A New All-Time High for Bitcoin, ETH Goes Above $3,000

Hi! In today’s edition:

• 🚀 Bitcoin smashes past $118,000

• 🧾 Robinhood investigated over crypto pricing

• 🔓 $10M backdoor vulnerability foiled

• 🎧 Phantom CEO explains why perps launch on Hyperliquid

• 💣 PIPE deals could sink treasury-stock investors
  

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Bitcoin Hits New All-Time High Above $118,000

Bitcoin surged to a new all-time high of $118,856 on Friday morning, with trading volume soaring 95% to $122 billion over 24 hours.

The leading digital asset’s price climbed over $7,000 in a single day, continuing a trend of rapid gains that began after breaking above $111,000 on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, ETH reached an intraday high of $3,038 and is up over 8% in the past 24 hours.

The rapid ascent also triggered large-scale liquidations, including one for popular leveraged trader James Wynn, who lost $27.9 million on a BTC short on Hyperliquid.

The last few months have been characterized by massive inflows into bitcoin-focused exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and aggressive accumulation by corporate treasuries.

Bitcoin’s price action also comes ahead of “Crypto Week” – a special legislative initiative beginning July 14 by the U.S. House of Representatives, during which lawmakers will focus exclusively on advancing major digital asset legislation.

Robinhood Crypto Probed Over Allegedly Misleading Investors

Florida's Attorney General James Uthmeier has launched an investigation into Robinhood's crypto trading promotions, alleging the company misled customers about the true costs of trading digital assets on its platform.

According to a report from Bloomberg, the probe centers on Robinhood's marketing claims that it offers the "lowest cost on average" and gives users "the most crypto for your money," which state officials say may be deceptive.

The state contends that, despite Robinhood's claims, evidence suggests trading crypto on Robinhood may actually be more expensive than on competing platforms. 

This is attributed to Robinhood's reliance on the payment for order flow (PFOF) business model, where third-party firms pay Robinhood to execute trades, potentially resulting in less favorable prices for customers.

Robinhood Crypto must respond to the subpoena by July 31, 2025.

Venn Researchers Discover Backdoor That Left $10M Vulnerable Onchain

Crypto security firm Venn Network uncovered and neutralized a major backdoor vulnerability that put over $10 million in onchain assets at risk across thousands of smart contracts.

Venn security researcher @deeberiroz shared details of the discovery on X, saying that it triggered a 36-hour rescue operation involving several security researchers and developers, including Pcaversaccio, Dedaub, and Seal 911, who worked together to secure or move vulnerable funds before the attacker could exploit them.

“The backdoor gave hackers full control, forwarding calls to the original contract while etherscan showed no issues,” said deeberiroz.

“Worse, it was unremovable - attempts to fix it reset the malicious contract.”

The fund saving operation resulted in some protocols reconfiguring contracts, and upgrading them to safely withdraw funds. 

Researchers suspect the operation’s sophistication and scale may be linked to the North Korean Lazarus Group, who were likely yet to act on the vulnerability until they had a bigger pool of funds in sight. 

Why Phantom Wallet Chose Hyperliquid Over Solana DEXes to Launch Perps

Why is a Solana-first wallet launching perps on Hyperliquid, and what does that say about crypto UX?

On Tuesday, Phantom announced it would launch perpetual swaps using Hyperliquid.

It’s a bold move for the Solana-first wallet, and a clear signal about where the team sees the future of DeFi. 

In this episode, Phantom CEO Brandon Millman breaks down why they’re entering the high-leverage world of perps, why Solana DEXes didn’t make the cut, and why wallets (not exchanges) might become the new front door to crypto.

Plus: social features, mobile-first UX, and why Phantom sees itself evolving into a full-on consumer finance platform.

How PIPE Deals Could Blow Up Crypto Treasury Stocks

Crypto companies are rushing to raise money via PIPEs, and retail investors may be the ones left holding the bag. Steven Ehrlich explains how dilution, low float, and investor panic could send prices crashing.

Unchained’s executive editor Steven Ehrlich joins Laura to unpack his recent investigation into PIPE-funded crypto treasury companies, and why some of the biggest gainers may now be headed for a steep fall.

Steve explains how four crypto treasury companies raised hundreds of millions via PIPEs, dramatically expanded their share counts, and may now be facing a flood of sell pressure.

He breaks down how PIPE financing works, why it’s popular with treasury firms, and why it can leave retail investors vulnerable. We also discuss Bitmine’s latest SEC filing, why it caused the stock to drop 39% on Wednesday, and what investors should watch for next.

• 💸🤝 According to Bloomberg, Binance quietly supported the Trump family’s USD1 stablecoin by writing its smart contract, promoting it to millions of users, and facilitating a $2 billion transaction, while founder CZ simultaneously sought a presidential pardon.

• 📜 The U.S. Treasury and IRS formally repealed the crypto broker rule for non-custodial platforms, ending a multi-year battle over a law critics called unworkable and harmful to DeFi privacy.

• 🛠️ Ethereum developers revealed plans to launch an optional zkEVM client at Layer 1 within a year, aiming to replace transaction re-execution with real-time zk-proofs and setting strict benchmarks for latency, proof size, and hardware efficiency.

• ⚠️ Researchers found a stealthy malware insertion in ETHcode’s GitHub repo, where two hidden lines were designed to execute remote scripts on developer machines, though no confirmed attacks have been reported.

• 🛑👁️ Sam Altman’s World temporarily shut down its iris-scanning Orbs across Germany while it restructures operations and plans a Munich flagship store, months after regulators ordered deletion of stored biometric data.

• 🇲🇹 The EU’s top markets regulator rebuked Malta’s financial watchdog for licensing a crypto firm before key compliance issues were addressed, raising questions about due diligence under MiCA rules.

• ⚖️ Nicholas Truglia, already convicted in a $20 million crypto SIM swap fraud, received a 12-year prison sentence after failing to pay restitution and instead spending lavishly on luxury goods.

• 🔗 Germany’s state bank NRW.BANK issued a €100 million bond fully on Polygon under eWpG law, using BaFin-regulated infrastructure in one of the largest blockchain-based public sector debt deals in Europe.

• 🏙️ Japanese firm GATES Inc. will tokenize $75 million in Tokyo real estate on the Oasys blockchain to simplify access for foreign investors, with long-term plans to tokenize over $200 billion in assets.

• 💵 Agora raised $50 million in a Paradigm-led Series A to grow AUSD and scale its white-label stablecoin model, targeting both crypto-native firms and mainstream companies.

• 📊 Pump.fun made its first acquisition by buying Kolscan, a real-time wallet tracker for top onchain traders, just days ahead of its July 12 ICO that aims to raise $1 billion at a $4 billion valuation.

• 🎤 K-Pop media firm K Wave Media brought its bitcoin treasury plan to $1 billion through a $500 million convertible note deal with Anson Funds, following an earlier equity agreement.

• 🔥 BIT Mining announced it will convert all crypto holdings into SOL and raise up to $300 million to support a full pivot into the Solana ecosystem, including staking, validation, and infrastructure expansion.

1. Fidelity: Blockchains as emerging economies

2. Kairos Research on the ETF inflows

3. Human Rights Foundation: Financial Freedom Report #80

4. The Information: Why New U.S. Crypto Rules Will Reverberate Globally