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Pantera Capital led the first close of a WLD sale that the foundation says will push its iris-scanning “proof of human” ID toward enterprises, consumers, and AI agents.

Original Image Credits: FotoField / Shutterstock.com

Posted July 24, 2026 at 4:51 pm EST.

The World Foundation, the nonprofit steward of the Sam Altman co-founded identity project once known as Worldcoin, said Friday it raised an initial $52.5 million in a token sale to strategic investors, with every WLD token in the round locked up for a year.

Pantera Capital led the first close, according to a press release, joined by Bain Capital Crypto, Eightco Holdings, Selini Capital, Susquehanna Crypto and other backers. The foundation said the full 12-month lockup signals a long-term bet rather than a quick flip, and that the money will go toward pushing World ID, its “proof of human” verification system, to organizations, consumers and their AI agents.

A bet on the agentic web World’s pitch is that as AI agents flood the internet, platforms will need a dependable way to tell people apart from machines. Its answer is a one-time iris scan at a physical device called the Orb, which generates an ID that proves someone is a unique human without exposing who they are.

“The need for Proof of Human is becoming acutely clear with the acceleration of AI development, and we see this in the influx of enterprise traction,” said Cosmo Jiang, a general partner at Pantera Capital, in a statement. The foundation said World ID is being wired into platforms including Zoom, Docusign, Okta, Vercel and Tinder this year, and pointed to the enterprise-focused World ID 4.0 it released earlier in 2026.

Scaling as the token lags The raise landed on the three-year anniversary of World’s July 2023 production launch, a stretch in which the network grew to more than 39 million members and over 18 million Orb-verified humans. It also follows the $135 million World sold to Andreessen Horowitz and Bain Capital Crypto in May 2025, when the network counted 26 million users.

Investors committed even as WLD trades around $0.37, roughly 97% below its March 2024 peak.

Tom Lee, a board member of Eightco, the Nasdaq-listed company that holds more than 283 million WLD, said in the release that World’s technology is “among the most important building blocks to secure and verify interactions in an increasingly digital driven world.”

Related Listen: Uneasy Money: Why Token Holders Have No Rights & Why Every DAO ‘Has Failed’

AI-assisted content: This article was produced with the assistance of AI tools and was reviewed, edited, and fact-checked by a member of the Unchained editorial team before publication.

In brief Real-world assets (RWAs)—tokenized versions of traditional financial instruments like company stocks, crude oil, and market indices traded as blockchain contracts—accounted for 54% of Hyperliquid's weekly trading volume during July 13–19, the first time non-crypto assets have dominated the exchange. ARK Invest's director of digital assets research Lorenzo Valente said Hyperliquid's $26 billion in RWA trading last week surpassed the combined crypto perpetual volume of every other decentralized exchange on earth. South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix—a direct rival to Samsung in AI memory production—drove most of the interest on Hyperliquid's third-party market platform. For the first time, traders on Hyperliquid moved more money through stocks and commodities than through crypto. Lorenzo Valente, director of digital assets research at ARK Invest, announced the milestone Thursday on X: "We are entering a new era for DeFi." Hyperliquid, he said, had for the first time generated more trading volume from so-called real-world assets, or RWAs, than from crypto in a single week.

RWAs—meaning tokenized versions of traditional financial instruments like company shares, crude oil, or the S&P 500, converted into blockchain-based contracts that traders can buy and sell around the clock—totaled $25.1 billion during July 13–19, or 52% of Hyperliquid's $48.2 billion in weekly volume, per Blockworks data. Valente put the latest running figure at $26 billion and 54%.

The context makes that number land harder. Total perpetual DEX volume across the industry last week was $79 billion. Hyperliquid processed $50 billion of it. The $26 billion in RWA trading alone—just the stock bets, the oil contracts, the index plays—was larger than the combined crypto perpetual volume of every other decentralized exchange on the market.

How stocks ended up on a crypto exchangeThe mechanism behind this is HIP-3, a framework Hyperliquid launched in October 2025 that lets outside teams build their own perpetual markets—contracts that track an asset's price with no expiry date, letting traders bet on it going up or down with borrowed money—using Hyperliquid's existing infrastructure. Builders stake 500,000 HYPE tokens, currently worth roughly $30 million, to access the system.

We are entering a new era for DeFi.

For the first time ever, @HyperliquidX generated more volume from RWAs than crypto in a single week. RWAs accounted for 54% of total trading volume.

An even more interesting trend: since June, single stocks have overtaken indices and… pic.twitter.com/INbfCwc5pJ

— Lorenzo Valente (@LorenzoARK) July 23, 2026

Since June, individual stocks have overtaken indices and commodities inside HIP-3, with single-stock perpetuals now making up 61% of all RWA trading. The HIP-3 platform has already hosted pre-IPO markets for SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI. "RWAs accounted for 54% of total trading volume," Valente noted.

The most-traded stock is SK Hynix, the South Korean memory chipmaker that competes with Samsung in supplying DRAM and high-bandwidth memory for AI systems.

ARK's interest in Hyperliquid goes back further. In September 2025, CEO Cathie Wood told the Master Investor podcast that the platform "reminds me of Solana in the earlier days," adding that Solana had proven its worth and earned its place with the biggest names in crypto. She called Hyperliquid "the new kid on the block," and ARK has not confirmed any position since.

Now one of ARK's own analysts is raising a harder question for the whole industry. "I'm no longer convinced RWA trading will naturally aggregate on the same venue as crypto," Valente wrote, predicting that dedicated category leaders may emerge within RWA—and that a platform's grip on Bitcoin and Ethereum flow may prove "far less important than many people assume."

Traders still focused only on crypto tokens, he added, "are focusing on the wrong market."

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BTC has dropped by roughly three grand after marking a local peak at $67,000. Strategy doesn't want to buy or sell, while a derivatives giant says goodbye.

The previous business week ended with a leg down that drove the primary cryptocurrency to $62,500. However, it reacted swiftly and recovered to $64,000 during the weekend.

The gradual climb continued on Sunday and Monday morning when BTC peaked at $65,000, but it was rejected and slipped south by over a grand to $63,750. The next leg up was a lot more impressive. Bitcoin didn’t stop at $65,000, and even the $66,000 resistance fell on the first attempt. Thus, the asset’s rally extended for a bit more, reaching $67,000 (on some exchanges) for the first time since the middle of June.

It came on the heels of renewed ETF net inflows and new accumulations from certain large investors. However, the price run couldn’t be sustained for long, and BTC quickly dipped back down to $66,000 on Wednesday, $65,000 on Thursday, and it plunged to $64,000 earlier today.

Despite its $3,000 correction from the local top, bitcoin remains about 2% up on the week. Similar gains are evident from Ethereum, which challenged $1,950 at one point, and TRX, which remains at around $0.33. Even more impressive price performance comes from XMR; a 9% pump has driven the privacy token to over $350. UNI and HBAR have posted notable gains as well, while HYPE, ZEC, CC, and DOGE remain in the red on a weekly scale.

Bitcoin’s market dominance has also dwindled in the past few days. It exploded to over 57% during the mid-week run, but it has dipped below 56% on CoinGecko now.

Market Data Cryptocurrency Market Overview Weekly July 24. Source: QuantifyCrypto Market Cap: $2.295T | 24H Vol: $61B | BTC Dominance: 55.9%

BTC: $64.000 (+2%) | ETH: $1,855 (+2.4%) | XRP: $1.09 (+1.7%)

You may also like: Bitcoin’s Sharpe Ratio Signals an ‘Optimal’ Spot Accumulation Window Analyst: Bitcoin Stuck Near $65K Because Capital Is Flowing to AI Has Bitcoin Already Bottomed? Grayscale Says Macro Signals Matter More This Week’s Crypto Headlines You Can’t Miss Strategy Extends Bitcoin Buying Pause While Growing Its USD Reserve: Details. Saylor’s company appears to have listened to some market experts who suggested that it should pause its BTC purchases in favor of rebuilding its USD reserve. The past week proved that narrative right once again with another no-buy bitcoin announcement.

Veteran Crypto Exchange BitMEX to Shut Down in September. After nearly a decade in existence, the veteran derivatives platform BitMEX announced that it will close shop in September. The creator of the 100x perpetual swap will permanently cease operations on September 23 and urged users to withdraw their funds by then. While on the subject, DEX aggregator Odos said it will shut down next week.

SEC Agrees to Overhaul Recordkeeping After Settling Coinbase Lawsuit Over Gensler’s Lost Texts. Despite not admitting any wrongdoing, the US Securities and Exchange Commission settled with Coinbase a lawsuit launched by the exchange and agreed to pay $150,000 in attorney fees. The regulator also said it will review its own internal processes.

‘Hackers Day’: 3 Crypto Protocols Drained of $35 Million in 24 Hours. July 23 became known in the crypto community as ‘Hackers’ Day’ with 3 major exploits taking place within less than 24 hours. The largest of the bunch was against Arbitrum-based protocol AFX Trade, in which the bad actors swiped over $24 million in USDC.

EU Hits Russia With Toughest Crypto Crackdown Yet. The European Union approved its 21st sanctions package against Russia, targeting 11 crypto operators and 94 financial institutions to combat sanctions evasion. Many of those platforms came from Belarus and Nigeria and were linked to numerous Russian financial activities.

Ethereum (ETH) Is Cheap, But Not at Bottom Yet: Analysts. The world’s largest altcoin may be trading well below its record peaks and at a discount, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it has bottomed yet. Analysts at CryptoQuant noted that only two out of five signals suggest that the worst is behind ETH.

Charts This week, we have a chart analysis of Ethereum, Ripple, Cardano, Binance Coin, and Hyperliquid – click here for the complete price analysis.

Tags:

BitMEX Plaintiffs Race a Shutdown Deadline for Payout

BitMEX hit with $40.7 million lawsuit on day it announces September shutdown

3 Real Reasons Why BitMEX is Shutting Down, and Who Could Be Next

Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) is up 9% in July, but crypto analyst Benjamin Cowen said the gains are likely temporary and August and September could erase them, just as they did in 2018 and 2022.

Why Cowen Says Bitcoin Is Stuck Between Two Key LevelsCowen said in a youtube video that Bitcoin is ping-ponging between the bear market resistance band above and the 200-week moving average below, with neither level breaking convincingly in either direction. 

Every approach to the resistance band has produced a rejection, and every dip toward the 200-week moving average has produced a bounce.

He said this setup mirrors 2018 almost exactly. Both years saw a low in February, a retest of that low in late June, and then a July countertrend rally. 

The key difference is volatility — in 2018 the range was about 40% wide, while in 2026 it is only about 20%, making this a quieter, slower version of the same pattern.

What History Says About July Rallies in Midterm YearsCowen tracked Bitcoin’s July returns across every midterm year and found the pattern consistent. 

In 2022, Bitcoin gained 20% in July before August and September wiped out those gains. 

In 2018, it gained nearly 40% in July before the same thing happened. Even where July was slightly negative, like 2014, the weakness still arrived in the months that followed.

He said the window for Bitcoin to stay strong is likely closing within two to four weeks, with August and September historically the months where the summer bounce gives way to renewed selling pressure.

What Needs to Happen for the Pattern to BreakCowen said the S&P 500 (NYSE:SPY) is the key variable Bitcoin is waiting on. In 2018 and 2022, stocks topped in August or September and then dropped 10% to 20%, pulling Bitcoin down with them and forming the cycle low. 

He said that stock market correction has not happened yet, which is partly why Bitcoin has not broken down either.

His base case is that the S&P 500 tops in August or September, drops, Bitcoin follows, and the market cycle bottom forms from that level. 

If Bitcoin has not broken down by the end of the year, he said he would treat that as time-based capitulation and shift his view toward a new bull market beginning.

He put the theoretical cycle low around late November, noting that is why the ITC conference he is hosting is scheduled for that window.

Image: Shutterstock

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The regulator cited money-laundering risk concerns in a rare rejection amid a wave of crypto charter approvals. Wise plans to refile under the GENIUS Act.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency denied Wise's application for a US national trust bank charter, the payments company said Friday, a rare public rejection from a regulator that has spent the past eight months approving trust charters for crypto and fintech firms.

Wise shares fell as much as 10% on Nasdaq, where the company moved its primary listing from London in May.

The OCC's decision letter said the application presented "significant supervisory and compliance concerns" and that Wise's proposed management and board had "demonstrated a persistent inability" to manage money-laundering and terrorist-financing risks, according to Law360, which reviewed the letter.

Wise said it plans to submit a new application "under a GENIUS Act framework, as we continue to maintain a positive relationship with the agency," and that the denial does not affect its US operations, which run on money transmitter licenses across 48 states and four territories.

Application Overtaken by EventsWise filed in June 2025 to charter Wise National Trust, N.A., a nondepository trust bank that would have given the company direct access to Federal Reserve payment rails instead of routing through partner banks. A month later, US state regulators hit Wise with a multi-state consent order over compliance failures — an action the company acknowledged in Friday's statement.

The application also depended on a Fed master account. "With the Federal Reserve generally pausing account access for an uninsured trust bank, the approach in our application became non-viable," Wise said.

Bank lobby groups had pushed for the rejection: the Bank Policy Institute and the Independent Community Bankers of America both filed letters opposing the charter in October. Belgian authorities opened a money-laundering investigation into Wise in June over roughly $500 million in suspicious transactions, according to Finance Magnates.

An Outlier in the Charter WaveThe denial cuts against the OCC's recent record under Comptroller Jonathan Gould. The agency granted conditional approvals to Circle, Ripple, Paxos, BitGo, and Fidelity Digital Assets in December, followed by Coinbase in April. Circle received final approval to open its national trust bank on July 10.

More than a dozen applications remain pending at the OCC, including from Revolut, World Liberty Financial's trust company, and Kraken parent Payward. Wise no longer appears on the pending list.

Wise said its infrastructure is "well positioned to play an important interoperability role" as stablecoins gain ground alongside existing payment rails. The company reported more than $240 billion in cross-border volume and about 19 million customers in fiscal 2026.

Wise plans to submit a new application for a national trust bank charter in the U.S. under the GENIUS Act stablecoin framework after the Office of ​the Comptroller of the Currency denied its original application, according to a William Blair note on Friday. 

The OCC said that Wise's ​application was incompatible with new ⁠Federal Reserve policies regarding payment system Master Account ​access.

Reuters reported that Wise would reapply on Friday. The OCC’s denial was made in a July 21 letter.

"While approval would have represented a step towards a connection to U.S. domestic rails, we understand the Fed has essentially halted the granting of master accounts, as it develops policies for 'payment accounts' that were formally proposed in May 2026," William Blair analysts Cristopher Kennedy and Marc Feldman wrote. 

The OCC, along with other major financial regulators in the U.S., has radically reshaped its approach to oversight during President Donald Trump’s second term.

Last December, the OCC granted conditional approvals to banking charter applicants including entities affiliated with BitGo, Circle, Fidelity, Paxos and Ripple, which intend to provide stablecoin services. That same month, BitGo was granted full approval to convert its state trust company into a federally regulated entity.

Since then, Crypto.com, Coinbase and Nomura-backed Laser Digital National Trust Bank have received conditional approval, while Sony Bank subsidiary Connectia was approved. Upstart received conditional approval for Upstart Bank, which is focused more on AI than digital assets.

Many other crypto firms and traditional financial giants that are increasingly interested in stablecoins, like Morgan Stanley and Charles Schwab, have started their OCC application processes.

Circle won official charter status earlier this month, joining BitGo and Anchorage Digital, which had for years been the only crypto firm holding a national trust charter, granted in 2021.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City approved a limited-purpose “master account” for Wyoming-chartered bank Kraken Financial in March, making it the first crypto firm with direct access to Fed payment rails like Fedwire.

The GENIUS Act passed in the summer of 2025, offering set rules for so-called “payment stablecoins,” or assets designed to keep a peg to the U.S. dollar by keeping safe reserves like cash or Treasuries in custody. 

Of note, Reuters reported that Wise’s denial addressed specific historical compliance concerns, including a July 2025 multi-state consent order over anti-money laundering risk management issues that Wise says it has since strengthened. 

Wise’s initial plan also relied on having a Fed Master Account, which was made non-viable by the Fed’s formal proposal for limited "payment accounts" that included a temporary pause on Tier-3 access requests by (uninsured, non-federally supervised entities.

Wise said its infrastructure is built to interoperate with both blockchain and traditional payment rails, though the firm remains agnostic on stablecoins, Reuters reported. 

"Although Wise plans to submit a new application under a Genius Act framework, we do not anticipate a major shift in the company's stance on stablecoins — Wise is focused on lowering the cost of cross-border transactions, agnostic of the rail," William Blair said. 

William Blair reiterated its Outperform rating on WISE, saying its discounted cash flow (DCF) "implies at least a $19 stock price."

Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.

© 2026 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

A now-deleted post from Tenev’s compromised account touted a fake token called $VLAD and claimed a Robinhood listing amid a memecoin frenzy on Robinhood Chain.

Original Image Credit: TechCrunch, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Posted July 24, 2026 at 5:58 am EST.

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev‘s X account was compromised on Thursday and used to shill a fake memecoin, just as the brokerage’s new blockchain has become a magnet for speculative token trading.

The now-deleted post introduced a token called Vladhood, or $VLAD, as the “official Robinhood chain mascot,” claiming it would be listed in the Robinhood app. “Does Robinhood love memes? The answer is yes,” the post read.

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Robinhood later addressed the memecoin promotion through its communications account on X, saying, “Our CEO Vlad Tenev’s X account was compromised and posted a fake promotion for a meme coin.”

Tenev regained control and posted a follow-up saying he was “back” and awaiting details from X on what happened. “In case it wasn’t clear, Robinhood has not issued any coins or tokens. Stay safe out there,” he wrote.

The hack landed amid a frenzy on Robinhood’s own network. Since launching its public mainnet earlier this month Robinhood Chain has attracted more than $700 million in assets, according to a Dune dashboard from Entropy Advisors. The network has also surpassed 300,000 daily active addresses and processed roughly 10 million transactions in a single day, spurred by and fueling a wave of memecoins trying to ride its popularity.

Related Listen: Why Robinhood Chain Saw Memecoins Take Off Before Real World Assets

AI-assisted content: This article was produced with the assistance of AI tools and was reviewed, edited, and fact-checked by a member of the Unchained editorial team before publication.

Robinhood Chain-based launchpad Memecoin.fun has secured $3.5 million in strategic funding to accelerate development of its meme token infrastructure, the team said Friday.

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The investment round, completed through the USDG token, was led by Becker Ventures and included BitValue Capital, Mason Labs, Negentropy Capital, and angel investor Billy Wen.

According to the company, the proceeds will support upgrades to its token launchpad, expansion of cross-chain bridge functionality, and development of an all-chain platform designed to connect meme assets across multiple blockchain ecosystems.

Memecoin.fun provides token issuance tools for projects launching on Robinhood Chain and aims to simplify the creation, deployment, and movement of meme tokens between different networks.

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CLARITY Act Unlikely To Pass Before August Break, Says Senate Leader

Perpetual decentralized exchange (DEX) Hyperliquid’s weekly trading volume in tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) exceeded that of all other asset categories combined for the first time.

RWAs generated $25.1 billion in trading volume from July 13 to July 19, accounting for 52% of Hyperliquid’s total weekly volume of $48.2 billion, according to Blockworks data.

“Hyperliquid’s RWA market alone was larger than the combined crypto perpetual volume of every other DEX,” wrote ARK Invest’s research director for digital assets, Lorenzo Valente, in a Thursday X post.

The milestone reflects growing demand for tokenized assets on Hyperliquid. Over the past month, RWA holders grew by 32% to 1.25 million users, while the total value of tokenized RWAs rose by 3.5% to $36.7 billion, according to data aggregator RWA.xyz.

Hyperliquid generated $7.6 million in revenue over the past week, according to DefiLlama. The perp DEX ranked third among crypto applications by weekly revenue, behind stablecoin issuers Tether and Circle, which generated $112 million and $45 million, respectively.

Hyperliquid: Perpetual Futures Volume, 2-year chart. Source: Blockworks

Major “structural shift” for crypto markets: Circle co-founderCrypto-native firms and traditional financial institutions have expanded tokenized asset offerings as they bring more financial assets onto blockchain networks. In March, the NYSE partnered with tokenization platform Securitize to develop blockchain-based stock trading infrastructure with 24/7 trading and settlement.

Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire said growing RWA trading on Hyperliquid marks a “major structural shift” in crypto markets, moving “away from speculating on endogenous digital commodities,” in a Friday X post.

Earlier in July, Pantera Capital said perpetual futures could become a dominant trading instrument beyond crypto, as perps offer structural advantages over traditional derivatives, including 24/7 trading, no contract expiries, simpler position management and continuous price discovery.

Hyperliquid’s growth has drawn attention from Wall Street institutions, including NYSE parent Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), whose CEO, Jeffrey Sprecher, urged regulators to create a “level playing field” for launching 24/7 onchain perpetual futures contracts.

Magazine: How Hong Kong is turning tokenized bonds into real market infrastructure

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Duan Yongping has sold SpaceX put options with a strike price of $92.

Renowned investor Duan Yongping stated yesterday in response to a community user's question that he has started selling put options on SpaceX. This is his typical "potential acquisition" strategy. According to the live trading records of the SpaceX put options Duan shared, his quoted price was around 23.20, with actual execution at 23.26 (1,000 contracts), earning him a premium of approximately $2.32 million. Calculated over a 5-month term, the yield is roughly 25.35%, with an annualized return of about 60%. He noted, "I want to support Elon Musk's dream."

1 hours ago

The United States and the United Kingdom plan to discuss forming an international alliance to protect maritime shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

According to AXIOS: European diplomats say the U.S. and the U.K. are discussing holding a high-level meeting in London next week, with the meeting focusing on a potential plan to establish an international coalition to protect maritime shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

1 hours ago

A prominent trader says Bitcoin’s cycle is accelerating, and firmly believes this cycle will still hit a new high before the halving.

Renowned trader Killa (@KillaXBT) stated in a post that Bitcoin’s cycle is accelerating. The previous cycle took just 476 days to rise from its bottom to a new all-time high (ATH), far faster than the two prior cycles. He forecasts this cycle will also hit a new high ahead of the next halving. Killa, a BTC-focused quantitative trader, accurately predicted the peak of the current bull market in May 2025 and boasts over 200,000 followers on X. In mid-April, he shorted Bitcoin at $74,688 before switching to long positions during the broad market sell-off on June 5.

1 hours ago

Qualcomm notifies its customers it can no longer absorb price hikes, and will raise prices by double-digit percentages.

Bloomberg cited a letter reporting that Qualcomm has informed its clients it can no longer absorb price hikes and will implement double-digit percentage price increases. Following the news, BIT (bit.com) market data shows Qualcomm’s decline narrowed, while Nvidia climbed 1.2% to hit a new daily high.

1 hours ago

OpenAI CEO: Hopes the U.S. wins in the open-source AI sector, and is "pleased to see" Jensen Huang's remarks.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he hopes the U.S. will lead in both open-source AI and proprietary AI models, adding that he "welcomes" the statement Nvidia’s CEO made on social media regarding the open letter jointly issued by over 20 U.S. tech companies.

1 hours ago

Hyperliquid’s [HYPE] aggressive correction resumed after pausing on the 6th of July. The decline returned HYPE to one of its most closely watched support zones.

However, on-chain activity showed that long-term holders were increasing their exposure rather than exiting.

Recently, a single entity staked 1.49 million HYPE, worth roughly $88.2 million.

Source: Onchain Lens The entity distributed the stake across eight wallets, reducing its concentration within a single address.

Reports indicated that the wallets held their tokens for about nine months before staking them. That holding period suggested long-term positioning rather than short-term trading activity.

Why are holders staking more HYPE? The large deposit was part of a broader increase in Hyperliquid’s staking activity.

According to AMBCrypto’s recent analysis, Hyperliquid’s Network data recorded a 40% increase in Net Staking Flows. This pushed the total amount of staked HYPE to around 436 million tokens.

The increase could influence HYPE’s price because staking reduces the supply immediately available for trading.

However, staking alone cannot guarantee price appreciation.

Sustained inflows may still indicate that holders prefer earning staking rewards over selling during market weakness. In HYPE’s case, the timing aligned with the token’s return to a Demand Zone that previously attracted buyers.

This left traders watching whether reduced liquid supply could help stabilize HYPE’s correction.

Source: Staking Rewards Can HYPE defend the $52 zone? On the daily chart, HYPE’s broader Market Structure remained bullish despite its recent pullback. The decline returned HYPE to the $52–$58 Demand Zone.

This area previously produced several rebounds, making it an important level for buyers.

The zone also overlapped with the 200-day Exponential Moving Average [EMA] at $57.09.

Although HYPE traded below its 20-day and 50-day EMAs, the 200-day EMA remained a longer-term support reference.

If support holds alongside elevated staking, long-term holders may be absorbing available supply during the correction. By contrast, a decisive break below $52 could weaken the broader bullish structure and invite further selling.

The $64 resistance level remained the next major target if buyers regained control.

Source: TradingView Therefore, HYPE’s next move could depend on whether staking conviction translates into demand around $52–$58.

Final Summary HYPE returned to major support while Net Staking Flows increased by 40%. Holding $52 could support recovery, while a breakdown may deepen the correction.

Source: Binance EN

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Somewhere right now, on a livestream, someone is tearing open a foil package while hundreds of people watch. Trading cards have become a spectator sport. The card market is at all-time highs, cardboard repriced by the hour, rare cards selling for eight figures, and a general sense of frenzy. But watch enough of it and something strange becomes clear. Nobody is looking at the cards. The audience isn’t consuming images, it’s consuming anticipation.

The card boom has also surfaced hard questions, and the hardest ones surround grading. The past year saw the hobby’s dominant grading house facing scrutiny over grades that shifted after cards moved through its own buyback program, and collectors began asking, who grades the grader. When a single subjective number separates a card from ten times its value, and the arbiter of that number also holds a position in the asset, the hobby has a verification problem. These are, in the language of bitcoiners, trusted-third-party problems.

The two worlds keep arriving at the same three questions: what’s real, what’s rare, and what holds value. A graded slab and a confirmed transaction on the timechain are answers to the same anxiety. Collectors demanding transparent grading and provenance that can’t be quietly revised are asking for verification over trust, whether they use those words or not. In that sense, card collectors and bitcoiners already share the same ideals.

This is why BMAG (Bitcoin Museum and Art Gallery) is making trading cards a serious part of its program. Seven years as the cultural wing of the Bitcoin Conference, more than 130 BTC ($8+ million) in art and collectibles sales, the first Magic: The Gathering tournament at a Bitcoin Conference, staged in Las Vegas with Kraken and on-site TAG grading, and the conviction that cards are asking the same questions bitcoin already answered.

Source: https://my.taggrading.com/card/P7612780

The fullest expression of that focus arrives this August. At Bitcoin Asia 2026, August 27-28 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, BMAG will debut a full Trading Card Expo on the conference floor. The Expo is anchored by a marketplace of established vendors from across Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, alongside live activations, grading and authentication, card auctions, and a curated gallery presentation surrounding it all. Cards and collectibles will be available for purchase, and attendees are encouraged to bring their own cards for grading or resale to the 40+ card vendors. Hong Kong is one of the most active card markets in the world and a Bitcoin conference is the natural room for it.

But a marketplace alone isn’t the point. The trading card has an art pedigree longer than most people realize. Jefferson Burdick, the father of American card collecting, spent his final years transferring thousands of cards into albums at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where his collection remains today. Art Spiegelman worked at Topps inventing series like Garbage Pail Kids before his mainstream graphic novel successes. And the critic Brian Droitcour recently put his finger on why the format matters right now: a Magic card is an image that does something, rarity and function entwined, while NFTs inherited that logic and captured only the rarity. Droitcour argues that NFTs dissolved the old hierarchy between the artwork and the collectible, and that the most interesting artists working today make objects that are both at once. 

A generation of artists has taken that invitation literally. Over the past few years, a loose scene of mostly pseudonymous artists, formed across crypto subcultures, Twitter timelines, and private group chats, has been quietly staging one of the more genuine artistic rebellions of the decade. Where the establishment crypto-art world courted galleries with polished generative work, these artists went the other direction, making images dense with meme references, anime, veiled art history, and internet debris, layered so deep that critics had to invent new words for them. They call the style schizocollage. In Spike Art Magazine, Dean Kissick placed the work in the lineage of deliberately “bad painting,” a tradition Marcia Tucker gave institutional credentials when she inaugurated the New Museum with an exhibition of that name in 1978. And increasingly, the scene’s work has been heading not toward the gallery wall but toward cardboard: the pack, the pull, the sleeve, and the slab treated not as merchandising afterthoughts but as the medium itself.

BMAG has spent years working in a room the traditional art world ignored, the art gallery inside a Bitcoin conference. When the painter Nardo showed at Bitcoin MENA in 2024, our conversation kept circling memes as units of cultural transmission and the internet’s layered debris as legitimate subject matter for painting. A year later his Citadel, a seven-foot oil painting built from a 4chan meme, debuted at the Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas: a monument raised to an internet shitpost. The card movement runs on the same current at a different scale, small enough to fit in a penny sleeve. It’s a conversation we’ve continued in these pages all year, with founders like Alladan Flinn of Based Trading Cards, who describes cards as physical timestamps of the Bitcoin movement. We’ll have much more to say about the artists of this scene, and what they’re bringing to Hong Kong, in the weeks ahead.

The Card Expo debuts at Bitcoin Asia 2026, August 27-28 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. Vendors of cards, collectibles, and related goods can apply for a table here. Tables are limited.

Follow BMAG on X at @BMAG_HQ for new partnership announcements, auctions, and first looks at the artists coming to Hong Kong.

In brief Strategy published new and updated investor metrics, saying its shift from convertible debt toward preferred-equity "digital credit" requires fresh yardsticks. The centerpiece, "net Bitcoin per share," measures the Bitcoin left for common shareholders after $22.3 billion in debt and preferred claims The firm also redefined mNAV under a new metric that restored it to its 1.0x par and recast "amplification" as a roughly 1.5x equity multiplier. Strategy has overhauled the metrics it uses to value its Bitcoin, rolling out a set of new "net" measures that strip out debt and preferred-stock claims to show how much of its stash actually belongs to common shareholders.

New and updated market metrics are live at https://t.co/yIv7IimRdf. As Digital Credit becomes a larger portion of our balance sheet, we've sharpened our precision based on investor feedback. This video walks through what's new and why.
00:00 - Intro to Strategy's new and updated… pic.twitter.com/ndCoDc9PDW

— Strategy (@Strategy) July 23, 2026

In a 30-minute video posted to its investor site, the company's head of investor relations Chaitanya Jain said the metrics had to "evolve" as the business moved "from an era of convertible debt to now a focus on digital credit," and pointed to investor demands for clarity. Executive chairman Michael Saylor put it more grandly, tweeting that, "Bitcoin Capital Markets require a new financial language."

The centerpiece is "net reserve," about $35 billion—what is left after subtracting $22.2 billion in senior claims ($15.5 billion of preferred stock and roughly $6.8 billion of out-of-the-money convertible debt) from Strategy's $57 billion Bitcoin pile (843,775 BTC) and $3.2 billion of cash. Dividing that residual by a new fully diluted share count gives "net Bitcoin per share," which the firm says has risen from $13 (44,000 sats) at the end of 2020 to $95 (143,000 sats)—a 43% compound annual growth rate, against Bitcoin's 16%.

The company also redefined mNAV as MSTR's share price divided by net Bitcoin per share, with the accretion threshold now fixed at 1.0x, and recast "amplification" as an equity multiplier—Bitcoin reserve over net reserve—of about 1.5x. New credit gauges frame the debt-fueled model's sustainability, with a "hurdle rate" of about 10.8% marking Strategy's effective cost of credit, a break-even rate near 3.2%, and a "flow rate" of about −11% that estimates how far Bitcoin could fall before reserves stopped covering debt and dividends.

The overhaul arrives with MSTR under pressure: the stock traded around $93 on Friday, down slightly on the day and far below its 2024 peak, days ahead of second-quarter earnings on July 30. Under the new formula, its mNAV reads right at 1.02x. Measured the old way—against Strategy's gross Bitcoin per share—the stock had looked to trade at a discount; dividing instead by net Bitcoin per share, after the roughly $22 billion of senior claims is stripped out, lifts the same share price to parity. It is Strategy's latest guidance tweak during a bear market that began last October; its flagship preferred share, STRC, still trades below its $100 “par value.”

The firm’s "digital credit" framing traces to a late-June pivot, when Strategy approved a framework for "active capital management" that, for the first time, authorized selling up to $1.25 billion of Bitcoin to top up its cash reserve, cover preferred dividends, and fund buybacks—a formal break from Michael Saylor's long-held "never sell" stance. In the weeks since, the firm has raised cash by selling MSTR stock rather than Bitcoin, sparing its 843,775 BTC stack while diluting common holders.

For now, Strategy's own math says the structure holds—as long as Bitcoin, currently around $64,000 and about 50% below its high, doesn't fall more than roughly 11% a year through the early 2030s.

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KULR Technology Group just did something most corporate Bitcoin holders talk about but rarely execute: it sold a meaningful chunk of its stack to clean up its balance sheet. The company offloaded approximately 333 BTC between July 9 and July 23, generating roughly $21.5 million in gross proceeds to fully retire its $20 million credit facility with Coinbase Credit.

The average sale price landed around $64,538 per Bitcoin. For a company that built its holdings at a weighted average cost of approximately $108,884 per BTC, that math is, well, not flattering. But KULR’s play here isn’t about timing the market. It’s about eliminating debt before the facility’s August 2026 maturity date.

From peak holdings to strategic retreat KULR’s Bitcoin journey started in December 2024 with an initial purchase of 217.18 BTC for around $21 million. The strategy was aggressive from the start: allocate up to 90% of surplus cash toward Bitcoin acquisitions.

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Holdings climbed past 1,000 BTC by mid-2025, eventually peaking at 1,083 BTC as of March 31, 2026. The company wasn’t just buying with cash, either. It tapped a $20 million credit line from Coinbase to accelerate its accumulation, pledging 565 BTC as collateral.

What’s left in the treasury Post-sale, KULR holds approximately 760 BTC. But there’s an important detail: the company expects an additional 565 BTC previously pledged as collateral to be released now that the Coinbase facility is fully repaid.

For context, KULR is a NYSE-listed company whose core business involves energy management and battery safety technologies. The Bitcoin treasury strategy was always a side bet, a corporate conviction trade layered on top of an existing business.

The corporate Bitcoin playbook is evolving Selling 333 BTC at an average of $64,538 when you bought at a weighted average north of $108,884 per BTC is a realized loss of roughly $14.8 million on those specific coins. The alternative — rolling over a $20 million credit facility into an uncertain rate environment while Bitcoin prices remain well below the cost basis — carried its own risks.

The company now has a cleaner capital structure and still maintains significant Bitcoin exposure through its remaining 760 BTC holdings. If Bitcoin prices recover meaningfully, KULR participates in that upside without any debt service dragging on cash flows.

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

Anthropic announces the launch of its Opus 5 AI model.

Anthropic announced the launch of its Opus 5 AI model, which delivers performance nearly matching that of the cutting-edge Fable 5 while costing only half as much.

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Duan Yongping has sold SpaceX put options with a strike price of $92.

Renowned investor Duan Yongping stated yesterday in response to a community user's question that he has started selling put options on SpaceX. This is his typical "potential acquisition" strategy. According to the live trading records of the SpaceX put options Duan shared, his quoted price was around 23.20, with actual execution at 23.26 (1,000 contracts), earning him a premium of approximately $2.32 million. Calculated over a 5-month term, the yield is roughly 25.35%, with an annualized return of about 60%. He noted, "I want to support Elon Musk's dream."

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The United States and the United Kingdom plan to discuss forming an international alliance to protect maritime shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

According to AXIOS: European diplomats say the U.S. and the U.K. are discussing holding a high-level meeting in London next week, with the meeting focusing on a potential plan to establish an international coalition to protect maritime shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

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Qualcomm notifies its customers it can no longer absorb price hikes, and will raise prices by double-digit percentages.

Bloomberg cited a letter reporting that Qualcomm has informed its clients it can no longer absorb price hikes and will implement double-digit percentage price increases. Following the news, BIT (bit.com) market data shows Qualcomm’s decline narrowed, while Nvidia climbed 1.2% to hit a new daily high.

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OpenAI CEO: Hopes the U.S. wins in the open-source AI sector, and is "pleased to see" Jensen Huang's remarks.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he hopes the U.S. will lead in both open-source AI and proprietary AI models, adding that he "welcomes" the statement Nvidia’s CEO made on social media regarding the open letter jointly issued by over 20 U.S. tech companies.

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Jensen Huang’s X following list is expanding, with its current focus on CEOs of major tech companies and leading figures in the U.S. venture capital space.

Jensen Huang, after posting his debut on X, is currently adding accounts to his follow list. As of press time, Huang follows 35 accounts, six of which are part of NVIDIA’s official account matrix. The rest focus on CEOs of major tech firms and U.S. venture capital leaders, with an emphasis almost entirely on the AI infrastructure ecosystem. The accounts fall into five categories: First, AI-native companies and model ecosystem leaders, including Sam Altman of OpenAI, Dario Amodei of Anthropic, Demis Hassabis of Google DeepMind, Arthur Mensch of Mistral AI, Clem Delangue of Hugging Face, and Aravind Srinivas of Perplexity. Second, CEOs of global tech giants, such as Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Sundar Pichai of Google/Alphabet, Tim Cook of Apple, Andy Jassy of Amazon, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, and Michael Dell of Dell. Most of these firms are key players in AI computing power, cloud services, end devices, or enterprise AI. Third, investment and startup ecosystem figures, including a16z, Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, Garry Tan of Y Combinator (YC), and Gavin Baker of Atreides. Fourth, chip and hardware industry partners, such as Lip-Bu Tan of Intel and Cristiano Amon of Qualcomm. Though small in number, these represent key nodes in the semiconductor supply chain that both compete and intersect with NVIDIA. Fifth, enterprise software and security infrastructure players, including Palantir, George Kurtz of CrowdStrike, Marc Benioff of Salesforce, Bill McDermott of ServiceNow, and Arvind Krishna of IBM. These firms align with AI use cases in government and enterprise, data, security, and process automation.

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Bitcoin’s most experienced investors have increased their holdings at the fastest pace in over six years, according to recent data. This surge in activity by long-term holders has also coincided with a return to significant realized profits, a trend that has often signaled new phases of upward momentum in the market.

Long-term holders accumulate at fastest rate since 2017On-chain analytics firm CryptoQuant reported that Bitcoin’s 30-day Long-Term Holder (LTH) Net Position Change climbed to around 1.29 million BTC in late May. This level marks the highest monthly accumulation by the cohort since tracking began and surpasses peaks from previous bullish cycles, including the 2017 market rally.

The LTH Net Position Change evaluates the net flow of Bitcoin into wallets held for extended periods over a rolling 30-day window. Sustained positive readings typically indicate that seasoned investors are adding to their positions instead of taking profits or reducing risk.

This record accumulation occurred while Bitcoin traded noticeably below its recent all-time highs, indicating that these holders saw opportunity during the market’s pullback rather than reasons to exit.

Historically, similar periods of robust accumulation by long-term holders have emerged as speculative traders reduced exposure, while investors with high conviction strengthened their positions quietly.

Mini dictionary: CryptoQuant, an on-chain analytics company, provides data and research on cryptocurrency networks by monitoring wallet movements, exchange flows, and other blockchain-based metrics for traders and analysts.

Market watchers note that the latest phase has surpassed all prior accumulation episodes since at least 2021 and even exceeded levels seen during the 2017 bull market.

Profitability improves for Bitcoin’s long-term holdersFurther data from Glassnode indicate that these long-term holders have recently returned to strong realized profits. By tracking Bitcoin transfers to exchanges using a 30-day moving average, analysts observed that holders who held coins through the downturn are now exiting with substantial gains following the recovery from recent lows.

Similar spikes in realized profitability among seasoned holders previously preceded major market advances, including during the significant market expansions in 2020 and 2021. This confluence—high accumulation and rising profitability—points to a robust sense of conviction among core Bitcoin holders.

While periods of widespread profitability can sometimes trigger profit-taking, analysts noticed that current conditions are unique because accumulation has intensified even as profits rose. This reflects a confident outlook among large, established investors despite recent volatility.

Although improving on-chain signals point to stronger market conditions, analysts stress that individual indicators cannot guarantee the start of a new bull phase.

Historically, long-term holders’ accumulation often serves as a reliable indicator of deeper conviction in Bitcoin’s prospects, as these wallets are typically less reactive to price swings than newly joined participants.

Accumulation Period30-Day LTH Net Position ChangeMarket ContextLate May 20261.29 million BTCStrongest in over 6 years2021 PeakBelow 1.29 million BTCBull market2017 CycleBelow 1.29 million BTCBull marketBitcoin’s price recently rebounded approximately 15%, approaching the critical $68,000 short-term holder realized price level, which many analysts view as a key point for the upcoming trend direction.

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.

Table of contents

Foreign exchange desks are not the only ones ripping apart every Consumer Price Index release. Crypto traders now calibrate their positions around the same inflation data, and a new market analysis from forex broker JustMarkets highlights just how reactive markets have become to even small CPI surprises. The original report focuses on FX pairs, but the mechanics translate directly to how Bitcoin, Ethereum, and major altcoins absorb macro shocks.

CPI prints have moved from a once-a-month curiosity to a core volatility engine for risk assets. When actual numbers land above or below consensus, the repricing in interest rate expectations flows instantly through dollar crosses, equity futures, and now digital assets. JustMarkets’ timing is notable because the crypto market’s sensitivity to macro data has deepened alongside institutional inflows and the proliferation of perpetual futures that embed funding rate dynamics tied to rate differentials.

Many traders still treat crypto as an uncorrelated hedge. The reality is more nuanced. High-beta altcoins tend to amplify the moves that begin in traditional macro instruments. A hotter-than-expected CPI print that sends the dollar higher often drains liquidity from riskier corners of the crypto market first, while a soft print can spark an immediate relief rally in coins that have been under pressure. Recent weekly gainers among altcoins have frequently coincided with shifts in macro sentiment, not just protocol-level catalysts.

Why Traders Are Merging the Macro and Crypto Playbooks The infrastructure that feeds crypto markets has matured to the point where a CPI release triggers the same kind of systematic positioning flows seen in currency markets. Market makers adjust spreads, algorithmic traders adjust models, and large funds rebalance beta exposure across asset classes. For a forex broker to publish an entire analysis on CPI surprises underscores how the boundary between traditional macro and crypto is now blurred. A miss on core inflation isn’t just a euro-dollar story anymore.

Retail and institutional participants are also drawing the same conclusions. The correlation between Bitcoin and the dollar index isn’t fixed, but it spikes around key data releases. On-chain tokenized real-world assets have crossed $20 billion, tying more crypto-native capital directly to traditional yield curves. This only deepens the macro sensitivity.

What Remains Unclear For all the correlation chatter, the transmission mechanism from a CPI print to a specific token’s price is not uniform. Some protocols benefit from a risk-on environment driven by dovish rate expectations. Others see increased activity when inflation stays sticky, because users seek dollar alternatives. JustMarkets’ research, while FX-centric, raises a question for crypto analysts: are there structurally different CPI effects across on-chain sectors such as DeFi lending protocols versus meme-coin trading? That breakdown is mostly absent from current market commentary.

Liquidity conditions add another layer. Thin weekend markets in crypto can absorb lagged macro information with more erratic price action than what occurs in deep FX markets. A Monday gap after a Friday CPI print can create opportunities and traps that don’t exist in spot forex. Regulatory uncertainty in the US compounds this, as policy outcomes that affect dollar liquidity and stablecoin access can shift the baseline against which CPI surprises are measured.

Traders who only watch the CPI number without factoring in the evolving regulatory and market structure backdrop risk misreading the reaction. The JustMarkets report serves as a reminder that macro data doesn’t operate in isolation. Crypto markets inherit the volatility from FX, then layer on their own liquidity and sentiment dynamics. The next CPI release will likely trigger moves that look faster and steeper in Bitcoin and altcoins than in the currency pairs the original analysis targeted.

AUTHOR

Max delves deep into the cryptocurrency realm, with a passion for altcoins and NFTs. Convinced of crypto's transformative potential, he envisions a decentralized financial future. Max's background in the financial sector grants him unique insights into global monetary systems. In his leisure, Max embraces the thrill of adventures and is an avid sports enthusiast, finding balance and rejuvenation away from work.

HomeCryptoMARKETSAnother crypto company sells Bitcoin.

The ongoing crypto winter has forced Michael Saylor's Strategy (Nasdaq: MSTR), formerly MicroStrategy, to sell Bitcoin (BTC) twice this year.

32 Bitcoin for around $2.5 million during May 26-313,588 BTC for $216 million during June 29-July 5The company has sold Bitcoin for the first time after 2022. Now, another major digital asset treasury company has been forced to sell Bitcoin.

Trending on TheStreet Roundtable:Tesla sends a quiet but powerful message on BitcoinFarmers collateralize cows to secure loansAndrew 'Daddy' Tate crashes 50% since U.S. arrestThe Smarter Web Company sells a portion of Bitcoin stack The Smarter Web Company disclosed on July 23 that it sold 177.8909127 Bitcoin worth $11.68 million and used the proceeds from the sale to repay an $11.7 million convertible debt facility.

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Though a company selling Bitcoin during a period of crisis can be interpreted as a sign of falling confidence in the cryptocurrency, the company said it made the sale decision in preference for balance-sheet flexibility over equity dilution.

Otherwise, it would have to issue 7.71 million common shares, which would have diluted existing shareholders had the convertible been converted into equity instead.

"When we entered into Smarter Convert in August 2025, it provided an innovative alternative to traditional leverage," The Smarter Web Company CEO Andrew Webley said. "The structure enabled us to strengthen our balance sheet whilst maintaining flexibility during an early stage of our Bitcoin treasury strategy. As the Company has evolved, so too has our approach to capital allocation. Looking ahead, whilst we continue to recognise the potential benefits of both fiat and Bitcoin-denominated convertible instruments, we do not currently believe they represent the right capital solution for The Smarter Web Company."

It still holds 2,700 Bitcoin on its balance sheet.

BTC/USD, Source: Decibel

Bitcoin was exchanging hands at $63,886 at the time of writing, as per Decibel.