Morgan Stanley has increased its Bitcoin holdings by nearly 1,000 BTC over the past two weeks, lifting its tracked balance above 5,700 BTC, according to on-chain data.

According to blockchain intelligence platform Arkham, the investment bank continued adding Bitcoin through its spot Bitcoin investment product during the recent market pullback. Arkham’s latest portfolio data shows Morgan Stanley now holds 5,761 BTC worth roughly $369.9 million, making it one of the larger institutional Bitcoin holders tracked on the platform.

The latest increase follows a series of transfers recorded over the past two weeks instead of a single purchase. Arkham’s transaction history shows several large inflows from Coinbase Prime wallets, including transfers of 495.8 BTC, 171.9 BTC, 166.2 BTC, 154.8 BTC, 143.3 BTC, 126.1 BTC, 120.4 BTC, and another 34.4 BTC within the last 14 hours. The activity also includes minor operational transfers and a 1 BTC movement back to Coinbase Prime, leaving the firm’s net increase at roughly 1,000 BTC.

Latest purchases have come through multiple large transfers

Recent Arkham data indicates Morgan Stanley accumulated Bitcoin in stages rather than executing a single large transaction. Most of the recorded inflows originated from Coinbase Prime custody and deposit addresses, suggesting institutional settlement activity linked to its Bitcoin investment product.

At current market prices shown on Arkham, the firm’s Bitcoin holdings are valued at nearly $370 million. Arkham also classifies the entity as a fund, an exchange-traded product, and a Bitcoin whale, while linking the portfolio to 11 tracked wallet addresses.

The latest buying extends a pattern of adding exposure during price weakness. Although Arkham describes the activity as another instance of Morgan Stanley “buying the dip,” the platform does not disclose whether the transactions represent direct purchases, client subscriptions, or other operational inflows into the investment vehicle.

Crypto investment services have expanded for wealthy clients

The recent accumulation follows Morgan Stanley Wealth Management’s June announcement that it had expanded its digital asset offering through a referral arrangement with Galaxy Digital.

Under the program, eligible high-net-worth clients can lend cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ether, and Solana to Galaxy Digital and receive shares in spot crypto investment products, including the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust. According to the companies, the structure allows investors to move crypto exposure into regulated investment vehicles without first selling their digital assets.

Morgan Stanley and Galaxy Digital also said the arrangement can reduce in-kind crypto-to-exchange-traded product onboarding times by as much as 75%, making transfers into regulated investment products faster than conventional processes.

The expanded client offering and the latest on-chain accumulation come as institutional participation in spot Bitcoin investment products continues to grow. While Arkham’s wallet data tracks assets associated with Morgan Stanley’s Bitcoin product, the platform does not identify the underlying investors or distinguish between firm-owned holdings and assets managed on behalf of clients.

The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance has estimated Ethereum’s annual electricity consumption at 7.87 gigawatt-hours. That equals a continuous power demand of about 0.90 megawatts. The study places Ethereum near the lower end of energy intensity among major proof-of-stake blockchains when researchers adjust electricity use for market value. Cambridge also estimated annual emissions of about 2.37 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.

Ethereum used more electricity in absolute terms than most networks included in the comparison. Solana ranked highest at about 13.48 GWh each year, while Ethereum ranked second. However, Ethereum consumed about 33 kilowatt-hours for every $1 million of market value. That was the second-lowest rate measured, behind BNB Chain. Solana recorded about 283 kWh per $1 million, or roughly 8.5 times Ethereum’s rate. The networks in Cambridge’s top-tier PoS comparison used 38 GWh combined. NEAR, Tron and TON ranged from 3.6 to 5.1 GWh, while Cardano and BNB Chain stayed below 1 GWh.

Direct node tests shape the estimate

Cambridge built the estimate from direct power measurements rather than applying one assumed figure to every node. Researchers tested 20 combinations of Ethereum’s main execution and consensus software clients on two hardware setups. A lighter residential system drew a median of 18 watts. A workstation used for professional deployments drew about 152 watts. The study calculated a network-weighted average of roughly 105 watts per node.

The researchers identified 8,522 discoverable full nodes. Around 36% operated on residential hardware, while 64% ran in cloud or enterprise data centers. The United States hosted 31% of the nodes, followed by Germany at 16%, Finland at 8%, and France at 6%. Cambridge said those four countries together accounted for nearly 62% of the full-node network measured.

Grid mix now drives Ethereum’s emissions

Ethereum’s electricity sources now shape most of its remaining carbon footprint. Cambridge estimated that renewable energy supplied 39.4% of the network’s power and nuclear energy supplied 17%. Together, those sources accounted for 56.4%. Fossil fuels supplied the remaining 43.6%, with natural gas representing the largest single source at 27.7%. The final emissions estimate depended on the electricity grids serving each node location.

Alexander Neumüller, research lead at Cambridge’s digital assets energy program, said, “Under Proof-of-Stake, electricity is no longer the price of security.” Ethereum replaced proof-of-work mining with validators during the Merge on September 15, 2022. Cambridge estimated that continuous power demand fell from about 2.4 gigawatts before the transition to 0.90 megawatts afterward, a reduction of more than 99.9%.

Crypto.news coverage tracks the PoS shift

Related crypto.news coverage has described proof-of-stake as a lower-energy alternative because validators secure networks through staked assets instead of competitive mining. A January 2026 report also quoted Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse saying proof-of-stake systems use about 99.9% less energy than proof-of-work networks. The new Cambridge figures provide updated hardware and hosting data for Ethereum several years after its transition.

The report does not claim that Ethereum uses the least electricity among all proof-of-stake networks. Its annual total remains higher than most peers studied. Its stronger ranking appears only after researchers divide energy use by market value. Cambridge also avoided a per-transaction estimate because about 92% of Ethereum ecosystem transactions now settle on scaling networks, making a mainnet-only calculation incomplete. Cambridge said lighter stateless verification could lower hardware requirements, but wider node participation could offset those savings. The report treats future demand as uncertain rather than assuming efficiency gains will reduce total use.

Pakistan’s virtual-asset regulator is urging continued dialogue with Islamic scholars over how digital assets should be treated under Shariah principles—following a religious ruling that declared certain crypto-based purchases impermissible. Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA) chairman Bilal bin Saqib said his meeting with prominent scholar Mufti Taqi Usmani focused on blockchain technology, digital assets, stablecoins, and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), along with the need to protect the public from fraud and financial harm.

While Saqib did not directly dispute the specific religious claim, he emphasized that different categories of digital assets should not be judged through a single framework. The comments land at a sensitive moment for Pakistan, where regulators are building a licensing regime for crypto, but religious views could meaningfully influence broader public acceptance.

Key takeaways

• PVARA chairman Bilal bin Saqib called for continued discussions with scholars after Mufti Taqi Usmani supported a ruling against crypto-funded purchases.
• Saqib argued that digital assets, stablecoins, and tokenized RWAs require separate technical and Shariah review rather than one blanket assessment.
• The religious controversy comes as Pakistan expands its regulated crypto sector after the Virtual Assets Act 2026 and new banking access rules.
• Pakistan’s regulator says public protection from fraud and exploitation remains central to its approach.

Religious ruling targets crypto-based purchases

According to Pakistani newspaper Dawn, Usmani and five other scholars signed an Islamic legal ruling issued by Jamia Darul Uloom Karachi. The reported decision said purchases made with crypto—including stablecoins such as USDT—are impermissible under the scholars’ interpretation of Islamic law.

Dawn reported that the ruling centers on the view that digital tokens do not qualify as recognized property or wealth. In other words, even when a token is used in a purchase transaction, the scholars argued that its status under Islamic legal reasoning does not meet the relevant criteria.

Saqib, in his remarks, did not directly challenge the ruling’s conclusions. Instead, he called for ongoing engagement among scholars, regulators, and industry participants, suggesting that distinctions across asset types—and their underlying functions—should be part of the evaluation process.

Why Saqib’s “different categories” stance matters

In a Saturday post on X, Saqib said his discussion covered blockchain technology and the spectrum of digital assets, including stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets. He also pointed to an operational concern: ensuring Pakistanis are protected from fraud, exploitation, and other forms of financial harm.

Crucially, Saqib argued that the “different categories of digital assets” warrant “careful technical assessment alongside rigorous Shariah examination, rather than being viewed through a single lens.” That framing implies two practical points for Pakistan’s regulatory trajectory.

First, it signals that Pakistan’s regulators may be preparing for a segmented approach in which religious review and compliance efforts consider how particular tokens are structured and used—rather than treating all virtual assets as identical. Second, it highlights a likely tension between market building and public acceptability: a licensing framework can formally enable regulated services, but religious objections—especially those targeting consumer-facing behaviors like purchases—could still shape adoption.

Those sensitivities are amplified by Pakistan’s demographics. The article notes that about 231.7 million people, or 96.35% of the population, identified as Muslim in Pakistan’s 2023 census, citing the National Census Report 2023. When religious rulings become salient for everyday commerce, regulatory progress can face additional hurdles beyond enforcement and licensing mechanics.

Pakistan’s regulatory shift: from restrictions to licensing

The religious discussion is unfolding as Pakistan continues its pivot from years of restrictions toward a formally regulated virtual-asset industry. In April, the State Bank of Pakistan allowed banks to open accounts for virtual asset service providers (VASPs) licensed by PVARA. The move ended an eight-year restriction on regulated institutions dealing with crypto, according to earlier coverage by Cointelegraph.

That banking update followed the passage of Pakistan’s Virtual Assets Act 2026 in March, establishing PVARA as the statutory body responsible for licensing and oversight of virtual asset activities, again per earlier reporting from Cointelegraph.

For investors and businesses, this regulatory expansion increases the importance of how digital assets are categorized—not just legally, but culturally and religiously. A stable regulatory environment can reduce operational risk for compliant firms, yet consumer comfort with using certain tokens may still depend on religious rulings and interpretations.

Saqib’s comments appear aimed at keeping that bridge intact: fostering dialogue that could reduce friction and clarify how scholars and regulators view the role of different blockchain-based instruments.

What to watch next: dialogue outcomes and compliance implications

The immediate uncertainty is whether religious authorities will revisit their position if technical distinctions between token types—such as the difference between “stablecoins” and other digital assets, or the way tokenized RWAs function in transactions—are examined more thoroughly. Saqib’s stance suggests he expects those distinctions to matter.

Meanwhile, market participants should watch how PVARA structures licensing guidance and consumer protection efforts as Pakistan builds out its regulated sector. The regulator’s stated emphasis on preventing fraud and financial harm suggests compliance priorities may expand alongside licensing—potentially influencing what kinds of services become viable in practice.

For now, the key signal is that Pakistan’s crypto roadmap is not only a legal and banking story—it is also an interpretive question about how digital assets fit within Islamic legal reasoning. The next developments will likely hinge on whether continuing scholar-regulator engagement produces clearer, category-specific frameworks that both regulators and the public can follow.

Tom Lee has reaffirmed that Ethereum will play the central role as traditional finance and cryptocurrency converge into a single market.

According to a post published by Bitmine chairman Tom Lee on X, he believes the line separating traditional financial markets and digital assets will eventually disappear, with Ethereum positioned at the center of that transition.

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.

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.

Sometime in the week of July 13, according to people briefed on the negotiations, Senate staff will release a unified draft of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, merging months of parallel work by the Banking and Agriculture Committees into a single text reportedly more than 70 pages longer than either predecessor. Floor action is targeted for the week of July 20. The Senate leaves for its August recess on the 7th, and a defense spending bill is competing for the floor time in between. Senator Cynthia Lummis, the chamber’s lead crypto legislator, has stated the stakes without decoration: this is likely the last chance to get real digital asset legislation on the books before 2030, and failure means another country writes the rules while America spends a decade catching up.

Strip away the drama and the CLARITY Act’s fate reduces to one number: seven. Republicans hold 53 seats, cloture requires 60, and every Republican vote is already assumed. Seven Democrats must cross, and as of this writing, zero have committed. Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, the two Democrats who advanced the bill through the Banking Committee on May 14, have both said their committee votes do not guarantee floor support.

Galaxy Research has cut its odds of 2026 passage to 50%, down from 60% earlier in the month and 75% right after the committee markup, citing calendar compression more than substance. Stifel’s chief Washington strategist has written that if the Senate fails to act before recess, the bill’s prospects deteriorate materially.

This piece maps the actual arithmetic: what the bill does, what each unresolved dispute costs in votes, what the fallback looks like if it dies, and why both the optimists and the pessimists have a defensible case with 3 weeks on the clock.

What the bill actually does, in one section

The CLARITY Act would create the first federal statutory framework for digital asset markets. Its core mechanism is a three-bucket taxonomy. Digital commodities, assets that rely on a blockchain for their value and meet decentralization criteria, with Bitcoin the clearest case and Ether and Solana likely included, would fall under Commodity Futures Trading Commission jurisdiction for spot market oversight, an authority the agency has never held in statute. Assets that qualify as investment contracts, tokens sold to fund a centralized team, would remain with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Permitted payment stablecoins would sit with banking regulators under the GENIUS Act framework that Congress completed earlier, after its own bruising fight over state versus federal authority that crypto.news followed through the Senate.

Around that taxonomy, the bill builds a registration regime for digital commodity exchanges, brokers, and dealers, applies the Bank Secrecy Act to them for anti-money-laundering purposes, codifies a clearer standard for when the Howey investment contract test applies to a token, and shields software developers from money transmitter liability when they do not custody customer assets, a provision drawn from the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act. Lummis points to more than 16 illicit finance safeguards in the text and $150 million in dedicated enforcement funding, including new sanctions authority aimed at Iran and explicit powers for exchanges to freeze illicit funds.

The practical consequence, if it passes, is that exchanges would know which regulator they answer to, token issuers would know which test applies to them, DeFi builders would know they are not money transmitters, and institutional allocators who legally cannot touch unclassified assets, pension funds and sovereign wealth funds chief among them, would gain a defined category to buy. JPMorgan and Standard Chartered have each projected $4 to $8.4 billion in first-year spot XRP ETF inflows alone under passage, and Citi and Standard Chartered carry Bitcoin targets of $143,000 and $150,000 respectively that are contingent on the bill becoming law. The May 14 committee vote offered a small-scale preview: within an hour of the result, Bitcoin jumped to $81,449, and XRP gained 4.5%.

How the bill got here: a two-year procedural ledger

The distance already traveled is worth recording, because it explains why supporters treat this window as unrepeatable.

The House passed its version, H.R. 3633, on July 17, 2025, by 294 to 134, the strongest bipartisan congressional vote on crypto in history, with provisions from Majority Whip Tom Emmer’s Securities Clarity Act and the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act folded into the text. The bill then entered the Senate, where jurisdiction split between two committees with overlapping turf. Banking handled the securities side; Agriculture, which oversees the CFTC, handled the commodities side. The two tracks proceeded separately for most of a year.

The Senate Banking Committee advanced its text on May 14, 2026, by 15 to 9, with all 13 Republicans joined by Gallego and Alsobrooks, both of whom attached explicit caveats that committee support did not commit them on the floor. Senator Lummis called it the most consequential Senate action on crypto regulation ever taken. The Agriculture Committee’s version cleared on strictly partisan lines, which is why the merged draft required months of member-level negotiation instead of a staff-level splice. The bill was placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar as Calendar No. 423 on June 1, making it formally eligible for floor consideration at any moment leadership chooses.

Since then, the record is a sequence of missed markers. The White House floated July 4 as a signing target in May; the Senate left for its state work period on June 29 with the bill untouched. A tentative bipartisan ethics framework reached in May came apart in June when Republicans and White House officials withdrew from the state attorney general enforcement mechanism. Emergency leadership meetings were reported in late June to salvage the effort. More than 200 organizations, spanning exchanges, startups, and trade associations, sent coordinated letters urging a floor vote, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has pressed publicly for action. Galaxy Digital, in the most concrete expression of institutional conviction available, placed a $10 million prediction market position on 2026 passage back when its own research desk still quoted 60% odds. Polymarket has traded the question between 59-72% across the spring before drifting toward the coin-flip consensus.

Thailand’s central bank plans stricter checks on large cash deposits and high-value stablecoin transactions as part of a campaign against hidden capital flows. The Bank of Thailand will require customers depositing 5 million baht, about $150,000, or more in cash to explain and document where the money came from. Officials expect the rules to begin in the fourth quarter of 2026.

The central bank is also working with Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission to examine large USDT transactions. According to The Nation, officials found transaction patterns that may conceal beneficial owners or avoid domestic remittance channels. The review focuses on tracing who controls the funds and whether regulated platforms followed local rules.

Existing withdrawal controls expand to deposits

The planned deposit checks extend controls introduced in April for cash withdrawals of at least 5 million baht. Customers making those withdrawals must give banks a verified business reason and explain why they cannot use an electronic transfer or cheque. The Bank of Thailand said high-value cash withdrawals later fell by 35%.

Governor Vitai Ratanakorn said the authorities would keep several controls running together rather than rely on one temporary response. “The measures we are implementing are not short-term fixes,” he said, adding that they require “multiple parallel strategies.” Banks will now face matching checks on large deposits, closing a gap between cash entering and leaving accounts.

USDT remains approved for regulated trading

The USDT review does not amount to a ban on the stablecoin. Thailand’s SEC added USDT and USDC to its approved cryptocurrency list in March 2025. Licensed digital asset exchanges can use them as base trading pairs, while issuers and regulated service providers can accept them in specified transactions.

AS reported at the time that the approval expanded legal access to USDT on regulated Thai platforms. The current inquiry instead targets unusually large flows, unclear ownership, and possible efforts to move value outside official remittance routes. It places transaction monitoring beside Thailand’s existing rules for licensed crypto firms and customer checks.

Thailand has taken a mixed approach to digital assets. It has allowed approved crypto trading and tested controlled uses while keeping direct crypto payments restricted in many domestic settings. Crypto.news reported that the SEC was preparing rules for crypto exchange-traded funds, derivatives, and tokenized bonds during 2026.

The Bank of Thailand and SEC also supervised TouristDigiPay, a program that lets eligible foreign visitors convert crypto into baht before paying through the PromptPay QR network. Users must register with approved providers and complete identity checks. Crypto.news reported that the model keeps merchants inside the baht payment system while allowing regulated conversion from digital assets.

Wider controls cover gold and mule accounts

The wider campaign also covers bullion, banknotes, payment gateways, and mule accounts. Banks must report suspicious gold transactions, including rapid online purchases followed by same-day physical withdrawals. The Nation reported that monthly physical gold withdrawals fell from about 4,000 kilograms to roughly 700 kilograms after tighter oversight.

Officials are also studying large banknote exchanges and accounts linked to online gambling. The stablecoin review adds blockchain records to that work, but regulators have not announced penalties or named platforms in the latest report. The SEC will handle any formal enforcement based on the findings. Customers and exchanges now await guidance before the fourth-quarter cash-deposit rules take effect. Authorities have not provided a timetable for completing the USDT audit or publishing its transaction findings.

Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA) chairman Bilal bin Saqib has called for continued dialogue on the treatment of digital assets under Islamic law after meeting prominent scholar Mufti Taqi Usmani, who backed a ruling against purchases made with crypto.

In a Saturday post, Saqib said the discussion covered blockchain technology, digital assets, stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), as well as the need to protect Pakistanis from fraud, exploitation and financial harm.

Saqib said the different categories of digital assets merit “careful technical assessment alongside rigorous Shariah examination, rather than being viewed through a single lens.”

The exchange highlights tension between Pakistan’s push to build a regulated crypto market and religious objections that could shape public acceptance. Religious views could carry significant weight in Pakistan, where about 231.7 million people, or 96.35% of the population, identified as Muslim in the 2023 census. 

Pakistan’s crypto framework meets religious scrutiny

According to Pakistani newspaper Dawn, Usmani and five other scholars signed an Islamic legal ruling issued by Jamia Darul Uloom Karachi, a prominent Islamic seminary, on Friday. 

The ruling reportedly said purchases made with crypto, including stablecoins such as USDT, were not permitted because digital tokens did not qualify as recognized property or wealth under their interpretation of Islamic law.

Saqib did not directly challenge the claim. Instead, he called for scholars, regulators and industry participants to continue discussing distinctions among digital-asset categories. 

“I shared that blockchain, digital assets, stablecoins, and tokenized real-world assets represent a broad spectrum of technologies and use cases,” he said. 

Related: PUSD stablecoin deploys on ADI Chain, targeting $3T Islamic finance market

The discussion comes as Pakistan shifts from years of restrictions toward a licensed virtual-asset sector. On April 15, the State Bank of Pakistan allowed banks to open accounts for virtual asset service providers (VASPs) licensed by the PVARA, ending an eight-year restriction on regulated institutions dealing with crypto. 

The move followed the passage of Pakistan’s Virtual Assets Act 2026 in March, which established PVARA as the statutory body responsible for licensing and oversight of virtual asset activities. 

Magazine: Bitcoin nearing late stages of bear market: Jamie Coutts, Real Vision