Live Feed

The U.S. Central Command said at 9:45 p.m. UTC on July 28 that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched multiple ballistic missiles from Iran in an attempted surprise attack on U.S. forces stationed in the Middle East. It said all of the missiles were successfully intercepted and U.S. forces remain on high alert.

The number of wallets holding Ethereum has surpassed 200 million, Cointelegraph reported.

Visa said during its third-quarter earnings report that it is investing across the stablecoin ecosystem, including blockchain, issuance, wallets, infrastructure and applications. According to Cointelegraph, Visa said it joined the Open Standard Consortium to support issuance of the OpenUSD stablecoin and is building a platform that will allow partners to make payments and settlements with stablecoins. Visa added deposit tokens and AI-driven commerce will be future growth drivers.

The U.S. SEC said it is prepared to establish its own cryptocurrency regulations if the CLARITY bill does not pass Congress, according to Watcher.Guru.

A wallet believed to be tied to crypto investment firm Multicoin Capital deposited 101,340 HYPE worth $5.6 million into Coinbase from $120 million in unstaked HYPE, Onchain Lens reported. The address had earlier received 1.29 million HYPE worth $71.1 million after unstaking from Hyperliquid. Hyperliquid applies a seven-day waiting period to convert staked balances into spot tokens.

Nasdaq-listed SharpLink (SBET), an Ethereum treasury company, said on its official X account that it earned 420 ETH in staking rewards this week and now holds a total of 888,521 ETH.

K33 said in a report that while the Nasdaq entered July with strong momentum and overly extended positioning, Bitcoin has continued to trade sideways near its lowest correlation levels in years, suggesting the correlation between the two assets is likely to weaken. According to CoinDesk, K33 head of research Vetle Lunde said this week’s FOMC meeting may have a limited effect on Bitcoin compared with past periods of heightened policy uncertainty.

The three major U.S. stock indices closed mixed today. - S&P 500: +0.22% - Nasdaq: -0.22% - Dow Jones: +1.03%

U.S. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins has urged the Senate to pass the Clarity Act, according to the Watcher.Guru X account.

Cryptocurrency losses from hacks topped $1 billion in the first half of this year, with Ethereum- and Solana-based projects suffering the biggest damage, according to blockchain security firm Blockaid. North Korean-linked hackers accounted for the largest share of the total, stealing about $600 million.

Robinhood Chain’s launchpad posted $1.23 billion in trading volume over the past week, surpassing PumpSwap’s $1.22 billion for the first time. Wu Blockchain said meme coin trading on Robinhood Chain appears to have drawn in new trading demand rather than cannibalizing volume from Pump.fun, expanding overall trading activity across the meme coin market.

Ethereum layer-2 networks' total value locked has fallen to $5 billion, roughly back to levels seen about three years ago, according to The Block's official X account. The Block added this contrasts with 2024, when layer-2 adoption accelerated and TVL surged across networks including Arbitrum (ARB), Optimism (OP) and zkSync.

Robinhood (HOOD) CEO Vladimir Tenev reaffirmed his X account was hacked last week. Tenev said the hacker used social engineering to deceive X’s customer support team and gain access to the account, then posted fake content related to various memecoins. Tenev added X’s security team later worked with him to remove the posts, after which he regained access to the account. His X account had shown signs of compromise on July 24, including posts promoting a memecoin on the Robinhood Chain, and price swings followed in related tokens.

Crypto-related U.S. stocks are trading lower. Circle (CRCL) is down 1.98%, MARA (MARA) 4.59%, Coinbase (COIN) 1.04%, Bitmine (BMNR) 0.98%, Strategy (MSTR) 1.33%, and Riot Platforms (RIOT) 4.65%.

Strategy founder Michael Saylor said on X that Bitcoin’s biggest challenge lies inside the network rather than outside it. Saylor said BTC’s consensus rules are akin to a constitution and that changing those rules for a specific group would infringe on the economic rights of all market participants. He added that proposals including BIP-110 would undermine protocol neutrality, worsen the fee market, and weaken the network’s long-term security. Saylor also warned that if one faction modifies the rules, other groups could follow, triggering governance conflicts. BIP-110 was recently proposed to keep BTC focused on payments and transfers. The proposal calls for temporarily restricting some data within transactions. Saylor and Adam Back oppose the idea, saying limiting transactions that legitimately pay fees violates Bitcoin’s core value.

Fidelity Digital Assets said in a report that Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana have historically low NUPL, or net unrealized profit/loss, levels, with multiple on-chain indicators nearing a capitulation zone. According to the report, as of the end of the second quarter, Ethereum was trading around 30% below its average purchase price, with unrealized losses of about $87 billion. Solana was trading around 41% below its average purchase price, with unrealized losses of about $29 billion. Bitcoin alone remained in unrealized profit, trading around 10% above its average purchase price, with unrealized gains of about $108 billion. Fidelity added that current valuations may offer an attractive entry point for long-term investors.

Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin treasury company Hyperscale Data (GPUS) announced it bought an additional 77 BTC between July 20 and 27, bringing its total holdings to 1,106 BTC.

Iran’s state-run IRIB said Iran did not attempt to open talks with the U.S. on July 16 and 17.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has unveiled Diamond iO, a cryptographic obfuscation technology that can execute computations while concealing a program’s internal logic and core data. He emphasized "Diamond iO" can be broadly applied to privacy coins, blockchains and AI. The technology remains in the early research stage.

Bitcoin has recently rebounded, but the move could be a bull trap, Decrypt said. Global markets have seen broad risk-off sentiment, with the Kospi falling more than 8% shortly after the open, and the crypto market has declined in tandem, according to the outlet. Ahead of the FOMC meeting, concerns remain over hawkish moves by incoming Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, along with ongoing deleveraging. From a technical standpoint, BTC’s 50-day and 200-day moving averages have formed a death cross, while a declining relative strength index suggests additional downside pressure. On prediction market Myriad, 65.7% of traders betting on BTC expect it to reach $55,000 before $84,000, Decrypt reported.

Justin Ryan Schmidt, founder of crypto hedge fund Translunar, was sentenced to 37 months in prison after giving up U.S. citizenship and moving overseas while concealing millions of dollars in income and assets, Bloomberg reported. Investigators found Schmidt told tax authorities from 2020 to 2022 that his income was under $5,000, but he had actually earned more than $7 million. Schmidt also claimed to have no net worth and only $1.1 million in liabilities, but authorities confirmed his actual net worth exceeded $5.8 million. A U.S. court also ordered Schmidt to pay about $3.4 million in restitution.

Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan said U.S. benchmark rate decisions are likely to have less influence on Bitcoin over the next five years than they did in the past. In a post on X, Hougan said U.S. interest rates have swung sharply since BTC launched, but the size of adjustments has become more gradual. CME expects rate moves to be limited to around 50 basis points over the next year, he said. Under new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, the Federal Reserve is likely to make only fine-tuned rate adjustments, Hougan added. As rate volatility declines, its impact on BTC is also likely to fade, though the benchmark rate will remain an important variable and other factors are likely to carry greater weight.

Bitmine (BMNR) Chairman Tom Lee said in an interview with CNBC that the cryptocurrency market has already bottomed. Lee said crypto prices have recently risen despite negative factors such as the Federal Reserve’s hawkish rate outlook and high oil prices. Lee added ETH/BTC has been climbing, with ETH outperforming BTC. Lee also said recent exchange closures and a rise in forced liquidations are phenomena commonly seen at cycle bottoms. Since the start of July, ETH has risen 23%, while the semiconductor index SOXX has fallen more than 20%, Lee said. Lee added AI-related stocks remain strong, but the crypto market is showing strength separately from that trend.

Shares of U.S. mining company Ionic Digital (IOND) rose 8% on their first day of trading on Nasdaq. IOND was recently trading at $53.26, up 7.09%.

Mo Jalil, co-founder of EthSystems, which spun out of the Ethereum Foundation earlier this month, said in an interview with CoinDesk that privacy is the biggest hurdle to banks participating in public blockchains. EthSystems focuses on building privacy infrastructure for banks and other financial institutions. Jalil said nearly all financial institutions require some level of confidentiality. He explained this does not simply mean guaranteeing anonymity or hiding information, but rather having control over who can see what information, when, and how. Jalil added EthSystems is not trying to compete with existing privacy projects and plans to collaborate by leveraging the current privacy ecosystem rather than rebuilding privacy systems from scratch.