Author: John Smith

The network that moves the world’s money spent 9 months building a blockchain, and the most important decision it made was what not to put on it. No stablecoins. No public tokens. Just bank deposits, wearing a new coat. Summary On July 9, SWIFT launched a blockchain-based shared ledger with 17 major banks, including Citi, HSBC, UBS, and BNP Paribas, for round-the-clock cross-border payments using tokenized deposits. The ledger is built on Hyperledger Besu, an EVM-compatible architecture, developed with Consensys in 9 months, and it is positioned openly as the banking industry’s answer to a $315 billion stablecoin sector. The…

There is $1.6 trillion in Bitcoin sitting idle, earning nothing, doing nothing. Charles Hoskinson has a plan to put it to work on Cardano, and the plan quietly requires every transaction to burn a little ADA. Whether that saves Cardano or exposes its central problem is the whole question. Summary Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has laid out a strategy to bring Bitcoin into Cardano’s DeFi ecosystem through a platform called Pogun, targeting the roughly $1.6 trillion in idle Bitcoin. Pogun rolls out in three phases across 2026: a non-margin credit market in the second quarter, a yield application in the…

Robinhood Chain launched, filled with memecoins, briefly ranked third among DEXs, and the “Solana killer” talk started immediately. Then you look at the actual numbers. Solana has 27 times the value locked and 2 million more users. This is not a flippening. It is a fair fight over the wrong metric. Summary Robinhood Chain launched July 1 and drew roughly $185 million in value locked and over $3 billion in first-week DEX volume, briefly ranking among the top DEXs by volume and prompting Solana comparisons. Solana dwarfs it on every durable metric: around $4.93 billion in value locked, $1.91 billion…

Ethereum’s best marketing line was that using it destroyed it, that every transaction burned ETH and shrank the supply. Then the network solved its scaling problem, activity fled to layer 2s, and the burn collapsed. The scaling worked. The scarcity did not survive it. Summary Ethereum’s “ultrasound money” thesis held that EIP-1559 fee burning would outpace new issuance, making ETH deflationary and a superior store of value to Bitcoin. It worked briefly after the 2022 Merge. Then the March 2024 Dencun upgrade moved activity to layer-2 rollups paying near-zero fees, and the daily burn collapsed from thousands of ETH to…

With Strategy’s cash reserve now at $3 billion, founder Michael Saylor has named corporate adoption as a necessary condition for Bitcoin to become a global currency network. Summary Michael Saylor says corporate adoption is essential for Bitcoin to become a global currency network. Strategy’s $3 billion cash reserve has helped ease concerns about forced Bitcoin sales. Bitcoin Japan plans its first treasury purchase as companies expand exposure to the asset. In a July 18 X post, Saylor described companies as legal structures that allow people to work toward a shared mission with more efficiency, transparency, credibility, scale, and staying power.…

Noxa has halted token launches after generating more than $12 million in fees and helping Robinhood Chain reach $4 billion in cumulative decentralized exchange volume within two weeks. Summary Noxa halted launches after earning $12 million in fees within two weeks. CASHCAT plunged over 33% as Robinhood Chain trading volume declined. Rival launchpads are competing to capture activity previously controlled by Noxa. crypto.news reported that the launchpad stopped operating on July 11 after becoming the main platform behind Robinhood Chain’s early memecoin activity. Noxa had supported more than 60,000 token launches and accounted for about 75% of all deployments on…

Ethereum has risen 1.8% to $1,845 after Rep. Bryan Steil raised hopes for a Senate vote on the CLARITY Act next week, while ETF inflows and firm chart support kept traders cautiously bullish. Summary Ethereum rose 1.8% as Bryan Steil raised hopes for a CLARITY Act vote next week. Spot Ethereum ETFs recorded $105 million in weekly inflows, their highest since April. ETH must defend $1,830 and break $1,854 to target the $1,947 resistance zone. Steil, who chairs the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Digital Assets, told FOX Business that the bill could reach the Senate floor in the coming…

Kaspersky has exposed OkoBot, a year-old malware operation that uses roughly 20 modules to steal crypto wallet recovery phrases and has affected users across at least five countries. Summary Kaspersky uncovered OkoBot using roughly 20 modules to steal crypto wallet credentials. The malware has affected users in Brazil, Vietnam, Canada, Mexico, and Turkey. OkoBot uses fake recovery screens, keylogging, spyware, and ClickFix commands to target victims. Kaspersky researchers discovered that the malware has remained active for more than a year, according to a report published by Bits.media. Most identified victims were located in Brazil, Vietnam, Canada, Mexico, and Turkey, while…

Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest has bought $18.3 million of SpaceX shares after the stock fell 5.43% to a new post-IPO low, according to the firm’s July 17 trading report. Summary ARK Invest bought $18.3 million of SpaceX shares after the stock hit a post-IPO low. Four ARK ETFs acquired 147,623 shares as SpaceX closed 8.2% below its IPO price. SpaceX delayed Starship Flight 13 after two Raptor engines failed during pre-flight testing. According to ARK’s daily disclosure, four of its actively managed exchange-traded funds purchased a combined 147,623 SpaceX shares as the stock closed Friday at $123.99. During the session,…

Hyperliquid co-founder Jeff Yan has warned that crypto’s failure to attract enough top entrepreneurs has become one of the industry’s biggest obstacles as young talent moves toward artificial intelligence. Summary Jeff Yan says crypto is struggling to attract top young entrepreneurs. AI’s prestige and rapid growth are pulling talented founders away from on-chain finance. George Noble warns heavy AI spending could create serious financial risks. The VALR podcast featured Yan’s comments on how the AI boom and the social status attached to the technology have influenced career choices among young founders. According to Yan, many talented people remain unsure which…