Perpetual futures are entering regulated markets, and the objection to them is serious: retail-driven, high-leverage instruments will import systemic risk. But the critique is aimed at the wrong target. Systemic risk in a derivatives market is a property of the venue on which the perpetuals are traded, not the contract. The risk is set by venue choices: leverage caps, margin, funding design, default management. None inherent to a no-expiry contract.

The concern isn’t baseless. Crypto’s sharpest deleveraging episodes — with the October 2025 cascade among the most recent — have many causes: macro shocks, stablecoin de-pegs, exchange outages, oracle failures, over-leverage and thin liquidity. What turns a sell-off into a systemic event is the risk transmission mechanism, and in crypto that is usually the liquidation cascade: forced liquidations depress prices, transmit to other venues through shared reference pricing and arbitrage, and trigger more liquidations. What makes the cascade violent are venue choices: a manipulable index that liquidates on false prices, and auto-deleveraging that claws back profitable trades to cover a shortfall. Neither is a feature of perpetuals.

So the real question is not whether perpetuals belong in regulated markets; it is how a given venue is built. Regulatory requirements are necessary to secure the baseline: segregated funds, a registered clearing entity, a supervisor’s oversight. How a venue handles a default under stress is a separate choice, and it varies even inside the regulated perimeter.

There’s a sharper objection worth taking seriously, and it isn’t about risk: maybe institutions don’t want perpetuals at all. A recent JPMorgan note found limited institutional appetite for perpetuals, treating them as speculative rather than a replacement for regulated futures – no term structure, and basis risk that makes them imperfect substitutes. That is correct when it comes to the mechanics: as a substitute for dated futures, perpetuals fall short. Unlike a futures basis, funding is variable and can’t be locked in; and for a hedger who needs term structure and delivery, they are the wrong tool.

But replacement is not how institutions reach for them. Running both an options market and a perpetual one, Bullish sees it firsthand: many of the institutions trading options on our venue use perpetuals to hedge delta (the options’ directional exposure to the underlying’s price), not as a stand-in for dated futures, but because that is where the liquidity is. Term structure is less relevant to delta hedging than liquidity. Many of crypto’s dated futures are thinly-traded, while perpetuals — liquid in part because of the retail flow their critics deride — are the deepest, most continuously tradable delta-one instruments available. A desk managing risk in real time takes execution over elegance.

And that liquidity edge is structural. Retail gravitates to perpetuals for what they are: no expiry, no roll, continuously tradable. The design that draws that flow concentrates liquidity in perpetuals. That is the overlooked prize in bringing perpetuals onshore: a deep, durable pool of liquidity in the instruments a hedging desk wants.

So the two halves of the debate are one. The liquidity institutions want already exists, drawn in large part by retail. What lets them use it safely is institutional-grade default management, the same thing that contains the systemic risk the critics fear.

The question was never “are perpetuals dangerous?” It is “when the market is under stress, how does a venue handle a default?” Regulated clearing has established the standard for decades, which is also the standard Bullish is building toward, having filed with the CFTC to operate as a regulated contract market and clearinghouse.

When a liquidation’s shortfall outruns the insurance fund, the backstop is to socialize losses: auto-deleveraging force-closes offsetting profitable positions at an off-market price in order to absorb the defaulter’s loss. The clearing model works differently. It starts with the defaulter, whose own margin and fund contribution absorb the first loss. The position is worked off through the order book or, if large, auctioned to other clearing members. Behind that sits a pre-funded guaranty fund sized to regulated clearinghouse standards, with broad loss-sharing only beyond that, and rarely.

None of this completely eliminates risk – nothing does. What it does is break the chain that turns one blown-out account into a market-wide cascade: a default absorbed at its source, not force-fed into a falling market. That is the difference between a venue that contains a failure and one that transmits it, and the transmission is the systemic risk the critics fear. Meet that standard and perpetuals become infrastructure institutions can use; miss it and we have the hazard critics describe, regulated or not. Perpetuals were never the whole story. The design is.

Emirates, the Dubai-based flagship carrier, has launched Crypto.com Pay on its website and app, enabling eligible United Arab Emirates residents make flight bookings with cryptocurrencies, the airline said Tuesday.

Mobile users are sent to the Crypto.com app to authorize payment from their wallet, while desktop customers scan a QR code at checkout, the companies said in an announcement. Emirates settles in UAE dirhams rather than holding crypto, with Crypto.com handling the conversion.

The move “reflects the rapidly evolving preferences of a younger, digitally fluent generation who manage their money and plan their journeys primarily from their phones,” said Adnan Kazim, Emirates’ deputy president and chief commercial officer. Neither company indicated whether they would expand the Emirates service beyond eligible UAE residents.

The launch implements a partnership announced in July 2025. Cointelegraph reported in May that Crypto.com had received a UAE central bank Stored Value Facilities (SVF) license, which the company said at the time could support integrations with Emirates and Dubai Duty Free.

An SVF license allows non-bank companies to hold customers’ money or crypto in a digital wallet and process payments under central bank oversight. It lets customers fund payments with cryptocurrencies while merchants receive dirhams or approved dirham-backed stablecoins.

According to CoinGecko, Crypto.com handled around $686 million in trading volume in the 24 hours up to the time of writing. 

Emirates is not the region’s first airline to add a crypto checkout option. Air Arabia began accepting the dirham-backed AE Coin stablecoin for flight bookings in May 2025.

Related: Bhutan launches tourism crypto payments with Binance Pay and DK Bank

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

The battles ahead for India

Emirates has added a new way for eligible customers in the United Arab Emirates to pay for flights using cryptocurrencies. The Dubai-based airline launched Crypto.com Pay on its website and mobile app, allowing users to authorize payments from their Crypto.com wallets at checkout.

According to an Emirates announcement shared with Crypto.com, mobile users are prompted to complete the transaction inside the Crypto.com app, while desktop customers scan a QR code to proceed. Emirates will receive payment in UAE dirhams rather than taking custody of crypto itself—Crypto.com handles the conversion during the process.

Key takeaways

• Emirates customers in eligible UAE markets can use Crypto.com Pay to book flights with cryptocurrency, subject to wallet authorization and checkout flow.
• The airline is paid in UAE dirhams; Crypto.com performs the conversion, reducing direct crypto exposure for the merchant.
• Mobile and desktop users follow different checkout mechanics—app authorization for mobile and QR code settlement for desktop.
• The rollout follows a partnership first flagged earlier and comes after Crypto.com received a UAE central bank Stored Value Facilities (SVF) license.
• Emirates is joining a small set of regional airlines testing crypto-linked payment rails, alongside Air Arabia’s AE Coin option.

How Emirates’ Crypto.com Pay checkout works

Emirates says the new payment route is designed for customers who prefer to plan and book travel directly from phones. The airline’s process differs by device: smartphone users are directed to the Crypto.com app to confirm payment from their wallet, while desktop shoppers scan a QR code at checkout to complete the transaction.

This setup keeps the customer experience tied to Crypto.com’s payment infrastructure while maintaining traditional settlement on the airline’s side. By receiving dirhams instead of crypto, Emirates can continue operating its standard accounting and fare ecosystem without needing to hold or manage volatile crypto assets.

Why Crypto.com’s SVF license matters for merchants

Crypto.com Pay’s availability is tied to the company’s regulatory posture in the UAE. Earlier coverage from Cointelegraph noted that Crypto.com received a UAE central bank Stored Value Facilities (SVF) license—an authorization Crypto.com said could support integrations for payments with entities such as Emirates and Dubai Duty Free.

An SVF license generally allows licensed non-bank entities to hold customers’ money or crypto in a digital wallet and process payments under central bank oversight. For merchants, the practical implication is that customers can fund payments with cryptocurrency while the merchant receives fiat (in this case, dirhams) or approved dirham-linked stablecoin instruments, depending on the specific payment design.

That distinction is important: it changes the operational question from “can a merchant accept crypto directly?” to “can a regulated payment processor convert and settle in the merchant’s preferred currency?” Emirates’ approach appears to follow the second model, using Crypto.com for conversion and settlement.

Partnership timing and what the launch signals

Emirates and Crypto.com say the new checkout option implements a partnership first announced in July 2025. In the meantime, regional players have also been experimenting with stablecoin-linked rails. For example, Air Arabia began accepting the dirham-backed AE Coin stablecoin for flight bookings in May 2025.

By launching now, Emirates becomes the latest major travel brand in the UAE to test crypto-enabled payments—specifically through a regulated wallet and payment pathway rather than taking on direct crypto settlement risk. Emirates’ deputy president and chief commercial officer Adnan Kazim described the move as reflecting “the rapidly evolving preferences of a younger, digitally fluent generation” that manages finances and plans journeys largely from mobile devices.

Still, the airline did not specify whether Crypto.com Pay will expand beyond eligible UAE residents. For users outside those eligibility boundaries, the immediate impact is limited, even if the payment rail could theoretically be rolled out further later.

What to watch next for crypto payments in travel

Crypto payments in mainstream commerce tend to advance in stages: first through pilots, then through expansion across more routes and payment channels, and finally through deeper integration with loyalty programs and broader customer identity checks. Emirates’ decision to route crypto payments through Crypto.com’s infrastructure suggests it views this as a distribution and customer-experience upgrade rather than a wholesale shift in how fares are valued.

For the broader market, readers should watch whether the service expands to more customer segments in the UAE, whether additional airlines in the region adopt similar models, and how settlement practices evolve as more merchants rely on SVF-regulated payment processors.

With crypto payments still uneven across jurisdictions and consumer segments, the key uncertainty remains rollout scope: Emirates has launched Crypto.com Pay for eligible UAE residents, but the timeline for broader availability—and whether it will include more payment options beyond crypto-to-dirham conversion—will determine how meaningful this becomes for everyday travelers.

Ethereum price rose nearly 2% on July 29 as US spot ETF inflows and short liquidations helped ETH defend its rising support structure before the Federal Reserve’s rate decision.

Ethereum price returns above $1,900

According to data from crypto.news, Ethereum (ETH) price was trading near $1,913 at the time of writing, up about 2% over the past 24 hours. The token had traded between approximately $1,856 and $1,926 during the session.

The recovery followed a successful defense of the $1,850–$1,880 region. ETH first reclaimed the daily Bollinger Band midpoint at $1,874 before moving back above the psychological $1,900 level.

Ethereum’s daily chart shows price consolidating between the Bollinger Band midpoint and upper boundary. The upper band sits at $1,973, making the $1,970–$2,000 region the next technical barrier. The lower band remains near $1,775.

Buying pressure has also improved. The Chaikin Money Flow reading stands at 0.08, above the neutral line and indicating that capital inflows currently outweigh distribution. However, the indicator remains below its July high, suggesting demand has not yet reached breakout strength.

Morgan Stanley ETF adds to institutional demand

The rally coincided with the first trading session for the Morgan Stanley Ethereum Trust, which listed on NYSE Arca under the ticker MSSE.

MSSE attracted $5.15 million in net inflows and generated $19.03 million in first-day trading volume. BlackRock’s ETHB recorded the largest daily inflow at $5.91 million, while combined spot Ethereum ETF inflows reached $14.53 million.

US-listed Ethereum funds held about $10.5 billion in net assets after the session, equal to 4.53% of Ethereum’s market capitalization. Cumulative net inflows stood at approximately $11.21 billion, according to SoSoValue data.

MSSE’s launch expands regulated access to ETH for US investors through brokerage and retirement accounts. Its 0.14% expense ratio also increases fee competition among existing Ethereum funds.

ETF inflows alone do not prove that institutions caused the full price move. However, positive flows arrived as ETH tested a major support area, providing additional spot demand when liquidity was relatively thin.

Short liquidations accelerate Ethereum’s bounce

Derivative positioning added momentum to the recovery. Ethereum short liquidations reached $37.68 million over 24 hours, slightly exceeding the $36.66 million recorded for leveraged long positions.

The largest single liquidation was a $4.74 million ETH-USDT position on Binance, according to CoinGlass data. Forced closures of short positions require exchanges to buy back contracts, which can accelerate an existing price recovery.

The supplied 24-hour liquidation heatmap shows the strongest nearby overhead concentration around $1,938–$1,943. Additional liquidity rests near $1,955–$1,960.

These clusters may attract price if ETH maintains support above $1,900. A move through $1,960 could then expose the $1,970 Bollinger Band resistance and the $2,000 psychological threshold.

On the downside, leveraged positions are concentrated near $1,895–$1,900 and between approximately $1,870 and $1,885. Losing $1,900 could therefore trigger another sweep toward the lower part of the 4-hour channel.

Ethereum charts point toward $1,970 resistance

The 4-hour chart places Ethereum inside an ascending parallel channel that has guided price since early July. ETH recently tested the channel’s lower boundary near $1,880 before recovering toward its midpoint.

The Aroon Up indicator stands at 64.29%, compared with an Aroon Down reading of 7.14%. That difference suggests the recent bullish trend retains control despite ETH’s failure to hold its July 27 high near $1,970.

The Awesome Oscillator also remains positive at 15.66. Its green histogram bars show that short-term momentum has begun to improve following the latest pullback.

A close above $1,940 would clear the first major liquidation zone. Bulls would then need to break $1,970 and the upper Bollinger Band to open a test of $2,000. The ascending channel’s upper boundary could provide further resistance between $2,000 and $2,030.

Failure to hold $1,880 would weaken the channel structure. Below that level, the daily Bollinger midpoint at $1,874 becomes the first defense, followed by $1,800 and the lower band near $1,775.

Analysts see $1,800 as the critical floor

Crypto analyst Michaël van de Poppe identified $1,800 as the level Ethereum must preserve for the recovery to continue.

“I’d preferably see it hold above $1,800. If that’s the case, then it’s a matter of time until we’re going to see numbers that are north of $2,000.”

Daan Crypto Trades also noted that ETH had broken above its downtrend channel, daily 200-period moving averages, and bull market support band against Bitcoin. He said the ETH/BTC structure has remained bullish since June, although further altcoin gains still depend on Bitcoin holding its support.

$ETH Breaking above all the important levels against $BTC.

This just needs BTC to hold the floor and it will give alts the room they need to move further up.

ETH now broke:
🔹Down trend channel
🔹Daily 200MA & EMA
🔹Bull Market Support Band

And it is in a bullish market… https://t.co/3HOphHk8lG pic.twitter.com/WtUosalCPi

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— Daan Crypto Trades (@DaanCrypto) July 29, 2026

The immediate macro test will come from the Federal Reserve. Markets largely expect the central bank to keep its target range at 3.50%–3.75%, but uncertainty over a possible quarter-point increase has risen. Notably, policymakers remain divided as they balance elevated inflation against easing energy prices.

A hold accompanied by a less hawkish statement could support ETH’s attempt to clear $1,970. A surprise increase or firm warning about future tightening would raise the risk of another decline toward $1,880 or $1,800.

BNY, which has more than $59tn in assets under custody and administration, is moving one of its core record-keeping businesses onto blockchain as Wall Street builds the infrastructure for tokenized funds, the Financial Times reported Thursday.

“We think of BNY as modernizing a function that sits behind every single fund transaction by bringing the books and records onchain,” Carolyn Weinberg, chief product and innovation officer at the 242-year-old financial services giant.

BNY, which services about $8.6 trillion in assets across 7.6 million accounts, said moving its transfer agency onto blockchain would create a single record of ownership, cutting out the need for multiple intermediaries.

“We fully recognize you’ve got trillions and trillions of dollars’ worth of funds that… will continue to exist on traditional rails,” said Emily Portney, BNY’s global head of asset servicing, the bank’s largest business.

BNY did not immediately respond to a CoinDesk request for further information.

Baillie Gifford, a BNY client with more than $261 billion under management, will use the service for what the companies describe as the first fully native U.K.-regulated tokenized fund, according to FT. BlackRock and Dreyfus, BNY’s money-market and cash-management business, are expected to use it for planned funds.

Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) were created to replace centralized decision-making with community-driven governance. Token holders propose ideas, vote on changes, and collectively manage treasuries, protocols, and ecosystems. However, as DAOs continue to grow in size and complexity, human contributors alone may struggle to keep pace with the increasing volume of governance proposals, financial data, and ecosystem activity.

Artificial Intelligence is emerging as a powerful solution—not as a replacement for community governance, but as an intelligent contributor that enhances decision-making, automates repetitive tasks, and improves operational efficiency. The future of DAOs may include AI agents working alongside human members as active participants in decentralized organizations.

The Evolution of DAO Contributors

Traditional DAO contributors perform tasks such as:

• Writing governance proposals
• Reviewing protocol upgrades
• Managing community discussions
• Monitoring treasury health
• Researching ecosystem developments
• Organizing grants and partnerships

While these responsibilities require human judgment, many supporting activities involve collecting, analyzing, and summarizing large amounts of information. AI excels at exactly these tasks.

Instead of replacing contributors, AI can become an always-available assistant that enables communities to make faster and more informed decisions.

AI as a Governance Researcher

Governance proposals often span dozens of pages and include technical details that many token holders may not fully understand.

AI can:

• Summarize lengthy proposals
• Highlight potential risks
• Compare new proposals with historical governance decisions
• Explain technical concepts in simple language
• Generate impact analyses

This allows DAO members to spend less time reading documentation and more time evaluating strategic decisions.

Treasury Intelligence

Managing millions of dollars in digital assets is one of the biggest responsibilities within successful DAOs.

AI can continuously monitor:

• Treasury diversification
• Stablecoin exposure
• Yield performance
• Liquidity positions
• Market volatility
• Spending efficiency

Instead of waiting for monthly reports, DAO members could receive real-time recommendations whenever treasury conditions change significantly.

Proposal Drafting Assistance

Many great ideas never become governance proposals because contributors lack the time or writing experience.

AI could help contributors by:

• Structuring governance proposals
• Generating clear documentation
• Creating implementation timelines
• Estimating resource requirements
• Identifying missing information

This lowers the barrier to participation and encourages more community members to contribute.

Community Moderation at Scale

Large DAOs often have thousands of members spread across multiple platforms.

AI moderators could:

• Answer common governance questions
• Direct users to relevant documentation
• Detect spam and malicious activity
• Translate discussions into multiple languages
• Summarize community sentiment

Human moderators would remain responsible for final decisions, while AI handles repetitive support tasks around the clock.

Smarter Grant Programs

Many DAOs distribute grants to developers, researchers, and ecosystem builders.

AI can assist by:

• Reviewing applications
• Categorizing proposals
• Detecting duplicate submissions
• Scoring projects against predefined criteria
• Tracking milestone completion

This allows grant committees to focus on evaluating innovation rather than administrative work.

AI-Powered Risk Monitoring

Security remains one of the largest concerns in decentralized finance.

AI agents can monitor:

• Suspicious wallet activity
• Smart contract vulnerabilities
• Governance attacks
• Treasury anomalies
• Oracle irregularities
• Cross-chain risks

Rather than reacting after an incident occurs, DAOs can receive early warnings that help prevent losses.

Autonomous Operational Contributors

Future AI contributors may eventually perform operational work independently, including:

• Publishing governance reports
• Updating DAO dashboards
• Scheduling community meetings
• Managing documentation
• Tracking KPIs
• Coordinating contributor workflows

These AI agents would operate under permissions defined by governance rather than acting independently without oversight.

The Importance of Human Oversight

Despite rapid advances, AI should not have unrestricted authority over DAO governance.

Critical responsibilities—including treasury allocations, protocol upgrades, constitutional changes, and governance votes—should remain under community control.

AI works best as:

• An advisor
• A researcher
• A data analyst
• A workflow assistant
• A monitoring system

Human contributors continue to provide judgment, ethics, creativity, and accountability—qualities that AI cannot fully replicate.

Challenges Ahead

Before AI becomes a trusted DAO contributor, several challenges must be addressed:

• Transparency in AI-generated recommendations
• Prevention of model bias
• Protection against prompt manipulation
• On-chain verification of AI actions
• Accountability for autonomous decisions
• Privacy when processing governance data

Developing decentralized AI infrastructure alongside robust governance frameworks will be essential for building trust.

The Future of AI-Driven DAOs

The next generation of DAOs may include specialized AI agents dedicated to governance analysis, treasury optimization, community engagement, security monitoring, and operational management. Rather than replacing decentralized governance, these intelligent contributors can empower communities with faster insights, better data, and more efficient execution.

As decentralized ecosystems continue to expand, AI may become one of the most valuable contributors a DAO can have—not because it votes in place of people, but because it equips communities with the knowledge and tools to make smarter collective decisions. The future of governance is likely to be a collaboration between human wisdom and machine intelligence, creating DAOs that are more scalable, resilient, and effective than ever before.

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