James Hunt

Deputy Managing Editor @TheBlockCo 🗞️ Writer of The Daily newsletter 📨 [email protected] ✉️ DMs open. Opinions are my own.

[James Hunt @humanjets]

🗞️ From the Hormuz Safe bitcoin-settled insurance platform aiming to generate $10 billion, to more Ethereum Foundation researchers resigning amid a wave of departures, and Strategy crossing 4% of bitcoin's total supply — here's what caught our eye @TheBlockCo this week in The Daily newsletter 👀

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[Timmy Shen @timmyhmshen]

ICYMI: Here’s a quick news wrap from our U.S. session at @TheBlockCo

💰 Variant raised a $222 million fund targeting early-stage crypto and AI startups focused on expanding "autonomy."

🇦🇺 IREN established its first Australian data center campus to capture growing Asia-Pacific AI demand.

🥇 Tether is launching a Visa card that allows consumers to earn rewards paid in its gold-backed stablecoin XAUT.

🗳️ The crypto industry launched a new PAC aimed at protecting software developers as election season approaches.

🏦 Revolut’s U.S. bank is set to offer stablecoin services alongside FDIC-insured products.

🔥 Sen. Cynthia Lummis criticized JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s comments on crypto legislation, saying he had not read the Clarity Act.

⚡ Solayer launched the mainnet of Margin Trade, its new onchain perps trading platform.

🏛️ Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent backed a summer push for the Clarity Act and said work on a U.S. bitcoin reserve is progressing at a “deliberate speed.”

🛡️ EdgeX plans to offer refunds and launch a 200,000 USDC bounty program after a 71% token flash crash.

⚔️ Hyperliquid’s HYPE overtook Solana in price as SOL fell to its lowest level since 2023.

[James Hunt @humanjets]

https://t.co/TG30txfRCc

[Sarah Wynn @ForTheWynn_]

Tuned in to the Senate Finance Committee this morning, where Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is testifying to talk 2027 budgets, listen here: https://t.co/vqR2FYRTgm

[James Hunt @humanjets]

ICYMI: Here's a quick news recap from today's Asia & EMEA sessions @TheBlockCo 👇

🏛️ The Blockchain Association urged the Senate to pass the Clarity Act with a letter from 160 former security officials.

📉 Bitcoin briefly dipped below $66,000 as ETF outflows and geopolitical fears weighed on the crypto market.

😬 Cardano's Charles Hoskinson warned of a "wave of failures" after TapTools said it will wind down.

💳 Mastercard expanded support for Circle's USDC, Paxos-issued PYUSD, USDG, and USDP, Ripple's RLUSD, and SoFi's SoFiUSD, with settlement enabled across multiple blockchain networks, including Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Base, Arbitrum, Canton, Tempo, and the XRP Ledger.

⚽️ The UK's financial watchdog warned soccer clubs, including those in the Premier League, about "questionable sponsorship deals" involving unauthorized crypto companies.

🖼️ Binance is shutting down its centralized NFT service on July 3, giving users one month to withdraw transferable assets to Binance Wallet or another compatible external wallet.

🕵️ The DOJ and CFTC opened investigations into former congressman George Santos after Kalshi detected his trades, froze his account, and referred the case, according to NPR.

🚀 Grayscale launched its HYPG Hyperliquid ETF on Nasdaq.

⚠️ Ledger researchers found a flaw in a chip used by Trezor Safe 7, though Trezor said no user funds are at risk.

🐙 Payward Services' xStocks framework will allow Kraken customers and those of select partners to participate in tokenized U.S.-listed IPOs at the offering price.

🇬🇧 The House of Lords Financial Services Regulation Committee urged UK regulators to ease stablecoin rules that could stifle market growth.

[Timmy Shen @timmyhmshen]

ICYMI: Here’s a quick news wrap from our U.S. session at @TheBlockCo

📊 Standard Chartered said Strategy’s recent bitcoin sale could mark the beginning of ETH outperformance.

₿ Strive added 2,500 BTC to its treasury as Michael Saylor’s Strategy sold bitcoin.

🏦 Coinbase said it’s investing in ProShares’ GENIUS Money Market ETF.

🗳️ Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren urged the Labor Department to scrap a proposed rule that could open the door for crypto in 401(k) plans.

🤝 Coinbase has invested in Ethena through an open-market purchase of ENA.

🔐 Ethena tapped Anchorage for secure offchain collateral as it pushed further into institutional lending.

🎯 Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan called crypto a “contrarian bet,” as the digital asset market posts losses.

🚫 The U.S. sanctioned Iranian crypto exchange Nobitex and other platforms under its “Economic Fury” campaign.

[James Hunt @humanjets]

https://t.co/HRFiASXtVJ

[James Hunt @humanjets]

ICYMI: Here's a quick news recap from today's Asia & EMEA sessions @TheBlockCo 👇

🤝 Robinhood Markets completed its $180 million acquisition of Toronto-based digital asset services firm WonderFi.

📉 Bitcoin slumped below $70,000, with Ethereum and other major cryptocurrencies also dropping.

💸 U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs saw another $484 million in daily net outflows on Monday, with most coming from BlackRock's IBIT.

👀 Mt. Gox transferred a combined 10,306 BTC to an unmarked address and its hot wallet early Tuesday, according to Arkham.

💱 CME's new 24/7 crypto derivatives market saw $50 million in opening weekend trading.

😠 Polymarket is facing backlash from traders who bet on "Yes" in a market asking whether Strategy would sell any bitcoin by May 31.

💡 Vitalik Buterin proposed options-based synthetic assets to avoid liquidations and reduce reliance on real-time oracles.

🪙 MoneyGram launched MGUSD, a native USD-pegged stablecoin issued on the Stellar blockchain.

🏦 Vault infrastructure provider Veda is opening its enterprise vaults to the more than 2,000 developer teams building on Stripe-owned wallet firm Privy through a self-serve API.

🔗 Move Industries has partnered with several firms, including Circle, as it relaunches Movement as a Layer 1 and refocuses on providing financial services in emerging markets.

🎒 Backpack, the crypto exchange founded by former FTX employees, launched Backpack Securities, a platform that blends traditional and tokenized stock trading.

🧐 Hamilton Lane's tokenized Senior Credit Opportunities Fund will be the first Securitize-issued asset to launch on TRON.

📈 HIVE reported a 158% jump in annual revenue to $298 million, but reduced its bitcoin holdings to 150 BTC.

🔮 Galaxy Digital opened OTC prediction market trading for institutions, kicking off with a $10 million Kalshi trade.

🌕 Franklin Templeton is integrating its BENJI tokenized money market fund and other tokenized products into MoonPay Trade.

[James Hunt @humanjets]

https://t.co/sJeE6WDBQ1

[James Hunt @humanjets]

ICYMI: Here's a quick news recap from today's Asia & EMEA sessions @TheBlockCo 👇

💸 Strategy sold 32 BTC for approximately $2.5 million at an average price of $77,135 per bitcoin, reducing its total holdings to 843,706 BTC.

🇮🇳 Coinbase launched direct rails for Indian rupees for users in India, as the global crypto exchange continues expanding in Asia.

🇪🇺 Isabel Schnabel, a European Central Bank board member, said that central banks should respond to stablecoin risks with strong regulation and CBDCs.

🦹 Gnosis co-founder and CEO Martin Koppelmann confirmed an exploit related to Gnosis Pay involving the Zodiac delay module.

🚀 Binance launched trading for more than 7,000 U.S.-listed stocks and ETFs for customers outside the United States.

💰 Global crypto ETP outflows deepened to $1.67 billion last week, the third consecutive week of net redemptions and the second-largest single-week outflow of 2026, according to CoinShares.

📉 Bitcoin fell below $72K as ETF outflows, stalled whale buying, and macro uncertainty weigh on prices, according to analysts.

[James Hunt @humanjets]

https://t.co/HzqKPCO0NP

[James Hunt @humanjets]

ICYMI: Here's a quick news recap from today's Asia & EMEA sessions @TheBlockCo 👇

🇺🇸 U.S. President Donald Trump said he will lead efforts to establish a digital asset market structure that cannot be tampered with in the future.

⚖️ U.S. prosecutors charged a Google engineer with using internal search data to pocket $1.2 million on Polymarket.

📉 Bitcoin fell below $73,000 as spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds logged their largest net outflows since late January.

📁 The CFTC joined crypto exchange Gemini's motion for relief from a prior judgment stemming from the agency's 2022 enforcement action.

💸 Bit Digital extended a $100 million delayed-draw term loan facility to a subsidiary of its majority-owned WhiteFiber, a New York-based AI infrastructure and high-performance computing provider.

💰 Three Samsung affiliates are set to purchase a 4% stake in Dunamu, the company behind South Korea's largest crypto exchange, Upbit.

🏦 The Bank for International Settlements said a tokenization prototype under its Project Agorá initiative has demonstrated the possibility of atomic settlement in wholesale cross-border transactions.

🤖 DePIN projects Theta and XYO partnered to develop a cryptographic proof infrastructure that will independently verify AI agent workloads.

🤔 Standard Chartered compared Ethereum to Amazon during the 2001 dot-com bubble burst, but said ETH will eventually catch up to its internal metrics.

🚀 VanEck launched the first exchange-traded product in the U.S. designed to provide spot exposure to the price movements of BNB.

[James Hunt @humanjets]

https://t.co/14yAafdB2h

[James Hunt @humanjets]

ICYMI: Here's a quick news recap from today's Asia & EMEA sessions @TheBlockCo 👇

⚠️ Crypto security firm OpenZeppelin's Manuel Aráoz said that he considers "all of DeFi" unsafe, citing the asymmetry between attackers and defenders.

🇺🇸 Pro-crypto Rep. Christian Menefee unseated Rep. Al Green in the Democratic primary runoff in the 18th Congressional District of Texas following endorsements from crypto super PACs.

🇨🇳 China's top judiciary body said authorities will further study adjudication rules for cryptocurrency as the country sees "emerging cases" tied to crypto.

🇰🇷 South Korean prosecutors charged multiple individuals behind a Solana-based memecoin project named CatFi.

💸 U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs saw $333.7 million in net outflows on Tuesday, extending their negative streak to a seventh day.

🇸🇬 Zhu Juntao, the former CEO of Hodlnaut, a now-defunct crypto lending platform, has been charged with fraud in Singapore over allegedly misleading claims about the company's exposure to the collapse of TerraUSD (UST).

🤝 Coinbase extended its partnership with Standard Chartered to unlock multi-currency funding rails for institutional clients.

🏦 SoFi Technologies made its U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin available to its 14.7 million members directly within the SoFi app.

🦹 Multiple blockchain security firms said Stake DAO was targeted in an ongoing exploit tied to a suspected deployer key compromise.

🪙 Circle and Nium partnered to connect stablecoin settlement with global payout rails in more than 190 countries and 100 currencies.

[Timmy Shen @timmyhmshen]

ICYMI: Here’s a quick news wrap from our U.S. session at @TheBlockCo

🗳️ President Trump backed CFTC Chair Michael Selig's push to expand prediction market authority, calling it “critically important.”

🛒 Bitmine bought more than 100,000 ETH during Ethereum’s price drop as it neared its goal of holding 5% of ETH supply.

🇬🇧 The UK sanctioned HTX over alleged support of Russia in a broad crackdown targeting crypto exchanges.

💵 Tether-focused chain Stable launched a USDT institutional yield product.

₿ Strive leapfrogged Coinbase and Riot with its latest $85.4 million bitcoin purchase.

📈 TeraWulf shares jumped over 12% after the company announced a Kentucky data center site acquisition.

🚫 Spain blocked Polymarket and Kalshi for operating without licenses amid a widening crackdown on prediction markets.

🔒 Solana privacy layer Umbra launched confidential vesting with Streamflow, targeting the $97 billion token unlock market.

🧠 Coinbase-incubated Base rolled out an MCP gateway for AI interfaces like Claude and ChatGPT.

🏛️ The crypto industry defended OCC charters for Ripple, Coinbase and others after Sen. Elizabeth Warren called them unlawful.

⚖️ TD Cowen said the Clarity Act is becoming less likely to pass this year due to a worsening political environment.

🇭🇰 Hong Kong advanced rulemaking for virtual asset advisory and management services.

📊 Ethereum and Solana treasury firms SharpLink and Forward joined Russell indexes.

🤖 Liquid launched its Co-Invest app, bringing AI-powered live trade execution into ChatGPT and Claude.

[James Hunt @humanjets]

https://t.co/IW6JRffSsT

[James Hunt @humanjets]

ICYMI: Here's a quick news recap from today's Asia & EMEA sessions @TheBlockCo 👇

🕊️ Ondo Finance announced that its founder and CEO, Nathan Allman, has died unexpectedly.

⛓️ OKX's Layer 2 blockchain X Layer unveiled the Exchange OS upgrade, which allows operators to build their own trading venues on its unified infrastructure.

🔮 Hyperliquid began supporting outcome markets tied to offchain events as part of its HIP-4 upgrade, allowing validators to deploy and settle such prediction markets.

💸 Crypto investment products shed $1.47 billion last week, a second consecutive negative week and the third-largest weekly outflow of 2026 as Iran-linked risk-off deepened and spread across "virtually every region," according to CoinShares.

🚀 Bitwise launched the BWCC ETP on Deutsche Börse Xetra, offering exchange-traded exposure to Canton Network's native CC token.

🪙 Bitget launched Reality, a platform focused on tokenizing real-world assets (RWAs), as the crypto exchange deepens its push into tokenization.

💰 Canada's investment regulator signed off on Robinhood's roughly $180 million acquisition of crypto firm WonderFi.

📉 Bitcoin slipped below $77,000 on Tuesday as fresh U.S. strikes in southern Iran revived geopolitical uncertainty and put risk appetite on the defensive.

[James Hunt @humanjets]

https://t.co/iRXtkMiDMu

[James Hunt @humanjets]

ICYMI: Here's a quick news recap from today's Asia & EMEA sessions @TheBlockCo 👇

👀 A Satoshi-era bitcoin miner moved $203 million worth of BTC to FalconX and Cumberland, according to Onchain Lens.

🇬🇪 Tether, the world's largest stablecoin issuer, announced plans to launch GELT, a stablecoin representing the Georgian lari with government support.

⚠️ Researchers at Socket Security identified more than 34 malicious packages across three programming language registries targeting crypto developer environments, including Aptos, Sui, and Solana ecosystems.

🛡️ Facet co-founder Tom Lehman pitched EIP-8182 for inclusion in Ethereum's Hegota upgrade to enable native private ETH and ERC-20 transfers.

📉 Bitcoin is holding below $78,000 on Monday after two consecutive weeks of billion-dollar spot ETF outflows and a weekend rattled by geopolitical tension.

🇮🇩 Indonesia's Ministry of Communication and Digital has blocked access to the crypto-native prediction market platform Polymarket as authorities intensify a broader crackdown on online betting in the country.

🦹 A third-party Gnosis Safe module was exploited across Ethereum and Base, draining approximately $3.2 million from 86 Safes in roughly two hours, security firms Blockaid and PeckShield reported.

[Timmy Shen @timmyhmshen]

Stablecoin issuer @tether plans to launch GELT, a stablecoin representing the Georgian lari, with support from the Georgian government.

GELT is designed to enable lower transaction costs and support cross-border commerce, with “substantive compatibility” with U.S. stablecoin regulations, according to Tether

full story ⏬

[Timmy Shen @timmyhmshen]

ICYMI: Here’s a quick news wrap from the weekend at The Block

💸 U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs shed $1.26 billion last week in their worst weekly outflows since late January, while spot ether funds extended their outflow streak to 10 straight days.

⚖️ FTX’s former law firm and auditor agreed to pay $66 million to settle customer claims over fraud.

🏦 The ECB reportedly warned EU finance ministers that loosening euro stablecoin rules could weaken traditional banks.

🚨 StablR’s EURR and USDR depegged after an attacker minted $13.5 million in unbacked tokens through a multisig exploit.

🛶 Vitalik Buterin said the Ethereum Foundation will become a “smaller ship” and sell less ETH amid an exodus of researchers.

🕵️ The New York Times reported that the CFTC purged staff who questioned crypto firms tied to President Donald Trump.