Bitcoin BTC$60,396.90 traded above $60,700 on Thursday after a quick overnight reversal after Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh said inflation risks had eased, giving a market that spent most of June grinding lower its first clear lift in weeks.

Speaking at the European Central Bank’s annual forum in Sintra, Portugal, on Wednesday, Warsh said “inflation risks have come down” while reaffirming the Fed’s commitment to returning inflation to 2%.

He declined to signal what the central bank will do at its meeting later this month, saying policymakers would weigh incoming data first. Bitcoin pared earlier losses and pushed back above $60,000 after the remarks, according to CoinDesk reporting.

Solana led the majors. The token rose about 4% on the day to around $78 and is up roughly 16% over the past week, per CoinDesk data, the only large token with a meaningful weekly gain. Ether traded near $1,630, up about 3% on the day, while XRP held at about $1.06. BNB, dogecoin and Tron were softer over the week.

Forward Industries has expanded its Solana treasury after buying more than 500,000 SOL during fiscal Q3 2026. 

The Nasdaq-listed company said its total holdings reached 7.55 million SOL as of June 30.

The company bought the tokens at an average price of about $79 per SOL. It also said SOL per fully diluted share rose to 0.0729 from 0.0669 at the end of the prior quarter.

Forward Industries stock recently traded at $4.70 on Nasdaq, up more than 10% in the past day, with an intraday high of $5.04 and volume above 3 million shares (per Google Finance data).

Forward Industries said the increase represented 36% annualized SOL-per-share growth. The update comes as the company continues to build its Solana treasury while earlier filings show how crypto price moves have shaped its reported results.

Forward Industries expands Solana holdings

In a July 1 company release, Forward Industries said it sold 93,642 common shares through its At The Market offering during fiscal Q3. The company said it used public market capital in a way that raised SOL per share for existing shareholders.

Binance said its Direct Stocks product crossed $1 billion in U.S. equities acquired within 30 days of launch. 

The product went live on June 1 and gives eligible users access to more than 7,000 U.S. stocks and ETFs in the same app they use for crypto.

The exchange said the product also processed close to $3 billion in trading volume during the same period. The 30-day window included 22 trading days, according to a Binance blog post.

Binance said about 73% of Direct Stocks users came from emerging markets. The company framed the data around demand from regions where brokerage accounts, bank wires, minimum balances, and foreign market access have often limited retail participation.

Binance stock access gains early demand

Direct Stocks lets users buy fractional U.S. stocks and ETFs with stablecoins and selected crypto balances. As previously reported, Binance opened U.S. stock trading access for eligible non-U.S. users in June, offering more than 7,000 equities and ETFs with purchases starting from $5.

The product places equities beside crypto balances in one interface. Binance said the setup removes some steps tied to traditional brokerage access, including separate bank transfers and new account flows. The company said users acquired more than $150 million in U.S. equities per day during the first 30 days.

Emerging markets drive the user base

Binance said emerging markets accounted for most Direct Stocks users. The company also said about one in seven visitors to its stock trading page registered an account, and nearly 90% of those new sign-ups placed a trade.

The data follows earlier Binance Research claims about broader demand for equity access through crypto exchanges. As reported by crypto.news, Binance Research projected that crypto exchanges could bring 300 million new equity investors and $2 trillion in new capital into global stock markets by 2031. The report linked that growth to stablecoins, crypto exchange reach, and users in underbanked regions.

Shunyet Jan, Binance’s Head of Spot and Derivatives Business, said, “A billion dollars in 30 days is a sign of the demand that’s been waiting decades for a door to walk through.” He added that Binance built the product for users who “never had a way in.”

Stock trading uses broker-linked rails

Binance does not custody the securities traded through Direct Stocks. Binance disclosed an Alpaca stake as its stock trading service expanded. Nest Trading acts as introducing broker, while Alpaca handles execution, clearing, settlement, custody, dividends, and corporate actions.

The model gives Binance exposure to traditional equities while keeping securities activity linked to regulated brokerage partners. Users fund stock purchases with stablecoins and supported crypto assets. Binance said the product targets eligible users outside the U.S.

Tokenized equity race widens

The direct stock rollout comes as exchanges add more equity-linked products. Crypto.news reported that Binance launched bStocks, letting eligible users convert supported U.S. stock holdings into tokenized assets that can trade around the clock.

Moreover, other exchanges are also moving into stock access. Bitget launched Stock+, allowing eligible users to buy real U.S. stocks with crypto converted into USDC through regulated brokers.

Binance said technology stocks made up the largest share of Direct Stocks holdings. It said the technology sector accounted for about 71% of holdings, while semiconductor names made up around 48%. The company also projected that Direct Stocks could exceed $10 billion by the end of 2026 if current growth continues, though it said the projection was illustrative and not a guarantee.

FBI Director Kash Patel failed to timely disclose a six-figure purchase of stock in Strategy (MSTR), the world’s largest publicly-listed bitcoin holder, according to a report by nonpartisan news outlet NOTUS.

Patel supposedly purchased between $100,001 and $250,000 worth of MSTR on Nov. 21, but did not report the trade to regulators until May 26.

The reason for the delay? miscommunication. Patel informed the Office of Government Ethics that he “inadvertently omitted” the transaction due to an unspecified “miscommunication.”

According to the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, high-ranking executive branch officials need to publicly disclose individual stock trades over $1,000 within 45 days from the transaction.

The trade has drawn intense scrutiny from government watchdogs due to Strategy’s BTC accumulation business and its previous business with federal agencies.

The company, which according to NOTUS has done millions of dollars in business over the years with the Justice Department, calls itself as a “Bitcoin Treasury Company,” and aggressively accumulates BTC as its primary reserve asset. Since 2020, the company has built a coin stash of 847,363 BTC, worth over $50 billion as of this writing.

French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez has promised a “more ambitious” approach to tackling crypto ransom attacks after confirming there were 77 kidnapping, extortion or attempted extortion incidents linked to crypto in the first half of 2026. 

Nuñez said Tuesday that the 77 incidents recorded so far this year are up sharply from the 45 recorded in all of 2025, according to local outlet BFM Business.

“These are serious matters, and your concern is legitimate,” he told the Association for the Development of Digital Assets (ADAN) as he promised more government support.

France has become one of the biggest hot spots for crypto wrench attacks, where criminals use physical violence to coerce victims into handing over crypto. Approximately 11% of French people own cryptocurrencies, according to ADAN, which equates to about 7.3 million people.

France’s rapid alert and protection system 

Earlier this year, French authorities launched a dedicated prevention platform and a rapid-alert and protection system for crypto holders and professionals, which has attracted 724 sign-ups so far, Nuñez said.

Nuñez said that emergency measures have resulted in 200 arrests, with one recent attacker being arrested within eight hours on Friday, thanks in part to the victim using an emergency identification hotline.

Related: StarkWare introduces ‘Private KYC’ to address personal data breaches

Nuñez promised a “more ambitious” three-part plan to reinforce security measures for the crypto sector. This includes stronger intelligence-sharing, since criminal networks are often based abroad, a deeper partnership with ADAN and better operational coordination between security services. 

French wrench attacks on the rise

Blockchain security firm CertiK reported in May that wrench attacks globally were up 41% in the first four months of 2026, compared with the same period last year, with most attacks in Europe. 

The firm said France is the “epicenter” of attacks because of the presence of several flagship industry companies and their executives, a “culture of flexing and voluntary doxxing that remains deeply embedded in the community,” and proven exposure from numerous sensitive data leaks.

David Balland, co-founder of French hardware wallet maker Ledger, was kidnapped and held for ransom along with his partner in January 2025 before being rescued by police. 

Ledger suffered one of the industry’s most damaging data breaches when its customer database was hacked in 2020, resulting in the leak of more than 270,000 personal records and a wave of phishing and wrench attacks that continue to this day. 

“France ranks among the most targeted countries in the world for this type of breach,” CertiK said.

Europe is becoming a hotbed for wrench attacks in 2026. Source: CertiK

Magazine: Bitcoin slides to $58K, XRP hits $1 but onchain data promising: Market Moves

Tether has frozen USDT balances in 131 TRON wallets linked to ISIS-K after U.S. sanctions officials added more than 100 crypto identifiers tied to the group. 

The move places stablecoin issuer controls at the center of a new terrorism-financing action involving TRON and Monero addresses.

Chainalysis said the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control updated its ISIS-K designation on July 1. The update added 134 crypto wallet identifiers, including 131 TRON addresses and three Monero addresses. 

“Tether has frozen the balances on all 131 TRON addresses,” said Chainalysis.

The official OFAC update lists the wallets under ISIL Khorasan, also known as ISIS-K. The group is the Islamic State’s Afghanistan and Pakistan branch. OFAC had already designated ISIS-K as a terrorist group before adding the new crypto wallet identifiers.

Chainalysis tracks Tether flows across TRON wallets

Chainalysis said the 131 TRON addresses had received more than $1.4 million since 2023. The same wallets sent out more than $880,000 over that period. The blockchain analytics firm said several listed wallets had exposure to mainstream services and also sent funds to Syria-based crypto exchangers.

The report said ISIS-K’s media branch, al-Azaim Media Foundation, has used websites and messaging platforms to seek crypto donations. Chainalysis said it had collected past donation addresses on TRON, Monero, and Bitcoin. The firm also noted that earlier public terrorism-financing campaigns often used smaller donations, rather than a few large transfers.

Stablecoin freeze role keeps growing

The latest freeze follows a wider rise in issuer-level enforcement around USDT. As previously reported, Tether’s T3 Financial Crime Unit passed $450 million in frozen suspected illicit assets since its 2024 launch. The unit is backed by Tether, TRON, and TRM Labs, and focuses on USDT activity on the TRON network.

Moreover, Tether froze more than $514 million across 370 addresses during one 30-day period earlier this year. Most of the frozen funds were on TRON. BlockSec data cited in that report showed Tether blacklisted 4,163 addresses in 2025, freezing $1.26 billion across Ethereum and TRON.

Sanctions pressure reaches compliance teams

The ISIS-K action also comes after other terrorism-linked wallet freezes this year. Victims with U.S. terrorism judgments asked a New York court to order Tether to turn over 344,149,759 USDT held in two OFAC-blocked TRON wallets linked to Iran’s IRGC. That case centers on whether frozen stablecoins can be transferred to judgment creditors.

Chainalysis said the July 1 actions require virtual asset service providers and financial institutions to update sanctions screening and transaction monitoring. The firm also said it labeled the relevant addresses in its products. The step gives compliance teams a way to detect exposure to the newly listed ISIS-K wallets and related networks.

K Wave Media has sold its remaining Bitcoin holdings, ending a short-lived treasury push that once aimed to turn the Nasdaq-listed Korean media company into a major corporate BTC holder. 

The sale came less than a year after the company said it had access to up to $1 billion in financing for its Bitcoin strategy.

K Wave sells 88 BTC to repay debt

In a June 30 SEC filing, K Wave said it liquidated 88 Bitcoin held in its treasury and used the proceeds to repay $6 million of Initial Notes. The transaction was tied to an April 29 amendment to its securities purchase agreement with Anson Funds.