Global crypto market cap rose to $3.13T with BTC and ETH posting modest gains, but sentiment turned to extreme fear. AXS led gainers up 20%, RollX dropped 26%. US crypto bill faces delay, Iran used USDT for cross-border settlements.

The crypto market added 2.23% in 24 hours, lifting total capitalization to $2.16 trillion. BEAT led gains, ZEC rebounded after a bug fix, and HYPE held firm after a major unlock, while JST lagged.

A broad set of regulatory, fundraising and market-structure developments shaped the crypto sector over the past 24 hours. South Korea formally opened discussions on the second phase of its Digital Asset Basic Act, with stablecoin oversight at the center of the agenda, while Hanwha Group emerged as the largest shareholder in tokenization platform Securitize. In Russia, lawmakers advanced and then passed a bill establishing rules for crypto market participants and cross-border trade, though the measure still requires presidential sign-off. In the U.S., the Securities and Exchange Commission cleared Ionic Digital’s registration statement ahead of its planned July 28 Nasdaq direct listing, received Grayscale’s registration filing for a Worldcoin ETF, and sued Mining Automatic and Zan Shaikh over an alleged $22 million crypto mining investment fraud. Elsewhere, spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs posted fresh net inflows, Nigeria set up a virtual asset coordination framework, Pakistan created a virtual asset investigation unit, and Arcus launched 24/7 tokenized stock trading and a perpetuals beta on Robinhood Chain.

CryptoRank data cited by PANews shows that only a small share of tokens launched since the start of 2024 remain in profit. Among 113 projects with market capitalizations above $100 million, just eight tokens are trading above their token generation event, or TGE, price, while the other 105 have fallen below issuance levels. The better performers in the dataset were HYPE, ONDO, EVA and NIGHT, which were up about 1519%, 101.4%, 20.3% and 16.5%, respectively, versus their TGE prices. The figures point to how hard it has been for newly launched tokens to hold their initial valuations, with strong post-TGE performance remaining the exception rather than the norm.

Crypto markets on July 22 were shaped by a mix of price action, regulatory developments, project updates, and financing news. Among the most-traded assets on centralized exchanges, BTC rose 1.77%, ETH gained 1.27%, XRP added 2.68%, and ADA climbed 2.47%, while DEXE fell 83.73%. OKX data showed NIGHT leading the 24-hour gainers at 27.05%, and msx.com’s crypto-equity board was led by GREE.M at 42.25%. The day’s headline items centered on Kalshi and Movement Labs. Kalshi has reportedly filed with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission to launch gold-linked perpetual futures. Movement Labs, the developer behind the Movement blockchain, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after earlier scrutiny over a market-making agreement that allowed the rapid sale of 66 million MOVE tokens, followed by a sharp price drop, an investigation, and a token buyback. Other developments included SpaceX setting Aug. 4 for its 2026 second-quarter earnings release, with insider share unlocks due to begin two days later; the U.S. Department of Justice seizing more than $25 million in crypto tied to alleged cross-border investment fraud; Polymarket registering a standalone X account for Polymarket Perps; Robinhood opening trading accounts to AI agents; and Telegram founder Pavel Durov saying Telegram plans to roll out a native self-custodial Gram wallet across all apps this summer.

Midnight Foundation said the Wanchain Cardano BNB bridge was hit by a security incident. In response, several major exchanges, including KuCoin, Kraken, Binance, Bybit, OKX, and MEXC, moved to limit the movement of stolen assets. The measures cited in the announcement include freezing related accounts and addresses, blacklisting the attacker’s wallet, and suspending deposits and withdrawals for the NIGHT token. According to the statement, the exchanges characterized the case as an isolated third-party bridge vulnerability rather than an issue tied to Midnight Network itself. The same notice said the incident is unrelated to the Midnight Network mainnet or to the NIGHT asset. No additional loss figures or technical details were disclosed in the source material.

The Midnight Foundation said multiple crypto exchanges, including KuCoin, Kraken, Binance, Bybit, OKX and MEXC, have taken steps to limit the movement of assets tied to the latest security incident. According to the foundation, those steps include temporarily freezing accounts and addresses connected to the case, blacklisting wallets linked to the attacker, and suspending NIGHT deposits and withdrawals where necessary. Midnight said the breach was caused by a vulnerability in a third-party cross-chain bridge and was not related to the NIGHT token itself. The statement came after an earlier report cited BlockSec Phalcon monitoring that said Wanchain’s Cardano cross-chain bridge had been attacked and that about 515 million NIGHT were stolen. The update focuses on containment measures already taken by exchanges and on Midnight’s position that the token was not the source of the exploit.

PANews’ July 21 daily roundup tracked a broad set of crypto and market developments, led by Donald Trump agreeing to an ethics provision tied to the Clarity Act and Ant International closing an approximately $1.2 billion Series A round. The ethics language is designed to limit the ability of senior U.S. officials, including the president, vice president, and members of Congress, to profit from digital assets while in office. Debate around the clause has centered on Trump’s meme coin and World Liberty Financial, with the bill text expected in the coming days and a Senate vote required before the first week of August. The digest also covered fresh product and platform updates from Binance, Robinhood, Base, Solv Protocol, and others, along with several security incidents. Among them were the reported theft of about 515 million NIGHT tokens from Wanchain’s Cardano bridge treasury and ZachXBT’s claim that TeleSwap may have suffered an exploit worth more than $735,000 that had still not been publicly disclosed five days later. On the market side, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs posted $227 million in net inflows on July 20, extending the streak to five straight days. Strategy did not add to its Bitcoin holdings last week but added $225 million to its dollar reserves, while one company executive said the firm’s Bitcoin treasury could support dividend payments for 31 years.