Three progressive organizations, Indivisible, Demand Progress, and the Revolving Door Project, sent a letter Tuesday evening to every Democratic Senate office, criticizing Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand over her son’s ties to the crypto industry. The move complicates her effort to broker a compromise on the CLARITY Act unresolved ethics provisions. It also signals that Senate Democrats backing the bill face an organized political campaign, not just a policy disagreement.
LATEST: Sen. Gillbrand is facing tremendous blacklash from progressives over CLARITY Act ethics rules, per Axios.
Progressive groups including Indivisible and Demand Progress have launched a blistering campaign against Sen. Gillibrand, claiming her family’s crypto ties expose… pic.twitter.com/Ad9rZw9pCF
The letter portrays Gillibrand, chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, as vulnerable to the same criticism Democrats have directed at President Donald Trump’s crypto ventures. The groups argued that attacks on Trump’s crypto profits lose force if a leading Democratic negotiator has close family ties to the industry.
Meanwhile, Gillibrand has repeatedly called for elected officials and their spouses to avoid issuing or sponsoring digital assets.
The CLARITY Act is the most comprehensive crypto market structure bill proposed in the United States. Passing it requires 60 Senate votes, meaning Republicans still need several Democratic supporters beyond those who backed it in committee.
Sens. Ruben Gallego and Angela Alsobrooks voted in favor during the Senate Banking Committee review, leaving leadership searching for additional votes.
At the same time, bipartisan ethics talks continue on multiple fronts. Sens. Bernie Moreno and Cynthia Lummis are working with the White House on compromise language, while Sen. Thom Tillis leads separate bipartisan negotiations. Although no draft has been released, reports suggest discussions are progressing. The debate still centers on how ethics rules should apply to public officials and their families.
Fairshake, the crypto industry’s leading super PAC, also hangs over the negotiations. The group holds roughly $125 million in available funds, raising political stakes ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. As a result, both parties have incentives to reach a deal, while progressive groups continue warning against weak ethics provisions.
The current standoff closely resembles last year’s GENIUS Act debate, when Senate Democrats clashed over crypto regulation and Trump’s financial connections to the industry. That legislation ultimately secured support from 18 Senate Democrats after lengthy negotiations. Now, the CLARITY Act faces similar internal pressure, familiar lobbying efforts, and another race against the legislative calendar.
Gillibrand again sits at the center of negotiations, and her ability to unite Democrats on an acceptable ethics compromise could determine whether the bill advances. The Senate is expected to consider the legislation before the August recess. Until negotiators release the final ethics language, the battle remains focused on political positioning rather than legislative text.
In Ethereum news today, new smart contract deployments on the network have surged 192% above the 90-day baseline, with funding rates simultaneously running 220% above their 90-day norm, a combination of signals that, according to a CryptoQuant QuickTake published by analyst CryptoOnchain, rarely fires without preceding a significant directional move.
The question the data forces is whether the early leverage bid currently accumulating in derivatives markets is front-running the builder activity, or simply reacting to it.
ETH price climbed unevenly from roughly $1,770 to $1,903 over the past two weeks, a movement that reads as ordinary chop on the surface. Beneath it, three structurally distinct signals are activating in parallel for the first time in recent memory.
TOM LEE: ETHEREUM HAS MORE DEVELOPERS THAN EVERY OTHER CHAIN COMBINED
Unlike the 2022 bear market, the builder base keeps growing, and that's the tell:
– Nearly 6,000 developers work on the EVM stack, more than all other chains on the table combined – Per Electric Capital,… pic.twitter.com/KgJCy65hiF
— Tom Lee Tracker (Not actually Tom) (@TomLeeTracker) July 20, 2026
Ethereum News: Builder Activity Spikes While Capital Stages on Binance
The sharpest signal in the CryptoQuant analysis is the developer activity reading. Smart contract deployments jumped roughly 192% versus the 90-day baseline, with nearly 57% of that increase occurring within the past week alone.
Deployment spikes of this magnitude typically indicate new protocol launches, redeployed contracts ahead of a release, or coordinated testing cycles, builder activity, not speculative noise.
Alongside that, stablecoin net flow into Binance has surged to nearly 370% above its three-month average, with daily inflows averaging over $58M. Capital staging on an exchange rather than deploying directly on-chain is a classic pre-trade positioning pattern; it suggests intent without yet confirming direction.
What complicates the read is that these two signals, which typically appear in sequence during a clean accumulation phase, are running simultaneously with a hot derivatives market. That removes the analytical comfort of a slow, cold-funding accumulation setup.
Funding rates on Binance are now running approximately 220% above their 90-day norm. That is not an ambiguous reading; it is a clear signal that leveraged traders are already positioned long and paying to hold those positions.
For anyone tracking perpetual trading dynamics, elevated funding at this level has historically preceded either a flush that resets overextension or price follow-through that validates the bet.
The problem, as CryptoOnchain’s analysis notes, is that having both stablecoin staging and hot funding rates activate together is not a clean accumulation script.
It is a setup that historically precedes more volatile, two-sided price action rather than a straightforward directional trend. Open interest building into elevated funding with a price that has not yet broken out cleanly creates the conditions for sharp moves in either direction.
The on-chain metrics that would normally anchor a bullish read are not in dispute. Staking has climbed to a fresh all-time high of 33.58%, tightening liquid float.
Median transaction fees are down by over 96% versus three months ago, not due to network abandonment. These are the readings that define the valuation gap: base-layer economics remain subdued: median transaction fees are down over 96% versus three months ago, while staking continues its steady climb to a fresh high of 33.58%.
The gap between robust on-chain metrics and ETH price performance has attracted institutional attention at these levels, and staking continues its steady climb to a new high of 33.58%, further tightening the liquid float.
In other Ethereum news, CryptoQuant’s analysis highlights a rare convergence of three signals: elevated builder activity, capital staging in stablecoins on exchanges, and existing leverage via derivatives. Each signal has meaning individually, but their simultaneous occurrence in the absence of a price catalyst is notable.
Ethereum’s post-Dencun architecture shows lower fees, as Layer 2 activity has offloaded execution costs from the mainnet without compromising economic security or validators’ staking yield. Developer activity remains robust, with a 192% spike in deployment, indicating resilience even during downturns.
Institutional flows suggest cautious short-term behavior, but demand from cumulative inflows since the launch of the ETH ETF remains evident. This context is crucial for understanding whether the leverage bid stems from retail speculation or early institutional accumulation.
According to CryptoQuant, the outcome will either be funding rates cooling as leveraged longs are flushed out, or a price breakthrough that validates the leverage position.
The eventual dominant signal, whether from builders, exchange capital, or derivatives, will only be clear as these paths unfold. Until then, the three-signal convergence remains the primary focus.
XRP price is trading around $1.13, up about 2% over the past 24 hours. Those modest gains hide a much larger binary risk approaching. A Senate deadline could determine whether XRP secures the regulatory clarity many institutional investors want or loses its biggest legislative catalyst for now. That possibility still appears underpriced, leaving traders on edge.
Meanwhile, the crypto market is sending mixed signals. Bitcoin and Ethereum have spent the past two days moving sideways, and large-cap altcoins, including XRP, are following suit. XRP has traded between $1.12 and $1.16 during the past day, reflecting consolidation with no decisive trend.
The Clarity Act has 14 working days left to become law.
The bill must reach Senate floor next week before August recess with ethics provisions unresolved.
Writing an important thesis about this on Substack today or tomorrow. https://t.co/8PnZcdZ61r
Even so, price stability does not mean risk has disappeared. XRP has increasingly become a legally driven trade, with sentiment shifting alongside every regulatory headline. Any court filing, settlement rumor, or signal from lawmakers before Thursday could trigger a sharp repricing.
The real question is the direction of that move. A favorable outcome could strengthen confidence and attract fresh institutional demand. On the other hand, another delay or disappointing development may leave XRP stuck in its current range, or even spark another wave of selling as traders unwind expectations.
Can XRP Price Break $1.25 Before the Senate Deadline?
XRP has been consolidating around the $1.08 to $1.15 range over the past week. The $1.10 area continues to act as a short-term pivot, while support sits near $1.05 after holding several recent pullbacks. Meanwhile, sellers have repeatedly defended the $1.15 to $1.20 zone.
Recent trading volume has offered little conviction despite the rebound. Instead, the move looks more like traders adjusting positions than chasing a fresh trend. That often happens before major headlines, when market participants prefer waiting over making aggressive bets.
The bullish scenario remains straightforward. If Senate legislation advances or Ripple receives favorable legal news, XRP could break above $1.20 with strong volume. That would expose the next resistance around $1.30 to $1.40, where sellers may try to slow the rally.
Xrp (XRP)
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The base case assumes no meaningful update arrives. In that situation, XRP could remain trapped between $1.08 and $1.15 as traders wait for the next catalyst. XRP Price action is likely to remain choppy until fresh news shifts sentiment.
The bearish case comes into play if legislation stalls or regulatory pressure increases again. A decisive break below $1.05 could send XRP toward the $1.00 level first. If that support fails, the next buying zone sits around $0.90 to $0.95.
Technically, XRP still appears compressed, and those conditions rarely last forever. Once a catalyst arrives, the move could develop quickly in either direction. Position sizing ahead of Thursday remains the key consideration because this setup is unlikely to stay quiet for long.
Maxi Doge Targets Early-Mover Upside as XRP Tests Key Levels
XRP at $1.13 is, at minimum, a known asset with a nine-figure market cap and a legal binary that limits near-term upside to a defined range. Even the optimistic $1.50 target represents roughly a 30% move from current levels. It’s respectable, but not the kind of asymmetric return early-stage exposure can theoretically offer.
Traders watching the XRP setup and seeking a different risk profile have been rotating attention toward early presale positions.
Maxi Doge ($MAXI), available at $0.000283 per token, has pulled in $4.8 million in total raised, a number that signals meaningful community traction without the dilution risk of a fully saturated cap.
POV: The government trying to work out how to tax capital gains on assets that price fluctuate pic.twitter.com/MXJPJDRzzJ
Built on Ethereum as an ERC-20 token, the project is positioned around a “leverage king” trading culture. It has a holder-only competition with leaderboard rewards, a Maxi Fund treasury for liquidity and partnerships, and meme-first marketing built around a 240-lb gym-bro mascot embodying 1000x trading mentality.
The staking program runs on a dynamic APY structure. The tagline, “never skip leg-day, never skip a pump,” commits to the bit. As with any presale, token value post-launch is speculative, and capital loss is a real outcome.
In Bitcoin news today, shareholders of Satsuma Technology voted by more than 90% on Monday to sell the company’s remaining 668 BTC, worth roughly $43.5M at current prices, and to cancel its LSE delisting, overruling four of six board members and formally ending a Bitcoin treasury experiment that lasted less than 12 months.
The decision crystallizes one of the sharper destructions of investor capital in the UK crypto space: against the £163.6M raised in August 2025, shareholders now expect to recover between £26.8M and £30M after wind-down costs, less than 20 pence on the pound.
This latest Bitcoin Treasury firm news dropped as BTC climbed a modest +0.4% overnight, dropping under $66,000 since yesterday but still trading at $65,700, with a daily trading volume of $31.8Bn.
JUST IN: Shareholders of Mark Moss-backed British #Bitcoin treasury company Satsuma Technology ($SATS) have voted to sell all of its remaining 668 BTC, return capital to shareholders, and shut down the company. pic.twitter.com/1kdDkazYMc
— BitcoinTreasuries.NET (@BTCtreasuries) July 21, 2026
Bitcoin News Today: From £163M Raise to Fractional Recovery
Satsuma started life as TAO Alpha, a small AI firm, before rebranding and pivoting to a Bitcoin treasury accumulation strategy. In August 2025, it hired Mark Moss, an American Bitcoin commentator with over 700,000 YouTube subscribers, as Chief Bitcoin Strategist.
The firm then raised £163.6M through convertible notes led by ParaFi Capital, with Pantera Capital, Digital Currency Group, and Kraken participating. Some investors contributed 1,097 BTC directly in place of roughly $97M in cash.
The stock peaked around £14 per share in June 2025. Bitcoin reached its $126,000 all-time high in October before sliding into the current crypto winter, dragging Satsuma’s share price with it.
By December 2025, the company was already liquidating assets to stay solvent, selling 579 BTC for £40M to repay noteholders who declined to convert their debt into equity.
The CFO departed in February 2026; the CEO followed in March. By April, shares had lost more than 99% of their June 2025 peak value, trading at fractions of a penny. At that point, Pantera Capital, holding approximately 6.7% of Satsuma’s stock, began publicly calling for a full liquidation, with a straightforward rationale.
The company’s market cap had fallen well below the value of the Bitcoin on its balance sheet, making the equity position strictly worse than owning the underlying coin. A shareholder group representing more than 20% of issued capital formally put the resolution to a vote.
The board split hard. Four of the six directors opposed liquidation, arguing that Satsuma remained a viable, publicly listed corporate vehicle for Bitcoin. Two sided with shareholders. The 90%-plus vote to wind down left the board majority’s position moot.
Satsuma’s collapse is the most visible failure yet of the DAT, a digital asset treasury structure that proliferated across UK small-caps in 2025.
These companies, modeled loosely on MicroStrategy’s approach, give equity investors indirect exposure to Bitcoin while bolting on a thin operating business to satisfy UK listing rules on alternative investment fund classification.
The structure works when Bitcoin price momentum and equity premiums reinforce each other; it unravels quickly when both reverse simultaneously, as the convertible note obligations create a sell-to-survive dynamic at exactly the wrong point in the cycle.
The wind-down proceeds through a “B Share Scheme,” a UK legal mechanism for distributing cash assets back to shareholders. Estimated termination costs run to £2.7M: legal fees, severance, delisting charges, and run-off insurance.
Combined with the £40M recovered from December’s BTC sale, the total capital returned is roughly £66–70M, against the £163.6M raised.
Critically, convertible noteholders rank above common equity in the payout waterfall, so ordinary shareholders may receive considerably less than even those aggregated figures suggest.
Satsuma was the second-largest UK-listed Bitcoin treasury company by holdings at the time of the vote. The Smarter Web Company, holding 2,878 BTC, currently sits at the top of that ranking and has not indicated any plans to wind down, though Satsuma’s outcome will sharpen investor focus on the NAV-to-market-cap gap across all remaining UK crypto treasury vehicles.
The contrast with Michael Saylor’s approach, maintaining Bitcoin conviction through drawdowns rather than liquidating under shareholder pressure, is a live debate in the corporate Bitcoin treasury space right now.
Bitcoin News: Court Approval and Satsuma Delisting Timeline
UK High Court hearings to approve the capital return scheme are scheduled for August and September 2026. The LSE delisting is expected in mid-September, with shareholder payments due by late September.
High Court hearings to approve the capital return are set for August and September 2026, before distributions begin. For traders still holding Satsuma shares, the key variable is whether the 668 BTC sale executes above or below current spot.
With the Bitcoin price trajectory remaining contested at current levels, even a modest move in either direction will shift the final distribution range away from the £26.8–30Mestimate. Noteholders’ priority claim means ordinary equity holders are effectively last in line for whatever remains after costs are settled.
ADA is trading at $0.1715, down about 3% after rallying by 7% the previous day, just before the Midnight bridge hack. The timing could hardly be worse. The exploit has handed Cardano bears a fresh price prediction, leaving us wondering how much further sentiment can weaken before buyers return.
BlockSec’s Phalcon monitoring flagged an exploit on the Wanchain Cardano-to-BNB Chain bridge that drained about 515 million NIGHT tokens, worth $9 million. Investigators linked the attack to a signed message encoding flaw in the TreasuryCheck validator that enabled signature reuse. As a result, unauthorized withdrawals emptied most of the bridge treasury.
Charles Hoskinson Links Wanchain Cardano Bridge Hack To AI Threats
Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) says the $10 million Wanchain bridge exploit highlights the growing security threats facing crypto.
NIGHT plunged more than 30%, briefly hitting a record low near $0.015 before stabilizing. The stolen tokens represented the bridge’s reserves rather than user wallets, and Midnight said its core blockchain and validators remained unaffected. Still, that distinction did little to calm traders as selling pressure spread across exchanges.
Bridge exploits rarely stay confined to one token. With Midnight viewed as an important project within the Cardano ecosystem, confidence quickly spilled into ADA. Yesterday’s rally vanished as traders rushed to reduce risk, leaving ADA under pressure even though the exploit targeted third-party bridge infrastructure instead of Cardano itself.
Cardano Price Prediction: Can ADA Reclaim $0.20 This Week?
ADA is trading near $0.1715, keeping it in the lower half of its recent range. Support remains around $0.16, while the $0.18 to $0.20 zone continues to reject rallies. The seven-day recovery has faded after the Midnight Bridge hack, leaving momentum fragile instead of convincing.
The technical structure still points to consolidation rather than a confirmed reversal. Many traders continue watching the $0.18 to $0.20 area as the key decision zone. A strong close above that range could open the door to $0.25, while another rejection may send ADA back toward $0.16.
Cardano (ADA)
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The best case depends on improving market sentiment and a credible recovery plan from the Midnight team. If confidence returns and ADA reclaims $0.20 with strong volume, buyers could target $0.25. That would also help restore confidence across the Cardano ecosystem.
The base case remains a period of sideways trading between $0.16 and $0.20 as traders assess the exploit’s impact. However, if sentiment worsens and ADA loses $0.16, sellers could quickly push the price toward $0.15 or lower.
Bridge exploits remain one of crypto’s biggest security risks, and this incident is another reminder. As Cardano expands its sidechain ecosystem, security will remain a top priority. Until confidence fully returns, ADA rallies may continue running into selling pressure.
LiquidChain Targets Early Infrastructure Upside as Cardano Tests Key Levels
The Midnight exploit cuts to a structural problem that predates Cardano: fragmented liquidity across chains creates both security attack surfaces and execution inefficiency. Traders rotating out of ADA exposure, or simply reassessing ecosystem risk, are scanning for infrastructure plays where the thesis doesn’t hinge on a single bridge’s validator code holding up.
LiquidChain is a Layer 3 infrastructure project built around a Unified Liquidity Layer that fuses Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana liquidity into a single execution environment. The architecture is designed around Deploy-Once access, so developers write once and reach all three ecosystems.
The next generation of infrastructure won't stand alone.
Liquid is also equipped with Verifiable Settlement and Single-Step Execution as core primitives. As of today, the presale has raised $915K at a current price of $0.01482 per $LIQUID.
The cross-chain problem LiquidChain is targeting is demonstrably unsolved, as today’s exploit underlines. Research LiquidChain here before the raise closes.
The UK Parliament’s Crypto and Digital Assets All-Party Parliamentary Group has launched a formal inquiry into why banks refuse to open accounts and block payments for crypto businesses. Written evidence will be accepted until August 31, while the group aims to publish recommendations before the FCA’s mandatory crypto regime begins in October 2027. The move tests whether the UK’s ambition to become a global digital asset hub can survive banking restrictions.
The inquiry was announced on Tuesday by co-chairs Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Labor MP Gurinder Singh Josan CBE. It covers difficulties opening and maintaining business accounts, transfer limits, payment blocks, and whether banks apply restrictions proportionately. It will also compare the UK’s approach with the US, Hong Kong, Australia, and the European Union.
The APPG outlined its concern clearly. It said crypto and digital asset firms have consistently reported difficulty accessing UK banking services. The group added that banking access is essential for legitimate businesses, while unnecessary barriers risk slowing investment, innovation, and long-term growth.
The scale of the issue remains significant. Research from the UK Cryptoasset Business Council, published in January 2026, found roughly 40% of payments to crypto exchanges were blocked or delayed by UK banks. One platform reported almost £1 billion in rejected transactions during 2025. Meanwhile, 80% of exchanges saw customer friction increase, while 70% described banking conditions as more hostile than a year earlier.
UK LAWMAKERS LAUNCH INQUIRY INTO CRYPTO BANKING ACCESS!
UK parliamentarians have launched an inquiry into the challenges crypto firms face in obtaining traditional banking services.
The probe aims to address barriers that have hindered the sector’s growth and integration with… pic.twitter.com/aSqFNBRRPx
Those findings contrast with the government’s stated position. HM Treasury Economic Secretary Lucy Rigby told Parliament in March 2026 that licensed crypto firms should not face restrictions simply because they operate in the sector. As a result, the inquiry will examine why FCA-registered businesses continue facing banking hurdles despite regulatory progress.
UK Crypto and FCA Framework Sharpen the Debanking Question
The inquiry also follows the UK’s finalized FCA crypto framework. The authorization window opens in September 2026, while full compliance becomes mandatory on October 25, 2027. If licensed firms still struggle to secure banking services, confidence in the new regulatory framework could suffer.
Meanwhile, comparisons with overseas markets continue to grow. In the United States, crypto companies have compared banking restrictions to Operation Chokepoint 2.0. Kraken recently secured a $22 million settlement from an auditor it claimed abandoned the exchange during that period. In Australia, Coinbase has also criticized banks over restrictions on crypto-related services. The APPG will assess how competing jurisdictions have handled similar challenges.
The inquiry arrives during a political transition. Andy Burnham became Prime Minister on Monday, while John Healey was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer. Legal experts say global financial firms will closely watch whether the new government delivers a stable regulatory environment for digital assets and financial services.
Written submissions will be accepted from July 21 through August 31 across banking, payments, fintech, and crypto sectors. The APPG will then publish recommendations before the October 2027 deadline. Industry participants are expected to advocate for case-by-case risk assessments instead of blanket restrictions on FCA-registered crypto firms.
The hardware wallet market has seen a quiet revolution over the past few years. Even though traditional USB-style devices like Ledger and Trezor still dominate the conversation, a new category of card-shaped cold wallets has emerged. These devices look like credit cards, fit in your wallet, and use NFC to sign transactions. No cables, no batteries, no Bluetooth pairing. Just tap and go.
Two names stand out here; DCENT S and Tangem. Both use EAL6+ certified secure elements, and both promise to make self-custody easier than ever. But they take fundamentally different approaches to one critical area – backup and recovery. This single difference shapes everything else about how these wallets work and who they are for.
DCENT S launched in July 2026 as the latest offering from IOTRUST, a South Korean company with years of hardware wallet engineering experience. Tangem has been around longer and comes from Switzerland, with a strong focus on simplicity and beginner accessibility. Both have loyal followings, but they serve slightly different users.
This comparison breaks down every important aspect of these two wallets so you can decide which one fits your needs. We will look at design, security, backup systems, supported assets, daily usability, mobile apps, and overall value.
DCENT S vs Tangem: Quick Comparison
Design & Build Quality
Both wallets use a credit-card-sized form factor. The DCENT S measures 85.6 by 54 millimeters and comes in at just 0.9 millimeters thick. That is thinner than most standard payment cards. Tangem is similarly sized and feels just as slim and lightweight. Both devices fit easily into any wallet slot alongside your other cards.
Tangem offers an additional form factor that D’CENT does not; a wearable ring. If you prefer something even more convenient than a card, the Tangem ring lets you carry your wallet on your finger. It is a nice option for people who do not want to carry another card or who simply like the novelty of a crypto ring.
The build quality on both is excellent. DCENT S carries an IP69 dust and water resistance rating, while Tangem goes slightly higher with IP69K. In practical terms, both can survive being dropped in water, exposed to dust, and subjected to everyday wear and tear. Tangem also advertises resistance to X-rays, electrostatic discharge, and electromagnetic pulses, which adds another layer of durability for people who travel frequently or work in environments where such exposure is possible.
Temperature tolerances are similar. DCENT S operates from minus 30 to plus 50 degrees Celsius, while Tangem works from roughly minus 25 to plus 50 degrees Celsius. Either wallet will function in hot cars, freezing winters, or tropical climates.
The one difference that stands out is that Tangem offers a 25-year warranty on their hardware, while DCENT S provides a limited lifetime warranty. Both are generous, and neither company expects you to replace your wallet anytime soon.
Security & Private Key Protection
This is where both wallets are remarkably similar – and that is a good thing. Both use EAL6+ certified secure elements. This is the same level of security certification used for government IDs, passports, and EMV payment cards. It protects against both invasive physical attacks and non-invasive side-channel attacks.
The private key generation process is identical in concept. When you set up either wallet, the secure element generates your private key on-device. The key never leaves the chip under any circumstances. It never touches your smartphone, never goes to the cloud, and never gets stored on company servers.
Both wallets are battery-free and get powered entirely by your phone’s NFC field during signing sessions. This means there is no always-on power source that could be exploited. The card is inert until you tap it against your phone, which significantly reduces the attack surface compared to Bluetooth-enabled wallets that remain discoverable.
Tangem adds anti-counterfeit verification through their app, which lets you confirm that your card is genuine before you use it. DCENT S does not emphasize this feature in their marketing, though the secure element itself provides strong protection against cloning attempts.
Firmware security is another point where Tangem has an edge in transparency. They have had their firmware independently audited by Kudelski Security in 2018 and Riscure in 2023. DCENT S is newer to the market, and while their secure element is certified, they have not published equivalent third-party audit results at this stage.
Both wallets lock themselves automatically after repeated incorrect PIN entries, and both include tamper protection that locks the card if someone attempts to physically extract the chip.
Backup & Recovery
This is where the two wallets diverge completely, and it is the single most important difference between them.
DCENT S uses what they call the R3covery Card. Every box contains two cards – the main DCENT S for everyday transactions and a dedicated recovery card. The recovery card cannot sign transactions. Its only purpose is to restore your wallet if you lose your primary card. The backup is stored inside another EAL6+ secure chip, so your recovery data is never displayed as words, never written on paper, and never typed anywhere.
If you lose your DCENT S, you tap the R3covery Card against your phone, restore the wallet, and then move everything to a new DCENT S card. The recovery card itself remains a high-value target because whoever holds it can restore your wallet. The company recommends storing the two cards in different physical locations.
Tangem takes a different approach. Instead of a dedicated recovery card, they sell wallet sets that include two or three identical cards (or combinations of cards and a ring). During setup, the private key is securely copied to all devices in the set. Any of these duplicate cards can function as the primary wallet. If you lose one card, you simply use another from your set.
The Tangem approach means you do not need to order a replacement card just to restore access. You already have a backup ready to go. The downside is that every card in your set can sign transactions. If someone gets hold of one of your backup cards and knows your PIN, they have full access to your funds. With DCENT S, the recovery card cannot sign anything, so even if stolen, it is useless without the main card and PIN.
There is a trade-off here. Tangem offers immediate redundancy – you have multiple working cards from day one. DCENT S offers a recovery-only backup that cannot be misused for transactions but requires you to obtain a new primary card after loss.
Supported Coins & Networks
DCENT S supports over 100 blockchain networks and more than 4,900 tokens. Tangem supports more than 90 blockchain networks and over 14,000 tokens.
In practice, both wallets cover all the major assets you are likely to hold. Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Solana, Stellar, Polygon, and BNB Chain are supported on both. New chains are added through app updates on both platforms, so you do not need to update the physical card firmware.
Where DCENT S distinguishes itself is in XRP support. The company has been working with the XRP Ledger since 2018, and they make a point of emphasizing full XRPL functionality. Trust Lines, decentralized applications, swaps, sending, receiving, and holding XRP are all fully supported. If you are active on the XRP Ledger, DCENT S feels like it was built specifically for you.
Tangem supports XRP as well, but they do not make it a central part of their marketing. For most users, both wallets cover everything they need. The difference in token count is more about counting methodology than actual compatibility.
Ease of Setup & Daily Use
Both wallets are exceptionally easy to set up. Tangem claims a two-minute setup time, while DCENT S estimates three minutes. In reality, both are fast enough that the difference is negligible. You download the app, tap the card, create a PIN, and you are ready to send and receive crypto.
Daily use is where the similarity continues. Both wallets require an NFC-enabled Android or iPhone. You open the app, create a transaction, tap the card against your phone, wait about one second for the signing to complete, and the transaction is broadcast. No cables, no pairing, no charging.
Neither wallet has a display, which means you cannot verify transaction details directly on the device. You rely on the app to show you the transaction details before you sign. This is a trade-off for the card form factor – traditional hardware wallets with screens offer an extra layer of verification that these card wallets cannot provide.
For people who frequently use their crypto on mobile devices, both wallets feel natural. The tap-to-sign workflow is almost identical to using a contactless payment card. It takes the friction out of self-custody and makes it feel like a normal part of your daily routine.
Mobile App Experience
The DCENT app and Tangem app both serve as the primary interface for managing your assets. They let you send and receive crypto, view your portfolio, and track transaction history. Both apps are available for Android and iOS.
Tangem’s app has been around longer and benefits from more mature feature development. It offers built-in swapping through integrated providers, staking support for certain assets, and the ability to connect to decentralized applications. The portfolio tracking and market price features are polished and regularly updated.
DCENT’s app is part of a broader ecosystem that includes their other hardware wallet products. It is clean, functional, and gets the job done. The app supports swapping, portfolio tracking, and all the basic functions you need. It may not have quite as many built-in services as Tangem, but it covers the essentials well.
Both apps are beginner-friendly and do not assume prior experience with cryptocurrency. If you can use a basic banking app, you can use either of these.
Price & Value
Pricing for both wallets depends on the configuration you choose. Tangem offers two-card and three-card sets, with higher prices for larger sets. The ring version is also priced higher than the card version. DCENT S comes as a single primary card plus the R3covery Card in every box.
DCENT S launched with free U.S. shipping, delivered duty paid, a 30-day money-back guarantee, and a limited lifetime warranty. Tangem typically offers similar shipping options and warranty coverage, though their standard warranty is 25 years rather than lifetime.
When comparing value, the backup method matters. With Tangem, you are paying for multiple working cards upfront. With DCENT S, you get one working card and one recovery-only card. If you lose your primary DCENT S, you need to buy a replacement. If you lose a Tangem card, you already have another one in your set.
Tangem and DCENT S take different approaches to backup. Tangem focuses on immediate multi-card redundancy, while DCENT S separates daily use from recovery by pairing the main card with a dedicated R3covery card.
DCENT S vs Tangem: Pros & Cons
DCENT S Pros:
Dedicated recovery card that cannot sign transactions
Seedless setup available
Full XRPL support with Trust Lines, dApps, and swaps
Thinner card design at 0.76mm
Limited lifetime warranty
Korean hardware engineering with design and assembly in South Korea
More mature app with built-in staking, swapping, and dApp connectivity
Available in ring form factor
Independent firmware audits by Kudelski and Riscure
Tangem Cons:
Every backup card can sign transactions (higher risk if stolen)
No dedicated recovery-only card option
Slightly thicker than DCENT S
Less emphasis on XRP-specific features
Which Wallet Should You Choose?
After spending time with both wallets and looking closely at what each one offers, I lean toward the DCENT S for most users. The deciding factor is the backup system.
Tangem gives you multiple identical cards that all work as primary wallets. This is convenient, no question about it. If you lose one card, you grab another from your set and keep going. But here is the catch – every single one of those cards can sign transactions. If someone steals one of your backup cards and figures out your PIN, they have full access to your funds. The redundancy is nice, but the security model is less segmented.
DCENT S takes a different approach that I find more thoughtful. The R3covery Card cannot sign transactions. Its only purpose is to restore your wallet. This means even if someone gets hold of your backup card, they cannot move a single coin without also having your primary card and PIN. That separation between daily use and emergency recovery is a smarter security design. You store the two cards in different places, and you have built-in protection against a single point of failure.
The XRP support on DCENT S is another strong reason to choose it. Full XRPL functionality with Trust Lines, decentralized applications, and swaps makes it the obvious choice if you hold XRP or interact with the XRP Ledger. Tangem also supports XRP, but DCENT S places more emphasis on XRP-oriented workflows and recovery-focused positioning.
There is also something to be said for a company that has been building hardware wallets since 2017 and serves users across 220 countries. IOTRUST has engineering experience that predates many of their competitors. The DCENT S is designed and assembled in South Korea, which speaks to the quality control and manufacturing standards you get with the product.
At the end of the day, both wallets represent a major step forward in making self-custody accessible. But the DCENT S offers a more secure backup architecture, better XRP support, and the peace of mind that comes from knowing your recovery card cannot be used against you. That is why I would choose it over Tangem.
In Solana news today, the network’s total stablecoin market cap crossed $15Bn for the first time, according to Token Terminal data. The question the number forces onto the table is whether this supply base holds structural depth or remains tethered to cyclical retail flows.
USDC accounts for a large share of Solana’s stablecoin supply, with DeFiLlama reporting USDC at $7.09Bn and total Solana stablecoins at $15.16Bn. Circle’s $250M USDC minting on Solana has been reported as part of a pattern of supply growth contributing to the $15Bn milestone.
This Stablecoin surge across the Solana network comes as SOL USD spiked +3% over the past 24-hours, reaching over $78, with a daily trading volume of $1.94Bn.
Solana News: Beyond USDC/USDT and the New Stablecoins on the Block
The more structurally significant development sits outside the USDC/USDT duopoly. The non-USDC/USDT stablecoin segment on Solana hit an all-time high of $4.81Bn, driven by USD1 and USDG, according to SolanaFloor data. That segment now accounts for nearly one-third of Solana’s total stablecoin market cap.
USD1, a dollar-pegged stablecoin associated with World Liberty Financial, and USDG (Global Dollar) are the primary drivers of that growth.
USDT sits at $2.91Bn on Solana per DeFiLlama, leaving the remaining $4.81Bn distributed across these newer entrants. The diversification of the issuer base matters: it signals that dollar liquidity on Solana is no longer a two-party dependency.
Anchorage Digital’s USDGO reached a $1Bn market cap on Solana, up approximately 20x since January 2026. USDGO is a regulated, USD-pegged stablecoin launched on Solana in February 2026.
Two Demand Drivers, One Supply Stack
JUST IN: Total stablecoin market cap on @solana surpasses $15B, marking an all-time high.
Leading currencies: USD, EUR, & more Leading assets: USDC, USDT, USD1, USDGO, & more Leading issuers: Circle, Tether, Paxos, & more
Solana’s stablecoin boom is being driven by two overlapping forces that reinforce each other but do not depend on each other. The first is renewed retail activity: DEX trading volume on Solana rose 13.1% week over week, daily transactions climbed 17.3%, and TVL expanded 12.5%, per DeFiLlama metrics.
Memecoin cycle activity is generating real on-chain dollar demand, with Jupiter and Raydium as notable liquidity venues. More than $900M in new stablecoins were minted in a single 24-hour window per Token Terminal.
The second driver is settlement-layer adoption. BlockEden reports Solana processed $650Bn in adjusted stablecoin volume in February 2026, surpassing Ethereum and Tron combined. That figure predates the current $15Bn supply milestone by several months, implying settlement throughput has likely expanded further since then.
DeFi protocols on Solana benefit directly from deeper stablecoin liquidity, tighter spreads, higher utilization rates, and more capital-efficient collateral pools, all of which follow from a larger on-chain dollar base. The growing dominance of Solana in tokenized assets, which hit a record $6Bn in Q2, compounds this dynamic: real-world asset settlement and stablecoin liquidity are co-locating on the same chain.
The regulatory context is not peripheral here. Stablecoin legislation moving through Congress, including a Crypto Clarity Act framework discussed toward a Senate vote, could create clearer rules of the road for stablecoin issuers. A clear federal standard accelerates institutional issuance and removes regulatory ambiguity that has kept some treasury desks from deploying at scale on public chains.
In other Solana news, the $15Bn supply level confirms that Solana has accumulated a dollar base large enough to sustain serious DeFi and settlement activity independent of any single issuer.
It does not confirm that this base is cycle-resistant. A meaningful portion of current stablecoin demand on Solana is memecoin-adjacent, speculative liquidity that migrates when retail attention rotates.
The non-USDC/USDT segment’s 15x growth since January 2025 is impressive, but some of that reflects specific product launches (USDGO’s February debut, USD1’s expansion) rather than purely organic demand accumulation.
The credible bear case is a memecoin cycle cooling combined with stalled stablecoin legislation, which would simultaneously slow both retail-driven USDC minting and institutional USDGO deployment.
The bull case is that institutional settlement demand, evidenced by USDGO’s trajectory and Solana’s stablecoin volume market share, provides a structural floor that persists through retail drawdowns.
Circle’s aggressive minting cadence and Anchorage Digital’s institutional positioning suggest at least one major issuer is betting on the latter.
On Tuesday, July 21, 2026, institutional capital showed sustained momentum as Bitcoin (BTC) climbed back above $66,000. This recovery, fueled by five consecutive days of net inflows into US spot ETFs, has stabilized the market after a period of volatility near the $60,000 support level. As capital flows back into the primary digital asset, market attention is shifting toward infrastructure projects capable of bridging Bitcoin’s liquidity with other major ecosystems. Among these, the LiquidChain (LIQUID) presale has secured over $914,000, approaching its $1 million target ahead of the month’s end.
On Monday, US spot Bitcoin ETFs registered a net inflow of approximately $227 million, reversing the net outflows recorded during May and June. BlackRock’s IBIT led the session with $116 million in net inflows, bringing total net assets across all US spot Bitcoin products to nearly $79 billion. This sustained buying pressure pushed Bitcoin past $66,000, with 24-hour trading volume exceeding $31 billion.
According to analyst Ted Pillows, clearing the $65,000 resistance opens the door for a near-term target of $68,000, with potential for further upward momentum.
While spot exposure remains the primary vehicle for institutional entry, Bitcoin’s price stabilization is driving interest in decentralized applications and infrastructure that expand the utility of idle BTC.
LiquidChain Targets Cross-Chain Fragmentation with Layer 3 Network
To address capital fragmentation across major networks, LiquidChain (LIQUID) is building a Layer 3 execution environment. The network aims to connect Bitcoin’s liquidity with Ethereum’s decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem and Solana’s execution speed. By leveraging a Solana-class virtual machine, trust-minimized state verification, and cross-chain proofs, the protocol enables atomic settlements without relying on traditional wrapped assets.
The native LIQUID token serves as the network’s utility asset, powering transaction fees, staking, and governance. The total supply of LIQUID is capped at 11.8 billion tokens, structured as follows:
Development: 35%
Marketing and Growth: 32.5%
Business Partnerships: 15%
Staking and Rewards: 10%
Exchange Listings: 7.5%
The ongoing presale has raised more than $914,000, with the current token price set at $0.01482. The next incremental price increase is scheduled to take effect in two days.
Presale Access and Staking Integration
Participants can access the presale via the official LiquidChain website by connecting a compatible Web3 wallet. Alternatively, the presale is integrated into the Best Wallet mobile application under its “Upcoming Tokens” section, available for download on the Apple App Store and Google Play.
The presale supports multiple payment methods, including BTC, ETH, SOL, BNB, USDT, USDC, and direct credit/debit card purchases. Upon acquiring LIQUID, participants can opt to stake their tokens immediately to access a dynamic staking yield of 1,231% APY, which will adjust as the staking pool grows.
A single Robinhood transaction just moved 200 million DOGE, and the market wants to know who’s behind it. Dogecoin trades above $0.073, holding modest daily gains. However, the real story sits beneath the surface. Open interest has climbed above $1.08 billion, while derivatives activity continues to heat up. That combination usually means volatility is at the door.
Meanwhile, traders are watching a thick liquidation cluster around $0.074. If bulls push through, short sellers could fuel a sharp squeeze. If momentum fades instead, late buyers may find themselves trapped. Either way, the next move looks unlikely to be a quiet one.
Dogecoin whales purchased another 200 million $DOGE on Robinhood.
Naturally, Elon Musk’s name has returned to the conversation. There is no evidence linking him to the transaction, and no wallet data confirms his involvement. Still, every large Dogecoin buy raises the same question. Given Musk’s history of moving DOGE with little more than a post, the rumor mill rarely needs much encouragement.
For now, the market has more questions than answers. Bitcoin’s next move could easily determine Dogecoin’s direction, while any surprise social media post could add fuel to the fire. Until the mystery buyer steps into the spotlight, traders will keep guessing. And if history has taught Dogecoin anything, sometimes the biggest rallies start with a single unexplained transfer.
Can Dogecoin Price Reclaim $0.075 and Force a Short Squeeze This Week?
DOGE is hovering near $0.074, sitting around the 50% Fibonacci retracement level. The memecoin recently reclaimed this area but still needs to confirm it as support. That makes the level worth watching.
The latest liquidation heatmap outlines the battlefield clearly. Support sits between $0.0710 and $0.0726, while resistance stretches from $0.0754 to $0.0796. The Supertrend indicator also caps the near-term upside around $0.0796. However, spot demand and on-balance volume remain soft. That mismatch often leaves leveraged longs and shorts walking on thin ice.
Dogecoin (DOGE)
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The bullish path starts with DOGE holding above $0.074. If buyers keep control, short liquidations could fuel a quick move toward $0.0755 and $0.076. Nothing goes up forever, but meme coins rarely send a calendar invite before they sprint.
The base case remains a familiar grind. DOGE could continue ranging between $0.071 and $0.074 until a fresh catalyst arrives. On the other hand, losing $0.071 would weaken the setup. That could send the price back toward $0.070 as leveraged positions unwind.
Longer term, analyst Trader Tardigrade still points to cycle targets of $0.653, $0.70, and even above $1.25. Those projections depend on another full crypto bull cycle instead of the current market structure. For now, they work better as long-range markers than actionable trading levels.
Maxi Doge Eyes Early-Stage Upside as DOGE Tests Critical Resistance
DOGE at $0.074 with a $1 billion OI overhang is a trade, not a position. The asymmetry that existed at lower prices has compressed. Even a successful squeeze to $0.076 represents roughly 4% upside from here, meaningful on leverage, limited in spot. Traders looking for a larger risk-reward multiple are scanning earlier on the curve.
Maxi Doge ($MAXI) is an ERC-20 meme token built around a trading community thesis: the 240-lb canine juggernaut persona embodies 1000x leverage culture, and the project channels that into structured community mechanics.
POV: The government trying to work out how to tax capital gains on assets that price fluctuate pic.twitter.com/MXJPJDRzzJ
The presale has raised closer to $5 million at a current price of just $0.000283, with a dynamic staking APY live for holders. Differentiating features include holder-only trading competitions with leaderboard rewards, a Maxi Fund treasury allocated to liquidity and partnerships, and meme-first marketing that leans into gym-bro culture without apology.
The White House has reached an agreement on the Clarity Act ethics provision, the main sticking point blocking a Senate floor vote, and has begun circulating deal language with Republican senators, according to Eleanor Terrett.
The agreement removes what had been the single biggest procedural overhang on the legislation, but the bill still faces a compressed timeline and a 60-vote cloture threshold.
This latest CLARITY Act development comes as the crypto market is bouncing hard, with Bitcoin leading the charge after reclaiming $66,000 on the back of a +3.5% daily move and $31.5Bn in trading volume.
NEWS: I’m hearing from multiple industry sources that the White House has agreed on an ethics package for the Clarity Act and sent the language to certain Senate Republicans this afternoon.
It’s still unclear what the details of the agreement are (I’ve reached out for…
Why the Ethics Provision Stalled the CLARITY Act Bill
The ethics provision at the center of the dispute is designed to prevent senior officials from holding or profiting from digital assets they are responsible for regulating – a structural conflict-of-interest bar that Democrats made a hard condition of their support. The political charge intensified after an Office of Government Ethics disclosure.
The White House’s negotiating position, previously articulated by crypto adviser Patrick Witt, held that any ethics language must apply uniformly rather than targeting the president or his family specifically.
A prior compromise involving state attorneys general as enforcers collapsed after Democrats rejected it as inadequate, and a Senate committee amendment from Sen. Chris Van Hollen failed 13–11 along party lines. The July 20 agreement suggests the two sides found language that threads that needle, though the specific text has not been publicly released.
The Clarity Act is built around establishing a comprehensive federal market-structure framework for digital assets, codifying key elements of US crypto market regulation. It passed the House in July 2025 and cleared the Senate Banking Committee in May 2026.
The bill still needs additional steps before a floor vote can occur. That ethics provision deadlock had driven Senate passage odds into the 40–45% range by late June.
The Senate heads into its August recess after the first week of August, leaving only a matter of weeks for the chamber to process and vote on the legislation this year.
That August deadline has been the defining constraint on the bill’s timeline since spring, and if no vote occurs before the recess, momentum likely slips into 2027. The agreement on the ethics provision is necessary to unlock floor scheduling, but it is not sufficient.
The bill still needs additional steps before a floor vote can occur. The 60-vote threshold means Democratic senators must cross, and the deal language now being shared with Republican senators will need to satisfy Democratic holdouts.
For active traders, the main implication of the passage is regulatory clarity for US exchanges, issuers, and investors. A defined federal framework can reduce legal uncertainty and encourage broader institutional adoption.
Failure carries the inverse risk: if the bill stalls again, regulatory uncertainty extends well into next year, and the political window for a comprehensive market structure bill narrows further.
The ethics agreement meaningfully shifts the probability distribution toward passage, but traders should treat the outcome as unresolved until the revised text clears and Democratic floor commitments are on record.
Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz just reminded the market why conviction is the hardest edge to hold. XRP price is trading around $1.12, up about 1% over the past 24 hours after reclaiming the $1.10 level. That move has shifted momentum back toward the bulls, making the timing of Schwartz’s admission hit a little closer to home.
In yesterday’s post on X, Schwartz confirmed he sold XRP at $0.10 and unloaded 40,000 ETH at roughly $1.05 each. Those decisions came from a risk reduction agreement with his wife, not from losing faith in either asset. As every trader eventually learns, your portfolio rarely argues with your spouse and wins.
Obviously, I wish I hadn't done those things. But I agreed with my wife to sell at every new ATH and I really, really hate risk. I wish I was more comfortable with risk, but I'm just not that person.
— David 'JoelKatz' Schwartz (@JoelKatz) July 20, 2026
“Obviously, I wish I hadn’t done those things,” Schwartz wrote. He added that he genuinely dislikes financial risk and followed a rule to sell whenever an asset reached a new all-time high. Later, he admitted that assigning even a 1% chance to Ethereum reaching $2,368 would have kept him from selling at $1.05. The same lesson applies to XRP, which has long left that $0.10 exit behind.
The irony has not gone unnoticed. XRP is climbing after reclaiming a key technical level just as Schwartz reflects on selling too early. It is a familiar reminder that timing the market sounds easy until the market starts proving you wrong. Sometimes the hardest trade is simply doing nothing.
Can XRP Price Push Toward $1.50 After Breaking $1.10 Resistance?
The current $1.12 level is now the line in the sand. Buyers pushed XRP from around $1.08 to roughly $1.12, locking in a modest daily gain. The next job is keeping that level as support, which is never automatic after weeks of heavy selling. Momentum has improved, but the market still wants proof.
Meanwhile, the daily RSI remains near oversold territory, while a TD Sequential buy signal on the three-day chart hints that bearish momentum may be fading. That points to possible trend exhaustion instead of a confirmed breakout. Sometimes the first bounce grabs attention, but the second one earns respect.
Institutional demand also remains part of the story. XRP ETPs recently attracted nearly $40 million in fresh inflows, lifting assets under management to about $2.6 billion. At the same time, spot trading volume jumped sharply during the move above $1.10, suggesting larger players were not sitting on the sidelines.
Xrp (XRP)
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Three scenarios remain in play. The bullish case sees $1.12 holding as support before XRP clears price resistance around $1.18. If buyers keep pressing, a sustained move above $1.20 could expose the $1.30 to $1.35 region next. One green candle is nice. A few more are what pay the bills.
The base case is a period of consolidation between $1.10 and $1.18 while the market confirms that selling pressure has eased. However, a daily close below $1.10 would shift attention back to the $1.04 to $1.08 support zone. The late session volume surge showed buyers arrived with conviction, but one good session alone does not make a lasting trend.
Bitcoin Hyper Targets Early-Stage Entry as XRP Tests Critical Levels
XRP at $1.13 is a better position than Schwartz’s $0.10 exit, but at a $70 billion+ market cap, the asymmetry available at genuine early stages simply isn’t there anymore. That’s the structural trade-off every trader running rotational strategies weighs when an asset reclaims resistance rather than breaks into discovery.
The question isn’t whether XRP can go higher; it’s whether the risk-reward at current prices matches what early participants captured.
Bitcoin Hyper is positioning itself in a different part of the risk spectrum entirely. The project is building the first Bitcoin Layer 2 with full SVM integration, meaning Solana Virtual Machine-grade smart contract execution anchored to Bitcoin’s security model, targeting performance that competes with Solana’s throughput while preserving BTC’s trust layer.
The presale has raised $32.9 million at a current token price of $0.0136834, with a staking program live for participants. That combination of infrastructure utility and early pricing is the setup Schwartz described missing, except it’s available now, not in retrospect.
In Ethereum news today, spot ETFs recorded $105M in net inflows during the week of July 13–17, 2026, the strongest weekly figure since April and a measurable acceleration from the prior week’s $84M.
The two consecutive positive weeks end an eight-week outflow streak, raising the direct question of whether this is a durable institutional re-engagement or a short-term technical bounce that will stall at the first sign of ETH price weakness.
Flow-tracking platforms CoinGlass and Farside Investors both confirm the reversal, with data showing renewed net creations across the Ethereum ETF complex after two months of persistent redemptions.
The prior week’s $84M was itself notable as the streak-breaker; the follow-through to $105M adds weight to the argument that the reversal has legs rather than being a single-week anomaly.
Ethereum News: BlackRock’s ETHA Is Carrying the Category
According to SoSoValue data, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded total net inflows of USD 108 million on July 15, with BlackRock’s IBIT posting the largest single-day inflow at USD 80.82 million. Spot Ethereum ETFs drew USD 53.83 million, led by BlackRock’s ETHA with USD 45.29… pic.twitter.com/4YrMd19EDs
BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust, trading under the ticker ETHA, has consistently accounted for the majority of daily net positive flows across the entire Ethereum ETF landscape. On July 15 alone, in a single session during the reported week, ETHA captured a substantial share of the day’s $53.83M in complex-wide inflows, according to data from BingX.
The concentration dynamic cuts both ways. ETHA’s brand, distribution reach, and institutional trust give it a structural pull that smaller issuers cannot easily replicate, which explains why BlackRock’s ETF inflows have driven ETH price action more than any other single product in the category.
But it also means the health of the entire spot ETF complex is effectively contingent on one fund; if ETHA flows stall or reverse, the broader category tips back into net outflow territory almost immediately.
As of mid-July, cumulative complex-wide net inflows across nine issuers since the category launched in July 2024 totaled approximately $11.07Bn, with total net asset value near $10.4Bn, per BingX data. ETHA’s own cumulative net inflow reached $11.28Bn.
ETH Price at $1,845: The $1,800 Level Is the Key Variable
$ETH $1750 remains the key area to hold for the bulls.
This marked the February low but also marked the higher low & market structure shift back in 2025 before the large rally.
ETH price traded at approximately $1,845 during the inflow week, with the $1,800–$1,900 range serving as a critical demand zone. Buyers have consistently stepped in near the lower end of that band, and the structural logic is straightforward.
Sustained spot ETF inflows create a mechanical bid, because each new creation requires the fund to purchase actual ETH to back its shares. At $80–105M in weekly inflows, this represents consistent buy pressure absent during the eight-week redemption period.
The $1,800 level is therefore not just a technical support reading; it is partially a function of ETF flow dynamics. A breakdown below that zone would likely signal either a sharp deceleration in institutional demand or net outflow resumption, both of which would remove the mechanical bid that has been supporting prices.
The inverse is also true: sustained weekly inflows in the $80–105M range provide a floor that did not exist during the prior two-month drawdown.
Institutional Crypto Momentum and What the Data Confirms and What It Doesn’t
In other Ethereum news, the $105M weekly figure is the best since April, but it remains modest compared with the peaks the category reached during more euphoric periods in 2024 and early 2025. Calling this an institutional comeback is accurate as a directional statement; framing it as a full-scale rotation back into institutional crypto ETF allocation requires more evidence. Two consecutive positive weeks after a prolonged outflow streak is a reversal, not yet a trend.
What the data does confirm is that institutional interest in Ethereum as a strategic portfolio asset has not evaporated, despite two months of redemptions suggesting otherwise. The speed of the reversal, from outflow-heavy weeks to back-to-back inflow weeks accelerating from $84M to $105M, indicates that allocators were watching specific price and macro conditions before re-engaging, rather than abandoning the category entirely.
For context on how Ethereum’s ETF recovery compares to the broader spot ETF landscape, XRP ETF flows have shown a different pattern, which underlines that the current Ethereum inflow momentum is asset-specific rather than a broad crypto ETF tide lifting all products.
The forward scenario is binary and relatively clean. If ETHA sustains its pace of flow through late July and ETH holds the $1,800 support zone, the two-week reversal will validate the start of a genuine institutional re-accumulation phase.
If flows decelerate sharply or ETHA specifically turns negative, the outflow streak resumes and the $1,800 floor loses its structural underpinning. The next two weeks of weekly flow data from CoinGlass and Farside Investors will settle that question more definitively than any price chart reading alone.
Polymarket traders have cut the odds of the CLARITY Act becoming law in 2026 to 37% today. The prediction market has turned more cautious as Senate negotiations remain deadlocked over ethics provisions tied to President Donald Trump’s crypto business interests. Although the House has passed the bill and the Senate Banking Committee approved it, the legislation has yet to receive a Senate floor vote.
The delay has fueled concerns that the bill could miss its best opportunity before lawmakers leave Washington for the August recess. Every week without progress leaves fewer legislative days on the calendar. As a result, traders have become increasingly skeptical that the legislation can clear the Senate this year.
The biggest obstacle is no longer the bill’s market structure framework. Instead, negotiations have centered on an ethics amendment. Senate Democrats, led by Elizabeth Warren, want enforceable restrictions preventing senior government officials, including the president, from financially benefiting from the digital asset industry they oversee.
Republicans have resisted language aimed specifically at the president’s crypto interests. They argue such provisions could undermine bipartisan support for the broader legislation. Without a compromise, Democrats have shown little willingness to provide the votes Republicans need to advance the bill.
The debate intensified after Trump’s latest annual financial disclosure revealed roughly $1.4 billion in crypto-related income. The filing included about $594 million connected to World Liberty Financial. It also reported approximately $635 million tied to the TRUMP meme coin venture.
Democrats argue that those financial interests create an obvious conflict if the president signs legislation affecting the same industry. They contend that ethics protections should accompany any market structure reforms. The disclosure has therefore become the central issue in Senate negotiations rather than a secondary political dispute.
The Senate math leaves little room for error. Most legislation requires 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, meaning Republicans cannot pass the CLARITY Act on their own. They must secure support from several Democrats to move the bill forward.
Several Democrats who previously appeared open to supporting the legislation now insist on enforceable ethics safeguards before committing their votes. Until bipartisan negotiators bridge that gap, the bill is expected to remain in procedural limbo despite continued backing from much of the crypto industry.
Time has also become a growing concern. Senate leaders have only a limited number of legislative days before the August recess. Appropriations bills, nominations, and other priorities continue competing for valuable floor time.
If the CLARITY Act misses that window, its path could become even more difficult later this year. Congress will soon shift its focus toward government funding deadlines and other legislative priorities. Supporters acknowledge that every delay increases the political challenge.
For now, Polymarket traders appear to be pricing in uncertainty rather than outright failure. The odds could improve if lawmakers reach a bipartisan agreement on ethics language or if Senate leaders schedule a floor vote. Until then, the CLARITY Act remains stalled, and its path to becoming law remains uncertain.
In Bitcoin news today, Michael Saylor, co-founder of Strategy and the largest publicly listed corporate BTC holder, has gone on record opposing BIP-110, the proposed one-year soft fork that would restrict non-financial data storage on the Bitcoin blockchain, arguing that the proposed cure carries more systemic risk than the condition it targets.
His critique, posted to X and covered by the Bitcoin Foundation on July 11, frames the entire debate not as a spam-management question but as a Bitcoin governance question: who decides what constitutes a valid transaction, and what happens once that line is drawn within the protocol.
Many Bitcoiners I respect support BIP 110. I understand and share their desire to protect Bitcoin, but believe the proposed cure is more dangerous than the condition. Here are 110 reasons why Bitcoin needs guardians of neutrality. https://t.co/hOAqfAgC58
That framing cuts directly to the precedent problem. As Saylor stated in his X post, “He wrote: “BIP 110 turns a spam dispute into a consensus change that would invalidate some currently valid, fee-paying transactions.
That precedent is the danger.” The concern is not specifically about Ordinals or blockchain spam today; it is about what the protocol becomes the moment it starts filtering transactions by perceived intent rather than fee payment and cryptographic validity.
Bitcoin News: The Miner Threshold is the Flashpoint
Saylor Pushes Back Against Bitcoin Soft Fork Plan
Michael Saylor (@saylor) has urged the Bitcoin $BTC community to reject BIP 110, a proposed software update that would temporarily limit certain data stored on the blockchain.
BIP-110’s activation mechanics have drawn as much fire as its content. The proposal would lock in if miners signal support in at least 55% of blocks during a 2,016-block period – well below the 95% threshold that has historically governed permanent consensus changes in Bitcoin.
Saylor has flagged this reduction as a structural risk, warning it could produce a network split and sustained market uncertainty at a moment when no such disruption is justified by the underlying threat.
The current miner signaling picture gives that warning context: as of July 13, support stood at approximately 1.3%, per the public BIP-110 signaling monitor at bip110.org. The voluntary signaling deadline falls around block 961,542 in August.
A 55% threshold is aggressive by any historical standard in Bitcoin governance; at 1.3% support, it is also currently unreachable, but the threshold itself remains a live governance concern regardless of the present signal count.
The technical scope of the proposal is sweeping for a supposedly temporary measure. BIP-110 would restore a tighter limit on OP_RETURN outputs, restrict larger data uploads, and reject blocks containing transactions that are valid under Bitcoin’s current rules.
Nodes adopting BIP-110 would, in effect, enforce a narrower definition of which transactions are acceptable than non-adopting nodes, a split scenario Saylor is flagging.
Saylor’s deeper argument is that Bitcoin neutrality is not a soft preference; it is a structural property the network cannot afford to compromise.
With this Bitcoin news drop, the proposal reframes the change to consensus rules to fight spam as a decision about which valid, fee-paying transactions the network should accept, raising concerns about embedding judgment in the protocol.
The chilling-effect logic follows directly. If consensus rules can be modified to exclude data storage when a segment of the community labels it as spam, the same mechanism is available for other categories that would raise similar concerns.
The institutional investors who have followed Strategy’s lead and the broader wave of corporate treasury adoption across the Bitcoin corporate treasury space are implicitly betting on protocol stability. A governance mechanism that can exclude valid use cases introduces a risk category unrelated to price or macro.
There is also a direct fee-revenue argument. Suppressing on-chain use cases, whatever their aesthetic merit, can affect the demand for transaction fees.
Saylor’s position is that market-based fees and individual relay policies are the correct instruments for managing unwanted data traffic, because they operate without altering consensus and can be reversed or adjusted without a network-wide coordination event.
In other Bitcoin news, Saylor is not the only prominent voice pushing back. Other long-standing Bitcoin contributors have also publicly opposed BIP-110. The debate has surfaced a wider tension in Bitcoin governance over who holds effective veto power: miners, developers, node operators, or major holders, and whether a 55% miner threshold is a legitimate activation path for changes of this scope.
With miner support effectively at zero six weeks before the August deadline and no clear institutional momentum building behind the proposal, BIP-110 may be difficult to push through under the required 55% signaling threshold. But the governance argument Saylor is making does not expire with this particular proposal.
The question of whether Bitcoin’s consensus layer should ever be used to discriminate between transaction types, and who gets to make that call, is now squarely on the table. Institutional players have a direct stake in how that question gets answered.
Strategy holds approximately 843,775 BTC. His argument is not philosophical posturing. It is a position from the largest corporate Bitcoin balance sheet in existence, and it lands squarely on the side of preserving the protocol’s neutrality.
XRP is trading around $1.09 with little price change over the past 24 hours, but the prediction worth watching is not from the chart. It is in the premium spread. Korean exchanges are discounting Bitcoin more heavily than XRP, a subtle but telling divergence. When Korean traders hold one coin tighter, it often hints at stronger local conviction. That gap could matter more than the next flashy candle.
Over the past 48 hours, crypto markets have been trapped in a narrow range. Bitcoin hovers around the mid $64,000 area, while Asian altcoin activity has remained surprisingly lively despite the lack of a clear trend. South Korean exchanges, long known for driving retail momentum, continue showing stronger relative demand for XRP than for Bitcoin.
Meanwhile, macro events still call the tune. Inflation data and central bank comments remain the biggest catalysts for risk appetite across crypto. Even so, XRP has managed to defend the $1.05 area, keeping the current structure intact. That gives bulls something to work with, even if nobody is popping champagne yet.
The technical setup remains tight. The next resistance test should reveal whether the Korean bid is an early clue or just another market quirk. Either way, conviction usually shows up before the fireworks, not after.
XRP Price Prediction: Can it Push Toward $1.30 on Korean-Driven Volume?
XRP is trading around $1.09, posting a modest weekly gain of about 1%. That is constructive, although nobody would call it a sprint. Its market capitalization sits near $68 billion, backed by roughly 62.4 billion circulating tokens. Trading volume remains fairly subdued, which is the honest catch. The Korean premium reflects positioning, not a volume-fueled breakout.
The chart still favors patience, as the $1.05 area has repeatedly attracted buyers, gradually building a solid base instead of a reversal. Meanwhile, resistance sits around $1.13, with a stronger ceiling between $1.20 and $1.30. Price action continues to hover just above $1.09, leaving momentum balanced rather than committed.
Xrp (XRP)
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The bull case is straightforward. Korean demand strengthens, fresh regulatory headlines improve sentiment, and XRP clears $1.13 before challenging the $1.20 to $1.30 zone. If momentum traders join the move, that ceiling could finally crack. Markets rarely send engraved invitations, so the first breakout often feels awkward.
The base case remains a sideways grind between roughly $1.05 and $1.13 as traders wait for macro data. The bear case appears if Bitcoin stumbles on a hawkish surprise and XRP loses the $1.05 support zone. That would weaken the current base and delay any breakout story. XRP’s all-time high near $3.84 remains the long-term benchmark, but reaching it would require a very different market backdrop.
LiquidChain Targets Early-Mover Positioning as XRP Tests Key Levels
XRP consolidating at $1.09 with a $68 billion market cap means the upside math is real but not dramatic at the current entry. A move to $1.30 is a 19% gain, worthwhile, but it requires macro tailwinds, regulatory news, and sustained Korean volume all cooperating simultaneously.
As of today, traders looking for asymmetric exposure in the current cycle are increasingly scanning early-stage infrastructure plays where the entry price reflects genuine risk, not institutional markup.
LiquidChain ($LIQUID) is an L3 infrastructure project positioning as a cross-chain liquidity layer. Its core proposition is the fusion of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana liquidity into a single execution environment.
The architecture includes a Unified Liquidity Layer, Single-Step Execution, Verifiable Settlement, and a Deploy-Once model for developers (one build, full ecosystem access). The presale is currently priced at $0.01481, with $910K raised to date.
The infrastructure thesis of solving cross-chain fragmentation rather than adding another chain is a credible problem statement at a stage where price reflects early positioning rather than market validation. Research LiquidChain here if the L3 infrastructure angle fits your current thesis.
Zcash’s Orchard implementation has increased interest in how users move between different privacy-focused assets, including swaps between Zcash and Monero. For those not familiar with Orchard, this is Zcash’s third-generation shielded pool, which is built to replace older privacy systems with stronger efficiency and more modern cryptography.
It uses the Halo 2 proving system, Pallas-based keys, and unified addresses. All of these make private transactions and address handling simpler and more flexible than Sapling.
Orchard is created to hide sender, recipient, and amount for shielded ZEC transfers while keeping the protocol auditable at the network level.
Privacy coins are facing increased regulatory scrutiny and exchange delistings, so many crypto traders are rotating between assets like BTC to XMR, ETH to XMR, ZEC to XMR, or XMR to ZEC depending on exchange listings, wallet support, regulatory developments, privacy preferences, and ecosystem changes.
The ZEC to XMR pair is at the intersection of two very different privacy philosophies. And it can be done in just one step using GhostSwap.
Zcash vs. Monero: What’s the Difference?
Both Zcash and Monero are privacy-focused cryptos, yet they use fundamentally different approaches to protecting user privacy.
Zcash: Optional Privacy
Zcash offers privacy through zk-SNARKs, shielded addresses, and zero-knowledge proofs. The key characteristic is that privacy is optional; Zcash supports both transparent transactions and shielded transactions, and users choose which they use.
This flexibility has trade-offs. Researchers have repeatedly noted that anonymity depends partly on adoption of shielded transactions. Users can accidentally transact transparently, and privacy depends on usage patterns. Historical research has found shielded adoption lower than ideal for maximum anonymity.
However, Zcash also offers advantages: very advanced cryptography, relatively small transaction sizes, selective disclosure capabilities, and regulatory flexibility due to the transparent option.
Monero: Privacy by Default
Monero takes the opposite strategy. Privacy is not optional. Every transaction uses ring signatures, stealth addresses, and RingCT by default. There’s no “transparent mode”; every transaction is private automatically.
This mandatory privacy provides benefits: strong fungibility, no need to think about address types, shielding funds, or privacy settings. Monero supporters often argue that every XMR is effectively identical, whereas coins on transparent chains may carry transaction history.
However, Monero’s mandatory privacy comes with trade-offs: larger transaction sizes, more limited exchange support, and more regulatory scrutiny globally.
How to Swap ZEC to XMR Using GhostSwap
GhostSwap makes sure you can swap Zcash to Monero extremely easily. The platform supports both Zcash (ZEC) and Monero (XMR) as primary assets, and the ZEC to XMR page follows the same workflow as GhostSwap’s other pair pages.
Core user flow:
Select ZEC as the asset being sent
Select XMR as the asset being received
Enter a Monero wallet address (the destination for your XMR)
Optionally enter a refund address (recommended)
Send ZEC to a temporary deposit address
Receive XMR after confirmations
The platform markets this as:
No account creation
No email
No KYC for standard swaps
Non-custodial swap process
Cross-chain conversion
Typically completed in minutes depending on network conditions
The swap requires only an XMR destination address and a recommended refund address. No name, email, phone number, or identity documents are requested during the normal flow.
GhostSwap states most privacy-coin swaps finish within roughly 5–30 minutes overall as this depends on source-chain confirmations and congestion.
The user sends funds from their wallet, funds go to a temporary swap address, conversion occurs, and the output asset is sent to the user’s destination wallet.
GhostSwap’s Fees, Timing, and What to Expect
GhostSwap charges a flat 2% fee built into the quoted exchange rate. Users see this fee upfront as part of the exchange rate and the final receive amount. Standard blockchain network fees (Zcash and Monero transaction fees) are extra and come from the user’s wallet.
It’s important to understand that a ZEC to XMR swap is not instant. Completion depends on:
Zcash confirmations (network conditions)
Swap processing by GhostSwap’s engine
Monero confirmations (the XMR network)
Once the Zcash network confirms the deposit, GhostSwap’s backend automatically executes the swap across its liquidity sources and sends the Monero directly to the provided destination address.
Is GhostSwap Legit
GhostSwap is a non-custodial swap platform that has processed over $750 million in swaps for approximately 1.5 million users. The company is registered as a Delaware LLC and operates as an anonymous crypto exchange prioritizing user privacy and simplicity.
Signs of legitimacy:
Public website and extensive documentation
Transparent swap process with upfront fees
Published API with clear documentation
Functional Telegram bot
Operational history spanning years
User-facing support channels
GhostSwap never takes long-term custody of user funds. Each swap uses a temporary deposit address, and funds are routed directly to the user’s destination wallet. No pooled account is ever held on GhostSwap, avoiding many hacking risks associated with centralized exchanges.
Even though GhostSwap advertises no account and no KYC for standard swaps, users should still read the terms because compliance screening may occur through underlying partners. The platform explicitly works with licensed crypto processing partners to handle AML/sanctions screening. If a swap is flagged (e.g., for high value or hitting a blacklist), GhostSwap reserves the right to block, reject, or refund it.
Important points:
No-KYC ≠ No Compliance: GhostSwap advertises no account and no KYC for standard swaps. However, users should still read the terms because compliance screening may occur through underlying partners.
Monero Doesn’t Erase History: A common misconception: swapping ZEC into XMR does not magically erase the history of the ZEC transaction. The ZEC side still exists on the Zcash blockchain. The Monero side simply enters a different privacy model after conversion.
Network Confirmation Times Matter: A ZEC to XMR swap is not instant. Completion depends on Zcash confirmations, swap processing, and Monero confirmations.
The final conclusion
Swapping Zcash to Monero has become pretty relevant as the privacy-coin landscape evolves. Whether you prefer Zcash’s optional privacy model with its advanced cryptography and regulatory flexibility, or Monero’s mandatory privacy with strong fungibility and simplicity, GhostSwap provides a non-custodial, no-KYC bridge between the two ecosystems.
The platform’s support for both ZEC and XMR, combined with its public API, Telegram bot, and transparent 2% fee structure, makes it a practical option for users looking to rotate between privacy assets without creating exchange accounts or submitting to KYC processes.
Frequently Asked Question
Does GhostSwap require KYC to swap ZEC to XMR?
No. GhostSwap does not require identity documents, name, address, or phone number for standard swaps. Compliance checks are handled behind the scenes by partners and may occasionally flag transactions.
How long does a ZEC to XMR swap take on GhostSwap?
Most privacy-coin swaps complete within 5–30 minutes, depending on Zcash confirmation times, network congestion, and Monero confirmations.
What is the fee for swapping ZEC to XMR?
GhostSwap charges a flat 2% fee built into the quoted exchange rate. Users also pay standard blockchain network fees (Zcash and Monero transaction fees).
Is GhostSwap custodial or non-custodial?
Non-custodial. GhostSwap never takes long-term custody of user funds. Each swap uses a temporary deposit address, and funds are routed directly to the user’s destination wallet.
Does GhostSwap support Zcash and Monero?
Yes. GhostSwap supports both Zcash (ZEC) and Monero (XMR) as primary assets, with pairs like ZEC to XMR and XMR to ZEC available.
XRP price prediction remains in focus as it trades between $1.08 and $1.10. The chart still gives bulls little to celebrate. Price remains below the 50, 100, and 200-day EMAs between $1.15 and $1.16, $1.24 and $1.25, and $1.45 and $1.46. That leaves the $1.00 to $1.02 zone as the key support that traders keep watching.
The latest inflation data briefly lifted risk appetite across financial markets. However, XRP barely flinched. While stocks welcomed the softer backdrop, XRP continued to drift as traders stayed on the sidelines. Sometimes the market hears good news and simply shrugs.
Open interest in perpetual futures has continued to fade, reflecting weaker speculative demand. ETF inflows have also slowed, while assets under management remain below $900 million to $1 billion. Retail participation has yet to return in meaningful numbers, leaving momentum without much fuel.
Even so, momentum remains neutral rather than outright bearish. The daily RSI sits between 44 and 46, suggesting neither buyers nor sellers have full control. That shifts the focus away from breakout dreams. Instead, traders are asking whether XRP can defend the psychologically important $1.00 to $1.02 area before sellers push for another leg lower.
XRP Price Prediction: Hold $1.00 Support This Week?
XRP is trading between $1.08 and $1.10, while 24-hour volume sits between $1.0 billion and $1.1 billion. Activity remains healthy, but volume still lacks the punch that usually confirms a trend. Meanwhile, the failed defense of the $1.10 to $1.11 zone remains the technical headline. That area briefly acted as support, but losing it puts buyers back on the spot.
The EMA stack still leans against a quick recovery. The 20, 50, and 200-day EMAs continue capping upside attempts. As a result, every bounce runs into overhead supply almost immediately. Sellers are not running away with the market, but they are still calling the tune.
Xrp (XRP)
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The bullish path remains straightforward. Buyers need to defend the $1.08 to $1.10 range and reclaim $1.15 to $1.17 with convincing volume. Fresh optimism around regulation could also help, although the price still needs to prove it. Hope is cheap, but breakouts usually demand cash.
The base case is still a sideways grind between $1.08 and $1.16. However, if $1.10 to $1.11 turns into firm resistance again, attention shifts toward $1.02 to $1.04. A break there would put the $0.99 to $1.00 area back in focus, where traders often become far more emotional than technical.
The RSI around 51 to 53 reflects neutral momentum rather than a decisive edge for either side. In that environment, patience often beats prediction. Longer-term models still lean constructive, yet short-term traders are likely watching whether the $1.00 mark survives before dreaming about the next rally.
Bitcoin Hyper Targets Early Mover Upside as XRP Tests Key Levels
When a large-cap asset like XRP is grinding below every meaningful moving average with weakening institutional flows, the risk-adjusted case for holding it starts to compete with the opportunity cost of sitting in something earlier in its curve. That’s the rotation trade some active traders are running right now. They are not abandoning crypto, but moving capital where asymmetry is higher.
Bitcoin Hyper ($HYPER) is currently in presale at $0.0136832, having raised $32.9 million to date. The project’s core pitch is infrastructure, not hype: it’s positioning as the first Bitcoin Layer 2 with Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) integration, with sub-Solana latency on a chain secured by Bitcoin’s trust model.
The presale includes staking with a high APY, and the feature set covers a decentralized canonical bridge for BTC transfers alongside low-cost smart contract execution.
Research Bitcoin Hyper at the presale page before the current pricing stage closes.
The CLARITY Act, the bill that would define whether digital assets fall under SEC or CFTC jurisdiction, has two remaining floor windows before the August recess: the weeks of July 20 and July 27.
Miss both, and Senator Lummis has warned that market structure legislation could slip to 2030 or die entirely at the end of the 119th Congress in January 2027, forcing a full restart.
That is not a political projection, it is the structural consequence of a Senate calendar that leaves roughly three weeks of productive session after September before lawmakers enter full midterm campaign mode.
One year after Washington’s Crypto Week, the scorecard is uneven. The GENIUS Act became law on July 18, 2025, establishing the first federal framework for payment stablecoins.
BREAKING:
SEN. LUMMIS SAYS THE CLARITY ACT WILL BE INTRODUCED WITHIN DAYS AFTER 10 MONTHS OF WORK
SENATE VOTE IS NOW TARGETED FOR THE WEEK OF JULY 20
An anti-CBDC provision eventually passed inside the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, becoming law automatically on July 10, the House voted 358–32, the Senate 85–5, margins that made Trump’s refusal to sign irrelevant.
The CLARITY Act, which passed the House 294–134 on July 17, 2025, cleared the Senate Banking Committee 15–9 on May 14, 2026, and has sat on the Senate Legislative Calendar since June 1 with no floor vote scheduled.
The distinction between GENIUS and CLARITY matters here. GENIUS governed one product. CLARITY governs the entire market. It answers the classification question that determines everything downstream: whether a given digital asset falls under SEC jurisdiction as a security or CFTC jurisdiction as a commodity.
Registration, custody, listing decisions, and disclosure posture all flow from that single determination. Without a statutory answer, the question gets resolved by whichever agency sues first, or whichever party holds the White House.
Senate leadership needs 60 votes. The Republican coalition is already fractured. Senators Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) were the only two Republicans to vote against the GENIUS Act; per Galaxy Digital analyst Alex Thorn, both are expected to oppose CLARITY as well.
Senator McConnell has missed votes due to an ongoing medical issue, and the death of Senator Lindsey Graham at 71 further narrows an already thin Republican majority. By Thorn’s calculation, leadership may need as many as nine Democratic crossovers to reach the threshold.
Photo: Senator McConnell
Those crossovers are not secured. Senators Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) voted yes in committee but explicitly characterized those votes as conditional, not floor commitments.
Polymarket’s current passage odds in 2026 are approximately 34% and falling.
The first and most visible obstacle is ethics. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote to Majority Leader John Thune and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on July 13, demanding guardrails preventing senior officials and members of Congress from profiting off the crypto industry.
The letter cited approximately $1.4 billion in crypto-related income disclosed in the president’s 2025 financial filing. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) has made enforceable ethics language covering officials’ crypto holdings a prerequisite for her support. The merged draft from the Banking and Agriculture committees omits ethics provisions entirely.
A compromise floated by Senator Lummis would allow state attorneys general to sue exchanges that list tokens issued by public officials in violation of the act – but Senate Republicans are unlikely to advance any ethics language the White House actively opposes. For a detailed breakdown of this standoff, see the ethics dispute driving the CLARITY Act delay.
The CLARITY Act is in trouble.
And it all comes to ethics provisions.
The newest text of the bill that was released has ZERO dem support – and they need 60 votes.
Apparently, the plan presented to Trump was different to what dems had agreed.
The second dispute centers on law enforcement. The National District Attorneys Association argued to Senate leadership that Section 604, the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act provision, would materially impair criminal investigations by shielding non-custodial software developers from money transmitter obligations.
Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) countered that developers who never control customer funds should not be classified as money transmitters for publishing code. Senators Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) have tied their votes directly to law enforcement’s sign-off.
Third: banking trade groups, including the ABA and ICBA, argue the bill creates a stablecoin yield loophole allowing digital asset platforms to offer interest-equivalent rewards that circumvent the GENIUS Act’s prohibition on issuer-paid interest.
The Independent Community Bankers of America has questioned the bill’s pace entirely. Fourth, and structurally acute: the CFTC has operated with a single commissioner, and the SEC has two vacancies. Rules issued by a lone CFTC commissioner could invite legal challenge and keep jurisdictional uncertainty alive. Senator Amy Klobuchar has proposed blocking the framework from taking effect until at least four CFTC commissioners are confirmed.
In the latest Cardano News, Cardano is trading at $0.158, down 1.39% on July 17, while derivatives traders push the long-to-short ratio to 0.58 and open interest climbs 4% to $421 million in the 48 hours before the Van Rossem hard fork activates.
The structural tension is sharp: the same wallets flooding short books are being offset by whale accumulation that has reached its highest level since 2023, creating a setup where the next directional move is likely to be violent in whichever direction it resolves.
Cardano News: Van Rossem Governance Approval Sets July 18 Activation
The Van Rossem hard fork cleared governance on July 13, ratified by SPOs and DReps, with activation scheduled for July 18 at 21:44:51 UTC at Slot 192,844,800.
Intersect has urged all infrastructure providers to update their software before the network crosses the hard fork boundary, a standard precaution, but one that signals the upgrade is proceeding on schedule without last-minute complications.
Van Rossem just got ratified! Cardano’s next big upgrade goes live July 18th at 21:45 UTC, making smart contracts faster and cheaper. Big step for eUTXO.
According to some news, the upgrade is expected to lower execution costs on Cardano, making transactions and dApp operations materially cheaper to run.
More consequentially for medium-term traders, Van Rossem lays the technical groundwork for Leios, a later scaling upgrade targeting a dramatic increase in transaction throughput before the end of 2026.
That roadmap context matters: this fork is not a standalone event but a dependency in a longer delivery chain, which is part of why whale positioning ahead of it carries more weight than typical upgrade speculation.
$0.160 and $0.170 Are the Levels That Decide the Next Move
The CoinGlass three-day liquidation heatmap places the nearest dense liquidity pool between $0.160 and $0.165, sitting directly above ADA’s current market price.
A larger concentration appears around $0.167, closely matching the Murrey Math resistance at $0.1709 visible on the daily TradingView chart.
These two clusters define the near-term binary: a drop through $0.160 triggers long liquidations and opens a path toward the $0.1465 Murrey Math support; a break above $0.170 forces short sellers to close positions and hands momentum to the recovery attempt as Van Rossem goes live.
The 4-hour chart shows ADA has crossed above a descending trendline drawn from its early-July peak near $0.195, but the move failed to produce a sustained rally.
The RSI on the 4-hour sits at 46.92, below its moving average of 50.95, bearish-neutral territory, not oversold. That reading matters because it means there is no technical floor from extreme pessimism; price is simply drifting, waiting for a catalyst to define direction.
The predecessor to Van Rossem, the Vasil hard fork in September 2022, improved Cardano’s smart-contract efficiency and block utilization.
Van Rossem’s mandate is different, cost reduction and Leios preparation, but the governance process that delivered it, now running through Intersect with formal DRep and SPO ratification, represents a more mature and transparent upgrade mechanism than Cardano operated in 2022.
Whether that institutional credibility translates into sustained buying pressure post-fork, or whether short sellers use any pop to add to positions, is the question traders need an answer to before the July 18 activation window closes.
The liquidation heatmap at $0.167 is the cleanest signal: a daily close above that level removes the ambiguity. For context on how derivatives positioning and institutional vs. retail behavior interact during catalyst events, the pattern is consistent across major crypto assets; the side that controls spot supply usually wins the futures battle by attrition.
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LATEST: Sen. Gillbrand is facing tremendous blacklash from progressives over CLARITY Act ethics rules, per Axios.
