470M in Shorts Liquidated as Bitcoin Nears Record High

Plus, 🚨 Pump.fun ICO backlash, 🇺🇸 WLFI token vote gains steam, 💥 GMX suffers $40M exploit, 📉 BitMine tanks after $2B ETH raise filing

Author

Juan Aranovich
July 10, 2025

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In today’s edition:

  • 💣 $470M in shorts liquidated as Bitcoin surges

  • 🧪 Pump.fun slammed over ICO plans

  • 🇺🇸 WLFI token trading vote hits 99% approval

  • 💥 GMX exploited for $40M, halts minting

  • 📉 BitMine plunges after $2B ETH raise filing

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By Tikta and Steve Ehrlich

$470M Shorts Liquidated as Bitcoin Nears All-Time High

Bitcoin surged to an intraday high of $111,925 on Wednesday — just shy of its all-time high of $119,970 — amid a broader rally in risk assets on Wall Street.

Over the last 24 hours, data from CoinGlass shows that crypto shorts liquidated crossed $470 million, as traders betting against bitcoin were forced to close their positions.

Crypto exchanges Binance and Bybit accounted for the highest volume of those liquidations, but the single largest liquidation order happened on the HTX exchange on a BTC/USDT pair valued at $51.56 million.

“Unsurprisingly, many retailers had been dropping out due to boredom or disbelief over the past few days,” noted market intelligence platform Santiment on X. 

“When retail shows FUD (whether through fear or impatience), these are usually prime spots for smart money to move in and accumulate. This time has been no different.”

Digital asset treasuries are all the rage right now. While the spotlight has been on bitcoin and the Strategy playbook, Ethereum is quietly entering the mix.

Join our livestream today at 9:00 AM E.T. with Bit Digital CEO Sam Tabar to learn why a bitcoin company has decided to move 100% to ETH!

Pump.fun Draws Backlash After Confirming PUMP ICO

Solana-based memecoin launchpad Pump.fun confirmed plans to launch its PUMP token through an initial coin offering (ICO) on July 12, allocating 33% to public sale, 24% to the community, 20% to the team, and 13% to early investors, with U.S. and U.K. users excluded from participating.

Within that allocation, the team said 180 billion tokens would be sold in a private sale for institutional investors, while 150 billion would be sold in the public sale.

“Both private sale and public sale purchasers are on the exact same terms,” said the Pump.fun team, adding that “each token will be sold at a price of $0.004.”

Some industry watchers criticized the move, comparing it to a "liquidity extraction,”  warning that it could drain capital from the broader memecoin market.

“The tokenomics screams grift from all angles, extracting over $1B through the ICO after generating $750M revenue over the past year without investing a dime in the ecosystem,” wrote pseudonymous crypto researcher @rezxbt on X. 

Former contradictory statements made by Pump.fun co-founder Alon Cohen also made the rounds on social media.

Cohen had previously said that the “only upside to presales are that they allow you to pocket raised $$$” and that “every pre sale is a scam.” 

WLFI Token Trading Proposal Garners 99% Support

World Liberty Financial, a crypto company backed by the Trump family, is holding a community vote on whether to make its governance token WLFI tradable on external markets.

Voting began on July 9 and will conclude on July 16. So far, the proposal has received overwhelming support, over 99% in favor from nearly six billion tokens voted.

If approved, the WLFI token will become tradable on secondary markets, such as decentralized exchanges, expanding participation and price discovery.

Still, tokens held by founders, team members, and advisors – including those owned by President Donald Trump and his family – will remain locked and not be immediately available for trading. The unlock schedule for these insider tokens will be determined in a future vote.

The proposal comes amid ongoing scrutiny and controversy, with critics raising concerns about conflicts of interest as Trump continues to influence crypto policy while benefiting financially from the sector.

Trump personally holds 15.75 billion governance tokens and reported $57.4 million in income from the crypto business in June alone.

GMX Loses $40 Million in V1 Exploit, Halts Trading and Minting

Decentralized perpetual exchange GMX halted trading and token minting on its GMX V1 platform after suffering a major exploit that resulted in the theft of approximately $40 million from its GLP liquidity pool.

The attack targeted the GLP pool on Arbitrum and Avalanche, draining a mix of digital assets including bitcoin, ether, stablecoins, and other tokens into an unknown wallet.

Blockchain security firm SlowMist attributed the attack to a design flaw in the GLP pricing mechanism, specifically a re-entrancy vulnerability that allowed the attacker to manipulate the calculation of assets under management and repeatedly mint GLP tokens without proper collateral.

GMX said it is investigating the exploit and has offered a 10% white hat bounty to the attacker for the return of the stolen funds.

The exchange’s native token GMX dropped 20% after news of the exploit to an intraday low of $10.33.

BitMine Crashes 39% After It Files to Raise $2 Billion for More ETH

On Wednesday, Ethereum treasury company BitMine Immersion Technologies (BMNR) fell 39% (53% during intraday trading) after the company filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to sell up to $2 billion in securities to support its accumulation strategy.

The filing comes on the same day that the company officially closed a $250 million private placement round known as a PIPE (private investment in public equity) from institutional investors meant to kickstart its transition into a crypto holding firm.

But if no new shares were issued yet, why did the stock tank so hard, and what’s next for its Ethereum strategy?

Phantom wallet is rolling out built-in perp trading via Hyperliquid, offering up to 40x leverage without needing to leave the app. 

Tune in live today at 2:30 PM E.T. for Laura’s chat with Phantom CEO and co-founder Brandon Millman.

  • 💵🤝 Circle has quietly struck a revenue-sharing deal with Bybit, reportedly one of several arrangements where exchanges earn a cut of USDC reserve yields to support stablecoin adoption.

  • 📢🇨🇳 Over 300 Chinese FTX users, represented by Weiwei Ji, formally objected to the exchange’s motion to exclude payouts in restricted regions, arguing the move unfairly threatens $15 million in verified claims.

  • 📈💥 BlackRock’s ETHA ETF posted a record 43 million shares traded in a single day amid $159 million in inflows, pushing total net investments past $1.2 billion since June as ether outpaced major tokens.

  • 🧬 Kraken and tokenization firm Backed will soon enable deposits and withdrawals of xStocks via BNB Chain, expanding global access to tokenized U.S. equities like AAPLx and TSLAx using low-fee BEP-20 tokens.

  • 🔥 Justin Sun pledged to purchase $100 million of Trump’s TRUMP memecoin, deepening ties with the former president after already investing tens of millions across Trump-affiliated crypto ventures.

  • 🌍💵 Ant International plans to add USDC to its AntChain once U.S. rules are met, aiming to boost cross-border settlements with the stablecoin across its global merchant network that processes over $1 trillion annually.

  • 🧠🆔 Story and World will integrate digital identity tech this fall to let creators verify authorship and license IP onchain, as a way to fight AI-driven content theft and identity spoofing.

  • 🔧 Monad Foundation acquired stablecoin infra firm Portal, with its founder now leading payments as Monad eyes becoming the go-to chain for stablecoin activity ahead of its mainnet launch.