Crypto weekly is authored by maaria bajwa

PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD
- Crypto Market Cap ($2.89T): 0% / -5%
- BTC ($81,070): -3% / -7%
- ETH ($2,370): -6% / -20%
- SOL ($102): -8% / -18%
- HYPE ($77): -11% / +204%
- COIN ($173): -4% / -23%
- Tether Mkt Cap ($183B): 0% / -2%
- USDC Mkt Cap ($72B): -1% / -5%
- BTC / ETH Dominance: 59% / 10%

THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO
- Bitcoin briefly fell below $80,000 for the first time in nearly a month amid hotter-than-expected inflation and an AI-led selloff fueled by signs of slowing revenue growth at Anthropic. Link. Link.

- Major index issuer MSCI will adopt new rules that could exclude companies with mainly non-operating assets, including crypto holding companies like Strategy, from its indices. Link. Link. Link. Link.

- Decentralized social network Farcaster is becoming the “Network State Protocol” following its acquisition by Balaji Srinivasan’s Network School. Link.

- An internal OpenAI research model used publicly known developer recovery phrases to derive a wallet’s keys and spend its testnet ETH without authorization to complete a coding task. Link. Link. Report.

- Russia will ban peer-to-peer crypto trading starting July 1, 2027, requiring residents to use brokers or exchanges approved by the Bank of Russia. Link.

- NFT marketplace Blur, whose monthly trading volume peaked at roughly $1.4 billion in March 2023, is shutting down its frontend and NFT lending program. Link.

- Verizon, UnitedHealth and Broadcom objected to plans to tokenize their shares under the SEC’s new framework, amid broader concerns that a parallel stock market could distort prices and confuse investors. Link.

- USDC issuer Circle said distribution payments and transaction costs accounted for $819 million of its $1.4 billion in revenue in the first half of 2026. Link. Link. Blog Post.

- Hackers tampered with Ledger hardware wallets sold through a Kuala Lumpur reseller, stealing over $90 million of crypto assets. Link.

- Agentic commerce on Coinbase’s Base grew from 1.5k transactions in Q2 2025 to 138 million in Q3 2026, with 87% of payments under 10 cents. Link

- Binance US is seeking to raise up to $100 million at a $1 billion valuation. Link.

- The Prime Brokerage division of Ripple, the parent company of XRP, is rolling out perpetual swaps linked to real-world assets including stocks, indexes, ETFs, and commodities for its institutional clients. Link. Link.

- Polygon Labs completed its $250 million acquisition of Coinme, bringing regulated payments coverage across 48 US states to the Layer-2 blockchain. Link.

- Mastercard and BVNK launched the Global Money Platform, a global money account that merges fiat and stablecoins through a single API. Link.

- A federal judge denied a rare joint motion from Gemini and the CFTC to vacate the $5 million settlement the exchange agreed to in January 2025. Link. Link.