Speculation about another Bitcoin sale from MicroStrategy intensified after an unconfirmed on-chain transfer showed 491 BTC leaving a company-linked wallet on July 1. Neither MicroStrategy nor its Executive Chairman, Michael Saylor, has confirmed any sale.

The rumor spread across X (Twitter) on Friday. Meanwhile, Bitcoin (BTC) traded higher after July 1, suggesting the market easily absorbed the alleged transaction.

Did Saylor Sell More Bitcoin?

Pseudonymous trader Light flagged the transfer, worth roughly $30 million at current prices. That equals just 0.058% of the 847,363 BTC Strategy reported in its latest SEC disclosure. The stack covers about 4% of bitcoin’s 21 million coin supply.

The timing explains the attention. Strategy adopted a Bitcoin monetization framework plan on June 29, authorizing up to $1.25 billion in tactical sales to fund dividends and buybacks. Its raised 12% STRC preferred dividend took effect on July 1, the same day as the alleged transfer.

The company also completed its first Bitcoin sale since 2022 in late May, offloading 32 BTC to cover preferred stock dividends. Its only earlier sale came in December 2022.

Back then, it sold 704 BTC for $11.8 million to harvest tax losses, then repurchased 810 BTC within days. It had already been rebuilding its cash reserves this year while slowing new purchases.

“Michael Saylor’s Strategy may have just sold 491 BTC on July 1st. The transaction hasn’t been confirmed yet, but if true, this would be one of the first signs of Strategy reducing its Bitcoin position after years of “never sell” narratives…” analyst Crypto Rover amplified the claim in a post.

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Bitcoin Shrugs Off the Sale Speculation

Bitcoin showed little stress. The coin opened at $61,492 on Friday, up 2.5% from Thursday, and traded for $62,016 as of this writing, up by 1.35% in the last 24 hours. With this, the pioneer crypto is up by over 7% from the July 1 low of $57,800.

The strength tracked a weak June jobs report rather than treasury headlines. It extends a fragile Bitcoin price recovery after the worst month for prices in four years.

Reactions on X (Twitter) split between traders calling the amount a rounding error and others warning repeated sales could sour sentiment.

The calm contrasts with JPMorgan’s recent warning that the new sales policy adds risk to the crypto market. Even so, a fully absorbed $30 million transfer suggests demand currently outweighs those concerns.

Confirmation now rests with Strategy’s own disclosures. The firm reported its May sale within days, so a filing this week would show whether the transfer was a sale, a custody move, or an internal shuffle.

The post MicroStrategy Reportedly Sold More Bitcoin, But Market Didn’t React appeared first on BeInCrypto.

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A formal complaint has asked Parliament’s standards watchdog to examine whether Reform UK leader Nigel Farage breached lobbying rules. This comes after Farage received donations from billionaire Christopher Harborne, who reportedly holds a 12% stake in Tether’s USDT stablecoin.

Labour MP Phil Brickell filed the complaint on July 2. He asked Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Daniel Greenberg to review Farage’s private meeting with Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey in September 2025.

The Rule Behind the Farage Crypto Lobbying Complaint

Official UK parliamentary guidance prohibits MPs from approaching ministers or officials on behalf of recent benefactors.

“Paid lobbying is prohibited. An MP who has received a benefit such as hospitality, a gift or payment must not for 12 months after receipt engage in … any approach to a minister, other MP or public official which would provide (or seek to provide) a financial or material benefit for the person or organisation which provided them with that … payment.”

The restriction is younger than it looks. The British Parliament doubled the ban from 6 to 12 months in March 2023, after Owen Paterson resigned in 2021. The standards committee found he lobbied for two firms paying him more than £100,000 ($133,500) a year.

Brickell, chair of Parliament’s anti-corruption group, reported Farage to Commissioner Daniel Greenberg. This is according to a report by The Guardian,

“This is not simply a debate about cryptocurrency. It is about whether an MP who has received millions from one individual should be lobbying for policies that could increase the value and profitability of that donor’s investments.”

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How the Timeline Tests the Rule

Farage reportedly accepted a £5 million gift from Harborne before the July 2024 general election. Greenberg is already examining whether that gift should have been declared, according to the BBC.

Farage also received two £25,000 donations from Harborne in January 2025 and February 2026. Reform UK received a further £15 million from the same donor.

The January 2025 donation is central to the lobbying complaint. Around eight months later, in September 2025, Farage met Bailey privately.

During that meeting, Farage reportedly urged the Bank of England to scrap its digital pound plans.

Nine months later, the Bank dropped stablecoin holding caps in favor of a £40 billion ($53.4 billion) issuance ceiling. Industry voices had warned the £20,000 ($26,700) cap could make businesses unworkable.

Farage has since claimed credit for the softer approach, the Telegraph reported.

That meeting fell inside the 12-month restriction period following the January donation. Brickell’s complaint asks whether Farage’s approach to the Bank could have provided a financial or material benefit to Harborne, given his reported Tether stake.

A second Labour MP, Joe Powell, has asked Bailey for details of the meeting.

Denials and No Findings Yet

Reform UK dismissed the claims entirely. Farage and Harborne maintain the gift was unconditional, and the Bank of England called the September meeting a routine engagement.

Greenberg is separately investigating whether Farage should have declared the £5 million gift, per the BBC. He has not yet said whether the lobbying complaint will trigger a formal inquiry. No wrongdoing has been established.

If a breach were found, sanctions range from an apology to suspension. Paterson faced a recommended 30 sitting-day suspension before quitting Parliament.

Farage’s own crypto exposure is growing. He made a £2 million Bitcoin (BTC) purchase in April. Meanwhile, the UK now bans crypto political donations outright.

Greenberg opening a formal inquiry could decide how firmly Parliament polices the 12-month rule in the crypto era.

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Key takeaways:

• Solana’s tokenized assets and memecoin revival drove SOL to a 30-day high at $83.
• Bullish leveraged appetite cooled sharply, suggesting traders are hesitant to bet on further gains to $90.

Solana’s SOL token jumped to its highest mark in over 30 days on Friday at $83, marking a decoupling from the altcoin market. SOL’s rally gained steam from a surge in tokenized trading volume on Solana, inflows of stablecoin liquidity, and an unexpected comeback in memecoin activity. Can SOL reclaim the $90 level?

Total altcoin market capitalization, USD (left) vs. SOL/USD (right). Source: TradingView

SOL’s bullish momentum ignited on June 23, coinciding with cumulative tokenized stock transfers on Solana surpassing $10 billion. The launch of SpaceX shares trading by Backpack propelled Solana’s decentralized finance (DeFi) utilization. In contrast, the broader altcoin market extended its downtrend, hitting the lowest level since December 2023.

30-day tokenized assets net flows ex-stablecoins, USD. Source: RWA.xyz

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Tokenized assets on the Solana network surged to a record-high $3.5 billion on Wednesday, up from $2.7 billion one month prior. The recent boost came from corporate credit tokens and stock market indexes, such as the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq-100. According to RWA.xyz data, Solana leads with 294,274 active addresses in the tokenized industry, followed by Ethereum with 204,955.

Memecoins, prediction markets surge may push SOL toward $90

The airdrop of The Black Bull (ANSEM) memecoin on Sunday re-ignited interest in the sector. The token, launched on Pump.fun, reached a $60 million market capitalization on Tuesday. The anonymous developer directed some 65% of the supply to the crypto influencer Ansem’s public wallet. The distribution lacked transparency, but involved 74,000 addresses over the initial 3 days.

Top 7-day performances of Solana tokens. Source: CoinRanking

Multiple memecoins on Solana surged on the back of the memecoin airdrop, but the biggest winner was the Pump.fun platform token (PUMP). The 27% weekly gains were enough to send PUMP back into the top-100 crypto rankings, with a $630 million market capitalization. ANSEM memecoin extended its gains on Friday, reaching an all-time high market capitalization of $112 million.

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The launch of World prediction markets integrated on Phantom wallet has created expectations for increased Solana activity. The project gathered nearly $890,000 in total value locked in two days and aims to compete with the extremely successful Polymarket amid the World Cup betting frenzy. Jupiter has also unveiled its prediction markets under beta test on June 29.

Related: US dominates Polymarket political bets despite geoblock–Report

SOL perpetual futures annualized funding rate. Source: Laevitas

The appetite for bullish leveraged positions has vastly declined since Wednesday, when SOL’s price crossed above $75 for the first time in 30 days. SOL futures annualized funding rate dropped to 3% on Friday from an 11% peak two days prior. Under neutral conditions, the indicator should range from 6% to 12% to offset the capital cost.

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Investors are not comfortable betting on a SOL rally to $90 merely on the back of a temporary memecoin demand surge. Unless there is sustainable demand for blockchain activity, there are no apparent drivers for SOL to further widen its performance gap relative to the remaining altcoins.

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Ordinals developers say their technology will survive BIP-110, a proposed rule change that aims to stop people from storing files on Bitcoin. The fight comes down to one question. Should Bitcoin (BTC) handle only money, or anything users pay for?

Inscriptions let people store images and text on the Bitcoin blockchain, similar to NFTs. BIP-110 would block most of that data for one year. Supporters call it spam, while critics say Bitcoin should stay open to everyone.

What Would BIP-110 Change for Bitcoin?

Every Bitcoin transaction can carry a little extra data, and inscriptions use that space to store pictures and messages forever. The proposal would shrink the allowed space to 256 bytes per piece, about one short paragraph of text.

That limit would break the storage method inscriptions use today. The rule would last for one year, then switch off automatically, and old coins would not be affected.

Its author, who writes under the pen name Dathon Ohm, credits Bitcoin Knots maintainer Luke Dashjr for the first draft.

Miners vote by adding a small flag to the blocks they mine. The plan needs 1,109 flagged blocks out of 2,016 in a two-week window. However, the public monitor counted just three flagged blocks as of June 30, under 1%.

Support has never passed 1% since voting opened in December 2025. The best two-week stretch reached 0.79% in mid-June.

Here is the twist. The plan does not need a majority to activate. From around early August, computers running the BIP-110 software will reject blocks that do not carry the flag.

Blockstream CEO Adam Back has warned of fork risk, meaning Bitcoin could split into two competing versions. MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor called the plan a self-inflicted risk.

Dashjr, for his part, framed the stakes as existential on Thursday.

“If BIP110 fails, Bitcoin fails with it. I am not interested in any CBDC, much less an unregulated CBDC pretending to be decentralised,” he wrote.

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A CBDC is a government-issued digital currency. In his view, a Bitcoin that cannot reject spam loses what makes it different.

Ordinals Developers Say They Are Ready

On July 2, Ordinals developer lifofifoX published a fix that stores data in a new way. It cuts files into small, allowed pieces instead of using the method that BIP-110 bans. In short, inscriptions would keep working even if the rule passes.

Ordinals creator Casey Rodarmor approved the fix the same day.

“Looks good to me! Let’s wait until BIP-110 activates to merge this,” Rodarmor wrote on GitHub.

The other side has already hit back, filing a counter-update to Bitcoin Knots, the software most BIP-110 supporters run. He argues the software simply does not notice the new format, letting it slip past the size checks.

The back-and-forth echoes an earlier inscription debate that also split the community.

Money sits at the center of the fight. In October 2024, Runes, a similar data-based format, drove a 32% fee increase that paid miners.

In contrast, supporters say the volunteers who run Bitcoin’s network computers must store all that data forever and get nothing for it.

The forced voting phase is about five weeks away. Back has already dismissed the August deadline as a path to a minority altcoin, a spinoff coin few would follow.

The coming weeks will show whether the miner’s silence means opposition or indifference.

The post Bitcoin Developers are Fighting Over What the Blockchain is For appeared first on BeInCrypto.

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A new BeInCrypto Intelligence report, built with market data from RWA.xyz and feedback from BeInCrypto’s Expert Council, tracks roughly $60 billion in tokenized real-world assets across more than 7,000 products and 12 asset classes. 

The findings show a market that is growing, but still narrow.

• Just 62 assets hold 88% of total value. Five products account for roughly half the market: Figure HELOC, Circle USYC, Tether Gold, BlackRock BUIDL, and Justoken JMWH.
• The activity gap is just as stark. Across 1,289 tokenized assets valued above $100,000, 910 assets worth $32.9 billion showed zero weekly transfers.
• Access is also limited. The report found that 97% of the market sits outside US retail reach. Only about $1.7 billion is legally accessible to US retail investors.

Meanwhile, tokenized stocks are growing fast by product count, but the report found that 59% of stock tokens provide synthetic price exposure rather than actual ownership of the underlying shares.

These findings raise a direct question: is tokenization failing to deliver on liquidity, or is the market still in an early infrastructure phase?

BeInCrypto asked five industry executives to respond to the report’s findings.

Securitize: The First Phase Was Never About Public Trading

Tal Elyashiv, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of SPiCE Venture Capital and Co-Founder of Securitize, said the report’s finding on tokenized equities points to a real structural issue.

“My stance on what the report shows about tokenizing shares/equity, is that this tokenization needs to be at the source. Tokenization that does not include full ownership is problematic at best, and completely wrong IMHO. This is exactly what Securitize is doing.”

Elyashiv also argued that low transfer activity should not be read as failure in every case. Many early tokenized products were designed for institutional issuance, compliance, and settlement, rather than public secondary trading.

“Many of the first assets tokenized were funds (VC funds, private funds). Tokenization in these cases was not done to facilitate retail/public trading, but rather to upgrade institutional issuance infrastructure, compliance, and settlement. BUIDL for example, was created for institutional TradFi and DeFi use cases (and this is what it serves)”

That view matches one of the report’s central distinctions. Some assets are Distributed and can move across public blockchain rails. Others are Represented, using blockchain mainly as a digital record of an off-chain position.

For Elyashiv, that first stage had to prove resilience before tokenized assets could move into broader distribution.

“The previous stage needed to succeed and show resilience, as well as regulatory clarity, before moving to the public trading stage. But we are entering that phase.”

Raiku: Activity Depends on Predictable Execution

Robin Nordnes, CEO and Founder of Raiku, said the dormancy data points to a deeper infrastructure problem.

The report found that more than half of tokenized market value showed no weekly transfer activity. Nordnes said this is not mainly about asset quality or regulation. He said institutions need predictable execution before they actively manage capital on-chain.

“The dormancy finding doesn’t surprise me, and I don’t think it’s primarily a regulatory story or an asset quality story,” Nordnes asserts. “What we hear consistently from institutional allocators is that they won’t actively manage capital on-chain until they can answer two questions with confidence: will my transaction execute, and when… For passive holding that’s tolerable. For active trading, collateral management or intraday rebalancing, it isn’t.”

That issue becomes more important if tokenized assets are used for active trading, collateral management, or daily fund operations. In those settings, uncertainty around settlement timing can affect spreads, liquidity buffers, and portfolio decisions.

“The transaction fee is actually the smaller part of the problem,” Nordnes explains. “The bigger cost of execution uncertainty is everything that sits around it: the wider spreads you need to run if you can’t guarantee timing, the liquidity buffers you hold because you might not execute when you need to, the positions you simply don’t take because the uncertainty makes the trade unmodelable.”

D3: The Weak Spots Show Where Growth May Come From

The report found that only one of 12 asset classes has reached production-grade maturity: US Treasury debt.

Fred Hsu, Co-Founder and CEO of D3, said that finding should not be read only as a weakness. Instead, he said it shows where tokenization may have the most room to create value.

“Only treasuries have reached production grade so far, and almost every other class is still concentrated or experimental. That looks like a weakness, but it is really a map of where the value is. The classes that never matured are the fragmented, illiquid markets traditional finance never priced well, because tracking ownership and moving value cost too much. The asset was always real, what was missing was a way to reach it. The infrastructure that finally reaches those markets is what decides where the next phase of growth comes from,” Hsu told BeInCrypto.

Treasuries are easier to tokenize because the asset class is liquid, familiar, and easier for institutions to assess. More complex assets, including private credit, commodities, real estate, and tokenized equities, still face legal, operational, and distribution barriers.

TransFi: Stablecoins Show Where Tokenization Already Works

Raj Kamal, Founder and CEO of TransFi, said the report’s findings should be considered alongside stablecoins, which the report excludes from its core $60 billion RWA market figure.

Kamal argued that stablecoins remain the clearest example of tokenization solving real-world problems at scale.

“In my view, the real RWA tokenization that is solving real world problems is stablecoins. Where there is a tokenization happening of a real world asset – the US dollar. Through USDC and USDT, billions of dollars of stablecoins are making remittances, B2B flows, payroll & freelancer payments, ecommerce checkouts, corporate treasury flows and forex flows and many other payments faster, easier, more predictable and cheaper.”

That argument does not erase the liquidity gap in tokenized securities and funds. But it shows that tokenization can work when the product solves a clear workflow problem.

Kamal said the next wave of adoption may come from payments and corporate use cases, where stablecoins already have strong demand.

“And the proof points come from an ever-increasing number of large traditional institutions looking to get into stablecoin issuance, Western Union, PayPal, Banks and others. And the reality is that we are just scratching the surface of the multi-trillion dollar traditional payments that is likely to move on to stablecoins. We should be celebrating this clear game changer in global payments as proof of RWAs working,” Kamal notes.

Brickken: The Market Is Still Building the Access Layer

Edwin Mata, CEO of Brickken, said the report’s numbers reflect a market still early in institutional adoption.

He said the first phase of tokenization focused on trust, regulatory readiness, and compliant infrastructure. The next phase will depend on whether tokenized assets become easier to access and use.

“These numbers make sense and reflect the current state of the market, tokenization is still early in institutional adoption and that’s how it was supposed to be. The first phase was always about trust: proving the tech works, meeting regulatory bars, getting compliant infrastructure in place. In essence, that groundwork isn’t wasted time but rather the foundation on which everything else will be built.”

Mata compared the path ahead to stablecoins. In his view, tokenized assets will grow when they solve practical business problems, not simply because they exist on-chain.

He said the winners will be the platforms that make tokenized assets discoverable, interoperable, and usable in real workflows.

“Tokenized markets are heading the same direction, as regulation clarifies (Clarity Act or MiCA in Europe is a good example) and infrastructure matures, the winners will ultimately be whoever builds the access layer: discovery, interoperability layers, the infrastructure that turns a tokenized asset from a static record into something businesses and institutions can actually rely and build on.”

The Takeaway: Tokenization Has Value, But Not Yet Depth

The report does not show that tokenization is dead. It shows that the market is still early in its structure.

The assets exist. Major institutions are involved. Treasuries have reached production-grade maturity. But much of the market remains concentrated, restricted, or inactive on-chain.

That makes the next phase clear. Tokenization will not scale only by minting more assets. It needs better settlement, compliance, distribution, execution, and access.

The first phase proved that real value can be represented on-chain. The next phase will determine whether those assets can become active financial markets.

Read the full BeInCrypto Intelligence report here.

The post The Real State of Tokenization: Experts React to the RWA Market’s Liquidity Problem appeared first on BeInCrypto.

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Israeli prosecutors on Friday indicted Eli Lavon, a 21-year-old US citizen, for allegedly spying on behalf of Iranian intelligence in exchange for roughly $1,379 in crypto. The case shows Iran’s alleged crypto recruitment playbook maturing into gig work for espionage.

Lavon is reportedly the first American indicted in Israel’s spy wave, which counts at least 60 defendants since 2023. In many cases, small payments rather than ideology appear to drive recruits.

A Job Ad, Three Phones, and $1,379

According to the indictment, Lavon answered a Telegram job advertisement in November 2025 while visiting family in the US. A handler working for Iranian intelligence began assigning tasks once he returned to Israel.

He allegedly filmed an abandoned building and a grocery store in Jerusalem. He also left dead drops, including a USB drive wrapped in a 50 shekel note.

The crypto arrived in small batches, first hundreds of dollars, then about $518 from a second handler. The output had real military value, however. Several sites filmed by alleged recruits in this wave were later struck by Iranian missiles.

Arrested on June 9, Lavon faces two counts of contact with a foreign agent and 14 counts of communicating information to the enemy.

“This indictment illustrates how foreign intelligence agencies attempt to exploit the digital sphere to identify, recruit, and operate individuals from within Israel…” Ronit Shentzer Yaakobi of the Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office said in a statement.

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Crypto Recruitment Moves From Spying to Sabotage

The playbook no longer stops at surveillance. HAYI, a group that surfaced online in March, has claimed 17 arson and sabotage incidents across seven European countries. Analysis suggests it may be a “fabricated front” run by Iran-linked operatives using paid, disposable recruits.

British police have detained at least 28 people over the London attacks alone. A Belgian teenager was reportedly paid to stage an Antwerp arson later claimed by HAYI. Another teen charged over a London synagogue fire told investigators he did not know what the building was.

Each element mirrors gig work. Tasks arrive through consumer apps, payment clears per job, and recruits stay ignorant of the wider operation. Researchers describe the tactic as hybrid warfare because paid intermediaries blur any link to state planners.

The economic factors set this model apart from traditional terrorism financing. When OFAC sanctioned 134 ISIS-K wallets on July 1, analysts traced roughly $1.4 million into them since 2023. Lavon’s alleged payroll was about a thousandth of that, and Tether still froze 131 sanctioned wallets within a day.

Large networks, in other words, have become visible. Courts have secured terrorism financing convictions on onchain records, and probes into Iran-linked crypto networks chased billion-dollar flows.

A $500 gig payout offers far less signal, a gap that US lawmakers have barely addressed in their debate on illicit finance loopholes.

Whether blockchain surveillance built for large transfers can adapt to micro-payments may decide how quickly such networks unravel.

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