- BlackRock, Goldman Lampe and other institutions stayed active despite the broader market weakness.
- Open Standard’s Open USD announcement intensified stablecoin competition.
- Knaken faces bankruptcy while Binance battles a £150M UK lawsuit over crypto derivatives.
While Bitcoin struggled below $60,000, the total crypto market cap remained flat, at $2.05 trillion. Meanwhile, Ethereum held $1,500, and among the altcoins, Solana (SOL) outperformed, up more than 1% in the past 24 hours.
On the other hand, Stellar (XLM) was up by 7% while Cardano (ADA) soared 4%, breaking the broader bearish market trend. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) was also up 3% on the day, according to CoinMarketCap.
Institutional Money Keeps Moving Despite Market Weakness
BlackRock transferred another 4,385 BTC worth about $260 million and 30,725 ETH valued at roughly $48.6 million to Coinbase. Over the last two days, the asset manager has moved a combined 11,817 BTC, or around $706 million, to the exchange.
Also, UAE private bank Goldman Lampe bought €120 million ($136 million) worth of Bitcoin during the recent market dip, while Nasdaq-listed miner Riot Platforms transferred 500 BTC worth about $29.5 million to NYDIG as part of its ongoing Bitcoin sales.
Ethereum also saw notable on-chain activity as a newly created wallet withdrew 9,876 ETH worth roughly $15.4 million from Binance before staking the entire amount. At the same time, FG Nexus completed the liquidation of its Ethereum holdings after sending its final 9,481 ETH to Galaxy Digital. The firm sold a total of 51,156 ETH worth $109.4 million and closed the position with an estimated loss of $86.6 million.
Venture firm a16z also continued reducing exposure by selling another 76,840 HYPE tokens worth about $5 million. Across the past two days, total HYPE sales reached 154,242 tokens valued at roughly $10.2 million.
Stablecoin Competition Heats Up
Competition in the stablecoin market intensified after Open Standard unveiled plans for Open USD (OUSD), a new stablecoin backed by more than 140 companies. The project includes partners such as Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, American Express, Coinbase, Bybit, OKX, BlackRock, BNY, Standard Chartered, Google, and Shopify.
Partners will share reserve yields, while the platform promises zero-fee large-scale minting and redemption. Bridge CEO Zach Abrams will serve as interim CEO of the initiative ahead of its planned launch later this year.
Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire responded by reaffirming that USDC remains the leading institutional stablecoin. Meanwhile, USDC Treasury minted another 250 million USDC on Solana, adding fresh liquidity to the network.
MetaMask also entered the stablecoin yield race by launching self-custodial Money Accounts on the Monad blockchain. The product combines payments, stablecoin balances, and yield generation through DeFi lending protocols, offering returns of up to around 4% annually while allowing direct spending through the MetaMask Card.
Tokenized Finance Continues Expanding
Theo invested $20 million into Fidelity International’s tokenized USD liquidity fund FILQ through Sygnum. Nasdaq also announced that its TotalView depth-of-book market data will become available on-chain through Pyth.
CME Group added to the growing link between traditional and digital markets by confirming it will launch single-stock futures on July 27. The lineup includes standard and micro contracts covering more than 50 major US companies, including Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Nvidia, and SpaceX.
Regulation and Legal Pressure Increase
Dutch prosecutors also requested bankruptcy proceedings against crypto platform Knaken after regulators said the exchange never obtained the required MiCA license.
In the UK, roughly 1,700 investors filed a £150 million ($198 million) class action against Binance and founder Changpeng Zhao, claiming the exchange offered unauthorized crypto derivatives to retail users before regulatory restrictions came into force.
Across the Atlantic, the US SEC opened a 60-day public consultation on new ETF rules. The review could eventually expand approvals for crypto ETFs, prediction market ETFs, and additional single-stock ETF strategies in the coming years.
Markets, Governance, and Security Remain Active
Pump.fun discontinued its Tokenized Agent launch feature after community feedback argued that too many launch options increased competition without improving the user experience.
ENS governance also faced criticism after co-founder Nick Johnson used voting power representing around 80% of participating votes to block renewal of the ENS DAO Security Council, renewing debate over voting concentration within the project.
Security incidents continued as well. Lending protocol Edel Finance lost about $204,000 in an exploit involving collateral price manipulation, while the Ethereum project Backed suffered a separate suspected attack that resulted in losses of roughly $204,200.
DeFi also continued to weaken, with total value locked across all blockchain networks falling below $70 billion to around $69.36 billion, marking its lowest level since February 2024.
Related: Australia’s Crypto Travel Rule Takes Effect July 1, Tightening Transfer Checks
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