Key takeaways:

• SOL’s rebound to $72 shows bullish futures and airdrop hopes, but falling TVL and low DEX volumes point to fragile onchain demand.
• Tokenized stocks spark hype on Solana, yet Pump.fun dependence and Hyperliquid competition threaten sustained SOL momentum.

Solana native token SOL jumped to $72 on Friday, distancing itself from the $64 lows the prior day. Part of traders’ optimism stemmed from the stellar growth of tokenized stock trading, fueled by the AI sector. However, increasing competition in decentralized application networks could limit SOL’s short-term upside.

Solana tokenized stocks 24-hour volumes, USD. Source: Jupiter Aggregator

Tokenized stocks on Solana traded over $113 million in 24 hours, according to Jupiter Aggregator data. However, the relatively thin liquidity in the automated market-making pools raised concerns, especially as multiple issuers compete for similar products. Still, some of those tokens launched only recently, which might explain the low number of holders in most cases.

Blockchains ranked by DeFi Total Value Locked (TVL), USD. Source: DefiLlama

The Total Value Locked (TVL) on the Solana network dropped 11% over the past month, while the Ethereum layer-2 Base reduced the gap. Negative highlights on Solana TVL include a 19% decline in Kamino, a 20% trim by Binance Staked SOL, and a 17% decline in Raydium. The tokenization platform xStocks, on the other hand, posted 31% growth in TVL.

Solana weekly DEX volumes & DApps revenue, USD. Source: DefiLlama

Decentralized exchange (DEX) volumes on Solana fell to $10 billion per week from $30 billion in early February, coinciding with a downtrend in decentralized application (DApp) revenues. Thus, regardless of the successful launch of tokenized tech stocks and equity indexes, demand for SOL on blockchain processing remains subdued.

Solana’s dependence on Pump.fun and increased competition in tokenized launches

More concerningly, 30% of DApp revenue on Solana came from the token launch platform Pump.fun, which depends heavily on memecoin activity. A CoinGecko report revealed that 80% of the 18.7 million tokens launched in less than 48 hours, while 55% of the addresses involved lost up to $1,000 according to Dune data.

SOL perpetual futures annualized funding rate. Source: Laevitas

Demand for bullish leverage on SOL futures increased on Friday, pushing the funding rate to its highest level in June. The current 10% level is far from displaying excessive confidence, as the 6% to 12% range is typically deemed neutral. Still, the 14% gains since the $64 low on Thursday managed to reverse the bearishness marked by negative funding rates.

Related: Solana grabs 95% of tokenized equity as traders debate if SOL bottom is in

Part of SOL investors’ optimism stems from anticipation of airdrops on the network, although the timing of those tokens’ launch remains uncertain. Highlights include OnRe reinsurance with $200 million in TVL, Bulk perpetual DEX with an aggregate open interest of $325 million, and Loopscale lending platform at $79 million in TVL.

It might be premature to claim that SOL is bound to reclaim the $80 mark, last seen on June 1, given increased competition in tokenized stock trading from Hyperliquid and centralized exchanges on competing blockchains. OKX, for instance, formed a strategic partnership with the NYSE parent company using Ethereum-based systems.

Crypto infrastructure company BitGo Holdings laid off about 15% of its staff on Thursday as its CEO pledged to focus the company on areas including trading, stablecoins and artificial intelligence.

“Today I’m sharing a hard decision: we are reducing our workforce by nearly 15%,” BitGo co-founder and CEO Mike Belshe posted to X on Thursday. “The ecosystem has evolved, and the way we build financial services has changed dramatically.” 

“We need to be sharper, more focused, and concentrate our people and energy on the areas that matter most: security, trading, stablecoins, settlement, and AI-powered infrastructure,” he added.

The layoffs add to the thousands of jobs lost in the crypto industry so far in 2026, with many companies citing efficiency gains from AI and a wide crypto market slump as the reason for the cuts.

Source: Mike Belshe

BitGo did not confirm the number of staff affected in the layoffs. Its 2025 annual report published in March disclosed it had 603 full-time employees as of Dec. 31, 2025, meaning the layoffs could have impacted about 90 staff.

Belshe said the layoffs were “a one-time action” and BitGo does not “anticipate further reductions.” The company is still hiring for 51 roles across various regions, according to its job board.

BitGo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Related: Blockworks acquires Messari in crypto data consolidation push

Shares in BitGo (BTGO) closed Thursday down 4.67% at $4.80, extending a nearly 73% slide from its public debut at $18 on Jan. 22.

Shares in BitGo on Thursday slid more than 4.5% after the company announced it cut 15% of its staff. Source: Google Finance

Crypto companies have so far cut more than 5,000 jobs this year, with Block Inc. undertaking the biggest round of layoffs by cutting 4,000 staff or about half its workforce in February. 

Robinhood cut 10% of its workforce on June 16, while in May, crypto exchange Kraken cut 150 staff, data company Dune cut 25% of its workforce and Coinbase cut 700 employees, or about 14% of its workforce.

Earlier this year, Gemini laid off 200 employees and Crypto.com also laid off about 180 staff, with both citing the rising use of AI.

So far this year, the wider US technology sector has seen over 121,500 layoffs from over 200 companies, according to Layoffs.fyi.

Magazine: Guide to the top and emerging global crypto hubs: Mid-2026

XRP has fallen to a 20-month low near $1.05, down more than 70% from its 2025 high, in a year-long downtrend. The $1 is the line that matters now. Below it, the charts point to $0.85 and then $0.70. Yet institutions keep buying the dip, and one Senate vote could change everything.

XRP is trading near $1.05, a 20-month low, and the round number just beneath it has become the line that defines the entire debate about where the token goes next.

After reaching a high of $3.66 in July 2025, XRP has spent the better part of a year grinding steadily lower, carving out a textbook downtrend of lower highs and lower lows that has erased more than 70% of its value from the peak. The price now sits just above the psychological $1 level, and the question that matters for the rest of 2026 is simple to state and hard to answer: Can XRP hold the $1, or is it heading toward the next support levels at $0.85 and then $0.70 that the charts identify below it?

What makes the question genuinely interesting, rather than a one-way bearish story, is a striking contradiction running underneath the falling price. Even as XRP has bled lower, institutions have been buying it, with billions flowing into newly launched exchange-traded funds and large holders accumulating at a record pace, and a single piece of legislation working its way through the Senate could, if it passes, change the token’s trajectory overnight. This piece works through that tension to build an honest prediction.

The reason to frame XRP’s outlook around the $1 line and the contradiction beneath it is that those two things, the technical battle at a key level and the clash between a bearish chart and bullish accumulation, are what will actually decide the price.

A list of multi-year targets, the staple of most prediction pages, obscures more than it reveals, because XRP’s near-term path depends on whether the $1 holds, whether the institutional buying is the leading edge of a reversal or a value trap, and whether the regulatory catalyst lands.

What follows traces the year-long descent that brought XRP here, maps the levels that matter on both sides, examines the paradox of institutions buying into weakness, weighs the CLARITY Act as the swing factor, lays out the bear case for a slide toward $0.70, and translates all of it into concrete bull, base, and bear scenarios anchored to the $1 line.

A year of lower lows

To understand XRP’s predicament, you have to see the shape of its decline, because the chart tells a clear and sobering story. XRP reached its high of $3.66 in July 2025, a level that capped an enormous run and marked the peak of its enthusiasm. From there, the descent began, and it has been remarkably persistent: rather than a single crash followed by recovery, XRP has traced a clean series of lower highs and lower lows for almost a full year, the textbook signature of a sustained downtrend.

Each attempt to rally has been sold into, each bounce has failed at a lower level than the last, and the price has ground inexorably downward, trading below its key moving averages and giving back the vast majority of its gains. By June 2026, XRP had reached a 20-month low near $1.05, with technical analysts describing the chart as an asset still searching for a bottom rather than building toward a breakout.

The most recent leg lower came as the broader crypto market sold off, with Bitcoin crashing toward $60,000 and dragging the major altcoins down with it. XRP, like most large-cap tokens, remains highly correlated with Bitcoin during major market moves, so Bitcoin’s slide to a 20-month low of its own pulled XRP to its lows as well.

The result is a token down roughly 40% year-to-date and more than 70% from its 2025 peak, sitting in oversold territory but with no clear sign that the selling has exhausted itself. The year-long downtrend is the dominant fact of XRP’s chart, and any bullish case has to contend with the reality that, on price action alone, XRP has done nothing but fall for a year, which is exactly why the defense of the $1 level has become so important. It is the line where the year-long decline either pauses or accelerates.

A bipartisan pair of US senators has called on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to investigate the prediction market platform Polymarket after it reportedly paid social media influencers to make videos of fake bets.

Republican Senator John Curtis and Democratic Senator Adam Schiff sent a letter to CFTC Chair Mike Selig on Thursday, saying they were concerned Polymarket “used deceptive marketing tactics to promote gambling-style products to US audiences.”

“If accurate, these allegations are deeply troubling and demand immediate scrutiny from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission,” they wrote.

The letter comes after The Wall Street Journal reported on June 20 that Polymarket paid influencers to film fake trades on websites resembling its platform and that many creators didn’t disclose that Polymarket paid them.

The Journal said it reviewed over 1,100 videos and found that 70% featured fake bets amounting to nearly $2 million.

In response to the report, a Polymarket spokesperson told Cointelegraph earlier this week that it was “conducting a comprehensive audit of active promotional content to ensure it complies with our standards, as well as applicable regulatory and legal disclosure requirements.”

The letter also came ahead of reports in the Journal and CNBC on Friday that the CFTC was investigating Polymarket.

CNBC reported, citing a person familiar with the inquiry, that the CFTC has an ongoing and extensive investigation into Polymarket, but the timeline for when the investigation began was not shared.

Polymarket declined to comment on the letter or on the reported CFTC investigation.

Prediction markets have recently exploded in popularity and have seen billions of dollars in volume each month, with Senators Curtis and Schiff expressing their concerns about the CFTC’s ability to regulate the platforms.

Source: John Curtis

“The CFTC has repeatedly asserted regulatory authority over prediction markets and event contracts,” the senators wrote. “Yet with content creators routinely portraying prediction markets as ‘free money,’ there is little basis for treating them differently from gambling.”

“These contracts are not in the public interest and should not be treated as derivative products with hedging value,” they added. “We remain concerned that the Commission is neither enforcing the law appropriately, nor is equipped to serve as a federal gambling regulator.”

Related: US senators push to end CFTC ‘assault’ on state oversight of prediction markets

The CFTC has claimed it has authority over prediction markets as the platforms are registered with the agency and operate under federal commodities law.

The regulator has sued nine US states that have filed legal action against prediction markets to accuse the platforms of offering unlicensed sports betting via event contracts.

Senators Curtis and Schiff asked Selig to give written responses to a list of questions by July 10, which asked if the CFTC was investigating Polymarket, if the reported advertising was legal and if it has the resources to police prediction markets, among others.

Magazine: Should users be allowed to bet on war and death in prediction markets?

Stablecoin infrastructure company StablecoinX has completed its merger with TLGY Acquisition Corp, a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company, allowing it to begin trading on Nasdaq on Friday.

StablecoinX is the first public stablecoin infrastructure company focused on supporting the Ethena ecosystem through decentralized verifier nodes and software infrastructure, and will trade under the symbol “USDE,” according to a statement on Thursday.

“We believe Ethena has emerged as one of the most important platforms powering the next generation of digital dollars,” said Edward Chen, CEO and Chairman of StablecoinX.  

The Nasdaq debut is a big bet that stablecoins are becoming the plumbing of global finance, and comes despite a broader crypto bear market and Ethena’s relatively small 1.4% market share of the stablecoin market compared with those offered by its competitors, such as Tether and Circle.

Ethena’s USDe is a yield-bearing synthetic dollar-pegged stablecoin. Unlike USDt (USDT) or USDC (USDC), which are backed by actual dollars, USDe (USDE) maintains its $1 peg through a derivatives strategy. 

It is backed by crypto collateral in Bitcoin and Ether and short futures positions on those same assets, enabling the long and short positions to cancel out the price volatility, helping to keep its value at approximately $1.

Ethena’s delta-neutral strategy works well in normal markets but is vulnerable during periods when futures funding rates go negative. 

USDe supply falls

While stablecoin circulation has grown in recent years, USDe market capitalization has declined by 70% since its peak in October to around $4.5 billion today, ranking it sixth among stablecoins.  

USDe supply has fallen since the bull market peak. Source: CoinGecko

StablecoinX’s treasury also holds approximately 3 billion Ethena governance tokens (ENA), or around 20% of the total supply, valued at approximately $275 million. The company announced a $360 million capital raise to purchase ENA on Sunday.

However, the asset is currently trading at $0.08, down 94% from its April 2024 all-time high. 

Related: Yield-bearing stablecoins surge as Washington fights over yield

The company has three business lines: a decentralized verifier node (DVN) serving as a cross-chain message verifier for the Ethena ecosystem, a middleware software stack called “Stablecoin Harness” and distribution services, which are currently in development. 

The company says the three businesses reinforce one another, though the broader crypto bear market presents a challenging backdrop for its Nasdaq debut. 

Crypto SPACs and crypto treasuries have had a tough time this year as the broader market has tanked 52%, with $2.3 trillion leaving the space since October and crypto falling out of favor among investors. 

Pre-merger TLGY fell 6.93% on Thursday on OTC markets to end the day trading at $9.40, according to Google Finance data. 

Magazine: AI is banking the unbanked in Africa… faster than crypto

Ether treasury company Sharplink has bought Ether for the first time in eight months as the token sank to its lowest price this year on Thursday.

On-chain data from Arkham shows a wallet associated with Sharplink received 5,000 Ether (ETH), worth $7.85 million, from crypto prime brokerage FalconX on Thursday. The last time it received Ether from FalconX was on Oct. 26, when it bought $78.3 million worth of ETH. 

The purchase comes as Ether hit $1,537 on Thursday, its lowest price in 2026. The latest purchase could suggest a revival of the company’s active Ether accumulation strategy.

“I’m seeing genuine corporate accumulation conviction holding strong amid subdued price action,” Andri Fauzan Adziima, the research lead at Bitrue Research Institute, told Cointelegraph. 

Sharplink CEO Joseph Chalom told Cointelegraph in May that he saw three catalysts that could spur growth in the price of Ether.

The first was the passage of the CLARITY Act in the US, while the second was a return to market risk appetite, which will depend on an easing in geopolitical tension and cooling of the artificial intelligence investment thesis. Chalom’s third catalyst was the continued growth of real-world asset tokenization. 

The Senate is yet to vote on its version of the CLARITY Act, and the House Financial Services Committee said it would hold a hearing on the bill on July 17. The US and Iran are working toward a final peace agreement to end months of conflict and tokenized real-world assets have now reached a distributed asset value of $31.55 billion, close to its highest level this year.

Sharplink now holds 876,285 ETH

Sharplink was founded in 2019 as an affiliate marketing service provider to the sports betting and gambling industries, but pivoted to become an Ethereum treasury company in June 2025, with Consensys co-founder and CEO Joe Lubin named as chairman.

It became the largest publicly traded corporate holder of ETH, but lost the title to Bitmine in August, just two months after Bitmine launched its own Ether buying strategy. 

Related: Bitmine, Sharplink and Joe Lubin back Ethereum R&D nonprofit

The company now holds 876,285 ETH and ETH equivalents, which it has accumulated over time through active ETH purchases and staking rewards. Its competitor, Bitmine, holds 5.67 million ETH after acquiring another 52,203 ETH last week. 

Source: Sharplink

“We continue to maintain a steady pace of accumulation throughout 2026. We believe we are in the early stages of crypto spring,” Bitmine chairman Tom Lee said. 

Sharplink added to the Russell indexes

The purchase also comes just days before Sharplink is expected to join the Russell 2000 and Russell 3000 indexes on Monday. 

Inclusion in the indexes is widely viewed as positive because many active and passive funds, including exchange-traded funds, typically buy stocks from them.

Chalom in May said that joining the Russell indexes would broaden the company’s shareholder base and strengthen its access to capital markets.

Magazine: Guide to the top and emerging global crypto hubs: Mid-2026