The lack of an ethics provision remains one of the biggest sticking points. Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), one of two Democrats who voted to advance the bill out of the Senate Banking Committee, has repeatedly said he will not support the legislation on the Senate floor without a bipartisan ethics provision. Other Democrats have raised similar concerns over conflicts of interest involving public officials and digital assets.

As of Friday, there had been no public readout from Thursday’s White House meeting, and no bipartisan ethics language had emerged, leaving one of the bill’s largest obstacles unresolved.

If passed, the Clarity Act would establish a federal framework for digital asset markets by drawing a clearer line between assets regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and those overseen by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Supporters argue the measure would replace years of regulation through enforcement with rules written by Congress.

Industry executives reiterated that message during a House hearing Friday marking one year since the chamber passed the legislation.

“The community has already done the hard work,” Nova Labs executive Sarah Aberg told lawmakers, arguing that regulatory uncertainty delayed investment in the Helium wireless network after the SEC sued the company in a case that was later settled. “Clarity is not a call for deregulation; it is a call for the right regulation from the right regulator.”

“Both Stripe and PayPal do approximately the same amount of payment volume, but Stripe has about one-fifth the net revenue,” Hadick said. “From a financial perspective, this is obviously accretive, and it helps them connect their merchant processing business, which is at risk of being commoditized, with a broad subset of PayPal’s more than 400 million accounts.”

Hadick also cautioned that executing a deal of that size would be difficult. “M&A integration in something of this size is incredibly hard,” he said.

Beyond merchant payments

Eric Queathem, CEO of Velocity, said the acquisition would also give Stripe access to one of the world’s largest consumer payments ecosystems, providing a platform to expand beyond merchant payments.

The proposed acquisition would also determine who controls the consumer side of blockchain-based payment infrastructure, complementing Stripe’s existing merchant network and stablecoin capabilities.

Several executives said the competitive focus has shifted from proving blockchain technology works to controlling distribution.

Pankaj Bengani, founder and CEO of Meld, agreed with Larbi that the race is on.

“The race has shifted from proving the technology works to owning distribution,” said Bengani, adding that “stablecoins have graduated from experiment to core payments infrastructure.”

Citi analysts reached a similar conclusion in a research note, writing that stablecoin competition has become “a default-setting game,” with scale accruing to whichever stablecoin becomes the default across the largest merchant, consumer wallet or autonomous transaction base, rather than to the issuer with the best technology.

China’s Kimi K3 has climbed to first place on the Frontend Code Arena, prompting former White House crypto czar David Sacks to warn that US regulation could weaken America’s position in the AI race.

Sacks described the benchmark result as concerning because Kimi K3 also performed close to leading models across several other evaluations. He argued that restrictions on data centers, state-level rules and proposed federal reviews could slow American developers while Chinese companies continue building advanced systems.

“This is how you lose the AI race,” Sacks wrote.

According to Sacks, the United States became a technology leader during the internet era by allowing companies to develop products without seeking government approval in advance. He believes Washington should follow a similar approach to AI while using targeted rules to address specific safety risks.

Kimi K3 strengthens China’s position in advanced AI development

Moonshot AI built Kimi K3 with 2.8 trillion parameters, a one-million-token context window and native multimodal capabilities. The company designed the model for lengthy coding assignments and agent-based workflows that require systems to complete several connected tasks.

Moonshot AI reported that its Kimi Delta Attention system delivers decoding speeds up to 6.3 times faster when processing one-million-token contexts. Its Attention Residuals technology also improves training efficiency by about 25% while adding less than 2% to the total cost, according to the company.

Beyond the Frontend Code Arena, Kimi K3 recorded an Elo score of 1,668 on GDPval v2. The reported result placed it above GLM-5.2, GPT-5.5, and Claude Opus 4.8, although Claude Fable 5 retained a higher score.

On AutomationBench-AA, the Chinese model achieved a 53% score and took first place in the test for agent-led software-as-a-service workflows. Results published through nextjs.org/evals also placed Kimi K3 ahead of Fable while showing comparable task success in less time, according to the report.

Moonshot AI has released Kimi K3 through Kimi.com, Kimi Work, Kimi Code and the Kimi API. The company expects to make the model’s open weights available by July 27, giving developers another way to test and adapt its capabilities.

US restrictions face scrutiny as foreign AI models advance

Sacks linked Kimi K3’s performance to an intensifying debate over how Washington should oversee frontier AI. His criticism covered proposals for federal pre-approval, limits on data center construction and the growing number of AI rules introduced by individual states.

At the federal level, the US government has approved limited access to Anthropic’s Claude Mythos 5 for roughly 100 businesses and agencies. In a letter to Anthropic co-founder Tom Brown, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said selected partners could use the model under specific safeguards.

“I have determined that appropriate safeguards are in place to permit certain trusted partners to access the Claude Mythos 5 Model.”

While Sacks acknowledged that AI safety requires government attention, he argued that other countries would not copy American restrictions. Under his assessment, rules that delay infrastructure construction or model development could leave US companies competing against foreign laboratories operating under fewer limits.

President Donald Trump has also used competition with China to support his technology and digital-asset agenda. Trump has urged the Senate to pass the CLARITY Act, arguing that delayed crypto legislation could allow China to gain ground, while his administration has promoted the United States as the “crypto capital of the world.”

Sacks’ response to Kimi K3 applies the same competitive argument to artificial intelligence: address clear risks without placing approval barriers in front of US developers.

Apple overtook Nvidia as the world’s most valuable publicly traded company after it hit an all-time high of $334.95 per share just 10 minutes into Friday’s trading session.

This valuation put the company above $4.92 trillion.

At the same time, Nvidia traded at $199.38, down 4% from Thursday’s close. This valued the company at $4.83 trillion — more than $100 billion behind Apple. 

Although it was an all-time high for Apple, it wasn’t its first time atop the world’s leaderboard. It was also the world’s most valuable publicly-traded company in April 2025. 

Nvidia has worn the crown for the vast majority of the past year, including 12 months since June 2025.

The switchover had more to do with Nvidia dropping than Apple rallying. Apple’s shares barely moved in morning trading, whereas Nvidia dropped more than 3%.

Ethereum price has fallen as much as 3.5% to $1,820 on July 17 after its latest rally stalled below $2,000 and weak Democratic support for the CLARITY Act hurt sentiment across the crypto market.

According to data from crypto.news, Ethereum (ETH) later recovered to around $1,835, but sellers erased most of the gains recorded during its push to $1,940 earlier this week. A Politico report that Senate Democrats do not currently support the market structure bill reduced its chances of securing the 60 votes needed for passage.

Democratic lawmakers have demanded conflict-of-interest restrictions tied to President Donald Trump’s crypto holdings before supporting the legislation. Analysts now assign the bill less than a 30% chance of passing this year, according to Barron’s, while Congress faces a narrowing window before its August recess.

At the same time, more than $400 million in leveraged crypto positions were liquidated over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGlass data.

CoinGlass’ three-day ETH liquidation heatmap shows dense leverage around $1,800–$1,810, placing the zone just below Ethereum’s current price. On the upside, liquidation clusters sit near $1,845–$1,860, while the largest overhead concentration appears around $1,950–$1,960.

A move through $1,860 could therefore accelerate toward $1,950, but a break below $1,800 may trigger another wave of long liquidations.

U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs have offered only limited support. The funds attracted $84.42 million during the week ended July 11, breaking eight consecutive weeks of net outflows, but Fidelity’s FETH recorded a $15.4 million withdrawal on July 13. ETF demand has therefore remained uneven despite ETH’s recovery from its late-June low near $1,500.

Economic data added pressure as initial jobless claims fell to a two-month low of 208,000. June retail sales rose 0.2%, while core sales advanced 0.5%, prompting some economists to lift second-quarter growth estimates to as high as 2.4%.

Those figures reduced expectations for aggressive Federal Reserve rate cuts. The 10-year Treasury yield climbed to 4.596%, while the two-year yield reached 4.179%, raising the opportunity cost of holding risk assets such as Ethereum.

Ethereum must reclaim $1,875 before another $2,000 test

Ethereum’s daily chart shows that the rebound lost strength after reaching approximately $1,940. ETH has since returned to the $1,832 breakout level, which previously capped several recovery attempts during June and early July.

Daily momentum remains positive but has started to weaken. The MACD line stands at 35.22 against a signal line of 18.11, with the histogram still above zero at 17.11. The relative strength index has slipped to 56.06 and now sits below its moving average at 57.53, showing that buyers have lost some control without pushing ETH into bearish momentum.

On the four-hour chart, ETH has dropped below the Bollinger Band midpoint at $1,874. The lower band near $1,796 now forms the next volatility-based support, while the upper band at $1,952 sits just below the psychological $2,000 barrier.

Chaikin Money Flow remains positive at 0.17, showing that capital has not fully left the market. Buyers must recover $1,875 and then clear the $1,940–$1,952 area before ETH can challenge the daily resistance at $2,006. A successful daily close above that level would expose the next major chart barrier near $2,225.

A close below $1,800 would put the recovery at risk

According to analyst Ted Pillows, Ethereum has entered an important support zone after surrendering its recent gains.

“A daily close above $1,850 should happen; otherwise, Ethereum will end up giving all its short-term gains.”

Failure to hold the $1,800–$1,832 area would strengthen the bearish case and expose the four-hour lower Bollinger Band near $1,796. Below it, the daily structure leaves room for a decline toward $1,715, followed by the June support region between $1,550 and $1,600.

The bullish case therefore requires a close above $1,850, followed by a recovery to $1,875. Continued ETF withdrawals, higher Treasury yields, fresh technology-stock losses, or further delays to the CLARITY Act would invalidate that path and keep $2,000 out of reach.

Dogecoin price has fallen 3.17% to $0.071 on July 17 as its exchange-traded funds completed one month without recording fresh inflows.

SoSoValue data shows that U.S. Dogecoin ETFs attracted no new capital between June 17 and July 17, despite the meme coin gaining additional exposure through T. Rowe Price’s newly launched active crypto fund. The products also posted $871,000 in net outflows during July.

The weak ETF figures have accompanied a steep decline in DOGE, which has lost about 54% since reaching $0.156 in January. Dogecoin’s latest drop has brought the token back to a support area that buyers have repeatedly defended since late June.

During the same period, the meme coin sector has suffered a $1.2 billion sell-off, according to the original market report. The decline indicates that T. Rowe Price’s entry has yet to revive demand for DOGE among retail or institutional investors.

T. Rowe Price exposure has failed to revive DOGE demand

T. Rowe Price launched its first actively managed cryptocurrency ETF on July 16, adding Dogecoin alongside Bitcoin, Ethereum and several other digital assets. The asset manager oversees about $1.8 trillion and supplied $15 million in seed capital to the fund.

According to the fund allocation, Dogecoin received a 1.28% weighting. The position consists of roughly 2.6 million DOGE worth about $192,000, making it a limited part of the ETF’s portfolio.

Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas described T. Rowe Price as a legacy stock picker. In his assessment, the firm’s decision to hold Dogecoin alongside larger cryptocurrencies gives the meme coin a degree of Wall Street recognition.

Even with the new allocation, SoSoValue data indicates that existing Dogecoin ETFs have failed to attract fresh money for a full month. The T. Rowe Price product is set to become the fourth ETF offering exposure to the largest meme coin by market capitalization, according to the original report.

Dogecoin price remains exposed below $0.0755

The daily DOGE chart shows a descending triangle, with a series of lower highs pressing the price toward horizontal support near $0.071. The structure would remain bearish unless DOGE breaks above the falling trendline and the nearby $0.0755 resistance level.

Momentum readings on the same chart favor sellers. TradingView places Aroon Down at 71.43% and Aroon Up at 7.14%, while the Average Directional Index stands at 32.81. An ADX reading above 25 indicates that the current trend retains strength.

On the 4-hour chart, the MACD line is below its signal line and shows a negative histogram, both pointing to continued selling pressure. The Relative Strength Index is also at 42.89, below its moving average of 46.75, suggesting that buyers have not regained short-term momentum.

A confirmed 4-hour close below the $0.0711 range floor could expose $0.070, followed by $0.068 and $0.065, based on the support levels visible on TradingView. Conversely, a rebound above $0.0755 would break the current range and place the July high near $0.079 back in view.

CoinGlass’ 24-hour liquidation heatmap places notable leveraged positions around $0.073 and $0.075 above the market. Below the current price, concentrated liquidity near $0.0705 and $0.070 could attract DOGE if the $0.0711 support fails.

OKX Europe has launched a one-way conversion feature allowing customers to deposit USDT and convert it into USDC, offering a regulated migration path as the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) rules limit support for the world’s largest stablecoin.

According to a company announcement shared with Cointelegraph, the feature lets customers deposit Tether’s USDt (USDT) into their OKX Europe account and convert the tokens into USDC (USDC), one of the largest stablecoins available under the European Union’s MiCA framework.

Tether has not obtained authorization to issue USDT under MiCA, prompting many European platforms to restrict deposits, delist trading pairs or convert customer balances into compliant alternatives as the European Union completed the framework’s rollout on July 1.

OKX Europe said the feature is designed for customers whose existing platforms no longer accept USDT or plan to migrate their balances automatically. The exchange said conversions can be completed at the customer’s discretion rather than through a platform-imposed deadline.

The move comes even as USDT remains the dominant stablecoin globally. According to DefiLlama, Tether accounts for about 59% of the nearly $310 billion stablecoin market, with a market capitalization of roughly $184 billion, compared with about $73 billion for Circle’s USDC.

OKX Europe serves customers across 30 EU and European Economic Area countries under its MiCA license.

Source: DefiLlama

Related: ESMA adds 14 new CASPs to MiCA register as licensing slows

Why did Tether reject MiCA?

Tether has defended its decision not to seek MiCA authorization for USDT, even as the move prompted many European crypto platforms to delist or restrict the stablecoin. Since the EU’s regulatory framework began taking effect in late 2024, exchanges across the region have been shifting users toward MiCA-compliant alternatives.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino has repeatedly criticized MiCA, arguing its reserve requirements create unnecessary risks for stablecoin issuers by requiring a portion of reserves to be held with European credit institutions. 

In a May 2025 interview with Cointelegraph, Ardoino described the framework as “very dangerous when it comes to stablecoins,” saying Tether chose not to pursue authorization despite the likelihood that USDT would lose support on European exchanges.

The company has shown little sign of changing course. In a July 2025 post on X, Ardoino said Tether would reconsider seeking MiCA authorization only “when MiCA becomes safer for consumers and stablecoin issuers.”

Source: Paolo Ardoino

Recently, digital banking platform Revolut said it will stop supporting USDT for customers in the European Economic Area and Switzerland, giving users until Aug. 31 to sell or withdraw their holdings before automatically converting any remaining balances into their base currency.

Magazine: The British Virgin Islands are a top crypto hub no one ever talks about: Here’s why

Donald Trump-founded Trump Media announced that Wall Street trading firms will be offered paid access to the president’s Truth Social posts before they’re shared with the public — a move that could be interpreted as selling insider trading information.

Specifically, firms will be able to pay for a Truth Social interface that grants “real-time access to posts from the highest-ranking Truth Social accounts” milliseconds before they’re published online. 

Trump Media and Technology Group runs Truth Social, the social media app where President Trump’s account boasts 12.9 million followers. 

Kathleen Clark, a conflict-of-interest expert at Washington University School of Law described the new services as “more brazen corruption,” and “an improper exploitation of government power to enrich himself.”

She added, “He’s selling expedited, privileged access to information about what he is doing as president.”

Bitcoin’s path toward a potential macro bottom is once again being traced with onchain “supply in loss” timing and investor cost-basis models that suggest the market’s late-bull momentum may be fading.

In a new read of historical patterns, K33 Research highlighted that more than half of the BTC supply has been held at a loss for the first time in this bear market—an inflection point that, in past cycles, has tended to precede the final leg of drawdowns and the start of a sturdier post-bottom recovery window.

Key takeaways

• According to K33 Research, BTC supply in loss crossed 50% on June 5, marking a key bear-market threshold.
• K33 says the period from that 50% crossing to a macro bottom has ranged from 13 to 101 days in historical bear markets.
• As of July 17, CryptoQuant data shows supply in loss at 46%, implying the “countdown” is still in progress.
• CryptoQuant’s realized cap variance model (RCV) is reported to be in the bottom 6% of its historical range, with a Z-score at -2.35—consistent with late-stage bear conditions.

Why supply in loss is again driving “bottom” timing

In its H1 2026 Round-Up report, K33 Research pointed to a classic onchain metric: the share of Bitcoin held at a loss, based on investor cost-basis versus current market price.

K33 frames supply in loss as a practical yardstick for where Bitcoin often is in the lifecycle of a bear market. The firm noted that once this measure moves above 50%, the subsequent time to a macro bottom has historically been limited to a relatively defined “window”—with the shortest observed case lasting just 13 days in 2022.

In longer or more drawn-out drawdowns, the metric has taken considerably more time. K33 cited examples from prior cycles: in 2018, the decline required 23 days after the 50% supply-in-loss mark; in 2014, Bitcoin continued to drop for roughly 101 days after the same threshold was reached.

For the current cycle, K33 said the 50% crossing occurred on June 5. With about 42 days having elapsed since that point, the current “bottom window” is now described as the second-longest on record for Bitcoin among bear markets studied—an observation that matters because it suggests this drawdown phase is not yet compressed into the earliest historical end-game, even if it is moving into the later stages.

K33 also added that returns over the year after these threshold-driven periods “tend to be very solid,” reinforcing why traders and long-term investors continue to watch the supply-in-loss gauge rather than relying solely on price action.

What the latest onchain readings imply for timing

While K33 anchored the narrative to the 50% supply-in-loss break, CryptoQuant’s dashboard data provides the near-term checkpoint. In earlier commentary, Axel Adler Jr., an onchain analytics contributor on CryptoQuant, suggested supply in loss was roughly “two months away” from levels historically associated with bear-market bottoms.

As of July 17, CryptoQuant data puts supply in loss at 46%. Combined with the June 5 crossing reported by K33, that difference helps explain why analysts are still treating the move as a countdown rather than a completed cycle signal: the market is below the historical 50% threshold only after having crossed it, and the current reading indicates the “loss-heavy” ownership phase is easing but not yet fully resolved.

For investors, the key is not the exact day count but the relationship between supply-in-loss behavior and how markets tend to transition from capitulation-heavy distribution toward stabilization. If the metric continues to normalize in line with past bear-market arcs, it supports the notion that risk may be tilting toward the later stages of the drawdown rather than the beginning of a fresh leg lower.

Cost-basis models add a “late bear market” signal

Beyond supply in loss timing, CryptoQuant also pointed to an investor cost-basis indicator it described as showing rare readings. The model in focus is realized cap variance (RCV), which compares realized cap to market cap and then tracks that spread relative to its rolling historical distribution.

In a CryptoQuant QuickTake blog post published on Thursday, contributor Crazzyblockk explained that RCV is designed to isolate how stretched or compressed investor cost basis has become versus current valuation, using the variance itself rather than price alone.

“When that variance compresses into deeply negative z-score territory, the emotional premium built during rallies has largely been priced out. The metric doesn’t read narrative, it reads the distribution of capital.”

The same post said the RCV currently sits in the bottom six percent of its historical range. It also highlighted the standardized Z-score value at -2.35, describing this as an indication that Bitcoin may be in the later stages of a bear market.

CryptoQuant’s commentary went further by noting precedent: the post reported that previous stretches spent extended time below a -2.0 Z-score—citing late 2018, mid-2022, and early 2015—before being associated with forward twelve-month returns above 75%. The historical comparison matters because it positions the present reading not just as “bear market,” but specifically as a regime that has tended to precede substantial improvement after the bottom phase.

The most extreme example referenced was a Z-score of -4.68 in November 2018, which the post said landed almost exactly on Bitcoin’s cycle bottom near $3,792.

What to watch next as the “countdown” unfolds

For now, the most actionable takeaway is that two independent onchain lenses—K33’s supply-in-loss threshold timing and CryptoQuant’s realized cap variance regime—are pointing to the same broad phase: late-stage bear market conditions rather than an early, fresh destabilization. Readers should watch how quickly supply in loss continues to drift down from the 50% crossing and whether RCV remains pinned in deeply negative Z-score territory, since those are the signals most likely to confirm whether the cycle bottom window is narrowing or extending further.