The Block

TSB: Wall Street Surrenders To Crypto, AI - feat. @pakman x.com/i/broadcasts/1…

THE BLOCK: Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin and the two largest ethereum:native treasury firms, Bitmine and SharpLink, have backed a third major Ethereum Foundation spin-out organization.

THE BLOCK: CFTC tells Kalshi to honor trades involving Michigan residents despite the state's attempt to force the prediction markets platform to cancel them. On June 29, a Michigan judge ordered Kalshi to stop offering sports-related event contracts and to unwind certain existing trades.

THE BLOCK: The U.S. and U.K. say they plan to use stablecoins in cross-border finance, in a joint statement as part of the Transatlantic Taskforce for Markets. "Both governments recognise that well-regulated stablecoins have the potential to promote efficiency and competition in our financial systems, modernise financial market infrastructure, and improve cross-border payments and transactions," they said.

NEW: The SEC's Crypto Task Force met today with representatives from Hyperliquid Policy Center and Trade[XYZ] to discuss approaches to crypto asset regulation, according to a newly released meeting memo.

THE BLOCK: Mizuho downgrades Circle Internet Group from Neutral to Underperform on "looming pricing pressure." The analysts lowered their price target on $CRCL from $85 to $50.

THE BLOCK: Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said Democrats should not allow any crypto bill to advance in the Senate without addressing ethics concerns over President Donald Trump's conflicts of interest, speaking at a press conference opposing the Clarity Act. "Let's hope it never sees the light of day," he said, as lawmakers are expected to release updated legislative text in the coming days ahead of a potential Senate floor vote.

THE BLOCK: June bitcoin production cooled across a batch of public miners. CleanSpark, BitFuFu, and Canaan all reported lower output than in May, pointing to factors ranging from grid maintenance to hashrate changes.

THE BLOCK: Interactive Brokers added 12 new crypto tokens for trading, expanding its digital asset offering through zerohash and Paxos. The broker also introduced stablecoin withdrawals, allowing clients to convert USD balances into USDC, PYUSD, or RLUSD and transfer funds to external wallets.

THE BLOCK: Galaxy pledged $100 million of its own capital as first-loss protection for its new "GOFR" managed intermediary crypto borrowing service that taps lending platforms like Aave, Morpho, Spark, Kamino, and others to offer a blended rate.

THE BLOCK: Perpetuals.com $PDC has terminated its letter of intent to acquire Alt5 Sigma Canada, ending the proposed deal with AI Financial Corporation's subsidiary. Alt5 Sigma is a crypto payments and digital asset infrastructure provider used by businesses for crypto trading, settlement, and payments.

THE BLOCK: Bitcoin bitcoin:native climbed past $63,700 after US June CPI fell 0.4%, the sharpest monthly drop since 2020, with core inflation flat at 2.6% annually. Analysts say crypto desks spent the week bracing for a hawkish Fed on Middle East oil. The print landed softer than any of them modeled.

THE BLOCK: Benchmark raises Hut 8 price target to $165 from $85, citing $16.8 billion in contracted AI data center lease value. $HUT holds 10,667 bitcoin:native and has a 60% stake in Trump-linked bitcoin mining and treasury company American Bitcoin.

THE BLOCK: Tether leads a $7 million Series A round in Pact Labs as part of a push to drive adoption of its American stablecoin, $USAT. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said improving wage settlement in the U.S. market is a key focus of the investment.

THE BLOCK: Stablecoin startup Velocity raised a $38 million Series A round led by Dragonfly and FirstMark, with participation from venture capital units at Capital One, Coinbase, and Ripple, among others.

THE BLOCK: Decentralized AI project Nous Research is raising at least $75 million at a $1.5 billion valuation, with Robot Ventures reportedly leading. That would value Nous 50% above the $1 billion token valuation it carried after its Paradigm-led Series A last year.