Good Morning,

Here's a quick preview of today’s content: Tornado Cash founder sees verdict, China warns about eye scanning crypto projects, salaries paid in crypto are now almost exclusively stablecoins, a well known South Korean bank eyes stablecoins, Binance’s CZ fights FTX in court, the Philippine’s SEC shuts of the lights to crypto, and so much more

It’s almost friday – Let’s dive in.

Market Snapshot

  • The crypto market remains stable within a $3.6–$3.8T range as traders shift focus to micro-cap tokens

  • Bitcoin's frequent testing of its 50-day moving average indicates market fatigue, despite institutional accumulation

    • Currently at approximately $3.72T, versus the 50-day SMA of $3.57T

    • Stablecoin market cap continues to grow, with Ethena’s USDe becoming the third-largest stablecoin by market cap.

Market Predictions

  • Bettors on Kalshi are predicting what will Trump Media invest in this year?

  • Trade your predictions on a range of events, only on Kalshi

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Headline Roundup
The major headlines driving crypto markets

  • Tornado Cash’s Roman Storm found guilty of one of three counts (BM)

  • Eye-scanning crypto projects pose national security risks, China warns (CT)

  • Stablecoins accounted for 90% of salaries paid in crypto in 2024 (BW)

  • The Troll meme coin has skyrocketed more than 1,050% in value over the past two weeks and the artist finally speaks (DC)

  • Acacia partners with Unchained and Build on Bitcoin-backed loan strategy (BM)

  • Crypto miner Iren surpasses MARA in both Bitcoin production and fleet utilization in July (TB)

  • Binance founder CZ has filed to dismiss a $1.8B lawsuit brought by the FTX bankruptcy estate (DC)

  • Sazmining becomes first Bitcoin mining firm to integrate Square for payments (BM)

  • Tornado Cash verdict sets off a storm of protest as crypto advocates push for a potential appeal (TB)

  • SBI Holdings has filed for a dual-asset crypto ETF offering direct exposure to Bitcoin and XRP (CD)

  • Standard Chartered says Ethereum treasury firms now 'very investable' (TB)

  • Trump's latest tariff overhaul squeezes US bitcoin miners as ASIC imports shift abroad (TB)

  • Trump-linked crypto miner American Bitcoin expected to list on Nasdaq as shareholders begin voting on proposed (TB)

  • Gemini teases ‘Onchain’ platform as CEXs push for DeFi adoption (TD)

  • Michigan State pension triples Bitcoin ETF exposure (DC)

  • PumpFun revenue plunges 96% to lowest level since March 2024 (TD)

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Venture Capital

  • UK-based bitcoin treasury firm Satsuma raises $218M in oversubscribed convertible note round backed by ParaFi, Kraken and others (TB)

  • Coinbase plans to raise $2B in a convertible bonds sale (BBG)

  • UK-listed Smarter Web Company raised $21M via Bitcoin-denominated bonds, backed by Tobam, offering a new model for crypto-aligned fundraising (CT)

M&A Announcements

  • Parataxis, a digital-asset management platform, agreed to merge with SilverBox Corp IV in a $400M deal (TB)

  • Bakkt to buy 30% of Japan’s Marusho Hotta, rename it ‘bitcoin.jp’ (TB)

Launches

  • Midnight Network has launched its first token distribution phase for NIGHT – see if you qualify for the airdrop here

  • Ex-Apple engineer unveils privacy-focused crypto Visa card (CD)

  • Tokyo-based SBI Holdings has submitted regulatory filings to launch what could become Japan’s first ETFs investing directly in cryptocurrencies (TD)

Regulation

  • The Philippine SEC has cut off access to foreign crypto platforms offering services to residents of the country (DC)

  • South Korea’s KakaoBank plans to ‘actively participate’ in stablecoin market (CT)

  • Delhi high court orders WazirX operator to disclose Binance agreement, restructuring plan (DC)

Cybersecurity

  • Block production on Coinbase's Base network was halted for 33 min due to a sequencer failover that did not recover as expected (CD)

  • CrediX hacker agrees to return $4.5M after successful negotiations following multisig wallet compromise as white-hat recovery trend emerges amid $2.29B losses (CN)

  • China warns Worldcoin-style iris data collection for crypto poses national security threat (TB)

  • Meta removed over 6.8M WhatsApp accounts linked to "pig butchering" cryptocurrency scams (DC)

  • Senators cited concerns that DeepSeek's R1 model could leak U.S. user data or aid Chinese military operations (DC)

Extra Reads

Chart of the Day

This is how dominant Hyperliquid is now …

Meme Dump

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