S&P Dow Jones Indices and Pantera Capital launched a digital asset index that tracks blockchain networks and protocols based on protocol revenue, marking a departure from crypto benchmarks built around market capitalization or token prices.

The index draws from the S&P Cryptocurrency Broad Digital Asset Index but only includes assets that meet minimum thresholds for protocol revenue, market capitalization and liquidity. Eligible networks are then ranked by aggregate protocol revenue over the previous two quarters and weighted by adjusted market capitalization, with the largest holding capped at 35% and the remaining constituents generally capped at 20%. The index is rebalanced quarterly.

According to an announcement from the companies, the benchmark is intended for institutional allocation and may serve as the basis for investment products or as a reference for actively managed digital asset portfolios. S&P said the rules-based framework is designed to distinguish established blockchain activity from speculative exposure.

The index launched with 18 constituents, with Ether (ETH), BNB (BNB), Solana (SOL), TRON (TRX) and Hyperliquid (HYPE) as its five largest holdings, according to an S&P Dow Jones Indices Indexology blog post. The blog identified Bitcoin (BTC) and XRP (XRP) as the largest non-constituents compared with the S&P Cryptocurrency Broad Digital Asset Index, reflecting the benchmark’s protocol revenue-based selection methodology.

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The launch also builds on S&P Dow Jones Indices’ broader expansion into digital asset benchmarks. Last October, the index provider introduced the S&P Digital Markets 50 Index, which combines 15 cryptocurrencies with 35 publicly traded companies tied to the crypto ecosystem.

Source: Tron DAO

Asset managers expand crypto index offerings

The debut follows a broader industry push to develop institutional-grade benchmarks for digital assets as traditional finance firms expand crypto offerings and tokenized assets gain traction.

Hashdex launched the Nasdaq Crypto Index US ETF on Feb. 14, 2025, the first multi-asset spot crypto exchange-traded fund in the United States. Franklin Templeton followed six days later with the Franklin Crypto Index ETF, a market capitalization-weighted fund tracking Bitcoin and Ether through the US CF Institutional Digital Asset Index.

The trend continued in April when MarketVector Indexes and Coinbase Asset Management launched the Coinbase Store of Value Index, a benchmark combining Bitcoin and tokenized gold using an inverse-volatility weighting model to provide diversified exposure to the assets.

In December, Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan said “crypto index funds are going to be a big deal in 2026” as the market becomes more complex and investors seek broader exposure to digital assets. He argued that predicting which blockchain networks would emerge as long-term winners was increasingly difficult, making diversified index products a practical way to gain market exposure.

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Tesla (TSLA) held its bitcoin BTC$65,889.62 holdings unchanged during the second quarter, maintaining its treasury of 11,509 BTC as the cryptocurrency’s price declined 14% over the three-month period.

The electric vehicle maker reported an after-tax impairment loss of $112 million on its digital asset holdings, according to its latest earnings release. Tesla has neither bought nor sold any bitcoin since 2022.

Bitcoin fell from about $83,000 at the start of the second quarter to roughly $58,000 by the end of June amid broader macroeconomic uncertainty and volatility across risk assets. The cryptocurrency was recently trading at $65,840.

Tesla remains one of the largest publicly traded corporate holders of bitcoin, though its holdings are significantly smaller than those of firms such as Strategy (MSTR), which has continued to aggressively accumulate the cryptocurrency.

The company’s crypto update came alongside mixed second-quarter financial results. Tesla reported non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.33, missing analyst expectations of $0.55. Revenue came in at $28.2 billion, topping consensus estimates of $27.6 billion.

Gross margin was 16.8%, while GAAP net income totaled $1.11 billion. The company also reported negative free cash flow of $1.1 billion for the quarter.

Senate Republicans have added crypto restrictions for top elected officials to the CLARITY Act, but Democratic resistance has pushed its 2026 passage odds down 15 percentage points from their July 21 peak.

According to reports, Democratic Senator Angela Alsobrooks opposed relying solely on the Department of Justice to enforce the ethics rules, calling the proposal “unserious.” She indicated that she would not support the CLARITY Act if the DOJ remained the only enforcement option.

Alsobrooks said she would vote against the bill if the current language reached the Senate floor. Her position matters because she was one of only two Democrats who helped advance the legislation through the Senate Banking Committee in May.

President Donald Trump accepted the ethics provision earlier this week after Democratic lawmakers made restrictions on elected officials’ crypto dealings a condition for further negotiations. Although his concession addressed one disputed issue, the enforcement fight has kept a bipartisan agreement out of reach.

According to reports from Crypto in America journalist Eleanor Terrett and Punchbowl News reporter Brendan Pedersen, the White House sent the proposed language to Republican senators on July 20. Democrats had not reviewed the wording before Trump’s agreement became public.

Democratic resistance cuts the bill’s passage odds

Under the latest draft, the president, vice president, members of Congress, federal judges and their spouses would qualify as covered elected officials. The legislation would prohibit them from issuing or sponsoring digital assets while they remain subject to the restrictions.

Covered officials would also have to sell their crypto holdings, place them in a blind trust or use both methods. According to the reported bill text, the provision would expire at noon on Jan. 20, 2029, when Trump is scheduled to leave office.

Another clause would allow a company to continue using an official’s name, image or likeness if the arrangement existed before the person entered covered status. The proposed restrictions do not appear to apply equally to every member of an official’s extended family.

Democrats had demanded ethics language after financial disclosures showed that Trump earned as much as $1.4 billion from crypto-related ventures last year. Senators Alsobrooks and Kirsten Gillibrand told colleagues earlier in July that the market structure legislation could not advance without rules addressing elected officials’ potential conflicts.

Trump’s approval initially encouraged traders to price in a better chance of passage. Polymarket odds for the CLARITY Act becoming law in 2026 climbed to about 43% on July 21, compared with 32% the previous Friday.

Those gains faded after Democrats challenged the enforcement mechanism. The contract fell to 39% and later traded near 35%, according to Polymarket, reversing the optimism created by Trump’s concession.

Coinbase shares followed the weaker legislative outlook, falling about 4% to nearly $169 on July 22. The stock had closed at $175.85 one day earlier before trading between roughly $166 and $175 during the next session.

The price decline came as investors assessed legislation that could determine how U.S. exchanges, token issuers and stablecoin businesses operate. According to Latham & Watkins’ U.S. crypto policy tracker, the Senate bill must still clear a 60-vote threshold, be reconciled with the House-approved version and receive Trump’s signature.

Republicans hold 53 Senate seats, meaning the party needs at least seven Democrats if every Republican supports the measure. Alsobrooks’ planned opposition leaves sponsors without a clear path to the supermajority required to move the legislation forward.

Enforcement disputes keep crypto regulation unsettled

Beyond the ethics section, Republicans added language intended to answer concerns raised by prosecutors and law enforcement groups. Those groups had warned that parts of the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act could limit their ability to pursue illicit finance involving decentralized crypto services.

Senate Banking Committee Democrats raised similar national-security concerns in May. They warned that the bill should not create exclusions that sanctions evaders, criminal groups or foreign adversaries could exploit.

Republican committee members have argued that the legislation already contains anti-money-laundering requirements and information-sharing measures for digital-asset companies. The updated text now gives law enforcement more authority to address crypto-related crime, although the provision has not resolved the separate disagreement over ethics enforcement.

Questions about regulatory resources have also reached the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. During a July 21 House Agriculture subcommittee hearing, former CFTC lawyer Carl Kennedy warned that the regulator may be “short-staffed” as it oversees fast-growing prediction markets and prepares for possible new digital-asset duties under the CLARITY Act.

Kennedy’s written testimony showed that trading volume on CFTC-registered prediction markets exceeded $25 billion in 2025. On one major platform, average daily event-contract listings increased from about 1,600 in April 2025 to nearly 162,000 in April 2026.

Although Republicans have revised the bill to address ethics and law-enforcement concerns, Alsobrooks’ response shows that the method of holding officials accountable remains unresolved. Falling Polymarket odds and weaker Coinbase shares suggest traders have not treated Trump’s concession as a completed bipartisan agreement.

Bitcoin has fallen more than 50% from its $125,000 cycle peak, but Grayscale’s Zach Pandl has argued that the cryptocurrency may have already reached its bottom if the Federal Reserve stops raising interest rates.

Grayscale Research has presented two competing views of when the current Bitcoin bear market could end, with one based on the asset’s four-year cycle and the other tied to economic growth, real interest rates and Fed policy.

Pandl, Grayscale’s head of research, favors the second explanation because Bitcoin has increasingly behaved like a mature asset affected by the same macroeconomic forces that influence other major markets. Under that view, stable growth and an end to rate hikes could allow Bitcoin’s latest low to hold.

Two securities transfer groups have urged the SEC to prioritize issuer-backed tokenized stocks and ETFs while limiting unaffiliated versions that may not provide shareholders with direct ownership rights.

Continental Stock Transfer & Trust Company outlined its position in a letter to the SEC’s Crypto Task Force, supporting rules for tokenized securities while calling for tougher treatment of products created without an issuer’s approval.

The registered transfer agent backed a similar proposal from the Securities Transfer Association, an industry group representing companies that maintain shareholder records and process ownership changes. Both groups asked the SEC to draw a clear line between securities tokenized by an issuer and tokens created by an unrelated platform.

Under their proposed distinction, an issuer-sponsored token represents a security that the company has authorized for blockchain-based issuance or trading. The transfer agent can therefore record its holder as a shareholder and apply the same ownership controls used for conventional securities.

An unaffiliated token may instead track a stock’s price or represent an indirect interest in shares held by another party. According to the STA, those arrangements do not necessarily create a legal relationship between the token buyer and the company whose stock provides the reference value.

“We support innovation in the securities markets, but believe any tokenization framework must preserve investor protection, issuer authorization, accurate shareholder records, transfer controls, and market integrity,” CSTT wrote in its letter.

Issuer-backed tokens preserve shareholder rights

CSTT warned that investors could mistake third-party tokens for direct shares even when the products provide different legal and economic rights. According to the firm, unclear ownership structures may also leave buyers without adequate disclosures about custody, voting rights, dividends or claims during insolvency.

For public companies, CSTT argued that unaffiliated products could disrupt shareholder records and make it difficult to identify the owners of an issuer’s securities. Missing or unreliable information could then affect voting, dividend payments, tender offers, stock splits and other corporate actions.

The STA identified additional concerns involving insider trading, market manipulation, sanctions screening and transfer restrictions. Its letter also cited possible reputational damage when a company’s shares are used in a tokenized product without its knowledge or consent.

Based on those risks, CSTT asked the SEC to modernize registration documents in a way that gives priority to tokenization programs approved by issuers. The company also opposed granting unaffiliated stock and ETF tokens relief through an innovation exemption unless the SEC first imposes investor safeguards.

The distinction echoes an earlier warning from SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, who stated in July 2025 that blockchain technology does not alter the legal nature of an investment product.

“As powerful as blockchain technology is, it does not have magical abilities to transform the nature of the underlying asset. Tokenized securities are still securities,” Peirce wrote in a statement reported by Reuters.

Peirce also distinguished between securities tokenized by issuers and products created by unrelated third parties. According to the commissioner, investors in third-party versions may face risks that do not exist when they purchase shares directly from an issuer or through conventional market infrastructure.

Regulated platforms are advancing tokenized trading

Demand for blockchain-based access to traditional assets has continued as crypto exchanges add stocks, ETFs and derivatives to their product lines. Coinbase, Kraken and Binance have each announced services connecting digital-asset users with traditional market products, although their structures and availability differ by jurisdiction.

Traditional market operators are pursuing tokenization through regulated infrastructure as well. In March, the New York Stock Exchange announced a partnership with Securitize to develop a platform for tokenized securities, with Securitize serving as a digital transfer agent for participating corporate and ETF issuers.

Under that arrangement, NYSE and Securitize plan to establish operating and regulatory standards for digital transfer agents. NYSE President Lynn Martin said that new tokenization systems must retain the trust, transparency and investor protections expected in established capital markets.

The SEC had also approved a Nasdaq proposal allowing certain stocks to trade and settle in tokenized form. That model keeps the tokenized shares within an exchange system governed by existing securities rules.

Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation has separately tested tokenization using assets linked to Microsoft, Circle, the Invesco QQQ Trust, State Street’s SPDR S&P 500 ETF and BlackRock’s iShares 0–3 Month Treasury Bond ETF. The trial includes stocks, index funds and short-term government debt products.

Unlike synthetic tokens produced without issuer involvement, these regulated projects use transfer agents, exchanges or established clearing infrastructure to maintain ownership records. CSTT and the STA have asked the SEC to preserve that connection as the agency develops rules governing tokenized stocks and ETFs.

XRP price has climbed nearly 4% to a two-week high of $1.1574 as Bitcoin’s return above $65,000, whale accumulation and fresh ETF inflows have supported its latest recovery.

According to data from crypto.news, XRP (XRP) price was trading near $1.14 at the time of writing, up about 2% over the past seven days, with its market value standing above $71 billion. The token had eased from its session high after sellers returned around $1.16, but prices remained above a recently broken daily resistance line.

Alongside the improvement in crypto sentiment, activity tied to artificial intelligence has supplied a network-level catalyst. XRP Ledger has processed more than 1 million agentic transactions, according to RippleX engineering head J. Ayo Akinyele, as developers test autonomous payments for data, application programming interfaces and computing services.

Agentic payments allow AI-powered software to complete transactions based on programmed instructions without requiring a person to approve each transfer. XRP Ledger can settle these payments in three to five seconds while offering predictable transaction costs, Akinyele told FinanceFeeds.

Commenting on the milestone, Akinyele projected that the transaction count could rise considerably as developers improve the tools available to autonomous agents.

“I think we’ll blast through 10 million and may even get to 100 million within the next couple of years.”

The forecast remains a projection rather than a measure of future XRP demand. Investors would still need to assess whether developers continue building agent-based services, whether those applications attract regular users and how much XRP or Ripple USD they use for settlement.

Whale buying and ETF inflows support the recovery

Santiment data showed that wallets holding between 100,000 and 100 million XRP increased their combined balances by 2.8% during the past five weeks. Over the same period, balances held by wallets containing less than 0.1 XRP fell by 5.2%.

According to Santiment, the opposing trends indicate that whale and shark wallets accumulated tokens while very small holders reduced their exposure. The analytics firm linked the change in holdings to XRP’s rebound toward $1.16, although its data does not establish that large-wallet buying alone caused the price increase.

Demand has also continued through U.S.-listed spot XRP exchange-traded funds. SoSoValue data showed the products attracted $5.66 million in net inflows on July 21, lifting their cumulative intake to about $1.49 billion.

Franklin Templeton’s XRPZ accounted for the entire daily addition, while the other listed products reported no net movement. Trading value across the funds reached $19.16 million during the session, and their combined net assets stood at approximately $1.06 billion, equal to about 1.48% of XRP’s market capitalization.

Among individual products, Bitwise managed the largest pool of assets at $333.50 million, according to the same dataset. The figures show that regulated funds continued receiving capital during XRP’s recovery, but daily flows can vary and do not guarantee sustained price gains.

Daily breakout keeps $1.20 within reach

On the daily chart, XRP has broken above the upper boundary of a symmetrical triangle that formed after its June decline. Price also moved through the descending trendline connecting the June and July swing highs before reaching $1.1574.

Daily momentum has improved with the breakout. The chart’s relative strength index stood at 55.77, above its moving average of 47.38 and below the overbought threshold of 70. Its moving average convergence divergence histogram had turned positive at 0.0077, while the MACD line was rising toward a possible move above the signal line.

The 4-hour chart, however, showed momentum cooling after XRP’s rejection from $1.1574. The latest candle traded near $1.1385, placing the token just above the Murrey Math trading-range ceiling at $1.1353 and the major support and resistance pivot at $1.123.

A recovery above the 4-hour strong pivot at $1.1475 would give buyers another chance to challenge $1.1597. The supplied chart places the following resistance levels at $1.1719 and $1.1841, with $1.1963 sitting just below the psychological $1.20 barrier.

4-hour MACD readings remained positive, although the shrinking histogram showed that upward momentum had slowed after the latest advance. This setup leaves buyers needing to defend the breakout instead of relying solely on the earlier impulse.

If XRP closes back below $1.123, the 4-hour chart identifies $1.1106 and $1.0986 as the next support levels. A deeper decline could expose $1.0864 and the ultimate support line at $1.0742, weakening the daily triangle breakout despite continued whale accumulation and ETF demand.