users, new listed products, new enterprise integrations, and the ETF flow battle. The asterisk is that trajectory arguments assume the current regime persists, and Solana’s flow-heavy economy is more exposed than Ethereum’s stock-heavy one to the next collapse in speculative appetite. Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade cycle and the second-half protocol roadmap that all major chains have queued for late 2026 could reshuffle the technical comparison again.
The most likely outcome is also the least satisfying for partisans: permanent coexistence with divided territory. Ethereum settles and custodies. Solana executes and trades. Builders already behave as if this is settled, deploying on both by default. The 2025 framing of an L1 war with a single survivor has quietly died, not with a bang but with two chains discovering they are optimized for markets the other cannot serve.
What could flip the board before December Split decisions invite the obvious follow-up: what would actually change the standings? Four live catalysts carry enough weight to move the argument rather than the noise.
Ethereum’s upgrade cycle is the first. The Fusaka window and the broader second-half protocol roadmap target another step-change in data capacity, and the ecosystem’s real prize sits next to it: any credible mechanism that routes L2 economic success back into ETH, whether through based sequencing, native rollup designs, or fee-market reform, would repair the value-capture hole that has haunted the asset since Dencun. Markets have front-run Ethereum upgrades before; a roadmap that finally answers the accrual question would be the first fundamental ETH catalyst in two years.
Firedancer completion is the second. Solana’s independent validator client moving to full deployment removes the single-client risk that institutions cite most, and its throughput headroom opens application categories, full order-book markets, high-frequency payment networks, that no chain currently serves. If even one breakout consumer or enterprise application lands on that capacity, Solana’s volume base diversifies away from memecoins, which neutralizes the strongest bear argument against its fee economy.
ETF mechanics are the third. Staking-enabled fund structures, under active regulatory discussion for both assets, would transform the flow picture: a spot product yielding 3% to 7% natively changes the allocator pitch entirely, and the asset that gets staking approval first inherits a durable flow advantage. Watch the filings, not the influencers.
Treasury companies are the fourth and strangest. BitMine’s multimillion-ETH accumulation and the emerging class of SOL treasury vehicles mean corporate balance sheets now sit inside both ecosystems as permanent, price-insensitive holders. The Strategy playbook applied to ETH and SOL is small today; its growth rate through a recovering market could make treasuries the marginal buyer that decides which token outperforms, independent of every on-chain metric in this article.
The verdict for the second half Ethereum is losing the L1 race as originally defined, and it forfeited that race by choice when it went all-in on rollups. Solana is winning everything measurable at the base layer while still trailing badly where the institutional money actually sits. Watch three numbers through December: whether Ethereum ETF flows recover once its next upgrade lands, whether Firedancer’s full rollout converts Solana’s throughput ceiling into new categories of application, and whether Solana DeFi TVL can hold above $12 billion without memecoin volume subsidizing it. The chain that answers its own weakness first will own the 2027 narrative. Until then, the war everyone expected has settled into something stranger: two winners, two different games, and one increasingly obsolete question.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Digital asset markets are volatile, and you can lose your entire investment. Always do your own research. Information current as of July 3, 2026.
Jupiter na Solaně spustil trailing stop loss pro Limit Order V2. Funkce sleduje vrchol ceny a prodává při poklesu o nastavené procento, výchozí je 10 %.
Jupiter, the dominant decentralized exchange aggregator on Solana, just rolled out a trailing stop-loss feature for its Limit Order V2 system. It’s one of those tools that centralized exchanges have offered for years, and DeFi users have been quietly jealous about ever since.
Here’s the thing. A regular stop loss says “sell if the price drops to X.” A trailing stop loss says “sell if the price drops X% from its highest point.” The difference matters a lot when you’re riding a rally and don’t want to leave money on the table by setting a fixed exit too early, or too late.
How the trailing stop loss actually works Think of it like a ratchet that only clicks in one direction. As the price of a token climbs, your sell trigger climbs with it, always maintaining a set percentage distance from the peak. If the price reverses, the trigger stays put and fires when hit.
In English: you set a trailing distance, say 10% (which happens to be the default), and the system tracks the highest price your token reaches. If that peak was $100 and the price drops to $90, the order executes. If the price keeps climbing to $150 first, your new trigger becomes $135. You never manually adjust anything.
Jupiter allows users to configure trailing distances anywhere from 0.5% to 90%. That’s a wide range, covering everything from tight scalps on stablecoins to loose trailing stops on memecoins that might swing 30% in an afternoon before continuing upward.
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The feature tracks peaks using either USD price or market cap, depending on how the trader configures the order. Orders can be set with expiration periods of up to 30 days, so you’re not committing to babysitting a position forever.
And it works with any token pair supported on the platform, not just majors like SOL, JUP, or USDC.
Why this matters for Solana DeFi Jupiter’s Limit Order V2 system launched around October 2025, introducing fixed take-profit and stop-loss options alongside more sophisticated order types. Those included OCO (One Cancels Other) and OTOCO (One Triggers Other Cancel Order) bundling, essentially letting traders set up conditional logic chains for their trades.
The problem with V2’s original toolkit was that everything relied on fixed triggers. Set a stop loss at $95, and that’s where it fires regardless of whether the token rallied to $200 first. Traders who wanted to protect gains during volatile uptrends had to manually adjust their orders, which kind of defeats the purpose of automation on a decentralized platform.
Execution runs through Jupiter Ultra, the platform’s routing engine designed to find optimal swap paths across Solana’s liquidity pools. Jupiter Ultra also incorporates protection against MEV (Miner Extractable Value) attacks, which on Solana take the form of sandwich attacks where bots front-run and back-run your trade to extract value.
What this means for traders and the broader market For retail traders, the trailing stop loss lowers the skill barrier for managing risk. The 10% default is sensible for most crypto assets, though anyone trading lower-volatility pairs might want to tighten that, and memecoin traders will probably want to widen it considerably.
For more experienced traders, the combination of trailing stops with OCO and OTOCO order types opens up some genuinely sophisticated strategies. You could set up a position with a take-profit target, a trailing stop loss, and have the system cancel whichever order doesn’t trigger first.
One risk worth noting: trailing stop losses in illiquid markets can create cascading sell pressure. If a token’s price drops sharply and multiple trailing stops trigger simultaneously, the resulting sell orders could push the price down further, triggering more stops.
Traders should also be aware that a 30-day maximum expiration means long-term holders can’t set and forget indefinitely. You’ll need to renew orders periodically if you’re using this as an ongoing portfolio management tool rather than a short-term trade management feature.
The feature is accessible through Jupiter’s interface via a dedicated URL parameter.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
UMA je hlavní oracle pro Polymarket, ale jeho tokenový systém řešení sporů je pod tlakem kvůli koncentraci hlasů a střetu zájmů. Kontroverzní případy ukazují, že o konečném výsledku může rozhodnout tokenová většina, nikoli samotná fakta.
Billions of dollars in prediction market positions settle every month based on a machine for deciding truth that most traders have never examined. This guide explains how UMA’s optimistic oracle turns real-world events into on-chain payouts, why the system usually works, the cases where it has failed spectacularly, and the rival settlement designs trying to replace it.
Prediction markets had their breakout year in 2026. Combined volume across the major venues hit $44.8 billion in June alone, driven by a World Cup that turned Polymarket into a multi-billion-dollar sportsbook. The trading side of these platforms is easy to understand: shares in Yes or No, priced between zero and one dollar, paying out one dollar if you are right. The hard part is invisible until it breaks. Someone, or something, has to decide what actually happened.
That decision layer is called resolution, and it is the load-bearing wall of the entire sector. A prediction market is only as good as its ability to decide truth, and a blockchain cannot observe the real world. It cannot see who won an election, whether a company sold an asset, or whether a bill passed. The bridge between reality and the smart contract is an oracle, and for the largest on-chain prediction market, that oracle is UMA. Understanding how it works, and how it fails, is the single most useful piece of due diligence a prediction market trader can do.
The oracle problem, event edition Crypto solved one version of the oracle problem years ago. Price feeds from networks like Chainlink and Pyth deliver asset prices on-chain by aggregating data from many independent publishers. That works because prices are public, continuous, machine-readable, and available from dozens of redundant sources.
Event markets break every one of those assumptions. The questions are one-off rather than continuous. The answers often live in press releases, court rulings, regulatory filings, or a referee’s whistle. And the phrasing matters enormously: a market asking whether a politician says a specific word five times needs a resolution process that can read, interpret, and withstand challenge. No price feed can answer questions like that. What the sector needed was an oracle for arbitrary facts, with a built-in way to contest wrong answers.
Enter UMA and optimistic verification UMA, short for Universal Market Access, is an oracle protocol built by Risk Labs. Its core product, the Optimistic Oracle, resolves outcomes for Polymarket’s main venue, which cleared around $14 billion in monthly volume during the World Cup peak. The word optimistic describes the design philosophy: submitted answers are assumed true unless someone challenges them, with economic incentives doing the policing instead of a central referee.
The flow for a typical Polymarket market runs through a version of the oracle called OOv2, and it has four stages:
Request. When a market’s end conditions are met, the market contract asks the oracle for the outcome, referencing the exact resolution criteria written when the market was created. Proposal. A proposer submits the answer, Yes or No, and posts a bond of $750 in USDC. If the proposal is wrong, the bond is forfeited. If it stands, the proposer earns a reward. Challenge window. The proposal sits open for two hours. Anyone who believes it is wrong can dispute it by posting a matching bond. Escalation. If a dispute lands, the question goes to UMA’s Data Verification Mechanism, the DVM, where UMA token holders research the question and vote on the correct answer. Voters who side with the final outcome earn rewards; voters who miss or vote against it lose a slice of their stake. The DVM’s ruling is final, the losing bond pays the winner, and the market settles. To make that concrete, follow one uncontested market through its whole life. A market opens asking whether a central bank cuts rates at its June meeting, with resolution criteria naming the official statement as the source. Traders price Yes at 70 cents through the month. The decision lands at 2 p.m., the statement confirms a cut, and within minutes an approved proposer submits Yes with the $750 bond. For two hours, anyone on earth with a matching bond could object; nobody does, because the statement is public and unambiguous. The window closes, the oracle reports Yes to the market contract, and every Yes share becomes redeemable for one dollar in USDC. Total elapsed time from event to payout: under three hours, no human authority involved, no appeal needed. That is the experience for the overwhelming majority of markets, and it is why the system scaled.
The bond arithmetic deserves a sentence of its own, because it is the whole security model in miniature. Seven hundred fifty dollars sounds trivial next to markets carrying tens of millions in open interest, and read one way, it is: a wrong proposal on a whale-scale market risks $750 to potentially swing a payout worth thousands of times that. The design’s answer is that the bond does not defend the market alone, the challenge window does. A false proposal only profits if nobody in the world notices for two hours, on a venue where every large market has thousands of position holders watching resolution like hawks and a matching bond waiting for whoever catches the error. The bond prices the cost of forcing a dispute, not the value of the market, and the escalation layer is supposed to carry the real weight. That framing also locates the true weak point precisely: the system is only as strong as the layer disputes escalate to.
The percentages favor the happy path. Roughly 99% of assertions since 2021 have gone undisputed, meaning most markets settle in the two-to-four-hour window after an event without any human argument. The system processes upward of 7,000 proposals per month, and Risk Labs has automated much of the pipeline: language models draft proposals for around half a cent per request, and bots like OOTruthBot summarize evidence threads and flag suspicious submissions, cutting routine resolution from hours to seconds.
Inside the DVM: what a token vote actually looks like Since the DVM is the backstop everything escalates to, its mechanics deserve a closer look than most traders ever give them.
When a dispute triggers a vote, the question enters a voting round for UMA token holders who have staked into the voting system. Voting runs in two phases. In the commit phase, each voter submits an encrypted vote, hidden from everyone including other voters, which prevents late voters from simply copying the visible majority. In the reveal phase, voters decrypt and publish what they committed. Votes are weighted by staked tokens, and the outcome that carries the stake-weighted majority becomes the oracle’s answer.
The incentive design is the load-bearing part. Voters who land with the final outcome earn rewards from protocol emissions. Voters who miss a round or land against the outcome lose a slice of their stake. The design intends to pay for diligence, and it mostly does, but it carries a known theoretical flaw inherited from every majority-rewarded oracle: the profitable strategy is voting with the expected majority, not with the truth, and in ordinary cases those two targets coincide. The failure cases are the ones where they separate, and where a large holder can make the majority whatever they need it to be.
There is also a timing cost. An undisputed market settles within hours; a disputed one waits for the full commit and reveal cycle, stretching resolution to days while positions stay frozen and traders argue in evidence threads. For anyone holding size, a dispute is not just a risk to the payout but a lockup on capital.
In November 2025 the system got its most significant overhaul, the Managed Optimistic Oracle V2. MOOv2 restricted the right to propose resolutions to 37 pre-approved addresses, a mix of Risk Labs staff and Polymarket users with high historical accuracy, while keeping disputes open to anyone. The change targeted premature and spam proposals, which had been a chronic source of delays and gamesmanship. Proposing became curated; challenging stayed permissionless.
Where the machine breaks The design has one structural soft spot, and 2026 has stress-tested it in public: the final arbiter is a token vote, and tokens can be bought, concentrated, and conflicted. The numbers behind that concern are not speculative. A Wall Street Journal investigation published in May found that in most disputed Polymarket markets, more than half of the UMA votes came from the ten largest wallets. At least 60% of active UMA voters could be linked to live Polymarket accounts, and roughly one in five disputes had at least one voter with a financial stake in the market they were ruling on. The dispute pipeline itself is swelling: Polymarket logged more than 1,150 disputed markets in the first five months of 2026, already past its full-year 2025 total.
Two cases show what that looks like in practice.
The first was a 2025 market on a United States minerals agreement, where a single large UMA holder cast five million tokens across three accounts, about 25% of the vote in that dispute round, pushing a contested market to resolve early against the plain reading of events. Traders on the wrong side of that ruling lost roughly $7 million. The vote was legal under the system’s rules. That was precisely the criticism.
The second came in June 2026 and drew more than $60 million in volume: a market asking whether Strategy would sell any Bitcoin by May 31. A regulatory filing published on June 1 disclosed that the company had sold 32 BTC between May 26 and May 31 at an average price of $77,135, its first disposal since 2022, inside the market’s cutoff. Two proposed resolutions were challenged, the question escalated to a token vote, and the market ultimately resolved No. Shares tracking the documented answer traded at 12 cents while the dispute ran. Critics across the industry framed the episode as a structural verdict: when ambiguous rules meet concentrated voting power, the payout can diverge from the facts, and the holders of the settlement token can be the same people holding positions in the market being settled.
None of this means most markets resolve wrongly. The overwhelming majority settle cleanly and fast. It means the tail risk is governance-shaped: the worst outcomes cluster in high-volume, ambiguously worded markets where a motivated whale has both the tokens and the position.
Why Polymarket keeps the system anyway Given the 2026 dispute record, the obvious question is why the largest on-chain venue has not replaced its oracle. The answer is a stack of practical reasons that critics tend to skip.
The happy path really is that good. Ninety-nine percent of markets settling within hours, at a cost of fractions of a cent per automated proposal, across every category from elections to award shows, is a service level no alternative currently matches for open-ended questions. Deterministic settlement cannot touch subjective markets at all, and regulated clearing brings jurisdiction constraints that would gut the international product.
The system also iterates. MOOv2 was a direct response to the proposal-spam era and measurably cut premature resolutions. The language model pipeline and evidence bots were responses to speed and quality complaints. Bond sizes, challenge windows, and proposer sets are all tunable parameters, and Risk Labs has shown willingness to tune them under pressure. Whether tuning can fix a voting-power concentration problem is the open question, since the DVM backstop itself is the part no parameter change reaches.
And there is a structural argument: for a venue whose regulatory story leans on decentralization, outsourcing truth to an external token-holder process is a feature. Polymarket does not decide outcomes, and that sentence has legal value. The company’s answer to the United States market was not to change the oracle but to split the product, running the domestic venue through a CFTC-regulated framework while the international book kept UMA. The two-track structure is itself a verdict on where each settlement model belongs.
The rival designs The dispute wave has made resolution architecture a competitive battleground, and three alternative models are now live at scale.
Deterministic validator settlement. Hyperliquid’s HIP-4 outcome markets, live since May 2026, remove the token vote entirely. Settlement runs through the chain’s validator set executing automated resolution against pre-specified objective data sources: no dispute window, no escalation, no path for a market participant to vote on a market. The constraint is scope, since deterministic settlement only fits questions with clean data sources, which is why the first HIP-4 contracts are Bitcoin price thresholds. Our companion guide to HIP-3 and HIP-4 covers the full design, and the market has been pricing Hyperliquid’s prediction market ambitions since the February announcement.
Regulated clearing. Kalshi reaches finality through the opposite architecture: a centralized exchange clearinghouse, registered with the CFTC as a derivatives clearing organization since August 2024, resolving markets under rules filed with a federal regulator and publishing results on-chain through Pyth and RedStone. Disputes go through exchange procedures, not token votes. The model trades decentralization for accountability, and its structured markets rarely face the ambiguity problems that plague open-ended questions. Polymarket’s separate United States venue, itself a CFTC-registered designated contract market that did $3.04 billion in June, follows the same regulated path, while the international venue still settles through UMA.
Purpose-built feeds. For objective, high-frequency questions, oracles built for prices work fine, and Polymarket already uses Chainlink to settle its fast crypto price markets, where no public discourse about the answer is needed. FIFA’s own licensed prediction market partner for the World Cup runs on Chainlink infrastructure, part of the tournament’s broader crypto buildout. Further out, web proof systems could let a resolution cite a cryptographically verified source document instead of a screenshot, a use case covered in our zkTLS explainer.
History adds a warning label to all of it, because decentralized resolution has been tried before and the graveyard is instructive. Augur, the sector’s first major attempt, launched in 2018 with REP token staking where reporters earned by landing with the consensus outcome, and the platform learned quickly that rewarding agreement with the majority is not the same as rewarding truth, especially once invalid and ambiguously worded markets entered the mix. Omen outsourced disputes to Kleros, a decentralized juror court whose participants were likewise paid for voting with the crowd, and inherited the same incentive plus slow rulings and heavy gas costs. Both platforms also discovered that resolution is a liquidity problem in disguise: traders avoid venues where the payout rules feel lottery-shaped, so unreliable settlement starves the order books that make prediction markets useful at all. Every resolution design since is a wager about which failure mode is most tolerable: token capture, institutional discretion, or narrow scope.
What traders should actually check Resolution risk is checkable before entry, and the checklist is short.
Read the resolution criteria as literally as a hostile lawyer would, because the oracle will. The Strategy market turned on exact wording and an exact cutoff. If the criteria name a specific source, that source is the truth regardless of what every news outlet reports. Check the venue’s settlement path: UMA-resolved international Polymarket, a CFTC clearinghouse, a validator-settled chain, and a Chainlink price feed are four different risk profiles wearing the same Yes and No interface. Prefer markets with objective, single-source answers when size matters, since ambiguity is the raw material of every resolution scandal. And in a disputed market, watch the UMA vote rather than the news cycle, because the vote is what pays.
Two habits separate professionals from tourists here. The first is position sizing by resolution clarity: the same trader who is comfortable with six figures on a rate decision, where the source is official and the answer binary, keeps ambiguous cultural or political wording to entertainment-sized stakes. The second is tracking the dispute docket itself. Markets with pending UMA votes, and the wallets voting in them, are public on-chain information, and the recurring names in contested rulings are known to anyone who looks. In a system where the referee list is visible, not reading it is a choice.
One more number worth holding in mind: UMA’s entire token traded around a $63 million market capitalization earlier this year, while the markets it settles cleared billions per month. The economic security of a token-voted oracle is bounded by the cost of acquiring the tokens, and that ratio is the quiet argument behind every alternative design now gaining ground.
Truth as infrastructure Prediction markets are routinely praised as truth machines, better than polls and faster than newsrooms. The praise is half-earned. Prices aggregate beliefs brilliantly, but the settlement layer decides which beliefs get paid, and that layer is built from bonds, challenge windows, token votes, clearinghouse rules, and validator scripts, each with a distinct way of being wrong. The sector’s next phase will be decided as much by resolution engineering as by volume, because traders forgive losing on the outcome and do not forgive losing on the ruling. The machinery for deciding truth is now a product category of its own. It deserves to be read as carefully as the odds.
Frequently asked questions How does Polymarket decide who won a market? Polymarket’s international venue outsources resolution to UMA’s Optimistic Oracle. After an event, an approved proposer submits the outcome with a $750 USDC bond, and a two-hour challenge window opens. If nobody disputes, the market settles on that answer, usually within two to four hours. If a dispute lands, UMA token holders vote through the Data Verification Mechanism, and their ruling is final.
What is UMA’s optimistic oracle? It is an oracle protocol by Risk Labs for bringing arbitrary real-world facts on-chain. It is called optimistic because proposed answers are assumed true unless challenged during a dispute window, with bonds and rewards making honesty profitable and false proposals costly. Around 99% of assertions since 2021 have gone undisputed, and contested cases escalate to a token-holder vote.
What happens when a Polymarket resolution is disputed? The disputer posts a bond matching the proposer’s, and the question escalates to UMA’s Data Verification Mechanism. UMA token holders research the question and vote, with rewards for voting with the final outcome and penalties for missing or voting against it. The losing side’s bond pays the winning side. Disputes stretch resolution from hours to days, and the DVM ruling cannot be appealed.
Why is UMA’s system controversial in 2026? Concentration and conflicts. A Wall Street Journal investigation found most disputed markets saw over half their votes come from the ten largest wallets, and about one in five disputes included a voter holding a position in the market being judged. More than 1,150 markets were disputed in the first five months of 2026, and a $60 million market on a Strategy Bitcoin sale resolved against a documented regulatory filing.
What was the Strategy Bitcoin market dispute? A Polymarket contract asked whether Strategy would sell any Bitcoin by May 31, 2026. A June 1 regulatory filing showed the company sold 32 BTC between May 26 and May 31, inside the window. The resolution was challenged twice, went to a UMA token vote, and the market resolved No anyway. The episode became the leading exhibit in the argument against token-voted settlement.
What is MOOv2? The Managed Optimistic Oracle V2, deployed in November 2025, restricted resolution proposals to 37 pre-approved addresses with strong accuracy records while keeping disputes open to everyone. Paired with language model automation that drafts proposals for fractions of a cent and bots that summarize evidence, it cut spam proposals and sped up routine settlement without changing the token-vote backstop.
How do Kalshi and Hyperliquid settle markets differently? Kalshi resolves through its CFTC-registered clearinghouse under federally filed rules, then publishes results on-chain via Pyth and RedStone, with disputes handled by exchange procedure. Hyperliquid’s HIP-4 uses deterministic settlement by the validator set against pre-specified data sources, with no dispute window at all. Neither involves a token vote, and both are positioned as answers to UMA’s governance risk.
Can a prediction market resolve incorrectly and stay that way? Yes. DVM rulings are final, and Polymarket has honored controversial outcomes rather than overriding the oracle. The practical defenses are all pre-trade: read the resolution criteria literally, check which settlement system the venue uses, prefer objectively verifiable questions for larger positions, and treat ambiguous wording as a risk factor priced into the odds.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Digital asset markets are volatile and you can lose your entire investment. Always do your own research. Information current as of July 3, 2026.
Bloom Energy rozšířila s Brookfield Asset Management dohodu z 5 miliard USD na 25 miliard USD pro AI infrastrukturu. Kapitál má podporovat projekty využívající její energetické servery.
Bloom Energy (BE 6.47%) has launched into the stratosphere.
The clean energy stock started 2026 trading at about $98 per share. Since then, it has nearly tripled to about $289 per share.
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Bloom's momentum was driven by a flurry of exciting news. The company inked and expanded strategic deals with Nebius and Oracle, while also reporting explosive revenue growth and raising its outlook for the remainder of 2026.
Image source: Bloom Energy.
The second half of 2026 has already gotten off to a good start. On June 30, the company expanded its $5 billion deal with Brookfield Asset Management to $25 billion. This, of course, is a financing for AI infrastructure projects, not direct revenue to Bloom. But since that capital will only go to projects that use Bloom's energy servers, it should, in the end, contribute significantly to Bloom's top-line growth.
Still, Bloom has a lot to prove in the second half of 2026 and beyond. Foremost, it needs to show Wall Street that it can translate these exciting partnerships and deals into sustained revenue growth that improves profitability and cash flow.
After its stellar run over the last year, Bloom is trading at a premium, with a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) figure of about 147. Bloom reports second-quarter earnings at the end of July, and another blowout quarter could push this stock to new heights. At the same time, investors should maintain caution, as the stock's pricy valuation could invite downward pressure if the price runs ahead of fundamentals.
Steven Porrello has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bloom Energy, Brookfield Asset Management, and Oracle. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Gnosis Pay oznámil exploit zranitelnosti v modulech Delay a Roles, při němž útočníci získali 1,5 mil. USD a dalších asi 300 tis. USD bylo znepřístupněno. Gnosis ztráty absorboval a všechny prostředky uživatelům obnovil.
On 1 June 2026, attacker(s) exploited a vulnerability that directly affected software modules (Delay Module & Roles Module) used in connection with the Gnosis Pay card safe infrastructure. This resulted in certain user safe wallets, and the funds stored there, either being compromised or at risk of compromise.
The team quickly contained the issue, taking card services offline and co-ordinating with partners to isolate attacker accounts, while keeping partners and users informed, and guaranteeing user funds.
The attacker(s) were able to extract a total of $1.5m. An additional ~$300k was rendered inaccessible and we are exploring recovery options.
Gnosis absorbed the losses and all funds were restored to users.
The TimelineWhenWhat1 Jun 2026
Monitoring flagged the attacker's first large unauthorized transfer at 06:17 UTC and, following verification, the emergency response was initiated.
Root cause identified as a vulnerability in the Zodiac modules at 08:06 UTC.
1 Jun 2026
Card services taken offline. Bridge to Gnosis Chain paused by bridge validators. Attacker-linked addresses shared with stablecoin issuers to isolate where possible.
1–2 Jun 2026
Gnosis leadership proactively notified external projects that were at risk from the same vulnerability.
The Zodiac modules were repaired and shared with ChainSecurity for a focused review.
3 Jun 2026
On the evening of Wednesday, June 3rd, the first accounts were reactivated, including account balance restoration, card re-enabling, and resumption of normal operations.
An emergency fund was established and made available for users in extremis.
4 Jun 2026
ChainSecurity completed their review, the modules were also reviewed by internal teams, and we began the phased resumption of services.
4–7 Jun 2026
We deployed newly engineered card safe modules in tranches, linking to users' existing profiles. This was followed by phased restoration of full account balances and resumption of normal services.
6 Jun 2026
Full services restored to 99% of users, with the remaining accounts restored early the following week.
No users lost funds in the exploit.
Description of the ExploitThe attack was rapidly detected by treasury manager, NOCA, via their monitoring infrastructure. We immediately triggered our incident response protocol and identified the root cause within 2 hours.
The impact was isolated to the card safe software module components (specifically the Delay and Roles Modules provided by Zodiac). To ensure containment during the active triage phase, we systematically paused card transaction processing, authorisation systems, and new user onboarding.
To let an account owner move funds without holding native gas tokens, the account confirms requests with a signature check. It uses a standard method, ERC-1271, which asks a contract a yes-or-no question: is this signature valid?
The check read the answer the contract returned. It did not check whether the call had succeeded. Attacker(s) could deploy a contract that fails on purpose while still returning the "valid" code. To the account, a forged approval looked real. That let the attacker(s) queue withdrawals from accounts they did not own.
The vulnerability entered the Zodiac code in version 3.4.0, released on 30 October 2023, when signature support was added (commit 9a9e380).
The flawed check worked like this:
The fix is small. Also require the call to succeed:
The initial exploit contract is verifiable here: 0x5a77953caa27ed4638f4dfdc665b8064d0e97a35.
A signature patch was flagged as a security fix by the Zodiac team on 5 June 2026 (days after the exploit began).
The Amounts InvolvedAmountTaken by the attacker(s)
~$1.5M
Funds in inaccessible accounts
~$300k
Total
~$1.8M across 5,281 wallets with balance ≥ $1
Assets taken by the attacker(s):
AssetTaken (USD value)GNO
641,159
EURe
453,175
USDC.e
399,121
SAFE
2,202
WETH
323
xDAI
135
USDC
28
USDT
7
Total
~1,496,151
Actions Now UnderwayGrowing the security team.
We are growing the security team and bringing in external researchers to work alongside them, adding dedicated capacity.
Conducting a full internal review of our security practices.
We have an ongoing review of onchain and offchain systems: smart contracts, infrastructure, processes, and dependencies we rely on.
Completing an independent, holistic security assessment.
We are re-assessing our codebase and infrastructure end-to-end with an external security firm, giving us an outside perspective.
Widening our audit scope.
We have extended our smart contract audits to also cover external contracts we depend on.
Actively monitoring dependencies.
We actively monitor the dependencies we rely on, with a clear process to review and act on upstream security fixes quickly.
Rolling out the new Gnosis Pay product (known internally as v2).
We recently completed a full rebuild of the Gnosis Pay product and it is optimized for observability and streamlined operations. That observability ensures our ability to respond rapidly in future.
Cadence Design Systems v 1. čtvrtletí zvýšila tržby na 1,474 miliardy USD a upravený zisk na akcii (non-GAAP) byl 1,96 USD, nad odhadem 1,89 USD. Firma zároveň zvýšila výhled tržeb na 6,125 až 6,225 miliardy USD.
Every AI accelerator that lands in a hyperscaler data center starts as software running on tools from a small club of vendors. Cadence Design Systems (NASDAQ:CDNS | CDNS Price Prediction) sits at the center of that club, and the numbers show what the AI buildout is doing to its business.
An AI Chip Design Tollbooth Cadence’s Q1 FY2026 report, filed April 27, 2026, showed revenue of $1.474 billion, up 18.7% year over year, with non-GAAP EPS of $1.96 against a $1.89 consensus. Backlog hit a record $8.0 billion, with $4.0 billion expected to convert within twelve months. Management raised FY2026 revenue guidance to $6.125 billion to $6.225 billion.
CEO Anirudh Devgan framed the demand picture bluntly: "Cadence had a strong start to 2026 with accelerating AI demand and disciplined execution, delivering one of the best Q1s in the company’s history." On the mechanics of agentic AI expanding tool consumption, he added: "When an agent runs, it explores many more variations than a human would. For example, if a chip has 100 blocks, humans might run one or two experiments per block, but an agent may try 10 or 100 variations."
Powering NVIDIA’s Silicon NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) is the customer that best illustrates the flywheel. NVIDIA’s Q1 FY2027 revenue reached $81.615 billion, up 85.23% year over year, with Data Center revenue of $75.246 billion. Jensen Huang described the moment as "the largest infrastructure expansion in human history." Cadence expanded that relationship as well, with Devgan noting an "expanded partnership on AI and robotics with NVIDIA" spanning chip design, physical AI systems, and hyperscale AI factories.
The AI Investor Portfolio, run by Eric Bleeker, holds Cadence as an active recommendation, part of a broader thesis that "colleges aren’t going to be able to graduate 10 times as many designers for chips", forcing customers to lean on AI-augmented EDA software.
How It Stacks Up Against Synopsys The obvious peer is Synopsys (NASDAQ:SNPS), whose Q2 FY2026 revenue jumped 41.9% year over year, boosted by the ~$35 billion Ansys deal. Investor reception has diverged sharply this year. Cadence is up 19.37% year to date to $373.14, while Synopsys is down 6.93%.
Valuation is the counterweight. Cadence trades at a trailing P/E of 87 and forward P/E of 48, with analysts carrying an average target of $388.78 and 22 Buy or Strong Buy ratings against 3 Holds. With FY2026 guidance calling for Cadence to hit the "Rule of 60 for the first time," the AI-chip tollbooth thesis is showing up cleanly in the operating numbers.
Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Cadence Design Systems didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.
Levi Strauss ve 2. čtvrtletí očekává růst tržeb o 4,8 % na 1,52 mld. USD a EPS 24 centů. Firma ale dál čelí tlaku dodavatelského řetězce, inflace a měnových kurzů.
Key Takeaways Levi Strauss likely benefited from omnichannel initiatives, brand strength and growth in its DTC business. LEVI expected Q2 reported revenue growth of 4-5% and adjusted EBIT margin of 8-9%. Levi Strauss continued to face supply-chain, inflation and foreign exchange pressures on profitability. Levi Strauss & Co. (LEVI - Free Report) is likely to register top and-bottom line growth when it reports second-quarter fiscal 2026 earnings on July 8, before market open. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenues is $1.52 billion, which indicates a rise of 4.8% from the year-ago quarter’s level.
The consensus estimate for quarterly earnings has been stable over the past 30 days at 24 cents per share and indicates a rise of 9.1% from the year-earlier quarter’s tally.
The company has an average trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 21.4%. It delivered an earnings surprise of 13.5% in the last reported quarter.
Factors Likely to Influence LEVI’s Q2 ResultsLevi Strauss’ quarterly performance is likely to have benefited from omnichannel initiatives and brand strength, including jeanswear. The company has been strengthening its omni capabilities, including Buy Online, Pick-up in Store, line-queuing, same-day delivery, mobile checkout and return capabilities, including contactless returns. This ensures a seamless shopping experience for customers across online and offline channels.
The company is expanding its premium product offerings to attract higher-income consumers while maintaining value-oriented options for price-conscious shoppers. At the same time, Levi Strauss is streamlining its brand portfolio by placing greater emphasis on its flagship Levi's brand and other high-growth categories. The company continues to elevate its brands, invest in digital capabilities and diversify across geographies, product categories and distribution channels. These strategic initiatives, coupled with the strength of its direct-to-consumer business, are likely to have supported its quarterly performance. Such strengths, along with its solid direct-to-consumer business, are likely to have bolstered the quarterly performance.
On its last earnings call, management had expected reported revenues to grow in the range of 4-5% for the second quarter and organic growth of 3-4%. The company’s mitigation efforts are likely to have fully offset the tariff impacts. It had anticipated an adjusted EBIT margin in the range of 8-9%, with EPS of 22-24 cents.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for quarterly revenues is currently pegged at $785 million for Americas, $424 million for Europe and $275 million for Asia, indicating respective increases of 4.9%, 5.2% and 6.6% year over year.
However, a challenging operating backdrop, including supply-chain disruptions, inflationary pressures and foreign currency translations, is likely to have been a concern. These headwinds, coupled with deleveraged selling, general and administrative costs, are expected to have somewhat weighed on the company’s profitability. Management had earlier projected the gross margin to be slightly down owing to unfavorable foreign exchange.
What the Zacks Model PredictsOur proven model doesn’t conclusively predict an earnings beat for Levi Strauss this time around. The combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) increases the odds of an earnings beat. But that’s not the case here. You can uncover the best stocks before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.
Levi Strauss has an Earnings ESP of -3.36% and a Zacks Rank of 2.
Valuation Picture of LEVI StockWith a forward 12-month price-to-earnings ratio of 15.30x, which is below the five-year high of 22.86x but above the Retail - Apparel and Shoes industry’s average of 14.33x, the stock is trading slightly higher than its industry. Additionally, the stock has a Value Score of B.
The recent market movements show that Levi’s shares have gained 14.6% in the past six months against the industry's 10% decline.
Stocks With The Favorable CombinationHere are a few companies, which according to our model, have the right combination of elements to come up with an earnings beat this reporting cycle:
Tapestry, Inc. (TPR - Free Report) has an Earnings ESP of +3.42% and a Zacks Rank of 1. TPR is likely to register a top and bottom-line increase when it reports fourth-quarter fiscal 2026 numbers. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for quarterly EPS of $1.23 suggests an increase of 18.3% from the year-ago fiscal quarter’s reported number. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
The consensus estimate for quarterly revenues is pegged at $1.87 billion, suggesting growth of 8.3% from the prior-year fiscal quarter’s reported figure. TPR has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 15.6%, on average.
Wingstop Inc. (WING - Free Report) currently has an Earnings ESP of +0.23% and a Zacks Rank of 3. WING is likely to register a bottom-line increase when it reports fourth-quarter 2026 numbers. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for quarterly EPS of $1.02 suggests an increase of 2% from the year-ago fiscal quarter’s reported number.
WING’s top line is expected to have improved from the prior-year fiscal quarter’s reported number. The consensus estimate for quarterly revenues is pegged at $190.3 million, suggesting growth of 9.1% from the prior-year fiscal quarter’s reported figure. WING has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 17%, on average.
Designer Brands Inc. (DBI - Free Report) currently has an Earnings ESP of +0.09% and a Zacks Rank of 3. The company is expected to have registered a top-line increase when it reports second-quarter fiscal 2026 results. The consensus mark for revenues is pegged at $743 million, indicating a rise of 0.4% from the figure reported in the year-ago quarter.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for quarterly EPS of 25 cents suggests a drop of 26.5% from the year-ago quarter. DBI has a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 112.8%, on average.
Applied Digital dál masivně investuje do datových center AI a financuje expanzi hlavně dluhem. Na Polaris Forge 1 přidala 75 MW, ale z 400 MW pronajaté kapacity je zatím více než polovina stále bez opakovaných příjmů z nájmu.
Key Takeaways Applied Digital is expanding five AI campuses, with new capacity added at Polaris Forge 1.APLD raised billions in secured financing as capital spending continues to exceed operating cash flow.Applied Digital has over half of its 400-megawatt leased capacity still awaiting recurring lease revenues. Applied Digital (APLD - Free Report) continues an aggressive capital spending program as it expands its AI data center footprint across multiple campuses. APLD is simultaneously developing five AI Factory campuses, including Polaris Forge 1, Polaris Forge 2, Delta Forge 1 and Delta Forge 2. Construction of a fourth building at Polaris Forge 1 has already begun before the third building reaches full utilization. On July 1, 2026, Applied Digital placed Phase 1 of the second building at Polaris Forge 1 into service, adding 75 megawatts of operational capacity and taking the campus to 175 megawatts of live capacity. However, this remains well below the 400 megawatts already leased to CoreWeave under long-term agreements, leaving more than half of the contracted capacity yet to contribute recurring lease revenue.
To support this infrastructure expansion, Applied Digital continues to rely on project-level financing rather than internally generated cash flows. The company raised $1.59 billion through senior secured notes due 2031 to fund the fourth building at Polaris Forge 1, following an earlier $300 million bridge facility for the same project and a $2.15 billion senior secured notes offering for Polaris Forge 2. An additional debt tranche remains to be placed for Polaris Forge 1, suggesting financing requirements are likely to remain elevated as construction progresses across its development pipeline.
APLD's adjusted EBITDA was $44.1 million in the fiscal third quarter, while total debt stood at approximately $2.7 billion at the quarter’s end. The pace of capital deployment continues to outstrip current operating cash generation, leaving the company's expansion strategy heavily reliant on external financing. With several AI campuses still under construction and financing needs expected to remain elevated, Applied Digital is likely to remain in an investment-heavy phase until a larger portion of its contracted capacity begins generating recurring lease revenue and cash flows.
APLD Faces Stiff CompetitionApplied Digital competes with IREN Limited (IREN - Free Report) and TeraWulf (WULF - Free Report) in expanding AI infrastructure to serve hyperscale customers. Like Applied Digital, IREN continues investing in high-performance computing capacity, while TeraWulf is expanding its digital infrastructure through AI-focused data center projects. However, compared with IREN and TeraWulf, Applied Digital is pursuing a broader multi-campus expansion strategy, resulting in larger upfront capital commitments and greater reliance on external financing as new capacity is brought online.
APLD’s Share Price Performance, Valuation & EstimatesApplied Digital shares have surged 34.8% year to date, outperforming the broader Zacks Finance sector’s decline of 9% and the Zacks Financial-Miscellaneous Services industry’s increase of 4.5%.
APLD Stock’s Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Applied Digital stock is trading at a forward 12-month price/sales of 12.06X compared with the broader sector’s 2.81X.
APLD’s Valuation
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2026 loss is pegged at 70 cents per share, unchanged over the past 30 days. Applied Digital reported a loss of 80 cents per share in the previous year.
Cerebras po IPO stále obchoduje asi 11 % nad upisovací cenou 185 USD, i když z maxima výrazně ustoupila. Firma hlásí 76% růst hlavních výnosů na 510 milionů USD v roce 2025 a backlog 25 miliard USD.
Cerebras (CBRS 7.31%), a producer of AI chips, went public at $185 per share on May 14. Its stock opened at $350, but it now trades at about $205. That's still 11% above its IPO price, but investors who chased its post-IPO gains are now underwater. Let's see why Cerebras' stock fizzled out -- and if it's worth buying today.
Image source: Getty Images.
What does Cerebras do? Cerebras doesn't produce small GPUs like Nvidia (NVDA 1.39%). Instead, it builds massive AI processors on a single silicon wafer without cutting them into individual chips. Cerebras chips are as big as dinner plates, while Nvidia's GPUs are the size of postage stamps.
Cerebras claims its bigger chips bypass the networking bottlenecks, data latency, and power constraints associated with connecting traditional GPU clusters. They also outperformed traditional GPU clusters in inference tasks (when applications accessed trained data). It generates its revenue by selling its wafer-scale processors and CS-3 systems, as well as providing customers with cloud-based access to its own wafers to run inference tasks.
Cerebras recently secured a multi-year $20 billion deal with OpenAI to deploy 750 megawatts of its wafer-scale inference systems. It's also integrating its CS-3 systems into Amazon (AMZN +0.55%) Web Services (AWS), the world's largest cloud infrastructure platform.
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How fast is Cerebras growing? Cerebras' core revenue (which excludes its "pass-through" revenue for passing the utility, power, and real estate costs paid by its customers to its data center landlords) surged 76% to $510 million in 2025. It expects that figure to rise 68%-70% to $855-$865 million in 2026.
Cerebras also has a backlog of $25 billion, which guarantees that its revenue will keep rising for the foreseeable future. However, its gross margins are shrinking because it's renting back some computing capacity from its own customers as it builds its own data centers. That pressure should ease as it expands its first-party infrastructure, but it will likely remain unprofitable.
With a market cap of $46.4 billion, Cerebras trades at 54 times this year's sales. But it also trades at just six times its projected revenue of $7.32 billion in 2028 -- which would represent a 143% three-year CAGR from 2025. Analysts also expect its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) to turn positive in 2027 and 2028.
Is Cerebras' stock worth buying? Cerebras' strategy of building plate-sized chips and renting out its processing power sounds wild, but its massive backlog indicates it's on the right track. Its stock will remain volatile in this choppy market, but it's worth accumulating as a long-term play on the booming AI market.
Exxon Mobil a QatarEnergy s Kyprem podepsaly dohodu, která potvrzuje komerční využitelnost nalezišť Glaucus a Pegasus. Naleziště mohou obsahovat 8–9 bilionů kubických stop plynu.
Key Takeaways XOM and QatarEnergy signed a Cyprus deal affirming Glaucus and Pegasus discoveries as marketable.Cyprus says the offshore fields could hold 8-9 Tcf of gas, with FID expected by 2029.XOM expects first production by 2033 if the project proceeds as planned after appraisal and FEED. Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM - Free Report) , a U.S.-based energy giant, and QatarEnergy have signed a deal with Cyprus affirming the prospects of two offshore natural gas discoveries as marketable, implying that these resources are large enough to be commercially developed. Per a Reuters report, the Declaration of Marketability was signed in Nicosia and is considered a significant milestone for Cyprus, as it facilitates the project's development. For Cyprus, this is a major step forward in its efforts to advance offshore gas discoveries into producing fields.
Project Progresses Toward FEED and Final Investment DecisionThe gas discoveries are located in two offshore blocks in the Glaucus and Pegasus gas fields. Cyprus has mentioned that the two discoveries could contain combined resources of approximately 8-9 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of gas.This project is central to the country’s ambitions of establishing the Eastern Mediterranean as a reliable gas supplier to Europe.
ExxonMobil has stated that a final investment decision for the project is expected by 2029 and that, if the project proceeds according to plan, first production is expected by 2033. However, the report mentioned that the companies will first conduct additional drilling on the offshore fields to better understand their size and properties before progressing to the front-end engineering and design (FEED) phase.
Egypt's Existing Infrastructure to Support CommercializationIn May 2026, QatarEnergy signed a preliminary agreement with XOM and the government of Egypt to study the commercialization of gas resources discovered in Cyprus via Egypt's existing natural gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities. The agreement was intended to help the companies and the Egyptian government understand how Egypt's existing gas infrastructure could be utilized to develop Cyprus’ natural gas resources and evaluate related business and growth opportunities. The agreement could also help the companies to utilize existing resources optimally to support increasing gas needs in domestic and international markets.
ExxonMobil has stated that natural gas from the Pegasus and Glaucus fields would most likely be transported to Egypt through a pipeline tie-back, thereby utilizing existing infrastructure and making the development cost-efficient. A similar approach is also being considered for other gas discoveries in Cypriot waters. The Aphrodite gas field, operated by Chevron, contains an estimated 3.5-4.5 Tcf of natural gas, while the Cronos gas field, operated by Eni and TotalEnergies, contains more than 3 Tcf of gas. Both fields may also be connected to Egypt's gas and LNG infrastructure through similar pipeline tie-backs, which could utilize the country's spare operating capacity.
Strategic Importance for Cyprus and Europe's Energy SecurityThe agreement marks a significant step toward unlocking Cyprus' offshore natural gas potential and enhancing the Eastern Mediterranean region’s potential to become an alternative gas supplier to Europe. The project is expected to provide a reliable source of natural gas for the continent, supporting the region's efforts to diversify energy supplies and enhance Europe’s long-term energy security.
XOM’s Zacks Rank and Key PicksXOM currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Some better-ranked stocks from the energy sector are Cenovus Energy (CVE - Free Report) , Par Pacific Holdings (PARR - Free Report) and FuelCell Energy (FCEL - Free Report) . While Cenovus Energy sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), Par Pacific and FuelCell Energy each carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks Rank #1 stocks here.
Cenovus Energy Inc. is a Canadian integrated energy company with operations spanning the upstream, midstream and downstream sectors. The company is involved in exploration and production from its low-cost oil sands and heavy oil assets in Canada. The strategic MEG Energy acquisition is expected to boost Cenovus Energy's production levels in 2026.
Par Pacific Holdings is a Houston-based refining player with a combined refining capacity of 219,000 barrels per day, and operations spread across Hawaii, the Pacific Northwest and the Rockies. The company also operates 76 branded retail locations along with a logistics business segment.
FuelCell Energy is a clean energy company that offers scalable, reliable, low-carbon power solutions. It produces power using flexible fuel sources such as biogas, natural gas and hydrogen. The company’s proprietary molten carbonate fuel cell systems generate electricity through an electrochemical process instead of burning fuel, reducing carbon emissions and minimizing the environmental impact of power generation. FCEL is anticipated to play a crucial role in the energy transition by enabling industries and communities to shift from traditional fossil fuels to low-carbon alternatives.
GE Aerospace získala objednávky na více než 650 komerčních motorů a uzavřela dlouhodobou smlouvu s Ryanair. Tržby divize Commercial Engines & Services vzrostly o 34 % na 8,92 miliardy USD.
Key Takeaways GE received orders for over 650 commercial engines and signed a long-term materials deal with Ryanair.Commercial Engines & Services revenues rose 34%, with orders jumping 93% to $17.3 billion.GE expects mid-teens 2026 revenue growth in Commercial Engines & Services amid strong air travel demand. GE Aerospace’s (GE - Free Report) commercial aerospace market is playing a significant role in driving its overall growth. In first-quarter 2026, the company received orders for more than 650 commercial engines, including commitments from American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Airlines. It also entered into a long-term materials agreement to support Ryanair’s fleet of about 2,000 CFM56 and LEAP engines.
In the first quarter, revenues from the Commercial Engines & Services segment increased 34% year over year to $8.92 billion. The gain was driven by services growth of 39%, with internal shop visit revenues up 35% on higher volume and workscopes. Spare parts revenues increased more than 25%, reflecting robust aftermarket demand. Total orders in the segment rose 93% year over year to $17.3 billion.
In response to these robust orders, GE has also been investing in its manufacturing capabilities, MRO facilities and new technologies. For 2026, the company had announced its plan to invest an additional $1 billion in U.S. manufacturing and technology. Also, in the same period, GE Aerospace plans to invest more than €110 million across its European manufacturing facilities.
With commercial aircraft programs expected to continue benefiting from the strength in air travel, GE is poised to maintain strong demand momentum in the quarters ahead. For 2026, adjusted revenues from the Commercial Engines & Services segment are expected to experience mid-teens growth.
GE's Peers in the Aerospace MarketAmong its major peers, RTX Corporation (RTX - Free Report) is benefiting from strength in the commercial aerospace market, with growth in both aftermarket and OEM verticals. RTX reported 10% organic sales growth in the first quarter, driven by solid momentum in the Collins Aerospace and Pratt & Whitney segments. Rising aircraft utilization and demand for sustainable technologies are supporting RTX Corp.’s growth.
Its another peer, Howmet Aerospace Inc. (HWM - Free Report) is benefiting from persistent strength in the commercial aerospace market. Revenues from Howmet’s commercial aerospace market increased 20% year over year (exceeding $1.2 billion) in the first quarter, constituting 53% of its business. Also, in 2025, revenues from the market increased 12% year over year.
GE's Price Performance, Valuation and EstimatesShares of GE Aerospace have gained 30.7% in the past three months compared with the industry’s growth of 1.1%.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
From a valuation standpoint, GE is trading at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 46.74X, above the industry’s average of 33.51X. GE Aerospace carries a Value Score of D.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for GE’s 2026 earnings has gone up 0.3% over the past 60 days.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The company currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Snowflake po silném čtvrtletí a růstu poptávky po AI zvedla celoroční výhled tržeb na 5,84 miliardy USD. Akcie se od únorového minima zvedly zhruba o 54 %.
Snowflake has quietly become one of the loudest AI-software rebounds of the year. Shares changed hands at $260 on Wednesday, up ~54% from the $169 close on February 25, when the Q4 print landed into a nervous SaaS tape. The recovery accelerated after May, when management delivered a quarter that changed the conversation from “consumption headwinds” to “AI inflection.” Eric Bleeker of 24/7 Wall St had already added Snowflake (NYSE:SNOW | SNOW Price Prediction) to his AI portfolio before that reset.
The quarter that flipped the script Q1 FY27, reported May 27, was the kind of print bulls had been waiting two years for. Revenue rose 33.5% to $1.39 billion, and non-GAAP EPS of $0.39 cleared the $0.32 consensus for a fourth straight beat. The number that mattered most, though, was remaining performance obligations of $9.21 billion, up 38%. In a consumption business, RPO growth outrunning revenue growth means customers are pre-committing to workloads they have not yet run. That is the signal the market kept demanding.
CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy called it “the strongest sequential dollar growth in our history” and pointed at the AI stack as the reason. More than 13,600 accounts are now using Snowflake AI features, Cortex Code sits inside 7,100+ accounts, and Snowflake Intelligence usage more than doubled quarter over quarter. Net revenue retention held at 126%, meaning every dollar of last year’s customer is now spending $1.26.
The AWS handshake and the AI ecosystem trade The other headline was a $6 billion multi-year collaboration with Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) covering AWS infrastructure, co-selling, and enterprise AI deployments. Snowflake runs on AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, but Amazon is the anchor tenant, and a commitment this size tells you AWS is willing to fund Snowflake’s growth to keep AI-native data workloads inside its walls rather than losing them to Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Fabric. Snowflake also deepened its OpenAI partnership and closed a deal to buy Natoma, an enterprise Model Context Protocol platform for AI agents. Read together, these are the pieces of a platform trying to become, as Ramaswamy put it, “the control plane for the Agentic Enterprise.”
What has to keep working Management raised full-year FY27 product revenue guidance to $5.84 billion, or 31% growth, and lifted the non-GAAP operating margin target to 13.5% from 12.5%. The counterweight is real: Snowflake still ran a $326 million GAAP operating loss in the quarter, and consumption revenue can wobble if customers throttle usage.
The next earnings release will show whether the AI account count keeps climbing above 13,600, whether RPO growth stays north of revenue growth, and whether operating margin walks toward the raised 13.5% mark. Bleeker added Snowflake to the AI Investor portfolio and layered on again on February 28, 2025, after an earlier position taken on December 20, 2024. The rebound has done its work. The open question is whether the agentic pitch converts into another leg of consumption, and the analyst who called it early is still watching.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Unity Software ve 1. čtvrtletí zvýšila tržby o 16,84 % na 508,24 milionu USD a upravená marže EBITDA vzrostla na 27 %. Firma zároveň čeká, že strategické tržby Grow ve 2. čtvrtletí dosáhnou 302 až 306 milionů USD, což představuje růst o 50 % až 52 %.
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Unity Software (NYSE:U | U Price Prediction) is trying to reinvent itself as an AI advertising platform, and the numbers are starting to back the pitch. The question is whether the company can close the yawning profitability gap with the AI ad-tech leader before the market’s patience runs out.
The Vector Bet Is Working Unity reported Q1 2026 revenue of $508.24 million, up 16.84% year over year, with Grow Solutions climbing 24% to $352 million. Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 27%, up from 19% a year ago, and free cash flow jumped to $66.46 million from $7.31 million.
The engine behind that is Unity Vector, the AI ad platform that uses behavioral data from Unity Runtime. It reached 56% of Grow Solutions revenue in Q4 2025 after three straight quarters of mid-teen sequential growth. CEO Matt Bromberg told investors, "We are delivering exceptional revenue growth and margin expansion while executing on the most exciting product roadmap in Unity’s history."
Management is cleaning house to focus on Vector. Unity took $279 million in impairment charges tied to the April 30, 2026 sunset of the ironSource Ads Network and a planned Supersonic divestiture, contributing to a $347 million GAAP net loss. Q2 guidance calls for strategic Grow revenue of $302M to $306M, up 50% to 52% YoY, with GAAP profitability targeted for Q4 2026.
The AppLovin Benchmark AppLovin (NASDAQ:APP) shows what a mature AI ad platform can produce. Q1 2026 revenue was $1.84 billion at an 85% adjusted EBITDA margin, with operating margin of 78% and net margin of 65%. Its AXON 2 engine has driven consistent 1 to 2 percentage point quarterly margin expansion. AppLovin shares are up 56.86% over the past year to $527.06, versus Unity at $29.32, down 33.62% year to date.
Roblox and the Platform Question Roblox (NYSE:RBLX) is the adjacent AI-gaming ecosystem risk, growing Q1 2026 revenue 39.3% to $1.44 billion with 132 million DAUs. Podcast commentary on Unity’s engine business framed the stakes plainly: "their newish launch of Vector, their new ad tech product, does seem to be turning things around. And there is very noticeable revenue momentum here." But the same analysis warned Unity and Unreal "have a lot of work to do in order to be more compatible with AI native workflows," opening the door for Godot, Replit, and middleware startups.
What to Watch Analyst consensus sits at $35.28, with 17 buys and 9 holds. Unity is an active recommendation in Eric Bleeker’s AI Investor Portfolio. The tell will be Q4 2026: hitting GAAP profitability while Vector keeps compounding would validate the pivot. Missing it, with $2.24 billion in convertible notes outstanding, would reopen every old question about the story.
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Medtronic ve 4. čtvrtletí překonal odhady díky tržbám 9,81 miliardy USD a zvýšil výhled na fiskální rok 2027. Akcie od poslední výsledkové zprávy přidaly asi 1,5 %.
It has been about a month since the last earnings report for Medtronic (MDT - Free Report) . Shares have added about 1.5% in that time frame, outperforming the S&P 500.
Will the recent positive trend continue leading up to its next earnings release, or is Medtronic due for a pullback? Before we dive into how investors and analysts have reacted as of late, let's take a quick look at the most recent earnings report in order to get a better handle on the important catalysts.
Medtronic's Q4 Earnings & Revenues Top EstimatesMedtronic plc posted fourth-quarter fiscal 2026 adjusted earnings of $1.55 per share, down 4.3% from the year-ago quarter but above the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.6%.
For the full-year fiscal 2026, adjusted earnings per share was $5.53, up 0.7% year over year. The figure missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.2%.
Revenue rose 9.9% year over year to $9.81 billion and beat the consensus by 1.5%. The upside came as procedure-driven demand stayed firm across key franchises. Cardiac Ablation Solutions revenue surged 78% globally, including 124% growth in the United States, while multiple portfolios delivered healthy gains.
Full-year worldwide revenues totaled $36.4 billion, up 8.4% year over year. The top line marginally surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.6%.
MDT’s Portfolio Mix Tilted Toward Cardiovascular
Cardiovascular generated $3.80 billion in the quarter, underscoring the importance of the company’s largest portfolio to overall momentum. Neuroscience contributed $2.75 billion, and Medical Surgical added $2.39 billion, reflecting steady demand across hospital-based therapy areas.
Diabetes produced $837 million of revenue and remained a meaningful growth lever alongside the broader portfolios. The mix shows Medtronic’s exposure to both large, recurring procedural categories and faster-moving product cycles in areas like diabetes management.
MDT’s Geographic Split Favored International Growth
U.S. revenue increased 7.1% year over year to $4.87 billion, supported by gains across major portfolios and continued procedure volume resilience.
International revenue advanced 12.8% to $4.94 billion. The overseas outperformance was broad-based and included a notable lift in Diabetes internationally, reinforcing how global scale can amplify Medtronic’s reported results when demand is healthy.
Medtronic’s Adjusted Margins Mixed in the Quarter
On an adjusted basis, Medtronic posted gross margin of 65.4% in fourth-quarter fiscal 2026, up 30 basis points year over year, reflecting a modest improvement in profitability at the product level.
However, operating leverage moved the other way. The adjusted operating margin fell to 25.5%, down 230 basis points from the prior-year quarter, as the company absorbed notable headwinds, including margin impacts tied to the MiniMed Blackstone payment and tariffs.
Medtronic’s Cash Generation Supports Returns and Investment
Operating cash flow totaled $7.33 billion in fiscal 2026, providing the financial flexibility to fund both portfolio investment and shareholder distributions. Free cash flow was $5.43 billion for the year, equal to 76% free cash flow conversion from adjusted net earnings.
Medtronic also returned $4.2 billion to shareholders in fiscal 2026 and ended the year with $9.2 billion in cash and investments.
Medtronic’s FY27 Guidance and Shareholder Returns
Looking ahead, the company guided for fiscal 2027 organic revenue growth of 6.75% to 7.25% and adjusted earnings of $5.90 to $6.00 per share. The outlook bakes in the benefit of a 53rd week, additional M&A and a full-year contribution from the Diabetes business, while also considering tariffs, interest and tax expense. The Zacks Consensus Estimate projects fiscal 2027 revenues of $38.39 billion, up 6.1% from fiscal 2026 levels, while earnings per share is expected to rise 9.7% to $6.08.
Medtronic also increased its quarterly dividend to $0.72 per share, implying an annual rate of $2.88 and marking its 49th consecutive year of dividend increases.
How Have Estimates Been Moving Since Then?Since the earnings release, investors have witnessed a upward trend in estimates revision.
VGM ScoresCurrently, Medtronic has a subpar Growth Score of D, though it is lagging a bit on the Momentum Score front with an F. However, the stock was allocated a grade of B on the value side, putting it in the second quintile for value investors.
Overall, the stock has an aggregate VGM Score of D. If you aren't focused on one strategy, this score is the one you should be interested in.
OutlookEstimates have been broadly trending upward for the stock, and the magnitude of these revisions looks promising. Interestingly, Medtronic has a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell). We expect a below average return from the stock in the next few months.
Broadcom vykázal ve 2. čtvrtletí zisk na akcii 2,44 USD a tržby 22,19 miliardy USD, obojí nad odhady. Tržby z AI polovodičů vyskočily o 143 % na 10,8 miliardy USD.
It has been about a month since the last earnings report for Broadcom Inc. (AVGO - Free Report) . Shares have lost about 14% in that time frame, underperforming the S&P 500.
But investors have to be wondering, will the recent negative trend continue leading up to its next earnings release, or is Broadcom Inc. due for a breakout? Before we dive into how investors and analysts have reacted as of late, let's take a quick look at the latest earnings report in order to get a better handle on the important catalysts.
Broadcom Q2 Earnings Beat Estimates, Revenues Up Y/YBroadcom reported second-quarter fiscal 2026 non-GAAP earnings of $2.44 per share, which beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 1.67% and rose 54% year over year.
Revenues rose 48% year over year to $22.19 billion and beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.68%. The quarter benefited from accelerating AI semiconductor revenues, which reached $10.8 billion, up 143% year over year and exceeding the company’s outlook.
AVGO’s Q2 DetailsSemiconductor solutions revenues (68% of net revenues) totaled $15.01 billion, up 79% year over year. Management said the upside was powered by AI semiconductors, with networking representing almost 40% of AI revenues in the quarter.
Infrastructure software revenues (32% of net revenues) climbed 9% year over year to $7.18 billion. Management noted that software bookings stayed strong and the company sustained ARR growth of 17% year over year.
Profitability remained a standout despite mix headwinds. Non-GAAP gross margin was 77.1%, down 230 basis points year over year as semiconductors became a larger proportion of the mix.
Research and development expenses, as a percentage of net revenues, decreased 290 bps year over year to 7.2%. SG&A expenses, as a percentage of net revenues, decreased 130 bps to 2.6%.
Adjusted EBITDA rose 52% year over year to $15.24 billion. The adjusted EBITDA margin was 68.7%, up 210 bps year over year.
Operating margin rose 52.4% year over year to a record $14.9 billion, reflecting strong operating leverage as non-GAAP operating margin expanded 200 bps year over year to 67.3%.
AVGO’s Balance Sheet & Cash FlowAs of May 3, 2026, cash and cash equivalents were $19.63 billion, up from $14.17 billion as of Feb.1, 2026.
Total debt (including the current portion of $3.15 billion) was $66.06 billion as of Feb. 1, 2026 compared with $65.14 billion as of Nov. 2, 2025.
Broadcom generated $10.49 billion in cash flow from operations in the quarter compared with $8.26 billion in the previous quarter. The free cash flow was $10.26 billion compared with $8.01 billion in the prior quarter.
During the quarter, Broadcom paid stockholders $3.09 billion of cash dividends based on a quarterly common stock dividend of $0.65 per share. The company also repurchased $600 million of common stock under its repurchase program.
AVGO Offers Q3 GuidanceFor the third quarter of fiscal 2026, Broadcom expects revenues of approximately $29.4 billion, indicating 84% year-over-year growth. The company expects non-GAAP operating income and adjusted EBITDA to be approximately 67% and 68% of projected revenues, respectively.
Management also guided for semiconductor revenues of roughly $20.5 billion and infrastructure software revenues of about $8.9 billion for the third quarter of fiscal 2026. Within semiconductors, management expects AI semiconductor revenues to accelerate to $16 billion in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, soaring more than 200% year over year, as demand for custom AI accelerators and AI networking remains strong.
How Have Estimates Been Moving Since Then?In the past month, investors have witnessed a upward trend in estimates review.
VGM ScoresCurrently, Broadcom Inc. has a nice Growth Score of B, though it is lagging a lot on the Momentum Score front with a D. Following the exact same course, the stock has a score of D on the value side, putting it in the bottom 40% for value investors.
Overall, the stock has an aggregate VGM Score of C. If you aren't focused on one strategy, this score is the one you should be interested in.
OutlookEstimates have been broadly trending upward for the stock, and the magnitude of these revisions looks promising. Interestingly, Broadcom Inc. has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). We expect an in-line return from the stock in the next few months.
Performance of an Industry PlayerBroadcom Inc. is part of the Zacks Electronics - Semiconductors industry. Over the past month, Credo Technology Group Holding Ltd. (CRDO - Free Report) , a stock from the same industry, has gained 11.2%. The company reported its results for the quarter ended April 2026 more than a month ago.
Credo Technology Group reported revenues of $437 million in the last reported quarter, representing a year-over-year change of +157%. EPS of $1.16 for the same period compares with $0.35 a year ago.
For the current quarter, Credo Technology Group is expected to post earnings of $1.16 per share, indicating a change of +123.1% from the year-ago quarter. The Zacks Consensus Estimate remained unchanged over the last 30 days.
The overall direction and magnitude of estimate revisions translate into a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) for Credo Technology Group. Also, the stock has a VGM Score of C.
Roblox čelí hromadné žalobě po výsledcích za 1Q 2026 z 30. dubna 2026, které ukázaly prudký pokles denních aktivních uživatelů a snížení výhledu tržeb i objemu rezervací. Akcie spadly o 18 % a tržní kapitalizace se propadla o více než 6,7 miliardy USD.
SAN FRANCISCO, July 03, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Roblox Corporation (NYSE: RBLX) faces a securities class action lawsuit after its April 30, 2026 Q1 2026 report indicating a surprisingly large sequential decline in daily active users (“DAUs”) tempered by its age-check rollout. The news drove the price of Roblox shares down $10.13 (-18%) the next trading day and erased over $6.7 billion from the company’s market capitalization.
The lawsuit seeks to represent investors who purchased or otherwise acquired Roblox common stock between October 30, 2025 and April 30, 2026.
National shareholder rights firm Hagens Berman is investigating the legal claims that Roblox and its co-defendants violated the federal securities laws. The firm encourages Roblox investors who suffered substantial losses to submit your losses now.
Class Period: Oct. 30, 2025 – Apr. 30, 2026
Lead Plaintiff Deadline: Aug. 7, 2026
Visit: www.hbsslaw.com/investor-fraud/rblx
Contact the Firm Now: [email protected]
844-916-0895
Roblox Corporation (RBLX) Securities Class Action:
The primary focus of the litigation is on the propriety of Roblox’s disclosures about the impact on its business and prospects of the age-check verification rollout aimed at increasing safety within certain social features on its platform. The rollout began in November 2025.
Throughout the Class Period, Roblox has characterized its rollout as the “gold standard” intended to be implemented with “no friction.” The company has also touted its high year-over-year DAU growth and related revenue and bookings growth.
As recently as February 5, 2026, during Roblox’s Q4 2025 earnings call, CEO David Baszucki responded to an analyst’s question about additional detail about the age-check rollout, assuring investors that “[w]e’re very excited and proud of the way our age verification rollout has gone” and “we found so many other opportunities for optimization that I’m very pleased and happy about the way the rollout has gone.”
The complaint alleges that Roblox made false and misleading statements while failing to disclose important information to investors about the true state of the company’s growth potential. More specifically, the complaint alleges that Roblox would see significant growth slowdown as enrollments in its age-check rollout would quickly taper, compounding the resulting slowdown in on-line platform communication and resulting in app store rating reductions and a swift reduction in organic growth.
The truth entered the market on April 30, 2026. That day, Roblox reported its Q1 2026 financial results, revealed a steep deceleration in year-over-year and sequential DAU growth, slashed its 2026 revenue guidance (reflecting ongoing shrinkage in DAU growth), and severely cut its 2026 bookings growth midpoint from 24% to just 10%.
The company blamed its adverse situation on just 51% of Roblox global DAUs having age checked and further revealed that “as a result of age check […] we have seen a reduction in app store ratings, and we believe this may be contributing to a reduction in organic sign-ups that typically flow from app stores.” Roblox also said its lowered prospects are the result of “continued friction” resulting from the age-check rollout.
“We’re focused on when Roblox and its management knew of the adverse consequences of the age-check rollout and whether they intentionally misled investors it,” said Reed Kathrein, the Hagens Berman partner leading the firm’s investigation.
If you invested in Roblox and have substantial losses, or have knowledge that will assist the firm’s investigation, submit your losses now.
If you’d like more information and answers to other frequently asked questions about the Roblox case and the firm’s investigation, read more.
Whistleblowers: Persons with non-public information regarding Roblox should consider their options to help in the investigation or take advantage of the SEC Whistleblower program. Under the new program, whistleblowers who provide original information may receive rewards totaling up to 30 percent of any successful recovery made by the SEC. For more information, call Reed Kathrein at 844-916-0895 or email [email protected].
About Hagens Berman
Hagens Berman is a global plaintiffs’ rights complex litigation firm focusing on corporate accountability. The firm is home to a robust practice and represents investors as well as whistleblowers, workers, consumers and others in cases achieving real results for those harmed by corporate negligence and other wrongdoings. Hagens Berman’s team has secured more than $2.9 billion in this area of law. More about the firm and its successes can be found at hbsslaw.com. Follow the firm for updates and news at @ClassActionLaw.
Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome in any future case.
Akcie CrowdStrike za zhruba měsíc od poslední výsledkové zprávy vzrostly asi o 7,9 %. Firma zároveň zvýšila výhled na fiskální rok 2027, včetně tržeb ve výši 5,91–5,95 miliardy USD.
It has been about a month since the last earnings report for CrowdStrike Holdings (CRWD - Free Report) . Shares have added about 7.9% in that time frame, outperforming the S&P 500.
But investors have to be wondering, will the recent positive trend continue leading up to its next earnings release, or is CrowdStrike due for a pullback? Well, first let's take a quick look at the latest earnings report in order to get a better handle on the recent catalysts for CrowdStrike before we dive into how investors and analysts have reacted as of late.
CrowdStrike Q1 Earnings Surpass Estimates on ARR Strength, AI DemandCrowdStrike reported non-GAAP earnings per share of $1.10 for the first quarter of fiscal 2027, which surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2.8%. The bottom line increased 50.7% on a year-over-year basis.
The company’s first-quarter revenues of $1,385.63 million surpassed the consensus estimate by 1.7%. The top line increased 25.6% year over year.
CRWD’s Top-Line DetailsSubscription revenues jumped 25.7% year over year to $1,320.85 million. Professional services revenues increased 23% year over year to $64.78 million.
As of April 30, 2026, annual recurring revenues (ARR) were $5.51 billion, up 24% year over year. The company added $255.8 million to its net new ARR in the reported quarter.
As of April 30, 2026, CrowdStrike’s subscription customers, who adopted six or more cloud modules, represented 51% of total subscription customers. Customers that adopted seven or more cloud modules accounted for 35% of the total, while those with eight or more cloud modules represented 25%.
CrowdStrike’s Operating DetailsCrowdStrike’s gross profit increased 27.1% to $1,089.8 million in the fiscal first quarter from $857.1 million in the year-ago quarter. The non-GAAP gross margin increased 100 basis points to 78.7%.
The non-GAAP subscription gross profit rose 27.1% year over year to $1.07 billion, while the gross margin expanded 100 basis points (bps) year over year to 81%. The non-GAAP professional gross profit increased 29.5% to $21.2 million, while the gross margin expanded 160 bps to 32.7% on a year-over-year basis.
Non-GAAP sales and marketing expenses jumped 12.1% year over year to $413.1 million. Non-GAAP research and development expenses climbed 25.3% year over year to $273.4 million. Non-GAAP general and administrative expenses increased 12% year over year to $77.7 million.
Non-GAAP income from operations was $325.7 million, up from $201.1 million in the year-ago quarter. The non-GAAP operating margin expanded 530 basis points year over year to 24%.
CrowdStrike’s Balance Sheet & Cash FlowAs of April 30, 2026, cash and cash equivalents were $4.55 billion.
In the fiscal first quarter, CrowdStrike generated operating and free cash flows of $590.9 million and $468.5 million, respectively.
CrowdStrike Offers Q2 and FY2027 GuidanceThe company updates its fiscal second-quarter 2027 guidance, including total revenues of $1.43-$1.44 billion and ARR of $5.792-$5.794 billion.
Non-GAAP earnings are expected in the range of $1.16 to $1.17 per share.
The company also raised its fiscal 2027 net new ARR growth guidance by 520 basis points at the midpoint and updated its full-year guidance to include total revenues of $5.91-$5.95 billion and ARR of $6.53-$6.55 billion.
For fiscal 2027, Non-GAAP earnings are expected in the range of $4.88 to $4.96 per share.
How Have Estimates Been Moving Since Then?It turns out, estimates revision have trended upward during the past month.
The consensus estimate has shifted -11.8% due to these changes.
VGM ScoresAt this time, CrowdStrike has a great Growth Score of A, though it is lagging a lot on the Momentum Score front with an F. Following the exact same course, the stock has a score of F on the value side, putting it in the lowest quintile for value investors.
Overall, the stock has an aggregate VGM Score of D. If you aren't focused on one strategy, this score is the one you should be interested in.
OutlookEstimates have been broadly trending upward for the stock, and the magnitude of these revisions indicates a downward shift. Notably, CrowdStrike has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). We expect an in-line return from the stock in the next few months.
Performance of an Industry PlayerCrowdStrike belongs to the Zacks Security industry. Another stock from the same industry, Palo Alto Networks (PANW - Free Report) , has gained 24.6% over the past month. More than a month has passed since the company reported results for the quarter ended April 2026.
Palo Alto reported revenues of $3 billion in the last reported quarter, representing a year-over-year change of +31.1%. EPS of $0.85 for the same period compares with $0.80 a year ago.
Palo Alto is expected to post earnings of $0.97 per share for the current quarter, representing a year-over-year change of +2.1%. Over the last 30 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate has changed -6.5%.
Palo Alto has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) based on the overall direction and magnitude of estimate revisions. Additionally, the stock has a VGM Score of F.
Cloudflare v 1. čtvrtletí zvýšila tržby o 33,54 % na 639,75 milionu USD a překonala odhady EPS. Zároveň oznámila, že zruší zhruba 1 100 pracovních míst, tedy asi 20 % stavu.
Cloudflare is making the boldest AI pivot of any Tier 1 internet infrastructure provider. On the Q1 2026 earnings call, CEO Matthew Prince told investors that "AI is driving a fundamental re-platforming of the Internet and a paradigm shift in how software is created and consumed; it's shaping up to be the biggest tailwind we've ever seen in Cloudflare's history."
The Numbers Behind the AI Thesis Cloudflare (NYSE:NET | NET Price Prediction) posted Q1 revenue of $639.75 million, up 33.54% year-over-year, with non-GAAP EPS of $0.25 exceeding estimates. Current RPO grew 34% year-over-year, and free cash flow reached $84.07 million, or 13% of revenue. Prince disclosed that $5M+ annual customer additions in Q1 matched the entire haul from all of 2025, and Cloudflare added 1 million new developers in Q1 alone, versus 1.5 million in all of 2025.
Reorganizing Around Agents Cloudflare announced a workforce reduction of approximately 1,100 employees, roughly 20% of headcount, with restructuring charges of $140 million to $150 million concentrated in Q2. Prince said: "This is not a cost-cutting exercise or an assessment of the individuals' performance. It is about defining how a world-class, high-growth company operates and creates value in the agentic AI era."
Internal proof points are striking. Prince noted Cloudflare's usage of AI has increased more than 600% in the last three months, 97% of engineering uses AI coding tools, and 100% of production code contributions are reviewed by autonomous AI agents. On Workers, one large AI studio went from zero Dynamic Workers to over 1 million running on the platform in 15 days.
Peer Contrast: Fastly and Akamai Fastly (NYSE:FSLY) is pursuing bot-management tools like Content Guard and the Fastly Agent Toolkit. The security segment grew 47% year-over-year to $38.8 million. Akamai (NASDAQ:AKAM) is chasing scale deals: CEO Tom Leighton highlighted a $1.8 billion, seven-year commitment from a leading frontier model provider for Cloud Infrastructure Services, which grew 40% year-over-year to $94.6 million, even as total company growth registered just 5.76%.
Valuation and Market Response Cloudflare shares trade at $242.41, up 22.96% year-to-date, against a forward P/E of 204 and price-to-sales of 37. The analyst consensus price target sits at $243.65, with 22 buy or strong-buy ratings against two sell ratings. Eric Bleeker holds Cloudflare as an active recommendation in The AI Investor Portfolio.
The bull case: if agents become the dominant internet users, Cloudflare’s Workers platform sits at the center of that traffic. The bear case is valuation and GAAP gross margin compression from 75.9% to 71.2%. Watch Q2 execution against $664-$665 million revenue guidance and restructuring rollout pace.
Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Cloudflare didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.
Dell v 1. čtvrtletí vykázal rekordní tržby divize ISG ve výši 29 mld. USD, tažené servery pro AI, a objednávky na AI dosáhly 24,4 mld. USD. Firma má rekordní AI backlog 51,3 mld. USD a pro fiskální rok 2027 čeká tržby 165–169 mld. USD.
Key Takeaways Dell's ISG posted record $29B Q1 revenues as AI servers, traditional servers and storage all grew.Dell booked $24.4B in AI orders and exited Q1 with a record $51.3B AI backlog.Dell expects fiscal 2027 revenues of $165B-$169B and non-GAAP EPS of $17.90, plus or minus 25 cents. Dell Technologies (DELL - Free Report) Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG) has become the company's primary growth engine, driven by exceptional demand for AI infrastructure alongside continued strength in traditional servers and storage. In first-quarter fiscal 2027, ISG generated a record $29 billion in revenues, up 181% year over year, with operating income surging 206% to $3.1 billion. AI-optimized server revenues soared 757% year over year to $16.1 billion. Meanwhile, traditional servers and networking grew 92%, and storage revenues increased 8%, demonstrating broad-based demand across Dell’s infrastructure portfolio.
Dell’s growing footprint in AI infrastructure is strengthening its long-term growth prospects. The company booked a massive $24.4 billion in AI orders during the fiscal first quarter and exited with a record $51.3 billion AI backlog. DELL management raised fiscal 2027 AI server revenue guidance to $60 billion. The company continues to expand its AI Factory ecosystem with partners including NVIDIA (NVDA - Free Report) , Google Cloud, OpenAI, Palantir and ServiceNow, while new offerings such as Dell PowerRack, 18th-generation PowerEdge servers and the AI Data Platform position DELL as a full-stack AI infrastructure provider. Management emphasized that customers increasingly prefer integrated, production-ready AI infrastructure rather than standalone hardware, supporting continued market share gains.
Dell is also benefiting from enterprise infrastructure modernization. Management noted that most of its installed server base remains seven years or older, creating a significant refresh opportunity, while AI inference workloads and agentic AI are driving incremental demand for traditional compute. Storage continues to outperform the market, led by PowerStore, PowerMax, PowerScale and ObjectScale, with higher-margin Dell-IP products boosting profitability. Dell has highlighted visibility into customer demand extending into 2027 and parts of 2028, with demand continuing to exceed supply, reinforcing confidence in sustained infrastructure-led growth.
DELL’s near-term outlook suggests demand remains durable, with customers continuing to prioritize infrastructure needs and proactively lock in supply. For the second quarter of fiscal 2027, Dell expects revenues between $44 billion and $45 billion, with non-GAAP earnings of $4.80 (plus or minus 10 cents). For fiscal 2027, Dell Technologies expects revenues between $165 billion and $169 billion and guided to non-GAAP earnings of $17.90 per share (plus or minus 25 cents).
DELL Faces Tough Competition in AI InfrastructureDell is facing significant competition from the likes of Super Micro Computer (SMCI - Free Report) and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE - Free Report) in the AI infrastructure space.
Super Micro Computer is strengthening its AI infrastructure business through its Data Center Building Block Solutions, which provides end-to-end data center solutions, including liquid cooling, networking, power systems, software and services. Super Micro Computer continues to expand its partnerships with NVIDIA, AMD, Intel and Arm, while increasing manufacturing capacity globally. The company is often the first to market with the latest AI servers, including systems built on NVIDIA’s GB300 NVL72, HGX B300 and RTX6000Pro platforms, as well as AMD MI350/355 systems, giving it a strong edge.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise is benefiting from strong AI and networking demand, with AI systems orders reaching $1.8 billion and expanding into orchestration, data movement and agentic AI workloads. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is benefiting from rising demand for high-memory servers and AI inference, while the Juniper integration is driving networking momentum and cross-selling opportunities. Management expects durable demand, sustained AI adoption and continued growth across its Cloud & AI and Networking businesses through fiscal 2027.
DELL’s Share Price Performance, Valuation & EstimatesDell shares have appreciated 213.2% year to date, outperforming the broader Zacks Computer and Technology sector’s rise of 16.8%.
DELL Stock Outperforms Sector
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The DELL stock is trading at a premium, with a forward 12-month price/earnings of 19.34X compared with Super Micro Computer’s 10.51X and HPE’s 10.79X. Dell has a Value Score of C.
Valuation - DELL vs. SMCI
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Valuation - DELL vs. HPE
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2027 earnings is currently pegged at $18.77 per share, up 0.6% over the past 30 days, suggesting 82.2% growth from fiscal 2026’s reported figure.
Dell currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Veeva Systems oznámila za 1. fiskální čtvrtletí tržby 882,9 milionu USD a upravený EPS 2,24 USD, obojí nad odhady. Pro 2. čtvrtletí i celý fiskální rok 2027 zvýšila výhled tržeb i zisku.
It has been about a month since the last earnings report for Veeva Systems (VEEV - Free Report) . Shares have added about 7.9% in that time frame, outperforming the S&P 500.
But investors have to be wondering, will the recent positive trend continue leading up to its next earnings release, or is Veeva due for a pullback? Before we dive into how investors and analysts have reacted as of late, let's take a quick look at its most recent earnings report in order to get a better handle on the important catalysts.
Veeva Systems Q1 Earnings & Revenues Beat, Operating Margin RiseVeeva Systems reported adjusted earnings per share of $2.24 for the first quarter of fiscal 2027, which increased 13.7% from the year-ago figure of $1.74. Adjusted earnings per share beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 5.2%.
GAAP earnings per share in the fiscal first quarter was $1.57, up 14.6% from the year-ago period’s $1.37.
VEEV’s Q1 Revenue DetailsIn the quarter under review, the company’s revenues totaled $882.9 million, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2.9%. On a year-over-year basis, the top line improved 16.3%.
The fiscal first-quarter top line was driven by Veeva Systems’ robust segmental performance.
Segmental Analysis of VEEVVeeva Systems derives revenues from two operating segments: Subscription services and Professional services and other.
In the fiscal first quarter, Subscription services revenues improved 15% from the year-ago quarter to $730.2 million. Per management, this uptick was driven by both its established and newer solutions.
Professional services and other revenues increased 22.9% year over year to $152.8 million.
Q1 Margin Performance by VEEVIn the quarter under review, Veeva Systems’ gross profit improved 13.1% year over year to $662 million. However, the gross margin contracted 220 basis points (bps) to 74.9%.
Sales and marketing expenses increased 12.7% year over year to $111.1 million. Research and development (R&D) expenses rose 13.2% year over year to $208.3 million, while general and administrative expenses increased 0.9% year over year to $69.5 million. Total operating expenses of $388.9 million increased 10.6% year over year.
Operating profit totaled $273.1 million, which increased 16.8% from the prior-year quarter. The operating margin in the fiscal first quarter expanded 20 bps to 30.9%.
VEEV’s Financial PositionThe company exited first-quarter fiscal 2027 with cash and cash equivalents and short-term investments of $7.31 billion compared with $6.56 billion at the fiscal fourth quarter of 2026-end.
Net cash provided by operating activities at the end of the quarter was $1.13 billion compared with $877.2 million a year ago.
Q2 & FY27 Guidance Provided by VEEVVeeva Systems has issued its financial outlook for the fiscal second quarter and fiscal 2027.
For the fiscal second quarter, the company expects total revenues between $902 million and $905 million. The Zacks Consensus Estimate is currently pegged at $886.8 million.
Subscription revenues are estimated to be approximately $754 million, and revenues for Professional services and other are expected to be in the range of $148-$151 million for the fiscal second quarter.
For the fiscal second quarter, adjusted earnings per share is anticipated to be between $2.21 and $2.22. The Zacks Consensus Estimate is pegged at $2.19.
Veeva Systems now expects revenues for fiscal 2027 between $3,635 million and $3,645 million. The Zacks Consensus Estimate is currently pegged at $3.59 billion.
For fiscal 2027, Subscription revenues are now expected to be approximately $3,060 million. This consists of Commercial Solutions’ subscription revenues of around $1,395 million and R&D Solutions’ subscription revenues of approximately $1,665 million.
Professional services and other revenues for fiscal 2027 are now expected to be between $575 million and $580 million.
Adjusted earnings per share for fiscal 2027 is now expected to be approximately $9.05. The Zacks Consensus Estimate is pegged at $8.86.
How Have Estimates Been Moving Since Then?In the past month, investors have witnessed a upward trend in estimates revision.
VGM ScoresAt this time, Veeva has a nice Growth Score of B, though it is lagging a lot on the Momentum Score front with a D. Charting a somewhat similar path, the stock was allocated a score of C on the value side, putting it in the middle 20% for value investors.
Overall, the stock has an aggregate VGM Score of C. If you aren't focused on one strategy, this score is the one you should be interested in.
OutlookEstimates have been broadly trending upward for the stock, and the magnitude of these revisions looks promising. Interestingly, Veeva has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). We expect an in-line return from the stock in the next few months.
Boardwalk plánuje přesunout své systémy protokolových tokenů na Arbitrum a nahradit BMX novým tokenem BWS. Držitelé BMX budou moci později migrovat v poměru 1:1 na BWS.
San Francisco, California, July 3rd, 2026, Chainwire
Boardwalk, a launch and market-formation protocol for token economies, announced plans to move its protocol-token systems to Arbitrum and introduce BWS as the successor to its legacy BMX protocol token.
Under the planned transition, BWS will anchor Boardwalk’s protocol-token systems on Arbitrum, including staking, Voter Points, Fee Direction, and primary protocol-token liquidity. Boardwalk’s application layer will remain multichain, with relaunches planned across six supported networks as integration work is completed.
The transition separates the protocol token’s operating environment from Boardwalk’s broader application infrastructure. Boardwalk will continue to support token-economy launches through its application layer, while protocol-token systems operate from Arbitrum.
Boardwalk’s launch framework is intended to provide a standardized structure for token-economy formation. Its described architecture includes published launch rules, seed liquidity designed to lock at graduation, contract-defined fee routing and vesting, fee-protection mechanisms, liquidity-provider participation systems, and Café Boardwalk, a public coordination space for launches.
Under Boardwalk’s described fee configuration, applicable trades include a 1.15% token fee and a 0.10% pool fee, totaling 1.25%. The token-level fee mechanism is designed to reduce incentives for alternative liquidity arrangements focused solely on capturing trading-fee flows. Fees are routed according to the applicable launch configuration and depend on protocol activity and market conditions.
Boardwalk does not select, vet, or endorse issuers or projects that use its protocol.
“BWS is intended to consolidate the protocol-token systems supporting Boardwalk’s next stage of development on Arbitrum, while the application layer remains multichain,” said Meowphasaurus, Co-Founder of Boardwalk. “The transition provides a defined operating environment for staking, Voter Points, Fee Direction, and protocol-token liquidity, while launches continue to be structured through the Boardwalk application layer.”
BMX holders who meet published eligibility requirements will be able to migrate 1 BMX for 1 BWS through Boardwalk’s official migration process when it opens. Migrated BWS is planned to be received as a staked position on Arbitrum. Boardwalk will publish official contract addresses, eligibility criteria, timing, bridge information, and step-by-step instructions before the migration process becomes available.
BWS is planned to use a token-contract design without an owner, administrator, minter, upgrade path, or post-deployment supply-increase function. Boardwalk expects to publish final contract details and verification materials through its official channels.
Boardwalk will release further information about the multichain application relaunch and protocol-token transition through its official website and communications. Users should rely on those sources for contract addresses, eligibility criteria, and migration instructions.
About Boardwalk
Boardwalk is launch and market-formation infrastructure for transparent token economies. Its protocol framework includes visible launch rules, seed liquidity designed to lock at graduation, contract-defined fee routing, vesting, participation systems, and public coordination through Café Boardwalk.
This release is for informational purposes only. Statements about future integrations, deployments, timing, migration, bridge availability, protocol activity, fees, or burns are forward-looking and subject to change. Migration availability is subject to published eligibility criteria, applicable law, technical availability, and smart-contract risk. BWS, staking, Voter Points, and Fee Direction do not provide ownership, equity, a revenue share, or a claim on Boardwalk or its assets. Voter Points are non-transferable and have no monetary value. Nothing in this release guarantees liquidity, fee amounts, token value, economic benefit, or any financial outcome. References to Arbitrum identify an intended deployment environment and do not imply sponsorship, endorsement, or partnership.
MiCA vytlačila USDT z regulovaných burz v EU a posílila USDC, které může bez omezení fungovat napříč všemi 27 členskými státy. Robinhood zároveň vybral Arbitrum pro svou novou síť, což podtrhuje jeho institucionální náskok.
The layer-2 wars have entered a new phase, and the dividing lines are no longer purely technical. Arbitrum, Base, and Optimism continue to compete on throughput, fee economics, and developer ecosystems. Those factors remain relevant.
But as the past week has made clear, the deciding variables for institutional capital have shifted to regulatory readiness – and the gap between the leading L2s and the rest is now measurable.
MiCA's Stablecoin Re-Sort
July 1 marked full enforcement of the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA), and the most immediate impact was on stablecoin routing. Tether's USDT – $186 billion in issuance, the world's largest stablecoin – was removed from regulated EU exchange order books after the company declined to seek an Electronic Money Institution license. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino publicly argued that placing 60% of reserves ($111 billion) in EU-supervised banks would constitute systemic risk to European financial institutions.
The counterpoint is less discussed: MiCA's reserve transparency requirements, including monthly audited disclosures by registered EU auditors, would have imposed examination standards that Tether has historically avoided. The company has never completed a full independent audit by a major accounting firm; its quarterly attestations confirm balances match what the company reports, not that the reporting is accurate and complete. The CFTC fined Tether $41 million in 2021 and found it had maintained full dollar backing for only 27.6% of days between 2016 and 2019.
Coinbase Europe, Kraken, Crypto.com, and Binance EU pulled USDT for European users. Only 210 of more than 1,200 EU crypto firms had converted to full MiCA CASP authorization as of the July 1 deadline – meaning 83% of operators entered the enforcement period technically in breach. Circle's USDC, backed by approximately $60 billion in reserves and authorized through France's ACPR since 2024, operates freely across all 27 EU member states.
The institutional implication is direct: compliant stablecoin routing is now a precondition for European market access. USDC is the beneficiary. Tether maintains infrastructure partnerships – StablR and Oobit launched MiCA-compliant stablecoins via Tether's Hadron platform – but the direct product presence inside regulated EU venues is gone.
The Enterprise Procurement Signal
One of the more significant institutional signals of the week was Robinhood's choice of infrastructure partner for its newly launched chain. On July 1, Robinhood announced Robinhood Chain, a layer-2 network built on Arbitrum Orbit. The company, which serves nearly 28 million customers across 38 countries and is a regulated financial institution—not a crypto-native startup—made a deliberate platform commitment to Arbitrum's stack. HOOD shares rose approximately 4% on the day of the announcement.
Robinhood Bets on Onchain Finance With AI-Native Ethereum Layer-2 Launch
Robinhood Chain brings 24/7 tokenized stocks, perps via Lighter, and agentic trading to a global audience — as the brokerage pushes deeper into DeFi infrastructure.
BlockheadBlockhead
Day-one ecosystem partners read like an enterprise blockchain procurement checklist: Uniswap deploying a dedicated AMM for public liquidity, Pleiades running a proprietary trading venue, BitGo for custody, Chainlink for oracle infrastructure, and Alchemy for developer tooling. These are the same names that appear in institutional RFPs for enterprise blockchain deployment. The composition of that list is itself a signal.
This matters beyond Robinhood. Arbitrum's institutional partnership infrastructure – custodians, prime brokers, settlement systems – has increasingly become the mechanism that determines which L2s get included in enterprise infrastructure stacks. Base continues to show strong transaction volume growth with Coinbase's regulatory relationships as backdrop. Optimism maintains its op-stack ecosystem and progressive decentralization roadmap. Both remain relevant. But in an environment where institutional clients ask pointed questions about regulatory jurisdiction and compliance pathways, Arbitrum's enterprise-ready infrastructure appears most mature.
What Regulation is Actually Sorting
MiCA's stablecoin provisions are the most visible sorting mechanism, but they are not the only one. DORA cybersecurity requirements, the EU travel rule for crypto-asset transfers, and expanding institutional reporting obligations are compressing the window for chains without compliance-grade frameworks. Custodians and settlement systems are increasingly specifying which L2s meet their due diligence standards as a precondition for integration.
Ethereum hosts approximately $180 billion in stablecoins on mainnet – roughly 60% of total supply – and roughly two-thirds of all tokenized real-world assets, according to DeFiLlama data. The routing question for institutional capital is no longer whether to use Ethereum L2s, but which one offers the compliance foundation, liquidity depth, and infrastructure partnerships for sustained deployment.
The US options market processed more than 15.2 billion contracts in 2025, averaging roughly 60 million per trading day – record levels that reflect broader institutional adoption of listed derivatives for directional trading, hedging, and capital management. As that volume grows and more of it migrates on-chain, the chains that have already cleared the enterprise procurement bar will capture disproportionate flows.
What is sorting the field is not retail volume. It is enterprise procurement that determines which chains get included in institutional infrastructure stacks. The chains that clear that bar will capture meaningful institutional flows. The rest will compete for everything else.
Terreno Realty podepsala nové i obnovované nájmy na Floridě, v Kalifornii a New Jersey; v Doralu zaplnila budovu o rozloze 194 000 čtverečních stop na 100 %. Ve 1. čtvrtletí měla obsazenost 96,3 % a růst hotovostních nájmů o 22,4 %.
Key Takeaways TRNO signed new and renewal leases across key logistics markets in Florida, California and New Jersey.Terreno Realty's Doral deals brought its 194,000-square-foot building to full occupancy.TRNO reported 96.3% first-quarter occupancy and a 22.4% cash rent increase on leases. Terreno Realty Corporation (TRNO - Free Report) has added another set of leasing wins to its 2026 story, led by fresh activity in Doral, FL. The company announced a 68,000-square-foot lease with a fresh produce importer and exporter, running from June 30, 2026 through July 2037. It also signed a 10,000-square-foot expansion with a neighboring tenant, bringing its 194,000-square-foot Doral building to full occupancy.
These moves benefit Terreno by improving occupancy, extending cash flow visibility and showing demand in core logistics markets like Miami. Earlier, the company announced 233,000 square feet of new and renewal leases at Countyline Corporate Park Phase III in Hialeah, FL. Buildings 26 and 28, totaling 422,000 square feet, are expected to remain fully leased after the new leases begin.
The company’s West Coast leasing activity also remained active. In late June, Terreno signed a 94,000-square-foot lease in Union City, CA, with an IT infrastructure, cloud and security solutions provider. The lease starts on Sept. 1, 2026 and runs through October 2033. Terreno also received about $2 million from a negotiated early lease termination tied to the prior tenant.
Before that, Terreno announced a 102,000-square-foot early renewal in Hayward, CA, with a moving and storage operator. The lease begins on Dec. 1, 2026 and expires in January 2032. The company also signed a 92,000-square-foot lease in Kearny, NJ, with a third-party logistics provider, running from June 30, 2026 through December 2031.
The leasing updates fit into a broader operating picture that looks stable, though not without risks. In its first-quarter 2026 update, Terreno reported 96.3% quarter-end occupancy, a 22.4% increase in cash rents on new and renewed leases, $101.8 million of acquisitions and $55.1 million of dispositions.
Wrapping Up on TRNOFor investors, Terreno’s recent activity points to a solid operating backdrop, supported by steady leasing, exposure to key coastal markets and financial flexibility. Still, a neutral view makes sense, as tenant turnover, project execution, interest expenses and the need to lease space at favorable rates remain important factors to watch.
Over the past six months, shares of this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company have gained 14.1% compared with the industry’s growth of 11.4%.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Stocks to ConsiderSome better-ranked stocks from the industrial REIT sector are Stag Industrial (STAG - Free Report) and Industrial Logistics Properties Trust (ILPT - Free Report) , each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Stag Industrial’s full-year FFO per share is pinned at $2.64, which calls for a 3.5% increase from the year-ago period.
The consensus estimate for Industrial Logistics Properties’ 2026 FFO per share is pegged at $1.34, which indicates year-over-year growth of 39.6%.
Note: Anything related to earnings presented in this write-up represents funds from operations (FFO) — a widely used metric to gauge the performance of REITs.
