Over the past week, the company added almost 10,000 ETH, bringing its holdings to 5.79 million Ether, of which approximately 85% is staked through validator operations.

Bitmine Immersion Technologies said on Monday it held 5.79 million Ether, or about 4.8% of the cryptocurrency’s total supply, after purchasing nearly 10,000 ETH last week.

Bitmine disclosed that approximately 4.9 million ETH (ETH), or approximately 85% of its holdings, are staked through its validator operations. The company projected annual staking rewards of approximately $299 million once all of its Ether was deployed to staking infrastructure and partner validators. As of July 26, the company’s total holdings of cryptocurrencies, cash and marketable securities are $11.8 billion.

The latest purchases come after Ether outperformed Bitcoin (BTC) last week. According to CoinGecko, ETH has gained about 2.4% over the last seven days, while Bitcoin has fallen about 0.7%. data. In Monday’s announcement, Bitmine CEO Tom Lee said the rising ETH/BTC ratio, which he described as the highest in three months, signals strengthening Ether momentum.

Bitcoin and ETH performance over the last seven days. Source: CoinGecko

Bitmine has built the world’s largest corporate Ether vault, second only to Strategic among public companies in terms of the value of digital assets held. However, Bitmine’s accumulation strategy has recently diverged from a strategy that has halted Bitcoin purchases in recent weeks.

On Monday, Strategy announced that it had raised $544.5 million from a stock sale, repurchased $25 million of STRC preferred stock and increased its US dollar reserve to $3.75 billion while maintaining its holding of 843,775 BTC.

Warehouse: Quantum Roadmap Would Push Bitcoin Much Higher: Charles Edwards

Cointelegraph is committed to independent and crystal clear journalism. This news article has been produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and is intended to provide exact and up-to-date information. Readers are encouraged to verify the information themselves.

Cryptocurrency losses exceeded $1 billion in the first half of 2026 as the industry saw the highest number of hacks in six months, according to onchain security platform Blockaid.

Ethereum and Solana recorded the largest losses from incidents affecting their networks, with approximately $332 million and $326 million in stolen funds, respectively, Blockaid said in its H1 2026 security report released Tuesday.

During this period, Blockaid tracked 212 security incidents, with the largest single exploit coming from KelpDAO worth $292 million, while the platform verified 3.4 times more high-threshold exploits in the first half of 2026 than in all of 2025.

The report found that code exploits were the cause of incidents on Ethereum, while breaches of keys and signing infrastructure caused most of the losses at Solana.

Ethereum’s losses reflected the risks associated with high-value protocols

Ethereum suffered the most losses from incidents in the first half of 2026, with attackers mainly targeting vulnerabilities in applications built on the network.

Blockaid stated that the code exploits Ethereum’s incident-dominated volume, and the main losses are also related to key compromises involving the Humanity Protocol and StablR. CoWSwap, an Ethereum-based decentralized exchange, was the only major Ethereum incident in the report classified as user error.

Blockchain losses according to the network in the first half of 2026. Source: Blockaid.

Blockaid has identified several common attack methods targeting Ethereum, including bridge and astute contract flaws, unauthorized access to privileged accounts, and market manipulation techniques.

The report points out that Ethereum remains a top target because it powers many of the crypto industry’s most valuable applications, including retaking platforms, stablecoins, and decentralized exchanges.

Solana’s losses increased as the attackers changed focus

Solana suffered almost the same losses as Ethereum in the first half of 2026, a acute raise from the approximately $127 million in stolen funds the network recorded in 2025.

“In 2025, losses of $2.58 billion from 63 incidents, including $1.5 billion in the first quarter Bybit, with Ethereum and Arbitrum being the largest networks in terms of flow of stolen funds,” Blockaid CEO Ido Ben-Natan told Cointelegraph.

Blockchain losses by network in 2025. Source: Blockaid.

The change was not due to an raise in astute contract exploits. Instead, the compromised keys accounted for more than 98% of Solana’s losses, mainly caused by incidents involving Drift Protocol and Step Finance, which Blockaid linked to North Korea-linked cyber groups.

Unlike Ethereum, where attackers mainly exploited vulnerabilities in the protocol code, the Solana incidents targeted signer infrastructure and organizational security, with several code exploits involving Raydium and Volo responsible for the remaining losses.

Warehouse: Quantum Roadmap Would Push Bitcoin Much Higher: Charles Edwards

Timothy Morano
July 28, 2026 10:00

AAVE is holding at $96.82 after a edged sell-off at 4.35%, but whale accumulation in futures and rising open interest signal that this decline is more of a breakout than a breakout – a recovery of $100.39…

Market Context: Why AAVE Is at a Decision Point Right Now

AAVE just lost 4.35% in one session, rebounding from $102 intraday and hitting a low of $96 before gaining preliminary fundamentals. At first glance, it looks like distribution. Look closer and the picture becomes more refined. Price continues to hold above the 7-, 20- and 50-day moving averages – a structural ladder for a market that hasn’t crashed yet. SMA 7 at $96.26 essentially acts as a live support line and AAVE currently rests on it.

The real problem is overhead costs. The 200-day SMA at $103.81 is looming, and today’s intraday push to $102 was beaten back before it could even be tested. Any attempted rally leads to selling against macrotrend resistance and until AAVE closes above $103.81 on significant volume, the path of least resistance remains uncertain. Blockchain.news is tracking the resurgence of DeFi lending protocols through 2026, and AAVE remains the flagship – meaning any broader DeFi rotation will be here first, for better or for worse.

Alignment of indicators: technicians say “wait”, not chase

Momentum has stagnated. The MACD histogram has flattened to zero – the MACD signal and lines are on top of each other, which means that the bullish momentum that previously fueled the rally has been fully exploited. There is no fuel left in the tank until buyers express their opinion or sellers force a flush. With an RSI of 56, there is also no opportunity to take advantage of an oversold sale – the price is neutral, not stretched or collapsed.

The image of the Bollinger Bands requires the most attention. AAVE’s %B of 0.66 places the price in the upper half of the band structure, with an upper limit of $101.42. Today’s intraday high of $102 briefly breached that ceiling before being rejected – a textbook intraday market exhaustion signal. With a daily ATR of $4.31, each key level – resistance at $100.39 and support at $94.86 – is within the one-day range. The stochastic divergence between %K at 62 and %D at 49 is historically a fingerprint of the market that will soon take a direction and follow it. The setup is tighter than the price action suggests, and Blockchain.news readers following flows in the DeFi sector should apply the next 48 hours as a guide.

Whales and analyst targets: Astute money doesn’t work

Here’s the detail that changes the narrative. Despite the price drop of 4.35%, interest in AAVE futures increased by 2.51% in 24 hours. Falling price, rising open interest – this is opening up recent compact positions or, more likely given the positioning data, shrewd money accumulating long exposure to weakness. Taker’s buy/sell ratio of 1.22 confirms that aggressive buy-side flow, rather than panic selling, dominates real-time order execution.

The positioning division is extremely even. Retail traders are 57% long, which in itself would be a contradictory fade signal. But the top traders and whales are 58.4% long – basically the same lean. When shrewd money and dumb money are in line, contrarian trading quickly becomes crowded. The funding rate of 0.0079% is almost neutral, so the derivatives book does not yet show an impending liquidation cascade.

When it comes to published analyst targets, the difference is gigantic enough to question the methodology of at least one of them. CoinCodex calling for $100.93 by the end of the year is barely a call – that’s a 4.2% move in five months, which is hype. Traders Union’s August target of $136.9 – up 44% in roughly four weeks – is either a macro compelling call based on a catalyst not currently noticeable in the data, or it is a model that has not stress tested the 200-SMA ceiling. No single goal should anchor your transaction. The real levels that matter are $103.96 (robust resistance, convergence with the 200-SMA) and $92.90 (robust support).

Strategic Positioning: Bull Case and Bear Case have clear triggers

The bull case has one flash point: a daily close above $100.39. This level is not just immediate resistance – it is a psychological recovery of the $100 level that triggers the momentum algorithms and paves the way for a test of the $103.81-103.96 confluence zone. A immaculate hold above $104 would shift the macro structure from “below 200-SMA” to “macro trend recovery,” which is a qualitative improvement that attracts a different category of buyers. The derivatives market is pre-prepared for this move. Rising OI, whale longs, aggressive inflow of buy-side takers – the table is set.

The bear case launches right at $94.86. A daily close below this level not only breaks immediate support – it puts robust support at $92.90 in its sights, and beyond it, the 50 SMA at $85.53 becomes the next logical resting point after a true capitulation. This is a 12% decline from current levels, entirely achievable in a risk-free cryptocurrency session. A neutral financing rate actually makes this scenario more risky than it seems – there are no “tight shorts” to cushion the deformation, and a sudden macro change could accelerate this move.

Assigning probabilities based on available data: 65% chance that AAVE will approach the $100-$104 test within 72 hours due to derivatives positioning and holding above the short-term moving average cluster. A 35% chance of the broader market softening or failing to recover $98.43, shifts the setup to bearish and causes the price to rise from $94.86 towards $92.90. The level to watch at the opening is the pivot at $98.43 – staying above this level allows the bull scenario to breathe, and losing it during the day definitely shifts the momentum to the sell side. Follow everything via Blockchain.news as DeFi sector catalysts continue to develop around AAVE’s dominance in the lending market.

Image source: Shutterstock

Cointelegraph is committed to independent and see-through journalism. This news article has been produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and is intended to provide right and up-to-date information. Readers are encouraged to verify the information themselves.

Withdrawals from cryptocurrency exchange BitMart appeared to sluggish down after it announced plans to wind down its operations.

On Monday, the Lookonchain Blockchain Analytical Account reported that just 58 wallets cashed out approximately $805,000 in 24 hours. He added that the exchange had not processed any withdrawals in the last eight hours it monitored.

X users also continued to report difficulty stopping the drug. One user he said received an email stating that their USDT withdrawal was completed, even though the transaction had not been processed and their account showed an on-chain withdrawal freeze message. Another user he said the $30 test withdrawal remained pending for more than 30 minutes. These are individual claims and cannot be verified.

A key test will be BitMart’s ability to efficiently refund customer funds he promised “orderly” liquidation and may determine whether the decline in confidence develops into a broader frenzy of withdrawal.

BitMart previously said withdrawals remain available, but warned that requests may be subject to additional compliance and security checks, including reviews of customer identities, login devices, withdrawal addresses, transaction history and sources of funds. The exchange may also request proof of identity, address, source of funds or ownership of the receiving wallet.

Cointelegraph reached out to BitMart for comment but did not receive a response prior to publication.

BitMart token extends decline as exchange prepares to close

On Sunday, BitMart announced it would stop accepting up-to-date registrations and deposits, while also limiting up-to-date spot orders and futures positions. The end of trading services is scheduled for August 26, and the platform will completely cease operations on January 31, 2027.

Arkham-identified wallets assigned to BitMart held about $69 million in crypto assets on Monday, up from about $102 million on July 6.

Related: Storj files for bankruptcy and explores a capital path for token holders

BitMart’s BMX token in circulation According to CoinGecko, the price was close to $0.057 on Monday, down about 81.5% in seven days. Slow Friday, before the exchange’s close was made public, the token was trading at around $0.31.

BMX token 24-hour chart. Source: CoinGecko

The closure also sparked debate over whether larger exchanges could acquire smaller competitors.

Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao he said acquiring a centralized exchange was more complicated than buying other companies because buyers could inherit security vulnerabilities, including backdoors left by previous teams. He added that takeovers are still possible but require greater scrutiny.

Warehouse: Why Australia’s $17 billion crypto opportunity depends on regulation

Dariusz Baru
July 26, 2026 09:46

The LDO is stuck at its own pivot point with the MACD histogram pointing to exactly zero and the shrewd money quietly loading up longs against retail clients who are leaning tiny – a confirmed break above the $0.38 target…

Instant setup

LDO does something that investors hate: nothing. The token lost a modest -1.41% in the last session and remains dead at $0.37 – its own pivot point – with the MACD histogram pointing to a perfect zero. It’s not indecision, it’s a coil spring. Under the hood, the design is actually more constructive than the flat lines suggest. LDO quotes are above the 200-day SMA ($0.36), and the short-term EMA 12 has already exceeded the EMA 26 ($0.34). The Bollinger %B at 0.67 is trading comfortably in the upper half of the range, moving higher towards the upper band at $0.41.

Binance’s 24-hour spot volume was a skeleton $1.1 million – this market isn’t exactly on fire. However, the bid/ask ratio for futures traders of 1.20 tells a different story: buyers are not leaving, they are accumulating quietly while the spot tape sleeps. As Blockchain.news has observed in the liquid staking sector, low-volume consolidations in DeFi governance tokens often precede outsized directional moves. The question is no If LDO goes beyond this – it is which way.

Key levels revealed

The level map here is tight and unforgiving. $0.38 is the wall to break down – that’s where the 7 SMA is and exactly where the price was capped before this session. Clear $0.38 on volume and you’ll see clear air all the way to the upper Bollinger Band at $0.41, a target that doesn’t coincide with any major moving average, meaning the path there is frictionless once the breakout triggers.

On the other hand, $0.36 is a line in the sand. The SMA 200 converges directly at this level, making it a structural bottom that bulls absolutely cannot afford to hit on a daily close. In the event of a break at $0.36, the 20 SMA at $0.35 offers a miniature additional catch, but below that the chart is barren until the 50 SMA at $0.30 – a brutal 19% lower than the current price. An ATR of $0.03 means that this token routinely fluctuates by 8% or more in a single session, so the entire range from $0.36 to $0.41 is within normal daily variance. Neither bulls nor bears should feel safe and sound now.

Both immediate support and pivot support are at $0.37, which is exactly where the price is trading. This is a defined balance point and someone is going to break the tie.

Sentiment versus reality

The outside prediction crowd doesn’t offer much of an advantage. CoinCodex puts a 5-day target at $0.3801 – basically a flat amount, maybe +2.7% from there. CoinPriceForecast is more ambitious and will be $0.45 at the end of the year, an enhance of 21.6% in five months. None of them should move your position size by a single dollar. These are extrapolations, not catalysts.

What really matters is the division in the positioning of derivatives. Binance futures retail investors have a net tiny position of 54.2% – they are actively mitigating this rebound. However, the top traders, high-volume accounts that Binance classifies separately, net-longed 52.1%. This discrepancy is the most actionable signal in the entire dataset. It’s a textbook pre-squeeze setup: retail tilted in the wrong direction, shrewd money calmly placed to level out. Open interest has increased by 2.01% in 24 hours, while the price has fallen – this means that fresh positions are deepening. Given the dominance of the aggressive buyer, the weight of this fresh OI is likely to be greater. Blockchain.news noted that ETH-correlated assets such as LDO tend to absorb shrewd money accumulation in these serene areas before following the Ethereum macrotrend, and the broader ETH structure in the second half of 2026 remains constructive.

The complete silence from cryptocurrency KOLs on Twitter is itself a signal worth reading. When a token goes serene on the radio, there is no crowd to chase the momentum – meaning the next decisive move will have the majority tipped in the wrong direction, just as retail tiny positioning is currently suggesting.

Practical trading strategy

Two scenarios, one clear mistake. Here is the framework:

Scenario A – Long (60% probability): Entry zone between $0.36 and $0.37, right at SMA 200 and the pivot confluence. Tough stop with a daily close below $0.35 – this is the middle Bollinger Band and the line where the bull trend formally breaks down, approximately -5.4% from the middle entry point. The first target is $0.39, an immediate resistance cluster, giving an initial upside of +5.4%. Full target is $0.41, upper Bollinger Band, +10.8%. This is a pure risk/reward ratio of 1:2, acceptable considering the shrewd money’s long bias and taker buy dominance. If the $0.38 volume exceeds the $3 million point mark, the position warrants an enhance, not a decrease.

Scenario B – Low Trigger (40% probability): A confirmed daily close below $0.36 reverses the entire structure. A support breakdown of the 200 SMA becomes an entry signal – a tiny retest at $0.36 from the bottom, a stop at $0.38, with a target of $0.30 (SMA 50). This represents a move of 16% at a rate of 5.4%, making it likely a better risk/reward trade if it stabilizes. Don’t get ahead of it; wait for closure.

Cancellations are surgical in nature: bulls die at daily closes below $0.35, bears die at daily closes above $0.38. There is no ambiguity in this setup. With daily spot trading volume of just $1.1M compared to $18.9M open, this market is futures driven and slippage of any significant amount is real – scale your trades in tranches rather than triggering individual block orders, otherwise you will turn the market against you before the trade even breathes a breath.

The setup is neat. The advantage goes to whoever waits for the level to speak first.

Image source: Shutterstock

The world’s largest Bitcoin (BTC) conference, Bitcoin 2023, held in Miami, Florida, took place without much fanfare this year. Previous conferences have announced nation-state adoption, mass integration of cryptocurrencies in the United States, and islands and territories around the world adopting Bitcoin.

Nevertheless, at Bitcoin 2023, one partnership with a potentially significant impact on the world’s 15th largest economy went unnoticed.

We are content to announce our collaboration with Grupo Salinas. I look forward to the positive impact of this collaboration. #Bitcoin #bitcoiconference2023 https://t.co/rkAjWnmKsK pic.twitter.com/yWIWc6751B— IBEX (@PoweredbyIBEX) May 18, 2023

José Lemus, CEO of Ibex Mercado, closed the Bitcoin Industry Day 2023. He announced a partnership with Grupo Salinas, one of the largest corporate conglomerates in Mexico. In tiny, the collaboration would enable millions of Mexicans to pay their internet bills with popular telecommunications company Total Play using the Bitcoin Lightning network.

Most importantly, the Salinas Group owns dozens of companies throughout Mexico. Its billionaire founder, Ricardo Salinas Pliego, is the third richest person in the country and a known Bitcoin maximalist.

Not only has the Bitcoin Lightning payment integration already brought Bitcoin adoption to millions of Mexicans, but as Lemus explained to Cointelegraph, Total Play is one tiny retailer that is part of the massive Salinas conglomerate:

“Imagine if Best Buy, Bank of America, Fox News and an NFL team were owned by the same person. In the future, all of them would have Lightning capabilities.”

Lemus explained that this is just the “tip of the iceberg of what will happen in Mexico” as more Bitcoin and Lightning integrations and on- and off-ramps attract more Bitcoin business. Speaking via video link, Lemus explained that fiat and Bitcoin can interact more freely in Mexico:

“Let’s say you have a wallet and you want to share Mexican pesos in Mexico, or you have a currency exchange and you want to settle balances for your customers in Mexico. You can do this through CoinPro or Grupo Salinas.”

This partnership marks the beginning of Lightning functionality across Grupo Salinas. There will be a Lightning app “for employees, a super app for football teams to do something similar to what we have with Perth Heat, where we drive fan engagement in an innovative way.”

Australia’s Perth Heat baseball team has adopted the Bitcoin standard in 2021, with players earning in Bitcoin and “Sats4Stats”, in which players receive Bitcoin for hitting home runs. Additionally, fan engagement activities leverage the Lightning Network. During baseball games, for example, “When a player steals a base, a QR code flashes on the screen and the first people to scan it get a satoshi,” Lemus explained.

Players can send satoshi directly to players during Perth Heat baseball games. Source: PerthHeat.com.au

In its first year of operation, Perth Heat players earned an extra 1% thanks to Bitcoin, Lemus said on stage at Bitcoin 2023. “It’s still early” for such technology, but the extra 1% is already encouraging.

Grupo Salinas owns the Mexican soccer clubs Mazatlán and Club Puebla. Fans will soon be able to receive free money – in the form of Bitcoin or satoshi – by simply scanning a QR code on the stadium screen when a player scores a goal, just like in the case of Perth Heat.

A snapshot of some of Grupo Salinas’ brands spanning retail, banking, sports and advertising. Source: GrupoSalinas.com

Ibex Mercado understands the enormous financial inclusion opportunities that the Lightning Network offers. Lemus founded Ibex in neighboring Guatemala, and two years earlier, the company provided Lightning Network integration for Chivo’s wallet in El Salvador, which successfully provided banking to millions of El Salvadorans.

Lemus explained that broader adoption of Bitcoin could improve the lives of unbanked and underserved populations. Moreover, financial inclusion goes beyond banking the unbanked:

“It’s the ability to raise funds for your company. It’s the ability to open yourself to a broader market. And that’s what true financial inclusion means to me.”

Finally, Lemus emphasized Mexico’s potential as a Bitcoin destination: “I think Mexico will be the place where this develops.” More broadly, 2022 was a promising year for Bitcoin and cryptocurrency adoption in the country, from cryptocurrency remittance companies founded in Mexico to the expansion of cryptocurrency exchanges.

Related: Bitcoin adoption by Guatemalan sellers is increasing the number of BTC tattoos at once

Does this mean that cryptocurrency enthusiasts will soon be able to live off Bitcoin like in El Salvador? Lemus replied:

“Let’s say you spend most of your life in Bitcoin. I think 18 months is a reasonable goal in which you could spend most of your life. But obviously things like taxes and maybe rent won’t work on Bitcoin yet.”

Likewise, the partnership with Grupo Salinas required 18 months of work and preparation, Lemus said. In Mexico, there are more partnerships and projects on the horizon, although it is too early to share details, Lemus concluded.

Warehouse: Peter McCormack’s Real Bedford Football Club is putting Bitcoin on the map

Layer 1 blockchain Dango will cease operations, halting trading on its perpetual decentralized exchange (DEX) on Wednesday and shutting down its network on August 13.

“Despite our best efforts, for various reasons we have concluded that there is no viable path to sustained commercial success” – Dango he said in the announcement from Friday

Dango founder, Larry Liu in addition that the team faced cash shortages, legal challenges that slowed momentum, the loss of team members and broader market conditions.

Dango fired on its main network in January, after raising $3.6 million in a 2024 seed round led by Hack VC and Lemniscap. This unfolded its perpetual DEX in April, only to suffer losses of approximately $410,000 to exploit days after launch. The attacker later refunded the funds in exchange for a bug bounty.

Related: BitMEX filed a lawsuit for 623 BTC on the day the closure was announced

Dango’s open interest dwarfs Hyperliquid, Aster

According to DefiLlama, the total value of Dango is locked cut from a peak of about $4.5 million in early May to about $1.6 million before the announcement.

The perp DEX market is increasingly competitive and dominated by a few platforms.

As of Saturday, Hyperliquid had more than $11 billion in open interest, representing the value of outstanding futures contracts that have not been closed.

Perp DEX Ranking by Open Interests. Source: DefiLlama

Only Aster and Variational have open-ended funds worth more than $1 billion. Dango had almost $391,000 in open wallets.

CoinGecko stated in its second quarter industry report that on July 1, Hyperliquid became the second largest perpetual exchange thanks to open interest, behind Binance.

Summer of downtime in cryptocurrencies

Dango’s shutdown adds to a growing list of cryptocurrency platform shutdowns in July, including 11-year-old perpetual futures pioneer BitMEX.

Restructuring advisor Roshan Dharia told Cointelegraph that BitMEX’s closure reflects the structural pressures facing mid-market centralized exchanges, where liquidity is increasingly concentrated among the industry’s largest players and compliance costs continue to rise.

“The top five platforms now control an estimated 80% of global spot volume, leaving mid-tier and regional exchanges with shrinking margins and no viable path to scale,” Dharia said.

Other recent closures include DEX aggregator Odos Protocol and DEX perpetrator Satori Finance.

Warehouse: Quantum Roadmap Would Push Bitcoin Much Higher: Charles Edwards

US-listed Ethereum spot funds (ETFs) recorded net outflows of $70.62 million on Friday, ending a five-day streak of inflows.

According to SoSoValue, Ethereum funds saw net inflows of $211.25 million over the previous five sessions from July 17 to Thursday data. They still reported net inflows of $103.9 million for the week ended Friday.

Despite outflows, Ethereum ETFs extended their streak of weekly inflows to three in a row and have attracted $337.74 million in net inflows so far in July.

Spot cryptocurrency ETF flows have become one of the market’s most closely watched indicators of demand for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) via classic investment products.

While other jurisdictions, including Hong Kong, have launched similar funds, US-listed ETFs account for the huge majority of assets and trading volumes.

Ethereum ETF net daily spot flows from July 17-24. Source: SoSoValue

Bitcoin ETFs also end the week with outflows

The reversal was similar for Bitcoin ETFs, which ended a seven-day streak of inflows on Thursday and posted another net outflow of $240.08 million on Friday.

Bitcoin ETFs also extended their streak of net inflows to three consecutive weeks, adding $103.90 million in the week ended Friday and $233.96 million so far in July. They followed a record June, when $4.5 billion flowed out of funds.

BTC was trading just under $64,000 at the time of writing, down from a weekly high of $66,892 on Tuesday, according to data. CoinGecko. ETH was trading at $1,837, down from Wednesday’s weekly high of $1,954.

Related: Bitcoin falls below 64 thousand dollars, as rising US bond yields boost the risk of the Fed raising interest rates

Japanese Crypto Reforms Drive $18.4 Billion Bitcoin ETF Forecast

Following a recent change in Japanese cryptocurrency regulations that is widely seen as laying the groundwork for future spot Bitcoin ETFs, cryptocurrency management platform XWIN has estimated that the mature Japanese spot Bitcoin ETF market could reach approximately $18.4 billion, representing roughly 0.13% of the country’s $14.6 trillion in financial assets.

In analysis published on CryptoQuant, XWIN said the estimates assume demand from existing cryptocurrency holders, up-to-date retail investors using brokerage accounts and institutional allocators.

The report pointed to the U.S. market as an example, noting that spot Bitcoin ETFs, excluding Grayscale’s GBTC, have accumulated approximately 1 million Bitcoin, demonstrating how regulated ETF products can combine classic finance with digital assets.

“Access is the key,” XWIN said, adding that a Japanese spot Bitcoin ETF would enable investors to gain exposure to Bitcoin through established brokerage and custody systems. He characterized the $18.4 billion figure as an “attainable, high-end market scenario.”

Magazine: Quantum Roadmap Would Push Bitcoin Much Higher: Charles Edwards