Crypto World
Ripple builds a $3.5B empire as XRP sinks toward the $1 mark
In the last week of June, XRP printed its weakest price since late 2024, briefly touching $1.01 before stabilizing in the $1.05 to $1.13 range where it has traded through early July. The token is down more than 25% for the year and roughly 65% below the $3.65 cycle high it set in July 2025. On the same June days that the chart broke down, tokenized real-world assets on the XRP Ledger crossed $3.5 billion, more than triple the level at which they started the year, spot XRP exchange-traded funds extended a net inflow streak that would reach eight consecutive weeks, and Ripple stood weeks away from full European authorization under MiCA.
Summary
- Ripple has delivered record institutional growth in 2026, but XRP remains more than 25% lower this year and near multi-year lows.
- The article examines both sides of the debate: whether Ripple’s expanding infrastructure will eventually lift XRP or whether the company and token have permanently diverged.
- Upcoming CLARITY Act votes, ETF flows, XRPL upgrades, and institutional adoption could determine whether the gap between Ripple and XRP finally closes.
That is the whole story in one paragraph, and it is genuinely strange. By any operational measure, the 12 months behind Ripple are the most productive in the company’s history: a settled SEC case, launched ETFs, a $1.25 billion prime brokerage acquisition, membership in the clearing infrastructure of American equities, a stablecoin with $18 billion in quarterly transfer volume, and regulatory licenses stacking up on three continents.
By the only measure most holders care about, the same 12 months are the worst since the 2022 bear market. The gap between what Ripple built and what XRP is worth has never been wider, and how that gap closes, upward through the price or downward through the narrative, is now the central question hanging over the fourth largest ecosystem in crypto.
This feature lays out both sides honestly: the case that the infrastructure eventually drags the token up, and the case that the token and the company have simply decoupled, with the price telling the truer story.
The year Ripple built: an inventory
It helps to see the accumulation in one place, because no single item explains the disconnect. The pattern does.
Legal closure came first. The SEC’s enforcement case against Ripple, filed in December 2020, formally concluded in 2025 with a financial settlement, ending the overhang that had defined the token’s American existence for half a decade and building on the 2023 court finding that programmatic exchange sales of XRP were not securities transactions.
Then distribution. Spot XRP ETFs launched in November 2025 across 5 providers and have accumulated roughly $1.49 billion in cumulative net inflows since. May 2026 was the strongest month of the year with $118 million, including a record $60.5 million week.
The streak ran 8 consecutive weeks into July, as crypto.news reported, before showing its first daily pauses, and assets under management sit near $1.05 billion, about 1.5% of the token’s market capitalization, led by Bitwise at $331 million, Canary at $265 million, and Franklin at $262 million.
Then market plumbing. Ripple closed its acquisition of prime broker Hidden Road in October 2025 and rebranded it Ripple Prime. On March 2, 2026, Ripple Prime joined the participant directory of the National Securities Clearing Corporation, placing an XRP-linked institution inside the DTCC complex that clears the bulk of American equity trading and safeguards roughly $100 trillion in assets. DTCC has since named Ripple Prime to the working group of more than 50 firms shaping its tokenization service for Russell 1000 stocks, ETFs, and Treasuries, scheduled for October 2026.
Then the ledger itself. XRPL tokenized assets grew from $991 million on January 1 to $3.5 billion by midsummer. In early May, JPMorgan, Mastercard, Ondo Finance, and Ripple completed the first cross-border tokenized US Treasury redemption on the XRPL, settling in under 5 seconds. Daily transactions hit 3 million on March 15, roughly three times mid-2025 averages.
A protocol amendment from XRPL version 3.1.0 that would enable fixed-term lending through Single Asset Vaults is under validator vote, and support has been climbing toward the 80% supermajority it needs, a governance process crypto.news has tracked as it approaches the threshold.
Then the stablecoin. RLUSD reached a $1.72 billion market capitalization in under a year, moved more than $18 billion in the first quarter alone, and Ripple hedged the strategy in July by joining Open USD, the consortium dollar token backed by Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, BlackRock, and more than 140 other companies.
Then the licenses. A full Electronic Money Institution approval from Luxembourg in February, UK Financial Conduct Authority permissions in January, and the full MiCA Crypto-Asset Service Provider license on July 6 that opened all 30 countries of the European Economic Area, arriving days after the transition deadline locked unlicensed competitors out of the bloc.
Any one of these, delivered into the 2024 market, would have produced a rally measured in double digits. Delivered into 2026, the entire list produced a chart that goes down and to the right.
The year XRP traded: an autopsy
The price ledger is shorter and harsher. XRP closed 2025 near $1.90 after the July peak at $3.65, rallied to about $2.40 in the new year, then spent 2026 in decline: a sharp February selloff that prompted Standard Chartered to cut its year-end target from $8 to $2.80, a spring of lower highs between $1.28 and $1.50, a June that opened near $1.30 and closed near $1.04, and a July that has been a daily fight to defend the $1 line.
The token trades below every major moving average, with the 20-day near $1.11, the 50-day near $1.20, and the 200-day near $1.52. Relative strength readings in the low 30s mark the deepest oversold territory of the cycle.
Two facts about the decline matter for interpreting it. First, it was market-wide. Bitcoin fell from above $100,000 to below $62,000, briefly touching $58,000. Ethereum, Solana, and BNB fell comparably or worse; total crypto market capitalization shed $2.3 trillion over 8 weeks, and digital assets posted a third consecutive losing quarter, the longest streak since 2022, as institutional capital rotated toward AI equities. Everything outside Bitcoin and Ethereum lost roughly 23% in 6 months. XRP’s beta to that drawdown was high, as it always is, because the token falls harder than Bitcoin when sentiment turns.
Second, and more uncomfortable for the bull case, none of the good news interrupted it. The full MiCA license produced a 3% weekly decline around the preliminary approval and indifference at the final one. The DTCC milestone passed without a candle. The Treasury redemption pilot with JPMorgan, arguably the most institutionally significant event in XRPL history, is invisible on the chart.
The one catalyst the market visibly responds to is legislative: the token jumped 4.5% within an hour of the CLARITY Act clearing committee on May 14, and it sagged when the July 4 signing target slipped, price action crypto.news examined as the delay sank in. The market has, in effect, told everyone what it is waiting for, and it is not another license.
What the forecasters did with the same facts
The professional forecasting record around XRP in 2026 is itself evidence of the disconnect, because analysts looking at identical data have produced the widest dispersion of targets for any large-cap asset.
Standard Chartered entered the year at $8 for 2026 and cut to $2.80 in February after the selloff, a 65% downgrade in a single revision, while explicitly leaving its 2030 target untouched at $28. The bank’s stated logic was that regulatory clarity, institutional involvement, and new investment products justify higher long-term valuations, but near-term price action would remain correlated with the broad crypto market. That is the lag thesis and the beta thesis coexisting in one research note.
Bitwise carries a $4.94 year-end forecast. JPMorgan’s contribution is conditional rather than directional: $4 to $8.4 billion of first-year ETF inflows if the CLARITY Act passes, with no comparable estimate under failure. Algorithmic models cluster far lower, in the $1.70 to $2 band, essentially extrapolating the chart. The professional consensus for year-end sits above $2, which would require a 77% rally from current levels in under 6 months, a move the asset has produced before but only during regime changes in sentiment.
Forecast dispersion this wide is unusual for an asset of this size, and it maps precisely onto the two readings of the disconnect. Analysts weighting the infrastructure see multiples of the current price; models weighting the tape see the current price as fair. When the same inputs produce a $1.70 answer and a $28 answer depending on the discount rate applied to institutional adoption, the market is not confused. It is unpriced, waiting on the one variable, classification, that neither the company nor the chart can supply.
The bear reading: the token and the company are different assets
The uncomfortable thesis deserves its full strength. Ripple’s success and XRP’s value are linked by a mechanism, and the mechanism is thin.
Ripple the company earns revenue from payments, custody, prime brokerage, and stablecoin float. Almost none of that revenue requires the XRP price to be anything in particular. The company’s own announcements make the point unintentionally: the MiCA license release mentions XRP essentially once, in the boilerplate.
Ripple Payments has moved more than $100 billion across 60-plus markets, but most of that volume settles in fiat or RLUSD, and where it does route through the XRP Ledger, the burned fee per transaction is a fraction of a cent. 3 million daily transactions at those rates destroys token supply at a pace measured in rounding errors. The stablecoin strategy, on this reading, actively competes with the bridge-asset story that once justified the token: every corridor that settles in RLUSD is a corridor that does not need XRP volatility risk.
Supply mechanics deepen the skepticism, and they deserve their own accounting. Ripple releases up to 1 billion XRP from escrow every month under a schedule set in 2017, relocking the majority into new escrow contracts while a smaller portion enters circulation through sales and ecosystem distributions. The market has watched this metronome for years, and its psychological weight exceeds its mechanical weight: even in months when net new supply is modest, the release event itself gives traders a recurring reason to expect selling, and expectations of supply function like supply. Set the monthly release against the demand side and the imbalance is stark. The entire ETF complex has absorbed roughly $1.49 billion over 8 months, an average of around $6 million of daily buying, in a token that trades north of $1.4 billion in daily volume.
Institutional flows at that scale can support a floor; they cannot fight a distribution schedule and a bear market simultaneously. The bear case does not need Ripple to fail. It needs only for the demand mechanisms to keep growing slower than the supply mechanisms, which is a fair description of every month of 2026 so far.
There is also the exchange migration to consider from the skeptical side. Tokens leaving exchanges for ETF custody are commonly read as bullish scarcity, but a share of that movement is simply the same speculative holders changing wrappers, retail selling spot that funds buy into trusts, with no net new demand created. The flow data cannot distinguish conviction from repackaging, which is why the bears discount it. The comparison Brad Garlinghouse himself invited when he attacked Michael Saylor’s leverage model cuts both ways, as crypto.news observed: both Strategy and Ripple sit atop enormous token treasuries whose value depends on a market they are simultaneously supplying.
On this view, the 2026 chart is not a mispricing. It is the market correctly concluding that owning XRP is not owning Ripple, that the institutional build-out accrues to Ripple’s private shareholders, and that the token’s fair value is whatever speculative demand plus modest utility demand will bear in a risk-off tape. The disconnect is not a gap waiting to close. It is the honest spread between an equity story and a token story that were never the same story.
The bull reading: infrastructure is demand with a lag
The counterargument does not deny any of that. It argues the causality has a delay measured in years, and that 2026 is the trough of the lag, not the verdict.
Start with the demand channels that did not exist 18 months ago. ETFs holding $1.05 billion sound small against a $69 billion market cap until you note the direction and the constraint: 8 straight weeks of net inflows through the worst quarter since 2022, from a buyer base that is still legally capped. Pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and most insurance portfolios cannot allocate to an unclassified asset at all.
That is precisely the constraint the CLARITY Act removes by making XRP a digital commodity under CFTC oversight, and it is why JPMorgan and Standard Chartered independently project $4 to $8.4 billion in first-year inflows under passage, a 5- to 8-fold expansion of the current ETF base. The bill’s merged draft is due the week of July 13, with floor action targeted a week later. The single largest catalyst in the token’s history has a date range attached to it.
Second, the utility story is finally measurable instead of theoretical. Tokenized assets tripling to $3.5 billion, a functioning institutional redemption pilot with the largest bank in America, a lending protocol approaching validator approval, and RLUSD volume in the tens of billions are all activity that lives on the ledger whose native asset is XRP.
The fee-burn mechanism is tiny per transaction, but the investment case was never fee burn; it is that reserve requirements, liquidity provisioning, and settlement paths on a busy institutional ledger create structural demand for the asset that denominates it. Japan already offers the proof of concept, where SBI’s remittance corridors made the country the one place XRP is used at scale in production, a story crypto.news has documented, and Europe post-MiCA is the first market since Japan where Ripple holds the full regulatory stack to attempt a repeat.
Third, the on-chain footprint of conviction is visible even at the lows. Whale accumulation ran through the spring, with roughly 450 million XRP moving through Binance in a 10-day stretch in March, wallet creation hit a 3-month high near 5,000 per day in late June, and large-holder balances rose while retail sentiment collapsed. Someone with size is treating $1 as a level to buy, and the historical pattern in this asset is that accumulation phases at multi-month lows precede the violent repricings the token is famous for. July, for what it is worth, is historically XRP’s strongest month, averaging around 10% gains, though seasonality in a fear-gripped market deserves limited weight.
The bull synthesis: the company spent 2026 building the pipes, the law that fills them sits 3 weeks from a vote, and the price is a coiled spring compressed by macro conditions that have nothing to do with Ripple. Standard Chartered, even after cutting its 2026 target to $2.80, left its 2030 target at $28, which is the lag thesis expressed as a forecast.
The map of the battlefield at $1
For traders, the disconnect compresses into a few price zones that both camps agree on even while disagreeing about everything else.
Support is a dense band between $1.00 and $1.06, where a thick concentration of historical buying has absorbed every test since late June, including seven separate probes of the $1.04 to $1.06 area. Beneath it, the map goes dark: a decisive daily close below $1 opens territory the token has not traded since 2024, with the next meaningful demand zone estimated between $0.80 and $0.90. The bounce attempts of early July have built a sequence of higher lows above $1.03, and the immediate breakout zone sits at $1.056 to $1.066, where a surge of volume, at one point 1,400% above the hourly average, marked the strongest buying of the month.
Resistance begins where the moving averages live. The 20-day average near $1.11 and the descending channel midline have capped every rally attempt; above that, $1.18 to $1.20 is the zone that separates a technical bounce from a trend change, since it contains the 50-day average and the highs of the last failed breakout. A move through $1.20 would be the first structural repair of the year. The level that matters for the larger argument is further up: analysts broadly treat $1.65 as the line above which the downtrend that began at $3.65 would formally be broken.
The holder structure beneath those levels is where the two theses interact most directly. Exchange balances have been falling as tokens migrate to ETF custodians and cold storage, whale addresses have grown through the decline, and the retail cohort, measured by funding rates and sentiment indexes reading extreme fear, is maximally absent.
That configuration, shrinking liquid supply against a depressed price, is the classic setup for violent moves in both directions: thin order books amplify whatever catalyst arrives. A CLARITY passage into this structure would meet little overhead supply until the mid-$1.20s. A failure into this structure would find equally little bid support below $1. The market has arranged itself for an outsized reaction to a binary event, which is rational, because that is exactly what the calendar is offering.
What would actually settle the argument
Disconnects resolve through evidence, and four specific markers will decide which reading was right.
The CLARITY floor vote before the August 7 recess is the binary. Passage activates the constrained buyer base and converts the classification question from risk to fact; failure removes the identified catalyst and hands the bear thesis another year of confirmation. Nothing else on this list matters as much.
XRPL settlement disclosures are the slow variable. Europe will produce client announcements through the fall; the tell is whether named institutions settle on the ledger or through RLUSD and fiat rails that bypass the token. Every disclosure is a data point for exactly the mechanism the two camps dispute.
ETF flow behavior around the $1 level tests the institutional bid. The first net outflow day arrived on June 30 as the quarter closed. If inflows resume through a flat tape, the allocation story survives the drawdown. If outflows follow the price down, the ETF base was momentum money wearing an institutional costume.
The lending amendment vote tests whether the ledger’s institutional roadmap ships. Validator support has been grinding toward the 80% threshold; activation would open uncollateralized fixed-term credit through Single Asset Vaults, the first XRPL primitive aimed squarely at the institutional DeFi demand the bull case requires.
One more marker sits outside the token entirely: Ripple’s own capital decisions. The company has explored an initial public offering intermittently, and hints have circulated that XRP holders might somehow participate in a listing. Nothing concrete has emerged, and nothing should be assumed, but the scenario clarifies the stakes of the disconnect better than any chart.
If Ripple lists, the market will finally price the company and the token side by side, in public, every trading day. Either the equity valuation validates the institutional story and drags attention back to the ledger that underpins it, or investors will buy the company and continue ignoring the token, at which point the decoupling thesis stops being a thesis and becomes a quote on two screens. The company has every incentive to make the token matter before that comparison goes live.
For holders, the practical takeaway is about position sizing against a calendar, not about conviction in either narrative. The next 26 days contain the merged CLARITY draft, a possible floor vote, the July escrow release, continuing ETF flow data, and the validator vote on the lending amendment. That is an unusual density of resolution for a single month. The disconnect between Ripple’s year and XRP’s year has been stable precisely because nothing forced the two stories to reconcile. The Senate schedule is about to force it.
The widest gap in crypto right now is not between any two tokens. It is between a company having its best year and a token having its worst, wearing the same three letters. Markets close gaps like this one eventually, and they are indifferent about the direction. 26 days of Senate calendar will supply the first, and probably decisive, piece of the answer.
Analysts warned that every major Bitcoin drop in 2026 coincided with Japan’s yen defense, backing the claim with charts that mark each intervention against BTC corrections.
Bitcoin trades near $62,500 as analysts split over whether $50,000 comes next.
Top 3 Bitcoin Corrections That Matched Japan’s Yen Defense in 2026
The yen carry trade involves borrowing the Japanese currency cheaply to invest in higher-yielding assets, including cryptocurrencies. A sharp strengthening forces investors to close those positions.
Popular analyst Crypto Rover published a post overlaying BTC/USDT against the USD/JPY pair. Red circles mark intervention moments, linking them directly to Bitcoin’s declines.
The examples are specific:
- Between late January and mid-February, Bitcoin fell 35.43% alongside a notable move in the currency pair.
- From late April through June 10, the asset corrected by 26.28%, including an intermediate 9.34% drop, again aligned with yen-defense signals.
- The most recent case closed the pattern. Bitcoin faced renewed bearish pressure in late July as the yen approached its 40-year low near 164 per dollar.
Follow us on X to get the latest news as it happens.
Context arrived days later. Both governments officially confirmed a coordinated yen-buying intervention executed last Friday.
The scale was substantial. Japan reportedly spent around $59 billion on recent interventions, according to data from the Bank of Japan. This marks the first joint yen purchase between Tokyo and Washington since 1998, nearly three decades ago.
The bearish case has prominent backers. Another analyst, Ted Pillows, posted on August 2 that $50,000 could materialize if the CLARITY Act fails and the carry trade unwinds.
Ted also flagged a striking figure. The Bank of Japan spent nearly $32 billion during the previous week alone.
Why Some Analysts See the Opposite Outcome
Not every prominent voice shares that pessimism. Michaël van de Poppe called the yen chart the most important one to monitor. Both governments have partnered up to strengthen the currency, changing the calculus for dollar holders.
His argument inverts the logic entirely. If the dollar keeps falling while the yen strengthens, holding dollars carries more risk than it did in the previous period.
That shift would push capital out of government bonds. Liquidity would then flow toward risk assets, with Bitcoin among the primary beneficiaries. Van de Poppe had anticipated this earlier. He wrote that Bitcoin’s bull run would have started if those conditions materialized.
“Monday dump is happening on #Bitcoin. Probably we’ll go slightly lower and then we’ll turn back upwards,” Van de Poppe said on X.
Price context tempers both narratives. Bitcoin slipped below $63,000 in previous sessions and remains nearly 50% below its record high of $126,198, set in October 2025, according to BeInCrypto data.
The debate is now clearly framed. Crypto Rover is bearish, Ted sees a rapid unwind pushing Bitcoin toward $50,000, and Van de Poppe sees the opposite outcome. Orderly yen strengthening paired with a weaker dollar would channel liquidity into Bitcoin instead.
The market stays on alert for now. Bitcoin’s next direction may depend once again on how quickly and how far the yen strengthens.
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The post Is Bitcoin Price Heading to $50,000? Analysts Warn About The Yen Pattern appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Matt Prusak, president and interim chief financial officer of Trump-linked bitcoin miner American Bitcoin (ABTC), is leaving the company to join AI and energy infrastructure developer Giga Energy, marking another senior executive move toward the power sector that is increasingly underpinning both bitcoin mining and artificial intelligence.
Prusak said he will step down from American Bitcoin effective Aug. 4 and join Giga Energy as chief business officer and interim CFO.
He said in emailed comments that after “years building bitcoin businesses,” he was shifting “upstream to the power infrastructure now constraining both mining and AI compute.”
The departure reflects a broader shift as bitcoin miners reposition around AI and power infrastructure. As mining becomes increasingly commoditized and margins come under pressure, a growing number of miners are pivoting toward artificial intelligence infrastructure, repurposing their power, land and data center expertise to serve the surging demand for AI compute.
The shift has accelerated as hyperscalers race to secure electricity and capacity, allowing mining companies to diversify revenue beyond bitcoin production and tap the higher valuations being awarded to AI infrastructure businesses.
Crypto World
California’s diesel prices have jumped since the Iran war started, with ripple effects across the country
California is home to the highest fuel prices in the U.S. as well as the busiest containership port complex in the nation. So as the Iran war enters its sixth month and petroleum-product prices remain elevated, consumers across the U.S. could be hit with higher prices for a host of everyday products.
Nearly one-third of containership imports and exports travel through the San Pedro Bay port complex. In other words, before goods end up on shelves across the nation, they’re first hauled by trucks and trains paying California fuel prices.
Since the war in Iran began, much of the focus has been on oil itself, but experts say petroleum product markets are much tighter — especially when it comes to diesel.
“I think this refining challenge is going to be with the world for a while,” ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods told CNBC on Friday.
“Even after the Strait opens up, we’ll see more products start to flow through the Strait, which is going to be critically important. But we’ve still got the Russia capacity that’s been lost, and we’ll have to see what the Chinese do with respect to exporting,” he added.
The combination of the war in Iran and Ukraine ramping up attacks on Russian refining infrastructure means the world is now short about 8% of global diesel demand, according to Lipow Oil Associates’ Andy Lipow.
Diesel is sometimes known as the workhorse of the American economy since trucks and trains that transport goods across the U.S. are powered by it. The U.S. is the world’s largest energy producer, but California’s fossil fuel industry has shrunk over the years and refiners have closed. The state also doesn’t have major fuel pipelines that connect it to other parts of the U.S., and has strict environmental regulations, all of which drive up prices at the pump.
The average price for a gallon of diesel in the U.S. is $5.36, according to AAA, but in California it’s $6.92, up from $5.10 prior to the war.
“[A] meaningful share of America’s supply chain pays West Coast fuel prices,” JPMorgan analysts led by Natasha Kaneva said in a June note to clients. “These prices influence freight costs, transportation margins, and ultimately the delivered cost of goods nationwide,” the firm added.
Watch the video above to hear more about how California’s fuel prices trickle through the U.S. economy.
— CNBC’s Macklin Fishman contributed reporting.
Hashdex said it will liquidate its eponymous spot-price Bitcoin exchange-traded fund this month, distributing the cash to all remaining shareholders and selling the fund’s roughly 225 BTC holdings.
In a filing on Monday, the fund issuer said the decision was made after evaluating factors including trading liquidity, operating costs and investor interest. The 200,000 shares, which have traded on NYSE ARCA under the DEFI ticker since March 2024, have net assets of $14.25 million, according to the fund’s website.
Late to the game, which saw the first of 10 other competing BTC ETFs debut months ahead of it, analysts saw opportunity at a time when BTC was trading for the then-all-time high of more than $73,000.
“The getting is so good right now I could see this one getting some bites (if the fee is competitive) despite being so late,” said Bloomberg Senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas in a March 27, 2024 post.
Originally launched in 2022 as a Bitcoin futures ETF, Hashdex Bitcoin Futures ETF, its highest asset level was $17.54 million, reached on May 9, 2025, according to data tracker SoSoValue. The next largest ETF among the US-traded BTC issues is WisdomTree Bitcoin Trust (BTCW), with $140.37 million in net assets as of Friday’s market close.
Related: Bitcoin may find bear market bottom in August: 10x Research
When asked why the United States intervened to support the Japanese currency, U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One over the weekend that the U.S. is “always there” for Japan.
“They have a weakening yen, and they wanted a little bit of help,” he said. When questioned over what the U.S. is “getting out of that arrangement,” Trump replied “financial benefit,” but emphasized it’s also “good for the world economy.”
What is behind the fall in the yen?
Japan had already expressed “serious concern” over the yen’s rapid depreciation in March and conducted unilateral intervention between April 28 and May 27.
Despite those efforts, the currency continued to weaken, with the yen sliding to 163.73 per dollar on Thursday before rebounding to 157.57 on Friday.
One reason a stronger yen matters is Japan’s dependence on imported energy. According to the International Energy Agency, Japan remains heavily reliant on imported oil and gas, particularly from the Middle East.
Strategy, the publicly traded Bitcoin holding company formerly known as MicroStrategy and led by chairman Michael Saylor, disclosed another sizable Bitcoin sale in an SEC filing. In the period from July 27 through Sunday, the company sold 1,638 BTC and used the proceeds to support capital-market obligations tied to its preferred stock financing structure.
According to the company’s Monday 8-K filing, the sale totaled $104.7 million at an average price of $63,957. Of that amount, $52.4 million was allocated to dividend payments on its STRC preferred stock, while $52.3 million funded STRC share repurchases.
Key takeaways
- Strategy sold 1,638 Bitcoin from July 27 through Sunday, generating $104.7 million, per an SEC 8-K.
- Dividend funding and STRC buybacks accounted for nearly all sale proceeds, underscoring how Bitcoin liquidity is being used to manage preferred-stock obligations.
- The company says it now holds 842,138 BTC, bought at an aggregate cost of $63.5 billion.
- Strategy also raised $290.6 million through MSTR share sales during the same period, increasing its US dollar reserve to $4 billion as of Sunday.
- STRC trades below its $100 target value—something investors may watch because it can affect the attractiveness and efficiency of future STRC fundraising.
Bitcoin sales feed dividends and STRC repurchases
In the latest disclosure, Strategy characterized the July 27-to-Sunday transaction as one of its larger BTC sales for the year. The company’s filing indicates this was its second-largest Bitcoin sale of 2024.
Crucially, the proceeds were not used for general corporate purposes. Instead, they were split between two items linked to STRC: dividend payments on the preferred stock and STRC repurchases. Together, those allocations amounted to just over $104.7 million, leaving little room for other uses from this tranche.
Strategy’s total Bitcoin balance after the sale stands at 842,138 BTC, with the company reporting an aggregate acquisition cost of $63.5 billion.
How this compares with earlier reported BTC sales
The latest sale follows other previously disclosed events that frame Strategy’s approach to managing its capital structure.
Earlier coverage noted that Strategy sold 3,588 BTC for about $216 million on July 6. The company also disclosed that it sold 32 Bitcoin in early June—its first reported BTC sale since a 2022 tax-loss transaction.
While each sale reduces the company’s Bitcoin exposure, the repeated pattern of tying sale proceeds to STRC-related obligations suggests Strategy is treating Bitcoin liquidity as part of a broader financing and cash-management playbook rather than treating every sale as an isolated departure from its prior accumulation stance.
Cash buffer grows as USD reserve rises to $4 billion
Alongside the BTC sale disclosure, Strategy reported raising additional funds through MSTR share sales during the same period. According to the 8-K, it raised $290.6 million, with multiple allocations.
The filing states that $250 million of the MSTR proceeds was used to increase Strategy’s US dollar reserve, which stood at $4 billion as of Sunday. It also reports that $28.9 million funded STRC repurchases and $11.7 million was added to the company’s cash balance.
In a post on X on Monday, Michael Saylor said Strategy repurchased $81.2 million worth of STRC stock and extended its US dollar “runway” by 57 days to 2.3 years.
STRC trading below target and what that may imply
Strategy’s financing mechanism includes its perpetual preferred stock, STRC. Market data cited in the report suggests STRC was trading at $89.40 during Monday’s pre-market session, or about 10.6% below its $100 target value, according to Yahoo Finance data.
In the same period, the company’s common stock—MSTR—was indicated to have declined roughly 0.9% in pre-market trading, based on Yahoo Finance data referenced in the article.
Trading below STRC’s intended par has potential consequences for Strategy’s capital strategy. If STRC remains below target value, investors may view future fundraising through STRC sales as less efficient for Strategy—because selling preferred stock at a discount typically brings in fewer dollars per unit sold relative to the target. That, in turn, can increase the importance of the company’s dividend policy to attract buyers and provide support to STRC pricing.
Earlier comments from CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju had urged Strategy to pause Bitcoin purchases and replenish cash reserves after dividend coverage deteriorated. In a June 24 X post, Ju said the company should “pause Bitcoin purchases, rebuild cash reserves, and adopt a systematic framework for purchase timing.” Earlier reporting in the same context noted that dividend coverage had fallen to 14 months from seven years.
Strategy has previously responded to these concerns by laying out a framework for capital allocation. A June 29 8-K filing described a capital framework allowing Bitcoin sales to fund dividends, raised the annual dividend rate on STRC preferred stock to 12%, and disclosed that the US dollar reserve had grown to $2.55 billion.
What investors should watch next is whether the new $4 billion USD reserve and the disclosed approach—using Bitcoin sales to service STRC dividends and repurchases—continues alongside STRC trading conditions, particularly how far STRC remains below target and whether Strategy’s dividend and preferred-stock buyback activity accelerates or slows in subsequent filings.
Hashdex will close and liquidate its US-listed Bitcoin ETF, DEFI, after the fund struggled to attract enough assets and trading activity to remain viable.
Summary
- DEFI held approximately $14.7 million in assets as of July 30.
- The fund’s final trading day is Aug. 17, followed by its NYSE Arca delisting.
- Remaining shareholders should receive a cash liquidation payment around Aug. 28.
- Hashdex’s separate $206.8 million NCIQ crypto index ETF remains active.
DEFI will stop trading on Aug. 17
According to a WSJ report, asset management company Hashdex said the Hashdex Bitcoin ETF, which trades on NYSE Arca under the DEFI ticker, will stop trading after the market closes on Aug. 17. The company will then begin liquidating the fund’s assets and delist its shares.
The fund will also stop accepting creation orders from authorized participants after that date. Investors can continue buying and selling shares through their brokers until the final trading session, although market prices may differ from the fund’s net asset value as the closure approaches.
Hashdex attributed the decision to several factors, including the fund’s asset base, trading liquidity, operating expenses and investor demand. DEFI managed about $14.7 million as of July 30, placing it among the smaller US spot Bitcoin products.
The fund’s website listed a net asset value of $71.32 per share and a closing price of $71.15 as of July 31. DEFI normally invests at least 95% of its assets in spot Bitcoin, with the remainder available for cash, cash equivalents, and CME-listed Bitcoin futures.
Shareholders will receive cash after liquidation
Investors who continue holding DEFI shares after the final trading day will not receive Bitcoin. Instead, the fund will sell its holdings and distribute the remaining proceeds in cash after deducting its liabilities and liquidation costs.
Hashdex expects to make the distribution around Aug. 28. The amount shareholders receive will depend partly on Bitcoin’s price while the portfolio is being liquidated, meaning the final payment may differ from DEFI’s net asset value before trading ends.
The liquidation could also create tax consequences for US investors. A cash distribution may be treated as a taxable disposal, depending on the shareholder’s cost basis, account type and individual circumstances.
Investors who sell their shares before Aug. 17 will receive the prevailing market price rather than the final liquidation value. Trading volume and the spread between bid and ask prices could become more important as the fund approaches delisting.
Hashdex faced heavy competition from larger Bitcoin ETFs
DEFI entered the US spot Bitcoin ETF market through a conversion of an existing futures-based product. The fund began holding spot Bitcoin in March 2024, more than two months after the SEC approved the first wave of spot Bitcoin ETFs in January.
That timing placed DEFI behind larger competitors that had already accumulated substantial assets and trading volume. Its relatively small asset base made it harder to compete on liquidity, despite charging a 0.25% expense ratio.
The closure does not signal Hashdex’s exit from the US crypto ETF market. Its separate Hashdex Nasdaq CME Crypto Index ETF, trading under NCIQ, held about $206.82 million in net assets as of July 31.
NCIQ currently provides market-cap-weighted exposure to Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Solana, Cardano, Chainlink, Stellar and Bitcoin Cash. Bitcoin represented 78% of its portfolio as of July 27, while Ethereum accounted for 12.2%.
Hashdex also reduced NCIQ’s annual management fee from 0.50% to 0.25% in March. The fund was renamed from the Hashdex Nasdaq Crypto Index US ETF in January but retained its existing ticker.
DEFI investors face three remaining dates
DEFI shareholders now face a short liquidation timeline. Aug. 17 will be the final day to sell shares on NYSE Arca and the cutoff for new creation orders. Hashdex will then unwind the portfolio before making the expected cash payment around Aug. 28.
Bitcoin price changes during that period will affect the fund’s remaining assets and, in turn, its final distribution. Investors who retain their shares through liquidation should also expect the position to disappear from their brokerage accounts once the cash payment is processed.
The closure applies only to DEFI and does not affect NCIQ or Hashdex’s other crypto investment products.
South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb said Monday it plans to apply for a preliminary listing review in 2027 and complete an initial public offering in 2028.
Bithumb said it has reorganized its business structure, including spinning off Bithumb Asset, to clarify responsibilities across its business units and reduce potential conflicts of interest ahead of the listing review.
The exchange said its preparations will include upgrading internal controls and shifting from domestic accounting standards to K-IFRS, the international accounting framework used by listed companies in South Korea.
Bithumb said the timetable could change depending on market conditions and the review schedules of relevant authorities.
The exchange is one of five South Korean platforms that support fiat currency trading through real-name bank accounts, offered through its partnership with KB Kookmin Bank.
Bithumb’s listing push comes as rival South Korean exchanges deepen their ties with traditional finance and technology groups. Mirae Asset Consulting took control of rival exchange Korbit on July 23, while Upbit operator Dunamu is pursuing a share-swap deal that would make it a wholly owned subsidiary of Naver Financial, subject to regulatory and shareholder approval.
Related: Kiwoom eyes Bithumb stake as Korean brokerages push into crypto: Report
Bithumb’s 620,000 BTC crediting error
In a February promotional error, Bithumb mistakenly credited customer accounts with balances totaling 620,000 Bitcoin instead of distributing 620,000 Korean won in cash rewards. Bithumb recovered 99.7% of the erroneous credits, though customers sold about 1,788 BTC before accounts were frozen.
At a Feb. 11 National Assembly parliamentary hearing, Bithumb CEO Lee Jae-won said the exchange’s process for checking the planned distribution against its actual holdings had failed and that the promotional amount had not been earmarked in a separate account.
Its IPO preparations also come as two Bithumb-linked listed companies face continuing audit and listing problems. Vidente, a major Bithumb shareholder, and Bucket Studio, which indirectly controls Vidente, have had trading in their shares suspended since March 2023 over audit and other listing issues.
According to Yonhap news agency, Bucket Studio appointed a former police official as its standing auditor in June, while Vidente plans to appoint a former National Tax Service official to the same role. South Korea’s Government Public Service Ethics Committee cleared both hires after finding no close relationship between the officials’ previous duties and their new roles.
Magazine: The 100x obsession: Fundamentals grow in importance as crypto matures
Bitmine Immersion Technologies added 10,399 ETH to its treasury and repurchased another 4.5 million shares, but BMNR stock fell toward $17 as investors weighed its mounting unrealized losses.
Summary
- Bitmine acquired 10,399 ETH, lifting its holdings to 5,797,813 ETH.
- The company now controls about 4.8% of Ethereum’s total supply.
- Bitmine repurchased 4.5 million BMNR shares during its third consecutive week of buybacks.
- BMNR traded near $17.06, with technical indicators showing weak trend strength.
Bitmine’s Ethereum holdings approach 5.8 million ETH
Bitmine said it acquired another 10,399 ETH over the past week, continuing the accumulation strategy it adopted last year. The purchase increased its total holdings to 5,797,813 ETH, equivalent to approximately 4.8% of Ethereum’s circulating supply.
The latest purchase followed Bitmine’s acquisition of 9,946 ETH during the previous week. Together, the transactions added more than 20,000 ETH to the company’s treasury within two weeks.
Chairman Tom Lee linked the continued accumulation to Ethereum’s recent performance against US technology stocks. He said ETH outperformed the Nasdaq 100 by 25% during July, its widest margin since July 2025.
“This is the largest outperformance since July 2025, and we believe it is reflective of the strengthening fundamentals of crypto.”
Lee noted that ETH climbed from $2,375 in July 2025 to $4,057 by the end of the following month. However, past performance does not guarantee that Ethereum or BMNR will repeat that move.
Bitmine has maintained its accumulation strategy despite the broader crypto downturn and the paper losses attached to its holdings. DropsTab estimates that the company has an unrealized loss of approximately $8.8 billion on its Ethereum position.
Staked ETH could generate $247 million annually
Bitmine has also placed most of its Ethereum treasury into staking. The company reported 4,917,189 ETH staked, representing nearly 85% of its total holdings.
At the stated valuation, the staked position is worth about $9.2 billion. Bitmine projects that it could generate approximately $247 million in annualized staking revenue.
Staking provides the company with ETH-denominated income while it holds the asset on its balance sheet. However, that revenue may fluctuate with Ethereum’s staking yield, validator performance and the market value of ETH.
The strategy also means BMNR investors are exposed to several overlapping risks. These include Ethereum price volatility, the company’s cost basis, dilution from capital raises and operational risks associated with staking such a large position.
For US investors, BMNR offers equity-market exposure to Ethereum without requiring direct token custody. Unlike a spot Ethereum exchange-traded fund, however, the stock also carries corporate management, financing and capital-allocation risks.
BMNR buyback enters its third consecutive week
Bitmine repurchased 4.5 million common shares during the past week, marking the third straight week of purchases under its buyback program.
The company has now bought back more than 16 million shares. Management said it considers BMNR attractively valued relative to its assets and long-term Ethereum strategy.
Share repurchases reduce the number of outstanding shares when they are retired, potentially increasing each remaining shareholder’s proportional claim on the company. Their impact depends on the price paid, the source of the funds, and whether new stock issuance offsets the reduction.
Lee argued that periods of strong monthly ETH performance against the Invesco QQQ Trust have historically been followed by BMNR outperforming Ethereum during the next month. That relationship remains a company observation rather than a guarantee of future returns.
The buyback may provide some support for BMNR, but investors have yet to respond positively to the latest Ethereum purchase and repurchase announcement.
BMNR stock struggles with resistance near $17.15
BMNR traded near $17.06 on Aug. 3, falling about 1.3% on the daily chart. The stock recorded an intraday high of $17.23 and a low of $16.63.
BMNR price is testing the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement at $17.15, which is acting as the immediate resistance level. A daily close above that mark could allow BMNR to challenge $18.49, corresponding to the 50% retracement level.
The next resistance sits at $19.82. A stronger recovery beyond that level could bring $21.48 into focus, although the stock would need greater momentum and trading volume to sustain such a move.
BMNR remains above an ascending trendline drawn from its June low near $12.81. That structure suggests the short-term recovery has not failed, but the stock has struggled to build momentum above $17.
Aroon readings of 64.29% and 21.43% favor the recent recovery attempt. However, the average directional index stands at 18.04, below the commonly watched 20 threshold, indicating that the prevailing trend remains weak.
A rejection at $17.15 could send BMNR back toward the rising trendline around $16. Stronger support sits at the 78.6% Fibonacci level of $15.24. A decisive break below that area would weaken the recovery structure and increase the risk of another test of $12.81.
Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials featured on this page are for educational purposes only.
Bitcoin begins the first full week of August trading around the $63,000 area as traders look past a difficult macro calendar and focus on a fresh, ongoing catalyst from within the crypto ecosystem. Sentiment is being tested by the fallout from a Coldcard wallet hack, while broader markets await key US data and geopolitical signals that can swing risk assets.
At the same time, investors are weighing whether August will follow the bearish script that has marked prior cycles. Even with July ending higher, analysts point to technical resistance and liquidation zones that could amplify downside if momentum fades.
Key takeaways
- Bitcoin is hovering near $63,000 as traders digest the continuing Coldcard hardware wallet incident and its effects on flows.
- Crypto market participants say US nonfarm payrolls—due Thursday—may drive volatility depending on how labor strength and unemployment evolve.
- Oil prices slid after President Donald Trump signaled potential movement on an Iran-related deal, adding to macro uncertainty for risk assets.
- Long-term holder behavior appears consistent with accumulation, even as near-term traders warn that resistance could keep August pressured.
- CoinGlass and other technical observers highlight the 50-month EMA around $65,827 as a key barrier, while derivatives positioning points to liquidation risk near $64,200.
Why Treasury and FX policy still matters to crypto
The week’s macro backdrop is shaped not only by upcoming US economic releases, but also by renewed attention to how dollar liquidity and Treasury market stress can spill into global financial conditions. According to QCP Capital, the US and Japan executed a rare coordinated foreign-exchange intervention last week, designed to support the yen after it neared levels around 164 per USD, based on TradingView data.
QCP Capital emphasized that the operation’s mechanics matter: the New York Fed acted as a fiscal agent using the Federal Reserve’s Foreign and International Monetary Authorities (FIMA) repo facility, rather than reflecting a Federal Reserve monetary-policy decision. In QCP’s view, that distinction highlights how institutions outside the FOMC can still move liquidity and influence broader conditions.
Further, industry commentary cited a desire to reduce the risk of Japan selling large quantities of US Treasuries, which could otherwise disrupt the dollar environment. Louise Loo of Oxford Economics told CNBC that volatile conditions tied to potentially fiscally aggressive policies in Japan could extend into US Treasury markets, destabilizing the dollar.
In a post on X, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also argued the FIMA facility could be used again, describing it as an “important backstop” and encouraging that it be “upsized” in coming months. For crypto traders, the practical takeaway is that interventions affecting FX and Treasury-market liquidity can quickly shift risk appetite—often before any direct crypto-specific news lands.
US payrolls, oil, and the Iran signal: the risk-asset checklist
For digital-asset markets, the next major swing factor is Thursday’s nonfarm payrolls release. Earlier in this cycle, weaker-than-expected labor numbers put pressure on expectations for how aggressively the Federal Reserve might move on rates, a dynamic that coincided with a reaction in Bitcoin when June payroll data came in well below forecasts, as Cointelegraph previously reported.
Market positioning for Thursday remains mixed. Continuum Economics, for example, expects July nonfarm payrolls to rise by 120k overall (and 110k in the private sector), while also projecting unemployment will edge up to 4.3% from 4.2%. The firm’s forecast also notes average hourly earnings rising by 0.3% in line with its trend, according to its published preview.
Beyond labor data, traders are monitoring signals related to US-Iran de-escalation. On Sunday, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that he had agreed to cancel further strikes on Iranian territory “subject to being able to rapidly make a DEAL,” adding language about potential opening of the Strait of Hormuz and an end to Iran’s nuclear threat. Oil responded quickly, with both WTI and Brent down by more than 8% on Monday.
For crypto markets, the relevance of oil is straightforward: sustained moves in energy prices often feed into inflation expectations and, by extension, interest-rate expectations. When the path of rates is uncertain, risk assets—including Bitcoin—tend to trade with sharper sensitivity to macro surprises.
Coldcard hack: exchange inflows rise, but not in an outsized way
On the crypto side, one of the most immediate concerns remains the Coldcard wallet hack. Earlier coverage cited a “low-entropy bug” in Coldcard hardware wallets, with theft activity continuing for multiple days. Galaxy Research’s Alex Thorn advised Coldcard users to move funds “ASAP” and suggested using higher transaction fees to reduce the time spent interacting with the wallets.
Yet exchange flow data suggests the reaction is not turning into a broad, panic-driven transfer into trading venues. According to CryptoQuant, net exchange inflows were 34,932 BTC on Friday and 8,768 BTC on Sunday. CryptoQuant’s data framing indicates the inflow volume, while meaningful on certain days, aligns with typical levels seen during the month rather than representing a one-off liquidation wave.
What did change more noticeably was the number of inbound transactions. CryptoQuant data shows exchanges received 31,217 inbound BTC transactions on Friday, dropping to 19,537 on Sunday. CryptoQuant head of research Julio Moreno attributed the influx mainly to transactions between 1 and 10 BTC, which he said had their highest daily total since early February.
Separately, CryptoQuant reported that on a rolling 30-day basis Bitcoin long-term holders remain in a broad accumulation phase. In its analysis, the BTC LTH Accumulation & Distribution indicator showed LTH supply inflow around 220.4K BTC, implying ongoing inflow into long-term holdings outweighs distribution back to the market.
That combination—exchange activity rising in transaction count, but long-term holders still accumulating—suggests the market is processing the incident through behavior that is more nuanced than a simple rush to sell.
August caution: resistance levels and leverage-built downside
Even as Bitcoin finished July about 7.4% higher, traders are preparing for a difficult August. CoinGlass data shows monthly performance for BTC/USD came in slightly below its 2025 result, but the broader narrative remains that downside pressure can return during August, consistent with patterns some analysts associate with prior midterm-era behavior.
Rekt Capital pointed to the 50-month exponential moving average as an ongoing ceiling, stating on X that the 50-month EMA continues to act as resistance. That level is near $65,827, and the expectation is that repeated rejections could set up further downside continuation.
Derivatives positioning adds another layer of near-term risk. CoinGlass data tracking clusters of high-leverage BTC bets highlighted $64,200 as a potential area where forced liquidations could occur if price moves higher against leveraged positions.
On the other end of the spectrum, quant analyst David Eng described Bitcoin as “sitting on its long-term statistical floor” around $63,000, referencing a power law framework that expects price to grow as a power of time. While such models do not guarantee short-term price direction, they help explain why some participants remain willing to accumulate near specific long-horizon reference points.
With long-term holders accumulating quietly while near-term technicals and leverage maps warn of friction, the next macro prints and any follow-through from the Coldcard incident will likely determine whether August breaks from prior weakness—or extends it.
Traders should watch Thursday’s nonfarm payrolls for cues on rates and risk appetite, while also tracking whether Coldcard-related wallet activity continues to translate into exchange selling or stays contained to transaction-level spikes; the answer could shape how quickly Bitcoin sheds or absorbs this month’s technical pressure.
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