Category: Business

On the 24th of July, a whale transferred 191,453,164 USD Coin [$USDC] into the Aave protocol.

Whale Alert valued the transaction at $191.42 million. The transfer confirmed sizable protocol activity, although its effect on $AAVE demand remained unclear.

Meanwhile, Aave [$AAVE] traded at $96.28, just below the resistance around $99–$100. This zone had rejected several recovery attempts, making the whale’s timing particularly notable.

CryptoQuant’s Spot Average Order Size also recorded Big Whale Orders near $AAVE’s current price range. However, neither dataset confirmed that these whales bought $AAVE ahead of a breakout.

Are whales positioning before $100?

The $USDC transfer was part of a broader increase in large transactions.

Santiment recorded a rise in Whale Transaction Count for transfers exceeding $100,000 before the latest partial reading. This activity suggested renewed interest from large holders. However, the metric included purchases, sales, and wallet transfers.

Consequently, a higher Whale Transaction Count could increase volatility without determining its direction.

Spot demand offered a clearer bullish signal.

CryptoQuant’s 90-day Spot Taker CVD showed Taker Buy Dominant activity during $AAVE’s latest recovery. This indicated that aggressive spot buyers had increasingly crossed the spread to complete purchases.

Coinalyze data supported that positioning. Longs represented 56.09% of one-day positions, compared with 43.79% for shorts.

The one-day Long/Short Ratio stood at 1.28. Still, crowded long positioning could increase liquidation risk during a rejection.

Can $AAVE break above $100?

$AAVE had consolidated beneath $100 after recovering from its June lows.

The daily chart formed an ascending triangle, with buyers defending a rising trendline beneath horizontal resistance.

$AAVE also traded above its 20-day, 50-day, and 100-day Exponential Moving Averages. Those averages stood near $92.27, $91.76, and $88.46, respectively.

Meanwhile, the Stochastic RSI recorded values of 52.68 and 49.31. These neutral readings left room for movement in either direction.

A confirmed daily close above $100 could strengthen the breakout case. Rejection may return attention to the moving averages below $92.

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Final Summary

• Whale activity increased as $AAVE consolidated beneath the psychologically important $100 resistance.
• Buy-dominant spot flow strengthened $AAVE’s breakout case without confirming the move.

Binance barely needed a full quarter to seize control of a new product category that most rivals barely saw coming. The exchange’s ETF perpetual contracts have now cleared more than $116 billion in cumulative trading volume since their March 2026 debut, pushing Binance’s market share in the segment to 74%, according to the original report. The number is more than a growth metric—it marks a structural quickening in how traditional financial instruments get absorbed by crypto-native infrastructure.

When the product launched, Binance held just 18% of the ETF perpetual market. The rapid share grab reflects both execution and the sheer volume of latent demand among crypto traders for familiar capital-market exposure without leaving the perpetual swap rails. In July alone, ETF perpetuals made up 19% of Binance’s entire TradFi perpetual trading volume. The exchange now lists 146 such pairs, with 35 added over the past month, spanning contracts that track SPY, QQQ, semiconductor ETFs, country-focused funds, and leveraged and inverse products.

What’s happening is not simply a new listing category. It’s a convergence that has been building since tokenized RWAs crossed $20 billion on-chain and institutional players started settling Treasury trades directly with crypto-native rails. The broader tokenization trend has made the leap from niche experiment to top-of-mind allocation for a class of traders who want the leverage mechanics of perpetuals attached to non-crypto underlyings. The ETF wrapper, already familiar to retail and institutional money alike, reduces the cognitive distance.

Why the 74% share matters now

Market concentration above 70% in any derivatives category draws attention—both from competitors and from regulators. Binance captured share not because the field was empty, but because it moved quickly. Other major exchanges offer TradFi perpetuals, but few built the ETF-specific infrastructure, liquidity, and pair density that Binance rolled out across more than 140 contracts. In derivatives markets, the order-book depth and listing breadth often become self-reinforcing: liquidity begets liquidity. That dynamic makes it structurally difficult for challengers to claw back ground once a venue establishes early dominance.

That dominance will be watched closely as legislative pressure on hybrid crypto products intensifies. Mounting regulatory pressure on hybrid crypto products in Washington is already reshaping the conversation about what a compliant model looks like when exchanges start blending securities-like exposure with crypto-style margin and settlement. The ETF perpetual boom sits squarely in that gray zone.

What the volume shift says about user behavior

The 19% contribution of ETF perpetuals to Binance’s overall TradFi perpetual volume in July is a signal that demand is not a novelty blip. Traders are clearly reallocating from traditional perpetual categories—forex, commodities, equity indices—toward the ETF format, likely because it bundles exposure, provides lower tracking friction, and fits into existing risk systems that already understand ETFs. The fact that 35 new pairs were added in the past month suggests Binance sees the product as elastic: demand expands as the available menu grows.

Crypto-native users, accustomed to perpetual swaps on tokens, don’t need to learn a new venue or settlement process to trade QQQ or a leveraged semiconductor ETF. That familiarity lowers the switching cost that typically protects incumbent broker-dealers. Growing institutional staking demand elsewhere in the market has shown that mainstream capital is increasingly comfortable with crypto-native mechanics; the ETF perpetual product extends that comfort to a much wider asset universe.

What remains uncertain

The sustainability of a 74% market share is far from guaranteed. Competitors who misjudged the speed of adoption are now building out their own ETF perpetual suites, and if volume continues to grow, the pie will attract more aggressive market makers and possibly pressure on fees. Binance itself has not disclosed how much of the $116 billion volume is organic versus wash-trading or incentive-driven, and the report offers no breakdown of unique traders. In the absence of granular data, the headline number remains impressive but incomplete.

Regulatory risk adds another variable. The same framework debates that surround crypto ETFs and tokenized securities apply to the perpetual wrapper. Whether regulators eventually deem ETF perpetuals as security-based swaps or something else will determine the compliance burden, and any adverse classification could reshape the market structure overnight. For now, the numbers show that the appetite for bridging TradFi and crypto-native execution is deep and, at least for one exchange, highly concentrated.

Strategy’s STRC preferred stock has become the largest holding in three major U.S. preferred stock ETFs, which collectively own $756 million of the security even as its price remains about 13% below its $100 par value.

Michael Saylor, Strategy’s co-founder and executive chairman, disclosed that STRC now leads the portfolios of BlackRock’s iShares Preferred and Income Securities ETF (PFF), Virtus InfraCap’s U.S. Preferred Stock ETF (PFFA), and VanEck’s Preferred Securities ex Financials ETF (PFXF). In a July 24 X post, Saylor described the placements as evidence that Strategy’s “digital credit” products are entering institutional portfolios.

Digital Credit is entering the institutional mainstream. $STRC is now the largest holding in three leading U.S. preferred stock ETFs, with $756 million held across BlackRock’s $PFF, Virtus InfraCap’s $PFFA, and VanEck’s $PFXF. pic.twitter.com/IoYwl2D360

— Michael Saylor (@saylor) July 24, 2026

The three funds give investors indirect exposure to STRC alongside preferred securities issued by established U.S. companies. According to Saylor’s figures, their combined STRC position has reached $756 million, making the security the largest individual holding in each portfolio.

Although ETF demand has increased, STRC closed at $86.89 on July 24, gaining 2.29% during the session before rising to $87.14 in after-hours trading, according to market data shown by Yahoo Finance. Its closing price left the stock 13.11% below the $100 level Strategy designed it to track.

Trading below par has become an important constraint for Strategy because the company uses STRC sales to raise money for Bitcoin purchases. Strategy can issue additional preferred shares near or above $100 and direct the proceeds into Bitcoin, but selling new stock at a large discount would secure less capital per share and weaken the economics of the transaction.

ETF demand has lifted institutional ownership

Strategy CEO Phong Le reported that the average STRC position held by institutions climbed 105% to $3.5 million between March and July. Over the same period, retail investors’ share of ownership fell from 78% to 71%, according to figures Le published on X.

“The institutions are coming,” Le wrote.

Yes, but that means retail investors sold for a loss. My guess is the institutional buyers bought in for a short-term trade only. Or maybe they shorted MSTR and bought STRC as a spread trade. Maybe they bought STRC and shorted Bitcoin. None of those trades are bullish bets.

— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) July 24, 2026

His figures correct reports describing the increase in average institutional holdings as 10%. Le’s post placed the increase at 105%, indicating that the average position more than doubled during the four-month period.

Institutional participation does not prove that every buyer expects either STRC or Bitcoin to rise, according to Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff. Responding to Le, Schiff argued that retail investors may have sold their positions at a loss while professional investors entered trades designed to profit from differences between Strategy’s securities.

Schiff suggested that some funds could have purchased STRC while shorting Strategy’s common stock, MSTR, as a spread trade. Other buyers may have paired long STRC positions with short Bitcoin exposure, he added.

“None of those trades are bullish bets,” Schiff wrote in his response.

Strategy currently pays STRC holders a 12% annual dividend in cash through two payments each month. The company’s STRC information page states that management adjusts the dividend rate monthly to encourage the stock to trade around its $100 par value and reduce price volatility.

The preferred stock’s high payout has not yet closed the discount. STRC’s 52-week range spans $71.25 to $100.42, while its July 24 closing price remained closer to the lower end of that range than to par.

The $100 level controls Strategy’s Bitcoin funding

Le has directly linked further STRC issuance and Bitcoin purchases to a recovery in the preferred stock. During a July interview, the Strategy CEO said the company would resume issuing more STRC once it returned to par.

“We’ll continue to build that. And yeah, when Stretch gets back to par, we’ll issue more. We’ll buy more Bitcoin,” Le said.

Under this funding model, a return to $100 would allow Strategy to sell new STRC shares on more favorable terms and use the proceeds to add Bitcoin. Until the discount closes, Le’s comments indicate that the company has less incentive to expand the program.

Strategy has already demonstrated how pressure on its preferred securities can affect its Bitcoin treasury. A July 6 filing showed that the company sold 3,588 $BTC for $216 million to fund dividends on its digital-credit securities and maintain liquidity. Following the sale, Saylor reported that Strategy held 843,775 $BTC and had increased its U.S. dollar reserves to $2.55 billion.

Also on July 6, Binance Stocks added STRC for spot trading, according to the exchange’s announcement reported by crypto.news. The listing followed the introduction of STRC-linked perpetual futures and gave Binance users another route to trade the preferred security.

Binance stated that fully paid securities lending would become available after stock transactions had settled completely. While the listing added another distribution channel for STRC, the stock’s continued discount shows that ETF accumulation and additional trading access have not yet restored the $100 level needed to restart Strategy’s preferred-share-funded Bitcoin purchases.

Strive’s SATA preferred shares have rebounded from a June low of $83.30 to about $97, recovering most of the selloff and moving back within roughly 3% of their $100 par value, according to Yahoo Finance data.

Strive introduced SATA in November 2025 as part of its strategy to finance the expansion of its Bitcoin treasury through preferred equity. The variable-rate perpetual preferred stock is intended to trade near its $100 par value by adjusting its dividend rate, allowing Strive to raise capital for its Bitcoin ($BTC) treasury without issuing additional common shares.

SATA is one of a growing number of preferred-share products tied to Bitcoin treasury strategies, an emerging segment that companies such as Strategy describe as “digital credit.”

Strategy’s STRC, launched in 2025 with a similar objective of maintaining a $100 share price through a variable dividend, also fell sharply during the late-June selloff before recovering, though it continues to trade below par at around $87.

SATA year-to-date price chart. Source: Yahoo Finance

While Strategy remains the world’s largest public corporate Bitcoin holder with 843,775 $BTC, Strive has climbed to seventh place with 19,921 $BTC, according to BitcoinTreasuries.NET.

Top 10 Bitcoin treasury companies. Source: BitcoinTreasuries.NET

SATA recovery could help lift Strategy’s STRC, says Mow

Jan3 founder and CEO Samson Mow told Cointelegraph that recent adjustments by Bitcoin treasury companies are beginning to restore confidence in preferred-share products, supporting his view that Bitcoin has already found its bottom.

“I think every action that Strategy has undertaken to strengthen their balance sheet and encourage STRC to go back to par is also working,” Mow said, adding:

But everything sort of works in tandem. I think as SATA returns to par, you’re going to see STRC return to par too, because people say, ‘OK, this model’s not broken.’ Everyone is capitalized for three or more years of dividend payments… there was no reason to panic all along.

Mow said the improving performance of preferred-share products is part of a broader shift in the Bitcoin treasury sector, where companies have continued refining their capital-raising strategies.

He pointed to Lyn Alden’s Orange Juice treasury company, which launched on July 15 with plans to operate a Bitcoin treasury, as another example of firms entering the market with different approaches and a lower Bitcoin cost basis.

Samson Mow interview with Cointelegraph. Source: Cointelegraph

Michael Saylor didn’t just announce a dashboard. He published a balance sheet with an address. Strategy’s new MSTR-$BTC interface, unveiled Thursday, is less a tool for shareholders and more a declaration: corporate Bitcoin holders no longer get to hide behind opaque treasury disclosures. The numbers, pulled straight from the blockchain, are unambiguous. The company holds 843,775 $BTC valued at $54.88 billion, priced at $65,035 per coin, according to the original report.

This isn’t a marketing splash. It’s a structural shift in how public companies can verify digital asset reserves. The dashboard doesn’t rely on quarterly attestations or delayed SEC filings. It ties the treasury directly to on-chain data and capital structure metrics, displaying gross reserves of $58.1 billion, net reserves of $35.88 billion, and a market-based net asset value (mNAV) ratio of exactly 1.00x. For CFOs watching from the sidelines, that level of granularity changes the conversation.

A Corporate Treasury Built on Public Verification

Strategy’s move arrives at a moment when institutional Bitcoin adoption is accelerating, yet regulatory uncertainty still hangs over how companies account for digital assets. The dashboard’s numbers tell a specific story: year-to-date $BTC yield sits at 5.8%, representing a gain of 39,325 $BTC — roughly $2.56 billion in dollar terms since January. That’s not paper profit from a rising price; it’s net Bitcoin accumulation relative to diluted shares outstanding.

Saylor has spent years framing Bitcoin as a superior treasury reserve asset. Now the company is proving the thesis with data that anyone can audit. The dashboard scrubs away the vagueness that once made corporate Bitcoin holdings a black box. If more firms follow this model, the market’s understanding of treasury risk shifts from trust-me filings to verifiable on-chain proof.

But this transparency cuts both ways. A 1.00x mNAV tells investors the market values Strategy’s Bitcoin holdings at their spot price, with zero premium for the operating business or future acquisitions. That’s a signal the market is pricing the company purely as a levered Bitcoin play — not a software firm. For longtime bulls, that’s validating; for those waiting for a diversification narrative, it’s a reality check.

The Transparency Standard Nobody Asked For

Corporate Bitcoin treasuries are still a niche. Tesla, Block, and a handful of public miners hold significant positions, but none publish a live dashboard with this level of detail. Strategy is essentially setting the benchmark without any regulatory mandate, creating a market expectation that could pressure other firms to follow. If a company holds over $1 billion in Bitcoin and doesn’t provide comparable on-chain verification, that silence might start to look strategic.

This dynamic parallels what happened with stablecoin reserves a few years ago. Transparency became a competitive advantage, then a baseline requirement. In the corporate treasury arena, Strategy is doing the same. The dashboard’s timing also matters. A recent push for clearer crypto accounting rules in the U.S. has been stalled by banking interests, a conflict detailed in our coverage of the biggest crypto bill facing Senate resistance. Until legislation resolves, voluntary transparency becomes the strongest signal.

The dashboard doesn’t just list holdings; it connects debt structure to Bitcoin assets. Net reserves subtract obligations, giving bondholders and equity investors a clearer view of leverage. That’s especially relevant as tokenized real-world assets expand, with on-chain RWA markets crossing $20 billion and blurring the line between traditional finance and crypto collateral. When a corporate Bitcoin treasury is that transparent, using it as collateral becomes easier — and more dangerous if over-leveraged.

The Parts the Dashboard Can’t Show

What’s missing from the MSTR-$BTC interface is a volatility adjustment for the underlying asset. Bitcoin’s price at $65,035 gives a clean valuation, but anyone who watched the 2022 drawdown knows that $54.88 billion can quickly become $35 billion without any change in Strategy’s conduct. The dashboard’s elegance might obscure the fact that the reserve value is a moving target, not a stable number.

There’s also a governance question. The dashboard assumes Bitcoin is a permanent treasury asset, but strategy shifts happen. If a future board decides to sell part of the stack, the real-time nature of the interface could amplify market panic. Transparency is a double-edged sword when the underlying asset is that volatile and that liquid.

Still, for an asset class still fighting for legitimacy among corporate treasurers, Strategy’s move is aggressively normalizing. It’s borrowing the language of public company investor relations and applying it to an asset that many still dismiss. And it’s happening while institutions are quietly building out infrastructure — from institutional staking surges on networks like Sui to tier-one banks testing tokenized settlement. The dashboard fits into that larger picture, whether regulators are ready or not.

Strategy didn’t invent corporate Bitcoin holding. But with one interface, it just made holding it quietly look like a decision not to be transparent. That might be the dashboard’s biggest impact: not the data it shows, but the standard it imposes on everyone else.

Institutional crypto trading platform LMAX Group is working with Morgan Stanley and KBW to evaluate strategic options that could include a sale or public listing, according to three people familiar with the matter.

The London based company could seek a valuation of up to $5 billion. Options under consideration include a sale, SPAC merger, or IPO in the United States or Europe, with a Nasdaq listing currently the preferred route.

LMAX is reportedly in no rush to complete a transaction as weak crypto markets weigh on the sector, while its foreign exchange business provides some protection from the downturn.

LMAX operates institutional trading venues for foreign exchange and digital assets, providing execution, liquidity, and market infrastructure to banks, brokers, hedge funds, and asset managers.

The company has expanded its digital asset operations over the past year. In February, it launched a 24 hour multi asset exchange for foreign exchange, digital assets, commodities, and tokenized securities.

The launch followed a $150 million strategic investment from Ripple in January to support the adoption of its RLUSD stablecoin across LMAX trading and settlement infrastructure.

A $5 billion valuation would represent a fivefold increase from 2021, when J.C. Flowers acquired a 30% stake for $300 million, valuing LMAX at approximately $1 billion.

The potential transaction comes as crypto exchanges and financial infrastructure companies pursue deals to expand institutional trading, custody, settlement, tokenization, and stablecoin services.

Samsung has taken a significant step in the cryptocurrency world by adding stablecoin support to its mobile wallet, Samsung Wallet. At the recent Galaxy Unpacked event, it was announced that Samsung Wallet will support stablecoins like $USDC. This move brings digital dollars into the pockets of hundreds of millions of Galaxy device users.

Innovations Announced by Samsung

Stablecoin integration was introduced as part of an effort to make Samsung Wallet a unified hub for payments, rewards, and digital assets. Samsung framed this innovation as a “secure payments and rewards experience.” A definitive launch date for the stablecoin feature has not yet been announced, and it hasn’t been officially confirmed which stablecoins will be supported besides $USDC. However, there are strong indications that $USDC will be supported.

This announcement came alongside Samsung’s introduction of the Galaxy Card, issued by Barclays and operating on the Visa network. This credit card offers various cashback rewards to US users. A partnership with Coinbase in 2025 provided millions of US Galaxy users with access to cryptocurrency services directly through their devices, laying a significant foundation for transforming Samsung Wallet into a more comprehensive digital asset platform.

What it Means for Investors

For Circle, the company behind $USDC, this partnership could strengthen its position ahead of a potential IPO or market activity. However, regulatory frameworks for stablecoins are still under development in many regions. Samsung will have to overcome varying compliance requirements in its global markets, which could initially lead to the feature being limited to certain regions. The Galaxy Card, in partnership with Barclays, is likely to launch in the US market as the first target.

The partnership with Coinbase in 2025 provided Samsung with a foundation in crypto services, but stablecoin integration offers an entirely different proposition. It’s one thing to offer users the ability to buy Bitcoin through a partner app, but integrating the dollar equivalent of digital currency into the core wallet experience is quite another.

AGI3, a conglomerate of Kinetic Group and developer of the decentralized finance protocol Fluid, has submitted a governance proposal for a strategic ecosystem partnership focused on corporate finance and real-world assets.

According to the proposal, Kinetic Group plans to acquire up to 10% of the total supply of $FLUID tokens through secondary market purchases and over-the-counter transactions. It was stated that the tokens to be purchased will not come from the Fluid DAO treasury or team allocation.

The Fluid Foundation will also reserve 5% of the $FLUID supply for safekeeping in compliant private banks and institutional digital asset custodians in Switzerland, the European Union, Hong Kong, and Singapore. These tokens will remain locked for at least four years, until 2030.

As part of the partnership, AGI3 will also transfer 2% of its company shares to Fluid Foundation. A four-year lock-in period will apply to these shares.

AGI3 Markets, the core product of AGI3, is designed as a permissioned DeFi platform for institutional investors. The platform will feature KYC and anti-money laundering controls and will support trading and lending of real-world assets such as tokenized private loans, government bonds, commodities, equities, and corporate bonds.

According to the agreement between the parties, all protocol revenues and incentive budgets generated through AGI3 Markets will be shared 50/50 between Fluid and AGI3.

*This is not investment advice.