Strategy sells 3,588 Bitcoin for $216M to fund dividends

Michael Saylor’s Strategy sold 3,588 Bitcoin (BTC) to fund preferred stock dividend payments and replenish its cash reserves.

Strategy sold the Bitcoin for $216 million, reducing its total holdings to 843,775 Bitcoin, according to a Monday 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

This included 1,363 Bitcoin sold at an average price of $59,256 between last Monday and Tuesday, and 2,225 Bitcoin sold at an average price of $60,773 between Wednesday and Sunday.

Strategy disclosed the sale of 32 Bitcoin in early June, as its first reported Bitcoin sale since the 2022 tax-loss transaction.

Before Strategy disclosed its latest Bitcoin sale, Bernstein said the company was unlikely to be forced to sell its holdings, citing its liquidity position and cash reserve coverage.

Bernstein’s report said Strategy had 17 months of cash to cover dividend obligations and interest payments. It added that the company remained a net buyer of Bitcoin and served as a strong “balancing force” in a market where leading US Bitcoin miners are net sellers due to their pivot to AI.

Donald Trump says ‘nothing wrong’ with $1.4B crypto windfall while in office

US President Donald Trump has responded to criticism of his 2025 financial disclosures, showing that he earned $1.4 billion in income from crypto-related ventures while in office.

In a Thursday interview with CNBC’s Joe Kernen, Trump said that there was “nothing illegal” and “nothing wrong” with profiting from his crypto investments as president. He claimed that other people were responsible for his investments and he didn’t “even know who they are,” not directly answering questions about perceived conflicts of interest as president.

Trump’s comments followed the release of his 2025 financial disclosure report by the US Office of Government Ethics, showing that he took in more than $2 billion from his businesses and investments, about $1.4 billion of which was connected to crypto projects like his memecoin and family’s platform World Liberty Financial. Many advocacy organizations have characterized the investments as a “grift” allowing the president to influence related legislation like the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act.

Trump disclosed that his memecoin generated about $636 million, World Liberty sales about $588 million and $197 million from equity in a stablecoin venture.

US senator calls for ban on elected officials issuing memecoins

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, one of the US lawmakers behind negotiations for a digital asset market structure bill in Congress, has proposed barring elected officials and the president from issuing or sponsoring their own tokens, citing President Donald Trump’s and First Lady Melania Trump’s memecoins.

In a Friday notice, Gillibrand said that Congress should support measures barring elected officials and their spouses from “issuing or sponsoring their own digital assets.” The New York lawmaker said that the proposed restriction would include any US president and their spouse, but did not specifically mention extending the provision to the office of the vice president or other members of their families. 

“This is a commonsense requirement that should get broad bipartisan support – public officials and their spouses should not be issuing memecoins,” said Gillibrand. “We cannot let self-dealing destroy an opportunity to strengthen consumer protections, crack down on illicit finance, and expand economic opportunity for the millions of Americans our financial system has left behind.”

Vitalik Buterin shares top priorities for new ‘Lean Ethereum’ strawmap

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has named quantum resistance, scalability and privacy as three of Ethereum’s top priorities under a new “Lean Ethereum” strawmap, which lays out the network’s technical direction for the remainder of the decade. 

In a post to X on Saturday, Buterin said the collection of upgrades will roll out over the next three to four years, touching nearly every layer of Ethereum in a transformation he compared in scale to the September 2022 Merge, which shifted the network away from energy-intensive mining. 

“Quantum safety has shifted up a LOT in priority,” he said, adding that finalizing a quantum-safe solution for blobs has “become urgent.” Enhancing privacy is another priority, Buterin said, stating that it has become a “first class goal.”

Dankrad Feist, a former Ethereum Foundation researcher behind the payments-focused layer-1 Tempo blockchain, praised the new plan but argued the 3-4 year timeline is too slow, stating that AI could help developers ship the upgrades within a year. 

Financial companies join forces for US dollar stablecoin, keeping reserve earnings

More than 140 companies have reportedly signed onto a US dollar-pegged stablecoin project that allows them to “receive all of the earnings” from its reserves.

In a Tuesday notice, Open Standard said it was launching the Open USD (OUSD) stablecoin, a US dollar-pegged coin supported by financial companies including Visa and Mastercard, as well as crypto companies Coinbase, Ripple, OKX and Bybit. The project will allow businesses to mint OUSD “at no cost and with no artificial limits on volume,” and keep earnings from the coin’s reserves.

“When Visa, Stripe, Mastercard, Coinbase and Google coordinate on a new stablecoin, the signal is unmistakable,” said Rhino.fi co-founder and CEO Will Harborne. “Open USD is the first launch with a real chance to win share from USDT and USDC, because reserve revenue flows back to everyone who holds it. But that same incentive is what drives fragmentation at scale.”

As the week continued, some of the signatories denied making any firm commitments to the consortium.

Winners and losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $64,039, Ether (ETH) at $1798, and XRP (XRP) is at $1.14. The total market cap is at $2.12 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin winners of the week are MemeCore (M) at 105%, Lighter (LIT) at 39%, and ether.fi (ETHFI) at 29%.

The top three altcoin losers of the week are Venice Token (VVV) at -13%, Stable (STABLE) at -10% and Audiera (BEAT) at -5%.

Top Prediction of the Week

Bollinger Bands creator eyes Bitcoin bear-market end, ‘W’-shaped reversal

John Bollinger, creator of the Bollinger Bands volatility indicator, believes he has spied a “W”-shaped double bottom on BTC/USD on the charts.

“$BTC has seen a series of bullish patterns broken, evidence of the power of the downtrend,” he commented in X posts on Friday.

 “Will this ‘W’ be the one that breaks the trend?”

“W”-shaped reversals involve two swing lows with a rejected rebound in between, with price ultimately breaking through that rejection level to form a new uptrend.

Bollinger has been bullish on BTC for some time. In early May, he revealed a new long position via his Bitcoin investment vehicle.

As Cointelegraph reported, an increasing number of price indicators are flashing signals not seen since the last bear market in 2022. Despite this, market participants broadly believe that the next macro bottom is still to come and is due in Q3 or later.

Top FUD of the week

Tim Draper says Arkham got Bitcoin wallet attribution ‘wrong’

Billionaire investor and longtime Bitcoin bull Tim Draper said blockchain analytics company Arkham incorrectly linked him to a wallet involved in a large Bitcoin transfer to Coinbase Prime.

“It just wasn’t me. I haven’t touched it. Arkham has it wrong,” Draper told Cointelegraph, adding that he still expects Bitcoin to reach $250,000 within one year.

The statement came after blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain reported Friday that a wallet “possibly linked” to Draper had transferred 1,000 Bitcoin worth about $62 million to Coinbase Prime, citing data from Arkham.

Draper is best known in the crypto community as one of Bitcoin’s earliest high-profile investors, having won a US Marshals Service auction for nearly 30,000 Bitcoin seized by US authorities from Silk Road-related holdings in 2014. The holdings are now worth $1.9 billion, meaning Draper selling could have a big impact on Bitcoin’s.

Bitcoin profit and loss ratio falls to 43-month low

Bitcoin’s realized profit and loss ratio has fallen to a 43-month low of -0.35, a figure that signals extreme market-wide loss conditions but has historically coincided with market bottoms, blockchain analytics platform CryptoQuant said.

The Bitcoin realized P&L ratio — which measures the net percentage of Bitcoin (BTC) in profit or loss relative to total supply — hasn’t fallen this low since December 2022, shortly after FTX shockingly collapsed and sent Bitcoin below $16,000.

“Historically the indicator has marked BTC bottoms with extreme precision,” CryptoQuant said on Thursday. In 2015 and 2019, the Bitcoin realized P&L ratio also fell below -0.35 before price rallies followed. 

The data could lift market sentiment, which has repeatedly fallen to near-record lows during the course of Bitcoin’s latest 50% drawdown from $126,080, set in October. Market sentiment has risen cautiously over the last 10 days, with Bitcoin up more than 7% since tanking to a near two-year low of $58,190 on June 25.

Upbit says it only expressed interest in future OUSD participation

South Korean crypto exchange Upbit said it is not participating in the issuance of Open USD, after its operator Dunamu was named among more than 140 businesses involved in the new stablecoin initiative. 

“Upbit has only indicated our potential willingness to consider taking part in the future expansion of the OpenStandard ecosystem,” an Upbit spokesperson told Cointelegraph. 

The clarification follows similar pushback from Samsung Electronics and other South Korean companies listed by Open Standard. 

According to a Friday report by ChosunBiz, Samsung said it had not held formal discussions with the project and did not know what role it was expected to perform. Meanwhile, Shinhan Financial Group and KBank reportedly said they had only indicated that they would consider the initiative. 

Cointelegraph reached out to Open Standard for comments but did not receive a response before publication. 

Top Cointelegraph Features of the Week

The biggest blockchain upgrades still to come in 2026

From Ethereum’s Glamsterdam and Solana’s Alpenglow, to proposed post quantum security changes for Bitcoin, 2026’s key crypto upgrades are some of the most significant in years.

Has Strategy’s capital overhaul put an end to ‘death spiral’ fears?

Has Strategy’s new capital overhaul defused the fears swirling around STRC, or has it simply bought more time before the next bout of stress?

From Bitcoin critics to blockchain believers: The 5 biggest crypto backflips

From crypto hater Nouriel Roubini launching the Technodollar to Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff putting out tokenized gold, meet the skeptics who are now cashing in on crypto.

The DAO behind the Bonk (BONK) memecoin says an unknown actor drained $20 million in tokens from its Solana treasury, claiming the theft was carried out via what it describes as a “malicious governance proposal.” BonkDAO says it has contacted law enforcement and is working to recover the funds and determine who is responsible.

On Monday, the Bonk project posted on X that it reported the incident to authorities after the attack, which it says resulted in the transfer of $20 million worth of BONK tokens from the DAO’s treasury. The project did not identify the attacker, but framed the event as an abuse of its governance process rather than a simple compromise of its wallet or infrastructure.

Key takeaways

• BonkDAO claims $20 million in BONK tokens were removed from its Solana treasury through a “malicious governance proposal.”
• The project says it has informed law enforcement and is pursuing a fund-recovery effort while investigating the responsible party.
• BONK’s price reportedly fell about 7% over 24 hours following the reports, while broader memecoin market capitalization has been volatile.
• The incident echoes other recent memecoin-related compromises where attackers exploited on-chain mechanics around liquidity or governance.

What BonkDAO alleges happened

According to Bonk’s announcement on X, the DAO’s treasury on Solana was drained by an entity the project says it cannot yet identify. BonkDAO specifically points to a governance proposal that it characterizes as malicious, suggesting that the attacker used the protocol’s decision-making mechanics to move funds.

The project stated that the parties involved drained $20 million in tokens from the BonkDAO treasury. As part of its response, Bonk said it has already contacted law enforcement, and it is focused on two immediate goals: recovering funds and identifying those behind the proposal.

While the company’s exact internal controls and the timing of the proposal were not detailed in the post, the core claim—that the theft route involved governance—matters for token holders because governance systems are typically designed to be resilient to single points of failure. If a malicious proposal can pass or execute successfully, it raises questions about how proposals are validated, how voting authority is distributed, and what safeguards exist against fraudulent or coercive actions.

Market reaction and broader memecoin fragility

The reporting of the attack coincided with weakness in the BONK market. The article notes BONK was down roughly 7% over 24 hours and trading around $0.05 at the time of publication.

That move occurred during a period when memecoins broadly have struggled. The market capitalization of major memecoins—including Dogecoin (DOGE), Shiba Inu (SHIB), and Pepe (PEPE)—hit a reported two-year low last week, falling to roughly $22 billion before recovering to more than $26 billion in July. Based on CoinMarketCap data, total memecoin market capitalization stood at about $25.3 billion at the time of publication, down more than 54% compared with the prior 12 months.

For investors, incidents like this tend to amplify existing concerns about risk management and operational security across the memecoin sector. Even where the affected token is not the only one linked to memecoin sentiment, governance-driven treasury drains can quickly affect confidence in how safely community-controlled funds are managed.

Security pattern: governance and liquidity attacks

BonkDAO’s framing aligns with a wider pattern seen in the memecoin ecosystem, where attackers have targeted the mechanisms that make token economies function—especially liquidity and permissions.

Earlier coverage cited in the article described how the memecoin launch platform DxSale reported losing $7.3 million in tokens after a cyberattack connected to liquidity providers on the BNB Chain. In that case, sleuths were said to have identified the attacker’s wallet, but an expert also warned that tracing can be complicated by the infrastructure used to move stolen funds.

Taken together, these episodes highlight a recurring asymmetry: even when analysts can identify wallets or link activity on-chain, recovering assets may remain difficult if funds are transferred rapidly across multiple addresses or through tools that obscure the trail. BonkDAO’s statement that it is working to recover funds suggests the project expects the process to be complex, potentially involving coordination with exchanges, chain analysis efforts, and legal processes.

Related pressure on memecoin investors

The article also points to reporting about losses among holders of Official Trump (TRUMP), a memecoin associated with U.S. President Donald Trump. The New York Times, the article says, reported that about 1 million investors holding TRUMP had collectively lost $3.8 million as of June 30, citing data from blockchain analytics provider Nansen.

While that report focused on performance and holder outcomes rather than theft, it underscores a key reality for memecoin participants: the sector can deliver sharp drawdowns quickly. When governance incidents and broader volatility overlap, traders and long-term holders alike may face heightened uncertainty, especially around treasury actions, token distribution, and the transparency of risk controls.

Readers should watch next for whether BonkDAO can publish additional technical details about the governance proposal—such as the voting pathway, approval mechanism, and the steps taken to prevent similar actions—as well as for any updates from law enforcement or chain-monitoring efforts tied to the stolen funds. Until the investigation clarifies how the malicious proposal succeeded and whether any assets can be recovered, the incident remains a reminder that memecoin “community control” still depends heavily on robust smart-contract and governance safeguards.

Solana price has held above key technical support even after slipping 1.7%, while U.S.-listed spot Solana ETFs have continued attracting fresh inflows as Bitcoin and Ethereum funds recorded weekly withdrawals.

After climbing more than 15% last week, Solana (SOL) price met selling pressure near the $80 level, where traders again defended resistance amid the broader market pullback. Even after the recent recovery, the token remains about 73% below its all-time high of $294.33 reached on Jan. 19, 2025.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin fell 1.65% during the same period, dragging the total cryptocurrency market capitalization down 1.47% to $2.14 trillion.

ETF demand has stayed positive despite market weakness

Fund flow data showed Solana diverging from the two largest cryptocurrencies during the latest reporting period. Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded net outflows of $527 million between June 29 and July 2, extending their losing streak to eight consecutive weeks. Spot Ethereum ETFs also registered net outflows totaling $13.67 million.

By contrast, U.S.-listed spot Solana ETFs attracted $5.75 million in net inflows over the same period. The inflows indicated that investors continued adding exposure despite weakness across the wider digital asset market.

Capital also moved into several other altcoin investment products. XRP ETFs recorded $17.19 million in net inflows, while HYPE ETFs added another $4.32 million during the week.

Away from fund flows, on-chain activity continued to strengthen. According to SolanaFloor, Solana ranked second in global spot crypto trading volume for the second consecutive week, processing $12.25 billion across centralized and decentralized exchanges. That total remained ahead of Bybit’s $10.57 billion, although Binance retained the top position among exchanges during the reporting period.

SolanaFloor also reported that weekly non-vote transactions surpassed one billion for the first time. Unlike validator voting activity, non-vote transactions represent actual network usage generated by users, decentralized applications, and traders. The sharp rise at the beginning of July points to heavier activity across the ecosystem.

Technical structure still favors buyers above key support

Network participation has accelerated alongside the recovery. According to Artemis data, Solana’s weekly active addresses climbed from 16.8 million to 29.7 million in just two weeks, an increase of roughly 12.9 million wallets, or about 76.8%. The rebound followed slower activity during June as users returned to decentralized applications across the network.

Separate ecosystem rankings also kept Solana at the top of several blockchain activity metrics. The network led all Layer 1 and Layer 2 chains in both 24-hour and seven-day decentralized application revenue while also recording the highest decentralized exchange trading volume over those periods. Polygon, Ethereum, Base, BNB Chain and Hyperliquid followed behind across the tracked categories.

Price action continues to support the improving network data. On the daily chart, Solana remains above its 20-day, 50-day and 100-day moving averages, while the MACD indicator is still in bullish territory despite momentum easing after last week’s rally.

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On the 4-hour chart, the Supertrend indicator continues to hold below price near $78.30, and Chaikin Money Flow has stayed slightly above zero, indicating modest buying pressure.

The latest consolidation has left immediate resistance around the recent high near $84, while the Supertrend level near $78 and the Fibonacci support around $76 remain the first areas buyers may need to defend if selling pressure returns. Together with steady ETF inflows and rising network activity, those technical levels suggest Solana’s recovery remains intact unless those support zones give way.

Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials featured on this page are for educational purposes only.

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