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Initial jobless claims in the U.S. came in at 187,000 last week, below the estimate of 211,000. Weekly jobless claims are one indicator the Fed uses to gauge the labor market when setting interest rates. A reading above estimates can signal rising layoffs and a cooling labor market, which can support the case for a Fed rate cut. A lower-than-expected reading can signal labor-market resilience, giving the Fed room to keep rates unchanged or raise them while staying focused on curbing inflation.

Notabene, a provider of compliance-focused onchain transaction services, announced it has secured a strategic investment from Ripple. The investment amount was not disclosed. Notabene plans to integrate Ripple’s stablecoin RLUSD into its B2B payments platform, Notabene Flow. The platform serves more than 2,000 financial institutions and processes more than $2 trillion in annual network transaction volume. The two companies also plan to work together to expand RLUSD use.

The European Central Bank held its key interest rate at 2.25%, as expected.

Strategy (MSTR) announced the launch of the Bitcoin Security Consortium with institutions including BlackRock, Coinbase and Fidelity. The consortium plans to provide $15 million in funding over three years directly to selected individuals or organizations to prepare for threats from quantum computing. Strategy said the consortium will not directly control BTC protocol development or dictate its direction, and instead is intended to serve as an independent sponsoring body that provides investors with security-related information.

KaitoAI, an AI-based Web3 information platform, announced it has signed a data supply agreement, or

Coinbase (COIN) is partnering with Mubadala Capital, part of Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, and tokenization infrastructure firm KAIO to issue an on-chain token based on Mubadala’s evergreen private equity fund for qualified investors, Fortune reported. The token will be issued on the Base, Sui and Solana networks and has raised $75 million so far. Coinbase plans to buy the token directly and reflect it on its balance sheet. This marks the first time a U.S.-listed company has added a compliance-focused tokenized real-world asset to its financial statements.

Stablecoin issuer Mandela Digital said it has raised a $5 million investment, with DataVaultAI participating in the funding round. The company said the proceeds will be used to launch its in-house dollar-pegged stablecoin, Mandela Dollar (MUSD), and to build related infrastructure, integrate with exchanges, secure liquidity, and support marketing efforts.

Blockchain security firm CertiK said losses from wrench attacks, or physical violence and extortion targeting cryptocurrency holders, reached $124.1 million this year. That was up 12-fold from $10.5 million a year earlier, while the number of cases rose 33.3% to 52 from 39. CertiK said 75% of all wrench attack incidents occurred in Europe, with France recording the most cases.

Vanar Chain said on its official X account it will migrate to the Base network. It said VANRY’s role will shift from supporting existing blockchain infrastructure to coordinating and incentivizing an AI ecosystem. VANRY’s supply will also increase to 10 billion from 2.4 billion, with 62% of the total initially locked up and newly allocated tokens set to unlock steadily over five years.

Citigroup said it cut its price target for Coinbase (COIN) to $235 per share from $400.

BTC has posted relative strength for a second straight week, holding up better than U.S. and European equities despite a negative backdrop from a recent surge in international oil prices tied to geopolitical risks involving Iran, on-chain analytics firm Glassnode said in a report. Glassnode said the price gain despite adverse factors suggests market selling pressure has largely been absorbed. The firm added the macroeconomic backdrop also appears to be improving, with U.S. inflation slowing for the first time in five months. Ahead of next week's Federal Open Market Committee meeting, benchmark interest rates still remain restrictive at more than one percentage point above core inflation, Glassnode said. If the Federal Reserve signals the possibility of rate cuts, that could create a favorable macro environment for Bitcoin, it added.

South Korean exchange Bithumb announced it will temporarily suspend deposits and withdrawals of PROS at 3:00 a.m. UTC on July 26 to support the Pharos network upgrade.

EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas said the bloc had imposed sanctions on more than 100 banks and cryptocurrency operators, more than 40 shadow fleet vessels, and multiple refining facilities in Russia and Belarus.

A hacker who stole $285 million worth of cryptocurrencies in an April hack of Solana-based decentralized perpetual futures exchange Drift (DRIFT) laundered 24,400 ETH worth $47 million through crypto mixing protocol Tornado Cash over the past two hours, EmberCN reported.

Crypto intellectual property developer Unserious said on its official X account it has acquired Creepz, although it did not disclose the size of the deal. Unserious has previously led projects including ApeCoin (APE), and said the team now includes well-known NFT artist Psychrome and the team behind the ApeCoin launch, who are set to lead the ecosystem for the upcoming CREEPZ token.

UK-based web developer Smarter Web Company (SWC) sold 177.9 BTC at an average price of $65,762 and repaid an $11.7 million debt to digital asset manager TOBAM two weeks ahead of schedule, The Block reported. The early repayment canceled a planned issuance of 7,718,551 new shares.

Robinhood Chain’s stock token assets have surpassed $20 million, on-chain analyst Tom Wan said on X. By asset type, stocks accounted for the largest share at 86%, followed by ETFs at 6%, commodities at 4.6%, and U.S. Treasuries at 3%. A total of four assets had more than $1 million in holdings: Nvidia (NVDA) at $3.3 million, SpaceX (SPCX) at $1.6 million, Tesla (TSLA) at $1.5 million, and Micron (MU) at $1 million.

XRP may have room to rise about 16% from its current price of $1.13 to $1.32 after completing an inverse head-and-shoulders pattern on the daily chart, according to an analysis by The Crypto Basic. The outlet said XRP formed a low at $1.05 on July 13, then rebounded about 8% to build the bullish pattern. It added that XRP broke above a downtrend line that had persisted since May on July 21. As long as support around $1.09 holds, the inverse head-and-shoulders pattern remains valid, with a target price of $1.32.

If BTC rises above $66,738, about $530.89 million in short positions could be liquidated across major centralized exchanges, according to CoinGlass data. If BTC falls below $65,289, about $133.03 million in long positions could be liquidated.

Kakao Pay Securities is pushing an investment plan using stock tokenization to improve U.S. retail investors’ access to South Korean equities, Edaily reported. In partnership with U.S. financial firm Siebert Financial, the company plans to tokenize South Korean stocks so U.S. retail investors can invest in them around the clock.

BitMEX said it will shut down exchange operations at 4:00 a.m. UTC on Sept. 23 after a strategic review of its business and the cryptocurrency industry. The exchange said new account registrations were suspended immediately, and users must close positions and withdraw assets before the shutdown. Starting at 4:00 a.m. UTC on Aug. 26, users will no longer be able to open new positions and will only be allowed to reduce existing ones. Any open positions remaining before the shutdown will be forcibly liquidated by the time operations end, and positions still on the books at the cutoff will be liquidated immediately, BitMEX said. After the shutdown, users will still be able to log in, check balances and withdraw assets, but trading services will no longer be available. BitMEX added that if users who have completed KYC leave assets in their accounts after the shutdown, an account fee equal to $50 per month or 1% annually, whichever is greater, will apply. Founded in 2014, BitMEX is a first-generation derivatives exchange. Its founders are Arthur Hayes, Ben Delo and Samuel Reed. Since 2020, the company has faced pressure including lawsuits from the U.S. Department of Justice and the CFTC. After losing its lead in the derivatives market to later entrants including Binance, Bybit and OKX after 2014, BitMEX pursued a sale, but no deal was completed.

London Stock Exchange-listed Smarter Web Company (SWC) announced it sold 177.89 BTC worth $11.69 million. The proceeds were used to repay debt to asset manager TOBAM, reducing the company’s holdings to 2,700 BTC.

The hacker who stole about $285 million in crypto assets from Solana-based decentralized perpetual futures exchange Drift in April has started moving the funds again after about three months, according to Onchain Lens. The wallet has been depositing 100 ETH at a time into the Tornado Cash router multiple times per minute. The hacker had earlier sold the stolen assets, moved the proceeds to the Ethereum blockchain and swapped them into about 129,000 ETH. Tornado Cash is an Ethereum-based mixing protocol designed to obscure crypto deposit and withdrawal records, making it difficult to trace transaction histories between senders and recipients.

Mirae Asset Group, which owns cryptocurrency exchange Korbit, has unveiled plans to rename Korbit as Digital X and lead a new investment paradigm centered on the convergence of traditional finance and digital assets. Mirae Asset plans to officially change the name after completing procedures including a Korbit shareholders’ meeting, Maeil Business Newspaper reported.

South Korean crypto exchange Coinone has completed the Financial Intelligence Unit’s acceptance of its filing on a change in largest shareholders, finalizing the shareholder entry process for Korea Investment & Securities and OKX Ventures, Yonhap Infomax reported. A filing on executive changes was accepted on June 26. The two newly added companies have now become Coinone’s joint third-largest shareholders, behind Coinone CEO Cha Myung-hoon, the largest existing shareholder with a 30.36% stake, and Com2uS Holdings, the second-largest shareholder with 24.54%.