Bitcoin (BTC) sought to build on local highs at Monday’s Wall Street open as US stocks opened in the green.

Key points:

• Bitcoin approached new local highs with the start of the week’s first US trading session.
• Stocks also opened higher amid relief over a hiatus in the US-Iran war and potential progress on reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
• BTC price action defended two daily moving averages on Sunday’s weekly close.

Bitcoin follows stocks higher as Iran news offers risk-asset tailwind

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD spiking to near $66,000 as markets reacted to a pause in strikes between the US and Iran. 

BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Additional reports cited an Iranian foreign ministry spokesman announcing that Tehran and Oman were “trying to establish mechanisms regarding maritime traffic” through the Strait of Hormuz, a key global oil route currently closed.

US WTI crude oil fell toward $82 per barrel on Monday before a modest rebound. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite Index were both up by around 0.3% at the time of writing.

CFDs on US WTI crude oil one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

Acknowledging a potential stumbling block in the form of higher US bond yields, trading company QCP Capital voiced that they were anticipating tailwinds for the crypto market going forward. 

“Digital assets have generally outperformed equities in July despite a more challenging macro backdrop,” the firm wrote in its latest Market Color analysis. 

“BTC and ETH are up approximately 11.6% and 24.6% month-to-date, respectively, even as higher Treasury yields and periodic risk-off sentiment have weighed on broader markets.”

QCP referenced developments around the CLARITY Act, a key piece of proposed crypto legislation still under consideration.

“Market attention also remains on developments surrounding the proposed CLARITY Act, which continues to be closely followed by digital asset participants given its potential implications for the US regulatory framework,” it continued.

BTC price support holds but remains fragile

Among Bitcoin traders, caution mixed with quiet optimism over BTC price action on shorter time frames.

Related: Rate path still divides investors: Five things to know in Bitcoin this week

Crypto trader and analyst Michaël Van de Poppe highlighted that BTC was holding the 21-day and 50-day simple moving averages (SMAs) as support. These stood at $64,289 and $63,261, respectively.

“This is a strong signal for the markets to be betting on the long side of this asset, however, it’s still a little fragile,” he wrote in ongoing updates on X. 

“I’d much prefer to see a strong move to $66,000-67,000 over the next 1-3 days to see a continuous bid coming in.”

BTC/USDT one-day chart. Source: Michaël Van de Poppe on X.com

Data from CoinGlass showed crypto short liquidations spiking as the market rose, with these nearing $250 million over a 24-hour period.

BTC/USD vs. crypto liquidations (screenshot). Source: CoinGlass

Perpetual swaps, also called perpetual futures or “perps” for short, are the dominant trading instrument in the crypto market, processing an estimated $40 to 50 trillion a year in volume. They dwarf spot trading, and they are the product that professional traders, hedge funds and retail speculators reach for when they want leveraged exposure to the price of bitcoin or tther without owning the underlying asset. Despite their ubiquity, the mechanics that make them work are not widely understood.

To understand perps, it helps to understand what came before them. In traditional finance, leveraged exposure to an asset typically comes through a futures contract, an agreement to buy or sell something at a set price on a specific date. When that date arrives, the contract expires and settles. Traders who want to maintain their position must roll it into the next contract.

In crypto’s early days, this practice created persistent problems. Futures traded at a premium to the spot price of bitcoin, a concept known as basis, which confused retail traders who wanted straightforward directional exposure. And every time a contract expired, positions closed regardless of whether traders wanted them to. BitMEX, the derivatives exchange founded by Arthur Hayes and Ben Delo in 2014, spent the better part of a year shortening contract durations trying to solve this, moving from quarterly to monthly to weekly to 48-hour to 24-hour expiries, but none of that was enough.

A contract that never expires

The perpetual swap, which Delo developed and BitMEX launched in May 2015, resolved the problem by eliminating the expiry date entirely, creating a derivative contract that tracks the price of an asset indefinitely. There is no settlement date, no rolling and no expiry. Traders can hold a position for hours or years. This created an immediate structural challenge: without an expiry date to act as an anchor, nothing would naturally force the contract price back toward the spot price of the underlying asset. BitMEX solved this through a mechanism that has since become the industry standard.

Every eight hours, a payment is exchanged between traders on opposite sides of the market. If the perpetual swap is trading above the spot price, indicating excess demand for long positions, traders who are long pay traders who are short. If the perpetual swap is trading below spot, the payment runs the other way. The exchange takes no cut. The rate of this payment, known as the funding rate, is calculated based on how far the perpetual swap price has deviated from spot over the preceding eight-hour window. The further the deviation, the higher the rate. This creates a self-correcting equilibrium. When longs are being charged a substantial funding rate, it becomes expensive to hold the position, which reduces demand and pulls the price back toward spot. Market makers accelerate this process by shorting the perpetual swap and buying spot whenever a meaningful premium opens up, capturing the difference as profit. The funding rate mechanism is now used, in essentially the same form, by every major derivatives exchange in the world.

The role of leverage

The other defining feature of perpetual swaps is leverage. Most exchanges allow traders to control positions significantly larger than their deposited capital, with limits varying by platform and jurisdiction. At BitMEX in its prime, leverage of up to 100 times was available, meaning a 1% move in Bitcoin’s price would produce a 100% gain or loss on a fully leveraged position. To manage the risk this creates for the exchange, perpetual swap platforms use automated liquidation systems. If a trader’s losses approach the value of their deposited margin, the system closes the position before it can go negative, protecting the exchange from absorbing the deficit. The speed and reliability of that liquidation engine became a key competitive differentiator in the early years of the market, and remains central to how exchanges compete today.

Perpetual swaps are now the primary venue for price discovery in crypto. When bitcoin moves sharply, the move typically originates in perp markets before spreading to spot. The structure Delo built in 2015 has proven durable enough that regulators in the U.S. are now exploring its application to traditional assets, with the CME potentially listing perpetual swaps on equities. What began as a workaround for the limitations of crypto futures has become one of the most traded financial products in the world.

HashKey Holdings says it has consolidated its exchange operations into a single user-facing platform, bringing together what were previously separate apps for different regions. In an announcement released Monday, the Hong Kong digital asset services firm said customers across Hong Kong, “Global,” Singapore, and the Middle East (Dubai) will use the same application—while compliance controls are handled according to each jurisdiction’s legal requirements.

The update reflects a broader shift away from early “regional silo” exchange models, where licensing and front-end products were often kept separate to reduce compliance complexity. HashKey’s approach is built around a principle it describes as “unified entry, localized compliance.”

Key takeaways

• HashKey has merged its HashKey Exchange and HashKey Global into one platform and one application for users across multiple regions.
• The front-end experience is centralized, while regulatory compliance is managed based on each customer’s legislative domain.
• HashKey frames the change as a move from earlier jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction exchange silos toward a unified model.
• Other major exchanges have implemented similar structures, though with different ways of routing users to local legal entities.

One app across regions, with compliance tailored locally

HashKey said it has consolidated core jurisdictional hubs—including Hong Kong, Singapore, the Middle East (Dubai), and Bermuda—under a single platform and application. While the firm’s statement emphasizes that the “front-end” is unified, it also stresses that the system is designed to remain compliant with local frameworks by managing compliance requirements in line with each user’s jurisdiction.

Under HashKey’s model, users download the same application, but the platform applies localized compliance handling across the Hong Kong, Global, Singapore, and Middle East regions. In practical terms, that means the product experience is simpler to access, even though the legal and regulatory obligations still differ by geography.

Why unified platforms are becoming more common

HashKey’s announcement positions the merger as an evolution from the early days of virtual asset trading. In those early stages, many licensed exchanges operated through regional silos—separate platforms, separate apps, and often separate operational setups—to make it easier to compartmentalize compliance.

According to HashKey, its updated structure is intended to preserve compliance benefits while reducing friction for users who operate across or move between markets. The promise is a single front-end that can simplify access to systems expected to remain aligned with local regulatory requirements, as compliance is managed within the platform rather than through separate customer-facing products.

For traders and liquidity providers, a unified application can also reduce the risk of confusion around which interface, account type, or supported features apply in different jurisdictions. For the operator, it can streamline development and user onboarding workflows by consolidating the customer entry point while maintaining jurisdiction-specific controls in the background.

How this compares with other exchanges’ structures

HashKey is not alone in moving toward centralized user experiences paired with jurisdiction-specific legal coverage.

As one comparison, the article notes that OKX presents its website and mobile apps as one platform. However, OKX’s terms reportedly assign customers to different providers based on residence. In other words, the customer-facing “one app” concept is paired with a legal routing layer that maps users to the appropriate entity depending on where they are.

Kraken provides another example. The announcement referenced that Kraken consolidated a Dutch broker entity—BCM—into its platform after acquiring it in September 2024. Kraken has also expanded its European offering through a MiCA structure: the firm reportedly began serving the EEA through its Irish MiCA entity in August, suggesting that compliance alignment is achieved within a unified operational framework.

These comparisons underscore that while the “single platform” idea is spreading, implementations can differ. The key variable is how an exchange ties a unified front-end to jurisdiction-appropriate regulatory responsibility—whether by assigning users to distinct providers behind the scenes or by applying compliance processes localized to each customer’s jurisdiction.

What users should watch after the consolidation

HashKey’s transition to a single application across multiple regions raises questions that matter most to customers: how onboarding flows will change, how jurisdiction-specific feature access will be reflected in the user experience, and whether account management will remain seamless when users interact with region-specific compliance requirements.

For regulators and industry observers, the merger is also a useful test case for whether exchanges can maintain strong compliance controls while consolidating products and codebases—an approach that could become more attractive as regulatory regimes mature and operational efficiency becomes a competitive differentiator.

Readers should watch for further details on the rollout mechanics, such as how HashKey handles user migration from previously separate platforms and how the unified app communicates jurisdiction-dependent limitations, if any. As the exchange environment continues to tighten, the ability to centralize the user interface without diluting regulatory obligations will likely be a key measure of operational readiness.

More than a dozen digital asset treasury companies have moved into artificial intelligence and data centres as falling crypto prices weaken demand for the DAT model.

Bloomberg reported that the shifts have not stopped steep share declines.

K Wave Media has fallen about 71% since its May pivot. Lixte Biotechnology and Alpha Compute have each dropped roughly 33% since announcing their own changes. The figures measure performance after the pivots and do not prove causation.

Digital asset treasury premiums shrink

Digital asset treasury companies use public equity, debt or private placements to buy crypto. The model works best when investors value the company above its token holdings. That premium lets management issue shares and buy more assets.

The structure becomes harder to maintain when crypto prices fall or the stock trades near or below net asset value. New share sales become less attractive, while debt costs remain. VanEck said in January that several DATs faced net asset value discounts, increasing pressure for consolidation and new strategies.

A Bloomberg-syndicated report quoted Renno & Co managing partner Toufic Adlouni as saying the “vast majority are trying to switch gears or are dead or dying.” That is one adviser’s assessment, not a formal count. Still, the pivots show that several boards no longer view crypto accumulation alone as enough.

K Wave abandons its Bitcoin plan

K Wave announced on May 4 that it could redirect up to $485 million from a Bitcoin treasury agreement into data centres, GPU rental operations and AI acquisitions. The plan also included selling its legacy unit and removing about $48 million in debt and related liabilities.

The stock fell almost 25% on the first trading day after the announcement, as crypto.news previously reported. Bloomberg later placed the decline at about 71% from the May reboot. K Wave then sold its remaining 88 BTC to repay $6 million of debt, ending a campaign that once targeted 10,000 BTC.

K Wave said the transformation would build a scalable platform across data centres and computing. That claim remains forward-looking. The company has not yet shown that the new business can replace the investor interest once attached to its Bitcoin plan.

Lixte and Alpha Compute choose new businesses

Lixte entered the DAT market in 2025 by buying 10.5 BTC and 300 ETH for about $2.6 million. The company said crypto represented roughly 43.6% of its treasury and authorised an allocation of up to 50%.

In June 2026, Lixte agreed to acquire NOMAD Transportable Power Systems and said it planned to become NOMAD Power Solutions. The proposed business would provide mobile battery storage for data centres facing grid delays. Bloomberg reported that Lixte shares fell about 33% after the announcement.

AlphaTON Capital launched a Toncoin treasury strategy in September 2025, targeting about $100 million in TON and Telegram infrastructure. It rebranded as Alpha Compute in April 2026 and shifted toward GPU services, confidential computing and AI infrastructure.

Bloomberg said Alpha Compute shares have fallen about 33% since the rebrand. The company has reported AI contracts and acquisitions, but a new sector label has not restored its treasury premium.

AI offers revenue but demands more capital

AI data centres can produce revenue through computing contracts, hosting and power supply. That differs from a treasury model that relies mainly on asset appreciation and capital-market access. Crypto miners have also moved toward AI because they already control power connections, buildings and cooling equipment.

However, AI infrastructure requires heavy upfront spending, electricity, specialised chips and long customer contracts. Companies that struggled to fund crypto purchases may face similar limits. Battery systems, space projects and small modular reactors also involve long development periods and regulatory risk.

Related crypto.news coverage found that the treasury-company group has shifted from accumulation toward selective asset sales. K Wave exited Bitcoin, while Empery Digital sold part of its holdings to fund an AI data-centre strategy. Some treasury stocks traded at or below their crypto asset value as investors stopped paying large premiums for the corporate structure.

The pivots do not mean every DAT will leave crypto. Larger companies may continue raising capital and holding tokens. For smaller firms, AI offers an operating-revenue story. Early share-price results show that markets still want evidence of funding, customers and execution before rewarding the change.

Crypto researchers claim crypto exchange BitMart is processing withdrawals at a dramatically slow rate after it announced plans to shut down its operations next year.

BitMart claimed that after assessing its “operating conditions, market environment, and future strategic direction,” its operations would cease to exist on January 31, 2027 — a decision at odds with its seemingly bullish outlook.

Deposits, new account registrations, and new trades have already been disabled, and by August 21, all services will cease except for withdrawals.

It “strongly” recommends that users submit withdrawal requests before August 26. 

Additionally, the exchange warned that because it “generally” processes withdrawals based on the order of submission, “processing times may be extended due to a high volume of withdrawal requests.”

Crypto researcher Quang noted that in the 24 hours after BitMart’s announcement, the exchange only processed 63 withdrawal requests, together worth around $800,000.

They assessed that users with large balances will likely be waiting a long time, and that if you have anything less than $10, “you might as well say goodbye to it.”

Read more: European Union sanctions Justin Sun’s HTX

Crypto analyst Lookonchain also noted that by 7:40 pm EST, the exchange had stopped processing withdrawals for the past eight hours. 

The exchange’s API appears to paint a slightly different picture, however. Despite shutting down, it still appeared to have processed $1.8 billion in 24-hour volume.

At time of writing, BitMart is ranked third on CoinGecko for 24-hour volume, behind Binance with $6 billion and Poloniex with over $2 billion. 

BitMart was supposed to last another eight years

BitMart had presented a bullish outlook for its operations in this year’s H1 report published earlier this month.  

A license to operate in Australia was secured, and the company was expanding in Europe via a partnership with Zero Hash. 

Transaction volume was up 300%, BitMart’s assets under management grew roughly “256% period-over-period,” and it had just launched its own prediction market.

BitMart CEO Nathan Chow also said that, “BitMart is eight years old this year. We intend to be here for the next eight, and we are building accordingly.” 

He said, “H1 2026 was a market that punished platforms optimizing for the last cycle and rewarded platforms building for the next one. Our numbers reflect that choice.”

Nobody told Chow BitMart was closing 

Despite Chow’s statements, he appears not to have gotten the memo about BitMart’s closure. 

After its announcement, Chow posted on X claiming “I was not involved in the decision announced today, not consulted on it, and not informed of it. I learned of it when it became public.”

Read more: BitMEX to close, but what about its $270M insurance fund?

He says BitMart told him on July 24 that his role was being terminated and would start winding down immediately. For the next two days, he had no involvement with the company. 

Chow thanked his colleagues whom he worked with, and said that he is concerned for BitMart’s users and its employees.

Month of failing crypto firms

Several crypto firms have made major negative announcements this month.

Today, the crypto-based data storage firm Storj announced that it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Crypto firm Movement Labs also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, crypto exchange BitMex announced it was shutting down, and Justin Sun’s HTX was sanctioned by the EU.

In Storj’s case, the firm would continue to operate after the restructuring and give token holders a stake in the newly restructured firm.

Protos has reached out to BitMart for comment and will update this piece should we hear anything back.

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Founded in 2018 as SEBA Bank and rebranded as AMINA in 2023, the lender is overseen by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, FINMA. It is one of a small number of regulated banks focused on digital assets. The company offers crypto trading, custody, staking and lending services to institutional and professional investors, and has expanded into Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong and India.

The crypto industry has embraced public markets over the past year, with listings from companies including Circle Internet (CRCL), CoinDesk’s owner Bullish (BLSH), Gemini Space Station (GEMI), BitGo (BTGO) and Figure (FIGR) marking the sector’s strongest IPO wave since 2021.

While the deals initially drew strong investor demand, post-listing performance has been uneven as weaker crypto prices, slowing trading activity and a broader risk-off environment weighed on valuations.

This has prompted some private companies to delay or reconsider their own public market plans. Several major crypto firms, including Kraken parent Payward, Ethereum app builder Consensys, wallet provider Ledger and asset manager Grayscale, have delayed IPO plans while waiting for markets to improve.

As of year-end 2025, AMINA reported 74.6 million francs ($91 million) in Tier 1 capital. It has raised roughly $245 million from investors including Julius Baer, DeFi Technologies and BlackRiver Asset Management.