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Bitwise says STRC selloff signals crypto market bottom is near

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Bitwise says STRC selloff signals crypto market bottom is near

Earlier this week, Strategy unveiled a capital framework allowing selective bitcoin sales to fund preferred dividends, while authorizing preferred share repurchases and stock buybacks. It also set a minimum cash reserve covering 12 months of preferred dividend and interest payments. Its $2.55 billion cash balance currently covers about 17 months.

Hougan said the episode marks a broader shift in Strategy’s role within bitcoin markets. Rather than serving as crypto’s dominant, one-way buyer, the firm is likely to become a more flexible participant whose bitcoin purchases or sales depend on market conditions.

Looking ahead, Bitwise believes institutional investors, including asset managers, banks, pensions, endowments and sovereign funds, are positioned to replace Strategy as bitcoin’s primary source of demand.

More broadly, STRC volatility is seen as part of the leverage unwind that typically marks the late stages of every crypto cycle. As speculative excess is flushed from the system, the market moves closer to establishing a durable bottom, though the exact timing remains impossible to predict, the report added.

Wall Street bank JPMorgan said Strategy’s new policy allowing selective bitcoin sales to fund preferred dividends creates avoidable two-way risk, increasing uncertainty and market volatility.

Read more: JPMorgan says Strategy’s bitcoin sales policy adds ‘two-way risk’ to crypto markets

Ripple Co-Founder Invests in Crypto Venture Founded by US Senator’s Son: Report

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Ripple Co-Founder Invests in Crypto Venture Founded by US Senator’s Son: Report

Chris Larsen, co-founder and executive chair of Ripple Labs, was reportedly among those backing the financial venture of US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s son as negotiations over a significant piece of crypto-related legislation continue in the Senate.

According to a Thursday Politico report, Larsen was one of a handful of investors backing the American Perpetuals Exchange Corp. (APEC), founded by Theodore Gillibrand. Although Larsen’s exact contribution was not included in the report, the majority of investors contributed between $5,000 to $10,000 each into the derivatives platform, which reportedly raised $30 million.

The investment comes as the New York lawmaker is involved in negotiations over ethics provisions in the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, legislation expected to have a significant impact on crypto companies operating in the US, including Ripple. Gillibrand said in May that no one would be voting for the bill without addressing ethics:

“[T]he truth is, is that we cannot allow members of Congress, senior administration officials, presidents or vice presidents, to get rich off of these industries because of their insider status. It is the worst form of pay for play.” 

A spokesperson for the senator referred Cointelegraph to her June 18 statement saying that her son was “a grown adult starting his own independent business” and she had “no involvement in it whatsoever.” Cointelegraph reached out to APEC for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

Related: Fed chair nominee pressed on potential conflicts of interest, independence

Democratic lawmakers have been pushing Republicans, who hold a majority in Congress, to support efforts to add ethics language to the CLARITY Act, citing US President Donald Trump’s ties to the crypto industry. Republican leaders in the Senate are expecting the bill to pass the chamber in July, with Senator Cynthia Lummis saying in June that lawmakers were “working a little bit on ethics,” decentralized finance and illicit transactions as part of negotiations.

Source: Senator Elizabeth Warren

Senate Republicans hold a slim majority in the chamber, meaning they will need some Democratic support to meet the 60-vote threshold for CLARITY to pass.

Congressional schedule squeezes window for CLARITY bill

Lawmakers in the US Senate are on state work periods for the Independence Day holiday. Scheduled to return to session on July 13 and leave for another month-long state work period in August, the window to pass crypto market structure is closing before US election day, which is expected to result in additional delays.

Magazine: AI is banking the unbanked in Africa… faster than crypto

Passive Income on Ethereum for All: How Rocket Pool Scales Liquid Staking

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Passive Income on Ethereum for All: How Rocket Pool Scales Liquid Staking

💻 Watch Video… Read the full story at The Defiant

StablecoinX Launches Harness API to Simplify Stablecoin Payments and Treasury Operations

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StablecoinX Launches Harness API to Simplify Stablecoin Payments and Treasury Operations

  • StablecoinX has launched Harness, a middleware API to simplify stablecoin payments, swaps, cross-chain transfers and treasury operations.
  • The platform lets businesses accept major stablecoins, convert balances into sUSDe, and deliver funds across chains through one integration.

StablecoinX Inc. today launched StablecoinX Harness, a middleware platform aimed at making stablecoin payments, routing and treasury operations easier for businesses to integrate.

The Nasdaq-listed company, trading under the ticker USDE, says the platform lets organizations accept major stablecoins, convert balances into sUSDe for staking rewards, and deliver funds to a receiver’s preferred chain or venue through one API.

That makes the product a bet on the next phase of stablecoin competition: not just who issues the token, but who controls the software layer around it.

StablecoinX is focused on the Ethena digital dollar ecosystem. The company began trading on Nasdaq on June 26 after closing its business combination with TLGY Acquisition Corp., holding about 3.03 billion ENA tokens valued at roughly $275 million at closing.

In its June 25 SEC filing, StablecoinX described Harness as a middleware software stack that was “not yet live.” The filing said the product was expected to support payment routing, cross-chain bridging, liquidity aggregation, gas abstraction, treasury management, automated yield, institutional reporting, white-label issuance and compliance orchestration.

The launch turns that planned product into an active platform for design partners and early integrators.

The first release focuses on same-chain swaps and cross-chain transfers. Future releases are expected to add liquidity aggregation, multi-stablecoin treasury dashboards, issuance-as-a-service, automated yield strategies, risk scoring and compliance orchestration, according to the company announcement.

Edward Chen, chairman and chief executive officer of StablecoinX, said the launch is “a significant milestone for our company and our partnership with Ethena.”

“This API will empower developers to seamlessly integrate USDe into payment, treasury, and agentic solutions, thereby driving the adoption of Ethena products into traditional financial markets,” Chen said. “By expanding the utility of Ethena products through StablecoinX Harness, we look to strengthen the network effects of the Ethena ecosystem.”

The move comes as stablecoins are becoming a mainstream payments and treasury topic.

The GENIUS Act, signed into law in July 2025, created a U.S. framework for dollar-pegged stablecoins backed by liquid assets such as cash and Treasuries. Industry backers have argued the law could expand the stablecoin market sharply, while critics have warned about gaps in anti-money-laundering protections and tech-company issuance.

But clearer rules do not solve the operating problem.

Enterprises still need to manage multiple tokens, chains, bridges, liquidity venues, custody providers, compliance checks and treasury workflows. StablecoinX’s pitch is that Harness can abstract those fragmented systems into one programmable layer.

That matters because payments and treasury teams generally do not want to build crypto routing infrastructure from scratch.

For institutional users, a single API could reduce engineering cost and operational risk. For Ethena, it could make USDe and sUSDe easier to use beyond DeFi-native users, especially in payments, treasury management and AI-agent commerce.

Ethena’s USDe remains a different product from fiat-backed stablecoins such as USDC or USDT.

StablecoinX describes USDe as a synthetic digital dollar backed by a delta-neutral strategy using crypto collateral and short perpetual-futures positions. Its sUSDe product offers rewards, but Ethena says sUSDe is not a bank deposit, savings account or insured banking product.

That risk distinction is important.

Harness may simplify access and routing, but it does not remove the market, liquidity, regulatory and execution risks around stablecoin systems. StablecoinX’s own SEC filing warned of risks tied to crypto volatility, competition, regulation and the challenge of launching its infrastructure and distribution businesses.

The broader market is already moving in the same direction.

Circle launched Gateway in 2025 to give businesses instant access to cross-chain USDC liquidity through a unified balance, targeting payment service providers, exchanges, custodians and cross-chain infrastructure teams. Circle said the product was designed to reduce fragmented liquidity management and improve capital efficiency.

Fireblocks has also pushed into payment orchestration.

Its Network for Payments connects providers across local payment rails, blockchains, on/off-ramps, foreign exchange and remittance capabilities. Fireblocks says its broader network connects more than 2,400 counterparties and supports settlement, custody, trading and tokenization use cases.

Large payment companies are buying into the same thesis.

Stripe’s stablecoin unit Bridge received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in February to establish a national trust bank. If finalized, the approval would let Bridge offer digital-asset custody, stablecoin issuance and orchestration, and reserve management. Stripe acquired Bridge in 2024 in a deal reportedly valued at $1.1 billion.

Mastercard has also moved toward owning stablecoin infrastructure.

In March 2026, Mastercard agreed to acquire BVNK for $1.8 billion, giving it technology and licenses for stablecoin payments across more than 130 countries and major blockchain networks. The deal showed that payments incumbents would rather buy proven infrastructure than spend years building it internally.

StablecoinX is taking a narrower but more vertically aligned route.

Instead of building neutral infrastructure across all stablecoins, it is building around Ethena’s ecosystem. That could help concentrate liquidity and developer activity around USDe, but it also ties StablecoinX’s fortunes closely to Ethena’s adoption, ENA’s economics and the durability of synthetic-dollar demand.

The launch also arrives as competition among stablecoins is broadening.

Earlier this week, a consortium including Visa, Mastercard, Coinbase and other companies launched Open Standard to introduce Open USD, a dollar stablecoin backed by more than 140 participating businesses. The initiative is designed to address adoption barriers such as cost, scale and accessibility.

That makes StablecoinX Harness part of a larger shift.

The first stablecoin race was about issuance and reserve trust. The next one is increasingly about distribution, interoperability, liquidity routing and compliance-ready infrastructure.

The above article “StablecoinX Launches Harness API to Simplify Stablecoin Payments and Treasury Operations” was first published on AlexaBlockchain. Read the complete article here: https://alexablockchain.com/stablecoinx-launches-harness-api-to-simplify-stablecoin-payments-treasury-operations/

Read Also: This is the First U.S.-Chartered Depository Bank to Offer Stablecoin Invoicing

Disclaimer: The information provided on AlexaBlockchain is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Read complete disclaimer here.

FBI Director Discloses Strategy Holdings Months After Deadline: Report

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FBI Director Discloses Strategy Holdings Months After Deadline: Report

Kash Patel, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) , reportedly omitted reporting exposure to Bitcoin treasury company Strategy, in violation of federal law.

According to a Wednesday report from the nonpartisan nonprofit news agency NOTUS, Patel “inadvertently omitted” a Strategy (MSTR) investment worth as much as $250,000. The purchase, which Patel conducted on Nov. 21, 2025, wasn’t included in his December 2025 financial disclosures, as required for a government official under the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act.

Source: NOTUS

Patel filed an amended report on May 26, indicating that the Strategy holdings were “inadvertently omitted” and “no current conflict exists” with the investment. Under the STOCK Act, some government officials and lawmakers must disclose financial transactions exceeding $1,000 no later than 45 days after executing the trade. Strategy, formerly known as MicroStrategy, is a registered US government contractor, raising concerns about conflicts of interest with Patel’s investments.

Although signed into law in 2012, the STOCK Act has come under fire from many in Congress who claim that lawmakers and White House officials who violate it do not face severe penalties. First-time violators are only subject to a $200 fine under the law, with additional penalties falling short of the hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars offered in disclosures.

Related: Apple fixes bug that allowed FBI to read deleted Signal messages

Patel isn’t the only member of Congress or policymaker to fall behind in his Strategy investment disclosures. According to Capitol Trades, a website tracking politicians’ investments, Representative Shri Thanedar waited until August 2025 to report a $15,001 to $50,000 investment in Strategy made in June 2024.

Trump discloses $1.4 billion in crypto-related income

The FBI director’s reported late disclosures came in the wake of President Donald Trump’s release of financial records that revealed that his cryptocurrency ventures generated more than $1.4 billion in income in 2025, exceeding that of his real estate businesses.

Many US lawmakers have criticized the president for profiting from his position while in office through his memecoin launch, his family’s crypto platform World Liberty Financial, and his sons’ Bitcoin mining venture.

Magazine: Big Questions: Do we really only need 2–5 cryptocurrencies?

eToro Takes Strategic Stake in Onchain Derivatives Exchange Extended, Plans Zengo Tie-Up

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eToro Takes Strategic Stake in Onchain Derivatives Exchange Extended, Plans Zengo Tie-Up

eToro has become a strategic investor in Extended, an onchain perpetual futures exchange, and said the round begins a partnership with Zengo, the self-custody wallet eToro acquired earlier this year. Neither company disclosed the investment size.

EToro has become a strategic investor in Extended, an onchain perpetual futures exchange, and said the funding round marks the start of a partnership between Extended and Zengo, the self-custody wallet eToro acquired earlier this year, according to a post from Extended.

Extended said on X that eToro “is now a strategic investor” and that the partnership will focus on “expanding access to global financial markets through next-generation on-chain infrastructure,” describing it as a step toward “bridging traditional financial assets and decentralized trading environments.”

Neither eToro nor Extended disclosed the size of the investment in their own statements, and neither had published a dedicated press release on the deal as of publication. CoinDesk reported the round totaled $12.5 million.

Extended is a perpetuals decentralized exchange built on Starknet, founded by former Revolut employees including Ruslan Fakhrutdinov, the fintech’s former crypto head. According to Extended’s own documentation, the exchange supports more than 100 markets spanning crypto, equities, foreign exchange and commodities, the kind of cross-asset venue eToro said it wants to connect to a self-custody wallet.

The investment builds on eToro’s acquisition of Zengo, a self-custodial wallet provider, which the two companies announced in April in a deal Bloomberg and other outlets reported was worth roughly $70 million. In its own release, eToro said the Zengo deal was meant to “accelerate its strategy of connecting traditional finance with on-chain infrastructure,” and Zengo co-founder and CEO Ouriel Ohayon said joining eToro would let the wallet “expand access to self-custody and on-chain finance.” Pairing Zengo’s custody with Extended’s derivatives engine would let eToro offer onchain perpetuals to wallet users who keep control of their own assets.

The move places eToro alongside other retail brokerages pushing into onchain trading. Robinhood this week launched the public mainnet of Robinhood Chain, its own Arbitrum-based Layer 2 for financial services and real-world assets, as brokers race to build out onchain product suites and move beyond simple crypto spot trading.

Securitize (SECZ) takes $295M of its own tokenized stock to Solana, Avalanche amid NYSE debut

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Securitize (SECZ) takes $295M of its own tokenized stock to Solana, Avalanche amid NYSE debut

The opportunity has drawn growing interest across Wall Street. Citi projected that tokenized securities could reach $5.5 trillion by 2030, while Boston Consulting Group and Ripple estimated the market could grow to $18.9 trillion by 2033.

“We have long said that public equities are moving onchain, and there is no stronger validation of that belief than tokenizing our own public stock on day one,” CEO Carlos Domingo said in a statement.

Issuer-sponsored tokenization

Unlike many existing tokenized stock products, which are issued by third parties or offered outside the United States, Securitize said SECZ is an issuer-sponsored tokenization of the company’s own shares. Eligible U.S. investors can buy the tokenized stock through Securitize’s platform after completing identity verification and meeting securities law requirements.

The launch doubles as a showcase for Securitize’s business.

The company, founded in 2017, has spent years building tokenization infrastructure for firms including BlackRock, Apollo, KKR, Hamilton Lane and VanEck, providing issuance, transfer agency and fund administration services for blockchain-based securities.

Earlier this year, NYSE parent company Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) partnered with Securitize to develop infrastructure for tokenized equities. It also teamed up with Computershare and Continental, two of the world’s largest transfer agents, to help public firms issue their shares in token form on blockchain rails.

Russia on Track for Digital Ruble Rollout on Sept. 1: Central Bank Governor

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Russia on Track for Digital Ruble Rollout on Sept. 1: Central Bank Governor

Russia’s central bank governor, Elvira Nabiullina, confirmed that the country was prepared to roll out its central bank digital currency (CBDC) in two months, following the timeline it laid out last year. 

According to a Thursday report from Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti, Nabiullina said that “everyone is ready” for a Sept. 1 digital ruble launch. The CBDC will launch as a complement to Russia’s fiat currency, the ruble, and will initially be accepted by financial and credit institutions.

“We want the digital ruble to be in demand by people and businesses, to be convenient, and, of course, we’re constantly discussing […] what functionality to develop,” said Nabiullina in a translated statement.

Pile of 5000 ruble banknotes next to a keyboard on a white surface, viewed from above. Source: Polina Tankilevitch, Pexels

The launch of a digital ruble, whose development began in 2021, has already been targeted by preemptive sanctions from European Union authorities, which announced restrictions on the CBDC in April. The European Council said that the sanctions package was in response to Russia’s “war of aggression against Ukraine,” which it started in February 2022.

According to the Bank of Russia’s first deputy governor, Vladimir Chistyukhin, the law allowing the digital ruble will be enacted on Sept. 1 with a transition period until July 2027.

Related: Russia targets British 17-year-old for alleging digital assets were skirting sanctions

Dr. Jack Jarmon, who worked as a USAID technical adviser for the Russian government in the 1990s, said in a February 2025 report that the country could face “structural limitations” should its digital ruble plans fail and it relies on Bitcoin (BTC) and other proof-of-work (PoW) digital currencies as methods of evading sanctions.

“While Russia is replete with a surplus of oil and gas, the rest of its energy infrastructure is not well suited to handle such significant increases in demand for energy,” said Jarmon, referring to PoW mining. “Its power grid is old and in need of investment and upgrade.”

He added:

“The sanctions that Putin seeks to circumvent have cut Russia off from financial capital and technology. It has no domestic semiconductor industry to meet its needs and must rely on the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for components […]”

US President weighing legislation with four-year CBDC ban

In contrast to Russia, the United States is one step away from having a ban on the country’s central bank issuing or creating a CBDC until 2030. This week, US President Donald Trump received the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a housing bill containing a ban on a digital dollar as part of a package of housing affordability laws.

Although Trump has said he will not sign the bill, expecting Republicans to first pass legislation requiring voters to provide proof of US citizenship in person to register, it will automatically become law in 10 days with no action on the president’s part. This timeline would put the law into effect in July. 

Magazine: Big Questions: Do we really only need 2–5 cryptocurrencies?

IMF Says Tokenization Could Reshape Global Finance, Warns of New Risks

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IMF Says Tokenization Could Reshape Global Finance, Warns of New Risks

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says tokenization could fundamentally reshape how financial markets operate, marking one of the strongest acknowledgments yet from a global policymaker that blockchain-based infrastructure is moving into the financial mainstream.

In a blog published Thursday, Tobias Adrian, the IMF’s financial counselor and director of its Monetary and Capital Markets Department, said tokenization is more than a niche crypto innovation. By bringing assets, settlement and recordkeeping onto a shared ledger, tokenization could compress today’s multi-day settlement process into near-instant transactions.

Adrian also warned that tokenization shifts risks away from traditional financial intermediaries and toward the underlying infrastructure, including smart contracts, distributed ledgers and service providers. Without common standards and coordinated regulation, tokenized financial markets could become fragmented across incompatible platforms, creating new sources of systemic risk.

Source: IMF

The report comes as financial institutions accelerate efforts to integrate tokenization into traditional markets. The Clearing House, whose owners include JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Barclays, reportedly plans to launch a tokenized deposit network in early 2027 to keep deposits within the regulated banking system while enabling faster, programmable payments.

The IMF’s assessment aligns with recent research from PwC, which found that tokenization could address longstanding inefficiencies in traditional finance, including payment settlement and the transfer of asset ownership. It also follows a May report from Moody’s showing that traditional financial institutions are actively preparing for a shift toward tokenized finance. 

Related: Tokenization makes finance more efficient but introduces risks: IMF

Regulators race to define tokenized finance

The IMF report emphasized the growing role of regulators in shaping tokenized finance. Adrian said policymakers have a narrow window to determine how tokenized markets evolve, arguing that decisions on settlement assets, governance, interoperability and the role of central banks will help determine whether tokenization makes the financial system more efficient or introduces new systemic risks.

In the United States, the Securities and Exchange Commission has taken steps to clarify how existing securities laws apply to tokenized assets rather than creating a separate regulatory framework. 

Source: Cointelegraph

The agency has also signaled it is considering an “innovation exemption” that could allow market participants to test blockchain-based trading platforms for tokenized securities while a longer-term regulatory framework is developed.

Magazine: Can Robinhood or Kraken’s tokenized stocks ever be truly decentralized?

EToro (ETOR) ramps up blockchain trading push, investing in derivatives venue Extended

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EToro (ETOR) ramps up blockchain trading push, investing in derivatives venue Extended

Perpetual futures, once a niche crypto product, have become one of the industry’s fastest-growing markets. Alongside cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, trading platforms are increasingly listing contracts tied to equities, commodities and other real-world assets, blurring the line between crypto-native and traditional financial markets.

Led by former Revolut crypto head Ruslan Fakhrutdinov, Extended had processed more than $245 billion in trading volume as of June and supports more than 100 perpetual markets, according to the company.

The firm said it plans to expand into spot trading, tokenized real-world assets and multi-asset collateral.

“The first phase was building for DeFi natives,” Fakhrutdinov said in a statement. “The next is expanding the infrastructure and partnerships needed to support the next stage of onchain derivatives.”

The investment points to a broader race to become what is best described as the “everything exchange” or “everything app” for financial markets. Coinbase (COIN) has expanded into perpetual futures, Robinhood is pairing tokenized stocks with event contracts and commodity perps, and prediction market operator Kalshi recently entered the perpetual futures business.

As trading increasingly moves onto a blockchain environment, the lines separating brokerages, crypto exchanges and prediction markets are becoming harder to distinguish.

“Capital markets are increasingly converging with digital asset infrastructure,” Zengo managing director Ouriel Ohayon, said in a statement. “eToro’s investment in Extended reflects a mutual conviction that the future of trading will be digital, accessible and can operate 24/7, beyond the traditional trading week.”

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