Revolut will delist USDT in August, and Anthropic has started self-research on AI chips.

Headlines

▌Revolut to Delist USDT in Late August

On July 5, Revolut said that, out of regulatory and risk considerations, it will delist USDT in August.

▌Anthropic Has Initiated Preliminary R&D on Its Own-Developed AI Chips

On July 5, Anthropic announced that it has started preliminary research and development for its self-developed AI chips, and it is in talks with Samsung Electronics, with plans to use the chips as a potential chip foundry cooperation partner. This move follows OpenAI, with the goal of strengthening its independent control over the costly computing hardware ecosystem that supports its large language models.

Market

As of the time of publication, according to CoinGecko data:

BTC price is $63,035.97, 24-hour change +0.67%;
ETH price is $1,790.42, 24-hour change +0.23%;
BNB price is $602.80, 24-hour change -1.2%;
SOL price is $81.21, 24-hour change -1.23%;
DOGE price is $0.115, 24-hour change -1.8%;
XRP price is $1.1476, 24-hour change +0.87%;
TRX price is $0.3251, 24-hour change +0.57%;
HYPE price is $69.434, 24-hour change approximately -2%.

Policy

▌U.S. Treasury Officially Launches the “Trump Accounts” Application

On July 5, the U.S. Treasury announced today that, in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, it has officially launched “Trump Accounts” nationwide. The U.S. Treasury said this is an innovative savings and investment platform designed to ensure that future generations of Americans will have a stake in the U.S. economy starting from their first day of life. “Trump Accounts” will help families build long-term financial security while also deepening their understanding of how the U.S. capital markets operate.

****▌Irish Authorities Seize 500 BTC Linked to a Drug Trafficker

On July 5, according to Bitcoin.com News, Ireland’s Criminal Assets Bureau, with assistance from Europol, seized 500 BTC this week, valued at approximately 27 million euros. These assets are reportedly linked to a stash of drugs that Irish drug trafficker Clifton Collins lost. It is alleged that Collins printed the private keys on paper and hid them inside a fishing rod.

Blockchain Applications

▌EtherFi Proposes Deploying a White-Label Aave V4 on OP Mainnet

On July 5, EtherFi proposed deploying a dedicated Aave V4 instance on OP Mainnet to support EtherFi Cash. The proposal includes up to $175 million in initial funding, GHO integration, and a 20% revenue share paid to the Aave DAO.
Aave founder Stani said that EtherFi has been committed to building reliable end-user products. According to the proposal, Aave V4 will replace existing technology to provide EtherFi users with more flexible, larger-scale direct lending services, with all services managed by EtherFi. The infrastructure is entirely owned by EtherFi.

****▌Vitalik: In the Next 5 Years, Ethereum Will Complete Its Third Major Iteration; Anti-Quantum and Privacy Become Tier-1 Goals

On July 5, Vitalik Buterin posted that Ethereum researchers at a Berlin conference recently finalized the “Purge Ethereum” roadmap. This is not a one-time upgrade, but a continuing series of forks over 3 to 4 years (starting from “I-star”), which will become Ethereum’s third major era, similar to “The Merge,” nearly replacing all core components.
Core changes include: shifting verification from direct execution to recursive STARKs; introducing 1–2 rounds of finality into consensus for faster and more secure execution; multi-dimensional Gas pricing; and fully replacing existing anti-quantum cryptography schemes. The most disruptive change is the state model—today’s dynamic state expands to only about 2TB, while introducing new scalable states such as UTXO and ring buffers, with a total scale of up to 100TB. This will be suitable for ERC20/NFT/DeFi, and after the rewrite, transaction fees could be reduced by more than 10 times. Complex applications (such as Uniswap pools) retain the old state and do not require forced migration. However, who will store 100TB-scale state and the associated incentive problems have become new focal directions for research.
Privacy upgrades become a tier-1 design goal, requiring that all new components support anti-quantum and intermediary-free private transactions. Formal verification will be rolled out comprehensively, and exploring the introduction of RISC-V or leanISA as the protocol’s underlying VM, with the EVM potentially receding into a compilation-layer feature in the future.
In terms of performance metrics, Gas limits, Blob capacity, and block time will be increased multiple times over the next 5 years, with the Glasterdam fork first significantly raising Gas limits. In the sequence of forks, H-star (Hegota) will be the last “pre-purge” fork, after which the purge era will fully begin.
Ethereum is moving through this complex but steady transition toward a new network that is anti-quantum, massively scalable, and privacy-first, while maximizing the protection of existing applications from being affected. This five-year cautious disruption has officially started.

****▌Hexens Reveals Aptos Has Patched a Vulnerability That Could Affect Cross-Chain Bridges and Stablecoins and Other Infrastructure

On July 5, blockchain security firm Hexens disclosed that earlier this year, in February, it discovered a serious vulnerability in the Aptos blockchain Move Virtual Machine (Move VM), and it completed the fix within hours after issuing the report, with no loss of funds. Hexens said the vulnerability stems from a cache processing flaw that could lead to a type confusion vulnerability, which in theory could allow attackers to obtain high-privilege roles such as stablecoin minting, cross-chain bridges, and DeFi protocols. The research team used a server costing about $3,000 to build a simulated environment close to the mainnet, tested the exploitation path about 20 times, and achieved success approximately 17 to 18 times. They also assessed that the vulnerability could affect approximately $250 million in Aptos native TVL. If it further impacts infrastructure such as cross-chain bridges, stablecoins, and centralized exchanges, the potential systemic risk exposure could be as high as approximately $70 billion. Aptos said the vulnerability’s exploitability in real environments is extremely low, and it said the issue was promptly fixed through a bug bounty program, without affecting any users or funds.

****▌Nakamoto Chairman: “BIP-110 Failure” Is Extremely Bullish for Bitcoin; Governance Structure Further Validated

On July 4, David Bailey, chairman of Bitcoin treasury company Nakamoto and chairman of Bitcoin Magazine, said in a post that the failure of the so-called “BIP-110” long-term controversy, from the outcome perspective, is “extremely bullish” for Bitcoin. He also believes it further validates the network’s ability to withstand attacks and resist splits.
David Bailey said the incident was viewed as an attempt at a multi-year “governance-layer conflict,” involving multiple games, including mining pool competition, client fork proposals, UASF (user activated soft fork) mobilization, controversies over node consensus manipulation, and a large-scale information dissemination war around social media and the developer community. Even in a highly complex coordination and dissemination environment, the relevant side still did not obtain significant hashrate support, accounting for “even less than 1%,” showing that miners and economic participants have not deviated from mainstream social consensus.
David Bailey said this process validated the core characteristics of Bitcoin’s governance structure: final consensus is formed jointly by users, miners, developers, and industry participants, rather than being dominated by a single group. At the same time, he emphasized that similar historical incidents (such as BIP148) have already proven that miners struggle to break away from social consensus, and this incident further reinforced that conclusion. However, he also noted that the event exposed the fragility of information coordination in the Bitcoin core development collaboration layer: it is currently overly dependent on social media and public communication mechanisms, which makes it vulnerable to information manipulation and the “AI-generated content amplification effect,” thereby significantly increasing the cost of community coordination.
David Bailey also mentioned that the controversy consumed a large amount of time and attention resources within the community, and he called for the industry to participate more actively in the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) governance process to avoid getting stuck in long-term, inefficient debates. The Bitcoin network demonstrated strong resilience against splits in this incident, emphasizing that “technical rationality will ultimately prevail.”

Cryptocurrency

▌Public Companies Net Bought 166,984 BTC This Year—Twice the Mining Output

On July 5, according to BTCTreasuries data, public companies have net bought 166,984 BTC this year, which is more than twice the 81,153 BTC mined so far this year.

****▌A User Mistakenly Sent 1.34 Million ANSEM Tokens to the Wrong Address, Causing All Funds to Be Lost

On July 5, according to Bitcoin.com News, this week, a user copied the wrong address and mistakenly sent 1.34 million ANSEM tokens worth $226,000 to a token contract address, resulting in the total loss of all funds.

****▌New York Life Asset Management Executive: The Biggest Opportunity in Tokenization Is Personalized Investing

On July 5, according to Coindesk, Thomas Sy, head of multi-asset solutions at New York Life Investment Management (NYLIM), which manages $800 million in assets, said in an interview that blockchain may ultimately allow asset management firms to tailor investment portfolios at scale for individual investors—something the current financial system cannot achieve. “We believe the future of asset management lies in personalization. And the only technology that can help us achieve that at scale is blockchain.” Personalized investment strategies typically combine ETFs, bonds, private credit, and other assets, which creates operational complexity and makes it difficult to scale personalization. Tokenization can streamline transfer agent operations, settlement, and other back-office processes, reducing costs and ultimately benefiting investors. NYLIM is the latest asset management giant to join the tokenization trend; it is partnering with Centrifuge (CFG) to put one of its high-yield corporate bond strategy products on-chain.

****▌Coinspect Discloses a Wallet Vulnerability Dating Back to 2018; $3.14 Million Stolen Last Month; Calls on Chinese Users to Stay Alert

On July 5, the security firm Coinspect Security posted repeatedly that, by analyzing crypto wallet seeds generated using insecure code since 2018, it found thousands of seeds that had actually been used. Only last month, it discovered suspected stolen funds of $3.14 million in the related wallets. Coinspect said that some funds follow patterns such as concentrated transfers into a single address and money-laundering behavior. It added that an affected address transferred out another $2 million a few hours after the warning was issued, and it is currently unclear whether it was theft. In addition, Coinspect specifically issued a warning to the Chinese community, believing that many users with assets still facing risk may be located in China.

Key Economic Developments

▌Zelensky: There Are Concrete Prospects for Ending This War

On July 5, Ukrainian President Zelensky posted: I have conveyed Independence Day greetings to President Trump and all the people of the United States. We had a very good call. We are grateful for the various assistance provided by the United States—from Javelin missiles and Patriot air defense systems to political support—and we also greatly value the United States standing with us at all times as we defend our independence. President Trump and I also discussed the situation at the front lines and our diplomatic efforts. There are concrete prospects for ending this war, and U.S. determination is crucial. We agreed to continue these discussions during the NATO summit that will be held in Ankara.

****▌Probability for the Fed’s July Rate Hike by 25 Basis Points Now at 21.9%

On July 5, according to CME “FedWatch” data, the probability that the Fed will keep rates unchanged in July is 78.1%, and the probability of a 25 basis-point rate hike is 21.9%.

****▌Iranian Ambassador to China: Plans to Charge Service Fees for Passage Through the Strait of Hormuz According to International Standards

On July 5, Iran’s ambassador to China, Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, said on July 4 in Beijing during his attendance at the 14th World Peace Forum in a media interview that Iran plans to charge service fees for passage through the Strait of Hormuz according to international standards. Fazli said that before the U.S.-Israel-Iran war broke out, passage through the Strait of Hormuz had been smooth. At present, Iran has not said that it will charge (passage) fees or tariffs; instead, it plans to charge service fees according to international standards for routine expenses such as ensuring passage safety, navigation, and environmental protection. This approach is consistent with practices of other waterways around the world. Regarding the current situation of the Strait of Hormuz, Fazli said that passage through the strait is gradually returning to normal, and the channel jointly managed by Iran and Oman is being rebuilt to restore order.

Golden Encyclopedia

▌Can Bitcoin Still Be Called “Digital Gold” Amid Geopolitical Crises?

Each time a geopolitical crisis occurs, gold prices rise while Bitcoin prices fall sharply. After six tests, the claim that “digital gold” has never been verified by data. Countries hoard gold, but exclude Bitcoin from their reserves. For investors, Bitcoin is asymmetric: it declines when stocks decline, but it does not rise when stocks rise. Three structural asymmetries prevent Bitcoin from achieving safe-haven status: excessive derivatives (market structure), the dominance of leveraged traders (participant composition), and the lack of repeated behavioral records (behavioral accumulation).

Bitcoin is not a safe-haven asset, but it is an “asset that can be useful during crises.” When borders close and banks fail, it can indeed play a role. If these three asymmetries shrink, Bitcoin may stop being a copy of gold and instead become an entirely new “next-generation gold.” Generational change and the widespread application of algorithms are key factors that could accelerate this process.