Bitcoin spot ETFs posted $132 million in net inflows on July 17, marking a fourth straight day of positive flows. On the same day, CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost said the market has entered the final stage of the bear cycle. On-chain data added another point of focus: a whale wallet that bought more than $290 million worth of BTC through Galaxy Digital last year added another 1,001 BTC, worth about $64 million.
Key developments
- CryptoQuant said the crypto market is now in the final stage of the bear market.
- Bitcoin spot ETFs logged $132 million in net inflows on July 17, extending the streak to four days.
- Moonshot AI is preparing for a Hong Kong IPO and could list in as little as six months.
- FTX said it will begin its fifth round of distributions on July 31, totaling about $900 million.
- Nigerian President Bola Tinubu signed an executive order on virtual asset regulation.
- A whale that accumulated more than $290 million in BTC through Galaxy Digital last year bought another 1,001 BTC.
- Cardano is moving core development work to outside teams as part of its decentralization push.
- Robinhood Chain is trying to bring more than 10 million active users on-chain, though its RWA thesis has yet to scale.
Regulation and macro
Nigeria signs executive order on virtual assets
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has signed an executive order to regulate virtual assets and crack down on unregistered operators. The order took effect immediately. A new virtual asset committee has been set up, chaired by the Central Bank of Nigeria, with the tax authority and the Securities and Exchange Commission serving as vice chairs. A virtual asset office within the central bank will handle day-to-day operations.
The CBN will launch a regulatory sandbox, while the tax authority will draft tax policy. The committee has 30 days to produce an implementation framework, and the government is also preparing a broader virtual asset white paper.
US House panel to hold hearing on the CLARITY Act
The Digital Assets, Financial Technology and Artificial Intelligence Subcommittee of the US House Financial Services Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing in New York at 10 p.m. Beijing time today under the title “Building the Future of Finance: How the CLARITY Act Unlocks Innovation.” The hearing will focus on digital asset regulation and innovation.
Witnesses include the chief legal officer of Nova Labs, the head of clearing and group risk at Bullish, the chief legal officer of WisdomTree, and the policy director at Coin Center. Discussion will cover H.Res.111, which supports blockchain and digital assets, as well as legislation including the American Reserve Modernization Act.
Dutch crypto platform Knaken declared bankrupt
A court in Rotterdam has declared crypto platform Knaken Cryptohandel BV and its affiliated foundation bankrupt after prosecutors found that about €7 million in client assets could not be accounted for. Knaken had already gone offline and frozen accounts in early June, and available assets are not enough to repay users in full.
Dutch prosecutors have filed for bankruptcy and opened a criminal investigation. A financial crime agency has raided the company and seized equipment and assets. Knaken was not listed on the Dutch financial regulator’s register of crypto service providers.
Projects and companies
Moonshot AI prepares for Hong Kong IPO
Moonshot AI has informed investors that it is adjusting its corporate structure as it prepares for a Hong Kong IPO, with a listing possible within six months.
On July 17, the company officially released Kimi K3, which it described as the world’s largest open-source model by parameter count. The model has 2.8 trillion parameters, a 1 million-token context window, native multimodal capability, and is built for long-horizon intelligent coding and self-evolving workflows.
FTX to begin fifth distribution round on July 31
FTX said it will start its fifth round of distributions on July 31 for eligible convenience and non-convenience claim holders, with total payouts of about $900 million. Creditors are expected to receive funds within one to three business days starting July 31.
Eligible preferred equity holders will also receive their second payment on July 31.
Cardano shifts core development work to external teams
Cardano developer Input Output said it will transfer control over core blockchain infrastructure to outside teams as part of a decentralization push. The handover covers the Haskell node, the Plutus smart contract platform, the Daedalus wallet, Hydra scaling technology, and developer relations.
The companies involved include Se7en Labs and Teragone. The transition will start in August and run through 2027. Cardano has already handed protocol decision-making and governance powers to the community.
Robinhood Chain still runs on meme-driven activity
Robinhood is using its self-built Robinhood Chain to make a DeFi push and bring more than 10 million active users on-chain. For now, however, activity is still being driven mainly by meme coin speculation, while its RWA tokenization vision remains small.
On July 12, the chain’s 24-hour DEX volume reached about $878 million, briefly topping Coinbase Base and Ethereum. At the same time, perpetual futures volume was only about $5.9 million, total value locked stood near $211 million, and RWA tokenization market capitalization was around $12.66 million.
CASHCAT has been a large part of that burst of activity. The token rose more than 2,100% in one week, and its market cap at one point reached $156 million. The analysis cited in the source said Robinhood Chain still needs to turn that short-lived meme frenzy into a durable on-chain financial ecosystem.
Foundry to decide BIP-110 support through hashpower-weighted voting
Foundry said it will use a hashpower-weighted vote among mining pool account holders to determine whether to support Bitcoin soft fork proposal BIP-110. The vote will be weighted by each participant’s average hashpower over the previous 10 days. If support exceeds 51%, Foundry will signal support in all blocks it produces. If not, it will continue not signaling. Accounts that do not vote will be counted as opposed.
BIP-110 is designed to limit the amount of non-monetary data stored in Bitcoin transactions.
Trump Media markets premium Truth Social data feed
Trump Media & Technology Group is pitching a high-speed data access service for Truth Social to potential clients at a monthly price of $100,000. The service offers lower-latency data streams so customers can receive Trump’s public statements and market-related information more quickly. It is not clear how many clients, if any, have accepted the offer.
China delivers Mazu weather warning 2.0 solution to Djibouti
At the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, the China Meteorological Administration delivered the Djibouti 2.0 version of its Mazu intelligent meteorological early warning solution.
The 2.0 system links with version 1.0 through an intelligent terminal that packages meteorological chips and forecasting models, forming an integrated “monitoring-forecast-warning” setup. Forecast spatial resolution has been improved to 3 kilometers, forecasts extend to three days and update every six hours, and the system integrates phased-array radar, nowcasting algorithms, AI models, and Fengyun weather satellites for full-area disaster monitoring. Deployment in Djibouti is expected before year-end.
Binance delays AERO spot listing by five hours
Binance pushed back the spot listing time for Aerodrome (AERO) from 7 p.m. on July 17 to midnight, UTC+8. The change applies only to the start of spot trading.
macOS malware found capable of bypassing Telegram 2FA protections
Security researchers said they identified malware targeting macOS that can hijack Telegram Desktop sessions and steal passwords and wallet databases, affecting wallets including Exodus, Atomic, and Electrum.
Attackers can copy authenticated Telegram local session data and restore a login on another Mac without a phone number, verification code, or two-factor password. In that setup, Telegram 2FA does not provide full protection. Once session access is obtained, an attacker may impersonate the user, read private chats, and identify asset information.
Binance expands AERO support across products
Binance said Aerodrome (AERO) will also be added across Binance Earn, Buy Crypto, Convert, VIP Loan, and Margin. The principal-protected Simple Earn flexible product for AERO will open for subscriptions at 8 p.m. on July 18.
One hour after the spot listing goes live, Buy Crypto will support AERO purchases and sales through credit cards, debit cards, Google Pay, Apple Pay, and wallet balances. Convert will support fee-free swaps. VIP Loan will add AERO as a borrowable asset. Margin will add AERO as a borrowable asset as well as AERO/USDT and AERO/USDC cross and isolated margin pairs at midnight on July 18.
Funding and deal activity
Ark Invest buys more SpaceX and cuts Robinhood
Ark Invest, led by Cathie Wood, added 147,805 shares of SpaceX worth about $18.32 million and sold 79,220 shares of Robinhood worth about $7.91 million yesterday. On Wednesday, Ark also bought another $16.6 million in SpaceX shares and sold $3.9 million of Robinhood stock.
SBI Holdings completes Coinhako acquisition
Japan’s SBI Holdings has completed its acquisition of Singapore-licensed crypto exchange and digital wallet provider Coinhako after obtaining approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Coinhako offers digital asset trading and custody services.
Meta and Anthropic discuss major compute leasing deal
Meta Platforms is in talks with Anthropic over a computing power leasing agreement that could be worth as much as $10 billion over two years.
Bloomberg: Innolight cleared for Hong Kong listing of up to $8 billion
According to Bloomberg, optical module company Innolight has received approval from the China Securities Regulatory Commission and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for a Hong Kong listing. The deal could raise as much as $8 billion, potentially making it one of the largest IPOs in Hong Kong in recent years.
Views and analysis
CryptoQuant says the market is in the last stage of the bear market
CryptoQuant analyst Darkfost said the market is entering the final phase of the bear market. The Bitcoin bear market has lasted nine months, and a signal marking the end of the bear phase has just been triggered: the cost basis of short-term holders has crossed below that of long-term holders. The signal still requires a three-day confirmation window.
Darkfost said that does not mean the bear market ends immediately, but it does suggest the market is in its closing stage. When the STH/LTH cost bases cross back upward, that would confirm the start of a bull market and could also serve as an endpoint for a dollar-cost averaging strategy. The spread in short-term holder cost basis has already narrowed from $112,500 to $69,000.
ARK Invest says long-term holders absorbed the Q2 decline
ARK Invest said in its Bitcoin report for the second quarter of 2026 that BTC fell about 14% in Q2, but long-term holder balances climbed to a record high of about 14.85 million BTC, showing that long-term holders absorbed supply during the pullback.
On-chain data pointed to seller fatigue, with loss-making BTC supply exceeding profitable supply, and the rate of realized losses at one point running above realized gains. The report said similar patterns have often appeared near cycle bottoms. Institutional demand has faced pressure, and ETF outflows show weaker marginal buying, but continued accumulation by long-term holders suggests coins are being redistributed.
Serenity reports a 49.4% monthly drawdown in AI-focused portfolio
Investor Serenity said the maximum drawdown in his portfolio reached 49.4% this month, though he also said that has not changed his long-term view on AI infrastructure. The portfolio is concentrated in memory chips, photonics, humanoid robotics, and upstream semiconductor bottlenecks.
Serenity said recent criticism triggered by the selloff in AI-related assets overlooks longer-term structural change, and he still expects AI computing demand and data center expansion to support growth. He added that he has already reduced leverage and is watching the AI infrastructure cycle over a longer horizon.
Bloomberg ETF analyst says Bitcoin ETFs may follow gold ETF cycles
Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said the 22-year trajectory of gold ETFs may offer a reference point for Bitcoin ETFs. Gold ETF leader GLD once became the world’s largest ETF, then went through about eight years of weak consolidation, though each cycle peak was higher than the one before.
He said Bitcoin ETFs could also go through repeating cycles of “fast rise, sharp drawdown, long recovery,” with highs climbing over time.
Key data and on-chain moves
Bitcoin spot ETFs see fourth day of inflows
Bitcoin spot ETFs recorded total net inflows of $132 million on July 17, extending the run to four straight sessions. BlackRock’s IBIT brought in $136 million, lifting cumulative net inflows to $60.490 billion. Fidelity’s FBTC saw net outflows of $4.1841 million, with cumulative net inflows at $9.970 billion.
Total net assets across Bitcoin spot ETFs stood at $77.736 billion, with a net asset ratio of 6.04%. Cumulative historical net inflows reached $51.352 billion.
a16z-linked whale sells more HYPE
A whale linked to a16z sold another 421,796 HYPE over the past 24 hours, worth about $25.3 million.
Galaxy Digital-linked BTC whale accumulates again
A whale address that bought more than $290 million worth of BTC through Galaxy Digital last year added another 1,001 BTC, valued at about $64 million.
Pump.fun transfers SOL to Kraken and cashes out fee revenue
Pump.fun transferred 81,712 SOL to Kraken, cashing out $6.15 million in fee income. Since the start of 2024, Pump.fun has sold a cumulative 4.812 million SOL worth about $812 million at an average price near $168.7.
Whale sells 30,000 ETH OTC and moves USDC to Coinbase
A whale sold 30,000 ETH through an over-the-counter trade with Galaxy Digital, receiving about 55 million USDC and then depositing the funds into Coinbase.
Crypto liquidations reach about $426 million in 24 hours
Over the past 24 hours, global crypto futures liquidations totaled about $426 million, affecting 113,494 traders. Long positions accounted for about $364 million, while shorts made up about $61.32 million, leaving longs at roughly 85.6% of the total.
The largest single liquidation was a Binance ETHUSDT position worth $6.2444 million. By venue, Binance accounted for $188 million in liquidations, Hyperliquid for $87.12 million, and OKX for $48.10 million.
SpaceX market value down nearly $1 trillion from peak
SpaceX shares are down 38% from their peak, wiping out about $1 trillion in market value.
Apple overtakes Nvidia
Apple has surpassed Nvidia to become the world’s most valuable company by market capitalization.
Abraxas Capital pulls more than 45,000 ETH from CEXs in a week
Abraxas Capital added another 12,477 ETH in the past three hours, worth about $22.88 million. Over the past week, it has withdrawn a total of 45,996 ETH, worth about $84.39 million, from Binance, Bybit, and Bitfinex.