Bitcoin broke through $63,000 this morning, erasing all losses from the end of June, with XRP leading gains among major cryptocurrencies.

This week, the digital asset industry’s discussions centered on topics including AI, the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, stablecoins, and Bitcoin. On the AI front, multiple industry insiders noted that current market capital is shifting from digital assets to AI infrastructure development, and future value in the AI sector may be captured more by application layers and infrastructure providers rather than just large language model developers. Additionally, some argue that if the U.S. government acquires equity in OpenAI, it could further exacerbate the trend of centralization in the AI industry. On the regulatory side, as MiCA’s transition period has officially ended, EU crypto asset service providers must now obtain full MiCA licenses to continue operating. Industry players believe that regulatory compliance will gradually become a key competitive advantage for crypto payment and digital asset service providers in Europe. Regarding stablecoins, the industry continues to focus on the newly launched Open USD (OUSD). Analysts believe its ecosystem, involving over 140 institutions including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Coinbase, BlackRock, and BNY, is poised to challenge the existing stablecoin market landscape (such as USDC) by leveraging distribution advantages. However, some point out that OUSD still faces challenges including liquidity cultivation and governance coordination. On the Bitcoin front, market views are divided over recent capital operations by Michael Saylor’s firm Strategy. Some analysts argue that the company’s recent financing arrangements mean it may still sell Bitcoin to meet future funding needs; others believe the move effectively eases market concerns about its liquidity and default risks, representing a positive risk management measure.

According to monitoring by Onchain Lens, a whale address withdrew 4,942 ETH from Binance, valued at approximately $8.83 million, and immediately staked it via Lido to receive around 3,990 wstETH. Additionally, the same address also withdrew 211.5 WBTC from Binance over the past 24 hours, worth roughly $13.25 million. As of now, the whale has withdrawn a total of approximately $22.08 million worth of ETH and WBTC from Binance in the last 24 hours, with all the withdrawn ETH used for on-chain staking.

Crypto influencer @TCryptochicks released a series of "riddle" images, after which Binance founder CZ retweeted and replied "Water (drop) your BNB wallet" — reigniting hype around celebrity-themed meme coins. In response, multiple CZ-themed meme coins emerged on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC), surging sharply in a short period. Among them: - CZ (The Final Form Bull): Market cap briefly topped $41 million, now pulled back to $29.82 million, with a 24-hour trading volume of $28 million and a 24-hour gain of 18,200%. - CZ (The Bull): Market cap briefly exceeded $11 million, now at $3.88 million, with a 24-hour trading volume of $6.1 million and a 24-hour gain of 2,400%. Market observers note this mirrors the "Ansem effect" previously seen on Solana, where topics linked to prominent KOLs or celebrities trigger explosive rallies in meme coins bearing the same or similar names. CZ has in the past indirectly driven BSC meme coin trends via social media interactions, such as references to his dog "Broccoli", the number "4" meme, and his book title "Binance Life". However, he has repeatedly clarified his tweets do not constitute endorsements. Related tokens have historically seen sharp surges followed by rapid pullbacks, so investors should be alert to high volatility and rug pull risks.

Despite the U.S. stock market hitting successive new highs, Bitcoin has underperformed so far this year, but asset management firms Hashdex and Charles Schwab both believe this divergence will not persist long-term. Hashdex Chief Investment Officer Samir Kerbage noted that current market capital is flowing more into themes like AI infrastructure, IPOs, and interest rate trading rather than digital assets, a reflection of shifts in capital allocation rather than a deterioration of the crypto sector’s fundamentals. He pointed out that stablecoin trading volume in the first half of this year has already exceeded the full-year 2025 level, the size of tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) has grown by over 60% year-to-date, crypto network transaction activity has also hit an all-time high, and the divergence between on-chain fundamentals and market valuations has reached a historic high. Meanwhile, Jim Ferraioli, Head of Digital Assets Research at Charles Schwab, holds that Bitcoin’s current trajectory still aligns with historical cycles following previous halving events. He explained that Bitcoin typically takes over a year to rebound above the production cost of inefficient miners, which currently stands at around $95,000, while the market’s average cost basis is roughly $80,000 – meaning the price may face ongoing selling pressure from investors exiting losing positions during a rebound. Ferraioli noted that while the "four-year halving cycle" is not an absolute rule, this pattern has profoundly shaped investor behavior. As the Bitcoin market matures, the magnitude of volatility in each future cycle may moderate somewhat.

Decentralized lending protocol Aave’s V3 market on the Monad network has surpassed $100 million in total deposits roughly two days after launch. Aave deployed its V3 version on Monad on July 3, marking the first time lending functions and its GHO stablecoin have been introduced to the network. The launch initially supported 12 assets including USDT, USDC, GHO, WETH, and cbBTC. Deposits exceeded $75 million within the first 24 hours of going live. Per an Aave governance proposal, the Monad Foundation has committed to providing $15 million in incentives over the next 12 months, and will purchase and hold 10 million GHO for at least six months; Aave DAO will also contribute an additional 500,000 GHO to support stablecoin ecosystem development. Additionally, Aave founder Stani Kulechov noted that Aave V4’s deposit volume on the Ethereum mainnet hit a new all-time high of $250 million on July 5. He expressed expectations that V4’s deposits will grow further to $1 billion, with plans to continue expanding into crypto asset mortgage loans and securities-backed lending services.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published a post stating that Ethereum researchers recently held a meeting in Berlin, continuing discussions with client teams initiated in Svalbard in April, to update the blockchain’s long-term protocol roadmap. Vitalik noted that "Lean Ethereum" is not a single upgrade, but a series of protocol evolutions to be rolled out gradually over the next 3 to 4 years—its impact is comparable to The Merge as Ethereum’s second major iteration, while the current phase may mark its third major evolution. He outlined core upcoming changes for Ethereum: replacing direct execution verification with recursive STARK proofs, integrating post-quantum cryptography, adjusting the consensus mechanism to a decoupled design of available chain and finality, and implementing multi-dimensional gas models alongside state structure restructuring. At the state level, Ethereum may form a "two-tier state structure" around 2030, consisting of ~2TB of traditional dynamic state and ~100TB of new scalable state to support scaling needs across different application scenarios. Vitalik emphasized that privacy capabilities will no longer be an add-on feature, but a core goal of protocol design. The system will also rely more on formal verification to boost security, and push the EVM toward higher-level abstractions, with the underlying layer potentially transitioning gradually to RISC-V or leanISA architectures. Key parameters including gas limits, blob sizes, and block times will be adjusted multiple times over the next few years, as Ethereum continues scaling via client optimizations and protocol upgrades. Vitalik concluded that Ethereum is entering a phase of continuous restructuring and scaling, aiming to complete underlying system upgrades without disrupting the existing application ecosystem.