BUSINESS

Crypto exchange Kraken and tokenized asset issuer Backed Finance are bringing tokenized equities to the BNB Chain (BNB), allowing trading with stocks like Apple and Nvidia around-the-clock on the network, the firms said on Wednesday.

The move allows token versions of U.S. stocks such as Apple (AAPLx), Tesla (TSLAx) and S&P 500 ETF (SPYx) to be issued as BEP-20 tokens and accessible to users across BNB Chain’s ecosystem. The development comes with BNB Chain joining the xStocks Alliance, a network of exchanges and decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols that offers trading with 60 equity and ETF tokens on crypto rails.

Kraken said it will allow users to deposit and withdraw xStocks tokens through the BNB Chain in the upcoming weeks. The goal is to integrate equity tokens deeper into DeFi, making them available to move across protocols and chains or post as collateral for borrowing, Adam Levi, co-founder of Backed, said in a press release.

“This is the beginning of an always-on equity market — one that is permissionless, transparent, and built for the internet,” Arjun Sethi, co-CEO of Kraken, said in a statement. “These instruments behave as programmable settlement primitives, unlocking atomic settlement, real-time global transferability, and composability with on-chain lending, derivatives, and structured products.”

Trading platforms are racing to bring equities onto blockchain rails as tokenization of traditional financial instruments, or real-world assets (RWA), gains steam. Backed’s xStocks debuted last week on Kraken, Bybit and Solana-based (SOL) DeFi platforms, while Gemini and Robinhood have introduced trading with tokenized U.S. stocks.

Crypto exchange Bitget also introduced xStocks tokens on its trading platform on Wednesday after joining the alliance, the exchange said in a press release.

Read more: Backed Finance Debuts Tokenized Stocks on Bybit, Kraken and Solana DeFi Protocols

Shiba Inu (SHIB) whales have stepped up their sales as the cryptocurrency’s price recovery looks to gather steam alongside an uptick in futures market activity. The path of least resistance still appears to be on the higher side.

SHIB, the world’s second-largest meme token by market value, traded above the 23.6% Fibonacci retracement of the May-June sell-off as of writing, up over 1% on a 24-hour basis, according to CoinDesk data.

Bullish RSI

Prices have gained over 5% in one week alongside bullish signals from key indicators such as the 14-day relative strength index. The momentum oscillator has crossed into the bullish territory above 50 for the first time since May 23.

Supporting the bull case are volume figures, which have exceeded the daily average of 307.5 billion tokens during the recent price recovery phase, according to data tracked by CoinDesk’s AI research.

Open Interest Rises as Whales Sell

Meanwhile, open interest in perpetual futures listed on Binance has surged past the 7 million SHIB mark for the first time since May 23, according to data source Velo. The upswing, accompanied by positive funding rates, suggests an increased investor interest in betting on continue price gains.

The ascent, however, could be challenged by whale and insiders moving trillions of coins to exchanges, with ten wallets controlling over half of the total token supply.

Key AI insights

• Support zone at $0.00001172-$0.00001175 attracts high-volume buying interest.
• Resistance at $0.00001196 caps upside moves with consistent reversals.
• Volume exceeds 307.5 billion token daily average during recovery phase.
• Intraday high $0.00001195 represents 1% gain from session open.
• 7.25 billion token volume spike marks resistance test during breakout attempt.

(Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy.)

By Francisco Rodrigues (All times ET unless indicated otherwise)

Bitcoin (BTC) is hovering around $108,600, pretty much unchanged over 24 hours. The broader CoinDesk 20 (CD20) index added 1.8%, shrugging off the uncertainty surrounding President Trump’s recent tariff threats against various countries.

President Donald Trump sent letters to 14 nations, including key partners in Asia, warning that tariffs will be applied starting Aug. 1 unless they make concessions to the U.S. when it comes to trade. Trump also said he will impose a 50% tariff on imported copper and up to 200% on pharmaceuticals.

Traditional markets were also muted in their responses. U.S. equity indexes were flat in yesterday’s session, while Europe opened with a slight upward momentum and Asian indexes closed higher. The U.S. dollar index is pretty much unchanged.

The market’s reaction suggests the so-called TACO — Trump always chickens out — trade is still in play. It’s a reference to the president’s negotiation pattern, in which tariffs are announced and then reversed. That’s even after he said “there will be no change” to next month’s deadline.

Still, past tariff announcements stoked inflation concerns, and this latest one comes as the Federal Reserve tightens liquidity to the tune of $40 billion a month, according to analysts at crypto hedge fund QCP Capital.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell has warned that tariff‑driven price spikes might delay any rate cuts, which would make risk assets like crypto less attractive for investors.

Nevertheless, earlier scares of a U.S. recession have cooled, with perceived odds of that happening this year dropping to 20% on Polymarket, the lowest since January.

Over the past week, cryptocurrency investment products brought in nearly $1 billion in net inflows, according to CoinShares data, pushing total assets to a record $188 billion. Bitcoin funds captured the lion’s share of those flows, with ether, solana and XRP funds logging solid demand.

Combined with a stream of corporate treasuries raising funds to buy bitcoin, demand remains elevated for the leading cryptocurrency.

Apart from exceptions like PNUT and some Grok-influenced memecoins, other altcoins aren’t faring as well. Bitcoin’s dominance has risen nearly 12% year-to-date to now account for roughly 65% of the ecosystem’s total market capitalization.

Whether the TACO trade will hold its merit ahead of the August deadline remains to be seen. Stay alert!

What to Watch

• Crypto
  • July 9, 11 a.m.: The Isthmus hard fork activates on Celo (CELO) mainnet, an Ethereum layer-2 network, aligning its L2 stack with Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade and improving scalability, interoperability and security through key Ethereum Improvement Proposals.
  • July 10: Polygon (POL) PoS set to activate the Heimdall hard fork on mainnet, reducing finality time to around 5 seconds, and bringing “faster checkpoints, smoother UX, safer bridging, and head-room for the next wave of upgrades.”
  • July 14, 10 p.m.: Singapore High Court hearing on WazirX’s Scheme of Arrangement, marking a critical step in the exchange’s restructuring after the $234 million hack on July 18, 2024.
  • July 15: Alchemist staking update launches, allowing token holders to stake ALCH for access to advanced features, premium benefits and ecosystem rewards, potentially boosting token utility and demand.
  • July 15: Lynq is expected to debut its real-time, interest-bearing digital asset settlement network for institutions. Built on Avalanche’s layer-1 blockchain and powered by Arca’s tokenized U.S. Treasury fund shares, Lynq enables instant settlement, continuous yield accrual and improved capital efficiency.
• Macro
  • July 9, 8 a.m.: Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) releases June consumer price inflation data.
    • Core Inflation Rate MoM Est. 0.38% vs. Prev. 0.3%
    • Core Inflation Rate YoY Est. 4.22% vs. Prev. 4.06%
    • Inflation Rate MoM Est. 0.27% vs. Prev. 0.28%
    • Inflation Rate YoY Est. 4.31% vs. Prev. 4.42%
  • July 9, 10 a.m.: U.S. Senate Banking Committee holds a hybrid hearing titled “From Wall Street to Web3: Building Tomorrow’s Digital Asset Markets” with CEOs of Blockchain Association, Chainalysis, Paradigm and Ripple testifying. Livestream link.
  • July 9, 2 p.m.: Release of Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) minutes from the June 17–18 meeting.
  • July 10, 8 a.m.: The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) releases June consumer price inflation data.
    • Inflation Rate MoM Est. 0.2% vs. Prev. 026%
    • Inflation Rate YoY Est. 5.32% vs. Prev. 5.32%
  • July 10, 8:30 a.m.: The U.S. Department of Labor releases unemployment insurance data for the week ended July 5.
    • Initial Jobless Claims Est. 235K vs. Prev. 233K
    • Continuing Jobless Claims Est. 1980K vs. Prev. 1964K
  • July 10, 1:15 p.m.: Fed Governor Christopher J. Waller gives a speech at an event hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth. Livestream link.
  • July 10–11: The fourth Ukraine Recovery Conference in Rome, bringing together global leaders and stakeholders to advance Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction as the war with Russia drags on.
  • July 11, 8:30 a.m.: Statistics Canada releases June employment data.
    • Unemployment Rate Prev. 7%
    • Employment Change Prev. 8.8K
  • Aug. 1, 2025, 12:01 a.m.: Reciprocal tariffs take effect after President Trump’s July 7 executive order delayed the original July 9 deadline, making this the start date for higher tariffs on imports from countries without trade deals.
• Earnings (Estimates based on FactSet data)
  • None in the near future.

Token Events

• Governance votes & calls
  • Polkadot Community is voting on launching a non-custodial Polkadot branded payment card to “to bridge the gap between digital assets in the Polkadot ecosystem and everyday spending.” Voting ends July 9.
  • Compound DAO is running multiple votes on whether to adopt an Oracle Extractable Value (OEV) solution for Ethereum mainnet, Unichain, Base, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, Scroll, Mantle, Ronin and Linea. Delegates can choose between implementing Api3, Chainlink’s Secure Value Relay (SVR), or keeping the current setup without OEV. Voting for all ends July 12.
  • July 9, 1 p.m.: Livepeer (LKPT) to host a Fireside Chat.
• Unlocks
  • July 11: Immutable (IMX) to unlock 1.31% of its circulating supply worth $10.48 million.
  • July 12: Aptos (APT) to unlock 1.76% of its circulating supply worth $51.01 million.
  • July 15: Starknet (STRK) to unlock 3.79% of its circulating supply worth $14.73 million.
  • July 15: Sei (SEI) to unlock 1% of its circulating supply worth $14.65 million.
  • July 16: Arbitrum (ARB) to unlock 1.87% of its circulating supply worth $31.31 million.
  • July 18: Official TRUMP (TRUMP) to unlock 45.35% of its circulating supply worth $789.99 million.
  • July 18: Fasttoken (FTN) to unlock 4.64% of its circulating supply worth $89 million.
• Token Launches
  • July 9: RCADE Network (RCADE) to be listed on Binance, Gate.io, MEXC, and others.

Conferences

The CoinDesk Policy & Regulation conference (formerly known as State of Crypto) is a one-day boutique event held in Washington on Sept. 10 that allows general counsels, compliance officers and regulatory executives to meet with public officials responsible for crypto legislation and regulatory oversight. Space is limited. Use code CDB10 for 10% off your registration through July 17.

• July 10-13: Mallorca Blockchain Days (Palma, Spain)
• July 16: Invest Web3 Forum (Dubai)
• July 20: Crypto Coin Day 7/20 (Atlanta)
• July 24: Decasonic’s Web3 Investor Day 2025 (Chicago)
• July 25: Blockchain Summit Global (Montevideo, Uruguay)
• July 28-29: TWS Conference 2025 (Singapore)

Token Talk

By Shaurya Malwa

• Elon Musk’s late-night post slamming U.S. authorities for euthanizing a viral squirrel named Peanut while failing to charge anyone from Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged client list sparked a frenzy around the Solana-based memecoin PNUT.
• PNUT jumped over 10% within minutes and saw 24-hour trading volumes more than triple to $214 million, according to CoinGecko data, as traders rushed in on the name-drop.
• The token has no affiliation with Musk or the squirrel and no underlying utility. It trades purely on cultural resonance and speculative momentum.
• A separate, AI-driven event took hold after Grok, the chatbot on X, hallucinated a bizarre response referencing “MechaHitler,” “GigaPutin” and “CyberStalin” — terms that quickly went viral.
• Within hours, over 200 MechaHitler-themed tokens had launched across Solana and Ethereum, with the largest on Bonk.fun hitting a $2.2 million market cap and over $1 million in early volume, DEXTools data shows.
• At least one Ethereum-based version touched a $500,000 market cap, highlighting how quickly speculative capital chases meme narratives.
• The episode highlights how AI-generated content — even hallucinatory or unhinged — is now a legitimate trigger for on-chain trading activity, rivaling traditional influencer-driven pump-and-dump schemes.
• Grok later walked back the comment, clarifying the name referred to a 1990s video game character from Wolfenstein 3D and was meant as satire, not endorsement.

Derivatives Positioning

• The cumulative notional open interest in ether USDT and dollar-denominated perpetuals listed on major exchanges has risen above 5 million ETH, the highest since June 20, alongside positive funding rates to suggest a bias for long positions. BTC perpetuals remain as dull as the spot price.
• XRP’s open interest holds steady near five-month highs, also exhibiting a bullish market sentiment.
• On Deribit, options market activity shows $110K as price magnet for BTC and $3.20 as the focus for XRP. BTC and ETH 25-delta risk reversals showed a mildly bullish bias across tenors.
• Block flows featured a BTC calendar spread and a long put position in the July 18 expiry put at the $106K strike financed by writing the same expiry $108K strike call.

Market Movements

• BTC is unchanged from 4 p.m. ET Tuesday at $108,608.62 (24hrs: +0.05%)
• ETH is up 0.34% at $2,608.51 (24hrs: +1.8%)
• CoinDesk 20 is up 0.95% at 3,143.28 (24hrs: +1.28%)
• Ether CESR Composite Staking Rate is unchanged at 2.97%
• BTC funding rate is at 0.0033% (3.6507% annualized) on Binance

• DXY is unchanged at 97.60
• Gold futures are down 0.60% at $3,297.00
• Silver futures are up 0.45% at $36.63
• Nikkei 225 closed up 0.33% at 39,821.28
• Hang Seng closed down 1.06% at 23,892.32
• FTSE is up 0.28% at 8,879.27
• Euro Stoxx 50 is up 1.12% at 5,432.32
• DJIA closed on Tuesday down 0.37% at 44,240.76
• S&P 500 closed unchanged at 6,225.52
• Nasdaq Composite closed unchanged at 20,418.46
• S&P/TSX Composite closed down 0.43% at 26,903.57
• S&P 40 Latin America closed up 0.48% at 2,708.14
• U.S. 10-Year Treasury rate is down 1.2 bps at 4.405%
• E-mini S&P 500 futures are up 0.15% at 6,281.25
• E-mini Nasdaq-100 futures are up 0.15% at 22,932.00
• E-mini Dow Jones Industrial Average Index are up 0.14% at 44,576.00

Bitcoin Stats

• BTC Dominance: 64.95 (-0.17%)
• Ether to bitcoin ratio: 0.02403 (0.08%)
• Hashrate (seven-day moving average): 889 EH/s
• Hashprice (spot): $58.92
• Total Fees: 4.55 BTC / $493,193
• CME Futures Open Interest: 147,955
• BTC priced in gold: 33.1 oz.
• BTC vs gold market cap: 9.30%

Technical Analysis

• The Dollar Index (DXY) has topped a bearish trendline, representing the sell-off from February highs.
• It’s a sign of dollar bulls looking to reassert themselves.

Crypto Equities

• Strategy (MSTR): closed on Tuesday at $396.94 (+0.32%), +0.22% at $397.82
• Coinbase Global (COIN): closed at $354.82 (-0.64%), +0.56% at $356.82
• Circle (CRCL): closed at $204.81 (-1.28%), unchanged in pre-market
• Galaxy Digital (GLXY): closed at $19.46 (-1.17%), +0.36% at $19.53
• MARA Holdings (MARA): closed at $17.52 (+4.6%), +0.11% at $17.54
• Riot Platforms (RIOT): closed at $11.57 (+0.17%), +0.61% at $11.64
• Core Scientific (CORZ): closed at $14.02 (-5.46%), +0.57% at $14.10
• CleanSpark (CLSK): closed at $11.60 (+2.38%), +0.26% at $11.63
• CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI): closed at $24.9 (+0.04%)
• Semler Scientific (SMLR): closed at $41.71 (+7.09%), unchanged in pre-market
• Exodus Movement (EXOD): closed at $32.12 (+7.32%)

ETF Flows

Spot BTC ETFs

• Daily net flows: $75.3 million
• Cumulative net flows: $49.91 billion
• Total BTC holdings ~1.25 million

Spot ETH ETFs

• Daily net flow: $ 46.7 million
• Cumulative net flows: $4.52 billion
• Total ETH holdings ~ 4.21 million

Source: Farside Investors

Overnight Flows

Chart of the Day

• The total value of stablecoins issued on the Tron blockchain climbed to a record high above $80 billion.
• The tally is still significantly less than Ethereum’s $128.8 billion, according to data source Artemis.

While You Were Sleeping

• Donald Trump Deal to Leave EU Facing Higher Tariffs Than U.K. (Financial Times): The EU is nearing a framework deal with 10% tariffs on most goods — the same baseline rate as the U.K. — though the latter appears to have an edge on sectoral terms.
• Key Market Dynamic Keeps Bitcoin, XRP Anchored to $110K and $2.3 as Ether Looks Prone to Volatility (CoinDesk): Market maker positioning is damping volatility in BTC and XRP while amplifying it in ETH, where hedging flows may fuel sharper price swings above $2,650.
• Eigen Labs Axes 25% of Staff to Focus on Building EigenCloud (CoinDesk): The startup cut 29 jobs to shift resources toward EigenCloud development. EigenLayer and EigenDA — its restaking and data availability protocols — will continue to operate as part of the new platform.
• Anthony Pompliano’s ProCap Appears Better Than Peers Based on the BTC HODLer’s Own Data (CoinDesk): ProCap BTC, which holds 4,950 BTC and plans to go public in a $1 billion SPAC deal, says it trades at the lowest implied NAV premium among major bitcoin treasury firms.
• Bitcoin Treasury Firms Expand War Chests as Global Adoption Rises (CoinDesk): Of the $278 million raised by H100, Remixpoint and LQWD, $215 million came from Japan’s Remixpoint, which plans to use it to grow its treasury to a near-term target of 3,000 BTC.
• Israel Is Now Peerless in the Middle East and Markets (Bloomberg): Israel’s currency, equities and bonds have outperformed global peers since June 13 as investors signal confidence in its regional military dominance and prospects for rapid economic growth.

In the Ether

Cryptocurrency users in the U.K. will be required to provide certain information to service providers relating to their digital asset activity from Jan. 1 2026, or risk a fine.

Users must provide their full name, date of birth, address, country of residence and tax identification numbers.

Failure to do so could land them a penalty of up to 300 pounds ($408).

His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) said the information will help users’ crypto activity be linked to their tax record to work out how much tax is payable.

The requirement pertains to users’ dealings with all businesses classed as crypto service providers. These include exchanges, wallet apps, non-fungible token (NFT) marketplaces and services that help users manage their crypto portfolios.

Read More: Crypto for Advisors: It’s Tax Time