The U.S. added four crypto wallets linked to the Central Bank of Iran to its sanctions list after a ceasefire agreement between the two countries broke down and air and drone strikes resumed.

The four Tron-blockchain wallets had received more than $165 million in stablecoins, according to Chainalysis. Tether blocked $131 million in USDT held by the accounts, though some of the funds had moved before the freeze.

Sanctioning the wallets gives exchanges, custodians and compliance firms a clear set of addresses to screen for. Iran’s central bank has accumulated at least $507 million in USDT, according to Elliptic, using the token to support the rial.

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has said its published wallet lists are not exhaustive, meaning other addresses controlled by the bank may still qualify as blocked property.

Tuesday’s OFAC update expands on an existing designation rather than imposing new sanctions. The Central Bank of Iran has been blocked under U.S. counterterrorism authorization since 2019 over its support for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force and Hezbollah.

TL;DR

• XLM is trading higher on Thursday after defending key support levels earlier this week.
• Rising Open Interest (OI) and positive funding rates suggest fresh capital is flowing into both markets.
• XLM remains below major resistance levels despite showing signs that bearish momentum is fading.

Stellar’s XLM continues its recovery on Thursday, supported by improving derivatives metrics and stabilizing technical indicators after the cryptocurrency defended key support levels earlier in the week.

Open Interest climbs as traders return

Derivatives data points to renewed confidence among market participants. According to CoinGlass, XLM Open Interest climbed from $153 million on Monday to around $195 million, up 25% in the last 24 hours.

The simultaneous rise in prices and Open Interest suggests fresh capital is entering the market rather than traders simply closing positions. This typically signals strengthening conviction behind the current recovery.

Market sentiment has also improved across perpetual futures markets. XLM recorded positive funding rates after turning positive on Tuesday.

Positive funding rates indicate that traders holding long positions are paying a premium to maintain their exposure, reflecting growing bullish sentiment.

While derivatives indicators have strengthened, on-chain metrics paint a mixed picture. CryptoQuant indicates that XLM continues to experience selling-side dominance across both spot and derivatives markets, suggesting larger traders remain hesitant despite the recent rebound.

This imbalance could limit the pace of any sustained upside move.

XLM technical analysis: Recovery faces multiple technical barriers

Stellar traded around $0.189 on Thursday after bouncing from support near $0.177.

However, XLM continues to trade below the 50-day EMA at $0.190 and the 200-day EMA at $0.196

The token is currently hovering just above its 100-day EMA at $0.187, providing immediate support.

Momentum indicators suggest buyers are gradually returning but remain cautious. The RSI is near 49, reflecting neutral momentum without a clear bullish bias.

Meanwhile, the MACD remains slightly below zero, indicating bearish pressure has weakened but has not fully disappeared.

If the rally persists, the first major resistance lies at the 50-day EMA of $0.190. A decisive break above this level will expose higher hurdles at $0.196 (200-day EMA) and $0.218.

A sustained move above $0.200 would strengthen the case for a broader recovery.

However, if the bearish trend resumes, the bulls would need to instantly defend the $0.187 support level.

Failure to defend this support could see XLM retest lower demand zones at $0.177 and $0.142 in the near term. 

XLM is showing encouraging signs of recovery as derivatives activity strengthens and funding rates turn positive. 

However, XLM continues to face heavier selling pressure from larger market participants.

Artificial intelligence (AI) agents are posing a challenge to the incumbent global card payments infrastructure that is struggling to process high-frequency micropayments, according to a joint report released by payments giant Visa and investment thesis platform Artemis.

The joint report published Wednesday found that traditional cards were built for human commerce with low-frequency transactions, which is insufficient for AI agents, which need infrastructure with near-zero fees and faster settlement to make agentic micropayments commercially viable.

New infrastructure is increasingly necessary since AI agents crossed a key capability threshold in mid-2025, enabling them to discover unfamiliar APIs, evaluate prices and decide on autonomous payments.

The report found that AI agents are initiating a foundational change in commerce, but the current infrastructure gaps are limiting their mainstream adoption. 

Australian crypto exchange Swyftx earlier this week said that AI-enabled microbusinesses could drive an additional $262 billion in stablecoin volume by 2033, via AI-native payments settled in stablecoins, based on an assumed adoption rate of about 33%.

Machine-native micropayment requirements. Source: Artemis, Visa

Some agentic payment standards are already showing signs of user adoption, such as the x402 payment protocol developed by Coinbase.

The x402 prot processed $15 million in adjusted volume across over 109 million adjusted transactions since it was launched in May 2025. It saw a sharp acceleration in October 2025, when the monthly transaction count rose from 40,000 to 3.8 million, leading to 38 million transactions processed in October alone.

Cumulative adjusted volume on x402 payment protocol. Source: Artemis, Visa

Stablecoins could stoke machine-native micropayments growth

A single machine-payments framework could support both stablecoin and traditional card transactions, Visa and Artemis said, adding:

“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.” 

Related: Stripe, Advent offer $53B to acquire PayPal: Report

The report said that a single machine payment framework can support both stablecoin-based flows and card transactions, creating a path into agentic payment flows for card networks.

It added that Tempo’s Machine Payment Protocol (MPP) now spans both onchain crypto payments and fiat payments via shared payment tokens. Visa said its Card Specification SDK was designed to extend the protocol into card-based agent commerce.

Visa’s crypto division and Stripe-backed Tempo both launched AI tools in March. Visa’s allows AI agents to make same-day payments. That month, Tempo debuted its Machine Payments Protocol, designed to make it easier for AI actors to send and receive money.

Magazine: AI’s power crunch turns Bitcoin miners’ grid access into an asset

The crypto market is facing a wave of sell pressure with bitcoin BTC$64,158.73 and ether (ETH) losing 1.1% and 1.7%, respectively, since midnight UTC.

The shift to the downside comes after bitcoin rose to a monthly high of $65,500 on Wednesday, prompting some traders to take profits.

Altcoins PUMP and ZEC also declined, falling 4.4% each after Tuesday’s strong rallies faded, highlighting a lack of liquidity in both directions.

U.S. equities also lost ground. Futures on tech stock-dominant Nasdaq 100 index retreated by 0.25%, extending a downtrend that began 30 days ago.

One of the main catalysts for price action across all asset classes is the war in Middle East, with Iran launching attacks on U.S. military bases in neighboring Gulf states on Thursday and the U.S. continuing its wave of airstrikes.

Derivatives positioning

• Ether’s price has dropped by 1.7% since midnight UTC, slightly more than the decline in bitcoin. ETH’s underperformance seems driven by bullish plays unwinding rather than aggressive new short selling. That’s evident from the decline in open interest (OI) to 14.35 million ETH from the five-week high of 14.45 million ETH hit Wednesday. Futures tied to BTC show similar dynamics.
• Meanwhile, OI in XRP rose to a 10-day high of 2.21 billion XRP alongside a 0.6% drop in the spot price. This combination is taken to represent a growing bias for bearish exposure, although XRP’s positive funding rates contradict that interpretation. That said, the 24-hour cumulative volume delta (CVD) for XRP is negative, meaning short plays are being executed at market orders rather than passive limit orders.
• Another notable open interest gainer is SUI, the native token of the Sui blockchain. Positions have increased by 15%, although the total OI of 654 million tokens remains in line with levels seen earlier this week. The SUI token has dropped almost 2% over 24 hours.
• Broadly speaking, most coins, except BTC, ETH and XMR, have a negative 24 hour OI-adjusted cumulative volume delta (CVD), a sign of bears leading the price action.
• Bitcoin’s 30-day implied or expected volatility index is up 2% at 38%. Volatility tends to be mean-reverting, and, historically, sub-40% readings have consistently presaged renewed market turbulence.
• In Deribit-listed options, there has been a notable rise in both trading volume and open interest in BTC calls at $70,000 and $72,000 strikes. This likely reflects a large bull call spread that crossed the tape recently. The strategy bets that prices will rally to $72,000 by the end of July.
• In ETH’s case, the end-July expiry call at the $2,300 strike is the most traded bet of the past 24 hours. A call represents a bullish bet on the market.

Token talk

• Artificial intelligence token MORPHO$2.0995 defied bearish crypto price action on Thursday, rising by 3.5% since midnight as it looks to test the $2.20 level of resistance, which caused a rejection and subsequent drop to $1.85 on July 2.
• The rest of the altcoin market tracked bitcoin and ether, with coins including HYPE, SOL and ENA losing 1.3%-1.8% since midnight while NEAR, JUP and DASH posted steeper losses.
• CoinMarketCap’s “Altcoin Season” indicator is still range-bound, currently at 48/100 after losing its perch at 58/100 on Monday as investors switched focus back to bitcoin.
• One recent area of interest in the altcoin sphere has been memecoins, notably tokens launched on Robinhood’s new blockchain. One, cashcat (CASHCAT), rose from relative obscurity to a $220 million market cap in its first week of Robinhood Chain going live. It has since fallen back to a $91 million market cap despite maintaining around $60 million in daily trading volume.

Visa has outlined how stablecoins and traditional card networks can work together in AI-driven commerce, arguing that low-cost blockchain payments will be critical as software agents begin handling machine-to-machine transactions.

According to a joint research report released on Wednesday by Visa and blockchain analytics firm Artemis, the rise of agentic commerce will create two distinct payment needs, with existing card networks continuing to support consumer purchases while stablecoins become more practical for frequent low-value payments between software systems.

The report, titled Agentic Payments from the Ground Up, examines how AI agents could independently initiate and complete transactions as they carry out tasks on behalf of users or other software.

Visa and Artemis divided the emerging market into macro-commerce and micro-commerce. Macro-commerce covers consumer-sized purchases, such as booking travel or managing subscriptions, where AI agents act on behalf of people. Micro-commerce involves repeated sub-dollar transactions between software services, including API requests and payments for computing resources.

Stablecoins fit machine-to-machine payments

The report said traditional payment rails remain well suited for larger consumer purchases, but fixed processing costs make very small payments uneconomical. It added that newer blockchain networks have reduced settlement costs to fractions of a cent, making stablecoins a more efficient option for machine-native micropayments.

Rather than replacing existing payment systems, Visa said both technologies are expected to operate together.

“In all likelihood, this won’t come down to a choice between cards and stablecoins. Both will have a place,” the company said. Visa added that cards are suited to purchases within today’s merchant networks, while stablecoins better match machine-native micropayments.

The report said future agentic commerce is likely to combine both payment methods within a single workflow. Under that model, AI agents could use card networks for consumer-facing purchases before relying on stablecoins to settle repeated low-value transactions between software services.

Visa also said the distinction between card-based and crypto-native payment systems is becoming less clear. The report noted that card-focused initiatives such as the Trusted Agent Protocol, Agent Payments Protocol and Visa Intelligent Commerce are adding stablecoin support, while crypto-native projects are incorporating trust and verification features commonly associated with traditional payment infrastructure.

The company said its long-term approach is to combine card-based authorization and security with blockchain-based settlement while allowing both systems to interoperate.

Legal and trust questions remain

Despite the payment advances, Visa said trust remains one of the biggest obstacles to agentic commerce because existing legal and payment systems assume that a human is making purchasing decisions.

The report said current laws do not clearly define responsibility when AI agents complete transactions independently, while chargeback rules and dispute processes were built for human-paced commerce rather than automated systems capable of completing thousands of transactions every hour.

The latest findings build on Visa’s recent work around AI-powered commerce and stablecoins. Earlier this year, the company introduced Visa Intelligent Commerce, an Agentic Directory and Agent Score tools designed to support trusted AI-driven payments. It also announced a partnership with OpenAI to enable secure Visa payments inside agentic commerce experiences.

Stablecoins have become another focus of the company’s payment strategy. In July, Visa joined Mastercard, Coinbase, and more than 140 businesses to launch the Open Standard consortium, which plans to issue the Open USD stablecoin for business payments and settlements. Visa has also continued expanding stablecoin settlement across its network, saying earlier this year that its annualized settlement run rate had reached about $7 billion and that more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs were live or under development.

The company has also continued linking digital assets with traditional payments. Earlier this week, Visa partnered with HashKey Exchange and Shanghai Commercial Bank to launch a co-branded credit card in Hong Kong that lets eligible users convert card rewards into vouchers redeemable for cryptocurrency purchases or trading fees on the licensed exchange.

Bitcoin price has retreated after failing to hold above $65,000 despite softer U.S. inflation data, leaving traders split over whether the latest pullback is a pause before another breakout or the start of a deeper correction.

According to data from crypto.news, Bitcoin (BTC) price climbed to nearly $65,470 after lower-than-expected U.S. CPI and PPI reports strengthened expectations that the Federal Reserve could avoid further policy tightening in the short term.

The rally lost momentum almost immediately as sellers emerged around a major resistance zone, pushing Bitcoin back toward $64,000. Market sentiment has turned cautious as traders weigh improving inflation data against renewed macro and on-chain headwinds.

Glassnode data shows long-term holders used the rally to reduce exposure, with investors who accumulated near last year’s highs selling into strength instead of waiting for higher prices. At the same time, short-term traders and whales locked in profits near resistance, limiting follow-through buying after the inflation-driven move. Spot Bitcoin ETF demand also slowed after several sessions of strong inflows, leaving thinner liquidity during the rejection.

A rapid unwind in derivatives added to the decline. Funding rates had risen across major offshore exchanges as leveraged long positions accumulated before the CPI release. Once Bitcoin slipped below the $64,400 area, automated liquidations accelerated selling pressure and pushed the price toward an intraday low near $63,900.

CoinGlass liquidation data continues to show dense leverage clusters above the market around $65,000-$65,500 and another concentration below $63,000, raising the likelihood of sharp volatility in either direction.

Bitcoin price still holds an uptrend while $63K remains intact

The 4-hour chart shows Bitcoin maintaining an ascending trendline that has supported every major pullback since early July. BTC price briefly broke below the trendline before reclaiming it, but the latest rejection has returned it to that support area around $63,800-$64,000.

Aroon Up remains above 64 while Aroon Down sits near zero, suggesting buyers still control the intermediate trend despite the recent setback. Chaikin Money Flow also remains positive at 0.12, showing capital has not exited the market aggressively.

The daily chart presents a more balanced picture. Bitcoin has struggled to reclaim the 78.6% Fibonacci retracement level near $63,205 on a sustained basis while facing repeated rejection below $65,500.

The MACD remains above its signal line, but the histogram has started to flatten, showing upside momentum has slowed. Meanwhile, the RSI hovers around 52, leaving room for another move in either direction without entering overbought or oversold territory.

Commenting on the latest move, analyst Ted Pillows argued that Bitcoin needs stronger confirmation before another leg higher.

“A daily close above $65,000 is needed for strong expansion. Or else, Bitcoin will erase all its short-term gains.”

Trader Lennaert Snyder also believes the rejection does not end the bullish case but requires patience. According to Snyder, the failed breakout near $65,600 leaves more liquidity above current prices, although he expects Bitcoin to first defend the $63,800 region before attempting another advance.

Macro risks and liquidation zones could decide the next move

Several macro risks continue to limit bullish conviction despite softer inflation data. Oil prices have recovered after recent geopolitical tensions involving Iran and the Middle East, raising concerns that inflation could remain elevated later this year. A stronger U.S. Dollar Index has also reduced demand for risk assets, while uncertainty surrounding the distribution of more than 140,000 BTC to Mt. Gox creditors remains a persistent supply overhang.

The technical outlook would weaken if Bitcoin loses the $63,800 support area and closes below the ascending trendline. CoinGlass heatmaps identify heavy liquidation near $63,000 and another cluster around $61,800, making those levels potential downside magnets during a deeper correction.

On the upside, reclaiming $65,000 on a daily closing basis would likely expose the $65,500 liquidity pocket before traders begin targeting the $67,000 region.