Crypto World
Why Iran Cannot Fight a Forever War
The United States and Iran are again at war. The renewed conflict is not about Iran’s nuclear program or regime change, but over the Strait of Hormuz through which a fifth of the world’s oil must pass.
For two weeks, American missiles have struck Iran. In turn, Iran has retaliated against American allies: Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan. Four U.S. soldiers have been killed and 142 wounded; at least 53 Iranians have been killed and 592 injured since July 6. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) claimed to have destroyed an oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. Traffic in the strait has slowed to a trickle and oil prices have jumped again.
The ceasefire and the initial agreement signed on Jun. 17 lasted barely three weeks, undone by rival readings of a deliberately vague text. Washington wanted free navigation in Hormuz restored; Tehran insisted that it was the master of the strait. When traffic resumed, ships and tankers avoided the mined central route of the strait and hugged its southern coast close to Oman under American protection or sailed along the northern coast of Hormuz close to Iran, where it levied a “toll” for safe passage.
On July 7, the IRGC fired on ships defying routes designated by Iran; American airstrikes followed. Three days later, on July 10, President Donald Trump notified Congress that the war between the U.S. and Iran had resumed. Iran formally suspended the agreement, citing strikes, sanctions and Israel’s operations in Lebanon.
The costs are mounting. For decades, maritime traffic from Saudi Arabia, whose eastern border sits on the Persian Gulf, has passed through Hormuz to reach the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. Since the closure of Hormuz, the Kingdom has been moving roughly four million barrels a day—around four times its pre-war volume—through the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea, along its western border.
But the Red Sea has a chokepoint of its own: the Strait of Bab al-Mandab, at its southern end, off the coast of Yemen, which connects it to the Gulf of Aden and the broader Arabian Sea. On July 20, the Houthis, Iran’s allies in Yemen, declared a maritime embargo on Saudi Arabia at Bab al-Mandab, invoking “an eye for an eye.” They have already struck two Saudi tankers in the Red Sea. With the chokepoints of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab now contested simultaneously, the Gulf’s energy systems face an unprecedented strain.
American strikes have targeted Iran’s southern coastline and the approaches to Hormuz, with inland strikes largely reserved for the missile bases that allow Iran to reach the U.S. bases across the region. Its intensity is lower than the 40-day military campaign that preceded it, and it is an open-ended campaign: a war of attrition fought over a waterway. This is, for now, a bilateral contest, with Washington keeping Israel outside the frame for as long as Iran refrains from striking Israeli territory directly.
American objectives have contracted to reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Having survived the war and denied the U.S. and Israel their stated aims, Iran now regards the outcome as a victory and is working to shape and cement its terms.
Why Iran thinks it has won
Iran has managed to impose significant human and material costs. The war has already cost the U.S. more than $37.5 billion, 18 U.S. service members have been killed and 624 have been injured. Wartime learning, intelligence and technological cooperation with Russia and China, and better access to satellite imagery have markedly improved Iran’s missile and drone strike accuracy. And Iran has been able to rattle the global energy markets by closing the Strait of Hormuz, weaponizing a chokepoint that offers continuous leverage over the global economy.
Iranian strategists are aiming for something more ambitious: raising the cost of hosting American forces until the U.S. thins out its regional military presence. The U.S. has indeed moved some military assets away from the Persian Gulf toward Jordan and Israel. American radars, bases and surveillance systems across the Arab states also function as early-warning systems for Israel. Iran’s concentrated attacks on those systems in March and April likely improved its ability to attack Israel with its long-range missiles.
Tehran seems to hope that a combination of its control of Hormuz and the coercive power of its drones and missiles would make the Gulf states reluctant to host U.S. forces and facilitate military operations against Iran. That instead, the Gulf states would seek security arrangements with the Islamic Republic.
Iran is also tailoring its approach to different Gulf countries: it has no appetite for a direct war with Saudi Arabia, so the Houthis in Yemen carry the Saudi file. The Houthis imposed their embargo on the Bab al-Mandab Strait on July 20, days after Iranian officials signaled that the strait would close if American strikes on Iran’s infrastructure continued. The Houthis had their own reasons to move, especially Riyadh’s siege of Yemeni ports and a military strike on Sanaa airport. But either way, Tehran gained a second strategic chokepoint.
Intense Iranian attacks on Kuwait are the lesson intended for every Gulf state hosting U.S. forces. Kuwait facilitated American strikes on Iran from its territory, and Iranian drones have answered by striking the power and desalination plants that Kuwait depends on for roughly 90% of its drinking water. The strikes on Kuwait are also aimed at degrading a potential staging ground for a potential U.S. ground operation in southern Iran.
What this strategy lacks is a clear account of how Iran would convert wartime leverage into a durable political settlement. Tehran has shown how it can disrupt global energy supplies and impose costs on the U.S. and its allies, but it is not clear how it can remain in a permanent state of confrontation with America and the Gulf states.
Iran, America, and the limits of force
The first challenge Iran faces is the asymmetry of pain thresholds. American credibility is on the line, but Iranian territory is being hit hard. Year-on-year inflation in Iran reached an astonishing 88.6% by late June. In southern provinces, which are facing the brunt of the renewed conflict, inflation has crossed 101% in Hormozgan, 99% in Khuzestan, and 96.5% in Bushehr. Iran’s energy ministry has asked the citizens to ration electricity in extreme heat as American strikes strain the electricity grid. The Islamic Republic crushed a nationwide uprising in January, has an economy in free fall, and is fighting a war with America. Its most dangerous front may prove to be the domestic one.
Iran’s coercion of the Gulf states may produce the very coalition it fears. Attacks on Kuwaiti power and desalination plants are pushing Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates toward closer security cooperation with each other, with Washington, and eventually, with Israel. Given the disparity in economic resources between Iran on one side of the Persian Gulf, and Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar on the other side, a counterbalancing bloc would hold the stronger hand over time.
The biggest challenge Iran faces: Israel’s secretive nuclear powers. Iran has been trying to destroy the U.S. surveillance and radar systems in the Gulf that serve as early warning systems for Israel. If Iran continues succeeding in degrading those early warning systems, Israel would have to confront its missiles with less warning and thinner interception depth. A more vulnerable Israel could lean harder on its nuclear deterrent. Iran’s success could turn out to be extremely dangerous.
Washington’s options are no better. Trump has promised to destroy “one bridge or power plant” for every ship Iran fires on. A war on infrastructure would amount to war crimes by Washington, and it would not change Tehran’s calculations. Iran would retaliate against Gulf infrastructure, and the destruction would spread across states that are party to none of this.
Airstrikes on Iran’s most sensitive nuclear facilities would also yield little. Trump has threatened to “very heavily” hit the area around Pickaxe Mountain, a fortified underground site near Natanz, one of Iran’s primary nuclear enrichment facilities. Such an attack would produce symbolic effects and trigger Iranian retaliation against energy and other critical infrastructure in the Gulf.
With the International Atomic Energy Agency locked out of Iran since June 2025 and the fate of nearly 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium unverified, fresh air strikes on nuclear facilities in Iran would make it even harder to determine what nuclear material and capabilities remain, where they are located, and how quickly the program could be rebuilt. Subsequently, greater ambiguity around Iran’s nuclear capabilities would make any settlement harder to negotiate and verify.
That leaves ground operations. On July 15, Trump reportedly convened a meeting to weigh seizing Kharg Island, through which some 90% of Iran’s crude exports pass, and other territory along the strait. U.S. officials told the Wall Street Journal that Trump remained reluctant to commit ground forces. The threat of a ground invasion is only a threat as long as it stays a threat. Kharg and other such Iranian islands are hard to take and harder to hold. Their occupation would sharply reduce Iran’s oil revenue, but it would not necessarily compel Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or accept American terms. Iran could respond by intensifying attacks on Gulf energy infrastructure and shipping, while presenting the seizure of its territory as proof that the war had become one of national defense.
Neither Iran nor America has a credible military path to a durable settlement that ends the fighting, restores freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, and prevents another rapid return to war. Iran’s problem is the long-term cost of its current strategy; Washington’s problem is the diminishing returns on each additional night of bombing.
The choice Tehran and Washington have to make
The way out runs through the initial agreement. Its basic bargain remains workable: Iran would restore freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and halt attacks on U.S. forces, while Washington would lift its naval blockade of Iran, end its air campaign and suspend the punitive measures imposed after the agreement collapsed.
Pakistani and Qatari mediators are still working. What sank the previous deal was ambiguity: obligations without sequencing, commitments without monitoring, and no mechanism for containing an incident at sea before it became a campaign. Any new agreement will have to specify who verifies what, in what order, and what happens when a ship is hit.
Iran faces a larger decision. It cannot strike American assets in Gulf states indefinitely while expecting those states to put up with the attacks. Tehran must choose between a region organized around coexistence and one it hopes to dominate. Bids for hegemony summon their own opposition: the counter-coalition Iran could provoke, backed by Washington and Israel, would leave it more encircled than the war that began in February ever did. That is the calculation Tehran has yet to make, and the one on which everything else now depends.
Quantum computers could one day break Bitcoin (BTC), yet the same physics could also build money that is impossible to forge. Two experts argue that quantum money, not the blockchain, may be the final form of digital cash.
Stefano Gogioso and Daniela Herrmann made the argument during the latest BeInCrypto Experts Council. Their case rests on an idea older than crypto itself, and on a single law of physics.
Money Has Always Been a Story About Trust
A companion analysis asked when quantum computers might break Bitcoin. This piece asks the opposite question. What if the same technology builds something better than the money we use today?
The answer begins with a line from Gogioso that reframes the debate. Consensus, he says, is “the last middleman.”
To see why, it helps to trace how money lost its trust in the first place.
Physical cash needs no middleman. A gold coin proves itself, and a buyer does not have to trust a bank, a ledger, or a network to accept it. Cash, however, cannot travel down a wire.
Digital money solved distance, but it brought the middlemen back. Every online payment now trusts an intermediary to confirm that the same unit is not spent twice.
Bitcoin answered that problem by replacing institutions with math and consensus. Thousands of computers agree on one shared history, so no central party is needed.
The idea of using physics instead of trust, however, is older than Bitcoin. It is older than the modern internet.
In the late 1960s, a Columbia University graduate student named Stephen Wiesner wrote a manuscript called “Conjugate Coding.” Journals rejected it, and it stayed unpublished until 1983.
Wiesner proposed money that could not be counterfeited, protected by physics rather than by a bank. It was the first real use anyone had imagined for quantum information.
That work later inspired the 1984 protocol known as BB84, which launched quantum cryptography. In effect, the whole field grew out of an attempt to make unforgeable money.
Security From Physics, Not Secrecy
Classical cryptography rests on hard math problems. A code stays safe because solving it would take too long. Quantum cryptography works on a different footing.
Its guarantee comes from a physical law called the no-cloning theorem. Physicists William Wootters and Wojciech Zurek proved it in 1982. An unknown quantum state cannot be perfectly copied.
The mechanism is elegant. Any attempt to copy the state disturbs it. The forgery fails, and the tampering shows.
Gogioso has spent years turning that law into working tools. At an earlier BeInCrypto interview in Naples, he described keys that defend themselves. If someone intercepts a quantum key, it is destroyed in transit, and the receiver sees the protocol break.
On the Council panel, he pushed the idea to its limit.
“You can build applications that do not need to trust the very hardware they run on. You can literally commission the hardware from your attacker, and as long as the application passes its self-testing, you are guaranteed security. Worst case, it simply refuses to run. And this is provably impossible classically.”
Specialists call this device-independent cryptography. The security holds even if the manufacturer is hostile. That property matters because complex hardware is exactly where backdoors tend to hide.
Why Unforgeable Keys Become Money
The step from security to money is short. Cheating and forgery are the same problem in different words.
If you cannot copy a quantum state, you cannot counterfeit it. And a thing that cannot be counterfeited can serve as money.
Gogioso drew the line directly.
“A different way of saying you cannot cheat is saying you cannot copy or forge. From the very same family of techniques, you get quantum money, or quantum financial instruments. New ways of doing digital finance with far fewer trust assumptions on intermediaries, networks, and counterparties.”
His team has already built the smallest version of the concept. In Naples, he demonstrated keys that work only once. To spend one, you have to destroy it, which stops an attacker from replaying an old payment.
A single-use key is a tiny piece of unforgeable value. Scale that principle up, and you reach what researchers call quantum money.
The theory is not new. In 2012, Scott Aaronson and Paul Christiano proposed the first public-key quantum money scheme. It lets anyone verify a note, not only the bank that issued it. Their framing echoed Wiesner almost exactly, describing money that cannot be counterfeited according to the laws of physics.
Quantum Money and the Last Middleman
Now the pieces meet. Bitcoin removed the banks, but it did not remove trust. It shifted that trust onto a network and a shared ledger. Something still has to agree on which payments are real.
Gogioso views that agreement as the final intermediary. Web3 and zero-knowledge tools clawed back some of the trust that digital money gave away, he says, yet consensus still does the last job of preventing forgery.
That job carries a cost. Consensus demands coordination, energy, and a crowd of participants who must broadly agree. A physical guarantee needs none of those things.
Quantum money, in his telling, removes the middleman completely.
“Quantum money is the next and final evolution of that story. You recover something digital that you can transact at a distance, but without trusting intermediaries, global ledgers, or someone deciding which transactions go into an Ethereum (ETH) block. The physics gives you the unforgeability directly. In that sense, consensus is truly the last middleman.”
The claim is large, so it is worth stating plainly. If it holds, quantum money would be to Bitcoin what Bitcoin was to the bank.
There is a symmetry worth noting. The physics that threatens Bitcoin’s signatures is the same physics that could retire the need for consensus altogether.
The One Defense That Survives Smarter Attackers
There is a further reason the timing matters. Artificial intelligence is getting better at breaking things.
Most security today assumes the attacker is not clever enough, or that a problem is simply too hard to solve in time. Gogioso argues that this assumption looks fragile in an age of capable AI.
Physics offers a different kind of promise.
“What quantum really buys you is security based on the laws of the universe. It doesn’t matter how smart the AI is. You can’t break it. Worst case, you can stop it from happening, but you cannot forge it.”
That is the deeper appeal of the approach. A quantum guarantee does not depend on the attacker’s limits. It depends on the structure of reality, which no amount of intelligence can rewrite.
Quantum Money: Not Here Yet, but Within Reach
Both guests were careful not to oversell the idea. Herrmann, whose firm builds commercial quantum tools, marked the boundary clearly.
“Quantum money is the vision, once this all plays out. Right now, quantum money as such isn’t available yet. But as soon as the chips advance, these things have to be handled with real responsibility.”
The main obstacle is quantum memory. Holding a fragile quantum state is difficult, and today the best systems keep one for only seconds. Gogioso has said that the limit still puts full quantum money out of reach, though the same hardware already suits short-lived tasks.
Even so, the direction is set. Laboratory experiments have begun to demonstrate quantum tokens and related schemes, moving the idea off the page.
Gogioso closed the panel on that note.
“Within five, six, seven years we could live in a world where we use quantum resources to do things that are provably impossible today. Not just hard, not just slow, actually impossible. And this is software we can start building today, not in five years. The future is absolutely within reach.”
More than half a century after Wiesner sketched money that physics itself would guard, the idea is finally leaving the whiteboard. If Gogioso and Herrmann are right, the last middleman may not survive the decade.
The post Consensus Is the Last Middleman: The Case for Quantum Money appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Now, younger generations entering the workforce are less drawn to big companies than the generations prior. They factor in wellness outside of work in addition to salary. “They really care about their family, life issues; whether their work will be valuable to their own life. In that sense private companies might be a better place because they can design their own purpose,” Lee says. In this trend, they may also be interested in alternative organization structures like employee-owned companies or worker cooperatives, which have been growing in popularity, with the federal government even encouraging more employers to adopt such models. Southern staple Publix (no. 9) and warehouse chain WinCo (no. 10) are both employee-owned through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP).
“Usually, employee-owned companies have higher productivity, their revenue growth is usually 3-4% higher than other companies, and then their quit rate is about a third of other companies,” Lee says. “These numbers always show that employees are very actively engaged in their own company, because their perspective is more long term. … These are motivational incentives for employee owners to make their companies better, and perform better, and that could impact their retirement.” On the other hand, worker cooperatives benefit from “a lot of diverse opinions and comments and insight that really makes their corporate strategy different than other competitors,” Lee says.
Since then, average daily liquidations have remained well below this year’s typical $400 million-$500 million range, suggesting there has been little forced selling despite the macro shock, according to Bitfinex.
“Crypto fell less than levered equity themes because the forced-selling fuel was already spent,” the analysts wrote.
Security concerns linger
Separately, the market is also digesting the fallout from a major exploit involving Coldcard, which resulted in at least $38 million worth of bitcoin being stolen.
The incident hasn’t materially affected price action, but it marked another blowback as digital asset-related exploits have surged and reignited debate around risks of self-custody, one of crypto’s fundamental promises.
“The proceeds haven’t yet been liquidated, but the knock-on effect of this and the likelihood of liquidation will weigh on bitcoin pricing in the near term,” said Paul Howard, director at trading firm Wincent. More broadly, he said, the exploit highlights the operational risks that continue to accompany self-custody.
Read more: Coldcard’s $38 million (so far) exploit shakes faith in self-custody, may push investors to ETFs
Eyes on jobs data and ETF flows
Looking ahead, macro uncertainty remains the dominant theme.
Jeff Anderson, managing partner at STS Digital, said markets may be entering “a new volatility regime” as investors swing between expectations for rate cuts, pauses and hikes. That uncertainty, he said, is likely to keep pressure on high-beta assets such as bitcoin until the economic outlook becomes clearer.
Grayscale Investments has urged the Senate to vote on the CLARITY Act before the August recess as lawmakers face mounting pressure to resolve disputes holding up the crypto market structure bill.
Summary
- Grayscale requested a Senate floor vote on the CLARITY Act before lawmakers leave Washington.
- The bill would divide digital asset oversight between the SEC and CFTC.
- Ethics restrictions involving federal officials remain a sticking point in bipartisan negotiations.
- Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has also called for an immediate vote.
Grayscale urges action on the CLARITY Act
Grayscale sent a letter to senators calling for action on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, or H.R. 3633. The asset manager said hundreds of thousands of Americans hold its digital asset investment products, giving the company and its clients a direct interest in clearer federal rules.
The bill seeks to establish a regulatory framework for digital asset markets and clarify the respective responsibilities of the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
“Senators and staff across the aisle have spent months addressing hard questions about jurisdiction, investor protections, and developer safeguards,” Grayscale said.
According to the company, the proposed framework would strengthen investor protections while preventing legitimate blockchain developers from facing rules intended for financial intermediaries.
Grayscale argued that crypto businesses, developers and investors need stable rules instead of relying on enforcement actions and agency guidance that can change between administrations.
The company also linked the legislation to regulated crypto investment products. Clearer asset classifications and trading rules could affect the development of exchange-traded funds, exchange-traded products and other vehicles available to U.S. investors.
Senate negotiations face a shrinking deadline
Senators have limited floor time remaining before the August recess, with nominations, government funding discussions and foreign policy measures competing for attention.
Sen. Cynthia Lummis said Senate leaders were still trying to bring the legislation forward before the break. She noted that lawmakers had “one more week here in Washington,” although she acknowledged the crowded schedule.
The House passed its version of the CLARITY Act by a 294–134 vote in July 2025, with 78 Democrats supporting the legislation. Any changes adopted by the Senate would need approval from both chambers before the bill could reach President Donald Trump’s desk.
Senate negotiations have continued over ethics provisions covering digital asset activities involving federal officials. That dispute has complicated efforts to secure enough Democratic support to overcome the chamber’s 60-vote threshold for advancing most legislation.
Republicans hold 53 Senate seats, meaning the bill would likely need support from at least seven Democrats if every Republican voted in favor. Lawmakers have also considered a procedural vote that could establish the timing and rules for further debate.
Bessent adds pressure for an immediate vote
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has joined the campaign for Senate action, calling on lawmakers to vote “NOW” on the CLARITY Act.
Bessent accused Senate Democrats of delaying the measure under pressure from Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other crypto critics. His intervention added support from the Trump administration as negotiators worked to resolve the remaining disagreements.
Ethics enforcement has emerged as one of the main obstacles. A reported proposal from Republican Sen. Thom Tillis and Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego would allow state authorities to enforce restrictions on federal officials issuing or sponsoring digital tokens.
The proposal would replace an earlier approach that gave the U.S. attorney general sole enforcement authority. Whether that compromise can attract enough bipartisan backing remains uncertain.
US competitiveness becomes part of the debate
Grayscale warned that prolonged uncertainty could push digital asset investment and technical talent toward jurisdictions with more predictable regulations. It cited Singapore and Abu Dhabi as markets that have established clearer frameworks for crypto businesses.
The argument reflects a broader industry effort to frame market structure legislation as an issue of U.S. competitiveness. Supporters say federal rules would give companies more certainty when deciding where to develop products, raise capital and serve customers.
No clear cryptocurrency price movement has been directly linked to Grayscale’s letter. Traders remain focused on whether Senate leaders formally schedule a vote and whether negotiators reach an agreement on ethics restrictions.
Failure to act before the recess would push the debate further into the legislative calendar, where other spending and policy deadlines could make floor time harder to secure. A scheduled vote would signal that Senate leaders believe the bill has enough support to move forward.
UNI rose 13% over the past 24 hours and reached $4.54 – a level not seen since January this year. The latest rally has lifted the asset’s gains over the past month to 60%.
The move came as Uniswap announced Launches in beta, a new tab on its Web App for discovering top token offerings. For now, Robinhood Chain is the first network featured in the new tab, but more networks are expected to be included.
New Tab Debuts
Uniswap said launchpad builders such as Bankr, Pons, Long, and others are using the platform as their trading infrastructure. The company added that Launches will give these projects more distribution. The feature currently includes token releases on Robinhood Chain, with more to come.
According to the platform’s stats, more than 340,000 new tokens launched into Uniswap across Robinhood launchpads in July alone. These collectively generated $3.6 billion in trading volume.
The new Launches tab pulls tokens from top launchpads into a single feed. Users can filter these or sort by 24-hour volume, liquidity, recently debuted, or trending.
The burn was another notable development for UNI this week, as 106,000 units were destroyed on July 29. That comes as the protocol faces renewed debate over its v4 fee structure. Some community members raised concerns that protocol fees could reduce returns for liquidity providers and push liquidity toward competing exchanges.
Uniswap founder Hayden Adams pushed back against what he called the “FUD and misunderstanding: around the changes. He said the new protocol fees are additive, meaning liquidity providers would continue earning the same 30 basis points on a 30bp pool. He also rejected claims that the protocol would take 25% of LP profits, and explained that a 5bp protocol fee on a 30bp pool amounts to about 14% of total swap fees, not LP earnings that already existed.
Adams also argued that the 5bp fee is significantly lower than the 100-200bp fees charged by centralized exchanges.
Zooming Out
The protocol has also been caught up in a wider wave of crypto scams targeting users through fake websites. Earlier this year, a fake Uniswap website was draining funds from crypto wallets. Experts warned that scammers had stolen at least $400,000. Users were advised to use only official links and verify protocols through DeFiLlama.
The warning followed a broader report from security group SEAL, which found a sharp rise in malicious Google Ads targeting crypto users. SEAL blocked more than 356 malicious ad URLs tied to scams impersonating Uniswap and other major platforms.
Interestingly, Uniswap was the most impersonated, as it accounted for 41% of tracked malicious sites. Losses linked to the campaigns exceeded $1.27 million between March 13 and March 30.
The post UNI Just Hit a 6-Month High as Uniswap Rolls Out New Token Discovery Tab appeared first on CryptoPotato.
Key points:
- Bond yields have been going up since the beginning of the Iran war, widely attributed to inflation expectations due to energy prices
- However, the five-year inflation expectation priced into Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities is 2.2% and trending down since May
- The driver appears to be rising real yields with bearish implications for yield-free assets like Bitcoin
Continuation of Q2 bond selling
After yields reached local lows in early March, US government debt has been undergoing a multi-month sell-off. This week, after the most recent meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), 30-year Treasury yields made headlines by reaching the highest level since 2007.
In line with the two-year yield rising 76 basis points (bps) in this window, a September rate hike by the Federal Reserve is priced into the markets at 63%, according to CME FedWatch.
2Y, 10Y and 30Y US Treasury Yields. Data Source: Treasury.gov
With rates at these elevated levels, government bond investments are, for the first time since 2019, more profitable than cash-and-carry trades in the crypto markets, as per Glassnode’s latest research.
2Y US Treasury yield and crypto futures carry trade. Source: Glassnode
The mainstream inflation narrative
The reason for the bond sell-off is commonly taken to be the inflationary pressures from higher commodity and energy prices. The multi-month bond sell-off coincides with the start of the Iran war and resulting closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Furthermore, the daily closes of the two-year US government bond yield, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent Crude have correlated since March at a coefficient of r=0.44:
Daily closes of WTI and Brent Crude against 2Y Yield. Data Sources: fred.stlouisfed.org, EIA
WTI briefly rose once again above $85 a barrel on Thursday after President Donald Trump threatened Iran and bonds sold off leading into the FOMC. Nothing about the conflict suggests a near-term resolution, which has led some to argue that higher rates are being caused by inflation expectations.
WTI (West Texas Intermediate) oil price chart. Source: Tradingeconomics.com
This has driven loud inflation scares through the mainstream financial press, with recent Bloomberg headlines, such as “Global Bonds Are Reeling as Oil Surge Rekindles Inflation Threat”, “US Yields Hit Two-Month High as Oil Sparks Inflation Risk” or “Global Bond Selloff Worsens as Rising Oil Prices Spook Investors”. Among the ever-inflation-aware crypto and precious metals audience, this narrative is popular, too:
Market commentator and Bitcoin influencer The Wolf of All Streets recently posted on X:
However, the way other Treasury securities trade does not support the inflation-driven narrative for bond yields.
TIPS say rate rises are ‘real’
While most analysts and commentators focus on regular Treasury yields for their analysis, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, or TIPS, have offered clear signs against the inflation narrative.
A Treasury Inflation-Protected Security (TIPS) is an ordinary treasury bond for which the principal payment is adjusted upward in line with the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U). In addition to the inflation-protected principal, each TIPS carries a fixed coupon rate. Thus, unlike for a regular bond, both principal and interest payments are inflation-adjusted.
By comparing the yield of a TIPS with a regular, equally dated Treasury, the expectation of future CPI inflation can be estimated as the so-called breakeven rate. And although Treasury yields have been rising, the five-year breakeven rate has gone down sharply since May.
Five-year breakeven inflation rate. Source: fred.stlouisfed.org
At roughly 2.2%, the five-year breakeven expects the Fed to achieve its 2% target in the medium term. However, more telling is that the breakeven rate has been moving in the opposite direction to the nominal treasury yields.
While the five-year nominal yield rose 33 bps, TIPS data suggests this was the result of an 84 bps rise in the real yield, partially offset by a 51 bps decline in expected inflation. While the inflation narrative remains a compelling story, the marketplace says otherwise. The real story ought to be a rise in real yields.
What it may mean for crypto
Generally, rising “real” investment returns on bonds and stocks in terms of CPI make non-yielding assets such as Bitcoin relatively less attractive to certain investors. Beyond this, the impact on the crypto market depends on the explanation for higher real rates, of which several are available.
Reserve liquidation — No clear impact on Crypto. Higher oil prices widen trade deficits for Asian energy importers. As oil is generally priced and settled in US dollars, shortages in the local eurodollar markets in Asia have occurred, which has put their exchange rates under pressure. The Japanese yen (JPY), Philippine peso (PHP) and Indian rupee (RBI) have all required central bank intervention to defend their exchange rates. As these measures are funded by the sale of US Treasury reserves, this puts upward pressure on bond yields. HSBC’s Frederic Neumann is on record attributing the bond sell-off to FX pressure rather than a verdict on the dollar.
Demand destruction — Bearish for Crypto. An oil shock that persists long enough stops being inflationary and starts triggering a recession. Neuberger Berman argued in its second-quarter outlook that investors are underpricing the hit to output from sustained energy prices. The credit contraction that coincides with a recession would be bad for equities and Bitcoin by severely restricting liquidity. In a real sign of recessionary credit events, credit spreads are expected to widen. Cointelegraph reported on possible first signs of this on Wednesday.
Related: Cost to insure AI debt reaches record high amid Asian semiconductor tumble
Investment demand — Likely bearish for Crypto. Real rates may have also responded to expected growth and the demand for capital from the AI sector. Government bond issuance is increasingly competing with the record issuance of corporate bonds from AI hyperscalers. Goldman Sachs Research projects roughly $755 billion of AI capex in 2026 and about $920 billion in 2027. UBS has raised its 2026 investment-grade issuance forecast to $1.8 trillion, with technology supply lifted to $360 billion on hyperscaler guidance. As crypto is competing for a similar pool of capital and investor cohort, this is likely to suppress the sector.
Amazon (AMZN) stock jumped 15.32% on Friday and closed at $271.58. Within hours, more than a dozen banks raised their price targets on it.
The trigger was Amazon’s second quarter report, published July 30. Its cloud business grew much faster than Wall Street expected.
What Set Off the Amazon Price Target Race
Amazon sold $200.6 billion of goods and services in the quarter. That is 19.6% more than a year ago. Analysts had expected $197.0 billion. Profit came in at $5.75 per share, against forecasts near $1.81.
One number mattered most. Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud arm, grew 36.8% to $42.2 billion. That was its fastest growth in 18 quarters, or about four and a half years. The Q2 earnings beat had already lifted the stock 8.85% after hours.
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Benchmark Now Sees Amazon at $400
Benchmark analyst Daniel Kurnos raised his target to $400 from $370 and kept a Buy rating.
He called it one of Amazon’s best quarters in at least 10 years. He has followed the company for close to 20 years.
JPMorgan went to $365 from $330. It pointed to Amazon’s cloud backlog, meaning work customers have committed to but not yet used.
That backlog hit $496 billion. It is roughly 2.5 times the level of a year ago. Rosenblatt moved up to $345. TD Cowen, Truist and KeyBanc each landed on $350.
Telsey Advisory Group said $335. Mizuho and RBC Capital said $330. Wolfe Research and Citizens both stayed at $315.
The Cash Problem Nobody Solved
Benchmark attached a warning to its own upgrade. Amazon is burning cash, and it has not explained how it plans to fund everything.
Free cash flow is the money left over after a company pays its bills and builds its facilities. Over the past 12 months, Amazon spent $7.6 billion more than it brought in. A year earlier it had $18.2 billion to spare.
Chief Executive Andy Jassy now plans to spend about $220 billion this year on data centers and chips. Memory prices have climbed. Filings showed AI spending draining cash at every big cloud provider before this week.
Not Every Stock Got This Treatment
Goldman Sachs, Barclays and Jefferies cut Robinhood price targets a day earlier. Robinhood had also beaten forecasts.
Cantor Fitzgerald trimmed its Amazon target to $320. It changed how it values the stock but kept an Overweight rating.
Wolfe Research prices Amazon at 30 times its expected 2027 profit. The stock currently trades near 24.5 times.
Amazon expects sales of $197 billion to $202 billion next quarter. That hands the stocks to watch crowd a checkpoint in August.
The $400 call rests on one thing. Amazon has to turn that $220 billion of spending into cash.
The post Wall Street Rushes to Raise Amazon Targets After 15% Post-Earnings Stock Surge appeared first on BeInCrypto.
A Bank of Italy study found that stablecoin-based remittances did not offer a systematic cost or speed advantage over traditional payment channels, as fiat on- and off-ramp frictions accounted for most costs and transfer delays.
Researchers tested 200 USDC (USDC) remittances across 10 bidirectional payment corridors linking Italy with Brazil, Argentina, Japan, the United Arab Emirates and South Africa, comparing end-to-end costs and settlement times with traditional remittance services. They found that exchange fees and currency conversion made up most of the cost, while blockchain transaction fees represented only a small share.
Geographic design of the remittance experiment. Source: Bank of Italy
Across the stablecoin remittances examined, total costs ranged from 0.3% to nearly 9% depending on the payment corridor, while transfers settled in less than 20 minutes where instant payment systems were available and one to two business days where they were not.
Using the World Bank’s reported global average remittance cost of 6.65% as a benchmark, the study found stablecoin transfers were cheaper in most of the payment corridors examined. However, they were less expensive than Wise in only three of seven comparable corridors.
Related: Europe should weigh tokenized SEPA payments, Bank of Italy official says
Payment infrastructure remains critical
The study concluded that investment in domestic instant payment infrastructure could improve the competitiveness of stablecoin-based cross-border payments, finding that settlement times depended heavily on the quality of local payment rails.
The authors argued that the biggest gains may come when stablecoins no longer require conversion back into fiat currency, writing:
If stablecoins could be spent directly in the real economy, for goods and services, rents, or school fees, without reconversion into local fiat currency, the economic advantages of stablecoin-based transfers would be substantially higher.
Regulation shapes remittance efficiency
The study also found that regulatory design played a major role in determining transfer efficiency. The authors said prohibitionist regulatory regimes failed to fully suppress stablecoin demand and instead pushed users toward offshore platforms and other unregulated channels, while overly restrictive frameworks increased operational complexity for retail users.
The findings come as the European Union has implemented its Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework and the United States has enacted the GENIUS Act, two regulatory regimes that govern crypto assets and payment stablecoins, respectively.
The stablecoin market has grown to about $307 billion, up roughly 16% over the past year, according to DefiLlama data.
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A proposed Aave governance initiative would wind down multiple Aave V3 lending deployments on six blockchains and retire a large set of low-usage token listings. The plan, advanced through the protocol’s ARFC process, targets a cleanup covering $98.1 million in supplied assets and $15.6 million in outstanding debt, based on balances recorded on July 28.
According to LlamaRisk, which worked with Aave service providers on the assessment, the proposal recommends offboarding 50 low-use reserves and retiring 21 matured Pendle principal token listings across 11 deployments. It also calls for retiring all 25 reserves on Sonic, Scroll, zkSync, Metis, Soneium, and Aptos.
Key takeaways
- The ARFC would deprecate Aave V3 markets on Sonic, Scroll, zkSync, Metis, Soneium, and Aptos, alongside removing 50 low-use reserves and 21 matured Pendle principal token listings.
- The scope is tied to on-chain balances measured July 28, with $98.1 million supplied and $15.6 million in debt included in the cleanup.
- Risk service provider LlamaRisk characterizes the action as part of Aave’s broader risk-governance frameworks rather than a reversal of its multichain growth thesis.
- Prior multichain “temp check” voting already shut down underperforming instances on zkSync, Metis, and Soneium and set a $2 million annual revenue floor for new deployments.
- Aave founder Stani Kulechov framed the move as reducing both economic and technical risk surface under updated listing and risk frameworks.
What the ARFC would change in Aave V3
An ARFC—an “Aave Request for Comment”—is presented as a detailed governance proposal and precursor to an Aave Improvement Proposal. It is not itself confirmation that final on-chain voting has been completed or that execution is already underway.
In this case, the recommendation focuses on reducing exposure to markets with limited usage or maturing positions. LlamaRisk’s work with other Aave service providers outlines multiple categories of deprecation: low-use reserves and certain Pendle principal token listings that have matured, alongside full reserve retirements on the six named chains.
Aptos exit arrives after a rapid liquidity decline
The inclusion of Aptos stands out because it follows relatively recent deployment activity. LlamaRisk’s materials indicate Aave launched its V3 market on Aptos about 11 months earlier. In that period, liquidity fell by 94% over six months, and quarterly revenue reportedly dropped below $1,000, according to LlamaRisk.
Under the proposal, not all chains are treated the same way. LlamaRisk states that every reserve on Scroll, zkSync, Metis, and Soneium was already frozen. By contrast, Sonic and Aptos remained active at the time of the snapshot, with the ARFC recommending that they be frozen as well.
This structure matters for how quickly deprecations could translate into actual risk reduction. Freezing already stops new activity, but full retirement would further narrow Aave’s operational footprint on those deployments.
How earlier “temp check” decisions set the stage
The ARFC is not the first governance signal that Aave would be willing to scale back underperforming V3 instances on certain chains. A prior “temp check” on Aave’s multichain strategy concluded on Dec. 5, 2025, according to the governance record referenced in the source materials. That vote reportedly returned 923,400 votes in favor and under 1% against changing reserve behavior for underperforming instances.
That earlier governance outcome included actions affecting zkSync, Metis, and Soneium—specifically shutting down instances—and introduced a $2 million annual revenue floor for new instance deployment. In other words, the latest ARFC reads less like a sudden pivot and more like an operational follow-through on criteria that were already accepted by the community.
Risk framework updates and protocol-wide cleanup logic
The proposal aligns with Aave’s evolving risk and listing governance. The source notes that Aave added Scroll to the affected set through an accelerated process in April, referencing a direct-to-AIP proposal. In that description, the measure was framed as completing Scroll’s deprecation after a rapid deterioration in network liquidity and Aave market activity.
Separately, Aave published an updated risk framework on June 9 covering asset, bridge, monitoring, and chain risk, along with criteria for winding down reserves or deployments. The current ARFC announcement, as described in the source materials, suggests “de facto” adoption of these rules for the present cleanup.
Aave founder Stani Kulechov also addressed the initiative in a Thursday social media post. He said the move would “reduce Aave’s economic and technical risk surface as part of the new Aave Risk Framework and Technical Asset Listing Framework.” He further emphasized that the action “is not a reversal” of the protocol’s multichain expansion strategy, and that Aave would continue continuous risk assessment across deployments.
That distinction is likely important for market participants. Aave’s multichain approach appears to remain intact conceptually, but the governance direction points toward tighter enforcement of performance and risk thresholds—essentially focusing capital and attention on deployments that meet criteria and exiting those that do not.
Why this matters for users and market participants
For users and liquidity providers, deprecations can change the path of capital: liquidity may diminish further as reserves are frozen or retired, and markets tied to low-use reserves can become less accessible over time. For borrowers and lenders, winding down V3 markets can also affect how easily positions can be adjusted, particularly if token listings tied to specific assets or principal tokens are retired after maturity.
For investors and governance observers, the bigger signal is how Aave is operationalizing its frameworks. By connecting deprecations to measurable liquidity and revenue outcomes—and by referencing an earlier temp check that set a revenue floor—the ARFC underscores a governance style that is increasingly rules-driven rather than ad hoc.
Readers should watch for the next procedural steps: whether the ARFC proceeds into an Aave Improvement Proposal for formal voting, and how execution is sequenced across the chains involved—especially where Sonic and Aptos were still active at the time of the July 28 snapshot.
Wall Street just lowered its price forecasts for Coinbase stock. The exchange missed earnings expectations for the third quarter in a row. Almost no analyst changed their advice, though. Most still say buy.
A price target is where an analyst expects a stock to trade in 12 months. Several firms cut theirs this week. Their ratings stayed exactly where they were.
What Went Wrong in the Quarter
Coinbase lost $359.5 million in the three months to June 30. That works out to $1.36 per share. Analysts had penciled in a loss of just 17 cents. So the gap was wide. Revenue reached $1.22 billion. Analysts wanted about $1.29 billion. A year earlier the figure was $1.5 billion.
The damage started with trading. Customers traded 24% less than in the first quarter, Citizens said. Price swings were the smallest in years, so fewer people bought or sold. COIN shares then slid to a third straight quarterly loss.
Subscriptions did not rescue the quarter either. That unit brought in $555 million, below the $594 million analysts wanted.
Targets Dropped. Ratings Did Not.
Benchmark cut its target to $230 from $270. It kept a Buy rating anyway. Needham moved to $177. Rosenblatt moved to $200. Baird moved to $130. All three called the slump temporary rather than permanent.
Mizuho landed at $155 and stayed neutral. Barclays was the one loud bear. It rates the stock Underweight, which means sell, and set a $95 target.
Two firms did not flinch. Bernstein kept its $330 target. Citizens kept $325. Citizens gave a simple reason. Coinbase spent less than it had promised to spend. Job cuts made in May started to pay off.
The pattern began before the results landed. Citi slashed its target by 41% last week and still told clients to buy.
Why the Bulls are Still Buying
The bulls are not betting on trading fees. They are betting on everything else.
Coinbase handled a record 10.3% of all crypto trading. Its prediction market revenue doubled in three months. Paid Coinbase One memberships hit an all-time high.
The company now sells perpetual futures and stocks too. It calls the plan an “everything exchange.”
One piece is running late. Citizens said new USD Coin (USDC) features arrived later than planned. Banks have also flagged pressure on USDC economics.
Circle’s leadership argues that stablecoins outgrow crypto trading as payments spread. Coinbase needs that to happen quickly.
COIN traded near $151.24 on Friday, down 2.41%. The average analyst target sits near $229.74. That gap is a lot of faith.
The post 3 Earnings Misses Later, Wall Street Will Not Give Up on Coinbase Stock appeared first on BeInCrypto.
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