Crypto World
Why the July 17 hearing decides crypto’s 2026
The United States Senate returned from its holiday recess on July 13 with one piece of paper waiting on its desk that matters more to crypto markets than any price chart. The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, the market structure bill the industry has chased for the better part of two years, sits on the Senate Legislative Calendar with no floor vote scheduled, a shrinking window before the August recess, and prediction market odds that have collapsed from the low seventies to roughly 43 percent.
On July 17, the House Financial Services Committee takes the unusual step of holding a field hearing in New York titled Building the Future of Finance: How CLARITY Act Unlocks Innovation. The hearing cannot pass anything. What it can do is force every participant in this fight, from Senate holdouts to ETF issuers to the White House, to show their cards in public during the exact week when the bill’s fate for 2026 gets decided.
Summary
- The CLARITY Act faces a narrowing path to Senate approval before the August recess as prediction market odds of passage have fallen to about 43%.
- A July 17 House hearing is expected to reveal whether lawmakers are moving closer to resolving key disputes that continue to delay the bill.
- Passage could provide a permanent legal framework for digital assets, while further delays may leave crypto markets dependent on macroeconomic factors and existing regulatory guidance.
The stakes are not abstract. Bitcoin trades near $63,000 after months of pressure from a Federal Reserve that markets now expect to raise rates instead of cutting them. Ethereum sits under $1,800. XRP clings to the $1 level it has defended all summer. The total crypto market capitalization hovers around $2.17 trillion, and the Fear and Greed Index has spent weeks in the twenties, deep in fear territory. Against that backdrop, the CLARITY Act has become the one catalyst that does not depend on the Fed, on oil prices, or on the war headlines out of the Middle East. It is the single lever Washington can still pull this year, and the market knows it.
What the bill actually does
The CLARITY Act is a market structure law, not a price support program. Its core function is taxonomy: it draws a statutory line between digital assets that count as commodities, overseen by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and those that count as securities, overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission. For a decade, that line existed only in enforcement actions, court rulings, and agency guidance that shifted with each administration. The bill would replace that patchwork with a durable federal framework covering how tokens are issued, how exchanges register, how custody works, and which regulator answers for which market.
That distinction sounds technical until you consider what currently protects the industry’s legal footing. On March 17, 2026, the SEC and CFTC issued a joint interpretive release that classified 16 digital assets, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP, as digital commodities. That release did enormous practical work. It handed day-to-day oversight to the CFTC, lifted the threat of unregistered securities treatment from the largest tokens, and cleared the path for the spot ETFs that now trade on all three assets. But an interpretive release is not a statute. A future administration, or even a future commission majority, could withdraw or rewrite it. The CLARITY Act exists to convert that reversible administrative posture into permanent law. For holders of the affected assets, the difference is the difference between renting legal certainty and owning it.
A decade of rule by enforcement
Understanding why the industry treats this bill as existential requires remembering what the alternative looked like. From roughly 2017 through 2024, the primary mechanism of American crypto regulation was the enforcement action. The SEC sued issuers, exchanges, and founders under a securities framework built in 1946 for orange groves, and courts were left to decide, token by token and sale by sale, what the Howey test meant for programmable assets. The results were incoherent by design. The 2023 ruling in the SEC’s case against Ripple found that XRP sold programmatically to retail buyers on public exchanges did not amount to a securities transaction, while institutional sales of the same token did. The same asset was simultaneously a security and not a security depending on who bought it and how.
That ambiguity was not a side effect. It was the operating system. Every project launching in the United States priced in legal risk that its competitors in Zug, Singapore, or Dubai did not carry. Every exchange listing decision ran through outside counsel. Every custodian, market maker, and fund administrator built compliance programs around guidance that could be withdrawn without a vote by anyone. When the administration changed and the agencies pivoted toward accommodation, the pivot proved the point: what one commission gives, another can take. The industry did not spend two years and nine figures of lobbying money on the CLARITY Act because it loves paperwork. It did so because rule by enforcement is rule by whoever runs the agencies, and the 2028 election is already visible on the horizon.
The March 17 interpretive release is the high-water mark of the accommodation era, and it is also its clearest illustration. Sixteen assets received commodity classification through a document that no court ratified and no Congress passed. Institutional allocators read that release two ways at once: as permission to build, and as a reminder that permission can expire. That double reading is why flows into the spot ETFs have been steady but not explosive, and why the legal departments of the largest asset managers keep telling their product teams the same thing: statute or nothing.
The GENIUS Act precedent
There is one recent proof that Washington can finish a crypto bill, and both camps cite it. The GENIUS Act, the federal stablecoin framework, followed a trajectory that looked hopeless at several points: committee fights over yield, bank lobby resistance, procedural stalls, and floor delays. It still became law, and the aftermath reshaped the market. Regulated issuance expanded, banks entered custody and reserve services, and the stablecoin sector grew into the settlement layer that traditional payment companies now build against.
Optimists read GENIUS as the template: contested crypto bills stall loudly and then pass quickly once leadership decides the votes exist. The final weeks of the stablecoin fight looked as bleak as CLARITY’s odds look now, and the lesson traders took away is that legislative prediction markets underprice how fast the Senate can move when it chooses to. Pessimists read the same history differently. GENIUS passed because stablecoins had a natural constituency inside traditional finance: banks and payment networks stood to profit from a regulated dollar token. The CLARITY Act’s beneficiaries are crypto exchanges, token issuers, and asset managers, a smaller and less beloved lobby, while its costs fall on agencies defending turf and on lawmakers wary of blessing an asset class the president trades personally. The precedent proves the mechanism exists. It does not prove the motive does.
How the bill got here
The legislative record explains why expectations ran so hot earlier this year. The House passed H.R. 3633 on July 17, 2025, by a bipartisan vote of 294 to 134, a margin large enough to survive most political weather. The bill then moved to the Senate, where the Banking Committee advanced its version on May 14, 2026, with two Democrats crossing over in a 15 to 9 committee vote. On June 1, a revised Senate text was published and the bill was placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders as Calendar No. 423, making it formally eligible for floor consideration. That is the closest a comprehensive crypto market structure bill has ever come to becoming American law.
Momentum then met the calendar. The White House had pushed for the bill to be signed around July 4, a target officials privately conceded was tight. The Senate left for its holiday recess on June 29 without acting, and leadership earmarked the first week back for the defense authorization bill. That sequencing pushes any CLARITY floor vote to late July or the first week of August at the earliest. The Senate’s August recess is not merely a break: once lawmakers scatter for midterm campaigning, the floor schedule effectively closes to contested votes for the rest of the year. Miss August, and the realistic next window is 2027, after an election that could reshape both chambers.
The three fights stalling the vote
The bill is not stuck because senators dislike crypto regulation in principle. It is stuck because three specific disputes have hardened, and each one touches a different fault line in the coalition needed to reach 60 votes.
The first fight is about the president. Democrats have pressed for ethics provisions responding to the Trump family’s crypto ventures, arguing that a market structure law without conflict-of-interest language would bless a sitting president’s personal exposure to the asset class it regulates. Republicans counter that ethics riders are a poison pill designed to peel off GOP votes. Neither side has moved meaningfully, and the dispute consumes negotiating time the calendar no longer offers.
The second fight is about decentralized finance. The Senate Banking and Agriculture committees produced texts that differ on how DeFi protocols should be treated, including whether software developers and front-end operators face registration obligations. Industry groups warn that a badly drawn DeFi section could push development offshore, while consumer advocates argue a carve-out would create a loophole large enough to swallow the rest of the bill. The two committee versions must be reconciled before any floor vote can happen, which makes the reconciliation timeline itself a leading indicator.
The third fight is about stablecoin yield and rewards, the question of whether issuers or platforms can pass interest-like returns to holders. Banks lobbied hard on this point during the GENIUS Act debate and have returned to press it here, viewing yield-bearing stablecoins as direct competition for deposits. Layered on top is a narrower objection around Section 604, a provision opponents have tied to illicit finance and trafficking concerns, which has given undecided senators a politically safe reason to withhold support.
The raw math frames all three disputes. Passage requires 60 votes, which means at least seven Democrats must join a united Republican caucus. The committee stage produced two Democratic crossovers. Finding five more, in an election year, on a bill the White House has loudly claimed as a priority, is the entire game. As crypto.news reported when it examined the bill’s collapsing prediction market odds, traders have concluded that the coalition is fraying precisely when it needs to consolidate. Polymarket pricing on 2026 passage has fallen by more than 20 points from its spring highs to roughly 43 percent.
What July 17 can and cannot change
A field hearing is theater, but theater has uses. The House Financial Services Committee convenes at 10:00 a.m. in New York, the financial capital the bill’s sponsors want as a backdrop, to argue that the CLARITY Act unlocks innovation without gutting user protection. The House already passed its version, so the hearing changes no vote count directly. Its function is pressure: on Senate leadership to schedule floor time, on undecided Democrats facing constituents in the financial industry, and on the news cycle during the exact week the Senate decides what its July looks like.
The hearing also carries information value for markets. Witnesses and members will signal, intentionally or not, whether the reconciliation between the Banking and Agriculture texts is progressing, whether the Section 604 objection is being negotiated or entrenched, and whether leadership views the bill as a July priority or an August casualty. Traders who watched the GENIUS Act stablecoin bill move from stalled to signed in a matter of weeks last year know that these procedural signals move faster than the price charts that eventually reflect them.
What the hearing cannot do is manufacture seven Democratic votes, compress the defense bill’s floor time, or reopen a calendar that has perhaps three working weeks left before the recess. The gap between what the hearing dramatizes and what the Senate can physically schedule is exactly where the 43 percent number lives.
The bull case: what passage unlocks
If the Senate finds the votes before August, the payoff structure is unusually well documented. Standard Chartered projects between $4 billion and $8 billion in inflows to spot XRP exchange-traded funds alone if the bill becomes law, on top of the roughly $1.5 billion those products attracted between their November 2025 launches and mid-2026. The logic extends across the asset class: wirehouses, registered investment advisors, and pension consultants that currently limit crypto allocations because the regulatory perimeter could shift under a future SEC have their stated objection removed by statute. Permanence, not classification, is the product being sold.
For XRP, the effect is sharpest because the token spent five years under a securities cloud that the March interpretive release only partially dispersed. For Ethereum, the bill would lock in the treatment of staking and the yield its ETFs can pass through, a question the current guidance answers only provisionally. For Bitcoin, the gain is structural: a full market framework around custody, exchange registration, and market surveillance that institutional compliance departments can cite. Each asset gets something different, and each gets it permanently.
There is also a second-order effect on the legislative pipeline. A market structure law would arrive with the exemption architecture the SEC has been building in parallel, including the small-offering relief the agency has floated for token projects. Passage would signal that the United States intends to compete with the European Union’s MiCA framework for issuer domicile, a competition Washington has been losing by forfeit while regulation advanced faster in Brussels, London, and Singapore.
Who is actually waiting on this law
The abstraction of “institutional adoption” hides a specific queue of actors whose next move is conditioned on statute. Start with the wirehouses and the registered investment advisor platforms that gatekeep several trillion dollars of American retail wealth. Most still restrict crypto ETF access to unsolicited orders or exclude the products from model portfolios entirely, and their compliance memos cite regulatory uncertainty as the controlling reason. A statutory framework removes the stated objection. It does not force allocation, but it converts a prohibited conversation into a permitted one, and distribution decisions at that scale move billions before a single risk committee turns bullish.
Next in the queue are the corporate and treasury buyers. The digital asset treasury wave that put Bitcoin and Ethereum on public company balance sheets ran ahead of the law, and the firms that followed the pioneers now face auditors and insurers who price legal ambiguity into every engagement. Statutory classification simplifies the accounting treatment, the custody insurance, and the board approval process at once. Behind them stand the banks, which under current guidance can custody digital commodities but plan product roadmaps in pencil, knowing the guidance could rotate with the next administration.
Then there is the international dimension. The European Union’s MiCA regime is operational, and Ripple’s full authorization in Luxembourg this month showed how quickly firms redomicile compliance functions toward whichever jurisdiction offers durable rules. The United Kingdom opened its market to global crypto trading platforms this summer, and Singapore’s central bank has tested settlement on public ledgers. Every quarter the Senate delays, the coordination game tilts toward frameworks that already exist. American exchanges have been explicit that listing decisions, product launches, and headquarters questions all key off the August window. The bill’s supporters call this competitive urgency. Its opponents call it hostage-taking. Both descriptions point at the same calendar.
The macro tape the vote lands on
Whatever the Senate does, it does it into the most hostile macro environment crypto has faced since 2022. Inflation has returned to a three-year high, and futures markets have flipped from pricing Federal Reserve cuts to pricing a possible hike, a reversal that drained risk appetite across every speculative asset class. The Iran conflict adds an oil transmission channel: each escalation around the Strait of Hormuz pushes crude higher, feeds the inflation print, and hardens the Fed’s posture, a loop that has repeatedly knocked Bitcoin down toward $60,000 and dragged the rest of the market with it.
That context cuts both ways for the bill. On one hand, a hostile tape means even a successful vote may produce a smaller rally than advocates expect, because the marginal buyer is pinned down by rates rather than by regulatory doubt. On the other hand, the fear regime means positioning is light, sentiment indicators sit near capitulation levels, and the market has almost nothing crypto-specific priced for good news. Catalysts landing on empty positioning historically produce outsized moves. The honest answer is that nobody knows which effect dominates, which is precisely why the prediction market on the bill and the spot market on the assets have decoupled: one prices probability, the other prices exhaustion.
The bear case: priced in, timed out
The skeptical read starts with the same 43 percent number and draws the opposite conclusion. Prediction markets are not always right, but they aggregate the private assessments of people paid to count votes, and the direction of travel since spring has been relentlessly downward. If the bill misses the August recess, the midterm campaign consumes the fall, and a lame-duck session is a poor venue for a 60-vote financial regulation bill. The realistic slip is not to September but to 2027, under a Congress whose composition nobody can guarantee.
The second bear argument is that much of the good news is already in prices. XRP ETFs launched and gathered $1.5 billion without the law. Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs trade freely. The March interpretive release already delivers, day to day, most of what the statute would make permanent. On this view, passage buys a relief rally in the most exposed assets and little more, while failure removes a hope premium that has quietly supported prices through an otherwise brutal first half. The asymmetry may actually run downward: markets have partially priced success and only partially priced the multi-year delay that failure implies.
The third argument is macro. The Fed’s turn toward higher-for-longer rates, inflation at a three-year high, and the oil shock risk from the Iran conflict have overwhelmed every crypto-specific catalyst this year. Ripple’s MiCA authorization, sustained ETF inflows, and whale accumulation did not move XRP off its $1 floor. If unambiguous bullish flows cannot move prices in this tape, a Senate vote may not either, at least not durably. Legislation changes the demand curve over quarters, not the fear index over days.
Three scenarios, three tapes
Mapping the legislative outcomes to market behavior produces three broad paths. In the first, the reconciled text reaches the floor in late July, clears 60 votes, and heads to a signature before the recess. The most exposed assets reprice first: XRP, where Standard Chartered’s flow projection concentrates, then Ethereum on the staking permanence question, then the exchange equities and the broader altcoin complex. The move’s durability would depend on whether the Fed backdrop allows follow-through, but the initial repricing of a 43 percent probability resolving to 100 would be mechanical and fast.
In the second scenario, the vote is scheduled but fails or gets pulled for lack of support. This is the worst path, and the least priced. A failed floor vote does not merely delay the bill; it marks the coalition as broken and invites every opponent to treat the 2027 rewrite as an open negotiation. The hope premium embedded in current prices, modest as it is, would come out quickly, and the assets most dependent on the regulatory story would give back their relative strength against Bitcoin.
In the third and most likely scenario given current odds, no vote is scheduled and the bill simply slips past the recess without a formal death. Markets have partially priced this, which is why the reaction would likely be a grind lower rather than a crash: a slow removal of the catalyst from the front of the calendar, with attention rotating fully back to the Fed, oil, and the midterm map. The under-appreciated risk in this path is duration. A slip is not a pause; it is a handoff to a Congress that does not exist yet, elected in a cycle where crypto money is spending heavily on both sides and the issue itself is on the ballot in a dozen Senate races.
The scoreboard through August
Between July 14 and the recess, the outcome reduces to a short list of observable events, in rough order of importance. First, whether Senate leadership schedules a floor vote at all: the absence of scheduled time by the last full week of July would be the clearest sell signal on 2026 passage. Second, whether the Banking and Agriculture reconciliation produces a single merged text, since no floor vote can precede it. Third, whether any additional Democrats declare support publicly, because the distance between two crossovers and seven is the entire outstanding question. Fourth, how the Section 604 and stablecoin yield objections resolve, since each represents a bloc of gettable votes. And fifth, the tone of the July 17 hearing itself, which will reveal whether the House majority treats the bill as pending business or as a campaign message.
For traders, the cleanest expression of the setup is the gap between the legislative calendar and the price action. XRP holds $1 with roughly 43 percent odds of its defining catalyst arriving this year. Bitcoin consolidates above $62,000 with the same binary in the background. If the vote lands, the market gets its first statutory foundation and a documented multi-billion dollar flow pipeline. If it slips, crypto spends the midterm season trading purely on the Fed and on war headlines, with its Washington story frozen at the committee stage. Few single weeks this year have carried as much of that decision as the one that starts with the New York hearing.
The honest framing is conditional on both sides. The CLARITY Act is neither the guaranteed rocket fuel its loudest advocates promise nor the irrelevant paperwork its critics describe. It is a genuine structural upgrade with a genuine risk of missing its window, and the distribution of outcomes narrows to a decision point over the next three weeks. Markets spend most of their time waiting. This is one of the rare stretches where the waiting ends on a schedule.
Disclaimer: This article is information, not investment advice. Legislative timelines, prediction market odds, prices, and analyst projections reflect reporting available as of July 14, 2026, and can change quickly. The status and prospects of the CLARITY Act are uncertain and contested. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell any digital asset. Verify current developments from primary sources and consider your own circumstances before making any decision.
US spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETF outflows reached roughly $430 million on July 13. Fidelity’s FBTC lost $246.3 million and BlackRock’s IBIT shed $186.1 million, according to Glassnode data.
The redemptions hit a market already trading at its quietest levels this cycle. ETF volumes have collapsed 78% from their peak, and analysts warn that attention has rotated to other asset classes.
ETF Trading Volumes Collapse 78% From Peak
Glassnode’s 30-day moving average of daily trading volume across US spot Bitcoin ETFs now sits at $1.25 billion. That marks a 78% collapse from the $5.8 billion peak recorded in late 2025.
Activity has also slipped below 2024 levels. BlackRock’s IBIT still accounts for most of the remaining turnover. However, even its share has thinned in recent months.
The on-chain analytics firm framed the slowdown as a loss of attention rather than a temporary lull. Glassnode shared the observation in a post on X:
“Trading activity in US spot ETFs sits in a quiet regime. Volumes are down 78% from the peak and below 2024 levels. A sustained recovery in $BTC price momentum would likely require attention and market participation to return from other asset classes.”
Bitcoin ETF Outflows Top $430 Million in One Day
Monday’s session showed how one-sided flows have become. Fidelity’s FBTC led the exit with $246.3 million in redemptions. IBIT followed with $186.1 million, while VanEck’s HODL bucked the trend with a $3.5 million inflow.
Grayscale’s GBTC and Franklin Templeton’s EZBC posted smaller losses. Combined, the funds bled roughly $430 million in a single day.
The IBIT figure drew loud reactions. Evan Luthra, entrepreneur and BeInCrypto Experts Council member, reacted to the data in a post on X.
The framing deserves nuance, however. ETF outflows reflect investors redeeming shares, which forces issuers to sell bitcoin held in trust. BlackRock did not liquidate a proprietary position, and Fidelity’s outflow was the larger of the two.
The reversal also stings because of its timing. Bitcoin funds had just attracted $197.4 million in net inflows during the week ending July 10, snapping eight straight losing weeks. June, in contrast, produced record monthly outflows of $4.5 billion.
BTC Price Prediction Hinges on the $58,000 Support
BTC trades near $64,681, up 4.4% over the past 24 hours, per BeInCrypto market data. Glassnode’s flows chart tracks the token’s slide from roughly $78,000 in mid-May to a June 30 low near $58,000.
That $58,000 area remains the level to defend. A daily close below it would put the cycle floor near $57,500 in play, roughly an 11% drop from current prices.
On the upside, bulls must reclaim $68,000, the zone where the early June breakdown began. A recovery above that level would suggest institutional demand is returning after a two-month drought.
There are early signs of absorption elsewhere. Long-term holders flipped back to accumulation on July 11 and 12, adding a net 5,912 BTC.
Sustained positive flows and a volume recovery would confirm renewed participation. Until then, BTC either rebuilds momentum above $68,000 or retests $58,000 with little institutional cushion beneath it.
The post ‘BlackRock Dumped $185M in Bitcoin’ Claim Fuels ETF Panic as Trading Hits Cycle Lows appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Three Democratic senators have opposed the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act unless lawmakers add stronger ethics rules covering senior officials and their families.
Summary
- Murphy, Merkley and Van Hollen oppose the CLARITY Act unless lawmakers add strict ethics safeguards.
- John Thune pledged a Senate vote before recess, but timing and Democratic support remain uncertain.
- The bill needs 60 votes, making bipartisan support essential amid disputes over ethics and DeFi.
Senators Chris Murphy, Jeff Merkley and Chris Van Hollen raised their objections during a July 14 press conference organized with Americans for Financial Reform and Indivisible.
The lawmakers tied their opposition to President Donald Trump’s crypto businesses, including his memecoin and the World Liberty Financial project. Murphy claimed Trump earned $1.4 billion from crypto in 2025. Trump has rejected claims of wrongdoing involving his digital asset interests.
Senators demand conflict-of-interest protections
Murphy said Congress should not create a new crypto framework without rules that prevent officials from profiting from the industry they regulate. He said, “There is no reason to pass a new regulatory system for crypto if this system does not stop Trump’s corruption.”
Merkley called for restrictions covering the president, vice president, Cabinet officials, members of Congress and their families. Van Hollen also argued that the bill needs stronger consumer, anti-crime and conflict-of-interest provisions before he can support it.
The lawmakers did not reject digital asset regulation as a general goal. Their position centers on whether the final Senate text includes enforceable ethics language. Senator Elizabeth Warren has made a similar demand, calling for restrictions on crypto profits involving senior government officials.
Thune commits to vote before August recess
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told Bloomberg Government that the chamber will vote on the CLARITY Act during the current work period. He said leaders had not fixed the exact date and added that Democratic support remains the main question.
The press conference organizers listed July 20 as the expected vote date. However, Thune only committed to action before the recess and said the exact timing remained undecided.
The Senate’s official calendar starts its state work period on Aug. 10, leaving Aug. 7 as the final scheduled session day before the break. As of July 15, the public Senate floor schedule did not list a CLARITY Act vote, leaving the reported timing still subject to change.
The bill needs 60 votes, so Republicans cannot pass it without Democratic support. The House approved the CLARITY Act in July 2025 by a 294-134 vote. The measure would divide digital asset oversight between the SEC and CFTC while setting registration and custody rules for crypto firms.
Ethics dispute adds to unresolved policy fights
As previously reported, ethics rules are one of three disputes shaping the Senate negotiations. Lawmakers also remain divided over protections for non-custodial developers and whether crypto platforms may offer rewards tied to stablecoin balances.
The ethics debate has gained urgency as senators prepare a combined draft from the Banking and Agriculture committees. Supporters want a durable federal framework, while opponents say the bill should not move without clear limits on financial conflicts involving public officials.
Bill also gains law enforcement support
The National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives and Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association have backed the bill. FLEOA also requested tighter DeFi accountability rules and language preserving federal investigative powers.
As reported by crypto.news, the two endorsements give supporters added backing before the Senate vote. However, the ethics opposition shows that the bill still lacks the bipartisan coalition needed for passage. The final wording and vote date remain unsettled.
The European Central Bank is moving the digital euro from planning into testing, with dozens of payment companies joining the next stage of the project.
The ECB selected 36 payment service providers (PSPs) to participate in a digital euro pilot, according to an official announcement published Tuesday.
The list of selected PSPs includes fintechs Stripe and Revolut alongside traditional banks including Deutsche Bank, UniCredit and BPCE. Revolut has recently adjusted some cryptocurrency services for EU users by phasing out support for Tether USDt.
The pilot comes as governments take different approaches to digital currencies. While Europe is expanding testing of its proposed central bank digital currency (CBDC), the US has moved to block the Federal Reserve from issuing a CBDC.
Italy tops list of digital euro pilot providers
The ECB began selecting providers from across the euro area for its digital euro pilot earlier this year, with the 12-month trial set to begin in the second half of 2027.
The central bank said it received more than 50 applications from payment companies after opening a call for interest in March 2026. The selected participants include traditional banks, payment processors and non-bank service providers.
Source: ECB
Italy has the largest number of selected participants, with seven companies joining the pilot, including UniCredit, Poste Italiane, Nexi Payments, Banca Sella, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Isybank and Numia.
Germany follows with five selected providers, while Portugal and Greece each have three. The ECB said the mix of countries is designed to create a broad testing environment, with selected providers able to offer pilot services outside their home markets.
Strong interest in digital euro pilot
ECB Executive Board member Piero Cipollone, who chairs the high-level task force on a digital euro, said the level of participation shows private-sector interest in helping develop it, adding that the Central Bank expects deeper cooperation with payment providers during the pilot.
“We look forward to deeper engagement as we work with and learn alongside European payment service providers in developing a secure, efficient and inclusive digital euro,” Cipollone said.
Related: South Korea to test tokenized government bonds with CBDC in 2027
The pilot will involve the ECB and the central banks of 19 bloc-members, including Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, alongside payment companies and merchants testing the system before any potential token issuance.
Selected providers will have different responsibilities during the trial, with some focused on supporting user access to beta digital euro services and others helping merchants accept payments. Several companies will take on both roles, the ECB said.
Magazine: The 5 types of real world assets being tokenized fastest onchain
Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has begun preparing for an initial public offering (IPO) and has also opened early talks with new investors for another funding round.
The moves come only weeks after DeepSeek closed its first external round, signaling that investors are aggressively chasing top Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) plays.
DeepSeek Eyes IPO Filing This Year as It Sounds Out New Investors
According to Bloomberg, DeepSeek could file its IPO paperwork late this year or in early 2027. That timeline would clear the way for a debut next year.
The company is working with accounting and banking advisers. It wants to finish its financial report by the end of December.
The Hangzhou firm has also opened preliminary talks with new investors this week. The Financial Times reported that DeepSeek is seeking fresh funds in another round, targeting a pre-money valuation of about $71 billion.
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That tops the roughly $50 billion figure from its first external round. That raise closed nearly a month ago and drew Tencent and battery maker CATL. Founder Liang Wenfeng put about $3 billion of his own money into it.
The rapid return to fundraising reflects DeepSeek’s expectation of higher spending ahead. The company plans to build its own data center and buy more AI chips. DeepSeek is also developing its own AI chip, which could cut reliance on Nvidia and Huawei, Reuters reported earlier this month.
Plans remain fluid, and both the IPO timing and the funding could shift. Much depends on market conditions and the company’s performance.
DeepSeek’s IPO push comes as US rivals move in the same direction. Anthropic and OpenAI both filed confidential IPO prospectuses in June. Anthropic said any offering would depend on market conditions and other factors, keeping the timing open.
OpenAI’s timeline looks less settled. CFO Sarah Friar floated the idea of waiting until 2027 to go public. She cited heavy cash burn, large compute commitments, and the burden of public reporting.
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The post DeepSeek May File for IPO This Year as It Weighs Fresh Fundraising appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Corporate treasury demand remains one of Bitcoin’s most important structural sources of support, but experts suggest that the market is no longer treating it as a permanent, price-insensitive floor.
Instead of focusing solely on how much BTC companies hold, QCP Capital stated that investors are increasingly evaluating whether the funding conditions behind those holdings can continue to support accumulation.
Funding Model Matters More
In its latest report, QCP said that the trend became clear in Q2 after Strategy’s late-May sale of 32 BTC. Although the sale was “immaterial” relative to its 846,842 BTC holdings, it challenged the long-held belief that corporate Bitcoin treasuries would only keep buying, never sell.
It also prompted the market to reassess whether treasury holdings were truly untouchable. Even as Strategy resumed buying within weeks, there has been no meaningful positive reach for Bitcoin, which essentially suggests that the market had become more focused on funding capacity, balance-sheet liquidity, and confidence in the treasury model than on accumulation alone.
QCP explained that while public companies collectively hold about 1.26 million BTC, roughly two-thirds belong to Strategy. This leaves the corporate treasury narrative heavily concentrated around a single company. As a result, its purchases, issuance conditions, and reserve policy continue to influence Bitcoin sentiment well beyond their direct impact on the spot market.
The financial structure supporting corporate accumulation has come to attention in Q2. Rather than judging treasury demand through purchase announcements, investors are now watching factors such as mNAV, equity issuance, preferred demand, convertible capacity, and cash reserves.
When funding conditions remain favorable, companies can raise capital, expand their Bitcoin reserves, and reinforce confidence in the treasury model. On the other hand, when conditions tighten, recurring preferred-stock obligations create cash needs, as seen with the Strategy’s May sale.
QCP went on to add that the company’s equity still trades above the combined value of its Bitcoin net asset value and US dollar reserves, which indicates a premium on its ability to continue raising capital, even as around $22.2 billion in preferred securities and convertible instruments rank ahead of common equity.
Looking ahead to Q3, continued net accumulation by Strategy and other public companies, particularly alongside stabilizing ETF inflows, would strengthen Bitcoin’s absorption channel and help repair the confidence damage from Q2. However, QCP warned that slower purchases, weaker preferred pricing, a compressed mNAV premium, or declining cash reserves would point to growing stress, which would end up making the corporate treasury bid more selective and increasing sentiment risk.
Besides, Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan recently said that Strategy is unlikely to have the same influence on Bitcoin demand in the next market cycle as it did previously. Hougan does not expect the company to become a major seller and still sees it remaining a net buyer if the crypto asset’s prices recover.
Scenarios For BTC
QCP outlined three possible paths for Bitcoin in Q3. Its base case calls for the crypto asset to remain between $60,000 and $75,000 as ETF flows stabilize and corporate treasury demand supports the market.
A steady reclaim of $75,000 could drive prices toward $80,000-$82,000, while renewed ETF outflows, a stronger dollar, or rising real yields could trigger a break below $58,000-$60,000 and confirm a more bearish outlook.
The post Why Strategy’s Tiny 32 BTC Sale Changed How Investors View Corporate Bitcoin Buying appeared first on CryptoPotato.
Reed Smith has launched an automated MiCA compliance platform as crypto firms across the European Union have entered full regulatory supervision following the end of the bloc’s transition period.
Summary
- Reed Smith has launched an automated platform to help crypto companies comply with the European Union’s MiCA regulation.
- The platform automates crypto asset classification, regulatory filings, due diligence and ESG disclosures for firms entering the EU market.
- The launch comes as European regulators move from MiCA licensing to operational supervision and consider future changes to the framework.
According to global law firm Reed Smith, the new platform, called Aquarius, automates key compliance tasks under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, including crypto-asset classification, regulatory white paper generation, due diligence and environmental, social and governance (ESG) disclosures.
Designed for companies entering the European market or expanding existing crypto services, the platform combines automated compliance workflows with legal support to simplify MiCA requirements. Reed Smith said future versions will also support crypto compliance regimes in the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
The launch comes shortly after the European Union’s MiCA transition period ended on July 1, when crypto companies could no longer rely on temporary national exemptions in member states that adopted the full grandfathering period. The framework now requires crypto-asset service providers to meet common licensing, consumer protection, and operational standards across all 27 EU member states.
Reed Smith has continued expanding its digital asset practice through its “On Chain” initiative. The firm acted as legal counsel to the placement agents in Trump Media’s $2.5 billion Bitcoin treasury financing and also advised Nakamoto Holdings on its merger with KindlyMD to establish a Bitcoin treasury company.
Focus moves from licensing to supervision
Recent regulatory activity indicates that European authorities are now concentrating on how licensed firms operate after receiving approval.
Last week, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) began a Common Supervisory Action covering selected MiCA-authorized crypto-asset service providers. According to ESMA, the review examines custody operations, including private key management, transaction controls, incident response procedures and reliance on third-party technology providers.
Sebastien Dessimoz, co-founder and managing partner of digital asset infrastructure provider Taurus, previously said obtaining a MiCA licence is only the starting point for custodians because regulators now expect firms to demonstrate that their operational controls can withstand real-world risks. He added that supervision increasingly focuses on cybersecurity, governance and protection of client assets rather than licensing alone.
Institutional expectations have also increased. Jody Mettler, chief operating officer of BitGo and president of BitGo Trust, previously said clients are paying closer attention to how custodians segregate customer assets, control access, respond to security incidents and maintain business continuity during periods of market stress.
Meanwhile, European policymakers continue discussing possible changes to MiCA after its rollout. According to a Euronews report, officials are considering future revisions to stablecoin rules, including the treatment of non-euro-denominated stablecoins, following the passage of the United States’ GENIUS Act.
The European Parliament has also asked the European Commission to examine whether decentralized finance, staking, crypto lending and borrowing, non-fungible tokens and tokenized financial assets should receive more specific treatment under the EU’s crypto framework. Parliament’s position does not change the law but provides political support for further reviews, while any expansion of MiCA would still require separate legislative proposals.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed the US government ordered the freezing of more than $130 million in cryptocurrency held in wallets linked to Iran on Tuesday, as hostilities ramped up in the Middle East.
Earlier on Tuesday, blockchain investigator Specter pointed to onchain data showing Tether froze four Tron wallets holding $131 million worth of USDt (USDT). Bessent confirmed on X that the wallets were tied to the Central Bank of Iran.
“US Treasury is committed to disrupting and degrading Iran’s illicit financial activities, including its abuse of digital assets,” Bessent said Tuesday. “We will continue to aggressively follow the money and deny the Iranian regime access to the proceeds of its illicit revenue schemes.”
The asset freeze comes amid a collapse in the ceasefire between the US and Iran. The US said it has renewed its blockade of Iranian ports, while the US military’s Central Command announced a new wave of strikes on Iran. Meanwhile, Iran’s military claimed on Tuesday that it carried out drone strikes against US military facilities at Jordan’s Al Azraq Air Base.
Source: Scott Bessent
The move follows a similar freeze in April, when stablecoin issuer Tether confirmed it had frozen more than $344 million in USDT at the request of US authorities.
In May, Bessent said the US has seized around $1 billion in Iranian crypto assets as part of the US financial pressure campaign against Iran known as Operation Economic Fury, which launched in March 2025.
Related: Iran-linked entities moved $3.8B through CoinEx, TRM says
“Through Economic Fury, the Treasury Department is disrupting the foreign procurement networks that support the Iranian military’s efforts to acquire weapons,” Bessent said in a statement in June.
“Treasury has frozen the Iranian regime’s assets, severely disrupted its economy, and dismantled the Iranian war machine. Treasury will not tolerate any support of the Iranian military.”
Magazine: Thai scammer’s $122M wallet, Japan embraces crypto credit: Asia Express
Confirmo has launched a stablecoin subscription payment service that supports automated recurring billing across more than 700 self-custody wallets and exchange accounts.
Summary
- Confirmo has launched Subscribe to let businesses automate recurring stablecoin payments through wallets and exchange accounts.
- The service supports USDC and USDG on Solana and Polygon, with more than 700 WalletConnect compatible wallets available.
- The launch comes as stablecoin payments continue expanding across business subscriptions, cross border settlements and enterprise payment services.
According to a July 14 press release shared with crypto.news, Subscribe allows enterprise businesses such as SaaS providers, trading platforms, and subscription services to add recurring stablecoin payments to their existing payment systems without developing the infrastructure internally.
The product has arrived as the global subscription economy is projected to reach $1.2 trillion by 2030, while Confirmo said more than 700 million people, or about 8.5% of the global population, now hold digital assets.
Built on Solana and Polygon, Subscribe initially supports Circle-issued USDC and Paxos-issued USDG. Paxos also serves as Confirmo’s US infrastructure partner, with the companies working together on stablecoin infrastructure and market access.
Subscribe supports wallets and exchange accounts
Unlike services limited to self-custody wallets, Subscribe accepts payments from both wallets and exchange accounts. WalletConnect integration gives customers access through more than 700 supported wallets, according to Confirmo.
Once a customer approves a subscription, the system automatically pulls stablecoins from the selected wallet or account on each billing date. Every payment is recorded from the outset, allowing merchants to monitor completed and scheduled transactions.
Existing Confirmo clients can view subscription activity through the same dashboard used for their other stablecoin payment products. The combined view removes the need to manage recurring transactions through a separate system.
Subscription plans are priced in US dollars to limit exposure to digital asset price changes. Confirmo said stablecoin settlement can also lower cross-border costs and reduce unexpected charges for customers.
Card declines and failed billing attempts can cause subscribers to lose access to a service without choosing to cancel. The company said wallet-based pull payments remove some of those failure points by collecting funds automatically after the customer grants approval.
Anna Kratky Strebl, Group CEO at Confirmo, said the service was developed around the payment needs of the company’s business customers.
“Built in collaboration with our long-term customers, it gives merchants a more transparent, cost-effective way to manage subscription and recurring revenue models, while making it easier for consumers worldwide to pay with the wallets and accounts they already use,” Strebl said.
She added that Confirmo would continue adapting its services as stablecoins become part of mainstream financial infrastructure and businesses seek new digital payment models.
FTMO helped design the payment system
Confirmo developed Subscribe with proprietary trading firm FTMO, which served as the product’s design partner. The collaboration allowed the infrastructure provider to test the system against the operational requirements of an existing merchant before launch.
Milan Flosman, Head of Finance Operations at FTMO, said the service would allow the company to introduce automated stablecoin billing without building its own payment system.
“Subscribe will give us something that didn’t exist before, a way to run automated, recurring stablecoin billing without building it ourselves,” Flosman said.
He added that Confirmo understood FTMO’s setup through the companies’ existing relationship and built the service to integrate with its operations.
“We’re not just looking to accept a new payment method; we’re preparing to launch a new payment model entirely,” Flosman said.
Stablecoin payments continue expanding beyond trading
The launch comes as businesses continue adopting stablecoins for commercial payments instead of limiting their use to crypto trading.
As previously reported by crypto.news, stablecoin cross-border payments were priced below interbank foreign exchange rates throughout the second quarter of 2026, Borderless.xyz highlighted in its Q2 2026 benchmark.
The firm tracked 260 payment corridors across 108 countries using nearly three million exchange rate observations and found stablecoin transfers maintained predictable pricing while provider selection became the largest factor affecting payment costs.
Borderless.xyz also reported that real-world stablecoin payment volume doubled to about $400 billion in 2025 as business-to-business payments, payroll and cross-border settlement gained traction.
The report said payment providers have continued expanding stablecoin services across new markets, with companies including dLocal and SBI Remit increasing support for international payment corridors.
XRP traded near $1.07 on July 14 after losing about 1% over 24 hours.
Summary
- XRP trades near $1.07 as negative Binance CVD data shows sellers still control spot demand.
- The $1.08 resistance level remains crucial, while $1.05 and $1.00 form the nearest downside supports.
- Bullish XRP social sentiment may increase short-term risk because prices often move against crowded expectations.
The token moved between $1.06 and $1.08, with daily volume near $955 million and market capitalization around $66.7 billion. Ripple’s native token remained the sixth-largest cryptocurrency.
The price has fallen nearly 6% over seven days and about 7% over one month. It also sits more than 70% below its July 2025 record of $3.65. The latest data shows weak price action near a support area defended several times since late June, while buyers still lack a clear breakout signal.
XRP price remains below key resistance
The XRP/USDT daily chart shows a broader decline from the $1.40 to $1.50 region. Price has stabilized between $1.05 and $1.10, but buyers have not reclaimed the recent recovery zone near $1.15 to $1.20. Analyst Cryptorphic said lower levels remain possible “as long as $1.08 remains resistance.”
The nearest downside level sits around $1.05. A daily close below that area could expose the psychological $1.00 mark. A recovery above $1.08 would ease immediate pressure, while a move through $1.10 could open another test of $1.14 and $1.18.
The relative strength index stood near 40.30, below its signal average of 45.68. The MACD histogram turned slightly positive, but the MACD and signal lines stayed below zero. That setup points to minor stabilization rather than a confirmed trend change, because both momentum lines remain in negative territory.
Binance order flow continues to favor sellers
A CryptoQuant analysis by Arab Chain found that XRP’s Binance Cumulative Volume Delta remained negative at about 6.93 million. CVD measures the difference between market buy and sell orders. A negative reading means sellers executed more volume than buyers.
The 30-day Price-CVD Confirmation Score held near 0.84. The analyst said the reading confirms that price and order flow continue to move together, but does not show enough buying demand for a reversal. A sustained move in CVD above zero, with a rising score, would offer clearer evidence that buyers have returned.
The data supports the short-term chart structure. The token has stayed close to $1.07 while spot sellers limit rebounds. Binance remains one of the largest XRP markets, making its order flow useful for judging whether price moves have support from spot demand.
Bullish social sentiment creates a mixed signal
Santiment said XRP recorded 3.02 bullish comments for every bearish comment on Monday. Ether followed at 2.31, while Bitcoin posted a more balanced ratio of 1.40. XRP therefore carried the strongest level of optimism among the three assets.
Santiment warned that crowded optimism can work against prices when markets already trade lower. “Crypto typically moves opposite to what the crowd is loudly expecting,” the firm wrote. It said strong bullish discussion around XRP and Ether could slow a rebound or create short-term downside risk.
The reading follows an earlier rise in XRP network growth and social interest near the $1 support region. New activity can attract buyers, but sentiment alone does not confirm demand. The split between positive commentary and negative Binance order flow keeps attention on both price and liquidity.
$50 XRP scenario depends on a $100 trillion crypto market
Crypto commentator Moon Lambo calculated that XRP could reach $50.10 if the total cryptocurrency market grew to $100 trillion and XRP retained a 3.13% share. That outcome would assign about $3.13 trillion in value to XRP, based on its circulating supply.
Moon Lambo stated, “I’m not making a prediction.” The calculation only shows price under fixed assumptions. At a 1% share of a $100 trillion market, XRP would trade near $16.01. A 5% share would place it around $80.08, while 10% would imply about $160.15.
Those figures do not describe XRP’s current market setup. The global crypto market would need to expand many times, while XRP would need to retain or increase its share. Supply changes, adoption, regulation and market structure would also affect future valuation.
XRP entered July between support around $1.00 to $1.06 and resistance near $1.18 to $1.20. Spot XRP exchange-traded funds also recorded $7.29 million in net outflows on July 8, their largest daily withdrawal since March.
Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials featured on this page are for educational purposes only.
A former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputy has been sentenced to 18 months in federal prison after admitting he lied to federal investigators about threats made by a cryptocurrency businessman during a 2021 extortion incident.
Summary
- A former Los Angeles sheriff’s deputy was sentenced to 18 months in prison for lying to federal investigators in a crypto-related extortion case.
- Prosecutors said the deputy witnessed Adam Iza threaten a victim with live ammunition before demanding a $25,000 payment.
- Iza remains in federal custody after multiple guilty pleas, including his role in a bitcoin-linked kidnapping conspiracy in Connecticut.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson also imposed a $10,000 fine on Scott Allen Simpkins, who pleaded guilty on March 17 to one count of obstruction of justice. Simpkins resigned from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Special Enforcement Bureau after entering his felony plea, according to the office.
Federal prosecutors said Simpkins falsely denied witnessing cryptocurrency businessman Adam Iza threaten a victim with live ammunition during an incident at Iza’s Bel Air home in 2021.
Court records cited by the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Simpkins was working private security at the residence with fellow former LASD deputy Christopher Michael Cadman. Both men were employed by Saavedra & Associates, a private security company owned by then-LASD Deputy Eric Chase Saavedra.
According to prosecutors, Iza placed four or five live 9mm rounds on his desk, spun one of the bullets while threatening the victim, and demanded a $25,000 transfer before Simpkins and Cadman escorted the victim off the property.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said the two deputies received $1,400 each for their work that day. After helping Saavedra & Associates secure a longer-term security contract with Iza, the company paid each of them about 10% of its profits from the contract’s first month, prosecutors added.
Iza still awaits sentencing
Separate federal cases against Iza have continued to move forward.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Iza has remained in federal custody since September 2024 after pleading guilty in California in January 2025 to conspiracy against rights, wire fraud, and tax evasion. He has not yet been sentenced in that case.
In a separate prosecution, the U.S. Department of Justice announced in June that Iza also pleaded guilty in federal court in Connecticut to conspiracy to interfere with commerce by robbery. The charge carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.
According to the Justice Department, the Connecticut case involved a 2024 kidnapping plot targeting the parents of Veer Chetal, a man accused of participating in the theft of about 4,100 bitcoin. Prosecutors said Iza and his brother, Saif Faiq, organised the scheme in an attempt to extort cryptocurrency.
As pre DOJ records, Faiq pleaded guilty on June 9, when he admitted recruiting six men from Florida, arranging their travel to Connecticut, and coordinating surveillance before the attack in Danbury. Prosecutors said the group allegedly forced Sushil and Radhika Chetal from their vehicle after staging a collision, assaulted them, and briefly held them captive. The six alleged attackers later pleaded guilty to kidnapping and carjacking offences, according to the department.
Federal records cited by the DOJ show Veer Chetal separately pleaded guilty in November 2025 to charges connected to the theft of approximately 4,100 bitcoin and is awaiting sentencing.
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