Compiled by ChainCatcher
The past 24 hours brought a dense mix of crypto market analysis, regulatory updates, security incidents and corporate news.
Bitcoin rebound still faces four pressures, says CryptoQuant analyst
CryptoQuant analyst Axel Adler said in a weekly note that the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield has recently climbed to about 4.7%, near the upper end of its five-year range. In his view, that rate backdrop is tightening financial conditions, raising funding costs and discount rates, and adding pressure to risk assets.
Futures markets are pricing about a 38% chance of a rate hike at the Federal Reserve’s next meeting, while a Reuters survey of 104 economists found that most expect rates to remain unchanged.
On Bitcoin, Adler said BTC rebounded about 11% from its June low of roughly $59,000 to nearly $66,000 before pulling back to about $64,300. He pointed to four risks now hanging over the market.
- Volatility has compressed sharply. Realized volatility in July fell 31% to the 8th percentile of its historical range, which he said could signal a larger move ahead.
- U.S. spot demand remains weak. Bitcoin has traded at a discount for about two and a half months, with no sustained capital inflows yet visible.
- Buy-side liquidity is thin. Stablecoins continue to leave exchanges, while new-money activity is near annual lows.
- Investors are still realizing losses. Even as profitability improves, some holders are still using rebounds to exit positions, creating price pressure.
Adler also noted that MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor has not continued large-scale Bitcoin buying recently. Instead, he published a long essay and recommended 38 books on civilization, money, energy and technological development, framing Bitcoin as the result of a long-term evolution in finance. Adler said the market remains in a critical observation phase, with liquidity, U.S. demand recovery and investor behavior still the main variables to watch.
Aave founder says the CLARITY Act is in the "last mile"
Aave founder Stani said on X that the industry needs consensus more than ever and should do everything possible to help the U.S. CLARITY Act pass.
He said the bill is not perfect and many details would still need to be written by regulators, but argued that it would become the first piece of legislation to address DeFi and would give institutions, fintech firms and banks a clearer legal and regulatory framework for on-chain finance.
If passed, Stani said, its effect on on-chain finance could resemble the boost that the GENIUS Act brought to the stablecoin sector, drawing more investment and institutional capital on-chain. He added that the Aave team has spent the past year, and especially the last few weeks and days, in close contact with policymakers in Washington, and that the effort has now reached the "last mile."
MiCA shifts the focus in Europe from licensing to the cost of staying compliant
As the contest for licenses under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, or MiCA, nears its end, the harder part is beginning for many firms. The report said the high cost of maintaining compliant operations could reshape the European crypto industry.
Competition may move away from who can secure a license and toward who can afford ongoing compliance. That, in turn, may push firms toward mergers, joint ventures and partnerships with banks as they look for scale.
With MiCA now taking effect and the U.K.’s own crypto framework moving closer, the European industry is entering a new phase of consolidation. Market participants cited in the report said tougher standards could trigger another round of M&A and deepen cooperation between crypto-native firms and traditional financial institutions, with the trend likely to be even more visible in the U.K.
The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority is drafting a new crypto-asset framework that is expected to pull crypto businesses into the existing financial-services regime, exposing them to capital, operational and client-asset protection requirements similar to those applied to traditional investment firms. Steven Lightstone, a partner in Morgan Lewis’ London office and co-head of the firm’s global fintech team, said the FCA wants to support competition and new entrants, but will apply very strict standards in areas tied to consumer protection.
Unlike MiCA, which runs as a distinct EU framework, the U.K. model would regulate crypto firms through the existing financial rulebook.
Simon Schneider, CEO of Sygnum Europe, said fewer than 20% of European banks currently offer crypto-related services, leaving a large market gap. In his view, MiCA’s biggest contribution is not simply a new licensing structure but the legal certainty it gives financial institutions entering digital assets. He pointed to Switzerland, where most large banks began offering digital-asset services after distributed ledger technology rules were introduced, and said the rest of Europe could follow a similar path.
Schneider said banks are unlikely to replace crypto-native firms outright. More likely, they will rely on specialist infrastructure providers in areas such as custody, brokerage, staking and asset tokenization. As firms that fail to obtain MiCA licenses retreat from Europe, assets could become more concentrated in regulated institutions. Even so, he said self-custody and institutional custody are likely to coexist for a long time.
The broader view from the industry is that Europe is entering a compliance-led consolidation cycle. For startups that grew through speed and asset-light models, the edge may now depend less on product velocity alone and more on compliance capability, capital strength and the ability to integrate into financial infrastructure.
Ten public companies now hold more than 1 million BTC combined
According to Bitcoin.com, as of July 25, 2026, 10 publicly listed companies held more than 1 million BTC in total.
Strategy remained the largest corporate holder with 843,775 BTC, worth about $58 billion at current prices. The rest of the list included Twenty One Capital with 43,514 BTC, Metaplanet with 43,000 BTC, Mara Holdings with 36,303 BTC, Bullish with 24,300 BTC, Strive with 19,921 BTC, SpaceX with 18,712 BTC, Coinbase Global with 16,492 BTC, Riot Platforms with 15,680 BTC and Cleanspark with 13,924 BTC.
The report added that SpaceX listed on Nasdaq on June 12, 2026 and raised about $85.7 billion in its IPO. Since the start of 2026, Riot Platforms shares have risen 73%, Cleanspark 39% and Mara Holdings 31%. Over the same period, Strategy is down 40%, Metaplanet 49%, Twenty One Capital 48% and Coinbase Global 31%.
CZ says buying smaller CEXs is still possible, but risk controls are tougher
Binance founder Changpeng Zhao said in response to a question about why Binance does not acquire small centralized exchanges that acquiring a CEX is very different from buying other businesses.
If a hack happens after a deal closes, he said, it can be difficult to tell whether the cause was a backdoor left by the previous team or a newly introduced issue. That makes both security and compliance risk much higher. Zhao said acquisitions of CEXs are still possible, but due diligence and risk control processes become more complicated.
Fortune says the U.S. government has quietly built a $26.7 billion equity portfolio
Fortune reported that the Trump administration has committed about $26.7 billion across roughly 30 equity or quasi-equity transactions. The largest position is a 9.9% stake in chipmaker Intel, now worth about $42 billion.
Other investments include $400 million in rare earth miner MP Materials, a golden share retained when U.S. Steel was acquired by Japan’s Nippon Steel, and multiple equity positions in quantum computing companies.
According to the report, the holdings are spread across at least four agencies: 17 deals at the Commerce Department, seven at the Defense Department, six at the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, or DFC, and two at the Department of Energy. Only the DFC has explicit statutory authority to make equity investments, a power Congress granted in 2018 for overseas development projects.
There is no single public ledger for government equity holdings. The most complete public tracking cited in the report is maintained by the Council on Foreign Relations. Some transactions have only reached the agreement-signing stage or are close to term-sheet status, especially nine quantum-computing deals announced by the Commerce Department within one week.
SK Telecom to invest KRW 750 billion in new AI data center unit
According to Korean outlet Ket, SK Telecom said it will form a dedicated artificial intelligence data center company, SK Hyper, and plans to invest a cumulative KRW 750 billion to expand large-scale AI data center operations.
The company expects to invest KRW 330 billion initially and raise the total to KRW 750 billion by December 2030, ultimately holding 100% of the subsidiary.
SK Hyper will handle development and commercialization work for future large AI data center projects, including site selection, power infrastructure and commercial partnerships with clients. At a later stage, it also plans to bring in external capital through financial investors and project financing.
BlueNoroff accused of using fake Zoom and Teams meetings to profile crypto users
Crypto.news reported that BlueNoroff, a hacking group tied to North Korea, has been using fake Zoom and Microsoft Teams meetings to analyze cryptocurrency users before deploying malware.
The group first compromises accounts belonging to trusted crypto-industry contacts, then sends what appear to be legitimate meeting links through services such as Calendly. Those links point to spoofed Zoom or Teams domains. Once users enter the fake meeting page, the site quietly scans browser wallets and decides whether to continue the attack based on wallet value.
Victims are then prompted to “update Zoom/Teams” or run commands that actually install malware compatible with both Windows and macOS. The malware is designed to steal browser keys, system data and Telegram sessions.
Cascade says CLS funds have been recovered and users will be made whole
Cascade said on X that the incident involving funds being drained from CLS has been resolved and that the party involved cooperated in returning all stolen funds.
All users with funds in CLS will be eligible for 100% reimbursement based on the value recorded at 21:08:00 UTC on July 15, 2025. The claims function will open in the coming days.
ChainCatcher had previously reported that MAX, a Discord administrator for the multi-asset perpetuals platform Cascade, said the Cascade CLS vault was suspected to have suffered a security issue that caused losses of about $1.3 million. The platform had suspended all trading and withdrawals and brought in SEAL 911 and other third-party security teams to investigate and respond.
Musk loses about $130 billion in five trading days
According to Jinshi, Tesla shares fell nearly 20% this week to close at $313.03, their biggest weekly decline since 2022. SpaceX closed at $115.07, the company’s lowest level since its IPO last month.
Data from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index showed that Elon Musk’s net worth fell by about $130 billion in just five trading days, or roughly RMB 880 billion. Only weeks earlier, he had become the first person in history to surpass a $1 trillion fortune. Musk later joked on social media that he was a “former trillionaire.”
Mango Labs founder says he is long ChangXin Memory Technologies
Mango Labs founder @dov_wo posted that he had taken a long position in ChangXin Memory Technologies and described it as a rare “1:5” setup, saying the downside was 20% and the upside 100%.
He listed a low free float, regulatory intervention and institutional optimism around opportunities below a RMB 3 trillion valuation as reasons for the trade. His suggested strategy was to close quickly if the stock opened sharply higher, or stay patient if it opened weak and moved higher later, saying the trade should be resolved within three days.
Phyrex says Binance Alpha and trader migration hurt smaller exchanges
Crypto KOL Phyrex wrote on X that BitMart and BitMex “did not shut down because of a blowup” and that their situation was very different from FTX, calling it mainly a business problem.
He said BitMart had approached people around him about an acquisition in 2023 and had done a lot of data work, but the process eventually went nowhere. In his view, part of the decline at third-tier exchanges came from the impact of Binance Alpha.
He said smaller exchanges had long been home to altcoins, manipulated tokens, pyramid-style tokens and community coins. Alpha gave many of those assets a better route to market, reducing listing fees at smaller exchanges and cutting into profits from coordinated market-making.
Another factor, he said, was the migration of copy-trading leaders. Their absolute number may be small, but they often move large groups of followers. When a new exchange offers better economics, they shift quickly, and he said several recently failed exchanges showed a similar pattern.
WOO X ambassador criticizes BitMart withdrawal restrictions
After BitMart published details on its withdrawal arrangements, WOO X ambassador Baki said on X that restricting withdrawals on security grounds could amount to interference with user access to funds.
He said BitMart had turned off automatic withdrawals and switched to manual review, requiring users to go through account identity and KYC checks, device and IP verification, account security review, withdrawal address and blockchain transaction risk checks, source-of-funds and trading-history review, and Travel Rule and sanctions screening. In some cases, he said, users may also need to provide identity documents, proof of address, source-of-funds documents or proof of ownership for withdrawal addresses.
Baki said users with access to P2P options could consider that route to withdraw into bank accounts. He also argued that the crypto market is not decentralized, but controlled by a small number of large groups, exchanges and capital pools.
AFX Trade hacker swaps 12,467.4 ETH into BTC
On-chain analyst Ember said the AFX Trade hacker has exchanged 12,467.4 ETH for BTC.
On July 23, AFX Trade’s Arbitrum bridge was attacked, with losses of about 24 million USDC. The attacker then gradually moved the stolen funds from Arbitrum to Ethereum.
PONS market cap briefly tops $56 million
GMGN market data showed that PONS, a Robinhood ecosystem token, briefly pushed its market cap above $56 million to a record high before falling back to $49.8 million. It was up more than 24% on the day.
The market note added that the token’s price has been highly volatile, driven largely by sentiment and hot narratives, and said it lacks fundamental value support.
U.S. Secret Service recovers more than $25 million in crypto through five investigations
According to Bitcoin.com, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and the U.S. Secret Service’s Washington Field Office said their cyber fraud task force has seized more than $25 million in cryptocurrency tied to international fraud schemes targeting residents in the United States and Canada.
Federal prosecutors in Washington have filed five civil forfeiture complaints seeking to confiscate the recovered crypto. Investigators said they identified multiple money-laundering networks and thousands of victims worldwide.
The largest complaint involves a romance scam affecting more than 200 victims and about $12.1 million. Another involves a suspicious wallet network flagged to the Secret Service by Canadian authorities and worth about $10.4 million. Agents also traced more than 270 suspected victim transactions tied to fake investment platforms. Those two matters account for about 85% of the assets covered by the five forfeiture complaints.
The remaining cases involve blocked withdrawals, fake investment accounts and clawbacks from fraud schemes. Investigators said most suspected launderers were located in Southeast Asia, and they identified internet protocol addresses linked to China, Malaysia and Cambodia. All five investigations remain active.
Lido says stETH reward calculation issue has been fixed
Lido said on X that the stETH rebase had completed as expected and that missing ETH rewards caused by an undercalculation had been restored, implying an annual percentage rate of about 2.29%.
The protocol also said it has updated and audited its oracle, with the new version expected to speed up report processing and make it easier to identify the cause if a similar issue happens again.
Lido said contributors are still conducting a root-cause analysis and will share more details on its forum and social channels. It added that user funds were never at risk during the incident. The preliminary view is that the issue may have stemmed from an edge case in which one validator in pending deposit status was omitted from the reward report, causing part of the staking rewards to be left out of the calculation. A full post-mortem is expected in the next few days.
TRUMP team wallet moved unlocked tokens into exchanges
On-chain analyst Ember said tokens unlocked and transferred out of a TRUMP team address yesterday have now reached centralized exchanges.
A total of 13.8 million TRUMP tokens, worth about $21.94 million at the time of tracking, were sent to Binance, OKX and KuCoin around 15 minutes earlier.
Tom Lee says Ethereum is not being hollowed out by Layer 2s
Bitmine chairman Tom Lee said on X that Ethereum could become the most widely used settlement layer for finance and AI agents, adding that “ETH is on-chain money.”
In an interview he reposted, Lee pushed back on the idea that Ethereum is being eaten away by Layer 2 networks. He said that while L2s have brought tens of millions of real-world users into the on-chain economy, Ethereum mainnet continues to strengthen its role as the main center of economic settlement. He also said fast confirmation can reduce transfer friction by about 98%.
Three iOS users sue Apple over fake Sparrow Wallet app
MacRumors reported that three iOS users filed suit against Apple in federal court in California, alleging that they downloaded a fake Sparrow Wallet app from the App Store between May and August 2025 and lost about $1.8 million in Bitcoin in total.
The complaint says Apple often takes little or no action even after victims report fraud, and that other fake Sparrow apps remained in the App Store. Sparrow Wallet developer Craig Raw has publicly criticized Apple for responding slowly to multiple fake versions of the app and for failing to remove them in time, with some impostor versions still available.
SK Hynix Q2 profit may hit a record high
According to Jinshi, SK Hynix is set to report second-quarter results on the 29th, and after Samsung Electronics, it is also expected to post record earnings for the quarter.
Yonhap Infomax, citing reports from 14 brokerages published over the past month, said SK Hynix is expected to post KRW 84.0597 trillion in second-quarter revenue and KRW 64.0899 trillion in operating profit.
That projected operating profit is about KRW 17 trillion above the company’s full-year 2025 operating profit of KRW 47.2 trillion. Combined with first-quarter operating profit of KRW 37.6103 trillion, SK Hynix would top KRW 100 trillion in operating profit for the first half alone.
Earlier this month, Samsung Electronics released preliminary earnings showing strong performance in its DS division, with operating profit of KRW 89.4 trillion. If SK Hynix meets expectations, the two companies’ combined second-quarter operating profit would exceed KRW 150 trillion.
Meme token watchlist
According to GMGN data as of 09:30 on July 27, the top five trending ETH meme tokens over the past 24 hours were PUPPY, SHIB, CATE, ZAMA and AAVE.
On Solana, the top five were CATE, Jimothy, SalaryCat, Kittens and Nong. On Base, the top five were JERRY, BRIAN, SOSO, CATE and AiFi.
Articles highlighted for further reading
BitMEX and Bitmart shut down in succession. Does exchange failure mean the bear market has bottomed?
The piece argues that while exchange failures have started to appear, it is still difficult to say the bear market has truly bottomed. It notes that the crypto industry has not yet seen a historic collapse on the scale of Mt. Gox or FTX. It closes by citing Bitmart’s final post: “The future still belongs to blockchain.”
A difficult summer for equity bulls: $100 oil, AI backlash and tariff restarts
The article quotes Sebastian Raedler, head of European equity strategy at Bank of America, as saying profit-margin expectations, five-year forward earnings growth and global market-cap-to-GDP ratios are all near historical highs, while the equity risk premium is at a 20-year low. He said markets are pricing a scenario where everything goes right and forecast another 7% to 8% downside in global stocks.
Crystal Foresight stablecoin industry report: What drove the fall in stablecoin supply in Q2 2026?
The article notes that the report’s disclaimer says on-chain attribution is directional and cannot fully reconcile to total supply. Its central conclusion on USDC is that while the token has become a core source of on-chain dollar liquidity, demand still depends heavily on DeFi. When DeFi expands, USDC grows quickly as collateral, margin and liquidity; when DeFi cools, that working capital contracts just as fast. For Circle, the article says, the next question is whether USDC can move beyond DeFi working capital and become a foundational dollar asset in payments, corporate treasury, RWA settlement and institutional finance.
Abraxas Capital, the institution that gives on-chain analysts a headache
The article says that beyond ETH, Abraxas has a dominant position in tokenized gold. Across wallets, it holds about 86,947 XAUT, equal to 12.3% of supply and worth about $400 million. At one point in June 2025, one Abraxas address provided 99.26% of the liquidity in the Uniswap V3 XAUT/WBTC pool. The piece says the firm remains opaque, with outsiders still unable to determine the rationale for its positions or infer the full strategy and performance from on-chain labels.
Why are more Indian executives appearing across the global payments industry?
The article argues that the scarcest people in payments may not be those who know one product best, but those who can connect banking, regulation, technology, business, capital and global teams while keeping complex systems running. It says this is not a story of Indian talent replacing Chinese talent, but of the payments industry entering a new phase of competition. Chinese payments professionals already have world-class business capabilities, the piece says. The next step is making those capabilities visible, connected and amplified in global organizations. An appendix lists 60 Indian-origin executives and founders in fintech and payments, with data sourced from the internet.
Wintermute: three new AI x crypto directions we are watching
The article says the R[3]sidency × Construct accelerator is looking for infrastructure that the machine economy will need but that does not yet exist. Wintermute says it wants to support founders who can ship on today’s rails while adapting as standards evolve. The program will back eight teams with $300,000 each, provide a 12-week London residency, more than 30 mentors, and demo days in London and New York, with Fabric Ventures, Solana and Coinbase as partners.