Morgan Stanley and Barclays have raised their Robinhood price targets to $124 and $122, respectively, even as HOOD has fallen more than 5% toward key support near $109.

Morgan Stanley reiterated its buy rating on Robinhood Markets on July 10 and lifted its target from $95 to $124, an increase of more than 30%. The new target sits above the stock’s recent peak near $120 and implies room for another advance from current levels.

Barclays analyst Benjamin Budish also kept a buy recommendation on Robinhood while raising the firm’s target to $122 from $82. According to Barclays, Robinhood’s trading activity and platform momentum remain strong as the company expands beyond its retail brokerage business.

The two upgrades followed higher targets from Goldman Sachs, Mizuho, and BTIG, which placed their 12-month forecasts between $121 and $130. Taken together, those calls show that several Wall Street firms expect Robinhood’s recent product growth to support further gains, although Friday’s price action showed investors were still willing to lock in profits.

Analyst targets keep the bullish case intact

Robinhood shares had risen almost 40% over the past month and about 80% over the past few months before the latest pullback. The stock closed Thursday at $115.11, up 1.39%, while trading volume remained below its average of roughly 32 million shares.

Premarket trading initially pushed HOOD more than 3% higher and pointed to an opening above $118.50. Once regular trading began, however, Yahoo Finance data showed the stock falling to about $110.17, down 4.29%, after briefly trading near the $118-$119 area.

The intraday chart showed a sharp break below $115 shortly after the opening bell, followed by a short rebound toward $113. Sellers then regained control and pushed the stock back toward $110, leaving the analyst upgrades unable to prevent an immediate sell-off.

Robinhood’s recent gains have also followed several company developments. The firm has introduced Robinhood Chain, a Layer-2 network focused on real-world assets, decentralized finance, and meme coins, while also announcing a partnership tied to Trump Accounts.

Notably, Robinhood Chain surpassed Hyperliquid in 24-hour decentralized exchange volume and reached $100 million in total value locked within days. CEO Vlad Tenev’s comments about waived gas fees and meme-coin activity added to interest around the network.

HOOD tests support after rejecting $120

The daily chart from TradingView showed HOOD was trading near $109.08, down 5.24%, after the stock failed to hold its recent move toward $120.03. The same chart showed the price testing the 78.6% Fibonacci retracement at $109.33, making the $109-$110 area an important support zone.

Should that level fail, the setup identified the next retracement levels at $100.93, $95.03, and $89.13. On the upside, the recent high near $120.03 remains the main resistance area and the level HOOD would need to clear for another breakout attempt.

Momentum indicators on the chart remained mixed rather than fully bearish. The daily RSI stood near 58, below its recent highs but still above neutral, while the MACD stayed above zero as its histogram weakened.

Based on the chart structure, the stock’s rise from the May low near $70 remains intact unless the current decline breaks several support levels. Wall Street’s higher targets continue to support the long-term growth case, but Friday’s reversal shows that HOOD may need to stabilize near $109 before buyers attempt another move toward $120.

Robinhood launched its own blockchain in July 2026, an Ethereum layer 2 where tokenized stocks trade around the clock and plug into DeFi as collateral. This guide explains what Robinhood Chain actually is, how it works under the hood, what Stock Tokens are and who can use them, how the chain differs from Base and the other corporate networks, and what it means for users, builders, and the industry’s biggest open questions.

On July 1, 2026, one of the largest retail brokers in the United States switched on its own blockchain. Robinhood Chain launched its public mainnet at a London keynote, carrying 95 tokenized stocks that trade 24 hours a day, a suite of DeFi protocols live from day one, and access wired directly into the Robinhood Wallet used across 120 countries. Within a week the chain had processed roughly 4 million transactions, gathered over $240 million in deposits, and produced a launch statistic, $570 million of day-one volume against $21.68 million of liquidity, that made the entire industry look twice.

A brokerage running a blockchain would have sounded absurd for most of crypto’s history, and it now sounds inevitable: Coinbase runs Base, Stripe backs Tempo, and the era of consumer giants renting neutral rails is visibly ending. But Robinhood Chain is a distinct species within that trend, because it was built around one specific product no other chain ships: real-world equities as native, composable on-chain assets, the thing crypto has promised since the first tokenized-stock experiments and never delivered at brokerage scale.

This guide explains the chain from the ground up: what it technically is and how the Arbitrum-based architecture works, what Stock Tokens are and what holders actually get, the DeFi ecosystem that launched with it and why composability is the entire point, who can access what and where the regulatory lines sit, how the chain compares to Base and the corporate-chain field, the fee economics including the unusual revenue-sharing deal with Arbitrum, and the honest open questions, control, liquidity, and law, that will decide what the chain becomes.

The architecture: an Ethereum layer 2, built to order

Robinhood Chain is a layer 2 blockchain: a network that executes transactions on its own fast, cheap environment while posting records to Ethereum, inheriting the base chain’s security for its history. It is built using Arbitrum’s Orbit technology, the chains-as-a-service framework from the team behind Arbitrum One, which means Robinhood did not invent a blockchain so much as commission one: Orbit supplies the rollup machinery, proofs, data posting, Ethereum settlement, and Robinhood configures the network, operates its infrastructure, and decides what it is for.

Three design choices define it. First, it is permissionless: any developer can deploy contracts using standard Ethereum tooling, without Robinhood’s approval, which is why an uninvited memecoin economy appeared on day one and why first-tier DeFi protocols could arrive at launch. That openness distinguishes it sharply from the private bank chains of the last decade and puts it in the same public-network category as Base. Second, it is EVM-compatible: everything built for Ethereum ports over directly, wallets, contracts, developer tools, so the chain starts with the industry’s entire software ecosystem instead of an empty room. Third, it is purpose-tuned for real-world assets: fast block times via Alchemy infrastructure, Chainlink as the official oracle for prices, cross-chain messaging, and proof-of-reserve on Robinhood-issued assets, and BitGo integration on the custody side, the specific plumbing tokenized equities require and general-purpose chains bolt on as afterthoughts.

The trust profile follows from the architecture, and it is the standard corporate-chain bargain. User funds are secured by Ethereum: the sequencer that orders transactions cannot forge them or steal assets, and the chain’s history settles to the base layer. Access and ordering, though, run through infrastructure Robinhood operates, the centralized-sequencer chokepoint every major rollup currently carries, which means outages, ordering policy, and censorship capacity sit with one regulated company. For everyday users the distinction rarely surfaces; for anyone evaluating the chain seriously, it is the first line of the risk section.

Stock Tokens: the product the chain was built around

The headline asset class is Stock Tokens: on-chain representations of equities, NVDA, GOOG, AAPL among the 95 at launch, issued by Robinhood, priced by Chainlink feeds, and tradable every hour of every day, not just during exchange sessions. They are the chain’s reason for existing, and understanding precisely what they are, and are not, is the guide’s most practical section.

A Stock Token delivers price exposure to the underlying equity in a token that behaves like any other crypto asset: hold it in the Robinhood Wallet or self-custody, trade it around the clock on the chain’s exchanges, transfer it, and, most consequentially, use it inside DeFi. What it does not deliver is shareholder status: token holders do not vote, and corporate rights stay with the issuance structure, with dividend economics passed through per the product’s terms, the standard trade-off of every tokenized-equity model. The tokens descend from Robinhood’s 2025 European pilots, which tokenized exposure to private names like SpaceX and OpenAI as proof of concept, and the lineage matters: the legal wrappers were tested under European rules before the chain bet on them.

Availability is the sharpest edge. Stock Tokens ship through the Robinhood Wallet in more than 120 countries, and conspicuously not to United States users, where the line between a compliant synthetic instrument and an unregistered security remains undrawn. The result is one of the strangest compliance objects in crypto: a permissionless network, built by an American broker, whose flagship assets are geofenced away from Americans, with enforcement living at the issuance and app layers while the rails underneath stay open. Whether that architecture satisfies regulators, or attracts them, is among the chain’s defining open questions.

The 24/7 dimension carries its own mechanics worth knowing. When the underlying stock market is closed, nights, weekends, holidays, the tokens keep trading, drifting on expectation with no live reference price, then reconverging when the real market opens. Weekend token prices function as forecasts of Monday’s open, gaps can be violent when news breaks during the closure, and anyone using the tokens in leveraged or collateralized positions inherits that gap risk in full.

The DeFi layer: why composability is the point

Tokenized stocks existed before Robinhood Chain. What the chain adds, and what its launch ecosystem was assembled to prove, is composability: the tokens plug into open financial protocols as first-class assets, which converts a brokerage line item into a programmable building block.

The day-one roster was deliberately first-tier. Uniswap deployed a dedicated AMM as the chain’s core public liquidity venue; Arcus, built by the team behind dYdX, runs a zero-fee exchange purpose-built for the stock tokens; 1inch, Rialto, and Lighter round out trading, with Lighter adding perpetual futures and pledging $11 million of its token to Robinhood users; Pleiades operates a proprietary market-making AMM; and Morpho’s lending markets opened the loop that matters most: stock tokens as loan collateral. That last integration is the chain’s genuinely novel product, a holder borrowing stablecoins against tokenized NVDA, automatically, no paperwork, with liquidation machinery enforcing the loan against oracle prices, and it is also the chain’s most delicate engineering: equity collateral marked by feeds from a market that closes means health factors computed against stale or reconstructed prices for two-thirds of every week, gap-risk liquidations at Monday opens, and corporate-action handling no DeFi risk framework has stress-tested at scale.

The deposits that flowed in during week one, past $240 million, concentrated in exactly these venues, drawn by a 7% yield incentive and points programs, and the composition question, how much collateral is actually stock tokens versus recycled farm assets, is the single best indicator of whether the composability thesis is converting, the launch-week forensics this publication’s feature examined in depth.

Using the chain: access, wallets, and what a first session looks like

For a user, the chain’s front door is the Robinhood Wallet, the company’s self-custody app, which added native Robinhood Chain support at launch: bridging assets in from Ethereum and other networks, swapping tokens, and reaching the chain’s applications happen from inside an interface tens of millions of people already carry. That distribution is the launch’s real innovation, one tap from an existing consumer app to an on-chain economy, no seed-phrase ceremony, no network-configuration ritual, and it is why the chain gathered users at a pace organic launches never match.

Nothing about the chain requires Robinhood’s app, though, and the permissionless design means the standard crypto path works identically: add the network to any EVM wallet, bridge funds across, and interact with the protocols directly. A typical first session looks like any L2’s, bridge a stablecoin or ETH, pay negligible fees, swap or deposit into a venue, with two chain-specific wrinkles worth knowing in advance. The first is that asset availability depends on who you are and where: the DeFi protocols and general tokens are open, while Stock Tokens and certain products check jurisdiction at the issuance and interface layers, so two users on the same chain can see different shelves. The second is incentives literacy: the launch period’s yields and points programs are bootstrap subsidies with published terms and step-down schedules, and treating them as permanent rates is the classic new-chain mistake, since incentive-driven deposits reprice the day the programs do.

Builders face an even lower bar: the chain is standard EVM, deploys with familiar tooling, and offers what no other network can, proximity to a brokerage user base and an asset class, the stock tokens, that exists nowhere else as a composable primitive. The day-one protocol roster arrived for exactly that reason, and the open question for every subsequent builder is the same one the chain itself faces: whether the mission assets acquire the liquidity that makes building against them worthwhile.

The launch by the numbers, and how to read them

The chain’s opening week produced statistics worth recording precisely, because they will be the baseline every future assessment measures against. Day-one volume of $570 million against $21.68 million of total value locked, a 26-to-1 turnover ratio without precedent at scale, driven overwhelmingly by speculative memecoin trading rather than the stock tokens the chain was built for. Roughly 4 million transactions in the first week against about $57,000 of protocol revenue, deliberately subsidized throughput. Deposits growing past $240 million within days, concentrated in Morpho and Ethena strategies farming a 7% incentive. And an 8% rally in HOOD stock on launch, the equity market pricing the option the chain represents.

Read together, the numbers say the launch proved distribution and deferred everything else: the crowd arrived instantly, the crowd was the wrong crowd by the mission’s definition, and the company visibly did not mind, because speculative bootstrap is how every successful chain, Base included, actually started. The figures to watch from here are the boring ones, stock-token volume as a share of activity, collateral composition in the lending markets, deposit retention through incentive step-downs, and they will decide, over quarters rather than weeks, whether the launch statistics were a foundation or a fireworks show.

Fees, economics, and the Arbitrum deal

The chain’s business model is subsidy now, franchise later. Transaction fees are deliberately negligible, roughly $57,000 of protocol revenue against the first week’s 4 million transactions, because the chain is priced as customer acquisition: Robinhood monetizes the surrounding stack, wallet, custody, order flow, spreads, and the eventual financialization of assets its 28 million customers already hold. The structure echoes the company’s zero-commission brokerage playbook precisely.

The launch’s most consequential economic detail belongs to someone else: 10% of Robinhood Chain’s fees flow to the Arbitrum ecosystem, with 8% going directly to the treasury controlled by ARB token holders, confirmation that sent ARB up double digits. The deal matters twice over: it prices Orbit’s chains-as-a-service model with its biggest customer to date, and it sets the template every future corporate chain will negotiate against, the sell-shovels economics underneath the land grab, whose full competitive map this publication has drawn.

One further piece of the economics deserves its own paragraph because it inverts the usual chain-token question: Robinhood Chain has no token, and the company has signaled nothing about one. The network’s fees are paid in ETH-denominated gas, its incentives are paid in dollars and partner tokens, and the value the chain generates is designed to accrue to HOOD equity through the brokerage’s ordinary lines rather than to a new crypto asset. The choice is strategically legible, a token would add regulatory surface exactly where the company has least room, and it makes the chain a useful natural experiment: the corporate-chain model’s economics, tested without the token variable that confounds every other network’s numbers. It also concentrates the ecosystem’s token exposure in unexpected places, ARB through the fee-sharing deal, and the partner protocols’ tokens through their deployments, which is why the launch’s clearest market beneficiaries were assets Robinhood does not issue.

How it compares: Robinhood Chain versus the field

Against Base, the reigning corporate chain, the comparison clarifies both. Base is a general-purpose network that grew an economy organically, memecoins first, then consumer apps, then everything, monetized through sequencer margin at enormous scale; its differentiation is Coinbase’s distribution applied to an open playground. Robinhood Chain is a product-led network: the stock tokens are the anchor tenant, the DeFi roster was recruited around them, and the bet is that one asset class nobody else ships outruns a general platform’s breadth. Base runs on the OP Stack, Robinhood on Arbitrum Orbit, a meaningful choice mostly for the fee-sharing counterparty and the proving roadmap. Against Tempo, Stripe’s payments-first chain, the contrast is anchor product again, payments versus equities, and against the neutral L1s both compete with, the corporate chains share the same offer and the same objection: distribution no neutral chain can match, control no neutral chain would accept.

Where the chain came from: the two-year assembly

The launch’s polish reflects deliberate sequencing worth knowing, because it explains both the chain’s capabilities and its ambitions. Robinhood spent 2025 acquiring the pieces: Bitstamp, one of the oldest crypto exchanges, for trading and institutional infrastructure; WonderFi for Canadian licensing; and the European tokenized-equity pilots, including exposure products on private names like SpaceX and OpenAI, as legal and product rehearsal. Early 2026 brought the quiet phase: a public testnet from February that processed millions of transactions, and the European expansion of crypto perpetuals that became one of the company’s fastest-growing lines. The July launch composed the pieces into one architecture, assets tokenized on its own network, traded through its own wallet and partnered venues, financed through integrated lending, custodied through its own stack, and the composition, more than any single component, is the product: a vertically integrated on-chain brokerage, with each layer feeding the others.

The assembly also explains the chain’s geography. The launch happened in London, the stock tokens ship internationally first, and the European perps expansion runs under MiCA-era rules, because the regulatory groundwork was laid where frameworks exist. The United States, the company’s home market, receives the chain, the wallet, and the crypto products, and waits on the equity tokens until American classification law settles, a sequencing that reads as strange until it reads as strategy: build the global product under workable rules, and let the home market’s framework catch up to a working precedent instead of a proposal.

The honest open questions

Three questions will decide what the chain becomes, and none is answerable yet. Control: a permissionless network whose sequencing, issuance, and flagship interface all route through one regulated broker is decentralized at exactly one layer, and the pressure point regulators or litigants would reach for first is obvious. Liquidity: 24/7 equity trading and stock-collateral lending are only as real as their depth, and week-one depth in the mission assets was thin against the speculative noise; the products exist as listings and must become markets. And law: the geofence paradox, the CLARITY-era classification of the tokens, and the first serious corporate action or exploit on tokenized equities are all uncharted, and each is capable of reshaping the chain’s product overnight.

What is not in question is significance. A top American broker building a public blockchain around real-world assets, and populating it with DeFi’s first tier on day one, is the clearest single marker yet of traditional finance and crypto converging on shared rails, and whichever way the open questions resolve, the experiment’s data, on tokenized-equity demand, on corporate-chain economics, on regulated assets in permissionless systems, will shape what every institution builds next.

A short reader’s guide to following the chain closes the picture, because the story is young and the sources are all public. The chain’s explorer and the standard TVL dashboards carry the activity and deposit series; the incentive programs publish their terms and step-down dates; the stock-token venues report the volumes that measure the mission; and Robinhood’s quarterly disclosures will, over time, reveal what the company chooses to say about economics it is currently subsidizing in silence. The corporate-chain era is being decided by exactly this kind of unglamorous series, retention curves and collateral mixes, not keynotes, and Robinhood Chain, whatever it becomes, has committed to being graded in public. For a technology that spent a decade arguing about whether traditional finance would ever really arrive on-chain, the most informative thing about this chain may simply be its existence: the argument is over, the arrival is operational, and the remaining questions, control, liquidity, and law, are the practical kind that get answered by data, not debate.

And a sizing footnote for perspective: a week after launch, the chain’s deposits already exceeded what most of the previous cycle’s venture-funded L2s gathered in their lifetimes, and its flagship product had transacted less than its accidental memecoin economy, both facts true at once, which is the corporate-chain era in a single sentence.

The chain is a week old; this guide will age accordingly, and its framework, architecture, assets, access, economics, questions, is built to be refilled with each quarter’s numbers.

Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Digital asset markets are volatile and you can lose your entire investment. Product availability varies by jurisdiction, and details are current as of July 9, 2026, and changing quickly. Always do your own research.

Frequently asked questions

Bitcoin price has climbed toward the key $65,000 resistance zone after U.S. President Donald Trump said Iran had reached out to Washington to discuss a possible agreement, easing geopolitical concerns and lifting demand across risk assets.

According to data from crypto.news, Bitcoin (BTC) price rallied to an intraday high of $64,400 on Friday, up 2.65% on the day, while the total cryptocurrency market capitalization rose 2.17% to $2.21 trillion. Ethereum recovered toward $1,800, XRP held above a major support level, and Dogecoin also advanced as traders rotated back into higher-risk assets following Trump’s comments.

At the same time, activity in the derivatives market accelerated. Bitcoin futures trading volume increased 3.83% to $51.59 billion, while open interest climbed 4% to $48.16 billion, suggesting fresh capital entered leveraged positions rather than short covering alone. Options activity expanded even faster, with volume jumping 27.23% to $2.81 billion as traders positioned for a potential move beyond the closely watched $65,000 barrier.

Bitcoin price tests neckline breakout as derivatives activity builds

The technical structure has also improved after Bitcoin completed an inverse head-and-shoulders pattern on the 4-hour chart. Price has returned to the neckline near $64,500-$65,000, a level that has repeatedly capped rallies during the past several weeks. A confirmed breakout would project an upside target near $71,800, based on the measured move from the pattern.

Momentum indicators continue to favor buyers without showing extreme conditions. The four-hour RSI sits near 60, leaving room for additional gains before entering overbought territory. Meanwhile, the MACD has crossed above its signal line, and the histogram remains in positive territory, supporting the current recovery attempt.

The daily chart also shows Bitcoin reclaiming its 20-day simple moving average near $61,870 after spending several sessions below it. Price now sits between the 20-day and 50-day moving averages, with the 50-day SMA around $65,430 serving as the next technical hurdle. Longer-term resistance remains concentrated near the 100-day and 200-day moving averages around $70,800 and $74,100, respectively.

Liquidation data from CoinGlass highlights another obstacle. The largest cluster of short liquidations sits between roughly $64,800 and $65,200, where leverage has accumulated over the past three days. A decisive move through that zone could trigger forced buying and accelerate Bitcoin toward the next liquidity pockets above $66,000.

Market analysts have also focused on the same resistance region. According to analyst Ted Pillows, “Bitcoin is right at its resistance level. And the major concern is weak spot demand. If buyers step in here, Bitcoin could see a decent breakout and rally next.”

A similar view came from analyst Michaël van de Poppe, who expects the recent recovery to continue if buyers defend current levels.

“There’s more strength coming in on $BTC. That’s a great move and I don’t expect to see the markets falling here. Continuation over the coming 1-2 weeks would mean that we’re seeing a run to $70k+ happening and that would strengthen the thesis that the bottom is relatively here.”

Failure at $65K would expose lower support levels again

Despite the improving setup, Bitcoin still faces several risks before confirming a sustained breakout. The $64,500-$65,500 area combines horizontal resistance, the 50-day moving average, and a heavy concentration of leveraged positions. Failure to clear that zone could encourage profit-taking after the recent rebound.

Support begins near $63,000, followed by the $62,000 region identified by several technical analysts. A break below those levels would invalidate the inverse head-and-shoulders pattern and shift attention back toward the late-June lows near $58,000.

Any renewed escalation in Middle East tensions, stronger-than-expected U.S. economic data that revives Federal Reserve tightening expectations, or a reversal in risk sentiment across equity markets could also pressure Bitcoin before bulls have a chance to challenge the next resistance zone.

The Federal Reserve has named Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen to help lead a task force studying artificial intelligence, productivity and employment.

The Federal Reserve announced the appointment on July 9. The panel forms part of Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s broader review of how the central bank makes monetary policy decisions.

Andreessen will serve on the Productivity and Jobs task force with Stanford University economist Charles I. Jones and Microsoft executive Asha Sharma.

Jones is currently on leave from Stanford while working at AI company Anthropic. Sharma serves as Microsoft’s executive vice president and Xbox CEO. Their panel will assess how general-purpose technologies, including AI, affect economic output and jobs.

The group will receive support from Federal Reserve staff but operate independently. It will provide research and feedback to the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets U.S. interest rates.

Warsh said each panel would examine whether the Fed could improve its analytical tools and policy methods. 

“The goal is straightforward: to ensure the Fed is best positioned to achieve our objectives,” he said.

Andreessen co-founded a16z, a venture capital company that has invested heavily in artificial intelligence, crypto, fintech and software. His appointment gives a technology investor a formal role in the Fed’s review, although the panel will not set interest rates.

Five task forces review Fed policy

The Productivity and Jobs group is one of five task forces created under Warsh. The other panels will examine communication, balance-sheet policy, economic data and inflation frameworks.

The communications panel will study how the Fed explains decisions during uncertain economic periods. A separate balance-sheet team will assess the costs and benefits of the central bank’s current asset holdings.

Meanwhile, the data panel will study how the Fed can receive faster and more reliable economic signals. The inflation group will review how policymakers measure and respond to the causes of rising prices.

Warsh first announced the review after the Fed’s June meeting. As previously reported by crypto.news, he said the groups could begin work within weeks and provide early findings during the fall.

The Fed has not published a final deadline for the task forces. It said further details about their work would appear periodically.

Fed officials debate AI’s economic role

The review comes as policymakers assess whether AI will reduce inflation through higher productivity or raise prices through heavy infrastructure spending.

Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook said in a May speech on AI and the economy that the technology could raise productivity and support stronger economic growth. However, she also warned that rapid investment and labor-market changes could create inflation risks.

Former Fed Chair Jerome Powell raised similar doubts in March. He said data center construction was putting pressure on goods and services and was “probably pushing inflation up at the margin.”

The two effects may occur at different times. Spending on chips, electricity and data centers can increase costs in the near term. Later productivity gains could allow companies to produce more with fewer resources.

As reported by crypto.news, Cathie Wood expects productivity growth to reduce inflation. She argued that stronger output per worker could lower unit labor costs even when the economy continues growing.

AI policy could matter for crypto markets

The task force does not have a direct crypto mandate. However, the Fed’s conclusions on productivity, inflation and employment could influence interest-rate decisions that affect Bitcoin and other risk assets.

Higher rates often increase demand for cash and government debt while reducing investor demand for volatile assets. Lower rates can improve liquidity conditions, although crypto prices also respond to regulation, market flows and wider economic risks.

Andreessen’s firm has backed several crypto companies through its a16z crypto division. Still, the Fed described his new position as part of a broad technology review rather than a role focused on digital assets.

Lawmakers have intensified calls for an investigation into President Donald Trump’s cryptocurrency holdings as the Senate prepares to advance the CLARITY Act.

According to a joint statement from Democratic senators, ranking members from five Senate committees have asked Congress to hold hearings into the national security implications of President Trump’s crypto business interests, arguing that his financial disclosures raise new questions just as lawmakers finalize legislation that would reshape U.S. digital asset regulation.

The statement was signed by Senators Elizabeth Warren, Richard Blumenthal, Gary Peters, Dick Durbin, and Ron Wyden. Citing Trump’s latest financial disclosure, the lawmakers said the president’s family crypto ventures generated roughly $1.4 billion in income and argued that unidentified third parties continue to hold stakes in the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial project.

They contended that these financial interests warrant closer scrutiny before Congress moves ahead with the CLARITY Act.

Democratic lawmakers also argued that the disclosures raise concerns over the administration’s support for crypto legislation while simultaneously pursuing regulatory changes affecting the industry. According to the senators, those concerns extend to efforts they say would exempt parts of the crypto sector from existing financial rules and weaken enforcement measures.

Ethics provisions remain a sticking point

Separately, Senator Elizabeth Warren renewed her call for ethics restrictions within the CLARITY Act. In a post on X, Warren argued that the legislation should prohibit the president, vice president, members of Congress, senior administration officials, and their immediate families from profiting from cryptocurrency ventures while serving in public office.

She described Trump’s crypto business interests as corruption and said Congress has a responsibility to prevent conflicts of interest through the legislation.

Trump has previously dismissed criticism surrounding the disclosures, saying he was unaware of the reported crypto income and maintaining that there was nothing illegal about the earnings.

The ethics debate has emerged as Senate negotiators prepare an updated version of the CLARITY Act that combines proposals from the Senate Banking and Agriculture committees. According to earlier reporting, the consolidated draft is expected to exceed 70 pages and include stronger consumer protection provisions alongside changes negotiated in recent weeks. 

The Senate is targeting floor consideration during the week of July 20, leaving lawmakers with limited time before the chamber’s August recess.

Senate negotiations continue amid regulatory disputes

At the same time, negotiations over the legislation continue beyond ethics provisions. Law enforcement organizations have argued that language governing decentralized finance could make investigations into illicit finance more difficult, adding another issue for senators to resolve before any floor vote.

Senator Ron Wyden has also urged Senate leaders to preserve Section 604, known as the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, arguing in a letter to Majority Leader John Thune and Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer that legal protections for non-custodial blockchain developers should remain in the final bill.

Meanwhile, the White House has rejected accusations that it is refusing to nominate Democratic commissioners to the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

In a letter to Thune and Schumer, the administration said it had requested qualified Democratic nominees for both agencies but had not received any names, responding to criticism over vacant seats at regulators expected to oversee large portions of the crypto market if the CLARITY Act becomes law.

Another development came from the private sector, where Coinbase announced that Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal will step down on July 31. His departure comes only days before the Senate is expected to resume work on the CLARITY Act, placing one of the crypto industry’s most prominent legal leadership changes alongside a pivotal period for U.S. digital asset legislation.

Bitcoin has climbed back above $64,000 after Standard Chartered reaffirmed its $100,000 year-end 2026 price target and argued that recent selling linked to Strategy has not weakened Bitcoin’s long-term outlook.

Standard Chartered said the recent decline in Bitcoin was driven more by uncertainty over Strategy’s changing treasury approach than by any deterioration in the cryptocurrency’s fundamentals.

In a research note, the bank maintained that the latest pullback should not be viewed as a sign that the longer-term bull case has changed.

Strategy’s treasury changes remain at the center of investor attention

According to Standard Chartered’s Global Head of Digital Assets Research, Geoff Kendrick, investors have largely misunderstood Strategy’s evolving use of its Bitcoin holdings. Rather than continuing to rely mainly on debt and equity issuance to accumulate Bitcoin, the company is increasingly using its treasury to support credit-focused products, including its perpetual preferred stock, STRC.

Standard Chartered said this development has altered how some investors interpret Strategy’s role in the Bitcoin market. The bank added that clearer communication around the company’s treasury plans could help reduce concerns over future Bitcoin sales.

In its report, Standard Chartered compared the importance of credible corporate commitments with the way central banks use consistent policy signals to build market confidence.

Earlier this year, Strategy’s Bitcoin sale triggered a sharp market reaction after investors questioned whether the company might continue reducing its holdings. According to the report, the announcement contributed to Bitcoin falling from around $80,000 to nearly $60,000, while Strategy shares and STRC also declined as investor confidence weakened.

Even during that period, however, Standard Chartered kept its forecast that Bitcoin could reach $100,000 by the end of 2026, arguing that the market had overreacted to uncertainty surrounding Strategy rather than changes in Bitcoin itself.

Institutional positioning continues to evolve

As Bitcoin recovered to trade near $64,500, institutional investors also adjusted their exposure to Strategy and crypto investment products.

As previously reported by crypto.news, Wells Fargo disclosed in its latest filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it increased its holding in Strategy by 125%, lifting its position to nearly 726,000 shares after adding about $41.5 million in exposure.

The same filing also showed that Wells Fargo reduced its position in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust by 75,102 shares compared with the previous quarter.

At the same time, the bank opened a new IBIT call position and expanded its put exposure during a period of elevated market uncertainty tied to the U.S.-Iran conflict, indicating a more balanced options strategy instead of relying solely on spot ETF holdings.

Beyond Bitcoin-related investments, the SEC filing showed that Wells Fargo also increased its exposure to Ethereum- and Solana-linked products, suggesting continued institutional participation across multiple digital asset markets despite recent volatility.

Standard Chartered argued that if Strategy succeeds in explaining how its treasury model is changing, concerns about additional Bitcoin sales could ease further. With Bitcoin trading back above the $64,000 level while the bank maintains its long-term forecast, the report said investor confidence could continue improving as uncertainty around Strategy’s financing strategy fades.

Vitalik Buterin has called on Elon Musk to reshape X into a platform where ordinary users can help coordinate global AI governance instead of leaving key decisions to governments and large institutions.

According to a July 11 thread published by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin on X, the social media platform could become a place where people participate in major AI policy discussions through open coordination rather than relying solely on governments, major AI laboratories, or nonprofit organizations.

X could become a coordination layer for AI policy

In the thread, Buterin argued that X is well positioned to help people negotiate what he described as “grand win-win deals” on AI governance. Addressing Musk directly, he wrote that if he were running the platform, he would redesign it to help identify agreements that give more people influence over decisions instead of concentrating power among governments, technology companies, and leading institutions.

The proposal builds on ideas Buterin has discussed before. In earlier posts, he praised X’s Community Notes system and prediction markets as two of the most important social technologies for improving public knowledge.

At the same time, he has also warned that the platform could become a tool for coordinated harassment if its incentives move in the wrong direction, making governance changes increasingly important in his view.

Buterin’s proposal comes as the AI race accelerates after SpaceXAI released Grok 4.5 and OpenAI rolled out GPT-5.6. Ahead of Grok 4.5’s public launch, Musk described it on X as an “Opus-class model” that is faster, more token-efficient, and lower cost following positive beta feedback.

Crypto tools could benefit if X adopts the model

Beyond proposing changes to X, Buterin outlined what he sees as the biggest disagreement in the AI debate. According to his post, one group believes artificial superintelligence could emerge around 2040 unless development slows dramatically, while another treats AI as a continuation of previous technological progress and dismisses warnings about existential risks and centralized control.

Although Buterin said he remains uncertain about AI timelines, he argued in favor of establishing predefined conditions that could temporarily slow AI development. His examples included the emergence of super-pandemics, unemployment rising above 25%, or autonomous lethal drones becoming widely deployed.

Those proposals are consistent with Buterin’s defensive acceleration, or d/acc, framework, which prioritizes technologies such as cryptography, formal verification, secure open hardware, pandemic preparedness, and stronger public information systems. The same philosophy has also influenced Ethereum’s technical roadmap, where Buterin has repeatedly supported privacy-focused infrastructure through what has become known as the Lean Ethereum vision.

For crypto markets, Buterin’s proposal points toward a larger role for decentralized infrastructure if X evolves into a coordination platform. Prediction markets could be used to verify whether agreed AI trigger events have occurred, while zero-knowledge technologies and on-chain governance systems could receive additional attention if institutions adopt more transparent decision-making processes.

Even so, Buterin stopped short of calling for new AI regulation. Instead, his thread argued for coordination between participants with different views, presenting a framework that attempts to balance open participation with safeguards against high-risk AI outcomes.

The stablecoin market has lost about $10 billion since reaching a record high in May 2026. Total supply fell by $7.7 billion during June to about $312 billion, marking the largest monthly decline in dollar terms since the TerraUSD collapse in May 2022. The decrease equaled roughly 2.4% for June and about 3% from the May peak. 

Current DefiLlama data places the market near $312.23 billion. The dashboard shows Tether’s USDT at about $184.15 billion and Circle’s USDC at roughly $73.41 billion. USDT still controls close to 59% of the market, leaving the sector heavily dependent on its two largest dollar-backed tokens.

USDT and USDC lead the supply reduction

USDT fell from about $190 billion in May, cutting roughly $6 billion from its circulating value. USDC declined from a March peak near $80 billion, losing almost $7 billion over four months. Together, those changes account for most of the retreat, although smaller regulated issuers continued expanding during the same period. 

Paul Howard, senior director at trading firm Wincent, described the decline as “a relatively small pullback in what we believe is a long-term growth market.” The current drawdown remains far below the 26% stablecoin contraction recorded across the 2022 bear market. That earlier decline followed the Terra failure, lender collapses, and the failure of FTX.

Lower supply points to thinner crypto liquidity

Traders use stablecoins as settlement assets and quote currencies across exchanges and decentralized markets. A falling supply can show that users redeemed tokens for bank dollars or moved capital outside crypto. It can also reduce the amount of dollar-linked buying power available for Bitcoin, Ether, and other digital assets.

The reduction arrived during a weak month for crypto investment products.Crypto.news reported that U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds lost more than $4 billion in June, their worst monthly outflow since launch. The parallel declines show that institutional fund demand and on-chain dollar liquidity both weakened as digital asset prices remained under pressure.

Activity did not fall at the same pace as supply. The adjusted stablecoin transaction volume reached a record $1.78 trillion in June. USDC processed about $1.21 trillion, while USDT handled $573 billion. USDT still recorded more individual transfers, showing that fewer tokens can continue supporting heavy payment and trading activity.

Tokenized assets grow while stablecoins retreat

Tokenized real-world assets moved in the opposite direction. However, their on-chain value crossed $30 billion during 2026, led by tokenized Treasury products, funds, and private credit. CoinDesk Research also recorded a 145% rise in tokenized equity volume during June to a record $3.86 billion.

Regulation and new issuers continue reshaping the stablecoin market. The U.S. GENIUS Act created a federal framework for payment stablecoins, while regulators are drafting customer identification, sanctions, and reserve rules. Crypto.news has also tracked new reserve products from Fidelity and State Street designed for regulated issuers.

The latest supply figures point to a pause in market expansion rather than a Terra-style collapse. USDT and USDC remain near their dollar pegs, transaction activity remains high, and the total market retains most of its recent growth. Further monthly contractions would provide clearer evidence that crypto liquidity is leaving the system rather than moving between issuers or on-chain products.

Investors will now watch July issuance, redemption data, exchange volumes, and ETF flows for signs that demand is returning or weakening further.

Empery has sold 1,400 Bitcoin for about $87.1 million since May, using the proceeds to reduce debt, fund acquisitions, cover legal costs, and strengthen its cash position while scaling back part of its Bitcoin treasury.

Bitcoin sales have strengthened Empery’s balance sheet

According to Empery, the Nasdaq-listed company sold the 1,400 BTC between May 7 and July 10 at an average price of $62,200 per Bitcoin. The transactions generated approximately $87.1 million in gross proceeds, leaving the company with 1,514 BTC and roughly $73.9 million in cash as of July 10.

Company filings show the proceeds are being allocated across several financial obligations rather than additional Bitcoin purchases. Empery said the funds are being used to repay debt, finance a previously announced property acquisition, cover legal expenses related to ongoing stockholder litigation and support general operations.

As part of those efforts, Empery disclosed that it repaid $10 million of outstanding debt on July 7. Even after that payment, the company said about $45 million remains outstanding under its debt facility.

The latest disposal follows an earlier round of Bitcoin sales this year. In its annual report, Empery disclosed that it sold 722 BTC for approximately $50 million between Jan. 1 and March 25, 2026, while also warning investors that future Bitcoin sales could affect both its financial results and overall financial condition.

Earlier treasury expansion has given way to liquidity needs

The latest sales stand in contrast with the company’s Bitcoin accumulation strategy announced last year. In August 2025, when the company still operated under the Volcon name, Empery said it held more than 4,018 BTC and described its strategy as becoming a low-cost, capital-efficient Bitcoin aggregator.

Recent treasury decisions by other publicly traded Bitcoin holders show that companies are taking different approaches depending on their balance sheet needs. As previously reported by crypto.news, Nakamoto Inc. reduced outstanding debt by about $45 million after selling roughly 600 BTC and using Bitcoin-related derivative positions, generating around $48 million in net proceeds.

The company also refinanced most of its remaining borrowings into 2027, lowered financing costs, and retained approximately 4,467 BTC worth more than $280 million, according to company figures.

Capital B has moved in the opposite direction by seeking additional funding to expand its Bitcoin holdings rather than selling existing reserves. As previously reported by crypto.news, shareholders approved a financing framework in June authorizing up to €5 billion in new equity issuance and €100 billion in credit instruments. 

According to Alexandre Laizet, Capital B’s board director of Bitcoin Strategy, the proposal would allow the French Bitcoin treasury company to issue up to 125 billion new shares at their current nominal value alongside a substantial pool of debt and credit instruments to finance further Bitcoin purchases.

Unlike Capital B’s capital-raising strategy or Nakamoto’s refinancing plan, Empery’s latest disclosures show that the company is relying on Bitcoin sales to meet immediate financial obligations while maintaining a smaller digital asset treasury on its balance sheet.