Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

The US military launched a fresh wave of airstrikes targeting Iranian military installations in and around the Strait of Hormuz, marking the seventh straight night of strikes following the collapse of a ceasefire agreement. Two US service members were killed in a retaliatory Iranian ballistic missile attack in Jordan, escalating a conflict that is now reverberating through global markets, crypto included.

Bitcoin dropped below $64,000 during the strikes, trading in a range around $62,800 to $63,800.

What happened US Central Command (CENTCOM) executed strikes on July 17-18, 2026, targeting surveillance systems, air defense mechanisms, missile infrastructure, and maritime assets in Iran’s Hormozgan province. The region sits along the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply passes on any given day.

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The military action followed the breakdown of a recent ceasefire on July 15. Since then, CENTCOM has struck Iranian positions every single night.

Iran responded with force. A ballistic missile strike hit US-linked targets in Jordan, killing two American service members on July 17. Tehran also launched assaults on Kuwaiti interests and other Gulf states while asserting control over the Strait of Hormuz. US forces have maintained that commercial shipping through the strait continues.

Why crypto cares about a war in the Middle East Bitcoin’s slide below $64,000 reflects a classic risk-off posture. Any sustained disruption to traffic through the Strait of Hormuz would send crude prices sharply higher. Rising oil prices feed into inflation expectations. Higher inflation expectations push rate-cut timelines further out.

Broader market sell-offs linked to the conflict have hit major tokens beyond Bitcoin as well. During the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Bitcoin dropped roughly 8% in a week before recovering.

What investors should be watching For crypto-specific positioning, the $62,800 level on Bitcoin is worth monitoring closely. Liquidation cascades in leveraged crypto markets can amplify downside moves well beyond what the underlying geopolitical news would justify on its own.

The loss of two US service members in Jordan also changes the political calculus in Washington. Traders should be prepared for the possibility that strikes intensify rather than wind down in the coming days.

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

Michael Saylor has come out firmly against Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 110, better known as BIP 110. His argument is straightforward: Bitcoin needs guardians of neutrality, not gatekeepers deciding which transactions are worthy of the chain.

What BIP 110 actually proposes BIP 110 is designed to temporarily add seven extra consensus rules to the Bitcoin network for a period of one year. The goal is to filter out what proponents call network spam, specifically non-monetary data inscriptions modeled after Ordinals.

In practical terms, the proposal would cap new output scripts at 34 bytes and limit OP_RETURN outputs to 83 bytes.

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For BIP 110 to activate, at least 55% of nodes would need to validate blocks signaling support, with the target activation set at block 965,664. Here is where the proposal immediately runs into a wall: miner signaling is currently sitting at 0%.

Saylor’s case for neutrality Saylor’s objection cuts deeper than a preference for Ordinals or a distaste for spam filters. His concern is structural. He argues that the moment Bitcoin’s consensus rules start distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable transaction types, the network crosses a line it cannot uncross. Bitcoin’s rules should define what is technically valid, not what is economically or culturally desirable.

Adam Back adds weight to the opposition Saylor is not alone in this corner. Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream, has also criticized BIP 110 on similar grounds. Back’s concern centers on decentralization and censorship resistance. His position echoes a long-standing principle in Bitcoin development: the network’s strength comes from its predictability and its indifference to the identity or purpose of a transaction sender.

What this means for Bitcoin governance and investors The zero miner signaling figure effectively puts BIP 110 on life support before it ever reached a real vote. Without miner participation, the proposal cannot reach its activation threshold.

This debate is a proxy war for a much larger question: is Bitcoin a narrow monetary network optimized for value transfer, or is it a general-purpose settlement layer indifferent to the nature of what it settles? Ordinals forced that question into the open, and BIP 110 represents one camp’s attempt to answer it through protocol rules rather than social consensus.

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

XRP, one of the most frequently scrutinized digital assets in the cryptocurrency sector, has carved out a unique market identity through its focus on global payments and institutional partnerships. Distinct from decentralized networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum, XRP is developed by Ripple, a company specializing in solutions for cross-border transactions and bank integrations.

Regulatory clarity and new investment channelsAfter years marked by regulatory uncertainty, XRP’s landscape has shifted. Legal advancements, including increased regulatory clarity, as well as the approval of XRP-based exchange-traded fund (ETF) products, have refocused investor attention on the asset. Ripple’s active global partnership efforts have further supported the renewed optimism among institutional and retail investors.

The key question for market participants centers on the potential price evolution of XRP by the end of 2031, with scenario-based models emerging to address a range of possibilities.

Institutional use and technological developmentRipple has expanded its network of financial institution clients and partnered with payment service providers across several continents. The XRP Ledger, the blockchain underpinning the XRP cryptocurrency, continues to broaden its range of applications. While initially developed for payments, the ledger now also supports asset tokenization, decentralized finance (DeFi) activities, and underpins RLUSD, a stablecoin infrastructure.

Under moderate assumptions regarding adoption and market growth, projections place XRP in a trading range between $5 and $8 by 2031. At these values, the token’s total market capitalization would range from $325 billion to $520 billion.

ScenarioForecasted PriceMarket CapitalizationModerate$5–$8$325B–$520BOptimistic$15–$25Up to $1TPessimistic$1–$2Lower than currentOptimistic scenario: Market dominance and ETF impactThe optimistic scenario requires the XRP Ledger to gain significant traction as a global settlement and institutional payments network. In this forecast, XRP ETF products serve as a crucial growth catalyst, opening the door for broader exposure among both retail and institutional investors. Sustained capital inflow into these ETFs could restrict the available token supply while expanding demand across regions.

Under an optimistic projection, if the tokenized assets market expands into a multi-trillion-dollar space and XRP’s underlying technology secures a meaningful share, the data suggests XRP could climb as high as $15 to $25, approaching a total value of $1 trillion.

While such targets are ambitious, rising confidence among long-term XRP holders has led some market observers to view these price levels as within the realm of possibility.

Mini dictionary: ETF (Exchange-Traded Fund), a regulated investment fund listed on traditional stock exchanges, provides liquid and accessible exposure to underlying assets like cryptocurrencies without the need to directly manage them.

Pessimistic scenario: Risks and competitive pressureDownside risks persist for XRP, particularly regarding its integration with real-world financial infrastructure. While Ripple may achieve commercial breakthroughs with its payment platform, widespread adoption does not guarantee strong demand for the XRP token, which is primarily used for liquidity and settlement.

In addition, XRP faces increasing competition from Ethereum’s Layer 2 infrastructure, Solana’s transaction rails, fiat-backed stablecoins, and a growing suite of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). These alternatives could reduce the scope for XRP’s expansion, especially among institutional clients.

In a less favorable outcome, price forecasts place XRP between $1 and $2 during the next five years, underscoring the potential impact of stalled adoption and mounting competition.

Despite these headwinds, XRP continues to differentiate itself by maintaining a strong focus on serving as institutional-grade infrastructure rather than attempting to become a general-purpose blockchain platform.

Weighted forecast and overall outlookWhen analysts blend the probabilities across moderate, optimistic, and pessimistic scenarios, the consensus estimate centers on a 2031 price near $7.90.

This projection reflects the weighted balance of regulatory advancements, institutional partnerships, competitive threats, and ETF-related supply and demand dynamics that are likely to define XRP’s path over the long term.

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.

XRP extended its pattern of sideways trading in recent sessions, with the price remaining confined to a narrow range. Many traders have turned their attention to technical signals in an effort to anticipate the market’s next significant move.

Crypto analyst Dark Defender pointed to signs of a hidden bullish divergence appearing on XRP’s daily chart, suggesting the potential for a stronger upside movement. Hidden bullish divergence is a technical pattern that some traders associate with the continuation of an underlying bullish trend, even if the price action has temporarily weakened.

In a recent post on social media, Dark Defender maintained that XRP’s daily timeframe “still shows hidden bullish divergence compared to 5 June” and stated that “a strong move is incoming.” He predicted the expected move will likely be to the upside as long as the current wedge formation remains intact.

Dark Defender said that XRP’s daily chart displays hidden bullish divergence relative to the June 5 price action and argued that a strong move is likely, provided the wedge structure holds.

The chart shared by the analyst highlights two price levels, $1.067 and $1.13, as potential areas of focus if XRP manages to break out above its current range.

Comparison with June 5 market structureTo support his outlook, Dark Defender compared the current daily market structure to that of June 5. He identified two similar price zones but emphasized that the Relative Strength Index (RSI), a prominent momentum indicator, has formed a higher low compared to early June. This, according to the analyst, reinforces his case for a hidden bullish divergence and the potential continuation of an upward trend.

XRP currently trades within a descending wedge pattern, marked by a downward-sloping resistance line above recent price candles and a rising support line below. Such wedge structures are often associated by analysts with trend reversals or breakouts, especially when volume and momentum indicators align.

Dark Defender’s analysis continues to emphasize these technical factors as pivotal for any near-term breakout.

Mini dictionary: Relative Strength Index (RSI), a momentum oscillator that measures the speed and change of price movements, providing signals about overbought or oversold conditions in a market.

Price AreaSupport LevelResistance LevelRSI ComparisonCurrentAscendingDescendingHigher lowJune 5Similar zoneSimilar zoneLower lowCommunity responds with skepticism and supportThe analyst’s outlook generated a mixed reaction from the XRP community and other market participants.

One user, Ishmail, questioned whether the widely discussed hidden bullish divergence could serve as a trap for traders, cautioning that if too many expect a bullish breakout, large market participants could take advantage of those expectations by triggering an adverse move.

Another commenter, Phoenix Investor, criticized the analyst’s persistent bullish stance, alleging that similar forecasts have been made repeatedly over the years. This user also speculated about Ripple’s possible involvement in promoting such opinions but did not provide any evidence to support this claim.

Some community members expressed doubt about the bullish predictions, warning that crowdsourced optimism can sometimes signal the risk of an opposite outcome if major players act against consensus expectations.

Dark Defender did not directly respond to these criticisms. Instead, he reiterated his belief in the reliability of the technical signal, focusing on the apparent hidden bullish divergence and wedge structure seen on recent daily charts.

Outlook remains tied to key technical indicatorsAs the debate continues among traders and analysts, XRP’s direction remains closely linked to the technical patterns highlighted by Dark Defender. If the hidden bullish divergence and wedge pattern hold true, a significant move could be on the horizon.

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.

XRP continues to trade under a persistent descending resistance trendline, with its price action compressing into a narrower range after eighteen months marked by lower highs and declining momentum. Crypto analyst Bird, known in the digital asset sector for his technical chart analysis, has drawn attention to the possibility of a sudden and forceful price movement if the current consolidation phase concludes with a breakout.

XRP price compressed beneath resistanceXRP currently trades close to $1.09, positioned just below a long-standing descending trendline that dates back to its all-time high of $3.65. This line traces a series of lower highs, serving as a key resistance level for more than a year. Bird’s recent chart highlights a distinct trading zone near the tip of this trendline, represented as a green box, where the price has consolidated.

The analyst indicated this area as critical for any upcoming price shift, with a prominent upward arrow on the chart projecting a possible move toward the $3.80 range should resistance be broken. This projection underscores his expectation that the digital asset could see significant gains if it escapes its current technical constraints.

Mini dictionary: Bird is a cryptocurrency market analyst recognized for sharing technical insights and trading strategies, especially regarding XRP, via social media channels.

MetricCurrent ValueResistance/ReferenceXRP price$1.09$3.65 (all-time high)TrendlineDescendingOver past 18 monthsBreakout Target$3.80 (projection)After resistanceAnalyst expects sudden breakoutBird has publicly stated that, in his view, once XRP manages to surpass the key descending trendline, the recovery could be swift rather than gradual. He suggested that the period of sideways trading could be rapidly overturned, potentially erasing a year and a half of downward or stagnant price action in just days.

When XRP’s major breakout arrives, the move may not be a slow grind toward previous highs. Instead, the past 18 months of lackluster price development could be quickly reversed, with significant gains occurring over the span of a single week.

He emphasized that while he is not predicting the exact timing, he anticipates that the market’s behavior after the breakout will be characterized by a “god candle” — jargon used by traders to describe an exceptionally large, rapid price surge on a chart.

Tightening structure fuels anticipationOn the charts, XRP’s price has remained confined to a steadily narrowing range as the descending trendline slopes downward. This convergence between support and resistance has heightened investor attention, with breakout traders watching for signs of strong upward momentum if resistance is cleared.

Market participants often view these tightening patterns as precursors to high-volatility movements. A confirmed breakout above the descending trendline would represent a structural signal that the long-term bearish pattern has ended.

No set date for potential rallyBird refrained from speculating about the timing of this move, focusing instead on the technical factors and the opportunity presented by the chart’s formation. He maintained that, while the precise moment remains uncertain, the conditions exist for a transformative breakout if buyers gain control above the resistance line.

The outlook does not hinge on a specific date, but centers on the potential for a swift reversal once technical resistance yields. Until then, XRP’s primary technical feature remains the descending trendline.

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.

XRP has entered a difficult position after falling below all four of its major exponential moving averages (EMAs) on the daily chart.

At the time of writing, the token trades at $1.0863, below the 20-day, 50-day, 100-day, and 200-day EMAs. This situation has formed what traders commonly call an EMA waterfall, a pattern that shows sellers have gained control across both the short and long term.

When an asset trades below all of its key EMAs, the moving averages no longer serve as support and instead become resistance levels. As things stand, XRP faces several barriers before it can build a stronger recovery, and the current chart continues to favor the bears.

XRP Collapses Below Key EMAs The bearish structure developed gradually at the start of this year. Notably, the first major breakdown came on Jan. 6, 2026, when XRP fell below its 200-day EMA after dropping under $2.34. The next day, it also lost the 100-day EMA as the price slipped below $2.22.

The shorter-term moving averages held for several more days, but they eventually gave way as well. On Jan. 18, XRP dropped below the 20-day EMA at $2.05 and the 50-day EMA at $2.07, completing the move below all four major EMAs.

The asset recovered above the 20-day and 50-day EMAs weeks later but recently collapsed below them again amid renewed bearish pressure.

Buyers Face Several Resistance Levels With XRP now trading below every major EMA, each moving average has become a resistance level. The closest obstacle sits at the 20-day EMA, currently at $1.1004. Buyers need to push the price above this level before any meaningful recovery can begin.

Even if XRP moves above the 20-day EMA, more resistance lies ahead. Specifically, the 50-day EMA stands at $1.1487, followed by the 100-day EMA at $1.2446. Higher still, the 200-day EMA sits at $1.4502, making it the biggest barrier on the chart.

XRP EMAs and Descending Triangle The gap between the current price and the 200-day EMA also shows how much ground XRP needs to recover. From $1.0863, the asset would have to climb about 33.5% to reach that long-term average.

Even then, reaching the 200-day EMA alone would not confirm a trend reversal because buyers would still need to break above it and hold those gains.

For now, the first sign of improving strength would be a sustained daily close above the 20-day EMA. Until that happens, the overall picture continues to point to further downside.

XRP Descending Triangle Breakout Meanwhile, XRP has broken above a descending triangle that guided its price from the January 2026 peak near $2.50. The upper trendline connects a series of lower highs, while the lower trendline provides horizontal support at the $1 psychological mark.

Notably, the market currently sees mixed technical signals. Specifically, the EMA structure points to continued weakness, but XRP has already broken above the triangle’s upper trendline. 

In the past, XRP attempted to break above the triangle, but the move did not last. In mid-May, the token climbed above $1.43 and briefly moved beyond the upper trendline. However, buyers could not keep the momentum going, allowing the price to fall back inside the pattern.

A second breakout attempt came on July 14, which proved successful. However, by July 15, XRP had already dropped back below both the 20-day and 50-day EMAs.

The Next Move May Depend on These Levels The most important support now sits along the triangle’s upper trendline, which currently falls at $1.06. If XRP closes below that support on the daily chart, it would confirm a breakdown back into the triangle and could send the price toward the next major support area between $0.75 and $0.80.

On the upside, buyers must first reclaim the 20-day EMA at $1.1004 before they can build any real momentum. Above that, the upper trendline of the triangle and the 50-day EMA at $1.1487 create a strong resistance zone between $1.10 and $1.15.

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.

CryptoQuant, a cryptocurrency analysis platform, reported a significant decrease in leveraged positions in the XRP market, noting that the current outlook resembles the market structure that formed before the major price rally in 2024.

According to CryptoQuant analysts, XRP is undergoing a new delegitimization process on Binance. This trend is being tracked through the estimated leverage ratio (ELR), which measures the ratio of leveraged positions in the futures market to the exchange’s XRP reserves.

According to the data, XRP’s ELR level on Binance has fallen to 0.16. This is one of the lowest levels recorded since November 2024 and is approaching the low of 0.15 seen in April 2026. This decline occurs during a period when XRP’s price has corrected by approximately 70 percent from its peak.

The main reason for the decline in ELR was stated to be the decrease in futures positions. The liquidation of some leveraged positions during the price correction led to a decrease in the amount of open interest and a decline in the total leverage level in the market.

CryptoQuant argues that this leverage cleanup is important for the ongoing correction process. According to the analysis, excessive leverage accumulated in the market makes price movements more fragile and unpredictable, while clearing positions can help the market settle on a more stable footing.

A similar process occurred in the XRP market in 2024. While XRP was trading sideways around $0.40, the estimated leverage ratio (ELR) had fallen to 0.05. After the clearance of leveraged positions, the XRP price rose by more than 790%, and the ELR level increased again as leverage re-entered the market during the price rally.

Analysts added that the current market structure does not guarantee a new surge of the same magnitude in XRP. However, it was stated that following the delegitimization cycle is important for investors to evaluate market conditions and potential positioning opportunities.

*This is not investment advice.

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Bitcoin Price Prediction: Will BTC Crash or Rally as U.S.-Iran War Escalates?

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), a key US financial market infrastructure provider, maintains a strict system for classifying assets used as collateral. According to guidelines from its National Securities Clearing Corporation (NSCC) division, any security with a price of $5 or less is treated as an illiquid asset, which has significant consequences for margin obligations.

Implications for XRP as CollateralCurrently, XRP trades near the $1 mark. Based on DTCC and NSCC standards, this price level means the asset is considered illiquid within the margin system. Crypto analyst CryptoSensei addressed the impact of these requirements in a recent video, highlighting that using XRP as collateral at its present price results in substantially higher margin requirements compared to more liquid instruments.

Illiquid assets in the DTCC system can be subject to a “haircut” of up to 100%, depending on the risk bucket. This treatment significantly reduces the borrowing power of holders seeking to pledge XRP as collateral for trades or settlements within the DTCC-managed ecosystem.

At approximately $1, DTCC classifies XRP as illiquid, resulting in heightened collateral requirements for its use in margin accounts. This pricing classification acts as a clear signal to market participants.

Mini dictionary: DTCC (Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation) is a US-based post-trade financial services company providing clearing, settlement, and information services for financial markets. NSCC (National Securities Clearing Corporation) is a DTCC subsidiary overseeing clearance and settlement for equities, bonds, and other securities in US markets.

How the $5 Threshold Influences Collateral ViabilityThe $5 price threshold is of critical importance. CryptoSensei explained that as long as XRP remains below this level, it is less efficient as collateral compared to assets such as Treasury bills. Should XRP’s price rise above $5, its classification would improve, and haircut rates could decrease to approximately 35%, making it comparable to micro-cap equities instead of triggering the most severe collateral penalties.

This improvement would mean institutional users could deploy XRP more efficiently, reducing margin burdens and enhancing its competitiveness as a collateral asset.

Asset Price LevelDTCC Collateral ClassificationTypical Haircut$5 or lessIlliquidUp to 100%Above $5Micro-cap/Improved~35% or value-at-risk basedTreasury billsLiquidMinimalStructural Barriers to Institutional UseCryptoSensei emphasized that these requirements are not simply matters of market opinion, but are structural features of institutional settlement infrastructure. He argued that without a much higher price, XRP cannot function efficiently as a collateral option inside the DTCC system.

NSCC’s margin rules apply universally, focusing solely on asset price and liquidity rather than asset type. According to CryptoSensei, for XRP to be practical for institutional collateral, it must first surpass the $5 threshold—a move that would reduce haircuts and make it a closer peer to traditional financial instruments in terms of efficiency.

A significant price increase for XRP would be required for it to gain broader utility as collateral in major financial settlement systems. The NSCC formulas apply uniformly and leave no exceptions for specific tokens.

Clarifying Recent Claims and Ripple InvolvementSome commentators recently suggested that the DTCC officially classified XRP as illiquid based on an answer generated by Coveo, an AI-powered search tool featured on DTCC’s website. However, this response was not an official document from the institution. Instead, DTCC’s actual rules, published in the NSCC Risk Margin Component Guide, treat all securities identically according to price bands without listing specific tokens by name.

Ripple, the company behind XRP, is a member of the DTCC’s Industry Working Group, which brings together over 50 major financial and fintech institutions. The group includes leading banks and firms such as Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, BlackRock, Circle, and Ondo Finance.

On July 15, DTCC initiated production trading for tokenized securities, such as Russell 1000 equities, ETFs, and US Treasuries, ahead of a planned full-service launch in October 2026. Ripple Prime is participating in these developments, as the integration of digital assets within traditional settlement infrastructure progresses.

These developments illustrate the ongoing integration of blockchain-based tokens into established financial markets, alongside the challenges posed by current pricing and margin frameworks.

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.

A new wave of regulatory momentum is gathering as the United States and United Kingdom jointly advance plans for stablecoins and tokenized assets, signaling 2027 as the year when global crypto regulation could become firmly established. The coordinated approach, announced by both governments through their transatlantic task force for markets of the future, underscores a push to integrate digital assets into traditional finance infrastructure.

US and UK emphasize one-to-one stablecoin backingThe US Treasury and UK government released a joint statement affirming stablecoins as vital instruments for innovation in digital money, especially for cross-border transactions. Both nations indicated that they plan to facilitate the use of well-regulated stablecoins in payment, settlement, and tokenized financial markets.

A key aspect of the statement is the explicit requirement that all stablecoins presented as money be fully backed, at least one-to-one, by high-quality liquid assets. This approach directly challenges the adequacy of current reserve practices among some major stablecoin issuers. Market analyst Nick from the YouTube channel Crypto Crusaders interpreted this as a call for tighter reserve, liquidity, and prudential standards to minimize systemic risk and prevent market fragmentation.

The two governments also highlighted the necessity for formal mechanisms to enable cross-border stablecoin transfers. Achieving comparable outcomes for comparable risks and avoiding regulatory loopholes, while ensuring business viability and avoiding unnecessary barriers to entry, emerged as guiding principles.

Stablecoins “are an important vehicle for innovation in digital money, specifically in cross-border finance,” the statement noted, with both sides advocating for strict one-to-one asset backing to reduce risks and support broader adoption.

UK introduces detailed rulebook for stablecoinsThe UK is pressing ahead with a comprehensive domestic framework for digital assets. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which oversees financial markets and firms in Britain, has issued a new CryptoAsset sourcebook under the “Crypto II” initiative. This sourcebook sets detailed requirements for stablecoin issuers, while the new CASS 16 chapter specifies standards for the safeguarding of backing assets.

A joint report with the Bank of England outlines the supervision of stablecoins that reach systemic importance, as designated by HM Treasury. The proposal establishes clear expectations for authorization, asset protection, and oversight. Firms will transition from the FCA regime to direct oversight by the Bank of England upon reaching systemic scale.

Regulators expect the final set of crypto rules to be published later this year, with full implementation of the regime scheduled by the end of 2027. This follows a lengthy public consultation addressing subjects such as stablecoins and market integrity.

Mini dictionary: Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the UK’s main financial regulatory body, supervises over 50,000 financial services firms and financial markets in the UK to ensure consumer protection and market integrity.

Ripple’s regulatory position strengthens in Europe and the UKRipple, the US-based blockchain company known for its cross-border payment solutions, is gaining regulatory traction in Europe and the UK. Ripple has secured an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license and crypto asset registration from the FCA, as well as preliminary EMI approval from the Luxembourg Financial Sector Supervisory Commission (CSSF). According to Nick, the company is also actively engaging in policy discussions across the region.

Casey Craddock, named as Ripple’s UK CEO and managing director for the UK and Europe, has participated in EU meetings and focused efforts on establishing Ripple’s presence in both the UK and the broader European Union. Ripple has also joined the “markets of the future” task force established in September 2025, which enables the firm to strengthen its position as a bridge between the US and UK digital asset markets.

Ripple’s XRP, promoted as a bridge currency that facilitates settlement between fiat currencies and stablecoins, continues to be highlighted by the company for its potential in international payments. While some market participants question this view, the regulatory developments in both the US and UK may further clarify roles for XRP and similar assets.

Ripple “is fully licensed in Europe” and now holds key UK regulatory approvals, which could solidify its transatlantic presence if London and Washington succeed in harmonizing tokenization and cross-border stablecoin frameworks.

RegionRegulatorLicensing Achieved by RippleStatusUKFCAElectronic Money Institution license, Crypto Asset RegistrationApprovedLuxembourgCSSFPreliminary EMI ApprovalProvisionally ApprovedEurope (EU)EU Regulatory AuthoritiesFull licensing for operationApprovedDisclaimer: 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.

Recent analysis from on-chain intelligence platform Token Terminal highlights a significant milestone for Ethereum in the evolving landscape of tokenized financial products. Over the past year, the network has recorded the highest absolute capital inflows into tokenized exchange-traded funds (ETFs) compared to any other blockchain.

This development underscores Ethereum’s strengthening position as a preferred infrastructure for bridging traditional finance with decentralized systems.

Tokenized ETFs represent a growing segment within the broader real-world asset (RWA) tokenization trend.

While the global ETF market exceeds $20 trillion, only a fraction—around $475 million—has migrated on-chain so far.

Ethereum captures approximately 70% of these tokenized ETF issuances, demonstrating clear dominance in this nascent but rapidly expanding category.

This leadership stems from the network’s ecosystem, established liquidity, and institutional familiarity.

The surge aligns with Ethereum’s broader success in tokenized funds. Data indicates the chain hosts over 70% of tokenized fund assets under management in many reports, with figures climbing into the tens of billions.

Major players like BlackRock (with its BUIDL fund), JPMorgan, and Franklin Templeton have issued or expanded products on Ethereum, leveraging its security and composability for money market funds, treasuries, and other yield-bearing instruments.

These offerings provide on-chain transparency, faster settlement, and programmable features that traditional structures cannot easily match.

This momentum reflects accelerating institutional adoption. Spot Ethereum ETFs in traditional markets have also drawn substantial interest, contributing to overall ecosystem growth.

Combined with strong performance in stablecoins and other RWAs, Ethereum processes trillions in transfer volumes quarterly, solidifying its role as a primary settlement layer for digital finance.

Analysts note that such inflows signal confidence in Ethereum’s utility beyond mere speculation, particularly in DeFi, staking, and tokenized real-world exposure.

Several factors drive this trend. Ethereum’s mature developer community, battle-tested security through proof-of-stake, and ongoing scalability improvements via layer-2 solutions enhance its appeal.

Tokenization reduces friction in traditional finance—cutting intermediary costs, enabling 24/7 trading, and improving auditability—while maintaining regulatory compliance pathways.

As more asset managers explore on-chain strategies, Ethereum’s first-mover advantage and network effects create a self-reinforcing cycle of liquidity and innovation.

Challenges remain, including competition from faster or cheaper alternatives and regulatory uncertainties.

However, Ethereum‘s dominance in key metrics—such as stablecoin market share exceeding 50-60% and leading positions in tokenized commodities and equities—positions it favorably.

The absolute inflow leadership in tokenized ETFs marks a pivotal step toward mainstream integration, potentially unlocking trillions more in value as traditional asset classes digitize.

Continued growth in tokenized products could further enhance Ethereum’s economic security through increased fee generation and staking demand.

For investors and institutions, this signals a maturing crypto market where utility and real-world utility increasingly drive capital allocation. The update from Token Terminal concluded that Ethereum‘s performance in attracting tokenized ETF flows highlights its evolution into critical financial infrastructure, setting the stage for deeper TradFi-DeFi convergence in the years to come.

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Ethereum is maintaining its key support level at $1,780, with market participants closely monitoring potential moves toward the $2,200 to $2,400 range. Analysts suggest that the near-term trend remains upward as long as this support holds, despite the presence of ongoing selling risk from large wallet activity.

Analysts see upside as long as support holdsMichaël van de Poppe, a widely followed crypto analyst, stated that Ethereum’s price structure has shifted into an upward trend on lower time frames. He indicated that previous resistance levels are now acting as support, reinforcing the bullish outlook if $1,780 remains firm.

Ethereum is entering a new upward phase, flipping previous resistance areas into support. If $1,780 continues to hold, the next upside target sits between $2,200 and $2,400.

Van de Poppe predicted that the probability of Ethereum rising above $2,000 is increasing as market sentiment improves. The strength at $1,780 is considered critical for ETH’s current short-term structure.

Should this level show weakness, analysts may re-evaluate potential downside risk. However, as of now, the focus remains on the possibility of a renewed breakout toward higher price zones.

Whale activity influences market outlookCrypto Patel, another cryptocurrency market analyst, commented that Ethereum whales are not signaling widespread capitulation. While large wallet profits have reduced as the market adjusted, he noted that the majority of these major holders remain in a profitable position.

Ethereum whales are not capitulating, but the risk of renewed selling persists as whale profits diminish and sizeable amounts of ETH are deposited to Binance.

This scenario, according to Patel, leaves room for both selling and support from whales, depending on their appetite for risk and market conditions. The willingness of large holders to either liquidate or accumulate could significantly shape short-term price action.

Patel highlighted the importance of tracking capital flows and large wallet moves. Changes in whale behavior, including deposits and stablecoin balances, may help predict whether demand supports a further rally or selling pressure undermines support.

Binance deposits and stablecoin reserves raise cautionElevated ETH deposits on Binance remain a point of concern for some traders, as they indicate more supply could be available to sell in the event of increased volatility. This trend introduces additional uncertainty and prompts closer scrutiny of exchange-related data.

Patel observed that whales have kept significant reserves in USDT and USDC, two of the leading stablecoins. Large stablecoin balances enable swift reactions to price developments, allowing these entities to buy ETH if bullish momentum arises, or sell into weakness if sentiment sours.

The current market balance hinges on whether the $1,780 level can withstand further pressure. A decisive move above this support could trigger renewed buying activity, with $2,200 to $2,400 emerging as the next target area. On the other hand, higher exchange deposits serve as a caution for traders tracking possible surges in supply.

Mini dictionary: Binance, a major global cryptocurrency exchange platform, is often used by the largest ETH holders, or “whales,” to facilitate substantial deposits and trades that can influence the market. USDT (Tether) and USDC (USD Coin) are two prominent stablecoins, frequently used as a store of value or to quickly enter and exit positions within the crypto market.

Support LevelResistance TargetsWhale ActivityMain Risk$1,780$2,200–$2,400Elevated Binance deposits
High USDT, USDC balancesPotential selling from large holdersDisclaimer: 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.

Kraken, a cryptocurrency exchange that also offers stock trading, has introduced a fresh lineup of options contracts on Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). This move aims to make sophisticated derivatives trading available to a broader group of professional and institutional investors as the crypto market matures.

The platform is rolling out European-style, cash-settled options that are linear and denominated in USD.

These contracts provide direct exposure to the underlying assets in a format familiar to traditional finance professionals.

At launch, traders can access weekly, monthly, quarterly, and semi-annual expirations through a request-for-quote (RFQ) system on Kraken Pro.

This initiative addresses a key gap in the crypto derivatives landscape. While options represent only a modest portion of overall crypto trading volume today, they dominate activity in conventional markets.

Kraken anticipates that institutional capital flowing into digital assets will drive options usage closer to traditional levels, and the new products are built to capture that growth.

The contracts use a straightforward linear structure, with premiums, profits, losses, and final settlements all handled in U.S. dollars.

Portfolio margining comes enabled by default for qualifying clients, allowing offsetting positions across spot, futures, and options to lower overall margin needs.

All assets reside in one unified wallet, and participants can collateralize positions with more than 30 different currencies, leveraging Kraken’s established multi-collateral framework.

Minimum order sizes start at 0.01 contracts for BTC/USD and 0.1 for ETH/USD, with tick sizes of $1 and $0.10 respectively.

Settlement relies on a 30-minute observation window prior to 8 UTC. Fees follow Kraken’s standard derivatives schedule, based on notional value but capped at 12.5% of the premium.

Alexia Theodorou, Director of Derivatives at Kraken, highlighted the strategic intent: the existing crypto options market has largely catered to a niche group of crypto-native participants.

By contrast, Kraken’s dollar-settled design aligns with what institutional players already understand and use alongside their spot and futures activity in a single account.

The launch marks the opening chapter of a multi-phase expansion.

Initial availability is limited to eligible professional and institutional clients via RFQ. European access is slated for the second half of 2026, pending regulatory approvals.

Subsequent updates will likely introduce a public order book to enhance liquidity and price discovery, along with additional assets and wider geographic reach.

Options serve as vital tools for expressing views on price direction, volatility, and time decay.

Integrating them into Kraken Pro creates a comprehensive derivatives suite where clients can manage risk and take directional positions efficiently within one ecosystem.

This development reflects Kraken’s commitment to building institutional-grade infrastructure.

By combining familiar contract mechanics with robust margining and multi-currency collateral, the exchange positions itself to support the next wave of professional participation in crypto derivatives. As the market evolves in 2026, products like these could help bridge the divide between crypto and traditional finance, offering sophisticated hedging and speculative opportunities in a regulatedenvironment.

Ethereum’s best marketing line was that using it destroyed it, that every transaction burned ETH and shrank the supply. Then the network solved its scaling problem, activity fled to layer 2s, and the burn collapsed. The scaling worked. The scarcity did not survive it.

Summary

Ethereum’s “ultrasound money” thesis held that EIP-1559 fee burning would outpace new issuance, making ETH deflationary and a superior store of value to Bitcoin. It worked briefly after the 2022 Merge. Then the March 2024 Dencun upgrade moved activity to layer-2 rollups paying near-zero fees, and the daily burn collapsed from thousands of ETH to as low as 50 to 70. ETH has since been mildly inflationary, with net supply growth around 0.2% to 0.8% annually depending on the period, reversing the deflation the thesis promised. The December 2025 Fusaka upgrade added EIP-7918, a blob fee floor designed to restore a minimum burn. Fidelity modeled it would have added roughly $78.6 million in burn across 93% of days since 2024. The deeper tension is unresolved: a cheap, scaled Ethereum burns less than a congested, expensive one, so the network’s success as infrastructure works against its scarcity as an asset. For about eighteen months, Ethereum had the best story in crypto, and the story was a paradox: the more people used the network, the rarer its token became. Every transaction burned a little ETH, and when the network was busy enough, it burned more than it created. Supply went down. The community called it ultrasound money, a deliberate jab at Bitcoin’s “sound money,” complete with a bat emoji and a movement.

For a while, the data backed it up. Then Ethereum did the thing it had promised to do for years, which was to scale, and scaling broke the story. Activity moved to layer-2 networks that pay almost nothing to the base chain, the burn collapsed, and ETH quietly went inflationary again. This is the story of how Ethereum’s greatest technical success dismantled its best economic narrative, and whether a December upgrade can put the pieces back.

What ultrasound money actually meant The mechanism is worth getting exactly right, because the whole debate turns on it.

In August 2021, Ethereum activated EIP-1559, which changed how transaction fees work. Instead of paying miners directly, every transaction now pays a base fee that is burned, permanently removed from circulation. The busier the network, the higher the base fee, and the more ETH destroyed. On its own, that is just a fee-burning mechanism. It became a monetary thesis when Ethereum switched from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake in the September 2022 Merge, which cut new ETH issuance by roughly 90%, because the network no longer had to pay energy-intensive miners.

Put the two together, and you get the ultrasound thesis. Issuance dropped to a trickle after the Merge. Burning continued with every transaction. If burning exceeded issuance, total ETH supply would shrink over time, making the asset deflationary. And a deflationary asset with growing demand should, in theory, appreciate. Ethereum would become harder money than Bitcoin, whose supply still grows, hence “ultrasound.” The tracking site ultrasound.money existed to display exactly this: supply ticking down, day by day.

For a stretch after the Merge, it happened. Supply fell back toward and below the level it sat at during the Merge itself. Burns outpaced issuance. The narrative was not hype; it was, for that window, an accurate description of the data. That is what made it powerful, and what made its reversal so awkward.

NEW: Tom Lee calls Robinhood Chain proof that ETH is money

The chain uses Ethereum as native gas, denominates fees in ETH, and settles on Ethereum L1 while generating volume exceeding many established DEXes pic.twitter.com/Ir2hTsaMiu

— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) July 12, 2026 How scaling broke it The break came from Ethereum solving its most famous problem, and the irony is total.

Ethereum’s scaling strategy is to push transactions off the expensive base layer and onto layer-2 rollups, networks like Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base that process transactions cheaply and then post compressed data back to Ethereum for security. The base layer becomes a settlement and data-availability layer; the rollups handle the actual activity. This is the roadmap Ethereum has pursued for years, and it works.

The March 2024 Dencun upgrade was the pivotal moment. It introduced EIP-4844, “blob” transactions, a separate and far cheaper data channel for rollups to post their data. Costs for layer 2s dropped by a factor of 10 to 100. Activity that used to happen on mainnet, paying mainnet fees and burning mainnet ETH, moved to rollups paying blob fees that were, in practice, close to zero because blob space was massively oversupplied relative to demand.

The effect on the burn was immediate and severe. Before Dencun, Ethereum burned thousands of ETH per day during busy periods. After Dencun, daily burn dropped to as low as 50 to 70 ETH. The base layer had lost its primary fee source. With issuance running around 1,700 ETH per day and burn collapsing well below that, the equation flipped: Ethereum began creating more ETH than it destroyed. By various measures across 2025 and into 2026, net annual inflation ran somewhere between roughly 0.2% and 0.8%, depending on the window. ETH supply crossed back above its Merge-era level. The deflation was over.

The mechanism that made ultrasound money true, EIP-1559 burning at scale, had not been removed. It had been bypassed. The activity simply moved to a layer where the burn does not happen in any meaningful amount. Ethereum scaled successfully and, in doing so, severed the link between usage and scarcity that the entire thesis depended on.

The bull case: it still works, just differently The response from Ethereum’s defenders is not denial. It is reframing, and parts of it are genuinely strong.

The first point is that elastic scarcity is the actual feature, not permanent deflation. Ethereum was never designed to deflate forever at a fixed rate. It was designed to burn in proportion to demand, which means it becomes deflationary when the network is busy and mildly inflationary when it is quiet. During periods of high mainnet activity, above roughly 16 gwei average gas, burn still exceeds issuance, and ETH still goes net deflationary, temporarily. The mechanism works exactly as designed; it is just that a scaled network spends more time in the quiet regime. In this reading, ultrasound money was always conditional, and the condition is demand, not a promise.

The second point is that issuance is still radically lower than before. Even mildly inflationary, Ethereum issues roughly 90% less ETH than it did under proof-of-work. Compared to Bitcoin, which currently inflates at around 0.8% annually on a fixed schedule, Ethereum’s roughly 0.2% net inflation in calmer periods is actually lower. Both assets inflate in 2026; Ethereum, by some measures, inflates less. The “harder than Bitcoin” claim survives in a narrow, technical form even without net deflation.

The third point is that the supply figure overstates the sell pressure. Roughly 28% to 30% of all ETH is locked in staking, earning yield and not circulating. The tradeable float, ETH actually available on exchanges, is meaningfully smaller than the headline supply number, and it shrinks as more ETH is staked. A modestly inflating total supply with a large and growing staked portion is a very different pressure than the raw inflation number suggests. Demand from ETFs, treasury companies, and staking can absorb 0.2% inflation without difficulty.

NEW: Ethereum ETFs see 58 million dollars in net inflows on July 14

Fresh capital flowed into spot Ethereum ETFs during the latest session pic.twitter.com/V3vb5Y7x39

— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) July 16, 2026 And the fourth point is simply that the store-of-value case never rested on deflation alone. As long as demand for Ethereum’s blockspace, its role as settlement for stablecoins, tokenization, and DeFi, grows faster than supply, price can rise regardless of whether supply ticks up 0.2% a year. Scarcity was a nice story. Utility is the real thesis.

The bear case: the narrative was load-bearing The skeptical reading is that the ultrasound story was not just marketing, that it was doing real work in the investment case, and that losing it matters more than the reframing admits.

The blunt version comes from the on-chain data and the people watching it leave. Daily network fee revenue on Ethereum fell from near $40 million in early 2025 to a local low around $10 million in 2026. That is not just a burn problem; it is a value-accrual problem. If the base layer captures little fee revenue because activity happens on rollups that pay it almost nothing, then holding ETH is a bet on an asset whose own network is monetizing its users poorly. Some analyses have tied this directly to developer attrition and reduced whale support, framing the end of ultrasound money as the end of a period when ETH had a clean, quantifiable reason to appreciate.

The deeper problem is structural and hard to argue away: a scaled, efficient Ethereum is less deflationary than a congested, expensive one. This is the tension at the center of the whole debate. The very thing that makes Ethereum better as infrastructure, cheap transactions, more capacity, activity on fast rollups, is the thing that reduces the burn. Ethereum cannot simultaneously be the cheap, high-throughput settlement layer it wants to be and the fee-burning deflationary asset the ultrasound thesis needed. Those are in direct conflict, and the roadmap chose scaling. The asset thesis was, in a real sense, sacrificed to the technology roadmap.

Then there is the value-capture question that rollups sharpen. Layer 2s use Ethereum for security and pay it a pittance for the privilege. Robinhood’s own chain is an example: analyses of corporate L2s show the base layer capturing a rounding error of the economics while providing the security that makes the whole arrangement credible. If Ethereum’s future is thousands of rollups settling to it cheaply, then Ethereum is providing enormous value and capturing little of it, and no amount of narrative reframing fixes a value-capture problem that lives in the fee structure.

The fix nobody is talking about Which brings us to December 2025, and the upgrade that was designed, in part, to address exactly this, and that most of the market ignored.

The Fusaka upgrade activated on December 3, 2025. Its headline features were about scaling further, PeerDAS and expanded blob capacity. But buried in it was EIP-7918, the “blob base fee bound,” which is the most direct attempt yet to repair the burn. The problem Dencun created was that blob fees could collapse to near-zero, one wei, when execution costs dominated and blob demand was soft, which meant rollups consumed Ethereum’s capacity almost for free and burned almost nothing. EIP-7918 sets a floor: it ties the minimum blob fee to the execution base fee, roughly the execution base fee divided by 16, so that even in quiet periods rollups pay a meaningful minimum, and a minimum stream of ETH gets burned.

The modeling is striking. Fidelity Digital Assets analyzed what would have happened if EIP-7918 had been active since blobs launched, and found that on 93% of days since the 2024 Dencun upgrade, the adjusted fee would have exceeded the actual fee, generating an estimated additional $78.6 million, roughly 24,641 ETH, in cumulative blob-fee revenue. Blockworks noted that had the mechanism been introduced in June 2025, burnt blob fees would have been nearly 8x higher. The intent is explicit: restore a floor under the burn so that as stablecoins, DeFi, and tokenization migrate to rollups, ETH still captures value from that activity instead of subsidizing it.

The honest caveat is that this is a floor, not a restoration. EIP-7918 prevents the burn from collapsing to zero; it does not recreate the thousands-of-ETH-per-day burn of the congested mainnet era. Whether it produces measurable, sustained deflation depends on how much activity flows through blobs and how high execution base fees run, and the market is still watching. It is a serious, well-designed attempt to reconnect usage and scarcity. It is not a return to 2022.

Sound money versus ultrasound money, honestly compared Because the entire thesis was built as a shot at Bitcoin, it is worth putting the two monetary models side by side without the tribalism, since the comparison is more interesting than either camp admits.

Bitcoin offers fixed scarcity. The supply schedule is written into the protocol, capped at 21 million coins, and halves on a predictable timetable roughly every four years. A holder knows today, with certainty, what Bitcoin’s issuance will be in 2030 and 2040. That certainty is the entire product. Bitcoin does not react to demand, does not burn, does not adjust; it simply issues on schedule toward a hard cap, and its current inflation runs around 0.8% annually, trending toward zero over decades. The trade-off Bitcoin holders accept is that the base layer offers little native utility and no yield. You hold it for the certainty, and you give up productivity in exchange.

Ethereum offered, and to a degree still offers, elastic scarcity. Supply responds to network demand: high usage burns more and can push ETH net deflationary; low usage burns less and lets mild inflation through. The appeal was a token that becomes scarcer precisely when it is most used, tying the asset’s scarcity to the network’s success. The trade-off, which the L2 era exposed, is that elasticity cuts both ways.

A demand-responsive supply is only deflationary when demand is high on the layer that burns, and Ethereum deliberately moved demand to layers that do not burn. Bitcoin’s rigidity, often criticized as inflexible, turned out to be the thing that made its monetary promise keepable. Ethereum’s flexibility, often praised as sophisticated, turned out to be the thing that made its monetary promise conditional.

The honest scorecard is that these are different products for different buyers, not better and worse versions of the same thing. Bitcoin sells certainty and asks you to forgo utility. Ethereum sells utility and asks you to accept that its scarcity depends on how that utility is used. The ultrasound-money era was the brief window when Ethereum appeared to offer both, certainty of deflation and utility of a working network, and that window closed not because Ethereum failed but because it succeeded at scaling.

A holder choosing between them in 2026 is really choosing between guaranteed scarcity with no yield and demand-driven scarcity with staking yield and network utility. Framed that way, the loss of ultrasound money is less a defeat than a clarification: Ethereum was never going to be Bitcoin, and the burn was hiding how different the two bets actually are.

What this means for holding ETH Strip away the narrative fight and the practical question is whether the ultrasound story mattered to the price, and the uncomfortable answer is that it is hard to tell, because ETH has underperformed through the entire period regardless.

The clean way to see it: the ultrasound thesis was strongest right after the Merge, and it has been dismantled steadily since Dencun in March 2024. Over that same window, ETH has been a persistent underperformer against both Bitcoin and its own former highs. Either the market was pricing the loss of the deflation narrative, or the market never cared about the narrative and ETH’s problems lie elsewhere, in L2 value leakage, in competition from Solana, in the sheer difficulty of the modular roadmap. Both readings are defensible, and they point to different conclusions about whether fixing the burn fixes the price.

The most honest framing is that ultrasound money was a proxy for a real question that has not gone away: does Ethereum capture value from its own success? When the network was congested and expensive, the answer was visibly yes; the burn made it legible. When the network scaled and cheapened, the answer became murky, and the burn stopped telling the story. EIP-7918 is an attempt to make the answer legible again by putting a floor under value capture.

Whether it works will show up not in the marketing but in two numbers over the next year: net ETH supply, and base-layer fee revenue. If both turn up meaningfully, the thesis has a second life. If they do not, then ultrasound money was a phase, not a property, and Ethereum’s investment case has to stand on utility alone, which is a harder, slower, less tweetable argument than the one that shrank the supply.

Frequently Asked Questions What is Ethereum ultrasound money? It is the thesis that Ethereum’s ETH token would become deflationary and a superior store of value to Bitcoin. It rests on two mechanisms: EIP-1559, activated in 2021, which burns a portion of every transaction fee, and the 2022 Merge, which cut new ETH issuance by roughly 90%. When burning exceeds issuance, total supply shrinks. The term was a play on Bitcoin’s “sound money” branding.

Is Ethereum still deflationary in 2026? Not on a net basis, in normal conditions. After the March 2024 Dencun upgrade shifted activity to cheap layer-2 rollups, the burn collapsed, and ETH became mildly inflationary, with net supply growth around 0.2% to 0.8% annually depending on the period. During bursts of high mainnet activity, it can still turn temporarily deflationary, but the sustained deflation of the immediate post-Merge period ended.

Why did layer 2s break the burn? Because they moved activity off the base layer, where transactions burned meaningful ETH, onto rollups that pay near-zero fees. The Dencun upgrade introduced cheap “blob” transactions for rollups, cutting their costs 10 to 100 times. Blob space was oversupplied, so blob fees fell close to zero, and the daily burn dropped from thousands of ETH to as low as 50 to 70. The activity continued; the burn did not follow it.

Does this mean ETH is a worse investment? Not necessarily, and defenders make several counterpoints: issuance is still about 90% lower than under proof-of-work, roughly 0.2% net inflation in calm periods is actually below Bitcoin’s, nearly a third of ETH is locked in staking and off the market, and the real case rests on demand for blockspace rather than deflation. Critics counter that base-layer fee revenue collapsed too, raising a genuine value-capture problem.

What is EIP-7918? A change introduced in Ethereum’s December 2025 Fusaka upgrade that sets a minimum price for blob transactions, tied to the execution base fee, roughly that fee divided by 16. It prevents blob fees from collapsing to near-zero during quiet periods, ensuring a minimum stream of ETH is burned. Fidelity modeled that it would have added roughly $78.6 million in cumulative burn across 93% of days since 2024 had it existed earlier.

Did Fusaka restore ultrasound money? No, it put a floor under the burn rather than restoring the deflation of the post-Merge era. EIP-7918 stops the burn from collapsing to zero and improves value capture as activity migrates to rollups, but it does not recreate the thousands-of-ETH-per-day burn of the congested mainnet period. Whether it produces sustained net deflation depends on blob activity and execution fees, and remains to be seen.

Is Ethereum still harder money than Bitcoin? In a narrow technical sense, sometimes. In calm periods, Ethereum’s roughly 0.2% net inflation can run below Bitcoin’s roughly 0.8% fixed-schedule inflation. But Bitcoin offers predictable, protocol-guaranteed scarcity indefinitely, while Ethereum’s supply is elastic and responds to demand, so it can inflate more during quiet, scaled periods. They offer different kinds of scarcity: fixed and certain versus elastic and demand-driven.

What should I watch to know if the thesis recovers? Two numbers over the next year: net ETH supply growth, and Ethereum base-layer fee revenue. If EIP-7918 and rising rollup activity push net supply back toward flat or negative while base-layer revenue climbs from its roughly $10 million lows, the value-capture story recovers. If supply keeps growing and fee revenue stays depressed, ultrasound money was a temporary phase, and ETH’s case rests on utility and demand alone.

Disclaimer: This article is for information and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. It describes monetary mechanics and network upgrades whose effects are uncertain and still developing. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any asset. Always do your own research. Figures on supply, burn, and inflation move continuously and are accurate as of July 17, 2026.

SpaceX Stock Sinks Below IPO Price: The Hype Is Over?

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and the recently launched $1.6 trillion aerospace company, who is also a big supporter of Dogecoin, has once again fallen below the $1 trillion net worth mark.

On Saturday, July 18, the Arkham Intelligence platform shared data revealing that Elon Musk's net worth is now estimated at around $997 billion.

Is SpaceX responsible?Although this is not the first time Elon Musk has slipped in and out of the trillionaire club, he still remains the world's richest person despite the recurring drop in his fortune.

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Per data from Arkham, the latest decline leaves him just $3 billion short of reclaiming the milestone, stirring curiosity about the reason behind the drop this time.

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Last month, Elon Musk became the world's first trillionaire after SpaceX's record-breaking IPO sent his net worth above $1 trillion. The trend continued, with his fortune soaring to nearly $1.45 trillion as SpaceX shares surged to record highs.

With SpaceX valued at $715 billion, the company makes up the largest share of Musk's wealth. Thus, the trillion-dollar milestone being short-lived has been largely attributed to SpaceX's performance.

SpaceX sees major declineIt is important to note that the latest drop in Musk's net worth has coincided with a recent decline in the stock price of SpaceX. 

The stock has fallen below its $135 IPO price after reaching more than $200 in the weeks following its record-breaking launch on Nasdaq.

While SpaceX accounts for about $715 billion of Musk's currently estimated $997 billion net worth, it is expected that even small declines in the company's share price can add or remove billions of dollars from his net worth.

There is $1.6 trillion in Bitcoin sitting idle, earning nothing, doing nothing. Charles Hoskinson has a plan to put it to work on Cardano, and the plan quietly requires every transaction to burn a little ADA. Whether that saves Cardano or exposes its central problem is the whole question.

Summary

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has laid out a strategy to bring Bitcoin into Cardano’s DeFi ecosystem through a platform called Pogun, targeting the roughly $1.6 trillion in idle Bitcoin. Pogun rolls out in three phases across 2026: a non-margin credit market in the second quarter, a yield application in the third, and a BitVM-based trust-minimized bridge in the fourth. The mechanism that matters for ADA holders: every transaction in the system requires ADA for fees, paid invisibly by Bitcoin users, creating a demand driver that Cardano’s token has lacked. It leans on Midnight, Cardano’s privacy partner chain, for confidential transactions, and on Cardano’s EUTXO architecture, which shares design lineage with Bitcoin’s own UTxO model. The sharp objection, raised by Cardano’s own community: if Bitcoin can be lent, earn yield, and settle without users noticing ADA, why hold ADA at all? The plan may build against its own token. Cardano has a problem it has had for years, and it is not a technology problem. ADA trades around 94% below its 2021 high, the network’s DeFi activity has long lagged its ambitions, and its founder spends a meaningful share of his time denying rumors that he is quitting. What Cardano has never lacked is engineering and ideas.

What it has lacked is a reason for capital to show up. Charles Hoskinson’s answer, laid out across 2026, is audacious: stop trying to attract crypto capital to Cardano and go get Bitcoin’s instead. There is roughly $1.6 trillion in Bitcoin sitting idle in wallets, earning nothing, and Hoskinson wants to route a slice of it through Cardano’s infrastructure, with every transaction quietly paying fees in ADA. It is the most concrete demand thesis Cardano has produced in years. It also contains a contradiction its own community has already spotted.

The idle-Bitcoin thesis The premise starts with a real and large number. Something on the order of $1.6 trillion in Bitcoin sits in wallets doing nothing productive. Bitcoin is superb as a store of value and poor as a financial instrument: it does not natively lend, earn yield, or plug into decentralized finance without wrapping, bridging, or handing custody to an intermediary. That gap, enormous dormant capital with no native way to work, is what every “Bitcoin DeFi” project is chasing, and Hoskinson has decided Cardano should chase it hard.

His framing, delivered publicly in May 2026 and reiterated through the year, is that Bitcoin holders would be able to access lending, yield, and privacy tools through Cardano without surrendering control of their assets. A dedicated team, described at various points as around 19 people, is building it. The pitch to Bitcoin holders is straightforward: keep your Bitcoin, but make it productive, through infrastructure that does not require you to trust a centralized custodian.

The pitch to Cardano holders is different and more important to the ADA investment case. Hoskinson has been explicit that the entire system runs on ADA underneath. In his own words, every single transaction requires ADA to happen; the Bitcoin user pays a fee in ADA but does not see it. The idea is to make ADA the invisible fuel of a Bitcoin-DeFi economy, generating persistent, usage-based demand for the token regardless of whether anyone is speculating on ADA itself. For a token whose central weakness has been the absence of a demand driver, that is the whole game.

What Pogun actually is Pogun is the platform that operationalizes the thesis, and its structure is more concrete than Cardano’s roadmaps usually are.

It rolls out in three phases across 2026. The first, targeted for the second quarter, is a non-margin credit market: lending against Bitcoin without the liquidation-cascade risk that leveraged lending carries. The second, targeted for the third quarter, is a yield-focused application that lets Bitcoin holders earn returns.

The third, targeted for the fourth quarter, is a BitVM-powered bridge, a trust-minimized way to move Bitcoin onto Cardano infrastructure without the custodial risk that has plagued wrapped-Bitcoin products. Input Output Group sought treasury funding for the effort, with figures around 12.3 million ADA cited, as part of a larger proposal slate that also funded the Leios scaling upgrade.

The architecture leans on two Cardano-specific pieces. The first is Midnight, Cardano’s privacy-focused partner chain, which launched its mainnet in early 2026 and serves as the confidential coordination layer, letting Bitcoin holders use DeFi tools without exposing their positions publicly. Hoskinson has framed Midnight as proof of Cardano’s partner-chain model, specialized chains operating alongside the main network while drawing on its security.

The second is Cardano’s EUTXO accounting model, which shares design lineage with Bitcoin’s own UTxO model. That shared lineage is not incidental; it is part of the technical argument that Cardano is a more natural home for Bitcoin DeFi than account-based chains like Ethereum, because the two systems think about transactions in a similar way.

The sequencing is deliberate. The team has described building the credit market and liquidity first, so that by the time the consumer-facing products launch, there is already a functioning market underneath them instead of an empty shell waiting for users.

JUST IN: Cardano enables thousands of onchain signature checks at lower cost

Plutus smart contracts can now verify signatures natively using BLS12 381 cryptography pic.twitter.com/9Mqk9B6J9V

— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) July 18, 2026 The bull case The strongest version of this argument is that Cardano has finally identified the right target and built a credible, differentiated way to reach it.

The demand mechanism is genuinely elegant. Cardano’s problem was never capability; it was that ADA had no structural reason to be in demand beyond speculation and staking. Embedding ADA as the mandatory fee layer of a Bitcoin-DeFi economy creates exactly the kind of usage-based demand that speculation cannot provide, and that does not evaporate when sentiment turns. If Bitcoin DeFi on Cardano generates real volume, ADA demand rises mechanically with it, transaction by transaction, whether or not anyone is bullish on ADA as a trade. That is a far healthier demand base than the memecoin-and-narrative cycles driving other chains.

JUST IN: Cardano reduces reliance on creator input output

Key infrastructure will be handed to external teams with community oversight starting in August pic.twitter.com/72NTpukLYb

— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) July 18, 2026 The target is also the right one. Every serious chain is chasing Bitcoin DeFi because the prize, a fraction of $1.6 trillion in dormant capital, is the largest untapped pool in crypto. Cardano bringing brokerage-grade patience, a privacy layer, and UTxO compatibility to that chase is a real differentiator against the wrapped-Bitcoin approaches that have dominated and repeatedly failed on custody and trust. A BitVM bridge that reduces custodial risk addresses the exact failure mode, hacked or insolvent custodians, that has burned wrapped-Bitcoin users before.

And it fits Cardano’s identity rather than betraying it. Cardano’s whole brand is methodical, research-driven, security-first engineering, often criticized as too slow. Bitcoin holders are, as a group, the most conservative and security-conscious in crypto. A careful, peer-reviewed, custody-minimizing approach to Bitcoin DeFi is arguably better matched to Bitcoin holders than the move-fast culture of other DeFi ecosystems. For once, Cardano’s slowness could be a feature aimed at exactly the audience that values it.

The bear case The skeptical case starts with a question a Cardano community member asked Hoskinson directly, and it is devastating in its simplicity: what would be the point of holding ADA over Bitcoin? Are we building against our own core token?

The concern is real and structural. If the system is designed so that Bitcoin users pay fees in ADA without seeing it, then the design goal is explicitly to make ADA invisible. A Bitcoin holder using Pogun holds Bitcoin, earns yield in Bitcoin, and never needs to acquire, hold, or think about ADA. The fees are abstracted away. If ADA is successfully hidden from the user, then ADA is a backend utility token that the end user has no reason to hold as an investment, which means the demand is limited to whatever float the protocols need to operate, not the broad holder demand that supports a token’s price.

Making ADA the invisible plumbing is good for usage and potentially bad for ADA as an asset people want to own. Hoskinson’s answer, that transactions require ADA regardless, addresses mechanical demand but not the deeper question of why anyone holds ADA rather than the Bitcoin it is helping to mobilize.

The second problem is execution and timeline. Cardano has a long history of ambitious roadmaps that arrive late or underdeliver relative to the promise. Pogun’s phases are targeted across 2026, and Cardano’s governance has been visibly deadlocked, with treasury votes for exactly this kind of initiative facing friction and Hoskinson warning that rejecting research funding could drive engineers away. A plan that depends on multiple new components, Midnight, the BitVM bridge, the credit and yield layers, all shipping and integrating on schedule, is a plan with substantial execution risk in an ecosystem that has struggled to convert roadmap into adoption before.

The third problem is competition. Cardano is not alone in chasing Bitcoin DeFi; it is late to a crowded race. Bitcoin layer-2s, wrapped-Bitcoin protocols on Ethereum, and Bitcoin-native DeFi efforts are all pursuing the same idle capital, several with more liquidity, more developers, and more existing integrations than Cardano has managed to attract. Cardano’s DeFi TVL has sat around $1.1 billion at times, a fraction of Ethereum’s or Solana’s, which raises the question of why Bitcoin holders would route their capital through the ecosystem that has struggled most to attract capital in the first place. Being a natural technical home for Bitcoin DeFi does not help if the liquidity and developers are elsewhere.

LATEST: Bitcoin is heading natively to Cardano. The Cardinal protocol aims to wrap BTC UTXOs into Cardano native assets with a one-to-one peg, unlocking liquidity for Cardano DeFi without custodians pic.twitter.com/hEhZzGzefV

— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) April 28, 2026 The token question at the center Everything about this plan comes back to one unresolved tension, and it is worth stating plainly because it is the crux of whether Pogun helps ADA or merely helps Bitcoin.

Cardano is trying to solve its demand problem by making ADA essential but invisible. Those two properties are in tension. Essential means every transaction needs ADA, which creates mechanical demand proportional to usage. Invisible means users never consciously hold or value ADA, which suppresses the discretionary demand that actually drives a token’s price above its pure utility floor. A token that is essential-but-invisible tends to trade at its utility value, the minimum float the system needs to function, rather than at the premium that comes from people wanting to own it. Ethereum resolved this tension by making ETH visible and desirable as an asset in its own right, through staking, through the ultrasound narrative, through being the reserve asset of its own economy. Cardano’s Pogun design points the other way, toward ADA as backend infrastructure.

The optimistic resolution is that sufficient usage makes even utility-value demand large. If Bitcoin DeFi on Cardano processes enormous volume, the mechanical ADA demand could be substantial even if no one holds ADA for love of it. The pessimistic resolution is that Cardano will have built a successful piece of Bitcoin infrastructure whose value accrues to Bitcoin holders and Pogun’s operators, while ADA captures only the thin utility margin, which is not the outcome ADA holders are hoping for when they cheer a Bitcoin-DeFi announcement.

Which resolution wins depends on numbers that do not exist yet, because the products are still launching. The second-quarter credit market and third-quarter yield app are the first real tests. If they generate meaningful Bitcoin volume and ADA demand rises visibly with it, the thesis has legs. If they launch quietly into the same low-liquidity environment that has characterized Cardano DeFi, then Pogun becomes another well-engineered Cardano initiative that did not move the token, and the community member’s question, why hold ADA over Bitcoin, will have answered itself.

Why Cardano needs this to work To understand why Hoskinson is betting so heavily on Bitcoin DeFi, you have to understand how much pressure Cardano is under, because Pogun is not an opportunistic add-on. It is a response to an existential question the market keeps asking.

The pressure is visible in the numbers and the noise around them. ADA trades roughly 94% below its 2021 high, deep in the ranks of large-cap tokens that led the previous cycle and never recovered. Cardano’s DeFi total value locked, around $1.1 billion at times, is a fraction of Ethereum’s or Solana’s despite Cardano having been live since 2017 and commanding one of the most committed communities in crypto. Hoskinson has spent 2026 denying rumors that he is leaving the project and calling them fiction, which is not a thing founders of thriving networks typically have to do. And the governance apparatus, the CIP-1694 on-chain system Cardano is genuinely proud of, has been deadlocked over treasury proposals, with Hoskinson warning that rejecting research funding could push engineers out.

Underneath all of it is a criticism Hoskinson himself has accepted in his own framing: Cardano’s problem is not technology. He has said explicitly that it is not a node problem, not a problem of imagination, not a problem of execution capability, but a problem of governance, coordination, and ultimately getting capital and users to show up. That is a striking admission from a founder, and it reframes Pogun. Bitcoin DeFi is not just a product; it is Hoskinson’s answer to the accusation that Cardano builds impressive technology that nobody uses. If he can route Bitcoin’s enormous, idle capital base through Cardano, he solves the adoption problem and the demand problem at once, and he does it without needing to win the crypto-native DeFi users who have consistently chosen other chains.

That is why the stakes are higher than a normal roadmap item. Cardano has tried narratives before: smart contracts, then DeFi, then real-world assets, and none produced the adoption inflection the community keeps waiting for. Bitcoin DeFi is the biggest swing yet, aimed at the biggest target, and it arrives at a moment when patience with the slow-and-steady thesis is visibly thinning. If Pogun works, it vindicates the entire methodical approach. If it lands quietly like its predecessors, it will be much harder to argue that the next initiative will be different. Hoskinson has effectively staked the credibility of Cardano’s whole strategy on reaching an audience that has never been Cardano’s, which is either the boldest possible move or a sign of how few options remain.

What to watch Three concrete markers will tell you which way this breaks.

The first is whether the Pogun phases actually ship on their 2026 timeline. The credit market was targeted for the second quarter and the yield app for the third; slippage on those dates, in an ecosystem already criticized for slow delivery, would be an early negative signal. Shipping on time, with working products, would be a genuine and somewhat unexpected positive given Cardano’s track record.

The second is Bitcoin volume through the system, not ADA price. The entire thesis rests on attracting idle Bitcoin, so the metric that matters is how much Bitcoin actually flows into Pogun’s credit and yield products once they are live. ADA price will be noisy and driven by the broader market; Bitcoin TVL on Cardano is the clean read on whether the idle-Bitcoin thesis is working.

The third is whether ADA demand becomes visible in the data as usage grows. This is the crux question made measurable. If Bitcoin volume rises and on-chain ADA demand rises with it in a legible way, the essential-and-invisible design is working as a demand driver. If Bitcoin volume rises and ADA does nothing, then the community’s fear was correct, and Cardano will have built valuable infrastructure for someone else’s asset. Hoskinson has made the boldest, most concrete bet of Cardano’s recent history. The next two quarters start to settle whether it was aimed at the right target or against his own token.

Frequently Asked Questions What is Cardano’s Bitcoin DeFi plan? It is a strategy, led by founder Charles Hoskinson, to bring Bitcoin into Cardano’s DeFi ecosystem and tap the roughly $1.6 trillion in idle Bitcoin. The centerpiece is Pogun, a platform letting Bitcoin holders lend, borrow, and earn yield through Cardano infrastructure without surrendering custody. Crucially, every transaction in the system requires ADA for fees, creating usage-based demand for Cardano’s token.

What is Pogun? A three-phase Bitcoin DeFi platform rolling out across 2026: a non-margin credit market in the second quarter, a yield-focused application in the third, and a BitVM-based trust-minimized bridge in the fourth. It integrates Midnight, Cardano’s privacy partner chain, for confidential transactions, and builds on Cardano’s EUTXO architecture, which shares design lineage with Bitcoin’s UTxO model. Input Output Group sought around 12.3 million ADA in treasury funding for it.

How does this benefit ADA holders? Through embedded demand. Hoskinson has stated that every transaction in the system requires ADA for fees, paid by Bitcoin users who may not even notice. If Bitcoin DeFi on Cardano generates real volume, ADA demand rises mechanically with it, independent of speculation. For a token whose main weakness has been the lack of a structural demand driver, that is the core of the investment argument.

What is the main criticism? That the design makes ADA essential but invisible, which are properties in tension. If Bitcoin users pay fees in ADA without seeing it, they have no reason to hold ADA as an investment, so demand may stay limited to the minimum the protocols need instead of the broad holder demand that lifts a token’s price. A community member asked Hoskinson directly what the point of holding ADA over Bitcoin would be, capturing the concern that Cardano may be building against its own token.

How is this different from wrapped Bitcoin? Wrapped Bitcoin typically requires trusting a custodian to hold the underlying Bitcoin, a model that has failed through hacks and insolvencies. Pogun’s fourth phase is a BitVM-based bridge designed to be trust-minimized, reducing reliance on a custodian. Combined with Cardano’s UTxO compatibility with Bitcoin and the Midnight privacy layer, the pitch is a more secure, more private way to make Bitcoin productive than existing wrapped approaches.

Why does Cardano think it can win Bitcoin DeFi? Three arguments: its EUTXO architecture shares design lineage with Bitcoin’s UTxO model, making it a technically natural fit; its methodical, security-first culture matches Bitcoin holders’ conservatism; and its Midnight privacy chain offers confidentiality that Bitcoin holders value. The counterargument is that Cardano is late to a crowded race with lower liquidity and fewer developers than competitors, which may outweigh any technical fit.

When does Pogun launch? Its phases are targeted across 2026: the credit market in the second quarter, the yield application in the third, and the BitVM bridge in the fourth. Given Cardano’s history of ambitious roadmaps arriving later than promised, and ongoing governance friction over treasury funding, whether these dates hold is itself a meaningful signal to watch.

Will this fix ADA’s price? Unknown, and it depends on the essential-versus-invisible tension. If Bitcoin volume through Pogun is large, mechanical ADA demand could be substantial even without holders wanting ADA for its own sake. If volume is modest, or if ADA is so well hidden that demand stays at the minimum float the system needs, the plan could succeed as Bitcoin infrastructure while doing little for ADA as an asset. The next two quarters of launches are the first real test.

Disclaimer: This article is for information and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. It describes a development roadmap whose components are still launching and whose outcomes are uncertain. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any asset. Always do your own research. Information is accurate as of July 17, 2026.

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Tether, the renowned blockchain entity behind the $USDT stablecoin, has introduced an exclusive feature for its Wallet Development Kit (WDK). The new playground feature for Tether’s Wallet Development Kit permits developers to test fundamental wallet functionality through a web browser. As per Paolo Ardoino, the CEO of Tether, the development eliminates the requirement for builders to manually configure local settings or special devices ahead of leveraging wallet capabilities. Thus, the feature enables browser-powered testing to streamline the early wallet development phases and decrease technical barriers.

Tether's Wallet Development Kit just launched a web playground feature to test basic wallet functionality directly in the browser

— Paolo Ardoino 🤖 (@paoloardoino) July 18, 2026 Tether Streamlines Crypto Wallet Development with Browser Playground The inclusion of the playground feature in the Wallet Development Kit of Tether highlights the platform’s consistent attention toward enhancing builder resources for digital asset and blockchain applications. The Wallet Development Kit focuses on delivering the infrastructure that developers need to develop self-custodial crypto wallets and incorporate digital asset capabilities into their exclusive applications. The unique browser-based playground lets developers rapidly assess wallet activities without the accomplishment of extended setup or installation procedures.

This can assist in advancing prototyping and streamlining testing during the starting development phase. The latest playground enables consumers to check fundamental wallet operations via a web browser. This approach can specifically be crucial for builders delving into wallet integrations, demonstrating wallet functionalities, or checking application features ahead of the deployment of production-ready solutions.

Keeping this in view, the streamlined workflow may additionally decrease the learning curve specified for builders who are novice when it comes to the development of blockchain-based wallets. Over the past years, the platform has increasingly focused on the infrastructure, technologies dealing with blockchain innovation, and open-source tools. By enhancing accessibility for builders, Tether attempts to fortify wider adoption of decentralized applications and wallet solutions.

Bolstering Developer Efficiency and Blockchain Innovation Tether’s CEO considers this feature crucial for developers, which is mainly intended for experimentation and testing. Additionally, the speedier testing settings often help decrease development cycles. So, the teams can detect issues earlier while also iterating more swiftly. Overall, as blockchain applications keep expanding across payments, tokenization, digital identity, and decentralized finance, the provision of broadly accessible development instruments could advance Tether’s ecosystem evolution.

AUTHOR

Umair Younas is a cryptocurrency-related content writer linked with this work since 2019. Here, at Blockchainreporter, he serves as a news and article writer. He is a crypto, blockchain, NFTs, DeFi, and FinTech enthusiast. He has strong command over writing authentic reviews about brokers and exchanges and he has collaborated with our education team to write educational content as well. He has a dream to raise awareness among people about digital currencies. His works are well-researched and brimmed with information hence they provide fresh insights. Stay tuned to his posts if you want to stay up-to-date with the crypto-verse.

Binance is the largest exchange, with BNB Chain continuing to make major milestones. The chain is following in the footsteps of early issuers of tokenized stocks and is threatening their positions in terms of total cap.

Tokenized stocks issued by Binance are growing bigger and are now key players in the daily volume traded on Binance. Here is why it’s a threat to Securitize, which has the largest market cap of tokenized stocks.

Binance-issued tokenized stocks’ growth outpaces early issuers According to data from Token Terminal, Binance-issued tokenized stocks added the largest capital in the past 30 days, ahead of all early issuers.

In fact, Binance added over $300 million, followed by Securitize, xStocks, and Robinhood at $179 million, $33 million, and $13 million. Those stocks on Ondo Finance [ONDO] saw the largest outflows of $78 million.

Source: Token Terminal There were 7 key stock drivers of this capital growth on Binance, led by SanDisk [SNDKb] at $59.4 million.

SNDKb was followed by Micron [MUb], SpaceX [SPCXb], and Circle [CRCLb] at $58.7 million, $46.3 million, and $42.7 million, respectively. Stocks on Ondo Finance that were trading on Binance were losing their market capitalization.

Source: Token Terminal Additionally, more tokenized stock volume is set to hit the Binance exchange. This is after tokenized Hong Kong equities went live on BNB Chain through Stove Protocol.

That means trading volume on the Binance exchange will continue growing.

How will the volume and price of BNB react? However, that is not the case when looking at the on-chain data.

The daily futures volume that includes these stocks is $41.08 billion from 742 pairs. It is half the highest volume of this year, which was at $89.82 billion. This suggests the tokenized stocks have yet to make a major impact on daily trading volume.

But already these stocks are among the most traded assets on Binance Futures. SNDK, SOXL, MU, SKHY, and SPCX appear on the volume leaderboard with $4.31 billion, $2.51 billion, $1.82 billion, $1.34 billion, and $718 million, respectively.

This high volume from tokenized stocks was only behind that of Bitcoin [BTC] and Ethereum [ETH], which had $8.83 billion and $6.16 billion, respectively. It indicates stocks are becoming a key volume contributor to crypto exchanges.

Source: CoinGlass With the trading volume on Binance having the potential to grow, the price of the native token for the chain could continue to stabilize or grow higher. BNB is up 1.21%, trading at $570 as it moves between $560 and $580 for the better part of July.

Final Summary Binance-issued stocks grow by more than $300 million in the past 30 days as SanDisk stock leads with $59.4 million.  The volume of tokenized stocks is among the highest for all assets on Binance Futures, only behind Bitcoin and Ethereum. 

Chainlink (LINK) is drawing attention in the crypto sector as new institutional partnerships and expanding use cases spark debate over its long-term price trajectory. Despite trading at $8.25 with a daily trading volume of $213.52 million and a market cap of $6.17 billion, LINK faces diverging opinions about its potential for significant price growth.

Institutional adoption strengthens Chainlink’s positionRecent integrations within the Chainlink ecosystem demonstrate heightened interest from major players in the blockchain industry. Chainlink, recognized for its decentralized oracle solutions and bridging services between blockchains and real-world data, has enhanced its network utility through key collaborations and technology rollouts.

Jumper and Glacis Labs have adopted Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) to enable seamless cross-chain transfers. This technical integration underlines Chainlink’s drive to be at the center of blockchain interoperability and the facilitation of tokenized assets.

Mini dictionary: CCIP (Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol), a protocol developed by Chainlink, enables the transfer of data and assets between different blockchain networks, helping decentralized applications operate across multiple chains securely.

In addition, Caliber, a company specializing in real estate investment management, has selected Chainlink’s Automated Compliance Engine (ACE) to support regulatory compliance for real estate tokenization. This move reflects an ongoing trend among institutions to leverage Chainlink for regulatory integration, security, and streamlined asset management on blockchain structures.

Mini dictionary: Automated Compliance Engine (ACE), a compliance solution from Chainlink, automates regulatory checks and controls for tokenized assets, helping businesses integrate compliance mechanisms into their blockchain operations.

Investor debate over price outlookWhile institutional use has grown, crypto analyst OTC Trades identified an ongoing debate among traders regarding LINK’s price prospects. Some argue that current price action, with LINK oscillating near $8.25 and previously peaking around $11, shows diminished volatility and momentum compared to earlier bull markets. Skeptics contend the token’s limited upside may hinder any rapid move towards new record highs unless a strong market catalyst appears.

On the other hand, supporters highlight Chainlink’s core strengths, including increasing adoption of its oracle and cross-chain technologies, consistent ecosystem growth, and the crucial role it plays in real-world asset tokenization. They point to these fundamentals as reasons for sustained or renewed price appreciation, even if gains may develop more gradually than in prior cycles.

Chainlink’s ecosystem has expanded through new integrations such as Jumper, Glacis Labs, and Caliber, cementing its role in driving blockchain interoperability and institutional adoption.

LINK price momentum and future prospectsAfter a period of relative stability, LINK has shown the formation of a bullish reversal in its price structure. As the broader crypto market—led by BTC—starts to turn upward, analysts suggest the positive sentiment could accelerate LINK’s rebound. Investors are now watching whether the surge in CCIP adoption and further institutional partnerships will translate into higher demand for LINK, potentially pushing the price towards key resistance levels.

The sustainability of this momentum will depend on continued advances in network integration and market trends. Whether buyers can retest the $11 range will be shaped by both macro crypto trends and Chainlink’s ongoing ability to secure major partnerships.

MetricCurrentRecent HighLINK Price$8.25$11Trading Volume (24h)$213.52 million–Market Capitalization$6.17 billion–As interest in blockchain interoperability and real-world asset tokenization grows, Chainlink continues to position itself as a key infrastructure provider supporting the evolution of the decentralized ecosystem.

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.

Uniswap plans to implement protocol fees for select v4 pools for the first time, with an on-chain vote scheduled for this Sunday.

Uniswap is set to roll out protocol fees on select v4 liquidity pools for the first time, as two proposals move to a final on-chain vote this Sunday. The proposals include activating protocol fees for Uniswap v4 liquidity pools across seven blockchains, and simultaneously enabling protocol fees for Uniswap v2 and v3 liquidity pools on Robinhood Chain. Since July 1, Uniswap’s cumulative swap volume on Robinhood Chain has surpassed $6 billion.

7 hours ago

Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs: The Memorandum of Understanding does not allow the US to open an independent parallel shipping lane in the Strait of Hormuz.

According to CCTV News, Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated on the 18th local time that Article 5 of the Iran-US Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) prohibits the US from establishing an independent parallel shipping lane in the Strait of Hormuz. The Iran-US MoU is based on mutual commitments between the two countries, and as long as the US fulfills its pledges, Iran will abide by its own commitments.

7 hours ago

Binance Wallet now supports multiple Launchpad filtering features on the Robinhood Chain.

According to official announcements, Binance Wallet’s Meme Rush now supports filtering for multiple Launchpad projects on Robinhood Chain, including Virtuals Protocol, Flap, and Bankr. Additionally, users can now track tokens across BSC, Solana, Ethereum (ETH), Base, and Robinhood Chain simultaneously via Meme Rush, allowing them to grasp multi-chain market dynamics and popular trends in a unified feed.

7 hours ago

Next Week's Macro Outlook: Federal Reserve Blackout Period Coincides With Earnings Season, ECB Decisions Take Center Stage

As US-Iran tensions continue to evolve, the Federal Reserve will enter its pre-meeting blackout period next week, with no major US data releases that could influence its rate-setting meeting. Traders will turn their focus to Europe. Below are the key market focus points for the coming week (all times Beijing): - Tuesday 20:15: US ADP employment change for the week ended July 4 - Thursday 20:15: European Central Bank (ECB) interest rate decision - Thursday 20:45: ECB President Lagarde holds a monetary policy press conference - Friday 07:30: Japan’s June core CPI year-on-year rate Dozens of companies will release their Q2 earnings next week. Tesla will announce its earnings in the early hours of Thursday, July 23 (Beijing time); BlackRock will release its results ahead of US stock market opening on July 23 (Beijing time); Intel will report earnings in the early hours of Friday, July 24 (Beijing time).

7 hours ago

A whale transferred 19,235 ETH to Binance, worth approximately $35.34 million.

According to YuEmber monitoring, geministar.eth transferred 19,235 ETH (worth approximately $35.34 million) to Binance 15 minutes ago.

7 hours ago

Robinhood addresses controversy: Its support for Trump’s account is aimed at inclusive finance, not to encourage gambling-style trading.

According to The New York Times, as Robinhood integrates prediction markets into its app, external concerns have grown over the platform’s potential to exploit young, inexperienced investors. Additionally, many still associate Robinhood with the meme stock craze that swept markets years ago, and the firm was a key driver of that phenomenon. Today, Robinhood aims to be seen as more than those labels. The company has become one of the entities operating the Trump Accounts program, which gives Robinhood the chance to build closer ties with the next generation of investors while further strengthening its relationship with Washington’s political establishment. Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev responded that the move is not to encourage speculation, but to expand financial inclusion and help more U.S. households participate in long-term investing. Currently, Robinhood has adjusted some product designs and is working to transition from a “speculative trading platform” to a broader financial services firm.

7 hours ago

Uniswap is about to flip the fee switch on its newest protocol version, and the community seems pretty enthusiastic about it. On-chain voting for two proposals that would activate protocol fees on select v4 pools across 11 chains is set to begin around July 19, 2026, following a temperature check where 93% of voters backed the move.

That temperature check, which ran from July 7-12, saw 13.9 million UNI vote in favor versus just 1 million against.

What the fee activation actually looks like The proposal targets three specific categories of v4 pools: static fee pools without hooks, continuous clearing auction pools, and aggregator hook pools. If you’re wondering what hooks are, think of them as customizable plug-ins that let developers tweak how liquidity pools behave. Uniswap v4, which launched on January 31, 2025, introduced this modular architecture as its signature feature.

The fee structures aren’t uniform across all pools. On Base, stablecoin pools would carry a 10 basis point fee. Certain aggregator hooks would get a 25x multiplier applied. The collected fees won’t just sit around on whatever chain they’re generated on. They’ll funnel into what Uniswap calls TokenJars on their respective chains before being bridged back to Ethereum.

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Once those fees land on Ethereum, they get directed to the 0xdead address for permanent burning, reducing total supply.

This isn’t Uniswap’s first rodeo with fee-driven burns. The December 2025 UNIfication vote initiated protocol fees for v2 and v3 pools, and the results have been tangible. Uniswap recently recorded a single-day burn of 186,000 UNI from v2/v3 fees alone. Now the protocol wants to extend that same economic engine to its latest version.

From governance token to deflationary asset UNI spent years as a token whose primary utility was voting on proposals. The UNIfication package that passed in late 2025 fundamentally changed that equation by creating a direct link between protocol revenue and token supply reduction.

Extending this to v4 pools across 11 chains, including Ethereum and Base, significantly broadens the fee collection surface area. The protocol isn’t just adding fees to a few pools on mainnet. It’s building a multi-chain revenue pipeline that ultimately compresses back to a single deflationary action on Ethereum.

The liquidity provider concern Not everyone’s celebrating. Some community members have raised concerns about what protocol fees mean for liquidity providers. When the protocol takes a cut, that fee comes from somewhere, and that somewhere is often the returns that LPs would otherwise pocket.

The 93% approval rate suggests most governance participants believe the tradeoff is worth it, but governance voters and liquidity providers aren’t always the same people. Large UNI holders who benefit from burns might vote differently than someone running a concentrated liquidity position on a stablecoin pair.

For investors tracking the UNI token specifically, the expansion of fee collection to v4 pools across 11 chains materially increases the burn rate potential. The 186,000 UNI single-day burn from v2/v3 alone demonstrated real economic impact. The on-chain vote starting around July 19 will determine whether that thesis gets tested in production.

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

Uniswap, the decentralized exchange protocol, is moving forward with two major governance proposals that could activate protocol fees on several chains and strengthen the UNI token burning mechanism. The community is set to vote on these initiatives, with the window closing on July 26.

Key proposals target UNI Burn and protocol fee expansionHayden Adams, founder of Uniswap, indicated that the potential approval of these proposals could have a substantial impact on the UNI Burn mechanism. The measures are designed to introduce fee collection for certain liquidity pools for the first time on Uniswap v4 and expand fees on v2 and v3 pools operating on Robinhood Chain.

In a statement on social media, Adams outlined the specifics: one governance proposal seeks to enable protocol fees in Uniswap version 4 liquidity pools across Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, BNB Chain, Polygon, Optimism, and Robinhood Chain. A secondary proposal will address additional v4 chains, given Uniswap’s GovernorBravo contract’s technical constraint of 10 actions per proposal.

Both voting initiatives, if approved, will implement protocol fee collection on static fee pools, continuous clearing auction pools, and aggregator hooks pools, providing more streamlined fee management across supported chains for Uniswap’s newest iteration.

Technical structure and planned rolloutUniswap v4 introduces flexible pool fees based on a hook system, allowing fees to vary from block to block for more responsive management. The proposal includes organizing pools into “families,” so standardized rules could dictate fee structures for different pool types, minimizing the need for separate votes on each individual pool.

Uniswap v2 and v3 pools, meanwhile, continue to rely on fixed fee rates per protocol rules. Under the latest proposals, these versions would see fees activated specifically on Robinhood Chain, which is backed by Arbitrum blockchain infrastructure.

Robinhood Chain, launched as an Ethereum Layer-2 mainnet on July 1, is a blockchain secured by Arbitrum technology. It integrates directly with the Robinhood trading ecosystem, and since launch, its decentralized exchange volume reached roughly $3.1 billion within the first week, largely driven by active trading in memecoins.

Mini dictionary: Robinhood Chain, an Ethereum Layer-2 blockchain utilizing the Arbitrum architecture, is built to support fast and cost-efficient transactions and is connected to the Robinhood trading platform.

Uniswap VersionFee StructureTargeted ChainsProposal Scopev2/v3FixedRobinhood ChainActivate protocol feesv4Flexible (by hooks)Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, BNB, Polygon, Optimism, Robinhood ChainActivate protocol feesGovernance, UNI burning and network expansionHistorically, Uniswap governance decided in December to burn 100 million UNI tokens from its treasury after a vote passed with 99.9% support, enabling protocol fees for v2 and v3 pools on Ethereum mainnet. However, protocol fees for v4 were delayed as its infrastructure was not yet in place. The recent push expands the fee system across 11 blockchains, reflecting Uniswap’s larger strategy to increase platform revenues and enhance token scarcity through regular burning events.

In the past month, Uniswap set a record by burning nearly 186,000 UNI in a single day. Both new proposals leverage Uniswap’s accelerated governance framework, implemented through the Unification upgrade. This process allows for faster progression to on-chain voting, provided proposals pass an initial five-day Snapshot poll. The expanded protocol fee discussions have been underway since February.

Should the proposals be approved, the resulting fees from operations across multiple blockchains are set to directly support the token burn mechanism, reinforcing a governance upgrade that was already implemented across other versions of the platform.

Since the launch of Robinhood Chain’s Ethereum Layer-2 mainnet on July 1, Uniswap’s cumulative swap volume on the network surpassed $6 billion by July 10, reflecting the high user engagement and liquidity infusion driven by this integration.

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.

FIFA’s Chief of Global Football Development, Arsene Wenger, acknowledged on July 18 that the mandatory hydration breaks at the 2026 World Cup have been, to put it diplomatically, a tough sell. Fans don’t love them. Pundits don’t love them. And yet they keep happening, twice per match, like clockwork.

Here’s the thing: the breaks might be framed as player welfare, but the money trail tells a different story. Fox Sports alone stands to earn approximately $250 million from advertising during these stoppages. Globally, the total advertising revenue tied to hydration breaks could exceed $1 billion across all broadcasters during the tournament.

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Three minutes, two breaks, one very large check The format is straightforward. Every match gets two three-minute hydration breaks, one midway through each half. No exceptions, no matter the venue or temperature. FIFA announced the policy on December 7, 2025, positioning it as a response to anticipated high temperatures across the 48-team tournament’s North American host cities.

Wenger claimed the breaks “did not impact” match results. Critics have been less charitable. The traditional rhythm of football, a sport defined by its continuous flow compared to American sports, gets interrupted. Players cool down, coaches relay tactical adjustments, and broadcasters cut to Powerade spots. The official hydration sponsor and other brands receive prominent exposure during every single break, turning what was sold as a health measure into prime advertising real estate.

The Avalanche connection FIFA Collect, the organization’s digital collectibles platform, has officially migrated to the Avalanche blockchain. The move was designed to facilitate quicker and more cost-effective transactions of NFT and digital assets tied to the World Cup.

Wenger confirmed FIFA plans to conduct a full review of the hydration break policy after the tournament concludes. The review will reportedly assess the breaks’ impact on gameplay, player welfare, and fan satisfaction.

What investors should watch FIFA’s decision to run its digital collectibles on Avalanche rather than Ethereum or Polygon signals a preference for transaction speed and cost efficiency at scale. NBA Top Shot, once the poster child for digital sports collectibles, saw trading volumes collapse after initial hype. FIFA Collect needs to avoid the same fate, and its success or failure on Avalanche will be a data point the entire industry watches.

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

Uniswap plans to implement protocol fees for select v4 pools for the first time, with an on-chain vote scheduled for this Sunday.

Uniswap is set to roll out protocol fees on select v4 liquidity pools for the first time, as two proposals move to a final on-chain vote this Sunday. The proposals include activating protocol fees for Uniswap v4 liquidity pools across seven blockchains, and simultaneously enabling protocol fees for Uniswap v2 and v3 liquidity pools on Robinhood Chain. Since July 1, Uniswap’s cumulative swap volume on Robinhood Chain has surpassed $6 billion.

6 hours ago

Abraxas Capital deposits 3 million USDC into Hyperliquid to add to its short positions.

According to monitoring by Onchain Lens, Abraxas Capital has deposited 3 million USDC into Hyperliquid. The firm is further ramping up its short positions, including: Bitcoin (BTC) short positions rising to 364.9 units, with a notional value of approximately $23.3 million; Ethereum (ETH) short positions increasing to 19,020 units, with a notional value of around $35.08 million.

6 hours ago

Iran's Ministry of Foreign Affairs: The Memorandum of Understanding does not allow the US to open an independent parallel shipping lane in the Strait of Hormuz.

According to CCTV News, Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated on the 18th local time that Article 5 of the Iran-US Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) prohibits the US from establishing an independent parallel shipping lane in the Strait of Hormuz. The Iran-US MoU is based on mutual commitments between the two countries, and as long as the US fulfills its pledges, Iran will abide by its own commitments.

6 hours ago

Next Week's Macro Outlook: Federal Reserve Blackout Period Coincides With Earnings Season, ECB Decisions Take Center Stage

As US-Iran tensions continue to evolve, the Federal Reserve will enter its pre-meeting blackout period next week, with no major US data releases that could influence its rate-setting meeting. Traders will turn their focus to Europe. Below are the key market focus points for the coming week (all times Beijing): - Tuesday 20:15: US ADP employment change for the week ended July 4 - Thursday 20:15: European Central Bank (ECB) interest rate decision - Thursday 20:45: ECB President Lagarde holds a monetary policy press conference - Friday 07:30: Japan’s June core CPI year-on-year rate Dozens of companies will release their Q2 earnings next week. Tesla will announce its earnings in the early hours of Thursday, July 23 (Beijing time); BlackRock will release its results ahead of US stock market opening on July 23 (Beijing time); Intel will report earnings in the early hours of Friday, July 24 (Beijing time).

6 hours ago

A whale transferred 19,235 ETH to Binance, worth approximately $35.34 million.

According to YuEmber monitoring, geministar.eth transferred 19,235 ETH (worth approximately $35.34 million) to Binance 15 minutes ago.

6 hours ago

Robinhood addresses controversy: Its support for Trump’s account is aimed at inclusive finance, not to encourage gambling-style trading.

According to The New York Times, as Robinhood integrates prediction markets into its app, external concerns have grown over the platform’s potential to exploit young, inexperienced investors. Additionally, many still associate Robinhood with the meme stock craze that swept markets years ago, and the firm was a key driver of that phenomenon. Today, Robinhood aims to be seen as more than those labels. The company has become one of the entities operating the Trump Accounts program, which gives Robinhood the chance to build closer ties with the next generation of investors while further strengthening its relationship with Washington’s political establishment. Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev responded that the move is not to encourage speculation, but to expand financial inclusion and help more U.S. households participate in long-term investing. Currently, Robinhood has adjusted some product designs and is working to transition from a “speculative trading platform” to a broader financial services firm.

6 hours ago