Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published a technical essay outlining how cryptography could one day enable people to vote privately onchain without relying on a trusted group to manage ballots or reveal the result. 

In a blog post on Monday, Buterin said a cryptographic approach called indistinguishability obfuscation (iO), combined with blockchain infrastructure, could support private and collusion-resistant voting with “almost no trust assumption.” The approach would replace threshold committees, which jointly decrypt voting data, with protected programs designed only to reveal the outcome. 

Private onchain voting remains dependent on groups of operators safeguarding information and behaving honestly. Removing that dependency could make decentralized governance harder to manipulate, reduce the risk of insider interference and allow voters to participate without exposing how they voted, according to Buterin. 

However, Buterin said the technology remains impractical. He said the most conservative constructions require what he described as “galactic” amounts of computation. He said faster approaches rely on less-tested security assumptions, which means that the idea presents a more long-term research direction rather than a deployment-ready system. 

Source: Vitalik Buterin

How indistinguishability obfuscation could protect onchain votes

According to Buterin, iO is a form of cryptography that turns software into a protected program. People can run the program and receive the intended output, but they cannot inspect its internal code or extract the data stored inside it. Buterin described the concept as hiding the code rather than the information being processed. 

For onchain voting, Buterin said an obfuscated program could contain the logic needed to process encrypted ballots and reveal the final tally without exposing individual votes, essentially removing the need for a threshold committee whose members collectively hold the keys required to decrypt the result. 

Buterin said blockchains would still play a key role because an obfuscated program cannot prevent itself from being copied or independently maintain changing information. 

Related: Ethereum whale who shorted October 2025 crash opens $19.7M ETH short position

Buterin’s broader privacy push

Buterin previously connected iO with private voting in his Ethereum roadmap published in October 2024. He said the approach could provide stronger privacy and resistance to coercion. His latest essay expands on that earlier proposal by examining how the underlying cryptography could be constructed, the security assumptions it requires and the technical barriers preventing it from becoming practical.

In April 2025, Buterin proposed a more immediate privacy roadmap for Ethereum, calling for privacy tools to be integrated into existing wallets. The proposal also advocated for stronger protections against data collection by infrastructure providers that wallets use to access Ethereum. 

Buterin also drew funding from his personal holdings to fund privacy-preserving technologies. On Jan. 30, he earmarked 16,384 Ether (ETH), worth about $45 million at the time, to fund initiatives focused on privacy, open infrastructure and self-sovereign tools. 

Magazine: Japanese pension fund tips 1% in crypto, G7 urges action on NK hackers: Asia Express

On the 16th of July, Crypto.com announced the strategic investment worth $400 million from Citadel Securities, which has valued them at $200 billion. It marked the exchange’s first institutional funding round in their decade-long history, the post read.

Cronos [CRO] reacted bullishly to the news on the day. From the day’s open at $0.0555, the token rallied 21.92% to a local high of $0.0677. The trading volume for the day had jumped by 12x the previous day’s volume.

In the following 12 hours, the exchange token saw a 15.9% retracement, falling to $0.057. Here’s how the CRO price trends could go in the coming weeks.

Is Cronos still in a strong uptrend?

The Directional Movement Index, used to measure the relative strengths of price trends, had both its ADX (yellow) and +DI (green) well above the 20 threshold, signaling an intense uptrend in progress.

However, the OBV disagreed. It was yet to challenge the highs the volume indicator made in May, showing that buying pressure was relatively weak.

The price action leads, indicators follow, and the OBV was on to something actionable for investors. Using the bearish impulse move from $0.083 down to $0.053, a set of Fibonacci retracement levels (orange) was plotted.

At the time of writing, CRO has not even challenged the 50% level of this move. Hence, there is a chance the current move could continue $0.072-$0.077. The lower timeframe price data can be used to settle this point.

Should Cronos traders sell?

The 4-hour chart showed both a bearish structure and an obstinate supply zone. This band of resistance was around $0.062-$0.063. Since the time it became a supply zone in June, it has been tested four times.

The fourth time, a couple of days ago, has not succeeded yet. The bullish investment news from Citadel has been a sell-the-news type reaction.

Another point supporting the bearish idea is based on the liquidation heatmap. The cluster of short liquidations around $0.060-$0.065 was swept by the recent price spike.

Such a sweep into a key resistance zone is usually followed by a reversal. Hence, in the coming days, a price drop toward $0.05 is likely.

Final Summary

The Citadel Securities investment of $400 million was the first institutional funding round for Crypto.com in its history.
The technical indicators showed upward momentum, but the longer-term price action exhibited a bearish structure.

Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, recorded a sharp surge in weekly outflows as Ethereum withdrawal activity climbed to a multi-year high.

According to DefiLlama data viewed by Cointelegraph on Sunday, Binance saw $1.23 billion in net outflows during the week beginning June 29, a 207% increase from roughly $400 million the week prior, while monthly net outflows totaled about $3.2 billion.

Separately, CryptoQuant community analyst Darkfost reported Friday that Binance’s Ethereum withdrawal transactions hit their highest level in more than three years, with over 166,000 withdrawal transactions in a single day.

While some of the movement may reflect accumulation behavior, Darkfost pointed to regulatory uncertainty stemming from the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) and short-term market positioning as possible drivers.

ETH outflows vs price rebound

Binance’s ETH withdrawals marked the sharpest increase in withdrawal transactions recorded on Binance since March 2023, coinciding with Ether posting a modest rebound of around 10% over two days, according to CryptoQuant data.

“This surge in withdrawals could reflect genuine demand building around the $1,500 level, with investors choosing to take exposure and pull their funds off the exchange, a pattern that typically points toward longer-term accumulation rather than short-term trading,” Darkfost said.

Source: CryptoQuant

Ether prices showed a broader recovery over the past week. According to Coingecko data, ETH rose about 12.5% over the past seven days, trading at $1,766 at the time of publication.

Related: Bitcoin profit and loss ratio falls to 43-month low

Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, also edged up 4.3% over the same period, trading at $62,925 at the time of publication.

Outflows dominate CEXs while inflows remain fragmented

Apart from Binance, several other centralized exchanges (CEXs) also recorded outflows over the past week.

Bitfinex saw $407.5 million in outflows, followed by Gate at $214.3 million. OKX recorded $87.1 million in outflows, while Bybit posted $78.4 million, according to DefiLlama data.

Top five exchanges sorted by weekly net flows. Source: DefiLlama

On the inflow side, Crypto.com and HashKey Exchange led gains over the past week, recording around $63 million and $53.3 million in net inflows, respectively.

Smaller inflows were also seen across KuCoin at $22.1 million, Gemini at $17.4 million, and Bitvavo at $15.8 million over the same period.

Magazine: Bitcoin copying 2022 ‘almost perfectly,’ Ether to $4K in 2026: Market Moves

Uniswap has officially submitted three governance proposals for protocol fee activation across several chains and different versions of the DEX. The first fee proposal will be for versions 2 (V2) and 3 (V3) on the Robinhood chain. The new Ethereum L2 debuted this month, attracting several DEXes, including Uniswap. About 10 days after launch, Uniswap crossed $1B in trading volume – ultimately showing its growing traction. 

Similarly, the project seeks to activate fees on V4 across Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, Robinhood, BNB Chain, Polygon and Optimism. Hayden Adams, Uniswap’s CEO, added that a third fee proposal for remaining V4 chains will also be submitted soon. 

Adams said, 

Both direct all new protocol fees into the existing UNI burn mechanism. Based on current volumes, especially Robinhood, we expect the impact on UNI burn to be substantial.

Mixed reactions to Uniswap’s fee proposal

For clarity, fees are what users pay for each swap on the DEX, and they mostly go to liquidity providers (LPs). Protocol revenue (which is partly directed for UNI burn) is a percentage of the swap fees that goes to the project after a governance vote. 

In other words, such proposals would directly reduce fees collected by LPs. As such, it was not surprising that some LP providers like Gamma Strategies opposed V4 fee proposals because they would affect their lifeline. 

Still, Gamma Strategies made a sound argument for their opposition, noting that Uniswap V4 was still not competitive enough and the fees would make it lose to rivals.

It (V4) still lags Uniswap V3 in terms of volumes, and there’s evermore increasing competition from AMMs, propAMMs, RFQ’s, and spot limit order book DEX’s such as Lighter/Hyperliquid.

That said, Uniswap has only activated fees across a few chains and versions. However, most of the fees collected go to LPs.

In fact, LPs have made a whopping +$5B in cumulative fees since 2018. Yet, the protocol has made only $25M in cumulative revenue.   

If the proposal goes through and is balanced with competition, more protocol revenue would translate to more UNI burn rates, as Adams projected. 

That said, the project has now burned a total of 107.49M UNI tokens. UNI burn rate surged 3x from $51K to over $160K in the past week. 

Can UNI extend its July rally?

The Robinhood traction was front-run by traders as the Uniswap [UNI] price surged. In July, UNI price surged 41% from $2.7 to $3.8. 

But the bullish strength has eased as the price stalled below the 200-day Moving Average (blue line). As such, price could remain sideways above $3.5 or slip to $3 if Robinhood momentum stabilizes. 

But the next move higher could be triggered by renewed Robinhood momentum and if the fee proposals drive more UNI burn. 

Final Summary

Uniswap pushes three fee protocol fee proposals to accelerate UNI burn. 
Currently, Uniswap LPs have accrued over $5B while the protocol makes relatively little revenue 

 

The amount of Ether bridged to Robinhood’s new layer-2 blockchain exceeded $70 million in just the first week, according to Token Terminal. 

Robinhood Chain, an EVM-compatible Arbitrum-based layer-2 network that uses ETH as its native gas token, launched on July 1 with the company describing it as “AI-native and purpose-built for real-world assets.” 

“If adoption continues, the chain could become a meaningful new source of demand for ETH,” said Token Terminal on Thursday. 

Robinhood has also offered tokenized stocks to customers in more than 120 countries, responding to a surging demand for tokenized US equities. Ethereum and its layer-2 scaling networks have been a popular choice for tokenized real-world assets (RWA) with more than 50% market share, according to RWA.xyz, and this move could cement that position even further. 

Turning liquidity into economic activity

“Robinhood Chain is rapidly turning liquidity into economic activity,” said Token Terminal in a separate post on X. 

Robinhood Chain’s daily active users reached 194,000 while daily revenue has grown to $39,000, equivalent to a $14 million annualized revenue run rate, within the chain’s first week, it said. 

DefiLlama, a decentralized finance data platform, shows similar figures, showing Robinhood Chain has a total value locked of 46,748 ETH, worth around $83 million at current market prices. Thursday’s inflows alone totaled 31,855 ETH, or around $55 million.  

Uniswap founder Hayden Adams said Friday that most of what is happening on the Robinhood Chain is ETH-denominated. 

“It’s the base pair for trading, the highest volume asset, and the gas token to pay for blockspace. It also burns ETH on L1 to pay data storage fees,” he added. 

ETH bridged to Robinhood Chain tops $70 million. Source: Token Terminal 

Andri Fauzan Adziima, research lead at Bitrue Research Institute, told Cointelegraph that it was “strongly bullish” and early volume “validates the L2 flywheel,” as a “meaningful new demand sink.”

“By using ETH as the native gas token on this high-velocity Arbitrum L2, every transaction I track creates direct, recurring demand while locking capital and onboarding Robinhood’s massive user base.” 

Related: L1s face decentralization ‘tug-of-war’ as adoption grows: Injective CEO

Tim Sun, HashKey Group senior researcher, said it was “a clear, structural positive for ETH.”

“For Ethereum, the most direct benefit is that Robinhood Chain uses ETH for gas,” he said. “As bridged assets, wallet addresses, and on-chain transactions grow, new demand for ETH is generated.”

“However, the deeper significance lies not just in how much gas is consumed, but in Robinhood’s choice to build its own on-chain financial ecosystem within the Ethereum network. This further solidifies the Ethereum mainnet’s position as the ultimate settlement layer and liquidity foundation for tokenized assets.”

Bulls argue Ethereum’s long-term growth thesis comes from RWA tokenization, agentic AI payments, institutional adoption and network upgrades, such as Glamsterdam, expected before the end of 2026, which is expected to increase layer 1 capacity. 

ETH prices ticked up on Friday to reach $1,775 but remain at multi-year bear market lows, down 64% from their August 2025 peak. 

Features: The biggest blockchain upgrades still to come in 2026

Promotion on the Biggest Platform Possible

The White House’s official account on social media platform X published a nine-second video on Wednesday captioned simply “TRUMP COIN!” The clip showcases a gold-finish $1 coin bearing President Donald Trump’s likeness, a physical commemorative piece for the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence, not a cryptocurrency.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent unveiled the design, which the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts approved in March 2026. Bessent stated:

As America commemorates 250 years of independence, the @usmint will begin striking this new $1 gold coin to honor the enduring legacy of liberty and a lasting symbol of patriotism.

The U.S. Mint plans to strike the coin in Philadelphia ahead of a fall release. Despite its gold appearance, the piece is made of non-precious metals. Federal law has long kept living presidents off U.S. currency, but a 2020 statute permitting anniversary-themed designs opened the door for the release.

Same Name, Different Asset

Confusion arrived almost instantly, given that the TRUMP memecoin (a Solana-based token launched on Jan. 17, 2025, days before the president’s inauguration) shares its name with the new collectible, and traders initially wondered whether the White House was promoting the crypto asset. The token dipped briefly from about $1.59 to around $1.56 as the post spread, before stabilizing.

The episode was a fresh reminder of how far the memecoin has fallen. TRUMP trades more than 97% below its January 2025 high, with a market capitalization near $370 million. Nearly 989,000 of the 1.48 million wallets holding the token are sitting on combined losses of $3.81 billion, according to onchain data.

Of the 1 billion TRUMP supply, only 200 million tokens circulate publicly, while insiders and Trump-affiliated entities control the remaining 800 million. Trading fees and royalties tied to the project generated more than $635 million for Trump-linked entities in 2025 alone.

A Presidency Entangled With Its Portfolio

The video lands amid continuing scrutiny of the president’s crypto earnings. Trump’s latest financial disclosure reported at least $1.4 billion in 2025 crypto income, led by the TRUMP memecoin royalties, alongside holdings tied to World Liberty Financial.

The disclosure prompted one U.S. senator to seek a memecoin ban for presidents and elected officials, and ethics provisions remain one of the sticking points in the Senate’s broader crypto market structure negotiations.

The White House post drew a mix of celebration and criticism online, with some users questioning whether a physical coin bearing a sitting president’s face carried the same conflict-of-interest concerns as the token. The administration has maintained that the commemorative piece is a Treasury initiative honoring the country’s semiquincentennial, unrelated to the president’s private crypto ventures.

In any case, the Mint’s collectible arrives in the fall with a $1 face value, while the memecoin’s holders wait (989,000 of them still underwater) to see whether the presidential brand can lift the token the way it once did.

Robinhood Chain’s explosive launch this month has reignited one of Ethereum’s longest-running debates: Do successful layer-2 networks increase demand for ETH, the asset, or do the new entrants capture all of the value for themselves?

The retail brokerage’s Arbitrum-based Ethereum L2 has become one of Ethereum’s busiest rollups since its launch on July 1.

More than $141 million in Ether was bridged onto the chain in its first two weeks. DeFiLlama data shows more than half a million wallets now hold ETH on the network, and a memecoin frenzy saw Robinhood Chain surge past the Ethereum L1 and Coinbase’s Base L2 in 24-hour DEX trading volume.

Ether has pumped on the news, gaining around 15% from $1,582 on July 1 to $1,825 by July 13, according to Coingecko data, following a wave of bullish comments.

World Liberty Financial’s Eric Trump posted on July 11, “ETH is pumping hard! Great to see!” while Tom Lee, chairman of BitMine Immersion Technologies, argued the launch reinforces the thesis that “ETH is money,” pointing to the asset’s role as the chain’s native gas token and the L2’s finality on Ethereum’s mainnet.

Ethereum investors have heard similar arguments before.

Related: Robinhood L2 sparks ETH optimism, Saylor ‘muddies waters.’ Hodler’s Digest, July 5-12, 2026

Arbitrum, Optimism and Base each drove waves of users and activity onto Ethereum’s L2 ecosystem, but failed to move the needle meaningfully in Ether’s price, as most of the economic activity remained on the rollups themselves.

Robinhood Chain’s launch is arguably different. Unlike previous rollups built by crypto-native firms, the network was developed by a publicly listed retail brokerage with tens of millions of customers to support tokenized stocks and other real-world assets.

Within days of launch, it already accounted for 6.9% of all tokenized stockholders, according to data from Token Terminal.

Ether price response to Robinhood Chain’s launch. Source Coingecko

And, if Robinhood’s model succeeds, it could encourage banks, brokers and asset managers to build L2s of their own, and cement Ethereum as the default blockchain for TradFi. Deutsche Bank is already in the process of building a ZK-powered Ethereum L2 called DAMA 2, focused on institutional finance.

Why Robinhood could be a turning point

Ethereum’s L2 networks use rollup technology to process transactions away from Ethereum’s main chain and periodically settle them back to the network. Robinhood Chain uses Arbitrum technology and is compatible with Ethereum’s wider ecosystem.

But what has caught the industry’s attention isn’t the technology itself, as much as who is using it.

“It’s a real milestone,” Alex Gluchowski, founder and chief executive of Matter Labs, the developer behind Ethereum L2 zkSync, told Cointelegraph.

“It shows Ethereum L2s have gone from something crypto-native teams experiment with to infrastructure a regulated, publicly listed company will run its business on.”

Rather than building a blockchain from scratch, as Stripe has opted to do with Tempo, Robinhood chose to tailor an Ethereum rollup to its own needs “for privacy, compliance and performance, while still inheriting Ethereum’s security and connecting to its liquidity,” he added.

Max Shannon, senior research analyst at Bitwise, told Cointelegraph that Robinhood Chain’s success is more significant than previous L2 deployments.

“It represents the growth of the Ethereum ecosystem, particularly among major institutions,” he said. “It also arrives at a time when Ethereum has more broadly repositioned itself toward institutions through Eth Labs and Ethereum Institutional.”

Does Robinhood Chain change the investment case for ETH?

For Shannon, Robinhood’s launch strengthens the investment case for Ethereum because it reinforces the network’s position as the leading blockchain for institutional adoption.

He said ETH has the “network characteristics” to become the reserve asset for a growing network of institutional L2s. But like many, he believes Ethereum’s tokenomics need to be improved so that increased network activity is reflected more clearly in demand for ETH.

Ethereum has been criticized frequently for its decision to lower fees for L2s as a way to spark adoption and gain network effects. Ark Invest’s Lorenzo Valente posted on July 14 that Robinhood Chain had generated $816,000 in revenue since launch, with Arbitrum taking a 10% cut, but only 0.15% of the total being paid back to Ethereum.

“If your thesis is ‘ETH is money,’ Robinhood building here is ultra bullish. More activity, more ETH collateral, more lindyness. If your thesis is ‘ETH is a revenue generating asset,’ this is the ultra-bear case.”

GrowThePie said that Valente’s figures for Eth’s share of the revenue were off by a factor of four and argued “0.6% of revenue is the correct figure.” But even the higher figure is not a meaningful driver of revenue to the L1. Robinhood Chain generated more gas fees than any other L2 in the past week, but Ethereum only saw $4,400 of that.

Source: Matze, GrowThePie

Gluchowski said ETH’s appreciation would not be based on fee revenue, but would likely come from becoming widely accepted money throughout the L2 ecosystems.

“People might pay fees in stablecoins or never think about gas at all,” he said. “But as more value settles through Ethereum, ETH starts to look less like a fee token and more like a base monetary asset for this system.”

Related: Robinhood says its AI agent feature will ‘soon’ be assisting crypto traders

Even ETH bears like Mike Dudas from 6th Man Ventures, have described Robinhood Chain as “the single most bullish thing I’ve seen in eth-land in years.”

But after Dudas saw Valente’s post, he added the proviso that “Eth cooked unless ‘eth is money’ takes off or the price of l1 settlement increases.”

The value accrual question remains

While Robinhood’s success may have bolstered the case for Ethereum’s scaling strategy, it has yet to settle one of the network’s biggest unanswered questions: how does growing L2 activity ultimately translate into value for ETH?

Shannon said that recent upgrades like Fusaka have improved Ethereum’s scaling capabilities, but despite transaction activity reaching record levels, demand has yet to translate into meaningfully higher fees or increased ETH burn.

“Robinhood will not solve this problem,” Shannon said, and the collective growth of L2s will likely not either… It requires a wholesale change in developer mindset and in ETH’s token economics.”

Another uncertainty is how much ETH institutional users will actually hold directly. As tokenized stocks and other RWAs increasingly trade against stablecoins, many users may rarely interact with ETH, even though it underpins the network behind the scenes.

Robinhood may have shown that a major financial institution is willing to build on Ethereum’s infrastructure, but whether that ultimately translates into stronger demand for ETH remains to be seen.

Magazine Ethereum’s much-hated staking ‘tax’ may already be obsolete

Atlas System has announced that its platform will officially launch on August 1, 2026, marking the first public stage of a Web3 infrastructure project focused on voluntary mutual financing, on-chain transparency, and automated smart contract logic.

The platform presents itself as a new-generation alternative to closed and opaque online earning platforms. Instead of relying on manual administration or hidden allocation rules, Atlas System says its core processes are designed to operate through predefined smart contract mechanics. The project’s stated goal is to give participants a more transparent environment where key operations can be tracked on-chain and where the rules of participation are visible in advance.

Smart Cycle 1 to Serve as the First Pilot Product

At launch, the central product of the ecosystem will be Smart Cycle 1, described by Atlas System as its first DAO-based pilot financial product. Smart Cycle 1 is built around voluntary participation: users connect a Web3 wallet, select an available cycle format and send funds into the system according to the platform’s rules. The project emphasizes that participation is voluntary and that funds are distributed only within the system, according to the logic embedded in the smart contract.

Atlas System’s model is based on the principle that value is not generated externally. According to the project materials, funds are not sent into third-party investment instruments, trading pools or external financial strategies. Instead, the system’s mechanics rely on participant contributions and automated distribution rules. This structure is central to how Atlas System presents its approach: all key activity should be governed by transparent, predetermined logic rather than discretionary human decision-making.

Hybrid DAO Mechanics and Smart Contract Automation

The platform will use a Hybrid DAO format, combining smart contract automation with on-chain governance mechanisms. Atlas System says that its development approach includes modular architecture, code review, infrastructure monitoring and a focus on security practices such as smart contract audits and bug bounty programs. The project also states that individual members of the technical team may be disclosed publicly as the infrastructure matures and reaches a stable operating stage.

One of the main themes behind the launch is transparency. Atlas System says its system is designed so that key processes are recorded in the blockchain and can be checked by users through public block explorers. As part of its transparency framework, Atlas System has already published a full whitepaper and manifesto, completed two smart contract audits, and made its smart contract source code openly available on GitHub.

The first version of the ecosystem will include several components available from the start. Alongside Smart Cycle 1, Atlas System plans to introduce Atlas Invite & Earn, its partner program, and Atlas Knowledge Hub, a knowledge base for users of the ecosystem. These initial products are expected to form the foundation for further development.

Roadmap Toward a Broader Web3 Ecosystem

The project’s roadmap extends beyond the launch phase. Atlas System plans to release a P2P exchange and a governance platform in Q4 2026. In 2027, the roadmap includes Atlas Academy, a decentralized messenger, a non-custodial crypto wallet and a DAO-based swap product. A decentralized bank concept, Atlas Bank DAO, is listed for Q2 2028. The company describes this roadmap as part of a long-term strategy to build a broad Web3 ecosystem rather than a single short-term product.

Atlas System’s communication also reflects growing demand for online financial communities, partner programs and blockchain-based coordination tools. The project argues that millions of users worldwide are already looking for ways to participate in digital financial systems, build partner networks and join communities with shared economic interests. Atlas System aims to address this audience with a model that combines Web3 access, community growth and transparent rules.

Risk Disclosure and Liquidity-Based Mechanics

At the same time, the project’s own materials include a risk warning. Atlas System states that any additional assistance or “delta” available within Smart Cycle mechanics is not guaranteed. The return of contributed funds and any additional amount depends on sufficient liquidity in the smart contract, which is formed by other participants in the system. This means that users must understand the rules before participating and should not treat the platform as a guaranteed-income product.

This distinction is likely to be important as Atlas System enters the market. In recent years, Web3 users have become more sensitive to transparency, contract verification and the difference between automated blockchain logic and traditional investment promises. By placing its mechanics on-chain and framing participation as voluntary mutual financing, Atlas System is attempting to position itself within a more transparent category of community-driven financial infrastructure.

Launch as the First Test of the Atlas System Model

The August 1, 2026 launch will therefore serve as the first major test for the project’s model. Smart Cycle 1 will introduce users to the platform’s initial mechanics, while the broader roadmap will show whether Atlas System can expand from a pilot product into a wider Web3 ecosystem.

For now, Atlas System’s message is clear: the project wants to move the high-yield online project category away from closed systems and toward transparent, rule-based digital infrastructure. Its launch will show how that idea performs in practice.

About the Project

Platform: https://atlas-system.io/

Support:

X: https://x.com/AtlasSystemWeb3

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61590728242235

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@atlas_system_official

Telegram Channel: https://t.me/atlas_system_official

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Atlas_system_official

GitHub: https://github.com/atlas-system-dev/atlas-smart-cycle-v1

Disclaimer: This is a paid post and should not be treated as news/advice.  

Bitmine Immersion Technologies recorded $45.7 million in revenue from Ether staking and validation last quarter, following the launch of its institutional-grade Ethereum staking platform in March. 

Staking revenue accounted for 98% of total revenue for the three months ended May 31, far outpacing the $624,000 from self-mining Bitcoin (BTC) and the $168,000 from consulting services, according to Bitmine’s latest 10-Q filing. On Monday, Bitmine said it had staked 85% of its ETH holdings, or about 4.9 million Ether (ETH). 

“Bitmine has staked more ETH than other entities in the world. At scale (when Bitmine’s ETH is fully staked by MAVAN and its staking partners), the projected ETH staking reward is $284 million on an annualized basis,” said Tom Lee, chairman of Bitmine. 

The latest quarterly results show how Bitmine’s pivot to Ethereum has reshaped its revenue mix. A year ago, Bitmine recorded just $2 million in total revenue for the quarter ended May 31, 2025, primarily from machine leasing. 

The results also reflect the March launch of MAVAN, an institutional-grade Ethereum staking platform that operates validator infrastructure for its own holdings and external clients. 

Related: Ethereum backers launch nonprofit to lead institutional adoption efforts 

MAVAN, short for “Made in America VAlidator Network,” followed the acquisition of Australia-based non-custodial validator operator Pier Two Holdings. It was originally developed to support Bitmine’s own Ethereum treasury; its scope was expanded to serve institutional investors, custodians and ecosystem partners.  

Lee calls Robinhood Chain a “breakaway success”

On Monday, Lee highlighted the success of the newly launched Robinhood Chain, with dollar volumes exceeding $1 billion since its July 1 launch. 

“Robinhood Chain now has more trading volume than any other decentralized exchange (DEX), demonstrating the outstanding utility and product market fit for Ethereum, which is the underlying chain,” he said. 

“Robinhood Chain uses ETH as the native gas token. And transaction fees are denominated in ETH and the finality is settled on Ethereum. Robinhood’s 27 million users are paying crypto fees denominated in ETH. In other words, everyday users are starting to see ETH as money,” he added. 

Magazine: Strategy became a symbol of the dot-com crash: Could history repeat?

From its peak of $96K in January 2026 to $62.7K at press time, Bitcoin’s price [BTC] has been falling for the entirety of H1 2026. Although there were brief spikes in value, those were short-lived. 

Bitcoin ETFs revive bullish momentum

However, the stress could be smoothening out now. This, because exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recently reported figures of $281.8 million. This marked their first weekly inflow since the second week of May.

As per AMBCrypto’s previous report, $197.4 million flowed into Bitcoin funds, and $84.4 million flowed into Ethereum [ETH]. These inflows also ended an eight-week outflow streak that depleted more than $7 billion from cryptocurrency ETFs.

Unfortunately, even after zooming out, the image remains somehwat sobering. This, because the 12-month inflows fell to about $1 billion, from a peak of $12 billion in October 2025 and $10 billion in late April.

However, buyers may be beginning to return now after two grueling months. Even though no one is prepared to declare a bottom, the first two weeks of July appeared to be when flows stopped falling.

Geopolitical factors that stained H1 2026

To begin with, the conflict in the Middle East was the major reason behind Bitcoin’s bearish momentum. However, in H2 2026, things seemed to stabilize. Though oil jumped more than 5% towards the $75 resistance level, Bitcoin’s price remained comparatively resilient.

In fact, the resilience continued even after President Donald Trump withdrew from the Iran ceasefire, reigniting macro uncertainty. 

How are Fed rates, DATs, and exploits also acting up?

Additionally, the central bank maintained interest rates between 3.50% and 3.75% through mid-2026, indicating that it is not in a rush to lower rates because inflation is still above its target. 

Another factor that hurt the cryptocurrency market in H1 2026 was the rise in blockchain security incidents, which increased by about 50% year over year to 182. However, overall losses decreased by about 60% to about $956 million, as opposed to $2.37 billion the previous year. 

Nevertheless, with Strategy selling 3,588 BTC, or roughly $216 million, to pay preferred stock dividends, the drop in BTC holdings stirred the pot in July. 

This alone hinted at the fact that investors may be awaiting for more convincing evidence that inflation is decreasing.

However, with the total distributed RWA market capitalization exceeding $33 billion, representing a 200% year-over-year growth and a nearly 20x increase since January 2024, hope remains.

This, because the RWAs’ growth highlighted in the H1 2026 report from Birdeye Research significantly outpaced the stablecoins’ 2.4x growth during the same time period. 

What’s ahead?

So, it’s best to conclude that a bottom is not confirmed by any of this.

As expected, $7 billion in outflows cannot be reversed by a single strong week of inflows. This sentiment was well reflected by the Crypto Fear and Greed Index, which was still in the “Extreme Fear zone” at press time.

Final Summary

H2 2026 has brought in fresh optimism in the market, but concerns still remain.
Though Bitcoin ETFs shifted the bearish sentiments, security breaches, price actions, and others are putting stress on the market as a whole.