🔔 Coinbase Announces 14% Workforce Reduction Amid Market Volatility and AI Advancements

📉 Coinbase, the cryptocurrency exchange, has announced a reduction of approximately 14% of its workforce. CEO Brian Armstrong communicated this decision to employees, citing market volatility and the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) as the primary reasons.

Today I’ve made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%. I want to walk you through why we're doing this now, what it means for those affected, and how this positions us for the…

said Armstrong.

📊 Armstrong explained that despite having capital and diversified revenue sources, Coinbase's business remains volatile from quarter to quarter. The company is currently in a market downturn and is seeking to optimize expenses. The influence of artificial intelligence was also highlighted as a significant factor. Armstrong noted that engineers are now able to complete tasks in days instead of weeks, and some processes are being automated. This allows smaller teams to achieve better results.

🔄 As part of its transformation, Coinbase plans to streamline its management structure to five levels, eliminate "pure" managerial roles in favor of a "player-coach" model, form teams focused on AI, and experiment with minimal teams including a "one-person" model.

❗️ Hut 8 Leases AI Infrastructure for $9.8 Billion

🌟 Hut 8 has announced the launch of the first phase of its AI campus, Beacon Point, in Texas. The company has signed a 15-year lease agreement for 352 MW of infrastructure with a base contract value of $9.8 billion, which could extend up to $25.1 billion if all renewal options are exercised. The lessee is an unnamed organization with a high investment rating, planning to use the computing power for large-scale AI model training and inference tasks.

📌 The facility will be built according to NVIDIA DGX architecture standards for gigawatt-level infrastructure. Beacon Point is Hut 8's second AI campus following River Bend, and it operates on an "energy first" model. The company first secures the site and grid connections before entering into lease agreements with clients.

📈 Following this deal, Hut 8's total contracted AI data center capacity has increased to 597 MW, with a combined base contract value of approximately $16.8 billion and an expected average annual net operating income of $1.1 billion. The Beacon Point facility has a total capacity of up to 1 GW, with 352 MW of IT capacity currently commercialized requiring about 500 MW of electricity. The remaining capacity can be used for future project expansions.

⚠️ Coinbase expands USDC reach through Hyperliquid treasury partnership

➡️ Coinbase has become the official USDC treasury deployer on Hyperliquid, strengthening the crypto exchange’s push to expand the stablecoin’s presence deeper into decentralized finance infrastructure. According to a report from ChainCatcher, USDC will now function as an aligned quote asset across the Hyperliquid ecosystem under the new arrangement. Coinbase adds another layer to the partnership as competition intensifies among stablecoin issuers seeking dominance in decentralized trading ecosystems. Hyperliquid’s circulating USDC supply has reached approximately $5 billion, representing a twofold increase from the same period last year.

❗️ The move signals Coinbase’s broader strategy to extend USDC beyond traditional layer-1 and layer-2 blockchain deployments and position the stablecoin more aggressively within DeFi-native trading venues. Hyperliquid has rapidly emerged as one of the largest decentralized perpetual futures exchanges, attracting significant liquidity and trading activity amid growing institutional interest in on-chain derivatives markets.

‼️ The treasury deployment partnership comes as Coinbase continues expanding its stablecoin infrastructure business alongside Circle, the issuer of USDC. In a previous cryptonews story, Coinbase unveiled a Bitcoin yield fund targeting institutional investors outside the United States as part of its broader push into alternative crypto financial products.

🚀 IG Expands Cryptocurrency Offerings in the UK

🌟 Financial giant IG has significantly expanded its cryptocurrency platform in the UK, adding over 50 new digital assets to bring its total offerings to more than 100. This expansion follows the company's approval from regulatory authorities to operate in the cryptocurrency space and includes the launch of swaps, enhanced charting features, and upcoming support for wallet transfers.

📈 The addition of these new cryptocurrencies strengthens IG's trading capabilities amidst increasing competition in the regulated UK cryptocurrency market. The planned wallet transfers will allow clients to manage external assets through their IG accounts.

🗓 On May 13, IG announced the expansion of its cryptocurrency offerings in the UK by adding over 50 additional digital assets. This update increases the available range of cryptocurrencies to more than 100 and introduces the swap feature, updated charting tools, and planned support for wallet transfers for clients.

❗️ This expansion follows the company's registration of crypto assets with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in October 2025. UK clients can now access a wider selection of cryptocurrencies through the company's licensed crypto product. The launch also introduced the swap feature, allowing clients to exchange one cryptocurrency directly for another.

❗️ Nashville freshman Rep pushes Bitcoin reserve bill into law

➡️ Rep. Matt Van Epps told Bitcoin Magazine that the American Reserve Modernization Act of 2026 is a direct reflection of what he sees happening in his own district. “Nashville is one of the nation’s leading Bitcoin hubs,” Van Epps said, pointing to Bitcoin Park, the city’s digital asset community, and the annual Bitcoin conference returning to Nashville in 2027. Van Epps is one of 18 original cosponsors of ARMA, introduced on May 21 by Rep. Nick Begich alongside Democratic co-lead Rep. Jared Golden. The bill would codify President Trump’s March 2025 executive order establishing a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, giving it statutory permanence that no future administration could reverse with a pen stroke.

⚠️ The bill would place the reserve inside the U.S. Treasury and authorize acquisition of up to 200,000 BTC per year for five years, targeting one million coins. All holdings would be locked for a minimum of 20 years. A separate Digital Asset Stockpile would hold non-Bitcoin digital assets already in federal custody. As cryptonews reported, ARMA builds on the earlier BITCOIN Act framework that Begich introduced with Senator Cynthia Lummis in March 2025. The U.S. government currently holds an estimated 328,372 BTC accumulated through law enforcement seizures, including proceeds from the Silk Road takedown and the 2022 Bitfinex hack recovery.

🔔 Adam Back dismisses BIP-110 censorship claims as fork debate returns

❗️ Mr.Hodl posted a short message placing Roger Ver and GrassFedBitcoin side by side. The post came with screenshots showing Ver’s 2019 claim that BTC had failed on censorship resistance by censoring parts of its community. The second screenshot showed GrassFedBitcoin arguing that BIP-110 critics should engage directly if they believe the proposal is wrong. The account claimed that several Bitcoin discussion spaces had become hard places for supporters to defend the proposal.

➡️ GrassFedBitcoin also said bitcointalk had become quiet, GitHub posts were being marked as spam, and Reddit accounts were being banned for discussing Bitcoin Knots or BIP-110. The account also said the BIP repository allowed the proposal to be discussed and merged. Those claims have not been confirmed by the named platforms in the material reviewed. Still, they pushed the BIP-110 debate back into a wider Bitcoin governance discussion.

❓ Blockstream CEO Adam Back responded by rejecting the idea that BIP-110 was being blocked through a hidden campaign. He argued that the proposal was being ignored because many people had already reviewed it and rejected it.

🔔 ZachXBT flags JuCoin reserves as users report withdrawal delays

📌 Wu Blockchain reported that several users had raised withdrawal issues over the past week. ZachXBT also questioned JuCoin’s reported $511 million reserves, saying much of the value appeared tied to USDC and USDT issued on JuCoin’s own JuChain.

🌐 ZachXBT said multiple users reported problems withdrawing funds from JuCoin. The complaints arrived during a period of added concern around centralized exchange reserves and user access to funds. JuCoin attributed the delays to platform upgrades and restructuring, according to Wu Blockchain. The exchange’s explanation did not fully end concerns because users were also asking about reserve quality.

⚠️ “Multiple users have reported withdrawal issues on JuCoin over the past week,” Wu Blockchain said, citing ZachXBT’s comments. The issue remains developing. There has been no public proof that JuCoin is insolvent, but withdrawal delays often draw fast attention because users depend on exchanges to process funds on demand.

🔔 Ripple targets $1B revenue run rate without counting XRP holdings

❗️ According to posts shared by CoinMarketCap and crypto-focused accounts on X, Ripple expects to end 2026 with a $1 billion revenue run rate. The figure does not include XRP held on Ripple’s balance sheet. That detail matters because Ripple has long faced public debate over the link between its business and XRP. Garlinghouse’s target frames the company as a fintech infrastructure provider that aims to earn money from products, clients, and services, not from token holdings or sales.

🌐 The deal also supports Ripple USD, known as RLUSD. Ripple has promoted the stablecoin for enterprise settlement and collateral use. Recently, crypto news reported that Ripple is also adding RLUSD to new payment tools, including services tied to AI agents and machine payments on the XRP Ledger. Company materials point to custody, treasury management, and liquidity services as core offerings. These products target banks and firms that need faster settlement, account control, and access to digital assets through regulated processes, rather than retail trading.

🚨 XRP News: Ripple Votes in Favor of XRP Ledger 3.2.0 Amendment, 26% Nodes Updated

👉 Read more

❗️ XRP price forms multi-month falling wedge near $1 support as liquidations mount

📣 According to data from cryptonews price, XRP price dropped from around $1.07 on June 25 to $1.01 on June 26, extending its year-to-date decline to more than 40%. The decline accelerated as a $10.8 billion crypto options expiry triggered heavy volatility across digital assets and forced a wave of long liquidations.

⚠️ At the same time, sentiment surrounding the XRP ecosystem weakened after decentralized finance protocol Strobe Finance abruptly announced it would shut down operations.

🔖 The daily chart shows XRP trading at the lower edge of a falling wedge that has contained price action for almost a year. The pattern has compressed between descending resistance and gradually declining support, with the token now sitting close to the wedge’s lower boundary near $1.00.

🔗 Momentum indicators remain weak. The MACD has stayed below its signal line with histogram bars still in negative territory, while the Aroon indicator continues to favor sellers after Aroon Down climbed back toward 100 and Aroon Up remained subdued. Together, the indicators suggest bears still control the short-term trend even as XRP price approaches a historically important support zone.

❗️ What is the Coinbase Premium Index? U.S. Bitcoin demand gauge

➡️ One number tells you whether United States institutions are buying Bitcoin or backing away: the gap between the price on Coinbase and the price on the rest of the world’s exchanges. Here is how the Coinbase Premium Index works, why it moved markets in 2026, and how to read it without fooling yourself.

⚠️ Every market has a tell. In Bitcoin, one of the most watched is almost embarrassingly simple: the same coin trades on hundreds of venues at once, and the price is never exactly the same everywhere. Most of those gaps are noise. One of them is a signal, because of who trades where.

🔖 Coinbase is the exchange of record for regulated American money. Hedge funds, corporate treasuries, registered advisors, and, most importantly, the custodial and trading infrastructure behind the United States spot Bitcoin ETFs all route disproportionately through it. Binance and the other global venues carry everyone else. When Bitcoin trades richer on Coinbase than on the global market, someone in the American regulated system is paying up to buy. When it trades cheaper, that bid is gone, or has turned into supply.

🔔 Bitcoin price nears Fidelity’s power law support: Accumulation zone or missing catalyst?

📌 On his power law model, a logarithmic chart that bounds Bitcoin’s entire price history between an upper resistance curve, a middle trendline, and a lower support curve, the floor currently sits near 58,000 dollars. That lower line has caught every major Bitcoin bottom since 2015. Timmer’s label for the zone the market has now entered is unambiguous: accumulation. His caveat is just as unambiguous: he sees no catalyst for a reversal, and he is not calling a bottom.

⚠️ That combination, a historically reliable floor approaching and a strategist refusing to ring the bell, is the most honest summary of the Bitcoin market in July 2026. The asset is coming off its worst quarter since the 2022 bear market, spot ETFs just recorded their largest quarterly outflow since launch, the speculative premium that carried the price past 120,000 dollars last year has evaporated, and the fast money has visibly rotated elsewhere, first into gold, then into semiconductor stocks. And yet the two quantitative measures Timmer trusts most, the deviation from the power law trendline and the Bitcoin-to-gold ratio, have both sunk to depths recorded at exactly two prior moments: the 2018 low and the 2022 low. Both of those moments were generational buying opportunities. Both also felt like the end of the world at the time.

🔖 This feature takes the model seriously in both directions: what the power law actually says, why its track record earns attention, and why the missing-catalyst objection is not a hedge but the core of the analysis.

🔔 Ethereum price faces $2,000 test as oil surge revives rate fears

⚡️ Ethereum price has remained trapped below $2,000 as rising oil prices, renewed interest-rate concerns and BitMEX’s planned shutdown have tempered bullish sentiment despite continued spot ETF inflows. According to data from cryptonews, Ethereum price traded near $1,927 on July 23 after reaching an intraday high of $1,941. The token has recovered more than 27% from its June low near $1,514, but repeated failures around $1,955 have kept the psychological $2,000 level beyond buyers’ reach.

🔗 Rate traders have already adjusted their positions. The probability of a September Fed hike rose to 79% from 68% per data from the CME FedWatch tool. Expectations for the July meeting remain centered on no change, but another oil-led inflation increase could lift Treasury yields and pressure risk assets such as Ethereum.

🔖 U.S. equities also weakened after Alphabet raised its 2026 capital-spending forecast to between $195 billion and $205 billion. The company recorded negative free cash flow of $5.9 billion as quarterly expenditure doubled to $44.9 billion, while its shares fell in premarket trading.

📣 Brazil stablecoins face IMF scrutiny as crypto flows outpace capital

🌐 IMF has called for closer oversight of Brazil’s stablecoin market as cross-border crypto flows outpace traditional capital movements. The report says cross-border crypto transactions have increased faster than conventional capital flows and now require closer regulatory attention because of their growing links with the country’s financial system. The assessment says stablecoin purchases respond much more strongly to global financial shocks than traditional portfolio investment or foreign direct investment.

🔔 Based on the IMF’s analysis, purchases of dollar-backed stablecoins are two to three times more sensitive to external market events, raising concerns over how quickly international volatility could spread through crypto markets. Brazil has emerged as one of the world’s more active crypto markets, with stablecoins accounting for a significant share of digital asset activity. The IMF said the country’s crypto ecosystem has become increasingly connected with the traditional financial sector, making regulatory oversight more important as adoption continues to rise.

⚠️ The report acknowledges that Banco Central do Brasil (BCB) has already introduced measures to regulate crypto asset service providers. Even so, the IMF said several areas still need stronger rules, including customer asset protection, stablecoin issuance requirements, and compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CFT) standards.