About 60% of Polymarket’s World Cup players are first-time cryptocurrency users
About 60% of users who placed their first World Cup bets on Polymarket had never been exposed to blockchain protocols before, suggesting that prediction markets are becoming an entry point into cryptocurrencies. The discovery is based on a 90-day Bitget Wallet study that tracked the onchain activity of 857,000 vigorous Polymarket users.
Alvin Kan, chief operating officer at Bitget Wallet, told Cointelegraph that previous cryptocurrency adoption efforts have largely focused on making blockchain technology easier to understand with simpler wallets and better user interfaces, but users were still expected to learn how cryptocurrencies work before they can participate.
“Prediction markets have changed this dynamic. Users show up because they have a view of something that’s happening in the world,” Kan said.
Trump cancels signing of housing bill with CBDC ban
U.S. President Donald Trump canceled a signing ceremony for a housing bill that included a ban on central bank digital currency (CBDC) as he searches for Republicans in Congress who could prioritize the controversial voting bill.
In Wednesday morning’s Truth Social Trump post he said that the signing of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, passed by the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, will be canceled “until the desperately needed SAVE America Act is passed.”
The housing bill passed by the House on Tuesday included a provision prohibiting the U.S. Federal Reserve from issuing or creating a CBDC “or any digital asset that is substantially similar” until the end of 2030.
Many expected Trump to sign a bill aimed at improving housing affordability that would go into effect on Wednesday without any hiccups. However, the president he said in March that he “will not sign any other bills” until the SAVE America Act is passed. The legislation would require voters to present proof of U.S. citizenship in person to register, and critics say the measure would deprive citizens already eligible to vote.
Bitmine, Sharplink and Joe Lubin support the Ethereum R&D nonprofit
Former Ethereum Foundation donors and treasury firms Ether Bitmine and Sharplink have backed a recent nonprofit research and development organization aimed at preparing Ethereum for institutional employ.
Sharplink he said on Monday, the Ethlabs organization was created to “prepare Ethereum for the next phase of institutional adoption,” and the company has partnered with Bitmine, Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin and other Ethereum collaborators on the financing efforts.
“As stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, funds and autonomous AI trading move on-chain, they connect with Ethereum as a neutral, reliably permissionless settlement layer for the global economy,” Sharplink said. “Ethlabs exists to ensure the network is ready to absorb this demand at scale.”
The launch comes days after former Ethereum Foundation colleague Trenton Van Epps warned that Ethereum is facing a fundamental crisis in development financing, and amid a continuing wave of departures from the Foundation, most recently co-executive director Hsiao-Wei Wang, who left last week.
CryptoQuant Warns on Strategy’s Dividend Coverage Due to 38% Drop in Cash Reserves
After reducing Strategy’s dividend coverage to 14 months from seven years, CryptoQuant stated that the company led by Michael Saylor should halt Bitcoin purchases and focus on replenishing cash reserves, which have fallen by 38% since the beginning of the year.
Strategy’s dividend liabilities nearly quadrupled to $1.2 billion following the company’s issuance of substantial recent STRC preferred stock, which has a yield of 11.5%.
“They should pause Bitcoin purchases, rebuild cash reserves and adopt a systematic framework for timing purchases.” he wrote CEO of market data analytics provider Ki Young Ju in a Wednesday post on X, adding that the largest public holder of Bitcoin’s treasury should also create a “disciplined selling framework” for the next bull market.
Strategy’s cash reserves fell 38% after the company repurchased $1.5 billion of 2029 senior notes at a discount, Cointelegraph reported on May 26, Cointelegraph reported. Those holdings have since grown to $1.4 billion after the company sold $335.5 million of MSTR shares on Monday, which added $300 million to its U.S. dollar reserve on Monday, although it is close to a 14-month record low of funds available to pay dividends.
Catholic leaders and US authorities are challenging the CLARITY Act over illegal activity
The Law Enforcement Organizations Group and the Coalition of Catholic Organizations are two of the latest groups to urge caution over the USA CLARITY Act, which will have a key hearing in July.
Four law enforcement organizations said in letters sent Tuesday achieved raises concerns among White House officials that the CLARITY Act could create oversight gaps when it comes to illegal activity.
“Regulatory certainty should not come at the expense of accountability, transparency, victim protection or public safety,” they said. The Alliance to End Trafficking in Persons, founded by U.S. Catholic sisters, said these oversights could make it more hard to combat human trafficking.
Senator Cynthia Lummis said this week that the final text of the bill would be released on July 4, and the House Financial Services Committee has scheduled a hearing on the Transparency Act for July 17.
Winners and losers
At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) was at $59,359, down 6.8%, while Ether (ETH) was at $1,565, down 8.8% for the week. XRP (XRP) is at $1.04 and is down 8% for the week. According to CoinMarketCap, the total market capitalization is $2.06 trillion.
Among the top 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers were Velvet (VELVET) with 290%, DeXe (DEXE) with 55% and Audiera (BEAT) which rose 49%.
The three biggest altcoin losers this week were MemeCore (M) which lost 76%, WorldCoin (WLD) which lost 28%, and Mantle (MNT) which lost 20%.
Weekly forecast
Bitcoin may fall lower, but BTC legal framework crashes to 58k. dollars as “normal”
Bitcoin’s price drop to $58,000 coincides with power law model cycle lows, even as futures market data points to deeper BTC price lows.
Giovanni’s Bitcoin power law model places the chain’s long-term price trend near $135,000, meaning the recent drop to $58,000 is about 54% below the all-time high and 1.22 standard deviations below that trend.
According to the analyst, the conclusion is uncomplicated: all lows from the previous cycle in 2012, 2015, 2019, 2020 and 2022 were within a similar statistical range. This ensures that the latest decline falls in territory that has historically marked deep bear market lows, rather than a breakdown in Bitcoin’s long-term growth path.
The best FUD of the week
Binance faces EU service limits as MiCA regulations come into force
Binance has notified users in the European Union that access to key services will be restricted after the exchange failed to secure Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) authorization from the member state by the July 1 deadline.
These restrictions include parking onboarding recent EU users and restricting certain services for EU accounts from July 1, According to to exchange notifications shared by users on social media.
The notices stated that users would still be able to withdraw their assets after this date, stating that “all digital assets are still available for withdrawal” in line with applicable regulatory requirements.
The move represents one of the first major changes to the EU’s MiCA framework after Binance announced on Wednesday that it had withdrawn its application for a MiCA license in Greece.
Binance reported over $400 million in net outflows for the week of June 22.
Binance public news is that the company intends to continue applying for a MiCA license even though it is on track to miss the July 1 buzzer.
TRM claims Iran-linked entities moved $3.8 billion through CoinEx
According to analyst firm TRM Labs, wallets with identifiable ties to sanctioned Iranian entities have moved more than $3.84 billion through cryptocurrency exchange CoinEx since 2019, making it one of the main channels used to bypass US economic sanctions.
About 60 Iranian platforms were linked to the funds, of which $2.7 billion flowed between CoinEx and Nobitex, Iran’s largest domestic cryptocurrency exchange, at an average rate of about $1 million a day since 2018, TRM Labs wrote on Wednesday. report.
By 2024, CoinEx was Nobitex’s largest external peer, almost nine times the size of the next largest exchange, which TRM Labs described as “inconsistent with independent market behavior.”
CoinEx negative having any commercial ties to the Government of Iran or domestic Iranian exchanges and disputed TRM Labs’ interpretation, arguing that supply chain fund flows do not prove the platform’s knowledge of or involvement in illicit activities.
Ethereum Foundation lays off 20% of workforce in strategic restructuring
The Ethereum Foundation (EF) has laid off 54 employees, or about 20% of its workforce, as part of a major organizational restructuring.
According to the blog post published on Tuesday, EF will reorganize itself around five specialized clusters covering protocols, access, users, community and institutional work. The foundation said the changes are intended to focus resources on Ethereum’s long-term technical priorities, including scaling, privacy, security and censorship resistance.
Under the recent structure, separate teams will oversee Ethereum’s core protocol, user access tools, community engagement, and institutional collaboration, while governance and operations functions will remain organized independently.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said that the Ethereum Foundation is reducing its budget by approximately 40% as it transitions to a long-term grant-based organization. He said the foundation intends to reduce annual expenses from about 15% of remaining funds to about 5% after 2030, which he said required hard staffing decisions.
The most popular articles of the week
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