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FinCEN has issued a notice urging financial institutions to monitor and report suspicious crypto ATM activity, highlighting increased usage by criminal organizations (e.g., drug cartels) and targeting of vulnerable elderly populations. Lawmakers have responded by introducing legislation to tighten regulation of crypto ATMs, aiming to prevent fraud and ensure operators enforce customer verification protocols.
Ethereum recorded $238 billion in onchain volume in July, a 70% MoM increase and its highest since December 2021. It also hit an all-time record of 46.67 million monthly transactions and 17.55 million active addresses, marking a full onchain revival. With ETH closing July at $3,700, the network's usage and price are both testing multi-year highs, signaling renewed momentum across Ethereum's ecosystem.
Today's LLMs have hit a reasoning plateau. REI is creating a modular “Core” framework that mirrors human cognition by separating language processing, persistent memory, and a dedicated Reasoning Cluster for logic and planning. By orchestrating specialized expert models rather than relying on one giant network, Core enables real-time learning, structured concept formation, and transparent reasoning paths. This architecture promises true adaptive intelligence by learning from each interaction rather than just predicting next words, and greater efficiency compared to brute-force mega-models. REI's onchain tokenomics also make it a uniquely investable, crypto-native bet on next-gen AI research.
Ventuals, built on Hyperliquid, will open a multi-trillion-dollar private markets asset class by letting anyone trade perpetual futures on pre-IPO company valuations with up to 10x leverage and low fees. Each market's price oracle pulls from secondary sale data to reflect real-world valuation, and traders can go long or short using Hyperliquid infrastructure. It is powered by HIP-3, Hyperliquid's protocol for enabling custom perp markets, and represents one of the first practical use cases of the standard. The Ventuals testnet will launch soon, making private startup exposure widely accessible beyond traditional VC circles.
The Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) is outdated as its decades-old data mandates are inefficient, insecure, and incompatible with modern technology. Today's compliance stack requires firms to store and transmit vast amounts of personal data, much of it unread and unused, creating unnecessary risks for users and institutions alike. This legacy model should be replaced with zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs), allowing users to prove compliance (e.g. age and sanctions) without exposing sensitive info. Congress and Treasury should modernize rules and embrace ZKP-based systems as part of the broader push for crypto regulatory clarity.
Digital assets vary widely, from “digital gold” Bitcoin to Ethereum's multifaceted infrastructure, speculative memecoins to asset-backed stablecoins, so investors must assess each on its own merits. Crypto hasn't replaced traditional payments or become a reliable store of value, but it has endured criticism, seen its market cap soar, and achieved stablecoin transaction volumes on par with Visa. Mainstream finance and shifting geopolitics, including efforts to onshore innovation and foster dollar-based stablecoins, are accelerating crypto's integration into global markets. Beyond price action, blockchain's true impact may lie in forcing a rethink of entrenched financial and geopolitical frameworks, even as criminality, consumer risks, and conflicts of interest emphasize the need for stronger regulation.
Phantom has acquired Solsniper, a high-speed Solana memecoin trading platform, as part of its strategy to evolve beyond wallet infrastructure. Solsniper will continue operating independently, with new features planned. The deal follows Phantom's February acquisition of token/NFT data platform SimpleHash and comes after its $150M Series C led by Sequoia and Paradigm. Phantom is positioning itself as a full-stack Solana ecosystem hub amid volatile but growing memecoin interest.
Ethereum has transformed from an experiment launched by developers in a Berlin loft into a $420 billion platform that serves as the backbone for Wall Street's next generation of finance. Major institutions like BlackRock, Robinhood, and Deutsche Bank build directly on its infrastructure. Stablecoins on Ethereum now process $28 trillion annually, surpassing Visa and Mastercard combined, while tokenized assets from money market funds to stocks are increasingly migrating to Ethereum-based platforms for faster, cheaper transactions with advanced functionality.
Four key factors for finding the right altcoins.
Bitcoin's mining difficulty, a measure of the computing power required to mine the next block, has reached an all-time high of 127.6T hashes.
Blackbird, a restaurant loyalty rewards app that uses crypto as the backbone for stablecoin payments to restaurants, is achieving real-world adoption from non-crypto native users thanks to its intentional design that abstracts crypto away from the end-user experience.
ETH dominance ($ETH.D) is tracking closely to BTC dominance's 2021 pattern.