ChainCatcher’s July 15 morning roundup showed institutional adoption, regulation, ETF flows and Federal Reserve expectations driving market attention over the past 24 hours.
Wintermute says bitcoin is showing a “bad news, no breakdown” base-building pattern
Wintermute said in a market note that bitcoin held the key $62,000 support area despite geopolitical shocks including US airstrikes on Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
The firm said that after US-Iran talks were paused, Iran attacked commercial vessels, the US launched a new round of airstrikes, and Tehran announced an indefinite closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Oil prices jumped during the period, with Brent crude up 6.3% for the week, while the 10-year US Treasury yield climbed to 4.57%. Markets also repriced the probability of a September Fed rate hike to about 61%, with this week’s US CPI data seen as a key input for expectations around the July Federal Open Market Committee meeting.
In crypto, bitcoin stayed relatively steady through the geopolitical headlines, holding the $62,000 area on its lowest pullback and then recovering toward $64,000. Ether was stronger and traded near $1,805.
Wintermute also pointed to a shift in fund flows. After eight straight weeks of outflows, bitcoin- and ether-related ETF products recorded a combined $282 million of inflows last week. The firm said one week of inflows is not enough to confirm a trend reversal, but added that continued whale accumulation and weaker market reactions to negative headlines suggest marginal selling pressure is easing and a local bottom may be forming.
It also noted that the market reaction to Strategy selling bitcoin was muted, in contrast with the selloff triggered two months ago when just 32 BTC were sold. That, Wintermute said, shows concern about potential overhang from supply has eased.
The firm said bitcoin is now displaying a “bad news, no breakdown” bottoming setup. It highlighted US CPI, whether ETF inflows continue and how the Hormuz situation develops as the next key variables. If inflation cools, flows improve and the CLARITY Act makes progress, bitcoin could challenge resistance at $67,250. If oil keeps rising and macro pressure intensifies, the $60,000 support level could be tested again.
Fidelity strategist says tokenized funds matter most for balance-sheet management
According to CoinDesk, Giselle Lai, director and digital asset strategist for Asia Pacific at Fidelity International, said the most compelling long-term institutional use case for tokenized funds is not 24/7 liquidity but balance-sheet management.
Lai said global institutions often need to hold cash across multiple jurisdictions, manage foreign-exchange exposure and satisfy regulatory requirements, while those bank deposits often generate no yield. Tokenized tools, compared with the traditional account system, can offer 24/7 yield generation, improve capital transfers and better serve institutional liquidity and collateral management.
She also said tokenized products are currently used mainly in investment settings, with tokenized money market funds backed primarily by US Treasurys standing out as the most popular product. What institutions care about, she said, is not the token itself but whether it can make asset management faster and cheaper.
South Korea’s four financial authorities to discuss single-stock leveraged ETF risks on Thursday
According to The Korea Times, South Korean financial regulators will hold a high-level meeting on Thursday to discuss the risks of single-stock leveraged ETFs and possible responses.
The meeting is expected to take place under the government’s “F4 meeting” framework for macroeconomic and financial coordination. Officials from the finance ministry, the Financial Services Commission, the Financial Supervisory Service and the Bank of Korea are set to attend.
Single-stock leveraged ETFs have drawn increasing attention from regulators and market participants as volatility in the Korean stock market has intensified. Participants broadly see the products as an important factor behind sharp price swings in individual shares.
An official familiar with the matter said regulators have been coordinating internal options over the past few days, though no final policy direction has been decided. Measures under discussion include higher margin requirements, tighter daily price movement limits and adjustments to leverage multiples. Regulators, however, believe those steps may only offer temporary relief and may not address the structural causes of market volatility.
Franklin Crypto CIO says market prices are disconnected from fundamentals
According to CoinDesk, Franklin Crypto chief investment officer Seth Ginns said digital asset prices are not reflecting what he described as the industry’s strongest fundamentals in years, even as institutional adoption keeps accelerating.
Ginns said the convergence between traditional finance and crypto is gaining momentum, and that liquid crypto investments are becoming more attractive in the current market environment. He cited Robinhood’s blockchain push as an example of traditional financial distribution moving toward crypto infrastructure. Tokenized money market funds, tokenized stocks and stablecoin adoption, he said, are helping bring traditional finance and blockchain technology closer together.
He also said a Senate vote on the Clarity Act could provide greater regulatory certainty for institutions. Ginns added that he likes Hyperliquid’s revenue-driven token buyback model and said DeFi protocols including Uniswap, Aave and Chainlink could benefit from improved token value-capture mechanisms.
Dragonfly’s Haseeb says the DeFi “hacker apocalypse” has not happened
Dragonfly partner Haseeb responded on X to earlier pessimistic comments from OpenZeppelin co-founder Manuel Aráoz about DeFi security, arguing that the feared “hacker apocalypse” has not materialized even as models such as GLM 5.2, Fable and GPT 5.6 are now live and being used by attackers.
Based on current year-to-date figures and the running pace, data in the chart he cited suggest that annualized DeFi losses in 2026 are about $1.89 billion, with roughly $986 million stolen so far this year. That is below 2025 levels and still within the historical range.
Haseeb said the deeper shift is that the number of attacks may be rising, but the size of each individual exploit is falling faster. Attackers are focusing more on smaller protocols and abandoned projects, while larger protocols have already added stronger protections. In his view, overall capital safety has not materially deteriorated.
JPMorgan advises closing long-end Treasury curve flatteners before CPI and Warsh testimony
According to Jin10, JPMorgan strategists recommended that investors close 10-year to 30-year Treasury curve flattener positions ahead of US CPI data and Federal Reserve Chair Warsh’s first congressional testimony, citing event risk.
The strategists said shorter-dated Treasury yields rose 6 basis points and the curve flattened by 3 basis points as geopolitical tensions escalated and Fed officials delivered hawkish remarks. Waller warned that high inflation could become embedded in market inflation expectations and said the Fed may need to consider tightening in the near term if CPI continues to show firm core inflation pressure.
Stablecoin market shrinks by about $10 billion over two months
Total stablecoin circulation has fallen by roughly $10 billion from its May 2026 peak to about $312 billion. June alone saw a $7.7 billion drop, the largest monthly dollar decline since the Terra-Luna collapse in 2022.
Tether’s USDT supply fell from about $190 billion to about $184 billion, while Circle’s USDC dropped from nearly $80 billion to about $73 billion. Even so, the overall contraction was only around 3%, much smaller than the more than 26% drawdown recorded during the 2022-2023 bear market.
Market participants described the move as a normal pullback within a strong long-term growth trend after stablecoin market value doubled over two years. A roughly $9 billion pullback had also appeared from late 2025 into early 2026 before supply returned to fresh highs.
Positive factors cited include regulatory progress such as the GENIUS Act, rising circulation of regulated products including Paxos’ Global Dollar (USDG), and projections from major financial institutions that the stablecoin market could reach the trillions of dollars by the end of the decade.
US banking groups push for tighter stablecoin yield rules in the CLARITY Act
According to Cryptonomist, banking industry groups including the American Bankers Association and the Independent Community Bankers of America are urging the Senate to tighten CLARITY Act provisions tied to stablecoin yield.
The Senate Banking Committee passed the bill on May 14, 2026 by a 15-9 vote, incorporating some revisions backed by Senators Thom Tillis and Angela Alsobrooks. Banking groups say the current text still does not fully close off incentives that could make stablecoins behave like yield-bearing deposit substitutes.
The Independent Community Bankers of America previously estimated that if the bill does not impose stronger yield restrictions, stablecoins could pull about $1.3 trillion of deposits out of the banking system and reduce community bank lending capacity by about $850 billion, affecting access to credit for small businesses, agriculture and households in underserved areas.
Fed hike expectations shift across multiple market readings
According to Jin10, CME FedWatch showed a 63.1% probability that the Fed leaves rates unchanged in July and a 36.9% probability of a cumulative 25-basis-point hike by then. For September, the probabilities were 28.3% for no change, 51.4% for a cumulative 25-basis-point hike and 20.4% for a cumulative 50-basis-point hike.
A later update showed a 58.3% probability of no change in July and a 41.7% probability of a cumulative 25-basis-point hike. For September, the figures were 24.9% for no change, 51.2% for a cumulative 25-basis-point hike and 23.9% for a cumulative 50-basis-point hike.
Separate US short-term rate futures data cited by Jin10 showed the probability of a July rate hike rising to about 45% from 35% earlier on Monday.
A Bank of America fund manager survey also showed that 83% of investors do not expect the Fed to raise rates before the November US midterm elections.
a16z says TradFi is adopting blockchain technology, not the DeFi model
a16z said in a blog post that while many in the market expect a full convergence of DeFi and traditional finance as institutions explore blockchain, the reality may look different.
The firm argued that traditional financial institutions are turning to blockchain not because they are embracing decentralization, but because the technology can reduce costs, improve settlement efficiency, expand distribution and strengthen customer relationship management.
What is more likely to emerge, a16z wrote, is a new form of programmable financial infrastructure built on blockchain rails and tailored to institutional needs, rather than a direct merger of TradFi and DeFi. Institutions are selectively absorbing technical features from DeFi and modifying them to fit their own regulatory, risk-management and operational requirements.
Examples include atomic settlement to reduce counterparty risk, shared ledgers to lower reconciliation costs, programmable money to automate interest payments, margin management and corporate actions, and automated market-making models being used in onchain foreign exchange and tokenized asset pricing.
At the same time, native DeFi features such as open access, anonymity and trustless execution often conflict with institutional demands for compliance, control and accountability. a16z said projects such as JPMorgan’s institutional blockchain efforts and tokenized funds from BlackRock and Franklin Templeton are not cases of TradFi entering DeFi, but of blockchain improving existing financial workflows.
The firm said the industry is likely to continue on two tracks. Enterprises and financial institutions will keep pushing regulated blockchain infrastructure through stablecoins, tokenized assets and onchain settlement, while open networks will continue to generate new financial primitives and market mechanisms that can later feed institutional systems.
In that framework, TradFi and DeFi are not competitors moving toward a winner-takes-all outcome. They are developing in parallel, and any real convergence may happen at the level of base blockchain networks rather than through one side absorbing the other. For developers, a16z said, the key is to decide who they are building for. Institutional products need compliance, risk control and long-term workflow design. Open-network products still need to prioritize innovation, liquidity and network effects.
EthSystems launches to build Ethereum privacy tools for institutions
Institutional Ethereum privacy technology company EthSystems said it has officially launched, backed by strategic funding support from ecosystem supporters including Bitmine, Sharplink Gaming and Joe Lubin.
The company is focused on privacy technology for banks, asset managers and other regulated institutions, aiming to let them execute financial transactions at scale on the Ethereum network while protecting sensitive details such as transaction information and client identities.
EthSystems was founded by the core team behind the Ethereum Foundation’s Institutional Privacy Task Force, or IPTF. The team said it has already spent a year conducting open-source development through the EthSystems website and has established working relationships with multiple central banks, regulators, large banks and asset managers.
EthSystems said institutions have already started exploring stablecoins, tokenized assets and Ethereum-based settlement systems, but large-scale adoption still faces privacy and compliance hurdles. Financial institutions need more than simple access to a blockchain network, the company said. They need a full infrastructure stack that can protect commercial confidentiality, meet regulatory requirements and integrate with existing financial systems.
Its goal is to build a “selective disclosure” privacy architecture so that transaction participants can see only the information they are permitted to access, while preserving Ethereum’s core strengths in decentralization, security and openness.
The company also described how it will sit alongside two related organizations. Ethlabs will focus on Ethereum core protocol and infrastructure research and development. Ethereum Institutional will handle institutional partnerships, education, market research and ecosystem coordination. EthSystems will focus on application-layer technology, translating institutional requirements into deployable privacy protocols and financial systems.
Stablecoin payments startup Velocity raises $38 million Series A
According to Fortune, stablecoin payments infrastructure startup Velocity has raised a $38 million Series A round led by Dragonfly, with participation from Coinbase, Capital One Ventures and Wintermute.
Velocity chief executive Eric Queathem did not disclose the company’s latest valuation. Founded in 2025, Velocity provides stablecoin payment tools for businesses, payment service providers, fintech firms and financial institutions, helping them use dollar-pegged tokens for cross-border payments, settlement and treasury management.
The company currently operates in the US, parts of Europe and Australia. It plans to use the new funding to seek licenses, expand into Africa and Latin America, build safer custody infrastructure and roll out new functions that include stablecoin yield products.
DeepMind co-founder says AGI could arrive within years
Google DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis said in a recent article that artificial general intelligence could arrive within years, with transformative effects he described as 10 times larger than the Industrial Revolution and 10 times faster in pace.
Hassabis said the risks posed by frontier models in areas including cybersecurity, nuclear systems and biology are becoming more visible, and that the industry needs stronger safeguards for future AI systems with autonomy and self-improvement capabilities.
He called on the US to lead the creation of a “frontier AI standards body” modeled on the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or FINRA. The proposed body would operate as a public-private partnership or self-regulatory organization, run by independent technical experts and representatives from the open-source community, with funding from the industry.
Its core job would be to develop dynamic scientific evaluation protocols. At the start, frontier labs would voluntarily submit models for review 30 days before release, with the framework eventually moving toward mandatory market-access testing. Non-frontier models from startups or academic groups would be exempt. Hassabis said the approach is designed to handle unknown risks through technically driven review and to support a broader international consensus on AI risk management.
Cap responds to Stabledrop controversy
Cap founder Benjamin issued an apology and detailed response to criticism over the reduction in Stabledrop allocations.
He said the team committed too early to an airdrop pool of 11 million before funding had fully landed. Because fundraising later fell short of expectations as market conditions changed, the actual airdrop pool was reduced to 4.2 million.
To avoid real principal losses for early YT holders, Benjamin said the team changed the original linear distribution plan to a restructuring model described as “principal protected but without profit,” and said the rule applied equally to all wallets.
He also addressed community claims that a related whale wallet had engaged in insider score farming, saying the wallet belonged to a former colleague rather than the team and that no treasury funds were used.
Benjamin added that the Cap protocol remains healthy and that a decline in TVL over the weekend was caused by a surge in borrowing rates for USDM on Aave over MegaETH, which pushed arbitrageurs out. He said the move was unrelated to the airdrop controversy and that all redemptions were processed successfully.
Coinbase Institutional says BTC resilience may point to a bottoming process
Coinbase Institutional said US nonfarm payrolls came in far below expectations, but the escalation in the Middle East has pushed inflation risk back to the front of the market narrative. Traders are now pricing in higher rates for longer, financial conditions are tightening and long-duration risk assets are under pressure, while the odds of another rate hike this year are rising.
Even so, BTC has fallen only about 2% under this mix of headwinds. Coinbase Institutional said that kind of relative resilience may indicate that the market is in a bottoming phase.
PinGo says 840,000 PINGO tokens were stolen but risk is contained
According to an official statement, PinGo said its rewards contract was recently attacked. The attacker exploited a permission verification flaw and illegally claimed 840,000 PINGO tokens.
PinGo said the incident has been brought under control, remaining assets have been migrated and the relevant contract upgrade has been completed. The project added that PINGO tokens and the related private keys remain secure and that the rewards claim function has reopened.
EU sanctions Stern, with more than $300 million in ransom inflows linked onchain
The US, EU and UK jointly announced sanctions on a group of state-linked hackers, cybercrime gangs and infrastructure providers accused of causing billions of dollars in damage to companies, critical infrastructure and government agencies worldwide.
One of the highest-profile actions was the EU sanctioning of Russian cybercriminal Vitaly Nikolayevich Kovalev, also known as Stern. The EU said Stern was a core manager within the Trickbot Group ransomware organization, whose ecosystem includes major strains such as Conti ransomware and Ryuk.
Onchain analysis showed that wallets linked to Stern received more than $300 million in ransom payments, potentially making him the largest ransomware operator identified to date. The analysis added that the $300 million may represent only Stern’s personal proceeds and that the Trickbot group’s total illicit revenue could be much higher.
Fund flow analysis linked Stern to multiple ransomware ecosystems, including Ryuk, Conti, Diavol, Karakurt, Royal and Quantum. Investigators said Stern played a role similar to a chief executive within Trickbot, handling budgeting, recruitment, infrastructure procurement and attack planning.
Hadrius raises $27 million for AI-native compliance infrastructure
According to PR Newswire, AI compliance infrastructure company Hadrius has raised $27 million across seed and Series A financing. The round was led by CRV, with participation from Y Combinator, Pathlight Ventures and founders linked to Altruist, Jump AI and FINNY.
The company said the capital will be used to build AI-native compliance infrastructure for the financial services industry, using agentic AI to integrate fragmented compliance reviews, risk monitoring and regulatory document management into a single intelligent workflow.
Huobi HTX to host livestream on SK Hynix ADR volatility and AI chip investing
According to the exchange’s official social media account, Huobi HTX will host a livestream today at 20:30 titled “The first real test of AI chip conviction: SK Hynix ADR’s three-day ride, from a 13% surge to a Korean stock market trading curb.”
Crypto KOLs including MEJ Maomaojie, 77, Zhencheng Xiaodaoshi and Qiwen are set to join. The discussion will cover the sharp volatility in SK Hynix ADR after listing, whether rich AI chip valuations are facing their first real stress test, and future opportunities across the AI compute supply chain, while also looking at global tech stocks and capital rotation in crypto markets.
SoSoValue: spot bitcoin ETFs saw $425 million in net outflows yesterday
According to SoSoValue, spot bitcoin ETFs posted $425 million in total net outflows yesterday, July 13 US Eastern time.
The largest single-day inflow went to Grayscale’s Bitcoin Mini Trust ETF, BTC, which took in $53.3762 million, bringing its historical cumulative net inflow to $2.547 billion. VanEck’s HODL ranked second with $6.1399 million in daily inflows and a historical total of $1.142 billion.
The biggest outflow came from Fidelity’s FBTC, which lost $246 million on the day. FBTC’s historical cumulative net inflow stands at $9.905 billion.
As of publication, total net assets across spot bitcoin ETFs stood at $74.790 billion. The ETF net asset ratio relative to bitcoin’s total market capitalization was 5.99%, and cumulative historical net inflows had reached $50.852 billion.
SoSoValue: spot ether ETFs saw $15.4092 million in net outflows yesterday
SoSoValue data showed that spot ether ETFs recorded total net outflows of $15.4092 million yesterday.
Fidelity’s FETH accounted for the full amount of the day’s outflow, with its historical cumulative net inflow reaching $2.134 billion.
As of publication, total net assets across spot ether ETFs stood at $9.458 billion. The ETF net asset ratio relative to ether’s total market capitalization was 4.43%, and cumulative historical net inflows had reached $10.958 billion.
LAB to unlock 16.23 million tokens on July 14
According to CoinLaunch, LAB Terminal will unlock 16.23 million LAB tokens for investors on July 14, equal to about 1.6% of maximum supply.
The unlock is worth about $4.06 million, equal to 8.5% of the investor allocation and about 5.0% of current market capitalization. The total Investors allocation is 192 million LAB, of which 94.60 million have already been unlocked, equal to 49.27% of that bucket. Another 16.23 million LAB is scheduled to unlock monthly from Aug. 14, 2026 through Dec. 14, 2026.
CoinLaunch also showed that 70.8% of total token supply is labeled “Untracked,” with the page noting that the data is unavailable and those tokens may unlock at any time.
LAB was quoted at $0.3777, down 97.6% over the past seven days, with a market capitalization of about $122 million.
Binance.US says it is rebuilding after two years of regulatory setbacks
According to CoinDesk, Binance.US chief executive Stephen Gregory said the exchange is in a rebuilding phase after two years of regulatory setbacks and aims to reclaim a 20% share of the US crypto market.
The company plans to use very low trading fees, new regulated products and deeper liquidity to win users back. Over the past two years, Binance.US has been hit by multiple lawsuits and enforcement actions, causing its US market share to shrink sharply.
The exchange was once one of the largest crypto trading platforms in the country and held about 20% of the US market at its 2022 peak. Current management said the company will focus on compliance and launch product lines that meet US regulatory requirements to rebuild trust.
CoinDesk noted that Binance.US is the US-based independent operating entity of the Binance group and is fully separate from the global Binance platform in both operations and legal structure.
New Hampshire enacts Blockchain Basic Laws
New Hampshire Governor Kelly Ayotte signed HB 639 into law last week. The measure, known as the Blockchain Basic Laws, provides protections for crypto innovation and crypto use in the state and allows a special blockchain docket to be created in superior court.
The state already passed a strategic bitcoin reserve law last year allowing the state treasurer to invest up to 5% of public funds in bitcoin and precious metals including gold and silver. The state’s executive council last week rejected a proposal that would have allowed the New Hampshire Business Finance Authority to support bitcoin-backed municipal bonds.
Warsh says changes to Fed balance-sheet policy will be telegraphed in advance
According to Jin10, Federal Reserve Chair Warsh said any changes to balance-sheet policy will be announced in advance.
Meme token watchlist
According to GMGN market data as of 09:30 on July 15, the top five trending ETH meme tokens over the past 24 hours were ASTEROID, LINK, PRISM, ADI and SYN.
On Solana, the top five were TrumpCoin, ANSEM, brain, HAAL9K and three.
On Base, the top five were MYRAD, ELSA, SOSO, ODOS and Surplus.
Articles highlighted in the roundup
- Circle CEO’s long essay on how the agent economy is reshaping value creation and transfer
- Grayscale on three stages of stock tokenization and the public chains most likely to benefit
- A post-mortem on LAB’s near-collapse after its huge rally
- A look at how long the storage boom can last
- A report on intraday oil’s 10% surge, renewed US pressure on Iran and fresh remarks from Trump