Category: crypto

FTX plans to distribute nearly $900 million to creditors on July 31. Founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s clemency campaign is facing political resistance, with efforts to secure a pardon being rejected, while criminal cases linked to FTX continue. Additionally, preferred shareholders will receive an additional $18 million, bringing total trust payments to $95 million.

Anthropic has proposed leasing $10 billion worth of computing power from Meta Platforms over two years, preparing for a possible IPO in October. Meta is reviewing the deal, which could create a new revenue stream from its AI infrastructure. Both companies have not finalized the arrangement yet.

Augur has returned with a new resolution system for prediction markets, undergoing a two-month token migration test. The Augur Lituus whitepaper outlines a decentralized settlement layer, separating outcome determination from trading platforms. Institutional scrutiny is increasing, with Wall Street banks tightening employee rules to prevent insider trading on prediction platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi.

Piero Cipollone warned that stablecoins could draw deposits away from banks, impacting companies like Coinbase and Circle. The European Central Bank executive raised concerns about stablecoin use during a speech in Rome. This has added to pressure on crypto stocks, with Circle shares falling and Coinbase facing risks from legislative changes.

ESMA added Ripple Payments Europe and 14 other firms to its MiCA register, allowing Ripple to offer regulated crypto services in 29 EU countries. AMLA warned that firms leaving the market post-MiCA could face compliance strain. With 294 approved CASPs, licensing activity has slowed since MiCA’s transitional period ended.

Galaxy Digital has secured naming rights to Texas Tech’s football stadium for 15 years, renaming it Galaxy Stadium starting in 2026. The agreement also makes Galaxy the official digital assets and data center partner of Texas Tech Athletics. The deal will involve AI projects and workforce training programs, along with support for student-athletes. Additionally, Galaxy’s…

Zama’s lending vault for confidential USDC on Morpho’s Ethereum deployment has grown rapidly, reaching $23.23 million in deposits and ranking eighth among USDC vaults. Users can earn DeFi yield while keeping balances and transactions encrypted. The vault’s success shows growing institutional use of privacy tools in onchain lending infrastructure.

Morpho restored its frontend and API services after a suspected AWS CloudFront outage temporarily disrupted access. The incident did not affect its onchain lending contracts. Recent integrations have made Morpho infrastructure increasingly important in wallets, exchanges, and DeFi products. The recovery limited immediate disruption, with no reported loss of user funds.

Binance co-founder CZ compares Bitcoin and artificial intelligence, stating that Bitcoin protects against inflation while AI offers growth. CZ sees AI attracting speculative capital that could have gone to crypto. The debate over investing in AI or crypto continues as upcoming AI listings may compete for liquidity, impacting the broader market.

ARK Invest disputes a16z crypto’s belief that traditional financial institutions will favor controlled blockchain systems over decentralized finance. ARK argues that public blockchains will win institutional adoption as tokenized assets connect with DeFi. A16z expects banks to adopt blockchain primitives while maintaining centralized control, but ARK believes public blockchains have already gained traction.