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The three major U.S. stock indices opened mixed today. - S&P 500: +0.07% - Nasdaq: -0.12% - Dow Jones: +0.17%

Thailand’s SEC has filed a criminal complaint against Bitkub, one of the country’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, over allegations of providing false information, Cointelegraph reported. Thailand’s SEC said 16 cryptocurrencies were stolen from Bitkub in a hack in May 2021, but the exchange did not accurately reflect the incident in its capital report.

Memecoin.Fun, a meme coin launchpad built on Robinhood Chain, said it recently raised $3.5 million in a funding round led by Becker Ventures, with participation from BitValue Capital, Mason Labs and Negentropy Capital. The company plans to use the proceeds to expand infrastructure, develop cross-chain bridge features and build a multichain platform.

Major U.S. crypto industry groups including the Digital Chamber, the Crypto Council, and the Blockchain Association urged Senate leadership to bring the Clarity Act to the floor, Crypto in America host Eleanor Terrett said. The bill has not yet secured enough support in the Senate to pass.

Bitcoin's Sharpe ratio has fallen to -23, a level similar to points when past bear markets formed bottoms, cryptocurrency trader Ali Martinez said on X. Martinez explained that the Sharpe ratio measures returns relative to volatility, and turns negative when investors are taking heavy losses. He said a reading of -23 may indicate not that the downtrend will continue, but that selling pressure has been largely exhausted. That, in turn, could imply relatively stronger expected returns for long-term investors entering at current levels. He added that in past bear market bottoms in 2015, 2019 and 2022, the Sharpe ratio fell to similar levels before the market moved through a final selling phase and reversed trend.

Decentralized perpetual futures exchange Hyperliquid burned 130,870 HYPE worth about $7.65 million after buybacks over the past seven days, according to an analysis by Onchain Lens. The average buyback price was $58.45 per HYPE. The burn permanently removed 130,870 HYPE from circulation. CoinMarketCap data showed HYPE was trading at $58.4, down 1.21%, at the time of writing.

XRP spot flows rose 182% over a short period, sharply increasing the amount of XRP moving through exchanges, U.Today reported, citing CoinGlass data. The outlet added this did not necessarily signal aggressive accumulation, as the metric pointed to a sharp increase in trading activity by both buyers and sellers, while net spot flows remained mixed. U.Today also said XRP was still trading below its 50-day, 100-day and 200-day moving averages, indicating it had yet to break out of a longer-term bearish trend. Although a modest upward trendline has recently formed, buying pressure has not yet shown enough strength to produce a decisive breakout. The outlet added selling pressure was likely to persist on each rebound attempt unless the price reclaimed the 50-day moving average in the $1.11-$1.12 range.

The European Union has barred dealings with 14 cryptocurrency-related service platforms based in Georgia, Panama, the United Arab Emirates, the Marshall Islands, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus, including the cross-border payments network A7, as it steps up efforts to block Russia’s sanctions evasion, CoinDesk reported. The names of the platforms were not disclosed. A7 Network, the issuer of the A7A5 stablecoin, has processed about $120 billion in transactions so far and was designed to support Russia’s evasion of international sanctions, according to the report.

An anonymous whale address beginning with 0x44BC deposited 8,010 ETH worth about $15.1 million to Binance about an hour ago. The wallet had held the tokens for about eight months. Exchange inflows are typically interpreted as a sign of potential selling pressure. According to CoinMarketCap, ETH was trading at $1,883.22, down 2.07%, at the time of writing.

Put/call open interest ratios in the Bitcoin options market and short-term skew, the gap in implied volatility between put and call options, have declined, indicating investors are easing defensive positioning, according to on-chain analytics firm Glassnode. Glassnode said BTC options OI put/call ratios recently fell to around 0.52 from about 0.76 in late June, suggesting defensive positions are gradually unwinding as the share of call options rises relative to puts and BTC prices stabilize near $67,000.

Crypto market maker B2C2, 90% owned by Japan’s financial group SBI Holdings, has held sale talks with multiple potential buyers over the past 18 months, CoinDesk reported. A key sticking point in the negotiations was valuation. B2C2 is seeking a valuation of more than $1 billion, but some market participants said current crypto market conditions could make it difficult to complete a deal on those terms. The talks focused on a sale of part or all of the company, though it was unclear whether discussions were still ongoing.

About $5 billion in open interest is concentrated at the $70,000 and $72,000 strike prices in the Bitcoin options market, highlighting bullish investor sentiment, CoinDesk reported. According to Deribit, the world’s largest crypto options exchange, the notional open interest tied to options at those two strike prices accounts for about 18% of total Bitcoin options open interest, with call options far outweighing put options in position size at both levels. Laevitas, a crypto data platform, added a large investor has been using a "bull call spread" strategy by buying $70,000-strike call options while selling $72,000-strike call options. The strategy is typically used when investors expect the underlying asset, in this case Bitcoin, to rise gradually to a certain level, reflecting expectations in this case that Bitcoin could climb to $72,000.

More than 25 institutions, including BitGo, Cumberland, FalconX, Ledger, Blockdaemon and Bullish, are conducting stress tests for BTC lending and credit services on the Hashi testnet, Bitcoin.com reported, after layer-one blockchain Sui launched the testnet for its Bitcoin-collateralized lending primitive Hashi. Wave Digital Assets also said it plans to prioritize the tokenization of yield-bearing Bitcoin bonds on Sui over the next three years once Hashi launches on mainnet. Hashi has not yet disclosed a mainnet launch schedule. The current testnet phase is designed to let developers and institutions integrate and validate lending, borrowing and credit products before real capital is deployed. If the testing is completed successfully, Bitcoin holders will be able to generate yield while keeping their assets in native BTC form.

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson said in an interview with The Crypto Basic that U.S. President Donald Trump should step away from crypto-related business interests while in office and should not participate directly in the cryptocurrency market. Hoskinson said Trump is the ultimate insider, given the broad powers of the presidency and access to nonpublic information. He added that while he rarely agrees with U.S. Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, her concerns about a sitting president taking part in the crypto market are valid. Warren had earlier raised conflict-of-interest concerns, saying the CLARITY Act, a U.S. crypto regulatory bill, does not contain sufficient safeguards to prevent a president from profiting from crypto businesses while in office.

Ripple (XRP) announced the launch of Ripple Mint, an integrated RLUSD management service for institutional clients. The platform allows institutions to issue, redeem and manage RLUSD. It was also designed to support both a user interface and programmatic system integration, allowing institutions to connect RLUSD with their existing operational systems more easily.

Bitcoin’s key on-chain indicators are improving, but the latest setup could still end in another failed rebound signal, Cointelegraph said. The outlet said the share of BTC supply in profit rose above 50% in July, up from this year’s low of 46.2% on June 30. With around 60% of the total BTC supply now back in profit, the spent output profit ratio, or SOPR, for long-term holders is also improving. A long-term holder SOPR above one indicates profit-taking is dominant, while a reading below one suggests selling at a loss. Cointelegraph said the 30-day simple moving average of long-term holder SOPR would need to stay above one for several weeks, and overall supply in profit would need to exceed 64%, for the bear market to end. It added there was already one failed case in this cycle: from April 28 to June 1, the average long-term holder SOPR stayed above one for 35 days and supply in profit climbed as high as 67%, but both indicators later turned lower again. So far, the 30-day simple moving average of long-term holder SOPR has remained below one for more than 50 days.

Mount Carmel’s mayor and city council in Tennessee unanimously approved an ordinance at a meeting on July 23 banning the construction of cryptocurrency mining facilities and data centers within the city’s jurisdiction. In the resolution, the city government said it decided to prohibit cryptocurrency mining operations to protect the city’s infrastructure, public utility systems and residents’ quality of life. Mount Carmel Mayor John Gibson also said mining facilities and data centers would bring no benefit to the community.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said in a CNBC interview on July 21 that the company may consider shifting some operations to overseas markets if clear cryptocurrency legislation is not passed. Armstrong said Coinbase wants to keep its core business in the U.S., but doing so requires a clear legal basis and a predictable regulatory environment even if the administration changes. Without a regulatory framework in place, capital, companies and users could continue moving outside the U.S. regulatory system.

South Korean exchange Bithumb announced it will temporarily suspend STX deposits and withdrawals starting at 12:00 a.m. UTC on July 29 to support the Stacks network upgrade.

A presidential regulatory reform panel has recommended creating exceptions in major shareholder eligibility reviews for virtual asset service providers, removing one obstacle to Naver’s acquisition of Dunamu, Chosun Ilbo exclusively reported. If South Korea’s Financial Services Commission had enforced its amendment as originally drafted, Naver’s acquisition could have fallen through after the company received a first-instance ruling for violating the Fair Trade Act. The committee said it was excessive to reject filings uniformly without considering the severity of a major shareholder’s legal violation or whether a dual punishment provision had been applied, and it urged the FSC to prepare exception rules. The amendment’s final details are set to be decided after review by the FSC, the Ministry of Government Legislation, a vice ministers’ meeting and a Cabinet meeting.

A South Korean crypto company executive who allegedly defrauded investors of more than 3 billion won ($2.2 million) while promoting an NFT project with a former national soccer team player had a prison sentence reduced on appeal, KBS reported. At a sentencing hearing today, the Incheon branch of the Seoul High Court overturned a lower court ruling that had sentenced the executive, a man in his 20s identified only as A, to seven years in prison on fraud charges under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes, and instead handed down a sentence of six years and six months. Prosecutors charged A with deceiving more than 30 investors and causing losses of over 3 billion won between March 2021 and July 2022 while running a coin business. He had recruited investors by saying they could buy the coin cheaply before it was listed on a South Korean exchange and profit after the listing, but no domestic listing took place. During the fundraising process, A also used former national soccer team player B as a promotional model.

Bybit announced it will delist BOBBOB/USDT perpetual futures at 9:00 a.m. UTC on July 27.

South Korean exchange Bithumb announced it will temporarily suspend deposits and withdrawals of Polygon Ecosystem Token (POL) starting at 11:00 a.m. UTC on July 29 to support a POL network upgrade.

India’s parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance has recommended that the government introduce an interim framework to oversee the cryptocurrency market, Financial Feed reported. The committee proposed that an accredited self-regulatory organization, or SRO, handle market oversight and maintain investor protection and market order until related rules are put in place. According to the committee, the interim SRO would operate under the supervision of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) or the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), with a standard code of conduct covering consumer protection, transparency in platform operations and token disclosure standards. It also plans to conduct exchange reserve audits, require the segregation of client and corporate funds, and set up a system for handling user complaints.

Monthly trading volume for Solana-based stock tokens surged about 2,400-fold over the past year, rising from $1.34 million to $3.32 billion, BeInCrypto reported. The outlet said the increase points to rapidly expanding institutional interest in onchain capital markets. Monthly trading volume across commodities, credit assets, collectibles and stocks grew from about $156 million in June last year to the multibillion-dollar range a year later. For stocks alone, monthly volume climbed from $670 million in April to $3.3 billion in June, marking a record high. BeInCrypto said the growth coincided with the New York Stock Exchange listing of real-world asset tokenization platform Securitize. After listing on the New York Stock Exchange in July, Securitize tokenized SECZ shares tied to SpaceX on Solana, according to the report.