Terrill Dicks
July 11, 2026 09:53

AAVE collapses directly under the $100 psychological wall at $96.15, with MACD momentum completely exhausted and open interest positions bleeding out – a neat break above $100.80 opens the door to the SMA at $109…

Market Context: Why AAVE is Changing Now

AAVE had a really good run. Breaking out of an SMA 50 base near $79, the token has surged around 21% in recent weeks, with DeFi protocols tracking Blockchain.news largely regaining institutional and retail attention as on-chain lending rates improve. Crypto.com’s AI model has seen an raise of around 20% in the last week alone, meaning AAVE is leading the industry in the market’s recent rebound – and the price action proves it. Each short-term moving average is stacked below the current price: the 7-day SMA is $92.12, the 20-day is $87.93, the 50-day is $79.48. This is a pure bull structure on a weekly basis.

But here’s the catch: SMA 200 costs a whopping $109.24. AAVE didn’t get it back. This single moving average marks the line between a bounce break and a legitimate trend reversal, and everything that happens now is just the market deciding whether to attempt this move or pull back and reload.

Gauge Alignment: Technicians send a warning

The short-term structure looks constructive, but the momentum shows warning signs that a disciplined trader cannot ignore. After weeks of an upward trend, the MACD histogram has reached zero – buying pressure and selling pressure are perfectly balanced. This isn’t a bullish sequel; it’s tired. The rally used fuel just below the $100 threshold.

Meanwhile, the Stochastic at 86 is screaming overbought on a daily basis, with the price sitting at around 82% of the Bollinger Band range, pushing directly into the upper band at $100.80, which is almost perfectly aligned with the powerful technical resistance at $100.37. This is a textbook setup for a reversion to mid-color back towards the mid-band near $87-88 – unless there is a catalyst to force a breakout.

The ATR of $5.59 says that a one-day move could easily cover the distance between the current price and immediate support at $94.11 or immediate resistance at $98.26. This kind of variability in such a narrow range, with a flat line of momentum, allows for a violent resolution rather than a ponderous grind. As Blockchain.news has discussed in previous DeFi cycles, the $100 level in AAVE has consistently acted as a psychological pivot – lose it and the narrative quickly changes.

Whales and Analyst Targets: The clever money is positioned long but nervously

Derivatives data tells an compelling and somewhat contradictory story. Top traders – accounts typically associated with clever money positioning – are 62.4% net long, essentially mirroring the retail long trend of 61.8%. When clever money and retail trade are moving in the same direction and with the same volume, it either means that the consensus trade is correct or it means that there are an uncomfortable number of long leveraged positions in the same crowded room.

What makes me cautious about Lean is: open interest is down 5.87% in the last 24 hours. Items are closed, not added. If this were a true accumulation phase of the breakout, one would expect OI to raise with price. Instead, investors reduce exposure at resistance. The funding rate of 0.0007% remains neutral, so there is no vigorous position building as a result of squeeze – it is just a normal position reduction near a key level.

CoinCodex set a 5-day target of $177.48 on July 8, which would represent an upside of approximately 85% from the current level. I’ll be straightforward: this call requires macroeconomic tailwinds, a sector catalyst, and a market structure that simply isn’t on the current tape. The technical data does not allow it to reach a price close to $177 in five days. File this under “Algorithmic Optimism.” What the data actually confirms is a measured move – either $108-109 in the event of a breakout or $92 in the event of a pullback.

Strategic positioning: bull case vs. bear case – no gray area

The bull case is plain, but requires a special trigger. AAVE needs to close the daily candle above $100.80 on volume significantly above Binance’s current 24-hour spot value of $20.7 million. If this happens, the path to the SMA 200 at $109.24 will be essentially unimpeded, with only minor technical friction around $103-$105. A flush of tiny positions above $100 could shorten this move to two or three sessions. This is the scenario the CoinCodex momentum model smells, even if the scale of their predictions is far-fetched.

The bear case starts if AAVE breaks above the current range of $96-$98. The first significant floor costs $94.11, but that’s a slim shelf. True structural support will only re-emerge after $92.07 – a powerful support range – and the SMA 7 at $92.12, which has yet to be tested in this rally. A drop to this zone would be robust from a market structure standpoint, but painful for anyone chasing a move above $93. Below $92, the next magnet is the mid-range at $87.93.

My probabilistic reading: 55% chance that AAVE will decline and fall towards $92-94 over the next 5 days as momentum continues to desiccated out, 35% chance that it will consolidate and take off from the $100.80 level towards $109, and 10% chance of a sharper break below $90 on a risk-free basis in the broader market. The risk/reward for modern long positions here is low – you are buying at 82% of the Bollinger Band range, with the MACD line flat and OI falling. If you want exposure to AAVE, wait for a confirmed daily close above $100.80 or an entry into a pullback between $92 and $94. Chasing in the middle of this range gets you cut to pieces. Follow the tape on Blockchain.news for live updates once this level is solved.

Image source: Shutterstock

Zcash’s Ironwood network update, a solution to the “infinity” bug discovered in May on Orchard, the premier private privacy-focused blockchain transaction pool, will go live on July 28.

Announced in June, Ironwood is closing the current Orchard Pool, preventing modern activity there and creating a modern private pool. Funds leaving Orchard would have to pass through an accounting checkpoint before entering Ironwood, which could provide evidence as to whether any counterfeit Zcash (ZEC) tokens were produced as a result of the Orchard error.

“The Zcash Ironwood mainnet activation altitude has been set and marked! All major organizations have committed to NU6.3 activation altitude of 3428143, which is approximately July 28 at 8:00 a.m. ET,” Zcash lead developer Sean Bowe said on Thursday.

Source: Sean Bowe

Shielded Labs has delayed the Zcash update on Ironwood, warning that ecosystem participants such as exchanges, mining pools and wallets will not have enough time to prepare their systems for mainnet activation in delayed July. Bowe’s latest comment confirms that the update will be a week later than before objective date July 21.

Related: Anthropic’s Mythos AI no longer finds “serious” errors in Zcash: Wilcox

Shielded Labs in June he said Ironwood can provide evidence as to whether the Orchard vulnerability was ever exploited.

“As funds are transferred from the existing Orchard pool to the new pool, each hypothetical counterfeiter faces a choice: attempt to transfer the fake funds at the risk of revealing their existence, or leave them behind and risk being unable to transfer them in the future.”

ZEC fell 50% to $299.25 from $602.68 after the June 3 Orchard bug disclosure. In the following weeks, the price of ZEC partially increased and at the time of writing it stands at $492.61.

This week, Zcash crossed a major monetary policy milestone, spending over 80% of its maximum ZEC supply of 21 million. Monday’s post from ruZCASH can be seen that the current offer is 16,806,723 ZEC.

Warehouse: Bitcoin’s quantum dilemma: larger blocks or STARK proofs?

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.

Wall Street banks are clamping down on employee trading on forecasting market platforms over concerns they could utilize nonpublic information to place contracts on events.

Goldman Sachs has reportedly banned its employees from contracting on bank-specific events, including financial markets, macroeconomic events, elections and geopolitics, CNBC reportedciting people familiar with the matter.

Unidentified Morgan Stanley sources also told CNBC that the bank has a policy against employees trading in the forecast market, while a Bank of America spokesman said the bank is in the process of issuing modern measures prohibiting employees from trading in the forecast market.

The report deepens concerns about insider trading in prediction markets, which have attracted the attention of the White House and U.S. lawmakers, who have proposed legislation aimed at curbing trading in political forecasts by government officials.

Cointelegraph asked Goldman Sachs what prompted the introduction of the preventive policy. A bank spokesman declined to comment.

In May, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) reported that Google software engineer Michele Spagnuolo made $1.2 million on Polymarket after gaining access to nonpublic information at work.

On June 18, Wisconsin state representative Bryan Steil introduced legislation prohibiting certain public officials from “placing bets on public policy issues and political outcomes,” but did not name any White House officials.

One major flashpoint occurred in January when a soldier allegedly bet more than $400,000 betting on the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who was overthrown and captured by U.S. forces.

Related: Suspected insider wallets raked in $1.2M in bets following Axiom ZachXBT exposé

Polymarket is pushing for wider access in the US

Meanwhile, Polymarket is trying to get regulatory approval to offer U.S. users margin trading, which would allow them to bet on events with less upfront capital.

According to a July 3 report, the prediction market has applied to become a futures commission trader through its affiliate Coming Home GBA LLC. filing with the National Futures Association (NFA).

The filing is Polymarket’s latest attempt to expand its U.S. footprint and attract more users. Cointelegraph has reached out to Polymarket for comment on this matter. The platform also needs authorization from the CFTC to allow users to trade without full security.

Chief rival Polymarket has already received approval from U.S. regulators to trade on margin after its affiliate, Kinetic Markets LLC, received an NFA authorization in March.

Coming Home GBA LLC, filing. Source: nfa.futures.org

According to Dune, Polymarket achieved a record daily audience volume of $713 million on June 20 data. The breakthrough moment occurred more than a week after the start of the World Championships on June 11.

In June, Kalshi also reported record monthly trading volume of nearly $9.4 billion as the 2026 FIFA World Cup spurred activity in forecasting markets.

Warehouse: The battle in the forecast market is getting closer to the Supreme Court

Bitcoin’s (BTC) rejection near an all-time high earlier this week may have resulted in short-term investors booking profits. Although the price has fallen to around $68,000, analysts remain positive on the markets. They predict that Bitcoin will find support between $65,000 and $68,000.

Another major trigger for cryptocurrency markets is the US elections. In a market report, FalconX head of research David Lawant said volatility could augment if “the results are too close to call and take too long to reach the result.”

A daily view of cryptocurrency market data. Source: Moneta360

WonderFi president and CEO Dean Skurka said in an interview with Cointelegraph that Bitcoin’s price will likely augment in the long term, regardless of the election results. Skurka believes that interest rate cuts in the U.S. and Canada could cause Bitcoin to rise in the next 6-24 months.

Low-term investor sentiment may improve if Bitcoin rises above $70,000. This may augment purchases of selected altcoins. Let’s take a look at the top 5 cryptocurrencies that look robust on the charts.

Bitcoin price analysis

Bitcoin’s pullback has reached its 20-day exponential moving average ($68,194), which is a key support to watch out for in the near future.

BTC/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

If the price breaks off the 20-day EMA and rises above $70,000, it will be a signal that buyers are trying to make a comeback. The BTC/USDT pair may rise to $72,000 and then to $73,777. Sellers are expected to fiercely defend the zone between $72,000 and $73,777, but if the bulls prevail, the pair could start a novel uptrend towards the $93,554 target.

The bears will need to keep the price below the 20-day EMA to invalidate the bullish view. The pair could then drop to the 50-day elementary moving average ($65,002).

BTC/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

The pair broke below the uptrend line, indicating that the bears have the upper hand. Buyers will try to push the price back above the uptrend line, but will likely face solid resistance from sellers.

If the price falls from the uptrend line, it will be a signal that the bears have turned the level into resistance. This increases the risk of a drop to $65,000.

This negative review will soon be invalidated if the price rises above $70,000. The pair could then augment to $72,000.

Ether price analysis

Ether (ETH) has fallen to the symmetrical triangle support line, which is likely to attract buyers.

ETH/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

If the price turns away from the support line and rises above the 20-day EMA ($2,540), it will be a signal that the ETH/USDT pair may rise to the triangle resistance line. This is an essential level to pay attention to as a close above could start a move towards $3,400. The $2,850 level may represent resistance but will likely be breached.

The triangle will be resolved in favor of the bears if the price breaks and closes below the support line. This could start a decline to $2,150 and eventually to $2,111.

ETH/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

Bulls try to defend the support line. The first sign of strength will be a breakout and close above the 50-SMA. If this happens, the pair could rise to $2,600 and then to the resistance line.

On the contrary, if the rebound drops from the moving averages, it will mean that the bears are in control. This increases the possibility of a breakout below the support line. The pair could then dive to $2,310.

Dogecoin token price analysis

Dogecoin (DOGE) dropped from $0.18 on October 30 and reached the 20-day EMA ($0.14) on November 3.

DOGE/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

In case of an up move, traders usually buy the dip to the 20-day EMA. If the price rebounds from the 20-day EMA, the bulls will again try to push the DOGE/USDT pair above the $0.18 resistance. If they do, the pair could rise to $0.21.

Conversely, if the price drops and stays below the 20-day EMA, it will suggest that the bulls have given up. The pair could then drop to the 50-day SMA ($0.12), which could attract buyers.

DOGE/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

The pair is trying to find support on the uptrend line. If the price rebounds from the uptrend line and rises above the downtrend line, this will signal the end of the pullback. The pair may attempt to rise to $0.18. A break and close above $0.18 could start the next stage of the uptrend.

Contrary to this assumption, if the price breaks the uptrend line, the pair could drop to $0.13 and then to $0.12.

Related: Here’s what happened in crypto today

Litecoin price analysis

Litecoin (LTC) is rising within an ascending channel, signaling a slight edge to buyers.

LTC/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

Traders buy the decline to the support line and sell near the resistance line in an ascending channel. If the price breaks off the support line and rises above the 20-day EMA ($69.65), it will open the door to a rally towards the resistance line near $77. This level will likely attract bears to sell.

On the other hand, if the price breaks and closes below the support line, it will signal a short-term trend change. The LTC/USDT pair may drop to $62 and then to $59.

LTC/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

The 4-hour chart shows that the pair is in a descending channel formation. The price has reached a support line where buyers are likely to step in. Any recovery attempt is expected to involve selling at the 20-EMA level. If the price drops from the 20-EMA, it will be a selling rally. A break and close below the support line could push the pair down to $62.

Buyers will need to maintain the price above the 50-SMA to suggest that selling pressure is easing. The pair can then rise to the resistance line.

Monero token price analysis

Monero (XMR) has been trading in a wide range between $135 and $180 for several days, indicating buying on dips and selling on rallies.

XMR/USDT daily chart. Source: TradingView

On October 31, the price fell below the moving averages, but the bulls did not give much back to the bears. This suggests that selling is fading at lower levels. Buyers are trying to push the price back above the moving averages. If they succeed, the XMR/USDT pair could rise to $166. A break above this level could resume the journey towards $180.

This hopeful view will be negated in the near future if the price drops below $150. This could push the price to $144 and then to $135.

XMR/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView

The pair remains in a tight range of $153 to $165. If buyers push the price above the 50-SMA, the pair could attempt to rise above $165 again. A close above this resistance could push the pair to $170 and later to $180.

Instead, if the price stays below the 20-EMA, the pair could fall to $153. A break and close below this support will signal the bears to have an advantage. This could start a move down to $148.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

Joerg Hiller
July 9, 2026 10:50

The LDO has returned to the upper Bollinger band, the RSI has stabilized at 70, and the MACD momentum has been completely exhausted at zero – the technical setup overwhelmingly favors a pullback to the $0.27-0.29 zone…

Market Context: Why LDO is Changing Now

LDO increased by 2.81% in the last 24 hours, reaching USD 0.32 against a narrow intraday range of USD 0.31-0.34. Seemingly constructive. Look deeper and the picture will quickly change. The token is still over 15% below its 200-day moving average of $0.38, which means this bounce is directly within a long-term bearish structure. This isn’t an escape – it’s a dead cat with above-average PR. The Lido liquid staking protocol retains significant market share in the ETH staking ecosystem, but in a market that is aggressively lowering the prices of DeFi governance tokens through 2025 and into 2026, background noise is the basis. What is currently driving LDO is short-term dynamics and nothing else – and these dynamics, tracked on Blockchain.news and apparent in the broader DeFi intricate, are already stuck at a technically critical plateau.

Gauge Alignment: The specs tell you something specific

The convergence of signals here is extremely clear and from every angle they tell the same story. The price at $0.32 is right at the upper Bollinger Band – the %B reading of 1.05 confirms that the token has reached the statistical extreme of its recent range. Each previous instance of LDO marking this band in the last quarter preceded a move back toward the mid-band, which is currently $0.27. This alone would be enough to break the bearish trend in the near future.

Add to that an RSI of 70.56 – officially overbought, not just approaching it – and the case strengthens. But the most damning signal is the MACD histogram, which displays a dead, flat zero as the lines converge. When momentum is so exhausted on an overbought reading, the market does not consolidate before moving higher; is telegraphic distribution. The bulls had every chance to break through the resistance at $0.34 and they failed. Blockchain.news readers who have watched this pattern play out in altcoin cycles know what happens next: early adopters exit on a slow retail offer, and the offer disappears.

One truly neutral piece of data is the Binance futures funding rate of 0.01% – virtually unchanged. There are no heavily crowded long positions waiting to be squeezed, which mitigates the downside velocity. But neutral financing in a momentum vacuum is a waiting room, not a floor. The short-term moving averages at $0.27-$0.29 act as a gravity anchor, and once the price oscillator tips over, this force will become more tough to resist.

Whales and Analyst Targets: The sharp money is still for a reason

The lack of any significant comment from KOL in the last 24 hours is its own data point. When LDO works and the regular voices on Crypto Twitter fall still, the experienced reading is that institutional and sophisticated players are not chasing. Silence on overbought is not bullish accumulation – it is lack of interest.

Quantitative models show a bearish near-term trajectory. CoinCodex’s five-day forecast of $0.3152 represents essentially a slight decline from current levels. Their monthly target drops to $0.2645, which would represent a correction of about 17% from today’s price – a number that is exactly in line with the lower Bollinger Band of $0.22 that will be in place in the event of a $0.27 SMA cluster failure. Their 3-month high of $0.3005 signals that any recovery from a pullback will be tardy and crushing, not explosive.

Coinbase is an outlier with a target of $0.3893 – notably, it sits almost exactly at the 200-day moving average resistance. This is the only bull scenario worth planning for, but it requires a completely different technical setup than the one LDO is presenting today. Reaching $0.39 from $0.32 is a 22% move amid deteriorating momentum and an SMA of 200, which has been a demanding ceiling for months. This is an essential medium-term goal precisely because it would mean a full average return to the 200 SMA – but this is a post-reset target, not the current overbought exhaustion.

Strategic positioning: bull case, bear case and where the probability actually lies

A bear case is highly probable and short-lived. The lack of a tidy daily close above $0.34 on volume well above today’s $9.58 million triggers a rollover. The first stop is the pivot at $0.32, followed by immediate support at $0.31. If $0.31 breaks – and given the MACD exhaustion signal, it likely will – the $0.27-0.29 confluence zone (SMA 7 and SMA 20) will become an obvious landing ground. This represents a decline of 10-15% from the current price and the path of least resistance at this time.

The bull thing requires specifics before I touch on it. Closing the day above $0.34, MACD histogram turns green, RSI pulls back and then recovers above 60 in the second phase – this sequence opens the door to $0.36 and ultimately puts the $0.39 Coinbase scenario on the table. As it stands, following Blockchain.news and the broader DeFi data flow, LDO is not exhibiting accumulative behavior. Volume is moderate, derivative positioning is neutral, and all momentum indicators have overshot resistance at the same time.

My probability distribution for the next seven days: a 65% pullback to $0.27-$0.29 in the base case, a 25% sideways move in the $0.31-$0.34 range as the market digests the overbought condition with no piercing color, and a 10% probability of a true breakout from $0.34 to $0.36. Trade accordingly – and watch $0.31 like a hawk. Breaking the level is confirmation that the reset has started.

Image source: Shutterstock

According to Token Terminal, the amount of ether connected to Robinhood’s recent layer 2 blockchain exceeded $70 million in the first week.

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

“If adoption continues, the network could become a new, significant source of demand for ETH” – he said Token Terminal on Thursday.

Robinhood also offered tokenized shares to customers in over 120 countries, responding to: growing demand for tokenized US stocks. Ethereum and its Layer 2 scaling networks are a popular choice for tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) with over 50% market share, according to RWA.xyz, and this move could further strengthen that position.

Transforming liquidity into economic activity

“Robinhood Chain is rapidly turning liquidity into business.” he said Terminal token in a separate post on X.

Robinhood Chain’s daily lively users have reached 194,000 and daily revenue has increased to $39,000, representing $14 million in annual revenue in the network’s first week of operation, it says.

DefiLlama, a decentralized financial data platform, shows similar numbers, showing The total value of Robinhood Chain is 46,748 ETH, or approximately $83 million at current market prices. Thursday’s inflow alone amounted to 31,855 ETH, or approximately $55 million.

Uniswap founder Hayden Adams he said On Friday, most of what happens on the Robinhood chain is denominated in ETH.

“It is a base pair to trade, the highest volume asset and a gas token to pay for block space. It also burns ETH on L1 to pay data storage fees,” he added.

The value of ETH linked to Robinhood Chain exceeds $70 million. Source: Token Terminal

Andri Fauzan Adziima, head of research at Bitrue Research Institute, told Cointelegraph that it is “definitely bullish” and early volume “validates the L2 flywheel” as a “significant new demand sink.”

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

Related: L1s face ‘tug of war’ as adoption increases: Injective CEO

Tim Sun, senior researcher at HashKey Group, said this is a “clear, structural positive for ETH.”

“In the case of Ethereum, the most immediate benefit is that Robinhood Chain uses ETH as gas,” he said. “As connected assets, wallet addresses, and on-chain transactions increase, new demand for ETH is being generated.”

“However, the deeper significance lies not only in the amount of gas consumed, but in Robinhood’s decision to build its own financial ecosystem within the Ethereum network. This further solidifies the position of the Ethereum mainnet as the ultimate settlement layer and liquidity base for tokenized assets.”

Bulls argue that Ethereum’s long-term growth thesis is driven by RWA tokenization, agentic AI payments, institutional adoption, and network upgrades like Glamsterdam expected before the end of 2026, which are expected to raise Layer 1 capacity.

ETH prices rose on Friday, hitting $1,775, but remain at multi-year lows in a bear market, down 64% from their August 2025 high.

Characteristics: The biggest blockchain improvements will come in 2026

ZK STARK is the best way to address the challenges of ensuring Bitcoin’s quantum security – and at the same time achieve mass adoption, says StarkWare co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson.

What’s more, he says Blockstream founder Adam Back agrees.

This week, Ben-Sasson was in the news for his controversial suggestion for X to augment Bitcoin inflation to 4% per year. Grok’s analysis of the responses found “zero clear support for the proposal.”

But as a co-creator of STARK – quantum-secure, hash-based zero-knowledge proofs – he’s on much firmer ground, with some leading Bitcoin researchers supporting the concept.

Last week, Ben-Sasson’s own project, Starknet, announced its own three-phase project aimed at ensuring quantum security.

The problem of enormous PQ signatures on Bitcoin

Adding zero-knowledge proofs to Bitcoin will not in itself make the blockchain secure. ZK proofs are a way to deal with the problems caused by adding much larger post-quantum (PQ) signature schemes to Bitcoin.

The current set of National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)-approved PQ signatures is 10 to 100 times larger than Bitcoin’s existing ECDSA and Schnorr signature schemes.

Some say this could sluggish the blockchain to less than 1 transaction per second. But all enormous transaction signatures for a block can be compressed into a miniature ZK STARK proof. Since the proof would be much smaller than even considering existing signatures, the blockchain can run faster.

“If they don’t allow ZK STARK aggregation, that’s certainly going to be a very unfortunate move because it doesn’t really solve the problem… where the issue is can anyone actually use Bitcoin?” – said Ben-Sasson.

“So for this you need a huge scale. For this you need things like signature aggregation and just increasing the block size is not enough.”

Related: StarkWare CEO Suggests 4% Annual Bitcoin Inflation to Replace 21M Cap

Source: Eli Ben-Sasson

Quantum alternative: augment Bitcoin block size

Marin Ivezic, author of PostQuantum.com and founder of Applied Quantum, told Cointelegraph that Bitcoin’s SegWit scheme reduced the impact of enormous signatures by up to 75%. But his modeling of NIST’s ML-DSA-44 scheme, which has 2,420 bytes per signature, “puts block capacity at around 500 to 700 transactions, up from the current 2,500 to 3,000. This is where the block size debate comes in.”

Increasing Bitcoin’s block size is a real alternative, but the community has split over the 2017 proposal to double the block size. Many of the arguments against it remain because it is an obtuse solution that requires each node to move, store and verify much more data. It’s more pricey and requires more hardware, which critics say pushes the network toward centralization.

In recent months, Blockstream Research has been experimenting with size compression of hash-based post-quantum signature schemes for employ with Bitcoin. Promising SHRINCS and SHRIMPS programs have been developed that have daily signatures about five times larger than current Bitcoins, but up to 40 times larger if you lose your wallet and need to resurrect it.

While SHRINCS has been used to sign actual transactions on the Liquid sidechain, its development is in its early stages and there are drawbacks in terms of complexity and usability. Much larger signatures would also sluggish down the blockchain unless the block size was increased.

“Native performance enhancement is the simple engineering answer and the hardest management answer,” said Marin Ivezic, author of PostQuantum.com and founder of Applied Quantum, about increasing the block size. “We simply don’t have time for these debates.”

Aggregating ZK evidence has advantages

growth, but would likely be much better at maintaining decentralization while increasing Bitcoin’s performance.

In its simplest form, ZK proofs are a way of mathematically proving that something exists, without having to provide all the details. For example, ZK evidence may show that you know the combination to a safe and sound without telling the other person what it is.

Technically, generating a ZK proof for a single block only needs to be done once (although it’s safer to generate additional backups for redundancy), and the hardware required to do this looks to be much cheaper than a commercial mining setup.

Ethereum’s Lean specifications are designed to validate hardware that costs under $100,000 (and can be run from a regular home). Meanwhile, ZK verification can be performed on almost any hardware, including Raspberry Pi.

Ben-Sasson said that early Bitcoin creators such as Greg Maxwell and Mike Hearn were “very bullish on ZK STARK, which is post-quantum secure and has no trusted configuration” and that he believes Bitcoin Core developer Luke Dashjr and Blockstream founder Adam Back will take up the idea.

“I’ve heard this from them myself. They are optimistic about issues related to ZK STARK and its use. I think each of them spoke well, definitely privately, but also publicly, in favor. Adam Back and Luke Dashjr don’t quite see everything eye to eye, but I think on this point they actually agree that it is a great technology that, under the right conditions, could be used in Bitcoin.”

Cointelegraph reached out to Back for comment but has not received a response.

Ethereum researcher Justin Drake has spoken publicly about his desire for Bitcoin to adopt Lean Ethereum’s ZK proof aggregation technology so that it becomes an industry-wide standard. This may not be feasible for political reasons.

By 2029, Ethereum is expected to become post-quantum. Source: Ethereum Foundation

Bitcoin-specific ZK proposals

Given Bitcoin’s conservative culture, the most politically pragmatic way to add ZK to Bitcoin would probably be to re-enable OP_CAT, which is the nine lines of code written by Satoshi.

“[He] he even introduced it and then removed it,” Ben-Sasson said. “And if you add that up, you can get things like STARK evidence and then aggregation and post-quantum security.”

“I think this is the best and safest solution and it will really, really just start over again this journey that Satoshi really started and wanted.”

However, despite the huge interest OP_CAT approximately 12 to 24 months ago, it seems to have lost momentum recently (although Bitcoin governance is changing in mysterious ways).

There are also more speculative proposals, including: OP_STARK_VERIFYwhich would add opcodes specifically designed for more effective STARK verification on Bitcoin. BIP-360 co-author Ethan Heilman proposed aggregating Bitcoin signatures and public keys into a single STARK proof under the name BitZip.

Earlier this year, Heilman told Cointelegraph that there are two main ways to achieve the desired result:

“Either add a few general-purpose instructions to Bitcoin and then build something like ZKRollup in Bitcoin, or support STARK in the Bitcoin consensus layer. Alternatively, you can employ other, less capable aggregation schemes such as CISA [Cross Input Signature Aggregation] may facilitate here too.

But what are the chances?

Ivezic says the most significant point of contention is Bitcoin’s governance, not its technological capabilities.

“Elie’s cryptography is solid: assumptions based solely on hashes, no trusted settings, thousands of signatures compressed into one small proof. The problem lies in everything about cryptography,” he says.

“A Bitcoin script cannot verify STARK today, and a production verifier is a huge consensus surface compared to a narrow hash signature opcode. Given that a small opcode like OP_CAT has been discussed for years, a base layer STARK verifier is realistically a conversation from the 2030s.”

Meanwhile, Ethereum is targeting 2029 for a post-quantum transition, and Solana is also experimenting with adding post-quantum signatures. StarkNet’s three-phase transition will benefit from account abstraction, which allows the underlying cryptography to be updated without having to manually move each user to up-to-date accounts.

As a result, Ben-Sasson said that Solana and Ethereum’s post-quantum roadmap will be “extremely difficult.”

“At Starknet we have the great advantage that we already have native account abstraction and smart wallets, which means nothing is written down, so it’s very easy to update wallets and infrastructure to be post-quant.”

Features: The biggest improvements to the blockchain will not appear until 2026

The US presidential election on November 5 could decide the fate of more than a half-dozen proposed cryptocurrency funds (ETFs) awaiting the green featherlight from regulators.

In 2024, asset managers filed a slew of regulatory filings to list ETFs holding altcoins, including Solana (SOL), XRP (XRP), and Litecoin (LTC), among others.

Issuers are also waiting for approval of several planned cryptocurrency index ETFs designed to hold a variety of baskets of tokens.

In effect, these filings constitute “call options if Trump wins” the US presidential race, Eric Balchunas, an ETF analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said on October 25.

Three out of four cryptocurrency owners said a candidate’s crypto policies would influence how they vote. source: Gemini

In the election, Republican candidate Donald Trump – who has said he wants to make America the “crypto capital of the world” – is facing off against Democrat Kamala Harris, who has been relatively silent in the field.

Under President Joe Biden – Vice President Harris’ boss – the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has taken an aggressive regulatory stance against cryptocurrencies, initiating over 100 regulatory actions against industry firms.

“If you see Trump win, watch this space, and if you see Harris win, just forget about it for a few years,” Balchunas said at the Plan B Forum conference in Lugano, Switzerland.

Here’s what to expect from cryptocurrency ETF issuers if Trump wins on November 5.

BTC and ETH lead in terms of market capitalization. Source: CoinGecko

Altcoin ETFs

In June, fund issuers VanEck and 21Shares filed an S-1 filing to register the SOL ETFs with the SEC.

On October 30, crypto asset manager Canary Capital followed suit by filing to launch its own SOL ETF.

The SEC has given the green featherlight for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) ETFs to list in January and July, respectively.

Still, “the approval of ETH is unlikely to result in a large wave of approvals” for other types of crypto ETFs, Ophelia Snyder, co-founder and CEO of 21.co, told Cointelegraph in June. 21.co owns the cryptocurrency ETF issuer 21Shares.

The SEC has repeatedly asserted that SOL – unlike BTC and ETH – is a security, but plans to list SOL in an ETF are “still in the works,” Matthew Sigel, head of digital asset research at VanEck, said in August.

“VanEck believes that SOL is a commodity, just like BTC and ETH,” Sigel said. “We will continue to advocate for this position […] relevant regulatory authorities.”

Meanwhile, in October and November, Canary Capital, Bitwise and 21Shares filed for proposed XRP ETFs. Canary Capital has also filed an application to register an LTC spot ETF.

GDLC shares. source: Grayscale.

Crypto index ETFs

On October 29, NYSE Arca asked the SEC for approval to list Grayscale Digital Enormous Cap Fund (GLDC) shares.

“[T]proposed rule change, if adopted, would constitute the first national set of stock exchange rules to allow the listing and trading of shares of multi-crypto assets [ETFs]”, Grayscale he said.

The fund has a portfolio of cryptocurrency indexes including BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP and Avalanche (AVAX).

“The next logical step is index ETFs because indexes are efficient for investors – just like people buy the S&P 500 in an ETF. It will be the same with cryptocurrencies,” Tischhauser said.

Warehouse: AI agents trading cryptocurrencies are a scorching narrative, but beware of rookie mistakes

Dariusz Baru
July 9, 2026 10:59 am

AAVE is stagnant at $88.24, MACD momentum is at a dead zero, and the price is unable to recover its own 7-day average; either $90.95 settles this week and opens up towards $99-$116, or $84…

Instant setup

AAVE is trading at $88.24, within an intraday range of $86.29-$88.86 that screams indecision. A 0.75% session gain sounds nice, but it masks the real story: the price is sitting below 7-day SMA at $89.45. Buyers showed up as AAVE rose to $85.89 intraday, but were unable to sustain the price above the weekly average for a single candle. It’s not strength – it’s rebound relief waiting to be tested.

The most telling signal is the MACD histogram, which displays exactly zero. The convergence between the MACD line and its signal is absolute – the short-term dynamics have completely equalized. The bullish momentum that lifted AAVE from a $79 base has been exhausted, at least for now. As Blockchain.news has discussed in previous DeFi recovery cycles, these MACD break points in a diversified market are coil springs – they don’t stay still for long, and when they break, they tend to move to full ATR in a single session. With a 14-period ATR of $6.34, one decisive candle clears the entire setup.

An RSI of 55.88 is the only fair reading on the board – neutral, not exhausted, not oversold. There is no technical reason for AAVE jargon get higher from here. There is no technical confirmation of this either will be.

Key levels revealed

The structure is deceptively neat. AAVE is positioned between immediate support at $86.39 and immediate resistance at $89.60, with accompanying stronger structural levels at $84.53 and $90.95. The pivot point at $87.74 is slightly below the current price – AAVE has broken above it, but is essentially resting on it half-heartedly.

The short-term moving average stack remains constructive. The EMA 12 ($87.82) is above the EMA 26 ($84.44) and the price is holding above the SMA 50 at $79.07. The scaffolding of the economic recovery rally is still intact. But the SMA 200 at $109.77 is the elephant in the room. AAVE is trading about 20% below its 200-day average – this is not a bull market, but rather an attempted recovery that is still struggling through the mid-terms amid a long-term overall supply problem.

The Bollinger band configuration adds nuance. A %B reading of 0.59 says AAVE is in the upper half of the band, but not stretched – the upper band at $99.26 will be a true magnetic target if momentum resumes. Both the support at $84.53 and the resistance at $90.95 are within one ATR of the current price. One volume candle in either direction ends the debate.

Sentiment versus reality

CoinCodex lowered its target to $116.66 at month-end on July 5, representing an upside of 33% in about three weeks. Aggressive, but not mathematically absurd if Bitcoin holds high and DeFi turns. The problem is that the derivatives market doesn’t buy them. The eight-hour funding rate remains at a completely neutral 0.0100%, which means there is zero leveraged long positioning behind this thesis. No one is putting pressure on AAVE perpetrators of real proportions.

Even more telling: There have been no verified KOL connections to AAVE in the last 24 hours. Rekt Capital is peaceful. Van de Poppe is noiseless. As the token supposedly prepares for a 33% moonshot, the Twitter crowd is showing up early and noisy. At the moment no. Blockchain.news tracks DeFi protocol dynamics in both on-chain and social media signals, and the disconnect between the aggressive price target and lack of speculative positioning is a respectable sign. Configurations that lack both KOL belief and derived heat typically require a macrocatalyst to operate – they do not spontaneously ignite.

The only bland technical positive sentiment picture is the stochastic crossover, with %K (40.55) above the lower range %D (32.44). It’s a sluggish signal that conditions are quietly improving. But “silent tweaking” is not “rip ready.”

Practical trading strategy

Bull Case – 60% Probability: AAVE is holding above $86.39 and on significant volume it is above $89.60. This is the ignition switch. The daily close above $89.60 puts pressure on $90.95, and a confirmed break there opens up the upper Bollinger Band at $99.26 as another neat technical target. The $116.66 CoinCodex thesis only becomes valid after AAVE prints multiple closes above $95 and begins analyzing the 200-day SMA at $109.77 – this level is a grave fight, not a free pass.

Bear Case – 40% Probability: The flat MACD turns negative and $86.39 gives way. A break here brings $84.53 into play in one session – comfortably within one ATR. If $84.53 fails, the 50 SMA at $79.07 will be the next significant structural floor level. Without leveraged longs to squeeze and without the KOL narrative driving retail FOMO, a color to $79-$80 would be a neat, arranged technical pullback – not a disaster, but not a headline you’d want to be on the wrong side of.

Long entry zone: USD 86.00-87.00 after rebound with volume confirmation. Chasing the current price of $88 has needy risk/reward – you are buying above the pivot point, below the resistance cluster, with the MACD dead. Configuration there is not worth it.

Stop-loss: Difficult stop under $84.00. This is below powerful support, below the mid-Bollinger point, and signals a breakdown in the short-term structure of the recovery.

Goals: Basic $90.95, extended $99.26. Bull case invalidation: Daily close below $84.00. Bear case invalidation: Daily close above $91.00 on increasing volume.

Keep AAVE on the board with a reduced size until the MACD histogram shows no directional impulse. As Blockchain.news monitors the broader DeFi landscape, the fundamental case for Aave as a leading protocol remains intact – but the fundamentals of the protocol do not undiscovered the graph, which is at a decision point with zero momentum. Wait for a break. Then trade tough and neat.

Image source: Shutterstock

According to Pantera Capital, futures are on track to become one of the dominant trading instruments in global finance, and the decentralized Hyperliquid exchange shows how blockchain-based infrastructure can challenge established markets.

Blockchain-focused asset manager he said in Wednesday’s post

Pantera, an investor in the Hyperliquid ecosystem, said Hyperliquid has become a leading example of this shift, expanding futures beyond cryptocurrencies into stocks, commodities and stock indices as part of founder Jeff Yan’s vision of “the home of all finances.”

Hyperliquid’s development has attracted the attention of established finance, including the parent company of Fresh York-based Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), whose CEO, Jeffrey Sprecher, has urged regulators to create a “level playing field” in launching 24-hour futures contracts on the NYSE platform.

Pantera Capital said Hyperliquid gained market share among onchain providers as DEX customer volume increased to 14% of centralized exchange (CEX) customer volume, up from less than 1% in early 2023 when Hyperliquid launched.

According to Pantera, Hyperliquid accounts for approximately 40% of the network’s perpetual futures trading volume. According to DefiLlama, it is the fourth largest fee-generating protocol in the crypto industry, generating $13.5 million in weekly fees over the last seven days. data.

Top protocols by weekly fees generated. source: DefiLlama

Related: UK payments plan unveils tokenized payments for ‘multi-money ecosystem’

Customary finance involves markets that operate 24/7

Cryptocurrency platforms and TradFi institutions provide more established investment products in blockchain packaging.

On May 22, OKX announced plans to introduce perpetual futures contracts based on Brent and West Texas Intermediate ICE crude oil benchmarks as part of a partnership with the exchange operator.

In early March, the NYSE partnered with tokenization platform Securitize as part of a broader effort to develop a blockchain-based stock trading infrastructure enabling 24/7 trading and settlement on Wall Street.

In January, the parent company of the Fresh York Stock Exchange, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), shared plans for a tokenized securities system designed for 24/7 trading, instant settlement, stablecoin financing and onchain settlement.

Warehouse: The 5 types of real-world assets tokenized the fastest on the web