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The Treasury Department said the Hormuz Safe platform accepted bitcoin and other digital assets as part of an alleged sanctions workaround tied to IRGC-backed shipping controls.
Your day-ahead look for July 31, 2026
BTC fell as July drew to a close, even as stocks gained in Asia and U.S. index futures advanced. The CoinDesk 20 index is set to post its biggest gain since July 2025.
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) reported that Project Agorá successfully completed real-value testing of tokenized wholesale cross-border payments, with 28 financial institutions and central banks settling 800,000 Swiss francs ($1 million) across 17 transaction scenarios. The tests involved settling payments in multiple currencies, including Swiss francs, euros, pounds sterling, Japanese yen, South Korean won, and US dollars, with an average settlement time of approximately 80 seconds. Participants included major central banks such as the Bank of England, Bank of France, Bank of Japan, Bank of Korea, and the Swiss National Bank, as well as commercial banks including JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, UBS, Standard Chartered, and MUFG. The BIS described this milestone as part of ongoing testing, with further development of Project Agorá to explore how tokenized deposits could improve cross-border wholesale payments.
New York has sued prediction market platform Kalshi, accusing it of operating an illegal, unlicensed gambling business by offering event contracts on various outcomes, according to the state's Attorney General Letitia James. The lawsuit aims to halt Kalshi’s alleged illegal activities, recover gains, and impose civil penalties, asserting that prediction markets are gambling platforms. This legal action follows a cease-and-desist order from the New York State Gaming Commission and Kalshi’s subsequent federal lawsuit, which was denied a preliminary injunction. The case highlights a broader jurisdictional dispute, as the CFTC argues that federal regulation of prediction markets should preempt state gambling laws, with similar conflicts involving other states and platforms like Polymarket.
The suit wants to bar the company from operating what it says is an unlicensed gambling business and seeks financial redress.
Aave is considering shutting down its V3 markets on six blockchains and retiring numerous low-use reserves, following a recommendation from DeFi risk management service LlamaRisk. The proposal involves winding down $98.1 million in assets and $15.6 million in debt, with specific focus on protocols such as Sonic, Scroll, zkSync, Metis, Soneium, and Aptos, the last of which was launched just 11 months prior and has experienced a 94% decrease in liquidity over six months. Most of the reserves on Scroll, zkSync, Metis, and Soneium have already been frozen, while Sonic and Aptos are recommended for freezing. Aave founder Stani Kulechov stated that these measures aim to reduce the protocol’s economic and technical risks without reversing its multichain expansion strategy, and the protocol will continue ongoing risk assessments across all assets.
The firm’s board raised the sale cap to 4,375 ETH through Oct. 30, nearly 66% of June holdings, although 3,050 of its remaining ETH is pledged.
Bitcoin’s daily price swings have tightened to their narrowest since January, making clean trades harder to find. Here's what could happen next.
The Bank of Japan left its benchmark at 1% and Governor Ueda's hawkish signals landed softly, since markets had already priced an October hike. Bitcoin held near $64,000.
Samsung and SK Hynix both jumped more than 23%. Bitcoin moved a fraction of a percent in the past 24 hours, and most majors are still lower on the week.
A hardware wallet randomness bug turned “impossible to guess” seeds into guessable ones, and $38 million is already gone.
According to Wintermute’s OTC flow report for the first half of 2026, institutional investors accounted for 72% of spot trading activity across all tokens, up from 61% in late 2025, indicating a concentration of capital in fewer tokens. The report suggests that future altcoin rallies may become more selective as liquidity increasingly favors a smaller group of assets, with activity across the broader market weakening. Data from CryptoQuant and Kaiko support this trend, showing a decline in trading volume for smaller tokens and a higher percentage of trading concentrated among the largest altcoins. Experts like Andrei Grachev also noted that broad sector rallies are giving way to more targeted moves, with institutional focus staying on Bitcoin, Ether, and tokenized real-world assets.
Cointelegraph reports that Coinkite has warned Coldcard Mk3 users to migrate funds from affected wallets due to a potential seed-generation vulnerability linked to firmware versions 4.0.1 and later, up to version 5.0.3, which may pose a risk to stored funds. The warning coincides with the investigation of a $38 million Bitcoin wallet drain involving approximately 594 BTC, although it has not been conclusively linked to the Coldcard issue. Experts, including Rob Hamilton and Kevin Loaec, suggest the possibility of flawed entropy in wallet seed generation, with some theories proposing the use of low-entropy random number generators or AI scripts for brute-force attacks. Coinkite has stated that its initial analysis indicates minimal risk for seeds created with a BIP-39 passphrase, and the company is conducting further technical reviews.
Gelephu Mindfulness City (GMC) in Bhutan has appointed Canadian digital-asset manager 3iQ to manage a portion of its Bitcoin treasury, supporting the city's development as a digital-asset investment hub. Neither party disclosed the specific amount of Bitcoin under management or details about custody and yield strategies. 3iQ CEO Pascal St-Jean stated that the firm would apply institutional discipline to manage the mandate responsibly and transparently. The partnership also includes establishing a long-term presence in Gelephu, investing in local talent, and providing training. This agreement builds on Bhutan’s plan announced in December 2025 to allocate up to 10,000 Bitcoin from its national holdings to support Gelephu’s growth.
Two US senators, Thom Tillis and Ruben Gallego, reportedly submitted revised ethics guidelines to the White House related to the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, addressing concerns about ethics provisions by allowing state authorities to enforce bans on federal officials issuing or sponsoring tokens (according to a PunchBowl report). Gallego emphasized that provisions concerning ethics, consumer protection, illicit finance, conflicts of interest, and market integrity need strengthening and indicated a willingness to work with Republicans to pass the bill. The bill’s passage is becoming more urgent as the Senate's schedule tightens before a month-long recess, and support from Democrats could be crucial given the Senate’s 52-47 Republican majority. Cointelegraph noted that some Democrats have expressed opposition to the bill if it appears to favor President Trump’s influence over the industry.
Strategy reported an $8.22 billion net loss in Q2, primarily due to an $8.32 billion unrealized loss on its Bitcoin holdings as the cryptocurrency's value declined during the period. The company held 843,775 Bitcoin as of July 26, which is a 25% increase from the beginning of the year, and sold approximately $218.4 million worth of Bitcoin after the second quarter to fund some of its dividend obligations. Bitcoin's price dropped about 14% in the second quarter, from around $68,000 to about $58,600, but was trading around $64,700 on Thursday. Strategy also revealed a reserve of $3.75 billion USD to cover more than two years of its preferred dividend and interest payments, and it recently repurchased $25 million of its preferred shares, with plans to continue buying while they trade below $100.
According to Chainalysis, the 2026 FIFA World Cup generated $20 billion in blockchain prediction market volume, with more than 400,000 wallets participating in betting activities. The report states that approximately $5.7 billion was wagered during the five-week tournament, with prediction markets related to the World Cup accounting for about 63% of all prediction market activity. Participants from every continent except Antarctica took part, with the highest trading volumes from the United States and China. Despite the large scale of betting, illicit activity was minimal, with fewer than 1% of wallets linked to illicit actors, and about $5.4 million in flows from sanctioned sources. The report also notes growing adoption of blockchain-based digital collectibles, with fans trading $24 million worth of FIFA Collect NFTs and more than 100,000 match tickets distributed via the platform.
The world's largest corporate bitcoin holder says it has built a cash reserve covering more than two years of dividend payments after investors questioned its growing stack of preferred securities.
The company reported $1.22 billion in overall revenue, down from $1.5 billion in the year prior.
Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, stated that Russian authorities labeled him a "terrorist" after he refused to comply with government demands for mass surveillance and censorship. He also claimed that Russia had barred him from “publishing information on the Internet” and suggested that the authorities were confused about who has authority to ban whom online, according to his Telegram post. The allegations against Durov come a day after Russia’s Federal Security Service accused Telegram of facilitating terrorist activity by not removing certain channels used by terrorist groups and Ukrainian intelligence services. This legal action is part of a broader investigation that began in February, targeting alleged violations of Russian laws related to extremist content and illicit activities on the platform.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced the Anti-Corruption Bureau Creation Act, aiming to establish a new U.S. agency focused on investigating and preventing corruption, including concerns related to President Donald Trump's gains from cryptocurrency ventures, which Schumer said totaled more than $2 billion from investments, with $1.4 billion tied to crypto. The proposed agency would consolidate the Federal Election Commission, Office of Government Ethics, and Office of Special Counsel, and would have enforcement authority with a bipartisan panel confirmed by the Senate, according to Schumer. The White House has stated that Trump’s investments are managed by independent third-party institutions and do not pose conflicts of interest. The bill faces the need for Republican support to pass Congress, and its future remains uncertain amid ongoing legislative debates and limited time before the legislative session break.
Aviva Investors has launched a tokenized share class of its US Dollar Liquidity Fund on the XRP Ledger after receiving approval from the Central Bank of Ireland, allowing eligible investors to access the fund via digital wallets. The fund’s underlying assets will continue to be held by custodian BNY Mellon, while digital asset custody is provided by Komainu, and Licuido supplies the tokenization infrastructure. The tokenized share class maintains the same investment objectives and liquidity profile as the traditional fund, which invests in short-term US dollar-denominated debt securities. This development follows Aviva’s partnership with Ripple and joins other tokenized investment products on the XRPL platform.
Twenty-eight banks, including JPMorgan, Citi and UBS, moved real money across borders in a live test of blockchain-based settlement.
