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Ether Treasury Sharplink Buys $62.4M of ETH in 3 Days

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Ether Treasury Sharplink Buys $62.4M of ETH in 3 Days

Crypto treasury company Sharplink, which resumed buying Ether last week after an eight-month pause, has bought a total of $62.4 million worth of Ether since Thursday. 

Onchain data from Arkham shows that after Sharplink bought 5,000 ETH on Thursday, it bought another 5,000 ETH (worth $7.9 million) on Friday, followed by 29,196 ETH (worth $46.7 million) across three over-the-counter transactions on Saturday. 

Source: Lookonchain

The three-day buying spree adds to evidence that Sharplink has revived its active Ether accumulation strategy. The crypto treasury company was once a close competitor to Bitmine as the world’s largest ETH treasury company. 

Sharplink declined to comment on the reason and timing of the Ether purchase when first contacted on Thursday. 

Sharplink backs Ethlabs

However, the purchases came the same week that both Bitmine and Sharplink backed a new research and development nonprofit that aims to make Ethereum ready for institutional use. 

Sharplink said on Monday that the organization, Ethlabs, was formed to “ready Ethereum for the next phase of institutional adoption,” with the company joining Bitmine, Ethereum co-founder and Sharplink chairman Joe Lubin and other Ethereum contributors in backing the initiative. 

Related: Sharplink, Forward Industries among crypto firms considered for Russell indexes

“As stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, funds and autonomous AI commerce move on-chain, they are converging on Ethereum as the neutral, credibly permissionless settlement layer for the global economy,” Sharplink said. “Ethlabs exists to ensure the network is ready to absorb that demand at scale.”

Ether slump

The purchases also come as the cryptocurrency is down 22.8% month-on-month, and nearly 50% compared to the start of the year, allowing Tether stablecoin USDt (USDT) to briefly surpass Ether in market capitalization last week. 

Meanwhile, US spot Ether ETFs recorded their seventh week of outflows last week, recording $12.9 million in net outflows, driven mainly by withdrawals from BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA). 

Magazine: Bitcoin slides to $58K, XRP hits $1 but onchain data promising: Market Moves

Sophon Shuts Down Its zkSync Chain and Rebuilds as a Consumer App Studio on Base

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Sophon Shuts Down Its zkSync Chain and Rebuilds as a Consumer App Studio on Base

Sophon is decommissioning its zkSync-based Layer 2 chain and pivoting to Soph+, a consumer product studio building exclusively on Base. The shutdown caps a chain that raised $60 million through node sales but attracted fewer than 200 daily users and generated roughly $30 in daily fees.

Sophon is decommissioning its zkSync-based Layer 2 chain and pivoting to “Soph+,” a consumer product studio that will build exclusively on Base, Coinbase’s Layer 2. The shutdown announcement came Thursday, capping a chain that raised $60 million through node sales but attracted fewer than 200 daily users.

Sophon launched as a zkSync-based L2/L3 in 2024, initially positioning itself as a gaming and consumer-focused chain. The project raised $60 million through node sales that year, a model that gave retail buyers a stake in network infrastructure in exchange for upfront capital. “We raised $60m in 2024 to build a chain. shipped it, helped some apps launch,” Sophon posted on its website.

Matter Labs, the company behind zkSync, itself cut staff and pivoted fully to Prividium, its institutional privacy platform, in June 2026, leaving the zkSync ecosystem without its primary corporate backer focused on consumer chains.

The Numbers

The chain’s usage never matched its capitalization. At the time of the shutdown announcement, Sophon was generating around $30 in daily fees and serving roughly 100 to 200 daily active users. SOPHON traded around $0.0048 on Thursday, per DefiLlama price data, down roughly 90% from its token generation event price.

Node buyers received infrastructure rights in exchange for upfront capital, meaning the project collected most of its funding before it had to demonstrate sustained user demand. That structure has proved unforgiving: the $60 million raised sits against $30 in daily fee revenue.

The Pivot

Sophon’s new direction is described as a “tech studio building novel consumer experiences in crypto and ai,” per the project’s updated story page. The studio’s thesis centers on what it calls “entertainment finance”: the idea that money, like fitness and gaming before it, will become entertainment-layer content rather than pure utility.

The first product out of Soph+ is Pyre, a payment card with a gamified billing mechanic. The project describes it as: “every swipe opens a bill: flip it. or let it settle.” Soph+ plans to build on Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum Layer 2. Sophon’s website also lists Soph Earn, Soph USD, and Soph Vaults as in-progress products, with two additional unnamed products in development. Revenue from each product is earmarked to buy back and burn SOPH.

SOPH was trading at approximately $0.0048 as of Thursday, per DefiLlama, down roughly 90% from its TGE. Holders who bought nodes in 2024 at prices that implied a much higher token valuation are sitting on deep losses.

The Broader L2 Shakeout

Sophon is the latest in a string of smaller Layer 2 and Layer 3 projects that have wound down or restructured in 2026. Polychain-backed Botanix Labs shut down its Spiderchain Bitcoin L2 in June, citing insufficient demand for Bitcoin-native DeFi. In April, Scroll moved to dissolve its Security Council and slash contributor roles across its DAO. Across all three, projects raised capital on a vision of demand that did not materialize.

The zkSync ecosystem has taken multiple hits this year. Matter Labs’ shift away from consumer ZK-rollups leaves the protocol without a clear flagship chain just as several of its highest-profile ecosystem projects are closing.

Sophon’s move to Base is a bet that consumer crypto products scale better on an established, high-liquidity chain than on a proprietary Layer 2 with a small captive audience. Base is one of the highest-volume chains by DEX activity and hosts several of the highest-traffic consumer applications in crypto

Trump Blocks Housing Bill Signing Over Voter ID Demand, Putting CBDC Ban in Limbo

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Trump Blocks Housing Bill Signing Over Voter ID Demand, Putting CBDC Ban in Limbo

President Trump canceled the signing ceremony for the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which includes a statutory ban on a Federal Reserve-issued CBDC through 2030, demanding Congress first pass the SAVE America Act voter-ID legislation. The housing bill passed both chambers with veto-proof margins and may become law automatically.

President Trump canceled a scheduled signing ceremony for the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act on Wednesday, conditioning his signature on Congress first passing unrelated voter-ID legislation. The bill, which passed both chambers with veto-proof margins and includes a four-year ban on a Federal Reserve-issued digital dollar, now sits unsigned.

Trump posted to Truth Social roughly an hour before the noon event at the Capitol: “Today’s Housing News Conference and Signing is hereby cancelled until such time as we pass the desperately needed SAVE AMERICA ACT, which I consider to be a National Emergency.” The post was reported by NBC News and CNBC. The SAVE America Act would require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in federal elections and photo ID at the polls.

The CBDC Provision

The housing bill’s Title X prohibits the Federal Reserve from issuing or creating a central bank digital currency through December 31, 2030. The ban covers any digital asset denominated in U.S. dollars that is a direct liability of the Federal Reserve and widely available to the public. It explicitly exempts currencies that are open, permissionless, and private, leaving the existing private stablecoin market unaffected.

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act cleared the Senate 85-5 on June 22 and the House 358-32 on June 23. Both margins far exceed the two-thirds threshold needed to override a presidential veto. Alongside the CBDC provision, the legislation limits large institutional investors from purchasing new single-family homes and includes provisions expanding access to FHA small-dollar mortgages.

SAVE Act Dead End

The SAVE Act is the stated precondition. The bill passed the House but has not cleared the Senate, which requires 60 votes to advance legislation past a filibuster; Republicans hold 53 seats and Democrats have blocked the measure.

Path Without a Signature

The bill may still become law without a ceremony. Under the Constitution, a bill presented to the president becomes law automatically after 10 days, excluding Sundays, if Congress remains in session. Pro forma sessions — brief procedural meetings — keep Congress technically in session and block the “pocket veto” mechanism that allows a president to defeat a bill by inaction during an adjournment.

If the auto-enactment path holds, the CBDC ban takes effect as part of the enacted statute regardless of the signing standoff.

CLARITY Act Timeline

The separate CLARITY Act, which would establish CFTC jurisdiction over digital commodity spot markets and create a federal framework for digital asset regulation, is on the Senate legislative calendar but has not yet received a floor vote. Senator Lummis has pressed for a floor vote before the August recess, and the housing bill standoff has consumed Senate floor time that could otherwise accelerate it.

The GENIUS Act, the stablecoin regulation bill, is on a separate legislative track with its own timeline. The housing bill standoff does not alter its schedule.

Will Bitcoin Price Recover in July?

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Will Bitcoin Price Recover in July?

Bitcoin (BTC) is heading for its worst monthly loss since mid-2022, with BTC down roughly 18.5% in June as price struggles to hold the psychological $60,000 support level.

BTC/USD monthly chart. Source: TradingView

Will Bitcoin’s downside momentum extend in July, or is BTC preparing for a recovery?

Key takeaways:

  • Bitcoin’s liquidity map shows a major short-liquidation “magnet zone” near $67,600.
  • BTC has historically gained 7.6% on average in July, while midterm-year seasonality points to an even stronger 10.3% average return.

Bitcoin may hit $75,000 in July

July may become a “bullish month for Bitcoin,” according to analyst Fleh, who predicted BTC price to rally toward $75,000 next month.

The bullish thesis is based on Bitcoin’s Binance BTC/USDT liquidation heatmap, which shows a large concentration of short liquidation levels sitting above the current price.

On the monthly chart, the strongest visible liquidity cluster sits near $67,645, where the chart shows around $247.39 million in liquidation leverage and roughly $2.26 billion in cumulative short liquidation leverage.

Binance BTC/USDT liquidation heatmap (1 month). Source: CoinGlass

For beginners, such clusters are often called “magnet zones.” When many leveraged positions are concentrated around the same price area, the market can move toward that zone because liquidations create forced buying or selling pressure.

In this case, significant liquidity sits above Bitcoin’s current price near $60,000.

If BTC rebounds and pushes toward $67,600, short sellers may be forced to close their positions. Since closing shorts requires buying Bitcoin back, that can add fresh upside pressure and fuel a short squeeze.

“I think $BTC bottoms here at 60k for now, targeting 75k to the upside before any chance of lower,” Fleh said in a Saturday post.

BTC rises 7.6% on average in July

Bitcoin’s historical monthly returns also support Fleh’s bullish July outlook.

BTC has returned a 7.6% gain on average in July, making it one of its stronger months after a typically weaker June, which shows an average return of -1.40%, according to CoinGlass data highlighted by analyst CGT_Trader.

Bitcoin monthly returns tracking the July performance in since 2013. Source: CoinGlass/CGT_Trader

The trend has appeared even during bear market years.

For instance, Bitcoin rose 20.96% in July 2018 and 16.8% in July 2022. More recently, BTC gained 2.95% in July 2024 and 8.13% in July 2025, strengthening the case for another green month ahead.

A separate midterm-year seasonality chart also shows that- Bitcoin has averaged a 10.3% gain during the month, its strongest monthly return in such years.

Bitcoin performance by month during US mid-term election years. Source: More Crypto Online

That compares with an average 17% loss in June, pointing to the possibility of a post-sell-off mean-reversion bounce.

Based on Bitcoin’s current price near $60,000, its historical July average return of 7.6% projects a move toward roughly $64,500, while the stronger midterm-year average of 10.3% points to about $66,100.

A repeat of Bitcoin’s bear-market July rebounds from 2022 and 2018 would put BTC between $70,000 and $72,500, while a 2020-style July rally would bring Fleh’s $75,000 target within reach.

BTC’s dip below the 200-week SMA may extend slide

Bitcoin’s ongoing drop below its 200-week simple moving average (200-day SMA, the blue line) near $62,445 raises the risk of further downside in July.

BTC/USD weekly chart. Source: TradingView

A similar loss of long-term moving-average support preceded deeper weakness during the 2022 bear market, when BTC continued lower before forming a bottom.

Related: Bitcoin faces fresh capitulation risk as 50K BTC moved at a loss

Bitcoin’s bear flag breakdown raises the odds of a price decline toward $55,000 in July unless BTC quickly reclaims the 200-day SMA.

BTC/USD daily chart. Source: TradingView

EBA Unveils Stablecoin Fines Matrix

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EBA Unveils Stablecoin Fines Matrix

The European Banking Authority on Friday unveiled a sweeping framework to penalize cryptocurrency issuers that violate the European Union’s digital-asset laws, signaling a tougher enforcement stance as the trade bloc finalizes its historic regulatory architecture.

The consultation paper published June 26 establishes a standardized playbook for hitting non-compliant issuers of what the EBA considers “significant” tokens with potentially multimillion-euro penalties. Under the proposal, the Paris-based watchdog will deploy a strict two-step process to determine fines, assessing the baseline severity of an infraction before factoring in aggravating or mitigating behavior.

The move represents the sharpening of teeth for the EU’s landmark Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation. Introduced to bring order to a historically freewheeling sector, MiCA is the world’s first comprehensive regulatory regime for digital assets, forcing token issuers and crypto service providers to operate with bank-like compliance, consumer protections and capital reserves if they want access to the single European market.

The stakes for non-compliance are explicitly designed to be punitive. According to the EBA’s consultation paper, final penalties could reach statutory ceilings of 12.5% of annual turnover for issuers of significant asset-referenced tokens and 10% for significant e-money tokens, or two times the profits generated by the violation, caps meant to deter even the largest global digital-asset operators.

Cover screenshot of European Banking Authority’s 14-page consultation paper.
Source: EBA

The roll-out of the penalty framework comes at a critical juncture for Europe’s digital asset industry, landing just days ahead of a crucial July 1 deadline. By the start of next month, cryptocurrency firms must have secured formal licenses from national regulators to legally offer their services or market stablecoins within the 27-nation bloc, ending a transitional grace period that allowed many operators to function under looser local rules.

Related: Binance faces EU service limits next week as MiCA rules take effect

Firms that fail to secure their regulatory passports by July 1 face the prospect of being forced to halt operations entirely or risk triggering the exact infractions, such as unauthorized public disclosures or organizational failures, that the EBA’s new framework is built to penalize.

Binance pushes “pause” on EU operations after license fail

The world’s biggest exchange operator, Binance, last week notified European Union users that access to key services will be restricted after the exchange failed to secure MiCA authorization from a member state before the July 1 deadline after it withdrew its MiCA license application in Greece.

Those restrictions include halting the onboarding of new EU users and limiting certain services for EU-based accounts effective July 1, according to exchange notices shared by users on social media.

Notice sent by Binance to customers in Poland. Source: IT_Tech_PL

The notices said users will still be able to withdraw their assets after that date, stating that “all digital assets are still available for withdrawal,” in line with applicable regulatory requirements.

Binance recorded $1.96 billion in daily net outflows on Wednesday, following its withdrawal announcement, according to DefiLlama data viewed by Cointelegraph on Sunday. The exchange then saw another $2.52 billion and $1.46 billion in net outflows over the following two days.

EU move shows sharp contrast with US enforcement approach

The timing underscores the European Union’s broader strategy to position itself as the dominant global standard-setter for digital finance, contrasting sharply with the regulation-by-enforcement approach seen in the United States. By laying out clear financial penalties right as the licensing mandate takes effect, authorities in Brussels are telling the market that the era of leniency is officially over.

The industry now has a three-month consultation window ending September 28 to lobby for changes to the EBA’s penalty methodology. However, with the July 1 licensing cliff edge just days away, executives will have to navigate an unforgiving compliance environment long before the final fining guidelines are formalized under law.

StablecoinX Begins Nasdaq Trading as First Public ENA Treasury Vehicle

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StablecoinX Begins Nasdaq Trading as First Public ENA Treasury Vehicle

StablecoinX Inc. (Nasdaq: USDE) began trading Friday after closing its SPAC merger with TLGY Acquisition Corp., becoming the first publicly listed company holding approximately 3.03 billion ENA tokens and building infrastructure for the Ethena ecosystem.

StablecoinX Inc. (Nasdaq: USDE) began trading on the Nasdaq Capital Market Friday after closing its merger with SPAC TLGY Acquisition Corp., becoming the first publicly listed company structured around holding Ethena’s governance token and building infrastructure for the Ethena ecosystem.

The company holds approximately 3.03 billion ENA tokens, worth roughly $275 million based on the 30-day volume-weighted average price of $0.0909 at closing, representing about 20% of ENA’s total supply of 15 billion tokens, according to a press release filed with the SEC. StablecoinX has approximately 24 million publicly traded Class A shares outstanding, with ENA holdings translating to roughly $11.42 per fully diluted share.

Not a Stablecoin Issuer

StablecoinX is an ENA treasury company, not a direct play on Ethena’s stablecoins. The company does not issue USDe or USDtb. Its revenue model rests on three lines: a Decentralized Verifier Node (DVN) that is already live and earns fees on cross-chain message volume across every network Ethena currently operates on; a middleware software stack called the Stablecoin Harness that is still under development; and a distribution business for institutional adoption of Ethena products that has not yet launched.

The ENA treasury is also the collateral that secures the DVN, giving the token holding an operational role beyond passive appreciation. Under a long-term collaboration agreement with the Ethena Foundation, StablecoinX can accumulate additional ENA at a discount directly from Ethena.

The Institutional Frame

CEO Edward Chen described the company’s purpose in the press release: “StablecoinX is designed to serve as the public-market gateway to that ecosystem, providing investors with exposure to ENA while supporting the long-term expansion of Ethena’s products, infrastructure, and reach into traditional financial markets.”

The listing gives public-market investors a regulated equity instrument for Ethena-ecosystem exposure without requiring direct token custody, a structural first in a category where institutional demand for Ethena products has accelerated this year. Janus Henderson took an ENA stake and began deploying into USDe in a four-part partnership announced in June. Coinbase Ventures bought ENA on the open market as part of a separate distribution deal, and Anchorage Digital became the collateral manager for Ethena’s institutional lending vertical.

Backers of StablecoinX include Blockchain.com, Ribbit Capital, Pantera Capital, Dragonfly, Galaxy, Polychain Capital, Haun Ventures, ParaFi Capital, and Wintermute.

ENA Price Context

ENA traded at $0.0798 Friday morning, per CoinGecko, giving the protocol a market cap of roughly $742 million on a circulating supply of approximately 9.3 billion tokens. The 30-day VWAP of $0.0909 used to value StablecoinX’s treasury at closing sits above current spot, placing the current market value of the holding at approximately $242 million.

CZ wants to make the U.S. the ‘capital of crypto’: State of Crypto

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CZ wants to make the U.S. the ‘capital of crypto’: State of Crypto

CZ told CoinDesk over the course of two interviews that he saw multiple causes for crypto’s 2026 bear market including investors moving funds to AI, geopolitical events and the usual four-year crypto market cycle.

He laid out his goals for Binance.US — the U.S. crypto exchange he majority owns but does not run on a daily basis — saying he wanted to see the platform tap Binance Global — the global crypto exchange he majority owns but does not run — for its liquidity, as part of a broader push to make the U.S. market stronger.

And while he said his goal in Washington, D.C. was to clear up any “misunderstandings” about himself and Binance, he said that his pleading guilty to Bank Secrecy Act violations did not hurt his reputation.

Still, CZ told CoinDesk he does not want to run a crypto exchange again, saying he preferred to operate more as an informal adviser to the various companies he’s invested in.

Read more in CoinDesk.

There’s still no real word on where this bill is. As a reminder, the ethics provision remains the biggest hurdle to an agreement. Politico profiled White House crypto liaison Patrick Witt, confirming that any deal he helps broker will need presidential sign-off.

Stablecoins and Public Ledgers Flawed, Report Says

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Stablecoins and Public Ledgers Flawed, Report Says

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) warned that the rapid expansion of stablecoins risks fragmenting the global monetary system and weakening sovereign monetary control, urging central banks and the financial industry to accelerate the development of tokenized forms of central bank and commercial bank money as a safer alternative.

In its Annual Economic Report published Sunday, the Basel-based institution delivered a sharp assessment of the approximately $316 billion stablecoin market, arguing that tokens pegged to fiat currencies lack the institutional features required to serve as safe, reliable money at scale.

BIS pointed to structural vulnerabilities in reserve asset management and warned that a significant migration from commercial bank deposits into private digital tokens could reduce bank funding and constrain credit to the real economy.

The report also provides a signal to policymakers that the current regulatory approach to stablecoins may prove insufficient if private digital currencies continue expanding. Rather than positioning stablecoins as a durable foundation for the future monetary system, BIS said that tokenized commercial bank deposits, combined with tokenized central bank money operating on regulated infrastructures, offer a more robust path toward modernizing payments while preserving monetary stability.

Demand for foreign stablecoins connects FX markets with crypto ecosystem. Source: BIS Annual Economic Report 2026.

The report focuses particular attention on “stablecoin dollarization,” that is, the growing use of dollar-denominated stablecoins in economies with weaker domestic currencies. According to BIS, this trend could weaken monetary sovereignty, erode the effectiveness of domestic monetary policy, reduce bank intermediation and increase exposure to volatile cross-border capital flows, particularly in emerging market economies.

Related: BIS Project Agorá shows tokenized payments can settle in seconds

BIS raises fresh concerns about public blockchains’ limits

The report also delivers one of BIS’s strongest critiques yet of public permissionless blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum as a foundation for the monetary system. It argues that decentralized networks relying on distributed validation and lacking a central governance structure struggle to meet the requirements for scalability, legal accountability and settlement finality expected of systemically important financial infrastructure.

BIS raises concerns on rising fragmentation across layer 1 and layer 2 networks.
Source: BIS Annual Economic Report 2026.

At the center of BIS’s critique is the economics of decentralized consensus. The report argues that public permissionless blockchains compensate validators through transaction fees that rise as network activity increases, making congestion, longer confirmation times and higher costs structural features of the system rather than temporary technical shortcomings. According to BIS, these characteristics undermine the efficiency and network effects that are essential for a unified monetary system.

The Basel-based institution further argues that permissionless blockchains lack the clear governance and accountability frameworks required for institutional finance. Without an identifiable entity responsible for maintaining the integrity of the system, resolving disputes or ensuring compliance with financial integrity standards, BIS contends that such networks face significant obstacles to supporting large-scale regulated financial activity.

Rather than rejecting tokenization itself, BIS advocates a “unified ledger” architecture that combines tokenized central bank money, tokenized commercial bank deposits and tokenized financial assets on programmable platforms operating within regulated legal and institutional frameworks.

By preserving the benefits of tokenization, including programmable transactions and faster settlement, while maintaining the institutional foundations of the existing monetary system, BIS said that financial markets can improve efficiency without sacrificing monetary stability, financial integrity or public trust.

Related: Why stablecoins and SWIFT may have to coexist

Tokenization is becoming the financing layer for AI and robotics, Framework bets with $400 million fund

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Tokenization is becoming the financing layer for AI and robotics, Framework bets with $400 million fund

Traditional securitization markets struggle to package individual servers or computing equipment into investable products, Anderson said. Stablecoins — with more than $300 billion circulating onchain — create a new source of capital for asset-backed lending.

“We have the capital onchain to finance this industry,” he said.

The same thinking extends to energy. Framework has invested in Daylight, which finances residential solar projects through a distributed energy network, and Uranium Digital, which is building a tokenized marketplace for physical uranium.

A different generation

There’s also a notable shift in the profile of founders building today’s crypto companies, Anderson said.

Rather than anonymous crypto-native developers launching speculative protocols, Anderson said, many founders now come from traditional finance, energy or industrial technology, bringing deep expertise while using blockchain as the underlying financial infrastructure to solve real-world problems.

Framework’s recent investments already reflect that trend. They include TVL Capital, founded by former members of Morgan Stanley’s digital assets team; robotics startup Mecka AI, which supplies training data to frontier AI companies; and Plasma, a blockchain-based banking platform built around stablecoin payments.

The venture firm’s strategy mirrors a broader shift across the digital asset industry. Global banks and asset managers are increasingly using blockchain rails to issue, trade and settle traditional financial assets, while stablecoins are becoming part of cross-border payments and treasury operations as banks and fintechs look to modernize payment rails.

Why SBI paid $289 million for an unprofitable crypto exchange: Architect Partners

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Why SBI paid $289 million for an unprofitable crypto exchange: Architect Partners

SBI Holdings is a financial services group with businesses spanning securities, banking, insurance, asset management and venture investing with a market capitalization of about $11 billion. The Tokyo-based company is one of Japan’s most active traditional-finance participants in digital assets, with stakes and partnerships across crypto trading, liquidity, tokenization, stablecoins and blockchain-based settlement.

Bitbank is one of the country’s largest licensed cryptocurrency exchanges, offering spot trading, custody and other digital-asset services to retail and institutional clients.

Cheaper, quicker to buy

Crypto mergers and acquisitions have remained brisk in 2026 as banks, payments firms and exchanges race to build regulated digital asset businesses rather than develop them in-house.

The industry has recorded 144 deals worth $11.8 billion so far this year, according to data from Architect Partners, with buyers increasingly targeting exchanges, custody providers, data firms and stablecoin infrastructure as regulatory clarity draws more institutional capital into the sector.

According to Payne, the Bitbank acquisition is about more than customer growth. The deal brings a Financial Services Agency-licensed exchange, one of Japan’s deepest altcoin liquidity pools and an institutional custody business, Japan Digital Asset Trust, giving SBI capabilities that would be far more costly and time-consuming to build internally.

The acquisition comes at a pivotal moment for Japan’s crypto industry. Legislation passed by the country’s lower house on June 11 would shift crypto assets under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, aligning them with securities regulation. The reforms lower the tax rate on crypto gains to a flat 20% and pave the way for spot bitcoin BTC$59,605.53, ether (ETH) and XRP exchange-traded funds, while simultaneously imposing more stringent capital, custody and disclosure requirements on exchanges.

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