Senate Majority Leader John Thune has ruled out passage of the CLARITY Act before the August recess, as Polymarket traders cut its chance of becoming law in 2026 to 33%. Fortune reported on July 24 that Thune does not expect…
XRP could be repeating the same price pattern that came before its massive rally in the 2017/2018 market cycle. Latest market data suggests the asset is again moving within a symmetrical triangle, similar to the structure that eventually led to a remarkable 66,000% gain and pushed XRP to $3.31 nine years ago.
Cardano has emerged as one of the fastest-growing blockchains for real-world assets (RWAs), reinforcing its expanding role in the rapidly evolving tokenization sector. According to data shared by the RWA Foundation, citing Token Terminal, Cardano ranked as the fifth fastest-growing blockchain by RWA value over the past 30 days.
Activity on Shibarium, Shiba Inu's official Layer-2 blockchain, surged sharply over the past day, but SHIB's price has yet to respond. According to the latest data from Shibariumscan, Shibarium processed 1,180 daily transactions yesterday.
Ethereum (ETH) reserves are moving in different directions across major cryptocurrency exchanges. Gemini and Bitfinex have recorded significant outflows, while Binance's holdings have remained mostly stable, according to CryptoQuant analyst Amr Taha.
The XRP ecosystem has welcomed over $800 million worth of distributed real-world assets this year amid the growing tokenization trend on the network. The tokenization market has continued to grow in 2026, with its total value now exceeding $410 billion.
Bitcoin has recovered sharply over the past three weeks, and the share of coins back in profit has risen significantly. Meanwhile, new CryptoQuant analysis suggests the market still has not reached the conditions that historically marked the end of bear markets.
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has argued that President Donald Trump should not actively participate in the cryptocurrency market while serving in office. Hoskison's comments came after Senator Elizabeth Warren urged lawmakers to reject the latest version of the Clarity Act, claiming it does not adequately prevent President Trump from financially benefiting from his crypto-related activities.
While XRP has corrected from the recent $1.16 high, new market data shows that demand in the spot market has continued to improve. Specifically, buying activity across centralized exchanges has climbed to its highest level in eight weeks, suggesting that many investors are still accumulating XRP despite the latest price decline.
XRP is showing a widening gap between its spot and derivatives markets. Spot buying has reached its strongest level since early June, while leveraged traders on Binance continue increasing bearish bets.
France’s National Gambling Authority has ordered internet service providers to block access to Polymarket, putting the prediction-market platform back under regulatory pressure in one of Europe’s largest markets.
The ANJ said its president issued the network-level blocking request on July 16. The regulator framed Polymarket as an illegal gambling operation and cited concerns including consumer addiction, lack of know-your-customer controls, and the potential manipulation of betting outcomes.
One example mentioned by the regulator involved weather data manipulation, which shows how broad the concern is. Prediction markets do not only cover elections or crypto prices. They can involve real-world outcomes where the line between forecasting, betting, and market influence becomes uncomfortable for regulators.
This is not an EU-wide ban. It is a French order. But it is still a warning shot for the prediction-market sector.
TL;DR
France’s ANJ has ordered ISPs to block access to Polymarket.
The regulator classified the platform as an illegal gambling operation.
The action is specific to France, not a blanket European Union ban.
Prediction Markets Are Running Into Old Gambling Rules
Prediction markets have always had a regulatory identity problem.
Supporters describe them as information markets. Users trade on probabilities, and prices can reveal what the crowd believes about future events. That can be useful, especially when markets are liquid and participants have strong incentives to be accurate.
Regulators often see something much simpler: betting.
A user puts money behind an outcome. The outcome resolves. The user wins or loses. If that activity is offered to residents without local authorization, gambling regulators tend to get involved.
That is the tension Polymarket is facing in France.
The platform may be crypto-native, global, and built around market pricing, but the ANJ is treating access through the lens of gambling law and consumer protection.
For prediction markets, that is a difficult problem to escape.
Why The KYC Issue Matters
The ANJ’s concern around KYC is important.
Regulators do not only care that people are betting. They care who is betting, how users are onboarded, whether minors can access the service, whether problem gambling protections exist, and whether suspicious activity can be monitored.
Crypto prediction markets can be especially hard for regulators because they often operate across borders and use digital wallets rather than conventional accounts.
That creates a mismatch.
A platform can be accessible from a jurisdiction even if it is not licensed there. Users can reach it through normal internet access. Funds can move through crypto rails. That makes enforcement harder, so regulators sometimes turn to ISP blocking.
Blocking does not necessarily eliminate access completely. Users may use VPNs or other workarounds. But it raises friction and sends a clear message to platforms, payment providers, and local users.
The Manipulation Concern Is Different
The ANJ’s reference to possible manipulation of betting outcomes is also worth taking seriously.
In financial markets, manipulation usually means trying to move the price of an asset. In prediction markets, manipulation can mean something stranger: trying to influence the real-world event itself.
That concern depends heavily on the market.
Some outcomes are too large for traders to influence. Others may be more vulnerable. Weather data, niche events, small elections, lower-liquidity markets, or outcomes based on specific data sources can create awkward incentives.
If a market pays out based on an event that someone can influence, regulators may see added consumer and public-interest risks.
That does not mean every prediction market is dangerous. But it helps explain why gambling authorities may not be convinced by the “information market” framing.
France Adds Pressure To A Fast-Growing Sector
Polymarket has become one of the most visible prediction-market platforms in crypto.
Its growth has shown that users want markets on politics, macro events, sports, culture, crypto outcomes, and almost anything else that can be resolved with a data source. That demand is real.
But regulatory pressure is real too.
France’s action shows that national regulators are willing to use existing gambling powers against crypto-native prediction markets. Other countries may look at similar tools if they believe unlicensed platforms are targeting local users.
For Polymarket and rivals, the path forward may require more jurisdiction-specific controls, licensing strategies, KYC layers, or restricted access.
That could make the user experience less open, but it may be necessary if prediction markets want to operate at scale.
The larger question is whether prediction markets can find a regulatory category that separates useful forecasting from unlicensed gambling. Until that happens, platforms may keep running into country-by-country enforcement.
France has now made its view clear: if Polymarket is accessible to French users without authorization, it can be blocked.
While semiconductor stocks have spent July giving back gains, one sector has quietly kept climbing for entirely different reasons: defense.
Swedish defense manufacturer Saab beat second-quarter earnings expectations as booming demand for military equipment propelled the company to a fifth consecutive quarter of order book growth, with its total backlog rising to 317.7 billion Swedish crowns, up from 197.6 billion a year earlier. That’s not a one-quarter anomaly it’s a sustained, multi-year demand curve building in real time.
The business lesson here isn’t really about defense specifically. It’s about what happens to industries positioned squarely against a sustained geopolitical trend, as opposed to industries riding a narrower, sentiment-driven cycle like AI infrastructure spending has increasingly become this year. Saab’s order backlog isn’t dependent on investor confidence in a single earnings call it’s backed by government procurement cycles that move on entirely different, slower-moving timelines than public market sentiment.
For business leaders watching semiconductor valuations swing 20% in a matter of weeks, Saab’s steady backlog growth is a useful contrast in risk profiles. Businesses tied to structural, multi-year demand trends whatever the sector tend to weather sentiment-driven market volatility far better than businesses whose growth story depends on continuously beating quarterly expectations.
The practical takeaway: when you’re evaluating your own company’s growth narrative, ask whether it’s built on a structural trend with government or institutional demand behind it, or on a sentiment cycle that requires constant reacceleration to sustain its valuation. Saab’s backlog didn’t happen by accident, it happened because the underlying demand driver was real, sustained, and largely indifferent to what Wall Street felt about it that week.
Software developer Vincent Van Code believes the proposed CLARITY Act could have a bigger impact on XRP adoption than many people expect. He argues that, although XRP's legal status is clearer today, important regulatory uncertainty still remains.
XRP and Bitcoin are left out as S&P Dow Jones Indices and Pantera Capital have launched the S&P Pantera Digital Asset Index, a new benchmark for institutional investors. The index focuses on blockchain protocols that generate revenue through network activity.
The XRP ecosystem has welcomed about $1 billion in tokenized asset-backed credit so far in 2026, already outpacing the total from the previous year. This trend comes as the XRP Ledger (XRPL) continues to witness an increase in tokenized asset value this year amid the growing attention that has enveloped the narrative.
XRP selling pressure is dwindling, suggesting bearish exhaustion, as prices sit at an extreme opportunity buy zone on the daily chart. XRP has spent nearly a year moving through a deep corrective phase after reaching its cycle high in mid-July 2025.
Shiba Inu continues to trade under strong bearish pressure, with its broader market structure still pointing lower despite early signs that selling momentum may be easing. This assessment comes from market commentator Dukes Markets Analysis, who shared the outlook in a recent TradingView publication titled “SHIB: From Meme Queen to New Historic Lows.” Bearish Trend Remains Firmly Intact for Shiba Inu According to Dukes, Shiba Inu remains below both its 50-day and 100-day Exponential Moving Averages (EMAs), two widely used indicators for identifying the prevailing market trend.
XRP remains under pressure as its downtrend continues, but new derivatives data suggests that leveraged trading activity is picking up again. While bulls continue to wait for a relief rally, the latest figures show that traders are becoming more active in the futures market, and this change could influence XRP's next move.
XRP has formed an inverse head-and-shoulders pattern on the daily chart, with its completion targeting a 16% move to $1.32. The setup comes amidst the recent price rebound.
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