Crypto World
4 in 5 Americans Expect US-Iran War to Drag On, Survey Finds
A new poll shows 79% of Americans bracing for a long US war with Iran. This comes as President Donald Trump told Congress that military action resumed on July 7, a move that frees the military for 60 more days without congressional approval.
The shift lands months before November’s midterms, where pump prices could cost Republicans their grip on Congress.
Most Americans Now Expect a Long War With Iran
The Reuters/Ipsos poll surveyed 1,019 US adults over three days, closing Sunday. Only one in five, 18%, still expect the fighting to end within weeks. The rest see no quick exit.
Furthermore, only 37% backed the strikes, which restarted on June 26 after Washington blamed Tehran for hitting commercial ships.
Earlier surveys told a similar story. A Financial Times poll found 58% of voters judged the war not worth the cost. A separate Generation Lab survey of adults aged 18 to 34 found 77% called the strikes on Iran the wrong move.
Hormuz Blockade Reignites Market Fears
On Monday, Trump vowed to seal off Iranian ports near the strait and skim 20% off every cargo passing through. Tehran had already called the channel shut.
“The Hormuz Strait is OPEN, and will remain OPEN, with or without Iran… The U.S.A. will be, from this point forward, known as ‘THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT’… reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped,” he said.
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Traders moved quickly. Crude climbed roughly 4%, and Bitcoin (BTC) slid to around $62,600 amid fears the chokepoint will remain snarled for a while.
The poll also revealed that 6 in 10 respondents expect gasoline to be costlier over the coming year. Pump prices already sit near $3.87 a gallon, far above where they stood before the war.
Meanwhile, the war has weighed on Trump’s standing. He has claimed a 59% approval rating, yet the New York Times tracker pegs him closer to 39%.
The stakes climb as the November midterms near. His sinking approval adds to the pressure on Republicans, who risk losing the House and possibly the Senate in November.
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The post 4 in 5 Americans Expect US-Iran War to Drag On, Survey Finds appeared first on BeInCrypto.
AI agents are starting to change how payments need to work, and Visa is warning that the world’s card rails were never built for the transaction volume, speed, and cost sensitivity required by machine-to-machine commerce. In a joint report released this week with investment thesis platform Artemis, Visa argues that AI-driven micropayments demand near-zero fees and faster settlement to become commercially viable.
The report links the timing to a capability shift: it says AI agents crossed a key threshold in mid-2025, enabling them to discover unfamiliar APIs, assess pricing, and make autonomous payment decisions. That capability, Visa and Artemis say, is pushing commerce toward an agentic model—while existing infrastructure gaps continue to limit mainstream adoption.
Key takeaways
- Visa and Artemis say traditional cards are optimized for low-frequency, human-paced payments, making them poorly matched to high-frequency AI micropayments.
- The report frames 2025 as a turning point for “agentic” payment automation, driven by AI agents’ ability to autonomously evaluate and execute transactions.
- Visa and Artemis propose convergence: cards remain useful for proxy purchases inside merchant networks, while stablecoins fit machine-native micropayments.
- Some machine-payment standards are already gaining momentum, including Coinbase’s x402 protocol, which the report cites as reaching sharply higher monthly transaction counts in late 2025.
Why AI agents stress existing payment rails
Visa and Artemis describe the underlying mismatch as structural. Cards were designed for human commerce—where transactions tend to be less frequent and costs can be amortized across larger purchase sizes. AI agents, by contrast, are expected to generate many more micro-transactions, often on short time horizons and with different cost constraints.
For agentic micropayments to scale, the infrastructure must support payments with extremely low per-transaction overhead and settlement that enables rapid decision-making loops. The report suggests that without these properties, the economics of autonomous “machine-to-machine” payments remain unfavorable—even if the AI itself can now carry out the payment decision.
The report also warns that infrastructure gaps aren’t just theoretical. It frames current limitations as a direct brake on adoption, arguing that the shift from experimenting with agent capabilities to using them in everyday transactions depends on payment networks that can keep up.
x402 shows demand for machine-native transaction patterns
While Visa and Artemis emphasize the broader need for new infrastructure, they also point to early signs that some agentic payment designs are gaining usage. The report cites the x402 payment protocol developed by Coinbase as an example of standards beginning to attract real transactional volume.
According to the report, x402 processed $15 million in adjusted volume across more than 109 million adjusted transactions since its May 2025 launch. It also highlights a significant acceleration in October 2025: the monthly transaction count reportedly increased from 40,000 to 3.8 million, resulting in 38 million transactions processed in October alone. The report attributes this momentum to the growing practicality of the protocol for machine-style payments.
Stablecoins as an on-ramp to agentic micropayments
A central claim in the Visa-Artemis report is that stablecoins could play a key role in enabling machine-native micropayments without forcing all commerce to migrate away from cards. Rather than positioning stablecoins and card networks as direct competitors, the report argues for a convergence model.
“The trajectory points toward convergence rather than competition: cards for proxy purchases inside existing merchant networks, stablecoins for machine-native micropayments, and hybrid flows where both are used within the same workflow.”
This framing matters for investors and builders because it implies that payment interoperability—not replacement—will likely define near-term strategy. In practice, an AI agent workflow may still need cards for certain merchant-bound transactions, but stablecoins (or other crypto rails) could be better suited for the agent’s “background” actions that require very low fees and fast settlement.
The report adds that a single machine-payments framework could support both stablecoin-based flows and traditional card transactions. Visa says this creates a path for card networks to plug into agentic payments over time, rather than treating agent commerce as a separate universe.
Protocols and tooling: connecting onchain and fiat through tokens
Visa and Artemis point to a broader effort to unify payment approaches using shared payment tokens and machine-payment protocols. The report says Tempo’s Machine Payment Protocol (MPP) now spans both onchain crypto payments and fiat payments through shared payment tokens.
Visa also states that its Card Specification SDK was built to extend the protocol into card-based agent commerce. It further notes that Tempo and Visa’s crypto division launched AI-related tools in March, with different focal points: Visa’s tooling is described as enabling same-day payments for AI agents, while Tempo’s Machine Payments Protocol is designed to make it easier for AI actors to send and receive money.
While the report doesn’t spell out new performance benchmarks for every component, it does make one clear point: adoption depends on interoperability across rails and token frameworks. If AI agents can consistently route payments through a machine-friendly layer, then the difference between stablecoin settlement and card settlement becomes a routing and workflow decision—not a structural barrier.
For readers watching the space, this suggests a practical trend: payment infrastructure will likely evolve through standards, SDKs, and shared protocol logic that allow agentic workflows to move between fiat and crypto settlement depending on cost, speed, and merchant coverage.
Going forward, the key question is whether agentic micropayment demand keeps accelerating fast enough to force mainstream payment networks to meet machine-level cost and settlement requirements. Buyers of payments infrastructure, developers integrating agent payments, and traders tracking adjacent stablecoin usage should watch how quickly token-based frameworks and machine payment standards—like x402 and MPP—translate early transaction growth into consistent, scaled deployments.
The tokenized real-world asset market has reached more than $60 billion, but most of that value remains concentrated, restricted, or inactive on-chain.
BeInCrypto Intelligence’s Real State of Tokenization in 2026 report, built with market data from RWA.xyz, tracked more than 7,000 products across 12 asset classes. It found that just 62 assets hold 88% of the market value, while five products account for roughly half.
The activity gap is even sharper. Of 1,289 tokenized assets worth more than $100,000, only 910 assets representing $32.9 billion recorded zero weekly transfers.
Meanwhile, 97% of the market remains outside US retail access. BeInCrypto asked members of its Expert Council what these findings reveal about the state of tokenization.
Archax: Institutions Should Not Have to Choose a Chain
Graham Rodford, CEO and Co-Founder of Archax, said blockchain fragmentation is making institutional adoption harder than necessary.
“The fragmentation problem is real and it’s not going away,” Rodford said. “Every major asset manager we speak to is dealing with the same operational question: which chain do I pick, and what happens when the next one emerges? The honest answer is that they shouldn’t have to pick.”
Rodford argues that institutions need a regulated layer above individual networks. It would handle issuance, trading, custody, and settlement without tying firms to a single blockchain.
He also rejected the idea that public blockchains are automatically unregulated.
“What determines regulatory safety isn’t the chain – it’s the gateway.”
Theo: Dormant Assets Show a Half-Built Market
Iggy Ioppe, CIO of Theo, said the $32.9 billion in dormant value does not prove tokenization has failed. Instead, it shows that much of the market has stopped at representation.
“Wrapping an asset and parking it is ‘tokenization theater’. The real work is making tokens usable – as collateral, in DeFi, in live settlement.”
The report distinguishes between Distributed assets, which can move across public blockchain rails, and Represented assets, which mainly use blockchain as a digital record.
Around $27 billion of the dormant value came from Represented assets. Many were designed for recordkeeping and institutional settlement rather than public trading.
Still, Ioppe said the next stage will depend on whether tokenized assets can move, earn yield, settle around the clock, and connect to wider financial infrastructure.
“The assets are on-chain; the next phase is making them work.”
Sygnum: Regulation Could Create Regional Liquidity Silos
Fabian Dori, CIO of Sygnum Bank, said the market risks splitting into isolated pools as jurisdictions develop different rules and standards.
“A regulated asset bank can help prevent tokenized markets from hardening into isolated regional liquidity pools by acting as a compliant interoperability layer rather than trying to force one universal token across all jurisdictions.”
The report found that EU-regulated products account for only $3.3 billion, or 6% of the core market.
Dori’s argument is that regulated platforms must connect issuers and investors across chains while preserving local legal and compliance requirements.
WAODAO: Tokenized Assets Need a Liquidity Network
Aleksandr Cryptoved, Founder of WAODAO, said the report exposes the difference between putting an asset on-chain and creating a functioning market around it.
“The report’s $32.9B in assets with zero weekly transfer activity highlights the gap between tokenized existence and tokenized market activity.”
He proposed a “liquidity graph” in which tokenized assets connect through multiple smaller trading pairs rather than relying on one deep market against a stablecoin.
“In my view, the missing layer is a liquidity graph.”
Such a structure could generate activity through rebalancing, arbitrage, collateral movements, and institutional portfolio management.
Tokenization’s Next Test Is Usefulness
The experts differ on why so much tokenized value remains inactive.
Rodford points to blockchain fragmentation. Ioppe sees a market stuck at digital representation. Dori focuses on regulatory silos, while Cryptoved argues that tokenized assets need better liquidity connections.
Their conclusions converge on one point: issuing more tokens will not solve the market’s structural gaps.
The next phase depends on whether tokenized assets can move across networks, meet regulatory requirements, reach investors, and plug into real financial workflows.
The market has proved that assets can be recorded on-chain. It has not yet proved that most of them can function as active markets.
Read the full BeInCrypto Intelligence report.
The post Is the RWA Boom an Illusion? BeInCrypto Expert Council Reacts to Stagnant Tokenization appeared first on BeInCrypto.
The implication does not stop there. According to Imran Lakha, founder of Options Insights, dealers hold a “net long gamma exposure” above $70,000. It means the dealers, who strive to maintain market-neutral exposure while making money from the bid-ask spread, would short or sell into strength above 70,000 to stay neutral or hedged.
“That hedging acts like a brake, capping how fast BTC can run once it gets up there,” Lakha said, adding that ether (ETH) isn’t as exposed to dealer gamma dynamics and can rip much faster.
Bitcoin was recently changung hands near $64,100, down nearly 1% since midnight UTC. Other major cryptocurrencies, including ether, XRP (XRP) and solana (SOL) nursed similar losses, while Nasdaq 100 index futures fell 0.5%.
“As always, there is a risk of a sudden sell-off amid financial market shocks, which could send BTC or global stock indices into a tailspin, but waiting for such moments is a thankless task,” said Alex Kuptsikevich, the chief market analyst at FxPro. “In such conditions, buying in a quiet market at less than half of peak levels looks like a perfectly reasonable tactic for the coming days or weeks.”
Stay alert!
Read more: For analysis of today’s activity in altcoins and derivatives, see Crypto Markets Today . For a comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
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Despite rebounding from a local bottom near $1, Ripple’s cross-border token remains heavily suppressed in the current bear market and hasn’t been able to stage a decisive comeback.
Even so, several key signs suggest the bulls might be getting ready to step in and take control soon.
Green Days on the Way?
Currently, XRP trades at around $1.11, representing a mere 1% increase on a weekly scale but a substantial 62% collapse over the past year. The recent whale behavior, though, may tilt the scales toward a more tangible rebound in the near future.
The renowned analyst Ali Martinez revealed that large investors have purchased roughly 70 million tokens over the last week, thus boosting their total holdings to approximately 3.8 billion units (around 6% of the asset’s circulating supply). Whale accumulation signals growing confidence among major holders, which can help stabilize price action and attract retail investors into the ecosystem.
The second bullish factor was presented again by Martinez, who noted that XRP’s TD Sequential indicator has flashed a buy signal. It is important to note that this metric hasn’t been fully reliable over the last several months. In December, it flashed a buy signal, which was followed by a strong price increase, but in January 2026, it preceded a major correction instead.
Last but not least, we will touch upon the shrinking amount of XRP stored on Binance. As CryptoPotato reported, the figure dropped to around 2.61 billion tokens, the lowest since February. The development indicates that a growing number of investors have moved their holdings to self-custody wallets, thereby reducing immediate selling pressure.
The Latest Predictions
Analysts on X have been quite vocal on XRP recently, with most outlining bullish forecasts. The market observer who uses the moniker Gerla claimed that if buyers defend the important $1.10 level, the price could rise to $1.24 next.
Crypto Patel and Celal Kucuker have been even more optimistic, envisioning an explosion to $9 and $7, respectively. JAVON MARKS joined the club of ultra bulls, arguing that $15+ is “a measured level that can be reached in the next wave.”
Of course, some remain cautious and believe the cycle’s bottom has yet to be formed. X user Diana, for instance, warned that the price could plummet to $0.87 before a new bull run begins.
The post Is (Ripple) XRP Finally Ready to Break Out? Here Are 3 Reasons Why appeared first on CryptoPotato.
Bitcoin price pulled back after touching an intraday high near $65,500 despites its continuing bullish prediction. It’s not just BTC; risk assets softened together. Ethereum slipped about 1% over the past day, while PUMP and ZEC lost more than 4% as early-week momentum faded.
Nasdaq 100 futures also edged lower, too, as geopolitical tensions grabbed the headlines. Especially with some traders having already started locking in profits before the news broke.
Spot trading activity on centralized exchanges remained healthy through June, suggesting buyers have stepped back. This is important as markets can cool without falling apart, especially after a strong run into resistance.
Longer term, some analysts still see upside if fresh catalysts arrive. However, those projections depend on renewed demand instead of wishful thinking.
Discover: The Best Token Presales
Bitcoin Price Prediction: Reclaim $65,500 or Is a Test of $60K Next?
Bitcoin trades just above $64,000, while its gain sits near 2.5%, showing buyers still have the upper hand despite recent hesitation. TradingView analysis still points to a confirmed bearish break from a multi-month symmetrical triangle.
For now, the $61,800 to $62,000 area has become the first support worth watching, while $60,000 remains the line many traders would rather not revisit.
If buyers reclaim and defend $65,500, the recent breakdown could turn into a classic bear trap. That would put $67,500 to $70,000 back on the radar. Otherwise, Bitcoin may simply keep catching its breath between $62,000 and $65,500 as traders wait for fresh macro catalysts and ETF flow data.
On the flip side, a convincing daily close below $62,000 would likely invite another test of $60,000. Earlier liquidation waves already flushed excessive leverage, leaving positioning much cleaner. Still, clean books can become messy again if risk sentiment sours. ETF flows remain the market’s heartbeat, and sustained outflows would weaken institutional support.
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Bitcoin Hyper Targets Early-Mover Upside as BTC Tests Key Support
When spot BTC stalls at resistance and macro risk spikes simultaneously, rotating into large-cap BTC exposure starts to feel like a crowded trade with capped upside. That’s where earlier-stage infrastructure plays in the Bitcoin ecosystem draw attention, not as a hedge, but as a different risk/reward profile entirely.
Bitcoin Hyper ($HYPER) is a Bitcoin Layer 2 project integrating the Solana Virtual Machine, positioning itself as the first BTC L2 with SVM capability and targeting sub-second finality that the project claims exceeds even Solana’s throughput.
The presale has raised almost $33 million at a current token price of $0.0136832, with staking available at high APY for early participants. The core thesis: bring fast, low-cost smart contract execution to Bitcoin’s security layer without sacrificing decentralization, via a canonical bridge for native BTC transfers.
For traders who want Bitcoin ecosystem exposure with more upside leverage than spot BTC currently offers, research Bitcoin Hyper here.
Discover: The Best Crypto to Diversify Your Portfolio
The post Bitcoin Price Prediction: BTC Retraces as Iran Attacks America appeared first on Cryptonews.
Galaxy Digital (GLXY) has launched an institutional vault curation business on decentralized lending protocol Morpho, expanding its push into onchain finance with a product designed to help clients earn yield on idle stablecoin balances without managing decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure themselves.
The offering, called Galaxy Curator, is available through Fireblocks Earn, giving the custody platform’s more than 2,400 institutional clients access to curated onchain lending strategies from within their existing treasury and custody workflows, the company said in a press release Thursday.
The launch targets a longstanding challenge for institutional crypto holders. Large stablecoin balances often remain uninvested between settlements, deployments and operational holds due to the complexity and risk associated with directly interacting with decentralized finance protocols.
The rollout comes as professional vault curation has emerged as one of the fastest-growing segments of DeFi, with asset managers, trading firms and fintechs racing to package institutional-grade onchain yield products. Over the past year, firms including Bitwise, Gauntlet, Steakhouse Financial, Wintermute, Dialectic and RockawayX have launched or expanded curated vault offerings on Morpho.
Volvo Group has tested a proprietary cryptocurrency as part of an internal blockchain project designed to simplify transactions between the company and its suppliers.
Summary
- Volvo Group tested a proprietary cryptocurrency to simplify supplier transactions inside a closed blockchain network.
- The project remains exploratory, with no timeline announced for full deployment across Volvo’s global operations.
- Blockchain could support supplier payments, product traceability and compliance records without relying on separate databases.
Ivan Branco, Head of Information Management, AI and Analytics at Volvo Group, discussed the project in a recent Cardano Foundation interview. The experiment focused on a closed environment connecting Volvo with material and transport suppliers rather than creating a publicly traded cryptocurrency.
Volvo tests closed blockchain for supplier transactions
Branco said Volvo explored whether blockchain could create a shared transaction system for material suppliers, logistics providers and the company itself. The test included a proprietary cryptocurrency created specifically for the experiment.
“We have done explorations also with certain transport suppliers” to create an enclosed blockchain environment, Branco said. According to the Cardano Foundation’s summary, the project forms part of Volvo’s wider study of how blockchain can solve practical problems in manufacturing and supply chains.
The digital asset could support transactions inside the closed network without depending on a public cryptocurrency. Volvo has not disclosed the token’s technical design, blockchain network or whether the test involved transactions with real economic value.
Traceability and compliance drive wider blockchain interest
Volvo Group is also studying blockchain for supply-chain records and product traceability. Branco pointed to the difficulty of tracking the country of origin of individual components as products move through several suppliers before reaching the company.
Accurate records can become especially important when sanctions or trade restrictions apply. A shared blockchain could give participating companies access to records that are harder to alter while reducing the need to compare information stored across separate systems.
The project could also support product tracking as European companies prepare for wider use of Digital Product Passports. Volvo sees possible uses in areas such as remanufacturing, where companies need reliable information about components throughout a product’s lifecycle.
Earlier Volvo-linked blockchain work focused on cobalt
The latest experiment expands on blockchain work previously associated with Volvo’s automotive businesses. As previously reported by crypto.news, Volvo worked with supply-chain technology company Circulor in 2019 to track cobalt and improve visibility into the mineral’s origin.
That project used blockchain records to help trace cobalt through the supply chain. The system aimed to provide greater information about whether materials came from sources linked to conflict or child labor.
Related blockchain adoption later extended to Polestar. As reported by crypto.news, the Swedish electric vehicle company used blockchain technology to improve cobalt traceability in its battery supply chain.
The proprietary cryptocurrency test takes a different approach. Instead of focusing only on tracking materials, Volvo Group explored whether blockchain could also support transactions and shared records between companies operating within the same supply network.
Project remains experimental
Volvo Group has not announced plans to release the cryptocurrency publicly or deploy the system across its operations. The initiative remains an internal exploration and has not reached industrial-scale use.
Branco also identified several barriers to wider enterprise blockchain adoption, including integration with existing systems, scalability, maintenance and limited understanding of the technology inside companies.
The experiment therefore remains a test of whether a closed blockchain network can reduce complexity between suppliers rather than a move by Volvo into the public cryptocurrency market. The company has not announced a launch date or confirmed whether the proprietary digital asset will move beyond the testing stage.
Key takeaways
- Cardano (ADA) traded near $0.161 on Thursday after a slight pullback, while whale wallets continued accumulating tokens.
- Wallets holding 100,000 to 100 million ADA have reached their highest holdings since February 2023, while smaller investors have reduced exposure.
- The upcoming van Rossem hard fork, scheduled for Saturday, could act as a catalyst for ADA’s next move.
Cardano (ADA) edged lower on Thursday, trading around $0.161 after facing mild selling pressure the previous session.
Despite the pullback, on-chain and derivatives data indicate that investor sentiment is gradually improving as large holders continue to accumulate the cryptocurrency ahead of a key network upgrade.
The combination of growing whale activity, strengthening derivatives metrics, and the upcoming van Rossem hard fork has increased expectations that ADA could stage a broader recovery if it breaks key resistance levels.
Whales continue accumulating ADA
On-chain data from Santiment shows a clear divergence between large and small Cardano holders.
Wallets holding between 100,000 and 100 million ADA now collectively own more than 25.65 billion ADA, the highest level since February 2023.
In contrast, wallets holding fewer than 100 ADA have reduced their holdings by roughly 0.7% over the past four months.
The trend suggests institutional investors and high-net-worth holders continue accumulating Cardano while retail investors remain cautious. Historically, sustained whale accumulation has often preceded periods of stronger price performance.
Cardano’s development roadmap also received a boost this week. Intersect, the member-based organization supporting the Cardano ecosystem, confirmed on Wednesday that the van Rossem hard fork will be activated on Saturday following governance ratification earlier this week.
The upgrade introduces new Plutus functionality alongside protocol enhancements designed to improve smart contract performance, developer capabilities, and overall network efficiency.
The hard fork could provide a near-term catalyst by strengthening Cardano’s ecosystem and increasing confidence among developers and investors.
Futures market activity also points to strengthening investor confidence.
According to CoinGlass, Cardano futures Open Interest (OI) has increased from approximately $422 million on Monday to $445 million on Thursday.
Rising Open Interest alongside stabilizing prices generally indicates that fresh capital is entering the market rather than traders simply closing existing positions.
Meanwhile, ADA’s funding rate has turned positive, reaching 0.0042%, suggesting traders holding long positions are once again willing to pay a premium to maintain their exposure.
Positive funding rates typically reflect improving market sentiment and growing expectations for higher prices.
Cardano price forecast: ADA still faces major resistance
Despite improving fundamentals, Cardano remains technically constrained. ADA continues to trade below several major moving averages, preserving the broader bearish market structure.
Cardano remains below the 50-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) at $0.179, the 100-day EMA ($0.208), and the 200-day EMA ($0.276)
The token is also trading beneath the 23.6% Fibonacci retracement level at $0.173, while the broader downtrend remains intact below the trendline resistance near $0.207.
Momentum indicators present a mixed picture. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) is near 46, indicating neutral momentum without signaling either overbought or oversold conditions.
Meanwhile, the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) has turned slightly positive, suggesting bearish momentum is easing, although buying pressure remains too weak to confirm a sustained trend reversal.
If bulls regain momentum, the next resistance levels include $0.179 (50-day EMA), $0.207–$0.208 (Trendline resistance and 100-day EMA), and $0.2135 (50% Fibonacci retracement).
A successful break above the $0.207–$0.208 region would significantly improve Cardano’s medium-term outlook.
On the downside, traders should watch the immediate support level at $0.1500. Failure to defend this level could see ADA retest the June 25 swing low of $0.1382.
Cardano’s improving fundamentals are beginning to contrast with its still-cautious technical picture. Whale accumulation, rising Open Interest, and positive funding rates suggest confidence is gradually returning, while the upcoming van Rossem hard fork provides an additional potential catalyst.
The first half of 2026 has concluded. It was a turbulent six months for the crypto market, marked by rapid sector rotations across AI, RWA, stablecoins, and TradFi. As market opportunities shift rapidly and narratives rise and fall, traders and investors are asking one key question:
Which platform can identify emerging trends first while remaining secure and reliable enough to earn their trust?
For over 59.49 million registered users worldwide, HTX has delivered a compelling half-year performance report. According to DeFiLlama data, HTX repeatedly ranked at the top of the industry for daily and weekly net capital inflows. Concurrently, the platform has continued to advance its global compliance footprint and secured prestigious international accolades, including Best P2P Platform of the Year and Best Web3 Venture Capital Institution of the Year, further strengthening its brand influence. Behind these numbers lies a clear trend: an increasing number of users are choosing HTX as their platform for managing assets, trading, and investing.
Spot Trading Nearing $400 Billion as Trending Assets Deliver Outsized Wealth Effects
For retail investors, the defining characteristic of the market this year has been the accelerating pace of sector rotations. Meme coins give way to AI; AI yields to RWA, BTCFi, stablecoins, and TradFi — with some projects delivering multi-fold returns in a matter of days.
In the first half of the year, HTX carefully selected and listed 58 new assets aligned with market trends, spanning almost every high-conviction sector, including meme coins, AI, RWA, BTCFi, and stablecoins. Guided by the principle of listing what the market demands, HTX rigorously vetted projects to curate high-quality assets with strong wealth creation potential. The Chinese-culture-inspired meme coin “老子” surged 573% after listing, while “我踏马来了” gained 412%. In the AI sector, ELSA delivered an exceptional peak gain of 620%, while BNKR and RIVER climbed 162% and 282%, respectively. For many users, HTX was the first venue where they discovered and purchased these trending tokens.
Equally important has been HTX’s first-mover advantage in listing multiple top-tier assets. Following its joint listing debut, Billions Network (BILL) surpassed a $2 billion market capitalization, delivering a 141% gain. After HTX became the first platform to list CHIP, multiple major exchanges quickly followed. Meanwhile, the jointly launched RWA project BTW recorded a peak gain of 388%, while ZEST climbed 131% after listing. By Q2 2026, as the market’s focus shifted toward narrative-driven sectors such as RWA, AI computing, and stablecoins, HTX stayed ahead of the curve by listing RWA leader RE (up 145%), AI computing project OpenGradient (OPG, up 118%), and MegaETH ecosystem stablecoin CAP, capitalizing on every major market trend. HTX has consistently enforced its delisting mechanism, removing tokens with insufficient liquidity or inactive development teams. This market-based selection approach continuously enhances asset quality, helping direct users’ capital toward projects with genuine value and strong liquidity.
The spot trading data tells an even clearer story. In H1 2026, more than 420,000 users traded spot, generating $379 billion in trading volume. HTX now supports over 612 spot trading pairs, spanning mainstream assets, trending sectors, and high-potential new projects. With deep liquidity, fast execution, and robust security, HTX continues to provide a trusted trading platform for users worldwide. Furthermore, HTX launched its “Predict FIFA World Cup 2026 Matches” campaign and continued to host its flagship Trading Championship series, engaging tens of thousands of active participants. These initiatives transformed trading from a simple execution process into an interactive, reward-rich experience.
Beyond Buying Crypto Assets, HTX Earn Turns Idle Assets Into Continuous Yield
A growing number of users recognize that active trading alone does not maximize capital efficiency. In the first half of the year, HTX Earn saw its subscription user base exceed 120,000, with cumulative subscription volume breaking past $4.1 billion.
Stablecoins remain the most sought-after vehicle. Flexible Earn products for USDT, USDC, and USDD delivered maximum APYs of up to 10%. For trending assets, the platform launched 50 fixed and flexible Earn products offering maximum APYs of 20%, drawing over $500 million in cumulative subscriptions from more than 50,000 participants. For high-net-worth users, HTX introduced the VIP Flexible product, initially offering up to 9% APY on USDT. Combining premium yields with flexible subscription and redemption, it enables large capital allocations to achieve greater capital efficiency. For many long-term holders, assets are no longer left idle waiting for price appreciation — they are generating daily passive income.
Futures traders can also keep their capital actively utilized. Following its upgrade, SmartEarn reached a peak APY of 7.21% and has maintained an average APY of around 2.5% in recent months. More importantly, deposited assets can still be used as margin for futures trading, allowing users to earn yield without missing trading opportunities. In addition, USDD SmartEarn offers an exclusive fixed APY of 4%.
HTX Leads TradFi Integration While AI-Powered Tools Redefine the Trading Experience
A structural trend is taking shape in 2026: crypto-native users increasingly want unified access to both digital assets and global traditional financial instruments. HTX has positioned itself as a first-mover in the TradFi tokenization sector.
In H1 2026, HTX futures trading volume approached $500 billion, while the number of supported trading pairs surpassed 350. Within this lineup, the TradFi sector alone generated over $1.5 billion in trading volume, spanning 129 assets across high-growth sectors such as AI, gold, commodities, U.S. equities, ETFs, aerospace, and new energy. In May 2026, HTX took the lead in listing highly anticipated Pre-IPO assets, including SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic, providing users with a vastly diversified investment suite. Earlier in H1, the platform successfully timed market movements driven by geopolitical tensions and energy constraints, capturing significant volume in cyclical commodities like crude oil, base metals, and natural gas.
Meanwhile, the Futures system has also undergone a comprehensive infrastructure upgrade, introducing new features such as enhanced capital efficiency for Cross Margin, independent leverage for Isolated Margin, Smart Copy Trading, AI Lead Trader Recommendations, Trailing Grid, and Auto-Deposit Margin. These enhancements enable users to trade with greater flexibility and efficiency. For regular users, highly complex strategies are now executed automatically by the product itself. The copy trading division exhibited counter-cyclical growth in H1: the number of lead traders surged 53% quarter-over-quarter, driving lead trading volume up 74%, while follower trading volume jumped 44% over the same period. For users who prefer a hands-off approach, Futures Grid bots recorded $1.18 billion in trading volume in the first half of the year. With Trailing Grid set to launch in early July, the grid will automatically adjust as the market moves, allowing users to trade more efficiently without monitoring the market every day.
In the first half of this year, nearly every core product in the HTX suite received an upgrade. Following app startup speed optimizations, launch speeds improved by over 55% on iOS and approximately 44% on Android, making app opening wait times nearly imperceptible. The platform also introduced professional modules such as the TradFi Market Leaderboards, Tokenomics Displays, and expanded K-line indicators. Most notably, the official launch of the HTX Holo, the platform’s AI-powered trading assistant, has dramatically lowered the barrier to market information. Capable of interpreting market charts, summarizing news feeds, and actively recommending tailored Earn products, it effectively functions as an institutional-grade research assistant embedded directly within the app. Furthermore, a unified Event Center and fully revamped live-streaming rooms were rolled out across the half-year, allowing users to easily participate in platform events.
Global Expansion Continues as HTX DAO Ecosystem Growth and Deflationary Mechanics Advance in Parallel
HTX Research and HTX Ventures continue to serve as the exchange’s strategic watchtower over the digital-asset industry. In the first half of 2026, the team published a total of 6 major research reports centered on core topics such as AI, RWA, stablecoins, TradFi, geopolitics, and the linkage between these themes and the crypto market. These include 2025 Annual Review: Crypto Assets Move Toward Mainstream Adoption, The Rise of Yield-Bearing Currency: How Crypto Neobanks Are Challenging the Traditional Banking Model, RWA Perps: A New Frontier in the On-Chain Expansion of Global Financial Markets, and the Q3 forward-looking report Liquidity Defines Crypto: A New Crypto Order Under Global Liquidity Repricing. The team has not only continued to deliver in-depth research content, but has also built the long-term content brand HTX DeepThink, publishing 73 market insight articles in the first half of the year, along with weekly market reviews to help users establish a clearer investment framework amid complex market conditions.
On the offline front, HTX organized and prepared 17 distinct brand events across the first half of the year, targeting key regions such as Southeast Asia and Turkey. Through industry summits, high-end VIP gala dinners, and regional strategic partnerships, the platform steadily deepened its global brand footprint. Meanwhile, the platform has also won numerous international awards, including Best P2P Platform of the Year and Best Web3 Venture Capital Institution of the Year, further enhancing its brand credibility and industry recognition.
Throughout H1 2026, HTX DAO actively drove the expansion of the $HTX ecosystem while reinforcing its long-term value framework through an open, transparent token deflation mechanism. Official disclosures confirm that HTX DAO successfully completed two major $HTX token burns on January 15 and April 15, 2026. This brings the cumulative total of $HTX burned and pledged to 110.32 trillion tokens to date, representing over 11% of the total token supply and establishing an annualized deflation rate of approximately 5.5%. This persistent mechanism makes $HTX one of the very few governance tokens in the industry to execute a transparent, large-scale, and long-term public token burn strategy. Concurrently, HTX DAO expanded its utility use cases and optimized its community governance framework. This included upgrading membership benefits, broadening yield opportunities, exploring AI × Web3 ecosystems, maintaining community consensus, and fostering developer networks through the Genesis Program, Hackathons, and Grants—effectively connecting developers, protocols, and the community to bolster long-term holder confidence.
45 Consecutive Months of PoR Disclosures, Establishing Security as a Core Competitive Edge
For many users new to the crypto market, security is the top priority, not returns. HTX continuously enhances platform transparency through Merkle Tree Proof of Reserves (PoR). The latest data shows that as of July 1, 2026 (UTC), the reserve ratios of major assets on the platform, including BTC, ETH, TRX, USDs, HTX, XRP, DOGE, and SOL, have all remained above 100%. HTX is committed to a strict 1:1 reserve principle, ensuring user assets can be traded and withdrawn at any time. Crucially, HTX has now publicly disclosed its PoR data for 45 consecutive months, making it one of the earliest and most consistent platforms in the industry to normalize routine reserve disclosures. This framework allows users to view reserves transparently, verify individual assets, and trade with complete peace of mind.
HTX has also pushed forward its global compliance architecture. In H1 2026, HTX advanced its licensing efforts in Kyrgyzstan. Following the acquisition of a No Objection Certificate (NoC) from the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA), the platform proceeded with local corporate registration and the application process for a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) license. Meanwhile, HTX continued to align its operations with Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) framework, further strengthening its global regulatory foundation.
Evolution from “Trading Exchange” to “Global Digital Asset Service Platform”
A review of the first half of 2026 demonstrates that HTX’s strategic focus extends far beyond mere volume growth. From listing high-potential assets early and maximizing capital efficiency through Earn products to expanding access to global investment opportunities via TradFi, empowering AI-assisted trading, and strengthening global compliance and security, HTX is building a one-stop digital asset service platform spanning trading, Earn, research, asset management, and global investment opportunities.
For users, these developments converge into a tangible improvement in their daily experience: more opportunities, better products, stronger asset security, and more efficient investing. As AI, RWA, stablecoins, TradFi, and other emerging narratives continue to evolve in the second half of 2026, the crypto market will present new growth opportunities. HTX remains committed to anchoring this growth by providing its global user base with richer asset classes, fully optimized product suites, and an expanded international presence.
Markets will always change. But for HTX, the true measure of the road ahead lies in its ability to seize every emerging opportunity while safeguarding users’ assets. That commitment will define HTX’s next chapter.
About HTX
Founded in 2013, HTX has evolved from a virtual asset exchange into a comprehensive ecosystem of blockchain businesses that span digital asset trading, financial derivatives, research, investments, incubation, and other businesses.
As a world-leading gateway to Web3, HTX harbors global capabilities that enable it to provide users with safe and reliable services. Adhering to the growth strategy of “Global Expansion, Thriving Ecosystem, Wealth Effect, Security & Compliance,” HTX is dedicated to providing quality services and values to virtual asset enthusiasts worldwide.
To learn more about HTX, please visit https://www.htx.com/ or HTX Square , and follow HTX on X, Telegram, and Discord. For further inquiries, please contact glo-media@htx-inc.com.
The post HTX H1 2026 Performance Report: Nearly $900 Billion in Trading Volume appeared first on BeInCrypto.
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