Crypto World
what it means for RLUSD and XRP
Ripple signed on to a dollar stablecoin backed by Visa, Mastercard, and BlackRock. It is not Ripple’s coin, and it does not launch on the XRP Ledger. So the question every XRP holder is asking is simple: does any of this actually help the token?
Summary
- On June 30, 2026, Ripple joined Open USD, or OUSD, a consortium dollar stablecoin backed by more than 140 companies including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, BlackRock, BNY, Coinbase, and Google, as a day-one integration partner.
- OUSD is not a Ripple product. It is run by an independent organization called Open Standard, and it launches on Solana, Stellar, Base, and Polygon later in 2026, not on the XRP Ledger.
- Ripple kept its own stablecoin, RLUSD, and joined OUSD anyway, a hedge that puts the XRP Ledger forward as a possible rail while ensuring Ripple benefits from the traffic whichever stablecoin wins.
- The bull case for XRP is that a larger stablecoin market means more cross-currency flows for market makers to bridge, a role XRP can fill. The bear case is that OUSD competes directly with RLUSD, does not run on the XRP Ledger at launch, and a win for Ripple the company is not a win for the token.
- The deeper story is a challenge to Tether and Circle: OUSD shares its reserve income with partners instead of keeping it, inverting the economics that built the stablecoin giants.
Every so often, Ripple turns up somewhere that makes XRP holders pay attention, and the launch lineup for Open USD is the latest. On June 30, 2026, Ripple signed on as a day-one integration partner to a new dollar stablecoin backed by Mastercard, Visa, Stripe, BlackRock, and more than 140 other companies. The headline reads like a win for Ripple, and it may well be one for the company. Whether it does anything for XRP, the token, is a separate and much harder question, and the answer runs through two details most coverage skips: OUSD is not Ripple’s coin, and it does not launch on the XRP Ledger.
This piece works through what Open USD is, why Ripple joined a project that competes with its own stablecoin, and what the move means for both RLUSD and XRP. The same distinction keeps returning across Ripple’s 2026 story: a Ripple win is not an XRP win unless there is a clear transmission mechanism from the company’s progress to token demand. Open USD is one more test of that rule. It is a company-level strategy first, and only a token catalyst if the usage eventually reaches XRP.
What Open USD actually is
Start with the thing itself, because the branding invites confusion. Open USD is a dollar-backed stablecoin created by Open Standard, an independent organization set up to run and govern the coin, with a board drawn from its partners and Zach Abrams as founding chief executive. It is not issued or controlled by Ripple. Ripple is one name on a launch roster that reads like a directory of global finance and technology: Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, BlackRock, BNY, Coinbase, Google, IBM, OKX, Standard Chartered, Shopify, and more than 140 companies spanning banking, payments, technology, and crypto.
The coin is planned to go live later in 2026. The design is where OUSD gets interesting, because it goes straight at the business model that built the stablecoin giants. Businesses will be able to mint and redeem OUSD with no fees and no volume limits. More striking, most of the income thrown off by the coin’s reserves, the interest earned on the dollars backing it, goes to the participating businesses after a small management fee, instead of being kept by a single issuer.
That is close to the opposite of how Tether and Circle operate. Tether earned more than $10 billion in 2025 almost entirely from interest on its reserves, and Circle makes money the same way while handing about half of it to Coinbase for distribution. OUSD hands the float back to the network, which is a direct attack on the issuer-keeps-the-interest model. For readers new to the category, OUSD is still a dollar-backed stablecoin; what differs is who gets the economics.
The launch chains matter for the rest of this analysis, so note them precisely. OUSD is set to go live on Solana, with Stellar, Base, and Polygon in the mix, and Solana is being highlighted as a native day-one chain. The XRP Ledger is not among the launch networks. That single fact reshapes what Ripple’s participation can realistically mean for XRP, and we will return to it.
Why Ripple joined a rival to its own stablecoin
The obvious objection is that Ripple already has a stablecoin. RLUSD launched at the end of 2024 and has grown into a top-ten dollar token. So why would Ripple help build a competitor chasing the same institutional payments customers? The answer lies in how Ripple joined and in a strategy already visible across the industry.
By signing on as an integration partner rather than an issuer, Ripple keeps RLUSD and still positions the XRP Ledger as one of the rails OUSD could eventually run on. In that framing, Ripple wins traffic no matter which stablecoin comes out on top, because its ledger and its payment infrastructure can carry flows for the winner. This fits a pattern the big card networks set over the past year. Mastercard has spent that time settling payments across several blockchains and already handles Ripple’s own RLUSD alongside USDC, positioning itself as neutral infrastructure instead of the backer of any single issuer.
Ripple is doing the same thing: putting itself forward as neutral ground to claim a spot on as many rails as possible. Seen that way, joining OUSD is a hedge, not a contradiction. If OUSD becomes the dominant enterprise stablecoin, Ripple wants to be inside it. If RLUSD holds its ground, Ripple still has its own product. And if the market fragments across several coins, Ripple’s infrastructure can move value between them.
For Ripple the company, that is a sensible bet in every direction. The harder question is what any of it does for the token that XRP holders own. This is where RLUSD versus XRP becomes more than a pricing debate. Ripple can expand its stablecoin reach and its institutional relevance while XRP still waits for direct demand.
The catch: Open USD does not launch on the XRP Ledger
Here is the detail that undercuts the simplest bullish reading. OUSD is launching on Solana, Stellar, Base, and Polygon, not on the XRP Ledger. Ripple joined the consortium, but its own ledger is not among the chains carrying the coin at launch. The crypto analyst who goes by WrathofKahneman flagged this in a July 1 thread, noting that the absence left traders asking what Ripple actually gets from the deal and whether XRP benefits at all.
The gap matters because the standard XRP-benefits argument assumes the XRP Ledger carries the stablecoin’s traffic, generating activity and demand tied to the token. If OUSD does not run on the ledger, that direct channel does not exist at launch. Ripple’s integration-partner status keeps the door open to adding the XRP Ledger later, and Ripple can still route value between OUSD on other chains and RLUSD on the ledger, but the immediate, mechanical link many holders imagined is not there on day one.
This is the recurring problem with reading Ripple corporate news as XRP news. Ripple the company can join a landmark consortium, position its rails, and benefit commercially, all without the token capturing much of the value. The XRP Ledger not being a launch chain for OUSD is the clearest illustration yet that a Ripple win and an XRP win are not the same event. The market will need usage data, not a partner logo, before treating this as an XRP catalyst.
The bull case for XRP
There is still a credible, if indirect, argument that XRP benefits, and it runs through market structure instead of through the ledger carrying OUSD directly. Start with the size of the pie. If OUSD succeeds in bringing a wave of new institutional payment flows on-chain, the total volume of dollars moving across blockchains grows. Larger, more fragmented stablecoin markets create more price gaps between venues, chains, and currency pairs, and those gaps are filled by market makers who arbitrage them.
A fast, cheap bridge asset is useful in that role, and XRP was designed to be exactly that. The mechanism does not require any enterprise to touch XRP directly. An institution can use OUSD or RLUSD for settlement and never think about XRP, while market makers behind the scenes move value between OUSD, RLUSD, fiat pairs, and other assets, sometimes reaching for XRP because it is fast and cheap at the moment they need it. That activity tightens spreads and can lift volumes in XRP pairs tied to the growing stablecoin mesh.
Geography reinforces the point. RLUSD is now available in Japan after regulatory approval and is rolling out to institutions in Turkey through local partners, and those corridors are practical instead of speculative. If OUSD shows up as a settlement coin at global partners while RLUSD deepens in real corridors, the web of rails expands, and each new connection creates small arbitrage windows that a bridge asset can fill. The optimistic reading, then, is that Ripple has bought a seat at the table of the most heavily backed stablecoin ever launched, and that a bigger, busier stablecoin economy is good for an asset built to move liquidity between its pieces.
The bull does not need the XRP Ledger to carry OUSD at launch. The bull needs the overall market to grow and stay fragmented enough that bridging has value. That is the most credible XRP-positive version of the story. It is indirect, but it is not imaginary.
The bear case for XRP
The skeptical case is more concrete, and it starts with cannibalization. OUSD competes directly with RLUSD. Both target institutional payments and settlement, and both chase the same enterprise customers. Ripple joining a rival that goes after its own product’s market is a strange look, and at least one analyst noted the obvious tension: if OUSD competes with RLUSD, where does that leave RLUSD?
A consortium coin with Visa, Mastercard, and BlackRock behind it and a revenue-sharing model is a formidable competitor for a single-issuer stablecoin, even one with Ripple’s regulatory standing. Then there is the ledger problem already covered: OUSD does not launch on the XRP Ledger, so the direct on-chain benefit to XRP is absent at the start. Even if OUSD were added to the ledger later, XRP Ledger transaction fees are tiny, fractions of a cent, so a stablecoin moving across it would consume only a trickle of XRP through the network’s small transaction burn. The value of stablecoin traffic accrues mostly to the issuer, the rails operator, and the partners sharing reserve income, not to the ledger’s native token.
The track record hangs over all of it. Ripple has stacked up regulatory wins, ETF launches, acquisitions, and partnerships over the past year, and XRP has still fallen, trading near a multi-month low. Good news has repeatedly failed to move the token, which suggests the market already prices Ripple’s corporate progress separately from XRP demand. That is why institutional XRP demand matters more than institutional Ripple headlines. If the buyers are buying Ripple’s rails, RLUSD, or OUSD rather than XRP itself, the token’s price still lacks the direct bid holders need.
Finally, the consortium itself is unproven. Coinbase helped found the original USDC governance body, the Centre Consortium, with Circle in 2018, and that arrangement ended in acrimony and a nine-figure buyout by 2023. Whether a 140-member consortium governs any more durably than a two-member one did is an open question, and Ripple’s day-one hedge could look prescient or could look like a bet on a coin that never gains traction.
What it means for RLUSD
The most direct casualty of the OUSD launch may be RLUSD, and the timing is unkind. Ripple’s stablecoin has been contracting rather than growing, slipping from a peak near $1.7 billion in market value toward roughly $1.4 billion, even as Ripple expanded it into Japan through regulatory approval and into Turkey through local partners. Launching a consortium rival backed by the largest names in payments into that softness sharpens the competitive pressure on a coin already losing ground.
RLUSD is not without strengths. It is issued by a Ripple subsidiary under a New York trust charter, carries approvals in New York and Dubai, and has been built around regulatory standing and enterprise payments from the start. It runs on both the XRP Ledger and Ethereum, and Ripple-linked reporting has pointed to billions in RLUSD volume routed through XRP Ledger pairs since launch, which supports ledger activity even if it has not lifted the token’s price. Those are real assets in a market where regulatory clarity and compliance matter to institutions.
The strategic read is that Ripple is refusing to bet everything on RLUSD winning outright. By keeping RLUSD and joining OUSD, it hedges against its own stablecoin losing the institutional race, accepting more competition for RLUSD in exchange for a stake in whatever coin dominates. That is rational for the company and uncomfortable for RLUSD partisans, because it signals that Ripple itself is not certain its stablecoin wins. For the broader market, the more important shift is the revenue-sharing model OUSD introduces, which pressures every issuer, RLUSD included, to justify keeping the float that stablecoins have always quietly earned.
What would make it a real catalyst for XRP
Cutting through the announcements, the question for XRP holders is what evidence would turn OUSD from a headline into a genuine driver of token demand. The first thing to watch is listings and liquidity. If major exchanges roll out OUSD and RLUSD trading pairs widely, and market makers post tight two-sided quotes with XRP sitting in the settlement path, that is a more credible signal than any press release, because it shows XRP actually being used to bridge the new flows.
The second is whether the XRP Ledger gets added as an OUSD rail over time. Ripple’s integration-partner role leaves that possible, and if it happens, the ledger would carry some OUSD traffic directly, a more concrete link than the market-maker channel. The third is real usage rather than announced partnerships: circulating supply growth for OUSD, partner-led mint and redeem activity, merchant payment volume, and sustained peg stability, the metrics that separate a working stablecoin from a launch-day roster. Until those appear, OUSD is a promising structure with famous backers and little proven adoption.
The honest conclusion is that Ripple joining Open USD is a clear positive for Ripple the company and an ambiguous event for XRP the token. It expands Ripple’s footprint, hedges its stablecoin bet, and positions its rails inside the most heavily backed stablecoin project yet attempted. For XRP, the benefit is indirect, contingent on market-maker behavior and future ledger integration, and offset by direct competition with RLUSD and the plain fact that the coin does not launch on the XRP Ledger. As always with Ripple news, the safest move is to separate the company’s progress from the token’s, and to watch usage instead of announcements.
The stablecoin war Open USD just escalated
Zoom out from Ripple, and the launch is best read as a shot in a widening stablecoin war. The market reaction told the story within hours. Shares of Circle, the issuer of USDC that went public earlier in 2026, fell by double digits on the news, as traders priced Open USD as a direct threat to the two incumbents that dominate the market, Tether and Circle. Some analysts pushed back, with William Blair calling the selloff an overreaction and arguing that USDC’s proven liquidity and institutional footprint would be hard for any newcomer to replicate.
The disagreement is itself the point: a launch-day partner list, however impressive, is not the same as adoption, and the market is unsure how much of a threat the consortium really is. The competitive backdrop explains why the roster drew blood. Tether and Circle have built enormously profitable businesses on a simple model, taking in dollars, parking them in safe assets like Treasury bills, and keeping the interest while the coin circulates free to use. That float income runs into the billions of dollars a year for the largest issuer alone.
Open USD aims a revenue-sharing model straight at that economics, returning most of the reserve income to the businesses that drive adoption. If payment networks and platforms can earn a share of the float by supporting a coin, the incentive to promote it changes, and that is what makes a consortium of card networks, banks, and technology firms a different kind of competitor from a standalone issuer. There is a regulatory current underneath all of this. Stablecoin legislation in the U.S. has moved from uncertainty toward a defined framework, giving banks, payment networks, and large enterprises the confidence to enter a market many had watched from the sidelines.
Open USD, with its lineup of regulated financial institutions, is a product of that shift as much as a response to it. The same clarity that let Circle go public and let Ripple pursue trust charters for RLUSD is what makes a 140-member consortium coin plausible in the first place. For XRP, the widening war cuts both ways, and it sharpens the analysis already laid out. A world with more stablecoins, more issuers, and more chains is a world with more fragmentation, and fragmentation is where a bridge asset earns its keep, moving value between coins and currencies that do not settle directly against one another.
That is the structural case for XRP in a multi-stablecoin market. The offsetting risk is that the winners of the stablecoin war may build their own settlement mesh across the chains they favor, and if the XRP Ledger is not among those chains, as it is not for Open USD at launch, XRP could find the bridging work routed around it. The token’s relevance in this new landscape depends less on how many consortiums Ripple joins and more on whether market makers keep reaching for XRP when they move value across an increasingly crowded field of dollar tokens. The launch, then, is a marker of how fast the stablecoin market is maturing from a two-issuer contest into an infrastructure battle among the largest names in finance.
Ripple has positioned itself inside that battle on multiple sides at once. Whether XRP the token shares in the outcome is the question the next year of usage data, not the launch-day roster, will answer.
Frequently asked questions
Is Open USD a Ripple stablecoin?
No. Open USD, or OUSD, is issued and governed by an independent organization called Open Standard, with a board drawn from its partner companies. Ripple is one of more than 140 partners and joined as a day-one integration partner, not as the issuer. Ripple kept its own separate stablecoin, RLUSD, which it issues through a subsidiary under a New York trust charter.
Who is backing Open USD?
Open USD launched with a roster of more than 140 companies spanning payments, banking, technology, and crypto, including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, BlackRock, BNY, Coinbase, Google, IBM, OKX, Standard Chartered, and Shopify, among others. The coin is run by the independent Open Standard organization and is planned to go live later in 2026 across several blockchains. The size and quality of the partner list are the main reason the launch drew market attention.
Does Open USD run on the XRP Ledger?
Not at launch. Open USD is set to go live on Solana, Stellar, Base, and Polygon, with Solana highlighted as a native day-one chain. The XRP Ledger is not among the launch networks. Ripple’s integration-partner status leaves open the possibility of adding the ledger later, but the direct on-chain link to XRP does not exist at launch.
Why did Ripple join a stablecoin that competes with RLUSD?
Ripple appears to be hedging. By keeping RLUSD and joining OUSD as an integration partner, it positions its infrastructure to benefit whichever stablecoin wins, and it can route value between OUSD on other chains and RLUSD on the XRP Ledger. It mirrors how card networks like Mastercard now settle across many chains and multiple stablecoins instead of backing a single issuer. That is sensible for Ripple the company, even if it complicates the RLUSD story.
Does Open USD help the XRP price?
The benefit is indirect and uncertain. A larger stablecoin market can create more cross-currency flows for market makers to bridge, a role XRP can fill, which could lift volumes in XRP pairs. But OUSD does not launch on the XRP Ledger, XRP Ledger fees are tiny, and Ripple’s past wins have not lifted the token. A win for Ripple the company is not automatically a win for XRP.
How is Open USD different from Tether and Circle?
Open USD inverts the core economics. Tether and Circle keep the interest earned on their reserves, which has made them enormously profitable. Open USD instead shares most of that reserve income with its participating businesses after a small management fee, and lets businesses mint and redeem without fees or volume limits. That model is a direct challenge to the issuer-keeps-the-float approach that built the stablecoin giants.
What does Open USD mean for RLUSD?
It intensifies competition. OUSD targets the same institutional payments and settlement market as RLUSD, and it arrives while RLUSD has been contracting, slipping from a peak near $1.7 billion toward roughly $1.4 billion, even as Ripple expanded it into Japan and Turkey. Ripple keeping RLUSD while joining OUSD signals it is not betting everything on its own stablecoin winning the institutional race outright. It also pressures RLUSD to prove adoption through real payment and settlement volume.
What should XRP holders watch to judge the impact?
Watch for real usage instead of announcements. Key signals include major exchanges listing OUSD and RLUSD pairs with market makers quoting XRP in the settlement path, the XRP Ledger being added as an OUSD rail over time, and adoption metrics such as circulating supply growth, mint and redeem activity, merchant volume, and sustained peg stability. Those separate a working stablecoin from a launch-day partner list. Until those signals appear, the XRP impact remains speculative.
Disclaimer: This article is for information purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or trading advice. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile, and the success of new stablecoins and consortium projects is uncertain and can change. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any asset. Always do your own research and verify current figures on reputable data platforms before making financial decisions. Information is accurate as of July 2, 2026, and may change.
While Strategy’s preferred STRC shares ended July well below their $100 par value, investors were told that their August dividend will not increase, holding at 12%.
Executive chairman Michael Saylor delivered the news in a tweet on Saturday, continuing to pitch STRC as a way to “stretch your income.” August will be the second month that the dividend will be paid semi-monthly after shareholders approved that change in June.
STRC shares closed at $89.46 on Friday, clocking a 5.42% price increase for the month which began with a dividend hike — 50 basis points to 12% — after a poor stock performance in June. The volume on the Nasdaq-traded shares on Friday were about two-thirds of their daily average.
STRC shares continued to trade significantly below their $100 par value in July.
Source: TradingView
On Friday, Strategy CEO Phong Le reiterated that management’s “corporate objective is for STRC to trade at $99-$100 over time,” without elaborating when investors might expect that to transpire.
Related: Bitcoin ETFs end July in the green despite late-month selling
Building cash reserve to make preferred payouts
Saylor, however, did take to social media on Sunday to dangle the possibility that the company will be making an announcement of a change in its Bitcoin treasury holdings. “Bitcoin Drive engaged,” read his X post, following a familiar pattern of posting a chart of Strategy’s BTC buys from Saylortracker.com to start off the week.
Last week, Strategy reported an $8.22 billion second-quarter net loss, driven primarily by an $8.32 billion unrealized loss on its Bitcoin (BTC) holdings as the cryptocurrency’s price declined during the quarter.
The Bitcoin treasury company said it has built a $3.75 billion cash reserve to support preferred stock payouts following the launch of its BTC monetization program.
Strategy also said it has built a $3.75 billion U.S. dollar reserve, enough to cover more than two years of preferred dividend payments and interest obligations. The company recently repurchased $25 million of its STRC preferred shares at a discount to par and said it intends to continue buying the securities while they trade below $100.
Magazine: Here’s why the CLARITY Act’s ethics deal may be so hard to reach
Minnesota’s prediction market ban remained blocked on Aug. 2, one day after the law was scheduled to take effect.
Summary
- July 27 injunction keeps Kalshi and Polymarket operating while Minnesota’s preemption case continues in court.
- Walz barred state employees from using confidential information to trade prediction markets for private benefit.
- Fairshake reported $126.97 million cash on hand through June, amplifying crypto’s broader election influence nationwide.
U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez granted a preliminary injunction on July 27 to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Kalshi and Polymarket US. The order prevents Minnesota from enforcing its new statute against CFTC-registered designated contract markets while three related cases continue.
The Minnesota law would make it a felony for businesses to create, operate or intentionally support covered prediction markets. It also reaches certain data providers, payment services and advertisements. Menendez found that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on at least part of their federal preemption claim because many event contracts may qualify as swaps under the Commodity Exchange Act.
Court win protects federal markets, but only for now
The ruling does not settle the dispute. Menendez found that the CFTC’s exclusive jurisdiction probably covers a “considerable swath” of contracts offered by Kalshi and Polymarket. However, she also said the platforms had not shown that every listed event contract meets the federal definition of a swap. Any permanent injunction could therefore protect fewer products than the current order.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said prediction markets are “gambling, plain and simple.” That remains the state’s legal position, not a final court finding. Kalshi responded that “States cannot ban things that they don’t have jurisdiction over.” The company’s statement likewise reflects its interpretation of federal law rather than the case’s final outcome.
The injunction only covers the new prediction market statute as applied to CFTC-registered markets. It does not decide whether Minnesota can apply older gambling laws to individual sports or entertainment contracts. The Department of Public Safety has not said whether it views the platforms as illegal under those existing provisions or whether another enforcement action is underway.
As previously reported, the current relief will remain in place until the district court reaches a final decision unless a later order or appeal changes it. The court could ultimately distinguish between contracts with financial or economic consequences and products that more closely resemble ordinary wagers.
Walz shifts Minnesota’s focus to insider trading
Governor Tim Walz responded one day after the ruling with Executive Order 26-09. It prohibits covered state employees, including the governor, lieutenant governor and agency commissioners, from using nonpublic or confidential government information to trade prediction-market contracts for private benefit.
The order does not cover the legislature, courts, independent elected officials or several boards and commissions. Walz encouraged those institutions to adopt similar policies. It becomes effective 15 days after publication in the State Register and filing with the secretary of state.
A new federal enforcement case also shows that CFTC oversight does not leave manipulation entirely unpoliced. On July 31, the agency ordered former U.S. Representative George Santos to disgorge $17,569.98, pay a $17,500 penalty and accept a three-year trading ban over manipulative activity in a State of the Union event contract.
The CFTC order said Santos traded on whether he would attend the speech while making misleading public statements about his plans. The agency said those statements moved contract prices in a direction that favored his positions.
Meanwhile, as crypto.news reported, Kalshi has introduced employer disclosures, risk scoring and expanded surveillance for higher-risk contracts. The company said it blocked more than 100 potential insider trades and made 20 law-enforcement referrals during the first quarter of 2026. Those remain company-reported figures.
U.S. politics could pull crypto lawmakers and PACs into the fight
The Minnesota ruling could give pro-crypto lawmakers another example for arguing that national financial markets need one federal framework. The CLARITY Act does not regulate prediction markets directly. However, its supporters are also seeking a larger CFTC role in U.S. digital asset oversight. Senate lawmakers released updated market-structure text on July 22 after the Banking Committee advanced the measure in May.
The court dispute also creates a counterargument for lawmakers wary of expanding the commission’s mandate. A July 21 Senate letter asked the Government Accountability Office to review a reported 25% reduction in CFTC staffing and weaker enforcement activity. Critics could argue that Congress should not widen the regulator’s duties without ensuring it has enough staff to oversee both digital assets and fast-growing event markets. This is a political inference based on the agency’s expanding workload and the staffing concerns raised in Congress.
The case does not involve Fairshake or another crypto PAC. Still, it could shape campaign arguments surrounding candidates supported by the industry. FEC records showed that Fairshake held approximately $126.97 million in cash at the end of June and had spent $74.25 million during the current two-year reporting period.
In related coverage, Protect Progress spent more than $2 million in Michigan’s 13th District race, where challenger Donavan McKinney tied crypto lobbying to President Donald Trump’s business interests. Similar campaign attacks could connect support for broader CFTC authority with the Trump family’s prediction-market relationships.
Kalshi named Donald Trump Jr. a strategic adviser in January 2025. Polymarket later added him to its advisory board when his investment firm, 1789 Capital, took a stake in the company. Those corporate relationships are confirmed, although they do not prove that the White House directed the CFTC’s Minnesota litigation.
Sports-law attorney Daniel Wallach described the change in federal policy as “classic regulatory capture.” That is his assessment, not a judicial or regulatory conclusion. However, the family relationships may give opponents of pro-crypto candidates a clearer campaign message about industry access, federal authority and possible conflicts.
Conflicting state cases keep national rules unsettled
Minnesota is one part of a wider federal-state contest. The CFTC has filed cases against several states to defend what it calls exclusive jurisdiction over registered prediction markets. Yet courts have not produced one nationwide answer. Minnesota’s injunction favored the platforms, while rulings involving Wisconsin and Washington allowed state gambling challenges to advance.
New York added another case on July 31 by suing Kalshi and alleging that its platform operates as unlicensed gambling. The state seeks an injunction, restitution, penalties and forfeiture of alleged gains. Those claims remain allegations that Kalshi can contest in court.
The CFTC’s proposed prediction-market rule is another key track. The public comment period closed on July 27. The proposal would define “gaming,” establish factors for public-interest reviews and create a process lasting as long as 90 days for certain event contracts. The commission has not issued a final rule.
There’s rarely a big altcoin gainer during the current market conditions, in which every breakout attempt is halted in its tracks. This is particularly true for weekend moves, as the market tends to freeze on Saturday and Sunday.
The latest example came in the past 36-48 hours. Even though the situation in the Middle East continues to develop quickly, with Trump claiming a Hormuz Strait deal is in the making and Iran refuting his statement once again, BTC and most altcoins have remained sluggish.
However, Cardano’s ADA has emerged as the clear winner this weekend, gaining over 9% and jumping past $0.19 hours ago for the first time in almost a month. Here’s the most likely reason and what could follow next.
Whales Are Buying
Since we are excluding a rally from the broader market, perhaps the most obvious reason behind ADA’s impressive resurgence over the past day has been the recent behavior of whales. These large market participants, who can influence the underlying asset’s price moves with big purchases or sales, have gone on an accumulation spree.
Santiment Intelligence data shared by Ali Martinez shows that whales have scooped more than 240 million ADA in less than a week. Their total holdings went to 14.55 billion before retracing slightly.
The analyst concluded that this substantial acquisition has helped fuel the asset’s notable 22% surge in the past five days, while the rest of the market stagnates.
Whales loaded up. Cardano took off.
Over 240 million $ADA have been accumulated in the past five days, helping fuel a 22% price surge per data from @SantimentData. pic.twitter.com/6Q6P6luBZn
— Ali Charts (@alicharts) August 2, 2026
Major Breakout Knocking on the Door
Another analyst going under the X moniker, Gerla, noted that ADA is “knocking on the door of a major breakout.” Their chart shows that ADA is fighting for the $0.19-$0.20 resistance level now, which capped its previous breakout attempt last month.
However, the bullish RSI divergence and the completion of an inverse head-and-shoulders suggest that ADA finally has the strength to overcome that obstacle and aim at the next one, positioned at around $0.30.
ZAYK Charts was even more bullish, indicating that a successful surge past the first resistance level could pave the way for another leg up toward $0.50.
The post Why Is Cardano (ADA) Up 9% Today While the Crypto Market Stalls? appeared first on CryptoPotato.
After several failed attempts to extend its recovery, Ethereum is beginning to show signs of exhaustion beneath the major100-day MA. The latest rejection from this zone has weakened short-term momentum and increases the probability of a broader pullback if key support levels fail to hold.
Ethereum Price Analysis: The Daily Chart
On the daily timeframe, ETH’s outlook is gradually shifting toward a bearish bias after multiple failed attempts to reclaim the 100-day moving average. The repeated rejection from this dynamic resistance around $1.95K, combined with the emergence of bearish daily candles, suggests buyers are losing momentum.
Meanwhile, Ethereum continues to struggle with the descending channel, with the upper boundary represented by the white trendline serving as the most critical support.
If sellers manage to push the price back inside this channel, it would confirm a bearish continuation and likely trigger a deeper decline toward the $1.56K to $1.64K demand zone. On the upside, bulls must first reclaim the $1.88K to $1.91K resistance area before attempting another move toward the 100-day MA near $1.95K.
ETH/USDT 4-Hour Chart
The 4-hour chart has turned more bearish after Ethereum broke below its ascending trendline, signaling that buyers have lost short-term control. This breakdown shifts the focus toward lower support levels unless bulls can quickly reclaim the broken structure.
The first support now lies within the $1.85K to $1.87K demand zone, where price is currently attempting to stabilize. Losing this area would likely accelerate the decline toward the next major demand zone between $1.75K and $1.79K.
On the other hand, the $1.88K to $1.91K supply zone has become the primary threshold for buyers. A successful reclaim of this region would invalidate the immediate bearish scenario and could allow Ethereum to challenge the descending resistance and the 100-day moving average once again.
Sentiment Analysis
The Coinbase Premium Index remains in negative territory, indicating that Ethereum continues to trade at a discount on Coinbase relative to other major exchanges. This persistent negative premium suggests buying pressure from U.S.-based institutional participants remains relatively weak despite the recent recovery.
Historically, sustained positive readings have accompanied stronger bullish phases, whereas prolonged negative values often reflect cautious institutional sentiment. Until the premium returns to positive territory and remains there consistently, the current rebound may struggle to develop into a sustained uptrend, leaving Ethereum vulnerable to additional downside pressure if technical support levels begin to fail.
The post Ethereum Price Analysis: ETH’s Double Rejection at $2K Spells More Trouble Ahead appeared first on CryptoPotato.
Ripple’s XRP remains under steady selling pressure as the latest rebound attempts continue to lose momentum. The recent price action suggests sellers are maintaining control, while buyers are once again being forced to defend a critical support area.
Ripple Price Analysis: The Daily Chart
The daily chart shows little improvement compared to the previous analysis. The asset continues to trade beneath the descending resistance trendline while remaining well below the major moving averages, preserving the broader bearish market structure.
The latest candles indicate that sellers remain in control after another failed recovery attempt, pushing the price back toward the key demand zone around $1.01 to $1.04. This support has repeatedly prevented a deeper decline over the past several weeks, making it the most important level to monitor.
As long as XRP remains below the descending trendline and the main resistance between $1.24 and $1.29, the broader outlook favors continued weakness. A decisive breakdown below the $1.01 to $1.04 support zone would likely accelerate the decline toward the next major support around $0.89.
XRP/USDT 4-Hour Chart
On the 4-hour timeframe, rather than recovering from support, XRP has continued to print lower highs and lower lows while remaining capped by the descending resistance trendline.
The recent rejection near $1.09 was followed by another decline toward the $1.01 to $1.04 demand zone, showing that buyers have yet to regain control. This area remains the last significant short-term defense for the bulls.
If this support fails, the bearish momentum is likely to intensify and extend the decline toward lower levels. Conversely, buyers would first need to reclaim the descending trendline before any meaningful recovery toward the $1.24 to $1.29 resistance zone could be considered. Until then, rallies are likely to face selling pressure and remain corrective in nature.
The post XRP Price Analysis: Is a Drop Below $1 Inevitable as Sellers Stay in Control? appeared first on CryptoPotato.
Bitcoin continues to trade without a decisive directional bias as both buyers and sellers defend key technical levels. Until one side forces a confirmed breakout, the current environment is likely to remain dominated by range-bound price action and short-term liquidity grabs.
Bitcoin Price Analysis: The Daily Chart
The daily chart suggests Bitcoin is still locked in a prolonged consolidation phase between the major support around $57.8K to $60.2K and the primary resistance at $66.2K to $66.8K. Despite several attempts by both buyers and sellers, neither side has managed to establish a sustained trend beyond these boundaries.
This type of market structure typically favors liquidity sweeps and stop hunts around local highs and lows before a genuine directional move develops. As long as the asset remains trapped between these two zones, traders should expect continued choppy price action rather than a sustained trend.
A confirmed breakout above the $66.2K to $66.8K resistance could trigger another leg toward the higher resistance around $72K to $74K. Conversely, losing the $57.8K to $60.2K demand zone would invalidate the current consolidation and expose Bitcoin to a deeper correction.
BTC/USDT 4-Hour Chart
On the 4-hour timeframe, Bitcoin is trading inside an even tighter range within the broader daily consolidation. Buyers continue defending the support region at $61.8K to $62.2K, while sellers repeatedly cap rallies below the resistance around $64.9K to $65.6K.
Holding above the buyers’ defense could allow another recovery attempt toward the upper boundary of this range. However, the recent sequence of lower highs indicates that sellers still hold a slight advantage, making a breakdown below the $61.8K to $62.2K support zone the more likely scenario if buying momentum continues to weaken. Such a move could accelerate selling pressure toward the lower boundary of the broader daily range.
Sentiment Analysis
The two-week liquidation heatmap shows a notable concentration of liquidity just beneath Bitcoin’s recent lows. This suggests futures market participants have been actively defending that area, with buyers stepping in to absorb selling pressure whenever the price approaches the lower liquidity cluster.
At the same time, a substantial pool of liquidity remains above the market around the $66K to $67K region, indicating that both sides still have attractive liquidation targets. As long as Bitcoin remains inside its broader consolidation, the price is likely to continue oscillating between these liquidity zones before a decisive breakout determines the next major trend.
The post Bitcoin Price Analysis: Will the Next Liquidity Sweep Push BTC Below $60K? appeared first on CryptoPotato.
A Canadian entrepreneur lost more than $1.6 million in Bitcoin (BTC) from a Coldcard hardware wallet in under seven minutes, part of a wave that may total 1,367.05 BTC.
The case exposes an uncomfortable truth about self-custody: doing everything right may not be enough.
How One Holder Lost 18 BTC in Seven Minutes
Cold storage means keeping private keys on a device that never touches the internet. Jonathan Goodman followed that principle carefully, storing his Coldcard in a safety deposit box.
His 18.25 BTC sat in wallets secured across multiple safes. He never shared his seed phrase and kept every device isolated from online exposure.
None of it mattered on July 29, 2026. Between 9:36 and 9:43 that evening, every wallet he controlled was emptied.
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Goodman first heard about a broader problem while at his cottage.
Assuming it would not affect him, he checked the balances in the Wasabi wallet software and found a series of red withdrawal transactions.
The vulnerability traces back to 2021. A flaw in the code that generates seed phrases left certain devices exposed, and attackers allegedly used artificial intelligence to brute-force the affected seed phrases.
He is filing reports with the police and the Ontario Securities Commission. Recovery hopes remain slim, though he wrote that the hardest part was having done everything right.
The scale extends far beyond one victim. Galaxy Research identified three suspected attack waves targeting addresses generated by Coldcard devices.
Those waves involved 4,585 source addresses and drained 1,367.05 BTC, worth roughly $88.6 million at the time of reporting.
What Galaxy Research Found in the Attack Data
Galaxy Research head Alex Thorn indicates that the attacks appear to be ongoing. He urged users who have not moved funds from potentially vulnerable setups to act immediately.
The first two waves showed similar transaction patterns and may share a common operator, though that remains unconfirmed. The third differed significantly, suggesting either updated tools or a separate actor exploiting the same key space.
The stolen Bitcoin remains in attacker-controlled addresses, with no further movement. Drained holdings had sat dormant for an average of 3.18 years, suggesting most victims were long-term holders rather than institutions.
Galaxy stressed an important caveat. Its findings rely solely on on-chain data and have not definitively confirmed insufficient randomness in the generation of the affected addresses.
“…this is a blow to bitcoin self-custody and we need to do better as a community: with security, with education, and with being realistic about complexity, expectations, and recommendations we make to friends, family, and the public…,” Alex Thorn said.
Analyst Shanaka Anslem Perera highlighted a deeper irony in Coldcard’s own documentation. The manual describes its default seed-generation method as the one it trusts most, while labeling it as low risk to users.
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Alternatives exist within the same device. Users can combine hardware output with dice rolls, or rely on dice alone, which the manual says removes all trust in the hardware. Most users likely followed the default path. That is precisely the method Galaxy Research now links to the losses.
The conceptual tension runs deeper. Reproducibility, prized for verifying firmware, becomes a liability in secret generation, since both weak and strong seeds produce valid 24-word phrases that appear identical.
Devices marketed under a “Don’t Trust, Verify” ethos can still harbor entropy flaws, leaving no visible trace. Affected users should assess their setups and migrate funds where necessary.
The post $1.6 Million Drained in a Blink: User Recounts His Dramatic Coldcard Wallet Hack appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Iran has denied President Donald Trump’s claim that a deal exists to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s busiest oil route. Oil jumped on the denial.
Bitcoin (BTC) barely moved. That gap says a lot about what crypto traders now choose to ignore.
Trump Says a Hormuz Deal Exists. Iran Says It Does Not
Trump posted on Truth Social early Sunday. He said he had canceled a planned strike on Iran.
He wrote that Iran and its neighbors asked him to hold off. The reason, he said, was that “the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to.”
That deal would open the Strait of Hormuz right away. It would also end Iran’s nuclear threat.
Iran answered within hours. Fars News Agency quoted a source close to the nuclear talks.
“There is no agreement regarding the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and the news published about it is false,” Fars News Agency, via CGTN.
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Iran’s acting defense minister, Seyyed Majid Ibn Al-Reza, called Trump’s words psychological warfare. Fars International called Trump’s terms a wish list.
None of this is new. An earlier pause in strikes in late July also went nowhere.
Talks did happen, though. Qatari mediators met Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, and US envoy Steve Witkoff on Saturday. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman urged Trump to cool things down.
Why Oil Jumped and Bitcoin Did Not
Start with the map. The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow sea lane between Iran and Oman.
About 20 million barrels of oil passed through it every day in 2024, EIA data shows. That is roughly a fifth of the oil the world uses.
Here is the problem. Only about 2.6 million barrels a day can go around it, through pipelines in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
The rest has nowhere else to go. That is why one denial can move a market this big.
WTI crude, the US benchmark, closed at $84.67 on Friday. It then rose about 2.4% to trade near $86.79.
The denial also puts an official forecast in doubt. On July 7, the EIA cut its Brent crude forecast for this quarter by $27 a barrel, to $74. It cited the June US-Iran deal and busier traffic through the strait.
That June deal has since fallen apart. Analysts tracking Hormuz reopening timelines now expect the route to stay restricted into 2027.
Bitcoin did almost nothing. It added 0.08% in 24 hours and sat near $63,063.
It also trades about 50% below its record of $126,080, set on October 6, 2025. The muted Bitcoin price reaction suggests traders now ignore headlines that change nothing on the water.
What Happens Next
Oil matters to crypto for one reason. It feeds inflation.
June proved the link. US energy prices fell 5.7% that month, the steepest drop since April 2020.
The BLS said energy did most of the work. Headline prices fell 0.4% over the month. Annual inflation cooled to 3.5% from 4.2%.
Energy is still expensive over a full year, however. Gasoline is up 26.7%.
So a lasting jump in oil would undo that progress. That makes Federal Reserve rate cuts harder to justify. Rate cuts are what assets like Bitcoin want.
The next check comes August 12, when the BLS publishes July inflation.
Until ships can sail through Hormuz freely, oil keeps its war premium. Bitcoin keeps waiting.
The post Iran Denies Trump’s Hormuz Deal, Oil Jumps but Bitcoin Watches appeared first on BeInCrypto.
South Koreans sent $367 million more in stablecoins out of the country than they brought back in June. It was the 18th month in a row that money left.
The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) handed those numbers to lawmaker Lee Jong-wook. The streak started in January 2025. Traders are chasing something they cannot get at home.
Why South Korea’s Stablecoin Outflows Keep Widening
Five exchanges handle almost all local crypto trading. They are Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit, and Gopax.
In June, they sent roughly $1.8 billion in stablecoins to foreign platforms. About $1.44 billion came back. The gap was $367 million.
Local media reported that across the whole second quarter, close to $1.1 billion left.
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The size is what caught the attention of lawmakers. Koreans bought about $470 million of foreign shares in June, according to the Korea Securities Depository. The stablecoin outflow matched 77.6% of that figure.
A year earlier, the ratio sat near 20%. Crypto money now leaves the country almost as fast as stock money.
The trend held even as the local market shrank. Seoul confirmed a 22% crypto tax for 2027, and domestic trading volume fell nearly 55% in the first half.
One caveat belongs here. The FSS counts only the five licensed exchanges, so coins sent to private wallets first never show up.
What Foreign Exchanges Offer That Seoul Cannot
Korean platforms mostly offer plain spot trading. That is the whole problem.
Foreign venues offer far more.
- Crypto derivatives with heavy leverage
- Dollar-based real world assets (RWAs)
- Decentralized Finance (DeFi) protocols
- Staking rewards
Some also list Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Hyundai Motor as tradable contracts. Leverage on those can run into the tens of times. A stablecoin transfer is the cheapest way in.
The same hunger shows up in regulated markets. Koreans put a net $1.28 billion into foreign leveraged exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in June. That was more than triple the May total.
Seoul did try to compete. Korea listed its first single-stock leverage ETFs on May 27. Less than a month later, FSS Governor Lee Chan-jin publicly criticized them.
A bigger fix is on the way. Four agencies published a plan on July 19 to legalize won-backed stablecoins. A separate bill would treat crypto as national wealth.
The Leverage Unwind Sitting Behind the Numbers
The regulator’s worry proved well founded. Fourteen leveraged ETFs track Samsung and SK Hynix. Their assets shrank from about $10.7 billion at the end of June to $6.3 billion by July 13.
Margin loans fell too. Korean brokerages held roughly $21.8 billion on July 30, down about $4.4 billion since June 24.
The Kobeissi Letter says $67 billion has drained from margin accounts across Korea, China, and Taiwan. BeInCrypto could not confirm that total.
The KOSPI lost 22.19% in July, its worst month since 1997. Then it jumped 17.91% on July 31, a record single day.
Economist Steve Hanke blames global fatigue with AI hype. That rebound, led by a 29.95% gain in SK Hynix, cuts against the idea. Asia’s unwinding AI trade has swung just as hard in Tokyo.
The stablecoin figures tell a steadier story. Korean money is not hiding. It is relocating, much as it did when Korean investors cashed out late last year.
Lee sits on the National Assembly’s finance committee for the People Power Party. He wants the government to act.
“As the ‘coin move’ from domestic to overseas spreads, funds are flowing abroad, and investors are being defenseless against high-risk derivatives on foreign exchanges,” local media reported, citing Lee.
Seoul can close the exits or widen the menu at home. That choice decides what month 19 looks like.
The post South Koreans are Sending Stablecoins to Foreign Exchanges at Record Rate appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Everything under one login
Round-the-clock trading is one part of the plans exchanges have for traditional assets. Coinbase and Binance want customers to trade crypto, stocks and other products through one account, a model both have described as an “everything exchange” or financial super app.
Coinbase is preparing to offer U.K. customers equities and derivatives alongside crypto after securing investment-services authorization from the Financial Conduct Authority under rules based on the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, or MiFID.
The authorization allows Coinbase to offer traditional shares to retail customers and crypto, equity and commodity perps to eligible institutional and advanced traders, the company said.
“Perpetual futures are a core focus of what Coinbase is trying to bring to market,” said Keith Grose, U.K. CEO at Coinbase, in an interview with CoinDesk. “We’re really focused on being the ‘everything exchange.’”
Grose said the longer-term plan is to bring spot crypto, perpetual futures, traditional equities, and eventually tokenized versions of other assets into one place. That could allow customers to use positions across different markets as collateral or borrow against their equities.
Using stocks as collateral
Binance is testing another part of the model by allowing some high-net-worth clients to use tokenized stock positions as collateral for other trades.
“We recognize you could have Nvidia or SpaceX stock, a tokenized version,” Jan said. “You could actually have a tokenized stock put on our exchange, and we’ll use that as collateral for you to trade something else. It could be a crypto derivative.”
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