Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

ZEC stands in one corner, HYPE in the opposite.

Bitcoin continues with its gradual weekend climb and has neared $65,000 after bouncing from $63,700 yesterday.

Most larger-cap alts have remained still over the past 24 hours, which is why we will focus on their weekly moves, where ZEC, CRO, LTC, and ONDO stand out.

Can BTC Reclaim $65K? The previous weekend was also quite sluggish but slightly positive for BTC, as it stood at around $64,000 for 48 hours straight despite the new attacks between the US and Iran. However, the market finally priced in the skyrocketing tension on Monday morning with a painful dip to $61,800.

The softer-than-expected CPI numbers for June announced on Tuesday, though, were well received by BTC as the asset flew by several grand to $65,600 on Wednesday. This became its highest price tag in about three weeks.

However, it couldn’t keep the momentum going and crashed toward $62,000 once again on Thursday and Friday. Nevertheless, the bulls intercepted the move and didn’t allow another leg down. Instead, BTC recovered some ground to $64,000 yesterday and climbed to almost $65,000 earlier today. It still remains below that level, which has been categorized as key for its short-term price performance.

Bitcoin’s market capitalization has risen to almost $1.3 trillion on CG, while its dominance over the altcoins has rocketed to over 57%.

BTCUSD July 19. Source: TradingView Weekly Gainers and Losers Ethereum jumped to almost $1,950 earlier this week, and even though it has dropped by nearly $100 since then, it’s still 4.2% up since last Sunday. ZEC is the biggest gainer from the larger caps, gaining 9% to $560. LTC, ONDO, and CRO have posted impressive increases as well, up to 8% in the case of Crypto.com’s native token.

In contrast, HYPE has plunged by more than 9%. Nevertheless, it has defended the $60 support and now sits inches above it. BCH, CC, TAO, and AAVE have marked significant losses since last Sunday as well.

The total crypto market cap, though, has increased by approximately $60 billion since this time a week ago and now sits above $2.270 trillion on CG.

Cryptocurrency Market Overview July 19. Source: QuantifyCrypto

AI hot stocks like NVIDIA have seen increased volatility, with their relative volatility standing at 4 times that of the S&P 500 index.

The Kobeissi Letter stated in a post that the three-week volatility of U.S. momentum stocks relative to the S&P 500 index has surged to four times, hitting an all-time high. This ratio has more than quadrupled over the past several weeks. The momentum stock group includes high-growth tech stocks at the center of the AI boom, such as NVIDIA, AMD, Palantir, D-Wave Quantum, and CoreWeave. By comparison, the ratio peaked at around 2 times during the 2020 COVID-19 market crash and roughly 1.8 times during the dot-com bubble burst. The current level is significantly higher than those periods. Meanwhile, the U.S. momentum stock index has dropped 24% since July, marking its largest monthly decline since the 2008 financial crisis. The stocks that previously performed the strongest are quickly losing market favor.

9 minutes ago

Changxin Technology's IPO winning numbers have been released, totaling 7,702,207.

According to an announcement by Changxin Technology, the company’s initial public offering (IPO) and listing on the STAR Market has released its offline preliminary placement results and online lottery results. The offering price is RMB 8.66 per share, with an initial share offering size of approximately 6.688 billion shares. A total of 7,702,207 winning lottery numbers have been issued, and each winning number entitles holders to subscribe for 500 Changxin Technology A-shares.

9 minutes ago

Binance Wallet’s Meme Rush adds new launchpad filter options for Robinhood Chain-based projects including Virtuals Protocol, Flap, and Bankr.

According to official announcements, Binance Wallet’s Meme Rush has added new launchpad filter options for Robinhood chain projects including Virtuals Protocol, Flap, and Bankr, helping users discover more on-chain token opportunities. Users can now track tokens across BSC, Solana, ETH, Base, and Robinhood chains via Meme Rush, with a single feed to stay updated on multi-chain hotspots.

9 minutes ago

Zcash launches Zakura full node, aiming to boost its privacy transaction throughput to 50,000 per second.

Zcash has launched its new full-node client Zakura 1.0.0, the first implementation component aimed at scaling its private transaction throughput from the current ~1 transaction per second (TPS) to payment-network-level capacity. Maintained by Sean Bowe, an early Zcash zero-knowledge cryptography contributor, and Dev Ojha, head of Valar Group, the client operates independently of the Zcash Foundation and is funded via private ZEC donations. Built on the Zcash Foundation’s Zebra client, the team provides an ~11GB blockchain snapshot, allowing new nodes to sync up in two minutes—an approximately 680x speed improvement. Its compatibility mode also replicates the legacy zcashd interface, enabling wallets and exchanges to continue operating after the original client’s maintenance ends on July 18. The team notes that Visa and Mastercard process over 50,000 transactions per second, a benchmark it has set as its minimum target. To reduce the verification burden of large-scale private transactions, Bowe’s Tachyon project is developing recursive proofs, which let nodes validate thousands of proofs with a single proof. Valar Group is building private information retrieval (PIR) technology, allowing wallets to access relevant transaction data without exposing their query content. Zakura is also testing a fast block propagation system that delivers new blocks to all nodes in half a second. Its upcoming testnet is the Ironwood upgrade, set to activate on the mainnet on July 28. Ironwood will use a "rotating door" mechanism to restrict inflows and outflows of the Orchard privacy pool, mitigating risks of fake ZEC entering circulation due to prior zero-knowledge proof vulnerabilities.

9 minutes ago

Moonshot (Kimi)’s technological breakthrough triggers sell-offs in AI stocks, with leveraged products amplifying market volatility.

According to Bloomberg, Chinese AI startup Moonshot has achieved an unexpected technological breakthrough, triggering sharp declines in global AI and semiconductor stocks on Friday and prompting markets to once again reference the 2025 "DeepSeek Moment". The semiconductor benchmark index has fallen roughly 20% from its June peak, entering a bear market; the triple-leveraged semiconductor ETF SOXL has dropped more than 50% over the same period. This sell-off demonstrates that when rapid advances in AI technology reshape market perceptions of winners and losers, leveraged ETFs, options, single-stock funds, and crypto-related products may be liquidated simultaneously. Bloomberg Intelligence data shows leveraged ETFs make up around 13% of U.S. ETF trading volume but only 1.2% of industry assets. When accounting for embedded leverage, their share of the U.S. stock market remains less than 1%. While these products are generally small in overall size, their holdings are concentrated in AI chips, volatile stocks, and newly listed firms. When leverage, concentration, and volatility rise at the same time, the funds' daily rebalancing turns them into active trading forces that further amplify existing market trends. The South Korean market offers a clear recent case: local retail investors have heavily purchased leveraged products tied to Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, and as market sentiment turned weak, the related funds were forced to sell an estimated tens of billions of dollars worth of SK Hynix positions.

9 minutes ago

Mizuho downgrades Circle to Underperform, cuts its target price to $50

According to Bloomberg, Circle’s stock price has fallen more than 75% from its post-IPO high last year. Dan Dolev, an analyst at Mizuho Securities USA, downgraded Circle this week from "Neutral" to "Underperform", setting a Wall Street-low target price of $50, which implies roughly 18% downside from Thursday’s closing price, well below the average analyst target of $123 tracked by Bloomberg. Dolev argues Circle faces rising competition risks in the stablecoin space. Over 100 fintech firms, payment networks, crypto companies and banks, including Visa, Stripe, Coinbase and BlackRock, are backing the Open Standard project, which will issue OUSD. Circle’s stock fell 7.7% on Thursday, the same day Visa launched a stablecoin issuance, transfer and management platform for financial institutions. Circle generates most of its revenue from interest on USDC’s reserve assets, while new stablecoin initiatives like OUSD plan to share reserve returns with partners and charge lower management fees. Dolev says this business model could draw partners away from Circle, intensifying pricing and margin pressure on the firm. He projects Circle’s adjusted EBITDA for 2027 will hit $699 million, below the consensus market estimate of $907 million. He also noted that Circle and Coinbase’s USDC distribution agreement is set to be renegotiated in August, with Coinbase likely to leverage competitive pressure from OUSD to secure a higher revenue split.

9 minutes ago

XRP stands next to BTC in this very prestigious list.

A recent report by CoinGecko found that Ripple’s cross-border token is the only cryptocurrency besides the market leader to remain among the largest 10 cryptocurrencies every year for a decade.

This came despite the asset’s ups and downs, some of which pushed it to new lows.

XRP Remains in Top 10 Before we delved deeper into the report, we have a confession to make. It’s not really a new report. It actually came out over a month ago, but we somehow missed it. Nevertheless, we still think it’s a fun Sunday morning read, so here we go.

CoinGecko outlined that the cryptocurrency market has changed almost beyond recognition since 2014. Hundreds of projects entered and fell out of the spotlight, as former industry heavyweights, such as Peercoin, Namecoin, NXT, Dash, EOS, and Litecoin, all spent years among the top 10 elite before eventually falling out.

This is not the case with Ripple’s XRP, though. The report analyzed annual market-cap snapshots between 2014 and 2026 and found that XRP is the only cryptocurrency (besides Bitcoin) to remain inside the industry’s top 10 every single year. This streak spans 13 consecutive years and, unless there’s a major collapse in 2026, is likely to close its 14th year soon.

Ripple (XRP) Inside Top 10 Alts for 13+ Years. Source: CoinGecko The asset managed to remain in the top through the painful 2018 bear market, the COVID-19 crash, the Terra collapse, the FTX bankruptcy, and perhaps most impressively, Ripple’s years-long battle with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. This was particularly threatening as XRP was delisted from countless exchanges after the SEC’s offensive began, and it tumbled hard immediately.

Meanwhile, Ripple’s token recently celebrated a one-year anniversary since its all-time high of $3.65 was marked last July. However, it has dumped by 70% since then.

You may also like: Binance XRP Reserves at Lowest Since February as Ripple Price Defends Key Support Could Japan Become XRP’s Biggest Growth Market? Here’s Why the Odds Are Rising Ripple Lands Major XRP Partnership as Garlinghouse Shares Rare Personal Moment Different Crypto Market BTC and XRP remaining within the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap for about a decade is among the very few constants. Everything else, the report said, has changed to its core. For example, bitcoin’s market share accounted for roughly 87% in 2014. Now, it’s under 57% on CoinGecko.

Stablecoins have become a permanent fixture within the top 10 and 20 alts, while exchange tokens like BNB have established themselves alongside traditional layer-1 networks.

This year also marked another milestone when Hyperliquid’s HYPE became only the second DeFi project ever to enter the top 10, overtaking Dogecoin.

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Someone with very deep pockets just made a very loud bet on Ethereum. Whale wallets sold 72 Bitcoin and immediately plowed into a 20x leveraged long position on 12,000 ETH, a trade that screams conviction about where they think ETH is headed relative to BTC.

The activity, flagged on Hypurrscan, points to Hyperliquid as the likely venue for these trades. For a platform that has become the go-to destination for high-leverage perpetual futures, this kind of size is notable but not entirely surprising. What makes it interesting is the directional clarity: this isn’t a hedge. It’s a rotation.

Breaking down the trade A whale, or possibly a cluster of related wallets, liquidated 72 BTC and redeployed that capital into a 20x leveraged long position on 12,000 ETH. For every dollar of actual collateral they put up, they’re controlling twenty dollars’ worth of Ethereum exposure.

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A 20x position means the liquidation threshold sits somewhere around a 3-5% adverse price move. If ETH drops by that margin from the entry price, the entire position gets wiped.

The size matters too. 12,000 ETH worth of exposure at 20x leverage represents a notional position that could meaningfully shift open interest in ETH perpetual futures on Hyperliquid. When positions this large enter the market, they tend to influence funding rates, which in turn can create incentive structures that pull other traders in the same direction.

The BTC-to-ETH rotation playbook On-chain analytics firms like Lookonchain have been tracking similar rotations throughout 2025, where large holders dump BTC to finance leveraged ETH positions, or occasionally do the reverse.

The pattern typically emerges when whale traders believe the ETH/BTC ratio is about to shift. Rather than simply going long on Ethereum, they actively sell Bitcoin to fund the trade, which creates selling pressure on BTC while simultaneously adding buying pressure (via leverage) on ETH.

What this means for investors The immediate impact is on funding rates. When large leveraged longs enter the perpetual futures market, they push funding rates positive, meaning long holders pay short holders to maintain their positions.

The second-order effect is on liquidation cascades. A 20x leveraged position on 12,000 ETH is a big target. If the price moves against the whale, the forced liquidation would dump a substantial amount of sell pressure into the market all at once, potentially triggering a chain reaction that catches other leveraged longs in the blast radius.

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

TRON (TRX) is maintaining positive momentum, supported by strong market sentiment and new moves by Tron Inc. The company, which manages development and growth for the TRON blockchain ecosystem, has increased its TRX treasury, signaling an ongoing commitment to supporting the project’s long-term goals.

TRX price stability and bullish forecastAs of the latest data, TRX is trading at $0.3253, with a 24-hour volume of $376.02 million and a market capitalization standing at $30.86 billion. Over the past day, price action has remained stable, with technical indicators and institutional buying activity suggesting potential for a bullish reversal in the short term.

Price predictions from analytics platform CoinCodex point to a continued rally for TRON. The platform forecasts that TRX could climb to $0.3518 in the next 30 days. If realized, this target would represent an 8.83% increase from its current value, highlighting optimism among market observers for renewed upward momentum, provided overall crypto market conditions remain favorable.

CoinCodex expects TRX to reach $0.3518 within 30 days, which would mark an 8.83% gain from current levels, contingent upon persistent positive sentiment and supportive market dynamics.

The outlook reflects careful monitoring from both investors and analysts, as the broader crypto market exhibits signs of recovery. Still, experts caution that forecasts are based on historical data and should be interpreted in the context of ongoing market volatility.

Tron Inc. expands digital asset treasuryTron Inc. has confirmed the expansion of its TRX treasury holdings through the recent acquisition of 153,993 TRX tokens, purchased at an average price of $0.3247 per token. With this addition, the company now holds over 705.6 million TRX tokens, underscoring a strategy centered on long-term digital asset accumulation and ecosystem stability.

Company representatives have stated that maintaining and growing the TRON Digital Asset Treasury (DAT) remains a critical goal. By steadily increasing its TRX reserves, Tron Inc. seeks to generate value for shareholders and position itself to capture future growth opportunities within the digital asset sector.

Mini dictionary: Tron Inc. is the core company responsible for development and strategic decisions related to the TRON blockchain platform, overseeing its operations, treasury management, and ecosystem expansion.

The company continues to acquire TRX tokens as part of its capital strategy, aiming to reinforce the ecosystem and create enduring value as blockchain adoption evolves.

MetricCurrent Value30-Day ForecastChange (%)TRX Price$0.3253$0.3518+8.83%TRX Treasury (tokens)705,600,000+Continued growth expectedN/AMarket dynamics and future outlookBroader market trends also contribute to the positive sentiment around TRX. As Bitcoin and other leading cryptocurrencies demonstrate recovery, TRON’s technical structure and recent institutional buying add weight to expectations for further upside.

TRX’s ability to sustain this trend and move past resistance levels will remain central to its near-term prospects. Increased demand from institutional holders, coupled with a favorable market climate, may support attempts to reach and surpass the projected target price.

Despite encouraging forecasts, participants are reminded that price predictions rely on analysis of historical performance and do not guarantee future outcomes. The volatile nature of digital asset markets means that rapid shifts remain possible.

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.

BNB Chain has become the largest blockchain for assets tracked under Franklin Templeton’s Benji tokenization platform, with about $1.5 billion recorded on the network.

Summary

BNB Chain now hosts $1.5 billion of Franklin Templeton Benji platform assets, leading all networks. RWA.xyz data shows BNB Chain holds 61.71%, while Stellar has fallen to second place overall. Franklin Templeton keeps expanding tokenized finance through Kraken, MoonPay, Binance, and multiple public blockchains globally. The figure represents 61.71% of the platform’s distributed asset value, according to RWA.xyz data cited byBNB Chain.

The milestone marks a sharp change in the platform’s network distribution. BNB Chain holdings rose 1,226% over the past month, moving ahead of Stellar, which previously held the largest share. The data refers to the wider Benji platform rather than only the standalone BENJI tokenized money market fund.

BNB Chain takes the largest share of Benji assets RWA.xyz lists Franklin Templeton’s Benji platform with about $2.44 billion in distributed assets as of July 18. BNB Chain accounts for roughly $1.5 billion of that total. Stellar follows with about $573.4 million, while Ethereum holds around $159.1 million.

$1.5B of Franklin Templeton (@FTDA_US) Benji Investments now sits on BNB Chain.

This establishes BNB Chain as the leading blockchain ecosystem for tokenized products of one of the world’s largest asset managers. pic.twitter.com/edFVfqqnpR

— BNB Chain (@BNBCHAIN) July 17, 2026 Base, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Polygon and Aptos hold smaller amounts. The shift follows Franklin Templeton’s decision to bring its Benji Technology Platform to BNB Chain in 2025. The integration allowed the asset manager to use BNB Chain for transactions and ownership records tied to tokenized financial products.

RWA.xyz separately lists the BENJI asset at about $734.3 million, showing why the platform and fund figures should not be treated as identical. The broader platform includes multiple tokenized products, while BENJI represents one share of the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund for investors.

Stellar remains central to Franklin Templeton’s tokenization history Franklin Templeton launched its blockchain-based money market fund on Stellar in 2021. The product became an early example of a U.S.-registered mutual fund using public blockchain technology to process transactions and maintain share ownership records.

Crypto analyst ALLINCRYPTO said Stellar provided the early foundation before Franklin Templeton expanded its tokenization strategy across more networks. However, current RWA.xyz data shows that BNB Chain now holds the largest share of assets tracked across the broader Benji platform. The data does not show how much of the recent increase came from new issuance compared with assets moved between networks.

Franklin Templeton’s $1.5B BENJI fund is expanding to BNB Chain@StellarOrg will remain as the foundation that proved the model, but BENJI is turning into a multi-chain giant.

It just shows tokenised finance is scaling fast and $XLM helped lead the way. 🔥 pic.twitter.com/E1XyQE88Zp

— ALLINCRYPTO (@RealAllinCrypto) July 18, 2026 Franklin Templeton expands BENJI access across crypto platforms Franklin Templeton has also expanded the use of its tokenized products through major crypto companies. As reported by crypto.news, the firm added BENJI to MoonPay Trade in June, allowing eligible institutional clients to move between stablecoins and tokenized fund products through an onchain trading system.

The asset manager also partnered with Kraken parent Payward to integrate BENJI as a collateral and cash management tool. As reported by crypto.news, the partnership also covers plans to develop more tokenized investment products. A separate Franklin Templeton and Binance arrangement allows eligible institutions to use tokenized money market fund shares as off-exchange collateral.

Tokenized finance gains wider institutional distribution Franklin Templeton’s multi-chain strategy comes as more traditional financial firms use public blockchains to distribute regulated investment products. The company has expanded its tokenization work across several networks while also developing new products and distribution partnerships.

As reported by crypto.news, Franklin Templeton has also worked with Ondo Finance on tokenized ETFs designed for round-the-clock wallet-based trading outside the United States. The latest BNB Chain data shows how quickly blockchain distribution can change as issuers add new networks and institutional access points.

For now, BNB Chain leads Franklin Templeton’s broader Benji platform by distributed value, while Stellar remains the network where the firm began its public blockchain fund strategy.

Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.

Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.

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Changxin Technology's IPO winning numbers have been released, totaling 7,702,207.

According to an announcement by Changxin Technology, the company’s initial public offering (IPO) and listing on the STAR Market has released its offline preliminary placement results and online lottery results. The offering price is RMB 8.66 per share, with an initial share offering size of approximately 6.688 billion shares. A total of 7,702,207 winning lottery numbers have been issued, and each winning number entitles holders to subscribe for 500 Changxin Technology A-shares.

4 minutes ago

Renowned trader closes all crypto short positions, resumes buying Bitcoin spot

Renowned crypto trader Doctor Profit announced in a post that he has closed all his cryptocurrency short positions, including Bitcoin shorts established in the $115,000–$125,000 range, another Bitcoin short in the $79,000–$82,000 range, and over 100 altcoin shorts opened in recent months, noting that all these positions have generated significant profits. He also said he has repurchased Bitcoin spot at $64,000, marking his first long-term allocation since September 2025. His plan is to invest 5% of his planned capital daily in spot Bitcoin purchases when the price is in the $54,000–$64,000 range, for up to 20 days total; if the price approaches $54,000, he will increase his buying activity. Doctor Profit pointed out that the current market is showing clear "herd behavior": investors who were previously bullish on Bitcoin up to $150,000 at high levels are now widely waiting for the cryptocurrency to drop to $40,000–$50,000, and are targeting September or October as the bottom of the four-year cycle. When a large number of investors are waiting for the same price level and time point, the market may not move as expected, so he chose to build positions in advance and judges that this cycle’s bottom may arrive earlier than the market’s general expectation. He also cited regulatory clarity, asset tokenization infrastructure, and progress in institutional adoption as the structural reasons for his shift to buying, and retracted his previous prediction that Bitcoin would fall to $40,000–$50,000. However, he still holds all his S&P 500 short positions, arguing that the crypto market has completed a large repricing, while U.S. stock valuations remain elevated.

4 minutes ago

Binance Wallet’s Meme Rush adds new launchpad filter options for Robinhood Chain-based projects including Virtuals Protocol, Flap, and Bankr.

According to official announcements, Binance Wallet’s Meme Rush has added new launchpad filter options for Robinhood chain projects including Virtuals Protocol, Flap, and Bankr, helping users discover more on-chain token opportunities. Users can now track tokens across BSC, Solana, ETH, Base, and Robinhood chains via Meme Rush, with a single feed to stay updated on multi-chain hotspots.

4 minutes ago

Zcash launches Zakura full node, aiming to boost its privacy transaction throughput to 50,000 per second.

Zcash has launched its new full-node client Zakura 1.0.0, the first implementation component aimed at scaling its private transaction throughput from the current ~1 transaction per second (TPS) to payment-network-level capacity. Maintained by Sean Bowe, an early Zcash zero-knowledge cryptography contributor, and Dev Ojha, head of Valar Group, the client operates independently of the Zcash Foundation and is funded via private ZEC donations. Built on the Zcash Foundation’s Zebra client, the team provides an ~11GB blockchain snapshot, allowing new nodes to sync up in two minutes—an approximately 680x speed improvement. Its compatibility mode also replicates the legacy zcashd interface, enabling wallets and exchanges to continue operating after the original client’s maintenance ends on July 18. The team notes that Visa and Mastercard process over 50,000 transactions per second, a benchmark it has set as its minimum target. To reduce the verification burden of large-scale private transactions, Bowe’s Tachyon project is developing recursive proofs, which let nodes validate thousands of proofs with a single proof. Valar Group is building private information retrieval (PIR) technology, allowing wallets to access relevant transaction data without exposing their query content. Zakura is also testing a fast block propagation system that delivers new blocks to all nodes in half a second. Its upcoming testnet is the Ironwood upgrade, set to activate on the mainnet on July 28. Ironwood will use a "rotating door" mechanism to restrict inflows and outflows of the Orchard privacy pool, mitigating risks of fake ZEC entering circulation due to prior zero-knowledge proof vulnerabilities.

4 minutes ago

Moonshot (Kimi)’s technological breakthrough triggers sell-offs in AI stocks, with leveraged products amplifying market volatility.

According to Bloomberg, Chinese AI startup Moonshot has achieved an unexpected technological breakthrough, triggering sharp declines in global AI and semiconductor stocks on Friday and prompting markets to once again reference the 2025 "DeepSeek Moment". The semiconductor benchmark index has fallen roughly 20% from its June peak, entering a bear market; the triple-leveraged semiconductor ETF SOXL has dropped more than 50% over the same period. This sell-off demonstrates that when rapid advances in AI technology reshape market perceptions of winners and losers, leveraged ETFs, options, single-stock funds, and crypto-related products may be liquidated simultaneously. Bloomberg Intelligence data shows leveraged ETFs make up around 13% of U.S. ETF trading volume but only 1.2% of industry assets. When accounting for embedded leverage, their share of the U.S. stock market remains less than 1%. While these products are generally small in overall size, their holdings are concentrated in AI chips, volatile stocks, and newly listed firms. When leverage, concentration, and volatility rise at the same time, the funds' daily rebalancing turns them into active trading forces that further amplify existing market trends. The South Korean market offers a clear recent case: local retail investors have heavily purchased leveraged products tied to Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, and as market sentiment turned weak, the related funds were forced to sell an estimated tens of billions of dollars worth of SK Hynix positions.

4 minutes ago

Bloomberg: South Korea's stock market is emerging as a key bellwether for global AI stock trading.

According to Bloomberg, South Korea’s roughly $4 trillion stock market has become a key window for fund managers in London, New York and Tokyo to gauge global AI risk appetite. Stock fluctuations in Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix continue to ripple through global chip stocks, and some Japanese traders have added the KOSPI index to their daily watchlists. The correlation between South Korea’s market and U.S. tech stocks has grown significantly. Bloomberg data shows the 60-day correlation coefficient between the KOSPI index and the Nasdaq 100 has risen to 0.46, near a two-year high—about three times the 0.16 average over the past five years. Last week, South Korea’s market fell nearly 9% at one point amid renewed doubts about AI demand prospects, with the selloff later spreading to Wall Street; SK Hynix’s American depositary receipts dropped 9.3%. However, high-leverage trading in South Korea has amplified volatility. The KOSPI index has fallen 25% from its June peak, erasing roughly $1 trillion in market capitalization, with both Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix down at least 30%. South Korea recently suspended the launch of new single-stock leverage trading products to curb speculation and market volatility. Even so, the KOSPI index is still up 62% year-to-date, ranking among the top of major global markets. Given Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix’s critical positions in the global memory chip supply, multiple institutional players believe that as long as the AI rally persists, South Korea’s stock market will remain an important barometer for global AI and semiconductor trading.

4 minutes ago

Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.

Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.

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Zcash is swinging for the fences. The privacy-focused blockchain, which currently processes somewhere between 3 and 20 shielded transactions per second, is building toward a future where it can handle 50,000 TPS, putting it in the same conversation as Visa’s payment network. That’s roughly a 2,500x improvement over current capacity.

The ambition is built on a new node architecture and a series of protocol upgrades that collectively aim to make fully private transactions not just possible at scale, but practical.

Project Tachyon and NU7: the engine room The scaling push centers on two key initiatives: Project Tachyon and the NU7 network upgrade. Project Tachyon, led by cryptographer Sean Bowe, targets thousands of TPS for shielded transactions, with estimates suggesting up to 10,000 TPS as a near-term milestone before pushing toward the 50,000 figure.

The NU7 testnet launched on May 22, 2026, and early results are encouraging. Block times dropped from 75 seconds to just 25 seconds, a threefold reduction. Shielded TPS doubled on the testnet compared to previous benchmarks, contributing to what the project describes as a potential 300% increase in transaction speed.

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For context, Zcash’s current shielded throughput of 3 to 20 TPS makes it roughly comparable to Bitcoin’s base layer in terms of raw capacity. The difference is that every shielded Zcash transaction uses zk-SNARKs, a form of zero-knowledge cryptography that proves a transaction is valid without revealing sender, receiver, or amount. That privacy comes with heavy computational overhead, which is precisely what these upgrades are designed to reduce.

The improvements build on years of iterative upgrades, including the Sapling and Orchard shielded pools, which progressively reduced the cost and complexity of private transactions. The new node software, a Rust-based rewrite called Zebra, provides the foundation for these protocol-level scaling changes rather than relying on beefier hardware.

Growing adoption, growing pains Zcash’s shielded pool now constitutes around 30% of total supply. The Zcash Foundation also raised $25 million in March 2026, giving the project fresh capital to fund development. That fundraise coincided with the shielded pool growth, suggesting aligned momentum between builder activity and user adoption.

Zcash’s trajectory hit a serious speed bump in early June 2026 when a critical network vulnerability was discovered and patched. ZEC’s price dropped approximately 48% in the aftermath.

What this means for investors The competitive landscape matters here. Monero, Zcash’s primary rival in the privacy coin space, operates on a fundamentally different privacy model with its own scaling constraints. Meanwhile, general-purpose Layer 1s like Solana boast high TPS numbers but offer no native transaction privacy.

The 48% price crash following June’s vulnerability disclosure shows how quickly confidence can erode. Delivering a 300% speed improvement on a testnet is noteworthy. Delivering Visa-scale private transactions on mainnet, without security incidents, is an entirely different challenge.

The shielded pool reaching 30% of total supply is a metric worth watching closely. If that number continues climbing alongside successful mainnet deployments of NU7, it would suggest organic demand for Zcash’s core privacy proposition. If it stalls or reverses, it may indicate that the security scare did lasting damage to user confidence, regardless of how impressive the throughput numbers look on paper.

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

FTX will begin its fifth creditor distribution on July 31, sending nearly $900 million to eligible claimants under its court-approved recovery plan.

Summary

FTX will distribute nearly $900 million to eligible creditors beginning July 31 through approved providers. The fifth payout round pushes total creditor distributions to about $10 billion since FTX collapsed. Bankman-Fried faces growing political resistance to clemency after losing his appeal against the fraud conviction. The payment will cover creditors in the Convenience and Non-Convenience Classes who completed required steps before the June 16 record date.

A repayment update shared by creditor advocate Sunil Kavuri said eligible users can receive funds through BitGo, Kraken or Payoneer. Payments should arrive within one to three business days after distribution starts. The new round brings total payouts since FTX entered bankruptcy to about $10 billion.

FTX will distribute ~ $900m on 31st July

Claims > $50k: 9%
Total = 105%

Allowed claims <$50k (not previously paid)
Total = 120%

— Sunil (FTX Creditor Champion) (@sunil_trades) July 17, 2026 FTX moves ahead with fifth creditor distribution FTX’s recovery process continues nearly four years after the exchange filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2022. The company collapsed after a liquidity crisis exposed a large gap in customer assets and left users unable to access funds held on the platform.

Convenience claims below $50,000 are set to receive 120% of their allowed claim value under the recovery plan. Other eligible classes are expected to receive distributions of about 103% to 105%, according to the creditor update. FTX said future dates will depend on claim approvals and eligibility.

Bankruptcy estate keeps returning recovered funds The July payment follows earlier rounds that returned billions of dollars to former customers and creditors. The estate has funded repayments through recovered cash, investments and asset sales carried out during the bankruptcy process.

Some of those sales have drawn criticism from creditors because several assets later rose sharply in value. As reported by crypto.news, the estate sold a 5% stake in Cursor developer Anysphere for $200,000 in 2023. That former stake was later estimated at about $3 billion based on a reported $60 billion valuation.

Legal disputes tied to FTX remain active FTX’s collapse continues to produce lawsuits involving former executives, advisers and other parties linked to the exchange. In May, law firm Fenwick & West agreed to pay $54 million to settle claims brought by former FTX customers.

As reported by crypto.news, the plaintiffs accused the firm of helping create legal structures that allowed FTX and Alameda Research to move customer funds without proper safeguards. Fenwick denied wrongdoing, and the proposed settlement requires court approval.

Bankman-Fried faces resistance to clemency Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried remains in federal prison after a jury convicted him of fraud and conspiracy charges linked to the exchange’s collapse. A judge sentenced him to 25 years in prison in 2024.

His legal options narrowed in June when a federal appeals court upheld his conviction and sentence. As reported by crypto.news, the court rejected arguments that the trial judge improperly limited evidence that Bankman-Fried wanted to present.

Bankman-Fried has also sought a presidential pardon, but the effort faces political opposition. The U.S. Senate unanimously adopted a resolution opposing clemency, as reported by crypto.news. The resolution cannot prevent a president from granting a pardon, but it places senators on record against clemency.

The latest $900 million payout keeps FTX’s repayment process moving while legal cases tied to the exchange remain unresolved. Creditors who qualify for the July round must use an approved distribution provider and complete all required verification steps before receiving funds.

Kylian Mbappé now owns the most prestigious scoring record in football. The French forward reached 22 World Cup goals during the 2026 tournament, sliding past Lionel Messi’s mark of 21 to become the competition’s all-time leading scorer.

What makes the number even more absurd: he did it in just 22 appearances. One goal per game across three World Cups is the kind of stat line that shouldn’t exist outside of a video game career mode.

For crypto markets, the more interesting story isn’t on the pitch. It’s in the Solana meme token trenches and on Ethereum-based NFT platforms, where Mbappé’s performances have become a real-time catalyst for speculative trading activity.

From the pitch to the blockchain Mbappé isn’t new to the crypto world. He joined Sorare, an Ethereum-based NFT fantasy football platform, back in June 2022 as both an ambassador and an equity investor. That’s not a typical sponsorship deal where a celebrity slaps their name on a product. He put money in.

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Sorare lets users buy, sell, and trade officially licensed digital player cards to build fantasy football lineups. Rare NFT cards featuring Mbappé have sold for as much as $66,850 on the platform.

As Mbappé stacked goals throughout the 2026 knockout stages, his Sorare card values and trading volumes responded accordingly.

Meme tokens ride the Mbappé wave On Solana, unauthorized meme tokens bearing the striker’s likeness have seen notable trading volume spikes that correlate directly with his World Cup performances. Tokens like $MBAPPE and $MBAPEPE, neither of which have any official connection to the player, have attracted speculative capital from traders looking to ride the narrative.

No new crypto-native projects or significant token launches have been officially tied to the record. The speculative activity is purely community-driven.

The broader numbers tell a story Mbappé’s World Cup scoring breakdown across three tournaments paints a picture of escalating dominance. He scored 4 goals at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, where France won the title and he became the youngest scorer in a World Cup final since Pelé. At Qatar 2022, he exploded for 8 goals, including a hat trick in the final against Argentina, a game France ultimately lost on penalties.

That means he entered the 2026 tournament with 12 World Cup goals and needed 10 more during this edition to surpass Messi. As of mid-July 2026, Mbappé has also reached 100 goal involvements for the French national team when combining goals and assists.

The previous record holder, Messi, accumulated his 21 goals across five World Cup tournaments spanning from 2006 to 2026. Mbappé has needed only three.

What this means for crypto investors Sorare has an established marketplace with real liquidity and officially licensed content. For those considering the meme token side, tokens like $MBAPPE and $MBAPEPE are narrative trades, not investments. They move on attention, and attention in sports is inherently cyclical.

The more durable opportunity may sit with platforms like Sorare, where Mbappé’s record-breaking status could sustain demand for his digital collectibles beyond the tournament window. A player card representing the all-time World Cup top scorer carries a different kind of premium than one representing a player who might break the record someday.

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

England just beat France 6-4 in the World Cup, and Bukayo Saka walked away with the Man of the Match award. Somewhere on Solana, a token bearing his name started moving.

The July 6 match was the kind of scoreline that makes you wonder if both teams forgot to bring their goalkeepers. But for the crypto world, the real story wasn’t the defensive chaos. It was the ripple effect across fan tokens, prediction markets, and meme coins that have latched onto the biggest sporting event on the planet.

When goals meet on-chain speculation GoldenBoot Bukayo, a Solana-based meme-adjacent token trading under the ticker SAKA, saw increased activity following the Arsenal forward’s standout display against France. The token, which fluctuates based on Saka’s fitness updates and on-pitch contributions, is exactly what it sounds like: a speculative digital asset that lives and dies with one player’s tournament run.

Trading volumes remained modest. This isn’t the kind of asset that’s going to show up on institutional radar anytime soon.

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SAKA isn’t alone. New meme-based tokens like W26 have also emerged on Solana during the World Cup 2026, each trying to capture a slice of the attention economy that surrounds global football.

Kraken’s courtside seat at the World Cup Kraken was announced in June 2026 as the Official Crypto Exchange Supporter of the FIFA World Cup 2026, giving the exchange a prominent role in the emerging ecosystem of sports-related digital assets.

The partnership has included promotions and activations across North America and Europe, timed to coincide with match days and player milestones.

Prediction markets and the Saka injury saga Prediction markets reacted positively when Saka was confirmed fit ahead of England’s quarter-final against Norway on July 12. The Arsenal winger had been a doubt heading into the knockout stages, and his availability became a genuine market-moving event.

On-chain betting and prediction platforms have seen heightened engagement throughout the tournament, with Saka’s fitness serving as one of the more closely watched variables.

What this means for investors For anyone tempted to trade fan tokens tied to individual players or matches, the risk profile is considerable. These assets face severe liquidity constraints, wild volatility, and the ever-present possibility that the underlying narrative ends with a single injury or red card.

Solana has emerged as the default chain for meme tokens and fast-moving speculative assets, largely because its low fees and high throughput make it easy to spin up new tokens in response to real-world events.

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

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is rewriting the tactical playbook. By the end of the round of 32, players had scored 35 goals from outside the penalty area, a number that dwarfs the 12 long-range strikes from Qatar 2022 and even eclipses the 25 recorded across all of Russia 2018. Former striker and current pundit Jurgen Klinsmann points to a simple explanation: teams are defending deeper than ever, which means attackers are pulling the trigger from further out.

Kraken, Avalanche, and the official crypto layer Kraken was named the Official Crypto Exchange Supporter of the FIFA World Cup 2026 on June 9, marking one of the highest-profile sponsorship deals between a crypto exchange and a global sports organization.

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FIFA’s Collect platform is built on an Avalanche-based blockchain and designed to support EVM-compatible wallets, enabling fans to buy, trade, and hold digital collectibles tied to the tournament.

Memecoins, prediction markets, and the speculation layer Several Solana-based tokens, including ones trading under tickers like FWC26, W26, and WORLDCUP26, have launched specifically around the tournament. These tokens carry zero official FIFA endorsement and exist purely as speculative vehicles driven by cultural momentum.

On the prediction market side, Chainlink is providing oracle services for platforms covering all 104 World Cup matches via ADI Predictstreet. Oracles are the bridge between real-world data, like match scores, and on-chain smart contracts that settle bets.

What this means for investors The World Cup crypto ecosystem splits into three distinct risk tiers. At the bottom, the memecoins. Tokens like FWC26 and WORLDCUP26 are pure narrative trades with no fundamental backing. The middle tier is Avalanche. FIFA Collect running on its chain is a genuine catalyst, but NBA Top Shot saw a similar surge during its launch window before trading volumes cratered. The top tier, in terms of structural importance, is Chainlink. Oracle services for prediction markets aren’t glamorous, but the World Cup deployment covers all 104 matches and sets an infrastructure precedent for future events.

One risk worth flagging: regulatory scrutiny around sports-linked crypto products, particularly prediction markets and unlicensed memecoins, tends to intensify when the mainstream spotlight is this bright. Investors should watch for enforcement signals from US and European authorities as the tournament progresses through the knockout rounds.

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

As Hyperliquid (HYPE) continues to make waves in the crypto market, pulling strong price moves and impressive network activity, the altcoin has finally outpaced XRP in the derivatives market.

Latest data from Coinglass shows that HYPE has overtaken XRP in crypto futures open interest, claiming the fourth largest open interest, a position previously held by XRP.

HYPE OI hits $1.45 billion The data shows that HYPE now has a massive $1.45 billion in futures open interest, surpassing XRP, which is currently sitting at $1.12 billion. 

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While open interest typically measures the total value of active futures contracts that have yet to be settled on a specific crypto asset, Hyperliquid now ranking in fourth place behind only Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana suggests that futures traders are largely betting on the asset instead of XRP.

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Simply put, crypto futures traders are strongly participating in Hyperliquid, and its derivatives market is rapidly gaining traction over XRP.

Hyperliquid Vs XRPIt is important to note that Hyperliquid has flipped XRP in open interest despite HYPE slipping 1.28% over the past 24 hours to around $59.24. 

Meanwhile, XRP has surged modestly by 1.26% to about $1.09, suggesting that XRP is currently pulling stronger moves than HYPE in the spot market.

Nonetheless, the mild surge in XRP's trading price was not enough to keep it ahead in the futures rankings. Regardless, XRP still remains ahead of HYPE in the broader crypto market, maintaining its position as the fourth largest crypto asset by market capitalization.

England beat France 6-4 on July 18 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, producing the highest-scoring third-place playoff in the history of the FIFA World Cup.

But while football fans were losing their minds over a match that played out like a video game glitch, a quieter story was unfolding on-chain. Fan token trading volumes spiked, Chiliz’s Socios ecosystem saw another burst of activity, and Kraken, the tournament’s Official Crypto Exchange Supporter, got exactly the kind of spectacle it was paying for.

Fan tokens ride the emotional rollercoaster National-team fan tokens have experienced significant intraday swings throughout both the group and knockout phases of the 2026 World Cup. The pattern has been consistent. Tokens tied to winning sides get a bump, losers see a dip, and the whole cycle resets 48 hours later when the next match kicks off.

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Chiliz (CHZ), the layer-1 blockchain that powers the Socios fan token platform, has been at the center of this activity. The ecosystem saw ongoing trading throughout the tournament, with volume and price movements correlating closely to match outcomes and fan sentiment rather than any fundamental shift in the underlying technology.

Kraken’s World Cup play Kraken announced on June 9, 2026, that it had been named the Official Crypto Exchange Supporter of the FIFA World Cup 2026, covering both North America and Europe. The partnership includes promotional campaigns designed to boost fan engagement and digital currency visibility across the tournament’s three host countries: the US, Canada, and Mexico.

FIFA has been leaning into blockchain-based collectibles as a way to facilitate digital fan interactions during the tournament, actively building infrastructure that normalizes crypto-adjacent products for a global audience.

Regulatory tailwinds, for once US regulatory clarification in early 2026 classified certain fan tokens as digital collectibles rather than securities. For Chiliz and the broader Socios ecosystem, this was a meaningful distinction.

The classification effectively removed the legal ambiguity that had kept some institutional participants on the sidelines. Digital collectibles sit in a different regulatory bucket than securities, which means fewer compliance headaches for platforms listing them and fewer existential risks for the tokens themselves.

What this means for crypto investors For traders, the key takeaway is that fan token activity is overwhelmingly event-driven. These aren’t tokens you hold through a four-year cycle like Bitcoin. They’re instruments that respond to match schedules, tournament brackets, and the collective emotional state of millions of fans.

Chiliz has historically struggled with that exact problem. Fan tokens spike during Champions League matchdays and international tournaments, then bleed out during the offseason. The 2026 World Cup, with its unprecedented scale across three countries and official crypto exchange sponsorship, represents the project’s best opportunity to break that pattern.

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

Jimothy The Raccoon Solana Token Climbs 186% After Viral Meme Fame

According to a July 17 trading disclosure from Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest—known in Chinese financial circles as "Wood Sister"—after SpaceX (SPCX.O) shares fell below their IPO price on Friday, ARK Invest purchased $18.3 million worth of the stock. The firm’s four actively managed ETFs together bought 147,623 shares. The stock closed at $123.99 that day, hitting an intraday low of $122.12. This purchase appears to be a deliberate accumulation amid the stock’s weakness rather than a hedging move, as the transaction further expands ARK’s already large existing position. Data tracking ARK’s holdings shows that in the week ended July 10, the firm’s ARKK, ARKQ, ARKW, and ARKX funds together bought approximately $52.1 million worth of SpaceX stock, bringing ARK’s total investment in SpaceX since the company’s June IPO to over $475 million. This indicates that Cathie Wood’s team has consistently viewed every price dip as a buying opportunity, not a warning sign. (Jin10)

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18 July 2026 | 17:51 Hyperliquid has generated more than $1.2 billion in fees, while Grayscale’s HYPG ETF expands institutional exposure. Yet token burns, decentralization concerns and regulatory competition still shape HYPE’s long-term outlook ahead.

Key Takeaways Hyperliquid surpassed $1.2 billion in cumulative trading fees by July 10, 2026, according to Grayscale data sourced from Allium. A portion of protocol fees is automatically converted into HYPE, and the acquired tokens are burned, linking trading activity to token demand and supply reduction. HIP-3 and builder codes allow outside teams to launch markets and earn revenue without creating a separate trading stack. Grayscale already offers direct HYPE exposure through its Nasdaq-listed Hyperliquid Staking ETF, HYPG. Regulatory progress supports perpetual futures as a product category, but it does not remove Hyperliquid’s U.S. restrictions or operational risks. Grayscale’s Head of Research, Zach Pandl, framed the investment firm’s case for Hyperliquid around five qualities: product-market fit, open architecture, revenue-linked token value, regulatory tailwinds and grassroots adoption.

That analysis comes from a company with a direct commercial position in the market. On June 3, 2026, Grayscale launched the Grayscale Hyperliquid Staking ETF on Nasdaq under the ticker HYPG. The product provides investors with exposure to HYPE while seeking to capture rewards through participation in the network’s staking process.

HYPG launched with an annual sponsor fee of 0.29%, which Grayscale described as the lowest gross fee among U.S.-listed Hyperliquid exchange-traded products at the time. The fund’s SEC registration documents confirm the 0.29% fee and its objective of reflecting the value of the HYPE held by the trust, including eligible staking rewards, after expenses and liabilities.

Grayscale’s five-point thesis should therefore be read in the context of an active product issuer evaluating the asset underlying one of its own exchange-traded funds. That does not invalidate the data or Pandl’s analysis, but it makes the firm’s financial interest relevant when assessing its conclusions.

The five points are connected. Hyperliquid first built a trading product that people were willing to pay to use. It then opened parts of that infrastructure to outside developers, while directing part of protocol activity into a mechanism that buys and burns HYPE.

That combination is more informative than the fee number alone. It suggests Hyperliquid is attempting to become an underlying financial platform rather than remaining a single decentralized exchange for crypto perpetual futures.

Today at the @HLglobal_ event I presented the 5 things the Grayscale Research team loves about Hyperliquid and $HYPE:

#1 Hyperliquid has product/market fit

#2 Hyperliquid is open architecture

#3 Hyperliquid has revenue and token value accrual

#4 Hyperliquid has regulatory… https://t.co/iNc6IuvI9j

— Zach Pandl (@LowBeta) July 17, 2026

The Fee Curve Is Hyperliquid’s Product-Market-Fit Evidence Grayscale’s chart shows cumulative trading fees rising steadily from early 2025 through July 2026 rather than depending on one isolated burst of activity. Growth accelerated during the second half of 2025 and continued throughout the first half of 2026, eventually moving beyond $1.2 billion.

Fees provide a stronger test of demand than headline trading volume alone. Volume can be inflated by temporary incentives, automated strategies or unusually volatile markets. Fees show that traders were repeatedly willing to pay for execution.

Hyperliquid’s product combines a fully onchain order book with perpetual and spot trading. According to the official documentation, orders, cancellations, trades, funding calculations and liquidations are processed transparently through HyperCore, the network’s native trading layer.

The performance of that system allowed Hyperliquid to compete in a market historically controlled by centralized exchanges. Grayscale previously estimated that the platform processed approximately $2.9 trillion in perpetual futures volume and generated around $800 million in revenue during 2025.

The cumulative fee total should still be interpreted carefully. It represents gross fees paid through the platform, not corporate profit or money belonging directly to HYPE holders. Rebates, referral rewards, liquidity mechanisms and payments to outside market deployers affect how those fees are distributed.

The curve nevertheless indicates substantial recurring paid activity and provides clear evidence that Hyperliquid has found demand for its core trading product.

How Trading Activity Reaches the HYPE Token Grayscale summarized the mechanism as a “buy-back-and-burn model where revenue loops straight back into token value accrual.”

Hyperliquid has surpassed $1.2B in cumulative trading fees since its 2024 inception.

At @HLglobal_, @LowBeta, Head of Research at Grayscale, broke down one reason it caught Grayscale’s eye: a buy-back-and-burn model where revenue loops straight back into token value accrual. https://t.co/csOnvB4KPL pic.twitter.com/lUO2bIMjup

— Grayscale (@Grayscale) July 17, 2026

The underlying mechanism is the Hyperliquid Assistance Fund. Under the protocol’s official fee rules, the fund automatically converts the fees allocated to it into HYPE as part of the network’s execution process. The acquired tokens are then burned, permanently removing them from circulating and total supply.

That creates a measurable connection between platform usage and HYPE:

1

Trading activity generates fees

2

Fees directed to Assistance Fund

3

Automatic HYPE token purchase

4

Tokens removed from supply (Burn)

The mechanism differs from a conventional dividend. HYPE holders do not receive cash distributions or acquire a legal claim on Hyperliquid’s revenue. Instead, trading activity creates recurring market demand for HYPE and reduces the number of tokens available.

The distinction prevents the $1.2 billion figure from being misread. It does not mean $1.2 billion has been returned directly to token holders or used entirely for burns. Hyperliquid’s fees are divided among community-controlled components, including the Assistance Fund, the Hyperliquid Liquidity Provider vault and third-party market deployers.

Spot and HIP-3 deployers may retain up to 50% of the fees generated by their markets. Maker rebates and other incentives also affect the final distribution.

HYPE’s value-accrual model therefore depends on more than cumulative historical fees. It requires trading activity to remain strong enough for future purchases and burns to continue. Falling volume, lower fee rates or a larger share of revenue going to outside builders would weaken the amount flowing through the Assistance Fund.

Open Architecture Expands the Fee Engine Hyperliquid’s larger opportunity comes from allowing other teams to build on top of its trading and liquidity infrastructure.

Through HIP-3, qualifying developers can deploy their own perpetual futures markets while inheriting HyperCore’s order books, margin system and execution infrastructure.

A mainnet deployer must stake 500,000 HYPE and is responsible for defining and operating the market. That includes selecting the underlying price feed, setting leverage limits, maintaining oracle updates and settling the contract when necessary.

The stake is not merely an access fee. Deployers can be penalized for inputs that damage network performance or for operating markets with unreliable pricing. This allows listings to become more open without removing accountability from the teams creating them.

HIP-3 also changes Hyperliquid’s growth model. The core team no longer has to identify and operate every new market itself. Independent developers can introduce perpetual contracts tied to crypto assets, equities, commodities, indices and other instruments with suitable price feeds.

Hyperliquid benefits even when users access those markets through third-party applications. Its builder-code system lets trading terminals, wallets and mobile applications attach an approved fee to orders routed on behalf of their users.

That system allows independent teams to generate revenue from Hyperliquid’s liquidity without having to build a blockchain, matching engine and margin system from the ground up. It also gives the network a way to distribute its trading infrastructure through multiple interfaces rather than depending entirely on one application.

The HyperEVM extends the same strategy to smart-contract applications. Developers can deploy EVM-compatible protocols while connecting them to assets and liquidity available through the broader Hyperliquid network.

This produces the flywheel behind Grayscale’s open-architecture thesis:

More builders introduce additional markets and applications

Additional products bring new users and trading activity

Trading generates fees for builders and the protocol

Part of the protocol allocation purchases and burns HYPE

HYPE is also required for staking, market deployment and network activity

The architecture gives Hyperliquid room to grow beyond its original crypto perpetuals business. Whether the flywheel becomes durable will depend on the quality and sustained usage of the markets being launched, not simply their number.

Grassroots Growth Is Not the Same as Full Decentralization Pandl’s fifth point concerns how Hyperliquid reached its current position.

Unlike many large crypto projects, Hyperliquid did not begin with a conventional venture-capital round. The Hyper Foundation describes the network as having no outside investors, no paid market makers and no fees directed to a company.

Grayscale also highlighted the distribution of roughly 30% of the HYPE supply to users at launch. That approach placed a substantial part of the network in the hands of people who had previously traded on the platform rather than selling it privately to early financial backers.

The lack of venture funding reduced Hyperliquid’s exposure to one common token-market risk: large early investor allocations becoming available for sale after lock-up periods expire. It also aligned the initial distribution more closely with actual platform usage.

“Grassroots” should not, however, be treated as a synonym for completely decentralized.

The SEC filings for Grayscale’s now-trading Hyperliquid Staking ETF identified approximately 24 validators as of April 30, 2026. The filings warned that the limited validator set could allow coordinated action over market parameters, bridges, withdrawals and incident responses.

They also noted that Hyperliquid Labs continued to exercise substantial influence over network development and that the network’s core protocol was not fully open source at the time of the filing.

Those factors do not erase the community-led launch, but they qualify the decentralization narrative. Hyperliquid combines broad token distribution and permissionless development with a comparatively concentrated validation and governance structure.

Regulation Is Both a Tailwind and a Competitive Threat Grayscale’s regulatory argument became more concrete in May 2026, when the Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved a Bitcoin perpetual contract for listing by a registered U.S. derivatives exchange.

The agency also issued a policy statement establishing a case-by-case route for other perpetual contracts. In June, it sought public input on continuous trading and perpetual contracts tied to energy commodities.

These steps validate parts of the market structure Hyperliquid has been building: derivatives without fixed expiration dates, continuous trading and markets that remain available outside traditional exchange hours.

They do not constitute regulatory approval of Hyperliquid itself. The platform continues to restrict U.S. users, and registered American venues must comply with customer-protection, surveillance, reporting and risk-management requirements that do not apply in the same way to a protocol that is not registered as a U.S. derivatives venue.

Regulatory progress could also create stronger competitors. If established U.S. exchanges can list perpetual contracts and operate continuously, part of Hyperliquid’s product advantage may become available through regulated platforms with existing institutional relationships.

Hyperliquid’s regulatory engagement became more direct on July 14, 2026, when representatives connected to its ecosystem met with the SEC’s Crypto Task Force to discuss decentralized perpetual markets and the HIP-3 architecture. The meeting showed that the protocol’s market structure is now part of the regulatory conversation, but it did not constitute approval of Hyperliquid or create a lawful path for U.S. access.

The tailwind therefore supports the instrument more clearly than it supports one venue. Hyperliquid would benefit if regulators normalize perpetual futures and around-the-clock markets, but it would also face exchanges capable of offering similar products to institutions that require regulated access.

What Could Confirm Grayscale’s Hyperliquid Thesis The next stage is proving that Hyperliquid’s architecture can generate durable activity beyond its core exchange.

Several developments would strengthen that case:

Fees continuing to rise without depending on one period of unusually high crypto volatility;

More trading activity coming from independently deployed HIP-3 markets;

Builder-code revenue expanding across multiple applications rather than remaining concentrated in a few interfaces;

Real-world asset and outcome markets retaining users after their initial launch periods;

A broader validator set and reduced dependence on coordinated intervention;

Regulatory progress that expands lawful access without forcing the network to abandon its onchain structure.

The weakest version of the thesis is that high trading fees automatically make HYPE more valuable. Fee generation alone cannot guarantee token performance, particularly if activity declines or the share reaching the burn mechanism falls.

The stronger version is that Hyperliquid has built a functioning exchange, a distribution system for independent applications and a token model that connects network usage with recurring purchases and supply reduction.

Grayscale’s five-point case ultimately depends on those elements continuing to develop together. The fee curve shows that the original trading product found demand. Open architecture must now demonstrate that Hyperliquid can support a durable ecosystem rather than a single successful venue.

Methodology: This analysis is based on Hyperliquid’s official protocol documentation, Grayscale Research, data attributed to Allium, and public filings and announcements from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Figures and source documents were reviewed on July 18, 2026.

This article is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Any financial interests or commercial relationships involving the publication or author should be disclosed separately where applicable.

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.

Bitcoin governance debates are heating up again, and this time Michael Saylor has entered the conversation with a lengthy critique of BIP 110. Rather than focusing on price or market cycles, Saylor argues the proposal could fundamentally change how Bitcoin evolves by introducing consensus rules that restrict currently valid transactions.

His argument isn’t that every inscription or non-financial application deserves protection. Instead, it’s that Bitcoin’s consensus layer shouldn’t be used to decide which legitimate, fee-paying transactions are acceptable.

Saylor Questions Consensus Rule ChangesSourceBIP 110, known as the Reduced Data Temporary Softfork, proposes introducing several temporary consensus restrictions for roughly one year. According to Saylor, the proposal would limit multiple transaction and scripting features while deploying through a modified activation process that lowers the miner signaling threshold compared to previous Bitcoin soft forks.

Although existing UTXOs created before activation would remain unaffected, Saylor argues the proposal would still remove transaction functionality currently considered valid and establish a precedent for restricting future use cases through consensus rather than market forces.

He repeatedly stresses that his criticism targets the proposal itself rather than its authors, acknowledging that supporters are attempting to address genuine concerns around node costs, transaction efficiency, and Bitcoin’s role as sound money.

Neutral Rules Versus Protocol RestrictionsA central theme throughout Saylor’s memo is Bitcoin’s principle of neutrality. According to him, Bitcoin cannot distinguish whether transaction data represents an image, authentication record, financial settlement, proof, contract, or future application. Because of that limitation, he argues consensus rules should remain content-neutral rather than restricting technical structures that may serve multiple legitimate purposes.

Saylor also questions whether BIP 110 sufficiently demonstrates measurable benefits. His memo argues the proposal does not quantify expected improvements in decentralization, node costs, payment fees, or network efficiency before recommending changes to consensus.

Instead, he suggests resource pricing, relay policies, mining policies, pruning, and Layer-2 development remain more appropriate mechanisms for managing network resource consumption without modifying Bitcoin’s base consensus rules.

Governance Debate Takes Center StageThe memo also raises concerns over BIP 110’s proposed deployment process, particularly its lower signaling threshold and temporary consensus rules.

Michael Saylor argues protocol changes should emerge only through overwhelming agreement among developers, miners, node operators, exchanges, businesses, custodians, and holders. He warns that using consensus to discourage one category of valid transactions today could create governance precedents for restricting other applications in the future.

Ultimately, Loading profile preview concludes that Bitcoin’s long-term strength comes from neutral rules, permissionless innovation, and broad consensus rather than defining acceptable transaction purposes through protocol changes.

Story Ends Here

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Read the Next News

20h25 ▪ 5 min read ▪ by Luc Jose A.

Summarize this article with:

Bitcoin seems frozen for several sessions. However, far from spot charts, institutional investors are increasing bets on the derivatives market. An unusual concentration of very short-term positions reveals that operators are preparing for an event likely to tip the market. Behind this turmoil, price levels that professionals watch before the next U.S. monetary deadlines already emerge.

In brief The derivatives market is massively active while Bitcoin price consolidates under $64,000. Crypto whales have opened 40,000 option contracts on the Deribit platform. Flows target a moderate increase in Bitcoin by the end of July 2026. Professional investors optimize their costs by voluntarily capping their gains. Massive blocks of option flows recorded on Deribit The crypto derivatives market has just been the scene of institutional activity of a scale rarely matched in recent months, targeting a moderate price increase by the end of July. Thus, the precise structure of these major transactions unfolds through particularly rigorous numerical data :

The total volume of orders : the simultaneous purchase of 20,000 call option contracts with a strike price set at $70,000 expiring on July 31 ; The associated hedge position : the sale of an identical number of 20,000 contracts at the strike price of $72,000 for the same expiry date ; A total of block flows : a cross transaction representing an overall volume of 40,000 open contracts. Asked about the nature of these major flows, Jean-David Péquignot, commercial director of the Deribit options exchange, stated: “This week, we observed large blocks on bullish BTC call spreads.”

The technical structure of the bull call spread facing volatility The financial configuration chosen by these economic operators exactly matches a “bull call spread”, an options strategy designed to optimize yields in a moderate upward scenario while drastically limiting initial costs. By buying the option at the lower strike of $70,000 and simultaneously selling the option at the higher strike of $72,000, bitcoin traders finance part of their purchase premium through the premium received on the resale.

This technical choice however involves an explicit renunciation of gains beyond the $72,000 level, with the maximum profit strictly capped at this threshold. Such a financial behavior, characterized by option purchases about 10% out of the money, reflects a cautious and measured buy-on-dip approach, far from speculative euphoria anticipating an immediate new all-time high.

Internal risk management by investors revolves around the entry cost and mitigation of time decay in contracts. This structure allows professional investors to minimize the impact of implied volatility if the crypto price stagnates or undergoes a correction lower before the end of July.

Moreover, unlike a simple call option purchase, exposure to unexpected spot market fluctuations is cushioned by the selling position at $72,000 for bitcoin, offering relative protection while maximizing the marginal capital efficiency deployed. The predominance of this combination indicates that capital targets a very narrow pivot zone to realize their short-term gains.

The Fed’s macroeconomic deadline The timing of this contractual setup is no coincidence as it aligns directly with the U.S. macroeconomic calendar, with the July 31 expiry taking place just forty-eight hours after the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy meeting scheduled for July 29. Investors adjust their crypto portfolios based on the recent slowdown of inflation in the United States, marked by the latest releases of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Producer Price Index (PPI), which have significantly eased fears of monetary tightening.

Data from the Fed funds futures market currently indicate an overwhelming 75% to 80% probability supporting the central bank’s maintenance of current interest rates at this July session. It is therefore the potential adoption of flexible rates by monetary officials that acts as the expected catalyst to propel the price towards the defined target.

While prospects of a Fed status quo support the thesis of a technical rebound of the bitcoin price towards the $72,000 mark, the real price evolution will depend on market makers’ ability to absorb the hedging pressure as the strike price of $70,000 approaches. However, a nuanced analysis requires recalling that a firmer-than-expected central bank speech or a surprise resurgence of inflationary pressures would instantly invalidate this bullish scenario.

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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.

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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.

CROWDFUNDINSIDER: Bitcoin ETFs May Follow Gold's Volatile Path, Analyst Warns

THE BLOCK: Bitcoin Japan, which holds no bitcoin, taps EVO Fund in planned $60 million raise to finally buy some

Wellington-Altus Chief Market Strategist James E. Thorne argued that the main issue facing Bitcoin is not volatility, but its “absolute scarcity” characteristic, which investors have not yet fully priced in.

Thorne noted that in traditional financial circles, the view is frequently expressed that Bitcoin is too volatile to be included in the same portfolio as gold and large-cap corporate stocks. However, the strategist pointed out that drops of 30% to 40% in AI chip manufacturers and high-beta technology stocks are tolerated, and that even assets with a market capitalization exceeding $5 trillion can be considered basic investment vehicles.

Therefore, Thorne stated that volatility alone is not sufficient to exclude an asset from a portfolio, and that the real difference stems from asset class, regulatory structure, and political acceptance. He reminded that semiconductor companies are cash-generating stocks and can be easily included in technology-focused portfolios, while Bitcoin is a monetary asset that does not generate returns, is not tied to any state, and has a limited supply of 21 million units. According to Thorne, the “too volatile” label used for Bitcoin serves as a justification that masks the lack of sufficient regulatory and institutional authority for large investment firms.

He said that if the Clarity Act, currently under consideration in the US, explicitly recognizes and regulates digital assets, investment committees could consider Bitcoin a legitimate portfolio component rather than a compliance issue.

Thorne stated that Bitcoin’s valuation potential would be clearer if regulatory obstacles were removed, arguing that Bitcoin doesn’t need to reach gold’s market capitalization. He suggested that even if Bitcoin only approached Nvidia’s current market capitalization, its unit price could reach approximately $240,000 to $250,000.

Thorne predicted that if Bitcoin were to reach the same market capitalization as gold, its price could rise to between $1.5 million and $1.8 million. He stated that these scenarios are based on Bitcoin’s limited supply, a decrease in the effective supply in circulation, and the normalization of institutional access.

Noting that markets have accepted the sharp fluctuations in AI companies reaching multi-trillion-dollar valuations, Thorne argued that the view that volatility should keep Bitcoin’s value well below these levels stems from monetary and political preferences rather than a genuine risk analysis.

*This is not investment advice.

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Bitcoin’s institutional demand will come back stronger, according to Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas. The analyst noted that U.S. spot BTC ETFs could follow gold ETFs’ ‘triumph and pain’ pattern and would eventually surge to a new record high. 

Gold ETFs were briefly the world’s largest ETF in 2011 but spent another eight years in a downtrend trying to reclaim the spot, added Balchunas.

It briefly reclaimed it again in 2024, and a similar ‘two steps forward, one step back’ could happen for BTC. 

Bitcoin ETFs may be following the same script: spectacular gains, painful drawdowns and recoveries that may test investors’ patience

Source: Bloomberg Spot Bitcoin ETF still holding strong, but…The  Bitcoin price has dropped by nearly half from over $126K to $64K. In May and June 2026, the spot BTC ETF outflows hit $7B as the crypto asset briefly slipped below $60K. 

Even so, only 10% of spot BTC ETF holders are left, compared to a third of gold ETF investors, Balchunas highlighted. 

Source: X Another positive sign that BTC could show resilience and try to defend $60K support was the long-term holder (LTH) supply. Although they have slowly reduced exposure in the past few weeks, this cohort was not net sellers yet.

According to Bitfinex analysts, BTC’s recent dip below $60K was due to deleveraging and ETF outflows as LTH conviction was still intact. But the analysts warned, 

Their 30-day net position stayed positive as ETFs shed nearly $4bn in June. Flows have now turned positive three straight sessions. The risk is LTHs finally flipping to net sellers.

Source: Checkonchain/Bitfinex  That said, amid renewed U.S-Iran escalations, the two safe havens have not seen strong investor interest, as seen earlier in the year. In the past three months, gold ETFs recorded about $11B outflows while spot BTC ETFs bled $6B. In other words, gold bled twice as much as BTC. 

It’s unclear whether BTC will attract more capital and behave like a hedge if the West Asia crisis escalations extend into Q3. 

However, the rising oil price above $80 coincided with Bitcoin [BTC]’s sideways structure below $65K, signalling that energy market shocks could still derail the crypto’s upside. 

Source: BTC/USDT, TradingView  Final Summary Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas projected U.S. Spot BTC ETFs will surge to a record high, citing gold’s past patterns  In the meantime, rising oil prices could cap BTC’s upside potential amid renewed West Asia escalations