• Ondo Finance (ONDO) jumps nearly 16% as trading volume approaches $290 million.
• DTCC-backed tokenised stocks strengthen institutional adoption.
• Bulls eye $0.50 if ONDO reclaims the 200-day EMA.

ONDO token extended its rally on Wednesday after a series of institutional developments strengthened confidence in the real-world asset (RWA) sector.

The token climbed nearly 16% over the past 24 hours to around $0.3737, reaching the upper end of its daily trading range of $0.321 and $0.376.

The price surge comes as Ondo Finance unveiled a new tokenised stock offering backed by infrastructure tied to the US Depository Trust Company (DTC).

The rally has also been accompanied by a sharp increase in trading activity.

ONDO recorded approximately $289.6 million in 24-hour trading volume, reflecting stronger market participation as investors responded to the latest developments.

DTCC-backed tokenised stocks mark a major milestone

The biggest catalyst behind ONDO’s recent gains is Ondo Finance’s launch of tokenised stocks backed by DTC Tokenised Entitlements, introducing a model that connects blockchain-based assets with the infrastructure used by traditional US capital markets.

Unlike many existing tokenized equity products, these digital assets are designed to maintain the same CUSIP numbers and ticker symbols as their underlying securities.

This approach is intended to improve compatibility with existing financial market systems rather than creating a separate blockchain-only ecosystem.

The announcement also highlighted Ondo Finance’s participation in a broader tokenisation initiative involving major financial institutions and market infrastructure providers.

We’re excited to announce that Ondo has launched the first tokenized stock representations based on DTC tokenized entitlements to DTC-held securities generated through the DTCC Tokenization Service.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) is the premier post-trade… pic.twitter.com/r7KcGmDqa9

— Ondo Finance (@OndoFinance) July 15, 2026

Companies including BlackRock, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Nasdaq, and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) are participating in efforts surrounding tokenised financial assets, underlining growing institutional interest in blockchain-based securities.

As the DTCC’s tokenization infrastructure expands, Ondo Finance plans to distribute tokenized stocks across exchanges, wallets, and decentralized finance applications, widening access to on-chain financial products.

Rising institutional interest supports ONDO’s momentum

The tokenised stock announcement builds on Ondo Finance’s growing presence in the real-world asset market.

The protocol has already established itself as one of the leading platforms for tokenised US Treasury products, and investors are increasingly watching its expansion into tokenised equities.

The broader RWA sector has continued to attract institutional capital as firms explore blockchain technology to improve settlement efficiency and expand access to financial products.

Another factor supporting attention around the ecosystem is the discussion surrounding a proposed 10% ONDO token burn, although no final decision has been made.

The proposal has become one of several developments investors are monitoring alongside continued institutional adoption.

The ecosystem has also benefited from demand for tokenized Treasury products that offer yields of around 5.2% APY, reinforcing interest in blockchain-based financial instruments backed by traditional assets.

The technical picture improves after the breakout

Beyond the fundamental developments, ONDO’s technical structure has strengthened.

The token is now trading close to the top of its recent weekly range of $0.305 to $0.376, while the latest rally pushed the price back above the widely watched 100-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) though it still remains below the 200-day EMA.

Reclaiming the 200-day EMA would confirm the bullish trend after the prolonged decline.

However, the price surge has been supported by higher trading volume, suggesting that buying activity has accompanied the breakout rather than a low-liquidity price spike.

Eyes are now on the $0.50 level as the next significant resistance area.

A sustained move toward that level would require ONDO to maintain its recent momentum after recording gains of 15.9% over the past seven days and 11.8% during the last two weeks.

Keyrock, a digital-asset services firm, acquired the trading and brokerage assets of BlockFills’ institutional digital asset business, bolstering its push into institutional crypto markets, the company said in a press release Thursday.

The completed transaction adds BlockFills’ client relationships, trading technology and derivatives expertise to Brussels-based Keyrock’s existing businesses spanning market making, over-the-counter (OTC) trading, options, credit, onchain services and asset management.

CoinDesk reported in June that Keyrock was in the process of acquiring Chicago-based crypto trading and lending firm Blockfills. According to a bankruptcy filing, Keyrock agreed to pay $3.25 million for substantially all of BlockFills’ assets, while assuming certain liabilities, equity interests, customer relationships and proprietary technology.

The acquisition broadens Keyrock’s regulatory reach through a CIMA-registered entity in the Cayman Islands and the proposed acquisition of an FCA-authorized entity in the U.K., subject to regulatory approval.

The company said the combined platform will offer institutional clients enhanced execution capabilities backed by Keyrock’s balance sheet and regulatory infrastructure.

As a former financial regulator, I understand that no law can prevent every market failure or stop every bad actor. Fraud exists in every market, at every scale, but strong rules can mitigate the worst outcomes. They give regulators visibility, set obligations for companies before consumers engage with their products, and require firms to operate with basic and enforceable accountability. The bill is often described as crypto market structure legislation. That description is accurate, but it doesn’t capture the full scale. Market structure is the legal architecture that determines who must register with which agency, who supervises the market, what firms owe their customers, how assets are protected, what disclosures must be made, and what happens when something goes wrong.

Today, millions of Americans already use digital asset exchanges, brokers, dealers, and custodians. They open accounts, buy and sell assets, rely on platforms to execute transactions, and often trust intermediaries to hold their property. If those businesses are going to serve American consumers, they should operate under clear federal rules.

The Clarity Act would create those rules. Digital asset intermediaries would have to register, meet capital and risk-management standards, keep records, disclose material information to retail customers, monitor markets, address conflicts of interest, and follow conduct rules covering fraud, manipulation, marketing, supervision, and fair pricing. Those are basic safeguards in mature financial markets. They should apply here too.

MoonPay has acquired the crypto infrastructure startup Glide, integrating Glide’s deposit and routing technology, the companies said in a joint announcement shared with Cointelegraph on Thursday.

MoonPay, a financial technology platform that provides fiat-to-crypto payment services, said the deal is part of MoonPay’s broader effort to become a digital asset infrastructure provider, adding capabilities beyond its original crypto payments business.

Glide was founded in 2023 by Tushar Soni and Qinyu Tong, former members of the team behind Robinhood Wallet. The company was founded to help applications accept deposits from different tokens, wallets, exchanges and payment sources. Glide supports more than 100 tokens across 30 blockchain networks, according to the platform’s documentation.

Glide aims to remove friction from crypto deposits

Soni and Tong founded Glide to solve recurring problem they observed while working with Web3 consumer startups, where users struggled to fund their wallets, Soni told Cointelegraph.

“Funds sat on the wrong chain, in the wrong token, on an exchange, or on a card, and every deposit meant bridges, swaps, and drop-offs,” he said.

The Glide co-founders met at Robinhood, where they worked together on Robinhood Wallet. “We got into Y Combinator with a plan to build wallet infrastructure for Web3 consumer startups, but working with those startups showed us that users struggled to get money into their wallets,” Soni said.

Qinyu Tong (left) and Tushar Soni. Source: Y Combinator

Glide eventually shifted its focus from wallet infrastructure to building a unified deposit flow that allows users to fund wallets from different chains, tokens, wallets, exchanges or cards without manually completing bridges and swaps.

MoonPay pushes deeper into digital asset infrastructure

Following the acquisition, Glide’s technology will be integrated into MoonPay Deposits, a product already used by applications including Wallet in Telegram, Moonshot and Paysafe.

MoonPay CEO and co-founder Ivan Soto-Wright told Cointelegraph the acquisition fits into the company’s broader infrastructure strategy, following recent deals for security, trading and accounting capabilities.

Related: Robinhood Chain sees over $70M in ETH bridged during first week

“Every acquisition this year has added a layer of the infrastructure that businesses and their users need to operate with digital assets: moving money, securing it, trading it, accounting for it,” Soto-Wright said.

He added that Glide addresses one of the biggest pain points in crypto transfers: users losing funds because they send the wrong token on the wrong chain, predicting that future blockchain-based platforms will require infrastructure that makes those complexities invisible.

MoonPay has not disclosed the financial terms of the Glide acquisition.

The deal marks MoonPay’s sixth acquisition announcement of 2026, as the company continues expanding its digital asset infrastructure stack through acquisitions including Sodot, Decent and DFlow, Entendre and Dawn Labs.

Its investors include Thrive Capital, Paradigm, Valhalla Ventures, Tiger Global Management and Coatue, according to startup data platform Tracxn.

Former acting chair of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Caroline Pham, was named chief legal officer and chief administrative officer late last year.

Magazine: Is Robinhood Chain’s success bullish or bearish for ETH the asset?

Tax season is upon us, and with that, every investor is scrambling to file their Income Tax Returns (ITR) correctly. For crypto investors, this is a particularly tricky task because there is very little room for error. With the July 31 deadline looming, crypto investors must carefully review their tax records and avoid common mistakes such as failing to report, incorrectly calculating their gains, or using the wrong ITR schedule.

The Current State Of Crypto In India

Crypto in India has existed in a somewhat of a regulatory dead zone since 2018 after an Indian court struck down Reserve Bank of India (RBI) directives that effectively shadowbanned cryptocurrencies. The directives were issued in a circular titled Prohibition on Dealing with Virtual Currencies and instructed financial institutions to stop providing services to businesses engaging with cryptocurrencies.

The directive rendered fiat-to-crypto rails inoperable, and crypto exchanges were forced to scale back operations and rely on alternate avenues after banks severed their relationships with crypto-related businesses and exchanges. Despite the court ruling striking down the directives, the unofficial ban remained in place, with the RBI repeatedly issuing verbal warnings directing lenders to withhold services to the industry. The warnings led several major banks to sever relationships with crypto exchanges, and were one of the reasons Coinbase discontinued services and halted onboarding new users. The exchange has since restarted its operations in India.

The RBI recently reiterated its support for policies favoring banning crypto in India, and wants banks and financial institutions in the country barred from exposure to crypto and private stablecoins to limit risks to the country’s financial system. The Income Tax Department has also reported concerns around the misreporting of crypto assets in tax filings, further muddying the already muddled crypto industry in India.

India’s Tax Framework For Crypto

India has one of the strictest tax regimes for crypto. The Union Budget for 2026 retains the Virtual Digital Asset tax structure introduced in 2022, but tightens reporting obligations and introduces new penalties for non-compliance. The new provisions and penalties came into effect on April 1, 2026. Under the new framework, failure to furnish crypto transaction statements attracts a penalty of Rs. 200 per day. Inaccurate information about crypto transactions, or failing to correct such information, attracts a flat penalty of Rs. 50,000.

Now, let’s get into the crux of this article. India has established one of the most definitive tax regimes for crypto, and investors must stay updated on evolving income tax compliance rules. India taxes crypto assets under Section 115BBH of the Indian tax code, a section that has no provisions for reduced tax rates. The section also limits deductions to the asset’s acquisition cost, and investors cannot claim any other deductions when calculating their taxable income.

India imposes a flat tax rate of 30% on profits earned by selling, swapping, or spending crypto. Crypto transactions are also subject to an additional 4% health and education cess. Additionally, a 1% Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) is levied on all VDA transfers to ensure tax compliance. TDS is applicable on individual and institutional crypto transactions.

Let’s understand how this works. Assume a trader makes a profit of Rs. 1,00,000 on Bitcoin (BTC), but reports a loss of Rs. 50,000 on Ethereum (ETH). Indian tax law mandates the trader pay tax on the Rs. 1,00,000 and not on the Rs. 50,000. This is because traders cannot offset the Rs. 50,000 loss, a rule that catches most traders unaware. Traders can only deduct the asset’s acquisition cost. Deductions like brokerage, internet costs, and platform fees cannot be claimed.

Next, let’s discuss TDS. TDS is a tax collection mechanism where a percentage of tax is deducted at the point of income and remitted to the government. TDS helps the government track crypto trading and transactions, and is considered an advance tax. TDS deducted is reflected in Form 26AS and the Annual Information Statement (AIS). Traders can claim a refund if their tax liability is lower than their TDS. However, if their tax liability is higher, they must pay the difference.

Under the revised Income Tax Regulations for Crypto in India, crypto asset sales are subject to a 1% TDS. The rule came into effect on July 1, 2022, and applies to both individual and institutional transactions of crypto assets. It is important to note that TDS applies to crypto transactions above a specified threshold (Rs. 50,000 and Rs. 10,000 in specific cases). TDS is deducted automatically on Indian transactions. However, the responsibility of deducting and depositing TDS falls on the buyer in P2P transactions.

Additionally, a 4% Health and Education Cess is applied on the 30% flat tax on crypto, bringing the effective tax rate to 31.2%. Here’s an example to help you understand how the cess is applied. Let’s assume a trader makes a profit of Rs. 100, which attracts a flat 30% tax, making the base tax Rs. 30. A 4% cess on the Rs. 30 tax is Rs. 1.20, bringing the effective tax to Rs. 31.20.

Tax On Crypto Mining, Gifts, Airdrops, And Staking

This is an oft-ignored area when it comes to crypto tax. It is also likely to trigger the most notices to unsuspecting traders. Let’s look at the tax liability for each.

Staking or mining income is considered income at the fair market value on the date of receipt. This income is taxed according to the applicable income tax slab, not at the flat 30% rate. However, if the trader sells their staked tokens, the profit over the value at which they were originally taxed is taxed at 30%. Airdrops are also considered income at the fair market value on the date of receipt, and are taxed accordingly.

However, crypto received as a gift is taxed slightly differently. If the value exceeds Rs. 50,000, it is taxed as income from other sources. However, crypto received as a gift from relatives (spouse, siblings, parents) is exempt. When the gifted crypto is sold, the original buyer’s acquisition cost is considered the cost basis.

Cost Basis Method

The taxation rules have been relatively straightforward so far. Now, we’re getting into slightly complicated territory. What happens when a trader has purchased a cryptocurrency at different prices over time, and wishes to sell? In such a scenario, what would be the trader’s purchase price?

India uses the FIFO (First-In First-Out) method for crypto transactions. This method assumes that the oldest items, or in this case, cryptocurrency, are sold first and is used to determine the cost basis. The FIFO method is the default accounting method in several countries, including India. Let’s understand how this method works.

Suppose a trader purchases a coin for Rs. 1,000 in January. The trader then purchases another coin for Rs. 2,000 in February before selling one coin for Rs. 4,000. Under the FIFO method, the coin purchased in January was the first-in and will be treated as the first-out. This means the trader’s cost basis is Rs. 1,000 and results in a taxable gain of Rs. 3,000 (4,000 – 1,000 = 3,000).

Reporting Crypto Transactions

Crypto transactions in India are reported under Schedule VDA, introduced specifically for digital assets. Traders must report the following:

• Date of acquisition of assets
• Date of transfer of assets
• Cost of acquisition
• Sale consideration
• Profit and loss, noting that losses cannot be set off

Salaried individuals with crypto gains must file ITR-2, while businesses with crypto income and entities with crypto as their business income must file ITR-3.

Non Compliance

India has implemented stricter penalties for failure to report their crypto income accurately. The Union Budget 2026 introduced daily fines for cryptocurrency exchanges and other reporting entities if they failed to submit transaction data. It also implemented additional penalties on incomplete or inaccurate disclosures.

Individual taxpayers who don’t report their crypto gains will be scrutinized under Section 148 and be liable for penalties up to 200% of the tax evaded if it is found that they deliberately concealed their gains. Exchanges operating in India must also register with the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), putting crypto firmly in the eye of the tax authorities.

In Closing

India’s Union Budget 2026 reinforces the need for reporting crypto transactions to the relevant authorities, heavily penalizing inaccurate reporting and non-compliance.

Despite the uncertainty around crypto in India, it has implemented one of the most comprehensive tax frameworks governing the industry. Investors must be aware of reporting requirements, tax rates, and potential penalties. India’s tax framework is constantly changing as the government engages with stakeholders to draft a comprehensive regulatory framework for the industry. Keeping up with the evolving tax and regulatory landscape is crucial when making crypto transactions in India. Complete your ITR filing before the July 31 deadline to avoid any unnecessary delay.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. Please consult a qualified tax professional or chartered accountant before making filing decisions.

There hasn’t been much to celebrate in crypto recently, but a mid-week algorithm adjustment on X, the industry’s most popular social media network, is cause for legitimate celebration. Crypto Twitter (CT) is back.

Six months ago, some members of CT decided X Head of Product Nikita Bier had murdered their social network. This week, he resurrected it, and the same crowd is overjoyed.

Bier shipped an algo change this week that he called a “tweak to boost visibility of your posts to your mutuals (people who you follow back).” That algo change is seeing X users “sending double our average of original posts & replies,” Bier disclosed.

Many users first noticed its impact on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The reply section, he wrote, had been feeling like “a battleground with people you don’t recognize.” The change pushes mutuals and more familiar accounts, especially people a user follows, back into the main feeds of the X website and app.

The reaction from crypto influencers was immediate and euphoric.

A rare moment of joy for Crypto Twitter

Influencers were first to notice the change, especially the Bitcoin element of CT.

Joe Consorti saluted, “Welcome back, Bitcoin Twitter.” Bitcoin Archive cheered, “Bitcoin Twitter is back… Let me know if you’re still here!” and drew 1,800 likes.

Meanwhile, a Bitcoin conference promoter rhetorically wondered whether any Bitcoiners could see his post, earning over 1,400 likes.

Soon, brands seized the opportunity for engagement. Coinbase posted, “Like this post to put crypto twitter back on your feed” to more than 4,000 likes.

MoonPay went all caps, declaring “BREAKING: CRYPTO TWITTER IS BACK.” Ledger asked followers, “what’s up with crypto twitter.”

Others treated the feed as a resurrection machine. Layah Heilpern marveled at seeing “crypto accounts that I haven’t seen in years,” then accused X of having “basically shadow banned all of crypto twitter” with prior algorithmic changes.

One user put it plainly, “They fixed the algo.”

For the summer, the algorithm is un-breaking. The reverse chronological feed is making a comeback.