Crypto World
Congress wants to ban lawmakers from prediction markets
While the crypto market burned through the early days of June 2026, a quieter but consequential fight was unfolding in Washington.
Summary
- The Senate has already banned senators and staff from trading on prediction markets.
- House lawmakers want to add prediction-market restrictions to a broader congressional stock-trading ban.
- Lawmakers can possess private information and directly influence the outcomes these markets price.
- Polymarket and Kalshi support the restrictions as a way to strengthen market credibility.
Congress is moving to ban its own members from betting on crypto prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi, the platforms that let users trade contracts on the outcomes of elections, policy decisions, and real-world events.
The Senate already did it: on April 30, 2026, senators unanimously passed a rule barring themselves and their staff from trading on prediction markets, effective immediately.
Now the House is preparing to follow, with Representative Bryan Steil working to attach prediction-market restrictions to a broader bill banning lawmakers from trading individual stocks, and a vote possible this summer.
The driving concern is stark and specific: members of Congress have access to non-public information that moves the very outcomes these markets price, from legislation to policy to national security, which makes their participation a form of insider trading hiding in plain sight.
The strangest part of the story is who supports the ban. Polymarket and Kalshi, the platforms that would lose these users, are publicly cheering it on.
This piece explains what is being proposed, why it is happening, the real cases driving it, and what it means for the prediction-market industry.
What is actually being proposed
The push is not a single bill but a cluster of overlapping efforts at different stages, and understanding the landscape requires separating what has already happened from what is still in motion.
The furthest-along action is already done. On April 30, 2026, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a rule barring senators and their staff from trading on prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket, effective immediately.
Unanimous passage in a chamber as divided as the Senate is itself remarkable, signaling that concern about lawmakers betting on prediction markets crosses party lines completely.
The Senate move came amid rising worry about insider trading on these platforms and about event contracts that can involve sensitive outcomes, and it applied to senators and their offices right away instead of waiting on a lengthy implementation process.
The House is the current battleground. Representative Bryan Steil, who chairs the House Administration Committee, is working with Republican leadership to bring the House in line with the Senate.
His chosen vehicle is H.R. 7008, a bill that would prohibit members of Congress, their spouses, and their dependents from buying individual stocks, and that would require lawmakers to publicly disclose an intent to sell at least seven days before completing a transaction.
Steil’s plan is to attach prediction-market language to this stock-trading ban, extending the same logic, that lawmakers should not trade on markets their decisions can move, from stocks to prediction contracts.
The stock-trading bill was reported out of committee and placed on the House calendar, making it eligible for a floor vote that Steil expects could happen during the summer.
Violations would trigger penalties of either $2,000 or 10% of the investment’s value, whichever is larger.
Around these two main efforts sit several parallel proposals that show how broad the concern has become.
The PREDICT Act would bar the president, vice president, and all 535 members of Congress from prediction-market trading, a scope covering roughly 537 federal officials.
Representative Ritchie Torres introduced the Campaign Funds Integrity Act of 2026, which targets the use of campaign funds for prediction-market gambling with criminal penalties of up to five years imprisonment, enforced through the Federal Election Commission and referrals to the Department of Justice.
A separate bipartisan Senate bill from Senators Adam Schiff and John Curtis takes aim at a different target entirely, seeking to ban prediction markets from listing sports-betting and casino-style contracts.
The common thread is a Washington that has suddenly decided prediction markets need guardrails, with lawmaker participation as the most urgent piece.
Why this is happening now
Prediction markets have existed for years, so the obvious question is why the crackdown is arriving in 2026.
The answer is a combination of the markets’ explosive growth, their unique insider-trading problem, and a series of concrete incidents that made the abstract risk undeniable.
The growth is the backdrop. Prediction markets surged in prominence around the 2024 U.S. election, when Polymarket in particular drew attention for reflecting real-time political sentiment more accurately than some traditional polls, and the sector’s volume has since reached records.
As these markets grew from a niche curiosity into a multibillion-dollar arena where serious money rides on political and policy outcomes, the stakes of who is allowed to trade on them grew accordingly.
A market small enough to ignore became a market large enough to demand rules.
The insider-trading problem is what makes lawmakers specifically dangerous.
Prediction markets price the probability of future events, and a huge share of the most-traded contracts are about exactly the things members of Congress control or influence: whether a bill passes, what a policy decision will be, the outcome of a confirmation, or the direction of a regulatory action.
A lawmaker trading on these markets is, in many cases, betting on the outcome of their own work, with access to non-public information about what is likely to happen.
This is structurally worse than the stock-trading problem that the STOCK Act tried to address, because with prediction markets the lawmaker does not just have inside information about an event, they often have direct power over the event itself.
They can bet on an outcome and then vote to make it happen. That is not a hypothetical conflict of interest; it is a mechanism for converting political power directly into trading profit.
The concrete incidents turned the theoretical risk into a visible scandal.
Kalshi suspended and fined one U.S. Senate candidate and two House candidates for political insider trading on their own campaigns, betting on races where they had non-public knowledge of their own positions.
More dramatically, a U.S. Army Special Forces master sergeant was charged in an indictment accusing him of using classified information to make Polymarket bets related to the American military mission that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, a case that linked prediction-market betting directly to the misuse of national-security secrets.
These cases gave lawmakers and the public a tangible picture of the danger: people with privileged information, whether about their own campaigns or classified operations, turning that information into prediction-market profit.
Once the risk had names and indictments attached, the legislative response accelerated.
The twist: the platforms support the ban
The most counterintuitive element of the story is that Polymarket and Kalshi, the platforms that would lose these high-profile users, are not fighting the bans.
They are actively endorsing them, and understanding why reveals how the industry is thinking about its own future.
When the Senate passed its ban, both companies publicly cheered.
Polymarket said it was “in full support,” noting that its rulebook and terms of service already prohibited such conduct and calling codification into law “a step forward for the industry,” while offering to help move it forward.
Kalshi co-founder Tarek Mansour was equally enthusiastic, saying Kalshi already proactively blocks members of Congress and enforces against insider trading.
He called the Senate rule “a great step to increase trust in our markets by making it an industry standard,” before urging the House to follow.
These are not grudging acceptances. They are endorsements from the companies the legislation targets.
The strategic logic is clear once you think about what these platforms actually want.
Prediction markets are fighting for mainstream legitimacy and regulatory acceptance, trying to establish themselves as serious, trustworthy financial infrastructure, not gambling dens or vehicles for manipulation.
Their biggest existential threat is not losing a few hundred lawmaker accounts. It is being seen as rigged, as places where insiders profit at the expense of ordinary participants.
An insider-trading scandal involving a member of Congress would be far more damaging to the industry’s legitimacy than the loss of those members as customers.
By supporting the ban, the platforms get to position themselves as responsible actors who want clean markets, removing a source of scandal risk while earning goodwill with the regulators who hold their future in their hands.
There is also a competitive and verification angle.
The platforms already claim to block and enforce against this conduct, so a legal ban mostly codifies what they say they already do, costing them little while giving them a public-relations and regulatory win.
It lets them argue that prediction markets are self-aware about their risks and willing to accept guardrails, which strengthens their case in the larger, more consequential regulatory fights over whether and how prediction markets should be allowed to operate at all.
In effect, the platforms are trading a small, scandal-prone user segment for enhanced legitimacy, which is an easy trade when their central challenge is being taken seriously.
The lawmaker ban is the cheap, popular reform that buys credibility for the harder regulatory battles ahead.
How prediction markets actually work
To understand why lawmaker participation is so fraught, it helps to understand the mechanism these platforms use, because it is precisely that mechanism that turns inside information into a clean profit opportunity.
A prediction market is, at its core, a marketplace for contracts that pay out based on whether a specified event happens.
A contract on “Will this bill pass by year-end” might trade at 40 cents, reflecting a market-implied 40% probability, and it settles at $1 if the bill passes and zero if it does not.
Anyone who believes the true probability is higher than the market price can buy the contract and profit if they are right, and anyone who thinks it is lower can effectively bet against it.
The price of the contract becomes a real-time, money-backed estimate of the event’s likelihood, which is what makes these markets useful.
They aggregate the views of many participants, weighted by how much money each is willing to risk, into a single probability that often outperforms polls and pundits.
This is the legitimate appeal that has drawn serious interest, including the praise Polymarket received for tracking the 2024 election more accurately than traditional forecasting.
But that same mechanism is what makes inside information so valuable on these platforms.
In a normal financial market, having private information about a company is useful but indirect, because many factors move a stock price.
In a prediction market, the contract pays out based on a single, specific outcome, so private knowledge about that exact outcome translates almost perfectly into profit.
If you know with certainty that a bill will pass because you control the vote, a contract priced at 40 cents is a near-guaranteed 150% return, with none of the noise that complicates stock trading on inside information.
The directness is the problem.
Prediction markets convert specific knowledge about specific outcomes into specific payouts, and no one has more specific knowledge about legislative and policy outcomes than the legislators and officials who determine them.
This is why the lawmaker issue is structurally distinct from the stock-trading concerns the STOCK Act addressed.
A member of Congress trading stocks on inside information is exploiting an information advantage.
A member of Congress trading prediction markets on the outcome of their own legislation is exploiting both an information advantage and a control advantage, because they do not just know what will happen, they decide what will happen.
They can take a position and then act to make it pay off.
That combination, knowledge plus control plus a mechanism that pays out directly on the specific outcome, is what makes prediction-market participation by lawmakers uniquely indefensible.
It is also why the Senate’s ban was unanimous and the platforms themselves endorse the restriction.
The global and enforcement problem
Even if the lawmaker bans pass cleanly, two harder questions sit underneath them: how to enforce the rules, and how to handle the parts of the prediction-market world that operate outside U.S. reach.
Enforcement is hard, especially for the crypto-native platforms.
A centralized, regulated venue like Kalshi can identify its users through know-your-customer requirements and block or flag members of Congress, which is why Kalshi can credibly claim it already enforces against lawmaker trading.
But Polymarket operates on the Polygon blockchain as a more decentralized, crypto-native platform, and the pseudonymous nature of on-chain activity makes it far harder to verify who is actually behind a given wallet.
A lawmaker determined to evade a ban could, in principle, trade through a wallet not linked to their identity, and the platform might have no straightforward way to detect it.
This raises the uncomfortable question of whether the bans would force decentralized prediction-market protocols to implement identity verification, which would cut against the permissionless design that defines them.
Analysts judge it unlikely that the lawmaker-focused bills would target platforms directly, since their enforcement mechanism is aimed at the officials through congressional ethics rules and potential criminal penalties rather than at the venues.
However, the verification problem remains a real gap between a ban on paper and a ban in practice.
The global dimension compounds it.
Prediction markets operate across borders, and capital and contracts can flow through jurisdictions outside U.S. control.
Congress has been debating whether additional restrictions should apply to prediction markets operating outside the U.S., recognizing that a purely domestic rule can be circumvented by routing through offshore or decentralized venues.
This mirrors the broader challenge of regulating crypto generally: the technology is global and permissionless, while regulation is national and jurisdiction-bound.
Rules written for U.S.-regulated venues like Kalshi may simply push activity toward platforms and structures that are harder to reach.
The lawmaker bans are most enforceable precisely where they matter least, on the compliant, identity-verified platforms that already block such conduct, and least enforceable where determined evasion is easiest, on decentralized and offshore venues.
These enforcement and jurisdictional gaps do not undermine the case for the bans, which remain a clear integrity improvement, but they do temper expectations about what the bans can accomplish in practice.
A determined bad actor with inside information and technical sophistication may find ways around a rule that catches the casual or compliant.
The bans should therefore be understood as raising the barrier and setting a standard rather than as an airtight solution.
The real value may be as much normative as practical: codifying into law that lawmakers must not bet on the outcomes they control establishes a clear ethical line and a basis for prosecution, even if perfect enforcement remains elusive.
That is meaningful, but it is not the same as making the conduct impossible.
The gap between the two is where the harder, less settled parts of prediction-market regulation will continue to play out.
The bigger regulatory picture
The lawmaker bans are the most advanced piece of a much broader regulatory reckoning with prediction markets, and the lawmaker issue is in some ways the easy part of a far more complicated set of questions.
The harder questions concern the markets themselves rather than who trades on them.
Prediction markets occupy an awkward regulatory position: they use futures and commodity-contract mechanisms that fall under federal oversight by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which lets them offer event contracts nationwide, sidestepping the state-by-state regulation that governs traditional sports betting and gambling.
This has created tension on multiple fronts.
The Schiff-Curtis bill targets the sports-betting and casino-style contracts that critics argue are gambling dressed up as financial trading, exploiting the federal-oversight loophole to offer nationwide what would be tightly regulated if done through traditional channels.
Congress is also debating whether additional restrictions should apply to prediction markets operating outside the U.S., and how to handle decentralized, crypto-native platforms that are harder to regulate than centralized venues.
Polymarket’s own regulatory history illustrates the complexity.
The platform settled with the CFTC in 2022 and has been unavailable to U.S. users, operating on the Polygon blockchain as a crypto-native, decentralized-leaning venue, which raises questions a centralized exchange like Kalshi does not.
Kalshi operates as a CFTC-regulated designated contract market, fully inside the U.S. regulatory perimeter.
The two leading platforms therefore sit in different regulatory positions, and the various bills affect them differently.
A particularly thorny question is whether any of this legislation could force decentralized prediction-market protocols to implement identity verification.
However, analysts judge it unlikely that the lawmaker-focused bills would target platforms directly, since their enforcement mechanism is aimed at the officials rather than the venues.
The political timing adds pressure.
As with the CLARITY Act and other crypto legislation, the prediction-market bills are racing against a crowded congressional calendar and the approaching midterm elections, which shorten the window for action.
Steil expects a possible House vote on the stock-and-prediction-market bill this summer, but broader market-structure bills governing how prediction markets operate would fall under the House Agriculture or Financial Services Committees and could take much longer.
The likely near-term outcome is that the narrow, popular, bipartisan lawmaker ban advances while the harder questions about the markets’ fundamental legality and scope remain unresolved, pushed into a future session.
The lawmaker ban is the reform everyone can agree on. The structural questions are where the real fights will happen.
What it means
Pulling it together, the lawmaker prediction-market bans are significant both for what they directly do and for what they signal about the broader trajectory of prediction markets as an industry.
What they directly do is close an obvious and indefensible loophole.
Allowing members of Congress to bet on prediction markets pricing the outcomes of their own decisions was a conflict of interest so clear that it produced unanimous Senate action, a rarity in modern Washington.
The bans, where they pass, mean that the roughly 537 most powerful federal officials cannot convert their privileged access to non-public information and their direct power over outcomes into prediction-market profit.
That is a genuine integrity improvement, and the real insider-trading cases, the fined candidates and the charged Special Forces sergeant, show it addresses an actual problem, not a theoretical one.
What it signals is that prediction markets have arrived as a serious enough financial arena to warrant federal attention, which cuts both ways for the industry.
On one hand, regulation is a form of legitimization: markets that are being carefully regulated are markets that are being taken seriously, and the platforms’ eager support for the lawmaker bans reflects their understanding that accepting guardrails is the path to mainstream acceptance.
On the other hand, the lawmaker bans are the leading edge of a regulatory wave that includes much harder questions: about sports betting, the federal-oversight loophole, decentralized platforms, and whether these markets are financial instruments or gambling.
Those questions could constrain the industry far more than a ban on a few hundred officials ever would.
The easy reform is passing. The consequential ones are coming.
For anyone watching the prediction-market space, the practical takeaway is to distinguish the lawmaker bans from the broader regulatory fight.
The lawmaker bans are popular, bipartisan, supported by the platforms themselves, and likely to pass in some form, and they are good for the industry’s legitimacy.
The deeper questions, about what these markets can list, who can operate them, and how decentralized venues fit into the U.S. regulatory perimeter, are where the industry’s future will actually be decided.
Those fights are just beginning.
The image of Polymarket and Kalshi cheering on a ban of their own most prominent users captures the moment perfectly: an industry trading short-term customers for long-term legitimacy, betting that accepting regulation now is the price of survival later.
Whether that bet pays off depends not on the lawmaker bans, which are nearly settled, but on the harder battles over the markets themselves, which are only starting.
Congress wanting to ban lawmakers from prediction markets is the easy, obvious first move in a much longer game.
This article is for informational purposes and does not constitute financial, investment, or legal advice. The figures and analysis described reflect data available as of June 2026. Always do your own research and consult with qualified professionals before making decisions.
Crypto World
Federal Reserve holds rates steady, extending pause as markets await Warsh’s policy roadmap
The Federal Reserve left its benchmark fed funds rate range unchanged at 3.50%-3.75% on Wednesday, extending its pause for a sixth consecutive meeting as policymakers continue to grapple with stubborn inflation.
“Inflation remains elevated relative to the Committee’s 2 percent goal, in part reflecting supply shocks that have driven price increases in certain sectors, including energy,” the policy statement read.
“Economic activity is expanding at a solid pace despite elevated uncertainty that owes, in part, to the conflict in the Middle East. Productivity growth and capital investment are strong,” the statement added. “Job gains have kept pace with the workforce, and the unemployment rate has changed little.”
There were three committee members dissenting, preferring to raise rates by 25 basis points. Nine voted to keep policy in place.
Bitcoin climbed to above $64,400 following the decision, up over 1% over the past 24 hours. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq bounced, trimming earlier declines. Gold also rose, up 1.2% through the day.
The decision came after one of the most uncertain pre-meeting setups in years. Futures markets had assigned roughly a 65% probability to a hold and 35% odds of a quarter-point increase, according to CME FedWatch data.
1inch has moved its Aqua liquidity protocol from developer preview to full public release, covering 13 EVM-compatible networks simultaneously, a scope that puts it in direct contact with most of the chains where professional market makers and retail liquidity providers already operate.
The launch addresses one of DeFi’s most persistent structural problems: capital that sits idle across fragmented pools on separate chains, earning suboptimal yields and forcing providers to manage positions across incompatible interfaces.
Discover: The Best Crypto to Diversify Your Portfolio
How Aqua’s Registry Model Differs from Standard AMMs
Aqua does not use conventional pool deposits. Instead, it operates on a registry-based allowance model: a liquidity provider registers a wallet balance as backing, and that balance can support multiple simultaneous quoted positions without the assets leaving custody.
A swap executes only when it matches the position’s stated terms, at which point the protocol pulls the required assets directly from the provider’s wallet.
Liquidity providers: it’s time to wake up. — 1inch (@1inch) July 28, 2026
Use 1inch Aqua to find more activity in more markets, without letting your tokens out of your wallet.
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Here’s how it works:
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The capital efficiency implication is significant in theory. According to the research context, 1inch has cited a scenario where a $100,000 wallet balance backs positions quoting a combined $300,000, but that figure reflects quoted inventory, not available capital.
Actual fill capacity is still constrained by whatever the wallet holds at execution time, so providers carrying concentrated positions or low on-chain balances will hit limits that the quoted figure obscures.
This custody-preserving design contrasts sharply with standard AMMs, where depositing into a pool transfers asset control to a smart contract and exposes the provider to impermanent loss on every price move.
Aqua’s model keeps the asset in the provider’s wallet, which is structurally cleaner for professional market makers who need balance-sheet flexibility, though execution still depends on verified counterparties and on-chain balance checks at fill time.
Chain Coverage and Incentive Structure at Launch
The public release covers Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, BNB Chain, Optimism, Polygon, and Robinhood Chain, among seven others, all EVM-compatible.
That breadth matters because liquidity on EVM chains remains heavily fragmented, with meaningful depth concentrated on Ethereum mainnet and Arbitrum while newer chains struggle to attract professional providers without dedicated incentive programs.
To bootstrap depth across all 13 networks, 1inch is launching a parallel incentives program backed by 10 million 1INCH from the 1inch Foundation and 500,000 USDC from the 1inch DAO.
Rewards are distributed through Merkl and administered by Degensoft Ltd (BVI). The size of the package is meaningful, 10 million 1INCH at current market rates represents a real incentive floor, but the distribution mechanism and lockup terms will determine whether it attracts sticky liquidity or mercenary capital that exits once rewards dry up.
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The post Registry Model, 13 Chains: How 1inch Aqua Tackles DeFi’s Fragmented Liquidity appeared first on Cryptonews.
The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady on Wednesday, but three policymakers voted to raise them. Bitcoin and gold both climbed within minutes of the announcement.
The split vote is the most contested outcome of Kevin Warsh’s short tenure as chair. Interest rate swaps then pulled back from a fully priced September increase.
Why the Fed Rate Hold Split the Committee
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) kept the federal funds target range at 3.50% to 3.75% by a vote of 9 to 3. Cleveland’s Beth Hammack, Minneapolis chief Neel Kashkari, and Dallas president Lorie Logan each wanted a quarter point increase.
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All three dissenters run regional reserve banks. Nobody on the Washington-based Board of Governors broke ranks with Warsh, which keeps the divide outside the Fed’s centre of power.
Warsh took over in May, and his first meeting in June produced a unanimous hold. Analysts had warned he might get a Fed family feud this time instead.
The statement itself barely moved. Policymakers again described activity as expanding solidly despite uncertainty tied to the conflict in the Middle East. They repeated that productivity growth and capital investment are strong.
Inflation, however, remains above the 2% goal. The Committee again blamed supply shocks in certain sectors, energy among them, and repeated its pledge that it “will deliver price stability.”
Traders had treated a hike as a live risk. CME FedWatch showed rare hike odds priced near 30% a day earlier, while Kalshi put the chance at roughly 23% on Wednesday morning.
Bitcoin and Gold Climb as Hike Bets Fade
Bitcoin (BTC) rose from about $63,700 to an intraday high near $64,700 in the quarter hour after the release. Bitcoin’s post-decision price action left it near $64,325, up 1.1% over 24 hours, with a market capitalization of $1.29 trillion.
Gold moved in step. Spot prices climbed from roughly $4,000 to a high above $4,084 before easing back toward $4,076, according to OANDA data.
Rate markets did the rest. Swaps no longer fully price a September hike, which eases some of the strain that had lifted global bond yields to their highest levels since 2008.
Oil remains the swing factor. Brent fell sharply after Washington paused its strikes on Iran, though oil markets moved again on Wednesday as tensions resurfaced.
What Comes Next for Rates and Crypto
Bank of America told clients a July increase would have been without precedent. The bank noted the Fed has not hiked since 1994 with less than 60% odds priced in.
JPMorgan had modeled a hawkish hold as its base case at 50%, with a quarter point hike at 20%. Three dissents hand that hawkish reading more weight than an unchanged rate implies.
Attention now shifts to Warsh’s press conference and to September. Should oil turn higher again, the dissenters regain the argument they lost on Wednesday.
The post Bitcoin and Gold Jump After Fed Rate Hold Splits FOMC 9 to 3 appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Spain will be in the path of totality for a solar eclipse on Aug. 12. Not only is it the first time this type of celestial event has been visible to the mainland since 1905—it is also taking place during Europe’s peak tourism season, which runs from June to August. Millions of people live within the 190-mile-wide eclipse path, which reaches 36 of the nation’s 50 provinces, while hundreds of thousands of international travelers are also expected to visit for the occasion.
Tourists are expected to flock to cities and towns along the path of totality—including parts of Aragón, Castilla y León, Castilla-La Mancha, and Valencia—as well as nearby hubs, where a deep partial eclipse will be visible, like the capital city of Madrid.
But with multiple wildfires raging amid a particularly hot and dry summer, the rare experience of observing a total solar eclipse may be disrupted by evacuations and widespread smoke.
Read More: What to Know About the Deadly Wildfires in Western Europe
What are the fire conditions leading up to the eclipse?
While Spain is used to wildfires, record-breaking heat in June created a tinderbox in Western Europe, prompting two catastrophic fires: one that broke out on July 24, in the Guadalajara province just northeast of Madrid, devastating over 32,000 hectares (79,000 acres), and another in Ávila, which is in central Spain, that has burned more than 50,000 hectares (123,500 acres) since July 22. The Ávila fire is now the “largest forest fire in our country’s recent history” according to a statement on Sunday from the minister of ecological transition, Sara Aageson.
Together with numerous other fires across the country, they put Spain on track for its worst wildfire season in over three decades. Over 150,000 hectares (370,600 acres) have burned since January, according to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez—which is six times the area destroyed during the same period last year. Prior to 2025, the worst wildfire year for the country was 1994.
Sánchez said over the weekend that the “scale of the disaster we are living through is very hard to accept.” More than 90,000 tourists and residents have been evacuated or placed under shelter at home orders across central Spain, in parts of Madrid, Toledo, and Ávila. Spanish authorities said at least two people were killed in the eastern provinces of Castellón and Valencia
Sánchez also expressed concern about the weather conditions this week, which brings peak temperatures of nearly 40°C (104°F). Extreme heat makes it difficult to fight existing fires and adds the threat of new ones, which would challenge Spain’s already-stretched resources.
With additional factors such as gusting winds and a lack of recent rainfall, the fire danger conditions in the country have been classified as “very extreme,” according to the European Forest Fires Information System (EFFIS).
And those conditions are not likely to improve ahead of the solar eclipse, according to Jason Nicholls, senior meteorologist at AccuWeather.
“There’s a heat wave going on right now, which carries into the weekend,” he tells TIME. “It may ease back a little bit, but then tries to come back again as we get into the week of August 10.”
“I don’t see a lot of significant rain coming into Spain over the next two weeks, so drought conditions will continue to not improve, or even worsen,” he continues, explaining that “wildfire risk will remain extreme across a whole lot of Spain” in the days leading up to the solar eclipse.
How the wildfires could impact eclipse viewers
The wildfires will likely affect both visibility and air quality for eclipse viewers in the country, Becky Wagner, air quality and climate researcher at the University of Sheffield, tells TIME.
The smoke from the fires contains “particulate matter” consisting of burnt material, she explains.
“Firstly, that can affect visibility because these particles can reflect the sunlight and just create a haze and a sort of a cloud that is really hard to see through,” Wagner says.
But there is also the question of air quality, which could hinder viewers’ ability to safely stand outside and observe the eclipse.
“There’s high levels of this smoke, and high levels of the particulate matter within the smoke, which is really harmful to human health, as these particles are really small,” Wagner says, referring to a type of fine air pollutant known as PM2.5, which has been linked to lung cancer and heart disease. “They can be breathed in, and it can affect people’s health, particularly vulnerable populations with respiratory and cardiovascular problems.”
Totality occurs when the moon passes exactly between the sun and the Earth, blocking out the daylight and casting impacted areas into complete darkness for about three minutes. While the experience of totality is brief, breathing in wildfire smoke can make people sick “right away,” leading to coughing and headaches, among other symptoms, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
And many eclipse-chasers will seek to observe the phenomenon beyond the moments of totality. Observation often begins as soon as the moon is visible in front of the sun, and lasts until it has completely passed by, meaning that the complete experience of a solar eclipse can span some two to three hours.
But it’s hard to predict how current conditions might impact the air quality in mid-August, Wagner says, especially as wildfires can often create their own mini weather conditions.
Particles “can last in the atmosphere for days to weeks, and they can be transported a really long distance, depending on sort of wind direction and wind speed,” Wagner says.
Aside from Spain’s progress in quelling the fires this week, there are still active fires in France to consider, since the particulate matter could continue drifting across large portions of its neighboring nation. Wagner points to the wildfires in Canada earlier this month that drifted thousands of miles into the United States, worsening air quality in cities from Detroit to Manhattan.
“So fires in one region of Spain, or one region of Europe, could end up affecting different parts of the country or different countries,” she explains.
Still, Nicholls says that residents in Spain should be able to experience and enjoy the eclipse—with the proper precautions. He recommends wearing a mask when outdoors to avoid inhaling dangerous smoke, as well as limiting exposure to it.
“Maybe hang around inside, and as you get closer to the eclipse, maybe come outside and maybe have a mask on,” he recommends. Then “get back inside to get away from the harmful smoke and poor air quality.”
Read More: Photos Show the Destruction in France and Spain From Ferocious European Wildfires
What are the potential economic repercussions for Spain?
Access to viewing locations could also be impacted by the fires. One of the larger outbreaks is near Valencia—Spain’s third-largest city, which is situated along the Mediterranean. Last month, Space.com said that its beaches will be one of the easiest places to catch a glimpse of the eclipse. But local wildfires could potentially inhibit access to the beaches and other prime viewing spots. Such restrictions could be especially detrimental in light of the surge of tourists Spain is expecting next week—and might even have economic repercussions.
According to Spain’s Ministry of Tourism, the country continues to see an increase in international travelers year over year. And, despite the fires, the ministry is expecting a larger-than-usual boost in tourism next month, with dedicated umbraphiles—or eclipse chasers—traveling just for the occasion.
“Between August 10 and 16, Spain will welcome 446,000 additional visitors due to the total solar eclipse,” the government said in a statement to TIME, citing an economic impact report from the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Business. “A 7.9% increase in scheduled airline seats is projected, compared to the same period in 2025, as well as a 17.8% rise in hotel reservations for August, compared to the same month last year.”
“It is clear that this event will have a very positive impact on our economy,” the Ministry of Tourism wrote, saying that it is expected to bring in 347.5 million euros ($395 million). The government has not revised its projections due to the wildfires; however, it says that the consequences to tourism are not its primary focus.
“The priority is to address the emergency posed by these fires, protect human lives, preserve the natural surroundings, and minimize the impact on the environment,” the statement said.
But the government’s statement also acknowledged that it has “a Special Security Plan and a Specific Civil Protection Plan” in place for the eclipse, which addresses wildfire prevention in particular, as well as increasing the response capacity of public services in preparations for the large gatherings that are anticipated for the special event.
Spain has yet to issue any travel advisories in response to the fires, but the United Kingdom last week began warning its residents—who make up nearly 20% of annual travelers to Spain—to take precautions if traveling through affected areas of Madrid and Ávila.
Bitcoin and other major cryptocurrencies barely moved after the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged, suggesting traders had largely prepared for the decision.
Summary
- Bitcoin traded near $64,100, gaining only 0.3% over the previous 24 hours.
- Gold and silver ETF proxies rose 1.25% and 2.52%, respectively.
- Crypto-linked stocks diverged as Strategy gained 2%, while major Bitcoin miners fell about 6%.
- The CLARITY Act’s 28% passage odds make U.S. crypto policy the next industry-specific catalyst.
Fed keeps interest rates unchanged
Federal Reserve officials maintained the federal funds rate at between 3.5% and 3.75% following Chair Kevin Warsh’s second Federal Open Market Committee meeting.
Policymakers voted 9–3 for the decision, with the presidents of the Cleveland, Dallas and Minneapolis regional Federal Reserve banks preferring a quarter-point increase. Markets had assigned roughly a one-in-three chance to a hike before the announcement.
The Fed described economic activity as “expanding at a solid pace,” citing stable unemployment and job growth that has broadly kept up with changes in the workforce. However, it also acknowledged that inflation remained above its 2% target.
Warsh has avoided giving detailed guidance on future policy and has instead focused on current economic data. He has also created five task forces to examine the Fed’s communications, balance sheet, inflation framework, productivity, and labor-market analysis.
The widely expected hold removed the immediate risk of a surprise hike. However, the three dissents and persistent inflation mean uncertainty has shifted toward the September meeting rather than disappeared.
Bitcoin and top cryptocurrencies barely move
Bitcoin traded at about $64,129 after the announcement, up only 0.3% over 24 hours, according to CoinGecko. Ethereum changed hands near $1,911 after gaining 0.6%.
Other large cryptocurrencies also recorded limited moves. BNB rose 0.4%, XRP gained 1.3%, Solana advanced 0.9%, and TRON added 0.6%. Hyperliquid and Dogecoin were up 1.4% and 1%, respectively.
Total cryptocurrency market capitalization increased just 0.4% to approximately $2.27 trillion. The narrow price changes suggest the rate hold had been largely reflected in crypto valuations before the announcement.
Sentiment nevertheless remained cautious. The daily Crypto Fear & Greed Index stood at 29, within the “Fear” category, on July 29.
Bitcoin’s Coinbase Premium also remained negative. A negative reading means Bitcoin trades at a discount on Coinbase relative to Binance, pointing to weaker U.S. spot demand compared with offshore markets.
Gold rises as crypto-linked stocks diverge
Safe-haven assets outperformed cryptocurrencies during the session. SPDR Gold Shares rose 1.25%, while the iShares Silver Trust gained 2.52% shortly after the Fed announcement.
Their performance showed that investors continued to seek defensive exposure amid inflation concerns and renewed Middle East tensions, even as the expected rate decision produced little direct volatility.
Crypto-linked equities delivered mixed results. Strategy gained approximately 2.1%, while Coinbase fell about 1%. Robinhood declined 1.7%.
Bitcoin miners suffered larger losses. MARA Holdings, Riot Platforms and CleanSpark each dropped roughly 6% on the day. However, these declines had started before the Fed announcement and therefore cannot be attributed solely to the interest-rate decision.
Broader U.S. stock-market proxies moved less sharply. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF, Invesco QQQ and iShares Russell 2000 ETF were each down about 0.4% shortly after the decision. Earlier pressure had come from rising oil prices, Middle East tensions and weakness among semiconductor stocks.
CLARITY Act becomes the next crypto policy test
With the FOMC decision producing no major crypto move, investors may now turn toward the CLARITY Act as the largest U.S. crypto-specific policy catalyst.
Polymarket traders currently give the legislation a 27% probability of becoming law during 2026. The prediction market has generated about $3 million in volume.
Senate negotiations remain divided over political ethics provisions and whether crypto companies should be allowed to offer rewards tied to stablecoin balances. Banking groups argue that such rewards could pull deposits away from traditional lenders.
The bill would establish clearer responsibilities for the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Failure to advance it before the Senate’s August recess could further narrow its path during the midterm election cycle.
Investors will also watch upcoming inflation and employment figures for signs that the Fed may raise rates in September. Those releases, alongside the CLARITY Act negotiations, could determine whether Bitcoin breaks out of its current range or continues consolidating near $64,000.
XRP has come under renewed selling pressure after failing to sustain its previous rebound, sending the price back toward a key support region. Although buyers have stepped in to defend the latest decline, the broader technical picture still favors caution as the asset trades below major resistance levels.
XRP Price Analysis: The Daily Chart
The daily chart continues to reflect a bearish market structure, with the cross-border token trading inside a long-term descending channel while remaining below both the 100-day and 200-day moving averages. The recent rejection from the upper portion of the range reinforces that sellers are still controlling the broader trend.
The $1.02 to $1.04 demand zone once again attracted buyers, triggering the latest rebound. However, the recovery remains vulnerable as long as the price stays beneath the descending trendline and the major resistance area around $1.24 to $1.28, where the moving averages also converge. A successful reclaim of this region would be the first meaningful sign that momentum is shifting in favor of the bulls.
On the downside, losing the $1.02 to $1.04 support would expose the broader demand zone around $0.89 and extend the prevailing bearish trend.
XRP/USDT 4-Hour Chart
The 4-hour timeframe highlights the recent breakdown below the yellow ascending trendline, confirming that buyers have lost short-term control after failing to defend the series of higher lows. That breakdown led to a sharp decline into the $1.02 to $1.04 demand zone, where buying interest quickly emerged.
The current rebound has pushed XRP back toward the $1.08 to $1.09 resistance area, which previously acted as support before the breakdown. This makes the current rally an important retest of former support turned resistance. As long as the price remains below this zone, the recent bounce could simply represent a corrective recovery within the broader downtrend.
A rejection from the current resistance would increase the probability of another move toward the $1.02 to $1.04 demand zone. Conversely, a decisive reclaim of the $1.08 to $1.09 region would improve the short-term outlook and open the door for a recovery toward the larger supply zone around $1.16 to $1.18.
The post Ripple Price Analysis: XRP Risks Falling Below $1 Unless It Breaks This Barrier appeared first on CryptoPotato.
But then, those mechanics—along with loads of elaborately fake-looking special effects, which now, rather than being dazzling, are just business as usual—are the hallmarks of all Marvel movies. It seems you can’t build one without them. You also can’t really explain the plot of Brand New Day without giving away the arrival of a surprise character, but here, roughly, is how it goes: Sad Peter Parker goes through the motions of being Spider-Man for four long years, as MJ and Ned study hard at MIT, the college the three of them were supposed to attend together. After graduation, MJ and Ned return to New York; Peter spies on them wistfully, and when he finally does get up the guts to talk to them, his face draws blank stares. He regularly leaves fresh flowers at Aunt May’s grave. The rest of his days are spent foiling workaday crimes, until some weird events shake the city: an unseen force capable of taking control of people’s bodies and brains has begun to wreak mayhem. Meanwhile, Spider-Man’s web-shooting capabilities have gone awry. His know-it-all AI assistant E.V.I.E. informs him that this is due to a massive increase in “arachnid hormones,” which is also causing him to be more aggressive. In other words, he’s angry and stressed out, and he has no idea how to handle his rage.
Although there was some uncertainty about the monetary direction the United States Federal Reserve will take following the July FOMC meeting, the central bank approved with a 9-3 vote to maintain the interest rates at 3.50% to 3.75%.
All eyes have turned to the incoming press conference by the new Fed Chair, Kevin Warsh, as investors anticipate which way he will lean.
“The Committee decided to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 3-1/2 to 3-3/4 percent, in support of the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate. The Committee is continuing its policy of maintaining ample reserves in the banking system,” reads the statement.
As reported earlier today, this meeting was described as the most unpredictable since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in March 2020. The reason for this is that all meetings since then had a 99% agreement about the outcome ahead of their conclusion.
In contrast, futures markets and prediction platforms had assigned a 30%-38% probability for a rate hike for today’s meeting.
Investors apparently had de-risked from more volatile assets like bitcoin ahead of the event today, as the asset slumped by $3,000 yesterday. It rebounded to $64,500 today, where it was rejected and slipped to under $63,800 before the meeting.
Its minor volatility returned after the announcement, pumping above $64,000 as of now. However, it’s likely that the Warsh speech will impact it even more, especially if the new Fed chair hints at what the central bank will do next – a rate hike or another pause.
The post Bitcoin Volatility Returns After Fed Holds Interest Rates Steady appeared first on CryptoPotato.
Credit default swap (CDS) demand is surging throughout the AI industry. Five years of default protection on $10 million of Nvidia debt now costs about $82,000 a year — double since the start of July when it cost roughly $40,000.
CDS spreads are deteriorating rapidly across mega-cap AI stocks including Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Broadcom, and SpaceX, which all hit record spreads this week.
Alphabet CDS contracts traded up to 67 basis points days after reporting its first negative quarterly free cash flow since its 2004 listing.
Investors refer to the “price” of a CDS by its basis point spread above the notional amount of debt it guarantees.
A basis point is one hundredth of a percentage point, and the higher they “spread” above the notional quantity of debt, the more investors have to pay as a de facto insurance premium.
Companies want their CDS contracts to be cheap. When basis points are low, investors aren’t bidding extra for the right to receive a payout in the event of a credit default. Low basis points on CDS contracts — or even better, no CDS demand at all — indicate confidence that the company will service its debt on-time and in full.
Insurance premium doubles to protect Nvidia credit
Unfortunately, Nvidia’s five-year CDS contracts reached a record 82 basis points on Monday.
Monday’s jump of roughly 14 basis points was the largest single-day move since those Nvidia CDS contracts began trading in November 2025, ICE Data Services reported.
The $330 billion AI company Oracle carries an even worse premium. Its five-year CDSs traded above 215 basis points this week, up from 145 at the end of last year.
S&P Global cut the company’s creditworthiness rating to BBB- earlier this month, the lowest rung of its investment grade band.
Oracle’s bonds that mature in 2056 and pay 6.7% interest widened eight basis points on Monday to 263 basis points over US Treasuries. Not good.
Even worse, CoreWeave topped 855 basis points on Tuesday. A popular CDS pricing model reads that as roughly a 50% chance of default within five years.
Disturbingly, the instruments themselves have become an unfortunate growth market for Wall Street.
CDS for AI stocks shouldn’t be a growth sector
AI companies and tech stocks accounted for nearly $650 million of second-quarter corporate CDS trading, DTCC data shows. That is up 20% on the first quarter and almost 600% year on year.
The spike in CDS spreads this week followed a Bloomberg report that Nvidia is preparing AI commitments potentially worth more than $750 billion.
Those include a partnership with SK Group valued above $500 billion and talks over a guarantee of as much as $250 billion to help OpenAI lease computing capacity.
Doubt about its ability to service that debt sent CDS rates higher.
Read more: South Korea’s KOSPI has erased more than Bitcoin’s market cap in 29 days
CDS trader Michael Burry posted, “There is a reason Nvidia’s five-year credit default swaps are going parabolic.”
The short-seller blamed circular spending, i.e. companies buying services from one another in order to manufacture higher revenue for fundraising purposes.
Credit ratings agency Moody’s has already warned that unprecedented AI spending threatens the credit quality of Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Oracle and CoreWeave.
Direct debt across those six names is worth roughly $460 billion. Land, office, and data center lease commitments add another $1.2 trillion.
The six largest tech stocks now account for 8.6% of duration times spread risk among US high-grade corporate bonds, per Barclays.
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Aviva Investors has launched a tokenized share class of its US Dollar Liquidity Fund on the XRP Ledger, moving its Ripple partnership into production.
Summary
- Aviva Investors launched its first tokenized fund structure on the XRP Ledger.
- The Ireland-domiciled fund received Central Bank of Ireland approval for its new share class.
- Eligible investors can access the fund through digital wallets while BNY Mellon holds the underlying assets.
- XRP Ledger hosts approximately $4.37 billion in distributed and represented real-world assets.
Aviva brings its USD liquidity fund to XRPL
Aviva Investors and Ripple announced the launch on July 29, following a tokenization partnership disclosed in February. The product is a new share class of the Aviva Investors US Dollar Liquidity Fund, an Ireland-domiciled UCITS money market fund launched in its traditional form in 2020.
The companies are using a “digital twin” structure. Fund holdings are represented on the XRP Ledger, while the existing off-chain fund and its regulated framework remain in place.
Eligible investors with approved digital wallets will receive the same investment objective, risk profile, liquidity terms and regulatory protections available through the conventional share class, according to the launch announcement.
Mark Versey, CEO of Aviva Investors, described the launch as the asset manager’s first step into tokenized funds.
“It is our view that this trend will increase efficiency and ultimately lead to improved client outcomes.”
Central Bank of Ireland approves tokenized share class
The Central Bank of Ireland approved the new share class, allowing the product to operate within the fund’s existing regulated structure.
Aviva said the fund targets low-risk returns and daily liquidity through high-grade, short-term debt instruments denominated in US dollars. BNY Mellon will continue holding the fund’s underlying assets, separating regulated custody from the blockchain record representing investor holdings.
Komainu, a regulated digital asset custodian, supported the blockchain infrastructure, while Licuido provided technology for tokenizing the fund. The structure lets Aviva issue and manage fund shares on XRPL without moving the underlying securities directly onto the network.
For US investors, the fund’s dollar denomination does not automatically make it available in the United States. Access remains limited to eligible investors and depends on local securities rules, distribution approvals and Aviva’s onboarding requirements. The announcement did not identify a US retail offering or approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Ripple expands its institutional product strategy
The launch turns Ripple’s first partnership with a European investment manager into a live product. When the firms announced their agreement in February, they said they intended to work together throughout 2026 and beyond on bringing regulated funds to XRPL.
Ripple has also expanded other parts of its institutional infrastructure. Last week, the company launched Ripple Mint, giving approved customers a direct channel to issue, redeem, bridge and track its Ripple USD stablecoin.
Ripple separately invested in compliance firm Notabene, which operates a payment and transaction network for regulated businesses. Together, the updates address token issuance, distribution and compliance rather than relying on a single blockchain product.
SBI Holdings, a long-time Ripple partner, is also broadening its blockchain exposure. The Japanese financial group recently renamed SBI Security Solutions as SBI Digital Practice and repositioned the subsidiary around the Canton Network. The move extends SBI’s institutional on-chain strategy beyond Ripple and XRPL.
XRP Ledger holds $4.37B in tokenized assets
The Aviva fund joins a growing group of tokenized financial products represented on XRPL.
RWA.xyz data showed $313.3 million in distributed assets and $4.06 billion in represented assets on the network as of July 29. Together, those categories placed XRPL’s tracked real-world asset value at approximately $4.37 billion.
The number of RWA holders increased 17.42% during the previous 30 days to 182. However, distributed asset value fell 5.24%, while represented value declined 0.47% over the same period.
XRPL also held $952.25 million in stablecoins, including about $907.2 million attributed to RLUSD. Adding stablecoins to the network’s distributed and represented RWA figures would put the broader tracked total above $5.3 billion, although RWA.xyz lists the categories separately.
Aviva and Ripple have not disclosed the initial value of shares issued through the tokenized class. Future growth will depend on investor onboarding and whether Aviva expands the model to other funds under the partnership.
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