Crypto World
Robinhood bought a license. Kalshi had built a business
For a year Robinhood was Kalshi’s largest distributor. Then it bought a CFTC-licensed exchange off the shelf, put Susquehanna behind the order book, and began routing its own flow to itself. The World Cup was the proving ground, the migration is under way, and the lesson is the one every platform eventually teaches its suppliers: the license was never the moat.
Summary
- Robinhood and Susquehanna International Group acquired MIAXdx, the CFTC-licensed exchange and clearinghouse formerly known as LedgerX, and rebranded it Rothera, giving the brokerage its own regulated venue for event contracts.
- The migration began quietly: economic-data and baseball contracts in a late-May soft launch, then World Cup markets self-certified on May 27 and live for the tournament’s June 11 opening.
- The routing is deliberately split, with core high-volume markets such as match outcomes, tournament winner, and totals moving to Rothera while player props and parlay-style contracts still route to Kalshi, and the chief financial officer has said most flow is expected to migrate over time.
- The scale behind the shift is the story: Robinhood has processed more than 16 billion event contracts this year against 12 billion in all of 2025, and its event-contract revenue reached $147 million in a single quarter, exceeding its crypto business.
- Two days ago the strategy clarified again: reports place Robinhood in talks with Crypto.com to add that company’s contracts as well, indicating the goal is not one exchange but a shelf of them, with Robinhood owning the customer.
There is a sequence that plays out in every platform business, and the companies on the wrong end of it almost never see it coming, because the early years feel like partnership. A distributor takes a supplier’s product to its customers. The product succeeds. The distributor learns the economics, the operational requirements, and above all the size of the margin flowing past it to someone else. Then the distributor builds or buys the supplier’s function and keeps the margin. Amazon ran it on the merchants who taught it which products sold. Netflix ran it on the studios whose licensing bills it was paying. And this year Robinhood ran it on Kalshi, the prediction-market exchange it spent a year introducing to a hundred million retail accounts. The vehicle is Rothera, a CFTC-licensed derivatives exchange and clearinghouse that Robinhood and Susquehanna International Group acquired and rebranded, and the migration is already visible in the tape: the World Cup’s core markets routed to Rothera in June, the chief financial officer says most flow follows, and analysts report Robinhood customers now account for a shrinking share of Kalshi’s volume. This piece is the anatomy of that sequence, what it says about where value actually sits in prediction markets, and why the newest development, Robinhood reportedly negotiating to add a third party’s contracts alongside its own, is the most revealing detail of all.
What Rothera is, and what it cost to become one
The first fact worth internalizing is how ordinary the hard part turned out to be.
Rothera was not built. It was purchased: MIAXdx, previously known as LedgerX, a derivatives exchange and clearinghouse that already held Commodity Futures Trading Commission registration, acquired in a majority stake by Robinhood alongside Susquehanna International Group and renamed. That single sentence contains the entire strategic insight of this story. The regulated status that Kalshi spent years and a federal lawsuit securing, the designated contract market license and the clearing infrastructure that constitute the legal right to list event contracts in the United States, was available for purchase from an existing holder. Licenses are assets. Assets have prices. And a company with Robinhood’s balance sheet can buy in one transaction what a startup treats as its defining achievement.
The complementary piece was liquidity, and Susquehanna supplied it. One of the world’s largest quantitative trading and market-making firms serves as Rothera’s day-one liquidity provider, with both Susquehanna and Robinhood holding advisory-board seats. New exchanges usually fail at exactly this point, because thin books produce bad fills, bad fills drive traders away, and the absence of traders keeps the books thin. Starting with a top-tier market maker committed to the venue removes the failure mode that kills most new exchanges before their first quarter closes.
So the assembled package is license plus clearing plus institutional liquidity plus, critically, a customer base that already exists inside an app those customers open every day. Rothera’s contracts are also expected to carry lower fees for Robinhood users than third-party alternatives, which is the natural consequence of removing an intermediary’s margin from the chain. Everything a prediction-market exchange needs, in other words, except the years.
The migration, contract by contract
The rollout has been methodical enough to read as a case study, and the sequencing shows a company managing risk, not making a statement.
The first step was the quiet one: Rothera self-certified a baseball outcome event contract in mid-May with an intended listing date on or after May 20, and Robinhood began routing select Major League Baseball and economic-data contracts through it in a late-May soft launch. Small markets, unglamorous categories, minimal customer visibility, exactly where a platform tests new plumbing.
The second step was the World Cup, and the choice of venue was not incidental. Rothera’s tournament contracts were self-certified on May 27, and when the competition opened on June 11 across the United States, Canada, and Mexico, Robinhood routed the core markets, individual match outcomes, tournament winner, spreads, and totals, through its own exchange. A hundred and four matches over a month, with the largest event-contract volumes of the year attached to them, is the most demanding load test available, and Robinhood ran it on the venue it owns.
The third step is the one still under way, and its shape is the most informative part. Robinhood did not cut Kalshi off. Player-specific contracts, parlay-style combinations, and complex tournament props continued to route to Kalshi, with the company saying routing decisions depend on liquidity and resolution clarity per contract type. That is the textbook profile of a migration, not a rupture: keep the partner supplying the long tail that is expensive to build while taking the high-volume core that generates the revenue. Chief Financial Officer Shiv Verma has said publicly that most prediction-market flow is expected to migrate to Rothera over time, which converts the split from an operational nuance into an announced trajectory.
The numbers that made it inevitable
Understanding why Robinhood did this requires only the scale of what it was routing elsewhere.
Robinhood has processed more than 16 billion event contracts this year, against more than 12 billion across all of 2025, growth that made prediction markets one of the company’s fastest-expanding segments. The revenue line tells the same story from the other end: event contracts produced $147 million in a single quarter, exceeding the company’s cryptocurrency transaction revenue in the same period, an internal flippening this publication covered in its earnings analysis. A business generating that much revenue while paying an external exchange for the venue function is, from the platform’s perspective, a margin leak with a countdown attached, and the countdown ends whenever acquiring a license becomes cheaper than continuing to rent one.
Kalshi’s exposure is the mirror image. The exchange grew explosively on the strength of exactly this distribution, with Robinhood’s hundred-million-account retail machine supplying a large tributary of the volume that took Kalshi to roughly $31.5 billion in a single month and a $22 billion valuation. Analysts now report that Robinhood customers represent a shrinking share of that volume, and Kalshi’s own chief executive named Robinhood as one of its largest competitors in June, roughly a year after naming it a partner. Kalshi’s response has been to build directly toward its own users, launching a professional-tier product and expanding into perpetual-style contracts, which is the correct strategic answer, and also an expensive one for a company that until recently had distribution handled.
The asymmetry underneath is worth stating plainly, because it generalizes past this pair. An exchange’s assets are its license, its clearing infrastructure, its liquidity, and its distribution. Three of those four can be bought. The fourth, a customer base that opens your application every day, is the one that takes a decade and a brand, and it is the one Robinhood already had.
The Crypto.com signal: a shelf, not a store
Then, two days ago, the strategy revealed a further layer, and it changes what the whole exercise means.
Reports place Robinhood in talks with Crypto.com to offer that company’s prediction-market contracts inside the Robinhood application, alongside contracts already sourced from Kalshi, Interactive Brokers’ ForecastEx, and Rothera. A company that had just built its own exchange negotiating to carry a competitor’s products looks contradictory only if the goal was to own an exchange. It is entirely coherent if the goal is to own the shelf. Robinhood’s stated position is that it intends to work with multiple exchanges to give customers a broad and resilient marketplace, and read against the Rothera migration, that sentence describes a specific architecture: the platform routes each contract type to whichever venue offers the best economics or the deepest book, including its own, and captures the customer relationship regardless of where any individual trade clears.
That is a materially stronger position than vertical integration alone, and it maps onto the pattern our cluster coverage has been tracing from the other direction. The exchange operators bought their way toward the probability-data layer on the theory that owning the odds beats operating the casino. Robinhood is executing the third possibility neither of them centered: own the customer, and let the venues compete for the flow. In retail brokerage this is simply order routing, a business Robinhood understands intimately and has been litigated over before, and applying it to event contracts turns exchanges into interchangeable suppliers bidding for access to a distribution point they cannot replicate.
Which reframes the competitive question the whole sector is asking. The prediction-market war has been narrated as Kalshi versus Polymarket, regulated versus crypto-native, with a legislative overhang above both. The Rothera sequence suggests a different axis entirely: the venues are competing for volume that a small number of retail distributors control, and those distributors have every incentive to commoditize them. Kalshi’s $22 billion valuation prices continued category leadership. Robinhood’s build prices the possibility that leadership among venues is worth less than ownership of the front door.
The conflict nobody has priced yet
There is a structural problem inside this architecture that the competitive story tends to skip, and it is the one most likely to attract official attention: Robinhood now decides where its customers’ orders go, and it owns one of the destinations.
The company frames routing as an operational judgment based on liquidity and resolution clarity per contract type, which is a reasonable description of how any multi-venue router should work. It is also, precisely, a description of discretion exercised by a party with a financial interest in one outcome. When Robinhood routes a World Cup match contract to Rothera instead of Kalshi, the economics of that decision accrue to Robinhood twice, once as the distributor and once as part-owner of the venue and its clearing, and the customer has no visibility into the comparison that produced the choice. This is not a novel problem. It is the same structure that made payment for order flow the most litigated question in retail brokerage, produced a nine-figure settlement for this same company over disclosure of its routing economics, and remains a standing item on the regulatory agenda for equities and options. Applying the model to a newer product category does not make the question newer.
The mitigating facts are real and worth stating. Event contracts are not equities, best-execution obligations in derivatives markets work differently, and Rothera is a CFTC-regulated designated contract market with a clearinghouse, subject to that agency’s oversight instead of operating in a gray zone. Lower fees for Robinhood users, if they materialize as expected, are a genuine customer benefit that a vertically integrated venue can deliver and an arm’s-length partner cannot. A regulator examining the arrangement would find a licensed exchange, a licensed broker, disclosed common ownership, and a market maker with a public role, which is a considerably cleaner picture than the offshore venues occupying much of this category.
But the incentive asymmetry does not disappear because the entities are licensed, and the category’s regulatory environment makes scrutiny likelier and not less likely. Event contracts already face a bill that would ban sports markets outright, active litigation from a dozen state gaming regulators, and a congressional oversight probe into platform surveillance practices, all of which this publication’s cluster coverage has mapped. A retail platform routing customer orders to its own exchange, in a product category legislators are already inclined to treat as gambling, is a headline waiting for its hearing. The most valuable thing Robinhood could do about it is the thing platforms almost never do voluntarily: publish routing statistics per venue, per contract type, with the fee differential attached. Its absence will be noticed eventually, and the notice will come from somewhere less friendly than a competitor.
What to watch
Kalshi’s volume composition. The single decisive number: what share of Kalshi’s monthly volume originates from Robinhood accounts, and how fast it declines. Kalshi does not break this out, but its total volumes against Robinhood’s contract counts allow a serviceable estimate, and a sharp divergence between the two series would confirm the migration is more than tactical.
Whether the Crypto.com deal closes. Reports note there is no guarantee of an agreement. A signed deal confirms the shelf strategy explicitly; its collapse would suggest Robinhood prefers vertical integration after all, which is a meaningfully different future for every exchange in the category.
Rothera’s fee schedule. Lower fees for Robinhood users were the expected consequence of removing an intermediary. Whether the savings reach customers or stay with the platform is both a competitive variable and, given the company’s history with order-routing economics, a likely subject of eventual regulatory attention.
November’s routing. The midterm elections will produce the category’s largest political volumes ever, and where Robinhood routes those specific contracts, to its own venue, to Kalshi, or split, will be the clearest available statement of how far the migration has progressed under maximum load and maximum scrutiny.
One historical note completes the picture. LedgerX, the entity now trading as Rothera, was itself a landmark: the first federally regulated venue for physically settled crypto derivatives, later absorbed into a bankruptcy estate and sold, then sold again. Its license has now outlived two owners and two business models, and it arrives at its third life as the instrument through which a retail brokerage disintermediates the exchange that taught it the category. That is a fair emblem for where prediction markets sit in 2026: the regulatory permission that once looked like the industry’s scarcest asset has become a durable, transferable good, changing hands between owners with entirely different plans for it, while the genuinely scarce thing, an audience that shows up daily, was never for sale at any price.
Disclaimer: This article is for information and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. It describes commercial arrangements and reported negotiations that may change or fail to conclude, and figures reflect company statements and third-party reporting available at the time of writing. Nothing here is a recommendation regarding any company or contract. Always do your own research. Information is accurate as of July 26, 2026.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Rothera?
A CFTC-licensed derivatives exchange and clearinghouse majority-owned by Robinhood and Susquehanna International Group. It was formerly MIAXdx, and before that LedgerX, and was acquired and rebranded instead of built from scratch, giving Robinhood its own regulated venue for listing and clearing event contracts. Susquehanna serves as its day-one liquidity provider, and both firms hold advisory-board seats.
Is Robinhood leaving Kalshi?
Not entirely, and the split is deliberate. Core high-volume markets such as World Cup match outcomes, tournament winner, and totals moved to Rothera, while player-specific contracts, parlays, and complex props continued routing to Kalshi. Robinhood says routing depends on liquidity and resolution clarity per contract type, and its chief financial officer has said most flow is expected to migrate to Rothera over time.
Why does this matter for Kalshi?
Because Robinhood supplied a substantial share of the retail volume behind Kalshi’s growth to roughly $31.5 billion in monthly volume and a $22 billion valuation, and analysts report that share is now shrinking. Kalshi has responded by building toward its own users with a professional-tier product and perpetual-style contracts, and its chief executive named Robinhood among its largest competitors in June.
How big is Robinhood’s prediction-market business?
Large and growing fast: more than 16 billion event contracts processed this year against more than 12 billion in all of 2025, with event-contract revenue reaching $147 million in a single quarter, exceeding the company’s cryptocurrency transaction revenue in that period. That scale is what made owning the venue function economically compelling.
Why is Robinhood talking to Crypto.com if it has its own exchange?
Because the objective appears to be owning the distribution shelf rather than a single venue. Robinhood already sources contracts from Kalshi, ForecastEx, and Rothera, and adding Crypto.com would extend a multi-venue model in which the platform routes each contract type to the best available venue, including its own, while retaining the customer relationship regardless of where trades clear.
Was the CFTC license hard to get?
Harder to earn than to buy, which is the point. Kalshi secured its regulated status through years of process and litigation, but Robinhood obtained equivalent standing by acquiring a company that already held it. Licenses are transferable assets, so regulatory status functions as a purchasable input rather than a durable competitive moat.
What does this mean for prediction-market competition overall?
It suggests the decisive contest may be for distribution rather than for venue leadership. If a small number of retail platforms control most order flow and can source contracts from multiple exchanges, venues become interchangeable suppliers competing on fees and liquidity, which compresses their economics regardless of how large the category grows.
What should observers watch next?
Kalshi’s volume trajectory relative to Robinhood’s contract counts, whether the Crypto.com agreement is signed, Rothera’s fee schedule and whether savings reach customers, and where Robinhood routes November’s election contracts, the largest political volumes the category has ever handled. This is educational analysis, not investment advice.
Bitcoin has come under pressure since the U.S. stock market closed Monday, with South Korea’s Kospi leading Asian equities lower and providing risk-off cues to the cryptocurrency market.
BTC has fallen to $63,200 from nearly $65,000, a 2.7% decline that has spilled over into the broader crypto market and dragged down the likes of ether (ETH), XRP (XRP), solana (SOL), and others. The drop ends the brief resilience the market showed earlier Monday as shares in NVDA tanked on Wall Street.
The Senate has shelved the CLARITY Act to prioritize a Russia sanctions bill, making a vote on the much-awaited legislation, touted to deliver regulatory clarity and unlock massive institutional buying for digital assets, unlikely before next week. This leaves only the final days before the Aug. 8 recess.
Asian stocks cracked sharply, with South Korea’s Kospi index falling 10% to its lowest level since mid-April. The index has now dropped 25% from its mid-June peak. The latest decline featured steep losses in heavyweights such as Samsung and SK Hynix. “The market is falling out of love with chipmakers at the moment and that’s been a big driver of the bull market in South Korea,” InvestingLive wrote.
Bitcoin’s Monday rally that drove it to $65,600 on a couple of occasions has come to a screeching halt, as the asset has not only erased all gains but plummeted even more to a ten-day low.
Most altcoins have followed suit, which has skyrocketed the daily liquidations to approximately $700 million.
The chart above paints a clear and painful picture. BTC had maintained $64,000 over the weekend before it jumped to a multi-day peak of $65,600 on Monday. It tried to take down that resistance twice, but it was stopped each time.
The second rejection was quite violent as it drove the asset south by nearly $3,000 in hours. Thus, BTC plummeted to $63,000 for the first time since July 17.
Popular analyst CRYPTOWZRD weighed in on the latest move south, indicating that the largest digital asset had closed bearish. They believe it’s essential for BTC to remain above the currently tested support at $63,000; otherwise, it could slump to new local lows.
ETH was yesterday’s top gainer, surging to a two-month peak of $1,980. However, it has lost $100 since then and now sits well below $1,900. XRP has dumped by 4.5% to $1.06, thus slipping below the coveted $1.10 support. SOL is down by a similar percentage, while HYPE has plummeted by 6%.
Expectedly, this big market move has harmed over-leveraged traders, as more than 165,000 such participants have been wrecked in the past 24 hours. The total value of liquidated positions has risen to almost $700 million on a daily scale. Naturally, BTC and ETH lead the pack.
This morning’s market crash comes just a day before the US Federal Reserve is scheduled to announce its interest rate decision, and the uncertainty around a potential hike has harmed risk-on assets like crypto.
The post $700 Million in Liquidations as BTC, ETH, XRP Plunge Ahead of FOMC appeared first on CryptoPotato.
Cardano co-founder Charles Hoskinson has warned Bitcoin could lose its dominance if its governance system and community fail to coordinate a response to the quantum computing threat.
Bitcoin developers are already working on post-quantum solutions, including BIP 361, which proposes moving away from ECDSA and Schnorr signatures after a post-quantum system is selected.
Quantum Threat Could End Bitcoin Dominance
Hoskinson’s warning came during an interview with The Starting Block. The Cardano co-founder described Bitcoin as being “stuck in time” because any changes to the network require consensus across stakeholders including users, miners, node operators, and developers. According to Hoskinson, frustration with Bitcoin’s rigidity and inflexibility was one of the reasons behind the creation of Ethereum. Hoskinson was one of the original co-founders of Ethereum along with Vitalik Buterin. He stated during the interview, “The issue with Bitcoin is it’s frozen in time. It’s very difficult to change anything.”
Bitcoin uses elliptic-curve cryptography to prove the ownership of funds. Quantum computers, in theory, could decipher private keys from the public keys and authorize transactions without the owner’s knowledge or approval. Hoskinson believes the quantum threat could pose a major risk to the flagship cryptocurrency and its $1.3 trillion market capitalization, eventually stripping it of its dominance unless its governance mechanism adapts without impacting the qualities that give it value. “What made Bitcoin so strong is it survived external threats … including the loss of its founder. Quantum computers are yet another threat … if Bitcoin’s governance is such that it’s impossible actually to make meaningful progress, or they compromise the core reason to use Bitcoin, I don’t think Bitcoin’s going to stay the number one cryptocurrency.”
Cardano Better Equipped for Technical Threats
Hoskinson argued that Cardano’s formal on-chain governance and ability to approve upgrades make it better at responding to threats like the one confronting Bitcoin.
“Cardano is, in many ways, a spiritual successor [to Bitcoin]. It reflects correcting a lot of things that I think that Satoshi couldn’t get around to because of expertise or time but was directionally moving there.”
Cardano moved to full community governance after the Plomin hard fork in January 2025. ADA token holders can vote or delegate their vote to representatives called DReps. A constitutional committee and stake pool operators also participate in key decisions. This system helps Cardano approve hard forks and treasury decisions on-chain. Hoskinson argued that Cardano could use the system to vote on migrating away from quantum-vulnerable infrastructure.
Hoskinson added that Cardano is preparing for its largest upgrade, which would make the network “60-times faster.”
Not a Perfect System
However, Cardano has yet to undertake or complete such a migration because its governance system must evaluate technical designs, approve funding, and organize users, developers, and service providers. Cardano’s governance system has also witnessed several disputes. Cardano delegates recently rejected and challenged several proposals linked to Hoskinson and Input Output, including a proposal to research Leios scaling and quantum-resistant cryptography.
Bitcoin Developers Exploring Post-Quantum Options
Bitcoin’s governance allows developers to propose code. However, users and node operators decide on its implementation. Miners, exchanges, and wallet providers also influence decision-making. While this helps avoid frequent changes, it makes urgent coordination difficult. The community is tracking BIP-361, a proposal that phases out legacy ECDSA and Schnorr signatures to protect the network against the quantum threat. Several other proposals are also under consideration, including ones advocating new address formats, hybrid signatures, and recovery paths.
However, any measure will require wallets, exchanges, custodians, and dormant holders to migrate their funds without splitting the network or creating conflicting ownership rules.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
Coinbase chief executive Brian Armstrong has argued that artificial intelligence will increase demand for crypto rather than replace it.
Summary
- Armstrong says AI agents will increase crypto demand by using programmable money for autonomous transactions.
- Chainalysis counted over 100 million x402 payments on Base, though meme-coin farming drove early growth.
- Coinbase combines Base, USDC, x402 and agent wallets to build its agentic finance payment stack.
In a July 27 post on X, he described Base, USDC and the x402 payment standard as the core of Coinbase’s “Agentic Finance,” or AiFi, strategy.
Armstrong wrote that “AI being a megatrend takes nothing away from crypto” and said AI agents would eventually complete more daily transactions than all people combined. The forecast has no set timeline. Current data shows growing x402 activity, but it does not prove that autonomous agents already exceed human payment use.
Armstrong links AI growth to programmable money
Armstrong rejected calls for crypto companies to pivot away from blockchain and focus only on AI. He said AI agents need programmable money because traditional bank accounts, cards and checkout pages depend on human identity checks and manual approval.
Under Coinbase’s model, software can hold a wallet, pay for an API request and receive a digital service without opening an account with each provider. Agents could buy data, computing power, research, media generation or storage through small payments that settle onchain.
The structure may raise transaction counts because one agent can make many low-value payments during a single task. However, transaction frequency does not show the total economic value of the activity. Armstrong’s claim therefore remains a company thesis rather than a measured outcome.
Base and x402 form Coinbase’s AiFi payment stack
Coinbase introduced Base in February 2023 as a low-cost Ethereum layer-2 network for onchain applications. The company did not build Base only for AI, but its lower fees and faster settlement later made it a main network for x402 payments.
Coinbase launched x402 in May 2025. The open protocol uses the HTTP 402 “Payment Required” status code to let websites and APIs request stablecoin payments. A client receives payment instructions, signs a blockchain transaction and gains access after the payment is checked.
USDC serves as a common settlement asset because its price tracks the U.S. dollar. Coinbase also offers Agentic Wallets, which let developers set spending and trading rules for AI systems. The wallets can pay for data and computing through x402 while operating without manual approval for each transaction.
As crypto.news previously reported, Coinbase also launched Coinbase for Agents, giving software access to trading, portfolio management and x402 payments under user-defined limits. The company later added x402 support for businesses that want to receive USDC directly from software agents.
Chainalysis counts more than 100 million Base payments
Chainalysis reported on June 3 that x402-linked payments on Base crossed 100 million transactions after about nine months of activity. The analytics company identified flows connected to the protocol and studied the wallets involved.
The report found that payments worth at least $1 made up 95% of the value transferred. It also said agentic payment wallets tended to be newer, held smaller balances and owned 550% more asset types than typical Base users.
Still, Chainalysis said meme-coin farming drove much of the early transaction growth. That detail limits claims that all 100 million payments came from independent AI agents buying useful services. Automated scripts, incentive campaigns and other software activity can also create x402 transfers.
As crypto.news reported in June, x402 had already passed 100 million Base transactions while Armstrong and other industry leaders promoted crypto as a payment layer for AI. Earlier crypto.news coverage also found that x402 activity reached 75.41 million transactions over one 30-day period, with Base and USDC leading usage.
Coinbase expands agent tools before quarterly results
Coinbase has continued adding products around the same strategy. Agentic.market allows software agents to find and purchase services using USDC. Developers can also use Coinbase tools to build wallets, set transaction policies and charge for API calls through x402.
Outside Coinbase, companies have begun testing the protocol for travel, cloud services and online content. Travala launched an AI hotel-booking system that lets agents search more than 2.2 million properties and pay with USDC on Base.
The market remains early. Coinbase’s products show that machines can initiate blockchain payments, but adoption figures depend on how analysts classify agent activity. Security, spending controls, identity rules and service quality will also shape wider use at present.
Coinbase will publish its second-quarter 2026 results on July 30 after U.S. markets close. The report may give investors more detail on stablecoin revenue, Base activity and developer products, although the company has not said it will disclose AiFi revenue separately.
Pseudonymous trader CrediBULL Crypto is calling for Ethereum (ETH) to reach $20,000 or higher, repeating a target he first laid out three weeks ago when the token was trading near $1,500.
According to him, Ethereum is finishing a multi-year base against Bitcoin (BTC) and is about to enter its first bull run since 2017.
The Charts Behind the $20K Call
Responding to a claim by alphatracker that ETH would go to $10K+, CrediBULL simply posted “$20K+,” and shared a link to a video where, instead of presenting the target as speculation, he built his case around long-term chart structures on both the ETH/USD and ETH/BTC pairs.
“I’ve always said $10K is the absolute minimum. I think $20K is realistic..,” the analyst said in the video. “I’m not going to say it’s a given… but $20K is super, super reasonable.”
He noted that Ethereum has spent years underperforming Bitcoin, leaving market sentiment at levels similar to previous cycle lows. But he argued that the ETH/BTC chart has finally reached what he considers to be a long-term accumulation zone after about four years of decline, and from there, he expects the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency to build a base before beginning what he described as the next impulsive move higher.
His next thesis tracked the ETH/USD chart itself, with the trader saying that Ethereum has completed the first leg of a larger five-wave structure and is now holding above an invalidation level near $1,385.
According to him, if that support stays intact, then the next advance could push ETH to around $10,000 before a later wave carries it above $20,000. He also argued that historical ETH/BTC ratios point to similar price levels if Bitcoin returns to its previous highs or continues into another expansion phase.
Furthermore, Credibull drew a comparison to April last year, when Ethereum sat near the same price it’s at right now and was widely written off as finished, only to break its all-time high a few months later. He said that the setup looks similar today, with the price holding above its last low rather than breaking it, something he treats as a sign that the broader uptrend is still intact.
Similar sentiments were shared by trader Saiyan, who set a base case of $10,000 for the cycle, prompting a pushback from Cheds Trading, who simply wrote, “That’s not happening.” But another market watcher, Sykodelik, sided with the bulls, arguing that a move above $10,000 should not be treated as unrealistic, given that it was just 2 times the Ethereum all-time high.
Where ETH Stands Now
ETH was trading above $1,900 at the time of writing, having gained nearly 4% in 24 hours and about 24% over the past month, according to CoinGecko data.
The token is still 60% below its ATH, and other analysts have flagged similar bottoming signals in recent weeks. For example, NoName pointed to a pattern of four lower highs as evidence that the bear market has already found a floor, while chartist Ali Martinez noted a bullish crossover in the asset’s MVRV ratio.
Funding rates on Binance have also climbed to their highest level in six months, something analysts at CryptoQuant say shows that sentiment has started to turn even though the price is still well below where it was around the same time last year.
The post Ethereum Could Hit $20K as Multi-Year BTC Base Completes: Analyst appeared first on CryptoPotato.
Bitcoin moved higher at the start of the week’s first Wall Street session, testing fresh local highs as broader markets opened in positive territory. The latest push came alongside reports of a pause in US–Iran tensions and renewed efforts connected to the Strait of Hormuz—an outcome that traders viewed as a near-term reduction in geopolitical risk.
According to TradingView data cited in market coverage, BTC/USD spiked toward the $66,000 area as risk assets gained traction. At the time of writing, US equity benchmarks such as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite were up by roughly 0.3%, while WTI crude oil dipped before a modest rebound, reflecting a less volatile energy backdrop than earlier in the month.
Key takeaways
- Bitcoin pushed toward new local highs near $66,000 after a reported easing in US–Iran strike activity.
- Iranian and Omani discussions tied to maritime traffic via the Strait of Hormuz supported sentiment, with oil moving less sharply.
- BTC held two key short-to-medium-term trend levels on the daily chart: the 21-day and 50-day SMAs near $64.3k and $63.3k.
- Despite the bounce, market commentary emphasized the price base as “fragile,” with traders watching for follow-through toward $66k–$67k.
- Crypto short liquidations increased as price rose, with CoinGlass data showing the figure nearing $250 million over 24 hours.
Geopolitics and risk assets lift BTC at the open
The immediate catalyst for Bitcoin’s uptick was macro-linked sentiment tied to the Middle East. TradingView data showed BTC/USD jumping toward $66,000 as traders responded to reports that there had been a pause in strikes between the US and Iran.
Additional reporting referenced statements by an Iranian foreign ministry spokesman indicating that Tehran and Oman were “trying to establish mechanisms regarding maritime traffic” through the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for global oil flows that had been closed. While headlines about reopenings and “mechanisms” can remain fluid, the market impact was clear: energy risk eased at the margin, and that helped equities—and Bitcoin—start the session with momentum.
WTI crude oil, often treated as a proxy for near-term geopolitical stress, fell toward about $82 per barrel before recovering modestly. The combination of a steadier oil tape and higher equity futures aligns with a classic “risk-on” relationship that can temporarily benefit liquidity in major crypto markets.
Macro headwinds remain, but crypto’s July performance stands out
Even with the immediate tailwind, traders were careful not to overstate the durability of the move. One potential constraint mentioned in the coverage was the risk of higher US bond yields, which can weigh on assets with lower real-yield support.
QCP Capital argued that—despite a more challenging macro backdrop—digital assets had generally outperformed equities during July. In its “Market Color” analysis, the firm said BTC and ETH were up about 11.6% and 24.6% month-to-date, respectively, noting that higher Treasury yields and periodic risk-off episodes had pressured broader markets.
Importantly for investors focused on regulation, QCP also flagged attention around the proposed CLARITY Act. The analysis described ongoing interest from digital asset participants because the bill could affect the US regulatory framework for the sector. The CLARITY Act was referenced as being under consideration, with market participants watching for any progress that could shift expectations around how digital asset rules might evolve.
Support levels hold—yet traders want proof beyond the bounce
On the chart, the rally’s quality mattered as much as the direction. Crypto trader and analyst Michaël van de Poppe highlighted that BTC was holding the 21-day and 50-day simple moving averages (SMAs). The levels cited were approximately $64,289 for the 21-day SMA and $63,261 for the 50-day SMA—areas that often function as magnets for both discretionary traders and systematic strategies.
Van de Poppe characterized the holding as a “strong signal” for long-biased positioning, but added that the structure was still “a little fragile.” In a posted view on X, he indicated he would prefer to see a decisive advance into the $66,000–$67,000 band within the next 1–3 days, which would indicate more persistent demand rather than a single-session push.
That distinction is crucial. A market can rise quickly toward resistance levels and still fail if buyers don’t expand after the initial liquidity draw. For traders, the next test is not just whether BTC reaches the higher range, but whether it can keep the bid long enough to convert a “spike” into a sustained move.
Liquidations rise as shorts get squeezed
Alongside price strength, liquidation data suggested that the move was accompanied by short-covering. CoinGlass data referenced in the coverage showed crypto short liquidations increasing as BTC rallied, with the metric nearing $250 million over a 24-hour period.
Liquidation spikes can be interpreted in two ways: they may signal aggressive leverage being forced out, or they may reflect a crowded short position that becomes vulnerable when the market turns upward. Either way, when large liquidation prints occur near key technical levels, they often coincide with bursts of volatility—meaning traders may see both acceleration and faster reversals if price fails to hold.
What to watch next
With BTC holding important moving averages while testing the upper end of the near-term range, the market now appears to be waiting for confirmation. Traders are watching whether Bitcoin can sustain interest into the $66,000–$67,000 zone, while broader risk sentiment could hinge on continued developments around US–Iran tensions and any tangible progress related to Strait of Hormuz maritime arrangements.
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has introduced a new assessment framework aimed at helping banks prepare for the potential impact of quantum computing on the cryptography underpinning distributed ledger and digital finance systems. The move signals that Hong Kong’s rapid push toward tokenization and blockchain settlement is now paired with a formal push to address “post-quantum” security risks.
In a white paper released Monday, the HKMA unveiled the sector’s first Quantum Preparedness Index (QPI). The HKMA assigned an overall readiness score of 2.3 out of 10 across surveyed institutions and said roughly half of them had no formal post-quantum planning in place. The regulator’s goal is to raise the sector to a QPI score of 10 by 2030.
Key takeaways
- The HKMA’s first Quantum Preparedness Index scores the banking sector at 2.3/10, indicating limited readiness for post-quantum upgrades.
- According to the HKMA, around half of surveyed institutions lack formal post-quantum planning.
- Hong Kong’s tokenization and distributed ledger initiatives heighten the urgency of cryptographic migration planning.
- The regulator warns that sufficiently powerful quantum computers could eventually break RSA and elliptic-curve cryptography used in financial systems.
- The HKMA is targeting full sector preparedness by 2030 and is urging earlier inventories and risk assessments.
Why HKMA is turning to quantum preparedness now
The HKMA’s quantum framework arrives as the city expands how it uses tokenization in mainstream finance. Hong Kong has already issued three batches of tokenized green bonds totaling about HK$16.8 billion (around $2.1 billion) since 2023, according to government disclosures published on the government information site and related bond issuance updates since that period.
At the policy level, the HKMA is also advancing tokenized deposits and digital-asset settlement. It has been working on these capabilities under Project Ensemble, an initiative that Cointelegraph previously covered in the context of tokenization efforts and wholesale CBDC-related infrastructure.
Within this broader push, the HKMA’s central argument is that distributed ledger applications and payment networks rely on cryptography for core functions—and that a successful cryptographic compromise would create systemic vulnerabilities. The white paper states that if those protections were undermined, it could lead to severe disruption across the systems that depend on them.
The QPI score and what the assessment found
The white paper and the accompanying index formalize how the HKMA expects banks to think about readiness. With an overall QPI score of 2.3/10, the HKMA essentially portrays the sector as being in an early stage—before deep technical migrations and long-running system updates.
Two findings stand out from the HKMA’s release. First, it reports that around half of the surveyed institutions had no formal post-quantum planning in place. Second, it describes examples of early technical work: the HKMA says one institution completed a proof of concept applying post-quantum cryptography to distributed-ledger connectivity.
The HKMA also points to real-world experience in the industry, noting HSBC’s 2024 use of quantum-safe technology to move tokenized gold across distributed ledgers. This detail is included in the HKMA’s white paper as an example of post-quantum considerations being explored in connection with tokenized asset settlement.
Quantum risk: what could be broken, and why timelines matter
In the HKMA’s framing, the major threat comes from the possibility that quantum computers could run Shor’s algorithm at scale. In its view, that capability could eventually undermine widely used public-key systems such as RSA and elliptic-curve cryptography.
If that were to happen, the HKMA warns it could enable attackers to decrypt protected data or forge digital signatures—mechanisms used to authorize transactions, verify identities, and establish trust within financial systems.
The regulator emphasizes practical urgency rather than alarm. According to the white paper, replacing cryptographic systems embedded across infrastructure can take years. For that reason, it urged banks to begin with foundational work now—such as inventories of cryptographic assets, risk assessments, and migration planning—before machines with the required capability become available.
Hong Kong’s tokenization strategy raises the bar for security upgrades
The HKMA’s quantum effort aligns with its broader Fintech 2030 direction, announced as a strategy in 2025 that made tokenization a key pillar. Cointelegraph previously reported that tokenization was one of four strategic pillars within an overall plan of more than 40 initiatives in coverage of HKMA’s Fintech 2030 strategy.
The HKMA has signaled that its tokenization agenda includes acceleration of real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, regularization around tokenized government bond issuance, and exploration of tokenized Exchange Fund papers. It has also described blockchain settlement work supported by e-HKD, tokenized deposits, and regulated stablecoins.
Meanwhile, the business momentum behind digital assets and tokenized deposits appears to be building. In a speech, Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan said banks in the city held more than HK$14 billion (about $1.785 billion) in digital assets under custody at the end of 2025, up about 180% year over year. He also cited tokenized deposits reaching HK$29 billion (about $3.7 billion).
That combination—growing tokenization activity alongside a regulator-led push for cryptographic resilience—helps explain why the HKMA is moving beyond generic cybersecurity guidance and instead introducing a measurable readiness score. For market participants, the QPI structure may translate into clearer expectations for governance and technical planning as they integrate DLT into more of their regulated operations.
Going forward, banks in Hong Kong will likely need to watch how the HKMA tracks QPI progress toward the 10/10 by 2030 target and whether additional guidance is released on timelines, assessment methods, and post-quantum migration priorities. With the assessment showing low current readiness, the next phase to monitor is how quickly institutions turn plans into concrete inventories, testing, and system upgrades across ledger connectivity and transaction authorization layers.
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Zcash is expected to activate its NU6.3 “Ironwood” network upgrade at block height 3,428,143 on July 28.
Summary
- Ironwood activates at block 3,428,143, replacing Orchard with a separately tracked shielded transaction pool system.
- The turnstile blocks more ZEC leaving Orchard than entered, strengthening public supply verification after migration.
- Quantum-recoverable notes support future recovery, but Ironwood does not make Zcash quantum-secure today by itself.
The Zcash Foundation’s Zebra 6.0.0 release places the estimated activation near 13:00 UTC and tells every node operator to upgrade before the fork.
The upgrade introduces a new shielded pool and a v6 transaction format. It follows the disclosure of a flaw in the older Orchard pool that could have allowed an attacker to create counterfeit ZEC without an obvious public record.
Developers patched the flaw through emergency upgrades in June. They said they found “no evidence” of exploitation, but Zcash’s privacy design prevents them from proving that hidden inflation never occurred.
Ironwood creates a separately tracked shielded pool
According to the Zebra 6.0.0 release notes, Ironwood reuses Orchard’s Action structure and Halo2 proof system. However, it adds a separate note commitment tree, nullifier set, chain value pool and chain-history data. These records let nodes track the new pool independently from Orchard after activation.
Zebra also updates several node commands so operators can inspect the pool’s value and commitment-tree state. The Zcash Foundation’s GitHub release labels the upgrade critical for operators because older software will not follow the correct chain after the activation height.
Turnstile limits value leaving Orchard
Ironwood’s main supply safeguard is a turnstile between Orchard and the new pool. After activation, Orchard will stop accepting new outputs and internal transactions. Funds can move out, but the accounting rule prevents more ZEC from leaving Orchard than the amount that legitimately entered it.
The Ironwood design explanation says the mechanism gives users a public check on circulating supply without exposing private balances or transaction details. Instead, it would leave any excess hidden value trapped inside Orchard once the pool becomes exit-only.
As crypto.news previously reported, Zcash scheduled the July 28 hard fork after developers concluded that the patched bug still left a supply question they could not answer with certainty. Zcash founder Zooko Wilcox said the flaw was “unlikely to have been exploited,” while also stating that users should not need to rely on that assessment.
Notes gain a future quantum-recovery path
Ironwood also changes how shielded notes are created so they may be recovered through a future post-quantum protocol. The official ZIP 2005 specification calls the feature quantum recoverability. It binds more note data into the note construction, allowing a later recovery system to verify ownership without relying only on cryptography that a powerful quantum computer could break.
The change does not make current Zcash transactions quantum-secure. The specification says a separate recovery protocol must still be designed and activated later. Funds that remain in Sprout, Sapling or Orchard would not gain this recovery option. Wallets must move them into Ironwood notes to receive the new protection.
The same specification says existing Orchard addresses can receive Ironwood notes, reducing changes for users. Wallet developers must still add migration support. Users whose wallets do not update may face delays when moving Orchard funds, while exchanges may briefly pause deposits or withdrawals around the fork.
Zebra becomes mandatory as zcashd support ends
The upgrade also completes Zcash’s move away from the older zcashd node software. The network set zcashd’s end-of-support halt at block 3,417,100, before Ironwood activation. The official deprecation schedule says zcashd will not support NU6.3, leaving Zebra as the required node implementation for the new rules.
Zebra 6.0.0 includes a separate mempool security fix. The issue allowed peers to send expensive-to-check, non-standard transactions that could reduce node responsiveness while the traffic continued. The fix rejects those inputs before the costly verification step. The Foundation said the flaw affected availability only and did not allow invalid blocks, lost funds or consensus failure.
Related crypto.news coverage detailed Zcash’s two-step response to the Orchard vulnerability. Developers first disabled Orchard activity, then activated the NU6.2 hard fork with corrected code before restoring the pool. Ironwood now adds a separate accounting boundary rather than another patch inside the same pool.
The upgrade remains tied to block production, so its exact clock time may shift. If the chain reaches block 3,428,143 as expected, Ironwood will activate on July 28 and begin the Orchard-to-Ironwood transition.
Charles Hoskinson says Cardano’s “best days are ahead,” even as its native token, ADA, trades 95% below its all-time high.
The Cardano founder made the remark during a recent X AMA. He was responding to ADA’s prolonged slump and the criticism that has followed it.
Why Cardano is Feeling the Pressure
ADA trades near $0.16 today. The token hit its all-time high of $3.09 in September 2021 and has fallen 53% so far this year alone.
Governance disputes, builder shutdowns, and Cardano’s canceled 2026 summit have deepened the pressure. Hoskinson has also faced mounting criticism from the community over the slide. He stepped back from social media at one point, then returned to address the backlash directly.
“I still do believe our best days are ahead of us, and I still do believe that we can succeed despite the demons we’ve let in. We just have to change the approach, and we just have to change the strategy.”
— Charles Hoskinson, on X
Hoskinson Has a Plan
The comment echoes Hoskinson’s recent push for a funding overhaul. He wants to clear a backlog of more than 600 million ADA in treasury requests. He argues that the network’s security and utility drive ADA’s price, not short-term speculation.
The bottleneck comes down to a hard cap. Cardano’s treasury allows only 350 million ADA in net funding changes at a time, well short of what builders are requesting. Hoskinson has proposed spreading development across more independent companies instead of leaning on Input Output Global, the firm he leads, to carry the load alone.
Whether a strategy shift can turn Cardano’s price trend around remains an open question. ADA still trades far below its 2021 peak, leaving Hoskinson’s optimism as the main counter to a bearish market narrative.
The post Cardano’s Hoskinson Says ‘Best Days Are Ahead’: ADA Price Down 95% From Top appeared first on BeInCrypto.
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