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Lido, the liquid staking protocol behind LDO, has begun its largest-ever upgrade, migrating around 8 million ETH worth about $16.5 billion into a new validator structure, CoinDesk reported. The upgrade applies the new validator structure introduced in Ethereum's Pectra upgrade last year and aims to reduce the total number of Ethereum validators by about one-third, easing the burden on the consensus layer. Lido is also shifting professional node operators to its curated module v2, or CMv2. As a result, node operators will be required to post a set amount of ETH as collateral for the first time since Lido launched, and a penalty mechanism will be introduced for weak operating performance.

The Clarity Act, a U.S. crypto market structure bill, is expected to face its first procedural vote in the Senate before Congress begins its recess on Aug. 7, Punchbowl reporter Brendan Pedersen said on X. Pedersen added that political discussions around the bill would continue this week.

Chicago-based derivatives exchange and clearinghouse Bitnomial will offer Tron (TRX) futures trading to eligible individual and institutional investors in the U.S., Cointelegraph said on X. Bitnomial was previously acquired by Payward, Kraken’s parent company.

Michael Saylor, founder of Strategy, said on X he plans to maintain regular, disciplined purchases of preferred stock STRC when it trades below $100. He said he would increase purchases as the discount to STRC’s $100 price widens and reduce them as the stock moves closer to $100, adding that $975 million of buying capacity remains. Strategy previously said it bought 288,930 shares of STRC last week for $25 million at an average price of $86.52 per share.

According to crypto analysis account EmberCN on social media, Strategy increased its cash holdings to $3.75 billion through stock sales last week, giving it enough liquidity to cover interest costs for the next 25 months. Strategy, which currently holds 843,775 BTC, is sitting on an unrealized loss of $8.85 billion, or about 13.8%.

The three major U.S. stock indices opened higher today. - S&P 500: +0.77% - Nasdaq: +0.86% - Dow Jones: +1.09%

Anthony Scaramucci, former White House communications director and founder of SkyBridge Capital, said Democrats would do everything possible to block the CLARITY Act because President Donald Trump is pushing it, and put the bill’s chances of passage at around 40%. Scaramucci added that if Democrats return to power, a Gary Gensler-style approach of tougher regulation would reemerge and have a very serious negative impact on the digital asset industry. He also argued Democrats were prioritizing party interests over national interests in trying to derail the bill.

Citigroup short-term interest-rate traders expect the Federal Reserve to leave its benchmark rate unchanged this week. However, the interest-rate swaps market is pricing in more than a 33% chance of a 25-basis-point increase.

UK fintech firm Revolut has been strategically expanding its presence in the cryptocurrency sector and boosting brand awareness by sponsoring prominent influencers on platforms such as YouTube, BlockBeats reported. According to screenshots shared by trader CBB, Revolut has been recruiting digital-asset content creators in the European Economic Area to join its creator program and explore promotional partnerships. Some market participants said Revolut has moved aggressively into crypto in recent years, with some YouTubers receiving long-term commercial backing from the company and treating it as one of their main revenue sources. No official data has been disclosed on the specific size or scope of those partnerships. Founded in 2015, Revolut is a UK fintech company that has continued to expand related businesses including cryptocurrency trading and digital-asset services in recent years.

Wall Street traders’ practice of taking a weekend break is being disrupted by the 24-hour digital asset market, CoinDesk reported. Traders had traditionally cut positions and stopped trading by Friday afternoon to avoid weekend risk, but decentralized exchanges such as Hyperliquid now offer 24-hour perpetual futures that let them hedge commodity risks such as crude oil over the weekend. Large institutions remain limited by thin liquidity and the lack of weekend bank settlement systems, according to the outlet. Even so, traders are using weekend crypto price moves to gauge the likely direction of Monday’s market open, while CME is also pushing to introduce 24-hour futures trading. CoinDesk said crypto-driven innovation is reshaping the traditional finance assumption that markets rest on weekends.

Google Play Store has resumed support for OKX app downloads, according to the community. The OKX app had not appeared in Play Store search results since July 24.

Cryptocurrency treasury firms including DAT are increasingly pivoting to artificial intelligence businesses to offset weak stock performance, but investor interest remains muted, Bloomberg reported. Many of the companies are abandoning their existing business models and moving into AI infrastructure such as data centers as sharp declines in crypto prices have pushed their share prices below the net asset value of their holdings. Since those business shifts, K Wave Media shares have fallen 71%, while Lixte Biotechnology and Alphatone Capital have each dropped 33% after announcing AI pivots. Bloomberg contrasted that with data center-related companies, which have ranked among the top performers in the S&P 500 this year amid large-scale investment from Alphabet, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic. Industry observers expect more companies to shift into AI-adjacent sectors, while some also view the crypto treasury business model as effectively having reached the end of its life.

Bitmine (BMNR) said it bought an additional 9,946 ETH over the past week. The company added that it is staking 4,917,189 ETH, or about 85% of its total ETH holdings, and estimated its annualized staking yield at $254 million. Bitmine said it holds 5,787,414 ETH, or 4.8% of supply, along with 208 BTC, a $180 million stake in Beast Industries, a $61 million stake in 8co Holdings, and $268 million in cash and marketable securities.

Pakistan’s central bank has conducted an internal pilot program for a central bank digital currency, CGTN reported.

Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, said it acquired IBM’s blockchain patent portfolio. The deal covers about 680 patent families and more than 1,000 assets globally, spanning foundational blockchain technology, financial and enterprise infrastructure, and security technology. With the acquisition, Circle became the largest holder of blockchain patents in the U.S. Circle shares rose nearly 3% in premarket trading following the news.

Tether announced that its gold-backed digital asset XAUT has received Shariah compliance certification from Amanah Advisors. The certification recognizes XAUT as an asset aligned with Islamic finance principles, opening potential use cases across Islamic finance for digital gold products, long-term wealth preservation and trade finance collateral. XAUT tokenizes ownership of physical gold stored in Swiss vaults and is structured around underlying bullion while excluding interest, leverage and speculative derivatives.

Strive said it bought an additional 79 BTC worth about $5.2 million. The company currently holds a total of 20,000 BTC.

Strategy said it made no BTC purchases or sales last week.

Bitcoin options traders have sharply reduced downside hedges ahead of the Federal Reserve’s rate decision at the end of July, CoinDesk reported. According to Glassnode, the put-to-call open interest ratio fell to 0.52 from 0.76 in late June, indicating a heavier weighting toward call options tied to bullish expectations. Large traders have been actively accumulating $70,000 call options. The one-week 25-delta skew has dropped to around 4%, lowering the cost of short-term downside protection, while three- to six-month skews remain at 11% to 12%, indicating continued hedging against longer-term uncertainty. One-week implied volatility, at 34.3%, stands below the six-month tenor’s 40.8%, suggesting the market expects a relatively calm Fed announcement. Even so, analysts noted volatility could rise sharply if the Fed’s policy decision deviates from expectations, as defensive positioning has thinned.

Two newly created wallets withdrew 6,765 BTC worth $441 million from Binance about 40 minutes ago, suggesting a purchase, according to Lookonchain monitoring.

Hyperliquid is set to unstake 6.93 million HYPE over the next seven days, worth about $415.2 million, according to Onchain Lens. The unstaking volume scheduled for July 30 is projected to reach 3.3 million HYPE, or about $197.53 million, which would mark the largest daily amount on record.

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs posted net inflows for a third straight week for the first time since early May, but institutional demand still has not matched bull-market levels, CoinDesk reported. According to SoSoValue data, net inflows totaled $33.79 million last week, though about $225.2 million and $240.1 million flowed out on July 23 and July 24, respectively, leaving weekly inflows well below the prior two weeks' totals of $197 million and $75.67 million. Crypto analytics firm BRN assessed that the market has recovered in July after large net outflows in May and June, but institutional investors remain cautious.

Zcash plans to activate the Ironwood network upgrade at block height 3,428,143 on July 28. The upgrade will introduce a new shielded pool with quantum-recoverable notes and a turnstile mechanism designed to strengthen ZEC supply verification following concerns over a forgery vulnerability in the existing Orchard pool.

Prince Group founder Chen Zhi, 38, who was identified as a key figure behind large-scale online scam compounds in Cambodia, has been formally arrested about six months after being extradited to China, JoongAng Ilbo reported. China’s Ministry of Public Security said it worked with Cambodian authorities in Phnom Penh on Jan. 7 to extradite Chen to China, where Chen now faces allegations including fraud, operating illegal gambling venues and illegal business operations. Separately, U.S. prosecutors indicted Chen last year on charges including conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering, and seized about $15 billion worth of Bitcoin, or roughly 22.8 trillion won, during the investigation.

EPIK founder Mando said he personally bought back 350 million of the project’s 1 billion total token supply and burned 150 million tokens. Mando added that 8.1 million tokens were deposited into the liquidity pool. Mando also said claims that Mando received 50% of the tokens through an airdrop were false, stressing that Mando had personally purchased tokens worth millions of dollars over the past three years.