Crypto World
Trump stalls CLARITY Act as ethics dispute threatens Senate vote
The CLARITY Act’s chance of becoming law in 2026 has fallen to 31% on Polymarket as the White House withholds support for a disputed ethics provision.
Summary
- White House resistance to ethics rules has delayed progress on the CLARITY Act.
- Polymarket traders place the bill’s 2026 approval odds at just 31%.
- Disputes over Trump’s crypto ties and DeFi protections threaten a Senate vote.
Crypto In America reported that the White House had not approved the ethics language as of July 20, despite President Donald Trump meeting Republican senators last week to discuss the crypto market structure bill. Sources cited by the outlet also said the administration has not explained which ethical limits it would accept.
Without a clear position from the White House, Senate negotiators may need more time to prepare an updated version of the legislation, according to the report. The delay could disrupt Republican plans to bring the CLARITY Act to the Senate floor before lawmakers leave Washington for their August recess.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune wants to schedule a floor vote before August, but he has acknowledged that Republicans have not secured a bipartisan agreement. Under Senate rules, the party would need Democratic support to overcome procedural barriers and advance the legislation.
Democrats have demanded restrictions on elected officials’ involvement in digital assets, with their concerns focused mainly on Trump’s crypto interests. According to the president’s financial disclosure, his digital-asset ventures generated as much as $1.4 billion in income last year.
Senator Elizabeth Warren has also requested an updated financial disclosure from Trump. As previously reported by crypto.news, Warren argued that senators need the document while considering ethics rules for the crypto legislation.
The dispute has begun to weigh on market expectations. Polymarket traders now assign a 31% probability that Trump will sign the CLARITY Act into law this year, placing the contract near its lowest level since the prediction market opened.

Ethics rules have become the main barrier
Democratic senators have accused Republicans of keeping them outside recent talks over the ethics provision, according to Crypto In America. Their complaints included the White House meeting last week, which reportedly involved Trump and Republican lawmakers but no Democratic negotiators.
Although Trump met senators to discuss the legislation, the White House has not told negotiators what restrictions the president would support, sources told the outlet. The lack of guidance leaves lawmakers without agreed language for separating public duties from private crypto interests.
Warren and other Democrats have linked their demand to Trump’s financial ties to the industry. Their proposed safeguards seek to limit the ability of presidents and other senior officials to profit from digital-asset businesses while shaping federal crypto policy.
Republicans must decide whether to accept an ethics provision strong enough to attract Democratic votes without losing support from Trump or members of their own party. Thune’s comments show that the Senate does not yet have the cross-party deal needed to proceed, while the approaching recess leaves negotiators with little time to settle the dispute.
The House has already passed its version of the CLARITY Act, but the Senate must approve its own text before the legislation can reach Trump’s desk. Any differences between the two versions would also need to be resolved and approved by both chambers, adding further steps to an already compressed timetable.
For crypto companies, the bill is intended to establish clearer federal oversight by defining the roles of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Its delayed progress leaves those proposed rules tied to negotiations over presidential ethics and decentralized finance.
DeFi protections remain another source of conflict
Alongside the ethics debate, the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act has continued to divide supporters of the CLARITY Act and law enforcement groups. The BRCA language would protect developers of decentralized protocols from being held responsible for activity carried out by their users.
Under the provision, qualifying developers would not automatically be treated as money transmitters merely because they created or maintained decentralized software. Industry groups view that protection as necessary for developers who do not hold customer assets or control transactions.
Law enforcement organizations have taken the opposite position, arguing that the proposal could make investigations into illicit finance more difficult. Their objections have added another contested issue for senators preparing the revised market structure bill.
Blockchain Association CEO Summer Mersinger expects the BRCA protections to survive the Senate negotiations. Speaking to Crypto In America, Mersinger indicated that she believes lawmakers will keep the provision intact when they publish the updated text.
Mersinger has also predicted that the Senate could hold a floor vote this week, as previously reported by crypto.news. Despite concerns about whether the measure can attract enough votes, she expressed confidence that lawmakers could still move it through the chamber.
Thune’s admission that no bipartisan agreement exists, however, shows that a vote depends on negotiators resolving more than the DeFi language. According to Crypto In America’s reporting, the White House’s undecided position on ethics remains the immediate obstacle to releasing the next bill text.
With the August recess approaching, Senate leaders face a narrowing window to settle both disputes, publish revised language and build the coalition required for a floor vote. Polymarket’s 31% probability indicates that traders currently see those unresolved negotiations as a substantial threat to the bill becoming law this year.
Crypto World
Bitcoin News: BTC Treasury Strategy Casualty as Satsuma Technology Votes to Wind Down
In Bitcoin news today, shareholders of Satsuma Technology voted by more than 90% on Monday to sell the company’s remaining 668 BTC, worth roughly $43.5M at current prices, and to cancel its LSE delisting, overruling four of six board members and formally ending a Bitcoin treasury experiment that lasted less than 12 months.
The decision crystallizes one of the sharper destructions of investor capital in the UK crypto space: against the £163.6M raised in August 2025, shareholders now expect to recover between £26.8M and £30M after wind-down costs, less than 20 pence on the pound.
This latest Bitcoin Treasury firm news dropped as BTC climbed a modest +0.4% overnight, dropping under $66,000 since yesterday but still trading at $65,700, with a daily trading volume of $31.8Bn.
Bitcoin News Today: From £163M Raise to Fractional Recovery
Satsuma started life as TAO Alpha, a small AI firm, before rebranding and pivoting to a Bitcoin treasury accumulation strategy. In August 2025, it hired Mark Moss, an American Bitcoin commentator with over 700,000 YouTube subscribers, as Chief Bitcoin Strategist.
The firm then raised £163.6M through convertible notes led by ParaFi Capital, with Pantera Capital, Digital Currency Group, and Kraken participating. Some investors contributed 1,097 BTC directly in place of roughly $97M in cash.
The stock peaked around £14 per share in June 2025. Bitcoin reached its $126,000 all-time high in October before sliding into the current crypto winter, dragging Satsuma’s share price with it.
By December 2025, the company was already liquidating assets to stay solvent, selling 579 BTC for £40M to repay noteholders who declined to convert their debt into equity.

The CFO departed in February 2026; the CEO followed in March. By April, shares had lost more than 99% of their June 2025 peak value, trading at fractions of a penny. At that point, Pantera Capital, holding approximately 6.7% of Satsuma’s stock, began publicly calling for a full liquidation, with a straightforward rationale.
The company’s market cap had fallen well below the value of the Bitcoin on its balance sheet, making the equity position strictly worse than owning the underlying coin. A shareholder group representing more than 20% of issued capital formally put the resolution to a vote.
The board split hard. Four of the six directors opposed liquidation, arguing that Satsuma remained a viable, publicly listed corporate vehicle for Bitcoin. Two sided with shareholders. The 90%-plus vote to wind down left the board majority’s position moot.
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The DAT Model Under Scrutiny

Satsuma’s collapse is the most visible failure yet of the DAT, a digital asset treasury structure that proliferated across UK small-caps in 2025.
These companies, modeled loosely on MicroStrategy’s approach, give equity investors indirect exposure to Bitcoin while bolting on a thin operating business to satisfy UK listing rules on alternative investment fund classification.
The structure works when Bitcoin price momentum and equity premiums reinforce each other; it unravels quickly when both reverse simultaneously, as the convertible note obligations create a sell-to-survive dynamic at exactly the wrong point in the cycle.
The broader regulatory environment for UK crypto companies adds another layer of structural pressure that pure-play listed treasuries are poorly positioned to absorb.
The wind-down proceeds through a “B Share Scheme,” a UK legal mechanism for distributing cash assets back to shareholders. Estimated termination costs run to £2.7M: legal fees, severance, delisting charges, and run-off insurance.
Combined with the £40M recovered from December’s BTC sale, the total capital returned is roughly £66–70M, against the £163.6M raised.
Critically, convertible noteholders rank above common equity in the payout waterfall, so ordinary shareholders may receive considerably less than even those aggregated figures suggest.
Satsuma was the second-largest UK-listed Bitcoin treasury company by holdings at the time of the vote. The Smarter Web Company, holding 2,878 BTC, currently sits at the top of that ranking and has not indicated any plans to wind down, though Satsuma’s outcome will sharpen investor focus on the NAV-to-market-cap gap across all remaining UK crypto treasury vehicles.
The contrast with Michael Saylor’s approach, maintaining Bitcoin conviction through drawdowns rather than liquidating under shareholder pressure, is a live debate in the corporate Bitcoin treasury space right now.
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Bitcoin News: Court Approval and Satsuma Delisting Timeline
UK High Court hearings to approve the capital return scheme are scheduled for August and September 2026. The LSE delisting is expected in mid-September, with shareholder payments due by late September.
High Court hearings to approve the capital return are set for August and September 2026, before distributions begin. For traders still holding Satsuma shares, the key variable is whether the 668 BTC sale executes above or below current spot.
With the Bitcoin price trajectory remaining contested at current levels, even a modest move in either direction will shift the final distribution range away from the £26.8–30M estimate. Noteholders’ priority claim means ordinary equity holders are effectively last in line for whatever remains after costs are settled.
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Crypto World
Bitcoin, US Stocks Show Little Weakness Despite Fresh US-Iran Escalation
Bitcoin (BTC) held higher on Wednesday as crypto and risk assets continued to brush off US-Iran war tensions.
Key points:
- Bitcoin limits its comedown from five-week highs despite fresh escalation in the US-Iran war.
- US stocks also ignore the potential risks, as analysis warns that shorts could pay as a result.
- A Bitcoin trader sees BTC/USD outperforming the S&P 500 going forward.
Bitcoin, stocks digest Trump pledge to “destroy” Iran power plants
Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD down 1% on the day, having earlier hit five-week highs near $67,000.

BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
Crypto and US stocks continued Tuesday’s direction, which saw them ignore escalation in the Middle East, including direct strikes by both Iran and the US.
US president Donald Trump threatened attacks on Iranian bridges and energy infrastructure, which had only a mild impact on market performance.
“From this point forward, any time the Islamic Republic of Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, whether it be by Missile, Rocket, Drone, or any other device or weapon, the United States will bomb and destroy ONE BRIDGE OR POWER PLANT, including those located next to, or in, the Capital City of Tehran,” he wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Only oil prices saw volatility on the day, with WTI and Brent crude reaching $88.60 and $95.50, respectively, both at their highest since June 11.

CFDs on WTI crude oil vs. CFDs on Brent crude oil one-day chart.
Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
Stocks’ bullish momentum prompted trading resource The Kobeissi Letter to suggest that those betting on a market reversal could see more pain.
“Short interest in the S&P 500 is up to ~3.7% of its free float, near the highest in data going back to 2010. Short interest in the Russell 3000 is up to ~6.1%, also near an all-time high,” it reported on Tuesday alongside data from Bloomberg.
“Both metrics have steadily increased since the start of 2025.”

S&P 500 index short-interest data. Source: The Kobeissi Letter on X.com
Kobeissi suggested that a “short squeeze” could result, punishing late short positions.
Trader sees BTC price outperforming stocks
As for Bitcoin, traders continued to wait for a more decisive move, with $67,000 a particular focus. At time of publication, it was at roughly $65,975, with 24-hour trading volume topping $30.3 billion, according to CoinMarketCap data.
Related: Bitcoin analysis eyes ‘serious volume’ after Binance sees 9K BTC daily outflow
“Breaking above that point would make for a daily bullish market structure break putting in a higher high,” trader Daan Crypto Trades told X followers earlier Wednesday.
“This is the first daily higher high since the push up in May.”

BTC/USDT four-hour chart. Source: Daan Crypto Trades on X.com
To be sure, some traderseyed pronounced BTC price strength against the S&P 500.
“$BTC vs. US stocks is seeing a strong weekly bullish divergence and is at the brink of an RSI trend breakout,” an X post by Osemka read, referring to the relative strength index (RSI) leading indicator.
“Divergent lows are 5 months apart, similar to literal 2022 lows. $BTC should outperform the US stock market nicely for the foreseeable future from the most mis-priced territory in history, as the lows should already be in.”

BTC/USD vs. S&P 500 one-week chart. Source: Osemka on X.com
As Cointelegraph reported, broad consensus continues to favor Bitcoin’s next bear-market low coming later this year or in early 2027.
Crypto World
Reddit May Block Google AI Access as $60 Million Deal Nears Expiry: Will RDDT Stock Crash?
Reddit may block Google’s AI from using its content. Their licensing deal, reportedly worth $60 million per year, is about to expire. Reddit (RDDT) shares fell as much as 5.8% in premarket trading Wednesday.
The 2024 deal lets Google use Reddit’s posts to train and power its AI models. Talks over a renewal are ongoing. Neither company has made a final call.
Why Publishers Are Rethinking Google AI Deals
Reddit is not alone. The Journal also named USA Today, Politico, the Economist, People Inc., and Reuters. All are rethinking their ties with Google.
The anger comes down to one thing. Google’s AI Overviews answer questions right on the search page. Readers get the answer. Publishers lose the click.
Pew Research Center data shows how big the hit is. Users clicked a regular result just 8% of the time when an AI summary appeared. Without one, the rate was 15%. Only 1% clicked a source inside the summary itself.
Semrush data cited in the Journal’s reporting points the same way. USA Today’s Google traffic fell nearly 50% in a year. Politico’s dropped 23%.
Regulators are stepping in too. On June 3, Britain’s antitrust watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), gave publishers a new right. They can now opt out of Google’s AI features without vanishing from search.
“It is crucial that content publishers, including news organizations, have appropriate bargaining power over how their content is used,” CMA Chief Executive Sarah Cardell said in the announcement.
Similar complaints about Google stealing publisher traffic now reach crypto media, where AI answers are already siphoning publisher visits.
Will RDDT Stock Crash?
A crash looks far from certain. Reddit’s threat may be a bargaining chip, not an exit. Its human conversations are among the most cited sources in AI answers. It also licenses data to OpenAI. That gives it rare pricing power.
Executives reportedly want usage-based fees that grow as Reddit becomes more central to AI results. A new Reddit Google AI deal could reset prices across the market. AI training data lawsuits are already testing what unlicensed content costs.
Timing adds pressure. Alphabet reports Q2 earnings after Wednesday’s close. Options traders are already pricing outsized earnings moves across big tech. Any comment on content costs could move both stocks, as noted in BeInCrypto’s Alphabet Q2 earnings preview.
For now, this looks like hardball, not a breakup. The renewal terms, and Alphabet’s comments tonight, should soon show what Reddit’s data is really worth.
The post Reddit May Block Google AI Access as $60 Million Deal Nears Expiry: Will RDDT Stock Crash? appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Crypto World
Revolut hits $115 billion valuation in employee share sale: WSJ
Crypto-friendly digital bank Revolut has been valued at $115 billion in a secondary share sale, lifting the company’s valuation by 53% in less than a year.
The company priced shares at $2,017 each, according to an internal message from CEO Nik Storonsky reported by The Wall Street Journal. The transaction allows employees and other existing shareholders to sell stock rather than raising new capital for Revolut.
The valuation has more than doubled from $45 billion in 2024 and makes Revolut Europe’s most valuable private company, representing a major rise from the $75 billion valuation seen in November last year.
It also puts the firm above rival banking giants like Barclays’ roughly $95 billion market value, though with the caveat that Revolut’s price is based on a private transaction whose size has not been disclosed.
Revolut reported $2.3 billion in pre-tax profit for 2025, up 57%, as revenue rose 46% to $6 billion. Its customer base has since passed 75 million.
The company’s main app lets its users trade more than 200 crypto tokens, transfer assets to external wallets and stake holdings, while the firm also manages its own standalone crypto exchange called Revolut X.
Crypto World
Arbitrum to Capture 10% of Fees From Robinhood Chain

Arbitrum will collect 10% of fees generated on Robinhood Chain and every other Layer 2 built on its technology stack, Offchain Labs co-founder Steven Goldfeder said Wednesday on X. Of that cut, 8% goes to the tokenholder-controlled Arbitrum treasury and 2% funds development, he said. Goldfeder… Read the full story at The Defiant
Crypto World
XRP Price Could Turn Volatile This Month: What’s at Stake for Ripple?
XRP price is trading around $1.13, up about 2% over the past 24 hours. Those modest gains hide a much larger binary risk approaching. A Senate deadline could determine whether XRP secures the regulatory clarity many institutional investors want or loses its biggest legislative catalyst for now. That possibility still appears underpriced, leaving traders on edge.
Meanwhile, the crypto market is sending mixed signals. Bitcoin and Ethereum have spent the past two days moving sideways, and large-cap altcoins, including XRP, are following suit. XRP has traded between $1.12 and $1.16 during the past day, reflecting consolidation with no decisive trend.
Even so, price stability does not mean risk has disappeared. XRP has increasingly become a legally driven trade, with sentiment shifting alongside every regulatory headline. Any court filing, settlement rumor, or signal from lawmakers before Thursday could trigger a sharp repricing.
The real question is the direction of that move. A favorable outcome could strengthen confidence and attract fresh institutional demand. On the other hand, another delay or disappointing development may leave XRP stuck in its current range, or even spark another wave of selling as traders unwind expectations.
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Can XRP Price Break $1.25 Before the Senate Deadline?
XRP has been consolidating around the $1.08 to $1.15 range over the past week. The $1.10 area continues to act as a short-term pivot, while support sits near $1.05 after holding several recent pullbacks. Meanwhile, sellers have repeatedly defended the $1.15 to $1.20 zone.
Recent trading volume has offered little conviction despite the rebound. Instead, the move looks more like traders adjusting positions than chasing a fresh trend. That often happens before major headlines, when market participants prefer waiting over making aggressive bets.
The bullish scenario remains straightforward. If Senate legislation advances or Ripple receives favorable legal news, XRP could break above $1.20 with strong volume. That would expose the next resistance around $1.30 to $1.40, where sellers may try to slow the rally.
The base case assumes no meaningful update arrives. In that situation, XRP could remain trapped between $1.08 and $1.15 as traders wait for the next catalyst. XRP Price action is likely to remain choppy until fresh news shifts sentiment.
The bearish case comes into play if legislation stalls or regulatory pressure increases again. A decisive break below $1.05 could send XRP toward the $1.00 level first. If that support fails, the next buying zone sits around $0.90 to $0.95.
Technically, XRP still appears compressed, and those conditions rarely last forever. Once a catalyst arrives, the move could develop quickly in either direction. Position sizing ahead of Thursday remains the key consideration because this setup is unlikely to stay quiet for long.
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Maxi Doge Targets Early-Mover Upside as XRP Tests Key Levels
XRP at $1.13 is, at minimum, a known asset with a nine-figure market cap and a legal binary that limits near-term upside to a defined range. Even the optimistic $1.50 target represents roughly a 30% move from current levels. It’s respectable, but not the kind of asymmetric return early-stage exposure can theoretically offer.
Traders watching the XRP setup and seeking a different risk profile have been rotating attention toward early presale positions.
Maxi Doge ($MAXI), available at $0.000283 per token, has pulled in $4.8 million in total raised, a number that signals meaningful community traction without the dilution risk of a fully saturated cap.
Built on Ethereum as an ERC-20 token, the project is positioned around a “leverage king” trading culture. It has a holder-only competition with leaderboard rewards, a Maxi Fund treasury for liquidity and partnerships, and meme-first marketing built around a 240-lb gym-bro mascot embodying 1000x trading mentality.
The staking program runs on a dynamic APY structure. The tagline, “never skip leg-day, never skip a pump,” commits to the bit. As with any presale, token value post-launch is speculative, and capital loss is a real outcome.
Research Maxi Doge before committing to any position.
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Crypto World
China’s Moonshot Reportedly Stole U.S. AI Tech for Kimi K3
White House AI adviser Michael Kratsios accused Chinese startup Moonshot AI of secretly copying Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5. He said the copies helped build its new Kimi K3 model.
Kratsios made the claim in a Wednesday post on X. He said Moonshot built a special platform for large-scale distillation of US models. The firm allegedly kept switching access routes to avoid getting caught.
White House Draws a Line on Moonshot AI Distillation
The technique at the center of the row is called distillation. It trains a new AI model on the answers of a stronger one. Done openly, it is legal and common. Kratsios said the covert, industrial-scale version is theft.
“We have information that Moonshot AI distilled Anthropic’s Fable for the development of its K3 model… However, large-scale, covert industrial distillation aimed at stealing proprietary U.S. technology and undermining American research is unacceptable,” Michael Kratsios, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy stated.
Anthropic has said the same thing. In a February report, the company traced over 3.4 million Claude exchanges to Moonshot. The traffic came from hundreds of fake accounts. Account records even matched the public profiles of senior Moonshot staff.
Anthropic said the campaign targeted Claude’s reasoning, coding, and vision skills.
Kratsios also said Moonshot got hold of NVIDIA GB300 servers and used them in Thailand. These are NVIDIA’s top AI chips, and US rules block their sale to China. Washington tightened its AI chip export clampdown in May. In June, a Super Micro office raid in Taiwan targeted alleged chip smuggling into China.
Kimi K3 Deepens the US-China AI Fight
Moonshot launched Kimi K3 on July 16. At 2.8 trillion parameters, it is the biggest open-weight model ever released. Demand was so strong that Moonshot had to pause new Kimi subscriptions within 48 hours. The full model weights go public by July 27.
That date matters. Anthropic warns that copied models lose their safety guardrails. Once open-sourced, they can spread beyond anyone’s control.
This is not the first such charge. In January 2025, White House AI czar David Sacks accused DeepSeek of copying OpenAI’s models. DeepSeek denied it. Beijing called Anthropic’s February findings groundless.
Kratsios announced no penalties, and Moonshot has stayed silent. The US still holds a 23x spending lead in AI, yet Chinese models keep gaining ground. The next move now sits with Washington.
The post China’s Moonshot Reportedly Stole U.S. AI Tech for Kimi K3 appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Crypto World
Ethereum News: Builder Activity & Leverage Data Align, $2k Next?
In Ethereum news today, new smart contract deployments on the network have surged 192% above the 90-day baseline, with funding rates simultaneously running 220% above their 90-day norm, a combination of signals that, according to a CryptoQuant QuickTake published by analyst CryptoOnchain, rarely fires without preceding a significant directional move.
The question the data forces is whether the early leverage bid currently accumulating in derivatives markets is front-running the builder activity, or simply reacting to it.
ETH price climbed unevenly from roughly $1,770 to $1,903 over the past two weeks, a movement that reads as ordinary chop on the surface. Beneath it, three structurally distinct signals are activating in parallel for the first time in recent memory.
Ethereum News: Builder Activity Spikes While Capital Stages on Binance
The sharpest signal in the CryptoQuant analysis is the developer activity reading. Smart contract deployments jumped roughly 192% versus the 90-day baseline, with nearly 57% of that increase occurring within the past week alone.
Deployment spikes of this magnitude typically indicate new protocol launches, redeployed contracts ahead of a release, or coordinated testing cycles, builder activity, not speculative noise.
Alongside that, stablecoin net flow into Binance has surged to nearly 370% above its three-month average, with daily inflows averaging over $58M. Capital staging on an exchange rather than deploying directly on-chain is a classic pre-trade positioning pattern; it suggests intent without yet confirming direction.
What complicates the read is that these two signals, which typically appear in sequence during a clean accumulation phase, are running simultaneously with a hot derivatives market. That removes the analytical comfort of a slow, cold-funding accumulation setup.
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Leverage Signal Disrupts the Accumulation Script
Funding rates on Binance are now running approximately 220% above their 90-day norm. That is not an ambiguous reading; it is a clear signal that leveraged traders are already positioned long and paying to hold those positions.
For anyone tracking perpetual trading dynamics, elevated funding at this level has historically preceded either a flush that resets overextension or price follow-through that validates the bet.
The problem, as CryptoOnchain’s analysis notes, is that having both stablecoin staging and hot funding rates activate together is not a clean accumulation script.
It is a setup that historically precedes more volatile, two-sided price action rather than a straightforward directional trend. Open interest building into elevated funding with a price that has not yet broken out cleanly creates the conditions for sharp moves in either direction.
The on-chain metrics that would normally anchor a bullish read are not in dispute. Staking has climbed to a fresh all-time high of 33.58%, tightening liquid float.
Median transaction fees are down by over 96% versus three months ago, not due to network abandonment. These are the readings that define the valuation gap: base-layer economics remain subdued: median transaction fees are down over 96% versus three months ago, while staking continues its steady climb to a fresh high of 33.58%.
The gap between robust on-chain metrics and ETH price performance has attracted institutional attention at these levels, and staking continues its steady climb to a new high of 33.58%, further tightening the liquid float.
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Three Signals Rarely This Active Simultaneously
In other Ethereum news, CryptoQuant’s analysis highlights a rare convergence of three signals: elevated builder activity, capital staging in stablecoins on exchanges, and existing leverage via derivatives. Each signal has meaning individually, but their simultaneous occurrence in the absence of a price catalyst is notable.
Ethereum’s post-Dencun architecture shows lower fees, as Layer 2 activity has offloaded execution costs from the mainnet without compromising economic security or validators’ staking yield. Developer activity remains robust, with a 192% spike in deployment, indicating resilience even during downturns.
Institutional flows suggest cautious short-term behavior, but demand from cumulative inflows since the launch of the ETH ETF remains evident. This context is crucial for understanding whether the leverage bid stems from retail speculation or early institutional accumulation.
According to CryptoQuant, the outcome will either be funding rates cooling as leveraged longs are flushed out, or a price breakthrough that validates the leverage position.
The eventual dominant signal, whether from builders, exchange capital, or derivatives, will only be clear as these paths unfold. Until then, the three-signal convergence remains the primary focus.
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Crypto World
Gary Gensler’s erased texts cost SEC $150K in Coinbase case
Coinbase has secured a $150,000 settlement from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission after the regulator lost nearly 11 months of former Chair Gary Gensler’s text messages.
Summary
- SEC will pay Coinbase $150,000 after losing Gary Gensler’s crypto-related text messages.
- An SEC watchdog blamed avoidable IT failures and a factory reset for the loss.
- The settlement requires the regulator to revise its policies for preserving official communications.
A Wall Street Journal op-ed written by Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal disclosed the agreement on July 22, bringing the exchange’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the agency to an end.
Under the settlement, the SEC will pay Coinbase $150,000 and revise its record-retention policies, according to Grewal.
Coinbase filed the case while seeking internal SEC records about how senior officials handled crypto regulation and enforcement. The exchange also sued the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in 2024 for documents that it believed could show coordinated attempts by U.S. regulators to restrict crypto companies’ access to financial services.
The disputed SEC records included messages exchanged between Gensler and other agency officials. Grewal wrote that the regulator attributed the loss to a process that “automatically wiped” certain data, even though Coinbase had requested communications connected to crypto policy decisions.
SEC failures erased months of records
A September 2025 review by the SEC Office of Inspector General found that avoidable errors caused the loss of Gensler’s messages. The missing texts covered Oct. 18, 2022, through Sept. 6, 2023, a period when the agency was pursuing several enforcement actions involving digital assets.
According to the Inspector General’s report, SEC technology staff performed a factory reset on Gensler’s agency-issued iPhone on Sept. 6, 2023, after he could no longer access SEC applications. The reset permanently deleted the phone’s data before staff completed a usable backup.
Although the Office of Information Technology backed up the device later that afternoon, the Inspector General found that the messages could no longer be recovered. The report concluded that a timely backup and earlier action to improve recordkeeping would have prevented the loss.
SEC technology staff had announced an initiative to disable texting on agency devices in October 2022, according to the review. However, the office postponed enforcement while it developed an exemption process and prepared for a possible government shutdown, leaving Gensler’s phone without another backup before the reset.
The SEC eventually removed the texting application from agency devices in March 2024, the Inspector General reported. A separate notice submitted to the National Archives and Records Administration also disclosed that the agency later found problems searching for and recovering messages from the SEC-issued phones of five other senior officials.
Following the Inspector General’s findings, Grewal accused the former SEC leadership of violating its public obligations by losing material Coinbase had sought. In a September 2025 post, the legal chief wrote that the agency destroyed “documents they were required to preserve and produce.”
“The Gensler SEC did this even though we asked for information about ‘all communications’ within the SEC related to crypto regulatory and enforcement decision-making years ago.”
Coinbase’s disclosure fight predates the settlement
Coinbase’s pursuit of SEC communications had also appeared in the agency’s former enforcement lawsuit against the exchange. In July 2024, Coinbase asked a New York federal court to compel the regulator to produce documents tied to Gensler’s internal discussions during his tenure, which began in 2021.
After resistance from the SEC and U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla, Coinbase narrowed an earlier request that had covered Gensler’s communications from both before and during his chairmanship. Its July 23 motion focused on records from his time leading the agency.
Subpoena Request No. 23 sought documents connected to Gensler’s public speeches about digital-asset regulation. Grewal argued at the time that those materials “bear directly on the claims the SEC now asserts.”
According to Coinbase’s motion, the SEC had declined to search beyond its Enforcement Division’s investigative files, citing relevance and the burden involved. The exchange also claimed that the regulator would not run searches across custodians’ email accounts or establish a system to produce responsive documents or list withheld records.
Those requests emerged as Coinbase defended itself against SEC allegations that it operated an unregistered securities exchange, broker and clearing agency. Under the Trump administration, the commission dismissed the enforcement case in February 2025 without requiring Coinbase to pay a fine or change its business practices.
As reported by crypto.news, Coinbase has since supported federal crypto legislation, including the stablecoin framework approved by Congress, while CEO Brian Armstrong and Grewal have pressed lawmakers to advance the CLARITY Act. The SEC has also started developing policies for tokenized securities and other digital-asset products under its post-Gensler leadership.
The latest settlement resolves Coinbase’s FOIA dispute while requiring the regulator to change how it preserves official communications. Grewal’s account places the $150,000 payment alongside those recordkeeping reforms, tying the financial award directly to messages the Inspector General determined were lost through preventable agency failures.
Crypto World
Ethereum Price Eyes $2,000 as AI Funds Shift From Chips to ETH, Says Tom Lee
Ethereum is pressing against a price level that has capped every rally. ETH trades at $1,925, little changed over the past 24 hours. But the $2,000 mark remains both a technical ceiling and a psychological flashpoint. What’s changed is who’s bidding, and why.
Fundstrat’s Tom Lee posted on X that capital tied to the AI sector is rotating from chip stocks into Ethereum. He framed ETH as the new digital infrastructure play for AI-focused portfolios. The thesis argues that decentralized compute and data networks could attract capital that previously favored names like Nvidia.
That narrative gained institutional support the same week. S&P Dow Jones Indices and Pantera Capital launched the S&P Pantera Digital Asset Index. The 18 asset benchmark applies S&P 500-style financial viability screens to crypto protocols. Ethereum is its largest holding, while the index’s constituents generated more than $3 billion in annualized revenue across the previous two quarters.
Both developments arrive as ETH tests a resistance zone it has struggled to clear throughout July. For Ethereum price, if institutional demand strengthens while technical resistance weakens, it could finally get a clean shot at reclaiming the $2,000 level.
Discover: The Best Crypto to Diversify Your Portfolio
Can Ethereum Price Break $2,000 This Week?
Ethereum is trading around $1,925 after briefly testing the $1,940 price area. Price action remains tight, with only a modest gap across major exchanges. That narrow spread points to cooling intraday volatility rather than aimless trading. Buyers and sellers are waiting for the next catalyst before making a decisive move.
Trading volume has improved from last week’s average, giving the latest rebound more credibility. Even so, traders will likely want another pickup in activity before treating any breakout as sustainable.
Technically, the structure remains straightforward. Support sits between $1,850 and $1,900, where buyers stepped in several times this month. On the upside, resistance stands around $1,950, followed by the psychological $2,000 mark. Ethereum has yet to secure a convincing daily close above $1,950, making that the key level to watch.
If buying pressure continues to build, Ethereum could break $1,950 and challenge the $2,000 to $2,100 zone over the coming weeks. A more likely outcome is continued consolidation between $1,880 and $1,960 until a macro event or major network development shifts sentiment. However, a daily close below $1,850 would put the $1,720 to $1,750 region back into focus.
ETF inflows into Ethereum investment products have continued to strengthen, providing steady demand beneath the market. That support may help limit downside, even if the push above $2,000 takes longer than bulls expect. Still, price confirmation matters more than headlines, especially while Ethereum trades just below a major resistance zone.
Trade Ethereum and Major Alts on Bybit and Get a Chance to Win Our $1,000 USDT Airdrop
LiquidChain Targets Early Mover Upside as Ethereum Tests Key Levels
ETH at $1,925 with a $231 billion market cap is not where asymmetric returns live; it’s where capital preservation and measured upside live. Traders who want the AI infrastructure narrative without the large-cap ceiling are looking at where that architecture is being built at the execution layer.
LiquidChain is a Layer 3 infrastructure project positioned as a cross-chain liquidity layer that fuses Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana liquidity into a single execution environment. The pitch to developers is clean: deploy once, access all three ecosystems.
Its core architecture boasts Unified Liquidity Layer, Single-Step Execution, Verifiable Settlement, and Deploy-Once Architecture. Those targets one of DeFi’s most persistent friction points: siloed liquidity across chains.
The presale is live at $0.01482 per $LIQUID, with $915K raised to date.
For traders who’ve done the diligence and want exposure to L3 infrastructure before institutional attention reaches that layer, research LiquidChain’s presale structure here.
Discover: The Best Token Presales
The post Ethereum Price Eyes $2,000 as AI Funds Shift From Chips to ETH, Says Tom Lee appeared first on Cryptonews.
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