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Securitize Goes Public on NYSE July 2 With $400M From SPAC Merger

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Securitize Goes Public on NYSE July 2 With $400M From SPAC Merger

Securitize, the tokenization platform behind BlackRock’s BUIDL fund, is set to begin trading on the NYSE on July 2 under the ticker SECZ after a SPAC merger with Cantor Equity Partners II that raised over $400 million, including an oversubscribed $225M PIPE.

Securitize, the tokenization platform behind BlackRock’s BUIDL fund, will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange on July 2 under the ticker SECZ after a SPAC merger that closed with more than $400 million in cash.

Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo confirmed the terms Friday morning on his personal X account. The deal ran through Cantor Equity Partners II, a special purpose acquisition company sponsored by Cantor Fitzgerald. Domingo said the company raised an oversubscribed $225 million private investment in public equity (PIPE), the largest PIPE for any operating business entering via a SPAC since 2021. Final redemptions came in below 30%, leaving the merged company with over $400 million in cash at listing. The Block reported Thursday morning that Securitize was set to raise approximately $400 million through the merger.

CEO’s Own Words

Domingo wrote that advisers had discouraged the SPAC route: “Don’t do it, you won’t raise a PIPE, and SPACs get on average 95% redemptions, and you will IPO with no cash.” The oversubscribed PIPE and the sub-30% redemption rate produced the opposite result. Domingo’s post calls July 2 “the next stage in Securitize history.”

RWA Platform Context

Securitize operates as a FINRA-approved broker-dealer with custody approval for tokenized securities and is the issuance platform for BlackRock’s BUIDL fund, one of the largest tokenized money-market products on-chain. The company added secondary trading rails for tokenized equities earlier this year, tapping Jump Crypto and Jupiter for regulated on-chain execution. In June the firm issued the Hamilton Lane HLSCOPE private-credit fund on TRON as its first multi-chain institutional product beyond Ethereum.

Securitize Holdings filed an S-4 registration statement with the SEC in January 2026, amended through May 2026, listing the company under CIK 0002094496. NYSE Disclosure and financial terms beyond those disclosed by Domingo on Friday morning remain subject to the closing 8-K filing, which had not appeared on EDGAR at time of publication.

The NYSE listing places Securitize alongside a growing cohort of tokenization infrastructure firms pursuing public equity vehicles in 2026. NYSE parent ICE formed a 50-50 joint venture with OKX in June to tokenize NYSE equities on-chain.

Samson Mow says bitcoin bottom is in, but analysts remain divided

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Samson Mow says bitcoin bottom is in, but analysts remain divided

Mow is not the first to argue that bitcoin’s traditional four-year cycle has changed. After bitcoin climbed to a then-all-time high before the April 2024 halving, several analysts suggested growing institutional demand following the launch of U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs could alter the pattern that has historically followed each halving. Others, however, argued it was too early to conclude the cycle had changed.

$55,000 more likely

Not everyone agrees. Several analysts have recently argued that bitcoin is either close to a market bottom or still has further to fall, although they rely on different indicators and models.

CoinDesk market analyst Omkar Godbole recently wrote that if you were “wondering just how much lower bitcoin is likely to drop, the answer, at least according to one historically accurate contrarian indicator, is not much.”

That indicator is based on bitcoin’s 50-week and 100-week simple moving averages. The 50-week average, representing roughly one year, is very close to dropping below the 100-week line, forming what analysts call a “bear cross.” Historically, similar signals coincided with market bottoms, leading some analysts to see the pattern as bullish.

More recently, Markus Thielen, the founder of 10x Research, said he believes the bottom is more likely at $55,000 and not until somewhere between August and October. Arthur Hayes, the BitMex co-founder, took a more bearish position, saying bitcoin would bottom at around $40,000 within the next six months.

Bipartisan Senators Ask CFTC Chair Whether Agency Is Investigating Polymarket’s Fake-Bet Campaign

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Bipartisan Senators Ask CFTC Chair Whether Agency Is Investigating Polymarket’s Fake-Bet Campaign

Senators Adam Schiff and John Curtis sent a letter to CFTC Chair Michael Selig Thursday asking whether the agency is investigating Polymarket’s paid influencer scheme, putting the regulator in a bind over a platform it licenses but whose staged trades ran on an offshore site beyond its direct reach.

— title: Bipartisan Senators Ask CFTC Chair Whether Agency Is Investigating Polymarket’s Fake-Bet Campaign excerpt: Senators Adam Schiff and John Curtis sent a letter to CFTC Chair Michael Selig Thursday asking whether the agency is investigating Polymarket’s paid influencer scheme, putting the regulator in a bind over a platform it licenses but whose staged trades ran on an offshore site beyond its direct reach. —

Two senators spanning the political divide pressed the Commodity Futures Trading Commission this week to answer whether it is investigating Polymarket over a staged-trading campaign that, according to the Wall Street Journal investigation, generated more than 140 million views across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.

In a letter dated Thursday to CFTC Chair Michael Selig, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) cited the Journal investigation, which found Polymarket paid creators monthly fees to film trades on dummy sites built to mimic its real platform. None of the roughly $1.9 million in apparent winnings shown across more than 1,100 videos was real, CBS News reported. The Journal also reported that creators were instructed not to disclose the paid relationship, a direct breach of Federal Trade Commission influencer-disclosure rules. TechCrunch separately reported that a marketing contractor helped amplify the videos.

The senators set a deadline in the coming weeks for a written response. They asked Selig to confirm whether the CFTC is investigating, and if not, to explain why.

Jurisdictional Bind

The letter arrives at an awkward moment for the agency. Last January, the CFTC granted Polymarket an amended designation that allows it to onboard U.S. customers. But the staged trades the senators cited ran on Polymarket’s offshore platform, the one the CFTC does not directly oversee. That gap gives the regulator a narrow lane: it can examine whether the offshore campaign violated the terms of Polymarket’s U.S. registration, but any action against the foreign-platform conduct faces a harder evidentiary threshold.

Schiff and Curtis pressed Selig on exactly that question, asking whether the CFTC, given its claim to exclusive jurisdiction over prediction markets, has “the authority, resources, and expertise” to replicate the consumer-protection, licensing, and enforcement work that state and tribal gaming regulators currently perform. They also asked what advertising standards, age-verification rules, addiction warnings, and influencer-disclosure requirements the CFTC currently imposes on platforms like Polymarket.

Enforcement Headwinds

Fortune reported Monday that meaningful regulatory consequences are unlikely under the current administration. The CFTC has shed roughly a quarter of its staff over the past year and pushed out career officials who sought to investigate crypto and prediction-market companies, according to a New York Times investigation. Selig, the agency’s sole sitting commissioner, previously represented crypto and prediction-market companies as a corporate lawyer.

Legal experts cited by Fortune said the FTC, not the CFTC, may have the cleaner enforcement path, given that the staged videos were a straightforward advertising issue. Neither agency has made a public statement on whether it plans to act.

Polymarket has made no public statement beyond the audit commitment it issued in response to the Journal’s investigation. “We are conducting a comprehensive audit of active promotional content to ensure it complies with our standards, as well as applicable regulatory and legal disclosure requirements,” a Polymarket spokesperson told CBS News.

State-Preemption Warning

Schiff and Curtis also used the letter to push back on the CFTC’s ongoing campaign to assert federal supremacy over state gaming laws. The agency has sued nine states, including Kentucky, since earlier this year to block them from applying their own gaming regulations to Polymarket and competitor Kalshi.

The senators warned Selig against allowing companies to invoke CFTC oversight as a shield against state consumer-protection laws. That framing converts the Polymarket fake-bet story into a broader regulatory-architecture question: if the CFTC is the sole gatekeeper for a rapidly expanding prediction-market sector, it needs to show it can actually police conduct on the platforms it licenses.

Polymarket settled a previous CFTC action in 2022, paying a $1.4 million civil penalty for operating an unregistered options exchange and agreeing to stop serving U.S. customers. The January 2026 license marked its return to the U.S. market.

The senators’ deadline gives Selig a matter of weeks to respond before the Senate’s summer recess window begins to narrow.

Michael Saylor teases more bitcoin buying even as Strategy stock continues to fall

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Michael Saylor teases more bitcoin buying even as Strategy stock continues to fall

Michael Saylor shared a StrategyTracker chart on X this Sunday showing Strategy holds 847,363 bitcoin valued at $50.88 billion as of June 28, 2026, with 113 purchase events and an average cost basis of $75,653 per BTC.

That chart displays orange bubbles for MSTR’s buys overlaid on bitcoin price history, highlighting aggressive accumulation especially in 2024-2025 with the average purchase price line trending upward.

“We’re gonna need more charts” signals Saylor’s intent for continued bitcoin purchases, generating more data points as Strategy maintains its position as a leading corporate BTC holder.

Last week, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said he remains bullish on bitcoin but that Saylor’s approach to funding bitcoin purchases has damaged the wider cryptocurrency market, as the preferred stock at the center of Strategy’s model fell to a record low.

Strategy’s (MSTR) stock fell 8% lower Thursday to $86, amid concerns about its ability to meet dividend obligations. However, Saylor’s treasury still has 10 months of dollar reserves available to cover STRC’s dividend obligations. MSTR is currently priced at $82.31 following a further 3.54% drop. STRC hovers around $74.57 after a 1.48% increase on Sunday.

Canton Network Tops Blockchain Fee Rankings With $60M in 30 Days

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Canton Network Tops Blockchain Fee Rankings With $60M in 30 Days

Canton Network, the privacy-enabled institutional blockchain built by Digital Asset, generated $60.2 million in fees over the trailing 30 days, outpacing Tron’s $27.6 million and Ethereum’s $11.3 million by a wide margin, according to DefiLlama data.

Canton Network, the privacy-enabled institutional blockchain built by Digital Asset, generated $60.2 million in fees over the trailing 30 days, placing it ahead of Tron and far above Ethereum by that measure, according to DefiLlama data.

The DefiLlama fee-tracking dashboard logs Canton’s 30-day total at $60.2 million, compared with $27.6 million for Tron and $11.3 million for Ethereum over the same window. Digital Asset co-founder and CEO Yuval Rooz noted the milestone on X earlier this month: “$CC today processes the highest fees of any institutional blockchain network.”

Trailing 30-day fees as of June 26, 2026: Canton $60.2M, Tron $27.6M, Ethereum $11.3M. Source: DefiLlama. Methodology: gas fees paid by users.

Fee Methodology

DefiLlama tracks Canton fees as gas paid by network participants, a methodology consistent with how it measures fees on Ethereum and Tron. Canton is a permissioned, privacy-preserving network used primarily by financial institutions for settlement and asset tokenization. Transaction volumes there trace to institutional workflows rather than retail DeFi activity, which shapes how the fee comparison reads.

Canton’s 30-day fee figure places it fourth overall on the DefiLlama leaderboard among all protocols, behind Tether, Circle’s USDC, and Hyperliquid’s perpetual exchange. Its all-time cumulative fees reached $488.9 million. The trailing 24-hour figure stood at $1.84 million at time of publication.

Institutional Backdrop

The numbers follow significant capital formation around Digital Asset. The company closed a $355 million funding round led by a16z crypto in June, with HSBC, Apollo, BNP Paribas, CME, Tradeweb and more than 20 other institutional names joining. Visa and stablecoin issuer Brale piloted stablecoin settlement on the network using SBC, a US dollar-backed stablecoin. South Korea’s Bithumb listed Canton Coin in its KRW market on June 23.

Canton is among the eight blockchains integrated into Mastercard’s card-settlement network, per earlier Defiant coverage. The Canton Foundation was also registered under the National Cooperative Research and Production Act on June 22.

Ethereum Gap

Ethereum’s fees have stayed compressed since the Dencun upgrade reduced Layer 2 settlement costs. Over the trailing 30-day window, Canton’s $60.2 million compares with Ethereum’s $11.3 million, a ratio of more than five to one. The contrast reflects how differently the two networks generate fee activity: Canton’s throughput comes from institutional settlement workflows with fixed participants, while Ethereum’s comes from a broader but currently less fee-intensive base of applications.

Canton has made no public statement on when or whether the fee ranking will be updated or reported as a recurring metric.

Base Suffers Second Chain Halt in 24 Hours, Complicating B20 Activation Window

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Base Suffers Second Chain Halt in 24 Hours, Complicating B20 Activation Window

Base stalled block production for a second time in less than 24 hours on Friday morning, describing the incident as showing ‘similar symptoms’ to Thursday’s roughly two-hour outage, with the event arriving less than three hours before the B20 Activation Registry was anticipated to go live.

Base, the Ethereum Layer 2 network incubated by Coinbase, halted block production for the second time in two days on Friday, arriving hours before a scheduled activation of its new B20 token standard on mainnet.

The second stall began at 15:33 UTC Friday when Base’s status page flagged block production as unhealthy. The team identified “similar symptoms” to Thursday’s outage within one minute and restored production by 15:47 UTC, a roughly 14-minute halt. Thursday’s incident ran for approximately two hours after an invalid block at position 47,806,542 choked the sequencer and interrupted withdrawals. The Defiant covered that first halt as it resolved Thursday evening.

Beryl and B20

Thursday’s outage had already forced a schedule shift for Base’s Beryl hardfork. Teams had pushed the upgrade window to allow the B20 Activation Registry to complete its initialization process, a sequence that can take up to 60 minutes after the hard fork activates.

The B20 standard, a Rust precompile embedded directly in Base’s node software, introduces native token management built for stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets. It adds role-based minting controls, transfer restrictions, and freeze capabilities while maintaining full ERC-20 compatibility.

The registry at contract address stores feature flags that govern whether the B20 standard is live. Until the flags are flipped by a designated admin, any call to create a B20 token reverts with a “FeatureNotActivated” error. Beryl completed on Thursday at 20:00 UTC. A dev relations representative confirmed the B20 registry activation was scheduled for Friday at 18:00 UTC, placing that window roughly two hours after the second stall resolved.

Same Bug Returns

Friday’s status update explicitly described the halt as exhibiting “similar symptoms” to Thursday’s, indicating the root cause had not been fully remediated before the second event struck. After the Thursday stall, Base stated it had found the root cause and was “verifying a fix to ensure it cannot recur,” with a full postmortem promised. No postmortem had been published as of Friday afternoon, and the second incident remained in “monitoring” status as of 16:11 UTC.

Node operators were required to restart their Base Mainnet nodes to resume syncing after both incidents. Base’s 90-day block-production uptime stood at 98.72% as of Friday, per the status page. No public statement on the B20 registry activation timeline had been issued as of publication.

Bitcoin under $60,000 on track for a rare back-to-back quarterly loss

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Bitcoin under $60,000 on track for a rare back-to-back quarterly loss

Bitcoin dipped below $60,000 over the weekend, trading around $59,940 on Sunday, down 0.6% over 24 hours and nearly 7% on the week, per CoinDesk data, as a quarter of selling neared its final days.

The altcoins again led the way down. Ether fell 9.5% on the week to about $1,567, dogecoin dropped 11.7% to $0.073, Hyperliquid’s HYPE lost 10.6% and XRP slid 8.7% to $1.04. Solana held up better at $70, off 3.5%, and tron was the most resilient, down 1.5%.

The market has spent the week leaning on bitcoin’s relative steadiness while everything riskier fell faster.

The weekend marks the end of a weak first half, with just two days to go. Bitcoin is on track to finish the second quarter down about 12%, after a roughly 22% drop in the first, according to data from Coinglass. Ether has fared worse, down about 25% in the second quarter following a 29% first-quarter fall.

Grayscale’s Pandl Says Strategy’s $3B Bitcoin Sale Could Restore Confidence

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Grayscale’s Pandl Says Strategy’s $3B Bitcoin Sale Could Restore Confidence

Zach Pandl, head of research at Grayscale, said he hopes Strategy will sell at least $3 billion in Bitcoin to cover most of the company’s cash obligations for the next two years.

In a Saturday X post, Pandl argued that the move may restore market confidence in the company’s capital structure.

Contrary to his hopes, Pandl said he expects a 50-basis-point increase to the dividend rate on Strategy’s preferred stock, STRC, adding roughly $100 million in annual obligations over two years. Pandl added that this scenario “probably does not help market confidence.”

Strategy faces an annual preferred dividend obligation of approximately $1.2 billion, driven primarily by STRC.

STRC is Strategy’s flagship “digital credit” preferred stock designed to trade near its $100 par value, but has been sliding for weeks. On Friday, it fell to as low as $71.25, a 28.75% discount to par. Strategy’s common stock MSTR fared little better and closed Friday at $82.31, down 26.86% throughout the trading week.

Pandl said he expects Strategy to raise STRC’s dividend rate but hopes the company sells Bitcoin instead. Source: Zach Pandl

Strategy’s cash reserve under pressure

Strategy is the world’s largest publicly-listed corporate Bitcoin holder, placing its 847,363 BTC stash and financing decisions under the industry’s microscope. 

According to Strategy’s latest 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, it acquired 520 Bitcoin for $34.9 million between June 15 and June 21.

Blockchain analytics company CryptoQuant argued in a Tuesday report that Strategy should pause Bitcoin purchases and focus on replenishing its cash reserve, which is down 38% in 2026.

Related: Bitcoin doesn’t need Ethereum-style yield, says Strategy’s Michael Saylor

The 8-K filing also revealed that Strategy increased its US dollar reserve by $300 million to $1.4 billion. This leaves the company with roughly 14 months of dividend coverage, down sharply from what was once a seven-year cushion.

Strategy said on Monday that it plans to continue replenishing its cash reserves to support the credit quality of its “digital credit” securities.

Alternatives to a Bitcoin sale

CryptoQuant added that the company has no obligation to sell Bitcoin to support STRC’s price, because it can deploy other methods to defend its stock, such as raising the current 11.5% dividend yield.

Bitcoin advocate Samson Mow argued in a Monday X post that STRC has a built-in “self-repairing mechanism.” Once the stock falls below its $100 reference price, Strategy halts new ATM issuance, cutting off the supply of fresh shares.

At the same time, a lower price mechanically boosts the yield for new buyers relative to what they paid, which Mow said should draw in fresh demand and pull the price back toward par over time.

Source: Samson Mow

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

Bitcoin UTXO Signal Points to Bear Market Bottom

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Bitcoin UTXO Signal Points to Bear Market Bottom

Analysis of Bitcoin unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs) shows that investors are capitulating, a pattern that has historically coincided with bear market bottoms. 

The ratio of the number of UTXOs spent in profit versus at a loss has fallen to its lowest level this bear market cycle, said CryptoQuant analyst known as Darkfost on Saturday. 

This is the first time this signal has triggered since the start of the correction, “demonstrating that the number of UTXOs spent at a loss is reaching significant levels, reflecting the start of a broader capitulation,” he said. 

The metric shows that markets are entering a bottoming phase, which could be a strategic time to accumulate. The last time it fell this low was in the depths of the previous bear market in mid-2023, when BTC prices fell to around $26,000. 

“These periods have always been profitable for long-term investors,” continued Darkfost. “They correspond to the moment when the majority gives up and loses interest.”

He cautioned that it is a process that takes time, and we are on a long timeframe. 

Bitcoin UTXO profit loss ratio at bear market low. Source: CryptoQuant

“The bottom signal I’ve been waiting for just fired,” said analyst DurdenBTC on Saturday, also commenting on the UTXO ratio. “It’s caught every cycle low since 2016, and it will still feel terrible for weeks,” he added. “If buying here were comfortable, the signal wouldn’t exist.”

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

In a separate post, Darkfost confirmed the findings, stating that long-term holders are starting to “enter a capitulation phase,” observing that the Spent Output Profit Ratio (SOPR) is increasingly moving into negative territory for this cohort. 

However, he also said that this correction has been largely fueled by the rapid increase in BTC inflows to exchanges coming from short-term holders.

Meanwhile, onchain analytics firm Swissblock said on Saturday that Bitcoin has likely moved beyond the initial breakdown, but “we’re still in the base formation phase.”

“Price is stabilizing, yet momentum remains deeply negative, and Bitcoin impulse has only just returned to neutral.”

Selling pressure may increase 

Uncertainty and selling pressure may increase following resumed strikes by the US military on Iranian targets over the weekend. 

US fighter jets conducted strikes on 10 Iranian military targets at multiple locations in and near the Strait of Hormuz late on Saturday in response to an Iranian drone attack on a commercial ship, reported Central Command. 

BTC prices dipped to $59,800 in early trading on Sunday morning, but had recovered the $60,100 level at the time of writing. 

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

Tokenized Asset Value Stalls Even as Stock Token Holders Surge

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Tokenized Asset Value Stalls Even as Stock Token Holders Surge

Distributed tokenized real-world asset value slipped about 1.4% over the past month to roughly $31.5 billion, the first monthly decline of its institutional-led run, even as the number of holders climbed 14%, led by tokenized stocks, according to data from rwa.xyz.

Growth in the value of tokenized real-world assets has stalled.

The total value of distributed real-world assets (RWAs), meaning tokenized assets that can be freely transferred between wallets, slipped about 1.4% over the past 30 days to roughly $31.5 billion, according to data from rwa.xyz, the leading tracker of tokenized assets. It is the first monthly contraction after more than a year of steady gains.

U.S. Treasury debt, the largest category, accounts for about $14.8 billion, or nearly half of the distributed total. The recent decline was led by the more price-sensitive corners of the market: the value of tokenized commodities fell about 9% over the past week, and tokenized stocks dropped about 8% over the same period.

The flattening marks a sharp break from the sector’s pace through 2025, when monthly growth ran in the double digits. The market rose 12% in the 30 days before it crossed $20 billion in April 2025, and 9% in the month before it surpassed $30 billion under its prior accounting in September. Tokenization has been one of the few crypto sectors to set repeated records through 2025, drawing in firms such as BlackRock, Franklin Templeton and JPMorgan. A stall, even a shallow one, signals that the institutional-led run is cooling on a dollar basis.

RWA Distributed Assets. Source: RWA.xyz

Holders Keep Climbing

Participation in the market is still rising, even as its dollar value flattens.

The number of unique asset holders rose about 14% over the past 30 days to 943,236, according to rwa.xyz. The growth came almost entirely from one category: tokenized stocks.

The number of holders of tokenized stocks jumped 36% over the month to 389,972, an increase of roughly 104,000. Across all categories, holders grew by about 114,000 over the same period, meaning stocks drove the bulk of the network-wide increase. Monthly active addresses in the stocks category climbed 37% to 196,495, and monthly transfer volume in the category more than doubled to about $8.1 billion.

The surge in users came even as the dollar value of tokenized stocks fell about 10% over the month to $1.49 billion. The split points to a market where new participants are arriving faster than capital, a pattern more typical of retail adoption than of the institutional Treasury and credit flows that built the sector.

the-defiant
RWA Asset Holders. Source: RWA.xyz

Retail Equities Pull in New Users

The divergence reflects the kind of products driving stock tokenization. Tokenized equities are largely retail-facing and synthetic, issued by firms including Backed Finance and Ondo Finance and offered through platforms such as Robinhood and Swarm. Those products bring in large numbers of small holders, which lifts holder and address counts faster than total value.

The drop in the category’s dollar value, by contrast, can reflect price moves in the underlying assets rather than investors exiting, since a tokenized stock’s value tracks the equity it represents.

Distributed Vs. Represented Assets

Comparisons across the sector’s history are complicated by a methodology change. rwa.xyz revised its framework in 2025, splitting the market into “distributed” assets, which circulate between wallets, and “represented” assets, which are recorded on a blockchain but locked on a single platform.

The represented market is far larger, at about $359 billion, and it slipped about 1.4% over the same 30 days.

The question for the sector is whether the new holders arriving through tokenized stocks translate into renewed value growth, or whether the dollar stall persists while participation broadens.

Market makers Keyrock and Securitize project the distributed market could reach $400 billion by 2030, contingent on regulation, liquidity and distribution maturing together. Near-term catalysts include the interest-rate path, which sets the yield on tokenized Treasuries, and whether more exchanges and custodians add RWA tokens to their accepted collateral.

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