Bernstein just raised its price target on Robinhood stock to $160, and the key driver is not crypto trading volume. Instead, the firm sees long-term value in Robinhood’s blockchain infrastructure. Robinhood Wrapped ETH on Robinhood Chain has gained about 2% over the past week, while daily trading volume sits near $44 million. Those numbers suggest the network is attracting steady activity rather than short-lived hype.

Ethereum (ETH)

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Bernstein analysts, led by Gautam Chhugani, lifted their HOOD target from $130 to $160, based on a 2028 EPS estimate of $4.56 and a 35x forward P/E multiple. The firm expects prediction markets, perpetual futures, and Robinhood Chain to generate 18% of total revenue by 2027, rising to 23% in 2028. Prediction markets alone could contribute $1.7 billion by 2028.

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Robinhood, The Stock Platform Juggernaut

Robinhood’s second-quarter earnings arrive on July 29, and Bernstein expects new businesses to soften any slowdown in crypto trading revenue. That fits a growing trend across the market. Investors increasingly reward companies building the rails for digital assets instead of simply benefiting from speculative token rallies. Building the highway often pays better than collecting tolls during rush hour.

Robinhood Chain could also benefit the crypto market beyond its own ecosystem. More Layer 2 infrastructure gives users cheaper transactions and faster settlement while helping Ethereum scale. As more developers deploy applications and liquidity spreads across new networks, on-chain activity becomes easier to access for retail users. Fresh competition rarely hurts innovation, especially in crypto.

For traders, the takeaway is simple. Robinhood Chain appears to be gaining real usage, and that matters more than any single token’s price action. If network adoption keeps climbing, it could strengthen Ethereum’s ecosystem and encourage more capital to flow into decentralized finance. In crypto, the flashiest coin grabs headlines, but the strongest infrastructure often wins the longest race.

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LiquidChain Targets Cross-Chain Infrastructure as HOOD Token Tests Lows

The Robinhood Chain story is a reminder that chain-level infrastructure can capture value before native tokens catch up. That gap is exactly where early-stage infrastructure finds its pitch. Investors rotating out of speculative token exposure are increasingly looking at what’s being built at the execution layer.

LiquidChain is positioning as a Layer 3 infrastructure project with a specific structural thesis: fuse Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana liquidity into a single execution environment. The USP is architectural with a Unified Liquidity Layer with Single-Step Execution, Verifiable Settlement, and a Deploy-Once framework that lets developers access all three ecosystems without rebuilding for each chain.

The presale is live at $0.01482 per $LIQUID, with $915K raised to date. As covered in earlier presale reporting, the project is approaching the $1M milestone.

Research LiquidChain here before sizing any position.

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Tom Zschach, who spent six years as SWIFT’s Chief Innovation Officer before recently leaving the company, pushed back against fresh Ripple rumors with a two-word reply on X: “Not happening.” That short response landed because he led SWIFT’s digital asset strategy, giving him firsthand knowledge of what the network was actually building.

The comments followed claims from several XRP influencer accounts that SWIFT planned to support public tokens like XRP instead of developing its own infrastructure. The posts quickly spread across social media, but none included an official statement or supporting document. That’s a little like citing “trust me, bro” as a source.

One widely shared post even claimed SWIFT had said it had no intention of competing with XRP and would instead collaborate with it. However, no official SWIFT announcement, press release, or public document contains that wording. The claim appears to have circulated without any verifiable evidence.

Zschach’s response effectively shut down the rumor before it gathered more steam. While SWIFT continues testing blockchain based settlement and tokenized asset infrastructure, there is still no indication the network plans to integrate XRP or endorse the token for its core services.

Zschach’s response left no interpretive room. The crypto rumor collapsed against a two-word rebuttal from the person who ran SWIFT’s digital asset function for half a decade – a cleaner debunk than any lengthy rebuttal could achieve.

This is the same pattern that has repeated across several years: a SWIFT executive or technical document references tokenization or interoperability, XRP communities interpret it as implicit adoption, influencer accounts amplify the interpretation as fact, and a correction follows. The XRP debunk cycle is well-worn at this point, but Zschach’s direct involvement gives this iteration unusual authority.

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Zschach’s Track Record on Ripple

The former SWIFT CIO’s rejection of XRP’s institutional narrative is not new. Zschach has previously compared Ripple technology to a “fax machine” in the modern internet era, and argued that Ripple surviving its long-running SEC lawsuit does not constitute actual institutional resilience.

After a three-decade career spanning Bank of America, Barclays, and Lehman Brothers, Zschach has left SWIFT to join a research team drawing from Oxford, Harvard, and Cambridge to build new financial infrastructure, a trajectory that signals where he believes institutional-grade digital finance is actually heading.

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What SWIFT Is Actually Building

SWIFT’s digital asset strategy is becoming clearer, and it has little to do with the latest XRP rumors. Its published work centers on secure messaging, interoperability, and tokenized assets for regulated financial institutions. Recent pilots also focus on tokenized deposits across permissioned networks, not public blockchains.

That matters because permissioned ledgers and public tokens solve different problems. SWIFT is building neutral infrastructure with shared governance, while XRP remains an independent public cryptocurrency. Put simply, expecting one to quietly morph into the other is like expecting a cargo ship to win a Formula One race.

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The rumor lost steam after analyst Jon Zschach publicly rejected claims that SWIFT was preparing XRP integration. No credible evidence has surfaced to support those claims. Instead, SWIFT continues emphasizing standards-based connectivity across multiple digital asset platforms rather than endorsing a single token.

Meanwhile, XRP has struggled to find momentum. The token recently traded around $1.08 to $1.10, slipping against Bitcoin as fresh institutional catalysts failed to appear. Traders hoping for a SWIFT surprise were left waiting, and the market rarely rewards wishful thinking for long.

That does not mean XRP’s long-term outlook is settled. However, tying its investment case to unverified partnership rumors only raises expectations that reality may not meet. For now, SWIFT and XRP appear to be moving on separate tracks, even if some investors keep hoping those rails eventually cross.

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SWIFT is taking its biggest step into crypto after confirming its blockchain-based shared ledger is ready for initial use. Built on Hyperledger Besu over nine months, the network will let 17 major banks, including HSBC, Citi, UBS, BNP Paribas, DBS, ANZ, and Standard Chartered, pilot live cross-border payments using tokenized deposits.

The rollout moves beyond closed sandbox testing into real banking operations. Rather than replacing existing payment rails, the ledger coordinates tokenized deposits between participating banks while final settlement stays on the current infrastructure. That could help banks process payments during nights, weekends, and across time zones, where delays have long been a problem.

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What the SWIFT Crypto Ledger Actually Does

The shared ledger sits above existing payment rails instead of replacing them. When a participating bank starts a transaction, the platform coordinates funding commitments across counterparties and gives every institution the same real-time view of payment status. Final settlement still runs through RTGS systems and Swift’s existing messaging network.

The pilot uses bank-issued tokenized deposits rather than stablecoins or public crypto assets. Each token is backed one-to-one by commercial bank deposits, giving it the same regulated status as money held in a traditional bank account. In practice, the blockchain improves how banks move and coordinate funds, while the underlying money and compliance framework remain unchanged.

SWIFT already processes 75% of payments to beneficiary banks within 10 minutes on existing rails, often in seconds. The ledger’s specific contribution is removing the remaining constraint: the dependency on overlapping business hours between sender and receiver.

The result is 24/7 settlement availability, including overnight and weekend flows that current infrastructure cannot support, regardless of how fast the underlying messaging moves.

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Compliance Architecture Is the Strategic Signal

One reason the crypto project could gain traction is what Swift chose not to change. The shared ledger keeps the compliance, credit, risk, and control standards already used in today’s payment systems. Instead of creating a separate settlement network, it works within the existing regulatory framework.

That approach matters because regulators and major banks have been reluctant to adopt tokenized payment systems that weaken oversight. By keeping established safeguards in place, Swift is pitching blockchain as an upgrade to existing infrastructure rather than a replacement for it.

Thierry Chilosi, Swift’s Chief Business Officer, said the platform lets tokenized value move across borders with the speed modern commerce demands while maintaining the resilience, security, and compliance expected by global financial institutions.

The pilot brings together 17 banks from six continents, including ANZ, BNP Paribas, BNY Mellon, Citi, DBS, First Abu Dhabi Bank, FirstRand Bank, HSBC, Itaú Unibanco, Lloyds Bank, Mashreq, MUFG Bank, OCBC, Standard Chartered, UBS, UOB, and Wells Fargo.

The lineup suggests this is more than a regional trial. These institutions play a central role in cross-border payments across the dollar, euro, and major Asian currency corridors. Their participation gives the project a broader international footprint from the outset and could provide an early test of blockchain-based settlement at global banking scale.

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The Broader Institutional Tokenization Race

SWIFT is not operating in isolation. A separate consortium including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Barclays, and BNY Mellon announced a US-focused tokenized deposit network via The Clearing House, targeting a first-half 2027 launch.

NYSE parent Intercontinental Exchange has outlined a 24/7 settlement venue for tokenized securities with stablecoin-based funding, while NYSE itself partnered with Securitize in March to build blockchain infrastructure for tokenized stocks and ETFs.

Payments, deposits, and securities are steadily moving toward a blockchain-based infrastructure that can operate around the clock. Swift’s pilot stands out because of its reach. Its existing network connects more than 11,500 financial institutions across over 200 countries, giving the shared ledger a potential user base that few blockchain payment networks can match.

If the pilot succeeds across 17 major banks and multiple currency corridors, it could make it easier for other institutions to join. The project is designed to work within existing banking rules, reducing one of the biggest barriers to institutional adoption.

Swift has already outlined the next phase. Future upgrades are expected to support foreign exchange payment versus payment, programmable corporate payments, and cash movements tied to securities transactions. The current rollout is an early milestone, while the next test is whether that global network can translate interest into meaningful transaction volume.

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A criminal complaint filed by Wisconsin prosecutors against Circle, the company behind USDC, has put an uncomfortable question back in the spotlight. Why does the world’s second-largest stablecoin issuer appear far less willing than Tether to help law enforcement recover stolen crypto?

An ICIJ investigation published on July 8 points to three issues driving the debate. Circle insists it only freezes funds after receiving valid legal orders, disputes claims it can simply burn and reissue stolen tokens, and rejects allegations from New York prosecutors that it profits by leaving frozen assets untouched. Meanwhile, critics say that the policy leaves scam victims waiting while their money disappears.

The case started with a romance scam in Walworth County, Wisconsin. A resident identified only as “Victim #1” was convinced to buy USDC and send about 381,000 tokens to what turned out to be a fake investment platform. After investigators traced the funds, a judge ordered Circle to freeze the wallet. The company did so without delay.

Months later, the court took the next step. It ordered Circle to invalidate those frozen tokens and issue the same amount of fresh USDC to the Walworth County Sheriff’s Office. Circle refused, saying it does not have the technical ability to burn and reissue USDC held inside someone else’s wallet. Prosecutors responded with a criminal complaint, an unusual move against a company of Circle’s size.

Circle later asked the court to dismiss the case. It argued the Wisconsin court lacked jurisdiction and said prosecutors ignored alternative proposals it had offered to compensate the victim. Walworth County prosecutor Thomas Binger said the dispute shows how quickly scammers can move funds compared with the pace of the legal system.

The Wisconsin case is not the only one raising questions. Earlier this year, New York prosecutors told U.S. senators that Circle generally requires court orders before freezing USDC and has not consistently returned stolen funds after courts approved their release. Since stablecoin transfers settle within seconds, investigators argue valuable time is often lost before legal paperwork is complete.

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The Debate Over Frozen Funds

New York prosecutors also made a more serious allegation. They argued Circle continues earning interest on reserve assets backing frozen USDC, giving the company little financial incentive to return those funds quickly. Circle has not accepted that claim.

Blockchain researcher Yury Serov estimates that at least 119 million USDC is currently frozen. Those tokens cannot move, but they remain backed by reserve assets unless another process removes them permanently.

Circle’s technical explanation has also drawn criticism. Joshua Cooper-Duckett of Cryptoforensic Investigators told ICIJ the company could update its smart contracts to support burning and reissuing tokens held in third-party wallets. Circle did not answer when asked whether it could make those changes.

One detail from the court filings caught investigators’ attention. Circle disclosed it had already discussed a victim compensation process with federal prosecutors that involved permanently freezing stolen tokens before issuing replacement USDC. The company did not explain whether that arrangement applies outside federal cases.

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Circle USDC vs. Tether’s Model and the 30x Gap

The difference between Circle and Tether is hard to ignore. AMLBot data shows Tether froze about $3.3 billion in USDT across more than 7,200 wallets between 2023 and 2025. Circle froze about $109 million in USDC over the same period, a 30 times gap by value.

Part of that difference comes from Tether’s burn and reissue process. After freezing stolen USDT, the company can destroy those tokens and issue clean replacements to law enforcement or victims.

Tether says it has already reissued around $1.1 billion and frozen $4.7 billion linked to illicit activity. Circle does not currently offer the same public process for third-party wallets, although its court filings show it has discussed similar arrangements with federal authorities.

The companies also draw the line in different places. Tether has said it sometimes acts before courts become involved if law enforcement requests help. Circle says it only responds through formal legal process, arguing that the approach protects users from wrongful or politically motivated freezes. Investigators counter that by the time those orders arrive, stolen crypto is often long gone.

Milwaukee County detective Scott Simons told ICIJ he has worked on more than a dozen cases where Circle either declined an early freeze request or where the court order came too late. For many victims, he said, the answer is simply that the money is gone.

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