The first half of 2026 is one that Microsoft Corporation NASDAQ: MSFT shareholders would just as soon forget. The stock is down approximately 20% as of July 1. As recently as June 24, MSFT hit a 52-week low of $349.20.
It hasn’t all been downhill. But every time it looked like MSFT was getting ready to recover, something happened to knock it back. Nevertheless, both fundamental and technical signs, starting with a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 22.9x, suggest that Microsoft is due for a reversal. That could make MSFT the best big tech trade for the second half of 2026.
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When a Strength Became a WeaknessThe size and scope of Microsoft’s business have worked against it as investors have found multiple reasons for concern. In late 2025, investors were concerned that a hyperscaler like Microsoft would pause or reverse course on its data center capital expenditures.
Instead, the company doubled down on its spending and now plans to spend $190 billion in this calendar year. Of course, that turned into a concern that Microsoft and other hyperscalers are now spending too much money, which will either hit their free cash flow or show up on the balance sheet as debt—neither of which is positive for earnings growth.
Then, the "SaaSpocalypse" hit. The concern was that the emergence of open-source models like Anthropic and OpenAI would reduce demand for Microsoft’s Copilot. However, in its most recent earnings report, the company noted that Copilot had over 20 million paid seats.
One of the latest issues facing the company is the cost of memory. That acutely impacts Microsoft’s gaming division and popular Xbox. It also reminds investors of how interconnected all of these technology companies are, particularly as it relates to the artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure trade.
That’s a lot of noise for investors to drown out. But for those that can, there’s a strong case for growth in the second half of 2026.
The Numbers Behind the NoiseLet’s start with the fundamentals. Microsoft’s Q3 2026 earnings report undercut the bear case. Revenue grew 18% year-over-year to $82.9 billion, and diluted earnings per share (EPS) rose 23% to $4.27, beating estimates on both lines. The bull case went beyond the headline numbers:
Microsoft Cloud revenue climbed 29% to $54.5 billion, with Azure growing 40% year-over-year, an acceleration from the prior quarter.
Total AI annualized revenue run rate surpassed $37 billion, up 123% from a year ago.
Operating income rose 20% to $38.4 billion.
The company returned $10.2 billion to shareholders through dividends and buybacks.
None of that sounds like a company in trouble, yet the stock kept sliding after the report. However, that disconnect between accelerating fundamentals and a falling share price is exactly what value-oriented traders look for. It suggests the market is pricing in a worst-case scenario that isn’t backed up by the numbers.
MSFT Shows Signs of a Tepid RecoveryThe chart backs up the reversal thesis. MSFT fell from a 52-week high near $555 in October to the June 24 low of $349.20, a decline of roughly 37%.
The RSI sits at roughly 47, climbing back from oversold territory below 30 in April. That April dip marked the stock's sharpest capitulation, followed by a rally above $460 in May before renewed selling pressure returned.
Some of that selling pressure is due to a slowdown in institutional buying. To be clear, institutional buying outweighs selling by over 3:1. But it slowed down in the first two quarters of the year, which has given sellers the upper hand.
That shows up in the Chaikin Money Flow (CMF) indicator. This quantifies money flowing into or out of a security over a set period, typically 20 or 21 trading days. The reading of -0.04 is essentially neutral after spending most of April through June in a downtrend. A shift into positive CMF readings would confirm institutional money is rotating back into the stock.
Shares jumped 3% on July 1, closing at $384.28 on volume of 47.23 million shares, a sign of renewed interest after weeks of drifting lower. A close above the $400 level, which has capped rallies since March, would be the clearest signal yet that the reversal is underway.
The Bear Case Still Deserves a HearingNo trade is without risk. Capital expenditures, including finance leases, hit $31.9 billion in the quarter, up 49% year-over-year, and free cash flow fell 22% to $15.8 billion as a result. If AI demand growth slows, that spending will make MSFT more of a margin story than it already may be.
Plus, the rising memory prices may not be critical, but they are squeezing the More Personal Computing segment, where Xbox hardware revenue fell 33%. If costs remain elevated into the holidays, that pressure could spread further, despite the company’s recent layoff announcement aimed at addressing some of that inefficiency.
Why the Setup Favors Patient BuyersInvestors need to weigh the risks against the valuation. Through that lens, Microsoft still looks attractive. A forward P/E near 23x sits below the stock's five-year average and well under high-flying peers like NVIDIA NASDAQ: NVDA and Palantir NASDAQ: PLTR, despite Microsoft posting some of the most durable growth in the group.
For investors willing to look past near-term volatility, the combination of accelerating AI revenue, a 20-million-seat Copilot business, and a technical setup stabilizing after a brutal correction makes MSFT worth watching closely as the second half of 2026 gets underway.
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Robotics and automation are rapidly becoming essential infrastructure across healthcare, manufacturing, logistics, and many other industries.
"Physical AI" is coming to the United States, and there are four ways that investors can gain exposure to this new robotics revolution. Plus, learn which seven companies are most positioned to benefit as intelligent robots enter the workforce.
Nike ve 4. čtvrtletí překonala odhady: tržby klesly o 1 %, hrubá marže stoupla na 49,2 % a EPS vyskočil na 0,72 USD. Management ale snížil krátkodobý výhled.
Nike (NKE +2.44%) shareholders have been suffering over the past few years as the company has dealt with problem after problem.
There were some glimmers of hope in the fiscal 2026 fourth-quarter (ended May 31) report released this past week, but management cut near-term guidance and doesn't expect meaningful progress over the next six months. So why is Nike stock rising?
Image source: Nike.
Getting its game on Nike is still picking up the pieces from some major missteps, compounded over the past few years by high inflation and strong tariff exposure. The company was poorly positioned to handle the challenges when it cut out wholesale partnerships and let its innovation engine slip.
In its favor, it got a new CEO and mapped out a turnaround plan, and while external factors are still weighing on its progress, appears to have stemmed the rapid declines.
Here are some of the fourth-quarter highlights, which beat the top and bottom lines:
Revenue decreased 1% year over year, with wholesale up 4% and direct-to-consumer down 7%. Gross margin expanded 8.9 percentage points to 49.2%. Earnings per share (EPS) increased from $0.14 last year to $0.72 this year. While momentum had been building into the quarter, it stalled when the Iran war began and oil prices spiked, putting pressure on global consumers. Although that's been easing, management had to reshuffle orders and block too much inventory that could eventually pile up and have to be marked down for sale. Over the next six months, sluggish sales are expected.
Going on the offense One particular area where Nike is truly struggling is China, where sales dropped 17% for the full year. CEO Elliott Hill said Nike is doing a "comprehensive reset" in the region, going on the offense and working with local partners to see how it can win.
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But there were many positive updates. Performance sales were up mid-single digits for the full year, which marked the fifth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth in Nike Running.
Although China is struggling, North America is showing signs of recovery, and the wholesale business grew by double digits for the full year. So while the near term looks bleak, the recovery is possible.
In the meantime, Nike stock has fallen low enough to look like a strong value. It tanked after earnings, and its P/E ratio dipped below 20. At the current price, its dividend yields 3.8%. Value investors may have seen the opportunity, and long-term investors might be counting on a big recovery later this year.
Strategy zvýšila dividendu u STRC na 12 % ročně a spustila zpětný odkup za 1 miliardu USD, aby podpořila cenu preferenčních akcií STRC, které se obchodují kolem 88 USD.
Spot Bitcoin briefly fell below the critical $60,000 support level last week, triggering a wave of retail panic. Yet, shares of Strategy Inc. NASDAQ: MSTR rose over 12.6% intraday on volume exceeding 44.93 million shares. This easily outpaced the average of 2.86 million. Retail investors treating Strategy purely as a leveraged Bitcoin (BTC) derivative are left scratching their heads. Institutional capital is aggressively pricing in a profound structural shift.
Strategy has shifted from a mostly one-way Bitcoin accumulation model toward a more active capital-management framework. The company recently adopted its Digital Credit Capital Framework and reported a USD Reserve of approximately $2.55 billion, including expected cash proceeds from unsettled ATM sales. This reframes Strategy less as a passive Bitcoin proxy and more as an actively managed capital-structure story.
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Tactical Liquidity: Escaping the Margin TrapThe market is rewarding this operational pivot because it directly addresses the friction of the legacy treasury model. Trailing 12-month net income deficits of $3.85 billion and a net margin of -2,482% previously trapped Strategy in a restrictive capital structure.
The balance sheet itself remains highly solvent, boasting a current and quick ratio of 6.05 alongside a low debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18. By monetizing a sliver of its digital assets to build a cash moat, Strategy is attempting to reduce near-term liquidity pressure while remaining highly exposed to Bitcoin price volatility. Institutional investors are rotating capital toward this de-risked framework, prioritizing active liquidity management over pure commodity exposure.
Strategy Arms Its Preferred SharesThe most actionable angle of this structural transition lies in Strategy's multi-class share structure. Management is deploying a highly targeted capital return program designed to exploit a specific net asset value arbitrage opportunity.
The focus rests heavily on Variable Rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock NASDAQ: STRC. The preferred equity currently trades near $88, representing a 12.8% discount to the stated $100 par corporate objective. To help encourage the trading price toward par, the board of directors increased STRC's regular dividend rate to 12% annually.
A higher dividend rate alone may not close a preferred-stock discount if investors remain concerned about liquidity, credit quality, or Bitcoin exposure. That is exactly why Strategy also authorized a $1 billion repurchase program specifically targeting Digital Credit Securities, including STRC, STRF, STRD, and STRK. The company currently expects STRC to be the initial priority.
The strategy here is straightforward. Strategy is using its newfound balance sheet flexibility to repurchase discounted preferred securities. As the company steps into the open market to execute these buybacks, the aggressive demand could help narrow the gap to the 12.8% discount. For investors, the play could support STRC if market confidence improves. Management is financially incentivized and authorized (but not obligated) to buy the preferred stock until it hits $100.
This structural confidence extends to other issuances across the corporate umbrella, including the 8% Series A Perpetual Strike Preferred Stock NASDAQ: STRK, but the immediate corporate crosshairs are fixed on compressing the STRC discount.
Strategy Builds a $3.8B Liquidity FrameworkA core component of the new framework is the BTC Monetization Program. The board authorized Strategy to sell up to $1.25 billion in Bitcoin to fund the USD reserve, execute accretive buybacks, and support dividend obligations.
Skeptics view any Bitcoin selling as a bearish capitulation. That interpretation misses the facility's actual scale and purpose. The $1.25 billion authorization equates to roughly 20,000 Bitcoin, which is a mere 2.5% of Strategy's total digital asset treasury. Any BTC monetization outside the authorized purposes or above the approved amounts would require additional board authorization, giving Strategy a defined framework for potential Bitcoin sales.
By monetizing a fraction of its holdings, Strategy expands its total preferred stock dividend liquidity coverage to an impressive 25.9 months. This means Strategy possesses $3.8 billion in total current preferred stock dividends and interest expense coverage against an expected annual obligation of $1.76 billion.
The 2.5% monetization ceiling helps insulate corporate dividend obligations and share repurchases from broader spot Bitcoin price deterioration. Whether the cryptocurrency trades at $60,000 or $40,000, Strategy has the internal liquidity to sustain its 12% preferred yield and execute its $1 billion buyback mandate without being forced into a fire sale of its primary reserve asset.
Strategy Insiders Deploy CapitalThe divergence between retail sentiment and institutional execution is widening. Several traditional financial institutions, including Citi and TD Cowen, recently lowered price targets for Strategy's common equity, citing weakness in spot Bitcoin and decelerating ETF demand. These analyst desks are adhering to the legacy thesis that Strategy is exclusively tied to crypto prices, completely overlooking the operational pivot.
The smart money is front-running the capital return mechanics. Alongside the preferred stock repurchase authorization, Strategy initiated a parallel $1 billion repurchase program for Class A common stock. This combined $2 billion buyback initiative could help protect common equity from dilution while fundamentally improving the corporate credit profile.
Insider transaction data poitns toward structural confidence. Chief Executive Officer Phong Le recently acquired 11,000 shares of preferred stock at an all-time low, executing the purchase just before the 12% dividend increase, and the targeted repurchase program went live. Leadership at Strategy is personally capitalizing on the arbitrage discount they are corporately engineering to close.
Strategy Secures the Structural WinThe passive accumulation era is officially closed. Although the company remains materially exposed to Bitcoin price volatility, Strategy has taken steps to reduce near-term liquidity pressure: pivoting toward active capital management, establishing a 25.9-month liquidity runway, and authorizing a $2 billion buyback authorization. Investors fixated on Bitcoin's slide below $60,000 are missing the mechanical value creation within Strategy's capital structure.
The dual buyback program and the 12% preferred yield operate independently of macro crypto headwinds. The priority for market participants is tracking the compression of the STRC discount. As Strategy deploys its $1 billion preferred authorization, the gap between the current trading price and the $100 par objective will could narrow, rewarding those who recognize the strategic pivot before the broader market catches up.
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Nuclear energy is entering a new growth cycle as rising power demand, expanding data centers, and renewed policy support bring the sector back into focus. After strong gains in recent years, the most impactful phase of nuclear investment may still be ahead. This report highlights seven nuclear energy stocks positioned across the value chain—combining near-term revenue with long-term upside as next-generation technologies scale. Click the link below to unlock the full list.
Tyler Technologies zvýšila cíle pro rok 2030 na roční opakované tržby 3,35 miliardy USD a volný peněžní tok 1,15 miliardy USD. Firma zároveň pokračuje v přesunu klientů do cloudu, který má zvyšovat opakované tržby.
For years, software specialist Tyler Technologies (TYL +5.28%) enjoyed a reputation as a company that was difficult to displace due to its niche public-sector focus. That changed last year, when investors fled from software names broadly in fear of the disruption the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) would have on their business models.
The once-resilient stock has now fallen by 51% from the high it touched in February 2025. That sell-off was understandable given the uncertainty software companies face. In Tyler's case, the market is worried that large language models will allow government agencies to build custom tools that can do what its products do, or adopt cheaper alternatives. This would erode Tyler's entrenched position and permanently alter its growth trajectory.
Despite the concerns, management recently raised its 2030 revenue target, and said it now expects to surpass $1 billion in free cash flow by the end of the decade. Given that its market cap is just $12 billion, and considering that the public sector is typically slow to adopt new technology, Tyler may be one software stock worth adding to your portfolio.
Image source: Getty Images.
Who needs agentic loops when you can do cloud "flips"? The optimism from leadership stems from Tyler's cloud "flip" initiative, which is shifting its government client from using software hosted on on-premises hardware to software-as-a-service (SaaS) subscriptions hosted in the cloud, turning lower-margin maintenance revenue into higher-margin recurring revenue.
On average, every on-premises client that migrates to the cloud generates 1.7 times more revenue for Tyler while adding to its multiyear contracted revenue stream. With an installed base of over 16,000 clients and a target to convert 85% of them by 2030, the runway is significant.
Management projects that its peak flip volumes will occur from 2027 through 2029. This shift should improve margins by reducing maintenance work on its legacy on-premises products and increasing cross-selling opportunities.
The company's average client currently uses about three of its products, a figure it aims to increase to 10 to 12 by selling additional modules like payments, fire prevention, and document automation.
Some risks are worth taking During its June investor day presentation, the software provider raised its 2030 targets to $3.35 billion in annualized recurring revenue (ARR) and $1.15 billion in free cash flow. To hit those targets would require ARR to grow at an average annual rate of around 10%.
The caution around the stock comes not only from the likelihood of a more competitive market but also from where its next leg of growth will come from once the majority of cloud flips are complete. Management points to its ability to cross-sell, but predicting customer demand for software that far into the future is more of a side note than an investing thesis.
While the company is not immune to the impacts of technology shifts, its customers are unlikely to abandon their court systems or property tax software for AI-driven alternatives anytime soon. Government procurement cycles are notoriously slow, which will give the company time to execute on its cloud strategy and adapt to the changing landscape.
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The stock is trading at roughly 25 times expected forward earnings, down from a five-year average in the mid-40s, and 21 times trailing free cash flow. As such, the expectations baked into the stock are far lower than they've been in the past. While the market is unlikely to bid up its shares in the near term, Tyler is priced at a level where patient investors can comfortably begin building a position.
Dutch Bros dosáhl 52týdenního maxima 74,65 USD po růstu tržeb o 31 % a zvýšení celoročního výhledu. Firma čeká růst tržeb o 25 % až 27 %, růst tržeb ve stejných pobočkách o 4 % až 6 % a otevření alespoň 185 nových poboček.
Investing in restaurant stocks at their early stages of expansion can be a simple and rewarding strategy for building wealth in the stock market. Dutch Bros fits the profile of a growth stock that famous investor Peter Lynch loved to find during his career managing Fidelity's Magellan Fund.
After consolidating for over a year, Dutch Bros' (BROS 1.57%) shares recently surged to a 52-week high of $74.65. The company's growth amid inflation and other economic headwinds is a testament to its brand strength. Here are three reasons the stock is a solid buy right now.
Image source: Dutch Bros.
1. Brand resilience The stock's recent surge followed another strong quarter. Revenue grew 31% year over year, driven by new shop openings and a healthy same-shop sales increase of 8.3%. This shows the brand driving balanced growth from existing and new locations.
What's more, management raised full-year guidance for revenue, same-shop sales, profitability, and new shop openings. It expects full-year revenue to be up 25% to 27%, to open at least 185 new locations, and to deliver same-store sales growth of 4% to 6%.
The first quarter marked the company's fifth straight quarter of transaction growth, which is a strong showing. Even iconic consumer brands like Starbucks and Nike have struggled to deliver meaningful growth to push their share prices higher. Dutch Bros' consistency in a challenging macroeconomic environment reflects a strong brand in the making.
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2. Passionate culture These results reflect strength in a highly competitive beverage-chain market. While its menu, which spans energy drinks, sodas, smoothies, and coffee, is certainly a draw for customers, management says the brand's biggest differentiator is its people.
The company emphasizes friendly interactions with customers, and this matters because Dutch Bros promotes new shop operators from within. And some of these operators are so passionate about the company that they have the brand tattooed on them.
These are intangible qualities that Wall Street analysts will overlook, but that can be vital to a company's long-term success. This is especially true in the restaurant industry, where making customers happy is fundamental to driving sales. Clearly, this company is run by incredibly passionate people. That's rare, and it says a lot about why Dutch Bros continues to post strong financial results.
3. Profitable expansion strategy Dutch Bros had 1,177 shops open as of March 31, 2026. That covers 25 states, leaving plenty of room for nationwide expansion. Management is targeting 2,029 shops by 2029. But investors shouldn't think that it is recklessly expanding for the sake of growth.
Management scouts each location carefully. Its strategy is to cluster locations in a market so consumers will build their daily routine around visiting a Dutch Bros shop. This lays the foundation for billions in annual revenue through high daily sales volume over the long term.
This detailed planning is starting to show up in profitability. The company operated at a small loss through 2022, but since mid-2023, net income has been steadily growing. It generated $118 million in net income on $1.75 billion in revenue over the trailing 12 months.
The stock isn't cheap, trading at a forward earnings multiple of 76. But the stock looks expensive on a price-to-earnings basis because it's still in the early stages of scaling the business and leveraging expenses.
The price-to-sales ratio is a more useful valuation metric for valuing this company in the early innings of its long-term expansion. On that measure, Dutch Bros shares trade at 5.3 times trailing revenue. That's more reasonable and consistent with the ranges that Starbucks and Chipotle historically traded.
Overall, Dutch Bros' momentum in a tough environment, its passionate workforce, and its expansion opportunities make it a solid growth stock to buy in July.
John Ballard has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Chipotle Mexican Grill, Dutch Bros, Nike, and Starbucks. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: short September 2026 $35 calls on Chipotle Mexican Grill. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Oklo v červnu získala klíčová schválení od DOE a partnerství v oblasti paliva, přesto akcie klesly o 21,8 %. Firma zatím nemá tržby a investoři se obávají ředění po nové emisi akcií.
Oklo (OKLO 0.17%) had what should have been a dream month in June 2026.
The nuclear energy start-up was racking up major wins left and right, including approvals from the Department of Energy (DOE) and a crucial partnership to secure the mission-critical uranium fuel needed to power Oklo's small modular reactors (SMRs) for a massive project.
Yet, Oklo stock slumped 21.8% in June, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence.
The disconnect comes down to a reality check on multiple fronts. But could the markets have overreacted, offering investors an opportunity to scoop up shares of a company with significant government collaborations amid a nuclear energy renaissance?
Image source: Getty Images.
Oklo's major recent wins Oklo stock sank after its first-quarter earnings in May and a $1 billion new equity offering. Oklo is still developing fast-fission nuclear power plants called Aurora powerhouses and has yet to commercialize its technology and generate its first revenue. Its spending, however, pushed Q1 net loss to $33 million. That massive share sale further hurt the stock price as investors feared dilution of their value.
June was, comparatively, a far more positive month for Oklo.
It won a crucial DOE safety approval for its Idaho National Laboratory (INL) plant under the DOE's Reactor Pilot Program.
The Auroral-INL will be Oklo's first fast-fission plant.
In mid-June, Oklo signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Standard Nuclear to collaborate on nuclear fuel recycling and advanced fuel manufacturing.
The U.S. government is keen to use surplus plutonium lying in its stockpile as nuclear fuel for reactors, and Oklo is among the few companies developing nuclear fuel recycling facilities. It is also advancing Pluto, a plutonium-fueled fast test reactor.
Oklo also locked down a massive strategic partnership with Centrus Energy to secure high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) supplies to power up to five Aurora powerhouses over the next few years. These reactors are for Oklo's planned 1.2 GW power campus in the Ohio region to support Meta Platforms data centers.
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Oklo closed out June by acquiring Creative Engineers to beef up their advanced reactor tech. Earlier in the month, it acquired ARMEC to strengthen its reactor manufacturing capabilities.
With everything lining up so perfectly, why did Oklo shares still fall?
Why Oklo stock could continue to be volatile First, the DOE threw a curveball into the SMR market when it announced a $17.5 billion loan program for traditional, large-scale nuclear reactors. Investors betting heavily on SMRs amid the artificial intelligence (AI) power boom were instantly spooked, triggering a broad sell-off that dragged Oklo stock with it.
To be sure, the government isn't souring on small reactors. If anything, the massive loan program serves as a broad validation of the nuclear energy upcycle. The issue is that when a pre-revenue company begins trading like a high-flying stock, any perceived distraction can hit the stock hard.
Oklo eventually aims to generate electricity from Aurora powerhouses and sell it under long-term power purchase agreements. But because commercial operations are still years away, even a single mixed signal can prompt investors to do a reality check and take profits.
CoreWeave (CRWV 4.58%) stock suffered a double-digit pullback in this week's shortened trading, which saw the market closed on Friday in advance of the July 4 holiday. The company's share price fell 13.2% across the stretch.
While the S&P 500 gained 1.8% and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 2.1% this week, many artificial intelligence (AI) hardware stocks got hit with pullbacks. In addition to a general rotation trend out of AI hardware, CoreWeave stock saw valuation pullbacks in conjunction with news that Meta Platforms is entering the AI processing services market.
Image source: Getty Images.
CoreWeave stock sinks as Meta gears up for AI processing business Meta Platforms is getting ready to offer AI processing to third-party customers, effectively moving into direct competition with CoreWeave. In addition to CoreWeave facing a new competitive threat from a major tech giant, the move also caused concerns about the pricing outlook across the broader AI hardware tech stack.
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Meta's AI processing push has AI valuation implications Meta has been spending massively to build out AI infrastructure resources to compete with other leading technology players, including Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet. While the broader AI arms race between these companies is likely to continue, Meta's push to start offering AI processing as a service could be an indication that the company believes that expanding compute capacity for its own internal needs is starting to become less of a priority.
If that's the case, it could have big implications for CoreWeave's business. While demand for AI processing continues to look strong, the company has taken on huge debt in order to facilitate its AI infrastructure buildout. If demand growth for AI processing hardware starts to soften, it's possible that CoreWeave could see significant pricing-power contraction -- and that development could prove damaging to the bullish valuation case in conjunction with the company's heavy debt load.
Keith Noonan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Na Hyperliquidu se u perpetual kontraktu na zlato během minuty propadla cena asi o 100 USD pod 4 090 USD, než se rychle vrátila. Příčinou byla tenká likvidita a arbitrážní boti pak odchylku srovnali.
Gold dropped approximately $100 on Hyperliquid’s perpetual futures contract on July 4, with prices dipping below $4,090 before snapping back. The whole thing played out in roughly a minute. The flash crash occurred on Hyperliquid’s XAU perpetual contract, a synthetic instrument that tracks the price of gold using oracle feeds rather than physical delivery. Arbitrage bots and market makers quickly moved to close the gap between Hyperliquid’s price and the oracle reference, stabilizing the contract.
Hyperliquid’s gold perp was operating in thin liquidity conditions when this crash hit. Market makers and arb bots identified the price deviation from the oracle and bought the dip to restore equilibrium. But “self-corrected” doesn’t help the trader who got liquidated during the 60-second window when prices were in freefall.
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This isn’t Hyperliquid’s first rodeo with sudden price dislocations on non-crypto assets. Back in late May, the SPACEX-USDH pre-IPO perpetual contract crashed 45% after an oracle mishandled data related to a stock split. That incident liquidated $1.51 million across 1,393 positions. The gold crash appears smaller in absolute dollar terms, but the pattern is familiar: thin liquidity plus oracle-dependent pricing plus leverage equals occasional chaos.
Hyperliquid’s commodity ambitions Hyperliquid now supports over 300 perpetual and spot markets, spanning crypto tokens, commodities like gold and silver, and even indices. HIP-3 permissionless markets hit a record daily trading volume of $5.2 billion in early 2026. In January, Hyperliquid’s native HYPE token surged 24% partly driven by soaring silver futures volume on the platform.
What this means for investors For traders using leverage on commodity perps, the lesson is straightforward: position sizing matters more on platforms where a $100 wick can materialize and vanish in under a minute. Stop losses on thin markets can become stop-market orders that execute far from your intended exit. The gap between “the system eventually self-corrects” and “traders don’t get hurt” remains significant, and it widens every time someone adds leverage to a synthetic gold position during off-hours on a holiday weekend when traditional venues are closed and the usual liquidity providers aren’t active.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Hyperliquid nyní drží 8,7 % globálního open interestu na trhu perpetual futures a jeho open interest přesahuje 4,3 miliardy USD. Poplatky protokolu dosahují anualizovaných 1,3 miliardy USD.
Hyperliquid, a decentralized platform for perpetual futures, now accounts for 8.7% of the global open interest in the perpetual futures market, combining centralized exchanges (CEXs) and decentralized exchanges (DEXs). The platform’s open interest stands at over $4.3 billion, with protocol fees reaching an annualized $1.3 billion, fully distributed to HYPE stakers. This growth has led market participants to consider a potential migration from traditional CEXs to DEX platforms like Hyperliquid. Prominent market-making firms such as Jump, Wintermute, and GSR are actively involved, running dedicated wallets on the platform.
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The shift in market share echoes the previous transition seen in 2020 when DEX spot trading captured and maintained over 8% market share. The presence of major firms as validators further strengthens Hyperliquid’s competitive position in the market. Alongside these developments, HYPE token valuations have been approaching all-time highs, suggesting confidence in the platform’s continued expansion.
Key Takeaways Hyperliquid’s significant share of global perpetual open interest suggests a shift in market dynamics, with decentralized platforms gaining traction. The participation of major firms as validators indicates institutional confidence in Hyperliquid’s market structure. The consistent rise in HYPE token value appears supportive of market sentiment favoring the platform’s growth prospects. What to Watch Observers are closely monitoring whether Hyperliquid’s growth will spur further movement of participants from CEXs to DEXs. Key indicators include any changes in market share metrics or notable shifts in validator participation. Developments such as partnerships with large enterprises or increased regulatory scrutiny could influence market dynamics significantly. Watch for announcements from Hyperliquid or shifts in CEX strategies that might affect the decentralized market landscape.
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Term Structure
Contract Odds Δ since publish Volume 24h December 31 37.5% — — View market → January 1 2027 4.6% — — View market → January 1 2027 3.5% — — View market → January 1 2027 65.5% — — View market → January 1 2027 8.1% — — View market → January 1 2027 4.5% — — View market →
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Travel platform Travala announced in a post on X that users can now book over 2.2 million hotels globally using XRP, in what it called a significant stride in crypto's adoption in everyday payments.
In a statement, Travala reiterated the original design intent of XRP as it was "built to move value fast," making its use for hotel bookings in line with that vision. The travel platform said users can now secure hotel bookings with instant confirmation and without the involvement of banks.
This development means XRP holders can pay for accommodation across a global hotel network, expanding XRP's use case into one of the largest consumer industries: travel and hospitality. As a result, users will be able to book over 3 million travel products globally with XRP on Travala.
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This new real-world payment integration highlights XRP's growing use case beyond trading markets.
XRP utility expands with paymentsIn a major milestone reached early this year, the x402 facilitator went live on the XRP Ledger in February, allowing AI agents to pay for services using XRP and RLUSD with no need for API keys or accounts.
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Agents can pay per request via x402, with volume settling on the XRP Ledger. Fast forward to the present, nearly a million agent transactions have settled through the XRPL x402 facilitator, implying more agents, merchants, and volume are entering the XRP Ledger.
Ripple is expanding XRP and RLUSD utility for AI-agent payments, having introduced the XRPL AI Starter Kit in June — a set of developer tools for building AI agents that can send payments on the XRP Ledger.
As AI agents begin transacting on behalf of businesses, Ripple has joined the ecosystem supporting Mastercard's Agent Pay for Machines initiative, helping validate new use cases, establish common rules, and accelerate adoption while continuing to build the infrastructure for trusted agent-driven payments, with the XRP Ledger and RLUSD laying the foundation for the future of commerce.
XRP za první tři červencové obchodní dny vzrostl o více než 13 % na téměř 1,18 USD. Pomohl mu posun CLARITY Act v Senátu USA a příliv 6,55 mil. USD do investičních produktů navázaných na XRP.
Key Highlights XRP jumped more than 13% during the initial three trading days of July, advancing from approximately $1.03 to nearly $1.18. Legislative advancement of the CLARITY Act through the U.S. Senate enhanced positive sentiment surrounding XRP’s regulatory environment. Investment products tracking XRP attracted $6.55M in single-day inflows, with total cumulative inflows reaching $1.49B. Historical data reveals July as a consistently profitable month for XRP, averaging 10.4% gains since 2013. Technical analysis identifies critical resistance at $1.20, while support at $1.15 provides downside protection. XRP launched into July with impressive momentum, posting gains exceeding 13% within a mere three-day span. The digital asset advanced from lows near $1.03 to approach $1.18, capturing fresh interest from market participants.
XRP Price This upward movement coincided with a wider cryptocurrency market rebound. The aggregate crypto market capitalization increased 0.86% to reach $2.18 trillion. Bitcoin surged beyond $62,000, while Ethereum advanced above $1,700.
Disappointing U.S. employment figures contributed to the bullish market sentiment. The American economy generated merely 57,000 positions in June, significantly undershooting the anticipated 110,000. This development strengthened expectations for more accommodative monetary conditions moving forward.
Market analyst ChartNerd (@ChartNerdTA) highlighted a significant long-term technical formation via X, identifying an 8.5-year cup and handle pattern emerging on XRP’s price chart. He cautioned that overlooking XRP at the $1 level “could prove costly,” suggesting that sustained Fibonacci support within the handle formation could establish a pathway toward upper resistance zones. His analysis referenced Fibonacci extension targets at $8, $13, and $27.
$XRP 8.5 YEAR CUP & HANDLE ☕️
Ignoring $XRP around $1 on the macro could prove costly. Price is approaching FIB support within the handle structure under 8.5 years of resistance
If FIB support and the GC hold, it opens the path to attack resistance. FIB extensions = $8/$13/$27 https://t.co/r8v5HKDfij pic.twitter.com/s8yb16b4Sj
— 🇬🇧 ChartNerd 📊 (@ChartNerdTA) July 4, 2026
Legislative Developments Strengthen XRP Sentiment Advancement of the CLARITY Act through the U.S. Senate emerged as a primary catalyst for XRP’s appreciation. This proposed legislation carries implications for the regulatory classification of digital assets under American law.
Market participants reacted favorably to XRP’s inclusion within the SEC/CFTC Digital Commodities classification framework. This development prompted capital reallocation into XRP positions. Additionally, Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen’s financial stake in American Perpetuals Exchange Corporation — an entity associated with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s son — attracted market attention throughout this timeframe.
Investment Fund Activity Supports Bullish Momentum XRP-focused investment vehicles registered $6.55M in daily inflows as of July 2. Total cumulative inflows climbed to $1.49B, while net assets under management stood at $987.91M.
Source: SoSoValue Spot Bitcoin ETFs similarly reversed their outflow trend on July 2, posting $221.72M in daily net inflows. This marked the conclusion of a 10-day withdrawal period, elevating cumulative net inflows to $51.08B. Ethereum spot ETFs contributed $29.08M in net inflows during the identical session.
Historical performance data compiled by CryptoRank demonstrates July’s track record as a consistently profitable period for XRP across seven consecutive years. Average July performance since 2013 registers at 10.4%. Notably, during July 2020, XRP surged more than 48%.
Examining the four-hour timeframe, XRP traded around $1.1714. The Relative Strength Index registered 79.91, positioning the asset within overbought parameters. The Chaikin Money Flow indicator displayed 0.21, signaling continued accumulation pressure.
Immediate resistance is established at $1.20, where a decisive breakthrough could enable progression toward $1.25. Should prices retract beneath $1.15, the subsequent support zone emerges at $1.10.
Robinhood Markets v první polovině roku klesl o 11 %, ale za poslední tři měsíce už přidal 45 %. Pokles táhl hlavně propad kryptoměn, který zpomalil růst tržeb.
Robinhood Markets (HOOD +3.75%) stock fell 11% in the first half of the year, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence. It had been following the trajectory of Bitcoin, which was plunging, but it has started to climb back up.
More than cryptocurrency Robinhood is still a fairly small company, with $4.6 billion in trailing 12-month revenue, but it has already had a major impact on the markets. It introduced the fee-free trade, which is now standard for trading platforms, and it has been following that up with many fintech innovations.
Image source: Getty Images.
That hasn't been entirely positive for the company. Although it was reporting high growth, much of it was coming from cryptocurrency trading. The Bitcoin drop led to a contraction in growth. Some of its other innovations, like its Prediction Markets segment, are risky.
On the plus side, it was one of the trading platforms chosen for retail investor access to the Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) initial public offering (IPO), and it was recently approved to underwrite IPOs as well.
It's also introducing many traditional services in its bid to become a major financial player, including credit cards and bank accounts. These services provide stability and minimize the risk of other types of products.
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With cryptocurrency trading falling, revenue growth has been mediocre. Revenue increased 15% year over year in the 2026 first quarter, a huge slowdown from 50% last year. This included a 47% decrease in cryptocurrency trading revenue and 46% increase in equities trading revenue.
There were many positives in the quarter, though, including a 39% increase in platform assets and a 36% increase in Robinhood Gold subscribers, its membership program, for a total of 4.3 million. It added half a million funded accounts, and Robinhood banking grew fivefold sequentially.
Priced to buy? The 11% decrease in the first half of the year obscures the recent climb -- Robinhood stock is up 45% over the past three months. Investors are impressed with the company's new capabilities and future opportunities.
It also became much cheaper at the lower price. Robinhood stock had been priced for perfection, which made it susceptible to falling under pressure, and that's what happened.
It now trades at a P/E ratio of 55 and a price-to-sales ratio of 22, so it may be returning to premium levels. Risk-tolerant investors who have a long-term horizon might want to take a small position at this price, but as it gets more expensive, it gets back to becoming susceptible to another fall.
No stock has generated more buzz in recent weeks than Space Exploration Technologies (SPCX +2.69%), more commonly known as SpaceX. That's understandable, considering the space technology and artificial intelligence (AI) innovator conducted the largest initial public offering (IPO) in history.
But buzz doesn't always translate to great returns (as many who bought SpaceX shares after its post-IPO surge are finding out). While SpaceX gets the headlines, some smart investors are loading up on another stock instead -- Vertex Pharmaceuticals (VRTX +6.13%).
Image source: Getty Images.
Greater market dominance than SpaceX One key reason investors have been attracted to SpaceX is its commanding position in the satellite internet services and rocket launch markets. However, Vertex arguably has greater market dominance in its core arena than SpaceX.
Only five therapies have been approved for addressing the underlying genetic cause of cystic fibrosis (CF), a rare genetic disease that affects an estimated 105,000 people worldwide. Vertex markets all of them, giving the drugmaker a virtual monopoly in the CF indication.
SpaceX will soon have a formidable competitor to its lucrative Starlink business from Amazon (AMZN +0.55%) Leo. Meanwhile, Vertex has little to worry about from challengers at this point. The most advanced experimental therapies that even have a shot at challenging Vertex's blockbuster CF franchise are only in Phase 2 clinical testing. No patent cliff is in sight that would open the door to serious generic threats, either. Vertex's key U.S. and European patents for its most powerful CF drug, Alyftrek, don't expire until 2039.
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CF isn't Vertex's only area of focus. The company has two other products gaining market momentum -- CRISPR gene-editing therapy Casgevy and non-opioid pain medication Journavx. These two therapies together generated roughly 25% of Vertex's product revenue growth in its latest quarter.
Importantly, Vertex's market dominance is much more profitable than SpaceX's. The big biotech company posted adjusted earnings of $4.7 billion last year, compared with SpaceX's net loss of $4.9 billion.
Transformative launches potentially on the way SpaceX completed 167 launches last year with its Falcon 9 rockets and Starship reusable spacecraft. However, Vertex has some potential launches of a different sort on the way that could be transformative.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is scheduled to make an approval decision for povetacicept in the treatment of immunoglobulin A nephropathy (IgAN) by Nov. 30, 2026. IgAN affects around three times more patients in the U.S. and Europe alone than CF does worldwide. Vertex is also evaluating povetacicept in Phase 2 studies targeting primary membranous nephropathy and generalized myasthenia gravis, which together affect around three times as many patients in the U.S. and Europe as CF does worldwide.
Patient dosing in a late-stage study evaluating zimislecel in treating severe Type 1 Diabetes has resumed after a temporary delay while Vertex performed a manufacturing analysis. It seems likely that the company will file for global regulatory approvals of the therapy next year, assuming the Phase 3 results are positive.
Two other launches could be around the corner as well. Vertex expects to complete patient enrollment in two Phase 3 studies of suzetrigine (Journavx) in diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) by the end of this year. Eventual approval in treating DPN would open up an additional patient population of around 2.5 million for Journavx.
And that's not all. Vertex's pipeline features another late-stage candidate, inaxaplin, which targets APOL1-mediated kidney disease (AMKD). This disease affects around 250,000 people, and there aren't any approved treatments for it.
Risks vs. rewards Every investment comes with potential risks and rewards. Vertex's approved products and promising pipeline offer clear rewards over the next few years. However, the company faces several risks, notably the possibility of regulatory setbacks and clinical failures.
But many investors could reasonably conclude that Vertex's overall risk-reward proposition is more appealing than SpaceX's. That's especially true given each stock's valuation. SpaceX's shares trade at a whopping 56.7 times projected 2026 sales. Vertex's forward price-to-sales multiple is around 10x.
Investing in SpaceX is tantamount to placing a bet on a future that hasn't arrived yet, with that future already baked into the space stock's valuation. Buying Vertex Pharmaceuticals, on the other hand, is more like betting on a future supported by prior clinical results that inspire confidence, with a share price that reflects some uncertainty. The latter seems like the smarter wager.
Akcie ServiceNow v červnu klesly o 20 % kvůli obavám trhu z dopadu AI na SaaS. Firma ale dál hlásí silné výsledky: tržby z předplatného dosáhly ve 1. čtvrtletí 2026 3,7 miliardy USD, meziročně o 22 % více.
ServiceNow (NOW +0.49%) stock fell 20% in June, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence. It's been fairly volatile as the market weighs the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on its business and how it should be valued today, and the drop was on the heels of a 41% rebound in May.
Does AI help, or hinder? As a category, software-as-a-service (SaaS) stocks have been falling as the market recognizes that agentic AI can be used to accomplish many of the tasks they're used for for free or more inexpensively. The idea behind SaaS is that clients pay a monthly fee for services that include upgrades and customer support, but if developers can create AI agents that take care of the same work, the SaaS products can become obsolete.
Image source: Getty Images.
ServiceNow has been fighting this theory with an AI-included platform that management claims provides great value for its clients. Its Control Tower product, which was already in progress before agentic AI became the threat it is right now, supervises all of a client's operations, including agentic AI, unifying its management and keeping the business, and its AI tools, safe.
Based on the company's current performance, worries about an AI takeover are far overblown. The company is as strong as ever, with $3.7 billion in subscription revenue in the 2026 first quarter, a 22% increase year over year, and $27.7 billion in remaining performance obligations (RPO), up 25%. It's highly profitable, with strong cash flow, and it's guiding for similar performance for the rest of the year.
Its platform is embedded within its 8,500 clients' operations, a strong economic moat with high barriers to entry, and its focus on pre-emptive AI measures protects its business.
The view from the market The stock was propelled higher in May after a bullish analyst rating, but the market is still weighing the opportunity. On the one hand, it's in a healthy position and reporting outstanding results. On the other hand, the AI landscape continues to shift rapidly, and it's unclear how it will ultimately impact ServiceNow.
Adding to the mix, the company has a dominant position in its category and is growing at double-digit rates, but it's past its upstart phase. The valuation piece fits in there, too -- ServiceNow stock trades at a P/E ratio of 63 and a price-to-sales ratio of 8, which makes it expensive. It's reasonable to see the stock slide at this valuation, and even if it still has a bright future, it comes at a premium.
Útočník na Step Finance prodal ukradené SOL za zhruba 21,4 milionu USD, nakoupil ETH a prostředky poslal přes Tornado Cash. Podle on-chain dat tak pokračuje praní výnosů z útoku.
The person (or persons) who drained Step Finance of roughly 261,854 SOL tokens has moved to the next phase of every crypto heist playbook: the laundering stage. The exploiter sold a significant chunk of stolen SOL, bridged $21.4 million to Ethereum, purchased ETH, and funneled the proceeds through Tornado Cash.
What happened at Step Finance Step Finance, a DeFi portfolio management platform built on Solana, was hit on January 31 when attackers gained unauthorized access to treasury and fee wallets. The haul came to approximately 261,854 SOL, worth somewhere between $27 million and $30 million at the time of the breach.
The attack vector was compromised executive team devices, likely through phishing or social engineering. The smart contracts worked fine. The people managing them did not.
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Total losses ballooned to around $40 million when accounting for the full impact, with only about $4.7 million recovered through partnerships and features like Token22. That recovery rate, roughly 12% of total losses, is not exactly a victory lap.
By late February, Step Finance ceased operations entirely. Its affiliates, SolanaFloor and Remora Markets, also shut down as the fallout spread. The project announced plans for a buyback based on a pre-hack snapshot of the STEP token.
Following the money across chains The on-chain data, flagged by Arkham Intelligence, paints a clear picture of the attacker’s exit strategy. After sitting on the stolen SOL, the exploiter began selling, converting roughly $21 million worth of tokens before bridging $21.4 million over to Ethereum.
Once on Ethereum, the funds were swapped into ETH and then routed through Tornado Cash. The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Tornado Cash back in 2022, though those sanctions have faced significant legal challenges. The protocol continues to function because it’s a set of smart contracts on Ethereum that nobody can unilaterally shut down.
What investors should watch The $4.7 million recovery represents a fraction of total losses, and the movement of funds through Tornado Cash suggests that further recovery through on-chain means is unlikely without law enforcement intervention. Historically, funds that make it through mixing protocols are rarely clawed back unless the attacker makes an operational mistake later, like cashing out through a centralized exchange with KYC requirements.
The planned STEP token buyback based on a pre-hack snapshot is worth monitoring, though with the project’s operations ceased and affiliates shut down, the entity executing any buyback may have limited resources to work with.
The attacker’s decision to convert stolen SOL into ETH before laundering signals a practical reality about cross-chain liquidity. Ethereum’s deeper liquidity pools and more established mixing infrastructure make it the preferred destination for laundering large sums, which means that exploits on alternative L1s frequently end up impacting Ethereum’s on-chain analytics landscape as well.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
SoFi po získání národní bankovní licence výrazně zlevnila financování a vklady vzrostly z 1,2 miliardy USD na 40,2 miliardy USD. Čistý úrokový příjem se díky tomu zvýšil o 781 % z 252 milionů USD v roce 2021 na více než 2,2 miliardy USD v roce 2025.
SoFi Technologies' (SOFI 1.08%) operations were launched more than a decade ago. Back then, the company's sole activity was providing alumni-funded loans to recent grads.
Fast-forward to today, and SoFi has become a full-fledged digital financial services entity. Growth has been exceptional, as the business expanded its product and service offering. This helped to rapidly bring on new members.
In 2022, SoFi obtained a national bank charter that reshaped the company. Here's how this move could pay off for long-term investors.
Image source: Getty Images.
Taking deposits provides an advantage Before SoFi got a bank charter, its operations were funded by a mix of securitized debt, warehouse facilities, and convertible notes. These sources of capital had obviously helped the business reach that point.
The issue, though, is that this kind of funding can be expensive. And it's dependent on robust capital market conditions. This sets the bar higher. When originating loans, SoFi must aim to achieve a better return than what it pays on its funding capital to generate net interest income. This put it at a huge disadvantage relative to banking peers.
The company announced in January 2022 that it had received approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve to acquire Golden Pacific Bancorp, a community bank that was based in Sacramento, California. This deal, giving SoFi a national bank charter, was then closed in February of that year.
Since that seminal moment, SoFi has been completely transformed. It immediately started offering checking and savings accounts to customers. As of March 31, 2022, the business had $1.2 billion in total deposits. Exactly four years later, that figure had ballooned to $40.2 billion.
Of SoFi's $42.9 billion in total liabilities, 94% are represented by these deposits (up from 17% four years before). This supported SoFi's Q1 2026 net interest margin of 5.94%. Net interest income also jumped 781% from $252 million in 2021 to over $2.2 billion in 2025.
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Deposits are considered extremely sticky, as they establish a bank's direct relationship with where customers park their money. SoFi's savings account pays a standard annual percentage yield of 3.1%, well above the national average, which also attracts capital.
The fact that SoFi's deposit base is expanding so quickly is a sign of heightened demand from individuals for a tech-enabled platform with a superior user experience. This bodes well for the company's long-term success. Management expects adjusted earnings per share to increase at a compound annual rate of 40% (at the midpoint) over the next three years.
Without a national bank charter that drastically lowered its funding costs and opened up the capital floodgates, these profit gains would not be possible. An expanding earnings stream is just what this fintech stock's investors want to see.
Core Scientific přechází z těžby Bitcoinu na poskytovatele AI colocation; tržby z colocation v 1. čtvrtletí 2026 vyskočily na 77,5 mil. USD a tvoří už hlavní segment.
SummaryCore Scientific is transitioning from a volatile Bitcoin miner to a high-density AI colocation provider with long-duration, contracted revenue streams.Q1 2026 results show colocation revenue surged to $77.5M, now the dominant segment, with gross profit margins of 57% and a multi-gigawatt power pipeline.The expanded CoreWeave partnership validates CORZ’s AI infrastructure pivot, supporting $10B+ in contracted revenue and 590MW leased, with further upside from pipeline conversion.Despite high leverage and customer concentration risks, CORZ offers high-risk/high-reward exposure to scarce AI power infrastructure amid industry-wide supply constraints. JasonDoiy/iStock via Getty Images
Investment Thesis Core Scientific (CORZ) is one of the most interesting ways, as a public market participant, to gain exposure to the bottleneck that is at the center of the build-out for AI: energized land, contracted power, and the
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Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have no stock, option or similar derivative position in any of the companies mentioned, and no plans to initiate any such positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.
Hyperliquid za 24 hodin zaznamenal čisté přílivy 116 milionů USD do přemostěných aktiv, což posílilo likviditu v DeFi. Aktivita na platformě roste spolu se zájmem uživatelů.
Hyperliquid, a decentralized perpetual futures platform, experienced significant activity as $116 million in net inflows into bridged assets occurred within 24 hours. This surge reflects a notable increase in DeFi liquidity and user engagement on the platform, aligning with recent trends in real-world asset activity. Hyperliquid’s native token, HYPE, has been near $65, marking a significant growth trajectory with returns exceeding 1,800% since its launch in November 2024. The platform’s expansion, including partnerships like the upcoming launch with VALR for cross-asset perpetual contracts, has further solidified its competitive position in the market.
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Key Takeaways Market activity suggests strong interest in Hyperliquid, consistent with pricing supportive of YES outcomes for reaching higher price targets. The recent net inflows may indicate increasing confidence in Hyperliquid’s growth potential and market positioning. Current market pricing implies a mixed outlook on Hyperliquid reaching specific price targets by the end of 2026. What to Watch Watch for further developments regarding Hyperliquid’s partnerships and volume, as these could impact price predictions. The upcoming launch with VALR and any new institutional engagements could significantly influence confidence in Hyperliquid’s price trajectory. Observers should also watch for any regulatory developments or shifts in market sentiment that could alter the current pricing landscape.
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What Price Will Hyperliquid Hit Before 2027
Contract Odds Δ since publish Volume 24h December 31 37.5% — — View market → January 1 2027 4.4% — — View market → January 1 2027 3.5% — — View market → January 1 2027 64.5% — — View market → January 1 2027 8.2% — — View market → January 1 2027 4.5% — — View market → Predictfun Fdv Above One Day After Launch
Contract Odds Δ since publish Volume 24h One day after launch 95.2% — — View market → One day after launch 86.5% — — View market → One day after launch 79.5% — — View market → One day after launch 77.5% — — View market → One day after launch 75.5% — — View market → January 1 2028 63.5% — — View market → January 1 2028 54% — — View market → January 1 2028 45.5% — — View market → January 1 2028 46.5% — — View market → January 1 2028 15.6% — — View market → January 1 2028 14.4% — — View market →
Ethereum zveřejnilo plán Lean Ethereum s cílem dosáhnout zhruba 10 000 TPS na Layer 1 a postupně zavést kvantově odolné zabezpečení. První krok má přijít v upgradu Glamsterdam v druhé polovině 2026.
Ethereum just published its most ambitious technical blueprint in years. The “Lean Ethereum” initiative, first introduced by Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake, lays out a decade-long framework to rebuild the network’s consensus, data, and execution layers from the ground up.
The target numbers are eye-catching: roughly 10,000 transactions per second on Layer 1 mainnet, scaling up to approximately 1 million TPS across Layer 2 solutions. For context, Ethereum currently processes somewhere in the neighborhood of 15-30 TPS on mainnet.
What the strawmap actually says The roadmap has been formalized through what the Ethereum Foundation calls a “strawmap,” a draft strategic framework showcased at an internal workshop in January 2026. Seven distinct protocol upgrades are planned through 2029. The priorities break down into three buckets: scaling, improved user experience, and hardening Layer 1 systems against emerging threats, with quantum computing resistance sitting at the top of that last category.
The Lean Ethereum architecture itself rests on three pillars: lean consensus, lean data, and lean execution.
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Near-term, the “Glamsterdam” upgrade is slated for the latter half of 2026. It represents the first concrete implementation step in this broader vision.
The quantum clock is ticking The Lean Ethereum roadmap maps out incremental introductions of post-quantum cryptography through successive hard forks stretching into the late 2020s. Quantum-resistant cryptographic signatures will gradually replace current standards, staged across multiple upgrades rather than attempting a single massive migration.
Key developments supporting this transition include work on the zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine, or zkEVM, which enables cryptographic proofs that certain computations were performed correctly without revealing the underlying data. Client-side proving, another focus area, would let users generate these proofs on their own devices rather than relying on centralized infrastructure.
Privacy gets a seat at the table The Lean Ethereum framework elevates privacy from a nice-to-have to a core protocol consideration, woven into the roadmap alongside the scaling and security work. Ethereum has historically treated privacy as something to be handled by application-layer solutions built on top of the protocol.
The initiative coincides with Ethereum’s 10th anniversary in 2025.
What this means for investors Roadmaps are not releases. Ethereum has a long history of ambitious timelines that slip, sometimes by years. The original transition to proof-of-stake, initially expected around 2019, didn’t ship until September 2022.
A credible path to 10,000 TPS on Layer 1 would fundamentally change Ethereum’s competitive positioning against faster Layer 1 alternatives like Solana and Sui. The Layer 2 scaling target of 1 million TPS creates a clearer investment thesis for L2 tokens and the broader ecosystem of applications built on top of them.
Investors watching this space should pay less attention to the roadmap’s ambition and more attention to whether Glamsterdam ships on time later this year. Seven upgrades through 2029 requires coordination across multiple independent client teams, thousands of validators, and a governance process that moves at the speed of rough consensus.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Vitalik Buterin uvedl, že Ethereum vstupuje do fáze „Lean Ethereum“ a během příštích 3 až 4 let projde postupnou přestavbou protokolu. Mezi klíčové změny patří důkazy STARK, postkvantová kryptografie a nové škálování.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published a post stating that Ethereum researchers recently held a meeting in Berlin, continuing discussions with client teams initiated in Svalbard in April, to update the blockchain’s long-term protocol roadmap. Vitalik noted that "Lean Ethereum" is not a single upgrade, but a series of protocol evolutions to be rolled out gradually over the next 3 to 4 years—its impact is comparable to The Merge as Ethereum’s second major iteration, while the current phase may mark its third major evolution. He outlined core upcoming changes for Ethereum: replacing direct execution verification with recursive STARK proofs, integrating post-quantum cryptography, adjusting the consensus mechanism to a decoupled design of available chain and finality, and implementing multi-dimensional gas models alongside state structure restructuring. At the state level, Ethereum may form a "two-tier state structure" around 2030, consisting of ~2TB of traditional dynamic state and ~100TB of new scalable state to support scaling needs across different application scenarios. Vitalik emphasized that privacy capabilities will no longer be an add-on feature, but a core goal of protocol design. The system will also rely more on formal verification to boost security, and push the EVM toward higher-level abstractions, with the underlying layer potentially transitioning gradually to RISC-V or leanISA architectures. Key parameters including gas limits, blob sizes, and block times will be adjusted multiple times over the next few years, as Ethereum continues scaling via client optimizations and protocol upgrades. Vitalik concluded that Ethereum is entering a phase of continuous restructuring and scaling, aiming to complete underlying system upgrades without disrupting the existing application ecosystem.
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The U.S. CLARITY Act has made further progress, while the county sheriffs' organization has shifted to a neutral stance.
The Major County Sheriffs Association (MCSA) has shifted its stance on the CLARITY Act from opposition to neutrality. In a letter to Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott and Senator Elizabeth Warren, the organization noted that some of its concerns about Section 604 of the bill have been addressed. Previously, the MCSA had warned that the provision could undermine, to some extent, law enforcement capabilities targeting illegal financial activities related to crypto assets. Section 604 is tied to the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, with its core focus on limiting liability for developers of decentralized protocols. Supporters argue that developers should not be held liable as intermediaries for user actions, while law enforcement agencies had earlier raised fears that the provision could create regulatory and enforcement "loopholes" that would hinder investigations into cases like money laundering, ransomware, drug trafficking, and terrorist financing. Despite the neutral stance, the MCSA still calls for including local law enforcement agencies in relevant research and coordination mechanisms in future revisions to boost digital asset crime investigation capabilities. Analysts say this change removes a key obstacle to the CLARITY Act’s progress, boosting its feasibility of advancing to a Senate vote. However, opposition from the banking sector to stablecoin yield products and DeFi regulation remains a major uncertainty.
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Perspective: The next phase of tokenization will be "customized investment portfolios", rather than just improving settlement efficiency.
Thomas Sy, head of multi-asset solutions at New York Life Investment Management (NYLIM), stated that the next core application of tokenization will be "personalized portfolio construction" rather than just improving settlement efficiency or extending trading hours. NYLIM manages approximately $807 billion in total assets, with about $110 billion overseen by Sy’s team. He noted that blockchain technology will enable asset management firms to customize complex portfolio strategies for different investors at scale—a capability the traditional financial system currently struggles to deliver. Sy added that the future of asset management will center on "high customization," and blockchain is the only technological path capable of achieving this at scale. He emphasized that tokenization is not limited to putting ETFs, bonds or private credit on the blockchain; the key is to restructure the very way portfolios are built. He also pointed out that current portfolios often mix ETFs, bonds and private assets, but personalized strategies are difficult to scale due to operational complexity. Tokenization is expected to "embed customization logic into the assets themselves," reducing operational costs and boosting efficiency. Additionally, Sy said stablecoins have become a key entry point for traditional finance to access on-chain markets. Currently, the stablecoin market capitalization exceeds $300 billion, and they are being used for cross-border payments and fund management. He believes this trend will gradually drive institutional demand for on-chain yield-generating assets. On decentralized finance (DeFi), NYLIM is still researching related applications, but Sy stressed that institutional participation requires more mature infrastructure, including improved tokenized collateral, clearing mechanisms and prime brokerage systems.
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US national debt has hit $39 trillion, sparking long-term concerns, with analysts warning the risk of an unsustainable fiscal path is rising.
The size of U.S. national debt has risen to around $39 trillion, with public debt equivalent to the total U.S. GDP. Annual interest payments have reached roughly $1 trillion, exceeding the defense budget. The U.S. Treasury system traces its origins to the debt consolidation reform promoted by Alexander Hamilton in 1790, when the federal government assumed the war debts of individual states and promised full repayment, thereby establishing the U.S. credit system and laying the foundation for the global status of the U.S. dollar and U.S. Treasuries. Today, U.S. Treasuries are regarded as one of the core assets of the global financial system, underpinning the reserve currency status of the U.S. dollar and widely held by central banks and financial institutions worldwide. However, as the debt scale continues to expand, market concerns about its long-term sustainability have intensified. According to calculations from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Budget Model (PWBM), when the debt-to-GDP ratio exceeds around 210%, the fiscal system may face unsustainability risks. Currently, the U.S. ratio stands at roughly 100%, and the U.S. Congressional Budget Office projects it could rise to 175% by 2056. Analysts note that in scenarios of rising healthcare spending and persistent fiscal deficits, this risk threshold could be reached earlier, and the long-term stability of the debt structure is facing more stringent market and policy tests.
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Iran’s new supreme leader remains unaccounted for, as Tehran continues to hold mourning events for Khamenei.
According to CNN, mourning events for late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are ongoing in Tehran and multiple Iranian cities, drawing an estimated millions of participants, and will run through July 9. Meanwhile, the international community is uncertain about his successor. Reports indicate his son Mojtaba Khamenei has not made a public appearance, sparking concerns over the power transition and actual governance. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has also warned of security threats targeting the country in the coming days. On the regional front, abnormal shipping activity has been observed in the Strait of Hormuz, with multiple vessels turning back while attempting to transit, and the situation remains uncertain. Separately, U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have held a phone call and agreed to meet in the U.S. soon, with outside attention focused on further coordination between the two countries amid tensions with Iran.
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Bitcoin broke through $63,000 this morning, erasing all losses from the end of June, with XRP leading gains among major cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin rose above $63,000 earlier today for the first time in two weeks, up roughly 3.6% from last week and nearly erasing losses from late June. The rally unfolded during thin trading volume for the U.S. Independence Day holiday, with low liquidity widely seen as amplifying short-term volatility. Among major cryptocurrencies, XRP gained 5.3% to reach $1.18, notching a nearly 10% weekly rise and lifting its market cap to around $73 billion, overtaking USDC to become the fifth-largest crypto asset. On-chain data shows XRP holders’ average losses have hit an extreme historical level, leading some traders to view this as a sentiment reversal signal. Ether (ETH) climbed 3.2% to approximately $1,793, with a weekly gain of ~11.5%; Dogecoin (DOGE) rose 2.6%; Solana (SOL) added around 13.2% week-over-week, extending the broader rebound trend. Analysts attribute the rally to Federal Reserve officials signaling easing inflation pressure, weaker non-farm payroll data, and short covering, with Bitcoin bouncing rapidly from below $60,000 to above $63,000. The market’s future trajectory will hinge on upcoming U.S. inflation data and the return of institutional liquidity after the holiday.
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BTSE has launched cryptocurrency trading platform BTSE Indonesia in Indonesia.
Blockchain trading and payments firm BTSE Group recently launched cryptocurrency trading platform BTSE Indonesia in Jakarta via a joint venture with PT Aset Kripto Internasional, and completed the rebranding of local licensed platform NVX. It is understood that BTSE will provide trading infrastructure and liquidity support, while the local Indonesian team will handle marketing, business partnerships, sales, and user growth. BTSE Indonesia stated that it has received approval from Indonesia’s Financial Services Authority (OJK) to operate as a regulated digital financial asset trading platform. The license is also expected to support its future expansion into cryptocurrency futures and other businesses in compliance with local regulatory requirements. Official data shows that Indonesia’s cryptocurrency trading volume from January to November 2024 reached 556.5 trillion Indonesian rupiah (equivalent to approximately $31.2 billion), with registered cryptocurrency users hitting 22.11 million as of November 2024.
MercadoLibre zůstává pod tlakem, protože agresivní investice stlačují marže, i když tržby dál rychle rostou. Celkové tržby v konstantní měně vzrostly o 46 % meziročně.
The market is soaring, but MercadoLibre (MELI +1.27%) is down 30% over the past year. Investors have soured on the Latin American financial technology and e-commerce player because of its aggressive investments, which are eroding profit margins.
It has been left for dead, with shares up only 10% over the last five years, while the broad market S&P 500 index is up close to 100% over the same timeframe. However, it's at this moment that MercadoLibre looks like a fantastic investment for anyone with a time horizon longer than next quarter. Here's why you should consider buying even more of MercadoLibre as the stock inches lower.
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Playing the long game MercadoLibre operates in two sectors with some strong overlap: financial technology and e-commerce. In e-commerce, it is building an "everything store" similar to Amazon in Latin American countries, investing in fast delivery, a wide selection, and a bundled subscription offering.
Its current crop of investments in free delivery for close to all orders in Brazil has temporarily reduced profit margins. At the same time, it has accelerated revenue growth in the country. In Q1 2026, total commerce revenue grew 47% year over year last quarter in constant currency, on top of 57% growth in the same quarter a year ago.
More buyers, more shopping volume, and more revenue are being spent on MercadoLibre's e-commerce marketplace. This will mean a short-term hit to margins, but it should also lead to a long-term competitive advantage for the business. The same can be said for its MercadoPago consumer finance segment. MercadoPago is accelerating its acquisition of credit card customers to deepen its relationship as a banking application and drive more spending on the MercadoLibre online marketplace.
When a credit card customer is acquired, it requires the bank -- in this case, MercadoLibre -- to allocate loan losses over the life of the customer relationship, which means an upfront hit to margins if many customers are acquired. With all these new credit card customers, MercadoLibre's fintech revenue grew 54% year over year last quarter.
Overall, MercadoLibre's revenue is growing 46% year over year in constant currency, making it one of the fastest-growing large-cap technology players today. However, investors are still not happy because of the short-term hit this accelerated growth has had on profit margins.
Image source: Getty Images.
Why MercadoLibre's stock is cheap today Last quarter, MercadoLibre's overall operating margin fell to 6.9%, and it may fall further in the quarters ahead due to the upfront investments discussed above. This has investors very nervous, but it should not be misconstrued as MercadoLibre losing its lead in e-commerce and consumer finance in Latin America.
Long-term, MercadoLibre should be able to regain or surpass its previous high profit margin of 16%, if not exceed it, due to increased scale, higher-margin fintech revenue, and faster-growing advertising revenue (which is growing faster than the overall business). Combined with a business with a long history of growing revenue at a fast, double-digit rate, it is plausible that the company's revenue of $31.8 billion could climb to $100 billion over the next five years or so. A 15% profit margin would equate to $15 billion in earnings for MercadoLibre five years from now.
Today, MercadoLibre's stock trades at a market cap of $88 billion. Assuming the stock trades at 20x earnings five years from now -- which is a reasonable level for a fast-growing stock, if not a discount -- then MercadoLibre will have a market cap of $300 billion within five years. Buying at today's market cap would deliver north of 20% annualized returns before dividends or buybacks, likely beating the market. This makes MercadoLibre an easy stock to buy on the dip right now.
BNB Chain spustil BNB Agent Studio 1. července na mainnetu BNB Smart Chain, který umožňuje nasadit autonomního AI agenta jediným promptem. Platforma automaticky řeší peněženku, identitu i platby a celý proces trvá zhruba 15 minut.
BNB Chain just made deploying an autonomous AI agent about as complicated as ordering a coffee. The network launched BNB Agent Studio on July 1, bringing a one-prompt deployment tool to its Smart Chain mainnet that handles the entire backend stack automatically.
The pitch is straightforward: tell the platform what you want your agent to do, and it handles everything from wallet creation to identity registration to payment infrastructure. The whole process takes roughly 15 minutes, according to BNB Chain, using developer tools like Claude Code or Cursor.
What’s actually under the hood AWS Bedrock AgentCore powers the automated infrastructure setup, which is notable because it means BNB Chain is leaning on Amazon’s enterprise-grade AI tooling rather than building everything from scratch.
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Each agent deployed through the studio comes equipped with several built-in capabilities. There’s automatic wallet provisioning so agents can hold and transact with crypto. ERC-8004 handles on-chain identity, giving each agent a verifiable, transferable identity that functions as a digital asset. And x402 payment capabilities allow agents to process crypto payments autonomously.
The combination means these agents can self-fund their operations, maintain functionality during infrastructure disruptions, and have their ownership transferred like any other digital asset.
Building on the Agent SDK foundation BNB Agent Studio builds on the previously released BNB Agent SDK, which established modular standards for agent identity, payments, memory, and commerce on the chain.
BNB Chain is targeting specific use cases with this launch, particularly automated market trading and financial management.
The team has committed to releasing updates every two weeks, which signals they view this as an iterative product rather than a finished one.
What this means for investors and the BNB ecosystem The platform launched on July 1, and there are no publicly available adoption metrics, TVL figures, or transaction volume data to evaluate yet. The x402 payment standard and ERC-8004 identity framework are also relatively untested in production environments.
Investors should watch for two signals in the coming weeks: the number of agents deployed through the Studio, and whether any of those agents generate meaningful on-chain activity. The bi-weekly update cadence also means the feature set could evolve quickly, so what launches today may look very different by Q3.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Robinhood Crypto přijímá technologii Chainlink oracle pro datové feedy a cross-chain komunikaci na platformě tokenizovaných akcií. Integrace má podpořit spolehlivější tržní data a bezpečné převody mezi blockchainy.
Chainlink has recently returned to the spotlight with notable technical momentum and developments on the institutional adoption front. Following a rebound from a key support zone, LINK signaled upward price momentum, while Robinhood Crypto’s selection of Chainlink as the underlying infrastructure for its tokenized stock platform also drew significant attention.
Support-driven rebound stands out in price actionAt the time of writing, LINK was trading at $7.89, with a 24-hour trading volume of $204.7 million and a market capitalization of $5.74 billion. Despite these figures, LINK had declined 5.6% over the previous 24 hours.
Crypto analyst Globe Of Crypto noted that a falling wedge formation on the daily chart, and the price’s bounce from its support line, signal renewed buying interest. This pattern suggests that buyers are defending a critical level, which could increase the probability of a short-term bullish breakout.
On the daily chart, Globe Of Crypto observed that the reaction from the falling wedge support indicates that buyers are maintaining a crucial zone. Should this momentum continue, the likelihood of a breakout would increase.
From a technical perspective, overcoming the wedge’s upper boundary would be seen as a trend reversal signal. If initiated, such a move could pave the way for a stronger LINK recovery. Analysts now identify the $14 level as a key threshold to monitor in the days ahead, and stress that rising trading volumes and sustained buying will be essential for this scenario.
Robinhood Crypto highlights Chainlink partnershipChainlink data revealed that Robinhood Crypto has adopted Chainlink’s oracle technology for both data feeds and cross-chain communication. This decision marks a significant step for Robinhood as it accelerates its expansion into tokenized finance.
This infrastructure, set to be deployed for Robinhood Stock Tokens, aims to provide millions of users with more reliable market data and enable secure cross-chain transactions. Robinhood, a US-based fintech company best known for its retail-focused investment platforms, stands to enhance its services with this integration.
Mini glossary: An oracle is infrastructure that brings off-chain data to smart contracts. CCIP, or Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol, is a Chainlink-based solution designed to facilitate data and asset transfers between different blockchains.
The collaboration between Chainlink and Robinhood signals ongoing institutional interest in bridging traditional financial systems with decentralized technologies. This integration is expected to improve Robinhood’s security, interoperability, and transparency as the company expands into tokenized markets.
Market focus remains on $14 resistance levelDespite recent developments, LINK’s price action has yet to achieve a decisive breakout. While Bitcoin’s upward move has echoed across the crypto market and impacted altcoins, Chainlink’s short-term trajectory depends on whether it can surpass the falling wedge resistance on strong trading volume.
A breakout above this resistance would bring the $14 price target into sharper focus. However, volatility remains high across the market, and price forecasts for LINK are subject to ongoing uncertainty.
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.
Revolut do 31. srpna vyřadí USDT a do konce července zastaví vklady; po termínu je automaticky převede na fiat měnu. Krok souvisí s tlakem regulace MiCA.
Europe’s largest fintech platform, Revolut, will drop Tether’s USDT by 31st of August. However, USDT deposits will be disabled from the platform by the end of this month.
The tech giant informed users that those who fail to transfer their funds by the end of August will have their USDT automatically exchanged to fiat.
The move is likely informed by regulatory pressure, according to analyst Max Karpis. He noted,
Revolut is delisting USDT on 31 Aug 2026 (regulatory/risk reasons). Not long ago, they expanded support to include zero-fee transfers and 1:1 USDT/USDC swaps. Now a reversal. Compliance hits again.
EU’s crypto regulatory framework, MiCA, is now in effect. Hence, the move is likely to block non-compliant stablecoins and tokens.
Tether CEO deems MiCA as ‘dangerous’ for stablecoins Interestingly, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino has been open about not seeking MiCA approval. In fact, he argued that the regulation is “bad” and “dangerous” for stablecoins.
The problem I have with MiCA is that it’s very dangerous for stablecoins. What will happen next year is that a few banks in Europe will go belly up because of MiCA’s requirement that 60% of stablecoin reserves be kept in uninsured cash deposits in European banks.
He also noted that only small banks accept crypto firms, as major ones like UBS are unwilling to accept stablecoin business. For Ardoino, this would be risky as a +20% redemption on USDT could quickly trigger a banking crisis.
He believes that MiCA is designed to position the Digital Euro to control fund flows. Hence, he opted to keep USDT safe for emerging markets that rely heavily on it.
Whether the same risk applies to Circle’s USDC or Euro stablecoin EURC is not clear. However, Circle has MiCA approval and seems to have benefited last month as the MiCA transition period came to an end.
According to Visa data, USDC saw $1.21T in transfer volume in June, doubling Tether’s USDT. This was the second highest monthly transfer volume following February’s record $1.28T amid growing adoption across most blockchains.
Source: Visa In fact, less than a week into July, USDC’s volume was 3x that of USDT, underscoring a likely shift tied to the MiCA framework. Users across the EU or those sending money to the continent may be opting for USDC instead of USDT.
The shift was also evident across US dollar and Euro-based stablecoins. The latter grew 11x while USD-based stablecoin volumes shrank.
Source: TRM Labs Tether’s USDT still dominates the stablecoin market in terms of supply though. It remains to be seen whether Circle will close the gap as Revolut and other EU platforms continue to delist USDT.
Final Summary Revolut will delist USDT by August 31st and stop accepting deposits from the stablecoin by the end of July. USDC transfer volume hit $1.21T, doubling Tether’s USDT, further underscoring MiCA’s impact on stablecoin adoption.
Deposits on Aave's newly launched Monad market surpassed $100 million on Saturday morning, according to TokenLogic on X, roughly two days after the lending protocol went live on the network.
Aave (AAVE), the largest decentralized lending protocol, deployed V3 on Monad on Thursday, bringing lending, borrowing, and its GHO stablecoin to the chain for the first time. The market launched with support for 12 assets, including USDT0, USDC, GHO, WETH, and Coinbase's cbBTC.
Deposits topped $75 million within the first 24 hours, Aave said Friday.
Monad (MON) is the high-throughput, EVM-compatible Layer 1 network built by former Jump Trading developers that launched its mainnet and MON token on Nov. 24 of last year. The network claims 10,000 transactions per second and 800-millisecond finality.
The early inflows are substantial relative to the size of Monad's DeFi ecosystem. The entire network held about $359.5 million in total value locked as of June 8, according to a LlamaRisk assessment posted to Aave's governance forum, meaning the new Aave market attracted the equivalent of more than a quarter of that figure in two days.
The deposits are also heavily subsidized. Under the deployment proposal authored by TokenLogic in May, the Monad Foundation committed $15 million in incentives over the first 12 months and agreed to acquire and hold 10 million GHO for more than six months, while the Aave DAO pledged another 500,000 GHO to support the stablecoin's adoption on the network.
Risk service provider LlamaRisk backed the deployment with conservative initial parameters, citing Monad's roughly seven months of operating history. The risk firm noted that network activity had compressed after a strong start, with liquidity concentrated in established protocols like Uniswap, Curve, and Morpho.
Notably, Monad received Aave V3.7 rather than the protocol's latest version. Aave V4 launched on the Ethereum mainnet in late March with a new hub-and-spoke architecture, and Aave Labs founder and CEO Stani Kulechov told The Block at the time that the team was pursuing a controlled rollout, as it had with prior versions. The governance proposal leaves it to the Monad Foundation to decide whether and when to migrate to V4.
Aave V4 separately crossed $250 million in deposits on Saturday, per Kulechov. "This is a remarkable milestone for Aave," Kulechov wrote on X. "Can't wait to see Aave to grow towards [$1 billion] with more crypto-backed loans and expanding to securities backed-lending."
In a statement on the Monad deployment, Kulechov said "the next generation of blockchain applications depends on fast execution and deep, reliable liquidity." Keone Hon, co-founder and general manager of the Monad Foundation, said Aave is a lending standard trusted by institutions and that the deployment puts Ethereum's core liquidity primitives on a faster chain.
The launch extends a multichain expansion that saw Aave go live on OKX's X Layer in March. Per the governance proposal, the next phase on Monad is expected to add Pendle PT assets and Fastlane's shMON liquid staking token.
The deployment caps an active week for the Monad ecosystem: MetaMask launched its Money Account product on Tuesday with Monad as its "home chain."
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.
Solana za tři roky ztratila 68 % validátorů, zhruba z 2 500 na asi 800 po čistce spuštěné v roce 2025. Debata o decentralizaci se tím znovu vyostřuje ve srovnání s Ethereum s více než 900 000 validátory.
Solana has lost 68% of its validators in three years, dropping from around 2,500 to about 800 after a purge launched in 2025. Joseph Chalom, co-CEO of Sharplink and former BlackRock executive, contrasts this decline with Ethereum’s over 900,000 validators. This battle of figures reignites the debate on the true decentralization of major blockchains. Will institutional investors decide in favor of robustness over speed?
In brief Joseph Chalom, co-CEO of Sharplink and former BlackRock executive, states that Ethereum’s 900,000 validators outperform Solana’s 800. Electric Capital counts 1,012,824 developers who have contributed to Ethereum, including 232,000 active over the past twelve months. Sharplink held 886,725 ETH at the end of June 2026, one of the largest corporate ether reserves. Why does Chalom oppose Ethereum and Solana validators? Joseph Chalom, co-CEO of Sharplink and former Head of Digital Asset Strategy at BlackRock, challenges the persistent idea of a cultural problem at Ethereum, a criticism circulating for several months in the crypto community.
He also contrasts the network’s more than 900,000 active validators with the roughly 800 still counted on Solana, a gap he considers decisive for the future of smart contracts.
This confrontation comes as Solana has just reinforced its on-chain governance with the Solana Governance Proposals, a mechanism that redistributes voting power between validators and token holders. However, Chalom believes this effort does not compensate for the erosion in the number of validators.
Electric Capital indeed counts more than one million cumulative contributors to Ethereum’s code since its creation, including about 232,000 who remained active over the past twelve months. On Solana, however, 92% of applications still run on a single software client, a concentration Chalom considers risky for network resilience in the event of a major bug.
What are the stakes for decentralization after Solana’s validator purge? Solana had about 2,500 validators three years ago before introducing a pruning process in 2025 aimed at removing inactive or poorly performing nodes. This choice thus reduced their number to about 800, a purge its supporters describe as a qualitative improvement.
Chalom recalls that his years at BlackRock showed him the large institutions’ constant preference for network neutrality and resistance to capture by a single actor. Sharplink also illustrates this conviction through its ether treasury strategy, raised to 886,725 ETH at the end of June, and its financial support to Ethlabs, a research center founded by former Ethereum Foundation members.
Yet a historical figure of the Ethereum Foundation acknowledged that the network still lacks a clear value proposition to convince new investors. Meanwhile, the Solana team defends a lighter and faster network, better suited, according to them, for high-frequency trading and applications aimed at the general public.
This numbers duel illustrates two opposing visions of decentralization, between robustness of numbers and operational lightness. Three factors will influence what follows: institutional appetite for Ethereum ETFs, the trajectory of Solana validators after its purge, and the growing role of tokenization. The standards battle is just beginning.
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Fenelon L.
Passionné par le Bitcoin, j'aime explorer les méandres de la blockchain et des cryptos et je partage mes découvertes avec la communauté. Mon rêve est de vivre dans un monde où la vie privée et la liberté financière sont garanties pour tous, et je crois fermement que Bitcoin est l'outil qui peut rendre cela possible.
DISCLAIMER
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and should not be taken as investment advice. Do your own research before taking any investment decisions.
Solana has recently emerged as a focal point in the cryptocurrency market, attracting attention with both surging transaction volumes and new proposals that could significantly impact the network’s future token supply. According to market data, activity on the blockchain has picked up notably, with analysts maintaining a long-term bullish outlook for the ecosystem.
Transaction volume sees explosive growthMarket expert Zensei reported that Solana’s transaction volume soared by 170.3% year on year for April, May, and June. By comparison, growth on the Hyperliquid platform was limited to just 9.1% in the same period, underscoring that Solana’s rate of increase was nearly 19 times greater than its peer network.
Solana is recognized for its high speed and low transaction fees, which have kept users and capital engaged on the network. As transaction flows intensify, investor attention has shifted from mere price trends toward the protocol-level changes driving the uptick in activity.
According to DeFi Dev Corp, approximately 60,000 new SOL tokens are minted daily on the Solana network, while only 650 SOL are being burned in return.
Technical outlook: $270 resistance comes into focusVuori Trading notes that after its recent correction, SOL appears to have entered a recovery phase and may be embarking on the fifth wave of the Elliott Wave cycle. If the current market optimism persists, $1,259 is cited as a potential medium-term target for Solana. The present pullback is interpreted as a fourth-wave correction rather than a breakdown in trend.
Technical indicators point to $107.94 as the main support level. Meanwhile, $270 stands out as the primary resistance zone. A decisive move above $270 could reinforce upward momentum, while a dip below $107.94 would increase the risk of a deeper correction.
The Relative Strength Index (RSI) remains one of the key metrics closely monitored by traders. With RSI nearing levels historically associated with the end of major declines, several analysts are watching SOL’s price structure with heightened attention.
Mini glossary: The Elliott Wave Theory proposes that price moves in repeating wave patterns, aiding technical analysis. RSI measures the speed and strength of price movements, helping identify overbought or oversold conditions in assets.
New proposals could reshape supply dynamicsBeyond technicals, proposed protocol upgrades within the Solana community may bring lasting changes to the token’s economic structure. DeFi Dev Corp revealed that with approximately 60,000 new SOL entering circulation daily versus only 650 SOL burned, the current supply inflation remains pronounced.
Currently, three SIMD proposals aim to address this disparity. SIMD-550 seeks to accelerate the reduction in inflation, effectively decreasing the future supply of new tokens. On the other hand, SIMD-123 is designed to increase institutional staking via validator pools, thereby reducing the circulating supply of SOL.
Vuori Trading emphasizes that the recent pullback appears more like a routine correction than a trend reversal, with the potential for higher levels to be retested if overall market support continues.
If these proposals are accepted, the Solana network could see lower inflation, higher staking participation, and more tokens burned as network usage grows. Market participants are closely watching governance decisions, the network’s capacity to accommodate rising activity, and SOL’s price behavior above the $270 mark.
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.
JPMorgan Chase po úspěšném stress testu Fedu oznámila 10% zvýšení dividendy a program zpětného odkupu akcií za 50 miliard USD. Banka zároveň vykázala růst EPS o 17 % meziročně.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM 0.11%) is one of the world's largest financial companies, trailing only Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA +1.41%)(BRKB +1.61%). That said, the giant bank got some very good news when the Federal Reserve announced that it had passed the Fed's bank stress test. And JPMorgan Chase shareholders benefited, too, since the bank quickly announced a 10% dividend increase and a $50 billion share repurchase plan.
JPMorgan Chase is in a strong position The first big takeaway from the Fed's bank stress test is that JPMorgan Chase is a financially solid bank. Notably, the Fed is looking for a tier 1 capital ratio of 11.5%, but the bank's tier 1 ratio was 14.3%. The tier 1 ratio indicates how well prepared a bank is for adversity, with higher numbers indicating better preparedness. Clearly, JPMorgan Chase is not only one of the largest banks in the world but also among the strongest.
Image source: Getty Images.
That alone, however, isn't enough to make the stock worth buying. It is also putting up strong financial results, with growth across its business in the first quarter of 2026. Earnings per share rose 17% year over year, with return on tangible common equity increasing by two percentage points. All in, there are many reasons to like JPMorgan Chase today.
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Don't run out and buy JPMorgan Chase just yet The problem with this story is that Wall Street is well aware of the company's success. In fact, the stock is trading just below its all-time highs. The stock's price-to-sales, price-to-earnings, and price-to-book ratios are all above their five-year averages, and by meaningful amounts. To put some numbers on that, the stock's P/S ratio sits at 4.8x, versus a five-year average of 3.6x. The current P/E ratio is roughly 15.5x compared to a longer-term average of around 11x. And the P/B ratio is 2.5x compared to the five-year average of just under 1.8x.
Simply put, JPMorgan Chase is looking rather expensive today. Even the company's forward P/E ratio is notably out of line with its past, sitting at 14.9x compared to a five-year average of 12x. A large dividend hike and stock buyback plan won't change the valuation facts here, even if they are nice to see. For investors who have even the slightest value lean, this looks like a stock for the wishlist, not the buy list, today. A recession and/or a bear market could make this large, well-run bank a more attractive value.
JPMorgan Chase is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Reuben Gregg Brewer has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Optimism čelí největší zkoušce svého modelu sdílení příjmů, protože Base může omezit nebo ukončit své příspěvky do Collective. To by oslabilo financování RPGF i plánovaných buybacků OP od roku 2026.
Optimism’s grand experiment in Layer 2 economics has always rested on a simple premise: if you build on our stack, you pay rent. The OP Stack’s revenue-sharing framework, known as the Law of Chains, requires participating Superchain members to contribute the greater of 2.5% of their sequencer revenue or 15% of net sequencer profits to the Optimism Collective.
That model has historically generated an estimated $4.5 million annually for the Collective’s treasury, with the lion’s share coming from one chain in particular: Base, Coinbase’s Layer 2 juggernaut. But cracks in the arrangement are starting to show, and the implications for the OP token could be significant.
How the royalty machine works The Law of Chains was introduced in July 2023 to standardize how Superchain members share revenue with the broader Optimism ecosystem. The structure is straightforward but clever in its design. Chains pay whichever amount is larger: 2.5% of gross sequencer revenue or 15% of net sequencer profit.
For chains running lean operations with tight margins, the 15% net profit threshold kicks in. For those printing money on transaction fees, the 2.5% gross revenue floor ensures Optimism always gets its cut.
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OP Mainnet itself operates differently, contributing 100% of its net sequencer revenue to the Collective. That distinction matters because it positions the flagship chain as the ecosystem’s largest benefactor, not just another tenant.
The funds flow into two primary channels. First, they support Retroactive Public Goods Funding, or RPGF, which is Optimism’s signature initiative for rewarding builders who create value for the ecosystem after the fact. Second, governance has begun directing portions of revenue toward OP token buybacks starting in 2026.
Base’s complicated relationship with the Collective Base has been the Superchain’s revenue engine. Historical estimates pegged Base’s annual contribution to the Optimism treasury at roughly $4.5 million alone. In Q1 2026, Base’s contribution to the Collective came in at approximately $1.4 million, distributed specifically through RPGF.
That Q1 figure, annualized, would suggest around $5.6 million per year. But the context around Base’s anticipated exit from revenue sharing complicates that projection considerably. If Base moves toward greater independence from the Superchain’s financial obligations, the revenue base supporting Optimism’s public goods funding and token buyback programs shrinks materially.
The OP token and market implications For OP holders, the revenue-sharing framework creates a direct link between Superchain adoption and token value. More chains building on the OP Stack means more sequencer revenue flowing to the Collective, which in turn funds buybacks and ecosystem development.
The governance decision to begin directing revenues toward OP token buybacks in 2026 is particularly notable. The Law of Chains isn’t enforced by smart contracts at the protocol level. It’s a governance framework, which means compliance is ultimately a function of incentive alignment rather than immutable code.
Investors watching this space should track two metrics closely. First, the number of new chains joining the Superchain and their aggregate sequencer revenue growth. Second, whether existing large contributors like Base maintain their financial commitments or negotiate alternative arrangements.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Rivian ve 2. čtvrtletí dodal 12 194 vozů, nad vlastním výhledem, a zvedl celoroční cíl dodávek na 65 000 až 70 000 vozů. Akcie po zprávě vyskočily o více než 8 %.
Rivian (RIVN +8.44%) just gave investors an impressive update. On Thursday, the electric vehicle maker said it delivered 12,194 vehicles in the second quarter, comfortably above its own outlook of 9,000 to 11,000, and raised its full-year delivery target to 65,000 to 70,000 vehicles, up from 62,000 to 67,000.
The stock jumped more than 8% on the news. And the timing sharpened the contrast: Tesla fell about 7.5% the same day following its own delivery report.
Rivian shares have now climbed about 60% from their 52-week low, though they still sit slightly below where they started the year. So, has the underdog finally earned a spot in more portfolios, or is the market right to stay skeptical?
Image source: The Motley Fool.
What the raise actually says The second quarter update begins to answer a question that has hung over Rivian all year: Can the company build and sell its new, lower-priced R2 alongside everything else it makes? Or will it cannibalize the company's sales of other vehicles and ultimately hurt its business?
The R2 matters more than any other vehicle Rivian has made. The company's R1 trucks and SUVs are premium-priced machines with a naturally limited audience. The R2 is Rivian's bid for volume, and a raised outlook one quarter into its ramp suggests the early demand is there.
But it looks like the vehicle will be additive to its business. Rivian delivered 10,365 vehicles in the first quarter and 12,194 in the second, for 22,559 in total. This means that reaching even the low end of the new full-year range requires about 42,000 deliveries in the second half -- nearly double the first-half pace. This spike in second-half deliveries would be Rivian's steepest ramp in history, executed in the same six months the company is scaling an entirely new model.
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The economics still have to catch up Whether the stock works from here likely depends less on delivery counts than on what each delivery earns. And that picture is still mixed.
In the first quarter, Rivian's revenue rose 11% year over year to $1.38 billion, and the company generated $119 million in gross profit, a 9% gross margin. But the composition tells a more complete story. The software and services segment produced $181 million in gross profit, while the automotive segment ran a $62 million gross loss, hurt primarily by a $100 million year-over-year decline in sales of automotive regulatory credits and lower production volumes. In short, the vehicles themselves still lose money, and software and services keep the overall margin positive.
Meanwhile, total company losses remain large.
Rivian's first-quarter operating loss widened to $881 million from $655 million a year earlier, on lower gross profit and higher operating expenses as the company builds toward the R2 era.
None of this is disqualifying for a company at Rivian's stage. Scale is precisely what the R2 is supposed to deliver, and higher volumes could spread fixed costs across far more vehicles.
The bull case is that the second-half ramp pushes automotive gross profit toward positive territory and shifts the conversation from survival to growth. It's unclear, of course, if the company can pull this off.
But the capital runway for the ramp has notably improved recently. In its first-quarter update, Rivian said it raised the initial production capacity planned for its Georgia plant by 50%, to 300,000 vehicles annually, backed by an up to $4.5 billion Department of Energy loan. And a completed testing milestone in March unlocked a $1 billion investment from Volkswagen Group. A steep ramp is much less dangerous with that kind of backing.
The stock's recent run-up, however, has created a new problem. The stock now commands a market capitalization of about $25 billion -- and that's for a company that still loses money on every vehicle it sells.
So, is Rivian finally a buy? The delivery update was arguably the most encouraging news the company has produced in years, and it meaningfully lowers the risk that R2 won't be materially additive to its overall business. But I'd want to see one specific thing before buying: automotive gross profit improving as R2 volumes build. The second-quarter report, due July 30, is the first checkpoint. Until then, Rivian stays on my watch list as a far stronger operation than it was three months ago, but still a show-me stock at this price.
Hexens našel v Aptosu kritickou chybu, která mohla ohrozit až 70 miliard USD v krypto infrastruktuře. Zranitelnost byla opravena a žádné prostředky se neztratily.
Ethical hackers from security firm Hexens discovered a flaw in the Aptos blockchain that was patched but could have put up to $70 billion in digital assets at systemic risk, including stablecoins and cross-chain bridges.Researchers simulated the attack with a over-90% success rate under real network conditions, using a well-provisioned server setup that cost just $3,000 to simulate about 1/3 of the validator network, and the attack required no insider access or special permissions.The vulnerability was reported through emergency security channels on Feb. 25, and a patch was deployed within days to prevent any funds from being lost.A $3,000 server was enough for a blockchain security researcher to simulate an attack path they say could have put as much as $70 billion in crypto infrastructure at risk.
At the center of the disclosure was a flaw in Aptos, a layer-1 blockchain built on Move, the smart contract language used by Aptos and Sui, that stems from Facebook’s shelved Diem project.
In late February, researchers at the blockchain security firm Hexens reported a critical vulnerability in the Aptos Move virtual machine, the execution environment that processes smart contracts on the chain, to the project’s development team. Hexens identified what it described as a "stale-cache bug" leading to a type-confusion vulnerability, a condition in which software can be tricked into treating one type of onchain resource as another.The
Aptos team did patch the vulnerability when it was flagged, and no funds were lost.
“Aptos Labs was notified of a potential issue through our bug bounty program on February 25 that was already being triaged internally at the time," an Aptos spokesperson told CoinDesk. "A fix was developed, tested, and deployed to mainnet within hours of discovery. No users or funds were impacted at any point."
The Aptos spokesperson also disputed the practical exploitability of the bug to CoinDesk. "Our analysis determined the bug would have extremely low exploitability in real world conditions."
However, the details of what researchers found offer a sobering look at how close the ecosystem came to a potentially industry-altering event.
The sensitivity of this class of bug comes down to how the Move language handles authority. Protocol permissions in Move, including the right to mint a stablecoin, control a bridge, or administer a lending market, are often stored directly as onchain resources. If those resources are compromised, the damage does not stop at one protocol. It extends to everything that trusts them.
Hexens' researchers offered a practical analogy to the bug: it is roughly comparable to a bug on an Ethereum-style chain that would allow attacker-controlled code to write into storage belonging to other contracts, bypassing the type-system guarantees that Move was specifically designed to uphold.
Mudit Gupta, CTO at Polygon, independently reviewed the proof-of-concept materials and said the exploit held up. "It ran as claimed, and the exploit made sense," he told CoinDesk. "It required a few conditions to be met, which it seems like they did on the mainnet."
Meanwhile, Grego AI, which independently verified Hexens' proof-of-concept, calculated that approximately $250 million in Aptos-native TVL was directly at risk based on the near-90% success rate, separate from broader cross-chain exposure.
The $70 billion riskThe vulnerability, discovered by Vahe Karapetyan, CTO and co-founder of Hexens, could, if left unchecked, have exposed a far larger systemic risk surface across bridges, stablecoins, DeFi protocols and centralized exchanges, costing billions and creating a crisis far beyond Aptos itself.
And all it would've taken was a few thousand dollars' worth of servers.
The total cost to spin up the infrastructure needed to run this experiment was approximately $3,000 for a server that simulated an environment designed to approximate Aptos mainnet conditions. Although if a malicious attacker were to actually go through the exploit, it would have required considerably less, without requiring validator access, insider knowledge or privileged protocol permissions.
The team ran the exploit path roughly 20 times in a simulated environment and succeeded 17 or 18 times. The two or three failed attempts didn't stop the network, meaning the attacker could have simply had another window to try again.
The simulation was built to closely approximate real network conditions, using a cluster of more than 30 validator nodes, a mainnet-shaped stake distribution, organic transaction traffic and heavy execution contention. The Hexens team also tested what they call "non-armed calibration techniques": dry runs that measured mempool and block-construction conditions before committing to an armed attempt. The firm said those steps materially reduced the uncertainty introduced by the exploit's probabilistic elements, making the attack path more reliable in practice.
Based on public data collected at the time of reporting, Hexens assessed direct and first-order protocol exposure on Aptos, covering DeFi protocols, tokenized assets, stablecoin infrastructure and liquid-staking systems, at low single-digit billions.
In such exploits, however, the broader risk could've been greater, as blockchain-level compromises rarely stop at the affected chain.
Hexens assessed that the broader first-order systemic risk was approximately $70 billion — a huge number that includes value accessible through bridges, cross-chain messaging systems, stablecoin administration flows and centralized exchanges.
Grego AI noted that the exploit could also be used to steal protocol capabilities, including those held by LayerZero, Wormhole and USDC's CCTP. "If malicious actors had access to this bug, they would have been able to take all [the] TVL that they want[ed]," said Justus Hanna, CEO at Grego AI.
The simulation shows the industry remains vulnerable to hidden bugs in the blockchain technology.
If an attacker had actually found and exploited the bug, in theory, it could have easily dwarfed the massive $1.5 billion stolen in a Bybit hack last year. Most recently, in June, Zcash (ZEC) plummeted 38% after developers revealed a critical bug that had lurked undetected in its privacy pool for four years, one that could have allowed an attacker to print unlimited counterfeit tokens without anyone knowing. Before that, nine-figure bridge hacks and protocol exploits drained liquidity pools and rattled confidence in the infrastructure underpinning the broader market.
It’s worth noting that $70 billion is an estimate based on minting a mammoth amount of USDC stablecoin and using Circle's Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) to move it across chains. If a malicious attacker did this, and given how large the number is, it’s also likely a company like Circle would halt USDC transfers, although that has come under scrutiny recently as the stablecoin issuer said it doesn't freeze assets without legal authorization. So, in theory, if everyone stepped in, the entire $70 billion figure likely wouldn't be achieved—but it would still have rocked the industry nonetheless.
What this proof-of-concept testing demonstrated was access to the kinds of authority that sit at the top of cross-chain systems: bridge capabilities, signer capabilities, master-minter roles and protocol accounting state. Researchers said they validated a takeover of a master-minter-style role and demonstrated the use of a legitimate administration path, stopping short of actually minting tokens but showing why such roles belong in the threat model. The dominant vector into the broader surface runs through centralized exchanges, specifically the Aptos bridge pathways that connect onchain activity to exchange deposit crediting.
Response and disclosureThe same day Hexens filed its report, a "SEAL911" emergency warroom was opened to coordinate the response. SEAL911 is a volunteer security group that has become a key first-responder layer across the crypto ecosystem.
The vendor was notified hours after the warroom opened, and four major downstream projects were alerted that afternoon, each receiving local-runnable proof-of-concept material and analysis of relevant authority patterns.
A public pull request reflecting the patch became available on February 27. Aptos stated that a private-validator patch had been deployed before the public commit.
Hexens, meanwhile, says it has not received a technical rebuttal or evidence-based argument disputing the demonstrated impact classes. The firm claims that the main concern relayed back to the researchers involved the probabilistic aspects of the exploit, precisely what the team's calibration work was designed to address.
While no funds were stolen, the simulation showed that in a blockchain-level compromise, rate limits, issuer freezes, bridge controls, exchange monitoring and validator patches are not secondary safeguards. They can become the boundary between a contained bug and a market-wide exploit.
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Building the Zcash Machine: Tachyon and Quantum Readiness
Building the Zcash Machine: Tachyon and Quantum Readiness
Zcash’s Tachyon upgrade aims to scale shielded payments, improve quantum readiness, and test whether its funding, security, and governance can hold.
Jun 30, 2026
Zcash’s Tachyon upgrade aims to scale shielded payments, improve quantum readiness, and test whether its funding, security, and governance can hold.
Why it matters:
Zcash’s Tachyon upgrade aims to scale shielded payments, improve quantum readiness, and test whether its funding, security, and governance can hold.
Apple údajně chystá nejméně pět nových iPhonů včetně prvního skládacího modelu za zhruba 2 500 USD a zvýšila svůj výrobní cíl na asi 10 milionů kusů. Zprávy podpořily akcie.
Apple (AAPL +4.88%) is reportedly preparing its most crowded iPhone lineup in years. According to supply chain reports cited by Asian news site Nikkei Asia, the company plans at least five new iPhone models between the back half of 2026 and early 2027, headlined by its first foldable smartphone -- and it has raised the production target for that foldable, rumored to carry a price around $2,500, to about 10 million units, reportedly up from an earlier 7 million to 8 million. The reports helped fuel one of the stock's best sessions of the year.
But the more useful question for shareholders isn't whether a folding iPhone is cool. It's whether a product blitz like this can move the earnings of a tech giant that sells more than 220 million phones a year.
Image source: Apple.
Sizing the foldable opportunity Start with how central the iPhone still is. In Apple's fiscal second quarter (the period ended March 28, 2026), iPhone revenue rose 22% year over year to about $57 billion, a March-quarter record, out of about $111 billion in total sales. That is more than half of the company coming from a single product line.
But how big of a catalyst could a foldable iPhone really be?
Ten million units at about $2,500 works out to around $25 billion of potential revenue in a full year -- a meaningful slice of the more than $200 billion the iPhone generates annually, and mostly a fiscal 2027 story rather than this year's.
Even more, spreading five models across price tiers is a deliberate move to grab share from rivals at both the high and low ends of the market.
Put those pieces together, and the foldable looks less like a blockbuster and more like a halo. It probably won't add much to any single quarter's revenue on its own. What it can do, however, is reset the ceiling on iPhone prices, pulling some upgraders into a pricier tier. In a maturing smartphone market, defending the high end while broadening the lineup to reach more price points could be a serious lever.
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Ultimately, the biggest reason for investors to be upbeat about a busy iPhone product cycle is that it shows that the company is trying to aggressively grow its installed base of active devices -- the foundation of its high-margin services.
And this important segment already has impressive momentum. Services revenue rose 16% to a record $31 billion in the same quarter.
But keep in mind that these new products won't show up in the tech giant's financials for a while. The foldable's revenue mostly lands next year, so this news bears on fiscal 2027's numbers, not the print later this month. Apple reports third-quarter results for fiscal 2026 on July 30, and management has guided for revenue growth of 14% to 17%.
Then there is the stock's price. Shares change hands at about 37 times earnings, a premium that already assumes a strong product cycle.
And there are other risks beyond valuation risk. Apple has never shipped a foldable, and a first-generation product in a brand-new form factor carries real execution risk -- hinges, unique displays, and manufacturing yields are all hard to get right. And even a runaway hit could be capped at a certain volume.
Still, the figure that ultimately moves Apple's earnings over the long haul won't be foldable units. It's total iPhone volume and how many of those buyers deepen their spending on services over time.
Overall, I do think Apple stock looks good here, but reports are still reports. I'd treat the foldable as upside optionality stacked on top of an iPhone-and-services engine that's already growing at a double-digit clip -- a reason to keep owning Apple, but not a reason to chase it on a rumor. With that said, if the rumor proves true, I think fiscal 2027 could be a major year for the company -- and maybe for the stock, too.
Microsoft už nechce dál dotovat Xbox: divize za pět let utratila přes 20 miliard dolarů, ale její klíčové tržby klesly téměř o půl miliardy a marže je jen 3 %.
Xbox at a gamescom briefing in 2014. Microsoft is pressing its games division to turn a profit. (Microsoft Photo) In 2007, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 consoles started dying — overheating until three lights on the front blinked red, a defect gamers came to call the “red ring of death.” Microsoft’s response was to extend the warranty on every machine and take a charge of more than $1 billion to fix the problem, making it one of the costliest product failures in the company’s history.
Microsoft could afford it financially, but the bigger factor was strategy. Xbox was a bet on the living room, and for a company minting money on Windows and Office at the time, losing a billion or so was a justifiable cost of staying in the game.
Nearly two decades later, that patience has run out.
“Going forward, this cannot continue,” the new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma wrote in a memo to employees last month, offering a blunt assessment of a business that has spent more than $20 billion over five years, only to see its core revenue fall by nearly half a billion dollars, running at a thin 3% profit margin, by Microsoft’s own internal measures.
Asha Sharma took over as CEO of Microsoft’s Xbox business in February. In a memo to employees last month, she wrote that the division’s heavy spending and shrinking revenue “cannot continue.” (Microsoft File Photo) With thousands of layoffs expected to be announced across Microsoft as soon as next week, the Xbox division is likely to be among the hardest hit.
The cuts reach across the company — including sales and consulting — part of a restructuring that has become routine around the close of Microsoft’s fiscal year. But for Xbox, they’re an early step in a broader effort to reset the business, rein in costs, and position the division for healthier profits.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has been blunt about it: the company has spent years subsidizing Xbox rather than profiting from it, and that era is over. The videos and livestreams of people playing Xbox games that fill YouTube generate more money than Microsoft makes from the games themselves, he noted in an appearance on the Hard Fork podcast.
“No one can accuse Microsoft of not having invested for the last 25 years,” Nadella said. “And now we have to turn this into a sustainable business.”
Long-term strategic bet Turning it around means breaking a pattern that runs through Xbox’s entire history.
Xbox launched in 2001 and lost money for most of its first decade. Microsoft absorbed the losses and stayed in — going up against Sony’s PlayStation and Nintendo — because it saw a strategic prize in owning a piece of the living room, and later of mobile. Online gaming also gave the company early experience running services at scale, which fed its cloud ambitions.
Over time, the goal shifted from selling hardware to selling subscriptions.
Xbox Live, launched in 2002, turned online play into recurring revenue. Game Pass, which arrived in 2017, let players pay a monthly fee — the top tier is about $23 — for a library of games, including Microsoft’s own new releases the day they come out. The idea was to get people paying for Xbox everywhere: consoles, PCs, phones and the cloud.
And when growth stalled, Microsoft doubled down. It paid $7.5 billion in 2021 for Bethesda, the studio behind Fallout and The Elder Scrolls, then $69 billion in 2023 for Activision Blizzard (whose games include Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Diablo and the mobile hit Candy Crush) the largest acquisition in Microsoft’s history.
A series of economic headwinds Microsoft could afford to be patient through all of it. Now it’s not so simple. In recent years, almost everything about the economics of gaming has turned against Xbox at the same time.
Hardware loses money, and AI is making it worse. Microsoft sells consoles at or below cost, banking on games and subscriptions to make up the difference. But AI data centers are consuming so much memory and storage that chip prices have spiked. That has forced Microsoft to raise Xbox console prices, most recently a $100-to-$150 hike this summer that it blamed directly on component costs.
Xbox lost the console war. By most estimates, Sony’s PlayStation 5 has outsold the Xbox Series X and S more than two to one. A smaller base means fewer game sales and subscriptions to offset the upfront hardware losses. That has left Xbox a distant second for the entire generation.
Revenue is shrinking. Even setting aside the games it gained from Activision, Xbox’s annual revenue has fallen nearly $500 million over five years — while the money going into the business keeps climbing. It has been investing more to earn less.
Microsoft’s most recent quarterly filing shows gaming revenue of $16.8 billion for the nine months through March, down about $1.1 billion, or 6%, from a year earlier.
Game Pass cuts into sales. Handing subscribers a new game the day it launches undercuts the roughly $70 they would have paid to buy it. The service delivers steady subscription income, but thinner economics on the games themselves.
Activision didn’t fix the margins. Even with one of gaming’s most profitable businesses folded in, Xbox earns only about 3 cents of profit on every dollar — well under the 17 to 22 cents typical in the industry. If the biggest acquisition in company history can’t move the margin, little will.
Every spare billion is flowing to AI. Microsoft is pouring more than $100 billion a year into the data centers and chips behind its AI push, trying to capitalize on the boom. Against a risk and payoff that big, a gaming business that barely breaks even feels like yesterday’s strategic bet.
What’s next for Xbox The cuts have already started. In recent weeks, Microsoft has signaled plans to close or sell some studios, including Ninja Theory, maker of the acclaimed “Hellblade” series.
Shedding staff, studios and marketing will lift Xbox’s profit margins in the near term. What it won’t do is fix the underlying problem: a business can trim its way to a better number only so much before it has to generate more revenue.
Sharma’s plan, so far, is to concentrate on Xbox’s biggest franchises, funding blockbusters like Halo and Fallout while pulling back elsewhere. It’s leaning on Game Pass and releasing most of its games on PCs and rival consoles from Sony and Nintendo, reaching players well beyond Xbox’s shrinking base, even as it holds back a few new exclusives like Gears of War to give owners a reason to stay.
Microsoft is also rethinking the console itself. In her memo, Sharma described a “hardware component crisis” that has left the company unable to make as many consoles as players want, and called for “a new business model and partnerships” for its hardware.
How far the reset ultimately goes is an open question. The Information reported that Microsoft has weighed making Xbox a standalone subsidiary, a joint venture, or a spin-off, though nothing is imminent.
Microsoft’s response to the Xbox 360 “red ring of death,” July 6, 2007. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer / NewsBank) Whatever happens next, it’s clear that times have changed. In 2007, as the red ring of death crisis emerged, Peter Moore, who ran the Xbox business at the time, and his boss Robbie Bach went to then-CEO Steve Ballmer to ask for the money to repair and replace the failing consoles.
Ballmer didn’t flinch. “What’s it going to cost?” he asked, as Moore later recalled.
Told it was $1.15 billion, Ballmer said, simply: “Do it.”
Moore credits that decision with saving Xbox. There would have been no Xbox One, he said, without Ballmer’s willingness to spend more than a billion dollars to protect the brand.
But nearly two decades later, Microsoft is done writing that kind of check for Xbox.
AMD 22. a 23. července uspořádá akci Advancing AI, kde má představit nové AI platformy a možná i další zákaznické výhry. Trh čeká hlavně na bližší informace o systému Helios.
The first half of 2026 has been extremely rewarding for Advanced Micro Devices (AMD 4.60%) investors, as shares of the chipmaker have soared by 131% so far this year.
However, AMD stock's momentum has weakened over the past month, as it has dropped nearly 5% amid the recent sell-off in semiconductor stocks. Fears of a stock market bubble amid the artificial intelligence (AI)-fueled gains clocked by tech stocks have been weighing on investors' minds lately. But it would be wrong to call AI a bubble.
The adoption of this technology isn't just driving strong growth for hardware and software companies involved in its proliferation, but also leading to productivity gains for those adopting it. That's why it won't be surprising to see AMD stock stepping on the gas once again in July, especially considering that it may announce some big customer wins during the month at its Advancing AI event.
Image source: Getty Images.
AMD's July event could boost investor confidence AMD will hold its Advancing AI event on July 22 and 23. The company is expected to unveil new AI-focused platforms, how customers are deploying them, and its product roadmap at this event. It is worth noting that AMD held this event in June last year and previewed its rack-scale server architecture called Helios.
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This server platform has been adopted by Meta Platforms, which will begin deploying Helios servers in the second half of 2026. Additionally, AMD management noted on the company's May earnings call that it is seeing strong customer demand for the Helios platform. It said it will share more information about it during the July event.
Assuming AMD manages to attract more customers for Helios, which will go against Nvidia's Vera Rubin chip system, investor confidence in the stock could start improving. It is worth noting that the AMD Helios rack-scale system, powered by the company's MI455X graphics processing unit (GPU), has 432 gigabytes (GB) of high-bandwidth memory (HBM), well above the 288 GB offered by Nvidia's Vera Rubin NVL72 system.
Given that memory is emerging as one of the biggest bottlenecks in AI infrastructure, there is a good chance AMD will indeed win more hyperscaler customers beyond Meta. Meanwhile, in May, Citigroup pointed out that AMD may have added Anthropic to its client list and will announce this new win at the July event.
So, a potential inflow of good news in July could bring AMD out of its rut.
Is it a good time to buy the stock right now? At 173 times trailing earnings and 73 times forward earnings, there is no doubt that AMD is expensive right now. So, investors looking for a value stock should consider looking elsewhere. However, if you have the risk appetite and are looking to add a fast-growing company to your portfolio, buying AMD may look like an attractive option.
After all, its earnings per share are expected to jump by 77% this year to $7.39. Importantly, AMD is anticipated to sustain its solid growth rate over the next couple of years as well.
Data by YCharts
Assuming its earnings per share indeed jump to $18.30 in 2028, and it trades at even 40 times earnings (in line with the tech-focused Nasdaq Composite index), its stock price could reach $732. That's a potential 41% jump from current levels. However, don't be surprised if it delivers stronger-than-expected earnings growth, which will allow it to sustain its premium valuation and deliver bigger gains.
Citigroup is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Harsh Chauhan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, Meta Platforms, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Intel letos prudce vzrostl díky silné poptávce po procesorech pro AI servery a obnovené důvěře ve foundry byznys. V prvním čtvrtletí tržby divize data center a AI stouply o 22 % na 5,1 miliardy USD.
A $10,000 investment in Intel (INTC 5.61%) at its Jan. 2 closing price of $39.38 would have bought about 254 shares. At Thursday's close of $120.35, that stake is worth about $30,561 as of this writing. In six months, the money more than tripled.
But two footnotes belong next to that figure. First, it was briefly even better: at Intel's June 30 close of $139.63, the same stake was worth more than $35,000, before the stock gave back about 14% across the first two trading sessions of July. Second, almost nobody saw this coming. In January, Intel was still widely viewed as the chipmaker that had missed the artificial intelligence (AI) boom.
Which raises the question for everyone who watched from the sidelines: What turned Intel into 2026's most dramatic large-cap comeback, and what has to keep going right from here?
Image source: Getty Images.
How Intel tripled The rally wasn't built on PCs. It was built on two things: booming demand for the processors that feed AI data centers, and renewed faith in Intel's foundry -- the company's long-suffering bet on manufacturing chips for other companies.
Intel's first-quarter results, reported in April, showed both engines running. Revenue in the company's data center and AI segment rose 22% year over year to $5.1 billion, and Intel Foundry revenue grew 16% to $5.4 billion, while the classic PC chip business grew just 1%. Total revenue rose 7% to $13.6 billion, and non-GAAP (adjusted) earnings per share more than doubled, to $0.29.
"This deliberate reset to how we operate drove a sixth consecutive quarter of revenue above our expectations, as well as new and deepened relationships with strategic partners," said CEO Lip-Bu Tan in the company's first-quarter earnings release.
For years, the foundry consumed cash and produced doubt. What changed in 2026 is that customers -- and investors -- began treating the manufacturing turnaround as on schedule. Each new commitment matters twice over. It brings future revenue and signals to prospective customers that Intel's factories can be trusted with cutting-edge work.
Add a chip sector in full boom, and the repricing was violent. A stock that entered the year priced for slow decline exited June priced for a successful transformation.
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What has to keep going right But now Intel investors face a problem: At a valuation of about $604 billion, Intel is priced as if both its transformation succeeds and its business will grow rapidly for years to come -- even though the company remains unprofitable over the trailing 12 months. When a stock reprices from skepticism to confidence this quickly, the burden of proof shifts to every subsequent quarter.
The next test arrives July 23, when Intel reports second-quarter results.
When the report is released, three things will arguably matter most: whether foundry revenue continues growing, whether gross margins continue to expand, and whether new customer names continue to arrive. Because the gap between today's revenue and today's price tag is bridged almost entirely by future contracts and expanded profitability.
Meanwhile, the stock's early July slide is a preview of what happens when confidence wobbles. Shares of Intel fell about 9% in a single session on July 1 amid a broad pullback in chip stocks, with no company-specific stumble required. After a run like this year's, many of the stock's owners arrived recently and can leave quickly, which could make drawdowns sharper.
So what should investors who feel they missed it do? The honest answer is that the stock's single biggest repricing -- from left-for-dead to credible -- is probably already over. From here, returns likely have to be earned the slow way, through quarters of foundry growth and proof that profits are following the revenue.
I wouldn't chase the stock after a triple, and I personally wouldn't buy ahead of the July 23 report either. But for patient investors who believe American chip manufacturing has years of demand ahead of it, Intel remains one of the most direct ways to own that idea. Bought gradually, in a position sized to survive the swings a stock like this all but guarantees, it can still earn a place in a long-term portfolio.
Sonoco Products vzrostla letos o 30 % a překonala S&P 500 i Nasdaq, přičemž nabízí dividendový výnos 3,78 %. Čtvrtletní zisk na akcii stoupl o 26 % na 0,68 USD.
Investors looking for high-yield dividend stocks typically don't expect them to generate alpha. But in some cases, they do. Take Sonoco Products (SON +2.26%), for example.
Sonoco Products is not the oil and gas company, which is spelled differently. Sonoco Products makes packaging -- metal, paper, and plastic packages for consumer and industrial uses.
It's not a stock many people know, but Sonoco is not only paying an above-average dividend yield; it is also beating the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq.
Image source: Getty Images.
Sonoco crushes S&P 500 and Nasdaq Sonoco's stock has posted impressive numbers this year. The stock has returned 30% year to date, beating the Nasdaq's 10.3% and the S&P 500's 8.5%.
Further, the stock has a dividend yield of 3.78%, well above the S&P 500 average. It has also boosted its dividend annually for the past 43 consecutive years. If it keeps boosting the payout annually for seven more years, it will be a Dividend King.
Sonoco Products is coming off a quarter in which sales dropped 2%, but earnings rose 26% year over year to $0.68 per share. This is largely due to an expense-reduction plan that led to a 4% drop in selling, general, and administrative expenses in the latest quarter.
Sonoco's Profitability Performance Plan targets $32 million in savings this year and $150 million to $200 million over the next three years. It is also streamlining operations by selling off some of its lower-performing assets, like ThermoSafe. The expense reductions will offset some of the higher material costs the company is experiencing due to inflation and tariffs.
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Also, net sales will stall out in fiscal 2026, as the company guides for revenue between $7.25 billion and $7.75 billion, which would be on par with last year at the midpoint. Further, cash flow from operations is anticipated to be between $700 million and $800 million, up slightly from last fiscal year.
Sonoco has more room to run Sonoco's stock has rallied this year mainly due to its cost-cutting initiative and the pivot to consumer packaging from industrial. Consumer packaging is a higher-margin business and less cyclical than industrial packaging. The company has been steadily increasing consumer sales, and the consumer side now makes up about 67% of its total sales, up from 42% in 2020.
Sonoco has strong cash flow, a low payout ratio of 38%, and is fully committed to its dividend. It has raised its dividend for 43 straight years and has paid a dividend for 404 straight quarters (since 1925).
While analysts expect only 2% earnings growth in fiscal 2026, they see 10% growth in 2027, likely due to the benefits of the pivot and the Profitability Performance Plan kicking in.
Roughly 50% of analysts rate Sonoco as a buy, while 50% rate it a hold. It has a median price target of $63 per share, which suggests 12% upside.
Plus, the stock is still dirt cheap, even after the 29% surge. It is trading at 9 times forward earnings and has a minuscule five-year PEG ratio of 0.20, which makes it a great value and a good buy -- for both dividends and returns.
CoreWeave po vstupu na burzu za 40 USD vystřelila na rekordních 183,58 USD, ale nyní se obchoduje kolem 82 USD. Firma sice rychle roste, zároveň však má 50,8 miliardy USD závazků a prohlubující se čistou ztrátu.
CoreWeave (CRWV 4.58%), a neocloud provider of AI infrastructure services, went public at $40 per share on March 28, 2025. By June 20, it had reached a record high of $183.58. But as of this writing, it trades at about $82. Let's see if that pullback is a good buying opportunity.
Image source: Getty Images.
What does CoreWeave do? CoreWeave was originally an Ethereum miner, but it repurposed its GPUs to remotely process AI tasks after the crypto market crashed in 2018. It subsequently expanded its data center count from just three centers at the end of 2022 to 49 centers today, and it supports that infrastructure with more than 250,000 Nvidia (NVDA 1.39%) GPUs.
CoreWeave's AI-optimized servers can handle advanced AI workloads 35 times faster and 80% cheaper than larger cloud infrastructure platforms like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure. Its largest customers include Microsoft, Meta (META 4.80%), OpenAI, Anthropic, Nvidia, and the quantitative trading firm Jane Street.
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How fast is CoreWeave growing? CoreWeave's revenue surged from $16 million in 2022 to $5.1 billion in 2025. Its backlog swelled to $99.4 billion at the end of the first quarter of 2026, and analysts expect its annual revenue to grow at a three-year CAGR of 99% to $40.3 billion in 2028. That's a jaw-dropping growth rate for a stock that trades at just 3.5 times this year's sales.
However, CoreWeave's net loss also widened from $31 million in 2022 to $1.2 billion in 2025, and analysts expect it to nearly double to $2.2 billion by 2028. It also ended its latest quarter with $50.8 billion in total liabilities, giving it a high debt-to-equity ratio of 10.8. When we include that debt in its enterprise value of $86.3 billion, it looks a bit pricier at 6.8 times this year's sales.
Is CoreWeave's pullback a buying opportunity? CoreWeave has plenty of growth potential, but investors aren't sure it can execute its expansion without breaking the bank. When CoreWeave's stock hit a record high last summer, investors were expecting the Fed to cut interest rates, making it cheaper for the company to expand.
But today, more analysts expect interest rate hikes in the second half of 2026 if inflation doesn't cool off. That's why investors backed away from unprofitable, high-growth companies like CoreWeave. Competition from other neocloud companies and Meta, which recently decided to sell some of its excess cloud computing power, is exacerbating that pressure. However, CoreWeave should become appealing again as interest rates stabilize, it locks in more customers, and economies of scale kick in. So if you're looking for an AI stock to hold for a few years instead of a few quarters, CoreWeave's latest pullback could be a golden buying opportunity.
Leo Sun has positions in Amazon and Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Ethereum, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Akcie Newmontu v červnu klesly o 14,9 % kvůli poklesu ceny zlata, nižší produkci a vyšším nákladům. Firma zároveň v roce 2026 očekává produkci zhruba 5,3 milionu uncí a AISC 1 680 USD za unci.
Investors went from pricing in record cash flows for Newmont (NEM +4.01%) to panicking over cooling gold prices amid falling production and rising costs. This sudden shift in sentiment triggered a 14.9% drop in June in Newmont's share price, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence. That single bad month erased early momentum, leaving the gold stock up only 10% in the first half of 2026.
Is Newmont headed even lower, or is this a prime opportunity to buy one of the finest gold stocks on the dip?
Image source: Getty Images.
Why Newmont stock lost its luster After hitting an all-time high of $5,608.35 per ounce in January 2026, gold crashed into a bear market in June, tumbling more than 25% from record highs.
Despite stubbornly high inflation and the conflict in the Middle East, gold has fallen in recent weeks. Historically, these factors should have fueled a rally in gold since it is considered as the ultimate safe-haven asset during volatile times.
Instead, with annual inflation in May surpassing 4% for the first time since April 2023 and the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates intact, the guaranteed yield from U.S. Treasury bonds continued to win over investors. A restrictive monetary policy simply took the wind out of gold's sails.
As the world's largest gold producer, Newmont's earnings and cash are highly leveraged to the metal, meaning its stock inevitably plunged alongside spot prices.
Should you buy the gold stock before Q2 earnings? Ironically, the big June drop in Newmont stock follows record-breaking Q1, where Newmont reported all-time cash flows. It also doubled its share repurchase program, authorizing an additional $6 billion in buybacks, and announced a dividend raise.
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The problem is that management has also guided for a low production year, estimating attributable gold production to decline to roughly 5.3 million ounces in 2026 from 5.9 million ounces in 2025 due to planned mining sequences and lower ore grades at key sites.
Concurrently, Newmont's projected all-in-sustaining-costs (AISC) are expected to rise significantly to $1,680 per ounce this year from $1,358 an ounce in 2025.
When a gold miner's output falls, even if temporarily, and operating costs rise, its stock becomes hyper-sensitive to spot gold prices. The expected margin squeeze has prompted some investors to take profits ahead of Newmont's upcoming Q2 earnings report on July 23.
Newmont is exceptionally well-financed right now, having exited Q1 with a massive net cash position of $3.2 billion. So if you want exposure to gold, Newmont is a top gold stock to buy on dips.
Rocket Lab se dohodla na akvizici Iridium za zhruba 8 miliard USD v hotovosti a akciích. Získá tak vyšší marže, opakované tržby od více než 2,5 milionu zákazníků a vlastní satelitní síť.
Rocket Lab (RKLB +0.32%), a developer of reusable orbital rockets, recently agreed to acquire Iridium (IRDM 3.54%), a provider of satellite communications services, for approximately $8 billion. It expects to close the cash-and-stock deal by mid-2027.
Image source: Getty Images.
Rocket Lab generates most of its revenue from launch services for its Electron rockets (and upcoming Neutron rockets) and from the sale of satellite subsystems. These businesses are growing, but they're capital-intensive and operate at low margins. SpaceX's (SPCX +2.69%) upcoming Starship rocket could exacerbate that pressure by drastically reducing launch costs.
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By acquiring Iridium, Rocket Lab gains a higher-margin, cash-generating business with recurring revenue from more than 2.5 million subscribers. It also gains dozens of satellites, its own weather-resilient L-band spectrum, and Iridium's consumer-facing data network. That expansion could pave the way toward stable profits in the future.
Rocket Lab's improved scale and diversification will make it a more formidable competitor for SpaceX -- which launches its own rockets through its space division, supports internet satellite services through Starlink, and is trying to tie it all together with its nascent AI business. Rocket Lab is still a lot smaller than SpaceX. Still, it will become the only other company to control the entire stack -- the factory, the rocket, the spectrum, and orbital operations -- for the space economy.
Leo Sun has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Rocket Lab. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
AI roste i díky energii: Constellation Energy uzavřela 20leté smlouvy na dodávky elektřiny pro datová centra Microsoftu, Meta Platforms a CyrusOne. Její jaderné zdroje jsou připravené dodávat výkon hned.
Whether you use large language models like OpenAI's ChatGPT or you're familiar with artificial intelligence (AI) tools like Siri from Apple and Copilot from Microsoft -- or you lean on AI found in various apps and platforms to complete everyday tasks, you're likely well aware of how dominant AI has become in our daily lives.
Most investors familiar with the burgeoning field of AI will point to semiconductor companies as pivotal to the industry's growth.
But investors who only recognize semiconductor stocks as AI investment opportunities are missing out. In fact, there's another stock that's critical for AI growth.
Image source: Getty Images.
Semiconductor stalwarts often steal the spotlight It goes without saying that semiconductor specialist Nvidia attracts the attention of AI investors. The company's consistent innovation and development of chips -- specifically, graphics processing units (GPUs) -- used in data centers has played a vital role in the industry's accelerating growth.
Nvidia's not alone. Other semiconductor companies, such as Micron Technology, which designs memory and storage solutions, are also benefiting from the growth of the AI industry. The company's high-bandwidth memory products, for example, support faster inference and scaling of agentic AI workflows.
While these two companies receive the majority of attention, numerous companies are nipping at their heels. Investors may recognize some of these competitors, but one company is playing an equally -- if not more -- important role in the AI industry's growth, and it represents a different industry altogether.
AI is aiming for the stars with this energy company Data center operators may use extraordinarily advanced GPUs to provide the computing infrastructure for AI applications, but it means little if there's inadequate power to keep the chips humming. That's where Constellation Energy (CEG +1.26%) come in.
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AI computing demands significant amounts of power. To meet this demand, many data center operators are turning to nuclear energy companies, from advanced nuclear reactor companies to established nuclear energy leaders like Constellation Energy.
In 2024, Constellation Energy announced it plans to restart operations at Three Mile Island after signing a 20-year power purchase agreement with Microsoft, which will purchase energy from the nuclear plant to support its data centers in the region.
Building on its partnership with Microsoft, Constellation signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with Meta Platforms in June 2025 for nuclear power generated at the Clinton Clean Energy Center in Illinois. Operations at the nuclear facility are expected to resume in 2027, at which point Meta will use the power to support its AI data centers.
More recently, Constellation announced that its recently acquired unit, Calpine, signed a 380-megawatt (MW) agreement with CyrusOne, a leading global data center developer and operator, to connect and serve a new data center adjacent to the Freestone Energy Center, a natural gas power plant located in Texas. This complements a 400-MW power purchase agreement the two companies inked last year for a new data center CyrusOne is developing in Bosque County, Texas.
Constellation is benefiting now from AI power demand Advanced nuclear reactor companies have gained interest among AI companies, but they require regulatory approval before they can commence operations. Constellation, conversely, doesn't have to wait. Its nuclear assets are ready to provide much-needed power to data center operators right now, making Constellation stock an alluring option for AI-focused investors.
Scott Levine has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Apple, Constellation Energy, Meta Platforms, Micron Technology, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
PI za posledních 7 dní klesl asi o 9 % a patří k nejslabším z top 100 na CoinMarketCap. Tlak zvyšuje více než 127 milionů PI, které se mají odemknout během 30 dnů.
PI Posts Worst Weekly Return in CMC Top 100@PiCoreTeam's native token $PI has emerged as the weakest performer across CoinMarketCap's top-100 assets over the past seven days, shedding approximately 9% during the period. The decline extends a painful run for the token: Pi Network reached an all-time high of $2.99 and is now trading roughly 96% below that peak. The price has been testing key support near $0.12 amid heavy token unlocks.
A persistent supply overhang is a central concern. Over 127 million PI tokens are set to unlock within 30 days, creating significant sell-pressure risk, and technicals remain bearish with price below the 20-day, 50-day, 100-day, and 200-day EMAs. The backdrop is notable given that the @PiCoreTeam launched three new products on June 28 during its annual Pi2Day event. The launches, branded PiVerify, Pi Sign-in, and SoloHost, are intended to pivot the project toward AI and identity infrastructure. PiVerify opens the network's KYC system, used to verify over 18 million users, to external businesses that must pay for the service in PI tokens. Despite the product announcements, the token failed to find buying support, with price continuing to drift lower through the week.
JTO and CC Round Out the Weekly Laggards@jito_sol's $JTO and @CantonNetwork's $CC followed PI as the next worst performers on CMC's top-100 list over the same period. Jito is a liquid staking and maximum extractable value (MEV) protocol for the Solana network, designed to help decentralize Solana by spreading stake across the network. JTO serves as the governance token of the Jito protocol, putting decision-making in the hands of the community. The token faces its own structural headwinds: network stress events on Solana can weigh on sentiment and TVL across Solana DeFi, directly hurting Jito's fee income, while ongoing token unlocks continue to add sell-side pressure.
The broader picture reflects a difficult stretch for mid and large-cap altcoins, with token unlock schedules and weak demand compounding downside pressure across several projects in the top 100.
Sources
CoinMarketCap: Latest Pi Network Updates
CoinGecko: Pi Network (PI) Price and Market Data
CoinMarketCap: Jito (JTO) Price and Market Data
Nebius v červnu vzrostl o 19,5 % díky růstu kapacity pro AI cloud a zvýšenému výhledu na více než 4 GW. Firma zároveň míří na tržby přes 3 miliardy USD v roce 2026.
Growth for artificial intelligence (AI) cloud infrastructure company Nebius Group (NBIS 6.09%) has exploded over the last year, and investors have poured into the stock. A nearly 20% surge in shares in June reversed course in July, though, and investors should continue to expect volatility of this kind.
Nebius stock jumped 19.5% in June, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence. But it crashed nearly the same amount in the first trading week of July. Here's what investors need to know, and what they should expect ahead.
Image source: Nebius Group.
Building out capacity Investors have been attracted to Nebius stock in droves because of its spectacular growth rates. In its May earnings report, the company said it was again raising its guidance for contracted power capacity to support its data centers, which provide cloud computing infrastructure for AI model development and growth.
That guidance has soared since last August, from at least 1 gigawatt (GW) to over 4 GW. In May, Nebius said it has already secured as much as 1.2 GW of power and land for an AI factory at a new site in Pennsylvania.
Investors continued to boost Nebius stock when it announced it would also partner with fuel cell maker Bloom Energy to install additional power capacity for its data center build-out.
What to make of Nebius stock Revenue has grown stunningly alongside Nebius' data center expansion.
From sales of just $105 million in Q2 a year ago, the company reached an annual revenue run rate of $1.25 billion by the fourth quarter. That remarkable growth rate continues to accelerate. Management now anticipates exceeding $3 billion in revenue for 2026, concluding the year at a rate that could more than double once again in 2027.
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But the stock movement has also anticipated that growth, with shares rising more than 150% year to date and more than quadrupling over the last 12 months. It has reached a market cap of about $55 billion, which puts it at a lofty valuation even for its expected 2027 sales.
While demand is extremely strong, competitors like CoreWeave are also in the space. Any sign of a slowdown in spending for cloud capacity will likely hit shares of companies like Nebius and CoreWeave disproportionately compared to the tech sector as a whole.
That makes it a good candidate for investing over time. Long-term investors can purchase more as the stock corrects along the way. There's a good chance that better opportunities will come with the volatility.
Howard Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bloom Energy. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Konsorcium více než 140 organizací oznámilo spuštění stablecoinu Open USD, který chce partnerům nabídnout společné řízení a sdílení výnosů z rezerv. Zpráva stlačila akcie Circle Internet Group, vydavatele USDC, o 22 % během 48 hodin.
There's a new stablecoin in town that wants to shake up the industry. On June 30, a consortium of over 140 organizations announced the launch of Open USD, which has an enticing offer for partners. It proposes joint governance and sharing the interest it earns on its reserves with its partners, as well as free Open USD minting and redemptions.
Image source: Getty Images.
Circle Internet Group (CRCL +4.20%), which issues USD Coin, fell 22% over the 48 hours following the announcement, though it has since pared its losses.
So, is this another flash-in-the-pan token that will fall away like many stablecoin projects have? Or could it take market share from the two dominant players, USDC and Tether?
What is Open USD? The Open Standard consortium says it will launch Open USD, its dollar-pegged stablecoin, later this year. The list of major companies on board is impressive, including Visa (V +2.87%), Mastercard, BlackRock, Alphabet, Coinbase (COIN +3.92%), and more. Given that Coinbase was one of the original forces behind USDC and the crypto firm still shares part of Circle's revenue, its participation raised eyebrows.
Open USD's yield revenue-sharing promise also goes against the grain. By law, U.S. stablecoin firms must back each token they issue with readily accessible reserves, and they can earn interest on those reserves. Circle holds the majority of its assets in U.S. Treasuries, and its reserve yield accounted for $2.63 billion of its total $2.75 billion in revenue in 2025. Investors are worried that Open USD could challenge that stream.
Is the writing on the wall for Circle? Things can turn on a dime in the cryptocurrency and stablecoin markets, particularly because speculation often drives price action. However, the dramatic drop in Circle's stock following Open USD's announcement seems overblown for a stablecoin that hasn't even launched. Open Standard won't be able to replicate Circle's regulatory progress nor its payment network overnight, if at all.
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On a practical level, a consortium of 140 names is impressive, but getting buy-in on key decisions will be a challenge. I have enough trouble organizing an annual holiday with 10 friends -- if that feels like herding cats, I can only imagine the behind-the-scenes wrangling it will take to get those big banks, payment processors, crypto firms, and tech companies to bring Open USD to market.
Plus, neither Tether's dominance nor Circle's first-mover advantage in the U.S. will be easy to shake, as other high-profile stablecoin projects have discovered. Tether launched in 2014 and, despite being dogged by questions about how it handles its reserve funds, there are still $184 billion USDT in circulation -- almost 60% of the total. Circle's USDC ranks second at $73 billion, while the others barely register. For example, PayPal launched PayPal USD in 2023, and it has issued only $2.75 billion in tokens since then.
Can stablecoins achieve their potential? The bigger question is whether the stablecoin industry can really grow at the rate many predict. Issuance soared last year, but growth has slowed in 2026. The market could be worth trillions of dollars, but it depends on stablecoins becoming part of people's day-to-day money management. There's huge potential, but rewiring payment infrastructure takes time.
I am not buying the Circle dip, but that's got nothing to do with Open USD. I want to see how the stablecoin sector evolves, and right now, I think established players like Visa, which is embracing blockchain technology, or Chainlink (LINK +3.05%), the oracle crypto that provides essential data for on-chain and real-world operations, have more potential.
Emma Newbery has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, BlackRock, Chainlink, Mastercard, PayPal, and Visa. The Motley Fool recommends Coinbase Global and recommends the following options: short September 2026 $47.50 calls on PayPal. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Memecoin TRUMP přinesl Donaldu Trumpovi zisk 636 milionů USD, zatímco téměř 1 milion držitelů dohromady prodělal 3,81 miliardy USD. Podle Nansenu je 988 905 peněženek v minusu.
President Donald Trump’s memecoin has generated a reported $636 million payout for him while nearly 1 million buyers have collectively lost $3.81 billion, according to newly analyzed blockchain data and financial disclosures.
Summary
Nansen said nearly 989,000 TRUMP memecoin wallets lost a combined $3.81 billion by the end of June. Trump’s 2025 financial disclosure reported a $636 million payout from the TRUMP memecoin and at least $1.4 billion in crypto-related income. The disclosure has renewed political scrutiny, with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand pushing for stricter ethics rules in pending crypto legislation. According to a report by The New York Times, citing blockchain analytics firm Nansen, 988,905 wallets that bought the Official Trump (TRUMP) memecoin had recorded cumulative losses of $3.81 billion through the end of June. Nansen said the figure includes both realized losses and paper losses held by investors who have not yet sold their tokens.
The analysis followed the release of Trump’s 2025 financial disclosure, which showed he received a $636 million payout tied to the TRUMP memecoin. The filing also disclosed at least $1.4 billion in crypto-related income during the reporting period, largely connected to licensing agreements linked to the memecoin and token sales by Trump-backed World Liberty Financial (WLFI).
Unlike retail buyers, Trump benefited from trading activity regardless of whether the token price rose or fell because the venture generated revenue from transactions, The New York Times reported. During the token’s launch, Trump repeatedly promoted the memecoin on Truth Social, encouraging supporters to purchase it.
Three days before his January inauguration, Trump introduced the TRUMP memecoin, describing it on social media as a way for supporters to join his community. Since then, the token has fallen sharply from its peak. Nansen said the memecoin traded at about $1.76 on Friday, roughly 97% below its all-time high of $75.35.
Retail investors absorbed most of the losses According to Nansen, roughly two out of every three wallets that purchased the TRUMP token have lost money. The firm also found that fewer than 500,000 wallets generated about $4 billion in combined profits, with gains concentrated among a relatively small group of early participants who entered before the price surged.
The report said automated traders and experienced crypto investors typically capitalize on the rapid price swings common in memecoins by buying early and selling into retail demand. Nansen concluded that most profits were captured by this smaller group, while later buyers accounted for the majority of losses.
One investor interviewed by The New York Times, Nicholas Pinto, said he invested roughly $500,000 in the TRUMP token after supporting Trump in the 2024 election and estimated he had lost about half of that investment. Pinto argued that Trump’s public position encouraged confidence among buyers and described the project as “almost a legal scam.”
Responding to criticism, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told The New York Times that Trump had made the United States the “crypto capital of the world” and said his actions were taken in the interests of the American people.
Crypto earnings continue to draw political scrutiny In a recent CNBC interview, Trump said he was unaware that his crypto ventures had generated at least $1.4 billion, adding that he could know the exact amount if he wanted to and insisting there was nothing improper about earning money from digital assets. He also said he had no plans to distance himself or his family from their crypto businesses.
World Liberty Financial has also faced losses among investors. According to Nansen, 85% of the 26,663 WLFI wallets it tracked were underwater, recording combined losses of about $83 million compared with roughly $23 million in profits. The firm noted that the actual losses are likely much larger because many secondary-market transactions on exchanges cannot be traced publicly.
The financial disclosure has also intensified political debate in Washington. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand recently renewed her call for ethics rules that would prohibit government officials and their spouses from creating or promoting crypto memecoins while Congress considers the CLARITY Act.
According to Gillibrand, Senate negotiations are also examining stablecoin yields, anti-money laundering safeguards, and ethics provisions before lawmakers move the legislation forward.
Spotové bitcoinové ETF v USA zaznamenaly za dva týdny odliv ve výši přes 2 miliardy USD, přičemž nejvíce utrpěl BlackRock IBIT s 1,3 miliardy USD za jediný týden. I tak zůstávají ETF v čistém součtu silně v plusu.
US spot Bitcoin ETFs hemorrhaged more than $2 billion in net outflows across a two-week stretch in late May and early June, part of a broader 13-day redemption streak that ultimately drained approximately $4.4 billion from the products.
BlackRock’s IBIT, the largest spot Bitcoin ETF by assets, was the primary source of the bleeding. The fund saw $1.3 billion in outflows in a single week, with multiple individual trading days exceeding $500 million in redemptions.
What triggered the exodus The outflows didn’t happen in a vacuum. Bitcoin’s price declined from early-year highs above $80,000 to a range between $60,000 and $73,500 during the same period.
Analytics firms including SoSoValue, CoinShares, and Glassnode tracked the selling in real time. The consensus explanation involves a cocktail of factors: shifting market sentiment, geopolitical tensions, rising Treasury yields, and recalibrated expectations around interest rate cuts.
Post-rally profit-taking played a role too. Bitcoin had a strong run earlier in the year, and a portion of the selling likely reflects investors simply locking in gains rather than making a broader bearish call on the asset class.
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Ethereum ETFs weren’t spared either. Those products faced their own extended outflow period, though Bitcoin funds dominated the overall redemption numbers by a wide margin.
Context matters more than the headline number Total assets under management across spot Bitcoin ETFs sat near $100 billion to $103 billion before the May pullback began. That means the two-week outflow represented roughly 2% of total AUM. The broader 13-day streak, at $4.4 billion, still only accounted for about 4% to 4.5% of the total pie.
Bloomberg Intelligence analysts made a similar observation. With nearly $100 billion still parked in these products, the vast majority of investors held firm. The outflows, in their view, amounted to constrained noise rather than a structural shift in demand.
Cumulative inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs since their January 2024 launch had reached approximately $58 billion by April 2026. Even after the May-June selling, the products remained firmly in net-positive territory on a lifetime basis.
Signs of a floor emerging By early July, the selling pressure showed signs of exhaustion. After ten consecutive days of outflows, Bitcoin ETFs recorded a modest net inflow of roughly $221 million to $222 million.
What this means for investors The outflow episode highlights a tension that will define Bitcoin ETFs going forward. These products make it extraordinarily easy to buy Bitcoin exposure. They also make it extraordinarily easy to sell.
Traditional Bitcoin holders who custody their own assets face friction when selling: transfers, exchange deposits, withdrawal limits. ETF holders can redeem with a single click during market hours. That convenience cuts both ways, and it means ETF flow data will increasingly serve as a real-time sentiment gauge for institutional Bitcoin appetite.
The competitive landscape among ETF issuers also matters here. BlackRock’s IBIT bore the brunt of the outflows in part because it holds the most assets. When large institutional investors rebalance or de-risk, they sell what they own the most of.
For investors watching from the sidelines, the key metric to track isn’t any single day’s flow number. It’s the cumulative inflow trend over rolling three-month and six-month windows. At $58 billion in lifetime inflows, the structural bull case for Bitcoin ETF demand has significant cushion.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Iran just turned one of the world’s most important shipping chokepoints into a geopolitical loyalty program. And it takes Bitcoin.
Iran’s ambassador to China, Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, announced during the World Peace Forum in Beijing on July 4 that China and other allied nations will receive reduced transit fees for navigating the Strait of Hormuz. The waterway has become what Tehran now classifies as a matter of “national security” following a four-month conflict involving the United States and Israel.
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The toll booth at the center of global trade Tehran is reportedly considering imposing tolls on vessels traversing the strait, with fees rumored to reach up to $2 million per ship. Iran has signaled it will accept payments in Bitcoin and USDT, the Tether stablecoin. The fee reductions for China and allied nations function as a tiered pricing system. Iran plans to collaborate with Oman to ensure smooth transit operations under the new arrangement.
Why crypto fits Iran’s playbook Iran has operated under heavy US and international sanctions for years, which severely restrict its access to the traditional banking system. Bitcoin and USDT allow value transfer without relying on intermediary banks that might freeze or flag transactions. Stablecoins like USDT offer dollar-equivalent value without actually touching the US banking system.
Earlier in 2026, Tehran allowed selective transit of Chinese vessels through the strait during a period of broader blockades, illustrating the deepening bilateral relationship between the two countries. Iran has also been mining Bitcoin domestically for years, using its subsidized energy to power mining operations.
What this means for crypto investors No significant price movements in either Bitcoin or USDT were reported in direct response to the announcement.
The risk side is equally important. US regulators and Treasury officials have been cracking down on sanctions evasion through crypto. Tether, which has previously cooperated with law enforcement to freeze wallets, could find itself in an uncomfortable position between compliance and its largest growth markets.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Litecoin has once again entered the spotlight, but this time, it is not a dramatic price surge capturing attention. Instead, the regulatory landscape is at center stage. The Litecoin Foundation announced that Litecoin is now officially compliant with the European Union’s Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulation. As the EU rolls out its comprehensive crypto asset framework, this move could strengthen Litecoin’s standing within regulated markets.
MiCA compliance takes priority over price actionAccording to the Litecoin Foundation, Litecoin is now recognized under a legitimate legal framework in the EU and meets MiCA’s requirements. The Foundation, established in 2017, is recognized as a core supporter of the Litecoin ecosystem’s development.
Glossary: MiCA is the EU’s unified regulatory framework for crypto asset issuers and service providers. Its aim is to standardize rules across member states while strengthening investor protection.
The Litecoin Foundation characterized this step as a significant signal of credibility, stronger consumer protection, and increased regulatory clarity.
Despite the major regulatory milestone, market reaction remained muted. At the time the announcement was published, Litecoin was trading at $42.56, marking a 0.35% decline over the past 24 hours. While the news sparked community interest, there was no noticeable upward momentum in the price.
A look at technical charts shows Litecoin consolidating around the $42 range. The cryptocurrency is struggling to push past resistance at $45.12, as investors remain cautious amid broader market conditions. For now, the news alone has not triggered a decisive shift in price action.
Key technical levels shape the outlookFollowing a sharp drop in June, Litecoin’s daily chart reveals a sideways trend. Technical indicators such as On Balance Volume have begun turning upward after recent lows, signaling a possible easing of selling pressure. This suggests a gradual return of buyer appetite could be on the horizon.
Yet, the technical picture has not produced a clear breakout. If Litecoin’s price can surpass and hold above $45.12, a recovery toward higher resistance levels becomes more likely. On the other hand, a dip below the $42 support zone, especially alongside negative overall sentiment, could spark renewed selling pressure.
Derivatives and on chain data confirm cautionMarket analytics reveal that investors have not rushed to reprice Litecoin following the regulatory news; instead, most are maintaining existing positions. According to data from Coinglass, the total open interest in Litecoin futures has remained flat at around $290 million, indicating that new leveraged bets have not entered the market.
IndicatorLevelInterpretationPrice$42.56Trading in a narrow rangeResistance$45.12Critical upside thresholdSupport$42Key level to monitor on the downsideOpen InterestAround $290 millionLimited appetite for new riskLiquidation data from the past 24 hours also reveals no clear dominance between buyers and sellers. DefiLlama figures show active address counts have stayed close to recent averages, suggesting that user engagement on the network remains steady even as prices trade sideways.
Overall, market indicators highlight that investors in Litecoin are seeking stronger confirmation signals before making major moves.
Greater regulatory clarity could support Litecoin’s long term outlook. Still, for any short term price direction to emerge, investors are likely waiting for higher trading volumes and a convincing move above key resistance levels.
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.
Americké spotové $XRP ETF zaznamenaly už devátý týden po sobě čisté přílivy, tentokrát 17,19 mil. USD. Kumulativně od listopadu 2025 přiteklo přes 1,47 mld. USD.
Nine Consecutive Weeks of Net InflowsUS spot $XRP ETFs have logged another week of positive flows, absorbing $17.19M in net inflows over the period according to SoSoValue data cited by @BSCNews. The result extends the streak to nine consecutive weeks of net inflows, a run that has played out even as the broader token price has faced headwinds.
Notably, the weekly total held up despite two individual days of net outflows within the same period, pointing to resilient baseline demand from investors using the ETF wrapper to gain exposure to $XRP.
Context: A Persistent Inflow Trend XRP spot ETFs have drawn net inflows for several straight weeks, pushing the cumulative total past $1.47 billion since their November 2025 launch. The products launched to strong early demand, and the inflow run has continued even through periods of price weakness for the underlying token.
Spot XRP ETFs absorbed net inflows for consecutive weeks while the token fell, which is the opposite of the reflexive "price up, flows up" loop that usually drives these products. Consecutive weekly inflows during a price drawdown point to accumulation rather than momentum chasing, since allocators are adding on weakness instead of buying strength.
The five US-listed spot XRP ETFs have seen Franklin Templeton's XRPZ, Bitwise's XRP, and Grayscale's GXRP among the leading contributors to inflows in recent weeks, according to SoSoValue data. Retail investors account for 84% of XRP ETF inflows, while larger institutional capital remains a key variable to watch.
The latest weekly figure of $17.19M is modest relative to the peak weeks earlier in 2026. XRP ETFs posted a 2026 weekly record of $60.5 million in inflows during the week ending May 15, even as Bitcoin and Ethereum saw significant outflows in the same period. The current pace is more measured, but the unbroken streak of positive weekly flows remains the headline for the asset class.
Sources:
XRP's ETF Inflow Streak: 24/7 Wall St.
Spot XRP ETFs Attract Biggest Inflows Since January: CoinDesk
Will XRP Break Its Downtrend in July 2026: Phemex
Australská poslankyně Sally Sitou v parlamentním registru uvedla jako jediný kryptoměnový majetek XRP u CoinSpot. XRP se tak dostalo do oficiálních finančních záznamů australského parlamentu.
XRP has made its way into Australia’s financial parliamentary record. In the Australian Parliament’s Register of Members’ Interests, Labor MP Sally Sitou indicated her only cryptocurrency holding is XRP with local exchange CoinSpot.
Australian MP Lists XRP The filing identifies the digital currency as “Cryptocurrency (Ripple).” No Bitcoin and no Ether. Only XRP, included in the financial records of one of the world’s 15 largest economies.
The filing also shows that Sitou has physical gold through ABC Bullion and holds a wide-ranging portfolio of Australian and U.S. equities like the Commonwealth Bank, BHP, Meta Platforms and Costco. XRP is currently the sole listed digital asset.
Australian MP XRP Filing This disclosure sits inside a broader shift in how Australia treats crypto. The country’s Digital Assets Framework Bill Passed Parliament in April 2026, requiring exchanges and tokenized custody providers to obtain an Australian Financial Services License. Ripple is already pursuing that license, an early sign of its intent to entrench itself in the country’s regulated market.
Australia’s approach to regulation has changed significantly. In under a year, the nation moved from years of legislative silence to a well-organized licensing system for crypto firms.
The shift provides Ripple, the company behind XRP, an obligation as well as an opportunity. The moved has drawn wide attention on X, citing a continuation in adoption.
🚨🇦🇺 AUSTRALIA MAKES XRP OFFICIAL 🇦🇺🚨
Australia has officially disclosed XRP holdings in a Member of Parliament’s Register of Interests.
XRP is now publicly listed as part of a lawmaker’s financial assets in one of the world’s largest economies.
Adoption continues. 👀 pic.twitter.com/gJmALhkHYE
— John Squire 🇺🇸 (@TheCryptoSquire) July 4, 2026
White House Official’s XRP Filing & XRP’s Track Record Sitou’s revelation was not the only one capturing attention. Ian Kelley, who serves as the War Room Director at the White House and is also a Special Assistant to the President, reported XRP in a public financial filing after his appointment in January 2025.
His filing places the holding in a Coinbase wallet, valued between $1,001 and $15,000. Unlike Sitou, Kelley holds a broader crypto portfolio, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Chainlink, and Cardano all appear alongside XRP.
Each asset in Kelley’s portfolio falls within the same $1,001 to $15,000 disclosure range. Neither filing reveals the exact number of tokens held. But both put XRP on the record in two separate governments on two separate continents.
Political financial disclosures carry weight. They are sworn documents. When a lawmaker or White House official lists an asset, it signals more than personal preference, it normalizes that asset within the official financial order.
For XRP, appearing in two such filings in a single week adds to a growing pattern of political legitimacy. The company’s pursuit of an Australian Financial Services License shows it is tracking the regulatory door as it opens.
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Ethereum vzrostlo o více než 6 % na zhruba 1 715 USD, podpořené přílivem 29,08 milionu USD do spotových ETF. Na měsíčním grafu se navíc objevil vzácný buy signál TD Sequential.
Ethereum surged above $1,700 on July 3, trading close to $1,715 after a rise of more than 6% in the past 24 hours. The move marked a notable recovery from recent downward pressure and brought the cryptocurrency back into the spotlight at a closely watched technical level.
Spot ETF inflows and a critical price thresholdAlongside Ethereum’s climb, US spot Ethereum ETFs saw a sharp uptick in inflows. Data from SoSoValue showed a total net inflow of $29.08 million into these ETFs on July 2. BlackRock’s ETHA fund accounted for the bulk of this movement with $29.74 million in net inflows, while Grayscale’s ETHE fund recorded $2.75 million in net outflows on the same day.
Market analyst Daan Crypto Trades noted that Ethereum jumped 10% on a weekly basis, retesting the $1,750 level that marked the February lows. According to the analyst, holding above this level signals a strengthening price structure and points to a key technical threshold for the asset.
Daan Crypto Trades highlighted that reclaiming the $1,750 zone could be seen as a sign of strength, though he indicated he would keep watching the price action around resistance as the close approached.
Rare technical indicator flashes buy signalA TD Sequential buy signal also appeared on Ethereum’s monthly chart, grabbing market attention due to its infrequency. Technical analyst Ali Charts commented that this signal, while rare, could mean sellers are becoming exhausted on longer time frames.
Mini glossary: The TD Sequential is a technical indicator developed by Tom DeMark, designed to identify points where a market trend may be weakening and potential reversal zones may emerge. It does not, however, confirm a trend reversal on its own.
Historical data shows that previous monthly TD Sequential buy signals have preceded rallies of 235% in 2022 and 182% in 2025. However, analysts caution that a single signal does not guarantee the start of a new uptrend.
Ali Charts emphasized that July began with a strong technical signal for Ethereum, with the market now closely monitoring the TD Sequential buy setup on the monthly chart.
Technical indicators and on-chain market flowsOn the technical side, Ethereum’s MACD histogram entered positive territory at 19.33, with the MACD line moving above the signal line. Despite these moves, both indicators remained below the zero line. The RSI climbed to approximately 51.85, rising above both its moving average and the neutral 50 threshold.
The price recovered from a double-bottom formation around $1,565. In the near term, the first resistance level for Ethereum lies at $1,800, followed by a significant barrier at $2,000. The liquidity concentration between $1,740 and $1,750 is also drawing attention for short-term price action.
In derivatives markets, open interest surged 10.64% to $24.54 billion. Trading volume rose 14.48% to $44.74 billion. Funding rates spiked 113.86%, suggesting a notable increase in leveraged long positions.
On-chain analyst Darkfost from CryptoQuant observed that ETH withdrawals from Binance hit their highest level in three years, exceeding 166,000 in just 24 hours. In contrast, PelinayPA noted that Binance’s net flow stood at a positive 12,938 ETH, meaning more ETH was deposited than withdrawn. On the institutional side, BitMine added 27,084 ETH to surpass a total holding of 5.7 million ETH, while SharpLink acquired 10,000 ETH valued at $16.1 million during the recent drop.
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.
