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In the shadowy world of Ethereum futures, everyone gets to speculate on ETH’s future price without the bothersome task of owning any actual Ethereum. It’s a bit like betting on horses without having to feed them, or explain cryptocurrency to your parents at dinner. The running tally of contracts—open interest, if you want to sound clever—rests comfortably at $33.09 billion (that’s 13.29 million ETH for the mathematically inclined) across a jostling landscape of exchanges.

Investors watched the debut of the first ever Solana staking ETF (because apparently ETFs are now Pokémon, and you gotta list ’em all), while the SEC decided to play hide-and-seek with Grayscale’s shiny new altcoin basket. If you missed any of this melodrama, don’t worry—you’re probably better off, but here are the highlights anyway.

The winds of macroeconomics have stoked the flames of speculation, adding layers of complexity to this already volatile tale. The US Congress, as if in some tragicomic dance, recently passed President Donald Trump’s long-awaited “big, beautiful” bill, a majestic piece of legislation completed just under the wire of the July 4 deadline. Meanwhile, job market data emerged like a knight in shining armor, beating expectations and whispering promises of a stronger economy—just what the risk-loving investor wanted to hear.

Apparently, this is all thanks to something called the Invest America Act. Congress actually passed it. Yes, that’s right! Congress. Doing something. I can’t believe it either. Who’s behind this stroke of generosity? Ted Cruz. Yeah, him! My guy from Texas, the expert in… well, let’s not go there. Not only does Baby USA get $1,000 right out of the gate, but friends, family, maybe your cousin who still owes you money, and—this is rich—businesses (like big corporations can’t resist a baby registry) can throw an extra five grand in the pot. Why not—maybe your newborn will get stock tips at the hospital. 👶💸

In a thread on the social media platform X, the decentralized finance (DeFi) and tokenization project Ondo Finance (ONDO) announced its latest coup: the acquisition of the broker-dealer Oasis Pro. This move, it seems, is designed to bring the hallowed halls of regulated tokenized securities into the wild and woolly world of blockchains. 🌐

To put that into context for those of us whose net worth maxes out at “found a fiver in my coat this morning,” the S&P 500 (think: all the biggest American companies, so all your bad shopping choices in one basket) is worth about $40 trillion. That’s 40% of the global stock market. 😂

Yet fortune—as she so often does—favoured the vigilant. Winkel, astutely suspicious and evidently not one to faint in a crisis, raised the alarm with the promptness of a lady racing to a window to observe an arriving carriage. Law enforcement, for once possessed of both haste and sense, descended upon the highway, where—one must imagine with great theatrics—they intercepted the villains’ vehicle and liberated the distressed lady within. One presumes tea and strong spirits followed. 🍸

To wrangle all this, the company (known as NIP, now standing for “Not Into Pac-Man”) has whipped up a “Digital Computing Division.” Very official, not at all invented over an emergency pizza lunch, and definitely not a name someone’s cat typed during a Zoom meeting. The team’s also tasked with ‘strategic expansion into future crypto ventures,’ which sounds like the business equivalent of “let’s see what happens if we press this big red button.”

Source: Mempool Space

On Friday, July 4, local media reported that the CMB had blocked access to PancakeSwap (CAKE) for the country’s citizens. Along with the DEX, the country also blocked access to the crypto comparison platform CryptoRadar. Imagine that! No more flipping pancakes or radar signals for you, Turkey! 😂