Cointelegraph.com
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Cointelegraph.com - 13:19 Jul 03, 2026
Upbit said it only expressed interest in potentially joining the OpenStandard ecosystem in the future, as several South Korean firms distanced themselves from the OUSD initiative. South Korean crypto exchange Upbit said it is not participating in the issuance of Open USD, after its operator Dunamu was named among more than 140 businesses involved in the new stablecoin initiative. “Upbit has only indicated our potential willingness to consider taking part in the future expansion of the OpenStandard ecosystem,” an Upbit spokesperson told Cointelegraph. The clarification follows similar pushback from Samsung Electronics and other South Korean companies listed by Open Standard. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 12:43 Jul 03, 2026
Belgian authorities say a European phishing gang stole over $572,000 from victims before laundering the proceeds through cryptocurrency. Belgian authorities arrested a 19-year-old suspected of being a key figure in a European phishing and money-laundering network that stole more than 500,000 euros ($572,000) using fake government emails and phone calls to trick victims into installing remote-access software. Authorities detained the suspect in an Airbnb in Antwerp, where a second suspect was also found. The Federal Judicial Police launched the investigation in March 2026, when phishing attacks became a priority in the region, according to a Thursday police report. The main suspect was brought before an investigating judge, who issued an arrest warrant. The gang used money mules and cash carriers and laundered the proceeds through cryptocurrencies. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 12:02 Jul 03, 2026
ESMA publishes its first post-deadline MiCA register update, adding 37 crypto-asset service providers, including Standard Chartered and FalconX. The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published the first update to its register of crypto companies under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) after the transitional period ended Wednesday. Friday's update to the register added 37 licensed crypto-asset service providers (CASPs), including global banking group Standard Chartered, which secured MiCA authorization from Luxembourg regulators on June 25. Among the new CASPs are digital asset prime brokerage FalconX, Sygnum Europe and Ronin EM, while the register of electronic money tokens (EMTs) has added Crédit Agricole’s CACEIS. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 11:34 Jul 03, 2026
Bitcoin supply dynamics pointed toward the end of the 2026 bear market after the first "buy" signal since November 2022, but analysis warned that BTC price could still go lower. Bitcoin (BTC) has added another bear-market bottom signal this month as analysis draws comparisons to November 2022. Key points: Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 11:21 Jul 03, 2026
Shielded Labs said exchanges, mining pools and wallets may need more time to complete Zcash’s Z3 software migration and safely prepare for Ironwood. Shielded Labs has raised the possibility of delaying Zcash's Ironwood network upgrade, warning that ecosystem participants like exchanges, mining pools and wallets may not have enough time to prepare their systems for the planned activation in late July. Jason McGee, executive director of Shielded Labs, said in a Zcash community forum post that two major projects are moving forward at the same time. Alongside Ironwood, infrastructure providers are being asked to replace Zcash’s longstanding node and wallet software, zcashd, with a new collection of tools known as the Z3 stack. The concerns highlight the trade-off between quickly restoring confidence in Zcash’s shielded supply and giving ecosystem participants enough time to deploy and audit the new infrastructure safely. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 11:10 Jul 03, 2026
A defendant who owns one of the dormant Bitcoin wallets filed to dismiss the New York case, which seeks ownership of $229 billion worth of Bitcoin considered lost. A pseudonymous defendant has moved to dismiss a New York lawsuit seeking ownership of 39,069 dormant Bitcoin addresses, arguing that Bitcoin addresses are merely data strings that cannot be sued. The defendant, identifying themselves as “John Doe 33,” filed a notice of appearance and motion to dismiss on Thursday, claiming they control one of the dormant wallets named in the lawsuit. According to the motion, the lawsuit is legally defective because Bitcoin address strings are neither persons nor legal entities subject to the court's jurisdiction. The filing argues that a public Bitcoin address cannot itself be “found” under New York's lost-property law because it has always been publicly visible on the blockchain. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 09:26 Jul 03, 2026
The Indian central bank reportedly urged lawmakers to keep banks insulated from crypto and private stablecoins while preserving room for regulated tokenization. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reportedly backed a containment strategy for digital assets to shield banks and other financial institutions from exposure to crypto and privately issued stablecoins, as lawmakers prepare a report on the country’s digital asset policy. According to a report by The Economic Times, RBI Deputy Governor Rohit Jain and Executive Director P. Vasudevan presented the central bank’s position to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance on Thursday. In a background note submitted to the panel, the RBI reportedly said prohibition remained a recognized policy option and recommended preventing the use of crypto in payments and settlements while restricting banking-sector exposure. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 08:47 Jul 03, 2026
Irish authorities recovered 500 Bitcoin in criminal proceeds, bringing the total seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau to about $92 million in BTC for 2026. Ireland's Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) confirmed the seizure of another 500 Bitcoin, currently worth about 27 million euros ($30.9 million), in collaboration with Europol's European Cybercrime Centre. That brings the total Bitcoin seized by CAB in 2026 to 1,500 BTC, worth about $92.4 million, the law enforcement agency said in a social media post on Thursday. CAB said Europol had provided operational coordination, technical expertise and decryption support during the investigation. The agency did not disclose the identity of the wallet owner or details of the underlying investigation, adding that it had no further comment. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 07:56 Jul 03, 2026
US spot Bitcoin ETFs post $221.7 million inflows, the strongest daily intake since early May, as Bitcoin recovers above $61,000. US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded their first daily net inflow above $200 million since early May, snapping weeks of sustained withdrawals. The funds attracted $221.7 million in net inflows on Thursday, according to SoSoValue data, ending a 10-day streak of net outflows that totaled more than $2.7 billion. The rebound follows one of the weakest stretches for US spot Bitcoin ETFs this year, with the funds posting a record $4.5 billion in net outflows in June. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 06:18 Jul 03, 2026
Peter Stokes, 19, has been charged in the US for allegedly taking part in a hacking group’s unsuccessful $8 million crypto ransom scheme. A teenager suspected of involvement with the “Scattered Spider” hacking group has been extradited to the US over his alleged role in an $8 million crypto ransom. The US Justice Department said on Wednesday that Peter Stokes, a 19-year-old dual US-Estonian national, was arrested in Finland in April on an Interpol Red Notice and extradited to the US last week to appear in a Chicago federal court on Tuesday. A criminal complaint unsealed in court accused Stokes and others of breaching a luxury jewelry retailer’s computer system in May 2025 to steal data and demand a ransom payment of $8 million in crypto. The retailer managed to evict them from the network and did not pay the ransom, but suffered $2 million in disruption damages, according to the complaint. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 06:07 Jul 03, 2026
Mark Zuckerberg’s comments came on the same day that Meta expanded its Meta Business Agent globally for businesses on Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said AI agent development at the firm is progressing more slowly than expected, even as technology and crypto firms continue pouring resources into the nascent technology. In a company meeting on Thursday, Zuckerberg said the “trajectory of the agentic development over at least the last four months hasn't really accelerated in the way that we expected,” according to Reuters, which reviewed a recording of the call. The bet on agent adoption hasn’t “come to fruition yet,” Zuckerberg said, adding that executives made an aggressive push into agentic infrastructure in January in part because of fears they weren’t moving “fast enough.” Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 03:38 Jul 03, 2026
New data from Allium suggests that US users are bypassing geoblocks to bet on markets offered on Polymarket’s global platform. US-based users are the biggest political bettors on Polymarket, despite the crypto-based prediction market’s efforts to restrict US citizens from using the decentralized platform, according to new research. Blockchain research firm Allium estimated in a report published on Thursday that US-based users are the single biggest political market of any country by contracts traded and wallet count on Polymarket — not to be confused with Polymarket US, which is a US-regulated platform that launched in December with a narrower set of markets. “Blocking access did not end US participation; it made the US the largest single political market on Polymarket by volume,” the report said. “The demand is still there, now offshore and beyond US oversight.” Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 03:12 Jul 03, 2026
Bitwise’s Matt Hougan said Strategy's STRC offer of high yields and low volatility was always a questionable fit for buying Bitcoin, as the cryptocurrency offers neither. Strategy’s era as the dominant Bitcoin buyer may have come to an end following last week’s STRC turmoil, which cast doubt on the company’s Bitcoin-buying strategy and sent the cryptocurrency to a nearly two-year low, according to Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan. “For years, Strategy has been the most dominant Bitcoin buyer in the world and a one-way source of Bitcoin demand. Those days are likely over,” Hougan said Thursday. “I just expect it to be a less important figure in Bitcoin in the next cycle than it was in the last,” Hougan said, adding that investment banks, asset managers, pensions, endowments and sovereign wealth funds will likely replace Strategy as Bitcoin’s primary demand driver. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 02:35 Jul 03, 2026
Securitize has issued tokenized versions of its shares on Solana and Avalanche, marking the first time a newly public company has done so on its debut. Tokenization platform Securitize rallied on its New York Stock Exchange debut on Thursday, as it brought tokenized versions of its shares to two blockchains. The company, which is backed by BlackRock and Morgan Stanley, began trading on the NYSE under the ticker SECZ on Thursday after merging with a Cantor Fitzgerald-backed special-purpose acquisition company to take it public. Securitize said Thursday that it simultaneously launched tokenized versions of its shares on the Avalanche and Solana blockchains, which will be available to eligible US investors on its platform. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 00:01 Jul 03, 2026
Bitcoin bulls may make a run on $70,000 after weak US jobs data eased rate hike fears and capital looks to rotate into BTC and gold. Key takeaways: Bitcoin reclaimed the $61,000 mark following a disappointing US job market report. Traders grew less certain of a near-term interest rate hike from the US Federal Reserve (Fed) given the worsening labor data. The tech-heavy Nasdaq index sold off, fueling hopes of a capital rotation favoring Bitcoin. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 23:17 Jul 02, 2026
Analysts are divided on Bitcoin's next move, but there's some hope at last. Meanwhile, SharpLink has resumed buying Ether after an eight-week pause, and other market news. Bitcoin (BTC) reacted positively to US Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh’s remarks on stubborn inflation. Despite the gains on Wednesday, traders fear that incentives for fixed-income investments and strong earnings momentum in tech stocks will continue to pressure non-yield-bearing assets like cryptocurrencies. (Michael van de Poppe) The US five-year Treasury yield jumped to 4.22%, meaning traders demanded higher returns to hold government bonds. Even as inflation eventually eases and WTI crude oil prices fell to a 4-month low, investors anticipate monetary expansion. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 22:01 Jul 02, 2026
While engaged in negotiations over ethics in a crypto market structure bill in Congress, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said she had “no involvement” in her son’s derivatives exchange, backed by at least one industry figure. Chris Larsen, co-founder and executive chair of Ripple Labs, was reportedly among those backing the financial venture of US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s son as negotiations over a significant piece of crypto-related legislation continue in the Senate. According to a Thursday Politico report, Larsen was one of a handful of investors backing the American Perpetuals Exchange Corp. (APEC), founded by Theodore Gillibrand. Although Larsen’s exact contribution was not included in the report, the majority of investors contributed between $5,000 to $10,000 each into the derivatives platform, which reportedly raised $30 million. The investment comes as the New York lawmaker is involved in negotiations over ethics provisions in the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, legislation expected to have... -
Cointelegraph.com - 19:17 Jul 02, 2026
The global lender says blockchain-based finance could streamline markets but warns that fragmented standards and regulations may create new systemic risks. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says tokenization could fundamentally reshape how financial markets operate, marking one of the strongest acknowledgments yet from a global policymaker that blockchain-based infrastructure is moving into the financial mainstream. In a blog published Thursday, Tobias Adrian, the IMF’s financial counselor and director of its Monetary and Capital Markets Department, said tokenization is more than a niche crypto innovation. By bringing assets, settlement and recordkeeping onto a shared ledger, tokenization could compress today’s multi-day settlement process into near-instant transactions. Adrian also warned that tokenization shifts risks away from traditional financial intermediaries and toward the underlying infrastructure, including smart contracts, distributed ledgers and service providers. Without common standards and ... -
Cointelegraph.com - 19:04 Jul 02, 2026
EU authorities already preemptively sanctioned Russia’s digital ruble in 2025 as part of measures in response to the country’s war against Ukraine. Russia’s central bank governor, Elvira Nabiullina, confirmed that the country was prepared to roll out its central bank digital currency (CBDC) in two months, following the timeline it laid out last year. According to a Thursday report from Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti, Nabiullina said that “everyone is ready” for a Sept. 1 digital ruble launch. The CBDC will launch as a complement to Russia’s fiat currency, the ruble, and will initially be accepted by financial and credit institutions. “We want the digital ruble to be in demand by people and businesses, to be convenient, and, of course, we're constantly discussing [...] what functionality to develop,” said Nabiullina in a translated statement. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 17:41 Jul 02, 2026
Bitcoin took daily gains to nearly 4% on the second day of "green July" as US labor-market signals supported an easing inflation policy from the Federal Reserve. Bitcoin (BTC) passed $62,000 at Thursday’s Wall Street open as crypto reacted to weak US employment figures. Key points: Read more
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