• The main breakout came around 01:00 UTC, when volume jumped to 43.51 million XRP, about 88% above the 24-hour average.

• The move carried XRP to an intraday high of $1.1065 before price stabilized near $1.1020-$1.1040.

• A later 60-minute spike reached 14.17 million in volume, pushing XRP from $1.0958 to $1.1052 before profit-taking slowed the move.

Technical Analysis

• The key development is that XRP cleared the $1.0950-$1.1000 area after several sessions of range-bound trading.

• The breakout was supported by volume, which gives the move more weight than the earlier low-volume attempts above resistance.

• Higher lows through the session show buyers are stepping in earlier, with $1.0880 acting as the main support level during pullbacks.

• The post-breakout hold near $1.1020-$1.1040 is constructive because XRP did not immediately lose the $1.10 area after the spike.

• The next test is whether buyers can keep XRP above $1.10 long enough to challenge $1.1065 and then $1.13.

What traders should watch

• $1.10 is the immediate support level after the breakout.

• $1.0880 is the next level to watch if XRP slips back into its prior range.

• $1.1065 is the first resistance after marking the session high.

• $1.11 is the next psychological level, followed by $1.13 if momentum continues.

Revolut, a crypto-friendly digital banking platform, said its Tether USDt (USDT) delisting will not affect all customers globally.

The delisting will affect Revolut customers in the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland, while support for the stablecoin will continue in other markets, a spokesperson for the company told Cointelegraph.

Revolut said the decision followed a review of its crypto services and risk considerations under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA).

“Revolut is discontinuing support for USDT for customers in the EEA following a periodic review of our cryptocurrency offering in light of the evolving EU regulatory framework under MiCA,” the spokesperson said.

Revolut’s decision reflects a broader trend across the EU, where crypto platforms have continued to phase out USDT after Tether, the issuer of the $184 billion stablecoin, chose not to seek authorization under the bloc’s MiCA framework.

News of Revolut’s USDT delisting first surfaced on Friday, when the company notified some European users that it planned to delist the stablecoin from its platform by Aug. 31, 2026.

The company added that the process began earlier, as Revolut had already removed USDT from its Revolut X trading platform for EEA customers. The latest step completes the removal of USDT from its EEA retail offering, the spokesperson said.

MiCA scope raises questions over affected markets

MiCA is an EU regulation marked as having EEA relevance, meaning it is expected to extend to the broader EEA, which includes Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein alongside EU member states, according to official documents from the European Securities and Markets Authority.

Switzerland, which Revolut included among the affected markets, is not part of the EU or the EEA and is not directly covered by MiCA. Revolut did not explain why Swiss customers were included.

Related: ESMA turns spotlight on crypto custody risks after MiCA transition

Revolut did not provide a list of jurisdictions where it currently offers crypto services, and had not responded to Cointelegraph’s request for clarification on the scope of its offering by the time of publication.

Headquartered in the United Kingdom, Revolut originally launched crypto trading in 2017 and later expanded crypto services in EEA countries in 2024.

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Hyperliquid Policy Center and Phantom have urged the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission to update its rulebook for onchain trading, arguing that existing regulations built for traditional financial markets do not fit decentralized infrastructure.

According to a joint comment letter submitted on Thursday by the Hyperliquid Policy Center (HPC) and Phantom, the current regulatory framework assumes a market structure where brokers, exchanges and clearinghouses control customer funds throughout the trading process. The organizations said onchain markets operate differently because users retain control of their own assets.

The submission responds to a joint Request for Information (RFI) issued last month by the CFTC and the Securities and Exchange Commission, which invited public feedback on regulations that may be slowing financial innovation and making it harder for new technologies to work with CFTC-regulated firms. As previously reported by crypto.news, the agencies are also reviewing whether existing definitions for swaps and related derivatives remain suitable for newer financial products.

HPC and Phantom seek tailored rules for decentralized markets

In their filing, HPC and Phantom argued that developers of onchain trading software should not automatically be required to register as exchanges or clearinghouses simply because they build decentralized infrastructure. They also said non-custodial wallet interfaces such as Phantom should not be treated as introducing brokers.

The organizations argued that blockchain-based software cannot be regulated in the same way as centralized intermediaries because, unlike traditional market operators, code cannot enter contracts, respond to regulators or exercise legal responsibilities.

Alongside those proposals, the letter said companies already registered with the CFTC should be allowed to use blockchain technology for trading and clearing without facing unnecessary regulatory barriers.

The recommendations arrive as U.S. regulators continue examining how decentralized finance fits within existing derivatives rules. CFTC Chair Michael Selig previously said the agency’s joint review with the SEC could help resolve longstanding uncertainties under the Dodd-Frank Act, while SEC Chair Paul Atkins has called for clearer definitions covering newer financial products.

Filing comes as CME challenges crypto perpetual futures

The proposal also lands while the CFTC faces legal action from CME Group over its approval of regulated crypto perpetual futures.

As previously reported by crypto.news, CME sued the regulator in June after it approved perpetual futures products from platforms including Kalshi and opened a regulated path for similar offerings. The exchange argues that perpetual contracts should be classified as swaps rather than futures under the Dodd-Frank framework and claims the regulator bypassed the legal process required for swap products.

The dispute gained additional attention after Kalshi expanded beyond Bitcoin perpetuals to list contracts linked to Ethereum, XRP and Hyperliquid, while Coinbase also secured a regulated route to offer certain crypto perpetual futures through infrastructure connected to Deribit.

HPC founder Jake Chervinsky has publicly opposed CME’s lawsuit, describing it as a serious mistake and accusing the exchange of trying to block new competitors. One day after CME filed its case, the CFTC and SEC published their joint request for public comment, which specifically asked whether the legal definition of swaps should be updated to account for emerging products such as crypto perpetual contracts.

Early today, traders received Japan’s producer price index for June, which came in at 7.1%, the fastest annual increase since March 2023. The spike in wholesale inflation reinforced expectations for further Bank of Japan rate hikes. A former central bank official said Thursday that the BOJ may hike rates faster, potentially pushing them above 2%.

Note that the Japanese yen and Bitcoin have developed an unusually strong positive correlation, often moving in lockstep against the U.S. dollar. If that correlation holds, yen upswings may ultimately prove positive for bitcoin in general, even as BTC/JPY (and other crypto/JPY) pairs continue to lag in relative terms.

The GPIF Risk

The Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) of Japan manages roughly ¥277 trillion ($1.87 trillion) in assets, making it the world’s largest retirement fund. It invests heavily in global stocks and bonds.

Now the Japanese government wants the GPIF and other pension funds to invest more in local assets. Such a rotation could trigger volatility in global financial markets.

“The fund, one of the largest pension pools in the world, held 293.4 trillion yen, or roughly 1.81 trillion dollars, in assets at the end of December, maintaining roughly equal allocations across domestic equities, foreign equities, domestic bonds and foreign bonds,” analysts at InvestingLive said in a market update.

Zcash’s Ironwood network upgrade, the solution to an “infinity” bug discovered in May on the privacy-focused blockchain’s main private transaction pool, Orchard, is set to go live on July 28. 

Announced in June, Ironwood closes the current Orchard pool, prevents new activity in it and sets up a new private pool. Funds leaving Orchard would have to pass through an accounting checkpoint before entering Ironwood, which could produce evidence about whether any counterfeit Zcash (ZEC) tokens were produced through the Orchard bug. 

“Zcash’s Ironwood mainnet activation height has been set and tagged! All of the major organizations are committed to activation of NU6.3 at height 3428143, which is approximately July 28th at 8AM EST,” Zcash core developer Sean Bowe said on Thursday.

Source: Sean Bowe

Shielded Labs had floated delaying Zcash’s Ironwood upgrade, warning that ecosystem participants such as exchanges, mining pools and wallets would not have enough time to prepare their systems for a late-July mainnet activation. Bowe’s latest comment confirms the upgrade will go ahead one week later than its earlier target date of July 21. 

Related: Anthropic’s Mythos AI finds no more ‘serious’ bugs in Zcash: Wilcox

In June, Shielded Labs said Ironwood may provide evidence about whether the Orchard vulnerability was ever exploited. 

“As users migrate funds from the existing Orchard pool to the new pool, any hypothetical counterfeiter faces a choice: attempt to move counterfeit funds and risk exposing their existence, or leave them behind and risk being unable to move them in the future.”

ZEC plummeted 50% to $299.25 from $602.68 after the disclosure of the Orchard bug on June 3. The price of ZEC has made a partial recovery in the weeks following and is trading at $492.61 at the time of writing. 

Zcash crossed a major monetary milestone this week, with more than 80% of its maximum 21 million ZEC supply now issued. A post from ruZCASH on Monday shows that there is now 16,806,723 ZEC in supply. 

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“Once liquidations begin to drive price action, the market can move faster than real demand would justify,” said Shawn Young, chief analyst at MEXC Research, who is watching how bitcoin trades inside the $60,000 to $63,000 band now that the first recovery is in.

MSCI’s Asia Pacific equities gauge climbed 1.4% as investors moved back into semiconductor shares on renewed optimism over AI demand, cutting the week’s loss to under 1%.

South Korea’s Kospi, a bellwether for AI investment, jumped 4%. SK Hynix was among the winners after pricing $26.5 billion of American depositary shares, one of the largest share sales of the year.

Gains were further extended as yen strengthened 0.6% and long-dated Japanese government bond yields fell after Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said the government wants pension funds to increase their holdings of domestic assets. Bloomberg’s dollar gauge declined and is heading for a second consecutive weekly drop.

Nothing crypto-native moved bitcoin this week. There was no ETF flow of any size, no protocol event and no exchange failure. Bitcoin absorbed an oil shock, a global bond selloff, a hawkish repricing of Fed expectations and two rounds of U.S. strikes on Iran, and finished up 4.2% because Korean memory chips are in demand and the dollar is losing ground.

A crypto wallet linked to a suspected romance-scam money launderer processed more than $122.5 million in 10 months, according to Interpol, as authorities expanded a global crackdown on online fraud.

Interpol said Thursday that Thai authorities arrested two suspects and uncovered a money-laundering network that funneled proceeds from romance scams into cryptocurrencies, using cross-chain token swaps to obscure the trail.

The Thai investigation was part of Operation First Light 2026, an Interpol-coordinated campaign targeting social engineering scams and the financial infrastructure used to launder their proceeds.

The operation involved authorities in 97 countries and territories, resulting in 5,811 arrests and the seizure of $293 million in illicit assets tied to fraud and money laundering.

Tomonobu Kaya, director of Interpol’s Financial Crime and Anti-Corruption Centre, said social engineering scams “continue to pose a significant threat to our society,” adding that no country can tackle the problem alone.

Authorities carried out raids on scam centers. Source: Interpol 

Crypto romance scams draw global enforcement scrutiny

Interpol said participating authorities targeted bank accounts and crypto wallets used to move illicit funds. The operation analyzed 152,808 cases, blocked 31,014 bank accounts, solved 23,715 investigations and identified 15,606 suspects.

Authorities also used Interpol’s payment-freezing system, known as the Global Rapid Intervention of Payments, to help block illicit transfers involving fiat and virtual assets.

Authorities in Palau also deported 22 people allegedly involved in two hotel-based scam centers that used cryptocurrency and illegal gambling websites to target victims abroad.

Related: US seizes $61M in USDT linked to ‘pig butchering’ crypto fraud scheme

The case follows growing concern over the use of crypto in romance and investment scams. In April, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reported that Americans filed 181,565 crypto-related scam complaints totalling over $11 billion in losses in 2025. 

Romance scams, also known as pig-butchering scams, often involve criminals building trust with victims through social media or online dating platforms before steering them toward fraudulent investment schemes.

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PayPal USD (PYUSD) has become natively available on Polygon through the Polygon Open Money Stack, giving businesses direct access to the regulated stablecoin across payment, compliance and fiat conversion services.

According to a press release shared with crypto.news, Paxos-issued PYUSD is now issued natively on Polygon and integrated into the Polygon Open Money Stack, allowing businesses already processing payments on the network to access the stablecoin through the wallets, fiat ramps and compliance tools they already use.

Native PYUSD arrives on Polygon

According to Polygon Labs, the integration removes the need for businesses to connect separate providers for stablecoin issuance, fiat on and off ramps, compliance, and payment infrastructure. Instead, companies can accept payments from cards, bank accounts or exchange balances, settle in PYUSD across borders and convert funds back into local currencies through a single integration.

The company said the simplified setup reduces engineering work, lowers operating costs and speeds up settlement by combining regulated fiat access and compliance services within the same payments infrastructure.

Polygon Labs noted that its network has settled more than $2.6 trillion in stablecoin transactions to date and is already used by companies including Revolut and Stripe. Businesses already running payments on Polygon can now access PYUSD without changing their existing infrastructure, the company added.

Businesses target cross-border payments

According to Polygon Labs, businesses such as payroll providers, online marketplaces and remittance platforms could use PYUSD to pay contractors, settle with international sellers and move money into overseas markets without building their own banking and compliance systems. The company said end users could benefit from quicker payouts, fewer failed transactions and faster conversion into local currencies.

PYUSD is issued by Paxos under a national trust charter supervised by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, making it one of the largest U.S. dollar stablecoins issued by a federally regulated entity. Polygon Labs said pairing the regulated stablecoin with its licensed fiat ramps provides businesses with a compliant path between traditional financial systems and on-chain settlement.

“A stablecoin is only as useful as the places it can go and what it can do when it gets there,” Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron said, adding that bringing PYUSD into the Open Money Stack allows businesses to receive payments, move funds across borders and cash out through a single integration with compliance built in.

“PYUSD is issued under a national Trust charter supervised by the OCC, and bringing it natively to Polygon puts a federally regulated, dollar-backed stablecoin on one of the most active networks for stablecoin payments. Businesses running on the Open Money Stack can now settle in PYUSD with confidence in the compliance and regulatory oversight that serious money requires,” Peter Jonas, chief revenue officer at Paxos, added.

The rollout adds another expansion for PYUSD after PayPal and MoonPay introduced the PYUSDx platform in February, allowing developers to launch application-specific stablecoins backed by PYUSD without building payment infrastructure from scratch. At the time, the companies said growing stablecoin adoption had increased demand for faster deployment of custom digital currencies.

The launch also follows Mastercard’s June decision to add PYUSD alongside five other regulated dollar-backed stablecoins to its settlement network across multiple blockchains, including Polygon. Mastercard said the service would allow participating financial institutions to settle card transactions outside traditional banking hours while maintaining its existing security and compliance standards.