President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of Nigeria has moved to address what his office called the fragmentation of digital asset regulation.
The Nigerian president’s special adviser Bayo Onanuga said that an executive order signed on Friday would “harmonize the regulation of virtual assets, strengthen cooperation among the nation’s financial, revenue and capital markets agencies, protect citizens from fraud, and safeguard the integrity of the financial system while enabling responsible innovation.”
It also established a virtual asset council headed by some of the nation’s top financial regulators to direct related policies, and Nigeria’s tax authority will update its policies on digital assets.
“[T]he order does not create a new regulator or transfer powers between agencies,” said Onanuga. “Each institution retains its full statutory mandate and independence, and the framework coordinates their work rather than replacing it. To provide certainty for operators and protection for the public, registration will follow the nature of the activity and the asset involved […] This closes the gaps through which unregistered operators have previously escaped oversight.“
Nigeria has seen some of the strongest growth in digital asset adoption in Africa, in both cryptocurrencies and stablecoins. According to a June report from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the country accounted for about 60% of stablecoin inflows within sub-Saharan Africa since 2019 and had about $59 billion in crypto inflows between July 2023 and June 2024.
Source: IMF
Related: Blockchain.com expands into Ghana after 700% trading surge in Nigeria
“The policy challenge is to narrow the gap that made the workaround [in cross-border payments] attractive, while ensuring that new risks remain contained,” said the IMF on Nigeria’s stablecoin adoption. “That requires a clear strategy: open to innovation but anchored in sound macroeconomic policy and effective regulation.”
Nigerian tax authority revamped digital assets approach
While the executive order said that the country’s tax authority, the Nigerian Revenue Service, would provide additional details on the effects on taxpayers, the agency had already announced policy reforms.
In January, authorities said that under the Nigeria Tax Administration Act, crypto service providers were required to link transactions to tax identification numbers and, in some cases, national identification numbers.
Magazine: The British Virgin Islands are a top crypto hub no one ever talks about: Here’s why
Bitmine (BMNR), the largest Ethereum treasury firm, bought just 7,430 ether (ETH) last week, dialing back its buying spree as it redirected capital to a stock buyback.
The latest purchase, worth about $14 million at ether’s current price of $1,879, lifted BitMine’s holdings to 5,78 million ETH, or roughly 4.8% of Ethereum’s circulating supply, according to a Monday company update.
BMNR was 2.4% higher in pre-market trading.
The purchase marks one of firm’s smallest weekly additions since launching its Ethereum treasury strategy in June 2025. By comparison, the firm bought more than 111,000 ETH during one week in May and had regularly acquired tens of thousands of tokens throughout the first half of the year. The firm is nearing its goal to corner 5% of ETH supply.
Chairman Thomas “Tom” Lee attributed the slowdown to the company’s decision to repurchase approximately 5.5 million shares at an average price of $15.62 under its previously authorized $4 billion buyback program.
“The reduced pace of buys reflects that Bitmine repurchased 5.5 million common shares,” Lee said. He added that the company has purchased ETH every week since adopting its treasury strategy just over a year ago.
US equities faced multiple headwinds to start the week, with the US-Iran war quashing risk appetite and a tech-stock sell-off gaining strength.
Trading resource The Kobeissi Letter reported that hedge funds were selling tech stocks “at a record pace.”
“Hedge funds have sold information technology stocks in 6 of the last 8 weeks. This brings total 8-week sales to the largest in at least 10 years,” it said in a post on X, citing Goldman Sachs data.
US tech stock investment trend data. Source: The Kobeissi Letter/X
To be sure, the S&P 500 Index and Nasdaq Composite Index were both modestly higher at the time of writing, while the Dow Jones was down 0.3% on the day.
Oil prices remained above $80 per barrel as the Strait of Hormuz looked set to stay closed amid intensifying rhetoric from both the US and Iran.
CFDs on US WTI crude oil one-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
In a post on Truth Social at the weekend, US president Donald Trump called for Iran to be included in a sanctions package initially focused on Russia.
Source: Truth Social
Bitcoin price upside hits $65,000 roadblock
BTC price action found little room for upside as the $65,000 mark became a point of repeated momentum failure.
Related: Trader maintains $67K BTC price target: Five things to know in Bitcoin this week
“The $65K level has capped price for the entirety of July so far,” trader Daan Crypto Trades wrote in an X post.
“But I do think the longer price spends here, the more likely the $65K level is to break. Especially with the higher lows being made over the past 3 weeks.”
Daan Crypto Trades joined those who saw the next likely upside target at just above $67,000. He said this was where BTC/USD would “break into a bullish market structure.”
Others referenced seasonality directing current price behavior, with summer traditionally devoid of major moves up or down.
“The markets are in a summer break, it feels like,” crypto trader and analyst Michael van de Poppe told his roughly 819,000 X followers while discussing largest altcoin Ether (ETH).
In a separate post, Van de Poppe gave a BTC price target of between $67,500 and $69,000 for the “coming weeks.” Earlier, he saw August offering even higher levels of up to $80,000, a level last seen in mid-May.
BTC/USDT one-day chart. Source: Michaël van de Poppe/X
A new research report from bitcoin custody firm Onramp argues that the recent market slump is a reason to buy, and that owners should hold the asset itself rather than a paper claim on its price.
The report, titled “Back to Basics” and published in July 2026, opens on a market puzzle: bitcoin trades at about half its late-2025 high, while equities and gold sit at or near records of their own. For a different asset, the report says, that divergence would read as a warning. For a fixed-supply asset with adoption at an early stage, it reads as an opening.
Onramp splits its case into three parts — the fundamentals of bitcoin, the gap between owning the asset and owning a wrapper, and the data behind its claim that the moment favors accumulation.
Bitcoin’s fixed supply
The first section runs through ten ideas. Money, the firm writes, is a technology for storing value across time, a test that cash fails over long horizons.
Fiat currencies lose purchasing power by design, since a money supply built to expand hands the first use of new units to governments and the institutions nearest them, while it charges holders of existing balances through a weaker currency.
Against that backdrop, the report frames scarcity as the source of monetary integrity, and it casts bitcoin’s 21 million cap as a limit that any participant can verify rather than one that rests on trust.
Other points cover bitcoin’s fixed issuance schedule, the halving, and the role of decentralization in making the rules credible. Authority rests with users who run full nodes, the report says, not with miners or firms, a structure that has held through past attempts to change the protocol’s core rules.
It defends proof of work as a productive use of energy, with a nod to miners that consume flared gas and surplus renewable output, and it presents bitcoin as gold’s successor — scarce and durable, yet able to move across the world in minutes and to be audited by any holder.
On volatility, Onramp treats sharp drawdowns as a feature of an asset in the middle of monetization. Declines of fifty percent or more have occurred several times, the report notes, and each prior drop gave way to a recovery beyond the former peak.
The firm favors a mechanical approach over market timing, a nod to dollar cost averaging that some view as a growing strategy and one that analysts have urged during recent dips.
‘Paper Bitcoin’
The report’s sharpest argument sits in its second part, on “paper bitcoin.” A large share of what changes hands under bitcoin’s name, Onramp writes, is not bitcoin but a claim on it — a fund share, an exchange balance, or a structured product that stands as the obligation of a counterparty.
Such wrappers can track the price, the firm allows, and many run as described under capable managers. The trouble is structural: each layer adds a custodian, an administrator, or a counterparty that the asset itself does not carry, and any of them can fail for reasons apart from bitcoin. The report ties the point to strain among bitcoin-linked credit products.
Direct ownership, by contrast, preserves what the firm calls bitcoin’s bearer quality — control of the keys as ownership in full, with no account to approve and no party able to freeze or reclaim the holding.
That framing echoes the case that bitcoin removes counterparty risk from a balance sheet. From there, Onramp makes its commercial pitch. Owners can pursue self-custody, the firm writes, or turn to multi-institution custody, a model that splits keys across independent institutions so that no single party can move the coins and no single failure can lose them.
Onramp has raised $12.5 million to scale that platform and has folded cash, bitcoin, and gold into one account.
Market timing
The third part turns to timing. Onramp lists four observations: a drawdown that is shallow by bitcoin’s own history, a pattern of recoveries after comparable declines, the record of steady accumulation against other assets, and the odd sight of bitcoin at a discount while most markets sit at highs.
The present cycle stands about seven months past its peak and near half below it, the report says, an earlier and shallower stage than equivalent points in past cycles.
The conclusion returns to the title. Onramp says it is getting back to the basics this summer, and it frames the message without a forecast: buy on a schedule while prices are low, and hold what you accumulate in custody you control, spread across independent institutions.
The fundamentals, the firm writes, are unaffected by the fall in price. A lower price on an asset of fixed supply and expanding adoption, it argues, is the thesis working in the buyer’s favor.
Shares of bitcoin miners turned AI infrastructure providers surged Monday after Hut 8 (HUT) and IREN (IREN) announced billions of dollars in new contracts, easing concerns that demand for AI computing capacity may be slowing.
Hut 8 rose as much as 17% after signing a 15-year, $9.8 billion lease for the second phase of its Beacon Point AI data center campus in Texas. The agreement, with the same investment-grade customer that leased the first phase, doubles the tenant’s footprint to 704 megawatts (MW) and fully commercializes the site’s 1 gigawatt of power capacity.
IREN gained as much as 19% after announcing $2.8 billion in new multiyear cloud services contracts with AI developers. The company raised its year-end AI Cloud annualized run-rate revenue target to more than $4 billion, saying about 85% of that revenue is now under contract.
The news spilled over to peers across the high-performance compute sector. Mining (CIFR) gained 11% and TeraWulf (WULF) added 6.4%. Bitcoin miners Riot Platforms (RIOT) and MARA Holdings (MARA) advanced 5% and 9%, respectively. The CoinShares Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI) rose 8.5%.
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It adds new capabilities to Plutus, the platform developers use to write Cardano’s smart contracts, unifying the built-in functions available across the platform’s three versions so older applications gain newer features.
The upgrade also tightens several of the ledger’s validation rules, including one guaranteeing that no two stake pools can reuse the same cryptographic identity key.
“As well as Plutus improvements and Plutus Cost Model enhancements, this upgrade lays the foundation for the next upgrade, the Dijkstra era hard fork, which will introduce Ouroboros Leios to Cardano,” Input Output wrote in a development report on Friday.
Ouroboros Leios is a scaling proposal for the proof-of-stake consensus model that Cardano runs. It is expected later in 2026 and aimed at sharply increasing transactions per second without weakening the protocol’s security guarantees.
Van Rossem is the procedural groundwork for Ouroboros, both in the ledger changes it ships and in the precedent it sets: that Cardano can now upgrade itself by vote.
The hard fork is named for Max van Rossem, a Cardano governance contributor who helped shape the network’s constitution and died in October 2025.
What the hard fork means for a Cardano user
There are no visible changes for someone casually holding or spending ADA. Transactions work the same way, wallets do not need updating and the fee to send ADA is unchanged. The upgrade does not alter how the network looks or feels to use.
Crypto wallet firm Exodus Movement (EXOD) will cut about 25% of its global workforce as it reshapes its business around stablecoin payments and card infrastructure.
The Omaha, Nebraska-based company said in a filing the layoffs are part of a broader effort to lower costs while supporting its strategy of building a full-stack payments platform.
The restructuring comes as Exodus continues to integrate Monavate, an electronic money institution, and crypto payments firm Baanx, two acquisitions that have expanded its payments capabilities and international footprint.
Exodus said it expects to record pre-tax restructuring charges of between $2.5 million and $3.5 million, mostly tied to severance and employee-related costs. Affected workers will receive severance, continued benefits and transition support.
The company said the restructuring should generate annual cash operating expense savings of $10 million to $13 million, with the full benefit expected in 2027.
EXOD is higher by 2.2% in early trading Monday, but remains down nearly 85% year-over-year.
Bitcoin (BTC) starts the last full week of July holding key support while macro clouds continue to gather.
Key points:
Bitcoin preserves its 200-week trend line at the weekly close, leading to short-term BTC price targets of up to $67,000.
US-Iran war rhetoric ramps up, with oil prices hitting five-week highs ahead of a week of corporate earnings reports.
Bitcoin spot demand retreats from its early-July uptick despite ETF inflows.
Bitcoin’s Puell Multiple heads higher, but analysts are wary of calling a “generational low.”
Crypto market sentiment hits highest levels since the start of June.
Trader sees “further relief” for Bitcoin bulls
In a familiar move, Bitcoin saw sell-side pressure soon after the weekly close going into Monday morning, with local lows reaching $63,700, data from TradingView confirms.
Despite this, traders are becoming increasingly optimistic on shorter time frames as range lows continue to hold.
“Wouldn’t surprise me if we see some further relief this week – towards 65-67k,” trader Jelle predicted in his latest analysis posted Monday morning on X.
BTC/USD one-day chart. Source: Jelle/X
Trader Daan Crypto Trades noted that BTC/USD had sealed its third consecutive weekly close above the 200-week simple moving average (SMA), currently at $63,322.
“To really get this interesting you want to see a strong push higher now to retrace that last leg down and get back above the Weekly 200EMA,” he told X followers, referring to the 200-week exponential moving average (EMA) at $68,521.
“Until then, we’re just caught in this $60K choppy price range.”
Others doubled down on bullish conviction, with trader Roman again flagging multiple bullish divergences across BTC price metrics, including the relative strength index (RSI), a classic leading indicator.
Contrasting the optimism was seasonality, with BTC price cycle history demanding another year of bear-market moves.
“Bitcoin is more than halfway through its second year in the current BTC Four Year Cycle. 2025 proved to be the year of the $BTC Bull Market peak. And 2026 has proven itself to be the year of the Bitcoin Bear Market,” trader and analyst Rekt Capital summarized.
“2027 will be the Bottoming Out year to precede an entirely brand new future Bitcoin Bull Market.”
BTC/USD 12-month chart. Source: Rekt Capital/X
As Cointelegraph reported, Rekt Capital now calculates the current bear market to be just over 70% complete.
Iran worries send oil prices higher
Geopolitical risk is top of the agenda for risk-asset traders this week as the US-Iran war escalates once again.
Iran’s foreign minister warned of potentially “unresolvable” nuclear disputes while US President Donald Trump called on lawmakers to add Iran to a sanctions bill that was initially directed at Russia.
Source: Truth Social
Oil futures surged at the weekly open, with WTI crude at five-week highs above $80 per barrel and Brent crude topping $90.
CFDs on US WTI crude oil one-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
As Cointelegraph reported, the return of the conflict saw the swift closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a key global oil route, that was briefly cleared for traffic as part of the now-failed US-Iran peace deal.
The latest Iran events provide volatile backdrop to the week’s macro outlook, which focuses on major corporate earnings as tech stocks face new headwinds.
In the coming days, Tesla, Alphabet and Intel will all report, providing a potential short-term volatility catalyst across risk assets.
“Earnings season is officially in full-swing,” trader resource The Kobeissi Letter summarized in a thread on X.
Following last week’s lower-than-expected US inflation data, meanwhile, Trump was buoyant, calling the numbers “great news.”
“As Investment pours into our Country, Factory Construction surges, Manufacturing Jobs rise, and Prices fall, there is so much to be proud of — The Golden Age of America is here!” he wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Markets remained conservative on policy changes from the Federal Reserve, with the latest data from CME Group’s FedWatch Tool showing consensus for a 0.25% interest-rate hike in September.
Fed target-rate probabilities for September FOMC meeting (screenshot). Source: CME Group
Bitcoin spot demand returns lower
Lackluster spot-market demand remains a key stumbling block on the road to bull-market recovery, research says.
In a blog post on Monday, onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant revealed that a modest supply increase at the start of July had already dissipated.
“Bitcoin’s 30-day Spot Demand recovered sharply to around -80K BTC in early July but has since deteriorated again to nearly -170K BTC,” contributor ScenarioX wrote.
Bitcoin demand data (screenshot). Source: CryptoQuant
Earlier, Cointelegraph reported on spot demand staying negative while recovering significantly on a rolling 30-day basis as BTC/USD hit $64,000. At the same time, futures markets saw a more pronounced influx of interest.
This was reflected in net flows to the US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which were positive for four out of five days last week, per data from UK-based investment manager, Farside Investors.
“Despite this significant decline in spot demand, Bitcoin’s price has remained relatively stable, mainly due to easing short-term selling pressure and short covering in the derivatives market,’ ScenarioX said.
“However, derivatives demand remains insufficient to support a sustainable uptrend on its own. This leaves the market in a structurally fragile state, where renewed spot selling could trigger a sharp downside move.”
US spot Bitcoin ETF netflows (screenshot). Source: Farside Investors
CryptoQuant suggested that the market could still continue to gain “for a while” before futures demand was exhausted.
“However, the rally without meaningful spot demand is likely to end in a significant long liquidation event,” ScenarioX warned.
Puell Multiple lows fail to convince
A classic BTC price metric is showing signs of a reversal this month, but CryptoQuant warns that it is too early to talk of a “generational low.”
The Puell Multiple, which measures the USD value of newly issued BTC each day relative to its 365-day moving average, continues to head higher after seeing macro lows in early June.
“A low reading means miner income is well below normal,” CryptoQuant contributor TheChessOnChain explained in a blog post.
Bitcoin Puell Multiple. Source: CryptoQuant
Puell in turn reflects on Bitcoin miners’ financial stability, and June’s 0.87 reading was the lowest since September 2024. Zooming out, however, each BTC price cycle has delivered higher lows for Puell, potentially boosting that latter reading’s chances of forming the next floor.
“These bottoms are getting shallower, and the four-year supply cut (the halving) is not the cause: the metric scales both sides of its ratio, so cutting new supply cancels out. The real driver: price falls less each cycle (down 83% in 2018, 77% in 2022, less since), so miner income never sinks as deep,” TheChessOnChain said.
Bitcoin Puell Multiple data (screenshot). Source: CryptoQuant
While Puell lows do not strictly correspond to BTC price bear-market bottoms, TheChessOnChain suggests that waiting for new lower readings — including the metric’s classic deep value territory — may be a flawed strategy.
“The 2024 and 2026 lows came with price still high, so they are Puell lows, not price bottoms. Waiting for the classic sub-0.5 zone, where miners sell at a loss, may mean waiting for a level that no longer prints,” they said.
“Today reads as easing miner pressure, not a generational low. It turns decisive only if it holds beneath recent lows for weeks.”
Crypto sentiment gauge nears two-month high
Despite macro headwinds brewing over the weekend, crypto market sentiment continues to post a steady recovery.
Related: Bitcoin bottom countdown nears 50 days after BTC supply in loss passed 50%
The latest readings of the Crypto Fear & Greed Index show panic slowly dissipating among the broader investor base.
On Monday, the gauge measured 29/100 — still within its “fear” bracket but at its highest levels since the start of June. For much of the intervening period, crypto was gripped by “extreme fear.”
Crypto Fear & Greed Index (screenshot). Source: Alternative.me
In commentary on the rebound last week, research platform Santiment underscored its timing with the return of ETF inflows.
“After a long outflow stretch throughout May and June, this shift signals ETF demand is back and confidence in crypto is starting to pick up again,” it wrote on X.
Santiment argued that “encouraging” US inflation data had helped boost risk appetite, while “crypto policy optimism added another reason for sidelined buyers to re-enter.”
