Visa is searching for a new partner to handle stablecoin settlement after BVNK, which previously filled that role, was acquired by Mastercard earlier this year, according to documents reviewed by CoinDesk. The payments company’s request for product calls for a firm that can support swaps across multiple stablecoins and provide settlement services for the newly introduced Open USD project. Visa is specifically seeking a settlement and over-the-counter partner with cryptocurrency exchange licenses in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Singapore, a requirement that narrows the list of candidates. The documents say the partner would support Open USD, a project backed by Stripe, Visa and Mastercard that is designed to work with more than one stablecoin. The search comes as stablecoins remain a key battleground for major payments companies even while other parts of the crypto market stay subdued. CoinGecko data cited by CoinDesk puts the sector’s total market capitalization at about $300 billion. The report also points to Stripe’s late-2024 acquisition of Bridge for $1.1 billion as a move that increased competitive pressure. Last month, Visa launched its Visa Stablecoin Platform, with OUSD as the first supported token. Visa declined to comment.

Galaxy Research’s review of the second quarter of 2026 points to a broad, orderly reduction in leverage across crypto credit and derivatives rather than the kind of abrupt collapse seen in 2022. Total crypto-collateralized lending across CeFi platforms, DeFi lending apps, and the crypto-backed portion of CDP stablecoins fell by $11.33 billion, or 16.78% quarter over quarter, to $56.16 billion. That left the market down 40.13% from the $78.69 billion peak recorded in Q3 2025. DeFi lending posted the sharpest contraction, falling $7.79 billion, or 27.61%, to $20.43 billion, while CeFi outstanding loans declined 9.62% to $22.98 billion. As a result, CeFi loan books exceeded DeFi lending app balances for the first time since Q3 2023. On the corporate side, Galaxy said debt tied to digital asset treasury strategies stood at $16.1 billion after Strategy completed a $1.5 billion debt repurchase in May. Futures open interest, including perpetuals, slipped only 3.08% in the quarter to $103.2 billion, though BTC and ETH both saw notable declines beneath that relatively stable headline number. By the end of July, total open interest had already rebounded to roughly $114 billion.

Onchain Lens said a wallet believed to be linked to the Ethena team deposited 17 million ENA into FalconX about one hour before the report, a transfer valued at roughly $14.09 million. The transaction may be tied to an over-the-counter, or OTC, sale, according to the monitoring note cited by BlockBeats. The same wallet had previously received ENA from Ethena’s Gnosis Safe last year, which was cited as part of the basis for the suspected connection. No additional details on the destination, sale terms, or confirmation from Ethena were provided in the source report.

ChainCatcher reported that on-chain data shows three wallets linked to Multicoin currently hold a combined roughly 1.777 million HYPE, valued at about $102 million. The report also said some of the related HYPE had previously been transferred to Coinbase Prime and Galaxy OTC. At this stage, however, it remains unconfirmed whether those tokens were ultimately sold. The update focused on the current holdings visible on-chain and did not provide confirmation of completed disposal activity.

A PANews analysis argues that Binance is not simply trying to extend stock trading hours into weekends. The bigger goal, the article says, is to compete for price formation after traditional equity markets close, using perpetual contracts as the first venue for directional expression and bStocks as the inventory and correction layer behind them. The piece compares weekend and reopening data across NVDA, TSLA, SNDK, SPCX and SKHY-related products, and finds that large volume alone does not prove durable price leadership. In one August 2026 weekend example, four stock perpetuals on Binance traded about $461 million in total and all priced above the prior cash close on Sunday, only for all four to open lower when the U.S. cash market returned on Monday. In a separate SNDK case during the U.S. Independence Day long weekend, Binance’s weekend market captured most of an eventual 4.8% opening gap, but overshot the move. Across 25 U.S. market close-to-reopen samples, Sunday direction matched the next cash open 13 times, or 52%. The article’s conclusion is that Perps may be efficient at generating a candidate price, but bStocks, stock conversion, borrow depth and on-chain circulation are what could determine whether that price can be held, financed, hedged, challenged and ultimately validated as a market price.

Onchain Lens has tracked a transfer of $81.97 million in USDC from Ethena’s Coinbase Prime custody wallet to FalconX, according to a ChainCatcher report. On-chain transaction records indicate the movement may be tied to an over-the-counter, or OTC, sale. At this stage, there is no confirmation that Ethena has completed any sale. The report points only to the wallet transfer and the possible OTC connection reflected in the transaction records, without confirming the final disposition of the funds.

Ethena recently transferred 81.97 million USDC held in custody at Coinbase Prime to FalconX, according to monitoring cited by Techub and attributed to @OnchainLens. The move was described as potentially linked to an over-the-counter, or OTC, sale. Ethena is the issuer of the USDe stablecoin, and the report said the transfer may relate to treasury management or institutional trading needs. FalconX, for its part, is an institutional digital asset trading platform that is often used to execute large OTC transactions. No additional details on the transaction terms, counterparties, or timing beyond 「recently」 were disclosed in the source item.

Bitcoin has yet to join the rebound seen in U.S. equities and gold, even as spot Bitcoin ETF flows in the United States have turned positive again and several long-term on-chain indicators have moved closer to historically depressed levels. Since peaking at about $126,000 in October last year, Bitcoin has remained in a prolonged correction and has spent the past 30 days trading sideways between $62,000 and $66,000, according to CoinGecko. Over the past 90 days, Glassnode said the S&P 500 rose about 5% while Bitcoin fell 20%, underscoring a sharp divergence in performance. The report, written by Nancy for PANews and republished by Blockcast, points to a mix of countervailing forces. On one side, Santiment Intelligence data showed 2.27 million new BTC wallets and 751,000 active wallets over the past week, while SoSoValue recorded five straight trading days of net inflows into U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs, totaling $854 million, the strongest weekly result since April 17. On the other side, miner selling, liquidity needs at crypto DAT companies, and weak U.S. spot demand continue to weigh on price action. CryptoQuant said miner-linked OTC balances have dropped from about 500,000 BTC in November 2021 to 139,700 BTC, while Coinglass showed the Coinbase Bitcoin Premium Index has stayed negative for 80 consecutive days. PAData’s bottom-fishing dashboard shows only 4 of 12 core indicators in the hit zone, suggesting some bottoming signs are in place but a full cyclical low has not yet been confirmed.